DECISIONS Welcome to Hell - Jonathan/Zack
Jun. 20th, 2018 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marshvTitle: Decisions
Rating: G
Words: 3116
Fandom: Welcome to Hell
Pairing: Jonathan/Zack
Sock and Jonathan's agreement went as follows. Sock was allowed to pester and annoy Jonathan as much as he wanted providing he gave Jonathan two hours of alone time per day plus seven hours of sleep. The first half hour was lunch period, the other hour and a half was for homework and whatever else Jonathan managed to cram into that timeframe.
Luckily for him, Sock was terrible at keeping track of time. So more often than not Jonathan ended up lying his way into four or five hours of personal time and Sock couldn't prove him wrong.
This was both a good and bad thing. Obviously time alone was good, but Jonathan couldn’t help but get anxious thinking about what Sock was up to while he was away. The demon couldn't talk to anyone and he'd told Jonathan he couldn't touch anything, but Sock wasn't exactly trustworthy and it was very possible he was lying.
Jonathan hated to think about Sock taking over a blender or an electric razor and slicing someone's skin off. Or messing with the wiring of someone's house until it caught fire.
But this was month two of their arrangement, and Jonathan had yet to hear any news stories about mysterious fires or skinless people.
Right now it was lunch. A whole thirty minutes without Sock—after enduring four classes with the little demon breathing down his neck—was something he desperately needed.
He listened to Lil telling a story about a dream she had. He was glad he finally decided to talk to her. It surprised him how little she talked even after he had gotten to know her better. He was under the impression that she was shy but it seemed like she just didn't say much. Or maybe she was just a closed off person. Still her rough, level voice was strangely calming to him, and he was enjoying the moment until she switched the subject to something he had no desire to talk about.
"So, how have things been with that sock demon?"
Jonathan head dropped to the table and he groaned, pulling at his hair with callused fingers.
"Can we not?" he begged. "And he's not a sock demon, he's a demon named Sock. But seriously, I'm really not in the mood for this right now."
"Why? What happened?" she actually seemed concerned. Lil did care. Usually. She was a lot more willing to listen to other people's problems than talk about her own. But she wasn't above teasing him, and it caught him a little off guard that she was willing to drop the subject of Sock so easily.
Jonathan turned his head, still resting it on the table, cheek now squishing against the cheap plastic as he crossed his arms in front of him. Thinking. Just slumped there.
Did he really want to tell her though? If the Sock thing caught her interest there's no telling what generic high school gossip would do. Lil may have been easier to talk to and a lot more calm than other girls he had known, but she was still a girl, and all girls liked gossip to some extent didn't they? Maybe that was just a thing some girls did. He didn't know Lil's opinion on it.
"You remember what I told you about Zack Melto? The football guy?"
"He asked you out again?" Lil's usually emotionless face lit up with a grin, and Jonathan wanted to disappear right there and go back five seconds so he could stop himself from bringing this up.
"Yeah. This morning." he continued anyway. No way she'd let him back out of this. "And then again right before lunch. He's been getting more frequent."
The awkwardness he felt had to be palpable. Anyone walking by would sense it and become infected. Why'd he have to go and complain when she brought up Sock?
"What'd you tell him this time?"
"Same thing I do every time. That I'm not interested or just a flat out no. The one time I made the mistake of telling him he wasn't my type, he got this weird ass grin on his face like I was challenging him or something. The next day he brought me flowers. Actual flowers. I don't know what to do about him anymore."
Lil looked like she was thinking for a second. No doubt devising a way to scare Zack away or something. She could do it if she wanted to.
"Have you thought about just giving it a go? Go out on one date, tell him you weren't feeling it, then be free of him forever?"
That... wasn't what he was expecting.
"I really don't think he would give up after one date."
"You sure? Guys like that move on fast once they get what they want. You give him a chance and then turn him down, he won't be able to bug you about it anymore." Lil seemed pretty sure of herself.
"And how do you know all this? Are you and Zack best friends or something?"
"Hell no. But I know how guys work. Especially guys like him."
Lil was unreadable as ever but she looked a little smug. Jonathan didn't know what to do except sit up and slouch forward. Lil shifted in her seat a little and got closer.
"I think you should do it. All you do, day after day, is go to school. Even if you don't date him, you might make a new friend."
"I'm actually fine with the number of friends I have now, thanks," he mumbled dryly. Lil. Lil was his only friend. And the guys in the band—kinda—and Sock. But he hesitated to consider him a friend.
Jonathan ran a hand down his face and groaned for what felt like the fifth time since lunch started. "Fuck this. All this headache because of a stupid quarterback."
"Quarterback. Zack the quarterback. Quarterzack." Lil grinned at her own joke and snickered.
"That was," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "That was bad. Even for you." he shook his head in disappointment but smiled despite himself, meanwhile Lil cackled from across the table and rolled her eyes at his inability to appreciate a good pun.
"I'm serious though, it would be good for you. Take your mind off all that weirdness with your 'sock demon' or whatever," she said using air quotes.
"I told you, he's a demon named Sock." Jonathan glared at her. "And trust me, it wouldn't help. I'd just go from the Sock problem to worrying about getting caught."
"Caught? You don't mean-?" Lil studied him before scoffing with a sneer. "Are you kidding? That's what you're worried about? You know no one at this school cares, right? Last year's homecoming king had a boyfriend. And Zack's a pretty popular guy and he doesn't care about this hurting his reputation. Or hey! Maybe he knows it won't hurt his reputation—since it won't. Come on. Please tell me you're not serious."
She waited for Jonathan to talk, but when she saw how he was resting his head in his hands with a very uncomfortable look on his face, no doubt put off by her hostility, she sighed, softening her voice and reaching out to him.
"I mean, I know you aren't the most confident person in the world or anything but I thought you knew better than to worry about that stuff."
Jonathan crossed his arms on the table and shrugged her hand away, looked up to her slightly, not meeting her gaze. His fingers pulled at the stray threads on his sweatshirt.
"I'm not worried about what the school will think, Lil." the tightness to his voice, the implication there, didn't escape Lil and it made her eyes widen in realization. “I figured that was obvious.”
The last part was a mumble. Meanwhile the fidgeting with his jacket strings increased.
Lil suddenly looked heavy with guilt and scrambled to apologize. "Crap, J. I'm so sorry I didn't even think of that. I totally forgot. I'm so sorry. Really."
"It's fine." It wasn't fine. "Look, I don't want to talk about this anymore alright? Let’s go back to Sock. That was actually better."
Lil nodded, still grimacing at her disrespectfulness before.
"I'm not going out with Zack,” he added despite himself. “Even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to." Another sigh, then he finally looked up, seeing how guilty his friend looked. He gave a small smile and touched her hand.
<"Beside, I still have that 'sock demon' to worry about right?"
As he smirked and squeezed her fingers, he succeeded in getting Lil to smile just a little bit and all was right with the world again. At least until lunch ended.
Later, long after lunch faded away into sixth period, Sock was still nowhere to be seen. It made him a little happy. Just a little because the majority of his mind was being occupied by a mild freak out, wondering where in the world the demon could be.
Still anxious, band practice snuck up on him. Or more specifically, his guitar class snuck up on him. But it was still called ‘band’ class because everyone had to take music. Which didn’t make sense because he already knew guitar.
Speaking of bands, the only band mate he shared the guitar class with, oddly worthy, was their lead singer. The others were all enrolled in their instrument of choice. Why Vic didn’t just take choir as his music class was a mystery but Jonathan suspected it had something to do with Vic’s god complex and refusal to accept any criticism on his vocal abilities.
He liked the other guys. They were decent. Their relationship was strictly about the music so there wasn’t a whole lot of friendship going on, but he tolerated them well enough. Vic though? Vic could go fuck himself.
“This is impossible I don’t understand how anyone can move their fingers like this.”
Vic was squinting at a page in their book, eyeing a new piece they had to learn that would have been simple had Vic bothered to ever practice the pieces they learned before.
“You complain about it every day. Why didn’t you just do choir?” Jonathan said, voicing his thoughts.
“Because I don’t need it. I can already sing,” he huffed, then flashed Jonathan a haughty glare. “Why are you taking guitar if you can already play?”
“Because it’s easier,” Jonathan said like it was the simplest thing in the world. “You should’ve just stuck with what you know. Then we wouldn’t have to hear you whine because you’re too lazy to learn guitar.”
“Excuse me? I have weak wrists from all my artwork,” Vic snapped back at him. “Guitar is painful for me. Sorry I can’t sing and paint and act and dance and play guitar like you can—oh wait, that’s me.”
“Shut up, Vic,” was all he said back. And Vic looked away with a smug smile.
Guitar strapped to his back, Jonathan made his way to gym. Last class of the day. High school locker rooms lacked the unpleasantness depicted in movies. And most days it was a sluggish in-and-out and quick change into gym clothes. Nothing to report or write home about.
But he wasn’t always so lucky.
“Jonathan!”
He tensed at the voice, not saying anything. Though it didn’t stop its owner from speaking again, smooth like honey heated at just the right temperature.
“It’s weight day,” Zack said. “Let me know if you need a spotter, yeah?”
There was a wink in Zack’s voice that was so obvious by now that Jonathan didn’t even have to see it. But it was all he said. And Zack didn’t wait to hear a response back, didn’t touch the other’s shoulder or demand his attention.
When Jonathan glanced behind him, he saw Zack walking away with the rest of his entourage. Big guys. Macho alpha males. All six feet and over with toned limbs and lean mean muscle. And not a single one of them cared that Zack was just shamelessly flirting with another guy.
It made him think of what Lil had said.
He shut his gym locker with a sigh and went to join the rest of his class. At this point, he welcomed Sock’s return. At least with Sock he could relax. Annoying sure, but easy enough to ignore. Tune him out. Nap with some music. But Zack? Vic? High school? Not as easy.
Through sheer dumb luck or from losing track of time, Jonathan survived the day. Once he was home, once his feet hit the first step to his porch, his mind blurred. His senses fled. Just like everyday, he had to block it out somehow—his house, the sounds of their screaming—It was instinct nowadays since they started getting pissed when he came home with his headphones on. So he didn’t wear them in anymore.
His movements were automatic and robotic. He didn't have to think. Ten seconds later and he had walked through fog and to his room and locked the door. Almost safe. His hearing began to return and he heard the muffled yelling downstairs. A crash. His anxiety was thick and he could feel it crawling over his skin. He shoved his headphones over his ears and the noises stopped immediately.
Safe.
He felt the calm come back and he made a relaxed sigh when he collapsed onto his pillow. Still no sign of Sock, he grimaced. He parents didn't try to talk him when he got home at least. Zack was tolerable today. Maybe tonight would be a good one.
And then, to his surprise and frustration, he felt a vibration coming from his jeans.
"No," he groaned out loud to his phone. "Go away."
To his infinite annoyance, his phone did not, in fact, become magically voice activated by his grumbling refusal. The vibration continued. And he was stuck frozen, contemplating whether or not to move from his very fined-tuned and comfortable position to answer it, or to ignore whoever was calling and hope it wasn't something urgent.
"You gonna get that?"
And to top it off, Sock had now—apparently—returned to his presence. Jonathan didn't so much as jump when he heard his voice, totally unfazed that his quiet afternoon was dissolving. Instead he just stared blankly with his eyes half closed, willing everything to just go away.
If he weren't so trapped in a state of growing anger, he would have pondered how exactly he managed to hear Sock through his headphones, and figured offhandedly it was some telepathic demon magic.
"I'm not answering it," he decided, not really speaking to Sock in particular, but announcing it like speaking the words would give him the balls to actually go through with it and ignore the phone.
"Why? What if it's a friend?" Sock kept going.
"I don't feel like talking," he deadpanned.
"You never do. That's why you don't have friends."
That made him snap. Jonathan turned his head to glare at Sock with an intensity that could rival the sun. Or it could if Jonathan kept it going long enough, instead of letting it fall into a pout.
"What are you talking about? You see me talking to people all the time."
"All the time," Sock repeated and laughed. He was floating on his back above the bed, arms folded behind his head and mirroring Jonathan's original position.
"Yeah, 'all the time', why do you care? Anyway, weren’t you the one that said it might be a friend in the first place?”
"Oops! Did I make it sound like I care? Totally didn't mean for it to come out that way. I don't care. At all."
Sock ignored the second part of Jonathan’s very valid point and had rolled over, looking down at Jonathan from overhead. He was grinning, like he knew just how annoying he was being, and Jonathan had to remind himself that that was exactly why Sock was here.
The phone stopped at some point during their argument. Only then did Jonathan actually reach in to look at the missed call. Shocking, even to him, he recognized the number as being from Lil. Which was weird because she usually texted. Hell, he wasn’t sure he had ever gotten a phone call from Lil.
“Probably just a booty call,” Sock suggested, eyeing the phone screen.
Jonathan almost choked.
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah like, maybe she sat on her phone and called you by mistake. A booty call.”
“A butt dial,” Jonathan practically hissed.
“Same thing.” Sock shrugged and waved him away.
“They are NOT the same thing. How old are you, really?”
Sock looked genuinely confused and, as before, ignored Jonathan’s question.
“What’s the difference?”
“You’re kidding me,” Jonathan whispered to himself, then spoke louder. “A butt dial is when you call someone by accident. A booty call is calling someone, on purpose, so you can fuck.”
“Woah woah, what?”
While Jonathan’s face was perpetual disinterest and irritation, Sock’s was beet red, and he looked uncomfortable. Like a kid. And Jonathan had to crack a smile at it.
“Seriously, you’re twelve aren’t you?” he smirked.
“I’m not THAT young.” Now it was Sock’s turn to roll his eyes. He flipped the hair from his face and crossed his arms over his chest before continuing.
“I killed myself when I was fourteen,” he said, more calmly now. “But that was a year ago so I guess that means I’m fifteen.”
“So a freshman,” Jonathan said.
“I guess so, yeah.”
For some reason, the knowledge made Jonathan go quiet. Any interest he had in Sock as a person was essentially nonexistent—up to that point. But now he was thinking about everything Sock had never seen. Never experienced. Would never experience. And yeah maybe he wasn’t that much older than he was, but he’d finished his freshman year. He finished his sophomore year. He was about to finish his junior year.
Sock would never graduate high school. Never get a job or get dumped or buy a car or anything that every human being got to go through at some point in their lifetime. Because Sock’s lifetime had been too short.
He didn’t realize how blank his eyes looked until Sock was talking to him again and waving a hand in his face.
“Yoo-hoo. Come on, hot stuff, where’d you go?”
“Sorry.” Jonathan still wasn’t looking at him, but the focus in his eyes was back. For one instance, he wasn’t annoyed at Sock. Instead, he just felt numb. Numb and, remarkably, sympathetic. Not that Sock seemed too upset by his predicament and life as a ghost.
Or demon. Whatever.
Rating: G
Words: 3116
Fandom: Welcome to Hell
Pairing: Jonathan/Zack
Sock and Jonathan's agreement went as follows. Sock was allowed to pester and annoy Jonathan as much as he wanted providing he gave Jonathan two hours of alone time per day plus seven hours of sleep. The first half hour was lunch period, the other hour and a half was for homework and whatever else Jonathan managed to cram into that timeframe.
Luckily for him, Sock was terrible at keeping track of time. So more often than not Jonathan ended up lying his way into four or five hours of personal time and Sock couldn't prove him wrong.
This was both a good and bad thing. Obviously time alone was good, but Jonathan couldn’t help but get anxious thinking about what Sock was up to while he was away. The demon couldn't talk to anyone and he'd told Jonathan he couldn't touch anything, but Sock wasn't exactly trustworthy and it was very possible he was lying.
Jonathan hated to think about Sock taking over a blender or an electric razor and slicing someone's skin off. Or messing with the wiring of someone's house until it caught fire.
But this was month two of their arrangement, and Jonathan had yet to hear any news stories about mysterious fires or skinless people.
Right now it was lunch. A whole thirty minutes without Sock—after enduring four classes with the little demon breathing down his neck—was something he desperately needed.
He listened to Lil telling a story about a dream she had. He was glad he finally decided to talk to her. It surprised him how little she talked even after he had gotten to know her better. He was under the impression that she was shy but it seemed like she just didn't say much. Or maybe she was just a closed off person. Still her rough, level voice was strangely calming to him, and he was enjoying the moment until she switched the subject to something he had no desire to talk about.
"So, how have things been with that sock demon?"
Jonathan head dropped to the table and he groaned, pulling at his hair with callused fingers.
"Can we not?" he begged. "And he's not a sock demon, he's a demon named Sock. But seriously, I'm really not in the mood for this right now."
"Why? What happened?" she actually seemed concerned. Lil did care. Usually. She was a lot more willing to listen to other people's problems than talk about her own. But she wasn't above teasing him, and it caught him a little off guard that she was willing to drop the subject of Sock so easily.
Jonathan turned his head, still resting it on the table, cheek now squishing against the cheap plastic as he crossed his arms in front of him. Thinking. Just slumped there.
Did he really want to tell her though? If the Sock thing caught her interest there's no telling what generic high school gossip would do. Lil may have been easier to talk to and a lot more calm than other girls he had known, but she was still a girl, and all girls liked gossip to some extent didn't they? Maybe that was just a thing some girls did. He didn't know Lil's opinion on it.
"You remember what I told you about Zack Melto? The football guy?"
"He asked you out again?" Lil's usually emotionless face lit up with a grin, and Jonathan wanted to disappear right there and go back five seconds so he could stop himself from bringing this up.
"Yeah. This morning." he continued anyway. No way she'd let him back out of this. "And then again right before lunch. He's been getting more frequent."
The awkwardness he felt had to be palpable. Anyone walking by would sense it and become infected. Why'd he have to go and complain when she brought up Sock?
"What'd you tell him this time?"
"Same thing I do every time. That I'm not interested or just a flat out no. The one time I made the mistake of telling him he wasn't my type, he got this weird ass grin on his face like I was challenging him or something. The next day he brought me flowers. Actual flowers. I don't know what to do about him anymore."
Lil looked like she was thinking for a second. No doubt devising a way to scare Zack away or something. She could do it if she wanted to.
"Have you thought about just giving it a go? Go out on one date, tell him you weren't feeling it, then be free of him forever?"
That... wasn't what he was expecting.
"I really don't think he would give up after one date."
"You sure? Guys like that move on fast once they get what they want. You give him a chance and then turn him down, he won't be able to bug you about it anymore." Lil seemed pretty sure of herself.
"And how do you know all this? Are you and Zack best friends or something?"
"Hell no. But I know how guys work. Especially guys like him."
Lil was unreadable as ever but she looked a little smug. Jonathan didn't know what to do except sit up and slouch forward. Lil shifted in her seat a little and got closer.
"I think you should do it. All you do, day after day, is go to school. Even if you don't date him, you might make a new friend."
"I'm actually fine with the number of friends I have now, thanks," he mumbled dryly. Lil. Lil was his only friend. And the guys in the band—kinda—and Sock. But he hesitated to consider him a friend.
Jonathan ran a hand down his face and groaned for what felt like the fifth time since lunch started. "Fuck this. All this headache because of a stupid quarterback."
"Quarterback. Zack the quarterback. Quarterzack." Lil grinned at her own joke and snickered.
"That was," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "That was bad. Even for you." he shook his head in disappointment but smiled despite himself, meanwhile Lil cackled from across the table and rolled her eyes at his inability to appreciate a good pun.
"I'm serious though, it would be good for you. Take your mind off all that weirdness with your 'sock demon' or whatever," she said using air quotes.
"I told you, he's a demon named Sock." Jonathan glared at her. "And trust me, it wouldn't help. I'd just go from the Sock problem to worrying about getting caught."
"Caught? You don't mean-?" Lil studied him before scoffing with a sneer. "Are you kidding? That's what you're worried about? You know no one at this school cares, right? Last year's homecoming king had a boyfriend. And Zack's a pretty popular guy and he doesn't care about this hurting his reputation. Or hey! Maybe he knows it won't hurt his reputation—since it won't. Come on. Please tell me you're not serious."
She waited for Jonathan to talk, but when she saw how he was resting his head in his hands with a very uncomfortable look on his face, no doubt put off by her hostility, she sighed, softening her voice and reaching out to him.
"I mean, I know you aren't the most confident person in the world or anything but I thought you knew better than to worry about that stuff."
Jonathan crossed his arms on the table and shrugged her hand away, looked up to her slightly, not meeting her gaze. His fingers pulled at the stray threads on his sweatshirt.
"I'm not worried about what the school will think, Lil." the tightness to his voice, the implication there, didn't escape Lil and it made her eyes widen in realization. “I figured that was obvious.”
The last part was a mumble. Meanwhile the fidgeting with his jacket strings increased.
Lil suddenly looked heavy with guilt and scrambled to apologize. "Crap, J. I'm so sorry I didn't even think of that. I totally forgot. I'm so sorry. Really."
"It's fine." It wasn't fine. "Look, I don't want to talk about this anymore alright? Let’s go back to Sock. That was actually better."
Lil nodded, still grimacing at her disrespectfulness before.
"I'm not going out with Zack,” he added despite himself. “Even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to." Another sigh, then he finally looked up, seeing how guilty his friend looked. He gave a small smile and touched her hand.
<"Beside, I still have that 'sock demon' to worry about right?"
As he smirked and squeezed her fingers, he succeeded in getting Lil to smile just a little bit and all was right with the world again. At least until lunch ended.
Later, long after lunch faded away into sixth period, Sock was still nowhere to be seen. It made him a little happy. Just a little because the majority of his mind was being occupied by a mild freak out, wondering where in the world the demon could be.
Still anxious, band practice snuck up on him. Or more specifically, his guitar class snuck up on him. But it was still called ‘band’ class because everyone had to take music. Which didn’t make sense because he already knew guitar.
Speaking of bands, the only band mate he shared the guitar class with, oddly worthy, was their lead singer. The others were all enrolled in their instrument of choice. Why Vic didn’t just take choir as his music class was a mystery but Jonathan suspected it had something to do with Vic’s god complex and refusal to accept any criticism on his vocal abilities.
He liked the other guys. They were decent. Their relationship was strictly about the music so there wasn’t a whole lot of friendship going on, but he tolerated them well enough. Vic though? Vic could go fuck himself.
“This is impossible I don’t understand how anyone can move their fingers like this.”
Vic was squinting at a page in their book, eyeing a new piece they had to learn that would have been simple had Vic bothered to ever practice the pieces they learned before.
“You complain about it every day. Why didn’t you just do choir?” Jonathan said, voicing his thoughts.
“Because I don’t need it. I can already sing,” he huffed, then flashed Jonathan a haughty glare. “Why are you taking guitar if you can already play?”
“Because it’s easier,” Jonathan said like it was the simplest thing in the world. “You should’ve just stuck with what you know. Then we wouldn’t have to hear you whine because you’re too lazy to learn guitar.”
“Excuse me? I have weak wrists from all my artwork,” Vic snapped back at him. “Guitar is painful for me. Sorry I can’t sing and paint and act and dance and play guitar like you can—oh wait, that’s me.”
“Shut up, Vic,” was all he said back. And Vic looked away with a smug smile.
Guitar strapped to his back, Jonathan made his way to gym. Last class of the day. High school locker rooms lacked the unpleasantness depicted in movies. And most days it was a sluggish in-and-out and quick change into gym clothes. Nothing to report or write home about.
But he wasn’t always so lucky.
“Jonathan!”
He tensed at the voice, not saying anything. Though it didn’t stop its owner from speaking again, smooth like honey heated at just the right temperature.
“It’s weight day,” Zack said. “Let me know if you need a spotter, yeah?”
There was a wink in Zack’s voice that was so obvious by now that Jonathan didn’t even have to see it. But it was all he said. And Zack didn’t wait to hear a response back, didn’t touch the other’s shoulder or demand his attention.
When Jonathan glanced behind him, he saw Zack walking away with the rest of his entourage. Big guys. Macho alpha males. All six feet and over with toned limbs and lean mean muscle. And not a single one of them cared that Zack was just shamelessly flirting with another guy.
It made him think of what Lil had said.
He shut his gym locker with a sigh and went to join the rest of his class. At this point, he welcomed Sock’s return. At least with Sock he could relax. Annoying sure, but easy enough to ignore. Tune him out. Nap with some music. But Zack? Vic? High school? Not as easy.
Through sheer dumb luck or from losing track of time, Jonathan survived the day. Once he was home, once his feet hit the first step to his porch, his mind blurred. His senses fled. Just like everyday, he had to block it out somehow—his house, the sounds of their screaming—It was instinct nowadays since they started getting pissed when he came home with his headphones on. So he didn’t wear them in anymore.
His movements were automatic and robotic. He didn't have to think. Ten seconds later and he had walked through fog and to his room and locked the door. Almost safe. His hearing began to return and he heard the muffled yelling downstairs. A crash. His anxiety was thick and he could feel it crawling over his skin. He shoved his headphones over his ears and the noises stopped immediately.
Safe.
He felt the calm come back and he made a relaxed sigh when he collapsed onto his pillow. Still no sign of Sock, he grimaced. He parents didn't try to talk him when he got home at least. Zack was tolerable today. Maybe tonight would be a good one.
And then, to his surprise and frustration, he felt a vibration coming from his jeans.
"No," he groaned out loud to his phone. "Go away."
To his infinite annoyance, his phone did not, in fact, become magically voice activated by his grumbling refusal. The vibration continued. And he was stuck frozen, contemplating whether or not to move from his very fined-tuned and comfortable position to answer it, or to ignore whoever was calling and hope it wasn't something urgent.
"You gonna get that?"
And to top it off, Sock had now—apparently—returned to his presence. Jonathan didn't so much as jump when he heard his voice, totally unfazed that his quiet afternoon was dissolving. Instead he just stared blankly with his eyes half closed, willing everything to just go away.
If he weren't so trapped in a state of growing anger, he would have pondered how exactly he managed to hear Sock through his headphones, and figured offhandedly it was some telepathic demon magic.
"I'm not answering it," he decided, not really speaking to Sock in particular, but announcing it like speaking the words would give him the balls to actually go through with it and ignore the phone.
"Why? What if it's a friend?" Sock kept going.
"I don't feel like talking," he deadpanned.
"You never do. That's why you don't have friends."
That made him snap. Jonathan turned his head to glare at Sock with an intensity that could rival the sun. Or it could if Jonathan kept it going long enough, instead of letting it fall into a pout.
"What are you talking about? You see me talking to people all the time."
"All the time," Sock repeated and laughed. He was floating on his back above the bed, arms folded behind his head and mirroring Jonathan's original position.
"Yeah, 'all the time', why do you care? Anyway, weren’t you the one that said it might be a friend in the first place?”
"Oops! Did I make it sound like I care? Totally didn't mean for it to come out that way. I don't care. At all."
Sock ignored the second part of Jonathan’s very valid point and had rolled over, looking down at Jonathan from overhead. He was grinning, like he knew just how annoying he was being, and Jonathan had to remind himself that that was exactly why Sock was here.
The phone stopped at some point during their argument. Only then did Jonathan actually reach in to look at the missed call. Shocking, even to him, he recognized the number as being from Lil. Which was weird because she usually texted. Hell, he wasn’t sure he had ever gotten a phone call from Lil.
“Probably just a booty call,” Sock suggested, eyeing the phone screen.
Jonathan almost choked.
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah like, maybe she sat on her phone and called you by mistake. A booty call.”
“A butt dial,” Jonathan practically hissed.
“Same thing.” Sock shrugged and waved him away.
“They are NOT the same thing. How old are you, really?”
Sock looked genuinely confused and, as before, ignored Jonathan’s question.
“What’s the difference?”
“You’re kidding me,” Jonathan whispered to himself, then spoke louder. “A butt dial is when you call someone by accident. A booty call is calling someone, on purpose, so you can fuck.”
“Woah woah, what?”
While Jonathan’s face was perpetual disinterest and irritation, Sock’s was beet red, and he looked uncomfortable. Like a kid. And Jonathan had to crack a smile at it.
“Seriously, you’re twelve aren’t you?” he smirked.
“I’m not THAT young.” Now it was Sock’s turn to roll his eyes. He flipped the hair from his face and crossed his arms over his chest before continuing.
“I killed myself when I was fourteen,” he said, more calmly now. “But that was a year ago so I guess that means I’m fifteen.”
“So a freshman,” Jonathan said.
“I guess so, yeah.”
For some reason, the knowledge made Jonathan go quiet. Any interest he had in Sock as a person was essentially nonexistent—up to that point. But now he was thinking about everything Sock had never seen. Never experienced. Would never experience. And yeah maybe he wasn’t that much older than he was, but he’d finished his freshman year. He finished his sophomore year. He was about to finish his junior year.
Sock would never graduate high school. Never get a job or get dumped or buy a car or anything that every human being got to go through at some point in their lifetime. Because Sock’s lifetime had been too short.
He didn’t realize how blank his eyes looked until Sock was talking to him again and waving a hand in his face.
“Yoo-hoo. Come on, hot stuff, where’d you go?”
“Sorry.” Jonathan still wasn’t looking at him, but the focus in his eyes was back. For one instance, he wasn’t annoyed at Sock. Instead, he just felt numb. Numb and, remarkably, sympathetic. Not that Sock seemed too upset by his predicament and life as a ghost.
Or demon. Whatever.
