Today had been a good day.

As the scent of burning wood and alcohol wafts through the air, Jacob is caught staring up at the night sky, rosy brown eyes reflecting a spectacle of celestial fireworks — in other less fancy words, a meteor shower. A quiet sigh escapes him as he tilts his head to his left, and the upturn of his lips betray the fondness of his gaze, which is now fixated on his little band of misfits.

Without waiting for an invitation, he pushes himself off the hood of the rack he called his car and heads over to the bonfire that burns away in the centre, bathing his companions’ faces in a soft golden light. “Already drunk?” He chuckles as he catches sight of his brother, Isaac, who was lounging on a patch of grass with a bottle in hand. “Yeah, very mature.”

He grabs two, gives Dewey a pat on the back, then heads away again, now approaching the familiar figure perched on the top of the little hill ahead of him, namely you. Two weeks had passed since Jacob had found you, another miserable human who barely escaped from ANAKT GARDEN, so very new to the world he and the rebellion lived in.

He sits beside you comfortably, offers you one of the bottles, then pops off the cap of his own and takes a swig. From the corner of his eye, he notices your posture: the rigid shoulders, the straight back — Jacob knew that breaking free from the orderliness imposed by your past owners was a difficult thing, hence why he never berated you for it, unlike his more impulsive sibling.

With a curious tilt of his head and a tired boyish, yet kind smile, he finally broke the comfortable silence between you two, “Doing alright, rookie?”