Work Text:
So, if I buy 100 stocks at $15 each and they give me 50 cents of dividend by the end of the fourth quarter I would have-
“Joel,” the name echoed around the school hallways, everyone around sounded like white noise, Joel was too engrossed in his own mind and honestly too far gone to care.
If the stock market drops and the world goes into a recession it’s only logical that brokers would flock to the gold stocks-
“Joel,” The name again was lost in the sea of white noise that surrounded him.
If I buy a ton of gold stock and waited for the economy to go bad eventually my profits would out weigh my loss; Do I have math today? I don’t remember- I’ll just follow someone to their class I’m sure the teachers won’t mind-
“Joel for the love of god man,” Burnie slapped him on his back lightly and Joel snapped out of his numbers haze, the white noise over taking his mind and pulling him down to earth, he heard all the conversations around him.
His eye twitched.
Burnie smiled, “How you doing buddy?” He’s mocking me Joel thought.
“How do you think I’m doing?”
“You need to calm down-” Gus said, when did he get here? Joel squinted his eyes a bit; calm down? It’s his Junior year in high school and Joel’s not going to calm the fuck down. He needs to look at colleges and his savings account and then he has to go to his work and remember the product look up for lettuce so the customers will stop staring at him when he fumbles with the machine; he needs to study for his math test and catch up on sleep in history and he will not calm the fuck down because he needs to ace his fucking SATs to get into a good college.
Joel also has no idea what he wants to do with the rest of his life either; Gus gave Burnie a look and Burnie shrugged, the other boy then threw up his hands defensively.
“Look dude, you look stressed, why don’t you take a breather or something.” Gus offered and Joel’s eye started to twitch again. Burnie gave him a look that says ‘you’re making him worse.’ So Gus just sighed, gave a short, ‘see you in science’ and made off to the classroom. Burnie put his arm around Joel’s shoulder.
“You need to calm down, this is supposed to be the best years of our life and you’re over here muttering to yourself stressing over nothing. You are not your grades Joel. Breath in, breath out.”
So he took a deep breath and his eye stopped twitching. Burnie smiled and Joel returned the gesture, it was a half hearted attempt and his mind was already going a mile a minute, his lips were lopsided and Burnie just laughed.
“You have a winning smile and personality to match Joel.” The bell for first period rung.
What’s the supposed to mean Burnie? The question hung in the air and was only answered with a snort and a chuckle.
I’m one hell of a catch, Joel thought to himself as he sauntered to his science class.
—-
Ray was a hit; everyone liked him since the first day of school he was chill, funny, even had his own nickname ‘Brownman.’ Freshman year was going off with a bang, no upperclassmen had the ‘freshman friday’ thing, no upperclassman gave a damn about the freshmen. Movies lied.
However, bullies were still a thing, and no matter how likeable Ray was, no matter how quiet, how under the radar he was, bullies still found him.
Most of them were sophomores who forgot what it was like being a freshman, teasing him at every turn, sometimes taking it to twitter to make their ridicule public, it didn’t hurt that much. Really.
“One day I’m going to fucking punch those motherfuckers in the goddamn face and they’ll be feeling my wrath for days.” Ray laughed, cleaning whatever they threw at him in the bathroom, his best friend Michael fuming and Gavin was jumping up and down nervously.
“We should tell someone,” he said with his somewhat thick british accent, “They won’t leave you alone until we tell someone.”
“That’s the most grade fucking school thing we could do, we’re in highschool, we should just shove a milk carton up their ass everyday until they leave Ray alone.”
“Violence isn’t the answer, Michael,” Gavin spat the other’s name out like venom and Michael glared at him.
“If you’re going to hate-fuck, I’ll leave and lock the bathroom door for you,” Ray finally managed to get whatever was in his hair out (for the most part); Michael and Gavin’s face both turned a faint shade of red. Ray gave a smirk.
“I’m fine, really. I’ve endured worse.”
“Just because you’ve been through worse doesn’t mean you have to endure this. Let me fucking punch them.” Michael said in a caring voice, Ray laughed and patted his shoulder.
“I’m fine guys, really.” Michael and Gavin gave each other a look and headed out of the bathroom to finish their lunch.
—-
Joel’s eye started twitching again, he was grabbing his fork in a vice grip and Gus looked at him concerned, Geoff had his head down on the table trying to catch up on sleep, Jack was also staring at Joel, and Burnie was too engrossed in his food to know what the hell was going on.
“You okay Joel?” Jack asked, his voice laced with concern, Joel’s eye twitched and he looked at Jack.
“He’s pissed off and stressed because the freshman he wants to touch dicks with is getting bullied,” Geoff piped up, his voice cracking at intervals of his speech, he yawned and lifted his head, droopy eyes screaming for sleep. Joel’s eye twitched again and Jack moved his lips to make an O, Gus snorted a laugh and Geoff put his face in between his knuckles.
“You gonna waltz over there and sweep him away lover boy?” Geoff said without a care, Gus laughed and got up, having to go to a club or whatever, Joel shrugged.
“I should do something about it.”
“Then why don’t you go over to him and comfort him or something?” Jack asked.
“Oh yeah, let the school’s mental case handle it.”
“Geoff that was mean.”
“All I’m saying, Jack, is if Joel goes over to Ray and starts talking to him other people might get scared away from the kid.” He took a sip of Burnie’s drink and the other’s mans hand shot out to grab his wrist.
“What are we talking about.” Burnie said, finally coming through.
“Geoff’s right. It wouldn’t be fair to drag him down with my insanity.” Joel couldn’t help but stare in Ray’s direction, silently hoping he’d be alright.
“Why don’t you be like his silent knight in armor, and just like sneakily kick their ass?”
“That’s stupid, don’t care about your reputation it’s only high school who gives a fuck?” Jack commented.
“What are we talking about?” Burnie asked again with a mouth full of food, he was chewing slowly and he really would love to be included in this conversation.
“I’ll just be on the sidelines then.” Joel sighed and Jack slumped in his chair, Geoff gave a triumphant smirk and Burnie was still lost.
~~~
Joel was not a creeper. Joel was not a creeper, he was just a stupid teenager with a crush on someone he did not deem himself worthy of having. His mind was cluttered with stocks and homework and tests and stupid memorization he had to do for his spanish class that he did not notice when he bumped into him.
He did notice him flinch.
“Sorry man.” Ray said, his voice small.
“Naw it’s o-” Joel stared, “What the fuck happened to you?” Joel squinted his eyes to get a better look at the scene in front of him, Ray’s side of his face was bruised, decorated with various splotches of yellow and purple and black, it trailed down his neck and Joel saw that Ray’s wrist was bandaged as if someone had sprained it.
“I Fell.” Ray said, suddenly nervous.
“No. No you didn’t.” Joel’s anger was slowly rising as he made his way in the other direction, Ray looked at him quizzically, but didn’t think much of the encounter.
“They hurt him.” Joel hissed to Geoff in their math class, “He’s all bruised and his wrist is sprained.”
Geoff rolled his eyes, “What do you want to do then?” And Joel paused. He was the school nut-case. He’d find something to do about this, he slunk into his chair and tapped his fingers to a beat only he could hear, and that beat was the frighted pounding of a heart convulsing in the chest of the the assholes who dared to hurt Ray.
There was no master plan, there was no nothing, just him and Geoff when they followed the guys around for the day, Geoff hoisting one of them up by the collar and getting real close to his face. Them shaking in fear when Joel went on an angry rant that later turned into him just rambling about life.
This went on for a good thirty minutes, Joel and Geoff having trapped the boys, making them listen to Joel’s rambling until they both subsided their fears. Even Geoff was rolling his eyes when Joel brought up politics.
But then one of them opened their mouth, and Joel’s hand was on his neck with a wild glint in his eyes. Geoff stood back a bit bewildered, wondering if Joel’s finally lost it, but then he hissed with a mouth full of venom saying that if Joel found out that either of them had even looked at Ray funny, their parents would find them hanging from a tree with their intestines wrapped around them like a noose.
They fled.
Geoff and Joel let them go, Geoff breathed out a sigh that was wrapped around a laugh and he patted Joel’s shoulder, and smiled. (Joel huffed in response and they went to go finish their lunch.)
~~~
Ray cowered a bit when the guys who beat him up passed, Michael (who had his cheek bruised too) put on his best scowl; Both the boys rushed past them and Ray perked up; Michael looked triumphant.
“I have a feeling they won’t be bothering us anymore, fucking assholes.” Michael took a sip of his drink and Ray took a peek at the table all the way at the other side of the cafeteria, he saw the guy who bumped into him earlier and he smiled to himself.
They wouldn’t bother him for a long time.
~~~
“Great job asshole,” Gus said sarcastically.
“Hey he did what he had to do,” Burnie said with a mouth full of food.
“Now all you have to do is ask him out-”
“No, no jack no. I’m fine.”
“I think he’s coming over here.” Geoff observed.
“Oh shit. No no,” Joel tried to get up, but Geoff pushed him back down with a hand on his shoulder, he got up and so did everyone else.
“Well I’m going to go find my girlfriend-”
“I’ll help you Gus,” Jack offered.
“You’re single.”
“Exactly.” The pair left and Geoff followed them, grabbing Burnie’s arm despite the other man’s protest about food and sandwiches.
“No guys,” Ray was getting closer, “Help,” oh my god, “Guys I’m scared,” Joel whispered.
“Hey.” Ray breathed out.
Joel made a strangled noise that sounded like a fish gasping for air and a bison dying, he quickly recovered though, “It’s Ray,” He said.
“That’s my name, now what’s yours?”
“Joel.” He motioned to the /now/ empty chairs around him, “You can sit.”
“Thanks.” Ray sat next to Joel and the older mentally beat himself up, wishing that Ray was at least a few feet away from him, hoping that Ray wouldn’t smell his fear.
He remember that he wasn’t a wild animal, but a high school freshman and for a second he wondered if there really was a difference.
“So,” Joel said, he was the best at conversations.
“I wanna say thank you, I have a feeling you’re the reason that those guys didn’t even look at me when they passed.”
“Yeah well.”
Ray fidgeted with his hands, “I want to, really thank you though.” Ray fidgeted more with his hands, pulling at them and rubbing them.
“Do you want to see a movie or something?” Joel blurted this out and Ray’s face lit up.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Joel said wide eyed, they exchanged numbers in order to get the details figured out later.
When Ray smiled, he smiled with his eyes, and Joel smiled back, pulling the corners of his mouth up, parting his jaw slightly, opening his eyes, a genuine normal smile.
There was a hand on his shoulder.
“Lunch was over an hour ago,” a familiar voice said.
“Yeah?” Geoff laughed.
“Ready for you date later?”
Oh. Shit.
Geoff beamed him a knowing smile.
“Don’t worry. I’ll walk you through it buddy.”
Joel was grateful for this, because he really didn’t want to fuck this up.
(For the record, Ray was more nervous about this then Joel ever could be; he was just better at hiding it.)