A FUCKING NUISANCE. / @bvttoneyed
❝oh you call this a warning ?!❞ bony fingers are jolting up to where he could swear a big goddamn bruise is emerging with throbbing pain, digits hovering over his jaw but deciding against pressing down. ❝well prosti to break it to you, mudak, but y’might wanna repeat yourself,❞ he sneers in the most provocative fashion, hands now demonstratively shoved into his pockets. ❝i’m afraid i didn’t hear you the first time.❞
“Didn’t hear me, did you?” The one thing Jack had going for himself, hiding amongst the speed of his casual violence and his rapid tendency to turn even the best of situations sour and foul, was that he didn’t have a quick temper. Well, not when he was sober. Today, he was irritable. Not angry - simply irritable, weak, worn down by his latest stab at cleaning himself up. Three weeks straight. He should have been feeling better by now. Yet the grouchy anhedonia rumbled on. It wasn’t a good time to catch sight of a stranger floating around the landing.
Jack’s assault had been flippant, almost light-hearted. He didn’t see anything wrong with unprovoked whacks to a nasty-looking person’s head. At least he’d hit the unfortunate wanderer with the hand that didn’t have the fucking knuckle-dusters. That thought amused him; the pale line of his lips twisted at the edge. He might have laughed were he feeling in better health. As it stood, a pouty smirk was as much as he could muster. Who was this meandering gloomy prick, acting so lost up here? No one was lost here. This building was falling apart, and every flat had its own ingrained group of languid, squalid nobodies, failed artists and students, hippies, whatever else might have landed them here. There were never any strangers. This one’s “lost” act was threadbare, anything else aside. It struck Jack that he might be a policeman, but plainclothes meant plain clothes, not clown clothes. Oh, well. Jack didn’t have time for pondering. It wasn’t his way of life. A smile, a proper smile this time. For moments he must have looked almost welcoming. Then a quick kick to the gut, and a step back, as if he were admiring an artwork. If this fuckface didn’t take that as a warning, who knows what he would.
“So, tell me.” Jack really was laughing now. It came as such a relief to be glad of anything, even if that thing was simply pain as a spectator sport. Oh, how Jack missed the better days. He missed the days he’d meant something, the name “Jack Orwell” as an icon, the name as a threat. Life had been running on empty of late. Perhaps this was the tipping point. Into what, he didn’t know, but it could never be a bad thing to show the new kid, or the supposed new kid, how things worked around Jack Orwell’s neighbourhood. “So, tell me.” Wild giggles interpuncted his words (God, he had to keep that under control), rolling on into hysteria. “What the fuck are you doing here? You’ve had your warning, haven’t you?”
