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Jim swings through the door from the front of the shop and throws his work shirt into Mick’s chest. Mick doesn’t flinch, just eyes him, unimpressed, before dropping it unceremoniously on the ground.
Jim folds himself into one of the chairs, digging for a hoodie in his backpack.
“Aren’t you still on the clock?” Corey pipes up from beside Joey.
“You don’t even work here. If you want me to do my job, I’ll have to kick you all out. You wanna keep the old guy company?”
Then his eyes land on Joey’s shirt, and the annoyance evaporates from his face.
“Nice shirt, Joe. That was a great gig, huh?”
Joey glances down, frowning.
“Yeah, it was…”
He rubs his forehead.
“Jim–” comes a low warning from Mick, but it’s cut off by Corey.
“Oh, yeah, they had that green flamethrower, remember? We were so close I thought it was gonna burn my hair off, right Joe? Joey?”
Joey screws his eyes up. Man, these headaches always come on fast.
“That wasn’t… I went with my mum…” He pants.
An ‘oof’ comes from his left. Corey.
“What was that for?”
“Shut up, Corey! Joey must have gone to the different show on that tour. He’s not gonna remember ours.”
“Oh… probably not allowed magic effects at the outside shows either…”
Cracking his eyes open, winded, Joey finds Corey staring at him strangely.
“Hey. Joey.”
Jim is crouching in front of him now, hair ruffled and hoodie only half-on.
“Sorry, man. Just these headaches. I should probably see someone…”
“You don’t have insurance.”
“I know,” Joey sighs. Then, “how do you even know that?”
“Huh? Oh, well, no one does around here. Why should you?”
That’s when Paul pokes his head around the door.
“No one’s here. I’m gonna close early. Hey, you alright Joey?”
“Fine.”
Joey stands and heads for the front, hating the way everyone’s eyes follow him. He’s only just met these guys, and these stupid migraines are already making him look like a wuss.
He hopes the migraines don’t come back and ruin tonight. These guys are fun. They have this whole group thing going on, but it’s cool they’re okay with him tagging along. He hangs by the store entrance until the rest of them come out of the back, bickering loudly. At the rear of the pack, Paul stops by Joey and hands him a bottle of water and a pack of skittles.
Crap. He does think Joey’s about to crash on him again.
“Thanks, man.”
Shoving the candy in a pocket, he takes a drink while Paul locks the door behind them. The water’s probably a good idea, to be fair.
It’s not far to Paul’s. Joey should be starting to know these alleys by now, but he swears they go a different route every time. He tries to peer around at the patchwork of graffiti doodled along the walls, but the others keep walking in front of him when he
manages to get to the edge of the group.
It’s normal for them, he guesses. He’s still not used to the way the art glows different colours or shifts around when they feel like it.
Maybe he’s not the only one lost, because Corey heads one way before Mick takes his shoulder wordlessly and steers him back onto the main street. Behind Mick’s bulging forearm, Joey catches Corey looking at the bigger guy with a frown, before it clears and he glances back at Joey.
He looks away the moment their eyes meet.
Maybe Corey’s got migraines too, or some shit. No one seems to think he needs water and snacks like some kid, though.
The crow sitting on a lamppost outside takes off when they turn down the street, cawing over the rooves, and then Sid’s bursting out the front door before Paul can even let them in.
Shawn’s already inside, lounging on a chair in the corner of Paul’s bright living room. His scraggly beard and sagging eye bags are lit in relief a little too clearly. With the grungy guitars he’s got growling from the speakers in here, the whole thing feels more suited for the darkness, but here they are. Craig’s also there, standing and sipping a beer as if the two are in conversation, except for the fact no words pass between them.
The lot of them pile in, the couch and chairs soon overfull. Chris rings the bell downstairs, and a bunch of Chinese-takeout-shaped missiles shoot through the door ahead of him. Paul calmly takes one from the air, handing it to Joey with a knowing smile, just before the shouting starts.
Chris laughs so hard he has to clutch at the wall as most of the group curses him out. Mick is fishing some noodles out of his hair with a hard glare, and Sid has managed to intercept five of the boxes for himself, which he’s defending valiantly from Corey. Every time Corey gets close to grabbing one, it fizzles bright blue and appears two feet to the left.
Finally, Jim grabs the latest one as it zaps into existence in mid-air. He throws it at Corey, who glares at him, but can’t really complain.
Meanwhile, Shawn gives Sid a solid whack to the back of the head. The others are fast to divest him of his winnings as he turns around to squabble with Shawn.
“You drink too many of those things, kid.”
“It was only–!”
“Two, my ass. You’d have a hit a wall already and my egg rolls would be stuck on the other plane. Quit it.”
Someone’s already flipping through channels on the tv: static, bursts of voices, applause.
Sid squawks loudly when he turns around to find his dinner gone, and subsequently starts pilfering from everyone else again.
Joey tries not to wince. It tracks that big gatherings aren’t gonna do his head any favours, but damn it, he enjoys hanging around with these guys. Maybe he should feel more out of place, given he’d never set foot in any part of a magic zone until a couple weeks back, but it could be just any other living room, any other takeout… okay, maybe it wouldn’t have flown at him, but it tastes the same.
If only he could actually join in. The mellow conversations buzzing between them, the occasional bursts of chuckling laughter, the tv blaring away under it all. All it does is make his head pulse.
Swallowing down another mouthful, he tries to focus without looking like it. Chris is muttering some shared story to Mick, who snickers over his beer.
A rippling pain slams into him, like someone’s just beat him around the head with a drum mallet. He tenses, hoping no one clocked his flinch. Breathing slow and deliberate, he sets his takeout box on the sticker-covered coffee table and pulls his knees up, trying to relax in his corner of the sofa. One nail picking at a faded sticker pasted on the leather arm, he looks around. Hopes it seems casual.
When he looks right, he meets Shawn’s eyes immediately. Joey’s shoulders tighten.
Shawn’s eyes flick down, to where Joey is peeling up the sticker’s edge. It’s probably rude, he realises, hurriedly flattening his fingers over it again.
“Full?” Paul asks from his other side.
Blinking around, Joey pretends like he doesn’t know Shawn is still watching him.
“Huh? Oh, no– I mean, I just need the bathroom. Back in a minute.”
“Sure,” Paul smiles. He’s always smiling at Joey.
It gets quieter as he stands up. No, he imagines it. When the door closes behind him, he stops for a moment, just breathing. The rumble of the guys talking is the same.
Shoulders sagging, he drops his hand from the door handle and lets his back rest on the wall behind him. Shit, maybe he should have brought his water with him. He presses his fingers to his temples and rubs furiously. Insurance or not, he really needs to sort this out.
God, hopefully none of them have x-ray vision or some shit. He’s always taken off-guard by what these guys do, at the oddest moments too, so he’s not sure he’d be surprised.
In case they really can see him hanging out here, he reckons it makes sense to go take a leak anyway. Have a breather and chug some water.
He steps away from the wall.
Shit. Which way is the bathroom? He’s been here before, he should remember. Chewing on his lip, he looks at the door behind him, but everyone’s in there. It would be weird to go back and ask now. Whatever, can’t be too hard to find.
Left or right? He chooses right. At the end of the hall there’s a couple of steps down before the next door.
This is the wrong way. When he opens it, he’s outside again. The way the houses around here are crammed in next to each other, he hadn’t realised there would be a back door. It’s only a patch of weed-cracked concrete out here, rimmed by brick walls and backing onto the rear of the houses opposite.
But he doesn’t turn around yet. At least this way he can get some air. ‘Fresh’ would be an overstatement, but it’s something.
He takes a tentative step outside, careful not to let the door close behind him. Runs his eyes down the black tear-marks of damp which drip from the tops of the walls. Follows a crack that weaves between the bricks, starting above his head and ringing half the yard. Idly spinning to track it to its end, he ends up facing the house again.
He stops.
Standing still, he stares. He feels like he’s been here in a dream. He shouldn’t know it, but he does: the second door a few paces from the first, the way its red paint chips away to the black underneath. The way the first step down to it slopes to the left, the way the dust is hardened onto the narrow basement window, level with the floor.
The graffiti sprawled above it.
He’s been suspended on a ledge, knowing what’s coming, and now it does. Dark, gaping holes burst across his vision – but he can still see it.
The colourful scribbles, lines merging to make the faces. The pig, painted over the crack in the wall, smiling, outlined in black. The joker leering from another corner; the straight, decisive lines of two angry brows and a grill for a mouth; the giant eyes of a gas mark, paint sprayed around and around in circles.
Joey can’t breathe. Staggering back, he flinches, squeezing his eyes shut, but the faces are grinning, chattering, booming in his ears.
There’s a clown, but his voice doesn’t giggle, it growls. Beside him, a blotchy, despairing kind of face, sparse dreads flying around it. A faceless thing with quick, black spikes sprayed in streaks from its crown. Next to it, another one smiles, nose stretching ridiculously from its face.
Hard ground and stones bite into Joey’s knees and his palms scratch on the floor. He opens his eyes, but there’s nothing there. His head echoes dizzyingly, gravity sloshing between his ears like waves, the ground swaying like it’s trying to buck him off.
He can see them all, as if he’s the one with the can in his hand. He watches the lines spring into existence in front of him.
In the middle of the wall, tucked in below the dreadlocked one, between the pig and the clown, the last one tilts its head at him. Have you forgotten me?
He hasn’t. He’s seen it before. On the bus in the rain, staring out the window. Flickering through the streetlights like a ghost. Its blank, gazing eyes, the lines streaking down the forehead and cheeks.
The pressure is winding him, his arms buckling where they hold him up. Blackness pulses behind his eyelids. Something stings his face; stones, perhaps, but he imagines it’s those three, repeated lines, tearing their way through his skin, marking him – blood, cold and refreshing as it crawls over the deep, roaring ache in his head.
His head hits the ground, but it’s lost in the crushing pain.
~
“…careless! I don’t give a fuck if you don’t wanna hear it, we can’t go round pretending he’s like he was before!”
“It’s gonna suck, dude. ‘S not like we meant for this to happen tonight, but maybe it means–”
“Fucking– Don’t! Don’t say it like that. This isn’t some message from the universe, doesn’t mean nothing except for he’s fucking sick!”
“No one’s saying it’s mystical. Closest we got round here is that fucking druid, course we don’t trust that shit.”
“He can’t stay this way forever.”
There’s a muffled thump, heavy footsteps. Someone’s groaning. Even sunk in something smothering, folded behind a cocoon of fatigue, Joey’s heart is speeding up at the tension in the room.
“It’s not fair, man.”
Is that Corey? There’s a long silence after he speaks.
Joey tries to open his eyes. Nothing happens, the weight too strong for him to push against.
“It’s not fair for him to be here like this. Like he’s here but not. In pain.”
That’s Paul, he’s surer this time. Oh, fuck, he’s at Paul’s. The soft weight burying him is a comforter; it shifts, light, against his hand when he can get it to move. He’s in a bed. He’s in Paul’s bedroom.
Shawn’s voice is here, too.
“We agree on that. Just don’t know which way it–”
Again, Shawn’s eyes are the ones looking back at him the moment Joey gets his open. Three more sets turn towards him. There’s Paul and Corey, next to the bed, and Jim, folding his arms in the corner.
“Shit, Joey. You good?” Corey asks, shifting around on the mattress. He’s sitting by Joey’s shoulder, haloed by a dim, yellow bulb which still makes Joey wince a little.
“Uh, yeah. I dunno. Fuck.”
Joey frees his hands. They’re oddly cold and light as he drags them down his face.
“You didn’t tell us you still had a migraine,” Jim says.
“They happen all the time. ‘S fine.”
“It’s clearly not,” Shawn says bluntly.
Joey’s not sure what to say to that. Doesn’t know how to explain what the fuck happened out there, why he was even there in the first place, and why trying to think about it now is tipping him back towards the headache he’s trying to avoid.
None of them are explaining what the hell they were talking about just now, either. So maybe it’s even.
There’s a hand on his leg, rubbing gently up and down through the comforter. Paul’s smile is more nervous now, but he nods towards the side table. Half a box of takeout sits there, next to the water he had brought for Joey earlier.
“We saved your dinner. Hungry now?”