In The Black (BxB)✔

Chapter 29 - Stir Crazy

"Make sure not to forget your pain killers, and keep an eye on the mail. Your new phone should be here by tomorrow at the latest. I wrote down my number on the fridge so you can add it to your contacts when it arrives. If somehow the note gets lost you can always ask my parents for my number, or just use the landline."

    "Peter." Frank stepped forward with an annoyed grimace. "Go away already."

It was 9 A.M. the next morning and Mr. Black was preparing to leave for the airport. Unfortunately the meticulous demon kept stopping to pester David until his parents had enough of his nagging and promptly shooed him off before he was late for his flight.

    Peter gave his parents one last hug, then glanced longingly towards David. He made a move like he was going to hug the small human as well, but stopped himself and gave a curt nod instead, then rushed towards the waiting car.

    David couldn't blame him. The two of them had been on edge around each other ever since the incident last night. As a matter of fact, David was the one caught staring at Peter this morning. Frank was the one who noticed and made a smart-aleck remark about taking a picture, which snapped David back to his senses. Then Katherine offered to bring out some childhood photos to lighten the mood. Unfortunately Peter's ride arrived before they had a chance to show him anything embarrassing.

    An empty sensation began to flood his chest as he watched the demon leave. He put a hand over his heart in a futile attempt to fill the newly formed void before returning to the house.

    "Don't worry about a thing. Just take it easy and we'll be out back if you need us." Katherine smiled motherly at him as she and her husband prepared for their daily chores.

    Not in the mood to argue, he agreed and trotted upstairs where he immediately realized there was nothing to do. Despite only having the device for a short while, David now understood why people obsessed over their cell phones.

    Bored and desperate to take his mind off his worries, he turned on the television and flipped through the channels until he settled on watching reruns of 'The Nanny'.

    The next few days went by uneventfully. His new phone had arrived, but without internet service he couldn't do much with it. His texts took ages to go through unless he wandered out onto the nearest hill and even then, if a cloud was passing then his signal wasn't strong enough for video or phone calls. It was a miracle that he had even received that unknown call the other day.

    Katherine and Frank insisted that he act like he was on vacation and utterly refused to let him help with any of their chores until he was healed. While he appreciated the thought, he was quickly becoming stir crazy. He soon took up watching old black and white VHS movies where he discovered a series called "I Love Lucy". Whenever he was finished binging that for the day, he'd wander outside and watch Frank work in the barn. The man was usually doing different things, from wood carving to mending fences to tending to the horses with Katherine.

    Once, the man offered to teach David how to shoe a horse. This was the point where he realized just how bored he was when he was momentarily enthralled by the mans expertise.

Every day he contemplated calling Mr. Black on the landline, but then would chicken out and find something else to do. After all, what was he going to say? It's not like he had anything interesting to talk about.

The old movies got tiring after a while and David started to hunt for something else to pass the time. He began going through the books on the shelves in search of reading material, but was sorely disappointed when he realized they were all encyclopedias and instruction manuals.