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janie_tangerineTitle: Only A Pawn In His Game
Characters/Pairings: Esau, Jacob/Richard, implied past Esau/Jacob
Word Count: 1764
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Esau being a bastard maybe?
Original Fic: Yours To Take by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bittersweet325
A/N: I hadn't read the fic prior to receiving my assignment, but I absolutely loved it and since Jacob/Richard interests me a lot I had to go for this one. ;) I was tempted to go for Richard's POV but then Esau proved himself surprisingly fun to write and it worked better from his POV anyway, so I went for him. (Also, I hope you don't mind the small bit I added in the end which wasn't in the original. I couldn't resist.) No spoilers for S5 apart from what was in the original. Title from Bob Dylan.
Summary: Esau is a lot of things, among which manipulative and as evil as Jacob himself can get, but he’s definitely not stupid and he knows Jacob like the back of his hand if not better. He would never think that Jacob would give him a free gift, and so he doesn’t assume that Jacob accepts his small offer consisting in his human pet’s immortality as a random act of kindness, either.
He never thinks for a second that Jacob will buy it.
Esau is a lot of things, among which manipulative and as evil as Jacob himself can get, but he’s definitely not stupid and he knows Jacob like the back of his hand if not better. He would never think that Jacob would give him a free gift, and so he doesn’t assume that Jacob accepts his small offer consisting in his human pet’s immortality as a random act of kindness, either.
Not like Esau is famous for his acts of kindness, which should be a warning on its own. He never does anything if it doesn’t bring him benefit, and he knows that Jacob knows as well.
He really hadn’t thought that he’d become so wrapped up in his stupid, insignificant, doomed romance (though saying romance is really dignifying it too much) not to get it at once.
“If you want him, you can have him,” he had told Jacob at first, and well, at that point he wasn’t really lying. Esau never had uses for humans and he doesn’t have any for this particular one; also, maybe if Jacob really wants said human, he might be inclined to leave him alone without bothering him further with all his philosophical nonsense about free will and second chances and everything Esau can’t care for and won’t, for that matter.
Actually, all he wants is to leave this prison, but if he can’t, well, he’s allowed some entertainment. Isn’t he?
Jacob, for once, listened to him, or sort of. Esau knows that from the first second he suspected that it couldn’t come without a price, but it didn’t let that stop him, and for a while, well, for a while it was indeed fun. To a degree.
Precisely, it was five years of endless fun. Every day was a day when Jacob could get it (after all, humans age: could he really be so blind?), and every day he didn’t. And really, what could be better than seeing Jacob actually growing to like someone instead of just being a nuisance?
(Right. Esau will admit that there will always be a tiny bit of jealousy left behind, for a time when he and Jacob could have been more than mutual nuisances, but that time is long gone. So he just shuts it away.)
Anyway. They spent time together. They held each other at night even if Jacob doesn’t need sleeping. The human, Richard, keeps on refusing whenever Jacob tells him he could go back to his righteous place in the world. They kissed.
Esau keeps on finding it thoroughly amusing.
He finds it downright hilarious the day he knows Jacob got it.
(After all, they’re the same; Jacob can’t really hide from him, and if he, in turn, can’t hide from Jacob, well, it’s just how it is.)
“Are you not tired of this nonsense yet?” he asks when Jacob is alone, and Jacob shakes his head. He seems almost regretful. “Are you not tired of your human toy?”
“That's not what he is. Not anymore.” Jacob replies, and it’s kind of obvious that he’s referring to the human part of the sentence. Sometimes Esau wishes he could get what it’s that Jacob likes so much about humans.
“You've finally noticed,” Esau smirks. “Has he?”
He perfectly knows that Jacob can’t know just that. Mostly because he’s too decent to read his human’s mind, even if he never was decent about reading anyone else’s.
“I don't think he has.” Jacob looks down at Richard's sleeping form, his hand tangling in his longer hair, and Esau shakes his head, not knowing what it’s that bothers him about the gesture. “Why would you do this?”
“Because I can,” he answers, and it’s not being smart (as Jacob usually does). It’s being truthful. He did it because he could. Simple as that.
“So could I, if I had wanted it,” Jacob snaps back, and well, good, at least he still isn’t completely gone soft. “It isn't fair to him. Their lives aren't meant to be like ours.”
“They don't deserve our lives,” he retorts, and he’s indeed sure when he says it. Maybe Jacob will get it. Sooner or later.
“Then why?”
Esau smiles and gets ready to leave. “Figure it out, Jacob,” he teases, and then he’s gone. He has this idea that it’ll take some more time for his lesson to sink in. Though it’s perfectly fine; time is all he has.
--
Richard finds out some time later while gathering fruit.
Esau thinks that there’s something pathetic in the way Jacob tries to explain to him that he’s immortal now, even if he’s not exactly like the both of them; he speaks gently in a way that was never spared for anyone else, and he smirks when he notices that Jacob hasn’t exactly spoken the truth. He tells Richard that it wasn’t him doing it, but he doesn’t say that Esau was the one they should thank (or maybe not); but it’s fine, it’s not like Esau wanted credit or recognition anyway.
He was hoping they would argue or something else trivial as human things are trivial (because Richard makes Jacob human and that’s something Esau can’t stand), but it ends with a kiss and some gentle touching which makes Esau’s blood boil.
And it takes a whole century before it finally hits.
--
Making that ship crash on the island?
Definitely not Jacob’s brightest idea, if you ask Esau, but his opinion isn’t worth much around here these days, even if he did share it.
If Jacob doesn’t care for it, his fault.
Mostly, don’t make a slave ship crash when your currently favorite pastime used to be a slave and crashed here in chains. Esau doesn’t say anything about that though, and seeing Richard realize that he might be fine around the both of them (well, around Jacob mostly) but not around regular people who age and die and change is, indeed, the most amusing thing Esau ever got to witness after Jacob’s judgment becoming so clouded. He’s glad he gave the man eternal life, really.
If only because he’s suffering so much that it’s blatant and even if it took a bit longer than he’d have thought, Esau is perfectly fine with the arrangement.
He doesn’t suggest anything to Jacob, but it’s not like Jacob wanted suggestions; that said, it wasn’t like he’d have told him that sending Richard away wouldn’t do good. Esau knew that, but he did this exactly to teach them a lesson, not to make their life easier.
He notices a strain in their relationship when Richard comes back from his journey, and Esau figures that maybe the world, in two centuries and a half, can change enough to make someone scared. He doesn’t know. He hasn’t seen the world in so long that at this point he can’t imagine how it could have become.
He likes to do it, though.
There’s a reason he just wants to leave this island.
It’s painfully clear that the island is not where Richard belongs. It’s also painfully clear that if he belongs somewhere maybe it’s Jacob, but things are strained now, and that’s exactly how Esau wanted them to be. Because if the place you belong isn’t for you (and eternal life isn’t for humans), then it’s quite the problem. He and Jacob can stand immortality, they were born for immortality, they were made for surviving time; humans aren’t.
Either they die or they might go crazy, sooner or later.
Now, that would be a fun sight to see, because humanity doesn’t suit them as much as Jacob thinks it can (and wants it to); Esau doesn’t think that his pathetic attempts to comfort Richard will work. Touches and contact and sex can help, sure, but it can’t be enough to cope, it can’t possibly enough to cope and he knows it, so why does it feel so wrong and insufferable to see Jacob’s arms around Richard’s waist, or their lips crushing into a desperate motion, or their naked flesh merging as they were one in front of that statue?
He loathes the act, he loathes everything about this, but he still can’t tear his eyes apart.
As Richard leaves to check on the people he now lives with most of the time (they die, he doesn’t, but he’s still there because after all they’re people and not gods) he makes himself visible again.
“You can end his suffering, Jacob. Put him out of his misery. He hates his existence. It's almost poetic,” he says, and there’s no way Jacob hasn’t gotten what was the plan all along. And the lesson he wanted to teach them.
“This was your plan all along.”
And didn’t it take a lot of time for you to get it, Esau thinks, but doesn’t say. It was indeed his plan. He just wants to see how it ends.
“He wants it.” Esau says looking at Jacob straight in the eyes, trying not to let him escape his gaze. “You’re the only one who can do it, Jacob, because I won't. You can kill him. Let him go.”
Jacob snorts and shakes his head, and since when he ever had moral issues?
This has gone way farther than it was supposed to.
“I can’t,” Jacob answers, and Esau can hear that he isn’t lying. It’s not a question of much; he just can’t. And therefore won’t.
“And that’s always been your weakness,” Esau says for him, because it’s true. Jacob raises his eyes and stares back, the right corner of his lips quirking up.
“Who says that I regret it?” he asks, and then turns and follows Richard’s footprints on the sand.
Right now, Esau can’t know that Richard won’t end up as crazy as he had thought, and that even if things between them won’t be what they once were anymore that stupid, crazy, pathetic and human affair that he and Jacob have will die only the day Esau finds his loophole. He just smirks and wonders how much time will it take for the both of them to completely break apart and maybe finally giving him a chance to escape the rules, the loopholes, Jacob and this piece of rock.
If, when Jacob reaches Richard (who is standing and staring at the sea now) and one of his hands rests on the small of Richard’s back, Esau feels a throb of pure and honest jealousy, he pretends he doesn’t let it get to him.
End.
Characters/Pairings: Esau, Jacob/Richard, implied past Esau/Jacob
Word Count: 1764
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Esau being a bastard maybe?
Original Fic: Yours To Take by
bittersweet325A/N: I hadn't read the fic prior to receiving my assignment, but I absolutely loved it and since Jacob/Richard interests me a lot I had to go for this one. ;) I was tempted to go for Richard's POV but then Esau proved himself surprisingly fun to write and it worked better from his POV anyway, so I went for him. (Also, I hope you don't mind the small bit I added in the end which wasn't in the original. I couldn't resist.) No spoilers for S5 apart from what was in the original. Title from Bob Dylan.
Summary: Esau is a lot of things, among which manipulative and as evil as Jacob himself can get, but he’s definitely not stupid and he knows Jacob like the back of his hand if not better. He would never think that Jacob would give him a free gift, and so he doesn’t assume that Jacob accepts his small offer consisting in his human pet’s immortality as a random act of kindness, either.
He never thinks for a second that Jacob will buy it.
Esau is a lot of things, among which manipulative and as evil as Jacob himself can get, but he’s definitely not stupid and he knows Jacob like the back of his hand if not better. He would never think that Jacob would give him a free gift, and so he doesn’t assume that Jacob accepts his small offer consisting in his human pet’s immortality as a random act of kindness, either.
Not like Esau is famous for his acts of kindness, which should be a warning on its own. He never does anything if it doesn’t bring him benefit, and he knows that Jacob knows as well.
He really hadn’t thought that he’d become so wrapped up in his stupid, insignificant, doomed romance (though saying romance is really dignifying it too much) not to get it at once.
“If you want him, you can have him,” he had told Jacob at first, and well, at that point he wasn’t really lying. Esau never had uses for humans and he doesn’t have any for this particular one; also, maybe if Jacob really wants said human, he might be inclined to leave him alone without bothering him further with all his philosophical nonsense about free will and second chances and everything Esau can’t care for and won’t, for that matter.
Actually, all he wants is to leave this prison, but if he can’t, well, he’s allowed some entertainment. Isn’t he?
Jacob, for once, listened to him, or sort of. Esau knows that from the first second he suspected that it couldn’t come without a price, but it didn’t let that stop him, and for a while, well, for a while it was indeed fun. To a degree.
Precisely, it was five years of endless fun. Every day was a day when Jacob could get it (after all, humans age: could he really be so blind?), and every day he didn’t. And really, what could be better than seeing Jacob actually growing to like someone instead of just being a nuisance?
(Right. Esau will admit that there will always be a tiny bit of jealousy left behind, for a time when he and Jacob could have been more than mutual nuisances, but that time is long gone. So he just shuts it away.)
Anyway. They spent time together. They held each other at night even if Jacob doesn’t need sleeping. The human, Richard, keeps on refusing whenever Jacob tells him he could go back to his righteous place in the world. They kissed.
Esau keeps on finding it thoroughly amusing.
He finds it downright hilarious the day he knows Jacob got it.
(After all, they’re the same; Jacob can’t really hide from him, and if he, in turn, can’t hide from Jacob, well, it’s just how it is.)
“Are you not tired of this nonsense yet?” he asks when Jacob is alone, and Jacob shakes his head. He seems almost regretful. “Are you not tired of your human toy?”
“That's not what he is. Not anymore.” Jacob replies, and it’s kind of obvious that he’s referring to the human part of the sentence. Sometimes Esau wishes he could get what it’s that Jacob likes so much about humans.
“You've finally noticed,” Esau smirks. “Has he?”
He perfectly knows that Jacob can’t know just that. Mostly because he’s too decent to read his human’s mind, even if he never was decent about reading anyone else’s.
“I don't think he has.” Jacob looks down at Richard's sleeping form, his hand tangling in his longer hair, and Esau shakes his head, not knowing what it’s that bothers him about the gesture. “Why would you do this?”
“Because I can,” he answers, and it’s not being smart (as Jacob usually does). It’s being truthful. He did it because he could. Simple as that.
“So could I, if I had wanted it,” Jacob snaps back, and well, good, at least he still isn’t completely gone soft. “It isn't fair to him. Their lives aren't meant to be like ours.”
“They don't deserve our lives,” he retorts, and he’s indeed sure when he says it. Maybe Jacob will get it. Sooner or later.
“Then why?”
Esau smiles and gets ready to leave. “Figure it out, Jacob,” he teases, and then he’s gone. He has this idea that it’ll take some more time for his lesson to sink in. Though it’s perfectly fine; time is all he has.
--
Richard finds out some time later while gathering fruit.
Esau thinks that there’s something pathetic in the way Jacob tries to explain to him that he’s immortal now, even if he’s not exactly like the both of them; he speaks gently in a way that was never spared for anyone else, and he smirks when he notices that Jacob hasn’t exactly spoken the truth. He tells Richard that it wasn’t him doing it, but he doesn’t say that Esau was the one they should thank (or maybe not); but it’s fine, it’s not like Esau wanted credit or recognition anyway.
He was hoping they would argue or something else trivial as human things are trivial (because Richard makes Jacob human and that’s something Esau can’t stand), but it ends with a kiss and some gentle touching which makes Esau’s blood boil.
And it takes a whole century before it finally hits.
--
Making that ship crash on the island?
Definitely not Jacob’s brightest idea, if you ask Esau, but his opinion isn’t worth much around here these days, even if he did share it.
If Jacob doesn’t care for it, his fault.
Mostly, don’t make a slave ship crash when your currently favorite pastime used to be a slave and crashed here in chains. Esau doesn’t say anything about that though, and seeing Richard realize that he might be fine around the both of them (well, around Jacob mostly) but not around regular people who age and die and change is, indeed, the most amusing thing Esau ever got to witness after Jacob’s judgment becoming so clouded. He’s glad he gave the man eternal life, really.
If only because he’s suffering so much that it’s blatant and even if it took a bit longer than he’d have thought, Esau is perfectly fine with the arrangement.
He doesn’t suggest anything to Jacob, but it’s not like Jacob wanted suggestions; that said, it wasn’t like he’d have told him that sending Richard away wouldn’t do good. Esau knew that, but he did this exactly to teach them a lesson, not to make their life easier.
He notices a strain in their relationship when Richard comes back from his journey, and Esau figures that maybe the world, in two centuries and a half, can change enough to make someone scared. He doesn’t know. He hasn’t seen the world in so long that at this point he can’t imagine how it could have become.
He likes to do it, though.
There’s a reason he just wants to leave this island.
It’s painfully clear that the island is not where Richard belongs. It’s also painfully clear that if he belongs somewhere maybe it’s Jacob, but things are strained now, and that’s exactly how Esau wanted them to be. Because if the place you belong isn’t for you (and eternal life isn’t for humans), then it’s quite the problem. He and Jacob can stand immortality, they were born for immortality, they were made for surviving time; humans aren’t.
Either they die or they might go crazy, sooner or later.
Now, that would be a fun sight to see, because humanity doesn’t suit them as much as Jacob thinks it can (and wants it to); Esau doesn’t think that his pathetic attempts to comfort Richard will work. Touches and contact and sex can help, sure, but it can’t be enough to cope, it can’t possibly enough to cope and he knows it, so why does it feel so wrong and insufferable to see Jacob’s arms around Richard’s waist, or their lips crushing into a desperate motion, or their naked flesh merging as they were one in front of that statue?
He loathes the act, he loathes everything about this, but he still can’t tear his eyes apart.
As Richard leaves to check on the people he now lives with most of the time (they die, he doesn’t, but he’s still there because after all they’re people and not gods) he makes himself visible again.
“You can end his suffering, Jacob. Put him out of his misery. He hates his existence. It's almost poetic,” he says, and there’s no way Jacob hasn’t gotten what was the plan all along. And the lesson he wanted to teach them.
“This was your plan all along.”
And didn’t it take a lot of time for you to get it, Esau thinks, but doesn’t say. It was indeed his plan. He just wants to see how it ends.
“He wants it.” Esau says looking at Jacob straight in the eyes, trying not to let him escape his gaze. “You’re the only one who can do it, Jacob, because I won't. You can kill him. Let him go.”
Jacob snorts and shakes his head, and since when he ever had moral issues?
This has gone way farther than it was supposed to.
“I can’t,” Jacob answers, and Esau can hear that he isn’t lying. It’s not a question of much; he just can’t. And therefore won’t.
“And that’s always been your weakness,” Esau says for him, because it’s true. Jacob raises his eyes and stares back, the right corner of his lips quirking up.
“Who says that I regret it?” he asks, and then turns and follows Richard’s footprints on the sand.
Right now, Esau can’t know that Richard won’t end up as crazy as he had thought, and that even if things between them won’t be what they once were anymore that stupid, crazy, pathetic and human affair that he and Jacob have will die only the day Esau finds his loophole. He just smirks and wonders how much time will it take for the both of them to completely break apart and maybe finally giving him a chance to escape the rules, the loopholes, Jacob and this piece of rock.
If, when Jacob reaches Richard (who is standing and staring at the sea now) and one of his hands rests on the small of Richard’s back, Esau feels a throb of pure and honest jealousy, he pretends he doesn’t let it get to him.
End.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 08:19 pm (UTC)I really liked the Esau POV, just because I love fics that tell the story of a relationship from an outsider's perspective. It's really rare to find one, and Esau has such a good view of Jacob/Richard. I felt for RIchard in this, but I felt for Jacob more. He must be so lonely, and has blinded himself and really needs Richard... Great stuff!! The angst has killed me. Now, off to read the original.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-29 09:03 pm (UTC)That said, I'm so glad that you liked it! Richard having to deal with not being human anymore was one of the things that I liked most of the original fics and that was also one of the reasons I went for that one. Other humans would probably fuck with the poor guy so much, aw. :/
And ha, Esau was SO fun to write. I had thought to go for Richard also because it would have given me chance to go heavier on the Richard/Jacob loving, but then since Esau was the catalyst I figured I'd go for him and dude, did I have fun. I hate him on the show but writing? He's a blast, really. And I love doing outsider POV, so.. ;) And yeah, in the midst of this, POOR JACOB. :( Which gets doubly fucked in this whole thing, I guess. Thanks so much, I'm so glad you liked it!! :DDD
no subject
Date: 2010-05-08 04:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-08 10:56 pm (UTC)in my mind Richard and Jacob get back to a good place after and prover Esau wrong
Ah, in mine too. Everything as long as Esau gets screwed. ;) And I just couldn't help that. He's jealous, he should just admit that! I root for Richard/Jacob myself. ;) Thanks again!!