Another tear fell down his cheek but Aaron wiped it away instantly.
After making the deal, controlling his heartbeat was still a difficult task to achieve; the fact that he was driving wasn't helping either. But he had already spent a great amount of time in the cemetery and he needed to go to Will's or the old man was going to get worried.
He didn't even manage to go to Jose's grave after the deal because he was ashamed, so fucking ashamed. The blue label that sat on the passenger seat kept mocking him for how he had fucked up. Jose had told him once about how some ghosts still lurk on earth after their death because of some unfinished business and, even if Aaron at the time didn't believe him, he wanted to bury the box so Jose wouldn't have anything attached to him. Maybe that way his soul would rest in peace.
He laughed dryly.
His knuckles went white against the wheel as his grip tightened. He blinked several times in an attempt to take away the tears that were starting to make his vision blur again. His jaw hurt so much because of how strongly he was clenching his teeth. He had the urge to stop the car and throw up on some bush, to grab the bottle on his right and smash it against the floor so he could draw the pieces of broken glass hard towards his throat. He wanted to feel the peace and relief he knew he would feel as the blood slowly left his body. He probably would have died with a smile on his face then.
But he wouldn't do it because this was Marcus's car. Both of them considered this car their home and Marcus would kick his ass from his grave if he found out that he had died next to their home. Though he would also get pissed if he threw up inside.
Pressing the brakes with more force than necessary, he stopped the car next to the empty road. He stepped outside and looked at the moon that was beginning to shine above him, looking like a smile or more like a smirk that was laughing at him, at his despair. 'Stupid enough to made deal, boy?'
He sat on the dirt next to the car and took a few deep breaths in an effort to calm the knots in his stomach before he extended his arm to reach the bottle. He wanted to try it, to taste what Jose told him. But did he deserve to drink it? To try the 'best thing' he would ever taste, knowing that if Jose was still alive he would spend hours trying to explain to him why someone doesn't simply sell his soul, how he screwed things up again.
How many times he was going to do that?
Aaron walked toward the bushes and started to dig another hole, laughing as tears welled in his eyes, still feeling the grit in his nails, remembering the hole he'd dug just minutes before. Afraid of what would come next because he didn't know what Sata─ Lucifer would be like. He wasn't intrusive when he kissed him and didn't mock Aaron for his fear of intimacy as he thought he would do. Their lips only brushed briefly before he backed away and told him, "We're going to see each other very soon, friend," with the faintest smile, and then he disappeared. Just leaving the echo of a flutter of wings while Aaron tried to process what had just happened.
It surprised him that he hadn't cried, he had thought he would probably scream but instead he had fallen to his knees, weak as they were after all that had happened in less than a half-hour. He had waited numbly in that position until he felt stronger - until his hands didn't tremble anymore, until the desire to scratch his face and welcome the pain as an old friend had faded and he could bury his emotions again. Then he had stood, walked towards the car, and started to drive. It wasn't until he had turned on the radio to avoid thinking and a stupid song had popped up that he started to feel how everything was moving away from his grasp too quickly, too painfully.
His phone rang from the glove compartment, startling him for a second from the hole he was making before he started to move towards it, tensing when he read Will's name on the screen. He took the phone on his unsteady hands and after taking a deep breath, he answered.
"Aaron? Are you okay?" Will asked instantly. Aaron swallowed at the wariness he heard in Will's tone, who spoke as if Aaron was a baby with a knife between his hands. It made him feel as if he were made of glass, something fragile and small. He hated to feel like that.
He shook his head and focused on the question. Was he okay? He knew that Will didn't expect a 'Yes, I feel fine' but more something like 'I'm still alive and I haven't injured myself'. Technically he hadn't done any true damage to himself, or at least not physically. Could Aaron tell Will what had happened without sounding crazy? And, how would he tell him? 'Will, I just sold my soul and now Satan is my friend.'
Yeah, right.
"Aaron?" Will asked again, and this time Aaron just sniffed before he answered, his voice coming out weaker than he would have liked.
"Yeah, I'm here… I'm fine." The lie felt like a weight against his shoulders, pushing him against the ground. Aaron swallowed the gulp in his throat and held his phone with his left hand while he moved his right under his shirt and scratched the skin he found, piercing his nails into his ribs with force enough to hurt but not to leave a mark for too long. He just wanted to feel something that wasn't guilt. "I'm fine." He repeated stronger this time. "I just returned from Jose's grave, you know?"
"And how are you feeling, son?" He heard the relief in Will's voice as the man let a breath he probably didn't know he was holding, though Aaron noticed as he always did. He tried to ignore the shame and dread he felt as his hand moved up towards his armpit, scratching with a little more force the tender skin where it hurt more but wouldn't be too noticeable.
"I feel tired," he admitted. "I just want to go─" home? What home? Karen wasn't his mother or something. "─to bed. I want to sleep." He hoped that Will didn't notice the brief pause.
"We'll be waiting for you, son," he only replied. "Just be careful. I can pick you up and, if you ain't feeling like it, I can read to Sophie tonight."
"No, no. I want to do it," he said quickly. "I want to. I look forward to it, Will." To talk with someone who would treat him like a normal human being, even if that someone was just a five-year-old girl.
They said their respective farewells after that, and Aaron barely managed not to throw the phone away against a rock. He hated how careful Will was being as of late; he hadn't heard him cursing or that similar attitude that he had liked from Jose. But Aaron wasn't stupid or naïve, he knew that it was his fault.
He placed the blue label in the hole and buried it, hoping that maybe someday he would have the courage to be able to share it with Jose. After the dirt covered the bottle and he moved some bushes on top, he wondered for a minute if it was some kind of spell too? Maybe some leprechaun would appear or something? Aaron smiled briefly at the thought as he walked towards the car, taking a few more deep breaths to calm himself before he started to drive.
- -
Aaron ate the food Karen gave him even when his stomach didn't want him to, he then read to little Sophie 'Hansel and Gretel', trying to smile while he answered the questions she asked him. The next day he did everything he could to ignore the little claw marks that the demon had left yesterday on his arm, the only proof he had that what it had happened in that crossroads was indeed real. He slept late that day, making sure he did not cry because he didn't want anyone worried tomorrow in the morning if they saw his puffed eyes.
He did many things on Sunday to distract his mind. He ran in the morning, helped the neighbors as always did when he was at Will's (they were so careful around him), helped in the garage with the cars as Marcus had taught him. Acted as if he was enjoying himself when Karen took him to the library and, in the afternoon, he gave her a hand with the bar so he could return to bed tired. That way the desire to make the scratch bigger would disappear.
Most people thought that being inside a mental hospital meant that you would suffer. Nurses would always stand behind you, strict. Doctors would always treat you poorly and be cruel; patients would dance happily with a lost expression in their faces. Everything would be sad, cries would echo in the rooms while you stated repeatedly that you weren't crazy; you didn't deserve to be there. That you wanted to escape.
It wasn't like that.
They just gave you a routine and you followed it. It gave you a sense of comfort, to have your life planned when you felt like you weren't good enough to do it by yourself. Nurses left you alone most of the time. Only when a patient was new and had a violent history they stayed constantly around them. Touching your door almost three times every day, doing that to give you a sense of privacy because you couldn't lock the doors. Just to see if you were okay ─alive─. You had three meals and some people were interesting. Everyone knew that there was something wrong in them, even the ones that came involuntarily at first.
Most didn't want to leave and Aaron couldn't stop thinking that day how on Monday he would have to return to the hospital, the place where he didn't need to act because everyone had a problem like him, no one to judge him. He smiled against the pillow as the slumber slowly came.
"Don't worry, son. In a few months, you'll be able to stay with us."
That was the last thing Karen told him as she kissed his cheek, Will had his bag with books on an arm, also giving him a reassuring smile.
He felt guilty because he wanted to stay in the hospital more than with them.
- -