Work Text:
The question of “Why would you do this to yourself?” kept coming back to the hospital room of M&M Carlson.
“Why would you do this to yourself?”
He had his reasons.
M&M noticed it when he was six. The pure and simple fact that His Father Didn’t Like Him And The Only Reason He Tolerated Him Was Because They Were Related.
There was this look his father had. Indifference. But only directed towards M&M.
Because his older brother was a hero. College boy. Someone M&M would never end up like. And in a way, he was glad he’d never end up like him. His brother was mean, as mean as the socs used to be. But, of course, that was who his father wanted him to be like. The only thing he liked about his brother was his old clothes. Especially that army jacket.
And Cathy, his older sister, had a way out, the first one in the family, and space for him too, once she finished school. Then the money ran out and grandpa died so grandma moved so she was rocketed back into Tulsa.
There was his younger siblings too, he loved them and all, but they viewed him as a pushover, and they didn’t like him much either. He was just there. A substitute parent, when their real ones were working, or out on a date or something.
He was cheap labour.
Or invisible.
Whichever fit his father’s mood at that particular moment.
M&M realised when he was older, the only way to get them to notice was to screw up, or do something wrong.
The hippies came to town in the spring, well, a group of them did. They set up camp in an old house near the edge of town.
Randy Adderson was the first to go. M&M knew, hell, everyone knew how shit he was feeling after Bob died. He stopped showing up to school one day. His girlfriend told her friend and her friend told someone else and soon everyone knew.
M&M thought the hippies were pretty cool, albeit a little scary. His father didn’t, and that was enough for him.
So M&M started growing out his hair. He had to admit, it looked pretty groovy. It framed his face better, and who knew hair could grow that fast?
His father hated it. A win - win situation.
Plus, looking this way, he found himself his two best friends, Mark and Bryon. Well, first it found him one Curly Shepard, another person who didn’t like hippies, children or children that looked like hippies to make their fathers finally notice. Bryon and Mark saved him and didn’t want anything in return. First time that’d happened. Like ever.
M&M thought they were cool, even cooler than the hippies.
But they didn’t want to hang out much, and when they did, they treated him like a little kid. But whatever.
When school started, his hair was down to his shoulders, the army jacket was almost a part of him and he’d found an old metal peace sign. His little sister’d strung a leather string through it so he started wearing it as a necklace.
So what if was he getting bullied? The only thing that mattered to his father was that he was flunking gym. At least he’d look him in the eye, telling him how much a disappointment he was, because his brother never flunked anything, let alone gym. God forbid his perfect, perfect older brother screwed up!
At. Least. He. Noticed.
That was about when Cathy came home, dreams broken, grandma in tow.
M&M could hear his father and grandma arguing.
“You should stop being so hard on him.” She said. “Or he’ll run away like I did.”
That was the first time M&M had heard of that!
“Howard is not you, mom.”
M&M hated the name Howard. His father knew he hated the name Howard. Everyone knew he hated the name Howard. That didn’t stop him from using it. Every. Single. Day.
Cathy started dating Bryon a few weeks later. M&M thought it was awesome.
What wasn’t awesome, though, was how his father was acting towards him. He kept telling himself “this is what you wanted, at least he’s noticing you!”
But it didn’t feel nice.
Mark invited him to come out with him, Bryon and Cathy. They were going driving around. And M&M was invited.
Later that night, M&M and Mark went off together.
“We’re gonna meet someone, kay?” Mark asked.
“Kay.” M&M said. He followed behind, kicking at pebbles.
They walked to the drive - in. It wasn’t that far, M&M noticed. It’s never that far when you’re with a friend. The someone was waiting for them, leaning against the fence. A hippie. Smoking.
“Hey, Cat.” The hippie said.
“Hey.” Mark responded.
Mark fished a bag of pills from his pocket and tossed it to the hippie. He tossed Mark a small wad of cash
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
M&M watched the retreating hippie. He’d never thought of joining them before. Until then.
“Wait!” He called.
“What?”
He gulped. “Can I come with you?”
The hippie smiled. “Sure, kid.”
Mark blinked. “M&M, you sure?”
“Sure. Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Fine.”
M&M followed the hippie, who’s name was Red (or at least that’s what they called him) across town. They walked in silence, until Red bit open the bag of pills.
“You want one?” He offered M&M.
“Sure.” M&M said without thinking.
He looked at it for a second. Head full of noise. The pros, cons, the yes - no - yes - no - yes - nos, small thoughts of his family, his father’s face and nope he couldn’t think about it anymore.
He choked down the pill.
The hippie house smelled like weed, but he got used to it eventually. The longer you breathe it in, the more you get used to it. The more you’d get used to anything.
M&M got used to the smell, the heat, humidity and overcrowdedness of the house within the first week.
He wondered if his family missed him.
Cathy probably would.
Mark showed up a few days later. This was his job or something, apparently. He sold drugs. That wasn’t something M&M would’ve ever expected.
But Mark wouldn’t sell to him, not because he didn’t have any money, but because Mark had morals or something. Morals which didn’t apply to anyone else. But it didn’t matter. Once Mark left, M&M’d try to get and get to try whatever was sold that day. The hippies didn’t have morals, he learned. The hippies had drugs and drugs were fun.
M&M wasn’t sure who gave it to him, who said it was nice, a good trip, but someone did and that someone was a liar. It was not nice, it was not fun, it was not in any way a good trip. He didn’t want attention anymore, he just wanted the spiders to leave him alone!!! He needed sleep, but he couldn’t for all the screaming. He wanted fresh air so he tried to climb out the window but someone was pulling him back and why wouldn’t they let him go? The smell in the air was choking him but there was no way he was going home like this what was home anyways and his stomach hurt and he hurt too because he was down in it and the spiders were eating him and ten ten years was a real long time and it was all his fault all his fault for eating all those M&M’s for running away for trusting people and he was really tired but he couldn’t sleep
Cathy and Bryon came one day. M&M didn’t recognise them at first. They were all shapes and colours. Cathy was orange and Bryon was green. M&M was pretty sure he was sky blue but he couldn’t see himself anymore, since the spiders bit off his arms.
He didn’t know where he was anymore.
“Why don’t I know where I am?”
M&M was in a car. Cathy was driving. He didn’t know Cathy knew how to drive. He was curled up on Bryon’s lap. He knew it was Bryon because Bryon was green and Cathy was orange and the spiders were crawling out of his eyes.
They took him to the hospital, which was a big white building. White was bad because white was where all the colours came from.
His father was waiting in front, his father was yellow, his father looked worried.
Finally.
Finally he cared.
M&M told him about the spiders.
M&M stopped seeing people in colours after a while. He vaguely wondered what colour his grandma would have been. Probably some kind of brown. She liked the colour brown.
“I told you so.” She told M&M’s father. “He ran away and now look what happened.”
“This was his choice.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
Her New York accent always comforted M&M, it told him stories and stood up for him.
Cathy came and stayed with him every day after her shift.
The first day out of the hospital, M&M’s father gave him a haircut. He wasn’t sure why it even mattered anymore. Because it didn’t.
Cathy started dating Ponyboy Curtis. He was nice and all, but he was no Bryon.
And Mark got arrested. For selling drugs. Which was surprising. M&M never processed he could actually get caught.
Everything was changing, and so quickly too.
M&M had no idea why.
But he figured, because it made sense, that it was his fault.