---- ...And All Shall Fade to Black ----
That's a hell of a way to meet the neighbors!
“Leave, now, Sean or I swear I’ll…”
Something shattered against the wall adjacent his bedroom
and Jax swore and reached for his pillow. He hadn’t even been in his new
apartment long enough to meet his neighbors and he already knew he was going to
hate them. The place had seemed pretty quiet when he’d done the tour and
decided to fill out the paperwork for his apartment and one downstairs for his
friends. They were gonna be pretty pissed if it turned out to be frat party
loud with people passing out on the stairwell and pissing in the halls.
“What! Just what the fuck are you gonna do? You reach for
that fucking phone and I swear to god I’ll beat you to death with it!”
Great, just what Jax didn’t want to hear. Annoyed as he was,
there was no way he was just going to lay in bed and listen to some chick get
the shit beat outta her by her old man, or drug dealer. Whoever the hell he
was, he sounded pissed enough to follow through on his threat. Jax knew all
about men like that and what kind of damage they could cause. An image flashed
through his head as he shoved the blankets aside. His mother’s face, eye
blackened, cheek bruised, the split in her lip leaking blood on her lavender
shirt as she’d huddled on the floor, vase and half dying flowers in a pool
around her.
“You lying bitch, who gave you those!”
Hiding beneath his bed, Jax shivered, hands balled into
fists, tears streaming down his cheeks as he listened to the fear in his
mother’s voice and the sound of glass breaking.
“My son picked them on the way home from school!”
“Do you think I’m stupid? Tell me the fuckin’ truth.”
“No, Henry, I know you’re not stupid. I’m not lying to you,
I swear it, I swear, Henry, please!”
The sound of something heavy slamming into the wall made Jax
cry out and shrink back to the furthest corner he could crawl to, blankets
pulled up over his head, the stuffed moose in his arms clutched tight.
“If I ever catch you messing around with another man, I’ll
kill you, do you understand me! I’ll kill you dead and leave you in pieces for
your brats to find!”
Shaking off the memory, Jax yanked on a pair of jeans with
trembling fingers and snatched his kubotan off the stand by the door. Shoving
it in his pocket he stomped through his apartment and shoved open the door into
the hall. It seemed like the fight had spilled out there too. Jax paused,
taking a moment to realize he’d been wrong about who was involved. There was no
woman, just two guys, one considerably larger, and angrier than the other. He
hadn’t been wrong about the danger though, the big guy had pieces of the broken
telephone in his hand and the smaller guy seemed to be trying to ward him off
with a chair. A highly ineffective tactic as the big guy easily snatched the
chair away, half dragging the smaller man from the doorway in the process. T
he big man tossed the chair to the side, effortlessly, not
even bothering to glance in its direction when it struck the wall and broke,
his entire focus was on the smaller man. Hands up and cringing, the man backed
up, nearly tripping over his own feet as the big guy lunged for him. Jax chose
that moment to step between them, anger and adrenaline making his heart pound.
“Get outta the fuckin’ way; this ain’t no business of
yours!”
Jax cocked his head to the side and studied the frat boy
haircut and pinprick eyes he was suddenly faced with. Stupid fucker was high as
hell, just fuckin’ great. Planting his feet, Jax settled into an easy fighting
stance, waiting to see what the big bastard was going to do.
“Didn’t you hear me!” the man barked, spewing whiskey breath
in Jax’s face. “I said MOVE!”
Jax chuckled and cracked his knuckles. “If you don’t shut
the fuck up and leave him alone, I’ll kill you.”
The look on the other man’s face might have been comical, if
he hadn’t fucked the whole thing up by taking a swing. What a way to meet the
neighbors, Jax thought as he ducked and fired off an uppercut of his own.
Nothing like a good brawl to get the blood flowing.
Scrambling backwards, Danny moved from between the much
larger men, not that he had very much room to move, but at least further down
the hallway he wouldn’t be an accidental target as fists started to fly.
“What’s it to you what I do to him?” Sean grunted as he
shook off the glancing blow and stepped right into their new neighbor’s face.
Danny hoped Jax would back off. He didn’t know the tall brunette, outside of an
introduction, Jax having just moved into the building three days before, and
while he looked jacked, Danny had no way of knowing how he’d handle himself in
a fight. Especially against someone like Sean, who loved fighting.
“You woke me up with all your yelling, for starters, but
since I’m out here and your attitude sucks, I figure I might as well fuck up
your night the same way you’ve fucked up mine,” Jax stated as he held his
ground.
Sean went to shove him, but Jax moved out of the way and
gave Sean a shove of his own, sending him staggering into the wall. Danny
scrambled further back, desperate for a dark corner to get lost in as Sean’s
wild eyes scanned around, looking for him. When they landed on him, Danny
froze.
“Call the cops,” Sean snarled. “I’m going to have this
fucker arrested for assault!”
“C-call them y-yourself,” Danny stammered, then fell back
with a strangled squawk when Sean lunged for him.
Jax had caught hold of the back of his shirt and hauled him
backwards, away from Danny, who stared up at Jax’s pierced face, shocked at the
man’s strength. Sean kicked back and managed to drop Jax to one knee, freeing
him to go after Danny again.
“Son of a bitch!” Jax roared as Sean lunged for Danny and
wrapped his hands around his throat.
In the scuffle that ensued, the only thing that Danny could
see was Sean’s pinprick eyes and the spittle flying from his lips as he cussed
and threatened. Just as everything faded to black, Danny though he saw a
snarling demon rise up behind Sean, the rage twisted features scaring him so
badly he was grateful when everything faded away.
Jax grunted and kicked the larger man in the side, pissed as all getup and wishing he could hit him a second time. Truth be told, he hadn’t expected to knock him out with one shot, but his Kubotan had come in handy and maybe he’d put more force into it than he’d thought. A quick check revealed that the guy was still breathing. Too bad really, ‘cause outside of the manslaughter charge it might have been worth it to have one less asshole in the world.
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