Jack

Seb didn’t take the scoff personally. He was used to his perspective sometimes being undermined as a human. Still, he hoped his words would encourage Jack to take care of himself anyway. 

“He’s doing good. Preparing for a trip.” The smile Sebastian wore this time was hollow, and very clearly so. He was never great at hiding his own disappointment. 

“To be in this line of work, as you are? Something that breaks my heart.” Mercy sighed, hands folded. “But you don’t need my sympathy.”

He glanced back up and over at Jack with firm, bright eyes that carried a distant sadness.

“Should you one day want help, or to help us–that offer will always be open to you.”

Jack wanted to snuff out that sadness. Like a candlelight, he would use his bare calloused hand, closing around that spark of pity in a vice grip until it stopped breathing.

“Your knees would thank you.” He sighed. “It’s already happening. My back has been sore all day. I haven’t done a thing!” 

“But, I do plan on having it looked at.” He shook his head. “I swear, you and Elliott are the same. You shouldn’t put stuff like this off.” He almost asked ‘what if it interferes with the hunt?’ but he didn’t want to nag too hard. 

Jack scoffed. His mind hadn’t been changed. His body was something else entirely, verging on eight centuries old. The thought of some medical professional telling him his joints were waning felt very unnecessary.

“Not just complaining. Don’t say that.” Seb scolded, clearly taking it more seriously than Jack. “Have you had your knees looked at recently?” 

Sebastian grinned, excessively happy about the praise and the fact that his offering was accepted. He took out a cookie from his own container and took a bite.

“Really?” Both of his eyebrows raised. Considering how old Jack currently is— to the best of Seb’s knowledge—it had to be serious. “What has you feeling like that? Anything specific?” 

“My bones ache. Getting down and getting up, it’s not good on my knees.” Jack unzipped the zipper across his mouth and tugged the black pleather further down on his chin. This exposed the jagged scars which chopped his lips and showed the sharp, uneven fangs behind them.

Ash wrinkled his nose, and the two front legs of the chair that had been inching up hit the hardwood floor.

“We making a whole date of this? Damn, alright.” He swung his boots down off the table and shoved to his feet. “I’ve got the firepit out back. I’ll burn it when wind’s low enough no one’ll freak out—” (This was punctuated with spread arms and waved hands.) “—about some burning flesh or whatever.”

Wordlessly, Sebastian reached into his pack and took out a small stack of Tupperware. Inside were freshly baked chocolate chip cookies filling them to the brim.

He held one to Jack reverently. An offering. 

Jax perched on the still-warm mattress and watched him carefully, noting the glimpses of scars beneath his clothes, the practiced way he slid into his armor as if it were a second skin.

“Small Jack here safe is, while big big real Jack out danger meet. Jack ask one other be, one other safe keep.” When he was done she stood up and looked down at her own sweater. Meager protection. 

“Jax…just not let Thing touch hurt,” she said finally.

He shook his head, smiling beneath the mask. “I promise it won’t. I’ll be wearing stronger armor than last time. I think it should afford me a little extra protection.”

“How long were you watching me? Tsk.” Sebastian shook his head in disapproval but he still wore a wide smile. The kind that couldn’t be anything but totally sincere. 

His comment was ignored for now though.

“…Hope you weren’t busy or anything.”

Setting Sun

Sebastian was waiting on someone as the day wound down. Atop a roof, away from the city, quiet. It was where he and Jack typically went to chat about the day’s work. Their spot. This time, he hadn’t called him for anything specific. Was he feeling lonely? It wasn’t like he couldn’t call Elliott up if he wanted. Knowing him, he’d drop everything, even if he was busy. But…Sebastian didn’t want him to drop everything just for him.

Bright green observed a colorful symphony in the sky — deep reds, yellows, oranges as the sun retired behind the far away mountains surrounding Maroa. It was indescribably beautiful, that much Sebastian was certain of, but there was an overarching sadness to it too as all of the warmth of the day dissipated with its retreat. 

…It wasn’t like him to focus on that aspect of it. Maybe he was feeling a little down after all.

Sebastian’s knees squeaked as he pulled them together. It probably wasn’t necessary for him to be fully dressed in his leather-clad monster hunting uniform, but he fully expected the other man to do the same, and he didn’t want him to feel overdressed. It didn’t hurt to be prepared either. His helmet sat on his lap though, letting his long red-brown hair flow freely in the wind.

Soundlessly, the space beside Sebastian shimmered like scales and transformed.. A shadow painted itself across the rooftop as Jack manifested, his dark hunting outfit catching pale oranges under the sun. He looked down at his friend through the hand-cut holes in his mask.

It was unclear, but Ash had gotten used enough to this kind of attitude, and his heavy sigh did nothing to convey whether he’d been fooled and was truly disappointed, or was continuing the joke. (Had to keep it light. His arm had just been chopped off. By a very large alien who could crunch him into the size of a pizza if he stepped out of line.)

(That said, it was actually terrifying. The idea of a limb rejecting, and the aftermath, filled Ash with dread.)

“Anything’s poison you eat enough of it, my friend.” Ash stuck a pallid finger in one of the sticky pools on the table. Ichor clung to his fingertips as he pulled away, staining the tips of them. Still had a life of its own, even here on this cold, single-sunned fucking planet covered in rot. “I dunno. Figure the Regs did their lil’ tests. Figure if they found anything they’d tell us, ‘cause they don’t want us bleeding out all over a human hospital and causing an incident.”

A bit of bitterness crept into his tone. Tch. Yeah, they didn’t want another one of those, for sure.

“Figure they lie t’us a bunch, too.” Ash kicked back and tossed his boots up on the table. He folded his hands, new and old, over his stomach and leveled his pale eyes at Jack.

“Wanna find out?”

Jack considered this. He often forgot about the Regulators and their experiments. They sucked the fun out of things, even when they were out of sight.

Mercy held his gaze for several seconds before his shoulders relaxed and he smiled sadly as if to himself.

“I do not believe that will be necessary. I don’t think we’ll be reaching an accord today.” He signaled for a member of the waitstaff who gestured that they’d be there in a moment. “I’m not trying to debate or entice you with honeyed words.

“But I am sorry for what has happened to you.”

Jack’s gaze was steady as steel. Somehow, the rejection was more infuriating than anything else.

Jax helped whenever she was directed, though the sheer scope and size of Jack’s armory was clearly a bit overwhelming. How could there be ANYTHING dangerous left in Maroa with Jack watching over it, with all this?

In the end he barely had to suggest they turn in. Jax was almost asleep where she stood, tail looped around her wrist as she yawned a massive, sharp-toothed yawn. If provided any sort of bedding whatsoever, it would immediately be fashioned into a little nest.

Her dreams were dark and fretful.

But come the next day she was as awake and alert and solemn as if preparing for…well, battle. Jack would find her already awake when he stirred, perched at one of the windows and staring out across the lot as if expecting the Thing to come crawling over the broken-down chain link. “Jack give thanks ask help doll Jax make,” she suggested over her shoulder, quite seriously. 

The night before a hunt was sometimes difficult. It was not fear but the anticipation and excitement of putting a plan into action. Later on in life, he learned to compare it to the night before Christmas morning.

Jack felt stiff as usual from sleeping on his floor mattress. He rose and began putting on his armor before anything else.

Jax gave his hand a sudden squeeze, as if gripping onto him for safety. But then she relented, offering him a somewhat watery smile. “Jack alone together Jax with,” she replied, and then laughed a little at how that sounded. “But yes! Yes. Finish will, win will!” She nodded her wild-haired head with more confidence than perhaps she felt.

Standing back up, she clapped her hands together, tail curling around her leg. “How where start now? All this all weapons Jack bring?”

He gave a soft laugh and finished pulling out the harpoon parts from their crates. They seemed weighty even in his grasp, but he still hefted them with ease. “We’re bringing this to set a trap. Since its touch is toxic, we may want a ranged approach. I have a bow and arrow.” He turned and went suddenly to another box, this one with bright orange EXPLOSIVE stickers decorating it. “...Exploding arrows. Good idea!”

Invigorated, Jack went through several boxes and collected weapons and gear to stack on a table. When he was done, their plan was based around trapping the creature under felled trees and harpooning it to prevent its escape. Then Jack, with Jax guiding him, could fire upon it with the explosive arrows.

There was a beat of silence that followed the outburst. Mercy leaned forward and kept his gaze steady on Jack, though he lacked the harsh edges that painted the other man’s.

“I’m sure many have,” he spoke at last, with the weight of a mountain measuring each word. “People have found peace on battlefields, in prison cells, in tombs. They try to find peace in waiting rooms and by bedsides where I work. I think there are those who could try to find peace anywhere.

“Is that reason to think they are happy?” His voice hardened. “To do nothing? No. I myself am not at peace with that.”

He sat back. “And I would ask to be shown them, because as of yet, I have met none.”

The last flicker of warmth drained out of Jack’s eyes. It was the body language which did it more than Mercy’s words alone. He had an iron conviction; he thought of Jack as naïve. He did not feel insulted. Instead, he felt incensed at recognizing the destructive power behind such self-righteousness.

“I ain’t never fucked around with glamours.” Ash grunted as his shoulder made a cracking sound. Woohoohoo. “Just gotta wear long sleeves til it’s all…” He rolled his new wrist. “… Adjusted, or close enough, whatever. Sucks in the fucking summer.

“And no, I ain’t breathing a goddamn word to them. They find out I’m gettin’ unlicensed or whatever arms and shit, wrecks their fuckin’ experiment on us.” He huffed, hesitated, and bent the new elbow. Ouch. His body tensed with the pain and he rolled his shoulders until they settled back into their usual loosely hung manner. “… Ain’t gonna go getting my arms dealer in trouble, either.”

He shot Jack yet another sideways, shitty grin.

“Hmm. If you insist. Then I suppose I will cut short my plan to bring bigger, stranger arms each time.” Spoken deadpan, and Jack refusing to give Ash the sense of achievement for his pun, it was difficult to tell if he was joking. He turned to face him with the dismembered arm in both hands.

“No!” Jax blurted hurriedly, her eyes popping with worry. “Jack alive should be! Help Jax, help others! Jax not dead should be, even if sad is lonely is. Find Jack, help Jack.” She reached out and put her long hand on top of his, warm and soft. 

“No, family say Jax stupid not smart is,” she replied with a soft, hooting laugh. “But okay is.”