I Will Ruin You (itâs a habit, i canât help it) | A Cater Diamond one-shot
. âË âïžâË⧠ïŸ.
Or, Cater Diamond has an existential crisis over his vices and wants nothing more than to be someone worthy of love and compassion. Aka, that boi despressed asf
Og Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81946081
How long had it been since Cater had last settled down? Clearly a long while, since his mask was starting to crack more than it should lately.
Perhaps it had been when his older sisters called saying theyâd show up for family day, when it should have only been Papa, that he had felt the biggest break in it. Perhaps it was before that, when Riddle began to exercise his power over his dorm mates the minute he became Housewarden.
Perhaps it was long before that, when the shenanigans of having a Travel Nurse for a parent starting reering itâs terrible influence onto Papa.
So, perhaps the answer was never. Cater had never gotten a chance to settle downânot until Night Raven College sent him an acceptance letter and collected him into the Black Carriage.
And now? He wasnât quite sure what to do.
Sure, he had built up a reputation of essentially being Heartslabyulâs second Vice-Housewarden, but that didnât mean he was actually responsible enough to be one. Trey suited the role far more than Cater ever could.
So, as Cater Diamond laid in bed, doomscrolling, he silently contemplated what could have been had he learned how to be as human as his peers instead of being a wolf in sheepâs clothing.
Would he have friends? A BFF? A friend group so close they could finish each others sentences without even thinking about it? Would he have people who âmatched his freakâ, per say?
He liked to think he would have. Normal Cater would have many friends that knew him, truly knew him. Normal Cater would have sisters that didnât make him eat sweet things despite begging not to. Normal Cater would have a Papa that just stayed in the fucking Shaftlands.
But real Cater wasnât Normal Cater. He was justâŠthere. Existing. He wasnât sure he even had a personality to begin with. Since, well, he was just reduced to a heap of mush the moment he was alone.
Caterâs hand tightened on his phone, the case making a little squeak as he did so. He thought back to when he first met Trey, when they were both first years. Cater had latched onto the friendly baker boy like a leech. Not a bear. A parasite.
And just like with the many âfriendsâ Cater had throughout his many moves, his ultimate goal was selfish and manipulative:
Make. Trey. Depend. On. Him.
Itâs not like it worked, but he certainly tried.
And Trey knew he tried. But heâŠsevens, Trey forgave him! He took Cater aside at the end of the year and told him everything he had observed about his behavior. And he shot through Caterâs hardened heart with just one sentence.
âYou deserve real friends, Cater, not people manipulated to depend on you.â
And then Riddle came, and Treyâs wordsâŠsort of fell true.
Unlike before, Cater made an effort not to attach himself to the petite authority that Riddle was. And then once he realized that it kept him safe, he did the same with his peers.
Cater refused to hurt anyone ever again.
And if that meant dropping any and all chances of having friends?
Because he learned: every person he clings to breaks under his touch. They crumble like millennia old stone under a sledgehammer.
Because he just. Couldnât. Stop. Doing. It.
So, during the summer after his first year, he threw a middle finger to social activities, and went straight into studying. And Social Media.
Content creation became not just a tool for learning, but his addiction.
Once he became a Magicammer, masks became oh so easy to create. He didnât need to guilt trip people anymore, he just needed to be relatable enough to seem trustworthy, but distant enough that his black thumb over friendship wouldnât break them.
Riddle was his first Guinea pig. And, sevens damn it, it fucking worked like red paint staining a white rose. He became close enough to be trusted unconditionally, but far enough that he could say that he was not Riddleâs friend.
And he had been working tirelessly to make it happen. Hours talking to a mirror, practicing body language and facial expressions, until he was confident enough people would fall for it. The less real you are, the less you can hurt people. The less close you are, the less people you can prick like a slowly embedding thorn rose.
Cater put his phone down.
Todayâs Magicam post didnât get as many likes as expected.
His eyes lingered on his phonecase for a few moments before his gaze turned to the ceiling, any spark of excitement given by Magicammers âget ready with meâs fizzling out. He just feltâŠnumb. As though there was an empty void where his feelings should be.
No, he corrected, it wasnât a void. It was a black hole, made to suck up any energy he had into its bottomless depths, never to be seen again.
Caterâs fingers flexed against his bedsheets, curling into the fabric for comfort, like it would ever help someone like him. There wasnât enough likes on his post for him to deserve any happiness. No one liked him enough for his mind to allow him to reward himself with it.
He wanted freedom, and happiness, and friends, but he wasnât allowed to have any of that. He was a terrible, disgusting person that shouldâve been thrown into the looney bin from the moment his mind allowed him to mistreat others.
Cater was tired. And so, he closed his eyes and fell asleep, waiting for a peace that would only come once Melinoë came for his soul.
(not Thanatos, never Thanatos, for his death would not come with peace, but with an indescribable, silent violence. For Cater Diamond is not worthy of the joy of Elysium or the quiet peace of the Asphodel Fields, but the pain of remembrance stuck before Charon unable to join others in the afterlife.)
. âË âïžâË⧠ïŸ.
