originaljackass | Ch. 14 - Life is hunky dory when your name is Jack of Fables

[When Jack's memories returned to normal, he found himself sad only to discover his briefcase was empty. And then when he realized that, he rushed to a mirror and was relieved to find out he was still his incredibly handsome and athletic self. He wouldn't be swelling up to a dragon this time. He didn't know why he had been spared that fate this time, but he took it to be a personal victory. Smugly, he smiled at himself, reminded himself of how awesome he was, and was back to his old self again.

And so from every day since Luceti returned to normal, Jack has served more than his normal shifts at the bar. With Buffy still missing and not all of the staff at their best, he was filling in for them. After all, an experiment like that was going to result in a lot of people needing a good stiff drink. He was only pleased to oblige them. After all, Luceti had no form of therapy other than what could be found at the bottom of a glass at Good Spirits.

Today, however, he felt inclined to talk about the experience. Calmly and rationally.]

[Voice]

So that was a hell of a thing. How many of you guys remember the first one? I swear, this place gets loopier each and every day. The fighting at the end was new. Last time around it didn't get so bloody. Well, it did for me. I turned into a dragon and then had a bunch of psycho, devil-associating lesbians hunt me down to kill me. I think we can all agree that a few crazy vulture-winged assholes isn't as bad as it could be. Especially seeing as killing them is easier than shooting fowl in Duck Hunt.

And for those of you still pouting, come on down to Good Spirits. First drink's on the house.

[Jack will be around that evening to serve drinks and be his usual self. At least until he goes heading home that night. The droids get the jump on him and it's off to experimentation land for him!]

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[Clove smiles faintly but shakes her head.]

Never heard of him.

Well, he's the bad guy in the supernatural world. All the bad people in life? They go to hell, a big pit of fire for eternal torture to suffer for all the misdeeds in life. Disproportionate retribution, right? Well, Old Scratch promised me that if I let him go, he'd see to it I never went to hell. And someone like me? Well, there's not much chance of me getting past the pearly gates to heaven everlasting. So I agreed and set him free. And after that, things seemed to be going my way. I could do whatever I wanted without worry of hell afterwards. So what was there to fear in the land of the living?

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

That's what I though. Only trouble was, I did die. I got caught making off with a princess and the bitch acted like I was kidnapping her. So the bastards beheaded me. I end up in the afterlife, all ready to go to heaven and enjoy my life eternal. Only I'm not in the reserved seating list. So I go down to the gates of hell to ask Old Scratch what the deal is. Turns out, the bastard deceived me. He agreed to keep me out of hell, but that was it. Since neither hell or heaven would take me, I was stuck in between, shambling through the world as an undead.

And you want to know how long I was stuck like that? One hundred goddamn years. The longest time I ever went without getting laid.

[Clove looks appropriately surprised, and she leans forward, taking another sip of her drink before asking:]

How did you get that undone?

Well, you see, all those names I listed for the Devil? Turns out, they're not all the same guy. Every world has its own devil. Some have more than one. And they're all egocentric and want everyone to think they're the only one.

So I just made a new deal that got me back to the land of the living. I'd get a hundred years of life from one and then I'd find another and bargain some more years to get ahead. I was up to five hundred extra years at one point.

...That's really smart.

I wish I could pull off something like that. Probably couldn't, though.

No, probably not. See, devils are tricky bastards. You gotta be as smart as they are, or they'll swindle you and give you nothing. After my encounter with Old Scratch, I wisened up to their slippery ways.

Sounds like the Capitol, back where I'm from.

Full of greedy, backstabbing politicians? That's government for you. Also hell, as it turns out.

[There aren't really politicians. Just President Snow. But there are the gamemakers. And the Capitol citizens.]

I've never heard of hell before.

Hell is where bad people go when they die. In most cases, it's a place of everlasting torment where everything is on fire and people are forced to roll boulders up hills for no apparent reason while birds peel off your flesh. Definitely not the kind of place you want to send your kids for summer vacation. Lots of mundy folk have justified that it doesn't exist. But having stood outside the gates of hell and peeked in? I can verify that it's as real as I am.

Where bad people go when they die.

...What do the people who get sent there do? I mean. What sort of things makes someone go there when they die?

Oh, the usual things. Lying, cheating, whoring, gambling stealing, murdering, parking in handicapped spaces, and things like that. So, you know, no fun stuff before you die.

So that's what will happen if they send me back.

[It's a cold realization but not surprising.]

[It occurs to Jack that maybe this wasn't a good thing to tell her. Uh. He fixes her a look that looks nearly concerned.]

Well. Only if you go back?

Yeah.

[She does her best to smile, and the drink she takes tastes really, really good after that.]

Gives me more reason to want to help them, right? So I don't go back.

You and me both, Clover. I'm in no rush to get back there either. If you've got hell waiting for you? I've got hell and some really nasty devils with some particularly nasty imaginations.

I knew I'd go back to being dead. Which was a good enough reason to want to be useful. But... knowing that comes? Yeah. I think I'll kick it up a notch or two. Just to be safe.

And just think. When you die of old age here? You'll get to come back again, all alive and pretty again. Not the best kind of immortality, but it's not half bad. A lot better than waiting for some shitty afterlife with rules set up by people who you've never met.