Vertigo: Chapter 11: Hallowed Ground
Vertigo: Chapter 11
Hallowed Ground
Jim Mason x Reader
Warnings for this chapter: Intense descriptions of drug use, overdose, and implications of suicide.
Summary: Waves, rocks, fire, salt, stars.
Notes: I cannot believe I’ve taken so long with this. It’s been finished in my drafts for...months now. Interaction with writers is so important, guys! It truly keeps me going.
Anyway, this is dark. PLEASE don’t feel obligated to read if anything in the warnings is triggering to you or makes you uncomfortable! It’s a bit of a departure from my usual style, but I enjoyed making some parts of this chapter a bit more ambiguous and abstract.
I hope you enjoy xx
Word count: 6.1K
Gif credit: (Unfortunately, I can’t find the source of this beautiful gif. If anyone knows, please tell me and I’ll credit them straight away.)
-----
It was a grey morning. The sun not yet risen, but light enough that stars were hidden in the illumination. Overpowered by something greater. It was still. Everything unmoving. Stagnant.
And for once she was happy about that. Not the ebb and flow of water, the waves, but something that could maybe give them a little more time. It’s how Medina knew something was desperately wrong in the universe-that she was okay with this stillness. She lived for motion, the rocking sensation, whirlpools, rips, anything that moved her but that morning gratitude settled in her chest for the crushing calm. A lake. Not the ocean.
They couldn’t find him. Jim.
A missing person couldn’t be reported until it was twenty-four hours after the time they went missing, she thought. It had only been about seven. But someone could go lots of places in seven hours. Lots of things could happen in seven hours.
The cold started to seep into Medina’s thin jacket, her nose running, eyes red. She didn’t bother blaming her tears on the cold. Jim was gone. She could feel it in her bones. In her soul. She didn’t know why she was still rushing because she knew they were looking for a body. Seven hours was much too long post mortem to do anything about it.
She bet that he was cold, too.
They had decided to split up- to cover more ground, was what she told Y/N but it was really because Y/N still was hoping and Medina knew she couldn’t live with false belief. Maybe it was so she could cry a little, too. They checked the beaches first-it’s where she thought he would go. To the water. To her.
Beaches were strange, she mused. It was all really just one, right? Stretching along a coast...people just decided to name different parts of it. Off topic. It was weird. Her mind wanted to think about anything, anything, but Jim. Cold and blue and grey with his eyes open staring at nothing. His hair curly from the sea air, hands tensed, knuckles covered in dried blood, thin skin stretched over bone. Maybe the sea started lapping at him. It was going to be high tide soon and the winter waves were high. Off topic.
She walked along the shore, where earth met water, the temperature icy but reminding her of why she was there. For the first few hours, she ran. Ran through the sand and the dunes and over fences screaming. She screamed until she tasted blood. He was alive then. His pulse living inside her. The second heartbeat, because they always came in twos. The best things did.
Now, she was tired. And he was dead. So it didn’t matter anyway.
Medina walked, letting the water splash up soaking her jeans. Good. Along the way, she collected sea glass, throwing the ones that weren’t smooth enough back into the water. Someone else will find it when it’s ready. She walked in a straight line pretending a balance beam was under her. You always imagine the weirdest things, Medina. When his voice echoed too loud she turned backward and walked that way. What? No remark this time, Jim?
She looked down the coast both ways. Empty.
She was empty, too.
--
She smelled burning. Fire.
“Jim, what are you doing?” Medina whispered out her window down to Jim who was crouched next to a bonfire he had created in their backyard.
“Oh hey! Come down here,” he shouted, much too loud for the hour. Medina’s phone said it was close to three in the morning.
Choosing to placate him was easy. He was….she couldn’t tell. But he was talking to her. So he was probably high. She held onto whatever shred of hope was left that he wasn’t. She made it down into the yard and sat next to him without a word. They never had to speak, but she found herself unable to think of anything to say to him.
Jim flipped through the stack of papers he had next to him, licking his thumb, then flipping again. She almost laughed. He had them organized by age but he was mostly done by then, just finishing up when his sister noticed. She looked to him with wide eyes, a weary smile on her face and he felt his chest tighten. Pity. He was suddenly reminded why he was doing all of this.
He found that he liked the warmth that radiated onto his skin from the flame. Orange and hot. Not blue and cold. It was like the sun from that coffee shop. He’d miss that. Added to the list. But it would be okay. In the end, anyway. The smoke curled up into the sky but he tried not to look. He’d miss that, too. The stars. Added to the list.
Medina was looking up, though. Looking for him up there, he knew. Because that was the thing- he wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what he was doing. Each pill each line perfectly planned to destroy him in the best way. Sometimes Jim was reckless, but not with this. Methodological down to a science. After all, he knew his limits by then.
The way that it hurt them though….wasn’t accounted for. Y/N...Medina. That’s why he wished it was done already. So they wouldn’t have to hurt for him anymore. Y/N...I want to see her. Stop being a selfish asshole, she hates you. I don’t care. I want to see her smile a few more times.
“What are you doin’?” Medina asked, finally looking to her brother.
Jim sighed. “Just getting rid of some shit.” He lifted one of the stacks he had left. This one labeled ‘Kindergarden?’ because he couldn’t be quite sure.
Medina leaned in and tried to read the label but he pulled it away before she could. Hearing him speak, she was almost sure he wasn’t high. And he’s talking again… A flicker of optimism.
“What is that?” she asked, moving faster than him, and managing a grip on the stack. In her haste, a few of the smaller pieces of paper fell to the ground next to her. On instinct, she reached down to grab it and found that it wasn’t a paper at all but a photograph.
The two of them, sitting on the steps of their home back in Michigan. It was the first day of school, she remembered that day. She had cried because she wanted a blue backpack, like Jim. Jim had cried because he was scared. Over waffles, before the bus came, she promised she would watch out for him-make sure nothing bad happened.
Her stomach rolled, nausea creeping in.
“Oops,” Jim sang as he threw another pile into the flames.
“No, stop!” Without thinking she reached into the fire to pull out the photos and small tokens of their childhood together. The only markers of their history besides the memories they held too close to share. “Fucking,” she hissed as the papers fell to the cool grass under her feet, the small flames dying quickly, the pages still scarred and curled at the edges. “What are you doing? Jim, this stuff’s important.”
“Why?” He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and used an ember from the burning pile to light it. “It’s not like I’m gonna need it.”
A pile further from the rest caught her eye. “Is that your birth certificate? And passport?” She rushed over to it, smoke clouding her face. He didn’t bother to try to beat her to it and took another lazy drag off the cigarette balanced between his fingers. “Jim,” she said a little more firm, trying to recapture his attention back from the curling pages in the fire. “What are you doing? Really?”
“I’m just not going to need it, Medina. I’m finally getting out of here.” He smiled. The first one she had seen that wasn’t full of malice in forever, it seemed.
She hesitated, wary of what he was implying. “Where are you going, then?”
“Right now? Probably over to Y/N’s. ‘Miss her.” He stood abruptly, forgetting his plans to keep burning now that Medina would inevitably put a stop to it. She stood back, hands still tracing the edge of his birth certificate.
“If you’re leaving...you’re going to need this,” she whispered and held up the slip of paper.
He flicked the cigarette into the flames that were starting to die down, running out of kindling. Another smile graced his lips but it was dampened by the shake of his head. No.
“I won’t need it.” He winked and stepped closer. She gasped when she felt him pull her into a hug, arms wrapped tight. “You’re my favorite, you know that?”
That was what he always said to her. ‘You’re my favorite.’ She never bothered to ask his ‘favorite’ what? But she really didn’t have to ask. Because he was her favorite, too.
She held onto him, probably longer than he intended the hug to go on for, but he didn’t pull away. Unable to help herself she placed her ear to his chest. His heartbeat was there. The sound that she had grown accustomed to in those nine months sharing a womb with him provided little comfort. He slowly started detangling himself from her, after dropping a kiss to the top of her head. She felt the sinewy muscles pull away and she wanted nothing more than to grab them back around her. Just one more time.
Without another word, he spun on his heel and managed to gracefully clear the fence around their yard, headed to Y/N’s house. He managed a small wave back to his sister, over the shoulder but still moving forward.
She grew cold without him there, despite the warmth coming from the dying fire. He liked fire. Not water.
They had gone camping a few times throughout their childhood and if it was anything Medina remembered it was to not douse the flames with water before retiring for the night. It’s supposed to burn itself out. She resisted the urge to cool the embers with the seawater that was so close to their home. Unable to sleep until the embers were blackened and cold, she stayed awake, watching them burn from her bedroom window.
--
Y/N had the heat blaring in her car-too stuffy and warm, but the outside was too cold. The worst part was the getting in and out of the car. It wasn’t enough time to completely warm her to the bones so her hands remained chapped and stiff gripping the steering wheel, anything to stay grounded.
Her and Medina opted to separate. Sure, ‘cover more ground’ but also because Medina’s slow glances and supreme uninterest were not helping the situation. Y/N knew Medina need to be near the water so she was stuck driving looking for him.
The roads and houses didn’t change when everything else had. Nothing changed in Palos Verdes, she noticed. Each paved street turning onto more asphalt, leading to a tan house with a red tiled roof. Carbon copies. A wave of nausea settled in her belly as she continued looking into the grey where everything started melding together. The red roof, house, street, sand, ocean-all became one under the blanket of fog.
She tasted blood and realized that she was gnawing on her lip. Briefly, she was about to ask Jim to bum a cigarette but her blood ran impossibly colder when she remembered the empty passenger seat. The vacancy was palpable.
When she reached the end of the street, a dead end leading to a trail to the ocean, she pulled over, hearing the tires spin in the sand. Before she could even hear the car door slam behind her she felt the biting cold on her hands and face. It wasn’t enough of a distraction from the nausea and the ache in her eyes, almost too exhausted to keep going. But she knew she would no matter how bad she really did just want to stop. Let it happen. If he wanted it this bad...shouldn’t they respect it? Stop letting him get in your head.
The walk down to the beach was a longer one than she was ready for, ice in her veins but fire licking her skin. This cove was opposite the side Medina was looking on. The coves were nice because once standing inside it, enclosed on the three sides by high bluffs, there was a clear view of the definite shore. No stretching landscapes, sand extending in both directions, ocean in the other, just the semicircle of beach. Almost completely enclosed, the only way out through the ocean. The bile rose in her throat before she could stop it and she retched into the hilly dune off to the side of the worn sand trail. “Fuck,” she muttered to nobody while licking the back of her hand to rid the acidic taste.
He wasn’t there. She could see that in the first few steps onto the soft ground. The only reason her feet kept pulling her forward was the pile of black ash that stained the creamy expanse. A beach fire, no doubt. As she grew closer she saw the emptied beer bottles haphazardly strewn about, cigarette butts lazily thrown into the edge of the circle of ash, but no Jim. It was a foolish thought that maybe there was some massive misunderstanding and he had somehow wound up down here with some of the boys. But the peeling logs that once held warmth were cold and damp from the morning dew, she reached a hand down to make sure it wasn’t warm, lit recently...a sign that maybe he was there earlier. Not alone and...just not alone.
Exhausted, she kneeled next to the blackened sand, jeans now damp, too. They had fires there. There was always a fire when they were together.
--
It had been a long day that extended into an even longer night. Jim still radiated heat, probably from the slight sunburn he was sporting after spending all day on the beach as she felt herself press into him to avoid the summer chill that came when the sun finally went down. A group of the usuals surrounded a small fire someone had managed to build in the center of the cove, warm oranges spreading over the dunes on onto the bluffs.
The party had lasted from sunset onward but once it hit closer to sunrise than sunset their friends started clearing out either falling over themselves or linked arms with whoever they were planning on spending the remainder of the night with. And that’s how Jim found himself half laying against one of the makeshift benches, really just washed up driftwood, Y/N comfortably tucked under his arm.
“I don’t know why you like it so much.”
“Hm?” She looked up at him, a little groggy from the booze that was starting to lose its effect. Jim liked it when she was like this, a little sleepy and vulnerable, but completely herself.
“The sunrises. You’re exhausted, let’s just go-” he started.
“No, no it’s almost up. Just relax,” she sighed and further leaned into him, preventing him from getting up even if he wanted to. She felt Jim laugh a little and drop a kiss to her hair, wild from a day of surfing and playing in the sand.
“It’s all new, you know?” she whispered, afraid to disturb the universe.
Jim nodded, but was still unsure of what she meant. ‘It’s all new’. He wasn’t a fan of new, preferring the comfort of worn in tee shirts, old cartoons, the same jacket for years now. They were familiar, something grounding. New wasn’t...good. New was moving to Palos Verdes. His mother’s new personality, his father’s new wife, his sisters abandonment. Because she really did. And he hates to blame her, but she’s the reason he became...whatever it is.
His mother was only the spark that lit the flame. Medina and her newfound obsessions and distance were the true catalyst. And his father. And maybe his mother...maybe there wasn’t even a spark. Maybe it just happened. It wasn’t a spark, it was sinking. His pockets weighed down with pills, sinking until he hit the seafloor, salt filling his lungs.
“You like new beginnings,” he stated matter of factly, a sort of revelation.
“And you don’t.” She knew him better than she let on. An innate feeling, not something she could explain or reason but she felt Jim in her soul.
“I like some new beginnings,” he said a little defensive even though he knew he had no reason to be. She could read him like a book. “I like this.” He nodded between them.
“I like this, too,” she laughed, liquor still on her breath. After a moment, Jim saw the clarity in her eyes, all traces of tipsy gone. “I really like this, Jimmy.”
His fingers cradled the back of her head, thumb rubbing small circles, and tilted her face up towards him. He didn’t like the change from the night before and sighed, the irony not lost on him. Last night the fire threw orange shadows across her cheekbones and it made her glow. A few times he caught himself glancing over at her looking like some ethereal being. She was unreal.
But at her favorite time of day, her face tilted up to the sky, up to him, a grey washed over her. She always tried to explain that it was soothing to her, the part of the day when the world was still, quiet, grey. Nothing truly existed in those precious minutes. Jim found it almost morbid. They greying landscape with fog rolling in to blanket reality. She let out a hum and Jim watched her eyes flicker shut. He had to look away.
Nothing existed at this part of the day, though. That was the one part he could get behind. Not existing.
“What do you think is gonna happen?” Jim asked, voice soft.
“What do you mean?” She shifted, eyes cracking open to meet a view of him looking out onto the waves.
“To us.” His face shifted into something of being haunted by something that hasn’t happened yet. Y/N felt her stomach clench.
“...I don’t know, Jim. Can we just...be?” she said knowing she was dancing around the topic.
She was surprised when Jim gently shook his head. “I need to know there’s something for us. I need something to hold onto.” The last part was supposed to stay in his head but the lingering effects of the alcohol made his lips loose.
“We’re…” she trailed off, thinking. It wasn’t a secret, Jim’s fear of commitment, so this was new. “We’re gonna be fine.”
“But really,” he said with a little more emphasis as he straightened his back against the driftwood. Y/N rearranged herself accordingly and sat between his legs, his chest to her back, both looking out from the cove. The grey morning was turning into a yellowed hue as the sun peeked through the clouds that decorated the open sky.
“I think we’re going in the right direction, babe.” She tilted her head back to rest on his shoulder, trying to look at him even though the angle made it impossible. He did that on purpose.
“I just want like--I just want it all. With you,” he stuttered.
She took a deep breath and Jim could feel his heart palpitate. “I do, too.”
“Like-everything. A stupid house and a dog and like I don’t know. I want to like...do taxes with you?”
A laugh passed her lips. “Taxes?”
“Yeah, taxes,” he sighed, giggling and felt his face burn. “Just like, even the stupid shit. I want that. With you.” He was raw, an exposed nerve on display for her to do with that she chose.
“I want a stupid house, too. And a stupid dog, and kids-one day. And sure, taxes,” she mused maybe a little too quiet for him to hear properly.
His eyes were still cast out onto the horizon, scanning for something it looked like.
“I mean, let’s not rush things.” She gripped his hand that was resting around her waist, completely wrapped in his embrace. “We have time.”
Jim nodded but she didn’t fail to notice the small crease in his brow, his tell for when he was overthinking. “Let’s...start with coffee.” Y/N detangled herself from the cage of Jim’s arms, missing the warmth but consoling herself with the thought of Jim inevitably smiling into the warm drink.
Jim looked up to her. The outline of her body blocking the sun that kept rising, hand extended towards him to help him up. He couldn’t help but place a small kiss to her palm before letting her help him rise. He noted the sand stuck to the jeans she was wearing and couldn’t resist playfully swatting her ass a few times as they made their way back to his car.
“Just trying to help! Can’t have you covered in sand all day,” he laughed as he went in for another tap-just missing and grazing her thigh.
Her little squeals made him smile.
--
It was the wrong beach, not the one he was going for, anyway. But was he going for a beach at all? Did it matter? Yeah.
He remembered there were stairs but not much else. And then it was dark and cold and the water was there. He was there? Fuck.
There were the pills shoved in his back pocket...that happened at some point. Right?
He reached into the jeans pocket and was met with emptiness. Well really fuck. It made sense, he supposed. The way his heart was going so fast he swore it was going to rip his ribcage open, his breathing was slow though and that was confusing. But the drooping eyelids and desire to just fucking lay down was all too familiar. He must have at some point because he felt some sort of grass or plant stuck in his hair.
Jim reached to tangle some of it out, his long fingers combing through knots and wincing a little at the pain that he couldn’t really feel. Probably thanks to the oxy. He found his hand sticky when he returned it back to searching through his pockets for a cigarette. It was dark and he couldn’t find his phone-did he even have it to begin with? The streetlights were just close enough to see his fingers painted red. Oh, the stairs.
He supposed it really didn’t matter anyway. Nothing did anymore. There was no recollection of what he took. The handful of pills were all different colors, sizes. They were beautiful. There were a few bumps of coke taken off his own hand. His nose still tingled and he could taste the bitter on his gums.
But there were no stairs or pills or powders or Medina or Y/N or his mom, dad, friends there anymore.
The beach? Oh yeah.
It was the wrong one. He knew that much.
He sat alone in the center of the sand, head lolling to the side.
Go closer.
“No, I don’t wanna move.”
Too bad.
“Fuck.”
He wasn’t crazy. He knew that. He just...something pulled him to the waves.
I get it, Medina.
--
It was a Thursday when Y/N had managed to drag Jim out of bed early enough to get out before anyone else.
“You have no classes, you have no excuse!” she sing-songed as they wandered down the path behind Jim’s house to the bay, grey waves already crashing onto the shore. He smiled at the winter waves, bigger than ever and pulling whitecaps every so often, and was secretly glad that she managed to force him out. It was that but also probably the breakfast burrito she brought. Yes, she was willing to bribe him.
He had been acting...off. Nothing to worry about, but just the stress of his thesis and some stuff with his mom had him looking just a little more tired. Typical of a college student, though. Some more coffee, a Red Bull here and there, and Y/N didn’t need to know about the lines of coke he would sneak in the bathroom between classes. Just sometimes, though.
He’d convinced her to wax his board for him while he leaned back against the rocks to have his breakfast. Watching her hands glide over the board in familiar strokes and circles was meditative for him. It was comfortable, the coconut smell of the wax mixed with the lavender of her conditioner, the waves crashing, the song she was humming without realizing it. It felt more like home than the house just up the path did.
“Jack Johnson?” he mumbled around a bite of burrito, managing to catch a piece of avocado before it fell onto his wetsuit.
She looked up from her work on the board and took a second to register that she was even humming. “Oh, yeah,” she gave a gentle laugh. “I always see the poster on your door.” She shrugged and got back to work, moving slow enough for Jim to enjoy his breakfast.
He smiled, forgetting all about that poster. “Put it up ages ago-when we first moved. Banana pancakes, huh?”
“It’s a good song!” She set the wax aside and looked over the two boards ready to be put to use.
“I’m particularly fond of banana pancakes.” He shrugged.
“Is that you saying you don’t appreciate today’s breakfast?” he voice rose playfully and she nodded at his mostly gone burrito. “Because I don’t have to do that anymore…”
“No, oh my god no!” he rushed to get the words out. “You know you’re the only reason I’m like...alive. Not eating hot pockets for every meal.”
She laughed. “I’m kidding, babe.”
“Okay,” he sighed a bit more relieved. “I don’t know how nobody has wifed you up yet. I get wake up calls, food cooked, you’re a goddamn dream.”
“Well I guess someone has to make a move, eventually.”
“You’re young...we’re young,” he murmured, methodologically folding the tin foil his breakfast was wrapped if before setting it in his bag to throw out later. The mood had shifted and Jim cursed himself. He saw the way her lips tightened and her movements more controlled as she picked herself up. Tucking her board under her arm she let out a wavering laugh, “Ready?”.
“Always,” Jim whispered breathlessly.
Walking down to the waves he was sure to drop a few kisses on her temple while thinking of how he would never be lucky enough to be the one to ask her to be his wife.
--
After a particularly long morning, the sun and salt became overwhelming as Jim and Y/N made their way back onto dry land. Jim’s friends had a tendency to ruin things and Jim wasn’t having it. He found himself tucked into a diner booth before they could show up to the beach, Y/N across from him, biceps wonderfully sore from paddling and still feeling the sun’s warmth in him.
It was probably a little early for burgers and fries but neither of them cared. Jim glanced across the table to where Y/N was quickly sending a text before catching him looking. “What?” Her eyes looked up to his, face still tilted to her phone.
“Oh, nothing,” he laughed. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t feel right saying how he was just mesmerized by the water that dripped off her hair to water stain the shoulders of her shirt darker. Small sand granules still stuck to her hair and skin even though they tried to get all of it off. The way her skin practically glowed under the light that spilled in from the window she was sitting next to, her eyes that looked just a little smaller without mascara on...he loved them. He loved her.
He loved her.
He did.
And sometimes it would hit him at the most random times like when she would trip over a curb, or say something that she probably shouldn’t have, or like when she was stealing fries off his plate-which she always did. And she was doing just that while scrolling through a text message as Jim looked on and just took in...everything. Because it felt mostly right. Only mostly because Palos Verdes sat looming outside. Anywhere else in the world and it would be okay. Probably.
He knew he was running from problems. That things might not be any different if he got away.
On stained napkins, Jim planned his escape route. Rough sketches of his future. Maybe theirs.
“I’m gonna get us out of here.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jimmy.” She still smiled, knowing that he would get out one day.
--
If it was night then why was it so fucking bright out? White. Blankness, blindness, the world still spun but he didn’t know how because he couldn’t see it, so how could he feel it? It was night- he was positive about that because the sea was black. Ink black.
Even when he was older-no longer a child, just moved to the bay, looking out into the nighttime waves sent ice down his spine. Watching the surfers bob over the swells, black turning to grey where the wave broke, his chest tightened. It was swimming in ink and dark. He bet that when you came out you were covered, dripping in the stuff, staining and tainting every inch of flesh, maybe even the insides, too. Swallow some of it or breathe it in and let it paint the inside of you black. He always wondered what monsters lived there, under the blanket of dark.
It was stupid, he knew. Sea monsters didn’t exist but it was primal. Something in his blood screaming to stay away, that something down there was going to kill him, rob him of the breaths he struggled to take in anyway. Chest always tight. Lungs covered in soot and ink. Blood crashing waves, uncontrollable, and deadly-potentially tragic, but poetic. Sparking inspiration for writers, musicians, the everyday man. They all go to the sea to cleanse the soul but they didn’t see it at night. Not the way Jim did from his window every. Single. Night. Just outside, just out of reach. Just far enough away to let him sleep, but close enough to be a threat.
But Medina dragged him down to go night surfing.
He watched it swallow him whole.
He was one of the monsters that lurked down there.
Everything returned to the sea, he knew that. His thesis. Pollution. What? He managed one steadying deep breath, tricking himself into thinking he could feel the tissue expand in his chest cavity. His hands shook. It wasn’t bright anymore.
It was dark. And night. And the waves crashed in front of him.
He wanted to run.
Jim made himself sit. Cross legged, back hunched over- Sit up straight, mom will complain- he straightened. Everything in him screamed to run, go anywhere but here. One more breath. A pause, a beat. His eyes narrowed at the black sea in front of him, staring at the white foam that broke off.
The wind picked up and he felt his hair tangle and curl in the salty air. He didn’t bother moving it. The cold ripped through his body, though. Chilled to the bone.
The lights had gone out. The streetlights? The moon? Did it matter? It was darker than before. Jim faced the ocean, mind finally blank. Numb. A breath. A beat. A clear mind. Until it wasn’t.
Chills turned into sweats, his temperature rising impossibly fast, he felt it seep from his forehead but he still shivered. He blinked the salt from his eyes-from sweat? Or...how did I move…? The ocean lay in front of Jim. Black, swirling, and breaking, growling whispers and words to him. Calling to him? Probably.
When did...my heart--? If he knew how to crack a chest-Dad knows that, he’s good at it…- he’d rip it out. Offer it on a silver platter to whoever wanted it. Nobody did, though. Anything to get it to stop. His hands shook and the waves still crashed. They didn’t stop, they wouldn’t stop.
He moved closer. Why?
I’m scared.
I know.
You have to.
...okay.
Trembling legs carried him closer to the beast. It crawled closer on its belly, an inch from his sneakers, and controlled him. The closer it came the tighter his chest, the sharper his inhale, filling him with emptiness. Exhales were good, he pretended that it was him blowing it away until the pattern shifted again, waves overlapping and nothing discernable. Even Medina didn’t like it when it was like this- tides changing. No pattern. But it was still hers, and hers alone. She was born in a cradle of brine while he was drowned by it.
He wished he knew how to swim.
But he belonged in the sky, he tried to look up but his eyes were trapped, held by the dark in front of him. There was no escape- no way out from under it. Its reach clawed at the land until it took chunks of it, winning. It tore through his skin until he was nothing but exposed and raw. Its silent demons moving amongst and within him, gifting him with every burden bestowed upon him.
Mom, dad, Medina, Y/N...me. Jim.
It’s your fault, you know.
I know.
Everything.
I know.
He knew it already even though his mind insisted on whispering every chance it got. Blinking got hard, eyes heavy. Everything heavy all of a sudden.
The weight of solitude settled on his shoulders and found a home in his belly. Not just on the wind whipped beach but everywhere. Laying in bed with Y/N he always found himself alone. Not alone-lonely.
But there is no time to be lonely when there’s a grave to dig.
The thought of her cracked him. He looked away from the monsters, hiding his eyes in his palms he felt his tears stain the cuts. How they got there, he wasn’t sure.
Tendons, ligaments, bone- all weakened, he felt something push him to his knees. It had to have been her? No. But maybe? He couldn’t be sure. That or...whatever was out there. It’s you, you dumb fuck.
Sometimes he forgot that he was one of them. Slicked black and melding into the monster itself, bobbing on the surface but knowing just how easily it could smother him, should it choose.
It crawled away in retreat when Jim’s hands fell to his mouth to muffle the scream that threatened to rip from his chest. He couldn’t let anyone hear, not when he was so close. You’re almost there. Don’t stop. Do. Not.
“I won’t, I won’t,” he whimpered, voice cracking and high. He didn’t sound like himself. Or maybe he sounded more like himself then ever. Raw. There wasn’t any more time to put on a front.
A stillness came over him when the water rushed to surround and saturate his knees, half buried in the sand-kneeling in worship or terror. He let it run over his fingers, feeling the push and pull, his inhales and exhales no longer synched. They were slow. Slower than they should be. And they hurt.
The water was almost clear when it was close enough. He saw the blood wash away off his trembling hand when the wave was sucked back in, taking a part of him with it.
His head bowed, not in reverence, he was sure. But because there was no point in holding it upright. There wasn’t a reason to look up, all the stars had gone. Snuffed out by the water that wavered in his view. He wasn’t going to make it there, anyway. He felt an ache in his chest when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to meet her at cassiopeia, as promised.
It wasn’t just a dull ache, though. He felt the way oxygen flowed in and out of him too slow, the way his heart was throbbing too fast…
He fell over, face half buried in the sand, unable to move, paralyzed as the tide rushed in, claws open and ready to claim him. He didn’t remember being able to take one last gasping breath, salt filled his lungs and light filled his mind.
For the first time, he was ready to go somewhere on his own.
He smiled. Relieved, after so much waiting.
--
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