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rosemaidenvixen · 3 years

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A Secret’s Worth

Chapter 17: Jim

Ao3

Content warning: Things get pretty intense in this chapter in a lot of ways. I can't be detailed without spoiling the events of the chapter, so I'll put more the general warnings in the tags. If you want more specific warnings you can click the link above and go to the Ao3 page where I’ve posted the spoiler filled warnings in the bottom notes. And if anyone feels like I didn’t tag/warn about something that I should have please let me know. This is your warning, here be dragons, proceed with caution.

There was a stain in the carpet, from coffee if he had to guess. A dark brown spot glaringly obvious against the beige. It looked just big enough for his hand to cover.

“Jim, are you listening?”

He jerked his eyes up from the floor towards the desk in front of him.

“Sorry what was that?”

Her lips turned downwards into a tiny frown “We were discussing your goals Jim,”

“Oh, right….” he drummed his fingers against his knees.

A goal. Jim had still been trying to think of one when he zoned out looking at the carpet.

Couldn’t do any kind of job or college, those weren’t happening for him. She’d said their goals could be as long term or short term as they wanted, so maybe--

“My goal is to buy my own Vespa,” Jim said, giving himself a mental pat on the back as he did.

Owning his own Vespa. Nice, realistic, normal. A good, solid goal that no one should look twice at.

The frown melted away into a wide smile “That’s great, do you have anywhere you want to go in your Vespa?”

His face blanked, stomach dropping no less than two inches.

Stupid.

People wanted cars and Vespas and stuff because they wanted to go places in them. Unlike Jim who was never going to leave his hometown.

“Ummm…..not sure, all the places I normally go I guess,” he forced his voice to stay even despite the squirming in his belly.

Her porcelain smile remained fixed in place “I think that sounds like an excellent goal, but how about you try to think of a more long term goal before the end of the school year?”

Jim nodded along, digging his fingers into his jeans to distract himself from the hot, fluttery feeling sweeping over his entire body.

Was she suspicious? Did she pick up on how he wasn’t actually planning on going anywhere? Was she going to call Dorrie the second he left her office?

“Ok, long term goal next time, I can do that,”

Beaming at him, she pulled a packet of papers off the top of the pile sitting on her desk “You don’t have to use the guide to pick a goal, but if you have trouble thinking of one these should give you some ideas, now do you mind sending in the next student on your way out?”

Jim forced himself to stand up slowly and not just bolt out the door “Ok, no problem,”

“Thanks, have a good spring break,”

He managed to smile and give a half hearted ‘You to’ as he accepted the papers and stepped out of the office. Heading down the hallway back to the main waiting room, the jittery feeling crawling through his muscles diminishing but not completely going away.

It never did.

Glancing around the waiting room, he spotted the next person in line.

“Eli, you’re up,”

Eli fumbled with the magazine in his hands before popping up out of his seat “Oh, thanks Jim,” he grabbed the magazine along with a stack of others from the floor before rushing down the hall. Jim craned his head to try and read the cover before Eli vanished around the corner.

Keep So-Cal Weird.

Jim rolled his eyes as he exited the main office. At least his goals wouldn’t be as weird as Eli’s. Although quite frankly he’d rather live in a world where they didn’t make freshmen discuss their goals with the guidance counselors.

It wasn’t like Jim didn’t have enough on his plate already.

He had no idea if guidance counselors and social workers talked to each other on a regular basis, but he had to play it safe and act like they did.

Especially since he was like 99% sure that all the teachers knew. He knew that Strickler knew, and he was pretty sure that Strickler had told all the other teachers. So it was more like he was 99.999% sure they all knew, and the 0.001% was just him kidding himself.

So now he couldn’t even come up with some kind of goals to give the guidance counselor without his anxiety going through the roof.

Jim all but threw his bag into the locker and slammed it closed with much more force than was needed, unable to stop himself from getting worked up.

This past month had been the absolute worst of his entire life.

It had started when he’d walked in on Dorrie and Charles going through their house and it hadn’t really improved since.

When he and his mom had gone over their game plan that night after the initial panic it hadn’t seemed all that bad. Be extra vigilant about making sure that no one saw anything weird and otherwise pretend that everything was normal. If they kept on top of it the investigation should fizzle out to nothing.

Simple enough.

And the first week hadn’t been all that bad, tense but not bad. Week two had been nerve wracking but doable. Week three was when he really started having trouble sleeping, and it wasn’t like he got tons of sleep to begin with. That snowballed to him starting to forget late night meals and nod off during the day, having to work even harder at keeping up the act during school.

Although if Jim was honest with himself he forgot most of those night time meals on purpose.

On top of that, week four was when he developed a stomach ache that wouldn’t go away, not to mention learned that his hair was falling out. Now it was the end of week five and Jim couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t stressed out, dead tired, and constantly felt like rats were chewing on his insides.

Grimacing, Jim pressed a hand to his stomach as he turned and headed to the cafeteria. Feeling sick and exhausted all the time sucked, but that was nothing compared to the everpresent, unrelenting, blood curdling dread.

The fear that he’d somehow let something slip. That right at this moment someone was coming to arrest his mom and take him away. All because of something Jim said or did.

Forget walking on eggshells, this was more like crawling through a minefield.

Every second that Jim was outside his house he had to be on guard; keeping himself under complete control at all times. Making sure that anyone watching, teachers, nurses, other classmates, wouldn’t see anything worth reporting. No outbursts no meltdowns no nothing.

As far as anyone else knew the Lakes were a normal, happy family. And Jim had to act like it.

But after five weeks he knew that was a hell of a lot easier said than done.

Jim couldn’t be sad or scared or angry any more, even about regular things. With so many people watching he couldn’t afford to let them get the wrong idea. So regardless of what he was actually feeling at any given time, he forced himself to stay calm, plastered on a happy face, and continued along like everything was fine.

But he wasn’t fine. Underneath his plastic smile Jim was coming apart at the seams.

He felt like a nerve with all the skin and muscle ripped away. Exposed to the cold air and completely vulnerable, ready to go off at the slightest touch.

Constantly keeping himself under control in front of all the teachers and every other adult in school was was bad enough, even without--

Jim stopped short as he stepped into the cafeteria, instantly spotting them sitting at a corner table. Five weeks ago the sight would have been somewhat soothing, now it was enough to make his heartbeat triple and intestines knot up.

Pulling in a shaky breath, Jim forced down the sudden bout of nerves.

He was in the middle of school in the middle of the cafeteria surrounded by other people. Now was not the time to lose it.

Five in. Hold for five. Five out.

Repeat

After a minute of deep breathing the full body shivers finally diminished to a much more manageable fluttering in his chest. Confident that he’d successfully gotten his emotions under control, Jim raised a foot and slowly resumed his approach.

Jim had been going back and forth about doing this for weeks, but this morning cinched it.

He was doing this. Today. Right here right now. Even if the idea of doing it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.

Because the worst part of the past month hadn’t been constantly being on guard or always being tired and nauseous. It was not knowing who’d he had to be on guard from.

A month ago, when he’d walked in on CPS in his house, Jim instantly knew one of his friends had blabbed.

While his immediate response had been to call Toby and demand answers, it didn’t take very long for Jim to shift gears to shoving the thought into the back of his mind and keeping it there. Couldn’t do anything to change it so there was no point to shoving his foot into that hornets nest. A with the way things had blown up when their problems with his mom first came out, forcing the issue might put him on the odds with all of them, and cost Jim the one part of his life that didn’t actively suck right now. The only thing to do was let it go.

So Jim let it go.

But as the weeks went by, despite how much he actively tried not to think about it, small doubts kept sprouting up in the back of his mind like weeds.

Did Mary really mean it when she asked how he was doing or was she fishing?

Was Toby trying to be helpful by offering to help carry groceries in or was he looking for a chance to spy inside the house?

His heart shot up into his throat, pounding as he closed in on the table.

And while Jim knew it had to be one of the four of them that called, he still had no idea who it was. That meant he didn’t know who it wasn’t either.

So as much as he tried, as much as he wanted to, Jim could never completely relax around any of his friends.

It was bad enough being on edge with every single adult in his life, but not knowing which one of his friends had stabbed him in the back, and worse not knowing if they were waiting to do it again…..

Jim stopped in his tracks, table just inches away. The four of them chatting away, his presence still unnoticed. Heartbeat hammering in his ears.

This was going to be ugly but Jim just couldn’t take not knowing any more. One way or another the truth was coming out today.

“I know one of you called the cops on my mom, so who was it?”

The four of them practically jumped in their seats before whirling around to face him. Claire was the first to find her tongue.

“What?”

Her eyebrows were knitted together in confusion. An expression shared by all the others sitting around her.

Somehow that made the lump of coal sitting in his ribcage smolder hotter even as his heart was threatening to beat out of it.

One of them knew exactly what he was talking about. One of them was only pretending to be confused.

“A month ago someone called CPS on my mom and I know it was one of you,” he made a show of narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms “So don’t try to deny it,”

They all turned and looked at each other, shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

Jim stood his ground, mouth set into a firm line and prickling doubts shoved down into the bottoms of his feet. There it was, the accusation out in the open. Whoever it was might try to deny it, but Jim knew it had to be one of the four of them, and he wasn’t going to let them weasel their way out of--

“Jim….” Toby spoke slowly, briefly meeting his eyes before looking away “We….all did,”

His heart stopped.

For a moment Jim wasn’t sure how to respond, wondering if he’d actually heard Toby correctly, then the world slowly started to turn again and the words sank in.

“.....you what?”

“It’s true,” he snapped his gaze over to Darci, she flinched but didn’t look away “After we tried...talking to you, the three of us went to my dad and showed him the photos,” she glanced over to Toby at her side “It was only after that we learned Toby also talked to someone about--”

Jim whirled on Mary “I thought you said you deleted those?!”

“I-- uh-- umm…” she squirmed in her seat “I....made…...copies,”

Jim’s jaw fell open, unable to form words.

Out of all the possibilities, all the theories and ideas he’d had on who might have called, he’d never even dreamed that they’d all been in on it together.

His head was spinning, insides frozen and a roaring sound in his ears. Both hands rising up and fisiting through his hair, in a distant part of his mind he knew he shouldn’t be doing that since it was still falling out.

Just when he’d thought there couldn’t be anything else. That life couldn’t possibly throw anything worse at him--

Things became worse than he ever could have imagined.

He was faintly aware that the four of them were glancing around at each other from across the cafeteria table “Ok,” Claire laid both hands flat in front of her palms down “You have every right to be mad at us, but…”

Jim tuned her out, he couldn’t bring himself to pay attention to whatever Claire was saying when his world was going to pieces right now.

He thought that when he figured out who had been the one to call CPS he could call them out for lying and get the rest of the group to back him up. That he’d figure out who he could actually feel safe with and finally be able to fix at least one part of his completely messed up life.

But it hadn’t been one of them, it had been all of them. They’d torn his life apart and kept it a secret. They lied to him. Every day. For over a month.

Heat shot through him, flooding through his whole body until it felt like every ounce of blood in his veins was boiling.

It was his friends all along. All of them. They threw him and his mom under the bus and then they lied about it.

All the fear, all the worry. His inability to sleep or keep food down, the fact that his hair was falling out.

It was all because of them.

For the first time in weeks Jim wasn’t scared, he was pissed as hell.

“I can’t believe you guys!”

They all jerked back, eyes wide, shocked at the volume of his outburst.

“All of you knew about this,” Jim felt nails stabbing into his palms from the force he was clenching his hands “And you lied to me about it for over a month!? How could you!?”

He was spitefully glad to see them all flinch and look deeply ashamed at that.

“Look Jim,” Toby started to speak “I know you must be angry, but--”

He shriveled into silence under the glare Jim gave him.

How dare he. How dare he try and pretend like any of this was ok. The girls he could sort of see, but Toby was practically family. His mom had done more for Toby than anyone else would have in the same situation.

And Toby had still sold them out, with Claire, Darci, and Mary giving a helping hand.

Jim slowly turned to glare at each of them, the heat rushing over him blazing even hotter as he saw their pained faces and slumped shoulders.

Had they had secret meetings talking about this without him, had they laughed, snickering about being able to keep him fooled for so long.

Somehow a cold dribble of guilt managed to seep in past the white hot fire in his belly.

Even as blindingly furious as he was, for both himself and his mom, deep down Jim knew that wasn’t true. The reason they made the call was because they felt they had no choice.

They hadn’t done this as a joke, they were worried, they’d done this because they were scared for him. They’d done this because they wanted to help.

But despite knowing that, despite knowing that he was taking this too far and was going to regret everything he was saying as soon as he cooled off, Jim was too angry to care.

“I told you guys. My mom. Doesn’t. Hurt me.” he got louder and louder with every word, until he was practically shouting, the raging inferno inside him demanding to be set free “Don’t you get it? She could get arrested because of this, I could get taken away. Did you even think about that at all!?”

Toby shot up out of his seat with a bang, cutting off Jim’s tirade. Glancing up at him out of sheer reflex, he saw that Toby had the edge of the table in a whiteknuclekd grip, every muscle in his body taut and trembling, eyes sharp as knives.

“No Jim. You don’t get to do that.” his voice was cold and harder than steel, harder than anything he’d ever heard coming out of Toby’s mouth “You don’t get to drop bombs like your mom locking you in the basement and expect us to pretend like everything’s ok. And you don’t get to act like we’re the bad guys for trying to help you,”

Jim found himself taking an involuntary step back. He’d never heard Toby this angry. Ever.

Prying his hands free, Toby stomped around the table towards him, Jim pinned in place under his molten gaze “You don’t get to talk about lying when you were the one who’s been lying all along. When you’ve been lying to me for years!”

“Tobes I--”

One look from Toby shut him up.

“But now you want to play honesty hour? Fine, we’ll play honesty hour. How did you really get those scars on your ankle?”

The bottom fell out of Jim’s stomach, taking every remaining drop of anger with it.

“.........what?”

“Well?” Toby stopped two feet away, green eyes boring holes into him “Go on, tell me, where did those scars come from?”

Jim couldn’t do anything but gape at him. The rehearsed answer, they came from a fox bite, sat in the back of his throat withering.

He couldn’t know. It was impossible. Only two people in the world knew the truth. The act done in the dim of the early dawn in the middle of a remote forest.

Don’t worry sweetie, it's a sterile blade. A few quick cuts and a bandage on top should get you all the shots you need, no questions asked.

There was no way for Toby to know, but the look in his eyes told Jim that he did.

“How-- how--” he struggled to get the words out “How do you--”

Darci gingerly slid out of her seat to come stand next to Toby “Ok let’s all just take a deep breath and relax for a second,” she glanced over, her expression cool and professional, no longer holding any trace of guilt “Jim, I’m sorry we lied about what we did but I’m not sorry for doing it,”

“Darci’s right,” Mary stood and approached, Claire at her side “And we all agreed, what’s going on with your mom….that’s not ok, and we couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. I know your mom was probably really messed up when your dad walked out, but that doesn’t mean--”

The words hit him like a fist to the gut “How do you know about that!?”

Mary shut her mouth, cheeks pink.

By now everyone in the cafeteria was turning and looking at them. And who could blame them with all the yelling. Jim knew that this was exactly the type of scene he needed to avoid, but all the emotions boiling up in his chest were too enormous and tangled and turbulent for him to make space to care about their audience.

Claire took half a step forward “Look Jim, I’m sorry we lied to you about reporting your mom, that was messed up and we shouldn’t have done it, but...” she inhaled, drawing herself up to full, regal height “But we wouldn’t have had to report her behind your back if you had just let us help you in the first place,”

“Yeah, you don’t get to talk to us about lying,” he spun back towards Mary. Hands on her hips, eyes narrowed into diamond hard points “If you had been honest with us from the beginning we wouldn’t have had to lie about anything,”

Toby stepped to the front of the group, arms folded in front of him “To more tricks or lies. We need the truth Jim. The whole truth, about everything. The scars, the basement, your curfew,” his expression was granite, voice flint “Right here, right now.”

Jim staggered back, furiously glancing at each of their faces. Claire and Darci were stern and unmoving as statues, while Toby and Mary were full on glaring daggers into him.

How was this possible? How did they know all this?

He couldn’t get enough air, chest tight as he shrunk under the weight of the four sets of eyes on him.

What else did they know? If they knew about the scars and his dad and the basement, what else did they know? And how close were they to learning….the rest?

The one tiny, microscopic flicker of hope Jim had was that he knew that they still didn’t know about….his real secret.

If they did they sure as hell wouldn’t be quiet about it.

But how close were they to figuring it out? They’d figured so much out already, it was probably only a matter of time.

And if this was how they responded to everything else, how would they react to learning that Jim was really a--

Icy daggers twisted in his gut.

He couldn’t do this anymore.

He needed out now.

Jim turned and bolted, running out of the cafeteria as fast as his legs could carry him. Barely aware of his friends’ shouts from behind him. But he couldn’t outrun the panicked screaming in his skull.

They knew about his mom locking him up, they knew about how his dad left, they knew how he really got the scars on his ankle. Sooner or later they would figure out that Jim was the monster all along and when they did--

Throughout the years ideas of what would happen if people learned about his transformation had always flickered at the edge of his thoughts. Jim had done his best to force them out of his head and keep them from taking full shape, but now every horrible, twisted thought he’d had over the years surged to the front of his mind and refused to be buried.

If anyone learned his secret it was only a matter of time until the government found out, and when they did they wouldn’t just let him run free. Jim’s blue form was an unknown; wild, dangerous. At the very least they’d lock him in a cell and throw away the key. Or maybe they would send him off to some secret lab to get dissected and analyzed piece by piece.

His breath became choppy and ragged as he raced down the hall.

Or maybe Jim was too dangerous to leave alive at all, maybe they’d drag him away for a long drive into the desert that ended with a bullet to the back of his skull.

And his mom--

A jagged lump spouted in his throat.

Would they lock her up to? For keeping his secret as long as she did. But she hadn’t broken any laws, maybe they’d just leave her alone? But then would they even tell her what they did with him? Or would she be left sitting alone in their house not knowing what happened to him while Jim sat in a prison cell, or got chopped to pieces in a lab, or rotted in an unmarked grave.

He could barely see the lockers rushing by him as heat built up behind his eyes. He was trembling all over now, blood rushing in his ears and scream building in the back of his throat.

Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together.

Jim was going to break down, he knew that. But he couldn’t let it happen in the middle of school. Not now, not again. Had to get out, go home, get somewhere safe.

Right now his secret was still under wraps, and the only way for Jim to keep those horrific ideas from becoming reality was to keep it that way.

And that meant not having another public meltdown.

Ignoring the sound of the bell, signalling other kids to start streaming into the hall, Jim scrambled up to his locker and started fumbling with the lock.

Despite his badly trembling hands he managed to get the locker open and pull his bag free, but in his haste to grab it the bag started slipping from his grip. Jim just barely caught the side in time to keep it from falling, but in doing so accidentally pulled the bag open, causing everything inside to spill out.

Jim could only watch in horror as textbooks clunked to the ground, papers scattering all over the floor, pens and pencils rolling in every direction. Insides curdling as he stared at the mess.

Why now? Why today of all days? On top of everything else--

His eyes stung.

Why couldn’t he just get a break?

Trying and failing to force himself through his breathing exercises, Jim got down on his knees and struggled to gather the contents of his bag.

Somehow his efforts to gather the papers just spread them even more, the task made impossible by how badly he was shaking all over, breath coming in quick, quivering pants, teeth digging into his lip until he tasted copper, a storm roiling just beneath his skin.

He squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing a textbook and clenching his fingers around it so tight they hurt.

Get it together. Get it together. Get it together.

“Oh my god are you crying again?”

Jim froze, inside and out, eyes shooting open to stare down at two of his pencils and the textbook he’d just grabbed off the floor. Familiar snide, smarmy voice coming from behind him.

“Dude he totally is!” Seamus said with a laugh “This is too good,”

Jim couldn’t move, nerves paralyzed. Every drop of emotion he’d had to deal with today, shock, anger, fear, and guilt, surging through him.

“Awww what’s the matter baby?” Steve jeered “Do you want a bottle?”

Seamus and Logan’s laughter echoed in his ears. From the corner of his eye he saw the traffic around them slowing as other people stopped and stared. He couldn’t feel his fingers any more, curled into rigid claws around the edges of the book.

And just like that Jim was done.

He threw his textbook against the lockers as hard as he could, unleashing a thunderous boom into the hall.

“Fuck off Steve!”

Steve, along with Logan, Seamus, and everyone else milling around in the hallway behind him, froze “What did you just say Lake?”

“You heard me Steve,” Jim growled, stomping to his feet “Fuck. Off.”

Normally he would never lose his cool with Steve, the guy just wasn’t worth it, but after everything that had happened today, everything that had happened over the last month, he just couldn’t take it any more.

And Steve thought he was such a hot shot; popular, spot on the basketball team, grades good enough to keep it but not so good to be considered a nerd. But Jim knew a lot more than Steve thought he did.

Recovering from his surprise at Jim’s outburst, Steve gave him his best sneer “Alright Crybaby you got about ten seconds to get down on your knees and apologize before I break your--”

“Oh can it Steve, like you have any business calling me crybaby when you were the one bawling in the locker room about how your daddy couldn’t come watch your big game!” Jim practically spat the words.

The smug look on Steve’s face vanished, eyes going wide and the color leeching from his skin “Wha-- how-- how did--”

“Since you can’t seem to figure it out I’ll spell it out for you, your dad doesn’t give a shit about you or your basketball games! And if you really want to make him happy go play in traffic so he doesn’t have to pay child support!”

A hush went through the crowded hall. Semus’s eyes were bugging out and Logan looked absolutely petrified; Steve himself was wearing the most hang-jawed expression Jim had ever seen.

More and more people were gathering around now, drawn by all the commotion. Jim knew it was bad to be drawing this kind of attention, especially after the stunt he just pulled on the cafeteria, but the dam inside him had burst and it felt so so good to finally let it all out.

Let someone else have the rug pulled out from under them. Let someone else feel exposed and vulnerable. Let someone else have their deepest darkest secrets thrown back in their face.

Let someone else be afraid for once. Someone who actually deserved it.

“Face it Steve you’re not special,” Jim’s voice practically dripped venom “You’re just some moron who thinks that if they dribble a basketball good enough they can get an even bigger moron to give two shits about them. It’d actually be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic,”

Even as he said the words, felt the thrill of finally being able to take Steve down a peg, a tiny trickle of guilt managed to creep in. For saying something so horrible, so wrong. That no one deserved to hear, not even Steve. But what little guilt he had was easily drowned out by the massive ocean of vindictive glee he felt now that Psycho Steve was getting to experience a tiny piece of what it was like to be Jim Lake.

The crowd around them was deathly quiet now, everyone stunned into silence by Jim’s words. Shocked that he actually went there. With one exception.

Steve’s face had gone from ghost white to purple, the veins in his neck bulging, hands balled into fists as his sides “You’d better shut your mouth Lake,” his voice was soft but dangerous. Everyone, even Logan and Seamus, nervously edging away from him.

Unfortunately for him Jim just didn’t care anymore.

“Or what?”

He stepped forward, unable to resist poking the bear “You gonna punch me in the face or something? Well go on, do it! You’re only mad because I’m right!”

Another rush of spiteful satisfaction coursed through him when Jim saw the purple flush on Steve’s face darken even further at his words, so much that he didn’t even care that some of the onlookers had started to pull out their phones.

“Well what are you waiting for? Hit me, punch me, it’s not gonna make a difference. It’s not going to change the fact that you’re a loser who’s life has fucking peaked!” he jabbed a finger into Steve’s chest, getting right up into his face “That the only thing you have going for you is a spot on the basketball team. And after that all you have to look forward to is a dead end job at the gas station and at least two divorces!”

Steve was practically quivering with anger now, nostrils flaring, teeth clenched so hard he was surprised they hadn’t cracked, but Jim could still see the flash of genuine hurt in his eyes “I’m warning you Lake--”

“Because that’s all you’ll ever be, a loser! Maybe the real reason your dad left was because he finally figured out how much of a loser you really--”

The blow took him by surprise, more than it probably should have. A dazzling flash of pain in his temple that snapped his head back into the lockers with a deafening bang as more pain flared in the back of his skull. Hot stars danced in his vision, the world around him spinning,.

Jim vaguely registered that he wasn’t on his feet anymore, felt the linoleum under his back, the cool metal behind his shoulders and neck. Dimly heard the panicked shouts coming up from around him, even though he couldn’t make out the words.

Blinking past the throbbing pain in his skull, and the warm trickle of something in his eye, Jim’s sight cleared just long enough for him to see Steve’s face, twisted into a mask of primal rage, and another fist rapidly approaching.

#tales of arcadia #Trollhunters #A Secret's Worth #fanfic #rmvwrites #jim lake jr #claire nuñez #darci scott #toby domzalski #mary wang #language #violence #death mention #dissection mention

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ayearofpike · 6 years

Text

The Visitor

Pocket Books, 1995 162 pages, 42 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-87270-2 LOC: PZ7.P626 Vi 1995 OCLC: 33376660 Released November 1, 1995 (per B&N)

Mary Weist has lost her boyfriend to a tragic accident, and is shutting everyone out since his death. But there’s a bigger problem, or at least more intensive inner voices telling her friends and family that there was more to it than anybody knew. Mary has her own secrets that she’s keeping from the community, sure, but she slowly comes to learn that she’s not the only one. In fact, she eventually finds out that she had secrets she didn’t even know about.

I mean ... talk about misleading back copy, right? Yeah, Tom is important to this book, but the story is about Mary, who doesn’t even get mentioned here. Tom shows up about halfway in, and his whole job was to try to make Mary realize the truth of the secret she had ... suppressed? forgotten? We can discuss it more when we get there.

Also, this book inspired its share of hate and anger when it came out. We were used to this epic about vampires, and now we have two stand-alone novels in a row clocking in at under 200 pages. Plus this one reads super fast. I think I did it in less than two hours this go-round. Maybe at the time it came out we felt cheated of explanation and exposition, but honestly? This is a tight horror/suspense story that neither gives us too much nor expects us to make up too much. Maybe the story doesn’t even need to be this long, though I didn’t feel it was excessively padded.

It opens with Mary getting ready to go to a party that she doesn’t really want to attend. It’s been a month since her boyfriend died, but she’s been talked into this party by his best friend (who by the way also wants to jump her bones). He’s got her there because her boyfriend’s younger brother also plans to go and wanted to talk to her — not about his death necessarily, but just about the guy. It turns out that the brother has felt his continuing presence, which weirds Mary out so much that she goes outside. Her ride comes and gets her after a while, saying that the host (another ex-girlfriend of the dead guy) wants to try to get in touch with him with an Ouija board. Pike Trope #1: check!

The party dies out enough that they have a smaller group to try to reach Dead Boyfriend: Mary, Brother, Other Ex, Horny Ride, and Superfluous Redheaded Twins That Supposedly Help Boost Ethereal Signal (I’d like to call this Pike Trope #2, but I think it was only in one book unless you count the short story that mentions the book). They get the board going, and it starts to talk specifically about Mary: that once, long ago in Egypt, she lived and pretended to be a god. Obviously Other Ex thinks that Mary knows more than she’s letting on about how Dead Boyfriend kicked off, and is asking specific and pointed questions to the Ouija board, the answers to which seem to throw Mary under the bus. Still, the godhood bits are maybe too subtle or unrelated if we’re assuming Other Ex just wanted to implicate Mary (and because she’s taking notes, I think we’re supposed to understand that she’s not even touching the indicator anyway). Still, she doesn’t answer questions and she leaves with Horny Ride without completing the communication.

So they go back to Mary’s house, where Horny Ride gives her a full-body massage in front of a roaring fire (Pike Trope #3), and she tells him about a story she was writing the day she met Dead Boyfriend: an Egyptian goddess is buried alive, but Mary didn’t know why or what happened, and in walking through the woods looking for inspiration she met him. So the message from the board hits close to home. After no sex, Horny Ride leaves and Mary throws on a robe and drives out to Dead Boyfriend’s grave, where she lies down and dreams about his death. (Pike Trope #4: dreaming backstory!) Evidently, they had broken into the school to precount the votes for homecoming queen, and when a frightened security guard with a shaky trigger finger found them, Mary basically told him where to stick it. So he acted all big, and she tackled him, and in the scuffle the gun went off, thereby creating Dead Boyfriend. What we didn’t know before — the real mindfuck revelation that does more to explain Mary’s mental state and personality than anything else — is that she continued to fight with the guard, specifically to press his gun against his head and force him to pull the trigger.

Obviously Mary has never told anyone this story, but it goes a long way toward both understanding her aloofness toward anything and everything now as well as giving us a little more justification and understanding for what we’ll learn as the story goes along. But for now, she gets up and goes home and goes to bed, but is awakened by a bright light in her backyard. She has to put on a new robe to check it out, as her first one is dirty, but what she finds outside is a flying saucer. Before she has time to even think about what it’s doing or what she should do about it, there’s a bright flash and she finds herself lying on Dead Boyfriend’s grave again. Obviously this is a dream, so she walks back home and goes back to bed. But when she wakes up in the morning, there are TWO dirty robes on her chair.

She goes to work and tells her boss about the flying saucer encounter, and he suggests that this is probably related to her traumatic experience (though he has the civility to accept that she does not seem to be making it up). That night she dreams of an invisible being in a desert who slowly makes herself visible to the people and shapeshifts into a body pleasing enough that they begin to worship her. There’s our Egyptian goddess! Mary’s not prepared to write this all off as either suggestibility or coincidence, so she calls up Horny Ride in the middle of the night and tells him to come right over, bringing Brother and his Ouija board so they can try to figure out what is going on and who they were talking to before.

Before they can even ask the board a question, it spells out this poem about how all love, all burn, all die. It calls this the “Prayer of the False God,” which also appears as the book’s epigraph. Pretty ballsy of Pike to quote HIMSELF in his own book. I wonder if the poem came first and he built the story around it. But the presence doesn’t hang out very long this time, and the guys leave and Mary falls back asleep. The spaceship shows up again, and she tries to call Horny Ride, but the voice on the other end of the phone isn’t him. Mary thinks it’s the Ouija board, and when she says she wants her boyfriend back it says that her desires make her nightmare continue. Whatever that means.

Back at school after the weekend, there’s a new kid. If you guessed it’s Tom, you’re right! Mary is drawn to him for some reason, and goes so far as to take him for a ride after school. They go for dinner, take a walk in the woods, and end up naked in front of Mary’s fireplace again. (Yes, Pike addresses the parents: they’ve left town for the week, even though neither one really wants to leave Mary alone.) But this time it’s the dude who stops the sexytimes, echoing her rationale for not wanting to do Horny Ride. They hang out for another day without talking, and that night the spaceship comes again. This time Mary sees an actual alien, and reaches out to touch it, which sucks her into a vision of the past.

(Aside: I’m kind of pissed off that I didn’t take this book with me to Roswell when I was there three weeks ago. Would have made a more fitting picture for the the entry, right?)

This vision describes Clareesh, a fourth-dimensional extraterrestrial being visiting ancient Egypt who wants to meet humans despite directives not to be seen. She vibrates down to a visible frequency, then reads the humans’ minds and adopts the physical form that they find most pleasing. They take her for a god and worship her as such — all except the one woman who Clareesh mirrored for a moment while getting her bearings in a human body. This woman wants to be beautiful and immortal like Clareesh, and after 30 years she starts to get peeved that Clareesh isn’t sharing her secrets. So she raises a mob against her and threatens to kill her lover if Clareesh doesn’t make with the youngifying. Obviously alien physiology is different from human, and unfortunately so long in a human body has stunted Clareesh’s supernormal powers.So there’s nothing she can do as this angry power-grabber gruesomely kills the young man and buries them both together in a stone tomb. And she can’t get out, no matter how she claws and tears her fingers against the rock.

When Mary comes to, she’s back in bed, and there’s dried blood on her sheets. Message, obviously. So the next day she doesn’t hang out with Tom, but she follows him after school as he wanders aimlessly around town. At one point a car hits a fox dead-on, and Tom picks it up and cradles it to his chest. And it wakes up and licks his face and runs away. Mary stops following at this point, and Tom doesn’t come to school the next day because what for. This pisses off Other Ex, who assumes that Mary has given him what he came for and threatens that through the power of her father the mayor, she’s convinced the police to reopen the case of Dead Boyfriend. Mary’s pretty sure that Brother blabbed some of the stuff she told him about the night he died, but apparently it was Horny Ride, grumpy about Mary’s interest in Tom and looking to get his dick wet SOMEWHERE. What a fucknuts.

She has to go to work, and tells her boss a little more about what’s been going on. She leaves out the zombie fox, but not much else. The boss, in turn, tells a story of a spirit that rose up out of the cemetery nineteen years ago, while he was lost on a walk, and read his mind looking for pregnant women in the area. The one it fixated on — one he didn’t even think of as pregnant, because she hadn’t revealed it yet — was Mary’s mom. So he figures that there must be something larger going on related to her and it’s manifesting somehow now. Mary thinks of Clareesh here, but isn’t sure why.

She goes back to the clearing where she found the alien, because she’s pretty sure Tom is going to be there. When he is, she pulls a gun and tells him to bring her boyfriend back to life. He asks if she’s sure she wouldn’t like to go back to the spaceship with him, and she’s adamant: all she wants is her boyfriend. So they dig him up, and Tom embraces him, and pretty soon they’re both moaning in pain: the boyfriend because his soul is back but his body is still dead and a month stiff and rotten, Tom because this act has drained all of his energy and he is about to die.

Whatever, right? My boyfriend’s back! Only he isn’t really happy about it. Mary takes him back to her house and soaks him in the bathtub, thinking it’ll warm and limber him up, but all it does is pull embalming fluid out. She thinks maybe he needs something to replace the fluid with, so he can properly live again. Blood! Pike Trope #4! Of course — they would have drained it all at the funeral home and now he needs some. So she calls up Other Ex and says she did tamper with the homecoming queen vote and that she’s willing to share the real ballots if they drop their investigation. They meet at the movie theater, and before Other Ex can say boo Mary fucking WHALES her in the head with a hammer and drags her home, to be blood for her love.

(I realized that I never said we’re back in a small town: Seedmont, Idaho, population unspecified because Pike has finally learned something about small towns. That’d be Trope #1.5, I guess.)

While Mary is refilling her dead boyfriend with live blood, Horny Ride and Brother drop by. They’re looking for Other Ex, who has evidently disappeared. Mary’s salty about Horny Ride being only worried about his new cock sheath, and she dismisses them out of hand. Back with (Un)Dead Boyfriend, he wants to know how she brought him back, and she tells the whole story, actually not leaving anything out for once. He explains that, yes, his soul is back, but his body is still dead, and that she has to let him go for both of their sakes. So she takes him back to the cemetery and shoots him in the head right next to his grave, which ... how do you kill a dead body with a magically infused soul? Did the bullet just make an easier hole for the soul to get out? But he’s dead again, and she suddenly realizes:

She is Clareesh, given a second chance to sacrifice herself and step away for the good of humanity rather than stroking her own vanity. And she failed.

Tom is still alive, and now she recognizes him as her second-in-command from the good old fourth dimension. She gives him her life energy and orders him to call the spaceship and leave her on Earth. Which he does, after he buries her undead body with her redead boyfriend, to struggle for another five thousand years.

The epilogue takes us back to the party, where it’s Boyfriend, surprisingly not dead, who is against the idea of using an Ouija board to get in touch with Mary, who was killed when she resisted the security guard at school. It tells them that there is nothing more to be afraid of, and then swiftly goes silent, leaving Not-Dead Boyfriend to mourn at Mary’s grave, where he thinks he hears a moan from under the earth.

The Visitor is probably too long by half, but it tumbles along smoothly. I don’t blame Pike for dragging it out; there’s no way his audience was going to be happy with an 80-page book. But it probably would have worked better in one of his short story collections coming up quick. I’m not mad at it, even as it pulls from so much of what he’s written before, because every author does that. Maybe I needed this distance from the original context, coming as it did in the middle of TWO separate book series, to appreciate this one on its own merits.

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jennylovesjordan-blog · 8 years

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know.

Well, to be honest, she didn’t expect it to hurt that much. Marco had come back immediately, shouting her name in the middle of the panicking crowd running around the broken billboard, dragging Jackie’s hand with him across the entire Echo Creek. He didn’t find her at home, either, so to say that he’s having a break down is an understatement. No matter how many times Jackie tried to assure him that Star is probably okay - she is a magical princess after all - he didn’t listen and just continued on his searching frenzy. And Star? She was seriously giving her life decisions a second look. Sure, she had expected them to act like a couple since they are an item now, aren’t they? Hugs and holding hands and stuff are a natural thing to do when you’re dating, she knew, but a kiss? She—she…

…let’s just say she hadn’t expected it to stung that much. “Star? STAR!” She could hear him screaming her name, panicky concern in his voice. It made her eyes well up despite the ridiculousness of this situation; she had brought this on herself, after all. She was fine with it, with them, she kept telling herself that it was too late, it was for nothing, she could bear with it, right? If only for his happiness. She could do it for him, even if her heart felt like it might rip apart. She had had that scary moment when she couldn’t control her magic (now that she looks back at it, the beam of magic was green and not its usual flirty pink color) and honestly, it terrified her. She had lost almost everything; her spell book, Glossaryck, the history of her entire family… Even if her parents reassured her a million times that it’s fine, it’s no problem; they can fix it, she couldn’t help but feel this guilt looming over her head, the lingering sense of depression and absolute worthlessness that had been chased away by lip-sync nights with Marco over Just Friends and Too Little Too Late is coming back, making her losing her mind. And now, she can't— She can’t lose Marco too. It felt kind of pathetic, now that she thought about it. Sitting here, at the rock bottom of Echo Creek and feeling like the scum of the earth, trying not to cry her eyes out. It's—it’s terrible, how much she missed his hugs, even if they are all platonic and sweet. His loving, protective touches, even if they are as light as feathers. His smile, the bright shining sun in her darkest days. The way he would let himself loose whenever she’s around— The pure, unadulterated joy in his eyes whenever he looks at Jackie. It hurts more than she would ever admit. What would’ve been different if she hadn’t invited Jackie today? Nothing much, except for the fact that he would’ve been with her instead, would’ve held her hands and they would’ve had some fun together, no? But the fact that he did do all of those things with her made her even more confused and her descend into madness even faster. She—she didn’t know how to feel. Don’t get it wrong, she loves Jackie; the girl was as cool as a well practiced narwhal blast. But seeing her there with him, doing all the things Star herself used to do with Marco made this unexplainable feeling bubble at the bottom of her stomach. It’s not jealousy, that much she knew, but it’s not something unrelated either. Heh—she had really lost it, hadn’t she? And surprisingly enough, the ducks didn’t help her much. “It’s just—” she gestured wildly with her hands, at a complete lost for words, “I’m happy for them—I am, don’t you dare question me—but like, they could’ve done it somewhere more discreet, you know. Marco didn’t have to hold my hand the entire time he was making out with Jackie, either. Like, I know I gave it up already; no need to rub it in my face,” she sighed when the duck merely hissed at her (can ducks even hiss?) Welp, so this is how it is. Sitting under a bridge, curled up into herself and blabbing to ducks about her life problems. There goes the famous Princess Star Butterfly. God, when did she become so piteous?

He wasn’t sure how much of an imbecile could he be.

He knew—Marco Diaz fucking knew—that something was wrong the second Star left the seat next to him and run up to the stage. Her smile had been incredibly forced, but he didn’t call her out on it. He knew that he had made her feel uncomfortable. The awkwardness that had never been in their friendship before surfaced earlier in the concert and he noticed—God he noticed. But he didn’t do anything about it. He was screaming her name the second that billboard exploded in a cloud of green magic. He knew—he fucking knew…

He needed to find her.

Well, it’s time to go home she guessed. It was dark and cold, and the lady who sells hair still creeps her out. Star sighed deeply and pulled out the pair of dimensional scissors, not ready to walk through the front door and face her best friend.

The scissors…

…She should probably give them back to him. They’re his, after all. And—and she couldn’t have them. She couldn’t have anything, could she? She cut open the fabric of reality and created a portal straight to her room. Dark. It was dark and lonely and— She missed Marco already. God, how was she supposed to live without him? Her plan was to go back to Mewni and just—stay there; she had caused him more than his fair share of trouble. But now, being here alone in the vast space of her own room… It—it made her feel broken. Hollow and angry at herself and worthless and self-loathing. Was—was this her punishment? For not telling him her feelings sooner? She was just trying to protect their friendship—it was too valuable a thing for her to lose. She could—she could be just friends with him, right? As long as she gets to stay by his side. Star, you idiot. You can’t stay—Marco’s suffering because of you. He constantly risks his life for you, and you still want more? What’s wrong with letting him date Jackie? At least she didn’t pull him into a deadly adventure for her own gains. What did you ever do for him besides almost getting him killed? That—that’s not true—Marco is my best friend and he loves me— Who are you trying to fool? Face it, Butterfly, you’re nothing but a burden to him. If you love him—really love him, then free him from a disaster such as yourself. And she felt inadequate. Insecurity was always Marco’s problem, not hers. She was always there to cheer him up and reassure him that he matters. So who will cheer her up? No one, that’s it. Nothing. Left with an empty soul, a cleaved wand and a heart devoid of emotions. Could she be more pathetic?

“S-Star?” he knocked gently on the door. No answer, but he knew better than that. “Star, I know you’re in there. Can-can we talk?” She was as quiet as a statue. And the door was locked. Dammit. “Look, I know I made you, um, uncomfortable. I get it. And I’m sorry, and I promise it won’t happen again,” he choked a bit on the promise and it made her heart clenched painfully, “Now can you please open the door? Just let me check on you? I saw that green magic blast and for the love of God, Star, I was worried sick,” his voice was nothing but tender loving care and she could feel herself crying, “Wait, are you crying? Are-are you okay? Are you hurt? Why did you blast the billboard? God, did Ludo come for your wand again? Star? Star, open the door!” She was sobbing now and she knew he could hear it but she didn’t care, “Star, please. I will break it down if I have to, I swear.” he paused for a little as if he’s contemplating something, “If-If you don’t want to see me I’ll ask Mom to come up and check on you? I-I sent Jackie home already so please, just—just let me in—” He sounded so desperate she wondered why he was even doing this. It’s pointless, it’s all pointless. She was selfish and dirty and she couldn’t believe she was jealous over her best friend’s happiness and she didn’t deserve him and why didn’t he just leave her alone— The lock buckled again when he tried to shake it out of place and she panicked. “D-Don’t come in!” The shaking stopped immediately at her words and she sighed in relief. “I-I’m not hurt, Marco,” her voice was an octave higher than usual but again, she didn’t care, “I’m just, um, relaxing. Yeah, relaxing! The hype at the concert got me good, you know? Just chilling a bit to cool off and then I’ll be good as new. No need to worry about me, heheh,” she forced out a laugh and it was painful. But if it gives him reassurance… She would do anything. He was deathly quiet now, and she was scared. Scared that he had left already. Scared that he had abandoned her, that she had just done something wrong and he hates her now, and how could she—how could she— “Star,” he whispered softly on the other side and she perked up slightly, “Why are you lying to me?” He sounded small and heartbroken and so vulnerable it made her wanted to kick the door open and just hug him, hug all the stupid depression out of him for his kind and bright smile to return. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. So she cried instead. “I know,” he told her softly, “that you don’t exactly like me dating Jackie. Don’t think that I’m that oblivious—even if I am I can still read you like a book. I know you, Star Butterfly. I know when you’re distressed, uncomfortable, or those moments when you would put on a strong face no matter how powerless you feel. Everyone else would be fooled but I wouldn’t. Because I know.” She really shouldn’t be crying this much. “But what I don’t know is what makes you like that. So please, Star, tell me. You know I’ll always listen, always understand—or at least try to understand. I want to help. Please, you know I’m always here for you. Like how you are always there for me.” “Can you open up to me?” Of course. But she couldn’t.

So yeah I don’t really write ficlets for individual episodes like this but Just Friends is different. I’ve been through this hell and let me tell you, having an unrequited crush on your best friend who is datin another one of your friend is just depressing, guys.

So have an almost 2k drabble finished at 1:30 am. Sorry not sorry.

#svtfoe spoilers #just friends #fanfiction #fucking feels man #this is the fastest i have ever write something #angst because im evil

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