Just Another Mediocre Fanfic Writer

Bradley Ross - age 16 - June 1981 - failed runaway - roving officers tracked down his car in a diner parking lot

Nicole Barrett - age 11 - October 1979 - kidnapped by father and stepmother - tipped off by neighbours hearing yelling in the night

Meghan Burgess - age 14 - February 1978 - suspected homicide - found body 9 days later with blunt force trauma to the head by the quarry

Drew Pruitt - age 8 - April 1976 - still missing - wandered off during family reunion and was never found

Colin James - age 16 - November 1975 - suspected suicide - car found at the bottom of Lovers’ Lake with body still inside

Katie Weaver - age 9 - August 1973 - returned safe - lost playing in the woods with cousins, but found by search party the next day

A fist propped up Butchy’s pounding skull as he scanned the scrawled notes from his morning’s research attempt for the hundredth time - as though this time it might finally spark a new idea. But no matter how hard he stared at the smudgy letters, nothing came. Huffing in defeat, he drummed his pen against the notebook page and pondered his next steps. Did he break out a fresh stack of case files to sift through? Hoping that some poor soul’s run-in with the law could serve him a perfect solution. Or did he re-read the same ones? In case he’d missed a morsel of information they could use? They both sounded as hopeless as each other, but he couldn’t just sit there, wasting even more time than he already had. Dropping his pen in favour of his mug, he took a swig of the cold, bitter coffee that he’d abandoned after picking up Katie’s file, and winced. Spurred on, he pushed himself back from his desk, stretched the crick out of his neck, and then got up for a refill.

Butchy didn’t utter a word as he passed through the main office to pour a fresh cup of coffee, and he didn’t register a single word that was said around him either - mind far too preoccupied with thoughts of his own to focus on any others. He stopped in the records room on his way back to his desk, setting his mug atop the filing cabinet he was planning to select his next subject from. But as he was rifling through the manila folders, he realised he hadn’t been as inconspicuous as he’d hoped.

“Whatcha looking for?”

His head twitched in the direction of the door, but when he saw who’d spoken, he wished he hadn’t. The grating drawl should have really been a giveaway.

“I thought you were just working through ‘em backwards,” Jennifer continued through a fire engine red smirk.

“I got bored,” Butchy flatly replied, gaze dropping back to the plastic dividers as he continued sifting through them. “Thought I’d spice things up a bit.”

Snorting a breathy chuckle through her nose, Jennifer leant against the doorframe and crossed her arms as another heat-fried strand of mahogany hair fell from its overly teased updo. “Which means…?”

Inwardly sighing at her persistence, Butchy, still furiously avoiding eye contact, explained, “I’m going over types of case instead - you know, to help find patterns in how they’re managed.”

The pause that followed made Butchy stiffen, doubt suddenly creeping into his mind over how suspicious this could sound. But either Jennifer was as gullible as she looked, or his commitment to the statement had been enough to convince her.

Or maybe she just didn’t care about her job enough to care that police records could be being tampered with. “Huh…okay.”

Butchy silently hoped that now she’d be satisfied with her snooping, and that she’d go and pester other people with her presence. But alas, at the top edge of his vision he watched her drift over to the filing cabinet, and drape herself over the opposite side of the open drawer rung.

“What sorta things are you looking for then?” she asked, chewing her words around a wad of peppermint gum as she lifted various files out to inspect. “Insurance fraudsters? Armed robberies? Axe murderers?”

Missing the wickedly mischievous glint in the girl’s eye, Butchy shot back a deadpan: “Missing kids.”

“Christ,” Jennifer scoffed, the amusement dropping from her face in an instant. “That’s not at all creepy:”

Ignoring her judgy side-eye, Butchy’s retort was resolute. “Actually, I thought it was one of the more important ones to cover, so it’d be a good one to prioritise,” he bit back, before levelling her with a testing, ghost of a smile. “The more we know about these things the better, right?”

Jennifer’s glossy, red smirk crawled its way back to her face, as it always seemed to when she pushed the new recruit’s buttons like this. But this time was different, there was an intrigue there - something that had sparked her interest in what he’d said. Or at least it had prompted a memory. And with that, came a sudden urge to get involved.

“Well, if you wanna know about missing kids then you’d better start with the holy grail,” she began, tottering over to a neighbouring filing cabinet. The drawer opened with a clunk, and her manicured talons swept over the folders with practiced ease, before plucking one out and holding it aloft like a winning lottery ticket.

Butchy squinted to read the name on the front: Will Byers.

”The place went nuts when he was found again after all that shit with the state troopers supposedly finding his body at the quarry,” Jennifer continued. Even the heavy black eyeshadow smudged around her eyes couldn’t hide the excitement glittering in them. “The chief shut it all down real fast though, so it’s probably simpler than it seems, but he was never the same after they closed it. I don’t know if it’s just from the stress of the whole media frenzy it caused, or the kid’s crazy mom giving him PTSD, but it definitely changed him,” she went on to explain, eyebrows furrowing slightly as she rattled on. But as she lazily held out the file, and their gaze met again, her smirk returned. “So maybe, uh… read with caution.”

Butchy couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought to go searching the case out himself yet; like Jennifer had said, it was a very prominent one - and with it all happening less than a year ago, it could give him some pretty accurate, up-to-date information. He wasn’t even frustrated that she’d beaten him to it - if anything he was grateful to her. But he was more so just confused; how could such a huge case slip his mind? He’d been wracking his brain for hours. Either all this stress had fried it, or something in there was trying to keep it from him - perhaps too scared about what clues the contents may hold.

“You were working here when it happened?” he went on to ask.

“Just started,” she explained through a dry smile. “Fucking crazy first week, huh?”

Although Butchy didn’t reciprocate her snorted, wheeze of a laugh, he did finally take the folder from her. Before he even thought about opening it though, something took him by surprise. “Why’s it so thin?”

“Beats me - I’d have figured that thing would look like a dictionary with all the shit that went down,” Jennifer replied, straightening up as she suggested, “Maybe they didn’t want a paper trail.”

“You can’t just get rid of official documents for a major case,” Butchy retorted.

The judginess of his tone lit a fire under the brash brunette though, because in an instant her plucked brows furrowed. “Give it back then, let me see,” she snapped, snatching the folder from his fingertips and stepping away before he could argue further. All it took was a couple of seconds scanning the cover, and ignoring the new recruit’s bleated disputes, before she found what she was looking for. “There you go,” she proudly announced, spinning around on her scuffed stilettos and thrusting the folder back under the boy’s nose. Pointing a burgundy claw to a small orange sticker in the corner, she went on to explain, “This is just a skeleton version. The rest of the notes must be kept somewhere else. Hop’s office would be my best guess.”

Wrinkling his nose at the disappointing discovery, Butchy asked, “So what use is this to me?”

“I don’t know,” Jennifer snorted. “But good luck getting your hands on the real deal if it is in his office; that place is like Alcatraz.”

Butchy rolled his eyes and let out a huff of defeat. These notes would be…a start. But he doubted there was much more than a summary page in there based on how light it felt. The revelation perfectly reflected how he viewed his unplanned accomplice: helpful at first glance, and then thoroughly frustrating. Ready to mull over his next options, he tried to close out their conversation. “Well, thanks for the tip,” he half-heartedly mumbled.

“Any time, sweet cheeks.”

After standing and flicking through the handful of pages in the folder though, Butchy realised he’d never heard the clack of her heels disappearing down the hall. And the air in the room still felt…thick.

Glancing up, to his dismay, he locked onto her saccharine smirk, and his stomach turned. “…Can I help you?” What more could she possibly want from him that would warrant this senseless loitering at such a critical moment?

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she sing-songed like a children’s TV host. Before he had the chance to question her further though, she waved her left hand under his nose, blocking his view of the case file and wiggling her fingers so that the elongated ‘diamond’ caught the fluorescent light.

It was far from blinding him, but Butchy still squinted at the ring. “Was I supposed to notice that on my own?” he flatly asked, arching an eyebrow.

Jennifer’s satisfied smirk slipped from her face at his lack of enthusiasm. “A simple ‘congratulations’ would be fine,” she bit back through a huff.

“Congrats.”

Butchy shut the filing cabinet drawer between them and lifted the folder up to block his unwanted guest, and her gaudy engagement ring, from view. Before he could start to flick through it though, that grating voice blessed his ears again.

“Pete said it cost him three months worth of paychecks,” she cooed, holding the gem up to the light to admire it for the thousandth time.

The faintest smirk of his own tugged at his lips behind the safety of camel coloured card. “Bet his accountant thought that was a smart investment.”

“Yeah, well, he said I’m worth it,” Jennifer giddily grinned - either ignoring the sarcasm in Butchy’s tone, or missing it entirely.

“Three paychecks? That’s it?” Butchy snorted before he could stop himself, comments absent-minded since his brain was already busy skimming the cover page. “He’s wanting to spend the rest of his life with you and all you’re worth is three paychecks - that he hasn’t already wasted on cigarettes and booze?”

Jennifer bristled at the accusation, but quickly hardened her exterior - grateful for once that the new recruit was too engrossed in his reading to notice the crack in her armour. Trying to regain her control over the situation, she bandaged the wound the all-too-true comment left behind with a devilish smirk, and looked up at Butchy through clumpy, batted lashes. “What? You think I’m worth more?”

Butchy’s hand stilled as it moved to turn the page. He glanced up, ready to question her through a pair of furrowed brows, but immediately regretted it when he saw her expression. Dropping his gaze the second it landed on the lioness, sizing up her next meal, he swallowed. Hard. “…I think he should if he’s wanting to walk you down the aisle,” came his calculated reply - voice steady despite his heart rate doubling.

“Aww come on, Bandoni,” Jennifer pouted - syrupy brown eyes now twinkling with amusement rather than hunger. “Gimme a number.”

“No.”

“Coward,” she frowned as he moved to step around her. But she used a quick sidestep and a neighbouring filing cabinet to block his escape route.

This time he had no choice but to meet her gaze again, frustration seeping into his disgruntled scowl. “I’ve got work to get back to,” he sighed.

“Yeah, ‘cause you seemed in a real hurry to get back to your desk when I walked in here,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. Stepping back, she opened up the path to the door, but not without crossing her arms across her leopard-print blouse and challenging, “Fine, what should he think I’m worth? If he’s such a lousy boyfriend.”

Butchy grabbed the opportunity to leave with both hands, marching past the trashy brunette with an inward sigh of relief. But he couldn’t help himself from muttering a last-ditched dig on his way past. “Every fucking penny he owns.”

“…Is that what your little girlfriend is worth?”

Butchy stopped dead in his tracks. A sense of unease rippled over his skin, making his hairs stand on end. And the feeling only deepened when he glanced back to see her murderous smirk had returned.

“My what?” he replied, attempting nonchalance despite the tightness in his tone.

“Your girlfriend,” Jennifer simpered, relishing in his discomfort.

“How did you-?”

“Oh come on, did you really think I wasn’t gonna snoop around your office?” she cut off his stammering with another scoffed remark and arch of her brow. Leaning against the nearest filing cabinet with the grace of a wasted bachelorette, she went on, “She’s that perky brunette hugging you in that picture on your desk. Isn’t she?”

With a new defensiveness layering over his irritation, Butchy asked, “And what does she have to do with any of this?” The thought of Jennifer having anything to say about Mick made his fists clench even tighter around the paperwork now at his side. If she didn’t watch her tone though, there wouldn’t be much left to read of it by the time he got back to his desk.

“Nothing,” she coolly replied - smirk not budging. “I just like…picking your brains.”

Butchy just rolled his eyes. “Well can you quit it? I’m busy.”

As could be expected though, Jennifer took no notice of his request - or his second attempt to walk away from the conversation. “I didn’t pin you as the type to go for someone so…clean cut.”

Butchy’s movements slowed as her words hit him. He had the perfect opportunity to make a break for the door, and slam it in her face, and yet he stayed. Hating himself for lingering, he prayed he'd masked his curiosity with irritation. “Why’s that?”

“You just look like you’d prefer something a little…” Sauntering over to face him again, she set her left hand, and its gaudy ring, on the wall behind his head - trapping him in place before she purred: “…rough around the edges.”

Butchy’s expression just hardened. “Stop it,” he muttered, voice low - warning.

Jennifer took no heed though. If anything, his dismissal just stoked her fire. “What? You too scared to try?” she teasingly taunted. Lowering her voice to match his, she whispered, “Worried you might discover something about yourself you didn’t wanna know?”

“Why are you doing this?” Butchy bit back - confused by not only why he was the unlucky target of her flirting, but also why she’d be making such advances after gloating about her engagement. Again, trying to steer back what little control he had over the conversation before she got the wrong idea.

“I got bored - thought I’d spice things up a bit,” she replied - flipping Butchy’s statement from earlier back on him with a challenging eyebrow raise.

Butchy had more fighting spirit than she gave him credit for though. “Bored of paperwork? Or bored of your fiance? Not that you care enough to call him that,” he shot back. Straightening his posture, and squaring his shoulders, he leaned in closer to offer some sage advice. “I’d take a hard look at your own relationship before you start picking apart mine.”

Jennifer held his gaze for one, brutally silent second, before scoffing and shaking her head. “You’re so easy to tease.”

Butchy knew he’d rattled her though; there was a new unease about that nasal laugh, and the confidence had been sapped out of her smirk. Snatching it for himself, he levelled her with a smug smile of his own. “My pleasure,” he grinned. But he snapped out of it with a deadpan frown, and a blunt: “Now go find someone else to try to bang.”

As Butchy dodged around her though, Jennifer let out an indignant squeak. “Is that any way to talk to a married woman?” Correcting herself as she fidgeted with her ring, she added, “Well, soon-to-be-married.”

Butchy laughed softly to himself. “I’d say I look forward to seeing the photos but, uh…” he trailed off, pausing only to glance at the cheap gem, then back up to Jennifer, with a smug, yet unsympathetic, “I won’t hold my breath.”

It was Jennifer’s turn to laugh to herself then, as she watched the young man walk away again. Although her laugh was mainly out of disbelief, there was an element of pride there that she couldn’t deny - or perhaps that was arousal. “Your girl’s one lucky lady, Bandoni. I can’t remember the last time I had a guy turn me down like that,” she admitted, as that hungry smirk curled at her lips one last time. “Good thing I like it when they play hard to get.”

As committed as ever, Butchy just scoffed again and kept on walking out the door. “Yeah?” he rhetorised with a quirk of his eyebrow. “Keep trying - see where that gets you,” he finished, calling after her down the hall as he finally made it to his office door. Slamming it before she could slink in after him, and rake her tacky nails over all his belongings again, he finally let himself take a breath. Shutting any secondhand guilt out, alongside any lingering thoughts of the seductive secretary and her ridiculous advances, Butchy collapsed back into his creaky desk chair. He dropped his prize for enduring such torture onto the tabletop and quickly flicked to the first page again, before running a hand through his hair and starting to read.

At least he had something new now to distract himself with - something he hoped would give him a lead for the next steps in their investigation. The Will Byers case was the perfect starting point; he went missing in the woods on his way home, and was found safe and sound within a week. Granted, there were town-wide search parties, and state troopers involved - but still, it gave him hope. And after such a fruitless search the day before, he needed that hope. He just had to pray now that he could find some new information that hadn’t been released to the public in these notes - a way to look at this whole thing from a different perspective.

Stopping after every few lines to ruminate - to wrack his brains for new ideas - Butchy slumped back in his chair and pressed his fist into his temple, as though that would force his brain to work faster. As he did though, his tired eyes drifted to the chipped, black picture frame on his desk. It was small, and unassuming, but it housed that very picture that had now been tainted by Jennifer’s lustful gaze. The sight of Mick, and her innocent, besotted grin shot a pang of regret through his gut. Even if he never acted on Jennifer’s advances, their existence alone made him feel rotten. And keeping them from her, although he felt was for her own good, was only tainting his conscience further.

Still, he had more pressing matters to deal with than when Jennifer would next find the chance to pounce - or how he’d react. He had to come up with a plan - and he had to find that plan amongst the bones of this case file, which he would come to discover was a lot easier said than done…

There had been rain overnight. Perhaps the forecast had decided to mirror the Murphy family’s mood. Or maybe it was a dreary omen of what was to come. Reasonings aside, the rain had left the sidewalks littered with puddles, and turned the piles of leaves in the gutters to mulch. Royce and Vivien’s sneakers slapped the cracked paving slabs of Buryvale, leaving fading, wet footprints behind as they retraced Bentley’s supposed last steps. It wasn’t quite dark enough for flashlights yet, but they kept one firm in their grasp anyway - one Royce had grabbed from their junk drawer, and one Vivien had taken from her garage - almost as though it would help them channel their inner detectives, as they scanned their surroundings for clues.

“Maybe Butchy wasn’t so full of shit after all,” Vivien conceded with a weak laugh, breaking the silence that had fallen over them before it could get even more awkward. “There really doesn’t look like there’s anything out here.”

“We can’t give up yet,” Royce insisted, desperation already edging into his tone. “We’ve barely been out an hour.”

“I’m not saying we should give up,” Vivien clarified, reaching up to push her bangs away from her eyes. “I just think we might have to change tactics. Like what if he went home the other route? Through Oak Ridge?”

Royce sighed. “It’s worth a try, I guess,” he conceded, although he wasn’t convinced. Whilst part of being out there, searching for evidence, was cathartic, it also made the whole thing all the more real. He was looking so hard for traces of his brother that his eyes were starting to burn. And yet the thought of actually finding something made his stomach flip. After all, that ‘something’ they may or may not find could give him the answers to a question he still didn’t dare ask.

He wanted more than anything to find Bentley - he knew that. But what he really wanted was to find him safe, and unharmed. And if they managed to find anything along these routes that indicated otherwise, that dream of his would slip further and further out of reach.

“Or…” Vivien trailed off - pensive in her own regard as her ivy gaze honed in on a trampled thicket of bushes at the edge of the treeline over Royce’s shoulder. “Maybe we take a detour through the woods.”

Before she could second-guess her instincts, she cut across Royce’s path and stepped off the concrete, letting her rubber treads squelch through sodden grass and more rotting leaves. Spurred on by the promise of more information, she tightened her grip on the flashlight at her side, jaw set with determination. But just before she could reach out to rifle through the sparse, leafy branches, a set of footsteps caught up to her, and a hand tugged on her jacket sleeve.

“Viv, Benny would never go in those woods alone,” Royce panted, chest heaving with exertion, and trepidation at what could lie beyond those trees, whether related to his brother or not. “Especially not at night.”

“I know,” she agreed, before adding, with a fleeting glance over her shoulder. “But maybe he didn’t have a choice…” A lump caught in her throat when she tried to continue, as the reality of what she was implying caught up to her. But as her eyes landed on the mangled bush branches again, she gathered what was left of her nerve and turned back to Royce. “Listen, I don’t like to think of him being scared, or being in trouble, either. But if we want to find him, we have to consider every possibility.”

Royce’s chest was still struggling to fall steady as he listened to her, and his hammering heart was in no more of a rush to settle. But the aching of his ribs wasn’t enough to distract him from their goal. “I know,” he finally admitted, swallowing thickly as he offered a small nod of reluctant confirmation.

The pair held one another’s gaze for a beat, as well as a breath they didn’t realise was trapped in their throats until a cold breeze whipped through the bare branches around them, jolting them out of their thoughts. Vivien moved first, gingerly stepping over the mass of broken twigs and dead leaves that had been trodden into the mud by this potential runaway. Royce followed close behind, eyes fixed firmly on the burgundy corduroy covering her back until his legs felt as though they’d stopped shaking.

The woods were both dense and sparse at the same time. With it being fall there was very little in the way of foliage, at least not above the ground anyways But the sheer number of trees, and how little natural light their web of spindly branches filtered through to the forest floor, made it feel suffocating, even in the great outdoors. Looking for clues helped distract Royce from his surroundings, and the incessant chittering of birds too stubborn to fly south for the winter. But his unease can’t have been masked that convincingly, because it wasn’t long before Vivien fell into stride beside him, and inched closer as she asked a tentative: “You okay?”

“Mhm,” Royce murmured. But the way he was fidgeting with the buttons of his flashlight, and fiercely avoiding eye contact told a different story.

Vivien noticed, of course she did, but she didn’t say anything. She just watched the way his shoulders rose to his ears, and the death grip he had on that flashlight whiten his knuckles further - suddenly a lot more focused on that than looking for clues. When she next spoke, her tone was soft; a stark contrast to the decrepit woodland around her. “You don’t have to pretend, you know?”

“What do you mean?” Royce asked, gaze still scanning over nearby trees.

“You’re allowed to be freaking out right now,” she said, hoping she could offer some sort of reassurance. She wanted to do something - and she almost did - bump his arm, link it with hers, god forbid even hold his hand. But just as her free hand twitched into action a branch creaking somewhere overhead stole her attention, and suddenly her nerve was gone. It plunged them into silence once more - but it was fragile, as the woods around them seemed so determined to keep breaking it. Vivien trudged on, letting her gaze drift across scratched, peeling bark as more of Royce’s quietness seeped through her skin - gnawing away at her mind until a confession of her own slipped into the greying evening air. “I know I am. So…”

A small huff, not quite a laugh, more just an acknowledgement, took over the silence as Vivien’s sentence died at her lips. But it was at least enough to loosen the tightness in her chest.

“Sorry,” Royce muttered, scuffing his sneaker through more auburn leaves.

“For what?”

“Dragging you into this,” he sighed.

Vivien frowned, offended by the very idea. “You didn’t drag me into anything,” she corrected. “Not only did I volunteer myself for this, I came up with the whole damn plan. Remember?”

“I guess,” Royce conceded - a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. Although it was gone just as quickly as it arrived. “But this whole thing is…a lot. And you shouldn’t have to-”

“Neither of us should be having to do this,” she cut in, somewhat forceful with her words, and yet still trying to be gentle - acutely aware of how much more delicate he’d been lately. “But I can’t just sit around when I know he could be out here. So whether you’d have been game or not, I’d still have hauled ass across town to look for him. He’s not blood, but he’s still my family.”

They shared a look - a silent acknowledgement that she was right, or an acceptance of their situation, no matter how dismal - albeit brief. Royce let his gaze drift first. Vivien could tell he was distracted, that his mind was preoccupied, but she couldn’t really blame him for that. A quiet fell over them again as they trudged through more soggy foliage. Royce’s steps were slow, almost begrudging - but Vivien’s had more purpose. Her Converse squelched through slick mud, snapped already broken twigs, and dodged damp tree roots, marring the path with their bulbous tendrils, turning it into more of an obstacle course than a search party.

Once more, the silence started to wear Vivien down. It made her antsy - especially around Royce, when conversation usually came so easily to her. So as her eyes roamed across mossy logs, and mud-marbled puddles, she started trying to string together her next talking point - hopefully something more reassuring than last time, if she could figure out how to not make it sound so stupid. Her inner monologue came screeching to a halt though when she caught a flash of colour between a bush’s branches a few paces ahead.

She stopped so abruptly that Royce, who hadn’t bothered to check where they were going, crashed into her from behind. He murmured his apologies, but Vivien was still frozen in place, like the sight had bolted her to the forest floor.

“What are you doing?” Royce asked - finally looking at her face again, even if only to search for an answer.

Vivien’s gaze didn’t shift though - fixated on that bedraggled bush like a lioness waiting to pounce. “Look,” she said, slowly lifting her flashlight to point to it.

Royce followed her eyeline but couldn’t make anything out at first; it just looked like every other bush they’d passed. But then he inched closer to her, and squinted over her shoulder - and all of a sudden the half-assed rainbow rushed into focus, and his heart leapt into his throat.

Snagged across thorny branches were fraying strands of embroidery floss - coloured like those packets of crayons you got at chain restaurants: red, blue, green, and yellow. They were tightly braided together at one end, whilst the other was shredded to nothing but fluff - each strand curling into wispy tendrils.

Vivien dared to step forwards first, then bent down to inspect the item more closely - peering at it through glass beginning to fog from her intense focus. The knotting style looked familiar, painfully familiar. “Doesn’t Kona make stuff like this?”

Royce didn’t have it in him to move any closer, but he didn’t need to; he knew immediately. The colours of the thread were darkened with rainwater, and looked almost grey in the fading daylight - but he recognised them in an instant. “Yeah, that’s his keychain,” he confirmed, swallowing with such difficulty he couldn’t believe any sound actually came out the next time he tried to speak. “Well… was his keychain.”

Vivien wove her fingers between the branches to attempt to retrieve what was left of the it, only wincing once when a particularly sharp thorn pierced her skin. But the thread was caught fast on a twig, and the harder she tried to pull it, the tighter it seemed to wind itself. “Royce, hold the flashlight steady for a second,” she instructed, craning her neck to try to see what she needed to do to free the cotton.

But Royce remained frozen in place - half staring into space, half transfixed by the bush and its contents.

“Royce,” she prompted more forcefully.

That snapped him out of his stupour. Even though she hadn’t turned around, he could hear the furrowed brows and slight frown in her voice, and he jerked the flashlight beam upwards, as though in reflex.

Although it revealed how badly his hands were shaking, Vivien used the extra light to her advantage, and did manage to work the keychain free in the end. She turned the sodden cotton over in her palm - limp and filthy, like a dead fish. But the severed ends were where her attention held the longest; this hadn’t simply just fallen off his backpack. And judging by the state of the cotton, the strands had snapped rather quickly.

“No.”

Royce’s voice sounded tiny - barely even a breath. He just stared, like his brain couldn’t process what was happening, or didn’t want to.

Vivien’s lips twitched to speak again, but her attention was stolen by something soggy and harvest gold between the dull, brown leaves at her feet. She crouched down this time, sneakers sliding a few centimetres in the wet mud until they found purchase. After pushing twigs and leaves aside, she plucked a scrap of mustard yellow nylon free. Holding it up to investigate further, both her and Royce soon came to realise what it was, and why they recognised it so quickly: it was a torn scrap of Bentley’s backpack - part of the front pocket by the looks of things. But whilst the zipper usually housed the same keychain they’d just found part of, the other half was missing.

A lump rose in Vivien’s throat as her fingers traced the jagged, fraying edges of the fabric. “Jesus,” she breathed, mostly to herself. “It ripped clean off.”

Her attention soon returned to the bush and the scattered foliage beneath it though, because something iridescent caught her eye. It hung from branch to branch like string, and dripped down onto the leaves below. There wasn’t a lot of it - enough for her to have missed it at first - but the flashlight made it almost look like it was glowing, despite its bizarre cloudiness. It kind of looked like snot, or some weird mucous. She’d never seen anything like it before. Out of nothing but morbid curiosity, she reached out her fingers and ran them through the strange, slimy film. “What the-”

But before she could explore further, the flashlight abruptly swung away and a small, strangled noise rose from behind her - as though Royce had a fist around his throat. She whirled around - weird sparkly slime momentarily forgotten - but found that the only danger he was in was generated by his own body. He stood, hyperventilating and shaking his head - muttering to himself over and over - clamping his eyelids together, as though he could shut out the rest of the world. “No, no, no- he was- We said he’d be fine- Miles said… Oh my god- No- He’s-”

Vivien shoved the scraps of clues into her jacket pocket and scrambled over to him, hurriedly laying a hand on his shoulder and starting with: “Hey, hey, we still don’t know what this means yet.” She tried to get him to look at her, but that felt like another battle in itself. Attempting to sound hopeful, despite the own dread churning away in her stomach, she rationalised further, “All this shows is that he came this way - so if we follow this-”

“No, Viv,” Royce snapped, louder than either of them anticipated. “This shows something bad happened - that he was in trouble!”

Birds overhead scattered with distant squawks at the disturbance. Royce’s agonised gaze finally met Vivien’s - although hers was laced with a quieter unease, as though she knew she had to tread carefully, but she didn’t know where to step next.

“…Okay, so maybe he was just getting away from the trouble-”

Royce let out a frustrated huff that cut her off. “Stop bullshitting - I know what this means! And stop trying to find some clever solution that’ll make this all go away; it’s not gonna work.”

Vivien had never known Royce to start losing his rag like this, and to say she wasn’t unnerved would be a lie. She fought to keep her voice steady, because she knew that if he didn’t calm down soon she’d start to lose it too. “Royce, that’s not what I’m-”

“No, ‘cause you’re really just doing all this to prove a point to Butchy, aren’t you?” Royce shot back, the malicious undertone out of place against the distress pooling in his irises.

Vivien’s chest burned with indignation as her fist closed around the soggy cotton in her pocket - trying to use that to ground her, and reassure her mind of its true intentions. She started to feel the thumping of her heartbeat in her palms, her wrists, her calves - her whole body - as she listened to his bitter spouting.

“You want to prove that you could do what he couldn’t - that you ‘figured it out’ before anyone else. But this isn’t some game to just win or lose! Benny’s… Benny’s life could be on the line-”

“Do you seriously think that after all we’ve been through together, that I wouldn’t care about that?” Vivien asked, her own irises swirling with a mixture of hurt and offence. But even through the nettled threat of tears, her composure held steadfast, as did her determination. “Because I know you know damn well that’s not true.”

Royce made no effort to argue with her, but he’d already torn his gaze away, and seemed determined to look anywhere but her. Shaking his head and turning, he dragged a hand through his curls so hard his fingers snagged in them. He suddenly seemed fascinated by the forest floor, muttering to himself again, as though trying to drown out the world around him. “He shouldn’t have- …I shouldn’t have left him.”

The words landed between them with a thud - only partly muffled by the rain-slicked leaves.

Vivien set her jaw. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Regardless of whether Royce heard her or not, his resentful muttering continued. “I should have been there. I should have made sure he got home okay- I should have stayed home, with him - instead of-”

“Instead of what?” Vivien challenged, steadily building a further wall of defence. But she didn’t need him to answer her; she knew what he meant - she just wanted to make sure he did too.

Royce looked at her then, as though he’d just remembered he wasn’t alone, thanks to her comment temporarily derailing his train of thought. But he managed to continue, despite the shaking of his voice. “If I’d have been home I could have heard something. Or maybe if he hadn’t been alone this wouldn’t have…” He trailed off, still struggling to organise his jumbled thoughts into viable sentences. “We’ve never had a problem getting home before, when it’s the two of us. If I’d have just been there… If I hadn’t-”

“Hadn’t what?” Vivien challenged again, tone as blunt as a butter knife - which it felt as though was being driven through her chest. “Hadn’t gone to the movies with me?”

Royce blinked - brows furrowed as he tried in vain to clear enough space for her words to get through to his brain.

But she was talking again all too quickly - too quick for him to react anyway. “That’s what you meant, wasn’t it?” she dryly offered, almost vicious with her defence. “That this is all my fault?”

Royce huffed out of frustration - but whether it was aimed at Vivien or the situation itself was unclear. “That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you were thinking,” she bit back. “That I shouldn’t have suggested it, or I should have let him tag along too-”

“Well if he hadn’t had to go home alone then we wouldn’t be out here right now,” Royce came back with a retaliation of his own. “But you didn’t even think about him when you brought it up-”

That accusation had Vivien’s vision flashing the same scarlet as the scraps of cotton hidden in her fist. “Woah, woah, woah - hold on. You weren’t thinking about him either; you didn’t mention him once-”

“You didn’t give me the chance to.”

Vivien scoffed in affronted disbelief. “I asked you if you wanted to go see a movie, Royce. I didn’t drag you there at gunpoint,” she said, still hardly able to believe what she was hearing from someone she’d always had such a deep level of trust and respect for. “You can’t just turn this back on me to help ease your guilty conscience.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Royce tried.

“Really? ‘Cause it sure sounds like it to me,” she spat, disgust written all over her face.

Realising that this conversation was veering sharply off-track, with nothing but his own inner turmoil to blame, Royce’s trembling fingers moved up to smooth out his curls, and the situation, again. “Listen, Viv, I’m not trying to blame you-”

“Could have fooled me,” she bitterly scoffed.

But now it was Royce’s turn to pinch his eyebrows in frustration. “Stop being like that.”

“Stop being like what?” Vivien retaliated. “You’re the one that started all this pointing fingers crap.”

“That’s just how you interpreted it,” he sighed, wishing that he could rewind to the moment they set foot in these woods, so that he could have a complete do-over. And so that Vivien would stop looking at him like that.

“No - I know that’s what you meant; you’re just too much of a coward to say it. So stop trying to tell me I’m wrong,” she said, irises burning with betrayal so fiercely that her tear ducts sprang into action to extinguish them. The tears blurred Royce’s pinched expression, but never fell past her lashes; she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “You don’t get to stand there and make me feel like garbage just because you’re upset.”

“I’m not trying to-”

“Well you are!”

Her rising frustration had her voice rising in turn, but all it did was make the silence they were then plunged into so much starker. As her vision came back to her, she saw Royce’s own eyes turning glassy, and his lip starting to quiver - as though he had no idea what to say next, and was too scared to try. Or, he was about to burst into tears, with the heaving of his chest only adding to that suspicion. He looked younger than thirteen in that moment - smaller, quieter.

Vivien hated that part of her still wanted to reach for him - comfort him despite how deeply she was hurting herself. But she was too angry, too raw. Grounding herself by closing her fist tighter around the sodden keychain, letting the cool rainwater seep into her palm, she set her jaw and took a step forwards. “You wanna be mad? Fine. Be mad. Be scared. Do whatever it is you need to do to help you get through this. But do not stand there and tell me that taking you to see a movie made your brother go missing.”

Royce swallowed thickly. He looked at her with that same, helpless, wounded frown - but couldn’t bring himself to do anything more. His mouth opened for a second, then shut again.

No words came out, but Vivien took that as her answer anyway.

“That’s what I thought,” she muttered, holding onto his gaze for a split second longer, then turning on her heels and trudging back the way they came.

“No wait. Viv, please.”

Her movement must have sparked something in him, because suddenly his ability to speak returned, and a clammy hand grabbed for her shoulder.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” she huffed, frowning at the treeline ahead as she kept walking, firmly avoiding his gaze.

“You don’t have to. But just listen, please,” he pleaded. And although she showed no signs of stopping, he took her silence as permission. “You can be mad; you have every right to be. You can ignore me all night if it’ll help you feel better. But please don’t leave… Don’t leave me out here alone. Like you said, this whole thing was your plan. You’re the one that’s smart enough to figure this out. I’m useless - I just proved that. And I can’t… I can’t do this without you.”

Vivien’s resolve wavered for a moment; the break in his voice, the desperation in the grip on her arm. But she didn’t crumble. “Then you shouldn’t be out here,” she said - tone as chilly as the breeze whipping around them as she finally looked at him again, just long enough to tell him: “You’re clearly not ready for this. And I’m not prepared to stand here and hold your hand one second, and be your punching bag the next, until you are.”

The woods went quiet again around them - their breathing filling the space where birds and bugs seemed to have gone still.

Finally, Vivien stopped too. But only long enough to level Royce with a stare once he jogged to face her, letting her aching heart take the reins of the conversation once last time.

“I came out here because I care about Bentley, and because I want to bring him home. Contrary to what you may think. But I also came out here because I care about you. A lot. More than I think you realise…” she admitted. “But if this is what you really think of me… Then you’re on your own.”

Royce had too many answers, and yet none of them felt safe enough to say, especially with his brain failing to string together any attempt at a rational thought every time he tried. His mouth started to stumble its way through a response anyway, running away before he could catch it. “Viv, I’m not blaming any of this on you. That’d be crazy. But you’ve gotta be able to see where I’m coming from - why I regret going out that night. All this is just proof that something bad did happen to him,” he continued, gesturing to the woods around him - to the spot by the bush where they’d just been standing. “And if I’d been there to protect him…he might have been okay. None of this would be happening - we wouldn’t be feeling like this, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But I was selfish, and I wasn’t thinking about him. All I was thinking about was spending time with some girl-”

The words hit Vivien like a bullet, square in her chest. It felt as though it shattered her breastbone - turning her ribs to shrapnel, slicing away at her heart. Royce must have realised he’d slipped up again once he saw her expression change, because the rest of his sentence died on his lips, leaving him staring at her: wide-eyed and open-mouthed, like a fish plucked from a river.

“‘Some girl’?” she repeated, the words tasting like bile in her mouth. And when Royce didn’t have an immediate apology, or any sort of response at all beyond a nervous wheeze, as though caught off guard by his own words, she just shook her head and tore her gaze away. Pushing past him, she ploughed ahead once more, shouldering him with the force of a linebacker as she pushed down more disappointed tears. But she didn’t go without leaving him a final, disgusted mutter: “Go to hell, Royce.”

Royce stood in stunned silence for a few seconds - unable to focus on anything other than the wild whirring of his mind, and the now dull smarting of his shoulder. But his senses soon came back to him, and he scrambled to shout after her. “Viv! Please, you know I didn’t-”

But her corduroy jacket and hazelnut ponytail were already disappearing into the treeline, and showed no signs of stopping any time soon.

“Viv!” he tried again. But his feeble pleas were swallowed by wind moving through bare branches, and the enormity of the forest around him - which felt a whole lot denser and a whole lot darker now that he was alone, and the last of the sunlight was disappearing below the horizon line.

For a moment he thought about going back - proving himself wrong - and following along that track from the bush, to look for more clues. Maybe they really were onto something, and he’d find something bigger - something that gave them more answers than it did questions. But he took one step deeper into the woods, and the squawk of a bird overhead destroyed any of the nerve he’d tried to pluck up in one fell swoop.

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes so hard it felt as though his eyelashes were piercing his skin. His chest felt heavy and hollow at the same time as it struggled to suck in each breath. And his whole body ached with the effort of not falling to pieces.

How did this keep happening? How did his life keep falling apart at every opportunity possible? It felt as though the universe was playing some sick joke on him. Or testing him to see how much he could take before he cracked. But as a fresh gust of wind rattled the barren branches above him, the icy blast it sent through his skeleton told him there already had to be a break in his shell somewhere.

Finally, he found the energy to move - albeit slowly. Every footstep dragged through clumps of moss and dead leaves - his path looked more like a snail had left it than a creature with two working legs. He pulled his jacket closer around him as he reached the edge of the woods, and tugged on the strings of his hoodie, trying to protect as much of his skin from the chill of the wind as possible. Ruddy-cheeked and huddling from the cold, he scanned the curbside, but found no sign of Vivien or her bike - not that he’d been expecting her, but the confirmation of her absence just stung his skin further.

Dusk was starting to creep in now - darkening the sky further. The damp in the air pressed his curls flatter to his head, and made the handlebars of his bike feel unnaturally cold. He didn’t have the energy for pedalling, so he just pushed it back down the street - tail between his legs, face burning in embarrassment, and whole body aching with defeat.

The walk back home felt longer than ever before. Every house he passed looked too normal. Every porch light, or TV screen flashing in the window, felt like a personal insult. Why did everyone else get to go on living their lives as normal, when his had been ripped to shreds and left in the gutter? Part of him almost expected Bentley to come racing around the corner on his bike - backpack bouncing and threatening to spill his coloured pencils all over the road, grin wide as he hollered about Royce being a slowpoke.

But, of course, he never came.

And as he turned onto their street, the true weight of his loneliness finally hit him. It almost brought him to his knees. It very well may have done if his bike hadn’t been there to keep him upright. Everything just felt hopeless. He’d lost Bentley. Now he’d lost Vivien. He had nowhere left to turn. Nowhere other than home, he supposed. So that’s where he went.

He just didn’t realise that someone else might have beaten him to it.

The rubber toe of Kona’s sneaker squeaked against weathered siding as she rose onto the balls of feet. Straining, she braced one hand on the window frame, and used the other to block the fading, evening sunlight from her vision as she pressed her face to smudged glass.

Beneath her, Zack, kneeling on all fours and acting as a human stepladder, let out a grunt at the shift in weight. “Kona, I’m gonna have permanent imprints of your feet in my back if you take much longer,” he hissed.

“Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate,” she bit back, digging her foot in a little harder just to prove a point.

“Well can you show a little hustle?” Zack retorted. “My spine’s gonna give out.”

August just gently rolled his eyes, watching the bickering from a safe distance given his role of ‘lookout’. He was trying his best to look casual, but nothing seemed ‘casual’ about a twelve-year-old skulking in a house’s side alley - even if he lived there, it would have been bizarre. So considering the fact that they were technically trespassing added a further layer of abnormality that he hoped wasn’t showing in his body language. He already felt overly shifty having to scan the street every thirty seconds for signs of Bentley’s brothers coming home, but the threat of nosy neighbours spying and catching them scaling the house like burglars was making him feel positively criminal.

“Yeah, come on, hurry up, Kona,” he chipped in as his heart rate picked up a touch; he could have sworn he saw a set of curtains across the road twitching. “People are gonna think we’re trying to break in if they catch us.”

“That’s why we set you up as ‘lookout’, bozo,” Kona bickered. “If you’d just do your job properly then we wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught, would we?”

“You’re one to talk about doing your job properly,” Zack huffed with an eye roll of his own. “You’re looking through a window, not building a rocket. What the hell is taking so long?”

Kona just ignored him, squinting harder to help her eyes adjust to the dimly lit bedroom - illuminated only by what was left of the sun filtering through the dense cloud layer from the evening around her. She saw Royce’s neatly made bed, and his belongings lined up along his nightstand - organised as always. Then her gaze drifted to Bentley’s side. His bed was unmade, which wasn’t atypical, rumpled clothes were spilling out of dresser drawers, a haphazard stack of comics sat at the foot of his bed, and his favourite hoodie was slung over the furthest bedpost. Nothing looked out of place, everything was just as she’d expected… Only Bentley wasn’t there.

Her puzzled frown slowly tightened.

“Well? Is he in there or not?” Zack asked, breaking her from her stupour.

Kona didn’t answer right away - taking another few seconds to scan the room again, as though she could convince herself that she’d just missed him the first time she’d looked, and that he’d been curled up in bed, surrounded by snotty tissues the whole time after all. But after another fruitless search, she finally admitted, “No, he’s not.”

August’s head whipped in her direction. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Kona bit back, although her fiery spirit was significantly dampened by her mood. “Come and take a look yourself if you don’t believe me,” she added, gesturing to the window.

But Zack had something to say about that. “Absolutely not - viewing party’s over; it feels like you’re bruising my kidneys.”

“Quit whining,” Kona muttered with a roll of her eyes, but stepped down anyway, using his shoulder for leverage.

Zack collapsed onto his side with a groan as August crossed back over to them; role of ‘lookout’ forgotten in an instant. “Well maybe he’s just in the bathroom or something?” he suggested, trying to remain optimistic despite his evident nerves.

To Kona, he just seemed in denial. “I’m telling you, Auggie - that house is totally empty. We’ve not seen any lights turning on, or heard any footsteps the entire time we’ve been looking. No one’s home.”

“But there’s nowhere else he could be,” August tried to reason - his brain felt physically incapable of processing the information being presented to him. “He’s not at All Skate with his brother, he’s not at the library, he’s not at the arcade… It doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of this makes sense,” Zack grunted as he pushed himself to his feet again. “What did Miles just say? He was running a fever?” he recalled, waiting for nods of confirmation before continuing. “But he was fine on Monday - he didn’t seem sick at all.”

“And even if he did come down with something that night, and he really is sick, then why isn’t he in bed?” Kona added.

”And if he’s not sick, then why hasn’t he been in school?” August finished, matching his puzzled frown to that of his two friends as the trio fell into an antsy silence.

There was something off about this whole thing - all of them felt it, and they hadn’t been able to shake that sense of unease all day. Hence the trip to investigate for themselves - and bring snacks and new comics if the rumours of him being ill were in fact true. Sure, Bentley missed school every now and then - just as anyone did. But there were usually at least warning signs: a stuffy nose here, a scratchy cough there. Bentley had been larger than life when they were playing D&D the other night though. And since Miles didn’t really have anyone who could stay home to keep an eye on him, it took a hell of a lot for him to agree to let him skip school.

August’s gaze fell to the decrepit leaves scattered over the lawn as he tried to make sense of it all. “Maybe Miles has taken him to the emergency room or something? And that’s why they’re not home.”

“We just talked to him at the rink though - we know he’s on his shift there,” Kona rebutted. “And there’s no way he’d have beat us back here. Plus, he doesn’t even have a car.”

August opened his mouth to argue, but quickly realised he had no valid point to make, and nothing further to suggest. He was completely flummoxed, as were his friends.

“This is so fucking weird,” Zack mused, scrubbing a despairing hand over his eyes.

“Yeah, something’s definitely not right,” Kona agreed, eyebrows knitted to match her sweater, and arms crossed over her chest. “Like you said, he was fine on Monday.”

That’s what didn’t sit right with any of them. They’d all seen him leave All Skate, exactly as he always did: laughing and joking and grinning like the idiot they all knew and loved. Sure he could be a little loud and obnoxious sometimes, but what excitable pre-teen wasn’t? He’d hailed his D&D character a hero despite his early demise, cackling into the twilight as they wove between potholes on residential streets - entirely and unapologetically himself, as always. Then, after Zack and Kona peeled off towards their own houses, he’d turned onto Buryvale and that had been it. That was the last any of them had seen of him.

“You don’t think he like…ran away, do you?” Zack dared to ask, although the thought alone felt wrong.

“Of course not, dipshit,” Kona snapped. “Ben would never do something like that. And besides, where would he even go?”

“Well where is he then?” Zack retaliated. “He can’t have just dropped off the face of the earth.”

“And if he really isn’t here, then why would Miles lie to us about it?” August added, fresh waves of anxiety lapping at the walls of his abdomen.

“I don’t know,” Kona sighed, restlessly fidgeting with a loose thread on her sweater. “None of this makes sense.”

“Do you think they’re trying to hide something from us?” Zack suggested.

“About what? Benny?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” he continued to loosely theorise. “It would explain how vague Miles was earlier.”

“Do you think something happened to him?” August asked, words coming out more of a scared croak than a genuine question.

But Kona was quick to shut him down before he started to spiral. “Oh please, we’re in Hawkins. The most boring town on earth, remember? Nothing happens here.”

Thud.

August seemed to be the only one to hear it at first, since Zack and Kona continued to dispute their best friend’s whereabouts without batting an eyelid. August’s attention was snatched in an instant though. He blindly swung his gaze around until he landed on the two, scuffed trash cans tucked against the exterior wall - one with its lid balanced at a jaunty angle, as though it had been dropped back into place in a hurry. Considering the only other things around them were a pile of unused bricks, a faulty bike pump, and a lawn littered with patches of dead grass - August felt fairly confident that the sound had to have come from the trash can. And after fixing it with a stare, that suspicion was proven correct when it emitted a softer thud, followed by the gentle rustling of old papers.

“Well he’s never said anything about having other family so-”

“Just ‘cause he’s never mentioned them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“Okay, but why the hell would he just-?”

“Uh… Guys?” August called out, gaze still locked onto the trash can, watching it as though it might sprout legs and run away - which, based on the fact it seemed to be making noises on its own, he supposed wasn’t the most deranged idea. Once he felt their eyes fall on him, he swallowed his rising nerves and dared to announce, “I think there might be something in that trash can.”

Zack eyed him with a quirked brow. “…Dude, hate to break it to you, but he’s not hiding in there. No way Benny’s fitting in that thing,” Zack scoffed.

August turned to him, appalled. “…How stupid do you think I am?”

“Well why else would you bring it up?” Zack retorted over Kona’s raucous giggles.

“’Cause it sounds…” August started, but was cut off by another muffled, metallic thud - as though something soft, but dense was bouncing off the walls of the garbage can. It was the croaked chittering that followed that really perked his ears up though - and sent an odd shiver down his spine, as though someone was dripping ice water down the back of his shirt. “…Like that.”

“It’s probably just a raccoon or something,” Kona tried to reason, but the waver in her voice revealed her real lack of certainty. “Or someone’s pet that got lost.”

“What kind of a pet wants to live in the garbage?” Zack asked, mostly just to himself, and through a set of further furrowed brows.

“Probably one that’s seen your room, and is looking for an upgrade,” Kona quipped, smirking and earning herself an elbow to the ribs.

“Do you think we should check on it?” August mused aloud, eyes unable to move from the dented metal.

“We’re supposed to be looking for Benny,” Kona tried.

“And we will, I just-” That chirping sound returned, only louder this time. It was bordering on insect-like, which just confused the group even more. Another soft thud rose from the trash can as they stood watching it, followed by a sort of whine of defeat - as though the inhabitant had realised its efforts to escape were fruitless. “It sounds stuck,” August finished, tentatively stepping forwards.

The closer he got to the trash can, the louder the rustling, and breathy grunts became - and the harder his heart started hammering in support. He slowly reached out a hand, but before his fingers could close around the handle on the lid, a hand slapped down on his shoulder.

“Wait, wait! You can’t just open it like that. What if it like, I don’t know, attacks you?” Kona flapped.

August’s eyebrows scrunched and a new wave of apprehension crested somewhere in his chest. “I don’t know, I hadn’t really- I didn’t think that far,” he stammered.

“It sounds tiny, Kona. Stop being such a wimp and let him open it,” Zack retorted, already eagerly craning his head over August’s shoulder in anticipation of getting a look at the mystery creature.

“I am not being a wimp!” she retorted, with breathy indignation.

“Sure sounded like it to me-”

“Says the guy who still won’t go down the big ramp-”

“Oh my god, why do you bring that up every time I start-”

Another chirp rose from the trash can and the moment August heard it, his friends’ bickering became nothing more than a muffled haze. It was like someone had dropped a blanket over his head. All he could focus on was this damn trash can, and the noises it was emitting. That ice water down his back sensation returned, and his stomach clamped in on itself the longer he stared at it. But before he could second-guess himself again, and the buzzing in his head could get any louder, his fingertips closed around the scratchy metal handle, and he lifted off the lid.

Kona and Zack’s eyes were on him in an instant - almost in disbelief that he’d actually done it. August felt that himself, because before he’d even dared to look inside, he hovered the lid back over the trash can’s opening and jerked his head away - wincing and bracing for an attack that never came. After a beat or two of silence, he cautiously peeled an eye open. And once he realised there was no imminent danger after all, he slowly inched the lid out of the way, and leaned over to finally get a glimpse of the noisy inhabitant. But the sight inside left him almost speechless.

“Woah…”

Kona’s grip on his shoulder tightened as she peeked over it and dared a look of her own. Instantly regretting it, she grimaced: “Eww!”

And although Zack craned his head over the garbage can’s mouth a lot more eagerly, his reaction had the same element of disgust laced into it, albeit largely overshone by his morbid fascination. “Holy shit.”

August’s eyes narrowed as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but his efforts were fruitless. And all looking at it did was make that gnawing dread in the pit of his stomach grow bigger. “What the fuck is that?”

The creature - they couldn’t narrow it down to anything more specific - was curled atop a splitting black garbage bag, and a handful of crumpled, scribbled sketches of Bentley’s. It was about the size of a large hamster, but that’s where the similarities to any sort of household pet ended. Its skin was slick and leathery - almost amphibian - with the same muddy grey-green hue of old pond water. It had two stubby front legs, but its back half extended into a sort of chubby tail - kind of like a tadpole. So maybe it was some sort of amphibian after all. But why it was here, when the nearest body of natural water was miles away, was another question entirely. Its head - well, whole body really; there was little to no distinguishing between the two - was bulbous and seemed to ripple with every movement, like a worm. And its face was…well, not really there. It didn’t have any visible eyes that they could see, the front just kind of narrowed to a tiny puckered beak that opened a fraction every time it made that weird chittering noise. Judging by the state of the contents of the trash can, it seemed to be leaving a slime trail too, since Bentley’s discarded pictures looked like they’d been dipped in grease.

The inhabitant nudged at a lump in the trash bag with its…nose, they guessed, then huffed in frustration. It paused for a moment, then turned its face to the sky, and the trio of pre-teens gawping at it. Whether it had eyes or not, it seemed to realise it was being watched, because it let out an almost curious chirp and tilted its head to the side, like an inquisitive puppy.

The action had the desired effect on Zack because a smile leapt to his face as he thought aloud. “Wait, it’s kind of cute.”

“What are you talking about?” Kona retorted, clearly not sharing the sentiment. “It looks like a living booger!”

“Well, at least it seems…” August trailed off, his concern melting into a small grin as the creature crawled, in its own, awkward wobbly way, over an empty milk carton. “Friendly?”

“What? Cause it didn’t jump out and start eating your face?” Kona asked, still unimpressed by the discovery.

“Hey, little guy,” Zack started to coo, leaning even further into the garbage can and extending his hand to it. But it was a mere matter of seconds before he was being hauled back to his full height by the boy beside him.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Kona exclaimed, eyes wide with furious dismay.

Zack stared at them both in utter disbelief. “What’s the big deal? I’m helping him out; he’s clearly stuck in there.”

“With your bare hands?” August asked, more concerned than horrified, in contrast to the blonde on his left.

“Uhh…yeah?”

“Dude, we’ve got no idea what that thing is. It could be poisonous - or venomous or something.”

“Or carrying like twelve diseases,” Kona added before August could continue.

“You’re the one that claims to be the reptile expert - stop being an idiot,” he went on to scold, grabbing Zack’s hand before he could dip it into the trash can again.

Zack just rolled his eyes and wrenched his hand free though. Skulking further into the Murphys’ yard, he retaliated, addressing the duo over his shoulder. “I think you’ll find I still am the resident reptile expert, because looking at that thing, it’s clearly more amphibian than it is reptilian. I mean come on, look at its tail.” The boy bent down and plucked a stick from the foot of the old, gnarled tree in the furthest corner of the property, before joining his friends again. “And fine, since you two are such pussies, I’ll use a stick.” Once he was back at the trash can’s side, he turned to them both with a forced, sarcastic smile. “Happy now?”

“If you get your hand bitten off, don’t come to me expecting any sympathy,” Kona huffed with her own eye roll.

Zack, ignoring her, leaned into the trash can again and waved the stick in front of the creature, and when it did nothing but stare, he progressed to gently nudging its side. It shrunk back a little at first, and let out an indignant chirp, but stopped once it realised Zack was posing no threat, and started to inch closer.

“Well it’s not showing any teeth, so I guess my hand’s safe for now,” Zack snarkily announced to his friends.

“It does seem pretty…tame,” August noted, leaning in more to get a closer look now that the threat level was lowering with each second.

“Come on, buddy,” Zack tried to coax further. “I’m not gonna bite if you don’t.”

“You’re really trying to reason with a mutant tadpole?” Kona asked, with a flat, yet rhetorical intonation.

“Yes, and it’s working. Look: we’re bonding,” Zack proudly announced as the little creature waddled even closer. It stared at the stick again, and although it had almost no face to express itself, Zack could tell it was frowning. So before he could overthink it, he dropped the stick beside an empty cereal box and extended his palm. He felt his arm tense a fraction as the creature advanced again, almost regretting the decision, but when it stopped and sniffed at his skin with its seemingly non-existent nostrils, he forced himself to hold it steady. It inspected his hand a few moments more, then grunted, blowing out a tiny, cool blast of air from its…snout, he supposed; all puckered and twisted, like a flower bud still waiting to bloom. But although the outburst startled him, all it did was tickle. And once the creature realised that the hand was as friendly as the stick had been, it waddled closer still, nuzzling its slimy little head against Zack’s palm. A smile sprang to his face in an instant. “Hey, look! He likes me!”

“And you feel…okay?” August warily checked, still hung-up on the possibility of the creature’s potential deadliness.

“Never better,” Zack confirmed with a chuckle as the creature purred and snuggled in closer. “Dude, you are so cute,” he continued with more chuckles as he watched it squirm and roll around against his palm, like a puppy wanting to play.

“It is pretty cool,” August conceded, eyes shining with fascination now that his shoulders weren’t as stiff as a board. “What do you think it is?”

“No idea,” Zack confessed, moving his fingers about and watching the creature chase them like a kitten with a ball of yarn. “Like I said, it looks more amphibian than reptile, but I’ve still never seen anything like this before.”

“It just looks like a tadpole to me,” Kona piped up, ducking around her friends’ heads to get a better view for herself now that she wasn’t as concerned about any of their faces being chewed off. “I mean what else has two front legs and a fat tail like that?”

“This is way too big to just be a tadpole,” Zack clarified. “Unless the frog it’s gonna turn into is the size of a dog.”

“And even if it is a tadpole, there’s no bodies of water anywhere near here,” August added. “And there’s no way it could have travelled that far with those stubby little legs.”

The creature let out another snort, as though put out by the remark. Zack laughed and stroked its back, attempting to comfort it. “Aww it’s okay, little guy. He didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

“Stop talking to it like it has feelings,” Kona mildly scolded.

“It does have feelings!” Zack insisted.

August, still deep in thought, steadily drew the conversation back on track with practised ease. “Tadpole or not, I don’t think it can have climbed in here on its own,” he mused. “I mean, you guys saw it. The lid was closed when we found it.”

“Maybe someone dumped it,” Kona suggested. “…Literally.”

“But who’d do something like that?” Zack demanded, his protectiveness for the creature shining through in his passion.

“And why would they leave it in Miles’ trash can?” August added. That was the main part of this that was stumping him. Sure, it was a pretty freak incident, and it could be nothing more. But why had this alien looking thing turned up as soon as Bentley had seemingly vanished? And why had they found it almost directly under his bedroom window? It was one hell of a coincidence if that’s all it was. But something told him that there was more to this than what they were seeing. And the longer he stared at that…thing, the deeper that feeling rooted in the pit of his stomach.

The group’s theorising ground to a halt though when the creature’s little clawed hands started scrabbling at Zack’s skin - as though attempting to climb up his arm. Although, with its slug-like form, it was never going to be able to lift itself more than a millimetre off the ground. Still, Zack didn’t like to see it struggling. “Screw how he got in here, it looks like he wants out now.”

“That’s his problem,” Kona retorted.

“No it’s not; he’s stuck,” Zack shot back, leaning in further and cupping both his hands now, forming a seat that the creature gladly crawled onto. Once he was happy it was settled, he gingerly lifted it out of the trash can and brought it up to his eye level, getting a better look at it than ever before. Completely awed, his face broke into a mystified grin. “There you go, little guy. Much less stinky up here, huh?”

“Don’t hold him too close; he might change that opinion,” Kona teasingly quipped, no longer as snippy now that the thing seemed no more harmless than a hamster.

“He’s so cool,” Zack marvelled, watching gleefully as it waddled around in his palms. It butted his thumb with its head, wagged and slapped its tail against the fingers on his other hand, and then started, to everyone’s surprise, sucking on the cuff of the flannel shirt sticking out of his jacket sleeve.

“I, uh, think he might be hungry too,” August observed with an awkward, yet amused chuckle.

“What do you think it eats?” Kona warily asked.

“I don’t know, all I’ve got in my bag is a half-eaten pack of Rolos,” Zack said, eyebrows scrunching in concern as he continued to think. “But if we bring him back to my place we could try some veggies - or my mom has some raw hamburger meat in the refrigerator if he’s a carnivore.”

“I was thinking more like grass or worms,” Kona mumbled until August cut her off.

“We’re taking it back to your house?”

“Of course we are. He bonded with me the most, and I call dibs.”

But that’s not what August was so horrified by. “Dude, it’s a wild animal. We’ve got no idea what it is, we can’t just waltz through your front door with it - your mom would flip.”

“Which is exactly why we go straight to the basement through the back,” Zack reasoned, clearly having already thought through the whole thing. “Our tortoise is hibernating in a box in the linen closet, so we can keep him in that tank - that way we don’t have to worry about him getting out.”

“Let me bring you back to the fact that it’s a wild animal,” August fired back. “We can’t just pluck it out of its natural habitat. And besides, it could be anything. We’ve got no idea what it even eats, let alone how to look after it.”

“Well I can guarantee it’s natural habitat is not a trash can,” came Zack’s deadpan rebuttal, before continuing with a more optimistic, “And we’ll figure out what he likes. It might help us to figure out what he is. We’ll swing by the library tomorrow and check out a bunch of books on amphibians, and in the meantime we’ll raid my refrigerator for snack options.”

“This is crazy,” Kona said, gently shaking her head at the pair, and the situation in general as the thing in Zack’s hands started chirping again.

”Actually, this is us potentially discovering a new species,” Zack retorted. “We could be making a huge scientific breakthrough here - we’ve gotta look after him until we know more, until we know enough to present a case to a research team anyway.”

Kona just continued to shake her head. “You’re so delusional,” she muttered.

“And you’re not getting any credit in the paper about our discovery once it’s published with that attitude,” he fired back. But his attention was snatched away from Kona’s rolling eyes when the creature in his palm began tugging even harder at his sleeve. “Alright, alright, buddy. You’re hungry, I get it,” he chuckled, before turning to August and trying to signal with his head. “Aug, can you grab the Rolos for him? I don’t wanna make him wait ‘til we get home.”

August obeyed, unzipping the front pocket of his best friend’s backpack and retrieving the half-eaten pack of chocolates, but his expression was still dubious. He broke one of the already bite-size candies into smaller chunks and tentatively dropped one in front of the creature. It did another sniff-test first, but quickly approved and unfurled the petal-like folds of its beak to eagerly snaffle up the chocolate offering. “You think your mom is seriously gonna let you keep this thing?” he asked, although by his tone he already felt as though he knew the answer.

“Hell no,” Zack confirmed. “But she never goes down to the basement unless she’s doing laundry - and I’ll just keep the tank covered with a blanket or something. She’s not gonna notice.”

“Don’t you think we should at least tell someone about it though?” August asked, trying to help the boy see sense. “Some sort of an adult?”

“So they can do what? Call animal control? Send it off to some lab?” Zack demanded. “No way! He’s our discovery - I’m not letting a bunch of people in lab coats poke and prod him in a cage like he’s some kind of freak.”

“He is some kind of freak,” Kona clarified with a deadpan emphasis that just deepened Zack’s frown.

He lifted the creature closer to his face and studied it with this look of adoration and fascination that seemed almost too raw for an eleven-year-old to be able to capture. “You’re not a freak, are you Chewie?” he rhetorically asked the slime-slicked bundle, chuckling softly again as it scoffed more chunks of Rolos each time August set them down. “You’re just a special little guy, huh?”

“You already named it?” Kona demanded in incredulous despair.

“Well duh, everyone needs a name.”

“And you decided to name it after a wookie?” August snorted, almost amused by the absurdity. “Dude, it doesn’t have a hair on its body.”

“It was mostly ‘cause of his eating habits,” Zack explained with a quick, fond glance down at the sodden edge of his cuff. “But it works for Chewbacca too; he’s from space and I wouldn’t put it past this guy to end up being some sort of alien. And they’re both best friends with the ‘lovable rogue’ of the group.”

There went Kona’s eye roll again. “Oh my god, you’re unbelievable.”

“Alright then, Chewie it is,” August conceded with a chuckle as he petted the creature’s back with his fingertips. But as the rumbling of a passing car’s engine pulled his surroundings back to him, his better judgement returned as well. “Come on, we’d better move; the longer we stay here, the more likely we are to get caught.”

“Right,” Zack agreed, before speaking more directly to his newly adopted pet. “Let’s go get your new room fixed up.’

“And, more importantly, let’s start figuring out where the hell Benny could be,” Kona added. “We can’t get side tracked by that slimy hellspawn.”

“And we won’t,” August promised, certain of one thing for the first time all day. “We just need a little time to…process everything.”

The group shared a look of silent acknowledgement, before Kona and August started walking to retrieve their bikes. Zack let Chewie finish his last chunk of chocolate before whispering reassurances to him, and tucking him into the inside pocket of his jacket, then jogging to catch up with the others. It was August that lingered the longest in the Murphys’ driveway though, eyes still fixed on Bentley’s dark, vacant bedroom window as that feeling of dread bore deeper into him. His hearing started to go fuzzy the longer he stared - like that blanket had been dropped over his head again. And then that icy chill down his back returned, intensified by a gust of wind rushing at him from behind - as though trying to propel him forwards, and off on his journey. Maybe the universe didn’t want him there - didn’t want him dwelling on it any longer than he had to. Maybe that’s why Chewie had been left in that trash can: to distract them from Bentley’s whereabouts. And maybe that’s why it sent a set of footsteps and a ticking bike chain to drag him out of his head.

“Uh…you guys okay?” Royce called out, catching the trio just before they could push off on their pedals.

They turned to him, eyes wide like kids caught stealing cookies before dinner, fixing tight, lopsided grins on their faces to try to mask the guilt. Royce’s pace slowed as he reached his driveway, eyes wary despite the faint traces of redness still clinging to the puffy lids. He prayed they couldn’t tell he’d been crying, but he also felt as though he had bigger problems to deal with first.

“Yep, all good. Just leaving. Bye!” Kona said, hurriedly flicking up her kickstand before they could be questioned further, hoping the other two would have enough sense to follow suit.

“Did you… Did you need something?” Royce cautiously stammered, mind already racing with ways he could cover all this up so that he didn’t have to suffer Butchy’s wrath again.

But to his mild surprise, they seemed to have that part covered on their own. “No, don’t sweat it, man. We were just looking for Bentley, but I think we’re gonna go check the arcade again,” Zack called back.

But when Chewie writhed in his jacket pocket, and Zack shivered in reaction, Kona felt the need to jump in again to provide a distraction. “Yeah and we’d better hurry ‘cause we don’t want to miss him again! Right, guys?”

“Right! Right! He sure does love that arcade,” Zack awkwardly chuckled, clamping his elbow tighter to his torso to hold his jacket in place and kicking off on his bike before he could risk blowing their cover even further. “Alright, see you around, man!”

“Later, Royce!” Kona chirped, furiously pedalling after Zack - so mad that once their backs were turned, she may as well have been spitting feathers at him rather than the whispered insults that came out instead.

August again hung back a beat longer though, watching Royce with a quiet concern that unnerved the older boy more than Zack and Kona’s skittish lies ever could. It’s because he knew August could understand something was wrong, that he felt that same eerie unease hanging between them, that he could see the hurt in his still-wet eyes. Because that same hurt was hiding in August’s.

“Royce,” he started, voice small as he fidgeted with the rubber of his handle bars. “Is he…”

No words came to finish the question, and yet they both still understood what he was trying to say.

Royce sucked in a slow breath and dropped his face to the cracked asphalt, unable to meet the boy’s olive gaze until he’d forced the words out. “…I think you should try the arcade again.” His chest grew tight again, like someone had placed a boulder on it. He supposed it was the weight of all this lying. He was starting to feel as though he wasn’t strong enough to handle it, not when the stakes were this high. He heaved in another, laboured breath and dragged his gaze back up to the boy in front of him, forcing out a more certain: “You never know…”

Royce didn’t know if August bought his feigned innocence, but he at least picked up on his desperation to be left alone. The shy blonde gave a small, strained nod of acknowledgement, then pushed off the pavement - his sneakers finding purchase on plastic pedals with practised ease as he followed after his friends.

August’s mind couldn’t rest the entire bike ride to Zack’s house though. He couldn’t get the image of Royce out of his head - the suppressed pain in expression, the wobble of his jaw, as though fighting back tears. Something was definitely wrong, he just didn’t know what yet. But it was already starting to feel bigger than what he could control. Fate would need to try harder if it wanted to mess with them any more than it already was though. A lot harder; August wasn’t prepared to give up on his best friend that easily. And when every instinct was telling him that something was wrong, he had no choice but to listen. He’d listen until he went deaf if it meant Bentley would be okay.

Like I said, this is very loosely inspired by my recent rewatching of the Hannah Montana movie - but has evolved to include a bunch of other ideas I’ve been wanting to shove somewhere. And this is where they’ve ended up ahaha. So if it seems a bit jumbled, it is - just not intentionally lol.

Anyway, as much as I include Carrie in my stories, I feel like it’s been a really long time since she’s actually featured as “the main character” - not since I’ve evolved her to be more of how she is now anyway. But this very much feels like her story. We start with her as a well-established actress, having had some pretty big roles throughout her teen years (very Disney channel-esque kind of pipeline), and now trying to find her feet as she moves beyond that. But when a bad case of laryngitis makes her flunk a big audition, her steadily growing ego struggles to cope. She’s always been a drama queen, but she really starts to meltdown over this - her dad tries to talk her around, to no avail, and her mom, worried sick, ends up confiding in some work colleagues: the owners of the winery she always uses for her bigger catering gigs. With her worrying that her daughter’s losing touch with reality, her colleagues reveal that they also own and run a summer camp every year over, and would be more than happy to host a celebrity counsellor to bring in new campers, and give her the chance to feel like a normal girl again. So before Carrie knows what’s hit her, she’s flown from sunny LA to New Hampshire, where the camp‘s co-head of operations: Dorothea Murphy, is there to pick her up from the airport.

Dorothea and her three sons had grown up living just down the street from George and Dawn, and had practically become a second family to them, thanks to how close of a bond the four of them had formed with their granddaughter: Vivien. And every year, when they opened up the camp, Dorothea helped the couple run the show. Miles, Royce and Bentley all obviously became counsellors like Vivien when they were old enough, and quickly roped various friends into the roles too. Over the years the group of counsellors became very tight-knit, so when Dorothea showed up with a new face, and a famous one at that, it naturally ruffled a few feathers - especially when she appointed her eldest son to be the one to show her around.

Carrie hates it at first. Sure there are people who know her and like her (Vivien, Riven, etc), who are excited just about her being there, but there are plenty who don’t take kindly to her high standards and unintentionally snobbish attitude (the usual suspects, Royce, Butchy, etc), and contribute even more to her crappy mood, thanks to the fact that her usual luxuries have quickly become a distant memory. She struggles to make any friends because everyone already seems to have preconceived notions of her, she’s hopeless when it comes to joining in with any of the activities because she’s never done anything like this before, and the lack of palm trees and over-exposure to mud makes her feel horribly homesick. So she runs to Dorothea one night begging her to take her back to the airport so she can go home; she’s just not strong enough to do this. Dorothea comforts her how she can, but tries to convince her to stick it out a little longer. And the next morning, she finds Miles to ask for his help with her again. He’s resistant at first, because he’s already done his part with showing her around, and he doesn’t want ‘babysitting her’ to ruin his summer - and finds it particularly unfair that he keeps getting singled out for this. But when Dorothea tells him she thinks it’d be good for him to get out of his comfort zone, and that Carrie clearly needs someone level-headed to steady her nearly-sinking lifeboat, unable to argue with his mother’s logic, he eventually agrees.

There’s a little friction between the pair at first, but as Carrie softens and brings down her walls, Miles finds himself starting to warm to her - much to the surprise/horror of his friends. Before long, he has her acting as though she’d been a counsellor for years, as though she’d never even set foot on a film set before - so much so that they both started to forget that side of her even existed. She starts to forge real friendships amongst the group: Vivien takes a real shine to her, Riven finds a big sister he never knew he needed in her, Dorothea even forms a soft spot for her dramatic flair, and Royce and Bentley, although still slightly wary, slowly realise she’s more than just her faults. But just when things were taking a turn for the better, Carrie’s manager arrives out of the blue to whisk her away for a new job opportunity, forcing her to leave before the end of the season, and before the fundraiser concert that she’d promised George and Dawn she’d participate in to boost support for the camp. So she’s left to choose what matters most to her: her career, and her future….or her heart, and her now.

I could keep rambling for forever and a day, but I feel like you’ll get the vibe from that. And you can probably tell how it would end/play out, so I won’t bore you with writing out all that too. But hopefully you can have a little bit of fun thinking over the idea yourself; that’s what I always end up doing when you make posts like this anyway lol. And I think I’ll round it off the same way you do: with some random quotes and scene snippets that have helped me solidify the idea a bit more. So enjoy!

_________

Dorothea: I know it may be more of a challenge for some of you than others, but please just try to treat her like any other normal counsellor. The last thing she needs is to be hounded in the dining hall. Are we clear?

*murmurs of varying levels of agreement/acknowledgement from the group*

Dorothea: And Miles, can you stop by the office when we’re done here? She’s gonna need a tour of the place before dinner.

Miles (mildly horrified, and over Ethan, Bentley and Royce’s snickers at his expense): Why me?

Dorothea (stern, but in a loving, almost teasing way): I’m your mother, dear. There doesn’t need to be a reason, just do as I say.

_________

Carrie (looking around the cabin room she’s been given): This is…nice. It’s, uh…real rustic.

Vivien: Well, it has been here for like 30 years - so yeah, it’s not doing too bad.

Carrie: I can’t believe they’ve got enough of these things built for everyone. Your grandparents must have sunk a hell of a lot of money into-

Miles (after side-eyeing Vivien and her stifling a laugh): Oh no, no, this isn’t your cabin. This is your room, in our cabin.

Carrie (stalling for a second): …We’re all staying in here?

Miles (chuckling): Yeah - it’s cosy.

Vivien: It’s not that crazy; there’s only eleven of us - twelve including you.

Miles: Just count yourself lucky you’ve got a room to yourself; some of us are sharing.

*Miles turns and starts walking back down the hall, leaving Carrie staring wide-eyed around her modest little bedroom*

Miles (smirking): Oh, and I hope you brought ear plugs; Ethan and I are next door and he’s a snorer.

Ethan (through the wall): And the walls are really fucking thin.

_________

Vivien: How was she during the class you led with her?

Riven (chuckling): Oh, she was great. I don’t know what Royce’s problem is. I had an awesome afternoon - she just kept cracking me up the whole time. And the girls couldn’t get enough of her - she’s probably still in the dance hall with them now actually.

Vivien: Doing what? Didn’t your class end like 45 minutes ago?

Riven: I don’t know, they just wouldn’t leave her alone.

*Carrie enters the dining hall, hair dishevelled, cupcake stickers haphazardly dotted over her t-shirt, and looking rather shell-shocked. Riven starts laughing even harder when he sees her, and Vivien can’t help but join in when she plops down into the seat opposite them*

Vivien (failing to hold back her laugh): You look like you had fun.

Riven (playfully, through his guffaws): Make any new friends?

Carrie: What the fuck is a labubu?

_________

Miles: Mom, you don’t get it. She’s hopeless.

Dorothea: You’ve got to give her a chance, baby. This is all new to her, remember?

Mile: Mom. She thought a canoe was a bird… A bird.

Dorothea (trying her best to suppress a laugh): …Then I suppose you’ll just have to show her what one is, won’t you?

_________

Butchy (passing a volleyball between his fingers): Come on, Your Highness. Are you gonna join in for once, or are you scared of a little dirt?

Carrie (scoffing): There won’t be any dirt left once I’ve wiped the floor with you, pretty boy.

*the volleyball match does in fact go ahead - but ends with them both sitting in the infirmary: Butchy with a bloody nose and being checked over by paramedics for a concussion - and Carrie almost passing out from inhaling so much nitrous oxide whilst those same paramedics try to fix her dislocated shoulder. Mick, Miles and Vivian are all justifiably horrified*

_________

Miles (leading the way to his Jeep): You any good at carrying industrial vats of ketchup?

Carrie: What are you talking about?

Miles: We’re going out for supplies - so I hope you’ve got some muscles hiding under that sweatshirt.

Carrie (stalling): What? Like, out there? Out in public?

Miles: …Yeah. What’s the issue?

Carrie: I don’t know… Won’t I get like, you know, recognised?

*Miles stops for a second then crosses over to her and pulls the sunglasses from the top of her head down onto the bridge of her nose. He then whips the faded baseball cap from his head and wedges it down over her curls, before stepping back to admire his work with a satisfied smirk*

Miles: There you go - foolproof disguise. Now come on, we’ve got errands to run.

_________

Miles (cautiously sitting down beside her): What are you doing out here by yourself?

Carrie (smiling dejectedly to herself): Contrary to popular belief, I don’t really want to spend the next two hours watching myself on a screen.

Miles: Well, it’s more of a sheet than a screen, if that helps.

*Carrie cracks a smile, but still makes no effort to move*

Miles (huddling slightly closer to her, partly for warmth, partly for reassurance): Alright… What do you wanna do instead then? I’m not in the mood for a movie either. So I’m all yours.

_________

Royce: I don’t know, she’s just…weird.

Bentley: She’s getting better though - it’s starting to feel more…normal. I guess.

Royce (mumbling): I don’t know if I’d ever use the word “normal” in any sentence about her, but sure, whatever.

Dorothea (fondly, almost teasingly): Well, she certainly seems to have taken a liking to our Miley.

*Miles lets the plastic tumbler of dirty paintbrushes he was trying to clean slip through his fingers, sending it clattering into the large, weathered enamel sink in the corner of the art studio*

Miles (suddenly blushing, albeit lightly, despite his feigned nonchalance): What are you talking about?

Dorothea (smiling knowingly): She just seems to be quite taken with you, that’s all.

Royce: She does hang around you like a bad smell.

Miles: It’s just because I’ve been helping show her the ropes.

Bentley: She’s been here over a month now - how many ropes you gotta show her?

Miles: Shut up, Ben. It’s nothing. It’s…meaningless - especially to her. Like mom said, she’s just here on a favour.

Dorothea: Mmm? You might want to check that with her; she sure does ask me a lot about you for something so…meaningless.

_________

Bentley: We were just gonna hang at the cabin and play some video games, but you’re welcome to join if you want. Mom told us we have to make an effort to include you so-

Vivien (elbowing him in the side, and hissing): I don’t think she meant for you to tell her that.

Carrie (awkwardly, cheeks pinking with embarrassment): Oh I, uh, I’m not really into video games. So don’t worry about it. Thanks though.

Bentley: No, it’s fine. We weren’t gonna play anything crazy - probably just like Mario Kart. Or maybe Mario Party - that might be more your speed? Anyone can play Mario Party; they’re just mini games.

Royce: Please tell me you’ve at least played Mario Kart. Or are you too famous for that too?

Carrie (brightening a bit): On no, I’ve played Mario Kart - I’ve played a bunch of Mario games actually. More than ever lately ‘cause I can technically count it as work now that I’m down to the final three to voice Daisy in the next Mario movie they’re making.

*Royce and Bentley both stop to look at each other, and then back to Carrie, and her hopeful, shyly optimistic smile*

Royce: …Seriously?

Carrie: Yeah, I think I’ve still got some of the tester scripts in my purse if you wanna read through them.

Bentley (eyes lighting up): Holy shit. Yes.

Vivien (bumping Royce’s arm with a smirk as they watched Bentley start babbling excitedly with Carrie): See? I told you she was awesome.

Royce: Alright, yeah… I guess that is pretty cool.

_________

Ethan (rolling up blunts on his bed): You’re not actually like getting feelings for her, are you?

Miles (staring up at their ceiling, laying back on his bed on the opposite side of the room): What? No, of course not. She’s just… I don’t know, she’s just…there.

Ethan: Whatever you say, man. But you’re starting to be all weird and spaced out again like when you started getting the hots for Natalie.

Miles (scoffing): This is nothing like that. And besides, it’s too soon to start thinking about another relationship-

Ethan: Dude, it’s been a year. That’s more than enough time.

Miles: That doesn’t just magically mean that I feel okay about it.

Ethan (smirking to himself): I don’t know, I think a nice trip on a motorboat would help you get over being dumped pretty damn fast. And Carrie’s got some fine fucking vessels to set sail on.

Miles (ears flushing scarlet in embarrassment): Ethan!

Ethan: Don’t try to deny it - I saw you looking down by the lake when she was in her bikini - and I’d know; I was looking too. Just sneak down to the boathouse and go to town on each other - you’d feel a hell of a lot better afterwards for it. You both would; she was definitely sizing up your dick in your trunks-

*Miles hears the bathroom door open, signalling Carrie was on her way back to her room, and scrambles up onto his elbow, launching a pillow at Ethan’s head to get him to stop talking*

Miles (hissing): Shut the fuck up! She’s coming back!

Ethan (rolling his eyes after launching the pillow back at him, but lowering his voice in compromise): Her hearing is not gonna change anything - it’ll just speed up the inevitable.

Miles (half-whispering due to the thin walls): And what’s that? Me strangling you in your sleep?

Ethan (smirking as he finished twisting off the end to his latest masterpiece): Nope, you two making a bunch of little Murphy-Cole babies to repopulate the dwindling camper pool.

_________

Carrie (smirking): Well, you know what they say: blondes have more fun.

Ethan: On what planet is your hair blonde?

Carrie (affronted): It’s toffee blonde.

Ethan (scoffing): Then what’s my hair? Burnt steak blonde?

_________

Riven: Do you miss it? …Your life back in California?

Carrie (pausing to think): …I miss my family, and my house…

Riven: And the jobs?

Carrie (pensively): I miss…parts of them.

Riven (gesturing to the hall, the camp, around him): What about all this? Do you think you’ll miss this when you go back?

Carrie (through a sad smile): Again, I’ll miss parts… A hell of a lot of parts though.

Riven (teasingly): I’d better be one of those parts.

Carrie (chuckling): Well, naturally.

Riven (taking on a slightly sad tone himself): Well good, because I’m really gonna miss you when you ditch me for your PA… I don’t think I quite realised how cool it’d be to have an older sister until I met you.

Carrie (touched but trying not to let it show too much, because it’s only make their inevitable goodbye harder): Yeah, well I already have a little brother, but he annoys the shit out of me sometimes, so I’d happily trade him out for a younger model.

_________

Bentley: I can’t believe that’s it. She’s just…gone.

Royce: At least we can enjoy the last few weeks of summer like normal now. We can just forget she was ever here.

Dorothea (looking cautiously over at a very pensive Miles): That might be easier said than done, mon cœur.

Miles (huffing dejectedly): Royce is right, we should just try to forget she was ever here. No point wasting our breath when she’s made her stance so clear.

Dorothea (gently - pained but trying to keep her expression steady): You don’t know her circumstances, baby.

Miles (pained in an entirely different way - but less able to mask it): I don’t need to.

*Miles storms out of the room - Dorothea sighs in temporary defeat*

Bentley (looking awkwardly between his mom and Royce): He’s got it bad again, huh?

Dorothea: Mmm. But the worst part is: I think she had it even worse for him.

_________

Miles (warily, as though he didn’t dare get any closer, in case she was just a mirage): What are you doing back here? Shouldn’t you be on some movie set by now?

Carrie (panicking, and trying a joke because the truth was too hard to admit): I, uh… I left my satin pillowcase.

Miles: You couldn’t just buy a new one?

Carrie (a lump building in the back of her throat): And I… I never got to say goodbye. And you deserve a goodbye.

Miles (pushing a similar lump down his own throat): …I’m all ears.

*Carrie opens her mouth, but no words come out - and in the end, it’s just a soft, huffed start of a sob that squeaks out*

Carrie (swallowing down the shakiness that the tears pricking her eyes were threatening): …I didn’t really come back for that.

Miles (sarcastically, although still evading a smile): You don’t say.

Carrie (shaking her head and laughing to herself, anxiety starting to ease out of her frame): Why do I lose the ability to act around you?

*Miles’ expression almost hints at a smile, but remains very guarded*

Miles: …What is it then?

Carrie: I just…

*She pauses, as though trying to choose her words. But it doesn’t take long for her emotions to get the better of her, and the dam to come crashing open*

Carrie: I missed it.

Miles: Missed what?

Carrie: Everything. The camp, the people, the freedom - the view. I just - they got me in costume and in front of those cameras and I couldn’t remember a single line because I couldn’t get it out of my head. So I just walked straight off set and called an Uber to take me to LAX. I’ve missed like a million calls from my agent and I’m pretty certain they’ll have fired me but-

Miles (eyes wide with a mix of confusion and incredulity): What are you talking about? What view could possibly have made that big of an impact on you? The one from the boathouse?

*Carrie walks over to Miles as he rambles away, and lets an almost serene smile settle on her face as she leans up to wrap her arms around his stiff shoulders, letting a soft hand trace up the back of his neck as she watched the scared, fleeting moment of hope flicker in his confused expression*

Carrie: This view.

August McNeeley was a wallflower. He’d happily join in on conversations with his friends, or those he was close to, but for the most part he was just happy to listen and observe. He tended to blend into the background, rather than make an effort to stand out - but his innate shyness meant he took comfort in that. The less he stood out, the better really. So the start to his junior year of high school quickly became a living nightmare.

Almost all the guys had a growth spurt in their sophomore year of high school - it was one of the many joys of puberty, if anything about it could be considered joyful. The squeaks in gruffer voices, the peach fuzz moustaches some tried to embrace, and the outbreak of zits that could be likened to a plague of measles - no one could escape it really. But after a summer of nightly leg cramps that were only partly worsened by his new running hobby, August returned to school looking like an entirely new person - one almost an entire foot taller than when he’d last walked the halls. For his friends, who’d spend virtually every single day with him, the change was noticeable, but less stark - after all, they’d watched it happen a lot more gradually. But for the rest of the student body, he’d left sophomore year looking like a strong gust of wind could knock him over, and he’d returned a six foot wall of muscle that looked like he could hold his own against a linebacker.

All the extra exercise he’d been doing meant his appetite had increased, so much so it almost rivalled Zack’s (much to his best friend’s delight). And despite his vegetarianism, he’d still managed to fill out to a pretty stocky build, with his shoulders broadening to match his new jawline. It was as though his features had finally decided where they wanted to sit on his face; his nose didn’t look lopsided anymore, and his eyes didn’t look too big - although the glasses he was finding himself having to wear more regularly may have contributed to that. Everything just looked like it…fit all of a sudden. And everyone noticed all at once. Everyone.

It had started with giddy giggles from girls as he passed in the hall. And then there were the whispers, saying he looked like a movie star, or a model. Or, Kona’s personal favourite: that he looked like ‘some European prince in a renaissance painting’ - courtesy of Patty Carter in their English class. He supposed it was because he wasn’t necessarily attractive in the most conventional sense - not like the jocks with their chiselled jawlines and meticulously styled hair. His sandy blonde waves were neat, but less easily tamed, and there was a softness to his somewhat clunky features that seemed to blur his imperfections. Hence why so many of his female peers had formed this bizarre fascination with him.

Days turned to weeks though and the fad didn’t blow over. In fact, the infatuation only grew stronger. Scraps of paper with compliments and phone numbers were being dropped on his desk, or shoved in his locker. Bentley couldn’t believe his friend’s luck as he thumbed through the growing collection of love notes. Zack said he’d do anything to have that many girls wanting a piece of him. August just forced a smile, but couldn’t shake the bone-deep uncomfortable feeling that shook him every time he so much as looked at one of those slips of paper. If Kona hadn’t made a point of keeping a tally of them, every single one would have ended up in the garbage.

Things took a turn when girls then started lingering by his locker - when their notes had been insufficient, they decided to take a more forward approach. A 30 second, inadvertent voice solo to what he’d thought had been an empty room to help out his band teacher before practice, had revealed his more than half-decent singing voice to Connie, the bassoonist, and Lisa, third trombone, who hadn’t left him alone since - claiming he had the ‘voice of an angel, and the face to match’. Patty Carter, again, from their English class, had been handed his creative writing poetry piece to peer-grade and had been gushing about how ‘brilliantly sensitive’ he was ever since. Renee from their history class was obsessed with his hair. Jeanette said she kept getting lost in his eyes. And Heather claimed he’d saved her life because he offered her some water when she nearly fainted during their frog dissection in biology class. Every single one, and countless others, had stood coyly by his locker between classes, batting their eyelashes until the bell rang, or plucking up the courage themselves to ask him on a date. And every single one ended the same way: with August stammering his way through a polite decline of their offer and fighting back the urge to hurl because he felt so sick with guilt.

Zack couldn’t wrap his head around the repeated rejections - and had tried to offer his own company numerous times to the heartbroken suitors, with little to no success. Kona had retaliated that August clearly wasn’t as shallow as he was. And Bentley had tried to reassure him that it was fine; he’d know when the right girl came along - all these others were just good practice for the real thing. August had agreed through a tight, half-hearted smile. But no matter how much ‘practice’ he got, the interactions with these girls never got any easier. He still wanted the ground to swallow him whole every time a date was mentioned. And every time they’d try to play with his hair, or touch his arm, it felt as though his throat was closing up. Maybe he’d have to add romance to his allergy list.

Everything rose to an ugly head one fateful Friday afternoon though. And it all started when August, trying to distract himself from more giggling sophomores, caught sight of a flyer for the track team on the extra-curriculars board. The mental peace he achieved on his morning runs was something he found himself craving more than ever lately. And since he’d started running he’d managed to work on his stamina and up his pace a decent amount - so maybe he’d be able to hold his own on the track team. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, and clinging to the hope that this might help keep him sane until all this female attention died down, August scrawled his name on the sign-up list.

What August had failed to realise though, was that the track team would not be the only ones using the sports facilities. Sure, they had the running track to themselves. But the athletics team were practicing long-jump in the sandpit, the football players were running drills on one half of the field, and the cheerleaders were planning out lifts on the other. Despite somehow managing to feel claustrophobic outdoors with all the other people around him, August’s try-out for the track team went really well. The coach was impressed with his form and pacing, especially after learning he was still so new to the sport. But August would come to find that Coach Melvin wasn’t the only one who’d taken notice of him as he was out there running laps.

“Hey!”

August froze as a silvery voice rung through the dug-out in the bleachers - echoing off the polished stone until it knocked enough sense into him to prompt him to turn around and seek out who it belonged to. Although when he saw the sleek, espresso brown ponytail, and perfectly poreless, flushed cheeks of Cindy Jenkins, the newly appointed head cheerleader, his heart stopped all over again - no matter how over-exerted it felt after those last few laps.

Closing the space between them, she went on, with a coy cluelessness, “It’s August, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” he murmured through a wary, but polite smile.

“You were great out there,” she gushed, still slightly breathless thanks to her run down the hall. “I had no idea you were such an…athlete. Coach Melvin looked real impressed.”

“Thanks,” August said before dropping his gaze to his feet - still bashful, but a little more relaxed since her compliment appeared genuine. “I only started running a few-”

“And he wasn’t the only one.”

August’s eyes snapped up to meet hers as soon as he heard the switch in her voice. That silky edge, the way her lips settled into a silly, girlish smile. The hunger in her gaze. It was happening again. She wasn’t interested in his pacing, or his lap times. She was interested in him - or the idea of him, anyway.

“I, uh, I don’t-” August awkwardly chuckled. “I don’t think I follow.”

“Oh come on, August, you don’t have to be so modest,” Cindy giggled. “I could barely keep my eyes off you out there. Hell, most of the team couldn’t either.”

A fresh sheen of sweat broke across August’s skin, matching with what was already wetting the ends of his hair, and dampening the collar of his t-shirt. “Cindy,” August timidly tried.

But she was undeterred, and completely oblivious to his change in demeanour. “And you know what’s crazy? I barely even knew who you were until a few weeks ago, but now you’re all anyone can talk about.”

“I don’t think I’d quite go that far,” August mumbled, fighting the urge to roll his eyes alongside the compulsion to crawl out of his skin.

“I’m serious, August. You’re a big deal - at least with my friends anyway,” Cindy insisted, honest despite her ulterior motives. Looping the end of her ponytail around her finger, she started to toy with it, layering a flirty smile atop her nervous body language to keep up her image of confidence. “At first, I know it’s super corny and cliche to say, but I didn’t really get it. But as more and more time goes on I just… I can’t stop thinking about you.”

There it was again. That churning of his stomach that was so strong he almost hurled on the spot. Fresh beads of nervous sweat prickled August’s skin as he swallowed a deep breath and tried to focus his mind on keeping his voice from trembling as much as his legs were. “Cindy, you said yourself, you barely know me-”

“Well why don’t we change that?” she jumped in before he could try to reason with her further - her eyes growing wider with enthusiasm with each word that left her mouth. “I usually like to swing by Sunny’s for a malt after practice if you wanna join. It might help us, you know…” she paused, eyes drifting down to take in his form before returning with a new glint in them. “…get to know each other a little better.”

August’s heart was hammering so hard he was sure that it had to be visible through his shirt; it felt like it was rattling his entire ribcage. And yet, the rest of his body was completely paralysed. He couldn’t have opened his mouth to reply even if he’d managed to find the words to say. He was trapped: physically, mentally, and socially. But Cindy’s expectant, batting eyelashes had set an ultimatum, and he had no escape.

Or so he thought.

“Man, there is no way I am passing to Hal again. The only thing that guy can catch is mono.”

“Even that’s rare; he’s gotta convince a girl to kiss him first.”

The raucous jeers of the football team joined them in the tunnel, snapping both parties back to their surroundings. And whilst the presence of the jocks could have easily added much more pressure to the situation, August found himself breathing a sigh of relief when Carter Rawlins’ voice boomed out over his boisterous teammates’.

“Hey, Cindy. You still on for Ricky’s party later?” the olive-skinned linebacker hollered, swinging his helmet at his side as he strode towards them.

Rolling her eyes at the interruption, she begrudgingly turned around to face him. “I don’t know, I guess so. Why?”

“Just checking, that’s all,” he snickered through a smug grin. “Wouldn’t want anything ruining my plans,” he added with a subtle raise of his eyebrows.

Suitably titillated, Cindy caught herself blushing at the very suggestion. But her initial romantic endeavours weren’t forgotten, and were still very much at the forefront of her mind. Hoping to convince her newly discovered, understated blond hunk to tag along to the party on her arm, she turned back to August once more, only to find the space behind her completely vacant.

The moment Cindy’s attention had been drawn to Carter, August had slunk out of sight into the locker rooms - bolting for his gym locker as fast as physically possible given the fact that his legs felt as though they were made of jello. He knew running away and leaving her hanging was wrong, but he couldn’t have stayed in that situation a moment longer. He felt like he’d been suffocating.

All he wanted to do was escape, and to feel a sense of normalcy again - away from longing stares and giddy grins. And if he managed to change and make it to the buses before the locker rooms turned into a cesspool of testosterone and cheap cologne, he might just stand a chance of that. He’d cope with stinking on the bus ride home if it meant he didn’t have to interact with any of the football players who’d descend on the showers like a plague of locusts. And besides, maybe the smell would help to deter any flocks of girls from hovering by his seat.

Sure, he knew that Cindy would likely shoot her shot with him again sooner or later, but at least now he’d have time to prepare himself for how to let her down gently first.

At least he’d hoped he would.

Freshly showered, and much clearer of mind, August thanked the local bus driver and stepped out into the early evening sunshine. Neatly laced sneakers trod over grubby asphalt as the last warmth in the early autumn air seeped into his skin. At long last, free from the smothering infatuation of high school girls, a relaxed smile settled onto his face, more than ready for a Friday night, and entire weekend, spent in nobody’s company other than his genuine friends. He didn’t have to put up any fronts, or pretend to be anyone he wasn’t for the sake of avoiding social suicide. He could just be himself. And after an especially exhausting week, the idea alone sounded too good to be true.

And maybe it was. Because after dodging a wad of still-wet gum on the sidewalk, his attention was drawn to a shrill laugh across the road, where he found that same silken ponytail from earlier. There, with a small gaggle of her cheerleader friends all hanging on her every word, was Cindy Jenkins: takeout malt cup from Sunny’s secured in her fuschia-painted fingertips.

Willing himself to develop the art of camouflage, like his neighbour’s chameleon he was so fascinated by, August quickly averted his gaze and quickened his pace. But his efforts were in vain, because before he could reach the next storefront, and dodge into the ramshackle thrift shop until the coast was clear, Cindy called out over the distant rumble of car engines, and the burbling chatter of her teammates. “August! No way!”

His stomach dropped to his feet. And a sheen of the same sweat he’d just scrubbed down the drain stippled the back of his neck. Cursing under his breath, he forced a smile and turned to greet her, just as her kitten heels finished clacking over the asphalt and she skittered to a halt in front of him.

“Decided to join me after all?” she coyly assumed, eyes glittering with excitement as she waved her branded takeout cup under his nose. Without waiting for the tall blond to reply, she grabbed his hand (whether she noticed the clamminess or not, he’d never know) and started leading him back towards the curbside. “Let’s go pick you a flavour. Don’t worry, I’ve only just picked up mine - you won’t need to buy me another, yet.”

But August set his heels and left hers skidding for purchase on the sidewalk, keeping her hand in his as he gently pulled her back towards him. “Sorry, Cindy,” he gently began, trying his best to steel his nerves and do this with enough tact to keep both of their dignities intact. He released her hand and dropped it to his side, tactfully wiping it on his shorts as he continued. “I was trying to say earlier, but I’d already said I’d meet my friends tonight-”

“It’s alright,” Cindy quickly reassured with a flippant wave of her hand, eager smile still beaming brightly between her glossy lips. “Tell ‘em they can come too. The more the merrier, right girls?” she went on to gush as her mini entourage crossed the street to join them, all murmuring and nodding their approval. Turning back to August she reached for his hand again, nothing if not persistent, and tagged on a particularly flirtatious: “Even if they’re half as handsome as you, we’ll take it.”

But August pulled his hand back before she could grab it, and stood firm in his decision. “I meant we have plans of our own,” he clarified, as that hand she kept searching for reached up to rub the nervous sweat from the back of his neck. “And I’d, uh, I’d hate to be late, so…”

Cindy’s smile faltered for the first time as she realised that this conversation wasn’t going how she’d planned. And for once, she found herself on the back foot. With the added pressure of her friends’ eyes trained on every inch of her face to watch how she’d react, she forced the smile back into place and feigned that confident nonchalance they all expected of her. “Oh, uh ok. Well, maybe some other time then?” she suggested with a hopeful, yet slightly awkward giggle. Again, before giving the boy a chance to respond, she boldly proposed, “What about tomorrow night? There’s a movie at the-”

“Cindy, look,” August cut her off before she could string out her fantasy any further. He kept his voice quiet, but earnest, and hoped that he had the guts to follow this through. “You seem like a very nice girl, really. But as you said, you barely know me. And I think if you did…this wouldn’t work like you’re wanting it to.”

Cindy’s expression cracked again as she listened to him, confusion riddling her once sure, steel grey irises. Her lips twitched senselessly, until she finally managed to utter a disbelieving: “What are you saying?”

August took a deep breath, pushed down his bone-deep discomfort, and explained, “I’m saying that you seem really sweet, but I just don’t… I don’t like you like that.”

The smile dropped from Cindy’s face altogether. August was surprised he didn’t hear it clatter on the pavement at their feet.

Disbelief clouded her already stormy eyes as she hissed, “Are you seriously turning me down right now?” Her voice was low and hushed, as though she was still pretending the interaction was only between the two of them, but the shocked, furious whispers of her friends behind her were undeniable.

“I just don’t want to lead you on,” August tried, hoping that his lopsided smile would be enough to soften the blow.

“I can’t believe this.” Evidently, it wasn’t. Cindy’s scoff of betrayal pinched her eyebrows and twisted her lips into a scowl as she demanded, “Are you trying to embarrass me or something?”

“No, of course not,” August promised, deftly trying to smooth things over.

“Well you’re doing a pretty fucking good job of it,” she spat, lightning flashing across her thunderous gaze as her friends nervously tittered over her shoulder. Her cheeks flared scarlet, proving her side of the argument correct as she felt a true sense of humiliation for the first time in her privileged life.

In that moment, seeing how hurt she genuinely looked by his rejection, August did feel bad for her. He’d been in his fair share of uncomfortable social interactions, more than ever lately, and this one was no exception. But he knew there was nothing he could do to help. And he felt certain that she’d just dismiss his offer anyway, especially given the circumstances. He was never given the opportunity to test the theory though, because the rumbling approach of a car engine stole the show.

“Hey, hey. Everything ok here ladies?” Carter Jenkins called, hopping over the side of his teammate’s convertible before he could finish parking it along the curbside further down the street. He jogged over to the group with furrowed brows, eyes fixed on the brunette in the centre and her firmly folded arms. “You alright, Cindy?” he asked more directly once he was beside her, with an almost subdued concern that felt out of place for such a typically boisterous guy.

“Not particularly,” she sneered, her murderous gaze never wavering from the blond culprit, which made Carter’s process of elimination incredibly simple.

Turning to August, who found himself once again paralysed with unease, Carter took a second to look him over, almost as though sizing him up, before taking a small, yet definitively protective, step in front of Cindy. “This guy bothering you?” he asked her, as if he was waiting for permission before taking the situation into his own hands.

“Not any more,” Cindy dejectedly muttered. “He’s made his point,” she continued through a tight-lipped frown, before turning and starting to retreat back towards the centre of town, trailing her gaggle of gossiping girl friends behind her.

But Cindy’s dismal departure only left August alone with Carter for a matter of seconds, before the other football players from the car joined him. And it took the jock even less time to start sharing his concerns with the group.

“What the hell kinda game do you think you’re playing, McNeeley?” Carter demanded, still maintaining a small element of civility in his tone despite the wild look in his eyes.

“Excuse me?” August retorted, surprising even himself that his nervousness had seemingly disappeared. Perhaps it was because as the linebacker approached, August realised he was the one looking down on him for once - even if only by an inch or two.

“You heard me,” Carter doubled down. “What’s your deal?”

“There is no ‘deal’,” August insisted, more so just confused by where the jock could be leading this than anything.

“Oh really? You’ve got half the student body throwing themselves at you and you mean to tell me you’re not interested in a single one of ‘em? Not even Cindy Jenkins?” he challenged, eyebrows raised in incredulity. And when August made no effort to correct him, he set his jaw and shook his head. “I’m not buying it.”

“Shouldn’t you be happy?” August retorted before he could second guess it, his survival instincts completely hijacking his brain. “I turned her down. She’s all yours now, isn’t that what you want?”

But that wasn’t what Carter was focusing on. “What, so you think you’re too good for her? Is that it?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Sure sounded like it to me.”

Carter inched closer to him. The voices of The Supremes from the tinny thrift store radio sounded out of place in the thick tension of the humid, evening air. A passing car slowed its pace, highschoolers in the back seat craning their necks to try to figure out what was going on. A couple in a parked sedan across the street stopped their make out session to watch the scene unfold through the windshield. And even Cindy, now half a block away, had paused at the street corner with the other girls to spectate.

Carter was the next one to speak, more so because August had nothing to say to the meathead, but also because he couldn’t bear to think of someone like August getting one over on him. “You know, most guys would kill for that kind of shot. And you just..what? Blow it off like it’s nothing?”

August’s pulse thudded in his ears - but a sense of frustration was bubbling beneath the primal fear; a frustration that Carter was creating his own narrative purely to paint him as the villain. He felt even more eyes on him, from shop windows, or overhead apartments. This wasn’t just a simple rejection anymore, this was about pride - and how, somehow, Carter had felt his had been wounded. “I didn’t blow anything off. I just told her I didn’t think it would work between us. I didn’t want her wasting her time.”

“Is that right?” Carter asked with a smirk, clearly amused.

“Well would you rather I have lead her on?” August dared to challenge. But when Carter scoffed through another incredulous smirk, August just shook his head. “I don’t get what your problem is. I don’t want to date her, and you do. Shouldn’t this be your chance to make a move?”

“What are you trying to say, McNeeley?” Carter asked, smirk warping into a glower as once again that idea of wounded pride rose to the surface in his gaze. “You think you’re better than me or something?”

“Stop putting words in my mouth,” an exasperated August sighed. “I never said that.”

“But you’re thinking it,” Carter retorted without missing a beat, the faintest hint of a cocksure smile trying to tug at the edge of his lips - as though he knew he had August ‘all figured out’.

August felt more and more of the street pressing in around him. It was pretty vacant of people, but it was like the lamp posts, and garbage bins themselves were waiting with baited breath for the next move. An all-too-familiar tightness started in his chest as he realised he was getting nowhere fast in this conversation; Carter was too riled up to see sense, and no reason he’d be able to give for his actions would ever be considered justified. So August tried the only viable option he felt he had left. He stepped back and started to inch his way further down the street, willing to lie if it meant getting himself out of this situation. “Look, Carter, I don’t want any trouble. I’m just trying to go home.”

“And I’m just trying to figure you out,” Carter shot back, again, without missing a beat.

As August stepped back, he stepped forwards - leering at him like a lion eyeing up a plump gazelle. Clearly he wasn’t prepared to back down as easily as August had hoped he would be.

“You know,” Carter continued, fists clenching and unclenching with pent-up energy. “A guy turns down Cindy Jenkins…people start wondering.”

August’s throat had never been so dry. Swallowing took such an effort it was borderline painful to keep his expression blank. “Wondering what?”

“Wondering what’s wrong with him…” Carter trailed off, voice low and eyes dark, as though his pupils were trying to bore holes through his skull - trying to figure out what was really going on in the blond’s head.

And although August knew it was impossible, the thought alone was enough to unnerve him - as was how close they seemed to be getting to uncovering the root of the problem.

“Any guy in their right mind would have said ‘yes’ to her,” Carter pressed on.

But his relentless fixation on how ‘desirable’ this girl is was becoming infuriating, and his intimidation tactics were starting to have the opposite effect on August, who, in a move so bold it even shocked himself, bit back with an exasperated: “Good, then she can go ask one of them next.”

Carter fell silent for a moment. He looked as if he couldn’t quite believe the blond had that in him. But the scoffed, humourless laugh was quick to return. “You think you’re funny, McNeeley?”

August shook his head, turning away in the hopes that it’d make his eye roll slightly less obvious. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

“Oh good,” Carter snickered, again moving to block his path, only this time flashing a sadistic grin. “We finally agree on something.”

August straightened up and levelled Carter’s stare. Even with his heart pounding in his chest, a deep resentment burnt alongside it; for how he looked at him, for how he spoke down to him, for how tedious his argument was becoming. And it was that same resentment that drove him to fight his corner one last time. “What is it you actually want from me?” he asked through furrowed brows. “Or are you gonna keep me here all night?”

“I want you to apologise.”

Now it was August’s turn to scoff; whether he meant to or not, he couldn’t help it. “For what? I did nothing wrong.”

Carter fell silent once more. He grit his teeth so hard you could hear them grinding over one another as he set his jaw. But that pathetic laugh of his came out in a whisper around the sides, until it broke free altogether as he shook his head in disbelief. Stepping closer still, so that August could practically taste his cheap cologne, he latched onto August’s gaze again, and uttered a quiet, yet warning: “Let’s try that again.” And then, as though projecting for the rest of the street to hear. “I want you to apologise,” he repeated, before jabbing a stubby finger in Cindy’s direction. “No one gets to humiliate her.”

Digging his heels in, physically and metaphorically, August held his ground, and pressed the rubber soles of his sneakers into the sidewalk. Sure, he was a generally quiet guy, who most would assume wouldn’t say boo to a goose, but he wasn’t a pushover; he could stand up for what he knew was right when necessary. And in that moment he felt as though he needed to remind himself of that more than ever. “No.”

Carter gave him no opportunity to explain himself - not that he’d have cared to listen. “Fine,” he huffed. And with a firm shove to the chest, he put the grip of August’s sneaker soles to the test.

The blond stumbled back a pace, but kept his footing. Although he was definitely caught off-guard - so much so it rendered him oblivious to the wave of dread that flooded his whole body when Carter took another step towards him.

“Let’s see if this’ll get the message across,” he spat.

Carter moved too quickly for August’s overly taxed mind to register. A swing started from his shoulder and ended with white light exploding across August’s vision, accompanied by a dull, wet crack. The punch was direct but sloppy, driven more by wounded pride than skill. But the blistering pain radiating from the bridge of August’s nose, drawing involuntary tears to his eyes and sending him staggering backwards, proved it still had the desired effect.

Various exclamations of surprise arose from the surrounding jocks, and the approaching clacks of heels showed that the crowd was only growing.

August felt something slick and warm start to drip over his upper lip. Wiping a shaking hand under his throbbing nose just confirmed his suspicions: blood - and a lot of it.

“Holy shit, Carter,” came the slightly muffled remark from a wary, yet impressed bystander.

But Carter didn’t react. The punch had broken something open in him - a sort of insatiable hunger. “Still think this is funny, McNeeley?”

August opened his mouth to respond but the impact had stolen his breath away. All that came out was a feeble, wet cough.

He could barely even keep his eyes focused on the linebacker with how badly they were watering. The people, the palm trees, the lamp posts; they were all blurring together - shapes and colours streaking like someone had left a painting out in the rain.

Over the blood roaring in his ears, he heard another one of the nearby jocks offer some unwanted advice. “Come on, August. Hit him back.”

Snorting out a laugh, Carter ran with the suggestion. “Yeah, hit me back.”

“What?” August spluttered, in utter disbelief, still trying to blink away the needling pain spreading from his nose. “No.”

“Come on, don’t be a pussy,” came the jeer of another audience member.

And then one more. “Kick his ass.”

But August just shook his head; despite it all, he wasn’t prepared to give in to the goading. He had his morals and he was determined to stick to them. He was finding out firsthand that violence was never the answer. And no matter how much Carter was earning the role of the punching bag, August was no fighter, and that wasn’t about to change. “I’m not-”

Carter didn’t even let him finish. He swung his fist again, this time catching the top of August’s cheekbone. The hit knocked him off balance, and the blond staggered a few paces to try to keep his footing. His vision filled with white and black splodges, pulsing in different sizes, all vying for his attention, when all he really wanted to do was make sure his sneakers were finding purchase on solid ground. But every time he looked down the pavement lurched, and he felt his stomach try to follow suit.

“Come on, McNeeley. Your move,” Carter spat, holding his arms open, as though offering a ‘free shot’. “Whatcha gonna do?”

August barely even saw his taunting chin lift though; it was getting difficult to see anything between the burning humiliation and the all-too-sudden swelling of his eye. Despite the pulsing pressure spreading across his face, August swiped under his nose again before insisting, “I’m not fighting you, man.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Carter spat, more insulted by that answer than any punch the blond could have thrown.

With his frustration swelling by the second, Carter took another step forwards and shoved August in the centre of his chest, eyes frenzied as he demanded, “Hit me back.”

“I’m not fucking touching you,” August snapped, his own frustration starting to get the better of him - that, and the steadily mounting pain was making it increasingly difficult to remain calm.

“Hit me back,” Carter repeated, taking another step closer to August - so much so that he could feel the heat of his breath against his skin.

“No,” August said, standing firm despite the smarting of his eye and the dumbfounded audience before him. “What’s that gonna achieve?”

Snorting out a huff of disappointment - either due to the lack of a worthy opponent, or the opponent’s moral compass - Carter set his jaw, and snarled, “Fine.”

The next thing August felt was a deft punch to the gut that knocked any remaining air from his lungs. The impact was so sudden it almost bent him double. But before he could heave himself back to his full height, Carter’s fist returned, this time colliding with the edge of his jaw. August’s head whipped to the side as his teeth snapped together, splitting his lip open over them. He tasted blood almost instantly - warm and metallic and all too foreign. But he didn’t have enough time to ponder the flavour profile, because the second August tried to steady himself again, the blows to the head finally got the better of him, and he hit the pavement like a sack of gravel.

The pavement slammed into his hip and shoulder as a chorus of gasps and jeers worked their way through the deafening thud of his pulse in his ears. His palms burned where he’d tried fruitlessly to catch himself. And the bridge of his nose burned anew from where, upon impact, his now horribly bent out of shape glasses had dug into the bridge of his nose.

A broad shadow loomed over him, courtesy of the early evening sun, laying low in the sky. Carter’s chest rose and fell with purpose as he closed in on him. For a moment August thought he was going to kick him - he even braced himself for it. But he just stood there, watching him, like some zoo exhibit.

A silence had fallen over them at last, the audience included. There was no longer the buzz of excitement or morbid fascination in the air. The mood had drained into something much more subdued - almost awkward.

One of the jocks, a guy from his math class by the sounds of his voice, cleared his throat. “Alright, Carter. I think he’s got it.”

Carter heaved another breath as he stared August down, paying no mind to the entire street being suspended in uncomfortable anticipation. But after seeming to consider the interjection, he finally relaxed his jaw, and his fists. “He’d better,” he muttered.

August just lay there, in a crumpled heap, trying to will his lungs to start working again. He could barely see a thing between the throbbing of his eye and the way his vision swam in the sunlight. But the sound of sneakers slapping concrete gave him the tiniest relief that the ordeal had finally ended. But when he heard the clacking of heels, his eyelids fluttered open again.

“Carter, what the-”

But Cindy’s breathless exclamation was cut off by the linebacker grabbing her forearm - stopping her, and her feeble efforts to run to the blond, in her tracks.

Pulling her closer to him, hand still wrapped around her skinny bicep, he growled, “Forget him.” It was more an order than a suggestion.

August could just about make out Cindy hovering for a moment, expression too blurry to decipher. But it didn’t take much persuading for her to be led back up the street with the rest of the crowd, a girl friend on either arm to offer flowery advice or their own, unwanted two cents.

“Yeah, forget him, Cind. You deserve so much better. I mean, how could he not like you back?”

“It’s bogus. He’s probably queer.”

As if the humiliation wasn’t already burning through every layer of muscle he had, August was about to experience it seeping into his soul. Because a set of keds soon appeared before his eyes, accompanied by a voice he didn’t recognise. Another of Cindy’s entourage, he assumed.

She bent closer to his head, and although August couldn’t focus enough to read her expression, he could hear the maliciously saccharine grin in her tone. “Good luck getting a girl to date you now.”

At first the slicing remark seemed like the only threat. But then he felt something thick and icy cold splatter against his temple. Gasps arose from the crowd of cheerleaders, and shocked exclamations of “DeeDee!” - but the giggles were quick to follow, exposing their true take on her actions. And DeeDee, he assumed, didn’t stop until she’d dumped the entirety of her vanilla milkshake over his head.

Cackling, she stood back to admire her handiwork, before holding her takeout cup aloft and proudly admitting: “Guys, I think I need a refill before we leave!”

Raucous laughter and retreating footsteps faded into the distance at last, just about breaking through the thudding of his skull. The thrift store radio still drifted through the open doorway, cars rumbled along the Main Street around the corner, and the leaves of the palm trees lining the sidewalk rustled overhead - almost as though the world had resumed normal proceedings now that the altercation was over with.

For a moment, August just lay there, wishing he could just soak into the pavement like the whipped cream slopped around his head. But as he took a laboured breath through his mouth, and heard a new set of footsteps approaching, his surroundings started to come back to him, along with the realisation that no matter how much he couldn’t face the thought of moving, he couldn’t stay there forever. His sticky, bruising face wouldn’t exactly help the surrounding businesses flourish.

With a soft groan he rolled more onto his front and tried to push himself up on his forearms. But before he could fully straighten them, the footsteps behind him started speeding up - steadily at first, and then into a sprint. And then all of a sudden, the sneakers skidded to a halt and a pair of hands were on his shoulders, and then a pair of panicked green eyes, framed with shoulder-length blonde hair, flew in front of his.

“Oh my god, August,” Kona panted, eyes darting over every inch of him in a mix of utter terror, heartache and fury that August barely had time to process before they were gone again.

Her gaze had turned to the group of football players and cheerleaders disappearing around the corner at the end of the street - and her protective instincts kicked into overdrive. Pushing off into a sprint again, she tore after them, yelling at the top of her lungs.

“Hey! Get back here you fucking cowards!” Kona’s voice cracked down the street like a starter pistol, and her feet carried her as fast as the bullet - hair flying behind her like a flag of war. “You can’t just walk away!”

But the letterman jackets and pastel skirts vanishing around the brick wall of the old shoe store proved otherwise. Her pace slowed as her chances of a confrontation slipped away. She clenched her fists so hard her knuckles turned white, and her chest heaved as she contemplated chasing after them anyway - just to try to hurt them even half as much as she was hurting right now. So she could have the satisfaction of grabbing Carter Rawlins by the collar and swinging a fist into his ugly smug face.

But then August’s face flashed through her mind again. And she breathed out a quiet, “Oh shit.”

With that, her fury relented, and her true priorities came rushing back to her. She spun on her heels and raced back to her best friend’s side, dropping to her knees with a smack that took half the skin on them with it.

By the time she reached him, her anger had curdled into something much shakier, and much more uncertain. She simply didn’t know where to start, or what to say. And all that came out in the end was a choked: “Oh, Auggie.”

He was almost to his knees now, gingerly pushing himself up on stinging palms. His arms trembled with the effort, and he let out an involuntary hiss that had Kona scrambling to his aid.

“Don’t move,” she said hurriedly, even though he already was. Her hands hovered uselessly for a moment, as though she couldn’t figure out where it wouldn’t hurt to touch. “Just - just hold still for a second.”

“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” August said, voice coming out a wet wheeze despite his conviction.

With another wince, he was able to get himself into a seated position - one where he could finally try starting to focus again. And although she was still fuzzy at the edges, August was at last able to muster a half-hearted smile for his rescuer. Traces of vanilla milkshake clung to his hair and the collar of his shirt, forging sticky rivulets across his face that mixed with the blood - both new and old. His left eye was already turning shades of maroon, with the lids forming puffy crescents that just made his vision worse. And his lip was split near the corner, so swollen it kept catching on his teeth every time he tried to move it.

Tears prickled Kona’s eyes as she took it all in - that same mix of terror, heartache and fury swelling in her chest again. “Jesus, August…they really-” She swallowed hard. “What the hell did they do?”

“Uh, taught me a lesson, I think,” August said with an almost sarcastic apathy.

Kona’s brows furrowed. “You can’t be joking around right now,” she retorted, aggrieved that he was taking this so lightly. “They could have killed you, dude,” she pressed on. But her voice started to wobble as the moment she caught his limp body hitting the pavement out of the corner of her eye started to play over and over in her mind - her prior plans to clean off the chalkboard sign at the front door of her parents’ record shop long forgotten. “I thought they did for a second.”

Seeing how torn up Kona was over this ached way worse than any of his new bruises. Nursing them could wait - he had to help her first. He reached out a grazed palm and rested it on her shoulder. “It’s alright, Kona. I’m fine.”

”You are not fine,” she sharply insisted, shrugging his hand off. “Please tell me you at least hit him back.”

August just snorted. “Does it look like I did?”

Kona let out a groan of fiery, vengeful frustration - desperate for some sense of justice. She turned her eyes to the sky, and the clouds pinking with the first hints of sunset, as though searching for answers. “Oh my god, August. Why not?” Coming up short, her gaze found his again. “You’re like a mini mountain now,” she continued, gesturing to his broad shoulders and new height. “You could have floored him.”

“‘Cause if I did then I’m no better than him,” August explained, voice steady as he stuck to his beliefs. Thinking back to each blow, the impact points seemed to start throbbing even harder. Gently shaking his head to rid it of the memories, he scoffed a begrudging: “Like throwing a punch is ever going to fix anything.”

As much as Kona could understand August’s rationale, and knew he was a better person for it, it didn’t stop her own fiery temper from burning with resentment, and searching for hopeless answers. “Then why didn’t you at least run?”

August just scoffed again, this time through a wry smile. “What? So they could beat my ass down the street?”

Kona’s disapproving gaze met his self-deprecating smirk, proving a tough crowd for his apathetic stab at a joke. At a loss of what to do or say next, she just found herself staring at him through pinched brows - bottom lip quivering with pent-up anger and the threat of apologetic tears.

They stayed in that silence for several seconds before Kona realised August’s level-headedness was helping him process all this a hell of a lot better than she was. And that it wasn’t lecturing he needed, it was a shoulder to lean on - and likely some ice to help with the swelling. Reaching a hand out, she pushed a sticky strand of hair away from his good eye, and trailed it down to cup his bruising cheek. The pad of her thumb stuck momentarily on the drying blood and ice cream, and she gently shook her head - in both disbelief and disapproval. “You’re an idiot,” she gently scolded, voice thick with those same apologetic tears from earlier.

Again, August managed a small chuckle. “Yeah, I’ve heard,” he conceded. But as he bashfully dropped his gaze to the pavement, the throbbing of his nose rushed back to the forefront of his mind, accompanied by dark red spots littering the pavement in front of him. Startled, August jerked his head back, only to then feel something warm and familiar dripping over his lips and chin. Swiping the back of his hand under his nostrils confirmed that it was blood again, and by the feel of things, his nose hadn’t enjoyed that change in head position. “Oh shit,” he mumbled, clumsily trying to clean himself up with the heel of his palm.

Unable to bear watching him struggle, and eyes widening at the sheer volume of blood, Kona hurriedly wrenched the patterned bandana from her hair and held it out to him. “Here, use this.”

“What? No!” August exclaimed, his own eyes widening, although this time in horror. “It’ll ruin it.”

But as Kona watched the blood start trickling down over his wrists she leant forwards and shoved it over his nose anyway. “Like I give a crap,” she huffed, deepening her lovingly disapproving frown. “We’ve gotta stop this bleeding; I’m not having you pass out on me too.”

Either Kona channelled her frustration through her fingertips or August’s nose was a lot more sensitive than she anticipated, because as soon as she put any pressure on it he let out a string of hissed “ow”s in quick succession, and wrenched the bandana out of her hand like siblings fighting over the remote.

Both eventually conceding, Kona sat back on her heels and watched as August begrudgingly held the now-crimson-smattered bandana to the base of his nose, and started to tip his head back. But it didn’t take long for Kona to jump back into action again, springing up to her knees and pushing the back of his head until he tilted it forwards. “You’ve gotta lean forwards, Aug.”

“But that made it worse,” he protested.

“I know, but if you lean back you can choke on it,” she explained. “Just keep applying that pressure and it should stop.”

“When?” came August’s half-hearted, muffled question.

“Do I look like a doctor?” Kona snarkily replied, garnering a lop-sided smile from her makeshift patient. “I don’t know. But I do know that we can’t stay out here forever,” she continued, returning to her more genuine caregiver role. “We need to get you inside; get you cleaned up a bit. Do you think you can stand?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Alright, come on. Just take it steady,” she said, shifting so that she was next to him, and tucking her arm under his - hovering in case he needed a hand. Whilst he wasn’t watching, she plucked his bent and twisted glasses from the sidewalk and pocketed them - not that they’d be making much of a difference to how much he’d be able to see with how much his eye was starting to swell.

August pushed himself off the pavement with an involuntary groan. The world tilted violently around him for a second, and he almost landed on the ground again. He leaned into Kona more than either were expecting, but she caught him with her hip. And despite staggering a little, she kept him upright, arm firmly wrapped around his waist to anchor him to her.

“You’re okay, you’re okay. I’ve got you,” she reassured, despite the hammering of her heart. She waited a beat to watch for him starting to sway again, but when he seemed to be standing firm, she gently checked, “You good?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” August mumbled through a smile mostly obscured by her bandana, still being held firm under his nostrils.

They started down the street with slow, uneven steps, carefully dodging the chalky mess of drying milkshake and blood droplets, as they lumbered towards Kona’s family’s record store. They had to stop a few times when August’s vision started to swim, or his head started spinning, but Kona never rushed him. She just murmured quiet reassurances and promises that her parents would know what to do. Or at least she hoped they did.

The acrid odour of hibiscus air freshener layered on top of decades old urinals, and the farts from years gone by still clinging to the grout between the tiles was not helping the churning of August’s stomach. And it was a far cry from the comforting smell of cardboard, vinyl and tropical fruit that the front of house of the record shop usually held. But August could understand why Mrs Birr would have wanted to hide him from the customers, even if she didn’t actually say so, and especially after he’d timidly confessed he felt like he was going to puke. And so the floor of the customer bathroom had become his sanctuary: accompanied only by the distant rumblings of Kona’s dad’s show over the speaker system, a dust bunny tucked behind the base of the toilet bowl, and a waste paper basket now overflowing with sticky, screwed up pieces of toilet paper that he’d lamely attempted to clean himself up with.

That is, until a knock sounded at the door.

“You still alive in there, Auggie?”

A smile wafted across August’s face at the sound of his best friend’s voice. Chuckling quietly to himself as he passed her now crusty bandana between his fingers, he replied, “Yep, still here.”

Wordlessly, Kona pushed open the door to the bathroom and approached with a lumpy plastic bag, wrapped in a cleaning cloth, and an optimistic smile. “My mom managed to get you some ice,” she said, sinking down onto the tiled floor opposite him. “Sorry about the rag - it’s a clean one, I promise. We just didn’t have any actual towels or anything in the back.”

“It’s fine,” August chuckled, gratefully receiving the makeshift ice pack from her. “Thanks. I’ll pay her back.”

Kona just frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous - it’s the least we can do. And anyway, mom got it for free from the convenience store across the street. Mrs Diaz saw the whole thing, so she was more than happy to help,” she explained, pausing to watch August’s expression before continuing. “And she said she’d give a statement if you wanted to press charges.”

August scoffed and shook his head, gingerly placing the bag of ice up to his eye. “I appreciate the thought but there’s no way I’m getting the cops involved.”

“August, they need to be held responsible,” Kona argued - her tone more serious than what she was used to.

“I get that, but I’d rather just forget it ever happened,” August countered, letting his head fall back against the wall behind him as his eyes drifted to the water-stained ceiling. “And snitching would only aggravate them more.”

Conceding far easier than she’d anticipated, Kona dropped the idea altogether, knowing August’s point carried a lot of weight. But as she watched him half-heartedly nursing his injuries, she couldn’t help but add on a mildly teasing: “You’re gonna have a pretty hard time forgetting about it with that shiner.” And August’s soft snort of laughter only spurred her on. “You’re gonna have one hell of a black eye.”

“My mom’s gonna kill me when she sees it,” August mumbled, already cringing at the thought of the lecturing he’d be subjected to. But a silver lining soon brought a fleeting smile back to his face, “On the bright side though, it should make me seem a whole lot less desirable. We might finally see all the locker notes start to dry up.”

“Oh I don’t think they’re that easily deterred,” Kona protested, although she shared the same, knowing grin as the boy opposite her. “If anything they might think it makes you look tough.”

“I‘m about as tough as a marshmallow,” August chuckled at his own expense. “They just don’t see that part.”

As Kona’s own soft giggles settled down, she went back to quietly studying him. His gaze was tracing lazy patterns on the ceiling, but she could still see the puffy, scarlet bumps distending his skin at awkward angles, and deep crimson crusting in corners and crevices their prior, hurried clean-up efforts had missed.

She swallowed, brows pinching in worry as she cautiously asked. “Does it hurt?”

His gaze drifted to hers as he awkwardly shifted the bag of ice, smiling through the smarting pain. “Everything hurts,” he pitifully revealed, still jovial despite the situation. “Why?”

“I don’t know, you just look…crazy,” she admitted with a breathy laugh, finding any other adjective inadequate for what she was actually looking at. Leaning forwards, she reached out a careful hand, hovering as though she was too scared to touch it. “And your nose… Do you think it’s broken?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t looked yet,” he said. “Why?”

“It just looks…” Again, Kona found herself struggling to find the right word. “…Lumpy.”

August snorted. “Great, so it looks even more fucked up than normal then?”

“It has never looked ‘fucked up’, don’t say that,” Kona scolded, but the years of August’s muttered complaints about his awkward nose shape told her he’d take no notice. “And anyway, it could just be the swelling,” she added.

“I don’t know, I’ll take anything to start looking ‘ugly’ again at this point,” August muttered, mostly to himself. But still quickly changed the topic before Kona could start chastising him again. “At least it’s stopped bleeding now,” he said, absentmindedly toying with the bloodied fabric in his other hand, which prompted his next comment. “I’ll get you a new bandana.”

“I don’t want one.”

Now it was August’s turn to furrow his brows in disapproval as he looked at the tousled blonde locks tumbling freely to her collar bones, once held back by the paisley-patterned cotton in question. “It’s ruined, Kone.”

“And I’ve got like a million more,” she reasoned, reaching forward again, only this time to lay a hand on his forearm. “Stop worrying about everything else. The only thing that matters right now is making sure you’re okay.”

“And I’ve told you, I’m fine,” August replied, hoping his voice was enough reassurance since his appearance didn’t seem to be helping his cause. “I took a couple of punches - it’s not like they slit my throat. I’ll live.”

Conceding, Kona sat back again, letting her back hit the plastic-coated stall wall with a sigh. Trying not to think about how disgusting it was to be sitting on the floor of the men’s bathroom, and what could be seeping into the fabric of her shorts (even with how many times her mom sent her dad in here to clean it, there still had to be a myriad of germs clinging to the floor tiles), her mind started to wander elsewhere. And thus, the conversation took a new turn.

“How did it even start?”

“How did what start?” August asked, mind still slightly foggy from its recent bashing.

“The fight,” Kona clarified - curious, but from a place of nothing but care. “What made them start on you?”

“I guess I wounded his pride or something,” he mumbled, battling with his brain to recall the details. “Apparently turning down the girl he wants to date was the wrong thing to do,” he continued, rolling his eyes at the absurdity before muttering under his breath, “Asshole.”

Kona’s eyes widened. “Hold on. This was all over Cindy Jenkins?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause I embarrassed her, or thought I was better than him or some shit. I don’t even remember. I just know it was stupid.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Kona said, hurriedly cutting off August’s despondent rambling with a new urgency. “Cindy Jenkins asked you out? Cheerleader Cindy Jenkins?”

“Yeah…” August trailed off, surprised that she was so hooked on that one detail.

Kona’s eyes shone with amazement. “Dude, she’s like one of the prettiest girls in school - and most popular. That’s insane!”

August just rolled his eyes again though and let his head fall back against the tiled wall. “That’s one way to put it,” he mumbled.

Undeterred by his lack of interest, Kona continued to gush, “I knew girls thought you were hot but I didn’t know you were ‘Cindy Jenkins’ kind of girls hot. Holy shit.” But when August didn’t even so much as acknowledge her entertainment with his new popularity amongst the opposite sex, she posed a new question. “So what, did she ask you out on a date then?”

“Yeah, she wanted me to go see a movie with her tomorrow night, I guess,” he recalled, words dragging over his fat lower lip.

“That’s pretty bold of her - I always thought she was the ‘let the guys come to her’ type,” Kona mused, fascinated by the very idea of the interaction. “And then what? You just told her ‘no’?”

“Pretty much,” August sighed.

“But why?” Kona asked, astounded that he didn’t share her same logic. “She’s gorgeous - and insanely popular. Even if it was just one date, imagine what that could have done for you-”

“I barely know her,” August argued. “The only class we share is biology. I don’t think she’s even spoken to me before today.”

“So? That’s what dates are for: getting to know people,” Kona tried.

But August just groaned in resignation.

Kona wasn’t about to back down as quickly this time though. So, coming from a place of nothing but love, she tried to push back a little more. “Come on, August, you’ve gotta give yourself a chance. I know it’s scary putting yourself out there, especially for the first time, but it’s like jumping out a plane; once you’ve done it, that’s it, you’re out there - it’s not like you can go back. And these girls do genuinely like you, you know? So it’s not like you’d be jumping without a parachute. Everything would be fine - probably more than fine.”

“You don’t know that,” he glumly retorted.

“Of course I do,” Kona encouraged.

“No, you don’t,” August cut in before she could continue her bolstering. Sighing, his gaze drifted from hers, finding it impossible for the words to come out otherwise; at least this way he could try to trick his brain into thinking no one was listening. “I can barely speak around them, Kona. My mouth feels like I’ve swallowed a bag of cotton balls, and I start hyperventilating, and then I feel like I’m gonna hurl. And that’s just a thirty second conversation in the hall.”

“That’s just nerves,” Kona reasoned - although August knew his own mind better than she did. “And I get that, I do, but you really don’t need to be nervous. Any girl would be insanely lucky to have a guy like you as her date.”

August just shook his head though, and bitterly scoffed again. “What? Even Cindy fucking Jenkins?”

“Well duh; you’d treat her a hell of a lot better than any of those meathead football players could,” she explained - but August’s expression remained as resistant and pained as ever. She couldn’t bear to see him like this though - with that element of self-loathing underlying every word that left his lips. She cared about him far too much to let him get away with that. So she shifted until she was sat cross-legged, and tried a new angle - hoping that a more forward approach would help them gain some ground. “Come on, Auggie. You can’t just hide from this forever. Just go on one date - just to try it.”

“With some girl I barely know, who I can barely string together a sentence for?” August asked with a deadpan, sarcastic tone.

“Fine,” she conceded, although a faint smile started to tug at the corners of her lips. “Let’s get rid of that obstacle. Let’s find you a girl who you’ve known for years, who you talk to almost every day, and set you up on a date with her.”

“Who are you gonna-” But August cut himself off when his disgruntled gaze settled on her knowing, almost hopeful grin.

“…Pretty good, huh?” she chuckled, as that grin started to morph into a triumphant smirk.

But August’s expression just clouded over, and a sense of dread started to twist in the pit of his stomach. “Kona-” he started to warn, but she jumped in before he could get anything else out.

“Just hear me out; it’s the perfect solution. You get to get over your ‘first date’ jitters and see what it’s all about, and you can just relax and enjoy it because you know you’re not gonna freak out ‘cause it’s just me. It’ll just be like every other time we’ve hung out - minus the morons,” she tagged on, taking an affectionate dig towards the other half of their usual quartet, before continuing. “No expectations, no stakes. Just us.”

August supposed that Kona had paused to try to gauge his reaction, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. And when he feebly tried to get her to stop before she just made things worse, it felt like he’d swallowed a sandbox - so all that came out was a croaked: “Kona, you don’t-”

But she couldn’t seem to let go. If anything, his pleas just fuelled her more. “I just want to help you, Auggie. You just need some confidence. I’m not saying you have to like me like that, or that we have to do anything romantic - we just need to get you in that environment so you can realise it’s not as scary as you think,” she explained, before swallowing and adding a slightly more cautious: “But if anything did happen it’s not like I’d be…opposed.”

August felt his stomach try to drop out his ass. If he hadn’t been sat down he was sure it’d have hit the tiles with a wet slap. One glimpse of Kona’s hopeful smile out of the corner of his eye and he felt like his lungs were trapped in a vacuum - like the weight of her words were crushing his ribcage from the inside out. He tipped his head back in despair, as though clinging to the hope that if he didn’t actually look at her he could convince himself this wasn’t really happening. Through all this unwanted female attention, the steady reliability of Kona’s friendship had been one of the few things keeping him sane. And as if getting beaten up for it wasn’t already bad enough - the realisation that she was wrenching that anchor to normality away had tears threatening to prickle his weary green eyes.

“No, Kone,” he murmured to the ceiling, screwing his eyes shut as if that could make it all just disappear. “Please, not you too.”

“Look, I’m not gonna go around shoving love poems into your locker like some of these lunatics,” Kona began, with this odd kind of bashful ferocity that felt completely alien to both of them. “But I’m also not gonna sit here and say that I don’t think you’ve gotten hot, because that’d be a lie. Mainly though, I just see what a great guy you are, Auggie, and what a great heart you have - more than any of those other shallow bitches see anyway. And I just want you to be able to realise that you’re capable of finding love if you put yourself in the position to find it. It doesn’t matter who it’s with: me, Cindy, whoever she is…” Her rambling trailed off as her impassioned spark fizzled out, and a longing sigh slipped into its place. “I just want you to be happy.”

A loaded silence settled between them, broken only by a dripping tap and their thudding heartbeats. Kona sat, waiting for August to respond, or react - acknowledge that she’d spoken at all. And August sat, fighting to steady his breathing, praying that the next time he opened his eyes he’d be in his bed, and this whole thing would just be one, horrible dream.

But that moment never came. Instead, his blurry surroundings came back to him with that undeniably real aching from his face, and chest - and the gnawing sense that a pair of eyes were watching him.

“So…” Kona continued, gaze and tone careful as she tried to study his body language, and played with a fraying thread on one of her many friendship bracelets to stop herself from freaking out. “What do you think?”

August let out a long, deep breath as he weighed up how to respond. But amidst all the possible options, one fact always remained the same. And with a soft smile, he realised that should be where he started. “I think you’re awesome, Kona.”

“I’d have to agree,” she fired back - her playful brag working to put them both at ease again. Or so she thought. August’s steadily shifting expression told a different story though.

“But I also think you’ve worked yourself up way too much over this… And you’re not thinking straight,” he said, handling each word as delicately as if it were made of glass.

“Really? Because I think I’m thinking a lot more clearly than usual,” Kona softly bit back, standing firm in her feelings.

“You’re not,” he countered - brows pinching with worry when he watched hers knit with confusion. Taking in another slow breath, he set the bag of ice aside so that he could focus on her fully. “And yeah, you know me a hell of a lot better than those other girls - but if you knew me, like really knew me… We would not be having this conversation,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “We might not even be friends.”

Kona’s confusion just deepened as she leaned forwards, as though getting closer to him would help her understand. “What are you talking about? Of course we’d still be friends; nothing could get in the way of that,” she insisted - almost hurt that he’d think such a thing of her. “And what do you mean I don’t know you? I’ve known you since the first grade. I know your shoe size, your favourite colour, your ice cream order... I know you only make cookies when you’re trying to get on my good side, and you only make brownies when you’re trying to get on Zack’s. I know you only drink soda if it’s cola flavoured. I know you dip everything in honey mustard. I know you’re on your fifth hamster - Hermes - and he prefers his ball to his wheel. I know you tie your shoes weirdly. I know you eat a KitKat like a freak. And I know you secretly love watching trashy tv shows - especially with your sisters… What else is there to know?”

August didn’t know if he could bring himself to say it. But he knew he had to keep talking - he just had to tread very carefully. “Look, Kona. You’ve been a great friend - one I didn’t ever think I’d be lucky enough to have. I still don’t know how you put up with hanging around with three guys all the time, especially when we’re as annoying as we are, but I’m so glad you do…” he trailed off as his smile started to falter though. “But I’m not who you think I am. I’m not like the other guys at school - and I’m not like Benny and Zack. Not like you think I am.”

“August - what are you talking about?” Kona repeated, feeling as though he may as well have been trying to speak another language.

The slight undertone of concern creeping into Kona’s baffled gaze made August pause. He knew he was backing himself into a corner here, and he was running out of options for distractions. He had to face the music sooner or later. And so, after a long, trembling breath, he started to unravel his jumbled thoughts. “Do you know why it sucks so bad that all this started today because of Cindy Jenkins?”

“No…” Kona slowly admitted, already wary about the potential wild goose chase she felt she was being led into.

“Because we’re in the same biology class,” August explained.

But Kona just looked even more confused than before. “Mr Kasuba’s? August, what does that-?”

“Just- just hear me out, okay?” he stammered, hiding his shaking hands in his lap. Now that he’d strapped himself into this rollercoaster he had to ride it out - and the less obstacles in the way, the easier he hoped getting the words out would be. “You know how I always bitch to you about the cheerleaders who sit on the next bench over?”

Kona’s intrigued, yet cautious nod should have spurred him on, but it just made his next words heavier - forcing him to shove them out with everything he had. “Well, Cindy’s one of those cheerleaders… And yeah, it’s annoying when they talk over the whole class, or sit there painting their nails during the labs. But Cindy herself is…fine. She’s not the problem. It just sucks because… all he does is stare at her.”

Kona just looked at August as though he’d been dropped down from another planet - totally and utterly lost. “Who? Mr Kasuba??”

August snorted out a laugh, grateful that it managed to somewhat settle the nerves swelling in the pit of his stomach - especially considering what he was building himself up to say. He gently shook his head, then tentatively corrected her. “Cody Clark.”

Kona stalled. “Your lab partner?” she asked, confusion twisting into curiosity as she pictured the swoopy-haired brunet. His tanned skin barely broke through the mass of freckles dusting its surface, his hazel eyes held a playful sort of mischief, but his smile was always warm - inviting, almost - the kind that immediately puts you at ease. She sat behind him in her algebra class, and he seemed nice enough, but she’d never really paid him any attention. She sometimes heard him talking about the school paper, so she assumed he was part of the journalism club - but that was about as much as she knew. And as far as she knew, August didn’t have any other connections with him. So what was the big deal? “What do you mean?” she continued. “How much do you guys have to concentrate on what you’re doing to not fail?”

“It’s not about passing the class,” August sighed, letting his head fall back against the bathroom wall again as his confession came tumbling out. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her though - muddy green eyes fixing on the rusting door hinge so that he could trick himself into thinking no one was really listening. “It’s because I want him to look at me - but he can’t take his eyes off her, and her stupid, shiny hair.” The more words fell from his lips, the less control he had over them. It was as though his brain didn’t trust that it’d get the chance to release all this information again - so it was running with it - and making his mouth run alongside. “And I just- I don’t understand why. She’ll hold up the whole class with the dumbest questions, and then just skip all the work anyway. She’ll chew gum and reapply her lipgloss through the entire lesson, and then she’ll just stick it under the desk instead of putting it in the trash like everyone else because it’s ’too far’. And she can be so blunt - and sometimes just straight up mean. I mean seriously, she wouldn’t even give him the time of day if he asked her. And yet somehow, he’s still obsessed with her. And I just… I go home every night and I just want to scream into my pillow because it’s so unfair.”

Kona’s curiosity started to become more cautious as she saw the glassy sheen developing over his irises, and heard his voice start to falter with nerves. But her confusion didn’t shift - if anything, it just deepened. Sure, she could understand why all that was frustrating. But she still didn’t get why he cared in the first place. Or why he was trying to link this back to their conversation about dating. “Okay… I guess? But, Auggie, Cody Clark’s a guy…”

Those glassy irises locked onto hers with a resigned dread that she’d never seen before, sitting above a tiny, trembling smile. “Kona,” he uttered, voice barely above a whisper as he held her gaze - a silent plea for her to understand without him having to spell it out for her.

For a while Kona didn’t. She just stared at him with that same concerned bewilderment from before - totally and utterly lost. “Yeah..?”

And then suddenly it all clicked.

Her eyes widened a fraction, as though she was seeing him again for the first time. And she let out an involuntary gasp. “Oh,” she breathed - leaning back against the stall wall as the full weight of the realisation hit her. “Holy shit,” she continued, lips splitting into a soft, incredulous smile.

“Yeah, holy shit,” August muttered - once more unable to meet her gaze.

The confession plunged them into silence again - heavy with uncertainty. August could feel his heartbeat throughout his entire body - it hammered in his chest, and throbbed through his swollen eye. But he took comfort in it; at least it gave him something to focus on besides the tsunami of anxieties crashing down over him now that something he’d been trying to hide for so long was out in the open. The fact that Kona had made no effort to speak, let alone move, was not helping to put him at ease though.

He swallowed thickly, as though forcing down a bouncy ball, given the fact that the lump in his throat returned almost instantly. The back of his skull hit the wall as he tilted his gaze to the water-stained ceiling with a dull thud. He screwed his eyes shut, praying that the stinging of his eyes wouldn’t amount to anything more. He crumpled the crispy bandana in his fist, trying to hold on to something tangible to stop himself from spiralling.

And still, she didn’t say anything.

Seconds crawled by in what felt like hours, and before long, August couldn’t bear the silence any longer - he couldn’t bear being in that room, in that situation. “I, uh…” he stammered, swallowing again to try to stop his voice from shaking, still unable to look at the blonde opposite him. “I should probably- probably go-”

“No, no, no,” Kona hurriedly grabbed his arm as he made a move to get up, holding him in place and finally managing to get his eyes back on her. “What are you talking about? Stay, please,” she tacked on with a hopeful, yet flustered smile as she guided him back into place. “You’ve gotta rest,” she added as she then guided the ice bag back into his hand, and up to his eye - the whole time with him watching her like she was a bomb about to explode. But the explosion never came, she just sat back herself and started to apologise. “Sorry, I just… I was just thinking.”

“…About?” came August’s very cautious reply.

“Cody.” However, August’s guarded, pinched look of worry spurred her on to keep explaining. “I mean, sure, he’s nice enough… But come on, Auggie, he’s pretty lame.”

August’s expression jumped to one of surprise, before his eyebrows scrunched in offence. “No he’s not.”

“Yes, he is,” Kona countered. “He’s so boring. All he talks about is the fucking school paper.”

“He wants to be a journalist,” August interjected, harkening back to the fleeting moments in their biology class where they actually held a conversation.

“That doesn’t mean he has to make it his entire personality. And oh my god, have you seen the way he walks?”

“What’s wrong with the way he walks?”

“He looks like a damn sasquatch. That shuffle with his posture? He looks ridiculous!”

The more Kona fixated on Cody, and the less on August’s admission, especially when she did so with such comedic emphasis, the more the weight of it seemed to lift from his chest. And before long, he even felt a laugh slip past his lips. “Okay, yeah, I’ll give you that,” he chuckled, having to concede.

“And I’m sorry, but I just can’t get past the Tennessee accent. He just sounds like a cowboy.”

“Kona-”

“He sounds like freaking Quick Draw McGraw!”

That, and Kona’s subsequent impression of the cartoon horse, drew a full guffaw from August’s bloodied lips. His eyes crinkled and his belly rumbled with mirth instead of the crushing anxiety from before. “Holy shit, you’re right, he does,” he laughed - finally able to let go in a way he hadn’t been able to for weeks. There were no unwanted observers, no pressures to conform - it was just him and his best friend, goofing around to their hearts’ content.

Their teasing remarks and ridiculous impressions, and the accompanying giggles, started to peter out in the end though. But in a stark contrast to how he felt earlier, it left August unable to take his eyes off Kona. He just stared with this incredulous look on his face.

“What?” she eventually asked through a final breathy chuckle.

“You’re not… So, you’re like…okay about this? About…you know?” he stuttered, still not sure he was brave enough to actually say it out loud.

She shuffled closer to him, so that she could place a hand on his shoulder. And in a tone a lot gentler than her typical approach to conversations, she held his gaze and promised, “August, you are one of my best friends. All I have ever cared about, and will ever care about, is you being happy... And if this is what it takes, then I’m here for you - every step of the way.”

Still, August just stared at her. His lip quivered with uncertainty, but his deep olive irises shone with disbelief, as though he thought it was all too good to be true. But Kona’s devotion never wavered - her hand remained as steady as her gaze. “You… You really mean that?”

“Of course I mean it! Since when have I lied to you?” Kona playfully fired back.

August let out a sigh of relief that turned into more of a choked, incredulous laugh. He tipped his head back against the wall as his gaze landed on the ceiling again - only this time in a silent display of gratitude to whatever powers that be, for putting him on earth in the right time and place to be able to land Kona as a friend. Before he could stop them, thankful tears started to leak from his good eye - likely the product of what felt like a lifetime of mounting anxieties starting to melt away.

Kona was quick to jump into action though, reaching up to brush them away with the pad of her thumb and then pull him into a hug. “Oh Auggie, come on, it’s okay,” she comforted, rubbing a hand up and down his back as he collapsed into her embrace.

“I know, I know,” he murmured, blinking back any further tears as he sat back again, gently shaking his head - although he did soak up the hug for several seconds before. “It’s just - I’ve never told anyone that before. I’ve never even really…said it out loud. And I only ever pictured it going badly, so for you to be cool about it…”

“Yeah well anyone who’s not cool about it doesn’t genuinely care about you, Auggie. ‘Cause if they did, then who you choose to love wouldn’t matter. Like I said, all that matters is that you’re happy - and if anyone disagrees then you don’t need them in your life,” she told him - the ferocity in her fondness for the boy showing through in her tone.

“Thanks, Kona,” he murmured through a relieved, yet tired smile. Chuckling, almost pitifully to himself, he tagged on. “I thought I was just going crazy at first, you know? Before it all became more…real.”

Leaning back a touch, in a moment of casual spontaneity, Kona found her mouth running away from her brain - spilling thoughts she’d barely given herself a chance to process yet. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I definitely like guys, because I still think Marty Lopez is like one of the hottest guys on Earth, let alone just at our school. But then every time I see Isla Ross playing volleyball I get this weird butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling and the room starts to feel like it’s about a hundred degree in there,” she confessed, eyes glossing over as the confession spilled out of her. She stalled for a moment once she realised it was out in the open, but soon found August’s bewildered, but encouraging gaze, and her lips split into a relieved grin of her own. “And I don’t exactly know if I’ve processed what that means for me yet. But, uh, if that means you’re going crazy, then I guess we can go insane together.”

“Sounds like a plan,” August chuckled, relishing the comfort he could take from knowing they could fall back into their usual rhythm again, with no more secrets building up walls between them. Well, almost no secrets.

“Holy shit,” Kona went on to breathe, gently shaking her head as she marvelled at him, and the beautiful absurdity of the situation. “This is so wild. You’ve got practically every girl in school wanting to get in your pants, but you’re batting for the same team they are. Zack’s gonna freak when he finds out - in a good way, obviously-”

“Woah, woah, woah,” August jumped in, eyebrows suddenly pinching with worry again and panic rising in the back of his throat, stalling his words. “You’re- you’re not gonna tell him, are you?”

Kona paused, cautiously confused once more. “…Are you not gonna tell him?”

August shifted nervously - gaze dropping and then bouncing back in moments of fleeting bravery as he rubbed the back of his neck and stammered through his reasonings. “Well, I, uh, yeah…eventually, I guess. But I don’t… I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. I mean, no offense, but I wasn’t really planning on doing this today either,” he admitted with an awkward chuckle before continuing. “I thought I’d have more chance to… I don’t know, build myself up for it.”

Trying to pull his gaze back to her in full, she nudged his thigh with the toe of her sneaker and gently reassured, “Hey, don’t sweat it. It’s cool - you’ll know when the time’s right.” Warming the air between them with a familiar grin, she then leaned forwards. “And in the meantime, the secret’s safe with me,” she promised - holding her pinky finger out until August locked his around it, her efforts to coax him into returning her smile finally proving successful. She couldn’t let them sit in the quiet comfort for too long though, almost too eager to give her next offer. “And not that I think your mom would be an asshole like this, but if you ever need a fake girlfriend to hide from the homophobes, I’m totally down.”

“Really?” came August’s snorted, almost disbelieving laugh.

”Totally,” Kona insisted. “Whatever you need me to do, I’m down.”

August’s easygoing laughter echoed off the tiled walls, relief flowing out of him like the blood he’d left at the curbside. Gratitude soaked into his bones as he settled his gaze on Kona again, thanking his lucky stars that she was treating this all so…normally. “And that’s why you’re my best friend,” he grinned.

“Well, I didn’t want to brag…” Kona trailed off, playfully hamming up her reaction to the flattery to draw another chuckle from the bruised blond’s lips. “We do need to work on raising your standards though,” she teasingly added.

“What are you talking about?” August scoffed in humoured reproach.

“Cody Clark? Seriously August?” Kona asked, eyebrow raised in friendly judgement. “You’re one of the hottest guys in school right now and the highest you can set your sights is Cody Clark?” she went on, eyebrow inching higher with each beat of emphasis. “We’ve gotta start aiming higher than that.”

August just shook his head with another laugh, although this one sounded more pitiful. “I don’t think I'll be doing any ‘aiming’; it’s not like I’ve got a potential dating pool to pick from,” he said, wincing as he readjusted the ice pack. Prickling with self-consciousness, in a moment of boldness he decided to add, “And besides, it’s not like he’s the only guy I like.”

Kona’s eyes sparkled with intrigue as she leaned forwards, resting her elbows on her knees. “Oh? There’s more?”

August let out a bashful huff of air through his nose. “There’s…a few.”

“Oh my god, spill,” Kona enthused, juniper eyes ablaze with interest.

“No,” he quickly dismissed, feigning nonchalance - although the subtle flushing of his cheeks gave him away.

“Come on, please!” she pleaded, her excitement and the novelty of the moment getting the better of her. “I never normally get to have ‘guy talk’ like this - this is so fun!” But when August’s stance showed no signs of budging, she took to prying of her own accord. “Do I know any of them? Have you got like a ‘type’? Please don’t tell me they’re all cowboy wannabes.”

August just shook his head, and sheepishly smiled. Although he did have to avert his gaze again as he quietly admitted, “You definitely know one…”

At first August didn’t think that she’d even heard him. But when he finally caught her eye again he realised that her silence was just because her mouth had dropped open in an even more intense, amazed intrigue. “Shut up,” she breathed. Then leaned in even closer to prompt: “Go on.”

August couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden flip, but again just shook his head - although this time a little more firmly; and a lot more sure of his words. “No - because that is never amounting to anything more.”

“You don’t know that,” Kona tried, still hopeful.

“No, I do, Kona,” he said, a hint of longing still creeping into his tone despite seemingly having resigned himself to his fate already. “‘Cause I know for a fact he doesn’t like me like that. And I’ve finally come to terms with it - so we’re not opening that wound back up.”

“Well who is it?”

“Ben-”

But Kona never got her answer, because the voice from the hall drew both of their heads towards the door.

“Why are you following me?” it continued - growing louder with the accompanying lumbering footsteps. “I told you I gotta pee.”

“Mrs Birr said they’re in here,” another voice joined the commotion of bodies shoving past each other down the cramped corridor, and fighting for the space in front of the door.

“In the men’s room? What are you-?”

Bentley must have come out on top of the scuffle, because he was the one that pushed through the doorway first - expression a mess of confusion until it fell on the pair huddled in the open stall. His eyebrows knitted as he looked at Kona first, but as soon as his eyes reached August they doubled in size, and his jaw hit the floor.

“Oh my god,” he breathed.

“Holy mother of christ!” came Zack’s slightly less tactful reaction as he stumbled into the bathroom and caught sight of the battered blond. His protective temper swelled in an instant - absolutely astounded judging by the look on his face. “What the fuck happened?”

August just let out a self-deprecating chuckle - having known it was only a matter of time before this was coming. “…I tripped?” he tried, still managing a stab of humour despite his situation.

Zack didn’t appreciate him trying to make light of it though. “Be so for real right now,” he deadpanned with a disapproving frown.

“Shit, are you okay?” Bentley asked - having suddenly found his voice again once the initial shock wore off. He dropped the bags of chips he’d been carrying to the floor without a second thought, and was at his side a second later, scanning over every cut and bruise as though he was trying to make sense of them - like he couldn’t quite believe they were real.

“Obviously fucking not, Ben,” Zack retorted - his protectiveness taking a more fiery path, with his temper bubbling fiercely behind his eyes. “He looks like a piece of damn roadkill.”

August snorted out another laugh. “That good, huh?” he sarcastically fired back.

But again, Zack couldn’t take any comfort in the fact August was at peace with his situation. His chest ached, burned with injustice, with pain for his friend. “Alright, start talking; I need names,” he said, fidgeting through his agitation, and pent-up rage. “Fuck whatever plans we had for tonight - I’ve got asses to beat.”

August just rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, calm down. No one’s beating anyone’s ass.”

“Oh really?” Zack challenged, taking on a sarcastic edge of his own as he crossed his arms over his heaving chest. “Did the guys who did this to you get that memo?”

“Just leave it, Zack,” August sighed, already weary of the back-and-forth, and the fighting for his honour. “They’re not worth it.”

“I’ll leave it when I’ve dug their goddamn graves and they’re paying for this down in hell,” Zack snapped back. He’d known August since they were in diapers - they were practically family. He couldn’t just stand back and let those idiots get away with this, they had to hurt as much as August was - as much as he was just looking at him. An eye for an eye - he didn’t care if it made the world blind, his best friend might as well be with how swollen his looked. “Have you seen what they’ve done to you, man?” he pressed on when August just looked at him with that same, bored apathy - as though trying to coax a reaction out of him. “Your nose is pointing in like three different directions!”

August’s eyebrows furrowed in a slight frown, clearly thinking the boy was just overreacting. But he took more notice when Bentley offered a worried, tentative: “It does look kinda crazy.”

“Well it can’t look much worse than it already did,” August huffed through another eye roll - already eagerly anticipating when he finally got to see how the least favourite feature of his face had been ruined even more.

“Shut up,” Kona scolded, kicking his thigh a little harder this time. She hated August talking down about himself. “I told you, your nose has never looked bad.

Her interjection quickly shifted Zack’s attention, and his incredulous stare, to her though. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing in the guy’s bathroom?”

Kona levelled Zack with a disapproving frown. “You really think a urinal was gonna keep me from coming in here to check on him?” she asked, eyebrow raised until he conceded with an eye roll. “And don’t bother trying to get permission to go after those guys - I’ve already been through all that and we’re stuck taking the high road.”

Zack tipped his head back to the ceiling and let out a groan that rattled his ribcage. “Aug, the high road sucks,” he whined, soon returning to his pleading. “Please just let me throw one punch - I’m sure I could break his nose back. Look how much I can bench now. Who was it?”

“Not happening,” August replied with another shake of his head.

“Ughhhhh,” Zack groaned again, his whole body slumping in frustration. “I’m not done with this,” he promised, despite momentarily admitting defeat for nature’s call. “But I do actually gotta pee, so just, uh, look away for like ten seconds.”

“Ewww, gross,” Kona grumbled, fiercely averting her gaze, eyebrows scrunched in disgust.

“Dude,” August chuckled, caught somewhere between amusement and distaste.

“It’s the fucking bathroom! I’ve gotta piss!” Zack retaliated with an almost comical, defensive astonishment. “What do you want me to do? You’re the ones who chose to hang out in here.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Kona muttered, shaking her head as August let out more incredulous chuckles.

It took Zack exactly two seconds before he started on Kona again, proving as always that he could never let anything go without a fight. “Kone-head, did you see what happened?”

Kona placed a hand beside her head, physically blocking every inch of his body from her view as she started to hear liquid splash porcelain. “I’m not talking to you while you have your dick out,” she deadpanned.

“Come on, do you at least know who did it?” Zack pressed.

But Kona had stopped listening to Zack’s venting, and his stream; far too distracted by the conversation unfolding before her.

“Here, you’re not even holding this right,” Bentley gently scolded, prising the bag of ice from August’s hand and taking over the nursing duties - eyebrows furrowing with a woeful focus. “When Royce got punched - I mean it was nowhere near as bad as this, but Miles said he had to keep the ice directly over the impact point or it wouldn’t stop the swelling.”

August huffed out a gentle snort of resignation. “Well which one do you wanna go with? There’s plenty to choose from.”

Kona sat, intently watching the interaction as it developed. But after everything she’d just heard, she felt as though she was looking at them with completely fresh eyes - August in particular. The way he immediately softened at Bentley’s touch, the ease in his body language once they were together, the quiet admiration in his eyes… But also the yearning hidden in his smile, shoved beneath the tender serenity - like he was both at peace and suppressing his turmoil with every grin.

And as they fondly bickered over the bag of ice, teasing and laughing like the best friends they were, it finally clicked into place for Kona. She caught August’s eye for a split second before it was smushed into freezing cold cloth - but that was all it took. In that one look, they both silently confirmed it.

Mick’s head was pounding. It had been for the last hour. It felt as though someone had taken the fire extinguisher off the kitchen wall and was smashing it against her skull. The worry and uncertainty about Bentley was already eating away at her, but the fact that it was twenty minutes into her shift and she was the only soul in the building was making her blood boil.

One employee had a very valid reason to be late. The other two did not. And yet there she was, manning the service counter, warming up the fryers, and controlling the crappy music system anyway. If you could consider hooking the radio up to the rink’s speakers work, that is. Yet another reason to add to the list of why she was so pissed off with a certain co-worker of hers.

As though the universe heard her internal bitching, the moment the radio switched to Raise A Little Hell, those aforementioned employees came bursting through the front doors - wearing identical dopey grins and somehow souring Mick’s mood further. The pair shared a laugh before Ethan’s eyes found hers, and greeted her with a laidback wave she did not have the energy to return. At least he had the decency to acknowledge her though; Carrie’s attention was far too occupied by a familiar jock sticking his head through the door and attempting to all but swallow her head whole. Either Carrie had chewed her way through an entire pack of gum since lunch, or Eric was too horny to taste the vomit on her breath. Regardless, the sight turned Mick’s stomach even more than usual.

By the time Carrie and Eric had stopped playing grab-ass, Ethan had sauntered his way over to Mick to jab his thumb over his shoulder and offer her a guffawed, “Yo, they were going at it out in the parking lot.”

And somehow, Mick found herself even more nauseated. “How could you possibly know that?”

Ethan just scoffed. “‘Cause his Audi was bouncing like a pogo and the windows were hella steamed up.”

“And why would you think I'd want to know that?” Mick huffed in disgust.

“I don’t know. For research?” he snickered.

But their focus was soon drawn to the bouncing golden curls and flushed cheeks darting past them with a breathless, “Hey guys.”

“You’re late,” Mick flatly pointed out. “…Again.”

“Sorry, I got…” she trailed off, eyes briefly darting back to the now vacant front door. “…held up.”

“I’ll say,” Mick scoffed with a gentle shake of her head.

“Oh come on, it’s no big deal,” Carrie said, blasé despite Mick’s cold sarcasm.

“You do realise I’ve been running this place by myself for the last twenty minutes?” she went on to ask, shooting disapproving looks to both new entrants - hoping it would prompt some genuine remorse.

Instead, Carrie’s eyes scanned the rink before settling the building’s only occupants with a quietly confident smirk. “Yeah, and you look rushed off your feet…” she trailed off as her gaze met Mick’s. The brunette’s expression soon told her she was in no mood for teasing though. So, in an effort to avoid any more of Mick’s wrath that night, Carrie tried with a cautiously optimistic: “I’ll make it up to you?”

“Oh yeah?” Mick started with a humourless chuckle. “And how do you plan on doing that?”

“Any way you want,” Carrie volleyed back, punctuating her quick wit with another smirk and a wink that felt all too personal. Even going as far as to add a quieter, more seductive, “I won’t snitch,” before pushing through the door to the break room and disappearing out of sight.

A barked laugh was the first thing to break through the buzz of uneasy static in Mick’s brain - and the following comment just furrowed her brow further. “She’s awesome,” Ethan chuckled, evidently very amused by Carrie’s teasing.

“She’s a slacker,” Mick corrected bluntly. “And you’re no better. What’s your excuse? Were you standing out there perving on them the whole time?”

“Nah, I just took a nap in my van,” Ethan replied - totally unphased by Mick’s digs, to her disappointment. Fixing her with a cheeky grin of his own, he stretched and added a comically earnest: “Need my beauty sleep.”

All it managed to raise from Mick though was an eye roll as she dug the cash drawer out of the register and slammed it down on the counter - readying herself to start on her next job of ensuring it still balanced with their total from the night before. “Just get changed and do some fucking work,” she huffed. “You’re late enough as it is.”

“Chillax, Mickie. It’s not like the phone’s ever ringing off the hook,” Ethan chuckled, grabbing a quarter from the tray and setting it off spinning along the countertop.

Mick smacked her hand down, stopping the quarter before it could skitter too far way, and bluntly saying, “You’re not on deliveries tonight.”

“What?”

“Not yet, anyway,” Mick went on to elaborate before shuffling through the compartments of coins and bills.

“Uhhh…why not?” Ethan cautiously asked.

“I need you helping with front of house ‘til Miles gets here,” she explained, focusing her gaze on the wad of dollars between her fingers to make sure her face didn’t give something away she wasn’t supposed to.

“I don’t know if he’s coming in, Mickie. He didn’t show at school today - I figured he just had some gnarly flu or something,” Ethan mused.

Mick inwardly sighed, then chose her next words carefully. “He’s still coming - he’s just got some family stuff to deal with first.”

“Oh shit, is everything ok?” Ethan asked, brows furrowed above bleary, bewildered eyes. “He didn’t mention anything yesterday about-”

“Everything’s fine - it was pretty last minute. But he’ll be here at some point,” Mick tightly replied. And for once, Ethan seemed to get the hint to not probe any further. Because the beat of silence that followed allowed Mick to then move on and clip her stack of ones back into place with a steady, “So until then, I’d really appreciate you unhooking the delivery phone, getting into uniform, and starting to check the skates.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” Ethan replied - catching the brunette’s gaze and offering what he hoped was a reassuring grin, and a clumsy salute, before stumbling his way into the break room.

It was by no means the help Mick wanted, or needed - but his willingness to try did at least make the hint of a smile tug at the corner of her lips. And in such nerve-wracking times, she had to take what victories she could - no matter how small.

Hours crawled by, and the evening shift at All Skate unfolded the same as any other. Sticky-faced kids pestered Mick every fifteen minutes for slurpees, songs clunkily clicked from one to another as Carrie mindlessly flitted between her track lists, and Ethan juggled skates and sneakers like the clown Mick often branded him as. Although, she did have to admit that he wasn’t nearly as calamitous as she’d feared he would be. After quickly removing him from all cash register duties, since his brain moved at the pace of a sloth’s, and some middle schoolers seemed hellbent on scamming them out of cash, stationing him on skate and cleaning duty seemed to have been the right call. All shoes were in the right cubbies, all the returned skates were neatly laced and ‘de-stinked’ - and although she did keep having to prompt him to clear empty tables, he went straight over every time she asked. Sure, he just shoved the dirty plastic into the wash tub and swiped any stray crumbs onto the floor with a rag, but it was enough to not set her eye twitching - yet. Even with the dragging feet and dramatic sighs, he was almost proving himself useful.

She hoped that would be the first of many positive discoveries of the night. But when her fretful clock-watching finally reached its conclusion, she realised just how naive she had been. Because this time when her head snapped to the doors, her heart skipped a beat when her gaze landed on Butchy and Miles. But it dropped when she noted their expressions, and nigh on stopped altogether when she realised they were alone.

“Anything?” she cautiously dared as the pair approached the food counter.

Miles couldn’t bring himself to even look at her, trudging past like a zombie in a trance.

Butchy at least acknowledged her, but could offer nothing more than a defeated, almost apologetic shake of his head, that stole Mick’s breath away.

Catching Miles’ arm as he rounded the serving counter, making a beeline for the break room, Mick gasped a quick breath and said, “Miles, if you don’t feel-”

But Miles just brushed her off. “I’m fine. Just give me a minute to change my shirt and I’ll be back out - where do you want me?”

But the moment his eyes met Mick’s, full of a numb, hopelessness that swallowed his entire frame, her heart cracked open all over again. “We’re good out here - promise. Take as long as you need,” she replied, her voice gentle, yet tight as she fought to keep it steady - squeezing his forearm to both reassure him and ground herself.

Miles’ nod was small, but grateful all the same. But he couldn’t bring himself to linger in the moment for long before disappearing through the swing doors - desperate for a moment alone to try to process the day’s insane events.

Turning back, Mick found Butchy now perched atop the barstool opposite her, slumping onto one elbow as he offered a sardonic: “I take it he’s not here then?”

Now it was Mick’s turn to shake her head, feeling that same sense of dread wash over her as Butchy let out a defeated groan.

Eyes closed and fingers pressed to his temple - he was so deep in thought he almost looked in pain. Unable to bear it, Mick reached across the countertop for his free hand, wove her fingers between his and took what comfort she could from the warmth that spread across their palms.

“Did you really not find anything?” she slowly went on to ask, her voice barely above a whisper. “…Nothing at all?”

A leaden sigh was drawn from Butchy’s lips as his gaze was drawn to his girlfriend’s. “We found his bike - dinged up real bad. But nothing else.”

“Well at least that’s something,” Mick said, trying her best to sound positive despite the nature of the news.

“Hardly,” came his huffed reply. Shaking his head in despair he continued with, “I just don’t get it. How does a kid just disappear over night, without a single trace? It’s like he dropped off the face of the Earth.”

“You can’t give up after only one day of looking,” Mick started.

“I’m not giving up,” Butchy jumped in. “It’s just… proving more complicated than I’d first thought. He actually is… lost.”

Eyebrows furrowing to match her boyfriend’s look of concern, Mick gently rubbed the pad of her thumb over the back of his hand. But the silence that fell over them was then broken with a hesitant, “His little friends haven’t shown up yet tonight - I guess we still haven’t totally ruled out him having stayed over with one of them.” Her nervous giggle was as half-hearted as her smile, but she tried to lighten the somber mood all the same. “Talk about an overreaction if he has.”

“If all of this turns out to just be a misunderstanding over a sleepover I’ll be making him do my yard work until he’s paid off my therapy bill,” Butchy sighed. Although, the more he pondered the possibility, the more unlikely it seemed - especially after considering the only, albeit large, clue they’d managed to find. “I don’t know why he’d ditch his bike if he was just ‘staying over with a friend’ though - or how it ended up so wrecked.”

“What had happened to his bike? Could that not give you a lead?” Mick probed, desperate for whatever information she could get to try to offer some sort of help.

“Probably easier asking what hadn’t happened to it,” Butchy scoffed. “The paintwork’s fucked, wheels are all scuffed, the chain’s snapped and something’s cracked one of the pedals.”

“…Shit,” Mick murmured.

“The road we found it on was sloped, so my guess is it was dropped and it slid back down, which would explain all the scrapes. But I’ve got no clue about the chain or the pedal - maybe he stepped on them weirdly as he was trying to ditch it? But I don’t think he’d be heavy enough to do that kind of damage. And I don’t get why he’d want to ditch the bike anyway? He loves that thing - and he’s definitely faster on that than he would be running.”

“If he was running,” Mick proposed.

“What do you mean?”

“Well we don’t know for sure he ran, right? We can’t get too sidetracked with theories that have no facts to back them up. The bike could have just been wrecked by a passing car. Who’s to say he didn’t willingly go somewhere instead? Like a friend’s house? Or maybe something happened that made him want to go stay with his uncle Tommy?”

“The uncle who lives over an hour away in the middle of the city?” Butchy challenged with a sceptical eyebrow raise. “Bentley just upped sticks in the middle of the night and hitched a ride out of town? Without saying a word to anyone about it?”

“Okay, yeah, when you say it like that it sounds pretty crazy-”

“Pretty crazy?”

“But my point still stands - we can’t let ourselves get too focused on a singular idea until we have more evidence,” Mick reasoned, standing her ground despite her boyfriend’s dismissal. “More evidence than a bike anyway.”

Biting his tongue, Butchy let his taxed mind mull over her words for a moment. And then another moment more. Steadily, a grin inched through his frown - and although it was small, it was as genuine as he could muster. “You sure you’re not the new recruit they’ve hired at the police department?” he huskily teased.

Although her smile was out of satisfaction more than anything, the hint of pride shining in her boyfriend’s eyes brought a steady blush bubbling up to the surface of her cheeks. Hopefully the ever-changing rainbow of lights overhead were enough to mask it though, as she fired back a coy, “No - unfortunately. I’m not nearly as tall, dark, or handsome… I think I have him beat in the brains department though.”

Playful flirting was one way to take their minds off the rather harrowing events of the day. But their brief moment of peace was shattered in a matter of seconds.

“Hey, lovebirds!”

Butchy all but jumped out of his skin at the exclamation, and his heart rate didn’t slow any when he whirled around in his seat to discover its source: a pint-sized bundle of energy with a penchant for wearing purple. “Jesus, kid, we’ve gotta get you a bell,” he sighed, trying to catch his breath and lighten the mood with a lop-sided smile. It wasn’t just her sudden appearance that had spooked him though (after all, that was fairly commonplace with Vivien), it was also how close he and Mick had been to getting caught talking about Bentley’s disappearance. They had to start being more careful if they wanted to keep this under wraps-

“Did you find anything about Beemer?”

Well, maybe Butchy needn’t have been so paranoid after all. That didn’t take away from how utterly floored he was by the girl’s question though - or how nonchalantly she’d said it.

Mouth agape, he looked past the urgent hopefulness hidden behind her wire frames, and straight to the boy hovering behind her - guilt wracking the face covered in a smattering of freckles and pimples, and encircled by a halo of cola-coloured ringlets.

Standing from his stool, Butchy stalked towards the boy with an urgency that had Royce cowering in his knock-off Converse.

“What was the one instruction I gave you this morning?” he hissed.

“I-”

“What part of ‘this stays between us’, didn’t you understand?” he pressed.

Royce gulped; he didn’t know whether Butchy was gearing up to rip his head off his shoulders, or swallow him whole. Voice trembling as much as his hands, Royce attempted a valiant defense, “I couldn’t lie to her.”

“I wasn’t asking you to lie,” Butchy sharply clarified. “I just told you not to talk about it.”

“Viv deserves to know,” Royce defiantly retaliated, closing the gap between them. “She’s family too.”

“That’s not relevant,” came Butchy’s clipped reply.

“How is it not relevant?” Vivien challenged, the sweetness of Royce’s defense of her soured in an instant by the older boy’s comment. “Bentley’s like a brother to me.”

A terse sigh left Butchy’s lips as he fought the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t about who cares about Bentley - it’s about keeping this small, so we can keep everyone safe,” he clarified, before turning his attention, and disapproving expression back to Royce. “Who else have you blabbed to? Half the school?”

Shocked by the callous edge to his tone, a wide-eyed Royce insisted, “No one!”

Hardened, umber irises scoured the thirteen year-old’s face, peeking from beneath furrowed brows. “…You sure?” he slowly challenged.

Royce scoffed, indignant at the very notion he’d lie at a time like this. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

“No, I don’t - not anymore,” Butchy bluntly replied, cutting the crap and demonstrating to Royce the honesty he expected from him. “I tell you to do one thing, and you directly disobey me.”

Sensing her boyfriend’s rising anger, and watching Royce’s expression shift from aggrieved to bordering on fearful dismay over his shoulder, Mick had to step in. “Come on, Butch. That’s not fair,” she said, rounding the serving counter to lay a hand on his arm. “He’s going through a lot,” she continued, gesturing to a quietly grateful Royce, before admitting a more cautious, “We all are.”

Although Butchy softened at Mick’s touch, his stern frown remained. “I know that, but we’ve got to be serious about this,” he sighed. “This isn’t some game.”

“We know that,” Vivien earnestly insisted. “Why do you think we want to help?”

Now it was Butchy’s turn to scoff, almost too eager to respond. “Absolutely not.”

Infuriated by how quickly he’d shot the idea down, Vivien shot back with an indignant, “But why not?”

Again sensing the tone of the conversation start to shift, as she watched a resentful fire burst into flame behind Vivien’s eyes, Mick stepped between the pair before things took a turn. “Look, it’s been a very long day. And as much as we all want to help find Bentley,” she started, making sure to look at each person in turn as she spoke. “The thing we need the most help with right now is processing all this.” Waiting for the trio to lay down their verbal swords and shields, she watched the tension ease out of their frames before continuing. “I found it hard enough at school today with Lela to talk with about everything - I can’t imagine putting myself in your shoes,” she said, sending Royce a sympathetic look that made Butchy’s shoulders slump a fraction more. “If Viv hadn’t pried the news out of me with her bare hands, I’m pretty sure I’d have cracked by third period.” The soft, collective snicker that rose from the pair of thirteen-year-olds gave her another moment of pause. And although her boyfriend’s expression remained a steely frown, she wasn’t deterred from finishing her scolding. “So forget the pointing fingers - we’re all on the same page now. Let’s just focus on figuring out how we’re going to get to the next one.”

Butchy’s gaze finally shifted from Vivien and Royce to Mick, face still firmly set in a scowl. But when her calm diplomacy showed no signs of wavering, despite his evident aggravation, he realised he was fighting a one-man battle - and losing. Caving with a sigh, his eyelids slid closed as he tried to compose himself. Keeping his voice as level as he could manage, he turned to Royce and Vivien once more with a warning, “If I find out you’ve told anyone else-”

“I haven’t,” an exasperated Royce insisted. “And I won’t, I swear.” Holding Butchy’s gaze for a beat, he hoped he sounded as sincere as he felt, because if not, he didn’t know how else he could prove himself to the older-brother-figure. Finally, the young man’s brows unfurled themselves, and he offered a small nod of acknowledgement, which let Royce take in a full breath again. Using that breath, and some newfound confidence thanks to Mick taking his side, he dared to ask a hopeful, “Did you find anything when you were out looking?”

“No,” Butchy sighed, somewhat bluntly.

“Nothing?” Royce stammered. “…At all?”

Butchy stalled as he took in the younger boy’s look of dismay, and his stony expression finally cracked, giving way to an apologetic sigh and a shake of his head.

With the dreaded revelation leaving Royce at a loss for words, Vivien steeled her nerves and stepped in to reply for him. “Well what’s your plan now then?” she challenged the older boy. “Where are you looking next?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Butchy replied.

“Why not?” Vivien demanded, horrified by his lack of urgency. “Where did you look today?”

Growing nervous over how Vivien’s tone was shifting more accusatory, Mick found herself stepping in once more. “Viv-”

“We can help you rule out places Benny would never go!” she carried on, completely undeterred in her tirade against the eighteen year old.

“We’re working on it, ok?” Butchy tersely retorted, more so just to get her to stop talking before people started to stare. “As soon as we know, I’ll tell you - but only if you both promise me to stay away.”

“That’s so bullshit!” Vivien raged.

But Royce’s response was a more dignified, albeit betrayed, “Why aren’t you letting us help?”

“For the same reasons I went over earlier: the less people searching at a time, the less suspicious we look. And the less suspicious we look, the lower the likelihood of the police, or CPS getting involved. And to top it all off, the further from the potential crime scene you are, the higher the chances of you staying safe,” Butchy replied, ferocious in his protectiveness despite their protests. “So god forbid I want to make sure you two are okay.”

The statement plunged the pair of teenagers into silence. Still, Vivien didn’t seem convinced by his reasoning, or what it implied. “So what? We just have to sit around and wait for you to go out and find him?”

At last Butchy’s face split into a grin again: a smug one at that. “Bingo.”

Although the comment had Vivien seeing red, Royce’s disbelief was more desperate than indignant. “We can’t even help with the plans?”

Glancing back at Mick, Butchy let out a sigh as her expression confirmed what he already knew: these kids wouldn’t be letting up on him any time soon. But he had to find a way to get them off his back; he couldn’t risk them getting into trouble, especially when he didn’t even fully understand what that trouble was yet. Still, he could see why they wanted to be involved; their bond with Bentley was undeniable, and he knew that better than anyone. After all, he’d been calling them ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’ for years because he rarely ever saw one without the other two. Resigning himself to the fact that he’d have the pair hanging on his every word until the blond was found, Butchy changed his tactic. “Okay, fine. But like I said, we don’t have another plan yet.” He stopped to look back as he heard a door behind him open, and watched a weary Miles feign cheeriness as he sidled up to help Ethan with the skates. Sighing again, Butchy continued. “Your brother’s been through a lot today, he needs time to rest first. And the last thing he needs is you two pestering him for more information.”

Although he could see Royce’s empathy soften his defence further, Vivien was steadfast in her need to be involved. “So when are you-?”

“We’ll figure out our next steps tomorrow,” Butchy cut her off with a certainty that gave her no scope to argue further. “Just…try to take your minds off it for now.”

Vivien scoffed at the very idea, but a second voice trying to reason with her was enough to make her reconsider. “Come on, guys. You’ve been through enough today - we all have,” Mick said gently. “We don’t need bickering to make it any harder. Just take tonight to blow off some steam, and we can talk things over again in the morning.”

Vivien looked to Mick for some sort of validation for her fighting spirit, but the brunette’s tired, pleading eyes dented her armour. She’d looked up to Mick for as long as she could remember - ever since she used to visit Hawkins for family vacations and teach her how to tie ribbons in her pigtails, or how to rip an apple clean in half with her bare hands (something the pair still liked to impress their relatives with to this day). So no matter how much her instinct told her to dig her heels in and protest further, Vivien’s loyalty to the older girl’s advice made her throw down her imaginary sword in defeat. It landed with a thud on the heinously patterned carpet at Butchy’s feet, as she huffed a resigned, “Okay, fine.”

Without giving the older boy a chance to flaunt his victory, Vivien turned on her heels and began trudging over to the arcade machines, shoving her hands into her hoodie pocket and dragging her Converse with every step.

“Stay where we can keep an eye on you,” Butchy called after them, as Royce, after sparing his older brother one last longing glance, followed in her footsteps.

But Butchy just had to trust that the pair heard him, because they gave no sign of acknowledgement. In fact, Vivien seemed hellbent on ignoring his instruction, because as soon as the opportunity arose, she marched behind a Frogger machine and directly out of his sight as she huffed, “He’s so full of shit.”

“Who? Butchy?”

“No, Santa Claus,” Vivien deadpanned, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes, Butchy! Who else?”

“But what do you mean?” Royce pressed, leaning against the neighbouring Pac-Man machine. “Why’s he full of shit? He’s trying to help.”

“Why do you think?” Vivien asked, slumping down onto the stray, leather-topped stool that had been pulled in front of Frogger. “He’s lying through his teeth.”

“You think?”

“Of course he is,” she insisted - shocked Royce couldn’t see it as plainly as she did. Whilst part of her wanted to dwell on how sweet it was that he trusted the older boy so implicitly, her resentment burned brighter. “There’s no way they haven’t already thought of their next plan - he just doesn’t want us involved because he thinks we’re stupid kids.”

“He wouldn’t shut us out like that, Viv. He knows how much we care about Benny,” Royce tried to reason. “And I was part of the plan this morning - with making the phone call.”

This time Vivien’s eye roll wasn’t so easily hidden. “Yeah; saved him having to creep around a middle school looking for him himself,” she muttered, crossing her arms across her chest. “Face it, Royce. He said outright that he didn’t trust us - he just said that crap about taking a break for the night to get us off his back.”

Starting to see the sense in Vivien’s words, and the cracks in Butchy’s, Royce’s trust began to shift. “He wouldn’t do that, would he?” a disbelieving Royce mused. “Not after all that lecturing about ‘honesty’.”

“’Fraid he just did,” Vivien deadpanned once again. “Guess the lardass sat on his moral compass, huh?”

“So where does that leave us?” Royce questioned, starting to pace across the small stretch of carpet between the machines. “We just have to go about life, pretending that everything’s normal, whilst they’re out trying to fix this?”

“Yeah, that’s what they want us to do.”

“But how can they honestly think that we’d be ok with that? How could they even-?” but Royce cut himself off when he looked to Vivien for validation and found a smirk tugging at her lips. “…What’s that face for?”

“They want us to sit around and wait for the ‘big kids’ to save the day,” she started, with a smug, almost sarcastic twang. “Doesn’t mean we have to do it.”

“Viv,” Royce warningly sighed. “We can’t go against them-”

“Why not?” she jumped in. “We’ve already ‘broken their trust’ - what’s the point in trying to save face now?”

“But they’ll just block us out further,” Royce tried.

“Does that matter?” Vivien fired back. “You’re telling me they were out searching all day and couldn’t find a single clue? I don’t buy it. They clearly don’t know what they’re looking for.”

“So what are you saying?”

Vivien rose to her feet and closed the gap between them, reaching her hands out to clasp around his upper arms. “I’m saying we send in the experts.”

Grateful for the layer of fabric hiding the fact that every hair on his arms had stood on end at her contact, Royce swallowed as he took in what she’d said. “We go out and look for him?”

“Exactly,” Vivien beamed, eyes glittering with determination. “No one knows Benny better than we do. If anyone can make sense of whatever the hell happened to him, it’s going to be us.”

“I don’t know, Viv.”

“Oh come on,” she dramatically sighed. “We’re the perfect people for this. We know how his brain works, how he’d react if he was in trouble, where he’d go… We know what to look out for out there - more than that bozo apparently does anyway,” she grumpily tagged on, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to follow the same route he went missing from though? Without telling anyone?” Royce asked, nervously chewing the inside of his lip as he mulled over the concept. “I mean, what if we…?” he didn’t dare finish the thought.

Although it made her confidence waver, Vivien pushed the trepidation down - standing firm in her plan. “What other choice do we have?”

A hundred tennis matches had broken out in Royce’s brain - pros and cons of the proposition bouncing back and forth with ever-increasing speed. They ricocheted off the walls, sped past opponents completely, dropped out-of-bounds - he could barely keep up with them all. But even amidst the chaos, and the unrelenting thudding, one thought stood out: one feeling, that his heart clung to with a strength he didn’t feel as though his mind could match anymore. “…You’re right,” he slowly admitted, meeting Vivien’s gaze again with a newfound determination to rival her own. “If there’s anything left out there that could tell us where he is - how to get him home - then we’ve got to find it. No matter what.”

Pride shining behind her wire frames, Vivien’s face split back into a smile. “No matter what,” she confirmed. “We find Benny, bring him home, and show Butchy we’re not to be underestimated. Everyone wins.”

“But what if he catches us?” Royce suddenly questioned - momentarily losing his nerve again. “He’ll kill us if he finds out we’ve gone behind his back.”

Vivien dared a glance around the edge of the Frogger machine, peeking around the faded plastic to check on the older boy once more. Unsurprisingly, she found him deep in conversation with his girlfriend - recounting a story of the day’s events judging by his body language, and Mick’s pinched expression - suddenly much more willing to talk than he had been in the thirteen-year-olds’ company. Unjust frustration beginning to bubble away in her stomach again, Vivien decided with a frown, “I’m willing to take that risk.”

“Ok then,” Royce breathed, committing himself to the idea before he could second-guess it again. “So what’s our plan?”

Unlike her newfound rival, Vivien had her plan ready to go - and was more than willing to share it with her accomplice. Finding herself face to face with him once more, she leant back against the arcade cabinet and started to lay down the foundations. “We figure out our route tonight, as well as any motives that Beemer could have had. Then, we meet at the end of your street after school tomorrow and work backwards from there,” she explained. “If Officer Dickwad does actually tell us what his next plan is, we work around it. If he doesn’t… We just stay out of his way and make sure we don’t get caught.”

Although it had been thrown together in a few seconds, Royce was willing to trust it completely. He’d do anything if it meant it would get him closer to finding his brother - even if that meant enraging a newly appointed police cadet. “We leave no stone unturned,” he affirmed with a steady nod. “Not until we’ve got a lead.”

“Exactly,” Vivien said - the skipping of a beat of her heart the moment that intense gaze of his locked onto her not going unnoticed. Steadying her breath despite the fluttering in her chest, Vivien refocused her mind and settled her friend with a determined grin that was quickly reciprocated. “Come on then, Sherlock. Let’s get planning.”

“Do you really not have a new plan?” Mick leant over the serving counter to ask once the pair of thirteen-year-olds were out of earshot.

After watching the duo skulk out of view, Butchy turned back to her with a plainly obvious: “Of course I do. But they can’t know that,” he emphasised, gesturing after their recently departed guests before going on to explain. “I can’t trust Royce to keep quiet anymore, and Viv wears her heart on her sleeve like a scout badge. The more involved she gets with all this the more it’ll start to weigh on her, and she’ll turn into a walking infomercial for family trauma.” Stopping when he caught sight of his girlfriend’s worried frown, he let out a heavy sigh. “They’re still practically kids, Mickie. We’ve gotta protect them whilst we can. And if that means lying to them, then I’ll do it ‘til I’m blue in the face.”

Now it was Mick’s turn to sigh. She knew he was right; they had to do what they could to protect Vivien and Royce from this, because if it ended up being as serious as it was shaping up to be, it could leave them both with major trauma, regardless of the outcome. The thought of lying to them though, particularly Vivien, made her feel sick with guilt. For a fleeting moment she thought she’d have to go and accompany Carrie on one of her many bathroom breaks to unload the contents of her stomach. But she swallowed that instinct down for the sake of focusing on what mattered most right now. “So… the plan?” she cautiously asked.

Catching the waver in her voice, Butchy found her gaze and softened his own in sympathy. He waited a beat to check that she was okay, but when she just nodded for him to continue, he took the hint. “I don’t want to risk it looking suspicious if Miles misses another day of school - especially if they cross-check the middle school and find Benny’s not there either. So Miles is gonna go back tomorrow. I know it’ll be hard for him to focus on anything else, but it’s looking like this isn’t going to be as quick a fix as we thought, so we need to keep some sort of normalcy for him. Plus, that gives me the chance to go back to work and use the resources there.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to get the cops involved,” Mick cut in.

“I’m not getting anyone involved,” Butchy clarified. “But if they want to stick me on case files duty then I’m gonna use it to my advantage. I’ll look over every ‘missing child’ case I can get my hands on to check for patterns, or see what the process for finding them was - ‘cause clearly looking for clues alone is getting us nowhere.”

“And then?”

“I meet you guys back here and let you know what I’ve found,” he said. “If we get the chance after your shift we can go back out there - if not, we’ll plan more for the next day.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea to spend a whole day not looking for him more though?” Mick asked, nervously drumming her fingers along the skin of her crossed arms. “It’s still pretty-”

“Mickie, trust me,” Butchy said, cutting her off before her mind could wander any further down paths of other theories. “We picked those streets to pieces. If he was out there, we’d have found him. And if he’s on the move, another day of searching in the same corner of town isn’t going to make much difference; he could be anywhere now. Which is why we’ve gotta switch strategies, and focus on how to widen the search instead.”

Whilst Mick wanted to do exactly as he said, and trust him implicitly, part of her was reluctant. Her concerns were valid - taking an entire day off the search this early on just didn’t sound logical to her. She understood the importance of trying to keep this all on the ‘down low’, but that shouldn’t be hindering their chances of finding clues - or better yet, Bentley himself. And even if he wanted to stop Miles from looking suspicious for taking too many sick days from school, why not send someone else out looking instead? She could see why he wanted to keep the younger kids out of this mess, but she was perfectly capable of helping - and, although he’d never admit it, she had an eye for finer details that he lacked. Despite her desperation to play an actual role in the investigation, besides sitting and commentating from the sidelines, she knew from her boyfriend’s tone that any further debate would be fruitless though. So she bit her tongue and offered a disinclined, “Okay… Well, if there’s any way that I can help-”

As she’d expected, her suggestion was shot down before it had even finished leaving her lips.

“Just be there for Miles,” Butchy insisted. “He needs us more than ever right now,” he said, before softening his tone and trying to appeal to her sensitive side. “And you know how much you mean to him.”

Mick sighed, slightly more willing, but still frustrated. “I know, and I can do that. But I can help you too, you know.”

“I know,” Butchy said - holding Mick’s gaze for an alien, tense moment - and crumbling in seconds because of it, with an awkwardly chuckled: “I don’t know how easily I’d be able to sneak you into the office in my lunch bag though.”

Mick’s lips twitched with the very faintest hint of a smile, but her eyes remained cold under her feathered bangs. She knew he was telling her one thing and thinking another - and when their relationship had been built on such a solid foundation of trust, it hurt her all the more. No matter how she tried to look at the situation from his perspective, she couldn’t see how, if he genuinely meant what he said, she’d still be getting sidelined. Either she was weak, and needed to be protected from whatever potential dangers could be lurking out there - or she was a nuisance, and her ideas were more of a distraction than any use. He just didn’t have the balls to tell her what he really thought.

For the sake of keeping things running smoothly, and giving them the best chance of finding Bentley, she could bite her tongue for now. She could play ‘happy families’ so Butchy could stay focused on the task at hand. But she would still find a way to prove that she didn’t need to be bubble-wrapped and hidden away at the first sign of trouble, that she was just as capable as he was - in the words of good old Blondie, one way or another.

The rest of the evening at the roller rink was rather mundane, with a subdued mood blanketing a number of its occupants. Even with Ethan’s usual antics keeping Miles at least distracted enough to muster a laugh or two, by the time Carrie’s half-hearted announcement rang out over the tannoy that it was closing time, and that all skates needed to be returned to the rentals booth, the entire building seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief. The house lights came up, Carrie turned the sound system down to a whisper as she reorganised her tapes, Mick counted up the register, and Ethan was sent on dish-collecting duty again. But over the clicking of the register buttons, and the resentful thudding of plastic cups being thrown into the plastic bin, two voices managed to break through the fog clouding Miles’ brain. Eyes lifting from the skate he was relacing, they honed in on his brother and the girl he followed around like a shadow, and locked onto them with the accuracy of a sniper.

Watching as the pair wandered towards the door, his heart rate doubled in a matter of seconds. So much so, he found himself calling out to them. “Royce, are you leaving?”

Unsurprisingly, both of them turned around as a result of the outburst, wearing equally wary yet puzzled expressions.

“Yeah…it’s closing time,” the boy replied as though it was obvious, because to him it was. They were never allowed to stay after the rink closed.

“How did you guys get here?” Miles pressed on, apparently trying to channel his tension through his hands based on how tightly the skate laces were being pulled.

“Viv’s dad dropped us off,” Royce explained, with a quick glance back at the girl.

Taking her cue to add further support to the story, she continued with a nonchalant, “But we’ve got our bikes to-”

“Absolutely not,” Miles cut them both off with a firm authority that took both of them by surprise. “Butch is taking you both home, and he’s sitting with you until I get back from work,” he finished with his eyes on Royce, so he could make sure his brother was listening.

“What?”

Despite Royce and Vivien’s expressions, Miles was undeterred. “You seriously think I’m letting you out on your bikes alone after what’s happened today?” he demanded incredulously, without even giving them a chance to respond. “Not a chance.”

Growing increasingly frustrated with how he was being treated tonight, a rare bolt of defiance shot through Royce, as he insisted, “Miles, I’m not a little kid.”

“And I’m not taking any chances,” Miles retaliated, putting his foot down in a way he’d never had to before with his brothers. “It’s a ride home with Butchy or you’re grounded.”

Royce’s wide eyes locked onto Vivien’s, and in an instant he knew that they were both thinking the same thing. Besides the disbelief that Miles would even consider grounding him, they both knew that if Royce was confined to his house then their search plans were toast. So no matter how much he wanted to argue his case further, he knew he couldn’t risk missing out on the chance to go out looking for clues. Relenting, he sighed and muttered, “…Fine,” for the first time, not caring whether or not Miles noticed his eye roll.

The pair of thirteen-year-olds shuffled towards the exit, whispering furiously between themselves as they went. But Miles’ attention was snatched from Vivien’s bobbing ponytail, and Royce’s hunched shoulders, by a delicate hand landing on his own shoulder. Flinching at the touch, Miles spun around and found a timid Mick standing before him - a rag in one hand and a bottle of cleaning spray in the other.

“You can leave early, you know,” she gently offered. “I’m sure the three of us can handle closing down on our own,” she added, gesturing to their co-workers.

“I’ll be fine,” Miles said.

But the admission didn't even convince himself, let alone his best friend. “I know, but you don’t need to be,” she softly countered, sliding her hand down to squeeze his upper arm. “It’s been a slow night, we’d manage.”

“I need the money, Mick,” Miles wearily admitted. “And I already missed half a shift-”

“That’s weird, ‘cause according to the clock-in sheet you were here four minutes early,” Mick said, maintaining her cool nonchalance as she watched the realisation dawn on Miles’ face.

Mick never broke the rules, especially when it came to work shifts. This was huge, and yet such a small, simple gesture - but the impact for Miles was monumental. So much so, he felt his breath catching in his throat as he went to respond. “Mick, you don’t have to-”

“Just go, Miles,” Mick cut him off before he could protest further, offering him a warm, yet sympathetic smile as she leant back against the skate shelves. “You need the break. Go get some rest. I’ll clock you out when I leave.”

Miles felt the relief in his whole body; the physical and emotional exhaustion was bone-deep, and for a brief moment, part of that weight he perpetually carried around with him, was lifted. So grateful he was rendered almost speechless, Miles finally managed to choke a quiet, “Thanks, Mickie,” through a nod that helped to avert his now-blurry gaze.

Closing the gap between them, Mick wrapped the older boy into a hug the pair lingered in for far longer than either of them had expected - clearly both needing it more than they’d expected too. When they finally separated, she levelled him with what she hoped was a convincing smile, and mustered a somewhat jovial, “Come on, you’d better get out of here before I change my mind.” But just before Miles could turn around, a mane of manicured curls, now starting to frizz at the edges, caught her eye. And before those curls could slip into the break room, she caught their attention with a simple: “Carrie.”

The girl stopped - wary despite her visible apathy. “Yeah?”

“Miles has to leave early tonight,” Mick explained. And although she gave her colleague no chance to protest, she still checked, “You can handle cleaning everything out here if Ethan and I work on the back, right?”

Miles’ sheepish gaze found hers, but they didn’t meet - not properly. Instead, he watched Carrie look him up and down, and pause as her eyebrows furrowed. Reaching out, her palm met the swing door before her and pushed it open - eyes never leaving the brunet. “…Gladly,” she coldly uttered, before breezing out of sight.

The encounter sent a chill through Miles’ body that rooted him to the spot in disbelief. But a warm wave of confusion thawed him out enough to turn to Mick and ask: “Is she okay?” Had he missed something at school? Or the start of their shift? The last time he’d seen Carrie she was purring like a pampered house cat - and yet she’d just looked at him as though he was a piece of dogshit she’d just stepped in.

“I don’t know - just ignore her,” Mick groaned through a lengthy eye roll. Of course Carrie was finding a way to make this about her - or at least attempting to. “You don’t need to add concerning yourself with her to your plate right now,” she continued more gently. “Just get yourself home.”

“Right…” Miles agreed. And he did know that Mick was right, but a tiny voice at the back of his mind was still…curious. It wasn’t loud enough to keep him distracted for long though. “See you tomorrow,” he went on to say, wishing the girl farewell and heading into the break room himself to grab his jacket before meeting Butchy out in the parking lot.

Although the satisfaction in Mick’s smile as he departed lingered in his head, glad he had seemingly seen sense at last, when the door to the employee bathroom banged open, and that same mane of curls emerged, his resolve crumbled all over again.

Carrie wordlessly crossed the room to her locker, one space down from Miles’, and wrenched the door open so forcefully it generated a breeze that made the hairs on his arm stand on end.

Even with everything going on in his own life, Miles still couldn’t help himself from asking: “Is everything ok?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” she coolly replied, digging a pack of Tic Tacs out of her bag and tossing two back like they were pills.

The tone, the fierce avoidance of eye contact, and the stiffness of her movements told a very different story though - and felt rather pointed. But instead of probing further, Miles hoped some of his tried and true earnestness would smooth out the kinks in the bizarre interaction. “Look, I’m sorry for having to leave early but it’s just… Something’s come up and I- I’ve gotta get back home,” he admitted, hoping his voice didn’t sound as unsteady as it felt in his throat. “I know it’s a pain in the ass having to clean that rink on your own, so…thanks for taking one for the team,” he finished, sheepish smile returning to try to sweeten the deal further.

“Yeah well make the most of it, because next time I’ll think twice before trying to do you a favour.”

The slamming of Carrie’s locker was the only thing able to bring Miles back out of his stupor. But he was still too stunned to speak as she stormed past him and over to the cleaning cupboard. When his senses finally decided to return to him, he stammered an affronted: “Do me a favour?”

Carrie whipped back around to properly face him this time - the mop handle caught in her white-knuckle grasp, taking the brunt of her frustration. Studying her expression in a way he hadn’t given himself the chance to earlier, Miles skimmed over the knitted eyebrows and bitter scowl. But he got stuck at her eyes: iridescent eyeshadow starkly contrasting the dark circles peaking through her under-eye concealer, and irises glistening with the threat of exhaustion, or betrayal - or the aftermath of wrenching over a toilet bowl. And that’s where his gaze remained.

“If you wanted to eat lunch alone like a sad sack, you could have just said,” she grumpily snapped. “You didn’t have to drag me down with you.”

Miles was lost for words. And yet he found himself scrambling to respond anyway. “Carrie, I-”

“Save it,” she bluntly cut him off. “Just don’t count on me offering again, dick,” she spat, punctuating the phrase by slamming the cleaning cupboard door behind her and flouncing back out into the main hall before he could get another word in.

Resentment burned in Miles’ chest as he watched the space she’d just occupied. He had no idea if there was something more going on with her to fuel such an outburst, but regardless, that felt totally left field, even for her. How could she be so dramatic, and so unforgiving, over something as petty as a seat at lunch? And at the same time, why did the universe have to be so cruel as to pull the foundation of his family unit out from under his feet at the exact moment where his life felt like it was taking a turn for the better? In all honesty, he’d completely forgotten about his lunch plans with Carrie. But given the nature of what had overtaken his brain that day, he felt it was justified… He just had no way of explaining that to her - of making her understand why - not without risking the whole search. Part of him wanted to mourn the chance he’d so obviously just blown with her - and curse the timing of this whole gigantic mess. But he was so bone-tired he just didn’t have the energy to. Besides, as Mick had said, he had more than enough to worry about already - removing Carrie from the equation gave his weary brain more space to work towards the only thing that mattered right now: finding Bentley. It was a necessary, and inevitable sacrifice - he just had to try to convince himself that pissing her off was the most effective way of getting over her. But then again, how trivial her problems were in comparison to his own, and how sheltered she had clearly been from any trauma in her cushy, suburban life, was definitely helping him drive a wedge further between them. If she couldn’t see that something had to be wrong for him to need to leave work early, or even notice that he hadn’t shown up to school at all that day (not just their lunch ‘date’), then maybe she really was as self-centered as Butchy claimed she was. And if that was the case, then it just drove home what he’d been trying to tell himself all along - and now understood more than ever. Nothing mattered more than family. And he was going to get his back together, no matter what.

Between the lingering scent of fryer grease hanging in the air, and the musty stench of the old rag mingling with the cheap lemon surface cleaner, humming along to Olivia Newton-John was the only thing keeping Carrie from hurling all over the table she’d just wiped down. Contrary to her grimace though, she was actually finding her cleaning job quite therapeutic, despite her solidarity; the mopping and music were proving useful distractions. But the sound of the glass front doors being pushed open meant she wouldn’t be alone for much longer, and her eyes widened when she turned to discover the intruder’s identity.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, rag stilling in her hand.

“I’m giving you a ride home, remember?” came Eric’s amused reply.

“You’re ten minutes early,” she limply protested.

“And why would I want to spend those ten minutes out in my car when I could spend them in here with you?” he huskily asked through a charming grin.

Carrie’s expression melted into a soft grin of her own as he finished crossing over to her. “Oh yeah? You feeling like you wanna grab a rag and help me finish up these tables?” she coyly asked back.

“Not exactly; I think I’d get…distracted by the view,” he said, gaze drifting down to her chest, lingering there, then lifting again, now accompanied by a rogueish smirk. Before Carrie could think about rolling her eyes though, even if only playfully, he continued. “And besides, my hands are a little…full.”

Carrie hadn’t realised until that moment that he’d been keeping one of his hands behind his back - only to produce a bouquet of flowers, blooming in every shade of pink she could imagine, and bundled in white cellophane, with a rosy bow to match the glow of her cheeks. Surprise was the first thing to take over her face, but it was quickly replaced by a giddy grin as she accepted it from him.

“These are beautiful,” she breathed, marvelling at everything from the arrangement of the petals to the heady floral scent now filling her nose. “But why did you-?”

“Can’t a guy just treat his girl to some flowers anymore?” he chuckled through an eye roll of his own. “Do you always have to assume we’ve done something?”

“I never said that you’d done anything,” Carrie retorted, carefully laying the bouquet onto the table beside her. “I just wanted to know what could have prompted you to go out and buy flowers.”

“I just thought of that beautiful face of yours and couldn’t help myself,” he purred, reaching a paw-like hand out to cup the back of her head and lead her into his embrace. Carrie melted into his touch, but made no effort to respond - he could tell that she still wasn’t entirely convinced though. So he swept her up in his arms and perched her on the edge of the closest table, positioning himself between her thighs as he more gently admitted, “And, I know that you’ve not been feeling great lately. So I thought they might, I don’t know, cheer you up.”

Carrie had thought that the days of her boyfriend being thoughtful like this were long gone - at least that’s how she’d been made to feel lately. But the earnestness in those dopey, puppy-dog eyes, and the iridescent plastic rustling by her thigh, were very welcome exceptions. Warmth spread through her fingertips as they combed his uncharacteristically unkempt locks back into place. And after growing accustomed to flinching when he touched anywhere around her waist, she was relieved to feel herself instinctually lean into his embrace again as he snaked his arms around her hips.

“Thank you, baby,” she murmured, drinking in the comforting smell of spearmint and his cologne with a ditsy, besotted smile.

“Any time, beautiful,” he murmured back - all teeth and muscles as he pulled her closer and pressed his lips to hers.

And even with her empty stomach churning beneath Eric’s palms, Carrie found herself believing that he might really mean that this time.

But part of her was still holding back, and Eric felt the rigid reluctance through her lycra. Pulling back, he frowned, almost in frustration. “What?”

Carrie studied his eyes for several seconds, trying to find the answer for herself in the intoxicating familiarity of those rich, bourbon irises - searching for a sign that maybe she was just overthinking this after all. But when his gaze felt as empty as his head, she found herself murmuring an apprehensive: “Are we okay?”

An exasperated sigh slipped past Eric’s lips before he could stop it. “Would you stop sweating over everything? You’re worrying yourself sick over nothing - literally,” he said, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance as he straightened his posture - distancing himself even more. As his wave of frustration crested though, he watched the unease flicker across Carrie’s face and he folded in an instant - just as much at her mercy as he was the first day he’d realised he’d been crushing on her. Leaning back into her thighs, he cupped her cheek in his hand and fixed her with a reassuring smile. “Just relax,” he breathed, letting his fingertips glide over the almost plush, powdered surface of her skin as his grin broadened. “What could you possibly have to stress about?” Without giving her the chance to answer, he once more pressed his lips to hers - deepening the kiss with a tilt of her chin and a firm grasp of her hip. Only surfacing for air when he was satisfied that he’d triggered enough hormones to distract her from her anxieties - even if only momentarily - he finished with a final, soothing, “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

Carrie wanted to believe him more than anything - and a large part of her did. But the messiness of his meticulously styled hair, the impromptu flowers, the third scent layered on top of his usual cologne and breathmint combo that she kept getting whiffs of when they got too close… she was smitten, she wasn’t deluded. But when she looked at him - at those perfect eyes - she just saw the goofy football player, who insisted on flirting with her at every break in their practices until she agreed to go on a date with him. The same goofy football player who she was still hopelessly in love with, and was convinced was still hiding in there somewhere, under the bull-headed bravado and blatant duplicity. Naively she yearned for them to go back to just being the football player and the cheerleader - where they spoke almost entirely in compliments, and their biggest worry was deciding where to go grab food after practice. But she knew life wasn’t that simple - or that kind. She’d always liked the idea of being an actress though, so she could pretend, dressing herself with a bashful smile and fluttering her lashes through the heartache. “Well, when you put it like that…” she trailed off. Maybe, if she pretended for long enough she’d be able to convince herself that this really was okay - that he could still make her as happy as he used to - that he still felt the same way she did. “I love you.”

Eric grinned at the confession, that same playful smoulder that turned her to putty in his hands - conveniently. Opting out of verbalising his response, he instead chose to swap spit until her eyelids finally slid closed - hiding their nervous anticipation behind resigned bliss. Victorious as he felt the last of her worries leave in a warm breath that skimmed over his cheeks, he closed out their makeout session with one last peck, and stepped back to impishly chuckle, “Come on, toss me that rag. We need to get you out of here to get those puppies in some water.” Gesturing to the bouquet, he added. “I don’t think they liked riding in the passenger seat when I cut the corner of Baytree.”

Carrie let out a soft chuckle of her own as she threw him the piece of soggy cloth, sparing the flowers a glance before playfully admitting, “I did wonder if you’d sat on them before you brought them in.”

Comfortable laughter burbled between the pair, as though they were momentarily juniors again, as though nothing was wrong. Carrie, relishing the comfort of that feeling, hopped down from her table and brought the bottle of cleaning spray with her, leaving the bedraggled bouquet behind - for now.

“I still think they look better than the box of ginger tea my mom recommended,” Eric chuckled as they fell into stride beside one another. Slinging an arm around her shoulder, that quickly slid down to wrap around her waist, he went on to huskily profess, “Only the best for my girl.” His hand slid further around her middle and reflexively, Carrie sucked in a breath. But a kiss was pressed to her temple that made her pause. And rightly or wrongly, she decided to follow his advice, and let go of her worries - even those he wasn’t to blame for, not directly anyway. She didn’t know how long that would last - but if it let her hold onto this feeling of being with him, of feeling so loved, then she might as well at least try.

The Murphy house felt uncomfortably quiet as the two oldest brothers trudged through the front door. It’s not like they were expecting the third occupant to have returned, but Miles still searched all the rooms again - just to be sure. Royce kicked off his sneakers and padded down the hall, slinging his backpack at the foot of his bed with a heavy thud that finally broke the suffocating silence - at least more than Miles’ laboured breathing anyway. A tightness settled in his chest as his he took in the sight of Bentley’s ransacked bed - aching not only for his little brother to be sitting on it, poking fun at him for stuff he’d said about Vivien and worrying about Miles finding the crumbs from snaffled toaster strudels, but also for the normality that came with it. Royce had felt like an alien all day, or like a stranger was piloting his body, because his mind was too jumbled to operate it on his own. And his relationship with Miles had never felt as strained as it had that day. They hadn’t said a word to each other since they had left All Skate; they were arguing, Miles was yelling - everything just felt…wrong. And he feared that it would stay that way until that beaming grin, and mop of dark blonde hair, was staring back at him.

Sighing, Royce dragged himself to his feet again and lumbered out into the hall - hoping that if he could will himself to sleep, he might wake up to this all having been one long, awful nightmare. But before his palm could close around the cool metal handle to the bathroom door, his brother’s voice caught his attention.

“Royce.”

Numbly, he turned to Miles, who was stood at the end of the hall, panting through a guilt-ridden frown. “What?” he replied, still on-guard after how the rest of their interactions had gone that day.

“I…” But the words seemed to fall out of Miles’ head before they could be spoken, leaving the older boy gawping like a goldfish as he tried to find his voice again.

A moment of tension hung in the air between them, as though their magnetic fields were repelling one another. But just as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished - Miles’ polarity flipped and the brave front he’d tried to construct came crumbling back down. He crossed the hall to Royce and pulled his little brother to his chest, holding onto him as though he was trying to commit the tickle of every curl, and the curve of every bone, to memory - in case he woke up tomorrow morning and found that he too had been ripped from his fingertips. “I’m so sorry, RJ,” he finally choked out.

Even though the words had been muffled by faded cotton, Royce could tell from their trembling that a lump was forming at the back of his brother’s throat. It wasn’t completely alien for Miles to cry, but it still unnerved Royce every time it happened. And when he was used to Miles being so strong for him and Bentley, seeing him this fragile, this broken, hit him even harder. “It’s okay, Miley,” he quietly replied, trying to switch their roles and offer him some sort of comfort.

Sniffling, Miles pulled away just enough to look at him, and sunk down to his height. “No, it’s not okay,” he firmly argued, pupils quivering with guilt. “Nothing about this is okay, especially how I’ve acted today. I always told myself I’d never raise my voice at you or Benny.”

“Yeah but you weren’t thinking straight,” Royce tried.

“That’s not an excuse,” Miles insisted, sniffing again as a newfound determination set in. “But I’m gonna make things right, okay? I’m going to make it up to you-”

”You don’t need to,” he tried again, but Miles couldn’t be dissuaded.

“-And I’m going to find Benny,” Miles said, eyes steady behind their salty film. “I promise.”

The breath caught in Royce’s throat. He desperately wanted to believe him - believe that it could be as simple as it sounded - but part of him didn’t dare. And for the first time since that morning, Royce’s fear started to resurface. “How?” he whispered, tears beginning to brim in his own eyes.

“…I don’t know,” Miles eventually admitted, his vulnerability shining through once more before his determination took back the reins. “But I swear to you, RJ, I will do whatever it takes to bring him home. I’m not going to stop looking until he’s found - even if it nearly kills me.”

Although Royce didn’t want to linger on the thought, or the image it conjured in his mind, it brought forward a new question: one he’d previously been too scared to consider himself, let alone speak aloud. “Do you really think we’ll find him? …And he’ll be…okay?”

Even though the implication alone of Royce’s question made him want to gag, MIles focused on what his heart was telling him, and his resolution remained firm. “Yes, I do.”

“But how can you-?”

“I just- I’d just know, okay?” Miles insisted, hoping that if he gripped Royce’s forearms tight enough, and kept his gaze steady enough, he’d be able to convince him - and himself. Swallowing, he slowly eased off his vice-like grasp, and went on to reveal, “When they split us up all those years ago, I felt it when you both weren’t with me. Every day I had this…hollow feeling in my chest - like it was all just…empty. Like I was empty.”

Miles hated talking about their time in the care system - Royce knew he did - which is why he almost never dared bring it up, not that he really wanted to remember it anyway. But because of that, Royce had never heard any of this before, and so he found himself hanging on every word, with wide, expectant eyes.

“It went on for weeks - months,” Miles continued. “But it stopped the second they brought you back. And that feeling, that emptiness…” he stalled, the words almost choking him as he fought to speak them into existence - in case, once he did, they ceased to be true. “…I haven’t felt it - I don’t feel it. So he can’t be far,” he concluded with another sniffle. “He’s here somewhere, I just have to find him.”

“…I don’t think he’s hurt either,” Royce dared to agree, relieved that what he’d at first feared was just naive optimism might actually have some credibility. And although his voice sounded small, it had borrowed some of his brother’s determination. “When he broke his arm on the jungle gym, I knew something was wrong before he even tried to move,” he confessed. “It’s like you said; I felt it in my chest - this weird, uneasy feeling.”

A glassy-eyed smile unfurled across Miles’ face as he nodded in understanding. “Right.”

“But I’ve not felt anything like that today,” Royce continued, talking himself through his thought process as much as he was to Miles. “So he has to be okay, right?”

“Exactly,” Miles softly affirmed, brushing the pads of his thumbs over his little brother’s forearms - grateful that they could share this one moment of hopeful respite amidst all the chaos. “Mom always taught us to follow our hearts - so that’s what we’ll do.”

Looking up at Miles from under thick, nervously furrowed brows, Royce asked, “And that’ll lead us to Benny?”

Miles nodded without hesitation, but let out a pitiful laugh as he pondered the hopelessness of their situation longer. “I don’t quite know how yet, but it will.”

Royce found himself nodding along with his brother - clinging onto their renewed sense of hope with every ounce of strength he had left. This time it was him that initiated the hug - throwing his arms around Miles’ neck and curling into his chest like a toddler hiding from the vacuum-cleaner. He had no idea how long they stayed like that, but it was long enough for his breathing to even out again from the shaky almost-sobs. However long it was though, Miles made no effort to pull away, just holding him and rubbing his back for as long as he needed him to - until he felt ready to resurface.

When Royce did finally pull back, Miles reached up to run a hand over his curls and mustered what he hoped was a comforting smile. “Come on,” he quietly encouraged. “We’d better try to get some sleep.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to,” Royce admitted.

Letting out an empathetic sigh, Miles agreed. “I know, but we’ve gotta try.”

The brothers wished each other goodnight and started readying themselves for bed. But less than a minute after Miles had collapsed onto his mattress, he knew that sleep would never come for him if he was left alone with his thoughts. Mind still spinning furiously, he realised he needed a distraction. So he sat up, and reached for the hand-me-down Walkman Mick had given him when her parents had treated her to an upgrade. Only when he snapped it open, he realised the last cassette he’d had in there had been one he’d loaned from Ethan, and the pothead had since stolen back. Huffing, he hauled himself back to his feet and opted for getting a glass of water to distract himself instead. Slotting the Walkman into the waistband of his pajama pants, he shuffled into the kitchen, scanning the living room coffee table, and counter tops for any stray tape cases for inspiration as he went. It wasn’t until he was running the tap that he noticed the stereo on the window sill though - with the tape still popped out from when he’d stopped it in a hurry that morning.

His irises got stuck on that loopy handwriting across the front sticker - distracting his brain in a completely different way until he felt water spilling over the rim of the glass and down his hand. Scrambling to shut the tap off, he quickly dried his hand on his pants leg before snatching the tape from the stereo and clicking it into his Walkman before he could second-guess himself. He just needed some other noise to fill his head, it didn’t matter where it came from - even if it meant further complicating his feelings for the tape’s creator. Trying to shut out any thoughts of Carrie that sprung to his mind as the spokes of the cassette began to spin, Miles hooked his headphones over his ears, and let the tail end of the Queen classic it had been left on wash over him.

Inwardly sighing as images of Carrie’s teary-eyed scowl as she left the employee bathroom, or Butchy’s look of concerned dismay as he lifted Bentley’s bike out from under that car, still infiltrated his mind, Miles picked up his glass of water and crossed the kitchen once more. But he stopped when something on the refrigerator door caught his eye. Still pinned to the metal with that gaudy, UFO cereal box magnet, was Bentley’s essay from his English class. The same essay Miles had promised to read the night before - and yet had been too preoccupied with ridiculous, hormone-driven fantasies to remember - just as he’d been too preoccupied to properly check on his brothers.

That thick lump of guilt rose at the back of his throat again as he studied it. But before it could twist his stomach into further knots, he slipped it out from the magnet’s grasp and carried it back to his room. When he was finally lying in bed again - as a Crowded House song started to faintly crackle through the speakers by his ear drums - he lifted the page to his eyes and started to read - determined to keep his promise to his brother. After all, it was the least he could do for him right now.

Heroes take on many forms - firefighters, doctors, Peter Parker. Some have superhuman abilities, like those created for comic books, confined to pages of primary colours and giant speech bubbles, yet still find a way to save the world. And some save the world without any supernatural help at all - like brain surgeons, or army troops, or those strangers who know CPR. Some heroes don’t need to save the world to be considered heroes though - they just need to do something remarkable. And that is the kind of hero my hero is.

Miles almost didn’t dare read on. A knife felt as though it had wedged itself in his stomach as his eyes traced every word - and if his gut feeling proved to be correct, it would only twist the blade deeper.

My hero is my big brother, Miles. He’s everything a big brother should be: brave, and kind, and funny, and protective, but he’s also so much more. Our family became a lot more complicated after our mom died, and nothing really felt constant since. Apart from Miles. Even though he still has to do all the things a normal seventeen-year-old has to do, he’s stepped up and taken on all the responsibilities of a parent as well. He spends all his free time working so that we get an allowance like our friends do, he cooks our favourite meals when we’ve had a hard day (even if his has been harder), and he always finds a way to make sure we still get to be normal kids. It’s like he’s given up his childhood so that we can have ours. I know it’s a lot for him to deal with, anyone can see that, but he never backs down from the challenge. He does everything he can to give us a good life, even if that means making sacrifices for his own. And to me, that’s the true sign of a hero.

Miles couldn’t read any more - not because he couldn’t bring himself to, because the page had become completely obscured by tears. He dropped the sheet of paper to his chest and pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, as though trying to push the tears back into their ducts. But a choked gasp still broke free. And just like that the dam was broken. He grabbed the nearest pillow and buried his face into it, smothering his sobs in feathers and polyester so as not to alert Royce. His whole body cried - not just his eyes - as the weight of Bentley’s words shook his whole frame, hitting even harder given the circumstances.

He wept until he passed out, sheer exhaustion finally being enough to drag him over the threshold to the land of dreams. Although Bentley’s innocently written confession had left him heartbroken, it had spurred him on even more to fix this hideous mess he’d ended up in. If Bentley had chosen to depict him as a hero, then he needed to live up to those expectations. And Bentley needed a hero more than ever right now, so he had to step up to the plate - no matter how impossible that felt.

Royce had never had an alarm clock. He was always awoken by one of his senses. Usually the squawking of birds from the nest in the tree by his window, or the thud of one of his brothers stubbing their toe on the door jamb on their way to the bathroom. Or sometimes by sunlight piercing through the crack in his curtains if the sunrise was particularly early that day. Rarely even the feeling of cotton if he had to be roused by one of his brothers swinging their pillow over his head. But almost never by a smell.

And yet, that morning, he was drawn from his slumber with the scent of bacon wafting past his nostrils. Bleary eyed, Royce rolled over to check the time - confused not only by the fact that he didn’t seem to be the first one awake for once, but also by the fact that there was already food being cooked. Good food at that. Since when did Miles splash out on bacon?

Royce wasn’t the heaviest of sleepers, but as whispers of his dream came back to him, it started to make more sense as to why he’d been so reluctant to wake from it. Magical potions, clanging swords and a certain brunette he’d spent the latter part of his evening with… Maybe if he rolled back over he could have just five more minutes-

Three lively thumps to his bedroom door told him otherwise.

“Up and at ‘em, boys,” an unseasonably chirpy Miles crowed from the hall. “I’m not letting us skip breakfast today - the eggs’ll be ready in five. So get your butts in the bathroom before I burn ‘em.”

Listening to Miles’ footsteps trail away, Royce pushed himself up on one arm, and rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes with the other. “Has Miles been swapped with an alien or something?” he groggily mumbled to his little brother in the bed opposite him. Yawning, he swung his legs over the edge of his mattress and pushed himself to his feet, he continued with a tired chuckle, “He can barely stay awake long enough to make toast normally - let alone operate the stove.” And although he was confused by the sharp detour from normality, part of Royce just wanted to believe that Miles had hitched a ride on Cloud 9 too - and his insanely good luck with Vivien last night was extending into today, and to other people in his life.

Turning back to his brother’s bed as he started to rummage through his drawers for a matching pair of socks, Royce tried to coax a response from the blond more directly, since he was apparently still too tired to raise one of his own. “Did you know he was planning on making breakfast, Benny?” he asked with a lazy grin - partly just trying to bring him into the conversation, partly just plain curious; he had been rather distracted yesterday evening.

The subject of that distraction stole his train of thought all over again, and before he knew it, he’d selected his entire outfit for the day. And yet his little brother still hadn’t made a peep - or moved a muscle, if the bundle of blankets on his bed was anything to go by. “Come on, Ben. Your eggs are gonna be ashes at this rate,” he teased. But the joke fell on deaf ears, and the air in the room grew thick and awkward as the silence persisted.

Frowning in confusion more than anything, Royce set his clothes on the end of his bed and padded over to the bed opposite his: a mess of colourful comforters with a particular, threadbare stuffed animal poking out the top. Nudging the edge of his brother’s mattress with his knee, Royce huffed out, “Benny, come on, we’ve got school.”

Again, silence. The bedding stayed as motionless as ever.

Royce knew Bentley loved to sleep, and had always been a more reluctant riser, but this was starting to get weird. Was he deliberately ignoring him or something? Was he mad at him for leaving him to go watch that movie with Vivien? Whatever his reason, Royce wasn’t finding it funny or endearing anymore. An odd sense of unease gnawed at the back of his mind, but frustration bubbled to the surface faster. Muttering his discontent, Royce strode over to the head of his brother’s bed and grabbed a fistful of his comforter with each hand. “Ben, it’s not funny anymore. Just get-”

But as Royce wrenched the comforter back, the rest of his sentence died in his throat.

Miles couldn’t remember a time where he’d been in this good of a mood before 8am. Ever. And yet, he’d woken up with his alarm - ready to snooze like always - only for his eyes to fall on a cassette tape on his bedside table. He slammed a hand down to silence the squawking, dusty digital clock and bolted upright - scrambling out from beneath his duvet to inspect the piece of plastic again.

He hadn’t dreamt it - it was really here: smudged and slightly scratched plastic case and all. And he hasn’t been able to shake the smile from his face since. Whilst he usually had to drag himself out of bed before school, it felt like he was floating around the house that morning - fuelled by a weird sort of giddy gratification he had never experienced before. Furthering the new experiences, he threw caution to the wind and grabbed the pack of bacon he’d stashed away for their ‘special Sunday breakfast’ tradition once he made it into the kitchen, and tossed it into a frying pan without a second thought. After all, if he couldn’t capitalise on his unseasonably good mood by passing on some of that joy to his brothers, then what was the point? Besides, Royce had been on his first ever date last night. That definitely deserved a breakfast of champions.

Once the bacon was sizzling, Miles found himself inspecting the tape again - pulling it from his pocket and re-reading the loopy, handwritten cover card like it was a New York Times bestseller. And although he was still refraining from reading the tracklist on the back, his curiosity started to get the better of him. Flicking the countertop TV off, and silencing the crackly newsfeed, Miles grabbed the hand-me-down tape player from Mick and set it on the windowsill beside him. After slotting the cassette into position and hitting play, he turned back to his pan of bacon just in time to hear the opening notes of a Queen hit sputtering throughout the kitchen.

Nodding along to the song’s intro, Miles tended to the bacon - already impressed with Carrie’s first pick of a song. But when his eyes drifted back to the tape’s case, he discovered that instead of the song titles, she’d formed the tracklist out of personalised memos - with the first line reading: ‘For those times you just want to escape it all”.

His heart skipped in time with the drum beat, but his breath returned with an incredulous chuckle. All their conversations at work, the dumb end-of-shift therapy sessions, the senseless venting - she had actually been paying attention this whole time. The blasé attitude and vacant-eyed grin she usually faced him with: it was just an act. She cared. She had to. He didn’t dare think about how deeply, but the evidence was right in front of him: scrawled in black biro and echoing throughout his kitchen.

That validation, and a newfound resonance with the lyrics, spurred him on to progress to singing along to the second verse. His head still bobbed along to the drumbeat - unruly locks tickling the nape of his neck with every movement - as he continued to shuffle the bacon around the pan, stopping only to raise the handle to his mouth as a makeshift microphone. The warmth from the stovetop felt like it was spreading throughout his whole body - but the tingles in his chest gave away where the heat was really coming from.

Miles was so lost in his own little bubble of satisfaction that he didn’t even hear any footsteps approach the kitchen. It was just pure luck that, as he was chorusing a confirmatory “I don’t want to live alone”, he turned to grab a plate from the drying rack and caught sight of his younger brother in the doorway.

Miles’ face instantly split into an even wider grin - if that was even possible. “Oh good, you’re up. I was just about to come and wake you. How was the date, Romeo?” But as he set the plate down on the counter, he did a double take and his expression faltered into a puzzled frown. “Wait, why aren’t you dressed yet?”

“Where’s Benny?”

“What?” Miles chuckled, already having busied himself with shifting bacon rashers around in the pan again.

But Royce’s question remained the same. If anything, his tone just edged more insistent. “Where’s Benny?”

Miles’ confused frown returned. “What do you mean?” Before Royce got the chance to explain though, Miles continued, and let a teasing grin settle into place. “Is this some weird game you guys are setting up or something? We don’t have time for that and eggs.”

Miles’ chuckles fell on deaf ears though, because Royce remained rooted to the spot, with that sense of unease growing stronger by the second. “No, I’m serious, Miley. I don’t know where he is.”

Miles froze. The nickname, the tone of voice… It was rare to catch either of his brothers being this earnest - rare enough to get him to set down his spatula anyway.

”He’s not in your room?”

“Or the bathroom,” Royce confirmed with a shake of his head. “…I thought he’d be in here with you.”

Again Miles’ train of thought stalled. But it gave him enough pause to fully take in Royce’s appearance - everything from his bare feet to the rogue curl sticking up like an antenna. The untamed hair told him he hadn’t even thought to look in a mirror yet, and the bare feet told him he’d left his room in a hurry; Royce hated walking around the house without socks on - he always made time for socks. But what was the reason for the hurry? He couldn’t be that eager to play a dumb prank on him, right?

Confused, but determined to get to the bottom of this so they could actually finish breakfast on time today, Miles shut off the stove, and the stereo, and started trudging down the hall. A tedious sigh slipped from his lips as his heels thudded along the floorboards, at a much more begrudging pace than those he heard trailing behind him.

His fingers closed around the doorknob to his younger brothers’ room. And despite Royce’s insistence: “I told you, he’s not in there,” Miles swung the door open. Expecting a giggling Bentley to attack him with a pillow, his eyes were poised to start rolling. But when silence was the first thing to meet his ears, he turned and scanned the room - stunned to find that it was, in fact, as lifeless as Royce had tried to tell him it was.

Pushing down his creeping level of uncertainty, Miles ploughed ahead - searching the bathroom, his own bedroom, and then the living room, to no avail. His heart rate steadily rose with every empty room he came across. His palms grew sweatier each time he grabbed for a door handle, yet his mouth got drier with every exasperated huff that left it. And after wrenching open the door to the hall closet - the last possible hiding spot in their pitiful excuse of a house - to find it just as full of junk as when he last checked it, his stomach folded in on itself.

Whirling around to Royce, with an uncharacteristically stern expression, Miles finally spoke again. “Royce, if this is some bogus game you guys are playing, it’s not funny.”

Horrified at the very idea, Royce stressed, “It’s not a game, I swear!”

“Then what’s going on? Where is he?” Miles asked, frustration bubbling over as his little brother just stared back at him with that same worried look of confusion again.

“I told you, I don’t know,”

The wobble in Royce’s voice and the heaviness of the silence that swelled throughout the hallway made Miles stop again. And the longer he stood there, the deeper this new, awful sense of unease started to bore into him. His brothers were no strangers to the odd, harmless prank. But they weren’t good enough actors to pull off a stunt like this without cracking a smile - and they weren’t masochists. So Royce had to be telling the truth after all. And if that was the case, then where the hell was Bentley?

If insanity can be defined by doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, then Miles needed to be sanctioned. After snapping at Royce to get himself ready for school, despite his protests, Miles turned the house upside down - twice. He marched up and down the hall, darting in and out of rooms with a feverish urgency that stole all logic from his mind. The second Royce had thrown on the first clean clothes he could find, he rejoined the search - following his big brother like a shadow and trying to help inject some method into Miles’ madness. But after Royce peered through his grimy bedroom window for the third time, searching for any signs of footsteps amongst the dusty mud and half-dead grass in their backyard, only to be interrupted by Miles tearing every blanket, pillow and stuffed animal off Bentley’s bed, just to discover the same, threadbare fitted sheet again, he knew things were about to take a turn.

Miles stormed out into the hall, muttering incredulously to himself as he made his way back to the kitchen. “I don’t understand. You’ve been in there all night with him,” he said, turning back to Royce and throwing an arm back in the direction of their ransacked bedroom. “Where could he have gone? We’d have heard something!” he insisted, or rather tried to convince, as he continued pacing in front of the sink. But the certainty of his statement was a total antithesis to his expression - riddled with desperate denial. Whether to help gather clues, or to help his brain actually start to comprehend what was happening, Miles then turned his attention to his brother. After all, he’d already torn the house apart - Royce’s brain was the one place he hadn’t touched yet. “Did he say anything when you got back last night?”

The young brunet just shook his head. “No, he was already asleep.”

”And he was definitely asleep in bed?” Miles pressed. “You definitely saw him?”

“I- …I don’t know,” Royce stammered under his brother’s hardened gaze. “I didn’t think to check - I just thought he was asleep when I got back. I didn’t want to wake him.”

“But you did see him?” Miles asked again, fixated on this one detail.

”I don’t know, I don’t remember - it was dark and I was tired,” Royce said, frustrating himself with his inability to think more coherently. “I just got back and went straight to sleep - I wasn’t even thinking about looking for him. It just looked like he was in his bed.”

“Wait- wait, what do you mean it was dark?” Miles asked - again clinging onto just snippets of information, as though his brain was too fried to absorb sentences as a whole.

Nervous, but obliged to answer nonetheless, Royce slowly continued. “I mean it was dark - I came home and all the lights were off in the house.”

The beat of silence that followed was so heavy it knocked all the air out of Miles’ lungs. But the room felt anything but quiet as Royce’s words managed to permeate the haze of mile-a-minute thoughts filling his head, because the second they registered, the pounding of blood in his ears became deafening. He didn’t even hear the next words that left his lips. “…Benny would never turn all the lights off himself.”

”What?” Royce breathed. The words were so quiet in comparison to the agitated ranting and raving he’d been subjected to so far that he genuinely didn’t hear them at first. But as Miles numbly repeated himself, staring straight through his little brother, Royce felt his whole body flood with an icy sense of dread. “Wait, you don’t think-?”

But Miles didn’t let him finish the thought - stumbling through his own realisation of what he’d refused to believe up until now. “So he might never have made it home last night?” His incredulous gaze found his little brother - hardly daring to give the question any credibility. But when Royce’s umber irises just quivered with wide-eyed dismay, he had to tear his gaze away. Fresh waves of dread washed over him, so rapid he felt like he was drowning. His hands rose to scratch the back of his neck and he tried to breathe out some of the rising pressure in his chest, but that could easily have just been his body’s instinct to try to swim away from it all. He just needed a minute to try to make sense of all this - for his mind to catch up with what his body was already instinctively reacting to - because in that moment they felt like two entirely separate entities. And he was stuck somewhere in the middle. “…Holy shit.”

Royce’s chest was tight - aching in a way he knew his inhaler wouldn’t even come close to fixing. Trying to be logical, trying to help his big brother calm down, Royce started thinking back over all his interactions with Bentley from the night before, and kept replaying his last moments before going to sleep - willing his brain to remember something new - something that would help to fix this. But every thought just veered off course, crashing into some horrible figment of his imagination with Bentley at its centre - how he could have spent the night cold and alone out in the woods, how he could have hurt himself and been too weak to call for help, how he could have…

Royce didn’t dare finish the thought - and yet the images kept flashing through his head. But when he turned to his big brother for some help, reassurance, anything - his look of agitated terror just unnerved him even more. The older boy couldn’t concentrate. His vision started to blur and distort at the edges, his chest felt like it was being crushed by a tyre, and he couldn’t make sense of any of his thoughts because his entire head felt like it was filled with static. Still, a meek plea from his little brother managed to fight its way through the noise.

”Miley, I’m scared.”

”You’re scared?!” Miles hissed - the short fuse on his already shot nerves, despite his better judgement, finally blowing. He never yelled at his little brothers, it just wasn’t who he was, especially after everything that had happened with their dad. But Miles didn’t feel as though he could control what his body was doing any more, let alone his emotions. And so it all came spilling out in petrified tirades and choked accusations. “How could he not-?! How could you not know if he was in there with you or not?!”

Stunned, and wounded that this was being turned back on him, Royce’s own anxiety grabbed the reins to mount an equally fiery retaliation. “How could you not know?! You always come in and check on us when you get back from work!” Desperate for Miles to turn around and do what he’d always done when anything was wrong: hug him and tell him everything was going to be ok, Royce’s eyes stung with tears as he insisted, “You’re the grown-up here - you’re supposed to know how to look after us.”

“And you’re supposed to do what I say, but that never fucking happens either. And now look where it’s left us!” Miles couldn’t be the mom-and-dad this time. He couldn’t feel any further from it - despite the custody concerns and court threats adding to the mounting mess of problems filling his brain. And after giving up what felt like his entire life to take care of his younger brothers, only for it to be thrown back in his face like this - Miles was livid. His anger wasn’t directed at Royce, but he became his verbal punching bag anyway, as he poured out his frustration with the universe, or whatever cosmic power had saddled him with this exhausting, thankless task at the tender age of seventeen. He could barely handle this parenting shit at the best of times - and now that the worst times were upon them, any sense of order he’d tried to establish was crumbling before his weary, bloodshot eyes.

He turned away and lifted his face to the water-damaged ceiling, willing the burning tears to drain back into his eyes before they broke the threshold of his lashes. He started mumbling to himself again - hoping that throwing some of his thoughts out into the open would make his brain stop feeling like it was being suffocated by his skull. But nothing felt like it was helping any more. It was like his body was shutting down. “I can’t believe this is- …All you had to do was stick to the route through the Vale… I told you so many times-“

As nonsensical as Miles’ muttering sounded, that seeming confirmation of Royce’s suspicions shot a new bolt of fear through him. “You don’t think he’s been out there all night do you?” Again, out of reflex, Royce found himself turning to his big brother for reassurance. But if anything, Miles looked like the one who needed the reassurance - if Royce had been in any sort of frame of mind to offer any. Instead he just stood there, utterly helpless, trembling like a lost child - which is exactly what he felt like - silently begging for Miles to say something that could fix this. But as torturous second after torturous second dragged by without another word, Royce’s despair drove him to action. If Bentley was out there somewhere, then standing around in their crumb-riddled kitchen wasn’t doing anything other than wasting valuable time. They had to do something. They had to get out and look further than the four walls of their house. Couldn’t Miles see that too? And if he could, why was he just standing in front of the sink like a zombie? “…Miles?” Royce tried, tentatively attempting to get his attention. But all Miles did was brace his hands on the countertop and drop his head to the floor. So, like that lost child once more, Royce tried tugging on the hem of his t-shirt, as the tentative tone quickly escalated to fraught. “Miles-”

“Royce, stop talking,” Miles quickly muttered, pressing his eyelids closed and willing the world around him to loosen its vice-like grip.

But Miles’ pleas were no match for Royce’s. “But we can’t just-”

“I feel like I’m gonna puke,” Miles managed between laboured breaths - his stomach twisting itself into knots so tight he swore he could feel the skin splitting. But Royce’s own anguish rendered him oblivious to his brother’s distress; all he could focus on was Bentley, and he didn’t understand how Miles was floundering instead of taking charge.

“Miles, we-“

And suddenly Miles erupted. The pressure to be the grown-up. The frustration with his lack of control. The debilitating guilt over not checking on Bentley sooner. The constant hammer blows to his skull. The roaring of blood in his ears. His inability to take in a full breath. Everything was too much. And he couldn’t stand it any more. He needed a break, he needed silence, he needed everything to just stop. “Royce, I said shut up!”

Wide-eyed and dejected, Royce stood stock-still - any words he could have attempted to string together dying on his tongue. But he’d have been beaten to the punch anyway, because a new voice broke through the tension blanketing the kitchen.

“Hey! Is my horn broken or something, or did you guys all just collectively decide to go deaf? Let’s show a little hustle or-” The moment Butchy sauntered into the kitchen, the cocksure grin that accompanied his grumpy teasing dropped like a lead balloon. If Royce’s tearful look of dismay wasn’t enough to knock the wind out of his sails, then the sight of Miles dry-heaving over the sink definitely was. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

Unable to sense the concern in her boyfriend’s tone, Mick trailed behind him and added her own confusion to the mix. “And why was your front door unlocked?” But again, the moment she stepped in line with Butchy, her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “Oh, shit,” she breathed.

After a glance at Miles told Royce he was in no shape to respond, at least not coherently, he swallowed thickly and admitted, “We can’t find Benny.”

Now it was Mick and Butchy’s turn to exchange a glance, although theirs was more so that of concerned disbelief.

“Can’t ‘find’ him?” Butchy tried to clarify, not quite grasping yet what the young boy actually meant. “What do you mean ‘find’?”

“He’s not in the house,” Royce said - his throat so scratchy it felt as though the words had drawn blood.

The gravity of the situation seemed to dawn on Butchy a lot quicker, but it still took him several seconds of processing what he was hearing before he posed his next, dreaded question. “…He didn’t come home last night?”

Miles, finally back in the room long enough to catch the last question, but still too out of it to respond with words, just shook his head.

Butchy’s protective, big brotherly instincts swelled like a tsunami, and came crashing down with a fresh torrent of outrage as he turned to Miles with an accusatory: “And you didn’t think to say something until now?”

Miles’ head snapped to the older boy, a crazed look in his eyes as his outrage dwarfed Butchy’s. “Does it look like I fucking found out before now?” he hissed, having to still brace himself against the sink again so his knees didn’t give way beneath him.

Taken aback by the outburst, but not deterred, Butchy’s initial shock dissipated enough to let him push down his concerns and do what he knew Miles was in no fit state to: try to take charge.

“Alrigh, alright. Let’s just take a second to calm down-”

“Calm down?” Miles scoffed with frenzied incredulity - voice rising with each word. “Do you really think I can calm down right now?!”

“No, but we need to think about this rationally,” Butchy carefully explained, trying to acknowledge Miles’ distress, but also give their panicking some sense of direction. “We need to start going through the facts,” he continued, starting to address the room as a whole. “When was the last time we all saw him? What was he wearing? Did he leave with anyone we know?”

Mick’s concentration was split between her boyfriend and her best friend though, because the more Butchy spoke, the less control Miles seemed to have over his breathing. His eyes were screwed shut and each snatched breath rattled his whole body. And although she knew Butchy was trying to help by applying logic to the situation, Miles didn’t need logic in that moment. He needed support. And Mick couldn’t stand there watching him struggle any longer.

Cutting Butchy off with a simple hand on his arm, she gently said, “Babe, stop.” And when Butchy’s confused gaze met hers, she just redirected it to Miles, and it immediately softened.

Whilst Butchy had paused, Mick closed the space between her and Miles and placed a hand on his back. She didn’t even need to say anything, but she could feel his rigid frame relax a little from her presence alone. And in a voice much smaller and meeker than it had just sounded, Miles breathed a laboured, “I feel like I’m gonna pass out.”

Rubbing the hand on his back up and down his spine, and gripping onto his shoulder with the other, Mick leant down and softly explained, “Miles, you’re having a panic attack. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” he protested with a wheeze.

“It is, I promise; I get ‘em too,” Mick went on, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and keeping her voice as level as she could - almost as though trying to lull him to sleep. “I know it’s scary, but just try to focus on your breathing, yeah?”

It took far longer than he would have liked, but Mick’s coaxing did eventually help his breathing steady out again. And although Miles was relieved it no longer felt like the world was collapsing in around him, the numb ache in his chest remained. But he had a feeling that wouldn’t be shifting any time soon. Just as he was trying to blink the distorted haze from the corners of his vision though…

“Guys, are we going or not? I don’t wanna be late for homeroo-” Lela skidded to a halt as she rounded the corner into the kitchen, glossy pink lips falling open as she took in the scene before her. “Wait, is everything ok? …Where’s Bentley?”

Mick, still petting Miles like a traumatised rescue dog, felt his shoulders start to tense again at the mention of his brother's name. Before Lela could stick her foot any further into her mouth though, Mick shot her a warning look and frantically shook her head - taking any damage control measures she could whilst she had the chance.

Thanks to Mick soothing Miles back from the brink of insanity, Butchy had managed to piece together somewhat of a plan. It was loose, and less than ideal, but after Lela’s arrival prompted him to check the time, he quickly realised it would have to do. “Alright, I know this is all pretty scary, but jumping to conclusions isn’t gonna help anyone,” he began, once again addressing the whole room. “There’ll be a simple answer to all of this somewhere. I don’t know if it’s an impromptu sleepover or what, but until we figure out more, we need to make sure this stays between us,” he continued, emphasising his point, and its severity, by locking onto the gaze of each person in turn. “The last thing we need is word getting out and CPS wanting to get involved.”

The thought of that hadn’t even crossed Royce’s mind until now. “You don’t think they would, do you?” he stammered. Butchy, not wanting to raise the boy's hopes, or trouble him further, chose to remain silent. But his stoicism did nothing - so once again Royce found himself pleading with his brother for reassurance. “Miles?”

Miles pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, as though trying to shove the looming tears back into their ducts, was the only sort of response he got though - beyond a defeated scoff. And it was far from reassuring.

Snatching Royce’s attention away from the churning anxiety that had started rising into his abdomen, Butchy continued with his address. “Like I said, we’re not jumping to any conclusions, and we’re not worrying yet. But that’s why this needs to stay between us, ok?” Waiting for each person to confirm their understanding with a nod before continuing, Butchy then began to explain his plan, starting with one of its most integral participants. “Now Royce,” he said, bending down to the boy’s eye level to make sure he had his full attention. And despite the uncertainty in the thirteen year old’s gaze, he could see a glimmer of determination too. ”I need you to check if Bentley stayed over at one of his friends’ places last night once you’re at school - and to check if he’s there as normal by the time it gets to the break between second and third period. Once you know, I need you to use the pay phone to call our house, okay?” he explained, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a small handful of loose change he then pressed straight into Royce’s palm. “I’ll be waiting on the other end, so don’t worry about it ringing off and wasting the money.”

“You’re not going to work?” Mick questioned from her spot beside Miles.

”No,” he replied. But the shock in her tone pushed him to explain why - and it directed his attention to the person on her left. “Miles, let’s face it, you’re not in any state to be in school today. I’ll call in sick for us both, we’ll talk over what we can about all this, and then we’ll go out retracing his steps.”

”What about us?” Mick asked, eyes flitting from Royce to Lela before settling back on her boyfriend.

Latching onto the same dejected feeling of Miles and Butchy going off searching for Bentley without him, Royce added a hesitant: “Do I still have to go?”

As much as Butchy’s heart ached for Royce, all he could do was place a hand on his shoulder with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, bud. Like I said, you’ve gotta go check he’s not just beat you to class,” he added, trying to tack on a smile to chivvy him along. And although Royce’s expression hinted at one to match, the apprehension shone through. His attention, and lopsided grin, then turned to Mick though. “And you’ve definitely all missed the bus, so someone’s gotta be the designated driver.”

Even though she caught Butchy’s bundle of car keys and scrappy keychains with practised ease, Mick’s affronted expression remained. “You don’t want me helping you guys?”

”Of course I want you to, but we can’t all call in sick,” Butchy tried to reason. “Like I said, we don’t want to do anything that’s gonna draw suspicion.” Although he could tell Mick wasn’t exactly satisfied with his answer, he knew time was running out. So he returned his attention to the group as a whole. He’d just have to try to make it up to her later. “I know it feels like anything but a normal day, but that’s just how we’ve gotta treat it. We’ll meet back up at All Skate later… with Bentley.”

Despite the certainty in Butchy’s tone, no one dared believe him. But then again, no one dared to think otherwise.

Accepting her role with grace and gritted teeth, Mick forced a small smile. “Alright, come on. I don’t want to get my first tardy.” As she readied herself to leave though, she took a moment to offer Miles one last shoulder squeeze, reassuring: “It’ll be ok.” And although she got no verbal response, the timid, yet grateful nod from her brother figure was a good enough alternative.

Catching the brunette’s eye before she could leave, Butchy extended his own offer of gratitude with a mouthed ‘thank you’, that softened the blow of shoving her onto the ‘B team’ a little more - enough to garner a hint of a smile anyway.

Pushing her disgruntled thoughts to the back of her mind, Mick’s main focus became the reluctant thirteen year old before her as she started ushering him to the front door. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders as they fell into stride together - giving them a squeeze just as she had for his older brother as they walked. “He’ll be fine,” she comforted, hoping that her sureness was convincing enough to combat his mounting uncertainty. Whether her statement was about his big brother, or his little one though - she had no idea. She hoped to god it would apply to both - but for now, hoping was the best she could do. At least until they got more answers anyway. ”I promise.”

The plastic payphone clumsily clicked back into place and the cannonball that felt like it had been stuck in his throat dropped into his stomach. Royce’s fingers slid down the grimy, metal cord as he forced himself to swallow, dragging the foul, lingering taste of iron down his burning oesophagus. His muddy irises remained fixed on a trio across the quad though, watching every shift in expression, studying every movement. Until a pair of round, wire frames and furrowed, chestnut brows blocked the view.

“What the hell is going on?”

Royce jumped out of his skin - too on edge today for any more surprises, good or bad. “Oh my god, Viv,” he breathed.

But when he showed no signs of elaborating, Vivien’s clover eyes narrowed further. Throwing her hands out to the sides, she demanded, “What gives?”

“You just scared the crap out of me,” Royce replied, hammering heart finally starting to settle back into a normal rhythm as he dared another glance past Vivien to check on Kona, Zack and August again.

But Vivien just stepped in front of him once more - anything but satisfied with that response. “Yeah, and you’ve been freaking me out all morning,” she retorted. “You’ve barely said a word to anyone, you’ve just been walking around like a zombie.”

She wasn’t wrong; he sure felt like a zombie. But he couldn’t tell her that. Not that it mattered anyway; she was already on his case. “We’ve been in class,’ he tried to protest.

“Like that’s ever stopped us before,” Vivien scoffed, digging a wad of creased and crumpled scraps of paper out of her pocket and waving them in front of his nose. “I’ve torn up half of my notebook trying to get a conversation out of you, but you just keep stonewalling me. I may as well have actually listened to Mr Kaufman for once - at least that wouldn’t have been such a waste of time.”

The annoyance in her gaze shifting to hurt is what really got that creeping sense of guilt to start clawing at the base of Royce’s neck though. He normally told her everything, from the flavour of jelly he’d chosen for his toast to the page in his book he’d reached on his drive to school. So of course she’d have questions. He just hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be to keep the answers from her.

His expression must have changed at some point in the tormenting silence they had fallen into, because she dropped her defensiveness altogether with a frustrated sigh. Although now tinged with concern, her tone remained just as inquisitive, proving herself just as determined as ever. “Is everything ok?” she started. But when all Royce did was look over her shoulder again, her soft worry shifted, making way for a characteristic, babbled torrent of self-conscious rambling. “Is it me? Was it something I said? …Did something happen last night at the movies? Because I thought it went well, and you said you’d had a great time but it’s okay if you didn’t; I won’t take it personally-”

“No, no I did have a great time, I promise,” Royce hurriedly replied, eyes wide with horror.

“Then what’s wrong?” Vivien circled back to the question again with an exasperated huff. “Have I done something? Look, if you thought it was too much with it being just us two last night, you can just say it. We don’t have to do it again. But you don’t have to ignore me to-”

“No, it’s not about that. It’s nothing to do with you, I swear,” Royce insisted, hoping that was enough to reassure her.

Her expression said otherwise. “Then what is it?! And why am I having to be punished for it?”

The pain in her eyes, paired with that last line, finally got Royce to crumble. He’d never kept a secret from Vivien in his life, and he couldn’t bring himself to start today. Getting through the rest of the school day already felt impossible with how much was weighing on his mind, and not having anyone to talk to about it all with was slowly killing him. He needed someone to understand, to confide in. He needed Vivien.

Butchy would understand. He’d have to, because Royce had already made up his mind.

Scanning the quad once more, just in time to catch a concerned Kona seemingly searching for him amongst the sea of mingling middle schoolers, Royce sealed his fate with a huff. Grabbing Vivien by the forearms, fingertips sinking into the plush cotton of her purple hoodie, Royce ducked behind the rusted privacy screen beside the pay phone, and dragged a startled Vivien along with him.

“Ow,” she hissed as her shoulder collided with the school’s brick exterior wall. “What are you doing?” she continued, looking at Royce as though he’d sprouted another nose as she rubbed the spot that was already awaiting its bruise.

Royce looked over his shoulder, making sure no one else was around, and that they were out of sight of their peers, before fixing his gaze back on hers. “You can’t tell anyone about this, okay?” he said, with a hushed assertiveness Vivien had never heard him use before. Now it was her turn to stall - so taken aback by the new urgency in his voice that she couldn’t find the words to respond. But Royce didn’t have time to wait. “Swear to me right now.”

Confusion growing by the second, Vivien started to ask, “Why are you being so-?” But she cut herself off as a new theory came screeching to the forefront of her mind, eyes tripling in size as she blurted without thinking, “Oh my god, wait. Are you coming out to me right now?”

Royce’s train of thought didn’t just derail, it completely disappeared. And for a moment, the pair were just staring at one another in a mix of horror and utter disbelief, before Royce scrambled to set the record straight - literally. “What?! No!”

“Oh, phew, okay, just checking. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but, you know…” Vivien trailed off with an awkward chuckle Royce almost found himself sharing out of sheer incredulity. Clumsily trying to dig herself out of the hole she’d unintentionally launched them into, she started to ramble again - letting every scatterbrained query she had fill the red-faced space between them. “Well if it’s not that then what is it? And why do we have to be so secretive about it?” For a moment it looked as though Royce was about to back out, but Vivien wasn’t about to get this close and leave without her answer. “Come on. You can’t keep me in suspense here, and you know I’m not gonna shut up unless you tell me.”

Royce did know; she’d proven her determination time and time again over the course of their friendship. And as she stood there, arms crossed and an eyebrow expectantly arched past the threshold of her bangs, he realised it had led her to victory once again. He tried to steady his nerves with a long, slow breath, but the second he locked onto her gaze the truth came tumbling out. “Benny didn’t come home last night.”

The moment those words hit her ears, Vivien’s demeanour changed. “What do you mean he didn’t come home? …What happened?”

“We don’t know,” Royce tried to explain, but having to talk about it again, and seeing the worry start to pool in Vivien’s eyes, made his voice tremble like a leaf. “Butchy thought he might have spent the night with Zack or Kona, and just not thought to call, but he’s not over there with them now. And there’s definitely no sign of him back at our house, so-”

“-So he’s missing?” Vivien spluttered, as though her brain was refusing to comprehend it. Royce’s meek nod brought the gravity of the situation down to her with such force it felt as though someone had taken a mallet to her head.

Once the floodgates had been opened, everything came pouring out. Royce told her every detail he remembered from the moment he opened his eyes that morning to the moment Mick dropped him off at the curbside. And Vivien listened to every word, swallowing down each instinctive reaction, and her mounting disconcertion until she was sure he was done. At which point she could only think to offer a tentative: “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well what about Zack and Kona and August?” Vivien asked, gesturing to the group somewhere on the other side of the pay phone’s privacy screen, littered with graffiti and old, wind-weathered flyers. “Shouldn’t we tell them too?”

Royce shook his head. “Butchy said the less people that know the better.”

“But they’ll find out eventually, right?” Vivien checked, pressing on when Royce’s certainty seemed to waver. “We can’t keep this from them, Royce. They’re his best friends - they already look lost without him.”

And when Royce dared another glance over his shoulder, following Vivien’s gaze, to find the trio huddled together, talking in hushed voices of their own and taking turns to scour their surroundings, he knew she was right. But so was Butchy. And as much as his heart ached for Bentley’s friends, the repercussions Butchy had alluded to earlier put the fear of god in him. “I know, but he was saying that if too many people find out and the cops get called then they could get CPS involved, and that means-”

“-they might take you guys away,” Vivien slowly confirmed - once again finishing his thought for him, proving further just how deep their bond ran. Speaking the words for herself gave them an entirely new weight though, and as visions of what kind of a future she’d have to live in if such a thing came to fruition swam through her head, her stomach sank to her rain-splattered Converse. As she then opened her mouth to respond, only one word was able to sum up her thoughts. “…Shit.” Starting to understand now why Royce had felt so helpless, yet less easily trodden into submission, she continued. “So what can we do then?”

Royce could only shrug as another weary sigh worked its way out through his over-worked lungs. “Try to make it to the end of the day, I guess.”

“And then what?” Vivien asked, her protectiveness of the young blond drawing out her fighting spirit. “We can’t just sit around waiting for him to show up. We need to be out there looking for him.”

“I know, but Butchy’s never gonna let that slide,” Royce countered, despite agreeing with her whole-heartedly. “We’ll see what they’ve found when they get back tonight and, if they haven’t found him…” Although Royce didn’t want to give the thought any validity, still clinging onto the hope deep down that all of this was just a big misunderstanding, and that Bentley would stroll into All Skate tonight as though nothing had ever happened, he needed to prepare himself for the worst. And if they were no better off by nightfall, he knew they’d have no choice but to act, whether they had Butchy’s approval or not. “We’ll come up with a plan.”

“What if they don’t find anything? Or they don’t tell us what they’ve found though?” Vivien countered, nervously toying with the hem of her sleeve as she started to roll her eyes and mutter a disgruntled, “They’re always trying to hide their ‘grown-up’ crap from us.”

Taking on the same determined glint in his eye as the girl before him, Royce swallowed any doubts and confirmed, “Then we’ll go out and look for ourselves. There have to be clues out there somewhere - and if anyone can find them, it’ll be us; no one knows Benny like we do.”

Relieved that some of Royce’s tenacity had returned to him, a proud smile sprouted amidst the haze of concern clouding Vivien’s expression. “Exactly,” she agreed, tentatively reaching out and placing a hand on his arm. The jolt of electricity it shot through her palm the moment they made contact melted every last shred of apprehension in her body though, replacing it with a sureness that she clung to for all it was worth. “He’ll be okay - we’d know if he wasn’t.”

Appreciation quietly replaced the worry in Royce’s gaze, even if only temporarily, but it was enough to lift some of the awful weight from his mind that had been building since dawn, and the relief showed in his whole body. Emboldened by the feeling the touch to his arm gave her, Vivien watched as grateful tears started to well in his eyes and she felt her limbs moving before she could second guess herself. A single step was all it took to close the gap between them, and without skipping a beat she threw her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into an embrace.

Although the hug caught Royce off-guard, it wasn’t until he felt the gentle thudding of her heart against his chest that he realised just how much he’d needed this. Burying his head in her shoulder, he soaked in the comforting familiarity of her scent, and the softness of his favourite hoodie of hers. But more than anything, he just appreciated that it gave him a moment of peace - a moment that helped him believe that maybe everything would be okay after all. “Thanks, Viv,” he murmured, hoping that if he smushed his face into her shoulder hard enough she wouldn’t be able to catch the wobble in his voice.

Vivien wasn’t thinking about that though; she had needed the hug just as much as Royce did. But she also knew that, despite her own anxiety over the news of Bentley’s apparent disappearance, Royce needed her to be there for him. He needed her to be his rock - at least until Miles and Butchy came back to their senses anyway. And if he needed her to be there for him, then she’d do everything in her power to do that. Providing hugs hardly felt like a chore though.

The warning bell was the only thing that managed to separate them, albeit begrudgingly. Once Royce felt ready to pull away, Viviven leant back, offering a small smile with a final, reassuring shoulder rub. “Come on,” she softly coaxed. “We’d better get to geography. At least it’s not a class we need to pay attention to; I’ve watched way too many true crime shows to think about anything else right now.”

And Vivien proved herself right. Their geography teacher’s ramblings about tectonic plates drifted in one ear, and straight out the other - both far too consumed by their own thoughts to consider taking in any new ones. Vivien scribbled down notes and ideas like she was drafting a sequel to War and Peace, trying to piece together what limited information she had before starting to link them together with theory after theory. Each new addition was pressed into Royce’s open palm for approval, then passed back and forth until they’d exhausted every possible outcome. It may have just been words on a page, but it helped them feel a little bit less useless than they did whilst stuck between those four walls of pre-teen hell.

The final bell couldn’t come soon enough.

Mick had found it almost impossible to concentrate on a single one of her lessons that day. Her mind just felt too busy - explanations of standard deviations and Shakespeare’s use of iambic pentameter battling with fleeting thoughts of her boyfriend, and worries about the Murphy brothers. And this constant back and forth was proving exhausting; neither could have her full attention since she’d been relegated to the designated driver, rather than being able to be of any real help. So she was left half-assing her schoolwork and stressing about a problem she had no way of helping to solve. All in all, she felt like crap.

Her Fleetwood Mac album had proved a rather effective distraction between classes and throughout free period, helping to shut out some of the noise in her mind and from her overly obnoxious peers. But as she’d reunited with Lela at lunch, her Walkman had been abandoned and the conversation had soon steered its way back to the Murphys.

”I just feel awful for them,” Lela fawned, pushing open the door that led off the main thoroughfare by backing into it, so as not to let Mick out of her sight.

Narrowly avoiding being body-checked by a lanky oaf in an offensively vibrant sweater, Mick ducked through the doorway after her. Grateful to be away from the crowds, she let out a heavy sigh before agreeing. “I know - it still doesn’t feel real. Like it’s just some big misunderstanding.”

”Totally! It all just came out of nowhere too. I know they’ve struggled a lot over the past couple of years, but I felt like things were starting to look up for them again. I guess not anymore though. And oh my god, their faces this morning. I can’t even begin to imagine what they’re going through right now,” Lela went on to gush as they made their way into their favourite bathroom in the whole school: the one in the music block behind the cafeteria. With the only other doors around it leading to dusty practice rooms and an old janitor’s closet, it was rare for other students to bother venturing down there - thus making it a hidden gem, since it wasn’t overrun with giggling freshmen, or brain dead cheerleaders wanting to touch up their hair. Today proved no exception, as the girls wandered in and found the row of sinks to be vacant. Still babbling away, Lela made a beeline for the least grimy of the mirrors - the second in from the left - and slipped her compact out of the front pocket of her backpack. Popping out the miniature powder puff, she quickly checked her appearance, then started to pat the powder into her nose as she continued. “I mean, he’s not even my brother and I could honestly start crying if I think about it too hard. Well, they are like family to us, I guess - but he’s not like related by blood, you know? But even still I just- ugh, it’s horrible.”

Perching against the acrylic countertop, Mick murmured her agreements. But as Lela paused her ramblings to swap her pressed powder for a mascara wand, Mick took the moment of reprieve to relish the silence, and the way it soothed her overtaxed brain. The satisfaction she felt in the quiet made the next interruption to it so much more irritating though.

With their initial chatter having masked the noise of anyone else in the room, the girls both froze as a muffled retch rose from one of the stalls. Their wide, bewildered gazes found one another as they listened out again. And sure enough, the sound of someone gagging broke the suspense, quickly followed by a gasp and what almost sounded like a gulped, broken sob - as though the person had realised they were no longer puking in solitude, and were trying to stop.

Despite their other concerns, Lela’s good nature reigned supreme. And although Mick tried to tell her to just leave them be (after all, if they wanted to be bothered, they’d have picked a busier bathroom), the raven haired girl dismissed her with a flap of her hand. Tentatively knocking on the stall door, Lela offered a cautious, “Hey, is everything alright in there?”

A shuddered breath, magnified by the toilet bowl it was directed into, was the only response the girls thought they’d get at first. But just as Lela raised her hand to knock again, the stall’s occupant choked out, “I’m fine.”

Mick and Lela’s wide-eyed gazes found one another again, although this time their shock wasn’t over the presence of the girl in the stall. It was over who that girl was.

Instantly recognising her voice, but doubting her instincts due to how inconceivable the idea seemed, Lela tested her theory on Mick first, mouthing an incredulous, “Is that Carrie?”

That same sense of familiarity struck Mick, but she refused to believe it could be the overbearing blonde. If it was Carrie, she’d be surrounded by a gaggle of popular girl wannabes vying for her attention, fanning her with their homework sheets and bringing her water - or dragging her lunkhead boyfriend to the door so he could whisk her off to the nurse’s office. But just as she was starting to shake her head, her eyes darted to the bottom of the stall’s door, and fell on a pair of Reebok C80s crouched beside a pink and teal backpack she’d seen slung in the break room countless times.

What the hell was Carrie doing down in this dead-end corner of school? Unless she also knew this was the quietest bathroom on property, and wanted somewhere to come and puke in peace. But that still begged the question: what was the school’s ’it girl’ doing hurling into a toilet bowl? Mick knew the cafeteria food was below average, but surely it couldn’t have been that fast-acting. She’d looked completely fine when she’d seen her last - gossiping with her friends and canoodling with Eric in the hall between classes - and that was only an hour ago. How could things have taken such a turn so quickly?

Unsatisfied, and freshly concerned now that she actually knew the girl behind the voice, Lela opened her mouth to speak again. Mick mouthed frantic words of disapproval, waving her hands in front of her and pleading for them to just leave her to it. But Lela stood firm in her morals. “Are you sure you don’t need us to go get anyone? Or call the nurse-?”

“I’m good,” Carrie insisted - cutting Lela off with a desperate, yet irritable emphasis that shut her up in an instant.

Turning back to Mick, Lela, both confused and worried at the same time, mouthed again, “What should we do?”

“Just leave it,” Mick mouthed back, unnerved by the odd discovery, but desperate to avoid whatever unnecessary drama she could.

“We can’t just leave her,” Lela rebutted.

“She wants us to!”

“Just one more,” Lela tried, raising her hand to knock on the stall’s door again. But Mick grabbed it before it could make contact with the plastic-coated wooden panel, and used it to drag her out of the bathroom and back into the hall.

The moment they were on the other side of the bathroom door though, Lela turned to Mick and whispered, “What the hell was that all about?”

Leading them further down the hall, and out of earshot of the bathroom, Mick muttered, “I don’t know, but this day keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

“Do you think she’s ok?” Lela asked, sparing the restroom a glance over her shoulder. Clearly Lela’s affection for her new boyfriend’s sister ran deeper than Mick had realised, since she still seemed so hung up on wanting to check on her. That, or she was just morbidly fascinated by the scandalous discovery. “Should we call someone? Or find one of her friends? Wait, do you think she recognised our voices?”

Rolling her eyes at Lela’s persistence, and biting back a smile at how endearing her naive optimism could be, Mick tried her best to reassure her. “She’ll be fine. She probably just ate something bad, or she’s got a random stomach bug,” she theorised, before joking with a humourless snort, “Knowing her she’ll probably milk it to death and call in sick for the rest of the week.”

”Alright,” she finally conceded - finding a compromise with her conscience as she added, “I’ll remind Tanner to check on her later when I see him next.”

Managing a real chuckle this time, Mick said, “Sounds like a plan.” But as they continued walking back down the main hallway beside the cafeteria, a familiar head of golden brown appeared between the hoards of teenagers, followed by a sun-kissed arm extending a friendly wave to the pair. Smiling to herself, Mick nudged an oblivious Lela’s shoulder until she grabbed her attention. “Speak of the devil.”

The moment Lela’s eyes found Tanner’s mega-watt smile, her face split into a supersized grin of her own. And although reluctant to leave Mick’s side at first, with a little gentle coaxing Lela gave in to the magnetic pull of the promise of time spent in her crush’s company. “We’ll catch up again later though, okay? I’ll be waiting by your locker after sixth period.”

”Yes, I know,” Mick said with a giggle at the girl’s flighty behaviour. “Now go before he starts to think you’re losing interest.”

Horror flashed in Lela’s baby blue eyes for a moment before she realised Mick was just teasing, which only made the brunette want to laugh more. Grateful to have helped cheer her up, even if only marginally, Lela gave Mick one last squeeze of her hand before scuttling down the hallway after her new beau. “Try not to stress too much, yeah?”

Although Mick had nodded, that statement was a lot easier said than done with all the thoughts swirling in her head. And now, despite her best efforts to convince herself she didn’t care, she had this freaky exchange with Carrie plaguing her mind too. The logical side of her mind believed exactly what she’d told Lela: it was just a random stomach bug, or the product of a bad fish stick. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something about the vibe in that bathroom had felt off. Her naturally inquisitive streak begged her to investigate further, but her better judgement reminded her of what she really thought of the girl at the centre of all this. So she pushed the idea to the back of her mind, and reached for her headphones to help drown out any thoughts that suggested otherwise.

Once again, Stevie Nicks helped to deaden the blows of the theories hurtling around her skull, and muffle the droning voices of her peers as she trudged through the halls to her next class. Despite putting most of her energy into keeping one foot moving in front of the other, her senses were active enough to catch sight of a girl with a blonde ponytail waiting by Carrie’s locker. Hating herself for caring enough to remember which locker was hers, Mick tried to not pay her any notice. But she caught herself staring anyway. She’d seen her at All Skate plenty of times, either at the start of Carrie’s shift, or coming to meet her at the end of it - Juliet was her name, she thought. At least that’s what Carrie always squealed when she set eyes on her. Almost surprised Carrie was capable of forming a friendship real enough to warrant the look of mild concern clouding Juliet’s features as she flicked through her planner, Mick felt a fleeting urge to hang around and wait for Carrie’s return. Just to see what happened. But she quickly came back to her senses and ploughed ahead. The absence of Eric in the equation wasn’t lost on her though. And call her sadistic, but the evidence of the cracks in their picture-perfect relationship starting to bleed through into their school lives, risking jeopardising their nigh on celebrity status, was rather satisfying. Especially when she spotted him leaning against a bulletin board by the gym, hanging on a busty brunette’s every word.

And Carrie had the audacity to poke fun at her relationship with Butchy.

Smirking to herself in morbid disbelief, Mick ascended the staircase at the end of the hall. But once she reached the top, so lost in the guitar solo in Go Your Own Way she apparently lost all sense of special awareness, she almost collided with a scrawny heap of mismatched patterns and faded denim. The walking fashion faux-pas didn’t acknowledge her existence - in fact, she wasn’t convinced they’d even seen her at all. But once she clocked the headphones plugged into an almost identical, albeit scuffed and a few models older, Walkman, half-hidden by a mop of dishevelled, taupe waves, she soon pieced together why.

Although her first instinct had been to just scoff at the boy’s lack of attention and continue on her way, she found herself pausing to watch him skulk down the hall. Without Miles at his side, Ethan seemed significantly more subdued - dragging his feet with each lazy step and slouching so badly it would have given Mick’s old dance teacher an aneurysm. Mick’s first thought was that he looked lost - floating between classes without any sort of purpose, or direction. But as she reached up to adjust her headphones, and watched him stretch to do the exact same thing, it suddenly struck her that they may not have been as different as she’d always thought. The reliance on music as a distraction mechanism, the comfort they found in solidarity, the protectiveness over Miles,.. It was starting to freak her out. Their conversation from the night before still hadn’t quite sunken in yet, and with everything else now fighting for space in her brain, she didn’t think it would for a while. But it now left a huge question mark hanging over the stoner’s head, to match the rain cloud she felt like had settled over her own.

The bell, signalling the end of lunch, rang out over Christine McVie’s vocals, and broke Mick out of her stupor. Shaking her head, she carried on her way - but an odd sense of compassion lapped at the walls of her chest, and she felt an almost cosmic pull drawing her back in the brunet’s direction. Even the notion of that fleeting sensation leading to more made her quicken her pace until that metaphorical tether snapped. Unnerved, but as composed as ever, Mick quietly slunk into her seat and swapped her Walkman for her biology textbook. Grateful for the reprieve she knew she’d be giving her overtaxed mind for the next sixty minutes, Mick felt some of the tension lift from her shoulders. But she still found herself willing it to finish processing everything else she’d just seen, because she had no idea how she was supposed to face Carrie or Ethan that evening if it didn’t.

“I can’t believe I let this happen,” Miles sighed.

Russet leaves crunched beneath two pairs of well-loved sneakers, and those that didn’t skittered across the sidewalk before them. After turning the Murphys’ house inside out for a final time, Butchy and Miles had sat down and laid out every single piece of information they had available to them regarding Bentley’s potential whereabouts - everything from what time he’d left All Skate, the routes he could have taken, and any other places he could have thought to go. Once Butchy had his facts in order, he’d drawn up a plan for them, and even with Miles feeling as hollow as he did, he’d been out the front door and onto the street before Butchy had finished explaining it to him. His eyelids ached from trying to keep them open, scared that if he blinked he’d miss something - but then again, his whole body ached, so exhausted from the ordeal he felt like he was running on nothing but desperation as they trudged the streets of Hawkins, looking for clues.

As Miles led them onto the backroad he knew his brothers always liked to take, despite his best efforts to make them stick to the neighbourhood streets, he let out a frustrated huff and a remorseful, “Why didn’t I go and check on him sooner?”

Butchy let out a sigh of frustration of his own. “You can’t keep beating yourself up about it, Miles.”

“But I always go and check on them when I get back from work,” he protested, infuriated by his own carelessness.

“Well was anything different last night?” Butchy asked, trying a different tactic. “Did anything seem off when you got back?”

Images of the interior of Carrie’s car: a set of fuzzy dice, a sleepy grin, a cassette tape pressed into his palm, flashed through Miles’ head. But they vanished just as quickly as they’d appeared - batted away for the sake of more pressing matters, and to avoid any unnecessary, awkward conversations (or rather, lectures). ”No,” Miles began. “The hall light was on like normal, but Royce had to have switched that on when he got back. And I stuck my head in their room to check on them, but I thought they were both just asleep already. Royce was out like a light and Benny - well, I thought he was too; it sure looked like he was. But it must have just been his unmade bed from the morning. I didn’t think anything of it at the time though.”

“Exactly,” Butchy said. “If everything looked the same as it always did, how could you have known anything had happened? And it’s not your fault that it did. So stop trying to punish yourself for something you had no control over.Yeah, it’s a fucking awful situation to be in, but we can’t change anything now. What’s happened has happened, we just have to keep moving forwards if we ever want to make it to the other side.” Momentarily breaking his concentration, Butchy shifted his attention from searching for fresh footprints in the well-trodden earth at the mouth of the woods to the eldest of the Murphy boys. Despite his best efforts, Miles’ features were still drawn, each crevice and corner marred with guilt. Although the exterior was calmer than before, perhaps now replaced with mere despondency, he could see the same frenzied look swirling in his sapphire irises. Accepting that this may just have to be the new normal for his pseudo-brother, at least until this was all put right anyway, Butchy sighed again - this time pained and pitying. He then reached out a hand that found its home on the back of Miles’ weathered denim jacket, and offered what he hoped was a comforting smile. “He’ll turn up, Miles.”

“You don’t know that.” Miles desperately wanted to believe his older brother figure, but he also had to remind himself that the higher he raised his hopes, the further he’d have to fall if they were to come crashing down. And that felt almost as terrifying as the rest of this ordeal.

“…I know,” Butchy reluctantly conceded. But he didn’t give up altogether. “But we have to keep trying. People don’t just…disappear off the face of the earth - especially not good kids like Bentley. He will be somewhere.”

As they continued to trample the weeds poking through the cracks in the sidewalk, Miles found himself speaking again, confiding something he finally felt safe enough to share. “I know this sounds crazy, but I just… I feel like he still has to be around here somewhere.” He could feel Butchy’s eyes land on him, but the wave of judgement never came, so he let himself continue. “Back when Mom died and they split us up the first time, I felt how far I was from them. Every morning I’d wake up with this aching in my chest, like I had this magnet there that kept trying to pull me back to them… But I didn’t feel any of that this morning. I don’t know if it’s just not hit me yet, or if I’m just in denial but I just… I feel as though I’d know if he was really gone; I’d feel it.”

“Right, which is why we’ve gotta keep looking,” Butchy continued with a soft nod of acknowledgement. “Like I said, people don’t just disappear. But, people have gotten lost in the woods before, it’s not impossible. Look at that kid Will last year. I know it took them like a week, but they did find him.”

“They didn’t find the girl.”

”Who? Barbara Holland? I thought they found her car across town - they were treating her as a runaway.”

”That’s not what her parents said,” Miles huffed, as a fresh wave of despondency washed over him. Again letting his brain spout off as Butchy bent down to check under a parked car, he continued. “And what happens if the same thing happens with Bentley? What if we don’t find a trace of him anywhere in town, and he doesn’t come home?” he demanded, sweat starting to bead around his scruffy, sherpa collar as his worries mounted once more and sent him into a spiral. “There’s no way that stays under the radar for long around here. And the second anyone with authority gets wind of it, CPS will be busting down our door and dragging Uncle Tommy off to jail. Hell, I’ll probably be sent to juvie too since I was the one who he’d left in charge of us. Even if I, by some miracle, manage to avoid serving time though, I just know they’d try to separate us again. And I can’t- I can’t go through that again. I can’t let them take Royce away. I can’t lose them both.”

”And you won’t,” Butchy affirmed, his fierce, protective instincts once again racing into action as he heard the tears start to clog up Miles’ throat again. Stopping them in their tracks, he took Miles’ forearms in his hands and spoke with all the certainty he could muster, praying that there would be as much truth to them as he was claiming. “We’re not going to let that happen.”

Uncertainty wavered in Miles’ eyes, but his desperation to believe the older boy broke through with a small, yet hopeful nod of understanding.

As much as Butchy wanted to continue trying to reassure his neighbour though, his attention was snatched by a flash of silver sticking out from around the edge of a tire. Breaking into a jog, Butchy rounded the vehicle parked at the side of the road - long-since abandoned if its filthy windows, missing wing mirror, and blanket of dead leaves were anything to go by - and came face to face with a bike. It was on its side, and partly wedged under the car’s dented bumper. And after he dragged it out and lifted it upright, he found the wheel trims were scuffed, and the paintwork along the frame was scratched. “Christ, this has seen better days,” he muttered, running a finger along the gouges in the silver paint, and nudging a cracked pedal, only to discover that the bike’s chain had been broken too. Kids in town treated bikes like these like they were sports cars - so whoever this belonged to was either looking to get a new one, or had been forced to abandon it in an emergency (and would be no doubt in for a nasty surprise when they came back for it). Holding the bike up for Miles to inspect, Butchy asked. “You think this is anything?”

Back to the Future One-Shot

Ok, this is an idea I’ve been coming back to ever since I saw the Back to the Future musical last summer, and it’s by no means anything revolutionary, but I just think the concept is so fun. The main idea I had for it was one of Miles and Carrie’s kids, when they’re around the same age as Viv and Royce now (so like 16-17), winding up back in the 60s thanks to messing around in their Aunt Vivien’s workshop with the makeshift time machine she’d built out of their dad’s old yellow Jeep. With the time machine breaking upon arrival though, and current time Viv not having a clue how to fix it, or how she could have possibly ever invented such a thing, hilarity ensues as she, and a handful of others find out who this newcomer to town actually is, and try to figure out a way to get them home before they mess anything else up. Especially since their arrival happened to coincide with a fairly crucial point in their parents’ relationship, or the breakdown of it anyway… Can this teen from the 80s fit in enough to slip under the radar, whilst also helping their aunt and uncles to get their parents back together for good? …I guess we’ll never know ahaha.

Hunger Games/Catching Fire AU

Alright, this is just another example of me being self-indulgent, but it was sparked by a bunch of Catching Fire edits I kept seeing on tiktok a few months ago. And it’s just stuck with me ever since. It doesn’t fit in with the Hunger Games AUs you’ve already written because, as much as I adore them, and as perfect as I think they are, I would also love to see Carrie as a tribute. And whilst I’m not yet certain about how I’d want her original Games to pan out, I do think that there could be some fun forced-ally groupings in a sort of Catching Fire-esque story - where several different people are trying to work together to orchestrate this revolution, leading them to work with people they otherwise never would have. I feel like I’d love seeing Miles and Vivien as the tributes from one district together - with Miles volunteering in the place of Royce (who I could have seen having shared a win with Viv like in Scattered Screams). And then Butchy and Mack being the tributes from another - like with Miles, I think Mack would have volunteered in place of Mick to avoid her having to go back into the arena again. I’d love seeing Riven take on a role like Haymitch for Vivien and Miles as their mentor, and helping to arrange/strategise who would be their best bets for allies. And although he can understand certain choices - such as Mack and Butchy, their request for Kona, who due to her age compared to the other previous victors is all but totally counted out, confuses him to no end. There are some he arranges of his own accord though/without everyone else knowing - meaning that when Butchy comes face to face with Carrie, the golden girl from District 1, in the initial bloodbath at the cornucopia, and she smugly displays her token - an item he knew could only have come from Riven - before saving his life, all hell breaks loose among the group. Are they able to keep levels heads for long enough to execute their plan to destroy the arena? Again, we’ll never know - and not just because this idea is about as plot-dense as a fishing net lol. I just need to see Butchy and Carrie having bratty arguments and being put into place by Mack, and Miles and Carrie trying to hide their obvious feelings for one another/secret relationship from the rest of the group and the cameras - only to slip up and send everyone, audience included, into a frenzy. Ugh. How fun lol.

Wicked AU

Aaaaah, I love this one. It’s nothing grand, or particularly unique, but I just can’t stop listening to the Wicked soundtrack and imagining Carrie and Mick as Glinda and Elphaba respectively. I just feel like it works so well for them - the initial friction between them fits so well with how I’ve written them at the start of TMM, but then I love how close their bond becomes. Mick could make such a good Elphaba too; I thought she could initially be taking Vivien to Shiz as a prospective student - showing their familial bond by them both having this manifestation of green magic. Vivien’s is weaker, but she’s marked to have it since she has her green eyes. Both of Mick’s parents unknowingly had strong links to this type of green magic though, meaning that then when they had their daughter, she had such a strong connection it surpassed the usual visual signs of green eyes, or even green hair - instead spreading all the way across her skin. almost like a vitiligo. She inadvertently shows some of her magical abilities, gaining the attention of one of the school’s most prestigious magic teachers, Dorothea Witt-Murphy, and thus prompting her admission to the school. Although all three of Dorothea’s sons attend the school, and all three share some of Fiyero’s classic charm - it’s obviously Miles that takes on the main bulk of his role in the story - with some tweaks here and there. His relationship with Mick is never romantic, but they do form a strong friendship, and he really takes a liking to how strong her moral compass is - especially in comparison to her flighty and admittedly shallow roommate, whose powers of flirtation he has still unashamedly fallen victim to. And although Mick and Carrie’s friendship does begin to blossom, when Mick’s morality butts heads with Carrie’s yearning for mass adoration - and they’re faced with the dilemma of staying true to themselves and those they love, or achieving their dreams… they’re destined for heartache one way or another. It’s not an exact replication of Wicked, but damn do I want to write out a fun magical boarding school AU inspired by it. The songs are just brilliant for everyone - and I can’t get the idea of Carrie being Glinda out of my head. It’s just perfectttttt.

Witchy Halloween AU

Ok, this is a quicker one because I already feel as though I’ve rambled too long. But every time I listen to the Down the Witches Road cover version from episode 4 of Agatha All Along I just can’t get this concept out of my head. Again, it’s focusing on Carrie, so don’t mind my shameless obsessing. But I love the idea of her feeling like a bit of an outcast in the group now that they all have their abilities. This is set in your witchy-Halloween/Hocus Pocus AU btw lol - I don’t know if I specified that lol. I just feel like at least Vivien and the Murphys and Mick would all feel as though they deserved their powers, since they know their parents also have magical abilities - whereas with Carrie, who seemingly just got them out of nowhere, I feel like she’d kind of feel like a bit of a fraud. She’s never been one for studying either, so I feel like she’d struggle with learning spells/how to harness her powers better, so she’d feel like she wasn’t progressing as fast as the others. That is, until she discovers that magic can work through music. It’s not as well-documented though, so the others discourage her from investing too much into it - but she just takes it as them shitting on her idea and not wanting her to progress. When her friends (Juliet and Amber) reveal to her that they also have magical abilities though, they take her interest in musical magic a lot more seriously though, and put together a little witchy band to work on strengthening their powers. After convincing a guilty Mick and Viv to help them, they start to play - but when things start to spiral out of control, will Carrie know when to stop? Or will her sense of pride drive her past the point of no return?

Playhouse Playoffs AU

Not a new idea by any means, but ever since seeing Starlight Express in person (still can’t get over the fact that that actually happened tbh lol) I can’t stop thinking about our characters putting on this damn show lol. I’ve got so many little snippets of how I imagine their rehearsals going, or how the others would react to watching their friends performing it, but it’s still nowhere near enough to flesh out a full story. I can so vividly imagine Carrie performing Pumping Iron for the first time though. In my head, Riven would have wanted her to be Pearl, and would have wanted to put on a version pretty true to the original version of the show - but he’d be majorly struggling with his cast because Vivien stole so many of the available male actors for The Outsiders - meaning, he was left with an incredibly hopeless Noah trying to play Greaseball after Butchy continually refused to accept the offer of the part despite Riven’s grovelling. After yet another disastrous rehearsal Mick is observing as she figures out measurements and logistics of building the ramps/tracks for the stage (which her dad will help her then construct), and another failed phone call to Butchy pleading for his co-operation, Carrie tries her best to help Riven out (because she fears he’s on the brink of a nervous breakdown) and coach Noah a bit. Noah doesn’t seem to be having any of it though, and basically says “if it’s so easy then why don’t you do it?” So Carrie takes the bait and asks everyone to run the number again, but with her in Noah’s place. She gives the performance all the bravado and cockiness is needs, much to the delight of her castmates, who had been finding the rehearsals dismal up until then, and completely stops Riven in his tracks. And afterwards, he, Mick, Nonna, and the rest of the cast feel as though a complete shake-up of the roles is in order… Of course, i have more ideas for how other scenes could go. like Carrie trying to help Riven find his confidence singing Starlight Sequence, Mick trying to learn how to roller skate, Abby’s not so subtle obsession/girl crush on Carrie driving a lot of her portrayal of Slick, and Butchy’s reaction to seeing who took over this role that they’d insisted could “only be played by him”. But that one’s been driving me particularly insane. So at least it can live on here now, instead of in my head ahaha.

TMM

Ok, lastly, this isn’t a new idea either. But since it seems pretty unlikely now that I’ll finish/post any more of TMM, I wanted to leave a little tribute to it here. It’s a story that truly does mean so much to me, and is so well-fleshed out in my notes. I don’t think I’ve ever invested so much time/thought into the plot of a story before, so it definitely is the biggest thing i’ve tried to tackle in all my years as a writer. I just feel bad i wasn’t quicker with my writing/posting of it so that more of it could be shared. I really tried to give each character an important role, and a decent chunk of the story dedicated to them in the plot - I’ve just ended up stopping before much of it could get going :( I was so excited to get more of it out, and see how you’d react to it all. But I suppose at least since I’ve already drafted out how everything would pan out, I can just go back to my notes document for it any time I start feeling sad about it - because at least that way I can still enjoy the story without going to the effort of obsessing over making sure every word is perfect lmao. Still, I’ll never be able to listen to Dancing Queen the same again - that scene with the demogorgon could have been epic 😔✊