Mumble

②⓪①⑤ - C H A P T E R [2]

Trigger Warning: The end of this chapter depicts a panic attack. If that's something that makes you uncomfortable but want to know the gist of what happened, ask in the comments below.

②⓪①⑤

It was still raining when Ozzie woke up, the sound of it monotonous and grating in his ears. Ozzie pulled the ends of his comforter close, clenching the gray fabric between his fists as a frown creased the middle of his brow. From his bed, he could still hear the rain falling, a steady downpour that sounded heavier than the drizzle from earlier. It grayed out the sky, just like it grayed out his life, just like it grayed out the colors in his stained-glass window, funneling and muting and warping all light that passed through it.

Los Angeles may not have been 'the city that never sleeps' but LA didn't care. It didn't matter. It was still his birthday and it was still raining and cars still drove across slick LA streets just like people still walked down cracked city sidewalks; oblivious. Life moved on. Life continued. And it had nothing to do with him.

A cold feeling settled in his gut, tying it into anxious knots. A shiver ran down his spine unbidden by the temperature of the room. A sigh left his parted lips and he could just hear the faint clicking of the wall clock behind him tick-tick-ticking away over the sound of the rain. His head felt like it was filled with cotton and his mouth tasted like ass and really in the grand scheme of things he figured this was probably about as good of a morning as he could expect for today. Not that that made it any better. Los Angeles may have been the City of Angels, but there would be none flying here. Of that Ozzie was certain.

He opened his eyes.

A glance at the clock told him it was a quarter to eight. Ozzie released a breath, rolling onto his back and throwing an arm over his face. He was going to need to get up soon if he didn't want Toni to do it for him. Actually, it was a bit surprising that his Aunt hadn't already. Ozzie dragged a hand over his face, knee bent towards the ceiling, the blankets bunching themselves around his feet. He'd rather not explain why he was out of cigarettes again to her.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he got out of his bed, blinking blearily at his surroundings as he blindly felt for the glasses he'd left on the bedside table. He slipped them on his face when he found them, the dark gray sweats he'd worn to bed riding low on his hips when he stretched.

The room didn't look much different in the light. It was familiar, if not moderately subdued. A little messier. Its lines were a harsher where shadows receded back into their corners, the gray film that seemed to permeate everything spreading across their surfaces. The wall was littered with posters. On the floor, there were a few comics, the rest stacked in alphabetical order on the top three shelves of the bookshelf beside his desk. The last two levels housed his CD's and DVD's. On his desk sat his laptop and the turntable he used for his mixes, his headphones perched on the back of his chair. A spare X-Box controller sat on one of the two beanbags in front of the T.V mounted on his wall across from the lone window in the room.

He crossed over to it, kicking an empty cigarette carton under his bed on the way. There were a few crushed soda cans piled by the windowsill and a couple more by the foot of the bench. Dirty clothes were strewn haphazardly over the floor: a shirt here, a pair of boxers there, a couple of pants draped over the hamper in his room.

Ozzie reached the bench and picked up his phone, tapping the screen open with a yawn. There were no new messages. Not very surprising considering the only people he really talked to were James, Toni and kinda-sorta Clint. He scratched his chin, pulling up the message from James again: I'll C U @ 5.

Ozzie clicked his tongue, a curse mumbled under his breath before he tapped his phone closed. There wouldn't be much hope in changing James' mind, he knew—it was Saturday and his birthday and James was a well-meaning dick that wanted Ozzie to get out more so—fuck it. He'd deal with it later. He dropped his phone back on the bench and walked out the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.