Part Five of the Switch AU
A JSE Fanfic
[This is part of an ongoing fic series I started in April 2019. The group meets to discuss the odd goings-on, only to realize that they aren't alone.]
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Weekday mornings were always a bit of a rush for Jackie. But at least it was the same routine most days. Wake up, get ready, make breakfast for Michelle, help her get ready, drive her to school, come back home to make sure he had everything for work, and then drive to work. Some days his shift started later, some days Michelle had to be early for a field trip, but the routine varied very little. In all honesty, Jackie kind of liked it that way. Which might be why he ignored the first phone call, rationing it away as probably being a spam number. But by the third call, it was obvious it wasn’t just spam.
After making sure Michelle was munching happily on her toast for breakfast, Jackie finally picked up the phone to check the ID, and was immediately overwhelmed by an emotion that was combination annoyance, exasperation, and a little worry. “You ever notice how you’re the one who always calls people?” He commented upon answering the phone. “Why don’t people ever call you?”
“What?” Schneep was clearly not expecting that answer. “Never mind. Jackie, we need to talk.”
Jackie glanced over toward the dining room table where Michelle was sitting. “Well, make this quick, I have to take Michelle to school.”
“No, I mean in person. And I mean we ALL need to talk.”
Jackie blinked. “Who’s ‘we all’?”
“You, me, Anti, and JJ and Marvin,” Schneep clarified. “It’s very important. Can you meet up with us soon?”
“I—I JUST told you I need to take my daughter to school. And then after that I work until two today.”
“We can do it in the evening.”
“Henrik,” Jackie sighed. “YOU work this evening, remember? You said you traded your shift yesterday for one today.”
“Fuck, I forgot.”
“You forgot…about your job.”
“To be fair, last night was eventful,” Schneep said defensively.
“Did. Did you go to sleep at all last night?” Jackie thought he already knew the answer, so he continued anyway. “Dude. Take a nap or something before you work. Even if you don’t fall asleep and instead just lie there, it’ll do you good.”
“Ah, whatever, whatever,” Schneep said dismissively. “So we have to meet tomorrow. Do you work then, too?”
“Yeah, until two again.”
On the other side of the line, Schneep’s voice became momentarily muffled like he was covering the receiver with his hand and talking to someone else. Jackie waited patiently, tapping his fingers against the dining room table with a satisfying clacking pattern.
“Daaaad!” Michelle called, even though she was just on the other side of the table. “I finished.”
Jackie glanced over. “You have to eat the crusts, Michelle.”
“Awwwww!” Michelle set her head on the table and groaned. “Ren lets me skip the crusts.”
“Well, you can skip then when I’m not here, then.” Jackie smiled a bit. “But I hear bread crusts make your hair curly.”
Michelle’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“It’s what I hear.”
Michelle looked down at the bread crusts on her plate and began shoving them in her mouth.
“Hey slow down, you might choke!” Jackie warned.
“What?” Schneep’s voice on the phone returned.
“No, I’m talking to Michelle, Schneep, not you,” Jackie said.
“Ah, I see. Anyway, we are now planning to meet at my apartment tomorrow at four. Would that work?”
“Well, that depends. What’s this even about?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Schneep laughed nervously. “It…remember the window incident a while ago?”
“How could I forget?” Jackie shivered internally. He still couldn’t quite believed that happened.
“Yes, well. It is about that. The creature that did that…it…all the rest of us have seen it too. And we need to talk about it.”
Jackie went suddenly cold, as if a bucket of ice water had been dunked over his head. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll see you then.” And then he hung up. He stared blankly at the phone for a bit longer.
“Dad?” Michelle asked. “Are you okay? You lost all your color.”
Jackie shook his head. He smiled at his daughter. “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you finished?”
“Mm-hmm.” Michelle played with the ends of her hair. “Is it curly now?”
“Well, it doesn’t work instantly, but I think it is a little wavier. Now come on.” Jackie walked over to stand next to her while she hopped off the chair. “Let’s finish up and get you to school.”
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Jackie couldn’t concentrate the rest of the day. His work at the hospital slipped up enough for his coworkers to notice something was wrong, but he denied anything, just saying he was tired. If any of them noticed he was avoiding the second floor, they didn’t say anything. He’d never told them he nearly got pulled out a window. Because honestly, if one of them told him that a strange creature nearly killed him and that they couldn’t even really remember what the creature looked like, he would probably recommend they see a therapist.
He got off work at two like usual, then just as usual he drove over to the school to pick up Michelle at two-thirty. Upon coming home, he immediately excused himself to his room, where he lied down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
A few minutes later, the door to the bedroom burst open. “Jackie if I wanted to stab someone in the stomach area how quickly would they have to be rescued?!”
Jackie burst out laughing; he couldn’t help it. A question like that would be suspect, if it wasn’t coming from Rama, who was a crime fiction writer and also Jackie’s spouse. “Hi to you too. I’m home.”
“Yep, I heard you and Michelle come in.” Rama walked over and sat down on the mattress next to Jackie. Their black shoulder-length hair was tucked under their red beanie, and Jackie noticed they were wearing one of their favorite shirts: it had a picture of Shakespeare with sunglasses on with the caption ‘It’s hard to be the Bard.’ “Soooo?” They poked his arm. “Stomach stab wound?”
“Well I mean, it depends on where it happened and how deep it was. There are, like, organs in your torso.”
“Oh I didn’t think of that. Uhhh…it’s like, this-ish area I guess?” Rama made a circle with their fingers around a spot a little bit left of their belly button. “And pretty deep, I dunno, a switchblade went all the way in there.”
“Uh, okay, there aren’t any organs that are too dangerous to hit there. But if it’s a switchblade going all the way in…” Jackie scrunched his eyes closed as he thought. “That’s probably still going to puncture something, not to mention the blood loss. Maybe between one to three hours?” If Jackie was being honest, he was partially drawing on experience of having to patch up Schneep’s wounds after a fight, which happened way too often.
“Alright, that’s enough time,” Rama nodded.
“Are you going to stab Alice again?” Jackie asked, referencing the main character of Rama’s short stories.
“No, I’m stabbing her brother.”
“Noooooo!” Jackie whined. “You put him in danger too much, give him a break!”
Rama grinned. “Neverrr!” Their grin faded when Jackie only smiled lightly, and proceeded to drop the subject. “Hey. You okay, Jackieboy?” they asked.
“…I don’t know,” Jackie admitted. “I feel a bit…I don’t know.”
Rama stood up, walked over to the dresser, picked something up, then returned to their spot on the bed, handing the item to Jackie. It was a black-and-red fidget cube. Jackie took it and began idly pressing the buttons. “You have any idea what could be causing that?” Rama asked.
He did have an idea. Because he kept thinking about the window incident, and every thought tied to it was accompanied by a worm of anxiety in his stomach. “…yeah,” he said, and didn’t elaborate.
“Hmm.” Rama pursed their lips. “Well, you don’t have to talk about it. Anything I can do to help?”
Jackie shrugged awkwardly, still lying down. He traced the patterns in the ceiling with his eyes.
“How about we watch a movie? I’m gonna get my laptop, we’re gonna power it up, and find something that can distract you.”
“…yeah, that sounds good.”
The rest of the night was spent curled up on the bed watching Disney animated movies on Netflix. Michelle joined at one point, squeezing in between her two parents. And Jackie started to feel better, surrounded by his family. When night fell, it wasn’t too hard to fall asleep.
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And then the next morning dawned and it started again as he had to go through another shift at the hospital where he had to suffer through repeated instances of anxious thoughts assaulting him. What even was that creature? What did it want with him and the others? Was it going to kill them? Why were so many details about it fuzzy? Did it somehow affect your mind? That prospect caused Jackie to shudder every time he imagined it.
When four o’clock finally rolled around, Jackie had managed to calm down again. They were lacking in information, but if they all pooled their knowledge, they had to come up with something. They HAD to. Didn’t they?
Jackie texted Schneep when he was outside the front door of the apartment building. About a minute later, Schneep opened the door. “Jackie!” He brightened. “Come in, come in, you are the last to arrive, we were waiting for you.”
“Well, thanks for waiting, then,” Jackie smiled. He followed Schneep down the hall and up a single flight of stairs to the second floor. He’d been here many times before, to the point where he didn’t even have to look at the apartment numbers to know which one was Schneep’s.
The layout of the apartment was familiar as well. It was a simple studio apartment, with an attached bathroom and a single wall separating the sleeping area from the rest of the apartment. A corner of the floor was taken up with a kitchenette, while the rest was a combination living/working/dining area. There was a section for the dining table and chairs. There was a section taken up with a couch, two chairs, a coffee table, and a TV. And there was a desk with a computer shoved against a wall, next to a bunch of shelves overflowing with various stuff. Other than the shelves, everything in the apartment was very neat and clean, modern-style furniture in shades of blue. There were also a couple potted plants that Jackie knew from experience not to touch unless he wanted Schneep to freak out on him.
Currently, the other three of the group were scattered about the apartment. Anti was sprawled on the couch, eyes closed and probably half-asleep. JJ was looking about the kitchen section, opening cabinets, though he looked embarrassed about it when Schneep and Jackie appeared. Marvin was sitting in the desk chair, playing with the computer but honestly looking like he had no idea what he was doing.
“Alright, everyone is here!” Schneep said. He was trying to sound enthusiastic, but it fell flat. “Now we can start.”
“Well, WHERE do we start?” Jackie asked, sitting down in the nearest chair, not relaxing.
JJ approached the living area, choosing to sit in the other chair. “Well, I guess we should put all our cards on the table. We don’t know much about whatever this…person is, but I bet that if we shared all our encounters, we’re bound to figure something out.”
Anti opened his eyes. “Well, then I think you and Marvin should go first. You saw him first, right?”
“You did?” Jackie asked, surprised. “When was this?”
“Oh. Well, you remember that night I texted you because Marvin was acting strange and wandered off?” JJ looked over at Marvin, who remained silent, over by the desk.
“Yeah?”
JJ kept looking at Marvin, raising an eyebrow. But when Marvin didn’t say anything, he sighed and stopped. “Well, most of what I told you was true. Marvin did disappear, and I did find him in an entirely different part of town. And everything that you said might be dissociation, that happened too, but—”
“I’m still not quite sure what happen’d,” Marvin said suddenly. “I t’ink at some point I…I’m not sure, but…I remember seeing a man dressed in gray, whose eyes were bleedin’.” He looked down, as if worried they might not believe him.
Jackie cleared his throat. “I know who—or what—you’re talking about. I saw it, not too long after you.”
As the minutes passed, the pieces were puzzled together. Marvin and JJ’s unplanned walk that night, Jackie’s encounter at the window, and Anti’s recent stint of nightmares and sleepwalking.
“I’ve been running into this…person,” Schneep said. At some point, he’d moved to sit on the couch, forcibly pushing Anti’s legs out of the way. “Not very often, perhaps once a week, but it has occurred enough. He has tried to kill me.”
“What? Does he, like, stab you or something?” Anti asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No, no.” Schneep shook his head. “It is…really whatever is available. The first time I saw him, we were in a construction site, I almost got impaled on that steel rebar. Then again, we were on a high building, and he tricked me into stepping off. I was lucky no bones were broken.”
Jackie furrowed his brow. “Wait, was that the night you broke into my house looking like you’d been hit by a car?”
“Ah…no?” Schneep said unconvincingly.
“How do you just step off a building?” Anti mumble-asked.
“Well, I did not know the edge of the building was so close!” Schneep snapped. He folded his arms. “It was like a hallucination, an illusion. It looked like I was in the middle of the roof, but I was on the edge, and I did not know.”
“So, this thing can create illusions, hypnotize people, and give them nightmares that make them try to kill themselves,” JJ summarized. “And he doesn’t seem to get hurt, if he can fall out a second story window and walk away.”
“It’s like a brain demon,” Jackie said, playing with his hoodie strings.
“Yeah, it messes with your mind,” Anti agreed. “But here’s the thing I’m wondering: can I stab it?”
“Anti!” Jackie gasped. “Is this the time?” Meanwhile, Schneep sighed.
“No, really, this is relevant. Because how the fuck are we supposed to get rid of it?” Anti scowled. “If it falls out a window and skips off afterward, how do we kill it?”
“Maybe we don’t need to,” JJ said. “Maybe we can ward it off, somehow.”
“What, with like garlic or something?”
“Maybe, we don’t know,” JJ shrugged. “I’ve never heard of a creature like this, but there has to be some sort of records of something like it. If not, I could probably set up some sort of protection spells.”
Anti blinked. “Oh yeah, I forgot you could do that.”
“It’s fine, to be fair you did only find out yesterday,” JJ smiled.
“But can you even set up protection from this thing?” Jackie said, looking down at his lap and pulling his fingers. “What if it just slips through your defenses? If it can make illusions, what if it can make you think you set something up, but you didn’t?”
“Well, there has to be a way to double-check,” Schneep said casually.
“And besides, wouldn’t we, like, see him nearby whenever he showed up to trick us?” Anti asked. “So we could like, stab on sight. Arm ourselves, you can all borrow my knives.”
Marvin, who’d been mostly silent this whole conversation, suddenly spoke up. “T’is might sound strange, but bear with me for a moment.” He waited until he was sure the others were paying attention before continuing. “T’is…t’ing t’at’s been following us…what color is his hair?”
Anti rolled his eyes. “What does this have to do with—”
“Answer. The question.” The others had never seen Marvin so serious.
Jackie responded first. “Well, okay, it’s…” He blinked. “It’s…” He frowned, scrunching his eyes closed as he tried to picture the gray man in his mind. “…I…don’t remember.” He could clearly see the man in his mind, yet somehow…that detail was not part of the image. Jackie opened his eyes. “Volt? What about you?”
Schneep crossed his arms, brows furrowing. Gradually, his look of concentration turned to one of discomfort. “I-I do not know. I do not know, how is that possible?”
“Alrigh’,” Marvin stood up, walking from the desk to the living area with the others. “How about how tall he is? Does anyone r’member how tall he is?”
“He’s…” Jackie trailed off. Anti stood up straight, making gestures with his hand like he was measuring someone’s height. Jameson shook his head, baffled. Schneep made an odd choking sound and covered his mouth, eyes wide.
“No, we don’,” Marvin said. “None of us know anyt’ing about what he looks like. Oh, sure, we got the monstrous swathes of it, but we cannae r’member the details. Now, Jackie.” Marvin turned to look at him. “How did t’is man get into your hospital, looking as odd as he does, and have no one even mention it?”
“That…I don’t know,” Jackie said slowly.
“Exactly!” Marvin threw his hand in the air.
“Wait, Marvin, are you saying that this…sort of illusion-casting this person can do,” JJ asked, “could possibly mean he can…make it seem like he’s not there at all? Like, maybe like the Silence from Doctor Who?”
Marvin frowned. “I don’ know what t’at is.”
“Oh. Right. That’s on me, remind me to show you that some time.” JJ laughed nervously. “Anyway, the Silence are…well, they’re sort of supernatural creatures that make it so that, while you’re looking directly at them, you know they’re there and what they are. But when you look away, you forget all about them.”
“Ah. T’en yes, t’ats what I’m tryin’ t’say. He migh’ be able to do somet’ing to t’at effect.”
Schneep visibly paled. “Well, what would we do in that situation? If that was true, then…mein Gott, then he could be anywhere. And we would not even know.”
“But…that doesn’t mean it WOULD be anywhere, right?” Anti’s eyes darted back and forth between the others’ faces.
Everyone was silent.
And then they heard the laughing.
Everyone who’d been sitting down shot to their feet. Anti reached into his jacket and pulled out a handgun. Schneep leapt into a defensive stance, hands half-raised in front of him. Jameson’s eyes changed color to a brighter blue than usual.
“/Lock the doors and close the blinds, we’re going for a ride!/”
“What the fuck?!” Jackie was the first to see him, and practically tripped over himself in an effort to put the chair between himself and the gray man—who was just casually sitting on top of the dining table, one leg folded over the other, as if it was the most natural place in the world for him to be.
Schneep stepped forward. “How did you get into my apartment?” he demanded.
“/You mean you didn’t notice?/” The man pressed a hand to his chest as if he was offended. The attempt at expression was ruined by the grin on his face. “/I was right behind you the entire time, Zaps./”
“Jesus,” Marvin muttered, inching closer to the rest of the group.
“Yeah, okay, that’s nice to hear,” Anti growled. “But you know what? I don’t care. You are going to get out of here or there’s going to suddenly be a new hole in your head.”
“/Oh, I’m afraid I beat you to the punch there./” Even though the smile never wavered, the man’s tone suddenly became a lot colder. “/So your threats are poor excuses for threats, just like how you’re a poor excuse of a person. /Works out perfectly, you know?/”
Anti took a step back. For a moment, true hurt flashed across his face.
“You have no right to say such things!” Jameson suddenly shouted. “Not when you are just as poor. You’re not even human, why do you have such authority to speak on others? And why should we listen to a distorter of minds?”
The man sat up straight. “/A distorter of minds? /I love it, I’m going to use that from now on./”
“Good try, Jems, but don’t encourage him,” Marvin hissed.
/“Aw, I’m hurt, Marvin!/” The man—Distorter—seemed to smile wider at the way Marvin jumped when he said his name. “/I wouldn’t expect such dismissive words from YOU!/”
“Wh—” Marvin visibly flinched, stepping back. “What do you…?”
“/Oh well. /Guess nothing lasts forever. /Unless you make it./” Distorter stood up. He raised one blackened hand and snapped his fingers, tilting his head to the side. “/Smile for me./”
Something clattered to the floor. Everyone sharply turned to look over at Marvin—Marvin, who had dropped his cane. He’d suddenly gone limp, posture slacking and a blank expression on his face. His eyes were empty.
“/That’s better./”
“Marvin?” Jameson was by his side before he even knew it, shaking him gently, trying to get a response. To no avail. “Marvin, wh…what…?”
“What…what did you do?!” Jackie was emboldened by the sight of his friend in distress, forgetting all previous fears about Distorter’s unnatural powers. He rushed to Marvin’s side as well, immediately jumping into assessment mode.
“/He’s fine,/” Distorter dismissed. “/If anything, this is better. /You don’t have to worry about anything if you can’t feel anything./”
“Okay, that is it.” Schneep’s expression was more than stormy—it was outright thunderous. He quickly closed the distance between him and Distorter and grabbed the gray man by the shirt. “I am getting you out of here if you will not leave yourself.”
Distorter seemed untroubled by being grabbed, though maybe that was just his unchanging smile. “/Oh, come on./” He wrapped a hand around Schneep’s wrist, nails digging into skin. “/The fun part’s just about to start./”
Everyone tensed. Jameson and Jackie were momentarily distracted by the statement, looking away from Marvin for just a moment. Anti did the opposite: he happened to glance toward Marvin at the exact time the other two looked away. And because of that, he saw when Marvin stiffened, a flash of something—something not exactly friendly—entering his eyes. “Watch out!” Anti cried, suddenly lunging across the room.
The following sequence of events happened very quickly. Marvin bent over, grabbing his cane from where it had fallen to the floor. At the same time, Schneep shrieked and stumbled back, the sleeve of his shirt now shredded as long slices leaked blood through the fabric. Distorter laughed, the nails of his hand dripping red. Immediately after, Marvin stood up and swung his cane until the topper connected solidly with the side of Jameson’s head, who cried out and staggered backwards, falling against the nearest chair. Marvin wound up for another swing at Jackie, but Anti arrived just in time, grabbing the cane and attempting to wrench it out of Marvin’s hands.
Marvin’s head whipped toward Anti. His eyes were unusually wide, and thin streams of blood began to drip from them. He hissed, and instead of trying to pull the cane back toward him, pushed with a surprising amount of force. Anti was shocked enough at the movement to lose his footing, and next thing he knew his head hit the ground and he was lying on the floor. Marvin pressed his advantage—quite literally. He knelt on the floor and began pushing the cane down on Anti’s throat, the length immediately cutting off air supply. Anti made a choked sort of gasp, and tried to push the cane away, but Marvin showed no sign of letting up.
“No!” Jackie sprung into action, grabbing Marvin around the torso and trying to pull him away. Marvin resisted, continuing to press down, but Jackie wasn’t about to give up, and was slowly winning.
Jameson climbed to his feet, pressing a hand to his head where the topper had hit it. There was a bit of warm liquid soaking his hair, but this wasn’t the time to focus on that. He was about to help Jackie, when he heard a cry of pain. He spun around to see Schneep on the floor in the dining area, scrambling backwards and clutching his bleeding arm. He looked unhurt apart from that arm injury, but his head was turning wildly on a swivel, seeming to latch onto things that weren’t there at all. Distorter approached him slowly, his grin wider than ever.
“Oh no you don’t,” Jameson muttered to himself. He cupped his hand and let the magic flow down his arm, until he was holding a handful of swimming blue light. He tossed the light, and it scattered into droplets. The drops arced across the room until they hit Distorter, each drop making a surprisingly solid impact that made him reel back, until he was finally knocked over. Jameson ran to Schneep as soon as Distorter was out of the way, murmuring vague reassurances as he patted him down for further sign of injuries.
Schneep shook his head like he was clearing it of ghosts. “What..?” He blinked several times, looking around.
Distorter stood up in one single motion, flicking away remaining drops of blue magic. “/And here I thought you might be alright, magic man./”
Jameson threw an arm in front of Schneep, shielding him. “To you? No, I’m afraid not while you’re trying to kill my friends.”
“/Who said I was going to kill ALL of them?/” Distorter spread his arms. “/What would that do for me, hmm?/”
Jameson’s hand curled into a fist, streams of magic responding to the motion. “Then what do you want?”
For a moment, Distorter’s smile shrank. “/I just want companionship. /Friends./ Well, and to get rid of anyone who’s going to stop me from getting that. /Which, unfortunately, includes some of your—/”
BANG!
Distorter staggered back, looking down at the sudden red staining his shirt, the vivid crimson standing out against the gray. Jameson blinked, then looked over to were the other three had been scuffling in the living area. Jackie had his arms wrapped tight around Marvin, who was squirming and struggling to get free. Anti was half-standing, half-kneeling, his hand extended and pointing his handgun directly at Distorter. “There’s more where that came from,” he said.
Distorter stared at him. And then he began laughing again. “/Weren’t you paying attention earlier?! /I told you that wouldn’t do anything! /Or did you not bother to check?/” His head turned to the side, farther than it should’ve been able to, with a crack. Everyone in the room was able to see that which none of them had, somehow, never noticed before. A neat hole in the side of Distorter’s head, going all the way through and dripping thick red blood.
Everyone stared; they couldn’t help it. It was like a car wreck. Some things you just couldn’t tear your eyes from, no matter how gruesome it was. “…how?” Jackie finally whispered.
“/You can’t kill what’s already dead./” Distorter chuckled. “/But I’ll give you points for trying. /This has been fun, hasn’t it?/ Hasn’t this been fun? /I can’t wait until next time./”
None of them could say what happened next. All they knew was that one moment Distorter was there, the next their heads were filled with fuzz, and he was gone.
Anti was the first to recover. “What…was that?” He scrambled to his feet. “Where did he go?!”
“That…really happened, yes?” Schneep asked.
“Yes, it did,” JJ said, nodding. “I’m not sure where he—”
A scream. Marvin pushed Jackie away, practically falling over himself in trying to get away. He ended up crawling over to the nearest chair and pressing his back to it, wiping at the trails of blood on his face and breathing quickly.
“Marvin!” JJ grabbed Schneep by the hand and pulled him to his feet before running over to where Marvin was and kneeling next to him. “Are you okay?”
“No! What? No, what? T'at wasn’—no!” Marvin was pulling at his hair with one hand, while using the other to grab for his cane. He was shaking his head.
“Hey, I know it’s a lot, but it’s going to be okay,” JJ said in a gentle voice. “Do you need anything right now? Anything I can get you?”
A strange sort of half-whimper half-yell escaped Marvin’s throat. He was holding the cane close to his body, running his fingers along the designs in the topper. “I-I dunna—I dunnae. I-I dun…t’at didn’ feel…good.”
Jackie had appeared at one point, leaning over JJ’s shoulder. He pursed his lips. “Hang on a second, let me try…” He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a small black cube with various attachments in red. He handed it to Marvin. “Here, just look at the for a bit, okay?”
Marvin seemed doubtful, but he took it anyway. Within only a few moments he was engrossed in the various parts of the cube. He seemed to especially like the switches and the rolling ball. JJ looked at Jackie and gave him a smile, which Jackie returned before standing up to go look at Schneep’s injured arm.
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It took a few minutes, but eventually they all settled down. They were all back in the living area, with Jackie and Schneep on the couch, Anti in one of the chairs and Marvin in the other, JJ standing nearby Marvin’s chair. Jackie had found Schneep’s first aid kit in one of the kitchen cabinets, and managed to bandage up the cuts on Schneep’s arm.
“I’m going to say it: I’m super paranoid that he’s just…somewhere.” Anti looked around the apartment.
“I think he left,” JJ said. “Otherwise why would he make that comment about ‘next time’?”
Anti nodded. “Good point. Still…maybe he’s always there. Always watching.”
“Please don’,” Marvin muttered. JJ and Jackie glared at Anti.
Schneep cleared his throat. “Marvin…are you ready to talk about…what that was back there?”
“I-I don’ know what it was,” Marvin said simply. “It was just…t'ere was not’ing. Just a daze. But also, t’ere was…I-I don’ know. An…urge…to do certain t’ings. An I know it was coming from him.”
“Mind control?” Jackie asked. He looked at JJ. “Is that possible?”
“Um…” JJ folded his arms. “I know that there are spells out there that can do that. And strange creatures that can influence your thoughts. But I’ve never even heard of something like…him.”
“Um, Marvin?” Anti asked tentatively. “Is it okay to ask how you know that…thing?”
Marvin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’ know how I know him. I just know he’s familiar. I don’ r’member much, and I know less. I don’t even know how I got to now—to here!”
Schneep blinked. “I’m sorry, did you say—”
“Not!…now,” Marvin interrupted, opening his eyes. “I’ll explain it to you t’ree anot’er time, righ’ now it’s…too many t’ings.”
Jackie nodded. He looked around the room quickly. Everyone was tense, uneasy, and/or upset. “Well!” He clapped his hands. “I think that’s too many things for all of us today. We need to do something to calm down.”
They all looked at him in surprise. But none of them disagreed. Or, well, Anti did, but he just liked to disagree. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Don’t you need to get home soon?”
“Rama and Michelle could do with some time together,” Jackie shrugged. “Why? Are you worried about Will?”
“I mean, I paid the sitter for the whole afternoon because I didn’t know how long this would take, so I guess I could technically stay a bit longer?”
“Good. So we’re going to do that.” Jackie stood up and walked over to the TV. He began rummaging through the cabinet under it. “Trust me, sometimes you just need a distraction. And I think we all need one right now. I don’t know what kind of movies people like, so you’re going to have to tell me so we can pick something everyone likes.”
It’s surprising how quickly a mood can change.
It’s surprising, sometimes, how easy it is to bounce back to reality after being in a grayed-out zone for a while.
Maybe all it really takes are five friends laughing and shouting so loud that you can’t really hear to movie, until someone makes popcorn and someone else takes out the spare blankets, and eventually everything seems right again.