Outsiders

“Maybe I should just wait in the Library…”

Kenneth scrunched him his face, pulling at his already frayed jumper sleeves, looking down at the floor. I looked around the hallway, a few people scattered by their lockers, looking through textbooks or talking quietly. Grabbing his hand, I pulled him into the nearby bathroom, the door swinging shut behind us.

At first when I’d mentioned the idea of talking to Pogo, Brian and Jeordie – minus Tim, that was the most vital part – I thought he was okay with it. I mean, I knew they hadn’t been the kindest to him; but he wouldn’t have to go through that again, I was there to keep that from happening. But the plan, our plan was to stop Tim doing that, not just to Kenneth, but to everyone, and he’d been all for it. We’d spent so long in his room talking about what we’d say, but then, I tended to get a little distracted being so alone in a room with him. Well, I was a guy after all.

“Hey, this was our plan Kenny.” I lifted my finger to his chin, tilting his head up slightly as I smiled at him, a small smiled being offered up in return. “No more angry Tim.We’re being great do-gooders here, practically the schools own vigilante! Giving justice to those who deserve it!” I leaned forward a little as I laughed. Kenny straightened up a little, snorting before his hand slipped down to mine, pulling me closer as our fingers entwined.

Despite keeping our little, well, it was a relationship now, secret at school – we still found time to have our little moments.

He pressed his face into the soft material of my shirt as his skinny arms wrapped around my back, my hand coming up to run through his hair almost by instinct now. There was something just so safe about feeling him there, his warmth surrounding me with his little skinny frame. He tilted his face up slightly, his chin resting against my chest as his hair fell into his face.

“I guess I’m just a little anxious about it, I’d rather not get my head put down a toilet again…” he laughed a little, clearly hiding from his feelings before resting his face back against my chest. I held him against me closer for a moment before pulling back, both my hands coming to tilt up his eyes up to mine.

“I’m not gonna let that happen now, am I? You’re my Kenny now more than ever, and you know I’ve never let you get hurt, and that won’t stop now.”

I felt him squeeze me closer, his face nuzzling the crook of my neck as I smiled a little, my lips brushed the top of forehead, my fingers making little circles on his back through the thick material of his jumper. He always seemed to calm under my touch, and it seemed to work as he pulled away, brushing down his jumper as he met my eyes, a little more determination there and the smile on his face I lived to see.

“That was rather lame of you,” his smile turned into a slight smirk as I just shook my head, my blonde hair dropping in front of my face as I walked past him, pushing open the door back into the more populated corridor.

“Well you know me, being lame is my specialty.” I grinned, holding the door open as he walked past me, my eyes floating down a little to his ass as he walked. And God, he had one hell of an ass. I mean, sure I’d caught a glimpse of it a few times, especially when I first started getting a few feelings for him, but now I could openly appreciate it without having to hide it with a cough and a glance at a book. That wasn’t the only nice aspect about his body too, despite not really working out at all, his arms were something I fully liked to imagine in situations involving them wrapped around me. Even if I was some sort of nympho, Kenny certainly wasn’t, so I’d keep my hands to myself until he wanted me too.

Fuck, I really needed to keep to the plan at hand.

I caught up with Kenny as he slowed to a stop outside of the cafeteria doors, his eyes fixed on the table at the top of the room, Pogo, Jeordie and Brian sitting around the table, their laughs echoing around the room. They talked quietly before erupting in loud bursts of laughter, Kenny cringing a little as they did so. He flinched slightly as I put my hand on his shoulder, squeezing a little reassuringly and offering him a small smile.

“You know nothing will happen, I wouldn’t let it,” I murmured softly before letting go of his shoulder, offering him a shy grin in hopes of calming him down a little.

I pushed open the door into the canteen. It was no grand dramatic entrance where everything froze silent and student stopped and stared, I was just another kid in school, and a lot of the time, that was an incredibly good thing. I made my way through the mass of tables and chairs; all of the time aware of Kenneth was staying almost glued to my back. He didn’t dare put any space between us both, and I couldn’t really blame him for that. I knew how awful they’d treated him during the time I hadn’t been there for him. I wasn’t going to forgive myself for that any time soon, not by any chance.

A few nights after the little incident in his bathroom, I had stayed with him over the weekend and he’d fallen asleep, laying on my chest no less with my arms still around him. I had been so comfortable myself, almost falling asleep, until I heard him whimpering and groaning – in what seemed like pain. At first I thought the effects from the pills and the alcohol in his stomach had made a return, but when I looked down at his face, I saw him still deep in sleep, but his face scrunched up in pain. He yelled out for Pogo to stop, for Jeordie to stop kicking him, and for Brian to have mercy on him. My heart had hurt a lot, to know that had happened because I wasn’t there. But like I’d promised him in the bathroom, I wouldn’t let it happen again. I knew he was still affected by what had happened, but I’d keep him safe no matter what.

“Oh look, the fags back!” Pogo always had a way with words, but I was slightly surprised to see that it was Pogo shouting out the insults rather than Tim. But there was a noticeable absence from the table as I looked around it, the reason why Tim hadn’t insulted me at all in the past few days was because, well, he wasn’t even here. I thought it’d had been just a little too calm around school, but I had just assumed he was laying low for a while, plotting some fucked up scheme again.

“And aw look, he has his little bitch back following him around,” Brian piped up from beside him, Jeordie bursting out in laughter as Pogo smirked at them both before leaning back in his seat. They all tried so fucking hard to be Tim, even when he was around they would practically all act like carbon copies of him. But surely they had a tiny bit of wonder in them. A wonder of what it must be like to act like a normal, kind, citizen. There had to be some nice thought deep down there.

“How hilarious.”

I sunk down onto the bench opposite Pogo, Kenneth quickly following suit. He perched himself on the end, his body half hidden by mine in some sort of protective shield as he stared wary eyed at Jeordie opposite him, the older boy sneering at Kenneth as he sunk back behind me. I let my hand drop, squeezing his hand quickly, letting him know I was there, before looking back at Pogo. He leant back, trying to show him position of authority – but I wasn’t going to let him act all Tim on my ass.

“Drop the Tim act, Pogo. He’s not around now, is he?” I sneered slightly, watching as Pogo leant forward on his chair, clearly not too pleased with what I said.

“What even is the point?”

Brian snorted as I spoke, his eyes focused on Kenneth as he sneered at him. A small whimper came from Kenneth as I felt him grip onto my arm, a grip that I was sure was about to leave bruises.

“That’s a fair point you have, faggot. I mean I wouldn’t exactly want to be like good ole Tim all the time, I’d rather not live in an alcohol den…”

Brian and Jeordie stopped what they were doing sharply, looking up to Pogo with a slightly shock on their face. But I was intrigued, incredibly so at what he said. I leant forward slightly, cocking my head to the side as I narrowed my eyes. Whatever he said was clearly had over stepped the line in Tim’s privacy, judging by the reaction of the other two goons to his right.

“Alcohol den? You’ve intrigued me now.” Even Kenneth behind me had shifted slightly, his head poking out from behind my shoulder, his curiosity peaked as Pogo rolled his eyes, leaning forward slightly and began to talk a lot quieter than before.

“Did you not ever wonder what made Tim so…well, bastard like?” He spoken in a hushed tone, both of us having to lean even closer to hear what he was saying.

“I just sort of assumed that-“ I began slowly, his voice cutting me off.

“That was rhetorical, I’m the one telling the story here.”

I blinked twice, unsure of what to say, if anything at all – so I went with my better judgment and stayed silent.

“This is about to sound like some cliché story about a sad childhood and a messed up home life, but this isn’t some story I decided to make up in my own free time. Tim’s my best friend, even if he can be a fucking jackass.Both of his parents found solace in the bottle not long after he was born. According to my mom, the Sköld’s had marital trouble long before little Tim had been born – his mother foolishly hoping that the birth of a child would somehow bring his father home from drunken nights out surrounded by a harem of women. Unsurprisingly for everybody else, her idea was nothing but a fantasy. That was when she began to find comfort in the thing she had once loathed her husband most for using.”

My eyebrows knitted together, frowning slightly at Pogo across the table. Part of me felt a little bad for Tim, even from barely hearing anything about his life, but then the other part of me was pushing those feelings far, far back down. Why should I feel sympathy for someone who treated me like shit, and almost killed the most important person in my life.

Still, I wanted to hear more.

“His mother shipped him off to live with his grandparents till he was about 7, when he moved back here after his grandfather passed away and his wife practically lost her mind at the loss of her husband. It was no fun time for him, but that was when we met. I was young, and at seven years old I just assumed the bruises on his arms and his face were from his clumsiness in the playground – I had enough of them from falling over on the hard ground. Of course, being young meant innocence, and innocence meant ignorance.”

“We even had close call once, I think if we had stuck around any longer we would have had our own bruises too.” Brian chipped in from the side, leaning on his elbow, Jeordie quickly following suit. The table being round meant that he was almost touching Kenneth, who quickly managed to move even closer to me some how and his grip on my arm getting tighter. But I was too hooked on what Pogo was saying to turn and reassure him with more than a slight squeeze of his hand.

“That was something that I’d rather forget.” Pogo laughed once, a hard cold sound before continuing what he had been saying.

“Brian’s right though. A few months ago, for the first time in any of us knowing him, he sort of invited us round. It wasn’t anything special or remarkable, just an average house – with a lot of empty beer and wine bottles around. He lived in the basement, keen on avoiding any contact with either of his parents it seemed. But what he hadn’t counted on that day was that his father would be coming home a lot earlier, and well…lets cut the story short. He had pinned Tim up against the wall and screamed in all his disgusting intoxicated glory not to ever bring anyone into his house again-“

“The fucking drunk Swede chased us out of the house,” Jeordie piped in from the side, looking at us in disgust at the memory.

“It definitely made me realize all the time off, all the bruises that appeared on his body weren’t just accidents that happened a lot, they were at the hands of his fuck ass father.”

I was left speechless as Pogo dropped his gaze, looking back down at his plate and ripping off a small piece of bread. I never thought that he had gone through so much shit, even the part of me before that had been yelling at me to not even attempt to feel sympathy seemed to have given up. I was a fucking soppy bastard, but even if Tim had treated me like shit, he didn’t deserve all of that.

“Even after how he treated me, no one should go through that.” Kenneth murmured quietly from behind me, his eyes looking down as he picked at the threads on the sleeves of his oversized jumper.

I turned my head slightly, surprised to hear him talk directly to the rest of them, knowing how afraid he had been about even sitting on the same table as them all.

“Now you mention that…” Jeordie trailed off, turning to face Kenneth with his eyes downcast. “I’m really sorry about what happened the other week. I guess I just got carried away with it all, yknow? I know that’s not excuse for what I did, but I’m sorry.”

“Me too Kenneth, I know what I said was pretty fucking disgusting – but I am sorry and I-“ Brian was cut off by Kenneth shuffling a little, sliding out a little to face them both.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” He offered them both a small smile, still too shy to look them both in the eye as he shuffled back next to me. He moved his hand from my arm to my hand, slipping our fingers together and giving them a quick squeeze for looking back. I knew he hated being on the spot, but I was so incredibly proud of him.

“I feel incredibly sorry for Tim, what happens to him is atrocious, but that still doesn’t change what he did, to Kenneth, to me, and to a lot of people…”

I took a shaky breath, trying to regain my composure and hoping they wouldn’t all punch me in the face.
“I mean, I’d like a little payback yknow? And well, I have a sort of idea. But it’s an idea that’s only going to work with your help…”

I looked around the three sitting opposite us, my heart almost in my throat. The best I could hope for was a punch with a little bruising I guess.

“Even if he is my best friend, sometimes a little justice needs to be served. I’m in.” Pogo shrugged, leaning forward once again as the others followed suit – a glint of matching mischief in their eyes.

“Oh Lowery, do share…”