Chapter Text
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Skateboard was being kicked out of Splintered Skies. He hadn’t even thought about it, enjoying the past few weeks with Boombox as much as he could. The area itself was heavenly, and it had so much space for him to skate around to his heart’s content.
He thought Windforce enjoyed having him around! There was always enough wind to push around his board with him hardly moving; the guards had been willing to greet him, and Skateboard had so many opportunities to show off his tricks.
It didn’t make sense! Having something that wasn’t as supportive as Boombox’s skills wasn’t advertised as a bad thing! Other melees in Splintered Skies told him they were eager for his help, even trying to show him the reins.
“Stop, stop!” He was squirming around in two knights' arms, trying to kick at them. Skateboard would’ve summoned his gear if it weren’t for the fact that it’d definitely fall.
“Put me down!”
Neither of them even reacted. He knew them, but the way he kicked only made them hold on harder. It wasn’t hard to hold down a ten-year-old’s legs when they were trained for strength, unfortunately.
Skateboard fought for a long while, screaming and wrestling the whole time. Not that it’d work, but he didn’t get to say any goodbyes to anyone! What about Boombox, or his family- there were so many people he didn’t have a last chance to talk to.
That, and that fall would be long. Way too long for him to wanna handle alone, already beginning to approach the edge.
“It won’t hurt,” one of the guards was trying to reassure him, but that didn’t really work when he already had common sense.
That was one really long fall. One that he had no shot at surviving, given how Skateboard refused to pray to Windforce for kicking him out like this.
“Look at that, dude!” Immature response, but it was all he could say. One of the guards kept his arms held back as the other seemed to file something.
Usually, Skateboard would’ve tried to make a break for it, but when he tried to move at all— his feet would nearly hover over the edge.
“I don’t wanna! Please! I don’t wanna!”
The guard didn’t let go of him, but Skateboard could feel the slight adjustment on his helmet. He could hear the small commotion he was starting up around him, but his main voice still wasn’t there.
Skateboard didn’t move his legs, but he tried pushing back as much as he could. He was trying to see past all the shiny armor, but there wasn’t a lot more to see.
Where was Boombox?
“Let me say bye to my friend—” With the slight push back, he had more room to wrestle again, trying to stomp on the knight’s shoes with all of his force.
Being a newspawn meant he didn’t have a lot of power in him to fight against something like this; this wasn’t meant to happen to him in the first place!
“You have to go, Skateboard.” That was meant to be reassurance?
“You have to.”
He could see how they talked amongst themself, with the one holding him uttering ‘hurry up.’ The audacity to try and comfort him before doing something like this had him mad.
With another nod, they didn’t even give him a heads-up, just shoving Skateboard off the edge.
The first ten seconds felt like ten hours of wind just blaring in his ears. He had to grab at his helmet to keep it from falling, trying to cover up his head as much as he could. There wasn’t anything suddenly saving him, and Windforce hadn’t even attempted to lighten the fall for him.
His gear wouldn’t be able to stand falling from this far, right—
“Don’t jump!”
“Oof!” Something was against his chest, scrambling to grab at his arms. It knocked all the air out of him, but he grabbed back.
There was music playing besides the wind.
“Don’t move! Don’t move!” Boombox was trying to hold Skateboard against him, trying to take the majority of the fall off of him.
It was so loud. If the music and air weren’t so overpowering, maybe there was a chance that he would’ve heard the way they shouted for Boombox. How they yelled about him not being kicked out too, and how there wasn’t any reason to jump.
“D’you see anything?” Skateboard was trying to, but there wasn’t any good angle to this. Boombox was very sloppily focused on trying to lighten their fall with his music, but they both didn’t have enough time with their gear for that much!
“Mm-mm!”
They could hardly hear each other’s voices over everything else.
Freak, he could see more for the two of them then. Even if he were still shaking too much to keep the proper grip on his helmet while falling.
Skateboard didn’t say anything, only holding Boombox tighter as they neared the ground. He’d try angling them just enough to land in some trash, but it’d hardly softened the fall.
A loud thunk echoed in the alleyway from the trashcan they’d landed in, along with the sound of two high-pitched groans after.
“Everything hurts.”
“Yeah—” He could hear Boombox’s music try to continue playing. Skateboard sat up in an instant, checking if the gear had damage before trying to lie back down.
“Don’t move, I wanna check if y’broke anything first.” Boombox had hardly even checked up on himself, grabbing at Sword’s arms clumsily as if both of them weren’t horribly bruised.
“Boombox— Wait, I’m meant to check you!”
Neither of them exactly knew what proper injuries would’ve looked like if there wasn’t a bone sticking out. There was a bit of blood coming from both of them, but that didn’t seem as deadly as something broken could’ve been.
Then there was quiet.
Skateboard had held off on crying, well, as much as a kid could; he’d already broken down a few times when he got the news he’d be getting dragged down. But now that the adrenaline was wearing off, everything hurt. Really, really badly.
Both Boombox and Skateboard had started crying around the same time, with the weakest grips on each other. Yeah, it didn’t fix anything, but neither of them knew how to fix this.
It took a lot of crying before either of them tried to move, and even then, it was only because Boombox realized they shouldn’t be falling asleep in a trash can with that many cuts.
Instead, the two of them curled up next to each other on the sidewalk, trying to use a piece of cardboard as a mattress.