Work Text:
His eye was twitching. He remembers watching cartoons on the couch with the remote in his hand to keep the volume in check. Characters in those cartoons would have twitching eyes when they went crazy. Or when some other character would do something so stupid, it would make them crazy. Courtland just thought it was annoyingly repetitive. He wasn't crazy. At least it kept his mind busy.
It was the only thing he could focus on next to staring at the matte metal bars and panels and screws of the inside of the prisoner vehicle. The car had the words 'prisoner transport' in big blocky letters on the side of it. It looked like a logo for a shitty action movie. Courtland thought it was stupid. If somebody wanted to break him out, they'd know exactly what car to go for. It's written on the damn label.
He tried to rub his face into his shoulder in an attempt to do something, anything about the twitching, but couldn't really reach his eye. His eye started to water instead. Opposite of what we set out to achieve here. Next to that, his butt started to ache from sitting on the hard faux leather seat. His knees pressed into the wall in front of him. And he was practically sitting on his arms behind him. It all hurt.
At least he knew where he was going. They had told him before they pushed him into the car. It was the only question they answered. He had asked a lot of questions, but they mostly kept their mouths shut. Sometimes, somebody would look at him with buckets full of pity in their eyes and still keep their mouths shut. He'd rather they just punch him in the face. Then he could bite his tongue and swallow his pride, like he knows how to. He doesn't know what to do with sorry eyes.
He was going to Florida State Prison, by the way. Well, the cop had said 'big Juvie' like he tried to sound cool, which didn't work, but Courtland knew what that meant. Some high school friend of his told him about how his cousin was caught for selling some pretty illegal stuff, and got sent away with the big guys at Florida State Prison. That cousin was only two years older than he was. So that's where he must have been going.
He wondered what his friends at school knew about what happened. He'd have been away from school for a week now, which was unlike him. He had an almost spotless attendance record. His grades weren't bad either. He felt his eye twitch again.
They probably knew he was going to jail. They didn't live in a big town, news always spread fast. Like how one girl he had never heard about, had shown up high to class and kissed a boy in front of the whole class. That news spread across the school in like a week. He never cared to remember her name.
He wondered if they would talk about him. He liked to be included when people talked about stuff like this. It was strange to imagine them talking about him. What would they say? Would they feel sorry for him? Would they say he was right for what he did? Or would they hate him? Condemn him like the cops did? He kinda felt glad that he never saw any of them during this entire process. He doesn't think he could do anything with whatever his friends had for him in their eyes.
The twitch kept getting like… louder. It faded away sometimes and then it would come back to pull at the small muscle. He pushed his eyes closed, it kind of stopped then. He felt the car shake and slow down. And take a turn. He's glad to see the whole thing settle. When he's in there, there would be no more paperwork, judgy looks, interrogation rooms. Proud confessions. Even more judgy looks. And those damn pity eyes.
When he would be in there, he would have a chance to just be for once.
He felt bad for kind of looking forward to it. He felt like he should feel bad all the time. He did, somewhere. But this felt relieving.
He felt bad for his brothers though. He didn't know where they would end up now. He had thought up a plan, right before he did it, to take them somewhere safe and to find their mom and they would be good. This wasn't the plan. He couldn't protect them now. He couldn't do anything. At least they weren't alone with him.
He didn't feel bad for what he did. Still didn't. Not even after the judgy looks and pity eyes. Hell, he'd even be the bad guy to his brothers if it meant he was gone. He couldn't hurt anybody anymore. And that was a net positive. No matter the outcome for Courtland.
He knew that. If he knew that, then why did the weight in his stomach make him feel nauseous, and why did the twitch in his eye also pull at his tear ducts. One of his brothers would know, he was smart like that. He used to just tell him whatever he had learned that day that had piqued his interest. He'd run up to him and just start talking, even if he wasn't paying attention.
He heard people talking in the front of the car over the shitty pop ballad playing on the radio. They were probably getting close now, he thought. He wondered what life would be like if he hadn't done anything. He thought he would have killed Courtland's brother. What if it never got that far. Life could have been fine.
His eyes twitched loudly again.
He was hungry. The pit in his stomach didn't help. He could really go for some Bubblicious 'bout now.