Chapter Text
Joey paced around his room, looking at the clock on his desk for the third time in a row, pausing momentarily at the time before going back to his pacing and listened carefully for the door to the front door to open and close. The blond froze briefly when he heard the rustling of footsteps on the floor and remained perfectly still as his ears strained to wait for the door to open.
Joey heard the door click shut and the lock turn before he sprang into action and as soon as he was out of his room, he went right for the cupboard, by passing the fridge completely as there wasn’t any real food in it and took his bag off his shoulder and began stuffing some of the cans his father made him go out and buy and the instant noodles.
The blond only moved to the fridge to take several water bottles out it and put them in his bag before closing it and ran over to the closet by the door and took his coat off the hanger, putting it on and lifting his hood up before opening the door and left the house after slinging the pack back over his shoulders. He paused briefly as the cold air hit his face and he took one step back, thinking this was a mistake, when his father’s drunken voice rang through his head as he yelled at him through his locked door. Locked from the inside that is.
Joey’s face hardened before he purposefully took a step forward, then another, and then another as he steadfastly ignored the feeling to go back, viciously reminding himself what would only happen the next day after his father got done on his night at the bar.
Joey’s steps got quicker as he thought over everything that had happened in the last three years. The abuse had always been there, only over the duration of the three years had it been really bad. His mother wasn’t any better, but at least she’d feed him when she and his sister had been around. His eyes stung as he thought about the day he’d seen his sister looking out at the car door as their mother drove away after their parents’ divorce.
His mother got Serenity, and his father got him. Joey personally thought he got the raw end of the deal in the whole thing.
Then there was the matter of his…unnaturalness. Lights would act weird when he was angry or sad, and he could know things when in the form of a question. He’d been vaguely aware of these powers since he was five, but never really understood what they were until he had consciously asked himself a question when he was doing an addition problem in grade 1.
The only downside to that day had been when he tried to use this ability to try and use it to answer all his questions and he’d thrown up in the middle of the classroom.
His sister had been the first person he ever told when he was 8, and she had been amazed, but then again, she’d also believed that there was nothing wrong with how their parents acted. His parents though had been…less than amazed. The looks of disgust and disbelief were seared into his mind when he’d excitedly showed his parents what he could do with the lights.
He still berated himself for his moment of stupidity, and this whole thing he was doing now had also been absurd in his mind before he reasoned with himself that there couldn’t possibly be anything that could scare him more than an abusive parent.
Joey only tuned back into reality once he found himself out of breath at a crosswalk and leaned against the lamppost as he looked down at the ground, the setting sun glaring in his eyes as he tried to get his breathing under control.
He glanced up out of the corner of his eye and noticed the street name before hurrying down the sidewalk and looked at the numbers of the apartment buildings before going into one and took the elevator to the 2nd floor. He felt his breathing hitch when he knocked on the door and no one answered.
The blond pounded on the door and he thought that he couldn’t have done all of this for nothing. He didn’t want to go back ‘home’ and this was the only other place he could go to. Joey kept his feelings under control when the lights in the hall started to flicker and he thought about if Clint kept a spare key. The answer was ‘under the plant.’
Joey lifted the plant pot by the door up and took out the small silver key and unlocked the door before putting it back. He went into the house and closed the door behind him. The blond knew that he could trust Clint as his know-everything ability had never led him wrong before. That and the man had been the only one who ever actually seemed to care enough to ask what his home life was like when he’d go to the recreational center.
The blond had known the older blond since a little after his parent’s divorce and while he wanted to trust the man, he wasn’t stupid and made every precaution he could to know where to hit someone and pepper spray on him. And it wasn’t just Clint at the time, as his less than glowing opinions of his parents had made him wary of all adults, despite the fact Clint looked barely like one at the time.
Over time though, Clint had become his one exception and he’d even started seeing him as the older brother he’d never had before finally seeing him as the father he’d always wanted.
Joey moved over to couch and looked up at the clock before curling up on the sofa, hoping the man wouldn’t be too mad at him for coming here. He just didn’t want to go back though.
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Clint felt his muscles ache as he unlocked the door to his apartment, having got back from today’s assignment and it had taken some toll on him, but nothing too serious that he had to stay in the medical wing; as he really hated staying there.
His debriefing had taken longer than he’d liked and all he really wanted to do was just go to sleep. When he closed the door behind him, he stopped as he heard snoring coming from his living room and he narrowed his eyes as walked toward the room, his eyes looking every which way before they fell onto the couch and his eyes widened.
Joey was sleeping on his couch, a bag over his shoulders and he could clearly see the black eye as the sunglasses on his nose fell to the bridge. He contemplated waking the kid up and asking him what-no, how he knew where to find him and why, well, not so much why as he could guess that reason that the kid was here.
The blond man walked toward his closet before taking out a blanket and walked back into the room, carefully taking the pack and sunglasses off and putting them onto the floor before he put the blanket on him and walked back to his room.
This could be sorted out tomorrow; the kid looked like he needed a good-night’s sleep, and so did he.