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It starts with a messy room.
Darius makes it abundantly clear to you for days that he doesn’t approve of the state you’ve let it get to. You understand. It’s not like you enjoy being surrounded by rotting food and dirty laundry, either. You tell Darius this morning that the new potion your doctor prescribed a week ago for your headaches has been making you much too sleepy to get out of bed, but he insists that you can’t keep using that as an excuse. Your condition has made you sleepy for a long time anyway, so you might as well get used to the fact that you’re probably always going to be tired, new medicine or not.
You understand. Your body has always been wrong, and ever since Belos, it’s been even wronger. Or is it more wrong? That’s probably right, but you like wronger better. It makes sense, just like how it also makes sense that you aren’t really tireder than usual. You’re just scared of the new potion. Your wronger brain is simply playing tricks on you. You know this, yet you still can’t seem to make yourself get out of bed. People have always told you, even before the surgery, that you are a gullible person, but you thought you were finally getting over that. Apparently not!
Darius comes in a couple times today to get onto you about being lazy in bed, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You’re so trick-tired; the shame doesn’t even compute as you lie to Darius and tell him you’re going to get up soon to clean your room. Each time he leaves, and you wait in suspense for a while for him to come back. Then once you figure the coast is clear, you lock the door, just in case, and fall asleep once more.
When the day turns to night, you wake up with a small burst of energy and decide that maybe you can do what you’re supposed to do. Maybe if you can finish cleaning your room by the morning time, Darius will be happy with you again! You imagine the smile that’s going to outshine the grumpy look he’s had on his face everyday lately. He’s going to ruffle your hair and tell you you did a good job, and then maybe the shame in your stomach will go away enough to make you feel like you belong at home again.
You get to work tidying up, but according to your alarm clock, you only clean for about an hour before you get tired again. You look at the still-cluttered floor, and Belos’s voice whispers in your ear to remind you that you’ll always be a failure. Your therapist’s voice, however, suggests that instead of focusing only on the things you’ve done poorly, you should try to acknowledge the things you’ve done well, too. Your therapist’s voice is kinder, so you much prefer hers. You imagine showing her that you at least put your clean clothes away. She knows how hard it is for you to fold your laundry with just one hand, so it’s always impressive to her. Maybe your sick laundry folding skills will be enough to make Darius a little less disappointed in you. You get ready for bed and fall asleep with the assurance that tomorrow will be a better day.
Unfortunately, tomorrow is not a better day.
The loud knock on your door in the morning startles you awake.
Heart pounding, you quickly sit up in bed to try to piece together what’s going on. Darius sounds angry behind the door, and he’s jiggling the locked door handle so hard it’s making a clicky noise that hurts your ears. He yells at you to open the door, yet through the fear, your body has the audacity to engulf itself in angry flames. You’re exhausted; now the sudden wake-up call has your heart and head pounding and your blood boiling.
It’s not fair. Why can’t he just leave you alone?! You grit your teeth and fist your hands into your blankets. You warn yourself that fighting back is probably not a good idea (you’re going to be even wronger, and he’s going to be even angrier with you!) yet you’re so fired up that the command catapults from your lips anyway:
“Leave!”
With that, Darius pauses his work on the door knob and goes back to knocking harshly on the door.
“Little Prince, this isn’t a game. Open the door, now.”
“Why?”
Darius sputters on the other side of the door. You would have laughed at the noise if you weren’t wildly aware of the carnage people are capable of when they’re this angry.
“Because I said so! Do it now.”
Darius’s voice sounds awfully similar in tone to Belos’s. Running on pure instinct now, you rush over to unlock the door. Darius stands before you with a similar expression to Belos, too, and you know that you’ve really fucked up this time.
“Little Prince, I don’t appreciate you locking the door on me. You can’t keep running from your responsibilities like this. This room is a disaster.”
You hear the ice in Darius’s voice threatening to douse your outrage, but you’re not sure anything can at this point. How dare he say that you didn’t try?
“Night! Yesterday night I clean!” You yell.
Darius looks around the room and then back at you, unimpressed.
“Obviously not,” he says, gesturing to your overflowing hamper, then to the rest of the room.
“Did!” You stomp your foot.
Darius crosses his arms and sighs, rolling his eyes to the ceiling, then back at you. “Fine, sure, you cleaned. Either way, look at this place—you still have a lot of work to do. And since me just telling you to clean isn’t working, I’m going to sit in here with you until you do it.”
Your heart drops. “No!”
“Yes.”
He steps forward to enter your room. You try to push him back out, but he only stumbles slightly.
“No! Said no!” You yell.
This is your space, he’s said so before, and today you said no. Why is he changing the rules now? Anxiety flares in your stomach alongside the rage. This is unpredictable, dangerous, and scary. Why can’t he just leave you alone?
Darius snatches your hand and throws it to the side. “Do not push me, Hunter. Step aside.”
Your eyes well up with tears. You know you shouldn’t have pushed him. You were bad, bad, bad. What is wrong with you? Why would you even do that? Why can’t you just be good? Luz always says “When people are mean to you, kill them with kindness,” and while you don’t want to kill Darius, maybe he wouldn’t be so angry if you could at least be kind. It’s as if you’ve forgotten how to accept a punishment with grace. Maybe your wronger brain forgot that skill. It wouldn’t surprise you. It forgets everything else!
You step aside and watch numbly as he crosses the threshold. Now, you’re trapped for good. You avert your eyes like a good nephew and wait for him to address you.
“Okay. Start cleaning. Now,” Darius commands, taking a seat in your desk chair and crossing one knee over the other. Your skin crawls.
“No! Looking and stress me!” Your voice is reedy as you flap your hand and sniff. You know arguing is useless, but you do it anyway. There goes that useless emotion again.
“I don’t care,” Darius says, “Your way of ignoring your chores is not working. We’re doing things my way now, because I love you. I want you to have a safe place to sleep. You need to clean, and I’m going to be right here with you so you can do it without slacking off. Okay?”
He doesn’t get it. You can’t! You can’t do it! You’re exhausted and angry and scared and hungry and you can’t stand his judgemental eyes on you anymore! You’d flee if you could, but he’s too close to the door—he’ll be able to stop you easily. Your anxiety skyrockets even more when you remember that you don’t have a palisman to teleport away with either, since Flapjack is having a sleepover with the other palismen at the Bat Queen’s place.
“Okay, well, um, will clean, please go,” you beg through tears—always a last resort, since you quite value your pride, “You here, um, in my room…not help me.”
Darius shakes his head. “I am helping you. You can hate me all you want, but I’m doing what’s best for you and staying here. Just start cleaning.”
His voice is a little softer and kinder, but your heart is still beating out of your chest.
“But…” You sniff, and your own voice turns small, “I can, um, c-clean alone. Daris can go, I can clean alone.”
“I know you’re just going to go back to sleep if I go, so no, I’m staying right here. Get cleaning. You can do it.” His voice is firm.
He spots a dirty shirt on the back of the chair he’s sitting in. With a curled lip, he plucks it off and throws it onto the floor. You stare at him as an idea to get him off your back for a while brews in your head.
“I shower ‘n change clothes?” You bargain, “No ‘jamas. Wear today clothes. You leave one minute, I change, then you help. Please?”
Darius sighs and uncrosses his legs, fixing you with a look dangerously close to a glare, “Twenty minutes, then I’m coming back in here.”
You swallow the lump in your throat and nod.
To his credit, Darius leaves the room like he said he would.
The door closes, and you make a snap decision to leave too, consequences be damned. You can’t stand the idea of being trapped in here again. Thankfully, your bedroom is on the bottom floor, so after changing into some warmer clothes, grabbing a handful of snails off your dresser, and shoving your phone into your pocket, you sneak out of the window.
Since you frequently walk there with your friends, you remember how to find the nearest transport worm stop. You fish the snails out of your pocket and after counting out three and a half snails by yourself, you smile and hand them to the grumpy bus driver. He doesn’t smile back, but that’s alright. At least these skills prove that your brain isn’t completely useless.
Or maybe it is. You’re not sure where you’re going, to be fair. You just wanted somewhere warm that was away from Darius for a while.
You lean your head against the cold window and close your eyes.
Maybe Boscha could help? You call her on the phone and ask her to meet you at one of the bus stops. For all his grumpiness, the bus driver is kind enough to help you pick out a stop closest to Boscha’s house to meet her at.
When you spot her, you can’t help running off the bus and giving her a big hug.
At least you feel at home again.