My Reality

Chapter Five

Perry opened the door slowly. It creaked at him in annoyance, and the floor didn’t seem happy to see him either. The yellow police tape still remained from the now-closed investigation, and he touched it lightly, running his fingers over the greasy plastic.

JD stood behind him in slight discomfort. He didn’t like this place anymore then Perry did, but Perry seemed okay at the moment.

"He kept me here?" Perry asked curiously as he looked around. JD didn’t answer right away. Perry whistled at him sharply. "Yo, Cindi Lou."

JD shook his head and looked at him. "Yeah. For four days."

Perry kept walking down the narrow hallway, looking at random doors. It had been obvious upon entrance which room Elijah and Josh had kept him in, but he inspected the halls anyway. After eyeing the broken stairs dubiously, he tested one with his foot.

"That’s probably not smart," JD mentioned. A light humming noise indicated that it had once again begun to rain.

Perry looked up as he heard the water hit the broken roof. He frowned in slight confusion. Odd that it’s not snow. He shook his head at the strange thought, but continued to look around.

"Well," Perry mumbled in an attempt to keep it light. "You know, Danielle, this place is a real dump."

JD shrugged. "It was a crackhouse before they found you. All the addicts must’ve been scared off."

Perry nodded, even though he knew his own body was stalling him before he entered the room.

"You really don’t have to do this, you know," JD mentioned as Perry strode back up the hallway.

"I want to remember more then I want to keep pretending I’m okay; especially when it’s clear that I’m not," Perry replied simply. "Wouldn’t you?"

JD shrugged. "I’d push it off until the last minute, honestly."

"You see, Newbie, that’s why I keep telling you to go buy yourself those big girl panties that have the padding in them so you can keep having those little accidents."

"If you knew what happened, you wouldn’t want to remember it either," JD pointed out.

"Yes, but keep this in mind, Nancy. I don’t have that benefit, and it seems if anyone should know what happened, it should be me. It happened to me, didn’t it?"

"Well, yeah…"

"Case closed, Newbie." Perry stared at the splintered, wooden door with the yellow tape in front of it. He already felt like he was going to be sick, and he hadn’t even walked in yet. "You still with me, Newbie?"

JD nodded quietly. "Every step of the way."

Shoving aside any other doubts he had about going in, Perry pushed on the door. It gave a whine of age and swung open to reveal the room.

His breath hitched almost immediately, heart plummeting to his stomach. He looked around the room, and had another odd thought that it looked like any other room.

Perry didn’t know what he’d been expecting when he stepped into it. He was hit first by the terrible smell of mildew and human fluids scattered around the room. Large scorch marks were on the floor where people had set fires before, kindling still cornered in one side.

He felt then that there should have been some bright spot of recognition, but there was none. There should have been some sort of lightening bolt, or something. But he still felt nothing.

"So this is where they found me, huh?" Perry asked, feeling very much as if maybe it hadn’t been him. Maybe it had been someone else who looked strikingly like him instead. Hell, maybe this whole thing was someone’s idea of a really sick, twisted joke.

JD nodded and gestured vaguely. "They found you tied up in that corner near the window."

Perry nodded, steeling his resolve again to try and remember something. He walked over to the wall that JD had pointed at. There was a window just above the spot, and to the side, a rusty, crooked nail stuck out from the scorched wall. The window was wet, and Perry could hear the splats of raindrops hitting the glass.

Glancing down at the floor, Perry crouched down and inspected the rotten wood. Dark, almost unidentifiable stains spotted it here and there. A small flash of white caught his eye.

With a frown, Perry crouched down to the floor, hitching his pants as he went. JD crouched beside of him.

"What is it?" JD asked.

Perry held up a hand to quiet him. He slowly reached for the piece of white plastic and held it up to inspect it. Unexpectedly, he dropped it as if he’d been burned. He stared at the offending object, rubbing his fingers together. His head jerked up to look at the window, and something suddenly gripped his stomach in a hot vice.

"…a thousand miles of fire…"

He jumped at the sudden voice in his mind and looked to see if JD had said anything. JD’s lips were moving, but he could hear nothing.

Without warning, Perry felt the terror seize his heart and make his throat constrict. He whirled and pushed away from JD, backing into the wall as the damp floor soaked through his jeans. Staring at JD in wide-eyed fear, he struggled to listen to what the other man was saying.

Still, no sound escaped JD’s mouth, and his face was growing in concern. He began yelling, by the looks of it, but Perry could still hear nothing.

"…call you butterfly…"

"Like hell you will!" Perry shouted, glaring at a blank wall. The image flashed and disappeared again of that tall, brown-haired man with the oddly-lit green eyes. It almost looked as if the room were completely dark with a strobe light illuminating the phantom-man every few steps.

The man still approached him and Perry sent a pleading glance to JD, suddenly all too aware of what was going on. He wasn’t trapped in his head anymore as the memory washed over him like cold water.

Rain began to leak through the roof, and the water made tiny splats against his forehead.

"Do you burn, butterfly?"

As surely as though it had happened yesterday, a searing pain ran over his forearm and the wild gasp tore itself from his aching lungs.

Perry turned his eyes to Newbie, who shouted at him and hesitated in reaching for him.

JD started to grow nauseous. "Perry, answer me! Answer me!" His voice cracked and tears pricked at his eyes as his throat grew tight. His blood pulsed violently in his neck and he wondered why he couldn’t hear the rain anymore as he continued to yell at Perry. "For the love of god, answer me, please!"

No sound was coming from Newbie. Perry stared as the man came closer, a lighter in his hands and a knife in the other.

"Damn it, Newbie…why can’t you hear me? Why aren’t you helping me? Goddamn it, JD, listen to me and help me!"

"…cut your wings off butterfly…can’t have you flying away from me."

Perry suddenly felt the scream more then he heard it as escaped his open mouth. He grabbed at his hair, struggling to block the voices out.

"God damn it, just shut up!" Words of pleading and begging left his lips as incoherent yelps that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to recall later as he pounded his feet into the floor angrily.

"What’s wrong; tell me!" JD shouted and finally couldn’t stand to leave him sitting there alone any longer. He scuffled over the floor and wrapped his hand around one of Perry’s wrists.

Perry jerked away from him, scrambling away in a near animalistic fashion. He stared at Newbie’s moving mouth, feeling as if his wrists and ankles were screaming at him in protest of the restraints. He stared down and the insanity closed in around his mind like a hot fist as he realized both ankles and wrists were free of any bonds.

He still found himself paralyzed against the wall, eyes flicking desperately between the wiry man walking towards him and a silent Newbie who yelled at him frantically.

Perry looked up, frozen as the wiry man stood over him with a slightly amused, eerie grin on his face. Perry backed up again, but hit the corner finally and struggled to keep going. He pushed hard against the wall, phantom pains of old wounds running down his back in a violent race.

"Can’t you see him?" Perry finally yelled at JD, making sense for the first time in the past few minutes.

JD looked and shook his head almost violently. "I can’t see anything!"

"God damn it, you can’t hear me," Perry whispered hoarsely and looked up at the ghost of a man who was no longer alive. "And I can’t hear you." He knocked his back against the wall, nails digging into the rotting wood and shoving his knees against his chest in a defensive mood as the nausea grew and his head swirled.

Lights and stars grew bright behind his eyes, whispering devastating words of hell into his ears. The pinpricks slid over his skin like cold, greasy hands that hadn’t been washed for days.

"…do you stare at, I wonder?"

"I’m not looking at anything; leave him alone!" he yelled in terror. The phantom man flicked his gaze to Newbie, whose lips still moved furiously at him.

Still, the man only neared him and crouched down in front of him with that grin still solidly in place. Perry looked over to Newbie, mouthing the words "help me" as best he could.

JD stood, heart aching as he watched Perry stare at something he couldn’t see. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take as tears started running down Perry’s face in abject misery.

Perry saw JD stand out of the corner of his eye. "Don’t leave me here alone, you can’t, you promised me! You can’t leave me here alone!"

JD felt icy terror running through body and he could finally stand it no longer. He scrambled back over to where Perry shook and trembled in the corner, wrapping his arms around the other man.

Perry screamed then, a horrible, shrilly rough sound that chilled and shook JD down to his bones. The scream died off into a body-racking sob.

Staring around the room through eyes full of water, Perry looked at it differently, biting hard on his lip to try and make the pain go away. Blood trickled down his chin, staining the faded green hoodie he wore.

It was all too clear then why he hadn’t been able to relinquish it when he’d first woken up in the hospital so long ago without the knowledge he had now.

With new eyes, he continued to look at the room. It had looked so harmless and normal when he had first seen it. Much like the closet with it’s tiny window and cold floor.

Water seeped through his jeans, dampening the skin on his legs and rear and another sob ripped loose from his body before he could stop it. His stomach rolled over suddenly and he shoved JD away to vomit as he sat on his hands and knees.

JD felt the sickness building up in his chest as he watched Perry back away from the mess on the floor.

Perry coughed one last time, bringing his hand up to wipe his mouth and stay there. He leaned further down into the floor, collapsing completely to his knees and elbow on the floor as the tears kept coming.

Just stop crying, breathe, damn you…god damn it…

His breathing hitched and miserable hiccups shook through his congested chest, and he remembered that all-too familiar snapping in his chest as the rain poured outside.

JD sat with his knees bent in front of him, his heart feeling like it was shutting in on itself. Tears streamed down his own pale face as he watched his mentor bring his hands to his head and scream helplessly into the floor.

Perry struggled to open his eyes and focus on the dirty floor beneath his nose. He tangled his fingers into his hair tightly, trying to concentrate on the physical pain to will the emotional away from himself.

JD approached him slowly again, hands shaking and stomach twitching in warning that if this didn’t stop, he’d throw up.

"Perry?" JD asked quietly when his screams and sobs had degenerated into the occasional hiccup and wet cough.

Perry jerked at the sound of his name and sat up a fraction of an inch to stare up at JD’s pallid, worried face. He turned his face back down to stare at the floor in realization and horror.

"Christ…" he trailed off, rainwater and cold air beginning to hit his neck.

"Perry?" JD tried again, voice a bit louder. He slowly held his hand near Perry’s face. "Take my hand."

Staring at the pale, slender hand in front of his face, Perry turned his head and gave another wet cough.

"Please…just take my hand."

Perry still didn’t answer and slowly tried to pull his aching body from the floor. His stomach shouted in protest and weak legs shouted in protest and he fell back to his knees.

"You have to take it," JD said more strongly, outstretching his long fingers. "You promised me you wouldn’t give up."

Tormented eyes the color of ice threw JD slightly off balance, but he remained where he sat.

Slowly but surely, Perry reached a hand over and slipped his fingers into the smaller hand in front of him. A wash of hot relief poured over his head like a hot shower and another hiccup escaped his mouth as JD’s fingers tightened around his own.

"It’s okay now," JD said, not sure anything else would help.

The snap in his chest began to subside as Perry looked at him, feeling utterly broken as JD didn’t release his hand. Neither man stood, and both were grateful for it.

JD’s knee began to ache from the kneeling position, and he slid one of his legs out to sit more comfortably.

"I’m not going anywhere," JD told him, struggling to get Perry to believe him. "I hope you need this as much now as you did then. I know I do."

"Goddamn; why does it have to hurt like this?"

JD didn’t have an answer, and wordlessly tugged Perry into a damp, soaked hug. Perry stiffened at first, and then relaxed with a heave in JD’s hold, wrapping his arms around the other man’s waist. He pushed his face into the curve of JD’s neck as the tears finally started again.

"Come on. We’re going to catch pneumonia if we stay here," JD finally mumbled reluctantly, not sure how long they’d been in the rain already. "Can you stand?" he asked carefully.

Perry wordlessly allowed JD to help him to his feet. He stared around the room again, the four days stretching over his mind in relentless repetition. He looked at the rusty, crooked nail again, remembering all too clearly when Elijah had tied his bonds to it to leave him there.

"Hang on."

JD sent him a questioning look but drew back quickly when Perry suddenly charged at the wall and gave it a hard enough kick that JD had to wonder if he would break something.

But then Perry started throwing his fists at it without control and care. The cast on his hand cracked and pain racked his fingers but he couldn’t stop punching at it. He screamed at it, hit it, even spit on it until a quiet hand crept over his shoulder.

"They’re both dead," Perry spat out in a tear-soaked voice. "Dead. I can’t do anything about it either."

"Come on, Perry."

Perry glared at the wall and gave it one final kick that he knew he’d regret in the morning as his feet were already sore and slightly wet. He followed JD out of the room and back outside where the rain continued to pour.

"Do you want me to stay with you tonight?" JD asked quietly.

"I think you know the answer to that, Newbie."

XXXXXXXX

Perry stared at the window to his right as lightening streaked across the sky. JD walked in and handed him a cup of coffee.

JD sat beside of him with his own. "How are you feeling?"

Perry gave him a look that clearly told JD how stupid a question that was. He put the cup of coffee on the table in front of him, head bent as he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"How do you come back from that?" he asked quietly, staring at the dark liquid in the mug. "How in God’s name am I supposed to deal with this?"

JD shrugged helplessly as he put his own mug down and carefully put a hand over Perry’s knee.

"I don’t have the answer to that," he replied honestly. "I just know you’re strong enough to do it."

"God, Newbie…I think you’re wrong." He tilted his head to look at JD, fists propping his head up.

JD shrugged. "I’m not wrong though." He shifted his hand from Perry’s knee to the older man’s back.

Perry gave a weak bark of laughter that sounded harsh and forced. He finally leaned back into the couch and tilted his head to stare at the ceiling.

"Why me?" he finally asked after a moment of silence.

"There’s no telling why Josh or Elijah singled you out, but…"

"I wasn’t talking about that, Ashley," Perry cut him off, though guilt came fresh again when he remembered that Joshua’s original target had been JD. "Why are you still here?"

"Because it’s where I’m supposed to be." A grin tugged at JD’s lips. "I’m here because it’s where I ended up."

Perry looked at him, a long forgotten conversation tickling at his brain. The barest hint of a smile pulled at his own mouth.

"Me too, Newbie. Me too."

XXXXXXXXX

Jordan hitched Jack up on her hip as she spoke on the phone. "Is he okay?"

"He’s sleeping," JD replied tiredly as he rubbed a hand over his face. "And it only took me three tries of dissolving the sleeping pills in his coffee before he fell for it. Out like a light."

Nodding as Elliot walked into the small kitchen to take Jack from her, Jordan handed him off gratefully and stretched her arm out. Jack was getting too big to hold for very long.

"You think he’ll be okay then, DJ?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"Take care of him, JD." Before the man could reply, Jordan hung up the phone and stood at the doorway to Jack’s room as Elliot put the small boy down for bed.

"So, what’ll it be tonight, Jack-jack?" Elliot asked in a cutesy voice as she brushed a hand over his hair and then held up two Dr. Seuss books. "Red or green?"

"Green!"

"Good choice. I like Green Eggs and Ham too."

Jordan grinned from the doorway, her smile soft and her eyes watching as Elliot read the book, voice impersonations included. When she was done, she leaned over and kissed Jack affectionately on the head and turned around.

Elliot jumped when she saw Jordan standing there. When they had exited the room, the blonde glared at her.

"Frick on a stick, what the hell?" Elliot asked. "You scared the crap out of me."

Jordan shrugged. "I thought you didn’t like kids."

Elliot gave her a slightly flustered look. "Normally, I don’t. How’s Dr. Cox?"

"DJ’s got it under control," Jordan replied smoothly as she sat down on the couch. "Watch a movie with me, princess."

"We don’t watch movies."

"We do now. Get your ass over here."

"God, you’re acting weird tonight," Elliot muttered, but complied as she sat down stiffly beside Jordan. "What’ll it be then? "Old People and How to Get in their Will", or "All About Divorce: You and How to Get Everything"?"

Jordan gave her an amused look. "How evil do you really think I am? See, I was thinking of the movie "Refrigerators and How to Hide Bodies in Them"."

Elliot smiled at the sharp wit despite herself. "Why were you staring at me, anyway? I was just reading a book to Jack."

"No real reason, princess." Jordan flipped the TV on. "Now shut up. I wasn’t actually intending to watch anything."

"Do what?"

Jordan rolled her eyes as she slipped the remote to the coffee table and pinned Elliot down to the couch in a move so swift that Elliot’s head reeled as she hit the cushions.

"Oh, I get it now."

Jordan leaned down with a near-predatory look on her angular features. Strands of her brown hair slipped across Elliot’s slightly frightened face. She pressed a light kiss to the corner of the blonde’s mouth and effectively pinned her wrists down.

"God, but you are slow, Blondie."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Perry woke with a start in the middle of the night. He lay alone in his bed with a thin sheen of sweat over his skin. Swinging his legs out, he struggled to adjust his eyes to the darkness of his room. Voices swirled in his head, pounding home the memories and horrors he now wished he couldn’t remember.

Sweet irony, Pacing Perry…you’ve no one to blame but yourself though.

Perry ignored the voice and shoved his arms through his still damp green hoodie. He looked around the room in search of JD, but the room was empty.

Fear was tight in his stomach and he carefully walked down the hallway. They couldn’t have taken JD; they were dead. He chanted that in his head as he approached the living room.

A late-night horror flick was on, and by the looks of it, it was a pretty awful movie. Perry glanced over the back of the couch.

JD was curled up on it, blanket grasped in his fists as he slept with his mouth slightly open. His hair was in wild disarray, the gel having been washed out earlier that night when they had arrived home. He wore no shirt, but Perry could see the waistband of a pair of plaid pajama pants.

Perry rounded the couch and sat down on the floor, Indian-style as he watched JD sleep. Slowly, he reached a hand up and brushed the dark hair from JD’s face.

JD frowned slightly in his sleep, but didn’t wake as he adjusted his head on the pillow beneath him.

Still moving carefully, Perry slipped his hand over JD’s neck and let it rest there. He leaned his head up and gently pressed a light kiss to JD’s mouth. He pulled back almost immediately and leaned his head down on the couch.

He didn’t have nightmares that night.

XXXXXXXXX

Elliot opened her eyes slowly at almost exactly five AM with habit of the years. Jordan snored lightly beside of her, and the blonde smiled lightly.

Jordan’s arm was draped possessively around her waist, the other hand tangled in her hair. When Elliot tried to move away to get up, Jordan grumbled something in her sleep and tightened her hold on Elliot’s waist.

Groaning slightly, Elliot tried again.

"Blondie, if you don’t quit moving, I will wake up and then I won’t be so nice."

Resigning herself to sleeping in for another few minutes, Elliot sighed and leaned her head back down as Jordan drifted back to sleep.

Small footsteps woke Elliot again, though Jordan remained silent. Elliot opened her eyes again to be met with Jack’s.

"Morning, Jack," Elliot grinned at him.

Jack beamed her a sunny smile. "Morning, Jack."

"Still repeating, I see," Elliot chuckled quietly so as not to wake the other woman. Jordan stirred slightly, but otherwise didn’t give any indication of being awake.

Jack climbed onto the bed and sat on his knees as he studied Elliot with a calculating look he had obviously gotten from his father. He cocked his head to the side and crossed his arms.

"What’cha looking at?" Elliot finally asked him when Jack hadn’t moved for a minute.

Jack finally nodded to himself. "You alright," he said when Elliot thought she could stand his silence no more.

Without warning, Jack jumped under the covers and snuggled up to Elliot’s t-shirt-clad chest.

Elliot jerked in surprise, which did wake Jordan slightly. "Um…Jordan? I think Jack wants his mother."

"Just shut up, blondie, and go back to sleep," Jordan muttered. "Sometimes Jack likes to come in before I wake up; he won’t bite."

Elliot seemed to stammer for a minute, but finally quieted as she wrapped an arm around Jack’s small body and felt him drift back to sleep.

Eventually, Elliot drifted off to sleep as well.

Having been awake since Jack had come in (it was what mothers did, after all), Jordan opened her eyes finally to study them both. She frowned, no matter how sweet and fluffy the two looked together.

Jordan sighed and propped her head up on her elbow as she gently traced Elliot’s features and mussed Jack’s hair.

You’ve really done it this time, Sullivan. You’re in so much trouble…

Continues with Chapter 6