Work Text:
It happened on a scorching hot summer day. Then again, all days were sixth circle of Inferno-level at Venice Beach, and as much as he hated to do it, Jess soon had to let his jacket wrinkle in the bottom of a green duffel bag. While Jimmy’s place could have been a sanctuary from the heat, the idea of spending time with his estranged father’s girlfriend and pseudo-stepchild was just too rough to handle. So Jess would find shadows to skulk in behind random buildings or under walking tunnels, or pass the time scouring book stores and music shops he didn’t have the money to buy from anyway.
It was about six in the evening when it happened. Jess had just been kicked out of a Blockbuster and arrived to Cerberus growling on the grass when he heard Sasha from inside. “Jess, is that you?” No, it’s the Spanish Inquisition. “Yup,” he answered faintly and walked in a circle around the dog, then entering the house. Sasha was leaning against the wall with the landline in her hand. “There’s someone on the phone for you.” Jess’ brows twitched. “You sure?” “She asked for you specifically.”
She. Jess’ breath hitched. The last time he had put a phone to his ear, he’d received what had felt like a very final one-sided conversation from Rory. Final like a break-up. Like “I think I may have loved you, but I just need to let it go.” Final like her hanging up before he could ever muster up the courage to even yelp. He knew it was wishful thinking to assume she could be on the other end of that line, that Rory wasn’t the kind of girl who would come crawling back (at least not for some Lost Boys reject like him), but Jess couldn’t help the itch in his fingers as he reached for the phone from Sasha.
The woman gave him a judging smile, like she knew exactly what this was about. But for all the weird knick-knacks in the house, Sasha didn’t strike him as the clairvoyant type. Keep your Freudian theories to yourself, he wanted to mutter at her, but thought better of it. Probably best not to burn another bridge when you’re practically homeless. So Jess took a few steps past her and pulled the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Boy have you got some nerve.”
Jess jerked his head back. “Lane?” The disappointment he got from not hearing a different voice on the line was quickly thrown over by confusion. “Oh good, you remember who I am! I figured you’d forget about just about everyone here once you passed the state border. Hey, you do know you have an uncle in Connecticut, right? His name is Luke Danes, he’s got a diner that used to be a hardware store, it’s very rustic-” “Lane, how the hell did you get this number?” Jess interrupted, scared shitless by her ability to reach him. He didn’t have a number of his own. He hadn’t told anyone where he’d gone. Not even Luke. Partly because just thinking about telling Luke brought him back smack down to the middle of that night one month ago.
“Oh, you did not make it easy to find you, Waldo.” He heard Lane breathe in deep on the other end. “I went over to Luke’s asking where you were and how to get to you and he said – and I-kid-you-not – ‘I don’t know’. ‘I don’t know’ because you didn’t tell him, I mean you could have been dead in a ditch and Luke wouldn’t be able to tell the police where to look for a body! But I was not giving up that easy, so I asked for any detail that could lead me in the right direction, any at all! And then Luke told me you’d had a visit from your dad before you left, and he gave me the name.” Another staticky breath. “So I head on over to the library trying to find ‘Jimmy Mariano in California’ and I have to spend two damn days scouring for crumbs until finally I find this article about this hot dog stand that’s doing well! And there’s a picture of the owner and boy if he doesn’t look like an overgrown skinny John Milner if he’d decided to try out a business venture in the fast food industry! So then I find the takeaway number and I call it, and some gruffy asshole answers and I ask really nice and polite ‘Is this Jimmy Mariano?’ and he says ‘No, he’s out’ and I say ‘Oh, but do you know how I can get in touch with him?’ and he says ‘Order something or beat it’ and I say ‘I can’t I’m halfway across the country’ and he hangs up! But I’m not giving up, oh no, I have come too far to give up now.”
Jess was stiff as stone in the hallway as he tried to process her words. “So what do I do? I call again. And again and again – five times – until finally the bastard gives in and recites this number right here. So then I call and this woman answers the phone and I ask ‘Hey is this Jimmy Mariano’s residence?’ and she says ‘No it’s mine, but he lives here too’ and I ask ‘Is his son Jess here’ and she says ‘Yeah he’s been staying over here for a while, how come?’ and I ask if I can speak to you and she says ‘Sorry he’s out- wait I think I hear him coming in now’ and she leaves the phone and yells something and then I wait here like a sitting duck until finally you pick up and after everything, after all that has happened you have the nerve to just say ‘Hello’?”
“Huh?” Jess mentally kicked himself as the sound got out, but he was incapable of forming a coherent sentence in his head. “‘Huh?’ Seriously? Are you two or something? I have gone through all this trouble and wasted some serious call time just to track your butt down and that’s all you’ve got?” Jess furrowed his brows. “Why go through the trouble?”
“Because you need to be held responsible for your actions!”
“Which ones?”
“All of them!”
“I think there’s a line you need to get in for that.”
“I am doing it on behalf of the community!”
“And you’re doing that by?”
“By haunting your ass through telephone wires!”
“Sounds like something that’ll hurt you more than me.”
“Well someone has to do it!” Jess sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Lane Kim. On the phone. Harassing him from halfway across the country. Oh fuck it, I deserve it. “Fine,” he started. “Go.”
He could practically hear Lane straighten her back and clench her fists. “You are a coward, Jess Mariano. A coward. I mean fist fighting in the middle of my first gig – and it was a big gig for me okay you have no idea how much practice and calculated lying to my mom I had to pull to make that gig possible – and breaking half the furniture only to leave the party while my best friend – your girlfriend – looks devastated, and then poor Luke has to pay for your destruction and you skip town before he can even hand you the bill and long before you can get to prom with Rory and me and Dave like you promised. And you know what Rory is fine now, she is great, she is travelling Europe and she’s drinking triple espressos and seeing the sights and having an amazing time without you, and Luke is doing perfectly well without you at the diner, but you did not make it easy for them! The least you could do is apologize for all the pain you put us through, put them through!”
It wasn’t like Jess hadn’t been walking around with an open ribcage for a month now, but the pain had become so constant and familiar that it was growing stale. Lane’s words were bringing that burning back that he hadn’t felt in a few weeks, and he wasn’t sure if he hated it or was glad to get it back. Probably both, but more of the latter. The line went silent for a while as he soaked himself in the hatred. But clearly for too long according to Lane. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to say anything? Defend yourself?”
“You want that?”
“I don’t know but aren’t you supposed to? Don’t you have a spine?”
“Okay fine… Dean started it.”
“Really?”
“Not all of it, but that party fight, yeah.”
“And you ran with it!”
“Kind of hard not to when you’ve got the BNSFG coming for your throat!”
“The what?”
“Forget it.”
“Well it doesn’t erase the fact that you just left Rory and Luke without a single word, I mean you could have told them!”
“I’m pretty sure Luke kicked me out.”
“He what?”
“I broke our arrangement. Couldn’t stay.”
“What arrangement?”
“The one where I get to stick around if I graduate school.”
“Which you didn’t do because you left!”
“Which I didn’t do because principal Merton wouldn’t let me.”
Lane stopped. Jess waited for a new dig or a new point, but nothing arrived. “Why wouldn’t he let you graduate?” Jess swallowed. Shit, now he had to explain. Nobody had asked him like that before, like it wasn’t obvious that he must have done something bad. “I did my math wrong. Missed too many classes. He wouldn’t even let me buy tickets for prom.” “So you left?” Jess nodded to himself. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell her?” Jess exhaled slowly. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I’m pretty sure I ruined everything at that party anyway.”
“That doesn’t mean you could just leave without a word.”
“Why do you care?” A muffled scoff hit Jess’ ear and he winced slightly. “Because I’m her friend and I’m the one who had to clean up the mess and also I think she deserves better than that! Better than you!”
“That makes two of us.”
“You should have told her!”
“Too late now-”
“You should have told me!”
Jess froze. Had he heard that right? “I don’t copy,” he said faintly. He heard Lane groan in frustration on the other end. “You know what, screw it. You could have told me,” she said. He waited for elaboration, but heard only static ambience. Lane’s breathing had a shake to it and Jess’ stomach turned, like it was already ready to drop. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jess heard Lane’s breath hitch through the receiver. The sound made his chest hurt. «I know you think you have this whole lone wolf shtick to you, and you were probably only nice to me because of Rory, but to me you were a friend.» He tightened his grip on the cord as if it would make the sound clearer. «You were my friend, whether you like it or not.»
Heavy exhales. Muttered curses. Sounding like he was ten and shy again.
«You were my friend too.»
He didn’t realize he was tearing up until a drop trickled down his cheek down to his chin. Jess could hear Lane choke her own sobs from the other end of the line, and God, everything from the neck up hurt so much. The mantra returned. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jess wiped the tear away as quickly as possible and prayed that his voice wasn’t a tell. “Don’t you have a girl code or something?” Lane chuckled in surprise, and it made him smile a little. “You know, I’m perfectly capable of being Rory’s best friend and your pal at the same time.”
“What about your mom?”
“My mom isn’t fond of garage rock and dating either, and yet here I am doing just that.”
“Fair point.”
“I’m always fair. Audrey Hepburn fair.” Jess chuckled. “Shit, I wish I’d known that sooner.” Lane’s voice was soft. “Me too.” Jess played with the cord as the words settled.
“Are you okay?” she asked. Jess nodded again – a weird habit to keep for conversations where you couldn’t see the other, he thought. “Yeah, I’m crashing the couch here, trying to figure out where I go next. Jimmy puts me to work sometimes. That’s nice.” “That’s good.” Jess sighed as silently as he could, the ache in his body letting up. “Do you know where you’ll go next?” He jerked the corner of his mouth. “Not really. But I know California isn’t for me.”
“What a shame, I hear the scene’s great over there.”
“You heard wrong.”
“Well, Dave’s moving over for college, maybe he can give a second opinion.”
“He’ll tell you it’s full of posers and corporate-ass-kissing crap.” Lane giggled again and Jess caught himself smiling. He realized he hadn’t done a lot of that in a while. Certainly not genuinely. He heard Lane sigh again.
“Don’t go ghost on me,” she said then. Jess inhaled. “I-… I’m not going to tell you what to do, and I’m not forgiving you for what you did to Rory but… don’t be a stranger okay? I care about you too… And I’d like to at least get some proof that you’re alive and safe from time to time.” “Do you take carrier pigeon?” he automatically quipped. “Jess, I’m serious.” He breathed. He looked around at the house that wasn’t his and at the phone he’d never paid the bill for. “I don’t have anything permanent right now, but I’ll get it,” Jess said. “I’ll figure something out, buy a phone. In the meantime, this one should work.” “Yeah?” he heard from the other end. “Yeah. I’ll let you know beforehand if I leave before I get one.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And Jess?”
“Yeah?”
“She misses you.”
The ache returned. He held his breath and closed his eyes, trying so hard not to tremble. “She’s doing well and I’m not saying you have a chance but… she does miss you.” Jess put the phone to his chest. He pressed his lips and brows together, eyes closed, as he breathed out through his nose. Then he pulled it up again. “You know there’s this one place a couple blocks by the stand that’s got a decent collection of bootlegs.” He could definitely hear Lane spring to life again. “Oh yeah?” “Yup, I can make a list and we can go over it. And there’s this beat down house on the other side of the street filled with these guys trying to make it big in nu metal, they’re horrible.” Lane laughed. “I don’t envy you there.” “They’re completely off beat,” Jess marked. “Should’ve got a female drummer,” Lane added.
Jess turned as he chuckled and looked up to find Sasha making no effort to hide her eavesdropping. Her arms were crossed, and that smile was still planted on her face. But less smug, more sympathetic. Which made Jess all the more uncomfortable: “Hey I think I’m at risk of running up the phone bill here. But call me again soon, okay?” “Yeah, same time?” Jess looked up at the clock. Not even half past. So many words in such little time. “Maybe around seven-ish? That way I know I’m here at the right hour.”
“Sounds good.”
“Good.”
“And don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t burn down the hot dog stand.” Jess chuckled. “I won’t.” He could hear her sigh deeply. “Okay. I’ll let you go now. Just… be safe.” He bit his inner cheek trying not to grin in front of Sasha. “You too.” Beep.