Chapter Text
Depression is not a one-episode kind of thing.
Seeing shit everywhere didn’t stop after his 10th birthday; the alcohol helped, but he decided to stop because he began to hate his father more and more, and he isn't gonna became that man.
He talked with his mom, and one of those times, she listened, worried, and acted. That’s why he loves his mom.
Therapy is the only option that can help him, but not in South Park; he knows how fucked up the town is, how everything closer is the same, so in the summer break, with an excuse of a vacation, he and his mom go out of the state. Shelley stays enjoying her last summer break in South Park before going to college; his friends don't care (or at least the majority of them don't), but all that doesn't matter when his mom is more than happy to go away, especially away from Randy. This is the most time he and his mom has spent together. He misses her sometimes.
They ended up on the cost because it is still summer and they should enjoy the hot weather somewhere pretty, even if he would prefer to stay in their hotel room, or any place far away from the sun.
Kenny laughs at him on text. Henrietta advises him to kill himself, and he really is considering it. (He knows she is joking in a way, something that she always says like an answer to her mom's complaints, so he doesn’t take it seriously at all.) And Pete says that he should write something about it for the next reunion in Henrietta's room when he goes back; he is already in the second paragraph before reading that.
It is after the fourth day when his mom decided to stay just until dawn on the beach. Because of the alert of a possible hurricane near the next day, the beach would be close and maybe not just tomorrow, so his mom is enjoying the last of it, he guesses.
The sun going down looks pretty, so pretty that he has to take a picture like the conformist he is. And even if the breeze is cold, the last rays of the sun still warm his skin.
His mom is looking at him with worry in his eyes but a little smile on her face.
Maybe not everything is shit.
His mom drive to another state and another and another. To buy things, to enjoy things, to search for something. She says that nobody gives her confidence to leave his son with—he kind of cries at that.
It's until they ended up on another more hidden beach that makes him think of little towns in the middle of nowhere, where all the people there know each other. That doesn’t help with his mood, so they don’t stay enough to hear about the weird occurrence in there, just to taste their famous fries.
They ended up in a closer city to that beach, tho. It is not bigger, but it is not a little town either, there are tall buildings and more than one hospital. It is enough for him to get distracted, and it’s enough for his mom to search again.
It’s when she finds it.
“Maybe I got someone,” his mom says after one month and more than a thousand kilometers after.
He has an appointment for the next day, and he guesses that sooner is better.
When they enter, he didn’t expect to be someone else waiting in the waiting room.
His mom says a polite greeting to the people there; meanwhile, he said it almost in a whisper, not looking at the kid or the adult.
He has to remember that he is not in South Park, that no one there knows him. That being here is what he needs, and he shouldn’t doubt being already there. For some reason, his mom decided to begin a longer conversation with the parent of the other... patient.
He isn’t really paying attention, and he feels anxious to think that everyone expects him to talk with the other kid present when he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to look at him either, but he does, trying to be discreet, noticing how the other looked anxious too and with a conflict expression on his face.
He makes the error of still looking when the kid catches his eyes. Their looks connect for a second, making him just look at his feet, feeling more anxious and just stupid.
The door opens, making him think, “thank god,” hearing an echo to it that he is not gonna pay attention to.
“Marsh, Stan.” He freezes to look at his mom, that nods and kisses his cheek to let him go.
He feels his face get warm, remembering how they are in a public place, and he is a teenager, but he loves his mom too much to act like the asshole teenager that he should be at his age.
He takes a breath before getting up and begins walking to the door where the therapist is, and maybe it was his imagination, but when he pass next to the other guy, he hears a murmur saying, “good luck.”
That makes his nervousness completely go away before entering and hearing the door closed behind him.
The road trip by himself didn’t work (not that he expects it to).
After some days, he noticed that was a bad idea; after all, he alone with his thoughts? A dangerous thing. But he couldn’t just come back; Beach City was worse at making him “relax.” So he stayed in the road, texting Connie and the gems and his dad from time to time.
Until he couldn’t anymore.
He called his dad, saying how he is sorry and how he needs him, and just breaks down still on the line, in the middle of the road to somewhere.
He went on that road trip with the tension between them, with him still thinking about how both his parents were so similar, in the worst possible way. But maybe, that similar thing made them fall in love.
He should have tried to listen; he should have tried to understand. (Even if maybe it was the worst time to found out, considering what happened days later.) But on the road, thinking about how his dad always tried, all contrary with his mom that didn’t get the opportunity to do so, make him called his dad in the first place. And his dad didn’t waste time to go to him without telling anyone else except the band about a family emergency.
They ended up meeting in the middle of a road to consider just having a vacation on their own, acting as the father and son that they weren't since he ended up living with the gems. Of course that this time without secrets to uncover or even a story from the past to hear.
At the end of their road trip, already coming back to Beach City when they decided to stop in Empire City. That place it's always a good memory that coming back feels almost like coming home (without the extra stress). It's on the second day there that he sees the advertisement.
He knows growing up, his life never was normal, and after deciding to live with the gems that became almost impossible, but Connie, the closest thing to normalcy, talks about things. Like school and homework, and doctor appointments, and recently about therapy and help.
It isn't an impulsive decision, and looking at that advertisement; it's the last signal that he needs, even if he doesn't understand it completely.
"Dad, do you think I need therapy?"
His dad gets more nervous than he expects, begins to say things like, you aren't crazy, and you can talk to me, but after some minutes, his dad sighs. "Maybe that would be good for you."
So that's how he ended up in a waiting room, with his dad talking with a mom that is waiting for his son to come out.