Part Twenty-Three of The Stitched AU
A JSE Fanfic
[This is part of a completed fanfic series of mine with 24 total chapters. I started this October of 2018 and finished it May of 2021. The four boys confront Jackie and Marvin for the last time.]
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Twilight had covered the city, and the last of the sunlight was quickly fading. There were cars out, but no pedestrians. Well, actually, there were four pedestrians. They’d been running for a while, but were now slowing down, as the spinning blue disk they’d been following was gradually losing speed. If anyone had bothered to look, they would have thought it weird to see four men following a flying, glowing disk. But the four didn’t care.
'If it’s slowing down, that means we’re getting close,' JJ explained as the group shifted from jogging to walking.
Jack looked around. They were now surrounded by apartment buildings. Not particularly tall ones, all boxy and generally looking the same. “This place…we’ve been here before,” he muttered.
'Really? It doesn’t look familiar to me.' JJ looked around as well, confused.
“I don’t think it would be, J,” Chase said absentmindedly. “Not to you.”
“Where are we?” Schneep asked, tightening his grip on Jack’s arm. “It does not sound too busy.”
“We’re near Jackie and Marvin’s old apartment is,” Jack explained quietly. “I think…I think that’s where we’re heading.”
“…ah.” Schneep’s expression fell. “So. They decided to head there.” He took a deep breath. “It makes sense, I suppose. We are coming full circle.”
“Well, now that we’re getting close, we should figure out what to do.” Chase’s hand drifted to his belt, where he’d tucked his gun. “I-I don’t want to hurt them. But…would we have to?”
'We’ll have to defend ourselves, at least,' JJ anticipated.
“What we really need to do is get rid of the strings,” Jack said. “But, well, we can’t destroy them, apparently.”
“Maybe we can contain them, somehow?” Chase speculated. “Like, while they’re in that box, they didn’t really affect Jackie for a while. I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s working anymore, but something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said quietly. The disk is slowing even further, and the area is definitely becoming familiar. He recognized the striped [awning] set out in front of one of the apartment buildings. They’re getting close. “Maybe…if we put them far away, a-and somehow contain them, then they’ll stop influencing them. JJ, you’re the magic man, do you think you can do that?”
JJ looked skeptical, clearly frowning under his mask. 'I don’t think so,'he signed slowly. 'I tried before, back when the strings first came after Jackie, remember? He just used his new magic to destroy the brief moment I had them under control.'
“I don’t remember that,” Chase said.
'Well, it definitely happened,' JJ said. He paused for a moment, thinking. 'Henrik. I have a question. Where do your scissors come from?'
Jack translated the signed question for Schneep, who frowned, confused. “I…am not sure. They sort of come from nowhere.”
“Hey, y’know…back there, you pulled out like three of those, right?” Chase asked. “And that cane you sometimes use comes from nowhere, right?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, if you can take things out of nowhere, do you think you can put things away into the nowhere?” Chase asked. JJ nodded eagerly, apparently having had the same idea.
Schneep blinked. “Oh. I had not tried that, not with things I had not already pulled out. Perhaps.” He nodded, slowly at first, then with increasing surety. “Yes, it makes sense that I would be able to do that. And we might as well try, yes? That would probably contain the strings, and put them far away.”
“Great, so we have a basis,” Jack said. “Now we just—” He suddenly stopped walking. The tracking disk had turned a corner, and there it was. “Oh. We…we’re here.” The building with Jackie and Marvin’s apartment. It looked exactly the same, even years later. Despite the disk not changing pace, the boys hurried up, getting ahead of it.
Once the disk caught up, it headed down a side alley. Then, strangely, it paused. And floated upward. Up to a fifth story window, with a fire escape outside. Once it reached there, it disappeared. 'Is that their apartment?' JJ asked.
“Yeah,” Chase muttered, nodding. “That’s it. Wonder if it’s still empty.”
“Wonder how we are going to get inside,” Schneep added. “Can we just…walk in?”
Jack leaned to the side, looking through the glass front doors of the building. “Well I mean…no one’s in there.”
“It can’t be THAT easy,” Chase said.
But it was. The boys walked right into the apartment building’s waiting area, heading straight for the elevators. Nobody appeared to stop them. The elevator doors slid open, and the four of them piled inside.
“Shit. I forgot about this,” Jack swore. He pointed at a keyhole in the elevator’s button panel. “To access the floors with rooms you need a room key. Otherwise…” He pressed the button for the fourth floor above the ground story. It didn’t light up. “Yeah, that.”
“I do not suppose either of you two kept a copy of their room key,” Schneep muttered.
“No,” Chase said. “God. I really don’t want to climb up the fire escape. I know Jackie always said it was fine, but that thing looks rickety as all hell.”
'Hang on, let me try something,' JJ said, pushing past the others to be closest to the button panel. He stared down at the keyhole, then pressed two fingers on either side of it. A small bit of blue magic flickered into existence, flat and long. It slid right into the keyhole, and JJ made a turning motion. Then he pressed the same button Jack had. This time, it lit up, and the elevator started moving upward.
Chase whistled, impressed. “I didn’t know your magic included picking locks, J.”
'It’s not exactly like that,' JJ explained. 'It’s just that my magic is purely focused on helping others. I concentrated on ‘we need to move the lift so my friends can get upstairs,’ and it worked.'
“Still, that’s pretty cool,” Jack said. “But okay, while we’re here, we need to figure out what exactly we’re going to do. Get a game plan going. Anyone have any ideas?”
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The fifth story hallway was eerily normal. It felt out of place for what they were about to do. Jack, Chase, and Schneep still remembered the room number: 515. Near the end of the hall. The group walked silently down the corridor, until they stopped outside the room with the number stenciled on its door. After a moment of hesitation, Jack reached out and grabbed the knob, turning it. “It’s unlocked,” he said, surprised.
“Either that’s how they got in here, and they left it open, or they knew we would come,” Chase guessed.
'Personally, I hope it’s the former,' JJ said.
Jack looked at the other three, taking in their expressions. Nervous, but not backing down. “Are we ready?” he asked. They all nodded. “Alright. Let’s get in there fast. On three. One…two…” He pulled the door open. “Three!” And the four of them hurried inside, the door shutting behind them.
The apartment hadn’t changed at all in the past few years. That was a bit odd, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t it have been sold to new owners, or at the very least cleaned up to show it off to potential buyers? But no. Perhaps being the apartment where a murder-suicide happened was enough to scare people off. Or perhaps there was a supernatural reason for it. Either way, everything was the same. EXACTLY the same.
All of the living room’s furniture had been pushed to the walls, even blocking the doors to the other rooms. There was a circle burned into the wooden floor, with five melted black candles along the perimeter, now just lumps of wax.
Jackie and Marvin were kneeling on the floor inside the burnt circle, facing each other with the box containing the strings between them. The coppery metal sides were pretty banged up, covered with scratches. But the box was still holding strong. The moment the four entered the room, Jackie and Marvin’s heads shot upward and turned to stare at them. “Leave,” they said, in perfect, eerie unison.
Jack instinctively took a step backwards, bumping into Chase. The moment he did, Chase reached out and squeezed his hand, giving him an encouraging nod. Jack nodded back. He took a deep breath. “No,” he said. “We can’t let you do this.”
“Why not?” They asked, still perfectly in sync. “We need them. We need to be whole.”
“You two are whole by yourselves,” Jack insisted. “You’re two people, not one.”
“Can’t it be both?” They tilted their heads. “Things can be two and one, half and whole.”
“Not people,” Chase added. “C’mon, guys. You remember who you were before! I know you do!”
They looked at each other. “The memories are there,” they conceded. “But which is which? We don’t know. We can’t tell. It’s all mixed up. But when we are whole, it doesn’t matter. Because our memories are mine. My memories are ours. Everything is there. Everything is complete.”
“But do you know what that—that ‘whole’ does?” Jack asked. “He hurts people! You two don’t like to hurt people. You never have. So how can you let this—this black magic do things like that?”
“It doesn’t matter. We need to be complete.” They stand up. “Back off. Or we’ll make you.”
Jack clutched his chest, as if this was physically hurting his heart. “No,” he whispered. “I already said so. We can’t let you.”
“One more chance,” they warned. “We WILL open this.” They pointed at the box—no. At the spot on the floor where the box had been. But it wasn’t there anymore. When they glanced down and saw that, they froze. Then looked up, towards the back of the room. Schneep, who’d jumped behind the two while the rest of the group was distracting them, had slowly pulled the box away, dragging it out of the circle. The moment the silence fell, he realized that the jig was up. And he picked up the box.
“No!” The two broke up. Jackie lunged backwards towards Schneep and tackled him to the ground, where the two of them struggled over the box. Marvin ran forward towards the other three, blue strings of light appearing around him, reaching forward.
Jameson pulled up his shield, diverting the strings to either side. Chase pulled his gun out of his belt and pointed it towards Marvin. “We don’t want to hurt you!” He shouted.
“Oh, shu̧ţ ̴u̵p,” Marvin snarled. He pounded on the shield with a fist. “We don̢'͟t̸ ̵c̵ar͢e.̧”
Schneep suddenly cried out as Jackie threw him backwards, hitting the draped windows. Now clutching the box, Jackie retreated to the circle in the center of the room, kneeling on the floor again. The burnt circle sizzled, like embers coming to life, and suddenly huge red spikes shot out from the black circle, each half the size of a person and sharp as a knife. Jackie was now defended in the middle, as he struggled to open the box.
“Fuck!” Chase darted out from behind the shield, running towards Schneep. But a blue string wrapped around his ankle, lifting him up. He yelped in surprise, dropping the gun. Jameson looked towards him and made a gesture like he was throwing something. A light blue disc sailed through the air, slicing through the darker blue of the string and dropping Chase to the floor. Unfortunately, as a result of this magic, the part of the shield covering himself flickered a bit. Just enough for two different strings to snake through and wrap around him, pinning his arms. The rest of the shield then died.
“Schneep, get Marvin, I got Jackie!” Jack shouted, jumping straight into a sprint to avoid more of Marvin’s strings.
“Right!” Schneep got to his feet, now holding two pairs of scissors, one in each hand. His eyes briefly glowed turquoise, and he disappeared. Then he reappeared behind Marvin, practically on top of his back. “Jamie! Catch!” He threw one of the scissors in Jameson’s general direction. It clattered to the floor, and Jameson immediately got down, awkwardly picking them up while his arms were still pinned. Meanwhile, Schneep held the open blade of the scissors to Marvin’s throat. “Sorry about this.”
Marvin shrieked, grabbing Schneep’s arm and trying to push him away. But Schneep held fast, trying to keep the blade close, but not touching. Unfortunately, after one particularly hard shove from Marvin, he overcorrected. The blade sliced—not through Marvin’s skin, though. Instead, the scissor blade cut through the green stitches holding his neck wound closed. Immediately, Marvin cried out, finally managing to push past. He leaned forward, bracing against the wall, and made several uncomfortably harsh choking sounds as the strings wriggled out, falling to the floor. They inched past Schneep, heading towards the circle where Jackie was.
Meanwhile, Jack and Chase had met up on the edge of the circle of spikes, giving each other unsure looks. Slowly, Chase raised his gun again. “Jackie!” He shouted. “Put the box down!”
Jackie ignored him, frustratingly prying at the seam where the lid met the rest of the box. He growled, and the spikes got a little longer, forcing Jack and Chase to back up. “Shit, okay, not the way to do it,” Jack muttered. He hesitated, then reached out and touched one of the spikes. Immediately, he withdrew his hand, hissing. “They’re, like, hot or something.”
“Right. Okay.” Chase took a deep breath, then pulled the trigger on his gun.
The BANG! filled the small room. The bullet hit one of the spikes, shattering it like ceramic. Jack and Chase covered their faces, but bits of the shards still cut their arms. Jackie, to the side of the spike when it shattered, cried out as shards bit into his arm as well. One of them sliced right through the green string wrapped tightly around his wrist, which fell to the floor. That finally made Jackie look up. “Go a͟w̢ay̧.”
“No,” Jack said. “In fact, we’re getting closer!” Quickly, he grabbed Chase’s arm and ran, darting into the circle through the gap caused by the broken spike.
Jackie screamed as the two of them entered the circle, and shot to his feet. “Leave us a̷l̶o͞n̕e!̡” He ran at the two of them, and Jack stepped in front of Chase, grabbing Jackie’s arm as he went to hit him. Then when Jackie’s other hand shot up, he managed to grab that one, too. He looked pretty shocked and impressed with himself, until Jackie stomped on his foot and made him let go in surprise.
But during that brief window, Chase dove forward, and managed to snatch up the box. He gave a triumphant grin, which faded as he realized he was still trapped in the circle.
Back on the other side of the room, Jameson finally cut through the strings with the scissors, quickly regaining his feet. Marvin, recovering from the slice, noticed this. “F͝a̶k̵e̛ magician,” he hissed, and pounced.
Before he actually got to JJ, Schneep grabbed him, knocking him to the floor. The two of them rolled across the room, struggling with each other.
Jameson quickly backed up, looking around to regain his bearings. His eyes landed on the circle of spikes, with Chase holding the box inside. Jackie had turned on him, and Chase was backing up, head darting from side to side. Jameson started waving his arms, drawing Chase’s attention. Chase nodded, and got ready to throw the box.
Just then, Jackie ran at Chase and grabbed him. He still managed to throw the box, but his aim was now off, and the box landed on the floor in the corner of the room. Jameson hurried to get there, but then tripped. Another blue string. Schneep had managed to pin Marvin to the ground, but accidentally left one of his arms free, which he used to send a string to grab Jameson’s legs. Eyes wide, Jameson raised his own hand, conjuring a protective blue dome around the box.
“I’ve had ęno͢ug̴h͝ of this!” Jackie shouted. He made a throwing motion, and a streak of sharp red light headed straight for the box, piercing through the dome and slicing right through the coppery metal side, leaving a huge gash.
For a moment, everyone froze. For a moment, everyone was waiting.
And then the strings poured out of the new opening, moving almost like a liquid as they pooled on the floor. The strings from Marvin’s neck and Jackie’s wrist inched over to join the lump of writhing green threads. And once they were all together, the strings began to slither forward across the floor.
Jackie and Marvin started to laugh. Their eyes started to glow green, Marvin’s right, Jackie’s left. A static buzz filled the air.
“No!” Chase cried, breaking the stillness of the moment.
Jackie started to run, but Jack and Chase grabbed him and held him back. Schneep doubled down on keeping Marvin pinned, and Jameson hurried over to help. This only lasted for a moment before Jackie grabbed a knife of glowing red light and slashed at the two, cutting up their arms further, and Marvin’s strings burst outward, wrapping around Schneep and Jameson and tying them back to back. The two ran for the strings, which wriggled closer to them.
Schneep quickly cut through some of the blue strings, giving Jameson enough room to pull an arm out. A blue sphere enveloped the green strings, flying into the air where it hovered near the ceiling, keeping them temporarily contained in a glowing bubble. Marvin and Jackie shrieked in frustration.
“God damn it,” Chase muttered, pressing a hand against a particularly nasty cut on his upper arm. He looked up at Jackie and Marvin, just in time to see Jackie holding another red knife, gearing up for a throw. “JJ, watch it!”
The sphere jerked to the side, just in time to avoid the streak of red, which embedded itself in the ceiling. Marvin tried next, blue strings shooting forward to try and wrap around the sphere. It dodged them, weaving through the air in a series of maneuvers, but Jameson was starting to look a bit strained. Schneep was about halfway through the strings binding them.
“Chase?” Jack glanced at him, then nodded at Jackie and Marvin. He nodded back.
The two were distracted, standing beneath the sphere and shooting magic towards it, attempting to get it down. Jameson was fully concentrated on keeping it out of their grasp. He didn’t even notice when Schneep finally cut through the last of the strings. But he was slowly losing speed, the sphere becoming a little bit more unwieldy every second. One of Jackie’s knives sliced through the side, and he diverted focus to fixing that before the green strings could escape. In the process, the sphere temporarily stopped, and Marvin’s strings started to wrap around it.
Luckily, before they could get a good grasp, Chase and Jack sprang forward, grabbing Jackie and Marvin, respectively. “Take it now!” Jack shouted, knowing they couldn’t hold them much longer.
The sphere lurched through the air, crashing down on top of Jameson and Schneep and immediately breaking up. Schneep took off his coat and used that to catch the strings as they fell, wrapping up the bundle so none of them could escape.
“Give them b͞a͢ck̴!” The two yelled.
Anticipating an attack, Chase let go and ducked, barely missing a whirl of blue magic strings. Jack wasn’t so quick, and cried out as a red glowing blade lodged itself in his side, losing his grip and staggering backwards. The two rushed forward the moment they were free, and Jameson barely managed to conjure a shield in time. They slammed into it, stumbled back for a few seconds, and then immediately pressed forward against the blue magic, their expressions twisted viciously.
“You…two…” Jack panted. “You have to let this go! Let THEM go!”
“They are p͢ar̵t͝ of u͝s̛!” They cried.
And for a moment, Jack hesitated. They all did. Because wasn’t it true, on some level? Those strings were black magic, but trapped in their twisted fibers were actual bits of Marvin and Jackie’s souls. Would it be cruel, separating them from those shattered remains?
But what would happen? What would happen if the strings took hold of them? The magic they were made of was a poison. The two would be poisoned in turn, and the rest of them would have to fight back once again, starting everything over. That couldn’t happen. Something had to change. “We’re sorry,” Jack whispered. “But we have to.”
The two snarled, and shoved forward, breaking through the shield. Jameson backed up, raising his hands to defend himself, but the attack never came. Because the strings weren’t there. Schneep had been holding them, and Schneep wasn’t there anymore.
In unison, the two whirled around, and saw him. Schneep was standing against the far wall, his eyes glowing turquoise with black scleras. His coat was wrapped around the strings, but they still struggled against the fabric. Sensing the attention on him, he raised the scissors, and made a slashing motion. And the world…the world was sliced. A tear opened up in the air, beyond which could be seen only darkness.
“Ņ̴͓̹͞o̸̩̟̪̬̥͎!̡͇͞” The two started to rush at him, but they were just too far away. Schneep threw the ball of fabric just as a few green threads started to slip from in between the folds. It was a perfect throw. For just a second, the ball of strings was frozen in the middle of its arc, a few strands trying to escape but not fully able to.
And then, with an anticlimactic quietness, the strings slipped through the rip in the air and disappeared from this world for good.
The two screamed, piercing the silence, and everyone hurried to cover their ears. Those screams could be heard all throughout the building. But then the rip closed itself up, disappearing as if it had never even been there, and they stopped. And the instant they did, the two of them collapsed, falling to the ground like puppets whose strings had been cut.
For a moment, the other four just waited, staring. What now? Was it really…over? They weren’t moving.
Then Schneep gasped. “Th-their souls!” he said. “I-I can feel them! Like with you!”
That broke the spell. Jack, Chase, and Schneep all ran forward, [getting down next to] Jackie and Marvin. They shook them, checked their pulse, called their names. JJ stayed back for a few seconds, before slowly walking closer, wary.
“They are alive, at least,” Schneep said. “Heartbeats.”
“That’s not a sign,” Chase said, shaking Marvin’s shoulder. “Remember what they were like the first time Jack grabbed the strings and Anti disappeared? Alive, but all…empty.”
“No no, I-I think this is different.” Jack tried to sound confident. “I think that, whatever happens, it’s not going to be that.” He rolled Jackie over, onto his back, noticing his eyes were closed. “Jackie? Jackie? It’s us. You need to wake up.”
They must have sat there for a couple minutes, trying their best to get a response. Jameson was just about to suggest they get out of there, when something finally happened.
It started with a small groan, then a whimper. Marvin moved first, lifting up his head before squeezing his eyes shut and burying his face in his arms with a small cry. “M-Marv…?” Chase whispered. “Are you awake?”
Another whimper. Marvin blindly reached up and grabbed at his face, pulling his mask off and dropping it before once again hiding his eyes.
“A-ahh.” That was Jackie. He opened his eyes, squinting, even though the light was fairly dim. “Wha…? Wh-where…?”
“Jackie! You’re up!” Jack laughed, beaming. “Oh thank fucking god.”
“How are you feeling?” Schneep added.
Jackie didn’t answer, turning his head to look around. “Where…am I?”
“You’re in your apartment,” Jack explained. “Do you…know what happened?”
“What…happened? I…” Jackie reached upwards, watching his hand as he turned it around. Almost as if he couldn’t quite believe it was his.
“Marvin, are you okay?” Chase asked, leaning down closer to the floor. “Do you need us to—well, we can’t turn the lights down, there’s only one ceiling lamp and there’s no dimmer. But…can we do something?”
After a moment, Marvin raised his head, covering his eyes with his hands and looking out through his fingers. “I…don’t know…what’s happening,” he said quietly. “Chase?”
“Yeah, it’s me, bro,” Chase nodded.
Marvin’s eyes darted over towards Jameson. “Who…is that?”
“That’s JJ, don’t worry, he’s a friend.” At Chase words, Jameson waved, still a bit wary but relaxing just slightly. “You’re alright, right? Are you?”
“…my neck hurts,” Marvin said quietly. “And my head.”
“Oh.” There was an open wound across Marvin’s neck. Not too deep, but definitely there. Chase tried to smile. “Well, we’ll get that fixed. Can you sit up?”
Marvin closed his eyes again, making a quiet keening sound. But he sat up. Slowly. And once he was upright, he swayed a bit in place.
“Someone tell me what happened,” Jackie said.
“Well, what do you remember?” Schneep asked.
“I…think I talked to you? And…and Chase? My chest hurt…it doesn’t…doesn’t anymore, but my head…” Jackie pressed his hands to either side of his head. “I gotta—gotta get up.”
“Oh, here.” Jack offered his hand, and Jackie let him pull him upright. “You look a bit off balance there. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Head,” Jackie repeated. He started to look around. “What happened to this pla—”
Jackie glanced to the right. Marvin glanced to the left. The two of them made eye contact. They stared for a few seconds…and then screamed. Jackie scrambled backwards until he ran into Schneep, while Marvin grabbed Chase by the shirt and buried his face in him.
Then they both seemed to lose all strength, slumping down. Jackie’s eyes glazed over, and Marvin let go of Chase’s shirt.
“What was that?!” Schneep hissed.
“I-I don’t know!” Chase shook his head, at a loss. “They saw each other and—and flipped out.” He tried to shake Marvin, but got no response. “Are they…okay?”
“I think they’re just overwhelmed,” Jack speculated, waving his hand in front of Jackie’s eyes and getting nothing.
JJ snapped his fingers, drawing everyone’s attention. 'I hate to interrupt the moment,' he said, 'but don’t you think we should get out of here? We’ve caused quite the commotion, with smashing against the walls and screaming and such. And Chase did fire a gun, as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the neighbors are calling the police.'
Schneep nodded. “You are right, we have to leave here. It would be difficult to explain everything.”
“But where do we go?” Chase asked. “I don’t think we can find our way back to the magicians without, y’know, magic. A-and I don’t want to go to Stacy’s place, just in case…things…happen.”
Jack sighed. “Can I be honest, you guys?” He looked at each of them in turn. “I just want to go home.”
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Opening the door led them to a disaster zone. The last time they’d been in Jack’s apartment, it was falling to pieces around them as Anti and Schneep fought, their magics colliding and tearing everything apart. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling, leaving the beams overhead exposed in some places. The paint on the walls had peeled, more plaster fallen out in chunks. Some furniture was completely unusable, and the furniture that wasn’t still leaked stuffing or was missing legs. Jack didn’t even want to look at the rest of the house.
Sighing, he reached over to turn on the lightswitch, relieved when the ceiling lamp half-dangling from the ceiling still turned on. He stepped inside, feet crunching on the plaster, and the others followed. Chase was carrying Marvin in his arms, JJ was carrying Jackie in his. Schneep kept a hand on the wall and slowly inched into the room, not raising his feet so he wouldn’t trip over any debris he couldn’t see. “This place…is a wreck,” Chase said plainly.
“Yeah, I know, but we gotta stay somewhere, right?” Jack asked. “I figured this place was pretty safe. For now.” The sofa was mostly intact, save for the cotton tumbling out of bursts in its seams. But it was soft, and would hold weight, so Jack brushed off the plaster that had landed on it and hit the cushions a couple of times to get rid of dust. “I guess eventually we’re all gonna have to try to go home.”
Chase laughed. “I bet the landlord sold my house a month into me not showing up. God. All my stuff, gone.” He gently set Marvin down on the sofa, who blinks, briefly looks around, then curls into the broken cushions, eyes still open and glazed.
“Oh, not all of it, Chase,” Schneep says, slowly creeping around the room. “When it was clear the landlord was going to sell, Stacy had to go to collect your belongings. I think all the furniture is gone, but your clothes and things like your computer are okay. Did you ever check that spare storage room while we were with her?”
“O-oh. No, I didn’t…didn’t think to.”
JJ put Jackie down on the sofa, next to Marvin. Similarly, Jackie looked up, took in the state of the room, then just…mentally checked out. 'Well, my shop should still be fine, at least,' JJ signed. 'I do own the building, after all. Henrik, what about your flat?'
Chase translated the question, and Schneep shrugged. “I am not sure. I was there a few times, and everything seemed the same. But I am sure that the situation is more complicated.”
“Well, I’M probably going to be living here for a bit, at least,” Jack muttered. “So we should clean up. Um…maybe we could start by getting all this plaster into a corner of the room? A-and we should see what the damage is everywhere else.”
It was slow going. A brief look at all the rest of the rooms showed the kitchen and the living room were the worst off. The walls and ceilings were more intact in the rooms down the hall, and Jack’s room, at the very back, even had all its furniture together. So they did start by cleaning up all the plaster. Jack found his cleaning supplies in the hallway, some of which weren’t alright, but at least the broom could still be used, even with its handle snapped in half. They cleaned silently, starting by making the living room…livable, then spread out through the rest of the apartment, getting all the broken bits of ceiling and walls out of the way.
“Done in here!” Chase called from the kitchen. “With the plaster shit, anyway!” There was still a lot wrong. Cabinet doors had fallen off, every single dish was shattered, and the table was missing one of its legs and part of its surface. He didn’t even want to think about all the perishable foods that had no doubt gone bad inside the fridge.
“Great.” Jack appeared from down the hall, white dust in his hair. “Everything’s stable in the bathroom. I even found a first aid kit, so we can wrap up these cuts. Hope we have water. I think we should, I mean, I didn’t see—oh shit!” He jumped backwards. While they were talking, Marvin had appeared in the entrance to the living room, and was now staring very intensely at Jack. “Oh my god, Marv, you scared me,” Jack breathed. “Um…is everything good?”
“What happened?” Marvin asked bluntly.
“Oh, uh, we took you and Jackie over to my place. It’s…terrible, but it was close by. So now we’re cleaning—”
“No, I don’t mean that.” Marvin’s eyes were wide and a bit wild, his chest rising and falling rapidly as his entire body visibly shook. “I mean what happened to me. A-and to Jackie too. What happened to us? What happened?!”
Jack took a step backwards. “Whoa, calm down a bit—”
“Why do we remember the same things?!” Marvin stepped forward, leaning closer. “I-I don’t understand! You know, right? Tell me. Please!”
“Marvin, please, I know you’re freaked out, but you need to breathe, okay?” Jack said, fighting the urge to step back again. “You’re just going to spiral at this rate.”
Suddenly, Jackie appeared, peering around Marvin’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Jackie, hi.” Jack looked back over towards Chase, who was still in the kitchen.
Nodding, Chase joined the rest of them in the hallway. “Marvin’s a bit freaked out,” he explained.
“I-I-I’m freaked out too.” Jackie tried to laugh, but it just came out as a wheeze. He wrapped his arms around himself. “A-after everything, I—we talked about it and—you guys have to know, right? You can tell us what happened, right? You can—please? Please explain. I-I’m so confused.”
Chase and Jack glanced at each other. “You go get Schneep and JJ,” Chase said. “We’ll sit down in the living room.” Jack nodded, and disappeared down the hall.
It took less than a minute for all of them to gather together. The sofa was the only piece of sitting furniture that was still usable, so they sat on the floor in a circle, unconsciously not wanting anyone to be above the others. Marvin and Jackie sat next to each other, a slight gap between them and the other four. Jack was the first to speak, clearing his throat. “So…what do you two remember?”
Marvin and Jackie glanced at each other, and Marvin made a ‘go ahead’ gesture. “W-well…chronologically,” Jackie started. “We…remember doing the spell. We did a spell, i-it was supposed to—” He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “It was supposed to make us…b-better. Stronger. But…” For a moment, his eyes glazed over, then he squeezed them shut and opened them wide again, and he pressed forward. “It didn’t work. And from there, it was just…ni-nightmares. Awful, awful things…”
“Nightmares,” Schneep muttered to himself.
Taking that as a cue to elaborate, Jackie nodded. “Like…i-images of terrible things…happening to…people.”
“Don’t say people,” Marvin said quietly. “It wasn’t just people.”
Jackie flinched. “W-well sometimes they were just faceless people. But…i-it was…you guys. Most of the time. E-even him.” He pointed at Jameson. “A-and we talked about it, and we had the exact same ones, and we’re—neither of us are sure, if we were just…imagining them, thinking really hard about these things. Or if…they were real.”
“What do you remember after that?” Chase asked gently.
“Just…a lot…of bad things,” Marvin said haltingly. “More…nightmares. Tha-that seemed to go on forever. A-and then suddenly…my chest hurt. And I was on this street, but then…things got…jumbled up. And then I was in the flat. And now I’m here.”
“I had something that was like that,” Jackie said. “With you guys, and then thing were…my thoughts all…” He put his hands on the side of his head. “Mixed up. And then there. A-and it’s weird, that was the only place where our memories were different.”
A moment of silence. Marvin and Jackie waited for the others to respond, but they just looked at each other. “Do…do we tell them?” Jack asked quietly.
“They said they wanted to know, yes?” Schneep added.
“But it’s so fucked up,” Chase whispered. “All of it.” He glanced towards the two. “Maybe we just…just keep to the basics? Not tell them about…us?”
Jameson shook his head. 'They’ll find out eventually, and we can’t keep it from them forever.'
“Okay, but we don’t have to do it all now,” Jack said.
Schneep huffed. “I think we should. Ripping off the band-aid, as it is.”
“What if they get overwhelmed?” Chase asked. “You remember what happened last time. And back at the apartment? They just had to look at each other to go unresponsive.”
'We can check in on them as we explain, make sure everything is fine,' Jameson suggested.
“I…okay, after all that, I…think we should tell them everything now,” Jack said. “It’s gonna suck for all of us, but…if we do it all together, we’re getting it all out. We won’t have to drag it out.”
Chase hesitated, but then nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense,” he said reluctantly. “It’ll be easier to move on if nothing’s holding us back.”
“Okay, then. I’ll start.” Jack turned back to Marvin and Jackie, who looked decidedly uneasy about the explanation that was about to follow. But their expressions weren’t identical. Marvin was rocking a bit where he sat, face drawn in dread. Jackie’s eyes were wide and he leaned back, like getting distance would help. The differences made Jack relax a bit. They were two people. Not halves of a whole. “Well, you said you remember casting a spell, right? We figured out what it was for. And that it went wrong. When the spell was over…both of you…were dead.”
Explaining everything took nearly an hour. Jack laid the groundwork, explaining what Anti was and the early days of haunting them, with the others jumping in to add their experiences. Jameson, of course, couldn’t tell his experiences by himself, as neither Jackie nor Marvin understood sign language. So Jack translated that as well.
They progressed to how Anti slowly took them out. Chase took off his bandanna briefly, showing the stitches that remained, and Jameson did the same with his mask. Schneep told the story behind why he couldn’t see anymore, and Jack explained why one of his eyes was a slightly different blue. For many of these moments, it was the first time they’d said anything about what happened to them, about all the physical and mental scars left behind. They had to pause several times to collect themselves. Ironic that they were the ones being overwhelmed by emotion, when they’d been worrying about Jackie and Marvin.
Then there was the discovery of what Anti was, them fleeing to Stacy’s house, finally taking Anti apart, and keeping Jackie and Marvin—in their distant, not-quite-there state—away from the strings that remained. Marvin and Jackie sat quietly through everything, nodding when the others asked if they were still listening, if they were okay, but not saying anything. Finally, Jack, his voice now hoarse, told them about what had happened that evening, ending with bringing the two of them to the apartment.
And it was all out there. They waited for a response, but got none. Jackie’s eyes had glazed over again, and Marvin had stopped rocking and was just leaning against the base of the sofa. “I guess it was a lot,” Chase said. “Hey.” He started to reach forward, but then stopped, not knowing if either of them wanted to be touched. “It’s fine if you two need some time. That would make sense. Don’t worry about it.”
“Is it okay if we keep cleaning up around you?” Schneep asked gently.
Nothing. Then, after a few seconds, Jackie nodded.
“Alright.” Schneep stood up, and was soon followed by the other three. “We will try to be quiet about it.”
They left, discussing in low voices what to do next. The living room was left alone for now, as none of them wanted to disturb Jackie or Marvin. So they dispersed throughout the rest of the house. Jack took Chase into the bathroom, and the two of them used up all the first aid kit’s bandages on their various wounds. JJ started with the kitchen. It looked like all ceramic dishes had been shattered, but the trash bin was intact, so he started sweeping all the broken pieces into there. Schneep did his best to get order together in the bedrooms, feeling around for things that were too broken to salvage.
At some point, Chase joined Schneep in the spare bedroom, where he found something under a fallen shelf. It took both of them to get it out, one to hold the shelf, the other to grab it. “You want to keep that, yes?” Schneep asked.
“Of course,” Chase said. “But, uh…h-hang on, I’ll be right back.”
He returned to the living room. Jackie and Marvin were still sitting on the floor, turned slightly away from each other. Chase cleared his throat. “Hey, uh…so. I found this.” He held up the object in question—his weighted blanket. “Jack got it for me a while ago, but like…it’s supposed to help with anxiety and stuff, and it does kinda work, so…I thought you guys might want it.” Walking over, he set the blanket on the sofa. “It’s heavier than you expect, ha. But…yeah. I’ll just leave it here.” He backed up, then turned to leave.
Before returning to the hall, he heard the slight rustle of fabric, and glanced back to see they’d pulled the blanket off the sofa and were now sharing it. Chase smiled softly, then left, heading back towards the bedrooms.
All the digital clocks had stopped functioning, but the analog clock in the kitchen slowly ticked through the minutes. Eventually, the apartment was made livable again. There was still the problem of the broken ceiling and occasionally broken walls, not to mention the furniture that was now unusable. But livable was the ideal.
As they finished up, the boys would occasionally glance into the living room, asking the two if they were okay. There was never a spoken response, but eventually, Jackie started to nod, and then Marvin. And then they stood up and moved to the sofa. And eventually, Jackie started walking around the room, pushing the plaster and broken bits of furniture into the corner. Marvin dusted rubble off the sofa and half-intact coffee table, then tried to put the stuffing back into the torn pillows. It took both of them a while, dazed as they were, but once the rest of the boys were done with the apartment, they were done with the living room.
The clock read 12:35. Judging by the darkness outside, that meant midnight. Everyone was exhausted, but they were also hungry. Most of the food in the kitchen was ruined, but there were boxes of dry pasta and a single, large pot. The water worked. It only took another half hour to make the pasta and scoop it into six tupperware boxes, those being the only bowl-like things to survive fully intact. The utensils were okay, too. No glasses, so they used more tupperware.
Once the food was ready, Jackie and Marvin joined the others in the kitchen/dining room. They took the only two chairs left and sat at the half-table to eat while the other four stood at the counter or sat on the floor. Everyone ate silently.
Now the clock read 1:20. “I think…” Jack spoke up for the first time in a while. “…we should go to bed.”
Jameson nodded. 'The beds are alright. And there are still blankets in the closet. We might have to double up.'
“Doubling up is fine for me,” Jack said. “Chase? Schneep?”
“Yes, fine,” Schneep agreed, yawning.
“I’ll just sleep on the floor again,” Chase mumbled. “My sleeping bag is alright.”
“Are you sure, Chase? It is all dusty, and there could be things inside that we missed,” Schneep said.
“I…” Chase hesitated. Then he took a deep breath. “Alright. I can double up with someone. But can we put a pillow or something in between?”
“That’s fine, Chase,” Jack said. “You can stay with me.”
'What about these two?' Jameson asked, gesturing to Jackie and Marvin.
“Well…” Jack looked at them. “Do you two want to have a bedroom, or are you okay with the living room? Or, uh, I have my recording room, but that’s kind of a mess, computer parts all over.”
No answer for a bit. Then Marvin held up two fingers.
“The second option?”
He nodded.
“Alright. Jackie, what about you? Do you want the same?”
Jackie nodded too.
“Okay, then. We’ll bring you guys some blankets,” Jack said. “And some spare pillows.”
And slowly, everyone drifted off. They made up the beds, gave Jackie and Marvin any blankets and pillows they could find, and one by one, they all went to sleep. Jameson went first, Schneep following soon after, closing the door to the spare bedroom. Then Jack, disappearing into his own room.
Chase lingered for a bit, cleaning up dinner as much as possible. He yawned, and eventually concluded there was only so much he could do. So he headed out.
“Um…Chase?”
The soft question made him jump. He turned to see Jackie standing awkwardly in the doorway to the living room. Behind him, Marvin was lying on the sofa, Chase’s blanket pulled up to his neck, facing away from them with his head cushioned by two pillows. All the other blankets and pillows had been made into a bed underneath the half remains of the coffee table.
“Y-yeah, Jackie?” Chase asked. “Is everything okay?”
Jackie hesitated. “I…everything you told us…it really happened. Some of the memories th-that Marvin and I share, they…line up.”
“Oh.” Those memories weren’t really theirs, were they? They were Anti’s. “I see.”
Jackie took a deep breath. “Which is why…I’m sorry, Chase. I-I’m so, so sorry.” Tears started to gather in his eyes. “I-I don’t even know if I can apologize, but I really am, I feel so fucking sorry, a-and I just hope that—I just want you to know that—”
“Hey, Jackieboy.” Chase stepped forward, gently grabbing Jackie’s hand and holding it. “It’s fine. You weren’t…yourself. There was some black magic going on, and it…made things different.”
“…but still…” Jackie whispered.
Chase smiled softly. “It’s okay. I forgive you. And Marvin, too. Tell him that.”
Jackie nodded. “He’s sorry too, you know.”
“I know.” Chase squeezed his hand. “It’s late. You should go to sleep.”
“Alright. Alright.” Jackie let go, and backed up. “Good night.”
“Good night, Jackie.” Chase waited for him to get under the blankets of the bed under the table. He watched for a minute, and then turned to go, walking down the hall to the room at the end.
And for the first time in years, everyone rested. Truly, fully, at peace.