Start Finding Passion (Blue/Jacket Prologue)

“What’s this cunt doing here?” I ask and a smug smile follows, as Jack is entirely covered by a very thick layer of sunscreen making him vanilla ice cream pale and with the right thickness, all dressed in black shorts, a black shirt and a huge white umbrella covering him and he’s even in a straw hat with a black feather, a notebook on his shorts opened with some diagonal scribbles and doodles around. I glance at Jamie who smirks.

“I dunno, tagged along?” He rubs his palms against his thighs, eager to jump into the water. 

“Bom dia, Jaime.” Jack mutters with an awful accent that even I realize that is more than wrong is and I just glance at my boyfriend.

“Fuck off, not interested.” And Jamie flips off at him and I see that he’s itching to get a cigarette, but we’ve left them as we just head towards the waves. I keep observing him, wondering how much more will he tan, as his mother pretty much threw everything she could on me, saying how pale I am and how I shouldn’t burn, not as bad as Jack, though. I dive eventually. 

I forgot that Jamie isn’t even his official real name, it was given to him when he moved, as he wanted something less... Brazilian and that seemed fair, I don’t go by Alexander either. 

I dive out, gasping, Jack waving from the shore before lighting a cigarette, blowing a kiss and I dive again after Jamie glances at me once more. It feels odd and obscure, as I don’t feel anything underwater until I start running out of air and once I’m out I feel Jamie hug me and try to dunk me back in, laughing. I emerge and try to shove him in, as Jamie tries to wave Jack in, his short frustration with him long gone, as we keep trying to dunk each other and everytime I try to swim I get hurled underwater either by my boyfriend or by the waves, as they seem to be taller than usual and the sea is much more disturbed which doesn’t keep anyone off the beaches and Jack from glancing at us through his sunglasses, elegantly biting the tip of his pencil as a few pens already lay discarded at his feet. 

I can’t help but keep watching him, knowing at who is he actually watching and it’s not even that it disturbs me, it’s that I know far too much, Jack asking me much before I had known much about Jamie, all of us forming some bizarre love triangle and not just because we all seemed to be tucked away in Stockholm for our own piece of mind, Jamie running away so that he didn’t have to sneak in boys every single time to his bedroom after his parents would call obscenity a gay couple showing up on Globo. I just ended up traveling around volunteering until I bumped into Jamie, who was studying and we moved in and I continued my nurse training in the country. Jack, was met when he already moved just because he had been writing about a couple in Stockholm and we had all ended up tagging along at all times. 

I think jealousy shrouds the mind sometimes that when I glance at Jack, I just keep staring at him before he raises his eyes and maybe I am slowly descending by openly admitting that I am scared of him. Jamie never went for Jack, but the fear still clogs me up even if Jack had admitted his defeat, he still softens up if Jamie is taking his time lighting a cigarette, he’ll just light it and Jamie won’t even nod, until his input in the conversation is done and then he will just quickly pat Jack’s shoulder.

I keep going down under and I wonder if there is any card alliance in which they end up together. I wonder how come I even managed to sneak in, the fear gripping me once we had arrived in the apartment, knowing that even if it would appear to be small, it’s cost would be far disturbing, realizing that I was about to enter the poshest region in Rio and that seemed to disturb me and wonder what would happen later to Jamie and once I entered I would realize that Jamie, being an only child would inherit this and the view to the ocean, of course. 

We rinse and repeat, Jack’s eyes either being on the paper in front of him or the cigarettes Jamie would stretch out in front of him, checking out how the sky would slowly start blacking out. Once, it starts getting darker, Jack decides to leave to get coconut water which I’ve been unfortunate to try, which seemed to sting my feet that both Jamie and Jack seemed to enjoy. I refused it, as Jamie pulled me down besides him on the sand as I would look at the stars, only lightly ruffled by the city and the part of the sky lit by electricty of the souls. 

I hear footsteps and once I turn Jamie gets hissed something in portuguese and I just see a bunch of hands, ruffling, messily, as if seraching for something raiding our backpacks, titlting it over, smirking at the condoms, as I try to reach for mine and I get mine grabbed from my hands. 

“Dickhead, they’re robbing us.” Jamie hisses at me as they yell something which I presume is sit down and I start shaking violently looking at the six black youths, which remind me of the ageless drug addicts on Brasil Avenue, just to be reached and dipped in the same poverty, only with a different fuel or maybe something else, because unless you’ve been touched, you believe that the filth wouldn’t touch you and when it does, your world crumbles, that Goddamn virginity of never getting robbed, shatters you and frankly you are being raped, as they start screaming,

“puxa a faca”

“Mostra a porra da faca!” Jamie fucking exclaims that even I shudder and that’s when one of the juveniles gets a knife from under his arm and Jamie pales. 

“Oi, you made friends! Hola, amigos. Coconut water?” Jack shows up walking closer and Jamie flips at him, mouthing something and Jack glances at his things before another youth takes out another knife and gets closer to Jack.

The same hands ruffle Jack’s empty bags full of souvenirs apparently as I still focus shifting from one knife to the other. They still take the bag. And his notes. 

“puxa a faca” is said through my head. 

They say something to Jamie and he just puts his head down and I see his shoulders shaking, fingers trembling against his swim shorts, he starts tapping random things as they walk away and Jack tries to aim the coconut once they turn their backs and I notice the ridiculous amount of locals around, how they all just stare, doing nothing

and my lip trembles. 

“Don’t.” Jamie whispers and Jack stops. He drops the coconuts and pulls Jamie into a hug as Jamie just starts crying. I stand up and I don’t hold and I yank both of them up, harshly and Jamie is shivering. 

“I don’t speak portuguese. Where’s the police station?” Jamie shudders and stands up, glancing around as some couple of wankers, who were watching say something and point as Jamie grabs my hand and we all three make a run, Jack fully clothed and both me and Jamie with our flipflops stolen and all clothing, as we keep running

and I realize that I’m running barefoot on the pavement, through the cars, as Jamie wipes his tears as we are near a booth. 

He starts speaking as Jack keeps rubbing his palms against his arms, looking down, sunglasses gone, I didn’t even realize they took them off.

Jack looks at me with his naked dark eyes and he pulls me into a hug, he’s much taller than both of us, as Jamie’s portuguese comes out rough, shaking and breaking in all moments, shattering, as eventually he just walks towards the telephone booth, starts dialing numbers before speaking and soon enough he motions us to follow him. We all raid our pockets, all cigarettes stolen with money. 

Jamie hisses not to ask locals and we keep walking on the pavement and he grabs my hand, harshly at first but then loosening his grip, stroking my fingers as we enter the police station after many blocks, all stalls mixing and digging into memory as a disgusting exotic blur which I want to shield myself from as we get inside, my head spinning and all I do is

“puxa a faca”

“puxa a faca”

“puxa a faca”

I get to the drinking basin, drinking greedily, as Jack stands next to Jamie, Jamie yelling at the police man as he starts crying and Jack holds him again. I watch them, water hitting my lips, bruising me slowly as shock seemed to be threading me like a needle, letting me fear myself and my memories, my mind or let myself burn in jealousy as he threads his hair, now dyed a darker colour than when I had met him. Jack’s lips touch his neck. 

“Cara!” A new bloke exclaims and I turn around to see someone else, taller, paler than a usual Brasilian, yet Jamie raises his head to see someone else, shaking, with dark hair and he releases himself from Jack and hugs the newcomer. He has one flip flop on. Also just in his orange swim trunks, which happen to have sharks all over them. I just keep watching as Jamie starts talking to the new bloke in portuguese before he calls me over and I feel terrible, that I didn’t offer him water or anything and I just put my hand across his shoulders, still anxious to hold his hand in the police station. 

When I started working as a nurse, I had a ridiculous amount of nightshifts which seemed to only feast out desire to stay up late all year, as Jamie started doubting education far long ago, knowing that he could simply continue living on what his parents had given him. I tried to teach him the basics, how to do injections and massages but he still struggled, not sure he would be able to snap out in a situation where he had to act fast.

It’s not that he had an existential crisis, he just seemed to be worn out of life, not sure where to spin and parent’s money seemed to cater his needs, giving him a fair share up to the point that we wondered if we should save up and get our own apartment. He had asked his parents who merely said that he as a Brazilian had to return to his land with a woman, never coming out to them, looking now at them and at the whole country I just see that sometimes your own heritage can suck you out, not like mine which is idle as a brick, just building it’s fort on ignorance.

It’s not that he didn’t know what to do, it was the trauma of everything he’d touch which would echo his parents desire which was funny considering his father was a scriptwriter as well.

Jamie’s plays seemed to be contradicting his fathers, once I had read them. He developed a tuitions of waking at seven, lightly stroking my hair, still asleep, lighting a cigarette and just grabbing a laptop, one hand still in my hair and his neutrality typing would sometimes wake me.

I’ve read it.

I’ve lived it.

I knew all the love there was written for me but I was always anxious of mentions of other men, scared that Jack would pounce among the letters to form love instead of words.

I wasn’t as talented as Jack, I wasn’t as talented as Jamie and their resemblance and my pure ability to keep the necessities alive sometimes seemed shallow, that the lives I’ve saved maybe smiled but my saving never went as deep as Jack’s or Jamie’s once he’d have the courage to write beyond seven a.m, an hour after we’d try to sleep.

I think fate is a ridiculous thing which happens to send Jack as the Grim Reaper, seeming to simply cut the thread which ties my hands to Jamie’s and it seems to shock me and I wonder who would be fate then, who is they, who walks choosing who to intertwine and who to shove to change fate and how bony would their hands be, decomposing from all the lives wasted and how they would carry everyone on their backs until we would all fall dead just to have someone pick us up, let ourselves melt, become sand so that we just fall into the the pit of nothing underneath the feet as fate and death would stand in the middle of it all, both faceless staring at each other as I would hang and sometimes eye Jamie and once I see him lean in to kiss Jack, my throat tightening I just pull Jamie into a hug and everyone stops talking as he just grabs onto me.

I don’t cry.

Jamie doesn’t cry.

We all just sit and wait, my mind now fuzzy as they let us head into the pharmacy (Jack scrapped something off) and I wait impatiently as they raid for something which could actually soothe us, Jack seems to try and talk to the taller lad, as I eye him. He doesn’t look like he’s further than first generation Brazilian, even if his accent is thickly covered and no Brazilian tint seems to be there, just some softness like Jamie’s. In the end we buy the pills as we start heading back, all of us hungry and muttering everything, as Jamie finally reaches his parents, agreeing to pick up Julian, who ends up being the other lad.

I offer to come with Jamie to the bathroom, but he tells me to stay as I just sit, watching Jack and giving myself an awkward silence as I seem to be fighting with someone who will eventually steal my boyfriend once he wakes up. 

Maybe some things are too shallow to be coincidence but sometimes you see those who actually gave you some low harm, which caused you to bump your head against the wall in frustration and I glance at the black youth which is dragged inside, his eyes empty and his bones seem to be sticking out too freely, but never giving the sense of fragile, but of a unbendable wire, which seems to be chucked out. He glances at me and holds his gaze. 

I palen up.

“Jack, I think... he was one of them.” Jack blinks and then leans to talk to Julian, who blinks quite a few times and only stands up when we both nod and leaves us alone to be sitting across the room of the filth. He keeps staring at us and Jack just stares back and eventually he puts an arm around my shoulders, but when I glance at him, he doesn’t look back, in a ridiculous fighting contest with someone who I wish would be hanged, because he could’ve killed us and Julian entertained us by saying that we should be lucky because usually they just stab, because the dead can’t tell.

I look at his shallow eyes, knowing how many he’s killed, how his stained hands will leave in years with a clean sheet due to Brazilian politics, a government which hails juveniles by letting them rob and stab, kill and thrill their empty lives and drench their elbows in someone else’s blood, that a killer is hailed above the victim. 

Jamie comes back from the bathroom, focusing on the juvenile whose interest seems to lay in my boyfriend now, I’d expect him to clench his fists, instead he has some shallow hatred and a prayer to the same God we pray. In the end they come to take him, his piercing glare among us as we sit, getting reports how they can’t prove that it’s him.

But when they emerge, I see a small box, but I just get my head pinned against Jamie’s shoulder as he strokes my hair, as if I was the one breaking down. 

All I understand is cara and assault then they address a question towards me. 

“What?” I glance at Jack, whose portuguese is as bad as mine. Jamie grins as his fingers still mess my hair, Julian laughing now hysterically as they show my pack of cigarettes with a nearly torn off Swedish label, telling you that cigarettes kill. 

-

This was fucking hard to write actually and I've been writing this for at least three weeks? xD Mainly the story was thought of actually when me and Callie were swimming before the assault actually. I kept thinking of how should I do an Alex/Julian as well, they are the main pairing here even if Alex/Jamie is very in your face here. 

This is the prologue to Blue/Jacket and I actually wrote the next chapter of Blue/Jacket but I decided that it's better to actually show this so that well, everyone would know the importance of this characters as they will show up in Blue/Jacket, so yeah:3 

I'm quite happy about this and I'm just happy to be exploring and pushing the boundaries here which I never really talked about in stories much, so I'll keep silent on that:3 the title actually came to me as I was looking for an appropriate title for Get Down On Your Knees In The Tunnel Of Love (which is a great story and you should check out :P) and I used it for this XD 

I dunno, I just really love how Alex/Jamie work and I ship them a lot in my stories and they end up being my favourite couple regardless of how they end up and yeah. I've talked about this with Callie, as I always end up putting them in a interesting relationship, like in Saints Preserve Us, Jamie is Alex's dad and they always take the pis of each other, which is fascinating to write about, I've also got about 1.5 k of the next chapter, so it should be up soon xD 

Ok, here we go analyzing xD

I was really laughing and having a great time and it was late and the exchange of phrases between Jamie, Jack and Alex came to me. Ok, Callie being Brazilian gives me a lot of insight on Brazil and it's culture which I've shed light on in the story and I guess just like I've shown how the UK really is, I've been itching to show Brazil, no offense to anyone, but for me and Callie it's been awful and the whole culture of 'born in Brazil, die in Brazil' is very harmful to LGBT people and not only. 

I wanted to set a story in Brazil before we got assaulted and all was cheery and all. And I was really thinking which story and what could I do, what could I show. I didn't really want to start a new story. And I like anyone who pretty much is in Brazil have came across the lovely bizarre soap opera on Globo called Em Familia, which currently has the weirdest plot ever and I've been keeping track of it, so point is, one of the characters is called Jaime, which is a variation of Jamie in Portuguese and it just sounds fucking nice really xD even if the character annoys me XD all characters annoy me xD but I've been keeping track, because it's impossible not to, c'mon even TVs in busses show it XD so I was thinking who the fuck can I make Brazilian and Jamie has less pale skin than the rest and actually giving his birth name Jaime seemed nice, because the name does sound fucking nice XD and I guess for those who are familiar with Rio, I decided to take the piss and Jamie's parents live in Leblon, a tacky shout out from me xD 

It's been awfully hard to write the assault and I've changed the details, like me and Callie didn't actually see the knife, so when they showed us the bag with the knife we had no idea if that was the same person. And what they found on the juvenile was my Forever 21 necklace which he thought was gold xD anyway XD 

The hands ruffling the objects is actually the scene which haunts me the most. 

And the phrase of showing the knife.

Shout out to Callie for helping me with Portuguese xD

And yes, no local helped us when the beach was crowded. I don't even want to talk of it.

The description is very fairly close to ours, just the actual assault changed a bit, we were never shown knives and it was just the two of us. 

I had actually no profession for Jamie until now and in Blue/Jacket when I'd think of the other chapters he seems to be very dim, shaken by life and now it made sense, because well frankly I think I've spoken enough about Brazil here and Callie is still very shaken by the whole shallowness, recklessness and the whole dystopia which the country seems to be. I don't think I've ever heard of such an incompetent educational system, which just drained her and I guess I just want to speak of it and show it through one of my character's. Also shed light on Brazil's homophobia. 

A big theme would be Alex's comparison to himself, Jack and Jamie and of course his jealousy. Oh, I'm shooting spoilers because it's a big theme XD

Also I dunno, me barely speaking portuguese the amount of 'cara' (which literally means face but is actually dude) used in conversation just strikes me xD I dunno, it stings to me as something so informal you wouldn't use unless close, but that's just me. 

So yeah, I like just showing the way things are and I'm happy I decided to make Jamie and Julian Brazilian xD I'll keep silent about Julian and yeah :D

I hope you enjoyed this monster because I'm really proud of it, so yeah, please tell me if you enjoyed it so I will post the next chapter faster :D and yeah

Thank you everyone for your kind words

<3

Jamie