[Time is moving too fast when the snake brings him down, everything a blur and Jack is barely facing the sky before his vision is all Isaac, black feathers and skin crawling with tattoos and devil-red hair. He moves inhumanly, too crisp-quick, all purpose and hunger. And then time judders and shivers and grinds to a creep, when he lands with an impact that knocks the breath out of Jack's lungs.
The intimacy isn't lost on him, and for a stunned few seconds he's overwhelmed by the deja-vu of all of it, Isaac over him and pinning him down, radiating delight in a minor key. Every fiber of him is screaming that he's going to die, so loud that his limbs are clumsy with it, the arm not already in the snake's coils pushing pointlessly against Isaac's chest. He doesn't have a way to fight him; even without the magic or the shadows the man is uncannily strong and fast. And the flash of steel, whether it stops briefly or not, only confirms Jack's panicked certainty as he tenses back, breath strangled by impact and fear into thready little jerks of his lungs as he hunts in Isaac's eyes for something, anything that might think he should live instead. In that moment there's no such thing as Luceti, no reversible fatalities. With a knife trembling over him and a strong arm ready to drive it down, death is death, and he's not ready.
He thinks maybe he sees what he needs, for a moment, as the grimace of hate melts into another of those uncannily empty looks. His voice catches and strangles on a soft, wet-edged note of uncertainty, because hope hurts and hope is dangerous and hope is exactly what he does again, even with a dagger ready to go into his head. And there's no word for the way that feeling collapses in on itself, when Isaac's arm blurs down too fast to see.
Then he lurches away, and for a moment Jack can only stare, convinced he's been stabbed until he sees the hilt of the dagger sticking out Isaac's thigh. His brain spins on its last remaining cylinder, eyes tracing stupidly between his own undamaged body and Isaac sagging over him, only jolted from the untethered and drifting moment by a command and high volume.
Whether he believes it or not, he's alive. And by the time he realizes it, he's already racing for home, nothing but wind and desperation and nightmares at his back.]
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The intimacy isn't lost on him, and for a stunned few seconds he's overwhelmed by the deja-vu of all of it, Isaac over him and pinning him down, radiating delight in a minor key. Every fiber of him is screaming that he's going to die, so loud that his limbs are clumsy with it, the arm not already in the snake's coils pushing pointlessly against Isaac's chest. He doesn't have a way to fight him; even without the magic or the shadows the man is uncannily strong and fast. And the flash of steel, whether it stops briefly or not, only confirms Jack's panicked certainty as he tenses back, breath strangled by impact and fear into thready little jerks of his lungs as he hunts in Isaac's eyes for something, anything that might think he should live instead. In that moment there's no such thing as Luceti, no reversible fatalities. With a knife trembling over him and a strong arm ready to drive it down, death is death, and he's not ready.
He thinks maybe he sees what he needs, for a moment, as the grimace of hate melts into another of those uncannily empty looks. His voice catches and strangles on a soft, wet-edged note of uncertainty, because hope hurts and hope is dangerous and hope is exactly what he does again, even with a dagger ready to go into his head. And there's no word for the way that feeling collapses in on itself, when Isaac's arm blurs down too fast to see.
Then he lurches away, and for a moment Jack can only stare, convinced he's been stabbed until he sees the hilt of the dagger sticking out Isaac's thigh. His brain spins on its last remaining cylinder, eyes tracing stupidly between his own undamaged body and Isaac sagging over him, only jolted from the untethered and drifting moment by a command and high volume.
Whether he believes it or not, he's alive. And by the time he realizes it, he's already racing for home, nothing but wind and desperation and nightmares at his back.]