“Thank you, come again.”

The words were called after John, as he walked out of the store with his small bag holding the new ring. Luckily, April didn’t seem to question anything when he checked that it fit before he bought it, though slipping the ring onto his finger did make his skin burn like he’d touched a hot iron. He covered his wince with a cough, pulling the offending thing off as fast as he could.

He looked down at the tiny, innocent bag in his hand and sighed. ’Maybe this wasn’t such a brilliant idea after all.’ He stepped onto the bus headed home and made his way to the furthest back seat, putting his purchase on his lap. ’If I can’t even put it on, how is it supposed to help me with my control?’

With a slight tremble in his hand, John pulled the simple black ring box out, opened it, and cast Observe on the ring.

“It’s just a ring,” he mumbled to himself, suddenly sure that he’d imagined the pain when he tried it on. With renewed confidence from his Observe, the gamer pulled the ring out of the box and put it back on his left hand.

A yelp of pain escaped his lips before he clamped his right hand over his mouth. Determined to make it work, John refused to rip the offending band off again. ’This Has to help. I need to have control of myself before someone gets hurt.’ Just as it had the day before, the image of Frank’s ruined face appeared in the gamer’s mind and that steeled his resolve.

So there he sat, the few passengers that looked back at his cry were ignoring him again, leaving him to stare at his hand, waiting and hoping for the fiery sensation to subside.

Time meant little. One stop on the route, no improvement on the searing pain in his hand. Another stop, people departing the bus threw him sidelong glances, but he ignored them. His breathing was quick gasps and low hisses as the pain morphed into different sensations, and it felt for a moment that his skin was falling off. John closed his eyes, biting his lip to keep from groaning audibly from the pain he was in, as the bus slowed to make another stop. Sweat was trickling down his temples and he was shaking slightly as the vehicle rocked with the movement of more people.

’It’ll get better. It has to get better. This pain can’t last forever…’ He kept repeating that to himself, as they started to move again, and he tried to focus on his other senses to **** the feeling of the pain further from the front of his mind. Someone on the bus was listening to music pretty loudly on their headphones, and someone else was wearing a very heavy floral perfume. Yet another passenger was mumbling to themselves, and the gamer realized they were reading something.

The pain did start to fade from his awareness and, as the bus came to another stop, John let himself start to relax, opening his eyes as the sensation faded to a dull throbbing. ’That’s annoying, but I can live with it. At least until I can move out to my own place. Then I’ll be able to relax and take it off sometimes.’ His plan was starting to formulate in his mind as he waited patiently for the bus to go back to his stop; he’d apparently missed it while he was distracted, luckily he knew this route was one big loop.

It did seem to him that, if he really was going to be a possible danger to his mother, Brenda would have to figure out how to get by without him. That thought pained him, but not nearly as much as the idea of hurting her. Knowing she was on her own but healthy and safe was nothing compared to the cold grip around his heart whenever he thought of causing her any physical harm.

’Both of these options would hurt her. Be honest with yourself, pup.’ That thought caught the gamer off guard and didn’t feel like his own, to the point where he looked around himself to see who had spoken, but nobody was sitting within a few seats of him. He looked back down at the ring, his mind racing too fast for any one thought to stick out. John was caught off guard by the bus stopping again and hit his head on the seat in front of him.

He rubbed the spot with a grumble as he grabbed the tiny bag and got off the bus when he realized he was only a couple blocks from home. ’That is a point though,’ he thought to himself. ’Me leaving her alone would hurt her probably more than I think it would.’ He looked down his street, eyeing their house. The grass was a little longer than everyone else’s and there were a few weeds that needed pulling from the flower beds. The bushes were overgrown and the paint on the siding was chipped and showing wear.

’She’s always had to hire stuff like that out because I was too busy playing video games to care, but we’re not exactly rich…’ He looked at the other immaculate houses on the block and got mildly angry with himself. ’I’m going to start helping her out more. She works too hard to spend all her money on this crap.’

At this point he was standing in front of his house, staring at it. With a grumble at himself, he bunched up the shopping bag around the ring box and shoved it in his pocket, ignoring the inventory screen that popped up for a second, and stormed up to the garage, punching in the code to open the door. The motor let out a roar and horrible squeak as the gears were grinding their way up, but it wasn’t loud enough to cover the soft rumble of Brenda coming home from her shift. John turned as she pulled into the driveway and waved, noticing she rushed to park and turn off the car.

“John, what are you doing up? You should still be resting!” Brenda half panted as she scrambled out of the vehicle.

“I’m feeling a lot better, Mom. I thought I’d do some yard work since I’m stuck home.” He shrugged, pointing behind himself at the open garage full of junk they hadn’t gone through in years.

She hurried over to him, keys still in one hand, and placed her empty hand on his forehead. John reflexively lurched back away from her frigid touch and his mother stared at him. “John, your fever is still way too high for you to be moving around like this.”

“Really, Mom,” he sighed, trying to reassure her, “I feel fine. My head doesn’t even hurt, and you shouldn’t have to pay someone to do all this.” He waved his hand at their yard and she followed the motion, but didn’t turn around.

“John?” The tone of her voice made him gulp, she only ever used that tone when he was in trouble. His mind raced for a second, trying to think of what he did before she continued.