The First Little Cracks

Jack was different. 

It wasn’t just the broken, flat flesh around his one blazing red eye. It wasn’t just the seemingly endless, slight trickles of blood that oozed from the cracks, either. It was Jack.

He knew that was what she was thinking. 

Jack leaned on the high cocktail table, fingers drumming idly on the surface. He had his shoulders rolled forward as he stood there, one leg crossed at the ankle and the toe of his shoe tapping on the floor. He was relaxed, naturally poised like a predator. 

She took a sip from her glass across from him. Her eyes drifted around the room. It had taken some convincing to get her to come out with him. 

She had been concerned. He could see it in her eyes, and he was torn in half. Part of him was touched, craved it, loved her all the more for her care, wanted to tell her it was all right.

The other part of him was angry, callous, amused, pitied her concern and wanted her to just stop looking. Stop feeling sorry for him and what happened, stop looking at the cracks in his facade, wondering if he was still him.

The honest answer was that he didn’t know. The serum had broken him in half, torn away whatever he had put there to protect himself, and this old, dark thing surged to the surface, snarling and wicked. Jack was not Jack anymore, not really. He had another name, something powerful enough that he didn’t say it out loud. Something evil, perhaps.

Trapped in his own head, two sides of him argued, noisy, constantly bickering semantics about good and evil… It was exhausting.

The music in the bar was deep. It had a lot of bass and a catchy trembling rhythm that tickled at the back of your knees, urging you to dance. Jack looked back at Her. 

He caught her eyes. He felt himself smile, that new half smile that tugged at he broken skin under his eye. 

She looked away. 

“Glad you came out tonight.” Jack leaned in closer to be heard. “It’s fun. Drinking, talking. You know.”

She looked back. He could see recognition in Her eyes. As her eyes lingered longer, Jack saw that She could sense both sides of him. 

“Sometimes it is nice to go out.” She ceded. She took another sip of her drink - it was green and fizzled a little bit, with a slice of lime twisted in it. 

Jack hadn’t touched his drink yet, but he was itching to down it. Blood and whiskey. Drop of rose liqueur and a twist of Lime. 

Jack’s smirk lingered and he tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing over at the dancers on the floor nearby. “Sometimes it’s nice to dance, too.”

He looked back at her, and she looked away. “Sometimes, sure.”

She didn’t want to be here with him. The thought irritated and terrified him. He grimaced down into his drink. Thoughts crashed around in his head.

You’re not a real person, Jack, I’m in charge, this is MY body. How DARE you soften this vessel with your naive, boyish nonsense? Ugh, what part of me was ever that much of a pu-

Shut up, shut up! I don’t care who you were, it doesn’t matter, I’m here now. I won’t let you spoil this.

Spoil this? Me? You coyly sit here like some juvenile lovesick puppy dog. All I want to do is make a move.

Don’t you touch her. 

Jack took the glass and downed it in one great swallow, grinning with his teeth as it slid down his throat.

But we want to. Why? What’s so special about her?

Don’t play dumb. You know. You see it too, you feel it, you can’t hide that from me.

The voices quieted, and Jack looked up. She was watching him. 

He chuckled, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” She asked.

“It’s a bit noisy in here.” He smirked again, tapping his temple with two fingers. 

Her eyebrows came together. 

Dread rose in the pit of Jack’s stomach and he pushed back from the table. She was going to say something, and he didn’t want to hear it.

“Jack, I -” She started.

Jack took two steps around the small table, movements prowling and intense. He put one hand on the table again to wedge himself between it and Her, and leaned towards her with purpose. 

Jack held out his other hand and interrupted her. “Dance with me.”

She stopped. Whatever sad words, or consolations she was going to utter on his behalf were silenced. She looked down at his hand and then up at his face.

“And who would I be dancing with?” She asked cooly. 

Jack winced, his hazel eye cringing beneath his expressive eyebrow. But the red eye was unflinching. His lip turned up, like a grin and a snarl combined, confident and intensely focused. This eye blazed like the red hot end of a poker.

“You would be dancing with me.” He moved his hand a little closer, an inch, urging.

She looked around. She was uncertain. 

Jack knew now why his heart never pounded, why he couldn’t feel his blood rushing through his veins. He had no heart. It was hidden somewhere secret to keep him in a half-life state forever. But in the hollowness of his chest he felt other things, moving things, coils of colorful snakes writhing about in there when she looked at him. Both halves of him couldn’t deny the feeling. Neither one wanted to.

“Dance with me. What do you have to lose, here?” Jack insisted. He tilted his head forward, the sandy hair dropping just enough to cover one part of the gruesome crack in his cheekbone. 

“Jack, I don’t -” 

Jack took her hand. His other one reached up, and with strange delicateness of gesture, he took her chin and turned her face towards him.

“Please. Dance with me.” Jack asked. Unanimous desire, unconflicted, in his eyes, voice a playful growling rumble, but beneath that…

Beneath that...

She didn’t say anything. She paused, and then she reached out and accepted his hand.

Jack’s expression didn’t waver as he led her from their table to the dance floor. As the rhythm slowed and deepened like a nocturnal current around them, he moved his free hand to her waist. He kept her other hand close to his chest, turning them so her palm was pressed on his sternum, and his hand was holding it there.

Had he a heartbeat, she would have felt it thrumming under her palm.

“This isn’t so bad, is it?” Jack murmured, still locked onto her eyes. They were beautiful. Like the green of the world just before the autumn frost. He could feel the darkness in her now, not like before. It was like cool bed sheets on a hot summer night, silken and surrounding. 

She smiled at the comment. 

There was a moment of silence between them as the music progressed, thrumming up from the soles of their feet.

“Are you still… you, Jack?” She asked. 

Her expression hadn’t changed, but Jack pulled his eyes away from hers as he contemplated the question. 

“No.” The red eye answered, automatically. A moment later the hazel eye returned, coming back to Her gaze “... and yes.”

Jack moved his hand to the small of her back, as if to make sure she couldn’t escape. He leaned his head towards hers, eyes cast again to the side. “I’ve always been this. Inside. Like you.” 

She didn’t respond, so Jack tilted his face back towards hers. “Evil is relative. I was evil. Still am I suppose. But everyone is. I’m no different at all. If anything, I’m better now. I remember. I know things. I can feel things.”

“You are different. I see it.” She insisted. “Tell me that you’re alright, Jack.”

Jack laughed, his smile curling sharply, knifing up his face in a sudden manic gesture before settling in it’s new, casual grin. Then it faded, shifted sides, his hazel eye leveled at her. “Don’t I look alright?” 

His grin was tinted feral. His eyes roamed over her face. He could see the shadows just beneath her skin. They looked delicious.

“No.” She stated.

Jack winced, playfully scowling at her. “It’s the blood, isn’t it? Tsk, I’ve tried to clean it up, but honestly, some vessels these days -”

“Stop that.” She snapped. “Answer me, Jack.”

Jack felt his mood shifting again, twisting around on itself. “Please…”

“What?” She pleaded, her tone gently prying.

He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth against gleaming, dagger like thoughts. “I’m fine. I did what I had to do, I did it…. I’m…. I need….”

“What can I do to help, Jack, what do you need?” She searched his face, he could feel her eyes on him. 

Jack pulled her in, her hand still pinned to his chest. Her voice was breaking him apart, and neither half of him understood why. So he pressed his lips against hers to stop the concern, stop the worried words and the pleading. He pressed his lips there so he couldn’t feel softened by her care, or wounded by her feelings.

But.

But he left them there as his eyes closed. There was a summer rain on her lips, and it revived him. A heart in a jar thousands of thousands of miles away trembled. Wherever his soul had gone, it shivered, surprised. Jack tasted her darkness, tempered by warm sunlight, like a grove whose morning-dew grass is suddenly touched by the mid-day sun. Inexplicable. Intoxicating. Irresistible, overwhelming emotions, turbulent desire and a crushing unfamiliar hope flooded him and his first kiss with feeling.

Jack broke the kiss. 

Her expression was stunned, when he dared open his eyes again. They had stopped dancing there, rooted to the spot like a pair of deer in the road.

She didn't say anything, but she was staring, staring hard at his face.

Not so bad. Could have been worse. But there's still time, she could still tear you in half. Oh, oh, or maybe she could start crying. THAT would be something, wouldn't it?

Shut up.

Jack dropped his hands quickly, stepping away from her. She made no move to stop him, and no words of protest. Her eyes were even, glued from his face. His face, his broken face, his bleeding, torn, stained face...

Beautiful face. We have a beautiful face. Have you ever seen such delicious dichotomy? Come on, Jack. Stop fighting me.

Shut up.

Jack swallowed hard. "I'm sorry. I should go. Thanks for - That's for coming out..." He tossed the words around as he turned to leave, not waiting for a response or a call of his name. He wondered if she would call him back, standing there alone on the meager dance floor. Would she ask him to stay? Recite more sympathetic words? Tell him that his feelings weren't...

But Jack didn't stay. He would never know.