Chapter Text
Oh, could those eyes get any bigger?
Giving in to them was not the right punishment for staying up late, but then again, John wasn't the prime example of a strict-as-stone father.
He was, in every possible sense, soft. And Jim, being the little bugger he was, knew exactly how to exploit it.
Sarah enjoyed it and-- if John didn't know any better --encouraged such behavior. It wasn't very helpful, and he'd have a say in it if she didn't share the same, pretty blue eyes their son had.
As they stood at the doorway flooding the bedroom in a square of amber light, John glanced at his wife. Her smile widened.
Heaving a sigh of defeat, he moved to the bed, waggling a robotic finger. "Alright, Jimbo, y'get one story. Then will ya get some shut-eye? No more late-night shenanigans?"
Jim bobbed his head. How a kid could switch from sneaky to endearing completely baffled John. How he fell for it every time? It was beyond him.
The bedsprings creaked as the pair gathered on either side of their son, sandwiching him snugly. Jim had the book tucked up beneath his chin as if to show how special it was to his heart.
"Ooh, I don't think Papa knows this one," Sarah commented, running her fingers along the spine printed in golden lettering.
The book's general appearance was eyecatching, but Jim certainly cherished it more than other children.. and his mother. Sarah recalled receiving the automated motion book on one magical birthday when her father was alive and her mother not-so-distant.
Jim adored the book as soon as she'd passed it down to him, which was a mere week ago. John, who had been handling late shifts for the tavern, wasn't aware until now of his son's newfound joy and purpose for nighttime reading.
The Ursid eyed him with a lopsided smile. "Wha's yer pick, pup?"
Jim smiled back with a hint of mischievousness, revealing the book at last. In an attempt to sound mystical (an attempt; his front teeth were missing), the boy whispered, "Treasure Planet!"
The cover dazzled in the lamplight, corners framed in metalwork that shone brilliantly as the riches of the tale.
A well-known one at that. Young and old had always been attracted to the fantastic depictions of sailing spaceships and cutthroat pirates.
Pirates.
John forced out a small breath that somehow stuffed up in his throat. "Tha's a fine choice, lad," he said, truly surprised.
Sarah tilted her head at him, brushing back her long brown hair. "You know it?"
Unlike her husband, she hadn't known the tale extended to other audiences. Audiences that grew up but had never quite forgotten as she had.
It was an old tale too, and those types had a habit of lasting if they held secrets.
"'Course I know it, love. M'family loved tellin' it to us cubs so we'd have sweet dreams."
Dreams that yearned to be fed. Secrets that had to be discovered. Blazing glory that begged to be touched.
No matter if it left you burned.
John peeled his gaze from the cover as if the light had become too bright. Why did it have to be that book?
He kept his composure, though each glance made dread worm inside him. Thoughts were pounding insistently from the deep dark pit they'd been cast in.
He wasn't going to ruin this peaceful night. He couldn't.
"Go 'head, Jimbo, start it up."
The pages flipped and reels spun. Sarah shut off the lamp and the entire room was bathed in the eerie glow of holographic ships floating in their own pocket of the universe.
Jim recited the opening with tamed excitement.
John recited it too-- in his head with as much heart as his son.
He shut his eyes, imagining the familial gathering beneath a blue blanket of stars. Smelled the smoke that would stick to his clothes in the morning. Ishmael had been a chatterbox as always before the suspense of the story initiated and was shut up with a quick jab in the ribs.
Their clan didn't have books, so they'd resort to sometimes orally illustrate or volunteer to reenact.
For John, the firepits were what he used to make the stories come to life. He'd stare at the embers until they swirled into the hull of a grand vessel, soaring gracefully without a care.
On the clearest of nights
when the winds of the Etherium were calm and peaceful
the great merchant ships with their cargoes of Arcturian sura crystals
felt safe and secure...
The scenery in his mind melted. Reshaped like the shifting ring of flame. Strangers gathered in a foreign, gloomy place. Ishmael sat across from him, sipping from a mug. Ursids held excellent senses of smell, and John reckoned that the stench of cheap beer would be detected right away by their father.
Be that as it may, they hadn't simply come to the bar for a forbidden drink. Their old man was spending the day unloading his sloop, readying for a trip to reap trades from the neighboring Kalkanian colony.
Little did they suspect
that they were pursued by
pirates.
John hadn't bought Ishmael's claim of the crew being treasure hunters. No one in the territory they'd been scouting around in fit that kind of.. scholarly description.
His brother shrugged. Call them what he wished, they would be their ticket to the journey of a lifetime. It just so happened that a cabin boy and a powder monkey needed hiring, and with that set, the final step of the plans was put into play. John had quickly forgotten about the mug in his hand and their mother waiting at home.
And the most feared of all these pirates
was the notorious Captain Nathaniel Flint
Their captain was a serpentine fellow wielding needlelike fangs to remind them who was in charge. A worthy match for old Flint, John had estimated. A skeleton crew had been in order, a tight-knit pack of the dirtiest, foulest dogs.
He and Ishmael were to become one of them if they'd plan on seeing that famed loot.
The ship was a fine, three-masted schooner built for speed and invisibility, able to conceal herself in the thinnest of nebulae and await like a ghost. That had been her name. Phantasma. Their first mission aboard her was to track a crew who'd supposedly acquired the map to Flint's Trove.
John deduced their adversaries had gotten their hands on it the same way the Phantasma crew soon would.
Not a speck of sympathy gripped him as their enemy's solar sails ignited. Screams went unheard in the dark expanse of space.
The map was now in the rightful hands.
Like a Candarian zap-wing overtaking its prey
Flint and his band of renegades swooped in out of nowhere.
And then gathering up their spoils
vanished without a trace
It had been easy. Too easy to claim that map and feed the bloodlust of their weapons. John had a sweet taste of something he hadn't known was poison. Mixed it in the brew of his hopes, unable to be satisfied, cup after cup.
He hadn't anticipated the cost of dreaming.
Flint's secret trove was never found...
Canons, not of the Phantasma, exploded before a warning cry could have been uttered.
Red. The color was satisfying, mesmerizing even, stained upon his blade. But not when it pooled around him.
No. No.
He wasn't supposed to die on a burning ship full of marauding murderers. His brother wasn't supposed to gape at him in horror and finally understand the nightmare they'd signed their souls off to.
He had a higher worth than a pirate's skin. Why then, had he done that to himself? Sealed his fate with the lot of them?
John's foolish, childish side insisted he hadn't known any better. He could try harder.
The other mutilated side of him, however, spilled bloody truth all over the deck.
You had to give up a few things to chase a dream. To what extent you'd be willing to give would weigh out what you'd be left with.
In that case, he'd been a fool to blindly give all he had. What he was left with was absolutely nothing except scars, shattered fancies of a child who wouldn't wake up.
As he had laid there, guns firing, smoke overshadowing, John thought it'd be best if he stayed asleep forever.
That way, he wouldn't have anything else to lose.
...but stories have persisted that it remains hidden
somewhere at the farthest reaches of the galaxy
stowed with riches beyond imagination--
the loot of a thousand worlds.
Jim copied the mysterious drawl of the narrator as he'd done before, smiling with every tooth in his head (and the ones that weren't present). "Treasure Planet."
He fondly looked up at his parents. Then, the edges of his mouth slipped. "Pa?" Jim asked. "Pa where are you going?"
Hurrying off the bed, John wasn't sure. He was in the room, but also, stuck in the burning, capsizing ship, feeling the numbness of not being able to get up and run. Try as they might, his lungs would not suck in the air he wanted. His chest was tightening while his heart was ready to burst.
"John?" Sarah echoed her son's confusion, but the bedroom door shut anyway.
She found him at a table in the dining hall, the farthest he could go without making her worry. He was raking his hands through his hair, down to his face, and then letting them stay there.
"John?"
He was crying. He didn't want to let her see it either, as he hurriedly swept a hand under his eyes and muttered, "Ta blazin' hell with 'is grease.."
Sarah sat beside him. She didn't have to say anything; her concern spoke volumes through her patient silence, and it was enough for John to cut the facade.
In their twelve years of marriage, he hadn't once told her about how he'd become a cyborg. It wasn't ever a topic that demanded an answer.
She would probably laugh at the irony now, that her husband had once been a kid who loved the prospect of Flint's treasure being his. So much so that he'd give his half his body, his entire soul for it.
Probably.
"You don't have to tell me..."
Oh, but he did, didn't he? Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to sit with Jim and read a stupid kid's book like a normal father.
How would he begin to tell her...?
Maybe Sarah caught a clue and was sparing him from explaining. No. She did know, at least enough to figure he'd get this upset over a personal memory.
Her hand cupped his cheek-- the side that had once believed the sky was the limit and he'd chase whatever sunset he desired.
John held onto her hand, biting his lip as he blocked out the aroma of coppery blood and searing plasma. He couldn't do much else, and of course, in the midst of his internal chaos, the most terrible thought conjured.
What if Jim tried to follow the same path? What if he wound up on a godforsaken ship, sailing to an illusion that left him like this?
The rabbit hole John was so far down already took a heart-wrenching plunge.
"John, breathe." Sarah's firm instruction broke through the darkness. "Listen to me. Just listen to my voice."
Humiliated, he apologized. As if there was something he'd done wrong by panicking and crying like a frightened, pathetic cub.
Had it been wrong to run away like that?
If it had been, Sarah didn't reprimand him.
The Ursid turned back to the table and focused on breathing, elbows digging, and uprooting splinters into the wooden surface. Sarah soothed him, rubbing a comforting hand in circles on his back.
"The damned book."
She got a little closer, pausing her rubbing. "Hm?"
John pulled his face out of his hands but kept it focused on the grains of the table. "That book," he croaked out as small as he felt, "ain't nothin' good fer a kid."
"What do you mean?"
He told her. The tragic misadventures of young John Maior Silver, laid out for her to ridicule. He spilled his guts from start to finish, every detail that had been stashed in the abysmal depths of him thrown out, leaving him exposed yet also, somewhat alleviated.
Sarah was nothing less than shocked. "John... I.. I never knew--"
"It'd been better if ye never did," he mumbled.
"No, no. I'm glad you did tell me. It doesn't change anything."
He scoffed, saying rather than asking, "Yer not gonna see me as some kinda fool?"
"To be honest, you were always one. A loveable fool." Sarah smiled in the possibility that he didn't catch her teasing tone, slipping her arm around his bicep.
John harrumphed. But his wife's absurdly adorable humor always got him smiling, even when he felt low as this.
He scratched his cheek. "An' what am I supposed ta tell the boy?"
"Whatever you want," Sarah said, resting her head on his arm. "He'll listen to you. You're his father."