Madison - An AJR Fic

Aftermath

The world felt like it had come to a stop.

Jack slowly ambled down the stairs, away from the scene of the crime. He hadn't put his hands down since it happened. He couldn't think, his emotions weren't...working. Nothing in his brain felt like it was functioning the way it was supposed to. All he could do was stare at his hands, dripping with...well, his own blood, in a way. As wicked and tainted as it was.

Adam wasn't doing much better. His brother was dead. Gone. Because of something he couldn't think to stop. He should've seen it. He should've realized. He should've been more prepared. But...that replica was nothing like his own. It was almost like a real person.

Almost.

It took Jack many moments to realize where he was, or what he was doing. He was sitting at the kitchen island, Adam across from him, watching him painfully. He looked up for just a moment, his gaze darting around his surroundings. His breath was shallow and almost wheezy.

"W...When..." Jack stuttered in a quiet mumble. "When did we...get here...?"

Adam sighed. "...Only a few seconds ago," He tried to put on a sympathetic look for his little brother. "You've been..." He stopped himself. "We've been...really spacey."

Jack's stare seemed to settle off into the distance. Adam noticed that his eyes were welling up. His lip began to quiver as he dropped his forehead against the countertop, sobbing softly. He held his hands up over his head, elbows at either side of his face. Tiny red droplets dripped from his fingertips onto the back of his neck.

"I-It was me, Adam..." Jack sniffled. "I...killed him..."

Adam exhaled sadly. "Jack, no..." He shook his head, holding onto Jack's arm reassuringly. "That thing...that wasn't you. Unless...there's something you're hiding from me...?"

Jack shook his head against the table.

Adam continued. "That was...a nightmare version of you. It..." His own eyes started to water. "It took him away from us. Not you."

"But..." Jack cried. "Look at me!" He faced the palms of his hands toward Adam. "There's...actual blood on my hands. I...took a life. It doesn't matter which me we're talking about. I...killed someone..."

Adam frowned. There...wasn't much he could say to that. They'd both been through some pretty intense shit in the past hour or so, but...Jack had been right in the line of fire. As Adam looked at his brother's crumpled form, he got to thinking.

"...So...the things that it said...about wanting to fight back. Is any of that...true, then?" Adam tilted his head. "I know you mentioned it when all of this started, but...it seems like your opinion's changed."

Jack stayed silent for a little while, his crying and shaky breath growing gradually still. He didn't look up. He started to clench his fists.

"...That fucking asshole...took my brother from me..." Jack hissed, only his eyes visible from the table edge. "I didn't...want to kill him...but it felt...necessary..." He sniffled. "If I didn't do something, he would just hurt someone else. He...he could've hurt you. I couldn't live on my own...not with both of you gone..."

Adam stayed quiet for a minute or two. As much as he'd always agreed and obliged with Ryan's methods of staying in and waiting everything out...he was starting to see the truth in Jack's reasoning. Maybe it was the trauma of losing someone so close to him, he wasn't sure. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. They weren't getting anywhere the longer they stayed sheltered here. In fact, it felt like it was almost...gnawing away at them, slowly.

He tried to strategize something. The way he saw it, they had two options: get out or fight back. And if they tried to escape now, they could bring something back with them to New York; a giant metropolis, easily a thousand times the size of Vincent's Hollow. The risk was far too great. Although...if they fought back against these things, that could be just as risky.