#pre established

His hands shook as he reached for his phone. His face half pressed into a blanket on the floor, distorting his vision. 

He didn’t know why he liked the floor more when he was upset. 

He had many places in his room he’d use as defense when he was caught in the crossfire of his parents fighting.

He used to sit with his back against the door, that way it ensured no one could come in while he glided the thin, silver blade over his pale wrists. 

Then he grew out of being too scared to lock his bedroom door. 

He turned to the corner by his closet and would huddle down over there. Then he could use the stray clothes on the floor as comfort. Sometimes just as a muffle to his tears, sometimes as salt to the thin red lines with beading blood. 

Tonight it was both.

But maybe if he wanted to be successful he should let the added stinging of the shirt dissipate and press harder with the blade. 

He grabbed his phone like he originally tasked himself with doing. His blurred, teary vision distorted the blonde on his screen. Sometimes people asked why his best friend was his Lock Screen. To which he'd reply, What? Yours isn’t?

He let out another sob into the t-shirt under his cheek. 

The tears made it even harder for him to see his phone. 

Still, he managed to tap his way to call Gale.

He didn’t expect him to answer, it was late and they had school in the morning. 

“John?” The voice laced with concern instantly had the boy's shoulders dropping.

“Hi,” his words were meek and didn’t even cover up the sound of the rattling sobs still locked in his chest. 

“Are you okay?” 

Silence passed and John flicked his eyes to the blade laying by where his phone had just been. He could say yes, hang up the phone and move on to ridding everyone of a common problem. But he could say no, then the suffering would end just for tonight, Gale would come get him. Wipe his tears away and hold him, telling him everything would be alright. 

Then he could wait and rinse and repeat in a week. Maybe next week he wouldn’t Cower from the thin piece of metal and do everyone a favor. 

“No.” He croaked out, he wanted to scream for the needed help. He wanted to be able to eat without sticking his fingers in his throat. He wanted to live without the added pain. 

“Okay, I’ll be there in a moment, okay? Why don’t you stay on the phone with me?”

“No.” He spoke a little too quickly. He wanted to be alone…yet he knew he might make a mess without Gale’s voice. 

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” His voice wasn’t pressing—it never was—just a calm comfort. 

“Just the usual.” He sucked in a damp breath and let out a meek laugh, “Things don’t change, even when they say it will.”

“John, are you in a safe place?”

“Jus’ in my room.” He stared at the thin metal, again. He wanted to pick it up again so bad. Dig it into the divots between his ribs. 

His mother would still say he was fat. 

“Is it safe in there?” His tone sharpened with a round edge just to prod him. 

“Maybe.”

“John.”

“Don’t worry, no Hannah Baker tonight.” He let out a strenuous laugh at his own comment.

“That’s not funny.” 

He stayed silent and let his phone clobber the few inches to the ground. He pressed his hand into the thin, beaded, red lines. Smiling to himself at the familiar sting. He wanted to gouge his fingers in between the skin just to see what would happen. 

“John.”

“Hm?”

“Talk to me.”

“Don’t know what you want me to say, Buck?” He hated how hearing his voice made the guilt of it set in even further, “I’m sorry. It’s okay, I’ll be fine.”

“I’m coming to get you.”

“Buck, really, I’ll be fine. Just gotta go clean up after them.” 

“No you don’t. Please just sit still, I’ll be there soon.” And he was right, they didn’t even live a full five miles from each other. Just in different uppity neighborhoods. 

“You think Curt’s right?”

“What does that mean?”

“That killing yourself is selfish, end your suffering to start another’s?”

“Think, he’s right about some things.” Gale spoke and he knew what his answer meant.

They got quiet for another moment and he wished he’d just stop cowering. Yet, his heart beating in his ears and his face flushed red and he couldn’t. 

Sometimes, he secretly thought Gale would wish the two never met. 

It appeased his own brain and self loathing to think about a universe for Gale where his own parents didn’t move to Cheyenne. 

He thought about how if he was still in Wisconsin he probably would’ve just done it already. 

That would’ve been better for everyone, anyways. Gale wouldn’t have to mourn then because he wouldn’t have even known he existed. 

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m here, hang tight, okay?”

“Yeah.” The phone line clicked on the other end. He heard the door knock and everything felt surreal. His ears began to ring and he stared at the thin metal again. 

Gale didn’t deserve to find a bloody mess. He didn’t have the right to fuck up Gales future. 

He heard the door open…followed by the unfamiliar raised, pointed tone of Gale Cleven.

“Can’t get your own heads out of your own asses to see how you two are pulling and stripping away at John.” 

He flinched against the t-shirt his head was buried in. He closed his tearful eyes and listened to Gale spouting out everything he knew he dreamed of saying to his parents. 

He knew Gale didn’t like his parents, but he didn’t know if he liked them either? 

The doorknob twisted and he flinched himself back to reality.

“John? Come on, open the door.” Gale's voice carried in gentle yet serious. 

He got up on his hands and knees and crawled himself across his room and to the pinewood door. He clicked the lock on the handle and instantly the door opened. 

He slumped back against his desk leg and quickly pulled his hoodie sleeves over his hand. He didn’t want Gale to see what was under them; although, he knew he already knew.

“You coming with me or do you want me to stay?”

He shook his head and grabbed his duffle off the desk chair. Gale took it from his hands and began to pack it for him. 

“‘Can do it myself.”

Gale ignored him and continued grabbing what he knew as his favorite clothes out of his dresser in the closet. 

He forced himself to stand and rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands. 

He didn’t know what to do other than to just stand there while Gale packed his bag. He felt like a kid but in all the worst ways possible. Back in Wisconsin he couldn’t run from his parents. 

He tried to, a couple of times. Packing a bag of granola bars and graham crackers, some clothes, and his favorite unicorn plush stuffed into the top of his bag. He always planned on running away into the woods, he never did though. 

Instead, he’d end up eating his snacks at school and get on his bus home. He’d plan to just repack and leave like living alone in the woods at ten years old was a viable option. 

Instead, he just stayed in his comfortable house. 

He knew even this house here in Cheyenne was nice. It wasn’t the Cleven house but it was just a tad too large for a three person family.

Curt would bust his balls joking about his house when they first met. Finally it all came to a head when he snapped at him.

“Nice house but there’s not so nice things going on inside.”

“Ready?”

“Hm?” He shook his head back into reality, “Yeah.”

He grabbed his faded, purple unicorn plush off his bed and shoved it into the duffle.

He followed Gale out of his room, down the stairs, past where his mom now stood in the kitchen with a bottle of wine, past his dad on the couch silently watching the basketball game. He grabbed his converse and running shoes. Not even bothering to put on either, he walked with his sock, clade feet over the cold February snow of Cheyenne. It’d never be a Wisconsin winter and to that he was thankful. Because not everything would be like it was back there.

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