JTRM (Nny x Devi)

"Okay," She breathed, exasperated. "let's run through this... one more time."
"Okay." Johnny pursed his fingers together casually, like he wasn't about to explain for the umpteenth time the hideous events that lead to his current state of being.
"Three years, three voices, two of which held allegiance to an unknown thing living in one of your basement walls." Devi started.
"Yes."
"And you were compelled to murder because... it fed off the blood of the victims. Which you painted on said wall."
"Yes."
"And then it all disappeared when you.... died." She couldn't believe it.
"—Or dreamed I died." Johnny added. "Like I said, it all seemed like a crock of shit so it's hard to tell."
Devi let her face fall into her hands and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Letting Johnny tell his story was difficult to sit through, seeing as he loved to go off on half-relevant tangents, and speak in long, descriptive prose about his feelings on the matter. She still sort of liked the way he talked, but most of it turned into static while she tried to process exactly what kind of cesspool of a life Johnny had waded through for so long – and to a further extent – what kind of life she had avoided by nipping Sickness in the bud early.
"And after you woke up, all that was left was this new "Meat" thing?" She raised her eyes up enough to look at him from over her fingertips.
"Yeah." Johnny leaned back against the armrest of her couch. "Like I said, sometimes I think I hear Nailbunny, but then I wonder if that's just my actual conscience talking to me, and I just forgot what that's like, what with all the, y'know, voices that are mine but aren't mine, things."
"Right." She groaned into her palms. Devi dragged her hands down the front of her face, pulling her lower eyelids down a little as they went by, before clapping them together as her wrists settled on her knees. "'Kay."
"So three down one to go doesn't sound that bad, right?" She turned her attention to her guest again, and he shrugged with a half-smile, still all too calm about the situation.
"That's how I've been looking at it." He crossed a leg over his knee as he spoke, bouncing his foot idly. "I mean, I guess I never really "beat" the Doughboys, or the wall-thing, and I think Nailbunny just died or something, but at least Meat's been pretty easy to ignore with the whole "turning myself into a feeling-numb husk" idea."
Devi stared at him incredulously.
"WHAT?" He huffed. "Winning because all the other candidates died is still winning!!"
One of her hands came up to rub her eyes again.
"Jeezus Christ, Nny." She mumbled, and got up to pace. She thought better when pacing. Johnny scowled, arms crossed, as he watched her walk around her living room.
"Y'KNOW, I get that I deserve some criticism here, but I've been doing this A LOT longer than you have, and even though you're more efficient and self-empowered than I am, and you got control of your head-voicey-thing right away, I think I've earned some credit for surviving this long!!" He argued for the sake of his own ego. Devi turned to squint at him again.
"Having one of these parasites for that long is the opposite of an accomplishment, Nny." She replied coldly. Johnny stood up to gesture his arms wildly as a display of his immense upset.
"OH, EXCUSE ME!" He yelled, glaring at her ceiling. "So SORR-REE that I didn't realize I was being haunted by DEMONS until it was too late – sorry we can't all realize that the voices that sound like us in our head aren't us right away like SOME people can, like fucking side-of-the-road, carnie psychics!!"
Johnny started to cross the room to where she was, and Devi tensed immediately. She was too nervous to move, and decided to just stand her ground and give him a look that said, 'just try and stab me, bastard'. Johnny only glowered when he got close to her, and brought up a finger to point at her accusingly.
"I didn't come here to be belittled! I know I screwed up a lot of shit, immensely so, and I was just coming here to warn you – I shouldn't have BOTHERED, seeing as you're so much better than me in every way! You don't even need to TELL me that, I know!"
Devi's pupils narrowed at him gravely, but he was too worked up to regret the outburst.
"First – get your fucking finger out of my face." She snapped out, and he half-heartedly dropped his hand. "And second, I don't want to hear what little scraps you can piece together that makes this situation any less dismal than it is, Nny."
Whether it was the steadiness of her voice, or the spooky aura she emitted, Johnny didn't know, but his posture loosened enough that he didn't feel he was on the verge of snapping at the seams anymore.
"This isn't about who is better or who is worse, Johnny – the fact of it is, is you ARE worse." She stepped toward him, and he stepped back. "And I just got through being in the crosshairs of whatever fucked up, ethereal bullshit controls these little shits – I am NOT about to be in the middle of it again! So if your little Meaty pal is trying to use me, I'm going to make sure he DIES."
Devi stared at him until she saw the sharpness in his pupils soften, and she felt more in control of the room's atmosphere again. She turned to walk toward her art room, and Johnny barely had time to tilt his head up to peak at what she was doing before she came back with a good-sized drawing pad.
"I only know one way of defiance with these things." She said before throwing the tablet onto the table with a loud slap, startling Johnny enough to make him straighten up. Devi turned to him and pointed to the paper urgently. "Draw."
"...What?" Johnny managed, confused at the sudden change in topic.
"DRAW!" She ordered him more directly this time. "Draw on the fucking paper, Nny! You're going to draw until your fingers bleed – until you've regained so much of your creativity that you're spitting out shitty comics on a daily basis!"
Johnny stared at her like she was yelling at him in another language.
"Wh—right now!?"
"YES, right now! Go on, draw something!"
"I can't just draw on command like that! The mood has to strike me right! I have to have some kind of inspiration—GAK!" He tried to argue but was forced down by his shoulders into a sitting position in front of the coffee table.
"Your inspiration is I'm going to smother you if you don't, how's that?" Devi frowned down at him, then crossed her arms and looked off like she was waiting.
Johnny felt his cheeks heat up with annoyance, but took up a stray pen on the table and flipped open the pad to give his best attempt. At first he thought of doing a bad caricature of Devi saying rude things, but thought better of it, and stuck with what he was familiar with. After a moment of scribbling he lifted the tablet toward her, offering up a simple Happy Noodle Boy, in hopes that it would suffice her bizarre request. Devi glanced at it for only a few seconds before looking away again.
"Now do another."
"But—wh-why!? Why should I even listen to you?" His brow creased, arms and legs crossed like a child. "You talk about being fed up with these things – I was a slave to them for YEARS! I'm not just going to take orders from you randomly!"
Devi looked down at him again and he flinched, until he saw her stare wasn't particularly aggressive. She watched him a moment, then blinked tiredly as she shrugged away from him.
"I'm too tired for this right now." She mumbled, half to Johnny and half to herself. "Come back tomorrow night, and we'll do an actual drawing lesson, m'kay?"
Johnny kept his eyes on her while she ambled nearby aimlessly. He got up quickly, a small pout still hanging off of his lip, and tried to again confront her.
"Devi, don't ignore what I said! Give me one reason I should follow what you say!"
She turned to look at him, and her demeanor again surprised him, but this time because of the calmness of it. She looked similar to how she was when she worked at the bookstore; tired, neutral, maybe a smile hiding under her lips, waiting for a reason to show. It made him nervous all over again.
"Nny," She spoke tiredly, and took the drawing pad from his grasp, reviewing the little doodle he'd left on the page. "—don't you want to get over this shit? Finally? Have it all really be done, and be able to draw like you used to?"
Johnny stared at her, almost longingly, before looking away to the floor. He did want that, very badly. Devi suspected as much.
"Come over, tomorrow night." She told him again, then walked to the door to let him out. Johnny followed her dutifully. He raised his eyes up to her face again, and she met them without hesitation.
"6:00PM." Devi added. Johnny didn't affirm anything as he walked out, and only peered over his shoulder momentarily as she shut the door.
It was a very unexpected encounter, his reunion with her, and it certainly lasted longer than he thought it would... Still, it didn't feel like a failure, either. Even with how pissed she was for most of it.
He took the elevator down, and walked somberly to where he'd left his car parked in a dumpy looking little parking lot that ran alongside a fast food place, a ways down the street. As he opened the driver's side door and strapped his seatbelt, Reverend Meat's voice piped up.
"So you scored a date then, did you?" He sounded rather smug, like a friend teasing another about a grade school crush. Johnny made a strangled sound, and heaved the little statuette out of his open door. It was a useless act of defiance, since Meat would just reappear again anyway, but it was satisfying all the same. As the worn wheels screeched away, Reverend Meat's smile remained while he lay on his side on the asphalt.
"You can't run, Johnny C. – not from us, and not from her."