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Sounds in the Air
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Summary: Detroit may be a hard, violence-ridden place to live, but someone has to call the cops during a gunfight, right? Well, someone did, and the cops arrive in time to break up a fight that might still claim the life of Jack Mercer.
Chapter Count – REVISED! : So I know that I said I thought there were going to be five chapters, and there still kind of are, but I realized around the time that I posted the second one that the jump between chapter four and five was a little too drastic and something needed to go in between. And so, here we have a little interlude.
Thanks to ALL of the reviewers and the people who have favorited/story alerted this!
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Interlude: Jack
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Jack blinked open his eyes and sighed when he realized that instead of the quick nap he'd been planning on he'd been sleeping for hours. Sometimes his brothers tried to trick him when it happened, but not even Bobby Mercer could make the sun stay up to pacify little Jackie, he almost sneered.
He'd started physical therapy two days before and he fucking hated it. How could he not? Some way-too-positive dude (they couldn't have gotten him a girl? Even an annoyingly perky one would have been better) cheering him on while he tried, and still sometimes failed, to make his leg move the way he wanted it to. Even the one that didn't really need much help ached. Still, compared to the way his wounds used to burn and throb and make it hard to breathe, an ache was pretty welcome.
And fuck if his brothers weren't insufferably optimistic. They wanted to come to physical therapy with him, but there was no goddamned way he was letting that happen. Either they'd decide that completely ragging on him would somehow spur him to work harder and prove them wrong or they'd pity him worse than they already obviously did. Both options were equally shit-tastic.
That probably wasn't very fair to them, though. Jack's brothers had always been (embarrassingly) protective and (wonderfully/weirdly) good at dealing with him when he wasn't (in his opinion) his best. Now, even though he knew they were exhausted between the house and the hospital, they were still that way. At least one of them stayed with him all the time, even when he tried to say that he didn't need a babysitter. They, thus far, hadn't said a word about the 'early days that he cannot be held accountable for' (as he put it) where he maybe cried a little when the pain and fevers were really awful. He could barely remember any of that, but he had a really awful feeling that he'd been somewhere between fucking-pathetic and a-little-girl. His brothers, Bobby especially, could have really had a field day with that, but they hadn't – not even once.
More than once, Jack had tried to talk about what had happened. Not about Mom, he wasn't a masochist contrary to popular opinion, but about Victor Sweet or even the house. He was never one of those kids who had to deal with parents who patted them on the head and told them not to worry, in fact, for a while he was the kid who had to deal with bottles and fists flying at his head, and maybe that was what made Angel, Jerry and Bobby's total unwillingness to just fucking talk to him so frustrating.
Oh sure, they slipped him just enough info to keep him from exploding – Sweet has been arrested, Jack, along with every motherfucker who did his dirty work or The house is coming along fine, fairy. Want us to re-paint your room pink while we're at it? – but that wasn't really enough. He was pretty sure that if he just started talking about the shooting, or anything really, they would listen but the general vibe of the family was 'don't worry, get better'. A week ago he was willing to go along with that but now, almost done with his hospital stay, he wanted more.
Still, he couldn't really be mad at them. He heard some of their hushed conversations (money woes, backlash fears, Jack's health, house setbacks…) and he saw the way that they looked at him sometimes. Jack knew them like the back of his hand, even though they'd had a strange two years where there was little contact between them. They had been genuinely scared for him and he hated that he'd made them feel that way.
So even though he was sitting next to Jerry, who hadn't noticed he was awake yet, and could probably try to pry some information out of him, he wouldn't. Jerry looked tired, but he didn't look like something awful was happening outside of Jack's little prison.
It really all boiled down to this: he was alive, his brothers were alive, none of them were in immediate danger, Jack's limp was getting better, he was almost out of the hospital and, as far as he knew, the house still had four sides and a roof.
That was more than enough.
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Only one chapter left, folks! I hope having such a short little interlude didn't bother anyone. I won't make you wait the entire week for the next chapter, especially since it's been longer than a week since the last posting. I think sometime mid-week sounds good. I've started a new Four Brothers story, but it's in the very early stages so I don't know when (or if) it will be posted. As far as I know, however, it will be the background for any other story for the Mercers I write.
Reviews make my day and help shape how I write, so please drop me a line!