Jeff choked on the pills, the sudden voice scaring him. He had tried to take a breath and a few flew to the back of his throat. His eyes popped wide open as he slammed at his chest with his fist, coughing violently. He shook his head. Was he really going to die like this – choking on the pills that were supposed to have killed him in the conventional way? He shook his head wildly sputtering as the pills steadily were hacked out. They fell to the floor as his eyes burned. Jeff put his hand on his chest, taking a painful, gasping breath as the last one finally dislodged itself.
"Fuck." He shook for a moment before looking up towards the voice. For a moment he thought he had to be dreaming. The boy in front of him looked translucent, like a ghost. Jeff was starting to wonder whether he'd taken some other drugs and forgotten. He just stared straight at the boy, his eyes wide and confused.
The boy had soft eyes and messy, longer, brown hair. He was a bit shorter than Jeff, and he wore a Dalton blazer. His hand was stretched out towards Jeff, and his brow furrowed in concern. "How did you get in?" Jeff asked, pressing back against the wall and reaching around to grab something.
"I'm not going to hurt you!" He shook his head. "That doesn't matter right now though." He bit his lip, looking around at the pills on the bed and floor.
"What do you want?" Jeff asked cautiously.
"Please. I know you just want to get away from everything. I know that it doesn't seem worth it right now, but just give me a moment to prove to you –" He waved his hands around, failing to get out what he wanted. "Just give me a chance." The boy swallowed thickly, but Jeff shook his head. His hand reached out for the pills. This was ridiculous. There was no way this boy was real. He was just a figment of his imagination, out to make him feel guilty.
"If you do it, it just means they win. It just means you give up. And there'll only be more hurt. Maybe not for you, but for everyone else." Anger flashed inside of Jeff. Who was this boy – even as a creation of his own – to tell him that? What did he know?
"Why won't you leave me alone?" he shouted, starting to feeling frustrated. "Just go away. Disappear."
"Because people care. I know it doesn't seem like it now. I know you can just feel those boys beating you up. And I know you want it to go away, but this isn't the solution."
"You're stronger than this – blah, blah, blah. Save it. Any other script you have prepared?" Jeff clenched his jaw, his eyes blurring with tears. He was sore all over, and not just from getting beaten up earlier today. He had tried thinking that. But how was he supposed to keep that up when every day he came home with cuts, and people either didn't notice or took his excuse? When he'd been called a hundred different names, beaten, and he couldn't even fight back? That was something even his own conscious couldn't argue.
"What about Blaine? Wes? Your parents?" The boy shook his head, reaching out and stopping his hands a few inches away from Jeff. The guilt was coming back with each word.
"How do you know this much about me?" He shook his head. "No, forget it. You're not even real. I've made you up."
"Just… I promise to explain everything if you just…"
Jeff closed his eyes, his mind drifting. He was shutting down. He could feel himself starting to disconnect. His breathing was getting steadier, and the boy's voice was growing fainter. All he had to do was –
There was a jarring cold on his shoulder, and his eyes snapped open. The boy leaned above him, moving as if to shake him awake. His eyes were wild, and he whimpered. Jeff let out a low, frustrated noise. Why wouldn't this thing leave him alone? He willed his brain to shut off, to make it disappear, but the boy stayed there, hovering above him. "Please don't do this."
"Go away." Jeff's voice was defeated, and he repeated it several more times, no louder than a murmur. His head shook, and he buried his eyes into the pillow, hating the knot that formed in his chest, that made him want to pull up and into this strange boy.
"Please. Just listen to me."
"Leave me alone! Go away!" Jeff's hands went over his ears, and his fingers dug in. His eyes pressed shut, and he swayed back and forth. In his head, he willed the boy to disappear. Maybe if he wished hard enough, his head would actually comply, and then he could be left to do it in peace. He stayed like that for a moment, shaking, before carefully cracking his eyes open.
Nothing.
Jeff swallowed thickly. It had all been a part of his imagination after all. He couldn't stop shaking, and as he got up to get another glass of water, he stumbled into the bookshelf, whimpering at the pain as an edge pressed against his cuts. He managed to get the water in the glass, though it spilled everywhere as his hand shook. Carefully, he walked back into the room and –
His glass went flying, breaking on the floor as he jumped, feeling as if his heart had frozen. He let out a whimper as he tried to calm down. The boy was sitting on his bed, looking directly at Jeff with a stern expression on his face. "Jesus Christ, as far as hallucinations go, you're an asshole." Jeff rubbed the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before looking directly at him again. The boy was still translucent and, worse yet, still there. Jeff felt sick. "I've lost it. You're not real!"
"You know, that isn't really polite to say to someone." The boy ran his hand through his hair before getting off of the bed. "Besides, I am real."
"Right, sure, and I'm Brad Pitt."
"Who?" The boy shook his head. "No, it doesn't matter. I'll do anything to prove to you that I'm real." His eyes were wide, and he kept on glancing back down at the massive amounts of pills on Jeff's bed.
"If I get someone else to see you?" The boy bit his lip.
"No good. They're not going to see me. I'm not going to show myself to them." Jeff scowled and rolled his eyes.
"Fuck this. I'm not going to argue with a hallucination and let it talk me out of this." He went to reach for another glass, and the boy lunged forward. Jeff felt a coldness that seemed to seep into his bones as boy boy's hand fell through him.
"Which of these books haven't you read?" The boy motioned to Jeff's bookshelf.
Jeff blinked, confused by the question. He glanced over at his books, and he pursed his lips. His eyes flickered back to the pills one more time, and as his hand started to inch forward, he heard the boy, low and desperate. "Please." Jeff sighed. Fine. So his final actions would be entertaining the notions of his hallucination.
"Scarlet Letter. We're reading that later this year."
"And you don't know any of it?"
"I don't even know the characters' names," Jeff said, his fingers picking at the pills, drawing them into the palm of his hand.
"Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are dead. Hester dies at the end and is buried with Dimmesdale. I – The last line was on our test that day." He bit on his lower lip. "It was something about a field and the red A," the boy said with a nod. Jeff was tempted to ignore him, to ignore him and just take the pills. What could the boy do anyway? It wasn't as if he was going to make this any easier for him. Maybe this was just a result of his guilty conscious acting up.
"Look, I –"
Jeff didn't know why he was bothering. There was something so real about the way the boy looked at him, his eyes watering. And it was the first time someone had cared, had noticed. He couldn't help but pause. He was stupid; somewhere in the back of his head, he knew that the longer he waited, the less and less likely it became that he would do it.
"Fine," Jeff finally whispered, moving out and slipping The Scarlet Letter off of the bookshelf. He flipped to the back of it, scanning over the conclusion. His throat dried. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth were dead. There was something about a pearl (or it seemed to a name), and then. "One a field, sable, the letter A, gules," Jeff read out the final line. That couldn't be right.
"I told you. Now just –"
Jeff shook his head. "I must have heard it somewhere. There's no way you could have…" There was no such thing as ghosts. He'd stopped believing in them back when he'd stopped having play sword-fights with sticks and running around the playground. There had to be some other logical explanation. "You're just a projection of my imagination. Stop it!" He shook, feeling his throat close, his stomach knot up.
"A Tale of Two Cities– Carton dies and imagines a brighter future as he does so. Hamlet – 'Oh, I am slain Horatio.'"
"Stop."
"Macbeth –"
"I've got the point." Jeff felt his stomach knot as he grabbed those books, flipping them to the back as he sat on the bed. Each ending was exactly as the boy had said. There was no way Jeff heard all of these endings before – he knew that much. But then…
Jeff's eyes went back up to the boy to find him smiling sadly at him. "Do you believe me yet?" the boy asked. This was illogical. But there was no way he could have made him up; the boy had done a good job in proving that much. Jeff's crawled up on the bed, pulling himself into a ball as best as he could with his bruises.
"I – I do." His eyes watered as he stared down at the blanket. "But why do you care so much?"
"I knew someone who did it. Killed himself, I mean." The boy's voice was quiet and shook. Jeff lifted his head, his eyes widening. So that was why he had been so adamant about it.
"Oh, I – I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago. And – And I can't let you do the same thing. I can't." He shook his head. "He deserved a life just like you do."
"But I don't want –"
"I don't care if you disagree. I really don't. I'm not letting you do this. Sit up." Jeff stayed down, feeling his eyes prickle again.
"No."
"Please, Jeff." It was the first time the boy had used his name. Jeff slowly drew himself up, curling in on himself and feeling his cuts twist and burst. He felt the bruises from where he was kicked, and his muscles groaned and complained. As he slowly turned to face the boy, still wondering how he could find words that somehow managed to tug at him. He had been so sure there was nothing left.
"What?"
"I wish someone had been there to stop him. I know he could have been happy. I know it doesn't seem like it now, but you have to believe me." He looked at Jeff for a moment, searching. Jeff sighed.
"I just don't understand. I don't want to have to deal with… this." He motioned loosely all around him. "I'm sick of dealing with those boys –"
"You have every right to fight back." There was a sharp edge to his voice, and he quickly deflated as Jeff gave him a curious look. "Sorry."
Jeff shook his head. "I could never take them on my own." Jeff shrugged. "And it's not like anyone notices. I mean, really, what are the chances I'd get hit by a bicyclist? Let's be real." He glanced away at his window. His finger traced the quilt pattern absentmindedly.
"They notice. Wes earlier today knew something was wrong. Blaine was concerned."
"But –" Jeff felt the guilt seep in lower. Was he really going to leave all of those people with a simple 'I'm sorry'? Was that enough to cut it?
"You're pushing them away." There was a light pause before he added, "I understand why." He looked over at Jeff. Silence fell over them, and after a moment a soft hum came out of the boy's mouth. It took a moment to recognize the tune, but once he did, his brow furrowed.
"Paralyzer…" he muttered, regarding the boy curiously.
"It's your favorite song, isn't it?"
"How did you know?" Jeff asked, unfurling himself slightly and wincing as he leaned against the wall, trying to find a comfortable way not to lean on his cuts.
"You used to go to the Warbler practice room and dance to that song a lot. You've stopped though." The boy paused, wetting his lips. "What happened?"
"I –" Jeff swallowed, unsure how to word it. "I couldn't anymore. I suppose I just gave up." He shrugged, looking away.
"Throw the pills away."
Part of him knew the boy was right, but he automatically still found himself fighting back, his voice weak. "I can't. I have to…"
"You don't have to do anything. And throwing them away will eliminate the temptation. Just… put them in the toilet and flush them."
Jeff swallowed thickly. "I can't." He'd planned this out so carefully. He'd been so sure he was ready, so sure he wanted this. But now… His head hurt.
"Give yourself one more try. Please." Jeff stared at him for a moment, and the boy held his gaze. He wasn't sure what it was about him that made him so willing to listen, but after a moment, he nodded. Maybe the boy was right. Maybe things would get better. Doubt filled him, but then he faced the boy again, seeing the fear and concern in his eyes.
"Fine." He pulled himself up, picking the pills off of the quilt and the floor, his head spinning. Somehow he felt detached, as if he wasn't doing it himself, but it helped him to keep pushing himself, methodically – one, then the next, then the next…
Jeff made his way to the toilet, dropping them in and pulling the handle. The water swirled, and his stomach dropped as he watched it slowly sink away and disappear. He really had done it. Jeff headed back to the bedroom numbly, perching himself on the edge of his bed.
"Thank you." The boy moved down, sitting next to him, and Jeff made a small mumbling sound as if to say thank you too. Part of him still was working on processing what he'd done. And it was all because of – Jeff blinked. He didn't even know.
"Who are you?"
A small smile turned up at the edge of the boy's lips. "The name's Nick."
