A/N:

A/N: Fuck me… I'm back.

Quick warning: Little bit of a spoiler for those who haven't read/watched George Orwell's 1984. Just saying.

--

As soon as I got home, I changed out of my hooker-wear and into a pair of sweats and a huge sweater. Not like I had to look good for Johnny. That was one thing I kinda sorta almost-but-not-really liked about him – he didn't care if I wore make-up or a cute top or had my hair done up. He didn't care at all.

At precisely seven o'clock, the doorbell rang. I opened the door while still chewing my dinner. "Hey," I said with a mouthful of carrots and chicken. "Come in," I gestured for him to come inside. A piece of carrot flew onto his leather jacket. He calmly peeled it off.

He stood still in the doorway, unfavorably quiet.

"What's wrong with you?" I snorted.

He gave me a look. "I brought a movie," He held up a DVD. "It's called Nineteen Eighty-four," He added, as if I was unable to read the cover myself.

"What the hell…" I processed that for a moment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I thought it might help you understand some things," He rolled his eyes at me and walked past me without any further ado.

I just shrugged, still chewing on nothing in particular, and went to shut the door behind him. It was already starting to get cold, and a chill rushed inside, washing over me, giving me goosebumps. Like a bad omen.

I paid no attention to it and went into the living room where Johnny was already tampering with my DVD player.

"So what's it about?" I asked, sitting down on the floor several feet away from him.

"Oppression, and anti-totalitarianism," He said as-a-matter-of-factly.

"…oh."

--

I spent most of the film huddled backward in disgust or absolute horror. When it ended, I finally managed to speak. "What the fuck, Johnny!" I looked over at him. He obviously didn't seem bothered. "That was the most random pointless thing I've ever seen! It didn't even have a happy ending! They were supposed to fall in love!"

A pillow hit me hard in the head. "Ow," I grumbled, rubbing the place where it hit me indignantly.

"Don't be stupid," He hissed at me, his beady little eyes narrowed in bitterness. "That film speaks volumes about what we- you are trying to learn. Dig a little deeper, you insolent twit."

"'Insolent twit'? Are you serious?" I raised an eyebrow at him. He kept staring at me like he wanted to kill me, so I just sighed and leaned back onto my hands. "Ehh okay. So that guy… they were trying to control him and stuff and they made him believe that two plus two equals five-"

"NO!" He threw his hands into the air in irritation. "Noooooo. He didn't believe that two plus two equals five, he just said that because he didn't want them to hurt him anymore. At first, at least, that's what happens. But then the Party brainwashes Winston to love only Big Brother. That way he can't love Julia because he has no love left for her. Do you see?" He tipped his head to the side.

My stomach fluttered and I frowned, willing it away. "I- I guess so, I mean… what does it have to do with our project?"

Johnny twitched. "I cannot believe I have been forced to put up with you and your puny intellect," He stood up, towering over me threateningly. I recoiled. "I could easily…" His voice softened. "Could easily just…" His entire face changed and he looked almost saintly.

Too bad it couldn't last. He shrank down to my level, and grasped my face tightly between his bony hands. This was the first time I really noticed that he was wearing gloves. Or maybe he hadn't worn them before and he decided to wear them today. But he was wearing them, and they were cold. "I could just break through the surface of your skin and into your cheekbones and maybe I could dig up into your eyes." He spoke like some melodramatic Shakespearian character.

My heart was thumping in my head louder than I'd ever heard it before. I could feel it banging in my chest and the adrenaline was propelling itself through my veins, whooshing in my ears. Or maybe that was just the sound of me trying to breathe through the urge to vomit all over myself. My teeth were clenched tightly, along with every muscle in my body. I'm sure I was the perfect picture of fright, and I'm sure he was well aware of this.

All I could see were his eyes, like two giant headlights staring at me. They widened a little bit more and he sighed, "You know what I haven't done in a long time?" Globular eyes still gawking at me.

"What?" It was an automatic response; my brain had switched into survival mode, knowing that if I didn't respond, it would get very, very bad. Somewhere deep inside my head was that little voice. You know, that voice? The one that's always panicking? Always thinking of the nastiest, most horrible things? It was talking to me, saying, 'he's gonna kill you! He's gonna rip your face off of your skull and eat it up!' I braced for the worst.

There was a little pause. I'm sure it only lasted for two or three seconds, but to me it felt like time totally just stopped, and I was stuck with it. I couldn't move.

Then Johnny put his head upon my chest and closed his eyes just like a little child. He stayed that way for at least a minute. I wasn't sure whether to push him off and risk being ripped apart, or to stay in that awkwardly close position. Something inside my gut was quivering and I couldn't tell if it was because of the apprehension or the… something else.

'Don't think about it,' I said to myself. 'It's not what you think.' I sat rigid and immobile, trying to make my mind just be quiet. But of course it wouldn't shut up. It kept saying all those things and, well, it's not like I had any other choice but to listen.

"I haven't listened to a heartbeat in the longest time," He said. "The sound of blood pulling into the superior vena cava, into the atrium, and pushed out through the arteries just to make the journey back again. It's…" Dramatic pause. "Mesmerizing. Do you know what it is? It's the sound of vigour inside of you." Another pause. He inhaled slowly and exhaled surprisingly warm breath onto my skin. "This is an intimate moment."

His mouth was moving against my bones. That was how close it was. I could feel my heart pounding against him. That's how scared I was.

At that second, I had a thought that freaked me out all the more. 'If only my boyfriend did things like this!' It wasn't the thought that scared me; it was the meaning behind it. Seriously, it wasn't something I could even try to deny anymore. I know it sounds funny and cliché now, but then I was enamoured. And not with Johnny, but with the idea of Johnny. Which isn't a very good idea at all.

And then I did something pretty stupid. I put my hand on his head, pressing him closer. I may as well have just thrown a lit match onto a barrel of gasoline because he literally detonated.

Swish. That's the sound of him standing up and flying across the room. "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?! Don't fucking touch me, don't TOUCH me! ARGH." He looked like some sort of feral animal backed into a corner… hunched over, wild-eyed. He was scratching himself violently where my hand had been.

"What!?" I scoffed. "I'm not allowed to touch you, but you can just stick your head in between my boobs? Are you serious?" Something inside me now hurt very much.

He shuddered. "Oh, you're revolting. If you think that's what I was doing… I was merely searching for a sign of life in a body that seems so barren."

I laughed out loud. "I know, I know. You're trying so hard to sound, like, eloquent, or whatever. But… y-you sound stupid." That was the best comeback that I could produce because I was so flustered and humiliated. I could feel my face engulfed in a hot blush.

Idea: maybe I could turn the tables on him.

"I think you're the one who should be embarrassed because, well, you're the one who made the first move-"

"Move!?" He screeched. "I don't make 'moves'! You are imposing more meaning onto this than is needed. Calm down." He rolled his eyes at me.

"Calm down? What the fuck do you mean, calm down?" I don't know why this was making me so mad. Perhaps I was annoyed because history was repeating itself for the 500th time. Deep breath. "I'm perfectly calm, I'm just trying to figure out what that was all about." I tried to reason with him.

"I simply enjoy the sounds that come from your chest cavity. Is that so wrong?"

How do you reply to something like that? "Uh, well, it's not…" I scrunched my nose, searching for the word. "Normal."

True to form, Johnny burst into fits of frenzied laughter, diminishing to the floor on his knees, grabbing onto his sides.

"What?" I asked, slowly, uncomfortably. He didn't stop. I don't even think he was laughing anymore, he was just screaming and cackling and rolling around on my living room floor.

Somehow, his violent laughter was contagious, and I could feel a giggle building up. I tried to hold it back, but it came out as a snort, which caused a chain reaction: Johnny laughed harder and I, consequently, yielded into hysterics.

I swear, we spent five minutes laughing about the word 'normal'. Oddly enough, I kinda understood why he was so amused. I think. Because Johnny doing anything normal is just out of the question, and me even suggesting the idea of him trying to be normal is just absurd.

Still trying to quiet myself, I asked, "Oh my god. Can I call you John?" Why did I ask this? I really couldn't say. Maybe I was trying to cultivate some more intimacy between us. Maybe I had enjoyed our little moment.

All the hilarity snapped away from him. "No." He snarled, looking less-than-pleased.

"Oh," I looked to the side, feeling oddly frustrated for breaking the little moment of amiability. There were so few of them between us, after all. "Well, I don't like calling you 'Johnny' all the time, so I'm going to call you John."

He gave an exaggerated sigh and dug his face into his hands and sat that way for a moment before surfacing and grumbling something bitterly.

"Huh?" I leaned forward a little bit.

"I said," He sighed again. "Call me Nny."

"Nny?" I repeated under my breath. "What the fuck, where did that one come from?"

There are probably only two things in existence that can make me stop talking at once, and one of them is Johnny's 'annoyed face'. At the moment, he was glaring at me that way. I raised my hands in an apologetic way.

He became softer. "Sometimes I want to kill you," It was expressionless, the way he said it. He inched a little bit closer. "I could, you know."

This didn't affect me as much as I thought it would. Maybe because he said it with such a lack of emotion that I didn't believe it. I didn't bother moving away. "You won't kill me…" I trailed off.

"Well. I've done it before. On someone else, obviously," He snickered. I scoffed, but I'm sure my face was uncertain. I didn't want to dwell on the subject. The sheer likelihood of it made me nervous.

"Anyways," I cleared my throat. "We need to get to work." I averted my eyes.

"I think the question is wrong," He said.

"Huh?"

"The question. 'How do I know I exist?' It's wrong," As if that explained anything. "It should be, 'how do I know that others exist?' You know that you exist. You know this because you are yourself, you are, and can be, nothing else. And so, since you can never be anyone else, you can only confirm your own existence. It's easy to do that, to yourself. It's not at all easy to confirm the existence of anything outside of your own mind, however."

I gawked at him, sucking in my cheeks. He didn't seem to get the message that I was confused.

He just continued on. "And you cannot ever convince anyone else that you exist, because, for all they know, they're the only existing being. It's called solipsism. The belief that you are the only one that has consciousness."

I nodded my head slowly. "So… um… does that… does that mean, um, that we're…" I chewed the inside of my mouth. "Are we finished then?"

"Finished?"

"Our project. We've pretty much answered the question, and then some…" I shuffled again.

"Ohhhoho," He laughed quietly, his eyes glazed over with a lunacy I can only attribute to a certain character from a certain movie about lambs. "You and I are not finished by a long shot."

Goosebumps speckled my arms.

"We still need to put it into visual form!" He brightened.

--

We ended up making a model of an eye out of paper mâche. It was Johnny's idea. He said it represented the only verifiable object: a mind. How does a mind relate to an eyeball? I didn't bother questioning it. I figured he knew what he was doing.

While we were both painting the balloon with messy, wet strips of newspaper, I decided to break the expected silence. "Hey, Nny," I tried out the new short name. "Since you seem to know a lot about all this stuff, I have a question for you."

He glanced up at me like a hyena at would-be prey. "Ask away."

"Where did the Universe come from?"

"The Big Bang."

"Yeah, okay, but… like…" I paused to think. "Like, where did that come from? Why did it happen? What caused it?"

"There is no point in asking that question," He said simply and continued to work on the balloon.

I frowned. "Why?"

He sat back from the balloon. "Let's say I do give you the answer, I tell you what caused the Universe to come into existence. Then you would ask what caused the cause of the Universe to come into existence. And so on, and so on. It's a never-ending chain of 'what caused the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause of the Universe?' Follow?"

I nodded slowly, not too sure of myself.

"Furthermore, if I tell you that there is no cause, well, that wouldn't make too much sense, would it? That it exists for no reason? That's irrational," Johnny looked at me square in the eye. "You see?"

"Yes," I looked down at my hands, saturated with gluey solution. Gross. "But no. So you're saying that there must be a cause?"

"I guess so."

"But you're also saying we can't know what cause? Because… it'll be all chain-like in the end?"

"That's what I'm saying."

"Then no. I don't understand," I was getting frustrated with myself. Whenever Johnny said something clever like that, I couldn't keep up.

"Alright. Listen. The cause is something we can't even comprehend, that's why it's impossible to answer the question, and so it's stupid to ask it," He rolled his eyes.

"So you're saying God created the Universe?"

"What?!" He sputtered. "God? What the fuck? Aren't you listening to me? GOD!" He growled. "How can you even bring God into this after everything I've said? Idiot! Merciless stupidity!"

"Are you gonna answer me or not?!" I raised my voice to the same level. "I'm sick of you always yelling at me! Just because I'm not as smart as you! Don't be such an elitist!"

"There's a difference between being an 'elitist', and being a human being with half a brain," He sneered.

"Why do you say these things to me?" I asked quietly. "Why are you so mean to me?"

He didn't share my muted attitude. He just started laughing like some mad scientist or something. "I can't believe you just asked that question! I mean, yeah, sure, stupid things have some out of your mouth before, it's to be expected, but nothing like that!" He snorted. "Are you joking with me? Huh? Are you joking? Please. Tell me you're joking."

I didn't say anything, just sat there and looked at him blankly. His amusement stopped abruptly. He leaned forward and hissed, "Why would a burn victim be nice to a bonfire?" He was all quiet and brooding now.

A warm, sickening feeling washed over me. I stared. "I'm sorry," Felt weird saying that. I don't think I've ever meant it, ever, in my entire life. But I meant it now. I couldn't understand why. Well, yes, I could, but I was afraid that if I acknowledged it, I would go crazy.

Fuck that, I was already crazy.

"You're a liar," His pupils narrowed dramatically. "I can't take it, the lies, the idiocy. When will it end?"

"In about a week. That's when our project is due," I cleared my throat and scratched the back of my neck, the perfect picture of uneasiness. "So God is a part of this Universe then," I said. "And he would be part of the 'cause-chain' thing?"

"That's right!" He grinned, a 180 degree change from his dark demeanour two seconds ago.

"I've never learned so much in five minutes," I admitted. I had been looking at my hands again, and when I looked up, his face was perplexed. "What?"

He just watched me with a kind of focus I hadn't yet experienced. It was pretty intense, I'm not gonna lie. "You're a marshmallow," He sighed. Butterflies did backflips in my stomach.

The phone rang. I stared back at him. The phone rang a couple more times. I kept staring. His eyes, vacant, as usual, peered back at me. No words, it was piercingly quiet between us. Very unsettling, but I did nothing to break it. We were literally inches apart and my heart was pounding once again. Intense, intense.

"Your phone is ringing," He said, voice completely void of any sentiment I may or may not have been feeling at the time.

"I know," I didn't move, and neither did he. The phone rang again and I sighed dejectedly, yielding to that damned person calling my number. I got up and walked into the kitchen, picking up the phone.

"Hello," I droned.

"Hey, babe!" It was Felicity. "What's going on?"

"Um…" I didn't know what to say. "Just- like, um, just working on my philosophy project," I ran a hand through my hair in frustration and looked at Johnny sitting on the floor, casually regarding me like an uninterested cat.

"Ugh man, sounds like you need to get out, right?" She giggled.

"Uh, no."

There was a shocked silence. "You… don't… want to go out?" She said very slowly. I could hear the astonishment. "Are you sick?"

"No, I'm not sick," I kept looking at Johnny. "I'm busy."

"Oooh, is Jason there?"

"No I'm with Johnny."

She broke out into sputtering, uproarious laughter. "Are you serious? Why the fuck are you with him? Did he break into your house or something? Is he holding you hostage?"

"No," I snapped, annoyed. "He's my partner, and we need to finish our project. I can't go out," I twirled a piece of hair around my finger.

"Audrey," Felicity sounded very serious now. I'd never heard her sound serious before. "This isn't like you. In fact, you know what? You've, like, been acting… I dunno, different. The Audrey that I know and love would never miss an opportunity to go out. And now you want to stay in?! To do homework?! With Noodle Boy?! What's going on?"

"Nothing! Nothing's going on, for fuck's sake! What's wrong with you? I need to do my work, now fuck off!" And with that, I hung up the phone. I was momentarily frozen in shock at the way I'd reacted. I didn't expect this explosion of rage, but it just happened.

Johnny was smiling shrewdly.

--

Well. There you go. Feel free to rape me for taking so long. I'll try to update a little more often now that school is out.