A week before his death, while they ate, Jose told him about the crossroads demons and how they could conceive anything you wanted by just burying some stuff in the middle of a crossroads and showed him the little green box with all the ingredients that he would need to put inside. Aaron didn't know what half of the stuff was and Jose didn't tell him, but he managed to recognize Jose's picture in it, an old photo of a younger version of him.
"What are you going to wish?" he asked nervously. Aaron didn't believe it, but he was truly curious to know the answer.
Jose twisted the box in his hand. "I want my arm and leg back."
"What?"
"I ain't going to depend on those pills to dull my pain all my life, kid." He threw the small package on the table. "I want to leave this place and never come back, but I can't do it like this."
"But there must be something they want, right? I don't think they would concede something by the goodness of their hearts."
Jose grinned and leaned more into his chair. "You're a smart kid. I know you'll be able to guess it."
Aaron blinked. There was something in Jose's tone that─ "Your soul?!" he shouted. He glanced around and, thankfully, there were few patients that day. "They want your soul?" he whispered.
He snorted. "The usual deal lasts ten years before the hellhounds take my soul down to Hell."
Aaron couldn't remember since when he had started to follow his delusions, but Jose's face was serious enough to make him talk with the same conviction. "Hellhounds?"
"They're hell's beasts," he answered shaking his head. "Dealt with them a few times. Horrendous creatures."
Aaron crossed his arms over his chest. "And I don't think that they just come to lick your face and ask for your soul, right?"
"They'll shred me into pieces." Aaron tried to say something, but he didn't know what though. If he could at least accomplish what he wanted, then what Aaron could say? Don't you deserve to live fully? He wasn't a hypocrite. Aaron looked up when he felt a pat on his shoulder. "Kid, I'm a hunter. My death will be bloody and horrible, that's our rule."
"But this is Hell what we're talking about."
Jose's eyes clouded as he gazed at the side, a sad smile forming on his lips. "I've done a lot of crap in my life, boy. I'm going to Hell one way or another." He grabbed the box between his fingers, touching the top almost fondly. "At least this way I can decide how."
"Why do you even tell me this? I'm suicidal, you know." Aaron cringed at the word, looking down as he tried to ignore how his arm still itched. He quietly moved his hand using his spoon to play with the food on his plate.
"I know that you won't do it again, you're smart and you already know how your family would get if you are stupid enough to try to do that again."
Aaron swallowed. He thought that maybe he was right; he wouldn't do that again. At least, he needed to believe that. Because after some nights thinking about what happened before he got inside the hospital, he was finally able to remember some more things. They were mostly flashes of Karen's broken tone as he called the ambulance and Will's tears while he grabbed his wrists to stop the blood. There was coldness too, someone touching his head gently before he went unconscious. He remembered that little Sophie was staying in a friend's house that night; he thought that that was why he had chosen that day.
But even if he did know that he would not try to kill himself again because he loved them, it also made him hate them a little because now he had to live with the fear, uncertainty. The feeling of being broken, every day hating what he saw into the mirror. He once wondered how it was possible that the emptiness in his chest could feel so heavy and crushing, pressing down in his bones, making him exhausted, drained, inutile, but at the same time so light.
It was their fault. This wasn't supposed to happen. He wanted it all to be over. Why had they ─
He cleared his throat. It was always the same, always trying to fight with the guilt that slowly engulfed him when he thought of them that way, creeping inside him as it were a virus.
- -
Jose died on a Tuesday because of a heart attack. It was so normal and quick that it startled Aaron for a moment. He never thought that he would die, or at least not like this. Not so… normal. Everything was so ordinary the day it happened: the exercise in the morning, the shower, the breakfast, the pills. A normal day in a patient's routine. Well, there had been a small difference, though, that afternoon Aaron had shared his dessert with him, one thing that he had never done before. But Jose liked that flavor of pudding in particular and his own had fallen from his tray.
Jose was supposed to leave the next day. Everything was planned and Aaron had felt so alive when Jose told him his idea, including him in it. He had acquiesced to do the distraction, he had even practiced it and all: he would act as if he were choking so all the nurses would come (some to help, but mostly out of curiosity), then Jose would use the car that someone would leave outside ─another person who owed him a favor─. It would be hard with just one working leg, but there was a crossroads close to the hospital.
Everything was planned so nothing would screw it up.
After he escaped, he promised Aaron that he would then see him next week close to Will's house to say goodbye and to drink a Johnnie Walker with him. He had told him that he had waited until that moment because he knew that weekend Aaron would finally get the permission to go outside to visit his family.
He was supposed to go to Will's and play with little Sophie, buy some books and eat edible food before going out in the night to meet Jose, and then Aaron would return Monday morning after trying what Jose said was the best thing he would ever taste.
He had even promised to visit him occasionally.
"I'll teach you to hunt, kid. It's always better to know more about the supernatural so you can protect yourself."
It was so surreal to watch the nurses going to his room, shouting indications; patients hovering close, trying to see better what was happening.
- -
Aaron stayed in his room all day, curled in a ball on his bed, arms wrapped tightly around his body. His doctor told him that maybe it would be a good idea to not go out this weekend─ he knew that Jose was his friend and the consequences his death would produce on him, worried him. Aaron said that he would think about it - because it was true. He didn't feel like going out or doing anything for that matter. He only wanted to be on his bed and be where he couldn't be hurt or hurt others.
At eleven, he remembered that Jose hid the box for the demon's deal in the ceiling of his room. No one must have noticed or at least not yet, but Aaron knew that if someone from the staff found it, it would most likely end in the trash along with his friend's wishes.
It felt right to retrieve it and to hide it under his pillow.
He told the doctor on Thursday that he wanted to go out that weekend─ wanted to leave some flowers at Jose's grave (He was going to be buried on Friday). The doctor smiled at him and gave him the direction of the cemetery, told him that he was going to talk with Will and Karen, and give them some instructions for him to follow so they would not worry.
Aaron accepted the offer; he would not put flowers, though. He thought that Jose would like a blue label better. He took the box with him, passing it off as a book, and once inside Karen and Will's house, he took the car and left. It had been a little harder to convince Will to let him go alone, saying that he needed some time alone, Will had seemed reluctant at first but accepted after Aaron agreed to call every half hour, threatening that if he didn't, Will would hunt his ass down if he turned off the cell's GPS.