Summary: You and Jack are settled into a life together, but big decisions still have to be made. (18+, talking about murder, possible unwanted pregnancy, abortion, ~2.4k)
1- Death in the Desert :: 2- Death Comes for You :: 3- Death's Beating Heart
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“Supper’s on,” Jack yells from the door of the silver airstream.
“Almost done,” you yell back from the building where you’re working.
Well, it’s not working, really. You’re fussing with the shed where Jack stores his tools and the water tanks.
It’s been more than a year since Jack had given you your first real kill. More than a year since you’d starting fitting yourselves together, in a forever kind of way.
At first, you’d wanted to move on to literal greener pastures. Leave the desert and its memories behind and start somewhere fresh. Oregon or the mid-west, Florida, just somewhere different.
Jack, with his strange wisdom, had only said, “wherever you go, there you are.”
You didn’t need a new location for a fresh start. Jack had given you that by showing you your own heart and soul.
And besides, this corner of the desert is completely abandoned and safe. Nosy small-town cops and highway patrols were many an enterprising killer’s downfall.
So, you’d stayed in the Mojave. It’s home.
You’d made Jack promise not to come into the shed before you were ready. He always keeps his promises to you, and always states them plainly so you know he won’t try to weasel out of them.
“My desert rose, if you don’t come out of there and let me feed you, I will be very insulted,” Jack warns you.
He’s handy in the kitchen, or more accurately, over the fire he usually cooks over. You’re starving after rearranging things and putting up shelves.
“I’m finished,” you announce proudly. “Come in.”
Jack peeks his head in slowly, his face full of an adorable, big-toothed smile. “Well, well, well. Is this not just the picture of domestic bliss. I am quite touched. Even in my forays into the mansions of the uselessly wealthy, I’ve never seen something so nice. You are quite the woman.”
He squints and examines, his head swiveling around to take it all in.
You’d arranged the tanks and storage to one side. The other side you’d made into a kitchen of sorts. Scavenged tables made into counter work surfaces, and a utility sink you’d hooked up to a water container. Shelves for cans and cutting boards. You’d even fixed magnets to the wall to hold his knives.
“My girl, I am going to make us feast after feast, right here, in the years to come.” Jack pats the center island, a stainless steel table. It’d been the trickiest part to bring in unnoticed. Actually, you’re sure he’d noticed, but hadn’t wanted to ruin your fun.
“I will grind your bones to dust
And with your blood and it I'll make a paste,
And of the paste a coffin I will rear
And make two pasties of your shameful heads…”
You fold your arms. “That sounds… I have no idea. It sounds pretty murder-y. What does it mean?”
Jack grins. “Luckily for you, you have no sons with which I can make pies to feed you. It’s Shakespeare, my dear desert rose. The bard has words for every occasion, does he not? In this case, I think I'll bring my famous stew inside to finish up. Although, I will omit the human element of the quoted recipe. Even I have my limits. Let me regale you with the tale.”
He explains it all to you while he cooks. Like most of the things Jack likes, the play sounds gruesome and thought-provoking. A little too dramatic, but that could just be Jack’s oratory style.
The stew’s been bubbling for an hour or so on the gas burner. You’re sitting on the stainless table, swinging your feet and listening.
Jack scrapes the pot carefully so nothing sticks. He scoops a bit of stew onto the wooden spoon and lifts it, blowing gently for a moment before he holds it up to your lips.
“Don’t try to flatter me,” he says seriously. “I value your honesty.”
“Well, after hearing about that play, I’m not sure if I have much of an appetite,” you joke.
You let the wooden spoon slip past your lips and you close them, pulling off the bite of vegetables and meat.
Jack leans a hand on the table while you chew thoughtfully.
“Okay,” you say around the mouthful, “maybe I can eat after all. This is really great, Jack.”
A grin splits his face open into a happy expression. “I admit, it’s not Shakespeare’s best work in my opinion. This is, however, my best stew yet. And why shouldn’t it be? We are celebrating. No, the play is gruesome for gruesome’s sake. What you and I do, however, that has true purpose.”
He taps the spoon on the table and goes back to stirring. He adds dashes of spices, another piece of garlic, a bit of water.
“It’s been awhile,” you say, hesitant to bring it up.
He hasn’t killed anything in months, which for him is a long time. It’s been less time for you, but only because Jack had let you take the last shot that had come out of the rifle. You count aloud on your fingers, seven weeks ago.
Jack doesn’t turn from the camping stove and pot, but there’s a slight tension to his shoulders.
You count on your fingers again. No, eight weeks.
You go cold.
You don’t keep a calendar out here. Time doesn’t matter for you and Jack. You let your body’s signals tell you when you need extra rest or exercise, when you’re going to be sick, when you’re going to bleed.
One of Jack’s dark eyes peeks at you from over his shoulder.
“You figure yourself out, rose?” he drawls slowly.
You drop your hands, a ringing in your ears as your fingers claw into the edge of the metal table.
Jack looks at you sympathetically, but knows you need a moment of space. He scratches his head, coming his fingers through his long hair.
“Shooting might not be good for you, in your present state,” he says. Then, he shrugs. “Maybe for your mental health, though, you shouldn’t be giving up the thing that releases the pressure, so to speak.”
“Maybe you should’ve fucking told me,” you snap at him.
“Oh now, rose, don’t get your thorns out. The nicest surprise the desert ever gave to me was you as my visitor, a companion and lady-love.” He lays a hand on his chest. “I thought this would be a nice surprise for you. A visitor of you own, so to speak.”
“Maybe I don’t want a goddamn visitor. It’s not like we know if I am or not anyway.” You hop off the table and storm out into the cool desert evening.
The sun’s just going down over the rock crop that shields the western side of your plot of home. You kick a few rocks as hard as you can, pleased when they hit the side of the silver airstream.
You feel Jack’s dark gaze on your tantrum. He hovers in the doorway of the shed, a concerned look on his face.
Having no other ideas, you tip your face up to the blue sky and clouds and you scream. Loud. Long. So hard your lungs burn from all the air you force out at once. Your vocal cords vibrate and sting, not used to being made to express so much frustration.
You cover your face just in time to realize you can’t stop sobbing. Tears leak onto your fingers. Broken sounds from your lips. Your knees give out, collapsing not onto the hard, desert sand, but into Jack’s waiting arms.
“Shhh, shhh, there there,” he sings at you, holding you upright and swaying you side to side. “If you don’t want a visitor, you can certainly refuse. Been meaning to go into town anyway, hit a few houses for some things. The rest of the place has to live up to the gourmet kitchen I just had professionally installed. It’s okay, my desert rose.”
“It’s not okay,” you cry onto his shoulder, hands fisting at the back of his shirt. “We never talked about it. I never wanted kids.”
“Neither do I,” Jack backs up just enough so he can look you in the eyes and wipe your tears. “You think I want anyone here but you? No, you and I, we’re meant for each other and each other alone. Two people in our own universe, our own time, and we don’t have to make space for anyone else if we don’t want to.”
Your sobs calm down into quiet hiccups. “We don’t? You wouldn’t be mad?”
He smiles softly, a little lopsided and with the glint of a gold tooth. “Now, rose, you don’t think I’d be mad at you for a thing like this, do you? You wanting to do as you wish with your own body is how we’ve been living all of this time. We don’t change that now. Actually, you doing as you want is why we’re together in the first place. I still remember that night, when you rubbed up against me like a kitten looking for a warm lap. And you did find one, didn’t you? Hmm? Didn’t you?”
His finger traces your cheekbones.
You nod.
“If you hadn’t,” he says, his words rough, “I don’t know that I would ever have tried to. You are braver than I am.”
You can’t have heard him right. As much as you love Jack, he’s a very proud man. He’s serious, though.
He gives you a quick, hard kiss. “When you parked your car on this patch of desert, I was fully prepared to shoot to kill. Instead, you ventured into my tangled life and showed me something I thought only existed in stories and plays. Love. I never gave much though to such a thing, not for myself, you understand. I never had it before you, but there must be something to evolution and domestication after all, because I am more than content to live this life together.
“You came out here to look for a killer, and you stayed because you found that you loved him. You learned to harness what you have inside of you for a higher calling. You elevate everything I’ve done. I couldn’t be prouder to prowl this ground by your side. So if this exists or it does not, whether you want this or not, I respect it, as I respect you.”
It makes you cry all over again. “I can start with a pregnancy test. Do you have one?”
Jack chuckles and pulls you in closer. “Hell no. I’ll tell you what we should do: let supper stay on a simmer for a half an hour. Let me take you inside and we can plan our tomorrow. I mean that in a literal way, not in a tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow sort of reflection.”
Arm in arm you wander into the airstream. You lay a hand on the dusty metal and give it a silent apology for kicking rocks at it earlier.
No matter how the test turns out, the trailer and Jack are all you need.
Jack takes out his whetstone and sets it in some water to soak. He’ll want to sharpen his knife tonight.
You slide onto the bench of the little table near the door. From inside your shirt you pull out the compass that was the first present Jack had given you, outside of your first kill. You run your fingers on the crosshair etched into the top. The metal’s heavy, but you like the constant weight of it around your neck.
“Jack?”
“Mmm-hmm?” he asks, hands braced on the counter. The strings of his hair swing to his shoulders. He’ll take a shower tomorrow, maybe a swim. He loves to find a house with a pool.
“Would you let me go into the house with you tomorrow?”
You’re nervous to ask. It feels like intruding.
The way Jack loves you is fierce, but you both still have secrets. More than that, when you go into town, it’s the only time you two are usually apart. You never questioned it, just thought of it as alone time for both of you.
You do errands, eat out, or go to a movie. Jack lures an unsuspecting homeowner into letting him take the whole place for whatever’s inside.
He looks sideways at you, like he’s trying to figure you out.
Your fingers pick at the edge of the table. “I’d stay out of your way-“
“I do not want you to.” His heavy eyelids narrow, but he doesn’t move an inch. “If you want to come along to the house, or help me obtain the means to break and enter into one, then I would be glad for the company. By no means do I feel I have to do everything alone. Not anymore.”
Your lips twitch, then break into a smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome." He gives you a funny little bow. “Now, you tell me why were you so afraid to ask me?”
Your stomach flutters. His tone of voice isn’t demanding, but he’ll be hurt if you don’t answer.
“You were doing all of this for years before we got together,” you explain. “I thought it might not be fair of me, to expect you to share every single thing.”
“Fair?” His laugh is sharp and loud. “The only unfair thing about this is that I didn’t meet you the day I lit my childhood on fire and walked away a man. That I didn’t see you in that forsaken city of angels in the decade I’ve been going there. That you had the live thinking you were supposed to feel guilty about things you’d done in the past. Things I celebrate. Those are what isn’t fair. That we were ever separated at all.
“We go together into whatever actions and desires we have. We’ll pick a house so big and beautiful that we’ll have to destroy it. That’s what’s fair, my desert rose. That we take what we wish, and burn the rest to the ground. And then, we come back here to our paradise.”
Jack sweeps his hand around the trailer.
It wouldn’t look like much to anyone else, but to you, it’s everything. The only real home you’ve ever had.
You’ve come to accept that Jack’s darkness and yours are ancient friends. Both of you the keepers of the same kind of impulses and strengths that most people couldn’t stomach.
There’s no room for anyone else in your lives. No room for space between you. That’s how both of you want it, and how it’ll stay.
other Jack works :: main masterlist :: Join My Fic Taglist
1) Trying to decide if The Favourite needs angst / drama / action / something to shake up the story's tempo...
2) I wrote around 1300 words for the second chapter of the Mojave Jack fic ✨
3) I have a Leto fic idea, but tbh I don't really understand the Dune Universe and its political hierarchy so now im thinking about putting Leto in a medieval setting again lol
Made this a while ago but forgot to post here, with a second one a little brighter. (I'm still learning how to adjust levels and stuff). And some reactions underneath. Thinking I should make one with the swimming pic next...
Pairing: Jack Jackson x Mojave Desert
Summary: Jack and his Mrs have a tiff after he returns from a long absence. Part of the Council of Oscar's discord April Fools Event!
WC: 669
Never been more proud of a fic and never been more proud of my server 🫡 @winniethewife @midgardian-witch
His hand sticks to the hot, rancid rubber of the gas pump and he can't tell if its from the oil, his sweat or left over blood. Either way it only further sours his mood as his hand rakes down his scruffy jeans, a black streak left in wake of the movement. Jack cusses with a southern drawl under his breath, hooking the pump back up like it personally spilled on him.
Even the cool, conditioned air of the gas station freezing the stale sweat on his brow couldn't lift the mood that weighed heavy like a smog. A cold beer wouldn't either, but Jack reckoned it was the closest thing to a pick me up as he thumped it on the counter, tipping his hat politely at the freckly little cashier.
"Sun's a cruel mistress today, ain't she?" The young boy behind the counter was far too chipper for a human stupid enough to exist on a summers day in the desert, but Jack supposed when one works in a shitty, fluorescent, capitalist oasis selling cheap liquor and infinite air con, a boy can show that much teeth when smiling.
"Yeah, she ain't the only one." Jack grumbled around a splintered toothpick, bowing his head to count his cash.
"Trouble in paradise, Mr?" The chipper cashier frowned as he handed back the receipt, as if he was genuinely saddened by the potential of a strangers failing marriage.
"Oh yes indeed", Jack chuckled darkly, stuffing the crinkled paper into his jean pocket and popping the beer cap on the counter. "There'll be a storm waiting for me when I get back."
The sentence had been meant metaphorically, as was the majority of Jacks daily dialogues, but as he finally drove the dusty pick up to his trailers, he was not at all surprised to feel the wind whipping sand at him like shards of glass.
"Christ almighty woman, can't even let a man get out his car to say his piece?!" The door slammed behind him, rocking the truck none too gently as his boots thudded around to the back trunk.
Another gust of wind blew at him, visible lashes of sand aiming for his head as he lifts his forearm to his brow. The whistling howl echoed in his ear, making Jack's scowl turn into wince.
"Alright, alright! I hear ya darling, I'm a jackass, I know…" More grains shackled around his ankle making, Jack click his tongue in annoyance, "Probably had some amount of scavengers pillaging your gardens and what not, I know sweet thing, I hear ya."
A small reprieve came, the surroundings loosening the yellow tinge from desert dust being heaved into the air and Jack took a welcome gulp of breath.
"There was some business I had ta take care of in a lil town over yonder, but I'd never forget my special lady." Jack finally rounded the back of the truck now that he wasn't being assaulted, pulling back the tarp with a grunt to reveal the decaying, macabre prize tied neatly in aged rope.
He stands proudly with his hands on his hips, cracked and dry lips dawning their trademark smirk as he stares off into the golden dunes.
"Gotcha some nice, fresh, organic pet feed. I know yer new lil coyote pups could use the meat."
The dunes danced in small whirlwinds that looked like golden bobbles of thread, whistling in high pitched tunes. Jack could feel the grains grazing over his cheek, much more gently than before, tugging his lips into a smile. He almost chuckled before he felt a tumbleweed smash into his rear, startling him.
"What in tarnation- Mrs Mojave, that weren't very lady like!" The was no venom to his words, and never would be, not when he was surrounded by the warm, tanned bosoms of the dunes.
No matter how long he left for, no matter how dirty his hands were when he came back, he would always have his beautiful Mrs Mojave to come home to.
