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Close Your Eyes and Settle	By : psychotic4llyxyours Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Slipknot Views: 6063 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Slipknot. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Close Your Eyes and Settle
By Rayna
Pairing: Joey/Wednesday, brief Joey/Corey
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Angst, character death, descriptive mentions of necrophilia, underage drug use, and probably a slew more I'm leaving out.
A/N: I must advise caution before you read this story. It's not for the faint of heart, and deals with some rather finicky subjects.
October, 2004

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Chapter One: Eyeless

North Carolina really did have a beautiful landscape, Joey reflected as he wandered aimlessly down an old worn path. He had no idea where exactly he was going, and it was beginning to get dark so there should have been a sense of hurry, but it wasn't bothering him yet. It was more than an hour later, when the sun was low in the sky and behind the trees where it was no longer visible to him, that Joey finally stopped walking. Snapped out of his fairy tale world, he stared wide-eyed around him and wondered where he was and how far away he was from he and his mother's new home. There was no telling; there was no telling which direction it was, much less how far away he was from it. He was no boy scout; he couldn't read moss and stars. He started walking again, hoping that maybe, eventually, he'd come across a house that could possibly point him the right way.

An owl hooted at him as it swooped down over his head and he gasped loudly, swatting it away even though it hadn't touched him. He shuddered and looked up at the sky. It was still red, a bright, delicious red that looked much like the leaves that adorned the trees. Fall was quickly approaching and he was glad for the hoodie sweater he had tied around his waist because he was sure it would be getting cool as soon as the sun went all the way down. It felt alright at the moment, though it was no thanks to his mesh shirt that seemed to make him feel even colder than he would without sleeves.

He took a wrong turn somewhere because while he was contemplating other possible fashions for himself, he ran into a tree. A prickly limb scratched the side of his face and he hissed, bringing his hand up to touch it. A wetness streaked across his hand as he wiped it and he knew he was bleeding. He took a few steps back and looked back up at the sky, which was now almost completely black. It was cloudy and he couldn't see the moon yet, but there were definitely no stars. Even if he had known how to use the stars to get back home, there was no way he could do that when there was nothing to guide him. He wasn't really afraid of the dark itself, but he was afraid of what came out in the dark.

He walked slowly, but even so, when the toe of his boot struck something hard, he hit the ground, falling on his hands and knees. A soft exhale of breath that ended with a whimper came at the pain of his knee colliding with whatever hard surface that had tripped him. Through the fog that accompanied the moonlight and therefore didn't help his sight a whole lot, he looked down and realized with a gasp that he was sprawled over a tombstone. He jumped backward off the grave and fell right into a body that was standing behind him. He shrieked and jerked himself around, staring at the zombie-like creature before him with an open mouth.

"Who the hell are you?" the zombie asked in a very non-zombie-like voice that made Joey believe it was a boy rather than a monster. Through the beams of moonlight that were slivered through the trees and the fog that was thickening by the minute, there wasn't much to back up his assumption, but he could always hope.

Feeling vulnerable, Joey got defensive. He brought himself up to his full height, but didn't quite match the other's. "Joey," he said quietly, so quietly that he almost couldn't hear himself over the vibrant thundering of his heart. Another owl hooted loudly and he winced. "I need to get back to my house. Are you… Do you know your way around so that maybe you can help me?"

"Yeah, I know the way around, but you're a long way from home, trust me." He stepped forward and pushed Joey lightly on the shoulder. "Come on and you can stay with me, I guess. You shouldn't walk the woods by yourself at night." He walked off in one direction, obviously expecting Joey to follow.

Joey did follow, mostly because he was afraid to spend the night under a tree somewhere. He was also wary of axe-murderers, but figured that he'd die one way or another, so there was really no reason to avoid it. After all, that was what life was about: living, not sidestepping new opportunities. If he'd run into some crazy old hermit-type person who'd tried to kill him right when they met, now that was a different story entirely, but the boy he was following back to God-knew-where seemed harmless enough from what little Joey could decipher of him.

"So, how'd you manage to get way out here?" the boy asked once Joey'd caught up to him and matched his pace.

Joey shrugged and tried to make out the other's facial features, but the light wouldn't allow it. "I guess I let my imagination run away and the next thing I knew, I was totally lost. Are we going to your house?"

The boy scoffed. "Nah, I was gonna take you deeper into the forest so I could bash your head in and leave you there for dead." At Joey's gasp and halt of footsteps, he laughed. "Of course we're going to my house; that way you can call your parents and let 'em know you haven't been abducted, or anything. Or would you rather me do the former and make quick work of it?"

"No, let's just go to your house." The guy was totally weird, Joey thought to himself, nervously wringing his hands in his hoodie sleeves. He tightened the sleeves around his waist and cleared his throat, not for attention, just for the sake of clearing it. While he was nervous, he was also curious as to what kind of person he'd run into - it wasn't every day he came across someone in an old graveyard. "What's your name?" he asked.

The boy paused for a moment, as if contemplating whether or not to answer the question, but then he said, "Wednesday."

Joey was about to exclaim 'Your mom named you Wednesday?' but caught himself because it would have been rude. Instead, he said, "That's a cool name. Like the Addam's family girl."

"Yep."

They fell into a somewhat uncomfortable silence broken only by the sound of their footsteps trudging over the grass and scattered rocks. Some thirty minutes later, Wednesday stopped and Joey did, as well. They were standing in front of a large, chateau-like home that was painted a rich cream color and had window shutters of a coffee bean black. The garage door was down, and all the lights in the house were out. If Joey strained his ears enough, he could hear traffic zooming past a long way off beyond the house.

"Well, here it is," Wednesday said. He walked up to the front door and kneeled down, reaching under the doormat and bringing out a key that he unlocked the door with. Joey waited behind him, again fiddling with his hoodie sleeves. They walked in, Joey hesitating only a few seconds before coming inside. Wednesday flicked the living room light on and they both squinted as they were blinded for a moment.

Finally, Joey got a good look at the person who'd helped him. Wednesday was busy turning on lights, which meant he didn't see the way Joey studied him. He was a slender boy, lanky, with arms that were especially well-toned, and was dressed in tight black polyester pants and a Faster Pussycat T-shirt. Joey smoothed his own Black Sabbath shirt down and looked around the interior of the house because Wednesday had gone around the corner and was no longer in eyesight.

The house was impeccably clean and smelled faintly of lavender: a scent that wasn't overpowering, but quite pleasant in its subtleness. The theme of the house was black and white checkerboard, and despite its almost alarming contrast, it was simple and easy to take to. Joey liked it; it made him feel like he was inside a giant yin yang.

"Are you, like, gonna come call your house?" Wednesday asked from the kitchen doorway.

Joey nodded and came into the kitchen, where Wednesday waved an arm toward the telephone by the table. He had to think about what his new phone number was because they'd just moved in a few months before, but when he had it, he called and got the machine. With an aggravated sigh, he left a message saying where he was and that he was okay. He hung the phone up and raked a hand down his face, wondering what he was going to do if this 'Wednesday' character turned out to be some kind of complete maniac.

As if he could read his thoughts, Wednesday perked an eyebrow. "Come off it, man. I could have left you out there to the bears and shit, but here you act like I'm gonna drag you off and fucking sodomize you, or something. Show some courtesy."

That knocked Joey down a few notches and he looked, hurt, away from the other boy. "Sorry, but you know, I don't know who you are or where I am, and I've never been in this position before."

Wednesday shrugged and got a soda out of the fridge. He grabbed one for Joey, too, and handed it to him. "Whatever. Why don't you get a bath and try to get some rest? It's almost one a.m."

Joey took a few big gulps and sighed because he hadn't realized how parched he'd been. "Okay," he said once he'd chugged it all. He followed Wednesday up the two flights of a spiraling staircase, all the while marveling at how nice a house it was. Joey didn't even want to touch anything; he was afraid of getting dirt on it from his filthy hands. Wednesday was unfazed, though, and seemed almost bored.

They stopped in front of a door and Wednesday opened it for him. Inside, there was a big sunken-in tub that looked like a Jacuzzi. The tub and sink were white while the rest of the room was black, not including the toilet, mirror and medicine cabinet. There was no shower, just a huge ceramic tub sunken into a wooden deck. The deck was scattered with dried flowers and Joey felt his entire body itching to get into the warm water.

Wednesday got a towel and wash cloth from the little miniature closet behind the door and set them on the deck. He looked expectantly at Joey, who stared blankly back at him.

"What?" Joey asked finally, discontented.

"Aren't you going to give me your clothes so I can go wash them?"

"Um…" Joey protectively gripped his hoodie sleeves. "I wasn't planning on it." His eyes flitted nervously around before he settled them back on the boy in front of him. "You don't have a problem with washing them for me?"

Wednesday sighed. "Dude, would I have asked for them if I had a problem with it?"

"I don't guess so…" Joey cautiously handed his hoodie, his most prized possession, over, along with his T-shirt, mesh undershirt and black jeans. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest and waited for Wednesday to leave.

Wednesday took the clothes in one arm and shut the door behind him, leaving Joey to exhale deeply and turn his gaze back to the tub. He walked up the four steps of the deck and slipped his boxers off, laying them down beside his towel. He looked around, as though expecting to see the eyeballs of a painting following his every move, but of course, there was none of that. Almost disappointed at the lack of freakiness such an amazing house had, he ran the hot and cold water of the Victorian-style facet and waited until it reached a comfortable temperature, then let it fill up. It was only a couple of minutes until the tub was nearly full from the big gushes of water that flowed from the large facet. He slid to a sitting position and sighed in bliss as the water pressed around him, warm, comforting.

Joey could almost swim in the tub, it was so big. He brought his feet up and floated on his back for a few long moments before dunking his entire body under, head and all, and coming back up feeling much better than he had before. He looked around for shampoo and soap but didn't see any. Sloshing around the tub, he looked on the far side of the deck and noticed a latch there. He undid the latch and opened the small compartment, and inside was a bottle of Pantene Pro V and some foreign soap that he didn't recognize. The soap smelled like everything else in the house: lavender, but again, it didn't burn his nasal passages like the scent usually did. He squirted some Pantene into his palm and lathered his hair up. Even though his hair was longer than most women's, he didn't use as much shampoo as he did at home because he didn't want to waste it; he was a guest, after all, and had no right to. He dunked his head and rinsed his black halo free of shampoo, then turned back to the bar of soap. It was tinted a pretty blue color, like the evening sky in summertime. As he waded back to the other side of the tub to get his wash cloth, he wondered vaguely if his mother had gotten his message yet. He wondered if she had even known he was missing; she hadn't checked up on him at all and barely recognized him as her own son, it seemed. He buried the thought and finished his bath.

It took a few minutes to find the drain. He felt around the entire bottom of the tub three times, with his head dunked under and eyes open, even though the water was cloudy from soap suds and he couldn't see. Come to find out, the drain was actually on the side of the tub and not the bottom. He laughed lightly at himself and pulled it out, then stepped out onto the deck and dried himself off. The sink had a clean hairbrush on it and he hesitated only a moment before running it through his tangly hair. He'd managed to at least wash all the twigs and leaves out of it, though the cut on his cheek was worse than he'd thought. He winced as he touched it. It ran from the corner of his eye across to nearly his lips, and it was deep.

"How did I do that?" he whispered to himself, dabbing it with the towel. It looked like someone had taken a knife and sliced him. Dried flecks of blood came off and fresh crimson spotted the towel. "Oh, no," he groaned because he'd stained it. He hurriedly tried to wipe the blood off the towel, but it only smeared. Droplets fell onto the sink, too, and he held his hand over the wound to stop it. He groaned again in aggravation and looked around for the toilet paper. It was stacked in a white weaved basket beside the toilet. He unrolled some and held it over his cut. "God, I'm going to die," he gasped when it wouldn't stop bleeding. He pulled at his hair, like he always did when he was afraid. "Oh my God."

The door opened and Wednesday came in with Joey's clothes. He looked at the naked boy who was gripping his hair and muttering to himself and perked a brow. "Um, I got your clothes."

Joey shrieked for the second time that night and spun around. "Wednesday!" he exclaimed, wrapping the towel around to cover himself. "I-I…" He looked guiltily at the sink and tried to hide the blood stains on the towel by moving it around his body.

"Whoa, dude," Wednesday said, setting the clothes down on the floor and making Joey sit on the toilet seat covering. "That's really bad." He made Joey move his hand and the paper and drew his eyebrows together as he saw the cut. "Stay right there," he said, turning his back and going to the medicine cabinet, where he got some gauze and a bottle of alcohol.

Joey winced in advance, before the alcohol touched him. When it did, his arms and legs shot out in pain and he jerked his head back. He moaned in misery as Wednesday rubbed the outside of the wound with the alcohol-soaked gauze.

"Fuck, man, how'd you do that?" Wednesday asked, clicking his eyebrows back into their normal place and thus taking away any look of concern that had previously been there.

"I ran into a tree," Joey muttered, pushing weakly at Wednesday's chest, trying to make him stop.

Wednesday sighed and caught Joey's hands with just one of his. "Will you quit? I gotta do this or it'll get infected. You wouldn't want the doctors to have to cut half your face off 'cause it's got some weird infection on it, would you?"

Joey shook his head and stopped pushing. He sat still and waited, flinching only when the pain became unbearable. He whimpered when Wednesday dabbed alcohol on the cut itself, not the outer rim of it, and closed his eyes. When the pain subsided, he reopened them and Wednesday was staring at him, the bloody piece of gauze clutched in his hand. Joey leaned back because he didn't like the close proximity they were in.

"Um," Wednesday stood up and threw the gauze in the garbage can, "Like, would you rather sleep in my room or the living room? I have a day bed, but there's the couch, too, if you'll be more comfortable there."

"Your room is okay, as long as I don't bother you. I don't snore, or anything." Joey was still making faces at the sting of his cut as he stepped over to the door and picked his clothes up. They were still warm from the dryer and smelled much better than they had before, all except his hoodie, which he was used to smelling like him. He clutched the hoodie to his chest and turned back to Wednesday. "Could you… I mean, so I can get dressed…" He looked at the door.

Wednesday scoffed, and as he walked out, muttered, "Nothin' I've never seen before, conservative little…" He shut the door and the rest of his sentence was cut off.

Joey blushed to himself and went to put his boxers back on. They were the one article of clothing that hadn't been scratched or dirtied in the forest. He checked to make sure the tub was drained and he'd put the shampoo and body wash back. He didn't know where to put his wash cloth and towel, so he just folded them and set them on the bottom step of the deck. When he was dressed, he draped his hoodie over his shoulder and brushed his hair again. There was some mouth wash on the sink, and there was no way for him to brush his teeth, so he gargled just so the thought of good dental hygiene was there.

He opened the door and switched the bathroom light off. The hallway was lit by four overhead lights and at the end of the hallway, a door was open. Joey walked down to it and peeked around the corner. Wednesday was lying on his back in the center of his bed, reading a book. He didn't notice Joey until the timid boy walked into his room and looked expectantly at him. He set his book down and got out of bed.

"You can lay down, if you want," Wednesday said, motioning over to the small day bed that was full of heavy metal magazines. "Just throw the shit on the floor and make yourself at home. Do you, like, need food, or anything?"

Joey shook his head. "Water would be okay, though, if it's not a problem." He carefully stacked Wednesday's magazines on the floor next to the bed and sat down. The bed was soft and covered with black sheets and pillowcases. Wednesday's entire room was done in black; there was hardly any other color at all, except red, that contrasted with the overall theme of the house. Posters decorated all four walls and the ceiling, most of metal bands, but there were some of The Munsters and The Addam's Family. Above Wednesday's bed was a big poster of Wednesday Addams, and it made Joey smile discreetly, but he didn't say anything.

The boy Wednesday had gone to shut the lights off and get Joey a glass of water. He came back and found his guest looking around at all his posters. "You into stuff like that?" he asked as he handed Joey the water.

"Oh, yeah. I love metal music and horror movies. I like zombies, though. Have you seen Phantasm?"

Wednesday grinned. "I love that movie!" He laughed. "Where have you been all my life?"

Joey laughed, too, and took a sip of water. His eyelids felt pleasantly heavy and he sighed, happy that he and Wednesday had things in common. He didn't have any friends yet, but thought he'd definitely found one.

"Well, let's go on to bed and we can talk tomorrow, okay?" Wednesday said. When Joey nodded, he flicked the bedside light off and they were left in comfortable, inky black repose.

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Close Your Eyes and Settle