An Admiral's Window

It is not often one sees the end of the world from a bedroom window. There is a boy outside. He is eleven, and carries with him all that is jaysome in the world in the span of a smile, the heartbeat of a grin. He is from far Outside the universe and there is precious little he cannot do, though many things that he doesn’t know how to. And some that are forbidden. But even a Jay knows that sometimes friendship is more important than bindings.

Outside the window, under a sky full of stars that won’t ever be seen again, below a night sky that exists for this moment, the boy faces down a Monster. The Monster is twelve. You could say he is Jay, if you were the worst liar that ever lived. They shape the same face. Even, partially, a name. But they are not the same.

Jay screams, as much in shock as from pain, staring at his broken left arm. “That hurt!”

“This is not your affair.” The voice of the Monster is so cold and empty one could almost think it calm.

“It is! Admiraljane said that if I know my future then I can skip being twelve and being not-jaysome and be thirteen and it makes –.”

The Monster gestures. Curt, hard, ugly with meaning and power.

Jay hits earth, though it may not be any earth we understand. He sways as he stands, panting for air. “You’re not jaysome. You’re just a – an Apophis, a meany chaos serpent strangling –.”

“Enough.” And there are things under that word you have never heard before and hope to never hear again. You cannot see the eyes of the Monster. This is only a blessing.

Even Jay is silent. Even the most jaysome Jay that ever was is silent.

“You will not turn this into some prompt, some story, some game,” the Monster hisses, the words laced with a fury beyond comprehension. “I am ending this threat to the future, and you are not enough to stand against me.”

Jay staggers, trembles all over. It has been a long, long time since he suffered physical hurt like this. It takes time to remember how to harness it, how to use it. He knows it will not be enough. You can hear it in his breathing. Outside the window, standing. His voice is gentle. Kind, because he is jaysome as much as he is innocent. “AdmiralJane is my friend. I won’t let you do this.”

“You cannot stop me,” and the Monster’s voice is somehow worse for sounding normal. It is a fact, a truth without end of beginning.

“I know. But I have friends,” Jay says. And he draws power from the wandering magician.

And the Monster stands against that. The Monster moves forward, and unbinds all within its gaze.

“I’m not going to lose,” and Jay’s voice is quiet and furious. “I have more,” and there is energy. More, and more. Drawn from other places, other spaces, other lives.

“....” The Monster says nothing.

“Try me now!”

“You are using energy from all your followers on Tumblr. You risk losing all that.”

“Nope. I’m not going to cuz I don’t need to be a jaysaurus to be jaysome!”

The Monster falls back. Not from a truth, but from something that runs deeper than any truth the Monster knows.

“You won’t do this because you’re still me and that means you are jaysome!” And Jay’s voice is bigger. Louder. Resonant and old and young and there is meaning, and truth, order and chaos, and above it all a deep, deep, impossible thing that transcends even love.

The Monster vanishes.

And Jay turns to the window. And he is only Jay, and he is small, and gentle, and as serious as only a Jay can be. “I think maybe I have to be twelve,” he says simply, and vanishes back to talk to Honcho and Charlie and to keep being eleven as long as he can.

The Monster does not return.

Not yet.