Jasper Lucas (sinsoftheson) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2022-07-29 09:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, jasper, jasper x ruby, ruby |
Who: Ruby and Jasper
Where: Jasper's house
When: Morning, Tuesday, July 3
Status: complete
Ruby watched her clock as the hours ticked by, unable to go back to sleep. The nightmare had been so vivid, she could have sworn it was real, would have believed it if it hadn’t been completely nonsensical. There was evidence of it all over her body, bruises and scrapes from her attempts to run away, the worst of it around her ankle, where it looked like Edward Scissorhands had tried to take hold of her. She’d bandaged herself up while praying that she didn’t need stitches, then turned every light in the room on, unable to handle the dark. The one person who’d understand, who’d seen what she’d seen, was the one person she couldn’t call, and so she waited, time slowly passing until it felt like an acceptable time to call someone.
Even then, she texted instead, sure it was still too early. Are you up? she sent Jasper, nervously biting at her lip as she waited for a reply that might come hours later. I’ll buy you coffee. Bring you coffee. Whatever. Need a friend. The last few days had been rough and, after the night she’d had, she’d finally reached her breaking point.
It was Jasper’s day off, one he’d asked for ahead of time since it was his dad’s birthday. He knew there were vague party-type plans that Charlie was putting together, but he figured he could float in and out of those like he usually did, so he hadn’t bothered to find out what time it all started. He wanted to visit Jules again today like he’d promised, and he’d gone to sleep with the hankering to see Logan, so it was going to be a busy day, social wise.
He’d been attempting to sleep in to prepare, flopped diagonal across his bed in the basement while he snoozed the morning away. Jasper wasn’t so deep that he couldn’t hear his phone though, and the chimes of text messages woke him up. Thinking it might be Jules, Jasper fumbled around until he found his phone and squinted at it. A text from Ruby wasn’t a shock, but what she said was worrisome enough that he didn’t roll back over to go back to sleep. He sat up instead, rubbing at one eye, and thumbed in a response. up now. wanna come over? we got coffee too
Ruby knew she’d probably woken him, but she couldn’t care at the moment. She couldn’t be alone anymore. Her dad might be home, but he didn’t really count—she felt too old to bother him with her nightmare and she wasn’t ready to tell him about Clint. So as soon as Jasper replied, she started pulling her clothes on, stopping only to shoot him off a quick response. be there in 5. It would take longer if she was stopping to put on makeup, or care about her appearance at all, but she couldn’t be bothered at the moment. It was closer to ten minutes when she showed up on his doorstep, knocking quietly so as not to wake anyone else who might be sleeping. here, she texted, just in case.
Jasper hauled himself out of bed and put some clothes on himself. He gave his teeth a quick brush in the sink and shuffled up the steps to get to the door before anybody else had to. Ruby knocked quietly, but there were three dogs in the house, and even the gentle sound set them off, nails scrabbling on the floor as they all ran for the front door, all three voices barking. “Ohmygod, shut up,” Jasper groaned, wading through wagging tails and furry bodies to get to the door. Storms of barking were pretty common here, so he didn’t think it would bother anybody, as long as they got to sniff Ruby and settled down. He opened the door with a wan smile and moved back to let her in, the dogs still crowding around. “You guys know her, shut it,” Jasper added, nudging Max aside to make room.
As bad as her mood was, there was something about excited dogs that made Ruby smile. They didn’t care how early it was, or that people might still be sleeping; they were happy to see her and that was all that mattered. She crouched to pet them as soon as she stepped in, letting them get a good sniff of her before rising to her feet. “Did I wake you?” she asked. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, same as her, even if she’d been up for hours. The only difference were the scratches and bruises from her nightmare, something she was glad to see Jasper was lacking. “I didn’t bring coffee, since you said you had some. I could probably use it.”
It was hard not to notice that she looked kind of like a hot mess, obviously tired with no makeup and her hair pulled back and eyes puffy. Not that Jasper was judging her for it, they’d seen each other pretty close to their worst before. It was just a thing he noticed. “Yeah but it’s okay. C’mon, Charlie has a bunch of those flavored pod things? You can take your pick. It ain’t Joyland, but it’s aight,” he said, motioning for her to follow as he led the way to the kitchen. Jasper pointed Ruby to the coffee cabinet and started to pull down mugs for them and turned on the machine. He glanced at her a couple of times, part of him trying to guess why she needed a friend this early in the morning. “We can sit out back and have a smoke and talk,” he murmured.
“Sounds good,” Ruby said, following him to the kitchen. She wasn’t familiar with Charlie’s house the way she had been with his dad’s and appreciated him pointing out where things were. It struck her that she hadn’t been over all that much since he’d gotten back, distracted by a boy that no longer mattered. She’d been a horrible friend, and yet he’d still let her come crashing in for coffee and companionship. Ruby knew she needed to explain herself, but waited until they were settled out on the back porch. It was cool enough that she was glad she’d pulled on sweatpants, even if shorts would’ve been nice later in the day. It wasn’t like she was trying to impress anyone, not even Jasper. Not right now, at least. “Did I ever tell you I saw the Dark Man?” she asked, wrapping her fingers around her coffee cup for warmth. He’d been gone when it happened, and it was long past by the time he returned. Ruby had kind of forgotten about it until last night, when she was reminded in vivid detail.
Jasper had opted for a mocha, and he sipped on it as they settled onto the deck chairs. He pulled his pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his own sweatpants and shook one loose to tuck between his lips. Jasper was about to hold out the pack to Ruby when she spoke, but what she said made him pause as a chill ran down his spine. Hadn’t that been what his father had called the bowler hat asshole? Gavin had told Jasper that story so long ago, before the fog, he was fuzzy on the details now. It was definitely familiar though, and a bad thing, and now it had gotten to Ruby? “No,” he answered slowly, his eyes on her face as he offered her a cigarette. “When did that happen?”
It was never too early for coffee and cigarettes, so Ruby took the offering, hoping it would help calm her nerves. With the kind of week she’d been having, she should just go buy herself a pack. “January, I think. Can’t remember if you’d disappeared yet,” she said. That whole period of time had felt like one crisis after another and now she couldn’t recall the exact order of it all. It didn’t exactly surprise her that she hadn’t told him. She’d been desperate to forget about it, as if pretending it didn’t happen would make the thing go away. Clearly that hadn’t worked. “It came after Clint and I. We jumped in his car and ran back to his house, and… I guess I thought that was the end of it. Hoped, at least.” She tugged up one leg of her sweatpants, revealing bandages, some of them dotted with blood that had soaked through. “It came after me last night. In my sleep.”
Jasper lit his smoke and handed the lighter over to Ruby as he listened. He wasn’t surprised she hadn’t told him either, it had been a weird time and he hadn’t been himself for a while before he even disappeared. He frowned as his eyes ticked down to Ruby’s leg, worry clenching in his stomach. That looked bad. “In your sleep?” he echoed, looking up at her face again. “Like how do you mean, it came into your room and attacked you?” The thing had hurt his father years ago, stabbed one long dagger-finger into his chest, Gavin had told him, and even hearing about it had been pretty fucking scary. After so many months it had come back for Ruby? Would it come back for Gavin too? The idea made Jasper want to go inside to check on his father, but he stayed put.
“No, in my dreams,” Ruby said, pausing to light up. The nicotine might calm her nerves, but she had the feeling the nightmare would stick around for a good, long while. “He came after me Freddy Kruger style. I didn’t even know I was dreaming until I woke up. I mean, I should have, but…” She took a deep breath, then a sip of her coffee, attempting to chase away the chill recollection gave her. “You know how dreams are—things don’t make sense, but you don’t question it. I was in a house, I don’t know whose, and… Jules’s stepdad was chasing me. He had the bat. But then he had a bowler hat, and that grin.” She shuddered. The beginning felt a bit foggy, but the end was crystal clear. “Maybe it was the Dark Man the whole time. I was trying to get up the stairs when he grabbed me by the ankle. I woke up and it was like it had really happened.” She was sure she’d screamed as well, but she didn’t know if that had happened in the dream or real life. “I haven’t been back to sleep yet.”
“Fuck, Ruby,” Jasper muttered, awed and concerned at the same time. It was such a crazy thing to even consider, something straight out of a horror movie, and yet he didn’t doubt it for a second. Jasper wasn’t sure that he would ever doubt any batshit crazy story again -- he’d lived batshit crazy for months. If what had happened to him was possible, damn near anything was. “Did you wrap them up good? Sure you don’t need stitches?” He nodded down to her ankle. Jasper hadn’t noticed her limping or anything, so hopefully nothing vital had been damaged, they were just surface wounds. That still sucked like hell, though. “My dad’d seen him. He told me about it a while ago, he saw him back when I was just a baby. Who knows what the fuck that thing is.”
“I dunno. Maybe? But I don’t think so. If they were that deep, I feel like there’d be more blood at this point.” Ruby had been watching the injury since receiving it and, while the bandages were bloody, they’d stayed the same for the last few hours. She didn’t know shit about medicine, but was pretty sure she’d only need stitches if they weren’t clotting. It hurt, and would probably scar, but she thought it looked worse than it was. Hearing that Jasper’s dad had seen the Dark Man made her stomach knot and she looked towards the back door, almost expecting him to join them. “I don’t know what he is, but he’s definitely not human. I knew when I saw him. We ran. And then nothing made me feel safe the rest of the night.” She took a slow drag off the cigarette, finally feeling the effect on her nerves. “I should probably tell my dad, but… I dunno. I don’t want him to worry about something he can’t do anything about.”
Jasper could relate. The black eyed kids knocking on his windows that night he’d been sleeping in his car had sent him running. He’d just known in his gut that they were not real kids and they meant him all manner of harm. He’d run straight to his dad like a little kid, and Jasper wasn’t even embarrassed about it, even though now he felt like a hardened war veteran compared to that version of himself. He’d just seen so much shit now. So many of them had. “Yeah, I get that,” he muttered. He felt that way about a lot of things, with a lot of people. Jasper tried to think of something he could do to help, and came up mostly empty-handed. Who knew if the Dark Man would come back for a round two as soon as Ruby went to sleep again. “Do you wanna maybe ... sleep over?” he offered. “Elodie stays here all the time, i don’t think anybody would mind. You could have my bed, I got a couch down there now. Or would that piss off Clint?”
“Clint can go fuck himself,” Ruby muttered, unable to stop herself. Just the mention of him made her want to punch something, even days after their breakup. She wanted it to be easier, for her feelings for him to roll off her like water off a duck, but that just wasn’t happening. Just because she’d never told him how she felt didn’t mean she didn’t feel it and now she burned, love turning to loathing because there was no other outlet. It wasn’t a shock that Jasper hadn’t heard. She doubted Clint was eager to tell anyone of the scene she’d made and Ruby hadn’t been eager to share how she’d been hurt. “Found out he was cheating on me. Found out mid date, from a fucking psychic at the carnival. Would’ve thought it was bullshit if she hadn’t called me out on seeing Jules’s stepfather. Which is a completely separate mind fuck I’d meant to tell you about, but, you know. One crisis at a time.” She took another drag off the cigarette, enjoying the warmth in her lungs. “I might take you up on that, just for a little bit. If you really don’t mind.”
Jasper’s eyebrows had lifted until Ruby explained, then he got a pinched and annoyed look on his face. He couldn’t say he was very surprised to hear that, he’d never thought much of Clint Nolan, but it still sucked that it had actually happened. “What a fucking asshole,” he said with true disgust. “I’m sorry to hear that, Rubes. You deserve better than some dumbass jock anyway.” Jasper wasn’t the type of guy friend to run out and try to fight all of Ruby’s battles for her, but if Clint had been right in front of them, he would’ve gotten decked. Somehow it wasn’t even shocking to hear that the news had some from a psychic. Point Pleasant was Point Pleasant, after all. “Yeah, no it’s cool -- wait, you said you saw Jules’s stepdad? When?” Jasper’s brows knitted tightly together again. That definitely shouldn’t be happening, there was no way that guy was still alive.
“Guys are assholes,” Ruby muttered, then remembered she was talking to one and knocked her shoulder against his with a little smile. “Not you. Just… the rest of ‘em.” Not that Jasper wasn’t without his faults, but having never taken a chance on him, she’d never allowed him the opportunity to properly break her heart. There were times she regretted it, aware she might be missing out, but at the moment it felt like a godsend. She needed him as a friend more than anything else. “Before we went to see the psychic, we rode the Round Up—that ride that spins you so fast you stick to the wall and the floor falls out. I saw him on it.” She rubbed a hand over her face, aware of how insane that sounded. “I know he couldn’t have been there, but I swear it was him, J. He fucking grinned at me. But when the ride stopped, I couldn’t find him.”
“Nah, I’m definitely an asshole,” Jasper chuckled. “Just not to you.” He certainly felt like one on the regular, especially when he thought about Jules. Maybe it was hypocritical of him to talk shit about Clint when he’d technically cheated on Jules too. It felt more complicated than that to him though -- it had been his best friend, while he was just beginning to explore his bisexuality, on top of his moral compass being fucked because of the fog shit ... yeah, complicated. Maybe it was complicated for Clint too, but Jasper didn’t give a shit about him, so that possibility was easy to ignore. Jasper focused on the rest of what she said, frowning at the idea of dead people showing up on the carnival ride. He’d managed to largely avoid the carnival and now he was glad for it. “Shit,” he muttered and passed a hand over his short hair. “Wonder what that’s supposed to fuckin’ mean.”
“I dunno,” Ruby sighed. “It really fucked with my head. But then Clint was asking questions and I—I tried to forget about it, only to have it thrown in my face. That woman knew. Called me out in this roundabout way, but before I could freak out, I realized what she was saying about Clint. And then last night happened, and I feel like months of bad karma finally hit the fan. I don’t even know which shit to focus on first.” The Dark Man had taken precedent this morning, but only because she’d been physically affected by his presence. She couldn’t ignore him when he was attacking her. “How do you handle this?” she asked, looking over at Jasper. “I feel like a fucking mess and what I’ve got’s barely a blip in the radar compared to what you went through.”
Jasper raised his brows a bit before he gave a humorless chuckle. He wouldn’t call what Ruby had just told him about just a blip on the radar, it was kind of three shitty big things all in a row. But he supposed it wasn’t as extreme as getting locked in an alternate hell dimension for months. “I, uhhh, drink and smoke weed a lot,” he told her. His tone was fairly light and amused, but it was no joke. Jasper had been self medicating pretty hard since he’d been home. It hadn’t exactly helped besides keeping him distracted, but sometimes that seemed like the only thing that could help. “I am a fuckin’ mess, Ruby. And I dunno if it’s getting better or if I’m just getting more numb to it. But I mean, it’s not actively making me bleed, so ... don’t diminish your own struggles.” He gestured in the vague direction of Ruby’s ankle with his cigarette. “You dumped the boyfriend, can’t control if the dead asshole shows up again ... I’d say Freddy Krueger is your priority.”
Ruby leaned into Jasper, giving him a sort of passive side-hug in response. She wished there was something she could do to help him, but she had no more ideas on what to do than the last time they’d talked through it. Self medicating actually sounded like a viable option, if she could get her hands on it on a regular basis. Instead, she’d thrown herself into work, working extra shifts just to keep herself busy. She found it hardest when she was all alone with her thoughts; sleep had been an escape. Now that was no longer the case. “The dead asshole scares the shit out of me. But you’re right—he hasn’t hurt me. Maybe I can blame that on the carnival.” She’d heard all kinds of things about it, not all of it positive, and most of it creepy in some way. Maybe Edward Leahy’s ghost had disappeared with it. “Were they ever able to kill Freddy? Weren’t there, like, ten sequels? That doesn’t bode well at all.”
He pressed back against Ruby’s shoulder, appreciating the silent support. Jasper knew that all of his friends and family wanted to help him, but there wasn’t anything they could do ... except keep sticking around with their good intentions. He really hoped he wasn’t driving any of them away and just didn’t know it yet. But they weren’t talking about him right now, thankfully. Jasper shrugged with a little huff, trying not to outright snicker because it wasn’t really funny. It was just insane and ridiculous how their lives were like horror movies sometimes. “I dunno, I haven’t seen them in years, lost track of all that,” he said. Jasper reached for Ruby’s hand and gave it a little squeeze. “Maybe it’s just a one-off,” he went on, his tone a little softer. “Just one of those bullshit scary things that happens here. My dad saw him almost twenty years ago and he’s still around, you know? And not like, getting injured by nightmares all the time.” It was the best he could manage to be reassuring, but who could know anything about this shit?
“That’s true,” Ruby sighed. It wasn’t much, but she did feel better knowing that Jasper’s dad wasn’t being attacked in his dreams on a regular basis. If that had been the case, people would be talking about it. Everyone in Point Pleasant was out of sight, out of mind, including herself, but that got hard to maintain when you were being attacked on a regular basis. So this couldn’t be the norm. “The hardest part is… I was kind of using sleep as an escape,” she said with a mirthless laugh. “Now I don’t want to sleep at all.” She knew she’d have to, eventually, and maybe she’d feel safer with Jasper around. Her dad might take offense to that, but he’d have to get over it. It would just be for a night or two and then she’d know she was safe and would have to face her own room again.
Jasper gave her a sad smile. “I know that feeling,” he murmured. He’d only had a few good nights’ sleep since he’d gotten home, usually when he was too wasted to dream. Or at least too wasted to remember what he had bad dreams about. It was a really shitty position, feeling like there was no escape from all that heavy darkness, and Jasper knew that nothing he could say would make it better for Ruby. It wasn’t the kind of thing that could be fixed with words. So he just sat there with her in silence for a few moments, hoping that being with someone helped her feel a little better at least. “Well, I can get you fucked up on almost anything you want,” Jasper said finally, grinning faintly. “Maybe he can’t get in your head if it’s all scrambled. If you wanna try my coping method.”
“There’s something appealing about that,” Ruby said with a twist of her lips. She’d already called in sick for the day, doubtful that she could handle the stress of waitressing on what little sleep she’d gotten. She’d done it in the past, but the circumstances were different. She wasn’t just tired, she felt fucked in the head. “What do you have going on today? You wanna get high with me?” If he was supposed to be at work himself, she would discourage it because her dad wouldn’t put up with it, but if he’d planned on lazing about, then it would be nice to have someone around in case things went sideways. She couldn’t quiet the little voice that warned against going to sleep again, sure that the Dark Man would be there to finish the job the second she closed her eyes.
“It’s gonna be kind of a busy one,” Jasper told her with a little wince. Now that he was thinking about it, he wasn’t sure he would be able to keep her company for long. “It’s my dad’s birthday, so Charlie’s having a thing here tonight. And I was gonna see Logan, and I wanted to check in on Jules -- oh, did you hear? She’s at the hospital.” Jasper didn’t mean to get sidetracked, but it was kind of a big deal, and even if they weren’t exactly friends, Ruby and Jules were pretty bonded. Jules would want to know if Ruby was in the hospital, he was pretty sure. “Think she’s gonna be okay, though. It was a car accident, she was riding with that Ethan douchebag.”
“I’ll try to stay out of your hair then,” she said. “Tell Logan hi for me, and that we should hang out more.” As nice as it might have been to hang out, Ruby didn’t really expect Jasper to sit around and babysit her all day. She was kind of hoping they could get high and she could pass out for a few hours, and he could just check in on her and make sure she was still alive. Most of all, she wanted to sleep in proximity to someone who might hear her if she started screaming… but she also didn’t want to disrupt a birthday party. Hopefully she’d pass the fuck out and not have to worry about it. She’d been kind of checked out the past few days, so Jasper’s news came as a surprise. “Oh shit,” she frowned. “How bad was it? Is Ethan okay?”
Jasper was thinking similarly -- he could get Ruby super high and hang out with her until she fell asleep, maybe a little longer just to make sure, then he could just check back in on her periodically. He would make sure that someone in the house knew she was there when he left, probably Amelia, just in case Ruby needed someone while he was out. He wasn’t worried about her interrupting the party or anything, they would all be drifting in and out of the house anyway. Jasper just hoped the change in scenery and knowing she had company would allow her to sleep peacefully ... and that the bowler hat asshole stayed away. He sighed a bit and tried not to roll his eyes at her Ethan-concern. Jasper hadn’t even really asked how he was, but Jules hadn’t said he was in bad shape or anything. “It wasn’t great, but it could’ve been a lot worse. Jules broke her wrist and cracked some ribs. I dunno details about him, but she didn’t say he was in ICU or anything, so I guess he’s okay.” Jasper thought about telling her about the other-world worms, but he didn’t really want to get into it at the moment. “But yeah, I’ll definitely tell Logan. We should all chill soon.”
“Just making sure he wasn’t dead,” Ruby told Jasper with a hint of a smile. She barely knew Ethan, had only interacted with him when Jules brought him around, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. Ruby knew why Jasper didn’t like him though, and she didn’t blame him—she’d given him the side eye when Jules brought him to prom and still wondered if there was more going on between them. She supposed not, if Jules and Jasper were back together. “I’m glad she’s okay. I’m sure cracked ribs suck, but it could be a lot worse. Maybe… maybe I’ll go visit her when I’m feeling a little less like shit.” They weren’t exactly friends, but Ruby still felt like they were something more than acquaintances. And she wanted to tell Jules about what she’d seen at the carnival. It just didn’t feel right to do so now, when she was so fucked in the head and Jules was in a hospital bed. “I like that plan. More chilling with friends, less… everything else,” she sighed, trying to clear her head. “So… what do you got for me?”
Jasper briefly pondered whether he would care if Ethan had died, and decided pretty quickly that it would only matter to him because Jules would be sad about it. Did that make him a psycho? Maybe. Or maybe just a Lucas. He nodded a bit when Ruby suggested going to visit Jules, thinking she would probably be happy about getting more visitors. He knew Jules and Ruby had a weird relationship, but he also knew they were bonded in a weird way because of the whole mess with Jules’s stepdad. Jasper almost told Ruby not to tell her about the carnival yet, not until Jules was out of the hospital, but that wasn’t really his business, he supposed. He’d just been the clean up crew. “Fucking co-signed on ‘less everything else,’” Jasper muttered with a faint chuckle. His next smile came a bit easier. “If you just want weed, I’ve got a really nice hydro indica downstairs that should knock you out pretty good. Think I’ve still got some Xanax stashed too if you want one of those.” Jasper finished his cigarette and tapped it out in the ashtray sitting on the plastic table nearby. “You wanna go see?”
“I’m gonna stick with weed. If that fucker comes back, then I’m gonna need the Xanax,” Ruby said. It seemed like a good idea to start light, then go heavier only if she had to. Ruby was going to need to hunt down a stash of weed of her own, in addition to cigarettes, if she wanted to make it through the week. She could mooch off Jasper for a day or two, but she refused to live off his stash, especially when he was being kind enough to let her crash at his place. Stubbing out her cigarette, Ruby rolled to her feet, feeling all the aches and pains of someone who had run for their life the night before. Her knees and shins hurt from where they’d hit the stairs, but her ankle was the worst. “Let’s go see what you’ve got. Guarantee it’s better than anything I’ve got at home.”