DEVILS ? C. G. 〖 #wattys2018 〗

God I fucking love this band so muchBUT MURDOC'S THRUSTS THO

SOTC: Slowtown — twenty øne piløts
• 'cause things are too fast now •

It felt like the walls were molding to his frame, and he couldn't move a single joint. He was suffocating on plaster as it stretched down his throat and filled up his chest like a paper maché balloon, leaving a frigid, sharp feeling grating through his insides—

He tried to move, but his body felt stuffed with cotton, his vision seeped over with thick, hot darkness scorching his retina into molten crayon bleeding down his cheek, the panic swelling up in his mouth until he couldn't breathe, a cloud of knots and gnats pressing against the insides of his cheeks and the roof of his mouth until he—

"Carl."

—He couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe he couldn't—

"Carl!"

He gasped for air. He hadn't realized he'd been panting, mouth partway wide and chest heaving like machine gun rounds.

He pursed his lips closed again and looked across the table, meeting April's eyes.

"Are you good?" She asked, less than an ounce of a care in her voice.

Carl hesitated, then nodded, slowly.

His lunch tasted like bile, coming up in his throat again just to force it back down. He felt a humming burn in his chest, but it hardly seemed like hunger to him. More like that feeling you get when you've cried for an hour and your gut starts to peel apart like an overripe fruit.

Elle and April's playful banter was nothing but static in the background of his mind. He wanted nothing more than to just curl up in someplace small, like the corner of his bed back in Alexandria. Or face-up with his sheets pulled over his eyes.

He looked up at April. What an ass, came his automatic thought, but also came a lesser sense of gratefulness. She tried to cover up his recklessness. In front of her father.

She was an asshole, but at least she was a helpful asshole.

He realized he was staring, but he also didn't care. April observed the back of her hand, running a hand over her heart-shaped scar. It hadn't healed much since the last time he saw it, back in the RV, and was such a vibrant shade of fleshy pink. Carl began to wonder if the scar wasn't that fresh at all, but instead extremely deep.

She looked at it like it was something in the distance, something she was not quite reckoned with.

"Dude."

Carl's gaze snapped up, meeting that of April's friend, Elle. She had black lipstick and blue hair, the color of the sky right before dawn. Eyes like little black holes as she stared, gaze latched on something just to the left of his periphery.

"That's one sick battle scar."

Carl looked down at his lunch, avoiding the girl's black hole gaze, but he could feel it, still on his. Visceral as she peeled him apart as a specimen. He could almost feel her fingers tracing along his socket—

"Cut it out," April laughed, playfully pushing Elle's shoulder. "You're weirding him out."

Carl blinked.

She was being so nice. It felt almost wrong. Her strange behavior seemed other, like another person than the one from the previous night.

Carl decided that he didn't mind this person, even though it freaked him out a little. It was strange to say, but maybe April was loosening up. Allowing herself to think outside of herself and her personal benefit.