Did You Hear That?

"Did you hear that?"

Hank lifted his head from his phone and looked over at Felix.

"Hear what?"

Felix didn't bother to look up from his own phone. He always did that, Hank thought. Never paid attention when he was spoken too.

"Felix!"

"What?" He still didn't look up.

"You said you heard something?"

This time Felix did bother to look at him, squinting like he was looking at the dumbest man on earth.

"Uh, I didn't?"

"What do you mean you didn't?" Hank asked, gesturing around at their apartment, at the grey walled living room full of nothing but a ratty looking couch and worn leather easy chair. "Who else could it be, the rats in the wall?"

Felix was looking down at his phone again, telling Hank to ask them if he was so worried about it. Hank wanted to throttle him, a feeling he had become very familiar with over the past two months of rooming with the guy. That and the smell. Christ, that fucking smell. Of course, Hank couldn't do much of anything about it. At the least, he couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't cause him an even greater number of much more serious problems, so he just went back to watching YouTube on that leather recliner they had picked up off the side of the road.

"Did you hear that?"

Hank turned his phone off and let it drop into his lap.

"What, Felix? Did I hear what?"

Felix sighed and squinted at Hank again, his lip curling into a sneer.

"I said nothing, Larson."

"So, what? I'm just going crazy then?"

"I didn't say that."

"That's what I'm hearing, or did I make that up too?"

Felix just stared. Good lord did Hank hate the way that Felix just gave up on a conversation and just looked at you. He figured the skinny puke had a long streak of that, trying to make people feel stupid without words. Hank got quite enough of that with his parents, thank you very much.

Hank could feel the muscle in his eye contract, could scarcely control the tremor in his shaking fist. Felix didn't flinch at that. Made none of the moves Hank was used to when people wanted to defuse, or deescalate, when the tension got clear, and the rage started to simmer out in the open. He just squinted. That stupid fucking squint!

Ding

The microwave in the kitchen chimed through the air. Hanks Kraft Dinner was ready.

"No more of this Felix," he said, pointing at the smaller man as he stood up. "No more."

Felix just threw up his hands in a sort of mock surrender, widening his eyes and pursing his lips. Hank stomped past him and through the archway into the kitchen. He couldn't believe that little puke. He hadn't even come up with his half of the rent yet and they're three days away from pay day. Hank was certain that, if he asked him, Felix would come up with some bullshit excuse about... something.

He pulled his bowl of Kraft Dinner out of the microwave, keeping his thumbs on the lip of it as he supported it on the paper plate it was on. He put it on the counter as he moved to their cutlery drawer. They didn't have much in the way of silverware, not least of all because someone wasn't doing the dishes like they were supposed to this week (That little puke) but they still had one fork left.

"Did you hear that?"

Hank froze up. His eye twitched. He clenched his shaking hand into a fist. The sink was right beside him, full of dirty dishes and silverware and the soggy wooden handle of a chef's knife.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Felix?"

Felix looked up from his phone to see Hank coming back into the living room, the knife gripping in his fist.

"What the fuck?!" Felix squealed as he scrambled off of the couch and back behind the leather recliner. "Hank, what the hell are you doing?!"

"You're not supposed to wash the knife, Felix!" Hank shouted loud enough that their neighbor heard him and began the process of calling the landlord. "You're ruining the fucking wood!"

"Like I'm rich enough to know that?!"

"Like you're..." Hank trailed off into wordless sputtering, his arms moving up and down like some malfunctioning robot. "It's common fucking knowledge, Felix!"

"Obviously not!" Felix, crouched behind the old recliner still, raised his hands up again, the surrender now clear in its sincerity.

"Look, man, I'm sorry alright? I won't do it again. Now can we just put the knife down, or, actually just, like, hand it to me, ok?"

Felix reached a handout to Hank, the notion more symbolic than anything else since the two weren't anywhere near each other. Hank himself still shook. He still felt his eye twitching, but the shaking in his hand was growing steadier. It was fine, he told himself. It was all fine, just a... mishap. That's the word for it. Just a mishap that was getting cleared up. That Hank had actually gotten an apology out of Felix was a victory in itself, regardless of the context.

"Alright." He said, and Felix crept out from behind the leather recliner, his hands still up in an appeasing gesture, making clear that there was no threat here, no sir, now please give me that knife before you do something really bad with it.

Felix was in arms reach now, and Hank, the straining muscles in his face growing slack, was just about ready to give the knife over, reaching for the blade so he could turn it around and give it to Felix by the handle.

"Did you hear that?"

The briefest flash of rage blinded Hank. It made him ignore all prior revelations, middling as they were, as he felt a sudden force stop his arm from jutting so suddenly forward. He blinked, the twitching in his eye subsiding as he looked down, following his arm in a shock induced haze. The arm ended in a hand, and that hand still held the chef's knife by its soggy wooden handle.

The blade was buried in Felix's chest.

"Wait." Hank looked up, trepidation giving way to the terror of realization as he saw the absolute shock of horror on Felix's face. For a moment, neither man moved. Felix made no effort to speak as Hank repeated the word "Wait." twice more. The blood beginning to collect and then dribble past his lips would have made talking difficult for the smaller, leaner man anyway.

His knees gave out before he realized he couldn't breathe anymore, that all the air in his lungs was replaced with liquid that tasted like copper as it bubbled up his throat. The weight of Felix dropping made Hank reach out to grab him, crouching his way down to the floor with his roommate.

"Wait, just wait," Hank couldn't form a sentence, coherence leaving him the moment he had realized what he just did. "I didn't mean it, I just, I'm sorry, oh my god."

Felix spat up blood in greater amounts as Hank stuttered over his own fear, both men blind to the urine soaking through Felix's pants as his eyes caught movement just over Hank's shoulder.

A gurgling gibberish escaped out of Felix's throat, his hand forming into a claw as he pointed it toward the vent resting high on the wall. Hank looked to it and saw the grate had been replaced by something else.

A mouth. One with lips and rosy, pink skin. One that had a prissy, purse lipped smile on its face as it spoke up again, this time in voice Hank recognized as his own.

"Wait, just wait."