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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No matter how far he goes, or fast he runs, he's not fast enough. It doesn't mean a thing where he goes or how he tries to hide, he's unsuccessful always, and he's caught almost immediately. There's no reason to run, to hide… unless he can crawl back inside the shell of a man he is, he can never be safe.
Not even in his past, not even in his history, not even in the nightmares that masquerade as pleasant dreams. He can never be safe, he can never be free. They find him, the grab him with icy fingers and the scent of death on their breath, the demons find him, the visions find him and he doesn't have the strength to fight them anymore.
He doubts he ever did.
Lying there, his eyes wide and staring as he watches the gory death of the best boy Brooklyn ever saw flash before him, Jack is awake. It doesn't even take slumber or a blissful concussion anymore to bring about the horrible nightmares, the night terrors that freeze him to the bone. Just being is enough.
The bunkroom is still empty, the others too afraid or too superstitious to share the room with the sallow, wild-eyed Cowboy. His breathing is shallow, his fingers twitching, rubbing anxiously against the coarse sheets on the hard, familiar bunk. Even through his mouth, he can taste the stench that surrounded Spot as he fell. He wants to vomit, but he doesn't have the strength for that, either.
Spot's words come rushing back, the sinister premonition and the foreboding omen he left behind with Jack. You're next.
He doesn't want to believe it… but he does. He always knew that his days were numbered, that every death and every vision brings him one step closer to the time when it would be his turn. No one lives forever, and only the visionary is cursed with watching his own death approach.
Jack Kelly can feel his death approaching.
All his life, from the moment his mother coughed her last breath and his father got carted off to Sing Sing, Jack had one instinct: to run. His legs never stopped moving, whether he was running from his past, running from trouble, running from love… he ran, always two steps ahead of the rest of the world.
But Jack's not running anymore.
Even now, even as he hears a sneaky, quick set of soft shoes tap tap tap-ping their way up the stairs, he doesn't run.
Racetrack would find him, anyhow.
God damn him, he looks just how Jack remembers. One of the first to go, and one of the deaths that hit him the hardest, it calms him considerably to be looking into the wise-cracking face of his old friend. The greasy dark hair, the crooked yellow teeth that stuck out from under a true gambler's grin, the cigar angled out one corner of his mouth… hell, he's even wearing the same plaid vest Jack buried him in.
It strikes him now, as sudden but as certain as anything, that all of this… the headache yesterday, David's pleas for help and Spot's warnings… has led his weary feet to bring him back home, back to the lodging house, just for this meeting with Race. It isn't fate, and it isn't a nightmare. It is happening—and he doesn't know how he feels about it now.
He's still on his bunk, his heart beating as loud as the morning distribution bell. He leans over but, stubborn to a fault and just so damn tired, he barely spares a glance as he mumbles, "What are ya doin' here, Race?"
The answer is obvious, and he knows it already. But he has to ask… he just has to.
"Ain't the better question what are you doin' here, Cowboy?"
It's the voice he remembers. Part smartass, part over intelligent, with just the hint of a bookie preparing to offer a round of bum odds, Race's voice was distinct. It makes him cringe; he feels as if he's been scolded.
"This is my home," Jack says hesitantly, his own voice bordering on a whine. He's wondered the same thing countless times before, when the memories were too much, and the whiskey too weak, but he always comes back to one answer. With a grimace and a brace against his bunk as he sits up, he gives it to Race. "This is the only home I got."
"You can't stay."
The flat answer cuts him more effectively than Spot's mocking taunts. Racetrack knows him better than all the others; he knows exactly what to say to get a rise out of the boy.
Gritting his teeth, swinging his feet over the edge of the bunk as he meets Race's dark eyes with a dare, he snaps, "Why not?"
Dark lingers in the room, despite the sunlight that filters in through the cracked window. It's early afternoon at best, but there's a chill whipping around the room that makes Jack believe that another summer night has fooled him. It's dark, and the darkness centers on the short newsboy standing before him.
Racetrack Higgins was never so dark, and the fire in his eyes keeps Jack up high. He's frightening, absolutely terrifying and, for the first time since the nightmares began, he knows that there is still more for him to see. He hasn't seen half the horror this world—this world or the next—has to offer, but Race… there's a depth in his answering glare.
Jack might be the visionary, but it's Race who's seen things he shouldn't.
"This ain't your home no more," he quips, his words coming free and easy. They're soft, so soft that it's easy to miss the snarl on his lips. "You haunt it, Jack, and your presence won't leave, but you can't stay. You cling to it, your fingers scrabbling to keep the grip, but it ain't yours. You don't belong here."
His words hit him like a slap across the face. It's as if Race is in his mind, telling him all the thoughts he's afraid to think, the thoughts he banishes away like the past he won't admit to. It's Francis Sullivan who doesn't belong, but Jack Kelly owns the bunkroom.
Doesn't he?
Anger fueling his words, he feels an overwhelming heat in his face. Like flames licking at his face, burning away his flesh, he wonders if this is how it felt when David perished. He wonders and then, turning back on Race, he sneers.
"Don't tell me that, Race. You don't know. I've been here longer than anybody else. As long as I can pay my fare," he snaps back, all too aware that he doesn't remember the last time he didn't drink his last nickel away, "I can stay."
Removing the smelly stub of a cigar from between clenched teeth, yellow stained teeth, Race gestures with it around him. The dark smoke follows the trajectory of his pudgy hand, leaving a thick ring in its wake. "Look around you, Jack. See that bunk over there? See the guy sleepin' on it?"
As if Race's voice is a lure, and the wave of his hand the string, Jack feels his head jerk and pull and turn around without him ever giving the conscious command. He follows the fiery embers of the cigar, the form of a sleeping boy snoring on one particular bunk.
Vaguely, he tries to remember when the dark-haired boy joined him in the bunkroom; mere seconds ago, he knew he was alone but now he is sure that the boy has been sleeping for hours.
Sleeping… he wishes he could be that lucky.
"Yeah. It's Skittery."
"No it ain't," Race counters sharply, jabbing the air viciously with the cigar. "That's some kid they call Aces. That's his bunk now. Skittery's dead, Jack." He pauses, his lips curved in a cruel smirk to rival Spot Conlon's. "You killed him."
"I did not!"
The denial is out before he even understands the implications behind Race's accusation.
"Don't lie."
"I ain't lyin'!"
Placing his cigar back at home at the corner of his mouth, Race sighs. "Fine, have it your way," he says, holding his hands out in a surrendering gesture. But he hasn't blinked, and his eyes are even fiercer, even more vivid than before. His pupil an inky black, Jack finds himself staring relentlessly at the orb-shape, hypnotized. It's only when Race's voice, conversational and friendly, jerks him out of his trance. "How 'bout ol' Kloppy, Jack? He talk to ya today?"
The heat is gone, and the chill is chilling him down to his bones. Suspicion racks him, his fingers clenching and unclenching nervously as he lowers his voice. "I told him I'd pay him up later. What, ya collectin' for him now?"
"He's dead, too, Jack. He ain't collectin' shit. And me… I'm dead. Don't ya remember?" With a vicious pull, he reaches up to his collar. The fabric tears easily in his childlike grasp, revealing a thick chest and—
—and an ugly purple-green-black mark that circles the width of Racetrack's entire neck. Painful marks, thick marks… strangulation marks.
"You killed me, too, Jack."
He wants to vomit, he wants to avert his gaze, he wants to run. But he doesn't. He can't. Even more than before, even stronger than the pull of his voice and his eyes combined, Jack can't turn away from the horror of the mark on Racetrack's throat.
"Race, what happened to ya?"
"Can't ya see?"
Does the visionary see everything?
Oh God, what he wouldn't give for a cigarette.
He's on his feet, the shock of Race's reveal enough to propel him out of his bunk and back onto the floor. There's no pain as his knees bend, the soles of his feet slapping against the hard ground. His mouth is dry, and he'd kill—again, or for the first time—for a tumbler of good, strong whiskey. There's no hope of him getting around Race and getting to a bar… but he could nick another smoke alright.
Skittery is right there, sound asleep as usual. He could sneak one right out of his night table… but, no. He can see it now. That's not Skittery—Skittery's long-johns were pink, his hair a tousled, dark mess. This boy isn't as thin or as tall or as lanky as Skittery, and his hair is a fairer shade.
It isn't Skittery… so what happened to him?
Who is that? Who the hell is Aces?
"You killed me, Jack," Race tells him with something akin to relish. He's barely speaking with any volume but Jack hears him just the same. The accusation is like a brand, a burn deep into his soul. Race could think the lie, he could write it down, and Jack would flinch, drawing away from the cruelty and the pain. "Like you killed Dave and Sarah and little Les. Like you killed Spot. Like you killed Skittery and Kloppman and… and Mush and Kid Blink… all of the fellas. And like me, Jack. Like you killed me!"
"I didn't… I couldn't—"
"But you did," the other boy says matter-of-factly. He removes his cigar from his mouth, the smoke black and thick and all-consuming. Silver ash drops to the floor, disappearing in its descent. "You could."
"But I never meant—"
"You're next."
Like an unsteady house of cards built on a wobbly surface, one sentence—one push—and he is crumbling. Spot Conlon's warning echoing in his ears, he knows that his premonition was right.
Spot isn't the angel of death. Race is.
"There's only way to make it stop," Race says, his voice a purr and his dark eyes, his dead eyes, flashing in anticipation, flashing in revenge. "Do you want the dreams to stop, Jack? Do you want the nightmares to end, the visions? Do you want to sleep again?"
"Oh, yes," he sighs, relief flooding his body and a crooked half-smile coming to his face.
Racetrack is his pal. He's not there to hurt, he's there to help.
He's there to stop the nightmares…
"Here, then. Let me."
With the cigar back in place between his molars, Race's hands are at Jack's waist, working on the knot that keeps the rope belt in place. Looking down, his hands useless things that hang at his side, he knows that something isn't right, that Race never does anything for anyone without a price, but he's tired… he's so tired.
The belt is in Race's hand, lovingly caressed between his ink-stained fingers. With a curious spark of intent in those same dead eyes, he loops the rope around the taller boy's neck. Keeping it there, holding tight to the frayed ends, he leads Jack over to his old bunk and pushes him gently, forcing him to lie on his back.
So tired…
"Close your eyes, Jack," he commands soothingly, his voice strangely unfamiliar at this proximity. It sounds like his mother talking to him, his father scolding him, David's speeches, Spot's words, Sarah's songs—it sounds like all of it, and none of it. And it sounds like home. "It's time to go to sleep," Racetrack adds, his hands already beginning to pull on the rope.
So he does. And, for the first time in a long time, Jack Kelly sleeps without a single dream—or nightmare.