The Neighbor Next Door

Trying

The next few days were... Strained, to say the least. OJ hadn't heard anything more from 3gs after sending an apology text, but he kept his appearances up as best as he could to his kids. It was clear the two had overheard... Something, having asked if everything was okay the following morning, but this just... Wasn't something he needed his kids to worry about. Especially not during this time of the year.

And well... MePhone wasn't much of a person anymore. He had woken up Monday morning, right after OJ had gotten home from dropping his kids off at school. The ginger had gone into the room to check on him, only to find him crying again. OJ had done his best to comfort the other, but it was clear it hadn't helped much by the time the crying stopped.

MePhone just quietly trembled in the other's hold, his own grip on the other tight, as if he were scared he'd be torn away if he let go.

OJ didn't really know what to say. They still had no idea what happened during the week he had been missing, or what 5 could've done to him, and it would be horribly inappropriate to ask him now. It was clear it was upsetting enough to tear him all the way back down. MePhone didn't say anything either. It was a quiet hour beyond this, before it was clear the other had fallen back asleep, the shaking having stopped, and the grip on the back of his shirt loose. OJ just let out a quiet sigh, separating from the hold.

He was probably going to call out of work today. There was a lot he was probably going to have to deal with, but he refused to leave MePhone to deal with something like this on his own.

Really, he was still just trying to think about how they were supposed to get through this. His first idea was to just try to keep things normal, and like nothing was off, but that would only be temporary. They would still have to talk about things eventually, though... Maybe the normal approach would work then. A distraction until he was ready to open up. Christmas was coming up really fast too, anyways. Keep him feeling included, and safe as best he could during all this... Though it would be harder to hide this massive shift in mood from his kids with them being off of school for the next two and a half weeks after tomorrow.

Though, this was the best he could do, really.

...

MePhone felt numb when he woke up again. He didn't register much when he actually opened his eyes, just that he was still at OJ's house, in his room, though OJ himself was clearly elsewhere in the house. It took him a while to will the energy to sit up, trying really hard at this point to just feel... Okay. Not even happy or anything, just okay, and fine. He didn't want to cry over this anymore. Earlier, last time he had woken up, he was torn out of a particularly rough nightmare, and that of course had to be the time OJ saw him like that. He felt embarrassed, honestly, but there wasn't anything to be done about it now. He picked up his glasses, his new, honestly kind of nice glasses, off of the nightstand that was next to the bed, just looking them over for a moment.

Honestly, he didn't know why he felt so terrified yesterday. Maybe it was just his brain messing with him, or trying to forget about it to lessen the pain, but that obviously wasn't what happened.

He had lived through it. He had been fine while living through it. A bit shaken, and frustrated, and upset, and... Well a whole lot of negative things along with him just being generally out of it, but he was here now. His house wasn't going to be torn away from him, and he was safe. Maybe it was just the suddenness of feeling all of it again. Maybe it was hurting him a lot more than he thought. He just... Didn't know, honestly. All he did know was that this hurt. It hurt a lot, and he was so scared now, and paranoid, and for what. What did any of this have to happen for. What did he do to deserve something like this after starting to do so well. He was healing. And yet now he wasn't. All of his progress just felt... Gone. He was back at exactly where he started half a year ago.