Paw patrol one shots

Mental

Rubble quietly shuffled down the stairs, a yellow blanket wrapped around him, keeping him calm and stopping him from crying. He walked into the living room and curled up in the corner of the sofa, smiling weakly at his mother. She smiled back as she walked in from the kitchen.

"Hi honey. Haven't seen you all day." This was true, the young teen had spent all day in his room. Not sleeping or doing homework. Just curled up under a mass of blankets and pillows. He had so much he wanted to do but did nothing. Just be alone with his thoughts as the only company. He hadn't eaten either, definite proof that something was wrong.

"Just a bad day." He whispered, hands around the mug of cocoa his mother brought in for him.

"You have more good days than bad now sweetie. I think you're getting better." Bless this woman. Her intentions were right but as much as she tried, she just didn't understand how her son's brain functioned. The freckled boy sighed.

"Mum, my depression is a shapeshifter, one day it's as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear -the next it's the bear. On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone. I call the bad days "the Dark Days", you know that."

"Try lighting candles?"

"But when I see a candle I see the flicker of a flame, sparks of a memory younger than noon in which I am standing beside an open casket. It is the moment that I learn everyone I will ever come to know will someday die. Besides Mum, I'm not afraid of the dark, perhaps that's part of the problem."

"I thought the problem was that you can't get out of bed some days?" She asked, moving closer to her chid.

"I can't," he sniffed. "anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head,"

"Where did anxiety come from?"

"Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town that depression felt obligated to invite to the party
Mum, I am the party, only I'm a party I don't want to be at." Tears leaked from the boy's eyes. He knew his mother was trying to help but she really wasn't. She could never understand.

"Why don't you try going to actual parties, see your friends?"

"Sure I make plans, I make plans but I don't want to go to I make plans because I know I should want to go I know sometimes I would have wanted to go. It's just not that much fun having fun when you don't want to have fun Mum." Rubble always got slightly hysterical and repeated words when he was in this mindset. Still, he continued, determined not to break.

"You see Mum, each night Insomnia sweeps me up in his arms dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-light. Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company."

She says "Try counting sheep."

"But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake," Rubble whispered. "So I go for walks, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists. They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells reminding me that I am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that I cannot baptise myself in."

"Honey, happy is a decision." She placed a hand on his shoulder gently.

"But my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg. My happy is a high fever that will break."

"Sometimes though you are good at making something out of nothing." She sighed. She didn't understand how the smallest thing could actually impact the boy beside her. "Sweetheart... are you afraid of dying?"

"No Mum. I am afraid of living. Mum I am lonely!" He cried, thinking about how all his friends had someone. They were all coupled up except him. No one would want to deal with his mental health.

"I think I learned that when Dad left how to turn the anger into lonely the lonely into busy so when I say I've been super busy lately I mean I've been falling asleep on the couch watching SportsCenter to avoid confronting the empty side of my bed but my depression always drags me back to my bed until my bones are forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city, my mouth a bone yard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves - the hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with the echoes of a heartbeat but I am just a careless tourist here."

He took a shaky breath as his mother listened.

"I will never truly know where I have been."

"I know, honey. I'm sorry I can't understand."

"Mum, can't you see?" He asked, tears now flowing freely as he wrapped the blanket tighter around him and leaned into his mother's comforting arms. "Neither can I."

***

Part of me's not even sorry for making the usual bubbly and happy one like this. Just shows how well people can hide things.