i was gonna dip into a lil bit of angst but nahhhh my birthdays soon and im using it as an excuse to be slightly lazy >:)  by that i mean i spent yesterday binge watching Bryce's videos bc i have no life

--

“Why did you bring deer?” Jonathan reaches over to pet the deer, gently rubbing its head with a smile.

Brock shrugs, kissing the one in his lap on the nose. “I just thought they looked lonely,” he chuckles.

“They're so cute,” Evan says softly. He's sitting on Brock’s bed with them, in the very corner. He had scared the deer at first, with his wings and freaky yellow eyes, but now they were all chilling with each other like nothing had happened.

Jonathan yawns. He's kinda tired, honestly. He doesn't know why he's so sleepy, though, because he slept for nearly twelve hours last night. He woke up at noon, for crying out loud! To be fair, it wasn't a very nice sleep. His stupid arm cast is bugging him. Means that he can't sleep on the right side of his body or else he feels pain.

Evan chuckles. “Are you tired, Jonathan?”

“A lil’ bit,” he admits. “I was gonna go…”

He had been planning on taking a nap later today, then wake up and make fun of Marcel’s weird Snapchat selfies he keeps sending to Jon. And then he was probably gonna go eat some cheap instant noodles at three am and (maybe) schedule a nice, proper existential crisis somewhere in there. Is he really Delirious? Why is he a Delirious and not a Delicious?

Why is he referring to himself in the third person?

“Jonny, are you ever gonna finish your sentence?” Evan's calm laugh pulls him from his thoughts effortlessly.

Jonathan blinks slowly. “Uh… no.”

Brock looks at him with concern. “Are you that sleepy? You can nap here if you want, you know. Or if you don't want Tyler to wake you up, Bryce's room is just down the hall. I'm sure he won't mind you sleeping on his extra bed, he's rarely in there to begin with.”

Jonathan has to take a moment to think this over. Bryce's room is down the hall? As in, the same hall as Brock?

“I thought Bryce lived in the other dorm building with me,” he says thoughtfully, thinking back to his first night here. They ran into each other in the hall by Jon's room, even if they hadn't known each other yet. What was he doing over there then? “When did he move here?”

“He's always lived in this one,” Brock answers with a laugh. “He had a friend named Mark or Mike that lived in there. I don't remember which one, but I've seen them hanging out once or twice. I think he moved though, ‘cause I haven't seen him in a while.”

Evan has his thinking face on. “You mean that one guy who had the cool hat? I liked that guy.”

Jonathan is still confused, partially because he wasn't really paying attention, but he nods anyways and prays his confusion isn't as obvious as it feels.

He decides to take Brock up on his offer. Jonathan pulls Brock’s pillow closer, rolling onto his stomach and hugging the pillow close to him. “Thanks,” he mumbles out, eyes slowly closing as he rests his head on the pillow.

He hears Brock chuckle, and Evan's warm, soothing voice telling him something he can't bother to listen to. A warm, furry body- a deer, probably- lays next to him, and it's such a comfortable feeling that Jon's out in seconds.

--

He wakes up to the smell of something bad. Jon's tired mind can't quite place it or give it a name, but his nose tells him that it's not good at all and Delirious’ nose never lies. This makes him sit up. He looks around the room cautiously.

Brock is asleep next to him, Tyler on his own bed and Evan nowhere in sight. The deer are gone too. Brock and Tyler's room is awfully messy, though. There's crumpled up papers scattered across the floor and some clothes in a pile by the door, and… orange paint on the wall? Is their room normally this yellow?

No, no, that's just light coming from outside.

… Wait.

Jonathan scrambles over Brock to get to the window. And dear god, what he sees makes him nearly scream.

There's just… a flame. Flying in the air. A fucking FLAME flying in the AIR, all on its own as if it's the most normal thing in existence! Jonathan looks at in in both amazement and horror.

It feels like it's staring right back at him. Quite the unsettling feeling if he's to be honest. But.. What was it that he was smelling? You can't smell fire through brick and glass, he's sure of that much.

He looks around the room. Nothing’s dead or on fire. Maybe it's a false alarm. It happens, you know? Sometimes he smells a bad fart or his head gets him all mixed up for no good reason. Jonathan accepts this as a misinterpreted signal and promptly goes back to sleep. Morning will come soon, and with it comes classes, even if Jon isn't too excited for them.

He snuggles into the bed with a content sigh. Procrastinating math homework has never, ever felt so good. He's sure of it.

--

This time, he wakes up to the sound of someone frantically calling his name. “Jon! Jonathan! Jon, get up dammit!” Hands grab onto his body and begin to shake him. He groans, trying to go back to sleep.

But that's when he smells the smoke. A lot of it. It burns his nose and forces him to sit up right. Tyler and Brock are looking at him worriedly, and it quickly occurs to Jon that no room should ever be this bright if the clock says four am.

He tries his best to ask about what's happening as he gets out of bed. “What- wha- what-”

“Shut the fuck up and come on,” Tyler snaps, though the panic in his eyes is clear as day. “Someone started a fire, Jonathan, you dumbass. Come on. We gotta blast before it fucking burns our dicks off."

They run out into the hallway, and holy shit does it look terrible. Half the buildings engulfed in flames, and they're quickly making their way down the hall. Jonathan suddenly gasps as he sees something big and orange flying in their direction.

“Oh, fuck!” Brock yanks them both out of the way of the giant fireball that came from… somewhere, and then they're running the opposite direction.

Jonathan attempts to put the fire out with his magic, shooting water at the flames created by the ball of fire. It does no good, for there's too much fire and he's nowhere near skilled enough to attack a fire of this caliber.  

Tyler suddenly lifts someone up. It's Bryce, who looks distraught and tired as fuck. He's shaking. Jonathan's big-brother mode kicks in as he grabs Tyler and Brock, pulling them along.

“Come on, dammit, we have to go!” They're quick to move, dodging burning debris or flames or collapsing building pieces, whatever you wanna call it. He looks around in frustration. The stairs are on fire, how the shit do they get out of here? It's getting harder to see or breathe, the light and heat making his eyes begin to water and the air slowly becoming suffocating to all of them.

Bryce whines in frustration. “If this is a brick building why is it on fire?!”

“The outside is brick, the rest is wood and flammable furniture,” Brock says softly. He's pulled his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth, his eyes watering from the smoke and heat.

“Jon, put the fire out here,” Tyler chokes out. When Jon does as asked (though with shaky hands) Tyler coughs, takes a deep breath, coughs again, and then runs into the wall full force. A hole is forced into it, and sadly the building above it collapses too. Tyler is now holding open a tiny gap, just big enough for the smaller ones to go through. Tyler gestures to Jon and Bryce. “Go.”

They don't need to be told twice. They quickly go through the small opening and-

“DELIRIOUS!”

And Jonathan wakes up. He looks around in confusion. He's in a bed. Whose bed is this? Why is he here? Was the fire a dream, or…?

“Evan, relax. You're gonna make it worse, gonna make it worse,  more than it already is.” Evan's voice is coming from somewhere else, though he doesn't know where. Why is he talking to himself?

Jon opens his mouth to speak, like most people do, but suddenly he realizes how dry his throat is and he's coughing like crazy and reaching desperately for a water bottle someone left on a chair. Someone hands him an entirely different bottle of water, and Jon immediately begins to chug it. He hears Evan laugh, and then Evan's hugging him tightly while kissing him on the forehead.

“I'm happy you're awake,” Evan murmurs. “You slept for a whole day, jackass. Thanks for making us worry.”

Jonathan frowns. “I- I did? Why? I thought it was a dream…”

“What dream?” Evan seems concerned, cupping Jonathan's cheek with one hand and pressing the other to his forehead.

“The- the damn fire! There was a fire and- and- and I was tryin’ to put it out but it wasn't- it… it…”

Evan is more concerned now than ever, if the look on his face is to say anything.  “Jon, that wasn't a dream. Some fire-thing was inside the other dorm, the whole place kinda collapsed…”

“W- what? But how?” Jon sits up a little more to better hear his friend.

He shrugs. “I don't know, Jon. It just got in somehow, and it started burning stuff and throwing things around, people said, and all I know is that you were in that building, I was worried as fuck and some people were hurt really bad.”

Jon pauses to think. “... Am I okay?”

This makes Evan laugh. “Yes, you dork, you're fine,” he says, leaning in to kiss Jon’s forehead once more. “Do you not remember?”

“...No,” Jonathan admits. “I just kinda remember jumping out a window or somethin’ and Brock and Tyler and Bryce..”

“That's… that's it?” Evan seems surprised. He grins at Jon, moving to sit on Jon's legs and facing him. “You drowned the weird fire thing! It was fucking awesome, Delirious, how could you not remember it?”

He blinks. “Uh… maybe I got my ass kicked? I dunno. Can we figure this out later? Maybe in the next chapter?”

Evan narrows his eyes. “Why do you say this like we're in some kind of book-”