An Empty Feeling [Cobalt]

[Jacob Lawrence]

In the aftermath of trauma, there are good days and there are bad days. Jake had seen his fair share of both since Gabriel's death, since losing everything. There were days where he'd wake up and he'd be okay, when he'd entertain himself with his dogs, or working on his new house. There were days where he didn't even want to roll out of bed, days where the only thing he could see was Gabriel's body, or that heart-wrenching look Morgan had given him when he'd come clean.

Today was a bad day.

He was sitting alone at a table, staring down into his mug of coffee. It had been too early for a beer and Jake had learned the hard way that trying to drown himself in liquor didn't fix anything. It was a warm day, but he was wearing a baggy hoodie with the hood pulled over his head. He was aware the were other people in the cafe, but he had no real desire to interact with them, or even acknowledge their presence.

All he could do was think of what he could have done, what he could have said, and how things could have been. He chewed on his lower lip as he ripped open another packet of sugar and poured it in the coffee, remembering how Morgan used to tease him for adding so much sugar.

On several occasions, Jake had driven past Morgan's house with the intention that he would stop and apologize, but every time, his foot would over over the brake before he changed his mind. Morgan wouldn't want to see him... he'd made that clear before Jake had left. Breathing out a heavy sigh, Jake lazily stirred the coffee, resting his chin in his hand.

[Cobalt Weaver]

This was the first bit of natural light Cobalt had gotten in about four or five days. Dog walking excluded. Leila had told him under no uncertain terms to go outside and leave her alone for a while because his hovering was irritating. Which was fair. However, the day was bright, it was hot and an altogether unpleasant experience. That, and he wasn’t quite all there either. He was, simply put, exhausted. Which really wasn’t such a surprise, if he stopped to think about it. In the course of four days his business partner and “fake daughter” (her words) collapsed of liver failure and was given a timeline of eight to twenty-eight days to get a new liver or die, and he had actually talked about feelings with someone he cared very much about and was now in the first romantic relationship he’d had in twenty years. Meanwhile, one of his best friends was currently not best friends with his best friend anymore for reasons that Cobalt secretly thought were really stupid but he couldn’t really do anything about it. Riley was all fine, he guessed. But there was something that the older, taller man wasn’t telling them either.

He very much wanted to sleep.

But he couldn’t, because he would go to sleep for an hour or two and then be up all night, bored out of his mind. So he’d decided to get non-hospital coffee, which was almost as bad as the stuff he and Evie usually got when they met for their debates. It was high time for some real coffee. And maybe a bagel or something. Someone had recommended Kali’s before, though he’d never had occasion to go there before. He usually opted to make coffee at work, but he didn’t think he could go back to his office and drink coffee and remember Leila criticizing how much sugar he put in his damn coffee, and hypocritically warn him about cavities while munching on candy. He was holding together well, but not that well.

He ended up slouched in a chair somewhere in the corner of the café, not wanting to interact with people at all. There was some young man sitting nearest him with a hoodie over his eyes. Cobalt didn’t really care to wonder. He chewed quietly at his bagel before reaching for the sugar packets and was dismayed to only find packages of that weird artificial sweetener that most certainly did not taste like actual sugar. He narrowed his eyes at the container accusingly. Great. He pinched the bridge of his nose before looking around. The closest table was the one with the kid in the hoodie, and he seemed to have enough ordinary sugar. Great.

Sighing heavily, Cobalt pushed himself up out of the seat and limped over to the table. “Hey, sorry, can I steal some sugar from your—” He stopped, his eyes going wide as he got a better look at the face under the hoodie.

It was Jake.

He remembered him from the Christmas Party. Talking to the people that Elaine knew were evil, and Cobalt hadn’t heard from him until Elaine told him about Morgan and his blindness and his broken heart and suddenly everything was making a hell of a lot more sense and… Jake knew all along that he was endangering Morgan and look where it got him—

Shadows arced up over Cobalt’s shoulders like warning stripes. “What the hell are you doing here?” He spat, suddenly too blindingly furious to elaborate further. His hands were clenched into fists before he even thought about it.

[Jacob Lawrence]

He was trying his hardest to steer his thoughts in other directions. For a moment he thought about what he'd need to buy on his next trip to the hardware store, then how long his current supply of dog food would last, but it wasn't enough. The distractions were only fleeting and that hollow feeling in his chest just wouldn't go away.

Jake was staring at the wood grain of the table when Cobalt approached, only briefly glancing up at him, but not long enough to recognize the face. He didn't even seem to notice that the man didn't finish his sentence. "Yeah, sure." He pushed the little tray across the table towards Cobalt, expecting that to be the end of it.

Boy, was he wrong.

The next sharp comment caught him off guard, his slouched posture straightening in a snapping motion. "What?" It took a moment of actively studying the other man's face before realization dawned on him: Cobalt, Morgan's "Uncle" Cobalt. Jake's face fell.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jake knew that sooner or later he would be confronted about everything that had happened. He knew he couldn't run away from it forever and that was part of the reason why he'd decided to move back to Pilot Ridge. Still, he wasn't expecting it to happen here and now and not from someone so close to Morgan. He didn't even know what to say to Cobalt, but it didn't seem like he was really interested in listening to anything Jake might say.

He had no intentions of defending what he had done, least of all lying to Morgan. It had hurt him to do so and it had broken his heart to leave him. Jake stood up as a sign of respect rather than any attempt to escape. "I'm sorry." His tone was much softer, much more subdued than Cobalt's and although he knew "sorry" wouldn't fix anything, he felt he needed to say it.

[Cobalt Weaver]

The worst—absolute worst thing—Jake could have said in this situation was “I’m sorry”. Jake didn’t get to be sorry, Jake didn’t get to try to make things right because there was no way anyone could fix what happened, least of all Jake. This was mostly Jake’s fault, after all.

So when Jake stood up and apologized as though that would help, a spike of rage that Cobalt hadn’t felt in a long, long time shot through him. With a growl, Cobalt pulled back and punched Jake straight in the face.

It’d been a while since he punched someone, but the shock of impact rippling up his arm felt far more familiar than painful. “You don’t get to be sorry,” Cobalt snarled, his voice a rough growl, “You don’t have any right to be sorry, or try to make this right. This was your fault. And now Morgan hardly ever smiles and he’s blind and…Goddammit, Jake.” Cobalt glared at him, his fists still clenched, “You broke his goddamn heart.”

[Jacob Lawrence]

Jake recoiled from the punch, rubbing at his now aching jaw with his face turned away. While normally this would have earned some retaliation, the thought never even crossed his mind. He deserved this, he deserved much worse than this, and Cobalt's cold words just drove that home even further. "I know. I know it's my fault."

It was then that it registered in his head what Cobalt had said. Blind. "Wh-what?" Jake looked at him once again. "He's... he's blind?" As if suddenly the entire weight of the world fell on his shoulders, Jake slid back down into his chair, burying his face in his hands. He had told Morgan to stay away from them, but he was foolish to think that he would. If only he could have been there to protect him. He had been a coward to run.

"I never wanted to hurt him." Jake muttered, his voice cracking. He had never meant to fall in love with him in the first place either, but it had happened anyways. Nothing had really turned out the way he wanted it to, but Jake wasn't just going to walk away and pretend like it had never happened. There had to be something he could do.

[Cobalt Weaver]

After Jake failed to retaliate after being hit, Cobalt deflated some. He had to remember that this kid was half his age, was clearly hurting far beyond a physical punch, and at one point, Morgan loved him very much. Probably still loved him; would always love him. Because that was what Morgan did: he loved everybody. Unconditionally. “You’re damn right it’s your fault.” Cobalt muttered, but most of his venom was gone. He was tired, and angry with someone other than Jake.

He watched Jake drop back into his chair, covering his face in shock that was clearly genuine. Jake didn’t know. Cobalt rubbed his eyes tiredly before sitting down across from him. “Yeah.” His voice was rough and quiet, “He went to stop your former operation with a bunch of damn fools from the school. I still don’t know the whole story.” Which still upset him, but what the hell could he do about it now?

At Jake’s comment, Cobalt looked up at him, his eyes angry and tired. “Then you should have let him go,” Cobalt growled, his own voice wavering against his will, “You had to have known this would get out of hand. And yet.” He shook his head, “What the hell are we supposed to say to him, Jake? Elaine doesn’t know; it’s breaking her heart. I certainly don’t have an answer. You wanna make this right? Then tell me: what are we supposed to say to him that will make this better?” He glared at the young man, not really expecting much of an answer, but inviting Jake to at least try.

[Jacob Lawrence]

Morgan was blind because of him. Jake couldn't help but to remember that first night they had spent together, how Morgan had drunkenly confessed to being scared of the dark, how he'd held Morgan and comforted him. Now he was constantly in the dark and there was nothing that Jake could do to fix that. He pinched the bridge of his nose, the thought nearly too much to bear. This was a darkness that he couldn't protect Morgan from.

"I couldn't." Jake finally breathed, his voice weak. "I was selfish." At first he hadn't told Morgan because it was meant to be a secret, but as time went on and Jake found himself falling for the other man, he'd hidden it because he was afraid that Morgan wouldn't want to be around him anymore if he knew, and he couldn't risk that. It was the first time in years that Jake had been able to forget MSAD and forget the pain that Gabriel had caused him. It was the first time in years that he'd been so genuinely happy. He'd loved Morgan, still did, and Morgan had loved him back. He didn't want to give that up.

He tried to avoid Cobalt's glare, because Jake knew that he was right. None of this would have happened if he had left Morgan alone. "I don't know." Jake conceded, letting his hands fall onto the table. "But I have to try. I have to do something, anything. I can't just... just walk away." He looked nearly as desperate as he sounded. It killed him to know that Morgan was suffering because of him, that he rushed off to be the hero and this is what it had gotten him. All he wanted to do was help.

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt knew that Jake would understand how upsetting it was that Morgan was blind. Of all the things that Morgan probably told Jake, the fact that he was scared of the dark had to have come up. And now Jake really understood. Cobalt watched the younger man wilt in his chair, and reflected that, all things considered, were this anyone else he might feel a little bad for this young man. In the small part of Cobalt’s brain that wasn’t angry, that was rational and objective (it was, admittedly, a very small part), Cobalt knew that Jake was a good kid. He was. He’d probably been pulled into something when he was younger and he didn’t know how to get out, and now he was taking the consequences for his actions. But the majority of his brain was remembering when Morgan was small enough to hold, and how he’d looked up at Cobalt with huge trusting eyes and a gap toothed smile, with the utmost confidence that between Cobalt and Elaine, he would be perfectly safe.

And look where all that trust had gotten him.

“Yeah.” Cobalt agreed roughly to Jake’s assessment, “You were.” But really, could Cobalt really talk here? He also loved Morgan very much, and although his leaving for college didn’t physically maim him, it was still a shitty thing to do. He’d left Morgan as well. And very possibly, he was just as bad as Jake. Just without also being a terrorist.

Cobalt pushed up his glasses to rub at his tired eyes. He genuinely understood where Jake was coming from. He really did. Jake wanted to save people; he wanted to save Morgan. He wanted to make things right again and maybe make things to back to the way they were. But he couldn’t. Cobalt looked up at him, “Jake. There isn’t anything you can do right now that will help Morgan any. He’s not… he’s all broken, and he has to work on fixing himself. I can’t do anything to make it better, you can’t do anything. Elaine can’t really do anything. It’s all on him. And if you show up now, things will just fall apart again. He won’t live through that a second time, do you understand me?” He waited to let the words sink in before adding, “Also, while I may not be his father, or his actual uncle, I am a lawyer, and you are technically part of an illegal organization. So don’t think that I won’t arrest your ass if you hurt Morgan again. And hurting Morgan includes coming near him right now. He’s healing, and I’m not going to let you break him again.” Cobalt’s voice was steely, however non combatative he was trying to be. It was true: Jake was technically a terrorist. Technically, Cobalt was breaking the law by talking to him. He didn’t quite care at present, but he wasn’t afraid to use that to his advantage.

[Jacob Lawrence]

It had been a very long time, a long time indeed since Jake was on his own like this. It was during those rocky months right after he had graduated from Hammel, working odd jobs just to support himself. But Gabriel had come along shortly and whirled him away to this new world, gave him purpose, gave him everything he could have ever wanted. For ten years that had been his life, sitting on the top of the world, not worrying about the legality or morality of the things that he did. Eventually, it all fell out from underneath him. It was that, plus his relationship with Morgan, that made him realize just what he had done. Looking back on it now, all he felt was guilt and shame.

He had tried to do all he could. He'd gotten Levi out of there, even if it had been against his will, he'd finally been honest to Morgan, even though it hurt him to do so, but it wasn't enough. He doubted there was anything he could do to make up for his involvement in MSAD. And Cobalt's words were enough to drive that into his head. He was a terrorist. No matter where he went, no matter how much he wanted to start over, he would always have that hanging over his head. Even if no one else knew it, Jake would know it, and it would be a heavy burden.

"I won't." Jake lifted his head and looked at Cobalt. "I promise. If seeing him would hurt him, I don't want to. I'll stay away from him." He tried to ignore how painful it was to say that, tried to fight back the tears that were stinging in his eyes. He hadn't cried since that day and he didn't want to do it here in front of Cobalt. He clenched his jaw, suddenly aware of just how sore it was from the punch earlier, but he'd deserved it. He deserved Cobalt's wrath, but instead of shouting at him, he was just sitting there across the table and, all things considered, talking very calmly with him. "Morgan's lucky to have you and Elaine." It was a tiny slice of comfort to know that Morgan had such a supportive family. It was obvious that the two of them would make sure he'd be alright, that they only had what was best for him in their minds. Jake couldn't be there for him, but Morgan was anything but alone.

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt nodded slightly as Jake promised what Cobalt wanted him to. He could see how much it pained the younger man, and he knew that somewhere in another universe or something, Morgan and Jake would have been happy together. And that did pain him a little bit.

“You’re a good person, Jake.” He found himself saying, “You just haven’t had a chance to show it yet. Now you’ve got one. So shape up and do something about it.” He stood up, preparing to leave. “For… what it’s worth, I know you loved Morgan. We all did. He does. I’m sorry it didn’t work.” His apologies sounded weak even to his own ears, but he had to say them, because it was true.

“Good luck, Jake.” Cobalt said by way of apology and goodbye, before walking out of the café.

[ooc: wrap now? Thanks <3 <3]