Bird Boy [OMEGAVERSE] [BXB] ✓

Chapter 18: Fade Away

TW: Drugging/Mentions of noncon

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Exam week is stressful, as expected, and Robin has to take all of his exams. Jude only has to take two of them, because of his good attendance and perfect grades. Robin thinks that that's probably why failing exams wouldn't make him lose his valedictorian spot.

Either way, it goes by far too slow. Robin doesn't see Jude as much, which sucks. He doesn't see Miles at all, though, which is amazing.

Robin is pretty sure he passed all of his exams, but he doesn't think he did exceptional on any of them. Honestly, there are a couple in there that he probably would have failed if not for the curve.

He ends up passing, though, and before he knows it he's attending graduation practice. He has to wake up early for it, and that's not even the only downside. Rose and Silas, alphabetically, are right next to each other. There were people between them, but they've since dropped out or gotten their GED's. So, normally, Robin would be spending the entirety of graduation with his best friend.

However, said best friend decided it would be a great idea to be the smartest person in the whole school. So, Jude is going to be on stage the entire time. This leaves Robin between Caden Rogers and Lana Stevens, both of whom he has barely spoken to in their seven years of being classmates. Needless to say, it's beyond boring.

On the actual day of graduation, it's a Saturday, 5:00, and almost 90°F outside. This is a problem, because heat always puts Robin in a bad mood. It also drains his energy for whatever reason. He prefers cold weather by far, despite the fact that he gets cold easily. He prefers it to this, that's for sure.

They waste about ten minutes in the gym, which Robin spends the entirety of dreading this entire thing. His family isn't here, but Jude's is—which means inevitably interacting with them. It's been a year or so since the last time Robin spoke to them, and that was on purpose. They're really judgmental, and snooty, and they constantly ask Robin about his life plans, and they're passive aggressive, and they're always trying to set Jude up with random girls...

It's annoying. Robin doesn't like Jude's parents, and it appears as though Jude barely feels any sort of way toward them. They have done the bare minimum that a parent should do, and Jude has never been close with them to begin with.

Robin will have to see them, though. He will have to interact with them. He's so not in the mood for it all, which goes back to the temperature thing.

The line that Robin is in begins moving. He follows everyone out of the gym and across the small distance to the football field. They file down the rows, just as they practiced, and Robin sits in the same spot as last time. He's glad his graduation cap gives him a bit of shade, otherwise he'd be miserable.

Robin sees Jude and Miles sitting next to each other on stage. They appear to speak to each other every once in a while, but it's all initiated by Miles and neither look happy. Robin just sighs, wanting this whole thing to be over already. He's sweating.

After like ten more minutes the principal walks onto the stage. She starts giving a speech, and Robin can recognize a few AP's, but other than that he has no idea who the rest of the adults are.

The valedictorian speech Jude gives is stupid, too, because almost all of it is doctored to what administration wanted it to say. It really doesn't even sound like it was written by Jude, even though he is technically the one that wrote it. He just had to get it proofread by administration, who changed most of it. Miles' speech is basically the same, so something tells Robin both were written by the same person. Probably the principal.

Robin is so bored right now, and it's hot outside, and he just wants to go home and distract himself with video games or something. Sadly, he won't be going home for a good while due to the fact that Jude talked him into going to a graduation party tonight. Evidently most, if not all, of their graduation class will be there.