A Neverland Tale - HOOKED (eng)

Chapter 7.7 - Jake

Jake's heart was beating wildly. Wilder than when he attacked the ship, when he crept through the undergrowth on the hunt. He could hear the ice crunching on his features under the loose snow, and he would have been just as unable to brace himself against it if he had seen it coming. Only a brother could really understand the feeling he was experiencing.

The rushed, panicky pull that stretched from his chest to his fingertips and made every limb of his body unusually stiff. The self-reproach bubbled up inside him as a frosty stream. How had he not noticed it immediately? How long had Luke not been with them?

The reproachful thoughts of oppressive heaviness drummed down on him like hail, hitting him in the stomach again and again with renewed force. Normally, the older of the twins had just as much mischief on the back of his neck as his younger brother. Even though he was older, Jake had to admit to enjoying his newfound freedom far more and giving in to the lightness of this place far more easily, despite the brutal side. The world was dirty, blood and loss were part of it - he had had to learn that bitterly and he had learned to swallow that disgusting lump a while ago, far quicker than Lucy.

The older and taller of the two siblings still didn't measure up to the boys (men...) of the Lost, trained over many years by fighting, but was steadier in stature than his younger twin, who trailed him in size by more than a whole head. While Luke, in his too wide coat and worn waistcoat, was usually able to disappear unseen and rather inconspicuously behind events and people, the older of the two Hawker brothers was more the dancing light in the foreground - whether that was a good or bad thing remained to be seen.

If you put them side by side and dared to look more closely, you could clearly see the basic features of their bloodline: the curve of the nose or the chin, even if Jake's jaw had the significantly more prominent line. Perhaps it was more the way they both used to carry their chins - always accompanied by a flash in the eye, a little higher than street urchins might be allowed.

The influence of their father was clearly visible on both of them: the ebony hair - black at first glance and only with a brown tinge when the sun fell directly on it, daring to fan the strands a little with careful fingers to lighten the dark tone a little with a golden glow. While Luke hid the 'shag' (and above it as he knew the long, black curly strands...) as Jake affectionately referred to it, under a worn beret that was far too big for the boy, Jake ran his fingers through the exposed, rather smooth strands on his head at every perceived opportunity. It was a habit that was mostly evident because he no longer had to wear a wig and enjoyed the freedom of finally allowing the wind to run through his hair again. The wayward hair would only start to curl when they grew longer.... and he prevented that, if necessary, very meticulously with a pair of blunt scissors until now.

Both possessed bright and clear eyes, an attentive and equally watchful gaze, in which the sun refracted in clear blue mountain lakes with moss-green surfaces for Jake, but in the colour of bright azure of the South Seas for Luke. A small but subtle difference that not everyone noticed. That fine line, the ticklish degrees that distinguished Scottish lochs from the seas off the Spanish coast. Jake, however, was definitely tall, his shoulders broad and his hips narrower, while the years of puberty seemed already behind him, where Luke was just about to be placed in the early stages. Confusingly, perhaps, Luke not infrequently acted like the more wide-eyed one... a strangely blurred image that didn't quite fit with either of them. The two Hawker brothers, possessed of their own unique rhythm and seemed simply knit where it couldn't be more deceptive: For they were nowhere near as far apart in years as they claimed.