Chapter Text
Jacket's life had ended.
He could feel himself existing. He felt his car's engine as he drove down Miami streets late at night, watching buildings pass by through his half broken windows. He was breathing. He could feel his heartbeat throughout his whole chest, but his life had ended.
The only thing Jacket had thought about since he woke up was revenge, and even though he had had his way with her killer hours prior, he wasn't about to give up halfway.
He didn't have any pictures of her, and as far as the city was concerned she was missing until her body was found. He didn't even know her name because they didn't talk much, but none of that really mattered to Jacket. As far as he was concerned, who she was didn't matter; it was the things she did for him. She helped clean around the house, helped bandage his wounds if he came home hurt, and helped make food some days.
His memories of her were stained with her blood now. He saw what he assumed to be her last breaths as she bled out on the floor of his bathroom. He nearly suffered the same fate, but, for some reason, he was able to wake up in a hospital bed, and he would never see her again.
Now, what he remembers is the firm grip around her killer's neck as he struggled for air and eventually lost the need for it.
But that didn't appease his anger. Not for a long shot.
He had grabbed the police station's files on the phone calls, and he assumed he had borrowed time to find and kill the people behind it. They're what ended his life; they took the only good person he had. He just needed to go over the info he stole to point himself in the right direction.
So he drove home for what he was sure would be the last time.
Looking back, he wondered why he hadn't done something like this sooner. Of course, he knew the answer why. It was obvious; it felt like he was back in Hawaii. It was hard not to see the kindness on her face and think of his old lieutenant, Nicke. They looked at him the same way, with the same warmth. Even his situation was similar, being ordered to kill people with the same kind of coded language.
Nicke died in 1986, a year after saving Jacket’s life. It had been 3 years since they last spoke, and even though Jacket was never able to see him afterward, he missed him. With her it felt like he was back home, even if it wasn't exactly the same. She didn't feel like the kind of person Jacket could lose himself talking to. She was quiet, like him, and that's why it was easy to ignore her. To pretend he had a piece of Nicke back. He still had something to hold on to.
But again, it was ripped away from him.
Jacket didn't make an effort to park his car as he arrived at his apartment building. If he was lucky, he'd be back in the driver's seat soon enough that it wouldn't matter. He rushed up the stairs, uncaring of his loud footsteps even though it was late at night. After all, it didn't matter what the neighbors thought now. He approached the empty doorframe of his apartment. The police tape had broken just hours ago when he escaped the hospital.
He expected his home to be empty; it had been weeks since the police were here, so they'd have no reason to come back this soon. Of course, Jacket wasn't lucky. He never had been.
As he stepped inside his apartment, he locked eyes with someone else. He had met this man before, although the memory was hazy. He couldn't quite remember when, but he knew he didn't like the fact he was here. In the quick glances Jacket took around the entrance he didn't find anything he could use as a weapon, and in that time the other man took his opportunity.
Biker held him by his collar, Jacket's attempts to fight back were swiftly ended by force. They held eye contact.
"Home so soon?" Biker stared at him. He looked furious. Jacket didn't answer; he was usually quiet, but this was a seething silence between both of them. Now that he had gotten a good look at his face and nasty scar, Jacket remembered who he was.
He didn't remember how long ago it was, his timeline had gotten messy since his coma, but Jacket remembered what happened. He had been called on a job to go to the nearby PHONE HOM building and take out a 'prank caller.' When he got there, he found Biker hunched over a computer at the end of a body trail. The only thing is, Jacket remembers killing him. Vividly. He remembered scattering his head across the room with a golf club. The desperation as he crawled away, half dead. Standing over him, watching his last moments. The blood-
Biker shook Jacket back to the present. He was getting impatient, and Jacket was surprised he hadn't killed him yet. After all, he survived, so he should be pissed.
"Hey! I get you're not a big talker, but at least listen to me, asshole!" Biker grit his teeth. "I know you have the files those cops had on the phone calls, and since you fucked up my first lead, this is how you're going to make up for it."
Jacket stared back, his expression showed nothing, but he was furious, too. He wasn't going to let a man who should be dead steal the last thing he decided to do, not unless he was willing to kill him again. It wasn't looking that way, considering the opportunities. Three smaller knives on his belt, a cleaver on the other side. No helmet this time.
Biker didn't wait for a response he wasn't going to get, so he reached his hand into Jacket's letterman. This would be the only place he would hold it, of course; there was no world where Jacket would have left it in the car. Jacket gripped his wrist before he reached the folder, and he squeezed as tight as he could to hold his arm still. He twisted Biker's arm until he was forced to let his hold on the blonde go, then raised his leg to kick Biker in the chest, knocking him down.
It was when Jacket started walking close that Biker took out one of his knives and held it to his throat.
"Listen man, you're one scary fuck, but I don't want to have to kill you over this. I can get those assholes and end this game myself, just give me the files." Biker waited. He was desperate, but still pissed off. "Come on! This isn't gonna get your girl back-!"
He was cut off by Jacket slamming the knife out of his hand, letting it clatter to the floor. He stood over Biker, who was already half sitting up, and stared intensely down at him.
"I don't care," Jacket spoke, the words feeling weird in his mouth after so long. "Go home."
Biker's expression changed to unbridled rage, he shot back upright and pulled his cleaver out to replace the knife.
"You wanna know what they did to my fucking home?! They trashed the place, smashed everything. Even the fucking toilet. You think you're the only asshole they fucked over with this whole thing?" He stared into Jacket's eyes. The eye contact was deeply uncomfortable, and Biker's eyes betrayed how much this meant to him. "Is that all you have to say to me? Go home? Your whole 'mysterious guy' vibe really works for you, makes you look like an insane freak who enjoys bashing people's heads in for the fun of it."
They both stared at each other for that moment in a livid silence. It was broken by Biker punching Jacket in the gut. He recoiled, the eye contact broken. The sharp pain made him remember the reason he was in the hospital: His wounds had not fully healed. Jacket fell to his knees. He watched Biker swing the cleaver, anticipating the impact, but it stopped before it could connect.
"You're a pain in the ass. And I hate staring at your face. You should've killed me when you had the chance." His voice was clear: he was hesitating on purpose. Jacket was still rattled from the gut punch, and he couldn't focus too long on the man above him, so he gave his attention to his surroundings instead. He waited for Biker's next move, which could be to kill him, but at this point it didn't seem likely.
Biker took another knife from his belt and grabbed Jacket's face. "If you move an inch you'll lose an eye," he warned. He carved a wound into Jacket's cheek, similar to the scar Jacket had given him. He figured this was Biker’s revenge: not killing him, but giving him something to remember. Jacket felt every cut as if he were alive, and the pain and warm blood dripping down his face were all he could focus on.
"Now we're even. We're working on this together, whether you like it or not. Give me the files when you decide you're finished with your act."
Biker released his face and washed his knife off in the sink. Jacket held his hand to the fresh wound and looked at the blood that came off. It stung as he touched it. He sat in front of his busted doorway, surrounded by the dirt and debris that remained of his entrance. He couldn't even hold on to the anger he walked in with. He had never been so quickly defeated by someone. And he wasn't just letting him walk away, he was asking to work together.
He had no choice, and he didn't feel like fighting anymore anyway. He pulled the files out of his jacket and laid them on the floor before standing up and walking into the bathroom to fix the fresh wound. He looked into his shattered mirror and made out what he could. The cut stretched from nearly the bottom of his eye to his jaw, crooked and uneven, and branched off to just under his nose. Like a crack in a porcelain doll's face.
Biker wanted revenge, and now Jacket understands why Biker wished he had finished the job back at PHONE HOM.
Jacket's life was over, and his anger was all that kept him going. He had to finish the job before accepting whatever the authorities had for him. Now what did he have to hold on to instead?
A wound from someone else's revenge.
Jacket did what he could to patch up the scar on his cheek. The bleeding had stopped, mostly, but a good punch to the face is all it would take to start bleeding again. He'd have to be careful if he got into another fight.
He moved to the bathroom's entrance. Biker had had plenty of time to go through the police files Jacket had surrendered by now. He saw him sat on the living room floor, papers spread out in an attempt to find any useful information. On one side of him he had any papers that mentioned a location, the other was anything else. He did his best to organize them by date but whoever had done the bookkeeping was awful at proper labeling.
Jacket figured his current situation was something similar to a hunter and his dog. Jacket sniffed out the clues to lead Biker to the goal, and, in return, Biker made sure he stayed loyal. His new scar was like a collar, making sure he knew they were forever linked. He wasn't sure what he should do. He could run away, but that would be worse than working with him. He could try to take Biker out now and steal the files back for himself, but even if he had the drive to do that, he wasn't sure if he would win. Biker would be expecting a stab in the back eventually, there'd be no opportunity.
Even though Jacket and Biker were working towards the same goal, it was different than doing it himself. It felt, in a way, that he was honoring the life that was taken from him by taking the life of those responsible, but what did Biker want? He had been searching for the people behind this long before Jacket had woken up. What reason could he have?
He couldn't ask, and Biker wouldn't have answered anyway. They weren't friends, they weren't even partners. Jacket was a leashed bloodhound, and with the police files in Biker's hands he was more like a glorified purse dog that could kill.
The eyes of the man Jacket almost killed and the eyes of the one that cut him, they were different. He wondered if Biker had died the same way Jacket did. Maybe thats what drove him here, to Jacket's apartment.
"South 86th Street," Biker interrupted his thoughts. He had turned to look at him. "We're using your car." He stood up, leaving the scattered papers on the floor. With the mess his apartment was in already, it barely made a difference.
He held his hand out in front of Jacket, expecting his car keys. "No. I'm driving." Jacket's words lacked the power they had earlier. It still felt weird.
"How do I know you're not going to take us off a bridge, I have no reason to trust you. You're already fucked, I doubt you'd care if you died with me," Biker snapped. He was right, that would have been a good option, but even in the position he was in, there was no way he'd let anyone drive his car. Even if it's beat to shit.
"We can take your bike," Jacket suggested after a while.
"I don't have an extra helmet for you."
"Don't act like you care."
Jacket started moving towards the exit of his apartment, and Biker followed behind soon after. He sprinted down the stairs to get outside first. Once Jacket opened the door, back on the night time Miami streets, Biker's helmet was on and so was his motorcycle.
Jacket mounted the bike and hesitated, waiting for the go ahead from the man in front. He felt a little awkward having to climb on behind him and hold his stomach. Biker turned his head to look at him, waiting. It was impossible to see where he was looking when his helmet was on, but it came across well enough. Jacket put his arms around Biker's stomach, and he could feel the tension in his body as he did. He shook it off and started driving after a brief moment though. He figured this is the real reason why he wanted to take Jacket's car. But if it made Biker more uncomfortable than it made him, it was a little bit of payback.
Jacket definitely wasn't lucky. He wanted to be out of his apartment hours ago, and he wanted to be driving his own car on the way to finish his afterlife and maybe fade back into nothingness in peace. Instead he was holding on to the man who hates him most in the universe. Even still, he couldn't help but feel a little comforted. It had been a long, long time since Jacket touched another person, let alone held them like this. It was a little strange to say he enjoyed the ride, minus the lack of a helmet.
Jacket relaxed, just slightly, and he felt Biker get used to it too. Something about being on the road, the time between one place and another, it was the calmest place in the universe. You could forget who you are like this. It's why Jacket loved car rides so much, and by extension his own car that he spent so much time in. These moments were fleeting, often forgotten in favor of other things, but while he was there it was the only downtime he got. Away from the usual thoughts and worries that plagued him. A time when he wasn't so attached to the idea of destruction.
It was while he was lost in this moment that he didn't realize Biker was going the wrong way.