You Don't Have to Hide Away -- Run // [Jacob/Laide]

Some people hid behind the loom of fate, instead of letting themselves spool out. I can hardly blame them; given the choice, I'd much rather cover my eyes and shrink from the visions and just... be. But I've never been given the option. With time, I've found admiration and envy go hand in hand. So the first time I see Jacob, in the Training Center, I am green with jealousy. It almost makes me sick, the way he can so effectively hide from the strings of fate.

I wait until the next meal. I'm useless at subtlety, so I try to use my stalking to my advantage. When he turns to me, I lower my gaze, bat long lashes, hoping they fall slow over my oversized blues. Then, like any good flirt, I studiously ignore him until the end of the meal. I laugh, I cavort, I make every stretch sensuous. I wait until I've deposited my tray, reclaimed my hands for my own. He's behind me in line. I stall. I stalk. I know what will come.

When Jacob sidles alongside me, I turn, while his hands are still full of tray and uneaten morsels. I grip the protruding mouthpiece, heavy and metallic, and bend my forehead so that his glass eye sockets meet the flesh and bone of my own. It's electric, this contraption and my hands. I don't even have to see his lifelines; I see Jacob.

I can't help breathing heavily, speaking so much truth at once. "Soon you'll meet what you've always feared, and it won't be as nightmarish as you thought. Try, try to know how to survive the disappointment." I push all the air in my lungs out, flaring through my nose and fogging up his mask. "You are yet needed."