eyes on you / bbs day 4

The pain in my upper arm has absolutely nothing on what the look on JJ's face does to me.

It's—it's not a look that I know how to put into words. All wide eyes and heaving breaths. Shock, probably, is the best word, but that doesn't feel like enough somehow. I can't help but wonder what I looked like that first time. It wasn't like JJ, that much I know, and I'm sure that says all kinds of horrible things about me and wonderful things about him but we're all monsters and heroes in our own way at the end of the night. It's there, a wriggling thought in the back of my head that the boy might not be dead, but I don't understand what's happening yet, don't have all the answers to my questions. It feels like every time I start to maybe get close to whatever's going on, a face shows up in the sky that shouldn't be dead and yet—is. And I can't make sense of it.

Helle's face hadn't been in the sky.

It's giving me false hope.

But that's the only thing that I can think might comfort JJ, that the boy he killed might not actually be dead. But here, when everyone has to die in order for him to live, even me, is that really a comfort?

I'm not sure which would be worse for him. Living, knowing that he's a killer, or dying with the hope that maybe, just maybe, he was kind all along. I'm done being a victim, he'd said, but I'm not sure he was truly ready for the reality of what that means. 

We trudge through the storm and the water, blinded by the flowers, but I can't stop checking on JJ. Will's little Fine, so short and curt lingers at the front of my mind, and I can't help but wonder whether or not he's going to kill me one of these days.

It's a strange feeling, knowing that I would protect Will until my last breath, but also seriously wondering if maybe, just maybe, it'd be easier if I put a knife in his neck. That's always been the way I solved my problems, took care of the people that made my angry. I'd cut their throat, drop them off a roof, puncture their lungs and leave them bleeding in an ally if they'd really pissed Kingpin off. But I've never cared about anyone before, not really, not like I care and Will and JJ, and it's a constant battle between who I used to be and who I think they need me to be. I don't want him gone, but betrayal is a hot lash against my damp skin and—I don't know. The only other person who's ever betrayed me that I cared about was Kingpin, and I'll put hang him from the city hall banner post if I ever get out of here. Will probably doesn't deserve that.

Probably.

"Lets rest for a minute," I say once we've trekked far enough that I'm sure Kenji and his ally aren't following us. "I need to take care of my arm," I say, but really every furtive glance at JJ makes me wonder more and more if he's okay and I think maybe he ought to sit down. "I'll probably need some help?" I go on, turning it into some kind of question. It had been Helle who helped me every time before, in her odd ways, but it's JJ I have my eyes on now.

I think he could use a healing.