Maxwell Tucker has never exactly been an over achiever, in fact, almost everything he does results in him drastically under achieving—and that's putting it nicely. He'd disagree, but that would just be flat out denial.

Whether it be his grades, his stunts, or even something as simple as making a bowl of breakfast, he'd fail horribly.

Now just so happens to be one of those times.

Everybody is crowding around one specific spot in the middle of the cafeteria, where there lay a table. A broken cafeteria table. A table that has literally been split down the middle. Dust and old pieces of plastic, along with teenagers with their phones out have it completely surrounded. Then there is Max, laying in the very middle of it, trying not to pass out from pain.

Yes, now would definitely be one of those times.

-

It had started out as any normal day would. Going to his classes, trying not to completely bomb the work, attempting not to offend anyone or break anything. Failing at most of the above. Trying again anyway.

Then came lunch. Harvey was stuffing food up Zeke's nose (fries specifically, something about walruses) and Amelia was trying desperately not to snap at them for ruining her appetite, and then there was Max. Zoning out and laughing at everything because he had taken one too many painkillers for his last incident, (which involved a bike and some serious intoxication, he so blames Zeke.)

A loud sound came from right beside Max's ear, making him jump out in shock, swearing he heard ringing. However, it was very anticlimactically just Andy setting down his tray of food very hastily.

"You guys will never believe what I just saw!" He looks like he hasn't slept in days. Max can totally relate.

There is a silence, until Harvey takes it upon himself to not make Andy look like a dumbass by finally—reluctantly—asking, "What?"

That was all Andy needed to start speaking so fast that, in Max's higher-than-life state, it was nearly impossible to keep up with him.

"Okay, so I was walking to the cafeteria and I just happened to look at the ceiling, right?"

Everyone nodded.

"Then I see this purple thing and I, like, zoom in on it with my eyes or something and realise it's a tentacle!"

Nobody was buying this story. Well, except for Max.

"So I realize it's a monster! And then I follow it and it goes into a vent and I saw it just now on top of one of the little pole-pipe-stick things in the ceiling."

"Rafters," Amelia mumbles.

"Yeah! And I swear it's fucking planing something. I don't know what that shit was but it did not look trustworthy."

Max was so into the story that he didn't see everybody else roll their eyes and obviously not believe anything that just came out of Andy's mouth.

"Dude, we have to catch it."

That sentence was really all it took to get Max climbing in the rafters, looking for a purple tentacle monster that probably was not actually there, and eventually losing his balance (all that skateboarding is pretty useless when you're fucking high as fuck) before crashing into the middle of a—thankfully?—unused cafeteria table and literally snapping it straight in half. He had not taken enough painkillers that morning to save himself from the scorching pain in his foot, knees, and shoulder.

Upon closer inspection, he realized that his foot actually hurt far worse than the rest of himself, as instead of a dull throbbing and strong stinging there was an excruciating and slightly numbing feeling that makes him kind of want to shoot himself and whatever the fuck he was looking for that made him climb that shit, he can't even remember.

Whoops.

Next thing he knows, the world goes black.

-

Arguably, the worst thing about Max would be his eyesight. He was born blue-yellow color blind (trita-something, he doesn't really care. He just knows that his vision sucks ass) he was also born blind in his left eye, and then to top it all off he's super nearsighted to the point that he is practically completely blind without his glasses.

So it's no wonder that when he wakes up to a blurry mess of shit that seems either way too close or way too far away, his immediate thought is to look for his glasses.

He knows he is most likely in the hospital, and it's not the first time he's been here either.

Though he's used to his depth perception—he can usually get around it by relying on shadows—he is not used to having his glasses off, which makes everything worse.

Where the fuck are Max’s glasses?

He begins feeling around the bed, and when he doesn't find anything, he finally works up the strength to sit up—and, holy shit, does it fuck with his head.

He gets nauseous, almost falling onto his back, but he shakes his head a bit until he is actually okay enough to stand.

Well, attempt to stand.

As soon as he gets his feet on the ground and lifts himself up onto them, he falls face first into the stupid—freezing—tiled floor. Uh, ouch.

Before he can lift himself off the ground and try to stand up again, the door bursts open and Max immediately guesses that it is probably a nurse.

"Oh my!" Yep, definitely a nurse.

He groans and rolls over onto his back, seeing that everything is still infuriatingly blurry.

Then the nurse blur enters the picture, standing over him and he figures that she has her hands over her mouth from the way her arms appear to be placed.

"Can I have my glasses?" Is really all he can get out, considering the fact that his foot hurts so badly it’s distracting and he just wants to go home. He sees the blur move her head (maybe?) though he can't tell if it was up or down, and then scurry out of the room.

Leaving him on the floor.

Alone and cold and pissed off.

A few seconds later, somebody comes back into the room and begins lifting him off the ground. He can't tell who it is, but he's way too exhausted to fight back.

"Andy! Grab his legs!"

Ah, it's Zeke.

...also Andy, judging by what he just said.

Eventually they get him back on the hospital bed. It is then that everything that had happened hits Max full force.

He groans, rolling over on the bed, and almost falls off again had someone not grabbed him and put him back in place.

"What the fuck is happening?" Is all he can mumble.

Then someone slaps him.

"Ow! What the hell, man!" His hand immediately flies up to his cheek and he sits up, on high alert.

He sees a blurry figure next to him, which he immediately deems the culprit. "What? I had to snap you back somehow." Of course, it's Zeke.

Fighting the urge to deck him, Max just continues asking for the one thing on his mind that for some reason had been taken away from him. However, he doesn't feel like getting pissed off until he gets his glasses.

"What the fuck did you do with my glasses?"

"Oh calm down, loser. Gina has them."

Max has the strongest urge to just leap at Zeke and kick the fuck out of him, but he doesn't, because if he did then he probably wouldn't get his glasses. Zeke's an asshole like that.

"Well can I please have them?" That won't stop him from giving him a little attitude anyways, he is Maxwell Tucker after all.

"When Gina actually comes in here, maybe."

"What are you boys doing in here?" An authoritative voice booms from the door, almost scaring a blurry Zeke from the seat beside his brother's bed.

"Uh... visiting?" Max isn't sure who said that, though he's pretty sure it was Andy judging from the slight shake in his voice. Max can't tell if it was out of fear or not, though. Andy's voice is really always like that.

Max is kind of half asleep throughout the next exchange, for some reason he's exhausted. He doesn't even want to know the answer as to why. All he knows is that the doctor said something about 'not visiting until he told them they were allowed to' and Zeke  responded with a mumbled 'he's my brother, what the hell?' And eventually everyone is out of the room, except for the doctor.

Also, Max still doesn't have his goddamn glasses.

Max all but shouts out in frustration. "I just want my glasses!" He waves his arms blindly, and eventually runs a hand through his hair in frustration. "Is that so much to ask? I can't see shit and it's starting to piss me the fuck o-"

He feels something on his lap.

He slowly slips his hands down the sides of his face, and then he just feels around in his lap-

awkward...

-until he finds whatever had been placed there.

It takes him a minute, but he eventually realizes that it's a pair of glasses. He continues feeling them up until he figures out that they are his glasses. His large, dorky, black glasses with lenses that are thicker than he likes to acknowledge.

As soon as he comes to this conclusion, he scrambles to shove them onto his face. (He misses a few times, poking himself in the eye, but that's not important)

He is expecting for everything to turn clear—well, as clear as anything can get for him, visually—when he puts them back on, but that doesn't happen.

Max is beyond pissed when he realizes what is wrong.

There is a crack.

In the right lense.

He groans in his ever growing frustration, then falls back onto the hospital bed.

No, it couldn't be the left side. The side that he wouldn't care about because he can't see out of that eye anyway. Nope. The world hates him and it put a crack in the one side of his glasses that he can actually see out of.

Why?

"Mr. Tucker, is it?" Max hears the doctor's voice from across the room.

He sits up.

The doctor doesn't give him time to answer, however, when he says,"I do not want you sitting up and down like that on the bed, with your leg in the shape that it is."

The doctor stands up and makes his way to the side of Max's bed, before pulling a lever thing that makes the chair incline upwards, so that Max can sit comfortably. He then makes his way back to his station across the (very small) room.

"My name is Max"

The doctor nods. "Yes, okay, Maxwell Tucker. I am Doctor Johnson."

Max nods back.

"Now, do you remember what happened?"

Max nods again.

"What happened?"

Oh man, is this going to be embarrassing.

"Uh... Andy said he saw a monster in the rafters..." please don't make him go on.

Doctor Johnson motions for him to continue.

"And we decided that we needed to catch it..." and he was high as fuck so he volunteered.

Thankfully, Doctor Johnson doesn't make him go on.

"Alright, Max..." Doctor Johnson nods. "Do you remember anything regarding your injuries?"

"...my foot hurted."

Doctor Johnson smiles, before beginning to talk about what Max had done to his foot. "You, Max, have what is called a lateral malleolus fracture, do you know what that is?"

Max of course doesn't. So he voices that.

"Alright, well, it is a fracture of the lower fibula. It is not severe, so you will only be in a cast for a few weeks..."

Max zones out pretty hardcore after that. He hears a few words about casts and crutches and treating his injuries with care, but he's mostly focused on the fact that he still can't fucking see.

"-however, for right now we will be allowing visitors."

Doctor Johnson leaves after that, and in walks Zeke, Andy, and Gina.

"Ah, my beautiful sibling." Zeke sighs in mock wonder.

"Fuck you, dick." Max is not happy with him.

"Language, young man!" Ah, Gina. Max (and Zeke's) lovely foster mom.

Gina goes and sits in the chair beside Max, while Zeke and Andy sit in the corner, their legs spread out in front of them.

"Now, would you like to tell me exactly what it is you were thinking, climbing into the ceiling to catch some sort of tentacle creature?!" Gina's voice grows louder, as she goes on.

"Do you know how much this is going to cost?! I'm not made of money, you know. You can't just go around falling from ceilings and breaking tables - and all for what, exactly? A nonexistent—what?—monster! What is wrong with you?!"

She continues ranting for what feels like about five minutes but was probably less, until finally; "Are you okay, though? I was worried."

She sighs, suddenly seeming kind of emotional. Max nods, giving her a small smile. Gina finally hugs him, resting her head on his chest and closing her eyes.

She leaves after a few minutes, her eyes a bit watery, though she's been through this enough times to be used to it she still doesn't like to see Max—or either of her foster children, for that matter—hurt.

As soon as she leaves the room; "Andy, I'm going to fucking kill you." Max enunciates each syllable carefully.

Andy gulps, though he isn't scared. It's Max, he's not that intimidating.

"Hey, hey, I'm not the one who volunteered to climb a wall.”

"I was high!”

"Well, I didn't know-"

"Yes, you did." It's Zeke's turn to but in.

Now, Max isn't very threatening. However, Zeke is a freaking wall. However, Max isn't having his shit either. "Hey! You didn't exactly stop me!"

"Changing your mind isn't easy," Zeke defends.

Max's head is starting to hurt, so he decides that he's done arguing; "Are you guys going to just sit there or are you gonna thank god I'm actually alive?"

"You weren't even close to death."

Max sighs, exasperated. He leans back into his bed and closes his eyes.

Oh yeah, his eyes.

"Hey Zeke, can you go home and get my spares?"

"What's wrong with those?"

Max has had enough, and decides upon chucking his glasses at Zeke. He unsurprisingly catches them, and gives Max a—what he's  assuming—'what the fuck' look. Max responds by flipping him off, glaring.

Zeke rolls his eyes (maybe?) and examines the glasses, before responding "Yeah, whatever."

He gets up and walks over to Max, guiding his hands to the glasses, as he is well aware of his brother's fucked up eyesight. Max has a theory that Zeke feels bad for taking all the good genes, but he obviously can't prove it.

Max slips them back on his face. The crack isn't all that bad, just a bit in the corner of the lense. However, he knows it will drive him bonkers if he doesn't get his spares.

Eventually Zeke and Andy exit, leaving the days' events to sink in.

Well, shit, Max has a broken ankle.

Whoops.

-

WARNING! I wrote this when I was 14, I was very inexperienced and it needs heavy editing. Go easy on me pls<3