The Ballad of a Buried Beast

Chapter 21.

With my explanation given and her bow neatly tied, I had nothing more to offer her. I left the bathroom in silence, and as the morning twilight broke into its bright hues neither of us acknowledged what had been said.

"Mornin', Jack," Sam yawned, stretching out his arms as he arose from his chair, Jason joining him soon after. "What time is it?"

"Uhh-" I glanced over at a clock hung in the kitchen, "Nearing seven, I think."

"Seven?" Jason rubbed his sweaty face and shook his head against his palms, "Fuuck, man... I-" he paused as his eyes landed on me, "Ayyo, why're you shirtless?"

I followed his raised finger, then glanced at Sam as he sported the same questioning expression. My shirt was currently sopping wet and black with grime, curled up and tossed into a corner of the bathroom. And that was where Malo was. And I was still wet. 

"Shit, right-uh-" I opened my mouth to stammer out an excuse, but as my cheeks flushed an anxious red Jason sputtered out a scoff and shook his head. 

"Whatever, never mind. Might-" he cupped a hand over his mouth with a yawn and stretched out his arms and legs like a cat, "Running late enough as-is--you said it was seven?" he repeated. 

I pulled up my discarded blanket at the side and wrapped it over my shoulders as a makeshift poncho. "Yeah, seven," I told him. "But, hold on--you said 'late'?" 

Jason turned to Sam, and Sam cocked an eyebrow at Jason. He was just as confused as I.

"Yeah, y'know, late," Jason repeated. "The thing you are when you don't show up on time and-, and you-uh," his words fell into a stasis as a third presence made itself known to us, Mal bleeding out of the bathroom's shadows behind me."Ahhhh... Shit, that all-," he planted a palm against his temple and shook his head, "That wasn't a dream, huh?"

I shook my head, and his disbelief flickered into something else as his posture straightened in the chair.

"Fuck," he mumbled. "I mean, of fuckin' course it wasn't a dream," his palms rubbed his skin in circles, "And right when I get a good gig, too..."

The word caught my off guard, so I raised a brow as Sam fell into his own silent realizations on the side. "What gig?" I asked. 

"I got that fuckin'-uhhh," Jason snapped his fingers a few times, "That gig--that internship--at Bluehill."

"The pharmacy?"

"Yeah, that one. Down on mainstreet."

"Oh shit," I popped a grin as what he said clicked in my head; I'd forgotten Jason was studying to be a pharmacist. "That's the one my grandma goes to--how'd that go, man?"

He shrugged his shoulders and patted his legs. "Oh, y'know," he shrugged, "Good, good. -Y'know, a sort've calm gig--a real educational one, I'd say.  Would've learned a lot, actually."

"You-?" my eyes blanked as my mind finally caught up with the situation, "O-oh, you-"

"Yeah, Jack," he bit his lips with an unnecessary smile and gestured over to Malo with a nod, "Would've."

"Shit, man." 

"Yeah, shit indeed!" he nodded and returned to his pattings against his knees. "Shit. Indeed." 

I stared at him, and he at me. His eyes held an almost physical baring of spite in them, but beneath that I could also see his genuine worry. His sarcasm was a leeway into a more serious topic, one which I hadn't realized we needed to have. Our futures were at stake now; we were outlaws.