Tempest (Royce/Winston)

011

Jacob's P.O.V.

I woke up before Chresanto did, I could already tell he wasn't one for waking up early when he didn't need to. I could understand that, I think I would be too, but for some reason I always tend to wake up early in the morning. It was annoying really, but there was nothing I could do about it. Chresanto wasn't facing me, his body was facing the opposite way so all I could see was the back of his head. We'd fallen asleep in our clothes from yesterday, both of us too tired to change.

I slipped from the bed without waking him, and walked to his room. I wasn't woken up in the middle of the night, so that must mean that Elijah slept through the night without too much pain. I pushed open the door to Chresanto's room, seeing if Ray and Elijah were awake yet. Ray was, he was on his phone while Elijah lay beside him still asleep.

"Morning" I murmured quietly, I walked into the room and decided to lean against the wall because Chresanto had no other place to sit down except for his bed. I'd have to talk to him about his lack of furniture later on.

"Hey" Ray greeted, he glanced at me for a second, "is Chres still sleeping?"

"Yeah".

"I figured, he won't get up unless he has to".

"Did he sleep okay?" I asked, referring to Elijah.

"Yeah, he only woke up once complaining about how he felt like he'd been hit with a ton of bricks, but other than that he's fine. When he wakes up he's got to get new bandages though".

I looked at Elijah's bandages and could see the blood beginning to stain the white rectangles. The bruise on his jaw looked pretty bad and so did his lip, it'd probably take a few weeks for both to really heal.

"So, um..." I began, thinking about how I wanted to ask my question. "Are you and Elijah like a thing?"

"Why do you ask?"

I shrugged, "you just seemed really worried last night, and I'm guessing that he's always over your house because apparently his parents don't treat him right or something?"

"I was worried because he's my friend" Ray answered, he looked at me with a plain expression, like he wasn't bothered by my question at all. "He stays over my house a lot because, yeah, his parents suck when it comes to caring for a child. Not only was I worried because he's my friend, I'm also asexual, so dating and all the things that come with it aren't really my thing".

"Oh" I murmured, "that's... Cool... Um, Elijah's parents don't hit him or anything like that, right?"

"No, I would've called the police if they had. They just don't really pay him any attention, they don't care if he comes home or not, or what he's doing after school, stuff like that. Whenever he is home, they feed him and all that stuff, but that's only so child protective services doesn't get on them for neglect".

"That fucking sucks" I stated.

"Yeah, he manages though".

Elijah turned over and stuffed his face into a pillow. He groaned loudly, before lifting his head a few inches away from the pillow.

"My body hurts".

"I could imagine" I stated, "what, with how you looked last night and all. What were you even doing out that late anyway?"

"Ray and I were just going for a walk, we'd been in his house all day and just wanted to get out. We were walking down the sidewalk one minute then I was on the ground getting jumped" Elijah explained, pulling the blanket up to his chin. "Ray tried helping, but it was those guys from last time, too many of them". Elijah rubbed his face, before sighing, "I need to get money so I can pay them".