Take Off Your Colours (Chapter Two)
Author: Billie Knox
Pairing: Alex Gaskarth/Jack Barakat
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer:I don't own All Time Low, or their lovely crew. (If I did, I wouldn't be writing right now.)
Summary: "The people of the city had become robots; a sea of faceless people, nine-to-five workers, slaves, emotionless beings with no compassion, sympathy, empathy. No attention to detail. If they were a little more attentive, they would have noticed."
Chapter Two
A melting candle was the best way to describe this place. Starting at the top, eventually, slowly, drooping down to the bottom and hardening; doomed to stay this way until the candle was thrown away. Not that there were any candles. Not in this place anyways. No way. Artificial.
So, like the rest of the inhabitants, Jack did as was expected by the rest of the city. He wore the standard clothing and combed his standard hair, but he didn't go to a standard job. No. He scoured the faceless blank city, searching for recruits; people who could see the emptiness.
A flash of crimson in the sea of monochrome.
A drop of blood on a piece of text.
A flash of much-needed brightness in such a monotonous place.
Jack knew he couldn't run to the man, that would get him noticed for sure. He quickened his pace, squeezing past the greyscale city-goers until he was directly beside the man. He turned to look at this ribbon-clad person.
Oh.
Warm, caramel eyes. Slight stubble.
Beauty.
No, perfection.
Gone.
He had turned swiftly into an office building.
Jack lurked in the office all day, like a fly going unnoticed in a bowl of fruits. Free to peruse and observe whatever he liked. He caught the perfect man staring into his own eyes during a bathroom break, and again beforehand, into his computer monitor. The perfect man had an uneventful day, Jack had gathered. Typical for a person living here.
The last time Jack could remember something similar happening was when his parents left him alone in some department store as a kid. He'd spent the day running around, hiding behind displays and noting people's behavior. One old lady, he recalled, had hit him with her purse.
That was the day he decided he wanted to be a spy.
This job was definitely the closest he could get.
So far, Jack had learnt a few things about the perfect man:
1. Black was definitely not his natural hair colour.
2. His job consisted of writing, printing and filling out forms. (The perfect man also appeared to hate his job.)
3. His ribbon had 'help' written on it.
4. He was only just beginning to realize that something was terribly wrong.
The perfect man seemed to be interested in colour, or lack of it, thereof. Where had he gotten the ribbon? Did the perfect man know what he was doing? Jack hadn't.
He'd written 'Colour?' On a piece of paper (along with his name) and dropped it in the street.
The next thing he knew, a muscly man in a pink shirt called Zack came and took him away.
Jack had been so relieved, even while he was being dragged into their white van. Anywhere was better than here.
A child bounces a ball on a window twice a day. Slowly but surely, the window starts to crack.
The window nears its breaking point; so close to shattering past repair, one bounce away from destruction.
The window is repaired.
The repairman uses plaster. The window never functions quite the same again.
The child begins to bounce the ball again, and the cycle continues.
Jack had been the window ever since he was seventeen.
He'd felt a lot better ever since Zack had taken him from the city.
There were four of them, living in that van, and they always ate canned food, and they barely got to shower, and Matt's feet stunk like all hell, but Jack didn't mind. He liked seeing the stars at night, sitting by a fire in the middle of nowhere and laughing with people he knew well enough to call friends.
When they did get to shower, it was usually when they were in the city or at the remains of what had once been a public beach. It was one of those public shower blocks.
The outdoor kind.
The shower was far too small; and far too close to the concrete pole it was attached to.
The stream of water was about double that of a kitchen tap, the temperature varied depending on the weather. The full bar of soap they'd taken the last time they were in the city had slowly been reduced to the size of Jack's big toe. That didn't matter. He was going to stock up as soon as he finished up in the city; as soon as he got the perfect man to go with him.
If there was one thing Jack missed while he was stuck here, it was music. Music calmed him; made him focus. He spent so much time working out the riffs and beats to the small few CDs they kept in the van that the rest of his friends called him crazy. Again, Jack didn't mind.
Jack was pulled from his thoughts as he saw the perfect man stand to leave. He couldn't fuck this up.
Chapter Three.