𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒! ,, lashton

i . to be so lonely

𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒!
( 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑛𝑒 )
𝗍𝗈 𝖻𝖾 𝗌𝗈 𝗅𝗈𝗇𝖾𝗅𝗒

THE DAY ITSELF was a blur. It was simultaneously blocking out and remembering things in vivid details. The rainy weather outside, the seatbelt warning chime in the car, the soft reassurances of a worried mother. Cold hospital rooms, endless eternities of waiting, droning voices asking him of his emotions, and, finally, being strip-searched in a bare, colorless waiting area. It'd only been roughly ten hours since Luke had left home, but it felt like a lifetime.

It had been late when he'd arrived at the chilly facility. Dark outside, with no sign of life in the teenaged ward. Everyone had long been sent to their rooms for the night, with only dim lights and an abandoned atmosphere to greet Luke, and he was grateful for it. After the day he'd had, he wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and fade away into his own mind for a few hours.

"This will be your room," a pale-skinned nurse in purple scrubs with frizzy red hair and long, pointy, and green nails told Luke as they stopped outside of a door marked 104. She then pointed him toward a plastic chair just next to the room, which he complied with, sitting stiffly, and watched her as she continued absentmindedly, "We'll have to get you a hygiene bucket..." She locked eyes with a tech sitting behind the nurses' station, "Can you make him a bucket, Mark?"

Mark, a tanned and sharp-faced young man with shaved pink hair and acne-scarred cheeks, nodded and smiled comfortingly at Luke, "No worries, kid, we'll get you fixed up."

Luke did his best to return the smile, but couldn't quite seem to get there. He was too mentally and physically tired to fake happiness. He was, after all, in an 'in-patient facility.' AKA, a mental hospital. He was sure it wasn't taken personally if he wasn't at his most polite, even if his mother would still rain hell down on him for it.

"Alright, hon," the nurse hummed more to herself than Luke as Mark walked off and she went back to where he had been behind the desk. She bent down, the top of her lacy red underwear poking out from her violet scrubs, and rummaged around until her fingers finally locked onto what they were searching for and she turned back to Luke, holding up a little cup, "I'm gonna need a urine sample from you."

Luke couldn't help the sigh that tore from his mouth. As if the day hadn't already been invasive enough...

"Yes, ma'am," he muttered, standing from his seat and taking the cup from her as she walked over. She seemed nice enough, but Luke was completely done with the faux kind looks - people babying him and treating him like a child throwing a fit. It was patronizing and dehumanizing. Luke just wanted to go the hell home.