"Do you wanna know how I feel?"

"I feel fucking terrible, there's shit and all I can do is... feel it."

j'san, please, say something

Justice panicked as the teen slept fitfully,

Damnit I knew this was a bad idea, she inwardly cursed as the teen calmed his sleeping before gently stirring.

"I'm alive..? And yet I don't want to be... another failure to add up." He groaned, looking around and locking eyes with the demon.

"Tall, horns, business attire, some kind of Devil?"

"Of a sort," Justice replied, "Seems I'm in the teenager protection business."

"And you're protecting one that doesn't want nor need it."

He rose from the bed, eyes roaming the room for the freshly bought scotch,

"I put the scotch in the pantry, the pills I disposed of."

He groaned in annoyance, "Damnit! Of course, of fucking course! It's not anything goes right!" He raged, "Always like this, ALWAYS! Because my life is a cosmic fucking joke!"

Justice was up and slamming him down onto the bed in an instant, eyes burning behind the tinted aviators she wore along with the black and red business suit.

"Shut. Up." She hissed violently, "Whether you want me here or not, my job is to help you. And I'll be damned if I let you talk yourself down like you are less than nothing. So quit that bullshit and try to understand that I'm helping, you daft. Fucking. Kid."

Letting him go, she heaved a heavy sigh, extending a hand for him to take.

Instead, he yelped and flinched, visibly.

"Kid, I'm not here to hurt you," She spoke, calm, restrained, but this only seemed to spook him more.

"Everyone says that!" He spoke rapidly, hyperventilating, "They say it and they lie to me! They all have!"

"And I'm not everyone, am I?" She retorted, "Breathe. Relax, hyperventilating won't help,"

He took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. Seeing he was calm, she sat next to him,

"Do you want to talk about last night?"

"Why would I tell you that?" He snapped in reply, almost instantly regretting the words as she snarked back, "Oh, I don't know? Maybe the fact I'm basically your bodyguard and therapist."

"I've had therapists and none of them helped, they prescribed meds, they didn't listen, or ask why I did what I did."

"It was just medicine."

He got up, pulling on a sweatshirt and walking to his kitchen, in the corner of the room, and began to cook.

Justice glanced up at the sound of sizzling, finally taking in the room around her.

Her charge's apartment was small, and sparse at that, as she noted before, his tiny kitchen sat in one corner, while his bed and clothes went into another, a computer sat a few feet away from it, flanked by a mini fridge upon which sat a small microwave.

"It isn't much, but it's what I have,"

She snapped away from her glance around the room to see him offering eggs and toast. Pausing by the fridge, he retrieved a water and offered it to her, which she accepted, if only to wet her lips.

"For someone so hostile a minute ago, you certainly are courteous."

"Of course, I was always taught that, harshly."

She looked down at her food, looking at the eggs and toast, beginning to eat as her teenage charge grimaced and muttered,

"Not good enough.."

"I think it's alright," Justinia commented, biting a corner off her toast.

He paused at that, before starting to eat. Sliding his plate into the sink, he looked at his phone, tapping a few buttons and allowing music to play.

"Happiness is just a word to me and might've meant a thing or two if I'd known the difference,"

"Emptiness, a lonely parody, And my life, another smokin' gun. A sign of my indifference." The lyrics continued as he sang along, lost in himself.

"Always keeping safe inside, where no one ever had a chance to penetrate a break in."

"Let me tell you, some have tried, but I'll slam the door so tight that they can never get in. Kept my cool under a lock and key and I never shed a tear. Another sign of my condition."

Justice joined in then, shrugging off her jacket and singing as well,

"Fear of love of bitter vanity that kept me on the run, the main events of my confession."

Marcus let a small smirk grow over his face as he continued the next verse, then into the chorus.

"I kept a chain upon my door that would shake the shame of Cain into a blind submission. The burning ghost without a name was still calling all the same, but I just wouldn't listen!"

The two dueted then as they reached the chorus proper, grinning at each other.

"The longer I'd stall, the further I'd crawl, the further I'd crawl, the harder I'd fall, I was crawlin' into the fire!"

"The more that I saw, the farther I'd fall, the farther I'd fall, the lower I'd crawl. I was crawlin' into the fire!"

The door shuttered as man banged on it and shouted angrily,

"Oi! Turn that shit off! Some of us are trying to do things outside of leech off their parents!"

Marcus tapped another button as his face instantly soured into a grimace of annoyance,

"Right," he murmured, "I always forget that..."

"Which apartment?" Justice asked, as she slid her jacket back on, frowning.

"18C, right below us."

"Good, I'll be sure to file a complaint."

"Not like the manager cares, why do you think I'm still here?"

"Then I'll file a complaint with God." She shot back, reaching the door and sliding past the threshold as if she was never there in the first place.

Marcus simply smiled lightly at the door and continued to clean up.