I'd been home for about two hours when I got the call. I was in my room alone, reading and practically ready to sleep. It was my phone buzzing on the night stand, and Josh's name on the caller ID, that drew me from my sleep lusting state. I hit the accept button, and just as I was ready to tear him to shreds for preventing me from sleeping, I heard something unexpected from the other end of the line.
When I saw him calling me, I expected it to be him confirming when I would be paying back the ice cream that he had decided I owed him. Or, even better, he would be explaining his behaviour earlier that night, and why he had been so adamant that I went straight home.
I was met with neither.
What I did hear from the other end of the line, however, was moaning. Not the sexual kind- it sounded like he was hurt. Hurt or drunk or, something. And he was babbling absolute nonsense to himself. He wasn't speaking into the phone, and this was when I realised that he hadn't meant to call me.
I wasn't supposed to be hearing this.
"Josh?" I asked, attempting to retrieve his attention from whichever gutter it had currently been discarded into.
"Josh, can you hear me?"
I waited a little to see if he would respond, and when he didn't, I hung up.
I hung up only to call him again.
Surely, I thought, he'll pick up. I was beginning to doubt this, however, as by the eighth ring he still hadn't picked up. It wasn't long after, however, that I heard his voice.
"Huh-hello..." he answered, his voice weak and trailing. "Not a g-good time. No. Later please..." he hung up after that, leaving me with no choice. I had to go over there.
I threw my coat on over my avengers pyjamas, slipping on my converse as quietly as I could to avoid making any noise. Creeping up the stairs, I could barely breathe by the time I was out of the front door.
I quickly made my way over to the Ramsay house. Luckily for me, the front door had been left unlocked. They had too much trust in their neighbours.
I made my way quickly down the basement stairs, praying to a god I didn't believe in that I was right when I recalled Josh's mother telling my own that he also had a basement bedroom.
I was glad to see Josh in the basement when I finally made my way down there, but the state he was in hit me harder than I ever thought it could.
He was laid, sprawled out on his bedroom floor, one foot still resting on top of his bed, the other bent wildly in the opposite direction. In one hand, he was holding a small red lighter, and laid between his fingers of the other was a burnt piece of tin foil.
"Josh?" I asked tentatively, walking towards him slowly. The room stunk, and I wasnt about to hide that. He opened his eyes, looking towards me slightly, smiling a lazy, toothy grin.
"I'm... fine" he breathed, shuffling slightly on the floor. I couldn't imagine he was comfortable.
"What the heck is going on?" I asked, moving closer and sitting down next to him.
"Just normal" he smiled, laughing at me slightly.
"This isn't funny Josh." I warned him. "I swear I'll tell your parents". And then he was laughing. Not even the slight chuckle he had murmred out before. He was full on laughing, like I'd said the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard.
"What the fuck did you burn tin foil for?" I asked, picking it up from where it was resting. I noticed that there was also a brown substance clinging to the metal on the opposite side from the burn.
"Josh..." I whispered meekly, hoping I was wrong. "Josh, is this drugs?"
He didn't answer me, and I took his ignorance as a yes. He was talking about how warm he was. I looked at the situation he was in, trying to determine what he'd taken. He'd burnt it, so it wasnt anything like cocaine. I tried to piece together how he had taken the drugs. I couldn't piece it together until I found a broken pen shell on the floor. It was a normal ball point pen, but everything except the clear external shell had been discarded. And suddenly it all made sense.
He'd smoked the fumes from the heated powder.
The only drug I knew of which could be taken that way was... heroin.
Suddenly, Josh wasnt laughing any more. He sat up, and the look on his face was more one of anxiety and upset than the elation he seemed to have been experiencing previously.
He was crying, and I reached out a hand to help him up off of the floor. I lead him over to his bed, turning the light off on my way over.
I hate you, Josh Ramsay, I thought, I hate that this hurts.
I hadn't known he was so broken. I hadn't known that he felt so bad that he had resorted to drugs. I wondered how long he'd been like this, and whether or not I was the first person to know. I wondered.
I ended up being pulled into Josh's bed with him. I thanked god that I was wearing my pyjamas already.
"We need to talk about this when you're sober" I told him. He was laid with his head in the crook of my neck, eyes pressed closed tight against my collarbone. My arms were wrapped around him, elbows resting gently on his sides. He was ridiculously skinny, and I wondered whether or not it had anything to do with the drug.
"Don't be mad" was all he said, and I could feel the tears running down my shoulder. I'm not sure how long it took him to fall asleep, but it felt like a century had passed by the time the shaking ceased and his once shallow, rapid breathing had become slow and deep once again, allowing me to join him im his rest.
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This chapter was kinda hard for me to write lmao but anyway you're welcome for the totally-platonic cuddling and sleeping in the same bed.
-beck