Origins oneshots!!! (Spare me)

I can't be what you need

(I'm itching for angst and it smells like hurt/no comfort)

(Continuation of the same plot as "Lilium orphanage", mentions of puberty ik its awkward guys but deal😖 my plan for these 'flashbacks into Artemis's past is to show them through reverse chronology so in each 'flashback' Artemis will be younger, so this is before "Lilium orphanage")

A few months before Artemis and Mikey's conversation, a few months before Artemis's 15th birthday. Not that Artemis was even counting anymore, for him his birthday was almost just a regular day, all he cared about was he was currently 14, there wasn't really any excitement to growing up.

Lilium was quiet. Miss Rose was in her office - probably sorting through their finances as they weren't currently doing too well. Most kids were asleep quietly, the dark sky peeking through poor quality curtains, but there was slight life. Slight life coming from Artemis, he couldn't really sleep.

Yesterday was rough, Elijah had been adopted and left yesterday, Artemis couldn't sleep with knowing the fact of the newly empty bed a few beds away from him. Him and Elijah were really close, it had always been Artemis, Elijah and Mikey.

He tried to be excited for Elijah, nobody so young should be without a family, he finally found a family he deserved. Yet it still felt lonely, it would always hurt seeing so many people leave knowing he basically had no chance of being adopted. He could only hope Mikey got lucky too and found a family and wasn't stuck in the system like him.

It still hurt. When the closest thing to family you'll ever have is temporary, maybe he was being sensitive. Maybe he was an emotional 14 year old who had no idea what family was and got too paternal over anyone who trusted him so they didn't feel as alone as he did. What would he know about being alone? Lilium always had at least someone, if anything there was always a lack of privacy instead of a lack of people.

So he decided to stay up, maybe incase Elijah came back and he could greet him, or maybe that fantasy he had was because he was delirious over being tired. But he stayed up, a random series that Elijah used to like on the television however he wasn't particularly paying attention, mainly more in his own world feeling sorry for himself.

"Artemis?" A weak voice buried through his thoughts, he wasn't pretty startled however. There was a heavy numb feeling that kept him from being startled, miss Rose standing in the doorway with a soft expression. "What are you doing awake?" Miss Rose asked softly, her brunette hair clipped back into a lazy ponytail to keep her hair out her eyes while doing her paperwork.

A soft hum in reply came, Artemis bringing his knees up to his chest and hugging them, his glance fixed at the floor. "Couldn't sleep" Artemis replied weakly, the couch he was stilling on denting slightly causing him to glance to the side to see miss Rose sitting down next to him. "Thinking about things?" She asked in a similar caring yet casual tone, not breaking her look from him despite Artemis turning away to avoid looking at her

"What is there to think about?" Artemis asked nonchalantly, honestly unfazed about miss Rose being there, at the end he knew the conversation would end with her telling him to go to bed as he was technically breaking curfew rules - however she wasn't too strict on curfew as Artemis stayed up all the time. "I don't know.. maybe Elijah?" She continued

"I'm not thinking about Elijah-" Artemis replied, his voice cracking as he spoke leading him to cut himself off and cough into his hand slightly to try sort whatever caused the voice crack. His cheeks warmed in embarrassment on hearing giggles from miss Rose "are you laughing at me?" He accused with embarrassment, his shouldered tensing in annoyance. "No, No, I'm sorry. Why'd your voice break?" Miss Rose giggled, Artemis had a rather soft and high voice so hearing his voice break into a higher tone almost felt like listening to a squeaky dog toy