Work Text:
November 9th, 1982
Bo spent the entire bus ride back to Ambrose stewing.
He was pissed that he and Vincent were stuck on the after-school sports bus with all of the asshole basketball kids, pissed about the detention that he had to stay after school for, which then nessiciated the riding of the sports bus. He was pissed that stupid Marty Waters barely got a scolding for spreading those bullshit rumors, but Bo didn’t even hit him and still got written up for ‘inappropriate language’. He was pissed that his folks were gonna blow a gasket when the school called, if they hadn’t already.
But he wasn’t scared.
No, Bo didn’t get scared anymore. He learned to push down that feeling years ago. It felt better to be angry than it did to be scared, and he didn’t have the time to be scared, anyway; not when he’s had shit to do. Not when he had brothers to protect-Vincent from the asshole kids at school and Lester from their asshole parents-and homework to finish and yelling to drown out and almost-teenage boy shenanigans to get up to. He was busy , dammit.
The bus stopped in the middle of Main Street. Bo and Vincent were the last off, lingering behind the rest of the rowdy, whooping middle schoolers. They immediately broke off from the group and started up Main Street. The Sinclair house sat tall and imposing across from the House Of Wax, practically looming over Ambrose. Looming over Bo, at least.
There was no Dad marching down the sidewalk towards them, which Bo took as a good thing. That meant the school hadn’t called yet, or at least if they did, no one picked up the phone. Thank god. He hated it when Dad got angry enough to ‘discipline’ him in public. It didn’t happen often, because people stared and sometimes attempted to intervene, quiet suggestions of “I don’t think you need to grab him around like that, Victor.” and “Boys that age swear sometimes, you shouldn’t get too upset about it, Mr. Sinclair.”
Dad hated that too, though; people meddling in his family's private business, talking like they knew anything about anything at all. Bo hated that, too, but in a different way. He didn’t mind Mrs. Allistor gently telling Dad off in the grocery store, or when last years gym teacher noticed his raw ankles and asked if ‘everything was okay at home’. A small, secret part of him found comfort in it, in the knowledge that there were a few people in town who gave even a fraction of a shit about him.
It’s the other kids that really made him steam.
Vincent tapped him on the elbow before he could fall too far down that rabbit hole. He could always tell when Bo was going into that blazing, violent place in his mind. Sometimes he could even pull him out of it.
Probably 20 yards from the house, something burst out from the woodline, filthy and grinning and running at full speed.
“HEY!” Lester shouted, sprinting up to his brothers like there was a fire under his ass. He just barely stopped himself from slamming into Vincent, then began to ramble a mile a minute in that way small children love to do.
“On the bus Andy Beamer asked me if I wanted to go down to the creek with him and I did so we went and we caught frogs and I had this frog in my hand and it jumped out and landed on Andy’s chest and he screamed then it hopped away but I chased it and went over this log but I tried to jump and I fell and I got mud in my mouth and Andy laughed at me but then he had to go home so I came home but I saw these worms and-”
“Lester!” Bo exclaimed, cutting him off. God, he loved him to death but that kid could talk .
Lester stared at him with huge brown puppy dog eyes. Bo sighed through his nose.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah! Why?”
Lester looked at the twins like he hadn’t just told them he’d gone ass over kettle in the creek. Bo looked at Vincent, just to make sure that they were on the same page, but Vincent was zeroed in on Lester's bulging corduroy pocket. Come to think of it, that pocket did seem a bit odd.
“Are there worms in your pocket?”
“There are!” Lester yelled, ratcheting up the volume again. “That’s what I wanted to tell you guys! I found these cool worms in the woods!”
Lester plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of squirming, wriggling tan worms. Bo thought they just looked like regular old earthworms, probably washed up by the recent bout of rain. One look at Lesters excited grin, though, and he couldn’t stop himself from playing along.
“Those are cool, Les. You found ‘em in the woods?” Lester was always finding things in the woods, bones and bugs and snakes and old coke bottles.
“I did! They look like earthworms but I don’t think they are! Guess why? Because I found them all huddled together! Isn’t that weird?”
“It is.” Bo found himself leaning closer to look at the worms, and saw Vincent doing the same in his peripheral vision. Lester’s excitement was contagious.
Vincent pulled back from the worms and hiked his backpack further up on his shoulder. One look at him told Bo they were thinking the same thing.
“You can’t take those inside. You have to let them go.” Vincent said.
“I thought I could maybe keep one as a pet, or maybe two so it won’t be lonely. But I don’t think worms get lonely because Andy said his older sister said that worms don’t think and so they can’t get lonely.”
Bo, admittedly not an expert on earthworm psychology, thought that sounded pretty solid.
“Lonely or not, Mom will have a cow if she catches you with those. They’ve gotta go.” A big part of protecting his siblings was getting them to maintain a low profile. Coming home covered in mud and sporting pet worms were not a part of that low profile.
Lester’s face fell. Bo felt guilt creeping up his throat. He’s a little kid! He should be allowed to do gross little kid stuff!
Vincent tapped Lester’s wrist to get his attention. “You could put them in Mom’s garden. That’s kind of like having a pet that lives outside.”
Lester immediately brightened again. “I could!” He turned and raced the rest of the way to the house. Bo could see him crouched where the petunias bloom in the springtime, gently releasing the worms.
Vincent shrugged and started towards the house. Bo watched Lester in the garden for another moment, then followed.
“Come on, Les!” Bo called. “I’ll hose you off. You stink like frog shit.” They all knew that if Lester tracked mud all over the wood floors, it wouldn’t matter that he’d put worms down.
Vincent held out his hand for Bo’s backpack, then headed inside. Bo went around to the side yard, Lester trailing behind him.
Lester started talking again as Bo turned on the hose and let the water spurt over his hand.
“I heard too that when you cut a worm in half it grows into two worms! Isn’t that cool? I don’t know if it’s true, though, because I guess that means that one worm doesn’t have a face. I wouldn’t cut a worm in half ever, even if someone told me to.”
“Take off your shirt.” Bo said, turning the hose on his brother. “And flip down, lemme get the shit out of your hair.”
“It’s gonna be cold!” Lester whined, breaking out the puppy dog eyes again. Bo rolled his.
“You can wear my jacket if you want, just come here.”
That seemed to do it. Lester pulled his mud soaked shirt off and stepped forward, eyes and mouth shut tightly as he bent under the spray.
When Lester was decently clean and the water was turned off, Bo made to pull his sweatshirt off. It really wasn’t that cold, but Lester was wet and Bo had promised. Just as he was pulling it over his head, a scream that could shatter glass sounded from across the yard.
“Oh my God!” Trudy shrieked, dashing to Lester and grabbing him by the shoulders. “What’s going on here? Where’s your shirt? Why are you wet?”
She released Lester and rounded on Bo. Of course she did. Bo felt the anger he’d been stewing in since 2pm begin to lick up the back of his throat. He wasn’t scared, he was angry. He wasn’t scared.
“What the hell are you doing?! Are you trying to give him hypothermia? What the fuck is wrong with you?!” she screamed. Bo set his jaw and took it. This was the routine.
“I fell in the creek with Andy-” Lester began in a small voice. Trudy silenced him with a vague wave of her hand.
“Be quiet. Beauregard, do you think this is fucking funny?” Bo knew that questions were a trap when Mom was angry. Answer and get hit for talking back, be quiet and get hit for ignoring her.
Trudy didn’t give him a chance to respond either. She grabbed him by the bicep and began tugging him back around the front of the house.
“God, you’re in for it. Wait until your father hears about this, I swear! I work so hard, I leave to create fucking art and this is what I get!”
As Bo was pulled through the yard, he turned and saw Lester, holding his balled up, dirty shirt. When they passed through the front door and living room he saw Vincent, standing on the stairs, holding a clean towel. He’d get Lester, and they’d both be okay.
Bo set his jaw, tuned out Trudy’s soprano screaming, and was pulled into the kitchen.