Did you know what's last on the list of things - baring a meet and greet with Cthulu - I thought I'd never have to put up with?
Waking up in a cop's bed, wrapped up like a dessicated mummy and smelling like cheap bubblegum liquor with a bullet hole in my side with my long lost father hovering anxiously over me.
On that same note, wanna guess where I woke up a couple hours after I got shot?
Yup, in the bed of a Bludhaven cop.
The only thing missing is the long lost father, though I scour my eyes across the messy room just to be sure. At least I'm not a pile of Jason bits floating in the bay, how's that for being positive?
The cop's uniform is draped over the foot of the bed and I can hear him whistling from somewhere in the apartment, the cheery sound only furthering my bad mood.
Just because I can, - and because what the fuck he even changed my clothes! - I toe the uniform off the bed where it falls into a half eaten take out container.
Satisfied I've made his life just a bit more difficult I swing my legs carefully off the bed, shift weight to my feet and promptly introduce my face to the mushy carpet when a head rush saps away my balance.
Rubber, fucking duck that hurts!
I let out a low, keening moan to hold back a list of expletives I don't have the lung capacity for. I try to stand again, but my aching body says staying on the floor is a better idea, so I do that instead.
God I knew getting shot was a bitch, but what the fuck did I do to deserve this?
It's the taxes isn't it, I never once paid taxes and this is how I'm going to be punished for it. By dying of pain in the home of a government official.
I don't even think I'm old enough for taxes, I grew three inches in the past month, so I can't just be a short old guy!
"Oh my Goodness, Jason are you okay?!" Hands are lifting me off the floor and no matter how out of it I am I know I don't lean into it okay. " Shhh, you're okay." Oh God, those hands are carting through my hair now.
It's so fucking weird my mind short circuits and next thing I know I'm seated at a breakfast table with an actual pile of bacon in front of me.
On second thought, the blackout could have been the pain...
Meh, doesn't matter, there's a plate of fragrant food in front of me and I'm too hungry to care. The cop is talking again, but I don't pay attention until I've polished off half the plate, makes it easier not to make a comment that will get the food taken away and I'd like to face my death on a full stomach.
"You should have known better than to try getting up so fast, you lost a lot of blood you know." He still looks way too cheerful for a cop with an injured kid chowing down on his food.
"You couldn't have taken me to a hospital?" I skewer four more strips of bacon on my fork and shove them all into my mouth in one go.
The guy's blue eyes are as wide as saucers, like a guy wanting to see a doctor about a bullet is something out of the twilight zone. "You hate hospitals."
Well I ask you, what sane person 'wants' to chill out in a building where people die every day? There's no way in Dante's second hell this guy means something personal about it, just thinks I'm a street kid or something and makes a guess based on the general attitude.
"I hate dying more." I move a hand to rest on my aching side. "Some morphine would be killer too." I say because going by the pain in my side, the guy didn't think to give me any painkillers. I'm used to it enough that I'm not gonna scream again, but it still 'hurts'.
"Don't talk like that!" He jumps to his feet, every drop of cheer gone from his furious/terrified expression and God damn he's got a gun clipped to his side!
I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die and there probably won't even be little Jason bits fished up in the bay, cops know their shit too well for that kind of evidence to show up.
I scramble away, brandishing my fork and his brows furrow in confusion. What, the fucker didn't think I'd fight back, huh? Well I'll show him what happens when you mess with a desperate guy armed with a sharpish eating utensil!
When he tries to approach again, bringing a hand towards me, I jab him with the fork and make a break for it, grabbing one of the kitchen drawers and spilling out the utensils in a metal enthusiasts wet dream of noise.
"Come near me again and I'll fucking kill ya, you freak!"
Makeshift shield in hand, I duck down, putting the couch between me and the crazy policemen. I swear if I ever get out of this I'll never help another policeman for as long as I live.
"Jason, what are you doing?" He sounds hurt. Fuck, did I puncture an artery with that fork? I don't want a dead cop on my conscience, do you have any idea what kind of nightmares that would give me?
"Man are you okay?" I poke my head over the back of the couch and he's just standing there, leaning against the wall with his head in his hands. His shoulders are shaking.
"I'm so sorry." He looks up at me with teary eyes. "Whatever I did, can we please just talk it through? I'm so happy to see you."
"Er..." I lower my head a little, so just my eyes are showing. How do I tell him I'm not into whatever fantasy he's got playing out in his head without getting that gun trained on me? "Listen bud, I'm sure you didn't do anything you wouldn't normally do, and I get it, I'd be pretty damn happy to see me too, I mean come on, have you looked at me?" I cock my head a little to the side.
"I know I was..."
"What am I saying, ofcourse you've looked at me, but that's not the point here," I continue, pretty proud of how calm I manage to keep my voice. "The point is, I'm just not sure this is going to work. You're old, I'm gorgeous, you're a cop, and I'm incredibly freaked out that you know my name..." I wave one hand in a circle above my head. "You get the point I'm sure."
"Jason." He looks bewildered, eyes wide and mouth hanging open enough to trap a bear. It's a weird expression for a guy with tear tracks still glistening on his cheeks.
Well there goes my first relationship, ended before love could even bloom...
It would have been a hell of a lot more romantically painful if he'd been a cute blonde girl.
I crab walk slowly towards the door, and his eyes loose a little of that wideness with every step I take. I'm just inching around the couch when he has to talk and ruin it.
"What are you talking about? Ofcourse I know your name Littlewing." He's getting to his feet again, and my brain makes the decision to forget subtlety and get to the door as fast as I can.
My hands clutch around the frame and I launch myself out, but can't hold back the impulse to duck in and make one last point clear.
"The weird pet names too. Next time maybe wait a few months before you drop that bomb."
His face just crumbles and why do I feel like I've just murdered his last shred of hope in the world?
Better question is, why do I feel bad about it?
"Um, thanks for breakfast Mister cop guy, sorry I stabbed you." Even if you totaly deserved it.
As I leave he pulls out his phone, and I really hope he isn't calling his cop buddies to pay me a visit.
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I stake out the block around my apartment for a few hours before I go anywhere near it. There are still some thugs hanging around the place, and I'm really wondering who the hell I messed with to get this kind of response.
Isn't being shot enough retribution for one guy? Maybe I should find their boss and send him a real nice apology gift basket.
One with a huge ass bomb in it.
I wait a few hours, but the guys don't leave and I need to get in there and grab my cash stash so I can get a safe place to sleep tonight, and also some grub as my stomach's constant complaining reminds me.
I'd thrown up all that bacon not long after I'd left officer mcCreepy's place, a waste of a meal, but it's not like I can do anything about it now.
It's almost nightfall, and I'm just considering finding an alley to spend the night in when a scream errupts from the one nearest me and a guy comes running out like his life depends on it.
Probably does, what do I know?
So I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. Sneaking by a bunch of thugs shouldn't be too hard, right?
Except it is too hard, and the second inget my hands on the was of cash I'm picked up by the back of my ratty T-shirt and thrown into the nearest walk with enough force to give me a concussion.
"What's this then?" A grubby hand that's more sausages than fingers pries open the fist I have clenched around my money and
starts counting through the notes while one of his buddies lifts me in a choke hold and slams me against the wall again.
"Covered in a flesh eating disease." I choke out, earning myself another pat on the back from the wall and the barrel of a gun pressed against my head.
"You won't mind me taking it off your hands then," He leans in close, breathing right in my face and, whoa does this guy have bad breath! He interprets my pulling away from him as fear and chuckels deeply. "Seeing as how you won't need it anymore."
"You know the ancient Egyptians believed that dying with no money to your name got you barred from the afterlife."
"Too bad for you kid." He clicks off the safety, and I squeeze my eyes shut in preparation before I realise something a little more pressing thank my lack of admittance at the afterlife.
"Wait, I didn't say that." I blurt out, because I known for a fact that I could come up with a better pre-mortem one liner.
"Hmm?" I'm sure the confused look in his face mirrors mine exactly.
"I did!" That same voice exclaims and suddenly a blur of red green and yellow is flying across the room, ripping my would-be-executioner away from me.
It takes me a few seconds of watching some kid in a colorfull costume beat he snot out of three men three times his size to realize I'm on the floor again, breathing easily and not being held down by anything.
Screw the money, I grab the cold leftovers still sitting by the stove and for the second time in as many days my ads goes flying out that window.
I leave a sizable dent in the dumpster this time, but I don't care, I'm homefree with a carton of three day old Chinese to hold me one till I find something else.
No way in hell am I setting so much as a pinky toe in that part of the city again, not unless they cut the toe off and carry it there themselves. There are just as many equally crummy places I can set myself in that 'don't' have entire gangs gunning for me.
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The next day, I wake up surprisingly unharmed on the park bench I passed out after a few hours of wandering. Turns out blood loss is a thing, and I have it, and it's impairing my better judgement.
I yawn and stretch, taking in the whole being aliveness as I close my eyes and tilt my head towards the light breeze. There are some birds singing, a tiny bit of sun peeking through the foul smelling air, I huff a deep breath and lean back on the bench.
A beautiful day to sit and and relax after a life threatening experience or three. At least it would be not for that incessant prickling at the back of my neck.
Somewhere nearby a camera shutter goes off and I open my eyes to kid leaning over me, his smiling face close enough that I can pick out the little flecks of brown in his cyan eyes.
"Hi Jason." He whispers reverently, and raises the camera again, It clicks and the flash goes off right in my face, blinding me.
I'm too scared to move at first, and he just stands there, holding his camera and smilling like Christmas was roling into town early and looping around to come back tomorrow too.
"I'm sorry." He slides along the back of the bench and plops down on the seat next to me. "I should have turned the flash off for such a close shot, but I just 'had' to take your picture again, I mean it's been so long, and you're taller now. So you still eat your ice cream cone first?"
Yes I do eat my ice cream cone first, but I'm not telling that to the creepy stalker child who knows my name.
"I'm Tim by the way, and I just wanted to say that you've been such an inspiration to me and it is 'such' an honour to finally meet you." The words come out on a breathless whoosh, and his clammy hand is enthusiastically shaking my numb one.
I let it continue for a few seconds, then yank my hand away and hold it up in a demand (plea) for silence before he can start talking again.
"That's nice... Tim was it?" I keep my eyes on the roots of a dead tree, but it doesn't make the wild glint in his eyes any less terrifying.
Or his sqeaky whisper of. "Robin knows my name!" Any less confusing.
I nod anyway and calmly get up, brushing away some of the dried leaves clinging to my shirt.
Then I run because oh my God I have a creepy stalker who knows Robin and after last night that's pretty fucking terrifying!
A block and a half away I'm panting heavily, leaning against a dumpster and brushing away the glistening sweat that's dropping from my brow.
A chillidog appears in my feild of vision. "You should eat to bring your blood sugar up."
"Holy!" I leap back, throwing the lid of the nearest trash can at the kid balancing on the rim of the dumpster. I'm about two seconds away from uttering a few hail Mary's when the dog is shoved into my gaping mouth.
"You scared Dick when you ran off like that, but it's okay, I know you didn't have the best relationship. You can talk to me about it instead if you want." He sounds sincere too until he lets out a squee and flutters his hands. "I just told Robin he can talk to me!" What makes it even creepier is that he goes back to looking kind and sincere a second later.
I finish off the chillidog, because it's good and I'll probably be dead by the end of the week anyway and 'poisoned by a creepy stalker' is as good a death as any, but the second it's finished I'm running as fast as my feet can take me away from said creepy stalker.
I swear I hear his camera shutter going off again, and the feeling of being watched stays with me all day.