The Sowachowski Murders

Reconciliation

It was three in the morning when Jonathan was rudely awakened. He sat up and blearily rubbed his eyes, kicking his duvet off the bed.

"Who's there?" he slurred. He stretched, joints clicking after his four-hour long browsing session. Unusually, the internet had been good to him: all of his websites had numerous updates that were more than vaguely interesting, and the discovery of a new blog had kept him scrolling until it was way past midnight.

A pair of green eyes suddenly burst into his blurred vision. "Well, howdy there partner!" Jumping off the bed, Jonathan groaned in surprise and pain. The eyes drifted towards him, anxious. "You ok there?"

"Sock?"

Sock smirked, looking like a cat who got the cream. Jonathan half-expected him to start purring happily. "Aw, you missed me."

Jonathan raised his eyebrows as he attempted to regain some of his dignity. "What? No. Where did you go?"

"Hell! I was preparing your room but you didn't show up." Mock sulky, Sock pouted and flipped in the air, before looming up on Jonathan's face, Cheshire-cat grin planted on his smug features. "What was keeping you?"

Jonathan blinked, incredulous. "Stop that." Sock begun to interrupt but Jonathan waved his hand at him, accidentally, or maybe not, going through Sock's torso. "Why did you go?"

Silence. Sock blinked at him, temporarily losing his composure. "I... uh... I have no idea what you're talking about Jonathan," he said brightly. Too brightly, a harsh brightness that contrasted the way his entire being retracted from Jonathan, shrinking into the corner.

"Sock, did you go because you thought I wouldn't like you?"

"No."

Jonathan raised his eyebrow.

In a small voice, Sock muttered, "Fine, yes."

"You're an idiot, Sock."

"What?"

"You've been trying to make me kill myself for who knows how long, and you're scared that I won't like you anymore because you murdered a few people? Well, I mean, isn't it better for you if I didn't like you?"

"That's what Mephi said."

"Mephi?"

"Boss."

Jonathan raised his eyebrow. "Not Satan? Red guy with horns and a pointy tail?"

"The only red thing about Mephi is his hair! And his suit..." Sock said, drifting into the corner of the room. He blinked at a poster on the wall, with a band name blazoned across the bottom in big, cartoonish letters. "Hey, this is new!"

Instead of replying, Jonathan just scowled at him, giving Sock a pointed look.

"What?"

"I think I deserve an apology."

"An apology?" Sock's eyes widened incredulously. "For what?"

"For leaving me alone," Jonathan said, "and coming back as if nothing happened."

"Jonathan," Sock said after a long pause. "How do you know that this was not an elaborate plot to get you to kill yourself?"

"Because you don't have the brains."

"Hey! I do have the brains!"

Jonathan rolled his eyes, pulling his duvet back onto his bed and snuggling up under it. He was tired, after all, and not in the mood for arguing any longer. Besides, he was certain that he heard the bed from the next room creak, and he was not prepared for an early explanation of why he was talking to himself at three in the morning. "Night Sock."

He waited for a few moments, snuggled under the covers. In the next room, he could hear his mother muttering, and hoped that she wouldn't come into his room.

"I'm sorry Jonathan."

Jonathan looked up, met a pair of bright green eyes and smiled as the bedroom door creaked open.