Work Text:
there’s nothing more anticipating than the slow countdown of summer vacation inching around the corner. students would sit restlessly at their desks, legs bobbing and pencils tapping. sweat pooled from their skin, earning groans of discomfort and threatening heat strokes. even teachers struggled to truck through the remaining days, most giving up completely and just allowing students to relax in their eighty-minute long classes. although some teachers– as cruel as it was– continued to pile assignments on top of assignments during the sweltering heat.
and so there michael sat, drenched in sweat, the heel of his palm pressed against his creased forehead– he was stressed, hot, and overwhelmed. his english teacher had assigned the entire class to analyze some old poems from fucking 1860 or something, and he wasn’t too pleased. they were forced to sit in complete silence, the only acceptable sounds being the ticking of the taunting wall clock and the occasional tapping of pencils on wood.
michael couldn’t help but stare up at the clock every passing minute, internally groaning when it’d only move an inch. it felt as though his last class of the day would never end, and with the way their teacher would scan the classroom like a vulture and its prey, making sure that everyone was on task, it might’ve well been true.
but thankfully, during the swirling thoughts inside michael’s brain, the bell rang once and for all, and students immediately shot out of their seats and the classroom, leaving before the teacher could spew anymore bullshit. michael was fortunately one of the first few out the door, having been sat right in the front due to his frequent misbehavior. it was always a race through the hallways for him, as he had to stop by three separate lockers and make it to his car before the impending doom of the mass student pile that ran to the student parking lot, making it near impossible to get out of the school’s lot. people drove excruciatingly slow and it felt like driving alongside monkeys with the brain of a slug.
his first stop was his own locker, throwing random unwanted books and whatnot inside before slamming it shut, speed walking to his younger sister’s, dodging and weaving through a multitude of students. his sister’s locker was thankfully not too far from his own, but it still felt like running a mile when heat swarmed through every open crack of the school’s doors.
however, when michael made it to his sister’s locker, she wasn’t there. he didn’t spot her unmissable ginger hair popping against everyone else’s dull blonde or browns. she was always there no matter what; his two siblings had made an agreement to stay by their lockers and wait for michael to swoop by, then take them to his car. it made it easier, as everyone knew where everyone was, and they wouldn’t have to wait for one another if they were somewhere else– so elizabeth not being by her locker was an immediate alarm in michael’s mind that something was occurring.
he prayed that evan would be at his own, and maybe elizabeth would be there too– he could only hope. he glided through students effortlessly, occasionally waving a nervous hand whenever he’d accidentally bump into a person or two. he could feel the student parking lot filling with more and more students each passing second in his bones; all he wanted was to get home without having to wait for brain-dead teenagers to press their foot on a damn gas pedal.
as michael neared evan’s locker, he froze in place at the sight of his little sister holding some random person against the lockers, arm pressed firmly against the kid’s neck. the kid was actively struggling and trying to pry elizabeth’s hand away, but to no avail. michael had no context to the situation, but whatever it was, he automatically knew elizabeth was in the right.
“the fuck are you doin’ liz?” michael called out, lightly shoving against the people in his way. his sister’s venomous glare into the kid’s eyes never once faltered as she answered. “this jackass here thought it’d be a good idea to fuck with ev.” she spat, each syllable laced with anger and hatred. michael looked past his sister and his eyes met evan’s– evan had his back pressed against the wall nervously, holding the wall with a slight shaking hand.
he strode towards evan and pried his grip from the wall, taking him by the shoulder and pulling him back. “what’d he do?” michael motioned to the pathetic kid held against the lockers with a deadpan expression, sick of people constantly messing with him or his siblings. it happened frequently because of their connection to their father, their father who co-owned the nearby diner. the harassment progressively got worse when the ‘missing kids’ incident happened, lots of speculation of either their father or the other co-owner, henry.
“this fuck was tryna pry into our homelife.” elizabeth’s tone undoubtedly got harsher at the mention of the sibling’s homelife. it was an unspoken mutual agreement made by the three of them to never speak about it outside of their own home. due to the rumors of their father’s involvement of the missing children, others had speculated that he was abusive or murderous at home; which was true to an extent.
“c’mon liz, lot’s getting fuller, just deck ‘em and let’s go.” michael huffed, crossing both arms impatiently. “don’t gotta tell me twice.” elizabeth’s words were finished with a grand finale as she reared her fist back and rammed it straight into the kid’s nose, putting all of her strength into it. his nose immediately had begun to bleed, most definitely broken, and elizabeth dropped her arm, letting the kid fall to the ground with a slump. “fuck off, dipshit.” she shoved a middle finger into his fucked-up face and dusted off her hands exaggeratively.
“alright, now let’s get out of here.” she didn’t give either of her brothers a chance to respond before she strode out of the school like nothing had just happened. michael just shrugged and took hold of evan’s arm, gently pulling him along and trailing behind his sister. evan was silent the entire time, still a bit shaken up by the events. michael wasn’t sure how exactly the events had played out, but based on evan’s mannerisms, it wasn’t too clean.
michael fished his keys out of his pockets and unlocked his car, releasing his hold on evan’s arm. he hopped into the driver’s seat, elizabeth taking shotgun and evan in the back. a moment of silence passed by them until evan spoke quietly, a soft and faint smile on his face. “that was badass liz.”