The Tale of Jack part 7
Title: The Tale of Jack
Rating: NC-17 (for explicit sex, violence and themes of prostitution)
Summary: Jack and his mother are living close to the edge of poverty, but a strange encounter and a rather large surprise could lead to a change.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any actual events or people. I haven't the foggiest who actually owns the rights to Jack and the Beanstalk, but is definitely isn't me. Please do not repost or reproduce this story without permission from the author.
Three days of sneaking later, Jack had managed to make a dent in their debts, or at least he thought he had. Who knew what his mama was hiding from him in her attempts to protect him, but at least he was getting somewhere. He'd taken cash into the bank to pay off some money from a few accounts, not so much that Mama would immediately notice, however. Lucky that she had a bad memory for numbers. He'd also paid off the money they owed the plumber, and to the carpenter from when the door got broken. He'd even managed to slip a little money into her purse a few times, which had confused her, but at least it had helped to calm her down a little.
The only trouble was, he was almost out of cash, or at least the coin cash. He was still working, but had cut back a little on how much time he spent on it, as he'd gone back to hunting for jobs. Almost got his heart broken the day before, when he'd seen a 'help wanted' sign in the window of the veterinary surgery over on Brook Street. When he'd gone in to ask though, he'd been told it was for a nurse. He was nowhere near qualified, probably never would be. The guy in charge, Dr Prince, had been really nice though. He'd come out of the consulting room holding a chinchilla while Jack was waiting at the front desk, and when he saw how interested he was in the little creature, he cheerfully let him hold it. It made him feel kind of like a kid being given a lollipop at the dentist, but it was a nice gesture. Soft.
Still, drove it home how poor his chances were.
He was in the library going through the newspapers, looking for a crumb, wondering if he could make it to the jeweller's that afternoon to sell the rest of the coins, when a flash of bright colour outside the window caught his eye.
Green. Like, a whole suit of it.
The lady behind the circulation desk gave him a weird look as he dashed past for the exit, but he was outside before she had a chance to say anything, scanning the street in both directions until he spotted the man in the green suit disappearing around the corner of the shoe store. Jack broke into a run, charging noisily down the thankfully quiet mid-afternoon street, got around the corner of the store to find...
Nothing. A little alley, a couple of trash cans, some squashed old shoe boxes...no man in green.
Pissed off, Jack aimed a kick at the nearest pile of boxes, flipping the top few into the air in a little arc. Damn man in green was the reason all of this had started, and now...
Okay, he wasn't the start of this, but it was because of him that Jack had lost the car...but also because of him that Finn had given him the coins, which turned out to be worth much more...and because of him that he'd met Finn...
Still, he was fucking annoying, practically leading him up that tree, and now he didn't know what the hell to do, and he couldn't...
Actually, could he?
It occurred to him for the first time that he'd never even tried to go back up the tree. Instantly, he felt horribly guilty. Who knew how long Finn had been up there with no company whatsoever, and even though he'd promised to try and find a way back, Jack hadn't even tried to take that path again.
Money problems could wait, for a little while at least. Jack set off for the road into the woods.
*
The trail was the same as last time; one minute nothing at all on either side of the path, and then a little strip of flat earth and dappled light. Jack walked along feeling strangely tense given that he already knew what to expect, but...
What if the tree wasn't there?
Or wasn't climbable?
Or something had happened to it...
And then there it was, towering over the forest, the flat steps around its trunk looking striking against the bark.
The climb, this time, was calmer than the last. Jack knew how to set his feet on the steps without slipping and how to slide his palm against the bark, hard enough to steady himself but not so hard it grazed his hand. Once again there was that strange drifting feeling as he rose through the sky, and before he knew it, his feet were on solid ground again and the magnificent tree was a gnarled old twist of branches at his back.
It had seemed too easy, almost, but then he had very little precedent for the situation.
He squinted his eyes as he emerged from the swirl of cloud into the strong sunlight, then felt a smile spread across his face as he spotted Finn. The huge man was kneeling in among the rows of corn shoots, carefully picking strands of weed out of the soil. The wrapped layers of his clothing bared one shoulder, and his skin shone dully in the sun.
“Finn!” Jack called, half expecting to be stampeded at and swept off his feet.
Finn didn't move
“Hey! Finn! Fiiiiiiiinn!”
Then Jack realised; Perspective was tricky when one was trying to get the attention of a giant man, but Finn had to be at least half a mile away, maybe more.
“Shit.”
Jack set off across the field, the chunks of dense soil that lay underfoot threatening to turn his ankle or land him on his ass at every other step. At least the corn stalks shaded him as he went along, and at every third row he stopped to yell out Finn's name and wave his arms about, just in case that would help.
Twelve yells later, and Finn turned his head towards Jack at the sound of his shout, and Jack's breath left his lungs as he saw Finn's warm smile for the first time in too damn long.
Had it really only been a few days?
He stayed put as Finn hauled himself to his feet and strode over to where Jack stood, making grains of soil jump and shudder with each footstep. Jack was amazed for a moment at how peaceful and safe he felt, as huge, coarse-skinned hands reached down and scooped him up, and then he was being lifted up for what felt like miles, and Finn's smiling face was just a few feet from his own.
“Hello little Jack. I've missed you.”
“Me too. I'm so happy to see you again, Finn.”
*
“Has it been the same amount of time for you? Since you were last here, I mean?”
“I dunno. It was...four days ago. How about for you?”
Finn nodded, a mild expression of relief on his face. “Same. I don't know why I was worried about that. Specifically.”
“I don't blame you. The world's been pretty weird to you.”
Finn opened the door to his house and stepped inside, the cool of the interior pleasantly refreshing after the oppressive heat outside. Finn looked around briefly, seemingly to figure out where to put Jack down. Not especially fond of the table, Jack leaned out from his perch in the crook of Finn's arm and looked around; there wasn't really much in there. Choices seemed to be the table, the chair, the cabinet, the rim of the bathtub or the top of the stove.
Or the bed.
Well, they'd technically had sex on a table already, so asking to sit on Finn's bed probably wasn't that forward. He patted a hand against Finn's chest to get his attention and pointed. “Can I sit over there?”
Finn looked surprised for a moment. “Certainly.” Jack wondered if the little touch of red he'd seen on Finn's cheeks as he replied had been his own hopeful imagination. Finn crossed the cavernous room in two steps and leaned down to reverently place Jack on the bed, in the centre of the mattress. Jack was peripherally aware that he barely made a dent in the lumpy mattress, but he didn't care. The sheets he sat on were thick as carpet and rough as hell, and he bounced happily for a little while. Finn crouched down next to the bed for a moment, his face a picture of happiness that made Jack's lungs feel a few sizes too small, then he turned away to the cabinet.
Jack looked around the room again. He guessed it was a little earlier in the day than the last time he'd visited, from the way the light was slanting into the room. The table bore a large bowl, the one he'd swam in last time, and a bundle of rough cloth with what looked like a knife...no, a razor, lying on top of it. Next to the door was a rickety looking basket, half full of apples. Apart from that, all was as it had been before.
Four days.
Finn returned, kneeling next to the bed this time, and seemingly making himself comfortable there. He set a plate down next to Jack, then handed him a little slice of peach, as carefully and delicately cut as the apple, last time. Jack accepted it, smiling, and found himself giggling as the juice ran down to his wrists.
“So, what of the world since you were last here, Jack?” Finn asked, between bites of his peach.
Jack knew right away what he was asking about.
“Well, the coins were a huge help, thanks. It turned out they were worth a lot of money, so I sold them to a guy who's going to sell them to lady who...well, she works at a museum. I don't know if she's the boss of coins there or something. I managed to get us into a better place, financially, though we aren't quite back in the black yet.”
“I'm glad it helped. “ Finn replied, and Jack could feel that he really was pleased. “What about everything else? Any news on your Mother?”
“Nothing really. Which in itself is good news. She's pretty stable really, not much chance of her getting any worse. But she doesn't really get any better.”
“At least that's something,” Finn replied, a little weakly.
“I, uh, took the opportunity of having some cash to hand to look for a real job,” Jack told him, feeling sheepish. “I haven't had any luck so far though. I'm starting to think I'll have to look further afield or something. Maybe even...I dunno. I don't want to have to leave Eastgate.”
“You'll find something. Don't worry,” Finn told him kindly, and the way he said it, Jack could almost believe him.
“I didn't stop yet. You know, turning tricks. But I managed to get rid of one guy who always really got under my skin. He paid me a lot, but I hated him.”
“But he's not going to bother you any more?”
“Well, I can only hope not. He still lives in town though, so he might turn up again. Hope not.” With just that thought, his good mood thinned. He pushed the last bite of the peach into his mouth and tried to wipe the juice off his chin with his sticky hand. Finn was silent, unmoving, while he did so. After a small space of time though, he reached out and settled his hand on the sheets next to Jack, rubbing the side of his thumb up and down Jack's back a little. God, it felt so nice.
“What did this guy do that was so bad?”
“It was...it started a few years ago. It's not a nice story.”
“Tell me anyway, hm? It'll do you good.”
And Jack couldn't even look up at Finn's face, because he knew the tender expression that would be there, and knew that it would do him in.
And so he told the whole unpleasant tale, about how Mr Golightly had overheard his clumsy, misunderstood admission of affection for another student, years ago. How that teacher, known by the whole town to be so respectable and kindly, warned the other students and their families that Jack was gay and that he'd been unreasonably pursuing other boys in the school, making him out to be some kind of sexual predator. The angry glares and frightened glances of his fellow students, of the adults he passed in the street...
All this on top of his father's death, and then his Mama getting ill. And he'd been the one it had fallen on to make ends meet, nobody else to do it.
So he'd left school and sold himself. To the first person who was asked him to, the person who'd even put the idea in his head, if he was honest.
Mr Golightly.
His hands were clenched in the rough sheets by the time he finished his explanation. Finn's thumb had stopped rubbing his back, but the warmth of it was settled at the base of his spine, comfortably weighty.
“I told him I wasn't gonna go with him again...but I don't know if he'll listen. He's a little weird. It scares me.”
“Can you defend yourself from him?” Finn asked.
“Doubt it. I got in a fight once in my entire life, and the only reason I didn't lose outright was because the other guy was drunk and fell on his ass trying to take a swing at me.”
He'd half expected to hear a laugh at that, but when he finally looked up at Finn's face, it was tense and worried.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “It's like last time all over again. I turn up and unload all my crap on you, then come on to you.”
“It's okay, I don't mind. I'd rather have you up here getting your troubles out of your system than anyone else I've ever met. Even if they brought hot-dogs and beer.”
That actually made Jack chuckle a little bit, and he wiped at his face with his hands. Finn picked him up again and propped him carefully against his chest, then turned to sit down on the bed, his shoulders leaning against the wall behind it, and his legs stretched out on the sheets.
Jack felt like a little weight had been lifted from him; sure, soon he'd have to go back down the tree and deal with Mr Golightly and all his other problems, but right now, snuggled against Finn's warm chest, he felt so serene. So safe.