Chapter Text
If Jim were feeling introspective, he could probably track the exact path that led him to this moment. And, as usual, it starts with the catalyst of his father leaving.
Blaming every little thing that goes wrong on Leland is starting to feel a little lazy even to him. But, well...
If Leland were here he wouldn’t be breaking into a fishing boat in the middle of the night.
The docks near his mom’s bed and breakfast are usually populated by a rotating cast of little ships Jim knows the name of by heart. In comparison, the unassuming and relatively large skiff that showed up a week ago sticks out like a sore thumb.
It’s… “beat up” isn’t quite the right phrase. It’s an old boat, but clearly someone has gone through a great amount of trouble to fix her up at least enough to sail. The paint is chipping in places, making the name hard to read beyond the ‘-Legacy’ at the end, and from his first step Jim can see tools strewn about the deck. Little sections of half finished repairs are peppered everywhere, places where something came up and the owner had to leave early. Jim recalls that the ship rolled in after a hearty storm, which accounts for most of the damage he can see at a glance.
His boots make a heavy clunk when he drops down onto the deck, and Jim winces and pauses, waiting to see if there’s a response.
He scans the main deck. It’s not a large ship, with just one deck that wraps around the enclosed helm, with a stairwell leading down. The soft moonlight leaves everything either navy blue or pure black, but he can see that nothing is moving aside from him. Even the houses up the hill are still and quiet, but it is nearly one in the morning.
The ship stays silent, nothing but the gentle lapping waves against the hull to break the soft white noise of nighttime. Distantly, Jim can hear the tide filtering into the rocks that make up the shoreline, the water following the path of the docks and sounds like a snake slithering under his feet.
It’s familiar. This dock has been home to him since he could stumble to his feet, and he’s been sneaking out here alone for almost that long. It’s not a long trek down the cliffs from the Benbow. He can walk the winding path almost in his sleep.
It takes him tripping over a coil of rope and almost landing face-first before he begrudgingly pulls out his flashlight. He prefers working in the dark, where nobody is going to spot him, but being found in the morning curled in a heap with a broken nose would be far more embarrassing, so he aims the beam just over the toe of his boots and picks his way to the helm and the stairs leading below.
With the light on, he can see the messy deck even more clearly. The sheer amount of stuff he has to slink over to reach the stairs makes him wonder what kind of disaster he’s going to find when he enters the cabin proper.
Despite his worries, the interior is much more well organised, if sparser. There’s still things on the floor, but most of the mess is confined to the slim counters bordering the kitchen on three sides and the small table taking up the rest of the wall. There’s a coat, thick black leather thrown over a chair, and its outline scares the living daylights out of him when the light scans over it, but otherwise the room is empty of all personal items. All the miscellaneous stuff covering the flat surfaces is from a toolbox or an electronic repair kit.
Figuring the coat is as good a place to start as any, Jim digs through the pockets first. He discovers quickly that this too is mostly devoid of personal artifacts. The only notable thing he finds is an odd pattern of wear on the inside of the right sleeve and shoulder seam, like it’s been rubbing against something hard for most of it’s lifetime. Something that is markedly absent on the left side.
Jim shrugs, moving on further into the ship.
He finds a few more rooms, scattered around him. A boiler room, in the space behind the stairs, with a toolbox laying discarded on the floor. A pantry across a tiny hall from the galley, mostly empty except for some boxes of emergency rations and a med kit. The cabin looks promising, looking more well lived in and with an adjoining bathroom, but upon closer inspection this is just as empty of anything worthwhile. Even a small corner by the stairwell filled with electronics is a bust, everything being too old to bother with and nailed down to boot.
It’s beginning to piss him off, that somehow this person has nothing worth pawning on their ship. No wallet, no metal safe, not even booze or a dirty magazine. The place looks like it’s already been gutted once, and Jim wonders if somebody beat him to the punch this time.
He’s starting to consider digging through the toolkits for something that he could repurpose for his bike when a sound comes from the stairs to the deck.
Jim freezes. His fingers fumble to turn off his light, the beam cutting out and leaving him alone in the pitch dark hallway. He’s totally blind for a moment, only his sense of hearing informing him that something is definitely onboard with him.
He prays that maybe it’s an animal, perhaps hunting around like him for something to steal, but as the sound becomes louder it’s clear that a person is walking around above Jim’s head, and then the panic sets in.
He can’t run. The only way out is up the stairs onto the deck, and the ship isn’t big enough for him to sneak away without whoever is up there spotting him. There’s a tiny possibility that he could run and hope the darkness hides his identity, but a light brighter than his own crosses over the top of the stairs and Jim vetoes that idea.
The person, whoever they are, isn’t moving stealthily. Either Jim has crossed paths with another would-be-thief who doesn’t give a damn about getting caught, or he’s been found out by the owner.
Jim doesn’t really think his luck is good enough for it to be a fellow burglar.
His stalled form startles into action as the person grunts and begins to descend the stairs. Jim bolts for the first door within reach, the pantry, and then shuts it behind him as quietly as he can. His wild scramble is not as subtle as he’d like, and he winces when the person on the stairs pauses.
“Come on out, now. No point in hidin’.” A rough voice calls.
They saw him. He’s fucked, he’s so fucked. He’s gonna get dragged to the police, again, and mom is going to have to bail him out, again. Fuck, Amelia’s going to have a field day when she hears what he’s done now.
The steps closer to his hiding spot are leisurely, like they know they’ve got him pinned, and Jim tries to strategize. There’s a small set of pliers on the floor next to him, and he weighs the heft of them in his palm as he considers. They’re not long, or particularly sharp. Maybe if he sinks these in somewhere the owner will be distracted and Jim can make a run for it.
He doesn’t get the chance to add assault to his already lengthy rap sheet before the door swings open. He’s already on his ass, and swings an arm up to shield his eyes from the wash of harsh light that sweeps over him.
“There ye are.” The man growls. He sounds annoyed, and Jim’s instinct to snap back rears it’s head, until his voice dies in his throat as the light swings towards the floor.
It fills the room with indirect illumination that is much easier for Jim to see in, and he swallows back his sharp words with a loud gulp. The man standing in front of him is tall, and looks every inch like a hardened sailor who might have been a pirate captain, in another life. Jim isn’t ashamed to admit his bravado flees him at the sight. The guy is built, looking like he could toss Jim around like a Saint Bernard with a rabbit.
His chest constricts further as he scans the man's face. As his eyes adjust he can see the harsh glare etched into his features, but that isn’t what gives him pause. The knots of scar tissue he can see framing the man’s face strikes Jim. Old wounds that have healed, but left obvious marks. When he looks closer, he can see the right eye has clearly been replaced. In fact, it looks like his arm is made from the same mix of industrial metal plates, pistons, and wiring.
It’s slowly donning on Jim that he has broken into the exact wrong boat, and that there’s a pretty good chance he’s about to be murdered.
The light moves up, and Jim’s eyes burn as it crosses his vision again. Spots of black dance under his eyelids when he closes them, his pupils still stinging as they struggle to adjust.
The man grunts, and Jim can hear him shifting in place. He still can’t see, so he’s surprised when a wide hand wraps around his bicep and yanks him to his feet.
“Hey!” He shouts, bringing his free left hand up to shove at the unyielding metal fingers gripping his arm hard enough to hurt.
“Not very sneaky, for a thief.” The man remarks, completely unaffected by Jim’s spitting. He’s even stronger than he looks, and Jim wilts a little as his escape becomes even more improbable.
“I’m not a fucking thief!” He snaps back, ignoring the fact that he pretty obviously came here intending to be one.
“Just a trespasser, then?” The light is pointed at the floor, the man’s right hand keeping hold of Jim easily enough that the beam barely even wavers as the boy struggles.
He turns and walks into the hallway, dragging Jim with him as though he weighs no more than a pissed off cat. Jim quickly comes to the conclusion that his struggle is completely futile. That doesn’t stop him, of course; he still yanks on his arm hard enough that his shoulder aches with every tug.
The man gives him another shake, pulling up on his limb until he has to stay still or risk losing his balance. His dignity is beaten enough as it is, if he falls on his ass he’s never going to live this down.
That doesn’t mean he’s going to be docile though.
“Fucking let go!” He snaps, as he’s pulled up the stairs.
Jim honestly doesn’t expect the man to listen to him, so he yelps embarrassingly as he’s thrown down onto the deck. He manages to catch himself on his forearms, knees still hitting hard and his teeth rattling as he lands in a heap on a coil of rope.
The light covers him again, and Jim turns with his teeth gritted in anger. At himself, honestly, he was the one dumb enough to get caught. It’s a lot harder to see the man now. All Jim can make out is a vague shape looming over him, keeping him pinned like a fox with it’s leg in a snare.
“Wanna tell me where ye came from, lad?” The man asks.
Jim doesn’t say anything. He glares- or, well, squints, really. The light shifts, when Jim’s reluctance makes itself clear, and he hears a sigh from the man standing over him.
“Or we could take this down to the police station, if ye prefer?”
The statement is dripping sarcasm, but Jim is too surprised to be annoyed.
“You’re not gonna take me there anyway?” He doesn’t quite believe it, and it must show in his tone.
“I’m bettin’ yer parents’ll be less pleased to pick ye up from the station than have ye dropped off at the door.”
Jim’s slight hope fades a little at the mention of his mother. His curiosity turns back to anger, and he kicks out at the wooden beam near his feet. The light sways down, following the halfhearted blow before moving back up to his face.
“Doesn’t matter anyway.” Jim mutters, looking away only half to save his eyesight. His spine feels limp where it’s curved around his ribcage, his body sagging on the rough coil of hempen rope.
The man doesn’t say anything. He just waits, like he already knows what decision Jim is going to come to. It pisses him off, makes him wish he’d turned the pliers into a weapon, but then this interaction would probably not be nearly as civil.
“Benbow Inn, up the hill.” He jerks his head towards the outline of the house, defeated.
He’s expecting the man to grab him by the arm again, so he doesn’t immediately respond to the palm that opens harmlessly towards him. The light is being angled down again, enough that he can kind of see the guy past it, and he takes a moment to follow the mechanisms up to the shoulder.
He doesn’t take the offered hand, not least because he’s a petty teenager and doesn’t want to give an inch of courtesy to the guy who caught him snooping. He crawls to his feet, shoulders hunched even before he feels the man grab him by the collar of his jacket and start to guide him towards the docks.
The walk up the docks and to the road is silent. Jim quietly contemplates his fate, how incredibly grounded he is when his mom sees him on the doorstep. His boots keep scuffing at stones on the ground, kicking them off into the grass and flat dirt. Some of them bounce down the hill into the quarry a little ways off, the sound echoing until it fades to nothing.
The man doesn’t say anything either, only the light between them illuminating the flat ground up the path.
Jim sees the light come on in his mom's room, before they’ve even reached the door, and he sinks down as if to hide in his jacket.
“Shit…” He mutters, and in the corner of his eye he sees the man glance at him briefly.
His mother’s footsteps precede any knock on the door, by several seconds. Jim hears her storming downstairs, and thinks hard about making a dash for the quarry. Maybe he can hide in there until she’s not mad anymore.
Before he can make up his mind, the door flings open and Jim winces when he sees Sarah, hair in a messy ponytail and wrapped in her robe to guard against the autumn winds. Her expression is disappointed, and before she’s even finished opening the door her hands are on her hips.
“Pardon ma’am, but I caught this one sneaking around my ship. He says he’s yours?” The man says. His voice is smooth, charming even, and he sounds nothing like the guy who’d harshly yanked Jim out of the pantry not ten minutes ago.
“Jim!” She hisses.
“Yeah, okay, I’m home, you can let go now.” He snarls, trying to tear his way free from the confining grip. He succeeds, though it’s obvious the man let him go.
Jim tries to make a beeline for the stairs, to avoid the worst of his mother’s anger, but he’s not so lucky.
“Oh no, you are staying right here.” She barks, tugging on the back of his jacket and halting his movement. He stops mid-step, more out of a sense of obligation than truly being held captive, but he doesn’t turn around to face either of the adults behind him.
“Jim, what would’ve happened if you were caught by the police?” She hisses, and Jim feels his face burn with shame. It’s bad enough that they’re having this argument for the hundredth time, but does she have to do it with someone else watching?
“It’s hard enough keeping this place afloat by myself, and now you’re going off on crime sprees in the middle of the night-”
“It wasn’t a crime spree, mom!” He snaps, turning to face her. “I didn’t even steal anything.” This time.
Her face is hard, uncompromising. She doesn’t believe him, rightly so, and all of the fight drains out of him.
“Whatever.” He mutters. The man is still standing at the door, watching all of this with a passive look of… sympathy? No, he must be reading that wrong.
Jim shoots a glare his way, instead of to his mother, and pulls out of her reach, moving towards the stairs again.
“Jim.” She says, warning. He doesn’t stop.
“James Hawkins!” She shouts, and Jim pauses on his way up the stairs. He turns to look at her over his shoulder, eyes roving briefly to the brawny figure in the doorway.
She doesn’t even look disappointed, just… lost. She doesn’t know why he did it. Truthfully, Jim doesn’t either. But no matter how many times he tries to clean up his act and be the son his mother wants, they always end up back here.
It's more effort than it’s worth, at this point.
He walks the rest of the way up the stairs, fighting the sting of tears in his eyes. All of his energy leaves him as soon as he reaches the landing at the top of the stairwell, and Jim lists into the wall as soon as he’s out of the light of the sitting room. The shadow of the railing reaches up the wall behind him like cage bars, and Jim stares morosely for a moment, something sick roiling in his stomach.
A sound from downstairs makes him pause. He turns around and leans as close as he can get without being seen, back flat against the wall.
The scrape of a chair and his mother’s sigh is telling. She’s exhausted. A soft murmur that might be a “Thank you, for returning him,” reaches Jim, but he tries not to pay too much attention to that. The door closes, softly, and by the creak of someone leaning against it Jim guesses the man hasn’t yet left.
“He’s not a bad kid.” Sarah says, louder, sounding more like she’s trying to convince herself than defend her son. She’s said the words so many times but Jim can tell she’s starting to wonder if they’re really true anymore.
He wonders too, sometimes.
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
He knows, from the resignation in her voice, that she doesn’t believe that. This is just the latest in a long string of incidents.
“Lad’s had a hard go of it?” The man’s voice sounds soft, and Jim doesn’t instantly recognise it as his.
“He…” Sarah sighs. “It’s… been hard, for Jim, these past few years. I think he’s… lost. Right now.”
Jim doesn’t begrudge his mother opening up this stranger like this, he can’t. Delbert is nice, but he lives on the other side of town with his work and a family of his own, and she’s so isolated out here.
Jim can’t stay, though. Standing here, listening to his mother air her grievances, it’s too much for him. He knows they hear him, when he walks away. He doesn’t try to hide his footfalls, and the soft conversation pauses as he treads down the hall. It’s only after he’s in his room again that the sound of voices picks up again, muted behind doors and walls just enough to muffle the words.
He doesn’t bother to change his clothes, just crawls onto his bed and closes his eyes.
The drive through town the next morning is tense and silent. Jim isn’t interested in discussing what went down last night, and neither is his mother.
Sarah drives with barely a glance at her son. Her mouth isn’t a tight, frustrated line like it is some mornings; instead they’re both haunted by shadows under their eyes from a restless night.
Jim keeps looking over throughout the drive. Her hands are tight on the wheel, and she’s staring straight ahead at the road unerringly. She’s ignoring him, which should be better than being yelled at, but it feels so, so much worse.
Eventually Jim gives up. He rests his elbow on the window jam and puts his chin into his hand, watching the trees go by until he’s feeling motion sick, but he still can’t look in his mother’s direction.
When she stops at the squat, brown brick building, Jim gets out without needing to be asked. He shoves his hands into his pockets and walks up the short paved walkway, hearing the crunch of his mothers car pull away over the gravel.
The waiting room is exactly as beige and uninteresting as it always is. Jim checks in and sits, dicking around on his phone for the seven minutes it takes for Amelia to allow him in. He’s her first appointment of the day, and as usual, she’s impeccably on time. Nine AM on the dot, Jim enters her office and drops into the chair across her desk.
Amelia closes the door behind him, then rounds the desk and sits. Her back is straight and she looks just as prim as ever.
Amelia Smollett is a tall, slim woman. She’s not fragile, though; Jim has seen her when someone gets combative, and he knows she could wipe the floor with his scrawny ass any day of the week. Her auburn hair is slicked back, a few strands framing her face but otherwise perfectly tucked behind her ears. Her eyes are green and sharp, and Jim always gets the impression of a cat staring down an intruder to its home when he visits her.
The feeling intensifies as she folds one manicured hand over the other, resting her chin on the back of her hands and looking at Jim very closely.
He sinks down in his seat slightly, wondering if his mother called ahead about last night.
“I received an interesting correspondence this morning, James.”
That’s a yes, then.
“It would appear that you had an eventful evening. Would you care to elaborate as to the goings on? I’ve had a brief overview from your mother, but I’d like to hear more from your point of view.”
The language might be mocking, from anyone else, but Jim is used to it by now. This is just how Amelia speaks, with a posh accent and those SAT words Jim doesn’t even pretend not to roll his eyes at anymore.
“Not really.” He mutters. He knows it’s pointless, but he’s a stubborn teenager and he’ll hang onto his rebellion for as long as he can.
Amelia’s eyes harden. She blinks, leaning back until she’s sitting up straight again. She pulls her laptop towards her, eyes scanning over the screen quickly.
“You broke into a docked fishing boat at two o’clock in the morning, were discovered by the owner, a Mr. Silver, and then brought up the hill to your mother by that same owner, correct?”
It’s not a question, Amelia already knows all of this for a fact, she’s just making sure that Jim knows that as well. It’s a lot harder for him to squirm out of responsibility like this, but it also keeps him from digging himself into a ditch of lies and half truths. In a way, he’s weirdly grateful that she’s being open about it.
“Yeah.” He mutters, studying the carpet between his feet. He realises that he never caught the guy’s name, then abandons the train of thought at the ominous sound of rustling papers.
“You are aware that under the regulations of your parole any offence can be persecuted to the full extent of the law, as an adult?”
One eyebrow is raised imperiously, and Jim’s chest clenches with fear, a little. The terror, the knowledge that once again he fucked up paralyses him for a second.
“So what?” He snaps.
Amelia’s face doesn’t change, not so much as a twitch of a muscle, but Jim senses a difference in her all the same.
“You were caught trespassing on private property, Mister Hawkins-”
“It’s a public dock, anyway.” He huffs. “If he didn’t want people snooping he should’ve put a lock on the damn-”
“Mister Hawkins.” Amelia cuts Jim off, annoyance flickering in the green of her eyes. He stops, looking away from her.
Amelia sighs. She sweeps her hair out of her face, eyes sharp as Jim slouches down further.
“Thankfully, the owner is not interested in pressing charges. I do, however, think that some repentance is in order, after your stunt last night.”
Jim rolls his eyes. Community service, this time? Or maybe she's going to try sending him to a camp for troubled teens again, that should be fun.
“After a conversation, your new acquaintance has expressed an interest in your progress, and I believe it would be wise to take him up on his offer.”
“Offer?” Jim sits up at this. “What offer?”
Amelia doesn’t look smug, her professional facade is as impeccable as ever, but Jim knows her well enough to know when she’s enjoying something.
“For the next several weeks, you are to help Mister Silver in returning the ship to good repair. Every day you are not working with me or with your mother is to be spent under his mentorship.”
“What?” Jim sits up straight for the first time since he arrived. His tone is edging further towards incredulousness. She can’t be serious.
“Personally, I think an apprenticeship of this nature would serve you well, James. You have always been interested in mechanical work, haven’t you?”
She’s definitely laughing at him. Jim’s mouth is open in shock.
“Who’s to say he’s not gonna be a worse influence on me? What happened to not leaving kids alone with strangers, huh?” He sputters back.
“Rest assured, I would not leave you in the hands of anyone I believe would harm you.” Amelia is deadly serious now. “A background check is in the midst of being performed, but your mother has already expressed that she believes this could be good for you, and I have met with Silver to determine that he is not a threat to your well being.”
Jim’s mouth closes with a click. Fuck.
With all of his rage gone, Jim can see no way out except to appeal to his parole officer’s sympathy.
“Amelia-”
Of course, she sees right through him.
“James, your mother has indicated that she believes this will be good for you, and I am inclined to agree.”
He hears the thing she isn’t saying, that they’re hoping a male presence in his life might lend him some stability. His bitterness at the idea cannot be overstated.
She’s staring at his sullen expression, and Jim feels the swelling anger within him stop, and then collapse back into itself. Like a hot air balloon deflating. He looks to the wall, to the high window near the ceiling.
“Whatever.”
The rest of their time is wasted on Amelia trying to coax him into engaging with her, but Jim refuses. He’s frustrated and uninterested, and at this point he’s just biding his time until the meeting is over and he can go home already.
She releases him at nine thirty, and Jim walks out to the parking lot with his head down and his collar up, even though it’s midmorning and only the beginning of fall.
Sarah pulls up not long after, and Jim gets in the car without a word. He closes the door hard, mostly by accident, and his mother sends him a look. He doesn’t apologize or take it back, instead anger bubbles up. It’s just a door, why is she looking at him like he kicked a puppy?
The car drives off and Jim keeps staring out the window.
“How’d it go, today?” His mom asks, after five minutes of quiet. She’s done being mad at him, apparently.
Or maybe not. Maybe she’s just trying to figure out how grounded he is when he gets back home. It wouldn’t be the first time she punished him for being a shit during his meetings with Amelia.
“You told her about last night.” Jim mutters, accusing.
The silence settles over them again, like a soaking wet blanket.
“Jim, what was I supposed to do?” Sarah asks.
He doesn’t honestly know. He doesn’t know what he wants her to say to make him feel better.
He stays quiet.
Sarah sighs.
“I’m scared. This keeps happening and honestly? I don’t know what to do. Nothing we’ve done has helped, ever since Leland-”
Jim whips his head to face her, his heart rate picking up and hurt he can’t stop welling into his eyes. Just saying his name is taboo in their house. She cuts herself off, and looks back at the road.
Sarah drives in silence for a moment before she pulls into a small parking lot on the side of the road. The two of them sit there, Jim staring at his mother with guarded anger and her staring straight ahead, hands still on the wheel.
The clock on the dash ticks over the minute mark twice before she speaks.
“Jim, I know this has been hard for you. And I know you’re angry, and you don’t think it matters, but it does.”
She turns to him now, reaching for him with her hands and catching his face.
“Please, Jim. I know I’m losing you and the more I try to hold on the faster you’ll go. And… I’m okay with that, just so long as you’re safe .”
He can’t find it in him to pull away from her.
“Do this for me, Jim? Please?”
He closes his eyes. They hurt, in the way that means he didn’t get nearly enough sleep. His mother’s exhaustion is showing and Jim knows she’s scared, what she’s scared of. He’s almost eighteen, and his record doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for a sudden heel turn.
Maybe it’s just the sleep deprivation, but he can’t drudge up the fight in him anymore.
He just looks away, nodding mutely.
She sighs, pulling her hands back to herself.
The car starts and the rest of the drive is spent in more silence. Jim’s mind is a whirlwind, and as soon as his mom parks he’s climbing out and rushing up to his room, scooping a handful of gravel from the driveway into his pocket as he does.
The escape out onto the roof is just as harrowing as ever. Every time Jim is acutely aware that if he falls or gets caught his mom is going to have a fit. She’s already told him a hundred times not to sit out on the roof like that, but it’s the only place he can think without the silence of the house below distracting him. Out here it’s just the gulls, the crash of waves on the seawall, the wind whistling through the rocky cliffs separating the inn from the shore.
The first toss of a stone goes wide, plinking down into the brown grass of the plateau. Jim glares, following it up with another that pings off the edge of the cliff and bounces down into the ocean below. The satisfaction of the sound makes him smirk, but he’s not happy.
With every toss he lets loose a tiny fraction of the anger consuming him. Every stone lands a bit closer to the house, his arm pulling back by an inch less each time. Eventually, when the handful of tiny stones is depleted, his wrist is barely moving to flick the rocks away.
He leans his head back into the bricks of the chimney at his spine. The day has remained cloudy and cool, like it usually is this time of year, but the wind has died down and the birds are calmer. Even the ocean isn’t as loud.
The house is quiet. It never used to be quiet, before. There was always some kind of sound echoing through the walls. Music, his mother’s laughter, his fathers deep baritone. Even just the white noise of someone walking around was enough to make the place feel alive.
At least when he’s out here Jim can pretend it’s just distance that’s causing the silence.
Not that he would ever admit to that. He’d rather stick his hand on a hot stove than say anything like that out loud. That would be admitting that he misses his fa- Leland, which he doesn’t. He’s glad he’s gone.
“Except that’s a lie, isn’t it?” He thinks to himself. Of course he misses his father. When he was here (which admittedly, wasn’t often) life was awesome. Mom was happier, Jim had honestly thought that his father was amazing.
The day he took off still sits fresh in Jim’s memory. The image of Leland walking away isn’t dusty or hard to recall, like some of the ones from his childhood. No, this is shined with the polish of frequent revisiting. That first year Jim had gone over it a hundred thousand times, trying to figure out how he could have made his father stay. He’d hoped, back then, for a sign. A call, a text, an email, even a fucking letter, but he never heard so much as a peep from the man until several years after the fact.
Every therapist he’s seen has told him it wasn’t his fault, but Jim knows better. He saw the email on his mother’s computer, a week after Leland left. He knows his mom loves him, but he harbors no more illusions about his father. Not after that.
It’s kinda hard to want to trust anything, after. All of Jim’s memories of his father are warm and rose tinted, even now. Everything except that last morning of bag packing and stoic silence is a fucking dream, but Jim knows it was all faked and that tainted it.
The swirling thoughts eventually bring him full circle, back to the incident that started this in the first place. The boat, Silver, his own shitty fucking decision making. Not for the first time, Jim wishes he had managed to keep himself from his reckless impulses and saved a lot of trouble for all of them.
“Too late now.” He thinks, sighing aloud. He’s done it, he’s in trouble again and he’s not getting out of it so easy this time, Amelia had made sure of that. There’s nothing left anymore but to grit his teeth and bear the consequences. Hell, maybe it won’t be so bad. Silver didn’t really seem all that pissed to find Jim on his ship, maybe he’ll get out of this without a scratch.
Somehow Jim really, really doubts it.
The morning is grey and cold, again, and Jim is more pissed off than ever that he’s awake at seven in the fucking morning for no goddamn reason.
No, there is a reason, and that just makes him even angrier. The reason is he’s a dumbass who wanted to raid a strangers boat in the middle of the night, and was actually stupid enough to get caught.
His hands are stuffed in his pockets, as he stands at the edge of the dock. He doesn’t want to be here, and there’s no sign of Silver yet. Maybe he’s not gonna show, and making Jim wait out here in the cold is just his version of getting back at the boy.
Just as he’s thinking of bailing, the dock sways with the telltale movement of someone walking up, and Jim groans to himself.
“Jimbo, right on time.”
Silver sounds pleased, far too jovial in the morning when Jim is still waiting for his coffee to kick in. Turning to look at him, Jim finds the man looks very different in the foggy morning sunlight. He’s not nearly as intimidating, though he still stands a head taller than Jim as he approaches.
The smile is a change of pace though. Generally Jim tends to draw looks of distrust, if he isn’t ignored outright. The way Silver walks up on him is so different it’s actually jarring, friendly and amicable like they weren’t at odds just the other night.
He stumbles at a clap on his shoulder. He wants to turn to the man and growl something snarky, but Silver is already boarding the ship and waving at Jim to follow.
“Come on, won’t throw ye off this time, and there’s lots of work to be done.”
Jim thinks about turning around and walking away. There’s nothing stopping him, technically. He could go sulk on the roof and nobody could do a thing about it.
But he thinks about his mom, her face when Silver had held his arm up at the door. She hadn’t even looked surprised anymore, just sad.
Begrudgingly, he turns and follows this total stranger onto his ship.
The deck is still a mess of rope and plywood, today. It’s easier to navigate, in the dreary morning, and Jim doesn’t have to step over that many things. He’s almost more annoyed he managed to trip over anything at all when there’s otherwise plenty of room in between all the piles of junk.
“What is all this stuff anyway?” He asks, parting the silence as Silver is leading him down into the interior again.
“Repair supplies. Poor ol’ girls’ been in rough shape since I got ‘er.” He pats the wall as he passes, and Jim really wants to roll his eyes but he checks himself before Silver catches on.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Jim is wholly expecting to be instructed to work, so he’s left just sort of standing awkwardly when Silver moves around without a word towards him. He drops a bag onto the table Jim had noticed last night before moving on to the three quarters counter of the galley.
Silver turns and looks like he’s surprised to find Jim standing there still. He looks between him and the table for a moment before he gestures at it.
“G’on, lad. It’ll be a minute ‘til I’m ready to work anyway.”
Reluctantly, Jim moves around behind him and sits. His eyes drop to the chair across from him, taking up one of the two sides of the table not bordered by booth seating. The coat is still there, slung over the back. Looking at Silver, it makes a lot more sense now, the size and the odd wear situation both.
The bag on the table looks suspiciously like it contains bagels. Jim realises that he never had breakfast this morning, and that he’s hungry. Like, really hungry.
But he’s stubborn, so he refuses to do more than covet them from a distance. He folds his arms, resting his elbows on the table and setting his chin on top of them. Staring around at the tiny galley seems like as good a passtime as any, right now.
Calling it sparsely decorated would be an overstatement. Jim isn’t sure it’s decorated at all, actually. The only things in the room besides requisite kitchen appliances are coils of rope and an old fashioned pressure gage, which Jim thinks might be just another important piece of kit, especially considering it’s position next to the wall clock.
He startles when Silver drops a tangle of wires and metal plates onto the table. He picks up his head, sitting back to give the man room and protect himself from being caught up in the pile.
Silver sits down in the chair, seemingly content to leave Jim be for the time as he sets to work on whatever the hell this mess is supposed to be.
Scratch that. He pauses, glancing up at Jim just as he sets his fingers into the red green and black wires and stopping, the ghost of a smirk playing on his lips.
“Not hungry?” He asks, looking pointedly at the paper bag, which has been jostled towards Jim in the commotion.
“Mom always told me not to take food from strangers.” He shoots back, crossing his arms and leaning into the booth.
Silver smiles, looking entirely too pleased with Jim’s boldness.
“Didn’t seem to have a problem stealing from one though.” He points out.
Jim looks away. He’s not wrong. Begrudgingly, he grabs a bagel, biting into it and chewing, violently. Silver looks satisfied all the same, and Jim is annoyed to discover that the bagels are really good, actually. Even without butter or anything, he wolfs down one in a few quick bites.
A short while passes like that. Silver is working, not forcing Jim to do likewise, at least not yet, and Jim can only keep staring suspiciously for so long before he gets bored.
“How’d you spot me anyway?” He asks. He thought he’d been pretty sneaky getting on the ship.
Silver doesn’t stop what he’s doing, fiddling with the wires, but he looks up at Jim briefly, another small, knowing smile on his face.
“Saw a light wanderin’ around out here, on my ship, an’ nobody else but me’d be out there that late.”
He does stop then, smiling like he’s sharing an in joke.
“Well, nobody up to anythin’ good.”
Jim rolls his eyes and grabs another bagel. Now that he’s been given the go ahead, his body is planning to eat the whole bag, apparently, a plan he can fit into his spiteful agenda. Silver notices, glancing up when Jim is rummaging around in the paper bag, but he doesn’t say anything to dissuade the boy.
Jim polishes off two more bagels in the silence of the next twenty minutes. He doesn’t take out his phone like he normally would, when left with nothing to do. That seems like advertising that he’s bored, and he’d rather be bored out of his mind than stuck with whatever Silver has in mind for him to do today.
“What was it ye were searching for, anyway?”
Suddenly being stuck doing busywork and chores sounds like a vacation compared to this. Jim thought it was bad enough getting interrogated by Amelia and his mother, but this? No, this is worse.
He wants to snap, to tell Silver it’s none of his business, but it is. They both know it became his business the second Jim stepped onto the creaky old ship with the intent to walk away with whatever loot he could carry.
He shrugs, because that's less suspicious than humming and uhh-ing for a second to try and think, and he needs that handful of seconds desperately.
“I gotta replace the brake fluid tubing on my bike, and mom isn’t gonna get it for me. She hates that thing.”
It’s an easy lie, because it’s mostly true. His bike has been a pain in his fucking ass lately. With the cold rolling in and the dead, wet leaves slicking up all the trails it seems like every ride uncovers a new issue, a new part that needs replacing. Mom always looks at him like she’s scared, when he takes it out for a ride, and he hears her complaining to Doppler, sometimes. Wishing the damn thing would break for good, not enough to hurt him but enough to force him to find something else to pour all his focus into.
Silver looks up from what he’s doing, and it’s only thanks to practice from Amelia that Jim doesn’t fidget under the searching gaze. He meets the older man’s eyes, one dark grey and the other a mix of mechanical parts. That, too, looks different in the light of day. Jim had sworn he’d seen a reddish orange glare the other night, but he can’t see any lights in the thing at all now. It doesn’t look like any prosthetic Jim has ever seen before, and not just because of the location. The arm is unusual too. It looks experimental, almost, not the soft, careful lines of something that’s been perfected in a lab before it went into use.
It’s turned into a staredown across the table, a pile of metal and wiring and bagels between them like a wall. Or a treasure trove, Jim supposes. He feels a little like a coyote trying to sneak bites of a kill from an angry grizzly.
Silver squints, just slightly, looking Jim up and down like he’s searching for something, but he blinks and settles back into his chair before the younger man can comment on it.
“Real scrapper, aye?” He asks, smirking. They’re talking about the bike again, and the tension slips out the window over the table, like it’s passed right through the glass.
“You could say that.” Jim mutters, a similar smile quirking his lips. A private joke, Silver doesn’t know how accurate his assessment is.
The metal on the table makes a clatter as it’s being moved around, and the tense line of Jim’s shoulders relax a little more as Silver returns to focusing on his work.
“Might have some tools ye could use, if you’re up for it.” Silver says, and Jim can’t help perking up a little. He continues; “What’s the model you’re workin’ with?”
Jim stops, and shrugs again, this time not trying to bide his time, he just doesn’t know what to say.
“It’s- it’s really not one model. The only parts I could get were from other broken down bikes, and nobody here really gives much of a fuck about what brand they’re using.”
He rubs the back of his neck as he says it. Dirt bikes aren’t exactly cheap, but no one else had to cobble theirs together from scrap parts, and his frankensteined bike sticks out like a sore thumb even among the poorly maintained ones some of his peers use. He tries to avoid the tiny crowd from school who also ride the trails. He gets enough weird looks as it is.
Silver looks up at him, and Jim sees surprise on his face. He stops what he’s doing again, settling down the soldering iron and cocking his head very slightly where he’s looking at the boy.
“Ye put together a dirt bike from scrapped parts? And it works? ”
Jim looks away. He wants to be a little offended, that the man is so shocked at this, but Silver only met Jim two days ago. One, technically, considering it was the early hours of the morning when Jim got caught.
“It’s not like it was hard.” He mutters. “The dump out in the woods tosses shit like that all the time. And it’s not like it’s a car, at least with this I don’t have to worry about making it street legal or anything.”
Silver’s surprise doesn’t settle. He manages to put a bit of a lid on it though, focusing on Jim with a look more akin to polite interest.
Suddenly his mouth twists, a faint, crooked smile showing as he folds his forearms on the table.
“Still, must’ve cost a pretty penny, gettin’ all those parts. Scrap ain’t cheap, ‘specially if it’s in good condition.”
Jim has had enough experience with this not to sweat with fear by now, but he’s not sure he’ll ever not be nervous. Damn it, why can’t Silver just take this at face value?
“The guy running the dump doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s not my fault if he’s selling parts below market value.” Nevermind most of his parts were gotten in the middle of the night with the help of a flashlight and a hole in the chain link fence.
Silver hums, still smiling, and Jim gets the sense he doesn’t entirely believe him, but he doesn’t push it. He looks back down to his work, and silence settles around them again.
Jim is tempted to steal another bagel, just for the hell of it and to have something to do with his hands, but he doesn’t. His fingers itch to grab his phone, to do anything, so he settles for biting at his cuticles and nails.
“How fast can ye get it to go, then?” Silver asks.
Jim grins, surprised, and relaxes. He crosses his arms again and leans back into the booth. Bragging about this is something he knows how to do. It’s rare that someone gives him an opportunity to show off, so he’s more than willing to take what he can get.
“Faster than any of the ones around here.” He preens. “Probably faster than some of the ones on the racing circuit too, at least the unmodded ones.”
Silver looks up at him again, something like respect in his eyes. He looks like he’s seeing something he didn’t expect, and Jim kicks one of his feet up onto the other bench of the booth, enjoying the feeling. For once he gets to be the one surpassing expectations, and that’s a fucking thrill every time.
He’s a little disappointed when Silver puts the mess of wiring down, standing up and beckoning for Jim to follow him. He’d been having fun, just now, so he’s kind of bitter about being put to work all of the sudden.
Jim follows, shoving his hands into his pockets with a barely quieted huff of annoyance. So much for respect. Though, he supposes this is about as much as he could hope for. A fleeting moment of camaraderie among what will probably be a deluge of being silently ignored.
Silver is waiting in the middle of the deck, when Jim trudges up the stairs. As soon as the boy stops at the top of the stairs he gestures at the mess of coiled rope and metal sheeting, walking close enough to clap Jim on the shoulder and smirking.
“You’re starting up here today. See if ye can’t get all this mess into somethin’ organised, and after yer done with that mop up the deck. Think ye can manage that?”
This seems suspiciously like busywork, to Jim, but he chooses not to comment. That doesn’t stop him from glaring sullenly at Silver from the side, but all he gets is another pat on the back before he’s being left alone again, the last question still unanswered.
Jim sighs. Silver has gone belowdecks. If he wanted to he could fuck off, the man probably wouldn’t notice he was gone for a while.
His promise to his mother rings in his head again, the way she’d looked when she begged him to do this for her, this time accompanied by the look Silver had given him, when he was talking about his bike. He’d looked… impressed.
The deck really is a mess. There’s rope, sheet metal, plywood, on top of the tools he remembers seeing from his break in. The space isn’t large, it’s a relatively small boat, but it’s expansive enough that he knows it’s going to take him a while.
Jim sighs and sets to work.
By the time Jim is done dragging everything into neat piles, his hands and arms are aching like never before. Even some of his worse falls on his bike haven’t hurt his bad. He has splinters from the wood and a nasty cut from the sheetmetal, but at least everything is organized now.
The early afternoon has come and gone, and the bagels he’d had for breakfast were a while ago. Exhausted, Jim sits back against the railing, sighing. He rubs a hand over his bicep, digging his fingers into the muscles in the feeble hopes that it’ll stop the soreness from dogging him into tomorrow.
“Well, look at that. Up here for an hour and the deck’s still in one piece.” Silver laughs, as he’s reaching the top of the stairs. Jim doesn’t even have the energy to be annoyed with him. He sends him a glare anyway, but his face is mostly screwed up into a grimace from the aches and pains needling at him.
Silver walks over to where Jim is standing, surveying the boy’s work as he goes. Jim tries not to look at his face, to search for some indication of whether or not what he’s done is satisfactory.
The gentle touch of a hand laid over his arm is unexpected, and Jim turns to Silver with an excuse already prepared on his tongue, except the man is smiling at him. Which is... new.
“Well done, lad. Didn’t think ye’d get it done this quick.”
“I, uh…” Jim starts, blinking owlishly up at Silver. The look of approval doesn’t go away, and the longer he stares the more tongue tied he’s getting.
Jim looks down, his right hand coming up to rub at his neck. The second his palm makes contact he hisses, momentarily forgetting about the gash on his hand and paying the price for it.
Silver’s expression changes, turning to one of concern as Jim jerks his hand away.
Before he can stuff it into his pocket, the long metal fingers are wrapped gently around his wrist and Jim finds his hand being turned palm up, Silver’s other hand encouraging his fingers to uncurl. The skin is sliced open cleanly, at least. It’s not a ragged wound like some Jim has had, and he’d been fully prepared to leave it alone until he got home and could treat it.
“What happened here, lad?” Silver asks, in a tone just a touch softer than the no-nonsense one most adults like to use with Jim.
Jim shrugs. He wants to pull his hand away, because the feeling of it being so close to someone else is uncomfortable, but at the same time Silver’s hands are warm. Both of them, not just the left one, which is not what Jim would have expected.
“I was moving some of the sheetmetal and my hand slipped.” He explains, already mumbling his explanation in preparation to get chastised.
Silver tsks, shaking his head slightly, and Jim hunches his shoulders to hide in the collar of his jacket.
“Should’ve let me know.” He says, and Jim winces. There it is. Should have. With all the times Jim has been told he should or shouldn’t do something, he’s come to loathe the word.
To Jim’s surprise, instead of launching into a lecture, Silver releases his hand and gestures for Jim to follow him into the ship. He goes, getting told to wait in the galley as Silver ventures into the cabin, returning with a brown plastic bottle.
“Hand over the sink. Let’s clean that out ‘fore it gets infected.”
Jim does as he’s told, pushing his sleeve up and holding his palm over the metal basin. Silver’s left hand grips his forearm carefully, more than wrapping around the skinny appendage as he steadies Jim.
“S’gonna sting a bit.” Silver mutters, as the cap on the bottle pops open.
“I know how peroxide works.” Jim says back, mulishly.
The flow of the antiseptic over the wound does indeed sting, but Jim has had far worse and he doesn’t hiss or tense up. He watches it foam and bubble passively, keeping his hand over the sink to dry as Silver puts the bottle away.
He’s still half expecting to be told off, when Silver returns. He shakes his hand off to dry, examining the now clean cut. There’s no blood seeping out of it anymore, and he feels safe shoving it into his pocket and facing the man.
“Think ye can mop the deck without managing to hurt yerself?” Silver asks, as he’s passing by on his way to the machine room. Jim opens his mouth and readies a snarky reply, only to find that Silver is looking over his shoulder at the boy and grinning.
The annoyance dies in Jim’s throat. He stays in that stunned, quiet place as he follows Silver up on deck, carrying the mop he was handed while the older man handles the bucket of water.
It should be irritating, being put back to work again so quickly, but it’s not. In fact Jim is startled to discover that he’s almost eager to keep working.
It’s weird.
It’s even weirder the next day.
Jim had honestly expected Silver to be (very justifiably) an asshole to him. He broke into his boat in the middle of the night, for fucks sake. Silver should be glad to be fucking rid of him!
Being nice one day could very well be a fluke. Or an intentional misdirection, on Silver’s part, so Jim doesn’t think much of it going into the next day. When it happens again though, it’s a little harder to write off as an accident.
Silver looks exactly as pleased to see Jim the next day, still much earlier than Jim is used to for summer break. He doesn’t have a bag of bagels this morning, but he takes the remaining ones from the previous day and offers Jim coffee, and the boy doesn’t have with any snide remarks for him this time.
The work is more of the same, stuff that Jim resents because he’s stuck doing what is clearly the menial shit Silver doesn’t want to do himself, but…
Every time Jim finishes, every time he reports back to Silver that he’s done and the man surveys his work, he gets another pat on the back, another friendly hand on his shoulder and a ruffle of his hair. Silver tells him “Well done, Jimbo.” and gives him another job to do, but Jim can’t hate it. As much as hauling supplies onto the ship sucks, Jim is finding motivation to do it, and do it well.
Still, he’s looking forward to spending the next day helping mom around the inn. He has his allotted appointment with Amelia in the morning and after that the “grown-ups” had decided that Jim could spend the rest of the day at home, give him a little bit of leniency.
Not that mom is particularly lenient, because she’s not. His chores at the inn are just as numerous as the ones on the ship, albeit slightly less physically taxing. It’s annoying, but at least he doesn’t have to keep looking over his shoulder for Silver.
Of course, he ends up doing that anyway. Every time he’s finished with a task he looks around, ready to report back to someone, and stalling before he goes to find his mother. It’s just the exhaustion, he tells himself, and he keeps telling himself that when his energy starts to flag not halfway through the day. The chores feel like they’re taking forever, even more than normal, and it’s well past dark outside by the time he’s allowed to go to bed, still with a load of dishes needing to be washed.
The cold feeling that washes over him as he’s trudging up the stairs is well known by now. His mother’s sigh as she sets to work finishing up after him is haunting, even after he’s taken a shower and gotten into bed. The faint, sinking shame that settles in his stomach is almost comforting in it’s familiarity.
He’s used to this, being the disappointment. It’s better in the long run. Lower expectations means he can only fall so far, when he inevitably screws up big time.
The third morning he meets Silver isn’t like the others. It isn’t just cloudy, today, it’s raining. A slow drizzle that starts the second he steps outside and promises cold and wet for him all day. Jim’s mood, which had been less than charitable to start with, sours further as he makes the trek down to the docks, the rain steadily increasing all the while. By the time he’s mounting the deck and closing the door to the helm behind him it’s a fucking downpour, and Jim is really not looking forward to being stuck with busywork in the freezing cold.
The interior of the galley is warm, at least. Silver has beat him here for once, and greets Jim with a smile and a hardy pat on the shoulder.
“So he shows up after all.” He says, moving away again towards the galley. “Thought ye might decide to skip out on me.”
Jim opens his mouth, a venomous reply all ready to go, but Silver turns to him again with a smile and drops a hand onto his shoulder. He squeezes slightly, just enough to make Jim pause.
“Good to have ye back, lad. Missed those extra hands yesterday.” He says, in a lower voice. He pats Jim’s shoulder twice, lightly, and then he’s moving away again and leaving the boy staring after him.
Jim realises that his face is heated, and for once it isn’t shame ruddying his cheeks. The pleasant feeling of something warm coiling in his chest is like the first sip of hot coffee on a cold day, and he doesn’t really know what to make of it.
He tries to ignore it, to keep himself from fixating. Of course Silver missed him, he said it himself, Jim is extra hands. He’s helpful, that’s all.
That doesn’t stop him from feeling all soft inside, or halt the half smile that forces its way onto his face when Silver gives him something to do that’s inside the cabin. Sorting and putting away all the food supplies is boring as hell, Jim will admit, and he takes his sweet time sitting in the warmth and close quarters of the pantry. But the look Silver gives him, when he finally exits and tells the man he’s finished, the literal pat on the back is enough to make him perk up all over again.
He’s overthinking it, he knows. It’s not that deep, Silver just likes having someone else around to do the busywork, but all the same Jim feels proud of himself. He’s doing well. All of his work is met with a critical eye, but he’s never chastised at the end. Silver shows him what to do, and how to do it, and when Jim follows his instructions he’s rewarded. Either with a paw of a hand ruffling his hair or with a moment between tasks to eat and relax at the galley table.
This is dumb. It shouldn’t be this easy, for either of them. Silver should hate Jim, and Jim should resent Silver for getting him caught, but aside from a few offhand jokes, it’s like that first night never happened.
The rain doesn’t let up all day, and Silver finally runs out of things to assign Jim to work on partway through the afternoon. He’s sitting at the galley table nursing a coffee, when Jim gets done picking through all the scattered tools and putting them away.
Jim is surprised at just how quickly he’s gotten used to Silver being so close. Three days of working with the man and the awkward distrust between them is gone, like it was never there at all. Jim isn’t totally comfortable still, but he’s willing to at least exist in the same room as Silver for a while.
Jim huffs as he drops into the booth across from Silver. He watches with a slight smirk, apparently amused at how completely undaunted Jim is by his proximity anymore.
He waits until the boy isn’t glaring directly at him to speak up.
"Working the ship’s not that bad, is it?”
Jim looks at Silver, at the laughter he’s clearly holding back. He’s being teased, he knows, and he wants to be annoyed with that on principle, but Silver looks so pleased and the joke is never at Jim’s expense. Not maliciously, anyway.
A smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, but he resists it.
"It’s better than being grounded, at least." Jim admits. He’d kind of assumed Amelia had given up on getting creative with his punishments, after the last attempt ended poorly. These days she usually just hangs the threat of military school over his head and expects him to fall in line.
“Don’t sound too enthusiastic, lad, or I might have to work ye harder.” Silver says, dryly. Again Jim has to suppress his smile.
“The last time Amelia had me make up for stealing I almost ended up with a broken nose. You’re gonna have to try a lot harder to match that.” Jim doesn’t mean it to come across as a challenge, and internally winces when he realizes how Silver might take it, but instead the reply seems to spark something else in the older man.
“Now that sounds like a hell of a story.” He says, looking at Jim with intrigue now instead of just lazily observing him.
Jim blinks, unsure how to respond to that. People don’t usually look that interested when he mentions getting into a fight. His brain stalls for a minute, trying and failing to come up with a proper reply, before he shrugs and looks away.
“It’s not, really. She sent me to a behavioral camp and I got into a fight with another boy there. We both got kicked out.”
It’s really not much more complicated than that. Putting two dozen juvenile delinquents together in the woods with four adults to supervise never seemed like a great idea, to Jim. The fight wasn’t even the first of the week, it just happened to be the most brutal one.
To Jim’s surprise, Silver laughs again, almost a scoff. He isn’t sure what to expect when he looks over, but all Jim sees is Silver chuckling to himself.
“Ah, stick a load a trouble makers together an’ see what happens. I remember those days.”
Silver has a look on his face like he’s recalling a distant memory, and Jim narrows his eyes suspiciously. Amelia told him Silver’s background check came back clean, didn’t she?
“What the hell do you know about it?” Jim snaps, a little sharper than he intends. With all the times he’s been caught out with a joke in the past few days, he’s all too aware that this could be just another set up.
The man turns back to Jim and cocks his head by a few degrees. Before long his favorite knowing smirk is back, which rankles more than Jim expected it to.
“Ye really didn’t think ye were the only one who ever got sent to be straightened out, did ye?”
Well, no. But that’s not the point.
“I thought your background check came back clean.” Jim says instead, coldly, folding his arms over his chest.
“Told ye about that, did she?” Silver mutters, almost to himself. Before Jim can reply, he continues; “Aye, the felony checks were all clear. But juvenile records ‘r different, aren’t they? Pup can get up to all kinds of mischief that don’t show up on a background check, ‘less yer lookin’ for it.”
Jim doesn’t know what to say, to that. Silver lets him stew for a minute.
“You’re joking.” Jim says, even as he’s realising that he doesn’t know for sure if Silver is or not.
“Not at all, Jimbo. Got meself into plenty a trouble, when I was yer age.” He says it with some chagrin, but mostly he looks amused at the memory.
“Like what?” Jim asks, guardedly. He’s curious, now, and he also doesn’t entirely buy that Silver isn’t just spinning a yarn to get on his good side.
Silver doesn’t take offense at Jim’s suspicion. If anything he looks even more pleased. He sits up, setting the mug on the table and facing Jim still with that enigmatic smile as he starts speaking.
“Got banned from a pub, once.” He says, and then gives a look like he knows that’s not nearly enough information to satisfy Jim.
That gets the boy’s attention. He sits up in the booth a little, arms still crossed as he looks at Silver critically. He refuses to look too eager, even if he’s desperately curious right now.
“What’d you do?” Jim asks, eyes narrowed.
Silver grins, pleased, and takes a swig from his cup like he knows he has Jim’s attention now.
“Some fella started a fight, an’ I was the one who ended it.”
He lowers his voice next, like he’s sharing a secret, and Jim can’t help but lean forward, engrossed.
“Well, turns out the loser was a dear friend of the owner. Him an’ a bunch of his friends tried to come after me.”
Silver grins, like this is a fun memory. Jim twitches, when he doesn’t look inclined to continue, and after a second of deliberating he caves and asks the question.
“What happened?”
Another smile is pointed his way, and Jim’s first instinct is to search for insincerity, but he finds none as Silver continues.
“Had to hide in a warehouse overnight ‘til they stopped lookin’.”
Jim surprises them both with a laugh. When Silver gives him a curious look he explains, still smiling.
“I uh, I was looking for parts on an old farm a few years ago. I thought nobody lived there. Turns out a new owner had just bought the place and had a guard dog.”
Silver laughs, and Jim chuckles along with him.
“When I heard the barking I ran, and the only place around was the hayloft. The new owner found me in the morning.”
The burning shame of reliving that embarrassment is muted, strangely. It actually feels like Silver is laughing with Jim rather than at him, and he really likes the feeling.
The other man raises his left arm, pointing to a mostly healed scar dipping into the skin.
“Guard dog got me here. Got it to let go, but it took a good chunk with it.”
Jim debates with himself for a second, before throwing caution to the wind and lifting his shirt slightly, showing part of his ribcage where a neat surgical scar sits.
“I had a really bad crash on my bike, one year. The doctor said my rib was almost snapped clean through.”
Silver looks impressed, and Jim’s slight worry that he’s overstepped their tentative alliance fades. It feels good, trading these stories with someone. God knows he couldn’t tell mom about this. The things she knows about are just sore spots between them, and the stuff she doesn’t know about is something Jim has every intention of taking to the grave.
As their conversation fades into comfortable silence Jim looks out the window. The weather outside has let up now, leaving the docks outside slick and wet but no longer broken up by the patter of raindrops.
Something new has settled between them, he realises, and that revelation forces Jim to take a mental step back, to distance himself.
He stands up, intent on going on deck to dig through the tools there as well. He’s distracting himself, he can admit, as he clears his throat and starts for the stairs.
The older man’s eyes turn to follow him curiously as he goes, and right as he reaches the bottom of the steps Jim has a mental image of his mother, giving him a disappointed look and crossing her arms. Jim has never really seen the point in manners, beyond the most basic form, but it feels wrong to just walk away like he normally would, right now.
He toes at the floor as he half turns, muttering just loud enough for the words to carry.
“I’m uh, gonna go work on deck. But... thanks for the break, Silver. And the, uh, stories.”
The words are sincere. Silver seems to notice the change in Jim, and he looks into his own middle distance as the boy tries to find a non-awkward moment to climb the stairs and escape.
“John.” He says, surprising Jim as he was turning to leave.
“What?” Jim asks, lost.
“My name. Figure if you’re gonna be workin’ here, might as well get comfortable wit’ each other, aye?”
He’s smiling, but it’s completely genuine. This isn’t a joke, or the banter they’ve been starting to fall into around one another.
Part of Jim wants to leap at the opportunity, but the skittish, nervous portion of him balks at the idea of getting too close. Even though it’s just a name, he still shies away from the idea.
Jim doesn’t say anything. When the older man turns away he starts up the steps, pausing soon after as more words drift up to him.
“I’ll be along to help ye here soon.”
Jim’s foot is hovering on the next step, as he debates if he should open his mouth.
“Okay, Silver .” He says, as he walks the rest of the way up.
A surprised bark of laughter follows that, audible as Jim stops at the top of the stairs now to listen. The open delight in Silver’s laughter is warming, even pulling another smile from Jim where he’s listening. That bouying feeling is back, Jim feels good as he’s setting to work on deck.
When Silver comes out on deck later he doesn’t say anything about it, but it does seem like he makes a point to ruffle Jim’s hair and praise him with an “Attaboy, Jimbo” instead of anything less tactile or familiar.
Strangely, Jim doesn’t mind that.