Running

Comment Section

TW: Cursing, Surgery mention, Mention of broken ribs, Hospital mention, Crude humour

When I come out of my bedroom, everyone is sitting around by the TV, clicked onto a random reality TV show.

"Can I take a look at your ribs now?" Zion asks, turning from the TV to face me.
"Fine. But I'm still pissed at you."

Puppy Patton winces. "Sorry, dad." I joke.

I take my hoodie off and throw it onto the sofa, leaving just the purple tank top from before. The dark-brown haired boy reaches to touch my side, and I flinch away without realising.
"Relax. I'll try my best not to read you."

How comforting.

I suck in a hard breath when he starts to run his fingers along my ribcage. He stops, and looks to me.
"Have you broken your ribs before?"

"Yeah, when was it Mel?"
She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "We were 13."

Janus looks between us as Zion continues inspecting my ribcage.
"I was only there for five years, but at my lab, we weren't allowed to speak to the opposite gender. You've spent a lot of time together, was it different?"

I look at Melanie hesitantly, raising my eyebrows. "Yeah, Virgil was the only other kid I was allowed to see at all."

"Uh, Virge?" Zion says, getting my attention.
"Yeah?"
"You probably don't wanna hear this, but I think you're gonna need surgery."

"What? Why?" Roman asks, looking up from his phone.

"When he broke his ribs a few years ago, they weren't healed properly, due to no fault of your own, of course. And, so, now that they've been broken again, if you don't get surgery to put them back in place that's gonna start causing you really bad pain by this time tommorrow."

"So, let me get this straight-" Remus says.
"Gay." I correct. He laughs.
"Okay, let me get this gay, so, now, both Virgil and Janus need serious proffessional medical help?"

"Yep." Zion says, bluntly. "You need to go to a hospital, both of you."

I look to J and see that he's shaking, then he starts to rake his hands through his hair, lazily knocking his beanie off.
"I c-can't go to a hos-hospital." He stutters. "I can't g- I can't-" And just like that, he's passed out.

"Case and Point." Zion says.

"Well, what are we meant to do about that? We physically can't go to a hospital." I point out. 

"We'll see, I guess."

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"Ugh! That isn't fair!" Roman complains.
"What are you winging about now?" His brother asks.

"That video of you five fighting those cops has fifty million views! I would've gone if I knew it'd go viral!"

I choke up. "F-fifty million people saw me-"
Janus woke up about twenty minutes ago. "That's insane!" He looks over Roman's shoulder at the phone screen.

Now, Lo and Zion walk in the room, the latter laughing about something, and Logan looking unamused.
"Have you two seen this?" Nixa asks, her tail curling behind her.

"Yeah!" Zion laughs. "The top comment is calling Logan sexy!"

Roman opens the comment section on the video, and, truth be told, the top comment reads: 'okay, i get that they're illegal and whatnot, but you can't deny that the one with the glasses and tie is sexy as, i'd simp for him' 

We all burst out laughing, and Logan walks over to the sink, pouring a glass of water.   

Roman scrolls through the comments, then stops at one, and reads it aloud. "Can we talk about how the one in the orange jacket has cuffed jeans? I wonder if he listens to sweater weather."
Zion snatches the phone and gasps dramatically, looking down at the rolled-up ends of his mom jeans.

"Twenty-two thousand people wanna know, bud." Melanie laughs, looking at the likes on the comment.
"Hmph. Are they implying something?" He asks, letting himself flop backwards onto the sofa. "My ex-boyfriend can answer that question."

We all start laughing, and then Roman finds another comment. "No, no, wait! Here's one: 'Since snakes have hemipenes, does the snake kid have.. yknow..' And then the smirking emoji!" Roman laughs out.

Janus slaps his hand over his mouth and laughs into it. "No!" He yells, muffled by all of our laughter.

"Alright, let' stop before you find one about me." Remus chuckles.
"Too late!" Roman inturrupts.

"Why does the green one look better in woman's combat boots than I do?" Roman reads off the screen. "17 thousand likes!"
Remus spins around and does a high-kick, showing off the shoes. "They aren't wrong."

Patton the dog was curled up on Roman's lap, tail wagging, and then suddenly, he turns back into his real self with a puff of light blue smoke. He rolls off the sofa onto the floor.
"Oh, hi guys!" He giggles.

We scroll through more comments, laughing so much that my stomach starts to hurt.

All nine of us fall asleep on various sofas, not even bothering to go to our bedrooms.

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I really enjoyed writing the second section of that chapter, a lot. Too bad I have a limit on how long I can go without writing angst, or I'll explode. Sorry.

Stay Safe!