Joss MacArthur (officiallybeige) wrote in darker_london, @ 2014-08-19 21:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | joss macarthur, merry waterhouse |
The rule that says self-interest is divine (Joss, Merry)
When we last left our hero he was suffering the after effects of a nasty car accident, piled on top of nearly two months of shitty food, worse sleeping habits, and the wild and twitchy belief that this was love and love would conquer.
In a haunted motel in Liverpool, Joss was lying in a rented bed, not sleeping. Of course, Joss didn't know it was haunted, but he was hardly the best person to assess what 'haunting' really was.
It was midafternoon according to the light coming through the floral curtains and the stuffy heat of the air around him. It was hell according to the pain in his body, in his head - his half shaved, banged up, messed up head.
Teagan was in worse shape too and that was basically Joss's fault and the guilt of it sort of made him want to die. Yesterday he'd taken too many painkillers and his insides, from his stomach up through his heart to the back of his throat still felt scoured, acidic and hot.
He was so so tired and he couldn't see a way for this to work out so that everyone was okay.
Merry wanted to take him back to London but Joss couldn't, because Kenzie wouldn't. Didn't matter how much he missed his shitty, stupid life there. He was too tied up in Kenzie, in Teagan. He couldn't leave yet the thought of staying on the road exhausted him. Just fucking exhausted him till he'd lost all right to call himself a Kerouac fan.
Mostly they left him alone. The girls poked their heads around the door a couple of times and Geordie tried to bring him food but he couldn't handle food - his heart burned too bad but the idea of telling anyone and possibly getting some milk didn't occur to him. It was after midnight, when the world had cooled off and the others had gone to bed, that Joss finally left his room and made it further than the bathroom.
He half expected Merry to be waiting for him in the dark living room. She was a skulker, that Merry. But the living room was quiet and empty.
It creeped him out. It had been weeks since he'd been alone indoors, Joss realised. Weeks since he'd walked the halls of the church house at four in the morning, when everyone else was asleep and the world was as close to peaceful as it ever got. He recalled the feeling now with a wave of loss so strong it had him crumbling, and he grabbed the nearest chair but ended up kneeling on the floor anyway, howling.
Maybe Merry had been skulking in her room, because she was kneeling in front of him soon enough, in long sleeved pyjamas with a faded Carebear on the front. Somehow that made everything worse. That fucking Carebear. "Joss," she said, sounding less bossy than usual because bossy had been over taken by sleepy, sleepy worry. "Joss, Joss, you need to tell me; what's one thing you need, right now. What's one thing I can do for you?"
Joss felt like a dying wretched lump on the floor who didn't deserve any help, yet there was part of him, the selfish heartbeat of life that just wanted saving. "Leon," he said. "I need Leon."