Work Text:
Billy Showalter, he entered freshman year with no friends, but a lot of money saved up. See he’s their towns only paperboys, some people still like having their paper delivered and well he delivers it. In a way though his job takes up most of his life, he wakes up at 5 in the morning and gets to delivering papers at 6 and heads to school around 8. Yeah he may have the afternoon to go out or something, but he spends it with his dog, or just on the phone, watching a movie, doing anything that’s not productive.
For Billy having friends wasn’t really a problem, most of the people at his school knew his name because me of his job, or they just called him paperboy, and at first that upset him but he just got used to it. He tried making friends with people in middle school but he guesses he choose the wrong people.
Billy knows he wants friends, he knows that he doesn’t want to leave high school without making a friend, middle school was just a staring point but high school? He wants that high school experience, he wants to have friends, maybe skip class with them, even though he’s a good kid, hangout after school and have sleepovers when ever they can. He has that set but he doesn’t have anyone to do it with.
That was until around November, in his English class there was no assigned seats so everyone just sat where ever, Billy usually sat at the front but sometimes he wouldn’t make it on time so he would sit in the back. That day he ended up sitting all the way in the back, there was a open seat next to him and he was a bit happy about it, until the last kid of that class came in and sat right next to Billy. Billy knows who that is Finney Blake, he’s seen him around the school sometimes, and he’s seen him get beaten up by bullies.
Even though Billy is a bit of a loner, he’s never gotten beaten up by the boys, he guesses it’s because he’s known but also because Billy gives them money to leave him alone.
Finney seemed to be out of breath, he was probably chased, it wouldn’t be the first time.
With that the teacher started talking, Billy noticed Finney looking around his backpack for something and he noticed when Finney gave up looking for it, probably knowing it’s a lost cause.
Billy being Billy wanted to know if Finney was okay, since he seemed a bit shaken up so he took a sheet of paper and asked Finney what’s wrong. He slid the paper over to the other boy who took the paper without even thinking about it, he wrote in it and passed it over to Billy.
are u okay?
yeah, my water bottle probably fell when I was running kinda need it rn
Oh!, Billy took out his water bottle and wrote in the paper.
here drink some water from mine if you want, I haven’t drank from it yet
He handed both the paper and the water bottle to Finney, who looked at the note, sent him a smile and for a moment it looked like Finney was debating whether to drink the water or not, he definitely was, he probably sat there looking at the water bottle for over five minutes before Billy nudged him and nodded towards the water bottle and mounting a ‘it’s fine’. Finney nodded and he practically drank the whole water that was in there. Billy didn’t mind though, he barely drank water anyways.
When class was over Billy walked out like nothing after being handed his water bottle back, and was heading to lunch he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
He turned around to see Finney Blake. “Hey uh I wanted to thank you for what you did earlier I was literally dying of thirst.”
Billy smiled, “Don’t worry about it, im glad I was able to help.”
Finney nodded and took his hand out, “I’m Finney Blake.”
Billy took his hand, “Billy Showalter.”
”Want to eat lunch together Billy Showalter?”
”Of course Finney Blake.”
Finney Blake was his first friend, and honestly Billy thought he was Finneys first friend as well, but he was wrong. Since the first time they ate lunch together, Finney Blake mentioned his best friend since middle school Robin Arellano.
Now Billy of course knows who Robin is, Robin is known to be a fighter, but he doesn’t start fights, he never has, he just finishes them.
Robin has been a fighter since middle school always fighting that one bully Moose since Moose loved to pick fights with Robin even though he’ll lose all of them.
Billy doesn’t know how or why or what or how it’s even possible for Finney Blake, the kid who gets bullied at least once a day is friends with Robin Arellano, a kid who beat up kids that talk shit.
Billy guesses it’s a bit of just how they both feel, according to Finney, the first time they met and also when they became friends was in 7th grade, when Finney was forced to help Robin improve his grades. As Finney talked about his experience with Robin, it didn’t seem like Finney was scared of Robin, maybe that’s why Robin took a liking to Finney and beats up his bullies for him. But who knows there might be more into their friendship than what Billy knows.
What Billy does know, is that Finney talks about Robin more than he talks about his own sister, which he thinks it’s funny. Billy and Finney always ate lunch together, and according to Finney, Robin didn’t like eating in the cafeteria because of the people who also eat there, since they’re always starting fights with him, but Robin ends up eating mostly in detention due to the amount of fighting he has.
Billy doesn’t know if Finney talks to him to Robin because one day as Billy is making his way home from school when something unimaginable happens.
Billy ends up being grabbed by the three bullies and Billy just sighs and when he’s about to give Matty all his hard earned money, when he hears a voice, and oh does he know that voice.
He turns to the sound and there he is Robin Arellano standing right there.
”Dickheads.”
All three of the boys turn to look at Robin and when Marty goes to take the money out of Billy’s hand Robin moves in closer causing all three of the boys to run away.
Billy sighs in relief as he places his money back in his pocket.
Robin makes his way to him, “Hey aren’t you Billy Showalter?”
Billy nods, “Finn talks about you all the time.”
”Yeah same with you.” Billy says, he knows who Robin is and Robin knows Billy knows who he is so that’s why he guesses he didn’t introduce himself.
“How about I walk you home.” Robin says as he stands next to Billy.
Billy waves him off, “you don’t need to do that, but thank you.”
Robin begins walking dragging Billy with him, “Nah it’s fine, plus I want to know the friend of my best friend.”
That interaction started the friendship of Robin and Billy. After that Robin ended up showing Billy and Finney a place where he eats and no one else goes there, the roff of the school. Robin informs them that because Vance Hopper is seen to always skip class here, no one comes up here for lunch, and Vance himself doesn’t come up here either. Of course both Billy and Finney were scared to Vance one day coming up but Robin always waved them off because he knew Vance had way too much detention during lunch.
So that ends up being their usual spot during lunch, Billy finds out a lot of things about Finney and Robin, like Robin lives with his mom and uncle, both Finney and Robin absolutely hate Finneys dad with a passion. Robin is friends with Vance Hopper because they talked in detention, Bruce Yamada talks to Finney sometimes. That fact was so unexpected that Billy just stared at Finney when he said it. Apparently both Bruce and Finney play baseball and sometimes they play against each other, and Bruce is just the nicest person ever, according to Finney.
Billy really liked hanging out with Finney and Robin, they were just what he needed in his life, they were just the friends he was expecting.
Now he loved his two friends, he really did, but he knew that he was always their second option, yeah their a trio but he knows Finney and Robin care more about each other, they’ve literally known each other since middle school, and Billy never felt off about it, no he didn’t feel left out when he was with them but it was just a strange feeling.
He was just glad he finally had friends.
It was mostly just Finney, Robin and Billy for all of freshman year, around sophomore year someone ended up joining their little friend group, and it was none other than Bruce Yamada.
One afternoon at Robins house, they always hangout at Robins house since his mom and uncle are barley at the house so they mostly have the house by themselves so they can watch movies, Finney gets a call, from Bruce of course, he was inviting Finney to play baseball with him so he could practice, Finney said no because he’s with friends but Bruce told him to invite them as well.
So here they were making their way to their towns baseball field. Now of course Billy knew who Bruce was, their towns golden boy, and best baseball player anyone has ever seen. He’s also known to be popular, of course anyone with good looks and a pretty smile would be popular.
”Finney!” Said Bruce the moment he saw them walking over.
”Hi, so this is Robin and Billy.” Both waved as their names got mentioned.
Bruce looked at the two boys, “Oh!, you’re the paperboy right?”
Billy nodded, “Yeah that’s me.”
Bruce smiled at him as he went to Finney.
The four boys played baseball the whole afternoon until it got dark and they needed to head home.
And this became a weekly thing, the four boys would met up every Wednesday to play baseball, and even though Billy wasn’t a huge sports guy, he absolutely loved spending time with his friends, he realized having Bruce tag along with their group was a very good thing, he liked having him around, especially when Bruce would bring his favorite candy for him.
Bruce officially joined their group and their instagram groupchat around December of their sophomore year. Bruce also joined them for lunch at the roff every day.
In March, of sophomore year they had a need person in the roff. The four boys walked in and they all stopped when they saw none other than Vance Hopper standing close to the edge smoking.
When he heard the door close he turned around and his eyes widened a bit until he saw his friend, as mentioned by Robin many times, the two of them were pretty close.
”Hey Hopper.” Said Robin with a smirk as he got close to Vance and sat down at his usual spot with the other three just standing awkwardly.
”Arellano,” Vance greeted back, “What are you doing here,” he pointed at the other three, “with them.”
”Well we usually eat lunch here, and these are my friends, Finney, Billy and Bruce.”
Vance nodded as he stomped on his cigarette and sat next to Robin taking the bag of chips Robin took out of his back pack.
Robin glared at Vance but let Vance open the bag of chips.
Robin gestured for the other boys to sit down and they did, Finney sitting next to Robin, Billy next to Finney and Bruce in between Vance and Billy.
And with that their little group of four because a little group of five.
Vance ended up joining them for lunch at least once a week, and then it started being a usual thing, he started showing up almost everyday. Billy ended up finding out was because the boy stopped getting into detention, he doesn’t know if he just decided to stop getting in trouble or he did it because he enjoyed talking to them.
He joined the groupchat during the summer and they ended up doing a lot of different activities during the summer and surprisingly all of them showed up, to all the activities.
During Junior year Billy Showalter realized something about himself, he realized he was gay, honestly he felt like he always felt like he was gay but he never wanted to accept it, I mean how could he?, was it normal?
Billy realized he in fact is gay, when he saw a shortish guy, with curly hair and a resting face grab lunch and go outside.
Billy didn’t even notice he was staring until Finney walked next to him, “that’s Griffin Stagg, he’s in our grade.”
Billy turned to look at Finney, “really?”
“Yeah we have a class together.”
Billy nodded and turned back to the boy.
Billy found out thing about the boy, like he lived close to Finney, he’s in the same art as Robin, even though Robin didn’t realize until he remembered why he looked familiar, and that the boy isn’t well known, he has no friends, no siblings and just lives with his mom, he’s mysterious.
Billy found out all that stuff from his friends, who for the past months have been encouraging him to talk to the boy, but Billy just doesn’t know.
What he does know is that he definitely wants to be friends with him, or at least have talked to him before he graduates high school, that his plan.
His friends seem to be tired of hearing Billy talk about how much he wants to be friends with the boy, to the point Vance almost walked outside to where the boy was sitting so he could get his number, but Billy promised the boys that he was gonna talk to him, one day.
Billy packed all his things for the sleepover at Finneys. His parents weren’t home so he decided to walk through the rain to Finneys house and that was a bit of a mistake since it was raining hard and he didn’t find his umbrella.
Maybe it was because Billy was to bush covering his face with his hand that he didn’t notice someone else walking towards him, until it was too late.
Both boys fell to the ground, Billy was about ready complain to the person when he saw his eyes, he ran into Griffin Stagg.
The guy who he’s been talking about to his friends everyday, the guy who he wants to be friends, he knows this happened for a reason, he’s not about to let this opportunity go. He will talk to him.