PEARL

THREE

TRACK 3
SUNFLOWER VOL. 6
HARRY STYLES

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ROWAN EMERY hummed over the clink of metal against cracked bathroom tile, seeking another way to distract himself since playing with both Micah's hair and golden chain was lacking its usual knack of calming him down.

The two boys - one with hair like burnished bronze, the other cropped platinum, seeing as the last of Rowan's lilac hair dye had recently ebbed away along with the proper feeling of sun on his skin - were situated in the hospital's second bathroom, on its equally austere and cold-aired second floor. Said bathroom differed from the other by having tiles of pill-powder blue instead of dying-daisy-yellow, and cubicle doors that were off-white instead of flat-lining pink.

The elder of the boys was kneeling in front of Rowan inside one of these cubicles, listening to him hum tunelessly while setting up a secret shot of testosterone.

Rowan watched Micah assemble it, chain-gold fingers moving quick and expert. There was certainly no novelty to this routine, but even so, Rowan couldn't help but grab the hand that was holding the small syringe by the caramelised wrist when Micah took his bare thigh in the other, preparing to administer the shot. The unexpectedness of Rowan's grip made Micah jolt and raise his fig-brown eyes, which were quickly hidden under a warm blanket of much deeper brown, curled copper hair. The softness of said hair, a few curls of which had been wound around Rowan's now white-knuckled fingers only moments before, seeped into the frown that had etched itself over Micah's features, replacing any severity in it with concern.

"Ro," he reprimanded, firmly but gently, then opted for more of the latter and gave Rowan's thigh a soothing squeeze. "C'mon. It'll be over as soon as it starts, I promise. You know it will."

"Yeah..." Rowan replied uneasily, touching at the hand Micah still had on his exposed right leg to ground himself as best he could - which wasn't easy, seeing as he was in an isolated, ice-cold, ice-blue bathroom, about to meet the end of a glinting needle.

It amazed Rowan, in all honesty, that he still shied away from the syringe. It amazed him for multiple reasons – firstly, because the hormones in that shot were like gold dust, in his opinion, and secondly, because it had been over a month since he'd started taking them.

More specifically, it had been over a month since the slip of the razor and slip of signed paper had landed Rowan Emery in one of Highgate Mental Institutions's white-walled bedrooms (which had the rarity of a window, so it wasn't all bad), and that meant it had been over a month since he'd met Micah Angelo and his twin brother had started sneaking the testosterone shots that Rowan had never been allowed at home into the hospital for him every visiting day.

To do such a thing, Ryan had an incredibly clever and long-thought-out tactic: he would always bring a small bag or backpack with him when he visited, carrying enough of Rowan's secretly-bought meds to last him until the next scheduled visiting day, along with whatever else Ro or his friends had asked for (condoms, lip gloss, and the last time, a felt tip pen. Any colour.)

Then, after he'd visited Rowan, Ryan would leave the bag behind the bins around the back of the hospital, and whilst Nicole and Nate kept watch of the nearest hospital halls, Ro and Micah would go and grab the bag, run to Micah's room (seeing as it was the quickest to get to) and hide it under his bed, all after Lily had managed to get them the key to the back door like she normally did, however much her "tactic" made the four people who knew about it uneasy.

Worried, even. Really, really worried.

After a few of the smuggled shots had been used and Ryan's next visit was approaching, Lily would pull the same concerning stunt to coax the key out of the nurse who had it, and Nate and Nicole would resume their vigil of the halls, and Ro and Micah would leave the empty bag in exactly the same place behind the bins, ready for Ryan to pick up on his way out of the hospital before catching the bus back home.