"A Sanctuary Safe and Strong"(Marianas Trench)

Chapter 32

Josh grabbed the spare hooded sweatshirt he kept in his office and fought with it for a good five minutes before throwing it back down onto the chair angrily. "Fuck this shit, I'd rather get pneumonia." He still couldn't fully handle the left-handed lifestyle, and that was wearing on his nerves more than he ever realized it would. Picking up his keys, the blond strolled through the building with a purpose, headed straight for the door. 

He just needed to get out of the building, out of his head, and out of his own way, if even for only a little while. The singer had decided that it didn't matter where, as long as it was away. Logically, he knew that the situation he had been put through was causing him some problems, but he kept fucking things up for himself up, too. Every fucking time he got into a spot where he needed to depend on someone for the smallest little bit of help, he road blocked his own path, forcing himself to find yet another new way of dealing with negativity - something that others hadn't seen before, because, goddamn it, people were going to catch on and he really, really needed to get through this one alone. 

"Alone?" he asked himself as he slipped through the front door of the studio, pulling the heavy glass shut behind him and locking it, jamming the keys down deep into his pocket. "Why alone? Why the fuck do I need to do this alone?" Great, Josh. Talking to yourself again. That's just really fuckin' perfect. People already think you're more than a little cracked - just keep giving them a reason. Why not? What's there left to lose? Sanity? He snorted at that as he took several long strides down the sidewalk, loosely wrapping his arm around himself. 

It was rare that an October night wasn't synonymous with rain, and Josh took advantage of whatever chance he had of that tonight. The skies may have been dry, though overcast, but the temperature was only mild enough for, say, a quick walk to his car and back to the building. It wasn't at all ideal to be out for long once the sun had gone down and the breeze kicked up, especially not with the way he was dressed. Josh realized that rather quickly as he tugged at his tshirt, mentally threatening to shred his sweatshirt with a pair of scissors for being so fucking impossible to put on one-handed once he got back to the building. 

Fallen brown leaves crunched noisily under his sneakers as he walked, keeping his head up and his eyes open for any movement in the distance. Even though this wasn't his home neighbourhood and nothing even remotely as terrible as the ordeal he'd had with the intruder had ever happened to him here, it didn't mean that he wasn't now constantly squashing the urge to check over his shoulder every few seconds. Paranoia hit its peak when he hit the end of the block, turned the corner and saw that three of the four lights which lined the street were no longer functional, pitching the latter three quarters of the road into total darkness.  

"Shitfuckshit!" Josh hissed, stopping in his tracks and sizing up the short distance back to the warm, inviting front door of the studio. He'd been gone for less than five minutes, and that wasn't nearly enough to keep him from inevitably plunging head first over that ever-nearing ledge of crazy that he felt like he'd been racing toward for the last nine days. He desperately wanted to keep moving, keep searching for that brief, yet elusive reprieve from himself, but at what cost? There could be anything out there waiting to take him down.  

Immediately, Josh's mind flickered straight back to when he was a kid, no more than six or seven years old, doing his best to get his four much older sisters to play "boy games" with him. When they wouldn't comply, choosing make-up, dates with guys their own ages, and fancy dresses over playing in the dirt, he sought the kind of cruel revenge only a child of that age could concoct. The blond would get his vengeance, he knew, as he hid in hampers, behind closed doors, under blankets or anywhere else that he could squeeze his small body. He'd wait in excited silence for what could be minutes or hours, only to jump out the second any of them crossed his path, causing them to jolt, scream, and, if he was extremely lucky, cry. Sure, he would get sent to his room for an hour after one of the girls would run to either of their parents, tattling that, "Josh almost killed me," but the singer always had the last laugh as he laid on his bed, chuckling and knowing that he had no aversion to doing it again if they refused to spend time with him in the future.