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It wasn’t unusual for Sal to be found staring off into the distance about something, what with the ADD diagnosis, chronic dissociation, and now these new episodes, where he’s getting fucking visions from god or something. His friends had started calling him Space-y Face because of how often they had to wave a hand in front of him to get his attention. ‘Hey, Earth to Sally!’ It was a whole thing.
That’s why he noticed that Travis seemed to have the same problem.
Some teachers seemed like they didn’t want to get Sal in trouble for spacing out, they seemed reluctant to want to put too much attention on him, which was kind of annoying when he actually wanted to pay attention in class, because then he had to get his notes from other people or ask questions after. At least he could kind of appreciate the thought.
But they weren’t afraid to call out Travis when he was staring out the window, and make him answer questions in front of the whole class when he wasn’t paying attention. Considering he was a known problem child, it seemed like some kind of sadistic humiliation tactic to try and push him back in line or to punish him for being such an asshole, or maybe even because they simply didn’t like him, and they used him as some kind of scapegoat. Some teachers certainly hated their lives enough to do that.
Though, there was one thing that kept bugging Sal.
When Sal zoned out, he could sometimes be like a mola-mola fish, floating through the ocean, going wherever the current takes him without a second thought, or even a first one. Eye visibly unfocused, blinking slowly, speaking slowly, mouth sometimes left agape if he wasn’t talking, (which made him glad he wore a mask, because he sure looked stupid like that). The entire time, it would kind of feel like he was moving backwards through a brick wall; it was hard to think or move, and everything felt so distant. On really bad days, it honestly felt like he took something, his head was so fuzzy.
Other times, he could be like a possum playing dead: completely frozen. Hours could pass that left his body sore and aching, where he hadn’t moved a muscle or thunk a single thought. That happened a lot around August 16th.
Either way, the big thing about Sal’s zoning out, according to how Todd’s described it, is that he seems incredibly distant and unfocused. It looks like he’s ‘inside’, as he described it—inside his own head—which he was.
Travis wasn’t like that at all, in Sal’s observations. When he stared off in the distance, it was like he was looking at something far away, even when he was staring at an empty corner. When the teachers called him out, he sometimes did some kind of double take, or his eyes kept drifting back into the spot he was staring at. He didn’t seem like he was inside his head, he seemed like he was looking at something that was right there, but Sal couldn’t really be sure what.
It reminded him a lot of whenever Gizmo started staring randomly into the distance, like he was seeing something nobody else could. He always wondered if animals could see ghosts.
Now he was wondering if Travis could, especially with the way he was currently staring at that roadkill.
Sal had been going for a walk around town on a Saturday afternoon and had ended up in a nicer part of town, the part that Ashley lived in. He was thinking about stopping by to hang out with her, when he spotted Travis, who also lived in this area.
Travis was across the street from him, on the other sidewalk. He was completely frozen, staring straight down at a dead cat near the curb.
Sal decided he felt like being a pest that day, so he walked across the street nonchalantly to over just behind Travis, who continued staring at the ground.
His gaze shifted near his feet as Sal began approaching, but Sal’s mouth moved before he could process it, and his subsequent greeting startled Travis out of whatever daydream he was having about that dead cat.
“Hey, Travis, what’cha lookin’ at?” Sal said, almost instantly regretting it. He should’ve waited a bit longer to see what was going to happen next.
Travis jumped hard enough that his hair seemed to stand on end for a second, before he realized it was just Sal. Then he slumped his shoulders and rolled his eyes.
“What do you want?” He spat.
“Saw you blankly staring at a dead cat for no reason, thought I’d see what the fuss was about.” Sal tilted his head to the side curiously. “You know that cat or something?”
“No, never seen it before.” Travis’s voice was cold and bland.
There was a beat of silence, where Sal was staring directly at Travis. Silences like this tend to make people uncomfortable, and often makes them volunteer information they wouldn’t have normally simply by being asked. It was one of Sal’s special tactics for extracting information from other people, and it typically worked especially well, because most people already found Sal’s presence discomforting.
“Anyways, bye.” Travis began walking away.
Travis was weird though, it didn’t always work on him.
Sal caught up behind him, patting him on the back of the shoulder to get his attention again.
“You stare at stuff a lot, you know that?” Sal said, walking beside him.
Travis walked faster. “What, are you stalking me? Freak?”
“Is that a question?” Sal cocked his head to the side, appearing nonchalant as his legs struggled to keep up with Travis’s long strides.
“No, you’re a freak, no question about it.” Travis huffed, adjusting his book bag irritatedly and turning his head.
“It’s not hard to notice things about other people if you just pay attention. You can learn a lot about people by just watching them.” Sal’s voice was calm, factual, as if it were normal to just watch people all the time.
Travis had felt dread before, but not quite like when Sal had finished letting that sentence out of his mouth. Sal was about to describe some of his unconscious behaviors, and it was going to make him deeply uncomfortable, and there was nothing he could do about it, because Sal seemed to just love making him as uncomfortable as possible in every imaginable situation. That blue haired faggot just had to stick his plastic nose in everything, it was the worst.
“Like, you read a lot—like a lot, a lot."
Here we fucking go, Travis thought.
"You’re ambidextrous, but I’ll bet you’re naturally right-handed because that’s the hand you punch with. You’re not very familiar with computers, and you like to be outside, but you’re not really jock levels of athletic, so I think you kind of just hang out there, usually in trees, 'cuz of the callouses on your hands, and I see you in trees a lot. You ever been hiking? You might like it.” Sal’s voice was way too cheery and overall normal to be saying these things. Nobody knew these things about Travis, because nobody paid attention to him. They all hated him, because he was an asshole, and that was kind of the point.
The fact that Sal could just swoop in and watch him like a hawk when he wasn’t paying attention and learn all these things about him without even talking to him was terrifying in the same way he was terrified of God, and a he found a new kind of paranoia edging its way into his mind.
"You're such a fucking creep, you know that?" Travis spat.
“What, it’s a bad thing to pay attention to your friends?” Sal sounded a bit disappointed. After that, he was disappointed? Over what? That Travis didn’t like being watched? He sure hoped this was just God working in mysterious ways somehow, because he hated this.
“I’m not your friend, you fucking stalker. Leave me alone.” He began to walk faster, and Sal started to trail behind.
“To be fair, I’ve kind of just been seeing you around for a couple of years, now. I’m not even paying that much attention to you.” Sal tried, shortly before tripping on something on the pavement.
“That doesn’t make it much better, you fucking weirdo. Stop watching me!” Travis began racing back to his house, his face burning red at how much Sal had seemed to learn from him when he wasn’t even trying that hard. What would happen if he tried much harder? He really needed to stay away from this guy.
Sal somewhat gracefully recovered from his trip without falling and stared off at Travis’s disappearing form, head cocked to the side. He just didn’t quite get that guy, but boy did he want to.