Back at St Mungos for yet another check up. Again and again he came here, the doctors still hopeful they could find another way to fix his back. But still he rolled around in a wheelchair, after the 32nd visit now. 

Dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark red pants, the adorned boy rolled down the halls as his father spoke to yet another new doctor, telling the long tale of his condition. No flower crown today. His white hair was pulled back, earrings and rings shining in the harsh light. Couldn’t they just give up and accept the fact that he wasn’t going to recover? He knew it. He accepted it. But his father wasn’t about to have a damaged child. 

Something flashed across his vision and he rolled to a stop, pulling himself out of his thoughts and turning his head to listen. A familiar voice. 

He turned slowly, reading the placards along the wall. Only when his eyes landed on Miko’s name did he swear softly.

Rowan quickly rolled over to the door, pushing it open quickly so he could get inside, nearly choking when he saw the male on the bed. 

The male that had caused so many conflicted thoughts. Gods help him. 

“So. Care to tell me what the party is all about?”

Elena was here. That was a familiar face he could trust himself around. However the second male in the room, he did not know, nor did he want to know from the looks of it. 

Miko groaned, his brother was giving him a headache. Just in the nick of time Milo scurried out of the room, a low and menacing voice sounded in the distant screeching his name. His vision was blurry and he blinked, more tears rolled down his cheeks. Elena was being a huge help and it meant a lot to Miko but the pain still was nagging at him. Before long a river of tears was rolling down his cheeks then the door swung open, someone in a wheelchair burst inside.

He quieted his sobs down to answer the question which was still lingering in his mind. Miko sputtered a cough out and nearly wheezed before a sharp pain shot through him. Coughing hurts, note to self do not cough unless you absolutely have to. The Hufflepuff waved his right arm around, attempting to cover his bare chest and tear streaked face all in one finally deciding that it was not big enough for both to be covered his hand rested over the boy's left cheek in an attempt to hide some of the tears.

"H-heh...p-pa-party..." Miko did a cough-wheeze-laugh sort of thing before wincing again and clutching his bruise covered torso and wincing once more because he touched the sensitive bruises. Great, emotions and physical pain what a beautiful bundle all wrapped in one.

His eyes seemed to loose the light that was always there, the fire behind it all it was just dull. Miko felt hopeless, he had remained strong all this time only to come crashing down, how humiliating. Upon Rowan's arrival his eyes glittered with slight amusement that he was getting visitors of people he actually new.

A scar was already visibly forming right above his waist and boy did he feel it too. Great, new scars, emotions and pain was all this day had for him, eh?

Miko choked on his tears, his left eye which was heavily bruised and a dark blue-black color lay in a ring around it, already had a waterfall of tears. He didn't want to cry. Not in front of Rowan. Not in front of anyone, he's tough right? Tough people don't cry! Stay strong Miko is all he could tell himself but the tears kept coming.

Rowan rolled over to the side of the bed as soon as the brother was gone. Gods above. He had almost looked worse than him when Rowan himself was injured. But this was something of a new breed. 

“Will you stop touching your damn injuries! It’s not helping you in any fashion!”

He was angry. Angry with himself- angry with this situation- angry with Miko- angry- angry- angry. The doctors here were shit. They always had been. Scarring usually never happened when you had magic to heal the d*mn wounds. 

“Let it out. I know it hurts. I know you’re probably- confused because no one tells you sh*t in this place- Here. Lean your head back. You can breathe easier. Breath through your mouth, c’mon. Your ribs probably hurt like hell. Just let it all out. I don’t care if you cry.” 

He had to push his anger and frustration away. He knew he didn’t have the best relationship with him in the past but that was okay. Miko needed a friend by his side. 

Rowan had developed impressive upper body strength in the past few months, so pulling himself up onto the edge of the bed wasn’t tooooo much of a challenge. He was careful to not hurt the other male in the process. He reached out and touched the back of his hand lightly, again, careful not to touch any of the bruises. 

He had been practically holding his breath. Stay tough, stay strong don't cry not now not in front of this guy! The rest of his body completely disagreed with his brain and thought it was a good idea to begin bawling by the point Rowan had rolled over to the side of his bed. The sobs were extremely pitiful and would click the maternal instinct in nearly any human in their right mind. It was the kind of cry that you could tell he'd been holding in for years upon years and he didn't want it to happen at the same time.

Miko listened to the Gryffindor and leaned his head back, breathing through his mouth which made it much easier and less painful. If he wasn't bawling his eyes out the boy would have fled by now but the words comforted him. Surprisingly, he didn't wince at the touch to his hand of all the places he was bruised and scratched his hands were almost completely fine if you don't count the large scratch over the palm of his hand which just made it clear how raw the palms of his hand were.

Outside of the door two voices were speaking. "We looked at his X-Ray over and over again until we found that he has a bruised rib cage and two fractured ribs. Oh also, let's not forget the broken shoulder! Yeah...turns out it wasn't fractured. Woowee this is not a lucky kid..." A deep voice was behind the door speaking in a manner which showed he couldn't give two sh*ts about this child. Then another voice. "That is my son you are talking about, can't you just heal it with magic and a load of potions?!" It was a gruff but kind at the same time which made Miko immediately know it was his step-father. Great.

Despite the words lingering in his brain as they danced around he ignored them. That wasn't his business they would tell him if he must know! Or that's what Miko thought. Can we just point out that he has never been the brightest child? Sure E's and O's are dominant in his report card but that's because magic and wizarding stuff is easy to him. The boy barely knows what common sense is! 

Because of his sincere lack of intelligence his bravery and mischief can make him a bit reckless to say the least. Of course this time it wasn't his fault. Who did this? Unknown. Why did they choose Miko? Maybe they didn't...maybe they did..that's to be discovered. 

Miko curled his fingers into a ball then uncurled them. He weakly reached over to Rowan's hand and grabbed it, squeezing it as hard as he could. A crack was heard and that's when he released Rowan's hand. That would probably hurt..

Rowan was here? Well that made Elena’s slightly strange day an awful lot better, she smiled at her friend, “Hi Rowan.”

Her attention turned back to Miko, he was absolutely bawling by this point and it was like a switch flipped in Elena’s brain. This kid had to be protected, at all costs, it was oddly strange to want to protect someone other than herself and Alan, but it happened.

“It’s all going to be okay Miko. The past is where the past belongs, behind you, all you need to do now is look at the future. You can get better, and you will get better. I’ll help you, promise.” Elena voice was a lot softer than the hard edge she used in the day to day. The words were designed to help Miko even if they would’ve worked best on Elena herself.

Rowan had said something about the doctors here being terrible. Miko was hurt in a way magic should, by all the books Elena had read, be able to heal. Worse had happened to the quidditch players at Hogwarts and they were out in days. How would Rowan know about that though unless.

Oh, they’d screwed up before, fixing Rowan. That’s it Elena was never ever letting any of her friends go here, ever again. Elena looked at Miko, then at Rowan, and realisation crossed her face. Elena slowly turned her gaze on the door where the doctors were speaking, eyes full of barely controlled anger. Even Miko in his dire state should be able to see the level of hatred she had for the hospital.

“Hello Elena. So we both know why the boys are here, but why are you here?”

Hopefully a subtle enough subject change for- oW HOLY GODS MIKO WHY? Rowan sucked in a harsh breath when he heard the crack. Which was thankfully just his joints, not the actual bones in his hand. He let go soon after that, so he didn’t have to ask through pained breaths for him to do so. He shook out his hand slightly. 

Anyhow, hopefully that was a subtle subject change. He knew Miko would want a distraction, and not to just talk about his injuries all day. And Elena looked just about ready to strangle the doctor.

“Oh and if anyone is the expert on lasting physical injuries, it’s me Elena, so don’t start with the I’ll help talk, because I’ll be leading that one. But if we need someone who can actually walk, I’ll ask you for help thennn.”

He laughed softly, grinning as he looked over at Elena, and reached to turn her attention back to Miko and himself, not the doctor in the hall. He tapped her cheek ever so slightly, before he leaned back on the bed. 

He just stared at Rowan as he spoke to Elena. Miko spaced off a bit so seeing the determined looks on their faces he knew soon St. Mungo's would be St. Limof's (if you get the joke thank you). "I ca-ca-cA" The Hufflepuff stuttering was getting lovely as it mixed with his nice and thick Scottish accent. How could they still understand. His face went red in frustration as Miko kept stumbling over the word can. "I can w-walk!" Finally the words were out, how annoying it was to repeat yourself a million times and still have no clue what your saying.

Miko nodded and smiled playfully, not the time for him but uh..yay. He managed to move his left arm on the edge of the bed and hoist his abdomen up a bit before shaking his head and laying back down. "I'll just demonstrate later.." Even though if you just looked at him it seemed that didn't hurt him but in fact if you had even the slightest glance into his emerald eyes you would see the pain. Haha, fun.

Speak of the devil, he's here!

Again, Milo strutted in like he owned the hospital and a huge grin spread across his face. "Oi, bab-" Miko knew what he was about to say but cut him off. "G-g-g-go aw-away." Milo had a confused look on his face before Miko spoke once more. "Did I st-stutter- wait...just get out." The Gryffindor twin laughed and nodded. "Have fun with your boyfriend. Fa-" The boy was sucked through the crack in the door as it was nearly slammed shut.

The Hufflepuff laughed nervously. "That's..yeah that's my b-bro-brother. Charming I know..." He rolled his eyes in sheer annoyance.

Rowan gently nudged Elena out of her thoughts of screaming at the doctors or anyone who would listen. She blinked a few times and returned to reality, "Ah, yes that makes sense. You've got it Rowan."

"Why I'm here? Well, I found my grandmother, so that was an interesting visit. Temporary family, it's better than none I suppose." Elena smiled a little sadly.

Milo came back again, much to Elena's chagrin and the anger of everyone actually inside the room. What kind of asshole antagonises your extremely injured brother? Not even Elena would do that to her enemies, it's just mean, poor Miko needs better family. Elena volunteered as tribute.

"Your brother? Pardon my french but how in the..." Elena let out a short string of rather colourful language, "Does that little shit keep getting in here? I'm pretty sure he's being hauled out of that door. Is he waiting around the corner until someone is distracted?"

Elena tried to make her tone slightly light, then retreated back to just leaning against the back of the chair, "I swear to god if he comes in here one more time I'll crash tackle him out the window so you two can get some peace and quiet."

“I swear if you try to get up again, I will actually tell the docs to cuff you down to the bed.”

Miko had had some trouble speaking a few moments ago, which was concerning. Possible brain trauma, or simply stuttering from emotions and whatnot?

However when that brother walked into the room, he knew there would be someone walking away with brain trauma today, and it wouldn’t be Miko, and definitely wouldn’t be Elena. He left as soon as he arrived though. 

Rowan lowered himself into the wheelchair once more and did the smart thing. He rolled over and simply locked the door. 

As soon as Elena said ‘so you two can get some peace and quiet’ he re thought not giving her brain trauma. 

“Yeah. Give Miko some peace and quiet.”

He gave Elena a hard look that said, ‘we’re having some words after this, whether you like it or not. And they may not be kind words.’ She likely didn’t mean what he thought she ment, but that didn’t matter to Rowan. 

“I agree though. Your brother is quite a prick. If you ever need a short child with a knife to go after him, I’m here.”

"Yeah I don't trust him at all..feel free to go after him ba- Rowan."

Miko watched the Gryffindor give Elena a strange look but he didn't judge. Rowan seemed to give a lot of people a lot of strange looks so he just learned to try to get used to it. The looks usually were a non-verbal message that was never directed to Miko so he kind of just looked away sometimes.

"He's also a homophobe with two dads...it makes no sense but yeah." He shivered then winced because it felt like his ribs went to hell and back. Miko was thinking if this is how Rowan felt the whole time he was injured but maybe a little better since he didn't have a bad twin brother who thought he was the best and the better twin when clearly Miko was beloved to a lot of people. Milo is not very likable as you probably can tell, he's a homohphobic, arrogant and just all around rude human being. Imagine living with him your entire life, now you know how the Hufflepuff feels.

He smacked his lips dryly and swallowed before opening his mouth to speak up again. "Can one of you get me a glass of water? Or liquid? Preferably water because that seems to be what the doctors want me to be getting." Miko pointed to the IV bag to the left of him which was filled with a clear liquid, not to be mistaken for the bag next to it which was full of a bright red substance seemingly blood but it was sparkling a bit. "I mean you don't have to, it's just a request." He corrected himself because the boy never wanted to even sound a hint of rude, that's just not him. It's probably why so many people seem to magnetize to him..maybe.