Lockjaw (Joshler)

45. Hoops

***Trigger warning for suicidal thoughts/thoughts of self harm and PTSD.***

Start the song. It's When the Family Flies In by Julia Jacklin.

The lights had gone out ages ago, but Josh still hadn't closed his eyes. He just stared tiredly at the little window on his cell door, trying to convince himself that it was possible to fall asleep without seeing a pipe bashing into an already crushed skull. So far, he'd been unable to escape the nightmares that always seemed to be able to find him.

Josh wished he could call Tyler again. Everything would be so much better if he could just talk to Tyler. At the very least, he wished there was a guard on duty who actually gave a shit about him. He wanted to be around someone he could actually talk to. He was alone though, and it didn't look like that was going to change anytime soon.

Slowly, Josh's exhaustion started to tug his eyelids down without his consent. It seemed like he only blinked before he was sitting up in bed, drenched in sweat and having to scream himself awake. A panic attack followed as he tried to remind himself that it was just a memory, just a nightmare, just his brain forgetting that the riot wasn't still happening around him.

The guard on duty either didn't hear him or didn't care. He didn't even walk by Josh's cell to make sure he was safe. A familiar helplessness crept up on Josh, scraping the insides of his ribs with blunt fingernails as he choked on his breaths. He needed to get out of here. The room just kept getting smaller, wrapping its hands around his throat and choking the life out of him. Each of the walls seemed to have blue eyes, and Josh felt like he was dying.

Maybe it was instinct from years of feeling this way, years of being ignored when he needed help, years of not knowing if anyone would even care if he was around, but Josh shot out of bed, digging through his desk and shuffling through his bookshelf to find the one candle he hadn't sent to Tyler after losing their bet about which of his teeth was fake.

He knocked the glass of the prayer candle hard against the floor, looking nervously at the door to make sure the guard hadn't heard anything when it shattered. When no one immediately came running, Josh gathered up the shards of glass from the floor, not caring if they nicked his fingers and palms as he did so. He then dug through them until he found one large enough and sharp enough to cause some real damage.

Although Josh had done this a million times, he hesitated this time. This had never exactly worked for him, obviously, since he was still alive. It might make his mom finally come in, which he wanted so badly he almost couldn't stand it, but Tyler would be worried. Hoppus would be worried. Frangipane would be worried. Abbie would be worried. Was upsetting all of those people worth the chance of seeing his mom for fifteen minutes before being ushered off to spend the next three days on suicide watch?

Josh turned the shard of glass around in his hand so he could look at it more closely. It was sharp. It might actually be able to do the job, or at the very least, to distract him from those blue eyes for a while. Was that worth it?

After taking a deep breath in and blowing it out, Josh gathered up all of the glass into his hands again before dropping every last shard of it into the trash bin by his desk. He felt like he was on the verge of a breakdown as he dug through his desk for a minute before procuring an empty sketchpad and some pencils. He hadn't really given himself permission to draw for a very long time, but tonight was different. Tonight, this sketchpad was the only thing standing between him and the infirmary, so he drew until the buzzers went off to wake the inmates up and the lights came on.

The sketchbook was absolutely full now. Not all of the drawings were great, but it had still felt good to put them on paper. It felt even better when his cell door opened a few moments later to let him know he had a visitor. He tossed his drawings to the side and allowed himself to be cuffed and led out to the visiting room.