Chelsea grin and Glasgow smile.
Of course it hurt. It was supposed to hurt. It was supposed to force you to cry, and have the salt sting the open wounds in your jawline.
Jack couldn't stop shaking when he peeled his head off the floor, sliced veins a lifeline from his face to the pavement. Dirt collecting in that new, special place near his ear where his smile ended.
He spent forever on the floor, bleeding and shaking and not being able to stand or sit up or do anything but blink back tears and blood.
Muscles were lost, vital connections between his teeth and his face and his tongue. Casualties of war.
It hurt so bad.
He sat up and threw up. Bile, dirt sticking to his new lips. Burning. His pants were ruined and everything was dancing.
There were disinfectants in the bathroom, and bandages. Butterflies, adhesive medical strips, foam, bactine, spray-on. Lovely, healing substances that were cool in comparison to all this burning.
It took him another forever getting to the bathroom. Like there wasn't enough blood already, now there were fingersmears and footprints. He could cover the whole apartment with all this blood. Loop his lost flesh around the furniture and turn it into a living, breathing, wet and sticky thing, like a Jack extension. He could make a new organ.
The apartment breathed around him. The doorknob to the bathroom was cold until he touched it, and then it turned red and angry. The walls were damp and hot with exhalation.
He opened the door, closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to look in the mirror yet, and took everything out of the medicine cabinet. Something glass crashed on the floor. Probably that stupid little bottle of potpourri he didn't like, anyway.
Bandages, fluffy and reassuring, pushed against his blind fingers. He had a vague idea of what he needed to do- disinfect, staunch bleeding, then bandage.
But he'd need to look at himself in order to do that.
He opened his eyes to pick up all the different tubes of disinfectant, first. Then the bandages. A big shitload of towels for the hell of it.
Then he looked into the mirror.
His face was split three ways- his bottom lip, cut in half. His grin carved ear to ear.
His face was pale and his eyes were purple and puffy with bruises.
He looked like a clown.
Suddenly, he couldn't stop laughing. He was so scared he'd make the rips in his face worse. Maybe the clown on his face would open up wide enough to swallow him whole, and it hurt to laugh, but he couldn't stop shaking with the stupidity of it all. He cried and coughed blood and laughed and wished he could stop. Looking like a clown in this much pain had such a funny side to it. He was a stupid joke and all his pain amounted to nothing, because he would never, ever be able to stop smiling.
He cleaned his cuts as best as he could, flinching and crying and bleeding everywhere. He was a coulrophobe's worst nightmare. He'd never be able to stop laughing. It was cut into his face for everyone to see. It wasn't funny.
Yeah. Yeah, it was funny.
He cleaned his face raw, then wrapped it in bandages, towels and IcyHot patches when he ran out of bandaids, then curled up on the floor and slept for a solid day.
When he woke up, he had a pounding headache. The bleeding had subsided. He drank a gallon of water and carefully peeled off the dozen or so layers of bandaids stuck to his face. He pinched flesh and applied butterfly bandaids. Then every other bandaid in the apartment, again.
He sat in the reeking apartment for days, healing. Blood popped out from around the bandaids on his face, and he licked that off. The pain buzzed and throbbed in his head in a high-pitched mosquito whine. It was only when he tongued the cuts that a little zap of electrified pain brought him back to the smell and familiarity of the apartment, but for hours at a time he floated.
The bandaids fell off the same day the police came to investigate the smell all the neighbors were complaining about.
Jack wasn't there.