Work Text:
Spend all night in the company of ghosts
Always wake up alone
Ezekiel is fourteen. He is fourteen, alone, and if he wasn't Ezekiel Motherfucking Jones, he would be scared.
He hasn't said a word aloud in several days. The dumpsters he's been frequenting for the last week have unfortunately been sitting empty for two nights now. Ezekiel can't fault people for creating less waste, really - he's all for saving the earth, but he can't focus on anything else while his stomach is so hollow.
The gas station up ahead sits on a dark hill, plastered onto a backdrop of a thick forest, trees looming like monsters coming to swallow him whole.
This is stupid, of course. He's fourteen. He can handle going to a 24-hour gas station in the middle of the night. Especially since he can feel his muscles getting slower, less reactive, as time goes on without a meal. He can't get into a situation where he can't feed himself. He's seen what happens to those people.
Walking across the deserted parking lot is eerie. He keeps glancing at the pumps, even after he's past them. He can't help but imagine shadowy figures, darting out from behind the columns to stab him. His hand drifts into his pocket, rubbing at the fifty that he stuffed in there earlier. The man he lifted it off of looked like the loss wouldn't kill him. He was well-fed, well-dressed. Ezekiel had a dream of looking that taken care of one day.
But for now, he just needed to get something to eat.
The bell on the door clanged loudly, ringing harshly on his ears. The soft hooting of owls and chirping of crickets on the way up here had put him too much at ease - the bell jolted him awake, back into reality. Ezekiel straightened his spine, tried to look like a carefree, irresponsible teenager who would stroll into a gas station at 2:30 in the morning with fifty dollars to blow.
He throws a smile to the cashier, who couldn't look less interested in his presence. It's a good thing that there's no one else in the store right now, considering how jumpy he already is. Nothing is wrong. Everything is normal. The world isn't falling apart. He repeats this over and over to himself in his head. Nothing is wrong.
The candy aisle calls to him with a longing siren song, but Ezekiel knows he needs to get some real food to eat, or he might throw up whatever else he puts in his mouth. No matter how brightly colored and inviting the packages are.
He gathers together as much fruit as he think his stomach can handle right now, some bread, a pack of cookies, and a truly ridiculous amount of candy, and hauls it all over to the register. It nearly overloads the counter, but the cashier seems unconcerned.
Ezekiel briefly considers trying to save some of the money he'd stolen, but he knows there are too many eyes on him in the city to try that. The girl at the register lazily swipes his purchases across the scanner as the thief considers the scratchcards to his left. He knows the odds. He knows he won't win. But he slaps down the card with a bird on it to use up his last dollar. No use in not trying.
He lugs his bag out the door, flinching a lot less at the bell this time. He can't go back to the block he usually sleeps on. This much food is asking to get jumped. He had tried to find a gas station that was fairly secluded, in order to avoid questions about where he'd come into so much money.
Ezekiel stops at the edge of the parking lot. His options are: keep walking until he finds a bench, or plop down in the first abandoned area he can find to enjoy his stash.
The deserted lot across the road is wide, empty, and (most importantly) downhill from the gas station, so he likely won't be seen if no one's looking.
No one is looking, but sometimes he likes to entertain the notion.
The grass is cold and dewy already, but the moisture is quickly forgotten when he opens the bag of bread he'd bought. Before the last few weeks, Ezekiel couldn't have imagined how amazing the smell of plain white bread would be. He doesn't take long to revel in it, though, instead quickly digging in.
His stomach begins to fill, feel more stable. Ezekiel starts to relax, his panic calming as he eats more. He leans back, presses his head against the hillside, so he can look at the stars.
If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that he's in a warm, safe bed in a nice house. Not any of the houses he's ever been in, mind, but somewhere that is this calm and quiet. He can hear the crickets again. The view of the stars is so nice, though, that Ezekiel can't justify keeping his eyes closed for too long.
He scratches off the card, feeling like an idiot for not keeping a quarter with him. Instead, he uses the nail on his thumb, which works, but gets some of the black paint underneath. He doesn't win anything either, making the whole experience a waste.
As he starts to sample the various bags of candy he bought, laughter echoes in his ears. It's faint at first, hard to make out, but soon the flashback is there in full force. He can hear the laughter, the clattering pans, the sudden yelling...
No. He's alone out here. He's in control. He pulls the laughter closer to himself, reveling in the feeling of warmth and home as long as he can.
The next day, Ezekiel wakes up covered in grass stains, with his bags nowhere to be seen. He trudges back towards town. The dumpsters don't seem nearly as inviting now that he knows how to get a much better meal. As he comes back to civilization, the people around him on the street look much more like targets. And he knows what to do.