Part Nineteen of the Inverted AU
A JSE Fanfic
[This is part of a fic series I wrote from December 2018 to August 2021. Jackie, determinedly fed-up with Marvin and Jameson's attempts to find Jack, starts enacting his own plan. Meanwhile, Jack tries to go out on a small trip for fun. Unfortunately, it takes a sharp turn.]
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Jackie was already regretting this idea. It seemed like a good plan two days ago when he came up with it. But now, standing in the bedroom doorway and making uncomfortable eye contact with Jameson standing on the other side, he was having second thoughts. But he couldn’t back away now. “Sorry for, uh, interrupting you,” Jackie said, shifting on his feet. “I just…wanted to talk to you.”
{Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,} Jameson said. {Please, come inside.} He moved out of the doorway so Jackie could get past him.
Jackie tried his best to trample his nerves as he stepped inside. The house had four bedrooms, so some of the boys had to double up. Jameson shared with Schneep, and Jackie had previously shared with Jack, leaving Chase and Marvin with their own. Jackie had been inside Jameson and Schneep’s joint room before, but never alone with Jameson. And because of that, he was SUPER on edge right now. His eyes kept unintentionally darting back towards the door, expecting it to close at any minute.
“So…I’ve been thinking about the situation with Jack.” Jackie was very proud of how steady his voice was.
Jameson didn’t say anything, merely raising an eyebrow. Wait, did that mean he was listening in on what Jackie was thinking? What if he was slowly changing his mind on what he had to say? What if he already knew about the plan?
Jackie shook himself internally to get rid of the paranoia. “And I’ve…decided that…maybe it would be a good idea to get him back.”
Jameson folded his arms and leaned against the nearest wall. {Well, that’s a sudden change of mind. Any particular reason?}
“Uh…a couple.” Thank god he’d come up with reasons beforehand. “I’m, uh, kind of tired of fighting you two. I’m honestly half-expecting Marvin to murder me in my sleep one day.”
{Don’t be ridiculous, he wouldn’t kill you in your sleep,} Jameson said casually. {If he ever gets to the point where he wants to get rid of you, he’d want you to know exactly what was happening.}
“…right. Well, thanks for that.” Jackie swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “Anyway, the other reason is that I’ve been thinking, and I really don’t want to get arrested. And Jack…Jack could tell the police any day. So…yeah…”
Silence for a while. Jackie continued to awkwardly shift on his feet while Jameson took out his phone and checked a text message. He started to type a reply, then said, {That never seemed to bother you before. Did something happen?}
Jackie felt a lurch in his stomach. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said simply, folding his arms and looking away. Then quickly he added, “Suffice to say that I had a close call last night.” All of this was utter bullshit. But hopefully if he said it with enough confidence, then Jameson wouldn’t get suspicious, and therefore wouldn’t see a need to look inside his mind.
Apparently it worked, because Jameson shrugged and replied, {Very well, that’s your own business. It would be very helpful to have your aid. You’ve said before that you’re able to hack with some skill, do you think you could apply those abilities to our search?}
He tried not to wilt in relief. “I mean, maybe. But I don’t know how much I could do against the bitch. I’m sure I can get information…somehow.”
Jameson smiled at him. {Well, either way, it’s always good to have more hands on deck. If you find anything, please come to me. I’ll not ask you to talk to Marvin.}
“Probably a good idea. Anyway, uh, thanks. That’s all I wanted to say.” Jackie turned around to leave and ran straight into Schneep.
“Ahk!” Schneep took a step back. “Jackie, you startled me. What are you doing inside my room?”
“I was talking to Jameson,” Jackie explained calmly. “Oh hey, by the way, are we still on for the coffee run later today? Or are you going to crash after an all-nighter again?”
Schneep chuckled. “I will be fine, I came home early last night. I wanted to take one of the naps, but you can wake me up when you are ready.”
“Alright. I’ll see you later, then.” Jackie sidled past and down the hall towards his own room, disappearing inside.
It seemed that so far the plan was going well. Assuming Jameson didn’t find out about it, he was sure he could carry it through.
Step one: convince Jameson and Marvin he agreed with their goal of getting Jack back. Step two: somehow convince Schneep that it would be better to let Jack go, thus bringing him over to his side. Step three: “help” the others get Jack, though maybe it would be a good idea to feed some misinformation. He was still considering that part. Step four: once they’ve managed to find Jack, get Schneep’s help to get him the hell away from these two, and maybe leave themselves as well. Actually, definitely leave themselves, and take Chase with him. Also try to find a way to wake him up.
It was a simple plan, or so Jackie thought. But it was made extra complicated with the addition of a telepath. He’d just have to make sure he wasn’t giving Jameson a reason to be suspicious, and hopefully that would be enough.
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A week had passed, and Jack was finally starting to calm down a bit. He didn’t lower his guard, but he stopped expecting the others to pop up at any minute. According to Anti, they’d been running a few online searches, but he blocked every attempt. Jack was half-convinced that they wouldn’t even get close anyway, but Anti was messing with them out of some sort of spiteful vindication. Which, Jack had to admit, was sort of justified.
With the gradual relaxation, Jack had started exploring more or the American city. Though he took Mark’s advice and only explored during the daytime; he wasn’t currently keen on seeing how “weird” the city got. He started with the tourist spots and as the week progressed he grew more familiar with the layout and locations. He wasn’t up to the level of the locals, but he was confident. Confident enough to begin to wonder about what was more on the outskirts of the town.
He decided to bring up the subject one night in the hotel room. He was sitting on the bed, skimming through one of the brochures the front desk kept when he said, “Anti…how do you feel about going out a little ways out of town?”
The television flickered red, green, and blue, and suddenly Anti was sitting across from him, cross-legged. “I don’t know, how do YOU feel?”
“I…want to go see,” Jack answered. “I think it would be fun. And probably helpful, if we ever needed to flee in the night like outlaws. But do you want to…come with me?” Anti had been coming with him on most of his explorations of the city, usually in a solid form, sometimes as bursts of static inside his phone. To make sure he was being safe. But occasionally he let Jack go out on his own—no, “let” wasn’t the right word. That implied that Anti had the final say, when it had always been Jack. Rather, he didn’t come with him on his explorations. And it was nice to be alone sometimes.
Anti shrugged. “Sure. Where were you thinking of going?”
“I…didn’t think that far,” Jack admitted. “I don’t know, maybe we could rent a car and go travel the roads.”
“Jack.” Anti raised an eyebrow. “You can’t drive.”
“Well, yeah, but I was kind of assuming you could.” Jack stared at him. “Can you?”
“Do I look like I know how to fucking drive?”
“I don’t know! You have like, the entire Internet at your fingertips, I bet there’s a ‘how to drive’ video on YouTube. There are ‘how to’ videos on YouTube for everything.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m automatically going to gain the experience needed to be a good driver. I’d probably crash the car in the parking lot.” Anti fuzzed out for a moment, glitching holographically. “There are a few bus routes that go beyond the city, we can take that.”
“Alright, that sounds like it could work.” Jack twisted where he was sitting and looked over to the room’s desk. “Hey Sam! Do you want to come?”
Sam peeked out from the nest they’d made from one of Jack’s hoodie. Their nerve-tail wagged as they said they really wanted to come, that sounded exciting!
Jack laughed. “Alright. Now let’s talk about these bus routes, find one that works.”
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It was about ten o’clock the next morning when Jack embarked on his next adventure. It may have seen a small thing, taking a bus and following it wherever it would go, but Jack hadn’t been able to wander aimlessly for a long time, so even this small thing was something he enjoyed. He liked planning his own schedule for the route, he liked looking out the window at the new landscape, he liked listening to the prerecorded voice on the bus calling out the stops. As if he knew this, Anti was quiet for pretty much the whole of the trip, only sometimes taking a solid form and preferring to remain electricity in the air. Sam had to stay hidden in his pocket, of course, but they peeked out every so often and swished their nerve-tail.
The landscape outside the bus windows changed from tall, modern skyscrapers to smaller clusters of shorter buildings, and from there as the bus traveled down long roads to what must’ve been the suburbs of the city. Jack didn’t even know Los Angeles had suburbs, but apparently it did. He then made a transfer to an outbound bus from the city, and watched as the buildings faded into long stretches of flat, dry land.
Jack got off the bus around two, and that was because he was starting to get hungry. The bus stop he chose to stop at was alone on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, except for a gas station and a convenience store. Was this really how things worked in this country? Seemed a bit odd to have something like this just by itself. But there was an intersection nearby, so maybe this was somehow a transfer point for buses. Not that there were a lot of those. Or many cars, even. Aside from a few in the attached parking lot, the road was empty.
With a slight buzz, Anti materialized next to him. “When were you thinking of heading back? Or are we just moving on entirely? Could’ve let me checked out first.”
“No, we’re going back. Probably soon.” Jack checked the time on his phone, coordinating it with the bus routes he’d looked up. Or trying to, at least. “God, the wifi here sucks.”
“T͠el͏l ̸me̴ ab̷out it,” Anti muttered.
Jack waited for the bus schedule to load up. “Okay, uh, the bus back should come in a half an hour, if it’s on time. Meanwhile, I’m going to go buy snacks. I know you don’t eat, but do you want me to get you anything else?”
“I’ll pass.” Anti turned to look around the small patch of asphalt. “I’m going to try and find a stronger signal anywhere. Just in case something happens.”
“Well, good luck,” Jack shrugged. “I’ll meet you back here. Or you can meet me in the store.”
“Mm-hmm.” Anti made an OK sign with his fingers before fizzling away.
Jack reached inside his hoodie pocket to check on Sam. At some point, the long, flat landscape must’ve bored them. They were currently resting. Once he was sure they were secure, he took a deep breath, and walked inside the store.
Turns out the store was air-conditioned, like ever other building in America. Jack took a moment to adjust to the sudden temperature change and look around. Fluorescent lights, aisles lined with various packaged foods and other small items for road trips, and coolers in the back. There was one bored-looking employee standing behind a counter and checking his phone, and one customer browsing the rows who glanced over at Jack as he entered, then looked away.
Jack headed over to the nearest aisle, looking over the snacks for sale. He didn’t have too much American cash on him, and didn’t want to risk using a card of any sort, regardless of Anti supposedly protecting his whereabouts from being tracked. How much could he get?
“Hi.”
Jack jumped, and looked over to see the customer from before had entered his aisle. She was smiling at him. “Hi,” he said.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just kinda bored. See, I’m supposed to meet my friends here, but they’re late.” The woman tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and sighed.
“Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry.” Jack grabbed a bag of chips and continued down the aisle, looking to see if there was anything else. The woman followed him. He looked over at her. “You, uh, from around here?”
“Yes, we all are. We make this trip all the time, it’s practically our job now.” She laughed. “Anyway, YOU'RE not from around here, are you? I can tell by your accent. Are you Scottish?”
“Irish, actually. I get that a lot, though, so don’t worry.” She seemed friendly enough. But he was still a bit uneasy. She apparently didn’t recognize him, which was good, but you never know what might end up online.
“Oh cool! What brings you to the US?”
“I’m visiting a friend.” Jack picked up a pack of cookies and kept heading toward the back.
“Nice, we’re friend-meeting buddies. So, you’re going to visit this friend now? Or did they come with you?”
“Uh, no, he didn’t come with me. And I didn’t actually tell him I was…taking this trip.” Jack shrugged. “I mean, he knows I’m here, but I wanted to go on a bus ride, see the local sights, you know?”
“Got a bit carried away, if you’re all the way out here.” The woman laughed again.
“Yeah maybe, but it was nice.” By this point, Jack had picked up a soda to go with the cookies and chips. Not the healthiest treats, but what else were you going to find in a convenience store? “Well, I’m gonna…go buy this now.”
“Cool, cool. I should probably text my friends, see what’s keeping them. You have fun.”
“Thanks.”
As he was paying for the snacks, Jack couldn’t help but glance over at the woman a few times. She was…maybe a little too friendly, but she seemed harmless, fiddling with her phone. Hopefully she wouldn’t post this on Twitter or anything.
Outside, he took a seat on the bench by the bus stop, setting the snacks next to him. Anti still wasn’t back. Or maybe he was and was just staying in a more intangible form. The road was still empty. Jack checked the time. The bus should arrive in about twenty minutes. He sighed, looking down at the pavement.
“Excuse me.”
Jack looked up again to see a group of three approaching him. Two men and a woman. “Hi?”
“Hello!” The man in front smiled. “Sorry, I’m just wondering if you’ve seen my sister around? Long brown hair, brown eyes? She said she’d be wearing a purple top.”
“Oh…oh yeah, I saw her just inside the store.” Jack pointed. “She said she was waiting for friends, guess that’s you.”
“Great.” The man began digging around in his pocket. “Actually, I was wondering if you could do one more thing for me, that is, uh—” He pulled something out, and when he flipped it open Jack could feel his heart stop. “—if you’d just give me your wallet, that would be nice.”
Jack kept his eyes on the switchblade and slowly raised his hands, instinctively shrinking back and flattening against the back of the bench. “I—I don’t have a lot of American money,” he said slowly.
“Well, currency exchanges exist.” Jack didn’t like the way the man was still smiling. Or the way his two companions were edging around to the left and right. “And I’m sure you have credit cards or something you can hand over too.”
“You want my—I can’t give you my bank card!”
“No, I think you can.” The man walked closer. Jack leaned back further as the point of his blade drew near, as it pointed right at his throat. To the left and the right, the other two were pulling out items as well, but Jack was preoccupied with the imminent danger. “Because I have no problem just taking it from you and leaving a body for the cops to find.”
Given the choice between death or the possibility of the others finding him, Jack decided that death was the worse option. “Alright…fine…” he breathed. “I-I need to get it, it’s in my pocket.”
“Alright, stand up.” When Jack balked, the man gestured with the switchblade, the first hint of impatience. Jack slowly stood up from the bench, in the process getting even closer to the man and his knife. He started searching through his pocket one-handed. The blade point was inches from his throat. He was scared to move too much, scared to even breathe, in case that caused the blade to nick.
When he managed to pull out his wallet, the man snatched it away immediately, then backed off. Jack exhaled, but quickly tensed again as he realized there were still two others pointing deadly weapons at him. He glanced at them as the man in front flipped through his wallet. The woman to the left had another knife, a bigger one, and the man to the right had—he had a GUN. Jack’s eyes locked onto the barrel. Somewhere in the distance, he was hearing a deafening bang, feeling the kickback and the terrible mental fog that had suddenly caused everything to shut down—
“What’s in it?!”
It was the voice of the woman from before. Jack didn’t look away from the gun, but he heard her footsteps approaching and saw her walk up to the man with the blade out of the corner of his eye.
“Well, not a lot of dollar bills, but we have a couple of cards. No driver’s license.”
Laughter. “Europeans don’t DRIVE. Why do you think he took the bus?”
“Well, good point. Either way, still not a lot. What do you think? Should we take him?”
Jack’s head whipped around. “What?”
“I mean, might as well.” The woman shrugged. “Didn’t sound like anyone was expecting him back.”
“You—no, you can’t do that!” Jack nearly tripped over the bench in his haste to back away. The woman with the knife and the man with the gun closed in. His heart froze as his eyes flashed between the two of them.
“Well if that’s the case,” the man said idly, “you’re right, might as well.”
“No!” Jack darted toward a small gap in the group, only to be yanked backwards by the back of his hoodie. Still, he tried to pull away. But the man with the gun just wrapped one arm around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides, and pressing the gun barrel to the side of his head. Jack froze immediately. Tears were threatening to spill over, and he could barely get enough air from how quickly he was breathing. He couldn’t—he just got out of a situation like this, he couldn’t go back to one!
“Alright, back to the car!” The man said. “Bring him with us.”
Jack yanked his head away, doing his best to stomp on the man’s feet as he was dragged away. It was a few steps before he landed a hard enough hit to make the man yell and let go. Jack lunged forward, only to end up directly in front of the woman with the knife. He tried to push her out of the way, and the two of them struggled for a moment, until—
He thought he’d been punched at first. But then there was a sudden flare of pain as a spot on his stomach started to feel rather wet. It shocked him enough to stop fighting, just long enough for the man with the gun to grab him again.
“Oh my god, again?” The woman from before sighed. “This is the last time you use a knife, Catherine.”
“Sorry…” the woman with the knife mumbled.
“Whatever, it’s fine, we can fix it in the car,” the other sighed. “Let’s hurry, they might have fixed the security cam—”
She was cut off by a sudden electric screech. Like the sound of lightning striking a metal sheet and sheering it in two. The criminals froze, looking around. And that was all they had time to do.
The first man was thrown to the ground, dropping his switchblade and Jack’s wallet. The air shivered brokenly and the light seemed to turn a bit red. The black-green shadow of a man burst into existence, lunging at the woman with the knife. She shrieked, throwing up her blade to defend herself, but then it wasn’t in her hand, it was in the shadow’s, and there was a thin line of red dripping across her face. Even before she had finished stumbling back the knife was in the air again, barely able to be seen as a silver fan cut through the air and landed in the wrist of the man with the gun. He once again yelled and let go of Jack, who slid to the ground quietly. The first woman had barely processed the scene when the shadow of pixels was in her face, grabbing her by the shirt and pulling her close as it growled. Or, not growled. The sound came out as a series of static-laced electric bursts that could’ve been a growl, or could’ve been low, threatening laughter. The shadow threw her on top of the first man, and followed her over. The shadow’s hand fell apart into distortion, and then it plunged the hand right through the woman and man’s chests. They screamed simultaneously.
The shadow withdrew, crouching by the fallen Jack. It stared at the group, then reached up to its face and seemed to remove something for just a moment. There was a flash of green, and all the criminals watching felt icy terror run through their veins. They scrambled to stand up and sprinted away. A few minutes later, a single white car screeched away from the parking lot, leaving the smell of burning rubber behind.
Anti settled into a solid form, smiling. Maybe he went overboard with that, but he was on high guard, maybe even a little paranoid. Had been ever since they arrived in this city. Well, enough of that. Anti turned his attention to the man lying on the pavement. “Jack? Jack, are you alright?”
Jack didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at Anti. He was shaking slightly, eyes closed, arms pulled close to him. There was a small movement in his pocket, and Sam emerged. They flicked their nerve-tail, showing Anti the small nick in it that was leaking glowing green fluid. They then used it to point at a spot on Jack’s hoodie that hadn’t been that dark before.
“Fu̸c̨k̡!” Anti reached to turn Jack over so he could see the problem better, but Jack curled up tighter, shaking his head. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, tears travelling down his face. Alright, fine, Anti had seen enough of what happened to know what was happening. He should never have left.
“Sam?” The little eye jolted to attention, flying crookedly up to Anti’s eye level. They were having trouble keeping balance with the small injury. “What do we do?”
Sam hesitated, then flicked their tail nerve-three times. The symbol for ‘I don’t know.’
“Alright, alright.” Anti reached over and grabbed one of Jack’s hands. Jack clung to it, but he didn’t seem to be getting any calmer. “He’s having a panic attack, and he’s been stabbed. We need to get help, but we’re in the middle of nowhere.” Anti bit his lip as he thought. “I can’t glitch living organisms, so we can’t get there instantaneously. I can maybe open a shortcut. But there’s still a problem there. That being the longer the distance the shortcut covers, the more difficult it is to open.” He sighed. “But I guess we don’t have a choice, huh? I can open a shortcut to the hospital.”
“N-n-no!” Jack opened his eyes wide. “No, no no, no hospitals. No d-doctors. Please. Please? Please?”
“Okay, no doctors,” Anti promised. “But we have to do something! I can’t fix this!” The stain on Jack’s hoodie was spreading fast. Dangerously fast.
Sam perked up. They flew down, disappearing back inside Jack’s hoodie pocket for a second. They emerged holding a small card in their nerve-tail. They petered over to Anti and dropped the card in his lap. He hurriedly picked it up.
“This…this is the card that Jack’s friend gave him. Mark, right?” Anti read the address, coordinating it with the maps he’d found online of their location. “It is closer…but do you really think they can help?”
Sam flicked their nerve-tail once, decisively.
Anti narrowed his eye at them. “This is one of your ‘feelings,’ isn’t it? The ones that are usually right about what we should do?” Sam flicked it again. “Alright, it’s a plan.”
He glitched to a standing position, reaching up and pulling off his eye-patch. He needed full power for a shortcut. Then he bent over and carefully picked up Jack. He wasn’t usually fond of touching humans, with the way their bones creaked and their blood flowed. He didn’t know how they could stand it. But Jack clearly couldn’t walk on his own. Anti could feel his trembling even through his hoodie. “Close your eyes, Jack,” he said, shifting Jack in his arms so his eyes were facing away from the outside, just in case he didn’t. Sam settled down on Anti’s shoulder.
And Anti took a deep breath, and stepped forward.
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A few miles away, a little over a minute later, a man seemed to step out of nowhere and onto the front steps of a large house. Almost a manor. The man looked around, and suddenly there was a glitch in reality and the man was wearing an eye-patch. He looked down at the other man he was holding in his arms. His eyes were fluttering, and he seemed to be on the verge of unconsciousness. Though it was unclear if that was because of the blood loss on its own or if the panic attack had helped it along.
The House opened its front door, and the glitch on the steps tensed, static distortion running along his body. There was another man on the other side of the door. One with black hair, and electric blue eyes hidden behind glasses. He looked eerily similar to someone the glitch had seen before, someone who had identified himself as a friend. And he seemed totally unfazed by the strange sight before him.
The man inside said calmly, “Welcome to the House. We were notified of your arrival. How may I be of assistance?”
The glitch narrowed his eye. And silently, he gestured his head to the man in his arms.
The man’s electric blue eyes widened as he took in the situation, yet still his voice was calm. “That seems to be a problem. Please step inside.”
After a moment of hesitation, the glitch did so. And the House closed its door, waiting until it needed to be open once again.