#got some good old fashioned gore this time so whatchout

[devnny]

CHAPTER NINE.

JTRM — THE “R” STANDS FOR RECOVERING!

PREVIOUSLY.

this was too fun to write knowing what comes next, PLEASE ENJOY

Tenna leaned her cheek against her hand with a smile, swaying the leg that she had slung over her knee as she sat across the table from her unexpected guest. It was a mischievous, evil smile, Devi thought.

“So,” She tittered a little. “how’s your househusband?”

“Please, do NOT call him that.” Devi begged, eyes rolling firmly backwards in her skull.

Tenna continued her snickering.

“That what he is, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh come on.” Tenna scoffed, her mug scooting across the table as she extended her hands out. “How many times has he made dinner this week?”

“That has NOTHING to do with ANYTHING.” Devi pointed at her defensively. “He should be cooking for me – it’s not like he pays rent! That’s just him earning his keep.”

“Uh-huhhh…” Tenna nodded as if she was humoring the denials. Devi gurgled her irritation in the back of throat.

“But he is behaving himself, like a good little hubby might?”

“Tenna…” Devi gritted her molars, and Tenna belted out another set of laughs.

“WELL, IS HE?”

“YES, he is behaving fine. Like a dog might.” She answered, more comfortable comparing Johnny to a mostly-domesticated creature than even conceptualizing the joke of him being a spouse to anyone, especially her. Tenna bobbed her head along again. Devi settled back into her chair, hoping to relax.

“He’s been asleep all day.” She complained. “I want to wake his ass up so I can paint, because I can’t be blasting music in there if he’s sleeping on his desk, but he probably needs the rest. He supposedly hadn’t slept in ‘months’ before this.”

Tenna’s tongue poked out from behind her smile, followed by a sharp squeak from somewhere out of Devi’s line of sight.

“That’s so considerate of you, Devi—!”

“DO NOT even TRY to construe any decency I have as acts of kindness for him.” Devi cut her off with a squint.

Two more squeaks.

“Why are you so defensive about this? It’s okay to enjoy the company of your roommate.” Tenna teased again. Devi grumbled.

Tenna hadn’t let up on this topic since she found out that Johnny was officially moved into the apartment. At this point, laying on the couch aimlessly with a sleeping Johnny in the adjacent room was more appealing than sitting here and getting ridiculed for her wrongly-assumed-nice choices.

“Forget it. I’m going to go check—” Devi started as she stood, but cut herself off as her friend flittered another smile toward her.

“…go check on him.” She finished unhappily, then left before Tenna could mock her again.

--

TWO FLOORS ABOVE:

“No…!” Devi’s voice was waning, and he laughed.

“No, Johnny, no, don’t—”

Johnny dug the knife into her chest again, and felt a rush of satisfaction that she was helpless to stop him. He never held the control between the two of them, but this time she would be answering to him! She hardly even tried to push him away, only calling out with a voice that was growing softer with each gasp she worked to swallow.

She deserved this for being so rude to him! Awful woman – she had such biting words before, but now she had to reserve her fangs for biting back the blood that sputtered out past her lips. It made him laugh.

“Nny…” Devi croaked out.

He felt a sudden emptiness in his chest, and his arms chilled, startling him with the stark contrast of how hot his skin had felt just a moment ago, burning with the pleasure of revenge.

There was no pleasure in this.

She was dying.

--

Johnny’s body spasmed and he whacked his elbows against his desk as he awoke with a guttural gasp. He scrambled into a sitting position in his chair, slapping his palms on the surface of his drafting table like a scurrying animal. As he got his bearings, his head swiveled around frantically, until he was certain that he knew where he was – which was sitting in Devi’s art room.

A breath shuddered out of him through his panting, and he gulped as best he could past the dry lump in his throat.

Just another fucking dream. He had fallen asleep. GOD, he hated sleeping. The last thing he remembered was finishing the project that he had been working so madly on. He must have laid his head down on his desk afterwards and opened himself up to the horrors of his fervid mind.

He didn’t want to disclose it to Devi, but this was not the first dream he had about killing her since her intervention into his life. The first was the night after their tutoring sessions restarted, after their minor falling out due to him attacking her with a pen.

That week Johnny had cried his guts sore, then rode wave after wave of anxiety about meeting Devi again and attempting to apologize, then nearly combusted with joy that she actually forgave him. He must have burned himself out, he had figured, with the last of his drawing attempts the night following that, then had passed out when he got home.

Stupid emotions, so tiring.

He sneered and roughly rubbed his uneven hair, then turned his attention to his sketchbook that laid closed in front of him. He opened it to check his work, partly to distract himself from the lingering tendrils of his nightmare, and partly out of rampant curiosity of what the final result was.

His lower eyelid wiggled uncomfortably at the figure that greeted him.

DEVI? He had been drawing Devi this entire time?

Jeezus, how was he supposed to share this with her? He hadn’t meant to put a week’s worth of effort into a portrait of… her, but he had, and now he would need to hide it away to ensure she didn’t think he was a total creep and throw him out of her house on his ass.

Johnny pouted; it was the nicest thing he’d made in years, too. He really liked the lines, and how it was layered through multiple pages. He sighed and settled the cover closed again.

“So, you’re finally up, huh?” Devi stood in the doorway, previously obscured by the sketchbook he held up. Johnny screamed.

“AH—OH, UH, DEVI…!” He blathered, clutching the book close to his chest. Devi chuckled.

“It’s weird seeing you sleeping.” She commented as she walked the short way to his desk. “You snore a little bit, by the way.”

Johnny’s nose crinkled, unaware that he snored. Strange.

“I saw your little project.” She said, and his heart toppled into the hopeless abyss of his stomach. Devi laughed again at the terrified look on his face. She hated to admit that she felt more relaxed around Johnny than Tenna these days, but that could just be her pride talking.

“DEVI, I…” He gasped, then swallowed and tried again. “I-I promise, it’s, it’s really not as… uhm, intimate, as it seems—”

“Oh please don’t use that word for it.” Devi scoffed casually.

Johnny lowered nervously, partially hiding behind his sketchbook.

“Just promise me it’s not like, a testament to your undying love for me, and I won’t have to club you to death.” She teased, and Johnny’s eyes went wide in embarrassment.

“NO, NOT AT ALL.” He stood. “I just, I—I didn’t even realize this is what I was making until it… was done! Honest!”

Devi blinked at him skeptically.

“You… didn’t know what you were making?”

“Yes! It was like I was compelled to make that!”

She squinted at him with some suspicion.

“Do you think… Meat influenced you to create it, then?” She asked.

Johnny’s panic dissolved at the question.

“Oh…” His eyes wandered down to the sketchbook, but he was not worried about the idea of Meat’s interference with that. “No, I don’t think so.”

But with the mention of it, he was suddenly very suspicious that his parasite was the cause of his horrible dreams. He couldn’t understand what the Reverend would want as a result from tormenting him with bloody, anguished Devi’s, but Johnny was confident at least that the motive was part of the voice’s ‘plan’ for him. Against his better judgement, he kept those thoughts from Devi for the time being.

“What makes you so sure?” Devi crossed her arms loosely. “I mean, I guess it is creating, so the likelihood is low, but it’s still… me-related.”

Johnny shook his head and inched a ways closer to her.

“A lot of things right now are you-related.” He replied, almost a little smug, and Devi scoffed a smile again.

“Whatever.” She waved him off.

Devi returned to the living room, and Johnny trailed after her, stopping short when he saw her shrugging her jacket on. She had just wanted to paint today, but there was a more pressing issue on the agenda now.

“Hope you’re up for an outing,” She turned to him and gave him an annoyed look. “because we have to go to the store, seeing as you ate all my food.”

Johnny’s upper lip dropped low in surprise, then tightened back up into a guilty smile as he laced his hands behind his back. It was strange having so much food available to eat; he couldn’t recall his own cupboards and fridge ever having such variety. He had allowed himself to get a little carried away with his snacking while Devi was asleep – he still remembered, with some lingering pain, his whining and belly-aching after eating until he was far beyond full for the first time in maybe a year. Devi had shown little sympathy for him.

“Ah – of course!” Johnny shrugged happily, eager to sooth any irritation she had with him with dutiful agreements. Devi huffed a little and hitched her backpack securely onto her shoulders, then lead the pair out of the apartment.

--

AT A NEARBY GROCERY STORE:

Usually, Devi was content with shopping at convenience stores for her groceries, but the small-sized portions and limited selections at a 24/7 or a Grab n’ Go weren’t very good for restocking her entire food supply, so she begrudgingly parked her car in the lot of an actual grocery store. She and Johnny watched from the safety of Devi’s car as a mother wheeled a cart past them that was half full of food, and half full of wailing toddlers. Devi turned to give him a bitter expression, as if he had intentionally eaten her out of house and home and forced her to come here. Johnny offered a nervous smile as reply.

“At least it’s getting late?” He chuckled just as nervously. “So, maybe less screaming babies?”

Devi muttered her complaints under her breath and opened her door to get out, followed hurriedly by Johnny.

They walked briskly to the store’s front, with Devi ignoring all the annoying things she saw in the parking lot to the best of her ability, and with Johnny eyeing every unpleasant and rude act he saw with the shifting eyes of a predator. Neither of them enjoyed being among the masses even on a good day, but Johnny felt particularly on edge being near so many irritating things after such little recent exposure. If Devi wasn’t beside him, he was certain he would have snapped before even getting to the entrance.

He kept close to her side while she wheeled a shopping cart from aisle to aisle, and mused to himself how odd the action was. He never went to places where you’d even be offered the luxury of a shopping cart – not that he was ever buying enough things to require one, what with his meager funds and all. Devi dropped seemingly random things into it, and Johnny, rather than even attempt to suggest anything that he might want to eat too, only eyed the options that she chose inquisitively, settled in the idea that whatever she chose was all that would be available to him anyway.

Johnny had no complains about Devi’s taste in cereals or cheap instant food, and shortly found himself uninterested with their current errand. While Devi checked a carton of eggs for any broken shells, his eyes wandered around the length of the back aisle they were on, and a disruption on the opposite side of the store drew his attention.

When Devi turned back to ask him something, she was horrified to find him missing.

“JOHNNY!” She called out immediately, stricken with both concern and anger.

She got no response, and abandoned her cart to look for him, hoping that he was just a few rows away and got distracted by something shiny or sugary.

Two aisles, nothing.

Four aisles, nothing.

Devi’s anxiety rose the longer it took for her to find him, and after two failed sweeps of the store, it reached a fevered pitch. She had absolutely no concern for his safety, of course, but rather for the safety of every asshole in the proximity of the building. That thought spurred her to go check the parking lot, and she rushed to the front of the store again.

Her boots clanked on the sidewalk as she paced from one end of the parking lot to the other. It irritated a man soliciting near the entrance, but when he went to confront her about her annoying actions, Devi shoved him to the side and out of her way as she sped by. She opened her mouth to call for Johnny again, when a sickeningly damp, whacking sound hit her left ear, and she turned her focus to the alleyway that lead to the back of the grocery.

“Oh, no.” She winced. “Please, Christ.”

With all of her urgency to find him only seconds ago, the speed that she crept to the alley felt achingly slow. Devi hurried the last few steps, and whipped around the wall, convinced that Johnny is what she would see.

She wasn’t disappointed in that regard, at least.

Johnny stood some yards away with his back to her, his slender frame barely visible with the dark backdrop of the alleyway, but unmistakable to Devi. Some poor soul lay at his feet, and Johnny’s arm pulled back, revealing he was equipped with a pipe of some sort. Devi’s mouth hung open in dismay.

“JOHNNY C.” Her voice roared out of her, and Johnny’s body tensed instinctually.

His hand popped open like a talon, letting his weapon of opportunity fall to the badly maintained asphalt with a chorus of metallic clanking. He turned to look at Devi fearfully, and her stare only grew angrier from the clear view of the blood spatter that reached up to his elbows on both arms. Johnny’s face stretched uncomfortably as he forced an anxious smile onto it.

“D… DEVI.” He tried to laugh out. “I, UH… I can explain!”

One of his muddied hands swung back to gesture at the man laying beaten behind him. The man groaned incoherently, then went quiet again. Johnny grimaced, and jolted where he stood as Devi began to approach him with quickening speed.

“YOU—”

“NO, WAIT.” Johnny evaded her a moment by circling around her, suddenly worried about getting cornered just as he had his victim. His arms jutted out to the man on the floor again. “He was calling his girlfriend all sorts of degrading things! In public!”

“Johnny…!” She growled.

A bead of sweat slid down his temple.

“I swear I was going to let him live!” He insisted. “It wasn’t going to be a murder, just a little head bashing, that’s all!”

“OH, THAT’S “ALL”!?” Devi yelled at him, and slipped an arm free from the straps of her backpack. Both hands gripped the other strap, and she propelled it forward in an aggressive swing, tagging Johnny somewhere near his collar. The power behind the hit knocked him to the floor, and Devi stood over him with her knees bent to continue beating him with her bag.

“YOU IDIOT!” She hissed between swings. “I CAN’T TAKE YOU ANYWHERE!”

Johnny pleaded with her through fearful shrieks and all manner of breathless grunts from being struck, but nothing would stop Devi until her rage had run its course. All he could do was shield his face with his forearms until she decided his punishment was over.

At least her bag didn’t have much in it, from what he could feel. He was more concerned that she would abandon it in favor of her much more deadly clenched fists, or maybe the pipe that he had so mercilessly battered that jerk with, which was still laying nearby.

“Ugh!” Devi exclaimed with one final smack of her backpack on his chest.

She stepped over his form and readjusted her bag onto her shoulders, unconcerned about if the contents inside were broken or not. Johnny peeked an eye open at her from the ground, and watched her fix her frazzled hair a moment before scampering upright again. Devi scowled at him, and he replied with a sheepish smile, happy despite himself that she hadn’t cracked his skull open like an egg.

Devi’s nose crinkled, and she lowered her eyes down to his arms and hands, which still had patches of dirty blood on them. His fingers wiggled at his sides, as if in response to her staring, and she glowered.

This was not good. Even when she was right next to him, Johnny, the slippery little fucker, had absconded to commit some violent act – and she wasn’t sure she bought his claims that it wouldn’t have turned fatal, instead suspecting it only didn’t because of her timely appearance. Shit!

“What more do you expect me to do, Johnny?” Devi asked through bared teeth, and his smile dropped into an ashamed pout.

“I… uh, well, nothing.” He replied with a single scuff of his boot on the floor. He was more remorseful for upsetting her than he was for indulging in his desire for carnage, what with her doing so much to help him and all. She shouldn’t need to do anything more – it was just so difficult to control himself with bastards like that populating the city! Such hard choices…

“You need to clean up. You can’t go back into the store with blood all over you.” Devi snipped, and Johnny perked up, hopeful his answer would calm her.

“I’ll just wash off in the bathroom – no one ever notices the blood, anyway.”

“No, of course they wouldn’t.” Devi closed her eyes in annoyance. The universe just liked to hand Johnny free passes for getting away with dastardly deeds, didn’t it?

She started to walk out of the alley, and Johnny paid his latest victim a quick glance – he was still twitching, that was good! – before he followed Devi back into the store.

A myriad of low-spoken curse words ghosted past Devi’s lips as she waited for him outside the men’s bathroom door, and her bitter mood continued when Johnny popped back out to display his now-clean palms to her.

She was disappointed, again, and hated herself for getting comfortable, again. Why did she always fall into the same trap of overconfidence when it came to her ability to control this lunatic? Even with Johnny acting fairly normal and domestic with her at home, he was still like a volatile chemical, and mixing him with anything besides his routine could make him explode.

They returned to the cart that Devi had left near the dairy section, and she felt a tiny bit of relief that it was still sitting there untouched. After grabbing a couple more things, they went through a check stand, paid for their crap, and Devi glared at nothing, one bag in her arms, while Johnny gathered up the other two from the end of the counter.

Amongst her brooding, a blip of color in her peripheral caught her attention, and she looked to the woman that had been behind them in line. She was standing, talking cheerfully with the cashier, while her toddler daughter tried to rush over to the attractive, cheap toy and candy dispensers on the front wall. The poor thing couldn’t get far however, with her brilliantly colored monkey toddler harness and leash springing her backwards onto her butt every time she tried to charge ahead.

Devi blinked, her curiosity peaked, and she looked back up to the mother, who continued on with what she was doing, unbothered by her hyperactive child, unworried about having to watch her, with the pink handle of the leash held firmly in her hand reassuring her that her daughter was right where she expected her to be.

“What?” Johnny asked in regard to Devi’s thinking face.

“Hmm…” Devi looked off thoughtfully.

That might work.

--

NEXT.

#got some good old fashioned gore this time so whatchout #jthm #jtrm #mine #devnny #im howling lets go alreadyyyyyyy #chapter