Chapter Text
Van Gogh's last words were,
“The sadness will last forever.”
He, who knew the dark. He, who nonetheless painted stars within it.
And me, who knows it too. And me, who has nonetheless
punched my fair share of holes within it
and shone a flashlight through them
and called them stars.
The sadness will not last forever.
I know because every day
I bloody my knuckles
in the pursuit of something I
might see by.
-Kristina Mahr
Jimmy is an utter lightweight.
That’s really the most important thing that he should remember when he goes to parties, but somehow he always forgets because everybody else is still drinking, so it’s fine for him to keep drinking! After all, if Grian, tiny bird that he is, can knock back four shots and order another without even blinking, Jimmy should be able to as well.
He can’t, obviously. He has far too many spots in his memory, nights blacked out from just a handful of drinks or spent by the toilet, for him to believe that. For anyone to believe that.
He doesn’t drink frequently, mind. Just at parties, and maybe a glass of something at little get-togethers, but he doesn’t keep much alcohol on hand and he doesn’t ‘go out drinking’. No, his drinking habits are purely social.
It still, somehow, gets out of hand, so he’s set up a system where he isn’t allowed to drink for the first hour of a party, and he manages to stick with that for the most part, thanks to his friends keeping him accountable. It’s safer than just giving himself free reign, because logical Jimmy is very well-acquainted with FOMO Jimmy, and it takes very little encouragement for him to drink one glass too many. With a rule in place, he has structure, guidelines to follow, and he always works better with that kind of thing.
But it can get boring when half of his friends are around the bar to start out, and embarrassing if he sits there with just a water. And even more boring if his friends are late and he can’t even order something while he waits.
Which is kind of where Jimmy finds himself tonight at the end-of-season MCC party, as a lot of his main circle of friends are running a bit late.
Jimmy mingles for a while, chatting briefly with a couple of folks—Pete, Owen, he waves at Scott (preoccupied with cheering for Tommy to chug a gallon of milk), and gets dragged over to a surprise lute performance by Oli. Not much is going on in the sober world, so after a half hour of indecision and awkward standing in conversations that aren’t directed to him, Jimmy heads to the bar and orders the lightest thing on the menu.
There isn’t much going on at the bar, either—HBomb is grabbing a drink with Antfrost, and that’s about it—but it’s better than aimlessly wandering and waiting until he can be a bit tipsy.
Scar’s told him before that he doesn’t need to drink to have fun at a party, but Scar doesn’t get it. Jimmy likes drinking. He likes the tipsy feeling. He likes the social aspect. He likes the taste.
He’s just really bad at it.
The drink in his hand barely tastes like alcohol at all—and Jimmy wouldn’t put it past Scott to have told the bartender to water down his drinks specifically—but it’s pleasantly fruity and gives him something to hold while he waits.
Which he technically shouldn’t be doing according to his own rules, but his friends that he asked to keep him accountable aren’t here and what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
He isn’t really drinking, anyways! It’s barely anything. He’s just waiting patiently.
So Jimmy sits there, watching the party around him, occasionally taking a sip of his drink or snacking on the honey mustard pretzels that he ordered.
“Mind if I sit here?” a voice asks, pulling him from his scan of the event, and Jimmy glances over beside him to find a woman he’s never seen before.
She has glasses and wavy, shoulder-length hair, one side clipped back from her face with a barrette. Her brown eyes look a little bored, as does her slightly downturned mouth, as if she’d rather be somewhere else but is here to fill some favor. She tugs down the sleeves of her pale green cardigan as she waits for a response, then pushes them back up to her elbows.
Jimmy shrugs. “Go for it,” he says, and she plops down in the seat next to him, glancing back disinterestedly at the party.
“Not much going on, is there?”
Jimmy shrugs again. “I’m really just waiting for my friends,” he admits.
“Oh, good,” she says. “You won’t mind keeping me company, then.”
A little presumptuous, but Jimmy doesn’t mind too much. He generally likes talking to people, and he’s got no problem with making new friends.
“Who are you here with?” he asks, and she waves vaguely out into the crowd.
“My boyfriend. There’s a lot of people here. I kinda thought it was just his little friend group.”
“Oh, no. MCC is massive,” Jimmy says. “And like, this is everybody who’s ever played, so with MCC Rising in the mix, it’s like . . . probably hundreds of people, honestly.”
She raises an eyebrow, then turns away to talk to the bartender, and Jimmy checks his phone. No updates in the group chat ever since pretty much everybody said they were going to be late. Now, come on, Jimmy expects this from Grian, but from Joel and Lizzie? From Gem? Martyn?
There’s a clunk of two glasses and Jimmy glances up to see that the bartender has set down a drink in front of the woman and an identical one in front of him.
“Oh—oh, thanks, but I’m not very good with . . . with a lot to drink,” says Jimmy, cringing a bit, and she waves him off.
“This is practically nothing,” she says. "I can do four of these before I even start to feel anything, you’ll be fine.”
Jimmy doesn’t really want to argue with her. Not just because he doesn’t want to make her feel awkward, but . . . it’s embarrassing. He wants to be able to drink more and be fine. He doesn’t drink very frequently, of course, but he thinks he ought to have gotten better at it by now.
He can’t turn down a drink with a low alcohol content for the pitiful reason of already drinking one that was practically just juice.
So he finishes the drink in his hand and picks up the one from her.
“I dunno, I just feel like he never listens to me,” Emma complains, moving Jimmy’s drink closer to him to make room for her hand to rest on the bar. “Not like you listen to me. You’re a really good listener.”
Which is kinda ironic or something like that, because Jimmy isn’t really listening either.
He’s had . . . he’s had wayyy too much to drink.
As embarrassing as it is to be stone-cold sober during a party, it’s even more embarrassing to be blackout drunk, and while he hasn’t hit that point yet, he definitely isn’t far.
He’s not sure how many drinks he’s had, or even what they were (he thinks there was a shot of something in the mix, because she’d ordered two shots but he doesn’t remember if he drank one or if she drank both). Just that he drinks absently while talking, and drinks even more while listening, and usually his friends stop him from ordering more but Emma had kept giving them to him.
And now he’s at a point where he should probably go home.
He’s really not that drunk. More drunk than he should be at this point, but not . . . not that drunk. Maybe if he drinks some water he’ll be okay. Or maybe if he eats something.
Or maybe if he vomits.
Oh, holy moly. His stomach is not happy.
“And, like, he spends sooo much time focusing on this stupid sports thing,” Emma is saying. “I have my things too, you know? I have to, uh, like, work so much, and just for him to not even care. Do you do stuff for your girlfriend?”
Jimmy blinks a couple of times, waits for her words to catch up to her mouth. “Uh. I don’t . . . I don’t have a girlfriend.”
He takes another sip, hoping it’ll do something to calm his suddenly roiling stomach.
Did he eat anything?
Some pretzel bites. The whole bowl? No. No, he doesn’t think he did. Maybe, like, four pretzel bites. That . . . that isn’t enough.
He eyes the bowl, still sitting at his elbow, but just the sight of food makes his entire body break out sweating. Nope. No. No food.
“Oh, you’re single?”
Jimmy shrugs, forcing his addled mind back to the conversation. ‘Single’ kind of implies he’s looking for someone. “I guess,” he mumbles.
“That sounds so much more simple. Everything is like, no strings attached. You’re just like, open to everyone.”
Jimmy takes another swig, feels everything in his head and stomach slosh around.
He should . . . he should probably do something.
Drink water. Eat something.
Or.
“I’m gonna be sick,” he whispers.
“What?”
Jimmy doesn’t think he can answer that. He doesn’t think he can open his mouth without throwing up.
So he stands—the whole room spins, the volume of voices and music pulsing in his ears—he knows where the restroom is, not far—
It’s like walking on a ship in the middle of a storm, the floor rocking and rolling beneath his feet, and the drinks on the bar should probably be sliding off and crashing into the floor but maybe they’re stuck on by some special bartender magic.
Nobody notices the moving floor. Nobody notices anything.
Right, restroom. Jimmy swallows back bile, then sets off on his perilous journey to get to the restroom, all the way over at the wall.
Someone—Emma, he thinks—appears next to him, half-supporting and half-dragging him on his way, which is much appreciated. They barely make it in time—and Jimmy goes into the handicap restroom instead of the public one, knowing it’ll be less doors and more private—and he collapses over the toilet with barely a second to spare, acidic vomit launching from his throat.
Probably most of what he’s drunk so far exits his body, along with whatever’s still in his stomach from lunch, and by the time it’s done and his eyes are streaming and his throat and nostrils are burning, he doesn’t have the energy to keep himself up.
He slumps back against the wall next to the toilet, limbs like noodles and whole body shaking and covered in a cold sweat. That . . . that’s not good. He doesn't feel good. He doesn’t . . . he doesn’t like feeling like this.
Ohhh, he definitely drank too much.
Maybe he should never—never drink again. He doesn’t like throwing up. He doesn’t like being drunk. Not like this.
“Wow, you really are a lightweight,” somebody says, giggly and too-loud in his echoey head. “You, like, barely drank anything.”
“Mm,” Jimmy manages, blinking his bloodshot eyes open. The room is still kind of topsy-turvy, the sounds from the party almost seeming to push, muffled, against the door. And there’s someone beside him. Emma.
“Don’t worry, it’s cute,” she says, words slurring together. “You’re cute.”
Something squirms unpleasantly inside of Jimmy’s stomach—and he’s pretty sure it isn’t vomit round two. He doesn’t really know this woman, does he? He doesn’t like it when people he doesn’t know call him cute.
And wasn’t there something else? Didn’t she talk about . . . about a boyfriend? She shouldn’t be calling him cute if she has a boyfriend.
Without warning, she rests her head on his chest—when did she sit down? What is happening?
Jimmy blinks blearily down at her. She presses her head a little insistently against his pec (her hair just barely missing rubbing into a splash of puke that made it onto his button-up), sighing contentedly.
“Wow,” she says. “You feel so strong. I bet you look so hot without this on.”
That’s kind of a weird thing to say. Jimmy swallows, his saliva still burning his tongue, the taste of vomit and alcohol fresh in his mouth.
Holy moly. He’s so drunk.
He should . . . he should probably call someone. Right? Go home. That would be best.
“I’m gonna kiss you,” Emma mumbles, and Jimmy shakes his head.
“Nooo,” he tells her. “I don’t . . . I don’t want that.”
“Just a little one.”
And before Jimmy can say anything else, she’s pressing a sloppy kiss to his neck.
He shudders at the feeling. He doesn’t like that. That’s gross. He doesn’t like kissing. And he said no.
He’s very, very drunk.
How drunk is she?
She’d said she was fine. But she would have to be pretty drunk to ignore him telling her no.
And then, as his brain is slowly trying to figure out what to do next, she clambers into his lap and kisses him right on the mouth.
And Jimmy’s too drunk to push her off.
He doesn’t want this.
“I’m gonna throw up again,” he slurs as she pulls back, one heavy hand clumsily caressing his shoulder.
She giggles. “That would be . . . sooo gross.”
He isn’t going to throw up again.
But he was hoping that it would get her off.
Instead, she kisses him again, her lips wet and sugary, her tongue pushing too hard at his teeth.
He doesn’t want this.
When she pulls back this time, Jimmy bats lightly at her arm with his limp hand. “I’m too drunk,” he tells her. “You . . . you should stop.”
He is too drunk.
He’s also asexual, but too many people don’t take that as an answer.
She doesn’t listen, though.
She messily kisses his jaw, a little bit of a moan escaping her mouth, and starts feeling around his jeans for the zipper.
Uh-oh.
He told her no. He said he’s too drunk. He doesn’t want her to touch or kiss him.
But all too soon, she finds the zipper and pulls it down, unbuttoning his jeans while she’s at it.
“You’re so hot,” she mumbles, and Jimmy just swallows more bile.
What can he do?
“I’m gonna blow you,” she says. Jimmy shakes his head, tongue heavy in his mouth.
She isn’t looking, though. She’s pulling down his briefs, and Jimmy can only watch with detached horror as she touches him, clumsily fondling his length.
She leans down, puts her mouth on him—
“Oh, geez! Sorry, door wasn’t locked, I’ll just let you—wait a second—Timmy?”
Martyn.
Martyn’s suddenly in the room (the party is loudloudloud for a split second, then the door shuts fully), and Emma pulls away and tugs Jimmy’s shirt down over him, then turns to face Martyn.
“We’re kinda busy,” she laughs. “Sorryyyy.”
Martyn, for some reason, ignores her, pushes her to the side.
“Hey! Get out!” She grabs him by the sleeve of his shirt, pulling Martyn back a bit.
Martyn pats her on the arm. “Right, sure, just a second. I’m just gonna check on my friend, first.”
“He’s fine, just get out!”
“Timmy,” Martyn says, crouching down beside Jimmy. His eyes are big and dark in the dim light of the bathroom, and Jimmy blinks slowly at him. “Timmy, are you okay?”
Martyn.
He doesn’t want to look like an idiot. He doesn’t want Martyn to know how drunk he is. He doesn’t want Martyn to know he’s so weak and defenseless that an intoxicated woman was able to kiss him and more.
But he doesn’t want her to do anything else.
And the only way out is with Martyn. Otherwise, he’s stuck in here with her.
He shakes his head.
Martyn looks weird. Jimmy isn’t quite sure what the look means. “Do you want this? Do you want what’s happening?” he asks, voice almost frantic.
He doesn’t want this.
He doesn’t want what’s happening.
“No,” Jimmy whispers. He shakes his head again for emphasis, despite the nausea it adds to his state.
Martyn’s face grows cold, stiff. “Right, then,” he says, before turning away. “You, get out.”
Emma gasps, over-dramatic and angry. “What? You get out! I’m just helping him, he was ill!”
Martyn stands, drawing himself up to his full height (which isn’t very tall, and it’s usually pretty funny when Martyn does that, but right now Jimmy just feels sick). He takes Emma by the arm, starts walking her away from Jimmy. That’s a little rude, isn’t it?
“You need to leave,” Martyn says firmly, practically dragging her from the room. “Come on, out the door. Who are you here with? Who can—hey, Impulse! Go get Scott, tell him it’s urgent.”
Then the restroom door swings shut, leaving Jimmy alone in the semi-darkness.
He’s not too sure of what’s happening. At least Martyn got her out of here.
He actually might throw up again, but less because of the drinks and more because . . . well. He’s here, drunk on the floor of the dimly-lit restroom, vomit dripping down his chin and his trousers half-off, without enough strength in his arms to clean up or fix his clothes.
This is embarrassing. His cheeks burn—Martyn saw him like this. Anyone else could walk in and see him, and he takes a moment to just lean his head against the wall, eyes sliding shut.
Then he realizes he can hear the muffled voices from outside the restroom, floating distantly to his ears.
“What’s going on?”
“Scott, she needs to leave. Do you know who she came with?”
“Why? What happened?”
“I—”
Quieter, almost whispered, but right next to the door.
“She forced herself on Jimmy.”
“ What? ”
“He’s in here, I just needed to get her out before I got him some water or something. Anyways, could you kick her out?”
“With pleasure. Is Jimmy. . . ?”
“Don’t know. Don’t think so.”
“Okay. Let me call security.”
The voices move away, and Jimmy lets his head loll to his shoulder.
He doesn’t like this.
He’s too drunk.
He’s so drunk that someone. . . .
He wants to go home.
The restroom door creaks open and Martyn lets himself in, a bottle of water in one hand. He crouches down next to Jimmy again, unscrews the cap and holds the bottle out.
(For a moment, Jimmy wonders if Martyn will touch him, too.)
Jimmy stares at the water, then reaches out.
He can barely hold on to the bottle, the plastic slippery in his grasp, but he manages to bring it to his mouth with minimal spillage and takes a couple of sips, swishing it around his mouth to dilute the bitter taste of vomit.
“Scott’s kicking that lady out, don’t worry,” Martyn says softly, reaching into his trousers pocket and pulling out a slightly squished granola bar. “What happened? Do you need anything?”
Jimmy shrugs. He’s not entirely sure what happened, let alone how to explain it. He just knows that one second, he was throwing up, and the next, she was on top of him.
“Oh, geez, you’re absolutely plastered, aren’t you? Don’t you have some rules about drinking?”
“She kept givin’ me more,” Jimmy argues weakly, spilling a little more water down his front.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m . . . I’m here, I guess. What do you need?”
Martyn’s here.
He should be out there, at the party.
He shouldn’t be taking care of Jimmy because he got so drunk that he can’t take care of himself.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, sniffling a little at the sudden tears in his eyes.
“Don’t apologize, this isn’t your fault.”
“I’m . . . I’m ruinin’ the party.”
“Shut up, you aren’t ruining anything.”
Knock-knock-knock.
“Occupied,” Martyn calls toward the door.
“It’s me,” comes Scott’s muffled voice. “Can I come in?”
Martyn raises an eyebrow. “Timmy?” he asks. “Is it okay if Scott comes in?”
Jimmy looks down at himself, at his unzipped jeans, at his vomit-stained button-up barely covering him.
He shrugs. “Want my trousers on,” he says idly.
“Oh, right,” says Martyn. “Oh, geez. I’m so sorry, Timmy. Do you want me to turn away?”
Jimmy shrugs again. Martyn takes the water bottle, turns away, and Jimmy tries to awkwardly figure out how to properly dress himself.
Well, he can shimmy his briefs mostly back on, and he can kind of pull up the zipper of his jeans, but he struggles with the button (his fingers feel so clumsy and numb), so he gives up and puts his head in his hands and tries not to cry.
He doesn’t want to be here anymore. He wants to go home.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Scott says softly from somewhere beside him, and Jimmy doesn’t know when he entered the room but he’s glad he’s here. “What do you need?”
People keep asking him that. Jimmy needs to be sober, is what he needs.
“I sent her away,” Scott adds. “She’s not here anymore.”
Jimmy nods, face still in his hands.
“Geez,” Martyn says from somewhere else in the room. “I don't know what to do.”
“Did she do anything to you, Jimmy?”
Well, yeah.
Jimmy kind of wants to shrivel up and die, remembering her touches.
“He wasn’t even moving, Scott—do you think she used a date-rape drug?”
Was he drugged?
He doesn’t think he was drugged.
“That would explain why he threw up. Here, drink more water.”
Something cool bumps against his elbow, and belatedly, Jimmy raises his head, accepts it in one of his shaking hands.
“Not drugged,” he says slowly. “Think I’m just . . . real drunk.”
“He said she kept making him drink more,” Martyn chimes in.
Jimmy looks up at Scott. His face looks pale—too pale, he isn’t sure why he thinks that but surely Scott shouldn’t be that pale right now?—and his eyes scared.
“I wanna go home,” Jimmy manages, voice pitifully small.
Scott’s face creases sadly. “I’m so sorry, Jimmy. Drink some water and eat something, all right? Then we’ll get you home.”
Jimmy lifts the water to his lips, drinks a bit more.
“I dunno what’s happenin’,” he admits after a moment.
Martyn curses softly.
Was that the wrong thing to say?
Jimmy doesn’t know.
He really does just want to go home.
“We might need to file a police report,” Martyn is saying quietly. “I’d feel a whole heck of a lot more comfortable if he had a restraining order, too.”
“Mhm.” Scott eases the water bottle away from Jimmy’s hand, presses an unwrapped granola bar in its place. “Eat that, okay?”
He doesn’t want to eat it. He doesn’t like granola bars. He still feels like his stomach will crawl out of his mouth at the earliest opportunity.
But he takes a bite anyway, because Scott had said that he can go home after he eats something.
“I can’t believe someone would do something like that,” Martyn says, suddenly sounding angry. “And to Jimmy, too.”
“She was drunk, too,” Jimmy offers, glancing up at Martyn. “It wasn’t . . . not all her fault.”
“Did you tell her no?”
Jimmy looks back at his granola bar, more tears brimming in his eyes as he remembers explicitly telling her no, telling her he didn’t want it.
He nods.
“But—but not, uh, very mean,” he says, wiping his nose on the heel of his hand. “I didn’t . . . um . . . I didn’t really f-fight, or anythin’.”
Martyn curses again.
Scott fiddles anxiously with the buttons of his jacket. “All right,” he says. “Let’s get you home, okay? Martyn, I have to stay—would you mind—?”
“Yeah, of course, no problem,” Martyn says quickly. “Let me just tell Ren I’m headed out—”
And then Martyn slips out of the room, and Scott tells him to keep eating.
And Jimmy kind of just wants to cry.
He wakes up with a killer hangover.
Certainly not the worst he’s ever had, but definitely not a very nice one.
And combined with the indistinct nightmares that he wakes from, and the strikingly clear memories of the night before, Jimmy almost vomits (again).
Holy moly.
Holy moly.
Fuck.
Jimmy takes a deep breath, wincing when that makes his head hurt worse.
Okay. He’s okay.
So he gets up (his throat is dry, his teeth are filmed over, his hair is greasy, his head is pounding, he’s wearing the same stained clothes from last night and he’s never felt more dirty in his own skin) and trundles out into the kitchen, where he fills a kettle full of water and sets it on the stove.
Going through the motions. A normal morning, just like any other.
Then he looks up, and sees Martyn asleep on his couch.
Oh.
The returning-home part of last night is a bit blurry, but Jimmy vaguely remembers Martyn asking if he could stay over and Jimmy responding in the affirmative.
So Jimmy reaches above his head for the tea, shutting the cupboard extra loud (and wincing as the sound seems to reverberate around his skull), hoping it wakes the interloper.
It does, and Martyn sits up, blinking around blearily at his surroundings until his eyes land on Jimmy.
His face brightens. “Hey, Timmy!” he says, yawning. “How’d you sleep?”
Martyn is far too loud for—Jimmy checks the time—ten in the morning. And cheerful.
And Jimmy wouldn’t say that he slept well. Not in as many words.
He shrugs, turns back to his tea-making process.
Martyn, after a moment of silence, gets up with a creaking of the sofa under him and pads into the kitchen, opening the fridge behind Jimmy.
“I’m thinking some eggs, probably,” Martyn says. “You’re all out of milk. Didn’t you just go shopping?”
Jimmy hums noncommittally. He did just go shopping. He just forgot to buy milk.
His hands shake as he moves the kettle off the burner.
What if he never drinks again? What then? Would everything be better?
Barely anything even happened. Barely anything happened.
Martyn moves around him, grabs a frying pan out of the cabinet next to the stove and sets it on the burner Jimmy had just taken the kettle off of, clicking the stove back on.
“Scrambled or fried?”
Jimmy stares at the pan.
He stares at the kettle.
“I might go take a shower, actually,” he says abruptly, putting down the two mugs that he doesn’t remember picking up.
Martyn sucks a breath in between his teeth. “Um, before you do,” he says, voice awkward and halting. “Were you wanting to file a police report?”
A—
A police report?
Why would he—?
“Because if you want to do that, you can’t shower until after the rape kit.”
Jimmy freezes.
The world seems to halt.
His heartbeat thuds in his ears.
His hands tremble.
“I—I don’t—”
“Scott and I think it would be best to file one, but it’s up to you,” Martyn continues.
“I don’t—I don’t want to take legal action,” Jimmy manages, hugging his arms around himself.
“It wouldn’t be dangerous, or anything,” says Martyn. “Just, like, making sure that she can’t harm anyone else.”
That’s—
He doesn’t know. That’s scary. He doesn’t want to have to talk about it.
He wants to forget it ever happened.
And she wouldn’t . . . she wouldn’t do anything, right? It wasn’t malicious. It was a party, and a weird situation. She was just drunk.
Which somehow makes it worse.
She was just drunk. She—she did that to Jimmy and she was just drunk. He can’t even blame her because she didn’t mean to, she didn’t know what she was doing.
“I don’t think I want to,” Jimmy says, his fingers digging into his arms. “I—she was just drunk.”
“ Just drunk isn’t an excuse for sexual assault,” Martyn says with a click of his tongue, and Jimmy flinches away.
“I—I don’t want to. She—she wouldn’t have—she has a—a boyfriend, so . . . so yeah. I’m gonna go shower.”
Then he basically flees, straight to the bathroom.
He barely glances at himself in the mirror (bloodshot eyes, clumped hair, waxy skin, rumpled clothes with vomit stains) before stripping—and his button is still undone but he doesn’t think about it—, leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor.
And in the shower, he rubs his skin raw.
“If you aren’t going to report her, you at least need a restraining order,” is the first thing Scott says when he enters.
Jimmy hides his face in his hands. “I’m too hungover for this,” he grumbles.
“She possibly drugged you—”
“I wasn’t drugged, just really drunk, I swear—”
“—then committed sexual assault, which I think is pretty worthy of a report and makes a restraining order necessary , report or no.”
Jimmy shudders.
That’s—well, that’s just calling it more than it was. It wasn’t—
He can’t even tell himself that.
He knows what sexual assault is. He has the words imprinted on his brain from the safety training seminar that they’d all done for MCC:
Assault involves any physical or sexual act that is forced on someone. Examples include any unwanted bodily contact, inappropriate touch, or physical violence.
He received unwanted bodily contact and inappropriate touch. Sexual acts that he did not want were forced on him last night.
He was sexually assaulted.
He wants to sob.
“You don’t need to do anything right away,” Scott says, quieter now, gentler. There’s a creaking of wood as he sits down with them at the kitchen table, a bit of a scraping sound against the floor as he pulls his chair closer. “We’re here to support you.”
Jimmy lets out a slow, shaky breath. Maybe he’s mistaken. Maybe this was all a bad dream, and he’s going to wake up scared and uncomfortable but ultimately okay.
Maybe he’s misremembering, and maybe she didn’t even do anything and he just freaked out because of how drunk he was.
“I—I don’t even really know what happened,” he says after a moment. “Maybe—maybe I made it all up. I mean—she said nothing happened, right? And I was really drunk. She was—she was just helping me. You know?”
He peeks out between his fingers to see Martyn and Scott exchanging an uncomfortable look.
“Do you want me to tell you what I saw when I walked in?” Martyn asks cautiously, something highly uneasy in his expression.
That could help. A confirmation that it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was.
And even what he thinks happened isn’t very bad. Like, what, she touched his chest? That’s not worth getting a restraining order over.
(he quite pointedly doesn’t think about all the other things he thinks she did.)
“Um, well, I walked in—and I didn’t realize it was you, at first—but I walked in on. . . .” Martyn groans, rubs his eyes. “Look, I walked in, and she was assaulting you. Geez. You were unresponsive, and definitely not consenting—or even able to consent—and she was . . . sucking your dick. Sorry, sorry, but . . . that’s rape. That’s definitely rape, Timmy, no matter what else happened.”
Oh.
Right.
That is rape.
That is an explicit, unable-to-be-taken-any-other-way, sexual act.
Which he didn’t want.
“Maybe she didn’t hear me say no,” Jimmy argues weakly. “Maybe—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Scott shuts down, looking rather green. “It doesn’t matter. You didn’t consent. You even told her no. It doesn’t matter.”
He was raped.
It’s an ugly word, one that feels forbidden on his tongue, one that cuts sharply on the inside of his mouth.
Rape.
He never wanted to be a victim of—of sexual assault. Not that anybody would, but it was definitely something that he hoped would never happen to him.
Why did this have to happen to him?
Maybe it’s selfish to think. Scratch that, it’s absolutely terrible to think.
But if it had been anyone else, Jimmy can’t help but think that maybe they would have been fine.
That’s terrible. But he’s asexual and aromantic, and he’s had sex before but he hadn’t ever liked it, and maybe someone who likes sex wouldn't have considered it assault. Maybe they would have wanted to consent, or maybe they would have found how drunk she was funny, or maybe they wouldn’t have cared.
Maybe if he was normal, he wouldn’t be here right now, hoping a cup of tea will take away his hangover and his regrets, well-meaning friends watching him with pity in their eyes. Maybe if he was normal, he would be fine.
He’s never had any real problems with his sexual identity. Ever since Scott helped him figure it out back in Third Life, he’s been proud of his asexuality. And he’d never really been upset about it before he knew what it was, either. When he found it had a name, it had been more of like a ‘huh, so that’s what that was’ moment and then his life had continued the same way it always had. He’s been happy. He’s never wanted to be different, normal.
Now he wishes he was normal.
If he was normal, it wouldn’t have been rape.
If he was normal, he would be okay.
He vaguely registers Scott and Martyn moving, picking up the half-empty plate in front of him, cleaning up the table.
He just stares at nothing and tries not to cry.
He was . . . raped. He was raped last night, which should never happen, not anyone, and yet it happened to him.
What is he even supposed to do?
He kind of wants to sleep, his head still pounding against his eyes. It’s the weekend, after all. He can go to bed, then return to Empires tomorrow and forget that anything ever happened.
Is that okay? Can he just go back to normal? Can he just pretend like nothing ever happened?
He doesn’t know what to do. He has some vague idea that you're supposed to go to therapy after being sexually assaulted, but he’s never been to therapy and it doesn’t sound very appealing. He doesn’t want to sit there and be analyzed and have to describe all the details of his sexual assault to some stranger.
His sexual assault. As if he has some sort of ownership over it.
His chest feels funny. Like it’s about to burst open. Like he’s about to burst into tears.
“Jimmy?”
He looks up; Scott is once again sitting across from him, eyes dreadfully concerned.
“Do you need anything? How can we help?”
They’ve asked him that so many times. What can they do to help him?
He shrugs.
“Can we just . . . forget about it?” he asks around the strange feeling in his chest, looking between the two of them, both in various stages of cleaning. “Forget anything ever happened?”
Martyn grimaces, turning off the sink. Scott chews on his lip.
“We . . . well, we want to handle this right,” Scott says carefully, as he fidgets with the washrag in his hand. “But if you think that would be the best for you right now, we can try that.”
Yes. He does think it would be best for him. He wants to put it out of his mind, forget it happened, and move on with his life.
Jimmy nods.
Scott nods, a little uncertainly.
Martyn nods, even more uncertainly.
Jimmy pushes back from the table and stands, wandering into the kitchen in search of a regen potion or something to take the edge off this headache. “Thanks for coming over,” he says to them both, hoping they pick up the hint and leave before his chest explodes. “Is there anything else you need?”
“Do you want us to tell anyone?” Martyn asks, and Jimmy can’t quite repress the shudder that runs through his body.
“No,” he says quickly. “I don’t—no, don’t tell anyone. This . . . this didn’t happen.”
“Can I tell my therapist?” Scott asks wryly. “I might need a session after this.”
Jimmy doesn’t dignify that with a response.
“And—and no restraining order, then?” Martyn asks.
Jimmy shakes his head. “No. I—honestly, I probably won’t ever see . . . erm, her, again. I’m fine, and nothing happened.”
He doesn’t miss the way they look at each other.
He doesn’t miss how sad they both seem.
They both leave, though, and when they leave, Jimmy finally lets himself break down and cry.
And when he has no more tears left, he resolves to forget it ever happened.