A Devil for Me

Careful What You Wish for

"Welcome home kid. We're sure you'll like it here" 

They were right. He had fit right in with the four of them, immediately taking to the TV when he saw they had Party Animals on it. His face lit up and headphones were around his neck while he rubbed his eyes to get a better view, having played it back when he was in middle school before everything happened. 

"Come on, you can play Party Animals in a bit. Gotta show you a house tour" 

Coming back to reality, he nodded to follow the 6ft male to the hallway, both lightly jogging up the stairs, before opening the door to the empty room at the end of the hallway with an attached bathroom and a walk-in closet. The bare room sparked the imagination of the male who stepped inside the bare-ridden room to glance around, moving a headphone back from his ear to stop dead in his tracks, trying to process that he had his room for privacy and didn't need to share it. 

"Ideas?'

"Yeah..."

"Wanna talk about it while we get your air mattress up?" 

Glancing over to the older, making contact with Jolly who had pitched his voice. already holding the already blown-up air mattress. Silence echoed between the two while they got the room situated around how he liked it, Dustin getting lost in his thoughts since he had stopped halfway into putting shelves up. A heavy sigh escaped Jolly's mouth to place a hand on his shoulder gently. 

"Kid. It's going to be hard for a bit. I get you're in a tight place financially, mentally, and with everything. We all were like that when the band first made money. Say, why not I talk to the guys about going out tonight for rollerskating and giving you some space?" 

Respecting his own words, he gently closed the door, the youngest just falling back onto the air mattress. He must've been dreaming. There's no way they were being this nice. Not one bit. He couldn't believe it. Maybe they were taking it easy on him since he had nothing for the time. No. Right? Potentially. 

Collecting his thoughts, he dragged himself off the mattress to push it up against the wall and the corner, placing the pillows, cover, and blankets given to him so he wouldn't be freezing since the temps fluctuated frequently. Virginia had been different than his home state. He wanted to ensure this would be the right fit for him. Glancing at his phone messages, he saw many missed messages from Remington and Emerson asking how he was doing back in the States, but none from the one he cared about so deeply.  

Maybe he thought that he had officially moved on. Moved on to the woman who had been in the Instagram picture with him. That would now be in his house, In his room, his bed. On him. That made his skin crawl, knowing that she would be all over him, just how he was. Made him feel sick. Physically and mentally.  Physically to the point of him having stumbled to the bathroom to reject what he had eaten on the plane trip back, remnants into the toilet that he gripped onto. 

With a heavy sigh, he rolled onto his back, wiping at his mouth with his sleeve. Hair caked to his forehead with watery eyes accompanying the sniffles that his nose let out. Glancing up behind the blur that his eyes held, pulling himself up from the bathroom floor to hold onto the shower door with a shaky sigh. Taking slow steps to the door after making sure the toilet had been flushed beforehand.

Door knob in hand, he opens the door to step out into the hallway. hoodie coming off to reveal the long-sleeve shirt he had stashed underneath to hold it in his arms with a somewhat slightly yet shaky step down the stairs of the two-level house they shared, making it into the living room where Folio and Nick resided for the time since they were watching late night football replays that they missed from the previous Sunday. Nick, from the corner of his eye, had seen the younger coming down the hallway. 

Already getting up from his spot, he went into parent mode, placing his hand on the younger forehead after moving his hair from his face, signaling to Folio to get the clothes that he held in his arms, Nick already taking the younger to the kitchen to get his temp and make sure that wasn't running a fever since his head had felt hot when he had put his hand against his forehead. 

"I'm going to take your temp just to make sure that you're not above 98*, then we can see if you're feeling better by this afternoon if you still wanna go rollerskating. But if you don't mind me asking, what caused this? You don't have to go into detail if you don't want to" 

With a sigh, Dustin glanced up at Nick to show him the post and the photos, the older nodding in acknowledgment to have him transfer the pictures to his phone so he could send them to the guys at a later date. The thermometer beeped to read the temp which had died down since the temp of the house had been slightly below 70 to show that he had been under 98 which made them all sigh happily since he could go rollerskating if he wanted 

"Still want to go?" 

Nick turned his head towards the youngest who nodded before running off to go annoy the others and beat them in Party Animals when he asked to play against them. Noah and Folio on the couch, Jolly on the ground against the other couch, and Dustin sitting on the ground in front of Noah to try and sabotage his controller so he couldn't throw him off to the point of all four of them screaming at each other when one got flung off the edge. 

"WHY ARE OTTERS WITH FRYING PANS DEADLY???" 

"I COULD ASK YOU THE SAME MR. SONIC THE HEDGEHOG PORCUPINE" 

"TONY THE TIGER DOESNT NEED A POWERUP" 

While the others were screaming, Dustin concentrated on trying to launch the others off, Noah having the advantage of glancing down at his strategies to see what buttons and triggers he had been using to get them all off so they could fail while Folio shot off a message to Noah with Jolly and Dustin trying to throw down with each other 

F0L1O: You know what i thought of? 

NoWAH: What, what did you think of?

F0L1O: Why not get Dustin an emotional support pet? 

NoWAH: Like a cat? I think that it would work since he would be able to chill while also having something to sleep with at night. Wanna go now?

F0L1O: Yeah, we'll just have to make it look like we're going to the grocery store

Both of the males set down their controllers, getting looks from the other two who had paused the game to glance up at them while they started heading to the kitchen. Letting them know that they were gonna go to the grocery store to see if they needed anything stocked up while they were out and about. 

~~~~~~~

After what felt to be close to an hour and a half, the two males returned, and Folio held a tiny carrier in his arms. Inside sat a snow-white cat with ginger tabby stripes with light blue eyes that mewled slightly to glance around through the mesh front covering, both males noticing that Dustin had fallen asleep on the couch with his head lolled to one side on the pillow, Jolly already having put the controllers up with the T.V. on soft background noise to go over where the other two were to gently take the kitten out of the carrier to softly carry it, little paws opening and closing to mewl softly at the air before it got placed onto Dustins abdomen. 

After a few minutes of silence, Dustin stirred. The little mewls pulled him out of his trance to rub at his eyes. Glancing at the kitten, the males stood a bit away from the two while a smile crept up on his face softly, before it turned into waterworks of pure joy and happiness. He had always wanted a kitten, but now that he had finally got one, he could feel safer than he had been when he had been in England those few days after going to the hotel. 

With the purring kitten in his lap, he smiles happily to migrate back into his room, the food and water bowl already in the room along with a small cat tree, cat bed, and toys for the kitten to play with. Along with a small collar of red and black since it stood out against the kitten's white fur. Both happy, the kitten now having moved up against the side of his chest with a big smile on its tiny face 

"Welcome home Omen.. you'll love it here as much as I do"