Operation: Separate (A VenturianTale Fanfiction)

Maxwell's Grave

  Soon after their conversation took place, Johnny Toast went back to bed, urging Jimmy to do the same. Jimmy, however, was nowhere near tired after all the sleeping he had already done and had a certain ghost to talk to. Jimmy smiled and waved Toast off to bed, only waiting a few seconds after he heard the bedroom door close before he jumped up and ran out the door.
  Although usually he wasn't the easiest to track down, Jimmy already knew where Maxwell Acachalla lurked tonight. It just so happened to be the anniversary of his death, a day when Maxwell would visit his own grave and stand in utter silence. Jimmy never understood the strange tradition, but he also wasn't dead.
  Jimmy reached the old grave yard and easily found Maxwell. He was emitting his trademark green glowing aura. "That's strange," Jimmy thought to himself, "What about that body I got for him?"
  Jimmy was a little careful about approaching Maxwell; he knew how serious this day was for him. He quietly walked up normally, but not too quietly. He knew that surprising Maxwell was the last thing he wanted to do. Last time they meet up on his death day, he snuck up on him and got a faceful of lead. Johnny had to stay in the hospital for bullet wound treatment for months after that. The key was to be causal, that was for sure.
  When he finally got in arm's length of Maxwell, he stood there for only a few silent moments, hoping Maxwell would notice him first; that was another key for talking to him on this day. Maxwell didn't seem to feel Jimmy's presence what so ever, which made Jimmy resort to his plan B: a polite tap on the shoulder. "Maxwell?"
  "What?!", Maxwell spun around, his hand was on his gun, ready to fight if the situation called for it. His face shrunk when he saw it was Jimmy, "Oh, it's you..."
   Now that he had Maxwell's attention, Jimmy could be aggressive and assertive. "Listen I've got a bone to pick with you!..." he trailed off when he noticed that Maxwell simply continued to stair at his own headstone.
  "Have you ever stopped to realize exactly how important life is, Jimmy?" Maxwell looked up at Jimmy with an unfamiliar expression on his face. Where his mysterious spark in his eyes once were was a dull melancholy tone. His sharp grin was replaced with a nearly blank almost - frown. Maxwell's state puzzled Jimmy.
  "Uh, well... no." Jimmy answered truthfully.
  Maxwell sighed. "Well you should." He turned back to his grave.
  Jimmy didn't say anything for a while until he remembered while he was there. "Hey, listen, you jerk...", he trailed off again, "Hey! Where's that body I worked so hard to get you?!"
  "Decaying in the ground." Maxwell replied simply. He shifted his weight to his other foot and leaned up against a nearby tree.
  "Oh." Jimmy looked away.
  "You really don't get it, do you, Casket?" Maxwell hissed in a way that was almost a snarl.
  Jimmy was still baffled. "Get... what?"
  "You don't get death, Jimmy. Death.", Those  words ran in Jimmy's head, with emphasis on "death". Maxwell turned towards him, "But how could you? Life is just all one big game to you, something that can be thrown away....... or taken away at the swish of a knife."
  Jimmy was shocked. He had never known Maxwell to be so deep, so dark in this way. It truly terrified Jimmy. Maxwell looked over at the tree. "You know, I used to hang out here all the time." Maxwell sighed softly.
  "Uh... really..." Jimmy didn't know what he was getting at.
  "Back when I was... well...", he looked at his hands, "alive... me and my gang when meet here. Times change, don't they?" He let out of soft, sad chuckle.
  "Not that much, really, I mean..." Jimmy stopped when Maxwell gave him an angry look.
  "You don't get anything, do you? Do you get how good you've got it? Do you get what I've done for you?"
  "Is he... crying?"
  Maxwell sniffed. "Jimmy, I gave you life when I preformed the experiment on you. Something I so desperately wish I had. Something that when I replicated on myself, backfired. Seeing your success makes me mad, and frustrated... and... and sad."
  "Well, it's not all fun and games, lately, I've been getting really bad headaches and stuff." Jimmy didn't know what else to say.
  "Yeah, I guess it's catching up to you, too..." Maxwell staired off into the distance.
  "What's catching up to me?!" Jimmy asked frantically.
  Maxwell looked back at Jimmy. "Decomposition.", Maxwell took Jimmy's arm and rolled up his sweatshirt sleeve. He revealed a little red and black hold in Jimmy's skin. It looked as though it had been eaten away by maggots, "I was right." He sighed.
  Jimmy held his breath. "This can't be happening to me!" Jimmy suddenly remembered that Ghost had the headaches, too. "But wait, Johnny has the pain, too! He's not decomposing, though... right?"
  "No, you're right," Maxwell spat on his grave, "but he is still connected to you. You're accidentally sharing your pain - like Harry and Voldemort in Harry Potter."
  That wasn't helpful at all. "Well, how do I stop it?"
  "You've just got to wait it out, Casket. Death is something you just can't avoid." Maxwell looked into the moon and sighed yet again.
  "But... what happens when it's decayed?" Jimmy inquired nervously.
  "You simply become a freakish zombie, or you become a ghost." Maxwell explained.
  There were no words exchanged after that. But who could blame them? Maxwell was reminiscing in his death and Jimmy was trying to understand it. Eventually, after many long minutes of silence, Jimmy decided just to go home. What else could he do? He'd tell the Johnnys in the morning.