Lockjaw (Joshler)

9. Human

***Trigger warning for suicidal thoughts.***

Start the song. It's Too Small for Eyes by Mothers.

When Hoppus told Josh he had to leave for the night, Josh stared at the wall behind him instead of meeting the guard's eyes. He was still curled up into a ball on his bed, feeling just as depressed and lonely as he had before his mom had come to see him. Hoppus had apologized to Josh at least a million times, but Josh couldn't bring himself to reply. He was all alone now. He knew the next guard wasn't going to give a shit about him.

He was right about that. The new guard barely spoke to Josh, sitting outside the cell and monitoring him from a distance. He didn't really talk to Josh apart from occasionally asking him if he was feeling suicidal, which was pretty obviously the case.

Josh kept staring at the wall, feeling hollow. He didn't touch the tray of food that was given to him, not even sipping the water that was meant to replenish the fluids he'd lost during all of his panic attacks. What did it matter if he ate or drank when the real hole inside of him was incapable of being filled by food and water?

The day dragged on, and his mom didn't come back. She didn't call. No one did. Josh's only way to measure time was the changing of guards. He barely glanced at them when they switched out, simply going back to either staring at the ceiling or sleeping. That is, until the third guard of the day was replaced with one that he'd never seen before in solitary, one who probably couldn't even be in the solitary block for the most part. There was no way this guard would be allowed near that many touch-starved criminal men because she was the first female guard Josh had seen since juvie.

Her hair was long and blue, pulled back into a bun that couldn't be grabbed as easily by convicts as a ponytail or a braid could be-not that Josh would ever do that. He wasn't like that, which is probably why he was trusted to have her on the other side of the bars.

She seemed to notice his surprise, smiling with lips that were bubblegum pink even without lipstick as she rolled her hazel eyes. Her eyelashes were miles long, and her nose and cheeks were dusted with a sprinkle of freckles. It would be stupid to say that she was the most beautiful woman Josh had ever seen since he hadn't seen any women besides his mom, his therapist, and his sister within the past eight years, but she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Naturally, he tried not to look at her.

"Go ahead and get your sexist comments in now. My best bet is that you'll run out by the end of my shift," she said in a raspy but warm voice.

"I'm good," Josh replied quietly, keeping his eyes on the ceiling above him to avoid staring at her.

The guard chuckled. "Not even one? You don't even want to ask me what's under my uniform or if my husband knows where I am?"

"No, I'm good," Josh repeated, still not looking at her.

He heard the scraping of the folding chair outside of his cell being dragged closer to the bars before she sat down. "I've heard a lot about you, Dun," she told him, her voice still warm. "You're a tough guy. It takes a special kind of person to get through all the shit you've been through and to never cause any trouble in here. You haven't been in any fights, assaulted any officers, or been caught with drugs or porn. Nothing. You're a model prisoner."

"Yeah, well, I've gotten used to it. It's habit now," Josh replied, his face flushing when he heard her laugh. His heart jumped in his chest, making him remember trying to impress girls in middle school. He couldn't do that here. He couldn't do that anywhere. He was twenty years old and in prison. He needed to have more composure than this. "I'm serious. This is all I know."