Chapter Text
School used to promise freedom.
When George would have a rough day at home, he was calmed by the fact that he would go to class the next day. When he scrapped his knees up trying to learn how to ride his new bike, forced to listen to his dad scream at him for his incompetence, he would imagine how’d he tell his friends all about riding his big-kid bike through gravel and rock–how brave he had been then.
School was an escape from home, from his demanding father and tired mother, from thoughts that never learned how to quit.
Every weekday, at the exact same time, George was expected to be sat in the seat assigned just for him to call attendance. He could do that. The routine was necessary, and he had so many friends to make it through the day. So many people to talk to, confide in, find comfort in.
That was all stripped away during freshman year, ripped from his young, desperate fingers.
It started out like any other school year, the newfound excitement to finally start high school bouncing between all his friends. High school was supposed to be the best years of his life, and he didn’t plan to ruin that.
It was never his plan. To come out. To ruin everything he had built over the painfully enduring years of his adolescence.
But George was determined to come into his sophomore year with a new mindset. That was the past, no matter how poorly it had treated him.
Sophomore year was going to be better, nicer. George reasoned there’s no point in wasting away because of things out of his control. He might as well savor his time as an underclassman while it is ripe.
Now, George sits on a neglected bus in the muggy air, waiting for what distantly feels like his own suicide. Now, he doesn’t feel so confident.
His parents refused to drive him to school until he could prove he had improved his grades. He thinks he doesn’t mind riding the bus so much though. There is plenty of time to think, head bouncing against the glass window every time the bus driver goes over a kink in the road.
He watches the buildings he has shopped and walked through a million times swim past his vision. The familiar shop owners, sporting graying hair and generic clothing as they unlock their doors and flip their signs to signal their open for the day. Although George could guess they don’t get too many customers.
The sidewalks he used to skip down when he was only young, and now the same concrete he’s scared to wander alone. The church his family used to visit until they gave up on maintaining a modest reputation.
The small, southern town nestled in the middle of nothingness: Smithfield, Virginia. The spitting image of tight-knit community and generational love polluted with a hidden drug crisis and troublesome adolescents running through the streets.
The place George has called home for his entire life, despite its poor efforts to be all that kind to him.
He listens to the tires roll down the poorly shaped pavement. People around town have been fighting for ages against the mayor and his management: fix these damn roads. Of course, any course of action likely won’t be happening until he’s graduating and half of the citizens are in their grave.
A tiny voice snaps him out of his head. “Hey.”
George looks around quickly, failing to find where the voice is coming from. There’s a sleeping kid directly across from him, another older-looking kid in the seat diagonal to him listening to his Walkman.
He almost dismisses the sound completely before something pokes the top of his head. He turns.
“Hi,” a little boy repeats, the same shrill sound.
George is confused by the sight: an unfamiliar face as the kid rests skinny arms on the back of George’s seat to lift himself up. “Hi?”
The little boy pauses before growing a funny look on his face. “Aren’t you that queer kid?” He says it with a slight mix of disgust and disbelief that George can’t help but let out a quiet laugh before turning back around. The little kid doesn’t seem to be fazed though. “My mom says that’s a sin,” he states matter-of-factly.
George tries his hardest not to let an even louder laugh escape. He can’t see his face anymore but the image he is picturing has to be far funnier. He can’t even find it in himself to be mad.
“Do you have an older sibling?” George asks, eyes focused on the dead grass melting into a blur outside of the window but his curiosity is evident in his voice.
“Yeah,” he responds as if it was obvious. George scoffs.
Before the little boy has a chance to bruise ego George’s ego any longer, the bus driver yells at him to sit back down. George returns to his spot against the double-paned glass. He can feel a headache slowly forming but he closes his eyes and forces himself to sleep.
George couldn’t deny the way his heart felt like it could beat right out of his chest by the time he was walking through the entrance, shoulders bumping with the crowd of students jamming themselves together.
He makes sure to keep his head down and eyes in front of him at all times, but everyone is so caught up within themselves, they pay him no mind.
As soon as George had the chance, he was making his way towards the second-floor bathroom, right next to the maintenance room–the one no one ever uses because it’s rumored the janitors drill holes into the walls to look at the girls.
Nearly everyone refuses to use it in some sort of “student protest” so the school will check it out. It’s stupid, outrageously untrue, but George isn’t going to complain about an empty bathroom.
“Nick?” George calls into the stalls once he gets there, slightly strained with heavy breathing. Walking up those stairs is no joke.
The end stall pops open immediately. “George,” Nick echoes as he walks out with one closed fist and a warm smile on his lips. “Hey, dude.” The bang of the stall door against the tile startles George the slightest bit, but he thinks it might just be the perfect entrance for Nick.
Nick was one of the very few who stuck by him when everything went to shit. He’s been friends with him since the third grade, somehow clicked and never separated.
When George was scared beyond imagination when it got out, he was dreading Nick finding out the most. He had no clue how he would take it and all he knew was that he couldn’t lose him.
George still remembers the exact groan that left his body when his mother had told him someone was at the door. Opening the door to the most frightened expression on Nick’s face he’s ever witnessed, as if he was the one who had just been outed.
He remembers walking up the stairs and thinking this is it, if his best friend will hate him forever and turn his back. If he’ll be able to survive this.
Once his bedroom door clicked shut behind him he expected the worst, an immediate lash out or fists flying towards his face, but he got the complete opposite. Of course, Nick was supportive and just as angry alongside him. It was the breath of fresh air after his head had been dunked underwater, pleading for mercy.
Nick was the shoulder to lean against, the person who would listen to him no matter what bullshit he was venting about. He dried his tears, whether it be with a laugh or a hug. He held him when he needed to be held and he listened when he needed to be heard.
George thinks he would take a bullet for the kid. He thinks Nick would drive a knife through his own chest if it meant saving George.
George ignores Nick’s greeting, eyes focused on the mystery behind his tightened fist. “What’s with that?” He thinks he has an idea, but he asks anyway just for good measure.
It’s Nick’s turn to ignore him, emptying the contents into his back pocket as he walks up, embracing George with open arms. “What’s up?” Nick asks, innocent.
They’re the same height, more or less, and George gets a glance of the tiny blue pills spilling into his jean pocket. It’s quick, but it’s enough. “Nice try,” George says, patting him on the shoulder. He steps back, catching the way Nick’s eyes roll.
“Nice to see you too, George,” he retorts.
George narrows his eyes. “I thought you were over all of…that.” He makes sure to sound scrutinizing, just to piss him off a little more.
Nick grabs his backpack from the ground, a beat up little thing. “Well I’m not,” he sighs, mouth pressed into a tight smile. “Cut me some slack. It’s the first day of school,” and another sound of disgust resonates against the bathroom walls as it leaves his chapped lip.
“Yeah,” George agrees under his breath.
He can’t blame him. He doesn’t.
Nick’s parents are a different type of difficult, for lack of a better word. The type to ignore their child for days on end, leave without warning and not come back until the next week. The type to leave their child without dinner multiple nights in a row, having to resort to staying at his best friend’s house so he doesn’t go off and starve to death.
George is less than fond of them. He always feels guilty leaving him there after they hangout, no matter how many times Nick may reassure him that he’ll be fine.
If how he’s been holding up recently is anything to go by, George doesn’t know long he can keep trusting his word.
They leave together and stalk the hallway until the bell rings.
George watches the bricks and mundane patterns lined up on the walls and wonders how he’ll last another three years in this place. He wonders how he’s even lasted this long being trapped in this imprisonment.
More and more people begin to fill the upstairs, heading to classes and gathering in groups that make it harder to navigate through the halls. They laugh and cover their smiles with their hand, wide eyes, most tired, talking and shouting far too loudly for seven in the morning.
George sees parts of himself in these strangers. His old self, he reminds himself. He can’t help but wish so desperately for it back–the laughter and fun and excitement that refuses to contain itself.
He hasn’t felt that good in so long. It’s hard to remember what it was like.
But it doesn’t matter. As long as he has Nick by his side, he’ll be okay. He’ll survive, for now at least.
They chat about the things that went down over the summer before parting to go to separate classes as the clock nears seven-forty-five. They didn’t get a chance to hang out a lot over summer break, thanks to both of their parents.
George’s “break” consisted of summer school three times a week, sometimes two days if he was lucky, and endless amounts of tension in his household.
His final grades were less than satisfactory as freshman year drew closer and closer to an end. As well as his will to fix them.
He ended up failing most of his classes second semester despite the incessant pressure from his counselor, his mother, and even Nick trying to remind him that he would have to be stuck in summer school if he didn’t want to repeat freshman classes next year.
George became compliant with that conclusion. He would just do the summer classes. He could barely get up every morning and brush his teeth. He knew mustering up the energy to catch up on all his missing work would be impossible.
It would get him out of his house anyway.
And to no surprise, Nick wasn’t any better off either.
George knew Nick never had a great childhood, growing up with his mother and father equally struggling with their own addictions. It was tough on him. He never liked to show it, but George always noticed when he would show up a little more tired than normal.
When his feet seemed to drag a little more slower, speech a little sloppier, and the spaciness that came with it all.
George used to offer to talk about it with him but his best friend was never willing to open up. His feelings weren’t hurt by the action. Because he could put himself into his shoes.
He gave up trying after Nick had shown up at his house, teary-eyed and wordless. He asked if he had wanted to talk about what happened and Nick lashed out at him.
They never talked about their time at home often besides one-off comments, how their parents were shitty once in a while. George would talk about it more than Nick, that’s for sure. He’s always been bad about censoring himself but Nick was always happy to listen when it was needed.
Apparently, Nick’s summer consisted mostly of screaming matches with his father and more sorry, meaningless apologies from his mother that he couldn’t even keep up with. Paired with fruitless attempts to escape from his bedroom window to go skate at the park and sneak back without being caught.
George almost wanted to laugh–it’s like their problems are polar opposite.
He doesn’t remember the last time his father spoke to him, not to mention the coldness from his mother. They couldn’t give less of a fuck when he leaves nor where he goes. As far as George knows, he leaves behind a small blessing in his absence.
He kept the humor to himself though, an apologetic wrinkle in his eyes while Nick talked.
They only have one class together this semester but luckily enough, they share the same lunch this year.
George looks forward to that.
Only two months had passed as a freshman–a simple period of time that felt like centuries in the past but realistically only a year ago.
It was turning out to be the best thing George could have asked for, worlds better than being in middle school for sure.
Homecoming was the most fun he had had in the longest time. He had met more people than he could possibly remember in the span of two weeks, his lunch table quickly becoming too crowded to fit everyone.
There were rumors and gossip and get-togethers and arguments. And George indulged full-heartedly. It was overwhelming, but high school was already living up to everyone’s praise so why not have fun?
It was a Thursday when he walked in alone, such an inconspicuous date.
The first thing he noticed was how eerily quiet it was. Usually, he would be joining a group of his friends until the bell rang and they had to be in their first periods. But the halls were still, air lifeless.
He carried on, deciding to spend an early ten minutes inside his class instead.
He assumed a lot of people had gotten sick, especially after the dance. The sickness was simply circulating around the school at that point, only a matter of time before you caught a sore throat and stuffy nose.
Even Nick was out for the day. Nick doesn’t just stay at home to stay at home.
It wasn’t until lunchtime that he started to grow suspicious. When he sat down at their usual table, tray of school food in hand, no one else was there to join him. Odd.
It was at that moment that he realized no one had talked to him since then. And then he realized that everyone wasn’t sick, or magically disappearing within the walls, they were sitting at a different table…currently pointing fingers and laughing at him while he looked like a fool.
He was confused, but he knew it wasn’t just a mean prank. Something had to have happened for them to be blatantly mocking him. And that’s when the anxiety began to make his fingers develop a tremor and his vision blurry. He felt ill.
He never ended up eating lunch that day, hunched over the toilet with uncontrollable vomit.
Every time he thought he was feeling better, the image of everyone’s splitting smiles and loud laughter sent chills down his spine and he was forced to endure whenever his body convulsed.
The morning had been relatively uneventful so far, classes simply taking up time as the sun makes its rise.
The occasional glace or tilt of a disapproving eye doesn’t make him feel like he’s been caught with his pants down anymore, far too used to the treatment from kids who think they have to have their opinion heard.
Every teacher greets him in their classroom with a polite smile and an ushering hand, which he returns. He notices a few of them convey a different attitude when their eyes land on his though.
They pause a moment before nodding at him as if they’re acknowledging something he’s not meant to know. There’s a glint of judgment, bitter disapproval, that narrows their pupils when they search him like some sort of criminal.
George tries to let it not rattle his nerves.
Other teachers treat everyone the exact same: cold and steely. Like Mr. Richmond.
When George finds his room he notices a group of kids congregating outside of his door, labeled U.S. History. His heart beats slightly faster at the sight but he reminds himself nothing has happened so far. They won’t even notice him.
He keeps his head low, feet quick, just like he’s been doing this whole time and he enters without another word.
Apart from the undiscernible whispers streaming past him, George begins to feel that this year really may be looking up. He wonders if they were even whispering about him at all, a figment of his imagination. His brain likes to work against him like that
Mr. Richmond sits at his desk, writing away on a piece of paper, seemingly unimpressed as the new students slowly file into his room. Weirdly, George feels a hint of security in the indifference. He’s definitely living up to his infamy as a teacher at least.
George finds everyone’s eyes pointed towards the whiteboard, make-shift seating arrangements posted on printed pieces of paper. With a sense of relief, George tries to find his class’s paper among the other bodies of pushing elbows and pointing fingers.
Finding a seat is one of the most uncomfortable parts of starting school. Especially after everyone began to hate his fucking guts.
When Nick isn’t in his class, which is more often than not, he tries to find a spot next to one of Nick’s friends instead–they usually aren’t as offended by him as others. If he gets really lucky, the desks are separated individually and he can find peace for a moment.
His pulse settles as his eyes follow the other kids, landing on their class’s assigned seats. He goes over the layout before finally finding his last name. In the middle, to the right. Okay, not too bad. Could be a lot worse he thinks.
He shifts to the name of his seat partner. Clay, the blotchy ink reads.
No. There must be a mistake.
That name. It brings forth a nauseating feeling he hadn’t experienced in months. It’s so familiar, the nostalgia twists in his gut unpleasantly.
George’s eyes rake over the name too many times, double checks that it is actually printed next to his own, and then double checks again just to make sure his vision hasn’t suddenly scrambled the letters. The name stays put despite his efforts: Clay Moore.
Dream…George’s freshman year crush.
To put it simply, George thinks he may just collapse if he’s forced to sit next to him for however long the teacher deems suitable. He doesn’t seem too hopeful if the odds are in the hands of Mr. Richmond of all people either.
George’s feet are shuffling over to the older man’s desk before he can tell himself to just suck it up. “Uhm–” he clears his throat. “Hi.” He doesn’t think he could sound more unsure of himself if he tried.
Mr. Richmond doesn’t look up. George takes it as a sign of superiority despite being the one looking down at him. “Is there a problem?” the teacher sighs, as if he was expecting this very situation.
George can feel the hope draining from his soul. “Yes, actually,” and the teacher raises his eyebrows knowingly at that, “is there a chance I could switch seats?” He tries his best to not sound overbearing but willing to negotiate if need be. He’ll take anything he can get.
Mr. Richmond's neck cranes to meet George’s dispirited gaze. Maybe he makes a bit of pity out of him. He continues his ministrations with sharpened led and bruising paper. “How about this…?” he trails off in search of George’s name.
“George,” he supplies hastily.
“How about this, George,” Mr. Richmond continues, doubt laced between George’s name as it brushes past thick teeth. “We’ll keep my seating arrangement as it is, but if we still have problems come second quarter, you come and talk to me. That okay?” His head lifts once again, a curt smile passing his lips and it’s gone before George has the chance to blink.
That definitely works. “Yes, that’s okay,” George says, happy with the outcome. He can’t say he was really expecting to be moved to a different seat out of the kindness of Mr. Richmond’s heart, but it feels like he may be on his side for now.
George doesn’t leave quite yet, scared of facing the other direction or scared of seeing facing Dream in particular, he won’t admit. He stalls a bit longer.
“What’re you writing about?” George asks, genuinely curious as to what he could be penning away at for so long and harshly
A beat, two, three.
George is worried he may have crossed a line. The pencil abruptly stops. “Teacher reviews,” he answers bluntly towards his desk. “Should’ve been filled out three weeks ago,” he huffs, a scrap of humor from his throat. George copies. “Now go,” he shoos him away with his free hand, dismissive. “Go make some friends.”