Chapter Text
Shane looked at his best friend, the two of them sitting on his bed, both of them clutching envelopes like that was all they had in their lives. “Are you ready for this, bro?” he asked, his hand moving to put a finger underneath the seal.
“Wait, wait, no, I’m not ready!” Benny shook his head, shoving the envelope into his face. “I can’t do this. Yoba, if I don’t get in, I swear Mom’s going to kill me.”
“C’mon, she won’t kill you, she’ll probably just... kick you out or something,” Shane shrugged.
“Wow, way to have faith in my mom,” Benny deadpanned.
Shane nudged Benny with his knee. “Dude, I’m kidding! You know your mom, she’s the best and she’ll support you no matter what.”
Benny took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
“On the count of three?” Shane looked at Benny, his eyes sparkling.
“Yeah, let’s just get this overwith!”
The two of them counted down and opened the envelopes at the same time, yanking out the letters within.
Shane wakes up with tears on his cheeks and he groans, throwing his hands over his eyes and scrubbing the wetness away. “Yoba, why the fuck did I have to have that dream?” he mutters to himself. He already has a shitty life, why did the day have to start off even shittier?
He lays in bed for a few minutes, trying to wipe away the pounding headache and nausea he feels, but that’s not how it works. He can function, mostly. He heaves a sigh and hoists his legs over the side of the bed. He stares down at his body for a moment, realizing that he probably puked all over himself right before crashing in bed the night before, and a second later he sees the shirt on the floor. Sure enough...
He puts his hands on his knees and a long groan leaves his mouth as he somehow gets up, throwing a tanktop on before he treks out of his room.
“Good morning,” Marnie says, pouring a cup of coffee for herself. “Late night?”
“I don’t wanna hear it, Marnie, my head fuckin hurts,” Shane mutters, a hand shielding his eyes from the lights in the kitchen.
“You’re lucky that Jas isn’t up yet. I don’t want you using that kind of language around her.”
“Whose goddaughter is she, again?” Shane glares at her.
“And who is acting like a real adult here, again?” Marnie fires back.
Ok, that stung. But Shane doesn’t have a comeback because he knows she’s right. He purses his lips and grabs a frying pan noisily, but that was a mistake on his part. He hisses as the clanging makes his head pound even more. “Yoba...”
“Shane... I’m worried about you,” Marnie says quietly, sitting down and holding her coffee cup with both hands. “I know life has been hard since you’ve come here, but...”
“Look, I really don’t wanna talk about this right now,” Shane shakes his head, grabbing some eggs and cracking them into the pan after turning on the stove. “I’m fine, and I have been ever since I got here.”
Marnie opens her mouth to say something more, but the door to Jas’s room opens and the little girl comes skipping out into the kitchen. Shane’s heart clenches painfully when he sees her smiling face. “Morning, Uncle Shane! Aunt Marnie!” she greets them, going to hug Marnie first.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Marnie smiles at her. “Did you sleep well?”
“Mmhmm!” Jas grins. She goes over to hug Shane’s legs and his chest is tight. How is this tiny human such a ray of sunshine and how does he deserve her?
“Morning, Jas,” he somehow gets out, going to ruffle her bedhead. “Do you want some eggs?”
“Yeah!” she sits next to Marnie, and Marnie is looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
He turns back to the pan, making sure that his eggs aren’t burning. “Scrambled, right, Jas?” he asks.
She hums in the affirmative and he finishes making his fried eggs before starting another pan of scrambled eggs for her. Marnie’s gaze is burning against his neck, but he doesn’t want to even think about this whole situation right now. He already had a shitty fucking wake-up call, he doesn’t need an interrogation to make it worse.
The three of them eat in relative silence, Jas humming lightly as she chews which is the cutest fucking thing in the world and Shane doesn’t know how her parents could just...
He cuts off that thought as soon as it comes. Nope, not going to think about that, just gonna... sweep it under the rug just like everything else. “I gotta get ready for work. Jas, get some clothes on so you won’t be late to school either.” The chair legs scrape against the floor, grating Shane’s headache even more, and he winces.
“Uncle Shane?” Jas asks, cocking her head to the side like a puppy.
“’M fine, Jas, just... go get dressed. I’ll walk you to school if you want.”
She smiles brightly, bounding off to her room, but Shane just feels a storm cloud in his chest. Nothing has gone right since that night, and it hasn’t even been a year yet. He’s doing his best for Jas, but... it just feels like everything he’s done is empty and meaningless. He trudges to his own room, downing a can of beer after he closes the door. Marnie doesn’t need to know, and he needs this right now.
After he gets some clothes on, he goes to his bathroom and splashes water on his face. He’s got to snap out of it. Marnie is really starting to give him looks and he doesn’t appreciate it one bit. Sure, he could spend more time with Jas, but when she’s practically the spitting image of her dad? It just hurts. And Marnie doesn’t seem to understand that. And he never wants Jas to realize why he sometimes just can’t be around her; he doesn’t want her to feel guilty for something she’s absolutely not responsible for. And something that would hurt her if she knew.
She might already, honestly, and that’s why Shane had moved her out here where no one knew Benny. That way they wouldn’t be able to compare her like they had at his funeral. The number of times people had said to her, “You look so much like him,” or some variation was alarming. There was no way that Jas hadn’t internalized that somehow.
“Uncle Shane, I’m ready!” Jas sing-songs from the front room.
“Okay, Jitterbug, I’m on my way,” he calls back, throwing on his scruffy hoodie and heaving a sigh. Maybe he was hanging onto this too tight, but it was the one thing he had matching with Benny, and Shane felt like it still tied them together. Wishful thinking on his part, probably.
The two of them say goodbye to Marnie and head out into the cool spring air. Jas starts skipping with her backpack slung over her shoulders, humming and singing a song. “You have way too much energy this early in the morning, kiddo,” Shane mutters under his breath. But at least she has a bright spot in her life.
She loves learning new things with Vincent, and she loves Penny. She’s got something going for her, and she’s only six. What the fuck is Shane doing with his life?
He drops her off at the library that doubles as the museum (perhaps the other way around?) and with the way she smiles at him as she waves, his heart nearly just explodes. She really is the cutest little bean, and she deserves the world. She deserves so much more than he can give her.
Nope, nope, not going to go into work and cry. That’s not how it works. He drags himself past Clint’s shop and when the sign of JojaMart comes into view, he groans slightly. He really wishes he could’ve just called out sick but in a town this small, everyone knows everything and Jodi probably would stick her nose where it doesn’t belong (like always) and call him out on it. He’s relatively nice to her when he sees her as she’s Sam’s mom, but he still thinks she’s a gossipy bitch who should mind her own damn business.
When he walks into the store, he breezes past Morris standing at the counter and the cashier whose name he still doesn’t know. He practically sprints into the locker room, going straight for the one second to the end. Morris doesn’t know, and neither does Sam, but there’s a crack in the wall that’s perfect for hiding booze. And that’s exactly the first thing Shane had done when he’d found it. For days like this.
Or honestly just any day. There weren’t any good days.
He just needs to get through his shitty shift, like a good zombie, and then go and drown everything he felt with more alcohol. He fumbles for a moment after sticking his arm into the wall, trying to find the flask he’d hidden there. For a few heart-stopping seconds he thought someone else had found it, but then his fingers touched the familiar shape.
He breathed out a sigh, immediately opening it and downing the whole thing. It must’ve been a while since he’d come to work mostly sober, because he was usually still drunk from the night before and didn’t need this. But today he really fucking does.
As soon as the alcohol hits his system, his head goes floaty and nothing matters anymore. He can’t feel anything, and that’s what he needs. He’s nothing but a slave to this fucking company, and he’s a machine for stocking shelves and nothing else.
The day goes by slow as fuck and Shane realizes about halfway through his shift that drinking only the tiny flask just after clocking in isn’t enough. His brain starts racing with thoughts about three hours before he’s off and his hands are shaking. His thoughts are turning down paths he doesn’t want to go and he’s feeling again. He does everything in his power to get through the last bit of his shift and he clocks out, the only thing on his mind is heading to the saloon to get even more wasted. He’s learned his lesson; he needs to drink more so he can’t think and won’t dream again.
He wants to run to the saloon, honestly, but his body isn’t meant for that anymore. He’d stayed fit for a long time, but the past year has been rough, and it’s reflected in his physique. Especially with how he gets winded going up a flight of stairs. Thankfully Marnie doesn’t have any.
The saloon gets in sight and he feels himself start to speed up. He always gets like this right before a drink. Everything starts to lighten up once more, if only for a moment. And that’s enough.
As soon as he walks into the saloon, the warmth hits his face and he takes a deep breath. It feels like home here, more than anywhere else in Pelican Town. Sure, Marnie did open her house to him, but there are secrets between them, and Shane knows that. He never really did tell Marnie why he showed up with a child on her doorstep. For all he knows, she thinks that Jas is his kid. He never cleared up their relationship, but he doesn’t really care what Marnie thinks. He supposes that just about everyone in Pelican Town thinks that she’s his, despite the fact that she calls him “uncle,” but he really couldn’t care less. He’s here for Jas, and what the people think about him here is of no consequence to him.
As he slinks over to his usual place at the bar next to the wall, Emily sees him and smiles. He holds up two fingers, and she nods in understanding. Emily is probably the only one in this wretched town who doesn’t try to pry into Shane’s life, and he’s more than appreciative of that. Everything is easier around her for some reason. Maybe she just can sense that he doesn’t really want to talk about his past trauma. She slides up to him, a grin on her face.
“Good to see you, Shane. How was work today?” she asks as she hands him the two beers.
He immediately downs one of them, finally ready for the buzz that’s going to kill everything in his brain. “Oh, y’know, shitty as usual,” he rolls his eyes after wiping the foam off his mouth. “As always. Nothing ever changes around here.”
“Aw, c’mon, Shane, you just have to look around just a little closer,” Emily tells him. “It is Friday, after all. Maybe talk to a couple more people than you usually do!”
Shane scoffs, starting to nurse the other beer she brought him. “Sure, whatever. Don’t you have other customers to tend to?”
She shrugs and dances away, taking orders from the other people around the saloon, and Shane’s eyes sweep the place. The carpenter and her husband dance on the floor, smiling at each other and looking stupidly in love. Shane doesn’t really know their whole story, but he doesn’t really need to. Harvey, the town doctor, is nursing a coffee a little away from Shane, his fingers tapping on the bar. Maybe he’s waiting for someone? Or maybe he just wants to wind down after a long week. Shane feels like he usually doesn’t see him on Friday nights, but all his days blur together anyway.
Willy and Clint, the local fisherman and blacksmith respectively, are sitting at a table near the door, engaged in some kind of conversation. What the two old men could have in common, Shane has no idea, nor does he really care. Pam is, of course, on the other side of the bar, completely drunk out of her mind like he wants to be. The two of them are kindred spirits, though Shane doesn’t want to admit that. The guy who lives on the beach and Leah, the weird girl who lives in the cabin just south of Marnie’s ranch, chat at a table behind Pam, and Shane idly wonders if they’re fucking. They definitely put off that vibe. They probably go to the guy’s beach cabin because Marnie’s ranch is so close, they’d probably hear them if they fucked there. He takes a sip of his beer, not wanting to think about that any more than he needs to. Gross.
He hears rowdy laughter from the game room, and he knows that the younger adults are playing pool. He doesn’t really know their names very well (doesn’t really know anyone very well, if he’s being honest), but Sam and the one with like fifty piercings in his face and eyeliner that could put a scene girl to shame are more often than not seen together. The weird girl with purple hair usually joins them too. He peeks over into the room and sees someone else with them, a kid with brown hair who definitely doesn’t seem to be the type to hang out with them. He makes eye contact with the brown-haired guy, and he waves with a smile before Shane looks back to his beer.
Shane supposes that with a limited social life in such a tiny town that beggars can’t be choosers. And for all he knew, the four of them grew up together around here. Yoba knows that he wouldn’t move here of his own accord. He just thought that being out in nature at a farm like Marnie’s would be good for Jas.
He sighs, finishing up his beer. It was too loud around here. He needed to be alone. He grabs a six-pack from Gus (like he didn’t have three of them already under his bed at home) and makes his way out of the saloon. He hears the dog in the pen outside the saloon huff a wispy bark as he exits and doesn’t think much of it, trekking through town and past Marnie’s ranch into Cindersap Forest. The dock on the lake in the middle of the forest is his thinking spot. It’s nice and quiet and the soft laps of the lake against the shore always set his mind at ease. He stares out at the water, wondering what Benny could’ve been thinking in his last moments. This was why he drank, to avoid the thoughts like this, but when he’s alone they tend to come out.
But if he’s alone, sometimes it’s okay. He cracks another beer and sits down at the end of the dock, the water nearly brushing the soles of his shoes as he heaves a sigh. “Here we are, buddy,” he says quietly, raising the can in a silent “cheers”. “Didn’t think either of us would be where we are right now. With you six feet under and me taking care of your kid while trying to hide how much it fucking hurts that you’re gone.” He sniffles, wiping his nose on the ratty old hoodie. “Did you know that sometimes I hear Jas talk in her sleep? She fucking misses you, dude. And I do too.” He looks down at the beer in his hand and shakes his head. “We both had so much fucking going for us. Why did it have to end up this way? Nothing is going right and I just... I don’t know what to do anymore, Ben. I want to try my best for Jas but I just... I don’t know how. I don’t even know who I am. There’s just... I don’t know what I’m doing, and nothing feels like... it doesn’t feel worth it. But...” He narrows his eyes and stares up at the semi-cloudy sky.
He can see a few stars and he glares. “You’re a bastard for leaving too early.” He feels tears start to sting the corners of his eyes and he flips his middle finger at the sky. “And I hate you for that. I hate that... I feel like I can’t leave Jas like that. You pushed all this responsibility on me without even thinking about me. Maybe I wanted to just... go with you. Did you ever think of that, you dickhead?”
Shane’s definitely more drunk than usual; he’s spouting nonsense at this point. He’s usually not an angry drunk, but something about this night makes all his emotions come to the surface. He’s really just fucking pissed and he wants to scream. So that’s what he does.
His voice carries over the still, dark water of the lake, and he doesn’t give a fuck. If someone hears him, so what? The people in Pelican Town already think he’s some kind of freak, so why not give them an actual reason to think so? He has such a strong urge to just jump into the lake, and he stares at the water. How would it feel to drown?
Shane imagines it wouldn’t feel very good. He’s woken up choking on his own vomit after a particularly bad night before, and that’s probably something along the lines of what drowning would feel like, he figures. When he dies, he wants to go quickly. Probably just a bullet to the brain, quick and easy.
He sways on the end of the dock, hiccupping. “Fuck you, Benny. Just... fuck you. You were supposed to be my best friend.” He grabs another beer but before he can crack the can, it’s snatched out of his hand.
“Okay, I think you’ve had enough,” a smooth voice says from behind him.
Shane slurs some kind of question, but through the blur of his swimming vision, he can’t really tell what he said.
“Doesn’t matter, you’re positively trashed. Can’t imagine that’s good for you, old-timer.”
“Fuck you, I’m not old,” Shane shakes his head as his arm is thrown over a solid shoulder. Whoever is holding him up is sure strong; he’s not a light guy. “Jas isn’t even mine, y’know?”
“Okay? I’m gonna take you home. You live with Marnie, right?”
Shane hums, looking over his shoulder. “My... my beers...”
“Yeah, no, I’m not gonna let you have any more. Sure, it’s Friday night but you’re gonna have a hell hangover tomorrow.”
“Always do,” Shane shrugs. Hangovers weren’t anything new to him, but this person definitely is. His voice kind of reminds Shane of the lake water, but... less scary. It’s like a blanket around him, and he pats the man’s chest. “Talk more.”
A deep chuckle rumbles under Shane’s hand and his mouth hangs open. What a fucking laugh! So sexy. “Not much of a talker, sorry. More my girlfriend’s thing.”
“Ah. Of fucking course,” Shane scoffs, trying to shuffle away.
“Hey! Stop struggling. I’m gonna drop you.”
“I never asked you to help in the first place!” Shane’s starting to lose the buzz, and this whole situation isn’t something he wanted to end up in. He didn’t want some random guy trying to help him when he was perfectly capable of getting home on his own. Sure, he’s totally drunk, but this isn’t his first rodeo. He knows how to get back home just fine.
He finally gets out of the guy’s grip and realizes who it was. The brunet he saw at the saloon, the cocky would-be gridball player who always brags about all his accomplishments. He definitely peaked in high school and is trying to hold onto that more than is healthy. Yoba, he’s the kind of person that Shane hates the most. How the hell had he even found him?! Shane never saw him in Cindersap Forest. A dog pants by his side and Shane realizes he’d probably been taking the mutt for a walk. In the middle of the night was a weird choice, but that wasn’t any of his business.
“Sure, but it looked like you needed some help, dude,” the guy shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess I just...”
“Don’t talk to me,” Shane shakes his head, shoving past him and towards Marnie’s ranch. He doesn’t need fucking pity, especially from a kid who looks like he’s fifteen. He might be pathetic, but he isn’t willing to stoop that low.
He tries to open the door softly but being drunk definitely hinders his judgement. He storms into his room just as Marnie opens the door to hers.
“Shane?” she asks, coming out into the front room in a robe and peeking around the corner. “You’re back.”
“Yeah,” he grumbles. “And I’m going to fucking sleep.”
He practically slams the door in her face, clicking the lock as he does so. That was one of his stipulations of having his own room; he wasn’t going to live without a lock. A safety measure for everyone, he supposes. He didn’t ever want Jas to have to walk in on...
He shakes his head, shoving his face in his pillow. If he could just suffocate himself, that would be awesome. But Jas’s smile flashes in his head and he turns over, throwing an arm over his eyes. “How did you ever do it with that face, Benny?” he asks into the darkness of his room. He understands why but honestly he just hopes that he never is able to understand how.
Jas is his whole world now, and he can’t imagine how she would react if he was gone just like her parents. He can’t do that to her! As much as he wants to fucking kill himself, she is the one thing tying him here. He kind of hates that, honestly. He could never hate Jas, it was never her choice to be an orphan, it wasn’t her choice to become his goddaughter, and he would never put her through losing another adult she cares about.
That’s another thing; Shane knows that she cares about him, he knows that Marnie at least kind of cares about him. They’re family, after all, but... sometimes that’s not enough. He can’t think anymore; he needs to sleep. He just needs to fall asleep forever and not deal with any of this shit anymore.
He flips onto his side in his grimy and stinky clothes, so many thoughts running through his head that he imagines will give him dreams again, but he’ll find out soon enough. He knows that there are a lot of things that his brain could latch onto, but for some reason, it finds the media file of the guy’s laugh and Shane feels something stir deep in his chest. Something that he really didn’t want to think about. He’d had plenty of thoughts like this when he was younger, and this was no different. Except that it was. He lives in a tiny town now, where everyone knows everyone, and he can’t do anything without being judged.
Yoba why had he thought this was a good idea?! He then remembered Jas. Jas truly is his reason for living at this point, and he needed to be reminded of that.
He makes his way through the quiet house, Jas’s door creaking softly as he opens it. She’s curled up on her bed with a stuffed rabbit that her mother had given her for one of her birthdays, clutching onto it like a lifeline. Shane idly wonders if she even remembers where that came from, and he really hopes she does. He brushes his bangs back off his sweaty forehead and heaves a breath. Just looking at her sleeping peacefully gave him a bit of strength. She deserves the world and everything good he can possibly give her, and maybe... maybe he can at least try. For her.
He goes back to his room, taking a shower and letting the water wash off the thoughts he’s been having, and helping him sober up. Jas is everything, and he needs to step up and become a better man for her. It doesn’t matter what he’s feeling, he needs to be there for her when she needs it. And it can start with a shower. He’s gross and stinky and she deserves better than that. So he lets the water flow over him for a good half-hour, and then puts on some clean pajamas that actually match a set of Jas’s that he’d given her when she was younger. She’s probably grown out of them by now (she’s been growing like a weed for the past year), but it’s the thought that counts, right?
After he’s dressed, he grabs a pillow from his bed and moves back to Jas’s room, trying his best to not let the door creak on its old hinges like it had before. He slides into her room, clutching the pillow to his chest. He isn’t sure what he thought would happen here, as her bed isn’t quite big enough to fit a grown-ass man. But... he curls himself around her like a blanket, and sets his pillow under his head.
She shifts and he’s afraid he’s woken her up, but she just cuddles into him like she used to when they lived in his tiny apartment in Zuzu City. He smiles a bit to himself, wrapping his arm around her small body. She really is his everything right now and he’s going to do whatever it takes in his power to make sure that she feels loved and like she deserves the world, because she does.
A nagging thought at the back of his head suggests that he’s not good enough, and he won’t be able to give that to her, accompanied by the sudden urge to down a whole bottle of vodka, but he quickly waves it away. He doesn’t need that right now, and he really just needs to focus on Jas. She will be his anchor, and everything will turn out better if he focuses on her and giving her the best life possible.