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Hero found himself alone, lounging on the couch. This was a rare occurrence for him. Usually he’d have some homework or a chore to be doing, and if he didn’t, he was usually doing something with his friends. He loved his friends of course, and there are few things he would rather do than spend time with them. However, Hero planned to fully take advantage of his current solitude by doing absolutely nothing, eating chips and watching Captain Spaceboy on TV. It almost felt like a sin, but he felt he was allowed to indulge himself.
Despite his efforts, Hero couldn’t stay focused on the show in front of him. As he stared at the screen, his mind began to wander to his friends. Kel was out at basketball practice, and would likely hang around after to shoot hoops with his basketball friends. His parents were out doing errands, and wouldn’t be back until later. He had promised to cook dinner for tonight, but it would still be a while before he even had to think about starting. Aubrey was out in the city with some friends she had made at school. Basil was spending his time gardening. According to him, he’d fallen behind on taking care of his garden, and had a lot of work to catch up on.
Finally, Sunny and Mari were gone for two weeks, they were on vacation with their parents. He looked up as his mind went to Mari. Missing her felt like a weight on his shoulders. They spent the day before she left together at their secret hangout spot, whilst the rest were out at the Othermart, buying toys for Sunny to be used on their vacation. There, in privacy, they had shared their first kiss. Mari’s father still dissaproved of their relationship, but at that moment in time neither had cared. He was lifted through her absence by that kiss alone. He sighed contently, the memory lifting the weight somewhat. He lazily grabbed a handful of chips and ate them, his mind still on Mari.
Suddenly the phone ran, breaking off his train of thought. He quickly stood up, and dusted the crumbs off his t-shirt.
Damn, I’ll have to clean that later. First the phone.
He quickly dashed over to the phone. He didn’t recognize the number that called. Didn’t seem to be any of his friends. Intrigued, he picked up.
“Hello, you have reached the Sánchez household, this is Henry Sánchez speaking. How can I help you?” Hero said, in an upbeat tone.
“H-hello Hero, it’s Basil. Is Kel there?” The voice on the other side of the line said nervously.
Hero was surprised by this. He hadn’t recognized the number that was calling. If had been Basil’s house, it would’ve said so.
“Oh hello Basil! How are you doing? Sorry, I didn’t recognize the number. Are you calling from somewhere else? And no, Kel isn’t here. He’s at basketball practice.”
“Oh well, I’m- I’m calling from the hospital. That’s probably why you didn’t recognize it.”
Hero’s brow furrowed.
“Why are you calling from the hospital? Are you alright?” Hero replied, the concern obvious in his voice
“O-Oh, I’m fine, don’t worry! No, it’s- it’s my grandmother. The, uh, her vitals changed and Polly called 911. I wanted- I wanted to be there.”
Ah, that explained it. Of course the boy would want to go along. Still, Hero didn’t really know why he was calling.
“Ah, I see! Do you want me to come over? I could probably catch the bus and be there pretty soon.”
“Oh, no, thank you but that's- she’ll probably be okay. That’s not why I’m calling. It was my turn to feed Fredrick and Mewo, but now I can’t. I’ve tried calling Aubrey, but she didn’t pick up. That’s why I was asking for Kel, but I guess he isn’t around either.” Basil said, as he awkwardly ended the sentence.
Hero’s mood instantly dropped at the mention of Frederick. After Sunny’s blow-up the day before the recital, everything had been really tense. His parent’s were furious that he destroyed the violin, and had wanted to ground him for a month. Mari had lamented to him about this, saying how she hadn’t felt the punishment was fair. According to her, she had pushed Sunny too far, and he shouldn’t be blamed. Whenever Mari said so, however, Hero felt a tinge of disappointment. In the end, she managed to convince her parents to bring the punishment down to two weeks.
She had, besides convincing her parents to lower the punishment, also convinced them to have Sunny go to counselling, to help him express his feelings better and get over several of his fears.
One of these fears was, of course, spiders. To help with this, Mari had again managed to convince her parents of doing something they didn’t want to do. She had convinced them to get a pet tarantula. She had made a presentation about it, listing the benefits of her and Sunny taking care of one together, talking about how exposure to fears was a great way of getting over one's fear and finally ending on how important spiders were to the ecosystem.
Hero had helped her make it, and he had hated every second of it. Their research into spiders had not lessened his fear of them in the slightest. When they finally got it, Hero had kept his distance as the rest had looked in the terrarium whilst Basil was telling them all about how spiders kept his garden safe. He hadn’t complained about it, and his friends understood how severe his phobia was, so they hadn’t teased him too much with it.
As time went on, it became a normal part of his Hero’s life. Though he still avoided going to Mari’s room, where the terrarium was located.
And now, there was no one to feed it. Slowly the realisation of what he’d have to dawned on him.
“H-Hero, are you still there?”
Basil’s worried voice snapped him out of his train of thought, and he cleared his throat.
“Oh, uh, yes! I’m quite alright. Well that’s really unfortunate. Could Fedrick be fed tomorrow?” Hero said, false hope in his voice. He knew exactly how this conversation was going to go, and he really, really, wasn’t looking forward to it.
“N-no, not really. He already hasn’t been fed in a while. I imagine he’s working up quite the appetite, hehe. W-well, then, Hero-” Basil said sheepishly, before being interrupted by Hero.
“Yes, yes. I’ll go feed both Frederick and Mewo, don’t worry about it. You should be worrying about your grandmother, I have this handled.” Hero lied. He did not have this handled. The thought alone made him shudder.
“O-Oh! Thank you, that’s really really nice of you. The, uh, crickets are under the desk. Just give him a fair amount and that’s enough. I’ll clean it tomorrow. I-I have to go now, thanks again!”
“No problem! Well wishes to your grandmother.” Hero hung up. He cursed himself out. Why would he agree to this? Why did all of this have to happen? He knew he would do it, of course he would. He always did what was asked for him. He never minded doing what was asked for him. Helping people out, seeing the smile on their face as he accepted the task given to him, it was something he enjoyed. But this? This was far beyond anything anyone had ever asked of him.
Hero walked up to his and Kel’s room. He kept the key of Mari’s house in his drawer. Kel was bound to lose it if he kept it on him. He quickly went around the house cleaning up any mess he might’ve left, partly to do his due diligence, but mostly to delay leaving. When he was content, he went outside.
The day was beautiful. A soft breeze was blowing through the trees and the sun was shining down calmly on the neighbourhood. He might’ve enjoyed it, if he wasn’t so preoccupied with the task at hand. Dread rose in his stomach as he walked over next door. He was clutching the key so hard his knuckles had become white.
He opened the door with a small amount of difficulty, hand shaking. Once he was inside, he headed towards the kitchen, retrieving the cat food from the cupboards. After fillling Mewo’s bowl and refreshing her water, he went up stairs. Standing in front of Mari’s room, his dread was hitting a boiling point.
“Deep breaths Hero. Deep breaths. You can do this. You have this handled. Just walk in, grab the crickets, put them in the terrarium, walk out. You got this. You got this.”
Hero opened the door, hand trembling. The first thing he sees is the terrarium and the absolutely massive spider in it. Hero freezes up. He does not have this. He stands for a good five minutes, eyes locked on the spider. Its beady eyes stared straight into his soul. It’s long, hairy legs moved in perfect unison. The image of it crawling over him was suddenly in his mind. Hero wanted to scream. Hero wanted to run. Hero wanted to destroy it until nothing was left. Hero did none of these things. Instead, he just stood there, motionless, as the spider in front of him moved around lazily. Everytime it did Hero flinched, his mind filled with the image.
Hero took deep breaths and FOCUSED. The sooner he fed it, the sooner he could leave. Tentatively, he took a step forward. The spider did not move. He took another step forward. The spider scurried a little. Hero flinched, but stood firm. Soon, he was standing over the terrarium. The beat of his heart was deafening. His hands shook nearly uncontrollably, as he slowly sat on his knees, retrieving the box of crickets they kept under the desk.
This had the unfortunate side effect of putting Hero on even level with Frederick. He was sweating bullets, and it felt a thousand little legs were skittering down his body. Still, he held firm as he grabbed the crickets and got back up to his feet. He opened the box carefully, and scooped some out. The crickets also scared him, of course. He hated all bugs, and he really didn’t care that spiders ‘technically weren’t bugs’ according to Basil. Still, he managed to get a few, and he opened up the terrarium.
Then, everything happened at once. He tried to get the crickets in, when Frederick jumped. He barely had time to register this before Frederick landed on his face. Hero screamed, dropping the box of crickets. He swatted at his face as he felt Frederick climb up over his head and into his t-shirt. Again he screamed as he violently pulled his t-shirt off, desperately trying to get the giant spider off of him. The shirt was flung off, and the spider scurried down his legs onto the floor.
Hero sat there for a while, trying to focus on his breathing. The memory of Frederick on his face and crawling down onto his back played in repeat on his mind. He was trying to focus on his breathing, but the sounds of crickets and the sight of Frederick going after them made it difficult.
After a full fifteen minutes had passed, Hero finally calmed down enough to assess the situation. He needed to clean up. And to do that, he needed to pick up Frederick and put him back in his terrarium. This thought alone nearly send him into another panic attack, but he managed to hold it together.
“Come on Hero, think. You’ve got this, you’ve got this.” He said, lying to no one in particular.
He needed to pick up a big, terrifying spider. How could he do that without having to touch it? Suddenly, an idea struck. He pulled himself up and dashed out of the room, making sure the door was closed behind him. He ran into the kitchen, threw some water on his face as he calmed himself down, and grabbed a spatula from the drawer. That way, he didn’t have to actually touch Frederick. He also grabbed a lid, to try and keep Frederick away from him.
He went back up with fresh courage from splashing water on his face, armed with his trusty spatula and lid. Frederick would not best him yet. Slowly, he opened the door. Peaking through, he took stock of the situation. The crickets were everywhere. His t-shirt still lay at the desk, but Frederick was nowhere to be seen. This was extremely worrying. The only thing scarier than there being a spider was a there being a spider you couldn’t see. Carefully he went in, holding his lid like a shield in front of him. It wouldn’t do him much good, but he felt safer doing so.
He started carefully looking around, scooping up any stray crickets back into the box. He checked under the bed, but didn’t find anything. He wasn’t in either of the hampers either, nor under the closet. Had he escaped? God, Hero hoped so. If he never saw Frederick again it would be too soon. The rest would be upset, and they would probably be mad at him, but at this point he honestly didn’t care. He just wanted to be done with this fucking spider.
Then, somehow, over the sound of his own heart beating in his chest and the crickets, he heard something. Slowly, he looked up, terror over taking him as he realised that Frederick had climbed up the wall and was now on the wall, staring down at him. In shock, he just stood there. Then, he slowly lifted the lid to above his face, and started to try and scrape Frederick off with the spatula. The spider didn’t really seem to react to it. Hero was extremely careful. Partly because he didn’t want to hurt the spider, and partly because he really didn’t want it to fall down onto him.
And then, it started to descend. It slowly walked down onto the spatula. Hero almost sighed a breath of relief, if his heart wasn’t beating so fast and his lungs weren’t out of air. Instead, all he produced was a small yelp. However, Frederick wasn’t content being on the spatula, and to Hero’s horror, continued walking down. This time the spider wasted no time getting down, and he quickly went down Hero again. The entire time, Hero had to use all of his self control to not move and fling off the spider. If he did, that might just outright kill it. Finally, it reached the ground. Hero just stood there, paralyzed. Once he regained his senses he bolted downstairs, to formulate his next plan of attack.
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“Hey Hero, I’m home!”
Kel yelled as he opened the door. He flung his sports bag onto the couch as he walked towards the kitchen, expecting to see Hero there. Instead, he found no one. That was odd. He dashed over to the hallway and stood on the stairs.
“Hey Hero, are you there? I’m back!” Kel yelled, waiting for an answer. None came. That was odd, usually Hero would leave a note. Maybe he forgot? Kel grinned. That meant he had the house to himself. He ran back over to the living room as he hopped on the couch to watch some TV. Some alone time would be good.
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Basil was walking down the street. He had just come home from the hospital. His grandmother had recovered enough that she was out of danger, and only had to stay one night. At first he had wanted to stay over, but Polly convinced him to come home instead. After a while, he relented.
He was on his way over to check up on Hero. He called earlier in the day to ask him to feed Frederick, and despite what Hero had said, he couldn’t help but worry. He felt really bad about making him do it, and wanted to make sure he was doing okay. As he walked on the driveway, he could see someone on the couch watching TV. Someone was home, atleast. He knocked on the door.
“H-Hey, it’s me, Basil! Hero, are you there?” he said, in an as loud voice he could muster. He heard some rummaging behind the door, as it opened. In front of him stood Kel.
“Oh, hey Basil! What’s up?” Kel said excitedly, a grin spreading on his face.
“Hey there Kel. Uhm, is Hero home?” basil said, fidgeting with his hands as he tried to look past Kel. “I wanted to check up on him”
“No, he’s not home. What do you mean check up on him?” Kel replied, as his brows furrowed in confusion.
“Oh, well, you see, uhm, I had to go to the hospital for my grandmother, so I couldn’t feed Frederick and Mewo today. I called here to ask if you could do it, but you weren’t home, so, uhm, Hero offered-”
“Hero offered to do it instead.” Kel interrupted, his voice a mix of amused and worried.
“Yeah, e-exactly! So I just wanted to make sure he was doing alright.”
They stood there for a moment. Suddenly, the realisation dawned on them both
“Wait you don’t think-” Basil started
“I think that’s pretty much exactly the case, let’s go” Kel interrupted, and he bolted over next door, dragging Basil behind them.
Sure enough, the door was unlocked. Kel entered first and let out a yell in surprise. Basil followed, and he nearly did the same. The house was a complete mess. Pans and lids were littered everywhere, the couch had been nearly disassembled and loose crickets were hopping around. The kitchen didn’t fare much better, most of the cupboards being open and a seemingly random assortment of cutlery and cooking implements strewn around. They both made their way upstairs. The hallway had been mostly spared from the chaos that had erupted, and Kel and Basil heard sound coming from Mari’s room. They looked at each other. Kel motioned towards the door, and Basil nodded in return.
Slowly, Basil opened the door. The room was even worse off than the downstairs. The mattresses had been set up right off the beds, clothes had been strewn around everywhere. The two hampers were on the upside down on the floor and the amount of loose crickets was immense. In the middle of this all sat Hero, still shirtless, holding a lid and a spatula, poking at Frederick. He was crying.
Basil and Kel just stood there, absolutely speechless. Hero didn’t notice them open the door, until Kel burst out in laughter.
“OH MY GOD HERO- HAHAHAHA- WHAT- WHAT HAPPENED?” Kel managed to get out in between his laughs, holding onto the door as to not fall down.
At this, Hero jumped up, and turned around. Frederick scurried away at the sudden noise. Hero’s expression went from ashamed to angry to relieved in about a seconds time.
“Oh th-thank god you’re here, Basil can you please get Frederick back in his terrarium?” Hero said, pleading with the young boy. Basil nodded and quickly dashed into the room, looking for Frederick. Hero instantly dashed out of the room, looking from behind the door frame. Kel had calmed down and was trying to grill Hero on what happened, but Hero didn’t say anything as he was looking at Basil.
Basil quickly found Frederick, and tenderly picked him up. He walked over to the terrarium and placed him back inside, closing the lid. Hero breathed a sigh of relief. His heart was still pounding, and it took him a moment to calm down. After a while, he managed. Looking up, he saw both Basil and Kel looking at him. Kel had the widest grin Hero had ever seen, and Basil mostly looked worried, though there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. He was going to have a lot to explain.
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“So, Frederick escaped after jumping on your face and you’ve been trying to capture him since?” Basil asked. Hero nodded in return.
“Yeah, uh, that’s basically what it comes down to.” He responded as he tugged on his t-shirt, awkwardly avoiding eye contact.
They had been cleaning the mess Hero had made with the three of them. The mess looked a lot worse than it actually was, and they got through it pretty quickly. They would’ve gone through it more quickly if Kel and Basil weren’t constantly snickering at him explaining what happened. Basil looked guilty for laughing, but even Hero had to admit it was pretty funny in hindsight.
“Man, that is hilarious. I can’t wait to tell Mari.” Kel teased, as he punched Hero’s shoulder.
Hero groaned in response. “Can we please not tell Mari and Sunny? Or Aubrey, for that matter. I’d rather not deal with that.”
“O-Oh, don’t worry Hero, we won't tell!” Basil replied, smiling nervously. “It’ll be our secret.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it, dearest brother of mine. I’ll be nice and quiet…. If you make your famous lasagna tonight” Kel said, smiling mischievously.
Hero sputtered in protest, but after seeing Kel and Basil laughing, he sighed.
“Can’t believe I’m being blackmailed. Fine, but you guys have to help with groceries! Also, call Aubrey. Wouldn’t be fair to have Basil over for dinner if Aubrey isn’t there.” Hero said with a smile. He could use the distraction.
Basil and Kel cheered in response, and the three of them went off to the Othermart, preparing for a night of cooking and fun.
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It had been about three weeks since the spider incident. Kel and Basil had, to the surprise of Hero, kept their word. Aubrey knew something had happened, but Kel and Basil had both refrained from telling what had happened. Maybe Hero should cook lasagna for them more often. Mari and Sunny didn’t seem like they knew, and Sunny even commented on how good Frederick looked. Hero had cringed at that remark, and Kel couldn’t help but snicker but Sunny and Mari didn’t seem to think much of it.
Now, Hero was laying down on a picnic blanket, at their hangout spot. Aubrey, Kel, Basil and Sunny were swimming in the lake, the former three encouraging Sunny and keeping an eye on him. Mari was laying down next to him, her head on his chest, holding Hero as they looked out over their siblings. Hero was happy.
Then, Mari looked up.
“By the way, handsome…”
“Hm?” Hero hummed in response
“I found a cricket in my bed sheets. Do you know how that got there?”