Teenage Jericho must have used some glue version of flex tape to stick the posters onto the walls, because it takes Jericho the rest of the day to rip them all down.

That's not including dinner, which was awkward but thankfully uneventful. There he sat, before a face he'd memorised from tiny grimy prints, and still have nothing to say. His mother was never one for conversations at the table, and the empty seat at the head of the table just reminds them both that his father isn't home from that business trip yet.

If his memory serves him right, he wouldn't be until the summer - just long enough to conceive his oh-so-beloved-and-loyal half-brother -

A headache decides to throw a tantrum right then, having had enough of being ignored the whole day. Jericho sighs into his pillow. The sun has just begun to set, casting the whole room in amber. There's still so much to do and sort out and think through and remember and -

How ridiculous. Now that he has youth again, he's starting to lust after frivoulous things. Like desk organisers.

His phone rings.

"Fuck."

He smacks his hand blindly along the bedside table, and eventually against the cursed thing itself. The pillow muffles his voice when he answers.

"Hello?"

"Jerry!" It takes him a second to recognise the voice, "Why aren't you answering anyone's messages? The fuck's going on there!"

"Hmm," he deigns. Dane's always worn his heart outside his chest. Jericho owes him that.

"Leo won't tell anyone shit - d'you know what he said!? 'He's safe.' Like, that's it? There was fucking blood everywhere! And he's the one who -"

"Daniel, please." Another day, any other day, Jericho might've let him rant. "I've got this fucking headache right now. Is the world going to shit over there or not?"

"Um," comes the answer. "No, Leo's just in a mood. I'll just - call me back, Jerry. Alright?"

"I will. Try not to die."

Jericho hangs up before he can hear Daniel's reply. He'll apologise later.

He stays like that, face pressed into his pillow, phone still in hand. The sheets are soft and the air is warm, and he's so, so tired.

He doesn't remember falling asleep.

. . .

It was raining.

Cars splashed past the occasional umbrella-clad pedestrian. Windows drew shut in the high-rises, and someone, somewhere had left their laundry out. Under slated skies, the city cradled close its punctured breath.

He wove between the puddling potholes, umbrella held overhead. In his other hand, a cane struck the ground like half a heartbeat. Beneath the stuttering lights, through the narrowing streets and up the chipping concrete steps of an apartment complex. Eventually, he stopped in front of a stained door.

His hand was halfway to it before he remembered to close his umbrella. He knocked, sighing. Out of breath already.

Tap, tap, the door answered. He knocked again.

There was no answer this time. He threw quick glances over his shoulder, at the open stairwell. The concrete and steel that hung in the air tasted distinctly of exhaust, and no amount of rain could wash that out.

The door opened.

She stood in the narrow doorway, wrapped in a blue shawl, hair undone and face haggard. The smell of ash drifted past as she turned her back and walked away. "Close it behind you."

He shook out his umbrella and obeyed, leaning on his cane to switch out his shoes for simple house slippers. For a moment, he just crouched there, looking at his leather oxfords in the corner beside her rain boots. Each breath he released serenaded him silently with a little white cloud. The rain sang a muffled rhythm through the bare walls.

Then he shook himself, stood up again, and shed his woollen coat and scarf. He felt distinctly like cold soggy corn, left in water too long. Eventually, he followed her into the living room with his coat folded over his arm, umbrella and cane left on an overladen coat hanger behind him.

She was sitting curled up on the threadbare sofa. The room was naked apart from it, and the springs creaked when he sat down beside her. Methodically, he wrapped her in his scarf and draped his coat over their shoulders. Her eyes watched him silently from where she pressed into his side.

"I can make him love you," she rasped through the pitter-patter of rain against her tin walls. Her hands stayed limp as he pulled his leather gloves over them. They were still warm inside.

He smiled tiredly back at her. "I know."

She buried her face into his shoulder. "I can make him love you." She repeated, this time barely a whisper.

He leant his head atop hers. In the raining half-dark, their figures were painted in greyscale; a picture in washed-out ink, warping with the weight of water.

"I know."

. . .

Going to school the next day is a bizarre experience. Overwhelmingly mundane.

There are countless differences in the buildings themselves - a given since he did donate (will donate?) some of the newer ones when the man in the Headmaster's seat wasn't a sucker for tradition. Beneath the changes, the towering grey stone and leaded windows and crucifixes are familiar features. It feels simultaneously like yesterday and forever ago when he first arrived.

It's also odd seeing his classmates and old friends again, younger, louder, happier. Surprisingly, it's Ahron that he runs into first.

He's missed him, Jericho realises. He didn't think he'd ever see his greek nose and unruly black curls and stupidly tall frame again. And Daniel too, whispers another part of him, but isn't that your own fault? He ignores it.

He grins, "Ahron! How're you?"

"I'm alright, Jerry!" Ahron laughs, clapping him on the shoulder. It fades as he throws a look back at Jericho's departing driver.

Odd. Jericho raps his chest gently with his knuckles, "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Ahron says, "well." He does a funny half-shrug.

Come to think of it, he's still not sure if Leo ever went on that date. He certainly didn't last time.

"Daniel called me yesterday," Jericho raises an eyebrow at Ahron's twitch, "is the world still ending?"

"Yeah, kind of." Ahron smiles and holds the door open as a white-clad woman with an armful of trays - a lab tech - rushes past, blushing. "Everyone's been walking on eggshells 'cause Leo's so high-strung. Nobody wants to go near him."

Jericho frowns. "The date didn't go well?" At that, he gets a look.

"What date? He didn't tell us anything."

"Well," Jericho nudges Ahron through the door, "that answers it, doesn't it? I'll tell you later."

They step into the hallway, joining a flood of other students. Ahron smiles wryly and leans in to say something, but he's drowned out by the chatter, voices bouncing off the arched stone ceiling.

Pardon? Jericho mouths, leaning towards him.

Ahron smiles wider. "It's funny," he murmurs into Jericho's ear, "how he's so clingy even when you're barely here. 'Cause you got what -- special permission from the Dean? Or was it the Head?"

"Ah," Jericho's spared the indignity of going on tiptoes to whisper back as the crowd enters the hall and quiets down. "I'm actually thinking of moving into the dorms."

In the vision (Dream? Past?), he remembers moving in halfway through their last year, too grieved to enjoy it. After all, it's always been his mother insisting he stay at home - until she couldn't.

Ahron eyes him oddly again, but Jericho is already busy trying to find a seat.

"Boys - BOYS!" The Headmaster shouts from the front of the hall, and it echoes up against the high, high arched ceilings. Once again, Jericho is thrown by the enormity of the room, scuffed wooden floors and all. "Thank you! Now-" he claps his hands together, which clinks his rings together.

It's John Piper, he realises, it's John fucking Piper coming in today. How could he forget?

"And without futher ado," the Head sweeps a hand to the side, "I'd like to introduce to you to your speaker for today, Mr. Nayman!"

Jericho is reminded of the feeling he had back in the infirmary as he clutches at the sides of his flimsy, decade-old chair. What an apt name.

A/N: And The Plot Thickens! lol