‡† The Unseen †‡

13 † Fractures †

Trigger warning: Mention of depression
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The hospital lights buzzed overhead, too white, too sterile, too.. dry.

Raven had just finished tucking the blanket around his father’s legs and placing the half-eaten pudding cup on the tray. His dad had smiled, eyes tired but bright. They’d even laughed a little—the real kind of laughter, the kind that slipped through the fatigue like sunlight through blinds.

“Go,” his dad had said, waving a hand, shooing him like he was tired of his presence already. “You’ve done enough. Go live a little, yeah?”

And so Raven left.

Or at least, tried to.

The automatic doors had slid open with a soft hiss, and it was the cool chilled evening air that had greeted him when it happened. He was just pulling on his hoodie when that something made him stop.

A shuffle of rushed footsteps. A nurse’s voice calling for a gurney. The sound of someone groaning—low, strained, like they were trying not to scream.

For once, Raven wished he wasn't hearing the voice right. Wished it wasn't him. But it was.

It's always him, huh? Devon.

Bloodied.

Limping.

His hoodie torn and stained, knuckles scraped raw, one eye swelling already, lip split. Another boy—a younger one, not much more than fourteen—was half-dragging, half-guiding him toward the ER entrance.

Devon didn’t see Raven. His head was down. Breathing hard. Shoulders shaking vehemently.

The boy was trying to get the attention of the nurse, voice cracking with worry. “He just—he wouldn’t fight back—I told him to do something, but he just.. he just stood there—!”

Raven couldn’t move as he listened to the boy.

He just stood there.

He just stood there and took it.

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to just that image.

Devon, the one person who had refused to shatter when Raven cracked. Devon, who always scowled and shrugged and stayed.

It was that same Devon, now barely standing. The same Devon, allowing himself be damaged for reasons he refused to tell Raven. The same Devon, now embracing shadows he was supposed to fight back and conquer.

And he didn't tell Raven one thing.

Raven's breath caught in his throat as his fingers clenched, but after a while, his fingers loosened, flexed in the air, remained limp—hanging.

He felt.. useless. He'd been chasing Devon, bugging him, coaxing him... He'd honestly thought he'd at least succeeded in breaking through his barriers, but..

He knew friends didn't really tell each other everything—he knew there were some things that didn't need to be said—things one had to sort out personally before even thinking of relaying it to some other human being, but still..

It stung.

He wanted to call out. To run over. To ask what happened.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

Because something about the way Devon’s shoulders hunched, the way he avoided every eye in the hallway, looked in every direction as if trying to reassure himself that no one he knew was around, told Raven this was a moment Devon didn’t want witnesses. He didn't want anyone to know about this—even Raven.