John is sitting on his bed, staring at the Elvis poster hanging on his ceiling. The corners are bent and faded, and Elvis's face has been marred by ballpoint pens and sharpies and glitter. He remembers, two years ago, when Rose and Jade came over and scribbled on his pants. Dave acted offended, but he was the one who gave the singer the glittery lips.
John hates Elvis. His voice gives him a headache, and no one could possibly understand how horrible his riffs and choruses are.
A Fratellis song blares from his pocket. John is almost ready to ignore it, but when he pulls it out he recognizes the ID.
"Are you still planning on living together?" Rose asks as soon as he picks up. John blinks and rubs his eyes underneath his glasses. "I can see it now. You're going to pick up and move back to Washington because he isn't broken enough to understand you."
Rose always had a way with words, and John tries not to think about what she means.
"You can come over and cry on my shoulder, if you wish." she says when he makes it clear he isn't going to answer. He chews on his bottom lip and blows a stream of air into the receiver. "Dave left half of a canister of cookie dough when he last visited, and I believe we still have some sake from Jade's last trip."
"But-"
"He can apologize all he wants, John, but he's the one dying." Rose tells him. Her voice is too flat. "Not you."
He chews the cuffs of his hoodie and looks back up at Elvis's glittery face. "I don't think I want to commit suicide, Rose."
"Well," she laughs, "at least there's that. That's good."
The phone line is silent for several moments, and John speaks up again.
"I think I'm in love." he says. Rose doesn't answer.
It's like this: John and his three best friends, Rose, Jade, and Dave all played a game. It was going to be fun, and they were excited. And then the world ended, and their guardians died, and when they won, they were stranded on an Earth that didn't remember, with nothing to their name.
Dave was fine, they were all fine, and John had an Elvis poster and all of his records. Then he came home one day to bloody bathwater and the sound of police sirens. It's been several days and the sight of brilliant red splattered across their new white towels is still burned into John's brain.
Things haven't felt right in the longest time, and John refuses to go to the hospital to see his best friend. He's worried he'll break his stupid IV over his head, or finish the job Dave started.
EB: we're never good enough, are we?
"It must be hard," she whispers after a moment, "not being able to reach someone only a few feet away from them."
John wants to ask her if she every misses their friends, the gray ones no one's mentioned since the first day because it hurts too much. He wants to ask her if she ever dreams of red skirts and brilliant jade that shines against white skin, or if she ever misses her like he misses capslocked gray text and eight eyes smiley faces.
Instead, he hangs up.
It's been four days since Dave split open a vein from elbow to wrist. Four days. It's been 96 hours and they're all still shattered.
And so John gets into his (Dave's) truck and leaves the apartment they share(d?) at exactly 4:13 in the morning. He would laugh, because he knew Dave would, but bites a bit of his tongue off when he tries. Rose lives two cities away, and John arrives as the first branches of daylight streaks onto the dashboard.
Rose's girlfriend, the one she never talks about, answers the door wearing a thick red cardigan and a simple black skirt.
"Thanks." he says, and she nods and leaves.
Rose has been dating this girl for a year and a half, and none of them know her name. He wonders if Rose does, or if she sees fangs and curly black hair when she kisses the girl on her breasts and in-between the legs.
Rose doesn't glance up, "John."
"Hi, Rose." he manages, and flops down onto the couch next to her. She is sitting cross-legged, knitting something red. John's mind flashes back to four nights ago. He swallows, pushes the memories away and clears his throat.
She finally looks up, pink lips pursed together. It's been five years, and he hasn't gotten used to seeing her without her black stained lips. Somehow she still manages to look elegant, even in nothing but an oversized FIGHT BREAST CANCER shirt and black lace underwear.
He listens intently to the click-click-click of her knitting needles before she finally speaks.
"It's for Dave."
"Dave?"
"For when he feels better.
"If he feels better."
"Don't say that."
John looks up. Rose is glaring at him with an almost inhuman anger and he glares back.
She drops a stitch, sighs and looks down. She doesn't correct it.
"He'll feel better. I watched him get disemboweled, once, and he was fine when I saw him thirty minutes later."
"We're human." he says, "Not gods. Not anymore."
Rose puts down her knitting and leans over, putting her hands on his legs and pressing her lips against his, just to shut him up.
He closes his eyes and drinks her in, teeth and tongue and all. Her warmth envelopes him and he almost feels better, almost.
The relationships he has with his friends reminds him strangely of incest. They're basically siblings, they've ended and saved and ruined the world together, more of sisters and brothers than friends. It was only natural that they paired off, but he never saw himself with Rose before.
When he opens his eyes again, he is tucked back in his pants and she is knitting again, breasts free and underwear back in place.
"You said you loved him," she says. The dropped stitch is still there, a glaring mistake and she hasn't fixed it.
John wants to cry.
"Explain." she says.
He knows she isn't going to push it, she never does, and it would be so easy to lie and say that he was kidding.
"I think I do." he says instead. "I guess I'm a fag, then."
Rose sighs through her nose. "The technical term is a homosexual."
"A fag." John repeats. "You know, the night before Dave tried to-" Choke. "-the night before Dave had to leave, he kissed Jade."
"Did he?" she says in a way that shows that she isn't surprised at all.
"Yeah." John looks at his hands, rough and bruised, folded in his lap. He remembers once he worked a dead-end construction job with Dave. It was illegal, but they needed the money so they lied about their age. A misfired hammer landed a nail right where his nail met his thumb, and Dave had thrown him over the back of his motorcycle and floored it to the hospital. The nail is yellow and twisted and perverse, but it's a sign that Dave saved his life.
Dave always was the hero, he thought. No one else ever cared more than Dave.
He stands up and asks Rose where the bathroom is. She points wordlessly.
There was something about the detached sterility of Rose's house that made him itch beneath his skin, and want to spill something. It didn't look lived it, not a bit of dust or a magazine out of place. Her hallways are filled with ebony bookshelves, black as the hair on his head, but not a single book. Rose's house, La Casa de Lalonde, Dave called it, makes him crave medications he doesn't need. It's calm and quiet.
Her bathroom is small and much-too-clean, and the pale pink curtains cover the window. A vibrator is settled on the edge of the sink, and John flushes it down the toilet just to be an ass.
After washing his face, John proceeds to climb out the window and head to Dave's car.
He blares Elvis as he pulls out of the driveway and decides to burn the apartment when he gets home.
Rose watches John pull out of the driveway, and turns to clean up the mess they left. Part of her knows she'll never see John or Dave again, or even Jade maybe. They've all shattered into too many pieces, they're all too broken, and it was miraculous that they stayed together this long.
Dave and Jade will start a family, Rose thinks. They'll live in a cute little house and have 2.5 kids who will be as messed up as them. John will be jealous but say nothing. He'll be a proud godfather and drive himself crazy(er), or maybe he'll never get that far.
She laughs and starts to unravel the sweater she was making for Dave. She was a pessimist, she always had been.
Sitting there, surrounded by crinkled strands of wooly red yarn, she decides to break up with her girlfriend.
Rose never even knew her name.
Jade opens her eyes to find herself staring at the hospital ceiling. Dave is lying next to her, magma eyes focused on her face.
"You're awake!" she plasters on a smile. "You almost died."
"I fucked up." he mumbles.
Jade smiles, pats his hand.
"Congrats."
She leaves Dave to let the nurse know she's awake, and ends up sitting in the girls bathroom with her head in her hands.
He's still bleeding through the stitches, and Jade remembers the look on John's face when he saw them kiss.
Finally she stands up, takes a deep breath, and walks back to the hospital room where Dave is waiting. Because she is a good (girl)friend and just wants everyone to be happy, even before herself. She loves them all. A whole lot.
Maybe, if she says it enough, it will make it true.
John is sitting on his bed, staring at the Elvis poster hanging on his ceiling. The corners are bent and faded, and Elvis's face has been marred by ballpoint pens and sharpies and glitter. He remembers, two years ago, when Rose and Jade came over and scribbled on his pants. Dave acted offended, but he was the one who gave the singer the glittery lips.
John hates Elvis. His voice gives him a headache, and no one could possibly understand how horrible his riffs and choruses are.
He smiles as he watches it curl up and burn, closing his eyes and ignoring the wetness of his cheeks as the ashes fall and sting his face. It was the first thing he and Dave bought together, to christian the new house.
They were the crazy ones, he remembers Jade saying once. The crazy ones in the crowd, the ones who have seen everyone die in a thousand and one horrific ways only to have no one remember, and no one thank them for saving their sorry asses when April thirteenth rolled around. And sometimes he wants to scream, but they abandoned and buried their sorrow and anger when they sought in vain for normalcy.
John and Dave's apartment burns down around him, and all he can do is laugh.
He bites the arm of the firefighter as he drags him out.
EB: we're never good enough, are we?