Here We Go Again

SMASH. “FUCK!” That was all you could hear from an apartment in New York City at half eight in the morning, and the occupant of that apartment was Jack Barakat, the same Jack Barakat who everyone thought wouldn’t make anything of himself, but now here he was, one of the top lawyers, well as top as you can get for being provided by the state, but he was still working his way up. He was even thinking about starting his own law firm one day and going private, he was sure that he was good enough for that. However, in this particular moment in time, Jack was sweeping up pieces of his favourite mug which was shattered all over his kitchen floor. He soon finished sweeping it up, grumbling to himself how he was never going to get another mug like that again. Just as he stood up ready to go to work when he noticed his shirt had splashes of coffee all over it. Today just really wasn’t his day. So with a groan he went to change his shirt, once again grumbling to himself how things never really went his way.

After all of his morning drama, the skunk haired man managed to make it to work on time and surprisingly enough, without any problems. He made his way into the office and was greeted with a cup of coffee from the secretary, which he honestly found very unusual but took it nonetheless and made his way to his desk to see what his next case and who his next client would be. He read through the sheet, it was a very interesting case, one that would be a challenge for him, but Jack wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. Ever. He nodded to himself before he started to read through the details of the client it was a murder case, his client was convicted of murder, but there was no evidence to prove it was him. As Jack read further into the case, he became increasingly more interested and increasingly more confused, but at least he knew why he had been given the coffee, this wasn’t exactly an easy case to solve and win.
Once he finished reading through the case, he started to read through the details of the client and he almost choked when he saw what he was going to have to do. The client was English. The whole case was in England, which in turn meant that Jack would have to travel to England for a few months so he could do everything face to face rather than a video link. He groaned to himself and sat back in his chair, most people would jump at this opportunity, but not Jack. He had just bought his apartment, he had just got himself all settled in and he was comfy with his nice little job in his nice little apartment, and now he had to give that up to travel to England for a few months? He didn’t really want to do that, but at the same time he wasn’t one to give up a challenge and this was certainly a challenge which he would be stupid to pass up, so with a reluctant sigh he signed off the case and started looking for tickets to England. Jack couldn’t tell whether if this was a good day for him or not.

~~

A week later and Jack was begrudgingly stepping on a very early flight to London, he had been thinking about this case all week and working on it but he was yet to actually make contact with his client which he had found very strange, but he knew as soon as he landed he would waste no time in finding his client and going through everything that happened. He glanced around the plane and couldn’t help but to groan when he saw a baby in front of him and a little boy right next to him, and just by the look on the kid’s face Jack could tell that he was a little shit and that he was in for one nightmare of a journey. With yet another groan, Jack grabbed his pillow he bought for flying and rested it against the window and closed his eyes, maybe he could sleep away this living hell.

After eight hours, only two hours of sleep and a complete horrid flight, Jack was walking out of the airport and out into the rain. Of course. He hailed a cab and gave the address of the hotel he would be staying at, which was thankfully paid for by his law firm. It was an hour’s journey, but not as nearly bad as his flight and Jack was grateful for that. Another hour later, and Jack was looking at the details of his client and looking out for where he would be, it took a while but he eventually found where he would be and made his way there, he wasn’t in the greatest of moods, so he really hoped that this guy wasn’t an asshole because he really couldn’t cope with that today.

Jack made his way to the prison his client was in, once there he went through all of the necessary security measures before he got let into the visitor’s room and to the little table. Five minutes later, the prisoners were walking in and towards their respective tables, leaving only one criminal left and making his way over to Jack. Just at the sight of his client, Jack wasn’t one hundred percent sure that he was going to be able to win the case, the man in front of him was a fucking tank. He took a deep breath before standing up to shake his hand.

“Hey, I’m Jack Barakat.” He spoke with one of his charming smile before sitting down again.

“James” The other man grumbled and sat down.
Jack nodded and got out some of the papers from his bag along with a very professional notebook. “Okay then. Do you want to tell me what happened so I can get an idea of your side of the story?” He glanced to James and raised an eyebrow.

“What is there to say? I’ve been arrested and wrongly accused of something I didn’t fucking do.”

Jack only nodded and bit his lip. “Okay. Tell me what you were doing that day.”

James huffed and folded his arms over his chest. “Well, I woke up and ate the breakfast that my boyfriend made. I watched TV for a bit and drank a few beers. Later on that evening my boyfriend and I got into a fight over dinner and I said some things and did some things before leaving for the night.” He wasn’t going to say he made a fuss over nothing and hit his boyfriend. “I went to a few bars and had a few more drinks before starting to walk home and the next thing I knew I was being arrested for murder when I hadn’t done anything.”

Jack wrote everything down, analysing it all in his head and trying to work out how he was going to get around all of this when it got to court. He continued to ask James a few questions before something popped up into his head. “James, may I have the contact details of your boyfriend please? He needs to know everything that has been going on, and I also need to interview him as you had an argument.” He saw the anger flash in James’ eyes and quickly fumbled around in his head for another explanation. “Whatever he says could be crucial in clearing your name and ensuring your release, whether it’s good or bad.” It took a few more minutes of convincing before Jack finally got him to write down the details of the boyfriend, and it was just in time for visiting to come to an end. Jack put all of his papers into his bag and shook James’ hand once more before leaving.

Jack made his way to the hotel and sighed in relief as he laid on the bed, he reached into his bag and flicked through the notes he got today. He then proceeded to look at the details of the boyfriend, he almost choked on air when he saw the name on the paper. Alex Gaskarth. Jack stared at the paper for a while before shoving it back in his bag and closing his eyes. It wasn’t as if Gaskarth was a common name. Jack groaned and rolled over to go to sleep, not even bothering to change, the memories from high school and his past relationship flickered behind his eyelids.

Alex Gaskarth. He was in for a rough few weeks.

Notes

Sorry it's long and boring, but I needed a reason for Jack to go to London and apparently I like to go for the big and over the top things...

I promise it will get better later on.

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