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Fandom [CLOSED] Tokyo Ghoul: Dead Enmity

The screaming from inside the room only caused Adrian's kicks and clashes with the door to become more violent, he was starting to feel quite desperate, his mind was racing with everything the girl could be doing to Jackson...but...everything she did to him...he'd do to her. Jackson couldn't fight back and she knew it. She was taking advantage of him, of the fact that he couldn't move himself like she could. For that...Adrian would never forgive her. 


His foot had gone through the door and so now the boy was barrelling into the door with his shoulder, but there was something pushing back. Who was doing that? Upon feeling the force against him he simply struck harder, ramming the side of his body as hard as he could against the slowly shattering door that was doing its best to keep him at bay. Try as it may, it couldn't keep him out forever. 


There was a screech from the other side of the door which caused Adrian's brow to furrow. She was screaming again. This time, however, he simply bit into his cheek and continued his onslaught, ignoring the tumultuous noise from the woman. If this was her attempt at putting him off, she was failing, it simply made him want to get in there even more than before, to shut her up for good. 


Alice continued screaming, Adrian continued trying to force his way in, and the two went on like that for what seemed like forever, until finally Adrian overpowered Alice and the door broke from the pressure put upon it. It swung back, revealing a small, irritated form blocking the exit. The band that had previously been holding his hair had disappeared, as had the jumper that had been wrapped around the boy's waist, hair fell over his face, obscuring those large eyes of his...but it was easy to tell from the way he stood that he'd had enough. 


"Y-You...You...don't get to choose..." Adrian's voice was surprisingly fluid, as well as quiet, despite how he looked. You might have expected him to be screeching like Alice, but he made no such noise, instead he simply attempted to maintain the composure he'd had before they entered the house. Oh how he wished he could go back to that... 


A kick flew at him, but it wasn't fast enough, Adrian simply stepped to the side to avoid the girl's attack. She was weak, she was sloppy, her insanity didn't give her anything but the resolve to kill. It didn't suddenly make her a super human. Oh no. They did that first. Then they broke you. Not even in her dreams would she ever compare to him. 


"But...you're right..." Adrian swallowed, stepping forwards as he pushed at the girl's leg now that she was off balance, "We're not gonna play anymore. You cheated. You cheated and you didn't say sorry! You cheated and then you tried to cheat some more! So...we're not gonna play anymore. You ruined the game." 


He let out a distorted and strange noise, probably some odd attempt at a laugh, before throwing his head back to remove the hair from his face. His expression was peculiarly relaxed, although he didn't give Alice long to focus on it, as in seconds he'd charge towards her, hand outstretched. 


Once close enough, Adrian grabbed at the woman's face, his thin fingers curling around the roots of hair as he struck her with the heel of his hand. As he did that he backed the two to the right and away from the door, pulling down on her head at he did so. Her back smashed against the wall seconds before he suddenly increased the force he was using to pull her down, sending her face flying directly into his knee. He didn't say anything, he didn't make any noise, instead he just stared at Alice with a look somewhat close to satisfaction. Bitch. 


Maybe he could have stopped there, maybe he could have broken her other hand, or both of her legs, and looked around the room to find the others and take them, leaving her to her fate...but Adrian wasn't done, he was nowhere near done. 


Instead of leaving the boy forced the woman's head back up and smashed it against the wall over and over again, that deranged smile mad it's return as he executed the actions, growing each time he heard the thud of bone against brick. Having had enough of that, he pulled her down again and thrust his arm to the side, sending Alice tumbling to the ground. 


He walked over with no sense of urgency, what did he have to worry about? Adrian loomed over Alice's form, staring at her with that grin still plastered to his face. And then he said one thing. 


"Why?" It didn't sound like his question was directed at her. His foot stomped down onto her chest, "Because...you hurt him." He swallowed, leaning down once more to put a hand over Alice's mouth, "We couldda been friends y'know." Adrian sighed, bringing his other hand up to scratch over Alice's face before scratching over her eyes, "But you ruined it." He increased the pressure on her chest little by little, never removing his gaze from her face. Soon enough he'd moved the hand that was over her mouth and attempted to grab at her jaw from behind her teeth, yanking down in the process. He was trying to break her jaw, or that was the minimum amount of damage he wanted to do at least. 


Adrian didn't want to bring his kagune out, and he didn't want to strangle her...but...there were knives all over the room... It wouldn't be hard for him to...harness one, right? 
 
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God knew that he tried his best. He knew that Jackson had tried so hard to stop any of this from happening, that he had snatched Alice's weapon straight out of her hands and cried out a slurred warning for Adrian to pack up and flee before he got killed, or before he did something to Alice. 


Neither of those two deserved to die; they were both rowing the same boat, Jackson knew that. Two people who had only ever tried to do the right thing, turned sour by tragedies the world decided to inflict upon them for fun. The sweet child named Alice who had never missed an opportunity to make a person smile. The shy little brother who always hid himself behind the sofa until he learned how to trust again. He couldn't watch the two people he loved most in the world kill each other like this, no way, no way...


Jackson released a soft grunt as he made another attempt to shift himself around. His head wasn't working anymore - he could feel the cooling blood pooling in his palms, trickling down his arms and soaking his sleeves. That was his vitality gushing out there... He couldn't see properly. Everything sounded like he had been thrown underwater, and the way he had to choke and gasp for breath made him feel like he was drowning, too. But he could not stop, he had to keep trying.


Just as the man had thrust his stolen knife down into the ground like some kind of climbing pick, he was rattled into stillness by another piercing cry. He rolled his head to one side to see what the noise had come from, but it took him several seconds of gawping stupidly at a spotty blackness before he could pick out anything of interest. But it wasn't his eyes that told him what was wrong.


There was a sickeningly loud cracking noise coming from the direction of all of the scuffling. Alice cried out and staggered backwards against a wall, dead hand slammed against a deformed lower jaw and living hand cupped over her eyes. There was blood welling from between her fingers.


"'Et off!" came the garbled scream, now so high-pitched it was barely intelligible at all - although the broken jaw probably did not help with that. "'Et off me, 'et off me, 'op it, 'op it, 'op!" She thrashed about, throwing her head up and down madly until her arms were slammed against a wall. Without a cover, the damage done to her face became plain and apparent: her eyelids had been shredded to ribbons, and there was a mixture of blood and black liquid oozing from tattered eyes that were no longer blue. Maybe there were tears there, too, but it would be impossible to tell in the darkness.


"Alice," Jackson said through a numbed mouth. It was supposed to be a shout, but it only came out as a mumble. He was too tired to be frustrated about it, but still he tried again. There was a griping panic still twisting around in the base of his throat, and despite his stupor he could still tell that all was not well. "Alice? Wh-what's... Wrong..?"


As if by some miracle she had heard him, Alice, who had been sobbing uncontrollably with an open mouth and bloodied face, tried to whimper, "Wh- w'y eyes, oh, 'lease..."


Jackson's heart skipped another beat. "Oh God," he mumbled, though he could not hear himself. Something was wrong with Alice. His mind wasn't working properly, and for once in his life he could not piece together the only two parts of the puzzle. What was wrong? Something was happening, it was one of them, the other, or both... Oh God, somebody was going to die. He couldn't let it, he couldn't... They didn't deserve it. Neither of them, not Alice, not Adrian, he just wanted them to be happy and safe.


But that wasn't happening.


It was weak, but Alice, now blinded and pinned up by an armed opponent, did the only thing she could think to do in the most hopeless state possible. She ducked forwards and struck her head against Adrian's, as hard as she possibly could, hoping that perhaps the impact would dizzy him. It certainly dizzied her. But she could no longer see what she was doing, and simply had to hope that it would work when she started kicking out against the boy's small body.


Somewhere amidst the chaos, there was another voice. It was not slurred like Jackson, not crazed and screeching like Alice, but calm and slow. Tired.


"What are you doing?" said Eric. "Boys, you're going to be late if you don't go now."
 
If Adrian could have heard anything anyone was saying he might have stopped, if he could have heard the worry in Jackson's voice, if he could have made that connection...then maybe he wouldn't have been so ruthless. But all he could hear was mumbling, he could hear the differences in tone and pitch, but he couldn't hear the words, he couldn't make out the emotion, there were too many things swirling around his head already, he had no space or time to listen to and take in the voices around him, not when he'd been hearing them constantly. His brain had come to its own conclusion. They weren't saying anything important. 


Alice was stupid. Why would she stick knives in the walls where he could reach them? All he needed were two or three to make her stop moving, he wasn't going to kill her yet, not yet. The boy still hadn't let go of her hair, his attention was on something completely different, that's why he didn't quite notice when her head barrelled towards his. He only felt the impact. 


Out of surprise, Adrian let go and stumbled back a few steps, his hand went to his head as he shook it and blinked. It didn't hurt enough for him to make any sort of sound, but it caused him to stand for a few moments to get his balance back. His hands gripped his own hair as he whined and looked up, he was doing something, why did she have to do that! His steps had brought him out of the range of Alice's kicks, and so he just watched them instead, glaring as she feebly kicked at the air in front of him. 


After gaining his balance once more the boy had made his way over to the wall, he wasn't worried about Alice being a threat anymore, she was blind...she could try, but what was she going to do? He knew how hard it was to focus on anything when like that, she'd be panicking, unless she'd experienced it before, Adrian was pretty sure she'd just be a stumbling mess. So he moved to the knives that lines the walls before them, he wrapped his hands around the handle of the first he came across, pulling it away from the wall, then he moved over to grab a second, all the while ignoring Alice. 


With the two knives in hand, Adrian pivoted on his right foot to lock his gaze back onto Alice. Then he made for the girl again, striking at her shoulders with the palms of his hands, if she wanted to move so much then he'd make sure she stayed still! He reached a hand up to grab onto the girl's wrist, pinning that against the wall, before taking his other hand and raising the knife in it. A grin crossed his face once more as he stared at the exact spot on her arm he was about to hit, but just as he was about to strike he heard a different voice. 


For a moment Adrian froze, though he didn't let go of the woman in front of him, who was that? He turned his head, large eyes darting around the room, trying to find the source of the noise. He knew that voice. He knew them. Eric? Was that... He couldn't quite make it out. Adrian started to chew on his lip, was Eric watching him? For a moment his chest felt tight, but he quickly forced himself to get over it and turn back to the girl in front of him. The only way he was getting to find out who that was safely was if she couldn't move. So he swallowed and plunged the knife in his hand down into Alice's arm, digging the blade into the wall. After that he didn't waste any more time, with newfound urgency, Adrian removed the hand that had been holding Alice's wrist and grabbed her other arm, pinning that to the wall too. He re-positioned the knife in his other hand and stabbed downwards, once more pinning that arm to the wall. Then he turned. 


"H-Hello?" Almost as if he was used to speaking, Adrian squeaked the word out. His attention had been completely diverted now, he could deal with Alice afterwards...he just...he wanted to know what that was. "Late...Late for what?" The small boy took a step forwards, wiping his blood soaked hands on the large, white shirt he was wearing. It probably wasn't the best choice of clothing of such an occasion. As he moved around the room he pulled on his sleeves, trying to even them out, but simply causing more damage to the t-shirt. Where were they? "Late for what?" He repeated. What was going on?
 
Blinded, trapped and mad with fear, Alice knew deep within herself that she was making every wrong decision possible. She thrust her head forwards, hoping to make contact with Adrian and knock the smaller boy back, but when she realised that she was only thrashing about at nothing, her stomach twisted and broken jaw tried to clench. There was nothing there to attack anymore - at least, not that she could see, hear or feel. He knew where she was, and she didn't know where he had gone - until she tried to stumble forwards and ended up with a knife in her arm.


The scream that followed was earsplitting, though eventually the noise withered into a low wail broken by sobs and choking noises. She tried to wrench the knife out of her soft flesh, but as always she was too slow, too clumsy and much too human. Adrian had her pinned in a flash, and all that she could do was flail about with her head and feet in hope of making contact.


"You're 'onna 'ill me," the girl cawed, not realising that she had been abandoned. So sure that she would soon feel her throat torn apart from the inside out, she waited, shaking and suffocating on her own breath. Every now and then the girl found that there was blood in her mouth. "You're... 'Gonna..."


Whilst she was mumbling to herself, the man on the ground was clinging to consciousness by his blood-slick fingertips. Perhaps he would have passed out long ago, had his own fear not lent him power. But though he could barely see, hear or feel anymore, he carried on sticking his knife in the floor, dragging himself forwards an inch, then pulling it shakily out of the carpet. Something about that muffled, underwater-sounding voice had caught what little attention he had left to spare. He wasn't going to let himself sleep until he found out what it was, and what it meant.


It seemed, however, that Jackson was not the first to reach Eric. By the time the young man had fumbled numbly to find the bulk of his floor-bound father under his hands, Adrian was already there. For some reason, through his dark vision, Jackson thought that he could see an odd look on the boy's face.


"What?" he said stupidly, running his bloodied hands over Eric's face.


 The older man coughed when he tasted the iron tang and made a move to sit bolt upright, but he could not; much like the way Adrian had pinned Alice against a wall with her own weapons, there were knives stuck through his bare hands and feet, keeping him on the ground. Yellow-green pus oozed out of the wounds when he moved, and upon closer inspection a large portion of his flesh had swollen and turned purple.


"School," Eric said after spitting out another mouthful of Jackson's blood. He seemed to remember now that he was trapped, and instead of sitting up he simply turned his head around to face the black-haired boy he had once taken care of. There was something unsettling about the way he looked. His arms and legs were purple and dead, but the grey-haired man simply blinked his nut-brown eyes which looked without seeing. He was confused, somehow painfully unaware of where he was or why. "What... Oh, silly me. Dear, what's the time, are we still good?"


Eric waited for a moment as if expecting Tilly to materialise with a finger tapping at the face of her wrist watch. But when nobody came, his face contorted into a grimace.


Alice screeched in the back. "You 'oke 'im up!" came her poorly-pronounced words which Jackson could not decipher in his state. He grabbed numbly at one of the blades holding Eric's hands in place and pulled it out.


"Dad?"


Eric didn't answer. His face had turned expressionless again, like he was asleep with his eyes open. Jackson stared for what felt like an eternity before finally looking up at Adrian, his own face twisted with desperation. 'Help,' said the look in his watery eyes as his head sunk down to the floor. Something was wrong... He didn't know what it was, he could not think properly. But he was so scared. 


His dad, Eric, what was wrong with him?


What was wrong with Alice?


Why was Adrian acting like everything was okay?
 
Adrian had drowned Alice out, his attention was focused solely on the voice of the man that had stood in as his father after Leo left him alone. Where was he? Was he hurt? Had Alice hurt him? The boy's hands balled into fist out of worry, if you were to look at him you wouldn't able to tell that he was at all concerned for the man's safety...but he was. He didn't want to lose anyone else, he couldn't lose anyone else. Although Adrian knew the situation could be dire, that Eric could be in any state, he still stepped slowly and carefully, making sure not to step on anything whilst he wasn't watching. 


It took him only a moment to find Eric's form pinned to the ground, knives through his hands and feet. He knew who had done that to him, but he couldn't do anything expect stare. Maybe he should have taken them out, done anything to try and help the man, but...something made him freeze up. 


As Adrian's wide eyes darted around to scan every inch of Eric's body he noticed the strange, unidentified liquid seeping from beneath the knives in his flesh. What was that? It didn't look right, it wasn't blood, that didn't come out of people...it wasn't the right colour. The boy chewed on  the inside of his cheek, avoiding looking back at the man's face. Should be take them out? His heart rammed against his rib cage as if trying to escape, as if it wanted to get out and do what Adrian could not. He wanted to say something, wanted to move, yet none of those things seemed possible at that moment. 


"School." Finally he managed to utter a word, repeating it back to the man. He didn't go to school anymore, he hadn't for awhile, so...why were they going back? They weren't going back...Eric just didn't know what was going on, he didn't know... Adrian swallowed and took a step forwards, turning his gaze to the man's face. He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, but he knew it wasn't Alice...and he knew Jackson had been dropped somewhere, he was probably somewhat able to move, so it could only be him. 


Adrian turned his head, having finally keyed in on the noises around him, the only word he heard was the one uttered by Jackson. Uncomfortably, he turned his head, staring at the other, eyes completely void of emotion. Jackson wanted him to do something, he could tell, but he really didn't know what to do... He couldn't think of anything, he couldn't... The only thing he could think of doing...well... 


The boy's gaze turned back to the man pinned to the ground as he dropped to his knees. He was going to touch Eric's arm, but realised that it was swollen quite a bit. What did he do? His hand subconsciously wrapped itself around the knife nearest to him, but he didn't pull, instead he just stared in silence. Was it safe? It had to be...he couldn't keep them in. His grip tightened and his free hand curled back into a fist against the floor. He had to pull... Adrian opened his mouth as if to say something, but no words came out, instead at the same time he did that he pulled on the knife, yanking it upwards and hoping it would come out. With the strength he possessed it was most likely to, but who knew how hard it was rammed in there. 


He didn't like this, he didn't want to do this. Why did she do this to them? They didn't do anything, they didn't hurt anyone. Adrian was mentally apologising, he tried his best to keep calm, but he didn't want to watch Eric die... He couldn't... He...he to... Sitting there dumbfounded wasn't going to do anyone any good, he had to get the rest out.
 
Unresponsive and witless to the world, Eric's head rolled from left to right, chest rising and falling beneath his son's hands. Those breaths were not the calm, deeply-drawn animation of a man sleeping soundly; they came sharp and quick, so shallow that barely any heat drifted from his parted lips when he inhaled. Only now did Jackson notice how warm the man's skin was, how slick it was not with blood, but with a film of salty sweat. It wasn't right. He wasn't right.


His own eyes beginning to roll back, Jackson pushed a hand at Eric's shoulder. "Dad," he said in the same numb, slurred voice as before. It wasn't a question, and there was no answer. Eric continued panting silently as though he could not even feel the way he was now being violently shaken. "Wh...'At's wrong? What'd she... Do to you?"


Once again, the older man failed to even notice that he was being spoken to. He simply mumbled the word, "Eight," to himself and then fell silent.


No, Jackson thought. He grabbed as tightly as he could at Eric's shoulder and shook it, but that only made more pus leak from his wounds. His wounds, his wounds... He was hurt. Oh God, Alice did something to him and it wasn't looking good. He couldn't see it properly, but he could smell the unmistakable, sickening stench of rot in the broken flesh. Infection. Blood poisoning. He hadn't just been brainwashed into oblivion, but also inflicted with some kind of deadly disease.


Not knowing if he even had the strength to reach down to Eric's feet, Jackson did the only thing that his clouded and heavy mind could think to do: call Adrian for help. Where was he? The last time he had looked, the boy had been towering over him, staring down from his place nearby. But even though his eyes were starting to fail again, Jackson was quite sure that he would at least be able to notice some sort of blurred outline.


Adrian had gone. Where was he?


Oh... On the floor. Jackson extended a shaky arm and tugged weakly at the fabric of his friend's shirt, probably ruining it with his staining blood in the process. "Adrian," he wheezed, pulling as hard as he could to try and gain some kind of attention. He needed Adrian to be listening now. Alice might have been taken care of, but what about his mother and father? Tilly was somewhere, probably in the room, and Eric... He was beginning to look like he was a lost cause. But Jackson refused to believe it. "Quick - out. C-car," he mumbled, tugging again and making a point as he shook at Eric's shoulder. 
 
Eight. What did that even mean? Adrian wasn't quite sure, he didn't try to decipher it too much, all he knew was that taking those knives out had only caused the man to bleed more heavily as well as that green-yellow puss to come out. He could smell something but he didn't know what it was, he didn't know that smell too well, it was too..contaminated. Everything just smelt like blood to him now. 


As Adrian's hands started to drift over to another of the knives, he heard Jackson's voice. What was he saying? Out? Get...Eric out? Car... For a moment the boy simply stared at the man, deciphering his words, then he blinked and shook his head, looking down. There was another pause for around three seconds before he nodded and started to hastily grab at the other knives attaching Eric to the ground. 


One by one he pulled the bloodied items out of the man's flesh, throwing them to the side carelessly. Having gotten them all out, he grabbed Eric's arm and attempted to pick him up. It was awkward for Adrian since he was so small compared to the man he was trying to carry, but being a ghoul made it a little easier to carry him at least, he just had to be careful with his balance. 


Dull eyes darted around the room as he started backing up, first to Jackson, then to Alice. She couldn't get out. She wouldn't get him. She was blind. He'd be back for her soon enough anyway, once he'd dealt with this. Jackson had told him to take Eric to the car, to Bella, she could make sure he was safe, she could make sure he was secure. 


His small feet had rapidly descended the stairs and made their way towards the front door, he'd used his shoulder to open the door, trying his best to keep his eyes off of the man he'd carried, before stumbling out into the open. Adrian was not at all careful as he ran from the house, moving as fast as possible towards the car parked around the corner. 


It took him awhile, but upon turning the corner he caught Bella's eye through the side view mirror, her eyes widened as she saw his bloodied state...and the man in his arms. In seconds she was out of the car. 


"Adrian, what the..." The woman opened the back door immediately, eyes drifting over the bleeding individual being placed into her car, "What's going on?" 


She got no answer. The second Adrian had put the man down he was heading off again, leaving Bella stunned, but just as he was about to turn the corner he skipped and pivotted to face the woman again. 


"Please...follow me." His eyes locked with hers for a second, and then he was off. With that in mind Bella jumped back into her car and turned it around as fast as possible, then she drove around the corner, noticing Adrian's small form running up ahead. As asked, she followed him all the way back to the house, which he suddenly disappeared into. She didn't waste any time getting out of the car and joining him in entering the house. 


As she opened the door she was surprised by how...normal the house looked, the weird part about it was that she couldn't see or hear anyone downstairs. She noticed Jackson's wheelchair, which she promptly picked up and placed against a wall. Where were they? 


It was then that she heard footsteps upstairs, her attention was taken and she followed the noise, ascending the stairs and turning the corner to enter the room. Her eyes widened upon entering and she stumbled back, breath catching in her throat. Blood. A girl pinned to the wall via her arms. Jackson on the ground. And...Adrian...what was Adrian doing? 


"A-Adrian..." She breathed. The boy had moved over to a wall, completely ignoring her now, he was pulling knifes out of it and dropping them to the ground, almost like he was searching for something. Bella stepped further inside just as the boy turned back around, twirling a knife in his left hand. 


"There." He pointed to the bed to his left, then he pointed to Jackson on the ground. Once he'd done that he went back to ignoring Bella, walking towards the girl struggling in the room. 


"Jackson..." Bella breathed, hastily moving over to the man and grabbing hold of his arms, she dragged him backwards, leaning him against a wall. "What the hell...What the hell is going on..." Of course, she couldn't waste much time looking over the man, Adrian had given her another direction, to which she reacted immediately once she knew Jackson was safe. 


She moved over towards the bed, keeping her back to the boy behind her, she didn't want to know what he was doing, coming upon it she noticed a woman laying down with the covers over her. That must be Jackson's mother, right? Bella grabbed hold of the blankets and pulled them back. 


Just as she did that she heard a rather loud whine from the other side of the room, like someone was in pain. Adrian had his hand against his head, grabbing onto his hair and refusing to look up. Physically he was fine, but none of this was doing any good for his mental state... He was trying his best. He couldn't do this anymore. 


In an instant the knife that had been gripped in his left hand was stuck into the wall directly by Alice's head, couldn't she die already? He could just hit her and kill her. She'd taken everyone, she'd ruined everything. The boy let out a shaky breath and dropped his right hand, raising his head to look at the girl in front of him. 


"I'll...see you in hell." Adrian's voice broke, his eyes wild with hunger and a demented excitement, a wide, terrifying grin on his face, but Alice wouldn't be able to see any of that, he'd blinded her. 


He pulled the knife out of the wall and gripped it with both hands, holding it above his head. His eyes seemed to widen a bit more as he moved the knife further back, then in an instant he'd plunged it into the girl's shoulder and dragged it down. He was done playing with her, she tried to take everything from him. He wouldn't let it happen, not again. 
 
Jackson could not say any more at that moment. His mouth had stopped working, and he had to learn how to breathe again. Luckily, though, it appeared that he no longer needed to voice his worries and woes in an attempt to usher Adrian away; he could tell by the way that his head dropped to the floor with a thud that Eric was on his way out.


After that, it was silent - or at least it would have been, but Alice seemed unable to stop whimpering. She was mumbling to herself, saying unintelligible things spoken without meaning. Jackson swallowed and held his breath to listen. It had barely even occurred to him that she was crying for a reason, but now he felt so stupid because the pain in her voice, the sheer, raw agony was so obvious.


A few times the man opened and closed his mouth, but eventually managed to force out a weak, "Alice?"


At first the girl's only response was to freeze. She sucked in a sharp breath and tried to clamp her broken jaw upwards to hold in all of the sobs and whines, but then when Jackson called her name again, her body stopped quaking. "'Ackson?" she whispered slack-mouthed, her voice husky and heavy with uncertainty.


It was becoming harder and harder to think - Jackson's skull felt like it was being crushed under its own weight. He didn't know what to say, so the first lie that came into mind slipped easily off his tongue. "It's okay," he said, his face half-pressed into the blood-drowned carpet.


"You're wron'," came the reply with a whine that seemed to make the entire room shudder. "He's 'onna 'ill me."


"He won't," Jackson argued quickly, a pang of shock twisting its way through his body. "I p... I promise. I'll... T-tell him not..."


"You 'rought 'im here."


"I know," said Jackson, feeling another twinge of guilt. He tried not to let Adrian come along, but he was so useless. All that he had wanted was for everybody to be happy and safe, and he had severed the threads that they were clinging to life by with his own hands.


"He hurt me."


"I know." His voice broke.


There was a long silence that seemed to stretch between them, multiplying the distance between the two former friends by thousands until it felt to Jackson like he was an entire universe out of reach. He wanted to stand up, to walk over and wrap his arms around the girl he was too afraid to love like he had so many years ago. It pained him that he could not even touch her with his words.


After a while of doing nothing but listening to the maddening tick, tick of a distant clock and bleeding on the floor, Jackson heard that voice again.


"He's 'at kid," she remembered out loud, her tongue clicking inside her deformed mouth. "'At one you alway' talk'd a'out 'en you 'ere 'ith us."


"Yeah."


Alice carried on, "Will was 'onna make 'im a flute for 'is birthday when 'e was fifteen. A li'l wood thing 'ade of pine. It 'as almost done. He never met 'im. Not once. Not once, 'e never met 'im, and he was making a flute for 'im and all. He spen' months." For a moment she fell quiet again, but then her voice came back to shake Jackson out of a trance. "'Ackson?"


The man lifted his head for a moment before he felt dizzy and dropped to the floor again. He didn't want to listen anymore if it was going to be about Will, but somehow the girl had managed to transfix him. It was horrible, but he did not dare to argue. Alice was badly hurt, she was talking about the past like she knew she would not have long to remember it. He forced himself to grunt in response to show that he was still awake, though he was not sure how much longer he could last.


"Will 'ever finished the flute."


"I know," he said.


"'E was 'onna, 'e almost did it."


"I know."


"But he 'idn't," she explained. Her voice was becoming more and more quiet with every word.


"I know."


"It's your fault."


Jackson nodded into the carpet. His eyes were stinging. "I know."


There was a long silence. It was worse than the last one, because this time Jackson was so deafened by the sound of his own thoughts flying about in his head and telling him what Alice had said that he could not even hear the ticking of the clock. 'It's your fault,' he heard his own voice scold, every sound laced with spite. 'He didn't finish it. He died.'


This carried on for what felt like forever, but must really have been barely a minute. Then Alice spoke up again.


"'Ackson?" she whispered.


"Yeah?" The man forced himself to look up again. He saw only blackness.


"I hate you."


"I know."


Just as the man had begun to sink back down into the darkness from which he was sure he had come, Alice's weeping and sobs of despair mingled with a series of heavy thuds. He almost didn't notice that there were other people around him until his face was peeled away from the bloodied carpet.


Someone's here, he thought, instinctively grabbing at the knife he had stolen from Alice and cradling it to his chest. Something hit his back. A wall? It took him a moment to realise that his eyes had drooped closed, and when he opened them again... Well, it didn't make much of a difference, but he was sure that he could catch a flash of Bella's red hair as it swept away from his position.


"B-Bella?" Jackson reached out with his knife arm, which suddenly grew weak and shuddered itself back to the floor. The girl had already gone. It's okay, he told himself suddenly. Bella was here. She was going to make everything okay, she was going to get his parents back to the house and make sure they were okay. But then his heart stopped.


Alice was screaming. "No! No!" she cried out, thrashing her head forwards and to the sides as she cried. Once she managed to strike against Adrian's elbow, but it was no triumph. She was unmistakably panicking, maddened by the fear that filled her body, mind and soul and made her shriek like a monster. There was an enormous gash going all the way down her arm, and there was blood leaking out at an alarming rate. She couldn't see it, but she could feel her life seeping away. It made her carry on screeching and spitting.


Jackson grabbed at the wall behind him, trying to find a knife to use as a hand-hold to pull himself up. "Alice!" he howled, trying to think of something to say or do that would save his old friend. It wasn't working. His words were too slurred, too broken and numbed and impossible to make out. It didn't stop him from trying. "No! Adrian, stop, don't hurt her! Please, please, Adrian, y-you can't you..."
 
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Bella had frozen upon hearing the screaming and shouts from both the girl and Jackson, she'd spun herself around, hoping to see anything but what she thought she'd see... Unfortunately, she was disappointed. Drops of crimson fell to the floor from the tip of a newly bloodied knife, the hand holding that knife was hard to mistake, even if she hadn't seen Adrian...there was no one else it could have been. 


"Adrian!" The woman screamed along with everyone else, "Stop it! What're you doing?!" She stepped forwards, wanting to get in the way of the boy and the girl he had just torn a hole through, but upon hearing her footsteps Adrian snapped his head around to face her. She'd never seen such a...petrifying look, she knew that knife couldn't hurt her, but the way the boy stared into her eyes with those widened, grey orbs, and those dilated pupils, it sent chills down her spine. It was like he was warning her, telling her not to move or get in his way, and she didn't want to... "Adrian.." 


Upon watching Bella stop, Adrian turned back around again, he couldn't hear Jackson...his mind was clouded, all he knew was that Alice was being loud again. He hated that. He hated her screaming in his ear. His hands were shaking and he didn't know why, he felt oddly desperate, despite being the most in control of the situation, he felt...hurt. She couldn't live, he couldn't let her live, not after what she did... She wanted to hurt Jackson, no one hurt Jackson and got away with it, she was trying to leave him alone again... She wanted to take everything, he couldn't let her, he couldn't! He couldn't...be left on his own again. He couldn't lose them. 


Why was this hard? Why did a part of him still feel like he shouldn't do it? Adrian couldn't say he was feeling guilty, he wasn't, he'd been made a killer months before this, but...something made him want to think. No, no he couldn't think, the last time he thought about it it almost got him killed! There was nothing to think about, nothing at all, Alice tried to kill Jackson, she tried to kill Tilly and Eric, she tried to kill him. He couldn't... He... 


"Please stop screaming." Adrian's voice was almost silent and extremely forced, almost like he couldn't physically speak without putting in a lot of effort. He made an odd, high-pitched sound, something between a whine and a squeal, but it only lasted for a second. Stop thinking. He wasn't clever enough to think about it, if he thought he would just make the wrong decision. Jackson could die. 


Alice was bleeding out, Adrian knew that, maybe he could have left her like that... Given her a chance, but...was that too cruel? The boy raised his knife again, his gaze wavering slightly as it hit Alice and the damage he'd done to her, but...she deserved it, and...that's what he did. He didn't need to hurt. There was no point in hurting. It meant nothing. Again he dug the knife into the girl's shoulder, although this time it was the opposite one, but he didn't drag it down. Instead he simply laid his forehead on his hands, which were covering the end of the knife. 


"I'm going to kill you now." His voice was flat and quiet, almost monotonous, Alice would be lucky to hear it over her own screams. "I hate you." He mumbled, gripping the knife tighter, "But...I'll forgive you. Don't hold this against me, 'kay?" At the end of his sentence his voice seemed to get higher, like he was happy, but his face was obscured by his hair, it was hard to tell what he felt at that moment. "I'm...done...Alice." The second after he uttered her name he pulled the knife from her shoulder and sent it flying straight through her head, pinning that to the wall behind. If she lived that...she was some sort of superhuman...


Finally, Adrian raised his eyes, there was blood running down his arms, his once white shirt was now stained with many crimson patches, and the room had fallen completely silent. He'd...done it...and he felt indifferent. His hands dropped from the knife and he wiped one across his face to get rid of the strands of hair concealing his face as he spun around. The boy had been looking at the ground as he turned, and it stayed like that for quite a few moments. 


Bella stood and stared in stunned silence, what could she say? What could she do? She'd just watched Adrian stab a girl through the head, and he wasn't saying shit about it. He was just standing there. What in God's name had just happened in front of her? He could have killed that girl at any point, but he sure did make a job of it, or at least that's what she deduced from the position and state she saw the woman in. 


"Holy shit." She breathed, her eyes darting between Adrian and the body behind him. What had possessed him to do that? When everyone was screaming at him to stop, when he could hear how much pain that woman was in, what made him do it? 


"Holy shit what?" 


And there it was. That tone of voice that she heard every time she entered a room with the boy in it. Excitable, upbeat, innocent, friendly...clueless, that's what that tone was. She looked up and saw exactly what she expected to see, Adrian's confused gaze and furrowed eyebrows, he was baffled by her surprise. Did he not realise what he'd just done? 


"W-...I...A-..Adrian...You..." For once in her life Bella actually struggled to produce a coherent sentence, what was she meant to say to him? 'You just killed a girl, why are you acting like nothing happened?' That wasn't going to work. He didn't care, he honestly, truly just didn't care about the dead body behind him. He'd killed her less than a minute ago and was already moving onto the next thing, moving past Bella. 


"You can't let them die Bella." Adrian hastily made his way past the woman and over to the bed with Tilly in it. "Jackson'll be really upset if you let them die." She didn't get him. Not one bit. Did that not bother him at all? Did it not bother him that he'd just stabbed someone through the head and left them there? Sure, as ghouls they might be used to killing, but he'd killed her for the sake of killing her, not to keep himself alive. She didn't post a threat to him. Even after killing someone for food Bella felt horrendous, but to do this...to act like him... She didn't understand it. 


"Y-Yeah..." 


"Are you gonna get Jackson?" Adrian asked, grabbing hold of the sheets covering Tilly and actually pulling them off this time, "He needs help." 


"Yeah..." It was the only word she could say. Bella walked over to Jackson with the same horrified look stuck on her face as the moment she'd watched Adrian kill that girl, even when she looked at Jackson she couldn't remove that look. What was just happened? What the fuck had she just witnessed? 
 
She had been doing it for so long... Screaming, crying, whimpering and whining. It had never stopped but for the times she had tried to speak, and even in those few seconds her voice had trembled and failed her. It must have begun to hurt her throat. Jackson was beginning to think that perhaps she didn't even have any throat left, or maybe that the knives in her arms were such agony that they made the strain of her vocal chords feel like they were being tickled.


On... She just kept going on forever. "No, no," came some more of that weeping, so loud that it almost drowned Adrian's voice out. "I'm sorry, I 'idn't mean it, I'll 'ive them 'ack, I'm sorry, don't, 'ust 'lease don-"


Silence.


Alice did not finish her sentence or even her word. It just stopped halfway through, leaving nothing but a ringing silence that throbbed in Jackson's ears in time with his own pulse. He could hear his heart now like it was talking to him. 'She's-dead,' it said, then silenced for half a second. 'She's-dead, she's-dead, she's-dead.' It got louder and louder until it hurt to hear. The man dropped his knife and rammed his fists against his ears to try and stop himself from hearing it, but that only made it worse. 'She's-dead, she's-dead, she's-dead, SHE'S-DEAD!'


"Stop lying!" Jackson had not realised that he had spoken out loud until he realised how out of breath he was. His heart ached. It didn't stop, because it wasn't lying; he peeled his eyes open and saw it. Spotty, unclear, probably distorted and discoloured. Alice, the sweet, round-faced girl who once upon a time wore a big, bright smile to match her wonder-filled blue eyes. She was still and peaceful. There was a red blossom sprouting from the space above her nose, where a knife had pierced her skull.


'She's-dead, she's-dead,' said his heard. She's dead, he thought, suddenly feeling a new kind of weak that was worse than the light-headedness which came with blood loss. 


Alice, who had never been anything but the sweetest girl alive, was hanging lifeless from the blades stuck through her limbs. She never had a chance, she begged for mercy when she was trapped and blind. 


And Adrian had still killed her.


"Wh-what... The hell..." Jackson struggled to push out the words. He grabbed upwards at a figure he had just noticed was leaning over them. It was impossible to tell who it was. The colours had left him in a world of black-and-white, and mostly black at that. But it didn't matter whether it was Adrian, his mother, Bella... Alice... He just twined his bloodied hands with theirs and pulled this person down to sit by his side, just so that he could bury his face in their shoulder. "Adrian... What the hell did you do?"


And then his hands slipped down again as he felt himself sinking into an anguished sleep.
 
Jackson's sudden outburst surprised Bella, causing her to jump back. She'd didn't know what he was referring to, but she didn't question it, instead she just moved over to him, letting him pull her down by her hands once she got close. Jackson...she remembered him saying that it was an old friend that had taken his parents, he said she wasn't right...and now...Bella looked back for a second, watching as Adrian started to move the woman in the bed, his friend had died thanks to the boy he had been looking for for months. 


"He doesn't know." Her voice was quiet as she answered Jackson's question for Adrian, she wrapped her arms around the man and closed her eyes, sighing. "I'm sorry." She whispered, "I'm so sorry." Although she could already tell that Jackson was out, they needed to get him home and patched up...and she needed to figure out what to do with his parents, she couldn't take them back to theirs, they needed a hospital and quick...but...how. 


Suddenly an idea struck the woman. 


"Adrian. Get in the car." 


*


Once everyone was in the car, Bella had immediately set off. She'd put Jackson in the front seat, and helped Adrian with laying down Eric and Tilly in positions that would hopefully be beneficial. Bella couldn't say she wasn't anxious, she still wasn't over the shock of watching a small  and innocent seeming individual like Adrian skewer someone's brain, and now she had two people in bad states in her car... As well as four individuals that were all deemed missing. 


This wasn't going to be easy. 


The woman tried to drive for as little time as possible, she had to be fast, she tried to find the most abandoned part of the town that still had a pay phone. Once she did she gave Adrian three instructions, get Tilly and Eric out of the car, place them down, and get back in the car. He did this without question and simply sat in the back, watching Bella out of the window, once he was done. 


Bella on the other hand had moved to the pay phone, she'd put money in and immediately started to call someone. Soon enough they picked up. 


"Nine nine nine, what's your emergency?" The voice on the other end droned, she wasted no time in asking for the ambulance service and telling them exactly what she'd found. Surprisingly, acting scared really wasn't hard for the woman, after a minute or so of conversation they told her they'd be there as soon as possible, she simply thanked them and then hung up. Who knew how long it was going to take, she hoped they were there in time, but unfortunately she couldn't stick around to see what happened. If she or her car were in the vicinity when the ambulance turned up then who knew what would happen? If they found Adrian and Jackson in her car too... She could be charged with things she hadn't done. 


Before leaving Bella moved Eric and Tilly into positions that would hopefully allow their injuries to do minimal damage, although...looking at them she really didn't know whether it was going to help or not. She knew she'd wasted too much time, and so once she was satisfied that they were in the best possible position she walked back to her car, got in, and drove off. All she could do was hope that the ambulance appeared soon. 


*


"Hey Bella you-" Dane was downstairs with Caleb when the woman entered the house with Jackson in her arms. She was greeted by a cheerful smile from Dane, before he saw the state at which both she and the male she was holding were in. "Holy shit, what happened?"


"Not right now Dane, I'm sorry, I'll explain it later." With that she headed upstairs, her intention to get Jackson patched up and equipped with new clothes. She had this to worry about now, she couldn't focus on anything else. 


Bella wasn't the last one into the house, however, that was Adrian. The boy had skipped in and closed the door, covered in blood. No one could miss his blood-soaked shirt, or the streaks of red on his face, once he appeared it was easy to tell that something serious had gone down. 


Both Caleb and Dane stared on his both shock and horror as the boy simply smiled and followed Bella upstairs, he didn't say a word about what had happened, and he didn't really look hurt in any way, which probably meant not much of that blood, if any, was his own... 


"What the fuck did I just see?" 
 
"What - wait, what are you doing?"


"Just hold still for a moment! I promise, this will look great."


Jackson rolled his eyes up and tried to look away, but found that his gaze drifted back to his outstretched hand. Alice was leaning over the side of his wheelchair, her tongue visible between her full, white lips. She was drawing something scruffy on the back of his hand with a blue ball-point pen.


"Y-you know," Jackson said, forgetting for a moment that he had to keep still and producing a tiny gasp from his friend, "The last time you tried this, my mum thought it was a dick."


For a moment the look on Alice's face made him regret having ever commented at all, but something seemed to catch her attention. The boy with the blond hair and glasses followed her gaze and saw another person standing just behind him. This newcomer was tall, smartly-dressed in a brand new uniform set with his ash-brown hair combed back in a quiff. He had eyes the colour of olives, which were creased in an enormous grin as he tried not to laugh out loud. The silence didn't last long, though; as soon as he caught Alice's eye, both of them started chuckling, and then they were howling with laughter over nothing at all. Jackson joined in with a smile and a breathless little chortle that made no noise.


"Will," Alice wheezed through it all. She released Jackson's hand to wipe her brow. "Mornin'! When did you get here?"


"It's afternoon," Jackson commented quietly, though naturally his quiet voice went unheard and Will carried on like nothing had happened.


"Just got in," the boy explained with a shrug, picking a speck of sand-coloured sawdust out of his hair between his finger and thumb. "I had some, uh, trouble on the way in. It's cool, though. Y'alright, you two? Jackson?"


Jackson almost jumped in his seat. Alice snorted at him, and he had to pinch her elbow so that she wouldn't start laughing again. He managed a quick nod at Will. "Oh. Y-yeah, thanks. We're good Um, yeah."


Will glanced quite pointedly at Alice, although he did so with a nervous smile that the shorter girl reflected on her own round face. "Me?" She jabbed her thumbs inwards at her own neck, eyebrows raised in an overly-exaggerated arch. When she saw the brown-haired boy nod, she did a little dance with her head bobbing from side to side. "Oh, yeah, alright. Not too much happening, y'know? Hey! C'mere a moment, check out my art!"


As instructed, Will leaned in to examine Jackson's hand, which he held out for inspection again. It had been scrawled on with messy blue lines. "Oh," he said, forcing a smile like he understood what it was supposed to be, although his furrowed brows gave him away. "That's really cool."


"It's a dick," Jackson said, far too loudly compared to his intentions. He could almost feel the burning gazes of an entire class full of teenagers scorching at the back of his neck, but Alice's outburst helped him to ignore it.


"It's not! It's not, look, it's a smiley face - look, it's got eyes there, and that's it's mouth-"


"Hey - cool," Will said through gritted teeth. There was still a strained smile on his face and a rolling giggle beneath his words, but something about the tone of his voice made both other pairs of eyes lock with his own, meeting him with skeptical frowns. "That's cool."


"Told you," Alice gloated at Jackson, who proceeded to elbow the girl in the ribs in return for a tiny yelp. She clipped him over the ear back. Will kept smiling like he was enjoying the friendly exchange, but then shifted his weight from foot to foot like he was ready to make an announcement.


"Anyway - uh, yeah. I was just checking up, so, y'know. I should get going."


When Alice glanced up to wave and call out her goodbyes, Will had already vanished. "Huh," she said, exchanging a quick glance with Jackson. "He evaporated."


***


It didn't have to be loud enough to wake him up. Jackson had been drifting for hours. In, out, in... Awake and asleep, lost and found, he knew that he should move or speak or do anything at all, but he couldn't. He was so tired, and his hands hurt like hell. But through his headache, he could still hear that noise.


'She's-dead, she's-dead, she's-dead,' went his heart, much less urgently and mind-numblingly than it had been... However long ago. Hours? Days? It can't have been as much time as that when he could still hear Alice's screams muting in a split second like she was dying in front of him all over again.


That was right. Alice was dead. They had all gone out to rescue his mum and dad, and he had heard one of his closest friends meet their end and then passed out before he could check on his parents. Where were they? God, they could be dead, too. He saw the blood poisoning in his father's skin back there, and he had not even confirmed that Tilly was in the house too. He couldn't lose them, not now, not after Alice. That was too much, and God wasn't that cruel. Slowly, he peeled his eyes open, surprised to find that his glasses were already on his face, though slightly in the wrong position. He raised a clumsy and bandaged hand, pushed them up his nose until they sat right, and then glanced around.


Yeah, he was here. He was at whatever this was supposed to be, his room at 'home'. It was dark, like normal. Only a thin bar of light filtered through into the room, and he could see almost nothing with it... Except for the shape of a small boy.


"Adrian!" Jackson nearly choked on his own breath and sent his glasses flying off his face again with surprise, but luckily he managed to catch them in time. He blinked furiously to clear his vision. But no, there he was. Adrian, in his room, waiting for him to wake up.
 
Adrian had waited for hours, he'd sat in that room and waited for Jackson to wake up for hours. The boy really didn't have anything better to do. After Bella made him get a shower and gave him new clothes he'd come straight down to sit on the floor by Jackson and wait for the other to finally wake up, he didn't understand why he needed to sleep for so long...what was wrong with him? 


The events from earlier that day had seemed to all but have been forgotten by the male, his mannerisms showed no sign of any nervousness or unrest, instead he just seemed like his average, slightly creepy, self. He'd put it to the back of his mind, forgotten what he'd done, but that didn't mean he felt bad about it...in fact, he felt anything but bad about his actions. She deserved it. 


He sat in the dark, playing with various strands of cotton, pillows, sheets, anything he could find to keep himself entertained. He knew that he didn't have to wait, but he wanted to, he wanted to make sure that Jackson was okay, and he wanted to be there when he woke up. So when he finally hear the man's voice the joy that filled him was indescribable. 


"Jackson!" Adrian exclaimed, moving to a kneeling position in front of the other, "You're awake! You've been asleep for kinda a long time y'know? It's not bed time yet though." His grey eyes drifted from the man back down to the strand of cotton he continued to pull out of the grey shirt that he now had on. Once again he'd tied his hair behind his head so it stayed out of his eyes, but there wasn't a single speck of blood left on him from the encounter earlier in that day, instead of the white shirt, he was wearing grey, and instead of shorts he was wear black trousers. 


The boy giggled and smiled again, "I kinda thought you were gonna sleep all day at one point, but you didn't, so that's good." He was rambling about any old thing, "Bella made you food y'know? So...that's...somewhere." Once more, Adrian looked up, his ebullient gaze meeting Jackson's, "If I couldda eaten it I probably wouldda too...but I can't anymore, so..." He shrugged, brows furrowing as he looked at Jackson's expression, "Hey, Jackson. Is...something wrong?" 
 
Like a thousand tiny dancers, little specks of white rain drifted and skipped down from the milky sky above. The light would not last much longer; Jackson could see the way the clouds were tinted pink and gold towards the west, where the sun had begun to melt into the horizon. In only a few minutes the world would turn dark and lose what little colour it still had in what had to be the coldest summer he had ever felt.


The boy wrapped his arms around himself for a little bit of extra warmth, but in a few seconds he found that he didn't need to. A presence had emerged behind him, and something soft and heavy was suddenly draped over his shoulders. Jackson grabbed at the coat gratefully and passed his arms through the sleeves. "Will?" he called, and his friend materialised in the corner of his vision.


"Hey," the boy said quietly, putting on a twitchy smile as he too stared up at the sky. "What's up? Sorry, I didn't know you would be on your own. Is Alice always late or something?"


Jackson squinted through his rain-spotted glasses at the taller boy with the ash-brown hair. "Yeah," he mumbled, taking a moment to sniff loudly and try not to wipe his nose on his sleeve. "W-well, no. Um, I mean, she's been getting better. But it's okay, thanks for - for the coat."


"It's fine. You're soaked."


"So are you..."


Will nodded and crossed his arms over, rubbing vigorously at his shoulders where the fabric of his tuxedo had become damp and cold. If not for the fact that the boy's hair was plastered to his scalp by water, he looked as well-dressed as he had ever been. Jackson had dressed up for the night, too, but out of everybody he had ever known, only Will looked like he could pull off a white bow-tie. It made the boy wonder how Alice would look. She had always passed off the school prom night as just another necessity to get over and done with, but Jackson knew that the little girl inside her had been waiting for the evening since she was old enough to write her own name.


"You looking forwards to it?" The enquiry was sudden, and it made Jackson jump, for which his friend smiled nervously in apology. Jackson thought that there was no need to be sorry. It was a fair question, and he appreciated Will's attempt to make conversation in what would otherwise be a silent co-existence. They were sitting and standing beside a red post box on a lonely London road as the rain grew heavier and heavier, and there was nowhere they could go until Alice decided to make an appearance.


"Yeah, I - I think it'll be cool, maybe," Jackson guessed with a shrug.


"Of course. You're going to the top, right? Only one guy gets to be our third wheel!"


"...Fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh," the blond boy added, tapping his hands down at his sides to make a point. Will's face contorted into an odd expression that Jackson thought he recognised, like his friend would be horrified at himself for laughing at the joke even though he was clearly struggling to hold it in. But when Jackson grinned, Will seemed to relax. He allowed himself to chuckle for a few seconds.


The conversation was not so difficult after that. The words became easy, and the minutes rolled by. Will and Jackson talked to each other like they had not spoken for years, and after a while the topic of conversation became the third, absent member of their trio.


"What do you think she'll wear?" Jackson chirped up at his friend as they both started to fiddle with their drenched hair to re-style it into whatever it had looked like earlier that day. 


"A dress?"


Will's guess earned him a snort in response. "N-no, she's going to turn up in leopard-print underwear," Jackson sighed as he experimented with parting his somewhat long hair in the middle so that he had a rough form of a curtain fringe, his voice laced with a gentle sarcasm. Will simply grunted softly in agreement and gave his friend a knowing smile. The boy's face turned red. "Wh- hey! You wouldn't like that."


There was a hand on his head after that, and though it teased Jackson by ruffling his hair, he took a moment to brush the golden mane back into its place before he glanced up again. "I'm not saying," he insisted, "I mean - look! She's here now."


There was a series of splashing noises from around the corner, and when Jackson craned his head he could see the very girl they had spoken about. Her dark hair was flat and glossy, kept dry beneath an umbrella the same rose-pink as the dress that draped down to her heels. The girl's blue eyes twinkled with anticipation. "Mornin'," she breathed, kicking her high heels off to shake away some of the rain water. "Sorry I'm late, let's go."


***


'Hold on, please just slow down for a second,' Jackson wanted to say to Adrian. He had just woken up, and his head felt clouded and heavy as though there were a blanket of fog swirling about within his mind. He could barely even recall where he was or why he was here, let alone keep up with Adrian's excitable ramblings about bed times and Bella and then something to do with food...


He couldn't listen to it. None of it went into his head, because he was just far too busy trying to remember everything from what felt like the night before but must have only happened earlier that day. Something had changed. His clothes were new, fresh out of Dane's wardrobe, if he was not mistaken. Bella must have gotten him out of the shirt he had ruined with blood, his own blood and... His parents' blood.


That was right, he thought, feeling his heart seem to twist and shudder inside the thin shell of his chest. That's what they had done, he remembered it now. Just divide it into steps and the answer was there... He saw the poster in the photo. He told Bella. Alice sent him her location. Bella took him and Adrian to the house and they went in to rescue Tilly and Eric together...


But it hadn't worked, had it?


No, Jackson thought. He tried to tighten his hands into fists but the bandage only got in the way, which made him even more frustrated. There was no telling what had happened to his parents yet, but one thing was for certain: Adrian had killed Alice. He had borderline tortured her, using knives to blind her and hold her in place, and she had been so scared and in so much agony. It hurt even to remember the harrowing echoes of her screams as she begged the boy for mercy.


Adrian had killed the girl whom Jackson had cherished for years he could not even remember. He killed her, he killed Alice in her own house and he had the fucking nerve to ask is something was wrong?


"Yeah, there is," he snapped in a tone far sharper than he ever expected to hear in his own voice. He could not take it back; it was already out, so hostile and aggressive and laced with an anger he had never before expressed towards Adrian. But he didn't want to take it back. Alice didn't do shit to him, he came out unharmed, not so much as a scratch on his scrawny body. Whatever the hell that had been, it wasn't self-defense.


Still feeling somewhat light-headed, sudden movement was probably not the smartest option, but for some reason that didn't occur to Jackson when he lashed his arm forwards and grabbed Adrian by the collar of his shirt. His muscles screamed at him to rest, but he pulled the boy in closer. Maybe his snarling would have been more intimidating if his eyes had not been stinging with fresh tears that leaked out through the corners and rolled down the sides of his face. He tried to cover it by snapping again in a voice that became increasingly loud and more desperate by the second, "Why, why'd you ask, you forget? Did you fucking forget like you always do, or do you seriously not care?" He had to pause for a moment to swallow and clear the lump in his throat. "Wh-what... What the hell is wrong with you, man?! Alice is dead."


By the end of his speech he was almost roaring. There was a small part of him that wanted him to stop, it knew what he was capable of whenever he got taken over by his rage, but right now when his entire world was ending that little voice suddenly seemed very unimportant. Jackson kept hold of the collar of Adrian's shirt as he stared into those grey eyes, his own brown orbs lit with the blazing fire of hatred.
 
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"Wh..." Adrian was more than confused when he heard Jackson's sharp tone, in fact it made him lean away a little bit. There was what? What was Jackson referring to? Had he upset him already? What...What did he say? He continued to chew on his lip, looking up at Jackson with a more concerned expression than before, what was he talking about? What was he saying? Adrian really didn't get it. 


"There is wha-" He had been about to ask Jackson for the answer to the questions swirling around inside his head, but before he could do so the man had grabbed hold of his shirt collar and pulled him forwards. Now whilst Adrian wasn't particularly intimidated or worried by the action itself, the tone of his voice displayed a kind of anger that Adrian hadn't seen in a long time. "What did I..." 


He swallowed, Jackson had cut him off yet again, going on about whether he'd forgotten or whether he just didn't care. No...no he hadn't forgotten, he guessed he knew why Jackson was upset, he could see the tears in his eyes, but he didn't get why he was getting so angry over it... It had happened, Alice had tried to kill them all, he couldn't just let that happen. He didn't want to think about it, why was Jackson making him think about it whilst he held that expression? It just made the other feel uncomfortable, like there was something he did wrong. 


His large eyes had started to widen a little more out of worry and, unlike he usually would, he didn't make any attention to comment further. What was wrong with him? What...was wrong with him? He didn't know, did Jackson actually want him to answer that? He didn't know how to answer! He couldn't answer! He didn't know what was wrong with him! Was there something wrong with him? 


"J-Jackson..." Adrian squeaked out, noticing the hatred that was now starting to become a more prominent emotion in those deep brown eyes of his. "Jackson I don't get it, I don't get it..." His voice had become more of a whine as he got more and more distressed when he didn't understand what the other was saying, "Why're you mad? What did I do?" 
 
"I'm not saying I'm n-not happy for you or anything, but can't you just get a train instead?" 


Jackson wrung his hands together and tried to avoid catching the glint of surprise in Alice's eye as she turned her nose down to stare at him, one thin eyebrow raised into her forehead. Unfortunately, the girl had a way with finding visual attention when she wanted it. She waited for her friend to look up before she answered in that soft, calming tone that only she could do. "Hey, we're not going far, and Will promised he would be careful, remember? Don't worry about it."


"Yeah, but it's not him I don't trust!" he trilled back at her. The skin on his ears was beginning to burn red, but he made sure to cover it by brushing his hair over the top. The breeze quickly undid his work. "It's - it's everyone else, you know? People can be idiots, Alice, it doesn't matter how careful you are. You can't be a hundred percent safe."


For once Alice seemed to be at a loss for words. The corners of her mouth dipped downwards and she raised her shoulders in a shallow shrug, unable to make any point that could possibly argue with Jackson's concerns. All that she could do was begin to push the boy over the dry grass, towards the edge of the road that surrounded the park they had spent their day in. From here, the noise of the busy London world seemed miles away, but as soon as they reared up at the pavement the peace was broken.


Vroo-ooo-oom!


The sheer volume of the sound made Jackson flinch, but when Will pulled up by their side on his motorcycle, short brown hair windswept and wild, it was impossible to lie that he was not pleased to see him. It had taken him a couple of years, but nowadays it felt as though their duo had stretched out to fit in one more, and there was always an odd sensation of emptiness whenever the boy was not around.


Will swept his legs over the bike and rested it carefully on its side before he came over to curl his arms around Alice in a hug. The girl's grin returned, and she planted a quick kiss on his neck before they parted again to look at Jackson, who was busily wondering where his friend's helmet was.


"Will," he said as he pushed up his glasses with a hand. "You - you made it, then."


"Yeah!" The boy with the motorcycle stretched out and nodded. Now that he was closer, it was easy to see the dark circles beneath his eyes, and the way that his fair skin had gained a grey-ish tint. He seemed to catch Jackson staring, and forced a twitchy smile. "Hey, y'alright? You look tired."


Jackson almost choked. He looked tired? Sure, he had been kept awake for a while when Adrian had managed to get himself in hysterics last night, but Will looked like he had not slept for a week. "J-just a little," he finally replied, earning another one of Will's little smiles, "You?"


The other boy stiffened and managed a tiny nod. "Yeah, good, thanks," he breathed. He let Alice take his hand so that he could not shove it in his pocket. "I've just been busy doing workshop stuff, my old man wants me back home as soon as possible."


Maybe Jackson would have answered, objected or suggest that they leave the bike here and take the Underground, but Will had already started on his way back to the vehicle, Alice still in tow by the hand.


"I'm sorry, I can't stick around," he explained as the blond boy followed them to the edge of the path. With a couple of strong hands he cracked open the little storage box on the back of his motorcycle, produced a helmet and passed it to Alice, who quickly slipped it over her head and flipped up the visor. Her mouth was invisible, but Jackson could tell by the way her eyes creased at the edges that she was smiling at him.


"Where's yours?" Jackson chirruped at Will.


"The helmet? Oh, that one's mine. It's too small for me, but that's okay. We're not going far."


"Right..."


Will had just raised a foot to swing his body back into the driver's seat, but then he clicked a finger. "Oh! I almost forgot." Alice detached herself from the taller male to let him rummage back through the little storage box. With one hand he pulled out a little carrier bag labelled 'TESCO', which looked empty other than something small and rectangular sitting in the bottom.


Jackson nearly jumped when he saw that the package was being handed to him. He was about to ask what it was, but he found that he didn't need to, because Will was already explaining, "Here - sorry, it's for your dad. I cooked it up for him, y'know, to help him get better." Alice raised her eyebrows inquisitively, and Will's cheeks turned from grey to red. "I, uh, haven't tried it, so I don't know if it's any good. But it saves him having to get out of bed, right?"


It was with a shaky arm that Jackson stole the package right out of the air. It was comfortably warm to the touch, which seemed to generate an odd tingling sensation in his fingertips. Did Will seriously make this just for Eric? He was sure that he had only brought up the flu his dad had caught in conversation once or twice, but whilst he failed to comprehend his friend's thought process, Jackson still accepted the gift gratefully. "Th-thanks," he said, quite bemused.


"No problem. I just hope it's okay."


Alice leaned up to say something quietly into Will's ear, and the boy nodded, causing a stray tuft of ash-brown hair to flop to one side. 


"Anyway - sorry, we should go. My old man's going to have a pink fit if I don't get in."


As the couple lifted the motorcycle back onto its wheels and took their positions, Alice's arms wrapped firmly around her lover's waist with her helmet's visor flipped down, Will opened his mouth again. "You okay getting home yourself?"


Jackson called out again. "Yeah. H-hey, don't worry, just... Keep - keep your eyes on the road."


"Send me a photo of your dog when you get home," Alice suggested, her voice muffled by the helmet. Jackson's chest heaved in a tiny, noiseless laugh.


Will smiled back, nodded and raised a hand in salute, then hit the gas. The bike's engine started to purr and then they were off, shrinking to a little speck in the distance before rounding off to an invisible road.


***


It had only taken that little spark of impulse for Jackson to set the ball rolling, and now he could not stop it. He had Adrian in his grip, his fists curled so tightly around the boy's collar that it made the bandages stretch and dig, and he could hear that irritating whining tone in the boy's voice.


He killed Alice, he thought. It was the only thought he had at that moment, the only thing his brain could produce when his blood boiled so hotly inside his skin. Alice was dead, and there was somebody to blame. That somebody had to die, regardless of who they were, what they looked like or how defenseless they would inevitably be if somebody tried to attack. He didn't see Adrian, his scrawny little best friend who was functionally his brother, standing before him anymore. Just a killer with no face and no name.


There was only one answer to an irreversible sin.


It seemed to take Jackson all the effort in the world to move his hands away from Adrian's collar, but once he released the boy, his left arm quickly found a much more comfortable position around the boy's neck.


"Yeah, you don't get it!" roared the anger burning inside his head. "You never fucking understand anything. You never!"


The boy's neck still wrapped up in his left arm, Jackson's right fist suddenly swung around from the side and connected with Adrian's jaw. It wasn't a warning hit or a playful tease; they had skipped far beyond that now. He was throwing real punches, hard hits to the parts of the face where the bone was least protected, and they came strong and fast with the weight of Jackson's full body.


"Ever-"


He threw another punch, this time aiming for the cheekbone.


"Ever-"


This hit landed on the flat space of Adrian's forehead.


"Get anything!"


By this point the man was wheezing. He had overdone himself, put too much effort into physical movement when he barely had the energy to keep himself from passing out again. But he wasn't done yet. As soon as he could manage it, he tightened both hands around the murderer's throat and began to squeeze.


Not even a ghoul could survive being strangled, and Jackson's anger knew as much as that. He pressed the boy up against the inside wall and ground his teeth together as he waited for his target to go limp.


"You want to know what you did?" he said through a clenched jaw, his voice loud enough to make the entire house feel like it was shaking. "You killed her. Is that enough? She's dead, you goddamn monster..."
 
All Adrian wanted was an answer, he didn't know that Jackson was so pissed off at him, he didn't realise that he would be so angry over all of it. He didn't mean to make him mad, he didn't know... 


Maybe he could have moved, pulled Jackson off, but the boy made no attempt to combat him in any sort of way. Before he knew it there was a hand tightly wrapped around his neck, and he did nothing to remove it. Instead he just sat there, attempting to catch his breath, he didn't understand what Jackson was doing... He was pretty sure he didn't want to know, that his mind was making up any sort of lie to excuse the man's violent behaviour towards him. To assure him that it wasn't what he thought. 


The scariest thing about the situation wasn't the way Jackson looked at him, or the way he'd roughly grabbed at him, it was the way he spoke...because when Jackson spoke Adrian didn't hear him, he heard someone else... A voice that he hadn't heard for years, and one he'd never thought he'd hear again, why now? Did Jackson agree with her? Did he really agree with her? And that was what frightened him the most. 


He opened his mouth as if to try and say something, but even if he had been able to form the words he wanted to, he didn't have the time, as before he could even mentally finish his sentence a fist crashed into his jaw, twisting his head in the opposite direction. Adrian's eyes widened as he felt his cheek throb with pain after the hit. It wasn't even that that bothered him, he didn't care about that, it was the shock of being hit at all by Jackson... He didn't... He... He... 


It was then that Adrian realised he'd really fucked up, he'd fucked up hard enough for the one person who had never laid a hand on him through the time he knew him to hit him... He'd fucked up again, he always ended up doing something wrong, even when he tried not to...and he had tried not to. He didn't want Jackson to get hurt, and Alice was hurting him...but now Jackson was mad at him because he'd killed her. He didn't realise...he didn't know that Jackson would be so upset, he didn't...think... 


For a moment Adrian tried to look up at the man for a moment, large, grey eyes sincerly apologetic for having upset Jackson to such an extent, but behind that look there was a mixture of fear and dejection. Why did he make everyone so annoyed with him? Why did he always mess up and make someone else hurt? 


He wanted to apologise, try to make everything okay again, but he knew that wasn't going to happen... He knew that Jackson was furious with him and try to talk, even if he could, wasn't going to help the situation. So he didn't try. Another punch crashed into his cheek as Jackson yelled something else at him, then another into his temple. He didn't even care at that point, he couldn't react to it, he couldn't even look up again. What was the point? He'd fucked up. That was it. There was no point in hurting Jackson further. He'd done enough of that to last a lifetime. 


The next thing he knew Jackson had him pinned against the wall and was squeezing his neck so tightly that Adrian was worried he might burst something. Not being able to breathe scared him, he was constantly trying to fight for a breath, making spluttering and wheezing noises in an attempt to fill his lungs with some sort of air, but he knew that it was pointless... If he didn't move Jackson then there was no point in ever trying to breathe again, and he didn't make an attempt to push the man away from him, or pry his hands off. Maybe he really did deserve it... It wasn't like he could ever do anything right, he was just a burden to everyone else and made anyone he came across feel like shit. So...what was the point in fighting? 


Jackson's voice was loud enough to cause Adrian to flinch and squeeze his eyes shut, pushing some of the tears that had welled up inside of them out and down the sides of his face. His legs kicked at the ground, but not at Jackson, it was just the reaction his body was making to being strangled and possibly killed, he was afraid, he couldn't help it. Then Jackson only added insult to injury by calling him a monster, the one person he thought wouldn't call him that was the man in front of him...but...even he said it, even Jackson thought that he was a monster. He wasn't worth anyone's time, all he did was upset people, all he did was hurt them... So...so maybe he really was a monster. 


Adrian just wanted to cry, he wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, but since he couldn't do that, he wanted to pass out already. It was taking too long, he didn't want to sit there and listen, he just wanted to pass out. It hurt enough already. But that never happened... It never happened because suddenly there was another set of voices, the slamming of a door, more screaming, and finally, on top of all of that, he was dropped and given his breath back. 


*


"Jackson what the fuck!?" Bella screamed as she entered the room just to see Jackson strangling Adrian, who was pinned up against the wall. "What the hell are you doing?!" After hearing Bella's screams Dane entered the room, Caleb quickly following suit, but staying at the door as the other went in. The man had ran over to Jackson and grabbed hold of his hand, pulling on it. 


"Jackson, let fucking go of him!" He yelled as he tried to pry the man's fingers from around Adrian's neck. Bella was over there too, backing Jackson up as Dane finally managed to free Adrian from Jackson's grasp. The boy fell to the floor, spluttering, and coughing, and shaking, Dane didn't know what the hell had just gone on between them, but it wasn't good. "What're you doing?! What the fuck was that about?!" He snapped, standing in front of Adrian so there was no chance that Jackson was getting back towards the boy again. "Are you crazy?! What? Are you trying to fucking kill him?!" All of this was a shock to the three newcomers, all of their eyes were wide, they were all in complete surprise. 


Jackson had looked for Adrian for months. Why the hell was he trying to hurt him? 
 
Jackson could remember what Alice's face had looked like when she told him; she had kept her lips turned up in a sad smile, but her blue eyes had turned glassy and seemed to lose their life. It was difficult for her to speak, difficult for her to admit to keeping a secret she should have shared with him a long time ago.


He remembered being so taken aback. 'Wh-what - what do you mean?' he had stuttered up at the girl, receiving that same solemn look in return. She had turned her head away and spread her soft, chubby hands out around the swell of her belly. The words she had told were not lies, but still her friend had left abruptly to seek a better truth than the one he didn't want to believe.


So now he had come to sit at the eye of the storm. His hands tightened into balls with ancicipation, the boy with the blond hair pushed up his glasses with one shoulder and waited for the door to crack open.


Click, went the door. Will's thin, pointed face loomed out from the darkness inside and broke into a genuine smile when he saw that he had a visitor. "Jackson!" he called down, the tiredness momentarily vanishing from his face as he met a pair of narrow nut-brown eyes. He seemed to unfreeze after a moment and he swung his limbs around in a frenzy, darting back inside and producing a little wooden ramp when he came back out. As he was ducking down to slide it into place by the step, he made a quick glance up. "Hey, y'alright? I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting you to come, I-"


"N-nor was I," Jackson admitted through gritted teeth. Every time Will looked at him, the boy flinched like he expected the stare to hurt, but he didn't say another word as he rolled up into the house; he simply let the brown-haired boy talk as he led the way, flitting across his home's wide entrance to switch on the lights.


"Sorry about the mess, by the way," he said with a frown. "My old man's not here this week. He normally does all the cleaning up, I guess I'm kind of useless on my own, huh?"


Will wasn't apologising for nothing. There were trails of sawdust collected around the edges of the hard wooden floor, where mud had been stamped into the fibres by what looked to be about a hundred different people's shoes. One side of the hall had been decorated with panels of pine wood, patterned with burn marks so delicate and fine that they looked like paintings. Will caught Jackson staring at one picture of a patch of a rabbit kit, and explained, "Pyrography. It's woodburning, a kind of art."


"Did you make these?" Jackson asked quietly, never forgetting to recoil whenever he caught Will's eye.


"Uh, well... Actually, most of these are my old man's. That one's mine, though." With a thumb he gestured towards one picture hung up in a slightly wonky position. The scorch marks were somewhat messier than the majority of the works, but even with the occasional black blotch Jackson could somewhat tell what it was supposed to be.


"Bluebells?"


"Snowdrops, actually. Alice's favourite. I was going to give it to her, but my old man doesn't want that one to see the light of day. So I've got to keep practicing, huh?"


Jackson found himself nodding mindlessly. He wished that he could say he was no longer paying attention, but he clung to every word. This was the same Will he knew, the same Will he had always been: smart, kind, modest, unafraid to help just for the sake of helping. If anything, he reminded him of Leo. Jackson envied everything about this boy.


"So," Will finally said as he led Jackson into a somewhat cramped lounge up ahead. There was a little dining table with a lazy-Susan fixed in the middle, and all the furniture was clean-cut and polished, made solely from the same pine as the woodburning pictures. The only non-wooden things about this room were the sofa and the fireplace, inside which there was a smal pile of logs peacefully crackling under a flame. "What's up, then? Are you okay?"


"I'm fine, thanks. Just - just here to talk," the other boy explained. It was only half a lie, barely even untrue. In fact, the more they spoke, the less faith Jackson was beginning to have in Alice's words. He would not call her out for tricking him, she would never do that... She could just be mistaken. But still, it was always better to be safe. Strange things had started happening, so he decided that he should at least mention it. "Actually," he said with a very forced hiccup of laughter, "Alice - she told me som-something funny yesterday."


Will's eyebrows raised, and he blinked his olive-green eyes in anticipation. "Oh, really? What was it?" he asked with genuine interest.


Jackson scoffed and snorted and shook his head as he said, "W-well, you know, she was just joking. We were - we were just talking about stuff and at one point, at one point I think she said that you - you were a ghoul."


Even the fire seemed to dwindle into silence. Will stood where he was, completely still, his eyes suddenly swimming with something that Jackson could almost mistake as guilt. Maybe the atmosphere would have felt less indimidating if the boy had pretended to smile or laugh or wave Alice's joke off as the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. But when he simply wandered over to the sofa and sank into a cushion, Jackson knew that not all was as well as he had hoped.


"Will?"


"So she did tell you after all," he said. The concern in his voice was obvious, because he did such a bad job of trying to cover it up with a bouncy, sing-song tone that it made his chin tremble even more. "Sorry, Jackson. It wasn't a joke..."


Jackson's face began to burn up. He could feel one eye twitching as he followed Will to the sofa, almost backing into the little smokey log fire as he made an attempt to catch his friend's eye. "What do you mean?" he said, far more quickly and sharply than he intended. "Will, don't tease me. Th-this is serious! You're not really..."


He didn't need to finish that sentence, because Will was already nodding sadly. "I was going to tell you a while ago," he explained, his normally-cheery voice suddenly very low and monotone. 


"What the hell?" Jackson whispered, his eyes turning wide.


"I thought... After Leo, you might get upset."


"Damn right I am!" came the reply. Jackson's fingertips were fizzing now, and he had no idea why. When he opened his mouth, the words were already there, and they came out so easily and yet so unnaturally, almost as though it were someone else saying them through his body. "What the hell is wrong with you? What about Alice!?"


"Jackson, I-"


"Does she even know what you did to her? For God's sake, what about her baby?"


There was a moment of thunderous silence. Will's head seemed to sink further and further forwards in shame, his face eventually settling just inches above his knees. It seemed to take him a while to work up the courage to say it, but eventually he managed to tell the other boy that, "It will live."


Jackson's jaw dropped in horror. He leaned forwards and grabbed at Will's hands, then shook them as hard as he could. No, no, he knew what that meant. This was all probably some kind of practical joke gone too far, he prayed that it would be... But this wasn't the kind of thing you joked about. If Will was a ghoul, then Alice...


"Show me," he demanded at Will. "Goddamn it, Will, show me your eyes if it's true!"


Will nodded shallowly and forced himself to look up. His eyes had lost their kind olive-green hue, which had dissolved into the ominous, lethal combination of blood-red on black.


The truth that hit Jackson was so solid and heavy, unmoveable as a mountain and yet so twisted at the same time. It wasn't a joke. Alice had not been kidding, she had not been trying to tease or trick Jackson by telling him what her boyfriend really was: a monster.


One of his best friends, a man whom he had put his life's trust in since he first showed up in their lives, had been a ghoul all a long and he had not said a word about it. Now he had Alice caught up in a web of dread and despair, forced to do the unthinkable for the sake of keeping a monster's spawn alive.


As if he could read Jackson's mind, Will made a feeble attempt to defend himself. "I didn't make her do anything," he quivered, failing to meet his friend's eye. "I swear, she wanted to do it. I just prepare it for her, that's all, I promise she's fine."


Even if Will's intentions were good, Jackson could not see past the ghost of that image. The red eyes seemed to loom in front of him, unwavering... And then they swallowed his vision whole. He could not see what he was doing, and it was like he was being locked out of his own mind. All that he could remember was the feeling of his hands tightening around something soft. There was a cracking noise, then a voice. It had to have been the saddest thing Jackson had ever heard. 'I'm sorry,' it said, 'I should have told you. Please take care of her.'


And then that was it. The sensation of the thing in his hands fell away, and when Jackson opened his eyes again he did not see Will. He saw a dead body sprawled out across the wooden floor, red marks wrapped around its throat where a set of fingers had strangled the life out of him, and the white of the snapped bone inside the neck.


"W-Will?" Jackson trembled as he looked at the body. Nobody answered him but the beating of his own aching heart. "Will? Oh my God... Oh God, oh God." He shook, his entire body seemed to convulse as he stared at the sickening sight on the ground. That wasn't Will. It couldn't be, he refused to believe it. No, it wasn't, it wasn't... He hadn't really done that. It wasn't him, it was just his anger. But the guilt that suddenly ensnared Jackson in its icy claws of malice seemed to laugh at that idea, and before he knew it, he was stammering again, "No, no, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... Oh God, Will..."


***


He heard those voices.


'Jackson, what the fuck!?' they said.


'What the hell are you doing?'


'Are you crazy?'


He heard them, though they sounded quiet and far away - perhaps like he was asleep with the waking likes of his parents trying to rouse him from a slumber, or maybe like he had buried his head in a sea of dry sand. But even when he could not make out the words correctly, he knew what they meant. They were scorning him, shocked, angry, confused - they thought he was insane. Why? the man wondered. Why am I insane?


It did not occur to him for a while that he could not see. His head was filled with blackness, but then he felt a coldness touch his hands. Wait, no... That wasn't something touching him. That was something he had been holding being pulled away from him, and with it went all of the warmth and the heat of the anger which had made him lose control.


"I didn't..." He didn't entirely know what he was saying, because it felt like his head had turned upside down as though the current of a moving tide had spiralled him into oblivion. For an eternity he held his breath, then swam his way up towards the sunlight. And when he broke free, his sight came back to him.


Dane. Caleb. Both boy and man were stood in front of him, their eyes rife with shock. When he turned his head around, Jackson could make out Bella's red hair in the light that pooled in through the open door. That made three people he had not seen since morning... And they were all in his bedroom. If Bella was coming in to check up, he would understand. But the two males she had brought with her? No, not once, not ever had they come into his room since he had taken it over.


There was an odd wrenching feeling in his heart when he looked at Dane. After a while, he noticed Adrian's skinny form shaking as he coughed and choked in gasps for breath, and a pang of guilt wracked his body.


He couldn't remember what happened. It was like he woke up, took one look at Adrian and then blacked out. And... That had only ever happened once before, when he was so angry he lost every shred of logic and reason he ever possessed. What the hell had he done this time? Why was Adrian the one coughing on the floor? Oh God, he had done something. He had lost it, he had done something, Adrian was hurt. What the hell had happened whilst he had been so riled up?


"Oh God," Jackson managed to utter through the yelped worries from the three newcomers. He stared at each one of them in series, swallowed, and then said shakily, "B-Bella? Dane? Wh... Wh-what happened? Adrian, I... Is - is he o-okay? What did I do? G-God, what did I..."
 
"Adrian, are you gonna come home now?" The voice came from a boy who looked no older than fifteen, he was sat with his back against a wall, waiting for a smaller individual to finally give in and come down from the tree he'd pulled himself into. It wasn't like he could make him, so he was simply waiting instead. 


"No." Adrian replied, keeping his back to his brother and leaning his head against the tree trunk to his left. His legs were positioned oddly, feet against branches, in order to make sure he didn't end up falling from the tree. "They hate me." 


"They don't hate you." Leo sighed, putting his head in his hands and running them through his chocolate brown hair, "They don't hate you, Adrian." He tried to reason, but he seemed tired, his eyes were almost closing, his head was in his hands, and his voice just seemed to back up how tired he was. The sound of a phone could be heard buzzing against the ground next to Leo, he didn't even attempt to pick it up, it was the fifteenth time in the last hour it had gone off. "Adrian, we really gotta go home." 


"I don't wanna..." The smaller boy whispered, curling one of his legs up to his chest, "They don't want me there." He was upset, he didn't want to go back and be yelled at, which he knew was going to happen if they went home at this hour. They'd been out so long, and it was his fault, and he wasn't going to just be let off for that... They didn't know where they were, Leo wouldn't pick up his phone, it didn't look great. 


"That's not true, either." There was shuffling as Leo stood himself up and walked under the tree, he had a smile on his face, but it was worn out and tired, still, he seemed to really be trying to keep spirits up... Unfortunately, Adrian had managed to keep Leo up for two nights in a row before this, and in summer it got dark later, the sun was starting to go down, which meant it must be something close to ten. "Are you scared they're going to be mad at you?" 


After Leo's question they were silence from his little brother, instead the boy just curled himself up against the tree. He could see how tired Leo was, but he really didn't want to go back, not that night... 


"Can't we just sleep outside?" He asked in the quietest voice possible. 


"Mmmn... You mean like camping?" Leo asked, turning his head to the side, he kept trying to walk around the tree to find any position he could catch Adrian's eye at. His little brother nodded, like camping, that's what he wanted to do. "Not tonight Adrian." The brunet sighed, "I'd like to too, but not tonight, okay?" No reply. He sighed, tapping his foot on the ground and wondering what would get Adrian down from the tree. "But...what if we do like, next week, hm? If you come home now then we can camp next week." 


"Mn..." Adrian's attention seemed to be peaked upon the though of camping at all, "But I wanna tonight." He replied, shuffling into a new position, it was obvious that Leo's suggestion was starting to persuade him, but he was doing his best to stay stubborn about it... He'd never been good at that. 


"We can't tonight. I told you that, but next week we can, and I'll plan it, and we'll go somewhere good, okay?" Leo rubbed his eyes, blinking in order to keep himself awake, "C'mon Adrian, it's late y'know? And you have school tomorrow." 


"So do you." 


"Yeah. I know." He smiled again, crossing his arms, "But I can't go to school if you don't come down from that tree." 


"Well maybe I can't come down from the tree." 


"And why's that?" 


"Because it ate my leg." 


"Then we'll just have to chop your leg off and get you down, won't we?" Leo grinned, starting to walk away from the tree, "If you can't get down on your own then I'm going to go and get something to chop off your leg with." He kept walking away, leaving the slightly playful threat of chopping Adrian's leg off in the air, along with the threat of Adrian being left alone at night time. 


"Leo!" Adrian had turned his position around so that he was half hanging out of the tree, watching the boy in front of him. 


"Yeah?" The older male turned around, eyebrow raised as he looked up at the small boy in the tree. 


"It didn't really eat my leg." 


"So we don't need to chop it off then?" 


"No."


"Okay, so then...are you stuck?" 


"No..." 


"Then are you gonna come down and sleep and then camp next week?" 


There was no answer at that point, instead Adrian just turned his head away again, leaving Leo to stare at short, black hair. 


"Adrian." His brother's tone had become a little more solemn at that point, "They're not going to hurt you." 


"You don't know that..." Adrian curled his arms around himself and shook his head, "You don't..." 


"I do." Leo's voice objected, "I do know that, because I'm not gonna let them, okay? I won't let them." 


"Do you promise?" 


"Yes." 


"Can you say it?" 


"I promise they're not going to hurt you Adrian." He paused, "So, will you come down?" 


"Okay." Adrian had already started moving, and Leo had started to walk back over to him, but then he stopped. "Leo." 


"Yeah?" The boy walked up to the tree, his jade green eyes staring into his brother's dull grey. 


"Are you mad at me?" 


Leo simply smiled and shook his head. 


"No, I'm not mad at you, no one's mad at you." 


"Okay." 


"Let's go home." 


----


Adrian took in a sharp breath, or attempted to at least, he didn't feel like any air went into his lungs at all, in fact, he just felt worse. His attempts at breathing weren't doing any good, he was just coughing and spluttering, his hand had moved over his throat as he tried to take in yet another deep breath. He was still panicking after having been almost strangled, nothing around him seemed to make sense, he couldn't hear anything but muffled shouting, his vision was blurry... He hated it, he really hated it. But...none of that seemed to matter when he thought about what Jackson had said to him. 


'Monster.'


He'd called him a monster. He'd hit him and then called him a monster...  Tears welled up in Adrian's eyes yet again as he thought about what had just happened, why did he always fuck up so badly? Why was he such an idiot? Why didn't...why didn't he ever get anything?! Why hadn't he understood that Jackson didn't want him to kill Alice? Why hadn't he listened? Fucking imbecile. 


The boy closed his head and curled up into a ball, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes to try and stop himself from crying. He didn't have a right to cry, it was his fault so what sort of right did he have to cry over it? What sort of right did he have to be scared after Jackson had simply done what had to be done to make him understand, because that seemed to be the only way anything got across to him. He was too stupid, he was too fucking stupid. 


His jaw still hurt from the blow it had received, but he wasn't complaining, again, he had no right to complain about it. 


"I-I'm sorry..." Adrian whimpered, rocking his body backwards and forwards, "I-I'm...s-sorry..." He could hardly even get his words out, he still hadn't managed to catch his breath properly so his words were distorted and forced, but he was trying, "I'm sorry...I'm s-sorry...I'm sorry..." He just kept repeating the two words over and over, ignoring everything else. 


"Does he look okay to you?" Dane replied, looking down at Adrian and then over at Jackson, "Because he doesn't to me, what the fuck did you think would happen?! That he'd just get back up and say it was all fucking fine? The kid's terrified!" 


"We came in here and you were trying to strangle him, Jackson." Bella still seemed to be in shock, "I walked into the room and you were literally trying to kill him... I don't... What was going on? What happened?" She didn't know what to think, she hadn't been in the room when all of this had happened, and Adrian was unresponsive, just repeating the same two words over and over again. 


"What the hell did you do to the side of his fucking face Jackson?" Dane wasn't facing the man anymore, instead he was kneeling down in front of Adrian, trying to get the boy to move slightly, but every time he moved a hand near him he just flinched, making Dane move away again. The side of Adrian's face did seem a little bit fucked up, it was all red and slightly swollen, although that would heal up pretty quickly considering the boy was a ghoul.. That still didn't mean it hadn't happened. 
 
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Jackson strained himself to remember. He closed his eyes and wracked his memory, filing through every thought and every feeling that he could ever recall having. Breathe, he told himself, but it wasn't working. He couldn't breathe. How could he, how could he calm down and slow the rate at which he gasped in lungfuls of air when something had happened to Adrian?


It was hopeless.


He couldn't remember anything. Just the blood boiling in his skin and then the feeling of something soft and warm in his hands. It reminded him of something that he did not want to think about, but it was impossible not to imagine it. Opening his eyes, seeing Will dead on the floor... God, that was bad enough, but what if it had been Adrian? Bella had said he had tried to strangle the poor kid. Had he really? Had he really tried to take away the life of his best friend..? What if he had killed Adrian right there and then when he was so angry and stricken by grief that he could no longer think?


Adrian didn't deserve that. Not any of it, not a bit of it. Even if he did a bad thing and took Alice away from the world... Well, that hurt like hell. She didn't deserve that either. But at least Adrian had been trying to help, which was the only thing he ever did. He thought he was saving his best friend's life and now... This.


Dane seemed to mention something about Adrian's face. Jackson dared to look, and when he did, he suddenly felt like he desperately needed to dissolve into the air so that everyone could move along and pretend that this scourge with legs and strangling arms had never existed.


"Oh God, Adrian..."


The boy's face had flushed red where a fist had connected with his jaw, or his cheekbone. Even his forehead looked like it had swollen up. It looked painful. It even sounded painful, judging purely by the way Adrian still had to gasp for breath between every utterance of those two words.


'I'm sorry.'


Jackson's heart felt fit to break. Adrian... He didn't have anything to be sorry for. It was Jackson, he had let his stupid anger get to him again, just like it had all those done years ago. He hurt Adrian when he had spent hours watching him sleep, waiting for the moment that he would wake up and tell him what a great job he had done. He waited for Jackson's thanks for hours... And it never came.


If he wanted to apologise, to wrap his arms around Adrian in an embrace of gratitude and appreciation rather than anger and hatred, he couldn't do it. He just didn't trust himself to be near the boy, or anyone else at all, not whilst there was still a buzz in his fingertips. Somebody could get hurt again, and God forbid he inflict that kind of torture on the kid who thought he had finally found somebody who really appreciated his existence.


It took him a moment to catch his breath, but then, without looking at another person, he swallowed and nodded to himself. "I... I need some air," he said quietly, and wended around his onlookers to get out to the front door. He clicked it open, took himself outside and then sat in the cold spring air, still and unmoving as he thought to himself again: What the hell have I done?
 
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Dane had completely blanked Jackson out now and was focusing on trying to calm Adrian down, but he just couldn't touch the boy, every time someone even went close to touching him he just flinched and backed off a little, whimpering. So the man decided on just sitting next to the boy and trying to talk to him as he freaked out, it was the only way he could think of to calm him down. 


Bella didn't bother to follow Jackson as he went out, a part of her knew why Jackson had done that, and the other part didn't understand. She hadn't seen Adrian get hurt before, but if this was how he always acted when someone tried to hurt him...how had he lasted as long as he had? She honestly felt awful for the boy, Zeplin must have done something to him, something...terrible. Of course, she couldn't just excuse how he'd killed a friend of Jackson's, the man had to be devastated by that...and...who knew what was happening to his parents. 


"Dane, Caleb." Once Jackson had left the room Bella spoke to the individuals standing around Adrian, "I'll see if I can move him, maybe take him upstairs, but...just give him some space for a minute, okay?" She smiled, getting a nod from both males as they stood up and started to leave the room. Adrian was crying at that point, having finally gained his breath back, he was in quite the state over this, still repeating the same two words over and over again. Bella sighed, she didn't know what to do, she didn't know this boy or how to handle him... The only person who did was the person who probably needed to be the furthest away from him at the moment, Jackson was the only one who knew Adrian. 


"Adrian..." Bella's tone was quiet and soft as she walked towards him and knelt down, "Adrian, it's okay, you're okay. Take a deep breath, alright? You're safe." 


---


It took awhile for Bella to finally calm Adrian down, and when she did he asked her if he could just go upstairs and be left alone, so naturally she let him. It didn't mean she wasn't worried about him though, Jackson was outside and Adrian was upstairs doing god knows what, she just decided to listen out in case anything happened and she was needed. 


She'd talked to Dane about the situation in that time, explained what had happened earlier in the day, explained what Adrian had done and who the girl he killed was to Jackson, and just like her, Dane seemed in shock. She hadn't told him anything when she went out, and she definitely didn't expect it to escalate to Adrian killing someone and Jackson then trying to strangle him. Dane had said it was sad, simply because he'd never heard a bad word about Jackson come out of Adrian's mouth, he said the boy talked of him pretty highly, so something like this was probably a giant shock to the kid's system. She couldn't disagree with him. Adrian trusted Jackson, who knew what that sort of thing would do to the boy, it was unlikely he'd be able to trust him so easily for a long time. 


After over an hour of everyone trying to come to grips with the situation fast footsteps could be heard coming from upstairs, Bella was in the kitchen at the time and she only caught the back of a small figure as they darted out of the front door, she furrowed her eyebrows...was that Adrian? Did he just go outside? Jackson...was outside right? For a moment she thought about going out, what if the boy got hurt again? But if Jackson was that loud outside he'd draw a lot of other people's attention, he wouldn't be that stupid. 


*


"Jackson!" There was the slam of a door behind the man and then a loud, excited exclamation. Footsteps moved up behind the man and a figure could be seen standing beside him, "What're you looking at?" He asked, narrowing his eyes to look out into the distance, "Is there someone over there?" Yet again he was acting after nothing had happened. 


Adrian had had a full hour to compose himself, he'd come to terms with the fact that he'd fucked up, and he'd tricked himself into thinking that it was fine...it was how he'd been treated for most of his life, as long as it was only him getting hurt then it was fine. He deserved it. 


"Are you not cold?" The boy asked, rubbing his wrist with his left hand, "It seems kinda cold?" He shrugged, "I dunno." Grey eyes hit the floor as he kicked the ground with his bare feet, "You should probably go inside, right?" Everything was a question, nothing was a statement or a demand, he didn't have the right to tell Jackson how to act. 
 
A minute. An hour. Maybe a day. Jackson could not recall how long he had spent out here, and to be honest he did not bother to try and figure it out. He just new that he needed to stay away from other people for a while, especially from Adrian. It wasn't going to be easy looking at that kid's face again, even if it had healed up by now, not when he knew he had done something so awful.


That's right, Jackson thought as he watched an empty soda can roll down the pathway. I did a bad thing. He felt an odd urge to kick the can away from him, like it was invading his personal space, so he leaned down and picked it up, then threw it over across the street. It earned him a few strange looks from passersby and their dogs, but it felt good. He liked to hear the pitiful clattering of the aluminium as it hit the tarmac on the road, and perhaps that should have concerned him, but he just took a moment to enjoy the brief satisfaction of the sound it produced. It was okay. It wasn't a person. Not this time, not like earlier when he had lost all control and beaten Adrian up - tried to strangle him - whatever it was that Bella had rambled on about. Maybe he would have even denied it, too, brushed it off as ridiculous because he could never do anything so awful to somebody he cared about so much. But he knew what he was capable of, he had lived that same moment before. He was just so glad... So happy that there had been somebody else around this time to stop it before the damage became irreversible.


He could have killed Adrian back there, and he knew it. For that he truly, deeply despised himself from skin to the coldest depths of his soul.


For a while he considered going somewhere, out for a stroll to calm his nerves. Maybe he could go to the woodland, or the river. Sight-see with empty pockets and the clothes on his back, then spend days trying to find his way back before the police recognised him and took him away. That was beginning to seem like a decent plan, it would certainly get him away from Adrian for a while... But then he heard the noise he had been dreading.


Like a frightened bird, his head snapped to the left to find the boy emerging to stand by his side. What the hell was he doing? He shouldn't be out here, not now, not when Jackson was so close by. The man quickly swerved back to sit a few feet away from the kid he was supposed to look after, and he failed to meet those grey eyes.


"N-no. I'm fine," he lied quietly. He had come so close to ignoring every question and statement the younger boy had thrown his way, but he had already hurt Adrian enough today. If he thought that his best friend would no longer listen to him, well, no way in hell was that going to do the kid any good. He just needed to find a careful way to keep himself apart.


For a while the man fiddled with a tuft of his beard, rubbing his index finger against his thumb repetitively as though deep in thought. In truth, he could not think at all, but eventually he did manage to speak again. "Look - Adrian, I... Shit. A-about earlier, we - I... Y-you..." He stopped for a moment, unsure of what point to make, and he simply waited with an open mouth for the words to come out on their own. They sounded strange, misplaced and robotic when they did. "Look, earlier, I... I don't know what - what I was thinking, I don't know what happened. I fucked up, and... Just - just st-stay away from me for a while, okay? It's not safe."


His head seemed to droop downwards after that, and his hand fell still, his bandaged fingers instead curling in on themselves and his elbows tucking into the arms of his chair so that he became as small as he possibly could be. He did not want to be here, not if Adrian was still around. Even if the boy looked like he was okay, Jackson knew him better than that. If Adrian was still the same guy he had always been, he hadn't gotten over it; he had just tried to forget. That wasn't right. He would never truly get better unless he talked it out with someone, and right now Jackson was not the right person for that.


"Hey, Adrian?" he said quietly again. "I'll - I'll stay out here. You should get inside, you could... You could catch a cold. Go in and t-talk to Bella about it instead, she'll listen if you want to tell her about it."
 
"Mn?" Adrian held his hands behind his back and simply looked at Jackson, blinking in confusion when the man said it wasn't safe. It was perfectly safe, he didn't need to be worried about anything, he was perfectly safe right now. If Adrian wasn't worried, then Jackson had no reason to be...he didn't really do anything that warranted him being so worried about Adrian's safety. Not when it was perfectly deserved. 


"I'm okay." He replied, shaking his head, "I don't need to." His smile seemed genuine, but Adrian had spent a lot of time fake smiling and pretending everything was okay, him and Leo both, he'd learned from the best. You couldn't take the boy at face value, if you did that everything would always seem fine, no matter what happened. 


For a few moments Adrian stood there, humming a tune that had become all too familiar to him in the past few months. He stared out into the distance, staying quiet for a little bit, he didn't want an apology from Jackson or anything, he just wanted to be near him. Maybe he was a little hurt by the whole thing beneath that cheery exterior, maybe he was a tiny bit worried about getting a little too close, but that was only because every time Jackson hit him it hurt ten times more than it should... He didn't like it, no one could blame him for disliking it, he wasn't meant to like it. 


"Bella said she's making food again soon." Adrian mumbled, rocking back and forth on his heels, "I didn't speak to her, but I heard her, she was talking to Rachael. Of course, that's for you, because no one else really eats much different food." His eyes fell to the ground once more, "I miss food..." That was the one thing he did miss about being human, being able to eat any food he wanted without throwing up, he'd really liked sweet...until he became a ghoul... After that everything just tasted disgusting. 


Jackson's comment about staying away had been completely ignored, Adrian had made no attempt move towards Jackson, but also no attempt to move away. He was staying in the position he'd settled in when he came out. "She might want you to come inside for food, she'd like that...probably." He smiled again, but Jackson didn't look like he was moving, so Adrian simply chewed on his lip and sat himself down on the ground. 


For another few silent moments he sat and played with his shirt, thinking of something else he could say, "Y'know..." He mumbled, "Daryl has a T.V. in his room...I watched it. I think Kedin has one too, but I dunno... I think I heard it." Any old thing would do, it didn't have to be a good topic, it just had to be a topic that kept Jackson off of talking about what had happened earlier in that day. 
 
For a while Jackson managed to pretend that he had not heard anything Adrian said. He stared forwards in feigned oblivion, his eyes working to find something to settle on, like the soda can he had thrown across the street before. But it seemed like the world was too dull for his mind to find a subject other than the kid sitting beside him, so he eventually forced himself to look.


The boy appeared to be humming a tune now. There was a smile on his face, the same one that had woken him up every morning for the last three years up until everything fell apart. That should have been comforting, but after everything that had happened that day, Jackson thought he would have preferred for Adrian to just curl up and cry. Even if he thought it was okay, it wasn't. It was the opposite of okay and that poor kid didn't deserve to have to lie to himself about that. 


It was at the mention of supper that Jackson finally woke up. Bella was making something for him? It had been years since he could feel hungry, but for the first time in his life, the idea of eating was truly repulsive. For a moment he thought that perhaps that was how Adrian felt all the time, but the way he talked about food like it was something he wanted to enjoy helped him to realise different. It wasn't just a feeling. It was the sensation of somebody else's careless fault stripping a person of their ability to live life in the same way as any normal person. Jackson couldn't even come close to imagining how painful that must be. Part of him even wanted to go and track down the doctor who did this to his friend, just so he could feel the rush of vengeance again, but now... He did not dare. Not after today, not now when there was no telling what kind of suffering he could inflict upon people who did not deserve it.


Jackson had had enough of thinking. He wrung his hands together, nodded to Adrian's words and then suggested, "Why - uh, why don't you go and s-see?" If he went exploring upstairs in search of a television, that would keep him away for a little while, at least. Besides, he was beginning to think that maybe he should go in, after all. Bella was going to the trouble of making him food. Even if he didn't feel like eating, he should at least try to make up for the incident by showing what few manners he apparently had. Besides... He dragged Bella into all of this, and he owed her one enormous explanation. All she knew was that an old friend had kidnapped his mum and dad, and now she was tangled up in a knot of death and confusion.


He also needed to know what happened to Tilly and Eric.


"Adrian... S-sorry. I'll come in, why don't you go up - and - err, check Kedin's room? She might have a different kind of TV."
 
"I don't think I should." Adrian replied, shaking his head and turning it to the side, "Kedin doesn't like it." He didn't want to go into the girl's room when he knew that she didn't like him doing that, it was just an invasion of privacy, although Jackson didn't know that so he guessed he couldn't really judge the man for suggesting it. 


The boy leaned his elbow on his knee, curling his hand into a ball before he rested his head on top of it. "Did you have a T.V Jackson?" He mumbled, before realising that that really wasn't very specific, "I-I mean..." Adrian paused for a moment to think about how to word his sentence, "I mean like...like when you were like really young. Like the age I was when we met, did you have a T.V back then?" He didn't know Jackson when he was ten, so he couldn't tell whether it was normal or not to not have a television in your home. 


"I think we did...I dunno..." With a shrug, Adrian uncrossed his legs and moved them to his chest, leaning his head on his knees instead of on his hand. it wasn't something he thought about too much, and even if they had, he probably wasn't allowed to watch it. "I don't think I've seen so many T.Vs in a home before." He smiled, before giggling slightly and closing his eyes. "They're lucky." His head hand moved off of his legs and was tilted up as if he was looking at the sky, except he had his eye close so he couldn't possible be doing so, he was just taking it all in. 


After that he stayed quiet for a few minutes, just peacefully sitting on the ground, taking in the silence. "Hey..." The boy finally made a tired attempt at conversation, "Did you say you were gonna go inside? Sorry, I forgot." Upon mentioning that he'd completely disregarded what Jackson had said earlier, Adrian opened his eyes and turned to face the man nearby, his smile apologetic and so much more obviously forced than before, "Did...you um...want to go in now?" 


As he said that he started to stand up, bringing his hands to the back of his head to tighten the band in his hair, "I wonder if your foods done..." 
 
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