I Swear I'm Not An Insomniac

He smiled a little as he looked at her invested face as he flipped through his sketchpad. What a cute audience. He wanted to see her work too, but from previous experience, most artists clamped up when you ask to see their work, even if you were a fellow artist yourself.

"That so?" Jack could feel his high starting to settle in, but not quite. This puppy was going to be a spectacularly ugly puppy at this rate, or maybe a brilliantly Avant-Garde one? Noses kinda looked like dicks. Whoa. What was up with that. Wait, he was going to say something. "Yeah, you look like the introverted type to me. Where do you usually hang out, then? You settling in the island ok?"

He was actually invested in this. In his experience, the grumpy intimidating types were some of the best people to hang out with, and it also comes up often that they tend to be lonely, which was sad. They were genuine treasures.

"What are you planning on drawing?"

"Who's Maria? An annoying roommate?" Jack could relate. Well, for the most part, he understood but Angelo was a gift on god's green earth. Real bros helped you clean up bloodstains. "You know, if you're in the Academy, you can opt for single rooms." He nodded. "Just make up an excuse how your magic is sooo unstable you could kill your roommate in your sleep! Or something."

He closed his eyes as he felt the high starting to settle. He looked very closely at his hand and... Whoa. Freaky. That was a good sign. Jack lit another cigarette, the girly menthol kind, and it helped the smoke settle coolly in his lungs. He started working on really elaborate patterns on the dog just because.

"Oh, I see, so it's like stream of consciousness stuff? Sounds cool. My Val has Romantic influences in his art. Mine is kinda..." Jack squinted at his drawing. "I don't know what the fuck this is, but if you sell it in eBay, it's going to be around a thousand dollars."

He blew smoke, and looked at the glaring lamp post across the street. It looked misplace, for some reason. "Are you ever like... Wow, where are our lives even going, man?"

Jack laughed. Ah, he wondered what it was like to have parents and be embarrassed about them. It sounded like a good time.

"No doubt about it. You seem like the type of girl that can hold her own. But, if there's one thing I learned from my ex, is that lying is good if it gets what you want." Jack nodded, convinced. He smiled a bit and met Live's eyes. "Of course, my ex was Satan, so take his advice with a grain of salt." He looked at the cigarette and handed it to Live. Wait, no, that wasn't right. He took it back and offered her a new one. Much better. He scrubbed his face. "Shit, now I'm high!" He laughed.

Jack squinted at the thing he was drawing right then. It didn't look like a thousand dollars, but all those art nerds would fucking pay for his scribbles. It's more divine that way. Yikes. "Uh, yeah, we're both high right now so I'm going to tell you a secret. Back in... like, '03, I made it big in the art world as David Baltimore so. You know. It's actually worth a million if it's a big piece? But those art hipsters would cream themselves over..." Jack showed her his art. "Eddie Grrero, the knife fighting cage fighter puppy. It's post-modern."

He grinned at her answer, offering a fistbump. "Woo-hoo, getting there club."

Jack scratched his cheek. "Well, despite popular belief, he was not actually Satan. Just pretty close. He's a duke of hell if you've heard of the Goatia, and Satan in attitude and in the way he's really good at tempting people into sinning." That was the thing about Gabe, wasn't it? Jack liked to believe that if there was ever someone that could make Satan shit his pants, it was Gabriel, but he'd never dated Satan so he wasn't sure.

Jack smiled as she returned the fist bump. People always told him he was good with 'difficult' people, and it was like, magic or something. He went back to drawing, a smile lingering on his face. He shrugged.

"I guess. It sounds like the dream, doesn't it? It's a sore spot though. I'm just trying to focus on my doctorate, get my mind off stuff." It wasn't like he enjoyed being an art world superstar, especially when it was just built from Gabe's bullshit. David Baltimore never really existed. It was just a name he made up because the fake ID maker asked him what name he wanted on his passport and he happened to be in Baltimore at the time. "Aw. I don't think you're a freak. I think you're unique."

He slumped against the bench, smiling. "I told you about my boyfriend now, Val? He's like you. He prefers time to himself because he doesn't really care about his surroundings or other people because they don't understand him. He's coming out of his shell now, little by little, and you know what? He's one of the most brilliant, most talented people I've seen. I have a feeling you'll be the same. You're sharper than most. That's a gift."

Hadn't known her long enough? Jack had to shrug, putting his pencil down. "Yeah, it's presumptuous to think that I'd know you since we literally just met. But you live this long, you start recognizing people. You remind me of Val, and an old friend from New York, and this scientist I met back in Beijing. Lots of other people too, but I'm so freaking old I can't remember all of them."

He laughed, shaking his head. "Point is, you guys are all too smart for their own good. That shouldn't be a bad thing. People like you, you live outside the norm. A lot of the time, I found out that you guys, you're larger than life, and the world is too small and too dumb to accommodate you." He shrugged. "Ah, well. I'm not going to tell you to start building rocket ships because you're a star, but don't be too hard on yourself, doll."

Jack put out his cigarette on the bench arm and threw it in the nearby bin, stretching. "Man, you're still young. You have a lot to see, a lot to do. Pursue your passions, I say. But, man, what do I know? I'm just some dude that kills people for money."