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If something's wrong, you can count on me
You know I'll take my heart clean apart if it helps yours beat
It's okay if you can't find the words
Let me take your coat and this weight off of your shoulders
Like a force to be reckoned with
A mighty ocean or a gentle kiss
I will love you with every single thing I have
……
After so long it’s understandable that Jake might have a tiny slip up. So after months of leaving the flowers around the flat it is no great surprise that he misses a spot while cleaning the blood from the sink.
Steven finds it, asks Marc about it, Marc has no idea, of course. It’s not a big deal though, maybe one of them cut themselves shaving without realizing. Still, it’s enough to create a little bit of suspicion.
……
Jake was getting tired. The missions he did for Khonshu were starting to wear on him more and more, and the flowers were getting worse. The last time he was bent over the sink he blacked out for a couple seconds, completely unable to breath. It scared him. Not for himself, no, Khonshu could heal him. But what if he blacked out and one of the others woke up? The fear, the confusion, the shattered secrets, he couldn’t let that happen.
There was a part of him that almost wished he didn’t have to work with Khonshu anymore but no, there were bad people out there who needed to be punished. People who would hurt innocents, innocents like Marc and Steven. And damn it all if he didn’t enjoy ending the threat. Besides, he needed Khonshu now more than ever. If these flowers choked him, strangled his lungs, sliced his throat to shreds, it wouldn’t just be him that died.
……
Steven was brushing his teeth one morning when he found a small red flower petal stuck behind a back tooth. It made him feel sick to his stomach to see it but he couldn’t fully process why.
……
One day Layla walked into the flat and exclaimed: “Oh my god, I can smell the flowers! Where do you keep getting fresh ones in the middle of winter? It must be expensive.”
Marc gave out a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t know how Steven affords it.”
Layla tilted her head curiously. “What about you?”
“Huh?”
“The flowers you buy Steven?”
“I don’t buy him flowers, he buys me flowers.”
“Then where do the calla lilies come from?”
“What lillies?”
Layla walked over to Steven’s pile of old books next to the fish tank because of course he’d told her where he put them. She opened one and handed a pressed flower to Marc.
“I…” he started. “I have no idea where this came from.”
"I think we all need to talk."
……
They sat on the couch with Layla beside them, each a little stung that the flowers weren’t from the other. But there was something bigger to worry about.
“So,” Marc said. “There’s another alter.”
“That or someone’s breaking into our flat nightly just to leave us flowers,” Steven remarked. “Which would be both creepy and romantic as well as wildly unlikely.”
“But if this third wants to keep his existence hidden, why buy the flowers at all?” Layla asked.
“And with what money?” Marc added. They had checked the bank account, nothing had been spent on flowers.
“Oh god,” Steven said suddenly. “He’s… he’s not buying the flowers.”
“What do you mean?” Layla asked.
“A couple weeks ago I found… I didn’t think anything of it…” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “I found a flower petal in my mouth. And the blood on the sink a few days before… And oh god we kept them. They’re all still here, so many that the flat smells like them. We cherish the flowers that are choking him.”
“I mean,” Marc started. “He left them for us to find. Let us think they were from each other. He wanted us to cherish them.”
“That’s…” Steven started. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“Morbidly romantic I guess.” Layla commented. “You have to talk to him, to meet him. To fix this.”
“I know,” Marc said “But how? He seems pretty good at hiding himself.”
“I think I have an idea.”
……
Jake woke up that night coughing. He resignedly made his way to the bathroom and leaned over the sink. One of the calla lillies got stuck right at the back of his throat and he had to reach in and pull to get it out. He made little pained noises as the stem and leaves scratched up his throat. He looked at the flower, it was a big one. He might have to trim the stem to get it to fit in one of Steven’s books. Then he heard a small gasp behind him. He spun around quick and grabbed the arm of whoever was hiding behind the shower curtain, but then more flowers started to scratch at his throat and he had to let go as he doubled over.
Comforting hands found his back and shoulder, and he tried to fight them off before realizing it was Layla. Oh god it was Layla. This was bad, this was so bad. Why was she here? He’d let his awareness slip for the evening out of exhaustion, he could see now that was a mistake.
“You need a doctor,” she said sternly.
He coughed out the dahlias at the back of his throat. “No. I’m fine, I’m good.” His voice was rough, talking hurt so much.
“You could die!” She insisted.
“I won’t. It’ll heal by morning. Always does.”
“That’s impossible! If it’s this bad your throat could take weeks to heal, and that’s if you don’t choke . How have you been hiding it this long? Marc or Steven would have noticed—unless…” her grip on his shirt tightened. He muttered a curse in Spanish. “You’re still working for Khonshu.” She said angrily. He coughed again, but this time only blood came up. Good, it was a short one tonight, almost over. Layla pulled him up and over to the wall until he was sitting, leaning against it. She sat across from him, sideways on the toilet. She looked down at him.
“Please don’t tell them,” Jake begged.
“If you’re still enslaved to that vulture they have a right to know,” Layla said sternly.
“Shit. Okay, can you not tell them about the flowers?”
“They already know. We figured it out earlier today. That’s why I’m here.”
“Fuck!” Jake put his head in his hands. He coughed up some more blood. “Fuck,” he whispered.
“What’s your name?” Layla said. There was more compassion in her tone now.
He accepted defeat. “Jake.”
“Why, Jake? Why do you keep yourself hidden? Why are you still working with Khonshu? Why do you give them your flowers?”
Jake sighed. The hot air over the sores in his throat was the opposite of soothing. “There are people out there that deserve to be punished. I want to punish them. Marc and Steven don’t need to see that, don’t need to know about it.”
“Don’t need to know you?” Layla suggested, guessing at the real meaning of his words.
“Course not. I’m the bad guy.”
“I don’t believe that, Jake.”
Jake looked surprised. “Why not? You know what I do.”
“I know you take the thing that’s strangling you from the inside and turn it into gifts for Marc and Steven that you don’t even take credit for. I know you love them. And that you want them to know you. It’s literally killing you to keep all of this hidden from them.”
“It’s better for them if I hide.”
“I don’t believe that either. But more importantly, I don’t believe that that’s what’s better for you . You matter too, Jake.”
“No, I don’t. It’s my job to protect them.”
“You’re more than that.”
“I’m not.”
“Do you believe Steven exists just to be innocent?”
“No. Of course not. But I’m different.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m bad! They don’t want the kind of life I live, they’re good.”
“And do you want the kind of life you live?”
Jake looked shocked by the question. “I… I don’t know anymore. I thought I did. But since Cairo…”
“Since you saw Steven and Marc start to work together? Or since dealing with Khonshu became just your job?”
“I don’t know. Both, maybe.”
“Jake, are you happy?”
“I like making them happy.”
“But are you happy?”
Jake took a shuddering breath. “No. I’m tired, I’m lonely, and I’ve never talked to another person this much in my life.”
Layla stood up, pulled Jake to his feet, and wrapped her arms around him. He cried into her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” she reassured. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll fix this. All of us, together.”
Jake opened his mouth to say that it didn’t need fixing, that he needed to go, that Khonshu was waiting for him, that he didn’t deserve this. Instead, what came out was a soft, hesitant: “Okay.”