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17. Change Your Ticket

17. Change Your Ticket

"I can't fucking do this with you. God, you're still just as fucked up as the day I met you, aren't you?"

Scott stared blankly at him.

"I can't fix this! I thought that I could. I was willing to try, but God, you're hopeless! You've gotten not even a little bit better!" Harry gestured up and down Scott's frame with his hand, and Scott flinched. "You let a fucking Instagram model ruin you? God, Scott, call me when you get some of your dignity back."

His words and the look on Scott's face haunted him as he laid in bed that night.

He awoke to a pounding on his door, and groaned as he prepared his "fuck off" speech.

Mitch's frantic face made him eat his words.

"Please tell me he's in here?"

"What?" Harry was becoming nervous. "Who?"

Mitch emitted a mixture of a whine and a whimper, and rubbed his eyes. "Scott. I can't... he isn't... fuck..."

Harry stepped out into the hall, feeling his anxiety rise. He had left Scott alone on the corner of the street. He remembered it vividly, despite blacking out shortly after.

"Where have you looked? Have you called?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice even.

"He isn't answering his phone. I've only... checked his room... His bed wasn't slept in." The anxiety bubble burst in Harry's chest now, and dread was taking over. Mitch's voice was becoming wet as he fought back tears, just as Jack came sauntering down the hall.

"Jack, have you seen Scott?" Harry asked. Jack's eyes narrowed at him for a moment.

"I left him with Liam," Jack replied with a bored voice.

"Where? When?" Mitch and Harry asked, simultaneously.

Jack's eyes narrowed again. "In Liam's room... last night... after Harry berated him on a street corner?" Jack replied, trying to squeeze past them. "I need coffee."

Harry watched with a painful mixture of relief that Scott had made it back here, and heartache that he had evidently spent the night in his friend's room, when he should have really been in Harry's instead.

Harry shook the thought from his mind. He knew that he didn't deserve that chance. Not right now, anyway. He had some serious apologizing to do today.

"I'm sure he exhausted himself... you know... all upset..." Mitch muttered, trying to ease the tension that he could see in Harry's musculature. "I'll go... get him..." Mitch finished in a near whisper, scampering off towards Liam's room.

Harry nearly followed, but he stopped himself, afraid of what he would find.

He returned inside to fix his hair and throw on some clean clothes, trying to make himself look a bit more presentable before investigating the fallout of his horrible mistake last night. He opened his door and nearly crashed into the man in question, who was being dragged by his arm like a misbehaving toddler in a toy store.

His eyes trailed up and down Scott's frame for a moment, taking in the fact that Scott was still wearing his clothing from the night before. Unsurprising, considering the fact that his bed had not been slept in, either, but it stung his heart just a bit, anyway, as his eyes lingered on Scott's bunched up shirt and his jacket in his hand.

"Excuse us, Harold. Scott here is in time-out. Even more so than you are." Mitch said through clenched teeth, pushing at Scott as they continued to move down the hall.