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» "Well, I'm off for the weekend then." «
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You woke up slowly to a weight atop you. Clearing your eyes of blurriness you groggily pat the husky which was half-sprawled across you. To your right was Luca, still asleep, hogging a majority of the blankets. The dog made a huff sound, like a deep breath, probably upset you moved. Grumpily the canine repositioned his head to be on your chest rather than your stomach.
Still in a daze you lazily ran your fingers over his fur and between his ears. The dog in response closed his eyes again, satisfied. Letting out a quiet groan and stretching your arms, you reached over to the side of the bed where your charging phone lay. Unplugging it, you squinted at the light and scrolled through it for a bit. On Instagram, an account had requested to follow you, it was familiar. It was that same account from weeks ago, 'Notebooksbestfriend'. It was still framed with a bunch of pink and black heart emojis and bows. Like before, you denied the request.
Turning your phone off you placed it down and went back to rubbing the dog's head. Lizzie and Toby had left soon after the whole talk yesterday. Part of you spaced out during the rest of it, you had started to grow drained after digging up trauma you wanted to ignore. It was hard to recall what happened exactly before they left, you were confident this was more of your brain trying not to get stressed rather than the random lapses in your memory.
Toby had left before Lizzie. He didn't say much. You think he was caught up in the fact you admitted to knowing who he was. He had hesitated in wanting to say something after he stood up, playing with his gloved fingers anxiously. You had stood up to be more face-to-face with him. His hands jolted in your direction, which seemed to embarrass him a bit since red spread on the bridge of his nose. You don't remember any words being said, you just met his eye and waited.
He wanted to say something, you know it, but he didn't. Instead, he struggled to keep your gaze, his own eyes darting back and forth across your face and away to the floor. What felt like a painfully long time to him, and a short fleeting moment to you, he nodded at you and left through the window(which seemed to become a habit for every masked person you met). For some reason the action made your chest feel heavy. It hurt.
You knew at one point Lizzie held you for a long while. She was warm and radiated comfort, she acted as an anchor keeping you grounded. For the brief moment, your fatigue and stress had left you as she ran her hands through your tangled hair. Apparently you had started to weep silent tears since she had to keep wiping them away. You remember apologizing more to which your friend shook her head against yours as she squeezed you. When the hug did end, you felt empty.
She was hesitant to leave but you assured her you'd be fine—even if you weren't completely convinced of that yourself. The things you refused to tell them, the things you hid still burned in the back of your throat. Lizzie didn't like that word, "fine". So instead you reworded it and told her you'd rest and tell her if anything happened. That seemed to be good enough. She had lingered for a moment longer, told you to tell Luca she said bye, gave you another tight hug—which seemed tighter and more reassuring than before, and left.
Luca hadn't come out from his room for a while after that. You didn't force him out or bother him knowing he'd want to be alone. A few hours later he had emerged with Smile practically attached to his hip. The three of you ate dinner silently. You hugged him afterwards, his arms were loosely wrapped around your midsection. It was rather different compared to his eager death-grip bear hugs. Once you headed for bed he had followed with his own blanket and claimed your bed as his own for the night. He hadn't done that in a while, a brief memory of when you still lived at your fathers was brought to mind.
You were possibly around fourteen while Luca was eight. He had a nightmare so he came in and stood in the doorway until you noticed and invited him in. It became a common thing whenever he woke up in the middle of the night for whatever reason. So seeing Luca mimic this action again both filled you with nostalgia but also had your chest seize with sadness.
That's how you ended up in this current situation. Smile had gotten the idea to follow Luca's lead and acted as a weighted blanket all night. Luca had school today, but you figured he wouldn't be up for it at the moment. Sneakily worming your way out of bed, trying not to disturb Smile any more than you had along with your younger sibling, you took your phone and crept over to the kitchen.
The phone call was short and you excused Luca's absence with the reasoning he was ill. Begrudgingly afterwards you texted his mother just saying how he would be with you for the day. It was left on read for a few minutes before she just sent a thumbs up. You scowled at your phone before brushing it aside and getting started on breakfast.
Not feeling up to making something grand you put in some toaster stroodles and made a few pieces of bacon and eggs. While waiting for everything to finish you took your meds and fished out Luca's from his school bag and put them beside his plate.
Once everything was finished you collected the two plates (along with a napkin holding more bacon for Smile) and brought them over to the coffee table by the TV. Not really knowing what Luca would want for drinks you made a cup of coffee for yourself, it was disgusting which was fine with you, and poured him a glass of orange juice.
Sighing, you sat on the couch for a while, occasionally sipping your crappy cup of coffee. Letting your eyes lazily drift across the room, the sunlight filtering through the windows was enough to make the dorm bright, your gaze stopped on your bag which had been discarded.
Using your foot, not wanting to get up, you struggled to pull the bag over towards your side of the couch. Shifting to reach down to it, you yanked it up to sit in your lap. Placing your cup down you sat back up and flipped the bag open. Lightly flicking the yellowed papers that were hazardously shoved in there, a frown tugged at your lips. Moving the papers to the side of your bag something else caught your attention. One being a few pill bottles that resembled the medication Hoodie had given you. And two, and little black box. You didn't remember being handed the small black box, nor it ever being in your bag. Picking it up, you flipped the plastic between your fingers.
It was a tape. Scrunching up your brows, you peeled off a small yellow post-it that was plastered on the back. A name was sprawled on it, each letter being written in what looked like different handwritings. Beside the name was a crudely drawn face, merely a circle with awkward eyes and a box-like grimace.
"Skully," you read quietly. Well now you had a name.
Holding the tape for a second longer you finally shoved it back into your bag with everything else and zipped it closed. Setting your bag beside the couch you swallowed the uneasiness that begun to form; you'd handle that later.
Laying back and fishing your phone from your pocket you stared at the home screen for a while, just taking a moment to wait until the discomfort in your gut to settle. Tapping onto the message icon, your finger hovered over a specific contact. Glancing at your bandaged hand your frown deepened and you quickly exited the app; it had only been a day, give him space—give yourself space.
You ended up staring at the discord icon for about a minute as well before rubbing your eyes and groaning before letting your phone fall onto the carpeted floor. Taking your plate you poked at your food with a fork for a while, before forcing yourself to stomach some of it.
The sound of a door creaking caught your attention. Smile slowly padded out from the hallway and stretched before going over to approach you, his tail slowly wagging.
You reached out your hand to scratch behind his ear, "Hey bub." The dog made a very quiet "woof" sound before jumping up to snuggle into your side.
Chuckling a little, you reached over him to grab the napkin on the table and unfold the bacon from it. Smile seemed to appreciate the fact you left some for him by the way the husky gently took it from your hand.
As the canine ate you leaned your head back and ran your hand over his fur, not really thinking about anything. You kind of spaced out for a while, could've been a few minutes or maybe even an hour.
Eventually you snapped out of it when the door creaked again. Both you and smile sat up a little to watch Luca shuffled out slowly into the living room. He didn't even lift his feet and instead stumbled his way over to you, long blanket hanging from his small frail frame.
"Morning Lu."
He just nodded and struggled to open his eyes. Sitting on the couch he shifted a bit and sleepily glanced at his breakfast. Turning to face you, he moved to flop right on top of you. An "oof" escaped your wheezing lungs while Luca laid his head on your stomach and fanned the blanket out over the three of you.
Waiting for the air to come back to you, you carefully used your other hand to smooth out Luca's curls. Your brother hummed with a scratchy voice.
There was a beat of silence before you spoke up.
"I've called you out of school for a mental health day."
Again with a turtle pace, Luca stuck out his hand from the blanket before making an "o" and then pressing his fingers together to make the sign for "k".
"Feelin' nonverbal?" You questioned gently.
This time Luca balled up his hand into a fist before making a knocking gesture for "yes".
"Alright bud." Leaning back, listening to the quiet chirps of birds outside you focused on the two comforting presences beside you. It was calm.
"Just make sure to eat and we'll watch a movie or somethin', alright?"
This time he just gave a thumbs up before going back to resting with his own eyes closed.
"...Maybe Pissin' Boots or somethin'."
Luca snorted.
"Puss in Boots, my bad."
Your brother signed the word 'idiot' before poking you. You just laughed and ruffled his hair softly.
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It had been a while since then.
It was no longer early November, in fact it was mid December at this point. Life had been pretty uneventful, especially compared to the events that had tormented you for the first few months.
You had gone back to class and kept your grades up. You soon went back to your normal shifts, joining Lizzie and your other still annoying coworker. You began to play more on your guitar. You met with Theo for lunch a few times and took Luca to enjoy dinner with Theo's family for Thanksgiving.
Luca had a gaming-club tournament, and won a switch since apparently the gaming-club was well funded enough for it. He had kept up with his grades and was on the track to gaining a spot on the high honor roll. You took him to the aquarium, Thanksgiving weekend. Theo and Lizzie took the two of you to see a light show in early December.
You stepped down from the show in the local theatre after coming to the realization it would only add more stress to your schedule. Along with that, you started talking more to Theo's parents, your surrogate fathers in a way. They constantly were reassuring you that their doors were always open for you and Luca if need be. Along with the dog that constantly followed Luca around. (You had worried about it at first seeing as you knew Smile had an owner. Or at least owners. However no one ever came looking for a lost dog and Smile was determined to stay by both Luca and you.)
After a while you did try and reach out to Tracy. She wasn't upset or angry over the fact it took so long for you to reach out. She was very understanding of your "situation" (you had told her you were struggling a bit at the time with your mental health), and was more than happy to stay in contact and become friends. You were thankful for that. Currently though she was away visiting family in Kentucky—she had already sent you several pictures of her family's farm animals. She wanted to meet your little found family that you mentioned positively a few times, said family consisting of Theo, Lizzie, and of course Luca. The two of you made a plan to meet up when she got back.
Your health seemed to be getting better—or well more manageable. You occasionally still got nightmares or the weird dream of a familiar figure, a few panic attacks here and there, and still suffered from nausea and coughs. However it wasn't to the point you forgot where you were and threw up blood. Your mental health was getting better as well. You had gone back to see a therapist, mostly over the phone calls, and even were able to schedule a few appointments for Luca.
Your life was returning back to how it was and possibly even getting better. It was nice and you were happy that your life was getting back on track.
However, despite it all, there was still that pang of sadness and overall feeling of missing something.
You hadn't seen or heard from any of your masked "menaces" of friends. You hadn't run into Toby anywhere nor heard from him. Luca hadn't either and despite knowing what and who he was, your brother would be visibly upset about the lack of Toby's presence. Once he even cried and told you he wished the twitchy brunette didn't "abandon" the two of you. It made you uncomfortable, knowing well that this was for the best—considering who he was, yet it hurt.
Jack had stopped dropping by and had even stopped reading the messages you sent, part of you wondered if he had blocked you. It had definitely hurt, to first see your concerned messages left on read. Only for later your pleas to just talk had never even been opened. It was weird during the first few weeks without the demon who had become a normal part of your routine. You'd find yourself hesitating in the kitchen as if you were about to get another plate, and occasionally your voice would be caught in your throat as you came back home from class going to call out a greeting.
Eventually you had stopped hoping to find your window cracked open and stopped getting your hopes up when the door ringed open at work. Luca had eventually stopped asking about "the hero" and "the sticker man". Part of you was a bit concerned that Luca had actually begun to grow a grudge against the two.
Your already silent beloved internet friend never even crossed your mind anymore. Funnily enough, you never ran into a certain cocky bastard with a tooth-gap or his quiet friend anymore either.
You would like to say that it hadn't bothered you. That you eventually got over it, the feeling of hurt despite knowing it was for the best. Yet still you'd find yourself clutching the forgotten black hoodie as your heart squeezed with aching betrayal and abandonment. You hated every minute of those episodes of depression and loss. You hated every wasted tear during those moments. Yet still you couldn't bring yourself to hate the people who had once claimed to care about you.
You knew you shouldn't have gotten attached.
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» "Being happy's only for the wealthy!" «
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