Beautiful Chaos (jake x johnnie)

five

"Johnnie, Johnnie wake up." Johnnie heard Jake's voice cut into his subconscious the next morning.

Johnnie squinted against the bright sunlight that streamed in through their window. Jake's shirtless, blurry figure gradually came into focus. Jake was hovering above him, staring down at him eagerly.

Johnnie frowned and grabbed his phone, clicking it on to check the time. He looked back up at Jake. "Dude, it's only 9 am. I don't have class until later, why are you waking me up?"

"I'm waking you up because I realized something important."

"And that is?"

"We don't have any instruments Johnnie. We need instruments for Battle of the Bands," Jake pressed.

"Oh shit," Johnnie yawned as he sat up, "you're right."

Jake started pacing around the room. "I have a couple guitars, a mic, and some other stuff, but they're back at my old place because I didn't think I would be using them any time soon," he stopped and looked at Johnnie again, "what about you? Do you have anything by any chance?"

Johnnie remembered the guitar Ian had gifted him that he used for their performances in the past. "I did...I had a Fender Stratocaster."

"Holy shit, that's amazing," Jake's smile gradually fell from his face, "wait, what do you mean you had? What happened to it?"

Johnnie avoided eye contact with him. "Um...I might have smashed it—"

Jake stared at him blankly. "You did...what?"

"I smashed it."

"Why? What could have possibly made you smash a fucking Fender?"

Johnnie remembered staring at the guitar every day after Ian's funeral. It was taunting him. Why would Ian ever give it to him if he was going to do what he did? Why would Ian give him something that gave him so much hope and then rip that hope away? It made Johnnie furious, so he took his anger out on the guitar. The rest of their equipment was still in Ian's basement and Johnnie didn't know if he could muster up the courage to go back down there to get it.

"It just...wasn't working well, so I broke it because it was annoying me." Johnnie said simply.

Jake let out a laugh of defeat and ran his hand through his hair. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"No."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Jake sighed. "You know what, fine. We don't have time for this anyway. Let's go out."

"Where?"

"To get us some instruments obviously. I mean seriously Johnnie, how could you make such a big deal about Battle of the Bands but not have anything to actually play music on?"

"Okay, my bad. I didn't exactly know I was going to be doing Battle of the Bands either. It's not that serious," Johnnie muttered.

Jake pulled on a shirt. "It's not that serious? Don't you want to win? The competition is really fucking close."

Johnnie stood up. "I thought you were doing this to say goodbye to your career, so why does it matter so much to you? Unless that was a lie."

Jake paused and looked at him. "What are you trying to say?"

Johnnie met his hard gaze. Ever since they left the diner, the words from Jake's stalker were running through his mind. He didn't want to believe them and knew they were probably lies at the end of the day. But he truly didn't know anything about the man that stood before him. And it wasn't like Jake was making an effort to change that. There was a wall between them and Johnnie didn't know how to climb over it.