Chapter Text
“Oh.” Ada said, as soon as she saw him. “Morrie. You shaved.”
DeMaurius Perth scratched self-consciously at his chin with one hand, then returned it to the pocket of his sweatshirt.
“Yeah. It was itching me a lot. Feeling weird.”
It had been strange, how quickly the sensation had come upon him last night; the sense of not-rightness, the agitation. It had been getting thinner for some reason, anyway — had begun to look patchy until he’d had to trim it back to try to keep some semblance of style.
The room felt hot as he looked around for a seat, but DeMaurius thought nothing of it; he’d felt inexplicably off since last Thursday, but this morning he’d woken up with a stomachache and a deep longing for home that had left him feeling gray and fast-moving and empty.
Ada brushed her hand over his tight curls in that gentle way she had, always looping a fingertip into the coil closest to the center of his forehead, and squeezed a piece of paper into his hand before retaking her seat.
“Ah. Well, you look handsome. Now sit down — we’re just going over the notes that got sent down from last week’s meeting between the Sunshine and Eden Clans over in Montana.”
DeMaurius found a seat two spaces away from the group leader, next to the only other familiar face in the room. Elke smiled at him as he approached, and scooted over on her bench to make room for him.
At the front of the room, Doris Calloway stood up to read the minutes of last meeting — and DeMaurius heard a strange buzzing noise behind him.
Then Elke was shaking his shoulder and he was trying to answer her, but couldn’t quite get his words to work right, and there were alarm bells ringing somewhere in his head but they were far away and sleep seemed so close…
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