A/N: This is totes a re-upload from my AO3, because I'm a review whore I guess? (My AO3 is secretlyHipster, just in case you want the most recent chapters of this, because I'm not sure how often I'm going to remember that I have this posted in more than one place.)

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June 15, 1994
Chicago, Illinois

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Your name is Ambrose Strider and you're stoned well past forgiveness.

The pleasant buzz massages the back of your brain, and all you want to do is lay down. Unfortunately, the spray paint can in your hand is still half-full and the dude beside you is getting pissed that you're just standing there. You tell him to shove up and shake the can. The clicks of the paint mixer are too loud and it smells worse than something dead and rotting.

You just want to go home.

The guy beside you is muttering something under his breath, but you don't really like him and are therefore completely disinterested in what he has to say. You hear something about a girlfriend, but you cut him off.

"Shit, what's that fucking noise?" Your words sound off, even to you, and a brighter-than-bright light floods the alleyway. It flashes and the noise is louder, and the guy beside you is no longer beside you.

You blindly shuffle around, the lights burning too much for you to see anymore. Your eardrums click with the sirens moaning aggresively in front of you, behind you, slightly to your left, far to your right. You press your palms over your ears and then you're running, dashing and gasping for air (even through your stupor, you vow to quit smoking), pushing past pedestrians until you get to the closest main road.

You stop at a phone booth to hiss and struggle to get oxygen to your intoxicated brain, and after you feel you've decently regulated your breathing, you shove a few quarters into the phone mount and tap in a familliar number.

"Hello?"

"Mom."

"Ambrose, my God! Where the hell are you? You're not with those boys again. Promise me you're not."

You swallow and glance around, checking for officers. Your eyes instead land on a gorgeous woman (who you suspect is probably a hooker) and lie, "No, I'm not. I'm at the corner store. Just come and get me, okay? I'll explain in the c-Shit!"

You drop the phone and raise your hands, because suddenly there's a policeman motioning with his gun for you to step out of the booth.

Your name is Ambrose Strider, and your mom came to get you, but it wasn't from the corner store.

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June 20,1994
Chicago, Illinois

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Your name is Ambrose Strider and today marks the first day of your sentence to a behavioral institute.

They take you to a room you're supposed to be sharing with another patient, which you bet is probably some crackhead suicidal noboby who checked themself in to get back at his parents for ever giving him life on this godforsaken Glad bag of ranky shit called Earth. You wouldn't mind being here at the institute so much if the staff wasn't so insistant on asking you to remove your sunglasses indoors.

You sleep in them now just to piss them off.

Therapy makes you want to hang yourself with your bathrobe drawstring, and you never say a word in the group sessions, and when they take you to private ones, you just sit there and stare at the therapist with the blankest-blank coolguy expression you've ever..expressed. Eventually, they dismiss you and you go back to your room, pocketing pills under your tongue until you have enough for a nice trip into the clouds.

Your name is Ambrose Strider and you're never getting out of here.

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