Archive of Our Own

JD: What doing? 

The message popped on my phone, breaking my concentration.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I boring you?”

I looked up. My school-issued laptop sat propped against a pillow at the head of my bed. It was summer break so I didn’t have any assignments, but it had a good webcam, so it was what I used to talk to my long-distance girlfriend.

Aviva Grimmway had one eyebrow raised in silent challenge. She wasn’t mad, just upkeeping our ritual of teasing each other whenever possible. Probably. I hadn’t known her long and she’d asked me out the same day she’d left the state for the foreseeable future, so we’d done most of our getting-to-know-each-other from opposite sides of a computer screen. I could only hope that she still liked when I gave her a hard time and she wasn’t secretly holding it against me.

“His majesty is summoning me,” I said, but tossed my phone aside without replying to Jensen. “I may have to let you go soon. JD isn’t easily deterred if he wants to hang out. Ten bucks says he just shows up here looking for me if I don’t respond.”

My phone chimed three more times in quick succession, doubtless only the beginning of a string of messages that easily could’ve just been one long text.

Aviva rolled her eyes, but smiled fondly. “Say no more. Jensen calls, you answer.”

“Take it easy, Sticks, this isn’t a trolley problem. I’m not running you over to save him.” I heard the shift in my tone too clearly. I hadn’t meant for that to come out sounding defensive. Hopefully she hadn’t noticed.

When I looked up, the sardonic mask Aviva wore around me had slipped enough to show surprise. I’d misread her. She rolled her eyes. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t run five people over if Jensen was the person on the other track.”

“Pfft, that’s old news. JD hates the trolley problem ever since the crew collectively decided they’d all sacrifice pretty much everyone else in the world if he was on the other track, no matter how convoluted you make it. We all have this fucked up evolutionary instinct to protect him. You’d do the same,” I said, hoping I’d come up with something to clear the air between us without sacrificing snark. Instead, her phone interrupted in a jingle and she held up a finger before muting our call to take the new one.

“Sorry, Spence, I gotta run too,” Aviva said when she returned her attention to me a moment later, already standing up. “That was Gage and...” she blew a frustrated breath past her lips. “It’s fine. You’re going to Jensen’s anyway. Can I call you back later tonight?”

“Who’s Gage? Should I be jealous?” I regretted that the second I said it too, not because I was afraid of sounding insecure, but because it was immediately obvious I had a matter of seconds before Aviva hung up and I didn’t want to spend that time trying to be clever. “We’ll talk later. Have a good evening.”

I stared at my computer’s blank homescreen for a full thirty seconds after Aviva hung up. There were more things I should’ve said. I would text her back and explain myself. I shouldn’t care. It wouldn’t be in-character of me to bother reassuring her.

I sighed and picked my phone up to look at Jensen’s stream of consciousness messages.

JD: We got a code red, cap’n. The other shoe dropped.

JD: Lucia broke up w Mackie 😔 she’s heartbroken

JD: Maybe we can watch bad movies and cry

JD: Or is it better to go out and do something fun?

JD: Are you busy or can you come to my house? 😬

Me: k

I stood up and pulled on a jacket and shoes, feeling pulled in multiple directions. My crew needed my company and I wouldn’t deny them that, even if Aviva hadn’t bailed as well. Still, I doubted I’d feel settled again until the next time I talked to her. I shot off a text, not the one I was thinking, but the one I’d be expected to send.

Me: Where does this Gage dude fit into the trolley problem?

When I got to Jensen’s house, the front door was unlocked. Ana was in the living room with the TV on. I waved to her and she returned the gesture as I mounted the steps. On the second floor, I passed Hayden’s room where he, Addison, and their friend Mo were camped out in front of a PC game. Addison was bent over the keyboard while Hayden and Mo backseat drove, jumping between chairs and Hayden’s bed, yelling instructions that Addison dutifully ignored.

I made my way further down the hall to Jensen’s room and pushed the door open. I dreaded finding Mackie in the throes of grief from the breakup. Comfort wasn’t my specialty. I was more effective three days later, making comically exaggerated revenge plans. Declaring my intentions to commandeer a steamroller to flatten Lucia’s car wouldn’t be funny yet. The best I could do was be here and let the others care for her.

Instead, when I stepped into Jensen’s room, he and Mackie were laughing in front of the mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door. They had swapped clothing. Mackie managed to make anything look fashionable, even Jensen’s faded Linkin Park t-shirt and gray jeans, rolled up at the ankle to make up for their three-inch height difference. One of Jensen’s flannels was tied around her waist, completing the look, intentionally grunge. Her eyes were a little swollen, but someone who didn’t know her wouldn’t notice.

Jensen was wearing Mackie’s favorite shirt, a crop top in the three stripes of the bisexual flag. His added height made the cut more pronounced, the hem of the shirt hovering above the bottom of his ribcage. More unforgivably, Mackie’s leggings were tragic on him, loose in weird places I didn’t want to look at.

“Hey,” Jensen chirped when he noticed me standing in the doorway, judging him. “We’re meeting Sarah and Tommy at Shake Shack for burgers and ice cream.”

“Dressed like that?”

“Bet.” Jensen took the lead, projecting easy confidence with every step. This wasn’t his usual role in this group, but he was covering for Mackie, letting her take his place of following, fading into the background. I wondered how long it would take for the bravado to wear off. Jensen avoided being in the spotlight at all costs, and this joke would get old real fast when everyone in the restaurant was staring at him.

I dutifully took to the back seat of Aviva’s WRX, loaned to Jensen while Aviva was in California and shuffled my phone out of my pocket, pleased to see Aviva had texted me back while I’d been inside.

Sticks: Gage is Ryker’s new bf. He’ll probably be a victim of the trolley at some point since he’s dumb enough to hang out with us. Sorry I had to dip, Ryker got hurt while hunting. Gage called me for help.

I caught myself reflexively looking to Jensen. Mackie had plugged her phone into the car’s sound system and they were singing along together to angry breakup songs, oblivious to me. I staunched the impulse to hide my phone from his eyes that weren’t even looking my way.

Overprotectiveness toward Jensen was going to give me gray hairs one day. Jensen had taken less than five minutes to tell all of us about his three-day failed romance with Ryker and refused to say anything else about it. Aviva said they hadn’t spoken since going their separate ways. It was simultaneously everything I’d feared and exactly what I wanted. It was tempting to be smug about accurately predicting their falling out, but Jensen was still too torn up about it for rubbing it in his face to be any fun.

I scowled and sunk in my seat. My movement made Jensen look up and find my eyes in the rearview mirror for a fraction of a second.

“Who are you texting?” Jensen asked, not because he cared, but because 90% of the people I talked to were in this car or waiting for us at the restaurant.

“Your mom,” I muttered before returning my attention to my phone.

Jensen had been present when Aviva asked me out, but we hadn’t been planning on it turning into a long-distance relationship within a day, so we’d both put off defining our relationship when he asked. Neither of us had experience in long-term, emotionally intimate relationships, but the casual fling I thought I was signing up for was effectively off the table and I didn’t know where that put us. At first, I thought she was going to call it off, then I thought I would when she didn’t. Now somehow, it had been a month and we called each other a few times a week to talk and I thought if I was going to say it wasn’t working, I would’ve done it already.

Historically, Jensen didn’t care about the status of my relationships because he hated every partner I’d ever chosen. I used to resent that about him, how every time I introduced a new girlfriend to him, his smile never reached his eyes. I couldn’t vent to him unless I wanted to hear him tell me to break up with them since he would’ve preferred I’d never gotten with any of them in the first place.

It wasn’t like I was looking for marriage material in high school, but Jensen’s intuition had never been wrong. With every relationship that ended up in the gutter, Jensen’s sympathy only reached as far as making sure I was okay. My previous girlfriends never liked him either. They never got to know him like I did. He never showed them the side of him that I knew.

Aviva on the other hand, adored Jensen, and he loved her back. For once, I thought Jensen would actually approve, not that I let his opinions run my life. Since leaving for California, Aviva talked to Jensen at least as much as she talked to me. That might be enough to make someone else jealous, but that particular emotion left a bad taste in my mouth and an itch crawling up my leg.

It wasn’t often anymore that I thought about the Turnheart and everything that happened this spring. The consequences of getting arrested for assaulting Ryker stung more than the poison bite from the demon. The mark and the pain beneath it had faded completely after the first few long late-night phone calls with Aviva. From my limited understanding of the situation, I thought the creature was dead now. Even if it wasn’t a threat, envy wasn’t something I gave power to anymore, and definitely not when it came to Jensen and Aviva. I didn’t worry about whether my girlfriend liked my best friend more than she liked me. I knew she did. She’d all but admitted I’d be a victim of the trolley problem if Jensen was involved. Somehow, that made me like her more.

Me: His funeral, not mine. Is Trouble okay?

The response was quicker than anticipated.

Sticks: Aviva’s hands are full and I have to lay down so she’s making me scribe for her. -Ryker

Sticks: Aviva asks who you think you are in the trolley problem, which is supposed to make sense to you. And yes, I’ll be fine, thank you. Sorry to have interrupted your time together this evening. -R

I narrowed my eyes. It wasn’t like I’d never talked to Ryker independent of Jensen. I had his number, though I was pretty sure the only texts we’d ever exchanged were in regards to a computer science project we’d been paired up for during first semester. I didn’t have to respond to this message. I could put my phone down now until we arrived and then have a fun evening with my friends, free from people who rubbed me the wrong way. Ryker surely wouldn’t blame me.

Me: Bitch, I am the trolley. Get squished, idiot. And I’ll be sure to invoice you for the stolen time. I’m a busy man.

Sticks: Aviva says she’d like to be a passenger so she can ride the trolley. She thinks she’s hilarious. 😑 -R

Sticks: Aviva says you were on your way to hang out with Jensen anyway. -R

Sticks: Btw don’t tell anyone about Gage. Aviva wasn’t supposed to tell you that. -R

Me: I can’t tell you how uninterested I am in spreading your gossip. We’re busy anyway. Mackie got dumped so we’re going to vandalize Lucia’s personal property.

Sticks: Is Mackie okay? -R

From the front seat, Mackie’s phone chimed. She picked it up and snickered.

“What?” Jensen asked.

Mackie shook her head and smiled. “Ryker sent me some stupid gif. He’s adorable when he pretends to be from Earth. Have you two talked lately?”

Jensen’s grin faltered and the hair on the back of my neck stood up, my instincts ready to attack Mackie for saying anything to make him uncomfortable. I forced myself still. “Nah,” Jensen said, trying to sound nonchalant. “He needs space. If he wants to talk, I’m here, but I doubt he does. He’s probably moved on from me by now.”

Mackie tapped at her phone. “If he moves back to Colorado, can he still be part of the crew? He's one of the sweetest guys I know.”

Sweet wasn’t the first word that came to my own mind to describe Ryker, but I also forgot that he and Mackie were genuine friends. They did talk independently of Jensen, and apparently sent each other stupid gifs when they were pretending not to be aware of each other’s personal crises.

Me: She’ll live. Thanks.

The WRX was difficult to miss so Sarah and Tommy made their way across the parking lot to meet us as we stepped out.

Tommy busted out laughing the moment he caught onto the gag of Mackie and Jensen swapping wardrobes for the night. “You look like a badass,” he said, pulling Mackie into a hug. “And you look ridiculous,” he directed at Jensen.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Mackie, stop telling him that a good pair of leggings will make anyone’s ass look twice as good. Two times zero is still zero.”

“I can’t help but notice it got you looking at my ass anyway,” Jensen teased back. “Clearly, the leggings are doing something for me.”

“Whatever, man,” Tommy said, holding the door for all of us. “Mackie wears all of that better though.”

“Obviously,” Jensen said. “But according to some people, you shouldn’t wear tight pants or crop tops if you weigh more than 130 pounds. I’ll break that law to prove you don’t have to be tiny to look good enough to eat in half a shirt.”

Amidst the responding laughter, something passed silently between Jensen and Mackie. It was good she had gone to him first. I wouldn’t have thought to swap clothes, nor would I have been willing to, even to take away the sting of being dumped.

“Are you even still bi?” Sarah asked, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt.

We all tensed in unison as Jensen’s smile faltered.

Sarah winced. “Sorry! Sorry, Jensen, I was just curious. You know it doesn’t make a difference to us.”

Jensen brushed her off. “It’s fine, I can be aromantic and bisexual at the same time, right?” He glanced at Mackie.

“Of course.” Mackie stole one of his hands to hold, but the effortlessness of his confidence was gone.

Sophomore year, Jensen and I had both struck out trying to date, but his experience had been sadder to watch. His first relationship was with someone who used to be a member of our crew. He hated every second of it besides the ten minutes she spent giving him a hand job and she dumped him for it. He was still upset he’d ruined a friendship with someone he genuinely liked because he hated dating her.

There were only a handful of openly gay students at our school, and Trevor Cozart was not one to subtly flirt when he could walk up to Jensen a few weeks later, ask him out, and then promptly test his mettle by asking him to suck his dick in the school bathroom ten minutes before the start of class. In Trev’s miniscule, flamboyant little mind, he was doing Jensen a favor by letting the rumor mill know that it was the best blow job he’d ever been on the receiving end of. The two had only dated for about a week after that before Jensen backed out. The attempts at romance still got under his skin almost as much as the gossip did.

Mackie had barely salvaged Jensen’s reputation. Before Trev, Jensen had simply been “a nice quiet kid.” Mackie convinced him to put on a brave face for long enough to become “a nice quiet bisexual kid, too level-headed for Trev’s bullshit” instead of “Trev’s discarded boy toy.” It was the best possible outcome, but still had consequences. The third person Jensen dated had only approached him because she got the impression he was a people-pleaser she could use for favors and treat like garbage and she wasn’t even wrong. It was a good thing Jensen had scrounged up the sense to ditch her before he got seriously hurt because he’d shut the rest of us out completely by that point.

The aromanticism may have shed some light on the situation, but there was no chance Jensen would be telling anyone outside our crew about it or his stint dating Ryker. He’d put a lot of effort into fading out of the spotlight and didn’t need anything that would draw attention to him again.

“Look!” Mackie said, shoving her phone into Jensen’s hands. “There’s one with your flag. I’m ordering it so we can match.”

Jensen’s smile returned, but dimmer. By the time we left, he’d taken his flannel back from Mackie and not because he was cold.

The judge who had heard my case at the beginning of the month had laid out a handful of rules for me, all with the intent of keeping me out of any more trouble. The worst of them was the mandate that I had to work full-time hours at a job or volunteer opportunity of my choice. If I was going to spend the summer with my nose clean, I was going to at least get paid for it, so I’d accepted the first job that would hire me, at a Starbucks that was close enough to walk to, but far enough from school that I shouldn’t have to see too many of my peers there.

Jensen had followed me there, though he would be allowed to quit at the start of the school year like the upstanding citizen he was. I hadn’t asked him to apply there, but I was glad that he had. It made my day go by faster when he joined me halfway through my shift on Thursday morning.

I had to wait for him to clock in to take my break in case we got a rush, but I started making myself a drink, hoping caffeine would kick my brain fog from staying out too late.

Most days, Jensen drove to work since he could, and if we got off at the same time, he would give me a ride home. Today, I saw him approach on foot, pushing the limits of both the tardy policy and the dress code in joggers and a white Nirvana t-shirt. I started making a drink for him as well.

“Morning,” Jensen mumbled as he stepped inside. I pushed a coffee into his hand as he ambled to the timeclock.

“Stay up a little late, chief?” I followed him back.

“Don’t wanna talk about it.” Jensen tied an apron behind his back.

I punched myself out for a break. “Where’s your car?”

“Dunno where the keys are.”

I took a closer look at my best friend and noticed where my initial assessment had been wrong. Since switching antidepressants, Jensen’s depression fatigue was vastly improved and I’d managed to forget that simply being exhausted wasn’t enough to make him look this dazed. I checked over my shoulder to make sure our shift manager was out of earshot. “You baked, man?”

“Sarah and I stayed the night at Mackie’s and smoked a bowl together this morning,” Jensen admitted. “My tolerance isn’t what it used to be though, so I didn’t want to drive. Thankfully, I’ve forgotten some of my clothes at the Kennedys’ house before so I stopped there on my way. I’m… assuming I left my keys at Mackie’s because I don’t have them and I don’t know where they are.”

My expression must not’ve been as neutral as I wanted it to be because Jensen hit me back with a weak glare. “Don’t give me that. You’re not allowed to smoke until your sentence is up anyway.”

FOMO was the last thing on my mind, though I could appreciate that my friends had waited until I’d left to break out any of the substances I wasn’t allowed to be caught holding or consuming without a much higher penalty than any of them would receive. It wasn’t even Jensen’s health I was worried about. This wasn’t anywhere near the worst state I’d seen him in.

Leading up to my arrest, we’d had the worst fight in the decade of our friendship. In the moment, I had been mad at him for taking the high road, for refusing to drink or smoke with me ever since he’d met Ryker, found religion, and became a total stick in the mud. Jensen had yelled right back at me, telling me that he no longer hated his life so much that he had to be drunk or stoned just to stand being alive. He didn’t know that his words had echoed in my head ever since. Was there really nothing to love about life before Ryker? Was I part of what he wanted to escape? What did it mean that he was smoking again now? Did he hate life again or was he just belatedly processing his own emotions along with Mackie as she went through her own breakup?

I left him to man the register and stepped outside into the day that was growing to be blisteringly hot. A check of my phone brought a slight grin to my face.

Sticks: Fucked up dreams full of dumbass trains thanks to you. How’s the crew today?

Me: You’re the one tied to the tracks, but the lever to divert the trolley is within reach. You can divert it from hitting you, but you have to make the effort to do it. Wyd?

Sticks: That’s fucked up

Sticks: 🤔 Wait, I can make it worse.

Sticks: The track loops. You can divert the trolley from hitting you, but an hour later it’s back. Even if you do let it hit you, that track loops too so you have to keep pulling the lever or letting it hit you every time.

Me: Fucked up. You are also the trolley running yourself over. It’s a self-destructive trolley-palooza. 🎉

Sticks: Fuuuucked up.

By the time our shift was over, Jensen had pulled himself together enough to employ one of his two salesman techniques. At his best, he was genuine and friendly enough to convince an unholy percentage of customers to add a cake pop or another extra treat to their order. At his worst, he had some kind of kicked-puppy charisma that made people want to order more just to throw him a bone. He closed out his last upsold order of the day and handed off the register to the incoming shift before falling into step beside me to punch out.

“Bet you wish you had kept better track of your car keys now,” I grumbled, stepping outside into the harsh summer sunshine, daydreaming of air conditioning.

Now that he’d sobered up and wasn’t keeping up a public face, Jensen looked more sour than he had first thing in the morning. He checked his phone again and pouted. “Mackie says she looked for my keys at her house this morning and couldn’t find them. Hopefully I just left them on the table at the Kennedys’ or something or Aviva will murder me.”

“I’ll even help her do it. I like getting rides home from work.” I debated only briefly about my options. It was a shorter walk to the Kennedys’ house to get the keys and to Mackie’s to pick up the car than it was to my own home. Jensen wouldn’t be the greatest company in this mood, but after a day of taking coffee orders, I was fine with some quiet.

Jensen trudged the whole way to the Kennedy house. I considered staying outside — I’d only been here a few times and didn’t feel the same kind of comfort Jensen did with walking into their house uninvited — but the allure of air conditioning brought me inside with him. Jensen checked the basement first, rooting through the bathroom, opening all the cabinets and picking up Mackie’s clothes that he’d been wearing this morning when he got here and left on the floor.

“Looking for something?”

I looked over my shoulder to find Daniel Kennedy standing at the bottom of the stairs, a key ring in his hand.

Jensen sighed in relief. “Thank God. Thanks for—”

Daniel stuck the key ring in the front pocket of his jeans and folded his arms. In the limited interactions I’d had with Daniel Kennedy, I’d never seen him exhibit anything other than inhuman patience. I wished I could vanish into thin air rather than have to listen to Jensen get scolded. 

“Sorry, Daniel,” Jensen muttered. “It won’t happen again.”

“I picked up your car earlier and drove it to your house so you don’t have to worry about it, but I’m going to hang onto your keys. I think you’ll survive walking to work for a few days.”

Jensen’s mouth fell open, struggling to piece together a sentence. “I wouldn’t drive under the influence. That’s the whole reason I walked here this morning!”

Daniel’s voice stayed agonizingly calm. “I know that, but this is the second time in a week that you’ve shown up at my door after getting high.”

I glanced between Jensen and Daniel, wondering how I’d stumbled into an intervention.

“I’ll give you two options. You can have your keys back in a week and a half—”

“Bullshit!”

“Or you can have them back in three days if you stay for dinner tonight and we talk about what’s going on. You’re obviously having a rough week, but we can work through it together.”

“Keep the keys. See if I fucking care.” Jensen stormed for the stairs and Daniel didn’t try to stop him. Catherine did, from where she was stationed at the top of the stairs in a loving ambush. Jensen brushed her off and stalked to the front door. I did my best to avoid eye contact with either of the adults as I followed him.

“JD,” I called after him, not yet sure what I was going to say.

It didn’t matter, because he didn’t turn to look, just kept walking toward his house. I turned to go the opposite direction. If he wanted space, then space he would get.

I made it a block before my phone rang and my spirits lifted ever so slightly. Hopefully this was Aviva calling me back and I could vent to her. She’d either have something insightful to say or I could foist dealing with Jensen off on her.

Instead, the contact blinking on the screen said, “Trouble,” which was just about the last thing I needed today. I picked up reluctantly. “What, are we besties now?”

To my relief, it was Aviva’s laugh that met me on the other line and her smile when the camera loaded, though she was driving and slipped the phone into a dash mount for convenience. “Hey, Spence. Sorry to scare you. My phone is almost dead and Ryker doesn’t have the right kind of charger for me to use in the truck. Someone is in a bad mood today so I figured if we’re not going to have a pleasant conversation while driving, then I could at least call you a little sooner.”

“Sounds a lot like the day I’m having but at least you get to ride in an air conditioned truck.”

“At least you don’t have to sit through San Francisco rush hour traffic.”

“At least you—”

“Is this what you two spend hours on the phone talking about?” Ryker cut in from somewhere outside of the frame, his voice barely audible to me.

I grinned anyway. “What’s it to you, loverboy?”

“Don’t give me more dumb nicknames. One is plenty.”

Aviva snickered, but cut off sharply. “Shit— Ryker, talk to Spencer for a minute. Jensen is calling me. I’ll keep it quick.”

The camera tipped and shuffled before I ended up looking at Ryker instead, who looked none too pleased to see me.

“Um,” Ryker said. “Hi.”

I rolled my eyes. “You can hang up, Trouble. It won’t be quick. JD and Sticks are worse than the girl-gangs at Starbucks. They’ll talk for hours.”

“Maybe her battery will run out soon and save us both.”

I couldn’t help a faint smirk. “Alright, Trouble’s got jokes today. Are you in the backseat of your own truck?”

Ryker glared, though he was looking about as washed out as Jensen was. Aviva had better cut her other call short because I was not dealing with two iterations of the same moody disaster in one day. “I’m supposed to be laying down for another day or so.”

“I thought you had magic healing fuckery or whatever.”

Ryker looked less enthused to be talking to me with every passing moment. “I’m still supposed to rest until the soreness goes away.”

Whether I wanted to or not, I’d spent enough time around Ryker to know he was trying to hold a neutral expression and keep from showing pain. “What happened?”

“Aviva would say I was showing off.”

“And what would you say you were doing?”

Ryker almost smiled. “Showing off.”

I had to consciously bite back a smile. I was supposed to be laughing at him, not laughing with him. Then again, it was rare to talk to him alone when he wasn’t stepping on Jensen’s heels. Maybe if we had met in class or on a school sports team, we could’ve been friends.

Ryker looked up and I inferred based on the background of the video that the truck had stopped moving and they were home. A door shut and Ryker frowned. “Aviva, get the door for me.”

“I’m having a more important conversation right now and my phone is on two percent battery. You’ll have to get creative. Crawl out a window like you did last week when you couldn’t find me.”

“I broke five ribs yesterday and I can feel all of them. I’m not climbing out a window. I’m not even supposed to be up.”

Aviva’s voice was almost too faint for me to hear. “Bold words coming from the man who insisted on going to In-N-Out for dinner.”

Ryker laid back down on the bench seat with one of the most deadpan expressions I’d ever witnessed.

“You can do it, big guy. I believe in you.” Making fun of Ryker had made my own slog home go by quicker and I hit the latch on the back gate to let myself into the yard to lay in the old rope hammock in the shade.

“Nah, I’ll just stay here until Aviva feels bad enough to come help me. I lived in a truck for ten years. What’s one more evening?”

“Some people would call it a relapse.”

Ryker scoffed. “I don’t know if it’s the distance, but you’re more funny and less annoying over the phone.”

“Don’t start flirting with me too, Trouble. It’s not gonna get you anywhere.”

Ryker fell quiet for a moment and I feared it meant he was experiencing a thought. “You’ve been giving me a hard time since the day we met. Since the rest of the crew somehow figured out I wasn’t straight from the get-go, I thought that’s why you hated me. But if that was the case, you wouldn’t joke about it so easily.”

“You honestly think Mackie would tolerate having a homophobe in her inner circle? She’s as loud and proud as they come.”

“I figured that out.”

I heaved a sigh. Having a heart-to-heart with Ryker had not been on my bingo card for the day, but if everything else was going to go wrong, this might as well happen. “Look, Trouble. I don’t have anything against you as a person. I go on a rampage against anything I see as a threat to JD. That includes our friends and sometimes myself. It definitely includes you.”

“Because I had an interest in him and you’d seen him get hurt in relationships before,” Ryker interpreted. “I know… I’ve heard about most of it. I would never objectify him.”

Ryker’s cheeks visibly warmed and I rolled my eyes. I knew what he was thinking about. People at school knew he was gay which meant he’d met Trev and most likely had to fend off a lot of uninspired flirting attempts. His association with Jensen also ensured that he would’ve been notified immediately of Jensen’s history and notable skillset of giving head. Just mentioning it now had Ryker flustered. It was probably good he’d dropped out. He’d never survive another year of public school bullshit.

I sighed. “So you’re not a freak like Trev. Gold star. What you did was worse. You still asked him to be something you knew he wasn’t. You gave him hope he could be enough for someone for once, unlike the last three times he’s tried.”

Ryker recoiled like I’d punched him in his sore ribs. “He is enough.”

“Not for what you really wanted. It was always going to end up like this. And now he’s back to getting high every day and pushing away everyone who cares about him. He thinks it’s because he misses you, but it’s really because he doesn’t think he’s worth the effort to keep diverting the trolley from running him over day after day.”

Ryker looked confused, but put enough together from context clues to glare at me. “Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t doing well at the time. He’s so far out of my league as a friend.”

I scoffed. “You think?”

“But he’s out of your league too because he’s having a crisis and you’re sitting in a hammock yelling at me instead of helping him.”

I winced. “He’s out of my league for more reasons than that, but yes. That’s why he’s talking to Sticks right now instead of either of us. She’s out of my league too. I’m hoping she doesn’t notice.”

“Yeah,” Ryker agreed too quickly. “But… Aviva and Jensen would both disagree and they’re the smartest people I know.”

Whether or not there was a hidden compliment in there, I forged onward. “Are you coming back to Colorado?”

Ryker stiffened. “I— I mean… Probably, if the oncoming demon war goes in the direction we think it will.”

“Are you planning on talking to JD again?”

Silence stretched between us for several painful seconds. “It would be dangerous. I don’t think I deserve to. As much as I hate to say it, you’re right about all of this.”

“Can you say that again so I can record it?” I grinned when Ryker rolled his eyes. “Real talk, if you do see him again, you better have figured out how to deserve it. I don’t care if that means you take this Gage dude and marry him tomorrow so you can move on or if you and JD need to bone once to air out all the sexual tension and then call it done—”

“No! I can’t—”

“Says the guy still daydreaming about it. Yes, I can tell. You haven’t stopped blushing since you brought it up. He’s not on the market. Close your legs and get your mind out of the gutter, Bordeaux.”

“It’s Kennedy now. We had a court thing... nine days ago.”

“What are you waiting for, a bouquet? Do yourself a favor and figure out how to deserve JD before the next time you see him or I’ll hunt you for sport.”

“What about you? What makes you think you deserve him?”

“None of your fucking business, Trouble.”

I heard the click of a car door and Ryker startled.

“What are you doing in here?” Aviva asked.

“Letting your boyfriend insult me for a half an hour? I can’t open doors, Aviva, what am I supposed to be doing?”

“Holy hell.” Aviva snatched the phone from Ryker’s hands. “You two can never speak again. Spencer, your bad attitude is contagious.”

I watched with some amusement as Aviva helped Ryker hobble into the house they shared. Responsibilities handled, Aviva flopped onto the couch and finally smiled at me with her full attention. “Sorry about all the phone tag recently, Spence. Never a dull moment.”

I sat up and left the hammock behind. “No worries. I’m going to have to cut us short again, but we can talk until I get to JD’s.”

“I thought you were giving him space.”

Loathe as I was to admit Ryker had made a good point, I wasn’t helping Jensen whatsoever by giving him space. “Changed my mind. What were you guys talking about?”

“Hot girl shit. You wouldn’t understand.” Aviva’s smile only lasted a moment before sadness crept back in. “I’m a little worried about him. Do you ever wonder if that instinct we all share to protect him is in us for a reason? Like maybe one day he’ll need us to be there?”

A shiver raced down my back despite the hot afternoon.

“There’s a lot of things poised to come after him. He’s not just on the track, he’s tied to the turntable. There’s like ten different trolleys trying to run him down. I think he’s feeling the weight of that.” Aviva didn’t have to say aloud that she was talking about demons. She knew I didn’t care to talk about the work she did, but it was starting to feel futile to stay out of it.

“I’ll die protecting him if I have to. You know that.”

“It might not be that easy.”

“What’s harder than dying?” I scoffed.

“Living,” Aviva said, completely serious. “Maybe we’ll all die for him one day. Or maybe we just need to help him live.”

Aviva was asking the world of me and I knew she was right. I’d said the same thing to Ryker, that I didn’t measure up to being one of Jensen’s closest friends. If I wanted to meet him where he was, I needed to be as genuine and open-minded and devoted as Jensen was about everything. And underneath that, if I wanted to stay in Aviva’s life as well, I would need to prove we were equals.

I scowled. “What, so I need to start going to church and singing hymns all day to be worthy of something? I’m not really the praying sort.”

“You know the loop we made up, where you have to keep diverting the train away from yourself? I think we’re all on a track like that. But I also think the more often you make the effort to pull the switch, the easier it gets to reach. All the stretching starts to loosen the ropes. The less often you’re getting run over by the train, the more strength you’ll have to keep reaching.”

“This was one thing when we were using it as a metaphor for JD’s life, but I’m starting to feel called out.”

Aviva smirked. “You know what also helps? Having someone else there who can pull the lever a few times so you don’t have to, or to help you start untying the ropes so you can eventually get free. I’m calling you out, but I’m also telling you I’ll help, the same way you’re helping me get out of my own trolley problem. The same way you and Jensen help each other. Are you up for that?”

I stood outside Jensen’s house, procrastinating going inside. “I’ll do my best, Sticks. Talk to you later. Go deal with your annoying housemate.”

She smiled again and blew a kiss to me. “Good luck with your equally annoying best friend.”

I hung up the call and let myself into Jensen’s house. It was quiet tonight, so Ana must have been at work and the twins were either at a friend’s house or tucked away in their rooms.

I pushed open the door to Jensen’s room and found him sprawled on his bed, staring at the ceiling with eyes at half-mast. I made it inside before he even reacted to my presence.

“Do you have any more?” I asked.

Jensen eyed me warily. “No.”

“Do I look like a cop? I’m not trying to take it away, but if I have to sit near your existential crisis completely sober, I’ll lose it.”

“I didn’t ask you to come over,” Jensen said, but passed me a plastic bag with one remaining gummy in it. “You could get in trouble.”

“Unless you’re planning on calling the police, I think I’ll be fine,” I said. My tolerance for THC probably wasn’t what it was either, so I hoped these weren’t strong. This would be counterproductive if we were both too high to help each other. I settled in Jensen’s desk chair to wait to start feeling halfway decent. “Be done after this, JD.”

Jensen nodded and rubbed his eyes. “I know. Daniel was right. I’m being pathetic over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, though you’re not exactly disproving the pathetic-ness allegations.”

For some reason, that seemed to relax him. “Do you want to stay the night?”

“I’m done walking for today and you can’t exactly drive me home.”

Jensen snorted and it was the first time I’d seen him smile all day.

One day, more might be asked of me, but for today, this was the least I could do to keep the trolley from hitting him.