Chapter Text
Surprisingly, the concert was going great. Their first concert as an official group didn’t go so well. Jeff fell off of the stage, Eddie had a massive voice crack (everyone laughed), and Gareth broke one of his sticks. It was an epic fail, honestly.
This one, on the other hand, is going awesome. Everyone’s cheering and singing along, even if some of them don’t know the words to their songs. None of them have fallen off the stage. Eddie’s singing has been stable. Even Gareth is doing good; he’s not broken anything (foreshadowing DUN DUN DUUUUUUUH) or made any mistakes in the music so far. He’s usually the one that slips up and accidentally hits something wrong. Then again, who’s really going to notice? No one knows their music that well, anyway.
Turning the volume of the mic up, Eddie looks out to the crowd and smiles his huge, toothy grin. He’s so excited he can’t even stand still. They’ve never had a crowd this big before. He’s a little nervous that he’s going to mess it up, but he focuses mostly on what’s in front of him to calm him down.
“How’s everyone doing tonight?” He asks into the microphone, addressing the crowd as adrenaline courses through his veins. He’s got the biggest smile on his face. He’s always wanted something like this. This life was made for him. “Good! Great! Love to hear it,” his voice is filled with excitement and giddiness. “That’s actually all we’ve got for this time…I think Josh is about to kick us out…” he looks over to the owner of the place and he gives Eddie a thumbs up. Eddie takes that as his sign to end the session. “Yep! Have a wonderful night, fine people!” He begins to bring their performance to a close. “I’m Eddie and we are Corroded Coffin!” He strums his guitar one last time for dramatic effect, then they start packing up.
“That was awesome!” Jeff’s the first one to speak up. The rest of the group are packing up their instruments and getting ready to head back to Eddie’s van. From there, they’re going to chill out at Grant’s mom’s house. She’s not home, so they’ll have it all to themselves. That will be the after party. Grant’s mom’s house with pizza and scary movies. Eddie’s probably gonna go all ‘caregiver’ on everybody and make sure they have snacks, drinks, and comfy blankets. No one ever complains when he does it, even though everybody else in the band is a neutral. They enjoy being treated like royalty. Some of them call him ‘mom’, just to be funny. Cough cough, Grant.
“I don’t think the crowd’s ever been that big before!” Grant chimes in, helping Gareth pack up his set. The smaller male is much quieter than the rest of them. Eddie takes notice of this, but doesn’t say anything to him.
“I know, right?” The two of them walk off together with their instruments in their respective cases.
Meanwhile, Eddie walks over to his best friend with his own guitar in his hand, holding the case tightly. He sneaks up on him, tiptoeing a little to try and spook him. After a couple of seconds, he yells, “BOO!” and Gareth basically jumps out of his skin.
“Edward Waylon Munson!” Gareth picks up one of his drumsticks and bops Eddie in the side of the head with it. Eddie just cackles. He drops his guitar on the ground beside him and holds his hand against his side because he’s laughing so hard.
“You sound like my uncle,” he tells him. “Edward Waylon Munson!” He mimics, making his voice sound deep and southern. His uncle has only said his full name like that a couple of times in his life, but he’s still the only one that does it. Well, besides Steve.
“Scared the shit outta me!” Gareth tells him, as if it wasn’t obvious.
Gareth Emerson is one of the few people that Eddie actually gets along with. He pretends to be friends with a lot of people in order to keep peace, but Gare is one of the real good ones. He’s not nearly as annoying as most people. Gareth’s chill. He doesn’t do too much, but he does just enough to keep the conversation going. He’s not dry, but he’s not too wet, either. That’s the way that Eddie likes to put it.
“Gotcha, dude,” Eddie says, barely loud enough for Gareth to hear him. He starts to help the other boy with packing up, but Gareth pushes him aside.
“I got it,” he tells him, focusing hard on getting all of the parts back in their cases. It’s a tedious job, but he’s done it many times before. He’s always having to move his drums around. Mostly from his bedroom to his garage, but it counts.
“It’ll be faster if I help, don’tcha wanna get to Grant’s couch faster?” Eddie leans down to help again, rapidly picking things up and then snatching Gareth’s sticks from his back pocket, immediately sprinting off to the van. Gareth shouts after him.
“You dick! You absolute fucking buffoon! How could you?” Gareth sighs. He grabs some of his things from off of the ground and carries it all to the van, making sure that he didn’t leave anything behind. He was scared for a second. He thought that Eddie took his wallet, not just his sticks. That would have been a whole different problem.
Since he turned eighteen, Gareth’s had a little secret. But is it really a secret if the evidence is printed perfectly on his license for everyone to see? No one’s seen it yet. Well, give or take a few cops that have pulled him over for speeding. His caseworker, sure, and a couple of the staff at his group home, but that’s all. What he really means is that none of his friends have seen it yet. And he’s going to keep it that way.
“Ed, give me my sticks back before I declare war.” Once Gareth is in the car, he snatches his things back from the driver and plops down into the front seat. He always rides in the front. He’s a little passenger princess. Prince, he reminds himself, shaking his head.
“Oooh, I’m so scared,” Eddie starts the van. “Shiver me timbers!” He puts the car into gear with a smile, and Gareth flips him off without even looking at him.
“Ow,” Gareth sucks his teeth and presses his hand against his chest. He does this a lot lately, Eddie doesn’t know why.
“You ‘kay?” Eddie asks, not taking his eyes off of the road as he begins driving. He’s not a great driver, so distracting him is not a good idea. But, Eddie’s severe ADHD makes him constantly distracted.
“Yup,” Gareth pulls at his shirt, slouching over and clearing his throat. He does this a couple of times, tugging at the top of his shirt and staring down at his stomach, as if he was trying to see if something would change.
“You sure, man?” There’s more curiosity in Eddie’s voice this time.
“Yeah…” Gareth clears his throat again, this time closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat. He looks kind of pale to Eddie, actually. Well, paler than usual. Gareth’s a pretty pale-looking dude. Him and his shaggy hair and freckles all over his face and the…the way he pops his fingers when he’s slouched over like that…
Eddie suddenly swerves a little, clearing his own throat and causing the boy in the passenger seat to grip the little armrest beside him.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Gareth sits up way too fast. He leans over in the seat, his eyes wide and panicked. His eyes dart around the car a little and then he closes them. “I’m gonna puke!” He warns them. “I’m gonna puke! Pull over!” He can feel his chest tightening. The saliva filling his mouth and coating it with the protective layer of spit like it does just before he gets sick.
“What?” Eddie frantically looks over to the other boy and pushes on the breaks a little too hard. “Oh–okay!” He turns into a gas station and pulls off to the side, hiding the van beside the store in the shadows.
“Holy shit,” Gareth unbuckles and opens the door, jumping out as fast as he can. It’s not fast enough; he gets a little bit on the side of Eddie’s van. It’s probably fine. “Holy balls, ohmigod–” he feels it before he knows it’s happening. Then he tastes it. The acidic stomach fluids coming up through his throat and out of his mouth. Gross-looking sticky vomit floods the ground beneath him and Gareth’s face heats up.
Eddie and Grant are by his side in seconds, on their needs and staring at each other with horrified looks on their faces. Jeff tries to be there for support, but he sees it and can’t be around them anymore. He holds his breath and turns away, feeling a little pukey himself.
“Maybe we just went a little too hard tonight,” Grant shrugs his shoulders as he speaks, looking down at the boy on the ground to make sure that he’s not dying.
“Yeah, we’ll take a break next time,” Eddie nods along, not taking his eyes away from his best friend.
Once Gareth is done barfing up everything in his tummy, he groans and looks up at Eddie. “That’s not it,” he shakes his head. He can’t tell his friends about this. He just can’t. But he knows that if he doesn’t, it’s only going to get worse.
He has to take his binder off right now. It can’t wait any longer. But if he tells them, won’t they look at him differently? They’ll start treating him like a girl. He can’t take that. Not right now. He’s been feeling so much better lately. The band is doing good, he’s been spending time with Eddie, calling his mom, even remembering to brush his teeth so his orthodontist doesn’t try to murder him with lectures on how his teeth are going to fall out. But this? This would crush him. Especially with his whole classification thing…that really messed things up for him.
“Aw, you got it on your shirt,” Grant notices, moving to point it out. “Damn, that was a prototype, too,” he sighs and grips the bottom of Gareth’s t-shirt, beginning to pull it up.
“Stop!” Gareth backs up, scooting away from the other male. He looks like he’s about to cry. “Don’t touch me!” He’s gasping for breath and leaning against the van door. He thinks he’s about to puke again, but nothing comes out. He dry-heaves against the ground and stands up, walking away from the other boys.
“Sorry,” Grant raises his hands up and sucks his teeth.
“We’re just trying to help, dude,” Eddie stands up with him, glancing back at Jeff to make sure he’s alright too. “What’s going on?” He asks, kind of awkwardly standing there and waiting for an answer. He’s never seen Gareth act like this before.
Actually, that’s a lie. When the guys went swimming last year, Gareth was refusing to take off his t-shirt. He got mad at Jeff when he said something like, “we’re all guys, man,” or whatever. But Eddie’s a little slow, so this doesn’t click in his head. He’s not making any kind of connections here yet.
“Self-conscious…” Eddie whispers. “Look, we’re not gonna judge you or anythi–”
“Shut up, Munson,” Gareth breathes out. He thinks for a second, before the pain in his chest comes back. But this is a different kind of pain. Not like the puke pain. He feels like something’s stuck in his chest or something. Like he’s imploding.
“Okay, will do.” Eddie leans back on his heels, looking anywhere but at Gareth.
“You’ve gotta swear…” Gareth starts. “Swear that you won’t look at me differently, ‘kay?” He asks them, leaning over and preparing to vomit again.
Eddie looks at Grant, who looks at Jeff, and then back to Eddie, who shrugs.
“Yeah, man, we swear,” Grant nods along, as if the words Eddie is saying are obvious.
Slowly, Gareth raises his arms up. He then remembers that no one is going to take his shirt off for him. He can feel himself dropping. He hides it with a groan, gripping the bottom of his shirt and pulling it over his head. He drops it on the ground.
And in a moment of brilliant wording, Grant screams, “BOOBIES!”
Eddie proceeds to whack him upside the head, walking over to Gareth to cover him up.
“I have to take it off,” Gareth can feel the embarrassment in his cheeks. His eyes tear up. He paws at his binder, feeling the same pain in his chest from earlier. “It hurts,” he tells him. “I wore it while we were playing, and–”
Eddie shushes him, waving for the others to stop gawking. “Get in the van,” he instructs them to do. They obey, crawling back into the van so it’s just Eddie and Gareth outside.
Eddie springs into action. He turns his best friend around and unzips the back of his binder, shrugging his own jacket off in the process. It falls to the ground, not quite close enough to the puke for it to get messy. “Hold it against your chest,” he tells him. Eddie pulls his own shirt over his head to reveal his flat chest. Gareth stares, admiring the absence of boobies.
“Sorry…” Gareth whispers, not knowing what he’s apologizing for.
Eddie turns the boy back around, following him this time. “Okay,” Eddie starts. “You’re not going to like this, but I have to see.” He’s dead serious, that’s the scary part.
Gareth is too stunned to speak for a moment, just standing there with his mouth wide open. “What!” He shouts. “Are you fucking crazy?” He asks, shaking his head.
“I know, but I have to see if you’re bruised–”
Before he can even finish, Gareth is shaking his head again. “Nuh-uh!” He says, feeling himself dropping farther and farther. “No! No way!” Tears stream down his face as the words spill from his mouth.
“I need to know if you need medical attention, okay?” But Gareth is still not listening. He holds the binder against him with one hand, the other one covering his eyes so he doesn’t sob.
“No! No! No, no, no!”
“Gareth.”
“Nuh-uh!” The boy’s voice goes up an octave. He’s not paying attention to keeping it deep. He sounds like a little girl crying and he knows it.
“Gareth, it’s either me looking at it or a random doctor, okay?”
That’s when he comes to his senses. Eddie’s telling the truth. There could be permanent damage. If they have to go to a doctor, he’ll need a caregiver to go with him! Littles, even when they’re adults, aren’t allowed to be seen without being accompanied by a caregiver. And Gareth’s sister is out of town…
“Will you hold my hand?” He asks, not believing that he even said it at first. He gasps a little and stands there for a moment, unable to completely process.
“Yes, but it’s gotta be now, buddy.” Eddie offers his hand and Gareth takes it, gasping for breath as he drops the binder down onto the ground.
It takes a moment. Then another. Eddie stares at the dark purple-and-red marks on Gareth’s ribcage. He kneels down to get a better look, completely ignoring the boy’s breasts.
“Okay,” he says unevenly. “Doctor time,” he nods, standing up. “I can’t fix it, so we have to go to the doctor.” He locks eyes with Gareth, who’s now crying worse than before.