The silence in the garage was almost suffocating as Jack watched Jesse working away at his workbench. He felt weary allowing Jesse to handle something so important to him, but it wasn't like he had much of a choice. He had tried to tell Jesse that he could fix it on his own but he wasn't hearing any of it, apparently he started it and he intended on finishing it. Problem was that Jack wasn't too sure just how much he actually trusted him with it. Sure, it was basically fixed at this point, but he still refused to give it to him, which he felt suspicious of.
"I'm telling you, just trust me," Jesse said, feeling Jack's suspicious stare against his skin. He was just adding the final missing piece. With a steady hand he carefully set it in place and used a vise grip to clamp it together. "There!" he said, turning to Jack. "We'll just give it time to cure and it should be good as new."
Jack had to keep himself from rolling his eyes, "mhm, sure." He found it irritating that Jesse of all people was talking about trust here. He was the king of not trusting others, so why should anyone trust him? Especially since he has already proved that he couldn't be trusted, getting them to where they are now. "If that's what you have to tell yourself, have at it I guess."
Jesse sighed internally. "It's wood glue, man. It's meant for this kinda stuff."
Jack shot him an unimpressed look.
"What?" he returned. "You can read it for yourself." He pushed the bottle toward Jack.
Jack pushed it aside. "I don't need to, I know how wood glue works." He carefully wheeled himself closer to where his staff lay, eager to get magic flowing through it again. Although he was more than ready to hold it in his hands once more, he still felt a lingering suspicion. Why had Jesse decided to fix it? As far as Jack knew, Jesse still hated him.
Maybe this was all some elaborate scheme to break Jack down further—get him back up just to knock him down again. Maybe he should keep his hopes low and brace himself for whatever Jesse had planned. Maybe he should make a run for it while he still could. His hands twitched, ready to start wheeling himself toward the door.
Jesse studied him silently, trying to figure out what was going on with him. He'd fixed his staff. By all means, this should have said more than anything he'd spoken so far. So why did Jack still seem so hesitant? He felt a flicker of frustration, Jack's previous statement finally starting to come into focus as he thought about it more. He still didn't trust him. On one hand Jesse understood. He'd done a lot of damage. But he was trying everything he knew to make up for it. What more did Jack want? How long was he going to keep making him try to atone for his actions? He was trying to do what was right. It was taking everything in him not to just abandon the effort altogether and let callous indifference take over, but now he could see it wasn't even being appreciated—no, it wasn't even being noticed. So what was the point of even trying? Why was he wasting all this effort trying to apologize to someone who didn't want it?
"Look," he snapped, "I've gone through all this trouble to fix this thing, if you don't want it, I can break it for you again."
"Then do it," Jack snapped back. He gripped the wheels of his chair tightly, getting ready to move if he needed to. "It's not like that probably wasn't already your plan to begin with, huh? So why not go ahead and do it now?" He could feel tension rising within him, and usually with that came the sickening feeling of dark magic in the air, the same thing that started this whole mess to begin with. He started moving his hands to start pushing himself back and away.
"Are you nuts?" Jesse returned hotly, "Why would I plan to break something I spent a whole night trying to fix? Do you have any idea how long it took me to put this damn thing back together? Why would the thought even cross your mind?"
