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Jake often didn’t let himself think too hard about those days, considering how he’d spent the last five years trying to get away from them. Now that everything was different, it still felt odd to be able to pull them up so freely without the weight of guilt pressing him down again immediately after. “That’s what you get for dating piss babies before me.” He smiled again, squeezing her hand gently in his before looking away.

In a perfect world, none of this would have had to happen but this felt too close to home. “H-he’s not…” His words got caught in his throat in wanting to believe her so badly. “Just – just don’t let him do something stupid while I’m in here.” He squeezed her hand again, tighter. “Don’t do anything stupid either.” 

"Please. I don’t even know what he said but you only ever got that face on when it was about me or your mum. And it was Darryn, the guy was a dick after I dumped him." It felt strange, talking about high school like it was only yesterday, it felt so far away a lot of the time. "Yeah, yeah, you know me better than anyone."

Her eyes were pained at Jake’s last confession, in a perfect world he never would have been in that hospital bed. “I wish he didn’t either. But he’s tough. Tougher than you think. He can handle this.”

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“How’d you even figure out it was about you? He could have stolen my dictionary or something?” He laughed, a little more controlled this time to prevent the aching mess that happened earlier. “Don’t let anyone say I don’t know you.”

Closing his eyes, he leaned into his touch, doing his best not to let his thought wander back further than when he’d woken up. “You don’t be stupid. You’re as much my family as he is.” He pulled away then, looking down and still mulling over Peter’s probable reactions. “I just wished he didn’t have to see me like this.”

"Hm, yes. Defending my honour in the worst way was your speciality." She let him kiss her on the cheek, if it were any other day she might have playfully pushed his face away but for now, she let it happen. "I like how you assume that you’re taking my name. It’s good to know we’re on the same page." 

Frowning, she raised an eyebrow at Jake. “Hey. Don’t be stupid. All you’ve been asking about is Peter. He won’t care what you look like, he’s more worried about you. I know you’re worried about him as well. Come on. You don’t look that bad. Sort of the same after you’ve had a rough night out.” Her hand went to Jake’s cheek, cupping it carefully. “He’s going to come in here whether you tell him to or not. He’s your brother. Peter has more right to be here than I do at the moment.”

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“Only when there’s an asshole involved.” And Darren was the biggest asshole of them all. He could still picture his horrified face when his fist contacted with his jaw. No amount of saving face after could save his. He smiled as he leaned over, kissing her faintly on the cheek. “So should I be signing my papers Mr. Carlton now or?” He grinned as he lied back down. “Cause it doesn’t sound that bad. I’m just saying.” He was more surprised by the fact that she got in without having to use deadly force; she had been scarier on many situations without a gun hidden somewhere on her person.

The image didn’t bother him as much as the fact that she could see it. If Silver could see it, it only meant that Peter would be able to see it again. “Maybe..maybe you shouldn’t tell Peter to come today. He probably doesn’t want to see me like this.” He didn’t want Pete to see him like this.

"Good point." Her smile widened to a grin, she was almost chuckling. "But you do know how to throw a punch, I do remember that." Silver was noticing the use of her real name by now. Once was an accident, twice was a coincidence but three was a pattern and she was wondering why. The thing was, she didn’t want to draw attention to it, it was nice hearing it. A comfort, something separate from Neverland. "I don’t know, I had to wait in the waiting room. I almost faked an engagement to get in here, I just want you to know that. The extent I went to so I could get in here needs to be recognised."

Silver sighed, debating whether to be honest or not. “You look like you’ve been through hell and back.” She went with honesty. “But you’ll heal okay. There might be some scarring but you’ll just match me. I have scars for days. And no feeling in some of my fingers so you know. I still win.” She tried to joke, tried to keep it light as it had been. It was just hard. Hard not to feel guilty, hard not to blame herself.

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Jake just scoffed and turned his head with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “When have I ever been macho?” He pointed to himself with a soft wave of his hand. “I know I’m imposing and very nice to look at but come on, Veronica.” He insisted, tempted to take his shirt off just to keep the smile on her face when he was reminded he was wearing a hospital gown by then.  “Also, did everyone in the ER see my junk or did they strip me privately?”

Of course, it didn’t take recognizing the panic in her voice to see the same thing she was seeing in her head then. He could replay every scene in his head a million times but it wasn’t going to change anything. He wasn’t going to feel any less broken or any less mad. But that was his apartment – the only semblance of four walls that ever felt like home – and the last thing he wanted was those assholes taking it away from him. This wasn’t the time for that conversation.

“Okay.” He nodded, more solemnly now. “Thank you.” He just smiled and squeezed her hand, lying back down and relaxing more comfortably on his back again. “I look bad, don’t I?”

"Says the person who can clear a bottle vodka in one sitting." Silver smiled slightly. "Alright. But if you’re in pain, can you just promise you won’t be macho about it?"

Her eyes widened and she spoke before she thought it through. “You’re not going back to your apartment after this, you can’t.” The thing was, the apartment was trashed, she could still see it clear in her mind. The blood stained carpet, the glass. It wasn’t just an apartment, it was the equivalent of the basement. “We’ll find you a new place when you’re allowed out of here.”

"Jake…" Her hand held his just as tightly and she sighed. She wasn’t going to relax, not until he had gotten the all clear. Because Jake may not care about himself but Silver made up for it in spades. "God, you’re even more infuriating when you’re incapacitated. Fine, I’m relaxing. I’ll even get a coffee when Peter gets here."

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peterfxckingpan:

There’s no masking the relief on Peter’s face when he finally set eyes on his big brother. Silver’s tone had worried him to the point of exaggeration, his mind churning out every worst case scenario possible and letting him read into them how he would. 

The brief relief didn’t last too long, the bruises he could see sparking an anger within him. This should never have happened, not to Jake. 

"I’m always okay, don’t be silly." He finally spoke, pulling a chair over from the radiator to the side of his bed to sit down next to him. 

"What happened, Jake?"

A brief smile cracked through the concern that already took over his face; enjoying the small moment of levity and fooling himself long enough to believe it could be true.

“Just making sure,” he smiled, ruffling his hair as he sat down.

The question shook him a little and made him deflate, retracting his hand and clipping it tightly to his side. He supposed if his meds hadn’t been working it would’ve had him crying out by now. He’d been fine answering the ‘how was he’ not the ‘how’d he get here.’ Jake wasn’t sure how to answer that truthfully.

“Short story? Long story? Short story, I need better locks. Long story? You’re enemies are walking monsters, Pete.”

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Looking around, his eyes fell to the tubes and the IV now dripping a little less. “I think I’ll be okay.” He looked back at her and forced a smile, relaxing into the pillow. “I’d rather have my head on me for a bit.”

Chuckling weakly, he nodded along, stifling the little groans of pain that every small movement seemed to spark. He could already tell this was going to be a long hellish road to recovery. “I can go home now and make it all so easy for everyone.” Of course, he already knew the answer to the tiny suggestion but they still couldn’t blame him for trying. He hated hospitals.

“I’m fine,” he sighed, answering more quickly and adamant than before. There was nothing about him to focus about – the rogers had made it clear.  “I can live through the pain, Veronica. What would be more helpful right now is some alcohol probably and seeing my brother. I’m okay. I promise.” He reached for her hand to hold it tightly. “Can you relax now, please?”

"Well, you waking up means that your meds are running out. They pumped you full of painkillers so you’re probably feeling out of this world at the moment." She observed, patting his hand gently. "They even gave you a button for when you want more."

The smile made her smile a little but the coughing made her wince internally. Not all the injuries could be seen on the outside, that terrified her a little. “Easy, easy. Jake, come on.” She moved into action, helping him sit up carefully. “You’re going to be the worst patient, I can already tell.”

Sitting back down, she answered his questions immediately. “I’m not sure. Awhile. Everyone is fine. Honestly. Peter is here somewhere, I think he went to get a drink or something but he’ll be back. Stop worrying about us, we’re all okay.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Can you focus on you now?”

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Jake felt groggy still, like everything beyond his peripherals were a hazy blur. But he tried his best to focus on this – on her. He was okay. She was okay. Peter was okay. Everyone was okay. He could tell himself that a million times in a span of a minute but the solid grip on his hand was what convinced him it was true.

She was okay so everything else had to be too.

He managed a smile before his chest protested, changing his chuckles into long ugly coughing fits. “Sh-should’ve stayed asleep longer. Maybe next time.” He murmured through ragged breaths, forcing himself to sit up to get a better grip on things.

There were worse questions to ask but there was an apprehension in the form of knots in his stomach he couldn’t shake and sealing his lips on the matter. He thought it better to start with the simple ones. “How long’d I stay under? Everyone – they’re still okay, right?”

Silver had argued her way in, demanding to be let in to see him. She refused to take no for an answer and finally a doctor had pity on her. She hadn’t moved from his bedside since, just waiting for him to stir awake. They said that he was under some strong painkillers but she didn’t care, she’d wait. Her hand had held his firmly, it had gone numb at one point but she still didn’t let go.

There was no recollection of falling asleep but she woke up slowly, blinking the sleep away before everything jerked back into focus. Jake. Hospital. Not leaving until he told her to.

"Hey you." She spoke just as softly, her voice a croak from the yelling and her sleeping. Her eyes searched his face and she swallowed the lump in her throat down. Jake was one of the few people she was allowed to cry in front of but she didn’t even want him thinking about comforting her right now. He had some healing to do. "Didn’t think you’d ever wake up. Thought you might be pulling some Sleeping Beauty stuff on me."

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Jake had sat up at one point, contemplating whether to stay or not. The smell of the place made him uncomfortable; the people all walking in white and the close proximity to death; everything just made his stomach roll over. He just wanted a smoke or a beer or fresh air but apparently his legs weren’t cleared to cooperate with him just yet.

Silver had left to get some change of clothes – after much convincing – or maybe to smoke for the both of them. He hadn’t been particularly good at paying attention when his focus would be caught from one machine to the next or the random nurse check up every thirty minutes. He felt like he was on a death watch when he felt fine.

As fine as he could ever be anyway.

His head turned however when the door opened, one of the nurses flashing him a friendly smile and towing along his brother behind her. All of the sudden, Peter felt small under the wooden frame and the big ball of frazzling doubt he’d refused to listen to disappeared.

“You’re okay.”

It shouldn’t have been that busy in the hospital, not on the holidays. That was the thought that ran through his head as he tried and failed to flag down a doctor for the third time. 

People shouldn’t get sick or hurt or die at this time of the year it just wasn’t fair. 

He took a moment to steel himself for when he did eventually locate his brother, unsure of what sight would meet him. Considering that he had to be brought her rather than to Derek, he knew it wasn’t good.

"Hi. Sorry. Can you help me? I’m looking for my brother, Jake Pan." He asked the nurse who’d just stepped behind the nurses station of the third ward he’d tried now. 

"I don’t know when he was brought in, not too long ago.. Please."

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There was a soft grip around his fingers,  a faint ghostly touch he almost didn’t notice if his joints didn’t burn like wild fire. That was all he remembered when exhaustion took over and pulled him under. Not how they arrived and definitely now how his body was lugged onto a gurney as doctors attended to him. If he had, he’d probably protested. Close to death, and he still didn’t like hospitals.

He’d opened his eyes slowly; oblivious from the pain for a few seconds until he focused on the sounds of machines and the stark smell of alcohol and that distinct hospital smell. Only when panic had begun to seize him did he feel the weight of someone else on the bed, her grip loose on his hand but still evidently there.

“Hey.” He whispered, weak and too weighed down, too cloudy to even sound like his, but loud enough he hoped to stir her awake. “Silver – hey.”

She drove like Oliver had taught her to. She cut corners, put her foot down, the world blurred into an array of different colours. Her hand did reach over once to grip Jake’s fingers, a comforting touch for her. Just to check that he was real and okay.

"You’re safe now." 

When she glanced at him, his eyes were shut and something tensed in Silver’s stomach. She wanted to shake him furiously, tell him to wake up,tell him that she was so fucking sorry. But he was breathing, she could see his chest moving and her only action was to keep her foot on the peddle, driving down the all too familiar route to the hospital. 

Everything from the moment they screeched to a stop in front of the hospital happened too quickly. She was assaulted with the scent of cleaning product and antiseptic, words like ‘semi conscious’ and ‘trauma’ were thrown over her head as they tended to Jake, wheeling him away from her on a stretcher. Arms held her back and she was pushed to the side and told to wait. Blood still stained her clothes, fear was still filling her stomach and she sat in a chair heavily, her face in her hands..

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There was a sharp intake of breath caught in his throat when they finally reached her car, every ache in his body reiterated by the images of every tool that pierced and struck his skin. Nodding along, only half-listening at this point, he held onto his arm tightly, watching with an almost serene interest as  blood suddenly seeped out to stain the cloth.

“Okay,” he murmured weakly; head already lolling back and resting on the closed window. “Okay.” He repeated the words a few more times, softly and more to himself than to her, as he closed his eyes, more out of relief now than exhaustion. He just wanted everything to be okay.

Silver was holding most of his weight, moving at a slow pace. The smell of blood shouldn’t have been nauseating for her, maybe it was just the fact that it was Jake’s made her feel ill. But she kept moving, letting him rest on the door for a beat before they moved again.

"I’ll find him." She murmured. As much as he claimed to hate the dog, Pido was a link to something that she didn’t understand. And right now, Silver would do anything to bring normalcy back to Jake. "Only a few more steps. I got you." 

There should have been more of a plan. But Silver was known for her plans on the fly. She didn’t analyse her steps, she moved on instinct and quick choices. Hospital it was, Derek wouldn’t have the equipment to deal with what Jake was going through. So she coaxed him into the passenger seat, taking a moment to whip off her jacket and hold it to his arm to staunch the blood flow. “I need you to put pressure on this. And don’t go to sleep. Please.” I need you to be okay. The words were on the tip of her tongue but she didn’t have the right to say them. She’d let him down, gotten him hurt, guilt flooded her stomach.

It was another promise she failed to keep.

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“Everyone is okay.” He repeated slowly to himself; emphasizing every syllable to make sure he recognized it for the fact it was and not some half-baked truth he’d been telling himself to get through this. Nodding again, he held onto her for dear life, not even sure if he could even walk; swaying simply from the effort of keeping himself upright and not fully collapsing into her arms. Every part of him was aching and it took all of his strength not to let out another cry as he fumbled with his steps.

They needed to get out. He needed to see everyone for himself. They were by the door when he found his voice again. “P-pido?” Did you see him? He couldn’t remember if he’d made him run for it or if he just disappeared but he could recall him coming back to check on him, he heard him scratching the door in his sleep. But not much else after. He shook his head after, refusing to let himself think the worse. Everyone is okay. The dumb dog was okay. Everyone was oay. “N-nevermind. Get me out of here.”

He didn’t respond and Silver felt something that she hadn’t felt in awhile. Pure, unadulterated fear. Breaking someone, it took time and they had plenty of it. There was no guarantee that Jake was still coherent after what he had been through. When he spoke, she let out a shuddering breath of relief. Carefully, she stilled his hands in her own, giving him something to grab onto.

"Peter’s fine. Alfie’s fine. Everyone is okay." She murmured it quietly, not wanting to overload any of his senses. "I just need to get you to my car and then you’ll see them. I promise. But we need to go."

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Jake didn’t even hear her until she was right in his face, pulling him upright and setting him free. Even then, he could still feel the knots restricting around his wrist, his muscles somehow committing the uncomfortable sensation to memory along with the desperate action to tear it off. Everything after he was pulled back to his feet felt unreal in the moment, only making the ringing louder in his ears again; blurring and numbing out what made sense.  

‘Stay with me, okay?’

Those last few words were the only things that seemed able to rattle him out of it, to pull him back and make him look up at Silver and recognize that she was real. Staring up at her, still looking as if he was in disbelief, he nodded, gripping onto air and nothing just to keep away now. He was safe. He had to be. Silver was here now. Surely, he can fall asleep now. 

"Peter's okay? Yeah?"

Silver had been putting it off. He hadn’t been answering her calls, hadn’t come seen her, hadn’t been anywhere. It was almost exactly like last time. And her ego could only take that beating. She almost accepted it. Almost.

It didn’t make any sense. Peter was his focus, they had discussion after discussion about it. And she knew that if she didn’t at least check the place out, she’d regret it. It’d probably give her an idea of where he had gone. But then she heard it. That piercing scream that made her stomach flip over. She knew screams like that, she had been the cause of them. And it came from his apartment. She didn’t waste time with realizations, she only sprinte

d to the door, fumbling with the door knob and the key in her desperation to get inside.

"Jake." She said his name once before she reacted on auto pilot, navigating herself easily around the amateur traps, heaving the chair up, slicing at the cords that kept him tied up with her knife. Finally she rounded on him, holding his face in her hands. All the bruises, the cuts, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind who had done this. Bile rose in her throat, she knew tactics like this. Nibs had looked similar when he had gotten out. How she could be so stupid as to think that they wouldn’t go for Jake? "Jacob. Look at me. Hey, I’m here. I’m going to get you out of here." Her voice was so much more steady than she felt. "Stay with me, okay?"

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There was a soft ringing in his ear, a high-pitched noise he didn’t think he would’ve grown accustomed to if it wasn’t the only thing he’d been hearing for the last two days. It was definitely better company than the murderous duo. After waking up again from passing out the third time just that afternoon, he’d made another attempt to break through the binds and only ended up singing his already burned and bruised wrists with another cry. His eyes made another sweep of his place, only finding the same broken bottles littering the floor mixing with the smell of dried blood and cheap beer. With the little strength and motivation he had left, he swayed himself to the side until he fell right into the shards of glass seemingly put there just so he couldn't move without wasting more blood than he could give anymore. He could count each one that pierced his arm, already digging into wounds that haven’t even healed and a few that had, as another piercing scream left his lips. He didn’t waste any time after that, rolling onto his back to fumble for one large enough to rip through the rope.

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Jake Pan: Master Child Negotiator 

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Wasn’t that how it was supposed to go? They go ranting before the torture started? Granted, he didn’t have a lot of experience on the matter only the few films he’d seen out of boredom through the years. Everyone wanted something. These two didn’t.

He’d opened his mouth to argue, say something along the lines of ‘that’s not very evil of you’ before his words gurgled into one sharp cry and then a litany of inaudible curses directed at the floor.

“You’re sick pieces of shits – “ He spat at their feet, groaning as he made another attempt to free himself from the ropes, furious as his brother’s name was brought into the conversation. “You touch him. I’ll kill you.”

With all the bravado he tried to pour into that word, it all disappeared too quickly at the sound of the cocking gun. He couldn’t say with absolute certainty that they weren’t going to kill him.

Bullet in the brain ain't stopping me.

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