Tired Jack - Living hell
Mar. 4th, 2013 06:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonshadowsHe woke up and wished he hadn't. Everything hurt to greater or lesser degrees, inside and out. His mouth tasted like something had vomited inside it and then died. The only blessing was it kept him from thinking.
From remembering.
He was dead, as far as he was concerned, despite his body stubbornly clinging to life. He was dead, he had nothing left to live for, and he was only killing time until time killed him.
The glass bottles - some whole, some broken - mocked him. Jack Daniels. Irritably, he kicked one as he hauled himself to his feet, aching and rank, and stumbled out of the half-ruined, abandoned building that had sheltered him for the last...days. He wasn't sure. His stomach was a gnawing void, his eyes felt like they were bleeding as daylight stabbed them. His knuckles were bloody, or at least covered in half-healed scabs and dried blood. He needed a hot meal, a hot shower, and clean clothes. Not that he was going to get them.
No one paid him any heed as he stumbled out, practically invisible between his stained, disheveled clothes and the stench of sweat and urine mingled with vomit. Absently, he scratched at his scalp and the stubble on his face. Thinking about the past was out of the question, but he did need to think about the future, and to do that, he needed food.
A cafe with outdoor seating. A couple left, their meal partially uneaten. He sat down and shoved the remnants into his mouth, barely stopping to chew before swallowing, downing the rest of whatever they'd had to drink. Another diner looked at him, disgusted, and stood to go inside. He was at that table within seconds, bolting what he could and chugging the beverage before grabbing the nearly-untouched other half of the diner's sandwich and scurrying away. A shout just after he turned the corner told him he'd judged the time correctly.
He walked through the streets, contemplating his options like a child peering carefully between its fingers. There had been attackers; that meant someone doing the attacking, which meant he had a target. He had a mission, and that meant he needed gear. He needed weapons, he needed armor, he needed resources.
It's not theft if you take what's yours, right?
He swallowed the last bite of his stolen sandwich and began walking towards a smaller Overwatch facility near the edge of the city.
===
Talon soldiers swarmed out of the dropship. He watched them from his rooftop perch, tracking them with his visor, feeling the hum of the pulse rifle faintly through his gloves. It would do no good to shoot them now. Well, that wasn't exactly true. It would do some good, but not nearly as much as picking them off as they came back would. Or...
He held his breath as the masked figure in black leather stepped out of the ship. This could only be their leader. Reaper, they called him. Not that it mattered. Killing him would hamstring Talon. He readied the pulse rifle, sighting through the visor.
Then Reaper started barking orders.
The mask muffled things, of course. But he knew that timbre, knew that cadence, knew that voice better than he knew his own and one of the walls in his heart cracked.
He lowered the pulse rifle, curled up against the chimney, and wept as a single ray of light penetrated the bleak landscape his life had become. A faint light, a wan flickering hope, the barest thread for him to cling to but he did because this - this was a breath of fresh air as he lay crushed and suffocating. Moisture on the underside of a rock as he slowly died of thirst.
Reyes was alive.
From remembering.
He was dead, as far as he was concerned, despite his body stubbornly clinging to life. He was dead, he had nothing left to live for, and he was only killing time until time killed him.
The glass bottles - some whole, some broken - mocked him. Jack Daniels. Irritably, he kicked one as he hauled himself to his feet, aching and rank, and stumbled out of the half-ruined, abandoned building that had sheltered him for the last...days. He wasn't sure. His stomach was a gnawing void, his eyes felt like they were bleeding as daylight stabbed them. His knuckles were bloody, or at least covered in half-healed scabs and dried blood. He needed a hot meal, a hot shower, and clean clothes. Not that he was going to get them.
No one paid him any heed as he stumbled out, practically invisible between his stained, disheveled clothes and the stench of sweat and urine mingled with vomit. Absently, he scratched at his scalp and the stubble on his face. Thinking about the past was out of the question, but he did need to think about the future, and to do that, he needed food.
A cafe with outdoor seating. A couple left, their meal partially uneaten. He sat down and shoved the remnants into his mouth, barely stopping to chew before swallowing, downing the rest of whatever they'd had to drink. Another diner looked at him, disgusted, and stood to go inside. He was at that table within seconds, bolting what he could and chugging the beverage before grabbing the nearly-untouched other half of the diner's sandwich and scurrying away. A shout just after he turned the corner told him he'd judged the time correctly.
He walked through the streets, contemplating his options like a child peering carefully between its fingers. There had been attackers; that meant someone doing the attacking, which meant he had a target. He had a mission, and that meant he needed gear. He needed weapons, he needed armor, he needed resources.
It's not theft if you take what's yours, right?
He swallowed the last bite of his stolen sandwich and began walking towards a smaller Overwatch facility near the edge of the city.
===
Talon soldiers swarmed out of the dropship. He watched them from his rooftop perch, tracking them with his visor, feeling the hum of the pulse rifle faintly through his gloves. It would do no good to shoot them now. Well, that wasn't exactly true. It would do some good, but not nearly as much as picking them off as they came back would. Or...
He held his breath as the masked figure in black leather stepped out of the ship. This could only be their leader. Reaper, they called him. Not that it mattered. Killing him would hamstring Talon. He readied the pulse rifle, sighting through the visor.
Then Reaper started barking orders.
The mask muffled things, of course. But he knew that timbre, knew that cadence, knew that voice better than he knew his own and one of the walls in his heart cracked.
He lowered the pulse rifle, curled up against the chimney, and wept as a single ray of light penetrated the bleak landscape his life had become. A faint light, a wan flickering hope, the barest thread for him to cling to but he did because this - this was a breath of fresh air as he lay crushed and suffocating. Moisture on the underside of a rock as he slowly died of thirst.
Reyes was alive.