smiling critters

chapter 14 - cuddle buddy

Now it was mid august and Neil was set to be discharged by the end of the month and he was planning to go out to get ice cream with the others once that happened. He was set to live with Donna and Malachi since they got out a lot sooner than he did and managed to get a house big enough to fit 10+ yokai. There ended up being a court case filed against Elliot for a multitude of things involving the drug he was feeding them. Turns out, there was a whole underground chain of yokai trading this drug around for money, human organs, and other goods. Poppy, Elliot's daughter, used to be a human in an experimentation facility before Elliot adopted her. As a result of the experiments done on her, her hair could make the base for the drug used on Neil and everyone else. That was the whole reason she was being experimented on; to be able to make more of that gas. Needless to say, she was taken out of his care on the spot and handed to Donna, who was happy to take her in. as a result of neil receiving the highest dosage of the drug, donna had left neil in georgia's care for a period of time for any extra care she could give him, with donna helping lessen some of georgia's financial load, because it turns out, donna's family is pretty rich and owns a huge investing company, so helping with money was never an issue. Because of the whole fiasco, they ended up becoming good friends and Donna and Malachi were introduced to the rest of the friend groups' guardians. Neil was going to therapy once a week to help cope with everything that's happened so far in his life, and in that time, he was diagnosed with scoliosis, depression, and an anxiety disorder that caused selective mutism. That made everything so much easier, but hey, at least he didn't feel completely alone anymore. Days went by like years, but not because Neil's sense of time was being warped by a deadly drug or mental illness, he was just really excited to get back out and do stuff; he was actually happy to be alive for once, and he couldn't be happier about it! Sure, his mental state could be better, but he had a more positive view of himself than he did before. Finally, after what felt like centuries, he was discharged from the hospital. He was weaker than he thought he was, but that didn't matter to him, because he got to see his friends again and even get ice cream. He's never tried ice cream, but from what his friends told him, it sounded pretty good. They were going to Cindy and Jim's since that was apparently one of the best places around. The night before, Georgia and Neil were on their way back to her house when she was finally done with work for the night.

"Are you excited to see everyone out of the hospital again?" she asked, glancing at the passenger's seat where Neil was.

"Yeah, thanks again for letting me stay with you."

"It's no problem, baby. I'm happy to help."
they rode in silence until finally pulling into the garage and getting out. Neil was set to sleep on the couch unless Georgia managed to find the air mattress she knew she had. She made sure he was comfortable before going into her room and going to sleep. Neil tried doing anything he could to to sleep, but just couldn't. He was mostly detoxed from the medicine, so it wasn't that, but what was it? He glared and sat up before looking out the window. It was a clear night, so it wasn't the weather keeping up. Homesickness? He has been moving living spaces a lot this year, and his therapist said that may have more of an impact then he thought. He stood up, wanting to go take a walk, before sitting back down. What if he woke someone up by opening one of the doors? Georgia was so kind as to open her heart and home to him, and it would be mean to wake her up. So he sat and flicked his tail to the beat of his music. It was always forever, which had a nice hypnotic beat, so maybe that'd help. He flinched upon hearing someone enter the living room. He looked over and saw Dylan wrapped in a large blanket staring at him, rubbing one of his eyes.

"Neil, it's 2:30. Is something wrong?" he asked as he walked up to him. Neil shrugged.

"Just can't sleep. It's odd I've never been able to not sleep before, I look forward to it, actually. But I just can't for some reason, I laid down, put on music, y'know everything that'd usually help me sleep, but nothing's working," he signed, a little frustrated.

"Do you need a cuddle buddy? I remember you said you have a stuffed animal you'd sleep with."

"Godfrey threw it out when we got into middle school, he said I was too old to have stuffed animals."

"That's dumb, mom says you're never too old for stuffed animals, especially if they help you sleep."

"Yea, but when I went to dig it out of the trash it was gone and I just assumed godfrey took it somewhere else."

"Ok, well, is there anything I can do to help?"

"I dunno."
Dylan pushed Neil down onto the couch and quickly fell asleep with his arms wrapped around him. Neil carefully fixed the blanket so it covered them both and got comfy before finally falling asleep.

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