7. K-I-C-K-A-S-S

*Pulls down my pants, squats, and pisses violently all over the floor*

Heyyy

Title is an ICP ref

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Jack supposed that it was all doomed to come to such a point, the close proximity they shared in Vegas was guaranteed to make even the calmest of people annoyed eventually. Given Jack didn't exactly fall in that category, it had roughly been about a week and a half or so. Time became continuously harder to keep track of when you were constantly high, drunk, or a combination of the two, and hitting the hay when a regular citizen would just about get up. They shared a room, it went unspoken; it was cheaper, simple as that. He appreciated Dave's presence, don't mistake him on that, but it was all just a bit too much lately. Sleep in the bed together, eat together, drink together, snort coke together, gamble together, and rob the occasional corner store together. Jack very desperately craved just a little bit of space, a sense of freedom where the aubergine wasn't constantly peering over his shoulder.

A faint sprinkle of white powder still stuck to his upper lip, he found that space. Dave was focused on a game of poker, his expression stale as his gaze kept scanning the other participants. Leave it to Dave to have had no education whatsoever, and still be a damned genius in the most randomized of fields. In the midst of the game, one of the few moments where he wouldn't constantly keep close to Jack ensued. He breathed a relieved sigh, now hanging onto the bar that this pub occupied. Ordering whatever would get him the furthest from sanity, he was scanning the crowd of people with a long island in hand. While Dave and him had been growing more agitated with one another; they were still dependent on company for some good old Vegas fun.

"Ya' com're often-?"

He set his eyes on a lone woman, who seemed relaxed in her position against the bar. His voice slurred, and it took the stranger a good second to process his words into comprehension. She laughed, waved a hand towards Jack, and spoke with equally distorted speech:

"Oh hon'ay- You don't know the half o' it-!"

She had a vague accent akin to most of Nevada, obviously strengthened by whatever she'd been having. Not minding the company, she took a step closer to Jack, and he did the same in return. Absentmindedly giggling at her statement, he titled his head in an attempt to think of a follow-up question. The room was spinning, hell, he was spinning, and couldn't quite process what was happening at any given moment. The woman's clothes were revealing, her hair put into a structure that probably required as much hairspray as Jack did orange foundation. She didn't seem to mind the soulless look he had going on, and instead was the one to continue their brief conversation:

"And you, orange man, you from 'round here...?"

The question hit Jack like a truck, to which he drank a large swig of his glass in response. He and Dave were wanted criminals, surely telling this stranger where they came from was a bad idea, at least. Then again, he could simply make up a lie; spark conversation, keep this interaction going. He enjoyed the thoughtless chatter, where he wasn't plagued with guilt for hanging out with a literal serial child murderer who had also partaken in his sister's murder.

"Naw, naaaw- I'm from Europe, ya' see-"

He had never set foot in Europe. Hell, he barely had any visual idea of what the continent even looked like. But the lady's interest peaked, holding a hand with two fingers outstretched to the bartender. Jack had barely noticed his own glass going empty, lopsided grin on his face at his fruitful lie.

"Really?! What country...?"

Oh no, think quick Jack!

"Amsterdam."

Too quick.

"Prett'ay sure that's not a country..."

Fuck he knew where or what Amsterdam was, he had vaguely heard a customer mention it while he was serving tables on his last shift. Confidently, the tangerine proceeded to deny her claim, putting on a horribly fabricated accent as he did. Clearly she didn't buy it, her smile fading and her gaze sceptical. This was going the wrong direction; he found himself someone who wasn't instantly repulsed by his orange skin and rotting stench, and still managed to fuck up simple conversation.

"Enough 'bout me, was' your name?"

Dave told him once that women liked to talk about themselves, and that he was to ask about them. Although, asking someone's name really should be common decency. Turned out the purple man wasn't wrong, as her posture softened to the more upbeat one it held when he first approached her.

"Abigail, but m' friends call me Abby-"

Jack, who usually never found himself in a sociable mood, now knew exactly what to say:

"Can I call you Abby~?"

"Oh, you..."

She breathed, a hand raising to her chest as he softly giggled. It was a positive giggle, the same one Dave would produce when he took a jab at Jack on the job, and he would respond with fabricated anger. He was never truly angry at Dave, he simply didn't want to give in to his antics that easily, Dave was just- Hold on a moment, had they begun to stand closer? Abby's voice broke him out of his blurred thoughts:

"You may call me Abby~"

"Does that mean we're... Friends~?"

Jack's god awful attempt at a flirtatious tone would have made any sober person throw up a little into their own mouth, but it somehow seemed to fluster Abby as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Okay, they'd definitely begun to stand closer, Jack noticed his own body slowly shuffling towards hers.

"I suppose it does, mysterious orange man from A'msterdam..."

"Actually the name's-"

"Old sport!"

Somehow, someway, he had noticed neither the seven foot purple cryptid behind him, nor the rotten stench that accompanied him. He jumped at hearing the thick New Yorkers accent right behind his ear, nearly shoving himself into Dave's chest as he did. Abby's expression didn't shift, clearly too intoxicated to be bothered by his secondary coloured skin as she downed one of the glasses the bartender had brought them.

"Old sport-?"

She repeated, her voice giddy as if that was his actual name. An Amsterdam thing, she thought to herself, for as far as she could. Dave stepped beside the orange, a hand on his shoulder with fingers that dug in his skin just a bit too tightly. Already feeling himself grow more agitated with Dave's pushy behaviour, he brushed the hand off to no avail.

"Who's this, old sport?"

He turned to Jack, unsuccessfully hiding his suspicions towards the estranged woman. While his speech was a tad more coherent than Jack's had been, he still slurred his words with an even more present accent than before.

"Dave- 'S Abby..."

He gestured vaguely towards Abby, who unmistakably batted her eyelashes at the both of them. Having hoped Dave would busy himself with poker for just an extended bit longer, he gestured towards him with a grunt.

"Abby, Dave-"

For the amount of hookers the both of them had banged on their trip, the expression on Dave's face was awfully jealous. Despite the fact he wasn't always the brightest, he'd also picked up on the mutual vexation that developed between them. In his drunken mindset, he feared that Jack would come to realise he would rather be by himself, if they were out of each other's company for too long. And Abby's drunken glare resting on Jack's torso certainly contributed to that drowsy feeling lingering in him. That, and he was still unreasonably pissed at the game of poker he had just lost about half his cash on.

"Fuck, les' go to the motel old sport- This joint sucks."

What better way to get Jack alone to himself, than to simply drag him away. Turning to face Dave, he spat out harsh words:

"Go by yourself, you purple fuck- I'm enjoying myself 'ere!"

He stepped closer to Abby, as if to emphasise the fact that they were entertaining themselves just fine. The look on Dave's face spoke of great offence, sputtering out inaudible protests. His head was spinning, the room felt like a rough sea beneath his feet, and he had to extend a hand to the bar to keep himself from tumbling over. Jack didn't pay mind to him, grabbing at the glass Abby ordered for him, he could barely taste what was in it. Dave wondered to himself why he even tried, his consciousness fading along with his devotion to getting Jack to himself.

"Goodbye, old fuck-"

He spat at Jack, stepping by him, before raising a fist high. Although the twirling world seemed to slow down, he had punched Jack square in the face within a second. He stumbled back, a hand raised to cover his nose with blood seeping out from under it, Abby following suit as a startled look embraced her. Dave sulked his shoulders low and intended to walk off towards the exit, but Jack quickly recovered and charged towards him. One hand dug its fingers in the back of his shirt, the other in a fist which hit the back of his head. Dave yelped, barely kept himself from tripping, and flipped back around.

His fist had done him justice; Jack's nose was bleeding a black tar, he could taste where it started to pry between his lips. Brows furrowed, eyes hostile, they stood cross, fixated on one another. Dave grinned, his head pounding and his fists tight, but contently entertained regardless. Jack was the first to swing again, to Abby's discontent as she covered her eyes with a hand. Quicker than expected, Dave blocked his punch and instead scored him in the gut, knocking the wind out of his lungs. In a blur, he reached for Dave's neck, stopped in his tracks when a fist punched him from beneath his chin.

It hurt. It hurt like a bitch. His jaw clashed together, a straining pain shooting through him that made him even dizzier. He could hear the cracking, hear his teeth shatter as they so painfully collided with the lower row. His flesh bled, his blood warm in his mouth, comforting almost. Time was out of the question, spitting out a gulp of blood which contained the charred remains of his two front teeth. Only realising what he'd done the moment he saw blood flow over Jack's chin in thick strands, Dave stepped back and raised his hands before him in an apologetic manner. Jack's eyes spat fire, his body obviously tense and ready to lunge again.

"Shirt sport, sorry-"

They had gained a small crowd, Abby included, that gathered around them and cheered them on. Jack wanted none of his apology, he was beyond furious at this point. By Fredbear, it was nice to release some of the indistinct feelings that he had desperately attempted to contain within himself. Raising a foot, he nearly lost his balance and fell back, but recovered quickly enough as he landed a dangerously harsh kick against Dave's knee.

Between a variety of people whistling and cheering them on, any tang was difficult to catch, but he swore he could hear Dave's bones crack. Almost immediately he crashed to the floor, wincing and crying out in agony. He grasped towards his knee, but Jack quickly put him to a halt by planting a foot on his shoulder, pushing his back flat to the floor. Purple against stained wood flooring, a deep crimson red on his face, where did it all come from? It dripped from Jack, his agape mouth full of the metallic taste, his nose stinging every time he tried to inhale through it. A canvas, a mixture of the both of them, so beautifully conjoined amidst the violence.

Hands, tightened into fists, brief touches. The world was but a daze around them. It was them, against each other yet together in their own delicately constructed world. Heaving, touching, affection in a twisted way that would never satisfy either of them. What made them want to be apart was simultaneously a product of their desire to touch, to reach, to inhale, to taste the other's blood on their tongue. Dancing the border of acceptability, they fought in such a way on occasion; when it became overwhelming , when their hands longed for the other's face, be it in the form of a punch.

Jack dipped low, straddling Dave by his narrow hips. He moaned under him, his eyes screwed shut and his mouth in a grimace. He drew a sharp breath through the void where his front teeth had once been, the dizziness almost making him collapse on top of Dave's chest. The climax of their fight had surpassed when he'd collapsed on the floor, but he strived for another, unwilling to release what floated between them. Abigail couldn't have provided him with quite the same rush as he experienced now, he briefly thought to himself as he struck Dave in the face once more. He rolled his hips against Jack's tailbone in response, hands weakly reaching up to cover the place of impact.

He took them, by the wrists, tearing them away from his face and onto the floorboard. He wanted to see Dave's face, no matter how much agony displayed itself there, no matter how confronting it was in regards to their relationship. He grinned in return, unmistakable yet utterly effortful. With his wrists in hand, he heaved over the man below him, and returned the earlier rut of Dave's hips with one of his own. Heavy velvet sheets, containing their own blood, embracing them. Warmth, the warmth of another person, so present as a crowd of people screeched.

The metallic taste of blood, everywhere; his mouth, throat, stomach. Metallic, not unlike the metal that had once pierced his every pulsing vessel. And yet, here he was, with Dave beneath him, the tar from his nose and mouth dripping down on the other's face. Although he didn't attempt fleeing from Jack's trap, he twitched desperately underneath him, a stinging pain still rising up from his knee. It didn't matter, not when Jack was the one that made his body contort in a fit of rage, not when he still showed him attention. Time was irrelevant when they could simply stare at each other amidst the chaos of a crowd cheering them on, heaving, bleeding, mutually pained.

It could have been anywhere from a few seconds to a minute when someone weakly pulled on Jack's bicep, compelling him to raise his back and sit up. Her voice was weak but manic nonetheless, a voice of the past. He elevated the arm to which her hand clung, lunged, and punted his elbow directly into Abby's face with enough force to knock her back. As she stumbled into the crowd of astonished strangers, Jack wondered what he saw in her to begin with.

A distraction, a compensatory touch that he would allow himself for the time he felt it was needed. He sneered at her, angrily, angrier than he had sounded towards Dave before they broke out in a frenzy moments earlier. What use was an estranged woman when he could dig his fists into Dave, feel the hot purple flesh against his, the rolls of his hips and twitches of his body. She vigorously cussed at him, her lip bloodied and torn where he had made impact. The stranger couldn't be a bother, his attention simply averted back to Dave as he coughed up a scad of blood, which inevitably landed on Dave's Hawaiian shirt.

His hands wrapped Dave's already contorted neck, squeezing, fingers digging as if somehow able to grow even closer. Beneath his skin, inside him, where the thick substance that was once his blood ran, was where he longed to be: close. Dave drew a sharp breath, loosely laying his hands around Jack's wrists in response. He wouldn't do further damage, it wasn't said, but the both were aware of it. This was just to prolong, to longer maintain the contact where he sat against Dave's stomach, where his hands could feel the warmth despite the decaying state of his body.

What followed next was quick, blurred out by pain and a variety of substances remaining. Several men in well dressed attire with their hands under his shoulders, pulling him away in a swift movement. He struggled against them, to no avail as he was dragged across the pub with kicking legs. Dave faded out of vision just as another man held a hand to him, catching a glimpse of Abby along the way. Her agitated face was tainted with blood and she held out a middle finger towards him, incomprehensible swears yelled at him. A red haired woman held her back, Jack was sure that if she hadn't, Abby would've given him another beating.

Then, the cold pavement harshly clashing against his body. It scraped his skin, carelessly throw out of the club with its bright blaring lights, watching the security staff retreat back inside. As he made a start in picking himself up from the ground, Dave followed. While not as carelessly discarded, he collapsed beside Jack the moment the guard removed the arm that he had slung around his shoulders in support. Unlike the other two, he remained by the entrance to ensure the men wouldn't attempt to re-enter.

Jack, being the one who seemed most steady on his feet, took the initiative in standing up first, albeit with an extraordinary amount of grunts and moans. He reached a hand do Dave, who'd been wiping blood off his face with the back of his palm. Shakily taking it, he was slowly pulled to his feet with a loud cry. Good lord, that punch to his knee had done more damage than he had anticipated in the heat of the moment. He limped against Jack, who slung an arm over his shoulders as he distributed his weight between the orange and his functional leg. Jack steadied him with a hand on his waist in response, ignoring his own discomfort which became evermore so prevalent. With pained grunts and gritted teeth, Jack dragged the two over to a steel bench by the sidewalk.

"Shit dude, my bad-"

Heaved the orange, gently placing Dave down before flopping himself on the opposite end of the structure. One of the man's legs was limp from the knee down, contorted in a position that couldn't possibly be comfortable. A broken leg in return to two missing teeth; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Dave's eyes stayed fixed on the night sky for a brief second as he drew a hefty inhale, before sitting himself up with a groan.

"Does that all the time- Body's just like that..."

Dave mumbled, indistinctly, as he placed his hands on his knee with aim. Although he desperately tried to hide it, Jack could read the agony on his face as he pushed around his kneecap. With a crack, snap, and set of other noises that couldn't be a good sign in Jack's unprofessional opinion, he pushed his contorted limb back in its original position. His foot kicked to life beneath him and he released a relieved breath from his clenched jaw, Jack's mouth falling wide agape.

"Jesus heckin' Christ."

Was all he could muster up in response to Dave stretching his leg, seemingly effortless and with minimal pain. Now a tad more relaxed, he turned to Jack, whose jaw was still practically on the floor. Beyond his parted lips, he could see an absence where there had once been two front teeth, the rest coated in a deep red. They really ought to find a different way to resolve the tension between them, Dave thought to himself as his face shifted to an apologetic expression.

"Sorry 'bout your teeth old sport-"

"What's done is done."

His speech was distorted, not quite a lisp but close to it, as he grimaced at the sensation of speaking without front teeth. Unbeknownst to Jack, one of his teeth currently resided in his pocket. The other one had been too shattered to salvage, but in the midst of the chaos, he had spotted it in a puddle of deep tar. He didn't quite consider it a souvenir destined for his box, but it would become something for him to treasure nonetheless.

"Y'should get that disinfected 'ough..."

He gestured towards Jack's face, which was more red than orange at this point. Aside from occasional wads of blood spat out towards the pavement, his nose was still running vigorously and had a bump on the bridge. Broken, at the least, Dave thought to himself as he shamelessly studied Jack's face under the pretence of concern for his injuries. Upon inhaling through his nostrils, he winced in pain and reluctantly agreed to Dave's statement. A medkit was immediately out of the question, considering the nearest pharmacy was too far off for Dave's crippled knee. The next best option; robbing a corner store of anything that contained over twenty percent of alcohol.

What was once a form of tension that kept floating -building onto itself- between them, had evaporated entirely. With a series of breathy giggles, they stumbled out onto the pavement again. The minimum wage workers had barely bothered to chase them, let alone step foot out their establishment. Jack kept Dave upright, his knee still relatively weak despite appearing functional. They sank to the ground in a poorly illuminated alleyway, abandoned by the midnight public of Vegas. With the necessary amount of struggle Jack unscrewed the cap to a bottle of vodka, taking a rich swig which he swirled in his mouth for a good minute.

Upon spitting it out on the pavement, it had turned from clear to bright red. The metallic flavour persisted, although now mixed with the bitter aftertaste of alcohol. Intentionally, he let a gulp of the liquid trickle along his torn lips, down to his neck and collarbones where it would come to soak his shirt. Dave bit his lip at the sight, scooting closer and nudging Jack's shoulder.

"Sorry 'bout earlier old sport... I didn't think that-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, come here-"

Jack interrupted almost immediately, his hand waving pointlessly in the air. It took a while for the cut along Dave's jawline to start bleeding, his blood was a thick substance that didn't function accordingly. Jack presumed he had caused it with his ring when he struck the side of Dave's face, gesturing for him to come closer. Hesitantly, and somewhat scared that he would receive a punch again, he beckoned nearer. Taking his chin between thumb and pointer, Jack poured the alcohol over his wound. He winced, but ultimately stayed firmly in place as Jack dabbed the liquid off with the sleeve of his shirt.

It was when they fought, that they had a reason to care for each other. Inflicting hurt so repetitively would become the reason to stick closely together, to poorly disinfect another's wound with stolen vodka. It displayed how they would return, seek each other out, even when their position towards each other was ultimately hostile. He always came back, didn't he? Hands which carefully traced the other's face, a loving feeling when he leaned into Jack's palm with a gentle sigh. Maybe, he considered, the violence was mandatory. It was all he had known, it was all he had been taught, and it was how he came to know love.

What a shame to be so full of love yet so clueless when it came to expressing it.

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[3987 words]

Violence as a metaphor for love and affection hrrrrr save me

Low and behold, the return of Abby. Missed her? GUESS WHAT, I DID. She's my girl now. I love her dearly.

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*Stops pissing, pulls up pants, and walks away*

Byeee