#She almost called me at 3am cuz I’m usually up then but her mom told her not to

[makkie-is-screaming]

Went to bed early last night n didn’t check my phone until like 3pm today. Tell me why the one time I’m off my phone my cousin texts me. At 3am she texted me to call her asap n when I called her at 3pm she told me last night she flew off a golf cart n it ran her over so she now has staples in her head and road rash all over 😦

[words-and-fangirling-wonder]

Idiots Bonus Scene: What’s in the Box?

I was trying to write the next full chapter of this story, but I kept coming back to this little scene and it was distracting so I wrote it down. Hope you enjoy the bonus backstory!

Author: fangirlwonder (wordsandwonder on AO3)

Warning: Minor (like unnamed and never mentioned before or likely after this) character death and mentions of alcoholism and neglect of a child.

Unbeta’d (and also written at like 3am, so my apologies for any mistakes and/or straight up bad writing, lol)

Sitting cross-legged on his bed with the now open shoebox in his lap, Kid couldn’t stop the huge grin from spreading across his face. “Man, I told you there’d be porn.”

Killer shook his head disapprovingly, but chuckled nonetheless as he held the beat-up magazine gingerly between two fingers. “Uh-huh. I can’t believe I let you put this in here when it’s so obviously, uh … well used.”

“Hey, you probably used it too.”

The blonde glanced pointedly at the cover, then back to his friend. “I seriously doubt that. This sort of thing is much more your style.”

Kid snatched the magazine back and looked it over fondly. “Fine. Then you don’t mind if I keep it.”

“I really, really don’t,” Killer agreed with another small laugh. “Law might, but I don’t. What else have we got in there?”

“Well, looks like we have a … what the fuck? We have a brick?”

Killer took the brick from Kid and examined it thoughtfully. “Ohhh, you know what? I bet it’s from the arcade.”

“Oh yeah!” Kid exclaimed, brightening. “From when they almost tore it down with us still inside it, protesting.”

“If I remember correctly we were actually sleeping at the time.”

“Well, yeah. We had gotten up really fucking early to go protesting, we were tired.”

“We were idiots.”

Kid flashed a thousand watt smile at the man. “Yeah, but we had fun.”

Shaking his head again, Killer leaned over to peer into the box. “Is that a broken bottle?”

Kid’s smile faded slowly as he pulled out what was, in fact, a broken beer bottle. “Oh … shit. Why the hell-“

“Is that the bottle you used …”

“Yeah.”

Killer’s mouth tightened into a thin line as he nodded. “Yeah. I guess we did do this that summer, huh?”

“Why the fuck did we keep this?” Kid asked again, frowning at the jagged brown glass.

In a voice so quiet Kid almost missed it, Killer ignored his question to ask, “Hey, is … do you see, maybe …”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence for Kid to know what he was talking about. Shifting some baseball cards and an empty pack of gum around, he finally felt his fingers brush against cool metal. “Yeah, it’s here.”

“Can I …”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Kid pinched the small heart between his thumb and forefinger and slowly lifted the necklace out of the box to give to his friend. “Here.”

Killer’s hands shook a little as he reached out to accept the piece of jewelry. “Damn,” he muttered. “You know how long I looked for this? I thought I lost it. Broke my fucking heart, too.”

“I remember,” Kid replied, watching the blonde closely. He should have anticipated something like this, really. After all, this was a time capsule from that summer, and that summer wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows. He should have remembered; should have been more prepared for what could have been in that damn box. But he hadn’t remembered, and hadn’t been prepared, and now their fun little stroll down memory lane was turning into something far less pleasant. It was hard to believe it had really been ten years since that summer. The summer Killer’s whole world fell apart.

++++

“I dunno what’s gonna happen, man.”

Kid shuffled his feet and stared at his lap. He hated how small his friend looked, hated how broken his voice was. Killer was always his rock, had always been the stable one Kid could turn to when shit got to be too much with his mom.

And now this. Now Killer needed him to be the stable one, and he had no idea how.

“They don’t even know what fucking happened. She was in remission; they said she was good. All that treatment, how hard she fought … and now …” Killer trailed off and swiped angrily at his eyes. “And of course my dad is nowhere to be fucking found. I just … I dunno what to do. What the fuck do I do, Kid?” he asked desperately, his eyes bright with unshed tears.

“I …” Kid wanted so badly to say the right thing, but the depth of emotion, the absolute agony on his friend’s face, had his throat constricting and made any words of comfort he could think of seem dismally insufficient. “You’re … you’re gonna take it one day at a time. You’re gonna do what you gotta do. And I’m gonna be right there with you! Probably getting in your way, but … still …”

“You got your own shit, though.”

“Yeah, and you’ve helped me through pretty much all of it, so just shut up and lemme help you for a change,” Kid argured gruffly.

“There’s so much to do,” Killer admitted. “I gotta call the funeral home, and I gotta figure out if she had a … a will or something, and I gotta go through her stuff, and … shit.”

“You think your dad can handle doing any of that?”

Killer scoffed and kicked a rock rather aggressively. “Hard to say. But I can’t really ask him for help when I can’t actually find the asshole.”

“You have no idea where he is?”

The frown etched into Killer’s usually calm face deepened. “Oh, I’ve got an idea, alright,” he answered darkly. “You know he hasn’t been home since she got taken to the hospital? I don’t even know if he knows that she … that she’s gone.” Taking a steadying breath, Killer unclenched his fist and stared at the necklace in his hand. He’d been clutching it so hard there was a heart-shaped imprint on his palm. “You know … I never saw her without this.”

“What’s inside?” Kid asked, rolling with the topic change because it seemed like his friend needed it.

“I don’t even know, actually. Let’s see.” It took a moment of fumbling to pry the locket open, but when Killer finally got it open his eyes started to well up again.

“What is it?”

“It’s … It’s me. It’s a picture of her and me, from before the cancer. It was a day out at the beach.” For the first time in the past few days Killer’s mouth twitched up at the corners. “That was a good day. Can’t believe she held on to it like this.”

“Well hey,” Kid offered. “Now you can too.”

“Yeah,” Killer agreed, still smiling softly at the picture. “I guess I can.”

++++

“That …” Killer’s voice cracked a little, instantly bringing Kid’s attention back to him. “That summer was something else, huh?”

“Yeah, man. I guess that’s one way to describe it.”

“And isn’t it just like us to decide to make a time capsule to remind us of a time like that?”

Kid gave Killer a lopsided, half-hearted smile. “Yeah, sounds like us. We were assholes.”

“You still are.”

Kid snorted and punched his friend gently. “So I get why we kept the necklace – although that probably wasn’t our best move, considering, you know, this isn’t exactly a secure storage place – but I seriously can’t get past this stupid bottle. Why did we keep this?”

“Cuz I didn’t want to forget what-“

“What a fucking crazy person I was?” Kid interrupted.

“What you did for me,” Killer corrected. “You barged into every bar in town, and when he wasn’t there you went to every bar in the next town, and the next one, until you found him, remember?”

“Yeah, and I just about got myself killed,” Kid laughed. “There was this one dude who looked a lot like him from the back, so I went up to him, grabbed his arm and was all like “listen asshole …” and then he turned around and he had these crazy fucking eyes and a fucking hunting knife … I about shit myself, I thought I was gonna die.”

“But you didn’t and you kept looking until you found him, even after that. And then when he tried to ignore you, you took this bottle out of his hand and smashed it and used it to threaten him into getting in the cab and coming home.”

“Yeah,” Kid agreed, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “And I still can’t believe he didn’t press charges or whatever. I cut his cheek when he still wasn’t taking me seriously.”

Killer nodded. “I remember. Honestly, though, I think he was too embarrassed that he got bullied by a thirteen-year-old to press charges or anything like that.”

“That or he was too drunk to know it was me.”

“Also a possibility,” Killer agreed.

A comfortable silence fell between them as both men thought about that summer. It had been a rough one for sure. First Killer’s mom died, and then his dad got court-ordered into rehab. They’d made this time capsule when they thought Killer was going to get taken away and put into foster care, before his grandma stepped up and took him in so he could stay in the city where he’d grown up. They’d filled it to bursting with pieces of their lives, from the stupid things that made them laugh to the precious things that they wanted to treasure forever, and then hidden it away for ten years. It seemed fitting, really, that they were going through memories from one of the roughest times from their childhood, a time when they thought they were going to be torn apart, now, after having almost been torn apart again.

Kid looked back down at the items remaining in the box. It was mostly just trinkets in there now, little mementos that thirteen-year-old boys thought were important. Dumb stuff, really. Things that they definitely didn’t need anymore …

“Oh my god!”

“What?! What?!?” Killer jerked at Kid’s sudden exclamation, worried that something was wrong.

But Kid was anything but distressed as he raised the object that had caused his outburst triumphantly in the air. “I stashed my fucking SuperBall in here! Yes!”

Killer couldn’t help but laugh as he watched the redhead turn the glittery ball, once clear rubber now turned yellow with age, in his hands, his face alight with pure joy. He should have known better than to think that Kid would want him out of his life. This was the same guy that had once plowed through every dingy divebar in the county searching for Killer’s drunkard father. This was that same guy that had figuratively held Killer’s hand through the process of making funeral arrangements, and then literally, at the funeral itself. No, there was no way Kid was going to just let him fade away, and he was an idiot for even thinking of trying to. Because when it came down to it, whether it was a stupid bouncy ball or a stupid, misguided friend … Eustass Kid didn’t let go of the things he cared about.