"Hey."
...no...
"Hey."
Mmn...five more minutes—
"Sawyer!"
Jack grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me awake, features reading frustration and worry. I almost punched him in the face (by instinct, of course. I totally didn't want him to shut up right then and there) and tried to free myself from his hold. No luck; this guy had the most inconvenient iron grip.
"Jesus, one of the only days I have off and you're trying to wake me up this early?!"
"How did I get here. What are all these stitches doing in me, why was there so much blood in the room—" He stopped himself, looked me up and down, and folded his arms with a scowl. "Of course, why am I trying to get a straight answer out of you. You're probably going to give me some bullshit story about your second cousin-in-law having a lobotomy, or whatever you can think up this time."
I sat up and held my head, trying to process all this at...
What time is it, even?
"You're still holding onto that, huh," I said through gritted teeth, feeling a massive headache about to come on. "Sorry for lying to save my own life that one time."
"Whatever, just tell me what I'm doing here. I wake up with half of my body covered in these," he said, lifting his torn-up scrap of a shirt and gesturing to a stitch in his left side, "no memory of how they got there, covered in tar and blood, and I walk into the next room to find you snoring up a storm. What the hell is up, Doc?!"
I frowned. "I don't snore."
"That's what you're taking away from this?"
"Okay, you need to calm down. First of all, it's..." I grabbed for my phone on the night-table, but my hand found nothing. I looked over and saw that it was nowhere in sight. Jack cleared his throat and held it out for me to take. I snatched it away with a glare, checking the time.
"...8:15? Yeah, I'm calling that way too early to even think about waking up the average college student on a weekend. And why did you take my phone?"
"I don't know, I thought maybe you'd call the police if you saw me here? I mean, take one look at me right now and say you wouldn't."
"You're ridiculous. Besides, why would I do that the morning after I pretty much saved your life? A little counterproductive, wouldn't you say? Don't wait up." I got up and walked into the bathroom, grabbed a washcloth, soaked it, and wrung it out before handing it to a fairly confused Jack who had trailed along after me.
"You...saved me?"
"Uh, yeah. Here. Clean up. I'm not touching any of this anymore than I need to," I said, gesturing up and down at him. Any weird sense of gratitude he might have felt towards me faded from his features. He narrowed his eyelids.
"Rude." He reluctantly took the cloth, then seemed to realize something with panic. "Wait, I wasn't all there, was I?"
"If you mean intoxicated beyond belief, then yeah. Don't wor—"
"Shit! I—did I hurt you? I must've, that's what usually happens. You really shouldn't have taken me in, you could've died! I mean, you probably deserved it, but—"
I laughed and reached for a tube of toothpaste on one of the higher shelves. "Relax, dumbass, you didn't do anything. Just climbed up to the second floor window and waited in my room, one limp, rag doll of a man. It was sad, really. You were like some drunk teen girl on cloud nine." I tilted my head, examining myself in the mirror. When was the last time I brushed my hair? "Maybe I should give you a lollipop, for being such a good patient."
There was a beat of silence, and he grabbed my arm to turn me so we were face-to-face. "I didn't try to eat you? I didn't hurt you, not at all?"
I narrowed my eyes. "No, not at all. But there's no need to be so rude about it, don't think I can't reopen some of those wounds for you."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? Because I can—"
"No, why didn't I try to hurt you? Usually when that kind of thing happens, I turn into some desperate, ravenous animal. Don't know what's right and wrong, and even if I did, I don't care."
"So not much of a change, huh?" He opened his mouth to retort, but I cut him off. "I don't know, man, maybe you knew how bad you were hurt and didn't want to try your luck. Maybe you knew I'd help you, maybe you were planning to do something when I least expected it! Do you really think I know any more about this than you do?"
"You have to, I can barely remember why I was like that now! I don't know the things I said, I don't know how true or weird or disturbing they might've been. You've got to remember something that I don't."
I thought about it, and gave in to a tiny smile. "You said I seemed like I'd like needles."
"Something helpful."
"You said I was your best friend. Oho, the soft side of Jack returns!" I said, attempting to get him in a chokehold. He dodged (barely) and grumbled to himself, eyelids twitching.
"Maybe trying to kill you wasn't such a bad idea after all."
"Gotta say, I like drunk-you a lot better than you-you." I huffed and crossed my arms. "If you're going to be so grumpy about this, maybe you're ready to leave."
His face went through three whole stages of grief in a split second, and he grabbed my shoulders with a snarl. "No. No, I am not leaving. Just. Yet."
"Dude, let go—"
"I can't go back now, I don't know if I ever will. They'll kill me, that's what they'll do, maybe something worse. I..." He seemed to realize what he was doing, stepped back, looked me up and down, and held up his hands with an uncertain expression. "...if I explain myself to you, can I stay?"
I raised my eyebrows. "Explain what, exactly? I thought you said you couldn't remember anything—?"
"No, not that. I...well, for all I know, whatever happened here will come back to me later. But I do know what went on before I got—you know."
"Stabbed, cursed, disfigured?"
"Whatever you want to call it, yeah. And I promise I'll do my best to tell the truth. But you will let me stay here, just a little bit longer. Right?"
I considered it, then looked at the washcloth in his hand, still unused.
"Alright. Then maybe I can teach you how to be a functioning human being, and avoid ending up here next time altogether." I started downstairs after a brief pause. "There isn't going to be a next time, right...?"
"Hard to say."
"I'll take what I can get."
—
"Dude. Just choose one. Coffee or tea?"
"I said I don't know what either is going to do to me, and I'm thinking about it!"
"Then pour yourself a glass of water or something! We don't have all...okay, technically we do have all day."
I sat down at the little kitchen table, holding my head and squeezing my eyes shut as I waited for my own cup of joe to cool down. Jack had seated himself right on the edge of the table like he owned the damn place, but I was too drowsy to complain about it right now. I'd probably just let him info-dump for the next hour or so and send him on his way. At the very least, we would have some quiet, pathetic excuse of a breakfast and leave each other alone. I breathed in the steam from my mug and sighed, gaze flickering his way.
"Alright. You're here because you said you'd explain yourself. Well, the floor's all yours, Jim."
"Don't call me that."
"We'll see. How about the...people you were talking about earlier, or whatever they are. What got you so worked up?"
I knew from the way he winced that I'd struck a nerve, but oddly enough, he didn't seem at all reluctant to talk.
"Oh, where to start. Uh, okay..." He tapped his knees, getting all nervous for some reason. "You know when your parents encourage you and want you to succeed, but it's not really out of love? They're just more interested in having a nice little diploma from you on their wall to look at?"
I couldn't exactly say I related to that, but I knew what he meant. "Yeah."
He sighed. "So, that's kind of what pledging your body and soul to a demon is like."
"Excuse me?"
"Don't get me wrong, they're all total jackasses. None of them could ever be my parents, not in a million years, but they help me. More or less. They keep me alive. It's a pact, I just never really got a choice in the matter."
"What's that supposed to mean...?" I gave him the side-eye again, though I couldn't exactly tell what was making me so suspicious of him now. "You were born into an occultist family who wouldn't let you live out your pastel dreams, or something? That sounds like the plot to a bad movie."
"Excuse you, I led a perfectly normal life up until..." he started counting on his fingers. "...Jesus, almost five years ago. No, that's not important right now. The point is that I'm trapped in a deal. A deal I don't even know the full extent of, and that means some pretty weird shit can happen."
"Too vague," I commented. He snapped his fingers in front of my face as if to get my attention, or just shut me up.
"I'm getting to it. One demon in particular—'boss,' I like to call him—he's always on my case, trying to figure out what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, whether it benefits him, all that. If I'm not in line, he gets...well, mad. I'm used to it, but when it's really bad, he'll use some portion of his own energy to basically control me. It's not like he's in my body or at the controls of a ship, it's more like he lets a little bit of evil in me take the helm for a while. Make all the carnage I was supposed to. Helps him get his money's worth, you know?"
"He makes you kill people...just because he wants you to kill people," I said disbelievingly. He shrugged.
"Yes and no. See, I still do what I want. He doesn't let go of his little servants too easily, but all he really does to 'punish' them is make them go practically unhinged. Likes the chaos, I think. Wants to watch the world burn. So I'm free as a bird," he said airily, but with a certain amount of dark irony. My head was spinning at all these contradictions.
"Okay, so you also just kill people for the hell of it. You don't have any issues with that?"
"It's called survival, Sawyer. A little catch to all this, written in the finest print at the bottom; there's only so much I can eat. At least to sustain myself with. Human meat's one of those things. Specifically, the organs. What, did you think I actually like the taste of it?" He raised a finger before I could give my honest answer. "Then technically you'd be right, but only because I got used to it after a while."
I furrowed my eyebrows and tried to sort all this out. Does he have free will or not? And why was he hurt so bad, if that "boss" demon can't...
"Okay, pump the brakes here. You still haven't answered my question, what happened to you that you had to practically drag yourself to my house, and had all these gashes, and you were acting super weird, and—"
"Like I said. Stupid guy gets mad at me for whatever reason, decides I'm not doing good enough, lets my better judgement take the backseat for a while. It's like all the anger and aggression and sadistic thoughts I have get concentrated into this tiny ball, and then it just explodes."
"But...the blood? The wounds?! You just said that's all he does, why were you such a mess when I saw you?"
"Oh. Uh, well...I kind of did that to myself, if I'm being honest." He refused to look at me, as if I'd throttle him when he finally did. To be fair, I was thinking about it. This guy had the audacity to get himself to that mangled state, crawl into my home, act like a harmless drunk and get me to patch him up just like that? I spent a good two hours on you, goddammit! And now I'm being told it was for nothing?
"Jack, I'm not sure if words can convey how tired I am of your shit right now."
"Look, it's not that I want to! Honestly, I didn't even know I was hurting myself at first, I guess when I lose it like that I search for ways to get him off my back. When I'm half-dead and lying on the ground, bleeding out, there's not much he can make me do. And once he leaves me alone after that kind of...episode, I guess you could call it, my brain's completely burned out. No filter whatsoever." He shuddered the slightest bit. "And all that smoke...something's definitely wrong. I haven't seen that before—"
"Wait, you remember the smoke?"
"Of course. I always remember what happens if I think about it long enough. Some of last night started coming back to me about a minute ago. And, if I may be frank..." he said, turning to me with his head in one hand and a barely disguised smirk plastered on his face. "You were worried about me, weren't you?"
That...bastard.
"Ugh, this. I knew it, I knew you would say something—"
"Come on, just admit it! You were so scared to see me die, that little wall you put up, it's all an act!"
I shot him a cold glare. "Sure. Tell yourself that, if it makes you feel any better."
"I can safely say it does. Look, this is payback for all that 'Jack has a heart' bullshit you pulled with me, don't think I've forgotten it!" Before I could start walking away, he grabbed my wrist and held up one finger.
"So I guess you're just a big softie who's getting her M.D. in three years' time."
I paused, all of the frustration and annoyance bubbling in my chest having been drowned out by some new feeling. Hope, surprise? I looked at his face for traces of sarcasm or malice. Nothing.
"...you think I'm going to get it?"
"You dealt with me. Why not?"
As I grappled for some kind of normal response to that, my undying desire to win at all costs got the better of me.
"Well—hey, you're the one who kept getting all chummy with me while you were high on whatever that stuff was. And you said you were doing it because you thought you were going to die, you thought you'd never see me again!"
He raised an eyebrow. "Did I really say that was why? Or is it just what you told yourself afterwards?"
I spent the next couple of seconds wondering how fast I could undo his stitches, eventually coming to the conclusion that a good old-fashioned shove off the table would do.
"Oh, that is it!" I said, hugging my knees after the deed had been done and shooing him away. "About time you got out of my house, anyway. Go on! Scram!"
"Scram? What are you, some '70's street gang leader?" Jack scoffed, rubbing his head. He'd hit the floor a lot harder than I intended him to, but that shouldn't have made my message any less clear. I stuck my tongue out at him as he stood back up.
"I might as well be," I answered vaguely. To tell the truth, I didn't even know what I meant by that. He frowned, and not in a teasing way anymore.
"So this is what you're going to be like with all your little future patients? 'Get out of my office, you're fine!'" He waved his hands in the air, mimicking me, and I could've sworn that if he still had eyes he would be rolling them right now. I stood up and started pushing him towards the front door.
"This is so, so, so different, and you know that. Get that weird, redhead disguise of yours ready, because you're leaving whether you like it...or...not!" I said through clenched teeth, pushing with all my remaining strength while Jack stood adamantly in place.
"Come on! Can't I just stay here for, like, one more day? Besides, I don't even think I can get it ready, for all I know those demons have abandoned me!"
"I still have to clean this place, are you blind?!"
"Uh, yeah, I am! And I could help you with that!"
I stopped pushing out of surprise, but didn't move from my spot. I looked at him through narrowed eyes, remembering exactly who I was dealing with here.
"...Jack."
"What? Is that so out there that I wa—"
"You're kind of a monster. Don't forget it."
Oh, boy, I could've phrased that a lot nicer. He almost looked shocked himself, and I felt a pang of guilt.
No, no, why do I feel guilty?! He's a dangerous cannibal who made some eternal pact with a demon, he threatened to kill me multiple times, and I'm just supposed to let him stay in my house because he's scared?
There was a sobered pause. Eventually, I took his hand with a sigh.
"Let's get you cleaned up."
I would have added, "I can't believe how bad you are at that alone," but now clearly wasn't the time to beat him down even more. I'm a healer, for Christ's sake.