Jack was livid. It didn't matter how many times he had warned Leo about the Deals, his boyfriend just wouldn't listen. And now he had screwed up everything --- again.

"You've never met a Deal you didn't want to make!" Jack didn't care that he was shouting in the cafeteria. There was a time, not long ago, where he didn't use to be so shameless, but he felt better now. Acting reckless got the job done in ninety percent of the cases, or so he'd told himself.

"Some Deals turn out alright," Leo said. "Like the one where we're supposed to date. Though I thought it would do more magical things, like changing your mind about me, or making you more passive..."

Well, now Jack was ready to draw the line. There were some things not even he would talk about in the cafeteria. He wasn't really shameless --- he had just learnt to hide his shame, and his carefulness, for the things that really deserved it.

He remembered, feeling his stomach dropping, how it felt when he'd asked Leo what he had given up for the Deal.

'Nothing,' he'd say. 'Of course... there is a catch. One might say an expiration date of sorts. Technically, it ought to stop when you fall in love with somebody.'

And that had been it, because they both knew too well Jack was never going to fall in anybody. To Leo's great amusements, Jack had always considered committed relationships one of the most dangerous things in the world. He didn't believe in forever, and he'd seen in his parents how painful and disastrous was the aftermath.

So, as long as he knew, he might have stayed with Leo as long as they lived. Of course, even Leo would one day get bored of him --- the moment he'd realize he wasn't a discounted cheap imitation of his father somebody could buy in a store. 

And that was good. Jack wasn't going to miss Leo. His life would go back to the way it was. Alone, and occasionally hooking up with someone.

"Heath ruined everything!" Leo complained. "You should be fighting with him, right now! The Rogues is just us two, and, if one of the task was retrieving the stone, that means it leaves just you alone for our team!"

"Elvors aren't stupid," Jack had to admit. "If they decided it was better for you to never get your hands on the Stone, they might have been right. Actually, I'm more interested in the other things they said. The fact that you'd already seen it once. Maybe at school, or in a mission? That way, other students might have glimpsed it, too."

"You should thank me," Heath joined the conversation. Jack sighed but the cafeteria was only this big. If you talked loud enough, there was no point for other people there to pretend they hadn't heard you.

"I just stopped him, because Elvors always require things of the same, or higher value. They probably would have gone for his heart, or something. But since this Stone is so magical and rare, that might have been enough, too."

"You are also magical and rare," Jack said. Then he added, out of habit. "And still disappointing."

Deep down, he knew Heath wasn't wrong. The Elvors might have wiped away entire bloodlines in exchange for something like that. It wasn't out of their power --- it seemed like nothing was --- and it certainly fit their attitude. Deaths had resulted from Deals before.

"Okay, I might have been rushed," Leo complained. "But it's not my fault if making Deals is better than gambling. I mean, if you think about it, you could make a Deal to always win your gambles, whereas when you make Deals, nothing is certain. The adrenaline is sky-high."

"Talking Deals gives me an headache," Jack stopped him. It was true. Jack had tried smoothing over his bad choices with layers of nonchalant clothing and big-mouthed statements, but there were some things you could not come back from.

While nobody was looking, Jack slipped the sandwich he was supposed to eat for dinner inside the inner pocket of his jacket. He had made it with ham and cheese, and some parts of himself he could not name longed for Heath's childish creativity in preparing food. But that lasted about a second.

"I'm going for a walk tonight," he told Leo. Unfortunately, Heath's gaze was still on them.

"That's what he says every night," Leo told Heath. Jack didn't think he wanted the Laoch to know especially --- he had just decided to vent to whoever was sitting there.

"He takes these long walks, and by the time he comes back, it's almost morning, and he falls asleep immediately."

"If that's what you're getting at," Heath made a face. "I would also actively avoid sex with you."

Norma and Ken laughed, so Leo didn't notice Jack had snorted, too. He already knew there was a part of him that didn't mind Heath. But it was a part of his old self, somebody he couldn't be anymore.

"I'm not," Jack promised. He didn't know if he had wanted to spend every night with Leo otherwise --- despite the other man's annoying temperament, it couldn't feel worse than hooking up with strangers. But he really did have a lot of things to do.

"I love your suit," Anastasia told him. She was one of the cleaning ladies the school employed. Jack thanked her, and gave her the sandwich.

The suit he was wearing had been a rare find for a charity shop, a cheap imitation of the one his father had planned to use to marry his mother. It was black and white, striped. At the end of the day, it turned out his father would have to divorce his current wife to get re-married, which he hadn't wanted to do. But the suit was important in Jack's life.

Jake Edens wore the silliest suits because he firmly believed only an handful of men could pull them off, himself included. 

Judging by the reaction of the Professor and the student body, Jack couldn't pull off his father's clothes, and not even the rare clothes he'd chosen himself, like the schoolboy uniform.

Anastasia, however, liked his style.

She was only lucid in during the first minutes of their conversations. Jack found himself wanting to say something, anything, before her mind slipped away completely.

"You're such a good boy," she said. "It's been a month since he went away, but I do believe he is coming back. And he's going to love you."

"He's never going to love me," Jack didn't know if he was supposed to play along. Maybe it made things worse.

"Well, I'll tell you," she sounded bitter now. "He's never going to love me, that's for certain. But you, at least, stand a chance. If you just did what he wanted you to do... maybe he wouldn't have even left in the first place."

"You know that's not the reason," Jack said calmly, reassuringly. It didn't make any difference to feel upset. The words were most likely not intentional. And, if they were, he had learned a long time ago he could play pretend for a bit, but he wouldn't made it if he followed her all the way down.

"It is!" She screamed in pain, and punched him in the nose. It wasn't always this way --- sometimes she was too sad to hit him, other times the conversation didn't give her an excuse to do it. But when she chose to hit him, she never held back.

Maybe the suit had been too much. But she had said she liked it, and she never lied. 

"Please... eat... your... sandwich," he sneezed between breaths. He hoped she wouldn't worsen her attack for finding him condescending, or decide to throw the dinner away. But since he had saved it for her anyway, there would be no point in not offering it.

When she was finally eating, staring into space, Jack tried to sit down. The damage could have been worse, though it made him miss the gentle way Heath had touched him during the test. Thankfully, he had long ago learned to cover up for it, telling Leo he would practice some moves during his 'night walks'. He had no doubt the words had spread, and the other students, his boyfriend especially, likely didn't believe he would trip and fall so often. He had a vague idea the other pupils thought he started brawls in pubs. As long as it didn't get him expelled, there were worse things he could have been known for.

Jack never fought back, and he was never angry at Anastasia for the way she'd behave. He knew she was sick --- he'd seen it happen. He had lost the hope she would come back to the previous, harsh but logical, version of herself, but he also couldn't punish her for what she didn't know she did.

After dinner, she always felt slightly better, and she crumbled under the heavy load of her working day. Of course, it wasn't endurable --- she was just too thin and distraught.

Then, Jack would have to find her an hiding place where she could sleep undisturbed, and he began scrubbing the floors in her place. 

He used to be afraid of what Mister Tenney would say if he found out, but the man hadn't reacted the way he'd expected him to.

When, one day, he'd been careless, and was spotted taking on most of the work, the Professor simply told him something.

"Nice. I'm afraid the loos aren't properly cleaned either."

So, it had began a silent arrangement between them. Jack would clean the floors, the loos, and whatever else the man asked for, in exchange for his scholarship, Anastasia's meager salary --- which, of course, he always gave back to her --- and some extra money that could barely afford him new shoes every once in a while. He knew it was too little a sum to be spent on ridiculous suits, but he supposed it couldn't be helped.

The nights of work had been harder on his body than he'd first expected, even with this training, so they were the main reason why his knees and elbows were scraped and scarred, and the skin of his hands broken and calloused.

Jack had never believed himself to be good-looking, but he finally gave up on the dream of being presentable once he'd added those new wounds to ones the training and Anastasia's hands had already inflicted on him.

For some reason, while he scrubbed, he thought of Heath instead. Everybody knew how hard Mister Tenney hit him, but the time Jack had stolen his bubble gum had been the first time he had admitted it aloud in his presence. He wondered whether Heath thought he was pitying him. Well, he wasn't. He was just mildly concerned. Heath actually had good looks, and that only highlighted the abuse. Cuts seemed to be more visible on strong cheekbones, and black eyes made a striking contrast against the pale green of his almond eyes.

Well, Jack must have been more tired than he originally thought. It wasn't the first time he thought about how infuriantigly pretty the Laoch was, or how unjust life had been to him, but never before with such intensity. He'd better not lose his concentration --- there was still work to be done, and Mister Tenney knew who would be to be blame if something was amiss.

Or at least, Jack thought so, because the idea of the Professor taking it out on Anastasia was too horrible to contemplate, but it wouldn't be entirely out of character.

Jack watched her sleep. The first times, he'd been scared of taking the toll of her job himself. He'd use to cry for her to wake up and help him out. That was before he figured out it was no use --- she probably wasn't going to wake up and, if she did, she wouldn't have understood or cared about his needs. 

The next morning, Mister Tenney paired Jack and Heath in a sparring exercise. As spies, they were learning to spar with multiple weapons, spending less time on the fancy ones like swords and more on the simplest, like wooden sticks. The general idea was that they couldn't go armed with a big weapon a mission, but they still needed to learn to use whatever they'd find laying around, for both defence and attack purposes.

"I don't care what you do in the slightest," Heath told Jack, as their sticks clashed. "But I do know for a fact you don't go out walking at night."

He mistook Jack's annoyance for fear, and he reassured him. "I'm not going to tell Leo... it doesn't matter that I don't like you much. I still find the Deal revolting."

"How do you know I don't?" Jack asked him, pinning him to the wall with his stick.

Heath freed himself in a swift move. 

"Because I do. Walk around the schoolyard at night, that is. And I've never seen you there. Just like I've never seen you sneaking out. So, now that I think about it, I'm actually wondering..."

When Mister Tenney had shown them how to use the sticks on the Laoch, he had included beatings on his back. Jack had promised himself he would not go this far --- not outside of a mission, at least, but now he was briefly tempted.

But then again, Jack didn't need to choose violence. Heath was childish, that much was clear. It was among the reasons Jack found him so annoying in the first place. 

He was about to tell him the truth, or part of, when Heath's mischevious nature spoiled the moment again.

"What secret could be so well-guarded? Oh! Do you sleep with Mister Tenney?"

"If you want, we could ask him," Jack growled, knowing the Laoch would get more than a beating for this. And maybe, so would he. After all, the Professor didn't want to draw attention to the fact that Jack barely got any sleep, and why.

"Thanks no thanks," Heath took a step back. "I think, after all, I'll be happy wondering."

"Well, aren't you a freak..."

"Thanks," Heath replied. "I blame it on my devilish charm. I like to say I'd got it from a Deal... with the Devil."

"I'm not laughing," Jack couldn't help but point out. "As I always say, you aren't funny."

Heath struck a blow between Jack's ribs, and the young man winced.

"You have a broken rib," Heath stated. "It wasn't an issue when we practiced yesterday."

"Yes," Jack wound him up. "I cracked it laughing at a joke in one of my dirty magazines. It was about your mother..."

Jack knew it wasn't his finest moment, though it was far from his worst, and, all things considered, a pretty average move on his part. But Heath was a good spy, and Jack didn't need him up in his business.

It was the main reason why he'd always kept him at bay. Jack had a lot of secrets, and he wanted the Laoch to never, ever, find out about none of them. 

Maybe Heath had been pushing him away for the same reason, if it was true that Jack was as good a pupil as he was. That would have been flattering.

But no matter what had driven them apart at the start. Jack feared the day they would have to trust one another for a mission, because he felt that it clearly would never come.