so desperately obvious - Jake Webber x Johnnie Guilbert

you can't die on me man, I couldn't take it.

Johnnie paces around the upstairs of the weirdly ancient seeming building, the whole area is regal in a way that feels almost intrusive. He feels lightheaded. maybe he lost too much blood?

It's an odd thought because he's pretty sure that the glass shards just barely grazed him and he's definitely not squeamish around blood but who knows...

He stumbles around the area, leaning heavily against cold mahogany furniture and feeling oddly out of place in a way that's even more intense then just feeling like you don't belong in someone else's house. He feels like he's being watched.

He hopes desperately that it's just the sleep deprivation.

Eventually, he finds himself against a wall looking across the barren room to a mirror. Out of the corner of his eye he barely makes out movement.

He doesn't scream or yell, what good would come of that? He's a deer in headlights and this house is the semi-truck about to metaphorically hit him.

A rocking chair swings back and forth gently to his left. What the fuck?

Maybe it's the darkness creeping in and he's about to pass out? In the back of his mind, he registers that he kinda wants to pass out at this point. To be consumed by darkness. He's just so fuckin' tired, he can't take it. Maybe this is a fever dream?

He's so done, so afraid and just wants this to be over.

Is someone else here?

Maybe a random person decided to pull a weird ass prank on them by shooting the window and making it combust? It doesn't make any sense but there are stranger people out there.

He doesn't have the energy to scramble away from the movement, it was probably just a rat anyway. Which, gross, but whatever.

Suddenly, he hears something that breaks the uncomfortable silence.

A dull thud reverberates up the stairs and Johnnie barely resists the urge to roll his eyes through the terror, what now?

-

Jake is passed out right next to their abandoned Ouija board.

Johnnie walks down the paneled steps to find his friend sprawled across the glass covered floor and to say that he freaks out is a gross understatement.

At first, he thinks that he can't find a pulse and then he realizes that he was definitely feeling the wrong side of his wrist and mentally slaps himself.

Jake's heartbeat is sluggish at best and Johnnie can feel the blood drain from his own face as he hits his friend's face repeatedly (definitely more gently than reccomended) to check for a pain response and he gets nothing.

What's he supposed to do? Give CPR? No. Jake probably just lost a lot of blood. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why does this keep happening to them?

He runs to the landline frantically, wasting no time in calling the police.

Seriously, why didn't they do that when the fucking window exploded? Like... in the moment, he forgot that phones aside from their cellphones exist, but still..

"Hello?" The phone is freaky at best with the static background sounding straight out of a b-grade horror film but Johnnie honestly could not care less right now.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"My friend just passed out, I think he lost too much blood or hit his head or something?" He's talking too quickly, everything sounds slurred in his head and he hopes that he's coherent.

"And the window exploded? Glass is everywhere.." He says it like an afterthought and the person on the other end of the line assures him that that ambulance is on its way.

"When.. how long?" Johnnie seriously doesn't want to be in this house any longer - he especially doesn't want Jake to be in the house any longer - and the dispatcher assures him that it will be less than fifteen minutes.

So much for 'too far off the grid', fuckin' Triple A...

He hangs up on the dispatcher, not really caring if that's bad etiquette, and goes back to Jake's sprawled form.

He thinks he might have a panic attack and die. He told the younger to not fuck with Ouija boards.. or it was implied at least..

Now they're gonna be double - medical traumatized (he's making it his mission to ensure neither of them ever have to step foot in an emergency room again after this) and Jake might have permanent brain damage? Johnnie isn't really sure how blood loss effects the brain but he's positive that it's not good either way.

"Jake.." He murmurs to the other's concerningly cold body, "C'mon, you can't die on me man, I couldn't take it."

He watches the taller man's eyebrows scrunch together in what is presumably discomfort and all his previous frusteration with the other bleeds away.

"Please..?" He cradles Jake's head in his lap to get it away from the hard floor and comes to the terrifying realization that the back of his head is damp and tacky. He swipes away the halo of glass surrounding them with more frustration than strictly necessary, fear bleeding into the forefront of his mind against his will.

Johnnie can't help it, he vomits on the cold floor behind him, though the only thing that really comes up is bile, the nausea and panic are finally fully setting in.

He doesn't even register the dull thrum of pain that stabs through his hand.

"Jake.. you're really scaring me, yaknow?" He mutters, just above a whisper and he moves his friend's fringe away from his closed eyes.

He laughs gently, a bitter sound,

"I almost thought you were possessed or some shit for a minute, you asshole." The words are teary, he can't believe his friend got so hurt over something so stupid. A fucking séance, really?

He hates himself for leaving Jake alone when he was so clearly disoriented, he honestly had thought the other man was just being an ass.

He thinks, not for the first time tonight, that maybe something's wrong with him, half of his vision is blurred with red and he's so dizzy..

He looks into the fog just outside the foreboding shattered window and sees the slightest hint of movement through the cerulean shadows cast against the trees.

Into the darkness, he whispers the faintest,

"Goodbye.."

Knowing that Jake already screwed it all up, he's pretty sure that the other man is the one who has to say it but whatever. Johnnie tells himself that he doesn't believe in the paranormal.. but deep down, the fear crawls in the back of his mind. Plus, him saying it is better than nothing as Jake's blood seeps through his pants and he hears the droning sounds of sirens in the distance.

It's about time.

-

Johnnie passes out, with Jake's head cradled protectively in his lap, sprawled out in the back of the ambulance with nothing but the faint beeping of the heart monitor to keep them company.

Jesus, how he hates heart monitors.

-

yall.

i typed out a 4000+ word version of this chap where jake actually got possessed but i hated it cuz it really didnt fit the vibe of this but ughhhhhhhh

and i did so much damned research on ouija boards and freaked myself out for NOTHING.

anyways,  just got back from ✨ neck surgery ✨ sorry for the inactivity and i promise actual ship content is coming up! just gotta wrap up this section for the trauma bond and reuinion and hugging and yadda yadda

dw next chapterll be cute n wholesome nd shi with ACTUAL DIALOGUE

as always, please leave votes nd comments if you like!! this chap was a nightmare to write cuz i needed to avoid going all spooky like i originally wanted