[FIN] Definitely Not Okay

[Suudonym]

Any who had ever known Luke would be able to tell from a glance that the boy was not his usual self. Though he could often be found with weariness or melancholy in his features, he moved now with the face of a man condemned: listless, forlorn, and wounded. The entirety of his countenance was of apathy and surrender. He had been told to go home and rest, and he supposed that was probably approximately what his body was attempting to accomplish even without his thoughts steering the effort. The path home from the hospital had never seemed longer, and an increasing part of him dearly wished to just give up. What was the point anymore? The way things were going, he'd probably get home to find that the apartment had burned down or something. Why bother. The thought repeated endlessly in his mind even as he continued to push forward.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Sera stood still in the middle of the city square, tapping away at her phone with practiced ease and purpose. After a few more keystrokes, she tapped one last time with a flourish and an accomplished smile before she slipped the device back into her small purse that hung from one shoulder. Upon looking up, however, her pale eyes immediately fell upon the recipient of the text she'd just finished typing: Luke. If he so chose to check his phone, he would find it included a general greeting, as well as an invitation to go out and see a movie or some similar activity if he felt so inclined

He had looked pretty down last time she saw him, which honestly wasn't too long ago, but today he just looked.... Even worse. She wasn't quite sure how that was at all possible, considering the last she heard, his mom died. Who died this time for him to look so absolutely awful?

With a growing (albeit small) amount of concern apparent on her features, the brunette made her way over to her friend before she fell into step beside him. "Luke, I just sent you a text. What's up?" Though her words asked a more general question, her tone conveyed the more prevalent, unspoken question of 'what the hell happened for you to look so horrible?' Whatever it was, it must have been bad.  

[Suudonym]

There was a light vibration from his pocket, but before he arrived at the memory that he should probably take a look at the evident received message, there was someone beside him, a familiar voice speaking. Seraphine, explaining the source of the message. He halted his progress in expectation of a conversation, but though he raised his eyes at the question, he had difficulty putting on his usual complacent expression. The smile that resulted was broken and dejected, devoid of even the pretense of sincerity. He floundered for a response but struggled to find the words, and the smile quickly fluttered from his features. This failure only further rent his spirit; if he couldn't even come up with an answer to a simple question for someone he spoke to on a regular basis, how was he supposed to pass any kind of psychological evaluation?  

[BlackFireKitsune]

His lack of a proper response made her frown and furrow her brow. She opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, closed it, opened it again, closed it again, then raised a hand to lay on her cheek with an expression of obvious confusion. "Are uh... Are you okay..? Actually no that's stupid," she said with a dismissive wave, then amended her question with, "what's wrong?"  

[Suudonym]

His fingers tightened loosely on the papers in his hand, various expressions of pain nearly overwhelming his features as he tried to find words for an answer. 'I'm fine,' 'I've been better,' 'I'll be okay;' his voice would accommodate none of it. Uselessly, he raised a hand to the opposite arm as though trying to hold himself together while his spirit slowly fell to pieces. His efforts were to no avail - the camel's back long broken by the weight of its burden - and gradually he surrendered to his body's weakness and sank to his knees. When he spoke, it was with a failing, fractured voice.

"Hasn't it been enough already?" His posture and his grip tightened, the hand still holding the printed materials crumpling them harshly. "I thought I'd already atoned for the things that were my fault. I thought I'd been through enough already. All this time - don't get angry, don't get depressed, don't run away, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry." He suddenly raised his voice to a breaking shout, compressing his form in upon itself, "I can't do it anymore! What do you take me for?! I'm only human! I can't just grin and bear it - I can't!" He paused to draw breath, and when he spoke again it was in a tone that was ragged, almost in tears, "I can't. Saying that if I'm depressed I'll be rejected and die - how am I supposed to be anything but depressed? What do you think I've been through? Show me just one person who could stay positive after all this. It's impossible. I can't."

By the time he finished his catharsis, he trembled wretchedly, clinging to himself as if for his life with his posture arched and his head bowed, inhaling sharply at uneven intervals. He spared no recognition of their location or the fact that any passerby could clearly see and hear the spectacle he created of himself, nor did he in any way acknowledge the passing elderly woman who murmured to Seraphine asking if everything was okay. He'd had enough, more than enough, and he could no longer force himself to tolerate it quietly.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Well if this didn't suddenly and irretrievably become the most awkward and embarrassing situation she'd ever been shoved into ever in her life ever. Sera was completely and utterly unprepared for such a reaction as this, and it showed plainly on her face. She'd seen them before, of course, but she never had to deal with them personally. Usually she just left the moment someone gave any sort of indication they might possibly flip all their s**t or something.

She couldn't do that now, however.

The elderly woman was met with a confused and uncertain face, an unspoken question on Seraphine's face, but once she could process the situation a little better, she waved the woman away with her mouth forming a thin line. Mordecai was released and her purse handed to him, leaving the brunette's hands free, and she (very) gingerly knelt down in front of Luke. Damn he better appreciate her risking getting her clothes dirty from kneeling on the freaking sidewalk, of all places...

Briefly she examined his person, noting the colorful pamphlet and papers crumpled in his hands, though she couldn't see exactly what the contents of them was. Something about being rejected and dying...? "Luke, what happened? Rejected for what?" Her brows furrowed in her obvious confusion and bewilderment, but she recognized his blatant emotional state and endeavored to (awkwardly) try and make him feel better by uncertainly laying a hand on one of his shoulders.  

[Suudonym]

Eventually, reluctantly, he moved his hand place the underwhelming-looking publications visibly on the ground, each covered with various illustrations or photographs and telling titles. "Turns out," he said, a dull, dark humor to the words, "that all the surgery and medicine and hospital admissions were a total waste of time." That wasn't true and he knew it - the prescriptions had improved his quality of life exponentially in spite of all the hoops that needed to be jumped to sort out the proper dosages and combinations - but that certainly wasn't a prominent thought in his mind now. What had been the point of it all if he was going to die anyway?  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Sera frowned at the crumpled, wrinkled pieces of paper that Luke laid out on the ground, then laid her free hand on them when a gentle breeze blew by. It was a subtle reminder that they were, in fact, outside still, and still subject to gawking bystanders.

She tried to ignore the latter for now, and instead focused on studying the papers briefly. Even the quickest of glances made it obvious that the focus of them was the heart - Luke's heart. That's what he was in the hospital for before, where she had unexpectedly run across his room. But that only further confused her. "What do you mean? I thought that was supposed to help. The ******** did it do then?" Because even she knew you didn't just go and have surgery for no damned reason.  

[Suudonym]

"Fixed damage done by the symptoms without touching the cause," he murmured, staring lethargically at his hands in his lap. Any trace of energy he had exhibited before was now completely gone from him, replaced by a creeping shroud of negativity and surrender that he had for so long attempted to keep off. "My mother died because of heart failure," his lips barely moved to accommodate the words, "and I guess I will too."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

The girl continued to frown at the papers on the ground, brows furrowed and her mouth set in a thoughtful, confused pout. Well that was just total s**t, wasn't it? "So it's sort of like putting a bandaid on a broken bone or something," she suggested with a half shrug, trying to wrap her head around the situation. Dead meant dead, gone, never coming back - no one she knew had died, no close relatives, nothing. It made it sort of difficult to fully comprehend the situation Luke had found himself in.

Instead of trying to understand it and offer stupid words that she wasn't good at, her free arm half raised, hesitated, then raised fully before she moved closer and wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a hug.  

[Suudonym]

There was a substantial part of him that would have appreciated nothing more than just to weep like a child, but he at least maintained enough sense of place to avoid as much. His jaw clenched in a pained grimace, hands tightening on themselves. He allowed himself the comfort of the offered contact for only moments before recovering himself, pulling back to a normal conversational distance with a forced, frail composure and an expression of apology. "Sorry," he said, wavering only slightly. "I didn't mean to dump all this on you." Another box checked on the list of reasons he was just some worthless idiot who was better off giving up.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Nah, it's fine," the brunette said, although in fact it was not at all fine. She returned to her previous posture and position, watching her friend with a frown that was at this point practically permanent. "Did you uh, get my text?" Sera asked, quirking one brow.  

[Suudonym]

A slight shake of his head, and he moved to withdraw the indicated device from his pocket and navigated the menus to read the message that had been received earlier. He frowned lightly but replaced it with as much of a smile as he could achieve, "Sorry. I guess you're probably already kind of sick of my company by now, huh?" It was hard to imagine otherwise, after the way he had behaved.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

She watched silently as he took out his phone to check her message, though the frown deepened briefly at his response. Well, she was sick of freak outs and him being super mopey and depressed, but she wasn't about to say as much. It was a pretty shitty thing to have to deal with, though she still didn't quite fully grasp the implications of his condition. "Nah. You're too depressed and s**t, we need to cheer you up or something. Movies are good," she suggested as she tugged on his elbow before she stood up and dusted off the knees of her dress.  

[Suudonym]

Why bother. The thought was haunting, but he tried to shake free of it - or at least to pretend to himself that he had shaken free of it even temporarily. Instead, he forced a compliant "okay" through his voice, standing as he folded the papers to push into his pocket. It was difficult to imagine the 'cheering up' she spoke of; it seemed that every memory of joy or pleasure he had ever experienced were gone from him, leaving a hollow denial that such moments could exist. It was worth a shot, he endeavored to convince himself. What harm could come, and if it did then how could it possibly hold a candle to everything else?