For: infiniteworld8
By: Megalink1126
Fandom: Jumper
Scars
"How'd you keep it a secret from people? Like your parents?"
It was an innocent question, one simply asked out of sheer curiosity. Or at least, it would have been innocent had David been talking to pretty much anyone besides Griffin. But then again, if the two of them hadn't been Jumpers, he probably wouldn't have asked such a question in the first place.
Mostly, it just showed how bloody clueless David was about how things in this world worked for people like them.
"It's pretty easy when they're not around," Griffin said flippantly, but stiffening ever-so-slightly as he fought to control the memories churning and twisting inside of him. It was a wound he carried that had never fully healed and never would. The scars on his psyche were one of his most defining aspects; the link between his past and his present, the driving force that had led him to where he was today.
And David's simple words tore through him like a chainsaw ripping through tissue paper, his memories spilling forth and engulfing him as they had millions of times before.
"Where were they?"
How could he explain? How could he explain that he had spent almost his entire childhood on the run with his parents, constantly hiding from the Paladins who threatened to kill him just because he was different? How could he explain that every time he had drawn too much attention to himself or had accidentally jumped somewhere, his parents would be thrown into a frenzy and they would be forced to sneak out under the cover of darkness like a bunch of criminals to find some new town and start all over again?
How could he explain his most stupid mistake? That when he was nine he had accidentally jumped to get away from a bully after karate, and hadn't told his parents about it because he was tired of running. That three days later, he had come home to find his house in shambles, his mother dead on the kitchen floor in a pool of her own blood. That he had found his father, alive but dying, a gaping hole in his chest. That he had held his father in his arms as he passed, a broken, weeping shell of a man he once was. That all he could do was jump away before the Paladins found and killed him too.
No. This was all so stupid. David didn't need to know any of that. Those were the scars that covered him, and they werehis problem to deal with, not anyone else's. So instead, Griffin channeled all of his pent-up heartbreak, his anger, his loss, into two simple words he felt got the message across quite clearly.
"Not around."