Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A month ago

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It's numb. Everything is numb.

Prismo knew that it had been exactly 24 seconds since he had taken the small pocket knife, aligned it with the blue worm that went down his right wrist, and split open its guts. But the pain was so intense at first that it felt like it had already gone by 3 hours simply enduring it. And then, after he blinked open his eyes again and found that he was now sitting on the ground, his back against the heater which metal dug into his back (normally uncomfortably rough but currently he couldn't feel the pressure because of the throbbing pain in his wrist) and his trembling hand clutched around his wrist did he see the blood.

The blood was everywhere. It painted Prismo's hand a dark red and spilled (still spilling) all over his white nightgown, down to his feet where it tried to fly through his bare toes. He sat in a puddle of it: in a puddle of all the decisions he made and others made for him, all the mistakes, All the experiences (: His mother's lost-dreamer eyes, the smell of cigarettes and alcohol and substances and death that his father carried with him, laughter and naked fingers pointing at him, the beating, the slurs, the misery, depression, grief, death) and everything else that made up to this moment.

His limbs tingled with the numbness and his fingers as well meanwhile Prismo's shoulders and head felt heavy. He forced his sack of a head to look up and blink at the digital clock standing on the window sill- 5 seconds had passed. Some months ago, he remembered how he had read through an article on how to stop arterial bleeding since Google only answered him with a suicide hotline whenever he tried to look up the fastest, easiest, or most painless ways to do it. Prismo hoped that the article's website accidentally gave away some tips on what he should do or avoid doing when committing it. The article mentioned that the person concerned can stay conscious for roughly 60 seconds and Prismo was starting to question if he'll cross that one-minute line.

Just when the puddle of blood grew in size and the tingling numbness spread out in his body, did a light magically spread out in front of his decreasing field of vision. He blinked against the assault of his eyes in confusion. The light took over until there was nothing left to look at instead of the blinding white and the black shadows in the corner of his eyes trying to take over. Was this the end? The angels coming to bring him to the gates of heaven perhaps? He chuckled. Well, mentally at least. The paralysis has already reached his neck-up. He should've prayed more because he was for sure going to hell.

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Chapter Text

-27th of July, Wednesday, early 2010s-

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Everything since yesterday has been a rush.
Scarab's parents have been invited to talk to the school social worker, whose main job is to be some sort of person to talk to for the kids who are a little too edgy so another school shooting can be prevented; which is also the reason why they came to his school at all.

He had to wait outside as they talked. Scarab played with the threads of the hoodie he wore, trying to ignore the rough duct tape over his arms and stomach as he heard the whispers from the other room. Along with soft, occasional gasps and a whispered: ”we had no idea.” from his mom. He frowned.

As soon as they stepped outside again, he got informed that the social worker called the clinic and he will have a talk with the people there tomorrow, since he apparently was a ‘danger to others’. He stood up to protest but his father gripped his shoulder in a rather uncomfortably tight grip and muttered:

“It will only be for a day or two. But if you'll ruin our family's reputation because you can't stay in a school for longer than 6 months without getting expelled, I swear to you boy there'll be consequences you don't even want to dream of.”

Which got Scarab to shut up. It wasn't his dads words in particular but his eyes. He hasn't given Scarab that look of pure unfiltered anger in years and he had to bite his cheek. A part of him wanted to lay down beneath his hands and take the beating again, it felt natural to do so.

He shook his head instead and nodded before he looked down at his feet, muttering a quiet: “yes sir.”

…

It was 20:37 when he sat by the bus stop. The cigarette he smoked stuck to the blood of his lip he bit open earlier, and only when the bus came through the drizzle, the shine of its headlights blinding him momentarily, did he stand up. His friend, Zasha, a rather popular boy who he met as he needed someone to buy cigarettes from when his habit started again, came out and he walked over and greeted him with a fist bump before Scarab stuck his hands into his hoodie again.

“You look like shit,” Zasha said and then grinned. “And what's with your hair, blue? Really? Are you one of those emo kids now?”

Scarab frowned and automatically ran a hand through his hair at the mention of it.

“It's supposed to be black.”

“It looks like it's blue.”

“It's not.”

Scarab watched as the taller boy lit his own cigarette. Zasha was quite intimidating with his large body, and Scarab honestly was a little anxious about him when he first met him too. But he turned out to be quite an understanding guy even if he hangs around assholes all the time.

Zasha took a drag, exhaled without taking the cigarette from his lips and pointed at the blue eye Scarab had with a small wiggle of his pinky.

“What's that about?”

“Got into a fight.”

Scarab shrugged but pursed his lips a little as he stared down at a puddle and the reflection of the streep lamp in it. He finally managed to tear the cig off of his lip and a small spot of blood is now on the filter. He ran the tip of his tongue over his bruised lip.

“I won, they were a grade below me to be fair, but the damn kids snitched on me and the school sociopath or whatever got into contact with my parents.”

Scarab hesitated before he looked up to blink at Zasha

“...I'll go to the clinic tomorrow to have a talk there, and I may or may not get admitted. And this is my last darn cigarette on top of it all.”

Scarab sighed in frustration and Zasha's eyes widened a little.

“Damn, what assholes. Here,”

A fat pack of cigarettes was pushed into his direction. Scarab, seeing the size of it, hesitated. Zasha wasn't big of a smoker and his packs normally weren't half as big, he must have been stressed in the last time to buy such an amount.

“Nah, you can keep them, I'll manage.”

“Dude- at least take like two so I won't feel as bad.”

As Scarab still hesitated, Zasha groaned in annoyance.

“I'm earning like- a quarter of my money from you so take them.”

Scarab reluctantly reached out, even if he wasn't happy about it and took out two cigarettes. He recognised the cheap brand and just knew the tobacco was gonna fall out again right before he'd finish the cigarette, but he ignored that. Not everyone's parents were rich.

He thanked Zasha and they spent a little while longer talking before the bus back arrived. Scarab bit the boy a last goodbye and then watched him drive off, before he slowly turned around and walked home.

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-28th of July, Thursday-

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To be fair the clinic wasn't all as shit as it looked from the outside. The walls were the blinding kind of hospital-white he suspected he'd see when he first walked in, and a blue-black carpet adorned the middle of the room. But the waiting room had orange walls, …which honestly made him more nervous. It looked as if he were already inside the place where they kept the patients and he was paranoid that one of them escapees will be jumping out of the hall any moment and on him, scratch open his skin with their nails and pull it off of his flesh in stripes and he won't be able to do anything.

He fortunately got rescued soon enough by a shorter woman with blonde hair and glasses, who wore a sort of white coat which reminded Scarab even more of a hospital. He bid Scarab into the room. Which was white, much to his demay, but a warm lamp was on in the corner of the room rather than the blinding main lights. That would hold off his already developing headache for a while longer. They had a talk most similar to the ones he had with the social worker back at his school before she explained a little about the buildings to him:

’One part of the building is the withdrawal centre, the other facing opposite for other problems like self harm and harm to others. You'll be able to go to our school and have a break, as we call it, for at least 3 hours a day, where you can go outside.’ or that's all the important stuff he remembered anyway, on the rest he zoned out. No sex, no alcohol, no drugs, no atomic weapons, don't commit mass murder, yada yada. Be what society defines as a human being, short.

He got passed to some doctor and then got passed further to where he'll finally stay - Floor A2.

When you walked in there was a medium sized living space to the right with a dining table against the one wall, and approximately 16 chairs. 7 on each side, and one on each end. Opposite to the table there was a L-formed, red, surprisingly comfortable looking couch with a TV standing on a shelf. On the left side of the room there was a window hidden by blinds, he guessed that that was where the kitchen's supposed to be.

He got led to a smaller room where the letters: “De-interception office” were lazily printed out and hung on the door. He got passed to yet another person who was about a head taller than him, bald, big and had glasses. He sat spread-legged and spinned around in his chair at Scarab's arrival, the boy's eyes glanced at the namecard which read: “Kaeleigh O. Orbo.”
This ‘Orbo’ guy smiled in that way that only those stubborn, headache-giving white-people could smile and stood up, reaching out his sausage-fingered hand. Scarab hesitated just for a moment before he took his hand and shook it firmly to try to not look as awkward as he felt.

“Ah, Tobias, yes? Have a seat.”

His teeth were slightly crooked too. Scarab averted his gaze to not stare at him too much and sat down.

He repeated pretty much everything that the woman earlier told him too. As he finally came to a halt after Scarab tried his hardest to look like he was listening, nodding along and all, he got his own papers out of his bag and handed them to Orbo to sign.

It was something his mother pressed into his hand before he went. It was some letter that explained shortly what his family does, that there shan't be a stench in their name because the son is going to the mental asylum, and that he shall be addressed by his cover name: Alex Smith. Really, they couldn't have picked a common name that is more ugly…

Orbo gave him a curious glance, in a way that people do to see another's reaction, and Scarab couldn't help the twitch of his eyebrow as he held back a frown. What was the problem? It was just some stupid paperwork. Did Orbo believe he was hormonally infested enough to throw a tantrum because his parents were annoying like that?

Fortunately, Orbo signed it and he finally got shown to his room. He stayed to check through the things Scarab brought, shaking the clothes and leaving through his books to see that he didn’t bring anything forbidden or illegal, before he was finally left alone.

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The room was, by all means, quite alright. It was medium sized, with two beds on each side, but both of them didn't look occupied. The complete opposite in fact. The bedsheet was spread over the pillow and blanket and tucked under the mattress so no dust or dirt would get on the sheets. Scarab approached the bed to the left, after carefully thinking about what side he slept on more often, and what view out of the window from his bed would be prettier. He then pried off the bedsheet and made a small face as he saw the blue, hard and uncomfortable mattress that they also had in those cheap youth hostels. He mentally groaned, and started making his bed. Then he put his books - mostly horror or true crime - on the shelf next to the bed before he gingerly laid down for a moment.

He blinked, and then inspected the scribbles on the lamp over his bed, which was hanging too low for anyone to see who didn't lie on it (aka the workers). There were song lyrics quoted on it, some motivational poets, and other not so motivational vents. Some really long dick-drawing that looked like a flat bicycle tire was in the corner, and there were lots of counting lines. Most of them counted 4-14 days, the longest counted 3 months. One scribble got his attention. tune the radio to 304.6.

Scarab sat up again to look over to the radio on the window shelf. He grabbed after it and as he got a grip of the cable pulled it on his lap. A loud static voice almost immediately shouted through the speakers after he pressed the power button on the side which made Scarab jump before he quickly turned down the volume with flushed cheeks. He listened to the noises outside closely, pretty sure that any worker would come soon to look after the noise. But after a minute of no footsteps, he fiddled around with the radio until he found out how to tune it and tuned it to 304.6.

Six different ways by The Cure started whispering through the speakers. Scarab listened for a moment, before he scooted back on his bed and stared back up at the scribbles. Back when he was a child he would've closed his eyes now and imagined the little characters in his head doing their own stories to the music. That habit stayed way into his middle teenage years - before Scarab realised that other people his age didn’t do that and that little quirk gets considered as ‘weird’. Then he had to find other coping mechanisms after he forced the imaginations out of his head - alcohol being the biggest part of it because he didn’t like to give his control up to something like drugs.

Which is quite unfortunate now because he didn’t have his imaginations keeping him company to pass time, nor any alcohol to speed up the waiting. He stared at the radio again, and the digital, red-glowing clock read: 12:29. Well he was in for a bore if there won’t be any program.

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There hadn’t been. At 17:30, Scarab was mentally as close to ecstatic as he could get as one of the workers finally came and pressed a middle-sized log into his hands. He had to write a diary everyday before dinner, and he normally hated diaries but this is probably gonna be the most exciting thing of his day if it’ll continue like this. He sat down by the small table in front of the window, on the little white gummy chair and quickly scribbled down the date and Title: ‘Day one’, …and then the boy remembered why he hated writing diaries again. Because: ’My day’s been… neutral? I read some and layed around some?? What the fuck.’

Scarab sighed and rubbed his temples. His headache has increased ravenously while he was here but he knew better than to ask for painkillers - they'll probably have to ask his parents for permission anyway. He stared at the blank page for a moment, or not completely blank - it was a dotted paper which he appreciated. Blank pages were horrible - and then wrote his diary entry slowly. When reading over it again afterwards, he noticed it reminded him way too much of the formal letters he wrote to his teachers. Scarab huffed. It should do.

He stared at the clock again: ‘17:55’. Great. If he went 2 minutes before dinner, he’ll have time despite the crowd in front of the office where everyone hands in their diaries and then be at dinner by 18 o'clock sharp.
Those three minutes were probably the slowest of his whole stay here so far. His heart was racing just a little, and his palms were sweaty, even if he felt collected and sure of himself. He will go to dinner, meet the other patients, indulge in some conversation, and go back to his room. What can go wrong?

As soon as the digital clock read ‘17:58’, he gathered his diary, went out of his room and made a beeline towards the office at the far end of the hall. Scarab slowed in his steps as he didn’t see any crowd in front of the room, nor any people at the table. But he was here already, so why bother going back?

He carefully peeked through the open door and then laid down his diary on the shelf next to the door. One of the workers, a woman with shoulder-length light-brown hair and small eyebrows as eyes blinked at him.

“You do know you’re a little too early?”

She said in a way that was way too petty for her to be talking to a patient classified as a ‘danger to others’ and got Scarab to frown. He opened his mouth, searched for a clock in their room and then hesitated as he found one up on the wall. ’17:55’. Great, his clock was going 3 minutes aheadi.

“My clock is 3 minutes ahead,”

Scarab muttered because he felt he somehow had to defend himself with that gaze of hers on him. His voice was hoarse from 6 hours of not using it so he cleared his throat, making this even more awkward. She only grunted and waved him towards the common room. Well, that certainly was a bitch. And here he thought that the Orbo guy was bad…

The window that was covered by the blinds earlier was now open and indeed, on the other side stood another worker with the food. He took a plate and the worker put a wet, clumpy piece of cottage pie on it, a bit of it splashing on the tips of his fingers. Scarab had to stop himself from making a face.

He sat down by the far side of the table, the closest spot towards the window, but also not on the end of it. This way he’ll hopefully be able to look at everyone with no one looking at him.

It took exactly 48 times of stabbing his food and 6 times forcing himself not to rock his leg when the other patients arrived, most of them chatting with each other and laughing.

He stared pointedly at his food so he didn't need to count the amount of looks he got. As they sat around the table, his leg twitched once, twice. He nearly flinched when another patient behind him entered the room, screaming her friend’s name across the floor. And the black-haired girl across from him who had her head in her hood, (It was a Linkin Park tour hoodie), did flinch.

They gathered around Scarab slowly and began to eat and chat. He dared to look up cautiously as no one dared to address him, and snuck some glances at the people. Whenever Scarab feared they’d turn around, he just looked across the room at the painting hanging on the wall.

The girl who screamed earlier was the easiest to inspect - she had that way, that little motion, a twitch of her thick eyebrow that told you when she was about to look. She kept her curly mess of hair under a baseball cap and wore a thick, purple quilted jacket, zipped up and all even if it were 30 plus degrees in the room.
Keynote: Scarab’s guessing that she’s a girl. He’s not quite sure.

The anxious one across from him was the hardest to get a look at. Her skin looked as pale as a dead-woman, despite her dark skin colour. She had some faint, grey-ish pimples and her eye bags sogged into her skin. Her hair actually looked well kept. As she glanced up, Scarab didn’t bother to find out the colour of her eyes and quickly looked away.

The next one that fell into his eyes was a shorter boy with hair that curled over his eyes and ears. He wore a huge hoodie three times his size with some game icon Scarab couldn't identify printed on it, and his fingers constantly played with the frays on the ends of the hoodie as he talked to the girl next to him.

Just as Scarab was about to inspect that one, the table went quiet. He automatically tensed up and looked back at the painting. 5 roads, 20 cars, 4 taxis to the side, the cosmetic poster here, the other action-movie one there…

“Prismo?”

The shorter boy murmured, sounding hesitant. Scarab held his breath as someone sat down next to him. His leg twitches. Once. Twice. Thrice.

It was silent. His eyes flitted over the painting desperately but his mind wasn’t where his eyes were. Then, the loud girl from earlier whispered to her friend:

“They drugged him good this time.”

“I wonder if he does this for attention by now.”

Another guy chimed in and it almost made Scarab’s head shot up. The worker by the kitchen slammed their flat palm against the counter to get everyone’s attention and told them to stop talking about ‘Prismo’ and get back to eating.

The room slowly filled with conversation again, and Scarab’s shoulders untensed as he got control of himself once more. He tried to ignore the person sitting next to him. Instead, his eyes fixed on the painting for real this time. He frowned. There were only 3 types of cars and they all just were copy pasted, and upon closer inspection he noticed that the houses on the sides were 2D despite the rest of the painting being 3D. The architecture was completely off and most of the lines didn’t even align with the vanishing point. How didn’t he notice this earlier? He usually does…

A raw crunch was right by his ear, and his head shot up before he could stop himself. He froze.

The first thing he noticed about the guy was his pink hair curled messily over his head. There was a light stubble whispered over his lip and under his chin, hinting at his original hair colour. His jaw was sharp, His nose crooked to form a round tip, and his eyes as dark as a starless night. Even with his tan skin did he look pale. The poorly cooked piece of broccoli hung from the fork.

Scarab held his breath as he was sure Prismo would look at him any moment now, expose him to the rest of the world with that gaze and tell everyone: This guy’s naked, he shed his clothes and now can’t find them again, no, he refused to put them back on and look where that selfishness got him now.

Scarab waited, and waited, and waited. And as he got out of his trance again, he looked around and noticed no one was paying attention to them. And Prismo hasn’t even turned around at all. Finally he decided to take a look at the plates around him and noticed the others were beginning to clean up already. In a panic, he quickly shovelled some of the cold mush down his throat to not get the first warning on his first day, and then stood up to make a beeline back towards his room.

Get to dinner: partly failed
Meet the other patients: does staring count?
Indulge in conversation: horribly failed
Go back to his room: *storming off more like..

That was definitely the best introduction he ever pulled off.

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Chapter Text

-29th of July, Friday-

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The night was one of the longest nights Scarab has had in a while.

He didn’t sleep, barely even shut his eyes. He wasn’t as obsessed with his phone as others were but he regretted not bringing a burner when the clock hit 2 and he’s wide awake, with nothing to do, the book he started left open on page something-a-hundred after it got boring.

Even the radio didn’t bring him much entertainment after a while. At 22 o’ clock the genre changed and classical music started playing. Which wasn’t that horrible, but as soon as the woman started singing in soprano he had to change the broadcast because it got too embarrassing.

Scarab switched between some unknown radio DJs for a while before he decided on a late 70s disco one and laid back on the hard mattress, staring holes into the ceiling.

He did that for a while. Sometimes, his eyes even shut and despite the void in his mind did he relax enough to slip into a pre-sleep state; but then the radio was too loud out of sudden, or the branches hit against the window again, or the night guard came in to check on him to make sure he wasn’t doing anything forbidden

At 6 in the morning he was exhausted enough for black dots to dance at the corner of his vision, trying to bribe him into laying down. But he knew that wouldn’t do anything. Instead, he carefully tipped open his door and peeked into the dimly lit floor. The second to last light was flickering, hanging on to dear life as to why that part of the floor dipped into darkness every other second. Scarab took a minute to convince himself to move but finally the craving for some relief from his tired state won and he tiptoed towards the office.

The nightguard sat there in an office chair, his long legs crossed and his heels up on the desk as he smoked a rolled cigarette next to the window. A fan was blowing his greasy hair out of his face to help with the stink of the cigarette. He turned his head, the unkept sight of it facing Scarab. He was silent for a moment before putting out the cigarette with a zish and stood up.

He unlocked the locker in the hallway and pressed a white towel into Scarab’s hands after he asked for it. Scarab took his shower-products from the locker too where they kept the patient's other personal belongings and then made his way to the unisex bathroom.

The unisex bathroom was surprisingly a lot cleaner than the men's bathroom - he purposely chose showering here after he saw the suspicious yellow liquid spilled on the men's bathroom floor upon looking around yesterday evening, and has carefully closed the door again for the sake of his own safety. Another person can inspect the origin of the mysterious spill.

A white door to the left led to the showers after entering through the front door of the bathroom. The shower room was small, most of the space taken up by the shower itself, and after he closed the door he hesitated as he saw some finely carved-in writing on the back of the door. Some black ink was in the holes of the writing but most was scrubbed off in an attempt to erase the words probably. Because the first sentence proudly stated:

‘How to escape:’

Scarab knew that even if he’d manage to escape the clinic they’d catch him again and lock him up, so he wouldn’t dare try. Especially since he probably won’t be here for long since, really, he only beat up a couple of kids; he isn’t gonna murder anyone or something. He kept reading on anyway just in case he needed such information for future situations.

'1st. Lie to the workers and make sure they believe you’re better. Also do so to the patients, some might snitch.
2nd. Indulge in a lot of conversation, look happy/socially intrigued and always strictly follow the rules.
3rd. It may take a while so don’t get impatient, a breakdown may reset the progress made.
4th. Talk to the head doctor and request going home, if he asks you questions don’t hesitate and answer those convincingly.

Good luck!’

Scarab started stripping, the duct tape pulling at his skin as the clothes dropped to the floor and the cool bathroom air kissed his skin. He picked his clothes back up and neatly folded them next to his new ones before he stepped into the shower and closed the plastic shower wall.

As the water hit his skin he had to force himself not to physically flinch back, some of the cold sprays hitting his eyes making Scarab quickly pull his head away from the shooting line. The iciness was like a shock against his lazy and tired body and it refreshed his brain for a moment, giving him some space to think. The water made his way down his back, washing away the oily waste from the sweat after his restless night. It felt quite heavenly even with the water freezing. Fortunately, since he was the first person in the whole building probably using the water, it slowly warmed up to - not a comfortable temperature, but a sufferable one.

Scarab used that to his advantage to take a bit of his body lotion, rub it foamy between his fingers and then apply it to the edge of one duct tape and slowly try to rub his finger under the tape with the help of the warmer stream and the buttery lotion.

He bit his cheek as he carefully parted the tape from his body, took the end between his index and thumb, and tore.

“fuck-

He cursed as the bloodied, dirty tape landed on the shower floor. He grunted unpleasantly as the first ugly bruise peeked out from under the rest of the tapes. Ignoring the pain, his fingers peeled off the rest of the tapes and let the water soothe the bruises from the beating.

Scarab inhaled deeply and felt himself breathe properly for the first time in 3 days. He hadn’t even noticed how much the stuff had affected his breathing. He really has to learn how to use bandages

The cut on his arm from the knife one of the boy's brought was looking ugly too. With the water washing away the crust of the blood, the bit of white at the bottom of the wound seemed to seep through. It probably has to get stitched or glued but for now he had no material for doing so.

He continued to wash himself and then dressed himself in his new clothes (Black skinny jeans and his red comfort hoodie). Back at the office, Scarab sat with his elbow propped up on his knee for his hand not to get lazy as he held the blow dryer up against his hair. It was a little awkward with the night guard still there, chain smoking. But his phone was way more interesting than the patient apparently and he couldn’t care less if Scarab stuck the blow dryer in the next sink or not. That was some relief. At Least the nicotine soothed any of the possible negative existing feelings inside him about Scarab.

Then he went to his room where Scarab spent the last half of an hour before breakfast carefully applying the luxurious skin care products he brought. Way before he even grew any hair down his private parts his mother had already been nursing him with creams and balms to keep his skin as soft and smooth as possible, and he kept the ritual up even now so his mother won’t have a heart attack when he comes out of the clinic and is all pimply because of the stuffy air in here. At fourteen she started introducing him to girls she found nice. If this clinic visit will bring him any advantages then it is to keep him unmarried for a while longer and prevent some poor girl from diving head first into teen pregnancy

This time, he counted the three minutes extra and even went out of his room at 07:08 (by his digital clock, 07:05 in real life), five minutes later than he had to to make sure he didn’t have to go through sitting awkwardly at the table again.

The conversation around him wasn’t as horrible as yesterday. It would maybe even be soothing if that one boy/girl with the purple jacket (why are they wearing the jacket at breakfast? Were they sleeping in that thing?) wouldn’t be so loud again, but to be fair even they are softer-spoken now from the sleep. He felt kind of uncomfortable that he currently was so dependent on human voices and social interaction but, really, the 13,5 hours he spent in his room was the longest night he ever had to suffer through. As dramatic as it sounded. He had to make an effort of making friends here ASAP or the visit is gonna be one hell of a horrible experience. Scarab didn’t want to admit it, mostly not to lose his nerve, but he felt trapped in here.

After breakfast he was standing awkwardly in the common room to see if any of the workers would finally give him any tasks or something to do, as a girl with glasses, strawberry blonde hair with some pink highlights and wearing a baggy grey sweater approached him. Garri was her name, Scarab remembered that from eavesdropping into a conversation between her and the vampire Linkin-Park-Hoodie girl this morning.

“Alex, right?”, she asked, so she knew about him too. He had to hold back a small groan as he remembered his awful fate of wearing the cover name for the next few days and mumbled: “I prefer Scarab.”

He didn’t like his real name so he preferred to refer to himself as Scarab in his head, but he never told anyone that because that was a name you’d get bullied for. He didn’t have much time to scold himself mentally for letting the name slip out though as, surprisingly, she apologised and corrected herself. He was quite too stunned to reassure her because - what? But then again, he pondered as she led him into the hall, there was a guy named after a literal prism in here.

She stopped in front of a pin board and pointed to the first paper which had the weekdays and times in a table.

“This is the food list, where you can put your name under what food you’d like. You can see the options here,”

She pointed at some names of food at the side of the list,

“Along with vegan options, obviously. You can start putting in your name by next week, this week you’ll eat whatever’s leftover.”

“Then you should also be getting a sort of therapy appointment card pretty soon. We currently have the programs Skills Interaction Therapy aka SIT where you can build stuff, regular sport where we’ll do stuff from taking walks to physical tasks, SST is Social Skills Training that we have every wednesday at 16 ‘o clock where we gather and do some stuff in the group, like playing games. AT stands for Animal’s Therapy which, I hope is pretty obvious what it is,, and then there’s the PV which stands for Pedagogical Visit where you meet the doctors and therapists and medics and talk once every second week or so.”

Garri turned her blueish grey eyes to Scarab.

“And the art teacher should come soon enough to talk to you about the school admission. Do you still have any questions left?”

Scarab cleared his throat to make sure his voice wasn’t gonna come out all raspy and awkward.

“Yeah actually. What about the ‘breaks’?”

“Oh the amount of free time you get is gonna get announced on Wednesday at the SST. But as long as you have the 1-3 status, which means you’re only allowed to be inside of a room with other patients as long as there is a supervisor, except for if this patient is your roommate, you aren’t allowed to go outside at all.”

Scarab had to catch himself before he’d actually moan out loud. So much for at least a 3 hour break each day. He has already guessed that the woman who talked with him about the instruction here wasn't completely honest with him about specific details, but it's still annoying to prove his assumption right.

Garri quickly added that he could come to her if he still has any questions left since she's the captain here, (apparently some sort of patient that makes sure the other's behave and all), and then Scarab quickly thanked her and hesitated for a moment before going back to the common room.

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The newspaper's finally weren't occupied by any other patient's so he sat by the furthest chair to the left right before the last one, the same he had sat on yesterday and this morning, and took the one from Wednesday (the most recent one) and started reading.

He was honestly surprised that they let them read newspaper's with all the simple topics or words that could probably trigger patients. Or did they take out pages? He inspected the numbers on the pages more closely and- indeed, page 7-8 was missing. On sports. Maybe some accident happened and the newspaper's described it too graphically?

Scarab shrugged and continued reading. He remained silent as some patients came every once in a while to get picked up by their parents, some with a whole lot of luggage in their hands and some with only a bag or so, carrying a few things. He guessed they were allowed home for the weekend which was another small surprise.

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By 19:30, just after he came back from his room after all the patients had been back from their hourly break, he risked a peek into the common room to see only two more people sitting on the couch, which were 10 yesterday all bubbly and laughing; watching some quiet drama show on the TV. The small boy with his knees up to his chest in the corner of the couch and the Prismo guy in the middle. Scarab searched the boy's eyes to inspect if they were still clouded from the drugs or not, but couldn't make out much in the dark. Carefully and quietly, he retreated back to his own room.

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-30th of July, Saturday-

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“What does my zodiac sign say?”

“Huh?”

Scarab blinked at Prismo as he was leaning over his steaming cup of tea, dumbfounded. They were sitting by the table to have a late ‘breakfast’, if you can call it a breakfast.. Scarab is having a coffee since he still can't stomach food well and Prismo has tea.
A few locks of the other's hair had fallen in front of his eyes but Prismo didn't seem to care much with his thick eyelashes warding them off. The haze was now washed out of them too, and the blue seemed to shine through even more.

Prismo leaned forward as the boy didn't give him the answer he wanted and leafed the pages from Scarab's partly finished Sudoku to the front page, where he pointed at some writing at the side. Upon closer inspection by Scarab he saw that, indeed, there were all of the zodiac signs printed there and some quotes that reminded him of fortune cookie ones.

“So?”

Prismo asked after a moment of silence and as Scarab tried to slide the Newspaper over, a small twinkle lit up in the other's eye.

“It's bad luck if I read it myself. Read it out to me.

“erm- yeah, sure.”

“I'm a pisces.”

Scarab fiddled with the papers for a moment as he brought them closer and looked for the pisces sign. He cleared his throat before rather stiffly reading:

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

Prismo frowned silently over it for a moment before grabbing the newspaper's and taking them this time.

“What's yours?”

“Uh- capricorn.”

“Sing everyday and chase the mean blues away… pfft.”

His pale cheeks didn’t blush as he laughed, neither did his face light up, but the rays of the sun that went up in the windows behind Scarab landed on the other’s face and gave him a nice yellowish glow, bathing his pores and the little, what society defines as ‘imperfections’; like his crooked nose and the restless lines under his eyes and such. Scarab had to look down into his coffee as he felt strangely embarrassed.

He didn’t know why but his tongue was itching to move and form other syllables and communicate with Prismo, if only to be nice, but his rather antisocial first few days here left him a little intimidated. He didn’t even know the other patient and should hold himself back from communicating much. What if Prismo is in fact some sort of manipulating asshole that is going to ruin his reputation here before he even manages to set one up? Scarab frowned at the black liquid in his mug. No- if he’s going to try to make friends with this mindset he can forget about it all together. He finally decided to sit up straight, look into the others eyes and ask as cool as possible:

“Why, do you believe in astrology?”

“In my opinion it’s just a bunch of conspiracy theories. But it’s fun to see what kitschy stuff they make up about zodiacs.”

“Everyone wants to be a part of some group, no matter if it’s bullshit or not.”

Scarab pondered in a low voice.

"What exactly do you mean?"

"Well, it's existential for people, especially us teenagers to be included in a group. It boosts our ego if we're claiming something, even if it isn't true, and someone agrees with us or believes us."

He quickly shut himself up before he'd continue and look like some huge loser nerd or something who thinks he's above the others. But as Scarab looked back at Prismo, he found that a small twinkle had been born in the other's eyes. Distracted by it, he blabbered on without thinking:

“Can I ask you something?”

He bit his tongue immediately after and cursed himself mentally. He fucked up. Prismo’s head bobbed up at the bitter face Scarab was making. His eyelids pulled up slowly and a smile formed, something which almost looked like the gentle ghost of a teasing smirk. He knew those words had been unintentional.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

And again, Scarab was put into the shooting line by the other. He had no walls to put up, no excuses to say, nothing to stop Prismo from gazing right at him and the silent thoughts he’d ponder over in his head and would like to keep silent.

Sure, he could ask the other something lame but Prismo had already seen the bitter expression on Scarab’s face, he knew the question was going to be something uncomfortable. He couldn’t just come up with something half-assed because Prismo will know that he's lying.

Apparently, Scarab wore his signature frown again or something because Prismo’s smile widened just a bit.

“It's okay, I won’t bite.”

And that pushed it out of Scarab since he was feeling way too embarrassed to even think of a plan to get out of this situation. He just wanted Prismo’s ridiculous babying to stop.

Reluctantly he raised a finger and wordlessly pointed it at the white shirt that the other wore.

“Uh. What’s with the clothes?”

There’s not supposed to be a dress code in the clinic, but for the short time that Scarab has been here he only ever saw the other in that white shirt, along with the white pants, wearing elbow-high-gloves and crocs. He couldn’t possibly imagine that those were the patient’s actual clothes especially since the guy didn’t exactly look like a minimalist with his wild pink hair, and it was another thing that confused him greatly about the other.

“This baby,”

Prismo started as he tugged at his shirt,

“I’m wearing for safety reasons. Along with the pants. No pockets, no baggy, no nothing to hide anything harmful. And these,”

He pointed at the gloves that were grey and had little patterned white stars on them,

“The doctor kindly allowed me to bring myself.”

Scarab didn’t need to ask why he wore them. Anyone with some brain could connect the dots of a patient of a mental facility wearing arm-covering gloves. What the boy noticed is that Prismo was quick to answer and seemed pretty normal about the personal question, almost as if expecting it, which made Scarab feel worse. Prismo must've heard such questions countless times before…

So, when the other asked why he was here, Scarab found it only fair to answer.

“Beat up a few kids and the school decided that I should pay a visit here. Sorry for the disappointingly boring story.”

Prismo let out a quiet amused huff again and Scarab felt just a little relieved at the noise. Because that meant he managed to change the topic, of course.

“Hey, but at least you don't have your head up your ass about us ‘mentally ill.’,”

He pronounced that part rather dramatically,

“I appreciate that.”

This time Scarab perked up in surprise. But just as he was about to open his mouth again to answer, A supervisor came into the room and shooed them away so the workers could have a meeting.

Prismo blinked at him one last time in the hall and then disappeared in his own room, as did Scarab, only with a bit of hesitance.

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To not completely fall behind in school since Scarab was in his last year before graduation, he laid his spanish books out on the small white table in his room that wasn’t any bigger than a square meter and spent the rest of the morning studying. A thing he didn’t like about himself is that he never had any proper interests that stayed for long. Sure, he got a weird hyperfixation in true crime and was somehow super smart in maths as had the mind for philosophy, but normal teenage things like skateboarding or taping his room full of band posters? He never did such. The only band he dared to call himself a fan of was The Cure, maybe.

So it was a small comfort to hang up the spanish notes he made on the pin wall over his bed (a magnetic one of course, they wouldn’t give the patients pins,) and then he leafed through his books and dotted some quotes down he hung up as well. He could at least pretend that he was interesting.

Then at 12 he went to eat lunch. They had pizza today and it really wouldn’t have tasted as horrible as it did if they wouldn’t have put broccoli as a topping in the vegetarian alternative. Fucking broccoli. They should check again if they weren’t the actual people that needed to be locked up because Scarab is pretty sure this is considered as some sort of war crime.

A surprise it was though as Prismo snorted at the topping and started a conversation with Scarab about it, who sat opposite to the other. 12 possible ways where he could’ve gone wrong with their previous conversation Scarab had counted at the end of his time in his room and he had been pretty convinced that he fucked up the whole thing with Prismo’s friendship- but apparently his mind just got in the way again. (Oh how he loved the disadvantages of being an overthinker).

If his voice was too tight, or his eyes flickering awkwardly to and fro, or his shoulders were a little tenser than comfortable then the other didn’t comment on it. Hesitantly, Scarab even pointed out the mistakes in the painting hung up behind the table he’d silently rage over at the other meals to make their conversation more creative somehow as Prismo’s eyes lit up.

“God, I thought I was being overdramatic. The painting is absolutely horrid.”

Scarab would nearly have pulled up the corner of his lips along to Prismo’s satisfied expression if he could have.

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-1st of August, Monday, Week II-

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Apparently it had been the right decision to communicate with Prismo. He knew everyone on the floor and had no problem with talking to the other 8 patients here who let themselves be talked to. On Sunday night Scarab even dared to join in on their movie-watching after the other’s had been back from their small weekend discharge but only awkwardly sat in the shadows of the corner as he stuck considerably close to Prismo. The next morning he decided with more motivation to at least respect Prismo’s help a little and join in on some conversation the boy shared with the others to not stay all dependent on the pink-haired-boy. Though he still preferred to be listening rather than talking.

By the end of the day he gathered rather lots of information, so Scarab started working on a list after dinner. He got out his personal notebook for that, propped it up on his knees as he made himself comfortable on the sheets and wrote down the people’s name on the top left corner of every page and underlined it. Every single one of them had their own page so he had enough space for future notes. So far, he had noted:

Prismo
age: 16
sex: male
problems/conditions: self harm, suicidal thoughts,
worth mentioning:
has been here for the longest (how long?)

Scarab found out this last piece of information when the loud girl with the purple jacket (her nickname Lumpy) was talking about her time here and called over the table:

“I’ve been here the longest with 4 months. Except for Prismo of course, who was a patient already when I got admitted.”

Which Prismo has given a small shrug to.

Lumpy
age:
sex: female
problems/conditions:
worth mentioning:
impertinent. Be careful around her with secrets

Marceline
age: 18
sex: female
problems/conditions: under-eats, self harm (relevant?)
worth mentioning:

Garri
age: 18
sex: female
problems/conditions: insomniac
worth mentioning:
captain

Beemo
age: 15
sex: trans male
problems/conditions: anxiety(?)
worth mentioning:

He was drumming the end of his pen against the paper but the rest of the ideas went under because - he looked at the clock which read 21:58 - someone had been banging in the hall for half an hour and the noise made it impossible to think. The banging started far away, possibly in the stairwell, but then he heard the heavy door to the floor open and shut and a low yell of rage followed which made Scarab pull up his knees to his chest unconsciously.

He knew something like this would happen sooner or later in a literal clinic for the mentally ill, so he wasn't panicked or anything, but his muscles still pulled up and his one foot slid off of the bed and planted itself on the floor in case something would happen and he had to get up fast and defend himself.

The banging and yells continued, along with cries like:

“I'm gonna kill you! I will kill you!”

“You don't know who you're dealing with..”

“Let me out right now or I WILL KILL SOMEONE!”

“LET ME GO YOU CUNT!”

And finally the noise was magically silenced.

A little later that night when he went to the toilet he saw that a flap was open on another door he didn't notice much before. He tried to peek at it without directly staring through the window, but only saw a bit of blinding-white padded walls looking back at him. When he got back from the toilet he didn't get the chance of another peek since the door wasn't facing him, but his eyes flitted to another light source which came from the office-

There Marceline sat with tear swollen eyes, hugging her shaking body as Orbo was in the middle of handing her a tissue. She looked up and their eyes met for a moment before Scarab quickly looked away and made a beeline back to his room. …Well he could add possible PTSD to her list now, or triggered by loud noise specifically. He stopped for a moment to frown as he felt a little weird about dotting their problems down like they were some test bunnies, but the feeling of having an overview of everything was deeply reassuring to him. He went to his notebook and wrote down the new information before he decided to carefully tear off the pages and, with a bit of consideration, put them under the bag in the trash bin where hopefully no one will find them. What you can't see can't hurt you.

The night was as silent as the last. And around 1am Scarab's eyes finally slipped shut too.

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-3rd of August, Wednesday, Week II-

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It was one of those mornings where Scarab wished he needn’t give a fuck about all of this, dismiss himself from the hospital and light up a nerve-smoke. Not even because something specifically frustrating happened or the people were annoying him or something but since yesterday, which was another day he got to spend in his Oh-so-exciting room, his patience went faster than he assessed leading to a stress-headache which stubbornly remained up until into the morning.

Then the lights were too bright, and the people were too loud, and the item that felt like the only sanctuary in this hellhole of a place was the 3rd cup of coffee he was clutching tightly in his hands from the painful ache in his head. Thank god they allowed them to have coffee here. He didn’t believe in god, but maybe considering doing a small prayer each day wasn’t that bad of an idea. It could only bring him advantages if there really was some big man up in the sky looking down at the horrible disappointment he made of a saint and maybe send him some answer as pity.

Prismo slipped into the chair next to his - he called it his at this point. No one has come to take the spot from him so far and he preferred it that way - and put the plate down with what looked like a white-weed bun.

As the other‘s hand nudged his under the table he tightened his fist a little but as Prismo stared at him and nudged a little harder, he noticed that the contact had been intentional. Embarrassed, he quickly opened his hand for a small object to be dropped in his hand. Looking down at it discreetly after glancing at the worker to make sure she was distracted, (currently with talking to Beemo), he saw that the object was in fact a small, round, white pill. He turned it around with his thumb but found no number or name to hint at what it was. He looked back up at Prismo.

“I don’t want to buy your crack.”

The other cocked an unimpressed brow. “They’re from Beemo for your head”

Great. How many more times is Scarab gonna embarrass himself before he can communicate normally with the other(s)? He frowned softly. He had a reason to be suspicious, right? He’s in a mental hospital after all where a mentally ill patient just handed him a nameless pill. He looked down at it as familiar words went through his head again: 'at least you don't have your head up your ass about us mentally ill, I appreciate that.' And that feeling of guilt gnawed on him again that he felt yesterday when noting down Marceline’s conditions. How much can he blame on his antisociality, and when does he cross the line of being an asshole?

The next time the worker looked away, he threw the pill in and got it down with the rest of his coffee. As after 5 minutes a beam of light shone through the clouds in his head as the headache started to clear and he in fact didn’t start having a seizure on the floor because he got poisoned, he relaxed and carefully threw Beemo a small, grateful look who smiled back curtly. Prismo gently nudged him and grinned at his improvement, and maybe the day would still better itself after all.

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After breakfast, Orbo came to them and pulled Scarab and Prismo to the side as the others went to their rooms.

“Can you guys move together? We need a room for the new patient.”

They both looked at each other and shrugged. “Sure.”

After looking at each other’s rooms, they decided that Scarab should move to Prismo since ‘he had less luggage’, but Scarab actually offered to do so because - he thinks he forgot to mention - the floor and closet in his room were fucking orange too and Scarab is pretty sure he announced his dislike of the colour before. Prismo’s, however, were a cold blue which wasn’t the greatest either since it kind of felt more clinical but whatever. It was a minor improvement.

Scarab was quite happy with the fact that Prismo has occupied the bed to the right because that means he can still see the glimpse of the forest from where he’ll sleep. It was smaller now though since he moved further down the hall and most of the view was now that of a grey construction site looking back at him. As he put down the books again and hung up the notes and all he carefully stole some glimpses at Prismo’s side.

Even with the strict dress code he had to follow, the workers allowed him to keep a surprising lot of things, although they should know that patients could get creative with items if they have a breakdown. Prismo’s sheets were black with stars that he must’ve brought from home, and the pin wall was basically overflooded with all kinds of notes, scribbles, and sketches. Some were just newspaper cutouts which mostly consisted of pictures of cats and some sort of comic series was on the shelf over his bed. Next to the series, loose papers and pens and stuff was gathered and on the nightstand was an unfinished puzzle and an opened can of salty nuts. Scarab saw three socks on the floor, but not the other pair.

“Sorry for the mess.” Prismo raised his hand to his nape to tug at the strands, and that was the first time Scarab saw the other nervous about something and not the other way around.

“It’s fine, really, I can concentrate better in a room that’s not all cleaned up and organised. But I’m unfortunately cursed with being a minimalist.”

when Prismo chuckled, Scarab counted it as a win. He really tried his best not to look as awkward as he felt but he just naturally was tense. His mother always pushed down on his shoulders and patted his cheek at important events so he’d relax his shoulders and stop clenching his jaw and so on. And then there’s the problem where he can’t smile or laugh. He tried practicing it in the mirror several times before because a nice smile was the main key to charm people and it was very important if he went to take over his father’s business someday, plus he got told quite often that his gaze freaks people out sometimes, where a smile might come in handy…

“I like the colour of your hair by the way. midnight blue right?”, Prismo asked while currently being busy with leaving through what looked like his sketchbook aimlessly.

“It's supposed to be black.. But the pink of yours is nice.”

“It’s pink?” Prismo looked surprised and then muttered: “It’s supposed to be red… guess it faded out.”

Scarab’s eyebrows furrowed softly. Didn’t the other look in the mirror? But trying to keep the conversation alive and not let it fade into awkward silence again, he quickly added:

“I think it fits you better, the pink… not that red wouldn’t fit you or anything you kno-”

“I get it. I think blue fits you better than black too.”

Prismo winked at him the same way he did in the hall and Scarab shut up, swallowing gently. He really didn’t know what it was with this guy to make him nervous so easily and he REALLY didn’t know if he dislikes it or likes it.

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Chapter Text

-5th of August, Friday, Week II-

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It was on Thursday that Scarab received the letter that his aunt had died, five days after it had been sent because the post security system was quite poor in here. She was a nice woman and he had liked her but he hadn’t been greatly emotionally attached to her, still it was fine to be allowed to be quiet for a day without the workers trying to prod some productivity or sociality out of him since he’s ‘grieving’. On Friday AKA today he decided to take his fake grieving as an advantage and talked with dr. Orbo (his personal therapist, unfortunately) about just quickly catching some air, please, because he was doing miserably with the news.

It took some convincing but Orbo, who actually tried to treat his patients like they’re adults and not the other way around like every other worker on their floor with their authority fetish, agreed IF Scarab stayed under strict supervision of the worker from the rehab building.

While it takes a while to get up to the SST room because it's on the top floor, the way down to the courtyard was only a staircase away. Once down and opening the heavy doors that were the only ones not having to be opened by a key, The fresh air hit him and blew his bangs out of his face.

Scarab closed his eyes and took a deep breath, finally soothing the aching ball that had formed in his throat due to his ignored smoking addiction. It didn't fight the need off completely, but it worked like a perfect balm on a wound.

Taking some steps forward to the little wooden roof that had been built a few meters away from the door, where several patients were sitting with their phones, he turned around as he heard a knock. Up on their floor's window Orbo stood with a smile and waved at him, before pointing over to a taller man who was leaning against the opposite building with his arms buried in the pockets of his jacket. Scarab gave a curt nod at Orbo and then walked over to, who he assumed was the worker that's supposed to supervise him.

Carefully shuffling closer until he was standing with a two meter's distance away from the guy who had the wire of his headphones in his pockets and bobbed his head back and forth, seemingly vibing to a song and completely oblivious to the boy's presence, just stared straight forward. Scarab averted his gaze after a moment's hesitation again and pulled out his own phone, opening it with his thumb. Though when it powered on it read that it only had 2% of battery left because of course the workers hadn't fucking charged it, and when he decided to finally go on Zasha's chat (one of the few contacts he had) to send a: ‘They might keep me 4 longer,’ did his phone tell him that he had no credit left. With a small groan, he closed his phone again and stuffed it in his pocket.

The worker was still in his own world and Scarab narrowed his eyes slightly at him. Maybe if he could sneak around the corner and to the front of the building where he couldn't see him, he could light one of the cigarettes… But the idea was way too risky. At the end of each floor was a balcony made completely out of glass and while he could hide from the view of those would he stand against the wall of the building, the many windows of the hospital still left him exposed all the same. Looking up and narrowing his eyes against the angry light of the setting sun, he made out a shed for bikes by the left of the school on the other side of the courtyard which back was facing the hospital and would grant him perfect cover. But how to get there…

He could make a run for one of the big trash containers by the left of the courtyard and use it to sneak into the bushes without being seen, from where he could get to the shed. But what if the bushes were too thick to sneak through? And the containers were 50 meters away from him, in the view of all three of the rehab’s office windows. He’d make it without being seen by pure luck, a bunch of it, though he bet they had some hidden cameras here somewhere so even if he managed to reach the container the camera would still pick him up and then they’d set off that annoying, shrill alarm which went ‘viiIIP!-viiIIP!-viiIIP!-viiIIP!’ and he’d be thrown into the gummy cell.

Stifling a heartfelt groan of annoyance, he looked back forward. At Least he could appreciate the chill breeze which was announcing the promise of the quieter days autumn would bring, the brilliant blue sky he appreciated less. The way it left the whole place generously lit made Scarab feel exposed.

After some minutes of staring at nothing in particular did Scarab’s head perk up again at hearing a metal-ish bang.

A person stood by the previously empty space next to one of the containers now, Scarab was guessing they were currently dusting off their hands on their jacket with the rash movement of their golden silhouette, though Scarab didn’t have to squint his eyes against the sun to figure out who exactly they were as they suddenly came jogging straight towards him, their arm raised high and waving.

Scarab!”

In the next moment the guy’s face was right in front of him, well not quite- because again it had to be someone stubbornly taller than him. And not only by a centimeter but he was in fact almost as tall as Prismo. He wore a jacket most similar to Lumpy’s but his was bright red, perfectly fitting to his black skin, and his bleached hair was in unruly dreadlocks, one of them on the right side of his face wore five beads going from blue, to white, to green - apparently in the colours of the gay flag.

“You’re Scarab, right? Floor A2?”

Scarab was definitely confused now. “How do you know me?”

“I’m Prismo’s best friend. He told me about some new kid who got admitted with blue hair.”

“black hair. And isn’t Prismo to stay on the floor at all times? Plus he never mentioned a best friend” he eyed the other suspiciously.

The guy muttered a small, thoughtful ‘damn’ under his breath at the latter before saying:

“Yeah we got walkies.”

‘Strange, I never saw Prismo with a walkie talkie before’ he was about to say but shut himself up quickly. He and Prismo have only been roommates for two days and he is not to expect that the other will spill every single one of his secrets to him only because they were living together. Scarab had his own secrets after all.

“Alright.. And who are you exactly?”

“Cosmic Owl”

Scarab wasn’t convinced. What kind of stupid name was that?

“Cosmic…?”

“Cosmic Owl, obviously not my real name but you know for like…”

His eyes narrowed a little as he eyed Scarab as if trying to decide if he should let him on on the information or not. But, Scarab guessed since he was his best friend's ‘friend’, CO continued momentarily in a more hushed voice:

“Business, if you know what I'm saying. I’m sort of in the making of something grand and I need a name for people to remember it by, like Angel Dust, you get me?”

The name reminded Scarab more of those failed bubblegum brands you'd find in ancient candy machines, but he didn't say that of course. Scarab took CO’s hand after it had been impatiently nudging him to look down as he felt a strange object be placed in his palm only to see a baggy with a sketchy, cartoonish owl drawn on it, the animal’s eyes blown unnaturally in a somewhat creepy way. It seems to contain small pieces of shrivelled up shrooms with some sort of dust sprinkled on top.

“The first time I tried them I had a hallucination where I sort of travelled through the universes in the Galaxy. It was great. Most drugs don’t get at me like that anymore but those really are something special.. That’s where I got the ‘Cosmic’ part from too, of the name I mean.”

“And the ‘Owl’ part?”

“Oh that's because I like Owl's.”

He grinned somewhat

“15 for them, whatcha saying?”

“I’ll pass…”

“Really? Not even for a tenner?? They're organic, you know. Planted and harvested by me myself.”

As Scarab just stared at him and tried to push them back, he finally took them with a small sigh and pocketed them in his loose Adidas pocket again.

“Alright.. don't know what you're missing out on.’

‘Anyway, what I really wanted to ask you is if you could tell Prismo that I’m throwing the party on Saturday? I think his walkie is out of batteries, he hadn’t been replying. I’ll turn 18 this weekend.”

‘...You can come too if you want”, he added after a moment of thought. “Prismo said you were a fun guy. Oh and bring Marce and Bubblegum

But CO’s eyes haven’t been on him for a while, his words trailing off as his eyes were fixed on something behind Scarab.

“Who’s that?”

Scarab’s brows furrowed into a frown as he whipped his head around only to freeze as his gaze met Billy's who hovered menacingly by the door. He met him yesterday, and nearly addressed him as he had mistaken him for a worker with his tall form that nearly sprouted all the way up to the ceiling though he had quickly changed his mind when the guy had turned around and he saw the unnerving yellow gaze pass his. His hair was just as unnaturally white, braided loosely at two or three spots. The gray coat he wore made his shoulders even sharper and his silhouette more menacing.
Prismo had told him Billy’s name in a whisper after the guy passed and had walked into the room that had once been Scarab’s with the food on a plastic plate.

He couldn't contain the dreadful shiver that ran down his spine as Billy watched him like a piece of dead meat, even as the door behind him opened and he got grabbed by several pairs of hands to be yanked back, since he obviously wasn’t allowed to be outside, did the gaze never waver.

“That’s Billy.” He hissed back. He understood why CO went quiet. He didn’t think that anyone could look at that man and not shiver.

“Billy…”, Co tested the name on his lips. “bring him along for me?”

And Scarab’s head whipped back around to gape at CO. The guy didn’t look afraid, more attracted like! What the fuck is wrong with some people here!

“Scarab, come back inside please!”, that was Orbo’s voice who stood in the doorway after having succeeded in dragging Billy back inside.

“Well, I’ll see you at the party.”

CO smiled and waved him a small goodbye, not bothering to completely raise his hand though and rather wiggling his fingers than waving, But Scarab wasn't paying proper attention anyway as the cold yellow eyes still lingered in his mind. He hated parties and would love to refuse but his mind was elsewhere completely, so he just muttered a small ‘yea’ and moved back to his part of the connected buildings where Orbo was waiting for him.

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“We gotta make a plan.”

They were sitting in a circle in Marceline’s and Beemo’s shared room. Beemo was huddled against the corner of Marceline’s bed, pressed against the closet, Marceline was sitting with her legs apart hanging from the bed and Garri next to her had her feet neatly tucked under her legs. Prismo and Scarab were on the floor, and in the middle of them were 4 DinA4 sheets taped together. The lamp over Marceline’s bed was illuminating the place in a warm light and Scarab and Beemo were the only ones who weren’t in their pyjamas (Prismo wore identical clothes to bed too, so Scarab couldn't tell if they were his pyjamas or his daily clothes).

“Me and Marceline could come with my dad’s car, but we gotta find a way to get Prismo out of here.”, Garri muttered into her fist.

That’s gonna be difficult. At least two night guards were there each night, one in the office and one in the common room, so the whole place except for the bathrooms was monitored. There was a short time where all workers were in the office to switch their shifts but those times were during 20 o'clock and 6 and that’d be way too early and way too late. Not because of the party necessarily, CO’s place was half an hour of a bus drive away from here so it would be no problem to be there at 20:30 since they still had all night, but their absence would be noticed too quickly and the cops would be contacted, which was the biggest thing they wanted to avoid.

“Maybe we could try the windows?”

Scarab suggested as he tapped his pen against his lip, trying hard not to chew it up like he did with the rest of his pens. This was the only one that has survived his bad habit.

“Which ones, though? The only windows that will open themselves completely are the ones in the common room and the office, and those are guarded.”, Marceline said

“Plus the big river is right under the one in the common room, you wouldn’t be able to get me out without getting wet.”, Prismo grunted.

“So that leaves the one in the office…”

The advantage of this was that the office was facing the construction side which had the least cameras. But then again that was the only advantage. It’d be impossible to get out without help from someone in the inner system since someone was always in the office.

“Do you know who does the night shift on Saturday, Prismo?”

Scarab turned his head to the other who hummed in thought and then said: “must be Sean Gallner and that new blonde guy.”

Marceline grunted suddenly and looked deeply pissed off.

“Gallner… only here for the money. I once had a breakdown and a migraine and as I sat on the bathroom floor with this mind splitting headache he tried to tell me that migraine doesn’t exist.”

Garri giggled next to her as her eyes lit up in amusement.

“No way, what did you do?”

“Well, I’ve had the choice to get to the bin or throw up on his new shiny leather shoes. I chose the shoes.”

The group erupted in laughter as Marceline grinned at Garri’s laughing face pridefully.

“Is he that greasy haired, sorta lanky dude who’s always smoking?”

Scarab asked Marceline after the others quietened again, swinging his pen around in his hand now.

“That's him.”

Of course Scarab remembered him. Quite a character with his feet up on the table and a cigarette dangling from his chapped lips. And the way he didn't even watch Scarab blow drying his hair right next to a literal sink.. but couldn't that be used as an advantage?

“Say,”

He started into the round as he wrote Sean's name on the upper right sheet.

“We could use that as an advantage, no? I got quite a bit of pocket money with me. Is there some way I could meet him before I go home for the funeral and bribe him up? He's gonna be in the office anyway if he's smoking all night.”

“Smart, but he only works on Thursdays and the weekend.”, Prismo said.

“Shit.” He hadn't considered that, and all of them left rather early in the morning so they wouldn’t meet him. But Sean was the only worker they knew that would perhaps help them and they needed him for this to get through with the plan.

“Well,”

Garri stood up and stretched before approaching the door,

“I’ll go to the toilet real quick. Continue without me.”

“If CO just wouldn’t be so set on having me there, then we won’t need to go through all of this trouble. Mrs Roche just told me that I may get more privileges soon but of course CO doesn’t wanna’n afterparty and wants me to ruin all of my progress made by me breaking out…”

Prismo whisper-sighed, leaning over Scarab’s shoulder slumpily but Scarab knew not to take his words seriously. It was obvious from the way Prismo laughed about all of their shared stories at the dinner table after Scarab told him about the strange dude that had approached him outside that he and CO were close. And he was sure Prismo would be disappointed if he couldn't congratulate his best friend on his 18th in person. Scarab suddenly thought back to the last wish CO had told him and those unnerving yellow eyes he had tried to avoid thinking about until now..

“Well, if it makes you feel better, there’s actually another person we gotta get out of here.”

Prismo frowned. “Who?”

“This is a girl’s room.”

Everyone looked up at hearing Garri’s strict tone and there she stood in the doorway, her hand still on the handle as she tried to make herself as wide as possible to block the two boys from Billy’s view. But Billy, who was already ducking his head so he could look through the door and right over Garri’s head anyway, had his eyes fixed on Scarab ever since the door had opened.

“Planning to go to a party without permission and now you’ve already snuck into a room of the different gender? Really, Scarab, you’re basically begging to stay here.”

The way his name fell from Billy’s lips made it sound worse than every slur he has ever heard combined, and it was with huge effort that he contained the shiver that wanted to follow the goosebumps spreading out on his skin.

Billy’s big, six-fingered hand reached out and pushed Garri to the side. Marceline looked like she wanted to jump up and confront him, but a single glare of his made her settle down again helplessly. Scarab recognised from the look in her eyes that she probably thought back to that night where his yelling had spiraled her straight into a panic attack and obviously she respected the guy like everyone else; and for no pretty reason at that.

With one single stride of his feet he had crossed half of the room and stopped right in front of Scarab, his shadow falling over the boy's form who was so tense you’d think he’d start running and throw himself out of the window anytime now rather than sitting there.

“You’re going to get me out of here too. Or I will snitch on you all and that won’t be pretty, will it?”

Scarab swallowed thickly before he spoke up and his voice did that embarrassing thing where it cracked and went shrill for a moment before going back to normal:

“HO-kay, but you got to help.”

As Billy’s eyes dangerously narrowed, in a way that says: ‘you actually dared to talk back to me?’, Scarab quickly added:

“We’re barely enough people, the plan is extremely likely to fail if I’m the only one there to help during the break-out.”

Billy’s eyes remained narrowed, and he shrugged at Marceline and Garri with his shoulder. “What’s with them?”

“They can’t come.”

They both had already gained some trust from the workers here and neither wanted to commit something as stupid as helping their friends escape from the mental asylum; even if it was just for one night. No one judged them for it, they all were secretly terrified of the consequences if their plan failed.

It was silent for a moment, where Billy studied the pathetically blank sheets laid out on the floor.

“You,”

He pointed at Beemo who’s whole body seemed to shoot up in surprise at being directly addressed.

“You will come too and help Scarab make a ladder. Your heights combined should reach the window. I will inform Sean beforehand. And you,”

His gaze flew back to Scarab,

“Will bring the money to bribe him. I will climb out first and Prismo second.”

“What about the cameras?”, Beemo asked anxiously.

“You’ll get ten minutes, starting at 22 o’ clock, where Sean will replay the recording of a time earlier that night so there won’t be any footage. In those 10 minutes we must get everything done before the time runs out, so no mistakes.”

He eyed everyone seriously and as there weren’t any more questions, he turned on his heel and marched back out of the room.

Eventually, Marceline turned over and gently placed a hand on Beemo’s shoulder who had just been staring at the door since Billy had left.

“Is that OK for you? We can drop you off at home after.”

“No it’s fine.”

He said quickly with a small but somewhat nervous smile, meanwhile Scarab turned back to Prismo.

“How did Billy know that our plan was about getting to the party?"

“The walls are very thin.” Prismo shrugged.

But that didn’t satisfy Scarab. The only time they’ve directly mentioned the party out loud was once in a whisper, and of course when CO had talked with him. But a whisper wouldn’t have been heard even through the thin walls in here and the other time Billy was literally on the other side of the courtyard. Something was off with that guy and he didn't like it one bit…

But in the next moment, a worker barged in and basically screamed at seeing them together and pointed her twiggy, shaking finger at them as she yelled:

“WHAT are you kids doing?! It's past lights out and you're all different genders and- GET BACK HERE I WASN'T FINISHED TALKING WITH YOU!?”

But Scarab and Prismo quickly scattered to their room and shut the door, hoping that the woman wouldn't barge in and lecture them further. Prismo had been kind enough to yell back an apology and they heard her stomp around in the hall for a moment longer, muttering things like ‘Kids these days really’, or, ‘the disrespect’, before her steps disappeared down the hall.

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Chapter Text

-6th of August, Saturday, Week II-

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At 8 everyone is in school, during the weekend Scarab had still spent a considerate time in his room, so he had a lot of time on his hands, to say the least. One of the things he had done to pass the time was take the newspapers and do some pensioner Sudoku. After that it has become a morning ritual. Him and Marceline, which he had become quite fond of, switched their instant coffee bags while they waited for their water to finish boiling and then he stole the newspapers after everyone was done reading from their daily horoscope and sat down on his seat. Garri was leaning over the table from the other side, her eyes flitting over it as well, and he was also comfortable with that. He wondered if he really had been that dramatic during his first days here, everyone was actually sort of chill.

Garri pointed her finger at an empty square in the middle left box.

“A two goes here.”

Scarab frowned softly. He didn’t see how she possibly could have guessed that: there currently are only extremely few numbers drawn in general and none of them hinted at the 2.

“Why?”

“Well,”

She started moving her hand over the squares along with her explanation:

“The remaining eight numbers are already used in the column, row and box. See, the eight, seven, three and four in the box, the one and six in the column here, and the nine and five in the row. That leaves us with the two that can only be placed here, and not in the other squares, due to the numbers outside of the box.”

Scarab blinked as she tapped where the number would be and then scribbled it in after she had raised her finger again.

“Where ever did you pick up this trick?

“I don't quite remember, maybe my brother showed me sometime..”

She shrugged and had finally managed to rip out the string that stood out of her sleeve she had been fighting with for a minute now. Scarab tried not to stare, but he took Garri in again as if her face would suddenly reveal more of the secrets he hadn't figured out about her just yet.

The door rang and the worker who stood behind the kitchen window walked to the floor’s strictly secured double glass door and unlocked it.

“Ah, Ms Borruta! Come inside, Marceline is right over here.”

A smaller woman with grey hair walked in, her thin lips wearing a deep shade of red lipstick and a self knitted green vest hung over her shoulders.

“You’ve packed already? Good. Garri dear, should we drop you off too?”

“No thank you Ms, my father comes to pick me up in a bit.”

The unusually bright woman smiled, showing off her cheek dips and wrinkles, and then walked outside with Marceline whilst chatting animatedly.

Slowly the table emptied one for one. Lumpy left soon by herself, being allowed to take the train home, Gari’s father came as promised and Beemo got picked up at last. Prismo was using the weekend the way it ‘should be used ‘ (according to him) and was currently catching up on some sleep in their room.

Scarab stood up as the bell rang once more and folded the newspaper back up before putting it back where he got it from whilst mr.Farbig answered the door.

His mother came in and was already dressed in a dramatically black outfit. Her heels made loud tapping noises on the stone tiles and her tight black skirt that went below her knees was preventing her from walking any faster than the pace she used to stalk into the room. The only colourful thing about her was the dark blue dress shirt which was mostly covered by the black vest she wore that Scarab recognised immediately; it was the one with the strict-looking padded shoulders that his father disliked.

Her blonde hair was carefully pulled up in a tight bun, and she immediately relaxed her brows again after pinning Scarab as if she remembered that the wrinkles on her forehead were very visible when she grimaced with no pony shielding her insecurity now.

“We need to hurry, To - Alex. The traffic is especially horrid today.”

Scarab greeted her with a small nod and then went to his room, slowing down from a jog to a stop in front of the door and opening it with extreme care, cringing as it creaked anyway. But Prismo’s form covered from head to toe in the blankets still seemed fast asleep. He decided that it was even worse to tiptoe around since every little noise the floor produced seemed even louder that way and so he just walked quietly to where his bag lay on the bed to throw over his shoulder and then sneak out again.

His mother and he then went outside of the glass doors. When they exited, there was a space between the floor of the A2 and A1 where two kids were playing table tennis in the middle. But fortunately his mother for once didn’t throw him a glare for not greeting them (like she did with every stranger they pass), because she herself was in a hurry to get down the stairs in her skirt.

The checkout took a while since she had to sign a bunch of papers for Scarab to be allowed to leave, and as a businesswoman she knew how important it was to carefully read through them all so they wasted about a quarter of an hour at the reception room alone. In the car, she ignored the street signs and went way over the speed limit.

“Mom-”

“Put this on.”

A plastic bag was pushed into Scarab’s hands. Opening it, his own suit fell into his lap. He started by putting the shirt on over his own hoodie and then pulling the hoodie out from under the shirt without needing to undress, and his mother was too busy to comment on it because she’s ‘seen him naked countless of times as a child’ before, or whatever. He was nearing his 18th so he was pretty much out of his awkward body teenage phase but he didn’t want her to worry about the wounds from the fight that still scarred him.

He just got his trousers over his ass after several failed attempts to pull them up because he kept falling back into his seat with the way his mom was driving, as he caught something from the corner of his eye.

“Mom, speed cam-!”

But it was too late. The flash went off and his mother grunted and cursed, before finally slowing down since they were leaving the country roads and approaching the city. She could care less about another speed ticket since she had enough money to cover the price anyway, but she didn’t want the cops to see her and pull her over.

It was shortly before 11 o'clock now so the morning traffic had pretty much subsided, but there was that spot between the roundabout and the traffic lights where the cars always queued up. Scarab watched the way his mother was tapping her nails against the steering wheel in a fast, stressed-out rhythm as they stood in the line and decided against starting some small talk, not wanting to get in her hair. Instead, he turned his head to look out of the window.

The clouds had built up overnight again, and the streets were still wet with the earlier morning shower, but some scraps of blue were peeking through the grey of the sky and the way the sun sometimes broke through to light up the street gave the scenario an almost peaceful look. The bells of the protestant church were tolling in the background and the bigger catholic church three streets away chimned in, creating a sort of merryfull sound. It was almost comedic how they were attending a funeral today.

Scarab averted his gaze when they started driving again. During the next half of an hour they left the small town, went down two or three more country roads and then finally arrived in the boring grey city he grew up in with the boring grey people and everything miserable about it. As soon as he is an adult he will move to the countryside, that much he is sure of (he decided to not think about his unavoidable future of rotting in his father’s company for today.)

They arrived at the private cemetery his father had bought 10 years ago. It was a nice spot; being on the secluded side of the town and located right next to a small forest. Big iron fences were all around the spot so no wildlife would start digging in the field and devastate it but Scarab actually didn’t mind them. They gave him the vibe of an old and haunted vampire mansion - or something like that.

His mother parked in the crowded lot in front of the cemetery and they both got out. Almost immediately a thin looking woman with her large husband and dragging a child behind that can’t be older than four came from the gates and greeted Scarab’s mother with an enthusiastic handshake and a smile that made her surgically deepened eyes basically pop out.

“Oh how very good to see you Marilyn! And Tobias! How you've grown~”

Scarab was just a little too shocked to react as she suddenly reached out and pinched his cheek.

“Remember the time I changed your diapers when you were just a babe? Youv’e grown so handsome since then. Have you met me and my darling’s pride? Go on Charlie, shake his hand like I taught you.”

The boy put his hand out of his mouth after he was tugged forward and placed the saliva covered thing into Scarab’s palm.

“Ah… pleasure.”

“He will grow into a fine gentleman like Cousin Toby someday. Ain't that right Charles?”

The child’s soulless hazels continued to stare into Scarab’s until, finally, his father came to pull them inside and he didn’t have to bother making conversation anymore. Charlie’s Mother Donna and her husband Gunther have discovered that they are related to Scarab’s family as 3rd degree aunt and uncle about half a decade ago and since then they’ve been pestering his family ever since. His mother mumbles insults about them when she cooks sometimes when the aggressive chopping of the vegetables aren’t enough to calm her, which is sort of an honour since there are only a handful of people that annoy her enough for her to bother to work herself up privately about them.

After they went through the gates, there was a small stone path that they walked down towards the outdoor glass house in the middle of the cemetery. It was a little larger than average to fit 20 people. The roof was circular, also mostly made out of glass, and then it had a hexagon shaped middle. inside and outside at least 4 dozen people sat chatting. Scarab last saw so many people at the wedding of his cousin.
At the sight of his father entering, everyone quietened down and sat.

After the shuffling silenced, the pianist started playing a slow, sort of uncreative but flowy church song and the priest, an elderly man whose last bit of gray hair clung desperately to his head, walked slowly towards the front where he bowed in front of the urn. The face of the aunt in the picture next to the ashes, smiling with glowing eyes in front of a white background, Scarab didn't recognise. And almost not the mother sitting and sobbing quietly in the wheelchair too. He rarely ever saw any family of his father’s side and he wasn’t even sure why, the same way he wasn’t certain why his father did a lot of things. Maybe his father was too busy, maybe he didn't like his family, maybe his family didn’t like him. Whatever. Scarab could at least sit through this and show his grandmother his respect.

The priest walked to the front of the wooden podium and his shaky hands put down the bible before he cleared his throat and straightened his cassock.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen.”

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

“And with your spirit.”

The priest was silent for a moment, before continuing:

“We’ve gathered here today to bid our goodbye to one of God's beloved children: Cecil Plonus. While she will be missed she won’t be forgotten because she’ll live on in our hearts and cherished memories. And most importantly, in the heavenly realms of the lands of God, our all forgiving savior.”

“Let us have a moment of silence to respect her memory.”

Scarab looked down at the brilliant white gummies of his converse he hadn’t had the opportunity to change. If the papers came to try to get some good shots because they ran out of stuff to write about again, it wouldn’t look very pleasant for him to be at an aunt's funeral with such shoes. There also weren’t any trees or bushes on the ground to shelter them so he silently started calculating the distance from the house to the entrance in hope that they were too far away for a good quality shot, but a drone would still do the trick. They’ve tried to take pictures of them at private events with drones before so it’d be nothing new.

A baby started crying a row behind Scarab followed by the shushes of its mother. And while the silence is already disturbed by this anyway the priest held it for longer before starting to talk again.

“...Now we sing an Irish blessing, page 268.”

Shuffling of sheets as the pianist pre-played a verse, before everyone inhaled during a note’s length of silence along with Scarab who joined the choir.

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They moved to bury the urn after the speech. The mother held it tightly in her lap until they arrived at the grave. She got to hold her baby at the very beginning and the very end, that was the only thing that got Scarab actually emotional during the ritual. Emotion, again, wasn’t very smiled upon in the family. While the mother sobbed at the grave, her wry and weak body trembling, the brother of the dead daughter (not Scarab’s father, he stood further away) stood next to her silently but didn’t budge a facial muscle or reached out to comfort his mother.

Then, at the party after, he had to somehow talk around the business offers made by people he has seen but don't know the name of, people he recognized the face of but could care less about, and some business friends of his father. Play stupid, pretend not to hear them (peacefully sip at coffee), misdirect them to people who could ‘help’ (His neighbour Claudia as an example who loved to go on for hours about her homemade diy beauty business to anyone who listened), and repeat. After 3 long hours they finally got in the car and drove back home.

While the days were getting shorter they weren’t short enough for the outside world to be this dark at only quarter to 17 o clock, but sudden dark and moody storm clouds had started taking up the sky about an hour ago. Scarab has had to turn on his desk lamp to see enough and gather the necessary for the night’s out. He thought the darkness was peaceful, in fact his window was on the northern side of the house so he was used to his room always being slightly less lit. Now, while the house was dipped in darkness his room had been basically pitch black in comparison and he preferred it that way, he did let some blue outside light come in because he had rolled up the blinds to watch the rain hit and worm their way down his window. In the distance he could see lightning strike above the hills but they were too far away for the thunder to reach them just yet.

Then he had made his way back to the bed and dropped on it limplessly, groaning softly whilst he buried his face in the freshly washed and still faintly warm sheets. Whilst his mother was a scary woman he still loved her for doing things like bothering enough to make him a fresh and warm bed because he just got out of the clinic. She didn’t greet him with open arms when she had picked him up, nor a welcome at all, but oral communication was always somehow difficult in his family. He closed his eyes for a moment and buried his head deeper. He had gotten over the phase where he was bothered by how lonely it could get from something as simple as that.

He didn’t bother kicking off his shoes because he had to get the bus soon anyway (though he really wanted to), but he did unbutton the jacket and finally got rid of the tight clothing until he sat on the edge of his bed in just his boxers, trying to kick off the pants without removing the shoes which proved futile. Sighing heavily he finally leaned down and reached for his pants only to wince. He totally forgot about the wound on his arm. But looking down at the gaping cut now, he found that a slight yellow crust had formed inside the reddened edge. He frowned slowly as he stared at it and leaned down to sniff at it only to wince again as the sour smell crawled up his nose. This wasn’t good at all.. He really should find someone with a medical diploma to take a look at it but that would prove to be very difficult because they’d probably want something from him to keep the secret safe that Luquez’s golden child gets caught up in fights. And he really didn’t want anyone to know about it at all.

As there was a knock on the door, he quickly stumbled up from his bed and hopped over to his closet.

“I’m dressing!”

He yelled as he pulled out a black pair of pants and a hoodie and hastened to put it on, angrily tugging at the dress pants still stuck on him and tearing off a shoe in the process.

Just after he zipped up his new pants, his father entered.

His father hadn’t talked with him at the funeral at all and on the ride back home he’s been quiet too. This can mean many things and unlikely anything good. Unfortunately it was hard to ever read if he was angry, sad, disappointed, happy (that was very rare, mostly he’s just satisfied) or thoughtful. On such a tragic day as his sister’s funeral it’s especially hard to believe that he was in a good mood.

Scarab, after he remained silent, awkwardly shuffled over and pulled forward his desk chair for him to sit, but he remained standing. Another sign that a very uncomfortable conversation was ahead. He wasn’t quite sure if he should sit or stand, the room suddenly felt quite small with both of them in it and it was already larger than average; but finally decided to stick his hands into his pockets and remain standing by the edge of the bed.

His father was about half a head taller than him, and his thin hair had already gone through several balding stages so now his forehead ends at the near end of his head. He has those small, kind of sunken eyes and some loose skin under his chin which dragged his jawline down and made it all soft. While he does run around the company the whole day and takes great care in remaining fit and ‘presentable’ in his free time, he does have a visible but not extreme belly from when he drinks. He’s no drunk, but he has a glass of sparkling wine at dinner more often than he did not, and if he’s feeling extra he may have a beer from the big brewing house he supports to drink along with some crappy TV show. People say he is a ‘happily fed’ man, and Scarab guessed that to some point he agreed. Concerning the public image at least.

Right now he’s still in his funeral clothing. Scarab guessed so since his suit was completely black, other than the usual spruce, aegean or denim shades he wore to work. His wrinkles looked even more defined in the light, making him appear older by at least 10 years.

He cleared his throat before he started

“Me and your mother have talked.”

That doesn’t mean anything good. Straightening and crossing his arms to not accidentally fiddle with his fingers, Scarab asked:

“Yes?”

“And we’ve decided to keep you in the clinic for longer. We believe it’s safer for you, us, concerning our public image and not. And a big majority was very satisfied with the services.”

Honestly, Scarab expected it and even though he had the last week and a half to work himself up over no letter nor accepted phone call while he was locked up, he was strangely, not at peace with it, but okay with it. Thinking about Prismo and the others it would feel sort of weird if he just left anyway. If you’re in a place that can really bring you to your psychological limits and have several people going through the same, you have a different relationship with each other. You’re all knee-deep in the same shit. Scarab has never seen the others at their best, even though you normally try to be around strangers, and often he didn’t even look like Tobias J. Luquez himself but like an actual Alex Smith. Like a common boy. It was almost therapeutic.

“...but we did consider transferring you to a different clinic. There’s the St. Elisabeth hospital for troubled children in Scotland -”

“Scotland??”

Scarab blurted out before he could think twice about it. But seriously, do they want to get rid of him so badly to send him somewhere that takes several hours with even a plane to reach? If he travels all the way to Scotland he could call himself happy if he gets to visit home on the holidays. They're starting to treat him like some actual prisoner that has committed serious crimes and he was getting sick of it. He inhaled slowly to try to hold down his building anger and asked with the most calm he could gather:

“No, I think that would be quite unnecessary. Especially considering the fact that you still didn’t tell me why I have to get locked up in the first place and not go to some emotion management therapy like every other normal child would in this situation?”

His jaw was the slightest bit tighter now. If Scarab would keep playing with his luck his dad’s eyebrows would furrow next, his eyelid twitch, the vein over his temple pulsing gently under the skin until any reasonable conversation would go under in yelling.

“May I remind you,”

He started in a quiet voice,

“You’re not normal. We’re wealthier than most, wealthier than even the higher class people, and every one of your moves must be carefully considered. What people you befriend, who you spend your time with at school, your romantic relationships, how you walk, talk, smile, style, everything. Life is like a stage and you’re the highlight of the show and you need to prove it to the people out there or you’re not going to succeed in life.’

‘So you can imagine what would happen if someone saw you walk into a public therapy building? Tobias J. Luquez, my son, needs to see a doctor because he’s not right in his head?”

Now the frown slowly came.

“What if you lose your temper again, have a fight again, and there are no walls to restrain you? We’re paying great money to have this hospital visit covered up, the papers destroyed, and to make sure that no one knows it ever happened. Because this is something that would come back to haunt you and destroy your success. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

Slowly Scarab nodded, though he couldn’t quite meet his fathers eyes. His hands were clenching behind his crossed arms.

“...Yes. But why not keep me at the hospital I’m in right now? It’s doing its job at keeping me non-existent.”

“I’m worried that with your temper issues, the other… ill, may influence you.”

“So you think it's better to send me off to Scotland?”

His father sighed.

“Yeah because it's an expensive one so richer children in specific will get sent there. Ones that have more brains.”

“What does that mean?”

“Didn't you ever see the rates? That economically troubled people are more likely to commit violence?”

Scarab wanted to see how far he could roll back his eyes if he tried. What came next, that the earth is flat? Women less competitive than men? America the best country? ’yeah, they're more likely to commit to violence because poor people more likely grow up with bad upbringing and go through a specific trauma as ‘economically troubled’. Ever considered that, fucking conspiracy theorist?’

But it would be no use. He had to agree because if he didn't pick his father's side now he'd think he's already polluted with their ideas and then he had to go to Scotland. Fighting down a heavy sigh, he said:

“I’m very well aware. But in one and a half years I turn 18 and am a legal adult with that. Don't you think I should have some first hand experience with these kinds of people?”

As his father still seemed unconvinced, he added in a quieter tone:

“Trust me for once, please.”

“And look where that trust got you.”

He exhaled heavily after a longer moment of tense silence.

“...very well. You may stay there for now. But consider the choice alright? And your shirt’s on backwards.”

Scarab decided not to comment on that last thing, and instead said after a moment of mentally fighting with himself where his father already reached the door:

“I got invited to a house party by the way. Tonight. I think I will be going, so mom doesn't have to cook for me.”

His father hesitated before he turned back around with his hand still on the doorknob. Scarab tried his best not to look as awkward as he felt. It’s no secret that he’s been struggling with friends since most think he’s too uptight, and it must be an even bigger surprise for his father to hear that he wants to go to the party, since noise, lights, people and bass-y music never really were his thing. But at the same time it would be the perfect opportunity to fix his antisocial son. So Scarab wasn’t too surprised as his father hummed in agreement.

“Remember, you’re currently getting home studied, that’s why you're absent from school. No mention of the clinic.”

“Of course.”

“I guess you’re bright enough in the head for me not to have the drug or sex talk with you?”

Scarab cringed softly. “No it’s fine.”

“Okay.”

He stood there for a moment longer where they both just kind of awkwardly stared at each other, before he went out of the door. As soon as he was down the stairs and his steps disappeared, Scarab gently shut the door and let out the heavy sigh he was holding. Honestly, it could’ve been worse. He always felt sort of anxious after talking with his father but based on their recent interactions, this could’ve gone way down the drain very fast. And now he’s allowed to go to the party and stay in the clinic. He raised his hand to his neck, left to his windpipe, and felt the quick pulse against his fingertips along with the strange feeling in his chest. He looked outside at the dark world and then quickly began dressing again. He really needed that cigarette.

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The clinic was located in a very small, very rundown town, surrounded by woods and fields. It didn't have a train station or even a central bus station and the governor was the same there as in the city. To be curt, it was in the middle of nowhere. Something Scarab usually appreciated since it was always quiet when he tried to sleep there, but it didn’t come in as handy in the matter of transport.

It took 2 hours, while it only took one with the car, to get to the clinic by train.
From where Scarab lived you'd have to get to the central station of his city by bus and then take the train that very unhandily had the only further connections two stops after where he had to next get to. Once you exit you have to take a bus to get to the city connected to the clinic’s town and then you take one last bus that drops you off near the police station of the town. From there you need to walk the rest of the way, approximately 20 minutes.

He spent most of the drive listening to the music files he had downloaded and staring at the dark world outside rushing by. It was peaceful, until he got out of the train. Because naturally with small towns some kind of transport vehicle always came too late. In his case the bus was cancelled which his computer back at home naturally didn't mention, and he had to wait a whole extra hour at the eery station until the next one came. When he finally arrived at the clinic it was already half past 9.
It was actually sort of a relief to see the depressingly grey cube of the building poking out between the shadows of the trees because he made his way here solely by figuring out a picture of a bright coloured map of the town that he found online and looked like a bunch of kids have taken some chalks and scribbled it. What had made the journey even more difficult was that the lines on the map of the streets were a very similar blue colour to the river, and some paths he could've used as a shortcut weren't even on the map since they were too small to be bothered about apparently. Not to mention that the map was created 10 years ago (which hadn't been such a big problem since the town was too poor to have made any major changes in the last years, anyway).

Careful to not step on any slugs who were all about the street at this time, Scarab made his way to a pole by the side of the parking lot and leaned against it before fumbling in his pocket for his cigarettes, only to remember he had already smoked the second while he had waited for the bus.

He sighed heavily and began to play with the lighter instead since he already brought it out anyway. He kept it burning just as long as the wind allowed before it brushed his thumb for too long and he had to let go. And then, when the sting subsided, he’d light another flame.
With only him and the slugs here, and the chirping crickets in a field somewhere behind him, he had time to think. …Which is another word for worry. What if Billy can’t convince Gallner? They were relying solely on one guy to kill the cameras and they hadn’t even considered that there would be footage if Billy failed. For a moment, Scarab stopped gently rocking on his heels as a sudden cold creep of realisation made its way down his spine, a realisation so clear he cursed himself for missing it. What if Billy had lied? What if he did this all to get them caught? The consequences would be unimaginable. And how would they bring Prismo and Billy back? If Billy let himself be dragged back at all? Not to forget the general risk of gathering a bunch of mentally ill people to get absolutely wasted-

He jumped slightly as a car rushed past him before slowing down to a stop on the opposite side of the street in front of a cheerfully lit shop that had a flickering LED sign above the door that read: ‘OPEN’. The car, a black pickup which looked like it had already fulfilled several years of service, was playing radio pop classics on such a blasting volume he found himself shocked that he hadn’t noticed it approaching. The door opened just for a familiar strawberry blonde head to jump out, Cyndi Lauper crying the lyrics of ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ behind her. Garri frowned at him for a moment after killing the radio before she waved him over when realising who it was. Scarab was rather relieved to leave the cold pole he had been leaning against behind as he jogged over.

“Hey, hope we didn’t keep you waiting for too long?”

Garri greeted him. She looked good, her hair was in even more volume than usual as it flowed down the back of her lemon adorned summer dress like a cloud. Her thick creamy-white socks were pulled up below her knees and the strappy platform sandals fit perfectly. The yellow details around her eyes she’d added and the hair clip finished the look off perfectly without doing too much.
Marceline, who came around from behind the car, didn't look half as bad. In fact, she looked just as stunning. Her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and she wore a fishnet top which was styled along with a heavy rock or punk band cropped tee he didn't recognise. Her waist-tight but baggy jeans weren’t baggy enough to hide the shiny red dockers. Their looks made him kind of self conscious about his own outfit, which was a pair of skinny jeans and a grey dress shirt with a hippie-ish pattern he bought two years ago but never wore. It was mostly covered by his comfort jacket anyway.

“it’s alright, I only arrived just now.”

Beemo stumbled out of the car too, who again looked just as nervous as Scarab felt. He wondered if someone would watch over him at the party. How old was he? 13, 14?

“Marceline will just buy cigs real quick but then we can get going to... Wherever we're going until it's 10.”

Scarab perked up at that and quickly grabbed his wallet to push a ten dollar bill towards the vampire-ish girl. He didn’t know where that idea came from, but the way she dressed along with her sick-ish skin made her look more like a modern day vampire now than ever before.

“Could you get me some Marlboro reds?

“Sure.” She winked and went inside the bodega with the others just to come back out after a moment with some sodas in one arm and two packs of cigarettes in the other, one Marlboro and the other pueblo blue.

They sat down on the pavement, Scarab and Marceline lighting one up while Garri passed around the sodas and Beemo was busy opening a stubborn cola zero can with his teeth.

“I’m surprised they got a bodega around here that’s open for that long. They don’t even have a clothing store”

Scarab hummed as he took a drag from his cigarette and kept the smoke in his lungs just long enough before it’d burn to then exhale with a sigh.

“Who knows, they got a pretty big psychic hospital for a small town. Maybe a lot of edgy teenagers just live here and they arrange their opening times to attract them when they’re out at night.”

Marceline pondered and Garri chimed in:

“Funny considering that no one on our floor comes from here.”

“Well, Alice and I come from the city,” Beemo muttered into his fist. “I’m pretty sure a friend once said that they had to build a mental institution somewhere because the suicide rates spiked a couple of years back but the governor didn’t want it in the city so he put it here.”

‘Great’, Scarab thought as he nibbled on his cigarette. ‘So this town serves somewhat like the trashy storage room of the governor’s perfect house. To get covered in a filthy layer of dust while being forgotten about.’

The others exchanged whatever uninteresting stuff they’ve experienced lately. Beemo rambling about some difficult game called ‘Adventure Masters’ and Marceline about some new amplifiers a friend brought over. ‘I swear, he always brings me whatever crap he can’t sell in that record shop of his only because he thinks I like to cram my whole room with them because I got one bass guitar. But to be fair, there were some actual good distortion amps in there this time that would just need a little fixing to get rid of the cackling, though maybe that could add well to the new song I'm writing…’

Scarab wasn’t interested in joining the conversation. He often used to overthink stuff he’d say, until eventually he immediately turned down any idea of sharing stuff that no one would actually care about. He was always bored when his family went on about stuff he didn’t really care about anyway. And he still waited for the uncomfortability to crash down on him because he had already overshared too much this past week in his desperate attempt to get social connections. But that had been planned, no? And, looking at the people chatting next to him happily, it had worked, hadn’t it? So why was he so nervous yet again? This rollercoaster trip of anxiety these past days was really getting on his nerves.

His brain started to look for a reason to blame this all on since he still had the party to master before he could curl up in his little shell and think about what’s wrong with him. As for a second, a hot colour of pink shot up in his mind alongside those blank but wild blue eyes and he mentally swatted at the image until it's gone. He also held off thinking about him for a better day.

Because no matter how often the other casually crossed his mind, he never lingered on the thought of him. Not only with his stupid little motions or stupid little amused smiles that tricked anyone into wanting to hear his real rewarding laugh but also with those damned eyes of his. That way he stared into your soul like he knew all of your secret desires and wishes, but also the dirtiest secrets and the biggest regrets, yet they always remain calm to never let you know just how much he knew. And the way he sat, so simple and deceivable, yet he’d do something so sudden that made you question him all over again just when you thought you figured him out. And then there was-

He tore his head away abruptly as he noticed he was doing exactly what he didn’t intend to: thinking about him. Carefully he gathered the escaped thoughts and shut them in his mental cage again before he noticed that Garri was staring at him. Had he made a weird expression?

“Uhm.” ‘Oh god I hate myself’. He mentally shook himself and steadied his outer posture in another moment where he needed to feel physically confident whilst he mentally still had to be gathered.

“I was just thinking about Billy, and it came to my attention that we haven’t been very structured with the plan. ..You know, he could’ve just lied about it all to get us in trouble”

“Yeah I’ve thought so too. And it is tricky,” Garri agreed, “But do you think a man like him would rather stay in a mental hospital for a bit of sadistic pleasure at seeing his inmates get punished or escape?”

Scarab’s eyebrows furrowed a little. Now that he thought about it, he had to admit it wouldn’t have been so hard for him to come to this conclusion either.

“Yeah I guess that makes sense”, he sighed and Garri offered him a gentle smile

“Now that you mention him though,” Marceline piped up whilst crashing her empty can between her fingers, “We should get going. It’s almost time.”

So they quickly finished their sodas and cigarettes and then climbed into the pick-up. When they came to the construction site it wasn’t hard to move the fences enough to create a space big enough for all of them to slip through and get over the ground. They stopped by a bush to the right that was standing right next to the river, the black water rushing broodingly past them. If one of them stumbled and they’d fall in the current might not be strong enough for them to get torn away, but the pit sure was deep enough for them not to get out again that easily. Scarab tried hard not to think about that since his anxiety was already riled up enough from what they’re about to do, yet his hands grasped the grass underneath him as if that’d save him from an unfortunate fall.

“Five minutes.”

Marceline announced behind him. Scarab looked to the side and saw Beemo’s eyes gleaming rather nervously in the dark, his brows were pulled down and his jaw clenched too. It looked like he might just start running any moment now. The sight was enough for Scarab to ignore his own anxiety for the moment and lean down towards the other.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll just keep to the shadows so the other night guard won’t see us, get Prismo and Billy out who are already waiting in the office by now, and then run back. If we’re quick we can get this done in under five minutes.”

He glanced up once more and could make out the office rather easily between the other windows since it was the only room with a light still burning. He frowned at it in concentration before a familiar glimpse of pink came into vision for a moment. Pointing towards it, he turned back to Beemo:

“See? Prismo’s already there. It’ll be fine. We have enough time.”

Beemo’s eyes turned towards him and as he saw them huge and scared looking, like a child that had just broken a vase and was now awaiting the scolding. Scarab hesitated for a moment before reaching out. As Beemo didn’t tense up he gingerly patted his shoulder twice and let it linger for a moment before pulling back.

A moment later, which had been just a few minutes but felt like an hour, went by so slowly but yet so quick that the moment came, Marceline told them to get ready. Scarab sat up in a comfortable position to start running and kept in mind to keep a steady posture so he wouldn't slip on the wet grass and fall in the river. Beemo got ready next to him. And when Marceline whisper-shouted a: go! they started running.

It felt surreal racing down the courtyard with the many doubts still in their minds, and the only thing to rely on being the most incomprehensible guy in the whole building. But what choice did they have now? Either the cameras were cut and they were gonna make it, or they weren’t and they’ll be tackled down by workers any moment now. Beemo was panting somewhat next to him and he guessed it was also more from the anxiety than from the actual running. If the other cut tail now he wouldn’t judge him, he was only afraid that it would be too late by now to run if they really had been seen. The air tugging at their faces which was still fresh with the earlier rain also didn’t soothe neither’s doubts.

The courtyard that had seemed endless at first was crossed already way too soon, and now came the most difficult part. Scarab pressed to the cold brick wall and Beemo arrived next to him, the pulse of the other doing a visible rampage in his neck. He took a short moment to analyse the wall and the window above and jumped as Prismo’s head suddenly poked out. The boy in question grinned and shouted down a small “hi”

Scarab lowered his hand that had laid over his heart and put his index over his lips in a silent gesture to shush the other, who nodded back at him with wide eyes. Then he ushered Beemo closer and put his knee against the wall to have it steady for the other to climb on. It was pretty awkward since he had to basically hug the other for him to be steady enough to help down two guys who were as tall as grown men but before neither Billy nor Prismo could take Beemo’s hand to climb out, Sean’s frowning unibrow perked out.

“You better have brought the cash.”
He tried to grab his wallet whilst holding Beemo simultaneously, just to nearly curse as Sean said: “200”. Really, what’s wrong with Billy?!

Obviously he had the cash but it's still 200 goddamn quid. He rolled his eyes and eventually just handed Beemo the wallet since it’d be impossible to count and get out the money with one hand. The boy pressed the paper bills into Sean’s hand who grinned a yellow toothed grin before he switched positions with Billy. Billy was by far the most challenging part of the plan. He was heavy, and kept kicking at Scarab’s shoulders as he tried to get down, before he grunted in annoyance and just jumped to the ground which made a way too loud noise for Scarab’s liking.

Prismo was easy to get down in comparison. Should be easy, anyway. Except for when he started putting his weight on Beemo before the boy had time to properly steady himself, and they started to sway dangerously. Prismo was already too far out of the window to retreat as he tipped forward. Scarab, who was already forming the mental image of Prismo’s smashed skull against the cold stone, let go of Beemos legs and reached out his hands for Prismo instead, who he just managed to catch before their clumsy pyramid crashed to the ground.

His hand was trapped uncomfortably under his back and he could hear Beemo groan somewhere to his side, yet no one screamed in pain or, worse, couldn’t scream because they fulfilled Scarab’s paranoid imagination. Someone’s knee was pressing into his rib as well. And grabbing that someone's legs to get them off, He only realised it was Prismo when he felt the cheap cloth of the hospital provided pants. His eyes immediately shot open.

The moon was behind Prismo’s head and let his hair glow silverish purple. His eyes were just as torn open with surprise as his own. His pale lips were parted somewhat but Scarab looked away immediately as he realised how bad it must look for him to linger at the other’s lips, and instead he noticed just how warm the other’s body was on his. Quickly he loosened his grip just as he noticed how tightly he was grasping the others hips and when Prismo rolled off it felt less relieving than he hoped it would.

“Are you okay?”, he whispered to the other who accepted his hand and let himself be helped to his feet. His hands were warm too, and slowly the contact felt more like touching an electric fence rather than some limbs warmed up by blood and friction.

“Yeah”, Prismo breathed. Scarab’s hand tightened abruptly.

“When you two lovebirds are done we can get going.”, Billy grumbled in a very unimpressed tone.

They jumped away and averted their gazes which made Scarab’s gaze fall on Beemo instead. Blood from a scratch was dripping down his elbow. Guiltily he asked in a soft tone:

“Are you okay too?”

“’s just a scratch”, Beemo reassured before he got ready with the others to run back.

Scarab threw a last glance at Prismo who nodded too.

“Then let’s go.”

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Chapter Text

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“I’m not getting in there.”

They’ve just made it back to the car and already there is another issue to deal with.

Scarab tried not to heave a sigh. Most of the adrenaline had left him again and now he was left with irritation and exhaustion. He just wanted to get away from the clinic already but Billy was standing next to the car’s door and had his arms crossed defiantly. The egotistical bastard wasn’t even trying to be polite and crouch to meet Scarab’s eyes, so Scarab could only look at his legs from where he sat inside of the car.

“Fine, stay here and let the cops get you then. I’m sure they’ll get contacted as soon as the other guard notices that you’re gone.”

“He won't. He left to help at another station when the emergency alarm went off. He’ll be busy with that all night.”

Scarab’s eyes widened in shock. “When?”

“Earlier this night.”

He spluttered. “And you didn’t tell us?!”

“It was funnier to see you struggle”.

Scarab turned his head to give Prismo a ‘what the hell?’ look.

The other shrugged helplessly with his shoulders, a faint look of guilt in his eyes. “It’s true. The excitement of the moment made me forget all about it. ”, he retorted in an apologising tone.

“Anyway,” Billy interrupted before Scarab could answer, “I don’t care about the cops anyway. They got the mental capacity of shit-eating dung flies. They’re easy to fool.”

Finally he leaned down to peek into the back row and stare at Scarab. Scarab’s earlier irritation-driven confidence left him immediately. He had never feared the shadows in the corner of his room, or the monsters under his bed, nor much at all in his life. But those eyes held the knowledge of such dark things he doesn’t even want to phantom imagine. And the fact that there was this person in front of him calmly hosting this knowledge left him shivering.

“You all hate me,” His gaze slowly drifted over everyone before fixing Scarab again. “And I hate all of you. So why do you want me there so badly?”

Scarab hesitated. He hadn’t made an actual plan on convincing Billy to come, he had guessed that the other would be happy to have a vehicle drive him away from town and therefore not question where it’d go. But now that the guy obviously appeared to care, he had to come up with something.

…Except that there was nothing he could think of to offer Billy. He glanced at Prismo who was already staring at him. Prismo made a small ‘go ahead’ gesture with a forwarded twitch of his shoulders.

Deciding to go with the truth, he sighed towards Billy: “The host invited you”. Billy's eyes narrowed.

“Strange considering I never got an invitation.”, The other mumbled in a tone that hinted that he obviously didn’t buy the other’s talk.

“Well, you don’t exactly give your friends glittery cards anymore at eighteen”. Scarab was both relieved that Prismo jumped in and amazed at his fearlessness as he confronted Billy. Billy was just as surprised, judging by his slight threatening head tilt as he surveyed the other.

“CO personally told me to invite you”. Billy’s eyes shot back to Scarab who swallowed. “..The guy I talked with that day in the courtyard, remember?”

“The dreadlocked one?”

“Cosmic Owl”, Prismo hummed.

Billy went silent as a fog drew over his eyes to hide the thoughts which had already been unidentifiable anyway.
He remained like that for a long time as to where Scarab started to question if he’d move again at all, When he suddenly muttered something under his breath and then, to everyone’s surprise, squeezed into the space next to Prismo and shut the door.

“Quit staring", he grumbled.

Oh they did.

The first minutes were pretty awkward. Everyone was silent and the radio was still turned off. Billy didn’t look comfortable either with his legs crossed awkward so his knees wouldn’t push into Beemo’s seat too much (not because he cared for the other’s comfortability but because he’d be too cramped otherwise) as well as his head, which was pressed sideways against the roof of the car even as he had his neck tilted. His hand held the loop over his seat since he was sitting on the seat belt clip and therefore couldn’t buckle up.

Another thing which was driving Scarab crazy is that Prismo scooted ever closer to him because of the space Billy’s taking up. Normally he could ignore the tingles he felt at the others' physically affectionate behaviour because Prismo obviously thought nothing of it, so he didn’t have to mention his feelings and make it awkward. Hell, only yesterday Prismo had come up and sniffed at Scarab’s freshly shampooed hair after he got out of the shower and only stopped to cock a brow when Scarab was as stiff as some 3 day old roadkill.

Of course, it didn’t have to be weird. It wasn’t weird. Scarab just didn’t receive enough hugs as a child, alright. But so soon after their earlier incident, which reminded him of a scene straight out of some cheesy highschool anime now that he thought about it; Prismo wasn’t acting any less oblivious than he.

He had been avoiding eye contact for the eternity of the drive by now and had kept a careful distance around Scarab ever since they got back to the car. When Scarab was acting off because Prismo kept brushing his arm with his whenever there was a tear in the road, Prismo didn’t even try to reassure the other anymore with one of his teasing looks or comments. He was simply silent and pulled his arm back as soon as possible.

First of all, Prismo wasn’t special regarding physical contact. He wasn't. Even if Scarab hated to admit it, it was logical that he was nervous when people touched him because most were too intimidated by his natural introverted behaviour to even get close.
And second of all, it’d be absurd to think of Prismo as anything but a friend. He mentally shook his head. No, of course not. If his feelings had any deeper meaning than it was rather some simple anxiety developed by the crave for a normal friendship; however sad that sounded.

And most importantly, his mother seemed particularly fond of a girl right now that she forced him to talk with at their latest party. Matilde was her name, with a slightly plumb yet gentle figure and a soft face with kind, green eyes. And even better, her father was the CEO of a famous paper print company.

If she’s not wed by the time Scarab turns 18 there’s a high possibility his mother wants to arrange the marriage. And if Scarab must do his master degree first then he had to at least be engaged with her.

He felt a sudden urge to turn around and tell Prismo that his marriage will be arranged but stopped himself. Why should he even tell Prismo this? As if Prismo could have remotely reciprocated any feelings which weren’t there because they didn't exist.
Scarab would love to groan and bury his face in his hands. What was he even trying to achieve thinking about this? Didn’t he set an explicit rule to not ponder about Prismo until his brain was in a clear space? He was just leading himself to a dead end.

As they drove over a pretty large crack, Prismo’s arm touched his and stayed there, and his racing thoughts came to a sudden halt. It felt as if there was a tear in the glove.

Carefully he turned his head and looked down at their arms. The tear wasn’t a small one either but nearly ran all the way from the hole for the thumb up to Prismo’s elbow. That must’ve happened during the fall. He couldn’t see any blood, that was a relief, so the stoney ground hadn’t cut into his skin. But Prismo wore those to hide his wrists. He never took them off, never even changed them in front of Scarab even if that must raise its own complications as roommates.

Prismo mustv’e noticed his gaze since he quickly pulled his arm away and put the tear in a lap facing direction so it’s hidden. A wave of guilt crashed over Scarab, putting out his other confusing feelings. Prismo had a whole party to face in 20 minutes and he had to be an asshole and make him even more uncomfortable. The boy wasn’t even looking at him and normally he never avoided his gaze.

He wanted to apologise, or say something atleast to make this awkwardness that was so suddenly born between them die already, but he couldn’t get his teeth off his tongue.

Silence, again. He didn’t think he ever hated it more than right now. …As a small jingly tune started somewhere from the front seats.

”I heard you on my wireless back in ‘52. Lying awake, intent on tuning in on you”

Garri’s hand was on the radio, her eyes lighting up as she heard the famous intro. Beemo, who apparently was very fond of the song, jumped up in his seat and Garri turned up the volume in response.

”If I was young, it didn’t stop you coming through”

“Oh-a! Oh-a!”

That was Marceline, grinning now. The light in Garri’s eyes turned to a sparkle as their gazes met.

“They took the credit for your second symphony! Rewritten by machine and new technology! And now I understand the problems you can see”

“Oh-a! Oh-a!”

The mood was saved in seconds as the front row, Marceline Garri and Beemo, started singing cheerfully along to the song. The car was filled with music and joy and the only one who disapproved of this was Billy, who groaned and put his head into his hand to pinch his nose.
Even Prismo seemed to relax a little to his side, which made Scarab feel a rush of immediate relief. His eyes widened as an idea sparked in his head and he silently cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner.

He shrugged off his jacket and gently laid it over Prismo’s shoulders, who definitely needed it more than he with the whole hospital fit he wore. Prismo looked confused before he relaxed as he noticed Scarab’s kind gaze. He didn’t hesitate to slip his arms through the jacket and put it on.

His eyes remained on Scarab’s face for a while longer and Scarab finally put his relief aside to question if he had something on his face, as Prismo leaned over to muse in a whisper:

“Wow. And here I thought you lacked the facial muscles to smile.”

Scarab was shocked. “What? I didn’t smile.”

“But your cheek pulled up a little.”

He poked a spot over the left corner of Scarab’s lip. His index gently sunk into the softness of his cheek.

“I count that as a smile.”

Scarab wasn’t quite sure how to answer, especially with that secret grin that Prismo gave him, like a silent promise that he’d tell no one that The Scarab did something other than frown.
Instead he raised his arm and finally laid it over the back of Prismo’s head cushion to which the other sighed in relief, gratefully snuggling into the bit of space that was provided.

Scarab blamed the warmth he felt on the accomplishment of being a decent friend.

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Chapter Text

-22:32 o’ clock-
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Sweaty bodies dance-grinding against each other, people eating off each other's faces, flashing coloured lights that are bright enough to be able to blind you, Music so loud they started to hear it over the radio’s from 2 streets away.

The perfect dream for any teenager yet Scarab felt he might’ve taken the elevator straight to the deepest pit of hell.
He was stunned for a good moment after they all got out of the car and he saw the house. It was huge, almost as big as Scarab's, with the party lights illuminating the streets in the rhythm of the music. In the middle of the quietness of the neighbourhood it looked even more intimidating.

As the group walked towards the door he already noticed the first couple leaning against the left wall. They were tangled in each other's arms, their heads pressed together as they were slowly swaying to the rather unmatching party music. They guys' hands were already halfway down her pants. He quickly forced his head to turn away from the sight and concentrated on climbing the steps instead. Partly because the sight was rather uncomfortable and partly because he heard enough horror stories of redneck younglings beating up guys who looked at their girl the wrong way and he didn't want to end up with a black eye before he could even set foot into the house.

They entered a foyer with its usual spot for shoes and jackets to the side and all that other foyer stuff but Scarab, for once, didn't pay too much attention to analyse the room like he normally did with everything he came across.
Instead he was more focused on the party going on behind the open door of the foyer. Or, more like, focused on remaining calm at the face of the party.
The fact that he was getting freaked out about remaining calm was a horrible sign. He hadn't had his usual nervous breakdown yet after so many confusing events had taken place in such a short time and he was really afraid that his mind was showing the first signs of his slipping grip on it, especially after he thought about Prismo not once but twice today after he forbade his mind to.

But He couldn't lose his grip. He couldn't. Not now. Or that would be fatal for him. ’focus, Scarab. You just have to survive for one night. One night and then you're going to be alright.

He took a deep breath and nodded to himself before him and the other's began to snake through the busy hallway. Prismo was at the lead because he knew the house by heart and he tried his best to not lose the bushy head of hair from sight.

The hallway was lit in more eye-friendly colours thanks to the small, round paper lanterns that were hanging on one side, though the warm yellow still mixed with some of the blue from the LEDs of the place beyond. And the music box hanging in the upper corner of the wall wasn’t letting the hallway have any peace from the music either.

Soon enough they mastered the hallway and got to what he assumed was the kitchen. It is grand with loads of different alcoholic drinks and juices at the island for mixing or not. In the middle was a big bowl with what appeared to be fruit punch. A group of five were chatting next to it, several were by it and refilling their plastic cups and some more people were leaning against the oven.

He sighted two big speakers standing parallel to each other in each of the two corners in the front of the kitchen but they weren't playing the playlist that was blasting through the rest of the house. No. Scarab's eyes followed the wires connected to them and they led to the monstrosity of a DJ set up that stood in the middle behind the island. Behind it was CO chatting with two other people. As he looked up his eyes sparkled at the sight of them.

“Prismo!”

He cheered and immediately left the others to greet his best friend with a heartfelt hug. They were laughing as they tightly squeezed each other and Scarab was half expecting for one to pick up the other any moment now and swing them around with how happy they looked.

“Man, it's been like- what. Half a year? They really be thinking you're allergic to some outside air every once in a while huh?”

Prismo chuckled. “It's good to see you. Happy birthday dude.”

He looked somewhat regretful as he looked over at the set up.

“You could finally convince your dad to get it huh?”

“Yeah! It's even better than I imagined. Come I'll show it to y'all”

CO walked back to the device as the group of them followed. He curtly introduced everyone to the other two friends of his except for Prismo who already knew them.

“This is Keres and his wife Zara,”

He pointed at two people who looked like they were around their late twenties. Keres had his long, wry black hair bound back and wore an all black shirt with some skulls adorned on them. Zara looked like the polar opposite to her husband's rather dark look. Her neck and hands were adorned with peculiar jewellery and she wore a brown dress. Plus she had some of the warmest greens Scarab had ever seen.

“Hey”, Keres gave a nod.

“Keres got this solo metal band he's been working on for a long time. And he got experience with all kinds of amplifiers and stuff since he works in a music shop. He's been helping me set up this baby.”

Co beamed and caressed the top of the set up with as much love as you'd touch a woman.

“It has the newest technology touch display, this button lets you directly record audio, a collection of 50 different effects, 4-deck standalone with Wi-Fi streaming, and, the best thing, a built-in Vinyl player!”

Co was just about giggling at this point as he bend down to grab a vinyl of the newest Gorillaz album: Demon Days

“This has some great songs. The fan favourites are definitely Dirty Harry and Feel Good Inc but I think I'm feeling Dare right now.”

Prismo was still smiling as CO was being so enthusiastic but slowly looked more worried by the second.

“I-i’m sorry. I didn't have a chance to get you anything.”, he muttered towards CO who turned around at his words with wide eyes.

“Dude I'm happy that you managed to come at all! It would've been a bummer if I'd prepared this whole thing just for my best friend not to be there.”

“Plus”, he hissed in a quieter tone, Scarab only caught the words because he was standing the closest to them, “you did bring me a present.”

He looked over at Billy meaningfully who was standing a little off with his arms crossed as he eyed the environment in a rather suspicious way.

Prismo looked stunned for a moment as if so far he hadn't actually believed that CO could really have a thing for the man. Though, after just a moment, his face relaxed again and he nudged the other teasingly instead.

“My best of luck with him tonight.”

“yeah… luck.”, Co looked insecure for a moment as he stared at Billy, before he shook his head and took a cup to dip into the punch.
He invited the other's to serve themselves too and after he quickly got a third cup down he finally turned to acknowledge Billy who had already been waiting impatiently .

“So, you're Billy?”

“Yes.” Billy's eyes were as dark and unimpressed as ever as he stared down at CO, but they seemed more intense than average. As if there was something peculiar about the boy that spiked his interest. He had been interested enough to come with them after all.
“And you're the Cosmic Owl, I assume?”

CO couldn't help but let a small grin tug at his lips at the other's serious demeanour. He cocked his head to the side gently whilst he crossed his arms and looked the other over. He didn't seem to have a problem with the fact that he had to lean his head back to stare at the other's face at all.

“CO’s fine.”

He blinked down at the other's hand as he stuck it out in confusion, before slowly reaching out and putting them together in the firm handshake Billy led. He let out a gasp of surprise as Billy firmly pulled him close to lean down and whisper something in his ear. Scarab didn't catch the words but was guessing that they weren't nice based off of the snarl on Billy’s lips.

Co leaned back his head immediately after the words were spoken to look at the taller with an utterly confused expression. “No…?”

“Then what is my purpose for being here?”, he growled accusingly.

“I dunno, like..”

CO’s hands slowly found their place on Billy’s chest and gently pressed against it to ‘push him off’, but it was obvious that he didn't put any actual effort into the motion. It looked more like an excuse to see if Billy would push him off.

“to have fun?”

For the first time, Scarab saw some actual emotion he could identify in Billy's eyes - shock - as he realised that CO wasn't some threat to him like he had probably assumed based on the way he had been acting but really just some guy who had the hots for him.

Then Billy’s eyebrows furrowed slowly. “Are you making fun of me?”

CO couldn’t help but laugh at that but as Billy’s serious face didn’t waver, it died down to an insecure chuckle before he went serious. A sparkle of concern in his eyes was born as he realised he should've approached him differently.

“No, man-”

His hands went off the others chest as he took a step back and instead made them wave at the island in a rather desperate attempt to fix their chat.

“Feel free to get yourself a drink, or… some are dancing in the living room, if that’s your thing. Oh!”

He looked over the group now.

“How about we start the night with a game? I got some prepared, come on.”

“Drinking games?”, Scarab muttered to Prismo as they started making their way out of the kitchen again.

Prismo already had three bottles of Corona stuffed under his arm to take with him. He grinned. “Of course.”

Scarab secretly narrowed his eyes. Maybe he should add alcoholism to his list. Not that he is one to judge in that manner… Though he wasn’t as excited about the drinking games. He liked to enjoy his alcohol in a quiet and peaceful manner. That reminded him that he had yet to find a spot to waste away in later, so he started looking around the place for nice corners for when the other’s found their fun to do for the night which probably didn’t include him. He wasn’t the kind of person people called if they wanted to have fun.

He almost bumped into Marceline since he hadn’t noticed that they had stopped walking again when he had zoned out shortly. CO was standing in place at the front of the line. And, following his gaze, he noticed that Billy still stood hunched in the kitchen door.

“I will be going.”, he announced after their gazes landed on him.

CO looked over his shoulder to shoot Prismo a helpless look, but Prismo shrugged back just as helplessly, ‘Can't help you with him’, he mouthed.

Conflicted, CO remained standing in the middle of the room for a moment longer.
Obviously, he was probably spurred on by the idea of getting laid tonight because it was his 18th. Obviously, Billy was his weird idea of a type that he preferably wanted to do it with. Based on his earlier actions, he obviously felt guilty at the idea of having made the other uncomfortable. So in conclusion, it was obvious that he didn’t want Billy to go.
Finally he made the decision to turn on his heel and walk back to where the other took up the space of the doorway. Though this time he minded the other’s personal bubble and kept a meter’s distance.

“Look, man, I’m not gonna try to stop you or whatever, but I never meant to diss you back there. I genuinely want to have you here, you know.”, he added the last part in a softer tone and looked at Billy with openly honest eyes.

Scarab couldn’t help but cross his arms as he watched. He must admit it was investing to see people - mostly CO in this case - interact with such emotion in public. Billy could spit some insults at him now easily, turn and leave, and make CO look like the hugest jerk plus possibly ruin the rest of his night. He had already been cringing a little in silence everytime CO had tried to turn his and Billy’s interaction to the better. He honestly never understood people who just showed their feelings like that - didn’t they see that they left themselves open and vulnerable for the other to attack their weakest spot now if they wanted to? Especially because in most situations the other was cross with them and must at least somewhat feel the like to do so?

A perfect example why Scarab disliked relationships. Couples just always had to be all public about everything. It was obvious that CO felt at least a bit of a spark for the other. Will Billy leave now, would all of them be stuck trying to awkwardly comfort CO for at least an hour or so and nothing kills the mood quicker than an emotionally tousled friend. So even after they’d be done with that the rest of the party would still be thrashed and-

“...lemme get a fucking drink first.”, Billy groaned. Scarab’s jaw dropped.

He was relieved that everyone was too occupied dealing with their own surprise at the sight to notice him so he could peacefully close his mouth again. But- Billy wasn’t and still isn’t showing any signs that he actually wanted to be here, and he had been completely convinced that CO had blown his shot. It was only getting weirder and weirder with Billy with each minute that passed. The guy never had a problem before ignoring the needs of others for his own wellbeing as far as Scarab could remember!
What was it about CO that made him behave this way? He didn’t look mutually attracted for all that Scarab could see. But then again, he might have to analyse the way he was judging people some time again. Ever since he’d gotten admitted people kept surprising him.

Billy came back with a beer in hand a moment later and tagged back with the group. Soon enough they had made a beeline around the dance floor and reached their goal: A circle of a couple of couches and a pile of boxes underneath the table in the middle. He was surprised no one had taken them over so far but he guessed the guests had to party some first before thinking about sitting down.
Everyone found a seat for themselves whilst CO grabbed one of the games from under the table to start.

.

CO had actual lots of card and even one or two board games that he changed the rules of some to align it to the drinking rules, But after a round of drink monopoly (The money’s left out and you have to drink a specific amount of shots if you want to buy smth e.t.c), The group slowly started to get too unfocused to actually play the game properly. CO agreed with a sigh to play something else after Prismo tried to grab a card and knocked a beer all over the board instead. The round was starting to get puzzled anyway with CO enthusiastically trying to add more quirks to the rules the longer the game had gone on.

Garri put up a cup of some of the punch next to play titanic.
The shot glass sunk over and over and over again to the point where Scarab lost count of how many rounds they’ve been playing the game for. Garri was leaning against Marceline by now as they were laying giggling together, CO had become more careless again and kept tugging at Billy’s hand or arm whenever he found something particularly funny, despite the space that was between his and the other’s seat; Whilst Prismo next to him just never seemed to stop drinking.
Even if he has definitely had the one or other glass more next to the games he still looked just the slightest amount more affected than the rest.

“What’s the point of playing if Prismo just keeps sinking ‘em on purpose?” Billy eventually grumbled.

The guy himself, despite still leaving jerk-ish comments now and then, seemed more relaxed in his posture too. Though Scarab couldn’t tell if that was because he was actually drunk since he had been quite precise in the games and didn’t lose once since they started Titanic, or if that’s (more likely) because he took a certain amusement in seeing his fellow inmates in this state.

“Whaaat? Maybe you just put too much stuff in the shot every time right before my turn.”Prismo grumbled right back but there wasn’t any real hint of anger in his tone. Billy didn’t take the threat seriously anyway as his eyes calmly followed Prismo’s swaying form instead.

“It’s kinda getting old anyway”, Garri agreed and pondered for a moment before ordering everyone to refill their glasses.

“Never have I ever…”, she started, “been skydiving.”

Nobody drank. Marceline groaned and shoved her gently. “Seriously? Out of all the questions you could have picked.”

“Why, what’s wrong with it? It’s a decent question to start the game with.”, she frowned.

“Maybe for middle aged white gals..”

“Then why don’t you try?”

“Alright”

Marceline's eyebrows furrowed momentarily in thought before a mean smirk slowly spread out on her lips. “Never have I ever searched the whole town for an equivalent of myself for a guy who’s been stalking me.”

Garri spluttered “That’s unfair! He wasn’t stalking, plus his name was-”

“Ah, ah~ gotta drink sweet”

Garri’s eyes looked angry enough to kill, but Marceline seemed immune to the stare and just smiled back until Garri had her glass raised and her head put back to take a sip.

“Well,”
Garri looked down at where their bodies were connected in the cuddle to think. She was just sober enough to actually consider if she should really say what she had in mind, but she was also drunk enough to not care enough.

“Never have I ever swapped our shirts, only brought them back to get them washed and thought I didn’t notice”

Marceline flustered as Garri was the one shooting a smug look now. Into her glass, she muttered:

“Never have I ever pretended I didn’t notice”

They looked at each other, and everyone else was looking at them. Prismo eventually cleared his throat and asked what everyone’s wondering.

“Dont wanna step into your biz,” He waved his wrist at them, “but are you two dating?”

Garri and Marceline laughed as casually as if Prismo asked about something like the weather rather than about the suspicious moment they’d just shared.

“Nah. We’ve just known each other for a long time.”

“Plus we have no closet here. Got to improvise, right?”, Garri joked.

“Maaan, I knew I should've put one up but I was afraid that no one liked 7 minutes anymore”, CO whined.
“Highschool party game and all.”

“What?” Scarab was frowning now “Half of the people here CONSIST of high-schoolers. WE are high-schoolers.”

“Dunno, Kids be finding a lotta things lame.”

Scarab wanted to argue but he had a problem where he seemed too serious, in the mean way,, even if he doesn’t mean to be. So he simply kept quiet and hoped that he didn't look mean with that. It was stupid to get worked up over some ridiculous party game anyway.

“Cosmic!”, A guy came over before Scarab could slip back into his thoughts. He made his way through their couch circle to get to CO and high-five him.

“Hey man, enjoying the party?”

“It's a blast”, The guy nodded seriously before grinning and raising a baggie, but whatever’s in it wasn’t weed. Scarab’s mental drug dictionary unfortunately wasn’t big enough to identify it. It was too dark to get a proper picture of it too. “Got you a present~ Saw you put up this cute lounge in the yard, wanna go there?”

“Yeah I put it there after the last time when you and the guys smoked in the sauna and the stink stayed in the walls…”, CO remembered dryly yet the guy only laughed.

“Silly mistake, but there hadn’t been another spot for the hotbox, yeah. You coming now?”

CO looked at the others but they all waved him off to go.

“I think we’ve warmed up enough anyway.”, Marceline shooed.

“I wanna dance!”, Beemo cheered who had been swaying along to another disco remix of some 80s song ever since it started. He was still tipsy from the two cups he had during Titanic.

“Well can I come dance too?”, Prismo grinned and Beemo beamed as they both got up from their seats. “I think I still remember the Just Dance moves to this one, think I’m gonna beat it?”

Marceline and Garri went over to Prismo and Beemo too. Finally, CO tugged at Billy’s arm. “You want to come too?”

Billy rose slowly whilst he considered the offer, looking down at CO’s hand, then the place around them and at last he gazed at the new guy to figure him out. Apparently his analysis was satisfying enough since he nodded after letting the guy squirm a little under his gaze.
CO beamed just as brightly as Beemo has done. Scarab’s eyes followed them until they disappeared behind the glass door leading outside.

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