Jake had been adventuring on his own for quite some time now. He missed Cassandra and Eve, definitely, and most of all Ezekiel, but they'd agreed they could accomplish more if they split off. Eve could only guard one of them at any given time, so most days, Jake was all alone.

It wasn't anything he wasn't used to. All his life he'd been separated from the rest, by his intellect and interests, by his pre-planned future, by his sexuality. Everything marked him as different from the others growing up, and even though he hid it, he never really made many friends. No real friends.

At least not until he got to the library.

For the first time in his life, Jacob Stone had found a place where he belonged, doing what he loved, with people he cared about and who actually cared about him.

He felt the rough bark of the branch supporting him, trailing his hand slowly across the irregular bumps. Looking down, it was about a fifteen foot drop, Jake estimated. Up above sat Jake's prize, about another fifteen feet and a thick mesh of branches away.

He sighed, standing carefully up from his seat. If he fell now, it'd hurt. If he fell from the top, he hoped he'd die.

Of course, the others would never find out. He began climbing again, taking one branch after another into his hands and pulling himself up nimbly. They'd sent him off all on his own, into the middle of a sprawling forest.

He moved as quickly as possible, growing more careful as the tree grew thinner. With a loud snap, a branch broke beneath his foot and he flailed, swinging quickly to put his foot down on a stronger branch. He let out quite a few expletives, cursing Ezekiel especially.

Of course there was a golden egg-laying eagle. Jake could not think of anything more American. And of course Ezekiel had told Jake to go on the middle of nowhere expedition, but couldn't even bother to show up to deliver the news. A goddamn text.

Ezekiel had been missing for months. Eve and Cassandra had no clue where he'd gone, and if Jenkins knew, he wasn't telling. Jake missed his boyfriend, angry as he was at him for just up and disappearing. "Personal project," the thief had said. "Top secret."

"Top secret, my ass," Jake growled, swiping at the giant nest. Inside were three golden eggs he needed to procure before they hatched into magic-hungry baby eagles who devoured everything in sight.

The three were tiny stars amidst a drab background of twigs. Jake scooped them up one by one, gently placing them in his sack. Then he prepared for the long climb down.

Just before he began, he noticed something tucked into the side of the nest. He reached for it tentatively and pulled back a piece of sea glass, shiny and green. The edges had been smoothed down so they weren't dangerous, but it was still abnormally shaped, a sort of triangle point with an oddly arched top. Jake held it up to the sun, watching it distort the sky above him and cast emerald light over his face.

It was absolutely beautiful. Shrugging, Jake placed it in his bag alongside the eggs. Maybe he'd give it to Cass; she loved shiny things. Or maybe he'd keep it for Ezekiel, whenever the thief decided to come waltzing back into his life.

Jake grumbled. What an ass. He sighed and lifted his foot, and began to descend the tree.

*.*.*

Jake stood outside the pizza parlor where he and Ezekiel had had their first date. He wasn't sure what had brought him back to the place, neon sign burning in the crisp night air. The sky spread overhead like an array of inkblots that hadn't quite finished meeting, leaving some speckles of white paper through.

Absently, Jake checked at his phone. No texts, of course, not that he expected any. It had been 3 weeks since his eagle mission, 3 weeks since he had heard from Ezekiel.

Maybe missing the thief was what led him here. It had been a year since Ezekiel had brought him here, six months since Ezekiel had been home. Only whispers, texts here and there, a cryptic postcard, suggested he even existed.

He walked inside and was seated at a table for one by the window. It was snowy in New York, and colorful lights adorned many of the surrounding buildings. The room buzzed with a quiet electricity as all around him, people lived, enjoyed themselves, had first dates and last dates and family reunions and friendly meetings and business dinners.

He was all but invisible to their eyes. But he noticed them.

It was a trick Ezekiel had taught him, people-watching. Though the thief would never admit it, Jake knew he took a sort of pride in learning all he could about strangers, of feeling for just a moment that he was part of something big, something new and unknown to him. So too Jake found himself staring at two boys across the restaurant, nervously sharing a giant slice of sausage pizza.

It was their first date, definitely. They were dressed too nicely in a pizza parlor for it to be anything else. They were young - twenty? - and still seemed to have faith in love and in each other.

God, it struck him how one boy looked like Ezekiel. In a cream colored cardigan and with tousled ebony hair and a smirk despite his nerves. Jake turned back to his own slice of pizza, covered in meat and peppers, and tried to stomp down the flower of longing blossoming painfully in his ribcage.

An awkward cough came from directly in front of him. He glanced up. The boy in the cardigan had crossed the restaurant and was now standing in front of Jake, a stranger to him. Jake hoped he hadn't made the boy uncomfortable with his staring.

The boy stood with his hands shoved into his pockets and shoulders scrunched in. He wore a necklace, a bronze coin on a plain black cord, with the Korean hangul for love. It reminded Jake of a plaque in his apartment, left from when Ezekiel used to live with him.

The boy coughed again, and took a deep breath. "Hi. This is really weird but um. Are you Jacob Stone?" He shuffled, looking down at his feet.

Jake nodded. "Yes, I am." He stared quizzically at the boy, face obscured by floppy black hair.

"I'm sorry. I was - I was told to give these to you." The boy took two stones from his pocket, and a small note card. "Have a nice evening." He scurried back over to his date and sat back down, melting back into ease after a few moments.

The stones resembled the one he had found in the eagle nest - translucent and smooth, with strange squiggled edges. These two were a powder blue and deep black color, though. Jake opened the note card, reading the hand scrawled message, searching for some explanation.

My dearest librarian, it read.

By now you have acquired three glass shards. You may notice they have striking similarities. You should put them together and see what happens.

Stone could imagine the wink that accompanied that suggestion.

I am leaving these to you in lieu of my presence. I cannot come home just yet, but I promise I miss you. In the meantime, I challenge you to a grand adventure, a game of hide and seek. I'll hide the sea glass, and you seek them.

Hopefully these little gifts will get you through until I come home. I don't know when that will be, but I will come home. Someday.

Always yours,

Ezekiel Jones

Jake felt emotions warring in him. The bastard couldn't have said "hello, I miss you" in person? Instead choosing to give a sweet, sentimental message to a stranger who looked like him, knowing how it would hurt Jake.

But still, it was better than nothing. A scavenger hunt to different places, to acquire pretty things. Who knew what he'd do with them?

He held them in his palms, feeling them hum with power, untold promise. He wondered what they were. Experimentally, he put their squiggled edges together. With a small flash, they fused together, the colors blending slightly at the edges.

"Jones," he hissed under his breath. "What're you up to?"

Only one way to find out.

*.*.*

A month and a half later, Jake had found another seven pieces. Slowly, they were fusing together into some sort of shape, a triangular point, but Jake couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Perhaps it'd be a magical arrowhead? It seemed like something that could've come from the goddess Diana herself, but perhaps not. And why would Ezekiel even give him something like that?

Jake sighed. They had been turning up more than he'd actually looked for them, but he still sort of made a point to scope around any place he was.

Like now, for instance. He was hanging upside down, tied up in vines, waiting for Cassandra to show up because this was probably all part of the plan? Probably. He squirmed around, hoping they'd loosen up, and craned his neck just to see if perhaps anything shiny caught his eye.

Twenty-one minutes since the dryads had left. Any minute now, Cassandra should come busting through to their inner sanctuary so they could gather some water from the dryad's fountain, magical water, and get the hell out of there.

"Hey, beauty," Jake called to the dryad who was keeping guard. "Listen, I just had to ask -" He cut short as she came into view, hair threaded through with six stones like his stranger glass collection.

She hissed at him and he heard a desert howl yet from a distance, rustling through dead trees and harsh life.

"How dare you speak to me?" Jake wasn't sure how he understood her, for she had spoken no words, yet still in the wind, he heard it. "You humans, always so entitled."

"I'm sorry, it's just, your hair," Jake stumbled, "such beautiful adornments - reminds me of a painting I saw once in a museum -"

"Shut up."

He thought he heard a hint of pleasure in the winds, so he pressed on in spite of himself. The dryad was facing him now, and so focused on him, yet he could see Cassandra approaching from a long hallway, so he pressed on.

"I just, one of the most masterful pieces I've ever seen," he was surer now, but he stuttered and tripped over his words for show. "And I was - curious if you - if you'd been the inspiration?" Cassandra crept closer, holding a wooden board. "Or if you'd been inspired by the painting - or else maybe I'm just -"

CRACK

The dryad fell like a block tower, smashed by a child's fists - clumsy but effective. Cassandra dropped the board and it awkwardly bounced off the dryad's shoulder.

"I got you!" Cassandra bounded forward and started untangling the vines, letting Jake fall to the ground in a heap. He scrambled up and gave her a quick side hug, then rushed towards the font. He dipped the small bottle into the cool water, letting it fill quickly, and corked the bottle.

He returned to Cassandra. "Wait. Before we go." He knelt by the dryad and snatched the four stones from her hair.

"What are those?" Cassandra asked, peering into Jake's cupped hand as she linked her arm through his.

He shrugged. "I don't rightly know. They look like some puzzle pieces Ezekiel has been leaving."

"Don't look like any puzzle pieces I've ever seen," she commented. "Leave it to Ezekiel. Have you heard anything?"

He shook his head. "Nothing beyond cryptic missives and colored stones."

She laughed. "Of course." Her face fell, suddenly. "I miss him. I'm sure you miss him more but - I wish he'd come home, Jake."

"Me too," he sighed, letting the pieces fuse into a scallop within his calloused hand. "Me too, Cass."

*.*.*

He was only missing one piece now. A few months of hide and seek, searching for pieces, searching for answers, searching for word of his love.

It had been too long. He was going to have some words with Ezekiel when the man returned from - wherever the hell he had gone.

There was a knocking on the door, two sharp raps and a softer tap. Jake jumped up from the dark blue couch where he'd been sitting in his apartment, and bounded towards the door. Only one person knocked like that.

He threw open the door. "Hi." Ezekiel leaned against the doorframe, grinning at him like nothing had happened.

"Hi." Jake grinned, dragging Ezekiel into his apartment and into a hug, shutting the door. Emotions battled inside him, monstrous ocean waves crashing against each other. He was drowning, unsure what to feel as his body was racked with every subtle change.

He shoved Ezekiel away. "Listen, I'm glad to have you back but" - he lost the fight to keep his voice steady - "where the fuck have you been?"

Ezekiel held his hands up placatingly. "Family emergency. I'm sorry, Cowboy, I really am." There was something different about him, something Jake couldn't quite put his finger on. It was worrying, and he felt his anger diminish slightly.

"This better be good." He was still simmering.

"I brought back some lemonade from Australia." Ezekiel pulled out a bottle of soda, with a small stone attached. "And I'll tell you everything."

Jake plucked the glass off the bottle and went to affix it to the rest. It formed a stained glass heart, colors blending together and casting hue where the light fell. In the surface shimmered a picture of Ezekiel, still standing in front of Jake's front door.

"I see you figured it out, then." Ezekiel crossed over to him, placing the heart back on the table and wrapping him in a hug. "I had meant for you to have it all before I returned, but I got to come back a little earlier than expected. So you'll have it for next time."

Jake grimaced. "There won't be a next time."

"I can't promise that," Ezekiel said softly, staring at Jake with a tenderness that made his heart burn. "But you'll be able to see me, talk to me."

Jake squeezed back, tight as he could, as if he could crush the hints of unfamiliarity out of his boyfriend. "Is that what that thing does?"

Ezekiel laughed. "Oh boy." He returned to something similar to his usual demeanor. "We have a lot of catching up to do. Come one, partner. I'll tell you everything."

-. . .-

A very happy holiday gift exchange to my pal Alex. This turned out way bigger than I expected it, but that just makes it better I hope. My first time writing something so Jake-centric, and lots of fun too. As for the rest of you, hope you all enjoy, and please let me know what you think!