Eventually, Jack stops trying to set fire to the water and lets it swirl down the drain. He watches it go, still impressed that the plumbing out here is holding up. It's almost like a glimpse of Rapture in its heyday. Kind of.
He stays in the bathroom a little while longer. Does some loose, easy stretches as he dries. It's amazing how much lighter he feels without the layers of blood and soot and grime and grease, salt and dirt and slime. He no longer smells like a garbage can was murdered by a skunk. It's so long since he washed for real, and his nose was so deadened by the Daddy stink, that he'd stopped noticing -- but now it's obvious by its absence.
Jack even borrows Sinclair's razor, and trims away stubble that's trying to turn into an ugly beard. You know, grown up stuff. He only cuts himself shaving twice.
And then the food starts to call to him.
You think the bath was screaming? You ain't heard nothing yet.
Like magic, Jack appears in the kitchen just as dinner is coming off the burners. His hair's still wet, and his face rather pink, as if it's forgotten what colour it was meant to be under all that dirt. The shirt's a little tight around his shoulders, and the trousers end at mid-calf, giving him a weird, overgrown look -- but they're comfy and clean, and that's more than he usually asks for.
Without a shapeless jumper in the way, he fills out the shirt pretty well. Maybe he's not a fireman but he'd fit in well on a firemen's charity calendar. It's okay to stare, Sinclair.
Another thing of note: the undershirt and shortish trousers make his scars more easy to see. And there are a lot of scars. His arm isn't the only place to be burned: there's shiny skin on both his legs, the hair that's visible patchy and weird from poorly-repaired follicles. His body is a noughts and crosses board played by slicing hooks and puncturing bullets. And there's his throat, of course, the mass of scar tissue that goes down further than Sinclair might have expected. Wounds upon wounds: sawn open for a new voicebox, torn open to get it out, sewn shut with clumsy applications of health kits and raw ADAM. He's lucky he can still speak at all.
This rippling mass of scars and muscle is smiling hopefully at the chicken noodles.
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He stays in the bathroom a little while longer. Does some loose, easy stretches as he dries. It's amazing how much lighter he feels without the layers of blood and soot and grime and grease, salt and dirt and slime. He no longer smells like a garbage can was murdered by a skunk. It's so long since he washed for real, and his nose was so deadened by the Daddy stink, that he'd stopped noticing -- but now it's obvious by its absence.
Jack even borrows Sinclair's razor, and trims away stubble that's trying to turn into an ugly beard. You know, grown up stuff. He only cuts himself shaving twice.
And then the food starts to call to him.
You think the bath was screaming? You ain't heard nothing yet.
Like magic, Jack appears in the kitchen just as dinner is coming off the burners. His hair's still wet, and his face rather pink, as if it's forgotten what colour it was meant to be under all that dirt. The shirt's a little tight around his shoulders, and the trousers end at mid-calf, giving him a weird, overgrown look -- but they're comfy and clean, and that's more than he usually asks for.
Without a shapeless jumper in the way, he fills out the shirt pretty well. Maybe he's not a fireman but he'd fit in well on a firemen's charity calendar. It's okay to stare, Sinclair.
Another thing of note: the undershirt and shortish trousers make his scars more easy to see. And there are a lot of scars. His arm isn't the only place to be burned: there's shiny skin on both his legs, the hair that's visible patchy and weird from poorly-repaired follicles. His body is a noughts and crosses board played by slicing hooks and puncturing bullets. And there's his throat, of course, the mass of scar tissue that goes down further than Sinclair might have expected. Wounds upon wounds: sawn open for a new voicebox, torn open to get it out, sewn shut with clumsy applications of health kits and raw ADAM. He's lucky he can still speak at all.
This rippling mass of scars and muscle is smiling hopefully at the chicken noodles.
"It smells good."