Random oneshots 2.0

Rishel and Alana Oneshot:

thesmithsaresuperior The Oneshot I promised you.

Author's Note/Trigger Warning ⚠️: Cursing, Child Neglect, Child Abuse, Toxic environment, Murder, bullying, child endangerment, Toxic relationships, both hurt no comfort and hurt comfort, angst, the ending is bittersweet, multifaceted characters go brrr, Lyde is bad at talking to others and making new friends so his words get taken in the wrong way. Spoiler Warning ⚠️ Spoiler Warning ⚠️: During the epilogue there will be spoilers for the beginning of the second book to this series and, in extension, the end of TSSBWMLFY book 1 as well. If you don't want to be spoiled then avoid the epilogue of this Oneshot, however if you don't mind spoilers then please read it and let me know what you think about the epilogue. Lastly, if you would like to listen to music while reading this I would recommend, Christmas Kids, I can't handle change (both by Roar), Softcore, Daddy Issues (both by The Neighbourhood), Washing machine heart, I bet on loosing dogs (both by Mitski), Gilded Lily by The Cults, Cigarettes out the window by TV Girl, and Army Dreamers by Kate Bush.

Prologue:

Rishel knew from a very early age, pretty much from the earliest age he had a memory to go off of, that his father hadn't cared all that much about him (and later on his younger brother), and his mother had absolutely despised her two sons. It was sort of a factual thing to him. As factual and normal as the grass being green, or the sky being blue, or the fact that humans breathed oxygen.

Maybe that should have been concerning to Rishel, but it wasn't, maybe the fact that it wasn't so concerning to Rishel was concerning in and of itself, but he honestly didn't have the energy to dwell on that, on what should or shouldn't have been, on what his parents should have been, because, the reality of things was, that, well, they weren't the should've beens, and they never would be the should've beens.

They weren't ever going to change from the people they were, not because they couldn't change, but because they won't change, they refuse to change. And that's the thing that hurts the most. But, with that said, there really was no point to dwell, it was just a waste of his time and energy and nothing was going to change. He was just going to be more depressed than he already was if he thought and dwelled over it.

And yet he did anyway. Even when he knew it was of no use. Even when the love of his life reminded him it was no good and only served to worsen his mental health. Even as he found himself dying in a back alleyway, he still chose to dwell on his life up until now. Dwelling on everything he's ever remembered experiencing, both the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the lows and the highs.
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Main Story:

His earliest memory was when he was roughly 5 years old. He remembers he had a nightmare (what the nightmare was exactly he couldn't for the life of him recall) and he desperately wanted his parents to comfort him, despite already knowing at this point that they weren't going to, but it was still something he couldn't help but crave, something he still wanted, and dreamed that one day he'd get their love and affection.

So he snuck into their room as quietly and quickly as a small child of his age could manage and (as gently as he could) climbed onto his parents bed (who always slept on the very opposite ends of the shared bed, and then in separate beds by the time Rishel was 10) and gently, so that his mother wouldn't be as harsh and mean to him as she probably would be if he had rudely woken her up, shook her.

It took a couple of tries to wake her up, but when he finally did she looked pretty pissed off that he dared wake her and slapped him so hard across his face that he fell off the bed and landed on his ass, a reaction that, while it wasn't unexpected, still hurt like all hell, both emotionally and physically. He wanted to cry, however, Rishel knew that crying would only make her temper worse, so he forced himself to not let the tears that threatened to fall, fall.