Trashed and Scattered

“I just kind of feel like I’ve lost both my parents,” Peyton sighed, leaning her back against a cardboard box as her insides froze over with grief. “I know that’s kind of ridiculous.”
Jimmy shook his head, flipping through one of the sketchbooks sprawled out before him, “You seriously got the shit end of the stick when it came to parental units.”
Peyton groaned, “No doubt.”
“Fuckin’ Dan,” he grumbled. “I knew he was a piece of shit.”
“He’s still my dad,” she argued half-heartedly. “He did step in…in the end.”
Jimmy raised a brow, glancing carefully up at the brunette, “Yeah, but then he sold you out. Did you even know they were speaking?”
“Here and there,” she nodded. “But I’m honestly…I’m fuckin’ floored, Jimmy. I never would have imagined my dad could go behind my back like that. I don’t even…I don’t even know what to do with it.”
Jimmy took a deep breath, clapping the book closed and shoving it far away from himself, “Deal, I guess. You’re right, he is your dad…So, I guess it’s up to you how you want to move forward. You’ll either forgive him or you won’t.”
“Right,” Peyton sighed. “I don’t know if it’s about forgiveness really. It comes down to trust now…I can’t fucking trust him.”
She groaned loudly, glancing around helplessly. It had been second nature to Peyton, meticulously vetting prospective limbs of her life. She had always been so cautious of who she allowed to be privy to the veins of her existence. And despite his flaws, she’d always assumed she could count on her father. He was the one and only parent she had any memory of actually nurturing her. As far back as she could dare to peer, he had been there.
But he’d been there for the vicious violence too. Standing along the sidelines, watching with a hand clasped over his jaw.
And he’d done nothing.
“But what’s the god damn alternative?” she continued, setting her gaze upon Jimmy. “I’m a selective orphan? Some people don’t have the luxury of parents in their lives. Some people have them ripped away from them…I have both. But now I have none? I don’t know.”
Jimmy mulled that over, picking and choosing at his words carefully.
“It’s okay to love them,” he finally settled on. “Both of them.”
Peyton raised her brows at him but Jimmy was hardly put off by her challenge. He knew Peyton better than he knew himself. Her love for her mother walked hand in hand with her disdain. The signs had been planted in neon all throughout their childhood. While Peyton had undoubtedly feared her mother, hated her even, Jimmy knew that love lived within those walls as well. She’d just never known the love to be returned.
And that was the one and only truth Jimmy couldn’t quite wrap his head around.
What was there not to love about Peyton? In her youth, she’d been charming and thoughtful. She was creative but logical. Endearing and kind. She’d never done anything malicious to her mother—it was as if Peyton’s very existence was enough to have Allison crawling up the walls, her head twisting around at unnatural angles. Where did that form of hatred birth itself from?
But Jimmy was careful not to tread to far into his curiosity for the Winchester matriarch. He was afraid he might find pity buried somewhere inside his distaste. The woman had harmed his Lexi, and for that, she’d have to remain shackled behind the gates of Hell. He hoped she burned there eternally.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Lex,” he smiled. “It’s human nature. And I know this might surprise you, but you are human.”
She smirked, “I guess.”
“You might even be my favourite human,” he half-laughed. “And you definitely didn’t inherit that from your snake of a mother.”
Peyton’s lips fell, “Are you sure I’m nothing like her? I do have her eyes…I didn’t realize just how similar they were until I was staring at her…you know, as an adult.”
Jimmy shrugged, “Eye colour is whatever. It doesn’t mean anything. You’re nothing like her.”
“How do you know?” she pressed curiously.
“I just know. I’ve known you most of my fucking life. Not even one time did I ever look at you and think damn, there’s a future child abusing drug addict.”
Peyton surprised herself with a hearty laugh, immediately lighting up Jimmy’s face. She cast her gaze down to the floorboards, watching her fingers as they picked at splintered pieces.
“I’m supposed to give her money,” Peyton confessed ashamedly. “She said she’s coming back for it…”
“And giving your book back, I hope?” Jimmy grunted.
She shrugged, “So she says. I know better than to believe a word my mother says though.”
Jimmy hesitated, “Do you want to face her again?”
Peyton’s eyes shot up to meet his. She was shocked to find him genuinely curious. That was the wonderous thing about Wiley; he was never judgmental. He was, simply, endlessly curious about life. In that curiosity, she’d always found the ability to let honesty flow freely. He had always had a way of coaxing revelations from the most excruciatingly twisted parts of her mind.
She considered what facing off with her mother for a second time in one day might look like. She quickly ran over a thousand things she could say—a billion things her mother might do. But as the last flickering of longing for her mother’s approval faded out, Peyton shook her head.
“No.”
Jimmy took a deep breath, “Want me to do it?”
She tilted her head limply, “You don’t want to see that psycho.”
“No,” he laughed. “But I don’t want you to have to do it either. I don’t want you to do anything that isn’t exactly what you want to do.”
Peyton ran that sentence over in her mind three times before deciding it made sense.
“I’ll get your shit back,” he grinned. “I know how much that book means to you.”
She sighed, “The book is mostly replaceable…”
“But the drawings aren’t,” Jimmy insisted lightly.
Peyton nodded absently, annoyed to no end that her mother had so much as glanced through her artwork. It bubbled up a rage inside of her that would not be denied.
“When we get back from the apartment—”
“We’re cancelling that,” Jimmy interjected flatly.
She scoffed, “No we fucking are not.”
“Lex, you just had some major—”
“Wiley,” she dared. “We’re not cancelling. Your life is important. We need to get your damn housing situation sorted. You can’t live in Barb’s spare room forever.”
He grinned, “But it’s closer to you.”
The words fell over the two like a noose. They quietly stared at one another, the heavy realization that Peyton would be far, far away soon carted itself in.
“We’re going,” was all Peyton could think to say. “And when we get back, we’re going to have ourselves a little fire out back.”
Jimmy’s eyes lit up with deviant wonder, “A fire, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” Peyton smirked. “Look at all this fucking kindling.”
Jimmy paused, “Are…Are you sure you want to burn it all?”
“I’ve never been surer of anything in my fucking life,” Peyton nodded once. “I don’t want even a piece of this existing. I want no connection to it.”
He sighed, “Maybe you should think about that for a bit, Lex.”
“No,” she insisted. “I’ve thought about it. I’ll burn the fucking house down with it, if you’d prefer.”
He laughed, “Okay, that I could get behind.”
“Oh?” she caught with a scoff. “So arson is fine but a little paper fire has you hesitant?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “This house played host to some fucked up shit…I hate what happened here. If the house burned down, I’d light a cigarette off the fucking flames and watch it burn.”
Peyton snickered, “How poetic.”
“This shit, though,” he continued slowly, gesturing lazily around to the scattered piles of books. “This shit didn’t hurt you.”
“It’s hurting me now…” Peyton whispered.
Jimmy’s heart caught with a rope. It dangled lifelessly as Peyton’s green eyes nervously crawled up to meet him. The desperation for understanding clinging to each fleck of jade was enough to have him weak. He still wasn’t sure she wouldn’t later regret ridding herself of all of her mother’s art, but he’d never been one to deny her.
And if something brought her pain, Jimmy was determined to destroy it.
“A fire it is,” he smirked.
“We should get out of this attic,” Peyton breathed. “It smells like death in here.”
Jimmy laughed, “Whatever you want, Lex.”
He climbed to his feet and waltzed over to his disheartened friend, stretching his arm down to her. She happily locked her grip within his own and let him pull her to her feet.
“I really hope the apartment doesn’t suck,” Peyton laughed as she headed back down to the land of the living.
Jimmy smiled, quietly agreeing with her eloquent thought.
He couldn’t believe the caliber of Peyton’s being. She’d had a heavy load dumped atop her shoulders and yet, she was still entirely willing to walk by his side to get his life in order. Maybe, he thought, he wasn’t the only one doing some saving.
Natalie would never have cast her problems aside for some menial task. Jimmy had instinctively assumed he’d be expected to reschedule his plans in order to facilitate the nurture of the wounded. But Peyton was not Natalie—and Peyton wasn’t so easily reduced to suffering. She was selfless in that way; she always had been.
“With all the dramatics,” Peyton enthused, flailing her hands apart as they sauntered down the steps to the main floor, “I didn’t even get a chance to ask you how the studio was.”
“Stop,” Jimmy partly gasped.
Her brows furrowed, “Stop what?”
“Being…you,” he laughed nervously. “You’ve gotta stop, dude.”
“You’ve gotta stop calling me dude,” she countered playfully.
He smirked, “I can’t do that.”
“Anyway,” she chuckled. “How was the studio?”
Jimmy scowled, “Are you deaf?”
“No…I don’t think so.”
“Stop asking me about my day,” he laughed lightly, nudging her with his elbow as they sank into the living room couch. “Let’s worry about you.”
She shook her head, “I’m over talking about me. I want to know what you were up to. Tell me.”
Jimmy caught himself fawning. She leaned against her arm resting atop the couch, staring at him intently for response. She was just as stubborn as he, but she was so much sweeter about her motives. He was finding it difficult to admit to himself that he rather enjoyed coming home to her. He couldn’t imagine what life would be like after losing her…twice.
“Peyton,” he spoke shakily. “Can I—”
“Peyton?” she gawked. “Did asking about your day piss you off that much?”
“No,” he snickered, trying and failing to muster his courage. “I just…I was thinking about you leaving…”
She faltered, sinking into denial to avoid having to think about her actual reservations.
“Jimmy,” she sighed.
“Do you know when you’re going?” he asked quietly. “Have you decided?”
She bit down on her tongue, mentally scanning her calendar. After delegating the workload out to professionals, there really wasn’t much left on the to-do list. If she had to guess, she’d estimate the completion date at only a few weeks. If she took her sweet time, she could maybe stretch it to a third week.
The sliver of truth in her was screaming with reasons to stay. But without a validated, surfaced and significant reason, she quickly turned all of the others down.
“The end of the month,” she offered weakly, her voice betraying her.
Jimmy swallowed down his feelings, “That soon, huh?”
“Probably…I have a shop to get back to…”
He nodded, trying his best not to let his sincere disappointment show. But as his blues settled onto her features, he was certain he could see his pain reflected in her. Was it possible she was…hesitant?
Daring himself to push passed his binds, Jimmy cleared his throat, “Lexi, would it matter if—”
“Oh, fuck,” Peyton accidentally interrupted, her gaze settled with horror out the window.
Jimmy didn’t even have to ask. As he turned himself at a painful angle, he spotted the demon that had terrorized Peyton all her life. She was smaller than he remembered. Far frailer. He assumed years and years of drug abuse was bound to alter a skeleton or two.
“Fuck,” Peyton grumbled, quickly dashing away from the sofa and down the hall.
Jimmy wasn’t sure whether to stay or to follow, so he planted roots into the fabric. He watched Allison with a wild fascination. She looked, dare he think it, nervous. But tucked beneath her arm was the unmistakable cover of Peyton’s sketchbook.
Maybe there was a part of Allison that could stick to her word. At least for her daughter’s sake.
Peyton resurfaced a moment later, a shoebox clutched between her hands.
“Is that it?” Jimmy asked casually.
She nodded, “I guess so. It’s where my dad said it would be…”
“Still want me to do it?”
Peyton was riddled with uncertainty.
“Give me the box, Lex,” he laughed, quickly snatching it from her before she had time to protest. “You just sit there and be pretty.”
Without the opportunity to disagree, Jimmy removed himself from the situation. He quickly put his long legs to good use as he sauntered from the house and out passed the lawn. Allison eyed him strangely as he neared her place on the sidewalk. Her scowl shifted from confusion to familiarity as she placed his blue eyes in her memories.
“James,” she stated. “As I live and breathe.”
“It would be better if you didn’t,” Jimmy growled. “But here we are.”
She lowered her brows, “Where’s my daughter?”
“Peyton,” he offered as means of correction. “isn’t here.”
Allison looked…disappointed. It annoyed Jimmy to his core.
“I’ll take her book,” Jimmy grunted, gesturing to the black cover under the monster’s arm.
“I didn’t realize how good she was,” Allison spoke, holding the book with trembling hands out toward him. “She got it from me, you know.”
Jimmy grabbed it from her, protectively sinking his fingertips into its spine, “No, she didn’t.”
“Ever her protector, huh?” she asked with a roll of her eyes.
Jimmy nodded, “Yep. And if you ever come around her again without explicit request, I swear to god, I will kill you.”
Allison laughed—but Jimmy wasn’t joking. His stony face unsettled her amusement.
“Is that mine?” she asked impatiently, suddenly aware of just how large this man before her was.
He towered over her without issue.
“I guess,” he shrugged.
“Well come on, James,” she hurried. “I have shit to do.”
He handed her the box lazily, taking the opportunity to run his eyes along the sores and bruises collected along her arms. She paid absolutely no mind to his curiosity as she pulled the security from his grip.
She lifted a corner of the lid, eternally paranoid and suspicious of Dan’s generosity. She couldn’t be sure Peyton hadn’t taken a few dollars out for herself. But as her eyes fell onto the cash, she was confident it was all accounted for. She knew where to come if it wasn’t.
Allison glanced along the front of the house, quietly and ashamedly searching for signs of her daughter. But as she moved her focus back to the lanky man before her, Allison figured he was just as good as her daughter. He knew more of Peyton’s intricacies than she could ever hope to catch sight of. This man knew her daughter in ways Allison never, ever could. He knew how to love her.
She’d never been able to find her way.
“Is that all you need?” he asked her impatiently.
Allison nodded, glancing one last time over his shoulder and through the window. And there, staring back, was Peyton.
“James?”
Jimmy grunted something of an acknowledgment.
“You’ll take care of her, won’t you?” she asked, a hint of sorrow surprising Jimmy.
He raised a suspicious eyebrow.
“That kid’s been dealt a shit hand,” she muttered, letting herself linger along Peyton’s gaze. “But you took care of her then. I know that.”
Jimmy opened his mouth to speak but quickly stopped himself. He’d never seen Allison…calm.
“So,” she moved along, clearing her throat as she snapped her eyes back to him. “Take care of her.”
He nodded, “I will…”
Allison tore herself away from the house without another word. Jimmy quickly retreated into the Winchester house, surprised to find Peyton entirely still. The worry on her face had all but vanished. She seemed somehow at peace.
Jimmy wondered if he should tell her what Allison had said…how genuine she’d seemed.
“She actually gave it back?” Peyton asked in disbelief.
He nodded, glancing awkwardly down at the book in his hands.
“Wow,” she scoffed. “Hell’s frozen over, I guess.”
“Where do you want it?”
She waved him off, “Just throw it wherever…Hey, we should go grab some dinner before we have to head to the apartment. I’m fucking starving.”
“Sure, Lex,” he smiled. “Whatever you want.”
As she breezed her way from the couch to the doorway where he lingered, she took the time to climb to the tips of her toes and plant a sweet kiss upon his cheek.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He smiled in lieu of reply.
“I’m just going to go change quick,” she informed him as she bounded up the stairs. “I smell like depression.”
Jimmy laughed, giving his head a shake.
As Peyton’s footsteps bounded along the floor above, Jimmy set the book atop the coffee table. Unable to contain his curiosity, he flipped open the cover and then through the pages. He wasn’t sure what all had been scratched into the book before it was stolen, but he could find no signs of anything being ripped from the bind.
But as he neared the back of the book, brushing passed the several portraits he was sure were abstract interpretations of his handsome mug, he stopped.
Staring up at him was a drawing he knew hadn’t come from Peyton’s hand. The style was vastly different, if not shaky and unsure. But there was no mistaking the meaning. Glancing over his shoulder for signs of Peyton’s return, Jimmy hastily made a decision.
He ripped the page from the coil bind and slammed the book closed. Wasting no time, he moved his way into the kitchen and stashed it in the back of a cupboard. He just hoped Peyton wouldn’t suddenly strike up an urge to rummage through her kitchen before he’d have a chance to move it.
But he knew Peyton wasn’t ready to see it.
And he while he couldn’t be sure, he felt sincerely that she’d regret throwing it into the pile of kindling. Like her drawing pencils all those years ago, Jimmy figured he’d store it away. He’d keep it safe and secret. And when she was ready, he would pass it with trembling hands to its rightful owner.
And he’d be there to pick up the pieces it would sever.
One last time, Jimmy would protect Peyton from her mother.

Notes

Hmm... A couple curious things in this chapter.

Hmmmmmm

xx