Chapter Text
“I’m not sure if I can go. My mum..”
“Come on, mate, she can’t let it slide this once?”
This was a conversation often had in Tom Reyes’ day-to-day life. His mates—primarily his closest, Edd, would invite him out and he’d have to turn them down. It got frustrating, but Tom would have to tolerate it. What else could he do? Sneak out and get grounded? No way.
With the way Edd looked so sad as he tried to urge Tom into disobeying his mother, he almost wanted to, but he couldn’t totally relent now as he stood in the phone booth. “I.. Guess I can call her.” he tried to negotiate out loud. He stood there for a moment, fiddling with the cord of the payphone.
At his silence, Edd brushed his hair out of his face, reached into his pocket and whipped out about ten quid. He handed it to Tom with the slightest smile, who simply nodded as a thank you.
He inserted the currency into the booth and dialed the number. His heart was already pounding at this point. He hated conversations like these, but he hated letting his friends down, too.
He could hear those friends chit-chatting over the sound of the phone ringing.
“This is wasting our time, I feel.” Tord commented. That guy was really annoying, at times. He could be worse, but Tom never fully understood why Edd had chosen to befriend that.. bum.
“Don’t say that! It’s not his fault that his mum’s..” Tom couldn’t tell if Edd was trying to avoid insulting his mother or if he just wanted Tord to fill in the blank.
“A wad?”
“That’s mean!” Nearby, Tom could hear his friend Matt jump to the defense of his mother.
“It’s true.” Tord argued.
Tom shushed the Norwegian rather loudly just as his call was finally picked up.
“Tassy, is that you?” A hushed, feminine voice beamed through the phone. Tom hated that nickname. Simply too babyish.
“Mummm..” He squeakily replied, cracking a rather forced smile. He could hear Tord snickering nearby, as if he’d been able to hear exactly what was being said on the other end of the line. To be fair, considering how many times this specific scenario happened, all he really had to do was guess.
The conversation following the interaction was typical. Lots of back and forth, Tom’s mother repeatedly warning him about the dangers of being out late and begging him to be home early until Tom eventually squeaked out an “Okay! I love you! Bye!” and slammed the phone back into place.
***
The trudge to the forest was long and tiresome, taking up quite a bit of the time that Tom was even allowed out. It began raining pretty early into the walk too, so the boys were now either holding their schoolbags over their heads or sinking within their scratchy, uncomfortable uniforms in an attempt to shield themselves. Neither did too much to help, and those wearing their bags as hats were more than likely just getting their homework soaked rather than truly protecting themselves from the weather.
It hadn’t helped that their school-mandated shoes were not made to handle this sort of disordered weather, and the hard breeze had caused Tom’s skirt to flow backwards multiple times. He was cold. This was terrible.
Eventually, the boys arrived and quickly ducked under some trees. Like the bag shields and thin dress shirts, this did little to fix their situation.
They stood in front of an old, rundown looking building. It’d been condemned years ago by the looks of it, the windows and door boarded over with wooden planks. The address number was missing. It was unclear why this random house sat alone in the woods, left to rot, but at least it gave these outcasts a way to spend their free time.
“This place gives me the creeps.” Matt complained. Tom dismissively rolled his eyes, though he wouldn’t admit that agreed with the statement himself.
Edd took a few steps towards the abandoned building and Tord slowly followed. Edd was attempting to lead despite how creepy this place was, while Tord barely seemed to acknowledge how peculiar the general situation had been.
The ringleader did eventually get the other three to follow him inside, though he had to be the one to yank the boards away from the door, spiking the risk of splinters making their way into his palms. The four were met with rainwater soaking the rotted hardwood floors, and it didn’t take long for them to come to an understanding of exactly how that happened—along with the likely reason this nightmare was condemned to begin with.
The ceiling had caved in, leaving a giant, gaping hole above the four.
Tom scowled while Tord laughed in what was most likely shock. By now, Matt had already walked backwards in an attempt to exit the creepy scenario, but Edd grabbed his upper arm and pulled him back. “Come on, you can’t be the only one who backs out. That wouldn’t be fair!” He protested.
Edd likely meant it sincerely, but Tom overheard and found it pretty condescending. None of them wanted to be here, whatever made Edd think this place was cool was beyond Tom’s ability to figure out.
The boys ended up looking around for a while. Tord looted rooms, Edd was his typically nosy self and Matt clung to the other teen like a lost puppy, which Edd didn't seem to mind too much, even if he didn’t particularly enjoy Matt’s grasp. Tom just.. Meandered. He wasn’t sure what to do here, everything felt prohibited. Probably because he never specified to his mother that this is why he needed extra time with his buddies.
Within the next thirty minutes, rain still pouring outside and through the giant pit in the roof, the boys circled back to the front door, Tord holding what looked to be a small nightstand. Tom raised a brow at the sight.
“What is that?” He questioned.
“This?” Tord motioned towards the object with his head and Tom nodded, expression deadpan. “For my room.” He shrugged in response.
Tom’s eyes circled around the boy in front of them, looking to find out what else he had snatched from the decaying building, if anything at all. He did notice something poking out of Tord’s bag, but he didn’t feel as if it was truly worth commenting on. It was probably just his blazer—he’d taken it off as the four left school today.
“Are we going, then?” Matt asked, sounding relieved to finally be leaving this place. He appeared utterly terrified, his pupils darting around the trashed living room in the brief moment it took for a response.
Edd gave a nod and began to trot back towards the front door, fully expecting the others to follow. His expectations were justified, considering the other three shuffled behind him fast. None of them wanted to be there, just as Tom thought. Matt was visibly horrified, Tom was simply unnerved and Tord probably knew better than to be hanging around a place like this for too long.
Edd was already starting to basically float in the direction they came from, but Tom noted that it was getting dark and had to stop him. “Hey, mate. My mum’s expecting me, you know,” he started. “Could we maybe.. Take a different way? A faster way?”
That was probably a reasonable request.
Edd stopped, looked at his wristwatch, then shrugged. “Lead the way.”
So, Tom did exactly that—to the best of his ability, anyway. He took his friends in the same general direction that they were going anyway, but there were a few different turns, as expected. They came upon a hill that was just a little flooded from the previous downpour, the ground muddy and probably dangerous if someone stepped the wrong way.
Tom walked slowly down it like a smart person, staring up at the others and waiting for them to follow him. He walked backwards slightly.
Edd followed, but on the way down, he slammed a foot down on a stray leaf and went sliding. His schoolbag landed on a rock and he just barely managed to grab onto a tree before he got the chance to fall the rest of the way down, though Tom could just barely catch the sound of him wincing as he gripped the bark. He probably scraped his hands.
His expression said quite enough, and Matt’s did, too. While both looked quite startled, Matt seemed to be worse off, despite not being the one who’d nearly needed a hospital trip.
Edd stared up at the ginger, gave a nervous chuckle and carefully stepped the rest of the way over to Tom, legs quivering. “Just be careful,” he advised. ”It’s.. slippery.” He collected his schoolbag with a sigh.
Matt took that advice a bit too seriously, practically tiptoeing his way down the little hill as slowly as possible. At least this assured that he wouldn’t bust his skull open.
While Matt successfully avoided getting hurt, Edd shook the mud off of the bottom of his schoolbag.
Tord did not have the same luck as his freckle-faced friend, and that was pretty much the boy’s own fault.
He stepped down too fast, or maybe too hard—whatever the case may be, he slipped and the table he’d been carrying went flying into the tree that Edd had previously used to save himself. Tord didn’t notice this because he immediately rammed his skull into a rock with an agonizing crunch.
Ohhh.. that was bad.
He laid there with a face-full of mud for a good ten seconds and the other three boys were starting to think they might have just witnessed the death of their best friend, horrified gasps leaving all three—until he gave off the slightest twitch, then he groaned and rolled onto his back.
The three stared at him, utterly shocked.
Luckily, he was awake. Not so luckily, blood was gushing out of his forehead, comparable to squeezing a strawberry.
Edd, being his usual caring self, didn’t waste time after coming to a general understanding of what had just happened. He dropped his bag at Tom’s dress shoes, practically tripping over himself to get to his horn-haired buddy.
“Are you okay?” he urgently raised the question. “Matt, get over here!” He demanded, his eyes still on Tord’s spouting forehead. Matt rushed over and assisted Edd with pulling Tord to the road, where Tord shakily sat up to lean against Tom’s leg.
Given the situation, Tom managed to not start complaining. He couldn't help but awkwardly grab the front of his skirt and lift it though, grimacing softly as the wind hit his skin.
“Ssss… Sorry.” Tord choked out, obviously for the blood that was getting everywhere. Tom was at a loss for words. This boy’s head was literally a fountain of gore and one of his first instincts was to apologize. Why?
Edd was attempting to hide his panic, but he couldn’t exactly manage that well when his friend was talking what he saw as abysmal nonsense. “Are you loony?” He rhetorically questioned, kneeling down and sifting through his bag.
After a moment, he paused and slipped off his blazer, pressing it against Tord’s forehead in an attempt to temporarily cork the wine bottle that was Tord’s forehead. Tord visibly pulled away, but Edd begrudgingly tugged him back.
“‘M fine.” the teen insisted. Matt protested this claim with a quick, aggressive shake of his head.
“We need to call 999!” Edd loudly protested on the verge of shouting, watching as his blazer soaked up the blood covering Tord’s face. He didn’t care about the mud or the gore ruining his clothing—he could buy a new one, or literally just toss it in the washer. Tord mattered more right now.
Tord, however, actually gave a coherent response to this. “Nnnno, no— I a-am fine.” he stressed. Tom was put off, but Edd honestly seemed to have it covered. It’s not like he would be useful here at all, anyway. Tom getting involved would just cause more problems, and they all knew it.
“You’re spouting blood like a water fountain because you cracked your head open on a stone. We need to call somebody. You could get a concussion or worse.” Edd argued.
“It looks way worse th-than it actually is, really. I’m fine. It’s j-just because it’s.. my head, you know,” he mutters. “It’s alright. Just.. Just..” he paused, searching for the words, then shook his head.
Edd was conflicted. He couldn’t go against his friend’s wishes, but his friend was also independently turning the asphalt into a horror fanatic’s wildest dreams.
His other friend also really needed to get home, or his mother would be so very upset, especially if she ever came to know what was happening right now. She'd probably ground him for weeks.
Thinking this over, he reluctantly nodded. Tom noticed a soft gulp from the other.
“You don’t want gauze or anything, at least? We could go to my house after Tttt.. Tom is home.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Edd couldn’t protest further, his expression somewhat stone-like. What was he thinking?
He stood up, but he gripped Tord by the arm and yanked the other to his feet too. Despite Tord insisting that he was okay before, he’s twitching.
The Norwegian spotted the now broken bedside table that he’d been planning to use to furnish his bedroom, and that seemed to overshadow the scariness of the blood that was currently still rolling down his forehead in fast, thick beads.
“Are you serious?” He’s genuinely disappointed. “I dusted it off for nothing..”
His tone was gaining weight with every word. He was out of it, for sure.
“I’m sure you can find something else,” Edd tried to reassure. “Oh, oh. I can probably buy y—”
Thanks to an apprehensive Tom, Edd never finished his offer.
“Can we go home?” Tom interrupted, unintentionally snappy and tense. The other three boys stare directly at him.
As he makes eye contact with the other three, mainly the still-bleeding Tord, he sinks into his uniform out of shame. He grips onto the hem of his blazer.
”Sorry.”
Edd doesn’t really acknowledge the apology. “Uh.. yeah. We should go.”
They all knew why Tom was acting like that. Even Tord didn’t start poking fun this time, though that could easily be attributed to the obvious fact that he had much higher concerns at the moment.
So they collected themselves and started walking back, all in variously unpleasant moods.
“This probably wouldn’t have happened if I actually kept up with the weather station.” Edd remarked, mainly to himself, but he wasn’t trying to hide what he was saying.
”Not your fault.” Tord muttered.
As usual, Tom was home first and he rushed inside while Tord hid behind a tree, hoping to conceal his wound from the woman that nobody there (besides Tom) truly liked all that much. Matt left next, and only Edd and Tord remained.
Tord was brought to Edd’s home and Edd patched him up the best he could without just bringing him to a hospital, despite Tord’s protests. Edd cared too much to just let him bleed all the way home. What kind of friend would let that happen without at least trying to help?
Edd’s mother drove the boy home after, where he only vaguely answers her questions about how he’s doing at home and with his classes. She suggested he started to look for work, which wasn’t a bad idea. She gave him advice about secondary school and how to navigate it better, mainly regarding the people around him. It was no secret that Edd’s group wasn’t exactly liked by most of the school’s population.
She was just trying to make small talk, because the giant gauze patch on the teen’s forehead made her quite nervous. Wouldn't it spook anyone?
Tord was eventually dropped off, where he wandered up to the veranda with buckling legs. Edd’s mother had driven off before she got the chance to see a mildly aged, large hand drag the boy inside by the collar of his dress shirt.
All four boys go to bed that night with different thoughts, mostly surrounding the events of the past day.
Tord doesn’t really sleep well, nor does Tom. Not that it was really out of the ordinary.
Though, compared to what would soon come, they’d miss how close that day was to normalcy.