lukewarm (krii7y)

forgive him

⚠️ prepare yourself
drug reference, violence, angst and a long ass chapter sorry
I honestly feel this fic is my best writing yet
—
"Burning bright right till the end
Now you'll be missing from the photographs, missing from the photographs"

Bastille - Good Grief

published 18:06 bst
—

It was another normal day in therapy, with John looking around his therapist's office. Mr Fong remained where he was, minding his own business until John was ready to talk. After a few minutes, John sat down. Mr Fong could tell that there was a change in his mood, so he asked him how he felt. John wasn't in the mood to talk. Eric had forced him to go.

"I think I should be able to ask you questions too," John suggested.

The suggestion made Evan Fong slightly uncomfortable. Still, if some personal information about himself was going to get his patient to open up, he was up for trying it. He smiled and nodded.

"I'm Canadian. I'm twenty-eight-"

"The scars. Below your chin and on your neck."

His therapist didn't like that, and he became visibly uncomfortable. Quietly, he cleared his throat and tried not to get emotional about it. He wasn't self conscious about the scars anymore, but they had been playing on his mind lately.

"There's only so much time can heal, I guess," Mr Fong replied.

"Are you married?" John inquired as he could sense he was hiding something.

The younger man thought he'd stop there, because it was obvious he was intruding. Mr Fong didn't reply to him. Instead, he sighed and dismissed his question with the wave of his hand. John shrunk into his seat a bit, sensing that he'd crossed a line.

--

John was with Scotty, Marcel and Craig. He wasn't sure where his friendship stood with Anthony, it was a little awkward since he announced he didn't like Jaren. They were just chilling in Marcel's car, talking about anything and everything.

"You have to take care of yourself, you know. All these nights out. Cracking your head open. Having seizures. Not remembering anything. Going off with strangers," Scotty warned him, as they were all concerned about him.

John wanted to reply with, how else was I supposed to cope, but he refrained and just accepted that he needed to stop being so reckless. Anthony would probably argue that since being with Jaren, that had doubled, but he put it out of his mind.

"I'd love for you guys to meet him," John proposed.

His friends exchanged nervous glances. It'd been a long time since they'd introduced anyone into their friendship group.

"Kinda hard since he's a ghost," Craig commented, gesturing a thumbs down for Jaren's strange behaviour.

He rolled his eyes at Craig, because he knew Jaren would show up soon.

Speaking of the devil, he almost had a heart attack when he heard the sound of someone tapping on the glass of the window he was sitting next to. When he turned his head to see who it was, it was his boyfriend. His eyes widened as he was very confused how he'd managed to find him so randomly. John's friend's looked at each other and nodded.

"No wonder he likes him. He looks like he belongs on fucking Tik Tok," Marcel pointed out.

The whole car (except John) was howling with laughter. John took a deep breath and went to open his car door, thinking I am not going to live this down, only for Jaren to open it for him with an annoyed expression. Well then, John thought.