Flames
By Sempiternus
Summary: One-shot. Alternate universe. Jay centric. His car burst up into flames and he watched as his last lifeline began glowing a bright orange color.
Author's Note: This is in Jay Hogart's point of view, but it's probably considered out of character for him, and in an alternate reality than the show. On a side note, this is my first attempt at writing without angst. I hope that you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own—nor am trying to get profit off of—Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Het bloed kruipt waar het niet gaan kan.
The blood creeps where it can't go.
— Dutch proverb
The flesh felt good against my cold skin. Her body was warm, and reminded me of the happy, warm feeling people describe when they go home after a long time gone. It seemed at though she wanted me there, though I knew that she wasn't thinking of me while she closed her eyes. That didn't matter to me at the moment. I was just trying to get through another night without having to go home. I hated going home, but the guy—can't quite call him a "friend"—I was staying with kicked me out of his apartment when he learned about me screwing his ex-girlfriend. How the hell I was supposed to know they once dated was beyond me, and I was fucking pissed that I would have to find another place to live. My car seemed like a better option than going home, but it was about fifty fucking degrees outside, and the guy that kicked me out forgot to throw out my only jacket with the rest of my clothes. Just fucking great.
She was moaning now, and I couldn't help but notice that, under the whimpers, another man's name was being uttered. It didn't bother me, since I didn't even know her name, and couldn't even fucking hear the name she was moaning, so I couldn't get pissed at just a name. In fact, it was pretty funny, to hear this girl utter a name that wasn't mine. Maybe she was even imagining that she was in his arms right now, though I could probably guess that, right now, he was screwing somebody else while thinking of this girl, just because it would be so predictable.
As we slowly relaxed, and I began to pull away from her, reaching for my shirt at the same time, her eyes opened, and I saw that they were black. Not a really dark brown or something, but literally black. It was fucking creepy that I hadn't noticed this before, because usually I'm pretty observing of things that could bring my mother to mind, but I guess the effects of my dear friend Mary Jane had worn in at the time. By now, Mary was leaving, and I needed some more of her, since this girl was ready to leave. Just trading one girl for another was what I suppose you could say I was doing. With my shirts and pants on straight, and her still fixing her sweaty hair, I left the car, not saying a word. I knew that she would be gone by the time I came back to smoke and pick up the car. I hesitated after I got out, though, because this girl might steal my precious car, and then where could I sleep? But she got out right after me, apparently content with her hair looking like she had just come out of the rain, and asked me where the nearest payphone was. Her black eyes said that she wanted to rub this experience into her boyfriend's face, and I told her with a smirk on my face that I hid effectively. Why get her angry at me when she had already vented up anger at her cheating boyfriend? It just seemed pointless to smirk at her.
With her starting off towards the payphone near the gas station—not the nearest one, but a least one near people, where she could scream if she were getting attacked and get a response—I began my search around the campfire for Aaron, who was always loaded with drugs. I knew he would sell to me for a lower price than usual, as I was his biggest costumer and occasionally brought new guys to him that could help bring in more product. I had done that just last week, so my discount off was still in play, and I was using it as much at possible. Spotting his trademark backwards, black hat with a white gang-letter letter printed on the front; black jacket—much like the one that had been stolen from me—that was nylon with a zipper and pockets on the inside that you didn't know were there by just looking at it; and, of coarse, expensive, two hundred dollar shoes. The shoes are always the most important part of showing off how much money you had. The lowest you could get was buying shoes at Wal-Mart. If you admitted you bought some there, you were guaranteed to get an ass-whopping, just because you had no money. It was just a part of their system. Mine, too, as I spent all of my dealing money on my one-hundred and twenty-nine dollar shoes.
"Hey, Aaron, man, where ya been?" I asked, coming up and standing near his left side. He had a problem if you stood near his right side.
"Jay, what's up? You want some?" he asked. His voice was deep and, it seemed as though when he talked that he had a bubble permanently stuck in his voice box that made it have an echoing sound. It got annoying sometimes, and I wondered if he wouldn't pop the damn thing one day, even if it was just his normal voice. It really got on my nerves.
"Yeah," I replied. "You got some M. J.?"
"More of that shit, man? You just had some, like, two hours ago. After you walked off with Yuri's chick. Man, he's pissed right now. You better watch out."
"Damn, man, that was Yuri's chick? Shit, where's he right now?"
"Out lookin' for you. Prob'ly out round the forest, you know, where you usually park your car."
"Fuck. If he comes round here, just tell 'im that I went to my parents, alright? That'll send him in the wrong direction."
"Naw, man, I ain't gonna do your dirty work for you."
"Fuck you, Aaron. You goddamn coward."
"Fuck you, you fucking pussy! You better not be makin' enemies right now, man, while you got nowhere to live."
"Whatever. I gotta go save my goddamn car. Man, if he even touches it he's fucking dead."
Aaron chuckled, which sounded more like air just coming out of his mouth. This man just couldn't do anything like they were supposed to be done. Nevertheless, he was the closest to a friend that I had out here. "More like he's gonna fuck you up," he said, still breathing air out of mouth, "he was really fucking mad." I just shook my head and started to walk off quickly. If I didn't save my car, I would really have to go back home to my parents. That was not even a fathomable option at the time. There was no fucking way I would go back, begging to live there. No goddamn way. "Jay, man, you want your shit or what?" Aaron called after me. I just kept walking. Let the idiot figure something out for himself for once.
I found Yuri staring at my car, contemplating what he would do to it. He had his smirk on that said that he was really going to fuck something up. This was not good. His head snapped up when I got near, and his smirk grew into a grin. Shit.
"Jason," he said in greeting. I nodded in turn. "You know, Layla called my cell phone tonight. You wanna know what she told me?" It was a rhetorical question. I'm not as stupid as people make me out to be. Yuri laughed. His was more like a snake's hiss, and it didn't annoy me, because it fit his personality perfectly, even his outside appearance, with his body so thin that you could see the bones. But he was stronger than he looked. Most of his power was in his face, as he could make you believe anything, by just looking at you with his dark brown—not black, like Layla's were black and unfeeling, and yet, showing every emotion she was feeling at the same time—eyes, that were as cold as this fifty-fucking-degree weather I was standing in at the moment, my arms looking like those goddamn strands of DNA that they had as pictures in science books. It was really fucking cold out there, and I was about to get my ass kicked, and my car was going to be destroyed, and I was going to go back to my parents' place, where I would be mocked constantly for my over-dramatic exit that had looked so much better in my head than when played out in the living room of my parents' house. And this was because of a fucking girl who had wanted to get back at Yuri, a guy who constantly cheated on her, but still she persisted on staying with him. Some people were so goddamn stupid that I wondered why they were going to school while I was gallivanting around, getting high and not going to school. I swear, even with how stupid I am, I could literally replace some of the people out here, they were so clueless. It was a fucking wonder of science or something.
"She told me that she was happier tonight than she had ever been," he continued. We had been staring each other down for a while, not blinking. My mind had wandered, and I supposed he guessed as much, because he started talking again even though I didn't answer his rhetorical question. " 'Do you know why?' she had asked. 'Because I slept with Jay Hogart tonight. That's right. And I'm probably going to keep sleeping with him. So you can go 'head and have your slutty girls, 'cause I don't really give a shit anymore. I have Jay.' That's what she said. Now, can you guess why I'm here, or are you gonna be a smart-ass like usual? 'Cause if you're gonna be a smart-ass, I think I'm gonna have'ta kick your ass earlier than usual. We wouldn't want that, now, would we?" Another goddamn rhetorical question. This guy liked to hear himself talk. He could talk forever on how much he beat up a little junior high kid, or how he spent over a hundred bucks on a dinner for himself and Layla, and then how many girls he fucked after Layla went home. He just loved to hear his own goddamn voice. And it sucked worse than hell, too, because he had the type of voice that just fucking soothed you, and you wanted for him to keep talking. It was another way that he got to hypnotise you, which, with his eyes, he could do almost instantly. Except to me; I had figured out all of his goddamn tricks, so I was immune.
When I refused to answer, and refused to meet his dark eyes, he grinned even wider, and pulled a bottle out of his jacket pocket. Seeing the jacket just reminded me how goddamn cold it was out here, and that he was going to fuck-up my car, the only strand that kept me away from my parents. After splashing a whole bunch of the bottle onto the front drivers' seat, Yuri took out a matchbox, and began to strike a match. My eyes must have grown larger in shock when he glanced up at me with a lit match in hand, because his grin began to show his teeth. I was so goddamn cold. My car burst into flames as Yuri dropped the match into the drivers' seat. Within a few minutes, it had engulfed the passengers seat where Layla had first sat, staring at me, with myself not staring back. I guess that's how come I didn't notice her eyes at first.
I guess that letting my mind wander while my last lifeline was up in flames was how come I didn't notice when Yuri began to walk slowly toward me. As he came closer, I thought that he was stupid for trying to add dramatic effect by walking slowly instead of just mauling me over, which he would have done if most of the people who had been by the campfire had not come to see the fight. They had formed a cliché circle around us, and I thought that they were dumb-ass's for going along with Yuri's need for overdramatising things. I was so goddamn cold. It was fucking below fifty degrees by now. It had probably dropped about five degrees, and I was so fucking cold just standing there in my navy blue short-sleeve shirt and jeans. Yuri came up to me and punched me in my gut. My entire body was looking like I had the measles or something. I wish that I had banged on the guy's door when I went to get my stuff and demanded for my jacket. It was fucking cold and his kicks fucking hurt, and they just kept coming and coming and I couldn't move because I was watching the flames inside of my car. And I was too cold, too shocked, and too damn stupid to defend myself against this skinny piece of shit who just kept hitting me over and over in my gut and in my face. I finally blacked out when the cops came.
The bed felt cold against my skin. The room felt like it would be too bright, so I didn't open my eyes. The smell already told me where I was. I heard somebody try to talk to me, and I heard my name a couple of times, but I didn't want to respond. I felt like I couldn't move any part of my body, or else it might crack. Plus, it was too damn cold in this room. Something grabbed hold of my hand, it was warm, and I liked having it there, warming up my hand. It made me feel like maybe my senses hadn't gone crazy, and I really wasn't in the hospital, with its hard mattress and cold beds. But, then, my eyes were opened forcefully by a hand, and a light shone it. That forcefulness could only come from an unfeeling doctor. Yeah, I knew exactly where I was.
The lights above my head were white. Or, at least, they were giving off a purely white light. Not yellow, like lights usually would be, but white. My vision was blurry, but I had already been deemed awake, so I might as well just wake up. It was better than going back to sleep and having that dream again. I never liked the dreams I had when I was in the hospital. They were worse than nightmares that people described, in my opinion.
The voice that had been talking to me happened to be my mother's. I figured as much; every time that I went into the hospital, she would stay by my bedside until I was discharged. Then, she would take me home, coddle me and put me to bed, make a homemade dinner every night specially for me, and not go to work until I told her enough times that I was fine, and that if she didn't work, that she would get no money to pay the doctor. It was a process that I was tired of repeating. That's why, after the last time in the hospital, I had been trying to avoid getting into situations that would put me back in. I wouldn't do too much drugs; wouldn't get into too many fights; and wouldn't fight anybody as purely psychopathic as Yuri. Fuck Layla, and her inability to find a better way to get back at Yuri than sleep with somebody that Yuri didn't like for some unknown reason. He really didn't. Ever since I had once—just once—taken one of his dealers and got the dealer to work for Aaron, he had hated me, and sworn revenge. Yuri, however, wasn't one to do something without reason, which is why Layla just had to choose me. It was the perfect set-up. I was suspicious that maybe Layla was put up to it by Yuri, but wouldn't ever find out. Layla was as loyal as they came, especially to Yuri.
"Jason, honey, wake up, now. The doctor said you were fine." Of course my mother would disguise disgust in me ending up here again with fake sympathy. It was typical of her behavior. I wasn't going to take her orders. Let her try to do something to me while in a hospital that would shatter her perfect-life illusion. "Jason, honey, come on, now. I know you can hear me. It's time to wake up and say hello to the beautiful day outside." Fucking bullshit. She could always get my fucking blood boiling by talking to me like I was still fucking four, and asking her to kiss every bruise I received from one of her goddamn boyfriends. She had finally settled back down with my birth father when I was thirteen. It was partially my doing; I thought she would get better if she had her first and only real love around. It hadn't necessarily worked.
"Mom?" I decided to sound oblivious to her previous pleadings for me to start talking to her. I knew what made her tick, too. "Is that you?" I practically whispered. My voice was screwed, and I wondered how long I had been in this place. It already seemed like too long.
"Jason, how nice of you to finally wake up," she said, sarcasm seeping through her façade. I adjusted my body so that I could look at her. She looked relatively normal, like she always did. Wearing a tan blouse and a white housecoat, she looked like she was just another mom whose child got mixed in with the wrong crowd. She didn't look like a former hooker, or even a former alcoholic. She just looked normal. Her natural features are always what made her look exotic, and got her a lot of money while I was growing up, so we could live in a real house. She had slightly suntanned skin that looked like it were glowing because of its shade; black eyes that were slanted just slightly upward; virtually no eyelashes; a short nose that had gently curving nostrils; and a small mouth with slightly full lips. In short, she was beautiful, and I would have really thought so if I didn't know of her past. The past always shapes people, and I knew her past was ugly as hell, and I knew I was a product of that past, so that made me as dirty as her. We were both playing a charade as someone else, really.
"How long've I been in here?" I asked, relatively interested. It really seemed like a long time. The hospital clothes I was dressed in were scratching against one of my wounds, and it hurt like hell, and I wanted her to leave to that I could really see what damage Yuri had done. And what about my car? And what happened to Yuri, anyway? I just started with the question she would mostly likely answer to and know absolutely about.
" 'Bout two days now, I guess," she answered. Two fucking days. Not as long as the last visit to this damn place, when I had to get my stomach pumped. That did not go well, especially when Mother brought me home and made me her home cooked food, which I ended up puking all of. She just thought I was being unappreciative, and didn't make it any more after three days. She also insisted that I go back to school. That had eventually led up to me being kicked out because of the whole school shooting thing. Hell, I didn't really care that that Jimmy guy had been shot; he was a "popular kid" anyway, never giving anybody other than the rest of his little "posse" a second glance. It really didn't make a difference in my life whether any of those bastards had been shot. When I went back because Mom threatened me to—I could never not obey her threats, and she used that advantage many times—I was shunned as usual, and ended up just not going. That's what had led to me leaving, and all this shit. This wasn't really one of the best years to be myself, but I wasn't complaining at the moment. Except for how damn cold these sheets are. The cold annoys the hell out of me. "The doctor says that you can leave tomorrow. You ready to go back to our house, or you still gonna act like a big baby and run out again?" she asked. I acted like I was seriously considering it, which pissed her off. What can I say, it's just our little game: Get the other person to tick. It was okay fun, except when you were the one being ticked off, then it wasn't a game. But when you were doing the ticking off, it was the most comical game ever played. Plus, no one could ever win. It would go on until one of us died or had a kid to continue the game with.
"I don't know, Mother . . ." I said slowly, acting like I was seriously considering it before trying to get to the next question because of the murderous look on her face. "But do you know what happened to my car?"
My mother's face scrunched up. She never liked my orange car. It was always a reminder to her that I could leave anytime I wanted to and never return. She was probably happy that it was torched. "It was all burnt up by the time the cops put the fire out, so I told them to just get rid of it. I suppose they took it to the junkyard to be demolished." Great, now she was acting formal. She usually did that when she talked about something she didn't like. Or she would freeze up and not talk at all. The latter was more common.
I shrugged and lay back down. I was tired all of a sudden, and the contact with the sheets to my back sent shivers down my spine, which hurt. I really wanted her to leave so that I could see what had happened. The last thing that I remembered was just the car burning and a pain in my chest and stomach. And faces. There were a lot of faces. Most of them were blurred all the time. But one seemed to stand out. I couldn't figure out who it was, though. I don't think I had ever met him before, but he seemed so damn familiar. He was the one in my nightmarish dream: I was standing by my car, trying to get warm next to it because it was nice and warm, and he was standing a distance away, just watching me. Suddenly, he began to walk closer and closer, and my ears started ringing. Then, when I could almost see his face through all of the heat waves, murmuring began to interrupt my hearing, and his face sort of grinned when I closed my eyes and put my hands onto my ears to block out the constant voices. They were saying gibberish, but, sometimes, the words "all your fault" came up. I didn't know what the fuck that meant, since none of what had happened the night my car burned had been my fault. I had just been the victim of coincidence and being in the wrong place at the wrong time again. And manipulation, which I always seemed to be a part of. The big plan that Yuri and Layla cooked up to make me give up my most prized possession and get me put back into the mercy of my mother in a cold hospital room. It was all their fucking fault, so why were to voices saying it was mine? Fuck, fuck, fuck, they just kept on getting louder and louder and through my closed eyes I could still see that boy leering at me with his evil grin and I could see Layla's smooth body and I could feel her warmth, and the voices were getting so loud that I couldn't even think straight and my brain felt like it was going to explode, and I couldn't make the damn voices leave, they were so fucking loud, and the bed was so fucking cold, and it felt like I was back outside in fifty-degree weather trying to sleep through the morning before using up money on drugs instead of breakfast at Hardee's like I did almost every morning. The voices were getting louder and louder and I couldn't fucking get them to stop. I kept yelling at them to stop—just to stop, goddamn it—but they kept on saying that it was my fault and that I was a fucking piece of shit screw-up and the only way to save myself was to kill myself. And I believed them just like I believed everything my mother told me when I was younger, so I tried to get up and sit in my car and just enjoy the goddamn warmth for a while, while my body roasted in the car. It was just so warm in there, and I didn't ever want to leave . . .
I woke up with no one in the room. For a second, that made me frightened. My mother was always in the room, whether I wanted her to be or not. For a second, I thought that maybe the dream had been true, and that I was really dead and just waiting to be sent to Hell. Then, the door opened and a man in a white coat stepped in.
"Hello, Jason. I'm Doctor Zared. And how are you feeling today?" he asked, pleasantly, like he didn't see me with my face probably all bruised and everything was not fine. Goddamn idiot.
"Fine," I answered curtly, though I doubt he was even listening. Instead, he was already asking me to see if I could stand on my feet. I complied, just wanting to get this over with so that I could be done before my mother comes back so that I can check out my injuries. I didn't even check out this guy's eyes, which was unusual for me. I always want to see how people really feel about me by looking into their eyes, which don't lie. I just didn't want my mom to come back. So, I swung my legs gently over to the side of the hospital bed and slowly lifted my abdomen upward. It hurt like hell, but I wasn't about to let this man know. I kept my face emotionless. I placed my feet onto the ground, and used my leg muscles to lift the rest of my body up. Jesus fucking Christ did this fucking hurt like fucking hell. Doctor Zared came over and asked the usual questions of moving my legs and arms and neck, and even asked me to move my toes, which was new. I did all of it, and when he asked if it hurt, I said, "No." I just wanted him to leave. And, after writing things down onto his clipboard, he did. I thought he had really gone, so I let myself grimace and grit my teeth as I sat back down on the cold, hard bed.
I was about to swing my legs back up, when he walked back in casually and said, "You've been discharged today. You may leave," in a nonchalance voice. I shuttered inside. How the fuck was I supposed to move with a goddamn body like this?
"Do you, ah, know where my mother is?" I asked as casually as I could without sounding like a scared child. Usually around this time she would be ushering me out the door with the doctor not even completely finishing saying that I was discharged. This was definitely not good.
"She left a few hours ago and said to tell you that you could stay with your friends during your recovery, as she is leaving town." A look that could almost be described as sympathy fleetingly crossed the doctor's face, but he just as face set it to emotionless again. There was something he wasn't telling me.
I shrugged, trying to act like it didn't bother me, and that I had just wanted to know. Really, it was rather odd, but a relief. She wouldn't be there to make a home cooked meal and constantly try to get me to rest when I wanted to go out. It would be a huge relief to just go out there on my own with no money or car. Yeah, I would be fine. The fucking bitch would just have to live with herself if I froze to death out there. Stupid, piece of shit woman, thinking that I would panic if she wasn't around. I almost smirked at the thought. Almost.
"Okay, so, um, your mother already signed the release form, so you're free to go," Doctor Zared said, obviously trying to overcome the tension that had somehow filled the room. Quietly, I laughed at his attempt to make the room more comfortable, and then walked off, trying desperately not to limp. Where the fuck was I going to go? First, I would go and try and get some free M. J. from Aaron. Maybe he could hook me up with a place to stay.
As I walked down the street, I casually glanced at myself in a shop's window. It wasn't too bad, I suppose. My face only had a fading black eye and some yellow bruises on my forehead, but it wasn't too bad. At least I wasn't throwing up half the time like the last hospital visit. I continued walking, turning at the right places until I reached the place of the campfire. It wasn't lit right now, because it was still light out, but a bunch of people was still gathered around. I still wondered why the police hadn't broken up this circle of people. They were all obviously on drugs. Whatever the reason, I was glad. There was no other place that I could go.
"Hey, Jay, man, what're you doin' showin' your face round here?" I heard Aaron's face and turned around, surprised at what he had said. It was hostile, and I didn't like the sound it was making, like the bubble in his throat had finally popped. When I turned around, I was surprised to find him almost in as bad as shape as I was.
"Dude, Aaron, man, what the hell happened to your face?" I asked, forgetting his hostility for a moment.
He just shrugged it off, looking directly into my eyes, trying to scare me. "I said, 'What're you doin' showin' your face round here?' "
"What'd you mean?"
"I mean you ain't welcome here," he answered roughly, still trying to scare me off with his light blue eyes. It wasn't working.
"C'mon, Aaron, we're tight, aren't we? What'd you mean I'm not welcome round here?"
"Just get the fuck out, Jay, 'fore you get hurt," he answered cryptically, turning to walk away. Impulses getting the best of me, I reached out to his shoulder, meaning to turn him around, and touched him on his right side by accident. As fast as he could, obviously being in as much pain as I, he turned around and punched me square in my already-black eye. Shit that hurt. I went down, and the people who were there began to surround us like before, with my fight—if you could call it that—with Yuri. I panicked, and saw my car burst up in flames again. I was getting in, I was slowly burning, I was finally warm. My arms flew all over the place, trying to get back out before I really died. It was like I was watching my body from the air, watching it go crazy, and start screaming, "It's not my fault! It's not my fault!" like a psychotic person. Everybody began to run off in different directions, obviously thinking that I had gone mad. But I couldn't stop myself. I just kept on swinging and swinging and I couldn't get out of that goddamn car no matter how hard I tried. It felt so warm, so I finally stopped trying and just laid down to rest. And, before I knew it, I was floating up high like when I was with Mary Jane, and was finally warm for the first time in my life. I just laid there silently, letting the blackness cover up my view of the light blue sky, kicks stinging my side and a blurry view of a man standing over me, laughing. The blackness soon took over and my mind went blank. I was finally free. If I just barely focused, I could hear the burlesque laughing—laughing that was at my expense, at my inadequacy, at my inabilities—taking place beyond my obscured vision. I faintly smirked. It felt just like home.
Completed 20 April 2006