game over ♥︎ 'level up' trilogy

(8) tea spilled

*Just got the notification reminding me today is update day and got SO excited. I finished this chapter weeks ago. But I'm still working on 9, oof. Anyway. Thanks to Noloua for the last chapter title, "a siren drowned". I tagged "This Bird Has Flown" because my friend has been trying to get me to make an AMV to it with our OCs.*

(3321 words)

Once they all gathered in Allura's basement, all eyes were on Keith.

Keith was looking down, "You already heard a lot of it from Lance..."

Shiro frowned, "I want to hear it from you."

Allura sighed, "Just start where you want."

Keith ran his hands down his face, refusing to look up, "I was already drinking when I moved to Linden. I got moved to so many different homes because I was what they called a discipline case, I was always getting in trouble. Getting caught with alcohol under my bed, getting into fights, sneaking out, ditching school, the list goes on. When I got to Linden, I met Carter at a party. I was already drunk and we ended up hooking up in a bedroom, afterward he lit a joint and asked if I wanted to hit it with him. I said yes, but I didn't know it was laced with cocaine. It was one hell of a high. I felt like I was at the top of the world. He asked me if I wanted to go to this hang out with him and his friends. I went. It was an abandoned building. Apparently, they had a hobby of breaking into old buildings and getting high. After about a week me and Carson started dating. We didn't put a label on it but it was clear to everyone that we were together. I was pretty much always drunk or high, even at school. I was bringing vodka in water bottles, doing lines in the bathroom. I even came to school on acid once. That's why I didn't realize what we were doing to Cyrin and Millie was wrong. They were two kids that were in choir and marching band, I don't know why they hated them so much, why they took every chance they found to torture them. But I took part in that torture. Carter practically had me brainwashed because I was too intoxicated to think for myself. Whenever I would start to question if we were going too far with the bullying, Carter would get me to start drinking or smoking something before sweet-talking me and telling me it was just everyone joking around, that we were all having fun. It worked. He was able to manipulate me into thinking it was fine every time by getting me fucked up as he filled my head with lies. And it only got worse from there," Keith rubbed his eyes, having started to tear up a bit, "It got so much worse..." his voice cracked.

Lance sat closer to him and pulled him into a hug, "Take your time..."

Keith hugged Lance back, taking a few deep breaths before letting go and just leaning against him, "I started to realize what Carson was doing to me. So I got sober for one night. I was at Seamus's, going through withdraw. He told me that was what Carson did, he would date the most vulnerable people he could find and manipulate them. He got off on it, having control over someone like that. So I tried to get sober so I could think for myself again. But I was hooked. I ended up doing acid the next afternoon. Carson came over while I was tripping. I tried to confront him, but he told me Seamus was a liar. He said we should have a drink and talk it over. My dumbass fell for it. I let him get me crossfaded like he always did when he was going to manipulate me."

"What is crossfaded?" Allura asked.

"It's when you take drugs and do alcohol at the same time and they mix together in a bad way. When you get crossfaded you can barely think straight and you get sick. That's why Carson would get me like that. He would act all nice and rub my back when I threw up. And he would slip the lies in there with all the nice things. I believed all of it. And he kept me under his control like that for two months. I never realized how horrible the things we were saying to Cyrin and Millie were. It wasn't until Seamus and Carson started to beat Cyrin up. The first few times they got me to hold Millie back from helping him. But I slowly started to realize it was wrong. So I started to ditch school so I wouldn't be around when they beat up Cyrin. I tried to get myself sober. The night Carson came to see why I hadn't been coming to school I had had a couple of drinks, and so had he. I called him out again, and this time I wasn't going to let him trick me into drinking more or getting high. So he couldn't get me crossfaded and his manipulation didn't work. But I was a bit drunk. We got into a fight over everything we had been doing to Cyrin and Millie. I threw an empty whiskey bottle at him but missed. Then he tried to hit me, but I dodged it. That's when my foster mom came home. She knew about all the bad stuff I was doing but she didn't care, she was only in it for the check the government gave her to take care of me. But she hated Carson, so she kicked him out. I continued to ditch school as much as I could, when I did go to school I avoided Carson and the others at all costs. And then one day we got called out of class for an assembly. They announced that Cyrin had killed himself. After the assembly, I heard people saying he had overdosed on a mixture of every medication in his house. He didn't want there to be the slightest chance of him surviving, he took like fifty pills."