Twisted pretzel Chapter 21 pt. 2: Hear, See, Speak No Evil
Title: Twisted Pretzel
Author: 2he_re (Heather and Reena)
Fandom: Jonas Brothers
Pairing(s): Joe/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, the real people in it are used without their permission and we do not own them or have any copyright to any part of any of them. We do not believe any of this happened, is likely to happen, or will happen. It is simply a story created around known facts about those involved.
Summary: Mrs. Johnson dislikes the Jonas Brothers. She hates Joe. Why? Doesn’t really matter does it? What matters is that she was playing a game to get rid of him. Death. Horrible death.
“Tristan Darthe” was her pawn. Arrested a year after the incident and tried. His mental state was proven to be unstable, and instead of a jail sentence he was sentenced to an asylum for the rest of his poor, pathetic, lonesome life, where I'm not even allowed to go suicidal.
Call me unstable, call me insane, but oh deary me, I’d loved that game. I mean, money is good and all, but you know, killing is better.
But damn, I’d lost.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 pt. 1 Chapter 21 pt. 2 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26
~*~
I slumped into the couch instead of the beanbag the next day in Dr. Quinter’s office. Joe had driven the two of us and my back hurt from sleeping outside of his door. Dr. Quinter stayed on his wheelie-chair.
“My back hurts,” I announced.
“Ah, so you have a problem.”
I snorted, rolling onto my stomach on the couch. “I have lots of problems.”
“And your back hurting is one?”
“Of many.”
“How did this happen?”
“Why do I have to come in everyday? Frankie only comes in twice a week, as does everyone else, except Joe and me.”
Dr. Quinter furrowed his eyebrows, thinking. He scrawled down something else on his paper. “You’re being put in an accelerated program. I don’t very well believe in it, but you have only two weeks to do what others get two years to do. They want an assessment on your mental standings whenever you see me, and they want to think you’ll improve to their liking in two weeks. Also they think you’ll confide in me everything, and I can spill the beans to them. Which I am, of course, not going to do. But, if you do tell me that you plan on killing someone, I am allowed to give them hints, in order to try and prevent the death.”
I arched my back, trying to stretch out the soreness. “They think I’m going to tell you if I plan on killing someone?”
“That is what they think, but both you and I know you’re smarter than that. But also that card I gave you with my number on it? You can call anytime if you think you’re going to do something bad. I can try and talk you out of it, and at least you’ll delay your actions enough that something could be done.”
I rolled off the couch.”I want to go now.”
Dr. Quinter closed his notebook, placing his pen on top. “See you tomorrow.”
I waited by the fountain after leaving Dr. Quinter’s office for Joe to appear. He looked at me and swallowed. He came close to me, reached out like he would touch me. He opened his mouth like he’d speak, but then his hand dropped and he just said, “Come on.” I followed him back to the car.
The next day we came at three o’clock. The parking lot was almost filled and Joe showed me the back way up. His hand touched my back when he followed me up the stairs.
“Do you know what’s wrong with Joe?” I claimed the wheelie-chair before Dr. Quinter could take it.
“No.”
I snorted. “Oh come on, you’re talking to his therapist.”
He shook his head. “Nope, I don’t really even know Janice. There are about a hundred different therapists who work in this building. I don’t know all of them.”
I froze. “So she might not be good?”
“Everyone here is good and they all-”
“But you don’t really know. You’re just taking someone’s word for it. Joe could be seeing a bitch.”
“Now, I’m sure -”
“I want to talk to her.”
“You can’t. She’s with Joe.”
“Joe can come to you today, and I can go to her and -”
“Tristan, how did you get the name Flash?”
I blinked. “What does that do with anything?”
He sank onto the top of his desk. “Curious.” He pulled out his notepad and pen.
“Do you know Flash, the action hero dude?”
“I have a daughter, not a son.”
“So you do have a daughter. Ten?”
“Eleven, and how did you get that name then? Does Frankie see you as a hero?”
I snorted. I left the wheelie-chair for the beanbag against the window. “No, Joe gave the name to me. I run, Flash runs. Joe ran with me a few times.”
He jotted something down. “Any other hobbies?”
“I draw. Joe bought me a sketchbook. I drew him once.”
“Just once?”
“Few more times than once,” I replied with a smile.
“You like him then?”
“I’m his boyfriend.”
“You two don’t seem like it.”
I scowled. “I know that. We have rough patches. One of them probably being why we’re here.”
“Have you ever considered you two aren’t right for each other?”
I gave him the nastiest face I could. “Are you one of those people who’s screaming for the end of us? Is it too harsh on your daughter’s eyes to have two gay men?”
“No, not everyone is thinking that.” Dr. Quinter took off his glasses rubbing his eyes. “My brother is gay, and yet I still talk to him on a regular basis and make sure he and his husband comes to Christmas dinner. If I had a problem with you and Joe, my boss wouldn’t let me talk to you. I’m only trying to help.”
I left the room. Joe took up his whole hour of talking. He tried to lead me out of the building by my arm, but I wouldn’t let him touch me.
I lay on the floor the next day, Dr. Quinter looking interestingly down at me. It was just after his lunch break. “You look kind of drunk.”
“Tired,” I said back.
“Long night?”
“Sleepless.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“How did I end up coming to you?” I asked.
Dr. Quinter sighed, his pen scribbling on the paper. “We’re a pretty exclusive group here, and we have a lot of celebrities come through, so our confidentiality is famous. Supposedly we’re the best in the area near you. Plus it’s expensive, and it has to be expensive for celebrities to have.”
I rolled over to my stomach. “I’ve done a lot of things normal people would consider bad.”
“But you don’t?”
I snorted. “Not really. I mean, one way or another, everything I dished out was deserved. I never had nightmares about any of it, but now I am.”
“What are the nightmares like?”
I rolled back to look at the ceiling. “I wake up shouting things a lot. I’m killing people in them.”
“Killing Joe?” I closed my eyes. I could feel his skin under my hand again. My nails were so sharp, I just twisted and his skin started to cut. I smiled when it happened, when I just wrapped my fingers around his heart and pulled it out. “Tristan?” I opened my eyes, my skin sticky again. Dr. Quinter looked concerned over me. “You need to talk to Joe.”
“Why Joe?”
“You talk about him, but it’s always in the past. Never anything you did recently. And your time is up.” When I left Joe was waiting at the backdoor.
“Hey,” he grabbed my arm, tight enough that if I tried to pull away, I wouldn’t be able to. “Remember what I said?”
“When?”
“On the bus, when you had the nightmare?”
“I’m supposed come to you if I’m going to kill someone. Don’t worry; I’m not going to kill my shrink yet.”
“No. Before that.”
I shook my head. “Don’t remember.”
“About Kevin? He’d suffocate in my dreams, and I’d have to sit outside his door?”
“What about it?” I started to pull away, but Joe caught me with his other hand. I turned my head down to the floor.
“You said you had a dream where I died then, too. You’ve been sleeping outside of my door ever since we got back. You’ve had nightmares.”
“No I’ve -”
His hand grabbed my chin and jerked my head up so I had to look him in the eyes. “Don’t lie to me. I thought we were over that.” I wanted to look away from him. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Don’t do that, okay?” I wrenched away from him.
I closed my eyes slowly, trying to convince myself lying in bed that I wouldn’t wake up in sweat tonight.
My dad hugged me, his arms wrapping around me. He kissed my throat. He ran his fingers down my bare back. His leg crooked over mine. He kissed my lips, he forced his tongue in. He moaned, his tongue licking my lips. I gagged, shoving him off. I scrambled to the nightstand. My hand groped in the dark. My fingers wrapped around the cool steel of the blade.
He growled, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me back. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming as the metal bit my hand. I spun around, and as he grabbed my lips. I stabbed him. The metal sliced through my palm, but it hit him. “Fuck you.”
I closed my eyes. His blood spilled over me, our blood mixed. I slammed my other hand into the hilt. I snapped my sliced hand away, and I cradled it at my chest. I looked up at Joe. I pressed my hand against him. I left a handprint of blood there. I spun away.
I gagged, my hand to my chest. I twisted to the side of the bed and I threw up. I closed my eyes, head reeling. I stepped into my vomit, and I stumbled up the stairs, just like every other past night.
Joe sat outside his door. He lurched towards me as I swayed. He grabbed me just before I hit the floor. I buried my head into his shoulder, and he scooped me up. He pulled me into his room, and collapsed on to his bed with me. I started to scoot away, but his arms wouldn’t let me go. He kissed my throat. “I’m alive. I’m here.”
Joe helped me clean up the vomit the next morning. He kept touching me, soothing the chills that ran up and down my spine. I made sure the shakes stayed. He came into the shower with me. He kept his boxers on, but he stripped mine all the way off. He turned the water on so hot much that it hurt, but I didn’t want to move out from under it. His hands slid over me, pushing around the soap. “It’s okay,” he kept saying. “I’m alive.” I couldn’t even fake the shakes anymore when Joe wrapped a towel around me.
“You look better today,” Dr. Quinter observed. I curled up in my favorite beanbag against the window, my hair still a little damp.
“Yeah.”
“Did you and Joe talk?”
“Kind of.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“I had a dream about my dad.”
“Have you talked to your dad recently?”
I snorted. “No, I think he’s dead.”
“You think?”
“In my dream I got to kill him. I loved it and hated it at the same time.”
“Why did you hate it?”
“I killed him, and he turned into Joe. I threw up when I woke up. I have to go outside Joe’s door, so I know he’s alive. That I haven’t killed him.”
“That’s why your back hurt then? You slept outside his door?”
“He was waiting for me last night. Somehow he knew I was having nightmares, and he pulled me in. How does he know what I’m dreaming about?”
“He knew?”
“He knew I killed him in my sleep.”
“Do you know why you keep killing him in your sleep?” I shook my head. Something tickled at the edge of my brain, something I should remember, but I couldn’t. “Do you think it could because you’re afraid of hurting people close to him?”
“Never had nightmares before.”
Dr. Quinter wrote something down on his paper. “Never?”
“If you find out I’m a bad person, would you make your daughter stop listening to the Jonas Brothers?”
He asked his own question in answer. “Do you think it would help if you and Joe had sessions together?”
“Maybe with the ones we have now? I think he likes whatever he does in there. He’s talking to me again. We talked once he came out yesterday.”
“Did you start the conversation?”
“He did.”
“What did you say?” I shook my head. “You done talking for today?”
“Yeah.”
“If I asked about that necklace you’re always wearing, would you tell me about it?”
My hand reached up to wrap around the cold metal heart. “Joe gave it to me. A Christmas present.”
“All the way back in Christmas he gave you his heart?” I twisted the heart around in my fingers. He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “How about next session, we’ll have thirty minutes together with Joe and Janice?”
“Sure.”
“You should say something to Joe. I'll see you on Monday.”
I held Joe’s hand when we walked out to the car. I squeezed it before I let go. Joe squeezed back. “Just come into my room next time, okay?”
“Yeah,” I croaked. I smoothed my sweaty hands against my jeans. He turned the radio down a little. “Hey, um, next session, can we double up?”
“You’ll like Janice.”
“I think you’ll like Dr. Quinter.”
Joe gave a grin. “Frankie loves Sid.”
I laughed. “The furry animal or whatever from Ice Age?”
Joe nodded. “As far as Frankie is concerned, Sid just listens to him and plays games with him sometimes. A pretty awesome guy.”
“We kind of talk, sometimes. What’s Janice like?”
“Old. She’s really nice though, and listens.”
Something hot flashed through my stomach. “I can listen too.”
Joe swallowed. “It’s not the same. She’s just, I don’t know, you’re not her.”
“Yeah,” I leaned forward on the dashboard. “You’re not Sid either.”
We remained silent the rest of the ride, but when I started to go to my room, Joe followed me. He grabbed my arm before I could get to the doorway. “I didn’t mean it like whatever you’re thinking. She just gives me time to think, and I’ve been thinking a lot.”
“About?”
“Everything, mostly you and me. Everything I said, and then kind of went back on.”
“’I’m always going to be there for you’?”
Joe chuckled, rubbing his hand through the back of his hair. “I’m trying to keep to that. I don’t want to leave you, but I feel like I need to make Mom and Dad happy. It’s hard.”
“It’s not -”
“You never had to go through this,” he snapped. “Fuck,” he closed his eyes, “I didn’t mean to yell.”
I pressed a kiss to each of his eyelids, and they fluttered open. I cupped his cheek. “But you’re right.”
“That’s one of the things I’m supposed to not do, yell. Yelling doesn’t solve anything. Talking does.”
I kissed him, nipping his lip. “We’re talking now.” I was touching him, finally touching him again, in a sexual way. Soon, soon enough I’d need something from him, something more than just the almost innocent moments we shared. “You don’t yell, I won’t kill, and we’ll be the happiest couple in existence.”
Joe pressed me against the kitchen wall. “Mhmm.” His tongue traced my lips.
I ended up happy and content in bed ready to fall asleep. I felt good, better than I had in a long time. I smiled, closing my eyes, and giving a content hum.
“Fuck you!” I yelled. I couldn’t understand what Joe was saying. It was all so stupid. He was leaving me now? After everything we just. Arg! I screamed, throwing a plate at him. I wiped away tears. “What happened to being your everything?”
“You’re not,” he said back. He took a step forward onto the shattered plate. “I was lying, just like the whole time you lied to me.”
“I was not lying. I told you the whole damn truth!”
“No,” he shook his head with a laugh. “You never told me the whole truth. You’re here for a reason you haven’t really told me. You decided to not press charges for a reason. Tell me why!”
“No, God, I can’t -”
“See, that’s what I mean.”
“No!” I stretched out for him.
I ran, tripping over dead bodies. I looked down and I recognized the faces. My mom and my dad, and I didn’t care. I stumbled over another body.
I twisted around, and I didn’t recognize who it was, but I recognized my handiwork. The slits in the back, the sickly carving up on the thigh. I tripped back. I fell on a body, and I scrambled off of it. Nick’s face grinned up at me. Out of his eyes poured red. I spun over - my hands slipping in blood - and Megan and Meghan were dead. Their hands linked together. They were both pale, so pale. Meghan turned her head to me and opened her mouth.
I twisted away. I slammed into Kevin’s body, strung up like a scarecrow. “No, no…” I muttered. I knew what came next. I knew the body I would see.
I didn’t want to see -
I screamed, Mrs. Johnson stood in front of me, in her hands she held Joe’s heart. It still thumped out blood.
I jerked awake. Mrs. Johnson. I had…
I jumped out of bed, my legs shaking. I came here for a reason. I gritted my teeth. If I finished the reason, I could just leave. I would leave, and I wouldn’t have the nightmares, everything would be like normal again.
I stepped into the kitchen, becoming steadier on my feet with each step, until I moved like I could always do. I slipped silently over the floor. My senses tuned in with everything in the house, the soft purr of the dishwasher, the moonlight pouring through the windows, how cool the tile was under my feet. I turned to pull a knife out from its spot in the corner, only to remember it wasn’t there anymore.
We had had chicken for dinner. Mr. Jonas had cut the chicken. I pulled open the dishwasher. I fished the knife out. I rinsed it off quickly.
Mrs. Johnson wouldn’t appreciate chicken on her heart.
I glanced at the table. The only problem would be trying to get Joe to the table. I shook my head. No, I wouldn’t bother with that. Just kill him in his room, and then move the body down to the table. Easier, probably cleaner, less room for error, and more efficient.
I moved to the photo wall, running my finger over the frame that housed Joe and I. An action caught forever.
When someone is faking happy, there are telltale signs. There are different muscles in your face that can give a person away. I hated how I couldn’t find one sign that said I had been faking happy in that picture, taking a piggy-back-ride on Joe. Maybe I was just that good of an actor. I’d never noticed.
I wouldn’t put the two nails to hold the heart up. I’d just stab the knife into it. Mrs. Johnson could deal with a single piercing of the heart. I turned away from the picture, walking quietly up the stairs. Joe wasn’t waiting outside his door. I walked forward, noticing every creak of the floorboard under my feet.
I carefully pushed open Joe’s door. I saw him lying in bed, his figure sprawled out. I closed the door carefully behind me. I locked the door, just like I had when he first kissed me. I opened his sock drawer that hadn’t had his diary, which he didn’t even have, and pulled out a pair of socks. I moved over to him, and gently wiggled in the socks as a gag. He wouldn’t scream and everything would be good. Thumping would be okay. Nick would just think we were up to something next to each other. He was the only one who was a light sleeper.
I crawled onto the bed, and Joe mumbled a little. I straddled Joe’s legs. I brushed his hair down in front of his eyes. I raised up onto my knees, the knife flickered in my hands from the moon.
I glanced out the window. The moon shined out its full glow. The blade glinted.
I looked back a Joe.
Hear no evil. See no evil. Speak no evil.
Then I’ve done no evil.
~*~