Friends are Stupid but Comics are for Life

"It's rusty, but that adds to the vintage-ness of it." The man nods. "It probably adds to the cost too." The woman's face looks somewhere between sheepish and excited. "Yeah." "I'll pay 150 dollars." "170." Sighing, the man glances to his watch and says, "Deal."

"I was in the middle of a negotiation." "Don, listen, what I'm about to tell you is a million times better than the twenty dollars you would have saved to buy a two million year old comic book." The man makes a face at this but moves his hand to gesture for his friend to explain before realizing this is a phone call. Somehow, through either coincidence or telepathy, out comes from his friend's mouth "I GOT THE JOB! Did you hear me? I GOT THE JOB!" Don, with his phone pushed out air in front of him, presses at his burning ear drums. "Be pretty hard not too." "Hey, can you come over tonight, I want to celebrate!" In Don's head, the dream of spending the day curled up in bed with his new book are thrown away, shattered, just like his ear drums."Uhh, yeah, sure." "You're the best! You sound hesitant, though, if tomorrow doesn't work for you I can reschedule." "Nah, I was just planning on reading my book tonight, but it can wait." "All right, bring your best bottle of whiskey." "I-" was let out into the ring of the other end clicking off.

The man turned the key, walked into the warmth of his apartment, and promptly dropped himself onto his slightly crooked couch. Looking at his phone, he glared at the numbers callously cursing him. Only two hours to prepare for the party. The drive took forty-five minutes, probably some added with the fact that practically the entire city was under construction. Chuckling under his breath at the 4:20 on his phone, Don slinks off to his bedroom.

Yawning and opening the door to his closet, Don leans on the wall and yanks at a random shirt and pant. Three minutes later, he stumbles out of the bathroom and drops down onto his bed. The warm blanket beckons to him, and all he wants to do is succumb to its comfort. Steeling himself, he jumps out of bed and walks to the front door. Staring at the browned comic, placed reverently on his bookshelf, he apologizes to it silently, walks out the door, and locks it behind him.

It's loud and all Don wants to do is go home. This is not new, but he is constantly surprised that the desire remains just as strong years after becoming friends with the loudest person on Earth, Noah. Still, he turns his grimace into a weird sort of half-smile and heads towards the kitchen. His view of his regular safe-haven is blocked by Noah jumping in front of him and excitedly looking to him with a maniacal grin. The grin falters slightly when he sees Don's alcohol-less hands. "Aww, man, you didn't get whiskey." "Yeah, about that. I-" Before he can complete his sentence, a blur of red tackles Noah. "Zara, you made it!" "Wouldn't miss it. Hey Don, did you got the whiskey?" Her eyebrow quirks down when Don shakes his head and moves to explain. "It's fine, dude." Once more, Don opens his mouth, but Noah's yell interrupts him. "Zoro!" Don deflates as Noah's blond hair bounces away from him and into the crowd. "Dude are you okay?" Zara's voice is laced with concern. Somehow, it only serves to piss Don off more. He chucks away the red solo cup that somehow got into his hand like it burned him. "I will be when I'm out of here." "Al-" Zara's voice cuts off as he walks into the kitchen. It feels good to be the one to walk away.

After what feels like a lifetime but is actually ten minutes, Don begins to seriously regret that he didn't take his comic with him. Scrolling through twitter does nothing to quell his boredom and irritation, and he doesn't really know why he got instagram in the first place. Even people-watching, his favorite past-time, feels dangerous when everyone seems to be carrying a million solo cups in their hands. He turns to the window when the mesmerizing sound of rain hitting the pavement reaches his ears. The giant clouds looming over the city remind him of his giant blanket at home. All other sounds become part of the background as he falls into the landscape. Suddenly, a body plops in front of him. "Hey, are you bored?" It's Noah, and his voice kinda almost sounds... quiet, or maybe even hesitant? "It's your party, does it matter?" It sounds like a question, but it really isn't. He keeps looking out the window because something about this situation feels vulnerable and he's never really liked that. "I mean, I want you to be having fun, you're my friend." A snort is sent in retort. "I like quiet. You like noise. We don't overlap when it comes to how we want to celebrate, there's nothing wrong with that." "Yeah, but, I only see you at parties, do you not like me or something?" Oh he really does not want to be having this conversation. "Of course I do. I wouldn't be here otherwise." "You're not even looking at me." Don shifts to look at Noah. Robotically he says, "Of course I do." "You never invite me anywhere." He's turned his eyes away, focusing on the black spot stuck on the wall, but it's pretty obvious that Noah's upset. "Because you wouldn't enjoy it, just like I don't enjoy this party." Noah glances down and scuffs the floor. "But you still came. And I'd come too. Besides, did you forget that we bonded over comics?" "You don't seem to like them anymore." "Okay fine, I'll admit, I don't read them as much as I used too, but I still like them. Plus, you go to my parties all the time, I can go to your art club even though I can only draw stick figures. I can go to your writing club, even if every essay I've ever written was just an assortment of the same five words repeated over and over. I can do that because we're friends and we're supposed to be a part of each other's worlds, and sometimes it feels like you don't want me in your world." Silence falls over the pair as Don shifts back to the window. "Would you listen if I did, if I tried to invite you into my world?" Noah's face contorts into confusion. Don continues. "You don't listen to me. You didn't listen to me when I complained about you calling during my negotiation. You didn't listen to me when I tried to tell you why I didn't bring any alcohol. You didn't listen to me whenever I tried to say no to these parties, you never listened, so I stopped talking." This is why Don doesn't like talking. His chest burns and his eyes are tinged with water(he refuses to call them tears). Worst of all, he doesn't even know if this will change his relationship with Noah or if bringing all this up was for nothing. Except, when he looks up, through the water in his eyes(not tears), Noah's face carries genuine remorse. "I'll stop inviting you to parties as often, although I can't promise that for days like this." Don begins to feel guilt. "No-" "Don-" Noah's face looks pained. "Sorry. I'm not trying to guilt you, you're right. I should listen more. And I'm sorry that I didn't." Noah walks to the counter and pours a glass of wine into it, cracking a joke about how it should be illegal to drink wine out of a solo cup, and suddenly Don can't breathe. He's sweating and the burn in his chest is back, but for a different reason. Noah returns and sits cross-legged on the seat in front of Don. "I just recently got sober." For all that he was upset that Noah didn't listen earlier when he tried to tell him, all Don wants to do know is press the rewind button and keep it to himself. Don cringes when he sees Noah step backwards. When his ears are met with the sound of a solo-can being crushed, he looks up and sees Noah's eyes return into his line of sight. "Do you wanna leave? There's a lot of alcohol here." "Maybe could we go to a different room?" Noah nods and gestures at him. They turn to his room. Walking into Noah's room, he is greeted with the sight of Zara waving a hand and Bonni, Zara's friend, nodding with a slight smile. Don leaps into the bed and crawls to the side. Five dollars is thrown in front of his face. "To make up for the negotiation thing." Immediately Don motions to argue. "It's fine. In fact, I'll give you more after my first paycheck." "Dude." Don says with a groan. "Duuude.", Noah mimics with a chuckle, "I want you to have it." "Okay", Don, says, and swipes it up. Zara's voice fills the air. "I'm sorry were you really about to turn down money, after spending upwards of 150 dollars today." "When you put it that way." He remembers the comic and sighs. Jumping off the bed, Noah plucks off a comic book from his shelf. With an indeterminable tone of voice he asks, "What was the comic about?" "It's this silver-age Batman comic. It's about a fight between Batman and Scarecrow." "Scarecrow always scared me more than Joker." Zara pipes up, "Gotta be Joker for me." Noah responds while throwing Don a comic book, one of his favorite, to be exact, and settling back onto the blankets. He climbs next to Don as he cracks open the book. Stroking her chin in thought, Noah suggests, "We should totally make a blanket fort." Don chuckles and patiently waits as Zara finishes reading the page over his shoulder. The rain beats against the window and Don muffles a smile against his shoulder.