unedited

chapter 8

Percy decided that perhaps a night out with his friends would do him good—it was his fifteenth birthday tomorrow, after all. He wouldn't be able to see any of them tomorrow—besides Oliver—because how was he supposed to explain to his family that these were his muggle friends he met while sneaking out to drink and smoke?

He climbed out his window as he always did, smiling to himself slightly before the frown slipped. How would he admit his genuine problem? Their friendship was based off of shaky home remedies of adolescence for hypothetical problems and disorders that were often confused. Neil often spoke of his fear he had a form of OCD because of the uncontrollable impulse to pull out individual strands of hair, but he wasn't officially diagnosed, and Percy couldn't help but worry if he sauntered in waving around the names of disorders, it would discredit the real potential of his friends having a problem. Neil and his OCD and potential depression. Alex and his insomnia and anxiety. Oliver and his depression. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell any of them besides Oliver, but hypothetical issues had always been taken seriously, even if done in a semi-destructive manor. He could at least hope Neil and Alex would take it seriously.

His hope was placed on the wrong subject.

He was right to assume at least one of his friends would be there when he was. Alex was waiting on the curb, his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them tightly. Percy's heart fell. Alex was like the leader of their group. He was calm in the face of disorder and emotional and physical abuse. He was the one who supplied almost all the drugs, all the booze and all the conversation. His current state was more like a combination of how Neil and Percy himself would act—with a mix of a heavy, somber expression (Neil) and quiet brooding until words were forced out (him).

"Alex?"

His friend looked up, forcing a small smile, his blonde hair quivering in the feeble summer breeze. He stood up shakily and when he began speaking his voice was rough and thick as though he'd been crying.

"Hey, Perce. Happy birthday."

"Thanks… Is everything okay? Where are Neil and Oliver?" Alex sighs, wiping his palms on his shorts.

"Neil is in the hospital, Percy. He overdosed. I think it was an accident, but I don't know. I really don't know." He choked off then, thick, hot tears streaming down his face. Alex dropped to the curb, rubbing the balls of his hands into his eyes and twisting them around to the point where it hurt Percy just to watch.

The ginger blinked at his friend, taking in what he had been subjected to. He dropped down beside him, biting his lip forcefully and shaking with suppressed emotion.

Percy didn't pay much attention as he followed Alex to a bus stop, or as he boarded the bus and stood there while the blonde payed both their fees. He was too busy thinking about how Neil—Neil who had probably been the nicest out of all of them and the one who was more concerned about them than himself—had managed to overdose. Was it on purpose? And if it was, why had he not known?

He drummed his fingerings mindlessly on the seat in front of him, eyes sightlessly blinking at the lights humming in the street, forming artificial amber streaks and faint white dots across the world as the bus quickly carried him away. Far, far away, but nowhere better.

Alex tugged his sleeve as the bus stopped in front of a looming building, bright lights glowing behind a red and white sign, lighting it up and bathing everything in its horribly fake glow. He could only numbly blink at the way the doors slid open on their own, the thought of how his dad would be fascinated just a faint whisper streaming through his head. He ran a hand through his hair as Alex led him to a room on a floor towering high above the ground, where Oliver was waiting in a chair by Neil's bedside.

Percy ran one of his thumbs over the back of a freckled hand rested in his lap. Oliver eventually leaned into him, dark hair tickling his neck and breath emitting slow, warm zephyrs into his skin. It played through his mind like a story. It was as though he thought vivid descriptions of the way the light washed out pale skin and made freckles stand out sharp, and of the way the monotonous beeping of hospital machines he didn't know the function of would make it less real for once, because he could be whisked away by the story, and he could pretend it wasn't his own. It was as though he could edit and polish errors away, although deep down he knew if he were to do that all four of them would disappear, because they ruined their own lives didn't they? Some in a more harsh degree than others.

Neil's mother returned from her conversation with the doctor briefly after they settled in, shaking hands with Percy and Oliver and making a comment about how she had no idea Neil had so many friends. It was then he snapped out of his fantasy world, and the flow of mental ink stopped and the process of polishing and perfecting ended.

He didn't quite realize it was him speaking, but suddenly he was aware of someone yelling how of course she didn't know that because when was she ever there for him? When were any of them there? They were all so wrapped up in their own stupid, self-centered lives that none of them were there. Neil was the only one who paid attention, and now he couldn't.

Oliver pulled him out of the room as the yelling broke into sobbing, and held him against his chest tightly, letting his own tears drip into Percy's hair, though it always seeped into the thick red strands before he felt them on his skin. They stayed like that until suddenly the beeping went rampant and doctors and nurses came running and the beeping suddenly dipped to slow throb before stopping altogether. And then the tears began as Neil's mother cried and apologized to her son as doctors began spouting candy-coated apologies and condolences before promptly dispersing without a second thought.

Hospitals, Percy decided, were a disgusting, contaminated place.

Alex and Oliver walked downstairs with him, aimlessly window shopping in the gift shop as they tried to wrap their heads around the loss of Neil—he truly had been the best of all of them. Percy was drawn to the hand sanitizer—anything to help himself be rid of this horrible germ and disease. Oliver produced some Muggle cash and bought it for him, holding elbow as he led Percy to the counter to buy the small disinfectant.

They sat in the lobby for what felt like hours, Percy only vaguely aware of the matching concern their faces held as he practically bathed in the travel sized container of hand sanitizer. He rubbed it all the way up past his elbows, because Oliver had touched his elbow, and Oliver hadn't cleaned himself off from the room at all. He relished in the way it stung the hairline cuts decorating the skin around his nails and knuckles, a result of chronic hand washing and constant decontamination. Percy always participated in his friends activities, and occasionally in his own indulgent "painting" but they always left him feeling dirty and frightened—more so than he'd ever let on, and he often times found himself washing his hands every time he could do so without peaking interests.

"I think we need to stop." It was Alex that spoke.

"Stop what?" Oliver was rubbing the bridge of his nose with his eyes twisted shut as he spoke.

"Whatever this thing we're doing is. It just killed our friend, and is driving all of us insane. No more drugs, alcohol, self-harm. It all ends here. It has to. Neil never wanted his life or our lives to turn out this way. He would've encouraged us to stop." Alex's voice was somber and devoid of all the passion Percy admired him for.

Oliver nodded. "Yea. I agree."

"Will we still see each other?" Percy gulped as he took a break from his obsessive cleaning to ask the question on his mind. He had already lost one friend today, he didn't want to lose his others too.

Alex gave a tight, strained smile as he stood up and headed towards the door. "Of course, man. Don't be an idiot." He ruffled Percy's hair like an older brother and then slipped out the door. Percy watched him as he shuffled through the ambient light until he disappeared. Just like Neil.

"C'mon Perce, let's go." Oliver clapped his shoulder and wiped his nose, sniffling a little. The stars were so smothered here. Percy was unsure whether that was due to general city bustle, or if the hospital truly sucked the life and passion out of everyone. At the Burrow, he'd be able to watch the stars from his window. He wanted to go home, so so bad.

Oliver must've sensed the way he began shaking as they plodded along, and he reached out for Percy's hand with his own, interlocking the pale, thin fingers with his tan, stocky ones.

The rain began drizzling as they waited for the bus, and continued to douse the world with it's gentle touch even as the sun began to slip above the horizon, reflecting into the clouds and turning them brilliant shades of crimson, orange and yellow. The rain reflected the color like little rainbows, and as they fell to the ground. The colors split and drained away. A beautiful, broken color show.

The bus stopped near Oliver's floo point before it neared the Muggle town by the Burrow, and Percy leaned his head against the glass, watching his best friend walk through the still drip, drip, dripping rain, missing the warmth of the hand in his own. As the bus began moving again, his head rattled against the glass, echoing loud in his own ears.

The sun was already in the sky by the time he made it home, and he was met with a lot of shouts. Some relieved, others angry.

"Percival Ignatius Weasley, where have you been?!" his mother yelled.

"Out."

"Doing what exactly?"

"You know, birthday things… With friends…" He ignored her ranting, and his throbbing headache, and Bill's concerned look as he brushed past the breakfast table and upstairs, the words fading to a dull hum in his ears.

He found himself on the floor with a blade to his wrist, and with blood dripping out of a shallow cut, falling onto the floor in small, slow beads. Like the kaleidoscope raindrops but with only one color. And he honestly wasn't sure how he got there.

a/n i hope you enjoyed this chapter

merry christmas

and if you don't celebrate christmas

merry sunday