PSL; [TERRIBLE THINGS WE HAVE DONE]

[vecna]

[It's difficult being the new kid at school, the new kid in town, everyone a stranger, every setting a readjustment, a fresh (and always failed) expectation to fit in hanging over one's head like a knife. It's even harder when your name is Henry Creel; a twelve year-old boy who is a little too lanky, a little too quiet. Who would prefer to keep to himself and not always look someone in the eye, finding more companionship in books and his collection of drawings than any of the kids his age. Who doesn't look like he wants to try to fit in—and struggles with every teacher’s gentle encouragement—even if he’s hardly a rule-breaker. Always punctual, always presentable, good grades, a nice new home to return to at the end of the day.

But his faith in his own integration is low. He had never flourished in his old town — why should he in this new one? As if moving would change how the world is, how he is, but he tries so hard not to linger on these thoughts today. They make him indescribably—

Well, he doesn’t know.

School lets out. The weather’s nice. It’s time to walk home, detaching himself from the excitable crowd of his classmates as swiftly and quietly as he can, his backpack slung over one shoulder and half-unzipped. He tries to stuff a book into it with one hand, paying no attention to where he’s going, and stumbles right into someone in an utterly ungraceful showing.

The book, of course, goes flying and lands splayed open, pages-down. Blue eyes flick up, out comes an automatic:]

Sorry.

Comments

[striketwice]

[ In stark, stark contrast, Alec Brennan has a chip on his shoulder, and everyone knows it. The only child of a single father who works his ass off to barely be able to put food on the table, he’s gruff and mean and messy. He talks curses and talks back and spends more time in detention than out of it. Above all, he hates the way people look at him. He hates the way the adults lean in and gossip unsubtly about how his poor father must suffer so with such an unruly child. What he needs is a mother’s touch, they say, high and mighty behind their white picket fences with their manicured laws.

In truth, Alec’s dad tries his best. He’s a good man with a good work ethic and the very best of intentions, but they do struggle. A lot of burdens have landed themselves on Alec’s tiny shoulders, and when coupled with the deep, deep resentment Alec feels for his absentee mother – a woman who could easily provide for them and more if she wanted to – it makes for a dangerous cocktail.

And it is Henry’s great misfortune to have collided right with that maelstrom of a child on his way out of school.

Alec hadn’t been watching where he was going any more than this kid was, but does that matter to him? Not at all. ]

Watch it, dork!

[ He bites it out, hands finding the lankier boy’s shoulder to shove, hard. Let him and his whole backpack go flying for all he cares. ]