Avenbrooke Blues (T)
Dec 27, 2018 3:49:18 GMT
Post by admin on Dec 27, 2018 3:49:18 GMT
Notes: What's this? A little (rare from me) Yuletide funtime for Firebrand! He wanted a little something involving OCs interacting with pokémon, perhaps set in Hawlucha Manverse where superhero shenanigans are the norm. And then I ran away with it. By sprinkling in a little Clerks.
Rated T for adult language. A lot of adult language.
Part I: The Bodega
He’d say he wasn’t supposed to be there, but there was something about that line that sounded cheap.
But yeah. Dane Ramone wasn’t supposed to be there. It was his fucking day off, and where was the guy who was actually supposed to run the mid-morning shift of the dusty hole of a bodega where he had already sunk half his adulthood thus far?
Sick. Just … sick.
Figures.
But it is what it is, as they said in Clarus City, and somebody had to man the bodega. And so, with a deep breath, he walked into Iglesias and Sons’ Corner Store with the morning papers tucked under one arm.
To his surprise, Jack was already at the counter, reading a magazine. Jack Dinkle, Dane’s long-time closest-thing-he-had-to-what-resembled-a-friend, looked up from said magazine to give Dane a smirk and small salute. He had clearly been there for a decent amount of time, perhaps the twenty minutes it took for Dane to get himself together and to the bodega after Pops Iglesias had called.
The problem was that Jack Dinkle didn’t even work there.
“What the hell, Jack,” Dane said. It was not a question.
Jack, who didn’t even acknowledge the statement, dramatically checked his watch. “Why, Dane Ramone! You’re early, aren’t you?”
Dane dropped the papers in the basket next to the counter, cut the cord with his keys, and gave Jack a withering glare, all with one heavy motion.
“Nick called in sick. Again,” he explained.
Jack bowed his head and flipped to the next page of his magazine. “Probably wore himself ragged fucking Nadine again.”
Dane’s glare intensified. “Okay. What the fuck are you doing here anyway?”
“Pops Iglesias needed someone to watch the store until you got your ass here, and I have a trustworthy face.” Jack flipped to another page. “They’re disgusting, you know that? Rumor has it that last week, they got nailed by Hawlucha Man for fucking in the bushes in Greenwood Park. How embarrassing is that? Getting hauled off for indecent exposure by a newbie.”
“What?” Dane deadpanned.
Jack held up a hand. “Honest to God. Hawlucha Man, my dude.”
“Not that,” Dane said. “Trustworthy face? Seriously?”
Jack leered at him. “Yeah. You don’t think so?”
“You are literally reading porn at my counter.”
Jack turned another page. “That’s got nothing to do with my face, right?”
Dane opened his mouth to protest that. Then, he closed it again. With one more dangerous glare, he moved behind the counter and shoved Jack aside.
“Let me rephrase,” he said. “What are you doing here? You don’t even work here.”
“Happy’s got shut down by the health inspector.”
“What, did it start snowing in Hell last night?”
Jack cracked a smile. “Fine, dipshit. It’s my day off.”
“So you’re here because…”
“Worried.”
Jack reached under the counter and pulled out an envelope. It was an ordinary enveloped, the sort people sent letters in. But this one was ratty and taped up and bulging with what Dane knew to be about $2000 in a wad of $20 bills. When Dane looked at him again, Jack’s smile was completely gone, and he was leaning close to Dane.
“It’s Collection Day,” he said. “The Baron’s army of dicks are gonna be here any moment, and I for one don’t like the idea of Pops or anyone else in this fine little establishment getting fucked with on their own.” He slipped the envelope back into its hiding spot and patted his pocket. “So I’m here to serve as a little bit of actual protection.”
Dane glanced at Jack’s pocket. “With what? Kinga?”
Jack gave him a confident nod. “Been teaching her a few new moves. They’re coming along great.”
At that, Dane raised an eyebrow. “And you’re packing heat because you knew I’d be here?”
“Nah.” Jack slipped his hand back to the magazine. “It’d be either Pops or Nick, and Nick’s not the most observant.” He flipped to another page and tapped his temple. “Nearly got nailed by Hawlucha Man. Dude needs all the protection he can get.”
Dane was about to ask about the wording of that statement when the door swung open, and in walked his first regular of the morning: Alex Alvarez. Dane watched him with half-interest, but the kid was always predictable enough to not be too much of a problem. If Alex had class, it was always in by 10:30, beeline to Clarus City’s shittiest coffee, make a medium black, grab a stale doughnut, and be at the counter inside five. Dane liked customers who knew what they wanted and got it quickly. It meant he had more time to politely tell Jack he was a shithead.
Which he did.
Jack shrugged. “So my sources might’ve been a little off.”
“Which mean it didn’t happen,” Dane said. “Besides, superheroes don’t take people in for indecent exposure.”
Alvarez nearly tripped over the tiles in front of the counter, reminding Dane he was even there and sloshing coffee-scented battery acid onto the floor in one go. Somehow, he made it to the counter with most of a medium cup, a powdered doughnut in a bag, and a good deal of his dignity intact. Probably.
“Shit. Sorry, Alvarez,” Dane said.
“No! Uh,” he replied. “Sorry about the floor.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Dane jerked his head to Jack. “If you’re gonna be working here for a day, make yourself useful and clean that up, would you?”
To his relief, Jack saluted, then hopped the counter to grab a mop and do as he was told. As soon as Jack reappeared and started to clean the floor, Dane turned to his own work and started tapping keys on the register.
“So … you’re not usually in on Thursdays,” Alex said in what was painfully obviously a grasp for conversation to move on from sex and superheroes.
“Yeah, well.” Dane focused completely on the keys at this point. “The guy who usually works mornings called in sick.”
Alvarez pulled out his wallet and fumbled for his money—anything, Dane realized, to keep from looking up. “Ah man, really? Hope he gets well soon.”
To that, Dane gave him a solemn nod as he took the kid’s money. “Tell me about it.”
“Don’t feel too sorry for him,” Jack said, mid-mop. “Knowing that guy, he’s probably suffering from a post-sexcapade hangover.” Jack stopped mopping—but not talking, despite Dane’s helpless gesture of why. “Did you know the dude and his girlfriend got caught mid-passionate-embrace by Hawlucha Man? I mean, the guy has zero shame as it is, but getting caught mid-orgasm by Hawlucha Man, out of all the kids on the Spandex Brigade?” Jack resumed mopping. “At that point, you might as well swear off sex and enter a monastery. There’s no hope for you left.”
Sometime in the midst of this, Alex’s face blanked, so when Jack finally stopped talking, he had to shake himself free from shock first, before grabbing his breakfast. “Uh. N-no. I didn’t know that. That your friend—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jack slapped the mop head into the floor. “Hey, who was that girl who came by, asking about cat food a couple weeks back? She said she was feeding your skitty while you were gone. She a friend or something? ‘Cause she was fine.”
The level of speed and acrobatics Alex used to vault out of the bodega then was just a little impressive to Dane. To Jack? Not so much.
“That kid needs to get laid,” he said.
Dane shook his head. “Why do you have to be a dick to the customers?”
“Because it’s funny,” Jack said. “Come on. You stand behind that counter God knows how many hours a day, seeing the same basic bullshit over and over again—”
“Hey! My customers are not bullshit!” Dane snapped. “Alvarez, for one—”
“Is a good kid. I know.” Jack held up his hands. “But you gotta admit, he’s hilarious.”
“Jack.”
He scuffed the floor with his shoe. “Probably not a virgin, though, now that I’m thinking about it.”
“Jack.”
“I mean, that chick was fine and all about feeding his skitty.”
“Oh my God.”
“Hey, you think ‘feeding Alex Alvarez’s skitty’ is a euphemism?”
“I swear to God, Jack.”
Jack smiled and held up his hands again, backing away slowly. “Easy, Dane. Just tryin’ to get a smile out of you.”
Dane closed the porn magazine and threw it at Jack’s head. Jack dodged and snaked into the back. He bobbed as he went, flashing Dane a mischievous smile from over the shelves, even as Dane called him every name in the book.
(The book, of course, being the nudie magazine that hit the floor with a smack.)
Part II: The Baron
It happened at noon.
That is, the one thing Dane had been dreading ever since Jack reminded him of it happened at noon. He was in the midst of ringing up Mrs. Whittleby (seven cans of cat food, one carton of painfully selected eggs, a jug of milk, a loaf of bread, and an hour of Dane’s time wasted on small chat and customer assistance) when the door swung open and smacked the lottery ticket kiosk with a bang. And as soon as it did, in walked two mountains jammed into custom-tailored suits, followed by a machoke in nothing and a magneton in the air. The Baron’s men. No doubt the man himself must have been somewhere nearby, but the place was far too small for anything but a nice display of muscle.
Mrs. Whittleby eyed them warily, then scoffed and took her plastic bags from Dane. With a “thank you” to Dane and a “young men these days” uttered under her breath to the hired muscle, she shuffled out of the store, and the only other customers (a couple of teens playing hooky and a burn-out who would have asked for a pack of smokes and a scratch-off in a second had the Baron’s men not walked in) scrambled for a spot behind the shelves. That left Dane with no one at all up front except Jack, who only eyed the men without lifting his face from yet another porn magazine. Dane could see Jack’s other hand splay flat on the counter, but his legs shifted to a solid stance beneath his chair, as if he was ready to pounce.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ramone,” one of the men said. Dane never bothered to learn their names; he usually made it a point to take Collection Day off. “Unusual to see you working this morning.”
Dane whipped the envelope out and smacked into the counter. “Covering for a sick coworker.” He slid the envelope to them. “Pops just had me hold onto this. It’s all there. Count it if you want. I don’t—” He was about to say care, but looking at the machoke and the bulges that had to be guns at the men’s hips, he realized that would be a bad move. Instead, he bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t mind.”
“Much obliged, Mr. Ramone,” the man replied. “But I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Iglesias’ has always been a fine family establishment, and the Baron knows all of Pops’s employees are trustworthy, good kids.” He took the envelope and pocketed it in an inside pocket. “But I appreciate your eagerness to cooperate. The Baron appreciates cooperation; it’s a sign of respect to us, you see.”
Dane waved the hand he used to rub the back of his neck. “Look, I just don’t want any trouble. I’m not supposed to be here today, so—”
“So it is doubly commendable,” the man continued. “Dedication of that caliber deserves applause. Keep up the good work, Mr. Ramone, and my employer will see to it that you will have plenty of opportunities for prosperity in Avenbrooke, should you continue down this avenue.”
Dane grumbled an acknowledgment, just barely coherent through his teeth. The men nodded once, then turned and started for the door, and Dane was almost certain the worst part of his day was about to come to a close.
That is, until Jack had to open his mouth.
“Hey, could either of you settle a bet for us?”
The men stopped, and Dane swiveled around in his seat. With one hand, Jack cupped Kinga’s poké ball beneath the counter, but with the other, he motioned towards Dane.
“My buddy thinks Echo is the hottest superhero in Clarus City,” he said. “Me? I personally think it’s Volcarona Mask. We’ve got $20 on the line here, so what do you think? If you had to fuck any superhero in Clarus City, who would it be?”
The silence that descended on the store was the sort that, at the risk of speaking a cliche, could have been cut with a knife. It was the sort that nearly choked Dane as he stared first at Jack, then, slowly, at the men’s magneton. Even in the back of the store, not a peep came from the three nearly forgotten customers. No one wanted to move. No one even wanted to breathe.
And then, the previously silent foot soldier spoke.
“Volcarona Mask,” he grumbled.
“Yes!” Jack cried out. He hit Dane’s arm. “I knew it! Thanks, Marty!”
The quieter, decidedly larger man snorted and gave Dane a rough smirk before leading the group out of the store.
It took a few more minutes for the other customers to crawl out from the back … and for Dane to turn a murderous glare onto Jack. Jack, by that point, was leaning back in his own chair, his face obscured by the cover of Playleague.
“You know, Collection Day isn’t so painful so long as you know how to play it,” he said. “Just keep your cool. Learn what they like and how to joke with ‘em. That’s all.” He flipped a page. “That one dude, for example? Most colorful sex life you can ever imagine. Gave me some tips once. By the way, best strip bar in Clarus is apparently right here in Avenbrooke. Just sayin’.”
“I could kill you, and no one would miss you,” Dane growled.
Jack peeked over the magazine. “You would.”
Dane didn’t even want to dignify that with an answer.
Part III: The Hold-Up
Dane had mixed opinions about customers. Some, like Alvarez, weren’t too bad. They knew what they wanted. They got it. No big deal.
Then you had the others.
The old people…
(“In my day, eggs were only sixty-nine cents a dozen! I remember when this block was nothing but nice, neighborhood stores where you could get almost anything for a nickel! Say, boy, are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Mrs. Johnson.”)
The oblivious…
(“Do you have any gum?”
“Right in front of you.”
“Cool. And lighters?”
“Right in front of you.”
“Thanks! And lotto tickets?”
“...”
“...”
“Right in front of you.”)
The hipsters…
(“Do you have any gluten-free muffins, almond milk, or cruelty-free, fair-trade organic coffee? I’m going vegan this month. Did you know what milk farms do to miltank?”
“...no.”)
The angry old people…
(“I would like to speak to your manager. You expect me to walk all the way over there for coffee? And this store is way too overcrowded! And just last week, I bought a lotto ticket here, and it didn’t win! I want my money back!”
“...yes, sir.”)
And the stoners.
(“...”
“...”
“...”
“...”)
Sometime during the course of dealing with the latter, two men walked in, neither of whom Dane recognized. He figured he would peg them soon enough, but for now, he watched them disappear behind the shelves with the sort of mild interest that came with having something slightly more interesting than paint drying to watch.
That was when Jack leaned his way.
“Maybe he’s trying to telepathically communicate what he wants to us,” he said.
Dane looked back at his customer. The guy blinked slowly, then opened his eyes wide, as if he was a slowpoke.
“Or maybe he’s on dream dust,” Jack continued. “I heard that stuff melts brains. Like, it just dribbles out of your nose like a milkshake.”
“God, Jack!” Dane hissed. “He’s right there!”
The guy finally opened his mouth, which prompted Jack and Dane to lean in.
“Oh my God! He’s about to speak!” he gasped.
“Jack!” Dane hissed.
The guy cocked his head. “Do you dudes have…”
Dane and Jack leaned in a little more.
“Uh…”
They practically sprawled themselves onto the counter.
“Twinkies.”
Dane pointed to the shelves. “Over there. Second row down.”
His customer blinked slowly. Then again. Then, after a third time, Dane sighed.
“Jack?” he asked. “Help him?”
Jack saluted. “You got it, boss!”
And at that, he jumped the counter and put his arm around the customer’s shoulders. With a “right this way, good sir,” Jack herded the stoner down the aisle and out of sight. Dane relaxed and pushed off the counter, leaning back as he crossed his arms. He checked his watch under his elbow—3:57, halfway through the other shift he wasn’t supposed to be working (dumped on him via a quick call from Pops about Maria calling off because of course she did). At 5, someone else would walk in to take the next shift. Maybe Jason or Neil—he didn’t know or care. All he really cared about was his evening afterwards. What would he do with the last vestiges of his day? Go home with one of the microwave dinners from the shitty freezer, probably. Eat it in his shitty apartment while watching the news on his shitty TV. Fall asleep on his shitty couch and probably wake up to do it all again on a shift he was supposed to work.
In a way, it sucked. Dane tried not to describe it as that because it was what it was ultimately. At least he had a job that paid just enough for rent and food, right? But the point was that he wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure, so he might not have had any plans that day, but it would’ve been nice to have the option. To go home and sleep in just once or to do something other than come in to the bodega and sit around, waiting on customers. Something to break up the day.
Before Dane could sink lower into self-pity, the two men from earlier appeared from behind the shelves, only now they had a lucario following close behind. Needless to say, this wasn’t exactly what Dane had in mind when he wanted something to break up the day. With his head dropping back into reality, he eyed the lucario, then reached under the counter where he knew Pops kept a baseball bat and a poké ball containing the bodega torracat.
He didn’t make it. As soon as he shifted, both of the men pulled out guns. So instead, he withdrew his hands slowly. One of the men reached the counter and leaned in, pressing the gun closer to Dane’s face.
“Open the register and give us the cash,” he said.
Dane hesitated. He watched the other man turn his gun to the shelves. The first shook his gun at Dane.
“Now!” he barked.
There was a pop, followed by the sound of a freight train, and then 132 pounds of nidoqueen leapt over the shelves and onto the first robber. A bang followed, and Dane smelled gunpowder. Somehow, by some godforsaken miracle, the bullet had lodged itself into the wall behind him, having narrowly missed his head by what felt like an inch.
But somehow, that didn’t matter. He watched Kinga whirl around, her fist glowing a bright violet as it smashed into the second robber’s shoulder. A second shot rang out, pinging Kinga’s armor, and she roared and swiped again at her assailant.
At that point, the lucario moved. Its jaws pulled back into a snarl, and light danced across its paws and formed a bone-shaped energy sword. It raised this sword above its head, preparing to bring it down on Kinga, when suddenly, Jack appeared. He leapt over the shelves with a can in each hand, one foot extended for a kick, and perhaps the worst battle cry ripped straight from Fist of the Druddigon II.
“Banzai, motherfucker!”
His foot slammed the lucario in the face, driving the jackal into the floor. One of the robbers swung his gun towards Jack, but Kinga immediately seized his arm and yanked it up, forcing him to fire into the ceiling. She roared and yanked again, and the man’s arm cracked. He screamed and crumpled to the floor, his arm dangling at his side and his gun clattering to the floor. The first robber and the lucario struggled to stand, only to be met with a can in the face each. While they reeled, Jack dashed to the side of the counter and grabbed one of the coffee carafes, and with all the speed and energy of someone on PCP, he swung. The carafe cracked across the first robber’s head and sprung open, throwing hot coffee onto the lucario in one smooth swing.
The second robber grabbed his gun and backed away from the counter. “Let’s go! It’s not worth it! He’s fucking crazy!”
If the others were about to protest, Kinga’s roar cut them off. She stomped once, then grabbed the lucario and threw it through the glass door of the bodega. The robbers took one look at the shattered remains of the door and their pokémon lying on the street beyond it. And then, they fled, shouting and leaping over the broken glass.
A beat of silence fell on the whole bodega until Jack cleared his throat.
“I’ll … I’ll pay for that,” he said.
Dane stared at him and his nidoqueen, dumbfounded.
Part IV: The Hero
Dane barely remembered the next couple of hours. Police showed up, of course, but only after Jack had come down from his righteous fury enough to call them (while Dane was busy smoking half the cigarettes in the bodega to calm down). The stoner in the back, who had apparently not even noticed the entire thing, finally bought his Twinkies and left; the cops asked Dane every question they could throw at him; and Jack and Kinga cleaned up the front, made coffee, and responded to the cops’ mostly on behalf of Dane, because “it was the least we could do after throwing a lucario through your door,” as Jack put it to Dane. And towards the end, Dane’s relief finally showed up. Said relief—Neil, as it turned out—didn’t seem to notice at all that the bodega was down a door, and Dane, frankly, didn’t care enough to explain it to him.
What surprised him was when he looked back two minutes after leaving work to see Jack following him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be looking out for the bodega or something?” he asked.
“What, after dark? Nah.” Jack looked up, at the rooftops of Avenbrooke. “Let the superheroes earn their keep. ‘Sides, I’ve done enough crimefighting for today.”
Dane shoved his hands into his pockets. He realized he forgot that frozen dinner he’d meant to take with him. Maybe he’d stop somewhere. Miltanky’s or something. Grab a burger. Or something.
“You okay?” Jack asked.
“Huh? Yeah,” Dane replied.
“You look shaken up. You know—still.”
“I’m fine,” Dane said. “Just need some sleep.”
“Sure. Sure. Just, um…” Jack pointed behind him. “You want to grab a bite or something?”
Dane looked at him. Just looked.
Jack held up his hands. “As a friend! C’mon. I know a place that serves the best tacos in Avenbrooke. Swear to God.”
“Jack…” Dane rubbed his eyes. “Why are you here?”
“Huh?”
“Why. Are you. Here?”
Silence. Dane took his hand away from his eyes. “Look, I know you had no idea I was gonna be in today—”
“Actually, I did.”
Dane stopped. Stopped walking too. Jack stood still next to him and thumbed back to the bodega.
“You know how I get coffee every morning before going into work?”
“Yeah. Despite the fact that Happy’s serves coffee.”
“Don’t fucking judge me,” Jack said. “Anyway, I get a coffee every morning before going into work, but today, Pops says Dickless is calling in sick on Collection Day, but you’re coming in instead.”
“He said this to you.”
“Overheard it. Pops shouts his conversations. Thinks it’s okay because it’s in Spanish. Thought you knew.”
Dane did, actually. He just couldn’t care. “Okay. So…”
“So, I call off to hang out with you.”
“Why?”
“Because in the how many years we’ve known each other—”
“Seven.”
“Trying to tell a story here, for Christ’s sake.”
Dane shrugged.
“So in the seven years we’ve known each other,” Jack said, “I’ve never known you to own a single pokémon.”
Dane crossed his arms. “Pops keeps Diego under the counter,” he answered. “And a baseball bat.”
“Ah, which I have seen you use,” Jack said. “You can’t fucking swing to save yourself. And the Baron sends professionals.”
In a knee-jerk reaction, Dane scoffed. “So you hung out with me to—what? Protect me?”
“Look,” Jack said. “I know you say you’re all right, but even if things were cool in the end, it was still two guys, two guns, and at least one pokémon. Neither of us are one of the suits. I was surprised no one died.”
“Yeah, you say all this, yet you’re fine with fighting two assholes with—what? What did you even throw back there?”
Jack smirked. “Canned tomatoes.”
“Right. What the fuck?”
“Saved you, didn’t I?”
Dane sighed and shook his head. Those past few years since college, Dane hadn’t seen much of Jack outside of work, and although his conversations with him that day were unusually pleasant, this was what talking to Jack was usually like. All winding stories that eventually led to dead ends because, somehow, in the course of his rambling, Jack managed to get Dane to forget for an iota of a second what the point actually was.
But no. Dane was going to focus. He was going to fixate on the point again. And he was going to fixate on the point because what Jack had done was fucking stupid and could have gotten them killed if he wasn’t ungodly lucky. And the trouble is, Dane couldn’t decide which “he” he had meant in if he wasn’t ungodly lucky.
And that pissed him off even more. Just enough for a silence to lapse.
“All right,” Jack finally said. “I’ll bite. You want to know the truth?”
“Yes,” Dane snapped.
Jack rocked back onto heels. “I was worried about you, man.”
“Worried about me.”
“Yeah. I mean—”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
Jack held up his hands again, as if he could physically stop Dane’s irritation. “Hey. Wait!”
And that pissed Dane off even more. He shoved Jack, forcing him to stumble backwards until he hit the brick wall behind him. “You risked your life because you think I needed protection,” he said. “Of all the stupid-ass—why don’t you fucking grow up for once instead of doing something that insanely fucking stupid? This isn’t the movies, Jack. You can’t kung-fu your way out of shit; you just got lucky this one time.”
Jack braced himself against the wall. “Fuck off! That’s not why I—”
Throwing his hands into the air, Dane took a step back and briefly thought about just walking away. But no. No, he needed to keep going. Why, he couldn’t figure out, but for some reason, his frustration kept his feet planted right there, in front of Jack.
“Then what made you fuck around with all those people today?!” he asked.
Dane knew what was coming, even before he finished asking. He expected another story. Another distraction. And the truth was … he wasn’t entirely wrong.
He was just wrong about the why. Because of all the things he thought Jack was about—the kind of asshole bravado he had since he’d told their senior English teacher where to stick it, mostly—he didn’t expect Jack’s reason to be…
“Because fuck me if I care!” Jack snapped. “You’ve been my friend since high school, asshole. No one else but you stuck around in this shithole of a city, but you did, and every day, you’re still there, jockeying that stupid-ass counter or hanging out at Happy’s, and fuck me if I’m gonna let your face get blown off by one of the Baron’s blowhards. You mean too much to me, man.”
Dane stood there for a moment, taking in his words. And then, he rubbed his mouth with the palm of one hand. “So … you were willing to get shot for…”
Jack shrugged. “My job sucks. Hanging out with you helps. You get it, right? No one should be on their own, especially not dragging them through a day in this hellfuck of a city.”
Slowly, Dane nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
Jack grinned. Like a dick. “Could’ve kicked me out any time.”
“Yeah,” Dane admitted.
He drew a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He offered one to Jack, who took it without a word. Lighting both of them up, Dane shuffled to the side of the sidewalk, under an awning for a shitty apartment building much like his shitty apartment building, and took a long drag.
“It was a change of pace,” he said.
“What was?” Jack asked. Then, with a laugh: “The fucking robbery?”
Dane shook his head. “I think I’ll take off tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
Dane nodded.
So Jack did too. “Good. Good idea, man. But Pops—”
“Fuck him.” Dane looked at Jack. “Best tacos in Avenbrooke?”
Jack held up the hand holding the cigarette. “Swear to God.”
“Oh yeah?” Dane took a drag. “Let’s see about that.”
Jack cocked his head and shifted in a silent laugh. Smoothly, he whirled around and led the way. As Dane followed, he looked up to see a hawlucha and a man in a wingsuit gliding from one building to the next, and that got his mental gears turning.
“Hey, um. Sorry about what I said earlier. About growing up and kung-fuing your way out of shit and stuff,” he said.
“Nah, man. You’re right. Not everyone can do that. Can’t see you doing it, for one.”
Dane would have said a fuck you to that, but Jack was right. Dane would have died within five seconds of his first fight, and he damn well knew that. So instead, he said, “Well … you’re not me. And that was kinda badass.”
That brought Jack’s signature smile back to his face. “Thanks, man.”
“You ever think about becoming one of those guys?” Dane asked. “A hero, I mean. You can fight and all, and if you hate your job that much…”
“Sure, but I’m not a dumbass,” Jack replied. “I barely make minimum wage. You think I can afford getting the shit beaten out of me on a daily basis? Besides, those dork-ass costumes? No thanks. Look like they’d chafe around the ballsack.”
“But you’d get Volcarona Mask’s number.”
Jack smiled. “Look at you, you nasty fuck. Just like high school.” He shoved Dane’s shoulder. “I’d respect Volcarona Mask like a gentleman, thank you.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah.” Jack took a drag on his cigarette. “Probably wouldn’t. Good thing I don’t have a chance, right?”
“What makes you think you’d have a chance if you were a superhero?”
“Hey. Fuck you.”
Somewhere else, someone else, someone with a hawlucha and a wingsuit, was kicking the everloving shit out of two guys and a lucario. Dane would hear about this the next morning, on the news over coffee and eggs at Jack’s (with Jack), and at that moment, watching the shitty world get shittier via a shitty TV in Jack’s not-quite-shitty apartment, Dane would find himself doing something he hadn’t done for a long time: not giving a fuck about anything but Jack.
Rated T for adult language. A lot of adult language.
Part I: The Bodega
He’d say he wasn’t supposed to be there, but there was something about that line that sounded cheap.
But yeah. Dane Ramone wasn’t supposed to be there. It was his fucking day off, and where was the guy who was actually supposed to run the mid-morning shift of the dusty hole of a bodega where he had already sunk half his adulthood thus far?
Sick. Just … sick.
Figures.
But it is what it is, as they said in Clarus City, and somebody had to man the bodega. And so, with a deep breath, he walked into Iglesias and Sons’ Corner Store with the morning papers tucked under one arm.
To his surprise, Jack was already at the counter, reading a magazine. Jack Dinkle, Dane’s long-time closest-thing-he-had-to-what-resembled-a-friend, looked up from said magazine to give Dane a smirk and small salute. He had clearly been there for a decent amount of time, perhaps the twenty minutes it took for Dane to get himself together and to the bodega after Pops Iglesias had called.
The problem was that Jack Dinkle didn’t even work there.
“What the hell, Jack,” Dane said. It was not a question.
Jack, who didn’t even acknowledge the statement, dramatically checked his watch. “Why, Dane Ramone! You’re early, aren’t you?”
Dane dropped the papers in the basket next to the counter, cut the cord with his keys, and gave Jack a withering glare, all with one heavy motion.
“Nick called in sick. Again,” he explained.
Jack bowed his head and flipped to the next page of his magazine. “Probably wore himself ragged fucking Nadine again.”
Dane’s glare intensified. “Okay. What the fuck are you doing here anyway?”
“Pops Iglesias needed someone to watch the store until you got your ass here, and I have a trustworthy face.” Jack flipped to another page. “They’re disgusting, you know that? Rumor has it that last week, they got nailed by Hawlucha Man for fucking in the bushes in Greenwood Park. How embarrassing is that? Getting hauled off for indecent exposure by a newbie.”
“What?” Dane deadpanned.
Jack held up a hand. “Honest to God. Hawlucha Man, my dude.”
“Not that,” Dane said. “Trustworthy face? Seriously?”
Jack leered at him. “Yeah. You don’t think so?”
“You are literally reading porn at my counter.”
Jack turned another page. “That’s got nothing to do with my face, right?”
Dane opened his mouth to protest that. Then, he closed it again. With one more dangerous glare, he moved behind the counter and shoved Jack aside.
“Let me rephrase,” he said. “What are you doing here? You don’t even work here.”
“Happy’s got shut down by the health inspector.”
“What, did it start snowing in Hell last night?”
Jack cracked a smile. “Fine, dipshit. It’s my day off.”
“So you’re here because…”
“Worried.”
Jack reached under the counter and pulled out an envelope. It was an ordinary enveloped, the sort people sent letters in. But this one was ratty and taped up and bulging with what Dane knew to be about $2000 in a wad of $20 bills. When Dane looked at him again, Jack’s smile was completely gone, and he was leaning close to Dane.
“It’s Collection Day,” he said. “The Baron’s army of dicks are gonna be here any moment, and I for one don’t like the idea of Pops or anyone else in this fine little establishment getting fucked with on their own.” He slipped the envelope back into its hiding spot and patted his pocket. “So I’m here to serve as a little bit of actual protection.”
Dane glanced at Jack’s pocket. “With what? Kinga?”
Jack gave him a confident nod. “Been teaching her a few new moves. They’re coming along great.”
At that, Dane raised an eyebrow. “And you’re packing heat because you knew I’d be here?”
“Nah.” Jack slipped his hand back to the magazine. “It’d be either Pops or Nick, and Nick’s not the most observant.” He flipped to another page and tapped his temple. “Nearly got nailed by Hawlucha Man. Dude needs all the protection he can get.”
Dane was about to ask about the wording of that statement when the door swung open, and in walked his first regular of the morning: Alex Alvarez. Dane watched him with half-interest, but the kid was always predictable enough to not be too much of a problem. If Alex had class, it was always in by 10:30, beeline to Clarus City’s shittiest coffee, make a medium black, grab a stale doughnut, and be at the counter inside five. Dane liked customers who knew what they wanted and got it quickly. It meant he had more time to politely tell Jack he was a shithead.
Which he did.
Jack shrugged. “So my sources might’ve been a little off.”
“Which mean it didn’t happen,” Dane said. “Besides, superheroes don’t take people in for indecent exposure.”
Alvarez nearly tripped over the tiles in front of the counter, reminding Dane he was even there and sloshing coffee-scented battery acid onto the floor in one go. Somehow, he made it to the counter with most of a medium cup, a powdered doughnut in a bag, and a good deal of his dignity intact. Probably.
“Shit. Sorry, Alvarez,” Dane said.
“No! Uh,” he replied. “Sorry about the floor.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Dane jerked his head to Jack. “If you’re gonna be working here for a day, make yourself useful and clean that up, would you?”
To his relief, Jack saluted, then hopped the counter to grab a mop and do as he was told. As soon as Jack reappeared and started to clean the floor, Dane turned to his own work and started tapping keys on the register.
“So … you’re not usually in on Thursdays,” Alex said in what was painfully obviously a grasp for conversation to move on from sex and superheroes.
“Yeah, well.” Dane focused completely on the keys at this point. “The guy who usually works mornings called in sick.”
Alvarez pulled out his wallet and fumbled for his money—anything, Dane realized, to keep from looking up. “Ah man, really? Hope he gets well soon.”
To that, Dane gave him a solemn nod as he took the kid’s money. “Tell me about it.”
“Don’t feel too sorry for him,” Jack said, mid-mop. “Knowing that guy, he’s probably suffering from a post-sexcapade hangover.” Jack stopped mopping—but not talking, despite Dane’s helpless gesture of why. “Did you know the dude and his girlfriend got caught mid-passionate-embrace by Hawlucha Man? I mean, the guy has zero shame as it is, but getting caught mid-orgasm by Hawlucha Man, out of all the kids on the Spandex Brigade?” Jack resumed mopping. “At that point, you might as well swear off sex and enter a monastery. There’s no hope for you left.”
Sometime in the midst of this, Alex’s face blanked, so when Jack finally stopped talking, he had to shake himself free from shock first, before grabbing his breakfast. “Uh. N-no. I didn’t know that. That your friend—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jack slapped the mop head into the floor. “Hey, who was that girl who came by, asking about cat food a couple weeks back? She said she was feeding your skitty while you were gone. She a friend or something? ‘Cause she was fine.”
The level of speed and acrobatics Alex used to vault out of the bodega then was just a little impressive to Dane. To Jack? Not so much.
“That kid needs to get laid,” he said.
Dane shook his head. “Why do you have to be a dick to the customers?”
“Because it’s funny,” Jack said. “Come on. You stand behind that counter God knows how many hours a day, seeing the same basic bullshit over and over again—”
“Hey! My customers are not bullshit!” Dane snapped. “Alvarez, for one—”
“Is a good kid. I know.” Jack held up his hands. “But you gotta admit, he’s hilarious.”
“Jack.”
He scuffed the floor with his shoe. “Probably not a virgin, though, now that I’m thinking about it.”
“Jack.”
“I mean, that chick was fine and all about feeding his skitty.”
“Oh my God.”
“Hey, you think ‘feeding Alex Alvarez’s skitty’ is a euphemism?”
“I swear to God, Jack.”
Jack smiled and held up his hands again, backing away slowly. “Easy, Dane. Just tryin’ to get a smile out of you.”
Dane closed the porn magazine and threw it at Jack’s head. Jack dodged and snaked into the back. He bobbed as he went, flashing Dane a mischievous smile from over the shelves, even as Dane called him every name in the book.
(The book, of course, being the nudie magazine that hit the floor with a smack.)
Part II: The Baron
It happened at noon.
That is, the one thing Dane had been dreading ever since Jack reminded him of it happened at noon. He was in the midst of ringing up Mrs. Whittleby (seven cans of cat food, one carton of painfully selected eggs, a jug of milk, a loaf of bread, and an hour of Dane’s time wasted on small chat and customer assistance) when the door swung open and smacked the lottery ticket kiosk with a bang. And as soon as it did, in walked two mountains jammed into custom-tailored suits, followed by a machoke in nothing and a magneton in the air. The Baron’s men. No doubt the man himself must have been somewhere nearby, but the place was far too small for anything but a nice display of muscle.
Mrs. Whittleby eyed them warily, then scoffed and took her plastic bags from Dane. With a “thank you” to Dane and a “young men these days” uttered under her breath to the hired muscle, she shuffled out of the store, and the only other customers (a couple of teens playing hooky and a burn-out who would have asked for a pack of smokes and a scratch-off in a second had the Baron’s men not walked in) scrambled for a spot behind the shelves. That left Dane with no one at all up front except Jack, who only eyed the men without lifting his face from yet another porn magazine. Dane could see Jack’s other hand splay flat on the counter, but his legs shifted to a solid stance beneath his chair, as if he was ready to pounce.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ramone,” one of the men said. Dane never bothered to learn their names; he usually made it a point to take Collection Day off. “Unusual to see you working this morning.”
Dane whipped the envelope out and smacked into the counter. “Covering for a sick coworker.” He slid the envelope to them. “Pops just had me hold onto this. It’s all there. Count it if you want. I don’t—” He was about to say care, but looking at the machoke and the bulges that had to be guns at the men’s hips, he realized that would be a bad move. Instead, he bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t mind.”
“Much obliged, Mr. Ramone,” the man replied. “But I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Iglesias’ has always been a fine family establishment, and the Baron knows all of Pops’s employees are trustworthy, good kids.” He took the envelope and pocketed it in an inside pocket. “But I appreciate your eagerness to cooperate. The Baron appreciates cooperation; it’s a sign of respect to us, you see.”
Dane waved the hand he used to rub the back of his neck. “Look, I just don’t want any trouble. I’m not supposed to be here today, so—”
“So it is doubly commendable,” the man continued. “Dedication of that caliber deserves applause. Keep up the good work, Mr. Ramone, and my employer will see to it that you will have plenty of opportunities for prosperity in Avenbrooke, should you continue down this avenue.”
Dane grumbled an acknowledgment, just barely coherent through his teeth. The men nodded once, then turned and started for the door, and Dane was almost certain the worst part of his day was about to come to a close.
That is, until Jack had to open his mouth.
“Hey, could either of you settle a bet for us?”
The men stopped, and Dane swiveled around in his seat. With one hand, Jack cupped Kinga’s poké ball beneath the counter, but with the other, he motioned towards Dane.
“My buddy thinks Echo is the hottest superhero in Clarus City,” he said. “Me? I personally think it’s Volcarona Mask. We’ve got $20 on the line here, so what do you think? If you had to fuck any superhero in Clarus City, who would it be?”
The silence that descended on the store was the sort that, at the risk of speaking a cliche, could have been cut with a knife. It was the sort that nearly choked Dane as he stared first at Jack, then, slowly, at the men’s magneton. Even in the back of the store, not a peep came from the three nearly forgotten customers. No one wanted to move. No one even wanted to breathe.
And then, the previously silent foot soldier spoke.
“Volcarona Mask,” he grumbled.
“Yes!” Jack cried out. He hit Dane’s arm. “I knew it! Thanks, Marty!”
The quieter, decidedly larger man snorted and gave Dane a rough smirk before leading the group out of the store.
It took a few more minutes for the other customers to crawl out from the back … and for Dane to turn a murderous glare onto Jack. Jack, by that point, was leaning back in his own chair, his face obscured by the cover of Playleague.
“You know, Collection Day isn’t so painful so long as you know how to play it,” he said. “Just keep your cool. Learn what they like and how to joke with ‘em. That’s all.” He flipped a page. “That one dude, for example? Most colorful sex life you can ever imagine. Gave me some tips once. By the way, best strip bar in Clarus is apparently right here in Avenbrooke. Just sayin’.”
“I could kill you, and no one would miss you,” Dane growled.
Jack peeked over the magazine. “You would.”
Dane didn’t even want to dignify that with an answer.
Part III: The Hold-Up
Dane had mixed opinions about customers. Some, like Alvarez, weren’t too bad. They knew what they wanted. They got it. No big deal.
Then you had the others.
The old people…
(“In my day, eggs were only sixty-nine cents a dozen! I remember when this block was nothing but nice, neighborhood stores where you could get almost anything for a nickel! Say, boy, are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Mrs. Johnson.”)
The oblivious…
(“Do you have any gum?”
“Right in front of you.”
“Cool. And lighters?”
“Right in front of you.”
“Thanks! And lotto tickets?”
“...”
“...”
“Right in front of you.”)
The hipsters…
(“Do you have any gluten-free muffins, almond milk, or cruelty-free, fair-trade organic coffee? I’m going vegan this month. Did you know what milk farms do to miltank?”
“...no.”)
The angry old people…
(“I would like to speak to your manager. You expect me to walk all the way over there for coffee? And this store is way too overcrowded! And just last week, I bought a lotto ticket here, and it didn’t win! I want my money back!”
“...yes, sir.”)
And the stoners.
(“...”
“...”
“...”
“...”)
Sometime during the course of dealing with the latter, two men walked in, neither of whom Dane recognized. He figured he would peg them soon enough, but for now, he watched them disappear behind the shelves with the sort of mild interest that came with having something slightly more interesting than paint drying to watch.
That was when Jack leaned his way.
“Maybe he’s trying to telepathically communicate what he wants to us,” he said.
Dane looked back at his customer. The guy blinked slowly, then opened his eyes wide, as if he was a slowpoke.
“Or maybe he’s on dream dust,” Jack continued. “I heard that stuff melts brains. Like, it just dribbles out of your nose like a milkshake.”
“God, Jack!” Dane hissed. “He’s right there!”
The guy finally opened his mouth, which prompted Jack and Dane to lean in.
“Oh my God! He’s about to speak!” he gasped.
“Jack!” Dane hissed.
The guy cocked his head. “Do you dudes have…”
Dane and Jack leaned in a little more.
“Uh…”
They practically sprawled themselves onto the counter.
“Twinkies.”
Dane pointed to the shelves. “Over there. Second row down.”
His customer blinked slowly. Then again. Then, after a third time, Dane sighed.
“Jack?” he asked. “Help him?”
Jack saluted. “You got it, boss!”
And at that, he jumped the counter and put his arm around the customer’s shoulders. With a “right this way, good sir,” Jack herded the stoner down the aisle and out of sight. Dane relaxed and pushed off the counter, leaning back as he crossed his arms. He checked his watch under his elbow—3:57, halfway through the other shift he wasn’t supposed to be working (dumped on him via a quick call from Pops about Maria calling off because of course she did). At 5, someone else would walk in to take the next shift. Maybe Jason or Neil—he didn’t know or care. All he really cared about was his evening afterwards. What would he do with the last vestiges of his day? Go home with one of the microwave dinners from the shitty freezer, probably. Eat it in his shitty apartment while watching the news on his shitty TV. Fall asleep on his shitty couch and probably wake up to do it all again on a shift he was supposed to work.
In a way, it sucked. Dane tried not to describe it as that because it was what it was ultimately. At least he had a job that paid just enough for rent and food, right? But the point was that he wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure, so he might not have had any plans that day, but it would’ve been nice to have the option. To go home and sleep in just once or to do something other than come in to the bodega and sit around, waiting on customers. Something to break up the day.
Before Dane could sink lower into self-pity, the two men from earlier appeared from behind the shelves, only now they had a lucario following close behind. Needless to say, this wasn’t exactly what Dane had in mind when he wanted something to break up the day. With his head dropping back into reality, he eyed the lucario, then reached under the counter where he knew Pops kept a baseball bat and a poké ball containing the bodega torracat.
He didn’t make it. As soon as he shifted, both of the men pulled out guns. So instead, he withdrew his hands slowly. One of the men reached the counter and leaned in, pressing the gun closer to Dane’s face.
“Open the register and give us the cash,” he said.
Dane hesitated. He watched the other man turn his gun to the shelves. The first shook his gun at Dane.
“Now!” he barked.
There was a pop, followed by the sound of a freight train, and then 132 pounds of nidoqueen leapt over the shelves and onto the first robber. A bang followed, and Dane smelled gunpowder. Somehow, by some godforsaken miracle, the bullet had lodged itself into the wall behind him, having narrowly missed his head by what felt like an inch.
But somehow, that didn’t matter. He watched Kinga whirl around, her fist glowing a bright violet as it smashed into the second robber’s shoulder. A second shot rang out, pinging Kinga’s armor, and she roared and swiped again at her assailant.
At that point, the lucario moved. Its jaws pulled back into a snarl, and light danced across its paws and formed a bone-shaped energy sword. It raised this sword above its head, preparing to bring it down on Kinga, when suddenly, Jack appeared. He leapt over the shelves with a can in each hand, one foot extended for a kick, and perhaps the worst battle cry ripped straight from Fist of the Druddigon II.
“Banzai, motherfucker!”
His foot slammed the lucario in the face, driving the jackal into the floor. One of the robbers swung his gun towards Jack, but Kinga immediately seized his arm and yanked it up, forcing him to fire into the ceiling. She roared and yanked again, and the man’s arm cracked. He screamed and crumpled to the floor, his arm dangling at his side and his gun clattering to the floor. The first robber and the lucario struggled to stand, only to be met with a can in the face each. While they reeled, Jack dashed to the side of the counter and grabbed one of the coffee carafes, and with all the speed and energy of someone on PCP, he swung. The carafe cracked across the first robber’s head and sprung open, throwing hot coffee onto the lucario in one smooth swing.
The second robber grabbed his gun and backed away from the counter. “Let’s go! It’s not worth it! He’s fucking crazy!”
If the others were about to protest, Kinga’s roar cut them off. She stomped once, then grabbed the lucario and threw it through the glass door of the bodega. The robbers took one look at the shattered remains of the door and their pokémon lying on the street beyond it. And then, they fled, shouting and leaping over the broken glass.
A beat of silence fell on the whole bodega until Jack cleared his throat.
“I’ll … I’ll pay for that,” he said.
Dane stared at him and his nidoqueen, dumbfounded.
Part IV: The Hero
Dane barely remembered the next couple of hours. Police showed up, of course, but only after Jack had come down from his righteous fury enough to call them (while Dane was busy smoking half the cigarettes in the bodega to calm down). The stoner in the back, who had apparently not even noticed the entire thing, finally bought his Twinkies and left; the cops asked Dane every question they could throw at him; and Jack and Kinga cleaned up the front, made coffee, and responded to the cops’ mostly on behalf of Dane, because “it was the least we could do after throwing a lucario through your door,” as Jack put it to Dane. And towards the end, Dane’s relief finally showed up. Said relief—Neil, as it turned out—didn’t seem to notice at all that the bodega was down a door, and Dane, frankly, didn’t care enough to explain it to him.
What surprised him was when he looked back two minutes after leaving work to see Jack following him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be looking out for the bodega or something?” he asked.
“What, after dark? Nah.” Jack looked up, at the rooftops of Avenbrooke. “Let the superheroes earn their keep. ‘Sides, I’ve done enough crimefighting for today.”
Dane shoved his hands into his pockets. He realized he forgot that frozen dinner he’d meant to take with him. Maybe he’d stop somewhere. Miltanky’s or something. Grab a burger. Or something.
“You okay?” Jack asked.
“Huh? Yeah,” Dane replied.
“You look shaken up. You know—still.”
“I’m fine,” Dane said. “Just need some sleep.”
“Sure. Sure. Just, um…” Jack pointed behind him. “You want to grab a bite or something?”
Dane looked at him. Just looked.
Jack held up his hands. “As a friend! C’mon. I know a place that serves the best tacos in Avenbrooke. Swear to God.”
“Jack…” Dane rubbed his eyes. “Why are you here?”
“Huh?”
“Why. Are you. Here?”
Silence. Dane took his hand away from his eyes. “Look, I know you had no idea I was gonna be in today—”
“Actually, I did.”
Dane stopped. Stopped walking too. Jack stood still next to him and thumbed back to the bodega.
“You know how I get coffee every morning before going into work?”
“Yeah. Despite the fact that Happy’s serves coffee.”
“Don’t fucking judge me,” Jack said. “Anyway, I get a coffee every morning before going into work, but today, Pops says Dickless is calling in sick on Collection Day, but you’re coming in instead.”
“He said this to you.”
“Overheard it. Pops shouts his conversations. Thinks it’s okay because it’s in Spanish. Thought you knew.”
Dane did, actually. He just couldn’t care. “Okay. So…”
“So, I call off to hang out with you.”
“Why?”
“Because in the how many years we’ve known each other—”
“Seven.”
“Trying to tell a story here, for Christ’s sake.”
Dane shrugged.
“So in the seven years we’ve known each other,” Jack said, “I’ve never known you to own a single pokémon.”
Dane crossed his arms. “Pops keeps Diego under the counter,” he answered. “And a baseball bat.”
“Ah, which I have seen you use,” Jack said. “You can’t fucking swing to save yourself. And the Baron sends professionals.”
In a knee-jerk reaction, Dane scoffed. “So you hung out with me to—what? Protect me?”
“Look,” Jack said. “I know you say you’re all right, but even if things were cool in the end, it was still two guys, two guns, and at least one pokémon. Neither of us are one of the suits. I was surprised no one died.”
“Yeah, you say all this, yet you’re fine with fighting two assholes with—what? What did you even throw back there?”
Jack smirked. “Canned tomatoes.”
“Right. What the fuck?”
“Saved you, didn’t I?”
Dane sighed and shook his head. Those past few years since college, Dane hadn’t seen much of Jack outside of work, and although his conversations with him that day were unusually pleasant, this was what talking to Jack was usually like. All winding stories that eventually led to dead ends because, somehow, in the course of his rambling, Jack managed to get Dane to forget for an iota of a second what the point actually was.
But no. Dane was going to focus. He was going to fixate on the point again. And he was going to fixate on the point because what Jack had done was fucking stupid and could have gotten them killed if he wasn’t ungodly lucky. And the trouble is, Dane couldn’t decide which “he” he had meant in if he wasn’t ungodly lucky.
And that pissed him off even more. Just enough for a silence to lapse.
“All right,” Jack finally said. “I’ll bite. You want to know the truth?”
“Yes,” Dane snapped.
Jack rocked back onto heels. “I was worried about you, man.”
“Worried about me.”
“Yeah. I mean—”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
Jack held up his hands again, as if he could physically stop Dane’s irritation. “Hey. Wait!”
And that pissed Dane off even more. He shoved Jack, forcing him to stumble backwards until he hit the brick wall behind him. “You risked your life because you think I needed protection,” he said. “Of all the stupid-ass—why don’t you fucking grow up for once instead of doing something that insanely fucking stupid? This isn’t the movies, Jack. You can’t kung-fu your way out of shit; you just got lucky this one time.”
Jack braced himself against the wall. “Fuck off! That’s not why I—”
Throwing his hands into the air, Dane took a step back and briefly thought about just walking away. But no. No, he needed to keep going. Why, he couldn’t figure out, but for some reason, his frustration kept his feet planted right there, in front of Jack.
“Then what made you fuck around with all those people today?!” he asked.
Dane knew what was coming, even before he finished asking. He expected another story. Another distraction. And the truth was … he wasn’t entirely wrong.
He was just wrong about the why. Because of all the things he thought Jack was about—the kind of asshole bravado he had since he’d told their senior English teacher where to stick it, mostly—he didn’t expect Jack’s reason to be…
“Because fuck me if I care!” Jack snapped. “You’ve been my friend since high school, asshole. No one else but you stuck around in this shithole of a city, but you did, and every day, you’re still there, jockeying that stupid-ass counter or hanging out at Happy’s, and fuck me if I’m gonna let your face get blown off by one of the Baron’s blowhards. You mean too much to me, man.”
Dane stood there for a moment, taking in his words. And then, he rubbed his mouth with the palm of one hand. “So … you were willing to get shot for…”
Jack shrugged. “My job sucks. Hanging out with you helps. You get it, right? No one should be on their own, especially not dragging them through a day in this hellfuck of a city.”
Slowly, Dane nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
Jack grinned. Like a dick. “Could’ve kicked me out any time.”
“Yeah,” Dane admitted.
He drew a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He offered one to Jack, who took it without a word. Lighting both of them up, Dane shuffled to the side of the sidewalk, under an awning for a shitty apartment building much like his shitty apartment building, and took a long drag.
“It was a change of pace,” he said.
“What was?” Jack asked. Then, with a laugh: “The fucking robbery?”
Dane shook his head. “I think I’ll take off tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
Dane nodded.
So Jack did too. “Good. Good idea, man. But Pops—”
“Fuck him.” Dane looked at Jack. “Best tacos in Avenbrooke?”
Jack held up the hand holding the cigarette. “Swear to God.”
“Oh yeah?” Dane took a drag. “Let’s see about that.”
Jack cocked his head and shifted in a silent laugh. Smoothly, he whirled around and led the way. As Dane followed, he looked up to see a hawlucha and a man in a wingsuit gliding from one building to the next, and that got his mental gears turning.
“Hey, um. Sorry about what I said earlier. About growing up and kung-fuing your way out of shit and stuff,” he said.
“Nah, man. You’re right. Not everyone can do that. Can’t see you doing it, for one.”
Dane would have said a fuck you to that, but Jack was right. Dane would have died within five seconds of his first fight, and he damn well knew that. So instead, he said, “Well … you’re not me. And that was kinda badass.”
That brought Jack’s signature smile back to his face. “Thanks, man.”
“You ever think about becoming one of those guys?” Dane asked. “A hero, I mean. You can fight and all, and if you hate your job that much…”
“Sure, but I’m not a dumbass,” Jack replied. “I barely make minimum wage. You think I can afford getting the shit beaten out of me on a daily basis? Besides, those dork-ass costumes? No thanks. Look like they’d chafe around the ballsack.”
“But you’d get Volcarona Mask’s number.”
Jack smiled. “Look at you, you nasty fuck. Just like high school.” He shoved Dane’s shoulder. “I’d respect Volcarona Mask like a gentleman, thank you.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah.” Jack took a drag on his cigarette. “Probably wouldn’t. Good thing I don’t have a chance, right?”
“What makes you think you’d have a chance if you were a superhero?”
“Hey. Fuck you.”
Somewhere else, someone else, someone with a hawlucha and a wingsuit, was kicking the everloving shit out of two guys and a lucario. Dane would hear about this the next morning, on the news over coffee and eggs at Jack’s (with Jack), and at that moment, watching the shitty world get shittier via a shitty TV in Jack’s not-quite-shitty apartment, Dane would find himself doing something he hadn’t done for a long time: not giving a fuck about anything but Jack.
