(im dumb and angsty and i wrote with 2 hours of sleep and a 5 hour car ride)

+noncanon, just a thought

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His foot tapped in time with the wall clock. Tip tap, tik tock, up down, jittering as he shook in his seat. He was battered. Both lips busted, cut near his hairline, black eye and bruised from any patch of pale skin one can see. His blond hair was still covered in dirt, matted and dusty and damp with the blood and sweat he reeked of. Hands tightly knit in front of him, almost purple with bruising, knuckles raw and red, painful to even look at as he sat there obediently. An awful sight of such a young boy.

"Tell me about what happened earlier today, Daniels. I want to hear your excuse."

He cringed at his words, the doctor sitting across from him saw it, a hard flinch at his last word. A refusal of it almost. But there he sat, patiently waiting for him to explain why he showed up back at Dr.... Mr. Cawley's office in the middle of a school day looking like a walking nightmare.

He hesitated, trying to make sure he knew which words to say as his eyes glued down to the ground.

"I-I.... I was h-helping her..." His voice trembled. They kept him here all day since then, he woke up in the ambulance, but they weren't taking him to a hospital. Not one he was to get helped in anyways. They never do when you're strapped down to a gurney like that. It was a different situation.

He remembered it pretty well. The blond was already playing it over and over in his head. The way things went, the way they fought, the way he did too... why it happened.

He remembers hearing it first. Yelling from the other side of the middleschool. It was early morning, Maddox skipped his class. Missing the point to math, as most 13 year olds do and trying to find a good place to rest his tired eyes. He had a terrible night of sleep the night before. He just wanted a nap, something to relax with. Only a few hours of unsteady sleep could do so much for him, he needed the relief.

But he found himself lingering on the outside doors. The muffled arguing too loud and angry to ignore on his end. He pushed the door open of course, curious to see why in the world something that angry would happen in the morning.

His bleary eyes caught six boys. All the grade above him. And his classmate. June.

She was yelling, angrily about how much of an idiot the boy standing in front of her was, the one who didn't so much as bat an eye as he reached over and pulled at her braid the other boys where talking amongst themselves. Pretending they didn't see the debacle, but snickering every so often they did.

June looked about ready to burst into tears. Pure anger in her little pink face as he said something too her while twisting her long black braid in his grip, too low for Maddox to hear from the doorway where he watched in horror.

He didn't like that at all.

"You broke Kevin Carmichael's nose after you knocked him unconscious. After. You broke his friend's, Dallas's, arm, in two places, and bruised and battered all six of them until they had no choice but to throw you down and kick you into oblivion until a teacher heard the commotion." Cawley looked at him passively as he interrupted his story. He wondered. In a way a professional like him shouldn't wonder. What was going on in this boy's head to make him do this.

"All the while, June Carmichael says she was begging you to stop hurting her brother. They weren't arguing like you say, she was telling him to get back to class like you should have too."

That wasn't how it happened. Maddox shook harder in his seat.

"N-No... That's not true-" He shook his head, sudden disbelief spreading across his face, she was lying, he didn't start this- it was their fault.

"Maddox. You sent two boys to the hospital-"

"No. I didn't. She was in trouble. I did something good." He said quietly. Eyes wide as he finally looked back up at him, hands that were ziptied together hitting the table with a jolt of pain. "They were bad, Mr. Cawley, I know it, they were begging me to. They hurt-"

Why would she lie? He was trying to help and he did, he pulled her off of her and beat his face in before he could lay another hand on her. The other guys where going to kill him if he didn't fight back, and they would've hurt June for Kevin if he didn't distract them. He could see it in their ugly faces. In their ugly eyes.

That liar, those liars.

"June said different, Daniels. She was the only one you didn't try to maim." He looked frustrated. Dropping his head in his hands as Maddox shut his open mouth. Head starting to pound.

He could hear him, quietly mutter under his breath, about how hard he was trying with him.

But... Cawley didn't lie. He never lied to him. He was a good man who did good things, he took him from that place, he threw away all of those awful pills that never let him think, he told the truth to him, always. No matter how much he didn't want to hear it.

Maddox felt the shame bubble up inside him, curling into himself as they fell into a silence they both didn't like. Maddox doesn't remember as much as he thought he did. But he did hear other people. He heard their voices, as they towered over him.

"Stay down freak-"

"He's a fuckin monster-"

"Is he laughing?"

"Why did they let him out-"

"He really is crazy-"

Tears slipped past his cheeks. Trembling harder now as he wondered why he hurt those boys. Whatever he saw wasn't true. Whatever he saw wasn't real. But he wanted to... No... He had to do something to them.

Maddox didn't want to hurt anyone.... For no reason. And that's what suddenly scared him so much, what if he kept making up reasons?

"I-I don't w-want to go back... C-Cawley..." A small sob escaped his chest in terror. The simple thought of those white rooms seizing his heart as he played their words over again. 'monster' He didn't 'freak' want to 'crazy' be that.

"I don't want you to either, Maddox. But you make this very, very, hard." He could hear how tired he was. The clear exhaustion of a man who's had to explain his actions and care for someone people want to abandon. They abandon too easily. Everyone... Almost everyone... Can be helped.

"I-I'm sorry... I'm s-sorry I-I'm sorry I'm sorry..." Maddox raised his battered hands to his face. Trying to stop the tears that fell as he kept repeating his words. Pressing harshly on the bruises as he did so that Dr. Cawley had to reach over and stop him from hurting himself further.

"I know you are." He sighed, holding both his purpleing hands in his. Running his own thoughts through his head.

"He's a menace. To himself and others."

"You can't expect him to be like everyone else-"

"Just like his mother... It's in their blood."

"Being nice isn't medicine. He's sick, Cawley. Sick."

"Don't burden yourself with the boy who's destined to fail. Put him back before you get hurt too."

"Maddox. We have to try. Harder than before. I know you're a good boy. I know it." He squeezed at his hands. Hard enough to make him wince. But Maddox still nodded along, gently laying his cheek over their joined hands, tears still falling from his dark eyes as he shook.

"I-I am good." He whimpered.

"I am good."

Maddox flinched hard, waking himself up from such a deep, strange sleep he forgot where he was again. Startling Callem who held him in his lap. Book falling out of his hand and onto the ground with a dull, skittered thump.

"Fuck, you startled me." Callem muttered with a sigh, running his fingers through his brown hair as Maddox shut his eyes again. Letting out a deep, shuddered breath before looking back up at Callem, wondering why he still managed to look so good with and without glasses, then to their surroundings. This place was new, but he knew it was still no different situation.

"Sorry... I just... h-had a bad dream."

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Callem Flag + rosedaIe