No Alarms and No Surprises

[Simon Patrick Gallagher]

Simon managed to walk naturally, like he had no other purpose than to take a little breather before class. He smiled when people passed. It hurt to smile, but they didn't question it. Maybe he was being convincing. He was going to do it now. Finally, finally. He couldn't stand to go any lower. He knew it had to be now, while he still had his courage.

The parking lot was almost empty, but he found it there--- a gift from god. A glass coke bottle, with "MADE IN MEXICO" printed on the side. He'd never liked coke very much, but it was the most beautiful thing he could imagine right then. It still had some coke left in it, plus a cigarette, but if he held it right people wouldn't be able to see that. They'd think he was just a normal human being drinking a bottle of coke, going somewhere that he was supposed to be going.

It had to be fate. It couldn't be anything else. Finally, something. Fate was smiling on him for once, for once things were going his way in a sick twisted sense. The room was empty when he got there. Good. Good. Everything was in check. He packed his clothes so no one else would have to. He closed the door, he made the bed. He wrote his notes.

Dear Carolyn,
See you in hell. Tell my sister that I love her. Tell your devil spawn that I'll see them when I see you.

Dear Ciel,
I'm sorry for the mess. I'll try to keep it as clean as I can. If you want to change rooms that is understandable. You can have all of my stuff if you want it. I don't want my step mom getting her hands on anything, except maybe the bill for my funeral.

Dear beautiful beautiful Ember,
I don't usually do song quotes... but here's one for you. It's by Elliott Smith, from a song called Waltz #2. "I'm never gonna know you now, but I'm gonna love you anyhow." I know that you probably don't even remember me, but you are probably the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. If you do remember and you'd rather forget me, just remember that your scars aren't something to hide. Being marked, wearing your life out there on your skin, that is the ultimate form of self-expression. If you ever forget who you are, just look there and you'll see that you've had some struggles but you've overcome, and you're beautiful.

And, then he smashed the bottle against the bathroom sink, so that the glass came out in shards. He'd had the foresight to put a towel down on his bed first so the blood wouldn't completely destroy the mattress. He gripped the sharpest shard of mexican made coke bottle in his hand, and then did it.

It hurt. God, it hurt. But, he didn't chicken out. He found that as he went deeper he actually felt bolder. And, then he was losing a lot of blood, and the room was spinning. He felt like he was going to vomit, but he didn't stop. Not this time.


Tags: Ciel

[Ciel Richard Thompson]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 380px; border-left: 20px solid #660099; background-image:url(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/Sara_Shadow/PRIVATE/texture-purple.jpg); padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 20px;] please , PLEASE, FORGIVE ME, BUT I WON'T BE HOME AGAIN. MAYBE SOMEDAY YOU'LL LOOK UP, AND BARELY CONSCIOUS, YOU'LL SAY TO NO ONE, "ISN'T SOMETHING MISSING?" YOU WON'T CRY FOR MY ABSENCE, I KNOW. YOU FORGOT ME LONG AGO. AM I SO UNIMPORTANT? AM I SO INSIGNIFICANT? ISN'T SOMETHING MISSING...? ISN'T SOMEONE . . .

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missing me?

Sleep clothes and makeup. Ciel felt not very put together that day, but could not find it in him to care. He'd spent the majority of the day in his counselor's office to talk about why he had skipped his session and blah blah blah. Jeeze, his head hurt. If he was allowed to keep pain medication on him, he would down about five of them to get it to go away. However, he was not allowed any, and the medical staff would not give him more than two every few hours, and that would not help. So, his plan was to grab something from the cafeteria, which he did, and then to go up to the dorm and just sleep for hours, or days. Whichever he could manage would be most welcome. He'd kill for some sleeping medication. However, once again, he was not allowed those. It was probably a good thing, though; because, it was highly likely he would "accidentally" take too much. Ah, well. He'd just do without. With an inaudible sigh, Ciel unlocked the door to the dorm he shared with whats-his-face. Maybe Ci should try to learn the guy's name. They did live together, after all. Ciel really just could not be bothered, though. It made him feel bad, especially since he was the type of person to surround himself with friends. Maybe he should make more of an attempt to be social. "What the...?" was the only thing that Ciel could manage to get out when he stopped just inside the door. It took him a few moments to get his mind to cooperate and realize just what he was seeing because at first, all he could register was that there was a lot of blood. Since when was his roommate suicidal? He thought the guy was just bipolar or something. Ciel was visibly shaken, and more than highly triggered, but he could just stand there until he got his mind to catch up. He forced himself to think as if Simon was actually someone he was close to. How would he react? "Damn," he mumbled to himself, rushing over to the other teen to grab the towel on his bed, using it to immediately apply pressure to the wound created. Ciel's hands were shaking, and he was paler than normal as he tried to not think too much on the situation. He wasted no more time in quickly yanking out his cell phone to call his counselor, John Smith, because the guy would know what to do more than he would, right? Ciel quickly told him what his roommate had done, pretty much hoping that the guy would be okay. The guilt if he was not would probably only add to the guilt Ciel already had. Of course, it would not really be his fault, but given the fact that he was there and could attempt to stop it from happening, he'd feel slightly responsible at least.

[/left]

494 WORDS, SIMON, outfit, ohai
MISSING by EVANESCENCE
made by ANYA of caution 2.0

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[John Smith]

John's heart sank. It was always a shock when a student took a turn for the worse, always heartbreaking, even when they weren't his students or his patients. This was especially worrisome since it was Ciel's room mate. Of all the rooms it could have happened in, it had to be one with another suicidal occupant. A quick check of the documents on the way over to the room, after John had called an ambulance, showed that the student in question wasn't even listed as suicidal.

An oversight of the school, or was it under-reporting of the parents? A physicians note on the boy, Simon's school entrance physical showed that it was more likely to be the latter.

Signs of neglect and past abuse. Possible self injury.

It chilled John's blood to see that. Abuse. What sort of monsters abused mentally ill children? Or, was it the monsters who created the mental illness? Not likely in the case of bipolar disorder, which was of course genetic and present, even if dormant, from birth. But, sometimes John wondered in these other cases--- cases of suicidal students and angry students--- if the mental disturbances could have been avoided if they'd received better treatment at home.

He was nearly there, alerting the medical staff on the way over, just in case the boy was in need of immediate life saving procedures that might require medical expertise. He was a Doctor in Physics and Psychology after all, not a medical doctor.

He glanced at the report again. Seemed stable at consultation. Parents seemed uninvolved. Father didn't remember the patient's birth date.That was heartbreaking to see. A dad who didn't remember his own son's birthday. Stepmother expressed concern that he might be stealing from the family. Made further inquiry and the items that were reportedly stolen were food items from the pantry. The patient was malnourished at the time of the consultation. Hunger was possibly used as a form of punishment.

And, you let those people get away with that? You just let them walk out of the building after seeing that? John's sadness was replaced by anger. It seemed ridiculous that they hadn't detained those child abusers and handed them over to the police, or at the very least filed a police report! It said on the papers that there were other children in that household. What sort of treatment were they receiving? He had to centre himself so he could concentrate on the task at hand.

He reached room 304 and found the bloody scene that Ciel had described. Though the immediate concern, of course, was the unconscious boy on the bed, but John couldn't help but find his worry split between the injured boy and the other boy who was standing beside the bed. Ciel was pale as a ghost--- well, paler than usual, which was some accomplishment. Could he be left alone while they took Simon out to the ambulance?

John's eyes swept over the room, and then to the shattered glass in the sink. That had to go. No way on earth was he leaving Ciel alone in a room full of broken glass. "Here, why don't you wait in the hallway, and I'll apply pressure?" John said. "You've done well, Ciel. I think you might have saved him." He took Simon's bloodied wrist in hand and, with a towel applied pressure to the wound. A school medic arrived not long thereafter, accompanied by the EMTs, bearing a stretcher.

John helped them to load Simon onto the stretcher, and then set about collecting the shards of glass in the room, gathering them on top of another blood stained towel. He triple checked to make sure that there weren't any shards left that Ciel might use to hurt himself, and then he stepped outside, towel rolled up and tucked under his arm, his expression uncharacteristically grim.

"Ciel, let's get you cleaned up and then we can have a chat, all right?" He was not going to let Ciel walk away after witnessing something like that without some counsel. Ciel was not going to be another casualty of a system run by adults that so often forgot its children.

Ciel. Another one who had come from a poisonous home environment. The abuse, the fighting, the squalor that so many of these kids had grown up in had to account for some of this misery. Ciel was a talented boy with a good heart. In another home situation he might well have thrived. He could have been brilliant--- of course, he still was brilliant, but he couldn't evidence that as readily when he was always on the path to self destruction--- he could have been a child prodigy. He had a beautiful voice. He wrote music. He did it well! That alone should have made his parents proud, but instead Ciel was treated so badly for something as petty and meaningless as he style of dress, that it had driven him to this point, the point of wanting to take his young life.

It infuriated John, it really did. How could anyone fail to see the possibilities in store for a boy like this? He could be a rock star! He could be a novelist! He could be a poet! And, instead he was wasted on parents like the Thompson's. People like that didn't deserve brilliant children like Ciel or his little brother. What was his name...? John couldn't recall the brother's name, but he knew that Ciel loved him fiercely, and seeing that such a powerful bond, that such love could still exist in an environment like the one like the Thompson boys had come from inspired John. Oh, but seeing Ciel this way, pale, shaking, his eyes wild... it made John feel a little sick inside. He wished that he could adopt them all, these troubled kids, and raise them the way he'd been raised--- learning, exploring the things they loved, maybe discovering new things to love along the way, seeing the world, climbing trees, reading books--- that was the way childhood was supposed to be. It broke his heart to see them so deprived.