Julius Oppenheimer Jr and what’s his name

by Lesbianvampyrefromouterspace

Summary:

I have literally never been in a more garbage position in my life, in all ways including literal(I live in the dump), HOWEVER there is one aspect in which I am actually better than everyone else at school.

Notes:

all the tags are very mild except swearing Julius swears like every line lmfao also a song to listen to while reading it

Remember My Name-Mitski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjJy9GL66Ek

Also this ones referenced The prison song-SOAD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4L20t8Dvlg

Chapter 1: The Invisible boy

Summary:

Life is difficult and boring for that little blue kid but he may have finally met someone who’s going to remember his name

Rob POV

Everything in my life sucks but at least the walk to school is short and easy. It’s only 3 songs long, I’m not sure how many minutes it actually is. I don’t have a watch or phone or anything, which is fine, time is just made up anyways. Besides, I really like my song system! I mean all I really have right now is music, my one saving grace, I don't even really do my schoolwork I just listen to music and pretend that stuff is going on in my life. like it is in everyone else's.

I think three songs have played since my cartoony butterfly effect contraption that ends in setting my CD player off at the time I'm supposed to get up went off. It always works because I always have the volume earbleedingly loud, it wakes me up but I have to put in a little more work to sit up, stand up and walk. I can’t even imagine a morning routine with breakfast or clean clothes. The disc skips in the middle of the fourth song and I finally get up. Time to go to school.

can’t wait.

J.O.Jr POV:(so much abbreviation damn)

“STEPHANIE!!GET UP!!!” My mom screeches along in painful harmony with my alarm clock. She sounds like she got a voice transplant from a harpy, or the lead singer of a shitty screamo band. “Ugghhhh!” I loudly moan despite knowing no one can hear me, why? Because, of fucking course she’s making EXTRA sure to use THAT STUPID FUCKING NAME. Ugh, the sound of it makes me want to hammer nails in my ears, and I’d make sure they’d reach my brain, cause’ maybe it’d fix some things about me. I could be her perfect little girl. I don’t want to get up or do anything today, because of last night, but ironically last night is the reason I’m going to school today. I just need to get away from my house; plus, y’know. My crew’s at school.

I slowly drag myself out of bed and throw on my usual black “Side Splitter” hoodie with the strings tied in a bow over the stained shirt I slept in, then my gray shorts, and some bandages on my hands in case I get in a fight. I look myself up and down in my full length mirror, wishing I didn't exist because the cracks in the mirror aren’t the only painful imperfections I can see.

After getting dressed, I dash out the door and head to my bus stop, making sure not to look at my mom on the way out, I don’t even grab my usual burnt toast breakfast, but that’s not because of last night I’ve been not eating much for a few months now. I do have my charred toast sometimes though. It’s the only thing I can keep down. I think that's the opposite for most people. Not as if I care what anyone thinks of me.

AT SCHOOL

Rob POV:
Untroubled, I grab my textbooks from my locker as Serj Tankian is shouting in my ear about the American prison system, suddenly I hear an unfamiliar yell awkwardly in the middle. I've heard this track at least a million times so I quickly realize it’s from an external factor. I take out my earbud and turn to see a 30's styled bomb boy, I know this kid.

He’s a mess. A mess that I sure as hell am not getting involved in, because 1) I'd end up in a billion bits if I did and 2) if I got involved with him I’d get INVOLVED. I MEAN I'M STRAIGHT,But it’s not MY FAULT His whole rubber-hose-ass is so fuckin’ cool! I mean SERIOUSLY he’s so NONCHALANT about everything! He just does what he wants an- “ Hey! Eyeball!” And oh my fucking god he’s coming over to me. Jesus, he still looks pretty angry. Did I do something!? What is it!?!? What did I do!?!? “Uhhh… h-hEy JuliUz.” Jezzzuusss Chrisssttt, that was a bad voice crack.

“ I need your math homework.” He casually leans on and shuts Alans lockers as if he didn’t just scream louder than System Of a Down on top volume. Alan quickly recoils his balloon string to avoid getting cut and just awkwardly floats to class. Carmen scoffs something about how inconsiderate and rude that was, probably, I cant hear her.

He rolls his eyes at her and refocuses on me. "Well?" he asks, clearly irritated. I pull out my earbuds frantically.

“Uh, sure thing, man?” Man?? I cringe at myself. I fumble for my homework in my cluttered bag and switch my player off. I timidly hand him the paper, hoping he doesn’t break my wrists as punishment for being such a fucking weirdo, thankfully he just grabs it, actually he even thanked me, he said, “Hey, thanks Robbie!" and rustled my hair like we're buds or something, then he ran off. “I’ll give it back in class!"

….

"probably!"

…Okay, uh what was that? I have no clue what just happened, I'm just glad I lived through it. He seems a lot happier, no doubt due to my compliance... for some reason I feel like he’s not that bad, maybe it’s because he knew my name, at least I think he did, maybe he thinks it’s actually Robbie, either way I’m actually pretty weirdly thrilled to have been called it.

J.O.Jr POV:
So glad I got these answers! No thanks to that stupid egghead. “I'm in the hospital! I’m rotting, Julius!” Yeah sure he is. I'm frying that loser when he gets back. But, man that blue bitch was pretty easy to get this from, he’s definitely an easy mark, I’ll tell the gang about him. He’s pretty attractive too, wonder if he’d let me make out with him. I could get test answers for that! And, y’know kissing him wouldn’t be too bad. Huh, I should make him think we’re dating and then I can get all the answers I want! The guys would think I'm awesome if I did that. No, I would be awesome if I did that. I don't need those rejects approval. But yeah, good plan, me! Just gotta get close to him, as close as I can…

5TH PERIOD

Rob POV:
“SLAM!” Jesus! Why is he so aggressive with giving me back that paper!? There's no way it was necessary that he inadvertently makes sure the entire class knows. “Here ya go, man” He says with a smirk and evil, evil eyes. He's plotting something. Today is the day I die.

 

I’m about to leave class, but out of the blue I am stopped by Mr. Small,"Hey, kid. Can I chit chat with you For a sec?” His voice is slightly raspy but he doesn’t seem to be high.

“Uhh…sure?” I reluctantly reply, hoping this won’t cut into my already limited lunch time. He pulls his chair up and sits on it like a cool youth pastor putting the back of the chair to his usual tie dye shirt. “So what’s happening with you and Mr. Oppenheimer?” The question caught me off guard. “UhHhhh wh-whatt are you talking about exactly, sir?” my words came out awkward and sheepish. I swear. I do not need any more reasons to kill myself today, because this stupid squeak coming out of me is definitely not helping!

“I’m just saying, I’ve never seen you talk to him before, and it…y’know sorta seems like….he used you for the homework.” I’m going to ignore myself assuming this was gonna go a different direction, because it didn’t. “Oh uhm well it’s not…uh as if he forced me to give him the homework.” I say this pretty quietly but I think he heard me.

“I’m sure you’re aware of Julius’ reputation and I hope you know that even if you willingly gave it to him I knew guys like that when I was in highschool, I know, hard to believe I too was once a teenager.” He laughs, and I have to resist rolling my eyes, I know some kids like him, but I just find Mr. Small kind of embarrassing. I like him better than a lot of my other teachers, though.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt, kid. Y'know, man?” He have a weird habit of saying Y'know after every sentence, and actually I do know. I know that this isn't about me, he's just projecting or something(who would do something like that!?) I feel bad for having brought whatever happened up again, but at the same time, Just shut the fuck up. You dont know me, Mr. Pothead. I don’t think anyone really does. I, of course, don't say this. What I say is much more anxious and weird.

“……Oh uhm yeah I get what you're saying and uhm I promise that ..wouldn’t...happen…” He looks at me for a second. “Okay good, well before you go I'd like to give you a suggestion...”

 

As I rush to the lunch room I look at the little pink paper in my hand. “HALL PASS:_____ to: counselors after school” signed with Mr.Small’s messy, unintelligible cursive signature. He left the name spot blank. He definitely cares about all his students, but he doesn't care about me.

 

“RIIINGG” the piercing screech of the old school bell reverberates in my head ricocheting against the sides of my skull. It feels like some irresponsible boys are having a BB-gun fight in my head. Or maybe it’s just another migraine. I knew someone who always used to have migraines. Not sure who. I can never remember things. I think I’m just too tired,weak and light-headed. Even Teri could beat me in arm wrestling, Teri! The J-Pop-obsessed-made-out-of-paper-girl! Speaking of Teri she’s coming up to me right now. We usually talk after school and walk home together. I don't know how I ever understand her when my head is always ringing.

“Hey, Rock!” She thought I had said Rock the first time we met when she asked my name, eventually it got to a point where it would’ve been too awkward to correct her (we’ve been friends for 3 years btw)

“Hey, paper.” I say much less enthusiastically than her, but still smiling. Since she thought my name was Rock and she’s a paper girl the nickname paper sorta just stuck for us. I’m glad we can have something like that, I’m always glad when she’s around. I know she wouldn’t think of me that way, but I honestly think she’s my best friend. The kinda guy you call to help with moving a couch. Er-girl. She doesn't like when I call her anything like guy or dude even though I pretty much use it in a gender neutral sense and I don’t really get why she dislikes it. Still, I've been trying to stop.

“So, what's up?” She asks as she smiles and puts on her hand sanitizer. “I’m actually going to the counselors right now.” I offer no other context. I think she was a little bit surprised, I’d never stayed after school before. “Oh, uh tell me about it tomorrow, Rock!” That’s all she gets to say before she was taken by the unruly crowd.

Instead of the counselors office, I head to the bathroom. It smells like weed, and all the soap dispensers are broken, but when you look for a getaway in what you're trying to get away from you don’t get very far. I enter the first, cleanest stall, and slam the door. “ cOf CofF, UgH! damN!” My expression shifts from melancholic to “Shit there’s some random stoner in the stall next to me!” how did I not notice that!? “S-sorry, man.” I apologize with a purple face, and quickly pull my feet up to the piss yellow stained seat of the toilet I sat down on(how the fuck did they get it on the top of the seat)

The random dude coughs a bit more and clears his throat. “S-aight don’t- Coff! worry, dude.” That voice… sounds so...familiar….

OH MY GOD THATS JULIUS. My eye widened at the sudden realization that the “random stoner” Was in fact the guy who copied my homework this morning. Without thinking I say (to the wall) “Juh-Julius?” He immediately replies. “Yeah, and? You just realize it was me, Bluey?” Oh…what am I supposed to say now?

An awkward silence fills the air and mixes with the scent of weed, piss and whatever the fuck else. Gross. After about eight seconds, he finally breaks it “Wanna hit?”

In possibly the worst way possible. “ WhAt!? Sorrey, No. I-I don’t smoke.” Sorrey?? Why am I Canadian now?? He unlatches his stall door and is talking as he walks out. “Well if ya did, maybe it would help with your voice cracks.” Ahhhh! he noticed my stupid squeaks! Before I get the time to say something He opens my stall door and my face is dusted purple with the sight of him confidently leaning against it, shittily rolled blunt in his mouth. “Wait, how would that even work?” I question him, the blush leaving my face and being immediately replaced with confusion. “Smoking makes your voice deeper, you didn't know that, Daby?” I shrug. “Guess I’d never thought about it.” He laughs. “Well, I mean ya’ gotta do a lot-”

"Like you?" I interrupt.

He stares at me for a second, I shouldn’t have interrupted him."…Yup, pretty much...So, you leaving with me?" He asks, pointing his thumb behind him to the exit of the bathroom. The way he said it sounded as if I was something he wanted to pick up from a sidewalk sale, but there’s no way in hell he meant it that way. “No way, dude I totally wanted to spend the rest of the day in this stall.” I say sarcastically as I get up and walk out, landing face first in his smoke cloud. I cough but manage to silent it quickly.

J.O.Jr POV: What was that little weirdo even planning to do in the bathroom, pee? Whatever, it doesn't matter. Now I’m walking with him and it’s the best part of my day. Gross.

He’s weirdly pretty and…

“See, cuz when I was a little kid I thought that corn dogs were made from real dogs.”

Kinda dumb.

“ When I was a kid, I thought that all dogs were boys and all cats were girls.” But so am I.

After our thoughts on dogs when we were little kids, I’d finally made it to where I was supposed to be and reached my bandaged hand to the doorknob, only for it to land on top of Rob’s. I snatch my hand away at lightning speed and my face flushes. Jesus, if I wanna date this dude just to use him, I shouldn’t get so messed up when he accidentally touches me trying to turn the knob on the door to…the…counselors . “WAIT A SECOND-” I yell at the door, then turn to the snitch. “YOU'RE THE ONE WHO GOT ME IN TROUBLE!” I scream in his face, which is justified cause’ what the hell! I thought this dude was kinda cool!

“What!? That- that is not what happened, Julius!” He tried to justify fucking me over, everyone always does! “Sqcreeekkk” what the- I turn back to the door and standing in the frame is the stupid-gay-cloud teacher-hippie-thing. I have him for history but I don’t remember his name. “Is there a problem here boys?” He asks, trying to de-escalate the situation. It only works cause’ I don’t want more trouble than I already have. thanks to a certain gangly cyclops asshole.

“No.” I reply through gritted teeth in a scowl. “Why don’t you kids come on in?” He moves out of the way of the door. I stomp in, cross my arms, and manspread on the wooden chair, which by the way is more uncomfortable than dinner with your girlfriend's dad in the locker room.

Rob quickly takes his place in the identical seat next to mine. I shoot him a dirty look, he frowns and looks at the ground. I don’t feel bad. I'm right, and the sight of his face doesn’t make me feel guilty at all, In fact I think I’m feeling schadenfreude!

The cloud guy(who is sitting on top of his desk btw) frowns. “Julius, it seems like there’s something you’d like to say.” Ya think, man!? “Not really.” I mutter under my breath while slouching. “What about you, Ralph?” My eyes switch from the ground to the teacher/counselor/gaywad. “His name’s Rob.” I say more clearly than a mutter but still under my breath. Rob looks at me with a glint in his eye, I give him the same dirty look, just because I have the basic decency to remember his three letter name doesn't mean I don't still despise him.

“Huh?” The middle aged man version of C.J asks stupidly. “I said his name is Rob, R-O-B, not that complicated, man.” I have to spell it out for him to get the point. “Oh. Sorry,Rob.” He's pretty dense for a cloud.

“It's ok.” Rob says quietly, looking at the ground and blushing, literally why? I mean, I know people forget his name a lot, but does it really make him so happy to hear his name that he blushes? Even I don't do that. People better call me my name.“Uhm, so Rob I don’t think we’ve ever met, my name is Mr. Small, and I’m here to talk to you two about something this school takes very seriously.” This is so stupid, I have to say something.

“Ugh! Why is it such a big deal!? It’s fucking math homework, get over it!” Mr. Small dick recoils a bit and looks shocked. “Please, there’s no need to yell.” He says, edging away from me. He’s scared of me. They're all scared of me, and I’m glad that they are, 'cause otherwise no one would respect my name, or really, me, not if I didn’t make them.

Rob POV:
“This isn’t just about the homework, Mr. Oppenheimer” Mr. Small's trying to reason with Julius, and I already know it’s not gonna happen, he’s a selfish jerk who landed himself here.

...Is what I'm trying to say to myself, but I can’t stop myself from thinking about him defending my name. It sounds so right from his mouth. It felt like he was calling out for me. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you,Rob” he whispers in my ear, the sweet sensation of his voice sending a volt through my body that fights off all the pain hiding away in me. The way he spells out my name, with each letter I can feel my face heat “What’s wrong Robbie? You're heating up, man, is it because I called you by your name?R-O-B. That’s it? You just want someone to know your name, someone to care about it? About you, maybe~?” His breath is on my neck and my eyes are on his gleeful face, but my mind- WAIT WHAT THE FUCK AM I-!? He-He’s making this happen to me on purpose! He’s making me think these things. I don’t want to! He's making me a worse person. He's making me gross. THIS IS FUCKING DISGUSTING! THIS IS NOT ME! This is HIM. and I am not Him, I am a good person.

“There’s no need to glare at him like that, I know you must be upset, but we don’t need this negative energy, Rob.”

OHH SHITT! I WAS JUST STARING AT HIM THAT WHOLE TIME??!

Jesus Christ! And he thinks I was glaring at him, jeez I wasn’t trying to look mean I was just y'know in a casual, normal, heterosexual way STARING AT HIM AND FANTASIZING ABOUT HIS BREATH ON MY NECK. Yikes… I’m gonna have to confront my thoughts, soon aren’t I? For now I’m just gonna rapid fire, my excuse and hopefully it will be enough for Mr. Small and I can leave and never think about him again. “That’s not what I was trying to do! I swear Julius isn't, like,manipulating me or anything, we’re like total bros! He wouldn’t do that! I was just trying to look at him in a like “you know I wouldn’t get you in trouble on purpose kinda way!” Y’know!?” My words are clunked together and awkwardly choked out, but hopefully Mr. Small thinks they're genuine. Based on his expression, and Julius playing along with it (he just wants to leave too) I may have gotten out of this one. Luck is on my side for once.

“Well I have to be honest, kid. That explanation sounded genuine to me! Just promise me you two won't get into any trouble, okay?” We both shake our heads. Julius still looks dissatisfied, but his expression has lightened a lot and it makes me feel better.

“Alright, you boys can go home now.”Mr. Small smiles. Yes! Oh my fucking god finally!

Chapter 2: I'm bleeding but its gonna be okay

Summary:

He’s freaking out and his fuse caught a little spark, my head is spinning in circles too, but I quickly manage some logical thinking and pull my back pack to my front so I can unzip it and retrieve the first aid kit.

Notes:

a song to listen to while reading this chapter

Bleed American-Jimmy eat world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft1lxiWFbDk
Also this ones referenced (for the love of god pls listen to it its so underrated)
Stars in your eyes-Vampire Beach Babes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESYjd_bIVW0

Julius heads out the door first and I follow. We start walking in the same direction and I end up right next to him without realizing it, so we just awkwardly walk side by side… reeeaalllyyy awkwardly walk side by side… in complete silence. The kind of silence that screams “ PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEONE SAY SOMETHING!!!”
I decide to pick up my pace so I can pass him and get to the exit quicker, but I guess he had the same idea because he's speed-walking at my side. Jesus, could this get anymore uncomfortable??? I decide I have to go even quicker but I guess we’re just on the same wavelength or something, because he also picks up his speed and now we're both running through the empty halls.

After the longest jog ever we finally made it to the front door. I reach for the handle, but yet again we’re in perfect awkward unison and, “Smack!” his hand lands right on mine! I gasp and quickly turn to meet his eyes. He immediately swipes his hand away from me, I think I saw him blush too. Jeez, I really am delusional, aren’t I?

“Shit. Not again.” I hear him mutter under his breath. I realize he’s right. How does this keep happening? Our hands are like magnets, sick, sick, gross, wrong magnets.

“AHH! OWW! WHAT WAS THAT FOR!?” Julius pushed the door open with me still on it and I fell with it, landing chin first on the asphalt. “I-I fUckin’ PaNiCked!” Woah, what he sounds just as awkward and stupid as me! His face is dark gray, and he’s sweating, and blushing, and oh shit! bloods gone to my face too. I touch my chin and look at the blood caking my finger. Yikes, that is baaaad. It doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks like does but having an open wound makes me feel like I’m going to get an infection.

“OH, MAN YOU'RE BLEEDING!” He’s freaking out and his fuse caught a little spark, my head is spinning in circles too, but I quickly manage some logical thinking and pull my backpack to my off so I can unzip it and retrieve the first aid kit. I pull it out, like found treasure in a video game. “FIRST AID!” He sounds really relieved, and he put his spark out, but he’s still screaming his words as loud as he can. He gets down into a sorta crouch Position and grabs me!?! I feel my own spark as he pushes me up against the wall, it doesn’t hurt. For some reason that makes my face heat up even more.

He snatches the first aid kit from my soiled hands and quickly pulls out a little rag, throwing the rest of the kit to the side even though the band aids are in there. He grabs my water bottle from the side pocket of my backpack. He pours water on part of the rag and starts taking quick, deep breaths.
Inhale...exhale…
“It’s ok”
Inhale...exhale…
“I know how to handle this.” He's probably just doing that so his fuse doesn't catch again, but it still throws me off. Its just really uncharacteristic, I guess.

He returns to breathing normally and goes to clean the wound. The water touches it and I flinch. I think he blushes. “Stay still!” I shut my eye and clench my teeth in a desperate attempt to try and deal with the pain. I open my eye slightly and watch him clean the wound. He glances up at me for a second and I see him blush even more, at this point he’s so flustered, I don’t think I’m imagining it. He's probably just embarrassed to have to fix me up like this...

He dries off my face with the non damp side of the rag and pulls away from me for a second to get the band-aids from the ravaged kit on the concrete. He turns back to me and puts a leg on either side of me still crouching so he’s not sitting on my legs.

My skin is no longer blue. I'm a purple one-eyed-people-eater now. All I can think about as his face hovers above mine is having him all to myself. Alone the two of us. His presence adds comfort to my numbness. I wonder what he listens to. Pink Floyd, maybe; Rage Against the Machine, almost definitely.

 

J.O.Jr POV:

Fuck!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!!

I can’t believe I hurt him like that! Accident or not he’s bleeding because of me and what I can’t believe even more is the fact that I actually care about that fuking loser! Not even in the way friends are supposed to care about each other either, I am full on IN LOVE.
FUCKIN’-ROM-COM-CHOCLATE-COVERED-HEAD OVER-HEELS-VHS-PORN-LATE-NIGHT-CIGARETTE-KISSES-IN-LOVE-WITH-HIM!!!

I-

HOW??

WHY??

JESUS CHRIST CAN I FIX IT??

AM I JUST BROKEN NOW??

I MUST BE SINCE I WANNA KISS THAT FREAK SO BAD!

Yeah! That’s it! I'm gonna be a flustered freak for the rest of my life! Sure, I’ll just completely ruin my image for this random guy I only really knew since this morning! God, I'm sad to look at.
My friends are gonna leave me. I won't be able to threaten people to respect me anymore. They're all gonna call me that damn name, act like I'm a fucking girl. Without fear, I'm useless. I'm gonna be the one called a faggot, and the people yelling it will be right because after realizing all that... I don’t give a shit! There's still nothing more in the world I want other than to stay here with this stupid primary (I guess tertiary now) colored asshole.

I stare at him, thick-ass band-aids in hand. How is he so calm? That’s just unnatural, yeah he’s the weird one! not me! I peel the two 2 inch band-aids from the little plastic strip, take off my, now damp hand bandages and stick the band-aid to the tip of my left pointer finger, I noticed that his hair was in his face, so now I’m actually obligated to move it as lovingly as I can, so I do.

I reach my hand to his face, his sunset eye widened and twinkled, I slowly put the loose strands of hair between my fingers and tuck it behind his ear, unintentionally caressing his face as I do. His mouth hangs open a little bit and so does mine. I wolnt deny it, I'm dying for the gap between us to be filled, so I keep teasing him. I slowly run my hand over his hair and then through it. I can hear a melody in my head, The stars in your eyes got me totally hypnotized think I’m falling in love with you I don’t know what to do!

Stars is right. His eye has galaxies in dimensions. Different shades of pinks and reds like an artistic rendition of a comfortably familiar cherry pie, each layer of these delicious colors is coated in glitter and sparkles. I guess the Benefit to having one eye is that you can fit so much in it. I lean into it, into all of him, his chin has started bleeding again, but I don’t put the band-aid on. I sit in between his legs, he is clearly very rattled about this, I dont show it, but so am I...

It’s funny when he panics around me, to make it worse, I lean in for a kiss, all I’ve wanted since it was for the wrong reason. Which it still is. I still hate him. Only difference is I’m planning on putting on the band-aid as well.

“Creeeek!” Shit! There’s someone at the door!
I push him against the wall and stumble backward, scampering to my feet and realizing that it is in fact the cloud dude at the door.

“The hell, are you lookin at, man?!” I scream.

“Nothing! You should probably put those band-aids on now, though.”

“Oh, shit.”I want to throw up when my tone softens as I talk to the wordless boy. I crouch down and apply the bandages. Rob is adverting his eyes from me and fiddling with his hands. Once I’m sure they’re on good I turn back to the faggot ruining my moment.

“He’s fine!” I’m not sure what else to say. Is he even fine? Basically his whole face was covered in blood.

"...You boys really don’t have to hide anything.” Gee, thanks! Will you be my gay mentor! BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY YOU LIKE IT UP THE ASS, HIPPIE FREAK! God, who the hell does he think he is! I ain’t hiding shit! What the fuck do I have to hide!? I know EXACTLY what I want from him and you just RUINED it for me! We were going to kiss and kiss and kiss and laugh and kiss some more and we were going to move in together far, far away from everyone here and make awesome love everyday, something I’m sure you know NOTHING ABOUT!!!

“Hey, why don’t you fuck off.” He recoils in fear and smirk spreads across my face. Maybe I can have it all.

“Well, uh you look all patched up I guess I’ll leave you boys to it!” His voice is squeaky and he rushes off quickly.

“Yeah, you run, hippie fag.” I say under my breath.

Rob POV:

…

“Thanks.”

“Uh, for helping with the bandages” I think I snapped him out of a trance.

“Huh? Uh, yeah man sure, whatever...uh, sooo are we walking home together, then?”

I look into his eyes. I’m a little scared of him. I’m glad he got rid of Mr. Small so quickly, but it felt like a miracle he didn’t leave with any bruises. I nod apprehensively. I’m not sure if I want to go or not, but the motion was enough for him. He picked up the kit and zipped up my backpack, holding it up for me with a smile. I slip my arms through the straps and follow after him.

“C’mon, then.”

J.O.Jr POV:

The high off that tiny power trip is beginning to wear off….

Who am I!?

This is messed up!

Seriously, why did I feel so compelled to help that dork out? The old me would’ve never have been so kind and helpful, and it’s not like I want to go to his house, but here I am, putting one foot in front of the other matching up with the rhythm of his walking. I don’t want to run this time. The first time was his fault, though. He kept trying to one-up me, no duh I’m gonna try and outrun him. I mean, I still don’t think he got me in trouble on purpose.

“The teachers have really been up my ass recently! I got five weeks detention for writing 'Fuck the police!' on the school pigs office door. Fuck off, who even cares. Y’know?”

He seemed tense when we started walking, but then I made him laugh at my story, it makes me happy. It’s fucking cheesy as hell and dumb, but I’m not ignoring the facts, like he probably is. I just think he’s really cute.

"So where's your house at?’ I ask. "I feel like you'd use that information against me." he jokes. "but I guess since I don't, technically have an address it should be fine." What? Don't have an address? I think he can read the confusion on my face, because he answers my question. “I live at the dump." he says this casually, as if it’s just a different neighborhood. "What!? No way! that's where I was going, dude!" "What? Really? Why?" “Dude, I always need some more random junk.”

 

“Uhh, okay.” He laughs.

Rob POV:
I’m talking with Julius whilst walking to the dump. He’s bragging about his crimes and complaining about teachers, again. I really like hearing him talk, and he’s pretty badass too, I could never get the guts to graffiti, but he does it regularly. So cool. He makes me laugh a little and I think hearing my laugh made him smile, which in return, only made me blush.

“It’s pretty punk rock that you live at the dump, putting aside how horrible it must be.” I laugh a little bit. “Ha ha yeah I know, I’m pretty awesome.” He rolls his eyes. “Actually, I take it back.” He jokes. We laugh. I look back down at the cracked asphalt, huh, Look at that. A little blue flower in between one of the jagged cracks.

Chapter 3: unconventional games and unaddressed feelings

Summary:

Video games at Robs “house”!!!!

J.O.Jr POV:

“Damn bitch you live like this?”

We finally made it to the dump and on first instinct, I insult Rob.
“Yeah well that's what happens when you're 14, and have no one, and nothing you can depend on.” Oh, well now I feel a bit bad. “Sorry.” I Mutter under my breath. “It’s alright. I’ve gotten used to it, plus once I’m 15 I can get a job!” It’s so fucked that that’s something he’s excited about. I hate that I care so much about what happens to him, but I still want to make him feel better. “Yeah well maybe I could work with you, I could use some extra cash, ‘specially since I’m gonna run away.” I say the last part quietly but it’s obvious he heard. “Well you already steal anything you want, but what’s that about running away! sounds fun~” He’s looking up, and smiling. I think he’s fantasizing about running away. With me, maybe?

The way he said “sounds fun~” just sounded too…romantic, for it to be a fantasy with just him. God I hope he wants to run away with me, if we ran away I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this shit.

Rob POV:
Oh man. What I would give to run away with Julius, what I would do with him, where we would go, what we would find, what rules we’d break, what we’d do…with each other….

what!? I shouldn’t be thinking about that. That’s gross, I'm not an adult yet! Besides, there’s no way he’d ever even really feel that way towards me, he probably just likes to mess with me, it’s all a game to him, isn’t it? No one’s ever wanted me before. Why would he start now? I can’t keep feeding these delusions. I know he’d never fulfill them.

“So, what do you have to do around here?” His hands are casually resting in his pockets, and he’s looking around the dump. My face lights up. “Ooh! We can play video games! I’ve never gotten to play with someone else in forever!” He smiles slightly, and raises his eyebrows.

“Here?You have video gameshere?” He takes his hands out of his pockets and gestures towards everything. I put my hands on my hips and lean towards him “Yeah, and they happen to be car battery powered, Mr. doubtful…Sir. disbelief…head of the ‘nuh uh, no way’ department, the grand Duke of-”

“Okay, shut up, now. Those are the second stupidest names I’ve ever been called.”

“Oh yeah? what would be first?” I ask.

“My dead name, probably."

His answer caught me off guard and it took a second for me to respond. “…ooohhhh. My bad, dude. For bringing it up, I mean.”

J.O.Jr POV:

Definitely did not intend for him to find out I’m trans today but here I am. “S’aight man, you didn’t know, which If anything is pretty euphoric for me.” He seems sorta relieved. “But, I guess you do deserve to know why I’m staying the day at your home, cuz it does relate to me being trans.”
“Oh, dude you don’t have to tell me, I get it if you don’t wanna talk about it, you can crash here anytime you need to, also-” It doesn’t inconvenience me, I’m fact I really do wanna talk about it. “No, it’s fine I want to tell you.” I wouldn’t normally be so open to just telling anybody about my problems, but I don’t know I just really need to talk about it and I actually want him to know about me too.
“Can I see your CDs first, though?” I always put on music when I’m just talking with people, or y'know doing literally anything. I’d play it from my own phone, but I know that he only has CDs, because it’s the only thing I ever see him use at school, and I also have a CD collection and I wanna check out his, see if there’s anything good I could swipe. “Y-Yeah sure, you can come look?”
He stumbles over to his ‘bedroom’ which consists of a mattress covered in old ratty clothes, a wooden cabinet, on the right, which probably used to be in someone’s kitchen, but now houses his collection, he has some speakers on top, which are connected to the aforementioned car battery. On the other side of the mattress, is two wooden drawers. He takes his already open backpack off and pulls out the clear CD player, which is covered in seemingly random stickers, he takes a cord that was lying on the ground and connects it to the player. I walk over and sit on his mattress so I can look at his collection. “You can just play whatever you want.” He awkwardly gestures his hand to the CDs. “Yeah. I will.” I say this like it’s an obvious fact, and I definitely sounded rude.
I’m looking and just as he sits down I notice something. “Woah! Toxicity, Hypnotize, and steal this album! That is sick!” His face lights up and he readjusts himself so that the side of his leg, and his shoulder are touching me, I totally do not notice this. “Yeah, and I actually did steal, steal this album!” I am surprised. “Wow, I didn’t know you had it in you to steal!”
“Well, Just from big companies. It was at a Barnes and Noble, in fact I stole Hypnotize and Toxicity from there too.” I laugh, can’t believe I never took the time to get to know him, Rob’s actually pretty cool. Why doesn’t he have any friends, well other than that paper girl, and I guess… me. “No duh that would be pretty shitty if you stole from small shops.” He laughed and I think he was about to say something but he stopped himself.
Rob POV:
“Wow, even too shitty for you?” I ask , while leaning back on the mattress. He casually punches me in the arm and snickers.
“I’m gonna play toxicity. He says as he’s taking the disc out of the case and putting it in the player. The first track starts and he takes out the booklet From the case *insert description of the booklet from Cd I would kill a man to own*
He's smiling and talking about how cool the photos of the metal group are. I think it’s nice to see him like this, not causing some gory scene, not yelling at anyone that dares talk to him, just calmly smiling to an album that him liking somehow makes him all that more attractive.
I know he’s not a good person, but damn, If he’s garbage I’m a fly.
“Are you gonna keep staring at me?” He asks, raising an eyebrow, and leaning back to match my level. I hadn’t realized that I was staring and, suddenly being called out makes me jolt up.
“S-Sorry! Uh! Weren’t you gonna talk?!” My voice is very high pitched and loud, maybe it’s a good thing no one wants to hang out with me. I wouldn't even want to hang out with someone this weird and awkward. But, nevertheless here Julius inexplicably is. “That's right! The reason I’m invading your living space-“
“uhm well actually this is the bedroom space.” I interrupt. He gives me a death stare so I decide to shut my mouth. “Anyways, I’m here because of some stupid shit that happened last night.” A bit of reluctance to tell the story is showing on his face, but he carries on.
“So basically I decided I was fed up with my mom being a bitch, and I kinda snapped when she called me my dead name. I started yelling at her. She got super pissed, and acted like she had no clue she was making me want to fucking off myself y’know despite the fact I’ve told her multiple times my name is Julius and I’m not the prissy girl she wants me to be. She’s always talking shit like, “you care about your deadbeat dad sooo much you want to use his name even though it’s a man’s name” and it finally got to me, so I was just like, “don’t fucking talk about my dad that way, bitch!” And then I just ran to my room and broke shit, and cried for the rest of the night. I got a nasty cut from punching my mirror too”
There’s a moment of silence where I blink my eye at him, taking a moment to process everything he just explained super quickly. Like, huh?? Jesus Christ is he always swearing at his mom?? What kind of things has she done to him to make him hate her so much?? After about 10 seconds of torturous silence I finally came up with a response.
“Oh…so, d’you wanna talk about it more?”
“Fuck no!”
“Wanna play my shitty video games?”
“Fuck yeah, baby!”
Okay, baby. Cool another thing to overthink, because I totally don’t already have enough. “I’ll go get another controller from the electronics pile, you can start up the console.” I walk for about 3 minutes before I reach the pile. The entire walk there my head was racing.
“Wow, how messed up is his life?” “He’s clearly hiding something.” “I think I want to spend the rest of my life with him.” “I'm being blinded, I need to realize how bad he is.” “Mr. Small totally thinks I’m gay.” “There’s no way Mr. Small isn't gay.” maybe I should talk to him about this shit.”

When I reach the pile I feel the need to voice my thoughts, I do that a lot because there’s no one to listen, and even if there was, they wouldn’t care. “Jesus Christ, why do I get so messed up around him?! he’s gonna start thinking I’m some sorta weirdo faggot.”

“I already think that.”

“AHHH!!” I scream way to loud and jump up like a cartoon character that just saw a Giant monster, my eye probably popped out it’s socket too. Apparently there was someone to listen this time, and he’s leaning against a wagon full of tangled wires and other miscellaneous electrical bits. He’s staring at me, eyes half lidded as per usual. Upon seeing him I decided deflection is the best way to deal with such an embarrassing situation.

“Pfft! You’re the faggot here! wanna help me look for the controller, queer?” I sound really mean, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, he just pushes off the edge of the wheelbarrow onto the top of the pile of Mardi-Gras-level-of-tangled wires, and is now sitting on it with his legs spread and one leg bent up, with his arm resting on his knee. He eyes me up and down. “Nah, I’d rather watch.” He winks, and I explode and die.

I immediately look away from him and begin to frantically search for the game controller, my thoughts are torturing me as I do, so that’s totally great and amazing. I’m trying my best not to look back at him, but I turn towards him a bit so I can search by a busted tv, and I do happen to catch a glimpse of him staring at me. His eyes are half open, of course. His mouth is slanted up, but not like his usual snarky smirk more like a look of…contentment.
He’s really happy watching me stumble all over myself. He just wants to watch me struggle doesn’t he? I should be angry but I can’t help myself from wanting to stare back, thankfully though I’ve found the controller and he can stop eyeing me.
I hold it up in front of his face triumphantly . “Your controller.” I hold out the busted square shaped device to him. He stares at it for a second. “What the hell is this?”
“Uh, like I said, your controller.”
“Why is it a square?”
“It’s just unique, okay?”
“Oh, you think I’m a freak so I get the weird controller, I get it that’s how you see me.”
He's put on a fake sad expression to match his stupid joke.
“Just take it.”
I give him a blank, unimpressed stare, it’s a fake expression too. He laughs and has a smile plastered on his face. He (for some reason) eagerly snatches the device out of my hands.
“It’s really ugly, and probably horrible to play with, but I’ll try anything twice!”
To be fair to him it does look like an Xbox controller if it got melted into a brick and then someone threw it against a wall.
Repeatedly.
But, I mean, what do you expect from the junk pile? Even when there is some good stuff Tina and her dad find it before me. (Or they take it from me.) Her beloved 3Ds was supposed to be mine!
“cool! Let's go!” I head back to the typical male living space, Julius hopped off the wheelbarrow pile and ran so that he could walk slightly ahead of me.
“What game are we gonna play?”
“My favorite is Eugene cars 4.” He snickers, “But you can pick whatever game you want.”
He looks like he’s about to catch a spark and explode, from how red his face is. “Heheeh..D-did you say.. Eu-Eugene cars…pfftt HEHAHEHHHAHHEEA!!!” I’m not laughing but apparently this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard of. He has to bend down and steady himself on his knees, he’s also slapping my arm. “HAH HAH HHA OH MY GOD!! EUGENE CARSS!!! HAHH HA HA!!!” I stand there and watch him laugh his head off. He’s grabbed me by the arm to stabilize himself and a tear has started to form. “WHERED YA GET IT?! FLOORMART!!??”
“It is not that funny, Julius.”
“HA HA HA SHUT THE FUCK UP, MAN YES IT IS!”
“It was absolutely necessary that 4 Eugene cars existed?!
There’s actually 6 but I don’t tell him this. His fuse is already lit, WAIT HOLD UP-
“DUDE YOUR FUSE IS LIT!”
“OH SHIT!”
He’s frantically trying to put it out by just fanning it with his hand, I’m fanning too but it clearly is not working. He grabs it with his hands, and thank god he had the bandages on, because wow that would’ve been a bad burn.
He’s standing there in silence looking at the blood, and ash in his hands. “So can we play Eugene carts now?” He asks with a stupidly cute smile. “HAHAHA!!” He's got me laughing now! My laughter prompted him to join in, so we’re both just standing there laughing away our problems together.
After about three minutes straight of just our ugly awkward laughs and wheezing, accompanying each other we finally calm down and actually go to play the stupid game that started this whole thing.
J.O.Jr POV:
Robs plugging in the “unique” controller to the console, which from a distance looks like an Xbox 360, but up close is sorta misshapen, and has a ton of extra buttons for some reason. I grab the Eugene cars 4 case from the top of his chunky tv, and take the disc out to put in the weird console. As the loading screen is being displayed, Rob hands me the controller and we sit down on the patched up bean bags across from his tv. The character select screen pops up and I snicker at the ugly CGI animation of the characters.
“From my memory of the times I played Mario Kart as a little kid it’s practically the same so you can just go about it like normal.” Rob explains. “Alright, cool.” I selected a character that looks like a stereotypical stoner/skater boy from the 90’s. I picked a black widow for my car. Totally badass.
He selects a tall, blocky looking character that looks like it’s code was messed up because it’s all glitchy and I can’t really notice any distinguishing features. For his car he picked what looks like Penelope's car from Wreck it Ralph but low quality, like exactly like it. Actually most of the cars are copies or what looks like stolen models. I’m surprised the characters are original.
“Why do you want that character? It looks broken.”
“They’re unique, Julius. Besides, if no one loves the broken…they end up in the trash…” he takes a breath, and his voice is a little bit shaky. “I would never do that to someone.”
…
“That is a set of zeros and ones, Rob.”
I know it’s messed up to belittle his feelings like that, but I don’t know any other way to respond, besides maybe comedy will lighten the tension??
“Sorry I can find real meaning in fiction.”
He smiles and rolls his eyes at me.
“For Eugene cars, you should be sorry.”
“Eugene cars 4.”
He corrects me with a snarky look on his face, and I guess my mean joke worked, because we're looking at the maps, and other than the smell of garbage there’s a comfortable feeling in the air around us.
Rob leans forward in his beanbag, and rests his torso on his long legs. “Which one do you want to play?” He turns his face towards me so he can receive my answer fully. His hair falls down behind his face, and there’s a shine on it from the bright t.v screen.
I stare at him for a second.
I have to. I can’t just let this moment pass me by. Each of his strands look so soft and well cared for, he has such a gentle feeling about him, and goddamn that eye. So gorgeous. I swear there’s a whole fucking galaxy, reflecting back to me through it. The only problem is the bandages on his chin. A reminder of how I couldn’t ever be with him. I’ll never have that lanky loser to myself, because I’m a piece of shit, who can’t help but hurt every single person he comes into contact with.
“Julius?” He seems really confused. What’s so fucking complicated, Rob? Is it so damn crazy that I just want to steal you away from the world? You can’t even fathom how much I fucking love you, and how goddamn much it hurts to know I can’t be with you, can you Robbie?
I snap out of it.
“Yeah, no it’s just really hard to pick from all three of the maps.” Hopefully my sarcasm covers up my stupid yearning.
“I mean there’s just too many options!” I dramatically gesture my hands at the sky. “I mean green forest, highway, and Junkyard! Wait, hold up. Junkyard?!” I excitedly face him. “Dude! That’s so perfect! We have to play that one!”
“Uhm, okay.” He selects it, and it immediately starts. No countdown no “Start your engines!” Just here we go, you're racing now! “Ah! Oh shit, it’s starting!” It’s really uncomfortable for my fingers to use this controller but I’ve started my engine at least, go me I guess.
This game has the driftiest controls I’ve ever played with. It's like my car is on ice, and every time you hit one of the barriers, you have to wait three seconds before going again. Rob, of course, is zooming by like a world class figure skater. Guess after however long he’s lived here, he's got used to the controls. By the time I made one lap around he’s already at three. Also, by the way, this map is really complicated for no reason. There's a sonic-like loop you have to go through, multiple ramps(piles of garbage), and holes! Why the hell are there holes?!
Normally, by this point, I would’ve destroyed the entire system out of anger, but I don’t know there’s just something about Rob’s presence that calms me down. I guess that’s why he’s so good for me. I don’t think I can say the same applies to me for him. Which I am fine with. I'm no role model. I’m too badass to be a good example.
I mean, I may not be destroying anything, but that doesn't mean that I’m not still cursing at the screen and clenching my fists. “ Don’t worry about it Julius, it's your first time playing this game and it's totally messed up. It took me like, a year before I fully had the controls down.”
He’s pitying me.
I want to punch him in the stomach.
I want to rearrange his insides.
I want to make his body do things he never thought it could.
Wait-
That didn’t come out right.
Oh shit.
Oh fuck.
Oh no, I’m thinking about it now.
Annnd he’s right next to me.
How the fuck did I go from hostile to horny???
Goddamit, I hate being a teenager.
“Wow, 4-1 I totally dominated you, bro!”
COULDN'T FIND A BETTER WORD COULD YA ROB???
Jesus Christ, I gotta calm myself down.
Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking.
“If only.”
FUCK!
Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking.
Thank god I said that under my breath. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. There’s no way he heard, because he doesn’t show the slightest sign of acknowledgment. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking.

 

Rob POV:
Did he just say… “If only?”

Chapter 4: Unfamiliar Territory

Summary:

they do stuff in this one🤯🤯🤯(Rob misinterprets the situation on account of being a friendless loser)

Rob POV:
I must’ve imagined it. I mean at this point I’m just hearing what I want to! Because there’s no way he defended my name, lovingly fixed me up (after he was the reason I needed fixing), profusely blushed around me, called me babe, and now just said “if only” in response to me…

 

…beating him at the game…

 

Okay, so maybe I could’ve used a better word, but still, holy hell. Actually thinking about it, when I list all those things out it’s like a criminal record. For now I’m just gonna do what I do best: ignore it.

 

“Wanna play again?”
“Yeah!”

 

*about 5 rounds later*

 

“Wow 4-1 I never realized there was something I was actually good at! And on the garbage map too!”
“What, is the junk pile map harder than the others?”
“No, not really. I just…don’t like it.”
“Why?”
He’s very blunt but it’s not because he doesn’t realize that I don’t wanna talk about it, more like he’s daring me to. The eyebrow raise says it all.

 

"Well, uh, like, obviously I don’t want to play a map that’s literally, like, exactly what I’m trying to escape from with this stupid game.”

 

“…”

 

“C’mon, you can find a better coping mechanism than this.” He points at the game and has a sort of sorry/disappointed look on his face. Which only makes it funnier.
“HEAHHA HA HE-“
“YOU CAN'T JUST LAUGH AWAY YOUR PAIN, ROB!”
He jokingly yells at me through my laughter, but I just keep it up, and eventually…
“heehHheh hAH HAHA!”
He joins in.
We’re both just sitting there laughing our butts off for so long I think we’ve both forgotten what it was that originally made us so happy. Now, we’re just getting joy from seeing each other laugh.

 

It’s not twisted schadenfreude from someone else’s melancholic state, instead its, Freudenfreude from each other's elated state. It’s poetic in a sense. A dumb sense, but still.

 

Eventually, we calmed down and I got the chance to ask him a question.
“Anyways, you hungry?”

 

J.O.Jr POV:
Fuck, I don’t wanna eat, but I can’t just not eat at his “home”. That’s so shitty.., well I guess it wouldn’t be that out of character, but we were so happy, and I don’t want to ruin that moment with my lack of basic human decency, so I won't. Besides, I am curious as to what he has to eat here, so I should just suck it up, and spit it out later.

 

“What do you even have to eat here, dude?”
“I have a whole pantry, Julius.” He points to a surprisingly nice looking bookshelf about 6 yards away. Why didn’t I notice that earlier?
We walk up to it and I notice that only 3 of the 7 shelves have any food on them. For the shelves that do have food, it’s really not that much of anything. Guess my assumption about him struggling with food was right.
“You can just eat whatever.”
“Whatever what? There’s nothing there to eat.”
“Sure there is! I’ve got peanut butter, dry noodles, moldy bread, tons of school milk and apples…uhm, oh! The mystery cans!”
He points at the bottom shelf which houses an array of unlabeled cans.
“Is the mystery what side-effects you’ll get from eating them, or how many days you’ll spend in the hospital?”
I want to say this as a joke, but everything about this situation is just very concerning.
To me, at least.
He is eerily unfazed, in a sort of "oh well, that's life!" kinda way.
“Oh, and you could eat that!”
He points at a pile of just straight up birdseed.
…
“Please let me take you to the gas station.”
“Ah-HUH!?”
Why is he acting like this is the craziest thing anyone has ever said to him.

 

Rob POV:
IS JULIUS ASKING ME ON A DATE RIGHT NOW??!! OH MY GOD I'M NOT READY FOR THIS!! There’s no denying it now is there?! He… he really likes me! My response probably makes it obvious that I…feel the… same.

“YES!”

 

Okay that was way too eager but whatever I got the message across.
“Uh alright let’s go.”

 

We start to walk and he pulls out his phone. “Wanna listen to heavy stuff or something more chill?”
I notice the sun beginning to lower behind the piles of junk. “More chill.”
He puts on a song I’ve never heard before, and we start walking.

 

“What’s this?” I stare at him.
On purpose, this time.

 

“The last surviving drive-in, you like it?”

 

“Yeah, totally!” I think I can see him staring back.

 

This is the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? Is this what it’s like to be in a mutually beneficial relationship???

 

I barely remember the feeling, I just have sort of a lingering sense of it once existing. A dad, a mom, a little sibling, maybe? I've never had a brother or sister though.

 

“I think there was something wrong with my mom and dad.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, like they weren’t in love. It could’ve been my fault, but… I don’t think so. There must’ve been something else that made them not quite be each others. I think I got it from one of them, I have that something.”

“Music makes you emotional, huh?” He awkwardly laughs, and it grounds me. I'm not in space anymore, why did I say all that?

“Yeah, who is this? I can tell that all this nice background music is the same person but they’re still so unfamiliar to me.

“Lonely Planet Boy, he's sorta like you, just a lonely little boy all away on trash planet.” He teases.

My blush matches with the colors of the oil painting sunset framing us, the clouds seem to lean into our words. And the gradients match us even if we are just blue and black we're really more than that, aren’t we?

“We’re all on trash planet, Julius.” I’m joking but I can still feel the heir of a comfortable escape between us. It exchanges back and forth between us, this euphoric charge, and then It hits the cold asphalt, and it’s dead.

It should stay that way. We’re not meant to be together, I wasn’t made to love, I can’t even remember a time when I loved anyone, in any way.

That was taken away from me. pulled by the universe, it was
not.
meant.
to.
be.

Even now the one person I have as a friend refuses to see me where I live. I think that I’m just there for Teri so she can vent to me but she’s never really there to listen, when I need it. I understand I have a lot of problems, and that’s not her responsibility, but she shouldn’t be mine either.

 

God.
I have no fucking friends, do I?

 

I look at Julius. He’s just enjoying the music. It would be a nice sight, however…

 

I don't have a boyfriend, either.

 

And I never will.

 

J.O.Jr POV:
“Woah, Robbie! What's wrong?”
Rob started crying uncontrollably out of nowhere and now he’s attached himself to me, arms wrapped all the way around my torso, hanging on for dear life.

“I-I-can’t” his voice is vulnerable, it sounds like it’s about to fall and shatter. I’ve never heard someone sound this specific way when speaking to me.

He hesitantly moves his hands from my back to my shoulders, it sends a shiver down my spine, my eyes go wide, and I blush for a fleeting moment.

He takes a deep breath in and out before speaking again. “I c-can’t go.”

I’m confused. “You can’t go.. to the gas station? We’re nearly there, Rob.” It’s also nearly dark.

He takes his hands off me, and rubs around his eye and sniffs, it’s not a pretty sight, in fact he looks really disheveled. It’s kind of disheartening, but I wish he was still touching me. If I was this weak around someone they would without a doubt leave me, but for some reason when he does it it has the opposite effect.

 

“I…just *sniff* can’t go… to the gas station…*sniff* with you.” He rubs his arm and stares at his feet.

 

Maybe he just really needs some sleep.

 

“I was going to wait until after you ate, but do you wanna just crash at my place? I have an actual bed you can sleep in.”

 

Rob POV:
I think my entire face must be answering his question. I really tried to push him away but he only ended up pulling me back in. I’ll admit I do definitely “yaawnn” need the sleep…but what if he’s…expecting…m-
…

 

…

 

…

 

I wake up feeling something unfamiliar,
comfort.

 

I’m in an actual bed with actual blankets, scratchy blankets, but still.

I look beside me, the sight of the sleeping explosive immediately forcing a sharp gasp out of me. I slap my hands against my mouth, hoping the sudden noise didn’t wake him up.

I look away from him, allowing myself to blush as much as I need to, because he can’t see. Before anything else I try to remember what happened last night.

 

…
Fuuuucccckkk.
I started crying and then fell asleep in his arms just because I was scared of going on a date with him. I sit with this knowledge for a moment. I guess he carried me all the way to his house.

 

I get out from under the blankets and sit on his bed. I look around his room. There’s definitely a lot to look at. I can barely see his dark gray walls because there’s so much spray paint or marker tags and phrases, Metal signs, like “STOP” and “No dogs or Watterson's”, and lots of random drawings and papers, and of course tons of posters. It looks like some sort of crust punk collage. Every item must have a story or person behind it.

 

In terms of the actual room, he has a cracked full length mirror, an overflowing closet, and a little low-to-the-ground table. Other than coins, bottle caps, and random knick knacks, the table has a big boom box, a cassette player, and stacks of CDs, and cassettes, on it. His floor is covered in garbage, clothes, cigarettes(he smokes!?) and lots of random broken items.

 

“Morning, Rob.”

 

“AGHH!”

 

Julius’s raspy morning voice caught me off guard, and I totally didn’t have a loud over dramatic reaction to it. “Oh my god, you scared me.” He clears his throat, and sits up. “Yeah, sorry.”

 

I notice that he’s not wearing the same thing as yesterday, instead of his hoodie he has on a way too big for him t-shirt of the Turbonator from Bloodywood, it falls down his shoulder and goes nearly to the bottom of his shorts, which instead of his normal gray Tripp ones with chains and such, he’s wearing thin black ones with shooting stars on them, they look homemade.

 

Speaking of clothes, I'm in a different shirt. It’s humongous with a Poppy design. It’s a photo of her covered in blood in the ‘X’ music video. It’s actually pretty awesome, but I feel bad for making him change me out of my shirt, I probably smelled pretty bad and I imagine he didn’t want to sleep next to someone so grody.

 

Julius’ t-shirt is about the same size as mine and it slips down pretty low. I stare at his exposed skin, but quickly catch myself, and return to glancing at the personalized walls. “Sooo, uhh what happened last night?”

 

“Oh, yeahhhh, last night.” He still seems a bit disillusioned but he starts telling the story anyways.

 

~*~*~*~Flashback~*~*~*~

 

J.O.Jr POV:
Did this mother fucker seriously just fall asleep? I hold his head in my left arm and pull out my phone with my free hand. “It’s only 8:34.” I state to myself quietly under my breath. I put my phone away and rest my right arm on his back.

 

“Guess that means no gas station.” I pick him up; bridal style.

 

~*~*~*~
“Bridal style???”
“Yeah how else was I supposed to carry you? Don’t interrupt me again.”
~*~*~*~

 

I carry him all the way home, since my parents are home I go to my window on the side of the house. I gently lay Rob in the dead grass, and prop open the unlocked window. I move some soda cans out of the way and carefully carry Rob through the window. I set him down on a pile of clothes.

 

~*~*~*~
“How did you sleep through all of that, by the way? It was kinda creepy.”
“I’m just on another level, simply more evolved if you will.”
“I won't.”
~*~*~*~

 

I pick him up again and tucked him into my blankets. I get dressed and then just went on my phone for a few hours before falling asleep.
~*~*end of flashback*~*~

 

Rob POV:
Hmm.. well I guess that all makes sense. I just can’t believe that I’m in such a weird situation. Nothing ever happens to me… like, at all. I don’t really believe it! I mean seriously!

 

A dude I’ve never really known until yesterday somehow ends up playing video games with me at the junkyard, he FLIRTS WITH ME, and then ASKS ME FOR A DATE, all for me to just mess it up and end up crying in his arms, completely forgetting that I did so when I woke up in his bed on a school da-

 

“HOLY SHIT IT'S A SCHOOL DAY!” I frantically shove the blankets off me and jump to my feet. I’m sort of jittering around, I would be getting my bag and running but I’m in unfamiliar territory at the moment.

 

“Dude calm down, we've only missed like 3 periods anyways.”

 

“THREE?!”

 

I’m extremely stressed, muttering profanities under my breath, and nearly crying. I rush to the window and put my leg through it, but am quickly grabbed by my arm.

 

“Rob! What is wrong with you!?”

He’s judging me. I would judge me too. I'm acting crazy right now! Why can’t I calm the hell down?!

 

“I-I I can’t miss school. I can’t stay here, I need to leave!”
He releases his grip.

 

“Why? We can just skip today and hang out at the mall or something.”

 

“No! You don’t get it! I can’t just be late when I’m late I end up messing everything up! When you’re late, jobs are lost, and when jobs are lost money is lost, and when you don’t have money, you don’t have anything.”

 

He looks at me for a moment and then puts his hand on his neck, looking a bit guilty as he does. “Listen man you can either go to school and just make up the work you missed tomorrow or you can skip with me, besides I don’t really think anyone’s gonna notice if you're gone.”

 

My eyebrow falls and I look at him with my mouth agape and in a frown. He can tell he’s not doing a good job at comforting me right now. “I’d much rather you skip with me, but if you just really wanna do math I'll walk with you to school, I’m not staying though.”

 

“STEPHANIE!” *BAM**BAM*BAM* “SHIT! Get the fuck out the damn window!” He shoves me towards it, and runs up to the door. I quickly crawl out the slightly opened window and press my back to the bricks of his house, just out of sight. I try to eavesdrop on Julius’ conversation and thankfully it’s really easy considering how loud he and his mom are “talking” to each other.

 

“WHAT DO YOU WANT!?” Julius asks but I don’t think he cares about an answer.

 

“Todays your Big fuckin day, yet you still look like a giant mess! He’s gonna be here real soon, Stephanie. I can, and will make that man go away in an instant, alright?”

 

“Maybe if you’d leave I could actually put on some fucking clothes!” I still cannot believe this is how these two talk to each other. It seems like it’s been going on so long neither of them care about the fight anymore.

 

It hurts when I try to remember my mom, but I know I didn’t talk to her like this. It’s not like our relationship was perfe-

 

“Uhm- excuse me young man?”

Notes:

Sorry guys I was super emotional while writing part of this🤯🤯🤯

Anyways here's my brothers spectacular addition to this fic bc made the mistake of letting him read it

"When we arrived I looked his sexy ass in the eyes and said “I want you”

shutout to him for indulging me in my fan works(delusions) since fourth grade😎👍

Chapter 5: this is nice, I think

Summary:

They go to Julius' house and his dad is mega grandfather coded (sorry I have no clue what to put in summaries)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/104LnrawV8fM1DBGGoKSD6VwrvzVTiXtqC-9Yy6aftQA/edit also here r some photos🤯

Notes:

Here r the albums I mentioned in this one🥰🥰🥰

Babylon-Skindred (Reggae metal) https://open.spotify.com/album/32QHWyKkZykhjHXzgRaZyg?si=tuBRqFhiSP-iIZRp0HNNvg

Reality war-The T-38S (punk rock) https://open.spotify.com/album/17PSDJVtgeBVaDH7pusDAa?si=sHz1zls8TMOfgn6_EeQ4OQ

Famous Monsters-Misfits (punk rock) https://open.spotify.com/album/4CKrRK52g4mNzbpGIMVbtE?si=1aDraf4LT0yjvVghtOmJZA

Pornografitti-Extreme (heavy metal) https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mNuiuW4Eg8WiWEDY4r8Tjrh6CiinagQvg

“GASP-!” I quickly slap my hands over my mouth but Julius already heard.

“What is it? Oh my go- DAD!” He rushes out the window, basically doing an Olympic swimmer dive out it. It's pretty clear that he wants to hug the mustachioed man, but he holds back. I awkwardly stand up and steady myself as they talk. I also cross my arms over Julius’ shirt, because I don’t know, it’s weird to wear your friend's shirt in front of their dad. “How’s my little menace been!?” The man has a comforting broad smile under his mustache, and a mature but non threading voice that compliments his black pie-cut eyes. Just looking at him makes me feel less awkward.

 

“So, you finally have a boyfriend? That sounds like fun!” Never mind. This man is praying for my downfall.

 

I try to interject and explain to him that we are not dating. Jesus christ, These gay allegations are getting harder and harder to beat. “Uh, No sir-!" I squeak. "That's uhm- that is not what’s going on here!” Julius is just as hot in the face as me. “Yeah, dad! Don’t be weird! This is my platonic friend, Rob.”

 

“Oh, well pleased to meet you, kiddo!” He shakes my hand and I swear he just handed me a note that says "I know what you are". Or maybe he just smiled and turned back to Julius.

“So did you want your friend to come with us?”

 

“Uhh, yeah no him being here was completely unexpected, it’s a long story.” I cringe at the mention of me losing my mind all over Julius last night and awkwardly half wave at Julius Sr. cause I’m and not sure what else to do.

 

”Uh, but, yeah if you don’t wanna go to school you can come hang out at my dads house.” I think he’s just trying to be nice. I really don’t want to impose. “Oh, no I’m alright, besides school is important.” Julius Sr. focuses on other Julius. “You should listen to your friend here!” He rolls his eyes and says, “You’re the one that wanted to come on a weekday.” Under his breath before shifting his focus back on me.

 

“But seriously, dude it’s really not that big a deal. I'm gonna be staying at my dads house for a month. I'm just saying you could stay there for a while if you don’t wanna stay at your dump, just saying, I wouldn't be complaining if you did.” Oh well alright, if he's just sayin.

 

“Oh- uh, I-“ Julius Sr. cuts off my stuttering. “Woah! Hold on, kid! We have to make sure his parents are alright with it, I mean, I don’t mind. I have plenty of space and I love your friends, but you can’t just decide to do things, little man. Plus, it’s a school day!”

 

He cringes at the nickname before speaking again. “Okay, well it should be fine, considering he li-” I smack my hand over his mouth. “I’ll ask my parents, but I’m sure they won't mind!” My face cracks into a smile, hoping that it will cover up Julius’ attempt at doxxing me. I mean seriously there are some things you don't tell adults and that is most definitely one of them! Shouldn't he of all people know this!

 

“Just give me a second to call them!” I stuff my hands in my pockets and pull out the hall pass, some gum wrappers, a piece of metal I thought looked cool, like three rocks, and a strip of paper with a phone number written on it. The magic of pockets on boys' clothes. I stuff the rest of the items back in and hold onto the paper with two hands.“Can I borrow your phone, dude?” I quietly ask Julius. “Yeah, sure.” He fumbles for his phone, probably confused as to who I could possibly be planning on calling. He takes his phone out his back pocket and hands me the egregiously cracked device, already pulled up to the keypad. I’m stupidly stressed out right now. I’m probably going to end up getting sweat on his phone. I try my best to quickly type in the number, somehow not cutting my fingers or typing the wrong number as I do.

206

569

58

2

9

I press the phone to my ear awkwardly.
Riiiiinnnggg… Riiinnnngggg…
Riiinnnggggg…

 

Please pick up.

 

“Hey, Rob. It’s been awhile.”She chuckles, sending a wave of relief over me.

 

“Hey Mom. I have a weird question.” I’m actually talking to Rachel. We met at a party she threw a while ago. I guess she’s sorta like an older sister to me. She’s 17 but we’re still able to convince people she’s my mom, when we need to.
“What is it?”
“Well, uhhhh. You remember Julius, right?”
“YOU STARTED HANGING OUT WITH JULIUS!?”
“Yeah, well he’s gonna be staying at his dads house for a month and I was just…uhh, wondering if I could stay with them for a bit? I’d still go to the same school-”

 

I take the phone away from my ear “We’d still go to the same school, right?” Julius nods quickly. “Yeah, of course, dude” If he’s lying I don’t care about the repercussions (also if he was his dad would probably stop him).

 

“Oh my god! Are you guys dating???” I was only slightly caught off guard by this question on account of the fact that she asks me this anytime I dare talk to anyone (which isn’t often to be honest).

 

“Yeah, well it could just be during spring break if you want. Or I could use one of my sick days for today, so I don’t get counted as absent” Awhile ago Rachel had written me a ton of doctor's notes so I could skip school whenever I needed to.

 

“Don’t you dare let that wannabe thug break your heart!” I have to hold back rolling my eyes.

 

“Wh- seriously!? OH MY GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH MOMMM!! LOVE YOU!! BYEE!!” I’m embarrassed about screaming like that in front of the Julius’s but I need to really sell this.

 

“Rob, I am serious. If he hurts you I’ll-” I hang up the phone, and promise myself to call her back later.

 

“Sounds like It’s a No.” Julius Sr. teases. “So, kid want me to go talk to your mom so we can leave?”

 

He groans. “Ughhh no, just send a text, or something.” He rubs his temples, as if the mere mention of his mother is painful.

 

Julius Sr. raises an eyebrow. “A what now?” Julius takes his phone back, opening his messages, where none of his contacts have photos and most of them just have phone numbers for names.

 

The ones that do have names are stuff like ‘Rat Bitch’ ‘Goth cupcake’ ‘the one who has trouble walking when his legs are taken off and put back on the wrong way around’ and ‘hand’ I don’t have a cell phone, but that’s super wierd, right?

 

“Here just tell her that you already picked me up.” He hands his dad the phone. Julius Sr. Takes it and then proceeds to meticulously type out each letter as if he’s trying to write a flawless letter to the lord.

 

After about three letters (five minutes). Julius gets fed up. “Just let me do it.” He angrily grabs the phone back. I look over his shoulder to see him, within the time frame of three seconds, type out the most illegible piece of text I have ever attempted to read in my life. I put my hand on his shoulder, “Just let me do it.”

 

I expect him to put up a bit of a fight but this scene is already way too long so he just hands me the phone and lets me clean up the text. “Alright, boys! Let's go!” Julius Sr. Cheerily exclaims.

 

J.O.Jr POV:
Is Rob seriously going to stay with me and my dad!? I was planning on emotionally manipulating him yesterday. Then, BOOM! All of a sudden I’m having some sort of slice of life fantasy about hanging out (and making out) with him for the next month.

 

Oh my god.

 

I'm scared.

 

I don’t want to share a room with him again. His dopey smile and big stupid pretty eye, and his silky hair, a-and, UGH ITS FUCKING INTOXICATING. He is ruining me! I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I hate hi- “Wanna help me pick which CDs I should bring?“ Oh my god. Just kiss me already.

 

How the fuck am I supposed to survive a month with this loser?

 

Anyways, putting aside my pathetic internal conflict with my own feelings, I am not ready to go!

 

“Wait, dad, I haven't packed my bag yet!”

 

“Well hurry up, kid!”

 

I hop through the window, Rob follows me and stands awkwardly in the center of the room as I stuff shit into the backpack leaning on the leg of my bed. “Uh, hey, Julius?”

 

“Yeah, what?” I ask as I search for my mini blowtorch.

 

“Is it okay if I can borrow your CDs and a player, while we’re there?”

 

“Yeah dude, I'm bringing all of my CDs anyways.” I walk over to my collection and stuff them all in my backpack, through the miracle of living in a cartoon world they all easily fit.

 

“Well it’s not all of them, that was just a stack of my favorites. You can pick some others if you want.”
He starts Sifting through my CDs and picks a few he wants to bring.

 

“Hey, dude don’t look I’m gonna change.”

“Oh, uh yeah sure.”

 

He covers his eyes like a little kid, while I put on my gray shorts, a Sally Face t-shirt, and then of course my usual black hoodie. “Alright, I’m done.”

 

Clothes are sort of a weird thing. Most people have multiple of the same outfit, some people only wear gloves or shoes and some people don’t wear clothes at all. I wear the same shorts and hoodie everyday but own probably like forty t-shirts. They’re all bands or games or shows or just cool designs.

 

I think most people would find that sorta useless seeing as how I always wear the hoodie on top of them but I don’t really give a shit. Since Rob always wears the same thing I also grab his shirt and throw it to him. “Here’s your shirt back.” It lands on his head. “Oh, guess I’ll get changed too.” He says, pulling it off.

 

After I’ve finished packing various airport illegal Items I get the CDs Robs picked. He has a medium sized stack in his hands, which I stuff in my bag. We’re ready to go now. I put the backpack on one of my shoulders and hop out the window, Rob follows, making sure to shut it on his way out.
“Alright dad, we're ready.”

 

“Okay, Rob, where's your house?” My dad asks.
“Don't worry, we don't need to drop by there. I don’t change my clothes and I doubt I’d stay for too long.”

 

“Should be thirty minutes. Wanna listen to music on the way?” He pulls out a shoe box of cassettes from under his feet. (yes this car is so old it has a built in cassette player) “Pick whatever you kids want.”

 

To be honest I actually love choosing from the cassette box, so I’m not upset. “Ooh!” I say as if I don’t know every single album In this box. “Rob, do you like Misfits?” This is actually my album that my dad bought for me when I was little but I played it in the car one time and now it’s a car cassette.

 

“Yeah, The Misfits are awesome!” He replies with a stupid smile that makes him look really k̶i̶s̶s̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ dumb.

 

“Famous Monsters, please.” I politely ask, handing my dad the cassette. “Good pick, as always.” He pops it in the player and Rob continues to sift through the box.

 

We played two more albums, Reality war(The T-38S), and Babylon(Skindred). By the end of the ride he’s organized them all alphabetically by artist name. I doubt the neatness will last long but I’m pretty sure he just did it to have something to entertain his hands with for the ride.

 

We hop out of the talk car and go up to the front porch. Me and Rob take a quick look around the brick and wood house that’s been here since the 30’s. Vines and bushes are growing up and around the one story building. There’s cicada shells on the doorframe and two rocking chairs on the porch. There’s a massive tree in the front yard that’s invading the sidewalk. It has a two person swing/bench thing. This place feels more like home than Elmore ever will.

 

Rob is still looking around as I grab his hand to pull him in the house. I let go to close the door and put my hands in my pockets. “Alright, so Julius obviously you’ll be in your room and, I guess you could just crash on the couch, Rob.”

 

“Wh- Dad he can just stay in my room.” He raises his eyebrow at me.

“No, I’m not letting you share a room with someone the same age as you who’s not family.”

 

“What!? Ew! Dad! You think I’m gonna fuck him???” I gesture my arms around Rob.

 

“Wow, honestly, Julius! You think you’re too good for me?" Why is he trying to be sassy all of a sudden. I push him away from me.

 

“Shut up, dude”

 

“Okay, first of all watch your language, second of all it's not gonna happen so don’t even try and convince me.” Does he just live to make the quality of my life slightly worse?

 

“Ughhh Whatever.”

 

“C’mon don't be Like that, kid. Why don’t you give Rob a tour of the house?”

 

I roll my eyes and walk out of the living room, into the kitchen, Rob follows. “This is the kitchen, but we usually just eat on the couch, cuz then we can watch TV and also y’know we don’t have a dinner table in here.” I gesture around the tiny room. “Got it.” He says in a sort of joke-ish tone.

 

“The first door down the hallway is the bathroom. The next one is my dads room and at the very end is my room and an office area that leads out to the back porch.”

 

I start walking down the hall and he trails along behind me “Are we going to your room?”

 

“No,. Obviously we’re gonna hang out in the bathroom.” I sarcastically reply. He just rolls his eye at me.

 

When we get to the end of the hall I take a look at the piece of paper on the door. “MY ROOM!!! DONT CUM IN!!!” It has a ton of angry faces and explosions crudely drawn on it. “I made that when I was, like, eight. After my parents had just gotten divorced and my mom had moved to the house in Elmore. I didn’t want to talk to either of them.” Rob looks a bit sad. “Sorry, man.”

 

“What? You don’t have to apologize. It’s funny! I mean look at how I spelled ‘come’!” I laugh and he rolls his eye but is smiling.“I also remember that I specifically wrote ‘my’ because I hated my deadname. I mean, I still do but it’s still funny to me.” He raises his eyebrow like, “fair enough”

 

“Can we actually go in now?”

 

“Oh, uh yeah maybe let’s do that.” I open the door. He walks in and sits on the bed. I join him.

 

“Well it’s certainly cleaner than your other room.” I laugh. “Yeah, well I barely ever get to stay here, but y'know I still have some posters and other random junk.” I gesture an arm around the room.

 

“It seems like you like it here way more than your moms house, so why do you stay there most of the time?” Why’d he have to bring that up?

 

“Ugh, I don’t know man! because my mom fucking hates me! I mean seriously, somehow she managed to convince the court that she deserved the rights to my existence. I think she thought I would do all her chores for her or something??? I don't know, man. But, I don’t even care because now I get to make her life hell.”

 

“Woah…”

“That's like your villain backstory.”

 

“Pfft HAHAAH! SHUT UP MAN.” We’re both laughing hysterically and I’m slapping my hands on the bed frame, because oh my god that caught me off guard, and oh my god it was really fuckin funny. “Creeeakkk.” My dad opens my creak ass door in the middle of our laughing. “Woah what's so funny.” We slowly calm down and he asks us if we want grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Rob says yes, but I just ask for a burnt piece of bread.

 

We’re just messing around and playing the albums Rob picked out when my dad calls out to tell us the foods ready. I don’t know how either of us heard him over Pornograffiti on top volume, which we quickly turn off and race down the hall into the kitchen. Rob accidentally slams his foot into a random table full of junk at the entrance of the kitchen. This would’ve been hilarious but unfortunately he was still wearing his shoes so all that really happened was a few things fell off the table. He promptly put them back and went to get his sandwich. “Thank you, Mr. Oppenheimer!” It's funny to me how polite he can be.

 

“No problem, kid. Hope you like it.” Dad takes his sandwich to the living room and puts on one of his black and white movies. “Hey, wanna eat out on the back porch?” Rob looks like a giddy little kid. He’s blushing for some reason. “Yeah! I haven’t seen it yet!” We go out and sit down at the green antique table on the porch. It has leaf detailing, and real leaves on it. It's probably the only thing at my dads house not covered in dust.

 

I don't usually like going outside, I like being out here though. There’s a stone path from the house that leads to the garage and the table, a small garden, a lemon tree and other randomly scattered trees and bushes. There’s also some scrap metal from the car my dads working on modifying in the garage. I feel like metal detecting here would either be cool, or really obnoxious.

 

“It’s nice out here. I wish we could stay here forever.” Rob tells me, totally matching my feeling at the moment. “Nah, you’d get sick of all the bugs.”

 

“You think I haven’t dealt with bugs before? Yeah I hate them, but I’m used to them.”

 

“Oh right, I kinda forgot about the dump, my bad man.”

 

“Y'know what?”
...

“So did I.” His face lights with a massive smile.

 

We sit in comfortable silence as we finish eating our sandwich and burnt bread. I'm not even thinking about the fact that I'm eating right now, well not that much.

 

THAT NIGHT 10:25

“Okay Rob I got some blankets and a pillow for you. Do you boys want to watch a movie before we go to sleep?” Dad asks, holding the TV remote in his hand, while his arms are supporting the blankets and pillow.

 

“Let's watch a horror!” I announce excitedly.

 

“We’re letting the guest pick, Julius.” he hands the blankets to Rob. I groan. He’d better not pick something lame.

 

“Uhm…How about Bill and Teds excellent adventure?” Oh, I’m actually not mad at that. Solid movie choice. Better than whatever boring black and white cowboy movie my dad would’ve picked.

 

*One gay ass movie later*

I usually stay up till one but for some reason by the time the movie is over I’m nearly asleep. Rob, however, fell asleep about forty minutes ago and fell on my shoulder. Dad didn’t say anything about it and I sure as hell didn’t want to move him so he just stayed there as I also dozed off.

Notes:

The house is heavily based off my grandparents house bc I had to stay there when I wrote this. (also I have no clue why the text spacing is all weird it literally looks different on my phone and computer but since this is super self indulgent and like no one is reading it, I don't really care enough to try and fix it)

Chapter 6: Why are you doing this to me? Why do I feel like this?

Summary:

Julius takes it a bit far and Rob wonders if he's gonna die because of it.

Notes:

finally finished the chapter bitches!
Here's two songs to listen to while reading this (no real reason other than I was listening to them while editing this and they're awesome)

Adam and Eve- Gezebelle Gaburgably
https://gezebellegaburgably.bandcamp.com/track/adam-and-eve

Quarter Pounder-Gezebelle Gaburgably
https://gezebellegaburgably.bandcamp.com/track/quarter-pounder

also mentioned this underrated band:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/54sRP3YhCapthbH5VT3ElJ

also I already know the next chapter is gonna take forever but I still have a lot going on it my head so I might add an eighth one

Rob POV:

I wake up to an uncomfortably familiar sight and an uncomfortably familiar feeling. Yeah you guessed it, I’m cuddling with Julius again, and barely remember where I am or how I got here! Jesus, something is wrong with me. My brain is all mush, because holy shit bro, get your arms off my waist. I’m trying so damn hard to remember what happened. I just have a faded picture of some really gay movie in my head. I don't remember anything anymore, ask me to describe one thing that happened a week ago with a gun to my head and I'm dead.

I don’t wanna just stay here but also I reallllyyy do, which is a massive problem so I have to get up. I really wanna wear my own shirt because I think this one was already dirty when Julius gave it to me, also I prefer smaller clothes. The original enchantment of wearing his clothes has worn off.

I’m hungry but I don’t want to just help myself to their fridge so I put on some shoes and head out to the swing bench. It’s really relaxing to just be out here on the swing alone, maybe that’s what I need. More time with myself? That doesn’t really make sense, seeing as how I’ve never been acknowledged by much of anyone before now, maybe that’s why I’m acting all messed up. I’m just so unused to interacting with other people, that the second I do, I get all…weird…about it.

…

I should call Rachel. I feel kind of bad about not finding the time to call her back yesterday.(How do I remember that?) It feels like yesterday just flew by in a flash. I remember that I was having such a good time and WOW! I slept AMAZINGLY! I try to quietly open the front door but every slight moment I make results in an annoyingly loud “creeak” sound. Once I’m out I sigh in relief and stretch my arms out. The sun hits my face perfectly when I'm sitting on the swing bench.

I pull out Julius’ phone I stole before coming out here. Don’t judge me. I didn’t wanna wake him up just to ask if I could borrow his phone. I slowly put in Rachel’s number and anxiously wait on each ring. The bliss of today being a Saturday is run thin by the stress of talking to Rachel for the first time in seven months. Is she going to be different? She didn’t seem different. Am I different? I don’t think I am. Is that a good thing? Maybe that just depends on how I’ve changed or not changed. Does Rachel even want to talk to me right now? Did she ever?

“Heyyy, Rob. Why ya calling me at three am, babe.” She sounds half dead, but still manages to call me babe, she calls everyone babe. It's kinda cool in my opinion, I dunno why it just makes me happy for some reason.

“Uhh, it’s 6:40, Rachel, also did I wake you up?.”

“Huh, what wake me-? No Rob, I'm fine, man. Don't worry about it.” She yawns. “So why are you calling me at 6:40? How’d your date with Julius go?”

“Rachel we are not dating! My day with Julius was…fine” I’d rather say spectacular, or the best one in a long time, but I’m not gay like that.

“Mhm, whatever you say.”

“Uhm, yeah. I guess I just felt bad about randomly calling you to fake my mom and then not calling you back so, uhm, how are things?” I awkwardly ask.

“Oh! The BEST thing happened to me, Rob!” Oh my god. I'm actually so happy she's doing good.

“what!?”

“You know that girl, Clare~?”

“Uh, yeah?” What's she got to do with this?

“We started dating!!!” She's giggling, like this is the best thing that's ever happened to her. She’s so… happy…with another girl…I can't be surprised, I guess I always knew she was gay like that.

“She’s the BEST, Rob! Just the other day she took me out for surprise smoothies and she remembered my favorite flavor! Oh my god she’s like, so nice, and cute, and we’re totally gonna get married or something lame like that. You could be best man at our wedd-“

“HELP ME ASK OUT JULIUS!”

…

 

“... hmm I seem to remember you saying that you were uh- not dating Julius.” I can practically hear her eyebrow raise.

“SHUT UP, RACHEL! J-JUST P- Please help me out with this…”

“You know I’m just kidding, babe! Of course I can help you out with this.”

“I MEAN I THOUGHT I WASN'T GAY I THOUGHT I COULD NEVER BE LIKE THAT, BUT HE'S JUST A STUPID PERFECT LOSER! AND HE'S ALWAYS TEASING ME! WHO DOES THAT!? I HATE HIM SO MUCH, BUT OH MY GOD I'VE NEVER REALLY WANTED TO KISS SOMEONE BEFORE, BUT WOW! I THINK ABOUT WHAT THAT WOULD BE LIKE A LOT. AND I FEEL SO GROSS, BECAUSE OF IT! I SHOULDN'T BE LIKE THIS, BUT I AM RACHEL! I AM. I FUCKING LOVE HIM SO MUCH AND I WANT HIM TO CALL ME HIS BOYFRIEND AND And… and I just really wanna kiss him…”

…

“Tell me how you really feel, amirite?”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP RACHEL!”

“HAHAJJAHAKWEHHEHE!!!”

“OH, I AM SOOO GLAD THIS IS AMUSING, TO YOU!”

Creeeeakk

“Oh, shit! I gotta go! Sorry Rachel!”

I quickly hang up the phone and put it in my pocket. Julius runs up to me and throws his body onto the wooden swing bench. There’s no way that felt good. “Hey man, what’re you doing out here?”

“Oh, y’know just…thinking.”

“About what?” He leans in and focuses on me, like he really cares about what I have to say. God that’s such a good feeling. Someone actually caring about what you have to say. Unfortunately I don’t have to capacity to express my gratitude so I just answer with,

“Uhh, like, stuff. Like, uhm, what are we gonna do today, or whatever…” I shy away from his face, which is glistening in the morning sunlight. He reminds me of a sparkly dew drop. He'd probably beat me up for saying that, though, which is really funny to be honest.

“Hey?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“D’ya steal my phone?”

“...Yeah, yeah I did.” I hand it back to him and apologize. He puts it in his pocket and says he doesn't care.

“You're not bad enough to steal something just cuz it's fun. I know you needed it for something.”

He pulls a cigarette and lighter out from a little box in his pocket, (did he go to sleep with those in there?) The lighter has a green skull painted on it and the letters, ‘RZR’. I wanna believe that Razor gave it to him willingly, but knowing Julius it’s definitely stolen. “Dad said we were gonna go to the mall, want one?” He holds the cigarette up to me.

“Uh- What!? No!” I mean to be honest I’m a bit interested, but I have so much life left to live! I’m too young to get into smoking! I mean it's not as if I'm gratefully cherishing everyday I live, but I still don’t think I want to get involved in all…that. Honestly I don’t think he should be smoking either, but it’s his decision and there’s really nothing I could say to stop him.

“Fine, be lame.” He rolls his eyes. Oh. Well that’s not a good feeling. “Anyways-“ he scoots closer to me and puts a foot on the edge of the bench. “What stores would ya wanna go to at the mall?” Jeez, the hard hitting questions. “Dude, I don’t know stores.”

“Yeah well I’m not exactly a shopping girlie either. I did really like Barbies when I was little, though.” Hmm, that’s an interesting tidbit of information. “I didn’t really have dolls, I was a stuffed animals kid. I think I had like forty of them. Mostly I liked blue and green ones, and cats, but I also had a wolf phase at one point.” I’m probably boring him, talking about myself like this. It’s kind of impressive to me that I know all this though, usually I can’t remember this much about when I was younger.

“Pfft you had a wolf phase?” He’s trying really hard not to laugh at me right now. “Yeah, I was like six!” I was eleven. “Hehe whatever you say, dude.” I roll my eyes. I would not be the least bit surprised if he had an embarrassing phase too. “Well what about yo-“ he readjusts himself, cutting me off mid sentence, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, and leaning his body against mine. I go into toxic shock, but just as I’m about to return to reality and finish my question, he whispers in my ear, making the situation ten times worse.

“What do you want for breakfast, dude~?”

“Eh- I- uh I, C-can we uhm…what…doyouhave? Haha!” I can barely function right now. Y'know ‘cause of all the Julius occupying my everything right now, but yikes! that was bad, and the awkward laugh at the end too…
He leans his head on my shoulder. “Obviously we have cereal, but my dad can make us waffles or French toast, if you don’t mind waiting for him to get up.” He finally takes his arms off me. “Uhm, er- uh F-French toast sounds goo-“ AND RESTS HIS HEAD ON MY LAP!

“What do you want on your French toast~?” Sorry! Check back in with me later, Julius, I’m busy TRYING TO NOT EXPLODE AND DIE RIGHT NOW!!! Seriously! I’m clenching everything, and trying to stop myself from fucking hyperventilating! I like to bounce my legs up and down when I’m nervous, but there is currently an unpredictable ticking time bomb on my legs right now. Even his face is a bit flushed right now! It's nothing compared to mine, though!

“I’m gonna have strawberries and chocolate, want that too?” I nod aggressively, as its the only thing I really can do right now. He sits up, putting his hand on my knee to steady himself.
“Y'know Rob, I-”

CRAACK! SMASH!

“OH SHIT! DON'T TAKE ME TO HELL YET, SATAN!”
He quickly turns around, which makes his massive head smack into mine, making my head hit the back of the bench. “OUCH! JULIUS!” I rub the back of my head, and he goes to the source of the noise. I look over at the massive tree branch at his feet. “Damn, guess Gods not striking me down today.” He reels back and kicks the branch, but then immediately clenches his foot. “Oh, shit! That hurt! I miscalculated!” I walk over to him, hand still clenching my head.

“...Think your dads up yet?”

“Yeah whatever man, let’s go see.” He walks to the door, clearly holding back the need to not walk on the foot he just broke.

“DAAADDDD!! ARE YOU UP YET!?” He yells into the empty house “Well he probably is now.” I mumble under my breath. The house makes me not want to talk at full volume, it’s not really empty, it's full of junk, but no people. And it’s dark. Sorta sends a weird chill down my spine, like something unnerving is going to happe- “YEAH, KID I'M COMIN HOLD YOUR HORSES!”

“What do you want, son?” Julius Senior asks in a bit of an angry tone. I don’t think he’s much of a morning person. “Can Rob have French toast with strawberries and chocolate for breakfast?” What!? Why are you saying my name! Say you want it!

“What about you, ‘lil Julius.”

“Okay 1. Don’t call me that and 2. I’m not hungry.” Julius Sr. sighs “of course you’re not.” They must’ve had this conversation a million times.

Now that I think about it, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him eat before. At lunch he’s either hanging out with his friends or off, probably vandalizing school property. The only thing I’ve seen him ‘eat’ during class is gum, and I don’t think that counts. Does he not eat at home, either? He must not if this is how his dad is reacting. I mean he must at least eat sometime during school hours, that’s when everyone eats, but I mean obviously I wouldn’t know what kind of weirdo would watch some guy every time he was around, before they had become friends??? That’s just crazy!

“Why don’t you show Rob around the neighborhood, while I make it.”

“Sure, whateverrrr. Let’s go, Robbie.” He grabs my hand, sending a shock up my arm. My face feels all warm and pretty, like when he was leaning on me earlier…for some reason. (I know the reason, but we’re not gonna worry about that right now)

As we walk down the beat up sidewalk, I get the chance to look around the neighborhood. It’s not exactly a rich area. The buildings look like they’ve been standing since the civil war, but they’re all unique. They’re cracked and crumbled but they're still standing and they all have a sort of charm to them. There’s not many people out, it doesn't seem like many people live here at all. The people that are out are nice, though. A young reptilian guy in a pink oil covered jumpsuit stops to talk to us, apparently he’s Julius’s neighbor, an old celery lady lets us pet her dog, who Julius later tells me is named Ollie. a middle aged green man with three eyes and locs down to his knees stops to remind Julius that he owes him 20 bucks. Does Julius know everyone here.

Everyone’s been nice to me but it’s still so weird being Julius’s new friend. There’s no way he likes me as much as the people around here. Everyone’s so cool and interesting. The jumpsuit guy buys old motorcycles, and fixes them. The man with locs used to travel the world with his band, World Class Defects in a custom painted bus that he's planning to give to his kids when they grow up. Even the old lady knows how to set land mines! What do I know? What have I done? What do I have to offer? Nothing.
I’m useless
Dull
Boring
Lame
Stupid
Gay
Nobody
Rob
I’m just some loser with a stupid crush on the coolest guy he knows. Dumb crush. Dumb feelings. Dumb nobody Rob thinking he has a chance with somebody Julius. I feel like crying again.

 

J.O.Jr POV:
Damn this is boring as hell.
I’ve walked down these boring stupid streets a million times. Maybe we can go to the gas station or the train station. It’s just down the street from the house. Everything in this tiny town is just down the street from the house. It’s nice to see everyone again, and I actually feel at home here, but I’ve done everything in this dirt poor town before. Maybe Rob has some bright idea rattling around his head. “Hey, man wanna go to the train station or something?”

He lifts his eye off the ground. “Uh, yeah. Sounds fun.” We start walking towards the train station.

He’s cute…

This is so fucked up. I need to mess with his head some more. Maybe I can pin him to a wall and then laugh in his face? That would definitely do something to him. Do I want to do something to him, though? Yeah, of course I do! I'm horrible, obviously I would want to mess with his head!

“Y’know this is kinda weird-” I start.

He’s staring off into space. “Huh?”

“I just mean that I don’t know anything about you! What even is your last name!?”

“I don’t think I have one.” He says in a kind of confused tone.

“Oh, guess that makes sense.” Lots of people Just have first names. In fact a fair share of people in this weird place don’t even have names. I don’t talk to them, though. No one does.

“Yeah but it’s strange-“ He starts again. “I feel like I can remember at some point having a last name, but no matter what I do, it never comes back to me. A lot of stuff has been like that recently-“ we’re almost at the train station. “I feel like something’s being taken from me and- Ugh it hurts!” He’s clenching his hands on his head.

“Woah! Dude, are you okay? Do we need to get an ice pack from the house or something?”

“N-No I’m fine. Let's just keep going. I need to go to this train station.”

“Wh- dude..? Why??” What is so goddamn important about this train station!?

“I don’t know Julius! It just feels important! Y’know how normally you feel in control of everything you do? Like, you decide what happens to you.”

“No.”

“Well me either! Something is telling me what to do and if I don’t listen…I don’t know… what happens if I don’t listen b-but there’s nothing I can do about it either way. I have to follow it.”

...

“I have no clue what you're talking about.” He’s biting his lip. Blood is flowing down his chin. “But I guess I have my own…interpretation? Of what you’re saying.” He stops looking so sad. He’s intrigued. Blood is flowing down his chin. “You’re fighting against the system.” His eye tells me to keep talking. “You have hands pushing you down. Pushing you in a direction you don’t want to go. There’s nothing you can do about that, or at least that's what you think. Maybe you have this idea in your head of what’s ‘supposed’ to happen. That’s bullshit.” He looks a little bit confused. “If you keep your head down and say nothing, no fucking duh nothings gonna change! If you want something to happen, you don’t wanna stay so damn helpless then fucking do something! Go out screaming and crying!”

“You’re right Julius… You’re so fucking right.” He wipes the blood of his face.

“I kno-!”

What the hell!?

Are we kissing right now!?

IS HE FUCKING KISSING ME!?!?!

HES KISSING ME!!!

WERE FukInG kISsinG riGht nOw! OW! SHIT!

I’m not ready! I’m not ready for this to feel so good! I’m not ready for his tongue to be in my mouth! I'M NOT READY FOR US TO BE MAKING OUT RIGHT NOW! Ahhhh! Shittttt how is he so good at this?? Who the hell did he ever practice with??

He breaks away from me way too soon. I want to pull him back. I want to slap him in the face! Who the hell does he think he is making me feel like this!? Like maybe my life has meaning! Like maybe I won’t be alone and sad forever! Like maybe I’m not a depressed useless little anorexic waste-of-space-shithead!

Oh my god.

My life finally has color.

Now I see blue, well I see more than that. I see a mess of clashing colors. I am a mess of disgusting clashing colors. The color schemes hurt my own eyes and probably everyone else’s too, but they’re fucking there. For the first time in so long I feel… euphoric. My smile hurts to look at, but it's there. I’m smiling! The world isn't just an empty grayscale anymore.

I see color

and I love it.

I love him.

“Oh my god! I- I can’t believe I just! I’m so sorry!”

“I love you, Rob.”

“What, huh? Wh-”

I grab his face and pull him into me. I’m hugging tight onto his waist as we kiss. I hug him like he’s going to leave and never come back. I snake my hands up his back and cling on like we’re superglued together. I wish we were, because this…this…is The best thing that's ever happened to me. Honest to nonexistent god, I have never felt this good.

I have my ways of dealing with shit, y'know making sure I don’t slit my wrists. It usually works out fine, but wow! I’ve never felt really fixed. I know I’m not. I know I just like the way he tastes. I know one healthy meal doesn’t cancel out a lifetime of cigarettes and intentionally burnt toast, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like everything would be alright.

I pull away to take a breath. “I love you, Rob.”

“Who?”

Notes:

Me after adding atheism in the kiss scene:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tOPvr5RiUXH9WY1oj5YZWy2ot4b6JP4WBFxtmZOe4lY/edit

tbh Robs monologue was just me before I asked out my ex (don't worry were still friends we just broke up cuz of her dad) also the reptile guy is based of my cousins boyfriend who lives next to my grandparents with her and does in fact fix motorcycles, and the celery woman is based off my grandma who has a dog named Ollie and learned to set land mines when she was in the army. The green locs guy isn't based off of anyone I just wanted to come up with some cool guy, the band World Class Defects is my uncles band he was in, tho but he doesn't have a custom painted bus lol

Chapter 7: Yeah, you messed up

Summary:

Void drama happens bc Julius is a loser and Rob is emotional also Rachel and Molly r there

Notes:

This fic is never gonna fucking end (and I'm fine with that lol) Its 63 pages on google docs btw

“Shut up, bro.” I roll my eyes at him.

“Uh..I-uhm I’m sorry? I-“ he looks me up and down. “I don’t know who you are, or uh w-why, uhm…who Rob is, either.”

Why does he seem serious? And why it so windy all of a sudde- “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?”

Rob POV: It feels like I just woke up and there’s some grayscale bomb kid with his hands on my hips. I have no clue what is going on, I don’t think I even know how I feel about it, this guy seems to know, though.

My head feels light…

“What the-!”

“AGGHHHHH!!!” The bomb guy is holding on to me for dear life as we're being sucked into this…rip? Like, in the universe?? That just all of a sudden…appeared? is this bad should I be screaming, too? This feels bad.

 

“GASP-! CoUgh! CouGH! OUCH, OW, FUck- ARGH My HEAD!”

“OH MY GOD- ROB!! ARE YOU OKAY!!?!?”

“NO I'M NOT, JUL- ARGH- MY HEAD! OUCH! SHIT!” I’m clutching onto my head with enough pressure to crack my skull open, and Julius is frantically looking around for something to help. He can’t find anything so quickly takes off his hoodie and ties it around my head VERY tight. The pain is so unbearable that I’ve started crying and breathing heavily, and then all of a sudden as if waiting on the snap of someone’s fingers…it ends.

“AGHH OH MY OW- … Oh my god.” I wipe my tears with the arm of the hoodie.

“I remember everything, dude.”

“HUH, THE FUCK ARE YOU-?”

“I’m okay, Julius. I remember what happened to me. It doesn't hurt anymore.”

“WHAT, I- UH…Huh?”

 

“Where the fuck are we?”

D A Y 0 1 V O I D

We look out at the static filled deteriorating landscape, filled with seemingly random garbage no one would care about, or rather, is better off without….

Guess it makes sense why I’m here

and Julius is only here because I dragged him with me…

“Dude, this is in-“

“I’m sorry.” A tear forms at the corner of my eye.

“What.”

“I'm sorry I dragged you here. I’m sorry I kissed you. I’m sorry you have to deal with me. I’m so sorry, I-” I start sobbing into my hands.

“Woah! Rob, calm down!” He crouches down and wipes the tears out of my eye. I just keep sniffing and batting my eyelashes. I really don’t need to cry, I’ve embarrassed him with my overdramatized emotions enough.

I rub my eyes. “Dude, I don't give a shit about any of that! I’d rather be here with you than there alone! If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t hang out with you, and If I didn’t like you I wouldn’t be doing this again.” He leans into my face but stops himself. “Wait, shit, sorry, this is probably a bad time, huh?”

“We just got sucked into a portal to what is seemingly the universe's garbage bin.” I wipe the remaining tears off my face and gesture at the…place…we’re in right now. “I was just crying because I have no control over my emotions, and now you want to put your tongue in me?”

“Don’t say it like that, but pretty much yeah.” I laugh a little bit. “Alright...I guess if you want to."

“I do.”

I feel my face flush and my eye probably dilated. “I do too.”

He gets down from his crouch onto his knees and I wrap my arms around his shoulders. I lightly kiss him. He lightly kisses back. That’s all I really want. I already feel pretty shaken. I guess he feels the same.

“Get a room, you two!” We hear a girl's voice yell.

“Rachel!? What are you doing here!?” I quickly shoot up and dust myself off.

“What are you doing with that kid?” She jokingly asks.

“Hey, I have a name, girl!” He replies, offended.

“Well I have a name too, boy!” She sticks her tongue out at him and turns to me.

“Seriously, I can’t believe you're dating him.” Julius furrows his brow.

“Who is this chick, Rob!?” He violently gestures his arm at her.

“This is Rachel, she’s the girl who pretended to be my mom over the phone.”

“Ooh! So that’s who you were calling.” He folds his arms and side eyes her.

“Yeah, and I’m definitely stronger than you so don’t fight me, kid” He scoffs. “Whatever, I’m leaving!” He walks off the chunk of land we’re on to another one, I honestly don’t know where he thinks he’s going.

“Your boyfriend needs anger management classes.” My entire face turns purple, for two reasons; one: we've been here for two minutes and my jackass boyfriend has already picked a fight, and two: he's my jackass boyfriend.

“Yeah he’s kinda like my boyfriend now, isn’t he?”

“Well, I mean you were just kissing him.”

…

“Why are you even here, Rachel!?”

“Bro, I don't know! I was literally out on a date with Clare and then, all of a sudden I’m in some hellish limbo questioning everything I’ve ever known!”

“Weren't you on that date the other day?”

“Ehhh…yeah nooo. That was...well I don’t know how long ago, because all the clocks here are broken and I don’t even know if time operates the same here, but like…It was a while ago. I really miss her, to be honest.”

“Oh, sorry, Rachel…Wait, if you were here, then how-!”

“Did I call you? I had my phone on me when I came here.”

“Huh, but how did you charge it, and how did you get service?”

“There’s chargers here they just only work at a certain angle, it’s super annoying, but yeah I don’t kn-“

“ROB COME SEE WHAT I FOUND!” Julius is waving me over from on top of a pile of broken analog clocks. This place is uncomfortably familiar.

“We’re coming!” I shout back. I tried to quickly run to him but had to be saved from falling into the void by Rachel.

When we get over to Julius we are presented with a treehouse. “Woah, Rachel, what’s that.”

“A treehouse.”

“You’ve never seen it before?”

“Not really, most things just fade in and out of here when you're not using them.”

“That's…so weird.”

“Guys, shut up. I wanna go up and see what's in it.” Julius grabs my hand and we sprint to the treehouse. We get inside and see a black dinosaur frozen in place. She looks familiar. Why is she…paused?

“Who is this?”

“Should we try and unfreeze her?” I reach out and touch her, I immediately recoil my arm, in shock. When she jolts back to life and starts telling a story. “So then I said, ‘My mom!’ Oh hey, Rob, Julius.”

“Uhh, hey…Molly?” She doesn't say anything so I assume I remembered her name correctly, “Who the fuck are you?” but clearly Julius doesn't.

“I'm Molly! sit behind you in history. I saw you yesterday.” She explains with a frown.

“Molly, no one has seen you in like, two months!” I actually like Molly, I know people think her stories are boring, but I don’t really mind them that much, I thought she moved away. Why did the world just throw her away? Am I boring? Is that why I’m here?

Did I do something wrong? Is this like hell? Was my mom right, do gay people go to hell? I’m definitely gay. Or in some way queer. Or I don’t know, maybe just normal gay. Maybe Julius is just an exception, like I would normally be into girls but he’s just so…cool that I made an exception for him. He’s not the best though, I’ve seen how he treats people. I just like to convince myself he’s really better than that, but he’s a pretty big asshole.

Not to me, though. I know that’s not a good thing, but like…did he always like me? Did I always like him?

“Have you guys been here all that time and I… just didn’t know?”

“What, no we just got here like,” he checks his nonexistent watch. “ten minutes ago.”

“Oh…that reminds me of a-!”

“Hey, guys, what’s- Woah another person!” Rachel climbs into the treehouse with us and immediately goes up to Molly.

“How long have you been here, girl!?” She gets up in her face.

Molly blushes. “Two months, apparently. I thought I was only here for a day but…I guess not. Uh, my name is Molly by the way!” She smiles.

“Yeah, she was, like frozen, or paused!” I explain to Rachel.

“Huh, that’s weird…ya’ wanna see my house!?” Molly lights up.

“What!? You have a house!? How come you didn’t invite us!?” Me and Julius exclaim at the same time.

“Uhh, I was going to but then your little bomb boy interrupted me!”

“Ew, don’t call me that!” Julius grimaces at the name.

“I mean, you didn’t even mention it.” I say.

“Okay fine, whatever!” She stands up from her crouch. ”Molly, Julius, and Rob, do you guys wanna stay at my house?”

Molly bounces up. “Yes please!”

“I guess if I have to.” Julius rolls his eyes and leans against the wall, in an attempt to act cool.

“Yes I do.” I say with a grin.

“Alright we’ll then let’s go!” She jumps out the treehouse's entrance and lands the eight foot drop perfectly. Molly gasps when she jumps but her eyes widen when she lands so effortlessly. “Woooahhh she's so cool.” She says under her breath while blushing. Hopefully she knows she can’t get with Rachel, because she clearly has a crush on the taken highschooler.

“Since when could you do that!?” I ask from the treehouse.

“You pick up on a few things here!” She yells back. “Now hurry up and get down here, guys!” We quickly make our way down the ladder, except for Julius who goes really slow, probably just because he wants to do the exact opposite of anything Rachel asks or suggests.

He eventually gets down and we all follow Rachel, she keeps looking back to make sure we haven’t fallen into the void. I hold onto Julius’ sleeve, because I’m s̶c̶a̶r̶e̶d̶ want to make sure that if one of us goes we both do.

We make it to the house, which is blue and red with teeth under the roof and eyes on the top. It doesn’t seem that bad. “Here she is!” Rachel breaks off to indicate the building. “It looks like it's made of Papier-mâché(Why in the world is it spelled like that) or something, and there’s insulation popping out all over the place, so be careful. Looking at you, don't gamer rage on my house, or nothing.” She directs her attention to Julius.

“What did I even fucking do!? C’mon let’s get out of here, Rob.”

“Wh- I wanted.. to look at the house…”

“The house is stupid, Rob! we can find somewhere else to crash, come on!” He grabs my arm.

“NO!” I shove him off. “I don’t want to go with you, man!”

He’s offended. “Fuck you! I don’t need you! And I definitely don’t need your highschool girlfriend! Go make out with her in that dumbass house and see if I care!”

“Julius, wait! You know, that’s not-“ he’s already gone.

…

WHAT IS HIS PROBLEM!?

Rachel has a look on her face like. “Ooooohhhh” in a second hand pain kind of way, and Molly has her hands over her mouth. This is probably the first interesting thing that's ever happened to her.

“Rob, are-“ Rachel starts.

“What room am I going to be staying in?” I ask, head down.

“First one on the left after the living room.” I speed walk in the hose to the room, lock the door and lay down on the mattress, it’s a waterbed, but only gets wet when I cry on it.

Some time later

“Hey, Rob. You good?” I lumber into the living room, dragging my body behind myself.

“I’m fine.”

“Julius has been waiting for you.” Molly tells me.

“WHAT!? Him!? Here!?” I shrink and look around.

“He’s out on the porch, I told him he could have the basement but he didn’t wanna come in.” Rachel says.

I let out a pained sigh and decide I should probably go talk to that explosive shithead. I slowly creak the front door open. He doesn’t notice me, he’s listening to music on a cassette player. I sit next to him and he quickly takes the headphones off and throws the player to the side. He awkwardly flashed an uncomfortably big smile.

“What are you listening to?”

“Huh? Oh, uh nothing it’s a blank tape.” He awkwardly laughs, like he’s on death row.

 

J.O.Jr POV:

I really messed up. I’ve been sitting here for hours trying to come to terms with the fact I’m an asshole and as soon as I got the guy of my dreams I treated him…just horribly. I realized that I really like him. Like butterflies and rainbow barf, I-giggle-thinking-about-him kind of like.

I’ve pretty much always known I was bisexual, but I could never accept that I had a crush on anyone. People do embarrassing things when they're in love and I’m not an exception. I once asked an emo person out with a Diary of Jane pickup line. I even once cussed out my boyfriend over something that didn’t even matter…

“Oh…so”

“Rob, I-“ I accidentally interrupted him. Not going good so far. “Sorry. You, go first.”

“Julius, are you uh…I just-“

“Rob, I am so sorry. Please don’t break up with me.”

“Huh?”
“I know I messed up, I don’t have any excuses. I acted like a loser and that was not cool. I promise you I’ll never do anything like that again...just…please…please don’t leave me…because.” I start talking to the ground.

“Julius I-” I don’t want to interrupt him again but I need to get this out.

“You’re all I have. All my friends are assholes and I’m the same as them, but I don’t want to be…I love you Rob, and I don’t want to stay like this forever you’re good for me. I feel like I become a better person around you, and, uh I really wanted to just blame this all on Rachel, but yeah, it was my bad.”

“Wow. I never thought I’d hear you say something like that.” I look up from the ground and face him.

“I’m not mad at you.” I sigh. “I forgive you, but I know, like, that you might not change. I really like you Julius, but every time I see you do something shitty I feel like I always just see you the way I want to and not who you really are…I just don’t know if it would be worth it to date someone like you…” I’m scared now. “I think it would be best if we were just friends but whatever happens happens and I’m fine with that. I just want to see that you’ve changed before I can commit to anything. Plus I really like kissing you. I don't wanna just kill this thing.”

…

Huh, I’m surprisingly fine with all this. I laugh. “I like kissing you, too.”

…

“Hey wanna put something on that tape?” I ask.

“Yeah! Like what?”

“I dunno this is all pretty weird, isn’t it?. We could do like a video diary of whatever this place is!”

“Woah, that’s an awesome idea!”

“Day one in this…void! This is Rob Needlemeyer.”

“And Julius! You don’t need to know my last name, what are you? a cop?”

“So today we saw Rachel!”

“Unfortunately.”

“and we got in a fight, but it’s okay now.”

“We have no clue what this place is, it's like a static junk pile.”

“Ugh junk pile.”

“Uhhh, hey Rob, what do people normally say in these things?”

“I don’t know, but we should stop now because we only have 80 minutes and who knows how long we’ll be here, we can figure it out la-“

I stop the recorder to save space on the tape like Rob said we should. We start giggling and just talking about random junk. Rachel comes out in a wife beater and some purple athletic shorts.

“Hey guys, you ready to head to bed yet?” She asks as she leans against the doorframe. She’s trying sooo hard to seem cool, it’s honestly embarrassing. Regardless, we follow her inside. The black dino girl blushes at Rachel because her standards are ridiculously low. I head down to the basement, Rob and Rachel go to their own rooms and dino girl crashes on the couch.

Notes:

I wrote the jackass boyfriend line bc I was listening to Death by Dodgeball while editing this

https://gezebellegaburgably.bandcamp.com/album/snailcore-del-cks

Chapter 8: For once the void is external

Summary:

voiiid hyjinxxx!!!😝😝😝 Remember, you cant break the road laws if there are none.😎

Notes:

keep in mind the fact that Julius is wearing capris this entire chapter

Rock N Roll Mcdonalds-Welsley Willis: https://open.spotify.com/track/190l7oYBQe6JBsWPJM2uNN

Meth Wax-https://open.spotify.com/artist/3PtKFI3Py8YVd7JhwjMeoN

Overloaded(their name is a Diary of a Wimpy kid refrence)-https://open.spotify.com/artist/5UZNWtgbrQ09VXZpWXcANT

DAY 02 IN THE VOID

After what felt like hours of just rolling around in my new bed, trying to convince myself I'm sleeping and thinking about random stuff I finally decided to actually get up. My shorts aren't super uncomfortable to sleep in so I just slept in my underwear but when I got up I noticed a box labeled “capris” I looked in and found a lot of ugly khaki short pants, but there was this pair of black ones with a ton of pockets that weren’t that bad. “Welp. I'm a capris guy now, I guess.” I slip them on and head up the stairs. Rachel and Molly are on the couch playing video games.

“Where’s Rob?” I ask them.

“He’s in the room.” Great. the room.Thanks Rachel. There's only one room in the direction that Rob went last night, though so y'know. I figured it out. I open the door without knocking and I see him in the corner of the tiny room, on a patched up waterbed. He’s writing something in a spiral notebook with half the pages off the spiral. “What’re you writing?” I jump on top of the bed, but fall on my back because it's all wobbly.

“Oh my god! Don’t do that!” The jump caused him to drop his pen and notebook. “I’m writing letters to the people I remembered since coming here.”

“like who?” I ask.

“My dad, my mom, my sibling, and my stepdads. Actually you probably know some of them.”

“Really? Eh, I guess everyone knows everyone in Elmore.”

“Yeah, first of all there’s Mr. Small-”

“MR. SMALL’S YOUR DAD!?”

“No, he’s my stepdad.”

“Wow! That is so lame! He married your mom or somethin’?”

“Nope, he’s dating my dad.” I laugh obnoxiously in his face.

“Hah! That makes sense, he’s so fucking gay!” I snicker under my breath.

“Shut up! So are you!”

“Uh, Yeah, and?? Who’s your dad!?”

“Larry.” Not ringing any bells. “The guy who works at Cheezers…and everywhere else in Elmore.”

“Uuuuhhhh, yeahh I think me and my friends messed with him a few times. I’m not surprised, he definitely seems like the type to stay in the closet as long as possible, he’s a people pleaser.”

“Yeah, well I can’t pick my family.” He rolls his eyes. “My moms name is Karen, my other stepdad is like some construction worker guy. His name is Steve. I don’t really know him. I'm not gonna write him a letter. My sibling is named Blaine. They're a brat but I still miss them.”

“Uhh, you need any help with that?”

“I mean, no but you can still hang out if you want.”

“Alright cool, can I have a piece of paper?”

“Sure, you can just use any pen in the pile.” I pick a random pen from the random pile of pens that is for some reason just there. I get off the bed and start writing on the floor. Not only is there barely any ink but despite the pen looking black it's actually red. This place is more mildly annoying than anything else, I’d rather be in hell.

I’d write a letter to my dad, but I go off and do random stuff all the time, so I doubt he's that concerned, instead I start sketching random stuff, characters smoking, guns(I don’t think they should exist but they’re fun to draw), pansy division lyrics, pretty much anything that would get me in trouble at school…I kind of miss my gang.

“It’s so quiet in here, what do you want to listen to?” I take my phone out of my pocket and pull up Bandcamp.

“I don’t know…uhm do you like Overlöded or Meth Wax?”

“Overlöded is cool, what the fuck is Meth Wax, though?” I laugh but I’m not really judging him, I listen to questionably named stuff too.

“Uhh, nothing let's just play Overlöded”

“Alright whatever.” I shrug and put on the music.

“Have you seen the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies?” I ask, as Come Back At Once plays.

“I saw the first two like forever ago. Are the other two good?”

“The last one sucks, because they replaced my boyfriend, the third ones Alright, the second one is the best, though.”

“Of course you like Rodrick…don’t judge me for this, but Fregly was always my favorite.”

“I mean I’m offended that you clearly don’t see how superior Rodrick is to every other character, but yeah, he was just some autistic kid Greg hated, because he hates all minorities. I mean, all the stupid kids he drew with big noses and lips, and he’s a terrible fucking friend, he made me a worse man.” I say the last part as if I’m proud. He laughs.

“You know what? I can work on this later, we should watch the movies!”

“You think they’d have them here?”

“Let’s go ask Rachel, knowing her, she probably has a massive DVD collection.” I roll my eyes at the mention of Rachel but follow Rob out to the living room.

“Hey, Rachel, do you have the Diary of a Wimpy kid movies?”

“I only have the last one, this place only has really shitty movies.” She's putting on Axe deodorant and eating a flavor of pop tart I’ve never seen before, while she talks to us.

“Figures.”

“You could always watch Fred.” She suggests, jokingly.

“Fred!? I watched those movies constantly as a kid!” I have always despised Fred, but I’d rather watch it than the Long Haul. I groan. “Ew, I hate Fred, also Jesus Christ Rachel, why are you wearing Axe?” I wave my hand in front of my nose.

“There's no other deodorant here! You guys want the movies or not?”

“Yes! We do! I mean, I do.”

“There’s a garage that separated from the house. It's on some chunk of land, I keep all my DVDs in there.” I groan again, we’re gonna go on some hunt to find the fucking Fred movies.

“Let’s go find it!” Rob enthusiastically runs out the door, I follow. “It can’t be that far, let’s just look around from here.” How is he so energetic this early in the morning? What time even is it? Actually that’s a good question, does anyone know what time it is here?

He hops onto a little slab of land and toggles on it before stabilizing and looking around, he jumps onto a bigger, more stable piece. “Oh! Look, that's probably it!”

He’s pointing out something off in the distance. I can’t see it, the American healthcare system was blocking it. I hop over to him and look at what he was pointing at. It’s a small garage with a broken door crushed up at the top of it. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

We jump around some more to reach the disconnected garage. We walk in and see shelves and shelves full of all kinds of physical media, and also a few CRTs. “Are all DVDs a ‘mistake’ or are these all just really bad movies?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that I wanna watch Fred right now.” He starts searching for the movie. I’m just looking for anything to make fun of, which is basically this entire selection, these movies are dogshit, most of them are just knockoffs, like Aladdin. “Haha oh my god, dude, look.” I point out the Omega and Alpha collection out to Rob. “Wow, Alpha and Omega, I had all those movies back at the dump.”

“Yeah, I'd believe that.”

“Hmm it looks like there’s just a lot of sequels and final movies or seasons in collections, also a lot of American adult cartoons.” He shudders at the sight of the Family guy DVD collection on the shelf.

“Ew, Rachel likes Family Guy?”

“I hope not. OH MY GOD! FANBOY AND CHUM CHUM! I LOVE THIS SHOW!” He enthusiastically grabs a DVD and stuffs it in his back pocket, which makes him look like SpongeBob SquarePants. I snicker. “I am saving that for later.”

“Hey look, there’s the Fred movies.” I grab the first one off the shelf.

“Yeah! Fred!” He hugs me and takes the case out of my hands, “Thanks!” He breaks away. “You Ready to watch this?”

“Nope.” He laughs and then runs off. “Hurry up!” He yells to me. I rush after him and we make it back to the house.

“Hey, Rachel! We found the movie!”

“What's in your pocket?”

“Fanboy and Chum Chum. Can I borrow it pleeeasseee?” She rolls her eyes.

“Sure but if you scratch it I’m gonna make you pay for it like I’m some dude on EBay with the only copy of it.”

“I don’t have any money, cause I didn’t take my backpack into the void with me, but I get the message.” He takes the Fbacc DVD out and sets it on the armrest of Rachel’s peeling mahogany colored couch.

“Alright well I don’t wanna watch Fred so I’m gonna go to my room and draw, or masturbate, or something. Have fun.” Molly blinks quickly, out of shock.

“Eww, that’s nasty!” I exclaim.

“Shut up. Everyone fucking touches themselves! Except for like, kids and asexual people. It’s normal.”

“Well it’s weird that you're telling us! That’s weird, right Rob!?” He should defend me about this.

“I mean she is sixteen, and she says crazy stuff all the time so I'm not that phased. But I mean do you not touch yourself?” No one is loyal.

“WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW!?” My face is a darker gray, because why kind of a question is that!?

"C'aus how can I fuck with you if you don’t even fuck with yourself?”

“I- So you do masturbate?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs.

“Uh, I don’t.” Molly says, flustered.

“Don't worry Molly, I still like you.” Rob assures her.

“Yeah we’re not gonna ostracize you for that we’re gonna ostracize him for being weird about it.” Rachel points me out!

“Oh my god! Can we just move on from this subject!?” This is getting really embarrassing.

“Are you gonna answer the question?” Rob nudges me. “C’mon, kid. He doesn’t have to tell if he doesn’t wanna.” Oh, that’s surprisingly cool of Rachel. I mean she’s still a weirdo loser. But, like, that was a rare W.

“Alright, whatever.” He backs off. “Molly, you wanna watch Fred with us?”

“No, I'm gonna go write out on the porch.” She looks a little frazzled. “More Fred for us!” He stupidly jokes.

I sit down on the couch and start picking at it, he starts the movie and sits down next to me.

Fred:(giggles to himself) Judy

(The camera freezes to indicate the blonde student as Judy)

Fred:(sighs) Hmm. Judy.

(Judy waves in Freds direction)

Fred:(waves back) Hey, hey!

“So have you masturbated before?” He casually asks. My face flares up again. “I-uh…” I masturbate all the time, depression does that to a person. “Yeah, I touch myself, like… all the time.” I embarrassedly admit.

“Alright, cool.”

Fred: If I don't get any food in my body, then there's gonna be no blood in my head and then my head might fall off 'caus there's no blood in it.

“Hah! I love this movie.”

“Hey, Rob?”

“Yeah?” He smiles Bright As Day, as if last night never happened.

 

I take a deep breath in. “So, last night Rachel said that you were crying for hours…is that true.” My face cringes at myself for making him feel so bad.

“Huh? What? No way! I only cried for like an hour and a half and it wasn’t just because of you. I mean, man it’s just a lot when you suddenly remember everything from when you were younger. Lots of problems get explained even if you don't like it and even more get brought up, and not to mention my whole preconceived idea about existence is being questioned by whatever the hell…this is!”

“Hmm I guess I’m just too stupid to worry about what’s going on.” I shrug. I don’t really care, I just want to stay with him, or die. Either way works for me.

“It just felt like the only two people I had to turn to were fighting with each other, and then you just made it worse.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that…again.”

Fred:Judy. She sings like an angel, but like an angel who isn't dead because she will never die. She will live forever, until she dies.

“It’s fine now, seriously, dude.” He smiles. I smile.

One Fred later

“What do you want to do now?”

He just leans on my shoulder, in response. I blush a little.

“Can’t we just have one moment of peace and quiet?” I close my eyes and lean back.

“Sure.”

About two and a half seconds later

Rob POV:

“HEY GUYS!” Rachel runs into the living room at full speed, nearly falling on her face. “GUESS WHAT WE JUST SAW!” She exclaims. “A VAN!” She answers before we get the chance to.

“What!? Does it work!?” Julius asks, probably more excitedly than he would like to admit. “Let’s go see!” Molly yells cheerily. We all head outside and Rachel points up at it. “Woah!” I exclaim at the sight of the brightly painted vehicle. I’m feeling a weird Deja vu.

“Hah! I can see why it ended up here!” Julius jokes. “‘C'mon the keys are probably above the mirror! He grabs my arm and we dash off to the van. He gets in the driver's seat and I get in the passengers. “Woah! Hey! How old are you, eleven? You can’t drive!” Rachel yells from the front of the van.

He unfolds the mirror and the keys fall onto his lap. “That’s what you think!” Rachel hops in the back of the van with Molly. “I’m serious, let me drive. You're gonna get us killed!”

“Will you calm down!? My dad lets me drive his car every time I go to his house, oh, and by the way, IM FIFTEEN!” He turns the key in the van and slams down on the gas. We rush forward at neck breaking speed. “WHAT THE FUCK!? SLOW DOOOWN!!!” I yell in his ear. He slams the break, and we’re thrown forward, thank god I have my seatbelt on. Otherwise my brains would be on the dashboard. Jesus, are Rachel and Molly okay!?

“Are you guys all-“ I look back at the carnage. Molly's against the back of my seat, and Rachel is sprawled out on her back, against Molly. She gets up and steadies herself, “Jesus Christ! Thanks for breaking my impact, Molly, sorry about that.” She can’t even get up but manages an “I-It’s okay.”

Julius starts maniacally laughing, like he just ran a bus of schoolchildren off a cliff and then blew it up. “HEAHHAH!!! OH MY GOD!!” He’s falling out of his seat and holding on to his stomach.”I LOVE DOING THAT HAHA!!!” I start laughing too but Rachel does not find it as funny. She grabs Julius’ seatbelt from behind and pulls it against his neck. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE WHEEL.”

“HrrkUk!” She loosens her grip, He coughs, “Jesus, I’m leaving!” He opens the door and gets in the back, grumbling as he does.

“You can have my spot” I say to Molly’s corpse. She reanimates and gets in the seat. I get in the back with Julius.

“This van is lame, anyways.”

“It’s Mr. Smalls.”

“HAHAH THAT MAKES SENSE! You really have the lamest stepdad in the world!”

“Yeah I still miss him, though.”

“What!? Why should you, he doesn’t even remember you! It didn’t seem like he had the slightest clue you were his stepson last time we saw him!”

“Well he never met me as his stepson! After my parents got divorced my dad thought I was living with my mom, and my mom thought I was living with my dad, but I just…went off on my own…I was sorta going through a phase.”

“How did that work? they both just accepted that they’d never see you again?”

“I…guess.” I bury my head in my knees.”

…

“Hey, you guys wanna see something awesome?” Rachel asks.

“Here?” I ask, confused.

“Yeah why not?”

“Eh well-“ She steps on the gas, not as hard as Julius did but still flings both of us against the back of the van. She slows down a little bit, and we sit up against the wall. She looks around, before finding what she was searching for in the compartment built into the dashboard of the passenger's seat, cassettes!

“Ooh, here they are! Hey, Molly. Is there anything good?”

“Uhh, I- uh, I don’t know.”

“Let me look.”

…

”It's all just hippie shit.”

“What did you expect there to be in this van?” Julius questions, condescendingly. She sighs and rolls her eyes. “There’s gotta be something cool. Hmmm,” She is somehow driving effortlessly as she looks for something decent to play. “Oh! Wesley Willis, he’s alright.”

She grabs a blue case and takes out the cassette. She throws the case back in the unorganized pile. Instruments start playing. “McDonald’s is the place to rock. It is a restaurant where they buy food to eat. It's a good place to listen to the music.” The singer starts crudely singing, “Rock n roll McDonalds!”

I’m expecting Julius to be complaining but he actually seems fine with it. “Fine with it” as in his fuse isn’t going off. I mean I'm not that surprised who hasn’t heard Rock n roll McDonald’s?

“Rock n rolll McDonaldssss!”

“Rock n rolll McDonaldsss!”

Oh my god, are they singing together!? Well not together but they’re singing the same song at the same time! Together!

“McDonald’s is horrible, they serve quarter pounders, they will put pounds on you.” They sing at the same time. They both laugh when the song ends…did they just…bond??

This place isn’t actually all that bad…

Notes:

I'm starting highschool in two days I'm gonna kms but yeah I just wanted to write a silly little thing to ignore starting school hope u guys like it<3<3

In my google doc there's a link for this poem on the line Bright as Day cuz I'm corny asf https://mikejamescole.com/2022/04/19/bright-as-day-a-poem-by-mike-cole/

tbh this chapter name is kinda lame i might change it :T

Chapter 9: Static

Summary:

Julius and Rob find an old tv

Notes:

Sorry this took so long I don’t like it but it’s building up to something cool also I just noticed that I use … like way too often comment if y’all think I should quit that

Alright guys here it is, Heaven in Hell!” She extends Her arm to show off the broken up terrain full of most likely ineffective electronics. It looks like an old man’s workshop. There’s cassette players, TVs, Radios, lots of kids electronics, SD card readers. Pretty much anything that would be considered useless to the average person. So yeah, nothing unusual for this place.

“Okay, but there’s no way any of that stuff works.”
Julius notes.

“Some of it does!”

“We can probably fix some of the stuff we find! Nothing really looks externally damaged” This means basically nothing but it sounds like it does. Really, I just wanna have an excuse to mess around with some old junk.

“Whatever, Bob the builder.” He’s probably just opposed Because Rachel took us here. Or maybe normal people aren’t as interested in thirty year old portable computers as I am…

 

Alright guys here it is, Heaven in Hell!” She extends Her arm to show off the broken up terrain full of most likely ineffective electronics. It looks like an old man’s workshop. There’s cassette players, TVs, Radios, lots of kids electronics, SD card readers. Pretty much anything that would be considered useless to the average person. So yeah, nothing unusual for this place.

“Okay, but there’s no way any of that stuff works.”
Julius notes.

“Some of it does!”

“We can probably fix some of the stuff we find! Nothing really looks externally damaged” This means basically nothing but it sounds like it does. Really, I just wanna have an excuse to mess around with some old junk.

“Whatever, Bob the builder.” He’s probably just opposed Because Rachel took us here. Or maybe normal people aren’t as interested in thirty year old portable computers as I am…

Rachel is talking about the stuff she’s found here and Julius takes it as an opportunity to interrupt her. “I used to have, like, this Disney princess TV when I was a little kid. I always sorta wondered what happened to it.”

“You think it’s he-?”

“Can you help me look for it!”

J.O.Jr POV

Jesus Christ, I’m embarrassing. “Can you help me, pretty please?!?” I’m so lame.

“Sure!”

And he’s so nice. I want to watch porn on that Disney princess TV.

Obviously it would be hilarious, but also I’m just horny to be honest. I know he would laugh and call me a freak(but not in that way). He’s probably, like, asexual or something. Oh, but he said he masturbates. Eh, he could still be asexual.

I don’t want to have sex with him, not with anyone. but all of a sudden I’m noticing how soft his skin is and how his shirt doesn’t reach down to his shorts.

“Uh. W-why are you rubbing my arm?” He raises one side of his dark eyebrow. “Don’t worry about it.” I hug him. More like latch on to, like a parasite. “Oh uh-“ he lightly blushes.

“Shut up.” I hug on tighter and bury my head in his shoulder. Jesus why am I acting like this. I thought “emotional mood swings” were a lie I overheard during sex ed. Like, is that what this is? I’m not crazy, just biologically destined to be a little bit fucked up in the inside just because I’m a teenager? Why do I all of a sudden want to hug someone and cry? Ughhhhh I really miss my dad. I’m so lame.

I’m not really sure if I miss my friends. I miss Rob. He’s right here and I’m hugging him, but I miss Rob. Is he not the same? That’s stupid of course he’s the same!

It just feels like something’s….different.

I sigh. “I miss my dad.”

“Oh….I miss your dad too?”

“…what?”

“er, uh, I mean I miss mydad.”

“Which one?”

“Dude, I don’t know!” He throws his free arm up in defeat.

I laugh. “You don’t even know either of your dads!”
He sighs. “I mean can you really blame me?”

“I can blame whoever I want.”

He smirk laughs at my comment before venting in main. “I still barely remember what my dad was like when I was younger and I really don’t know anything about either of my stepdads.”

“Y’know what I do know about though?” He asks stupidly.

I glance at him from the side…”what?”

“How to fix any no disc error on a portable dvd player.” A portable dvd player has somehow magically teleported into his hands along with a tiny green screwdriver.

“Wait what about my tv!?”and porn.

“Shit, yeah, sorry. Jesus how did I, like, immediately forget about that?”

“Are we gonna have another amnesia immediately followed by the destruction of reality situation?” I smirk and let go of his shoulder.

“Huh? What, no shut up, dude.” He looks spaced out…literally, I guess.

“Hey, where do you think Rachel and Molly went?”

I shrug. “Mnhm”

I saw them earlier. Rob didn’t because he was too focused on the tv he has now seemingly forgotten. It looked like she was just playing on a ds. Probably playing something like solitaire. She’s so boring. This place would be a million times better if it were just me and Rob. Our own little world. Hah! How gay is that?

“Oh, hey! Is that it!?” He points off into the distance at a pink cube looking thing. I grin wide.
“It looks like it!” We rush over, and come to discover that it is in fact the pink Disney princess tv with the purple swirly plastic around the speakers at the top.

He whips out the Fanboy and Chum Chum dvd from his back pocket (which was somehow not obvious this time)

“Oh my god that show???”

“Yeah! I like it!”

“Cmon I can find something much better to watch.”

“Wh- you want me to-?”

“Yeah c'mon just pick it up.” He does so fairly easily because of the gravity here, but still complains.

“Why’re you whining? It shouldn't be heavy.”

“It’s an awkward shape to carry alone!”

“Hey guys what did you find!?” Rachel is waving at us from the distance with a box under her arm. There’s wires poking out the sides.

“Guess she found us.” Rob struggles to find a comfortable position to hold the tv. Rachel runs over, grabbing Dino girls hand to make sure she doesn’t get left behind. Is she intentionally playing into her feelings to manipulate her?

Maybe Ican respect Rachel….

To an extent. I mean seriously what is she expecting to get out of Dino girl? At least Rob is fun to mess with. He gets all purple.

“W’sat?” She asks, rushed when she reaches us.

“S’ princess tv.” I reply mockingly.

“I never clocked you as a Disney guy.” She tilts her head to the side, examining me. I hate that.

“Uh, caus’ I’m not. My parents got it for me, I watched MF DOOM music videos and Adult Swim shows on it.” I watched Pokemon and played Mario, who do I think I’m bullshitting right now? I did get my hands on Moral Orel at one point, though.

“Do you even have, like, a power supply or anything for that?” She puts her hand on her hip. Jerma style.

“Well figure it out.”

She throws up her hands, “ooookaaayyy.”

I roll my eyes. “Just out of curiosity is there any chance that you’d know how we could get a power supply for it?”

“Oh, Julius. I should’ve known you’d never talk to me willingly without trying to get something out of it.”

“Yeah I wouldn't. Do you know or not?”

“There’s a backup generator at the house. I don’t know if it works. It never really gets that dark here so I never had a reason to use the first one. Which is busted so, yeah.”

“But it’s always dark here.” Dino girl struggles to say as she helps Rob hold the tv.

“Yeah it’s weird. Don’t think about it too much.”

 

At the house

“Wow.”

“How the fuck did that work?”

Rob stares at the static on the screen in a strange awe.

“Mnhm” she dismissively shrugs.

It’s nothing to her but I can tell Rob just experienced…something”

“You alright?” I ask, genuinely.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about me!” He stands up straight and brushes his hair out of his face. “Uhhh- I’m going to go pee!” He announces before quickly exiting the room.

…

“Y'know what I don’t think I’ve peed since I got here.”

… “what.”

I ignore Rachel and follow Rob to his room(where even is the bathroom here?) I creak open the door. “Uhh. Hey?”

“Huh? Oh, hi Julius.” Rob looks up from his spiral notebook.

“So…what was that?”

“Uh, I don’t know it’s just…I don’t want to say it. it's crazy.”

“I don’t know what about our predicament could have made you think anything else that could happen could possibly even maybe be considered ‘crazy’ in comparison to what we’ve already been through.”

He laughs. “I didn’t realize you knew so many big words”

“Shut up, asshole. I could be valedictorian if I actually gave a fuck.” He just smiles like, “yeah sure”

“But seriously man, nothing is weird anymore. Just tell me what happened back there.” He sighs again.

“Okay, I uh- here sit down.” I do.

“Uhh so like, you know how I don’t really know any of my family.”

“Yeah.” I could’ve made a fatherless joke there so easily but I didn’t.

“Uh huh, so like, I saw them… in the tv…”

“Okay…?”

“It was weird because I don’t know how I knew it was them, because I don’t know what most of them look like but it was so obvious in my mind that it was them, like a dream.”

I haven’t had a dream in so long but I just nod. “My, uh mom and dad were talking to me, ‘you’re going to be so wonderful’ I uh think it was like a flashback to when I was a…baby? For some reason? And there was a ton of other family members there aunts, uncles, grandparents.” He looks up at me, with shame in his eye. I don’t know why. It’s not as if he could have controlled it.

“Okay-“

“That’s not it, though! It was multiple things like I the life I was supposed to live. None of it ever happened, I don’t think. But it all made so much sense.”

“…”

He stares at me. “Like what?”

“Huh?”

“Like what kind of things?”

“oh!well, uh actually it wasn’t all nice. Like I saw my mom and dad fight and then later my dad didn’t want to talk to me, but eventually he got himself together and started dating my stepdad. And we were happy…y’know as happy as I can be.” He takes a break and looks up to me. He doesn’t look scared or embarrassed, actually he looks happy. “And then I met you, and I thought you were going to kill me.” He laughs and I do too.”

“You’re not freaked out by all that?” He asks in a joking tone.

“Already have one schizophrenic friend. What's a schizophrenic boyfriend?” That word feels so nice to say. It used to scare me. That was stupid.

He chuckles. “Seriously though, Scott has not been taking his medication and you can tell.” He looks confused.

“Uhh am I supposed to know who that is?”

“Oh, right! That’s his real name! I’m talking about Scyth!”

“Oh yeah! The rat kid. His name’s Scott?”

“Yeah, I know. I thought it would’ve been something gayer too!”

“Hmm yeah cause he’s dating the cupcake guy isn’t he?…do you miss them?” He looks at me earnestly as if he’s expecting some piece about separation anxiety and the power of friendship.

I make some dismissive sound, “I don’t give a shit about those assholes. Do you miss your family?”

“How can I miss something I never had, that’s like British people and the sun! No, the tv stuff was something different…probably.”

My eyelids fall. “Well…I know something that can get your mind off all of that…” I inch closer to him and watch the blush spread across his face.

Notes:

I just watched Midnight Cowboy and now I’m obsessed with it so don’t worry I’ll sneak in a reference somehow also sorry it was in all bolds the first time I posted it I forgot how to code in bold and italics

Chapter 10: Watching TV makes you smarter

Summary:

shit gets wild in TV land and rob gets a new look because of it

Notes:

sorry this took forever I have crazy Midnight Cowboy brainrot

“Uhh yeah?”

“Yeah.” I wrap an arm around his shoulder. The blush spreads further.

“Wh-what is it?” He pulls his arms and legs closer to his stomach. He seems a bit anxious. He always seems a bit anxious.

“Reconnecting with your family!”

He does nothing for a second then pushes me off, “God! You are the worst!”

“What’d you think I was talking about?” He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “C’mon though, you wanna get your mind off them, right? How about we do our entry for the day?”

“Yeah? And what day would that be?”

Before I could even try to figure out how long we’ve been here, Rachel had burst through the door “guys-!”

“Can’t you knock!?” She interrupts me and starts frantically talking. “Your TV is all messed up! You gotta come see it, it's like, freaking oh my god! Just- hurry up!” She runs back out of the room I go only after Rob gets up and follows her.

In the living room the Disney TV is shaking and messing up everything around it! Like, leaving patches of static where there should be living room. Dino girl is in a corner. She looks scared and I doubt she’s really capable of comprehending the situation. Even to me it makes no sense! The TV is spitting random rays of light and patterns in different colors and mediums and it sounds like a million different channels are playing from different directions, and it’s so goddamn loud! And the heat, Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m in the damn desert. The area around it with random blocks of gray and static, replacing reality. It looks like we're living in a corrupt file, and it looks like it’s spreading which is kinda a little bit terrifying.

“We have to unplug it!” I yell over the excruciatingly loud voices and music and lightning bolt sounding electrical stuff. “I’m not touching that!” Rachel says, even louder. Of course, she’s useless! What’s new!?

I turn to Rob and see the same zoned out look as before but ten times worse, he looks nearly dead. I pull at the collar of his shirt and bring him down to my level so he can cover his eye. “Snap out of it, Rob!” He looks up at me and blinks quickly.

3rd person POV

“Julius? Wh-what’s going on?” Rob looks up from the comfortably familiar “Side Splitter” hoodie and sees Julius’ face in a black void. “You can’t hear it. Or see it or feel it!? The TV’s all fucked up!”

“What are you talking about?” He turns away from him, hearing a sharp static begin to grow. Through the corner of his eye he sees a source of light Turing the black gray. “No! don’t look at it, you idiot! It’ll mess you up again!” Oh first the TVs fucked up, now he is? “What exactly is going on here..? Where is here?”

“We have to unplug the TV! Can you do it without looking at it!?”Julius didn’t actually hear him, he heard a woman’s voice deliver a one liner about laundry, he assumed since Rob didn’t seem to notice what was going on he must not be affected by it. It must be true because Rob didn’t hear the woman, or see her. All he could conceive was he was in Julius’ arms in a new void and he was being pulled away and towards something.

He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but the buzzing noise and the tinted light felt like home. It could’ve been a trap, but he didn’t care, he needed to get away from the nothing. From the void. The buzz turns into a hum that could almost be musical. He follows the rhythm as the room gets brighter, he closes his eye, and finds himself able to see with his hands. His hands that gently meet a warm metal box.

He runs his fingers down the sharp edges of this mystery box and hears multiple voices whisper to him how much he’s loved. His hand moves lower and meets glass. He puts his ear closer, hearing happy chattering and laughing. These voices must be his friends. It took him a moment to realize it. He isn’t used to having so many. Typically, when he heard multiple voices, it was in a constricting hallway or a party scene in a movie. Not this. This is something much better.

He wants to reach through the glass to hug his new friends.

“You’re so funny!”

“You think so?”

“We love you!”

“You do?”

“Do you want to hang out with us?”

He’s hanging on the words. They’re saying it normally but it sounds like the volume has been turned down. To him, this only makes their cheery comments and questions turn into special and personal sentiments. And right now, he’s just waiting for them to say that three letter word. Waiting to hear how much they love him.

“You’re the best….”

“yeah? Go on, say it.”

“Gumball!”
He opens his eyes and feels like he’s being cut open by a million blades of light. His eye immediately fills up with tears and he can only see static. He tries to close it in some sad desperate attempt to go back to where he was, but instead he just hears screaming and cruel laughter right in his ears.

They start bleeding and all he can hear is a high pitched ringing with two distant disembodied voices, “holy shit he’s bleeding!”

“Unplug it, Rob you’re so close!” He forces his body to reach to the back of the TV. It seems almost impossible to find the chord, since he's feeling a million invisible needles in his body, and can't see anything that isn't black and white pixels, but he still pushes himself.

his hand finds the chord and he tugs on it as hard as he can. As soon as the TV goes out, he immediately collapses, but tries to get back up again when he hears everyone he just pulled the plug on crying, their tears harden and turn into a million little spikes. He desperately scrambles to try and find the outlet again without the help of his eyesight. “I’m sorry! Please no! Come back! You can scream, I don’t care! Just come back! I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m-!” Searching for the outlet, he ends up leaving a multitude of holes in the drywall.

“What the hell are you doing, man!?” He hears Julius yell at him and then feels his hands holding him back. “I have to I- I killed them!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! The TV’s fucking with your head!” Now he’s mad. You don’t know him, Julius. You don’t know what he’s done and you don’t know why he has to do this so just, “Shut up!” He elbows him in the ribs and rushes towards the wall in a desperate attempt to find the outlet. “Ow! What the hell, man!?” He wraps his arms around the area Rob had hurt and heels over in pain.

Just as Rob had found the outlet and was about to plug in the TV, he’s stopped by Rachel grabbing him by the ankles and pulling him away. He tries to kick and take the plug back when Julius snatches it from his hands but all he accomplishes is crying, throwing up and then passing out.

JOJR POV

Maybe this TV shit is more serious than I thought. I mean, seriously what was all that!? And what’s up with his eye? Is he blind? And his legs and arms too! He looks like he was struck by lightning! There’s no hospital here to treat him! At least not any one that’s a good idea to visit. God when is he gonna wake up!? Stressing me out. I’ve already chewed my nails off. Now my fingers are bleeding. I need to do something!

I wipe my bloody fingers on the crappy hoodie I had to wear after Rob threw up on mine, and start to search the empty room for something to distract myself with….wall….wall….floor…Rob passed out on the bed and covered in freaky scars….wall again….The tape recorder! Of course! I'll start today's entry. I can talk about how terrified and anxious I am, and hopefully Rob will wake up and finish it with me, confirming all my fears wrong!

I sit down on the carpet and take a breath in before I hit the record button. It’s shaking in my hands, so it doesn’t really matter what I say. No one will be able to understand it if they play it back.

“Sigh…okay, uhh this is Julius. Only Julius. So, uhm today everybody went out and we found this TV I used to have as a little kid, but it’s all crazy and weird or something, so we threw it out…it’s like.” I take another stupid breath in and start picking at the carpet instead of running my fingers along and spreading blood all over the tape recorder.

“I dunno what even it was fuckin’ weird. Ughh like lights and sounds and colors and shit but if they were evil and like, glitching all over the place. Uhh yeah and I dunno what’s wrong with Rob, but he passed out because of it, and uhh…” I pause considering if I’m about to do what I’m thinking about.

“...Rob, if you’re listening. I hope you’re okay. Wherever you could be when you hear this or even…wherever you are now! Or wherever you were in the TV! Whatever! The point is- fuckin’, I care about you, man. I mean you’re my boyfriend for Christ sake! And if you think I’d be mad caus’ you elbowed me- I’m not! I was the one that made you get electrocuted! So come back already!” I stare at the corpse on the bed as I speak into the dated device. “Please? Maybe? I know I don’t deserve it, but-”

Just then I noticed Rob’s eye flutter open and immediately threw the tape recorder aside. I ran to the side of the bed. He made a sort of grunting noise and turned away from me. “Rob!? You’re alive!? Did you hear all that?” He just squints his eye in response. I back up a little bit. He sniffles and I notice how milky his eye is. Not nearly as white as a few hours before but still concerning.

“Mmm? Julius?”

“Yeah! I’m here!” I return to hovering over him.

“You’re…blurry.”

“Dammit! Did you lose your eyesight!? Oh my god! You’re blind! What the hell!?”

“Hey is he up!?” Rachel burst through the door. “God can’t you knock!? How did you even know, were you eavesdropping on us!?”

“We’re in the room over and you’re screaming! Get out of his face!” I stand up straight and shoot her a look. Rachel and Molly enter the room and we all huddle around Rob. He sits up and rests himself against the wall. Rubbing his eye he says, “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on!? He wants to know what’s going on!? I’ll tell you! You bled through your ears, threw up on me, and passed out! What’s going on is I wanna know if you’re okay! I mean, can you see!?”

“We all wanna know if you’re okay.” Rachel interjects.

“Yeah that looked pretty serious.” Dino girl says in a timid tone.

Rob stares at us and I pray he can see how worried we all are. “…I’m okay.”

A wave of relief washes over everyone in the room, but especially me. I wrap him in a hug. Rachel sighs and leans on Dino girl. It takes him a second but he hugs me back. He feels weak. I release him and hold him by the shoulders. “What do you need, Rob? I can get you anything you need.”

“Uhh I think I’d need glass.” He rubs his eye.

“Wh- glass? Why?”

“Well I couldn’t wear glasses with only one eye!” He points to the milky eye and laughs. I chuckle a little too, glad he’s healthy and comfortable enough to make jokes.

“I don’t even know what I would need, though. Everything’s sorta blurry and…bright?” I take my hands off him and turn to Rachel. Obviously I don’t like her and I’m certain she doesn’t like me either, but we give each other a look of mutual understanding. We’re gonna have to work together to help him. I could do anything he needs on my own fine, but I know that’s not what he wants…or needs, probably.

“I think you just need some more rest.” Rachel says. Rob yawns and stretches. “Okay.” I know I shouldn’t be thinking this after everything that’s happened, but he’s kind of adorable. I could sleep next to him. That would help, right? I want to help him lay down but he does it just fine on his own. “Goodnight!” He closes his eye. I laugh. “Night, Rob!”

“All right, c’mon.” Rachel gestures for me to leave with her. We do and I rush so I can make it to the couch before her, but when I get there, I realize there was no reason for me to. Her TV shouldn’t be plugged in at all! I go over to it and squeeze up against the wall. Sure enough, there’s a ton of wires back there and they're all plugged in.

“What are you doing?”

“I should be asking you that! Why is all this shit plugged in! Do you want all that-” I gesture crazy circles around my head “stuff to happen again!”

“I don’t think you realize how bored we’d be here without that TV.” She points a judgemental finger.

“Well I don’t know there’s a lot of cool things to do he-” Dino girl starts.

“Me and Rob are gonna be outta here soon! I don’t want him to die before then!”

“What makes you so certain you’re gonna make it out of here!? I haven’t! Molly hasn’t!” She gestures towards the Dino girl who I guess is named Molly.

“Well I haven’t tried to get out, but-” Molly begins to say.

“Because we have to, okay!” I interrupted. “We can’t stay here forever! Maybe you don’t, but I have a life! My dad’s probably worried sick, and- and I miss walking on stable ground, and sleeping in my own bed, listening to my own music and watching my own movies and Rob, this place it….it fucks him up and I can’t keep seeing him hurt! I can’t! He always forgives me and I don’t deserve it!” I hadn’t realized it but there’s a tear streaming down my face.

They’re staring at me. I feel sick. Judged. weak.

“…He’s gonna be okay, Julius.”

I sigh and wipe the tears away. “You don’t know that. Nobody does.”

“No, I do. You know how?”

“How?” I start messing with the drawstrings on the shitty hoodie I have to live in now.

“Caus you’re okay.” I want to yell at her. Tell her how little she knows, but instead I just keep tearing strands from the drawstring and listen. “I know I don’t show it, but this place is fucking with me, and I know it’s fucking with you too, but…you’re still here and you keep trying for yourself and him. That’s something to be proud of even if we weren't in this staticy hell. Rob really loves you, and even though you’re kind of a prick, I’m glad he has you.” I laugh at her calling me a prick and she smiles. It doesn’t feel as evil as she is. And it almost seems nice when she says, “We can unplug the TV if you really want to.”

“No, it's fine. I can- I’ll ask Rob if he wants us to when he wakes up.”

“Okay.” She sits down on the couch and picks up a book next to the leg. I sit next to her.

Rob POV:

Man, what is up with my eye? Everything’s so bright. I feel like I’m in a constant state of being flashbanged. I feel a little bit sick, but don’t let that stop me from standing up and stretching. I keep rubbing my eye, hoping that will help.

After a little bit of straining my eyes trying to focus on stuff and stretching my limbs, I finally decide to go try and find Julius. Just to let him know about everything, and Rachel too. I don’t know if she was worried. She never really seems all that concerned with anything unless it's hating her brother or some random losers in her math class.

I walk down the hallway fairly slowly. My hand follows the wall as I do. Now that I’m actually moving the object of not being able to see has become larger and easier to trip over. I make it to the corner and take a small breath in before I walk out into the living room. “Rob!” I hear Julius bounce off the couch and can see bits of black and gray poking through the lights in my eyes.

“How are you?” I wish I could see his expression as he says this. “Uhh y'know fine. I feel a bit sick, I guess, but I always feel like that.”

“Cool, cool…”

“hey do you want us to unplug the TV!?” Rachel’s voice is nice to hear. And her fluffy orange and pink hair is a comforting somewhat visible thought. “Uhh oh that one…well it’s your TV.” I scratch my arm and decide to attempt sitting on the couch. I get maybe two steps into the journey before my foot slams into the side of my object. “Ouch! Aughh.” I lean over the armrest and hold onto my foot.

“Oh shit. You alright?” I feel Julius’ hand on my back. “Yup.” I say through a clenched jaw. I put my foot back down and only let the heel touch the ground. “Hey where’d you put my shoes?” I reach out a hand to try and find my way onto the couch Rachel holds it and guides me. “Oh. Your shoes they’re back in the room.” Julius says.

I sigh. “I guess that’s fine. I’m not going anywhere like this.” This is my life now, I guess. Invisible to myself, too! I can hear and feel him fall onto the couch next to me. “Your sight hasn’t gotten better yet?”

“Maybe…a little bit??” I can sense his concern. “Uhh but it probably just needs more time. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine soon.” I smile and look where I think he is. “Okay well, uh you’ll need a walking stick until then!”

“That…might help.” I say as my foot suddenly decides it wants to hurt extra now.

“I could definitely find something in the basement. Hold tight.” He ruffles my hair and then runs off.

“How you feeling, kid?”

“Huh? Me. I- I already said I’m fine. I said that, right?”

“You did. I just didn’t know if you were just saying that because you didn’t want him to worry.”

“Oh. No, I meant it. Other than my eye, nothing’s wrong.” Other than, I feel pretty embarrassed and a bit concerned if I really had done all the things Julius said I did.

“Sure, physically you’re fine, but what about mentally. I mean you sorta sounded insane back there.”

“I don’t…remember it…” I make a fist on my temples and try to pull out some slight recollection of a few hours early but come up with nothing. “I think that’s the worst part. I hate the way it feels to forget. Or just, not know, I guess.” She wraps an arm around me.

“That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I mean, just based on what you were saying and the things you've gone through before, it doesn’t sound like it was anything you’d want to remember. I know you have some things you’d like to forget. Everyone does. There’s plenty of people and things that missing out on is actually for the better. Like that cat kid, Gumball, you remember him?”

Gumball…holy shit gumball…that….asshole! This is his fault! He ignored me! He forgot about me! He’s a selfish idiot and this is all his fault! I'm going to get him back. “Okay nice talk, see you later!”

“But I wasn’t done tal-“ I get up and quickly leave the living room, making a wide turn in a successful attempt to not hit anything on the way out. I make it back to my room and shut the door, then I put out my hands and try to feel for the bed. My legs find it first, and I fall onto it stomach first. I just sit up straight and slide off to the floor. I sit there, cross legged. I just need a moment to process what I remembered. My vision in the TV. All my friends, all those amazing people that cared about me. It wasn’t actually me who they cared about, it was him; Gumball Watterson.

Usually when I'm ignored by people it's somewhat excusable because they don't know me, but I was friends with Gumball, and Darwin too! They had hung out for a whole summer! But as soon as school started he had just forgotten me! And what I saw in the TV. Somehow he had managed to force me to see what I was missing. What he had that I didn’t. He just wanted to rub in my face how much better his life is than mine. What did I do!? Was it because I was a little bit awkward? Was it because I liked different games? I was just too weird? for them? Am I just boring? Maybe it was because my parents were fighting when they came over…. Huh I didn’t even realize I had remembered that too. My parents. I’ve never remembered much of them before the divorce. It’s like I just got another piece of the puzzle. But I didn’t get any satisfaction from finally putting it in place… Just then I heard a knocking on the door and then it squeaking on its hinges and Julius entering the room. “Here I found this little metal stick thing!”

“Oh.” I take it in my hands but can’t really think about it right now. “Hey you know that Gumball guy.”

“Uhh yeah his brother is that little sunshine and rainbows kid. He’s a prick.”

“Darwin or Gumball?” I ask. He just makes a sorta “I dunno, does it matter?” sound.

“Yeah. I want him to die.” He chokes on a laugh as he replies, “oh? That’s new.”

“Yeah, ‘Caus, I didn’t realize it before, but all this.” I gesture around at everything I can barely see. I think my eyesight is getting worse.“is his fault.” The laugh in his mouth disappears and he says, “wait, seriously?”

“Yeah! Listen, I don’t know how he did it, but I saw him in the TV, and he was…mocking me. I know all this is his fault, and I’m gonna get him back.”

“We’re gonna get him back. Caus’ if that self centered asshole is the reason we’re stuck here, then I’m killing him as soon as we get out!”

JOJR POV

Thank god he isn’t blaming me. He should be! After all the horrible shit I did to him! But I’m so relieved he’s not. I don’t deserve it. Not even a little bit, but oh my god, it feels so nice to know he doesn’t hate me. I mean, if he’s right about this then he has plenty of reason to hate Gumball! Which absolves me of the horrible thing I did of course!
…

I feel like shit about this. “Uhh anyways I’m reaaally tired, so if you could just leave me to rest that would be great!”

“Oh, yeah of course.” I hold his hand and lead him to the bed. “Good night Rob…uh, again.”

“Yeah, see ya!” He’s trying to get rid of me, isn’t he?

I feel even more like shit.

Notes:

this marks the beginning of Robs decent so get ready