Anybodys didn't spring up defiantly after getting knocked down for once until he realized that Ice was there, back from... why had he left as soon as...

He jolted upwards, stumbling from the penetrating pain where there shouldn't be any, that was tearing through him paired with the fragmented memories of what those guys who were supposed to be his brothers had done to him, what they had taken that could never be given or taken back, that he kept on indignantly shoving back down and that kept on resurfacing stubbornly...

Would they always be at the surface of his mind now, another instance of trauma and being beaten down by practically everyone and everything around him to irrevocably color his perception of everything, of the guys he was still gonna be seeing a lot of because if they thought that would be enough to get him to quit working to get his rightful position in the gang back they were fucking crazy, of Ice, who was way more of a friend to him than the rest of the other Jets... the Jets and would never do anything like that to him but had still cowardly removed himself from the situation and stopped trying to get them to leave him alone seemingly the exact moment it became clear to Anybodys which way the tide was turning and what exactly he was fighting against... cardboard boxes?

He had been staring at one that sat water drenched across from him in the alley when it had... happened... he didn't know why, it had just been a little less horrific when he had focused as much as possible on the first innocuous object that had caught his eye rather than what was being done to him, what was being taken from him, but now he never wanted to see another one of those stupid things again.

Ice stabilized him as he was steadfastly securing his jeans around his waist again despite hating the sensation of anything touching him in that general area... Anybodys almost launched himself away from him, both because any touch especially from a Jet felt like a bear trap clamping onto him at the moment... hopefully that effect would stay in the moment and he would be able to ditch it, not that touch from them or anyone really had felt great before... and because he had left when the going had gotten tough for him.

He hadn't been able to stop them when it had started out as just another standard issue beating, though, so maybe there wouldn't have been any use to him sticking around beyond him getting kicked out of this alley that Anybodys was never going into again instead of leaving it voluntarily.

Anybodys cast him a defiant glance as he stabilized himself against the nearby wall instead, breaking the contact between them, so he would know that he could handle himself... even if he hadn't been able to do it then, but there had been so many of them and only one of him, and he had gotten some good hits in before they had...

Ice still hadn't said anything, his usual stoicism still present but punctuated with anger that wasn't directed at him and awkward... shame? almost? more than it usually got punctuated with anything.

He kicked the cardboard box behind a trash can, apparently having picked up on Anybodys' sudden aversion to it, and passed him something in a paper bag that he realized a moment later was a bottle of vodka.

"Here. If my old man is to be believed, this'll help ya forget."

Well, he certainly wasn't gonna say no to something that would take off the edge when seemingly the entirety of his existence was nothing but edge, crowding against him and jabbing at him even worse than usual whenever he tried to navigate through it out of his current position.

Anybodys struggled with all his strength for a far too long moment to get his shaking hands to cooperate with him and remove the cap, casting an even more defiant glare at Ice as he moved to help him with it.

Anybodys hit the neck of the bottle against the nearby wall in frustration, refusing to accept help or look weak... weaker than he already did, anyway... and drank from it, not having to put much effort into ignoring the jagged edges of broken glass against his lips or the spilled liquid burning against his mouth when he was already barely present in his body.

"They forgot that I'm one a them, more like. What's that saying a Tony's Riff yaps on about all the time? 'When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way?'"

Ice stared at him for a long moment, making a slight and quickly aborted gesture to place a hand on his shoulder or something.

"I would tell ya you should give up on them, but you would never listen to that. Hell, I'm not even takin' my own advice. I should. We both should. But we won't, will we?"

Anybodys took another satisfyingly numbing swig, thinking about the highly unsatisfying circumstances that had led to him being in this position... and that horrific position under the other Jets... the Jets... and the guy whose fault they were.

"Tony did. Tony's a stinkin' coward, leavin' us high n' dry when things have never been worse with the Emeralds. I've tried to tell 'im to come back, but he just goes on and on about how he's sick a the senseless violence and bein' stuck in the same place in life or whatever the hell. Can you believe that shit?"

Ice contemplated this for a moment before sighing and looking down the alley towards the exit, in the direction the other Jets... the Jets had left after a couple kicks in the ribs and last jeers and jabs for good measure.

"I can believe it, I can't believe that he really managed to leave."

Anybodys took another swig, frustrated that his friend didn't seem to understand that Tony's abandonment of them was a bad thing even after how badly the others had blown up because of it.

He could believe that Ice didn't get it, though; he had been able to tell for a while that his enthusiasm for life in the Jets, the conviction behind the punches and insults he threw at the rival gang members intruding on their hard earned turf was fading just as Tony's was even as his strength and skill at fighting hadn't.

It was so unfair, so stupid; Ice and Tony were both clearly disillusioned with the Jets and everything they righteously stood for, their fight to keep a hold on their territory that was the only semblance of security they had in this world besides each other... and sometimes not even each other in Anybodys' case... but they were the current second in command and former co-leader respectively.

Anybodys was so much more passionate about defending the Jets and their territory and being supported by them in turn than they were, than they had ever been, even, and he probably fought and spied on rival gangs with more zeal than even the others who hadn't become cynical about what they were fighting for.

Hell, none of the others had ever spied for the Jets... Anybodys didn't enjoy doing it nearly as much as fighting either, but he was willing to use his prowess at slipping in and out of the shadows to help the gang anyway, because he was more of a Jet than any of them.

They could kick him out after the guy who had let him into the gang in the first place had left and then beat him down even further in a way that he really hoped the vodka would help him to forget like Ice had said after he had valiantly protested this stupid decision of Riff's, but they couldn't change the fact that Jets could never be made into former Jets, especially when they were as die hard loyal and skilled at clobbering and spying on members of rival gangs as Anybodys.

Tony wasn't a former Jet either, not really.

He would come crawling back eventually, and then he would hopefully help Anybodys get his rightful position in the gang back, in the unlikely scenario that he hadn't earned it back on his own already by then.

"We never will, though, cause we're not cowards. You'll let me back in if you ever become the leader a the gang and I haven't gotten back in already, right?"

Ice shifted his weight a little, for once not standing at his full massive and enviable height.

Anybodys offered him the bottle, knowing that finishing it off in one sitting was a challenge not even he would undertake because it would probably kill him and he was already starting to feel the nice and soothing blurring effects of the portion he had already drank, and he took it, taking a much more reserved and smaller sip.

"Sure. I don't see Riff quittin' like Tony did any time soon, though."

Anybodys took back the bottle, taking another sip to beat down the highly unpleasant emotions that rose up in him, churning in him like the vodka probably would at some point, at the thought of Riff, his least favorite member of the Jets by far, their undeserved, unqualified co-leader and now just leader who had probably driven Tony away by pressuring him to do stuff for the gang over and over to try and get him to regain his prior zeal for Jet life, who he was pretty sure had been the one to... enter him... being the sole leader of the Jets.

"Here's hopin' he does, or he gets got or somethin'. That'd show 'im."

Huh, there were two Ices now, both blurring into each other and watching him with their usual solemnness punctuated by concern.

"C'mon, I'll walk ya home."

Anybodys shrugged him off as he attempted to support him, angry that he thought he was weak enough to need that even as the vodka was definitely getting to his head and legs and destabilizing them even further.

This was nice, actually, he was barely thinking of what Ice had gotten him the vodka to help him forget anymore, like the alcohol had formed a wall in his mind and those memories and sensations were behind it, trying but failing to batter it down.

Hopefully the wall would stay up and he wouldn't fail in his new mission to break the barrier the other Jets... the Jets had cruelly put between them and him, although he knew from his experience with emotional walls even as the alcohol made knowing anything a little more strenuous that they didn't tend to stay up forever.

If that principle applied to both walls and not just the alcohol induced one, he could live with that.

"I don't wanna see Tony, and get off me."

Anybodys tried to stand without the support of the wall and quickly begrudgingly acquiesced to accepting some support from his friend, which didn't make him weak, because he would normally be able to handle his liquor, it was just that that wasn't the only thing he was trying to handle right now.

Ice thought for a moment before responding.

"Do you wanna go to my place for tonight? Velma'll prolly be there, but you could sleep on the couch."

Ugh, Velma... Anybodys had never gotten along with Ice's girl, but at least she hadn't been in this wretched alley with the others and probably wouldn't have participated in... what they had done to him if she had been there.

"Okay."

Ice gave a slight nod, and they started heading out of this alley for what would definitely be the last time for Anybodys.

He subtly took the bottle back from him after he had stumbled a little, and Anybodys cursed in a way that was meant to be under his breath but probably hadn't been, hoping that the stuff that was already in his system would be enough to make this night nothing more than a vaguely unpleasant, thorny blur.

Anybodys hadn't been able to stop the Jets from doing... what they had done to him, but he should be able to enact mastery over his own mind and memory.