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Chapter Text

Vance Hopper was once again greeting his “favorite teacher” Mr. Jones, detention master. At least that’s what Vance and the other regulars here called him. He seemed dead set on trying to better these kids in detention with a miraculous 0% success rate.

“Hello and welcome back kids! And, I believe you Vance, have broken the school's record for most detentions given to a junior. Congrats!” The small man declared to the small class, Vance just grunted in response and roughly sat down. The other kids in the room snickered at Vance but stopped immediately as soon as he turned to glare at them.

He sat at the back of the class, the entire row was cleared out and everyone stayed to the front of the classroom. Mr.Jones clapped his hands and began a lesson he didn’t need to even teach. He gave these lessons unprompted and unneeded. Everyone in detention never actually listened, they all did their own things.

It didn’t seem to even bother Mr.Jones, he always happily went on with whatever he was trying to teach. Vance had his walkman, blasting music into his ears as he tried to doze off into sleep. Vance got into a fight beforehand and that’s what landed him here in detention. He of course won that fight-besides the other guy started it, he left him with a bloody nose and more than enough bruises on his body.

His knuckles bloodied and aching, his head throbbing and mood pretty much down the gutter, he had no energy to even do anything right now. He was just going to sleep peacefully through this dumbass detention.

He slouched on his desk, crossed his arms and looked around the classroom. It wasn’t huge, it was brown and beige-the teachers desk at the front of the room with a chalkboard at his back, which currently had “Be Better” with a straight line underlining it. The fuck was that supposed to mean? Vance thought.

He immediately dismissed the teacher and the chalkboard he, couldn’t give less of a fuck about this bullshit detention, which not only did nothing for no one, it just wasted a good hour of the day.

Vance was just going to resign himself to a dreamless sleep, when the door opened and a boy he’d only seen in the halls walked through the door looking embarrassed and nervous.

Vance’s eyes widened in shock but it didn’t show on his face. Everyone in the front row murmured and whispered, mostly because the boy that just walked in looked like he knew some of the people in that row.

Mr.Jones turned to him facing away from the chalkboard he was writing on and welcomed him with surprise in voice evident. “Bruce Yamada! Surprised to see you here, you can take any seat here. We are going to be together for at least another 40 minutes so make yourself comfortable. You can do your classwork or listen to the lecture currently.”
The boy-or more so Yamada nodded and moved toward the desks.

Mr.Jones was strangely enthusiastic to welcome a kid to detention but Vance guessed everyone had their quirks or some shit like that. Vance rolled his eyes and kept his eyes on his desk. He just had to get through 40 minutes more of this bullshit and then he’s home free.

That’s when Vance felt the desk near him screech in movement, and the entire class stilled. Vance looked to his left and saw Yamada sitting one desk away from him, as if there weren’t any seats in the front.

Vance was irked but did he really want to get into another fight? He was too tired today and could not be bothered to deal with this right now. So Vance settled for a sharp glare towards Yamada, he shifted uncomfortably under all of the eyes on him, Vance just huffed out air. Annoyed, he went back to looking at his desk and tapping his fingers along to the beat of his music.

Even he could hear the burst of murmurs that exploded across the small number of students through his headphones. He glared at the small group of students that were talking and they quieted. He took a chance to look at Yamada, and the boy was staring at him with wide eyes.

He rolled his eyes and put his head down and counted down the minutes until he could leave.

_______

Bruce had not expected to be sent to detention. It wasn’t like he was scared or something. It’s just that he’d never been sent here before, the walk of shame to detention was embarrassing. Kids in the halls snickering and asking him what happened.

He just waved them off and told them to go home laughing along, but inside he was nervous. He heard the stories of Vance Hopper fighting kids and even the teacher! Of course that story wasn’t true. Vance wasn’t fighting a teacher in any way.

Vance wasn’t the only reason he was nervous. It was his parents. They would be mad but not too mad—hopefully. He’d gotten in trouble before and his parents were absolutely angry with him but they let him know if he got in trouble again he would be grounded, and grounded means no baseball so he tried his best to not get into trouble which was very easy for him.

He was well liked in the school in the eyes of the students (mostly girls) and the teachers, he got good enough grades. He wasn’t a straight A student but he was decent enough.

It was funny though, he didn’t even do anything to get into trouble, he was just a victim of circumstance. He was coincidentally in the bathroom the same time the smokers were in there. A mix of smoke and marijuana was filling the entire bathroom, he was on the verge of hacking out his lungs when a teacher yelled for everyone inside to vacate immediately.

And he just so happened to be a part of the group, the teacher was scandalized by the fact he was “smoking” with the other kids. He’d tried to tell her but she wouldn’t listen. Then she promptly sent him off to detention at the end of the day.

What a way to spend an hour doing absolutely nothing. Bruce wanted to bang his head into the wall, he had baseball practice today. And it was only Monday.
He sighed and stood in front of the door to detention and finally opened the door. Everyone stopped and stared at him for a moment, and then started talking about him in front of him. Some were trying to talk to him, and the others were just laughing. The ones laughing were the smokers, because of course they were.

He rolls his eyes, and the teacher welcomes him into detention…? He nods and looks across the class for a seat and spots Vance at the very back of the class, the entire back row cleared out and just for him. Unfortunately for Bruce there were only open seats at the back of the class, there weren’t many kids in the class but they were sat so if he did actually sit at an open desk with the other kids he’d just be in the way of their conversations. And he didn’t want in on any of that.

He didn’t know any of the kids in here anyhow. He walked to the back row and took a desk that was just one over from Vance, the other desk that was further away had a broken leg and was covered in graffiti. It would be way too loud to try and switch the desks.

He sucked it up, detention was only 40 minutes long right? He could sit at a desk and do his work easily. He sat down and set his bag onto the desk in one motion which caused the desk to screech across and hit the desk next to him which hit Vances desk, he winced and then he remembered all the stories he’d heard about Vance and all those kids who even breathed wrong near him got sent to the infirmary.

Bruce tensed waiting for Vance to beat him up or something, but no. He just glared at Bruce with piercing blue eyes, Bruce’s breath caught. The class went still for a moment, and Bruce squirmed-all the eyes on him made him even more nervous. Vance just scoffed at him and went back to minding his own business. Bruce was more than surprised-he was sure he would be going home with a black eye today.

Bruce meant to graciously take the small mercy from the blond haired boy and do his homework, when all the kids bursted out into chatter about Vance and how he didn’t beat Bruce up, when Vance just looked up at them with another glare and they quieted almost immediately. Vance glanced at Bruce and found Bruce staring back at him.

Bruce got a bit distracted and didn’t even mind the chatter-as in admiring Vance Hopper's face. Don’t get Bruce wrong he always thought boys looked pretty as well as girls, but Vances was just handsome, especially with that green choker that he wore. Bruce’s face heated up as he realized that those blue eyes were staring at him-but it didn’t even matter since Vance seemed done with all of it and rolled his pretty eyes and simply put his head down.

Bruce wanted to shrink down into his seat and just disappear. The kids in the front laughed and snickered at him and the teacher snapped at them to stop. Bruce finally got his work out of his bag, with a few stolen glances at Vance. He really did try to get his work done but his mind wouldn’t allow him to. Those 40 minutes passed by very slowly.

_______

Vance woke up with a start, Mr.Jones was shaking him awake, no other teacher would dare do that. And Mr.Jones had the audacity to wake him up like that. And that was the only reason he could really respect Mr.Jones, he didn’t treat Vance like a criminal like everybody else.

Vance mumbled something along the lines of, “What time is it?” Pulling his headphones down to his neck pushing his hair out of the way. He rubbed his eyes sleepily.

“Mr.Hopper it’s time to leave now.” Mr.Jones said gently, “I’m glad you didn’t beat Mr.Yamada up, that’s a nice improvement!” He chuckled lightly, he moved toward his desk at the front and started packing his things.

Vance knew of his teacher's obsession with improvement, “Yeah, well I didn’t want to get into another fight.” He flexed his bloody hand with the blood now dried and flaking. Vance tried waking himself quickly which only half worked, his eyelids were still heavy with sleep and he had a long walk home.

He got his backpack and looked toward the clock, 4:35. Mr.Jones let Vance sleep for almost another 30 minutes, Vance smirked at that. Any other teacher would’ve woken him up and kicked him out as soon as 4pm hit. On his way out he thanked Mr.Jones.

“It was nothing Vance, everyone needs their sleep. I better not see you here tomorrow alright?” He was half serious on that last part.

“I’d miss you too much Mr.Jones.” He said with sarcasm, “I’ll see you tomorrow anyway though, the other teachers always find a way.” With that he headed out the door and began his trek home. His house was only 15 minutes away anyway. He always passed the baseball field where he sometimes watched the games, but the adults always shooed him away thinking he'd cause some type of trouble.

And that’s when it hit him, he’s actually seen Yamada in action before, he was a good swing. His face before was a bit familiar to him but he couldn’t place where. The sun was out and clouds were rolling by. The sidewalk he took was cracked, he usually kept his head down when walking home. With his walkman clipped onto his pants and headphones back on his head, he had to say his mood wasn’t too bad anymore.

That thought was immediately expelled when he bumped into someone on the sidewalk, it was Yamada. The fuck was he doing here?

“The fuck?” Vance said, taking his headphones off. The boy turned around startled, “Sorry! Sorry! Are you-” Yamada was going to say something more but stopped abruptly.

He stared at Vance like he was some kind of animal. Again Vance was too tired to fight and even if one started, he didn’t think Yamada would fight back. So he settled on shoving him off the sidewalk and said, “Excuse you.” roughly.

He pushed past him and continued walking ahead, putting his headphones back on. So much for first introductions Vance thought.

Chapter Text

Bruce was very happy to finally get out of that stupid classroom and get home. He wasn’t in too much of a hurry because he was sure the school called his parents and told them what had happened. He could appeal to his dad though, he’ll believe him that he wasn’t actually smoking with those kids and that he was in there by chance. 

His mom though, wouldn’t take it. He would have to wait til she was a bit more forgiving and would listen to reason. He was on his way home passing the baseball field, his team was already packing up and heading home. A pang of annoyance rang through him-he should’ve been on the field with them, they had a game soon and if he couldn’t correct his swing he would surely be off of the team. 

He was staring at the field when his coach ran up to him, Coach O’Donnell. “Where were ya kid?” He took his cap off and wiped his sweaty forehead off. 

“Detention.” Bruce said lowly, he hated this, “Detention? Now what were you doing going off getting yourself into detention?”

“It was an accident, there were kids smoking in the bathrooms and I just so happened to be in there at the same time as them.” He looked his coach in the eyes, he believed him, “You sure your mom’s gonna take that explanation?”

“Nope.” Coach laughed, and nodded toward Bruce. 

“Well good luck Bruce-I better see you next practice though, we need to work on your swing.” His coach smiled and put his cap back on, “I’ll try. Thanks coach.” Bruce said earnestly. 

Bruce stood there as his coach waved him off and started walking towards the exit on the other side of the field. He sighed, thinking of his mom in hysterics about him “smoking”. His dad would listen to him though-he’d have to. 

He started to step backwards back onto the sidewalk when he bumped into someone. “The fuck?” They said, It was Vance-now Bruce had it coming to him, he immediately started to apologize, “Sorry! Sorry! Are you-” Bruce tried to correct himself when Vance shoved him roughly causing him to almost topple over and said, “Excuse you.” 

What the hell had he done to deserve that? Bruce swiveled around to give Vance a piece of his mind but he was already walking off putting his headphones back on. Then Bruce thought about it, what would he even say to Vance? “No excuse you! You’re an asshole! You don’t shove people like that!” No, that would end with him on the ground with a black eye and a split lip. 

So Bruce just yelled a simple, “Thanks asshole!” at Vance, who turned around and walked up to Bruce taking his headphones off and resting them on his shoulders. “The fuck did you just say to me?” Vance wasn’t all that intimidating if you were just looking at him by size, he was about the same height as Bruce, but it was Vance’s reputation which scared people, which also included Bruce.  As soon as Vance walked up to Bruce he expected the worst. Vance grabbed him by the collar and now their faces were inches away. Bruce could feel his hot breath on his nose. Bruce tried to muster all of his courage in the face of those strangely piercing blue eyes Vance possessed. “I said- ‘Thanks asshole!’” Bruce mumbled. 

Vance’s eyes widened while he still stared into Bruces, a small smirk snuck onto Vance’s face, “You’re a fuckin’ weird one aren’t you?” His grip on Bruce's collar tightened, then he suddenly let go and shoved Bruce on the ground. Ok now Bruce was confused, why wasn’t he being beat into next week? 

Then Vance turned away and left wordlessly. He was beyond confused.

Bruce sat on the ground watching Vance’s back and ran a hand through his hair.Bruce was beyond confused, what the actual hell just happened? Bruce got up and walked much more slowly realizing Vance and him were going the same way until a certain point when the sidewalk went two different directions, Vance went left and Bruce went right. 

It was 5:30 when he finally got home. He took his shoes off at the door and trudged through the living room when he realized his family was getting ready for dinner. And his sister was there helping out and making him look bad. He rushed to his room and threw his book bag onto the floor and quickly changed out of his school clothes. 

He came back out to the dining room with the plates laid out and the dinner still not quite done. He peeked his head into the kitchen seeing if he could help out with anything. Amy, his sister, was in there standing over a pot of rice making sure it didn’t burn, and his parents were in a two man team. His dad was putting flour on what looked like the second to last piece of chicken and his mom putting it into a bowl of egg yolk and then into bread crumbs. 

Then dad would then put it into the pan full of oil. And it smelt amazing, the only thing he could do at this point was get the utensils from the drawer and the cups and put them neatly onto the table. He first grabbed the forks and butter knives in a bundle and made his way to the table, set out the utensils extra nicely and returned to the kitchen for cups and napkins. 

He finished up and that’s when everyone started to file into the dining room with all of the food. Everyone went to their designated seats, mom on the right dad on the left, then Bruce and Amy sat across from each other. They started to eat and everyone was very quiet which was unusual for family dinners. He gave a look towards Amy and she gave him a wide eyed look, which meant he was in trouble. 

He tensed and waited while eating the delicious meal in front of him. “So,” his mother began, and that’s when he knew he was in trouble, he sighed. “I heard you got into detention today, Bruce.” She emphasized his name and he winced eternally. She was a quiet type of angry today which scared him even more than when she was yelling at him. 

“Yeah I did.” He said tensely. “May I ask how you got into detention young man?” she set down her glass of water a little loudly, he glanced at his dad and he shrugged with  faux innocence. He scowled and turned back to his mother who was staring daggers into his eyes. 

“Before I tell you,” He warned, “it was all a coincidence alright? I swear.” His mother nodded and waited for him to continue. “I just so happened to be in the bathroom while a bunch of other kids started to smoke, but I was just using the bathroom and washing my hands when the teacher called us out ok?” The table went silent for a moment, everyone looking at each other. 

His mother breathed in, “Do you really expect me to believe that!? My beautiful son is friends with drug addicts! I can’t believe it.” She was starting up again, Bruce wanted to put his head into his hands, and Amy was poorly hiding her laugh behind her hand. And his dad was sighing again, she could get irrational very easily. He thinks it’s because she wants some attention, usually it’s harmless and slightly amusing but sometimes it just gets exhausting. 

He looks to his dad for some support, “Honey?” his dad said looking at her in a silent conversation that every parent seems to be able to do. His moms features softened a bit and she cooled herself down. 

“Can I plead my case?” He looked back and forth between his parents. They both nodded. “First of all, it wouldn’t even make sense for me to smoke because of baseball. I’d be kinda dumb to start smoking when I’m on a sports team. ” Amy nodded thoughtfully like she was thinking real hard about this, he knew she was just going to laugh at him later. His parents were nodding but his mom nodded more slowly than his dad. 

Amy suddenly piped up, “Anyway! Since we got all that sorted, how was your day in detention? I need all the details.” She smiled and ignored the looks she got from their parents. He laughed, of course she would ask something like that. 

“I mean it was fine, the teacher was weird. He was way too happy to welcome me into detention.” He took a bite of his chicken. “That’s all? Nothing happened? No fights? No nothing?” Amy was shocked. He guessed that they both thought detention would be crazy.

“Nope, although,” he thought about Vance, how he pushed him and his eyes. His eyebrows furrowed, he wasn’t going to tell them about how Vance pushed him, then they would think he was getting bullied. “Vance was there.” Amy’s eyes grew wide, she had a weird infatuation with the guy, saying he had the looks, but definitely not the personality.

“Yeah, yeah you would love to know what he was doing there huh?” He pointed his fork at her with a raised eyebrow. She blushed but didn’t deny, “Of course! Now tell me.” She rested her head on her hands, waiting for Bruce to say more. He looked at her then his parents and said, “Nope, now eat your food, it’s gonna get cold.”

He smiled innocently at her while she absolutely wanted to curse at him. He happily ate his food while parents ignored them and started talking about work. Bruce and Amy listened to them cracking the occasional joke. 

An hour or so later they finally started to clean up. They all watched a movie which they argued about which one to pick for about 30 minutes. 

After all of that he flopped onto his bed facing the ceiling hands behind his head. He closed his eyes and felt the weight of a person fall on him. His eyes flew open with an audible, “Oof!” And of course it was Amy, she smiled at him, “That’s what you get for not telling me what happened in detention.” 

He wheezed out, losing air, “Get off-!” And he pushed her off towards the end of the bed, she squealed and laughed. Her hair bouncing up and down, “so tell me, what happened?” She jumped up off of the bed and started fixing her part of the bed. 

He sighed while he returned back to his original position of staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head, only this time Amy was next to him mimicking the same pose, their legs both dangling off of the bed. “Vance scared the crap outta me in there!” He heard a snort and then a full blown laugh, he started to laugh too. 

“And I’m surprised he didn’t even beat me up-he had two chances!” Amy got up onto her elbows, “What? How?”

Bruce and Amy talked at length how Vance just glared at him and shoved him away from the sidewalk, they both concluded that was as the rumors suggested: an asshole. And according to Amy, a very attractive asshole. He disagreed. 

________

Vance got home at around 5:32 when he got home, the house as usual was cramped and full of people running in and out. Little toddlers walking around doing whatever they wanted, grown adults arguing, watching tv, or in the kitchen reading. 

 Vance didn’t care about any of that, he was thinking of that boy, Yamada. He totally froze when he was just about to beat his ass. Vance had to admit, Bruce wasn’t the first to yell at Vance just begging for a beating, but Yamada was definitely the first to make him freeze. He prayed that Yamada didn’t notice the blush creeping onto his face during the whole thing. 

When he grabbed his collar, Vance didn’t expect the boy to be attractive-now he could understand why girls in the hall giggled and blushed when he walked by. Vance wanted to die. He made it to his room, throwing his bag into the corner trying to ignore the mental image of Bruce Yamada of all people. He’d be damned if he got a crush on someone now of all times. 

He plopped onto his bed and tried thinking about different things like what would he do tomorrow? Would he go to detention then? Would he run into Bruce Yamada again? He shot up from his bed and went straight to his cassette collection to change out his current one which had been replaying for the past 1o minutes. 

He’d been listening to the same album from Aerosmith's Rock in a Hard Place. It's not like it was bad, but it did get tiring listening to the same songs over and over throughout the day. He ejected the cassette and filed it away with his other ones, he was met with the sounds of his relatives bustling through the house, with voices rising and falling. 

While he stared at his collection he thought of playing his old dingy electric guitar, a Kramer he somehow found at a sad ass yard sale. It was a bit risky though, he knew how much his family hated hearing him play-but he still pulled out his busted up notebook filled to the brim with tabs of songs to play, he was currently learning Lightning Strikes by Aerosmith, it was a bit complicated but he loved a challenge. He tried to play mostly by ear and with a guitar magazine with the tabs inside. He pulled that out and his own notebook with his own alterations to the song itself, found his pick and started up. First without his amp that only half worked he really wanted to warm up right, he’d been practicing this song for months, it was the middle of the song that got him. 

He held the red guitar which was somehow menacing in its own way, and strummed to make sure it was in tune. His wooden chair creaked as he assumed a hunched over position over the guitar with his foot laying across his knee with the magazine and his notebook side by side lying on top.

He practiced one piece a couple of times before gaining the courage to plug it into his amp, the amp shrieked as he missed the plug into his guitar and winced as he looked to his door expecting someone to yell at him. Nothing happened, so he played away. He actually got the first section down before his fingers started to cramp up and he was messing the song up anyway. 

Vance blew the hair out of his face and smiled. Maybe he could actually make it out of this town with his guitar. He put that thought straight away, there was absolutely no way he could do that. He left to get whatever leftovers were left in the kitchen-they never waited for Vance for dinnertime, his family just had it and whatever was left you got. 

He stopped getting mad over it a long time ago, as he made it back to his room and plate of reheated spaghetti in hand he ate absently as he had his walkman back on his head staring out of the window. Eating slowly his thoughts drifted back to Yamada, what did that even mean anyway? Why him of all people? He shook himself and finished his plate. 

________  

Bruce Yamada woke up tired no thanks to Amy, they had very late talks about various things. Boys, school, that new arcade place that just opened up, anything really. Amy was currently on top of him and passed out. He flicked her forehead, “Hey.” She flinched but didn’t wake up. He flicked her head harder and spoke a little louder, “Hey!” She snorted and woke up, “Huh? What-what time is it?” He looked over to his clock which said, “8:32” They were only two minutes late but they'd already missed the bus. 

“We’re late! Get off!” He pushed her to the other side of the bed and she also scrambled to get up and ready, there was no time for showers and his clothes were clean enough. He found some clean jeans in his hamper, and a (mostly) clean shirt on his bean bag chair. Amy ran into the bathroom to get changed and brush her teeth quickly. Bruce put his pants on almost falling trying to put his other leg. He let out a yelp. 

“Did you fall?” He heard from the bathroom, “No!” She just laughed through the door, she didn’t believe him. He took his sleep shirt off and shoved the new one on, Amy practically ran out of the bathroom grabbing her backpack and checking if she had everything. 

Bruce ran into the bathroom fixing his hair, which consisted of him just combing it back with water, and little gel. He quickly brushed his teeth, and brought along some floss so he could floss on the way. “You ready?” Amy said from his room, “Almost, just need my shoes then we can go.” He took one last look in the mirror and he was good to go.

“C’mon!” Amy was already at the door, Bruce was still putting his shoes on. “Wait!” He tripped on his way towards the door but caught himself, he was breathless, “Race you there?” Amy smiled and darted out of the door.

______

Vance woke up to banging on his door, “What?!” He yelled, it was too early for this, “Get to school Vance!” It was his mom, she was actually home for once, he scoffed. He glanced toward his clock, 9:00am. He was late, he didn’t care much for it but he needed to get out of the house.

He took his time taking a shower despite the yelling of his family to get in. He just yelled no. By the time he was out of the shower, a dozen of his cousins ran into the bathroom each trying to push the other out. He huffed and left into his room with a towel around his waist and a smaller towel over his shoulder to dry his hair. 

It was 9:45am by the time he was dressed and fixed his hair up. And he couldn’t forget his favorite green choker, one final look in the mirror and he was off to the crowded kitchen table, there were dirty bowls and relatives everywhere. Everyone yelling at each other and talking over each other. 

Vance found the half empty box of cereal and poured the rest into a bowl he’s sure is clean. He eats the cereal in record time, and is out the door by 9:59, no one waves him off. His walk to the school was uneventful at best, clouds rolled by and it seemed it was going to be a sunny day. He had Aerosmith blasting into his ears, the Kill em’ All album from Metallica. He saw familiar ground and he was at the school.

Making his way into the school he didn’t see any other students other than a couple of stragglers like himself. His class was close to the front, his history class. His arguably most decent class he’s had, the teacher was cool and wasn’t even that tempered, so Vance caused no trouble. And because it was early in the morning and it was too early for that. 

He made his way to his seat in the back of the class which was empty as usual. He threw his bag down and stared out to the window to his left, he fell asleep. 

________

Bruce of course won the race to the school, panting and sweating as he tiredly raised a fist in victory to the dismay of Amy. “No fair,” Amy panted out, “you’re on a baseball team.” He laughed at her, while they walked inside. Most people were already in class with a few stragglers out still walking, or running to their classes. Bruce wasn’t worried about being late to class, his teacher liked him enough to let it slide. Unfortunately now, Amy and Bruce had separate classes. Hers was closer to the entrance while Bruce’s was in the back. 

They waved each other off and promised to meet each other at lunch, then they were both off. Bruce didn’t dislike how far his class was, but he didn’t like it either, too much time to think. First he thought about the homework which he half finished for math class, then his mind wandered off into meaningless topics. Then those meaningless topics turned into thoughts about Vance.

Why would he even think about that guy? He’s nothing but trouble Bruce thought, scoffing at himself, and then at Amy. How could she find that guy attractive at all? He couldn’t wrap his mind around it at all, that guy was always in a bad mood and yelling at everyone. He still hadn’t forgotten about the pinball incident. 

Then as his thoughts drifted he bumped into his least favorite teacher, his chemistry teacher, Ms. Smith was known for her short temper. And apparently she was holding a ton of copy test papers for her class which spilled all over the floor, he looked up at her smiling sheepishly with a small shrug before he crouched to the ground and grabbed all of the papers as well as he could. Unfortunately he crinkled-a lot of them. 

He handed the papers back, staring at her widened eyes and furrowed brows, and watched as her red lips curled downwards. He would swear he could see the steam puff out of her ears as she lectured him intensely, “Why I never in my 10 years of teaching had a student as disrespectful as you Mr Yamada! You had the audacity to crush my papers and come into school late?” Her voice got higher the longer she went on, “Detention!”

 Bruce stilled, not again. “Like, now? You want me to go to detention now?” She narrowed her eyes, “Of course not! At the end of the day what do you take me for? An idiot? I cannot believe children these days-” She continued her rant as she pushed past Bruce as he stood there, he didn’t even do anything and he still got detention. He couldn’t believe it. 

Chapter Text

Vance slept through his history class and no one bothered to wake him up. He blinked blearily and slowly watched his history teacher wipe down the chalkboard full of nonsense. “It’s time for your next class Mr. Hopper.” His teacher said evenly, “The bell already rang 3 times you better leave before the next class gets here.” His teacher turned around and faced Vance and looked him in the eyes.

That unnerved him quite a bit so he got up and threw his bag over his shoulder, “See ya.” Vance called out hearing no response from his teacher. He rubbed his eyes as he filed into the sea of students that were rushing to their next class. Vance headed straight to the bathroom, he couldn’t even care less about the freshmen. 

He thought about going for a smoke, but it was too early for that. He opened the door and found a shrimpy kid being surrounded by three other slightly larger kids. He heard something along the lines of, “-Fight back!” but as soon as he walked in they all turned their heads and turned paper white. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, Vance looked in between all of them when the door flew open and a kid he thought looked familiar who wore a bandana went past him and stared down the bullies. 

The bullies looked between the kid with the bandana and Vance, Vance leaned against the wall where the urinals were practically saying he wasn’t a part of this, the bullies ran out of the bathroom spewing some sad half-assed insult towards the scrawny kid. 

“You ok Finn?” The kid with the bandana asked, rushing toward the scrawny boy, which Vance now recognized as Robin Arellano-the kid who beat the shit out of another kid earlier in the week. Vance couldn’t lie, he admired the kid and his absolute balls of steel fighting somebody like that. 

Vance minded his own business though-zipping his pants and using the urinal and washing his hands while the two boys behind him talked to each other. He didn’t really pay them any attention though but did catch a few sentences like, “Did they hit you? Are you ok?” The scrawny kid he could see in the dirty mirror brushed Arellano off and assured him. 

The bell rang throughout the bathroom while Vance dried his hands with the cardboard-like towel paper. The boys lingered toward the door deciding whether or not they both wanted to leave, Vance claimed a corner by one of the stalls fiddling with his walkman. Arellano turned to look at Vance and nodded, Vance nodded back not really knowing why. Then the boys both left. 

Vance wondered why he did that for about a minute and decided it was pointless. He lingered in the bathroom for long while messing around just wetting the paper towels and throwing them at the wall to see them stick. It was when he heard keys jingling down the hall he decided it was time to get to class. 

________

Bruce was dying waiting for lunchtime. His classes were more dull today and it didn’t help that he miraculously got detention today. What would he tell his parents? He wanted to bury his head in the ground. He groaned and a girl next to him nudged his foot and mouthed, “What’s wrong?” He smiled politely and responded quietly, “I have detention later.” He mockingly rolled his eyes and made her laugh. 

She blushed and went back to her work, he smiled and looked at his own worksheet. His mind went back to detention, Amy would totally laugh at him for it. He looked up at the clock that was above the door, just one more hour until lunch time. His knee bobbed up and down, he’d miss baseball practice again. Again, he wanted to bang his head into the nearest wall. He couldn’t miss another practice, they had a game in a week or two. Why him? Why did he have to get detention again?

He sighed heavily and just resigned himself into doodling on his worksheet full of gibberish, he would finish the worksheet later probably in detention. 

He must’ve been doodling for a while because the bell rang and everyone started to filter out, the girl from earlier nudged his foot again and nodded her head towards the door. He hastily and messily got his stuff into his bag and headed out the door with her. “So, you got detention?” she asked. He sighed and hung his head, “Yeah, this is the second time-can you believe that?” 

She laughed, and they both made their way to her locker. “What’d you do this time? If not smoking.” He stared at her, had that really gotten out that quickly? “What?” She opened her locker, “Yeah everyone’s been saying that the teacher caught you with the stoners.” He leaned against the lockers in disbelief, he knew rumors could get around-but that quickly? No way. 

Bruce leaned towards her while she was putting away certain textbooks and pulling out different ones, “Well I hope you know that I wasn’t actually smoking,” the blond girl smiled and blushed again, “Oh I don’t know, everyone’s pretty sure they saw you smoking every kind of drug known to man.” Now it was his turn to laugh, “Oh yeah? Like what?”

She closed her locker and held her books to her chest, “Mostly just dope, but there were crazy ones like Big O.” He busted out laughing and so did she, he couldn’t believe what people could make up and how fast it got around. The bell rang once again warning students to get to their next class soon. 

Bruce tapped her shoulder, “What’s your name?” Her blond hair shined as she turned around and said, “Laura, now I gotta get to class. See you later?” Bruce nodded,  “Yeah, see you later.” Bruce smiled as he turned around to belatedly get his stuff from his locker and get to class quick enough, he darted to his locker dodging kids going the opposite way. 

He got to his class late but he didn’t care, his face warmed as he thought about Laura. “Why you cheesing so hard, man?” A kid in one of the front desks asked him, he simply responded, “A girl.” with a goofy grin and headed to his seat by the window. As class neared the end he dreaded the next hour, he’d have to go to detention again and miss his practice. 

And most likely deal with Vance, he wanted to know why Vance left him alone. It confused him so much, Vance just looked at him for a few seconds and threw him on the ground. Not even a bruise was left, Bruce wasn’t that scared of Vance so he was going to ask him next period if he was even in detention today. 

Bruce was going to have to reign in his nervousness-Vance’s eyes was still a no. They were piercing and shot straight into your soul-Bruce couldn’t handle the intensity of the stare. Bruce shuddered in his seat thinking about his eyes. Then shook himself-he shouldn’t be thinking about another boy's eyes. 

________

The end of the day came quicker than Vance thought but when you’re listening to music all day and sleeping in every class time seems to move quicker. 

The last class was up and he was already on his way to detention, today's reason was skipping. The teacher that sent him was unsurprised and just mildly annoyed. Vance merely nodded his head and went on to his next class.

The bell finally rang and he was on his way to detention, he wasn’t paying attention to anyone really, just switching out his cassettes. Mr.Jones welcomed him into class with the same enthusiasm as yesterday, Vance rolled his eyes and went to his seat in the back of the class. He noticed that the stoners weren’t in today, they must’ve been more careful.

Mr.Jones started to rattle off about bettering yourself or something like that. There were few kids in the class but the one that shocked him the most was the one who walked through the door, Yamada. Vance’s eyes widened and stared at him as he walked through the class looking for a seat.

His music blasting and heart rate increasing made it worse-suddenly, he wondered if he looked creepy and quickly looked at the chalkboard which was suddenly a lot more interesting than Yamada. He drummed his fingers to the beat of his music to distract himself.

Which worked for about a minute before he felt the familiar jolt of his seat, he glanced to his left and surprise surprise it was Yamada. Once again Yamada looked like a deer caught in headlights-Vance narrowed his eyes and stared at the other boy. Vance felt flustered-which was a new feeling and he didn’t exactly know why it was happening but it was. He didn’t know how to deal with it so he just got riled up, besides he had the energy today. 

“Fuck is your problem dickhead?” He yelled, Yamada flinched his brown eyes wide and scared. His heart skipped a beat looking into his eyes-what the hell was up with his eyes? “Well?” Vance yelled once more and Yamada looked to the teacher for help and back to Vance.

All eyes were on them, the room quieted as they all waited for a response from Yamada. Yamada’s surprise turned into furrowed brows and a frown and said, “You shouldn’t talk to people that way Vance.” Vance paused, what? He pulled his headphones off and placed them on his desk where he could still faintly hear the guitar solo. 

Now, Vance was caught off guard-he was off balance now, the other person was supposed to respond yelling and guns akimbo, not like that . He recovered, “And what makes you think I’m gonna listen to your dumbass?” He leaned forward, the only thing between them was one desk. Yamada leaned away from him, “I didn’t say you had to listen to me asshole, just don’t speak to people like that-it’s common decency.” Vance wanted to laugh-he almost did, he was certain he had a small smile on his face, but he tried to keep up the tough guy act.

“Yeah well it’s common decency to not shove a fucking desk into others asshole .” Vance kicked the desk in between them toward Yamada with a loud screech as the chair hit the other desk. Yamada jerked his legs away from the incoming desk and a slight bang sound rang throughout the classroom as Yamada swiveled his head to glare at Vance. “What? Not so tough now are you?” Vance sneered-unable to take his eyes away from Yamada’s. 

Yamada puffed his chest and the furrow in his brow deepened and the frown even more pronounced, Vance stilled a bit he’s never seen Mr Popular so mad before. Vance smiled a bit but quickly replaced it with a sneer. Yamada continued glaring into Vance’s eyes then kicked the desk back towards Vance which hit his knee. The pain wasn’t too bad but still made him cry out. The rest of the class could hear that everyone was talking and others were telling each other to shush. 

Vance held his knee and looked up to Yamada looking terrified that he even tried that, Vance stood screeching his own seat away, “You wanna try again?” He said, but he didn’t really feel any resentment towards Yamada-moreso entertainment, no one would ever try that with him unless they thought they could fight him. His heart was beating faster than it should have been, he couldn’t figure it out, just as Yamada opened his mouth to retort the teacher interrupted, “Vance! That’s enough. Sit down or leave.” The sternness from Mr.Jones of all people unnerved him, so he pointed at Yamada, “Lucky bastard.” And sat down in his seat with a grunt, when he finally observed the class-they were all looking at him and Yamada and back again. 

They looked like fish with how their mouths gaped, he smiled and almost laughed but he didn’t, he just put his headphones back on and rewound the tape to listen to all the music he had missed. Vance looked at all of them severely to stop their annoying chattering and took his pencil out and began to doodle on the desk until everyone went back to minding their own business. He could feel Yamada’s eyes on him, but he refused to look up. 

The desk was full of profanities and doodles by the end of detention. Mr.Jones announced the end of detention and everyone slowly got up from their seats trying to see Vance was going to do something to Yamada. He didn’t do anything, Vance rushed out of the class, with an unlit cigarette between his lips.

Turns out Yamada had the same idea, and somehow got ahead of him on his race to the door. He bumped into Yamada and he grunted as they gathered their balance. Now Vance was annoyed he was gonna shove him again but the teacher was right behind him, so he gripped his collar and forced him to follow him to the back of the school. He heard a chorus of voices, “Oooooh!” He rolled his eyes.

He heard protests from the boy behind him, but ignored them.

________

Now if you had told Bruce that he’d be dragged away to his doom today he wouldn’t have believed you but now that it’s happening, he’s panicking rightly so. Bruce quickly hits Vance’s arm but Vance doesn’t slow down. 

“Vance, listen I didn’t mean to hit you with the desk! I swear! It just so happened to hit you!” He tried but Vance scoffed and sped up, they were nearing the exit to the back of the school. Oh god Bruce was about to die, why couldn’t he have just kept his mouth shut? Why did he think it was a good idea to kick the desk?

The doors to the exit burst open as Vance threw him out into the courtyard, he nearly lost his balance and stumbled forward onto the grass. “Vance-” He started, but stopped as he watched Vance casually lean on the wall next to the doors and light his cigarette. What? Ok this was the second time he should’ve been beaten till he turned purple-did he have special privileges or something? 

“Y’know you got some guts talkin’ to me like that.” Vance says cooly while he blows the smoke out. It smells terrible, he has to resist coughing and gagging. “Yeah?” Bruce cautiously walks to be across from Vance, but not close enough that Vance could swing and it would connect. 

Vance takes another long inhale, Bruce notices his pink lips around the cigarette. He darts his eyes away from that and looks at his shoes, red busted converse. “I won’t beat your ass, I know you were freaking out-you bastard.” He blows the smoke toward Bruce, he waves the smoke away, “Why though? Why am I the exception?” Bruce didn’t want people to think that Vance and Bruce were friends or anything, that wouldn’t be so great.

“Hey! Don’t think you’re special kid, it’s only because I know Jones is down the hall and ready to call the Dean.” Vance took the cigarette out of his mouth and took in between his index and middle finger, “Oh.” Bruce exhaled, he didn’t know what to think, this boy seemed to be all talk-but he’d seen him fight so Bruce should consider himself lucky. 

Sun beating down on them, highlighting Vance’s eyes which made them even more piercing. Bruce shuddered, Amy would love to hear about this later. Suddenly Vance kicked off of the wall and sauntered over to Bruce and slung an arm over his shoulder. The smell of smoke stinging his eyes as he coughed, “I won’t beat your ass but I am hurting for cash-I would take it as an apology for my knee, If you don’t lend me some,” He took an inhale of smoke and blew it out, “Then I’ll have to beat your ass then alright?” 

Bruce was very, very aware of how close Vance was, his hair pooled over his shoulder, and the small smile dancing on his face, his face was getting hot and heart pounding. He was confused, now he was stiff and scared, with butterflies in his stomach (for some reason) but most of all angry, how dare he try to rob Bruce in broad daylight! “What the hell?” Bruce shouted almost involuntarily, “You trying to rob me?” He pushed Vance away and once again faced him with about 6 feet in between them. Vance smiled with that goddamn cigarette in his mouth, “Hey I’m just a guy who’s needy, you gonna reject a person in need?” Vance closed the distance with only 2 feet separating them. Bruce’s breath caught. 

Vance’s eyes never left Bruce’s, Vance looked like he wanted to eat him. Sweat began collecting on his forehead, and the tree nearby only provided little shade as they were at the very edge of it. Against his better judgment Bruce reached into his back pocket where his money was, and grabbed a 20 which was his chore money. Mom was gonna be pissed. He handed the crumpled bill over and Vance took it with a beautiful smile, “Thanks kid.” Vance turned on his heel and began to walk away, Bruce staring at his denim jacket. “You’re welcome! Asshole ” He said the last part quietly. 

“And stop calling me kid! We’re the same age!” He yelled when Vance was farther away, but all he could hear in response was laughter. He helplessly stood there before remembering baseball practice would still be in session since it’s close to their game. He ran through the hallway, towards the front of the school and ran down the sidewalk towards the field. His coach saw him and waved him over. 

By the time Bruce got there out of breath and sweaty with his bag on one shoulder and barely hanging on. He bent over with his hands on his knees panting like a dog. His teammates yelled for him to hurry it up and some were cheering, Coach O’Donnell laughed and clapped him on the back, “Welcome back Yamada, you from detention?” 

Bruce nodded his head as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Alright hurry on to the lockers before you miss the last,” He checked his watch, “40 minutes! That enough time for you Yamada?” Bruce swallowed, “Never.” With a smile from his Coach and a laugh from him he headed into the locker room which always smells like sweat and musk, he hurriedly put on his uniform and shoes, he could hear all of his teammates outside chattering and arguing who the best baseball player was. 

He smiled as he placed his hat on his head and headed on out to the dugout. His teammates clapped him on the back congratulating him on actually making it back to practice for once, and other’s teased him. “Finally made it today huh?” A boy taller than him and was probably in the wrong sport asked him, “Yeah, yeah it was all Vance’s fault.” He said a little offhandedly and a little too casually apparently because all casual chatter stopped and all eyes were on him. 

Another boy had a ton of freckles, with ginger hair to match piped up, “Did you fight Pinball Vance?!” Bruce startled and looked around, “What? No? He just held me up after detention.” Bruce grabbed his bat and tried to go to the batter's position but the other boys held him up. “No, no, no, tell us everything! You fought with Pinball Vance and won?!” Bruce had to shake his head out of disbelief they weren’t listening! “No! He just took my money and ran off! That’s all, although I did kinda hit him with a chair…” The last part he muttered more to himself than to the other boys.  “A chair!?” One boy yelled, the others started to crowd him, “No! He kicked a desk at me so I did it back to him, and it hit his knee or something.”

Bruce tried to calm the boys down but to no avail, with every new detail he made it worse. They started to gossip among themselves, something along the lines of, “Bruce won a fight against Pinball Vance!” Which was so, so, so wrong and he couldn’t do anything about it. 

By the end of practice Bruce had missed two throws from the pitcher and connected the rest, those two though had messed up his confidence. In the locker rooms the tale of Bruce defeating Pinball Vance with a desk had been told a hundred times and changed another ten. He was tired of it but he learnt the more he’d said would make the situation worse. Apparently now Bruce slammed a desk over Vance’s head and knocked him out and then Bruce took his money. Which Bruce just wanted to bang his head into his locker, how did it come to this in just 40 minutes?

He changed and packed all his things away and left with all of his teammates thanking and congratulating him for the second time but for ‘defeating’ Vance apparently. This was not going to go over well at school, and what if Vance finds out? He was seriously going to get beat to hell this time, it had to be. There’s no way Vance is letting this one fly, he couldn’t go three for three no way. 

He was in his head the entire time on the walk home, he was exhausted. He found Amy on the couch with no parents in sight. He collapsed next to her while she watched tv. “What’s wrong with you?” She said as she took a bite from a candy bar. He just groaned and laid his head in her lap and he closed his eyes, “Too much happened, need to sleep.” Bruce tiredly said, while he rubbed his eyes. Amy snorted and continued watching her show before he could practically feel the question she wanted to ask.

“Ask your friggin question already, it’s like I can hear it inside your head.” Amy let out a sigh of relief, “Oh thank god I wanted you to chill before I asked any question because I’m the best sister ever.” He rolled his eyes and laughed, he got up from her lap and sat crisscrossed, “It’s Vance again.” 

Her mouth dropped open which quickly morphed into a smile, “What happened? Was he pretty doing it?” He stared at her with an unsurprised face, he wanted to be shocked that she said that, but he really wasn’t. “He robbed me.” She sucked air through her teeth, “oof ok so not pretty, kinda shitty actually.” Amy said thoughtfully, “Yeah kinda shitty.” He agreed.

“So like, what happened at detention, did you say something to him?”  Bruce hung his head and said, “My desk accidentally hit his when I sat down and he freaked.” He ran his hand through his hair, “What do you mean he freaked? Did you fight him or something?” Amy was now fully intrigued, just like the rest of the guys on his team.

Bruce held his hands up in mock surrender and recounted the entire story of what happened in detention up until the robbery. He even told her what happened at practice, she laughed and laughed at him. 

“I thought you were going to tell me about Laura, and how much you wanted to kiss her and hold her hand if I’m honest.” Bruce’s face warmed once again for the umpteenth time today, “She is super pretty-” Bruce started, “Oh god, what if she hears about all of this?” He put his head in his hands, Amy clapped him on the back. 

“I cannot wait until this gets to everybody at school, they’re gonna think you’re amazing! Especially Laura, she’s gonna be like, ‘Oh Bruce you’re so brave and amazing and I love you!’” Amy said in a high pitched voice. He was horrified, he didn't want everyone to hear all the lies his teammates were going to spew out. 

Bruce suddenly felt very tired and Amy could see it, she dropped her teasing and told him everything was probably going to be fine, he just needed to ride this whole thing out. He went off to take a nap while Amy stayed out and watched tv waiting for his parents. His eyes were closed before they even hit the pillow. 

________

Vance was outside of the store where he played pinball with the $20 bill crumpled in his hand and his cigarette loosely between his lips. He was currently sitting on the concrete in front of the store with his hand on his neck looking out into nothing. 

He shouldn’t have taken the money, he couldn’t understand it-he felt guilty why should he even feel guilty, it’s just money right? If he had some he can get some more-right? Yeah Yamada seemed well off enough, he should be fine. But that feeling in his gut wouldn’t go away, making him feel slightly sick. He abruptly got up from where he was sitting and went inside, the bell ringing as he smelt that familiar smell of frozen foods and candy near the counter. 

He nodded toward the store owner, she’d called the cops on him more than enough times but still let him inside for one reason or another, Vance never questioned it; he took it as a small win. She stiffly nodded back as he made his way to the pinball machine. The other people in the store cleared out rather quickly as soon as they saw Vance. 

He placed his arms on either side of the pinball machine. The high score was different, someone had beaten him. Reading the 8,500 he slammed his hands onto the pinball machine letting out a frustrated sound, the lady behind the counter shouted, “Hey! You break that again and it won’t be back for you to play with.” He scoffed but took that warning seriously, not very many places would let him in to play. 

He took out some of his own change to put into the machine and started, then acting like a man possessed he immediately started to rack up points with the familiar loud dings. His mind began to wander once again and of course, it always went back to Yamada. He went back to just 15 minutes ago when he robbed him, he had to rob him in Vance’s mind. He couldn’t uphold his reputation by being nice to one guy specifically. He had to keep up this bully or punk image that he had managed to create. 

He went with it though, it let him do something and finally got his parents to notice him for once. It only worked for about a year or two though once he got into enough trouble they both decided he was a lost cause. And once again he was a ghost in the house that sometimes yelled or played the guitar. Or got arrested by the police, his parents had paid attention to him that day. 

Yamada couldn’t be an exception no way, it wasn’t in principle Vance thought. And still the guilt pooled in his gut and he couldn’t keep that goddamn money no way. He had to find some way to give it back without telling the entire damn school that Vance wasn’t as scary as they thought. A loud ding rang throughout the store, he reached the 2,000 mark on the scoreboard. He smiled, and seemed to keep his skills in check, he sort of prided himself on earning the name “Pinball Vance.” Although the name wasn’t as creative as it could be he earned it all the same. 

How the hell was he going to give back the damn money? Also Vance thought he sort of oversold the “bully” part but it worked all the same, the fact he put an arm over his shoulder made him sort of giddy. He could see the pink appear on Yamada’s face when he’d done it, but it must’ve been the fact he was embarrassed that he was getting robbed. The 3,000 mark dinged he was getting there, and his mind eased a bit. 

Maybe he could put the money in his locker during lunch, not many people roaming in the halls during lunch. Yeah he could do that, the 4,000 mark dinged loudly-he was brought back to reality and suddenly more aware of the game in front of him. He saw his score steadily rising and rising, until he heard a group of kids walk into the store-he swore to god if they interrupted his game like the last time someone was going to die. 

The group quieted a little as he assumed they saw him playing the game, he paid them no mind as long as they would move along without bothering him. As the group moved into the store they spoke in hushes and whispers-it was easy to assume it was about him, he quickly adjusted the volume on his walkman to the highest volume he didn’t want to pay attention to them.

As David Lee Roth's voice rose into his ears the more he focused on the game, he was now at an easy 5,000 and rising with every hit he watched the number grow. Time quickly passed and he was approaching the current high score, with a 8,430 he gripped the sides of the machine, the machine dinged loudly as it his 9,000 he kept playing until it hit the highest he’d managed to, 9,853 just shy of the highest the machine could manage. 

He let the ball fall through the hole as the machine dinged loudly at his highscore. He pumped a fist as he realized his cigarette fell out of his mouth however long ago. As he knelt to pick up the cigarette he heard a voice through a guitar solo, he grabbed the cig and rose, taking his headphones off and pausing his music. He stood to find Robin Arellano staring back at him with a smile, “Not surprised you beat my score.” 

Vance’s eyes widened, “That was your score? Holy shit.”  Vance stared at the smaller boy and smiled, “Guess you’re gonna have to beat mine now.” Vance leaned against the machine and crossed his arms.

“You have a light?” Vance asked now that his cig was out, “You know you can’t smoke in here right?” Vance made a sound of agreement and nodded to the door. Robin nodded but looked behind him to find a group of boys trying to look busy looking very interested in the chip aisle.

Vance ignored that and made his way out the door trusting that Robin would follow, Vance leaned against the building while Robin smoothly handed him his lighter, it was engraved with words he couldn’t read probably in Spanish. He lit his cigarette and clicked it closed, “Thanks kid.”

He inhaled and exhaled slowly, “How long did that high score take you?” He turned his head to Robin who copied his posture. Robin scoffed, “Took me like, a week or something.” Vance laughed softly, “Shit.”

“Those yours in there?” He nodded towards the store giving a little wave to all the boys inside, staring at him and watching them scramble away from the window. Robin rolled his eyes, “Yeah they’re mine,” He gave them a glare and they hid farther into the store.

Vance took out his cigarette carton and offered one to Robin, he raised his hand in rejection. Vance shrugged and placed it back into his jacket pocket. “So why’d you want me out here?” Robin asked a little warily, Vance took another inhale and let the smoke settle in his lungs before exhaling. 

“Wanted to talk to the only other person who’s beaten my high score. And maybe a break from them.” He jerked a finger towards the window, Robin laughed, “Thanks I guess.” They sat in comfortable silence for a minute or two before one of his friends urged him inside, while looking at Vance like he was a wild animal. 

Why did Vance do the things he did? There was no point in asking him out there, Vance desperately didn’t want to admit that he was lonely. When Robin was dragged back inside by a small girl he nodded once again toward Vance, and Vance lazily saluted the boy. He watched the group of rowdy boys and girl walk out yelling and laughing loudly.

Vance watched while putting his headphones back on, David lee Roth’s voice greeted him back. He pushed down a sad feeling and went back inside to try and beat his own high score. The dings and the quiet woman behind him accompanying him even if only for a moment.

Chapter Text

Over the next week was very strange for Vance, he and Robin began competing with each other over pinball. But Vance’s nickname was Pinball Vance for a reason, he always won though Robin did get close more than enough times to scare him.

Scarily enough, Vance started making friends with Robin and slowly the rest of his little group. With a group of freshmen around him all the time would hurt his reputation, he thought so he didn’t talk to them at school. Unless Finney was getting harassed in the bathroom, no one but those asshole bullies knew that they had Vance on their side. 

Apparently in a couple of days, Finney had a baseball game to get to, and who else was he against other than Bruce Yamada. It’s like Vance couldn’t stay away from him, he almost told them he wasn’t going until Gwen gave him the scariest look he’d ever gotten from a little girl ever, then he agreed to it. 

He really didn’t want to go, he didn’t want Yamada to see him. He’d also recruited the help of Robin and Finney to return the 20 bucks and a note he’d written hastily back to Yamada, they just slipped it into his locker and ran away like little goblins. They’d asked him why he was giving Bruce Yamada of all people his money back, and all he said was that he owed him some and to not worry about it. 

Vance watched as they slipped in the 20 bucks and the note through the locker slit, and they gave him the thumbs up as the bell rang and they ran off to class. Since this passing week Vance had noticed first, that he saw that people in the school seemed to be less scared of him or just less avoidant of him, and he had no clue as to why. Kids around him had been more bold and brash, more kids trying to agitate him and it was working. 

The final straw was when he felt his headphones violently rip off of his head and knock onto the ground, still connected to his walkman clipped onto his jean pocket. He shoved the random kid against the locker intensely. 

“You think you’re funny?” 

“N-No!” The kid stuttered out, “What makes you think you’re such a tough guy huh?” Vance said punctuating his statement by lifting and slamming the kid against the locker. The people around them exclaimed, chattered loudly and drew more and more in. 

The kid looked around at all the people silently asking for help. Suddenly his eyes lit up as he looked at one specific person he thought could help him. Vance turned his head slightly and there he was, walking with some blond chick, Bruce Yamada. He wilted slightly, no fucking way it was Yamada again .  

Yamada stopped in the hallway to stare, the kid he held against the locker squirmed as if highlighting what was happening to him.

“Hey! Why the fuck are you looking over there? I’m right here fuckface!” Now Vance was getting even more agitated, annoyance itching at him somewhere deep inside of his body. 

His hands clenched on the kid's collar and he grit his teeth, he raised his fist to pummel into this poor kid's face when he felt his arm stop with a strength that made his heart skip a beat, he swiveled his head around to find Yamada stopping him. Now this time he couldn’t let Yamada get away with this, Vance unclenched his hands off of the kid who ran off as soon as he could and faced Yamada. 

Bruce still held an ironclad grip on Vance’s arm until he jerked his hand away from him, as if his hand was burning him. “Fuck do you want now?” Vance said lowly. 

Bruce stuttered, “I-I just want you to stop hurting other people ok? You don’t have to fight right now, besides it’s like 11am-we don’t need this right now-” Vance shoved him back into the crowd of kids, “Fuck you!” He yelled, that’s when a jock stood in front of Bruce acting as his shield. 

The jock stood proudly and puffed out his chest, he was definitely bigger than Vance by a mile. Vance wasn’t unnerved though, he’d fought tons of people he wouldn’t be any different. Vance was squaring up to the jock when he threw a swing with his right arm, Vance easily dodged this and tried to kick him but again the jock was bigger than him and easily dodged as well. 

The crowd around them cheered, Vance backed away remembering his headphones on the ground. The jock quickly closed the distance between them and went low aiming for his stomach, Vance turned quickly taking the hit to his shoulder which immediately started to throb with pain. Vance didn’t waiver though, he’d been through worse-this was a cakewalk. 

Vance returned a punch to the jocks right side of the face hitting his cheekbone and eyebrow. The jock in his stupid varsity jacket stumbled backwards holding a hand to his wounded face, the look he gave Vance was severe and full of anger. He charged Vance like an angry bull pinning him to the lockers, the crowd of kids cheered which wasn’t an amazing prospect but you can’t win 'em all. 

His headphones dragged along  in tandem with the fight. He lost his breath, fighting to get air back into his lungs. 

The brown haired jock growled against Vance as he mimicked what Vance was doing with the other kid earlier. Large hands gripped Vance’s denim jacket as the jock raised his own fist toward Vance, the world suddenly went slow. He heard the echoes of the people around him cheering for this asshole, with the added anger or delight on the jock's face looking straight at him. 

He heard a distinct voice in the crowd yelling for the jock to stop but it was lost in the sea of other kids cheering over them. He didn’t want to believe it, but it sounded like Yamada. 

His fist flew toward Vance but not before Vance kneed the jock in the nuts with the most force he could muster. Somehow, people always forget about the legs when pinning someone against anything in a fight. The fist did connect with his face but with much less force, less enough so that Vance wouldn’t bruise too bad. He pushed the jock off of him as he was stunned holding the crotch of his pants. 

He began to move towards his headphones which looked like they didn’t have any damage when a force smashed into his face and felt gravity push down on him. 

Suddenly he was on the ground, a wet feeling covering his upper lip, and an inexplicable pain in his nose. Stars bursted out of his vision and the voices around him became muffled. He felt another burst of pain blossom on his jaw, he felt a body cage him and through his bleary vision could see that the jock was above him trying to beat him into the ground. 

His fluttering eyes finally slowed and the jock stood up off of him, started to spew something about Vance not being able to hurt anyone anymore. With his ears ringing and his jaw throbbing with pain, he slowly got up as he heard the jock laugh above him, the adrenaline not letting him acknowledge how much pain he was in right about now. 

He cradled his face in his hands, “That’s right! First Bruce and now me! That’s what you get for being a bully Vance!” The jock mocked, that made Vance’s skin burn-he clenched his teeth and sucked up the pain. He’s really had worse injuries than a possibly broken nose and or jaw, but he had no idea how long it took him to recover. 

“Johnny! Dude you didn’t have to go that far!” He heard Yamada yell. 

“Yeah but he deserves it.” A chorus of agreements rang out of the crowd around him. 

The thing that scared Vance more than the jock and the crowd of people surrounding him was that as he staggered upward, struggling to stay upright as his head throbbed in pain. He was dizzy and made eye contact with a teacher, a teacher who had been watching this whole thing and letting it happen in front of him. The teacher stared back at Vance with a blank face, like Vance hadn’t even been hit. He could have dropped dead there and the teacher wouldn't have blinked. 

The teacher was leaning against what Vance assumed was his homeroom door away from the eyes of the crowd. His heart beat harder than it ever had before, Yamada noticed he was staring and followed his gaze and also saw the teacher. Yamada looked back at Vance with an emotion he couldn’t place, he tried to push through the crowd of kids but the blond girl he was with held him back. 

Vance took that fear and anger and threw a punch with every ounce of his strength into the jock's nose and another with much less strength into his stomach. The jock yelled as he crumbled to the ground onto his headphones with a loud crack. 

The teacher ran from his homeroom door with genuine worry on his face as the jock went down. Before the teacher could do anything Vance kicked over the jocks unconscious body and retrieved his twisted and bent headphones. He spit blood on the jocks stupid varsity jacket and left into the sea of kids as the teacher kneeled next to the jock and yelled for somebody to get a nurse. 

He staggered away, getting Robins and Finney’s attention as they were leaving for their own classes. They ran over to him, “Vance! Are you ok?” Finney ran over to Vance to help him to the door, Robin mimicked the same movement. It really did help his unequal equilibrium. 

“It was that puto wasn’t it?” Robin nodded his head toward the crowd of kids and the unconscious jock. Vance nodded unceremoniously, “You guys get outta here before you get into trouble for helping me.” He slurred. 

“What? No, you’re messed up and we need to get you to a nurse.” Finney argued, which Vance was weirdly glad for, Finney was flighty around Vance. Robin agreed, “We can at least get you to the courtyard, I know how it feels after all that.” Vance once again nodded. 

They got him to the double doors out to the courtyard before Vance assured them for the umpteenth time that he would make it to the nurse after resting and letting the crowd dissipate. 

He really needed a cigarette.

 He sat against the large tree. He wondered what he was going to do about his headphones, he didn’t have the money for it, but right now he couldn’t care less, his head was throbbing and the aching pain in the center of his face was too much to ignore. 

He tried wiping the blood from his nose off with the back of his hand but that only made it smear. Running his tongue along his bottom lip he felt an open wound, that fucker must’ve busted his lip open.

 Fuck, he was tired. He lightly knocked his head against the tree behind him. He closed his eyes trying to reorient himself. When he heard some rustling behind him. 

________ 

“Johnny! Dude you didn’t have to go that far!” Bruce pleaded with Johnny as he tried to get closer through the sea  of kids. 

“Yeah but he deserves it.” The amount of students agreeing unnerved Bruce, surely Vance didn’t do something to all of these people right? The kids around him cheering made his stomach drop, the fact Laura of all people was cheering too. 

The teacher stalking in the shadows wasn’t doing anything about the fight happening right in front of him. Bruce felt sweat prickle on his forehead. 

Bruce asked Laura to stay right where she was to get closer and stop Johnny from beating the living hell out of Vance. Sure Vance pushed him but that was just a shove besides Bruce got in his way first, he’s the one that should be confronting Vance right now. 

Laura clamped onto his arm and said, “No! Just watch the fight for now, you know Pinball Vance deserves it.” Bruce stiffened, he realized even the teacher believed this. His heart ached, as he looked at Vance’s pained face. 

Vance got up slowly looking at his hand full of blood. The way he looked at Johnny made Bruce glad he wasn’t in the line of fire because Vance looked like a monster . 

Bruce lost his breath as Vance laid Johnny out and kicked up his body to get his messed up headphones and made his way out of the school with the help of two kids he was sure he’d seen before but he couldn’t be sure. The teacher watching from the safety nook of his homeroom, ran over to Johnny’s crumpled body. Kneeling over his unconscious body, “Somebody get a nurse!” He bellowed as he tried to wake Johnny up, Laura joined the teacher on the ground also trying to wake him up. She cooed as she tried for a soothing voice. 

“You know that Johnny started it right?” Bruce tapped the teacher on his shoulder.

“I only saw that Vance fought Johnny, our football captain, and knocked him out! I’ll ask around for what everyone saw, but for now leave it to me.” Bruce nodded reluctantly knowing that the teacher saw everything and chose to do nothing.

Looking at the blood that splattered against the floor he felt sick. He had a pretty good idea of where Vance ran off to. Laura called after him but he ignored it, he stopped by the bathrooms before he made his way outside to where he saw a leg sticking out behind the courtyard tree. 

He took a deep breath in and walked over to the tree where he saw Vance with his eyes closed resting his head against the tree, while a smear of red streaks across his face. Vance didn’t even open his eyes when he said, “I don’t need your charity Yamada.” He was taken aback, how’d he know it was him?

“What? How’d you know it was me?” Vance scoffed,

“You’re the only one stupid enough to come out here.” Bruce sat down to Vance’s left, “Well, I have a shit ton of paper towels if you want em’.” Bruce dug into his jacket pockets and set them down in Vance’s lap.  That’s when he opened his eyes and looked at Bruce incredulously, “What, are you doing?” he asked slowly. 

“Trying to help an asshole who stole 20 bucks from me.” Bruce said earnestly accompanied with a sigh. “You-” Vance started but quickly cut himself off. Vance looked dazed and very tired, he took the paper towels and gingerly lifted his head off the tree to try and clean off the blood on his face, the moment was quiet and only filled with paper towels rustling.

He heard the school bell ring, and grimaced. He stared at Vance’s slumped body as he tried to clean as much blood off of his face as he could. “How are your headphones? I heard it crack when Johnny fell.” Bruce inquired. Vance’s eyes lit up as he remembered them, as fast as he could he grabbed them and the top of the headphone was broken, one end sagging. Bruce sucked in air as Vance looked at it sadly with audible disappointment. His heart ached again. 

“How’s the nose?” And after a beat Bruce added, “And your lip! Damn.”

“It’s fine, now you better get to class or some shit like that, I’m going home.” Vance announced. He tried to get up but Bruce guessed his balance was off and his head was probably messed up, Bruce got up and held Vance’s arm as he tried to reorient himself putting his arm against the tree. “Woah! I don’t think you should be moving this much.” 

“It’s fine , I’ve had worse now get off of me.” Vance jerked his arm back for the second time today. He put a hand to his head, with a fist clenching around a couple of dried bloodied paper towels. His breathing got heavier and heavier, until he started heaving. 

Bruce took a step back, when Vance spewed green on the ground below him with a sickening squelch. Vance started coughing, tears filling his eyes. “Ok, no evidently you’re not fine, I’m taking you to the nurses office.” Bruce grabbed Vance’s walkman with the headphones and his arm to try and guide him back to the school. Vance didn’t try to protest this time. 

As Bruce guided him towards the doors back into the school he grabbed a lone paper towel left in his pocket, and wiped the vomit that got onto his face. With Vance’s arm around his shoulders and his arm around his waist Bruce made the very slow journey to the nurses office which was near the front of the school. He was glad everyone was in class now so people around didn’t have to see whatever was happening. Although some stragglers late to class gawked. He noticed the kids that helped Vance outside earlier pass by.

They all gawked at Vance as he slowly made his way, Arellano asked, “Is he ok?” Bruce nodded and said, “Yeah I just need to get him to the nurses office.” They all nodded and muttered amongst themselves, “Make sure he gets there in good enough shape he already gave back the money he owed you.” Arellano said. Bruce looked at him questionably but nodded anyways. 

Bruce finally made it to the nurses office and the nurse seemed to be unsurprised but still worried over the condition the blond boy was in. “Here, set him down.” She said as she fussed over the bed laying him down on it. 

“What happened? I know it was a fight but did he get hit anywhere else?”

“H-He was hit in the-nose and jaw. Is he gonna be ok?” He gazed upon Vance’s body, this is the most relaxed he’d seen Vance, which was messed up if you really thought about it.

His breathing was slow and dried blood colored his pale face. “He’s going to be fine, he just needs some rest.” the nurse said as worry decorated her face also gazing at Vance. “Thank you for bringing him here, I don’t think he would’ve been able to come here by himself again.” A warm hand rested on his shoulder, what did she mean by himself, again? Bruce wondered how many times he’s had to go through this, he was about to ask when the nurse ushered him out of her office and sent him off to class. 

Bruce shook himself, he thankfully dropped off his Walkman as he was ushered out, but jeez. Since he was already at least 15 minutes late to class, he hurried down the corridor and down to his locker.

When he unlocked it, a note and the rumored money Vance owed him fell delicately to the ground. It was his 20 bucks  and a note. Vance gave his money back? The note was folded neatly and it read, “Sorry for robbing you. -Vance” Bruce never felt more confused.

Warmth spread through Bruce’s body and face as he made his way to his next class. 

________

Vance woke up slowly, eyes fluttering open. He groaned, his head was throbbing and his tongue felt like a desert. “Oh honey don’t try to get up.” Nurse Mary said, she gently pushed him back down.

The room was blurry whenever he opened his eyes, Mary just looked like a big blob of colors. He felt the bile rising in his throat for a second time, “I-feel sick-” he threw his guts up into what sounded like a bin or trash can, tears pricking at his eyes.

After a while he didn’t know how long, he could sit up without feeling the need to throw up. Mary gave him water, and sipped frugally. The dried blood was cleaned up and his jacked up headphones and walkman was sitting on Mary’s desk. Mary told him that he was fine, his jaw or nose wasn’t broken which was a miracle. Though Vance did feel a crick in his jaw if he tried to yawn or do something of that nature. 

He couldn’t quite remember who brought him to the nurse but he had a good idea who did. The last thing he remembered after getting hit was Bruce talking to him, he couldn’t care less at the time but now that made his face heat up. He remembered when Bruce wiped off vomit off of his face, and the goddamn arm around his waist. The ghost of his touch now burned into his brain, he wanted to run away. 

“Mary, what time is it?” Vance asked, trying to calm himself down before he got ahead of himself. 

“It’s right after lunch, honey.” Mary said, writing something down on a sheet of paper. “I’ve managed to keep the dean and other nosy teachers out, but if they see you awake they’ll interrogate you. So either stay in here, or try to sneak out. Because either way you’re in bad shape.” She got up from her desk and gave him a doctor's note to go home and rest. 

He considered what she said, “I think I’ll just rest in here for a bit, I’m still feeling off.” Mary nodded her head with a frown. 

Vance laid back down on the bed and shifted around until he was comfortable. Just a few more hours. 

________

Bruce got to his class with no trouble except for a miffed Laura and Johnny. They tried to complain before the teacher quieted them for the lecture. Soon the bell rang and he couldn’t take his eyes off of the nurses office, was Vance ok? What was wrong with him and could he help?

They were all headed to the lunchroom, where Laura and Johnny were on either side of him and both being very annoying. 

“I don’t get it! Why did you go after Vance?” Laura asked then gasped, “Did you go to beat him up again?” Her voice lifted at the end of the question in an annoying tone. “Oh yeah, I bet Bruce gave him something to cry about!” Johnny replied. 

Bruce sighed, he just wanted to eat lunch in peace, “For the last time I didn’t beat Vance up, he just robbed me of 20 bucks.” 

As usual they somehow never heard that part of the story and wanted to run with the one they made up themselves. They made their way through the crowded and loud cafeteria and found their designated table. Laura went off to buy something from the vending machine, so he was left with Johnny and his friends. 

He sat down while the others were chatting and laughing, ever since he started hanging around Laura these annoying guys hung around the both of them too. Only it seemed it only annoyed Bruce, Laura seemed to love the attention this got her. Laura made her way back to the table with her blond hair pooling over her shoulder, with a pink jacket to match. 

Johnny was bragging about beating Vance up while his face looked purple and blue with a black eye. “Sure you did.” Bruce said which Johnny took as a positive. 

“So Bruce, your next game is in a couple of days right?” Bruce was pulling out his brown lunch bag as he nodded confirming he did have a game soon. His mom packed a plain sandwich and some chips with a water bottle. 

“Oh dude you’re totally going to kick ass in this game!” Johnny exclaimed while his other friends laughed along stupidly. Bruce laughed along although he didn’t think anything was funny.

“Bruce, maybe we could go somewhere after your game, just the two of us?” Laura asked with a soft voice that made Bruce crumble, his face heated as he almost choked on his sandwich. “Oh-Yeah! W-why not?” He stuttered out, the rest of the table cheered at the two, he almost died of embarrassment.

He smiled at Laura who blushed, maybe the rest of lunch wouldn’t be so bad he thought. Though, his eyes still didn’t stop glancing towards the nurses office. 

After lunch the day went on as usual and passed by without any more incident. Bruce was going to check in on Vance but Laura and Johnny wanted to see his baseball practice and practically dragged him out of their last class. He did find Arellano hanging around with his friends outside the double doors and asked them to check in on Vance which they looked unsure about. He let Laura and Johnny go ahead; he'll catch up in a second. 

“We’ll check on him when he’s out, you know?” A smaller kid said, nervous. Bruce tilted his head in question, Arellano took him aside, “Look Vance doesn’t like when we’re around him at school, makes him uncool or something stupid like that. But he does hang with us at the store where he plays pinball so it’s a little weird right now.” He explained as Bruce nodded, Vance was weird. 

“Ok, when he gets out just tell him I said thanks for the money, and the note.” Arellano gave another look at the shaggy haired kid and he gave a look back. They both nodded their heads and Bruce set off after Laura and Johnny. Why did they give each other that look?

Baseball practice was fine Bruce guessed, anytime he connected the bat with the ball and shot off like a bullet to first base, Laura and Johnny shouted and cheered which made his teammates tease him when he got back to home base. He thought he saw a glimpse of Vance walking by but he must’ve imagined it.

The game had to end early because the rival team also had practice, where he saw Arellano and that shaggy haired kid accompanying him. Bruce nodded towards them and they nodded back. Bruce thought that the next baseball game shouldn’t be too bad. 

________

Vance woke up at the end of the school day, feeling much better than before. He thanked Mary for keeping the teachers at out and he snuck out blending in with the sea of kids going home for the day. He did have his walkman but pained that he had to go out and buy new headphones. He remembers that he sounded like a disappointed little kid when he showed them to Yamada. 

He’d have to go to a store either today or tomorrow, he was going to head to his store today though. It was a cloudy day as he walked past the baseball field where he saw Bruce practicing his swing and taking off to first base. He tore his eyes away from Bruce’s form and saw the guy who punched him and a girl next to him cheering Bruce on. He rolled his eyes. 

The shop door opened with a ding, and he saw Robin and the others who swarmed him. “Are you ok?” Robin asked, while Billy asked, “Did you beat the hell outta the guy who hit you?”

While the others were just waiting for Vance’s response, “Hey! Chill the hell out, the nurse said I got concussed or some shit like that. I just slept it off.” All of them just gawked at him. He laughed. 

“Yeah we saw Bruce Yamada of all people helping you down the hall to the nurse.” Finney said, all Vance had to say was, “Shit.” That made them laugh.

“Also,” Robin started, while grabbing some food off of the rack, “Bruce asked us to thank you for his 2o bucks.” Vance made a face with nothing but a hum in acknowledgment. The boys looked at each other with knowing eyes but unknown to Vance’s, but he didn’t care all that much. 

Vance was just kind of glad to be around a group of people that didn’t hate him for once. Robin was helping Finney pick out his stuff, Vance was over by the pinball machine watching them. Robin absolutely seemed to smile a lot more around Finney, with physical touch being a big thing between them and only them. Poor Finney, he was so oblivious to all of it. 

Robin saw him in the corner and Vance looked at him now with knowing eyes, Robin just flipped him off and went back to talking to Finney. After the store they all went to Finney’s baseball practice since they had a game coming up. It was just Vance, Robin and Gwen since the others had to leave home. Finney’s team was loud and rowdy which left Finney the black sheep in the crowd. 

That didn’t seem to bother him though, “Damn he’s quick.” Vance said while the others agreed with him. A soft yeah was heard from Robin who couldn’t keep his eyes off of Finney’s form. Vance looked at Gwen to make sure she saw what he saw, Gwen looked back at him with knowing eyes. 

Vance scoffed with a smile on his face, “Robin hey.” He snapped his fingers in front of his face. He flinched and looked back and forth between him and Gwen, “Wow you’re so far gone, it’s insane how Finney doesn’t notice!”Gwen exclaimed, Robin's face flushed a deep red.

“Shut up!” He shoved Gwens shoulder as he rubbed a hand along his face, he suddenly looked to Vance who was agreeing with Gwen, Robin took a second and relaxed, “It’s not my fault he’s that dense. He still thinks I need help with my math homework.” Robin slumped against the bleacher behind him. 

“Easy, just tell him!” Gwen said it was the easiest thing in the world. Robin and Vance looked at each other then both at Gwen, and in unison, “Absolutely not.”  Just then Robin noticed Finney waving at them from the field, they all waved back. The rest of practice went off without a hitch, when Finney approached them at the bleachers he headed straight for Robin which Vance and Gwen glanced at each other raising their eyebrows. Finney seemed to be in high spirits, on the way out Vance realized he didn’t get a chance to look for any new headphones. 

Oh well--he didn’t even have the money for new one’s anyway.

Chapter Text

It’s the day of his baseball game now and Bruce’s nerves are everywhere. His hands were sweaty most of the day with a nervous pang of his heart to accompany. The entire school day consisted of Bruce getting high fives and shouts of good luck from kids he’d never even talked to before. Throughout the entire day he and Amy tried talking but Laura and the others always pulled him away when he got the chance. 

The last thing Amy said to him at school was, “I’ll be at your game don’t worry!” She waved him off and left the cafeteria where Bruce and his friends were leaving to go to the football field. As Johnny was dragging Bruce to the field he realized he hadn’t seen Vance at all today, which made him even more anxious. 

They walked over to the bleachers to watch the football players practice their runs, the only one who wasn’t was Johnny. He claimed he’d fought too hard in the “big fight” and refused to practice. He lazed around on the bleachers while joking around with his friends. 

Bruce wasn’t interested much. The sun was shining on them, with barely any clouds floating by. Bruce wasn’t paying attention when he felt an arm wrap around his own, it was Laura. His stomach flipped and his face warmed, he looked over to his right and she was smiling at him with that perfect smile of hers. She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, the boys around them were laughing and grinning giving him the thumbs up. Bruce quietly told them to shut up before laying his own head on hers, his heart was pounding and hoped she couldn’t hear it. 

The bell went off a while after and they all got up to go to class, they were all leaving the bleachers when Laura stopped him and kissed him on the cheek, her lips so soft and gentle. He blushed furiously matching her face, he didn’t know what to do so he grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles gently. She giggled and hugged him, the rest of the boys cheered. 

He wondered if he could die from cardiac arrest by now, his heart hadn’t stopped pounding in his ribcage. The rest of the day went on like normal, Amy talking to Arellano and the others which almost made him walk into a wall. She spotted him and waved, he waved back albeit hesitantly confused. She’d never talked to them before, right? 

The last bell of the day rang and they all headed out to the baseball field not too far away from the school. This was Bruce’s last time to shake off any nerves, unfortunately it felt like half of the entire school population made plans to watch him play. As he made it to the field 40 minutes before the actual game started, sweat started to collect on his palms. He tried wiping it off on his pants, but that did little to stop the sweat. 

The changing room was full and bustling as more and more boys came in and started to change, most messing around with each other and others taking it more seriously. He was in the latter of things, he slipped on his uniform and tried to breath in and out trying to sooth himself.

Then his mind wandered, Laura was totally going to show up, he almost groaned. What if he did something stupid? What if he missed every bat? He was about to just give up when his teammate, #27, a tall curly haired kid put a hand on his shoulder and simply said, “You got this dude.” Everyone nearby nodded their heads and murmurs of agreement.

“Besides, you need to impress your new girlfriend!” Some other kid said, then everybody started to laugh and pat him on the back. All he helplessly said was, “She’s not my girlfriend! …Is she?” His teammates just laughed and dragged him out to their dugout. 

He mulled over this while the rest of the team were warming up, he joined in absentmindedly swinging his bat back and forth rhythmically. Coach O’Donnell was yelling out drills and counting loudly. After a while there were people filtering on the bleachers on the outside of the fence. 

It was just a hometown game, just a hometown game, it wasn’t like he was in the big leagues-or even the little league! He was no Nolan Ryan, the best player of the century he would add. That’s when he spotted Amy sitting with Arellano and-Vance? No no no he couldn’t play with Vance here, that made his heart beat almost a hundred times faster than thinking of Laura. He was stiff in his exercises when he saw Vance’s eyes lay on his form. 

Bruce was not going to make it.

__________

Vance made it to the field just in time to meet the rest of the group that seemed to only get bigger by the day, a new girl that randomly approached Robin and the rest of them at lunch. She usually only hung out with Bruce and his posse but apparently she just walked up to Robin and struck up a conversation and asked if they were also going to the baseball game. 

Of course Vance wasn’t there-he was home in bed listening to his family yell and fight at each other over something stupid. His head stopped pounding and he was able to sleep well enough, before he remembered Finney’s baseball game. Did he really want to go? The thought of seeing Yamada made his face flush a vibrant pink, there was no way he could make it. He put his head in his hands. 

On his way to the field he fiddled with his hair a lot more, was he nervous? He doesn’t get nervous, does he? Besides, he told himself Yamada won’t even notice him, Vance saw how cozy he was with that blond chick that always hung around him. His lips, nose and jaw still throbbed a bit but he could handle it.

The bruises on his face blossomed during the night and gave him a not so nice look. The bruises hurt to the touch and he pathetically flinched away when anything brushed against them. Everything was eerily quiet without his headphones, until he kept walking and then heard the rumblings of a large crowd-he heard laughter and shouts of encouragement. He wasn’t late was he?

He hurried his pace a bit and found Robin and the others, Gwen shouted, “You actually came! C’mon!” She waved her hand gesturing towards the rest of them and Vance almost smiled. Instead he just scoffed with a ghost of a smile gracing his face. He climbed the bleachers all the way to the top where Robin greeted him with a smile.

“Didn’t think you were actually going to come.” Vance lightly punched his arm, “Of course I was dipshit.” Robin laughed. “Game start yet?” Vance asked, “Nope-they’re still stretching and warming up.” A random girl piped up, he raised his eyebrow at her but ultimately ignored her presence altogether, he knew it was one of Yamada’s friends. 

Vance took a seat next to Robin and the girl sat on the lower bench, and turned his attention to the field. He could see both teams warming up, Finney wasn’t really talking to anyone but he was doing his drills.

And Yamada-well Yamada was always talking to everyone. He quietly watched both teams before he felt a nudge on his shoulder, it was Showalter he didn’t talk to him much but he did see him early in the morning throwing newspapers at houses. “Here,” he handed him an ice cold soda, “Y’know-for your face.” He looked uncertain.

Vance huffed out a laugh, “Thanks paperboy.” Showalter smiled back. He held the cold soda can to his jaw, he almost flinched away before it started numbing the bruise, he sighed out in relief. He practically smushed the can against his face as he gazed upon the field looking at nothing in particular. 

“So Vance?” That same girl tapped his shoulder, he looked at her with confusion, “Is it true that Bruce really beat you in detention with a desk?” She asked earnestly. He blinked, first of all-that was the most direct question he’s ever gotten, and second-that was also the funniest rumor he’s ever heard.

He sputtered out some laughter, “What?” She suddenly got up and skittered around to sit on the bench in front of him on the lower half of it. “No way, you haven’t heard?” 

“No?”

She beamed, “The rumor is that Bruce hit you with his desk and beat you in a fight. Now everyone thinks they can win a fight against  you, hence the fight with you and Johnny.” The information came spilling out at such an irrational speed he barely caught up with it. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to yell, because of Yamada.

All Vance could say was, “No fucking way.” He felt like he had to get back at that dumbass jock, and have a small chat with Yamada. Who was he to say that he beat him in a fight when all he’d done was get in the way of things. The girl must’ve seen this on his face, when she tapped his leg rather forcefully. 

“Hey! It wasn’t Bruce who spread those rumors you know. It was Johnny and all of his friends-Bruce has been trying to tell them that he’d never even been in a fight before but they won’t listen.” She got red in the face defending her friend, and for whatever reason-Vance was inclined to believe her. 

He held the soda can harder against his face which stung but the cold numbed most of it, but he could still feel the slight sting of it burrowing into his face. He sighed, all he could really do now is beat that dumbass jocks ass. “Ok, ok I get it.” He held his free hand up in surrender, he waited for a beat and asked, “Who are you again?”

This time it was her turn to look confused, “My name's Amy? I thought Robin would’ve told you.” Robin froze and had a look of sheepishness written all over his face, he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck with a wry smile, “Perdón, I kinda forgot your name.” A laugh escaped Vance. 

__________

Bruce couldn’t take his eyes off of Amy and Vance, what were they talking about? And how did she make him laugh? His heart skipped seeing that smile on his perfect face, even if it was covered in bruises. His face warmed, his eyes drifted over to Laura who was laughing with Johnny and his friends. -And being a little too touchy with each other Bruce thought ruefully.

Then the whistle blew, the game was about to start. They all got to the starting positions, they were in the field while the other team went to bat. He was on the outfield, the first bat was caught, an out was made and met with disappointed shouts in the crowd.  

Then a second out was made, and on the final one no one caught it and the batter shot off like a bullet, the ball found its way to Bruce and he saw the kid still running just a foot away from first base and his teammate #27 on base had his glove open and he threw the ball as hard as he could to #27 and he caught it but the kid, #9, had already made it to base.

“Safe!” The umpire shouted. 

 Half the crowd cheered and the other half groaned. The next batter came up #4, and the crack of the bat connecting with the ball echoed in the field. #9 shot off like a bullet, mimicking #4 and Bruce’s eyes were glued to the ball flying through the air. #4 made it to first base and #9 was still running, Bruce caught the ball and threw it to second base where they got their third out. 

The crowd cheered and groaned, his heart was beating heavily. As they switched sides his teammates slapped him on the back for getting the last out. He sat down on the bench taking a swig of water from his bottle watching his team's batter go up. He struck the ball and easily made it to first base before the next batter went up.

Apparently the next batter was him, he got up to bat and the bat felt heavier than lead. He got into position and the ball flew at him and he swung. The crack of the bat hitting the ball was loud in his ear and with all the power in his legs he ran as fast as he could, he could tell that they had already caught the ball and it was making it towards him.

First base was close enough and he slid feet first making it to base and they waited, “Safe!” He shot up from the ground beaming at his teammates, he got shouts of encouragement and yells from the crowd, and especially from Laura and Johnny. They were shouting the loudest, he would’ve been embarrassed if he had the time to. 

He flinched when he didn’t hear the crack of the bat, the batter missed the first swing, with one foot on the base and the other ready to run, he shot off on the second bat that connected. His feet beat against the ground as he saw that his teammate ahead of him was about to make a home run. 

The cheers told him so. He pumped his legs harder before he felt a hand on his back, he was out. He heaved as he sat back down on the bench and squeezed more water into his mouth. He wiped his forehead of sweat and talked with his teammates about how he could’ve made it if he were just a little faster.

__________

To Vance’s horror, he was enamored with the game, he was on the edge of his seat when Yamada slid on the ground the dust cleared and the ref yelled, “Safe!” He let out a breath of air. He wasn’t supposed to feel relieved when the opposing team was safe right?

He was exhilarated, he even forgot to put the soda can on his face. On the next bat Yamada ran off again and he groaned along with several others in the bleachers in disappointment, Yamada could’ve made it to second base. “He was right there!” Robin yelled, “Are you seriously rooting for the other team right now?” Gwen said, she looked about ready to kill him right there. 

“Hey! I was just saying it was a close one!” Robin whined, Showalter laughed so hard he almost fell over, when Vance felt eyes on him. He looked out to the bleachers and that asshole jock staring daggers at him and Robin, he simply shook his head and went back to the game-although he couldn’t enjoy the game half as much anymore, he could mostly ignore him.

The game went on with Finney's team in the lead with a score of 4-3, Billy, Gwen and Robin were shouting the loudest now, every time Finney pitched a good ball. Vance couldn’t lie, Finney had a great arm and some of the throws were so fast he couldn’t keep up. Or maybe that was Vance embellishing Finney a little, but he wasn’t too bothered because Robin seemed absolutely infatuated. 

Vance made sure that no one was too close or was in their own conversations when he nudged Robin a little as his face became a deep red, “Dude you suck at hiding it.” Is all Vance said to him, with a smirk. “¡Cállate!” Robin hastily whispered, “Don’t say it so loud cabrón, you’re terrible!” Then Robin took a breath, “Is it really that obvious?” Vance, severely amused and on the verge of a laughing fit nodded, holding in (and failing)his laughter, Robin punched Vance lightly on the shoulder. 

After Vance calmed down a bit and the game continued, Robin appeared nervous, “Do you think he knows?” He said, with his elbows on his legs and his hand cradling the other-fidgeting. Vance knocked his leg against Robins, “Nah, that little shit out there is as oblivious as you are.” Robin was about to respond when Gwen and Amy were yelling at the other team for a foul, they sounded like they were out for blood. Robin and Vance blinked at each other before laughing.

__________

Bruce saw Vance’s smile again, it made him want to implode. But why? Why did his heart flutter when he saw that damned smile? He physically shook his head and his helmet shook with him. He was third for batting, he watched as that Finn kid pitched with that wicked arm of his and watched the ball fly through the air  which in turn made the batter swing and miss. With a rush of air, he tried a second time and missed, one more strike and he was done. 

Shit, he really wanted to win this game so everyone at school wouldn’t be disappointed. He clenched his hands tightly as he watched his own batter and it connected. He nearly jumped out of his seat joining his other teammates who were standing now and cheering him on. He ran as hard as he could and made it to first base, coach and his teammates yelling, “Stay there! Stay!” 

Time went on and the other team kept close to the Bruce’s team in terms of points, the points for the final inning both teams were in a tie 5-5, his team just needed one homerun and they would win. It was Bruce’s turn to bat, and it had to be a good one because one of his teammates, #12 was already at third base ready to win this entire game. He just needed a good bat, it was that Finn kid pitching again. 

His hair was shaggy under his cap, and he seemed nervous-but then again he’s always seen him look that way. Bruce took a deep breath as he grabbed his bat and went into position, and the ball whizzed past him-he didn’t even get to swing, the crowd groaned . He blinked as the umpire yelled, “Strike one!” He shook his head again and tapped his bat to the ground, he steeled himself. 

He heard a distant, “C’mon Bruce!” It was Laura, he smiled and readied himself again, then he heard, “Lets go Finney!” His heart skipped a beat for a second when he recognized the voice, Vance was in the stands along with those other kids he hung out with. He forced himself to focus on-Finney; he guessed he got his name close enough. 

Bruce could see a faint smile on Finney’s face, then he got into position and hurled the ball towards Bruce. He swung and it was a foul, he grimaced. He could tell the crowd was getting antsy, and that was making him nervous. He let out a breath of air and tapped his bat on homebase and readied himself. Once again the ball zipped out of Finney's hand at an unprecedented speed, he swung and the bat connected with a crack. 

He stood still for a second watching the ball fly into the air, when he heard a ton of voices urging him to run-which he did. He ran like hell to first base but he didn’t care about first base, he cared about his teammate on third. He made it easily to first base and watched as his teammate slid onto homebase, a second went by and the umpire declared, “Safe!” The crowd cheered, Bruce and his teammates ran to #12 and cheered so loud Bruce thought he would lose his hearing. 

After the cheering the game was over and they were going to celebrate with pizza at the local pizzeria. The teams  were cordial with the other except for a few comments from his teammates, then he came face to face to Finney. “Dude, your arm was mint! You almost had me.” Finney smiled, “Thanks.” was all he said to him and they went to their respective teams. The pizzeria wasn’t too far from the field so they were going to walk as a team. Johnny, Laura and all of their friends crowded Bruce congratulating them and Laura was sticking very close to Bruce.

She was wearing a fiery red lipstick with a light red bow in her hair to match, she wore a pink skirt with some white shoes. Laura grabbed his hand and interlaced their fingers, he tugged his hat down to hide his blush but the rest of the team already saw it. They hooted and hollered all the way down the street. Bruce’s face was hot as he was ushered down the street while Laura stuck close to him.

__________

Vance, Robin, Billy, and Gwen, all slumped in disappointment when the last home run had been made. They all groaned and threw their hands up in the air, Vance’s soda long forgotten empty and crushed on the ground. “Dammit! We were so close!” Gwen whined, Amy was quiet but Vance knew she wanted to shout in support but had the self awareness to not go that far. She was fidgeting as they walked down the field to greet Finney. 

“You guys were so close!” Gwen ran up to Finney and hugged him as hard as she could. “That sucks dude! It was a tie!” Robin put a hand on his shoulder, which Finney seemed to appreciate much more than Gwens bearhug. Finney looked up at Vance, “Tough break kid.” Which put a small smile on his face. 

“Well Bruce seemed to appreciate my pitching skills at least.” Finney said Robin immediately started to tell him his pitches were amazing and Vance agreed that the first swing that Yamada missed was insane. “Should we go get pizza too?” Amy asked, Gwen made a sound of confusion, “They didn’t win though?” Amy brightened, “Yeah, but we could still hang out a little bit, Finney's team is already gone.” she pointed to the field where all of Finney’s teammates were going home sullen and sad with their parents. Gwen and Finney seemed to realize their dad wasn’t there, shared a look and grimaced. Vance clenched his already beaten jaw. 

He saw this and decided he couldn’t have sad little kids on his watch so, “Yeah, let's go get some goddamn pizza- screw them if they didn’t win, we can still eat.” The rest of the group cheered and yelled as they began walking as Vance realized he didn’t think this through enough. That pizzeria was pretty much the closest thing to them right now and none of them could drive, (legally) and on top of that Yamada’s team was going to be there. He could’ve slapped himself for that, while the rest of the group was talking and walking, Amy slowed down to the back of the group to match Vance’s pace. “You look worried.” She pointed out, he was at a loss of words for a second. 

“Ok?” He replied, he didn’t know this chick all that well and that gave him a bit of an edge. “Is it because of Johnny? I’d be worried too.” He nodded mutely even if it was a lie. 

 “Sure.” 

Amy took that answer in stride, “Well don’t worry! I’ve appointed myself as peacemaker between our two ‘teams!’” Vance raised his eyebrow, she’s much more of a social butterfly than Vance first thought. And it might’ve also been a good thing, to have someone stop the fights between their groups. And if anyone got in the way of Finney's sad ass pizza party, by god Vance was going to kill someone. 

“Alright.” Vance huffed, and started to walk faster to catch up with the rest of the group. They talked about nothing and school while they made it to Luigi’s Pizzeria with a very stereotypical italian cartoon on the neon sign. The bell dinged as they made their way inside, it wasn’t too big but big enough so an entire baseball team and some more could fit. It was loud, there were shouts and hoots of laughter filling the entire restaurant. It only got slightly quieter as some of the players saw them enter and the group faltered, but Vance pushed them to a table rather forcefully. 

He felt like a goddamn babysitter. They sat down at a round table far enough away from the other team, as they sat down Robin was talking to the entire group about the best pizza topping which apparently was bell peppers which the rest of the table all vetoed including Vance. “Are you crazy? Bell peppers?” Vance asked incredulously, “What? It tastes amazing! You can’t hate something you haven’t even tried yet.” Vance blinked at him with a sarcastic face. 

Robin huffed.  “I-I’ll try the bell peppers if you say it’s that good.” Finney said smiling crookedly at Robin, who smiled even wider at him, “See! Even Finney will try it.” Robin patted his chest like a proud mother. Vance could only think one thing, so oblivious poor thing. Amy still refused  and so did Billy, when the waiter came by and asked for drinks Vance thought, who’s paying for all of this? His heart fell to his ass-he would have to pay for this shit. 

He was saving for a new walkman via chores, which is all his family used him for, but he could take one for the team just this once. 

As he wallowed in the pain of money being spent, he eyed some machines sort of hidden in the back of the restaurant, he thought he saw a pinball machine. He smiled, the waitress came back for the pizza order which they all fought over but ultimately left the decision to Vance, god he felt like a mom. He ordered a 13 inch pepperoni pizza with ⅓ of the pizza with bell peppers, Robin beamed. Vance only feared how much it was going to cost. 

When the pizza arrived they didn’t hesitate to grab at them like they were a pack of hungry wolves, he joined in with them. 

__________

Bruce was getting showered in compliments, and pats on the back all the while stuffing some amazing bell pepper pizza into his mouth. His teammates gagged exaggeratedly when they heard his order, “What? It tastes so good!” Bruce argued. The others just waved him off and laughed, they all kept talking about baseball when, “Laura didn’t you make the girls softball team?” Laura seemed shocked by the sudden question and suddenly-all eyes were on her. She fidgeted in her seat, “I did, but-” she hesitated, “My parents were being assholes about it and took me off the team.” Laura said glumly.

Bruce felt that familiar pang in his heart, pity. Laura started again,  “But I think I can still convince them.” She looked smaller in her seat, but Johnny shouted something about how there's still a chance she can make it in and got the rest of the team to cheer her on. That seemed to lift her mood even just a bit. He smiled as he leaned into her, she leaned into him. They continued to eat pizza and debate over pointless things, when he heard some loud laughing. 

It was Arellano and Finney laughing at something someone said, when they came into the shop not 20 minutes earlier their entire table seemed to be ready to fight. Bruce just wanted to eat, and assumed they just wanted some pizza so he told them to calm down and just eat the damn food. When he saw Vance and Amy come in he almost immediately wanted to call Amy over and ask about Vance-but he would actually sound insane. So he would talk to Amy later and let her talk and talk until she almost always circles back around to Vance, which seems like a good idea. 

He shouldn’t be thinking about Vance and his bruises while snuggling up with Laura, that was weird-why was he thinking about him? He shook himself internally and refocused his attention at the table and Laura. Then he noticed that she hasn’t eaten anything yet, “Hey, if you don’t have the money for food I can pay for you.” He offered, she seemed startled and lifted her head off of his shoulder, “Oh-no it’s fine, I already ate earlier.” She waved her hand in the air as if physically dismissing the thought, she smiled tightly-when Bruce looked at her with confusion. He hadn’t seen her eat anything all day, was she sick? He was about to ask when Laura whispered in his ear, “Remember when I told you that we should go somewhere alone? Just the two of us?” 

His face flushed for what felt like the umpteenth time that day. He thought about it-did he really want to leave the team? Whatever she was thinking-Bruce was already worried and slightly intrigued, he was only a 16 year old kid of course he was gonna go for it. He replied a little breathlessly, “Yeah?” her face burned a bright red as she nodded toward a room in the back he didn’t notice. He got up and led her towards the room passing Vance and his friends on the way. He didn’t know why but-he felt self conscious at the thought that Vance knew what he and Laura were up to. 

He pushed that thought to the back of his mind. 

Laura led him to a room full of arcade machines which worked (surprisingly),  it was dusty and only lit by two windows with fading light coming through. She grabbed his jacket and pulled him in closer, their faces were so close. His heart beat so hard in his chest he thought it would burst, he leaned in for the kiss and she did too, before someone came into the room saying something. Bruce didn’t hear, he swung his head around to the opening and it was Amy. 

His eyes widened in shock, “Amy!” He said her name in an accusing tone, “What are you doing here?” Amy froze with a shocked look on her face, “Woah! Sorry-didn’t mean to intrude, uh I’ll leave now.” She quickly scurried out of the room and effectively ruined the mood, Bruce sighed and turned to Laura, “Sorry about her, she’s nosy.” Laura looked annoyed, and more than a little disappointed, were they still gonna kiss or? Bruce wouldn’t do anything if she didn’t want to do something, he didn’t want to come off creepy or anything.

“Wanna get back to the table or?” Bruce gave her an out because if he was her, he’d want an out too. “Yeah,” Laura sighed, “Let’s just get back to the table. They made their way out and back to the table where the rest of the table gave him thumbs up and pats on the back. He just hoped Laura didn’t hate him too much for that. He lost his appetite after that and continued to sip on his coke as he talked with the rest of the team. 

When Johnny asked Laura where they went, she told him about the arcade room in the back, he got a light in his eye that frankly unnerved Bruce. Johnny announced to the table that they were going to have a mini arcade  tournament, for whichever machine they decided on. Bruce didn’t mind, though he wasn’t going to participate, he felt much more at ease when he could just watch them do it instead. 

Johnny stopped the waitress and asked if the machines in the back worked, and she nodded and replied, “Yeah if you got some change go crazy.” And she went off into the back of the restaurant, everyone looked at each other and everyone agreed in unison and there was a stampede of teens rushing to the back of the restaurant. Bruce hoped they didn’t disturb the other tables with all this noise. He was currently being pulled along by Johnny.

When they got to the room which was much more spacious then he remembered, they managed to somehow get all of them in there. The players who didn’t want to join the competition just sat on the machine that they hoped was out of order. And lo and behold to Bruce’s behest, there was a pinball machine. He hoped to some higher power that Johnny wouldn’t pull any b.s, he tried to steer them to Asteroids which had a very low highscore.

But the universe was against Bruce and got that glint in his eye that unnerved Bruce personally. He smiled and nodded towards the door and the rest of the group seemed to know what was up, Bruce felt something coil in his gut. The rest of the guys started to laugh and nudge at each other. 

Bruce had the urge to go and warn Vance, but would the other boy listen to him? He went along with Johnny as he pushed his way through the sea of boys on the other side of the wall, where Vance was sitting with Amy and the others. “Hey Hopper, wanna join our pinball tournament?” Johnny’s voice was full of faux sportsmanship, and Bruce caught Vance’s eye and Bruce mouthed a “No!” Before Vance turned his attention back to Johnny. 

“Why not?” Vance said. 

Bruce nearly punched him.

Chapter Text

Yamada looked like he wanted to punch Vance after he ignored his warning, so he averted his eyes and settled on the jock in front of him. He accepted their stupid challenge-he would win anyway, he was the best player in town. And he wasn’t scared of this guy, why would he be? The people around them seemed quiet and everyone at his table seemed to hold their breaths before Gwen spoke up, “Beat his ass Vance!” The table began to laugh, and Vance took it and got up. 

“Let's go.” Is all Vance said before pushing through the crowd of people and getting into the said room, the hoard of people followed and he only hoped that his group followed suit. Yamada, the jock and that chick were at the forefront of the entire team while the rest of the team sat on the run down machines and leaning against the wall. 

“Before we start, I think it’s only fair that we bet something on this.” The jock said. Vance cocked his head to the side in thought, “Ok. If I win you gotta pay for all of our food until we leave.” The jock’s eyes widened and had a disturbing glow. A smile appeared on the jocks face, “Ok, and if I win you gotta be my slave for an entire week.” He crossed his arms and smirked down at Vance, Vance was already seething because who the hell says that? “Fine.” The jock stuck out his hand and Vance reluctantly shook it. The bet was on, Vance wasn’t nervous in the slightest-but he was wary of the guy. He would probably try to cheat or something like that. Would having a ref help? Probably.

“Yamada, you be the ref. I don’t want this asshole tryin’ to cheat.” Yamada startled and asked “What?” Vance wanted to roll his eyes, and he just wanted to get this game started already. “I said you’re going to be the ref to make sure asshole here isn’t tryin’ to cheat.” He pointed at the jock, who seemed to clench his knuckles harder and harder until they were white. 

Yamada hastily nodded looking between Vance and the jock, “You go first asshole, I wanna see how you do.” a mocking tone seeped into Vance’s words, the people around them let out an audible “Oooh.”  They were chuckling and whispering to each other.  That seemed to tick the jock off, he scoffed and turned to the pinball machine. He took two quarters out of his varsity jacket and pushed them into the machine, and it sprung to life. 

Vance leaned against the machine watching as the jock started the game, Yamada was in between them, probably to prevent a fight and observe. It wasn’t long until the jock missed the ball and it went down, his posse groaned and jeered while the jock just scoffed and bowed his head mockingly making a  grand gesture toward Vance and saying, “Your highness.” The group around him laughed loudly. 

Yamada announced the score, “The score is 1,723.” The posse cheered and wooed, Vance knew that score could’ve been done by a goddamn five year old. Vance just shoved the jock aside and got to playing, the rest of the group was much more interested in how long Vance could go. 

And the answer is a while, at some point he’d been going on so long some people left to get more food, or returned back to their table. He almost didn’t notice, if it weren’t for Yamada and his little girlfriend. Their commentary on everything irked him deeply, while Robin was transfixed on the game presumably wanting to try himself. Hell Robin would’ve been able to win this stupid tournament, Vance just didn’t want to pay for the food-maybe he could have convinced the group to dine and dash. 

He was shaken from his thoughts as he heard the jock spout something about a waste of time, Vance saw the current score, 9,540-if he could make it to 10,000 he’d be able to roll over the score and beat his current one. Robin seemed to notice, “Dude.” Vance just smirked and nodded his head, Yamada and the blonde chick shared confused glances. The pinball hit the outer walls of the machine and the bright lights screamed out,  partially blinding Vance but telling everyone in the room who stayed that he had beaten his high score and that he absolutely won this stupid tournament. 

Vance let the ball drop into the gutter leaving his score at 1,001 but with the roll over it was 11,002. Robin celebrated quietly and promised to beat Vance. He hit his fists into the machine with a smile and turned to the jock, “There’s no fucking way you’re going to reach that score.” The jock looked down at him in bewilderment, then he looked to Yamada. Yamada announced the score, “1,001?” He looked at Vance who rolled his eyes. 

“With a roll over it’s 11,002. The machine caps at 10,000 and then rolls over to recount the score from 0.” Vance leaned against the machine as he explained, and Yamada shrugged and accepted that answer, “Vance wins! Johnny, you gotta pay your bet.” Yamada looked expectantly at the jock who’s face slowly turned red, “I’m not paying for this asshole's dinner. Besides, I don’t have to listen to this queer.” Then he made a move to push his way out of the room but Yamada stopped him. 

Vance was rooted to the spot he was in, did he seriously just call him that? His mind reeled, taking  a second to register what the jock had said to him, Robin who was still standing next to Vance looked ready to murder the jock. Vance’s heart started pumping harder, and his hands started to sweat, he was horrifically confused. He just stared at the jocks back as he was stopped by Yamada. 

He felt Robin's hand on his shoulder, “I can beat his ass right now, all you gotta do is ask.” Vance felt like he was just learning to breathe again when he shook his head, “No-I uh, I got this one.” Though it didn’t really feel like he had this one at all, that one little comment shouldn’t affect him that bad-so why the harsh reaction? Vance got off of the machine. 

__________

Bruce saw Vance’s shocked expression and knew Johnny had gone too far. Bruce knew that Johnny wouldn’t keep his side of the bet but this? “Hey Johnny! You can’t say that shit to people.” He blocked the exit to the restaurant, he was determined to make Johnny keep his side of the bet and at least apologize for that disgusting comment he made.

Johnny scoffed, “Laura, tell him to move.” Laura looked conflicted, deciding whether to let Johnny go or make him own up. She looked back and forth between the two, “Bruce-let him through. Johnny’s right we don’t have to do anything.”  So she still took Johnny’s side, how could she be so flippant?

He ignored Laura and kept talking to Johnny, “No, Johnny you gotta own up man, pay your bet and admit you lost. Or else you're a loser who can’t even pay a pizza bill.” The room went silent as everyone's eyes laid on the two of them, Bruce could see Vance and Robin watch him with wide eyes. Bruce dragged his eyes back to Johnny, who looked murderous. “You better watch what you say next Bruce .” He spat Bruce’s name out back onto his face, his heart quickened but this entire situation wasn’t right.  

Bruce stood taller and puffed out his chest, giving only the illusion of confidence unlike the feeling which he desperately needed now. “Johnny.” He said in a low stern voice, “This isn’t done until you pay your bet and admit you lost. Just be fair and pay the bet, it isn’t that hard.” He saw Laura start to fidget and inch closer and closer to the exit, he wasn’t going to stop her. 

Johnny stepped closer into Bruce’s space, looking down on him he raised a fist when Vance and Robin got in between them which surprised him. By then Laura ran off to the table, probably telling them what was going on. He knew more and more people would start to crowd. Vance immediately shoved Johnny further into the room so he couldn’t leave, “Yeah admit you lost asshole! And pay the goddamn bet!” Each sentence was punctuated with a push to Johnny, while Bruce followed close behind. He didn’t want Vance to get hurt again. 

Johnny’s back hit the wall with a thud and a grunt. He looked confused and then rage filled his eyes. He started to raise a fist again but not before Robin kicked his crotch, Johnny went down pretty easily, folding over and crumpling to the ground. Vance barked out a loud laugh and clapped Robin on his back, “Hell yeah!” Although the celebration didn’t last long when they heard the rest of the team come into the room, now it was crowded and impossible to get out. 

“Oh great.” Finney remarked, to which Gwen, Amy, the paperboy and Bruce all agreed to. The team saw Johnny writhing on the floor and was on the immediate offense. One of them rushed in headed straight for Vance, to which Bruce stopped the boy short of. He stood in front of Vance, “Hey! He didn’t do anything, Johnny wouldn’t pay the bet and tried to fight me ok?” The explanation seemed to help but one of the kids sitting on the machines yelled out, “Bruce started it!” and then all hell broke loose. There was yelling and accusations being thrown around, he tried to hold his team back by using himself as a human shield but that just earned him a black eye. 

His teammate #12 was yelling at him about why he let Vance beat up Johnny. “Johnny wasn’t being fair and he started the fight anyway!” Bruce shot back, #12 didn’t listen, he just let his anger bubble up to the surface and bam, Bruce was on the ground clutching his eye. The pain exploded and felt like his eye had been pushed into his brain, he groaned. When he heard Vance yell something over the sea of people. 

Amy and Gwen pulled Bruce to a corner of the small room next to a dead arcade game. “Are you ok?” Amy asked frantically, he shook his head slowly. Then he heard Finney yell Vance’s name, Bruce craned his neck around the machine to see Vance standing over #12’s crumpled form, “Who’s next?” Vance yelled. Bruce’s heart pounded, as he watched some of his teammates step up and others back away. 

Bruce watched as Robin pushed Finney and paperboy towards the rest of the group in the little nook they claimed. Finney watched on in fear as Robin, Vance and now Gwen looked like a three man army against a wave of people. Bruce clenched his eyes shut, he could say this is the first time ever he’d gotten a black eye. 

As his eye throbbed, he heard some yelling and Gwen yelling some expletives of some sort, a shout, a grunt, and then a thud. He forced his eyes open, his right more closed than the other and saw an actual adult lady who called out, then the room got silent. 

“Hey! What the hell is going on here?” It was one of the waitresses, as soon as she asked, some kids ran outside, others tried desperately to explain and some found the entire situation hilarious. This whole debacle was ridiculous, this could’ve been a scene out of a cheesy action movie. Bruce forced his body to move with Amy and someone else’s help, he made it to his feet and saw Robin, Vance, and Gwen laughing. Laughing?

Vance was talking to Gwen in astonishment, which looked good on him. Bruce immediately shook those thoughts away. “Are you guys ok? I’m so sorry this happened I-” Bruce cut himself off, he didn’t know how he could make it up to them at all. “You’re fine Yamada, you helped when you tried to get that asshole jock to pay his bet.” Vance lightly smiled at him, to say his heart almost exploded out of his chest would be understatement. 

He felt his face heat up, “Y-yeah no problem.” Bruce quickly left that entire situation in favor of talking to the waitress, telling her what actually happened and begging her not to punish any of them. By the time he finished, his teammates vacated the restaurant and Johnny left with them, no bet paid. Bruce wasn’t surprised, but still felt guilty. He saw Vance and his friends go back to their table, they quietly talked amongst themselves.

Bruce walked to his original table to grab his bag and got his wallet to pay for Vance’s and the others food, it was the least he could do. He went back to Vance’s table with the 20 bucks left in his locker (which yes he knew was ironic) and a five for extra cost. He held it out to Vance, “Again I’m so sorry that happened. This is the least I could do.” Vance looked at him with a raised eyebrow. 

__________

Vance’s heart pounded as the group of baseball players crowded the exit to the room. He honestly was ready to get beat up and left there to die, a little dramatic but a horde of baseball players against one guy? He took a step back from the players, one of them didn’t take any time to throw a punch towards Vance, his reaction being a little slow he dodged but the punch still landed square on his shoulder. Vance returned the hit to the guy's stomach and he fell to the ground coughing. 

“Who’s next?” He yelled into the crowd, apparently two other people were next, while Robin took care of the one on his left with ease. And surprisingly enough someone on his right came in with a punch but Gwen came in and sucker punched a guy twice her size. Vance stumbled backward at that with a shocked smile, Gwen stood proudly with her knuckles bleeding. “Didn’t know you could punch like that.” Vance said a little breathlessly. 

“Of course I can.” She simply replied and started to laugh, he looked back to the baseball players and most of them were gone, the jock passed by with the help of one of his friends still clutching his crotch in pain. Vance smiled at the sight, when he heard Yamada behind him, “Are you guys ok? I’m so sorry this happened I-” He cut himself off, Vance couldn’t see him like this, not after he took a hit for him which made him feel extra strange. 

He tried to reassure him to the best of his ability, which didn’t seem to work as well as he thought it would because Yamada breezed past him to talk to the waitress. Was it the smile? Vance decided he’ll himself ask those questions when he finally gets home, they all went back to their table and quietly sat down. Amy fussed over Gwen’s knuckle dabbing it with a napkin, it wasn’t bleeding too bad Vance thought. Vance sat quietly while he listened to Robin and Finney’s conversation, “I should’ve been over there with you guys.” Finney said quietly.

Robin covered his hand over Finney’s, “Hey, there was a lot going on, and we got it anyway. Maybe next time you can join.” Finney smiled at that. God, Vance could throw up, how were both of them so oblivious? He scoffed looking around the room when he saw Yamada come back from his own table with some money. “Again I’m so sorry that happened. This is the least I could do.” Yamada said, Vance raised his eyebrow, “Wasn’t your bet Yamada.” He sat back in his seat drinking what was left of his coke. 

“I know, but I feel bad now, take my money Vance.” Vance looked around the table and they all nodded yes, especially Amy, which was suspicious. He gingerly took the money from the boy in front of him, but before he could let Yamada leave he had to do something in return. “But I’m not letting you leave on your own Yamada. That’s how you get jumped.” Vance reached to his left to grab a chair and drag it to their table, and offered Yamada to sit down. Yamada seemed to be dumbfounded by this, “C’mon Yamada do you wanna get jumped outside of a pizza joint or sit down?” Vance was quickly losing his patience. 

Amy slapped his arm and he finally took the hint to sit down, Vance really needed a smoke right about now. Out of everyone, Finney decided to start the conversation with Yamada. “I’ve-been meaning to ask, how do you get your bats to go so far?” The table quieted as Yamada processed that information. And then he started to rattle off on whatever he was talking about. Vance wasn’t interested in baseball enough to want to know the intricacies of how to swing your bat faster.

Everyone took that as a cue to talk to each other, the table started to grow louder which weirdly comforted Vance. He slumped in his chair suddenly very tired, Robin nudged his leg, “So, what’re you gonna do with him?” He nodded towards Yamada, Vance shrugged. “I dunno, but I do know that his team and that jock would be angry enough to wait for him outside.” Robin nodded in understanding, “Does that mean you’re gonna walk him home?” Vance hadn’t thought that far.

He clenched his jaw, “I’ll just walk until I know his team isn’t around.” He tried to sound unbothered but Robin somehow knew better but didn’t comment. He did give him an annoying look though. Vance rolled his eyes and finished his coke, which only had ice left, he figured Yamada would need it. He kicked his foot and handed the cup to him, and wordlessly pointed to his eye, Yamada seemed to get it and mouthed a thank you and went back to his conversation with Finney. 

He held the cup to his face, winced and went back to being comfortable. No one at the table missed a beat and they were there for a long while until the waitress from earlier had to kick them out since it was already dark, Vance paid with the money and they all got up to leave. With Vance always trailing at the tail end of the group, Yamada found his way next to him, “Thanks for the ice.” The boy next to him said, “You needed it, now let’s see if my hunch was right.” 

They opened the door and not to Vance’s surprise they were actually waiting for Yamada outside, Yamada stilled at the sight to which Vance put a hand on his shoulder and kept him moving. His teammates were waiting besides cars and bikes, just eyeing them as they made their way past them. Vance flipped the jock off as they walked past and he looked murderous. Vance only responded with a shit eating grin and walked away onto the sidewalk, the entire team left in their separate cars blasting some type of music a screeching away. 

“Those assholes, I swear-” Robin said, they all agreed and continued their way down the street. 

Vance didn’t know how to feel, happy that he was right? Or sad that Yamada’s own friends would actually try to fight him after they had lost. Then he realized he still had his hand on his shoulder and removed it as if his shoulder had burned him, Yamada didn’t say anything. “You ok with smoke?” He asks Yamada, he shakes his head and Vance grimaces and simply just puts a cigarette in his mouth without lighting it. 

__________ 

When they were peacefully kicked out of the restaurant Bruce was afraid that Vance was going to be right. And he was. All of who he thought were his friends just turned on him so quickly. He couldn’t lie when he said his heart ached with a miserable sort of pang, he laughed and joked with those guys. He even saw Laura in one of the cars ignoring Bruce.

He guessed that their little whatever they had, was over. He was going to miss Laura. He felt like a puppy who had just been kicked. What was he going to do at practice? At school? Bruce stopped short just staring at his team who eyed him like he had just done something heinous to them. A warm hand rested itself on Bruce’s shoulder which urged him to keep walking, he did. Did Vance just flip them off? And his face was a terrible mix of a boastful smile and  a touch of smugness, and unfortunately Bruce’s heart beat heavier. 

As they continued to walk the warm hand that was on his shoulder suddenly gone made him more than miss it as soon as it was gone. He kept his eye(s) straight ahead, he wondered if Vance could hear his heartbeat. “You ok with smoke?” Bruce instantly shook his head remembering the last time Vance smoked in front of him, it felt like he was gonna die. He was worried Vance wouldn’t care at all and almost fully confirmed it when all he did was set a cigarette between those lips of his and no lighter ever came. That seemed to calm Vance down, and Bruce was grateful he didn’t light it. 

“Well our house is just down there.” Finney called out to the rest of the group, him and Gwen were both ready to leave when Vance flicked Robin's shoulder. Robin turned around with a raised brow, all Vance did was give him a look and it seemed Robin understood. Were they telepathic or something? 

“I’ll go with you both. My house is down the way anyway.” Robin said and joined the pair. Finney seemed to be more than ok with that arrangement. Bruce stifled a laugh, as they started to walk down the street which left they all said their goodbyes and continued walking down when the paperboy spoke up, “I deliver to all of your houses, Robin absolutely does not live near them.” They all burst out laughing, slowly making their way down the sidewalk. 

Their laughs died down as paper boy and Amy found out their houses aren’t actually too far from each other. Which was strange because Bruce knows that their house is probably farther away from paperboy. Bruce was in the middle of pondering this when Amy snapped him back out of his thoughts to say bye, she hugged him and whispered, “Good luck!” And ran off with paperboy down his way to his house and not their usual route. Good luck? 

Then he realized he was left alone with Vance who was mercifully minding his own business, with that damned cigarette in his mouth. They were both walking in silence and Bruce was stewing in questions he wanted to ask him, but he didn’t want to make it weird. 

“So, how’d you know that they were out there waiting for me?” Bruce finally asked, Vance looked at him questioningly, then seemed to understand the question.  

“It was obvious, that jock would do anything to get back at someone I think.” Vance said to Bruce’s surprise rather thoughtfully. 

Bruce huffed out a laugh “You sound experienced.” 

Vance shrugged, “I mean-I’m like the ‘town punk’, of course I am.” Vance raised his fingers and air quoted town punk, he sounded proud and ashamed at that fact and Bruce couldn’t blame him, if he was known as the town punk his parents would kill him. Then he thought about Vance’s parents, don’t they care that their kid is out here getting hurt almost constantly? Bruce could only imagine the times he didn’t have people to help him. 

Vance stared back ahead, while Bruce still gazed at his form. He wondered how soft Vance’s hair would be, does he use hair products? He shook away those thoughts immediately and forced himself to look ahead too. 

“And why did you help me in the game room?” Vance almost asked accusingly, taking his cigarette and holding it between his index and middle finger, Bruce slowed his pace at that. Vance turned to him, stopping completely. “I haven’t done anything for you. Do you want something?” Bruce blanched.

“What? No-no I don’t want anything from you. I helped because Johnny was in the wrong, he was in the wrong for being a sore loser and using that horrible word.” The words came tumbling out of his mouth before he even processed what he had said. He gazed into Vance’s blue eyes, those very same eyes tried to look for any lie or tell in Bruce’s face that he wasn’t being genuine.

When Vance seemed to accept that he wasn’t lying he scoffed and started to walk off without Bruce. They were near the baseball field now, it was dark without the floodlights on. His heart panged looking at the now empty field, his teammates hate him now. He mentally shook himself and looked in Vance’s direction, he was getting way too far, Bruce reluctantly tore himself away from the field and half jogged to catch up with Vance. 

He wanted to talk to Vance some more, Bruce didn’t know anymore, he was a mess of emotions. He didn't know what he was going to do when he got home. “So, now you know not everyone’s out to get you.” Bruce said with a teasing smile. Vance side-eyed him.

“Sure, I guess.” Vance was reluctant to say the least and placed the cigarette back into his mouth, “You-didn’t have to help me. Now all of your friends hate you-” Vance stopped himself short, his heart stuttered. The blond boy's face was mixed full of disdain and regret, how could he tell him he was going to be fine? Though Vance was right Bruce didn’t feel as half as bad as he thought he would feel.

Bruce tried for a warm smile, and put his hand on Vance’s shoulder, “Hey look. I’m gonna be fine, I’m not gonna lie to you, they were assholes anyway. Too much drama. Like Kelsey? She probably slept with almost every guy on the football team.” He waved a hand vaguely, Vance was still as he watched. His eyes were wide and his cigarette was on its way out of his mouth, a beat had passed and Bruce worried he had done something wrong. Did he overstep?

Then he heard and saw something amazing, Vance’s face morphed into a smile, a genuine smile. Then Vance let out a small chuckle, then it was Bruce’s turn to still. Did he just make him laugh? He really made Pinball Vance laugh! His own smile creeped onto his face, his face warmed and he felt warm. 

“Jesus-did she actually sleep with the whole team?” Vance asked still with the same beautiful smile, Bruce took his hand off of Vance’s shoulder and urged him to keep walking. They did, and Bruce told him all the drama that he knew of in that group-which was almost too much. Bruce managed to keep that smile of Vance’s on his face until they had to split, Vance to his left, and Bruce to his right. 

They both stopped at the split, neither of them seeming to want to leave. “You coming to school tomorrow?” Vance asked.

“Maybe? I wonder if I can fake getting sick? My mom would believe it.” Bruce answered thoughtfully, thinking of a plan on how to get out of school. 

“Well if you do, you can sit with us. Finney probably wants to ask you a million questions about baseball.” Vance didn’t show any sign of nervousness which amplified Bruce’s, did Vance seriously invite him to sit with them? He felt like a girl being asked out on her first date, he was way too giddy. He tried to school his expression into being normal and calm.

“Ok, I’ll find you at lunch.” A teasing smile appeared on Bruce’s face, his cheeks still warm, Vance nodded with a grin of his own. 

“See you later Yamada.” Vance lazily waved, and left in the direction of his house, Bruce watched as his figure disappeared behind a house. Bruce was left breathless.

__________ 

Vance didn’t know his heart could beat that fast, let alone that hard. His cig was the only thing keeping him composed, it was hard to stay composed when someone was staring at you like you've said something groundbreaking. When he’d said goodbye he tried his damndest to not immediately break out into a sprint, as soon as he turned the corner and out of view he sagged and ran a hand down his face. 

His face was burning hot, and his heart was beating hard. He shoved his hand in his pocket for his lighter and lit his cigarette. The smoke invaded his lungs giving him some sort of security, he blew out the gray smoke and began his slow walk to his house stewing in what the hell had just happened. He invited him to his table like a goddamn date! He could’ve died right there. 

Yamada’s smile once he actually somehow successfully made Vance laugh was one he would be thinking about for a long while. He watched Vance with a fondness he wasn’t  familiar with, it made him feel weird and warm. Yamada didn’t seem to notice Vance’s internal panic which meant Yamada was either oblivious as hell or he was way better at hiding things than he thought he was. And he didn’t know how to feel about either option. 

Vance jingled the doorknob to his house half-expecting it to be open because no one in his godforsaken house knew how to lock the door. He opened the door to his aunt and her third boyfriend on the couch cuddling watching some flick, his parents in the kitchen looking stressed over some very serious looking papers. Little cousins flocked through the halls and invaded every space of the house. His older cousin was taking care of her crying baby, none of them gave any notice to vance as he entered.

Not even yelling at him for keeping his shoes on as he tracked dirt into the house. He wordlessly walked to his room which was occupied by another cousin he didn’t recognize, “Your mom said I could use this room?” He stared at the guy on his bed going through his personal shit.

“Well she was wrong. Now get the fuck out!” He shouted and the guy on his bed raised his hands up in surrender and left the room easily. Vance slammed the door. No one cared anyway. His cassette tapes were strewn all along his bed, he grimaced at how unorganized he made it. He spent at least 20 minutes reorganizing the tapes before he came across his I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones, a perfect way to reflect how he was feeling right about now. Vance clicked the cassette into a small boombox he managed to score at some neighbors garage sale. He really missed his walkman but he had no clue on how he was going to get the money for a new one, his parents weren’t going to be helpful in the slightest. 

The song started and he turned it up enough so he could drown out the noise in his house. He spent the rest of his night replacing his guitar strings and stringing up new ones with his last pack. Taking out and putting in new cassettes when he came upon his most guarded secret. His secret tapes weren’t anything dirty but more shameful, he had an entire album of Blondie, Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, and many, many more stashed away at the very bottom of his collection, he wondered if that cousin of his found them.

He only played those if he was completely alone and only then he would listen to them, his annoying reputation of being the troubled kid would be in ruin if anyone ever found out he listened to them. What if Yamada found out? Actually he wasn’t worried about Yamada, he guessed that Yamada would actually listen to all of these artists he forbade himself from listening to. 

His fingers were raw by the time he finished restringing his guitar, he strummed it a couple of times to make sure it was sound. He placed it in the corner of his room on the stand that he spent so long trying to buy. He collapsed on his bed and fell asleep immediately, he didn’t usually dream. 

But when images of Bruce Yamada came up his dream-self panicked. He was in the third person watching his dream-self cuddle up to Yamada, they were on the couch mimicking the scene of his aunt and her boyfriend earlier. Vance was leaning against Yamada, while he was playing with his hair, the warmth of the scene melted Vance. 

He woke up feeling stranger than fiction, his heart yearned for that scene again, the feeling of hands running through his hair-he took a very cold shower that morning. 

Now he was almost one hundred percent sure he wasn’t going to school that day, he knew that he invited Yamada, but how could he even look straight at him with that almost very real feeling dream still in his mind? Then he realized he needed to know how it went with Robin and Finney, that he need to know information. He begrudgingly got dressed for that day, maybe spending a little too much time on his hair. 

He left his house much slower than usual already dreading lunchtime, he already had a cigarette in his mouth. He approached the school and already got mean stares from the front desk ladies, he just ignored them. Getting to first period wasn’t so hard, he just sat in the back of the class doing half of the worksheet the teacher gave them, contrary to popular belief, Vance wasn’t an idiot. He understood the material well enough (ignoring when he got held back) he just felt like school was a waste of time. 

The classes passed and Vance fell asleep in nearly all of them, until the lunch bell rang and then Vance’s palms started to sweat but he tried to ignore all feelings of nervousness like they didn’t even exist, he headed toward the lunchroom to find Robin and Finney already sat down and seeming closer than ever. Vance smirked at that, looks like last night went well. 

He stepped into the lunchline staring off into space until the lunch lady gave him his lunch, and she stopped him, “Hey! Don’t leave yet, you still need to pay.” Vance stared at her.

“I don’t have a dollar.”He said flatly. The lunch lady wasn’t fazed and stared back at him with the same face, “Well that means no lunch.”She put her hands on the tray and pulled it toward her. 

“C’mon, just this once, it’s not even that much!” He complained, he was hungry and tired, it was a dollar lunch. He clicked his tongue and gave up. If a lunch lady was  going to be that stingy over some mediocre school food he would let her. He turned on his heel and left for his table. 

Someone poked Vance’s shoulder and he quickly turned ready for a fight, but it was just Yamada. One eyed Yamada with a nervous grin, “Jesus Yamada.” Vance breathed out, “Oh sorry, did I scare you?” He asked the question so earnestly it nearly made Vance fall over. He stared at Yamada, “...No.” and he urged the other boy to get to the table. 

They both sat down and Yamada set down a bag he somehow had missed and was already sucked into the conversation with Robin and Finney. They were talking about some kind of horror movie Robin was apparently raving about.  “There’s gonna be a showing at the drive-in theater.” Robin told them, 

“What time?” Vance’s interest suddenly piqued.

“It’s at 9pm just to get people more scared. I was trying to convince Finn here to come with me.” He knocked into Finney, teasing him a little and Finney blushed and shook his head, “I’m not so sure my dad’s gonna let me come-” Vance knew very little of Finney’s home life but he was sure that it wasn’t the greatest. 

Finney very quickly changed the subject to baseball, and Yamada gladly obliged in the topic. Vance turned to Robin, “You got any extra lunch? The lunch lady was being stingy as hell.” Robin shook his head as he took a satisfied bite out of the dried burger in his hands with a grin, Vance stared him down and took one of his fries and dipped it in his ketchup. Robin only faked being offended but they both laughed until Vance’s stomach made a very audible growl. 

“Holy shit dude.” Is all Robin had to say about that.

__________ 

The stomach growl coming from Vance was loud enough that Bruce took notice of it. He turned to Vance who was stealing more food from Robin who was yelling at him in spanish and slapping his hand. Finney started to laugh and so did Bruce, when Amy and paperboy came up to the table and joined the rest of them. Bruce and Vance were on semi-good terms right? He looked into his bag of lunch that his mom packed for him sometimes, he took out two containers, a bowl and a flat one, he could already smell his moms delicious cooking. 

He opened the flat one which was white rice, with a piece of pickled plum in the middle, with some grilled fish on the side, and the small bowl was miso soup which was lukewarm but he didn’t mind. He looked toward Vance and nudged his foot, he stopped fighting with Robin and looked down at the containers, “We could share? My mom packs too much food anyway.” He pushed the rice toward Vance who looked at his food like a hungry wolf. 

“Seriously?” Vance asked looking at Bruce hopefully, “Yeah go ahead man.” Vance didn’t take another second before taking a fork and shoving a huge amount of rice and some pieces of the grilled fish  into his mouth. He swallowed hungrily, “Holy shit Yamada, this is good!” Bruce took out a spoon to sip on his miso soup, he actually was fine with Vance eating the rest of his rice and grilled fish. Bruce smiled at Vance whose face was stuffed while the others made fun of him and laughed. 

Bruce felt all warm again, just watching Vance even if it was a little gross. That morning he totally wasn’t freaking out in his room while Amy made fun of him. He paced back and forth in front of his bed that Amy was currently laying on. “So he invited you to his lunch table? Sounds like a date to me.” She said simply with a self satisfied smirk, he paused his pacing to look at her desperately. 

“Ok, ok, calm down,” Amy sat up on the bed, “Just, chill-he invited you because all of those assholes that turned on you hate you now. He’s being nice!” Bruce looked at her hopefully, he wasn’t even fully dressed for school. His hair was a mess and he only had some jeans on with no shirt.  He put his face in his hands, “You didn’t see him though! He was-he, looked…” He trailed off as his mind finished the sentence for him, he looked beautiful . His ears pinked, and he buried his face deeper into his hands. 

“Oh shit, you’re actually whipped, totally whipped!” Amy squealed, and rolled off the bed and put her arm over Bruce’s shoulders, “This could be like those romance movies mom watches!” Bruce groaned and pushed her off and pulled on a shirt suitable for school, while Amy rattled off on how they were going to get to school, “We could go by bike?” He stared at her. 

“You don’t even know how to ride.” He said flatly, she grinned and nodded. That meant she was gonna ride on the back pegs, he sighed and hung his head. They both headed out the door when his mom stopped him, she’d been asking questions nonstop about his eye. He lied and said it was an accident from baseball practice but she still didn’t fully believe him. 

“Be careful at practice and have a good day.” She said evenly enough, “And if it wasn’t practice, I won’t hesitate to get them with my own hands.” She still said evenly, which scared both Bruce and Amy down to their cores, after his mom said that she smiled brightly and handed him his lunch and told him again to have a good day. He nodded nervously and practically ran out the door with Amy right behind him. 

Bruce picked his bike up and sat on the seat waiting for Amy to get on the back, on the way to school she held her hands onto his shoulders, and made it easily enough even if Bruce had to work twice as hard with the extra weight. Only then they barely made it to their separate first periods, and only then Bruce was trying to distract himself from lunch. 

Then the lunch bell rang, he calmed himself as much as he could walking down the hall to his locker to put his things away. The football and baseball players avoided him in the halls giving him nasty stares, and calling out names. He full on ignored them, but it was hard when they were literally everywhere in the school. Johnny especially was a constant presence throughout the school, and unfortunately so was Laura. She didn’t even give Bruce a second look, he was bothered by the fact that she could have dropped him so easily. 

It was so easy for her, was she with Bruce only for her own entertainment? He grimaced now in a bad mood heading to the lunchroom, that feeling sorta melted away and was replaced with slight amusement watching Vance argue with the lunch lady, who does that? He snickered to himself and went up to Vance and tapped him on the shoulder which scared the crap out of him. “Jesus Yamada.” Bruce had the urge to tell him it was Bruce and not Yamada. 

He ignored it and they both sat down to where they were now. Vance continued to eat the food like a starved animal while he and Finney talked baseball. Finney continued to ask questions about different techniques, and moves he could maybe use. Finney asked for some practice at the field and Bruce thought on it, “Yeah we totally could, you wanna do it today or?” Finney lit up, “Y-yeah we could do it today.”

Bruce smiled back and nodded. 

They finished up lunch while Vance patted his stomach in bliss, he thanked Bruce, “Thanks Yamada-also, get some ice for your eye, it reduces swelling.” He patted Bruce's shoulder and started to walk back to class, he stood there in the lunchroom as students walked by and watched as Vance disappeared into the hallway. 

He felt warm again, then his stomach growled. 

Chapter Text

Vance pushed his way through the crowd leaving Yamada behind him, he only felt slightly guilty for eating most of his food-but damn he was hungry. He would eventually pay him back for that. Probably. 

He was headed for the double doors where he robbed Yamada previously, but a hall monitor was standing just near it scolding some poor kid. He noped out of there quickly and turned back around where he saw Yamada not in his class yet, which was sort of awkward but he didn’t care. Yamada spotted him with a raised eyebrow, “Hey? Isn’t your class that way?” He pointed past Vance. 

“Not anymore.” He grabbed Yamada’s shoulder and pulled him along with him down the hallway, the kids around that still hadn’t gone to class were eyeing them like crazy. He heard whispers of a “fight” that Vance was trying to start, he wasn’t. He just wanted to get out of school, “Where are we going?” Yamada asked quickly, “I just need you as cover. I’m playin’ hooky.” Yamada spluttered at that.

A teacher eyed them suspiciously but Yamada just shot him a smile and a nod and the teacher left them alone, Vance just might have to keep using him as cover in the coming weeks. 

“Y’know this is giving me the strangest sense of deja vu.” He said sarcastically which made Vance snort, “Just be glad I’m not robbing you again.” Yamada easily went along with him, everyone in the halls filtered out to their classrooms leaving both of them alone, until they reached the nurses, Vance finally let go.

“Y’know you made me late.” He said easily.

“ Just use that  Yamada charm and you’ll be fine.” Vance said mockingly, with a sarcastic smile, Yamada smiled back just as easily, “Is it that hard to say my first  name? Bruce, not Yamada.” He returned Vance’s energy masterfully, with just a bit more playful demeanor, his heart was going to burst out of his chest. 

Yamada was leaning against the wall near the door, Vance wasn’t lying when he said he had that charm because it was working too well on him. “Give me 20 bucks and I might use it, just once.” Vance knew he was lingering on too long, but Yamada was just too magnetic. Yamada’s eye(s) lit up at that and he laughed-the rush of making him laugh just about shut Vance’s brain down. 

“Yeah? Sounds like a good deal.” God he was going to kill him, Vance accepted that his heart was going to burst and knocked on the nurses door. “See you later Yamada , don’t forget your ice.” Yamada stared back at him for what he thought was blush dusting his face, before he could respond the nurse opened the door. Mary greeted both of them with surprise, “Oh! Mr. Hopper and Mr.Yamada, is Vance hurt again?” She was already fussing over Vance, “Not this time Mary, it’s my friend here, he needs some ice.” He grabbed both of Yamada’s shoulders and pushed him inside. 

“What-? No I don’t need-” Yamada tried to argue, and looked to Vance for help. Vance only smiled and said, “Take a free period.” And left down the hallway towards one of those doors that nobody used that led outside. His heart was still beating heavily, he really hadn’t thought much about why he only used his last name, compared to the others. Like Robin, Billy, Finney and the others were fine-so why not Yamada?

He let the wind pass through his hair as he pondered this, but he already knew the answer. He couldn’t let Yamada get too close to him, he barely even knew him. He’d only known him for like 2 weeks, it was way way too early for any type or kind of feelings to arise. Too fast for Vance, so he would bury and shove that feeling as far as he could before anything else could happen, and he really didn’t want to get into any thoughts about why or how he liked boys because that was going to rot his brain. 

He just decided to accept that he liked who he liked and that was that. He stepped into the store with his pinball machine, but before he started his game he bought a gobstopper for cheap, popped it into his mouth and started his game. He doesn’t know how long he zoned out for but he absolutely didn’t beat his high score, he didn’t even get the machine to roll over. He huffed out some air in frustration, and not just from the machine. 

What the hell were these feelings? He didn’t want them, he angrily busted his way out of the store, spit out his gobstopper and grabbed his cigarettes and took one out and stuffed it into his mouth, with a lighter he actually remembered to bring this time. He lit it and the addicting smoke filled his lungs easily as he calmed down.

Vance walked through the park to get to his house faster, he only felt slightly bad for the kids he walked past inhaling his smoke. He was kicking some stray rocks on the sidewalk cutting through the field with a playground when he spotted Gwen and Amy sitting on the swingset talking to each other about who knows what, they spotted him too and Gwen easily got a grin on her face which was slightly unsettling. 

“Didn’t know you two skipped classes.” Was all Vance remarked as he walked past them never actually stopping to get into conversation with them. “Wait! C’mere.” Gwen quickly said, Vance turned around but never getting closer to them, “What?” He took a huge inhale of smoke, letting it easily escape his nose, “Ok first off, if you’re going to be around us this long-you gotta stop smoking.” Gwen said, coughing her lungs out, Vance stifled a laugh, took the cig and threw it to the ground and stepped on it, “Happy?”   

“Thanks.” Amy said, still clearing the air of the putrid smoke, “So, y’know that movie that Robin wants to take Finney on?” Vance nodded, now walking closer to the swings leaning on one of the metal poles holding it up, already missing something to keep his mouth occupied. “Well me and Amy want to make it a really good date, but we need your help because you’re closer to him.” Vance made a face, he wouldn’t exactly say he was closer to Robin but he did understand him, Vance shrugged waiting for Gwen to go on. 

“Are you gonna help?” Vance stared at the pair of girls in front of him, it would be something to do, keep his mind off of certain things. He shrugged nonchalantly, “Ok.” The girls looked at each other, “Ok? Does that mean you’re in or what?” Amy impatiently asked, “I’m in.” Was all Vance said in response, the other girls beamed and kidnapped him to Amy’s house. Vance just accepted his fate, and went along with them, he didn’t have anything else going on.

It took them 20 minutes to get to her house, which was big and clean looking. Entering the house, it was really clean, and-starkly quiet. Vance bristled at that, a quiet house wasn’t normal, it felt desolate and lonely. Vance glanced around her living room, it was spacious with dark colors decorating everything. She walked over to a set of speakers and started her music, it was the Bee Gees, and Vance’s eyeballs almost rolled out of his head with how big his eye roll was. Amy just told him to shut up and she crashed onto her couch with Gwen easily taking her seat beside her, and Vance more reluctantly took a seat farthest away from them, he really wished he had a cig right about now. 

“Ok so, Robin apparently knows how to drive so we have the car situation down, and we have all the necessities for this date.” Gwen said rather triumphantly.

“Wait, he knows how to drive? This fucker could’ve been lending me his car.” He said ruefully, of course he also knew how to drive but he just didn’t have a car, or a license but he still was mad. 

“Calm down blondie, his dad just got it and gave it to him like yesterday.” Amy said, crossing her arms, a flare of anger jump started in Vance’s chest-the fuck did she just call him? He blinked and quickly tried to calm his anger down, they noticed his silence, he just cleared his throat. He had to remember not everything someone says is malicious, “Ok-he got the car yesterday, and the movie is when?” Vance asked, trying to just get on with it already. 

The girls thankfully ignored it, “The movies gonna be on friday, so we have four days not including today. We have time.” Amy helpfully supplied.

“So what are we even gonna do?” Because seriously, what the hell could they even do?

Both of the girls brightened, “So! What we’re going to do is just try and get them on a date with Finney, for that horror movie by the end of the week. Maybe some small dates in between?”

Vance blanched, they really expected him to go along with this? He thought of all the ways he could make fun of Robin, and was almost immediately won over. He shrugged and nodded reluctantly with the mention of Bruce, “Sure.” The girls beamed at him, and already started to rattle off ideas of what they could do, Vance let them do the talking because he didn’t really know them that well and being let in on a secret with people you didn’t know felt off, apparently not to the girls as they continued on and on as if they knew Vance since birth. 

So now the plan was to get Vance to play matchmaker and nudge Robin towards Finney, he made a face again at that, “C’mon, you already did it when we were on our walk home. You’re like-the ultimate wingman.” Gwen said laughing at him, he thought of a retort but realized he literally did, and shut his mouth promptly. 

“Do you guys wanna watch a movie?” Amy asked and Gwen whooped and ran to her kitchen to pop some popcorn, Vance still feeling very out of his depth with them he stilled. Considering he had pretty much nothing at home or at the store with his pinball machine, he gave up trying to make up excuses in his head, “Make two bags! I want my own.” Vance shouted toward the kitchen, Amy snickered. 

__________ 

Bruce found himself venting to Nurse Mary while holding an ice pack to his face, mostly about different things like Johnny, Laura-Vance. His entire class hour was spent inside the nurses office where he actually didn’t mind the “free period” Vance so gracefully granted him. Also was Vance flirting with him? Or was he reading too far into it? Because Bruce was absolutely flirting back if that was the case. 

“Well, it seems you really like this person Bruce.” Nurse Mary said while she was filling out some paperwork. 

“That’s the thing though, I don’t know if they like me. And not even in a romantic way-like a friendship kinda way, they’re so confusing.” He groaned and leaned against the wall behind him, the nurse smiled knowingly.

“Well he did bring you here for some ice. Sounds like he cares.” Bruce was going to agree when he realized the nurse already figured it out quickly, 

“How-” she swiveled in her chair.

“I heard the two of you flirting outside of my door, you need to be more careful where you do it.” Bruce flushed and his face got hot, she heard all of that, “And you’re ok with-y’know.” He asked tentatively. 

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be? Besides, I think Mr.Hopper is overdue for some friendship. He’s been in this office more times than a child should.” She put her delicate but pudgy hand over her chest, her face was full of old worry that seemed to be present almost constantly. 

“How many times has Vance been in here?” He asked incredulously, she merely shook her head back and forth, “I can still remember his first visit here, he was small, maybe 14?  He came in-his knuckles bloody, so was his nose. He had bruises all over his body, all along his stomach- and do you know what he said as soon as he laid down on that bed?” 

“What?” Bruce was on the edge of his seat. 

“He said, ‘Shit.’ And passed right out, now I don’t know if it was out of exhaustion or his body just simply quit but he slept through the entire school day. I cleaned him up as best I could, but if it had been any worse he would’ve been in the hospital.” She sighed wearily as if that memory alone sapped all of her energy. 

Bruce digested that information slowly, what else had Vance gone through? His heart ached pitifully in his chest. “Oh, don’t you worry about him, I’ve taught him how to take care of himself. He only comes in here if it’s really serious or just wants a free period.” 

Bruce hummed in vague agreement, “What was his worst injury?” He asked without really thinking, but he did want to know. The nurse stilled a second before considering her words carefully. 

 “Now that’s something you have to ask him yourself. I believe he wouldn’t want me telling others his private business. If you do ask him, just please make sure he’s comfortable with you-I wouldn’t want Mr.Hopper to lose his friends-especially you. I’ll only tell you that he has a noticeable scar on his stomach-” She got up from her desk and floated over to Bruce, “Do you mind?” He shook his head, quickly. 

She raised his shirt and pointed to the top of his pelvis bone and dragged it for too long before it hit the very bottom of his rib, “It went from here to there. Bloody scene it was.” Bruce gawked, “Did he go to the hospital or-?” He asked desperately. The nurse simply sighed and floated back to her chair. Bruce’s mind was racing, what possibly could Vance have gone through for that? He was full of worry now too. 

“Just don’t ask him about it too bluntly-he’s sort of like a stray cat.” Nurse Mary said rather thoughtfully as if the thought never occurred to her but it made sense. Then the bell rang, “That’s the bell Mr.Yamada, have a good rest of your day.” She said warmly, handing him a nurse’s note, he nodded and placed the blue ice pack back in the dingy freezer in the corner. He waved and went back out into the hallway.

He walked to class not really eager to be there, when he saw the boys in the hallway laughing really loud, he waved at them and they waved back. Then he realized some of the others were missing, but he didn’t think too hard about it. 

He entered the classroom and took his usual seat, and the class started to fill. Before Bruce could even get out his notebook Mr. Johnson already started his monotone monologue and Bruce’s eyes started to become heavy with sleep. He blinked hard before he felt a nudge from a girl he’d only seen in the halls, he looked at her confused before she sneakily handed him a note when Mr.Johnson had his back turned. 

The note was folded a million times, he finally opened it and it read, “Can we talk? -Laura” He looked up to find Laura’s eyes on him, he scrunched up his nose like he smelled something nasty. But Laura wasn’t going to give up; she mouthed a “Please?” he just looked at her with an unimpressed expression. He went back to looking at the teachers back when a minute later the same girl gave him another note, Bruce rolled his eyes. 

He opened it much more impatiently this time, it read, “Please? I just want to talk.” He looked over at Laura again, and gave in, he nodded and she beamed even though Bruce really just wanted to leave her and never talk or look at her again. But if someone wanted to explain themselves who was Bruce to try and stop them? Bruce faked paying attention in the class only focused on what Laura could possibly say, did she want to apologize? Explain herself? It couldn’t be anything else could it?

The class was over after an eternity and Bruce was pretty much the first one outside the class, the hallway was still empty with few students starting to fill it out. After a minute of putting his stuff away in his locker Laura caught up to him, she looked sorry, “Can we go somewhere private?” Her high voice that used to make his heart beat twice as fast was only grating now. He nodded stiffly and followed her through the crowded halls. 

He found himself in the back of the school where Vance “robbed” him how many  weeks ago? He leaned against the brick wall as Laura was left out in the open space by herself. “I just wanted to apologize for what happened. I- I shouldn’t have left like that. I didn’t know what to do-Johnny just looked so-” She cut herself off, giving Bruce a frightened look. Bruce's face fell a bit. She didn’t do anything because she was scared of Johnny, which would make sense, who knew what Johnny would do to her?

“I just wanted to say sorry.” Bruce didn’t know how to feel at that moment, “Apology accepted, thank you.” He gave her a small smile, and kicked off the wall with nothing really left to say and he had to say some energy wasted in coming all the way back here for an apology when Laura spoke up again, “Also I have a question since we’re all good now.” Bruce raised his eyebrow in disbelief, he just wanted to leave. 

Exasperatedly he asked, “What?”

“Are you seriously going to hang out with those losers still?” Laura's face looked as if she slipped on a mask of a different person, being genuine one second and being fake the next. Why would she have to learn it that well? Bruce thought rather sadly, “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean! That sad little kid in the baseball team and the paperboy for god's sake? Especially Pinball Vance, why the hell were you with him at the restaurant?” She walked around him like a hawk circling its prey, his nerves set on fire looking into her piercing blue eyes, and perfectly curated makeup and outfit, “I was with them because they’re not some superficial clique who only care about social status.” Her mouth gaped open like a fish out of water, her eyes wide and a sneer slowly appearing on her face. 

She clicked her tongue, “Well see if I care when everyone finds out you’re hanging out with a queer.” Bruce's brain stopped working at that point.

 “You don’t get to call people that shit!” Laura gasped, and Bruce’s heart pounded, why the hell would she say something like that? She didn’t say anything stuttering to get anything out loud, “It was Johnny wasn’t it? Filling your head with that kind of crap?” Her eyes were impossibly wide, confirming his suspicions. 

He huffed out angrily, needing to leave the situation before he got even more mad. He went through the double doors inside with Laura calling after him but he cared even less for her, fuming he headed straight for the bathrooms and splashed some cold water on his face, rubbing his eye(s) deeply trying to wrap his mind around that entire interaction. 

He groaned, what else had Johnny been spewing out? What should he even do at this point? Ignore them or confront them? He got some paper towels and patted his face dry as his mind churned with what to do to the point of paralysis, too many questions and too many non-solutions, so what would he do? Ignore it and keep it to himself and hope the problem goes away on its own, but even that course of action made his stomach ache. 

He went on like this for the rest of the day not able to focus on any teacher or any of the work, building up nervous energy and now grateful for baseball with Finney and Billy. The final bell went off for the day and he slammed his locker a little too loudly, “Woah, you good?” Billy asked from behind him, Bruce turned, startled, “Oh are you coming with us? I thought it was just gonna be Finney.” Bruce said with surprise,  Billy smiled easily and nodded, “Thought Finney here could use an audience, since we have no clue where Robin is.” He put a hand on the smaller boy's shoulder, “Weird. Anyway you guys ready to head to the field?”

They both nodded and Finney nodded quickly enough to where they got out of that hellish school and headed toward the field, there should be gear at the field already, just some battered old bats and old gear that didn’t work very well anymore. The three of them talked about their classes and which teacher they hated more, “No listen! Ms. Smith has got to be the worst teacher in history!” The boys around Bruce laughed, “She literally gave me detention for bumping into her on accident, it sucked. What sane person does that?”

He ranted as the boys continued laughing, “No you listen!” Billy said between fits of laughter, “Mr. Johnson, that man cannot teach a class to save his life!” They all burst out laughing, it felt great to laugh that hard again. They came up to the field with no one in sight which was a bonus, the clouds drifting with the sun overhead shining brightly, they entered the diamond. 

Finney picked up a ratty bat and a worn down glove that barely fit Bruce’s hand, “So you wanted to learn how to bat?” Finney nodded his head, looking obviously nervous, Bruce chuckled to himself at the pitcher's base, “Ok I’m just gonna toss you a ball and I wanna see how you hit it, ok?” Finney nodded again and Billy whooped from behind the fence in the players outside cage.  Finney rolled his eyes, Bruce raised his arm and tossed the ball, he swung the bat heavily and missed. 

Finney visibly winced, but Bruce was in his exact same position not long ago so he didn’t judge, “Don’t worry, here’s another one get ready.” He called out, Finney readied himself in the classic batters pose, Bruce tossed the ball and he swung yet again, Finney got closer that time but still missed Billy audibly groaned and Bruce glared at him. He saw Finney’s confidence waning quickly, third times the charm he thought, “Alright another! C’mon you can’t give up after 2 bats!” Bruce tried for a lighthearted tone, once again Bruce tossed the ball and Finney swung with much more vigor and struck the ball-it sailed through the air with pretty good height. 

Billy and Bruce cheered as Bruce ran little ways to catch it into the glove. “Nice!” He said running back to Finney, “A few things though, you need to keep your front foot down, you keep lifting it. And here, hold the bat like you're gonna hit the ball.” Finney got into his lackluster position, he recognized that his feet were too close together and he was hunched like a ghoul. “Yeah, look, your feet are too close together, widen them and get a good brace.” He walked around Finney giving him pointers on what to do, “Keep your posture straight, have that confidence even if it’s fake, don’t worry I do that too.” He smiled brightly toward the boy and he smiled right back. 

“Wanna try it again?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah let’s go.” Finney answered simply with more liveliness than before, he ran back to the pitchers base and tossed the ball once again, and Finney hit it, the sound echoing through the field and whoops and cheers from both Bruce and Billy. They went on like this for a while, even letting Billy get a few hits in which he missed most of them, and of course they made fun of him for it, “Yeah that’s what you get for being annoying earlier.” Finney smugly said, Billy chased him around with the bat.  

At the tail end of the practice, it had been well over an hour, maybe two, Bruce got some hits in letting all of his anger out on the ball, letting the ball fly over both boys heads, they seemed to notice. “You ok Bruce? You’re kinda hitting those baseballs like they owe you money.” Billy commented now sitting on the ground next to Bruce while sipping on a soda? Where the hell did he get one of those? 

“Just-today was a lot.” As Finney pitched him another ball and he swung and connected, watching the ball get smaller. Billy piped up, “You wanna talk about it? That helps-I think, it’s supposed to anyway.” He shrugged nonchalantly giving an air of indifference. Bruce struck another ball, almost losing grip of the bat.

 “Alright I’m done.” He told Finney who nodded, and jogged over to both boys, Bruce dropped the bat on the ground and sat next to Billy, who grabbed a soda out of his jacket and handed it to him, “Do you just carry those around, like-all the time?” Bruce took the soda and clicked it open. 

The fizz popped and soothing as he took a sip. Finney took a seat in front of them, Billy handed him another soda, “Sometimes I stock up, sometimes I don’t.” He said simply, and Bruce thought it better to not keep pressing this strange hobby. Billy snapped his fingers, “Anyways-spill your guts, what’s wrong?” Bruce was again flooded with everything and everyone, and sighed sipping on his soda. “Too much. I broke up with Laura obviously, or did she break up with me? I don’t know anymore.” He rambled both boys next to him, listening intently. 

“She even came up to me today to ask why I was even hanging out with you guys, which was something I thought was obvious. Then she called Vance a-” He cut himself short, “A terrible name, I got so mad I just stormed off.” He crinkled the aluminum can in his hand, “I mean it doesn’t sound that bad, who cares if some girl broke up with you? She sucked anyway.” Finney filled the silence, Bruce snorted, “Yeah, but like she was cute and stuff, and I really did like her.” 

“And what did she even call Vance? It couldn’t have been that bad.” Billy asked, Bruce’s heart panged, “She called him a-queer, just like Johnny.” Silence filled the air, as Bruce watched the two boys digest that information, “Is Johnny spreading that shit around the school?” Finney asked incredulously, obviously shocked, Billy still had a thoughtful but pained look on his face. 

Bruce nodded, “If Laura knows-then, everyone else is gonna know sooner or later, she’s like the center of gossip. Should I talk to her?” He set his soda can down and looked toward Billy, and Finney. They both shrugged now shouldering this new information, Bruce flopped backwards onto the grass below him groaning loudly. “I hate this. This is too much.” He heard two other thuds in the grass on either side of him, all of the boys looking up to the sky. The sun still bright and shining on their faces, the quiet breathing nearly lulling Bruce to sleep. 

“I think we shouldn’t give Laura and Johnny any attention, unless they force us to.” Billy said thoughtfully, Bruce hummed in agreement, “Should we tell Vance?” Finney asked, which surprised Bruce because he was about to ask the same thing. Bruce chuckled, “I dunno, he might wanna fight him again.” they all easily laughed at that, “Ugh, I’m too tired for this right now. We’ll figure it out later, let's just-chill.” Quiet agreements were made as they talked about nothing and everything, to school, to hobbies, especially Billy’s which was a small shock to him. 

Apparently Billy loved to create his own comic books which wasn’t necessarily a surprise seeing as the newspapers he delivered had those tiny little comics in them, and Billy one day just started doodling and made up his own stories, “Dude you’ve got to show them to me at least once” Bruce sat up on his elbows and looked down at Billy who for once seemed flustered, “Well-I just, I don’t have everything drawn out. And-” Bruce smiled at him and laughed, “Dude chill, but-I’m gonna see it one day.” Then Finney chimed, “They’re so cool, and the way he draws is awesome.” He said in admiration to which Billy’s face got pinker. 

“Ok shut up, I might die.” Billy said, closing his eyes and thumping his head on the grass, Bruce fell back onto the grass and laughed with Finney, they stayed there for a while before they heard a car pass and stop and then a honk of a horn. They all got up confused, on the street there was a red truck, “Oye!” The honk was hit two more times, it was Robin. “Robin?” Finney asked breathlessly before being the first one to get up and run to the edge of the field. 

Bruce and Billy followed behind, “Nice ride!” They all walked up to his truck, “Right? My dad just got it for me.” 

“Do you even have a license?” Robin laughed, “Of course not. Wanna ride? I’m trying to get used to this.” It was a one door truck which Bruce was about to ask how they were all going to fit when Billy interjected, “Finney, why don’t you take shotgun, me and Bruce can sit in the bed, I’ve always wanted to sit in the back of a truck.” And he took Bruce by the shoulders and forcefully pushed him to the back of the truck. 

Finney flustered as he opened the door of the truck quickly, and Bruce stepped on the tire and jumped into the bed, then Billy right behind him. “Where are we going?” Robin yelled over the engine, “My house!” Bruce shouted back, Robin affirmed by starting the truck and driving down the road. The cool wind flowed through both Billy and Bruce’s hair, Bruce scooted to where Billy was sitting. 

“Man I wanted to sit shotgun, why’d you let Finney get it?” He semi-complained even though it wasn’t that big of a deal. Billy looked at him with wide eyes like something was obvious, Bruce just returned a confused look, head to the side. “Are you serious? Ok if you’re gonna hang with us you gotta know one thing about the two of them-they kinda have a thing for each other but they’re too stupid to realize it, it’s been like this forever.” Bruce thought about this, he didn’t see it but if Billy trusted him enough to tell him this then he believed him, “Guess I didn’t see it.” He murmured, then Billy patted his chest. 

Billy laughed. “You’re gonna wish you didn’t, they make me sick.” Bruce snorted and rested his head on the bed of the truck, the ride was short when Robin asked, “Is this it?” It was close enough, he parked at his house, he called out “Close enough!” Robin parked by the curb and they all got down from the truck.

They took Bruce’s lead and knocked on the wooden door, and he heard some yelling inside and to his surprise Vance’s face greeted him as the door opened, “What-” Vance’s eyes widened and his mouth formed a little o, mimicking his own face, “Vance? What’re you doing here?” Now Bruce was severely confused, Amy and Gwen came up behind him, “Hey guys! What’re you guys doing here?” Gwen asked, pushing Vance out of the way to hug Finney and Robin together, Vance and Bruce still staring at each other before Amy interrupted.

“Come in! We were just watching a movie, c’mon, c’mon!” Amy said over and over, pulling Bruce and Billy inside with everyone following in behind them.  

__________

Vance shouldn’t have been so surprised opening the door and finding Yamada there, it is his house. But still seeing Yamada at the door made his heart beat a little faster. Amy pulled everyone inside, Vance was sort of embarrassed letting the rest of the group see their mess in the living room, popcorn scattered around and a goddamn rom-com of all things, but to Vance’s credit he resisted and offered a slasher movie instead but the girls said no, and it was two to one. 

The movie was called Grease and he didn’t love the singing or the dancing, and was unfortunately pulled in by the main guy Danny, or John Travolta as the girls so helpfully supplied. His face heated everytime he got close to Sandy and sang to her. He needed a smoke, it didn’t help that Yamada was here too. He needed to get out of there, “Get some food guys, we have enough for everyone.” Amy called out as everyone crowded the kitchen. “Then we can all see Robins truck!” Billy announced as he took some food from the fridge, Robin flushed as he sat at their dining table and Vance took a seat right next to him, “Why didn’t you tell me you had a car?” Robin grinned and snickered, “I just got it, I know you can drive but I at least needed some time with it before you stole it.” He elbowed Vance and Vance huffed out some air with a small smile, “I’m gonna take a look at it.” Vance knocked the table with his finger and got up and headed for the door.

He left quietly so no one would come with him, because he knew how much they hated the smell of  cigarettes which he had no problem with, the smell stuck everywhere and it was almost foul. He took his second to last one out, and lit it as soon as he shut the door, and there it was, a shiny new one-door truck. Guess that’s where Robin and Finney are gonna have their date, he thought as he walked up to it inspecting it. The paint was fresh and very new, it was very new, and Vance made up his mind to not drive it just yet, he didn’t want to crash a brand new truck that wasn’t even his, he sucked in the smoke letting it stay in his lungs for a second and blew it out. 

The sun was going down quick, the nights weren’t too cold but enough to not stay out there long. He was staring at the bed of the truck, the girls told him they were gonna get a ton of blankets, and a thousand pillows in the back so they could watch the movie at the drive-in theater. Lost in thought puffing out smoke, thinking about, what if? What if that could be him? 

He was startled out of his thoughts by coughing, it was everyone but Robin and Finney, “Dude how much do you smoke?” Billy asked while coughing and waving his hand in the air trying to wave away the putrid smell, Vance grimaced, taking one big inhale before taking it out of his mouth and crushing it on the ground, then exhaling it like a dragon through his nose, away from the group. “Sorry- what’s up?” Gwen was the one to speak up, “The plan , y’know!” she raised her eyebrows as the two other boys raised their eyebrows in confusion. 

Vance nodded, “Oh yeah– why don’t you guys explain it.” He leaned against the bed of the truck and crossing his arms his, fingers drumming against either arm, Gwen and Amy went into their entire spiel, and Vance watched as both boys’ faces morphed into several different emotions, the first, confusion, interest, and then totally being won over to the dark side. Their smiles were a bit too wide for Vance’s liking, they immediately agreed to join in on their little “mission.”

“So we get Robin to get ‘tutoring’ then what? Just let them kiss or something?” Billy asked, and they all shrugged, Bruce spoke up, “Who’s going to get Robin to even do it?” The girls obviously looked toward Vance, who stilled and grimaced but tried to remain nonchalant and nodded, “Yeah, they thought it’d be a good idea, so-” he ran a hand through his curls, clenching his teeth.

“So Robin would listen to you? When did that happen?” Bruce asked stepping closer to Vance with puppy dog confusion, slightly turning his head to the side, “Yeah-I dunno I-” Vance was interrupted by the topic of the conversation. “What’re you guys talking about?” Finney asked, and behind him was Robin, “It better be about how you guys are going to pay me gas money for taking you everywhere.” He smirked, and Vance snorted.

“Don’t worry I’ll let Yamada pay for all of us. Isn’t that right?” Vance decided to be bold and wrap his arm around Bruce’s shoulder and pat his chest good naturedly, the group all loudly agreed, Vance’s heart pounded heavily as he looked toward Bruce with a confident smirk, that made him feel braver even if it was fake. To Vance’s relief Bruce chuckled and put a hand against his mouth to stifle the laughter, “Only for the first trip, and that’s it.” He said beaming at Vance and everyone else, Vance’s heart jumped painfully, “How about you take us for a ride Robin?” Amy asked, brightly.

“Where?” He asked and everyone blurted something different out and Vance couldn’t differentiate all of them, he heard the mall, the park, the new arcade that had just opened. The skate rink, which made no sense it wasn’t even in season for that yet, Robin held his hands up to quiet everyone down, “Okok, let’s just go to the park, it should be mostly empty by now.” Vance reluctantly slid his arm off of Bruce already missing his warmth. 

The group agreed, and they all made their way to the truck with an unspoken rule: Let Finney ride shotgun. Simple and effective rule, they let Finn into the front and the rest of them piled into the back, letting the tailgate be opened so they could hang their legs off just barely avoiding the road. 

The engine roared awake as Gwen, Billy and Amy sat on the tailgate letting their legs hang with the wind, Bruce and Vance stayed on the inside of the bed opposite each other, Vance sprawling out letting his legs hit the other side of the bed while he let his head rest on the metal. The three kids were talking very loudly about something he didn’t care to catch, he just closed his eyes, and listened to everyone and everything, that’s the one thing no one told him about listening to music 24/7. If you ignore everyone and everything for long enough-you forget what people sound like, their laughs, their choked sobs, their anger. 

There is a reason he didn’t want to hear anything in the first place. 

The wind ran through his shabby bangs letting the cool air touch his entire face, he took a deep breath in when he felt eyes on him, he opened his eyes and was met with Yamada’s eye(s) staring at his relaxed form, Vance quirked his eyebrow up, “Like what you see?” He tried for more fake confidence, which Vance hoped it would turn into real confidence. He lazily smiled at Yamada’s shocked face.

Yamada’s face flushed as he tried to be made but failed miserably, “What is it gonna take for you to say my name?” Yamada said it endearingly, Vance sat up with his back to the metal now, he crossed his arms again and shrugged.

“Maybe once that black eye goes away, have you been icing it?” Vance thoughtfully murmured hoping Yamada didn’t even hear him, he did. Yamada seemed self conscious of his swollen shut eye, he’d definitely been there multiple times before, after your second or third one you stop caring about how the people on the street stare at you. Yamada shrugged, shrinking in on himself, “Not really, only the times you’ve given me ice.” Yamada was getting really self conscious now, he started to hover his hand over his face. 

A burst of laughter exploded near them as all of the kids on the tailgate seemed entranced in their own conversation, something about someone in their grade doing something stupid, them seemingly not being able to hear their quiet conversation emboldened Vance, he scooted over to Yamada sitting cross legged in front of him, he gently slapped his hand away from his face, “You don’t have to hide your eye from us, I mean look at my face, it’s got way more bruises than yours.” Vance smirked, proud of his bruises, it showed he was strong, it showed he could take a few hits and still win. 

Yamada smiled appreciatively, “Vance Hopper comforting someone? Never thought I’d see the day.” He softly laughed, Vance grinned, “What can I say? I’m a complicated man.” He shrugged nonchalantly and Yamada laughed some more. Vance has never wanted to make someone laugh more than he wanted to make Yamada laugh. “But really, you need to ice that, it’ll go away in like 2 weeks if you do.” Yamada sat a little bit straighter with dread on his face, “2 weeks? But-”

“But what? That’s just how it is,” Vance now turned around sitting in the same position Yamada was, shoulder to shoulder, “if you get into any other fights, you’ll get used to it.” He looked toward Yamada who now had a sadness in his eye(s), a sudden downturn in his face, that Vance really didn’t like.

 “How many times have you been hit? Or-I should say, how many fights?” That question, it wasn’t new to Vance, it shouldn’t have been such a shock to him not really. But why did it feel like he just took a gut punch? He stared at Yamada,   

“...Lost count,” Vance covered his hand over his mouth, he huffed out some air trying to laugh, it wasn’t anything new.

 “I uh, I think you could imagine how many, you know, been fighting since birth.” He smiled weakly, suddenly not able to meet Yamada’s gaze, he opened his mouth and reached his hand out onto Vance’s shoulder when the car jerked to a stop, “We’re here!” Robin called out.

Vance cleared his throat and stood up way too fast, and jumped off the tailgate landing hard on the ground joining with the others, he didn’t look behind him to check on Yamada.  

“I call the swings!” Amy called and ran off to the swingset with Gwen right behind pulling Yamada with her. The boys Billy and Finney were laying on the grass, probably talking about baseball or something, Vance didn’t know what the hell they were into. Vance stayed with Robin, “You don’t mind if I smoke?” Vance asked him, he shook his head and Vance had never felt more happy for a distraction. 

He lit his last cigarette and took in a delicious puff of smoke, “Can I ask you somethin’?” Robin started, Vance shrugged with a hum in affirmation, “I need advice.” They both walked over to the slides and sat at the bottom of it, Vance was shocked, why would someone trust him like that?  

“Sure, as long as you don’t ask me to hide a body.” Vance snorted, so did Robin. Though it was true that Vance didn’t know Robin that long but it felt like he knew him, he couldn’t explain how. 

“You know Finney,” Robin gestured toward the kid laying in the grass, “I uh, I’m thinkin’ of asking him out.” He sounded hesitant and nervous to even be saying it out loud but the smile on Vance’s face only got bigger, “Hell yeah man.” He lightly punched his arm, Robin nodded but still seemed rigid. 

“How do I even ask him? I mean- I don’t even know if he likes me back.” Vance stared incredulously the absolute gall Robin had to not even notice how Finney stares at him, is always by his side nearly all the time, Vance wanted to shake Robin by his shoulders to just make him realize but managed to just only choke on his cig smoke. “Trust me, he likes you back.” Robin still looked unconvinced and Vance just flopped his back onto the slide behind him, legs dangling just barely. 

He heard a similar sound next to him, “Ok, so-if you’re so sure, how should I ask him out?” Vance really wanted to make fun of him, but held his tongue, he would save it for when they finally were official. Vance played with the thought of telling him and ruining the plan , but out of the very goodness of his heart he decided not to. “Start small, get cozy with him during your little tutor sessions. Take him out to eat, stuff like that.” Vance raised his eyebrows at him, to which Robin deadpanned at him, Vance was all teeth. 

“Or like, the horror movie later,”

 He said simply, “You have your new truck so it’s perfect for the drive-in.” 

“You think so?” Nervousness remained in his voice. 

     “I know so.”

“Then can you help me?”

     “With what?” Vance took another puff of smoke.

“The date!”

      “Fine, only if you tell me what you guys talked about on the way here.” Vance said with a self satisfied grin. 

He heard a groan of despair which he barked out a laugh at, “Spill your guts, what’d you say?” He saw Robin sit straight up and Vance did the same, staring at Robin expectantly.

 “We just talked about a lot, I was still trying to convince him to come with me to the movie, but his dad-” Oh god that’s not what Vance wanted to hear, some kid with a horrible dad, he almost stopped Robin from saying anything more. 

“His dad’s a dick, he thinks that Finn deserves getting bullied. I help him but it’s not enough.” Vance almost fucking threw himself off of that slide, he didn’t want to hear all of that, it only made his heart wrench for a kid he kind of knew. 

Vance knew Finney had bullies, but he thought they had calmed down after everything he and Robin did to them. “He still has bullies? Even after what we did?” Robin nodded tiredly.

“We’re gonna have to teach him how to defend himself. Surprised you haven’t done it earlier.”Robin crossed his arms, a small pout on his face. 

“I tried, he doesn’t think he’s strong enough. I told him, ‘all you have to do is swing then they’ll know that you can actually fight back.’ But he just-” Vance thought about it, Finney’s just gonna have to learn the way he did when he was younger. Even younger than him now. 

“Don’t worry, next time I see him in a fight I’ll teach him.” Vance took a puff of his cig. Robin stared at him, unsure whether to be grateful or worried at what Vance was going to do. He returned back to the original conversation, he listed off things to get in preparation for the movie, blankets, pillows, a good spot if he could get it. Any extra money, maybe buy Finney a gift.

The sun dipped lower and lower until it was gone and it was time to go home, Robin thanked him, and would tell him how the date would go. Vance nodded, threw his small cig on the ground and crushed it heading toward the bed of the truck once again. All the kids climbed in taking Vance and Yamada’s spot, guess they didn’t want to sit on the tailgate again, so the older boys took it. Their feet dangled off the truck, and it rumbled to life once again and jerked forward, he held onto his side of the truck so he could actually stay on and not fall off. 

Yamada sat to his left, “Did you tell Robin about our plan?” Vance shook his head, “Nah, only about the movie and the tutoring. Gave him the idea for it.” The weightlessness of his feet felt weirdly freeing, he just watched the road below his shoes go by. The wind blowing in once again, he couldn’t look at Yamada, they left off on a weird note that he hoped they both could ignore. He really missed his walkman, he sighed. “What?” Yamada suddenly asked, “Penny for your thoughts?” He said shuffling closer, his body heat becoming more apparent, Vance just snorted, “Who our age even says that?” a small smile on his face.

“So? What’s on your mind? If it’s about earlier, I’m sorry for asking I just-” Vance didn’t expect an apology, “Dude it’s fine, and you don’t have to be sorry.” Vance quickly cut him off, not wanting to talk about it anymore. “I just miss my goddamn walkman. Easier to ignore people that way.” He smiled sarcastically, and Yamada smiled back with a toothy smile that made his heart jump. 

“What about you? What did the girls talk to you about?” 

Yamada stilled and choked, “N-Nothing.” He waved his hand in the air with a more nervous energy that Vance chose to ignore, “They just-girl stuff.” He finished off lamely. 

“Oh, so you’re a part of this ‘girl stuff?’ ” Vance leaned toward Yamada with a cat-like grin, the other boy leaned away swatting Vance away laughing nervously, Vance let up and leaned against the truck to his side. He was suddenly tired, with too many moving parts right about now, and he thought he could sleep forever. He would probably skip school tomorrow as well. His eyes grew heavy and he yawned, “Tired?” 

He nodded heavily, wanting to take refuge on Yamada’s shoulder as he side eyed him not wanting to fully turn his head, he thought better of it though, who the hell did he think he was? He scowled to himself, the car finally stopped and Vance hopped off with Yamada right next to him. 

Over the next hour they yelled and crowded Amy’s living room, thankfully turning Grease off. Vance’s sleepiness only intensified when on the couch, but, and it hurt to feel but, he felt like he couldn’t truly trust them enough to sleep. Even if he did know them a bit but it was all too fast for him, he groaned. He fought off the sleep by walking around, and standing up for the rest of the time. When Amy’s parents got home he was already out of the door not wanting to meet them, he was already on his way home on the sidewalk. 

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, huddling into himself the night already getting colder. When he heard footsteps quickly come from behind him, he whipped around wildly, fists already to his chest but it was just Yamada, he just couldn’t get rid of the guy. His heart hammered in his chest as he let out a breath, Yamada slowed his feet holding his hands up, “Sorry! I should’ve-I actually should’ve thought about that.” 

Vance let his hands go back into his pockets, and turned back around and started again, Yamada slotting himself right next to Vance as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “What do you want?” 

  “Oh–I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

“What are you? My mom?” Vance snorted. Bruce pretty much walked Vance back to his house which took longer than he thought, as he stood on the steps up to his house he turned to face Bruce. 

“See you tomorrow Yamada.”

He smiles widely, “See you, goodnight!” And he walks off, Vance stares after him. His gaze lingering just for a second too long. He shakes himself internally. 

 __________

Bruce felt horrible to even think he brought up something Vance didn’t want to talk about. He went to comfort the other boy who was trying his damndest to not look Bruce in the eye(s), but as soon as the truck halted to a stop Vance shot up and jumped off the tailgate following Robin. Bruce grimaced and got off as well but Gwen pulled him away from Vance, the grimace remained on his face only disappearing when he faced the girls in front of him. 

He leaned against the swing pole while the girls idly swung back and forth. “So you’re on board with getting both of them together?” Amy asked, as they looked at both boys across the playground. Bruce’s eyes lingered on Vance for a bit then returned to the girls. He nodded, “Yeah, how’re we gonna do it anyway?” 

“We’re just gonna nudge them toward each other y’know. Finney needs it, I can tell.” Gwen said simply shrugging her shoulders, like she’d been waiting for this for a while. They continued to idly swing back and forth talking about different ways to convince or push Robin toward Finney, but they’d mostly left that up to Vance. Bruce didn’t know what Vance could do or say to convince Robin to do any of this.

Then he heard Amy ask, “So, Bruce, what’s up with you and Vance?” Bruce stilled, and paused before Gwen cut in, “Yeah! Did you guys actually fight in detention?” He instantly deflated in relief, but he had a feeling that Amy already knew what was going on but he decidedly to ignore it. He snorted, “No, we didn’t. I don’t even know how that rumor got out.” Bruce definitely didn’t whine out. 

“Then what happened?”

“I just hit my desk into his, that was it. But everyone in the room made it all dramatic.” 

“Oh seriously? That’s it?” Gwen asked incredulously. And he nodded, she was obviously disappointed, but what else was Bruce supposed to say? He crossed his arms, and caught a look in Amy’s eyes, he knew she wasn’t going to let this go. “Bruce, I can tell that look anywhere.” Gwen seemed to miss this part of their silent conversation. He grimaced, his mouth in a thin frown. 

“Ugh, ok fine-I, I think I have the tiniest interest in Vance.” He looked away from the girls, blush heating his face and the tips of his ears. The gasps from the girls to the excited giggling only made the heat in his face much worse, why did he even say anything? Vance seemed to like him, but like that? He didn’t think so, they were too different weren’t they?

“Bruce Yamada, star player and Pinball Vance? Together? I love it, when’s the wedding?” He almost pushed Amy off of the swing right then and there, “Shut up.” he mumbled back. 

“Holy shit! Bruce, do you think he likes you back? I can’t tell with him, he’s weird.” Amy made a noise agreeing with her, they weren’t wrong, Vance was a bit-shut off? He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. 

“And what about you two? You guys are like, best friends now. You trying to replace me?” He asked with theatrical sadness, trying to distract them as well as himself. That got him a laugh and his heart felt the tiniest bit lighter, that got them off of his trail a bit, and they mostly talked about Finney and Robin. Mostly because he didn’t really know them, only the rumors and the fights Robin got into. He knew that Robin was strong, strong enough to beat down any racists that were vocal enough to reveal themselves, which was a lot of the student body. He respected him for it, he got enough shit in his own experience-he got lucky he had a nice face, a good enough personality to even become popular. That staved off the racist comments, but they never did stop, unfortunately. 

But Finney? He had no clue about that kid, only that he was super quiet and his and Gwen's home life wasn’t the greatest. But what could he really do for them? He stopped that line of thinking before it spiraled into something worse, and refocused his attention on the girls in front of them. They finally got off topic and into something more tame like how their next test was going to be, what Gwen was going to do for her project to present in front of the entire class. 

The time flew and the sun was already low and the moon was making her presence known. And before he knew it, he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Vance on the open tailgate.

“I just miss my goddamn walkman. Easier to ignore people that way.” Bruce didn’t expect that but smiled all the same. 

Vance spoke up, “What about you? What did the girls talk to you about?” He almost choked, thinking back to what Amy had said-they both knew and that didn’t help his anxiety at all.

“N-Nothing.” He waved his hand in the air as if physically swatting the words away. 

“They just-girl stuff.” Which-it kind of was, right?
“Oh, so you’re a part of this ‘girl stuff?’ ” Vance leaned in his personal space with a grin that he liked a bit too much, Bruce leaned away laughing nervously, trying to hide his flustered face. 

Then after everything they were back at his house just tearing everything up, and eating probably everything in their cabinets which he would absolutely apologize for later. He was just getting out of the bathroom, when he decided it was probably time for him to get everyone out of the house. That was when he saw Vance close the door without saying goodbye, to anyone. He quickly said goodbye to everyone in the living room promising to see them tomorrow at school. Then followed Vance out the door, jogging toward him to which once again he scared Vance and he whipped around ready to fight. Bruce quickly put his hands up in surrender. After all that, he was right in step with him just enjoying his presence, although Vance seemed a little high strung but kept that to himself.

It was late and Bruce was tired too. And tomorrow Bruce could only hope to conspire with Robin and the others to help him with his date. Bruce didn’t even want to watch any tv before bed, he was that wiped out. 

He bid his parents goodnight and flopped onto his bed unceremoniously groaning into his pillow. He was asleep in moments, now Bruce usually did dream very strange dreams, mostly nonsensical and very vivid. Like he could touch, taste, feel, everything. He expected some weird adventure dream considering today, probably someplace to do with the park. And he was right, he was plopped onto the playground of the park, but the park stretched almost forever-and usually in Bruce’s dreams he could control them but not this time. It was as if he was watching himself move and he settled for it, he was moving through the park as if he was looking for something, and he did. He found a mess of blond curls behind one of the slides, and the distinct smell of smoke. Vance? 

For some reason the smoke didn’t bother him here, it was thinner and wasn’t as foul as in real life. He was casually leaning against the slide and Vance brightened at Bruce’s presence, which unnerved Bruce but he wasn’t completely weirded out, “Hey Yamada, out finding me again?” The familiar smirk gracing Vance’s face returned as Bruce found his seat on one of the nearby playground equipment, Bruce’s dreamself responded by saying, “Still can’t say my last name?” 

Vance only reacted by kicking off of the slide that he’d been leaning on, and getting real close to his face, the smoke billowing off of his figure unnaturally. His hair falling over his shoulders, he got close enough that Bruce could see the detail in the other boy's eyes, just very blue . Then right next to his ear he heard, “Ok Bruce .” Then lips pecked at his cheeks as his face heated fiercely and his heart pounding heavily. 

He turned to look at Vance but his alarm interrupted his retort, his heart jolted as the loud alarm beeped loudly. He half jumped out of bed, his blankets falling off the bed and his sleepy limbs still not awake half heartedly moved in panic. What the hell was that dream? Do I really want Vance to say my name that bad? He took the coldest shower known to man that morning, but that still didn’t get rid of the heat that rose in his face and ears and neck, he was burning. 

He groaned as he got dressed for the day and headed to school while Amy talked about everything she, Gwen and Vance did but he was too busy trying to forget whatever the hell that dream was, but she noticed his quietness. She turned to him, “Why’re you so quiet?” She nudged him, he just shrugged not being able to rid himself of the images, and the feeling of being kissed on the cheek by Vance Hopper . 

He let himself sigh dramatically, “Bad dream.” Amy accepted that answer and went on about yesterday. “Also have you thought about what we said?” Bruce shuddered, they talked to him about more than just “Girl stuff.” They absolutely knew of his sort of crush on Vance, but he denied, denied, denied. Just saying that he just wanted to be friends with him, and saying, “You know how Vance is.” With a certain sheepishness, they were still unconvinced but took it as they were gonna be more focused on Finney and Robin this week, which he took as a small blessing. 

They finally made it to school just as the bell rang and everyone flooded the halls getting to their own classes. Some running, some walking as slow as a snail. He was fine walking through the halls saying hi to people he didn’t even recognize but they did, then he passed Laura and Johnny, they were arm in arm smirking and laughing to themselves. Bruce only scoffed and went on his way, when he felt like the entire football team and some of his teammates were eyeing him.

He ignored them as best he could but the halls were just filled with people staring. What the hell could Johnny have done now? He opened his locker as the halls began to thin and the number of eyes on him lowered, grabbing his books and some notebooks. Then he let his mind only think about school, and assignments and how much he hated his fourth period teacher. Then the dream surfaced to the top and he just sped walked all the way back to class. 

During the course of his next classes, he could hear whispers and giggles and even bouts of people gagging around him. What did he miss? Did something happen? And to who? He decided to ignore it, taking it as another bogus rumor that would pass in a couple of days. Laura couldn’t have done something right? She’s not that vindictive…right? He shook those thoughts away, trying to forget he ever even thought them at all. While Laura did seem to switch up, he tried to look for the good and not focus solely on the bad. 

But Laura was making that really hard. He focused on the lesson, eyes on the board when he zoned out and it was already the end of class. He sighed as he picked up his books and notebook, pocketing his pencils and pens, leaving him one of the last students to leave the class. Heading into the hallway-he didn’t want to sound narcissistic but it felt as though all eyes were on him, he saw his baseball team looking him up and down with Johnny whispering to them. 

Most of them had disgusted looks directed at Bruce, but a few others looked sympathetic, at least all of them didn’t hate them. Though it would be kind of stupid and dumb to hate someone over a pinball tournament in a pizza shop. Laura just scoffed at him as he walked passed in the crowded hallway, he shook his head and as the bell rang he walked toward his class. Someone bumped into him on purpose and murmured something under his breath, Bruce ignored it as he probably thought it was some slur.

Until the words being whispered were clear, “Queer, sissy.” with some worse words he didn’t want to say out loud. Either Laura or Johnny spread this shit around, why couldn’t they just leave him the fuck alone? He resolved to speak to Laura after this class, Bruce clenched his fists around his school supplies with a pencil digging into his hand. 

The time couldn’t have gone any slower as he sat in his seat practically vibrating with energy. His knee bouncing up and down, overthinking what Laura and Johnny could have done, those villain of the week assholes. Like who did they think they were? This was highschool in a small town in Colorado, this wasn’t some big shot movie. It struck Bruce at how they were acting if his hunch was right, which it probably was. 

The teacher's droning voice continued on and on until the sound of the bell rang and he sprung up halfway out of the door. He waited by his locker until he saw the familiar bundle of blond hair in the hallway, Laura. He walked next to her his eyebrows furrowed, “We need to talk.” She ignored him at first, looking straight ahead. “Laura.” He said lower, and a bit more serious. 

A few more steps and she cracked, looking at Bruce with hard eyes, “What would we need to talk about?” She spat at him, he ignored it and stood tall. 

“These rumors you’ve been spreading? Why?”

     What rumors? I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

His heart panged, in shock, in anger, in disbelief. “What?” She huffed hot air out like she was over this entire thing.

“It was you and Johnny wasn’t it? Fuck.” Anger flared up in his chest, why couldn’t these people just leave him alone? It was done, over, why couldn’t they understand that. 

Laura’s lips spread into a tight thin line, her eyebrows furrowed. Her eyes were searching Bruce’s face for something he didn’t know, she crossed her arms defensively, “Maybe next time just let Johnny do what he wants, stop getting in the way.” He groaned in frustration.

“You guys are the one that started this! You could’ve just left Vance alone, but no.” His voice got loud and he struggled to tamper it down. 

Laura clicked her tongue, like she didn’t even hear him. She walked away rolling her eyes leaving Bruce to be swallowed by the now incoming crowd of students. He ran a hand through his hair and let out a breath. 

He walked back to his locker, bumping into Gwen, “You good? You look-messed up.” He grabbed his books out of his locker and slammed it a little loudly, “I’m fine, just-some dumb shit.” 

“Dumb shit, huh?” She echoed back to him snorting a little, that at least made him smile, “Now get to class before you’re late.” He said feeling like his mom. She rolled her eyes and happily went on her way to class. He might have to take a period off in the nurse's office. 

Or not, his teacher saw him in the hall and beckoned him in. So, another hour of just restless energy in one spot, he was actually going to explode. He couldn’t wait for lunch. 

 __________

Vance of course was late to first period, taking a break in Nurse Mary’s office already tired of the day ahead. And he was out of money and smokes. On the other hand his bruises were fading away quickly, which he was sort of grateful for, he felt ugly. At the bell Mary kicked him out, softly chastising him, “You don’t want to be behind another grade do you?” He left immediately. 

The halls were crowded as usual and he turned into the boys bathroom on the far side of campus, no one usually comes into these ones. He was just going to fuck around for a little while taking Mary’s words into consideration. He really didn’t want to be in school longer than he had to, he was supposed to be a junior already but no, he just had to skip more than 20 classes. 

He entered the bathroom only to see a slightly bloody scene, Finney with his back against the wall with those three motherfuckers from earlier, but he couldn’t save Finney this time. The bullies turned and saw Vance and their faces paled, he held his hands up lazily, “I’m not gonna stop you this time.” His voice reverberated off of the tiled walls. 

They didn’t take a second and one punched Finney in the stomach, and Finney only had the look of betrayal on his face, Vance winced but kept to his side of the bathroom. “Finney, the only way they’re gonna stop is if you fight back.” The bullies ignored what Vance was saying but he hoped that Finney was taking it in. “How long have you been getting beat up? Stand up for yourself. C’mon!” He yelled out as Finney took another hit to his side. 

That’s when the door opened again, Vance looked over his shoulder, it was Robin. “Vance what-?” A gasp left his mouth as he ran to protect Finney, Vance held his arm out to stop him, he tried to push past but Vance stopped him. A firm arm keeping him at bay, Robin looked as if he was gonna punch Vance square in the nose, “Fight back! They’ll keep hitting you unless you do something.” His voice and the hits and grunts from the bullies and Finney reverberated off the walls.

He turned to Robin, “Trust me on this. This is how we learned, wasn't it?” He looked Robin in the eyes, his dark brown eyes looking back, conflicted and confused, they flittered back to Finney’s form, he was getting lower and lower to the ground trying to protect his face. 

He felt Robin slack against his arm just watching on. “How many years Finn? You can take a punch, now throw one.”

“Finney, please.” Robin pleaded, he saw his fist clench as he watched the sick scene. To Vance this was just how you learned, no help, no nothing. Just you and your fists can get you out of this. Sure it was harsh, but he’d rather fight back than take beatings all his life. 

He finally saw Finney’s face peek out from his shell, tears staining his eyes and cheeks, “Fight back!” And he did, his fist flew through the air hitting the one in the middle square in the nose, he fell back on the ground clutching his nose, now there were two, the ginger one charged toward him but Finney kicked him in the stomach. Then the very last one grabbed a pocket knife out of his jacket, that’s when he let Robin go and took the knife away from him, also punching him in the nose. They all scrambled out of the bathroom yelling something intelligible, “Hell yeah! See? Fight back and you win.” He walked toward Finney who clutched onto Robin, he sniffed roughly wiping the tears off of his face. He looked at Vance with betrayal in his eyes, Vance wasn’t surprised at all, it was bound to happen sooner or later, “Robin, take him to the nurse.” Finney no doubt had bruises decorating his body, his nose leaking blood and tears still prickling at his eyes. 

He watched as Robin helped a limping Finney out of the bathroom while he clutched his stomach. Mary would do right by him. He was left alone in the bathroom, no music, just him and his reflection in the dirty mirror. He splashed some water on his face, that look Finney gave him. He had to stand up for himself, Vance was absolutely convinced that was the only way Finney could have fought back. 

He hoped that Finney could keep it up. He walked out of the bathroom, wiping the last of the water droplets off of his face, and headed into class. Maybe this was one of those rare days where he would actually do the assignments. Sure why not, a look of pleasant surprise on a teacher's face was funny from time to time. 

He sauntered off to his English class 20 minutes late but he had his books and notebook, and a brand new pencil he found on the way to class. The assignment was on a book the teacher assigned a few weeks ago, Lord of the Flies, about a bunch of british kids that go crazy on an island. He read it in the first week, not really having anything to do, the assignment was just asking questions about the plot and how the characters developed. 

He finished the assignment by the end of class, skipping some questions he didn’t have the answers to. He dropped the paper on his teacher's desk who looked surprised, “Mr.Hopper, you’ve completed the assignment?” She asked astonished, he just hummed and walked away, he wondered what grade he’d get on the paper. 

The next few classes were nothing special, just boring, boring, and boring. He did hear whispers and chatters of someone being called slurs, but he ultimately ignored it, what could he do about that? Nothing but fight, he guessed. The paper he got from the teacher in his algebra class was an exact copy from last year, he completed it in 30 minutes, why would he use the same exact paper? Is his teacher dumb or something? 

This teacher mimicked his English teacher's face, he sat back in his seat and waited for the bell. Then finally it was lunchtime and he couldn’t wait, he actually managed to scrounge up a dollar from one of his old unwashed pants. Hopefully that asshole lunch lady would actually take it this time, or he’d just eat off of Yamada again. The bell rang and he was off to the cafeteria walking in the crowd he saw Finney’s bullies, all three of them looked at Vance with stink eyes but he only smiled in their direction. Making it to the cafeteria he already saw the rest of the group at their table save for Finney. He looked toward the serving line and the lunch looked horrifically disgusting, and he decided it better to not ingest that. 

He huffed and sat at the table, and the energy seemed tense already and Vance didn’t know how to rectify that. He immediately started picking at Robin's lunch, to which he didn’t stop Vance which was weird. Vance listened in on a conversation with Yamada and Gwen, they were talking about some type of movie that he’d never heard about. 

Robin continued to stay silent and tense, if this was about the bathroom he’d ask, one thing about Vance is that he wasn’t a very roundabout person, looking into Robin’s tense eyes, and rigid shoulders he asked, “Is this about the bathroom?” the other boy's eyes lit up warily looking at Vance straight on. 

The others at the table looked at both of them confused, Vance didn’t care, they could listen in all they wanted. But Robin seemed to care and made Vance get up and walk outside of the cafeteria into the hallway, “Finney really didn’t like that you didn’t help him.” He said his voice tight as if it was going to snap at any moment. 

Vance leaned against the wall behind him and crossed his arms, “He’ll get over it.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” Robin said harshly.

     “Dude, look, either he was going to keep getting his ass beat or he had to fight back.”

“We could’ve helped him in there.” Robin's voice got more resentful as they spoke.

     “And what about the times we won’t be there? Reputation isn’t enough to scare those losers.” Robin’s face scrunched up and his shoulders fell. 

“Look I know you like him, but you won’t be there at his side at all times of the day.” God Vance felt like he was lecturing a little kid.

Robin let out a sigh and let his brows unfurrow, “Fuck. I wanted him to fight back but not like that. That was-” He never finished his sentence, he stopped himself short and Vance didn’t want to know what he was going to say, “Let’s go back to the table, Finney will get over it. Eventually.” He clapped Robins back, he still looked uneasy about the whole thing. 

His gut coiled heavily like lead, but he ignored it. He ignored a lot of things. 

They returned to the table with the rest of the group asking what they were talking about but they waved it off and they continued talking about whatever, Vance did notice that Robin wasn’t the only tense one at the table, Yamada seemed to be very rigid but no one else seemed to notice. Was he seeing things? He played it off really easily, hiding it behind smiles and laughter, maybe Vance would ignore this too. 

He was staring off into space thinking about nothing, when he felt a nudge, “Vance? What about you?” 

“What?”

“Music, you listened to a lot of music. Man I remember every time I saw Vance in the halls he always had his headphones in. What were you listening to?” Yamada asked brightly, Gwen, Amy and Billy agreed loudly.

“Not if you say yours first.” Vance replied easily. 

“Fine, we'll all say our top three songs,” Yamada looked around the table and everyone agreed.

“One, Burnin’ for you, Blue Oyster Cult.” Vance snorted, he wasn’t surprised but that was like old man music, Yamada gave him a look but didn’t say anything. “Two, People are strange, The Doors.” He got hums of approval, “Third and final, I Was Made For Lovin’ You, Kiss.” Vance knocked his hand on the table, nodding in approval, some rock maybe Yamada wasn’t so bad. 

They went around the table, Gwen was next she held up her three fingers proudly, “Blondie Heart of Glass, I’ll Be There Jackson 5, and,” she paused looking around the table to see their eager faces, all Vance thought was Blondie? Is she serious? “Aqua Lung, Jethro tull.” She sat proudly in her seat as everyone took that in.

“Not Aqua Lung, they’re like old people music. Who even are you?” Yamada cut in and Vance snorted out a laugh in surprise, Yamada was being completely serious. 

They went around the table again, this time, Robin. “First, Van Halen, Panama.” Vance raised a lazy fist to show his approval because of course, it’s Van Halen,  “Second, El Tri, Triste Canción De Amor.” Robin smirked knowing that no one at that table had heard of that band, and of course, none of them knew spanish. Vance would have to borrow his cassette, and or player. “Third and final,” He drummed his fingers on the table in anticipation, “Los Lobos, We Belong Together.” He also smiled proudly at their confused faces. 

Then all eyes fell onto Vance, he smirked and held his own three fingers up, “Yankee Rose, David Lee Roth, Jailbait, Aerosmith. And AC/DC, Back In Black.” He recited it almost perfectly, and the group looked at him with their faces saying, “Yeah I expected that.” Which is exactly what he wanted them to think, but Yamada’s gaze was a bit more scrutinizing, like he was trying to figure a puzzle out on Vance’s face, one eyebrow raised as if asking a question. His face heated unexpectedly, the bell rang loudly. Maybe Vance would skip this next class.

His next few classes were boring, though he completed most of the assignments getting the same reaction from each teacher was boring, after two classes and one more to go, Vance felt as if he paid his dues for the day and went to visit Finney in the infirmary just checking in on his injuries.

As he walked up the hall to Mary’s office the whispers grew louder, he bristled a bit. Feeling like the halls got a bit smaller, more cramped. He rushed to the office, opening the door, “Hey Mary.” He said already looking into the room for Finney. He was taking a nap on the uncomfortable “bed” in the room, he had ice covering his stomach and his face. His eyebrows skewed as his eyelids fluttered, almost as if stuck in a nightmare. 

“You know this boy?” Mary asked in that light tone of hers. 

Vance simply answered, “A little bit, he gets bullied.” He kept the door in his hand.

Mary raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask anything else, while Vance was gonna ask Finney about it, but it was just better to let Finney sleep. He closed the door and went to his last class bored out of his mind. Tapping his pencil on his desk incessantly, bobbing his leg up and down, he was going to die in this classroom. He’d been in class for an hour and there was only 30 minutes left and he took that, he raised his hand and asked for the bathroom as soon as the teacher nodded his head he was out of that door. The teacher probably knew he wasn’t going to come back. 

He was wandering the halls when he bumped into Robin, he still looked tense but he was trying to keep it together. “Wanna see Finney?” Vance asked, his dark brown eyes lit up and he nodded. They both headed down the hall, their sneakers the only sound in the halls. “Y’know you could use this as your first ‘date.’” Vance said, 

“What?”
“It’s almost the end of the school day, take him to your house and ice his bruises or something.” 

Robin looked at Vance incredulously, “Why would I even try-? Oh.” Yeah. Vance did think about the consequences of his own actions, he didn’t know what Finney’s homelife was like but he would imagine coming home with bruises wouldn’t be too great. 

“Besides, how many times have you hoped that someone would help you when you were hurt? That would get me pretty good.” Vance did have fantasies of someone actually caring for him after he was hurt if he didn’t make it to nurse Mary. He usually had to fix it himself, which wasn’t fun. It all started back in middle school, when he got into his what? Third, fourth fight? He cried because of how much it hurt, and he wished his parents had cared at least an ounce to take him to the hospital at least, but no. They just told him, “This is what you get.” Which he could see as fair, but still.

Robin sighed, “Yeah, I get it. God, we should stop getting into fights. It’s gonna kill us one day.” Vance hummed in agreement.

“Yeah but who would shut up the assholes?” Robin smiled at that, “Yeah, right?”

They finally made it to the office where he let Robin go ahead of him, he thought the kid would rather see his crush first than Vance’s ugly mug. Robin opened the door tentatively where the nurse raised her head, “Robin? Are you hurt?” He shook his head, “Robin?” He heard a sleepy Finney say Robin pretty much abandoned Vance out in the hall, if he entered it would have felt like he was interrupting a little moment between them so he left. 

For once actually putting his books back into his locker for what seemed like the first time, it felt strange remembering his lock combination. He thought he’d forgotten it, apparently not. He shut his locker and headed toward the doors. He hoped that Robin and Finney had a nice time in his truck. 

Though he would have to ask to drive it one day. 

Chapter Text

In the morning he did his usual routine, take a shower, get dressed and head into school. Though for once, he was actually on time, getting to school the same time as Robin and Finney. Robin stopped to say a short hello, but Finney walked straight past him, but Vance expected that, and went on his way to his first period. 

The day went along quickly, almost in a flash to Vance, he did his work, surprised his teachers once again. And then it was time for lunch, he saw everyone at the table chatting to each other, Gwen and Robin looking more grim than the others. 

He waited in the lunch line for some food, scrounging what little money he had and gave it to the lunch lady. The lunch was some dry hamburger and some hard crinkle fries, but it was better than nothing. He grabbed some ketchup from the salad bar and sat down at the table. Yamada, Billy and Amy greeted him with smiles, even if they were a little strained. 

Yamada and Billy were already in a conversation about something mundane, that Vance was barely paying attention to. Yamada turned to Vance and roped him into the conversation, which he did with ease. The smile Yamada gave him never failed to make his stomach swoop. 

Billy said something stupid which got the table laughing, even Robin and Gwen who were all doom and gloom, it felt good to see them smile at least a little bit. 

“So, where’d Finney go?” Yamada finally asked. 

     It looked like Robin fought to even get his mouth moving, “He got into a fight yesterday, so he’s at home for today.” His voice was strained.

But Yamada didn’t seem to notice, humming in acknowledgment. “Is he okay? I know how hard they go.” Billy said with worry in his voice, Robin glanced over at Gwen, who furrowed her brows. 

“He’s fine, just some bruises and cuts.”

     “Man, one of these days Finney’s gotta beat them back huh?” Amy said offhandedly, all the while stealing one of Vance’s fries, and popping them into her mouth. 

And that made Robin and Gwen go rigid, changing the entire vibe of the table instantly. Robin had his hands clenched into fists, and Gwen biting her nails almost to the point of bleeding. Vance felt the pressure among him almost double, there was something settling in his chest, it was heavy and present. 

Amy stopped, her eyes bouncing back and forth between the two of them, her face twisting into confusion, Yamada cleared his throat, “Well with the kind of swing Finney’s got, I think he could take them.” And like that the entire table relaxed, Billy and Amy quickly agreeing and immediately changing the topic to something else. 

After a long while of making fun of each other and avoiding the humongous elephant in the room, the bell finally rang. While the others got up to put their trays away and throw away their trash, Vance lingered back with Robin and Gwen. He waved off everyone, and when they left Gwen took the reins. 

“What the fuck did you do to Finney?” The defiance in her voice was nothing new, Vance had come to learn, which is the one big thing he liked about her. 

     “What do you mean?” He asked easily, Robin giving him a look. 

Her voice raised, “What do you think I mean? What’d you do to him in that bathroom?” 

     Vance looked toward Robin, a silent question being asked, he shook his head, “He hasn’t told you.” 

“No, he hasn’t, which is why I’m asking you.” She shoved a finger into Vance’s chest, he squinted his eyes at her, he was not above fighting a girl. But he held back the bite of anger that rose quickly.

     “Finney finally learned how to stand up for himself, is that so bad?” He sneered.

“With the way he’s acting it seems pretty fucking bad Vance.” 

     Vance glanced over at Robin, and the only thing he could discern throughout his face was guilt mixed with regret. His hands were still clenched into fists, and he looked at Vance like he was a stranger. 

“I walked in on him getting the shit kicked outta him. I stopped Robin from helping,  and I told him to stand up for himself, and he did. End of story.” He crossed his arms across his chest as he told her. Her eyes widened, and then her face morphed into anger. 

     “Robin, is this true?” She turned to him, and he crumbled in about three seconds, which wow, Vance thought. Gwen only looked even more angry, seething, even.

He nodded his head guiltily, and Gwen opened her mouth to say more, but a hall monitor interrupted them and sent them on their way to their respective classes. Though Gwen didn’t look like she was done interrogating Robin, which he kinda felt bad about.

As Vance walked into class he noticed Yamada sitting right next to where Vance usually sat. Vance gave him a confused stare as he sat down in his seat reluctantly, Yamada smiled widely, “I switched seats to sit with you.” He said in a hushed tone, Vance raised an eyebrow and smirked back at him. 

Yamada opened his mouth to say something but the teacher cut him off. Though they were not close enough to touch, Vance still felt like he was on fire. As the class went on Vance would occasionally look down to his notebook, and catch Yamda’s eyes on him. The first two times Vance ignored it, but by the third time he finally took a chance and looked at him.

Yamada looked away quickly, scrambling to pretend he was paying attention to the teacher. Vance smiled and laughed quietly as he continued to work on the problems at the board. Their little game continued until the class ended, and Yamada was a bit flustered, and that made Vance feel more than smug. 

They walked down the hall together until they had to split from each other, which neither wanted to do, lingering in each other’s presence for a second too long before Vance finally tore himself away from Yamada. Saying he’d see him around later. Though he felt his lingering gaze on his back. 

And then he found Gwen, or rather, Gwen found him, like a hellhound she crowded him into a hallway where very few students were walking through. He looked down at her with an unamused expression, this was about Finney, he thought. 

“Do you know how much you hurt Finney?” Her voice wavered as she tried to keep up her scolding.

Vance clenched his teeth as he watched her struggle with her words, her face betrayed her, looking as if she wanted to cry. She kept her brows furrowed, and shoved another finger into his chest, to which he took a step forward, she took a step back and just for a moment, she looked scared. 

And clarity slapped him in the face, stealing the breath from his lungs, he almost lost his nerve but stayed where he was. “Y-You’re gonna say sorry! We’re supposed to be friends! You don’t do that shit Vance!”

He shoved her aside, “Some little shit isn’t gonna tell me what to do.” He sneered and walked off into the hallway. The bell hadn’t rung yet, he hurried down the hall, and that something in his chest grew heavier, he ignored it. 

He couldn’t focus on the class happening right in front of him, he was supposed to be paying attention, but he couldn’t get Gwen’s scared face out of his mind, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. He’d been used to those kinds of faces since he’d been in school, so why? It made his stomach turn just ever so slightly, his knee bounced up and down as he stared at the desk in front of him. 

He shouldn’t have to apologize to Finney, he helped him, it was a lesson they all had to take in Vance’s eyes. Necessary even, how else would Finney learn to stick up for himself? 

The class passed in a blur, Vance didn’t even know what they were supposed to be learning, and it was close to the end of the day. He walked out into the hall, Yamada and Billy found him, milling around near his locker until they were yelled at by a hall monitor. 

“Are you feeling okay Vance? You seem kinda spaced out.”

     “I’m fine.” He more or less snapped out.

Yamada raised his eyebrows, “Wow, that was like, super convincing, you should become an actor.” He smirked and Vance couldn’t help but smile.

     He sighed, “Just something happened and now Gwen’s being annoying.” 

“What happened?” His head tilted to the side. 

     And as Vance gazed into his eyes, for once he couldn’t be blunt like he would. Something stopped him, he licked his lips and said, “Nothing important, she’s just being difficult.”

Yamada hummed, and Vance could tell he wanted to ask more but he didn’t pry to his relief, “Well Billy and Amy went ahead with Robin to go and see if he was doing okay, his dad shouldn’t be home this time of day. I was gonna go after school to see him, maybe you and Gwen could hash it out there?”

     “Nah, you guys can go ahead, I have to deal with something at home.” He lied again.

Yamada shrugged, “Guess I’ll see you later then?”

     Vance nodded, his chest sat heavy.

School ended after a while, and Vance watched as the rest of the group walked in the direction of Finney’s house, and Vance went into the direction of the store. The doorbell rang as he walked through as he did so many times before, so much so that the clerk had already set down a pack of smokes on the counter and waited for him to get the rest of his items in the store. 

He left with a bag of chips and a pack of smokes that he paid for with his moms purse money that he had taken early that morning. He lit it in his mouth and went on his way home. 

__________

Bruce and the rest of them hurried off to Finney’s house, with Gwen leading the charge. She was angry and tense, she mentioned something about having a talk with Vance earlier. That made him frown, Vance did seem a little off. He shook himself and waited behind Billy as Gwen unlocked her front door, he was greeted with a normal looking house, it was neat and lived in. 

“Wait in here okay?” She told them all, they nodded and sat in the kitchen except Robin. Bruce chatted with everyone, the tone light, even Billy had a small gift for him, to which he and Amy bullied him into showing them. 

With a shy look he pulled it out of his school bag, “Just–don’t be annoying.” He said, Bruce and Amy looked at each other with smug smiles, he slid the paper across to them and it had an amazingly detailed drawing of a space shuttle. And some little drawings of a kid in a space helmet. 

Bruce tilted his head, “Spaceship?” Amy asked, as puzzled as Bruce. 

“Not just any space shuttle, it’s the STS-1, they launched it a while ago, and Finney’s been like–super obsessed with it.”

“This looks amazing! Where’d you even learn to draw like this?” Bruce marveled at the paper, to which Billy turned red hot in the face. He looked like he was about to implode, Amy laughed at him. They talked about his art and his other notebooks that he had on him for a while before Gwen came inside the room and asked if they wanted to see Finney. 

They all excitedly clambered to go and see their friend, upon entering his room he was sat up in his bed, holding an ice pack to his stomach. His face was littered with colors of deep purples, yellows, and dark blue. Bruce’s heart panged at the sight, his smile faltering a bit, but Billy ran to his side. Finney had a small smile, and getting to his bedside, Bruce realized his swollen red eyes, he had been crying. Robin sat adjacent to Finney on the bed, close but not too close, his hand in Finney’s.

“I know you got hurt, but everyone knows gifts make everything feel better, so here.” He gave Finney the paper, to which he immediately brightened upon seeing it. 

     “This is the STS-1 right?” His smile widened, “Thank you!” He went in to hug Billy. He stared at the piece of paper for a moment more before looking up to both Bruce and Amy.  

“You feeling alright Finn?” Bruce asked.

     Finney nodded and shrugged, “I’ll be fine, I usually am.” 

They talked to Finney for the next hour, though it felt like Finney wanted to tell them something. Every time he opened his mouth he seemed to think about it and decided to keep his mouth shut. Bruce wanted to pry but he didn’t, he kept the conversation going until they decided it was time to leave. 

But as they got up, Finney asked them to come tomorrow, he had something to tell them, which was ominous as hell, but Bruce accepted. 

     “Do you want me to tell Vance? He had something to do today so he didn’t come with.” He said distractedly, but Finney, Robin, and Gwen went rigid. Bruce noticed but didn’t say anything. He looked at Finney expectantly, he shook his head and licked his lips, “No, that’s okay, please don’t tell him.”

Billy and Amy made noises of confusion, but ultimately didn’t question him. They glanced toward each other making a face, they’d talk about this later. They said their goodbyes and left, out into the street. The sun was lower and kids were still milling about, not wanting to go home. 

Billy started, “Did Vance do something to Finney? Did you see how they reacted?” 

     “Right? What was that about? And they don’t want him there?” Amy exclaimed. 

Bruce hummed in agreement, feeling a sense of nostalgia whenever he was out with Laura and her friends. “And did you see that Finney was crying before we came in? I wonder…” Amy trailed off. 

Bruce distantly thought he should just go ask Vance what happened, but he had to respect Finney’s boundary. So he decided against it. He just hoped that Vance hadn’t done anything crazy. 

__________

Yamada and Billy sidled up next to Vance as they walked down the hall, Vance chuckled as Billy was making some stupid joke. When Yamada brought up Finney, Vance tentatively asked how he was doing. 

     “Well you know, he’s beat to shit. He’s gotta ton of bruises but he seems fine.” Then he brightened and grabbed Billy’s shoulder, “And! This guy right here made the coolest drawing known to man, it was like a spaceship-”

“Shuttle! It’s the STS-1!” Billy cut him off, Yamada just laughed, “It’s a really good drawing, you should show us more of them!” He urged. And Billy vehemently shook his head, Yamada pouted and they had to split off, Yamada and Billy heading in the same direction. Vance leaving the other.

Yamada’s eyes lingered on him as he waved with his bright smile. Vance merely nodded his head, his head pounding heavily. He shook himself, he needs to stop acting like this, it might seriously get him in trouble. 

__________

Bruce walked off with Billy and Billy only gave him a knowing smile. Bruce scoffed. 

Nothing else happened in the school day other than Laura and Johnny giving him death glares along with the entire football team, and some even from the baseball team which hurt him a little bit. 

He marched on, with Finney on his mind, he had a friend that was hurt, and he wasn’t gonna let that slide, and whatever he had to tell him he’d listen. 

Though it was a little weird to not invite Vance but, maybe Finney thought that Vance would be too mean about it?

As he sat in his last class the bell rang and he jumped out of his seat to be the first one out. Some kids laughed at him but he didn’t care, as much as he wanted to say that he didn’t care about drama, or any type of secret, this excited him. This intrigue absolutely stemmed from the withdrawals from Laura and her friends' new and ever growing drama. 

They were the last ones to come to Finney and Gwen's house, as Gwen, Robin and Amy all went ahead, while Billy and Bruce lagged behind. They’d been talking about his and Finney’s fascination with space and more specifically, NASA. 

Though Finney’s fascination was much stronger than Billy’s, that’s apparently how they first bonded when they met. Which was cute, and Bruce said as much, to which Billy blushed and told him to shut the hell up. 

Walking up to the house, Bruce knocked on the door, and was let inside by Amy, who looked grim, which immediately made him wary. He gave Billy a look, and he just shrugged, although it looked like Billy had already caught on.

As they walked through the house the air grew tense, and the more unease settled in his stomach. Finally making it into Finney’s room, seeing Robin on his bed once again, Gwen only hovering with her hands on her hips. 

“Hey Finney! How’re you feeling?” Bruce started with a smile, trying to calm the tense air. Finney smiled tiredly back at him, “I’m feeling okay.” And Bruce saw some anger seep into his tired face, he bit his tongue.

Finney seemed to fight with himself, looking to Robin for support, who seemed more than angry. “The fight, in the bathroom, when they had me against the wall–” Finney sighed, “ Then Vance came in, I thought he was gonna help, but–He just watched.” Bruce felt his hands go clammy, he knew the rumors surrounding Vance were that he was cruel, but he only thought them to be just that, rumors. 

But this? This was crazy! Finney continued on, “Then Robin came in, and Vance stopped him from helping me, he kept yelling at me to ‘Fight back!’ And I did.” Finney finished grimly, and Bruce’s head was spinning. Did he stop Robin by knocking him out or something?

He guessed he couldn’t really know someone by hanging out with them for a couple of weeks. “How did he stop you Robin? Did he hurt you too?” Billy asked, his own face set in disgust. 

Robin stilled, and balled up his hands into fists, “H-He, convinced me not to help Finney, he didn’t hurt me or anything.”

Bruce blanched, an anger flared up in his chest, “Were you scared that Vance was gonna hurt you?” He said almost accusingly, Robin bit his lip, and Finney started to say something before being interrupted by Gwen. 

“I was wondering that too, now that we’re bringing it up. You easily could’ve taken Vance in a fight.” 

Voices started to overlap, and the volume got higher and higher before Finney shouted, “Shut up! Let him explain!” His protectiveness over Robin in full force, his hand was on the other boys in comfort. 

“He said it was the way we learned how to fight back, and it made sense to me. I was just like Finney when I was younger, and–I thought–” He said as he stopped himself in his guilt ridden tone.

“He already apologized, and I accepted.” Finney said, ending that matter completely. But Bruce just stood there, gobsmacked, so did Billy. What the fuck? This was definitely something Bruce didn’t get, he didn’t get into fights, he “fought” using snarky shitty words. This was something out of his league, he sighed staring at Robin and Finney. 

Bruce didn’t know if Robin deserved Finney’s forgiveness so fast, but it was his decision he guessed. Though maybe it was just for show, “So, what now?” Bruce asked, “Do we just ignore him? Do we confront him? What now?” He was a barrage of questions, all of them tumbling out of his mouth. 

“I thought we could just–ignore him.” Finney said almost sheepishly, and Bruce wanted to yell, he wanted to be a problem solver, “Can’t we just talk this out with him? You don’t have to forgive him, but we could get answers?”

“Just, give me some time Bruce.” Finney sighed out, Bruce furrowed his brow but nodded. “So we just ignore him at school or what?” Billy started, because Billy, Vance and Bruce had become sort of a trio of sorts, and Bruce could see the small frown spread across his face. 

With a door shut behind them, Billy, Bruce and Amy stepped outside onto Finney’s lawn. Bruce sat on the curb in deep thought, he was going to talk to Vance. 

“Are you gonna talk to Vance?” Amy basically called him out. 

He mumbled, staring at his dirtied shoes, “I mean yeah, why not?” Amy and Billy sat on either side of him, “I was thinking the same thing, but–what if he–y’know?” Billy waved a hand out in front of him vaguely.

“You mean beat you both to shit?” Amy said bluntly. 

Billy snapped his fingers with a serious face, “Absolutely what I meant.” Bruce slapped Amy and Billy’s shoulders at the same time, “Hey,” He said sternly, “he won’t do that! He’s our friend.”

Amy’s face hardened, “Friends don’t let other friends get beaten up.” Clearly she had been hanging around Gwen enough, “True, but–he must’ve had a good reason right?” Billy said. 

And that was the crux of it, Bruce didn’t know how anyone could have a good reason to allow that. And Bruce had to be honest with himself, he didn’t know Vance that well, not really. But he wanted to, he really really did. 

He’d ask him tomorrow.

__________

Vance had a dream that night, he had a fight with his dad, they threw stuff at each other, a screaming match for the ages. Vance stormed off, but at the time Vance’s cousins used to live with them, it crowded the entire house. And for a time Vance really liked having a full house, until his older cousins saw him as easy pickings. 

When Vance stormed off, his dad sent his two older cousins after him, the ones he was most scared of. He walked quickly down the sidewalk, knowing what was going to happen. 

He rounded a corner, and this is where the dream got weird. Sometimes he got cornered in an alleyway, sometimes at the school, and this time it was at his house, just on the side where the grass had overgrown, and you couldn’t see the concrete anymore. It started as it always did, they yanked his hair back, and kneed him in the stomach. He fell to the ground and he was suddenly watching himself, like he was a spectator, and he couldn’t stop it from happening. He watched his younger self get beaten down to the ground, and for a flicker he saw Finney down on the ground. 

And then the part of the dream he loathed the most was the switchblade the larger of his cousin pulled out, and he screwed his eyes shut. Somehow shaking inside of a dream, he felt the blade cut into his stomach wondering when the pain would stop, he heard his younger self scream loudly. 

But the scream melded together with Finney’s, it went on long enough before he woke up in a cold sweat. His heart racing, he didn’t admit it to himself when he was awake, but–he saw himself in Finney somewhat. He used to be like him, he got bullied by his cousins for three long, long years before he finally snapped.

He just wanted to help Finney along, he’s seen Finney get bullied for just about the same time, and he helped him the way he would’ve wanted to be helped. He was doing right by him in his eyes. 

His scar on his stomach started to ache. 

Chapter Text

All Vance could hear was a loud CRUNCH! His vision blurred and his heartbeat rang in his ears. He held a hand to his face, to his almost certainly broken nose, he pulled his hand back in disbelief, hot red blood splattered his shaky hand. 

But the only thing he felt was relief, overwhelming satisfaction, as he looked up at the wide eyed boy in front of him. His hand was still clenched in a fist, his teeth were still gritted together, Vance threw his head back, and laughed. 

__________

Bruce woke up blearily with Amy constantly pushing him and shaking him to wake up. “What do you want?” He groaned out. 

“Wake up! We have to go to Gwen’s house, c’mon!”

Bruce flipped over to his side pulling up the blanket up to his ear, “Why don’t you go by yourself?”

     “Because you’d be a bad friend, you loser.” She flicked his ear, and his eyes flew open, he looked at her with squinted eyes. 

He wiped his eyes of the bleariness, and reluctantly got out of his bed, promptly kicking Amy out of his room. It really wasn’t his choice, but his mind wandered off to Vance, what would he ask him? Would Vance beat his ass the first chance he got?

But his mind also drifted to the sounds of his parents' argument last night, and it was one for the ages, they didn’t even try to conceal that they were fighting. But it was all in japanese so neither Bruce nor Amy understood what they were fighting about. As soon as he got his shirt and pants on he peeked his head out of his door and saw that his dad was sleeping on the couch. 

Bruce grimaced and dipped back into his room and finished dressing. All the while Amy acted oblivious to the tension in the house, as she usually did, leaving Bruce to deal with the brunt of his parents’ wiles. 

As he spit out the last of his toothpaste, his mom walked past the bathroom, he walked out after her and tapped her on the shoulder. “Momma, what was that last night?” he asked in a hushed tone. 

His mom’s weary eyes searched his face, and she put a warm hand on the side of his face, “Just focus on school today huh? I’ll talk to you when you get home okay?”

Something wrenched in Bruce’s chest, he held her hand in his own and nodded, knowing that your father wasn’t supposed to be sleeping on the couch. He let it go for now, but sooner or later he’d find out. 

Amy pulled him away and out of the house with a, “Bye have a good day!” From his mom, Bruce picked up his bike and Amy stood on the pegs impatiently waiting for Bruce to start pedaling. 

He hauled the both of them down the road to the Blake house. Amy jumped off the pegs and rang the doorbell, Bruce rode up to the curb, letting his bike fall gracefully on the grass. 

The door opened to who he assumed was Finney’s dad, his eyes were squinted and he reeked of alcohol. “Amy? S’that you? What’re you doing here so early?” His gruff voice was grating to listen to. 

“Hi Mr. Blake, I’m here to pick up Gwen and Finney.” She said with a bright smile, and that seemed to lessen the overall roughness of the man. 

[INDENT]“Gwenny!” He called back into the house, “Amy’s here to bring you to school.” He rubbed a hand down his face, as if trying to physically wipe off the obvious hangover that clouded over him. 

A second later Gwen showed up and hugged Amy, both girls beaming at each other, and Bruce couldn’t help but smile. As they all met out on the curb and Bruce left without them, riding away on their bike, “Race you!” He called as he saw them trying to catch up. 

He was hoping to catch Vance early before school started, he pedaled quickly until his legs started to burn. As he came upon the school he spotted a mess of blond hair, with that fucking denim jacket that he refused to take off. 

“Hey Vance!”

Vance spun around with a cigarette in his mouth, his eyes widened when he saw Bruce. Immediately breaking out into a small smile, which was a lot for Vance, quite a lot for Vance actually. It almost made Bruce forget why he came here early. 

He parked his bike in the bike rack, locking it up, by the time Bruce walked up to Vance, the last of the smoke rose up into the sky, and the cigarette was crushed under his beat up converse. 

“Why’re you here so early Yamada?” Vance looks at him tilting his head to the side. 

     Bruce smiled, “To talk to you.”  Would Bruce be delusional if he said that he saw some blush dusting Vance’s face? He mentally shook himself, he was not here to flirt.

Vance warily looked him up and down but Bruce pushed on, “Why are you so here early?” 

     “Oh, I was gonna wait for Finney. To talk.”

Bruce involuntarily tensed, but tried to remain calm, “Well, I’m here to talk to you about that, I’m sorta like an ambassador for the both of you right now.” He offered Vance a smile. 

And Vance quirked up an eyebrow at that, “Did Finney have anything to say? Or Robin?”

     “No, sorry, but I just wanted to know what you were thinking in that bathroom?”

“What did Finney tell you?” 

     “Well, he told us that you let those guys and his friends beat him up, and you stopped Robin from helping.” Bruce kept Vance’s gaze even if Vance tried to look at anything but Bruce. 

“Yeah.” Vance sniffed, “And what about it? He crossed his arms. 

     Bruce blinked, he didn’t expect Vance to give it up that easily, “Uh–It–That was kind of shitty.” Bruce flubbed out, “Finney’s really hurt by that Vance, he can’t walk without wincing, and his body is literally purple.”

“That’s what happens when you let someone beat the fuck out of you.” That familiar sneer returned to Vance’s face, as if it belonged on his face at all times. Or, Bruce had never really seen any other face of Vance’s. 

     Bruce scoffed, “No Vance, that kind of shitty thinking is what got you and Finney into this.”

Vance took a step forward, invading Bruce’s space, “What was that shithead?”

     But for once, Bruce wasn’t unnerved, he stayed where he was and kept his gaze on those blue eyes, “I said, that was some shitty thinking, Vance.”

Vance’s frown deepened, and a flash of anger flickered across his face, “If that petty bullshit is all you’re gonna spew, get the fuck away from me.”

He shoved Bruce aside roughly and disappeared behind the doors of the school, Bruce stared after him and grimaced. That went as well as he expected, but it still hurt. And then the first bell rang throughout the campus and he walked to his own class.

He sat next to Vance in one of his classes, but Vance paid him no mind, working on the sheet that the teacher handed out. Though Bruce couldn’t keep his eyes off of him the whole period, glancing over at least every ten minutes, call him obsessed. 

Lunch finally rolled around and Vance was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Finney, Robin almost immediately panicked. “Calm down!” Amy yelled at him, as he tried to leave the table. 

But just as the group planned to look around the school, Finney rounded the corner and sat at their table looking angry and pale. His eyebrows were forever furrowed together, his hands were curled into fists, his knuckles almost white. 

Even when Robin tried to get close, Finney didn’t even notice. What the fuck did Vance say to him? The table stared at him, but he did nothing but stare at the table angrily. 

Bruce got up from his seat, and walked into the hallway looking for Vance’s blond messy hair, it took him a second before finally spotting him. He made a beeline toward him, “Vance, what the fuck did you do to Finney?”

Students around them started but Vance gave them a lethal stare making them walk along quicker. 

     “He came up to me, we talked, and he didn’t like my answer.” Vance said smugly, which made Bruce’s eye twitch, Vance was seriously starting to get on his goddamn nerves. 

“What did you say to him?” Robin chimed in from his side, which surprised Bruce, and apparently Vance too, his face flashed with shock before quickly being replaced with furrowed brows and a frown. 

     Vance crossed his arms over his chest, “I called him a weak piece of shit.”

Robin shoved Vance with both hands, Vance stumbled back and Bruce didn’t want to stop Robin. “Hey!” Vance called out, and shoved him back, but Robin didn’t relent, “You’re gonna say you’re fucking sorry or I’ll beat you myself!” Robin reached out for Vance again but Bruce held him back, fearing the teachers would send them to the principal's office. 

Bruce held Robin back by hooking his arms around his body while he writhed and fought to be free from his grip. “You’re gonna apologize to him by the end of today or you can get lost.” Bruce said, “C’mon Robin, we gotta go, teachers are gonna come.”

Robin broke free from his hold and pointed at Vance, “You better apologize to him or else.” He huffed angrily and walked back down to the cafeteria. Bruce looked back on Vance and shook his head, and followed Robin. 

__________

Vance watched as Yamada turned around and followed Robin back to the cafeteria, anger flared brightly in his chest, wanting to just, hit something. But he didn’t, the look on Robin and Yamada’s  face was enough to sober him up. 

And then the realization that he’d be alone again hit him like a truck, in true Hopper fashion, he fucked everything up and he’d be alone again. At this point he should’ve just given up, walked away, it’d be easier on Vance anyhow. 

But even that line of thinking had its flaws, his chest was heavy, and the thought that he’d be alone was–daunting, though Vance would never admit that out loud. He walked straight out of the school and went home. He slept for the rest of the day, stuck in a dreamless sleep, anxiety eating him up slowly. 

And Vance didn’t speak or pay any mind to Robin, Finney–or Yamada, for the rest of the week. And that fuckin’ week was miserable. He almost immediately reverted back to his old self, and found himself back in detention on Monday for skipping classes, and as usual, he had nothing better to do. 

So he found his seat in the back, which had two hotshots who thought they owned those seats now, “Get the fuck out of my spot.” Vance said eloquently.

Both kids scrambled away making a loud ruckus, Vance plopped down and stared out into nothing. “Mr. Hopper, I’d say it’s good seeing you back, but we both know how I feel about that.”

Vance raised an eyebrow at Mr.Jones and scoffed, no one was more unhappy than Vance to be back in here, it didn’t feel like it used to. He took out a pencil and began to doodle on his desk, and his mind wandered as Mr.Jones started to go off on another “lesson.” 

His mind wandered all the way back to Yamada, and once again the boy felt untouchable, is he really gonna give all that up because he couldn’t fucking apologize? In Vance’s book, if he heard that someone was acting like that–he’d call them weak. 

__________

It had been four days since Vance last talked to all of them, and Bruce was genuinely surprised that Vance had actually just run away. He thought he was more mature than that but apparently not. 

It was the end of the day and Bruce saw Vance get sent to detention, a whirl of emotions flooded his chest, but mostly anger. For now though, the whole group was focusing on Finney, who was doing better, but not by much. 

And the atmosphere was muddled at best, Bruce, Amy and Billy tried to be as upbeat as possible, but even that after a while seemed to become stale. But Bruce was determined to show them that they could still have fun, so during the week he invited all of them out to his house, or that new arcade that had opened. He even spent most of his own money on food and gifts. 

Because that’s what Bruce did, he would make everyone forget that even happened. And by Friday, everyone did, they were at lunch talking about their last hangout at Bruce’s house, it was a sleepover where they camped out in his backyard. 

Though it felt more like Bruce was hanging out with his little siblings. He then realized that Vance was pretty much the only other guy that was his age. He felt like a borderline baby-sitter. Maybe he would make up with his baseball team, most of them were still wary of Bruce, but at least two or three thought that the whole situation was dumb and talked to him during the games. Which he was very grateful for. 

“Yeah well you snore loud as shit, kept me up the entire night!” Billy complained, he was talking about Gwen, who looked like she wasn’t above hitting him right about now. 

Bruce laughed at that. And everything seemed to balance itself out, and Finney was finally smiling. 

And then on a sleepy Saturday, Robin came in his red truck to Bruce’s house, with Vance Hopper in tow. And all Bruce could say was, “What the fuck?”

__________

On Friday Vance couldn’t take anymore of the wary stares, especially from Robin, they had one brief interaction during a scuffle where Robin got knocked down. Vance pushed the guy away roughly, he ran with a tail between his legs. 

He reached his hand out toward Robin who looked at him with a sour face, he ignored Vance’s hand and got up on his own. “Thanks.” Robin curtly said, then he seemed to fight with himself before he said, “That was some chickenshit apology. Finney might’ve forgotten but I haven’t, I thought you were better than running away.” He scoffed and walked away. 

Vance went straight to Mary’s office.

“Goodness Vance! What’s happened now? Are you hurt?” She asked in quick succession, Vance sat down on the bed with a frown. 

     “I’m not hurt, I just needed a break.”

“What happened honey?” 

     The anger flared in his chest once again, “Robin’s being a sensitive little shitwad, that’s what happened!” Mary was taken aback at his outburst, and then frowned in that motherly way of hers. Which instantly made Vance want to take his words back. 

Mary took his hand, and looked Vance in the eye, even if he couldn’t meet them. Somehow, facing Mary’s scorn was much worse than his actual moms. “Vance?” She asked.

 He reluctantly met her gaze, and suddenly he felt like a child, small and vulnerable–he couldn’t stand feeling like that. “I saw Finney getting beat up, and I watched, I told him to stand up for himself. I told him–if he doesn't do something now, he’ll stay where he was.” He clenched his fists tightly, thinking back to when his cousins tormented him for years. 

Mary furrowed her brows but kept his hand in hers, “Now I know you’re a smart enough kid to realize why everyone’s so angry with you. But I can see where you’re coming from.” 

[INDENT]She continued, “You saw yourself in that boy right? If he didn’t do what you did, he would still get hurt. And you wouldn’t let someone get hurt like you did would you?” She said softly, no anger–just understanding, and that utterly destroyed Vance. 

He forced the tears to stop, though Mary could probably see the tears pooling in his eyes, he was exposed, more than he’d ever been in years. She saw right through him, and the thing was, Vance wouldn’t have it any other way. 

He clenched her hand and sniffed, blinking the tears away, he nodded. 

“Oh, honey.” She said before hugging him, the warmth was more than welcome, he melted into her touch. He didn’t deserve this at all. He could feel the heaving sobs creeping up into his chest, creeping into his eyes, so he broke the hug before that could happen, shoving all of it down before it came out. 

Then she smiled, “I bet you feel horrible huh?” 

“Yeah.” Vance let out a small laugh, a smile feeling foreign to his face, “I fucked up bad didn’t I?” 

“Yes you did. But you know you did wrong now, don’t you? So guess what you have to do now? Apologize to that poor child, beg on your knees for forgiveness, because what you did? That wasn’t right.”

His heart beat heavily, but she was right, Mary was always right. But knowing and doing were different, he just wanted Finney to learn, have the guts to fight back. He sighed, he needed a cigarette.

He stayed in Mary’s office for the next period, while she told him how to properly apologize and approach without being aggressive, she knew him too well. He figured he should probably listen to her, she was better at this than he was. 

He even got a thorough lecture from her about why what he did was so fucked up. And he knew but, not really. Every criticism and detail she added was another shot to the heart, by the end of the hour he felt like a kicked puppy, and he wanted nothing more than to just stay in there for the rest of the day. 

Mary kicked him out, and told him to go to his classes for the day, to which he did. But avoided Finney and the rest of the group like a plague, guilt sitting heavy in his chest, not letting him breathe. As soon as the school day was over Vance burst out of the doors and walked home, past the baseball field, past the park, and at his doorstep. 

Somehow he dreaded that the most. He heard a loud racket inside, and was already put off on going inside, so he went around the back, and opened his window, hoisting himself inside and throwing his bag on the floor. He flopped on his bed face down, hearing his uncle and his mom argue about something stupid. 

He fell asleep determined to do something about Finney, tomorrow, he was too exhausted to think about anything right now. 

__________

“Why the hell is he in your truck Robin?” Bruce asked incredulously, almost a little aggressively. 

     Robin had a sheepish look about him, he shrugged, “He wants to apologize.” Bruce’s mouth almost dropped open, Robin was the first of anyone to oppose Vance coming back.

They both walked toward Bruce, and Bruce merely crossed his arms over his chest, he thought they were never going to interact again, which has most definitely happened to Bruce before. 

He just sort of accepted it, but now he felt an almost really strong apprehension to seeing this guy again, and his stupid blond hair, with his dumb denim jacket and his stupid, stupid blue eyes! Which was made even worse because he actually did look apologetic. 

“So why’d you come here and not Finney’s place?” Bruce frowned. 

And somehow both boys in front of him had the gall to look sheepish, “We–kinda wanted to ask you first if this was a good idea.” Robin said.

Bruce wanted to collapse in the grass, he rubbed his face with his hand, “Don’t you think you’re, I don’t know—A week late?” Bruce’s voice rose toward the end which he didn’t mean. 

Vance winced, “Yeah, I’m–I was, stubborn.” He finished lamely, and Bruce unfortunately believed him, but was it a good idea for him to come back when Finney just started to smile again? Maybe that kids company was really rubbing off on him, because Bruce felt protective.

“How did he convince you Robin?” He asked accusingly.

     “Hey man, we talked and he cleared it up.” Robin obviously wasn’t going to tell Bruce which ticked him off. 

And after a beat of loud glaring from Bruce he finally deflated, “Ughhh,” He groaned, “Fine, but me and Robin are gonna be nearby, alright?”

Vance sagged with relief, and he broke out into a dumb, stupid, smile, which lit up his entire face. That made Bruce irrationally angry, so he turned on his heel and went inside his house to tell his family that he was going to be gone for a couple of hours. 

And of course Amy wanted to come with, wanting to escape their house's tight tension “Why do you look so mad?” Bruce merely nodded toward the door. 

“Oh shit.” Amy said intelligently, and over the course of the next five minutes she had all the same questions and concerns Bruce did, which made him feel less crazy. They finally loaded onto the truck, Bruce wanted to sit in the back with Amy, but of course she took the open seat, and of course Amy didn’t allow Vance to sit inside, so the both of them had to share the bed of the truck. 

The truck revved up and they were on their way to Finney’s house, Bruce would’ve continued to glare at Vance if not for the pout that was so prominent, that made his face go warm. 

“What do you plan to say to Finney?”

     Vance shrugged, “I dunno, I have so many things in my head but I know it won’t come out right.” He said as he picked at his jeans.

Again, Vance had a weird tendency to tell the truth, or at least, what Bruce thought was the truth. Bruce hummed in response, a sour taste still in his mouth looking at Vance. 

“Is everyone else still mad at me?” Vance asked, almost a little pathetically. Bruce raised a brow. 

     “Gwen, Amy are definitely. And I thought Robin was.” He glared at Vance, to which he astutely looked everywhere but Bruce. “Billy and I were the only one’s willing to talk, but clearly that didn’t happen.”

And Vance had the dignity to wince, his face scrunching up, he then deflated, then his mouth twisted as if he was fighting with himself. “I–I didn’t know how to–talk.” He finished lamely. 

Bruce scoffed, but then again with all the fights he’s been through Bruce wouldn’t have expected him to know how. At the same time though, Vance is goddamned old enough to know better, Bruce wanted to slap some sense into him. 

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” Bruce said flatly. Vance seemed to shrink into himself a little, “So why the sudden change of heart?” He pressed. 

     “Mary told me off, said I was being too stubborn and stupid.” The pout on his face somehow got worse. 

Bruce hummed with a grin, and opened his mouth to say something but the truck abruptly stopped, and they were in front of Finney’s house. “Showtime.” He merely said to Vance and hopped off of the truck bed. 

Amy sidled next to him, staring down the house like it was a beast, Terrence’s car wasn’t in the driveway which was a good thing. Finney and Gwen had told him a little bit about their home life, and he could see why they didn’t want to stay home most of the time. Bruce had been shocked that they would take turns taking care of their dad when he passed out drunk. 

Though they didn’t share the shock, it was something they grew up with. Bruce was jolted back to reality when Robin rang the doorbell, calling out to Finney. It took a few seconds, the door opened to Finney with a smile on his face, a smile that was quickly wiped away upon seeing Vance next to him. 

Robin's apologetic face made Bruce wince, Vance spoke up, “I’m–here to apologize.” 

Finney frowned, Gwen coming up behind him, her face not hiding the anger she felt. “Will you let me try at least?” Vance pleaded, his face burning red hot, he was probably humiliated by this. Especially in front of a bunch of children, if he were here Billy would’ve had a field day with this. 

Gwen shut the door in his face, and they heard arguing behind the door. For a long moment the others just looked at each other with wide eyes, Vance’s face set in a permanent frown. The door creaked open once again, Finney nodded, “It should just be us okay?” Finney told the rest of them. 

Gwen and Amy started to protest but Robin cut them all off, “C’mon, we’ll take a ride around the block.” And he left back toward his truck, Bruce , Amy and Gwen stood for a beat before stalking off to the truck. Gwen kept looking over her shoulder, her worry felt by the entire group. 

Bruce watched as Gwen and Amy sat in the back of the truck, so of course he took the passenger seat. He shut the door, and glanced out of the window, he couldn’t help but stare. The truck roared to life and began down the street, 

They got five minutes down the road before Bruce asked, “How did Vance convince you?”

Robin didn’t even flinch at the question, knowing that Bruce was going to ask sooner or later, “I found him walking along the street smoking, I stopped to talk to him. I was angry, so I started telling him off.” 

[INDENT]He continued, “But like–instead of getting angry, Vance just–nodded and listened. It freaked me the fuck out, so I stopped and asked him, ‘Why?’ and all this guy says is, ‘It happened to us didn’t it?’ I–”

Robin's hands clenched tightly on the wheel, and a grimace overtook his face, and Bruce’s first instinct was to comfort him. He put a hand that he hoped was reassuring on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. Bruce shrugged, “Hey, I mean–I don’t really get it, but—” Bruce sighed. 

[INDENT]“The only reason I let Finney get hurt is because I thought Vance was right.” Robin said, a raw confession that seemed to have been ripped out of him. And Bruce stilled, eyebrows raised, he didn’t want to push the guy–but he absolutely wanted to know more. 

So he waited, waited for Robin to continue, he glanced at Bruce with worried eyes, “He was right about one thing, we did go through that and we’re stronger for it, pero, we didn’t have to put Finney through that. But you see why I didn’t do anything right?” Robin was almost desperate for confirmation on Bruce’s part. 

It rolled around in his brain, but he just didn’t get it, “So, what I’m getting from all this is, since you and Vance learned from getting beat on when you were younger–Finney had to learn too? Is that right?” A frown once again appeared on Bruce’s face, and to Robin's dismay, it morphed into a look of pity. 

“Deja eso, quit that sad ass face Bruce.”

[INDeNT]“Sorry.” Bruce mumbled, “It’s just that–isn't’ that a little sad? I mean, I’m so sorry you had to go through that–I mean it.” He offered a lopsided smile, Robin took his eyes off the road and looked at Bruce with a half-hearted smile. 

__________

Vance stepped inside as he heard the truck doors behind him slam closed. To say he was nervous was an understatement, the kid in front of him looked pained that Vance was even there. 

Finney led him to the table and they sat across from each other, though Finney looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. 

“So what? You’re here to apologize and then what? We all go back to hanging out?”

Vance blanched, that was kind of his entire plan. He forced himself to look at Finney, “Kind of.” Finney scoffed, and started to laugh to himself. 

“After what you did I don’t think so.”

     Vance ground his teeth together and curled his hands into fists, “You don’t have to forgive me, but please for the both of us, let me at least apologize to your goddamn face.” 

To say the boy across from him looked shocked was an understatement, he blinked owlishly and tripped over his words, “W-Well then—say it, to my face.” He got bolder as he ended his sentence, it made Vance want to grin.

     He took a breath, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for what I did to you and to Robin. You didn’t deserve that shit at all. And I—thought I was doing the right thing.” He hung his head, “I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean the right thing?” He asked cautiously, and Vance wanted to scoff, didn't he get it? A kid that gets black eyes every other week wouldn’t get it? Or was it that he just wanted to know if he was right?

     “C’mon Finn, you know why.” Vance didn’t think he could say it out loud “No, I don’t actually, tell me.” He responded, there was a fight in Finney’s eyes, Vance could tell.

His tongue was dead in his mouth, unable to even create the right words. He heaved a sigh, “I thought-” God he wished Robin were here, “You needed to learn, like Robin and I did. Once we fought back everyone learned not to fuck with us.” He felt an anger rise in his chest, but he kept it down, it wasn’t about Vance.

 The look on Finney's face was pure confusion, his brows skewed together and his hands wringing themselves out. 

“And-” Finney swallowed, “And Robin agreed.” It wasn’t a question, an answer Finney wanted and got. Vance mildly wondered why Robin hadn’t bothered to tell Finney. But if Yamada had ever asked him why, he didn’t think he’d be able to tell either.

     “Yeah.” 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck you Vance!” Finney rose from the table, his face hot with anger, his hands were clenched tightly, and Vance was taken aback. His face dropped, “Did you even see what they did to me? Look!”

He raised his shirt and Vance saw a terrible hue of black, purples and blues, his heart skipped a beat. He didn’t even know why, he’d seen this before, plenty of times even. But— he was responsible for this, Vance allowed this to happen. 

“Get out.”

     “What?” His mind was swirling, a chorus of What the fuck just happened? Echoed throughout his mind, as he watched Finney his face was tight with a frown. 

Vance’s instincts took over, fight or flight, and he always chose fight, Vance rose from his own seat. “Get out!” Finney shouted, but Vance’s feet were rooted to the spot. 

Finney invaded his space, “Get the fuck outta here Vance!” Then he pushed him, hard. And the surprise Vance felt was almost exhilarating, almost. He allowed Finney to push him out of his house, then they were out on the lawn. 

And in a terrible way Vance saw himself in Finney, small, vulnerable, a powder keg waiting to explode, and if Vance could just—push him in the right direction…

“C’mon Finn,” he said mockingly, Mary would be so disappointed in him, “You didn’t think Robin would protect you forever?”

     “Just shut up and leave!” Finney was shaking now. And started to circle Vance, slowly.

"Woah, calm down kid, you that desperate for a fight?" Vance caught on and started to circle too.

      "So what? It's just me and you, what're you gonna do? Get beat to shit again?" He continued. 

Finney stayed quiet, not giving Vance an answer. He only sighed in relief, this he was familiar with, this he could work with.

"C'mon Finn, we both know you can't fight, imagine how Robin feels, having to protect your scrawny ass every damn day." Vance sneered.

     "Shut up! You don't know anything!" Finney got closer to Vance, though Vance kept a careful distance away from him.

"What are you gonna do Finney? You gonna run like a punk bitch?" He barked out a laugh, "I'd kill to see Robin's face when you do that."

      Finney started to breathe hard, his pace quickened, getting closer and closer to Vance. 

“What’s Bruce gonna think about you doing this shit?” Finney asked, and Vance felt like he just got slapped, what should he care about Yamada? But deep down he knew why. 

     “He doesn’t have shit to do with this.” Vance said he was losing his grip on the situation. 

“You think Robins gonna save you this time?” It was the last thing he said before his vision went black and bright, and then—pain blossomed in his face. 

When his vision returned, and the hand he’d held to his face held splattered blood, he stared at his hand and back to Finney who was staring at Vance in horror. His fist was red and shaking. 

And something bubbled up in Vance’s chest, he couldn’t hold it back, he started to laugh, a small thing at first, and then it turned into a belly laugh. He couldn’t believe this little asshole did it, he did it! 

Vance knew he could fight for himself, fight back. He just needed that push. He fell down into the grass, but before he knew Finney was laughing hysterically and slipped onto the grass, “I just punched Vance Pinball Hopper.” He said quietly.

And that only made Vance laugh harder, it took five minutes before they sobered up, they heaved in the grass just existing near each other. 

“Are you still mad at me?”

     "Yeah, but not as much, I got to punch you. But— why?”

Vance hummed and wiped his nose as he stared at his bloodied hand, watching as it glistened in the sunlight. 

     “I—I used to be like you when I was younger. I used to be bullied by my older cousins back when they still lived in my house. They’d steal and break my stuff, and not too long they’d start to beat me up.”

Finney was immediately enraptured, shocked at Vance’s sudden vulnerability.

     “They—” Vance looked away from Finney, his chest feeling heavy, “Then one day after years of taking their bullshit, I stole one of their lighters, a small piece of shit lighter.” His voice wavered just slightly.

     “I didn’t think they’d notice, and I came home thinking I’d gotten away with it. But they immediately chased me outta the house, they chased me down to the school parking lot.” And suddenly Vance was back there, the heat, the sweat, the pain. 

“I remember it was super hot, everyone was out and having fun. They pushed me down on the road and it—it felt like, my face was burning off. And I remember Ryan saying something about me deserving it. He pulled his switch out and—he—he cut into me.”

Finney winced, his face twisted into pity, “And that’s when it happened, I stole the switch and fought for myself, I defended myself. They never fucked with me after that.” 

Vance was purposely leaving out what he’d done, something so fucking bad they had to be run to the hospital, and somehow he was the bad guy.

“Vance, I’m-I’m so sorry-”

     Vance snapped back to reality, and anger flushed through him, “Don’t do that shit, I don’t need pity. I did some horrible shit, and if you didn’t learn early, the same thing woulda happened to you dipshit!” He heaved, realizing.

“But it doesn’t make it right.” He finished, he felt like he was out at sea, sick and exhausted, “I’m sorry Finn. Fuck.” He got up to leave and clean himself up, but Robin's truck pulled up, and everyone clamored out. 

Everyone rushed past Vance to check on Finney, but Vance just watched.

 His face hurt. 

__________

Bruce and Robin talked and talked, and of course it rounded out to Robin’s super obvious crush on Finney, “How does the guy not notice your puppy dog eyes? I swear dude, you’re looking at him every second of the day.” Bruce teased.

Robin's ears went red, “And what about you and Vance?” He retorted.

Bruce nodded his head to the side, “What about me and Vance?” He asked, genuinely curious, because he thought it was all in his head if he was honest. 

Robin gaped at Bruce, “You’re not serious, are you?” 

“…Kinda.” Bruce looked away sheepishly. Robin stopped the truck abruptly, throwing Bruce into the dashboard, “Dude!” And some screams from the girls in the back, but they ignored their shouting. 

     “Dude! You’re like-totally into that guy right? Horrible taste by the way.” 

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest, “I didn’t say I was!”

“And you didn’t say you’re not.” Robin smiled, Bruce's face went hot.

     “Well I’m—not into into him, more like I liked the way his face looks.” 

Robin shrugged, “I can see that, but your face tells me something different cabron. But hey, I won’t say nothing.” He raised his hands up, and Bruce sagged in relief, he’d never had to actually think about his “crush” on Vance too deeply. 

Robin started back down the street just barely coming up on Finney’s house, and when they got closer into view Bruce saw as a dazed Finney and Vance talked. 

As soon as the truck stopped they all clambered out of the truck, thinking there was a fight, and as both boys rose to see what the commotion was, Bruce was struck with bright red on pale skin. Those piercing blue eyes found Bruce’s once again, he looked more than dazed. 

He looked exhausted. 

While everyone else ran to Finney, Bruce tentatively walked toward Vance, “The fuck happened to you?” He asked, and Vance had a small smile.

“That kid has a mean right hook.”

And Bruce hated that he was charmed by that, “Would it be too mean to say you deserved it?”

Vance sniffed and shook his head, “Nah, I think I deserved it.”

Bruce smiled and shook his head, and started to walk toward Finney, bumping Vance’s shoulder as he walked past him. 

Bruce would be lying if he didn’t say that seeing Vance’s bloody nose wasn’t gratifying. Making it through the crowd of kids, he looked fine if not a little shocked. 

“You okay Finn?” 

     “Yeah.” He said breathlessly. 

After everything was said and done, Finney hadn’t forgiven Vance, and that was okay. Gwen, Amy and Robin ended up staying with Finney, but Bruce stayed with Vance, craving the company of another person as old as he was.

They walked down the street toward Bruce’s house3 in silence, with the occasional sniff from Vance. 

“Where are we going anyway?” Vance asked. 

     Bruce shrugged,  “Oh we’re headed to my house, we gotta clean that blood off of you.” 

Vance nearly skidded to a stop, and looked at Bruce incredulously, “What? No, you don’t have to do that, I can go home Yamada.”

“What? No look at you! You’re all gross and stuff.”

     “And what? I thought you were still mad at me.” Vance said pathetically, and that made Bruce’s heart skip a beat. 

“Yeah well I still am, but Finney got revenge for me, so—just shut up and come with me.” He said as he walked faster than Vance and hoped that the other boy followed.

Soon Vance sidled next to Bruce, “Can I ask why you’re still mad at me?” Vance asked with a small grin. 

His eyebrow raised, “I already told you why.”

     “I dunno, it seems like you’re mad about something more than Finney.” Vance said in a light tone. 

Bruce bristled, he was totally right, but Bruce didn’t want to admit it. He was definitely mad that Vance just up and left and didn’t tell him, mostly because, We’re friends right? But would a friend react that badly?

He took a chance look at Vance and he was looking at him, “Well I won’t tell you until you tell me how Finney managed to punch you. Is he that fast?” They both laughed lightly.

“Actually yeah, he’s super fuckin’ fast, I didn’t even see him coming.” Vance still sounded surprised. 

They talked like that until they reached Bruce’s house just a couple streets over, and conveniently his parents had left he assumed, because the family car was gone from the driveway. 

He opened the door, and called out, and the only response was silence. He led Vance inside and to his bathroom. “Here,” he handed Vance a wet washcloth, “you look so fucked up man.” 

Vance smiled, and it felt real, small, and genuine. Bruce’s face heated, and he quickly looked away. As Vance wiped away his dried blood, Bruce looked at their reflection, the swelling in his bruised eye went down, he could see a little more. And it looked less purple. 

“Can I ask what you told Finney? He seemed pretty adamant that you were okay now—even if he doesn’t forgive you.”

Vance stilled and Bruce knew he asked the wrong thing, he started to take it back, saying Vance didn’t have to say anything. But, Vance started with, “Back then, I used to be bullied by my older cousins.”

And then Vance told Bruce about how he was held down by his older cousin, he was held to a hot road and then was cut with a switch, “But the part I didn’t tell Finney was that—” Vance looked nervously at Bruce.

“Hey,” Bruce said in a small voice, “you already told me enough. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” And Vance looked like he might shatter. Shit did I say the wrong thing again? He thought. 

     “I took the switch and—stabbed my cousin in the eye, he was above me-and—I was panicking-” He seemed to remember everything, and Bruce didn’t know what to do, tears started to fill Vance’s eyes. 

He didn’t think when he grabbed Vance’s hand, and squeezed it, which brought Vance back to reality, Vance jerked away but Bruce kept his grip. He met his averting gaze, “I'm so sorry that happened to you, but—I’m glad you trusted me with this.” He offered a lopsided grin. 

And the tears came pouring down Vance’s face, he looked away wiping roughly at his face, but all Bruce wanted to do was comfort him. So he tugged his hand and brought Vance into his arms, where he pretty much leaned all of his weight against Bruce. They stayed that way until they sunk onto the cold tile floor, but Bruce didn’t mind. 

He heaved and sobbed for a long while before the sobs turned into small hiccups, and all the while Bruce was stroking his hair. “Sorry. Fuck, I gotta go-” Vance weakly began to push Bruce away, but Bruce wasn’t having any of that.

He scooted away from Vance, now sitting shoulder to shoulder, “It’s okay man, I won’t go running off and telling everybody. Are you okay?” Vance kept rubbing at his eyes, Bruce pushed his hair out of his face, and Vance just looked exhausted. 

Vance sniffed one more time before he said, “You never told me why you were mad at me.” And Bruce looked at his red rimmed eyes and busted out laughing, Vance joined in. 

“Are you serious?” 

     Vance grinned and laid his head against the wall behind him, “Yeah, it’s been bugging me.” 

Bruce rolled his eyes, “I was mad because–” Now it was Bruce’s turn to look away, heat quickly gathered in his face, “Because, you left without even saying a word to Robin or– me.” He sounded pathetic, even to his own ears, “I dunno–it’s dumb.”

“Aww you wanted me to talk to you first before disappearing?” Vance said in a sing-song voice, the heat in Bruce’s face only intensified, “Shut up!” Vance laughed at that. 

After a long while of talking they finally got up from the bathroom floor and Bruce walked Vance to the door, “You’re sure you don’t want me to walk you?” 

“I’ll be fine Yamada, for the last time.” 

     “Fine then, be safe or I swear-”

“I got it Bruce jeez!” 

Then both of them froze, He just said my name. He just said my name! Bruce smiled excitedly.

__________

FUCK, I just said it! Vance thought, his brain short circuited, and blush creeped into his face for what felt like the hundredth time that day. He began to walk away shouting, “Have a nice night Yamada.” He emphasized. 

“I won’t forget this! I knew we were friends!” Yamada shouted at him and that only made Vance walk faster, the last he heard was Yamada’s laughter. He slapped his face lightly. 

  When did he become Bruce? Vance thought. I’m so screwed.