No no because I love your depiction of Jet??? Oh my god?? Like hell yeah hes a fearless leader of a freedom fighting rebellion group he built from the ground up but he’s also?? JUST A TEEN!! JUST A BOY!! Teenage boys get butterflies too!!??
🌾 ・ POCKETFUL OF BUTTERFLIES
summ. Operation: Creeping Cricket was a botch. It looks like you and Jet aren’t gonna be headed home anytime soon.
pairing. Jet x f!medic!reader
w.count. 1.1k
a/n. ANON YOURE SO RIGHT. Sometimes we forget Jet is really just a teenage boy grappling with hormones and feelings and everything inbetween! Enjoy this short continuation to Hand in Loving Hand!
You take a mental note to thank Longshot and his squirrel-like tendencies to hide emergency stashes up in trees for times like these.
“Here,” Jet says softly, “Y’might catch a cold soon.”
The change of clothes he offers you is weathered, but a warm welcome respite from the frigid chill that’s settled into your bones.
Operation Creeping Cricket had been a complete bust. Your narrow escape is a stroke of luck with all things considered, and at least the rain has finally stopped. It doesn’t help that both you and Jet are soaked head to toe, however, and the fact that the temperatures in the forests by Omashu can drop critically.
Your cheeks are raw; your fingers ache— but you manage to begin peeling off the layers of your clothes one by one to dry by the campfire. From across, Jet’s already managed to change out. He frowns in concern from where he’s sitting by the fire, watching you tip over a boot of water.
“You’re shaking.”
“Shivering,” you correct, trying to stop the chatter of your teeth. You wonder if biting on a wheat straw like how Jet is doing right now would help. “But, yes. Same thing I suppose.”
Then you’re untying the strings of your tunic, and pulling it swiftly over your head.
Jet barely has time to react.
He practically snaps his neck turning away, eyes wide.
The whiplash, the innocent attempt at privacy, has you biting back a laugh.
Ever the gentleman.
“You can look now,” you finally say, after a quick minute, and Jet is careful to turn.
The garments that Longshot had stashed practically drowns your figure, sleeves bundling at the wrists; collar wide and dipping low enough to reveal the corded necklace you never remove. And then there’s the glow of the fire, honeying you in amber light as you run your fingers through your damp hair.
You’re… effortlessly beautiful. He’s not quite sure there’s any other way to describe you.
“That bad, huh?” you ask, pinned under his gaze.
Jet startles. “Sorry, I— No, you just, look cold, still.”
He clears his throat as the tips of his ears burn. He hopes to the Spirits beyond you hadn’t noticed them go red. (You did.)
“Well, so do you.” You reach back into Longshot’s knapsack and tug out a blanket from inside, before making your way across to the log Jet’s settled on. The material is tanned and threadbare, but it would do for the night.
Your hands brush as you wrap the cloth around the both of you.
It’s difficult not to focus on just how warm Jet is. Even more difficult not to lean against him.
It hadn’t mattered much in the end, though; Jet shifts closer, and presses his shoulder against yours.
“Y’okay?” You ask, gentle.
Under the dim firelight, his hard edges seem to soften. The fearless leader of the Freedom Fighters can be surprisingly endearing. Suddenly, Jet is simply another survivor; another casualty of war.
He shrugs lightly, careful not to jostle you, and makes a face. “Eh. We’ve faced worse, haven’t we?”
You laugh, ducking into his shoulder. Jet wonders if you can physically feel the butterflies taking flight in his chest.
There’s a spill of flowers behind you— budding Moonflowers, he recognises; native to Earth Kingdom wildlife— and has half the mind to pluck one and hand it to you.
He chews harder on the straw in his mouth instead.
( He knows you don’t see him that way, anyway. You’d made that clear before. ‘We’re family,’ is what you’d told him; Him and the rest of the Freedom Fighters. ‘Found family.’ And while he isn’t complaining, he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t imagine atleast once what it’d be like to be something more with you.
Even if you did, he’s not quite sure he’d act on it. He’s not quite sure he can allow himself to be that vulnerable to someone. Not when he's a wanted man; not when subjecting someone into his dangerous lifestyle is the last thing he wants— even if said someone had signed up for it. )
“I’ll take first watch.” he says, after a moment.
“Y’sure? I don’t mind doing it. I promise I’ll wake you up this time.”
He laughs at the old memory. The smile, however, doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll be fine. You need rest.”
Quietly, you read him. Measure the micro-expressions that pass his face. Having fought alongside Jet throughout the years of survival made it easier. Whenever night falls, and the weight of his duties could settle if only for a little while, you could finally see all of him. Just a teenager who’s fighting for what he believed in; a kid who had to take on the world too early.
That illusion of 24/7 confidence falls around you often, though never around the younger rebels. You’ve kept the privilege close to your heart.
“You’re worried.”
He picks on the hearth for a moment, listens to the crackle of the fire.
Jet doesn’t doubt the Freedom Fighters’ capabilities. Longshot’s probably camping out somewhere in the trees with Smellerbee and The Duke, and Pipsqueak and Sneers can navigate these forests even better than him. They’ve all probably made it home already, knowing them.
And yet. And yet—
“Yeah,” he says. He didn’t like admitting it, because it implied they couldn’t protect themselves. It’d have meant he isn’t confident in them; that he, to some degree, didn’t trust them. It’s a twisted mindset, he recognises, but he can’t quite help his way of thinking these days. He didn’t like admitting he cared more than he really should— it’d be a concession. An admission.
An admission that he might truly snap if he lost any of the Freedom Fighters; that he might truly break if, Spirits forbid, he’d lose you.
The thought sends a frisson up his spine.
That shouldn’t scare him. It shouldn’t.
He blinks, shakes his head. “That obvious?”
“No. But I’ve known you for years now,” you nudge. “It’s okay to worry, y’know? You can care. You do care. There’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to act like you don’t for the sake of appearing calm and collected and… cool.”
He cocks his head at that, musters a playful smile. “Ah. So you think I’m cool?”
It’s meant to derail the conversation. Fortunately for him, it’s successful. Jet watches you bow your head and laugh; the bright one, the kind that makes his heart sing.
Camaraderie, he reminds himself, swallowing thickly as he reluctantly turns away from you. Nothing more, nothing less.
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I think a lot of people miss the bits of nuance in Kalim and Jamil in chapter 5.
It’s a shame their loose ends weren’t tied up all that well at all, and they never actually get to talk to each other in this chapter, but you see them starting to understand each other in really subtle ways that I just appreciate.
I think Kalim is a lot more emotionally intelligent than Jamil and way more emotionally intelligent than he thinks he is. He’ll often stop his thoughts by cutting himself off, claiming he doesn’t know if he’s making sense, but he does.
Jamil witnesses Kalim putting in effort to understand and empathize with him in at least two instances in chapter 5.
People criticize Jamil for not talking to Kalim about everything he was going through and how he felt, and Jamil felt like he couldn’t. He was instructed not to as a child by adults. Kalim has a habit of not listening and interrupting him, so he thought Kalim couldn’t possibly understand.
But he was proven wrong; Kalim is starting to understand him, and he wants to understand Jamil.
Jamil never speaks about what he observes, but it’s obvious from his change of expression that he’s finally feeling seen by someone who unintentionally caused him so much misery.
All the adults who told him to ‘understand’ the situation and suck it up, even if it stripped him of his childhood and endangered his life, it was Kalim who actually looked at him and understood him.
Kalim recognized that their situation was complicated and defended Jamil by citing that Jamil had protected him and never seriously harmed him for all of their lives up until his mental breakdown, but he also shelters some of the blame because he did not see Jamil’s suffering until then.
Jamil also figures out that Kalim has protected him in his own way by covering up why Jamil overblotted to their parents so he wouldn’t be punished.
Kalim explains to the prefect that he never realized how much Jamil sacrificed for his success and happiness. He vindicates Jamil’s feelings; he’s letting him be seen, and he’s acknowledging everything that Jamil has been keeping inside.
Jamil was wrong. Kalim can understand him.
I’m still sad we never got a conversation about Jamil admitting this, and they never talk to each other about these things, but I’m sure it’s because it’s hard to.
They’re still a ways away from becoming actual friends, but it’s a start. If anyone is going to free Jamil from servitude, it’s definitely going to be Kalim.
So it’s sad seeing these two being pitted against each other, especially Jamil, when Kalim has been especially empathetic towards him in the story and has the ability to see through his bitterness and resentment.
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