The exchange rate
A thick patch of cedar trees, of course fog, of cawing crows above, of the reduced senses as if in dream.
“Ash, I want to help you more than I’ve ever wanted myself, but I don’t have a hint of where to even start.” Jaime’s voice was surprisingly steady and his movement stiff as he slanted himself casually, his woven wool sweater clad back onto a cedar tree.
Gentle callings of geese reminded Ash of the time he’d heard someone play a wood flute, and it sounded more divine than the voice inside his own head. The only thing he assumed was preventing him of penetrating himself in the stomach with his own sword.
“Jaime, what if I don’t want help, and I want to get it all worst?” Ash wondered, he was circling the tall tree Jaime found himself leaning on, looking up all the way up to the immune sunlight shining down to Ash in the blanks of the trees.
“Then I’d help you do that.” Jaime responded, he seemed seemingly unbothered, but his hands were shaking as he tried to distance himself from whatever reality they both found themselves in a flick of a lighter.
“Why? we both know what’s wrong with you.” Ash was being intentionally cruel, because this was the one subject Jaime refused to ever comment on, was himself.
“Then what’s wrong with you, Ash? Besides what we both already know.” Jaime, against his own will, hated himself for unknown and no doubt complex reasons. As did everyone else in the entire world, even this one.
“Everyone knows what’s wrong with me it’s as public as Debora.” Ash was referring to the centaurs that kept order inside of the fae realm, to the best of their very existence, this is what they devoted, prayed and sacrificed to, a God of order, judgment, investigation. Which meant, most people could get to it without a map or a clue that we’re even going.
It had been a bit of a shock to find that upon first arriving in fae, Jaime had managed to avoid them completely, and both of them knew he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shadow hunter shed.
“There’s something you want from this land and it’s people. An answer, isn’t it?” Ash as approaching Jaime, the air around Ash bringing an aura of unease, of suffering, and of an impulse to run to answers to questions he’d been asking, even if only in his mind.
“An answer to what, Ash?” Jaime tried, a yawn cutting him off well he pronounced the syllables in Ash’s name as sweetly as a freshly baked loaf of bread, still streaming.
“What happened to your father.” Ash knew more than he’d ever let on to anyone, even Jaime.
“I don’t care, anymore, Ash.” Jaime was being honest, so honest Ash assumed he was lying.
“Of course you care, why else would you come to fae? You want an answer, a reason, a divine calling.” Ash’s eyes were so focused on the unreadable looks in Jaime that they didn’t notice Jaime’s hands on his hips.
“The divine stopped calling to me the day I was born.” Jaime muttered, his fingers linking into Ash, under the waist band of his loose linen pants, over the folds and creases of his empty skin.
“Why would you stop looking for an answer?” Ash wondered, one of his own hands sliding over Jaime’s shaven side burns, the other to back of his nearly naked neck, safe for a single pendant hung around it.
“Why do you keep looking for one in my eyes?” Jaime would move his head out of Ash’s extreme gaze, but his hands were so tightly held on he’d rather not break his neck like a sloppy chef in an Italian kitchen and a hard spaghetti noddle.
“Why don’t I find one?” Ash was demanding an answer, because he had drawn his bronze sword at Jaime.
“Because I’m not a God, Ash, I’m hardly even an Angel.” Jaime’s hand was on the blade of the sword and without thinking he pushed it away from it, not caring as sleek, metallic blood gushed onto the forest floor.
“Why won’t you let me help you?” Ash asked, innocently as the sword he was tossing to the ground wasn’t just used for its purpose, to threaten, to make it seem as though it might have gone through Jaime.
“Help me? Ash, you can’t even help yourself.” Jaime muttered, without saying a word, Ash grabbed Jaime’s gold bracelet cuffed wrist, brought it up to his mouth, and licked the length of Jaime’s openly wounded palm.
The blood he collected from doing so, he licked and drank from himself as if it were a speciality. If Jaime hadn’t been so focused on this sight and not the one of his hand healing he might have learned something he’d deem useful.
“Ash, please I just want to go home, and sleep.” Jaime was almost silent in his begging as if the only thing to carry his voice was the fog as thick as ocean waves in the dense forest laden air.
“I can’t let you just go home, I need to help you.” Ash stipulated, edging one of his hands down Jaime’s back.
“Fix yourself.” Jaime raised an eye brow and tried to fight Ash’s hand like Herion rushing down the tip of a dirty needle into Jaime’s veins as what he’d believed the pearly gates of Heaven would bring him into, bliss.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” Ash was very clear and sturdy in how he spoke, more especially in the way his hands guided further down, dropping Jamie’s pajamas pants down to his ankles.
“I don’t appreciate you bringing me back here, and I don’t want a fucking hand job.” Jaime spat.
“I was actually going to wait for you to bend over and pick up your pants then I was gonna put my sword up your tight Mexican ass.” Ash dishonestly clarified, his sword regrouped in his left hand, this time pointed at Jaime’s vivid penis, in compared to the aura of a dream the fog plain they were inside of, it was as vivid as a nightmare.
“Jokes on you I would’ve liked that.” Jaime doubled down, and again, Ash was straying his sword to the floor of the damp forest, his knees dropping down in front of Jaime’s groin, the touching of his thighs.
“Just let me do this, I promise I wont hurt you, today.” Ash was leaning his hands against the tree behind Jaime, trapping him in the bounds of his arms.
“Why? Is this what you wanna help with? You brought me all the way here, to suck my dick?” Jaime wondered, gazing around and for the first time Ash could see that Jaime’s eyes were seemingly empty.
“Only if you’ll let me.” Without saying much, Jaime just patted the tip of his marbled penis to Ashes wet lip.
Shockingly sloppy, but extremely sucky, Ashes mouth was making Jaime turn his head back to the cedar bark, his mouth pour open with Ashes name, with Diós, with moans as thick as molasses and as loud as horns.
“When I was 8 years old I woke up in the middle of the night and walked down to the kitchen, I saw father with a fanny back over his chest. I asked him what kind of demon he had to go kill, and he told me the only demon left in Mexico City was himself, and that he loved me, but I’d never see him again. I asked him where he was going, and he only responded that he was going far enough away, that’d he’d never be on this earth again. Then he handed me one of his bracelets.”Jaime began to claify things for them both, as Ash opened his eyes up from below to raise an eyebrow at him the entire time he spoke.
“How do you know he didn’t commit suicide?” Ash asked quickly, before going back to the task in hand.
“Too much of a coward to kill anything that’s truly living,didn’t even eat meat. I remember he’d have to eat for solid hours to regain the energy he lost. If he wasn’t training, or fighting, he was eating. Thought of eating meat made him so sick to his stomach he couldn’t even have water. Every single day of my life I think of the moonlight reflecting off is his face, he was being.. honest.” Jaime pondered.
“People can get sick of themselves.” Ash replied, this time stopping, his lips inches away from Jaime’s tip.
“Don’t talk with your mouthful.” Jaime commented, pushing Ash’s head down calmly.
Lethargically loosening themselves from the stiff branches of trees, leaves began to descend onto them both, as Ash closed his eyes in concentration, Jaime in an orgasm spreading over the taste buds of Ashes mouth just as frosting would on a cake in an even layer.
The only reason of them noticed their location had been changed was due to the very leaves.
“Ash? what happened, what’s going on?” Jaime asked, as he pulled Ash’s pure linen hair back so he’d look up.
“Seems we’ve been moved, don’t worry. I think I know where we are.”
At first glance, Jaime saw what appeared to be a fully jade colosseum, as Ash laced his fingers in between Jaime so he’d follow along as Ash got closer, he could see that it wasn’t a colosseum at all, but a huge house. With an open window and door design, each door large enough for ten of Jaime.
“Ash, where are we?” Jaime asked, as Ash began to bring them both to the doorway of the structure.
“Debora.” Ash introduced, as they both stopped in front of a pure white centaur, in her hand was a bound booklet, a circular wax stick, pointed as a pencil in her hand, with her golden eyes she glared at them both.
“Full names, business, group.” She demanded, Ash reached into his pocket and pulled out a necklace.
“Ash Queenson, personal, royal seelie.” He stated, the pendant of the necklace was of a crown.
“Jaime Rosales, personal, Institute of Mexico City.” Jaime stated, with nothing to prove for it but his runes.
With her eyes now unusually teary, the centaur side stepped to allow them in, holding the slim beaded curtain back for them both. Inside was even more stunning than the outside, because it was full of life. Child centaurs bounced around on their hooves, mothers braided their babies hair, but only one glared at Jaime with such a force it felt rude and dangerous to look anywhere else.
Inside of the home, the floor was fully carpeted in a black shug,each room was indicated equally, each being the exact size. Except for the spot in the middle of each floor, where it was open. Where they currently stood, Jaime could tell court would appear.
“Rosales, your father was one too?” Their centaur was asking, but it seemed rhetorical to them both.
“Yes. He was.” Jaime stated, Ash pressed on the small of his back and forced him to bow as he did.
Whoever this centaur was had a curly haired behind, a muscular body, and an interconnected piece of jewelry, starting at the top of his head, down to his tail, jewels of opal, obsidian, ruby, citrine, and finally rich gold.
“Follow me. Prince Ash you may wait on the top level, ask someone to show you to the guest room.” His arm was a top of Jaime’s head, using it like Remi does in ratatouille, to guide him where his feet couldn’t.
“Do you know what this room is?” It was a room filled ceiling to roof, with jars of brains, floating in liquid.
“I don’t think you’ll find anything in my skull.” Jaime shrugged, the centaur guided him to a large pool in the middle of the room, forcing him to devote his entire body in its surface.
“Close your eyes, this is what you should know.” The centaur claimed, Jaime could only do as told.
“Jaime?” Their father was always taller than most, and his standing shadow cast fully over Jaime in the burning light of the sun, his hand separating the dense bushes, where Jaime hid routinely, collecting thorns.
Budapest was an odd name for a cat to say the least, but his fur was spotted a rich chocolate and an even plaster, his ears fluffy just like his entire body. The cat would meow at the back door to the institute, waiting for someone to come feed it. If he came inside he curled up on people’s laps and happily purred. He seemed constantly full of life, yet he laid completely limp, his limbs going out in more directions than a compass, in Jaime’s burnt palms. He had stuck his hands on the boiling hot stove yesterday morning, during an argument with his older brother, he stared at Diego as he tried to make him stop, Jaime didn’t even flinch. As if the pain was something he yearned for and could never achieve. As if he couldn’t flinch.
“Jaime?! No.. no no no no no no no.. what did you do?! What did you do?! Tell me, right now, Jaime!” If his eyes looked down to the cat corpse in his own son’s hands again he’d surely purge all over the bushes.
“I killed it. I don’t want to hear it anymore, Daddy. I hate the sound of it.” There was an additional, gut churning, crackand before he even knew it was reacting, Fernando Rosales was reaching to remove his son from his bushes, to the tables of the back deck.
“How could you do this?! Answer me, Jaime?! How could you do this?!” He was screaming now, because Jaime wasn’t even gazing at him, his view fully at the force of sun, only directly looking due to course of the clouds.
“I didn’t go anything wrong! You kill demons all the time.” Jaime was defending himself, but his eyes weren’t filled with tears, they showed no remorse, no indication that he fully understood what he’d done.
“Demons don’t feel, Jaime! That cat felt things! He loved us very much! He- he slept in your bed, Ja-Jaime. Look at me… please look at me, baby. That cat loved you! He trusted you, you always have him treats.” Thick tears rolled themselves down Fernando’s cheek faster than a car on a race course.
“Only so he’d shut up.” Jaime muttered, his arms crossing over his overall covered chest.
“Why- why wouldn’t y- you come talk to me about this?”Fernando was asking, thought he knew that Jaime would completely lack an answer.
“I don’t love you, or anything, love isn’t real.” Jaime spat, his head turning to the other side.
New York City reeked so regally of piss that Fernando was briefly under the impression he’d lost control of his bladder durning the movement of himself in the portal, and has he jogged the very packed streets.
There was two things in his mind, the time he’d set his watch to, and the address written on the back of his hand in bright blue ink. As he approached the buzzer, he realized he wasn’t given an apartment number.
“FUCK.” he slapped the brick of the bustling building, just as someone else exited, he saw the only chance he’d ever get, and rushed in before the door fully shut. The next few hours, were a blur of knocking on every single door in the entire housing unit.
4D was just the same as every other door, expect when someone answered this time, it was exactly who Fernando was looking for. Such a brief description was all he needed, blue hair to the floor.
“Leukothea?” He wondered hopefully, but she’d already took the chain down, and opened her door fully.
“That is me, as a matter of fact. What can I help you with?” She wondered, looking him up and down with an air of slight judgement, as if she could learn everything about him from the very way he stood.
“I need help, I’m wiling to do whatever it is. My son, there’s something wrong him, he doesn’t feel things, pain, sadness, anything. I- I heard that there’s this thing.. were you can put me in a dream, with a fae surgeon that switches our brains exactly in the parts that are affected by whatever it is that’s wrong within my son, please, help me.” He had dropped down to his knees, his hands held together in front of him, dual Spanish lettering bracelets clacking, pure gold.
“Do you know what would happen to me if anyone in fae found out I had done this?” Leukothea asked.
“No, but I’ll do anything you want. You can have anything you want.” Fernando evidently begged.
“I want you to do something equal for me in return.” Leukothea decided, her hand extended.
“Anything. I’ll do anything in the entire world.” Fernando steadily shook it.
The son of two Shadowhunters bursted out of what he now felt as freezing water so violently out of the bath that has he brought both his hands and knees up out of it he spread out, just as a dead bug splattered on a car window shield. Yet, he tried to get up immensely.
“Calm down.” It was a different centaur then before, one with bolder markings but of the same breed.
Silently Jaime did as instructed and a warm woven towel laid itself over his back side. Without much thinking he wrapped it around himself, and was still frozen, with much less thinking he stripped of his wet clothes.
“We have a meal for you, upstairs. We know it takes a lot out of people after this kind of bath.” She stared.
“A bath implies I was getting clean and I only thing I feel is fucking disgusting.” Jaime strode away without looking at the Centura again, his legs somehow taking him to a set of very large stairs, one that he feet had to take two foot steps for each stair step.
At the top of these stairs, at the end of the loop from the stairs, Jaime could see Ash. had they any religion at all, even combined, he might ask Ash to pray for him, he might pray for Ash and they’d both pray for death.
As soon as he was around to where pure white beds were, each with a partially translucent curtain around them. This is where Ash sat, on the one at the very end of the line, sitting next to someone who laid down.
“Ash? Can you love?” Jaime wondered, coming down beside him, watching as he glanced at himself in a hand mirror, then set it back down on the interactive wooden drawer that was close to them.
“Haven’t had the time.” Ash responded, and the person that was laying behind them suddenly sprinted away.
“Do you love me?” Jaime asked, his hand going to Ash’s wrists, they were naked which were so, pretty. Jaime couldn’t think of any other word in the entire dictionary that might describe them in either language he spoke. Something with in him couldn’t dare look away, and from down below a baritone begun to solo.
“What? Don’t ask me that.” Ash tried to laugh off, his fingers playfully pressing Jaime’s shoulder.
“I just did and I expect an honest answer.” Jaime’s hands were holding Ash’s hips hostage.
“Yes, I love you and I wish I didn’t because I’d make things easier for the both of us.” Ash was slowly y crumbling into Jamie’s lap just a piece of chocolate brownie.
“You’re the only one to ever make it hard.” Jaime commented, his hands already sliding under Ash’s skin, warming up Jaime’s frigid hands, take his shirt up over his head.
“So, do you love me?” Ash asked calmly, his sensitive lips already adjusting themselves all over Jaime’s nude neck, in wet lines, bold kisses.
“I’d be a waste if I didn’t.” Jaime responded, his hand moving Ash’s pale face towards his own, to kiss his lips.
