Richard pushed the door open with a careful, assertive push, and emerged from the threshold somberly; much in the way one might enter a morgue that held a recently dead, close-ish relative. Sharon trailed behind him. She had been crying. Raccoon women don't wear eye makeup, they don't need it, but you could still tell she had been crying despite the absence of smeared eyeliner.

Rigby's body froze up, and he cringed. In many ways, his parent's arrival was worse than Don's. Don was someone he felt incredible detachment from, and frankly, he didn't care what Don thought of him. But when it came to his parents… he hadn't been such a great son, and the thought of his parents being disappointed had never stopped him from doing anything stupid, but when the time came, he still felt terrible regardless. And yet, he had continued to get himself into trouble all the time, partly because he simply (and consciously) wasn't willing to put in the effort to be a model son, and partly because he was angry, and angry at everything that you're supposed to do in order to become a model son. But still he always felt bad.

It was more of a sympathetic reaction than a guilty one. On one hand, Rigby was adamant that life was not a forced labor camp, and he had not asked to be birthed – so why should he be expected to spend his life studying and working until he dies? He didn't want that. He hadn't asked for that.

At the same time, Rigby realized that by having a child, his parents had asked for that. They had had a child for explicit reason of wanting him or her to succeed in life to conventional standards. That was their expectation. And Rigby felt bad for them that he was unable and unwilling to provide them that. Don had, fortunately, fulfilled the role perfectly.

And still, they loved him. They could have distanced themselves from him. Kicked him out when he was eighteen, and all the rest of it, but they hadn't. They had treated him equally to Don; save for the multiple times one of them had sighed heavily, and asked 'Why can't you just behave more like your brother.'

Now here they were, up from Phoenix to see their miserable failure of a son in the loony bin like it was no issue.

They entered the room, and gave grim, forced smiles – the kind you give to somehow make reassuring light of a bad situation.

"Hi Rigby" Sharon was the first one to speak. Her words came like a choked whisper.

"Hey champ" Richard said, a little stronger. Rigby remained silent. What was the use in speaking? Judging by his parent's reaction to seeing him, Rigby felt sure that they thought he was some kind of total hopeless nutcase, who had somehow become incapable of speaking. In the end, he just settled for looking away sadly. No one spoke.

In the oppressive silence that followed, Mordecai carefully and calculatedly glided his arm towards a breast pocket in the overshirt he was wearing, and retrieved a pack of cigarettes. He stuck one in his beak, brought his lighter up to it, and clicked it on, rudely breaking the silence that hung in the room. He winced as he felt everyone in the room startle slightly, and turn towards him, as the breaker of the silence. He had wanted to leave the room, but decided that that would have been equally as intrusive considering the weight of the atmosphere. In the end, he had decided to just light up in the room. He simply couldn't wait.

Sharon gave him an 'I-want-to-give-you-a-health-lecture-so-bad' look, but then focused her attention away. Rigby seemed bright-eyed at the prospect of getting a cigarette.

"Hey dude! Give me one of those" Rigby said.

"Sure dude. And look what I brought you!" Mordecai said, pulling out Rigby's Benson & Hedges menthol 100s he had purchased just a few days earlier.

"Dude! You're the best!" Rigby said excitedly, scurrying over to relieve his crippling nicotine withdrawal.

"Oh my God" Sharon said, rolling her eyes, and then "I thought you couldn't speak. Did you not want to say 'hi'?" She asked jokingly. Rigby had his cigarette lit by Mordecai, and then returned to his little white chair. He took a long drag on his cigarette, and look of pure ecstasy washed across his face. He blew out a thick cloud of rich, white smoke.

"I was embarrassed." Rigby admitted. "You guys didn't have to come, I'm fine."

"Sweetheart, of course we had to come. What kind of people would we be if we didn't come to see our son in hospital?" Sharon said.

"So you came for the sake of keeping up appearances?" Rigby said with a sly grin.

"Cut the cheek. We came because we love you." Sharon said, "And because we want to help."

"Help with what? I'm fine" Rigby said helplessly, as the mantra 'I'm fine' hadn't done him any favors thus far.

"You're unwell, buckaroo, and it's okay to admit it" Richard spoke for the second time since he came into the room. The room fell into a hushed silence again, as all were too well aware of the stigma behind mental illness.

Thursday

Mordecai sauntered into Rigby's hospital room. The time was five forty in the afternoon. Rigby had gotten out of Metrazol therapy an hour and a half previously. Rigby was sitting on his bed, legs sprawled out in front of him, and staring at the wall. Mordecai pulled up a chair and situated it next to Rigby's bed. Rigby did not respond to Mordecai entering the room, but continued staring at some invisible television that Mordecai supposed he couldn't see.

Mordecai raised his wing, extended his wingtips in front of Rigby's face and snapped his wingtips three times. Rigby took in a sharp uptake of breath, and jolted his head towards Mordecai.

"Oh, man, it's you. Don't freak me out like that" Rigby said. Mordecai laughed.

"How are you feeling, dude?" Mordecai asked

"I had Metrazol like, a while ago. I feel like outer-space." Rigby said slowly. In his vision, there was a near-indescribable flashing white light, constantly going off. It annoyed Rigby greatly, but it was an after effect of the medically induced seizure he had just been put through. His brain also had become emptier, and all the sum of his knowledge had been separated and spread out across and great black velvet expanse, and in order to think of anything, Rigby had to leap through the space, flailing his limbs, in order to cover the expanse between thoughts. The result was he sounded and looked dumb - dumber than usual, more appropriately.

"You're late." Rigby said after spending two minutes thinking of the correct words to express that thought.

"I'm only half late." Mordecai said, "I woke up at three, but I simply couldn't stand to be seen in public before four. Can you imagine?" he said.

"It's after four" Rigby said, forty five seconds later.

"I only left at four. I stopped at Fatiem and Aprilise for brunch." Mordecai said, crossing his legs."

"Why'd you go there?" Rigby said a minute and a half later.

"I don't want to go back to the coffee shop. I couldn't stand to see Margaret's pathetic emotions so early in the morning. I decided to make F&A's our new coffee place. They have Formosa oolong tea." Mordecai said, crossing his legs. "Aren't you going to say anything about my new outfit?" Mordecai said crossly.

Twenty seconds later, Rigby responded, and looked to his right to see Mordecai properly. He was wearing a thick dark gray long cardigan, over a thin white v- necked t-shirt. His pants were black skinny jeans, and on his feet were what appeared to be specially made cognac-colored boots.

"Where did you get that" Rigby said in a manner that didn't make it sound like a question.

"Thank you" Mordecai said, emphasizing the 'thank-you' to make it clear that Rigby should have asked much sooner. "And I'm not telling you" he said.

Nineteen hours previously

Mordecai walked briskly though Sinowqueath, City's upscale shopping district. He had deposited his first pay cheque, and the bonus advance he had been given, and now, he had sixteen thousand dollars burning a hole in his pocket.

The effect of not taking his medication had begun to become apparent, and he had been drinking cognac.

He walked into a Smythson of Bond Street outlet store, and purchased a slim breastpocket wallet for three hundred dollars, then stumbled down the street talking to himself. He threw the new wallet in the trash, and then went into an Aspinal of London store, and bought a more expensive alligator skin one for seven hundred and fifty dollars. Then he bought the cardigan from a Ralph Lauren store for four hundred dollars, and then the white v-neck from John Varvatos for eighty dollars. The jeans were from Calvin Klein, and he had had the boots made speedily by a cordwainer, whom Mordecai paid eight hundred dollars for the special boots, and had bribed him and extra five hundred for the shoemaker to prioritize his order so he could pick them up the next afternoon, as he had done on his way to visit Rigby.

After the cordwainer, Mordecai bought a bottle of cognac, and slugged at it as he walked down the street. He went into an art gallery on the Northeast side, and shouted at old ladies viewing the exhibition of Dutch Hyperrealism art, calling them 'Posers.'

"I bet you jack off to Leonardo Di Vinci. Talentless fucking hack" Mordecai had continuously screamed until he was asked to leave and not return by a security guard, whom Mordecai cussed out.

He then entered a small bookshop and yelled at the cashier for five minutes for having the audacity to stock Charles Dickens, whom Mordecai also called a "talentless hack."

Then he threw his contact lenses in the trash, and brought his prescription to Oliver Peoples, and he was to expect to pick up a new pair of four hundred dollar glasses next week.

After that, Mordecai cussed out some white trash he saw walking down the street with her over-sized kid. Her husband came round quickly, and made a move to sock Mordecai in the face, but Mordecai picked up a dustpan lid, and repeatedly beat the man over the head with it until he was bleeding a little.

He then ran up and down the theatre district yelling "I'M A PRETTY PURPLE BAT, I'M A PRETTY PURPLE BAT" over and over again, while stuffing granola from Whole Foods into his beak, then spitting it out.

After returning home, Mordecai angrily shut himself in his room, and stayed up until nine in the morning chain smoking four packs of cigarettes, and aggressively painting an abstract picture which depicted a demon raping multiple elderly people.