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Eight tiny legs paced over Vergil's frail fingers. He couldn't even feel the spider on his skin, only on certain spots and then it tickled.

He titled his head, breathing in awe. It had to be one of the reasons he didn't swallow every prescribed pill in sight at once. There was so much to learn about the earth, its species, its physics laws, a lifetime didn't feel enough. Hence, he was hesitant about shortening it further.

"I keep telling you, stop touching every insect. Some might be poisonous."

Vergil's faint smile fell right off. He only glanced at Ethan's shoes, refusing to meet his eyes even when the man lowered to his level by sitting on the grass. They were in the school's back yard.

"I would know." he murmured, continuing to observe the fairly sized spider.

"What... what happened to your face-"

"Blech."

That sound came from behind, and soon enough a black-nailed hand came to view and flicked the spider off Vergil's hand. He snapped his head towards Stevo.

"You jerk!"

The guy shoved Vergil's shoulder and plopped down before lying on his back, legs sprawled. "Jerk? I'm not the one who ditched my friends." he peeked at Vergil from under one eyelid and reached out to poke his bruised jaw.

Vergil jerked his head away and tsked.

"Who are we beating up?"

By 'we' he meant his weird friends from the suburbs.

"You."

Stevo shrugged and punched himself in the face.

Vergil couldn't possibly hold it in and laughed, covering his mouth. Ethan snickered.

"You're so stupid, man." he said.

Stevo tucked in his chin as though considering the concept. Vergil rolled his eyes, unable to wipe off his smile.

"Some German guy punched me for not being German. There was a lot of them."

Ethan pulled a face and sighed, ruffling Vergil's hair. "Don't leave on your own again." his fingers started searching the head curiously. "What's with the bumps?"

Vergil slapped his hand away. "They threw me around." he lied. Those had been inflicted by self-harm.

"You had another fit didn't you. Why didn't you take your pills!"

"I was about to take my pills, all of them in fact!"

There he went, unable to tell the difference between what parts of his life he should reveal and what parts he shouldn't. Ethan gawked at him and Stevo sat up.

"Dude. I know SLC Punk is my favourite movie and all, but that doesn't mean you have to end up like Stevo's best friend..."

"Maybe I should."

"Don't say that!" Ethan snapped.

Vergil took his bag and stood up. When Ethan made a move to follow, he ran away.

Since it was the middle of lunch break, the corridors were well near empty. That let Vergil peacefully count his steps, chest about to swallow his head whole. It wasn't a wonder he knocked into someone.

Perfect. The one single person in the entire corridor, the janitor, and he managed to knock into him.

He stumbled back, feet as equally clumsy as his mouth, as he was now blabbering. The man kept a blunt expression, leaning on his mop.

"I'm sorry, Mr Janitor." Vergil coughed.

The man reacted none, most likely dumbfound by Vergil's sheer stupidity, the young man deduced. He bit his lip and rounded the man, leaving in quick steps.

He'd paced right foot first instead of left. Now, his walk was awkward. He couldn't stop and start over, it'd make him look that more stupid.

Vergil yanked at a fistful of his hair once he rounded the corner. Self-injury behaviour was something most autistic people engaged into. They couldn't really feel the pain when having such mental breakdowns, on the contrary: it inflicted a state of euphoria almost. Like scratching an intense itch you didn't get to for whole minutes.

"Are you okay?"

Two girls had been chatting by the corner of the stairs. He gawked and, yet again, ran away.

"I want you to enlist every person that makes your heart beat erratically."

Vergil gawked at the psychiatrist he's been seeing for seven years.

"Really? That's everyone in my life." he started playing with his sleeves. They were already loose and crumpled, as were the sleeves of any other clothing.

"It's the first question, we have an entire session at hand." she grinned encouragingly. There was something about her that gained one's trust. Perhaps the wild, curly hair, or her chubby-mom appearance (really chubby, but it was cute on her).

"Well... Strangers, bullies, Stevo, Ethan, teachers, the janitor, Becca the girl that always tries to approach me, her friend, every other girl in the school, the neighbours..." he clenched his teeth and shrugged.

The psychiatrist, Dudan, nodded and wrote away in her agenda. Since each row began with a jerk of the wrist that traced a tiny line, Vergil deduced she was making a list.

"Strangers. Describe the way your heart beats when encountering them."

Vergil bowed his head, thinking it through. "Just... Like, dull sparks... dull sparks tickle the heart. It's uncomfortable."

She noted it down. "Bullies?"

He clenched his teeth and breathed through his nose. "It nearly stops beating altogether. It gets really... heavy."

"Stevo?"

Vergil looked up at her and shrugged one shoulder. "Stevo, Ethan, Becca and her friend make it beat all the same... It ah... it beats like when I show mom my grades. The fear of disappointing them, of saying the wrong thing, of not making a funny enough joke..."

She pursed her lips, nodding. "The janitor?"

Vergil looked back down, frowning an eyebrow. "Mmm... He scares me... My heart goes nuts, even aches a little. Like there's a hollow feeling in my chest."

"Uhuh... Girls in school?"

"That's... fear, still."

"Like the janitor?"

"No... Like seeing an entirely new insect. You have no idea if it bites, if it's lethal, how to handle it..." he trailed off, raising his hands and shook them slightly. "I... damn it..." he whined.

"It's completely all right, we'll dedicate a session to that entirely. Move on, Vergil. The neighbours?"

He reached up and ruffled his hair violently, though it only came back in place neatly. It was too soft to stick out.

"It's nothing too much. Uh... It drops a little... Like when I get chores to do. It feels like a task to chat to them."

She smiled. "Good job, Vergil! You're getting very good at talking about yourself, which is good!"

Vergil felt himself blush and hid it behind a sleeve. Being treated like a dog wasn't something he could be exactly proud of.

"Thank you..."

"Now, I'll have to look deeper into this and we'll discuss the conclusions next time." she bounced the agenda. "Until then... tell me if you've had any trouble recently."

She eyed the bruise on his jaw. He touched it softly with the sleeve, sighed, and got on explaining everything, from the pebble on the window to the self-punching.

And what did that get him?

More pills.

"Hello!"

Vergil looked at Stevo bluntly. The bluehead was with someone Vergil didn't know. A stranger. But his heart barely reacted, just as the pill prescription promised.

Vergil just nodded, far too numb to bother replying. Clomipramine for his OCD, tegretol for the seizures, buspar for anxiety, effexor for depression, risperidone for his irritability, lithium for his mania, and then the new meds for his overly sensible heart. Now, these are ones for the morning and evening, he wasn't counting the pills he took at random times of the day when feeling a panic attack come.

Most they he didn't take them. Because when he did...

"Dude... You took your pills again." Stevo snickered. "I'll have what you had, look at you! High as a kite!"

Indeed. It didn't help at all that he skipped the breakfast he was supposed to have before taking them. Pills from last night successfully broke his routine of tapping his clock alarm twice, and the break of routine must've made his brain think it was okay to keep sleeping.

Despite waking half an hour before the classes started, his mother was grinning happily at the success of the medication.

"Bud?"

Vergil looked up from the gum glued to his table. By that point everything individual thing had a weird aura around it, but only if he didn't blink for long.

"Yes..."

The stranger was gone, and Stevo's cheek red. They must've done some secret handshake which ended in bitch slaps. Stevo loved his secret handshakes, but Vergil was always too awkward to follow suit.

"Look, um." the bluehead shifted, glancing around the classroom. Philosophy was about to start. "Our last conversation ended on a pretty... peculiar note." he pulled a bunch of faces, as he tended to while talking. "Now I know Ethan is..." he twisted his hand around. "The one with the..." he sprinkled invisible stuff on Vergil. "You know. But. You can talk to me too."

Vergil was lazily observing his stuff, scattered all over the desk. He didn't see the point in arranging everything anymore. Stevo followed his gaze and moved the pencil case on a notebook, which he made parallel to the edge.

"It's, uh... You were saying how you took into consideration taking all of your pills... By all you must've meant, whole containers and that kills..." he rolled his wrist twice. "People."

He took Vergil's bottle of water and lied it next to the pencil case, then moved some pens closer and- it ended up being a bigger mess than before.

"Shit. Um, yeah." he looked at Vergil with his tiny, blue eyes. They bounced from one of Vergil's eye to the other, searching his gaze for any spark of life.

When that proved futile, he snatched Vergil into a tight, slightly overdramatic hug. Vergil's back was uncomfortably hunched and his head tucked under his friend's, while fingers gripped his soft hair tightly.

"Only posers die you fucking idiot!" he cried, catching everyone's attention. "You're my only friend! Oh man, oh Jeez, oh my God!"

Vergil tapped his back with tiny fists to no avail, Stevo was too caught up in quoting his stupid movie. He sighed, acting as a ragdoll when the guy gripped his shoulders and shook him.

"I know what'll get you fixed right up buddy!" he was salivating and it was kind of gross.

He took his backpack and held it by the desk, then slammed an arm on it and slid all the things to the edge. Some of them fell into Vergil's backpack while others didn't, but he was pulling it on and standing up.

Stevo took Veril's arm and pulled him to his feet before hurrying out of the classroom. Any other day, Vergil would've started hyperventilating at the thought of skipping a class, but not today.

They ran down the hallway despite the approaching professor, passing right by without a word. The only other person was the janitor, who managed to ignore them even more than the professor did.

A few hallways later and Stevo was slamming open a classroom and entering. Vergil watched from the doorway as the bluehead went through the rows of desks to Ethan's. He clawed the guy's shirt and tugged him to his feet before shoving him violently.

Ethan stumbled ahead and meant to glare back but Stevo only kept pushing him until they got to the hallway.

"Jesus Christ, you moron." Ethan hissed, running a hand through his shoulder-length hair so that it'd no longer be over his face.

Now that his vision was in check, he glanced over at Vergil. "Vergil!" he looked around. "You're not in class!"

Vergil felt a faint itch in his chest, but it was just a distant attempt of adrenaline.

"No..." he murmured.

"More like no shit." Stevo huffed. "We're getting him a peanut butter smoothie." he slapped Verger's shoulder.

Ethan looked at his classroom, sighing. "Lunch break was literally after this class, couldn't you have-"

Stevo made a weird noise by inhaling air at a high pitch. It must've been a valid enough argument, for they soon found themselves at a Cafe.

--------

"And then there's your ant collection." Stevo argued. "Where- what- who would go and handle that were you to die. Your mom would probably just throw it out and then they'd scatter all over the place and kill some cat. There're a shit ton of cats in this town, so that wouldn't be a problem but- your death would be a problem!"

Vergil stirred his peanut butter smoothie. "I'm not suicidal."

Ethan peeked at him from behind his hair while Stevo looked away from his TV screen. They were watching SLC Punk, at Stevo's place.

Again.

As in, for the twenty third time.

"It was just an episode."

His friends slumped down. Well, Stevo threw himself sideways, on Ethan's lap. "Jesus, man, couldn't you have said that earlier!? I was actually trying!"

Vergil placed his cheekbone on his knuckles and took a sip from the thick straw. The nice flavour fell heavily into his empty stomach, he could feel each movement.

He was feeling better. So, he sketched a ghostly smile.

"Thanks..."

Stevo looked up at him, ignoring Ethan's struggle to push him off, and grinned.

"If it ever reoccurs..." Ethan began. "Just give me a call, Vergil."

Vergil peeked at Ethan's warm eyes and cancer-curing smile. And yet, that time, he couldn't feel his heart pick up or his legs tickle.

He couldn't feel anything.

There was no solution for him. Either be an paranoid, awkward, shaky little mouse or the carcass of a dead rat.

Vergil looked away from his friends who were goofing around, and kept on sipping his peanut butter smoothie.

No matter his state of the day, peanut butter smoothie was always a solution.

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