˚₊‧꒰ঌ liv ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

There were always screams that came from that room.

It was only every so often. Maybe once or twice every few months she would scream, curse god, and wreck the room to the best of her ability. Maybe it was all a ruse for some sedatives or maybe she really had just lost herself a moment in the madness of these walls.

The actions weren’t unheard of within the facility. In fact, it was a normal day to day occurrence. Patients had their inevitable meltdowns and the mess would be fixed, legalized sedation a godsent for nurses.

In the past, her screams were always simply frustration. Anger at the world, at her situation. She was one of the many patients left alone to rot in her room, no family or friends to visit, remind her she was human, and it got to her head at times. The screams used to only be a cry for attention.

The screaming was different now.

It was wretched, painful. She screamed until her throat was scratched red, coated in a raw layer of blood. The girl threatened to rip a vocal cord with the volume of her distain. The screaming would last hours every day. She never found peace; her shrieks would only subside with sobs or drained silence.

The anguished, blood-curling cries were intermittent for weeks.

She must’ve lost something more than her mind.

And she stayed in that room for those weeks, grief taking over her damned body. She never left.

Surprisingly she was not alone. Her roommate, the sweet girl with black hair, continued to live with her. She declined the nurses offer to remove her roommate, told them it would subside soon enough. It may’ve been out of pity. No one could understand why she wanted her to stay.

So for those weeks, the calm one simply laid in bed, acting oblivious to her destructive roommate slamming at the walls around her.

Others observed as she took care of her in ways the nurses refused, brought her food, let her lose her mind without intervention.

The girl was always a kind thing, small and a sweetheart; nurses often questioned why she was there in the first place. It remained a mystery how she tolerated her roommate: a vindictive girl with blind rage towards the world.

(extremely unfinished skeleton work from 2022!!!!)

“Em always comes back, can’t give up on her now, can we?” Dion jabs as positively as he can, determined to make his little sister feel more comfortable.

Eleanor lets out a sigh, seemingly accepting the current situation to Dion’s relief. She drops her bag, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Where’s Damien?”

“Haven’t seen him since I got back… off somewhere.” He waves his hand, once again acting as nonchalantly as possible.

(he sees the look in eleanor’s eye)

“Eleanor— don’t get involved in this.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you around this.”

(what he doesn’t say is “i’ve kept you from it long enough and i intend to continue protecting you from seeing the people you can’t help but love like this. your heart is too big for your body and i’m afraid if you knew how bad it really was it would break something in you. i can’t lose you too.”)

“Damien is family.”

“He is. No one’s saying he isn’t. It’s just— Dam’s in a bad place right now.

(he’s pleading with her more than he’ll admit)

“And that’s why we’ll be there for him.”

“No. Not we. I— I will take care of him. You? You get to keep on your life mostly normal.”

“Mostly?”

“Stay away from him.”

“You’re kidding. He lives here!”

“Yea, barely at this point. He’s like an outdoor cat.”

(he is trying to act like damien’s disappearances do not bother him which is a fact eleanor will inevitably pry at)

“We haven’t lived with her since I was fifteen, so around four years.” Dion declares, voice steady. He is staring directly at the judge, brown eyes boring into a very being. He is half-forgetting to blink.

He is focused intently to distract from the foreign feeling his mother’s eyes watching him from across the courtroom. She has never looked at him sober.

The judge taps her papers into a ray on the desk, placing them neatly before her as she asks her next question: “And who have you been living with?”

She looks up at Dion, who is suddenly intimidated by the eye contact. He shifts his eyes to the desk, prepared to lie.

“My father‘s friend, Alexandra, who is released earlier than my dad and stepped up for us.”

His jacket is warm. The dull gray fabric, over a decade old by now, clings to the remnants of his warmth.

Morgan ghosts her fingertips tentatively over the worn cloth of the sleeve. She wants to touch the jacket, grab it and wrap herself in its warmth, but her body won’t allow her.

She tells herself she doesn’t know why, that she would do this without hesitation any other day, but she knows deep down.

He will pretend for as long as his mind allows that he is okay; wearing the persona of a relaxed, able man until the curtain closes on his act. When he is expected to bow, the curtains reopened, pray he is still around. Damien was particularly flighty at seventeen.

Morgan mourns his sanity, he deserved more than anyone to have that picket fence life he always dreamed of.

“Xandra’s going to take care of you.”

“Dad,” his voice is more pleading than he cares to admit, but even if he wanted to stop the tremor, it’d be impossible.

“She’s gonna help you where she can—“

“No— dad.”

He wants him to stop talking. To stop pretending that this is fine. He should’ve gotten out. He shouldn’t be here. 

His dad had not yet told him about the parole hearing, Dion wants to hold onto hope that there could still be some slim chance of his dad‘s freedom, but he knows better.