InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "can has?"

Jack McManis (jack_mcmanis) wrote in lineof_fire_rpg,
@ 2008-04-02 01:27:00

Reunited ...
WHO: Jack & Kate
WHAT: Seeing each other again, after 17 years.
WHERE: Random street corner in Boston
WHEN: Around 3pm
RATING: Profanity is a given, I'd say PG-13
OPEN? To

firecrackerkate only.

Of all the places in the world for Jack McManis to end up again, he never thought he would have come back to Boston. Boston was the city that held so much pain for him. Though, it also held amazingly good times, which was why he was braving the pain to come back and be there again. He hadn't heard anything back from Patrick in months, and he was starting to worry about his good friend. Even after everything that went down between he and Kate, he still considered Patrick to be one of his best friends in the entire world, and he couldn't really blame Patrick for what happened. Patrick never knew about he and Kate, anyway. And he didn't really want to upset his oldest friend by telling him about it, so he had plans to keep that to himself. And he'd stay away from Kate Connelly, whatever he did.

Finally getting everything moved into his apartment, Jack decided to reward himself with some amazingly overpriced, but incredibly delicious, coffee. That was one of the things he loved the most about this great land we call America ... Starbucks is everywhere. His apartment wasn't too far from the closest Starbucks, so he decided to go out and enjoy the nice weather, since he wasn't sure how long it was going to last. He walked down the street and grabbed himself a nice coffee, enjoying most of it sitting outside at one of the tables. When his coffee was almost gone, he got up and made his way back to his apartment, determined to do some digging and find out what the fuck happened to Patrick. He crossed one of the streets, and wasn't even halfway across when a car came rounding the corner a little too close. The car almost hit him as they clipped the corner. "Hey! What the fuck?!" he yelled at the driver, holding his arms out to the sides. "Watch where the fuck you're going, asshole!" he yelled.

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firecrackerkate
2008-04-02 07:40 am UTC (link)

Kate had been rather distracted since her phone call with Patrick. She wanted him home and this whole thing going on with the Italians made her nervous. It was likely they would, or did, think that they were behind it, and that could bring on a whole world of hurt nobody needed. Her mind elsewhere, she was heading home from the 'Cracker when she took a corner a little too fast. Clipping the edge of the curb wouldn't be much of an issue, save for the fact that some poor pedestrian was there now. She winced and swerved her car away, hitting the break and stopping by the side of the road. "Fuck." She growled at herself, smacking her hand to her forehead.

Now on a normal day Kate might get out and apologize, but when whoever she had missed started screaming obscenities at her, that Irish temper flared up in her. She was already frustrated as hell, and she didn't need some asshole poking at her. Stepping out of the car, she didn't bother to really look at the guy before she started. "Well maybe if you crossed the street when the light was GREEN you wouldn't get hit by a car!" She yelled back, but anything else was choked abruptly in the back of her throat when her eyes fell on Jack. "Holy shit."

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jack_mcmanis
2008-04-02 02:57 pm UTC (link)

Jack rose a brow as the car that had almost hit him stopped. He walked up to the back of it and slammed his hands down on the trunk, waiting for the driver to get out. This was one of the things he hadn't missed about Boston at all, the people were all inconsiderate and moronic. He could tell by looking in the back of the car that there was a woman behind the wheel and he groaned, shaking his head. Once the woman got out of the car, and turned around, screaming back at him, Jack froze. It was Kate. The exact woman he was going to try to avoid at all costs. He hadn't seen her in seventeen years, and his eyes refused to move away from her face while he stood frozen.

When she recognized him, she froze as well and Jack swallowed hard past the lump that had formed in his throat. He couldn't stop himself from taking her in, she was absolutely gorgeous. She always had been, but now she'd matured and grew more into her body, and Jack couldn't look away. He swallowed hard again, finally tearing his eyes away from her to look around them, wondering if their shouting had drawn a crowd. Some people were staring at them, and so he cleared his throat and stepped off the curb, closer to the car. He figured he'd be the first to speak, and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Kate," he nodded his head in her direction.

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firecrackerkate
2008-04-06 10:12 am UTC (link)

She stood there, gaping at him for a good minute before the blood rushed to her brain enough for her to actually think. "I..." She stuttered, unable to actually speak yet. She hadn't seen him in...what was it some seventeen years? It was a shock to the system, and she couldn't entirely think of how to function properly.

He the same Jack, but older, more rugged and beefier than she remembered. He was always such a gangly thing, just like she was all elbows and knees until she got older. It amazed her how almost two decades could change a person, and yet seeing him there, it caused a physical pang of hurt to hit her in the chest. She thought of Izzy, and her eyes welled up just at the thought. He'd missed so much...and it was all her fault. "Oh my God." She finally managed to get out, shaking her head before instinct took over and she closed the gap between them in three long strides, her arms flinging around his shoulders as she hugged him tightly. It was awkward, yes, but she needed it, and Kate wasn't about to let him run away again.

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jack_mcmanis
2008-04-06 06:11 pm UTC (link)

He watched at Kate struggled to find something to say, and he had to keep reminding himself to breathe. His mind was whirring fifty miles per hour right now, he couldn't stop on one thought long enough to get it to come out of his mouth, and so he couldn't think of anything to say either. He raised one of his hands to his mouth momentarily before he cleared his throat and shoved the hand back into his pocket. He was going to make some stupid comment about the weather, anything, when Kate started walking toward him.

To say that Jack was surprised when her arms flung around him would be an understatement. He stood, frozen and rigid for a moment, before he let himself move. He relaxed and pulled his hands out of his pockets, wrapping his arms around her as well. "I ... Kate ..." he couldn't form a coherant thought. Not with her as close to him as she was. This was bad, he knew it. She was his best friend's wife, and he was still head over heels in love with her. He needed to put space between them, and fast, but he couldn't seem to force himself to move his arms from around her. His face turned in and he pressed it to her hair, inhaling her scent. It had been years since he'd had that scent in his senses, and it clouded his mind briefly.

Finally forcing himself to take a step back, he cleared his throat and moved his arms to hold onto hers. He didn't want to break the contact completely. He took a good look at her, and gave her one of his big smiles. "Wow, you've really grown up," he stated, and then kicked himself. Of course she had, it had been seventeen fucking years. "How've you been, Kate?" he asked.

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firecrackerkate
2008-04-13 08:02 pm UTC (link)

Kate simply stood there, hugging him tightly for a few minutes. She couldn't think enough to speak, or really to do anything else but cling to him. Guilt hit her like a tidal wave flooding her heart, and she couldn't entirely keep her emotions in check. She had missed him more than words could say, and not only that, he had missed watching his daughters growing up...and wouldn't even be able to see one ever again.

Feeling him hug her tighter made her arms immediately grip around him a little tighter, her eyes closing as tears flooded them. Why exactly she was tearing up could have been any number of things, but she didn't care to put reason behind it. The way he held her was a way that she hadn't been held in so, so long. Aside from the fact that Patrick had been in prison for the last year, it had been a long time since she was just clung to like this, and it felt good. She knew she should pull away but couldn't do it just yet.

She breathed a little sigh and blinked to clear the tears from her eyes when he pulled away. She gave him a bright smile and shook her head. "Yeah, I can say the same thing to you." He looked good...far too good for her to be staring at him like that. "I've been good...mostly." She said, cocking her head to the side and biting at her lower lip. She reached out and rubbed his arm as she smiled. "How have you been, stranger? Aside from narrowly escaping death my crazy drivers, of course."

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jack_mcmanis
2008-04-13 09:32 pm UTC (link)

Holding Kate in his arms again felt like nothing he could ever have imagined. He felt like he was home again, and that was not a good thing. She was married, to his best friend no less. And she and Patrick had children together. They had a life together that Jack wasn't a part of anymore. The realization that he wasn't part of their lives anymore hit him hard right in the chest, and it felt almost hard to breathe. Patrick, even though he was his best friend, he could live without. Kate, on the other hand ... he didn't think he could. Even though it had been a good seventeen years since he'd seen her, seeing her again brought back all those old feelings he had pushed aside, and they were almost overpowering him.

Her smile made him smile as well, and he rolled his lips into his mouth. He rose a brow at her as she said that she'd been mostly good, and he tried to let go of her and take a step back, but he couldn't make his arms cooperate with what his brain was telling them to do. He knew that it would be in his best interest to put some space between them, but then she reached out and rubbed his arm, and he couldn't move even if he wanted to. Laughing at her comment about escaping death, he shrugged. "I've been okay. Lived in New York for awhile," he said, nodding his head. "I actually kept in touch with Patrick, that's why I'm here. I haven't heard anything from him in awhile, and just wondered what was going on. I got a little worried," he said. He wondered if Kate would be hurt that he kept in touch with Patrick, and not her, but she was the one that had broken his heart. She was the one he felt like he needed to get away from.

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firecrackerkate
2008-04-22 09:51 pm UTC (link)

Looking into those eyes seemed to overpower anything that she had locked away at the back of her mind for the last seventeen years. The way it hit her seemed completely out of no where, and the guilt that followed nearly took her breath away. She tried to remind herself to just breathe normally, to act as if nothing was eating away at her. It amazed her even with him right there, how easy it had been to bury everything inside of herself. With him gone, as much as she missed him...it was easier, because she didn't have to look at him and be reminded what she'd done, and what she'd lost.

"New York, huh?" She asked, her hands seemingly incapable of completely parting from him. Her brow furrowed a bit after she spoke. "You didn't go off and become a Yankees fan, did you?" She teased, grinning a little after she said it. She had completely forgotten how easy it was just to be with him, to talk and to have fun, to feel that kind of relief was welcome. Her smile fell when he mentioned Patrick, her hand retreating as she crossed her arms in front of her. She wondered why Patrick had never told her that...and why she didn't know, or figure that he had kept in touch. After all, she really had no claim to him, did she? "Yeah, um..." She started, clearing her throat after a moment and running her fingers through her hair. "Patrick is not...well, he should be home sometime soon but, he's been in prison for the last year." She didn't figure there was any reason to beating around the bush with Jack.

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jack_mcmanis
2008-04-25 12:31 am UTC (link)

Jack was finally able to tear his eyes away from her face and glance at their surroundings. If he kept his eyes locked on hers too long, he'd probably do something that he'd regret. Like kiss her or something. And that wouldn't be good. She spoke again and that brought his attention back to her, and he smiled, nodding. "Yeah, New York. It was nice there. It wasn't home, and I'll probably never go back since my ex-wife lives there, but it was nice for awhile," he said, shrugging. He laughed at he comment about becoming a Yankee's fan, and scoffed. "Kate. Seriously. This is me you're talking to. I would never, ever become a Yankee's fan. Not even if someone held a gun to my head," he smiled, shaking his head. He was a Red Sox fan, through and through. Always have been, always would be. "I actually got into a few bar fights during the world series because I was rooting for the Sox," he smiled.

At her news that Patrick was in prison, Jack narrowed his eyes. "Prison?" he asked, furrowing his brow. He let one of his hands fall away from her and used it to scratch the side of his face before returning it to her skin, realizing that he should probably back away, but not able to. "Well, I guess that explains why I haven't been able to get in touch with him," he said, then shook his head. Patrick was in prison, and had been for over a year. How could he have been so stupid to get himself thrown in prison? And to be away from his family, especially his wife, for that long? He knew for a fact that all Patrick had to do was snap his fingers, and he'd be released. So what the hell was he doing? "Why is he in prison?" he asked, raising a brow as he glanced back at Kate. She had a few bangs in her eyes, and he couldn't stop himself from reaching one of his hands out to brush that hair from her eyes. Shit. This was why he wasn't supposed to have seen her.

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