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Jonathan never made a habit of watching the sunrise, at least until he met Spidey and 4C.
Before, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it; the sunlight streaming through his dusty, stained-glass windows was just a sign of another grim day to survive. But their excitement was infectious, as much as he mourned the time lost in the process. And while it bothered him at first—even if he kept most of his protests to himself—stopping to do something so utterly mundane felt strangely comforting… and distantly familiar as well.
Somehow, the habit managed to worm its way into his subconscious too, as even on the days they had no plans of waking up early, he found himself stirring well before first light broke. On those mornings, no matter how tightly he squeezed his eyes shut, he could never manage to fall back into slumber. The restlessness would persist until he begrudgingly dragged himself out of bed and into the main area of the church, abandoning the prospect of sleep altogether.
It was another one of those mornings.
Jonathan quietly closed the door behind himself, stepping around the corner that Spidey and 4C had claimed as their own. He might have shot down Spidey’s initial request of sharing the bedroom between the three of them, but it hadn’t stopped her from setting them up right outside it. Their sleeping bags were laid side-by-side over the floorboards, and the pair themselves were still fast asleep, each huddled under one of Jonathan’s spare blankets that he knew he didn’t give them, but they’d clearly managed to dig up on their own at some point in the night.
“Everyone’s stealing from me these days.” Jonathan said under his breath, half to himself. Spidey mumbled something in her sleep and rolled onto her side, inadvertently pulling 4C’s blanket with her. 4C gave a shiver, and Jonathan sighed. “Hold on, bud.”
He crouched down by the two, carefully prying the second blanket away from Spidey and tucking it back over 4C. Neither of the two stirred, but 4C did let out a hum that sounded somewhat satisfied. The things I do for those two, Jonathan thought to himself as he moved away.
It was too early to make breakfast, too early for anything, really. He had about half-an-hour—maybe less—before the sun was to fully rise, and very little to pass the time. For a moment, he considered cleaning up the mess that his last ‘visitors’ had left behind, but cast aside that idea as soon as he realised the likelihood of that decision waking up his sleeping companions. They deserved their rest, even if he couldn’t get any more of his own.
After a few minutes of pacing along the length of the pews, his head still foggy with sleep, Jonathan ran his hand through his hair with a sigh and retreated up the ladder of the church’s tower. Spidey was an early riser too, and she’d no doubt wake up 4C once she got up, so it was only a matter of time before they joined him. Until then, he was content to wait.
Under the pale moonlight, Paradise City looked smaller than usual. Quieter as well, even though the city hadn’t felt truly quiet since the bus’s arrival. And sitting on the edge of his roof in the crisp, early morning air, with the distant sound of chirping from the more resilient birds that hadn’t already left the city, he could almost mistake it as peaceful too.
“You’re watching the sunrise without us?”
Jonathan couldn’t help but startle at the sound of Spidey’s voice. He looked over to see her head popping up out of the entrance, a pout on her face.
“You should have woken me! We almost slept through it,” Spidey continued as she hauled herself up. Behind her, a bleary-eyed 4C crawled up too, Jonathan’s blanket still wrapped snugly over his shoulders.
“Sun hasn’t even risen yet.” Jonathan pointed out as the two settled at either side of him. Spidey rolled her eyes in response.
“Jonathan’s so mean sometimes, isn’t he?” She said in a stage-whisper, not bothering to lower her volume enough to properly hide it from Jonathan. Though it wouldn’t have mattered either way, considering she was talking across him. “He could have waited for me and you, but did he? No, he wants to watch the sunrise on top of his church alone. He’s trying to be nonchalant.”
4C rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “This is a church?”
“If you keep complaining, you will miss it.” Jonathan pointed out, and that managed to snap Spidey out of her ire, enough for her head to swivel towards the sky. Above them, the first few rays of light were making themselves known, a hint of colour erupting on the edge of the horizon. And as they watched, the rest of the sky painted itself to match, gold melting into orange, and fading into a bright blue.
“Woah.” 4C straightened up, staring out at the sun with no less wonder than the first time they’d stopped to see it rise. “That’s so cool… I love sunrises.”
“It’s so pretty…” Spidey breathed. She looked equally entranced, even if the sight wasn’t anything new. “I love them too.”
Jonathan drew in a slow, contented breath. He’d forgotten, somewhere along the years, that daybreak never looked quite as beautiful as when he had someone else to enjoy it with. When he was by himself, he had no reason to stop and enjoy small pleasantries—in the hellscape they called ‘Paradise’, those were few and far between anyway.
“Do you like sunrises, Jonathan?” Spidey asked lowly. Her eyes had yet to move from the sky, but he could tell her focus was set squarely on Jonathan and his response. She’d quietened her voice enough to be heard only by his ears, unless 4C was actually trying to listen. Which—considering it was 4C—was safe to assume he wasn’t; the man was idly humming to himself as he watched the sunrise, like he’d forgotten the other two were there at all.
Spidey herself was still waiting with bated breath, but Jonathan’s lips were pressed together tight. He didn’t have an answer to give, not one that would satisfy her. The sunrise was nice to see, he could accept that much, but it didn’t change the fact that if it weren’t for her influence, he wouldn’t have bothered to look up at all.
“It’s… I do like it, yes.” He finally said, and a smile blossomed over Spidey’s lips.
“I knew it! I knew it,” She said in a sing-song voice. “Jonathan likes sunrises, Jonathan likes sunsets… I knew we’d melt that cold heart of yours.”
Jonathan scoffed. “Hey, I didn’t say—”
“What? You don’t like sunsets?” 4C said suddenly. There was something strange in his voice, sounding thick and wet when he spoke. Jonathan’s head snapped to look at him but 4C was turned away, leaving him to only see a blank expression from the right side of his face.
“No, I—”
“You must like them. You were watching it.”
It took a few moments for the words to process in Jonathan’s mind, but even then they simply didn’t make sense. His head was getting fuzzier by the second, an inexplicable dread crawling up his chest. “I was… what?”
“Watching the sunset. You didn’t look.” 4C said slowly, his intonation clearer than Jonathan had ever heard it. Each word was measured and careful; calm, but with a distinct edge of hurt beneath the impassivity. 4C never was that skilled at hiding how he felt, and now it seemed no different. “You didn’t look at me. You didn’t.”
“I’m… I don’t know what you’re talking about, 4C.” Jonathan let out a low, breathy laugh.
“He’s right… isn’t he…?” Spidey piped up, in a voice just as dispassionate. Jonathan flinched slightly; he’d almost forgotten she was there. “You… didn’t watch. You let me do it. I had to watch, while you were… watching the sunset instead.”
“Was it nice?” 4C asked. “I hope it was nice. I hope it was worth it.”
Jonathan took a step back, eyeing the two of them warily. The unease hadn’t subsided, it only swelled the longer his companions continued to speak, leaving a hollow feeling in his stomach. It tugged at the edges of his memory, urging him that this isn’t right. Something was wrong, and he didn’t know what—
Why were they watching the sunrise, anyway?
“Look—guys.” Jonathan swallowed dryly. “I—I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but you’re… This is getting creepy, what—just tell me, what are you guys talking about?”
Finally, finally 4C moved. His shoulders relaxed, his head tilted slightly to the left, as if listening to a voice only he could hear, before his body began to turn. Slowly, the rest of his face came into view, and Jonathan’s stomach dropped.
4C was smiling.
That was the first thing he noted, even as his mind went blank with shock. He was smiling, even as blood flowed down over his cheek and onto the shoulder of his jacket, dripping from a gaping wound at his temple. His hair was stuck to his forehead with a mixture of blood and sweat, staining the blue strands crimson, and—God, now that Jonathan was looking at it, the red was tangled all throughout the rest of his hair too. He didn’t know how he didn’t see it, when the wound had clearly begun on the back of his head, covering his whole head in a gory mess.
Jonathan felt sick. Behind him, someone was sobbing. 4C opened his mouth, and a stream of red trickled down his chin.
“I’m talking about the gunshot.”
Jonathan lurched upright in his bed, a series of gasps spilling past his lips. For a moment, all he could see in front of him was oozing, sticky blood dripping out of an open wound, and a flash of an innocent smile from someone long gone, before his eyes began to adjust to his surroundings. He was in his bedroom, in the same uncomfortable bed he’d fallen asleep in a few hours earlier. It was still dark outside. Just before dawn if he had to take a guess—and the irony in that made him want to throw up.
On the floor beside his bed, a mass of blankets began to shuffle and move, until a head of brown hair surfaced. She blinked up at him, barely stifling a yawn in her fist. “J’nathan…? You… okay?”
“Shh… go to sleep, Spidey.” He gently pushed her back down until her head reached the pillow again. “You can sleep for a little bit longer. I’ll wake you at sunrise.”
She mumbled out something unintelligible, before drifting back into unconsciousness. Only once her breathing evened out did Jonathan allow himself to collapse back on his bed, taking in a deep, shaky breath of his own.
He was no stranger to nightmares, of course—it would be difficult to find anyone in the city who was—but it had been a while before any had gotten to him. Once he forced himself to get used to the visions of zombies tearing into his flesh, of old friends turning their backs on him, of his own mistakes played back again and again, they all seemed the same. Repetitive, predictable, horribly unpleasant, but easy enough to deal with when he was expecting them.
This… was new. The wound was still fresh, and he’d yet to move past it. And it was maddening; Jonathan had killed plenty in the past, but none of their deaths truly haunted him the way 4C’s did. Not even when he was the one to pull the trigger, not even when the blood stained his clothes so thoroughly he had no choice but to burn every garment. Somehow, that image of 4C bleeding out on the beach had stuck, leaving behind a memory not even the ocean could wash away.
Jonathan’s eyes drifted to his chest leaning against the wall, where 4C’s belongings were safely tucked away, alongside Spidey’s favourite items too. She’d sneakily placed them there the same day she dragged her sleeping bag into his room, and he kindly pretended not to notice.
(He also pretended not to hear her sniffles, and she pretended not to see the way he read and reread 4C’s last note until his eyes blurred. They did a lot of pretending these days.)
Outside, light was already beginning to filter through the window. Too quickly, he thought to himself, The sun came too quickly. Everything was coming too fast these days; time kept moving forward, the sun kept rising and setting, the world kept moving along, as though it was blissfully unaware their world had already fallen apart.
He couldn’t dwell on it, though. One of them had to grit their teeth and keep them moving, and if that had to be Jonathan, then so be it. He could save the reminiscence for late nights, when his dreams were plagued by 4C, and the rest of his mistakes.
“Sunrise again,” Jonathan murmured. He leaned over, laying a hand on Spidey’s shoulder to shake her awake. “We’ll… We’ll watch this one for you, bud.”