Nov 6, 2020
I think we needed this guys
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I think we needed this guys
The Butterfly: Chaos AU fanfic(part 2)
9 years later...
“Hey Nick!”
He had just left the locker room of the gym & entered the lobby of the recreational center, where Terri was waiting for him.
“What’s up?”, he said to her, “you said something earlier about someone being here?”
“Yeah, I was just talking to this guy who moved here yesterday, I think he’s the new neighbor your mom was talking about!”
“Oh shit really?! I mean, I saw all the moving trucks yesterday, but I didn’t get to see them properly yet.”
“Well, now you can! He’s outside, I said I’d introduce you to him. Go easy on him, though. He seems pretty nervous.”
“Okay cool, got it.”
Nick & Terri exited the building and stood a few feet from one of the benches where a young boy was quietly sitting.
“Hey!” Terri hollered, getting the boy’s attention at once. “I brought him over, come say hi.”
The boy carefully stood up, then slowly walked towards Nick; he was wearing a long sleeved periwinkle shirt, and had a large striped cyan and indigo scarf wrapped around his neck and shoulders. His eyes were facing the ground as his hands anxiously fidgeted at his sides, and he was so quiet, Nick almost didn’t hear his voice when he spoke to him.
“H-hi.”
“Hi there,” Nick said as he held out his hand for him to shake, “I’m Nick. It’s nice to meet you. Welcome to the neighborhood-”
The boy gently grasped Nick’s hand and slowly looked up at him, and Nick’s words soon trailed off as he took a good look at the person in front of him.
Deep brown freckles against his sepia skin, red-brown eyes brimming with warmth, like an autumn sunset; his bright red hair was styled into long twist braids that stopped at the small of his back.
Nick stared at him in awe, before he regained his ability to speak.
“Adam?”
Adam’s eyes go wide and he lets go of Nick’s hand with a surprised gasp. “You…you remember me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course I do.”
“Hmm, wait a sec.” Terri chimes in. “Is this the same kid you told me about a while ago, when you were in the park and you helped him save a butterfly?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Well, it’s nice to finally put a face with a name, cause you didn’t have any pictures of him. Well, other than the ones you drew years ago, but-”
“Oh-kay!” Nick interrupts, as he tries to hide his embarrassment. “Thanks Terri, but I'm sure Adam's not interested in hearing all that now, but maybe you can tell him later. If you don't mind.”
“Okay okay, I can take a hint.” she says with a knowing smirk. “See you around, tough guy. I’ll catch you later, Adam!”
“T-thanks.” Adam says with a shy wave, which Terri returns before heading back inside the building. “She seems very nice.”
“Hm, oh Terri? Yeah, she’s pretty cool. Wait, how’d you get here? Did you take the bus or did you walk the whole way?”
“I mostly walked, cause it’s not very far & I want to get used to the neighborhood surroundings. But I don’t know if I want to walk back alone.”
“Well, I just finished up my session today, so how about I walk back with you?”
“You’d…I’d like that. Thank you Nick.”
And the two of them walked back to their homes, side by side, but taking as long as possible so they can catch up on everything the other has been up to since their previous encounter; Adam’s maternal relatives helping him and his brother out for a while & even homeschooling him, Michael’s awakening from the coma & his slow but steady recovery, how Nick’s excelled at boxing & Adam’s skilled at archery. It seemed like forever they’ve been talking, until they reach the front of their houses.
As Adam prepares to head back inside, Nick tells him that he’d like to help him unpack for a bit, he just needs to change into some more comfy clothes. Adam smiles warmly at him and nods, and the two boys go inside their homes.
'The car’s here', Nick thought, ‘so mom’s probably home already’.
He opens the front door and shouts “hey I’m home” before being immediately greeted by a small child barreling towards him.
“Nicky!”
“Jasmine, hey princess!”
He hugs his little sister close to him, then looks up and sees Michael coming towards him, using his crutches to help him get into the room.
“Hey big bro. Mom was just about to head by the rec center to get you, cause you weren’t answering her calls.”
‘Shit I knew I forgot something’ Nick thought to himself.
“Right, my bad.” he said as he placed Jasmine down and watched her wander down the hall. “I was walking back home with someone, and I kinda got swept up in our conversation to pay attention to that, I guess.”
“I gotcha. Was it Terri?”
“No, she stayed behind to keep practicing. It was Adam, he’s one of the new neighbors.”
“Is he that kid with the scarf or that white guy that looks like he's an emo kid dressed in business casual?”Michael said as he sat down on the couch, placing the crutches against one of its arms.
“The kid. Anyway, I kinda said that I’d help him unpack, so I’ll be over there for a little while.”
“Aight, that’s cool. Just go tell Mom before you head out & when you think you might be back.”
“I will.”
“And set your phone to vibrate or a ringtone or something. Cause I figured you didn’t answer cause it’s still on silent mode.”
“Okay look man, it isn't-” Nick said as he pulled out his phone to check the settings, then squinted in annoyance as he realized his brother was right yet again.
“...”
“Don’t start.”
Michael shrugged. “I didn’t say anything.”
Nick smirked as he rolled his eyes at him, then went to the other room to tell his mother where he’s heading.
After a shower and a quick change of clothes, he goes next door and rings the doorbell, where he is immediately greeted by Nathan.
“Nick hey! Gosh it’s been years, you’ve gotten so tall!”
“Oh uh, thanks.” Nick said as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, “Is it alright if I-”
“Oh yeah, come in! Adam already told me, he was really happy that you’d be coming by to help out. I’m gonna be downstairs, but holler if you need anything, kay?”
“Sure thing, thanks.”
He went inside and headed up the stairs to the second floor; he checked a couple rooms before hearing Adam call out to him from down the hall and went over to where he was.
There was a mattress with a sleeping bag and blankets in the corner by the window, and a bunch of boxes were sporadically spread around the floor; the closet was open and most of the clothes were hanging in there, a worn, medium sized bookshelf was across from the makeshift bed. Adam sat in front of it, crossed legged with a box of books near him, adding each of them to the shelf. He greeted Nick as he came in the doorway, and walked over to him to help navigate him through his unfinished bedroom.
“Sorry about all this, I got too caught up in what I was doing that I forgot to move some of these boxes out of the way.”
“Hey it’s all good”, Nick said with a slight chuckle as Adam gently kicked a box away from the mattress. “Is there anything specific you need me to do, cause I know this is all of your stuff, so…”
“O-oh. Um, some of these I haven’t opened yet, so I guess just open some of these and tell me what’s in there, and then I’ll tell you what to do for each of them. I’m just gonna be finishing up this thing over here, but I’ll try to help you “
“All right, works for me.” Nick goes about the room to bring a box or two in his arms, and sits on the edge of the bed and proceeds to open them up to see its contents.
"Okay so in this one, we got a photo album, some books and cards, and a container of legos."
"All right, hand me the photo album and the books," said Adam "you can put the legos in the corner of the closet and keep the cards in there. I'll look at them later."
Nick does what he asks, and then goes back to open up another box.
This went on for a bit and soon Nathan came up to check on them to ask what type of pizza they wanted.
The boys give him their preferences and as Nathan heads back downstairs to complete the order, Nick opens up the second to last box.
He was about to tell Adam what he wants to do with what's in there, but a glimpse of something inside the box distracts him from saying that out loud; he pushes some of the stuff in the box aside and pulls out the item so he can get a better look at it.
"Oh hey, what was in that one-" Adam says as he turns to see Nick, and is instantly rendered speechless when he realizes what he's holding.
A framed piece of art, with the slightest veneer of dust on the glass; Nick's eyes widened as he took in the familiarity of it. The bright orange splotches of paint and the frantic lines of crayon and pencil.
A moment of silence passed between them, and before Adam could say anything, Nick spoke first.
"You…you still kept this?"
"Ah, y-yeah. Um, I had brought it home with me, but rolled it up and I was worried about ruining it and stuff," Adam said frantically, "so Nathan tried keeping it in a folder of some kind, and that worked for a bit, but I was still worried about accidentally tearing it or spilling something on it. So one of my cousins- from my mom's side, not my dad's- offered to have it framed, and I said yes so that's what they did. But I didn't hang it up anywhere, cause we were moving around a lot afterwards. But um, yeah."
Adam exhaled from the exhaustion of rambling without pause, then anxiously fidgeted with his hands and glanced hesitantly at Nick, to try to gauge his reaction.
Still looking at the painting, Nick slowly broke into a wide smile, then looked at Adam, completely overjoyed.
"I didn't expect….I, I love this. This is…so great! Thanks so much, Adam."
Adam smiled back at him, a mixture of gladness and relief washing over him as he stimmed with the fabric of his scarf.
"Y-you should really thank my cousin, they know a lot about framing."
"Heh, well you ought to introduce me sometime so I can thank them properly. Oh hey, were you planning on hanging this up in one of the rooms in the house?"
"Yeah…this one actually. "
"Oh. Well, I can try to help you with that later, if you want." Nick sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck as his gaze shifted from Adam to the floor, then back at him. "Or maybe I can call my uncle and ask him to do it, cause I don't want to end up breaking it. Or making the hole in the wall too big…."
"Either one works for me. Thanks Nick."
"No problem."
Their moment was interrupted by a sudden honk of a car outside, and the two boys go to the window to see the source of it. Outside, they see Nathan walking to the pizza delivery guy, preparing to pay him for his services.
"Wow, they got here faster than I expected they would!" Adam exclaimed. "Let's take a break to go eat and we can come back to this later."
"Sounds like a plan." Nick says as he puts the painting safely back in the box then gets up from the bed and walks towards Adam.
As he goes to open the door, Nick gently places his hand on the back of Adam’s shoulder, taking him by surprise as he slowly lets go of the doorknob, but doesn’t turn around.
"uh…Nick…?"
"Hey um, sorry if this is weird but I wanted to ask you if…um...can I hug you?"
Adam felt his face go warm and knew he was blushing heavily; he was kinda relieved that he was facing away from Nick right now.
Nervously, he whispers, "...y….yes, you-um w-we can hug. Y-you can...go ahead."
He turns to Nick, still avoiding eye contact with him, and the taller boy wraps his arms around him and presses his cheek on top of his head. Adam stiffens up, but then relaxes in Nick’s arms as he hugs him back, leaning his head against his chest and releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding in.
"..You know..."
"Hmm?", Adam murmurs.
"I really missed you."
"I missed you, too. It's…it's nice to be here now, I'm glad we got to meet again."
"Me too."
The two of them stayed like that for a while, until Nathan called out to them from the dining room. Then they slowly released themselves from their embrace and headed down the stairs to join him for dinner.
Part 1
The Butterfly:Chaos AU fanfic (part 1)
Nick slowly rocked back & forth on the spring horsey as Mary, his mother, watched from afar on the bench. She waved at him and asked if she’d like to come over to play with him, but he waves his head ‘no’ and says that he’s good for right now. His mother assumed that he just wanted to play by himself, but in reality, he was afraid of her getting hurt because of him.
Like Michael.
His younger brother was still in the hospital in a coma, still alive and slowly recovering. But Nick felt that he wouldn’t be in there at all if he had been a good older brother and didn’t let him out of his sight, maybe he wouldn’t have wandered into the street to catch whatever was in there and maybe that truck wouldn’t have hit him at all.
And he wouldn’t be here on the playground by himself. Well, he wasn’t by himself, other kids his age were here, too. But he didn’t feel like talking or playing with any of them. Soon, Nick gets tired of the rocking on the spring horse and heads towards the jungle gym.
But then a loud, shrill scream pierced his ears and he immediately turned towards the source of it.
A group of kids, some looked to be a bit older than him, were crowding around a small boy crouched on the ground with his head down and arms wrapped protectively around himself.
“Don’t, you’ll hurt it! You’ll hurt it!” the boy shrieked, as one of the kids in the crowd stepped closer to him.
“What’s wrong with you, weirdo?” the older kid said, “first you push me, and now you’re screaming for no reason? Just get up off the ground and face me, or I’ll make you.”
When the boy didn’t do as he commanded, the bully grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and tried to pull him up, but the boy resisted and stayed put.
“N-no! NO!”
“Stop yelling, you little freak! Get up and look at me so you can-”
“HEY! Leave him alone!”
The bully turns toward the voice and sees Nick, with a determined expression on his face; the older kid saunters over to the 7-year old with a smug look.
“Heh. Who are you? You friends with the little lunatic here?” he said as he pushed Nick in his chest. Nick stumbles a bit, but he doesn’t back down.
“Back off, kid.”
“Make me.”
He pushes Nick again, and he nearly falls down. The other kids in the crowd start to disperse and go back to their playing, leaving only Nick, the bully and the boy crouched on the sidewalk.
The bully gives Nick one more push and this time he does fall to the ground; he’s not hurt, but the bully relishes in his triumph and walks off to the playground. But he stumbles on the gravel and loses his balance, and Nick seized this opportunity to shove him as hard as he could. The bully topples over and lands in the sea of wood chips, and a small chortle of laughter is heard amongst the playground. He gets up, dusts himself off as he glares at Nick, and saunters off in irritation and humiliation.
Nick sees him walk off, then goes up to the young boy, still crouched down with his hands covering his head.
“Are you okay?” Nick whispered to him.
The young boy slowly lifted up his head to look at Nick; he had big maroon colored eyes & warm brown skin, the bridge of his nose and cheeks were covered in freckles, and his bright red afro hair framed around his face & head like a halo.
The boy sniffled, then said "I saw it on the ground, and I didn't want them to step on it. I'm waiting for my brother, he'll know what to do. He's just talking with someone right now, but he'll be back."
Nick nodded, and saw that the boy still had his arms on the ground, holding his hands together as if he was trying to keep something in.
"Can I see?"
The boy looked around to make sure no one would come by to interrupt them, then carefully nodded and let Nick come closer to see what was between his arms.
Hobbling around on the pavement was a small monarch butterfly; the bottom of one of its wings was slightly torn, and it was too cold and tired to fly around. But it was still alive.
Nick watched it for a moment, then turned back to the boy and said "I'm gonna go get my mom and see if she'll help. Is that okay?"
The red-haired boy nods timidly, then Nick dashes over to where his mother sat with the other moms. When Nick explains the situation, though he had to repeat himself because she was talking too fast for her, Mary gets up and tells Nick to go wait by the boy while she gets something from the car. Nick does what she says and goes back to the boy, who was no longer alone; an older boy with pale skin & dark hair was crouching beside him.
“Hey, I just told my mom and she said she’s gonna get something from the car and come right back”, Nick said, then eyed the older boy in front of him. “Who are you?”
“Oh I’m Adam’s brother, Nathan. Thanks for helping him out today, and for this, too.”
“Um, you’re welcome.”
“Hey Adam,” Nathan whispered, “why don’t you ask your new friend for his name?”
Adam lifted his head up slightly so that he could see Nick, and softly said, “What’s your name?”
“Oh Nick. Nick Riverson.”
As he said this, Mary comes over to where the boys are, her purse in one hand and a plastic cup in the other; she kneels down next to Adam and gently asks him to lift up his head so she can see the injured insect. He does so, and Mary guides the butterfly into the cup using a napkin from her purse. She finds an old paper cup cover from her purse to cover it with, and the butterfly was now in a makeshift cage where it could be safe for the moment.
Now that it was safe, Adam gets up from the ground and Nathan helps dust himself off and wipes his face. Nick, not wanting to end this so soon, begs his mother to let Adam & Nathan come by their house for the day. Before she can say no, Nick gives his best attempt at puppy eyes at her as he asks her again and again. Annoyed by her son’s yammering and her growing concern for Nathan & Adam, who were here by themselves, she soon gives in and lets Nathan and Adam come with them back to their home. Nathan sits by Mrs. Riverson while Adam sits by Nick, still holding the makeshift butterfly container safely in his small hands.
As they arrive at their house, Adam gingerly hands the cup to Mary, and the four of them make their way into the backyard, where she releases it near the garden.
Nick and Adam watch it closely as it feeds on nectar from the flowers, fluttering its wings but not taking flight just yet, while Mary & Nathan head inside the house to chat for a while but still keeping an eye on the boys.
After a while, the butterfly finally takes flight and flies away from the house while the boys wave goodbye. Nick turns to Adam, and notices that he’s tearing up a little.
“What’s wrong?”
“I…I’m glad he’s gonna be okay and that we got to say goodbye but…I’m gonna miss him.” Adam sniffled then wiped his face with his sleeve. Nathan comes out of the house into the garden to comfort his brother, and says that it’s nearly time for them to head back.
And right then and there, Nick gets an idea.
“Wait right here! Don’t go home just yet, I gotta go do something before you leave. I’ll be right back!” Before either one of them can respond, Nick darts into the house and into his room, leaving Adam & Nathan alone in the garden.
The two of them decide to head back inside and stay for a little while longer; Mary fixes them something to eat & drink while they wait for Nick to finish up whatever he’s doing.
A few minutes later, Nick comes barreling down the stairs and into the dining room. Mary scolds him for running in the house as Nick pants from exhaustion, and Adam takes notice of the large piece of paper in one of his hands.
He asks Nick what it is, and Nick immediately perks his head up to show Adam what he was working on.
It’s a drawing of the butterfly, made with crayons, pencils & a lot of orange paint.
“That way you’ll be able to remember him whenever you look at it, so it’ll be like he’s still here.”
Adam carefully takes the drawing from Nick, then holds it to his chest and gives a radiant smile.
“Thank you.”
And with that, Adam and Nathan head out of the Riverson household to head back to their destination.
“Um, Nathan”, says Mary, standing in the front doorway “do you need me to drop you off at your house? Or should I call your parents-”
“No, no, that’s alright”, he says abruptly, “we’re staying at a hotel with some relatives, it’s not too far from here. We’ll be fine…but thanks for the offer.”
“Okay then,” she says, her voice soft & laced with concern. “You boys be safe heading back there, alright?” “We certainly will. Thanks again for having us here. Say bye, Adam.”
Adam softly whispers “bye-bye”, and he and his brother walk hand in hand down the sidewalk to return to their hotel room.
As Adam gives Nathan the painting for him to hold in his other hand, he glances out of the corner of his eye & sees Nick waving at him, growing farther and farther away as he keeps walking.
Adam waves in return & smiles at him, hoping he would see it.
And he did.
Part 2
“Brother In Arms”: A Chaos fanfiction
It’s almost eleven in the morning when Adam wakes up, and he feels well-rested, which comes as a surprise to him. He usually has a hard time sleeping at times since he came on this journey, but this was one of the few times he managed to have a restful slumber.
‘Must have been ‘cause of last night’, he thought to himself. Nick and Maria had the idea of doing a mini movie marathon yesterday, they invited Jackson, but he turned them down to focus on his work; they all picked one movie to watch and played rock-paper-scissors to determine which order they’d watch each movie in. Eventually when they finished watching those, they decided to watch some films from a superhero-themed franchise solely to roast them. The three of them began nodding off halfway through the fourth film and by the time it was over, they were snoozing on the couch.
‘I dunno how I got back to my bed, though’, he mulled as he made his way to the kitchen, ‘maybe Mr. Richman carried me back to my room…or maybe it was…’
“Nick, could you put the leftovers away?”
“Sure thing Abieyuwa!”
Nick made his way into the kitchen to put away the remains of breakfast in the fridge; as he did so, he turned and noticed Adam standing in the doorway.
“Hey buddy! I hope you slept well; your plate’s over on the table, but I can heat it up for you!”
As soon as he said that, his uncle called out from the dining room, “Nick, do not touch a single button on that microwave! I’ll reheat your breakfast for you, Adam!”
Nick sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, while Adam moved a bit closer to him.
“Sorry Nick, but I appreciate the thought.” he said with a yawn. “And I did sleep well, thank you for asking. I hope I didn’t keep you all waiting too long.”
“Oh no, we all got up, like, half an hour ago. Well, Maria, Jackson & I did anyway. Actually I think Jackson was awake before we were. Akira’s still asleep, though.”
“Yeah, that makes sense, and I don’t blame him.”
Amandus walked into the kitchen holding Adam’s plate and put it into the microwave to reheat it; he lovingly tousles his nephew’s hair as the two boys made their way into the dining table. Maria and Jackson are sitting across from each other, and Abieyuwa is sitting next to Maria near the end of the table. Maria is watching the older woman complete a word puzzle in a magazine she brought with her, while Jackson is writing notes down on a clipboard while also finishing up his meal, which currently consists of a couple clementine slices and whatever’s left of the tea Maria brewed for him today.
Adam takes a seat on the other side of Maria, and Nick sits across from him in the empty seat next to Jackson.
“So what’s the plan for today?” Adam asked everyone.
“Well, we can expect to be on the road in 2 hours or so once Akira is up and ready”, answers Abieyuwa as she finishes up her puzzle. “Luckily there’s a rest stop a couple miles ahead of where we are, so we will probably stay there for a little while.”
“Oh nice!” Adam says with a smile, and Amandus arrives from the kitchen and places Adam’s breakfast in front of him along with two glasses, a big one with water & a smaller one with orange juice.
“Thank you, Mr. Richman! Oh and thank you, Ms. Okoye, I really appreciate it!” “It’s no problem dear!”
“Hey, what about me? I helped!” Maria said teasingly.
“Thank you too, Maria!” Adam said as he turned to his plate of food, then closed his eyes, clasped his hands together and silently said grace. Though his relationship with his religion remained rocky, he still kept to doing certain rituals, though it was partially out of habit. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and prepared to dig into his food; he briefly glanced at Nick as he did so; had he looked a few seconds later, he would not have noticed Nick staring at him, but the taller boy was trying to hide it(and badly). Adam’s face became warm and flushed, but made no further reaction to it as he focused on eating his delicious breakfast.
Soon Abieyuwa finished her puzzle, with some help from Maria and Amandus at certain points, then she got up to go do her daily errands. Amandus tells Nick and the others to clean up the table when they’re done, and he follows his girlfriend out the door.
Adam continues to eat his meal, and is nearly halfway through when he suddenly stops, as if he was jolted.
“Oh!”
“What? What is it?!” the others yelped, turning their attention to their small friend.
“I just remembered-no, I’m okay, it’s nothing bad- I remembered I had a really good dream last night. I was back at home and I haven’t dreamt of home in a while, and whenever I do, it’s usually not anything good…”
The other kids didn't say anything at first, the boy’s words had a heavy truth to them that they could unfortunately relate to.
“But you said you dreamt of home and it was good this time, right?” Maria said softly. “You wanna tell us what happened in it?”
“Well”, Adam said “I dreamt I was in my old home, from when I was younger. I was still the same age as I am now, but it was like nothing had changed. I was watching my favorite shows and playing games with Nathan; my parents weren’t there-though that’s not too unusual for my dreams- but I could hear their voices in the house, like they were in another room or something. But soon, Nathan was telling me it was time for bed, and he carried me to my room and told me to go to sleep. And I didn’t want to, cause I was afraid that I would wake up if I did, but I listened to him and did it anyway.”
Adam held back tears as he remembered the dream fondly, and Maria leaned over to hug him, and he hugged her back. “It’s funny though, normally if I had dreams like that, I’d be much more sad about it. But it was a nice dream, and I woke up feeling….okay. It was nice though, to dream of my brother again, even if I can’t see him or even call him right now.”
“I’m glad you were able to dream of him too, sweetie.” Maria said with a sigh she patted his head “And I’m glad it was a good dream. Lord knows we all could use that more often now.”
Her last statement made Jackson and Nick’s eyes widen and the dark-haired boy slightly shuddered as if remembering something horrible, but he quickly brushed it off and focused on the happiness of the boy in front of him. “I’m glad you had a nice dream, Adam. And I promise you, we’ll make sure you and Nathan are reunited once this is all over.”
Adam’s eyes welled as he heard those words, and he let go of Maria as he returned to eat his breakfast.
“So boys, what do you say we have another movie night? We still haven’t finished that one we last stopped at…what was the title again?”
She turned to Nick, because he had been the one who picked it out, but he had forgotten the name of it, too. Rather than admit that to her, he says “you know what? That film was boring anyway, I say we pick something different. But maybe we should also pick out some shows to watch, too.”
“Nick, we’ll be up all night again if we do that!”
“Then we get a head start on that early; we pick some titles & then queue it up after we get on the road! Simple!”
“Hmm, yeah that could work. You up for that, Adam?”
“Sure! Lemme just finish eating, and I’ll be good to go!”
“Great!” Nick exclaimed “Don’t think you’re being left out of this, Jacky! You still get to pick at least one thing to watch with us!”
Whatever daze Jackson was in was immediately broken when he felt Nick jostling his shoulder; he sat up with a start and stared at the others with confusion.
“What on earth are you-?! ....oh I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“Were you tuning us out the whole time? That’s uncharacteristic of you. Am I rubbing off on you that much, dude?”
“Oh don’t give yourself too much credit for that one!”
“What we said, Jackson”, Maria chimed in, “is that we’re probably gonna do another movie marathon, well movie & TV series combo. We’re gonna pick at least one title per person and start up after we get on the road again.”
“Will you join us this time, Jackson?” Adam said to him, “I know we didn’t really plan the one for last night and you were kinda busy then, but maybe you’ll be able to join us for this one?”
Jackson momentarily meets the bright-eyed stare of the red-haired boy across from him, holding his gaze for a moment before lowering his head and muttering, “I...I dunno, maybe. I’ve still got some stuff to get done today, but I’ll probably come by later if I have the time.” And with that, he gets up to put his dishes away in the sink and his empty cup on the counter, and walks out the dining room without another word.
“What was that all about?” Nick said to Maria “I know he’s still kinda reserved, but that’s not usual for him, right?”
“I mean, he has always been busy with his projects”, Maria responded. “but….maybe…I’ll check on him later today. You finish your breakfast sweetie, and I’ll meet you both back here after we all get dressed.”
“Oh okay. Thanks Maria.” Adam replied.
Maria gives him a wide smile, then turned her attention back to where Jackson had sat earlier. Her smile lessened a bit as she wondered what might have made her dear friend rush out the room like that.
Back in his room, Jackson had changed out of his pj shirt to an equally comfortable long-sleeved sweater; he rolls up his sleeves, puts on his gear and a headband to keep his hair out of his eyes, and resumes his work on his previous projects. He sets a timer so it goes off at a certain point, at which point he’ll get up & stretch before resuming his research on the Maroons.
This would be a good way to spend his day, after all, there was still so much that they needed to find out and he’d spend as much time as he could figuring it out. He was the leader after all, and the others were counting on him. There were times where he’d forgotten that, but he would be reminded again why he’s doing this and who he’s doing it for; he started this for himself and Maria, but also for Nick & Adam, who left everything and everyone important behind to find out the truth about their parents. Parents who, for the brief period they were in their lives, loved them and cared for them. He couldn’t say the same about his own; he felt alone all his life, even when his mother and father were still present in his life. And though he had Maria, her friends, and the others to keep him company, there was still a part of him still alone, even when being amid other people. But it hardly bothered him much now, it didn’t hurt as much as it did before.
‘So why…?’ Jackson wondered to himself before the hum and whirs of the machines and gadgetry enveloped his thoughts.
‘Why does it hurt now?’
So yesterday, I shared a short story I wrote with @strangeauthor that featured her characters from her webnovel “Chaos”, and I’ve decided to share it here so y’all can read it, too!
Doodle of Jackson wearing eyeliner
Oh hey, check out these canonically bi characters
Aiden Tuesday from Dark Zone(read it on WEBTOON)
Jack Dorado, Yulan Xia, and many more in Beanstalked(check out @beanstalkedcomic and the creator @rockybloo )
Nick Riverson, Amandus Richman, Jackson Ruth, Maria Flores, Abieyuwa Okoye, Mael from Chaos(read here)
MAEL STANS come get ya’ll juice!!!!!!!!