Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He was hours past the hour he’d promised to return home, the once foggy-blue sky having transformed to a deeper navy that’d seem completely void of any colour if it weren’t for the blinding light of his phone’s flashlight. If he was lucky, he’d be able to sneak back into the house entirely unnoticed, catch an hour or two of sleep before he inevitably had to walk back out of the house for another day of scribbling meaningless words into the back of his notepad, pretending to take in anything his teacher was trying to explain. But, of course, any kind of good luck in the Goodman household was almost entirely unheard of. His bedroom window, which he had left open enough to slip through when he inevitably returned home late again, had been latched shut once again, making a silent return practically impossible and forcing him to use the significantly more noticeable front door. Between unlocking the door and pushing it open to allow himself in, he was sure to wake anyone that wasn’t already awake and awaiting his arrival. With a somewhat frustrated sigh, he dragged his feet towards the front door, fumbling around in the pocket of his jacket for his key. After a few seconds, he pulled his hand from his pocket, key wedged between two fingers as he used his free hand to throw his backpack back onto his shoulder. After a good minute or two of stalling, he finally bit the bullet, pushing the key into the door and twisting it, unlocking it with significantly less trouble than he had expected. As soon as the click of the latch reached his ears, he pushed the door open gently with his shoulder, sliding through the gap before swiftly locking it once more. Finally back inside his house, he slid his shoes off and tucked them against the door, hoping that when he turned to make his way up the stairs he’d be met with complete silence. The second he turned to face the rest of the house, he locked eyes with his mother, gently rocking herself side to side on an office chair in the living room. Of course, he could’ve predicted this exact interaction weeks in advance, her routine seeming more familiar than his own, even if this had been the latest he’d ever returned home from wherever he decided to spend his free time. With another sigh, he walked towards her, bracing himself for whatever lecture she had prepared for him. If the past few late nights with his friends had told him anything, it was to prepare himself to be lectured by at least one of his parents or caught by his sister whenever he decided to return home at an unusually late hour. Truthfully, he hadn’t really expected to see anybody awake this time with how late he’d been. It wasn’t entirely impossible in such an unpredictable household, but the last time he’d seen anyone awake past one hadn’t exactly ended too great. Perhaps he’d just hoped this time the house would remain quiet, that he’d deal with the consequences of his recklessness in the morning, that he wouldn’t have to worry about anything going wrong this time. 

“Mom? What’re you doing up? It’s three-thirty, why’re you up so late?” he questioned, slinging his bag onto one of the hooks in the hall.

“I couldn’t sleep, you still weren’t home, had me thinking something had happened to you.” she responded, pushing her feet against the ground to stop the rocking of the chair, now looking directly at him.

“Didn’t we have this talk on Friday? I was perfectly fine, completely safe, completely unharmed all night.”

“Don’t act smug, Gabriel. You swore you’d be back early when you left after dinner and you lied . What if you got lost on your way home? Or got into a car accident because of how dark it is? Or if you’d dropped dead at some random kid’s house?”

“Mom, you know if anything-”

“I’m serious! What if there was some kind of freak ice storm and you got stuck out there? Hell, what if you’d got caught in the crossfire of a completely unrelated car accident?”

“What’d we say about watching the news? You know half of the things they talk about are rarer than a lottery winner, right? I mean, c’mon, a freak ice storm? In the middle of September?”

“You swore you’d be back early , Gabe! Not sure what time you call this, but this is far from early.”

Gabe sighed once more, walking over to his mother and wrapping his arms around her shoulders, pressing a brief kiss to her hair. 

“You gotta let go Mom, I’m almost eighteen. And besides, if anything had happened, wouldn’t you have known hours ago? Y’know, police, doctors, my friends parents?” he spoke, his cheek pressed against her hair. 

“Are you doing drugs?” she rushed out, holding onto his arms as if her question was entirely normal.

“..Not at the moment.”

Just as his mother opened her mouth to respond to his vague answer, another set of footsteps approached the stairs, presumably from above.

“Who’s up at this hour?” his father questioned, blinking himself awake as he started to walk down the staircase.

“Your father, go. Hide by the kitchen until he comes down, sneak back up when he’s gone.” his mother whispered, pushing him in the direction of their kitchen.

“Why does he hate me?” Gabe asked, his face a mixture of panic and complete confusion.

“Because you’re a little twat.”

“You can’t call me a twat!”

Before he could respond any further, his mother rushed back into the living room, shouting some kind of excuse to his father. From the area he’d been tucked away into, he had an almost perfect view of the entry to the living room, making his escape plan almost entirely flawless. The moment he saw his father enter the room, he rushed to the stairs and up to his room, determined to remain completely undiscovered until he came down for school later that morning. It wasn’t until he reached his bedroom and closed the door behind him that he realised the effects such rushed movements had on his weakened body, having to tightly grasp the doorframe to hold himself upright as he caught his breath, the awakening ache in his knees already settling. Frustrated, he allowed himself to drop to the floor, closing his eyes as he rested his head against the door, knees pulled towards his chest in some form of self-comfort. 

Truthfully, at seventeen years old, Gabe wasn’t sure what to do with himself, no matter the state his body was in. Even when he found himself in one of his rarer good days, he’d still lurk around as if nothing had changed, aimlessly walking around his room in an attempt to cure his persistent boredom. If that didn’t trick his mind into silence, he’d resort to laying flat on his back on the rough carpeted floor of his bedroom, staring blankly at the ceiling as he tried to make sense of the aching despair that simply refused to depart from his already exhausted brain. Although he could admit his life hadn’t really been the greatest, he couldn’t exactly figure out what had caused things to take such a downward turn. Perhaps it was the way he was forced to live his daily life on edge, constantly awaiting the next spell of excruciating pain in his muscles or the mental sucker-punch that struck him with every panic attack he’d have. Or perhaps it was the immense guilt he felt towards his family for having such a vulnerable idiot constantly lurking around, dragging his cramping limbs around with such heavy caution he was certain they’d grown sick of his failing attempts to cover up his illness. Or maybe it was the feeling that he shouldn’t really be around to burden them in the first place, that he should’ve succumbed to those deadly complications he’d been haunted by for almost the entire seventeen years he’d been alive for. 

Stuck within his own mind, Gabe seemed to have completely missed the persistent knocks at his bedroom door, only coming back to his senses when the culprit had decided instead to bang on the door with every ounce of strength they could muster up. Opening his eyes, he was met with a sudden lack of darkness, wincing at the drastic difference in lighting and the obvious signs that he’d been sat against his door for far too long once again. With the knocking only getting louder and more persistent, he sighed and finally pushed himself from the ground, ignoring the remnants of pain as he rushed to finally remove his jacket and open the door. When he finally pulled the door open, he was met with an empty hallway, with whoever had been knocking already halfway down the stairs. He assumed it’d been his sister’s attempt at waking him up on her way back to her own room, like she’d done for the last few days of the previous week, silently signalling to him that she’d be starting to get ready herself and that if he wasn’t ready himself by the time she rushed back down the stairs, she’d simply walk off without him. Maybe it seemed harsh to anybody else, but to them, it was part of a small routine that kept them somewhat sane in their unstable household. With a newly discovered burst of energy, Gabe quickly threw on the nearest set of clean clothes he could find, discarding the clothes he’d previously been wearing in the small hamper his mother had insisted he used for his dirty clothing. He swiftly exited his room and headed for the bathroom, briefly brushing past his father as he ran across the landing, making an effort to pay little attention to the way his father had completely ignored his son’s presence yet again. Reaching the bathroom, he retrieved his toothbrush and toothpaste from their place beside the sink, knocking the cap from the tube and squeezing its contents onto his toothbrush, using his free hand to screw the cap back on and place it back where it belonged. He used the side of his hand to knock the tap on, running the brush under the icy-cold water. Halfway through his second cycle of brushing his teeth, a figure in the doorway caught his attention, their impatience made clear by the way they were leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed as they stared him down. Turning to face them, he immediately registered the sandy-blonde tone of his sister’s hair.

“Morning, Nat.” he mumbled, words muffled by the toothbrush wedged between his teeth.

“Yeah, morning, are you gonna be much longer? I still have to brush mine too and we’ve got maybe ten minutes before we have to leave.” Natalie responded, her tone frantic as she fidgeted with the corner of her cardigan.

“I can finish up downstairs, check on Mom while I’m there?”

“Yeah, yeah, that works. I’ll be down in two, so don’t get distracted.”

“Got it!” he responded, using his free hand to throw a thumbs-up in her direction, making his way towards the staircase.

Completely disregarding his father once more, he rushed down the stairs and into the kitchen, brushing his teeth as he nodded a silent greeting to his mother. Lunch meat in hand, she briefly smiled back at him as she continued to prepare lunches for the two siblings, blissfully unaware of the chaos her son was about to cause. Sliding across the tiled floor, he stood in front of the sink, waiting for his mother to look over at him again before spitting the remainder of his toothpaste into the sink, earning a disapproving grimace as he walked towards the cabinet to grab a glass. After rinsing his mouth and checking his phone for the first time since he’d returned home that morning, he looked up to see a box of cereal and a bowl placed on the counter in front of him, a carton of oat milk soon following. Despite the rising hunger in his stomach, he pushed the bowl aside, his face scrunching up in disgust at the idea of eating something so sugar-heavy on absolutely no sleep. Instead, he circled back around to the other side of the kitchen, grabbing a cereal bar he’d left there the previous morning. It wasn’t much better for him, but it certainly sounded easier to stomach than marshmallows coated in some kind of melted sweetener. Unwrapping the bar and taking a bite, he finally remembered that he can’t exactly go to school with absolutely nothing on him but his clothing, leaving his mother to rush back into the hallway to grab his bag and shoes. Brushing past his father another time, he made his way to the living room, sitting on the arm of the sofa as he forced his feet back into his incredibly worn trainers, swiping his father’s car keys from the coffee table on his way back out. He waved the keys in his father’s direction, watching as the man in front of him did anything but look up at him as he searched for the keys. Frustrated, Gabe tossed the keys over his shoulder, heading back towards the stairs to call Natalie down. Finally spotting her shorter frame at the top of the stairs, he shuffled out of the way, his gaze caught by the sudden mess the kitchen had become. In the brief moment it had taken him to retrieve his bag and put his shoes on, their mother had emptied an entire loaf of bread onto the ground, throwing slices of ham and cheese onto each slice like her life depended on it. 

“Uh, Nat?” he questioned, his voice trembling with fear as he continued to watch his mother’s frantic movements.

“What the hell?” she responded, an equally concerned expression plastered across her face.

“I only left for a minute .”

“Wasn’t she doing better? She seemed better, right?”

“I don’t know, I mean, I guess not?”

“Hey, Dad?” Natalie called out, finally getting their father to notice the current state of the kitchen, both her and Gabe watching his face fall as he called out to their mother.

“Diana?” he called, making his way back to the kitchen to presumably redirect her to something less chaotic.

“I’ll handle this, you two go, you’ll miss your bus.” he continued, retrieving the pair of lunches from the counter and tossing the bags to the pair in the hall.

“Mom?” Gabe spoke, trying to ignore the way his voice shook with fear. 

“Go, you’ll be late if you stay any longer.”

Exchanging a brief glance, the siblings clambered down the few stairs they had been standing on, grabbing their individual keys before walking out of the house. Closing the door behind them and heading toward their bus stop, the two siblings feared for the state they’d return home to later that day. Their mother had been doing better for the past month or two, so seeing such a sudden turn in her behaviour had completely drained them of any hope they’d had for a good day, dreading the returning storm more than ever before.

Chapter Text

The walk from their house to the bus stop had never seemed this long before. Any other day, the two would walk in almost complete silence, occasionally broken by some kind of simple question followed by an equally simple answer, only to return to silence seconds later. But any other day, their mother wasn’t terrifyingly close to breaking down everything she’d worked so hard to fix. Any other morning, they weren’t terrified of coming home to a completely different environment entirely. Any other morning, they didn’t have to fear for their mother’s safety. For a short moment, it seemed their walk would stick to its usual pattern of complete silence, only with an additional blanket of dread laid across the siblings. However, after making it a short few steps from their house, their usual routine was changed entirely.

“Gabe, uhm, do you think it means anything? That whole thing we saw? I know she gets like that or whatever but it doesn’t have to be bad this time, right?” Natalie questioned, stopping in her tracks to look at her brother, her face a mixture of genuine fear and concern.

“I don’t really-” Gabe started, wincing at the way his own voice trembled with fear, taking a breath before making an attempt to continue.

“I don’t know, Nat. I want to say this’ll pass or whatever other cheesy bullshit Dad would probably tell us to believe, but I really don’t know this time.” he continued, anxiously fidgeting with his fingers as he tried to stay still, his body yearning for any kind of movement.

“ Please don’t, I’m so sick of being lied to about my own mother. I get that Dad’s in denial about literally everything but I’m not a fucking baby, I just want him to be honest with us.”

“Good luck with that one, we both know that’s never happening. The least we can do is be honest with each other like this, I guess?”

“Yeah, I mean, I guess that’s all we physically can do, but it doesn’t mean I’m not still pissed about everything else.”

“I know, and if I could do anything about it, I would’ve by now, y’know? He doesn’t tell me anything either, and I’d have better luck having a conversation with my bedframe than Mom in that state. If it’s gonna get bad again, I’m sure Dad’ll have no choice but to tell us.”

“But why does it have to get bad for him to be an honest parent? It’s not like it’d kill him to try and open up to his kids, for fucks sake.”

“Y’know, with our dad, it just might.” Gabe joked, finally starting to walk again, waiting for Natalie to catch up.

Instead of a verbal response or the expected jab to his ribs that’d usually follow with his incredibly tasteless jokes in such serious situations, he looked over his shoulder to see his sister with a hand pressed to her mouth, clearly trying to suppress a laugh. In such complex times, Gabe was truly grateful for these kinds of small moments, no matter how quickly they seemed to fade. Seeing his sister a little less panicked for a brief minute or two was enough to bring a fond smile to his face, always grateful for the small signs that his sister was still there at his side. For a good minute or so, the two returned to the familiar silence they’d learned to find their own form of comfort in, continuing to walk towards the bus stop as they would any other day until the silence was broken once more.

“Hey, uh, I got the date for my winter recital on Friday. I told Mom and Dad about it but I highly doubt they’ll show up again, and I thought maybe I’d ask you too? But you don’t have to come, it’s totally fine, but I thought maybe it didn’t hurt to-” Natalie rambled, her hands moving frantically as she tried to reason with both herself and her brother.

“Hey, calm down, you’re fine. I’d love to come, whether Mom and Dad choose to join or not. When is it?” Gabe responded, reaching to grab her right hand with his left, holding it tightly in an attempt to comfort her.

“Early December. The 8th, I think. You don’t have to come, Gabe, you can say no.”

“Yeah, absolutely not, I’ve never missed your recitals and being a senior doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to neglect my sister. I’ll be there, I swear.”

“You swearing on something isn’t as reliable as you think it is, y’know. And anyway, don’t you have your own shit to do too? Jazz band, key club, football? You don’t have anything at all?”

“Nope..! Nothing at all, completely clear actually.”

“Your hand is literally trembling, don’t bullshit me. You can’t just throw your life away for mine, Gabe.”

And for a brief moment, Gabe’s mind was completely empty. No response, no attempt to play off the conversation with a joke, no deflections. Nothing. Instead, he continued to walk beside her, still holding onto her hand, looking straight ahead of him to avoid eye contact. Surprisingly, Natalie made no effort to push him to answer, leaving the two to fall right back into the comfortable silence they knew all too well. Finally, when they reached the bus stop, he briefly turned to look at her, waiting just long enough to catch her attention before snapping his gaze back to the brightening sky. 

“The sun’s stunning this morning, isn’t it?” he muttered, eyes fixated on the clouds above them.

“Gabe, the sky’s grey . It’s cloudy as fuck, it’s probably going to rain, and the levels of misery in that sky could probably rival the combined misery in our household. But sure, yeah, the sun’s pretty.” she responded, looking at her brother with a hint of concern. 

“Might clear up before we get home, so that’s a good sign, y’know?”

“Sure hope it does, I am not walking back home in the rain.”

“Hey, you remember those stupid little promises we used to make when you were a freshman? When you’d do something reckless and beg me not to snitch?”

“ ‘Course I do, why? Because if you’re planning to rat me out for something I did probably like three years ago I’ll make sure Mom and Dad know about you coming home high last month.”

“That’s not where I was going in the slightest, actually. Good to know you take it that seriously, at least.”

“Why? What’d you do, get stoned at someone’s house and need me to cover for you again? Or did you literally only ask for the sake of it like a weirdo?”

“No, I swear it’s serious this time. I just, y’know, don’t exactly know how the hell I’m supposed to put it. Seems kind of irrelevant if I don’t explain everything.”

“Well, hurry it up already, the bus will probably get here before you get half a sentence out.”

“ ‘s not that simple, Nat, let me think for a second.”

“ ‘kay, just, y’know, maybe think faster? Sibling promises only work when it’s just between siblings, not a whole bus of high-schoolers.”

“Look, you’ve got to swear you won’t tell anyone. No friends, no boyfriends, and especially not Mom and Dad, ‘kay? This is between us and us only, unless I tell you otherwise.”

“Jeez, what’d you do, kill someone?”

“Of course I didn’t, Nat.”

“Done some other kind of crime?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Did you break something in the house?”

“Nat, just-”

“You’re never this serious about anything, and I’m already on edge after Mom’s slip-up, so you’ve got to stop making me guess before I actually lose my-”

“I’m gay, Natalie. And I didn’t exactly want to blurt it out at the bus stop first thing in the morning after whatever the fuck happened with Mom earlier, but I just, I don’t know. I needed to.”

“Oh, okay, that’s cool. Totally fine. Just, y’know, why now of all times? Not after school? Not when you got home this morning?”

“Because it’s relevant, kind of, I don’t know. But you can’t tell Mom and Dad, not that they’d care about it or anything, but I promise it’s relevant.”

“What, you got a secret boyfriend or something? Is that why you’re always out so late? Sneaking out so we don’t spot you with him?”

“ God no, I probably would’ve told you that by accident while high and you know that. It’s more because I kind of..” he frantically responded, muttering the end of his sentence a little too quietly for Natalie to hear.

“You gotta speak up, can’t hear you when you’re mumbling. Or with this wind either, actually.”

“I may have been kicked from the football team. Like, at the start of senior year. As in I got to play our first game of the semester and nothing since.”

“Hold on, you what ? What the fuck did you do, bang the coach?!”

“Gross, Natalie, absolutely not. I’d rather not see him at all, like, ever again, actually.”

“So..? What the hell else could you have done?”

“I didn’t do anything, that’s the point! Coach knew about that since the end of junior year, he seemed fine about it and all but I use my phone to look at a text from Mom during practice once and he flips, tells me that if I’m gonna take a boyfriend more seriously than his team then I shouldn’t be there. So, y’know, I grabbed my shit and left, I wasn’t sticking around for whatever homophobic bullshit he was about to spew.”

“And that’s why you don’t want them knowing, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, I think I’d rather graduate and get the fuck out of there alive than get transferred elsewhere just because one shitty coach hates me. I’ve seen Mom and Dad get protective one time too many to know they’d overreact.”

“I mean, it’s kind of a big deal, Gabe. You loved football, and suddenly some prick gets to dictate whether you get to play or not based on his own beliefs? It’s bullshit.”

“Mm, not really. Not for a while, really.”

Before Natalie could open her mouth to respond, the brightly-coloured bus stopped on the road right in front of them, its door sliding open as it pulled to a complete stop. She watched as her brother clambered onto the vehicle as if they hadn’t just had one of the most meaningful conversations they’d had in years, followed him to their usual spot towards the back and fumbled in her pocket for her earbuds, wedging the cord into her phone and pushing the left earbud into her ear as the bus departed. Urging him to continue such a personal conversation when surrounded by tens of their peers that’d never exactly been the nicest to the pair was entirely pointless, and forcing him to share more than he was ready to share was directly asking for their relationship to crumble like every other bond in their household had done years prior. For now, she supposed, it’d stay between the pair of siblings that stood at a bus stop, staring at the murky-grey morning sky with their hands intertwined. For now, she’d continue to stare through the dusty glass windows of their school bus, pretending not to notice the way Gabe silently shuffled closer and shoved the spare earbud into his ear, eyes shut as he threw his head back against the chair. For now, they’d simply pretend it was just another day.

Chapter Text

Thirty minutes. Just thirty more painfully long minutes of hiding away in the back row of the classroom, pretending to take in whatever his teacher had been trying to educate the class about for the past hour as his brain ran through every possible thing that could go wrong the second he gets home. Seven hours was plenty of time for something sinister to happen, for his entire life to come crashing down right in front of him, for the ones he loved so dearly to vanish from his life for good. Every minute away from home since the events of that morning had felt agonisingly long, almost as if the universe was taunting him for everything wrong he’d ever done in his life. With every second that passed, every second he sat tapping his fingers against his leg, the paranoia that plagued his mind only seemed to worsen. The screeching bell that signalled the end of his final class seemed lightyears away, the persistent tapping of his pen against his desk had finally started to irritate him, the desperate urge to check his phone for any kind of updates from his parents, it’d all started to get a little too much for him to handle at once. So, despite the extremely short period of time left of the class, Gabe threw his stuff back into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder as he made his way out of the classroom. 

“Excuse me, Gabriel, where do you think you’re going? This class isn’t over.” his teacher stated, the sudden call of his name forcing the boy to stop in his tracks to find the source.

“Uh, something serious came up. Can I go now?” Gabe responded, his body itching to simply walk out without another word.

“I believe you can wait a few more minutes, it won’t kill you to leave with everybody else. If it was urgent, your parents would’ve contacted the school by now.”

“It is urgent, sir. Surely it wouldn’t kill you to do your job and do what’s best for your students, right?”

“Watch your tone, Gabriel. You can either sit back down and wait until this class is over or, if you’d prefer, you can walk yourself down to the principal and explain why you think you’re above the staff at this school.”

“Gladly. Maybe he’ll actually take his students seriously.” Gabe decided, opening the classroom door and walking out into the hallway, not sparing a singular second to reconsider his childish attitude. 

The second he heard the door snap shut behind him, he swung his bag around to scramble around for his phone, desperate to see if anything catastrophic had happened or if his hours of panic were all for nothing but dramatics. To avoid getting himself in even worse trouble, he wedged the device into his pocket, zipping his backpack up and throwing it back onto his shoulder as he walked. Of course, he was supposed to take himself to the principal’s office for his lack of respect, but with no teacher around to monitor his exact movements, there wasn’t exactly anybody around to stop him from completely re-routing and taking himself to the nurse instead, using any excuse he could muster up to return home and prove his panicked mind wrong. Truthfully, he wasn’t exactly lying , merely bending the truth a little by being incredibly vague to minimise concern, while still ensuring that they believed him enough to allow him to leave. Luckily, when he arrived at the nurse’s office, he managed to muster up a fairly believable story, or at least believable enough to convince the nurse to let him leave just a little earlier than the rest of his classmates. The moment he was dismissed by the nurse, he walked as fast as he possibly could out of the school, finally pulling his phone from his pocket and scrambling to unlock it. While his phone had been completely void of any notifications, something in the back of his mind continued to push for panic. 

Nothing? Maybe she’s really lost it this time, and by the time you get to your front door, she won’t be there. She won’t be with Dad, she won’t be with her doctor, she won’t be at home waiting for you, she’ll be gone for good. 

Shaking his head in an attempt to silence the constant ranting in his head, he decided to call for a ride home, making the clear conclusion that walking home simply wasn’t an option in that exact scenario. Thankfully, the ride was relatively silent and he’d remembered to bring at least a small amount of cash with him, saving him any awkward conversations or any kind of extra unnecessary socialising. After paying the driver and thanking them a few times too many, he swiftly made his way inside the house, almost dropping his house key at least twice with how frantic his movements had become. Finally inside, he threw his shoes and bag off and into their rightful places, starting to make his way up to his room. However, before he could get past the kitchen to get to the stairs, he noticed a somewhat small piece of paper placed on the kitchen island, completely redirecting his steps to figure out what had been written on it, unable to make sense of the scribbled words from so far away. Coming closer, he clambered onto the counter and swiped the note from beside him, finally able to read whatever had been written. The handwriting was almost entirely unreadable, the paper seemed to have been torn from the writer’s notepad, the signs of a rushed attempt of an explanation becoming extremely obvious. 

‘Taken your mother to the doctor, we’ll be back before dinner.’

Ah, of course. Instead of using his phone to text the two siblings, his father had chosen to instead leave a note for the pair to discover when they returned, somehow giving them even less detail on paper than he would through his own spoken words. Typical, really. While his father cared enough to keep Gabe and Natalie up to date with the general status of their mother’s mental state, he still found a way to be incredibly vague about every single event in her path to some kind of recovery. Sure, he always made sure to tell them enough to stop them from getting too worried about her, but it surely couldn’t hurt to say more than just a handful of words whenever the two disappeared to one of her appointments. With a sigh, Gabe took his phone back out of his pocket, unlocking it once more and opening his sister’s contact. By now, school had actually ended for the rest of his classmates, meaning he could call his sister and warn her of their parents’ current absence in advance. Surprised to see she wasn’t already pestering him about his own absence, he pressed the call button, using his shoulder to hold the phone up to his ear as he hopped off the counter, moving to grab himself a glass of water.

“Hello? School just ended, why’re you calling already?” Natalie greeted, almost drowned out by the surrounding chaos of the high-school hallways.

“Hey, yeah, I know. I’m not exactly...there? So, y’know, thought I’d tell you not to wait up.” Gabe responded, reaching for the nearest glass in the cabinet before pushing it shut with a gentle thud.

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’? Were you skipping again or something?”

“Nah, left early, probably earned a day or two of detention on my way out. I got a ride home, was not feeling the hour-long walk.”

“When? Why the hell didn’t you warn me earlier if you’ve been out long enough to get home?”

“I left last period, Nat, it’s not like I’ve been home all day. I only got back ten minutes ago, actually. Oh, yeah, by the way, it’s just us whenever you get back, Mom and Dad are at the doctor, left a note about it on the counter like we’d be home to see it.”

“Yeah, I figured after all that . Look, I gotta go, I’ve only got this practice room booked for forty minutes and I need to actually practice if I wanna be at least decent for this recital. Call you when I’m off the bus, ‘kay?” Natalie responded, the faint click of a door closing and the sudden lack of hallway chaos indicating her change of location.

“Sounds good. Make it back safe, Nat.” Gabe spoke, listening for the tone to signal the end of their call before placing his phone back into his pocket, taking his glass of water and finally heading up to his room.

Part of him itched to call his father, to see if he could squeeze any kind of extra details from him to put his frantic mind to rest for just a short while. But, of course, calling his father while he was waiting for his mother’s appointment to finish up was completely pointless. The chances of getting any kind of response were as slim as his chances of returning to school the next day with absolutely no consequences for his actions earlier that day, both somewhat possible in their own ways but much closer to impossible than anything else. Either way, he was stuck with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company for the next hour, left to hope that overly loud instruments were enough to keep himself from slipping too far. With the glass of water left forgotten on his desk, he made his way over to the keyboard neatly stood against the back wall of his room, plugging the instrument in and playing around with whatever notes came to his mind, allowing himself to drown in the sounds of his keyboard, finally silencing the persistent screaming in his head. Though music can’t erase the hurt in his life, nor can it magically fix seventeen long years of constant disaster, it’d at least make everything else go away for a while, giving him space to breathe and think without a hint of panic ruining the peaceful moment he’d fought so hard for.

Chapter Text

Eight weeks since the incident, a constant cycle of new pills and returning to her doctor when the side effects inevitably became unbearable until her most recent return had simply resulted in her being declared ‘stable’ enough to be dismissed, her kids finally starting to believe that things could finally be levelling out. While they both noticed the drastic changes in the way their mother spoke and acted, they tried not to think too much of it, simply believing it’ll eventually get better as she continues to take her medication. But as the days continued to pass, she only seemed to grow more exhausted, seeming completely drained of any personality she once had. Sometimes, they’d wake up to find that she hadn’t even woken up with the mental strength to stay out of bed for any longer than it took to take the handful of pills, dollar bills and rushed notes of brief explanation on the counter in place of their regular lunches, their father already long gone by the time they’d left for school. No matter how many times they’d noticed things taking an obvious turn for the worst, the siblings felt as if trying to step in before their lives came crashing down again would do more harm than good, instead choosing to silently hope that their mother’s complete lack of everything was nothing but a passing side effect of her new medication, desperately wishing her body would hurry up and get used to the pills and give them their mother back. But watching the days turn into weeks, weeks into months, nothing really seemed to change. Or, well, not with her , at least. 

A week or so after their mother returned to her doctor, Gabe noticed the way his sister was suddenly returning from school with a small but noticeable grin plastered across her tired face, the way she seemed to be on her phone almost as much as he was, the way she was definitely staying at school much longer than she needed to. And no matter how many times Natalie had dismissed it as ‘none of his business’, he really couldn’t stop himself from growing a little suspicious at such drastic changes in his usually less-expressive younger sister. At first, he swore he’d stay out of her business, knowing that if it were the other way around, he’d want her to do the same until he felt ready to talk to her. However, after a full month of trying to be patient and wait for her to tell him what had her so giddy all the time, his curiosity got the best of him, subtly looking for her throughout the school day to see if he could possibly overhear her talking to her friends about anything new. Luckily, just before it hit the second month of his sister’s mysterious change of mood, he finally figured out just what had changed her attitude so quickly. 

It’d been a few hours after school, on one of those rare days where his mother finally found the energy to leave her room for just a short while, when Natalie had accidentally revealed her own secret to both him and their mother. Finding himself hungrier than usual, he decided to rummage around the kitchen for something quick to settle his stomach, giving himself an excuse to get out of his own room for a moment. Rushing down the stairs, he was surprised to see his mother in the kitchen, half-resting on the counter as she stared out of the window, something clearly having caught her attention. 

“Hey, Mom.” Gabe spoke, a small smile across his face as he moved to stand next to her.

“Hi, Gabe.” she responded, her gaze shifting to look at him for a brief second before snapping back to whatever she’d been looking at through the window.

“What’s got you so curious? New neighbours?”

“No, no, just look .”

Turning his gaze towards the window, he finally understood his mother’s curiosity, his mind plagued with his own swarm of questions. There, right outside their house, stood Natalie, arms wrapped around someone else, most likely some other kid from her class, too busy mashing their faces together to notice her own foolish mistake, completely blowing her cover by standing right in view of their kitchen window. And for the first time in the past months of chaos, Gabe found himself genuinely happy. His sister, the typically too-busy-for-all-that teenager, had found herself a boyfriend, and Gabe truly couldn’t be happier for her. After all she’d been through, after everything she’d even done for him, she really did deserve the absolute world and so much more. Though, as most older brothers would, he did find it a little gross for his first impression of her new boyfriend to be seeing them passionately kissing right outside their house. 

“When did she get a boyfriend?” his mother spoke quietly, lightly nudging him to get his attention. 

“Ew.” he responded, his face scrunching up as he turned his attention back to his original task, moving to search through the cabinets.

“God, how did I miss this?”

“Well, you kind of miss a lot , Mom.”

“Do you think they’re in love?”

“Who knows? They’re young, they’re horny.” he giggled, retrieving a small bag of chips from the cabinet he had been digging through before nudging it shut, turning to face his mother who had finally turned away from the window, glaring at him with a look of disgust.

“I didn’t realise I’d missed this much of her life, she’s really at this stage already?”

“Guess so! Hey, in your defense, I didn’t know either, she wouldn’t tell me anything at all for weeks .”

“Say, anything interesting going on with you that I’ve missed too? Any secret girlfriends I should know about?”

And thank everything he hadn’t been eating at that moment. Her sudden question caused him to inhale way too fast, coughing into his elbow before straightening up suspiciously fast.

“Ew, gross, Mom. Besides, I’m way too busy for any of… that . Oh, actually, I was thinking of saving for a guitar. Y’know, to learn while I’m still in school. Keeps me busy when I’m at home.” he ranted, trying to hide the embarrassment on his face, his cheeks flushing a light shade of red. 

“Hm, I’ll let you off this time, but if it’s you I spot out there next time, you’re never hearing the end of it. But that sounds like a great idea, Gabe, I’m glad you’re still finding things to enjoy at this age.” she smiled, still leaning her arms against the counter.

“Yeah, ‘course. I mean, it’ll be weeks before I can afford it, but that’s the only ‘secret news’ I’ve got for you.”

“And you’re definitely sure you’re not hiding anything else from me?”

“Positive, never been more sure of anything in my life, actually. Hey, I should, y’know, get my homework done? I’ll come talk more when I’m done with that, promise. Love you, Mom!” Gabe rambled, waving towards her as he rushed back upstairs, bag of chips tightly clasped in his hand as he pushed his bedroom door tightly shut behind him. 

Sinking into the soft foam of his mattress, Gabe couldn’t help but feel guilty keeping such a severe secret from one of the people he was supposed to love more than anyone or anything else on the planet. It wasn’t like he was worried about telling his parents about that , but with the events that followed his recklessness with such a secret, he’d rather keep his mouth shut than risk his senior year experience, knowing that the second his parents caught wind of his ex-coach’s unnecessary remarks, that school would never hear the end of it. Of course, he knew his parents wouldn’t pay too much attention to the whole ‘your perfect son is actually not who you thought he was’ argument, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still terrified to be honest. He’d told his friends, he’d told his sister, what more could the universe possibly want him to do? Besides, he had a sizable stack of homework awaiting him on his desk, the sexuality talk could wait at least a couple more hours. Rising from his seat against the door, Gabe finally made his way over to his desk, sitting down to finally make a start on the stack of paper in front of him. 

Well, that had been his plan, barely a quarter of the way through the first sheet before his focus was ripped away by the sound of cabinets opening and closing much faster than usual. While it was probably nothing to worry about, it had already caught his attention, so it couldn’t hurt to figure out just what was going on in the kitchen. By the time he’d made it to the top of the staircase, peering over the balcony banisters, he could vaguely see his mother atop the counter, half-hunching over the sink, staring at the silver surface for a worryingly long amount of time. It seemed innocent enough to truly be nothing , but something in the back of Gabe’s mind screamed for him to panic, to get himself down those stairs as fast as his body could carry him and stop her from doing whatever reckless action she could possibly be doing. And while he wouldn’t typically give in to such foolish mindsets, something about the whole situation just didn’t seem right, forcing himself to stop watching and do something before something bad inevitably happens. Speeding down the stairs and around the corner, he walked right back into the kitchen, heart set on redirecting whatever she was doing to something less sinister. What he hadn’t expected, however, was to see her perched beside the sink, the uncapped bottles of her medication in her hands and beside her, clearly intending to dump the contents straight into the drains. 

“Mom? What’re you doing?” Gabe questioned, his voice trembling with utter panic, rushing to stand in her line of sight. 

“Oh, hey, honey. Just thinking, that’s all.” she responded, briefly looking up at him before returning her focus to the small orange bottles in her hands.

“Not related to what you’re currently doing at all, right?”

“What, you don’t think it’s a good idea?”

“I don’t, Mom, I really don’t. I mean, you’ve been brave enough to get this far in the first place, you’ve been doing better , haven’t you?”

“Well, to you , maybe. I don’t feel any better, in fact, I feel worse than I did before taking these stupid pills.”

“Can’t you just talk to Dad or maybe get a better doctor? Hell, do anything that isn’t throwing your meds into our drain system?”

“No. I’m not going back just to be sent away in the same state of dread.”

“Wh- I mean, what’s Dad going to think?”

“Nothing, if he doesn’t know. Hey, don’t you have homework to be doing instead of this? Go, Gabe, can’t have you falling back because of me.”

“I’m not promising I won’t tell Dad, y’know. I don’t want you doing something that’ll only hurt you in the long run, Mom.”

“Just go , Gabriel.” she spoke, her tone laced with frustration as she finally made eye contact with him. 

Too afraid to argue further, he hesitantly left the kitchen and headed back to his room, wincing at the sound of her pills clattering against the sink, followed by the running water of the tap itself. Despite the desperation in her son’s voice, she’d still gone through with something that couldn’t possibly end well in the slightest. After weeks of working to find any kind of treatment to at least keep her living and breathing whilst they looked for a long-term tool to support her better, she was right back at square one with just one swift movement. Ignoring the sharp stinging and glassy blur of his eyes, Gabe rushed the rest of the way back to his room, pushing his door shut a little too loudly and walking right over to his keyboard, ignoring the forgotten pile of homework as he plugged in his headphones and switched the instrument on. Maybe it was reckless of him to let his grades crumble, to cause himself such agonising pain in his hands as he played tirelessly for hours, to push all of his problems aside and divert his full attention to the music he was playing. But if nobody else would listen to his desperate pleas, why should he be the one to break that cycle? Even if the excruciating ache in his body screamed at him to step away, even if ignoring the untouched schoolwork would only land him in deeper trouble with his teachers, he simply couldn’t find it within himself to care. Besides, what good would it do him to pretend like his life wasn’t falling apart right before his eyes?

Chapter Text

The week leading up to his eighteenth birthday had been excruciatingly long. In any other situation, he’d be spending his free time planning for such a monumental day, doing absolutely everything to make it as memorable as possible. Of course, any other situation required not having him living in fear for the entire week after failing to prevent his mother from flushing her pills. Truthfully, he’d wanted to tell his father the second he’d calmed himself down after the argument between him and his mother that night, but by then had completely drained himself of any lingering energy, leaving him to fall asleep on the scratchy carpeted floor beside his keyboard, far too tired to drag his aching body back to his bed. The following days, he’d spent all of his free time locked away in his room, only making brief trips to the bathroom or kitchen when his body screamed at him to tend to its needs, spending the rest of his limited energy on the mountain of homework whenever he decided to peel himself away from his keyboard for a short while. So, amongst the chaos of his own mind, he’d completely forgotten to not only warn his father about his mother’s resurfaced instability, but had also let his own birthday completely slip his mind. Perhaps, if it weren’t for his friends' persistent messages the moment it hit midnight on that dreaded November day, he would’ve completely forgotten about his eighteenth birthday until long after it’d passed. He’d been moments away from finally falling asleep when his phone had lit up with the avalanche of texts, each with more love and care than the last, leaving him with a warm heart and a generally good feeling for the day ahead of him. 

That morning, when he finally dragged himself out of bed, he found himself greeted by a surprisingly calm house. Truthfully, after the events of the week leading up to his birthday, he’d expected to be rudely awakened by yet another argument. But, to his surprise, the usual chaos of the house had been replaced with a much more welcoming silence, nothing to be heard but the sounds of his own footsteps against the cool wood flooring of the hallway and the occasional cabinet door slamming shut. The morning sun gleamed through the windows as Gabe walked down the stairs, forcing him to squint to see anything but the blindingly bright beams of sunlight as he finally made it downstairs, fighting off the exhaustion in his body as he dragged himself to the kitchen. There, with a bottle of cleaning spray and a cloth in hand, stood his mother, her energy almost triple that of her son. 

“Morning, Mom.” Gabe yawned, pushing himself up onto the counter as he watched her scrub away at the kitchen island’s surface. 

“Gabe! There’s my birthday boy, how’re you feeling? Did you get any sleep last night? Any plans for the day?” his mother rambled, pausing her previous action to turn and face him.

“Tired, actually. I slept fine last night, probably an hour or two less than I needed, but I feel fine. And, uh, not exactly? I’ll probably go see everyone after dinner but nothing major, really.”

“You can always sleep until later, you know, it’s your birthday, do whatever you want to! Within reason, obviously, don’t go getting yourself in any kind of trouble just because it’s your birthday.”

“I mean, I could , but that’s such a waste. Maybe I’ll finish the rest of my homework or something like that, if there’s nothing else planned.”

“If that’s what you want! I’ll be here, you know, cleaning the entire house for the second time this morning. I never knew there was this much dust until today, how’d any of you not notice it before?”

“Dunno, Mom, I don’t really think any of us had the time to notice, I guess. Hey, actually, maybe we could all go out together for the day? I finally got the money for a guitar, so I was thinking maybe you, Dad and Nat could help me find the right one?”

“Sure! Yeah, sounds great! It’d just be me and you though, Natalie’s at her boyfriend’s to work on some kind of project and your father’s been called into work last minute. That okay with you?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, that sounds fine. I’ll go get ready and then we can walk to the mall. I'd offer to drive but I’m guessing Dad’s got the car?”

“Probably, but the mall’s not that far anyway, we’ll be there and back way before your father and sister get back either way.”

“Got it, give me like..five minutes? Probably less, actually, but I’ll be right back.” Gabe spoke, barely giving his mother time to hear his words before speeding off and up the stairs. 

Ignoring the dull ache in his limbs from the sudden change of pace, he rushed straight back into his room, picking up a small pile of clean clothes he had forgotten to put away and quickly changing, scrambling around for his wallet before snatching his phone from its place beside his bed and bolting back down the stairs. Of course, he’d probably regret his choice of speed later, combined with all the walking he inevitably had ahead of him for the day, but his entire body burned with the urge to keep moving, itching with pure excitement for the first time in his late teenage years. 

The trip had been worryingly calm, completely void of any outbursts or breakdowns, making the pair seem like any other mother and son walking around their local mall. Maybe, for once, he should’ve thought nothing of it and simply lived in the moment, knowing that the chance of his mother having a good day were as slim as the chances of him actually sticking to his curfew. But, knowing just how rare such perfect days truly were, he couldn’t help but watch as fear plagued his mind, dreading whatever awaited him later that day. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his mother to have one of her few good days coincidentally land on his birthday, but when she’d flushed her medication only a week prior, he was sure he was allowed to doubt her at least a little. From the walk around the mall to their eventual walk home, she seemed almost too normal, smiling and making conversation with almost no traces of paranoia at all. Luckily, that meant getting what they’d gone there for and getting back home was a whole lot faster than he had anticipated, his aching limbs thankful for the early return to the comfort of their house. The moment the front door clicked shut, his mother rushed off to the kitchen, picking up the bucket of cleaning supplies she had left on the counter and returning to her previous task of cleaning the house for what must’ve been the third time that day. Kicking off his shoes, Gabe carefully made his way up to his bedroom, the weighted black guitar case swung over his shoulder as he made his way up the staircase. After reaching his room and setting the instrument down beside his desk, he made his way back downstairs, walking into the kitchen and hopping up onto the counter, watching as his mother obsessively scrubbed at the surface of the kitchen island. He’d only been sitting in the kitchen for a minute or two when the somewhat calming silence was broken by the sharp ringing of a phone, immediately reaching into his pocket to find the source, only met with his regular lockscreen as the ringing persisted. Jumping down from the counter, he walked over to the counter, finally locating the source of the ringing. His mother, in some kind of cleaning-focused haze, had left her phone in the empty bucket that once held the cleaning supplies she had been using, the device lighting up with an incoming call from his father. Taking the phone from the bucket, he tapped her on the shoulder, smiling warmly as he passed it to her before returning to his seat on the counter, watching as she balanced her phone between her shoulder and her ear as she continued to clean. 

“Hello? Oh, hi sweetie! Yeah, everything’s great, fantastic, I disinfected the entire house, rewired the computer and did some decoupage. Okay, bye-bye.” she rambled, only stopping her frantic movements to move her phone from her ear to the counter, throwing the cloth and bottle of cleaner into their original bucket.

“Guessing Dad’s about to leave work?” Gabe questioned, swaying his legs gently from his place on the counter.

“Sounds like it. Hmm, next, I think I’ll re-tile the roof.”

“Okay, Mom, maybe not .” he laughed nervously, jumping down from the counter once again to redirect her back to the kitchen.

“What else is there to do? The entire house is clean, the shopping is done, what else is there to do?”

“I don’t know, Mom, but you’ve been doing stuff all day, you should probably sit down for a while before you pass out. Catch up on some shows, maybe?”

“Sure, yeah, after I make dinner at least. It’ll be done by the time the others get back if I start now, and then I’ll sit down.”

“We’ve got leftovers from last night’s dinner in the fridge, we can just reheat those, go sit down, Mom.”

“But what if-”

“Mom, seriously, you’ll only end up feeling like shit if you don’t sit down. I’ll come sit with you, if that’ll get you to take a break.”

“Fine, but only until your father gets home, and then I’m getting dinner ready for when Natalie comes back.”

“Deal.”

And so, for the next twenty minutes, the two sat in the living room, some nonsense film playing on the TV. Truthfully, Gabe really hadn’t been paying much attention, instead choosing to slip his phone from his pocket to text his friends, occasionally checking in to make sure his mother had actually stayed in her seat. And for the first time in weeks, she actually seemed to listen to him, staying almost entirely still the entire time, her attention completely captured by whatever show she’d decided to throw on. Or at least she’d seemed that way, calmly seated on the other side of the sofa, eyes fixated on the events playing out on the screen in front of the pair, blissfully unaware of the world around her. That was, of course, until the sound of keys finding their way into the door and unlocking it echoed through the house, snapping her away from the screen and onto her feet in an instant, heading off to the kitchen before Gabe had time to look up from his phone. Knowing that it could only be his father, he briefly looked up from his phone, expecting nothing more than the usual stoic demeanor he’d grown to expect whenever his father came home from work. However, when he looked over to the kitchen, he was surprised to see that his usually exhausted and unbothered behaviours were nowhere to be found, instead replaced by an unsettlingly energetic and talkative version of his father, a side of him that was seemingly rarer than a genuinely good day for his mother. Of all days, why did everything have to start feeling off again on his birthday? The one day that he was supposed to enjoy most, not to mention one of the biggest milestones of his life, and everything just had to fall apart? Well, it wasn’t like anything serious had actually happened, but the overwhelming dread and fear that something was about to happen right then and there was all he could really focus on. 

For the next two hours, he remained in the exact same spot, eyes glued to his phone as he and his friends planned their own small celebration for later that day, only briefly looking up every few minutes to make sure everything hadn’t crashed before he could do anything to prevent it. Luckily, apart from the already unusual heightened energy levels between his parents, nothing seemed too far from their normal routine. That was, of course, until a pair of hushed voices began talking. Any other time, any other people, he was sure it wouldn’t be an issue. But with his parents in such a weirdly upbeat mood? And the voices belonging to his sister and who was most definitely her boyfriend? Right outside of the door to their home? Things simply couldn’t have gone wrong any quicker. Bracing himself for the worst, Gabe sighed and pushed himself from his spot on the sofa, dragging his tired body to the kitchen and hopping back up onto the counter as he prepared himself for the chaos that was about to unfold. As if on cue, the front door opened, revealing a very frantic Natalie trying to sneak in through a gap clearly too small for her to fit through and a boy, presumably her boyfriend, not too far behind her, seemingly trying to talk her out of trying to squeeze herself between the door and its frame. And, of course, with Natalie turning to argue back about the gap being ‘totally fine, I’ve got it’, her hold on the door loosened, causing it to swing open entirely, revealing the pair to the entire household. If he listened closer, Gabe was completely certain he’d heard his sister curse under breath, her boyfriend clearly caught off guard by the unexpected change of events as he stood completely still, eyes widened as he stared at Natalie for any kind of help. But, to the siblings’ horror, the first to make any kind of move just had to be their father. Jumping up from his seat, he made his way over to the door to greet the pair, a welcoming smile plastered across his face.

“Natalie! And this must be Harry!” he spoke, his gaze flickering back and forth between the pair.

“It’s Henry, Dad.” Gabe called out, hiding his head in his hands out of embarrassment, bracing himself for the horrors about to unfold. 

“Pleasure to finally meet you! Come on in, why don’t you join us for dinner?” his father continued, seeming to completely tune Gabe out once again, pulling Henry into the house as Natalie rushed in behind them.

“Uhm, Dad, no, Henry-” Natalie started, cutting herself off as she watched her mother move from the kitchen counter to greet Henry.

Well, if greeting your daughter’s boyfriend meant grabbing him by the cheeks and kissing him. Directly on the mouth. In front of their entire family. Any hint of happiness or relaxation in Gabe’s body completely dropped as he looked up to see the events play out, wincing as he turned to see the look of shock and embarrassment on his sister’s face.

“ Really can’t stay! He’s got, uh, homework? Surgery? Rabies?! ” Natalie continued, her tone much more frantic than it had been before. 

“No, no, it’s uhm, it’s totally cool! I’ll stay! Sure!” Henry protested, reluctantly sitting down on one of the chairs at the kitchen counter, blissfully unaware of the intense glaring coming from his girlfriend’s incredibly protective brother.

Hopping down from the counter, Gabe tried to turn a blind eye to whatever his mother was doing from on top of the kitchen island, making his way over to his sister, gently nudging her shoulder to get her attention.

“Nat, I am so sorry, I had no idea either of them would do, y’know, all of that . They’ve been off for hours but that was…” Gabe whispered, gesturing towards the pair as his words trailed off.

“Insane? Batshit? Completely unprompted and fucking horrifying?” Natalie responded, her eyes glued on the scenes unfolding right in front of the pair.

“Yeah, all of that. I mean, I just figured Mom was having one of her good days that just so happened to be today of all days, y’know? Not whatever the hell that was.”

“Maybe it is? I don’t know, she’s been out of it on those meds for weeks now so what if we just completely forgot what her good days looked like?”

“Yeah. I hope so, at least, I think I’d rather that than whatever the worse outcome is. Maybe our parents are just freaks when they’re not sleep deprived or drugged out of their minds.”

“God, it better just be something like that. I can live with embarrassing parents, I guess.”

“Hmm, maybe a little less than this , but that’d be bearable. Anyway, shouldn’t you maybe step in before one of them pulls out the photo albums again?”

“Oh, absolutely not happening.” Natalie muttered, glaring at Gabe for reminding her of such horrors before rushing to sit beside her boyfriend at the counter. 

Watching the two from afar, Gabe couldn’t help but feel mildly jealous of their close bond. Of course, someone as bright and heart-warming as his sister was much more loveable than a kid with little to no grasp on who he really was, it was no surprise that Natalie was the first of the Goodman siblings to find someone that truly cares about her, someone who can clearly see past her weird family and love her for who she is. It was expected, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to feel at least a little jealous. Maybe it was his own fault that he hadn’t found anyone that really cared like that, maybe if he’d put more time into becoming a likeable person or simply put himself out there more, he wouldn’t have to envy his sister’s luck. But, of course, who would really go for the boy who still feels as if he doesn’t belong? The boy who still thinks back to the baby boy he’d once been, his fragile body covered in tubes and fresh surgical scars, his terrified parents staring at him with nothing but overwhelmingly strong fear as he lay there asleep, barely alive. Maybe, after everything, he wasn’t supposed to make it this far. That sick baby all those years ago should’ve never been so lucky, wasting a lifetime of luck on something that’d haunt him for years to come, leaving the eighteen-year-old he’d grown to become in that same fragile state. At eighteen, he was still fragile, still vulnerable, still incredibly lost in such an unforgiving world. At eighteen, he still didn’t feel like he truly deserved the life he was given. 

Feeling the growing tightness in his throat and the prick of fresh tears springing to his eyes, Gabe snuck out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom as stealthily as possible, careful not to slam his door as his trembling hands fumbled with the handle. Well, he hadn’t intended to spend his birthday hidden behind the side of his bed, panic finally getting the best of him and completely driving him over the edge, his knees pressed against his chest with his head rested between them, desperately trying to catch his breath and get ahold of himself fast enough to return to the kitchen as if he’d never left, but he’d truly rather shut himself back in his room than let his family worry themselves over something so meaningless. The muffled sounds of food being plated up as conversations continued to play out only seemed to worsen his symptoms, wishing more than anything to join his family and seem normal just for a day, to enjoy his birthday with others and not alone in his room with nothing but the sounds of his own frantic breathing and muffled tears to silence the chaos in his mind. But, well, it wasn’t up to him, of course. Really, why would the universe suddenly allow him a moment of peace after years of pain and misery? Peace was nothing but a dream Gabe had been chasing all eighteen years of his dreadful life, after all.

Chapter Text

Maybe this was the universe’s revenge on him for his survival. On his own birthday, a day he was supposed to look back on and smile in a few years time, he was pressed against the side of his bed, his entire body curling in on itself as it shook with every strangled breath and silent sob, his mind completely plagued by the panic he tried so desperately to ignore. A day made for celebration and happiness had instead been taken over by panic and dread as he sat on the rough carpet floor of his bedroom, hands tightly winded in his brown hair in some half-hearted attempt to bring himself back to reality. He wanted nothing more than to calm himself down enough to return to the familiar chaos of his family in the kitchen, to sit at the table as if he hadn’t been clawing at his own scalp moments prior and talk about whatever the hell normal families talked about, to spend his birthday anywhere that wasn’t the floor of his own bedroom for just a little longer, but he just couldn’t seem to calm himself down enough to make any attempt to at least move himself from the floor before the scratchy texture of the carpet started to burn his skin. No matter how desperate he was to have just one day of normality, it seemed the universe had stripped him of the rights to such a privilege the day his body decided to defy the fate he was supposed to fall victim to. Of course it had, why had he expected any different? 

But it wasn’t as if he’d had the choice either way, it’s not like he asked to be in such a critical state at such a young age, so what makes it fair for him to be punished for simply doing the very thing he was born to do by surviving? Had punishing him with a life-long illness not been enough to satisfy whatever or whoever was unhappy with him? A lifetime of missed opportunities and tainted memories, forever stuck wondering if he’d wake up the next day and still be able to walk without clutching onto the arm of another person, never able to get enough sleep to feel awake for any longer than a couple of hours because of his damn illness. It just wasn’t fair to him, being so young and full of life but destined to be held back by his own aching body. Of course, it wasn’t as if his life was entirely miserable, with his short-lived time on his high school’s football team and the handful of other school activities he was healthy enough to participate in, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t at least a little envious of his friends and his other classmates who could freely live their lives with little to no worries about being held down by the very thing that kept them living. Sometimes, it really did seem like not surviving that day all those years ago would’ve been a much better fate than a life of uncertainty and pain. It was selfish, really, wishing such heartbreak on his parents after everything they’d done for him.

And Natalie. His beloved baby sister, perhaps the only reason he hadn’t lost his mind over the years, would’ve been subjected to the very life he wished to escape. Constant pain and misery, a life full of agonising grief and frustration, it was a fate he’d never wish upon someone he cared about as much as he cared about her. She deserved to have her brother at her side through whatever life threw their way, she deserved to have someone to come home and talk to when their parents were out at another of their mother’s appointments, she deserved so much better than whatever the hell she’d have to go through alone if he wasn’t there to be the brother she needed. From small simple things like sticking up for her as kids when her friends laughed at her for something stupid to being there for her when their mother was at her worst and his poor sister was trembling with fear, he couldn’t possibly imagine leaving her to deal with any of it alone. Well, of course, she would definitely find a way to live without the extra family member, but was it so wrong of him to enjoy the few moments of peace the two had shared throughout their complicated childhoods? Nothing had ever been perfect between the two, but normality and perfection were two things neither sibling had ever really known in the first place, learning to find comfort in the seemingly short-lived moments of silence before things inevitably took a turn for the worst once more. It was heartbreaking, really, to expect the two siblings to find a way to cope healthily with such chaos at their young ages, little to no guidance from anyone but each other to keep them from falling apart and leaving the other to find their way to stability entirely alone. And no matter how much he hated the life he’d been given, Gabe simply couldn’t find it within himself to ruin his little sister’s life like that. Not after everything she’d done for him, not after the countless nights the two spent talking on the floor of one of their bedrooms just to have someone see them for who they really are, not after seeing just how much she really did care for him. To cause her such immense pain after so many years of laughter and comfort and hope would be nothing but heartless of him, destroying everything she deserved to grow up and become just because her brother couldn’t suck it up and learn to live with his differences. The true sunshine of his life, his dear sister, the only real reason he’d chosen to push through it all and stay. 

Eventually, with a small amount of recovered energy, Gabe could finally completely focus on recovering from such an abrupt and unwanted change of events, finding himself able to put a stop to the irregularly fast breathing and rapid beating of his heart. Finally stable enough to move his cramping joints, he scrubbed at his tear-stained face with his sleeve, rushing to make himself look as far from post-panic-attack-Gabe as possible, giving himself plenty of time to completely calm down again before trying to leave his room. Despite the odd events he’d witnessed before his sudden departure from the kitchen, he was absolutely certain that whatever the rest of his family were doing was much better than the way he’d spent the past twenty minutes of his own birthday. Maybe, with any kind of luck, he’d get that taste of normality he so desperately craved.

Chaos. Complete chaos from the moment she’d cracked that stupid front door open. Obviously, it was exactly what she’d expected when introducing her poor unsuspecting boyfriend to her damn-near-insane family, but she hadn’t expected to be dealing with the reality of such a situation this early in their relationship. Well, maybe early was pushing it a little for any relationship past a month in length, but it’d barely been two months and she’d had absolutely no time at all to warn Henry of the incredibly embarrassing experience meeting her family would inevitably be, nor had she had any time at all to brace herself for just how bad things might end. And, of course, she had absolutely no plans to allow her boyfriend’s first experience meeting her family to be on her brother’s birthday of all days. Of course, it wasn’t as if she was ashamed of him, nor was it that she couldn’t stand the idea of him ever meeting them, but this was the one day her brother got to himself. The one day he’d be let off easy when he inevitably went out late and snuck back in through his bedroom window at some ridiculously late hour the next morning. The one day their parents finally dropped their guards and just let him breathe for once in his damn life. Birthdays were meant to be their only breaks from the chaos they’d grown so used to, they weren’t supposed to bring even more chaos into their lives like this. But at the same time, from what Natalie had seen when talking to Gabe, he didn’t exactly seem to care that it’d landed on his day. In fact, he’d seemed much more focused on burning a hole straight through Henry’s skull with how strong his glare had been right until he’d walked over to talk to her. 

Moments later, after the initial ‘parents meeting your first serious boyfriend’ chaos had finally winded down to a much more manageable multiple-conversations chaos, Natalie felt much more at ease with the idea of her boyfriend being around her family. Or, well, her parents , at least, if Gabe was going to continue staring Henry down as if he was plotting to kill the boy for even trying to be that close with his sister. Or if he was still in the room at all, actually. Looking around the kitchen, she noticed the sudden lack of her brother’s presence, with only her father still sitting across from the pair as her mother rummaged around for whatever it was she’d suddenly remembered. Cool, totally expected, he’d probably gotten sick of all the attention from spending the entire day with their mother, especially if she’d been in the same state of extremely long-lasting energy all day long. He wasn’t exactly obligated to spend his entire birthday with everyone, but Natalie would be a liar if she’d said she didn’t want to spend at least a little bit of time with her brother on his eighteenth birthday of all days before he most likely disappeared to his friend’s house until the next morning. Well, that and the fact that the space that should’ve been filled by his presence had instead been replaced with the sinking feeling of dread that usually kicked off the cycle of the horrifying events she’d grown way too familiar with. 

Not now . Not in front of him . He was well aware that her family was far from normal, but he absolutely did not need to experience its severity first hand. And for the love of everything she’d ever known, not on Gabe’s day. Not on the one day a year he gets to feel like a normal kid. Any other day but today, can’t her instincts just be overexaggerated for once?

“Okay! It’s somebody’s birthday!” her mother exclaimed, finally re-entering the dining room with a cake in hand, her spare hand shielding the flames of the candles from the breeze caused by her quick pace.

“Oh, who’s birthday is it?” Henry questioned, a bright grin across his face, completely unaware of absolutely everything in that exact moment.

“My brother’s.” Natalie spoke, her eyes shifting around the room as she searched for Gabe, desperate for him to return before something went wrong. Gabe knew what to do most of the time when things went wrong, Natalie hadn’t the slightest clue on how to handle the situation without her brother there beside her.

“Huh, didn’t know you had a brother!”

“Wh- Henry, I speak about him half the time I’m with you. And, y’know, he was in the kitchen when we got here?”

“Well, I mean, I didn’t exactly…notice? Where is he anyway, if it’s his birthday he should be here for his own cake, right?”

“Uhm. I don’t, uh, Dad?” Natalie stuttered, her gaze snapping to her father for any kind of reassurance that this was in fact not happening. 

“I don’t know, Nat, he’s probably in the bathroom.” her father muttered, his gaze flickering between Natalie and her mother.

“No, Dad, you’re not listening . He’s been gone for half a damn hour, and unless he’s decided to shower this early, he’s not in the damn bathroom.”

“Watch your language, Natalie. It’s fine, as long as he shows back up before your mother notices.”

“Dad, please, just, I don’t know, distract her or something? So I can find my own damn brother before she freaks the hell out?”

“I can try, but you know that it’s not-”

“Natalie, sweetheart, did you see where your brother went? Can’t have him miss out on his own cake on his birthday!” her mother asked, looking around the room for the missing family member.

“Uh, I think-”

“Diana, why don’t you find some of those old pictures of Natalie to show Henry while you wait for him to come back?” her father rushed, directing her back to her seat at the dining table as he nodded towards the door in Natalie’s direction, too busy redirecting his wife’s attention to see her sprint out of the room.

It wasn’t exactly ideal to have her boyfriend in the room alone with her parents for any longer than a second, but it was even less ideal to have her boyfriend present in the house at all when her mother inevitably freaked out and broke down. Scrambling around the house with the most urgency she’d ever had, Natalie searched each and every corner of the downstairs half of their house, only to grow twice as anxious by the time she reached the staircase with absolutely no sighting of her brother. Regulating her breathing before it became too quick to catch, she rushed towards the staircase, only making it up two whole stairs before the sound of footsteps stopped her dead in her tracks, her head snapping to find the source, her fear only doubling once again when her eyes met the wide and frantic eyes of her boyfriend.

“I can’t- He’s not anywhere down here, there’s no way he gets back down here before she freaks. You, look, Henry, you can’t be here.” Natalie panicked, her body itching to sprint up the remaining stairs as if quickening her pace would freeze time.

“Nat, hey, it’s fine , maybe your dad’s right? He might just be in the bathroom?” Henry spoke, his calm tone betrayed by the panic in his eyes.

“No, you don’t get it, you can’t be here. I don’t- It’s not pretty, it’s fucking terrifying even when you’re used to it, and if Dad’s already given up distracting her then it’s just-”

“Hey, he hasn’t ‘given up’, it just got a little awkward. Your mom, she kinda, y’know, drifted mid-conversation? So I kinda took the hint and walked out?”

“That’s- I just- Look, if you’re set on being here any longer, just go sit in my room, please . Last door at the end of the hall, I’ll come find you when I find my fucking brother, I swear .”

Sensing the growing urgency of the situation, Henry decided not to protest any further, nodding before making his way up the stairs, following behind a very frantic Natalie until the two made their way to the top of the staircase, splitting off as Natalie continued her desperate search. Her fear only seemed to grow as she continued pushing every single door in the house open, desperate to at the very least find him in the house. As much as her brother clearly ignored his curfew and typical restrictions on leaving the house straight after dinner, he wasn’t cruel enough to run out the house without any notice given to their mother, just to avoid this very scenario from ever playing out. But, of course, he just didn’t seem to be anywhere in the house, almost as if he was completely invisible. Rushing towards his room in hopes that he’d just been hiding away for a little while, she was caught off guard by the door swinging open, a clearly distressed Gabe freezing mid-step, her frantic blue eyes meeting the tired crystal blue eyes of her older brother, the usually calming shade of his irises tainted by the harsh red tear streaks surrounding his eyes and trailing down his face. On the day he was supposed to be the happiest he’d ever been, he’d truly never looked worse.

“Nat, uhm, I was just coming back down. Was looking for something, just, y’know, forgot to mention it.” Gabe stuttered, clearly trying to hide the way he winced at just how strained his voice sounded.

“Yeah, fat chance, you were gone for almost an hour , Gabe. Mom’s on the verge of freaking the fuck out, Dad looks like he’s about to crack, and I am not about to let my boyfriend’s first impression of them be linked back to one of her outbursts or some shitty argument.”

“I’m serious, I was just looking for something! I didn’t know she was this bad, how could I? It’s not on us to watch our parents’ every move, Nat, we’re kids .”

“Unless your room is suddenly caked in dust, I’m having a pretty fucking hard time believing you were ‘just looking for something’. Just, I don’t know, maybe if we’re lucky and get down there quick enough she’ll be fine.”

“No, I’ll go. If she’s already gotten any worse, I think maybe it’s better for all of us that there’s as few people there to witness it as possible. Y’know, maybe being perceived only fuels everything?”

“I mean, maybe, I don’t know. Whatever the plan is, you should go, like, now . I don’t want her getting worse again, something just tells me this time is different .”

“I’ll do my best, I promise. I’ll come find you in a little, ‘kay?”

“You better, don’t go leaving the house before you do.”

“I promise, Nat.”

Watching as her brother sped down the stairs, Natalie retreated to her room, the sense of dread from moments prior returning in full force and almost completely knocking the air from her lungs. Stumbling into her room, she pushed her rising panic as far down as she physically could, sitting on the edge of her bed beside her boyfriend as if things were completely normal. As if he hadn’t just witnessed the start of yet another cycle of fear and frustration. As if he hadn’t just seen what could quite possibly be her mother’s last moments of complete peace and sanity before she lost herself to her illness once again. As if Natalie herself wasn’t on the verge of a complete mental breakdown right beside him. Really, was there any worse way to spend her brother’s eighteenth birthday than fighting back tears as her brother desperately fought to keep their mother from slipping away from them for good? They were just kids , after all, too young to navigate the darkness without their dear parents to guide them.

Chapter Text

Eyes sore, feet numb and unsteady, throat so dry he could barely speak, and yet here he was, making his way down the stairs as quickly as humanly possible to protect someone from their own mental illness, despite having just recovered from a sudden run-in with his own. The timing of poor events truly couldn’t be worse, landing right after one another as if falling on his eighteenth birthday wasn’t already bad enough. But in the Goodman household, one singular poorly timed event was almost entirely impossible, most of the time being a series of unpleasant occurrences one right after the other as if it was the universe’s sole purpose to cause the family constant misery. It was nothing but cruel to force such an agonizing lifestyle on his entire family, even if it had been expected for somebody as stubborn as him. It wasn’t as if his entire family had disobeyed the universe’s original plans for their lives, but because he had done so all those years ago, his entire family seemed to suffer the consequences on his behalf. Almost as if the universe itself was trying to make him feel guilty for something he’d never chosen to do in the first place, forcing the ones he cared most for to experience the same overwhelming dread and misery he himself experienced daily. Because he hadn’t died that day, he had to watch every member of his family slowly die inside their own mind, too helpless to do anything but stand and watch. 

“Mom? Dad? Is everything-” Gabe spoke as entered the kitchen, cutting himself off almost immediately once he saw the scenes currently unfolding in the very room he had just walked into.

“That’s not what I meant, Di. I wasn’t trying to downplay your feelings, I was trying to-” his father sighed, helping his mother put the remaining plates into the sink to be washed, trying his hardest to get through to his distressed wife.

“No, Dan, you don’t get it. Not in the slightest . You wake up and go to work every single day as if nothing ever happened, you walk around the world as if you’ve never had to worry about anything ever , you’re not filled with pills and sent on your way as if that’ll fix all your problems. You don’t know, quit acting like you do.” his mother protested, her tone sharper and her movements aggressive, making a point to avoid making eye contact with her husband. 

“Look, I want to help you, but I can’t exactly do much when you’re just not communicating . I love you, Di, I want to help you, I just need you to tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do here.”

“I don’t need you to do everything for me! And for the love of everything, would it kill you to open your damn eyes for once?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Di. You and I both know I didn’t. Can’t you just tell me so we can work through whatever this is? Would that be so hard?”

“Dad, that’s not how it works. It never has been and probably won’t ever be, and I know damn well you know it’ll never be that easy for her.” Gabe spoke, having finally moved from watching the argument progress from the kitchen doorway to stand across from his father at the kitchen counter.

“And where on earth have you been for the last hour? You had your mother worried sick, you should’ve at the very least told your sister where you were running off to.” his father argued, his gaze still fixated on Gabe’s mother despite the angered words being directed at him. 

“Homework? I have a mountain of it on my desk and I don’t exactly plan to spend the rest of my senior year in detention. I know I should’ve said something, I get it and I’m sorry, but is it really this much of an issue?”

“Yes, actually, maybe it is. Your mother thought something serious had happened, you terrified her, maybe you need to think twice before running out of the room as if you weren’t there in the first place.”

“Wh- Dad, that’s not my fault! You know damn well I can’t control whatever the hell any of this is, that’s not fair. Don’t pin the blame on me for something I didn’t do .”

“She was worried about you , you know how she gets when you disappear like that.”

“What do you expect me to do about that then? Never leave my room again? Have a bodyguard stalking around behind me all the damn time? Install a fucking tracker on my phone so you never have to think about me for longer than a second?”

“Watch your language, and that attitude while you’re at it. A little communication wouldn’t hurt is all.”

“I’m sorry, Dad, you really can’t be talking about fucking communication of all things when talking to you is worse than having a conversation with the front door of this damn house. You don’t get to tell me what to do like that when you don’t care .”

“Can you both shut the fuck up ?! Just shut up, stop talking, get out of my ears.” his mother exclaimed, dumping the remnants of their dinner into the trash can before slamming it shut, her head snapping to glare at the pair.

“It’s not fair, Mom. None of this is. Why the hell do I have to suffer for something I didn’t ask for? And why the hell don’t either of you care the way a normal fucking parent would? Is it that hard to treat me like a normal kid?”

“Gabriel, quit it.”

“It’s just, I mean, I don’t get it. I don’t get why I can’t just see my friends or have time to myself without having to tell one of you my exact coordinates or something. And-and I get that you can’t help it, Mom, but it’s not like I can put my day on hold every single time I want to go somewhere and be alone. You can’t expect that from me.”

“Gabriel, for fucks sake, can we talk about this any other day? Just go back to your room, or go see your friends or whatever the hell it is you do.”

“Wh- Mom, what the hell did I do?! It’s not like I asked to have a- Would you rather I get suspended? Hell, would you rather I have to move to a completely different school for my last year?” 

“That’s enough, far more than enough. Your mother can’t help it, you know that. We all know this, and her meds won’t suddenly cure that, they’re only supposed to make it easier for her .” his father interrupted, taking a brief second to finally look at his son, making eye contact for at least half of that second before snapping his eyes back to his wife.

“Yeah, sure, the meds are helping . They’re working so well for her, the best she’s ever been, even. Seriously, Dad, open your eyes for a minute, I’m practically begging at this point.” Gabe scoffed, pushing himself away from the counter to pace around the kitchen, keeping himself far away from where his mother had decided to sit herself down.

“Gabriel Goodman, don’t you dare say whatever the hell you’re about to say.” his mother muttered, the frustration in her tone obvious even with her eyes fixated elsewhere. 

“Why not? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to tell him, right? It’s- I mean- Mom, I can’t keep walking around acting like everything’s fine or perfect or whatever it is you want it to be, I’m terrified for you. I don’t- I can’t lose my mom. And Nat, Nat still needs you so much more than I do, she needs someone in her corner for once. And you can’t expect me to be enough for her.”

“It doesn’t matter right now, Gabe. And I’m trying , you know I love you and your sister as much as I physically can.”

The second he heard the sound of a strangled sob, he stopped in his tracks, drowning in dread as he turned to find the source. As if that afternoon couldn’t get any worse than it already had, there stood his poor sister, eyes wide and brimming with tears as she stared at their mother in disbelief. On the outside, the statement alone seemed fairly harmless, perhaps worded a little too harsh to be saying in front of her children, but never too big of a deal. To Natalie and Gabe, there simply wasn’t a worse way she could’ve worded that very sentence. Of course, she hadn’t meant to harm the pair in the slightest, but in her complicated state of mind, comforting her children was near-impossible. But at the same time, it was quite possibly the worst thing she could’ve said to either of the two extremely fragile-minded siblings, let alone both of them in the midst of an argument. 

The sight of his sister on the brink of tears was enough to completely knock any anger from his body, instead replaced with nothing but an agonizing hurt in his heart, wanting nothing more than to comfort her in whatever way he knew he could do so. But something in his mind protested, told him to stay where he stood, to tell his father everything before it drove him insane too, no matter how painful it was to see the way his sister looked between their parents once more, shaking her head in disbelief as she forced herself to walk away. 

“That’s- Mom, I know you don’t exactly see why you can’t say that, but you really can’t say that. It’s either you love us or you don’t, and to be entirely honest, I’m having a pretty fucking hard time telling the difference with either of you.” Gabe spoke, his voice trembling with complete disbelief and disappointment. 

“That’s not fair, you know she’s trying to be better, you know your mother loves you both. Y’know, maybe she’s right, this isn’t a conversation for today.” his father sighed, watching as his daughter sped up the stairs as if he hadn’t just witnessed the state she’d been in. 

“What, and let you both continue to act like this? I don’t get why the hell you can’t just be normal parents for one single day. For my own fucking birthday .”

“We’re not continuing this, go to your room.”

“No, actually, I think this conversation is way too overdue. Mom’s a fucking mess, you’re clearly not too far from a breakdown yourself, and no amount of pills is going to magically ‘cure’ her. Nat and I are suffering too, y’know.”

“I don’t know where all this is coming from, but we are not doing this right now. We can talk about this when you calm down enough to have a regular conversation about it.”

“That’s such bullshit Dad. After literally everything that’s been happening since September, you expect me to be calm? Would you be calm if your life suddenly got ten times worse? Or if you had to go to bed at night not knowing if you’ll wake up with the ability to walk the next day? Hell, do you know what it’s like to be terrified of losing your whole family because of something you didn’t even get a fucking say in? It’s hardly something to be calm about, Dad.”

“Watch your language. We’ll talk about this another day.”

“I’m eighteen, Dad! I’m not a baby! Don’t know if either of you noticed, but I haven’t been a baby in a pretty long time, and I don’t exactly like being treated like I never grew up. It’s like I’m invisible to both of you half the time, like the only time you really care to listen is when I’m doing something to piss you off or make you proud. For fucks sake, I just want my parents to care .”

“Look, I’ve told you twice that we’ll talk another day about this. I’m not saying it again, you know your mother is trying for both you and your sister, and you know progress won’t happen overnight. You have to give her mind time to adjust to the meds and to all these new changes.”

“What pills? The ones in our fucking septic tank? The ones I begged her not to throw down the sink? The very same pills she dumped into our drains after snapping at me for trying to convince her to just try to let them work for a little longer? I’m not- I can’t cover-up this stupid bullshit anymore, I’m so tired , but I know damn well she won’t tell you herself.”

“That’s not something we joke about in this house. That’s not funny.”

“Yeah, sure, because the breakdown I had last Saturday over this is so funny to lie about. Oh, y’know, if we’re here to ‘joke’ about serious shit, might as well tell you I’m off the football team. For good.”

“You- what the hell happened? We thought you were doing well, and you don’t just lose your spot for no good reason.”

“Not a big deal, since we’re joking and all. You know what, you’re right, this can wait. I’m not talking about this right now. I’m heading out, I’ll probably be back late again, but I’ll be quiet about it. Night.”

Leaving the room before either of his parents could protest, Gabe made his way up the stairs, ignoring the quickening pace of his breathing and the soreness in his throat from the constant yelling. He wanted nothing more than to throw his shoes on and hide away with his friends until he knew for certain that both his mother and father were fast asleep, to get away from the chaos of his own house for just a small moment of peace, to be free for once in his complex life. Maybe, if he stayed out long enough, his parents would forget everything he said and he wouldn’t have to struggle through the awkward conversation that came with admitting he’d been kicked from the football team, not having to put together some pathetic excuse to hide the real reasoning from his paranoid parents. No matter how certain he was that they wouldn’t mind their son being gay, he really didn’t want to think about the possibility of a mid-year transfer because his coach couldn’t keep himself quiet. Truthfully, he’d much rather run the risk of running into his coach again than have to get comfortable in a completely different school with only months left before his graduation. That and the thought of abandoning everyone he’d ever trusted, especially his best friends. The small group of teens had met in their freshman year and been completely inseparable for the years that followed, despite all having extremely different plans for their futures. In his eyes, it was because of them that he hadn’t completely lost his mind yet, finding himself completely grounded when hanging out with the group. And his sister, the only reason he’d ever had to stay in that very school. The only reason he stayed around at all, if he really thought about it. As much as he hated the unfortunate events he kept finding himself stuck in, he could never really bring himself to run from it all for very long, fearing for her sanity if she were to be left to cope all by herself in such an unforgiving world. Even in that moment, when all he really wanted to do was grab his phone and disappear for a while, he couldn’t bear the thought of her coping by herself. Or, really, the thought of leaving her to cope and explain everything to what must’ve been an extremely confused Henry. Who Gabe had also yet to really meet, if he thought about it. Sighing to himself, he paused on the way out of his room, jacket half-hanging from his body as he glanced at the bedroom at the end of the hall, his heart aching to at least try talking to his sister after whatever had just happened in the kitchen. 

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. Maybe seeing his face after everything she’d just seen and heard would do nothing but make her worse. Maybe she was just as upset with him as she was with their parents. But he couldn’t live with himself if he left the house without at least making an effort to apologise to her, properly introduce himself to her boyfriend and make things a little less tense between him and Natalie before he disappeared for the rest of the night. If she really didn’t want to see him, if she wanted him to leave her to figure everything out alone, he’d do just that, but he wasn’t leaving without attempting to talk to her. Knowing she’d do the exact same for him, it was only right to repay the favour by showing just how much he cared in the darker times. It’d never fix all the hurt in their lives, but for the two kids, all they ever really needed was someone to show that they cared. 

Chapter Text

His heart’s rapid pace only seemed to quicken with every footstep he took. The short hallway seemed to double in length as he paused every few steps to compose himself over and over again. The very room he and his sister sat in when everything got way too out of control suddenly lost any sense of comfort it’d usually bring. But no matter how terrified he felt, he wasn’t leaving the house until he knew she was at least a little calmer than he was himself. After everything she’d ever done for him, after all the times she’d covered for him in front of their parents, the very least he could do to repay her was try to do the same for her. Being her older brother, it was almost his sole life purpose to keep his dear sister shielded from all the unnecessary hurt and misery in the world, to comfort her when all she needed was someone by her side, just being there for her no matter how hard things got for the pair. So, even with his pounding heart and ever-so-slightly irregular breathing, he continued down the hall, only stopping once he reached the door to his sister’s room. Taking one more deep breath, he raised his hand and knocked on the much-less-scratched wooden door, listening for any sign of acknowledgment before making his presence known.

“Nat? It’s just me. I just, uhm, wanted to talk before I head out, if that’s cool with you.” Gabe stuttered, his right hand fidgeting with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

Standing on the other side of her door for an excruciatingly long minute, Gabe was relieved to eventually hear the sound of the door’s lock clicking, a silent signal that she was at the very least not furious with him. Carefully nudging the door open just enough to slip into the room, he was briefly startled by the sight of Natalie’s boyfriend stood at the edge of her bed as if he’d been the one to unlock her door, even though Gabe was almost entirely certain it had been Natalie. However, after moving his gaze to whatever Henry had been looking at on her bed, he wasn’t so sure it had been her after all. There, on the mess of blankets and pillows and the few plushies she still kept, was his darling sister. His beloved little sister, usually unable to keep herself still with her never-ending list of homework and other various tasks, lay curled up on her unorganised bed, making herself as small as humanly possible, almost as if she was some kind of prey animal sheltering itself away from all the hurt and danger in the cruel world it had been born into. The sight of his sister in such a vulnerable state only seemed to worsen the pain in his heart, shattering at the thought of his pointless shouting contributing to such obvious pain. 

“Is, uhm, are you okay?” Gabe questioned, trying to ignore the way his voice cracked and stumbled as if he’d never spoken a word in his entire life. 

“Yeah, totally, I’m completely fine. No reason to shit yourself.” Natalie muttered, her weakened voice only just audible to the other pair in the room, finally turning over to lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

“You sure? I mean, I know it’s never exactly the prettiest when arguments happen but that was…y’know.”

“No, actually, I don’t know. I have no idea what any of that was, all I know is one second you were literally right next to me and the next you were gone and Mom was freaking out. I don’t know what the fuck that was, I don’t even think I want to know.”

“It’s- look, we both know I’m not here to make you feel sorry for any of us, I just wanted to apologise. And, y’know, make sure you were okay before I head out.”

“You say all that like all that was just you, Gabe. Wasn’t just your fault, stop making yourself seem worse than you actually are.”

“I know, I get it, not all my fault or whatever, but I’m not exactly innocent either. I’m not apologising for Mom or Dad’s sake, I’m apologising because I want to. I didn’t mean to get so involved in whatever they were screaming about, I just kind of, well, I don’t know. Words were said, probably a few too many, but that’s not something I feel like dealing with right now.”

“So you’re running from your problems instead, because that definitely always ends well for us. Totally won’t get you banned from going anywhere without Mom or Dad up your ass.”

“Well, I think I’d much rather that than have to explain half the shit I said to them. I’d rather anything else, actually, especially today of all days.”

“God, you’re so ominous that I’m seriously convinced you have killed someone and you just let it slip to our fucking parents.”

“Yeah, fat chance I’d ever do that. I mean, you ask Mom and she’ll probably tell you I’ve practically done that, but I can tell you I definitely didn’t.”

“You don’t really sound like you believe yourself, Gabe.”

“I’m serious, I didn’t really do anything you wouldn’t have done, I was just honest with them. Might’ve killed me to not be honest about…y’know, all that.”

“Again, I really have no idea what you’re talking about. What’s even left for you to tell them at this point? Unless you’re ratting yourself out for-”

“Haha, very funny, I am not telling them about any of those incidents. Like, ever. Mom would freak knowing I was even in the same room as someone who smoked, let alone doing anything like that myself. It’s, uh, a whole lot more serious than a high teenager, actually.”

“Gabe, if you’re going to be ominous, I really don’t have the energy for it today. Just tell me, please.”

“Mom’s off her meds. Like, entirely off them, and refuses to go back on them. She flushed them a week ago, I got pissed and told Dad, and now I’m leaving for the night so I don’t have to be here for whatever comes from that.”

“She flushed them?! You’re fucking with me, right? Wasn’t she supposed to be trying to get better?”

“I don’t know, I wish I could tell you whatever was going through her mind or at least find some kind of excuse for any of this but I just- I don’t know anything anymore.”

“So we’re back to square one again. Flat fucking zero after Dad swore she was going to get better. This is bullshit.”

“Y’know, there’s more treatments than meds, maybe Dad can convince her to do something else that doesn’t involve pills. For our sake, maybe.”

“Doubt it, I mean, you heard her earlier. Claiming to love us or whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, treating me like I’m some kind of character from a fucking kids book, the shitty superhero trope ones with the stupid cliche invisible kid being ‘lucky to not be seen’. She doesn’t care, Gabe, she barely even remembers she has a fucking daughter.”

“Nat-”

“No, no I’m so done acting like she’ll ever get better, or trying to fucking gaslight myself with the chance that someday she’ll open her damn eyes and see me as her daughter. I don’t want to be invisible anymore, it’s not fair, any other kid has a mom that at least remembers their kid is alive.” Natalie spoke, her furious tone interrupted by the sound of a choked sob escaping her, completely breaking down in front of her brother and her boyfriend for the second time that night.

Instead of pushing his luck with any attempt at verbal comfort, Gabe simply walked toward his sister, sitting beside her on her bed with his arms open. Barely a second later, he found himself almost knocked flat against the mattress with how fast his sister had thrown herself into his arms, her violent sobs muffled by the rapidly-dampening fabric of his hoodie. His heart ached at the sight of his sister in such a state, only worsened by the fact that he knew he truly had no idea how to really make anything better in the slightest. He wanted nothing more than to take all the hurt she was feeling and throw it out of the window for some unlucky soul to soak up, but when he was pretty much just as clueless as her in that moment, he simply couldn’t do anything but hold her close enough to remind her that she’ll always have someone fighting for her. Even if it meant throwing himself away, as long as she didn’t have to suffer any more than she already had. 

“Hey, uhm, not to interrupt or anything but I, uh, kinda have to go? My mom’s calling like crazy.” Henry stuttered, though not making any effort to move from where he’d been standing.

“I’ve got her, promise. You can go, don’t go getting yourself in shit over our weirdass family. And, uhm, sorry for not making much effort to introduce myself earlier.” Gabe responded, looking over his shoulder to face the fidgeting boy behind him.

“Oh, it’s cool, totally! Natalie’s told me plenty about you anyway, all good things, I swear! Just, uh, have her text me later if that’s cool?”

“ ‘Course it is, I can’t exactly guarantee anything considering, well, I probably won’t be here, but I’ll remind her.”

“Okay, uh, thanks. And thanks again for having me, sorry it didn’t exactly, y’know, go very well?”

“Don’t worry about it, we’re used to it. Drive safe, I’ll remind Nat to text you later.”

With a small awkward nod and a faint smile, Henry made his way out of the room, the door closing quietly behind him as he left. Without any small talk or noise of any other kind, the room fell into a deafening silence, only the occasional muffled sob from the younger of the pair. From the lack of background noise and the small gap between Natalie’s bedroom window and the bottom of its frame, Gabe heard the front door open and close, glancing toward the window to see his mother and father heading out once again. After everything that the two siblings had experienced, after all the hurt they’d been through in the last hour, they’d just up and left with absolutely no notice yet again, leaving the pair to fend for themselves in the aftermath of yet another spiral. Left alone to pick up the pieces that once created a somewhat-perfect family, to glue them back together well enough to fool anyone that cared enough to look, only to inevitably repeat the exact same cycle weeks later when it all happened once more. At just barely eighteen years old, Gabe had become all too familiar with the cycle, perfecting the routine of covering up his family’s struggles at an age most would be celebrating with friends or family without the fear of it all coming to a close before it even had a chance to begin. And after it all, despite being seconds away from crashing to complete rock bottom himself, he still found himself sticking to that selfless routine, finding comfort in its familiarity as a last resort for keeping his own mental stability intact. If it meant keeping the ones he loved safe and stable for a little while longer, he’d gladly sacrifice himself over and over again. 

For a short while, the siblings continued to sit in silence, only ever broken by a sniffle or a struggled attempt to regulate their breathing patterns, not a single word shared from sheer fear of demolishing any chance of peace after such an eventful afternoon. However, after a good half an hour or so, one of the two chose to speak up, finally putting an end to the seemingly never-ending silence they’d fallen into. 

“Do you think she’s gonna get worse this time? I mean, obviously this wasn’t the worst of it or anything, but I mean worse than last time.” Natalie anxiously questioned, having moved to sit next to her brother, fidgeting with the sleeve of her cardigan.

“I can’t tell, honestly. Maybe that was the worst of it, maybe she won’t get that bad this time, but I just…I don’t wanna get our hopes up when her illness is so unpredictable.” Gabe sighed, pushing himself from his sister’s bed to walk around the room.

“So that’s it? We’re supposed to just sit here and watch our mom decline again? That’s such bullshit.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m not exactly thrilled about it either, but what else can we really do? I tried to help her, I really did try to, and she ignored me. If she’s barely listening to me this early into one of her episodes, who’s to say she’ll listen any further down the line?”

“It’s so fucking stupid though, I thought the whole point of those stupid appointments was to help her manage everything, not to make her worse. I mean, seriously, how the hell are we supposed to do anything with our lives if our mom is on the brink of losing hers all the damn time?”

“I don’t know, I mean, it’s not like we could’ve predicted this. We never have and never will, Nat. That’s just the way she is, and as much as it fucking sucks for us, there’s not really anything we can do but hope that whatever treatment she’s put on will actually work for once.”

“Right, sure, because waiting around always works in our favour. This can’t be all my life ever ends up being, Gabe, I’m not doing this forever. I’m so tired of my own parents acting like I’m invisible, like I could disappear for good and they’d never even consider looking for me. I want parents that care too, it’s so pathetic of me but I want my parents to love me for more than five fucking minutes.”

“We’ll work it out, I promise. Well, I mean, we’ll try, I’m not gonna promise everything will suddenly be great or anything, but it won’t get any better if we sit in our rooms complaining about our lives all the time. Not like I can guarantee it’ll be any different if we do anything, but I’m not sitting around just waiting for her to crash this time.”

“Good luck trying to get either of them to listen to you, clearly hasn’t been working out for you so far. Just- If this is just going to keep happening for the rest of my damn life, why try changing it now when the chances of it ever doing anything are practically fucking zero?”

“I don’t know, maybe I’m being hopeful, or maybe I’m actually going insane, but I want to believe it’ll be different if I try to do anything differently this time. Even if it’s just keeping myself busy so I don’t end up like that, it’s better than thinking about what could happen to Mom if treatments don’t work, y’know?”

“Sure, yeah, maybe. I sure hope so at least, I just want my parents to actually want to be more present in my damn life. Like my recitals, I mean, is it really that much to ask for my mom and dad to show up with my brother for once? To see that their ‘genius-freak’ daughter can actually make something of herself after all these years of practice so maybe, just maybe, they’ll stop being so paranoid about us and let me go to college like a normal kid.”

“See, it won’t hurt to try at least something this time, maybe it’ll be different for once. Obviously I can’t promise that it will be different, but I’d like to hope it could be. For the sake of our sanity.”

“Maybe, I don’t know, I sure fucking hope so. Hey, weren’t you literally just talking about how much you wanted to get out of here? See your friends or whatever?”

“Oh, right, yeah, I was. Wait, actually, uhm, before I go I wanted to talk to you about something before I forget to.”

“Yeah? What, did you finally get a boyfriend?”

“No, Nat, I did not get a boyfriend in the two months since I came out to you. It’s actually not as exciting as that, really. So, uhm, the school’s got this festival thing going on next week and I might’ve told my jazz teacher that I’d sign up? And I was wondering if you could be there because I know Mom and Dad will be busy.”

“I mean, I had no idea you were that serious about your music. But yeah, I’ll be there, considering you never miss my recitals it’d be real shitty of me to say no. Besides, I was probably gonna be there either way.”

“Cool, awesome, uhm, don’t set your expectations too high though. I haven’t really got the whole guitar thing down yet, but I’m sure they’ll have a band there for the ones who can’t play anything. I think at least, I sure hope they do, I can not learn the basics and a full song in a week.”

“Gabe, it’s a high-school event, I’m not expecting to show up and hear the next fucking Mozart or anything. You’ll be fine, it’s not as scary once you’re actually up there, most of the time at least.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, I’m sure it’ll be somewhat bearable on the ears if I practice enough. Shit, uhm, I should probably get out of here now if I want to be back before sunrise tomorrow. Mom and Dad left a little while ago, by the way, but, uhm, open your window for a while. Mom and Dad could probably be tricked but I could smell the weed from outside your door, air the scent out before they get back so you’re not in any shit.” Gabe spoke, smiling back at Natalie before dashing out of her room towards his own, making sure to close his door before clambering out of the window. 

An hour later than intended, Gabe was finally out of the horrifically tense atmosphere of his family’s house, free to spend the remaining hours of his eighteenth birthday however he wished to, no worries or cares to ruin the rest of the day for him. Although he was still endlessly worried about his dear sister, a few hours away from their house wasn’t the end of the world, knowing she’d survive just fine on her own the way she had plenty of times already in her life. The rest of the day was his to spend however he wanted, no parents to dictate his choices or overwhelming emotions to hold him back from celebrating his birthday like any of his peers had done on their own special days. Eighteen years old and finally getting a real grasp on his life, it seemed that for once, the universe truly was appreciating his stubbornness and rewarding him with a few hours of peace. Even if it inevitably led to his very own crash in the days that followed, nothing could ever compare to spending such a milestone with the ones he appreciated most. Of course, it could have gone better, but to such an unlucky child, any amount of joy was far more than he could ever ask the universe for.

Chapter Text

Life as an eighteen-year-old had been nothing but chaos. From the eventful experience of his actual birthday to the never-ending hours spent perfecting his very first self-written song for the festival, Gabe found himself with very little time to do much of anything outside of school, his pre-existing clubs and practicing for the festival. Trying to perfect the lyrics and his own vocals had been working incredibly well for him, finally satisfied with the song itself just two days before he had to perform it in front of a crowd of students and teachers from his school, constantly forcing himself to push past the overwhelming sense of panic and dread caused by the thought of such a big crowd focused solely on him to focus on the more positive side of taking that big of a step away from the things he’d grown much too familiar with. After endless years of living as more of an idea his parents had planned out, he was finally forcing himself out of his comfort zone, finally allowing himself to actually live instead of merely existing for the sake of being the perfect son his parents pictured him to be. Of course, it wasn’t as if he had to remain perfect in their eyes, but part of him felt obligated to be the best son he could possibly be after the years of stress and panic he’d put them through. No matter how hard he tried to convince himself that his family wouldn’t despise him for being less than perfect, he just couldn’t seem to let himself breathe. Well, it had been the case for as long as he could remember, at least. But the day he’d scribbled his name onto the festival performer sign-up sheet had completely changed the way he thought, almost as if his own scratchy handwriting had flipped a switch in the back of his head that finally pushed him to truly think about what he really wanted for the first time in his life. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t still incredibly terrified of being so openly different in front of such a sizable crowd of people he’d definitely see again post-festival. The idea of that many people seeing a completely different version of himself was almost enough to make him withdraw from the festival entirely, already dreading the tense conversations and awkward explanations that’d inevitably emerge in the days after the event. But, despite the fear that threatened to swallow him whole, he continued to practice for his performance, using every spare minute he got to perfect his much-less-than-average guitar skills and much more developed vocals. 

Only when the day itself actually arrived did the fear really set in. In just a few hours, he’d be stood up on stage, tens of students and teachers watching him with expectant gazes, certain that every single member of the crowd would be beyond disappointed if he didn’t match the energy and talent of any previous performers. The festival itself hadn’t even started and Gabe was certain he’d already panicked about every possible way he could mess everything up at least twice, sitting in the driver’s seat of his mom’s abandoned car that she’d gifted to him a few days after his birthday, his trembling hands gripping the rough plastic of the steering wheel. Technically, the festival didn’t start for another hour or so, which should have left him enough time to practice at least one more full run-through to ensure that he had the chords fully memorised, but when his jazz teacher had told him earlier that week that all performers were expected to turn up earlier than anybody else, there was nothing more he could do to save himself from complete disaster. The crisp November air crept through the window he’d rolled down the moment he’d gotten settled into the driver’s seat, making a mess of his chestnut hair as he rested his head on his arm, which had found itself draped over the remnants of the window minutes prior. For once, he really couldn’t be more grateful for how long his sister took to make herself somewhat-presentable when she wasn’t being rushed around, taking the extra minutes to pull himself together enough to make it completely impossible to see a singular ounce of fear or uncertainty across his face, even if his fidgeting hands and restless leg would completely shatter that facade moments later. Though, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want her to be a little faster so he could just get the whole event over and done with as fast as possible. Of course, it wasn’t like he had to put his name on that stupid sheet of paper in the first place, but it wasn’t like he could suddenly back out with no good reason for his change of attitude towards the performance. Unable to keep himself entirely still, he pushed himself to sit fully upright again, his gaze drifting to the dashboard of his car. Once decorated with a few small trinkets and a cheap air freshener dangling across the rear-view mirror, the surface had been completely cleared of any signs of the car’s precious owner, the lack of life staring right back at him as if it was purposely trying to divert him from actually going through with his performance. Weeks of practice, weeks of throwing away any other opportunities, and he was seriously about to ditch it all simply because his car looked too bland. 

His hand had barely made contact with the door handle when the passenger door finally swung open, the sudden disturbance causing his hand to jolt away, landing back on the steering wheel as he looked straight ahead as if he hadn’t just tried to ditch the event before it’d even begun.

“Remind me again why we have to leave this early? I thought they said it started at eleven, and it’s, what, 10:10?” Natalie sighed, reaching for her seatbelt as she glanced over to her brother.

“Well, I mean, yeah, it doesn’t start for ages, but they said I had to get there early. Y’know, performer check-in or something, they’ve got to see who actually bothers showing up before they even think of making a schedule.” Gabe spoke, finally tearing his gaze away from the view outside of the windshield to look at his sister.

“Yeah, I get that, but there’s still a whole hour until the festival is even open in the first place, and I know damn well that nobody’s showing up until half past at the earliest. Happens with every other event, nobody’s ever on time, thought you of all people would know that better than anyone else.”

“I still have to drive too, Nat. Twenty minutes of driving only makes us half an hour early, which is probably as close to ‘late’ as we’ll get. Besides, being early means first dibs on the food and drinks stalls, less people means shorter lines and shorter wait times. Think of the fun parts, there’s definitely more benefits to being early than you think there is.”

“Never thought I’d live to see the day that Gabe Goodman, notorious for skipping class or ditching entirely half the time, was actually choosing to be early. Seriously, I thought you were high when you came to wake me up.”

“Wow, my own sister? Accusing me of being high before ten? Oh, sunshine, you wound me.” Gabe gasped dramatically, a hand pressed to his chest to push his dramatics even further.

“You’re so dramatic sometimes, Gabe. I know you’re not reckless enough to do that, especially when you’re getting on stage in front of at least three fucking teachers.” Natalie sighed, her attempt at seeming fed-up of her brother’s ridiculous behaviour betrayed by the small smirk across her face, clearly trying to hide her amusement by changing the topic.

“What can I say, it’s the Goodman charm, I was born to be dramatic. I mean, yeah, any other time I would completely back you up, but this? I think I’d rather be high as fuck than stone-cold sober, at least that’d give me an excuse for any mistakes.”

“God, you keep talking about fucking this up and you’ll manifest it actually happening. Seriously, it’s not as terrifying as you think it is. I mean, I was petrified of my first recital, I sat there for three hours the night before thinking about every single way I could fuck it up. Which, y’know, I nearly did, because if you think about it too much, you’re just asking to forget everything you’ve practiced.”

“Okay, sure, but this is so different. I don’t know, maybe I’m being stupid, but this isn’t the kind of thing I’d ever willingly sign up for, y’know? I mean, performing a song I wrote with an instrument I can barely play, relying on whatever group of sleep-deprived juniors they’ve got on standby for idiots like me who can’t play their own tracks. Really, this is like, I don’t know, it’s like I’m showing everyone some totally different side of me, and there’s literally nothing I can do to avoid it.”

“But that’s kinda the point of music, y’know. It’s about expressing yourself through the lyrics and whatever instruments you choose to use, it’d be pretty boring if everyone stuck to the same old shit they’re used to. Either way, it’s not like Mom and Dad are gonna be there, if that’s what you’re scared of.”

“Well, yeah, obviously they aren’t, they don’t even know I’m performing. They just think we’re going because we’re such perfect students that simply must socialise with their classmates more than they’re already forced to.”

“Wait, so you didn’t ask them? I thought you’d asked me because they said they couldn’t come, not because you straight up didn’t ask?”

“Oh, uhm, yeah, I didn’t really want to ask even if they weren’t busy. Kinda just wanted to live in the moment, not have them drown me with questions or break their whole ‘he’s our perfect son’ mindset. It’s like, I don’t know, it’s the one thing that’ll let me be me for the first time, maybe even convince some of my classmates that I’m not some kind of wannabe popular kid. I’m just,” Gabe sighed, running a hand through his hair, “I’m so sick of trying so hard to be what Mom and Dad want me to be. I mean, I love them and all, but I don’t want to be stuck living some other kid’s life, y’know? Like, the whole football team thing, it’s not even really me being gay that’s stopping me from telling them about it. If anything, I’m convinced they’ll just transfer me to another school where I’ll have absolutely none of my friends and be expected to start over entirely on their team. I just-”

“You don’t want to risk it, yeah, I know. You don’t have to defend yourself to me, y’know, it’s not like I wasn’t already planning on going. Just makes it a little more important than just an excuse to get the hell out of that house for a few hours. I’m just…I don’t know, I guess I’m honored you wanted me there for this.”

“Of course I do, you’re my sister, Nat. What kind of older brother doesn’t want a little honesty with his only sister? And besides, if anyone’s gonna tell me how disastrous my performance was, I know for a fact that it’ll be you.”

“Yeah, except I know you’ll be fine, you’re just trying to brainwash me into an opinion before we’ve even left the driveway.”

“Oh shit, we need to go, like, now.” Gabe cursed, fumbling with the keys as he hurriedly started the car.

“It’s barely been fifteen minutes, Gabe, we’ll be fine.” Natalie groaned, ignoring her brother’s frantic movements as she reached for the aux cord, connecting her phone to the radio as she pressed play on the siblings’ shared playlist. 

When the two finally reached the field their school had hired for the event, they were greeted with an almost empty parking lot, only a handful of other vehicles awkwardly spaced out across the concrete. Of course, they knew they would arrive relatively early, but neither of them had expected to be early enough to actually have complete control of where they chose to park. The field itself had already been fully decorated with tens of stalls and a decently sized stage almost directly in the center, instruments already in their respective places almost as if they were trying to mock Gabe for being so unprepared. Finally pulling his car into a parking spot he deemed close enough to the venue that he could easily run back to when his performance was finally over and done with, he took another glance at the stage he’d soon be standing on, taking a deep breath before stepping out of the car. The sudden rush of crisp autumn air against his pale skin was enough to keep his focus from slipping again, the icy breeze causing him to shiver as he fidgeted with the small silver charm on his necklace. 

“So? You plan on moving at all, or am I expected to drag your ass onto that field instead?” Natalie teased, glancing over at her brother as she jumped out of the passenger’s seat. 

“Yeah, yeah, just gotta let my brain wake up a little more, y’know.”

“You’re actually going to end up making yourself late for real if you don’t start walking, like, now. I know you too well, Gabe, you can’t back out this late. Besides, we’re already here, might as well get it over with, then you’ll never have to worry about this kinda thing again if it’s really that bad.”

“I was not going to back out, thank you very much, I was just, y’know, thinking. I mean, this time last year I barely knew who I really was, and now I’m about to do something so stupid and reckless that I might actually fuck up any chances I could’ve had to be a little normal. Hell, I still don’t really know who I am. Isn’t that funny? Eighteen years old and I’m probably just as clueless as I was ten years ago.”

“That’s the fun of it, you just get up on the stage and let everyone think you know what you want from life. Doesn’t mean you have to know anything, just means you don’t tell them you don’t know anything.”

“Yeah, actually, maybe that’s my best shot at not completely fucking this up. Y’know, going up there and letting people think whatever the hell they want. I can worry about the rest of it when it actually matters, probably.”

“Cool, glad we got that figured out. So, are you actually going to start walking now? Or are we just going to spend the entire festival people watching instead.”

“You’re acting like that wouldn’t be fun when you and I both know that’d be so much better than being the ones getting all the attention.” Gabe laughed, his body betraying his mind as he finally started walking towards the grass. 

Finally on the field, the festival atmosphere had already seemed to work its magic on his mind, in-depth thoughts of failure replaced with excitement for the event before it had even begun. The air was filled with a variety of scents, from freshly cooked fries to the sweet scent of caramel, all enough to make him far too hungry to worry about anything but checking himself in and getting some kind of far-too-sweet festival food in his stomach before his friends arrived and inevitably swept him up into whatever conversation they’d already wrapped themselves up in within the few minutes since leaving their cars and entering the venue. Well, of course, that wasn’t the only reason he needed to hurry up and find out the exact time of his performance. Natalie, who had already disappeared from his side to most likely find her boyfriend, had made him swear to text her the second he found out so she could get as close to the stage as possible, presumably to avoid being trapped behind rows of people whispering their critiques to their friends loud enough that anybody trying to actually listen to the performance would be left completely clueless by the end of it. So, as any good brother would do, he’d promised to let her know absolutely everything as soon as he’d finished talking to whichever teacher had been left in charge of the performers schedule. When he’d finally made it to the stage, he was surprised to see only a small handful of other students in the surrounding area, most with their own instruments already outside of their cases. More importantly, when he looked at the stage itself, he noticed the lack of any instruments, despite being told that the school itself was more than happy to lend them to those who left theirs at home or didn’t have any instrument of their own in the first place. At first, it didn’t seem like too big of a deal, thinking that maybe they’d just decided not to set them up and have the students do it themselves. However, the unshakable sense of dread running through his entire body as he approached the teacher screamed that something was seriously wrong. 

“Hey, uhm, I was told to come and check in before the festival? Am I in the right place?” Gabe questioned, approaching the teacher as they spoke into a small radio clipped to their shirt.

“If you’re performing today, then yes, you are. Name?” the teacher responded, half-listening to the crackling voice over their radio as their eyes skimmed the clipboard in their hand.

“Gabe Goodman, or Gabriel, whichever of the two I’ve been listed as. And, uhm, what’s the instrument situation? I was told I could borrow from the school or something?”

“Goodman, okay, you’re written in for the 12:35 slot. You were supposed to hear from your homeroom teacher by the end of the day last week about that, the instruments are on loan to another school for another event, you were all expected to either bring your own or borrow from someone else.”

“Hold on, I wasn’t told anything about that, last I heard from anyone about this was at the start of this month. Y’know, three weeks ago? Nobody said anything about bringing my own instrument, let alone expecting all of us to be experts at playing.”

“Were you absent at all last week? Everyone was supposed to be made aware of the changes, you were all given a week to figure this out if the news made it to you. Are you absolutely sure you weren’t told about this?”

“I’m very sure! I was in every class last week, I’m not even that hard to find outside of classes, what the hell am I meant to do?! Didn’t anyone think to like, I don’t know, email us instead of expecting half of our teachers to relay the message?”

“Gabriel, if you could calm down, that would be fantastic. Look, you aren’t the only student who seems to be uninformed, so I’ll wholeheartedly admit that this is the school’s fault, but there isn’t much we can do. If you live locally or have parents that are able to reach the venue in time, perhaps you could retrieve your instrument that way. If not, you’re going to have to figure something else out.”

“I can’t just drive home and pick it up, I’d barely be back in time, and my parents have things to do with their lives too. What do you expect me to do? Share a guitar with some kid I barely know?”

“If that’s your only other option, that’ll have to do. Look, I need to have a word with whoever forgot to relay the message to half of the performing students, please try and figure out what you’re going to do and find me again once you do.” the teacher sighed, unclipping the small device from their shirt as they walked away, speaking into it with a tone that could only be described as pure frustration.

And there it was. For once, his intuition had been completely correct, leaving him with less than an hour to figure out how the hell he was supposed to fix such a complicated problem. Frustrated and overwhelmed by the tens of students rushing around him to presumably figure out their very own issues, he dropped himself onto the dewy grass, back pressed against the rough plastic of the stage with his knees against his chest, head in his hands as his mind cycled through the few solutions he could think of. Of course, he could risk driving home to retrieve his guitar, but after only playing for a singular week, that was almost like he was asking for disaster. Then there was asking another of the performing kids to play the track for him, but that required speaking to one of the many peers he’d never met before, which he’d been trying to avoid entirely for many reasons. So that left him with two options : replace his original performance with an already existing song or scrap the performance entirely. And although he truly wanted nothing more than to ditch the performance and spend the festival hiding away in his car, he’d already gotten halfway through the process, and quitting so close to the actual event itself sounded worse than actually going through with it. 

Too deep in his own thoughts, Gabe hadn’t realised the voice calling out to him for the last minute or so, only snapping back to reality when he felt a hand on his shoulder, his head moving from its place in his hands to see who was trying to get his attention. Looking up, his eyes locked themselves onto the eyes of the person crouched in front of him, the hazel of their irises glistening in the sun, seeming almost green-ish in the beaming light. Their healthy black curls rested on their shoulders, almost as if they’d been grown for the sole purpose of shielding Gabe from the blinding rays of sunlight peaking through the gaps of his scrunched-up seating position. Looking at their outfit, combined of a slightly oversized black tank top and a pair of black ripped jeans with almost-unnoticeable flecks of deep blue paint from presumably some kind of painting project, he couldn’t help but look at his own choice of clothing with complete shame. In typical Gabe Goodman fashion, he’d completely slept through his alarm, giving him significantly less time to plan a more impressive outfit than just a simple shirt and jeans with his usual scuffed trainers. But, with the remaining time he’d found himself left with, he’d simply grabbed the first pieces of clothing he could think of. An extremely worn and faded t-shirt from a concert his best friend had gifted him for his 15th birthday and a pair of grey jeans that’d been ripped at the knees far more than the designers had clearly intended for them to be, topping the already disastrous outfit off with an old pair of black converse he’d barely touched since junior year and an extremely poor attempt at some kind of subtle eyeliner, the makeup he’d temporarily stolen from his sister only seeming to make his tired blue eyes seem a million times worse than they actually were. 

“Hey, uhm, are you alright? You looked like you were…well, either sleeping or one small push away from breaking down.” the stranger spoke, a small light laugh escaping their mouth as their words trailed off.

“Oh, hi, uhm, yeah. Yeah, no, I’m totally fine, sorry if I made you worry or anything. Just, uh, shielding my eyes from the sun for a sec? I guess?” Gabe responded, doing anything he possibly could from his current spot on the ground to avoid direct eye contact with someone that close to his face.

“Pretty odd to choose this exact spot, don’t you think? You’re in direct sunlight here, and in prime position to be trampled by some ignorant idiot who can’t walk without their eyes glued to their screen.”

“Huh, yeah, you’re right, didn’t think about that. It was just the nearest space that wasn’t directly next to someone with their guitar out, y’know? Didn’t exactly want my nose shattered because I decided to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with some kid I probably don’t even know.”

“Of course, yeah. But why not just find a spot in the shade on your way in? Or, I don’t know, maybe even your car? You’ll burn yourself sitting in places like this.”

“God, you sound exactly like my best friend, y’know. Scolding me for doing something stupid, just without the lecture, even if he’s only older than me by a month.”

“Well maybe, you should listen to your friend. Sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, seems pretty responsible to me.”

“Him? Responsible? Wow, you sure are great at sarcasm, almost had me believing I should be listening to the same kid who convinced himself that smoking on a completely empty stomach was the greatest idea he’s ever thought of. It absolutely wasn’t, if you’re wondering, he’s never regretted anything more, hasn’t done it since.”

“Either way, he sounds like he’s got at least a little common sense. Which you could certainly benefit from, mystery-sunlight-guy.”

“Eugh, please never call me that again, that sucked so bad. I’m Gabriel Goodman, but uhm, just Gabe would be great.”

“Hold on, the Gabriel Goodman?! As in the same Gabriel Goodman that used to cycle to the park a few blocks away from Walton Way with me when we were fifteen?” the stranger suddenly questioned, their hands gripping his shoulders in a way that managed to be neither gentle nor firm, only just enough contact to register in Gabe’s mind.

“How do you-” Gabe started, finally looking at the stranger’s face as he started to question them, only to be cut off once he realised who he’d been talking to for the last few minutes.

There, crouched in front of him with wide eyes and guitar case starting to fall from his shoulder, sat his best friend since 2nd grade, the boy he’d grown so incredibly dependent on when he needed to hide away from the cruel reality of his household. Ashton Connell, the boy he’d always adored as if it were his sole life purpose to do so, the same boy who’d left for Texas before the end of their sophomore year of high school with only three whole letters sent in the two years he’d been away. Months from the summer before their junior year, his father had suddenly decided they needed a “change of scenery”, giving the pair of teenagers barely a week before they’d be forcefully separated for what they’d thought would be the rest of their lives. At only fifteen, Gabe had gone through what he had convinced himself was the worst heartbreak he’d ever experience, unable to imagine a pain worse than losing the one friend he’d always cared about more than he could ever describe. But now, at just barely eighteen years old, he found himself staring into those familiar hazel eyes, a soft smile stretching across his face.

“You came back. You’re here. What the fuck, why didn’t you say anything?!” Gabe exclaimed, throwing himself at the other boy hard enough to knock him down to the ground, arms tightly wrapped around his torso.

“I tried! I wrote, swear! I just figured you didn’t want me around anymore after, well, y’know, my horrific attempt at communicating. God, seriously, we chose letters of all things when we could’ve been texting this whole time, not panicking about whether my best friend would still want me here when really he just never got the damn letter.” Ashton laughed, his hands moving from his friend’s shoulder to instead wrap around him, returning the boy’s embrace. 

“You fucking dick, why didn’t you think of that two years ago? God, seriously, you don’t know how horrible everything’s been without you, Ashton.”

“I know, I know. Texas was miserable, I mean, I tried to enjoy it as much as I could, but it felt so wrong. Like making any new friends was just my way of replacing you, or making any good memories was my mind trying to erase our past, I just couldn’t.”

“You’ve got to tell me everything, and I mean literally everything, I don’t care how long it’ll take to get through it all. I mean, surely you had at least one good thing happen over the last two fucking years, right?”

“Find me later today and we can go talk somewhere quiet, I promise. I can’t ditch this damn thing until after one, it’s the earliest slot they had left, but afterwards. We can sit in the parking lot or something, away from all this, just us again.”

“Okay, okay, yeah, that works for me. I mean, I can’t really ditch until then either, and that’s only if Nat’s staying late with her boyfriend or friends or whoever she’s hanging with. Well, I could ditch sooner actually, ‘s not like I can actually go through with this thing anyway.”

“Hold on, Natalie has a boyfriend?! Since when? And you, performing? At a school festival? God, did I really miss that much?”

“Uhm, since October, I think? I don’t know the exact date or anything, but Mom and I kinda caught them outside our house a month or so ago. And this was just, ugh, I was going to because my jazz teacher kind of asked if I would be interested, but I got here and suddenly they’ve got nobody to play for anyone who can’t play their own track and my guitar’s back home. So, I mean, my only real choice is to find a shitty karaoke track for some song I actually know the words of or scrap this whole thing entirely and spend the afternoon in my car.”

“Why don’t we just ask them to put us on together? I can play for you, or whatever you had planned in the first place, I really don’t mind. Besides, it’d get us out of here so much faster, and clearly neither of us really want to be here any longer than we need to be.”

“No way, absolutely not, I can’t ruin this for you, I’ll figure something out, Ashton, seriously, this is meant to be your moment.”

“God, you really haven’t changed, have you? Still acting like you’re the world’s biggest inconvenience over nothing. Seriously, I want you up there, and even if you do make a mistake, who cares? It’s a high school festival, Gabriel, we’re seniors, this is our last chance to have fun like this.”

“I mean, maybe you’re right. And it’s not like anyone can really say anything if we’re ditching anyway, so, I mean, there’s no harm in trying..?”

“There you go, that’s the Gabriel I know. Let’s go find whoever’s running this thing then, get this over with?”

“Yeah, of course, great idea. But, uhm, the song? What are we supposed to do about the song? What were you even planning to do, hop up there and freestyle it?”

“Well, we’ve got at least an hour to think about that, so maybe we should actually get this sorted before we go making any decisions? Unless you have any better ideas?”

“No, no, you’re right, that’s a great idea, actually. Oh, actually, we could go with something we’re both really familiar with? Y’know, the stuff we used to listen to in the park, maybe?”

“Not bad, Goodman, not bad! Here, I’ll make you a deal, you grab us some kind of really unhealthy snack from one of those stands while I sort this out for us and we can go with that one song you really liked when we were younger. The one you loved so much you swore you’d start playing guitar just to learn it?”

“Oh my god, you mean Jigsaw? The song we used to blast in that damn park until your dad came searching for you?”

“I think you mean us, actually, thank you very much. But yeah, that one, if you still remember the lyrics?”

“What kind of fake fan do you take me for, Connell? Of course I still remember it, word for fucking word.”

“Hey, it’s been two years, I thought maybe you stopped listening to our favourite artists and swapped them out for some newer artist, y’know? And for the love of everything, stop calling me my full name like we haven’t known each other most of our damn lives.”

“And miss out on the two albums he’s dropped since then? Absolutely not, I value my music taste, thank you very much. And if I’ve gotta drop the full name, you do too, quit calling me Gabriel. You’re starting to sound like my mom whenever I come home a millisecond later than I told her I’d be.”

“Alright, alright, fair enough. Now, seriously, let’s get this over with, yeah?” Ash smiled, his laugh warm enough to rival the glaring beams of sunlight against Gabe’s skin as he stood up from the grass, a hand outstretched towards his friend to help him back onto his feet, an extremely scrunched up bill tucked into the other.

“Yeah, ‘course.” Gabe spoke, blindly reaching for his friend’s hand as he redirected his gaze to his own shoes in an attempt to hide the subtle flush on his face, allowing himself to be pulled up from the ground and finding the crumbled $10 bill pushed into his palm as Ash turned to find the teacher from earlier that morning.

With his friend finally out of earshot, Gabe hid his head in his hands, palms digging into his cheeks as he suppressed the urge to scream. He had not expected the day to take that sharp of a turn in the slightest, let alone before the festival had even had a chance to start. His best friend, the only person he’d ever really grown to trust other than his sister, finally back in their hometown, finally back in the same town as him. And despite the few obvious changes to his appearance and personality over the years, Ashton Connell was still the same as he’d always been. No matter how mature he’d grown to be, he was still the same kid that made childish bets on their frequent bike rides at the ripe age of fifteen, with the same warm laugh Gabe had grown far too fond of. The same long curly hair that he’d insisted on keeping at exactly the same length for years on end, the same softer speaking tone even when the two were joking around together, the same need for some kind of sugar or caffeine at any given moment as if he was still thirteen years old. Two years to grow and he’d still returned to their hometown before graduation, returning almost exactly the same as he’d left, only taller and much less introverted than he’d been years ago. Truthfully, Gabe had half expected him to build an entirely new life in Texas and completely erase any trace of their memories in his mind, he hadn’t stopped to think of how he’d handle seeing Ash again after years away from one another. Of course, it’s not that he didn’t want him to come back, because as much as Gabe had tried to be happy for his best friend, his heart ached at the thought of everything the pair once had. He’d sworn to himself that if Ash ever came back, he’d never tell the other boy about all the times he’d wished on shooting stars and lucky numbers that he’d come back into his life in any way the universe would allow him to. And now, two years after what could only be described as the worst heartbreak of his life, he was finally back. Finally home. And truthfully, his timing really couldn’t have been better. While he’d given up on the idea of ditching the festival hours prior because of how hard he’d worked to make his performance at least tolerable to the crowd, hearing that he’d be expected to figure out an entirely new performance and get it memorised in one single hour had been enough to completely change his mind. That was, of course, until Ash appeared and came up with an idea that’d solve all issues they could possibly run into, just like he’d always done. Their performance, their song, their lives, it was all Gabe could ever ask for. And maybe, just maybe, this was the universe finally showing him some mercy. Maybe, after seventeen years of constant misery and being somebody he’d never truly felt happy being, he was finally getting the life he’d wished for.