The Monsters Inside and Out (Scott Howl x Depressed Reader)

53. Rooftop Lunch

You pass through the first four classes with ease. In history, you are given a partner project. Polly, being the sexy ghost she is, usually persuades the person who's smartest in the topic to be her partner, either through sex or drugs. Today however, she wanted to be your partner. "Hey, (Y/N), you wanna be my partner?" You look up at her. "Why?" "Cause we're friends, and I wanna be your partner." "I'm not very good with this stuff." "And I'm not hearing you say no." She floats up and sits down in the seat next to you. Your task was to quickly research the death of a figure of power, and make a little reenactment of it. You chose King Louis XVI, who was beheaded. You find a guillotine that's conveniently located in the room, and Polly possesses a skeleton classmate. The skeleton is placed into the guillotine, and you trigger it to chop off the head. Being a skeleton, your classmate wasn't harmed, and your teacher is pleased with your performance! Not only does she give you an A, but also +2 CREATIVITY and +1 BOLDNESS. You and Polly chat the rest of the period, and your mood has increased. Your next class is Haunted Math. It's a pretty normal class (by Spooky High standards) and it's over pretty quickly.

By now you're in a relatively good mood. Not enough to say that you're happy, but it's a substantial difference from last night and this morning. You take your seat in Spells:101, and your mood suddenly changes. You notice Brian entering the room and sitting down. Your calm mood turns angry as you see his lazy face, already struggling not to fall asleep. You don't know what exactly happened, but you know that something did, in fact, happen between him and Scott. In fact, you remember that Scott said not only Brian, but also Oz, Vicky, and Amira as well. But seeing how Scott knocked Brian's head off his own body out of some sort of jealousy or fear really hits you hard. To prevent your mood from worsening, you look down at your desk, making little doodles in your notebook. In class today, you learn how to turn vanilla and chocolate ice cream into chocolate and vanilla ice cream. The bell rings and you make a quick escape from class. In 4th period, English Curses, you contemplate finding a curse to put on Brian even. Luckily for him though, you have a strong moral compass and decide not to do anything hasty until you, A.) Hear the whole story, and B.) Decide if it was ill-intentioned. After that, you take your things to your locker and think about this morning. Someone asked you to meet them in the library. You have a pretty good idea of who it is, so you decide to go. If you're wrong on who it is though, you're not in the mood to be fucked with, so you should be fine.

You climb up the stairs of the school and finally reach the library. Upon entering you notice your idea was correct, Oz asked you to come here, and he is sitting at a table, reading a book. He is the only person in the library, aside from the librarian, so you approach him. One of his little phobias watch you approach and tap his head when you stop in front of him. He looks up at you and smiles. (Technically, he has no mouth, but you can tell he'd be smiling if he did.) "Thanks for meeting me here." You shrug your shoulders, "Not like I had anything better to do." He stands up and pats your shoulder. He nudges his head in a direction, and starts walking away. You follow, and he tells the librarian, "Miss Agnes-Hotep, my friend and I are going on the roof." "Okay, be careful you two." Oz walks behind the desk and gestures for you to follow. He begins climbing a ladder, and he opens a hatch on the ceiling, leading to the roof. Once you get to the top, he shuts the hatch and sits down. Using Oz to steady yourself, you sit down as well. He takes out a lunchbox, and opens it up. He holds it open for you, offering for you to take something. You politely decline, and ask him, "So what did you want me to meet you here for?" He grabs a sandwich, and begins tearing pieces off of it to feed the little phobias on his body. "As an embodiment of fear, I can feel the fear radiating off of others. For some people it's strong, others it's weak. But this morning felt off. I could feel an extremely strong presence of fear. So much so that I was afraid it was an old.. relative of mine. But when I got to school, I felt it coming off of you, which I found odd. The fear was so strong, it should have been coming from a powerful being like me, but it was coming from you. I saw you run into the bathroom and I wanted to try to help, so I asked you to come out here to have lunch. It's quiet here and I always come here when I need to get away from people." You look out at the landscape. "How come you're allowed up here?" "I once had a panic attack so Agnes took me up here to help calm me down. Now she lets me use it whenever I want." You nod your head to show you understand. He adds, "So, if you don't mind me asking.. What are you so afraid of?" You hesitate. You're so embarrassed about the whole ordeal you don't even want to think about it. But instead of hiding your feelings, or denying that they exist, you go with your gut and tell him. You explain the entire interaction with your mom, her threat, and the fact that you're a liar. After finishing your story, the air is silent between you two. You're worried for some reason that Oz is disappointed in you. He asks, "So, you're afraid that your mom won't let you see us?" "That might be part of it, but I'm more scared of telling Scott. What if he gets upset, or disappointed? And what if my mom finds out about our relationship?" You put your head between your hands to protect yourself. "What if I never see him again?" You sniffle, feeling tears welling up in your eyes. Oz taps your shoulder, and you see him offering a tissue. You grab it and wipe away the snot and tears. "Um, if your mom tries to break you two up then.. I'll be there to help you! And so will Vicky, and Brian, and Amira, and everyone else! We'll always be by your side!" He looks at you with confidence in his eyes, but you're not feeling it. Only one topic comes to your mind. Without giving it a second thought, you ask, "What happened between you guys and Scott?" He cocks his head to the side. "What do you mean?" "Last week, right before he left for the rest of the week, Scott said that you hurt his feelings. You, Vicky, Brian, and Amira. What happened?" Oz looks down. He places his hand on his chin, thinking hard about what it could be. After a minute, he says, "I-I'm sorry, (Y/N). I have no idea what you're talking about. Up until last week I've honestly never seen Scott be sad." You huff in response. You believe him, but can't help getting frustrated. He says, "I'm really sorry. Have you tried talking to him about it?" "No, I guess not." You stare blankly at the roof below you. Another minute passes by and Oz says, "We should probably be getting back down, lunch is ending soon." "Okay." Oz packs away the food his phobias didn't eat, and opens the hatch to go down.