Jacob doesn't smile when Raven walks into his cell. It throws Raven off center; his curled lips are practically a permanent fixture on his face. Like a crooked nose or buck teeth. The sorceress pauses at the door, waiting for her brother to break the silence. To ask why she waited this long to talk to him. To tease her about her attraction to a certain green shapeshifter. Instead, he leans back on his sofa, saying nothing. She pulls up a chair and sits down quietly.
"I talked to Dal."
Jacob folds his hands against his stomach.
"...did that conversation give you everything you wanted?"
"No. It didn't."
"Well, that's very typical of interactions with Dal."
Raven flexes her fingers beneath her cloak. She crosses one leg over the other.
"Where's Wrath?" Raven asks, and she wants it to sound threatening. Authoritative. She even puts base in her voice. But she already knows Jacob's answer before he utters it. The question comes out as stiff and staged as obvious questions are wont to do. Jacob shrugs.
"Probably designing an elaborate plan to get me out of here."
Raven eyes her brother. His relaxed posture looks no different than it does when he's outside of the Tower. If he weren't wearing the cuffs, Raven would think they were meeting under different circumstances.
"Is that what you want?"
This time Jacob does smile.
"What a privileged question."
He considers it an innocent little science project.
Figuring out all the things that turn Dal on.
Jacob has conducted this experiment with many people, just not long enough to collect data. He usually just finds a person's trigger and repeatedly presses it until they spill over. But there is something satisfying and delicious about seeing Dal simmer.
Jacob doesn't think that Dal is scared to come out per se. He thinks he's just a private man. Even when they were kids, Dal never felt the need to announce anything. Not when he started dating his first girlfriend. Not when he earned the title of valedictorian. Not when he got a full ride to NYU.
Jacob wants to make him scream.
He invites himself over again, bringing wings from their favorite spot two blocks down. Dal opens the door on the eighth ring, rubbing the sleep out of one of his eyes. He doesn't say anything when Jacob squeezes into the apartment, pulling plates from the cupboard before Dal could even turn around.
Thirty minutes later, Jacob is pulling himself up on the pull-up bar attached to Dal's closet door. He put on his loose grey sweatpants purposefully. They're sliding down his hips. And he had made sure to wear a cropped top today. He doesn't look at Dal, who is eating in the living room with his back turned to him but he knows the man is peaking over his shoulder. He can feel the occasional spike in his lust. Each one is a little stronger than the one before. He makes sure to grunt a little louder with each pull up.
He drops down with a thud, moving slowly towards the back of Dal's sofa until he's right behind the seated man, panting. He watches Dal's shoulders tighten with each step he takes forward. He smirks, leaning over Dal's head to reach for a wing on the coffee table. He pretends not to notice the way his stomach brushes against the back of Dal's head. Dal leans away from him.
"Is there a reason why you're here?" Dal asks, his sharp tone would have been much more convincing had Jacob not felt the sharp tug in his lower stomach like it was his own.
"Is there a reason you let me in?" Jacob asks, jumping over the back of the sofa to settle into the seat next to Dal. Dal rolls his eyes, taking an aggressive bite of his wing.
"Does everything have to be a performance to you?" Dal asks between chews. Jacob tilts his head back, his laugh reverberating off the walls. He looks at Dal with a knowing twinkle in his eyes.
"You're joking right?" Jacob asks, leaning into the man's space. Dal leans back, diverting his eyes from Jacob's piercing ones. Jacob smirks. He decides to show the man mercy.
"Need help cleaning your laundry again?" Jacob asks, cleaning his hands with a wipe when he finishes his wing. Dal looks up at him, his eyes wide and telling.
"...you don't have to," he says, twirling around the wing bone in his hand. Jacob smiles.
"You know laundry used to be my favorite chore. And I know you never used to split your lights from your darks. I'm really doing it for my own sanity, Dal," Jacob jokes. Jacob watches as Dal eyes his slanted smile. The half demon feels sticky heat fall over them so quickly and so heavily that his body leans forward, his vision blurring. It's gone almost instantly. The first thing that comes into focus is Dal's black eyes. His irises have long since been eaten up by his dilated pupils. Jacob breathes unevenly.
Interesting.
He gets up and goes to the in-unit laundry.
"It was a complete chance that you were in California the day that your alien friend crashed into your world."
"...how do you know about that?"
"I had to know everything about you."
"What are you looking at?" Dal asks, placing a bowl of soup in front of Jacob. Jacob closes up his newspaper, immediately spooning some broth into his mouth. Dal grabs the newspaper as Jacob eats.
"That Teen Titan's girl again?" Dal asks, folding up the paper and tossing it on the dining room table. He folds his legs up on the chair as Jacob pointedly ignores his question. Dal shoves his fingers between his bare toes. Jacob drops his spoon into his soup, looking at Dal's interwoven appendages.
"You've been walking around your house barefoot and now you're putting your hand on your feet. At the dining room table. While we're eating."
"Did you forget that this is my apartment?" Dal asks, blinking up at Jacob.
"Was it your apartment when I cleaned your toilet?"
"I don't ask you to do that."
"Yeah but you need it," Jacob says, glaring at where the man still held his foot.
"Stop looking at my feet."
"...but they're kind of...sexy," Jacob says, leaning over his soup. Dal immediately drops his feet to the ground. Jacob laughs
"Do you have to keep making shit weird, dude?"
"No seriously! I understand foot fetishes now," Jacob continues. Dal hides his feet behind the legs of his chair.
"Stop looking at my feet!"
Jacob laughs again, directing his attention back to the soup Dal made for them. Jacob is half way through his soup when Dal speaks again.
"Do your...abilities have something to do with that girl?" Dal asks, his voice barely above a faint whisper. Jacob looks up at him, noodles still dangling from his mouth. Dal is looking at his lap. The half demon slurps up his noodles and takes a few slow bites. He daps his lips with a napkin.
"What abilities?" Jacob asks. Dal looks up, lips in a straight line.
"Come on-"
"You're never going to get answers unless you ask the right questions."
Dal isn't the only one who could hide.
Garfield swings his feet back and forth as Terra tells him about her day. She was recounting an argument Arsenal had with Tempest. She prattles on excitedly as he watches birds fly across the sky. Their silhouettes are nearly black against the pink and orange sky. The sun is setting.
"I'm telling you Beast Boy-"
"Why do you still call me that?" Garfield interrupts, his feet relaxing against the ledge of Titan's Tower. Terra stutters a little.
"What-I well, doesn't Cyborg still call you that sometimes?"
"I mean he calls me BB sometimes but not Beast Boy."
"Um...okay...do you want me to stop calling you that?"
Garfield squeezes his eyes shut, he feels kind of stupid for asking about it.
Not getting a response from Garfield, Terra doesn't say anything. Garfield listens as the waves crash loudly against the rocks on the shore.
"Do you ever think that it would be different if you had met the Titan's when I did?"
"...no, I can't say I've ever thought about that."
Jacob is washing the dishes in the kitchen sink seven months after he ran into Dal at that party when Dal walks up behind him, reaches over and shuts off the water. Jacob doesn't say anything as Dal presses up close behind him, placing both of his hands against the kitchen sink. He cages Jacob in. Jacob turns around slowly, widening his legs a little so Dal can push in closer. He raises an eyebrow at the man who is sending him a heated look.
"Are you sure about this?" Jacob asks, fingering his latex gloves off. Dal juts his chin up, pressing in closer. With one now gloveless hand Jacob grips the back of Dal's neck firmly. "I am going to need you to say it out loud, Dal."
"I am sure about this," Dal says.
Jacob pushes Dal's face forward, pressing their lips together roughly. He grabs Dal's ass and pushes him closer, feeling his length, hard through both of their pants. Dal ruts against Jacob and whimpers. Jacob takes Dal's parted lips as an opportunity to shove his tongue in the other man's mouth.
He runs a hand over Dal's head, pulling at the ends of his hair until Dal's head is tilted back. He kisses down Dal's jaw and neck hungrily. Dal moans, rutting against Jacob's leg aggressively. Jacob grabs his hips pulling them away.
"I want to be inside of you when you cum," Jacob says directly. Dal blushes, looking off to the side.
"I don't think I will last that long," Dal mumbles. Jacob grabs Dal's dick through his pants forcing Dal to look at him again. His lips part with a wet smack as he moans, leaning his weight into Jacob's hand.
"I can make you last that long," Jacob says, reaching out to play with the limits of Dal's lust. Dal breathes heavily. "But I'll only do that if you want me to."
Dal nods enthusiastically, leaning his head forward to attach their lips again. Jacob grips the back of his neck again, not letting their lips again.
"I need you to say that you want this out loud, Dal."
Dal moves his head forward again. Jacob grips his neck firmly, other hand still pressed against his lover's dick.
"Out loud Dal."
"I want this," Dal says, frustrated.
Jacob let's their lips reconnect.
"You ever think about what your life would look like if you hadn't met your friends?" Jacob asks. Raven pauses.
"...no," she mumbles, shaking her head in a staccato way. Jacob grins.
"Okay," he says, looking at his slanted lips sends prickles of irritation down her back. "I can give you a little hint though."
Jacob lifts up his cuffs, shaking them around for effect. Raven eyes the cuffs, sticking her chin up.
"You made your choices," Raven says, her voice firm and unwavering. Her chest feels something else entirely.
Jacob is awoken by the sound of a door slamming. He doesn't open his eyes, reaching out in their bed for Dal. His hand meets air. He cracks one eye open to empty, crumpled up sheets. With much effort, he lifts his tired, sore body and reaches for his discarded pajama bottoms on the floor beside him. He wiggles them on, not bothering with his shirt and walks towards the sound of clanging in the kitchen.
"I'm the one who usually does that," Jacob says, smiling. He walks behind Dal, who is washing the dishes. He lays a kiss on his lover's shoulder. Dal moves his shoulder away from the half demon. Jacob's eyebrows crinkle.
"Are you okay?" he asks, running his hands down Dal's arms. Dal turns around.
"The fifteen year old girl two apartments down was raped," Dal says. Jacob gasps, continuing to rub Dal's arms.
"What? Julitza? Who did i-"
"Did you have anything to do with it?" Dal asks, grabbing Jacob's wrists.
"What? No, of course-" Jacob starts but mid sentence his hands fall limply at his side. He clenches his eyes tightly and runs a hand over his face.
"Jacob. Did you have something to do with it?" Dal asks again. Jacob can't look at him.
"No-I-well I don't know…Sometimes my powers come out when I'm asleep."
"It must be nice to have the power to always make the right choices," Jacob whispers, a distant look in his eyes.