House Mates

Empty

Darryl laid in bed staring blankly at the ceiling. Worry, fear, anticipation, and sadness swelled in his chest.

He shouted at Zak because he was messing around again and he ended the call on him abruptly. He wouldn't answer his calls or texts, he had assumed he went to bed.
Only moments later George and Clay returned home. George was crying with a giant bruise on his neck and was sopping wet, and Clay looked extremely angry, he too was sopping wet.

Almost died, don't want to talk about it.

It felt like a DVD sleeping screen, where the logo "DVD" with a floppy disk would drift across the screen bouncing off the sides, occasionally perfectly fitting into a corner before leaving once more.

The words bounced against his skull slowly, excruciatingly slow.

He wasn't going to rush them, it had almost been 5 hours since then. And with it being 4 am and Bad was still not asleep he just gave up.

He sat up and climbed out of bed. He didn't bother bringing his phone as he left his room and went down the stairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen. He brewed himself a pot of coffee and nommed on some gram-crackers.

He settled on the couch and started watching whatever show he found mildly interesting. Coffee in hand, remote in the other, TV on, 2 gram-crackers half shoved in his mouth, and tears finding their way down his face as he scrolled through movies was almost comedic.

He settled under a blanket and by the time the show was over and on to something else, something much scarier, Bad was already comfortable and the remote was already perched on the coffee table. He was too hyped on his coffee to sleep through the horror show and didn't have his phone to distract him.

Instead, he sat and watched the horror show, all of it. Somehow he found it enjoyable even if he was terrified and sobbing silently through most of it.
By 9 am Bad got up and got a second cup of Joe.

No one else was awake still, no one to stop him from spiraling.

He kept telling himself not to spiral, he didn't have the right! Did he not see George and Clay?! Zak even?! He didn't deserve to feel this lonely. He has roommates! That's exactly why he got roommates in the first place!

That's why he got roommates in the first place....

He couldn't stand to be in a house all alone where he had grown up, been beaten, dragged away from his only safe haven to live with his mom, return back, only for his safe haven to die not even a year later. His first dog soon after that.

Was it him? Was he the reason everyone was so miserable? He didn't mean to-!

Bad found himself hyperventilating and crying harder.
"Darry?!" Sap yelped placing a gentle hand on Bad's back.
Darryl's only response was to lean into the touch, a small welcome to the younger male.

"Hey, hey, breathe!" The youngest attempted, he had never gone through something like this.
How was he supposed to help?!

"Ssssshhhh, Bad?" Sap fidgetted.
Bad bit his tongue harshly, any harder and he probably would have bitten it clean off.
"Uh- uhm... Breath in.... Breath out... Bad?" Nick stammered forgetting with his phone.

Homies:

S: how to stop someone from hyperventilating?

G: idk googlie it

G: **google

D: ask Bad?

S: can't he's the one hyperventilating