#JACKCTT

[ko3ak-archive]

For Jacket ( @jackctt ), continued from here.

MIAMI, FLORIDA. Really? The land of the crazies where men bit off ears on the regular and culled others with machetes named ‘kindness’? Where eponymous men did crazy, stupid things? A small smile unfurls behind the cigarette. Sounds about right. 

“ I have two brothers. Older one is in army like... KGB but not really. Everyone says I look just like him but... I know I am the more handsome one. ” He scoffs. God, the arrogance on this one. “ Sivan is the younger brother, he—- ” 

It’s not until the name’s on his tongue when Sokol realises that he betrayed his own confidentially, but his tone doesn’t falter so much. Hopefully he doesn’t notice. “ He dance around in girl clothes and wear make-up for Internet like monkey. Says he in famous on... Tok Tok? Проклятье... ” The cigarette crackles as he takes a particularly deep drag.

His younger brother would’ve liked Jacket’s room. Furnished like an 80s dance floor with neon lights and even one of those black leather sofas to boot. It reminded him of those nightclubs back in Moscow, a slice of indulgence tucked away between harsh concrete. Kind of like those places that are easy to miss, unless specifically told 'bout it.

And then it dawns on him that this is all he’ll ever know about the man. Piecemeal quantities fed to him by virtue of the tape. He could be asking a dozen questions but the answers will always be made from the same material. Like different remixes of an old love song played on the radio to his chagrin. He’d once wound through the tape player, searching... and searching for what exactly? There were no snatches of life or even the smallest silver of voice, just nothing. Ended up leaving the thing on the side table and had fallen asleep to the way it crackled all night.  

A light curse punctuates the air and the cigarette’s crushed underfoot. Sokol draws his own varsity jacket around him close like a curtain. Ah, fuck it, he’s talked enough and it’s Jacket’s turn to answer now. He’ll gun for a question that the tapes can’t answer for him. 

“ Who are you really? ”

[ko3ak-archive]

@jackctt​​ : [ threaten ] 👀 ( meme )

FEAR CAN BE A VERY STRANGE THING. You’d think he’s gotten used to it by now, staring at death’s door more times than he can count but like an unwanted visitor, it still catches him off-guard. Always crept up on him slowly, tremor in the hand used to defuse the C4, the gnawing in his stomach before the air-horn sounded in the stadium. 

It’s the same way Jacket corners him in the kitchen. Barely a rustle behind him and Jacket has him backed against the wall, pistol pressed to the skin on his throat. Sokol searches for reason in those unreadable eyes, stares so hard the colour of them are burnt into his memory. All this for a slice of pizza? Or was he merely getting back at him for that time on the rooftop? Surely it wasn’t because he greeted him as cocksucker... 

C’mon, Sokol wants to taunt with Chains’ easy cocksure lilt. Have you been planning this? but the words are stuck in his throat and won’t leave. He can feel himself trembling, jaw steeled for the inevitable pop of the pistol. 

Why’s he not talking? Where’s the cassette player? The one time where he actually wanted to hear the staticky voice knowing fully well what the alternative was and he’s met with silence. And yet a small, fucked up part of him would be lying if he said he didn’t like it. Was it really fear, or the anticipation of what was to come? With both so tightly intertwined, he can barely tell the difference. 

There’s something weirdly intimate about this. Muzzle pressed against the swell of his throat, column of his neck bared for the taking. Blink. Tongue in cheek. Swallow. Starfish hands clench and unclench against the wall, scratching the paint. Mentally wings a prayer that his hormones body chemistry doesn’t betray him.

[ko3ak-archive]

@jackctt​ said: 👀 Do the mun and you get along? ⚡ What is the mun’s favorite weather? 💧 How often do you annoy the mun? And with what? 🔥 How would you spend one day with the mun if you could? ( meme )

👀 : Do the mun and you get along? 

“ Do I... ” What? His face crumples with his frown, as though unable to fathom the absurdity of the question. A harsh bark of laughter to chase the incredulity. Under no circumstances will these two ever meet. “ Tell me, how will you feel if your boss is small girl three years younger than you? That's my handler. Her. Little schoolgirl. We are very different people. I do sport, she does not even like exercise. You know what Payday is like, but in her country there is big ban on gun. How? Don’t know how she manages but she does, because she has to. But if you ask what I think? I think she hates me. ” 

⚡ : What is the mun’s favorite weather? 

There’s no hesitation in the way his answer comes. “ The rain, obviously. Her tiny country only knows the sun. But I think she will like Russian winter! ” 

💧 : How often do you annoy the mun? And with what? 

“ All the time. ” And Sokol’s not sorry about it at all. The bastard knows he’s loved and has no qualms pestering someone as and when he so wishes. “ In Payday I tell her, Sokol need medic bag! Every two minutes but is not my fault… Because she likes making me run around with no armour. ” A pause. “ Here? I always want her to schedule many things for me. Want to rob bank, want to play ice hockey... Want to say hello to Jacket, Miller, Martin and even Greyson. But she is slow like snail, so I always tell her, go faster! ”

🔥 : How would you spend one day with the mun if you could?

It’s a good question, one that has him furrowing his brows deeply just thinking about it. “ I will teach her how to ice-skate. I heard she is very bad. Maybe after that we can play computer games. Counter-Strike or Payday or Stalker. A Russian classic. ” But how will he spend time with someone that isn’t his teammates, crew or family? It’s as though years of being in the public eye and then some had stripped away his idea of having a good time. 

“ I guess I will tell her stories. ” He says finally. “ Stories about real life in Russia, about Kaliningrad so she does not have to overthink. I am not a research assignment, you know. Will teach her about customs and traditions, so she understands why I am like this. Is a very different world there, so anything to make life easier for her. ” 

[ko3ak-archive]

@jackctt​ said: an open palm out in front of him, says not a word, hasn't been able to since his tape player was stolen. there's a hollow sort of look always in his eyes, only hardening into some silent but subtle communication after they lock eyes. he wants his tape player back and he knows who to ask for it. doesn't seem to be shaken with rage but perhaps his silent unreadable sort of knowing was worse.

“ Privacy. ” Sokol scolds lightly, like he’s not the only one with the bed in the open, shoved next to Dragan’s make-shift gym. 

Jacket is creepy. Jacket is weird. Jacket has a penchant to murder Russians in cold blood. Sokol’s been living by the day and reckons it’s only a matter of time before the other shoe’s going to drop. And sure enough, the day of reckoning has come. Takes the form of a vacant man in his letterman jacket standing over him in his cot. Fuck, what does the guy want this time? Beneath the harsh fluorescent lights his eyes are like a dead fish’s, devoid of any kind of life in there, and the sallowed skin looks even more jaundiced. Sokol glances at the outstretched hand and—- oh. His gut plummets to his feet.

He’s forgotten about it. The tape player wedged deep in-between his socks and his slacks—- or is it left in his suit jacket somewhere? Not the shared bathroom? An instrumental mission piece to some stupid dare nights ago and he’s forgotten to give it back. 

“ I don’t have it. ”

Flips over in his bed with his back facing the man. He’s never been a good liar, never intends to be. Hopes Jacket can’t see the vulnerability of it splayed out on his face, or the way his ears burn with the intensity he’s looking at him. Never one to be backed into a corner, he’ll deny it until the air turns blue, and maybe— just maybe, if the kindest gods so permitted the same circumstances as that time when he's stolen it, he’ll probably put it back. 

[ko3ak-archive]

@jackctt​​ said: ❛  wall . ( meme )

❛  wall . :  to  pin  my  muse  against  a  wall .

Maybe Sokol’s taken it too far this time. 

But does he regret it? Maybe he likes chasing the kind of adrenaline a pistol pressed against his jugular can bring. Anything to have those bandaged hands on his skin again.

A thought loosely held at the back of his mind when he snuck into the bathroom when the man was showering to steal the cassette tape player right beneath his nose. The grand gesture of providing the mute with much needed Russian voice lines’ had been lost to the realisation that he’d been recording over old tapes. 

He’d taken it to Wolf for recovery, but  its ancient tech not even the technician can decode. The same issue’s met with confused stares in the main room, but hey, at least the crew had fun taking turns speaking into the metal box like its open mic night. 

Now, it’s with mild amusement where Sokol lets himself get choke-slammed against the shutters that very night, metal thundering around him in the garage. It hardly surprised him how quickly Jacket put two and two together-- how long has he been waiting for this?

There’s something possessive in the way the bandaged hand closes around his throat. He’s not getting off on it, the obnoxious, half-lidded look on his face isn’t meant to taunt. Doesn’t help that he’s painfully hard and it shows. Briefly feels a flash of pity for the man knowing the cassette tape player clutched uselessly in his other hand will never relay this anger. Just.. Jiro’s warbling Japanese and Hoxton’s ‘Wanker!’ amongst other things. Sokol’s face trips with mirth at the thought of this. 

It’s a mistake. The chokehold turns into a death grip. The hands coming up to pry bandaged ones away are pointless, it’s getting harder to breathe.

“ Know that-- we love you so much. ” Surely Jacket knows this by now. Admired by few, adored by many. Just take cassette player as gift, and that I love you so much, the Russian just wants to say. A startling confession dredged up from the bottom of his heart, so why does it sound so much like mockery? Hands reach out to frame Jacket’s face, a strangely tender gesture despite staring into the eyes of death. 

[ko3ak-archive]

@jackctt​ said: It’s been a few days since their encounter, something after the heat of battle that left his body feeling in the afterglow of … whatever that kiss made him feel. He needed time to think. There was hesitation, confliction and confusion. Another war to settle, another question to consider in the dim room. Who was he? He wasn’t sure, he hadn’t been for so long. But there’s a different air about him today. The tape rings out from behind Sokol as he offers an almost bashful wave. “—Hi—” Tender curl of his fingers before his rubs at his neck. Hands find themselves in pockets, he can’t look at him, he’s all nerves. Something fearful and almost… timid about him as he steps closer. Finally meets his eyes as he hovers inches from him. Hands seen once more as they slowly reach to hold Sokol’s face, those tired green eyes locked on the other’s lips. He leans in but hesitates, gaze half lidded and heavy with gentle curiosity. A question he asks with his eyes as he hovers there : can I kiss you? 

Up till now Sokol's done a pretty good job at compartmentalising things. Heists, the colourful personalities on his crew, his family back home in Russia. Acclimatising to Payday wasn’t a walk in the park, but he’d quickly let himself get sucked into the easy camaraderie, forming fast bonds with strangers with aliases, unflinchingly laying down his life if it meant the completion of an objective made easier. Something not too different being in the navy had taught him-- but that was it. 

But then came Jacket. Jacket, who'd been nothing but weird and creepy with the cassette player to speak for him, who’d stubbornly refused to fit into any of the categories he tried to box him into. How can he possibly? Heart-achingly dorky and dumb one moment and berserk violent criminal the next, Jacket’s some enigmatic thing that escaped descriptions the same way he dodged the graze of a bullet. 

Cutie, Sokol thinks now, affected by a kind of smarming adoration when their eyes meet. Lets himself mould into those bandaged hands, and it feels so right like the playing out of a muscle memory. A needy whine’s starved in his throat as his eyes flutter shut, face turned towards a possibility.

Oh. No kiss yet? 

Opens his eyes again to the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Jacket. And in spite of those exhausted eyes, there’s something open and vulnerable in his face like he’s shy or something, and-- is this him asking for permission to kiss? 

Scarred hands grip the collar of the blond’s letterman jacket; any other time this will have prefaced a fight but perhaps Sokol’s seeking a different, much greater kind of indulgence today. Never one to leave someone hanging for long, Sokol answers with the eager press of his lips against his. 

Its surprisingly chaste, no tongue or teeth or the taste of metal to ruin the purity of it but still he melts, like some frozen lake dissolving beneath the sweltering Floridan heat. When he finally pulls away for air, there’s a wide grin twitching at the corners of his mouth. Not unlike the look of a silly schoolboy who’s gotten his very first kiss. 

“ Do you... like it? ” 

[ko3ak-archive]

@jackctt​ said: " you --- " the tape recorder rings out, paused and fast forwarded to another point.  " come here --- " and again  "i brought you a present! "

What, so I am dog now? Sokol thinks, but like an animal reacting to the dinner bell does he come running. Sleepy, recently roused from a rather satisfying nap, he stood with his back against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. Tries his best to not let that excitement bloom on his face and in its place is a wry little smile. Money and gold bars and all the riches in the world be damned, nothing can ever beat a surprise. “ What is it? ”

[ko3ak-archive]

@jackctt​ said: ‘ do you ever get lonely, even when you’re around people? ’  the tape plays, in a tone too cheery and unfitting for something as heavy as that. there's some far away look in his eyes. was it something he took, something burned into his system to silence the chemistry of his mind? or was it giving in to them that allowed for such a thousand mile stare? he had always felt far away from people. all his life spent close enough to see but not enough to touch, to feel real. maybe they knew something was off before he did. maybe they knew that he didn't know who he was. no further words are given, his tape player hangs silent in his bandaged hands. ( meme )

Jacket’s tape recorder’s got to have some of the most damning lines. Always an appropriately-timed quip, always quick to his feet with razor-blade precision the same way he went about in a firefight. If anyone were to have the last laugh, it’ll probably belong to his little boxed machine. 

Where Jacket came from and what he amounted to was a question lost to those vacant eyes, and it’s not like that shiny letterman jacket he wore provided any clue. They all wore caricatures of themselves at the safehouse, from tailored suits to loud Hawaiian print shirts, and just as expected, time and time again he’d been reduced to a stereotype of the worst kind— rude, angry, physical and at best, a petulant wunderkind who, when push came to shove, bowed at the mercy of his superiors. 

Well, he wasn’t all that entirely. Words roughened and cut-up by the jagged edge of his accent made him difficult to talk to, but beneath that bark was no bite. Quite the opposite, actually. A capable team captain has to lead with an iron fist, but outside the rink, away from the line of fire was a boy who wore his heart on his sleeve. Fun-loving, likes sledding in the snow. Has a soft side for birds: one adored cockatiel still lives in his family home. A clingy drunk after two drinks. And, as he’d been told from experimenting with another, a passionate lover. But his place in the safehouse was to shoot first and socialise second, because in a world so fuelled by crime it’s only a matter of time before a blade’s twisted into your side so—- no thanks, he’ll be keeping those cards close to his chest. 

“ Dunno. ” It’s all that comes, accompanied by a half-hearted shrug. Sokol tears his eyes away from his phone and letting them settle on the safety of those bandaged hands. How long has those bandages been there? What lurked beneath them? “ Maybe. Sometimes. But everyone will feel like that at some point, no? ” Heart carefully tucked back into his chest, shuttered behind walls of ballistic glass. A diplomatic answer for someone he’ll hold at arms’ length. 

But in that silence a restlessness grows over a question not answered well. The man hasn’t moved from his spot. Is that disapproval in his eyes? Ah, fuck it. He’ll bite the bullet and answer the question properly.

“ Don’t get me wrong, people are nice here but... wish I had a real friend. ” A moment of weakness there. It comes out sounding more earnest and vulnerable than he intends it to be, but that’s what his understanding of the language often amounted to. “ Someone who knows everything about me and is okay with that. ”

[ko3ak-archive]

@jackctt​ said: “ I want to be there when you learn the cost of desire. ”   speaks as simply as he would, as if it wasn't a rarity at all. takes a drag from his cigarette without meeting his gaze. he knows the cost of desire, it's written all over him. dependency on pizza, LSD. instant gratification. anything to get him out of his own mind. laid back in his own right, if you didn't count the detached brutality of the massacres he commits on a near daily basis, he would seem almost normal. dead look, hollow eyes. yes, he knows the cost of desire, and wonders when sokol will learn it. like waiting for the other shoe to drop. it isn't a threat, not something he will be there to commit, but rather to observe. leave that cruelty to the world, there are some lines even jacket wont cross. wants to be there to wait for their eyes to meet in the haze of wrath and utmost greif, a connection and understanding silently built with a look alone. something that says: now you know ... now you know. ( meme? )

It’s always been about the money. Money meant buying proper clothes without holes and someone to sit with at lunch. Money quieted the clap of thunder in his father’s voice. Money was a stepping stone to even more money, from the school team to the international leagues and... that had caught Bain’s attention, didn’t it? A gifted athlete so motivated by the prize so he dangled it in front of him and then some more. A million dollars was worth so much to him back then; could pay the bills and his inherited debt and lift a family out of poverty.   

All this while and he’s been sucked into the sheer excess of the entire Payday thing. He reckons its kind of what university could have been if he was rich. The debauchery. The cocaine-fuelled parties, the sleepless benders and the deluxe version of anything ordered that the common man can never fathom. Every fortnightly, a thickly padded envelope gets delivered back home without a return address. This is what he is to his family. 

Sokol lets his gaze drift. The punching bags, the open bar, the getaway van unceremoniously parked in the living room. Things that he’s long accepted to be the norm in a house he feels he’s grown up in. Not that the other crew members can’t compare, but the only thing missing was family. And then it comes—- and with a slow, horrifying realisation, a stomach-sinking feeling, Sokol realises he’s living in it. Been paying out the consequences of this desire he’s been chasing all along. His very own little purgatory hell with no escape so the only thing left to do is participate in heist after heist. 

A flashbang thrown 'fore he can turn away, and Sokol just knows that he’s fucked up right from the beginning. Maybe he should’ve finished university. Rode out the entirety of his sports career and retire like Wayne Gretzky. A scarred face is buried in scarred hands. Inconsolable. Keening without a sound. The hands pressed over his eyes are pointless—- when they’re pulled away Jacket in his namesake’s still smoking the cigarette.

Who is this man? What did he want from him? The seed of wrath sown into his mind was starting to take root and torment. The lingering smell of cigarette's starting to make him feel sick. He doesn’t want to be here anymore, not under the scrutiny of this freak who seemed to know too much about him and what buttons exactly to press. He needs to be shut away in a room somewhere but he doesn’t even have one. Just a cot next to the expendable ice hockey rink. It’s said softly. Wretchedly. Pleading.  “ Please go away. I need time to think alone. ”