thefrontman

There was a man rifling through things in an upset manner, and it caught his attention. The curiosity about the new group getting the better of him, though in with this particular man he wasn’t getting the best impression. He frowned and watched from a distance.

Originally posted by thylovelylionheart

Jason only realized he was rudely staring when the man looked over at him, at which point he tried to clear his throat and avert his gaze too… the sky, oh christ that was a stupid direction the man wasn’t going to believe he was staring at the god damn sky instead of at him. “Uhhh… you.. you’re hurt?” He instead switched his tactic to a polite innocuous question of false concern. There was no way the man was really hurt, the way he was riffling through the meds was reminisce of the way he’d seen before. That hungry look in the eye. He’d seen it on a teenaged girl named Rachel he’d stayed out of the way of in one of the homes he’d been placed in early on. He’d seen her hit other kids who’d gotten in her way before.

He wasn’t going to accuse the man or anything, and he could very well be wrong, he wasn’t going through the sister’s supplies so it was absolutely none of his business. Though even if he were he wasn’t sure he’d stop him either.

Fucking kids. They didn’t have enough to do, apparently. It’s not like he had the authority to tell the boy what to do, but the staring was getting to him. Agitating the unsettled parts of him, the parts ready to snap and bark and demand the eyes off him. 

Justin rubbed roughly at his chin and breathed deep to keep the urges down, holding onto his mood as much as he could before it swung, quickly, down. But it was annoying even catching wind of the movement in his peripherals, this kid’s brain working overtime to seem nonchalant, forcing his brain to process any of this at all. Finally, he spoke and Justin sent his eyes towards him again, looking up under the skin of his brow, not stopping for a second in turning the bin over. 

“Do I not look hurt?” He asked, the question itself a trap, daring the kid to make assumptions that were probably right, ready to shove the words back down his throat if he dared. 

“’This all belong to you or something? Huh?” Justin raised his fists, packets of pills squeezed between his fingers in a rough, possessive gesture.

The monastery’s wearing on him, every second spent inside those strong walls another second that Eli wishes he were outside of them. Finding something more useful to do with his time than smoke and glare at replicas of Jesus on a cross. 

He can’t keep himself occupied, but if he thinks Justin might be any kind of a distraction, he proves too much of one the second Eli finds him.

It’s like a mirror to his own desires, fingers rifling through medical supplies, discarding the necessities that in this case were deemed useless. How many times had Eli been tempted, how many times had he ignored that urge? Just so he could pretend he wasn’t a junkie anymore, still trailing after those more capable. He’d rather count himself among those ranks, and his mouth still goes dry just watching Justin, that warring sense of dread and hope in his chest that he might find something stronger than a bottle of advil tucked away.

“Let me guess,“ he starts. The humor never quite comes through, it feels like poison sitting on his tongue, a festering rot in his chest that mimics the black lines taking up residence there.

“This isn’t what it looks like?”

At first, Justin doesn’t feel any alarm upon hearing Eli’s voice. But then he realizes it’s because he still hasn’t totally separated his best friend from the comatose, slurring junkie he used to be, doesn’t even know how to support the other man’s mythical sobriety when he can now barely stand his own. But even as his frustrations bubble up, the urge to tell Eli to piss off with that holier-than-thou attitude dies in his throat. 

“Wow, that is...super annoying to be on the other end of.” Is what he says instead, a subtle stab as he slows his hands down until they’re resting still on the edges of the bin in front of him. Justin sighs and makes no move to deny anything, less because it’s useless to lie about something so close to both their hearts, and more because he’s too greedy for it to be ashamed. And then another feeling bubbles up to the surface of his heart. Caution. Distant care, because whatever Justin had been intending here, Eli didn’t need to be part of it. Didn’t need to have any idea if and when he took up old crutches. The scenery was different. They didn’t both need to be part of this, anymore.

“Mind your own business, man, okay? Just turn around. It’s fine.”

Doe had to make herself ‘known’ to this group. She wanted to believe it was through her own choice, but angry brows and the sheer volume of the others meant she had to come out of her hiding spots before she looked suspicious to all of them. Or before Angry Brows went through with his threat. Doe kept her distance, though. In people’s eye line and making enough noise to be noticed but not enough to become a problem.

More of them than she realized were OK. It made her paranoid. Too kind and too nice given the state of the world. She thinks it may be because of the size of the group. Forced to behave properly because there are so many eyes on them. It’s why she’s so interested in this blonde man, the way he moves away and differently when he thinks he’s completely alone.

He left the group. Slipped away by himself and Doe followed. The man isn’t raiding the nun’s supplies but his own group’s things. So she steps closer, quiet as she can be, watching him rifle through things and reading all the labels. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it and throws a tantrum. Swears are muttered out and he’s angry.

Doe decides to make some noise to get his attention, startle him before he has the chance to notice her hovering. She steps forward and ‘accidentaly’ kicks a chair. It drags loudly against the floor and then she pipes with a quick, “Sorry.”  

She doesn’t have to pretend to be nervous about him with the apology but it helps, she thinks. Some people find nervous kids comforting because they’re not the worst off in the room. It gives her a reason to look him up and down. He doesn’t seem injured at all. She doesn’t trust him.

“Are you… hurt?” she asks slowly, hoping she’s wrong and maybe she could tell one of the nuns and help the man out. Or she’s right and has another person to add to the list of suspicious adults. 

Interrupted, again. Justin sighed before he really even processed the voice, just thinking distantly how there were way too many people here, always tripping over each other. No real privacy at any time. Annoying. The glance he sends over his shoulder is more of a formality than any real curiosity, at least until he lays eyes on her. A brand new face, but not one that he hadn’t been expecting. At least for a few days. 

“...our resident ginger ghost kid, this is a surprise,” Justin drawls in monotone, repeating more or less the phrase he’d heard from those who had seen her first. Seemed like kind of a heavy phrase for such a small kid. People here had issues. She apologizes for knocking things over, to which he just shrugs curtly. “‘Not my shit.”

Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t annoyed at her presence here. Justin wasn’t a babysitter. And he’d been so on edge lately, even the thought of dredging through ‘normal’ politeness just to be nice to strange kids was totally unbearable. He frowned down into the group’s stash and continued rifling around, his search for relief more desperate now as he forced words of greeting out of his throat. 

“In a manner of speaking. Too bad there’s nothing,” he slaps the side of the plastic bin in irritation, satisfied by the sound of something being hit, “here to help with that.” 

They were good people, here. He could use that. No one would look twice at him because he was supposed to be part of them and no one knew how little that actually meant to Justin, honestly. They were good conversationalists. Good fighters, good in general. But it didn’t matter whose wounds might have been soothed in the future by this medicine if it meant he didn’t have to spend another painfully-dull hour sober. Only, no matter how aggressively he rifled through things, nothing good appeared that he could use. Justin clicked his tongue, irritated.

“Fucking useless,” he mumbled, furrowing his brow and starting to pick through individual pieces, trying to find something he might have missed.

“Speak for yourself,” Wes scoffs. He’s never exactly had a problem with long dry spells, but he knows how much fun it is to wind up other guys about it seeing as he has no personal stakes in it,“Those sounds like the words of a man who’s given up.”

Justin continues speaking and Wes narrows his eyes. He listens in silence, watching Justin far more intently than he has before.

“ ‘you actually religious or just thinkin’ out loud?” The question comes out harsher than he means too. It’s difficult to keep his emotions in check, always has been round religious artifacts. Ruth-May woulda called that a sign of an unpure spirit in him. Maybe she was right all along.

“Cause if ya are, fuck you, if you aren’t: Any God who’d describe himself ‘above’ the fuckin’ people he made is just a cunt with a power problem.” He huffs angrily as he sits back, pressing against a sturdy-ish bush behind him, arms crossed like a petulant kid.

The more Justin speaks, the more wound up Wes gets. There was too much debate about God in his mind. People spending their lives searching for ways to sugarcoat their bastard Father up in the sky.

“Too little too late and out of fucken character for Him if ya ask me,” Wes squints around the garden then back at Justin, part of him wanting his conversation to escalate into a fight. Something to take the edge off, “ Besides, God never saves His people. He drowns 'em or burns 'em or take all their firstborns. This –” Wes gestures to the idyllic garden, Eden before the snake offered people the Truth, “ – ain’t his style.”

‘Given up’ was an interesting theory. One Justin doesn’t really comment on with words, just a quick squint and smirk as he rolled the words around in his brain. Honestly, the truth was even more pathetic than that. But there was no way to banter about the lack of sex drive and actual, physical dysfunction his chronic vexation left him with while maintaining his dignity. So he stayed mum, shrugging his shoulders to keep up the mystery, arguably the only saving grace he still had. 

“Oh, I’m totally bullshitting. One hundred percent,” Justin replied to Wes’ biting words, asking him essentially whether this was something he was passionate about or just spitting phrases to pass the time. It was more true than he liked to admit, than he’d planned, even. But it was either prattle on aimlessly without any true conviction or sit on a stump somewhere and zone. In this particular moment, he was filled with fear over what would happen if he did. He didn’t want to miss a second. He didn’t want to go. 

“I don’t know, that part sounds legit to me, man. As “our Father”, ‘above’ seems kind of fitting. When you’re a kid, you do what your parents tell you or all hell goes loose. Same situation, larger scale?”

He’s oblivious to the discomfort Wes is giving off. Oblivious to how personal this topic is, how his words seem to poke and prod at the other man’s nerves. He’s talking to talk, ruminating on topics of conversation so old and rehashed that he doesn’t really even need to think about what he says while he’s saying it, doesn’t need to feel the words or even care about them. The words anchor him, but Wes’ response, his final breakdown on how God really is, it’s powerful enough to provoke Justin to silence, blinking into space and digesting the argument.

He crosses his arms. “Mm,” Justin hums, and he almost wishes they were somewhere in the city now so he could look out at the desolation. “Well. I have to admit...most of this does feel like a planetary flood. Slash sin-cleanse...a la Sodom and Gomorrah. Not that I’ve ever lived through one before.” He blinks, the moment of respite fading. “Weird thought. Can you really hate someone who took everything, but also hasn’t yet taken you?”

“Call me paranoid,” she jokes lightly, peering out toward the plants in question once again. “Come across that stuff a few times too much and you never really stop being scared of it.”

It wasn’t the childhood at her mom’s side that exposed her to it so often, really, but her teenage years, rife with sneaky, reckless habits and a penchant for hiding away in places she wasn’t supposed to be. Roaming that wild New Brunswick wilderness with a boy she tries not to think about anymore, pretending things were fine, that they could be fine, from time to time. Pretending she was something of a delinquent, even, when she struggled to define herself as anything at all. 

Or just fabricating some reasons of her own, maybe. Trying to be a person who deserved to be treated the way she was, in case her excuses, her constant forgiveness, ever failed her.

Those thoughts are too far removed, though, or simply too intrinsic, to shadow her easy expression now as she leans her arm against the edge of the truck, reaching to fidget with the twine securing the tomatoes’ trellis. “Guess so, yeah,” she says. A quick glance toward his perch on the back of the truck has her adjusting, in a sense, though not out of discomfort. It’s simply a moment to settle into this addition to her territory before she’s continuing on. “It’s just… familiar, kinda, I guess. It’s nice.”

Speaking of familiar.

“Hey, you never did mention you knew Eli.” A rather sudden change of topic as the memory strikes. “I heard you guys play a couple times, y’know. Back then. You’re good.”

Again, Justin hums in response to her, but his thoughts drift around the concept more eagerly than they ought to. He thinks lots of things, how it might not be bad, how nice, actually, it might be to feel a very specific sort of pain like that. Stuff like that had started to call to him again, lately. In little ways. He ached for familiar feelings, tiny pricks that brought on greater pleasure. Like the needle, or dry skin, itchy under the surface. He closed his eyes and thought about those urges almost too long to reply back, expression coming back alive in time to look at Violet again. Then her plants.

He mimics her, half-turned over his back and reaching out for a different plant, fingers taking, squeezing, gently turning one of the plush leaves so he can see its whole face. 

“Yeah, I agree. I don’t know. It feels like something that happens way after everyone’s dead, you know, stuff starts to grow again. ‘Feels good to have, like, a little farm in our backyard.” A pause, his smile budging wider as he continues to stare at the little garden wistfully. “Where I ‘grew up’ there were plants all over. It just feels right. Like it’s supposed to, or something.” He rubs his face, confident he isn’t making any sense.

Justin gets wholly distracted when Eli’s name comes up, smile fading just a bit out of curiosity. His brows do a mini-jump when she says she saw them, calling feelings to the forefront of his being that he hadn’t really expected to feel again. Grinning lazily, he rocks a bit in his seat. 

“No shit?” Justin squints into space as if trying to pull the memory of her face out of the ether. Nothing comes to mind. He hunches over himself casually, brushing under his nose with his thumb. “Yeah...that’s my best friend right there. Best lead in the world. Now, at least. Probably.” A morbid smirk that feels more genuine than it ought to.

For just a second, he feels the pang of loss for that life again. It’s more stark now because here was someone who’d seen them, too--Craig, Sullivan, Rhett. He wondered if she even remembered them, how he struggled to remember her. He aches to push past it. “...’wouldn’t have thought that was your scene. Got a thing for punks, or just the words they spit?”

Wes laughs, an unexpected bark of it as Justin plays around. “You got… interesting taste, man. If you’re desperate enough, guess even a nun would do. I hear they’re all married t’Jesus though.” He shakes his head like it’ll knock the mental image out of his mind. He doesn’t even like entertaining the idea.

He listens more intently than he let on. Wes screws up his face at the word ‘prophet’. The expression stays, growing sour and the frown of Wes deep, deep in thought. A Saint predicting all of this. Wes wonders if anyone would’ve believed the crackpot if he told others. He leans forward as Justin tells him the story, hands held tightly together. Not in prayer, but in anger.

Predicting is the wrong word. God decided that one guy – out of billions – was the guy worth telling. “Fuckin’ selfish, ey? Only looking after one building with what five nuns wandering about the place? Think God would tell someone who could do more than keep one building standing…” Assuming it’s all true. That the nuns really have made it this long by nothing but divine protection.

“Let’s call this vandalism a ‘fuck you’ for keeping only his own safe.”

“Aren’t all our fucks desperate now?” Justin just smirks as Wes likens what he said to ‘his taste’. It was probably just an extension of his own joke. But even if it wasn’t, Justin had never felt the urge to leap and correct someone else’s assumptions. Maybe it was pride or maybe it was just how little he cared about any of it. Even now, prompted in part by Wes and in part by himself, Justin tries to imagine how that might go. Strange. New. Probably a great deal less satisfying than what he was used to. But that was the beginning and the end of his thoughts about it. And the saint. 

“’Selfish’ is a human emotion. How could ‘His will’ be described by mortal terminology?” Justin just hums about all of it, stories with hints of truth or not, none of it really mattered to him. The day he finally swallowed what’d happened to his friends, his family, his life, was the day his expectations hollowed out with regards to any God and what he thought. But he had to admit, he’d never seen such a convincing display of faith. 

Justin crossed his arms, blinking near the statue’s base instead. “Though, maybe He’s feeling remorse for the state of the planet. Maybe this is where He starts taking an active role in our salvation, starting now. We just have to stay put. Forever.”

“Mhm.” It’s a distracted sound, almost, as distracted as her previous warning, a thoughtful frown shadowing her expression. Maybe she could try to remove some of it. The sisters might appreciate that, and it would certainly be nice to do something that feels less idle and more productive. But she blinks for the moment, straightening where she stands as she surfaces from her thoughts.

“The, um… the plant, it’s a plant.” She points again, to the base of the trees where the nettle is clustered. The groans of revenants wandering closer to the gates reaches her ears, bringing another brief frown to her face that she’s quick to shake off, replacing it with her best attempt at something more sociable.

“Kinda like poison ivy.” More or less, at least, though she can’t imagine the pedantic differences would be all that fascinating.

They’re both distracted, it seems. One thing he likes about Violet, a passive quality she has, is how aimless she sometimes seems. She doesn’t have to look at him to talk to him, and in that sense he feels almost protected even when his presence isn’t assured. He doesn’t feel the need to look back, to stare with even greater focus to make up for where he falls short. He’s free to drift a bit. She won’t even notice. 

Matching her distracted hum, Justin nods at the explanation, figuring it would be good, then, to avoid. He steps lethargically in her general direction and stops to sit on the back flap of her pickup, watching her circle it in her diligence. 

“I’ve got jeans on,” he points out, knuckles resting on the truck bed underneath him as he glances between his knees, swinging his ankles and staring at the many denim wrinkles that protect them. “‘N chucks, ‘n socks. Haven’t been touched by that stuff since I was a kid. ‘Seems like those kinds of things stop being a threat to you when you stop running around, nicking your knees up.” 

Justin speaks slowly, moving through the words like he’s moving through memories. Maybe he is. Thoughtfully, he rubs his own knees before looking back up at Violet, then leaning back and glancing that way, too, at her plants. “But I guess you like that stuff.”

“Yeah. Definitely them,” Wes lies with an unshakeable certainty. He looks at the saint. He might draw an ass on it later, make it look like the statue’s flashing ‘em. “Maybe they dream of dicks so much they gotta draw ‘em. Get it outta their system.”

Wes rolls his head to the side, looking up to Justin. A member of the group he’d never spoken to, he can only hope he’s not so uptight religious type. 

“What history lesson?” he’d made a b-line for the garden. There was no fucking way he’d stick around to chat with any of the nuns. He had no interest in this place apart from the fact it kept the monsters out. “I’m fucken bored enough I’ll listen to it if ya wanna share.”

Justin grins at that hypothesis. As farfetched as it seemed, it was fun to picture. He steps up beside him and playfully shoves his shoulder into Wes’, squinting and grinning lewdly. “Sounds like an opportunity to me...duty calls, if you will.”

He chuckles and stands on his own again, staring back up at that statue and the childish defacement like it was a certified restoration in an art gallery. 

“This monastery was established to spread the teachings of St. Benedict, a ‘prophet’ who evangelized pagans across Europe.” Justin recounts it like an actual guide, paraphrasing what he’d heard from one of the sisters earlier. “Like other saints, he made miracles happen. If you count things as finding unlikely sources of water for starving followers, thereby saving their lives, as miracles. He saw the future, saw the destruction of his first monastery approaching, and was instructed by God to save all his fellow monks and sisters.”

Justin looked at Wes with brows raised high. “Creepy, huh? Maybe the sisters are right, and Sir Benedict is still kicking up there, trying to save his last monastery now.” A glance back up at the statue. “’Guess vandalism is a little out of his bounds.”

It must be rude to feel so unsettled in this place. That’s Violet’s current reprimand of choice, at least, in the hopes of pulling her nerves away from the edge. The women have welcomed them all so openly. Given them food, water, even beds. They deserve better than uneasy glances and the distance she’s been keeping. If she offered help, maybe, in that garden of theirs… not that she has many supplies to spare, but maybe they could find some use for an extra set of hands.

Instead, she lingers near her truck, pacing, poking, prodding, peering needlessly beneath the open hood. Her gun feels too heavy where it’s strapped to her thigh, but the weight of the blade at her hip is comforting, and she’s long since stopped noticing the way she reaches for it every so often. As if it might just disappear if she lets it go unchecked for too long.

She’s on her fourth semi-aimless lap around the truck when her skin prickles. Head cocked, she waits for the sound of footsteps before casting one last glance over the engine and shutting the hood. “Careful where you wander.” She lifts a hand to briefly block the sun shining in her eyes, then points, leaning uneasily against the side of the truck. “There’s a whole bunch of stinging nettle that way, if you go back too far.”

“This country dog won’t die in the city,” Justin murmured as he walked, only absently bothering to sing in tune, using the song as more of an anchor than proper practice.

He was almost too used to wandering around their people without a word spared his way or vice versa. It was hard not to now. He wasn’t the only one avoiding the indoors. Only, his only reason was hoping he’d get tired quicker if he kept walking, taking in the naturalistic scenery, for what little it was worth. Anything to stay busy and not still while he waited for things to calm down in his head, or at least take on slightly more pleasant colors.

It takes him a moment to respond to Violet, brows raising and feet stopping him cold as he looked in her direction openly, as though she’d been asking him something and not telling. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t seen her earlier, especially given that she was...where she always was. He thought he’d been focusing well enough. Maybe not. Justin got the proper context when she continued, though, nodding as if to hide that he’d only gotten that in parts, and twisting in place as he examined the area she’d gestured to.

“‘Stinging nettle’?” 

The Lord protects us. Bullshit.

Wes hasn’t stopped scowling since the group stopped in this so-called safe haven. He moved straight through the building. Short and curt with all of the ‘sisters’. The only place that felt even slightly untouched by God was the garden. Well looked after and so very much alive compared to every other part of the world. Wes hates it. On principle. 

There were no crucifixes but there was a statue. Some saint. Wes had a sharpie in his bag but he definitely was not the one who graffitied the statue. He would never write something so obscene or draw something so childish across the forehead of a Saint.

“The sisters are sick fucks, aren’t they?” 

If he had to describe it, Justin’s level of suspicion here was...moderate. He’d spent so many years as a preteen digesting religiously-themed horror movies against his better knowledge that it was impossible not to feel unsettled on these lands, but he had to agree, it was better than the alternative. He couldn’t rightly imagine what they had gained from avoiding Baltimore given the state of the towns that surrounded them, and all those bodies that lined the road. Between poisoning his mind wondering what was behind all those (hopefully) post-mortem crucifixions and forcefully de-stressing in the sisters’ garden, the choice was easy.

“What--you think that was them? I wouldn’t bet on that.” Justin mumbled. He didn’t really think they had much to fear from a bunch of old and seemingly pious crones, but something in him still respected lone matriarchs enough to fear them. 

“Have you gotten the history lesson yet?”

There’s another quiet scoff at the answer, some of the oddity dulled by how much work Justin will have to put into it. It’s just like a science project, not some miracle performed by the man next to him. It makes it easier to reconcile, because it’s hard to look at Justin and think about something reeking of old, holy magic. Some days he blinked his eyes and still saw that enthusiastic kid he met at a bar, plying him with drink and trying to convince him to ditch that stupid cover band and do something real. 

A laugh escapes him in the next moment. “Yeah, sure. Why not.” It’s not a real question, and after a moment his boots press harder against the car’s bumper. Stretching himself out on the hood, letting his eyes close against the rain still falling down on them. It’s oddly comforting and always has been, even if some part of it knows that it’ll never do what he wants it to do. It’ll never wash away the worst parts of himself.

“Long as it doesn’t actually turn me into a guinea pig.” 

Eli drags a grin out of him; it feels like it was always too easy with the other man, but then, wasn’t that what he kept him around for? Justin was starting to remember. How familiar this felt. Their backs against one thing or another, dumb ramblings in various states of consciousness. A full range from tired, half-present chuckles to belly-deep cackling. Fuck, he misses being...silly.

“There’s an idea,” he mumbles, a dry smile ever present. Justin sat up just a tad to get his arm underneath his neck and rest back on it, blinking through the rain. He’s chilled to the bone. It feels like sleep. “Eli the dwarf hamster. Black and he bites...” Justin’s lips peel apart in a lazy grin, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. 

“Great in theory but you’d shit up all my clothes out of spite, I know you would. ‘N I’d have to find you sunflower seeds all the goddamn time.” Taking a deep breath, he’s quiet for a bit. “Nah, something better. Maybe I’ll...” Glancing at the can on his thigh, Justin lifted it like it was a beer and took a swig out of it. Minus the taste of dusty iron, it was as good as wine. He tipped it back and stared into it. 

“Make it so you can get hammered with one sip. That’d be fun. Imagine if it was that easy...to get out of your fucking mind.” 

Water. As if that should explain everything. In a way, it did. He could understand the need for collecting it. For catching raindrops in a pail so someone could wash their hair or their clothes or even drink from it if that’s what it came down to. Though these days he didn’t know if he trusted the world enough to drink rain water. It seemed the world was out to get them and that would just be the perfect way to bring it home, poison their drinking water. 

He nods his head and they fall into an awkward silence for a moment before Justin tells him that he’s good. That he’s trying to stay out of the way. It seems like an odd thing to say and Sam just watches him for a moment and wonders whose way he’s trying to stay out of. He’s not selfish enough to think it’s his. 

The last time he’s spoken to the man, Justin had been in the depths of one of his episodes. He didn’t pretend to know what the man had gone through and he’d gone to find Eli to see if his brother would have some better luck dealing with the man. He seemed better now and Sam gave the man another look. 

“Existing is not being in the way,” he says with a slight smile, but eyes Justin and then voices a concern he hopes is unwarranted. “No one’s giving you a hard time, are they?” 

‘Better’ was a relative term. Truth be told, Justin had felt like he’d been in a sort of stand-still since Ezra’s confession, and the only thing he knew for certain was that he didn’t have the energy to be angry. Still, he hadn’t gotten over this need for exile, this general distrust the whole experience had given him towards people that were supposed to be, well, his. Intentional or not, Justin had to evaluate his own safety on a different level now. He didn’t even know where to start. At least that was a familiar feeling.

Still, he couldn’t continue to be too down with Sam still acting...so predictably. Existing is not being in the way, Sam told him, like he knew what Justin thought. It might have been infuriating if it wasn’t so damn...good-intentioned.

“No worries. We’re not doing existential terror today,” he chuckled, lifting his free hand up in a gesture of good faith before lowering it back down. Somewhere along the line, it had become endearing. He could understand exactly why he and Eli’d had such a grated relationship for so long. Through no fault of his own. Big surprise there.

Justin shook his head and held on to a slight, silent smile. “’Wouldn’t know if they tried. I’ve been trying to be unapproachable.” A pause. “No need to take up my charge, Sam. Everything’s been...more or less figured out.”

It might not be anything worth all that much concern. Niko’s body is already littered with small enchantments and spells, he carries a knife sheathed at his hip that would glow similarly if he were to turn his gaze on it. From someone that came from a family of alchemists, the idea that they would pass on some magical relic is honestly expected. He just doesn’t expect it to whisper. The sharpest of his teeth sink into that long healed hole in his lip, tugging at it for a moment before he shrugs. “It’s enchanted. Or… an enchantment. Probably not a surprise. It’s…”

He pauses briefly, uncertain what he’d follow it up with. The urge to investigate more fully is a powerful thing, that quiet craving that feels like aching in his bones. Not just for power, but for understanding, to see and feel how the lines of the universe fit together, like he might see more clearly how he fits together. His fascination with magic has always been a selfish thing. He’s never pretended otherwise.

“Sight is a limiting sense. Especially when it comes to magic.” He’s saying the words without any real thought to his own intentions, but it’s only after they’re past his lips that he knows exactly how to answer that cutting question Justin throws at him.

“I’ll show you.” 

Those simple words are all the opportunity he gives him to tell him no. It might be cruel that he doesn’t wait longer, maybe some part of what he does will always be a cruelty. Still, it’s a small fraction of what he’s capable. Hand settling against Justin’s chest, half aware the way his own heart rate starts to pick up. He does his best to ignore it, focusing solely on the power in his veins. “Just trust me.”

And he pushes. It’s only that, the slightest shove that has nothing to do with his physical frame. Not enough to rend his soul from his bones. Just enough to jar it out of place, to shift his reality, his vision, erase that reliability on his eyes to see with.

‘Enchanted’ isn’t a word that means much to Justin. Its meaning is easy enough to suss out, but if that kind of magic were possible in his craft, it was news to him. Or maybe not, because the deeper he plunders his memories, the more he realizes how few times he’d actually cared enough to peek in on Dawn’s work. How often, looking through her grimoire, he passed quickly over pages that made no sense, immediately deemed above his pay grade. How it made no sense that he even had her grimoire to begin with, how she would have known exactly where to send it. Once intimately familiar, the gem on his hand now feels full of hidden meaning and mystery. And that was just before.

I’ll show you.

Justin’s eyes snap to Niko’s. The other man doesn’t exactly wait for permission to touch him, a gesture that wouldn’t be that bad on its own. But something like anxiety creeps into his heart as Niko’s palm presses flat to his chest, like his body knows what’s being implied here far ahead of his mind’s ability to form an opinion on how he feels about it. They’d talked extensively about their magic, exchanged offers of friendly service. But only now at the threat of experiencing it does Justin remember how absolutely terrifying it all sounded. Manipulation...of the soul.

His own pulse races beneath that hand. He opens his mouth to say something, but everything shifts and the words evaporate from his tongue as a completely new sensation falls over him from head to toe. A kind of feeling of dislocation while still being there. Justin can both feel his body and not feel it, his vision blurred by some kind of foreign motion. He’s never felt anything like it before. And never heard anything like it either. 

It’s a strange fear that paralyzes him, this feeling of falling while also being totally still. He stands there and experiences what this world is like on a different plane, staring deeper into his own hand, into the strange glow and whisper of his family gem. Justin’s no stranger to whispers, noise, tiny hints that things aren’t right. This is something else entirely and it just...feels wrong. If he strains, he can feel it. It’s more than just many different voices trying to speak at once. They all speak on top of each other, a voice that’s both one and many. Many. He doesn’t hear words but he can almost feel the pain. A compulsion defying nature. The need to separate mixed with ancient acceptance that it will never, never happen again. 

After floating for a while, it feels almost violent when Justin returns to his body, in full. As gentle of a slide, as short of a distance, it wracks him, and he tightly scrunches his eyes together when it hits, waves of nausea crashing over his head until he’s stumbling away from Niko and the pond they stood at. Reaching out, he stumbles the second his hand comes into contact with something solid, his head craning out and then hanging as he vomits, standing, onto the asphalt. His hand curls into a fist against the exterior of the car he’s leaning against, trying to breathe through subsequent waves of sickness and hold back more urges to retch. His body feels like the plucked string of a harp, waiting to be still and vibrate no more.

When it passes, he drags his arm past his mouth with a grimace and eventually takes a step back to turn and face Niko again, still somewhat catching his breath. As much as he could say about what he’s just been through, his mind is still stuck on one single revelation.

“...lives. They are lives in this--?” He pants, glancing down at his family ring again with unease. Did Dawn know? His mother? Hers? He palms the sharp edges of the gem, trying to hear what he no longer can.

His boots wedge themselves against the bumper to keep from sliding back off, arms settling on his knees and watching water droplets bounce off the leather of his coat. It offers protection from that threat of cold, he’s not concerned about much else. Maybe just the man next to him, even if he doesn’t say as much. They’ve never been in the habit of having conversations about his mental state, he doesn’t have a strong desire to start now. 

The words have him scoffing slightly, a swift glance at the can Justin’s holding, collecting rain water off the hood of a car. It’s a ludicrous enough combination that he doesn’t hide his amusement. “What, you think you’re Jesus now?” 

It still gives him pause, tilting his head to look over his shoulder at the other man. Blinking water from his eyes, rain starting to run down the back of his neck. Even with seeing it first hand, it was easy to forget that Justin was something else, a witch, a concept that still feels too strange to him. He thought he’d known just about everything there was to know, or at least everything he cared to, about Justin Ames. 

“Do you know how to do that?” 

Eli’s poking fun, comparing him to Jesus, but it raises an interesting thought that has Justin squinting into space during the silence Eli gives him. But his friend follows him into that hypothetical, turning to look over his shoulder in doubt and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips in goofy glee.

“Maybe. Yeast from flour. Distilled water. Grape packet or a couple’a sour candies and...” He raises his free hand, wiggles the fingers. Ordinarily, in order to get clean fermentation going and proper aging, it required quite a few steps and a lot of time. But Justin was confident that he could manage that, at least, given a bit of wiggle room. “’Might be bootleg as fuck, but it should do the trick.” 

It’s right. It’s deserved. 

What isn’t right or deserved in the slightest is every single emotion Justin’s going through. That anger, some small satisfaction found in cruelty after being given one small chance to bite back. 

And Ezra gets to watch that fade and sour because of that fucking demon taking the blame. When he asks if he’s serious Ezra nods but doesn’t say anything. 

Are you fucking kidding me?

It’s a horrible feeling, like being dragged back to his youth. Being scolded for some silly, childish thing, any adult yelling at a young ‘good’ kid felt like the end of the world. At least to Ezra. They felt so far away he never lingered on those memories. Young Ez was a different creature all together but now… He’s at fault and it feels out of his control.

He frowns at the table, stuffs his hands into his pockets and waits before speaking.

“I don’t know why it, um, why I did anything during it. I was – I was moving and talking and –” he stammers out, incapable of a full sentence or thought. Incapable of saying anything worthwhile to Justin. Anything at all to fix this.

“No.” He says to the idea this is over because he said ‘sorry’. “I… I know this isn’t…” Isn’t fair? Isn’t right? 

“We don’t have to be done. Or we can be. It’s up to you.” The next words come out faster, a little more certainty to them because he knows he could do this. It’s a promise he could easily keep and a debt he’d think he’d deserve to keep for however long Justin needs it, “If there’s anything I should do or shouldn’t just–just tell me.”

This was part of it, too, always was. Frustration. This feeling of being stuck in place, forced once again to just wait it out. Like the deciding power would never be in his hands. Everything would always be done before he even got a say. Justin scrunched his lips and turned his face sideways to hide it, the stubbornness that he knew did him more harm than good. But it was like having wonky nerves, a body that refused to relax even if, desperately, that was all he really wanted. Justin sighed harshly, closed his eyes, shook his head, and tried to pretend he didn’t feel that familiar nausea rising up. 

At this point, he just wanted Ezra to shut up. The man kept at it, trying to make things better or more digestible, trying to make it easy for him without realizing yet that he couldn’t. It reminded him of his mother, always trying to help through suggestion. Shut up, shut up.

He held up a hand and continued shaking his head, forcing silence between them for as long as it took him to get a reign on his thoughts. Or start to. He stammered a bit, starting off with syllables that didn’t work or fit, ultimately waiting just a bit longer before whispering, “I...need space.”

It was enough. It’d have to be. If he was going to think about this anymore, it was going to have to wait. He was too upset to think about things like consequences, or Ezra’s feelings. It was true the man had already seen him at his worse, but Justin didn’t enjoy being visible when he was like this. Standing up, Justin avoided looking the older man in the eyes as he felt his way along the wall and back towards the door, hurrying down the steps and breathing somewhat raggedly as he fought the urge to get distracted, and became that way anyway. He kicked at the ground, at the RV’s tires as he rounded the back of it instead of heading straight out towards the others, immediately seeking a solitary place to suffer in until he either calmed down or lost the energy to stay awake.

There’s still room for variables in the answer he gets, but not enough to push on it. Not enough to combat the look on the man’s face, something like confusion that he almost doesn’t understand. Niko hadn’t offered up much direction and Justin had still taken quickly to it, the sinking car and the pond flooding with pink enough proof of that. 

Niko hums quietly in thought, but simply staring at the ring on his finger doesn’t reveal much. At least not in the physical realm, but he hasn’t been wholly bound like that in a long time. It’s an easy thing, a small rush of power, sensation bleeding from his skin. Even the hand holding Justin’s becomes a distant, foreign thing, a spectator watching his own body as he lets himself slip into that schism between body and soul.

It only takes a second to get an answer. A faint glow coming off the piece of jewelry, not enough to tell him what it does, but enough to tell him it’s something. 

And he can hear it. Distantly, like the quiet hum of voices somewhere in the background. Indistinguishable from each other, but he can hear them. He’s unaware of the way his body doesn’t mimic the same concentration, nothing but a dull, vacant look staring at the chunk of metal when he isn’t quite so connected to his frame anymore. 

It’s only a minute before he lets himself settle back in. Feeling returning to his hands, the distant awareness of what the skin of Justin’s wrist feels like beneath his fingers. He lets him go swiftly. “And that’s all you know about it?“

Justin’s silent for a while, watching Niko’s expression and waiting for what felt like a verdict. There’s focus in the taller man’s face, subtle maybe, but it’s loud to him. And maybe it’s only because Justin knows how serious he is about magic, or because they’ve already gone into detail of how physical that magic could for him. In the end, though Justin never suspected his family ring was anything more than it appeared to be, the look on Niko’s face was all he needed to start to believe something more. 

He turns his hand a bit in the other’s fingers, glancing down at it from time to time as if in hope he’d be able to pick out something odd with his eyes alone. Nothing. Not surprising, giving how long he’d spent wearing it damn near every hour of every day. Before too long, Justin stopped trying to figure it out on his own, and stared intently at Niko in wait. Like before, his question seems...gentle. Like he’s trying to work through the mystery alone without saying anything outright. Justin knows better. 

He brings his wrist back into his own personal space when the other lets him go, rubbing the skin with his opposite hand and only slightly cataloging the swiftness with which Niko released him. 

“Tell me what you saw,” he says, bulldozing right over that tiptoe of a question.