Chapter 10: Emergency

"And now we're grown up orphans
Who never knew their names
We don't belong to no one
And that's a shame
But you could hide beside me
Maybe for a while
And I won't tell no one your name "

Johnny was right. Devi was angry. Devi did scream at him. Then she screamed at Edgar for being a "goddamned sicko liar" who was evidentially trying to lure her into some kind of rape/murder trap using his child as bait. After that Edgar did his best to convince her that Johnny had indeed screwed his leg up, and they needed very badly to go to the hospital.

She'd taken the opportunity to kick Johnny in the ankle with what must have been a steel-toed boot.

The way that Johnny wailed and sobbed in pain was hilarious to her, and she'd laughed so heartily that she agreed, sure, she'd stay and watch their kid. The fact that Gaz laughed a little bit too didn't hurt. Nor did it hurt that Edgar handed her a hundred-dollar bill as they walked out the door.

In some ways Johnny didn't blame Devi for the way she treated him. Most people took death threats quite a bit seriously than he did, after all. And Edgar had lied to her (which surprised him very much. Edgar didn't lie to anyone), so he supposed he could understand her anger at that, as well.

She hadn't needed to kick him, though. He was already a little fuzzy-brained and weird feeling from the pain, and the feel of that boot on his bone hurt nearly as much as being shot in the head. In retrospect he'd prefer being shot in the head; that pain had at least had a definite end to it.

Johnny was so disoriented by the kick that he'd let Edgar drag him out into his car. The cool glass of the window felt amazing on his hot forehead as they drove in silence to the hospital. (Maybe Edgar played some shitty soft pop rock music on the radio, he wasn't really sure.) It helped distract him from the throbbing mass of pain that was his left leg. His boot was agonizingly tight around the swollen ankle, making every motion a bruise-rubbing chore. There were rivets poking into bone, he felt sure of it.

If Johnny had been at home and if Edgar hadn't been there to stop him, he would have started sawing his leg off. No joke. He had tools for it and everything. Johnny thought romantically about the collection of bone saws he kept under the bathroom sink back home. Sharpen one up, run it right through the shin and in 35 seconds flat, he could have had the whole damned mess off.

It didn't occur to Johnny that sawing his leg off would be infinitely more painful than just badly bone-bruising his ankle. His mind and reality often clashed.

"How do you feel?" Edgar asked. Reflected in the window glass, Johnny could see Edgar turning unsafely away from the road to look at him. His hands never left the two-o'clock and ten-o'clock positions on the steering wheel.

"Like shit," Johnny said shortly. "I want to cut my leg off."

"I'd prefer you wouldn't. We're nearly there; it won't be as long as it has been."

"Then why in the hell did you ask? Obviously I'm in fucking agony. You need a damned medical degree to figure that out?" (Edgar glanced over again with his eyebrows knitted together but didn't say anything.) "I don't want to go to the hospital. I want to go home."

This wasn't expressly true. Johnny never wanted to go home. His house was cruel and dirty and full of things that hated him. Especially compared to Edgar's smaller (but cleaner and warmer) home. But Johnny returned to his own house again and again, like an animal to a dangerous den.

He couldn't go home now. Edgar had trapped him in this car. Several times during the ride (as they stopped in traffic, as they circled the parking lot) Johnny thought about hitting Edgar over the head with the ice scraper shifting around on the floorboards and escaping.

Edgar was trying to do something nice for him, though. It was strange and made Johnny angry and confused, or as much as the pain muddling his mind would allow. Besides, something was weird with Edgar. Beyond the fact that he ordered his cereal boxes by fiber content and wore rubber gloves to change the toilet paper roll, that is. Something was weird with Edgar in the sense that he shouldn't be here, driving Johnny to the hospital, but he most certainly was. Few and far between were the things that Johnny was certain of, but this was one.

Because of this spectacular paradox, Johnny was hesitant to fuck with Edgar too much. In the beating-over-the-head with something sense, anyway. . He still didn't feel too bad about eating his food or teaching Gaz how to tie nooses out of shoelaces for her toys. Those were inconsequential.

And, Johnny reminded himself, when you've personally caused the collapse of universal existence on at least once occasion, you had to be careful screwing around with the apparent glitches. He'd fucked with the hungry wall, too, and look where that had gotten him. He didn't relish the idea of being reset and wandering around in limbo again. What if they made him a waste-lock for a second time?

He shuttered violently against the car door, enough that Edgar took notice.

"Are you really sure you're okay? I don't want you to go into shock."

"I just want to get this over with so I can go home."

"I know. I'll take you home as soon as we get out. We can even get some Brainfreezys on the way back, okay?"

Johnny grunted in response but didn't answer. Edgar was using the same tone he did when he was trying to bribe Gaz into complacency. He was such a nice fucking guy. Sometimes it made Johnny sick.

No, it made him feel guilty. Whatever.

Edgar parked the car in front of the hospital entrance that said "EMERGENCY ROOM" in giant neon letters above its sliding glass doors. It took him three tries to get the car parked exactly in parallel with the lines on either side, and another five minutes to account for his wallet and keys and jacket and the state of the headlights and the locks and -

Johnny got impatient waiting and threw his own door open, letting it smash full-on into the car next to them. Sparks erupted from where the edges had hit.

"Johnny, did you just-?!" Edgar yelped.

"C'mon. This was your fucking idea."

Behind him, Johnny heard Edgar sigh as he turned to get out. He waited to be fussed at, but Edgar just locked the car and walked slowly around to his side. Jeez, he was such an asshole, wasn't he? Johnny's thoughts and voices started to scream at one another in his hypocrisy.

But it was so horrific to be looked after. It's so scary, isn't it, knowing that someone gives a shit? Don't you hate it? Being alone was so much easier. You could be a selfish prick all the time and no self-righteous soul patch guy would make you feel bad about it. Hasn't he got some nerve?

No, no no no no. You wanted friends, didn't you, Johnny? Here you've got one. You've got two, and the little one thinks you're hot shit, you know. The big one just wants to help you, and you're treating him the way that they would. Jesus, what's your fucking problem? You can't have it both ways.

You can't be jealous of people with friends without being jealous of the whole package. You have to be jealous of vulnerability too.

He started biting his lip as he thought. Or, rather, as his thoughts carried on of their own accord without much of his input. Johnny felt blood trickling down his chin and the pain from biting it was soothing against the ache in his leg. Find a pain to focus on. He hadn't lied when he'd said that it all -

"Do you want some help? Johnny? Nny? Can you hear me?"

Edgar was waving a hand in front of his face. Well, three feet away from his face, but in a general frontal kind of area.

"I'm not jealous," Johnny blurted out. The skin on his face felt hot, but where the blood was dripping down was cold in a narrow line. Edgar's glasses seemed very shiny.

"Of course not. Why would you be? It's an awful way to feel." Edgar held his hand out a little closer and Johnny grabbed onto his forearm much harder than he'd meant to. His palms were sweating. That was odd. Everything below his knee felt like white-hot water.

Johnny shut his eyes very tightly and when he opened them again, the world had shifted around him. He was still sitting down, but whatever was under him was plastic and rickety and not a car seat by any means. Edgar was gone. Everything was clean and tidy white plastic and wood paneling and to his left was a stack of Good Housekeepings.

Something in his chest felt dense and tight. Was his leg still there? Yes, good. It seemed very strange to him that both of his boots looked identical, when one felt much larger and much more on fire than the other one.

He leaned back in the slick plastic chair and it creaked under his slight weight. His heel scraped three inches across the floor and Johnny felt each one as if it were a mile. Sucking air over his back teeth, Johnny fought the urge to shut his eyes for fear that he'd move again.

That thought made him panic. His hands shook. Cold pinpricks of nerves jabbed up under his hot skin. What had happened? He finally looked beyond the immediate three feet around him, and saw people milling around in chairs much like his. There was a very long counter just beyond their little field of chairs. All these chairs, half-empty. A waiting room. No one was looking at him. Why weren't they looking at him? Was he even here at all? Where was Edgar?

"Where's Edgar?" he said. His voice was very tiny. No one noticed.

"Where's Edgar?!" he repeated, louder. A little boy with a pencil lodged in his nose looked over at him, but no one else.

"WHERE IN THE FUCKING SHITSTAINED UNIVERSE IS EDGAR?!"

Johnny went to get up, hit his foot on the ground, and collapsed back into the chair in a thrashing fit of frustration. The legs of the plastic chair rattled against the ground and all the people milling around stared. Their beady eyes on him, hot on his already too-warm skin, where was Edgar?! Whispering and leering.

His heart hammered in his chest and sounded in his ears even though he was sitting still. The edges of reality were blurred and shaking. Getting smaller around him, the world was tiny so suddenly, and at the corners of his vision Johnny could see those fuckers moving around but goddamned if he'd let them touch him. God, Johnny would die again for something stable to -

"I'm here! Johnny!"

Somewhere amidst his panicked fit, Johnny heard the voice. It was familiar. He liked that. There was crashing and yelping and Johnny whipped his head around like a frightened child looking for Edgar. He'd be sure to give that asshole a good throw down for leaving him.

Johnny found the flash of green button-down shirt. Edgar came wheeling around out of a hallway that must have led deeper into the hospital. He was holding a clipboard.

"Just hold on!" Edgar called, shoving through the dazed onlookers, waving his clipboard defensively.

He swung it too hard and hit a six-foot dead-eyed meathead directly in the neck.

"Hey, dickweed, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" the hulking brute sneered down at much smaller Edgar, who probably didn't notice the way that he was clenching his fist down at the side of his gym shorts. But Johnny noticed.

"I'm - Oh, dear - I'm very sorry, sir. I was just -" Edgar's spine seemed to go limp inside of his body. He hugged the clipboard to his chest.

"You ought to be sorry, shithead. You just hit me with that fucking thing." The meathead rammed a finger into the center of the clipboard and pushed Edgar back an inch or so.

Johnny felt rage starting to foam around inside of him, hungrily replacing the panic of a few seconds ago. The spike of adrenaline dulled the pain in his leg.

Edgar, however, didn't have an angry bone in his body. It made Johnny so pissed.

"I am! Really, I didn't mean to. It was an accident. I was just trying to get to my friend -" He started to gesture to where Johnny sat, seemed to think better of it, and let his hands fall to his sides instead. Almost like he didn't want to draw any more attention to Johnny.

His precautions did no good. "That psycho over there is your friend?" The meathead jerked his head in Johnny's direction and Edgar looked over at him apologetically.

His expression morphed into shock and Johnny reached down to his good ankle and began pulling a knife free from his boot. Edgar's glasses were thick and shiny, but Johnny could still see his eyes widening behind them.

Edgar mouthed "no."

Johnny mouthed back "too late" and threw it anyway.

They were lucky. The blade wind milled through the air spectacularly, but it was the blunt-ended handle that struck the Hulk squarely in the head. He collapsed all six feet down into a mass of muscle and jersey onto the waiting-room floor.

Edgar stared open-mouthed at the meathead who'd just been threatening him. He flicked his gaze back over at a grinning Johnny, and then back again.

"What...what was he here for?" Edgar asked, half-dazed, to no-one in particular.

A pretty nearby blonde girl with a ponytail answered him. "Head injury. He got hurt at a varsity game."

"Oh...well. That's okay, I suppose."

"He's not dead," Johnny said at them, his voice echoing across the relative newfound silence of the room. "I've never killed anyone that way, at least."

"Good. Good to know," Edgar said. He turned to the blonde girl. "Better mention this to the doctor when he comes around, alright?"

She nodded. "I will. He was being a bit of a prick."

"Right."

Edgar didn't look at anything in particular as he stepped around the pile of football player and dropped himself into the seat at Johnny's side.

"You're welcome," Johnny said. Edgar still wasn't looking at him.

"I...er...thanks?"

"I meant to kill him, but my head is feeling a bit jellyfishy at the moment. Must have fucked up my throw," Johnny said, clicking his tongue unhappily.

The meatbag was already coming to several feet away from them, propping himself up on two stumpy elbows and demanding to know what was going on from his tiny girlfriend. He'd be woozy, but fine. Johnny resented this deeply.

"Thank you for not killing him," Edgar whispered. He finally glanced over the arm of the chair and smiled weakly in Johnny's direction, and Johnny felt the barriers of reality shifting quietly back into something more solid. Edgar's presence gave him something to lock onto in his constantly shifting world. He'd been in the car before. Now he was here. Everything else seemed stable, but Johnny's annoyance about the whole situation hadn't faltered.

"You owe me a couple, now. For leaving me. With a fucked-up leg, no less!" The longer he spoke, the louder his words got, until Johnny was nearly screaming again and Edgar had sunk down, shaking, into his chair.

"You'd blacked out, Nny. I couldn't leave you in the car like that," he stuttered out.

"Yes you could! If anyone has free will, it's you, Edgar!"

"I'm sorry." Edgar apologized like it was going out of style. Like he was making up for something. "I had to go get some of these forms, see? Otherwise they wouldn't let us in."

He held up the clipboard. Something tangible. Good call.

Johnny grunted. He hated filling out forms. Just another type of busywork that the powers-that-weren't gave to their ant-like citizens. Just another way to give all of the sheep down here at the poverty line a way to feel like they were still in control of something. Trust Edgar to fall for that one.

"You do it," Johnny said. He nodded toward the forms. This would count toward Edgar's punishment.

"I wouldn't dream of it otherwise." Edgar produced a pen out of nowhere and started filling in boxes and lines. Out of the corner of his eye, Johnny watched as Edgar's writing started out shaky and uneven, but quietly settled back into its typical neat-but-spidery style.

The pen scratched against the paper and was weirdly soothing in a way. If Johnny looked away from Edgar and still heard the scratching, he knew that he was still there. That was kind of nice, even if he was angry with him.

Johnny looked away. He wanted to make sure that the rest of the waiting room was still there. It was. Across the way, at the bank of chairs farthest from him and Edgar, the meathead had managed to drag himself into a chair. His girlfriend hovered over him, flitting back and forth like a bird tending to a hippo.

She came too close, and the meathead swatted at her with a shovel-sized hand. Right across the face. From across the room Johnny could hear the tiny smack of his palm against her cheek.

No one else in the waiting room even looked up. Even the girl didn't seem too shocked by this, and calmly took a seat next to her boyfriend as if he'd politely asked her to sit down instead of popped her one.

Johnny's fingernails sank into the armrests of his cheap chair. His teeth ground together loudly, the back ones clicking together, because what in the fuck was the matter with people?

"I want to kill that guy," he said, low enough that only Edgar could hear.

Johnny felt Edgar watching him closely as he spoke. "Okay. I can see that. But you know that you shouldn't, right?"

"I've done lots of things I shouldn't have. What's one more to the list? Especially when it would include that fuckhead over there."

"Could you please tell me why?" Edgar let the clipboard fall down into his lap, giving Johnny all of his attention now.

It was a bad call, because he was badly startled when Johnny started ranting.

"Ugh! Why isn't this obvious to you?! You're such a nice fucking guy, Edgar! That guy over there is a plague. He makes the world worse by existing. Maybe I hurt people, but I do it one at a time and I make sure that they deserve it first. That guy is going to continue being a dick to every person he meets every day until he dies and I bet you a duodenum that he'll hurt a fucking load more people than I ever will. And he'll do all of it while being totally fucking ignorant about how much damage he's doing. Once again, at least I know what a horrible person I am."

Johnny growled and panted, his fists balled up on his knees, teeth ground and shaking all over. He tried to think about the agony that would shoot up his leg if he tried to get up and go stab that asshole over and over. Better physical pain any day.

Edgar was quiet for a moment or two. He waited for Johnny to breathe out a bit of his rage, and then he said: "Alright. I accept your logic, although I do see some flaws in it."

"Like what?!"

"Well, clearly you've killed people before who didn't deserve it."

"How the fuck would you know?"

"You tried to kill me, didn't you? And Devi. I'm not going to presume that I'm a particularly valuable contribution to humanity, but I certainly don't set it back as many millennia as Mr. Compensation over there."

Edgar tilted his head toward the meathead, and Johnny felt gears in his brain seize up with clogging logic. Goddamn it. He'd never - he didn't know -

Edgar had never mentioned this before. They'd never spoken about it. Somehow three months had passed since they'd started associating with each other, and that whole wacky murdering incident had never been brought up.

Johnny forgot about it, more often than not.

"I…I mean…yeah. But that wasn't my fault."

Edgar nodded and smiled and was being so goddamned patronizing that Johnny would have probably been pissed if he weren't so stunned by the subject matter.

"Oh. I see," he said.

"It wasn't!" Johnny yelped. "There were certain…outside forces coming into play back then. You wouldn't – I wouldn't expect for you to understand. You're too sane."

"This doesn't have to do with the wall that needs blood, does it?"

"Yes! Yes. You remembered." Johnny was legitimately surprised.

"Of course I remembered. It's difficult to forget things that are going on when you expect to die at any second," Edgar said, his voice so free of resentment that Johnny forced himself to look over at him to see if he was glaring.

He wasn't. Edgar was tapping his foot against the floor and watching a fichus tree across the way with casual interest. Perfectly cordial, because Edgar was the only person Johnny had ever met who could talk about murder and death and hell and salvation in the exact same manner he talked about what coupons had come in the mail that day.

"Yeah," said Johnny softly, avoiding eye contact as he spoke. Edgar's glasses made it easier. "That bloody wall, it snuck into my brain and hid in my thoughts, until I thought that it was part of me, yeah? I can't even remember how I got there, it did such a good job. And the next thing I know I'm killing people I don't want to kill, I'm touching blood I don't want to touch, and these muffin mascots are telling me to kill myself..."

He was rambling now, his words spilling out into nonsense, getting angry again. Not at Edgar for asking, but at the truth as he remembered it. Angry that his childhood and identity had all been stolen from him by the thing behind the wall, and all that had remained was those months or years of slavery. All of it dark and stolen, all that torture at the hands of the universe, and no safety in his own mind to retreat to -

Until now, he realized. The last few months had been...nice.

If he should ever fall into darkness again, he'd have this. He'd have popcorn on the couch with Gaz and late-night chess with Edgar and this stupid-yet-weirdly-funny trip to the hospital. There was a warmth to hide in.

"And the...the bagel shop...with...with the...overpriced cream cheese...it was just...in...in..." Johnny's words started to fall apart as his thoughts wandered. His anger dissipated as quickly as it had flared up, replaced by tiredness. The pain in his leg started up again. He yelled at it to stop.

Through all of this Edgar was quiet. He nodded and smiled and was definitely listening, but didn't speak.

Of course he didn't understand. Johnny felt stupid for hoping otherwise. Perhaps this warmth was faker than he'd thought.

Johnny shifted uncomfortably in his chair. It was far too wide for his skinny backside. He turned his back on Edgar as much as his messed-up leg would allow. The armrest of the chair had a flowery pattern carved into the cheap plastic and so he ran his fingernail around it for a while, tracing the grooves.

After a while he heard the quiet scratching of pen against paper behind him. Edgar must have started filling out the forms again. The rest of the waiting room became exaggeratedly silent around them. Somewhere a clock ticked quietly, or ladies turned the pages on old magazines, or someone at a desk answered a phone. Johnny started pulling the edges out of his fingernails.

Finally, Edgar said something.

"It's alright, Nny." His tone was quiet and disinterested, with the sound of the scratching pen behind it. It took Johnny a second to even realize that Edgar was talking to him. He said it like that so that Johnny would know that it was alright if he didn't want to answer.

He didn't want to, but was still curious. "What is?"

"It's alright that you did that. Put me in that machine. I mean, I guess it wasn't ethically alright but…it's alright with me. Now. You don't need to feel bad about that specific thing anymore. I guess that's what I'm getting at."

Johnny refused to look over his shoulder. "I don't feel bad about killing you."

"Well, you didn't kill me. So, yes, it figures that you wouldn't feel bad about that. But you're forgiven for...almost."

A horrifying pause. "Yes. That's what I meant." Johnny said slowly. The scratching of the pen had stopped for the twentieth time.

"I suppose we wouldn't be friends now if you hadn't. I wouldn't have Gaz. I'd be at home with a drink and a bumblebee documentary right now," Edgar laughed but didn't sound happy.

"That would be pathetic," Johnny agreed.

"I know. We're quite a bunch, the three of us."

"A herd, if anything." Johnny sucked at one of his fingers where he'd pulled too much fingernail-lining out and it was beginning to bleed.

"You want to hear something funny?" And even though Johnny still had his back turned, he was quite sure that Edgar was looking at him. He wished Edgar would start filling the forms out again. It had a pleasant kind of rhythm to it.

"It better not be a knock-knock joke."

"It's not."

"Or one of those obscene poems."

Quiet laughing. More genuine this time. "No."

"Then what is it?"

"It's just that...when we were down in that basement together, and you said I was your bestest friend...I remember thinking that technically, you were mine, too."

He still was, Johnny thought, but didn't say so. Both of them fell silent. Edgar shifted in his chair like he'd crossed his legs and started writing again.

"That's not very funny."

"Oh. My mistake. I thought that it was. Do you think you could help me with one of these forms?"

Johnny rolled over in his chair, taking a long time to situate his bad leg, and glared up at Edgar through one slitted eye.

"What?"

"I think I'm going to have to give you a last name. It's Johnny C...?" Edgar made a "cckkk" sort of noise and seemed to expect Johnny to finish the word for him. The forms on the clipboard rustled while Johnny stared blankly.

"I can't remember my name."

"Nothing at all?"

"NO! Jesus, Edgar."

"Well, something's got to go in this blank."

"So, what, I've got to prove my identity to get medical care?! What a bunch of fascists! What if I was the fucking prince of Norway but there was no one here who could read my handwriting? What fucking THEN?! They'd just let me die out here in this tacky waiting room!?" The pain in his leg flared up as he started ranting and his consonants snarled.

Edgar looked at him over the top of his glasses and tapped a pen against the clipboard. "You're not going to die from a bruised ankle."

"You don't know. I killed a girl with a potato once."

For a second Edgar seemed to be thinking about something, but then he shook his head and shifted in the creaky plastic chair. It made quite a bit more noise than Johnny's did when he moved. Probably because Edgar was giant and Johnny was just a noodly wisp of a person. He took his wallet out of his pocket.

"I'm going to put down 'Vargas,'" he said, taking a card out of one of the slots in the leather.

"That's not my name." Johnny was wondering if Edgar might have something wrong with him.

"I know." Edgar glanced around shiftily before beginning to copy information down off of the card. "But you don't have any insurance, do you?"

"Well, I used to be immortal and suicidal. The whole idea of 'insurance' kind of conflicts with those."

"I can see how it would," although Edgar didn't seem to be listening. "If I say that you're my brother, we can probably find a loophole here somewhere. My work's insurance is supposed to be pretty good. Never had to use it until now, but I guess we'll find out."

Johnny stared at him. "Edgar. That's illegal."

Edgar made a scoffing-laughing-nonsense sound that Johnny would have stabbed anyone else over. "That's-that's- well, you're one to talk, Nny."

There must not have been much else to say in the matter, because Johnny saw Edgar write "Vargas" clearly and neatly on one of the forms. The pen cut smoothly across the paper, and suddenly Johnny had a last name. Not a real one - and Senior Diablo knew that he'd never actually use it - but it existed somewhere.

Brothers. Heh. And bestest friends, too, despite Johnny's fighting. He didn't understand even a little bit of this, but hardly had the energy to reject it.

"Hey, Edgar," Johnny said. Edgar tilted his head to the side, still looking down at the clipboard, an eyebrow raised to indicate he was listening.

"Hm?"

"Thanks."

Lyrics at the top belong to the Goo Goo Dolls and their song "Name," AKA "one of those songs you just never get over."

I apologize if this chapter is a little flighty or confusing. It's difficult staying in Johnny's mind for very long, and he's sort of meant to have a confusing thought process. Still, the line between "recreated insanity" and "badly-organized prose" is a thin one, so I hope no one had too much trouble understanding what was going on.

Love you all, and I'll update soon!