Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes.
Visionary
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Jack Kelly can't sleep at night anymore.
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He comes to with the vibrant orange of an early sun striking against the inside of his eyelids. The remnants of an early morning summer shower slicks his arms and keeps his forehead pressed against his skin. His long hair is damp, too-thick tendrils drip-dropping against the back of his neck. Jack resists the urge to shake himself off like a dog.
He hasn't sunk that low.
Not yet.
There's a chilling sound of suction as he peels his forehead away from his forearm, defiantly tilting his head back, daringly jutting his chin out. In the haze of yesterday's folly, with the scent of soot still in his nose, he knows where he is. He just doesn't care anymore. He can't bring them back. All the wishing and the scheming and the caring in the world won't bring them back.
The dirty, dry taste remains and he wonders if he kissed the ground at some point. He wouldn't put it past him. In the middle of a fit, Jack will do anything. Nothing surprises him anymore; as the visionary, he's already seen it all. Why not do it, too?
Opening and then just as quickly closing his eyes against another dawn, Jack tries to wish some moisture back into his mouth. He swallows once, twice but his tongue stays like sandpaper, itchy and dry. There isn't even enough saliva left for him to spit his displeasure.
He grumbles to himself. When a hangover this bad is the price to pay, the cost of losing the pounding, throbbing headache just doesn't seem worth it.
Lost in a world all of his own, he only confronts reality when the not-so-gentle nudge in his side forces him to. It's a sharp poke repeated, a rough something jamming into his ribs. He imagines he hears a crack and only prays that he's that damn lucky.
"Get up, boy! This ain't a place for a dirty piece of trash like you to sleep! Go on, now! Get!"
Silly man.
He's not sleeping. He can't. The nightmares haunt him and the whispers taunt him when he loses his hope and loses his grip and closes his eyes purposefully. So he doesn't.
Jack Kelly doesn't sleep, but sometimes he passes out.
The hard-pressed smart ass in him longs to retort that he's never been more awake in his life but he can't find the words. His tongue is suddenly twice the size, barely able to fit in his mouth. He stays silent, cursing the man with his (for his) very presence.
Slowly, lazily, he opens his bloodshot eyes and lifts his head. He smells of whiskey and filth and he knows it. It's no surprise that, when he follows the boot kicking him, he recognizes the old copper it's attached to.
There's a disgusted sneer on the man's face that tells Jack that he ain't as invisible as he wishes he could be. He ain't afraid, or amused. He's just tired. What does this cop want with him now?
He's too old for the Refuge and he'd be damned if they sent him there anyway. Was it finally his time to follow in the footsteps of his old man and get sent to the Pen? After all the lives lost and his utter failure in doing anything to help his former pals, has the blame finally fallen on him? Was it finally time for him to answer for his horrors?
Jack hopes so. But he doubts it.
Nobody believes him anymore. And they don't believe in him, either.
Besides, what does it matter when a cell couldn't keep the past at bay? He no doubt deserves to be locked up, if only to save everyone else from his black cloud and unshakeable demons. But since when is it a crime to watch one after another of his friends—of his family—perish?
It's a pity, and it's a shame. It's life… but it sure as hell ain't a crime.
Jack wishes it was. For all the things he's done and the things he couldn't do, he'd gladly go to the Chair. If they'd let him, he'd even go so far as strap himself in, doing up the buckles with his own ink-stained hands. Maybe, when he was dead like the rest of them, the whispers and the nightmares and the pain would finally just—
—stop.
"Go on," the cop says and, for good measure, he digs the tip of shiny, shiny boot into Jack's side a second time. His faces twisted in self-righteousness, he glares down at the boy.
One second, that's all it takes. A single tick on an unseen clock.
The sneer freezes behind his weathered façade; the billy club is limp in his hand. The foot drops.
A single tick and the cop's seen more in Jack's bloodshot, watery eyes than in twenty years on the beat. There's pain in those eyes, sorrow and despair. Loss. Grief. Hopelessness. They're the eyes that have seen a hundred deaths; the eyes that expect nothing less every time they shudder.
"Get," he says again, but his words have lost all meaning to him and to Jack. He's not certain. Only a copper's badge and the policeman's sense of entitlement keep him from turning tail.
The cop foolishly looked into the eyes of Jack Kelly—into the eyes of the visionary—and he found Hell staring back.
Jack sees the spasm of recognition as it flitters across the old cop's face, and he sighs. They all see him for what he is, even if they don't understand. They can't understand anymore than they can help.
There will be no peace—for him, or for anyone—until he gets up and he leaves this place. The cobbles on this street, once familiar, now hallow, are not meant for his heavy footsteps. The cop is right. It's time to get.
Tired, oh so very tired, yet firm with resolve, Jack slowly pulls himself to his feet…
It's like a dance, orchestrated by and in time to the Ballad of the Street Rat. With a smirk to rival the old copper's sneer, and a mocking gesture, he lowers his cursed eyes in an act of faux remorse. But his back he doesn't bend; he's straight-backed and proud, even to the end.
Reading his partner—his opponent—he spins just out of reach of a wild, thoughtless club, dodging a hit and landing gracefully two paces away. Smug as his feat, he waits until the last possible moment before taking his bow and taking his leave.
Over the roar of an imaginary crowd, Jack can barely make out the cop's parting words:
"And don't let me catch you around here again, boy!"
--
He doesn't go far.
Just around the corner maybe, too exhausted—too stubborn—to go on, he stops.
He doesn't know where he got it from or how he found it but, when Jack shoves his trembling, callused hands into his pockets, he's sure glad to find that there's the smallest stub of a hand rolled cigarette.
The match is in his hand before he knows it, his lips puckered as they desperately wait for sweet release. It takes but one strike this time before the tip is lit; he accepts the warmth—appreciates it, even—as he breathes in the fire.
Jack takes one drag and that's enough. His stomach turns, his nostrils filled with something so similar to cigarette smoke… but not. It's not burning tobacco he remembers at this place—and the scent of soot is still in the air. Soot and fire and bad, bad memories.
Swallowing back the bile and the black fog that threatens to bring him back under, he removes the damn cigarette from his disillusioned frown and lets it rest absently between his pointer and his index finger.
It isn't the release he's looking for.
His back is up against the brick wall, rocky ridges biting into old scars. Leaning his head back and lifting his head up, embers build and ashes fall. The grey-black-white pieces of once was flitter softly to the ground; a swirl of neglected fire rises up, smoke unfurling as it dances on air.
Gently, Jack ashes the cigarette, taking care not to disturb the softness of the wispy smoke. It's light in the midmorning sunshine, hanging in front of his haunted eyes before disappearing forever.
But forever isn't very long at all—and the innocence fades to black. It's thick smoke now, dark and foreboding.
He ashes the cigarette with more vigor this time. The smoke goes nowhere.
In a trance, he marvels at the smoke and, as his heart races and his head pounds, he wonders how he could have been so blind. There's no excuse; his eyes have barely closed for fear of what would linger in the dark. It's a portent, he sees that now, and he hiccups back his heave.
Jack leaves the fire lit long enough to get a better glimpse at this portent. A face forms in the smoke, features nondescript but recognizable regardless. He knows that face. He knows that smirk. He knows that boy.
He watched him die.
The cigarette falls from frantic fingers, extinguished a breath later by a savage boot. Taking no chances, he doesn't turn his back until he's killed the flame, scattered the ashes and erased the smoke.
Walking away from this place with his head down and his shaky, shaky hands in his pocket, Jack Kelly fights back a shiver.
Forgotten footsteps follow him always.