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Dark's expecting a lot of things when Jack opens the door, but the one thing he isn't expecting is for Jack to punch him right in the mouth.
This is surprising for a lot of reasons--one, because Jack has never been the type to hit anyone and two, Jack had never had the strength before to hit anyone and it actually hurt.
Perhaps a lot has changed in three years.
"Fuck you!" Jack hisses out, without greeting, without anything else. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!"
He slams the door in his face, and that--that was not what Dark was expecting.
Well, at least he knows Jack is angry now.
Dark waits an approximation of five minutes before he knocks again, and this time the resounding answer is a firm, but very distant, "Fuck you!"
"Jack," Dark tries, imagining that his feelings are smarting if his attitude is anything to go by. "Are you really going to slam the door in my face like a child?"
"Yes!" the answer is immediate. "Fuck you!"
"I'm glad we got that sorted out," Dark rolls his eyes. "Anything else I should do for I speak to you again?"
"Die!"
Wow, he really is pissed then. The anger he can handle, but death threats? That's a new level for him.
"You don't mean that," Dark knocks again. "Come on, Sean, open the door."
"Eat my entire ass!"
"With pleasure, if you open this door!" Dark calls back. "I will go get the spare key to your house, Jack. Let's do this politely, alright?"
Approximately fifteen seconds pass before he hears the angry footsteps approach, the locks unclicking. The door swings open and Jack looks like he's itching to punch him again.
"If you punch me again," Dark says breezily. "I'll punch you back this time. The first one I deserved. Two in a row? Uncalled for."
Shoulders stiff, Jack walks away from him but leaves the door open. He seems to be avoiding any sort of eye contact. Dark's torn between the urge to let him have his peace and grab him, one of which is frowned upon in this scenario.
"I hate you," Jack says, bold and heavy in the room. He's still got his back to him. "Go away. I don't want to see you."
"Really?" Dark asks. "You're not happy to see me at all? You're angry that I walked out three years ago but you're not happy to see me?"
No answer this time. "Do you want me to explain?"
"No."
"You're unbelievable," Dark sighs. "I'm telling you anyway. I walked out to keep you safe, so you wouldn't get killed. I didn't want you getting tangled up in all the fucking shit that is my life. Now I know that's not a sufficient answer for you--"
"You're damn right it's not," Jack rounds on him, and Dark thinks just maybe he might hit him again, inhibitions be damned. In his most mocking tone, "I didn't want you to get tangled up in all the fucking shit that is my life. Wow, can you sound anymore like a bad movie? How about telling me the truth for once? Just the truth for once in your fucking life?"
This isn't the boy he left behind. Not by a long shot. The Jack from three years ago wouldn't say anything like this, wouldn't dare to raise his voice, mock him. There had always been a thread of fragility, afraid of stepping on toes, but now he seemed to be crushing them with little concern.
"I feel like even if I said the truth you wouldn't believe me," Dark grits out. "Are we really going to start pointing fingers, darling? Or is that only something you can do now?"
"Don't you fucking--" Jack cuts himself off. "Don't fucking call me darling."
He knows what Jack means, and yet-- "Sweetheart. Baby. Is that only something you can do, now?"
"I'm going to kick your ass," Jack spits out, pushing up his sleeves. He's still wearing that hoodie from three years ago, holy fuck. "One more word. Say one more fucking thing and I'm kicking your ass."
"I'm terrified by the mere idea you and your scrawny physique could ever--" Dark starts off strong, he really does, but the answering hit surprises him, just like the first. Except this time, it doesn't stop at one, it just--keeps going. "I hardly think this is--"
Dark grabs Jack by one of the wrists, hoping to snap him out of crazed violent stupor, but that only seems to spurn him on more. With Dark's hand around his wrist, Jack yanks back and when Dark stumbles forward he knees him in the stomach.
Really, is he at the wrong house?
Jack shoves him to the ground and punches him again, and at this point he might as well take it. He supposes he was expecting a lot of anger and bitterness. Three years of buildup tend to do that to a person.
"Will you please--" smack. Smack. "Calm down!"
"I thought you were dead!" Jack screams, and the familiar feeling of blood trickles down his cheek. He must've got him good in the nose. "You absolute lying piece of garbage!"
"Colorful," Dark comments dryly. "But I'm not--"
"It would've been better for both of us!" and finally he stops, resigned to just sitting on top of him, breathing in and out like he can't control himself. "Maybe I'll kill you!"
With significantly less fervor than before, Jack brings his hands down, and Dark grabs them this time. He doesn't move. "I feel like that's a hasty decision, Jack. Do you feel better?"
"I was feeling just fine until you showed up at my goddamn door," Jack licks his lips, and now, only now, does Dark notice his eyes. Has he been crying this whole time? "Why the hell are you here? I was--I was just--I was figuring it out and--"
"I missed you," and the words are heavy in his mouth, and perhaps he shouldn't have said them, given the way Jack's whole fucking face breaks just then. He thinks he may have lit another fire. "I--"
"No, you shut the fuck up," he feels Jack shaking. "We're done. We've always been done. We were done the day you walked out. We were done the day I burned all of your shit because I thought you were dead."
"And I suppose that was an out for you?" shutting up is a really good idea. Too bad Dark's mouth and brain don't work on the same frequency. "Better for you if I were dead? Didn't want to deal with me, didn't want to deal with us anymore? And now that I've turned back up you have to face that you were a coward?"
Dark had thought it was a little funny he didn't have a blackeye yet. He must've really wanted one. Really, someone has to have taught Jack how to fight in the last couple years, because the hit is solid, just like the rest.
Then he gets up. Wiping at his nose, he whispers out, "I'm the one that wanted out? You're fucking--you're kidding me, right? I wanted out? I fucking loved you, asshole. I loved you with everything I had in me, and apparently that wasn't enough for you."
"And I loved you," Dark fires back. "I swear, Jack. I loved you."
He pulls himself into a sitting position. Jack blinks slowly. "Then why did you leave? You didn't--you didn't leave a note. You didn't text me, call me. You didn't do anything. You were just--one day you were gone. Like you didn't exist. Sometimes I went crazy, wondering if I made you up. But all your stuff was around me, and then I thought--I thought I did something--"
"I really did do it to protect you," Dark says quietly. "Whether you believe that or not. Listen, you know that I've always been...questionable."
"Felix liked to tell me you ran the mob or something," Jack sighs. "Or were just--really, really weird. And then Mark said--"
"Who the fuck is Mark?" the eccentric blond friend he's heard of, but Mark? Who the fuck-- "Who the fuck--"
"...Mark said you were probably just a lawyer, because those sorts of people are just shady as shit," Jack continues. "Mark is my friend."
"Friend," Dark repeats. "Friend."
"Friend," Jack says slowly, dumbly, like Dark's fucking stupid. "We're not fucking."
Dark sucks in a breath. "I wasn't--"
"Except on Tuesdays," Jack sniffles, popping his fingers. Dark doesn't recall making a face, but apparently he does, because Jack actually laughs. "I'm kidding. Mostly. We were sorta fuckbuddies in the beginning. But like. We don't do that anymore."
"You had a fuckbuddy," Dark thinks he may have let Jack punch him one too many times, because he can't be hearing this right. Not Jack, not the boy who was committed to a fault, who adored Dark, who was completely loyal to a tee. "Who the fuck hurt you?"
Jack raises a brow. "Two guesses."
"Fair," there's a pounding beginning behind his eyes. Really, this is the last conversation he really wanted to have. "I'm surprised you gave me two."
"I try to be kinder to those who aren't kind to me," Jack sniffs. "Anyway. If you were here to get your stuff, sorry, I really did burn it. Ceremonially and all that. I probably still have some of your clothes tucked away in the drawers. I think your old lighter is still in the bedside drawer. Everything else is probably gone. Or confiscated by Felix."
Dark rubs his eyes. "I didn't come for my shit. I couldn't care less about my shit. I just wanted to see you."
"Good, you've seen me," Jack says coldly. "I'm roughly five pounds lighter than last you saw me, my hair is green, I still hate my teeth, I kinda wanna die, and I graduated college."
"And I still love you," Dark says evenly. "You were always tiny so that kind of worries me. I like the green. Your teeth are fine. Everyone wants to die a little bit. And congratu-fucking-lations. You did more with your life than I ever could."
"Do you want me back, is that it?" Jack asks, his voice soft, tired. "You want me to crawl back into your arms, kiss me, let you fuck me, for what--a couple of months? And then you'll just leave one day and I have to break myself all over again. Piece myself back together. Do it again, and again, and again, every time you decide that you want to come back. Is that what you want?"
There's no good answer for that, is there? Swallowing, Dark holds out a hand. "Come here, Jack."
Jack lifts his chin, narrowing his gaze. "I'm not a toy, Dark. I can't do it, not again. The first time--it almost--you don't get to walk back in here. You don't get to ask for me back. You don't get to--"
"But I would've regretted it for the rest of my life," Dark interrupts. "If I hadn't. I didn't expect when I walked through this door that you would still love me, but I decided that if I didn't try I didn't love you at all. So this is me, offering everything I am, everything I have, to you, and what you do with that is your decision."
"You're just gonna go again," and he doesn't sound angry, not really. "You're just gonna...get me settled. You're just gonna make me fall in love with you again and then I'm going to wake up and none of this will have mattered. I won't have mattered. Nothing I do is enough. Nothing I ever do will be enough to make you stay."
"Do you think I'd be here," Dark tilts his head. "If I didn't have the intention of staying this time?"
His eyes soften, for perhaps the first time in this entire visit. Jack's always had a way of telling epics with his eyes, and he watches Jack run his tongue along his lower lip, weighing his options.
"Liar," Jack accuses, his voice a whisper. He seems to believe these words. "You're a goddamn liar, and I hate you."
And that--that's fair. Dark really can't blame him for the thought process. But he doesn't know what he could possibly say to show that he isn't a liar, not this time. He's lied a lot, lied to Jack a lot over the years, but not this time. Really. He actually means it this time.
"I will tell you whatever you want to know," it's a last resort at best. "I'll tell you everything you don't know about me, everything you need or want to know, especially the things you don't want to know, if it'll make you believe that I'm completely serious this time when I say I'm not leaving you again."
Jack watches him with a hooded gaze as Dark pulls himself to his feet, and he doesn't look like he's breathing, so engrossed in his movement, as though afraid he'll pounce, but paradoxically afraid Dark will do nothing at all.
"I'm making coffee," Jack announces finally, his voice quiet, a stark contrast to the whole exchange up until this point. "I'm not--awake enough for this."
It's practically eight PM, but Dark's not about to tell him that. At this point, he's just grateful Jack hasn't tossed him out again as he follows him into the kitchen.