The knocking wakes me. Asleep sitting up on the floor propped against the couch, my head throbbed steadily in the dim of the half-open blinds and the terror behind the door. An assault wailing against the remaining bits of my consciousness. I'm lucky there were no windows on that side of the apartment or my blood could have been painted on the glass for all to see from the force in my head, the blinds ripped from the walls. My palms slick with the residue of sweat and filth as I struggled to pull myself up with the coffee table.
Towards the sound, I tried to calm the panic gripping every nerve in my body. Threats bouncing off the inside of my skull like the amplified sound of a simple knock on the door. "Hold on," I shouted, "just a second," scrambling across the living room as I yanked on my t-shirt. I opened the door as quietly as possible, cracking the seal to something like four inches, almost tripping over myself in my socks when my weight fell fully on the inside of the wood. Pulse slamming against my ribcage.
This better be important.
"Yeah?" Shouting from behind the cracked door.
"Hey, Cole, it's just me. You wanna open the damn door?" The guy's just kidding and you could tell by the smile and the intonation. But the voice was rough, almost slurring despite it being only just past two o'clock. "You haven't had your phone on."
"Johnny," my voice was almost muffled by the inside of the door, just on the verge of cracking, my lungs halfway from giving out in the first place. He looked like the sun, with that halo of bleached blond hair spiked out like rays. Maybe a little hotter. My stomach flipped because he was just the thing I needed to distract me, and I blinked at him for a moment as he let himself in, solidifying the reality of his presence in my mind. He shut the door behind him.
"You look like shit." His words were like the ringing in my ears when he'd dragged me out of another one of my lapses in judgement. It took a month and a half for the whole world to slow enough to even understand I could read the signs. Another to dig myself deep enough to forget again. I avoided looking directly at him.
"Fuck you." It wasn't kind. It wasn't even sincere.
"Man, at least take me to dinner first."
I could hear his smirk in his words. He was always like that, cocky and stupid in a way that just made it seem like he's joking with every word out of his mouth. I would say he was with almost complete certainty, but there was always the chance he wasn't, and I don't like being wrong.
He looked disheveled, all loose-fitting clothes and hair mussed from his ride here. And like all the little details in my life I tried to ignore, his appearance seemed so wrong in this apartment. Too raw. It would bring a welcome, homey comfort to a much lovelier – warmer, more functional – structure. Just not here. Here, it made the temperature creep upwards and the air hard to pull in.
"Everything alright, kid? You seem jumpy." His tone was more friendly now, a bit kinder. I fiddled with the hem of my shirt while we stood there. The cabinets felt too tall all of a sudden.
"Nah," I said, rubbing at my neck. There was already a tight coil in the center of my chest, pinching. "Didn't sleep all night." A half-truth. I didn't want to concern him. Though it was likely a futile effort, as my appearance was more than enough to worry anyone who cared about my well-being. He knew better, still. His brows furrowed. Not quite skeptically.
"Where's Van?" He kept catching me in too many questions to escape with any stable lie.
I breathed a shallow inhale. "Gas station."
A grunt somewhere in Johnny's throat, something holding it back. Suspicion, maybe. There was something on his mind, even past his general demeanor. Past the typical disarray of business and insecurities. His shuffling, restless energy and a fleeting distraction made him unpredictable and hard to keep a hold of. There was the quiet lingering of concern under the surface. That tension, the twitch.
"I brought you something," he broke the thick silence with his announcement, and I blinked. The abrupt change gave my eyes something to focus on, and I finally realized I'm stupid and he's been holding a brown paper bag. "You know that place that just opened up, the bakery on Fifth?" He set it on the counter, unwrapping the paper a little too neatly. He was trying to distract me. He took one out and pushed it at me. Chocolate frosting, drizzled icing, I remember almost biting into my palm with how fast that thing went into my mouth.
"No." I mumbled, staring intently at nothing. I'm sure I looked like an idiot. "But thanks, I guess."
My measly answer wouldn't deter him from rambling as usual. "Well it's great, I went there the other day with Florence, she said it was 'okay'. Uptight bitch. I got donuts. S'why I'm up now, anyway. So..."
I forgot he even had a girlfriend. Florence. Great name. Never met her, and I couldn't imagine him with a woman. Being "down" with a woman, committed or whatever. He was hardly down with himself. I hummed something, watching him pluck out another sweet before licking his fingertips, and I'm certain this is just a ruse to keep me entertained and out of trouble. I wondered briefly if Van called him to come over and check on me, like I was some kid that needed babysitting.
"Anyway," he starts to crumple up the bag, "You got a light? I keep leaving it at home so I don't smoke so much. Pointless, if I'm just going to ask everyone, but hey. It's the thought that counts, right? Fucking stupid, actually. Listen…"
"Uh, yeah." I fumbled to open the kitchen drawer again and grab one of the cheap plastic lighters scattered with pens and scraps of paper. I tossed it at him and he caught it, moving to fish a pack of smokes out of his pocket. I watched him carefully though of the corner of my eye, as if he were a pipe bomb, or one of those animals you can't look in the eye unless you want them to bite your head off. I felt the weight of his stare and had half a mind to run and jump out the window, maybe fall a few stories to the cement below and die. Fuck dignity. As much as it would've been more peaceful, I wouldn't care for the blood, bones. The mess. But as I was considering the logistics, and the practicality, and how painful it might even be if I survived–
"You cold?"
My focus flickered back to him and away from the window. "What?"
"You're shaking, you idiot." He snorted, looking over me sort of as if I were a frightened animal. I clenched my jaw. Yeah, a frightened animal, cornered and tensed to bite the closest thing. That wasn't as far off as I would've liked. "Here, I'm getting you a blanket. Hold on."
He stepped into the other room to grab one from off the couch, the smoke forgotten, and my spine relaxed from the position I didn't realize I'd fallen into. The old, faded quilt felt thicker when he wrapped it around my shoulders. His hand brushed my neck on the way down, a searing contrast between his fever-hot palm and the frigid air that constantly settled around me. "Christ, you're cold."
My skin buzzed. "I hadn't noticed," I said through the thick blanket. His close proximity made my head swim, my pupils blown out. I'm sure I looked utterly intoxicated even without a drink, as I steadied myself on the counter. The look on his face was almost sheepish and his eyes flickered over my face, scanning my features to gauge my state. A guilty flutter bubbled up in my gut, but I couldn't identify its source, save for Johnny and his sudden show of concern. My nerves felt shot, deadened. I hadn't eaten a single thing all day either. The sugar certainly wasn't doing much to help me, but the temporary excitement was welcome. Distracting.
He still looked like a fucking walking ray of sunshine. Even in my delirium, a pang of resentment swept through me. He glowed. I wanted to bask in it, while simultaneously hating myself for finding comfort in his very existence.
A bitter taste in my mouth. The blanket half obscured my face, muffling everything too sharply.
His hands rested on my shoulders, the weight grounding. "Do you need something else, kid? You hungry?" When he looked at me, I avoided his gaze, my stomach curling.
"M'not a kid."
"Right, right," he corrected himself quickly. "You're right. Sorry, just a habit."
He's a natural mother hen, honestly, whether he realizes or not. And sometimes I knew Van called him when I'm unstable, which I am rather frequently, and he likes to stop by as though a simple order of donuts and a quick call would make it all go away. He seemed happy to have something for his motherly instincts to fuss about. Like keeping his hands busy doing anything will prevent him from destroying his own life. So there he was, pressing his palm to my forehead, a little too warm against my clammy, goosebumped skin. I couldn't look him in the eye.
"It's fine," I grumbled, trying not to trip over the words.
"You've got a fever, or something," he muttered, barely intelligible, more to himself than me. He brushed my hair back. I fought a shiver that went straight to the pit of my stomach. "Lemme check in here," he mumbled, moving to rifle through the cabinets. He didn't seem the least bit bashful when he unceremoniously yanked open doors to noisily rummage through whatever was in there. There was such an ease in his movements, and he hummed a little song or something to himself. I wondered if he thought I couldn't hear him, or if he just didn't care. There was still a distant throb, but his presence dissolved the sharp edges of my anxiety.
All my muscles softened until I melted into the kitchen chair. Johnny was plucking things out of the cabinet and laying them out on the counter, saying something I couldn't process because everything muffled. His movements were so comforting, familiar, his presence, and it was easy to put myself on autopilot just a little, to slip back into this cloudy, muddy sort of half-consciousness. All the sensations were a blur. Colors and a distinct sharpness, all drowned by static, rushing water or just nothing at all. It was that half-awake limbo where everything drifts too easily. His words made enough sense. He was asking me to swallow a pill and rambling something about a fever, moving back and forth between the cabinets and the stove. He placed a steaming mug in front of me, and somehow my thoughts connected for long enough to recognize that it was a cup of tea and heard my own voice grumble a brief gratitude.
But still, it all drifted a little, kind of foggy and muffled, and I couldn't quite tell where the lines separated between vague notions, half-asleep dreaming, and the jolt of his hands shaking my shoulders just a bit and waking me fully. He was sitting beside me, fingers curled too sharply in the fabric of my sleeve, and his body heat livened my freezing limbs. He was trying to talk to me. He could tell I wasn't too attentive to my surroundings, and my skin was too hot and too cold. The lights on the ceiling shone too bright, and I slumped over on his shoulder. My face scrunched against the fuzzy collar of his jacket, searching for some cover, some moment to breathe.
"You good? You zoning out or something? Van'll kill me if he comes home and you've been strung out. You with me, man?" It was almost a whisper, gentle like someone talking to a child. I must've really looked awful, honestly. He looked a little worried. A little shaken. He repeated himself a few times.
"Hm."
"Nah, that ain't a good answer, Cole, I'm losing you here." A heavy breath, maybe exasperated, but not unkind. He was fidgeting with his sleeves, fingernails picking at the cuffs.
My own hand was resting on his leg, the denim rough underneath. "Not strung out." My face was warmer when I focused a little on the place where our bodies made contact. It was grounding, I'll admit, to touch someone after sitting alone in the dark by myself.
A little relieved now, a slight groan at the back of his throat, he nudged me a little to get me to sit up. "Okay. Alright. Do you know what you took recently? Just tell me and it'll be fine. It'll probably be alright but I'm not gonna fuck around here, kid."
"No," I murmured, half my face still buried against the soft fabric of his jacket. I was sure I was falling asleep on him, but he smelled like cigarette smoke and sweet bread and that felt familiar, though I couldn't place why. I couldn't bring myself to stand from the chair and move somewhere less awkward, though. Less embarrassing.
"Fuck." Another nudge. "Cole."
"I don't know," I insisted, forcing my attention back to him, peeling my cheek from his jacket. I didn't want him to yell at me. "M'alright, it's not a problem," I said softly, so unused to my own voice, and the quiet was all-consuming. "Didn't take anything."
"So what is this then? You got a concussion or something?"
I shook my head, a pang of pressure behind my eyeballs. I think the bright lights weren't helping. I stared intently at the steam lifting out of the cup, the blurriness subsiding only a little.
"Tell me what happened." His voice was stronger now, almost parental. As usual.
I groaned. I must've been coming up on a headache, nothing near blackout nausea, though it made my head throb faintly. I knew it was to Johnny's benefit I didn't mention the drugs. I could see him stewing with it already. "I just woke up." The thought of anything else was still a little raw and tender.
"So what's got you so tired?"
I shrugged. He dropped the line of inquiry.
"You gonna be okay for tonight?" He asked, removing my hand from his lap. "Do you want me to stay?"
I almost blushed, finding it hard to swallow. His breath was sweet and ashy. He looked at me, calm but somewhat sad. I shrugged again, sipping my tea. I decided I couldn't deal with words right now. He seemed to understand this and didn't take my lack of an answer as any offense.
"Your hair needs brushed," he griped, reaching up to detangle something with his fingers. His skin is all sparks, and mine's too slow to make any reaction. "It's gross. Kinda bad. Real greasy."
Mood killer. I wrinkled my nose, but still had no words to retort. I think he understood my gesture well enough.
"What, Van hasn't got a comb or anything for your bird's nest?" I ignored the jab. "Let's find you one."
He stood too fast and I lurched forward without a friendly weight to help balance me. Johnny scoured the kitchen cabinets, searching through all the drawers with a specific focus I've seen many times. When he found a small brush he dragged the chair beside me into a better position, letting the weight screech on the tiled floor. "Alright, man, sit up. C'mon."
A laugh caught at the back of my throat, and somehow I was allowing myself to be sat back up in the chair, much less slumped over than before. I stayed put. Johnny was humming to himself as he took the brush to my thick black hair, some familiar melody I didn't quite know the words to. I was falling asleep again when he tugged my hair and pulled me out of my haze. I grunted at him.
"Got a mess here, Cole, it's gonna take me a while," he said quietly, and I felt the bristles catch on a particular knot. This wasn't the first time he brushed my hair and made sure I didn't look like death warmed over. "Promise me you'll eat some food and sleep soon."
"Yeah."
"Good, 'cause if you pass out and crack your head open or some shit, it'll be my ass. We're leaving soon, and I'm not putting up with Van giving me fucking lip because of it."
As he sat, playing stylist, I slowly drifted back towards unconsciousness. "Where we going again?"