Work Text:
Evan Kelmp leafs through a book he absolutely cannot process, glances over words on the page he simply cannot read.
The thing in the back of his mind is louder than usual. It scrambles everything he sees or hears, today—the only words he understands are things like blood , or kill , or skull , and he doesn’t even know that they’re there, really, considering that this is a very simple broom control textbook.
Maybe if he reads enough it’ll go away.
He’s 90% sure that Jammer, who’s lounging on the bed behind him (boys’ dorm room, private school is weird ) keeps saying intermittent things to him, but all Evan hears is vaguely-defined demonic shrieking, so he hopes his “haha”s and “yeah”s are sufficient enough to allay any suspicions.
You could kill him, you know.
“I know,” he mumbles dolefully.
“Huh?” comes Jammer’s voice, and— shit , he had responded out loud, he wasn’t supposed to do that, he knows better than that—
The shifting of linens. He knows without looking that Jammer is sitting up. “Evan, you okay?”
He supposes the others can sense something’s off with him, even if they don’t know what. “Yeah, I, uh. I’m fine. Just thinking.” Technically not a lie. The issue was with what he was thinking. What it was thinking.
Kill him.
“Nope. Can’t do that.” He says. Shit. The linens shift again.
Evan stands suddenly, chair rocketing out from behind him. No prompting needed. He breaks off one of the chair legs, god , he’s strong, this makes him so strong, and he lifts it over his head as if a baseball bat. Jammer is sitting, moved to the end of the bed, half standing up, frozen in time or fear, Evan doesn’t know. He hits him. He watches the blood and fear drain from his face. His cheeks go ashen. His eyes roll back. The room is red. The room is red. The room is red. The r
A hand lands on his shoulder. Evan blinks his eyes open. The room is pale yellow with late afternoon light and Whitney Jammer is leaning unharmed over his shoulder, slight concern in his friendly, open eyes. “Dude, seriously, you good?”
Evan takes pause and looks at Whit. And just looks at him.
“Yeah. Sorry, man,” he stumbles over his words, “just kinda having a, a weird day.”
“I get it, man, it’s been a weird couple days for all of us.” Jammer claps him on the shoulder. Evan blinks.