A/N: Thanks as always to everyone who faved/followed/reviewed, and special thanks to my beta Christinegrrl (especially for the multiple rounds of feedback she provided for this chapter).

Disclaimer: If anyone is under the impression that I own anything at this point, I'm not sure a disclaimer will help ;) (But just in case... I don't own the Gilmore girls universe or the lyrics of Hamilton)


Chapter 7: The World You Know

"He's gonna be pissed! I'm not leaving you here alone!" Over the past six months or so, the yelling coming from the apartment across the hall had become almost as much a fixture of Jess's life as the drama inside his own apartment. It was all a little too familiar. He'd seen the dad on his way into the building, finishing a beer with a couple of guys downstairs, so Jess figured it was just the kid and the mom he was hearing as he made his way to his door.

"I'll handle him, Sebastian—"

"Don't call me that. And it's my fault. I'm not leaving." Despite the boy's words, Jess heard the door open behind him as he fiddled with the lock that always seemed to jam these days.

"It'll be worse for both of us if you stay, baby, and you know it. I love you. Now get the hell out of here and I better not see you until tonight!"

"But—"

The door shut between mother and son, cutting off the rest of the boy's sentence, just as Jess's door finally unlocked. "Ma!" the boy yelled instead of whatever he'd been planning to say, pounding on the door with an open hand. "Dammit," he muttered and started to walk away. Jess must have had a small stroke or something, because the next thing he knew he'd grabbed the kid's arm as he made to pass him and pulled him into Jess's apartment.

"What the fuck?" the boy objected. He pulled away from Jess, backing deeper into the room as a result.

"Your dad's downstairs," Jess explained, "if you're trying to avoid him…"

"I'm not," the boy said.

"Ok," Jess answered, allowing him the lie.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Whatever you say."

"It's none of your business!" The boy glared at Jess.

"Couldn't agree more," Jess answered. He still wasn't even sure why he'd gotten involved in the first place. It really wasn't his business.

"Get out of my fucking way," the boy said suddenly in as threatening a tone as possible for a kid Jess towered over and outweighed. Jess knew the tactic well as well as the message it was meant to send: you might be able to beat me, but whatever it is you want from me? It's not worth the fight I'll put up. Jess rolled his eyes and casually moved away from the door he'd been inadvertently blocking. It had never been his intention to make the kid feel trapped.

"You wanna get your ass kicked out there, you go right ahead. I won't stop you."

"Fuck you!"

"I'm sorry, if you want to go out to the loving embrace of your father, who is of course in no way pissed at you, then you go right ahead. Wouldn't want to get in the way of your Leave It to Beaver moment."

"Why wouldn't you just tell me he was down there, huh? If you're just some Good Samaritan, then why not just warn me instead of dragging me in here? That's creepy, man." The boy's tone still held a hard edge, and there was a challenge to it, but his body language had relaxed a little as he made his way to the door. His hand was on the doorknob, but he didn't turn it. Instead, he waited for the answer to his question. Jess made his way over to the living room, giving the boy about as much space as he could without going into one of the bedrooms.

"'Cause your dad looked like he was heading up here any second when I passed him and if he came walking down the hall while I was warning you… well, let's just say I really wasn't interested in getting in the middle of all that family love you've got going on."

"Again," the boy said, "fuck you." The kid's tone had softened slightly, however, and as Jess plopped onto the sofa the boy took a few steps away from the door. Jess could practically see the thoughts running through the kid's head, as well as the threat assessment currently underway.

"What makes you think I'm avoiding my dad?" The boy's voice was low, and for the first time Jess noted nervousness in his face as he glanced towards the door.

"Other than the conversation you just had with your mom?" Jess asked. "These walls are paper thin. I've heard a lot of things these past few months." The boy winced slightly and glanced away, but embarrassment quickly turned to anger on his face as he turned back and glared at Jess.

"Yeah, well, that goes both ways," the boy pointed out. "What'd you do to make your dad hate you so much, huh?" Jess's face hardened at the question.

"Step-dad," Jess corrected. The latest idiot was no kind of father to him. Liz had married him after only a few months of dating shortly before Jess turned fifteen, and two months after the marriage the relationship was already crumbling. Jess figured he'd be gone within the month.

"My mistake," the boy answered, "what'd you do to make your step-dad hate you so much?" There was a viciousness to the question, and to the boy's tone, but Jess let it slide. He'd caught the kid out on something he didn't want the world to know, and now he was in attack mode. Jess could relate far too well to be offended by it, even if he didn't particularly like being on the receiving end.

"Other than exist?" Jess asked rhetorically. "A lot of things. Mocked him. Stole from him. 'Undermined his authority.' Told Liz, that's my mom, that he was cheating on her. Refused to look after his brats when they were visiting. Guy gets them one weekend a month and he tried to pawn them off on me the whole time while he and Liz got wasted. Guy's a total jerk.

"So, what about you? What'd you do to get your dad so mad your mom kicked you out?" The boy's anger had slowly ebbed as Jess listed his own crimes.

"He's not mad yet," the kid replied. He made his way over to the armchair next to the couch and sat down, apparently having decided that Jess didn't pose an immediate threat. "He just will be when he gets home."

"Why?" Jess asked.

"I was being an idiot and broke the TV," the kid said miserably. Jess winced, but said nothing in response. "The new TV," the boy continued, "the nice TV we never could've afforded if not for the money my dad got off of a scratch-off lottery ticket. He doesn't have the cash to replace it."

"Damn."

"Exactly."

"You're pretty screwed, aren't you?"

"Fuck you," the boy said, but this time there was no animosity behind the words. Jess smirked.

"You can hang here as long as you want," Jess answered. "Liz and the step-dad haven't been around in days and probably won't be back anytime soon. Should be pretty peaceful." The boy looked at him with suspicion.

"What do you want in return?"

"Nothing," Jess answered.

"Nothing in this city is truly free," the boy said, scoffing. Jess eyed him carefully. He didn't want anything from him, but he knew the boy wouldn't accept that as an answer. If he was anything like Jess, and Jess had the strong impression that the kid was very much like him, he wouldn't want to be in anyone's debt. He wouldn't want to accept a favor unless he knew, for sure, what it would cost him. And "nothing" smelled funny.

"Look, I was just trying to help a neighbor avoid getting his ass kicked. I wasn't expecting any payback, but if you want to pay me back… then if a time comes when I need to hide out for a little bit and it's safe for me to hide with you, then you let me. Sound like a deal?"

Help in the form of self-interest was much easier for the boy to accept, as Jess knew it would be. The kid visibly relaxed.

"Deal," the boy answered, slouching back in the chair. Jess stood and headed for the kitchen.

"Want a drink? We've got sprite, coke, water," Jess said, and beer, but I'm saving that for me, he continued silently. Step-dad #3 would be pissed when he saw Jess had stolen his beer, but that was a problem he'd deal with when the time came.

"Water's fine," the boy answered, and Jess went to get it. Behind him, the boy bent to put his head in his hands.

"He's going to hurt her," the kid admitted to his knees. Jess paused in his preparations and closed his eyes momentarily. Maybe not as much like me as I'd thought, Jess thought, glancing over towards the kid. He wasn't prepared for that particular kind of confession. What you'd done to piss someone off seemed like a much safer topic than the stark reality of what happened once you did. Especially when you were helpless to stop it. Jess brought the water over, but the boy made no move to drink it.

"What am I supposed to call you?" Jess asked the boy. "Apparently not Sebastian…"

"That's my dad's name," he explained, not lifting his head. "You can call me anything other than that. I've got a bunch of nicknames: Seb, Sly, Red, Brown, Cy… take your pick or make a new one. I don't really care."

"Cy? Like Cy Young?"

"Nah," the kid expanded, sounding a little embarrassed, "I'm not really a baseball kind of guy. It's from Encyclopedia Brown. Loved it when I was a kid, and it got shortened to Cy as a nickname."

"I liked those books, too," Jess offered. Honestly, he found the mysteries a little too easy to solve by the time he started reading those books, but he correctly guessed that the kid's discomfort was the result of having a nickname that stemmed from a book rather than a sports figure. The latter was generally more acceptable for a boy, especially in the world they inhabited. Jess, of course, saw nothing wrong with it.

"I'll go with Cy for now, then," Jess added. Cy was still staring at his knees. Jess was deeply uncomfortable with this kind of thing, but he was too far in to just abandon the kid completely. He'd changed the topic, and he sensed that Cy had no intention of changing it back, but it didn't feel right to ignore what the kid had said.

"Look, Cy, your mom seemed to think she could handle your dad. Get him to calm down."

"What she means is he'll take his anger out on her and mostly leave me alone later. He'll go easier on her, because she didn't actually do anything, but he will hurt her. She just wanted to save me from it." Cy shook his head. "I'm such a fucking coward."

An ugly flare of jealousy burst into Jess's heart. The 12-year-old sitting in front of him was heartbroken and guilt-ridden over what was going to happen to his mom, and yet for a moment all Jess could think about was how nice it would be to have a mom who cared that much about him. He wouldn't want Liz to actually get hurt, of course, but he still thought it would be nice for her to be willing to get hurt to protect him. He knew that made him a terrible person, for a number of reasons, and he tried to fight the feeling.

"What would happen if you were there?" Jess asked, doing his best to set his jealousy aside.

"He'd go after me. She'd try to step in and stop him, he'd hurt her bad enough to make her stop trying, and then he'd start back in on me. It's a lot worse if I try to stop him from going after her."

"Sounds like it's better for her that you're not going to be there, then. That's not cowardly."

"Yeah, well, what the fuck do you know?" Cy said. Jess laughed.

"That's the spirit, kid," he said.

"I'm not a kid," Cy objected.

"Of course not," Jess said, still chuckling.

"Fuck you!" Cy said, which only made Jess laugh harder.

"C'mon, tough guy, let me teach you how to play poker."

They'd only been playing for a few minutes when Cy's father's angry voice began making its way into the apartment. Jess ignored the way Cy's grip on his cards tightened as well as the way they shook in his hand. When the yelling was joined by the sound of thuds and Cy was no longer able to look at Jess, Jess stood and went to his room. He brought back his CD player, plugging it in in the living room.

"What's poker without some music, huh?" he asked. He turned the volume up high enough to drown out the noises coming from across the hall. The kid might not be able to avoid knowing what was happening in the abstract, but that didn't mean he should have to hear it. It took a while, but eventually Cy's grip on his cards began to relax.

# # # # #

"You gotta stop trying to force it," Jess told Cy six months later, looking up from his book to glance toward Cy from his position on the bed. Cy was crouching over by the door, trying and failing to work the lock on Jess's bedroom door. "You can't just jam the tools in there and expect it to work. You gotta feel for it."

"This is pointless!" Cy complained.

"You're the one who said he wanted to learn."

"And you said you could teach me!" Cy said. Jess smirked and rolled his eyes.

"I did. You've just got to practice and get the hang of it." Cy turned back to the lock again and worked on it for several minutes before huffing in exasperation.

"This is impossible!"

"That lock's not even that complicated, man," Jess said, getting up and gesturing for Cy to give him the tools. It took Jess approximately two seconds to pick the lock.

"I hate you," Cy growled. Jess grinned, used the tools to relock the door, and handed them back to him. Cy's eyes caught momentarily on the bruises encircling Jess's right wrist before he accepted the proffered tools, but he made no comment nor did he have any discernable reaction to them. He knew, so he didn't have to ask. Jess was grateful for that. Cy was one of very few people from whom Jess didn't take great pains to hide his bruises. In fact, at the moment, he was the only such person. Jess hid them even from those who had inflicted them. He didn't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing the evidence of their handiwork, seeing just how much they'd hurt him, nor did he really want to hear the rare apology the sight would occasionally provoke. But Cy's reactions never irked him in the same way the reactions of others did. He'd never call the cops. He usually didn't ask for details. His eyes never filled with pity, and only rarely did they fill with anger.

"Keep trying," Jess ordered, "but stop trying to force it. You're going to break the lock."

"And that would be a bad thing?" Cy shot back. "Don't think I haven't noticed this locks on the outside." Jess rolled his eyes again, but his heart was only half in it.

"It locks on both sides," Jess answered.

"Yeah, and who has the key?"

Jess ignored both the question and the (accurate) insinuation. "You break it, then I get in trouble and they just use my money to replace the stupid thing. So, yes, it's a bad thing."

"Fine," Cy conceded with a sigh, seeming to drop the topic. He turned back to the lock and proceeded with more caution. "You'd think through sheer volume she'd find a good one every now and then…" he muttered to himself. Jess knew perfectly well that Cy didn't mean anything by the comment and that it stemmed mostly from the younger boy's frustrated hope that Liz might actually find "a good one" who would treat Jess with some semblance of respect. Cy's own mother stayed with his father out of a sense of necessity. She had no money. No job. No family to speak of except for Cy. She had nowhere to run. She had no choices. Liz chose a new man every other minute, and Cy had yet to give up on the idea that she might find someone better than she had thus far. All the same, Jess couldn't resist taking advantage of the opportunity to toy with Cy a bit by pretending to misinterpret his statement, which was in part to eventually make the boy laugh, and in part for his own entertainment.

"You calling my mother a slut?" Jess asked, standing and putting enough edge in his tone to make the younger boy mishandle the lock picking tools and send them clattering to the floor.

"What? No!" Cy insisted, turning to face Jess. Jess raised an eyebrow, struggling to maintain a straight face in light of Cy's obvious unease. Somewhere along the line the kid had started to drop the tough guy act when nervous around Jess. "I didn't mean it like that! I just… I meant… I-I-I…" Jess broke into a grin when Cy started stuttering, plopping back down on the bed.

"You're such an asshole!" Cy said at the realization that Jess hadn't been serious, but he smiled anyway and chuckled.

"Oh, come on, you walked right into that one," Jess answered. "You'd have thought less of me if I didn't mess with you a little!"

"I thought you were gonna kick my ass!"

"Couldn't be helped," Jess said with a shrug.

"Asshole," Cy repeated, rolling his eyes and shaking his head a little. He picked up the tools and started back in on the lock. "Seriously, though," Cy asked, glancing back at Jess, "what happened to this one trying to be your friend?" Jess shrugged again.

"Exactly what I said would happen: he slept with Liz and had no more use for me. The whole 'I want to be your friend' thing was just a means to an end, and he got the end he wanted. He doesn't think he needs to suck up to me to get closer to her anymore, so now I'm just a nuisance. Utterly predictable."

"That sucks, man," Cy said to the doorknob. "I thought he seemed ok. Better than the last one, at least."

"That's because you're only used to the one kind of abusive jerk." Jess ignored the glare Cy shot him. "I've got experience with the whole abusive rainbow. You learn to see it coming from a mile away."

"You learn to see it coming," Cy muttered under his breath. "She on the other hand…"

"Watch it," Jess warned, catching the criticism of his mother, "or I might have to kick your ass for real." Jess might secretly think his mother should've learned how to see them coming by now, too, but that didn't mean he was going to let anyone else criticize her or blame her for her abusive boyfriends. Even if they did only abuse him.

"Sorry," Cy responded immediately, "I'm just mad at this stupid lock. It's messing with my sense of decency and decorum." Jess nodded and let the comment slide, but a hint of irritation remained. Cy normally would've picked up on that, but his focus was torn between the conversation and the lock.

"It's not that big a deal, anyway," Jess said. "He's not the worst I've seen, and it's not like I expected the friend act to continue."

"If you say so," Cy said, sighing at the lock. Jess mistook the boy's distracted tone for one of slight skepticism and his frustration with the lock for frustration with Jess's assertion regarding the seriousness of the situation with Liz's boyfriend.

"I can handle it," Jess insisted. Cy glanced up at the slight hint of defensiveness in Jess's voice. Jess's posture on the bed was rigid and he was staring intently at Cy.

"I never said you couldn't," Cy reminded Jess, setting his task aside to focus his attention on his friend. "I just said it sucks." Jess didn't answer. "Seriously, man, ignore me. My mind's not even really in this conversation. I don't know what I'm saying. This lock is pissing me off."

It really wasn't like Cy to question Jess's assertions when it came to Liz's boyfriends or insinuate that any of it was more than Jess could handle, and after a few moments Jess accepted the kid's explanation. He was probably being a little paranoid, anyway, and reading way too much into relatively harmless statements.

"Then why don't you take a break?" Jess asked.

"Hell no!" Cy said, turning his attention back to the door and returning to his work when he noticed the defensiveness drop from Jess's voice. "This stupid lock doesn't get to win."

"It's an inanimate object…"

"So?"

"So I don't think it will derive any satisfaction out of seeing you admit defeat momentarily in order to take a break."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Cy said, laughing. "This thing clearly has evil powers. My theory is that it just likes you and lets you pick it."

"That's clearly the only reasonable explanation," Jess deadpanned.

"I thought it was pretty obvious," Cy responded. The mood in the room had grown considerably lighter, and the two fell into an amiable silence that was broken a few minutes later by Cy's exuberant shout of "YES!" when he successfully picked Jess's lock.

"Told you that you could do it!" Jess said, smiling at Cy.

"Yeah, but you're a liar, so I didn't really believe you." Jess tossed a pillow in Cy's general direction, but his mood shifted instantly when he heard a door open and close outside his bedroom. He hurried over to Cy's side and silently took the tools from him, quickly using them to relock his door. He then grabbed Cy by the arm and pushed him into his closet.

"Keep your mouth shut," Jess warned him in a whisper, handing him the tools and shutting the door. He had just made his way back to his bed and picked up his book when his door was unlocked and opened.

"Did I just hear talking in here?" his mom's boyfriend Samuel asked.

"No," Jess answered without looking up from his book.

"So I'm just going crazy?"

"I'm not sure 'going crazy' is the phrase I'd use," Jess answered, standing and crossing his arms. "Pretty sure you were crazy to start with."

"I'd watch how you speak to me," the man warned.

"What are you going to do about it?" Jess challenged. The man reached out and grabbed Jess's wrist, pulling his arm out and pushing his sleeve up with the other hand.

"I might just have to add to your pretty little bruise collection," he answered. Jess pulled his hand away angrily, but before he could put any space between them the man had reached out and grabbed his arm again. The man's hand clasped painfully around Jess's wrist, and he used his hold on him to yank Jess towards him. He wrapped his free hand around Jess's throat, and Jess instinctively reached up for that hand, but he didn't try to pull it away. He wouldn't be able to, and this wasn't the time to provoke the guy. The hold was firm, but it was neither painful nor enough to cut off his air supply. It was meant to scare and control him, not kill or even hurt him, but Jess knew how quickly such a hold could turn deadly.

"You know, I don't know why you insist on being such a smartass all the time. If you'd just do what I tell you to, stay out of my way, and not talk back all the time, you and I might actually get along just fine. Instead you make me do things like this. Now, don't mess with me on this," Samuel told him, tightening his grip on his arm. Jess put forth a great deal of effort to conceal that it hurt.

"I'm not!" Jess insisted.

"Who were you talking to?" the man asked him again.

"No one!" The hand around his throat didn't tighten so much as shift, a not so subtle reminder that it was there and could do what it wanted.

"Don't lie to me," Samuel ordered. "Who were you talking to?"

"No one," Jess lied. "No one else, at least," he continued at the infinitesimal tightening of the hand around his throat. "I was talking to myself. Well, to a character in my book, but he's not real… so really I was talking to myself." Samuel began to laugh and moved his hand around to the back of Jess's neck. The hold was still just as controlling when combined with the hold on Jess's wrist, but it wasn't nearly as threatening.

"And you think I'm the crazy one?" The man scoffed. "You're a freak, you know that?" Jess didn't answer. Samuel continued to laugh at him, but he also released him. Jess took a few steps back, resisting the urge to pull his aching wrist protectively towards his body. The guy kept laughing as he left the room, closing and locking the door behind him. Jess sighed in relief and sat on the end of his bed, wrapping his right arm around his stomach and rubbing absentmindedly at his throat with his left hand. Anger and humiliation warred for second billing within him, but the top spot went to an overwhelming sense of defeat and despair. He could still hear Liz's boyfriend rummaging around the apartment, and a few minutes later he heard the guy slam the front door on his way out.

Jess dropped both hands to his sides when he heard the closet door begin to open. Cy hesitated before actually exiting the closet, shooting Jess a questioning glance to ask if it was ok. Jess nodded. Neither boy made much of an attempt at eye contact.

"I take it I'm not supposed to be here?" Cy asked.

Jess let out a huff. "Not exactly." Cy sighed deeply and nodded.

"Should I go?" he asked. Jess shook his head.

"Fuck him," Jess answered, finally looking Cy in the eye. Cy chuckled a little.

"'That's the spirit, kid,'" Cy said in his best impression of Jess. Jess rolled his eyes in response, prompting Cy to smirk and shrug. He went to hand Jess back his tools, but Jess shook his head.

"Keep them. I've got another set."

"Thanks," Cy said, pocketing them. Jess just nodded in response, his mind still elsewhere. "Could have been worse, you know," Cy suggested.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. You could've had a girl in that closet!"

Jess laughed softly. "And that would be why I always go to their apartments…"

"Probably best. Guy's an asshole," Cy told Jess. "Hey, you want to play some poker or something?" Jess offered a small smile.

"You deal," he answered.


A/N: Bonus points to anyone who recognizes Cy.

It took me a bit longer than I expected to have time to get back to writing after my trip, so that's why this chapter was a bit later than I'd hoped. I'm not 100% sure when the next one will be up, but it will most likely be the last chapter.

Response to reviews:

Nancy: Jess's circumstances have changed a bit since you left your review on the last chapter. Liz is still Liz, but Jess does at least have a friend he can turn to now. Someone who knows what he's going through. Even a relatively safe apartment he can go to temporarily if need be (although it is an unreliable safe house given Cy's father). It's not enough, but it's something Jess hasn't truly had. I think these relationships here and there are the only things that allow Jess to hold onto something critical in him that eventually allows him to become the man he becomes. Thanks for the well wishes regarding my vacation! I enjoyed it immensely!