Work Text:
Jasper knew where the extra key was; he’d grabbed it from the urn shaped like a lion’s mouth to let himself in. A tampon in his back pocket, just in case (though he certainly hoped it was not the case), an apology scrawled in Charlotte’s notebook for stealing it. One could never be too prepared.
Piper’s text gave no context- “come over.” Henry was off with Ray, saving vacationers trapped on rogue ski lifts that spun at a breakneck pace in the July heat at Swellview Valley Lodge. Charlotte and Schwoz donned radiation-safe suits behind a locked door. There was no one to ask, and Piper had ignored his follow-up text, “everything okay?” There was a 50/50 chance of this leading to some form of bodily harm for him, but Jasper figured if he went in knowing that, he could take the pain.
The house was eerily quiet. Jasper’s voice bounced off the walls, tepid at first, then climbing in uncertainty and volume as he called, “Piper? Piper?!” After tearing through the main level, Jasper had made it halfway up the stairs when the sweetest sound (“oh my God, shut up, I’m here,”) brought air rushing back into his lungs. Thank goodness.
Jasper did a double take as he walked into Piper’s empty room before circling slowly back down the hall through Henry’s open door. He found Piper lying on her side, her head at the foot of Henry’s bed. She seemed unharmed.
“Are we pranking Henry today?” he asked. A quick glance upward confirmed that there was no bucket of horrors primed to pour onto his head.
Piper’s voice was small and emotionless. “When did you find out?”
She stared pointedly away from him at the corner of her phone that lay face down within reach at the edge of the bed. Jasper wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen her like this. This was uncertain and uncharted for both of them. He lowered himself to the floor in one fluid movement, crossing his legs on the rug a few feet away from her.
“When did I find out what?”
Piper finally lowered her eyes to meet Jasper’s. There was disbelief in them, but not nearly as scathing as he was used to. “You know what.”
Oh. That. Piper had taken delight in the Man Cave the past week or two. She was naïve, she was exasperating, and much to everyone’s amusement, she was going to age Ray fifty years. Underneath the excitement, however, Jasper could see how the hurt still cut her open and lingered. It filled the quiet between them.
“Was it when you started working there?”
Jasper shook his head.
“Before. Ray tried to memory wipe me – he does that a lot – but Henry didn’t let that happen.”
Piper pursed her lips as she let the air hang still. Then-
“Were you mad that he kept a secret from you?”
Jasper shook his head. “How could I be? I knew he wasn’t doing it to hurt me.”
“Was it hard?” Her voice was barely above a murmur.
“No. I was really proud of him. Still am.”
“Plus, now I knew where my dang friends were always running off to. I mean, I knew they were at work, but it was nice to finally be included.”
Piper turned her head and buried her face in the mattress. Jasper fought the urge to tear his gaze away. This conversation wasn’t meant for him.
“Was... it… hard for you?”
Piper lay still for a while. Finally, she nodded silently.
“Were you mad that he kept a secret from you?”
She nodded again. Jasper thought about reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder, but he didn’t want to change what was unspooling. Piper finally turned her head back towards him. Her eyes were dry, but frankly, tears or even screaming would have been easier to deal with than the girl who broke in front of him now.
Jasper watched Piper gather her thoughts and painfully pull them out of herself like teeth.
“Henry and Charlotte were always off at work…you stayed.” Not by choice, she finished silently, and Jasper could do little to refute the unspoken accusation.
“You were the last one here,” she said in a sullen voice.
“We had fun,” he reassured her. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t glad the chapter of death by small child in his life was over. But there was comfort in getting to stay in a safe house even if his best friends weren’t in it, and he and Piper had had their fair share of adventures.
Piper rolled her eyes.
“We did!” Jasper insisted. “You’re a great driver, now, by the way. And not half bad as an instructor either.” He raised his eyebrows and nodded intently when she looked at him with patented mild disgust. Finally, something familiar, Jasper thought with relief.
“I don’t blame you,” she uttered, in a voice that sounded more grown up than Jasper could ever remember it being. “I wouldn’t want to hang out with a nine- or eleven-year-old right now.” A strand of hair fell over Piper’s eyes, obscuring them. It was a good time for more silence.
“It was just… First, Henry and Charlotte were never around, then you got a job too, and then my friends told me they didn’t like me-”
“-They weren’t good friends,” Jasper cut in. Piper gave him a rare half smile that told him she knew.
“The house got so quiet…except for my dad when he was home. I didn’t want to be here anymore.”
So she had grown legs, thought Jasper. Seedy journeys beyond Swellview City limits that she’d been too young to undertake. Only musical theater and mandatory community service had kept her tethered, and living rent-free.
“I didn’t like not knowing things,” she admitted.
Jasper risked poking her shoulder.
“Hey. You know them now.”
“It still hurts.”
“I know it does,” he said quickly. “But now you know, and Henry didn’t let Ray wipe your memory, and there are no more secrets.”
Piper’s mouth turned downward for a moment before she steadied it. Jasper watched the window behind her eyes slam shut. He'd seen it coming from a million miles away.
“You can go now,” she said abruptly, sitting up at the edge of the bed and pretending to kick him. Piper’s swinging leg stopped just short of Jasper’s knee. He knew better than to argue with her.
“Okay,” he said quickly, before straightening back up. “Do you need-”
“No.”
“Cool. Well, I’ll see you later, Pi-”
Jasper was halfway to the door when he felt a tug on his hand. As he began to turn around, something small and hard slammed into him. Jasper thanked Heaven he wasn’t caught off balance in Piper’s tackle. She was unfathomably strong, and with his luck, he would have knocked himself out on the side of the door frame and been blackmailed for it somehow. He tried to think of what had prompted this attack before realizing that Piper hadn’t pulled away. Her arms bent upward at the elbows as her hands rested just below his shoulders. She was hugging him.
Jasper's mouth hung comically agape. He willed himself to close it as he patted Piper awkwardly on the shoulder and tried not to derive meaning. He could be her placeholder.
Piper huffed a small sigh below him.
“Could you, like?” Embarrassment overrode her and words failed her, but she squeezed Jasper a little tighter. Jasper wrapped his arms around her without hesitation. He was floored. So this was what it came down to. A decade of the little one trailing in his and Henry and Charlotte’s shadows, who mauled he and Henry and then just he and then no one and then everyone again. Piper’s world had expanded and contracted and expanded once more, and Jasper had been continuously tethered to her orbit. This was almost nice, he thought, resting his chin on top of her head. Piper was ten steps ahead of him, cutting him off before he could even start.
“If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you,” she threatened. There was the Piper he knew, homicidal intent and all. Jasper stifled his laughter. One could never be too sentimental.
“Don’t worry,” he said, grinning, as he swiveled his torso back and forth and rocked them for a bit. “I can keep a secret.”