Glass and Roses
DISCLAIMER: I do not own JTHM or any of its characters. I do not own Jhonen Vasquez. I do not own anything.
CHAPTER III
About five minutes later, the doorbell rang, bringing Devi rushing over to her friend and ushering her into the bedroom. "Now, you need to sleep here- keep a watch on him while you're awake and-why the fuck are you smiling at me like that?"
"You're such a mother."
Devi raised an eyebrow. "I'm...oh fuck you."
Tenna continued to grin at her. "You've gone to find him, haven't you? Oh, this is so cute! You had the dream again!" Devi cringed.
"I liked you better when you oblivious to everything." She growled. The faint light's reflection flickered off of Tenna's bright white teeth. Devi narrowed her eyes and spun on her heel. "Just watch the kid, bitch." She grunted playfully, snagging her jacket off of the coat hanger in the hall and marched out the door. She walked out onto the pavement, searching first around the house, as if thinking he was waiting for her or Bryker to venture outside.
"Johnny?" Devi whispered. Receiving no reply, she simply continued forward, looking in places she'd figure he'd be-besides his house, which she wanted desperately to avoid. She combed through the 24/7 and even asked around the mental institute, but no one had seen a tall dark haired man in a trench coat that night.
At around six, Devi realized she had no choice. She stalked down to the darkest street in the neighborhood. She didn't need to read the street signs. She knew this was it. She continued walking until she was at the door of 777, right next to the tiny child snuggling a teddy and a crowbar, sprawled out on his roof. She looked away. Willing herself not to think about what a weird neighborhood this was. She looked back at Johnny's beaten down shack. To her horror, the lights were on. He was not only home, he was awake.
Carefully, Devi knocked at the door. She started out quiet, half of her wishing that he'd just go to bed and not answer the door. The lights inside went out immediately. She ducked away from the window when she saw a pair of eyes peek past the lopsided wooden boards he used as makeshift mini blinds.
The moment they'd slipped away, yellow light filled the room again and she heard Johnny's trembling voice speaking to someone unseen. "Oh god. It's Devi. I haven't seen her in almost six years! What do I say to her? What do you think she wants?"
The same voice answered, only this time it was cold as if he were suddenly possessed by something. "Kill her?" The cold variation whispered hopefully. Devi swallowed worriedly. Johnny's voice had changed again.
Now it was sharp-almost as evil as the one before it, only this time it didn't seem so dominant. "Remember, D-boy, That didn't blow over so well last time. She kicked the shit out of him and ran off. She'll kill you if you try it again, you better just not answer the door. Wait until she leaves, then we could go kill defenseless people!"
Devi ventured to look through at the shadows in the window. Johnny was alone, facing two short statues that looked an awful lot like Pillsbury Doughboys. Devi raised an eyebrow. What the hell was going on? She watched, confused, as Johnny turned his head to look at a figure she hadn't noticed before. She cringed when she realized it was a small limp rabbit nailed to a post. She hoped it was stuffed.
Johnny was speaking again, in a softer, calmer voice this time. "Answer the door! You can't just leave her out there Johnny! You still love her, you know you do! Go out there and apologize for everything you'd ever done to her and hope she forgives you!"
Devi didn't know whether to be flattered or extremely afraid. She waited on the porch when she heard Johnny murmur in his own, normal voice, "I'm taking Nailbunny's advice. You guys are fucking assholes." The door opened and Johnny smiled at her weakly, as if he expected her to bite his head right off his neck. Devi wanted to tell him the feeling was mutual, but bit her tongue.
"Hullo." Johnny said uncomfortably.
Devi nodded at him. "I came here to talk...with you." She added uncertainly, pointing at his chest and making sure it wasn't of his other strange new personalities. Johnny raised an eyebrow and nodded.
"Sure..." He muttered, stepping aside to let Devi in. Devi stepped gingerly inside, tossing an anxious glance at the Styrofoam doughboys and dead bunny (which, at one time, was alive, much to Devi's disgust) before sitting on the drooping couch. "Erm...sorry about leaving you out there...I had to-put something away."
Devi tried not to think about the interesting conversation she'd overheard. "Yeah, don't worry, that's fine. Listen, I really need to talk to you about Bryke...er. Bryker." For some reason she didn't seem comfortable telling Johnny their son's nickname.
Johnny nodded uneasily. "Yeah, okay...what about him?"
"That fucking doll you gave him is talking...to..." She stopped and stared at the doughboys. "Oh my god!" She shouted, jumping to her feet and backing away. "It's one of those goddamn freaks, isn't it?" She barked, throwing a hand in the general direction of the odd collection.
Johnny looked confusedly at the doughboys and back at Devi. "Bub's Burger Boy isn't a doughboy..." He muttered vaguely, his face asking where this was going.
"No it...I heard you talking for them!"
Johnny made a face. "For them? Do you mean t-I don't know what you're talking about..."
Devi shook her head. "No, Johnny, for. I meant for."
Johnny blinked. "No..." He whispered to himself, "Not...IT'S NOT ME! IT CAN'T BE ME! IT'S NOT ME!" He suddenly burst, flying over to the dolls and throwing them against the wall. One of them hit the wall hard enough to crack the head off along with a brief shower of small white chunks.
As Devi scooted towards the door, Johnny let out a cold wail that sounded exactly like the voice he'd first spoken before falling to his knees on the floor. "J-Johnny?" Devi asked softly, not wanting him to scream again.
He didn't move.
"Erm...Johnny? Are you okay?"
Silence.
"Johnny?"
Devi was worried now. He wasn't even blinking. "Johnny? Are you..." She thought of saying 'alive', but quickly revised it to, "...awake?" No answer. She took a step toward him. "Er...Johnny?" Still nothing. Devi debated weather to leave or help him back to consciousness.
"C'mon, Johnny. This isn't funny." She poked at him lightly with a nearby floor lamp. He slumped, but there was no other reaction. "Oh God! He killed himself! Some...how...JOHNNY?" Without thinking she went up to him and shook him. Of course she hated him. Of course she wanted him dead-but not now...not with her in the room..." Johnny? Hello? You can't just..." Her voice trailed off as she noticed him breathing.
"So now what...are you just unconscious? What the fuck is going on?" Suddenly Johnny blinked his eyes for a second and let his lips part in question. There was a moment of shocked silence as they both considered the position each of them were in, and then, in unison, they screamed-thinking completely different things and flying back from each other.
"You tricked me!" Devi shouted, glaring at Johnny who looked generally confused. She guessed he was back to himself again.
"What happened?" He asked, looking around him as if expecting an answer to jump from the shadows. Devi's tensed shoulders loosened slightly.
"You...were you really..." Devi struggled to find the words. "I don't know." She answered truthfully, "One minute, you were throwing a fit-the next you were unconscious."
Johnny looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean?" Devi pointed at the broken Styrofoam statue on the floor. Johnny looked at it-silent for almost ten minutes before finally whispering, "D-boy?" He asked weakly, looking worriedly at the other doughboy and then the nailed rabbit. "He's...he's gone?"
"Johnny..."
"HE'S GONE! OH MY GOD! HE'S-"
"JOHNNY!"
Johnny, whose arms were lifted above his head in triumph, looked sideways at Devi, his cheeks pink with embarrassment. "Erm...yeah...I didn't like him much..." He tried to explain, but Devi wasn't listening.
"Look, Johnny, we really need to talk about my son." Johnny flinched. He mumbled something incoherently under his breath, looking sadly at the floor. "What?" Devi asked, a little harsher than she meant.
"Last time I checked, he was partly my son, too." He mumbled slightly clearer, still watching his boots. Devi felt a bolt of anger shoot down her back.
"I'm the only one raising him!"
"You won't allow me to see him."
"YOU'LL KILL HIM!"
"I'M A BETTER FATHER TO TODD THAN HIS OWN GODDAMN DAD!"
There was a silence then. It was deafening, slicing through Devi's heart like one of Johnny's favorite blades. Devi looked at her own feet. "Todd is...the kid next door, right?" Johnny seemed a little uncomfortable with this subject-as if he didn't really mean to bring it up. "What's wrong with his real parents?" Johnny was quiet, standing as still as could be thought possible.
"What do they do, Johnny? Is it what your parents did to you?"
"MY PARENTS NEVER DID ANYTHING TO ME!"
"Really? I saw the scars that night, Johnny. I remember them very vividly. You couldn't have made those yourself. They were all down your back."
"MY PARENTS DIDN'T BEAT ME!"
Johnny was screaming at the top of his lungs, his fists clenched. Anyone could tell he was lying. "Johnny...why do you like Todd so much?" Johnny fell silent again. "Is it because he reminds you of yourself before...?"
Johnny's mouth twitched. "We're getting off the subject of Bryker." He hissed, willing himself not to look Devi in the face.
Devi watched him for a minute. She decided not to mention Johnny's parents again. "I love him very much, Nny. He means everything to me." Johnny said nothing. He prepared himself for a point. "He reminds me of why I loved you in the first place...he's very intelligent, and talkative-and he's got your sensitivity." Johnny remained silent. "But...that thing you gave him...it talks to him."
Johnny looked up at this. "It...what?"
Devi narrowed her eyes. "Did it talk to you? Like those...things?" She waved at the doughboys and Nailbunny obscurely. Johnny nodded, dumbstruck. Devi sighed. "He's you, Johnny...or..." She looked off to the left wall of the house. "He's just like Todd."
Johnny smirked at that. "So...I have to take your word for it...I mean, I can never see him, right?" Devi sighed. Without answering, she walked out of the house and started down the street. She reached the end of the street before she turned around.
"You coming?" She shouted back somewhat irritably. Johnny grinned, despite himself, and bounded down the porch steps. Devi waited patiently as he caught up to her. As he reached where she stood, she launched into a list of boundaries.
"Don't tell him who you are. He..." Her voice trailed off as she looked Johnny in the face, "Oh god. Who am I kidding...he'll know. He's a fucking mirror image of you." Johnny let a smile play at his lips at the sound of that. Disgruntled, Devi added, "He has my hair." This didn't seem to phase Johnny much, who continued to grin out into space. "Anyway, just let me handle the introduction, okay?"
Johnny snapped back to reality and nodded. As if she was reciting a stream of consciousness, continued, "Get rid of all your weapons." Johnny stared at her wide-eyed. "Now." Devi ordered, pointing to the ground for emphasis. With a groan, Johnny drained his pockets of various-sized switchblades and a few heavy lead objects. Devi continued to watch him pointedly.
With another sigh, Johnny sat sprawled on the ground and ripped off his boots, shaking them empty of small blades and daggers. Devi raised an eyebrow. "And?" Johnny rolled his eyes and stripped his coat off his shoulders. Giving it a violent flap, a rain of sharp steel instruments clinked nosily to the pavement.
After his trench coat was empty, he pulled it back on and looked at her, seemingly done.
"Uh-uh." Devi shook her head. Johnny grinned at her and rolled up the legs of his pants. Unbuckling the holsters around his ankles and calves, a wide variety of scalpels and knives dropped heavily to the ground among the others.
Devi looked him over, making sure she'd covered every possible hiding spot. After a moment of uncertainty, she gathered enough bravery to ask him the rather personal question about weather there were any in his boxers. She received a rather funny look in response. "Oh...kay. Lets go."
As they walked to her house, she went over the rest of the rules. "...and don't talk about murder or any of the unnatural things you find...exhilarating. He's only five-years-old, I mean..." Johnny, who'd tuned out ages ago, scanned the streets for her address, which he'd remembered from sixty-two months ago.
As she started up on a rule about his boots, he interrupted, "Oh look...your house." And spun on his heel to sit patiently on the porch as Devi crept nervously over, as if it were the haunted house from all her childhood nightmares instead of the one she'd lived in for almost six years.
Upon reaching the front steps, she turned to him, her house keys clutched in her hand. "Don't talk about those...things...at your house...it'll just...with the burger boy and all..." Johnny nodded.
"Okay, okay." He snapped under his breath. He was getting a little impatient. He'd wished he'd at least sneaked a switchblade back into his pocket as a security. He was feeling very apprehensive at the moment and Devi pointing out everything wrong with him was not exactly helping.