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Joey knows. He knows he’s safe now. He knows he isn’t back there. He’s at Corey’s, and he hasn’t been There in a long while. Doesn’t have to go there ever again.
He knows his friends, and he knows they know. Knows they’ll protect him, as they have before.
They would never hurt him, no matter how angry they get. They sort their problems out differently. I mean, they’re still a rowdy bunch and he knows that it can get loud. He knows that doesn’t always have to mean fear. He’s learnt that, with them.
So he knows he’s safe in a bed that feels more his own than his last one, even if it’s in Corey’s house. And he knows he should have nothing to fear.
But right now, he’s woken up to the sound of raised voices, and that side of his brain hasn’t even had the time to blink. The noises are straight down his spine, tugging his eyes open and pulling the wires in his muscles.
No time to rationalise, it’s all how his body trained itself without him even noticing.
The sounds that yanked him from sleep by the scruff of his neck clamour in his ears. They’re from beyond these walls, but somehow that makes it so much worse, because he’s just waiting for them to arrive here, not knowing what the problem is yet but knowing something is happening and he has to keep alert. Try to prepare.
It’s still dark so maybe they’ll think he’s asleep: check. Gotta keep that up by staying still. Quiet.
Which is sort of difficult. If his body wanted to be practical and keep him laying low from the danger, why is it simultaneously sending shocks of panic that won’t let him rest? He’s struggling to catch his breath before he’s even started holding it, oh my god they’re going to hear him-
He draws his knees to his chest, desperate to shrink. Pushes his face into knees and pillow, gasping short breaths, wishing his lungs would just stop altogether.
A shaking hand fists the duvet, itching to pull it over his head. But he has to keep an ear out, and his breathing is making it bad enough. Bad enough that each sound of voices feels half like it’s from his imagination. It’s through a wall after all, and he always breathes at the wrong second and it drowns it out so maybe the person behind the voice is calmer than he hears it, distorted until its shrieking echo has him rocking.
He's rocketed straight from sleep into a hyperventilating mess, each sound another jolt of white hot fear through him.
He doesn’t feel safe. He’s in a room but it doesn’t feel like his, even the duvet piled around his frame leaves him feeling exposed.
It’s not Corey’s house anymore. He doesn’t know, or stop to think, about whose house it is, because the feeling is the same. The lack of control, the wishing you could scream back or lock the door, and that it would somehow keep them out.
But there’s nothing he can do to stop it, stop them.
He’s been waiting for the footsteps, and when they come it’s like everything rushes to him at once. His hands bound, dropped into a nightmare. You can close your eyes and wish and wish because every step closer feels wrong and you don’t want someone who makes you feel like that any closer, someone who poisons the air with their wavering voice and puffy eyes.
But that won’t stop the slam of the door or the moment they step over, when that voice snaps and cuts. And you have to take it. Even though you can’t.
Because this is their house, and their walls will always reel you in to a distance they can grab. A distance they can leer at you with their hands around your throat.
They’ll keep you in arm’s reach too, so they can ask you why you’re overreacting. Why you’re still upset. Why the waterworks, huh, just come here. Come here come here and the walls don’t budge so you can’t say no even though you don’t want to touch them-
“Joey?”
Nononono he doesn’t know what he’s done. He can’t remember at all, his mind’s grey and body’s locking him in. He’s shaking, but he can’t break out. There’s nowhere to go anyway. He battens down the hatches and waits for what’s coming, the bullets to break through the holes that never healed from the last time.
“Shit, Joe-”
The voice is quieter, but closer.
Joey’s paralysed for a blink, short-circuiting with the panic of not wanting anyone closer, before his legs manage some kind of miracle. They feel robotic, but manage to shove him back and into the corner. The jerky movement forces a whimper from his mouth, squeezing its way between his stunted breaths.
He stubbornly tugs his blanket up around him. Refuses to look up, though his jaw clenches from the feeling of someone getting nearer.
And he doesn’t want to look up because that sounded like Corey. Someone who shouldn’t be this scary, but here Joey still is, fighting with the air he’s breathing and whining like a fucking baby.
He wants to press his hand against his mouth, but he makes it stay put, curling so tightly into the blanket he can feel his nails through it, digging at his palm. He bites down on his lip, bites down on everything. He’s already beating himself up for not getting a lid on it, but pressing it down only makes the pressure shoot out through any crack it can find.
His body’s fighting back, he can’t help it. Can’t help the shaking of his muscles, which tighten, crunch him up smaller.
The bed dips and that’s when he knows he’s too far gone. Slipping down that chasm where it feels like no way out, just panic driving itself and dragging him along for the ride. Swallowing him right back to places he never wants to go back to.
He doesn’t want to be There, but he can’t open his eyes either. Maybe it would help – so why isn’t he fucking doing it?
His breath is noisy through his clenched teeth, but it doesn’t feel like it reaches anywhere near his lungs.
It nearly drowns it out.
“…to me, Joey. Listen. No one’s angry, yeah? Can you hear me?”
But with his mind still halfway in another place, he’s not ready for the hands. Corey always wants to reach out, Joey knows, wants to help. And Joey loves those bear hugs, and the stupid half-hugs when they’re drunk in the kitchen-
He does not want those hands to feel like someone else’s.
None of Corey is built to be gentle, but he tries. It doesn’t warrant the rough reaction Joey gives, flinching even though there’s no way he can back up any more. And he’s shaking his head emphatically. Still can’t look up. It makes him feel like a kid thrashing around in a tantrum, but he desperately needs Corey to get the message.
His breath hisses in his teeth when the hands go away.
Corey hesitates long enough for the feeling to close in again, but when he speaks his voice is as easy as ever. Joey doesn’t have the presence of mind to care how hard Corey has to try to sound casual. To lock away his internal freakout and pretend. For Joey.
“Music?”
Something loosens in an instant. Joey stays curled right where he is, but as the word washes over him it sounds so unimaginably Corey that for a second, he’s landed firmly back on his bed. His bed. Here.
He wouldn’t be allowed to play music. His white-knuckle grip on his knees tightens as he weathers the nauseating fear of the not-allowed.
He nods.
Corey’s gone and there’s clicking and Joey's breathing is still nowhere near what he needs as he hangs there, waiting for it to be some trick. An ache presses on his head with the weight of someone right outside the door. The horrible second between the floorboard creaking and the hand pushing the door open, when he’s already trapped and has to watch it closing around him.
Music leaps into the air and a spike of fear rockets through him.
But he can’t hear yelling.
He drowns in it, the air thick with pounding drums. And, yeah, it’s thrashing, flailing drowning for a good few seconds. His body couldn’t be crunched any tighter with the strain. Knees pushed against his eye sockets.
He surrenders to the current.
The sounds swim in his ears for a while so his world is only darkness and guitars. Like he’s used to. That’s why he keeps playing this fucking music even if they don’t like it. He knows he’s only pretending, that they’ll be here soon enough…
He’s not sure how many songs it’s been when he stops knowing that. And starts knowing that he’s in Corey’s fucking house where they play this shit all the time just because they can – and where he’s just embarrassed himself.
Not the first time.
He’s gonna be exhausted all day. And he’s gonna make it worse by smashing his way through his drumset the moment his limbs want to move again.
He breathes through the wave of resigned dread. Oh, so he’s breathing again, too. When did that happen?
The heavy post-freakout familiarity lifts just enough for him to raise his head. Through his knees, he meets Corey’s eyes. He’s sitting fully on Joey’s bed now, leaning against the wall. Casual, except the intent blue eyes looking straight at him.
Joey hates it and needs it all at once.
“You back?” Corey asks, not bothering to turn down the music, “knew you wouldn’t miss the best one.”
Joey hates that Corey knows too, knows where he goes. Hates that it will happen again.
Joey nods mutely and extricates his stiff legs from the knot of his blankets. Plants his back against the wall next to Corey and stares into the power light of the 8-track.
The song pummels to an end.
“Why won’t it stop?” Joey blurts out in the gap.
The next track creeps in, a quiet start.
Joey finally looks around, black hair falling over the edge of his vision. Corey’s goofy smile fades a fraction, but comes back, lifting his cheeks the way it does.
“’Cause our friends are bellends.”
Joey had half forgotten the voices that woke him and kicked his day off in such style. He snorts. He knows it’s just like normal, but it still feels disconnected. It feels like his body’s been wrung out, but the last thing he wants to do is sleep.
Suddenly, the music shifts into gear. A slow smile drags along his mouth, soaking it in. It is the best track on the album.
“I’m gonna give them a beating.” He likes having to belt over the music. It stops him giving in to the shakiness his voice likes to curse him with after… that.
Corey slaps him on the arm with a throaty chuckle. This time, there’s not a whisper of anyone else in the touch.
“D’you know how to play this one yet?” Corey gestures to the tape player.
“Course I do!” Joey boasts.
Corey just raises his brow, grin never leaving.
“Not the whole thing, though, right? I bet you can’t.”
Joey punches his arm, already sliding off the bed.
“You’re gonna regret that, fucker.”
Corey’s laughing behind him as he gets up. He opens the door and look towards his drums in the corner of the living room, and smiles.
He’s Here. Joey knows that.