John

It was two. He remembered it was two because the noise shot him out of his sleep and the digital clock was glowing fiercely in the corner of his eye. He remembered it all. He remembered the blood that appeared in his mouth when he heard it.

Tonight was different. Harry was sleeping. She slept through it, most of the time. The roaring. But tonight was different. Dead silent. Except for the door.

He heard it open, and shut. And open. And then, the men. Talking. Loudly. Louder. Louder, and louder. And then there was the slamming in the kitchen, so close to his mum. So close to Harry.

And then gunshots.

Harry was awake when John climbed out the window, only opening it enough to climb through. Her eyes opened for barely a millisecond before John caught her eyes with his and gave her their silent code nod: "Keep your head down and shut up."

He jumped out the window, and ran across the yard to a next door neighbor. His name was Fargo.

He had a face that a pitbull might be afraid of, and a voice that a villain might cower from. He always wore suspenders and a grim frown, punctuated by the deliberate drawl in his rugged voice. And he took his sweet time with just about everything unless it was smoking a cigarette. John rapped and rapped on his door - Fargo took longer than forever - and when he answered, he was wearing footy pajamas.

"Hi," John said, "need to use your phone."

"You can't come in here," he said.

Fargo looked surprised when John shoved his way through, and when he was about to tell him off, John turned. The look he gave Fargo was nothing short of furious. John made his way to the nearest phone, which was in the kitchen, next to a fridge. John dialed 999 as Fargo stared. "There's men in my house," he told the operator. "They have guns, and my sister is in there."

John sat in Fargo's kitchen while he waited. He must've had a wife; ruffles adorned every curtain and there were hand sewn pillows everywhere. There was a bunch of brownies on the kitchen counter, and John helped himself: "Damn. You can bake."

Fargo took a cigarette out of what seemed to be nowhere, and lit it quite casually. "You smoke, kid?"

"No, thank you."

"I wasn't offering you one," the man said as he puffed. John scoffed.

"I'm a sixteen year old boy in your house at two in the morning who just told a 999 operator that there were men inside his house with guns. Of course you were offering me one."

Fargo ceased to speak and sucked on the cigarette as John awkwardly ate another brownie. "Your wife home?" John said.

"She's dead," Fargo mumbled.

When the police came, John thanked Fargo for the brownie and walked out to meet them. Fargo shut the door behind him.

"I think there're men in my house," John said. "I heard guns."

"Okay. We're going to park and then we're going to go in with you."

Oh, delightful, John thought, looking forward to being shot in the face. John wasn't really scared, though - well, that was a lie - but he felt calm. The tension wasn't affecting him as badly as he'd anticipated. In fact, when they parked and told him to open the door:

"It's locked."

"Locked. How'd you get in, then?"

"The window, sir."

"Then go back in through the window and open the door."

John felt complacent and did as they asked without hesitation. He was certain, though, that that was probably fifty different kinds of illegality. He climbed through the door, walked to the door, opened it, ran back into his room, then lay on his bunk bed.

"This is the police," he heard.

"What the fuck?"

"What's going on?" Harry whispered.

"Harry, stay down, be silent for me. Okay?"

"Okay," she whispered, burying her head into her pillow, "okay."

"What the hell?" Pickard yelled.

"This is the police."

John sat up in bed, and stepped through the chaos of their floor to get a better understanding of what was going on. The police were stomping through the tiny house, and Pickard was screaming at them. "What the fuck? Why are you here?"

The door flew open, almost smacking John in the face, and his mum came through. She looked like a ghost, covered in a bleach white dress, her eyes wide and scared. "Did you call them?" she demanded at John.

John nodded. "I heard a gun."

"Shut up. Shut up, right now, and if they ask, say it was a mistake, you didn't mean to, that it was an accident."

John sat back down before whispering quietly, "It wasn't, though."

John's mum leaned in so close their noses touched, "If you say anything otherwise Pickard may hurt you. I suggest you say what I told you to." Her hair was wild, her demeanor tall and threatening; John had nothing to say except, "Yes, ma'am."

The door opened, and a flashlight focused on Harry, whose blue eyes were alight with a new kind of fear. Her cheeks were black with mascara, and her hair was dirty and tangled. "What," she whispered, "is happening?"

"There was nobody here," a cop grumbled. "We checked the entire house." It sounded accusatory, rather than reassuring.

"I'm sorry," John said, "thought I heard something." His toes curled. The officers went into the living room, and talked to Pickard momentarily before leaving the house and driving away.

Pickard came into their room then - he never did that, and suddenly, for the first time all night, John felt petrified. He braced himself as the words came.

"What were you thinking?" Pickard asked in a slurring voice. Emma backed away from John so she was next to her husband.

"Pickard, he didn't know. He just heard the gun."

"What the fuck," Pickard shouted, taking a hairbrush off of the cupboard and throwing it at a mirror on the wall. It shattered.

"Pickard, please. John was trying to protect us-"

"I highly fucking doubt that," Pickard spat, shivering. He smelled like sweat and alcohol, and he leaned into John. "You think you can get me to leave. You think," he continued, "you can fuck with me. What the fuck, you piece of faggoty pig shit, you're fucking trying to get me to fucking leave? You fucking fag."

John backed up and cowered into the pillows.

"You never call them again. Ever," Pickard hissed. "I can get rid of you. I've done it once, you son of a bitch. I'll do it again."

Emma looked physically struck as Pickard stormed out, fuming. She was windblown, and her hair looked duller than ever as she spoke.

"Back to bed, John." Emma pushed him into his respective bunk.

"But-"

"Back to bed. Now. Please."

Then she leaned forward, into John's hair, and whispered. "It was Pickard," she whispered. "Kids were being loud, outside - he was just trying to scare them, but he doesn't have a license, and there are other things in this house..."

John shuddered.

"Please don't ever call the police. Please."

And she left.

Harry began to cry silently. John knew how that sounded; like when a tree was trying not to whisper when the wind blew. She shivered, and let out a stifled sob. John climbed up the ladder into her lavender bed, and took a deep breath of her as he wrapped his arms around her head. "I'm sorry, Harry," he whispered as she shook. "I'm sorry. It's okay. I'm here, sis. I'm here. Okay?"

"Yeah."

"Okay? Alright... Alright. Breathe for me, okay, breathe. Pickard isn't here anymore. He isn't going to hurt you, yeah... Please... Go to sleep, okay... sleep."

Harry seemed to expel an enormous amount of air. "...Sing me to sleep," she almost laughed, hiccuping up tears and phlegm.

John replied, "I'm tired, and dying," before kissing her forehead gently and laying down next to her.

A/N: I don't like it when my BBY is in pain D: hopefully I did this scene justice, but I think it's alright. :3 leave a comment or a vote please!