Abberline was squinting at the book in his lap, the orange glow of late afternoon almost too dim to keep reading without an extra light. He was cozy in his armchair though, tucked into the corner of the rooms he rented and lived in most of the year while his house in Bournemouth gathered dust. The nearest lamp was just out of reach and Abberline, legs tired, had resigned to keep reading until he truly couldn't see the words on the page. He reckoned he had about twenty minutes.
Or he would have had twenty minutes, had he not startled and thrown the volume on the floor a moment later. That was when Jacob swung through the open window feet first, knocking a few of Abberline's effects off the desk beneath the window before landing on the floor with a near-inaudible thud.
Jacob had said previously that if Abberline didn't want him bursting into his home uninvited, he simply shouldn't leave the window open. This failed to acknowledge that the only reason Abberline left the window open was because Jacob had broken the lock on a previous visit and he didn't want to keep paying to replace it. Now Abberline was past the point of expecting peace and privacy in his rooms, but that didn't stop him from jolting whenever Jacob blew in like a dapper-but-lethal wind.
Jacob straightened up and set a small wooden chest at the foot of the bed. He didn't make fun of Abberline's scared reaction, which was usually the first thing Jacob did when he called. Instead, he gazed silently at Abberline for a moment before twitching back to life, starting to pace the short length of the room.
Abberline unfolded himself and stood from the chair, moving over. "What's in the box?" he asked.
"Dead bird," Jacob responded impassively.
Abberline tipped the edge of the box open, curious, then abruptly snapped it shut and moved it over to the desk.
"Jacob?"
Jacob kept walking. Five steps to the north wall of the room, pivot, five steps south. Abberline laid a hand on his arm and Jacob jolted a little, ceasing his pacing and turning to look at Abberline.
Abberline knew Jacob's primary expressions well. Most of them were some variation of smug, sly, or teasing. There was neutral; there was confused. More and more he'd been treated to his favorites: happy, content, aroused. The looks playing across his face now were new, and Abberline didn't like them. Jacob looked nervous. Jacob looked guilty.
"Jacob," he repeated, softer this time.
"I need your help," Jacob admitted in a hush. He fished in one of his cloak's inner pockets and produced a folded piece of stationary.
Abberline took it and skimmed. It was a nice enough note—cordial, even, from start to close. "Who's Maxwell?" Abberline asked, eye on the signature.
Jacob chewed the inside of his cheek. "Maxwell…Roth."
Abberline looked up from the note, not believing his ears. "The leader of the Blighters," Abberline said, not phrasing it as a question, resisting the urge to add some choice words like 'sadistic' or 'mental.' Jacob nodded. "And you were having," he consulted Roth's letter, "'adventures'?"
Jacob slipped the note from Abberline's fingers, tucking it back into his cloak. "He wanted to cause a little chaos, to—splinter Starrick's operation from the inside. We destroyed some explosives, moved some Templars around…" Jacob made a vague circular motion with one hand.
"And things have since gone south?" Abberline supplied.
"Today—" Jacob stopped, looked around the room. "Today he set fire to one of Starrick's buildings. With children inside," he explained. He shook his head. "That's not the whole of it. I placed the explosives, but when I saw the kids…" Jacob shifted his weight between his feet. "I tried to stop him. He didn't like that. I got most of the kids out."
'Most of.' Most of the kids.
Jacob pressed his lips into a line, eyes everywhere except on Abberline. "Jacob," Abberline said, delicate. He planted his hands on either side of Jacob's face, rubbing his thumbs along his stubble. Jacob closed his eyes. "What do you need?"
"The show," he said, swallowing hard. "Roth's going to hurt people. I don't know how, but…"
"I'll come," Abberline replied, quick. Jacob's eyes slid open and he looked at Abberline, unsure. "I'll come," he repeated. "Now, do you know the dress code?"
Jacob spared him a tight smile and leaned forward to kiss Abberline above the ear, tucking his nose into his hair.
Even after equipping Abberline with smoke bombs, a pocket pistol, and his third favorite cane-sword, Jacob worried. He should have done this on his own even if he was feeling—he grimaced—vulnerable.
Abberline had repeatedly reminded him that he had the same training as all the other deadly policemen who prowled London and smacked Jacob around with billy clubs, but that didn't stop Jacob's heart from pounding in his ears as Abberline wandered the main level, 'accidentally' knocking free the masks of Roth's decoys. At any point, one of them could spin on Abberline, holding a knife high. One of them could be Roth himself who, if he'd had eyes on Jacob all this time, probably had eyes on Abberline too. Jacob tried not to think about what Roth might do if he had Abberline within reach.
This is exactly why Jacob had wanted to just kill all the decoys outright. Abberline had nixed that plan, of course, saying something about "absolute fewest number of murders, Jacob, for God's sakes." Jacob conceded, knowing that if he'd listened to the angel on his shoulder this whole time he probably wouldn't be in this mess.
Decoys identified, Abberline moved on to his next task: interrupting and sowing fear among theatre-goers, telling them not to volunteer, begging them to leave before things got out of control. Jacob caught his eye (or at least he thought he did, bloody masks) before disappearing backstage.
He wound through props and equipment, sneaking up on and smothering Blighters one by one. He could hear Roth taunting him, and he half-hoped it was all in his head. Roth threw barbs about his moral compass, his so-called bravery, all the while calling him my dear. Jacob didn't want Abberline to hear any of it. Abberline, who thought Jacob was good. Abberline, who trusted Jacob enough to follow him into a trap without even suggesting they call Scotland Yard first.
Jacob climbed up to the rafters, squatting and searching for the gold mask hiding the real Roth. It didn't take long. The man strolled out to center stage, laughing oilily.
"I hope you've enjoyed your evening so far, ladies and gentlemen. I know I have. Now, before our final act, I'd like to toast all you brave people who joined us tonight to celebrate life…and death."
Oh no.
Cup raised high, Roth looked to the Blighters on either side of the stage, holding torches. "Go on," he spurred. "Toast 'em!"
The Blighters threw back mouthfuls of whatever they had in their own cups and spat fire at the lush drapes on either side of the stage. Jacob saw flames erupt all around the theater—more Blighters following Roth's demented orders, he guessed. The blaze was moving quicker than the screaming theatre-goers could get to the exits—it was like Roth had lined the entire Alhambra with kindling. Hell, maybe he had.
Roth was howling, "BURN! BURN! BURN!" as Jacob stalked along the grid, looking for a way to kill the man without getting in range of the fire-breathing duo of Blighters who flanked him.
Jacob was making his way along the crossover that hung almost directly above his target when he spotted Abberline fighting through the crowd, running deeper into the blazing theater instead of out of it. He was looking around, frantic, his mouth forming the word, "Jacob!" but the sound swallowed up by the shrieking, the fire.
"Who's this?" cackled Roth as Abberline vaulted onto the stage. "Ah, Sergeant Abberline, in the flesh! The very man responsible for keeping Jacob so—frigid." Jacob hear the rotten smile on Roth's face as he spat his next orders: "Torch him."
Jacob panicked, a voice in his head that sounded remarkably like his father hissing, 'Jacob, what have you done?' He froze on the spot, fighter's reflexes misfiring, and cried, "STOP!"
In the split-second that the Blighters were distracted from their instructions, Abberline—face harder than Jacob had ever seen it—drew his pistol and fired two impeccable point-blank headshots. The Blighters crumpled to the floor.
Roth made it just a half-step in Abberline's direction before Jacob's brain regained operationality. He launched himself over the crossover railing and plunged his blade deep in Roth's neck, using the man's body to break his fall.
Jacob knelt next to Roth, watching the man gurgle, watching blood well up through the fingers at his neck, then in his mouth, his nose. "Darling!" Roth said, dazzling as he could manage. "What a night. The stuff of legends."
Jacob considered him, seething. "Why did you do it? All of it?"
"What?" Roth replied, smiling shakily. "Snap a baby crow's neck between my thumb and forefinger? Slice to bits the ones you deem innocent? Keep the world in its divine manic state? For the same reason I do anything—" Roth reached up, sprightly to the end, and pulled Jacob down for a crushing, blood-soaked kiss. Jacob shoved him away and wiped his face on his sleeve as Roth crowed, "Why not?"
The man's death rattle came on the tail of one last anarchic laugh.
Jacob knelt there, dazed, looking down at Roth's bloody face, slack and pale. Jacob swiped a kerchief through the blood at Roth's neck, automatic, his hands working without his brain's consent.
How was he any different than Roth, really? He came to London to run wild, to do as he pleased. He reveled in chaos, swore by the blast of gunpowder and crunch of bones under his knuckles. When would living by even the loosest principles become too humdrum for him? Had it already begun?
"Jacob!"
Jacob snapped to, surprised to look down and see Abberline's fists in his collar, shaking him. He tilted his head up and Abberline's face swam into focus, all narrow mouth and knit eyebrows. Fury. Or maybe it was fear.
"Jacob, we need to get out of here!"
Abberline dragged Jacob to his feet. That's when the details of the scene began to fill in: the smoke, the flames, the theater crumbling around them, the bodies littering the floor. Oh, he thought, detached. I'm going to die.
And then, We're going to die. Freddy's going to die.
Something—reality, he supposed—seized him by the balls. Jacob found his footing, then found Abberline's hand. They leapt from the stage to the main floor, bolting for the front entrance, hurtling overturned chairs and fallen beams, dodging a charred corpse as it tipped from one of the upper levels to fall at their feet.
They were almost to the foyer when an immense section of the ceiling collapsed, blocking the way and getting them both a mouthful of soot. "No! No, no," Jacob groaned. Abberline yanked him backward, back toward the main hall.
They were coughing, choking, looking around and seeing nothing but smoke. Then Jacob realized: up. "Freddy!" he said, lifting the arm he wore his bracer on and pointing toward the balconies. Abberline understood. He threw his arms around Jacob's shoulders and Jacob launched them to the third floor. They stumbled, rolled, then got back on the move.
They half-tripped, half-jumped down the stairs toward reception and finally, lungs and eyes stinging from smoke, burst through the front doors.
Jacob and Abberline staggered away from the Alhambra and across the street, coughing, narrowly missing getting hit by a fire truck. Abberline steered him toward the fountain in the middle of the block, and when they reached it, they crumpled at its edge.
Jacob dipped his hands in the fountain, watching as Roth's blood sluiced away, twisting like vapor through the water. He pulled off his glove and his bracer and rinsed his face, figuring water that was half beggar piss was still better than Roth's blood and saliva. Water dripped off his face, from the tips of his hair where he'd gotten it wet. He watched the ripples it made at the edge of the fountain where the water was mostly still. When he registered his own reflection, he saw that there was still soot on his face where he hadn't washed. He plunged his hand back in, getting more water to wash with.
Abberline put a hand on his back. Freddy. Jesus.
"Freddy. Are you—?"
"I'm fine," Abberline replied. Jacob looked at him, at his singed clothes and sooty face. "Really," he added, for good measure.
He didn't ask Jacob if he was all right. He didn't need to. Instead, he said, "Do you want to leave?" Jacob nodded, watching the pump hoses on the fire trucks fail to tame the flames overtaking the Alhambra. "Back to the train?"
"No," Jacob said. "To yours."
Abberline got them home by coach, not saying a word. They got into Abberline's little flat and changed out of their smoke-smelling clothes and washed up. Abberline turned the lamp down and they crawled into bed, still quiet. Jacob laid on his side and Abberline slid in behind him, lined up back to stomach, arse to groin, knees to knees. He draped an arm over Jacob's chest, and Jacob threaded their fingers.
Jacob waited, eyes open, the details of the room just visible in the glow of the street lights outside. He thought he should apologize to Abberline. For asking him along, for those dead Blighters. For accepting Roth's invitation to meet in the first place. Instead he decided on silence, on waiting for Abberline's breathing to go slow and even in sleep. But the minutes ticked by and Abberline stayed awake with him, thumb tracing little circles on Jacob's hand.
"Do you think I'm like him?" Jacob asked, soft.
"Who, Roth?" Abberline did a good job of sounding like that hadn't occurred to him. "No, of course not."
Jacob swallowed hard. "I think I'm like him. Roth did too."
"Well, he was wrong, wasn't he?" Abberline replied, practical. "And your partnership was short lived because of it—because you're so very far from the same."
It was nice to hear, but it wasn't true. Jacob didn't want to make Abberline understand. Not just because he didn't want to spend energy putting it all into words, but also because he was afraid that once Abberline got it, he'd leave.
Abberline propped himself up on an elbow and, releasing his hand, nudged Jacob onto his back. "Jacob Frye, I know you," he said. "You are honest and fair and always have the right intentions, if not the…wisest methods."
Jacob laughed. Or hiccupped. Or sobbed, he wasn't really sure. He covered his eyes with one palm. Abberline reached over and placed his hand over Jacob's, blocking out what little light there was left.
"I've been thinking about what you said, about needing a place to invest your money," Abberline told him. He must've known that was a Roth thing now. That, along with God knows how much other information Jacob had recited for him in the past few weeks.
"Freddy—"
"No, hear me out," Abberline interrupted, calm. "A lot of pre-existing enterprises will hesitate to take your money, not knowing how you came by it. That's why I think you should build your own. Not a business, though. A charity." Jacob knit his brows beneath his palm, listening intently. "Bring services to Babylon Alley and to children all around London. Food, clothing, medicine. Start small and mobile, then grow."
Abberline paused, shifting a little closer. He continued, "I know how you love to go above and beyond for your urchins, stealing them from factories, getting them out of manslaughter charges…" The 'carrying them from burning buildings that you're partially responsible for setting alight' went unspoken. "It will take a lot of planning and some hired help, but I think this is a natural extension of your vision for a better London. And it's an operation the Metropolitan Police won't try to shut down, besides."
Abberline lifted his hand from Jacob's and asked, "What do you think?"
Jacob thought that Abberline was too good for him. Jacob thought it was a marvel that Abberline stayed with him, that he could see Jacob's brand of violent gang leadership and interpret that as a 'vision for a better London.' Jacob thought it was stupid that he might be in love—and that love felt so much like his heart was breaking.
He said none of this, of course. Instead Jacob nodded, mute. He uncovered his eyes and smiled up at Abberline, or tried anyway. "Capital idea, Freddy," he murmured, reaching up and giving the edge of his beard a little tug.