A/N: this is my attempt at dark Jack, which makes him entirely OOC. I'd like to warn that many tropes shall be embraced in this fic. So many tropes...

The car gave a small lurch and in the next few minutes Kim heard that quiet flapping noise. There was no mistaking it: she probably had a flat tire.

Of course, as the Murphy's law dictated, it was already late and she was on the side of the road. Not exactly safe, but this was whereabouts of Seaford, so she thought she'd be fine.

She pulled to the shoulder and got out to check the tires. The front left one was halfway deflated and she didn't think she'd make to the house on it. She either had to call her dad to pick her up and have the car towed or have the spare donut tire put in.

Although her dad made her replace the tire when she got her car, Kim kind of dreaded doing it. Maybe she'd just call her parents. Her mom at least would be all for calling and not staying late on the road by herself.

Kim was about to call when she spotted a small movement further up. Her heart sped up as she imagined a wild animal (please, be an animal) or worse. Hand poised on the keys of her phone, she took one step closer.

If it was an animal, it was a big one. And it was hurt, because she saw blood tracks. Two more steps and Kim's heart jumped and lodged itself in the throat.

This was no animal.

Before her lay, curled up and bleeding, a man.

She forgot her fear and quickly came up to him, not caring about her knees going into the dirt and gravel that dug into the bare skin. Shaking hands checked the pulse and she breathed in relief. He was alive!

Her hand was still on his wrist, when suddenly he grabbed her hand and pulled it tight to him. The movement brought her close to him just as his other hand shot up to catch her by the throat.

"Mghm," she bleated out, fear and surprise all mixed and muffled.

"Who- are- you? I don't think... they'd sent a... girl after me," he said in a gruff voice. Despite the fact that he had his hands on her throat and restrained her, she stopped worrying. He was very weak and as soon as he spoke, his hands shook and he let go. Eyes closed in obvious pain and his head dropped down.

Kim gulped some air and tried to calm her own shaking hands.

"Hey, buddy, I think you need to go to the hospital."

"Nnoo," the guy managed through pain, face contorting in grimace.

"Yes, you do," Kim wasn't deterred. "I'll call 911 and-'

"No! No police and no hospital!" The guy said very forcefully and immediately dissolved into a hacking fit. He stopped and Kim nearly fainted when she saw blood collect at the side of his mouth.

Now she could see that his face was bruised and bloody in spots; that his hoody was dirty and torn; his knuckles scraped and raw. She looked around and didn't see any cars or bikes around. How did he end up on the highway looking like he's gone through a ringer?

Scenarios, one worse than the other ran through her head. He didn't want police or hospitals, he was obviously in a fight, he was dumped on the side of the road...

"Okay... No authorities then. Got it," Kim said it casually, despite a new kind of fear rising in her. It was so not good...

"Hey, so, can I take you somewhere? To get help?" His eyes were closed and Kim poked his shoulder, because it didn't look bloody or dirty, "Hey, buddy. Stay with me."

He blinked eyes open, a fine sheen of sweat covering his face.

Oh God, Kim panicked, please don't die on me.

"Manny's... Custom... Desi-" he coughed badly and winced as his hand went to his side. "...on Fullerton..." he rasped and promptly closed eyes again clearly worn out by the effort.

"Right. Driving. Ok. I can do it. Come on, Kim. Just go change the tire, put the bleeding man in the car and get him to the other side of town. No biggie..."

He looked so pale, she kind of dreaded that he was far worse than just roughed up. What if he was bleeding out? Like, seriously bleeding out internally or something...

She gingerly moved the hoody and swallowed hard against the rising bile. His shirt was soaked in blood. His left side was especially wet and Kim, trying not to breathe, looked closer. There was a cut or a tear in his shirt high enough as if he was- Oh, no... Please be just a knife wound. Clumsy and clammy hands went to lift the shirt and there was too much blood and not enough light.

Too much blood... He was gonna bleed out...

She ran to her car and grabbed the flashlight and the first aid kit her dad put there.

"Thank you, paranoid parents, for putting this stuff here," she muttered and then blanched. What if her stuff was expired? Did the first aid stuff expire? Oh, god, the man's gonna die because she had an expired Neosporin.

A hysterical laughter bubbled in her. He's gonna die of blood loss, not because of her old Neosporin. Oh god, a man was dying and she was having hysterical moment here. But, for the record, she did not take First Aid classes when they were offered in school. And all she planned on doing was to go home and ran through her concerto again. It wasn't every evening that high school seniors got to see an actual wounded person.

She breathed in and out: she could do it.

It took a lot of her strength to roll him over. She could tell even from this position that he was taller than her, but it was also obvious that he was built, which was probably why he was so heavy.

"Steroids. That has got to be steroids. You better hope I don't break or sprain my hands, buddy. Or you'll have to listen to me, my mom and my tutor complain about it," she muttered as she moved the man.

She pulled his arms out of the hoody sleeves and pulled up as much of his shirt as she could. Holding the flashlight in her mouth she looked him over. 'Definitely steroids,' she decided absently when she stopped wanting to faint. There was just too much blood. There must have been three more cuts than the first one she saw. Nasty thick bruises were forming on his ribs and chest. He had them lacing around his shoulders and neck. His left eye was swollen almost completely shut and a small gash over the eyebrow with another cut on the apple of his cheek. Small cuts were sporadically placed around his torso. His mouth was caked with blood and she had a feeling he might have knocked a few teethe loose or at least cut up the inside of his mouth. His lower lip was plump and split in two places.

Whoever did this to him, they meant business. If they didn't want him to die, they wanted to sideline him for a long time.

She started with wet towelettes and wiping down the side of his body. He would moan or hiss occasionally, but otherwise remained silent. There were some pre-sanitized towelettes in the box and she used them on the cuts. Blood was seeping slowly out of the three smaller ones on his hand and shoulder and she sighed in relief. Those were not too bad looking. The first one, a couple of inches below his left pec, was still bleeding at a steady rate and she stopped with the towelettes and used the end of her scarf doused in hand sanitizer. It had to work the same as hydrogen peroxide, right? Ointment from tiny packets was enough for the smaller cuts and scrapes, because they were superficial and not deep at all.

She took in his appearance little by little, now that she had a chance, and he was a fine looking man. She didn't have much time to dwell on the finer points of his body of course: he was semi-conscious and fading fast. However, he was sporting an eight pack and developed shoulders. He wasn't crazy built, like a bodybuilder, but his muscles were cut sharp. She noticed the way the muscles of his shoulders and arms were pronounced even in relaxed state (deltoid? biceps? triceps? What are you thinking, Kim? Stop objectifying the wounded man!). His pecs looked smooth and pillowed but when she put the cream over them they were rock solid.

When she finished with small wounds, she looked at the big cut. It was soaking her scarf and she knew that it meant that it was deeper than most. Her first aid box was woefully unprepared to deal with this sort of wound, so she used all of the gauze pads, secured them with band-aids, and wrapped her ruined scarf around his torso as tightly as she could. She had to thread the scarf under him, rolling him to and from to help the process and by the end of it, he was moaning and wincing and Kim was sweaty and tired.

She sat back on her hunches and looked at the man before her. He was much younger now that he cleaned off his face. Probably a little older than her. Nice regular features, a mole on the cheek, longish brown hair. Between his decent looking face and seriously buff body, the guy was a looker.

"Ok, buddy, you have to wait here. I'll go and change the tire. Don't die."

By now her own clothes were in a sorry state and her top had traces of blood on it. Kim swallowed again. You just cleaned a bunch of knife wounds off a strange guy, what's a bit of blood, she scolded herself.

By comparison, changing tire was a piece of cake. It still took her some time, but she rolled up to where the guy was lying in less than 15 minutes.

The whole ordeal of getting him into the car was more work-out than Kim had had in a week. She had pulled him to the car first; then she made him sit up and prop him against the side of the car; then she opened the back door and trying pulling him in from inside. It didn't work. So she sat next to him, hugged him and had to heave him up. It must have hurt a lot, because he came to and then managed to move himself enough that Kim was able to pull him inside all the way. He passed out again and she quickly checked the wound. Yep, it was seeping through again and she wondered if where she was taking him would be more equipped to deal with it.

Please, please, don't die.

She drove to Fullerton street, which thankfully was the only one in the city and was fairly short. Manny's Custom Designs was a junky looking garage and mechanics shop, which looked closed. She looked at her patient and looked at closed doors again.

Right... This was probably more than a garage and she parked her car in the customer parking lot. She walked up to the front entrance and knocked as loudly as she could.

Then she repeated it again and again.

"That's it buddy. If there's no answer, I am taking you to the hospi-" she trailed off when a door was wrenched open and a young curly-haired guy glared at her.

"Can't you see, it's closed!' he went about to close the door and Kim stuck her foot in.

"Wait! He's bleeding- That is- The guy, he said to bring him here- I mean- Please, help him," Kim wasn't proud to admit it, but she begged.

"Who's bleeding? Who's he?" the guy immediately looked alert and peered above her head.

"He's in my car-" the guy stepped out and started walking to her car. "I found him on the Rt. 101. He was bleeding, but he said no hospital, so... I hope you can help him."

By now they reached her car and he wrenched the back door open.

"Damn, J-man," he muttered and leaned over to help her patient up. Kim's eyes went large when she saw that he had a handgun stuck in the back of his pants. Oh god, it was as bad as she thought...

J-man moaned and briefly opened his eyes.

"Hey, J-dog," the injured man whispered and Kim wondered if it was some sort of intentional thing with the nicknames starting with J. Like, gangs and stuff...

J-dog got his friend up, but obviously he was too heavy. Kim stepped up and together they half-dragged, half-carried J-man to the door. As soon as they got there, it opened and someone's hands pulled the injured guy in.

J-dog turned to Kim and gave her a long assessing look, "Thanks. And he was serious when he said 'no hospitals.' It also means no police."

Kim shuffled her feet, "I got it. He said that too."

The guy kept looking at her with intent eyes, "It would be best if you forgot the whole thing happened. J-man doesn't need complications and we would know if you told people on us."

Suddenly, he didn't look so young and Kim realized that he was dead serious. Between his buddy being beaten and knifed, the whole store open at night to deal with bleeding people, his gun and the late hour, Kim believed them.

"Ok. I'll just go then. Bye," with an awkward wave, she practically ran to her car.

By the time she made it home, it was quite late and she spent some time changing into her cheerleader uniform top, because hers was hopelessly ruined. Thankfully, J-man hasn't really bled on her backseats and she only had to wipe a little of blood off.

All in all, it was a crazy evening. She got home to be greeted by her mom's concerned looks and words. She explained her lateness and a different top by blaming everything on the flat tire and the effort to replace it. Her dad was proud of his lessons and promised to fix the donut. Her mom told her that her lesson could of course wait and Kim collapsed on the bed exhausted.

She obviously ran into a guy, who was into some shady things. Humanitarian that she was, she was glad she helped him, but was also thankful to be done with it all.

Her dreams were full of bloody and menacing men, whose faces sneered at her. She woke up tired and tried to get on with her day. Since her car was still with a donut tire and it might take some time to get it to the shop, she called her friend Grace for pick up.

Grace wanted to know all about the flat tire and how Kim wasn't afraid of being alone in the dark on the road.

She could only muse that she wasn't alone yesterday.

The day of classes and practices was just like any other day and Kim could pretend that she didn't have the strangest encounter of her life just the night before.

In the light of the day, she was ready to discount her own impressions of the guy she met being a dangerous man - part of the gang or something - if it wasn't for a vivid memory of the deep cut and seeping blood, or the glint of light off his friend's handgun.

When Grace dropped her off at her place, Kim was startled by her friend's words.

"Who's your dad's mechanic? They work fast."

Kim looked where Grace was pointing and saw that her car had a new tire already.

It was only after her dad casually mentioned that she must have replaced it already that Kim got the inkling of unease. She checked her car and saw that it was spotlessly clean and her first aid kit replaced with something larger and more substantial (it had butterfly bandages and surgical glue!).

Huh, she guessed that J-dog was right: they knew how to find her and would know if she told anyone.

Kim shivered with the cold feeling and looked around the street as if she could see lurking figures.

Well, she wasn't planning on mentioning it to anyone, so it should be fine. He clearly thanked her for her help yesterday and that was it.

She decided to forget ever running into J-man and his crew.

A/N: yay, nay, not sure? I myself am still not sure about this plot, as I usually write decent Jacks. This Jack is darker, more complicated, has some hazardous habits. Should I go on with the story?