originaljackass | Ch. 16 - Abandonment is part of life with Jack of Fables.

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Ch. 16 - Abandonment is part of life with Jack of Fables.

[And so, today, Jack goes to check in on Clementine because what the hell she didn't come to get breakfast or anything. But when he stepped into her room, it was empty. All except for Mr. Revise, who looked at a bed that was far too neatly made for a seven year old to have fixed up.

Well well, it seems your morality pet has finally vanished. I wonder, how ever shall you become better man now?

"You shut your goddamn mouth, old man." Jack was upset. Mildly. He decided he was already over it. He shrugged and paid no mind to the ox that trotted in after him, hopped up on the bed, and proceeded to fall asleep. Whatever! "Clem's gone? Then fine. That means I'm free. No responsibilities. Back to parties all night and fucking any woman I please! And the best part is, I don't have to listen to whatshisname go on and on about how great he is."

Yes. You'll be a regular pillar of society. I wonder what horrible fate will befall you, then? Perhaps your promiscuity will turn you into a goat. Or your tongue shall make you a snake. Ahh, or perhaps you'll spend another decade in solitude as a pitiful, greedy dragon. I recall you enjoyed that enough to do it twice.

Jack glared at the old man, who he knew good and well as imaginary. And yet he responded anyway. After all, the ox was oblivious and Clem wasn't here to give him strange looks. "I know what you're trying to do. Just drive me crazy by whining all the time. Well it won't work! I'm perfectly sane. I'm just talking to a little bug the Malnosso put in my head. That's completely normal. They're evil scientists. I bet they do that to a lot of people."

Oh, you poor stupid little man. Is that what you think this is? I'm real, Mr. Horner. All of this, isn't. This is the Memory Hole. It was not a little girl that tempted you to reform. It was because I have censored you. You have been neutered and stripped clean of less than desirable traits, but you have created this world to pretend you have some element of control. I assure you that you do not. I will continue to pick you clean, bit by bit, and you will never escape.

And then, at some point in the day, an entire bed went flying out of wall of Jack's apartment. But he ignored it, because the building would fix itself and he had decided that he was officially out of fucks to give. He would go to the bar, do his normal shift, and that night before he put himself to bed with a tall bottle of whiskey, he offered the journal a brief statement.]

[Voice]

Clementine is back to her zombie paradise. She knows how to use a gun, so she might last a few more years. Maybe even ten or twenty. That's a normal lifespan, right? Anyway, she's gone. Just in case anybody gives a damn.

[He considers answering any responses, but eh. What's the point? She's gone, thus she's irrelevant. Only an idiot would get sappy at this point.]

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[Lee cannot come to the book right now, due to being taken away by the Malnosso a week ago and still being at one of their luxury experiment suites. But to give you an idea of how he would feel about this, here is a video montage containing many spoilers for the Walking Dead Telltale game set to the ending song of the first season. It is very sad and emotional and that is generally how Lee will feel in a week and a half when he returns. See you then Jack!]

['Never a dull moment.']

[Well... actually no, it was supposed to be dull. Retirement was supposed to be dull for a reason, wasn't it? It was an odd thing to think, but it was odd enough that a bed had come sailing out of a wall as she, Jenny, and Tom-Tom were returning home from counting paces in the western part of the village. Both she and Jenny moved to cover Thomas, but after a moment the ensuing silence tells Vastra that the bed was probably the last of it.]

[She tells Jenny to take Thomas inside and she moves cautiously towards the gaping hole in the side of the building. It was Jack's apartment...]

Mr. Horner? [Vastra doesn't sound entirely convinced that he's inside. Her mind is, of course, going back to every strange, unearthly thing that she had encountered during her time at Scotland Yard. And really, Vastra hadn't been entirely convinced that her retirement would stay quiet anyway.]

Mr. Horner-- [A little louder, just in case.] --are you in there?

[Jack was inside, but he was oblivious to her. After all, he was still in a conversation.

Mr. Revise, unseen by anyone but his eyes, stood smugly where the hole was, blocking Jack from even seeing Vastra.

Well done, Mr. Horner. You've proven yourself more a child than ever.]

Oh my God, will nothing make you shut up!? Not even Bigby was as much of a nag as you are!

[Well, at least he is in fact inside and isn't something horrific Vastra never wants to meet while unarmed. ~~That's usually how it works on her show...~~]

[However, she isn't terribly thrilled by the greeting. So much for her attempt to be neighborly. Vastra frowns and comes closer to Jack's newest home renovation project.]

Are you actually suggesting I simply ignore the fact that you threw an entire bedframe and mattress through the wall of our building? Pause to consider.

Huh?

[Jack tilted his head around the imaginary old man and sure enough, it was his classy lizard lady neighbor. Great. Now someone else saw him being crazy. So not what he needed.]

Right. Whatever. Yeah, I did that.

[Mr. Revise, invisible, said nothing. He did not smile, but somehow looked smug at the same time. It was rather impressive how he pulled it off.]

[Vastra absorbed that for a minute and reconsidered what Jack said. Things didn't exactly line up, did they? In her memory, Jack had never thrown furniture through his wall. Been abrasive and uncouth, yes, but he was acting so unlike himself that Vastra couldn't continue to be annoyed.]

[She looked back at the bed, then at the hole.]

Tea?

Tea?

[He was not, at the moment, visualizing the beverage. The letter, really. And he couldn't fathom why she was asking about it.]

Can I make you some tea? [She didn't exactly slow her words down because she thought Jack wasn't parsing what she was saying, but there was a definite heavy indication in her tone.] It's usually the answer to almost everything in England, at least.

[... that kind of tea. He frowns at her.]

Does this look like something tea will fix?

Try sixty or seventy. Of course, her definition of normal and our definition are probably--

[ ...oh, screw it. ] I'm coming over. Can I come over?

[ even if he doesn't answer, she's still coming over. possibly with supplies. ]

Naturally, he does not answer. His journal is on the corner of the table, closed and with an extra bottle of whiskey on top of it. There was a bed outside the building and it looked particularly damaged, but how it got there was a mystery, because the wall and window it came out of were now more or less back to their original state. There was a blue ox sleeping underneath the coffee table, upon which Jack's legs were perched upon. He was drinking whiskey straight up from the bottle and staring at the DVD case of "Jack Tales II: Jack the Giant Killer" which had taped to the wall.

He still didn't have his damn TV.

Someone, somewhere, was fond the saying that history repeated itself. And deep down, Buffy knew she could never not try and bluster in and be there for even monsters. For even jackasses. Especially jackasses, perhaps, when her own confidence was rattled and she needed a project to distract her. And then, of course, there was the poignant part where she would also miss Clem. But she tried to ignore that pain, focusing instead on the very real ache gained by kicking the toe of her shoes against the fractured bed. Why was it outside? She didn't want to know.

Upon entering the building and making it to Horner's door, she didn't bother to knock. She strode right in. To his two bottles of whiskey she added one of flavoured vodka. And a deck of cards. And a bag of peanut M&Ms.

Her head turned to the wall. Then back to Jack. Then to the wall again. "...Wow."

Edited 2013-10-06 16:37 (UTC)

Jack only seemed to be numbly aware of the addition of more booze on his table. He made no effort to acknowledge her or any other pleasantries. At this point, he'd drank almost nearly enough that the DVD on the wall was becoming enjoyable. Almost.

"This is the good part," he explained.

He was pretending not to notice Mr. Revise sitting next to him and condemning him for each mouthful he washed down his throat.

"...You're so drunk."

Frankly, she didn't see him drunk-drunk all that often. Not like this. It both worried her and warmed her -- the first because she had a conscience and the second because she half-believed so did he. Buffy's arms crossed, formidable in a bulky woollen autumnal jacket with big artisan-like wooden buttons down the front. All, of course, of irregular shapes. Very hip; very cool. But most of all? Very protective.

"And, yet, not nearly drunk enough. Probably."

Edited 2013-10-06 16:42 (UTC)

"I'm working on it."

Unlike other rapid healers, Jack possessed no innate ability that slowed his ability to get drunk. Sure, he'd had a thousand years to develop an impressive tolerance. But even he would have a hell of a hangover after this.

A fact which Mr. Revise reminded him of. So Jack pressed the bottle back to his lips just to spite him.

"Far be it from me to judge," she started wryly -- fully engaging in the hypocrisy of decrying judgement while full knowing just how often she did it -- and dragged a hand over her tightly-braided hair. "But it's not really the sorta thing you should be working on alone, don't you think?"

Maybe she was daring him to tell her otherwise. To demand she leave. To prove her wrong, one last time, and let her walk away and leave her paltry sweet offerings behind. Hell, it looked as though the card deck had never even been unsealed.

Edited 2013-10-06 16:47 (UTC)

He peeled his eyes away from the DVD to lazily stare at her.

"I'm Jack of the Tales. All of my stories are all about me. Not me and... some other person. I'm a solo gig."

not here

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