Big Book Of Parvill One Shots

Like A Joke (S)

TW: Alternate Universe-Reincarnation, Drinking, Angst, Multiple Selves

~Chapter One: Strife's POV

It started out innocently enough. Normal enough.

Little towheaded William Strife who drew pictures of his imaginary friend. Drew them in his mind before he knew how to hold a crayon. But they didn't know that.

It started out as boxes for bodies, circles for heads, heavy lines for appendages. The indistinct drawings of childhood, where the scale was always off, relative importance of people being more important than their physical dimensions. A squiggle of dark hair and just two black dots for eyes. Teachers would ask who that was. Lots of little boys in the class had dark-hair and dark-eyes. Lots of little boys down the street too. But no, it was none of those boys. Will was insistent. Not those boys, another boy he knew, but one he hadn't met yet.

He'd draw himself in the pictures too. Blond hair, green eyes, holding hands with his ordinary enough imaginary friend with a smile so big it made up for the thin line that was Will's mouth. Smiled enough for the both of them.

He grew older, and his hair a little darker. Did well enough in school. He liked science and art and everyone commented it was such an odd combination, but Will excelled, so they let him be. No longer did he show his teachers the drawings that had become only for his eyes.

Reading predictable books about love and seeing vulgar images of intercourse, Will grew up perfectly normal. Hid boxes of drawings of a dark-eyed, dark-haired boy under his bed in a shoebox. Sometimes they held hands; sometimes they did other things. Sometimes, after his parents went to bed, he would look at the images rendered with his own hand and touch himself in the dark.

His acquaintances, they weren't really friends, he was too serious to make friends, to disclose his private thoughts, would joke about when they were younger and Will would compulsively draw his imaginary friend. Like a normal teen, he would laugh the whole idea off as if it were nothing. Yeah, kids do such weird things. Now he knew well enough not to share, they would never understand. Honestly, he didn't understand either.

Dozens of pictures, maybe more, definitely more. He had lost some of them in the margins of notebooks or not saved the file before closing the Photoshop window, instead just etching the memory onto his mind. Subtle changes between each rendition. When he drew himself, it was always the same. Sort of blond, sort of green-eyed, sort of alright looking, he guessed. But the other, his 'imaginary friend,' was subtly different. Sometimes his eyes were warmer, browner; sometimes black pupils all the way down with no iris. Different heights, different weights. Same smile. That was clear. Same boy. Will grew older and the drawings changed from boys with shaggy hair to grown men. Stubble and muscles and all the trappings of maturity. His hands knew the man in the picture.

Each day he resolved that he would put aside the habit of drawing, but he didn't, its allure too strong.

In college, a boyfriend-of-the-week found the shoebox in his closet. Looking through it without asking like the inconsiderate asshole he was. Asked about the pictures, though, and the only answer Will had was "my imaginary friend."

Later that night, on his back with his legs in the air, he moaned out "Alex," which was definitely not his asshole boyfriend's name. Not even close. Well, that was the end of that. Asshole had the presence of mind to finish and tie off the condom before storming off in a rage. Left Will still hard and alone.

Once Will had showered and wrapped himself in his fluffy comforter to keep the chill out, he pulled the box down from the shelf. Examined the pictures again, almost twenty years of them. Alex, Alex, Alex. So that was his name. It had never occurred to him before that his friend had a name. Just an extension of himself, really. The idea of him was always sort of hazy. But now he had a name and Will rolled it around in his head first, then off of his lips. Alex Parvis.