#pretty please tell me what you think cause im kinda nervous about submitting it

[mar-bluu]

so this is the fic i wrote and am going to submit to my school’s creative writing comp! please tell me what yall think! :3 The ‘theme’ of the comp was: “our 2020 vision is a bit blurred” Ship: javid or jarah (depending on what you want/how you read it) Words: 1595 Warnings: Mentions of death

“Hi, my name is [REDACTED], and this is my younger brother, Les! We’re a little lost and were wondering if you could help?” Jack had flipped down the top of the newspaper as the person before him pulled him from his reading. They were fiddling with the bottom of their shirt nervously as the person Jack assumed was Les poked at a stray tin can with a wooden sword. He looked between the two. An interesting looking pair. Jack closed and folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm, only the headline and date were visible. 1899. “[REDACTED], huh?” He had rolled the name around his mouth, it was sweet like honey, warm and enveloping everything in a strange, sticky-sugary sweetness. Jack had smiled to himself then, and grasped the hand of the other person in front of him, greeting them with an odd sense of affection he hadn’t felt once in his many, many, many years. “Well, what can I do ya for?”

--

It was different now. That sense of warmth had faded long ago and a name that once filled him with an essence of life and vivacity was now cold and hollow. Time had passed, as it always did, and if Jack had expected one thing to come from that first fateful meeting it certainly wasn’t what had happened. Love, if it could even be called that. At first, Jack had written it off as mere infatuation, in his time he’d had many a fancier, but those illegitimate declarations of devotion and obsessive lust had melted and dropped away like the dead flies on a bedroom window. And he was alone again in the world. But that time? That time, something had been different. That awkwardly nervous figure that had so bravely asked for his help, was different. Jack couldn’t explain it. He’d spent hours of his time pacing back and forth in his room running over that interaction again and again and again, but he couldn’t figure it out. Weeks and months he’d spent, either with them or coddled away from the outside world wondering why? What was it about this person that was so different? So unique? And why, god why couldn’t he draw himself away?

--

Then time passed, as it always did, and months, became years, which in turn became decades, and not once did they leave. There was no selfish desire, no false, fanatical addiction. Just love. In all of his time, Jack had never felt anything like it, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was hooked. In the summer of 1913, they were married. It was a life Jack had never expected, but one that he came to love and one he never wanted to let go. But time passed, as it always did, and as they began to age, wrinkles appearing at the corners of their eyes and mouth, their hair greying, and body becoming weak and fragile, they began to ask questions about why Jack never seemed to follow suit. It had been easy to dismiss at first, loose jokes about great genetics, creams and ointments, deals with the devil, but it became increasingly more difficult to explain away their differences when the two of them were mistaken for parent and child. They knew, at least Jack thought they knew, that there was something about him; that they may have mistaken who they married as entirely human, but never once did they say anything.

--

1946. Jack had lost the first and only love he had ever felt. He hadn’t been expecting it in the slightest. Truth be told, he’d forgotten humans were such fragile beings with lifespans only a fraction of his own. He’d never experienced a pain quite like that. A sharp stinging blade that bit into his heart and pulsed through his body, spewing poison into his veins, one that, when it finally left, gifted a permanent, dull, toxic throbbing. Jack had seen his fair share of death, of overturned, rotting corpses piled in hallways or decaying in shallow graves, but he had never been around anyone long enough to experience a loss firsthand. It was cruel, Jack thought, so horribly cruel that a person with that much love in their heart was taken from a world that needed them. But no matter how much he scorned the universe, cursed it for its callous apathy, or screamed to the heavens that it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t fair! His lover did not return. And time passed, as it always did.

--

So it was quite the surprise, at least for Jack, when they next met again. 1966. A cool April’s day and Jack sat in a coffee shop, sipping on his lukewarm tea when he heard someone clear their throat behind him. ““Hi! My name’s [REDACTED], and this is my younger brother, Les!” Les. That name sounded familiar, but at this point, he’d probably met a million and one Les’s. He shrugged it off. “We were seated here a few hours ago, and Les lost his toy sword; it’s wooden and about yea big.” Jack felt a weird sense of déjà vu wash over him. “We’ve been through almost the whole town, and this is the last place we have left to check.” They scratched the back of their neck bashfully. “We’ve already spoken to the owner but what’s the harm in asking you too right?” they laughed to themselves. Les stood dejectedly to the side, kicking his feet against the ground sullenly. “Anyway,” they reached into their pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “This is our phone number and address. Please let us know if you find it!” Jack gave a curt nod and reached for the paper. Their fingers brushed. He felt it like lightning crackling through his body, a jolting sting of pain that stirred up agonizing emotions Jack had tried valiantly to bury. He felt his stomach drop and tears spring to his eyes as he jerked back, snatching the paper out of the other person’s grip. It was them. Oh god, it was them. The person in front of him was different, younger, for starters. Their clothes were different, their hair, lips, skin, and body were all different, only their eyes were the same. Jack stared, an intense storm of emotions broiling inside of him, their eyes were the only thing that seemed to calm him. They held the same kindness, the same understanding and compassion, the same love that Jack had known only once before. It was them. Jack calmed himself, willing his shaking hands to still, as he slid the paper into his pocket and slipped out of the seat, moving quickly past the siblings. “Uh, yeah, I’ll- I’ll let you know.”

--

He had tried to avoid them, he really did, but just like last time, he was inexplicably drawn to them. And just like last time, he had spent a lifetime with them, laughing, crying, just enjoying being together. Living again. Then he lost. He lost again, just like last time… And so, Jack had run. He had turned tail and fled like a frightened child, hopping between worlds and universes, desperately trying to hide himself from the only person who could bring him such elation and yet unknowingly cause him unbearable pain.

--

But no matter where Jack went, where he ran to, they were there. Different faces, different voices, different bodies, always the same eyes. Always the same person. So he came back, tail between his legs, he slunk back to his world, the place where it all started. He couldn’t avoid them no matter where he went or what he did, so what was the use in continuing to run? He knew how it would end, as it always did. With them. He still tried to avoid them, every lost dog, every stuck kite, and every accidental bump. Jack ignored them, brushed them off with a quick apology or promise to keep an eye out. And it worked. Slowly, he began to forget. The name he couldn’t bring himself to say, and the pure bliss of their first life together were the last remaining memories Jack had. The interactions began to die down. It had been almost 13,000 years -give or take a century- since he’d last run into them, but there was an unshakable hankering, a powerful yearning to see them again. For no matter how much they hurt him, the longing for that joy, that fleeting second of pure euphoria was causing him more harm than the thousands of years of pain that he had been carrying since that first meeting.

--

And so here he stood, looking at a face that he had never seen before but was so achingly familiar, a blurry mass of every mouth they’d ever had, fuzzy noses and misshapen cheekbones, standing under the celebratory banner. ‘Welcome Class of 2020!’ And without having to hear it, almost as if it was pure instinct, Jack rolled that name around his mouth. But now, it felt heavy on his tongue, it tasted of rotting flesh and decaying bones. It made Jack want to vomit, and every voice in his head told him to run, to flee, to spare himself the inevitable pain of watching the one he loved die again. However, he stilled himself, quieted the noise in his head and put on a brave face as he gazed at the figure in front of him, holding a young boy’s hand. “Hi! My name’s [REDACTED], and this is my younger brother, Les!”