Inverted AU Character Intros: 6/7
A JSE Fanfic
[These are intros for the versions of the guys for my Inverted AU! Inverted is a reverse-morality story where the good guys are bad and the bad guy—Anti—is good. These intros should help newcomers understand just how the dynamics work :) This one is for Inverted!Jack.]

“Hey bro, are you finished recording for the day?”

Jack pulled off his headphones and spun around to see his friend Chase peeking through the door to his recording room. “Oh hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Marvin’s back. He’s kinda…well, he wants to talk to everyone.”

“Oh! Yeah, of course.” Jack turned back around and paused the game he was playing, then stood up and followed Chase out of the recording room.

The upper floor of the house was mostly bedrooms, but there was also a closet, the recording room, and a room that Jackie kept locked. He said it was an office for his work, but Jack…wasn’t actually sure what that was. He asked a couple times, but Jackie had been evasive, and after a while Chase approached him and explained that Jackie was embarrassed, and asked that he stopped asking about it. Jack had immediately dropped the subject, not wanting to make his friend feel bad.

The downstairs, meanwhile, was the communal area. There was a kitchen, a dining room, a storage room, and a living room. Chase led Jack into the living room, which had a wall-mounted TV, a coffee table, two sofas, two armchairs, and three square tables. The one oddity was a tank in the corner, half-filled with a translucent green fluid. The glass had a jagged hole near the top, and small shards floated in the liquid inside. Jack’s eyes lingered on the tank for a long moment before looking at the other people in the room. Jackie was wearing his red hoodie, like always, and was slumped on one of the couches. Schneep was sitting on the other, filling out a stack of paperwork for his clinic. Jameson was sitting upright in one of the chairs. Marvin was pacing in front of the television, fuming. “The gang’s all here!” Jackie said when he saw Chase and Jack.

“Yeah, Chase said Marvin wanted to talk to us?” Jack sat down on the couch next to Schneep. He wrinkled his nose. The doctor had gone overboard with the cologne again. He kept telling him there was no reason to wear this much.

Marvin stopped pacing and looked at Jack, eyes bright behind his mask he always wore. “I lost them.”

Jack felt his heart stop. “Wh-what?”

“Are you sure?” Chase asked, moving over to sit in one of the chairs.

“Course I’m sure.” Marvin scowled. “That motherfucker has some good illusions up his sleeve. I thought everything was going perfectly, then I get back here and the thing fucking disappears.”

“Oh…” Jack said softly.

“That is unfortunate,” Schneep sighed. “Your Sam is unique, Jack. I have never seen anything like it. What luck, to have lost it!”

Jack instinctively opened his mouth to correct Schneep: Sam was a “they,” not an “it,” and they didn’t belong to Jack. But he stopped. Schneep had a hard time understanding that Sam, an eyeball, was actually sentient. It was no use trying to explain to him. He’d tried enough without success.

Jackie made a strangled kind of laugh. “We didn’t lose them, Henrik, they were taken and we need to get them back.”

“Can you shut up?” Marvin snapped. “I know I failed, you don’t need to fucking rub it in!”

{Marvin!} Jack jumped at the voice in his head. He was never going to get used to that. Jameson must’ve been broadcasting to the group as a whole, because everyone’s heads turned toward him. {Jackie didn’t mean that at all! Just because you’re in a tizzy doesn’t mean you need to lash out. If you’re going to continue to act this way, you can go chase yourself.}

“I’d prefer to stay, actually,” Marvin considered. “Alright, I’ll try to not do that.” Then he turned and continued his pacing.

“We’re sure we can get them back?” Jack asked nervously. “We’re really sure?”

“What do you take us for?” Schneep scoffed. “A batch of incompetents? Yes, we are sure.”

“That’s not what I—never mind. Sorry.” Jack sighed. “God, I hope Sam’s alright. They’d finally gotten used to living here.” He laughed a bit. “Only took them two years.”

“What?” Chase looked at Jack, head tilted, concerned. “Dude, you haven’t been here for two years.”

“Yeah we have.” Jack’s brow lowered as he remembered. “I…yeah.”

“You’ve been here for seven months, Jack.” Chase shifted back and forth in his seat. “You, uh, feeling okay?”

“No—no! We celebrated Christmas twice here! We had the year where we went to a hotel, then the year where we all stayed here. We got new sweaters then.”

“That was the same year, dude. It was only a couple months ago. We decided to go overboard? Because it was your first holiday with us? You moved in after Halloween last year? Any of this ringing a bell?”

“I…” Jack looked at the others for support, but they were all looking at him with variations of the same expression. “I could’ve sworn…”

{You’ve been pretty stressed lately,} Jameson pointed out. {Putting out all those videos, doing all those events. Perhaps the strain is getting to you.}

“Maybe you’re right…” Jack trailed off. “I’ve been thinking about taking a break…”

“Really?” Chase asked, interested. “I thought you loved YouTube.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I don’t take breaks, personally. But maybe that’s just me.”

“Oh. Well, then…” If Chase, of all people, still managed to keep to a schedule, with all the problems he had in his life, then he didn’t really have an excuse. “Yeah, you’re right. Stupid idea. I should—should probably get back to recording, actually.” He stood up.

{Capital idea,} Jameson said, giving a thumbs-up. {It’s rather late, actually. We should all go to bed.} He stood up as well.

“Not tired,” Jackie and Marvin said in unison.

“I have work to do.” Schneep looked back down to his paper work.

Chase merely shrugged.

Jameson looked to the ceiling, exasperated. {Well, if you four would prefer to burn the candle at both ends, you are free to do so. Meanwhile, I have business in the morning.}

“Really?” Jack asked.

{Oh yes. The cleaning company is sending a new maid over, and I plan to introduce her to the place. Show her around, where the problem areas are.}

“Ah! Man, those guys must have a quick rotation schedule, or whatever, there’s someone new here pretty often.” Wasn’t someone here most days? Just wandering about…? No, that wasn’t possible. He must be imagining things. Yeah, he definitely was, his vision was swirling in spirals a bit. He really needed to de-stress.

{It’s a big house! Needs lots of professional hands to take care of it!} Jameson bounced, hands on hips.

Jack held back a laugh. “Dude, I can’t take you seriously when you do that.”

Jameson shrugged, then turned on his heel and strode back towards the staircase. Jack followed. As he walked toward the staircase at the end of the hall, he noticed a door. It wasn’t anything unusual, looked just like the other doors. But he didn’t remember having ever been through it.

He stopped for a moment, considering. He’d been here for seven months, how was that possible? For a moment he paused. Then he decided to take a quick peek, just for the hell of it. He crossed to the door, grabbed the knob, and pulled it open.

Behind the door there was another hall. It was unlit, but he could make out the slight shape of a couple doors, and at the very end there was a staircase leading down into darkness.

It was kinda creepy. No, actually, it was very creepy. His breathing quickened, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and his vision became purple at the edges. He quickly shut the door and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. Freaky. Why did they have a place like that in the house? He’d have to ask them. But later. When his hands finally stopped shaking. God, it didn’t matter what it was for, he was never going through that door into such a…a scary place.

Jack opened his eyes, and frowned. He had the strangest feeling of deja vu. Whatever. He pushed away from the wall, gave the freaky door the side eye, and went upstairs. He had more important things to worry about.

He had more important things to do than worry.

He didn’t need to worry.

What was there to worry about?

Everything is fine.