By the time Wes had arrived back in the city he was hungry, tired, and in desperate need of some alcohol because what the fuck kind of story was that?
He always knew his grandpa's dad had been a dick, but that was on a whole different level.
One of the whole reasons why he avoided partnering up with a lock was because he knew the kind of responsibility that left him with - once you became a lock's key, you were devoting yourself to a life long partnership, a brotherhood that only ended when you were both dead. You couldn't just get tired of your lock and abandon them - he heard you could sever the bond, but it was almost unheard of because it was such a horrible experience for both lock and key.
And because Wes never wanted to be tied down to someone like that, he knew he'd never have a lock.
That wasn't true.
That was a lie.
A huge lie.
If Wes could get himself a tank of a man to do his bidding, he would have done that way back the second he realized he was a lock. But he had enough self-awareness to know that no matter how grateful someone might be initially, being stuck with him would get old fast. Wes just wasn't the type of guy people wanted to be around.
So given a choice, he'd rather just avoid all that drama and not have a lock at all.
Wes's choice was to remain alone.
But he supposed his great grandfather might not have had a choice, had he?
They were right in the middle of a war, after all - maybe he wasn't given an option. You couldn't force someone to become a key to someone, but you sure as hell could make life extraordinarily difficult - if not impossible - if you didn't.
Kind of like how his Grandpa was threatening him right now.
As Wes turned the corner to come up on to the hall his apartment was located on, he froze at the sight of Jackson sitting on the floor, the other man's knees drawn up to his chest as he holding his head in his hands, rocking back and forth.
Wes rolled his eyes at the sight. Jesus. He sighed hard with purposeful loudness and Jackson froze, the lock releasing his head suddenly to look at Wes with wide eyes.
“So apparently our great grandparents knew each other?” Wes said in greeting as he slowly approached the other, Jackson's eyes widening a fraction further as he looked over Wes quickly. “And now, my grandpa has pretty much said I need to help you out or else - hold on-” He frowned as he pulled out his cell phone from his jacket to read the last message his grandfather sent. “Or else I’ll bring great shame on to our family and I’ll have to sit in the bitch seat at the table during the holidays. Forever.” Wes stared at his screen for a beat before he lifted his gaze to stare at Jackson over the top of his phone. “The bitch seat is not where I want to be, Hawthorne. Porty usually gets forced to sit there. I don’t want to ruin his five year streak.”
Jackson looked confused, but nodded shortly as he slowly climbed to his feet rubbing his palms on the thighs of his jeans as he swallowed thickly. He looked like he wanted to say something but the words didn't quite leave his lips - his gaze though spoke volumes. He had been worried, likely anxious when Wes didn't greet his morning knocking with his usual string of curses.
Wes sighed hard and looked Jackson over - still dressed in the same outfit he always saw him in, same baseball cap, same everything. He looked very sad, very much the part of the pathetic, lost lock. It was hard not to feel sorry for him, though Wes tried. Wes didn't like to feel pity for others. Pity gave the other person power over you, and once that happened, you were basically just playing into their hand.
And while he was sure Mr. Lock here was in bad shape, he never judged a book by its cover. He'd heard acting like you were pathetic was a tactic some locks used - not a particularly popular one because they didn't like to grovel - but still. You never knew.
And Wes was not about to be played by some fucking lock, especially not one he was apparently going to have to have some sort of relationship with.
Wes met the other's gaze then, noting he still looked completely unhinged. Maybe a touch more desperate today. Hm.
“So...yeah. I’ve decided to, uh, help you out, at least in some capacity.” Wes said as he tucked his phone back into his coat, trying and failing to find anything about the other that might suggest that he was bullshitting him. “I mean, I’m open to what you have to say, or suggest, or whatever.” He said with a roll of his wrist and a detached look on his face. “So...come on in and let’s have a little chat about things.”
Jackson seemed to straighten a little at this, shuffling out of the way to let Wes past him to unlock the front door to his apartment. As if not trusting Wes to let him in and to close the door on him again, Jackson stuck his foot slightly inside as Wes entered, entering quickly after him.
"You thirsty or somethin', cuz I need a beer." Wes mumbled as he tossed his apartment keys to the coffee table, missing it completely. "I have some pop as well, and....sink water." He finished lamely as he went into the kitchen, scratching at his neck awkwardly as he went to the fridge.
Even without looking, he knew where Jackson was standing just behind him as he took his sweet time poking around in the fridge. If every normal person in the world had minds like clouds, a lock's mind was like a thunderstorm. Jackson's mind, however, was like a hurricane, but instead of trying to force Wes away, it was trying to suck him in. Inhale him.
Jackson mumbled he'd take a beer as well and Wes got them both one, carrying them past where Jackson stood in the middle of his tiny kitchen and into the living room.
Wes stuck Jackson's beer on the table in front of the couch before he twisted the lid of his own off, taking a long drink as he sat down on the couch and relaxed back into it. As he chugged his drink he eyed Jackson, watching the other shuffle into the room to sit down on the opposite side of the couch with hunched shoulders to open his own beer, though he only just held it while Wes sucked down his own.
When Wes completely finished his drink he lowered the bottle with a gasp, setting it onto the table to fix Jackson with a questioning stare while he licked his lips. "So. you, uh - you got a pitch or something?" He asked with a wave of his hand, "Cuz most of the locks that come sniffing around have a pitch for me. You know. Why I should- partner with them." He said, catching himself at the last beat with a wince.
Jackson's face hardened and he nodded a little. “You are a special type of Key," He said lowly, his voice scratchy. "And I’m a special type of Lock, which is why I can only be keyed by you.”
Wes winched again. He said exactly what Wes had purposefully avoided saying. “Okay - so let’s not say ‘keyed’,” Wes said with an uncomfortable look, “Let’s just say pair, or paired, or something like that. That's a condition of this if we go forward. None of this 'keying' shit. Makes me uncomfortable.”
Jackson looked mildly confused by this but nodded a little. “They-" He blinked hard, "They said that our unique situation might be genetic, why we can only pair with one another." He licked his lips and scooted an inch closer to Wes, "It’s what made our great grandfather’s special.”
Wes's eye narrowed suspiciously. “So you did know about them?” Wes asked, giving Jackson major side-eye. "Because I feel like that's something you could have started with when we first met?" He said with a curled lip. "It probably would have helped speed things along instead of my having to crawl out windows and shit like I was trying to avoid my crazy ex."
Jackson blinked. "I thought you would have recognized my last name." When Wes stared at him blankly for a terribly long minute, then another, Jackson frowned. "Hawthorne?" Jason reminded him.
Wes's lips tightened. "Right, right. Don't know why I would have recognized it. I don't really follow the whole Lock and Key who's who shit, you know. I keep out of it." He said vaguely. "Not really my scene."
Jackson frowned. "Yes...but considering how your family's single noteworthy contribution to history is intertwined with my own, it should ring a bell. The Hawthorne and Castor union that saved our country from ruin during the war."
"Wow. Fuck you." Wes growled, leaning forward Jackson with a menacing glare that seemed to catch Jackson completely off guard. "The Castor family is known for a little bit more than just that, you arrogant ass hat. My family owns five acres of swampland and is the largest debt holder in all of Molehill." Wes snapped.
Jackson stared blankly at him.
Wes's look of menace dropped entirely and was replaced with a more relaxed one as he leaned back into the couch. "That's a joke." Wes said, his gaze dropping down the untouched beer Jackson was holding, giving it a pointed look. "If you and I do this, you are going to have to develop a sense of humor or else this is going to be agonizing for you to endure." His eyes widened significantly as he continued to stare at Jackson's untouched beer.
"....oh." Jackson said after a minute, looking confused. He silently held out his beer to Wes.
"Oh, I couldn't, I got that for you." Wes said flippantly as he accepted it, taking a long drink before he handed it back to Jackson, who hurriedly reach out to take it from him before Wes dropped it from his loose fingers. "But yeah. No. We didn't...really talk about that shit. My family, I mean. The town knew about it and I'm sure my Mom and uncles did, but you know...for me and my siblings, and my cousins - our family kind of started with grandpa and grandma. Knowing what I know now, it was probably cuz talking bout his Dad and shit made my Grandpa depressed, cuz he was so close to Old Wes and his Dad was such a dick." He sniffed and crossed his legs to let his ankle sit on the opposite knee, bouncing his foot. "I mean, what do you know about the whole shitfest?"
One of Jackson's eyebrows flicked as his lips tightened, his lashes lowering as his gaze slid to look around the apartment. “I was informed about my great grandfather at the academy. Mom didn’t know anything about him. Grandma never said anything about him to her.”
"Yeah, yeah - informed. But, like, what were you told about him and Old Jackson, because I wasn’t exactly told a happy story, you know?” He said with a choked laughing noise, "I mean, we're talking some sad ass fable levels of depressing."
Jackson's lip twitched. "I was told they were paired up at basic training, fought in the war together. My great grandfather played an essential part in planning the reconstruction of the country after the war ended." He said carefully, "Not much is said about what your own great grandfather was doing at that time."
"I'm imagining my own great-grandpa was probably getting drunk and laid in the background somewhere," Wes said, holding a hand to his chest as he suppressed a belch, then laying back further into a couch as he stuck his tongue into his cheek briefly. "My family isn't exactly, you know, the 'help reconstruct the country type'. They're more of the...'yeah, I probably have a kid in every port I was in during the war, but I don't have money so don't ask for child support' type, you know?" Wes said with an easy grin, chuckling at himself.
Jackson tilted his chin back with a thoughtful look that slid about the room before it returned to Wes. "I know that after a short while, they both returned to Cambell's Meadow for some time."
Wes scowled at him in thought. "Cambell's-" A look of recognition lit up his face, "Oh, shit, yeah. That's what Molehill was before the name changed. Molehill looked better on a sign. Plus, you know. The remaining Cambell family member turned out to be a serial killer, so...." Jackson frowned deeply at him and gave him a look Wes got a lot - like Wes was the crazy person here. Wes pursed his lips at Jackson with a knowing look of his own. "Yeah...be prepared to go down the rabbit hole of crazy if you hitch your carriage to this horse, boy, cuz I am full of all sorts of drama and word vomit. We're talking a roller coaster of bullshit."
There was a beat of silence where Wes let that sink in.
But then Jackson slowly turned to fully face him and hold his gaze. "Even if you had built a bomb and detonated it in every single city in the world, I still ask for you to be my key." Jackson said in a deadly serious tone.
Wes quirked a smile at him, "Y-you think I'm smart enough to make a bomb?" He asked, genuinely flattered. Jackson just stared at him while he held a hand to his heart. "Geez, man. I already said I'd help you out. You don't need to kiss my ass like that." He grinned and looked to the only window in the room. "However, if you are the type of guy to kiss ass, this partnership might just work."
There was a glisten in Jackson's gaze. "So...you'll do it then?" He asked very softly.
Wes looked to Jackson, looking him over slowly. "I'm not saying I'll for sure do the actual full blown drop with you, but I figure I can at least start the process, give you some relief, and if this doesn't work out between us...we won't do the full drop and we'll just...do the....what is it called when a key just does little patches or whatever so a lock doesn't go nuts? You know, just pokes in every once in a while to file down the sharp stuff in there?"
"A patch?"
Wes snapped a finger at him. "Yeah. I'll just give you a patch every once in a while, make it like a weekly thing or some shit so we're both good." Wes said carelessly. He watched as every fiber in Jackson's being seemed to relax.
"Thank you."
"Yeah, yeah...we'll uh, figure this out so everyone's happy." Wes said easily. "Because fuck knows if I don't do something, my grandpa will rid my ass until I do, and that fucker is persistent."
At the sensation of his phone screaming his grandpa's ringtone, he rolled his eyes. "He knows we're talking about him -" His face brightened up suddenly. "Hey! I got an idea!" He grinned wolfishly and crawled the short distance to Jackson, pulling out his phone to snap a picture of them together.
He looked it over and saw himself, splayed out on the couch and grinning like a deranged person as he looked toward the lens, and Jackson, his expression calm and sitting very neatly with his gaze fully set on Wes.
Wes sent it to his grandpa. "Maybe that'll get him off my ass." He patted Jackson roughly on the shoulder before he struggled to get off the couch, Jackson taking his hand to assist him up. "Let's get a beer to toast," Wes said as he got on his own two feet, his hand slipping out of Jackson's as he went to the kitchen. "Let me get you something to snack on, you got a hungry look in your eye."
As he got them both beers and found some crackers, Jackson stayed on the couch just as he was, his gaze tracking Wes as he half stumbled around the kitchen. He calmly folded his hands together in his lap, the corner of his lips twitching with a smirk.
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