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A necessary argument
Dec. 29th, 2025 07:30 pmJack was, to put it mildly, cranky. He was probably beyond cranky and into the state that he’d only seen very small children achieve. He, unfortunately, was not allowed to sit down where he was and refuse to move from that spot while also screaming. He had to continue behaving like a mature adult with an advanced degree and a position of responsibility.
He’d just finished working a double because on top of the usual holiday-related scheduling craziness, people also got sick or injured, which meant they couldn’t work and thus Jack got to work twenty-four hours in a row. Robby might have taken the shift for him, but Jack didn’t ask because Robby essentially wasn’t talking to him for reasons he refused to explain or even acknowledge. More importantly, he was pretty sure Robby had already worked his legally allowed hours this week. Jack hadn’t. Well, now he had. He’d also spent entirely too much time pulling Christmas decorations out of places they should not be.
So he was bone-deep tired and annoyed at humanity, his leg hurt like hell and might be starting a pressure sore, his best friend wasn’t talking to him, and to top it all off, it was his fiftieth birthday. He generally viewed birthdays as proof he’d survived another year and that all the various things in his life that might have killed him hadn’t managed it. He didn’t celebrate birthdays, exactly, but he respected them.
He was not feeling respectful right now. He was feeling like finding the nearest bar and drowning his entire existence in bad beer. He was feeling like going and buying a pack of cigarettes, even though he’d given them up at Landstuhl, mostly because they’d suggested a nicotine cessation plan at just the right moment. He was feeling like being anywhere but here, if that was possible, which it wasn’t because Darrow didn’t work like that.
So, yeah, he was cranky. He stopped in front of his door to fish out his keys, then hissed as his lower back cramped. He breathed through it, but it didn’t help his mood at all. As soon as he got inside, he was taking the damn prosthetic off and then calling for some Thai delivery because he did not feel like cooking.
He’d just finished working a double because on top of the usual holiday-related scheduling craziness, people also got sick or injured, which meant they couldn’t work and thus Jack got to work twenty-four hours in a row. Robby might have taken the shift for him, but Jack didn’t ask because Robby essentially wasn’t talking to him for reasons he refused to explain or even acknowledge. More importantly, he was pretty sure Robby had already worked his legally allowed hours this week. Jack hadn’t. Well, now he had. He’d also spent entirely too much time pulling Christmas decorations out of places they should not be.
So he was bone-deep tired and annoyed at humanity, his leg hurt like hell and might be starting a pressure sore, his best friend wasn’t talking to him, and to top it all off, it was his fiftieth birthday. He generally viewed birthdays as proof he’d survived another year and that all the various things in his life that might have killed him hadn’t managed it. He didn’t celebrate birthdays, exactly, but he respected them.
He was not feeling respectful right now. He was feeling like finding the nearest bar and drowning his entire existence in bad beer. He was feeling like going and buying a pack of cigarettes, even though he’d given them up at Landstuhl, mostly because they’d suggested a nicotine cessation plan at just the right moment. He was feeling like being anywhere but here, if that was possible, which it wasn’t because Darrow didn’t work like that.
So, yeah, he was cranky. He stopped in front of his door to fish out his keys, then hissed as his lower back cramped. He breathed through it, but it didn’t help his mood at all. As soon as he got inside, he was taking the damn prosthetic off and then calling for some Thai delivery because he did not feel like cooking.
