Jack Spicer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jackbotsattack) wrote2013-05-15 11:56 pm
jackbotsattack) wrote2013-05-15 11:56 pm
Entry tags:
CW: Suicidal Thoughts
I have no idea of a title for this and I'm too tired to think of one.
Summary: Jack returns from EV and has to recover in a reality where no one believes he was even kidnapped, and no one knows how badly he's hurting.
One month after coming back, Jack still thinks it’s a dream.
He can’t help but jump at every sound, scream when someone touches him. His hands shake constantly, and he turns haunted eyes on his parents, waiting for them to change, waiting for them to disappear so the horrors can continue. Everywhere he walks he feels the rocking of a ship, feels a prick on his neck like he’s being watched. He can’t relax. He can’t be calm. He learns all the escape routes from his house by heart. Once he jumps out a window in a flight of panic, sprains his ankle.
His parents think he has gone mad.
He can’t sleep with the lights off.
Two months after coming back, Jack thinks maybe it’s not a dream after all.
He still shakes, and he still jumps, and he’s still terrified of everything. His parents still aren’t sure what to do for him, and he’s not sure what to do for them, either. He’s not sure how to reach out, to ask for help, even though he’s begging for it, inside.
They ask him to start going to a therapist. He rolls over in bed and stares at the wall some more, and breathes.
Three months after coming back is his birthday. He had no idea. He doesn’t want to spoil the day by pointing out that he’s actually older than the candles on the cake claim.
He’s been eating bland foods since coming back. He thinks he can stomach the cake.
He spends a miserable few hours on the bathroom floor.
He agrees to go to a therapist.
Four months after coming back, he still sleeps with the lights on.
He has to be able to see. He has to know, when he wakes up from one of his many nightmares, where he is. If he doesn’t see his room, he thinks it’s the boat again, thinks he’s back, and he panics, and screams, for anyone to hear him, help him, please please please…
He wakes up several times to a dark room and screams until his parents come to calm him down. They act like it’s a hassle, tell him to stop overreacting, that he’s too old to be afraid of the dark. He wants to stop, to be strong for them. But he can’t be.
One night he wakes up to the dark and screams himself hoarse. No one comes.
His lights aren’t off again.
Five months after coming back, and he hates himself more than ever.
He’s not making any progress in his therapy. His therapist keeps telling him that he needs to forget his delusions. He insists they aren’t delusions. The therapist snaps at him, tells him that he can’t get well if he doesn’t accept that what happened was a figment of his imagination.
He wonders if the therapist is right. He thinks maybe he is delusional. His parents are disappointed that he isn’t improving, and Jack pulls further into himself.
He stops talking.
Six months after coming back, the monks come to steal his Wu.
He would have been surprised that they’d taken this long, if he felt much of anything anymore. Instead, he lies in bed and listens to them raid his lab, breaking easily into his safe. He lets them go, caring only about the Monkey Staff under his pillow. It gives him the smallest feeling of security. Take it and he has nothing left.
They come up to his room. Clay asks about the Monkey Staff.
From their faces, he knows the look he gives them must really be terrible.
He grips the staff in his hands, possessively, ready to fight but too tired to win. Determined not to let it go but scared of what comes after failure. Take it and he has nothing left.
Raimundo says something, and it must have been stupid because Kimiko elbows his ribcage. They turn to go without a fight, leaving him his Wu.
Omi lingers in the doorway like he’s going to say something, but doesn’t.
Jack puts the staff back under his pillow.
Seven months after coming back is the month he finally breaks.
He’s been listening to his therapist. His therapist keeps telling him that he’s delusional, still, still delusional, that he needs medicine, that he needs a hospital. He thinks it’s a waste of time. He’ll never get better. Nothing is helping, he’s too broken for it to help.
He hears his parents talking in the hallway. He’s regressing. He needs more money spent on him. He’s just a burden, they say, or maybe he just thinks it.
He feels like a failure.
He finds himself on the wrong side of a balcony railing that night. He wonders if he’ll revive if he jumps. Maybe he’ll be back in that place, if he does. He thinks that might be better. At least he knows it.
A return to the status quo.
He doesn’t get a chance to find out. A hand pulls him roughly back over the railing, and then his dad is there, demanding what he was doing, Shaking his shoulders. Jack can only quiver.
And then his dad is crying, crying for him, and he’s never seen his dad cry before, and he’s so fascinated by it that he forgets what he came on the balcony for, if only for a second.
And then his dad is hugging him, something he never does, either, and his mom is too, and she’s asking what he needs, Jackie, what do you need?
Jack sinks into their arms and cries.
Eight months back, Jack starts seeing a new therapist.
This one believes him, or if he doesn’t, he tells Jack so, and maybe that’s enough. It takes him awhile to open up, and the man doesn’t push him. Instead they talk about a lot of other stuff. School. Jack’s hobbies (the ones that don’t have to do with taking over the world). Why red Skittles are clearly superior to orange Skittles.
One day, he says the name Eike, and that’s when he starts to talk. About KERNOS. About COMPASS. About monsters and mind control and other things that should be impossible, but that the therapist believes.
He thinks, maybe, he feels a little better.
But he still sleeps with the lights on.
Nine months back, his family takes a trip to the mountains.
Jack doesn’t pay attention to which mountains, and really it doesn’t matter, because he loves them all if they’re snowcapped. Loved, before, but he still feels a stirring of his old joy when he looks out the plane’s window and sees the snow.
His parents hover around him the whole time, and somehow he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t admit that he’s scared without them, though. He pretends to be annoyed when his mom forces him into an extra coat and when his dad calls him stupid nicknames like “sport” and “junior,” but he doesn’t really mind at all.
In fact, it feels pretty good.
Ten months after coming back, the monks come again.
They find him a bit more lively this time, watching a movie on the sci-fi channel. He looks up when they come up the stairs (after breaking into the lab) and advises them to use the front door next time.
Raimundo gets right to the point and asks him what he’s planning.
Nothing, and it’s an honest answer.
The monks seem more confused than skeptical, and finally Omi asks what’s wrong with him.
His tired reply is that there are lots of things.
Clay breaks the awkward pause to inquire if he’s still hunting Wu, and he tells them no, he’s not.
After more confused silence, they start to leave.
Jack can’t say why he does it, but he stops him, and asks if they remember that time he promised them ice cream.
Eleven months after coming back, he’s hanging out with the monks again.
They hang out a lot, when they don’t have chores, training, or world-saving to do. Jack isn’t sure how he earned this friendship, but he’s afraid to lose it. Maybe he shouldn’t be, though, and the monks give him no real reason to worry. If they notice how broken he is, they don’t comment. If they notice a haunted look in his eye, they don’t ask.
He’s so grateful.
One day, Omi asks him if that if he’s quit the Heylin, is he ready to join the side of good and fight with them?
He says no, if it’s all the same to Omi, he’d rather stay neutral for awhile.
As they’re about to leave, Omi asks if he’ll be okay.
Jack says that yeah, he will be, he thinks.
Twelve months after coming back, Jack sleeps a peaceful night with the lights off, and he starts to believe.
Summary: Jack returns from EV and has to recover in a reality where no one believes he was even kidnapped, and no one knows how badly he's hurting.
One month after coming back, Jack still thinks it’s a dream.
He can’t help but jump at every sound, scream when someone touches him. His hands shake constantly, and he turns haunted eyes on his parents, waiting for them to change, waiting for them to disappear so the horrors can continue. Everywhere he walks he feels the rocking of a ship, feels a prick on his neck like he’s being watched. He can’t relax. He can’t be calm. He learns all the escape routes from his house by heart. Once he jumps out a window in a flight of panic, sprains his ankle.
His parents think he has gone mad.
He can’t sleep with the lights off.
Two months after coming back, Jack thinks maybe it’s not a dream after all.
He still shakes, and he still jumps, and he’s still terrified of everything. His parents still aren’t sure what to do for him, and he’s not sure what to do for them, either. He’s not sure how to reach out, to ask for help, even though he’s begging for it, inside.
They ask him to start going to a therapist. He rolls over in bed and stares at the wall some more, and breathes.
Three months after coming back is his birthday. He had no idea. He doesn’t want to spoil the day by pointing out that he’s actually older than the candles on the cake claim.
He’s been eating bland foods since coming back. He thinks he can stomach the cake.
He spends a miserable few hours on the bathroom floor.
He agrees to go to a therapist.
Four months after coming back, he still sleeps with the lights on.
He has to be able to see. He has to know, when he wakes up from one of his many nightmares, where he is. If he doesn’t see his room, he thinks it’s the boat again, thinks he’s back, and he panics, and screams, for anyone to hear him, help him, please please please…
He wakes up several times to a dark room and screams until his parents come to calm him down. They act like it’s a hassle, tell him to stop overreacting, that he’s too old to be afraid of the dark. He wants to stop, to be strong for them. But he can’t be.
One night he wakes up to the dark and screams himself hoarse. No one comes.
His lights aren’t off again.
Five months after coming back, and he hates himself more than ever.
He’s not making any progress in his therapy. His therapist keeps telling him that he needs to forget his delusions. He insists they aren’t delusions. The therapist snaps at him, tells him that he can’t get well if he doesn’t accept that what happened was a figment of his imagination.
He wonders if the therapist is right. He thinks maybe he is delusional. His parents are disappointed that he isn’t improving, and Jack pulls further into himself.
He stops talking.
Six months after coming back, the monks come to steal his Wu.
He would have been surprised that they’d taken this long, if he felt much of anything anymore. Instead, he lies in bed and listens to them raid his lab, breaking easily into his safe. He lets them go, caring only about the Monkey Staff under his pillow. It gives him the smallest feeling of security. Take it and he has nothing left.
They come up to his room. Clay asks about the Monkey Staff.
From their faces, he knows the look he gives them must really be terrible.
He grips the staff in his hands, possessively, ready to fight but too tired to win. Determined not to let it go but scared of what comes after failure. Take it and he has nothing left.
Raimundo says something, and it must have been stupid because Kimiko elbows his ribcage. They turn to go without a fight, leaving him his Wu.
Omi lingers in the doorway like he’s going to say something, but doesn’t.
Jack puts the staff back under his pillow.
Seven months after coming back is the month he finally breaks.
He’s been listening to his therapist. His therapist keeps telling him that he’s delusional, still, still delusional, that he needs medicine, that he needs a hospital. He thinks it’s a waste of time. He’ll never get better. Nothing is helping, he’s too broken for it to help.
He hears his parents talking in the hallway. He’s regressing. He needs more money spent on him. He’s just a burden, they say, or maybe he just thinks it.
He feels like a failure.
He finds himself on the wrong side of a balcony railing that night. He wonders if he’ll revive if he jumps. Maybe he’ll be back in that place, if he does. He thinks that might be better. At least he knows it.
A return to the status quo.
He doesn’t get a chance to find out. A hand pulls him roughly back over the railing, and then his dad is there, demanding what he was doing, Shaking his shoulders. Jack can only quiver.
And then his dad is crying, crying for him, and he’s never seen his dad cry before, and he’s so fascinated by it that he forgets what he came on the balcony for, if only for a second.
And then his dad is hugging him, something he never does, either, and his mom is too, and she’s asking what he needs, Jackie, what do you need?
Jack sinks into their arms and cries.
Eight months back, Jack starts seeing a new therapist.
This one believes him, or if he doesn’t, he tells Jack so, and maybe that’s enough. It takes him awhile to open up, and the man doesn’t push him. Instead they talk about a lot of other stuff. School. Jack’s hobbies (the ones that don’t have to do with taking over the world). Why red Skittles are clearly superior to orange Skittles.
One day, he says the name Eike, and that’s when he starts to talk. About KERNOS. About COMPASS. About monsters and mind control and other things that should be impossible, but that the therapist believes.
He thinks, maybe, he feels a little better.
But he still sleeps with the lights on.
Nine months back, his family takes a trip to the mountains.
Jack doesn’t pay attention to which mountains, and really it doesn’t matter, because he loves them all if they’re snowcapped. Loved, before, but he still feels a stirring of his old joy when he looks out the plane’s window and sees the snow.
His parents hover around him the whole time, and somehow he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t admit that he’s scared without them, though. He pretends to be annoyed when his mom forces him into an extra coat and when his dad calls him stupid nicknames like “sport” and “junior,” but he doesn’t really mind at all.
In fact, it feels pretty good.
Ten months after coming back, the monks come again.
They find him a bit more lively this time, watching a movie on the sci-fi channel. He looks up when they come up the stairs (after breaking into the lab) and advises them to use the front door next time.
Raimundo gets right to the point and asks him what he’s planning.
Nothing, and it’s an honest answer.
The monks seem more confused than skeptical, and finally Omi asks what’s wrong with him.
His tired reply is that there are lots of things.
Clay breaks the awkward pause to inquire if he’s still hunting Wu, and he tells them no, he’s not.
After more confused silence, they start to leave.
Jack can’t say why he does it, but he stops him, and asks if they remember that time he promised them ice cream.
Eleven months after coming back, he’s hanging out with the monks again.
They hang out a lot, when they don’t have chores, training, or world-saving to do. Jack isn’t sure how he earned this friendship, but he’s afraid to lose it. Maybe he shouldn’t be, though, and the monks give him no real reason to worry. If they notice how broken he is, they don’t comment. If they notice a haunted look in his eye, they don’t ask.
He’s so grateful.
One day, Omi asks him if that if he’s quit the Heylin, is he ready to join the side of good and fight with them?
He says no, if it’s all the same to Omi, he’d rather stay neutral for awhile.
As they’re about to leave, Omi asks if he’ll be okay.
Jack says that yeah, he will be, he thinks.
Twelve months after coming back, Jack sleeps a peaceful night with the lights off, and he starts to believe.