Counting Sheep (Jax/Bosco)

[Simon Alexandre]

Simon's eyes snapped open. The entire scenery around him had changed in one swift movement, and he now found himself on his feet. It was as if he'd just woken up in a different world. Disoriented and dizzy, he struggled to understand his new surroundings. Warm wooden floorboards offered a sense of much-needed solidity under his bare feet as he surveyed the new environment. Overall, the room had an orange tinge, and Simon traced this colour's origin to a desk-lamp above him. Thanks to the single light source, elongated shadows roamed the room and danced in every corner. With a growing fear swelling in his gut, Simon turned his eyes to the furniture. Everything had been made with the same reddish wood that covered the floor, creating a sense of uncanny unity. Not just that, but the furniture also seemed massive in comparison to him. The bed next to him reached up to his shoulders, and he couldn't see the top of the dresser. Even the nightstand was as tall as he was. Goosebumps rippled across his skin and a bead of sweat ran down his forehead, but he couldn’t say why.

As Simon turned his attention to the atmosphere, he noted a faint, musky scent of alcohol. Even just the smell caused his lungs to burn and his muscles to tense, and the odour only grew stronger as he acknowledged its presence. It enveloped him, flowing through his lungs and into his blood, turning it ice cold. He tried to ignore it, but it had ravaged his senses - as alcohol always did. Each hair on his body prickled with electricity. There was something so recognizable about the place, but he couldn't quite place a name on it. Pushed on by morbid curiosity, his scrutinizing gaze proceeded to scour the room until they fell upon the farthest, darkest corner. It was hard to tell what was there, but soon his eyes adjusted and he managed to pick out a door. His knees began to tremble. The handle was a rusted golden with paint scraped off of it from overuse. Simon could tell anyone where every little crack, dent, or tiny imperfection in the wood was. That door was one he'd seen many times before. He'd stared at it for countless hours before while waiting for the inevitable. He did know this place: This was his old room.

Simon's breathing quickened and he had the sudden overwhelming urge to throw up. There was a slight creak audible from outside of the room, and Simon somehow knew it was coming from the stairs. Dread rose up around him like thick blood, threatening to drown him in its relentless wrath. Memories of the past came flowing back and Simon's eyes watered, leaving his senses to go haywire. It felt like every little breeze brushing past him from the window was too much. The pleasant whistling of the wind became a harsh yowling, and the once-gentle sound of the rain turned into beating drums. His heart rate thumped with such violence that he wondered if his chest would burst. A reluctant screech erupted from the hinges of the door as it cracked open. There was a figure, enshrouded in the shadows, and Simon didn't have to see his face to know who it was.

Simon's chest was burning and he swallowed bile that was rising in his throat. The man approached. Simon wanted to flee, to run, to do anything, but he couldn't. His muscles refused to obey his commands. All he could do was watch the figure come closer and closer. His movements were unsteady, and he swayed from side to side with every stride. Each of his steps resembled thunder and shook the room, electrifying Simon’s nerves. He knew the man had been drinking again. He could never forget his father's drunken walk; he'd seen it so often. The shadow was carrying something indiscernible, but Simon was already guessing at what it could be. It could be a bat, a wrench, or maybe a knife. He'd seen them all before, he'd felt them all before, and he knew it didn't matter much which it was. It all ended the same. The figure came into the light, and he grimaced, pulling the skin tight around his features. There was a bruise on his jaw and his lip was stained red with blood. Simon didn't have to think long to guess that he'd pay for it. Bottle. He realized as his eyes fell upon the object. At least that one hurt the least. Despite this comfort, Simon was drowning in his own panic, struggling to beat his own mind so that he could maybe even escape. But, his blood had frozen, and all he could do was watch: watch him come closer and closer, and watch that grimace turn into a wild grin.

Soon, Simon was forced to the ground with a violent shove. The bottle shattered against his scalp and the remaining shards clattered to the ground, dipped in crimson. Simon couldn't move his eyes away from the glimmering fragments. Profanities flowed out of the older man's mouth, reminding Simon of how useless, pathetic, and worthless he was. He was such a waste of space and he took up so much of his father's precious resources. Simon tried to open his mouth to speak, but he was unable to form a sound. His dad was right. Simon’s hair was grabbed and his father shoved his head downwards into the shattered glass. Even the slightest movement caused shards to slice through his skin, and his dad was rubbing his face in it. Simon was confident that it felt similar to one's face being pricked with a thousand needles. Soon, though, his father yanked his head back up and his violet eyes met the animalistic ones of his attacker.

Sometimes during these sessions, Simon would count the number of floorboards in his room. He'd designed the game to try and ignore the pain. This time, around when the man decided to punch his nose, Simon wasn't counting floorboards, though. Instead, he'd chosen the drumming raindrops he could hear against the gutter. He fancied about five hit at the same time that his father's fist made contact. As it did, a horrible snapping sound echoed through the room, accompanied with hot liquid dripping down onto his lips. Tears formed in his eyes, and he shut them. And yet, despite the excruciating pain, Simon was dedicated. Counting the drops was the only thing he could do. 23. His entire body was starting to go numb from the endless streams of kicks and punches, but his father somehow kept finding new places that hadn't yet met his violent wrath. Simon had stopped trying to move, as he knew that, even if he did, only more pain could come from it. All he could do now was hope for death. 14. 46. 28. It had reached the point where Simon couldn't differentiate the sound of yelling or of raindrops and he’d forgotten how far he’d already counted. The sounds were overwhelming his senses and the game was getting less fun. It was impossible to focus on anything else other than how much it hurt. The boy gave up.

The sound of metal clanging against wood was audible above him. Sneaking a glance, Simon squinted through the thick crimson liquid that caked his face. It was hard to: even just tilting his head to the side sent off cries of pain from every part of his spine. His father had picked up something from the top of his dresser - a hammer. That was something he hadn't gotten in awhile. To serve as a reminder, the claw of the hammer slammed into his lower back and broke skin before tearing through flesh and muscle on its way back up. A wave of pure and almost intolerable pain rushed over Simon and thick blood trickled across his back. He figured that, in his drunken rage, his father had just missed his spine. Too bad, maybe it would’ve ended then. His father paused for a moment, and Simon heard panting above him. A flicker of hope swelled in his chest, and he even dared a glance upwards. But, the hammer came down again with a vengeance, and this time made contact with his head. The force shoved him to the ground back into the field of glass shards. He was lucky none of them ended up in his eyes, though that wasn’t much of a concern. Simon was shaking, but every slight movement sent excruciating pain through him. Maybe if he just lay there, he could die. But, contrary to Simon's desires, his body was clinging to life like an addict might to rehab. It was pathetic.

Then, it ceased.

[Jaxton Godfrey]

A yawn slipped outside of Jaxton’s mouth as he sat up. Ironic, considering he had to be dreaming. He knew he had to have fallen asleep because he laid into bed only a few minutes ago, and he was not there any longer. So now he got to figure out just what he was dreaming about. The young man looked at the couch he had been laying on, then to the coffee table, and he was sure he was in someone’s living room. Obviously not Jaxton’s own living room. The couch was different, the coffee table was different, the shape of the room was wrong, and there were a few bottles standing. Donavon kept himself away from alcohol when his son was around. Something that Jaxton liked to do when he found himself in a dream he did not understand was try to figure what the hell brought it up. Sometimes he could wind up in someone else’s dream, he knew that, but when he looked around the room he could see no one. The only sound was the pattering rain outside. Actually, there was something coming from upstairs. The young man could have sworn he heard something shatter. The young man in question stood up as he looked towards the stairs. Something was going on up there. As long as this was a dream, he would be fine if he checked out the noises. So he did just that.

Something about this was eerie. He could have sworn he heard someone grunting; like they were hitting something. And that sound was constant as the dream walker made his way up the stairs. He knew students had nightmares about other students. Sometimes they could be frightened by someone’s powers and that fear would seep into their dreams. Like one time Jaxton found someone in the forest being attacked by some kind of werewolf. After wiping the beast from the dream, he talked to the student and figured out they gained a fear of wolves after encountering one. The sounds coming from the other side of the door stopped for a moment. The young man could only wonder what he was about to see, and was certainly not prepared for it when he opened the door.

The noises had been a student by himself? He had been close to swinging a hammer, which was pretty fucking unsettling; Easily enough for Jaxton’s decision to halt him from moving seem like the right one. Whatever the hell he had been fighting probably wouldn’t be a threat now. Considering the bloody glass on the floor, considering the bloody…Bloody everythin’. What the Hell were ya’ fightin’? When he stepped closer to see the student, it became clear the man was too old to be one. Then it became clearer who the student was when the dream walker looked at where the bat was aimed. This boy was bloody. He had bruises. There was no fighting, the boy had been getting abused. This was really fucked up. From what little Jaxton knew about abuse, he knew it could leave mental scars that could last forever. He was certainly not prepared to witness them firsthand. Now what was he supposed to do?

Well, the first thing he did was remove the boy’s abuser from the dream. The man disappeared out of thin air, and now it was just Jaxton and the boy. This poor boy. The only way that the dream walker would figure out exactly what was going on was if he pressed him about it, and that would not happen. The only idea that came to mind was to get those injuries off of the boy so he would at least not be in pain. But what was he supposed to say? What could he possibly do to comfort this kid? All Jaxton did was get closer and offer the young boy his hand and five words that probably wouldn’t amount to much.
"I'm so sorry about this."

[Simon Alexandre]

For a few moments, there was utter silence in the room. It echoed louder than any words ever could. The ringing in the boy’s ears dulled and the pain that had consumed his body ebbed away. And yet, he still lay, quivering. He didn’t open his eyes as he heard footsteps approaching, and instead only flinched. He feared it was just the calm before another storm. But, the expected low, thunderous voice of his father was not what cut through the silence. Instead, a rich tone comparable to smooth velvet resounded through the small room, filling every crevice with inexplicable warmth. He understood none of the words spoken, but that didn’t matter. The voice was welcoming and almost familiar, like sitting in front of a crackling fire on a cold winter day. The silver-haired boy wondered if, perhaps, he was dead. It would explain the sudden numbness tingling across his body. When he cracked open his eyes, however, it felt as if he had been drenched in cold water. Though there was a sudden lack of a certain parental figure, Simon remained in the same room, with tears clouding his vision and hot, thick liquid running down his neck. Instead, though, he found a new man standing above him. A shudder enveloped the boy, and he gasped for air.

Simon did not take the offered hand. In fact, he did not move beyond shivering and blinking rapidly. The rather large man in front of him had a thin layer of chub that concealed most of his features, and he looked old enough to be in his late twenties. Auburn hair was layered on top of his head and it reached for his amber eyes, but the other teenager did not notice the warmth behind them. Instead, Simon only saw a piercing gaze that he quivered under, though the other made no violent movements. Silence settled within the room once more, and the boy only continued to stare from his position on the ground. Eventually, his violet eyes flashed away to search the room, gaze penetrating even the darkest shadows. Yet, he couldn’t see a familiar burly figure anywhere. Confused, but unwilling to remain in such a position, he scrambled to his feet and stumbled away. Still facing the larger man, Simon swayed in a struggle to remain upright.

Why his father wasn’t there was a question the silver-haired boy could not answer. Perhaps he would’ve asked, had he not been so petrified. However, like the sudden numbness in his body, his missing father wasn’t something his thoughts lingered on for long. Instead, he thought of the man in front of him. He had likely seen some of what happened: he must’ve. How could Simon have let this happen? No one was supposed to know. No one was supposed to find out. What if the man told his mother? What if he told his dad? Simon’s heart slammed against his ribs and tears welled in his eyes. An uncontrollable and violent quivering reigned over his body and the blood that pumped through him turned to ice. His father would not be happy. Simon opened his mouth to provide an excuse, but his dry throat did no more than release an incoherent croak. He stumbled back again, back now against a wall that he leaned into. Trembling knees threatened to buckle under his weight.

“Don’t—” Simon rasped in what remained of his quiet voice, though what he thought Jax shouldn’t do was not uttered. There was an unbearable sort of cold that stung his lungs and wrenched his stomach with pure malice, keeping him from speaking. However, the oddness of it all had begun to dawn upon Simon, as the world around him swam. Why had his father disappeared? Who was this man? Where had the pain gone? Why couldn’t he remember how he got in this room? Perhaps… Simon’s breathing paused. Perhaps it was but a dream. These sorts of memories often came back. A flame of hope warmed his chest for just a moment, but the usual merciless fear returned. The theory did not explain who the man in front of him was. Though it was possible that the man was just a figure of his messed up subconscious, the boy didn’t want to take any chances. He shivered, a cold draft flooding his body. It was drowning him. “You... don't u-understand, uh,” he started, voice shaking as much as he was. His breath caught in his throat and he struggled to take another route. “Uh, what d-do you want?”
​

[Jaxton Godfrey]

The silence hung in the air between the boy and the Dream Walker felt unsettling. He could say without a doubt that this was what the phrase about "silence being deafening" meant. The ambient noise of rain and subtle breathing were the only things you could hear, but Jaxton felt so focused on that silence between him and the boy that he did not notice it. Like he had to wait for young Simon say something before anything could be done. For some reason the reaction from the abused became so much important. Everything else in the room may as well have not existed since he stopped paying attention to it. He probably should have thought about who the boy actually was before getting so sympathetic, though. Since this was obviously a dream that he made up it meant he had to be disturbed in real life. Maybe he turned to violence easily to cover it up. Maybe if Jaxton remembered that everyone had dreams that are separated from their real life he would not be trying to comfort them. But then that kid looked to his ‘savior’ from the abuser.
God damn...

The way the kid seemed to be so scared of the man in front of him made it impossible not try being empathetic. This had to be so screwed up for him. Jaxton could not even tell if he was looking an escape, or whoever it was that had been beating him. If he had been looking for an escape, he would not be able to reach it stumbling around like he was. He had to be scared to death, and it made the situation worse to think about. Poor Simon probably did not like adults that much, especially while he was so small, and the man in front of him was so big in comparison.. Jaxton wanted to be able to just make everything better, but he could not think of anything to do. Removing the blood mad add more shock, so some other way to help had to be thought up. Holding a hand out proved to be pointless, so it was withdrawn. He was just standing there silently with a sad face. Any words forming in his mind were completely inadequate. There was a boy flipping out in front of Jaxton and he would open his mouth to speak, but stop himself. Similarly to how Simon had just started doing himself.

But then he got words out. Simon did, of course. Granted he had to try more than once. It seemed like he wanted to plead about something for a moment. Don’t tell daddy, I bet. Or, you know, whoever the hell that was. Maybe the kid wanted to ask not to tell anyone, but it probably would have lead to the same thing he feared regardless. Probably that man abusing again for trying to tell anyone about it. Prob’ly. But wherever that question was going was left behind. The white haired boy switched what he had decided to ask, but he was right about Jaxton not understanding. He always had someone there for him that was willing to help him when he was fucked up, and never had anything anywhere near this bad. He could not relate to this like he wanted to be able to, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try to help him. So how did he go about doing that?

He started by putting hands out, the way that everyone does for some reason when they try to calm someone down. Why did everyone do that? "I don't wanna hurt you, or anythin' like that."  Hopefully that sounded convincing enough. Well, Jaxton sounded worried, at least. If he could get SImon to believe that someone was feeling concerned for him, maybe he could get out of that shaken up state he had got into. That would be a good start to making him feel better. And it seemed like it would be the best not to try getting to close to the abused, or he would just withdraw. Waking up is another thing that might happen. So it came down to saying the right thing. ”Try da stay calm, I jus’ wanna help.” Yeah, how the fuck am I gonna that? Despite not knowing how exactly to go about helping the boy in front of him, at least he had good intentions. He was trying not to talk too fast so it would not come off as frantic. As long as neither one of them woke up, this could be resolved.

[Simon Alexandre]

The young boy’s wide eyes had locked upon the man in front of him, and the draft from both outside and within left him shivering. The incessant drumming rain encouraged the growing dread in his gut and Simon hesitated to search for words. Even when he had managed to speak, it felt like his words hadn’t been enough to explain. No one could know what happened in this room, and yet there was an unknown man standing within it now. He tried to blink away tears, but they only rolled down his cheeks instead. Confronting such an issue was impossible, and the dizziness that gripped him contributed to his state of confusion. He leaned against the wall behind him and reached for the nearby drawer on his dresser for support. As soon as he touched it, though, he recoiled his hand to his chest as if he’d just contacted fire. A look of disgust passed over his face for a moment, before his back hunched and he curled into himself.

The movement of the man’s hands had been slow and gentle. Without a doubt, there were pure and kind intentions behind the gesture designed to comfort the young boy. However, Simon still flinched away and pushed his back against the wall. Whoever this man was, the silver-haired boy didn’t understand his actions. They didn’t know each other, or so Simon hoped, so there was no reason for him to care or sympathy. If anything, Simon would’ve expected it to be one of his father’s friends, come to point out how scrawny he was and demand a drink. They, at least, never hurt him.

The velvety voice filled the room once more, calming Simon’s thrumming heart for a few moments, but the sincerity in the tone was lost under the sound of his own ragged breathing. A long moment of silence and a wary gaze were the only things given in response, but Simon’s shaking reduced to a calm shiver. He tried to smile, so that the other might think he’d just misinterpreted what he had seen. If the man was one of his father’s friends, it’d be best that they didn’t bring this up. However, explaining why blood coated his body would be difficult. “Uh, you…that…” he started, then his eyes flickered down to the other’s hands and he lost his train of thought. They demanded his attention.

The fingers were short and a little stubby, with a pink tint to the palms and small cracks running throughout. They seemed to possess dexterity and, though they were calloused, they quivered with hidden strength. But, there was something that wasn’t quite right. Each little line and curve on them was registered in Simon’s mind and he searched for the reason that they seemed so out of place. Eventually, Simon was drawn to the realization that there was a blur surrounding the creases running along his fingers, and they kept shifting in shape and size. Simon narrowed his eyes and squinted, but the lines on the other man’s hands only shook more. With the room around him forgotten, he was transfixed upon the gentle swaying of the lines on the man’s hands.

Though his frozen muscles resisted, Simon felt a sudden urge to burst forth and grab the other to stabilize the shifting creases. There was something so unnatural that it was violating his sight, but he could not pull his eyes away. The hands deserved to be etched away from sight; they must vanish or be normal. However, the oddity of the hands grew in strength and they became inverted in their dimensions, as if they could not exist as three-dimensional shapes. The oddness, though, did not stop at the hands. It began to infect everything around them, and when Simon managed to peel his eyes away, even the man’s face had begun to change. The piercing gaze had shifted and melded into the skin around his eyes, and his pupils had begun to fade. Simon recoiled, and the colours in the world were, for just a moment, in great focus. Then, the room exploded in a flurry of bright and dark tones alike. The world swam with great violence, and nausea clenched at the boy’s stomach. He could no longer see what was around him, but the ground under his feet was falling. With where he had been just a moment ago forgotten, his mind could only register the fact that he couldn’t breath. His mouth gaped and he tried to reach forward with his hands to find stability, before he realized he had no body, and instead had become part of the world of swirling colours. Panic flooded him, when he felt a tight grip on his shoulders. He stopped spinning and the world became black, with a hard mattress against his back. Something was grabbing him.

[Jaxton Godfrey]

In the room, heavy breathing mashing with the ambient rain outside were the only things filling the void of silence after Jaxton spoke. They were getting nowhere, and Simon did not get any closer to calming down. If it were not evident by his breathing alone, and his inability to even stand up properly, his tears threw it in the open. The Dream Walker’s own position had hardly changed over the course of the encounter. Left wanting to say something that could change what was happening in front of him, but all he managed to do was step forward when Simon shrank into himself after having touched the dresser. And of course he would retreat to the wall when someone tried to comfort him. Though the feelings were inaudible, Jaxton felt he knew what the boys’ thoughts rounded up to. ”Prob’ly thinkin’ I’ll do da him what that guy was doin’, not like he’s got any reason to trust me.” After all, he probably trusted that man at one point as well. The man who brought the faint smell of alcohol into the room. The man who made this kid cry. The man that left that kid avoiding someone who was trying to help him. This was terrible.

Then there had been Simon’s poor attempt at a rebuttal. The only person who knew whether that smile attempted passing the situation off as a joke, or the beginning of a mental breakdown, was probably Simon himself. Discarding the situation they walked into, the look on the young boy’s haggard face before that forced face gave away how fake it had been. Jaxton could not be sure what to make sure of the situation. Although words were starting to be spoken to him, It was like he could not even focus on saying anything aloud anymore. Movements were becoming impossible, and the young adult’s eyes hardly blinked. Simon did not seem to wholly notice Jaxton either. It looked like he saw something invisible, and the dream walker could not turn himself around to see what it had been. He would never get to. The connection to Simon’s consciousness seemed to be breaking up. With all the shock in what he just witnessed, the boy probably scared himself awake. At least, that’s what Jaxton was left to assume when the room faded out from around him.

The Dream Walker blinked and found himself back in his room.

[Bosco Hoppus]

Bosco laid awake in his bed, his mind left to wander. If not for the happenings of today, he would have been able to sleep. He may have put a rift between him and another prefect. No matter how much he thought about the situation it seemed like an apology could not be enough. It felt like he had more issues with prefects recently, actually. The interaction between his team and their leader were the issues that he had to deal with most commonly. Well, those were going nowhere. It was then that it occurred to Bosco that while the other team members voiced their displeasure, Simon tended to stay quiet about them. The quiet natured kid probably did not have in him to speak out against someone above him. There were issues surrounding him. The young man’s eyes drifted to the boy sleeping near him. The moonlight gave enough light to see the vague shape of a person under covers, and if one could not tell it was a person, the breathing would have given it away. The fast paced breathing. And the shaking body. As well as what may have been some crying noises...
Uh oh.

If this were not urgent, he probably would have thrown on more than his boxers before he came over. For all Bosco knew, his teammate could be having a heart attack. Alright, it was probably not a heart attack, but whatever it was was screwing with him. It may just be a nightmare, God knows what kind of past this kid had. For some reason, most of the students here seemed to have deeply troubled pasts. Almost none of the gifted had been normal kids attending highschool. Perhaps that had been part of project ashford? A thought for another time. Right now Simon was important. Bosco had tried rushing out of his bed to see what may be happening to his team mate and nearly slipped on his own neatly folded clothes next to the bed. After that mishap, he got to Simons’ side of the room without an problem. He seemed to be in a state of shock. Assumably a nightmare? Most likely. The young man leaned over the bed and began shaking his partner’s shoulder. ”Simon? Are you alright?”

[Simon Alexandre]

Rough, course hands gripped at his shoulders, shaking him, and Simon’s eyes snapped open. Moonlight decorated the edges of a man’s face above him – one he did not recognize in the shadows. All he could see was a glint he mistook for malice in the eyes above him. Trapped by the pressure on his arms, panic swallowed him, and the young prefect’s reaction was immediate and involuntary. Powered by adrenaline, he shoved, hard, on the outline of shoulders hovering above him and, as pressure released, leapt to his feet with thin sheets of metal appearing at his side, glinting in the dim light. Four long spikes of metal protruding from his back pointed towards the unknown man in front of him. Simon wavered from side to side as the bed stabilized underneath him, and his unblinking eyes were almost wild in his fear. The slits of hovering metal twitched, as if impatient for action, and the steel spikes pulled back to prepare to gain speed, when Simon seemed to take in his surroundings for the first time. The appendages drooped, his breathing slowed, and the coins clattered to the ground.

Simon stared at the other boy, unmoving. A look of horror had swept over his face, with his jaw dropped and his eyes wide. “I…” His voice broke, and he pressed a quivering hand to his wet cheek. His appendages vanished into his back, but otherwise he didn’t move. The moonlight was brighter than ever, accenting each feature of his roommate’s face and saturating the colours of the room. Though he couldn’t leave, he couldn’t stay either. The air was thick, the walls were close enough to almost press against his sides, and he’d just been ready to impale his roommate. He paused. He’d been ready to impale him. Simon’s breathing stilled and his muscles clenched. The more the thought repeated itself in his head, the more he felt himself choking on his own breath. He’d been ready to hurt someone – no, even kill someone. His face paled and his mouth dried. Fear, not from the man in front of him or from the dream he’d had, burst from his gut and immobilized him. A thought, even worse than the one of impaling his roommate, took center stage and he couldn’t push it away. With a newfound fury, tears rolled down his cheeks. Like father… It was no longer a matter of whether he could leave or not: he had to. He had to get out. Fingers numb, Simon pulled at jeans, struggling to fit them on in the dark, and fumbled a jacket on his shoulders with haste, little care for if it was inside out or not. Even if Bosco tried to speak, the words would only send prickles of discomfort down Simon’s neck and be otherwise ignored. Stumbling to the door, he shoved it open, shoeless and with disheveled hair, before staggering down the hall with a sleeve pressed to his face.

…like son.