TW: bullying (idk the bullies' names, these r what google told me🤷🏼 i apologize if buzz sounds like draco malfoy😭 also for the sake of the story lets pretend walkmans and boys dont cry were out in 1978 okay? okay.)
Finney groaned at the loud sound of his alarm clock ringing, indicating it was 7:15am and the first day of school. he quickly got out of bed scrambling to turn the alarm off as to not anger his father.
he walks to his door and sighs in relief when he doesn't hear any noise from his father, going back into his room to get ready for school.
he walked toward his dresser and pulled out a plain white t-shirt and his everyday blue jeans. he then put his clothes on, given he had slept in his underwear due to the hot weather. after getting dressed he made his way out of his room and down the stairs to the kitchen, finding it empty. he walked to the cabinet where they kept the cereal and grabbed a bowl from the drying rack, after which he walked to the fridge mumbling curse words in frustration as he realized they were out of milk. so he grabbed his bowl and sat at the table eating the dry cereal with his hands.
"what are you eating?" he looked up to see gwen, he hadn't notice her walk in,
"cereal. we're out of milk,"
"uh-huh," she said while eyeing him weirdly and walking towards the bread.
It was now lunch time and Finn sat alone underneath a tree waiting for his sister—since she had forgotten to bring her lunch today—while just staring at the doors waiting for him to come outside. finney didn't want to admit it but he had always admired the boy, if it was because of his looks and attitude or because he was the only one who didn't laugh when the bullies got to finney, he didn't know. all he knew was that everyday for two years he waited for him to walk out the door so he could stare at him from afar.
just then the doors suddenly swung open, and finney sat up straighter expecting it to be him but no–fuck. it was buzz, matt and matty. finney immediately tensed up and ran to hide behing the tree, but it was too late, the trio had already seen him and were now making their way toward him, he contemplated running but it wouldve been to no avail since they were all much faster than him, so he just decided to helplessly stand there and wait whatever was coming his way
"hey there finney,"
"what do you want buzz?"
"just saying hi to an old friend," matty smiled at finney as they started surrounding him
"im not your friend," finney whispered under his breath
"what was that?"
"n-nothing," he responded as the three bullies started walking closer and closer to him
"really? because it almost sounded like you said we werent friends. that hurts my feelings finney," matt said with a fake pout and there was now a crowd forming around the four of them and finney looked around for his sister in desperation, but not seeing her given she was still inside the cafeteria waiting in the lunch line,
"i thought we were best friends," buzz faked a frown and grabbed finney from behind, holding him as the other two approached the pair. finn squirmed and kicked trying to get away but it was no use, buzz was much stronger than him. then the punching began, followed by buzz dropping finney on the floor so they could kick him. he put his hands over his face and grunted in pain as matt landed a kick on his stomach,
"HEY ASSHOLES!" yelled someone from the crowd, finney looked up to see it was gwen, she pushed buzz and matt off, before getting punched in the face by matty
"STOP!" finney yelled and got up, he grabbed gwens hand and pushed his way passed the crowd and ran into the school,
"gwenny are you okay?"
"are you kidding me? are you okay?! he barely got a scratch on me,"
"yeah im fine," finney said, but gwen could tell he was limping, even if nobody else could tell, she noticed.
"c'mon i'll take you to the nurse,"
"no im fine, its fine, just go eat with suzie,"
"you sure?"
"yeah yeah just go," gwen gave him a sympathetic look before turning and walking back outside. finney sighed and began making his way to his locker to retrieve his most prized possession, his walkman. he opened his locker and grabbed it along with his 1hour loop of his favorite song, Boys Dont Cry by The Cure. he placed the tape in the walkman, put his headphones on and pressed play. the heavenly melody began playing just as finney shut his locker, and began making his way to the nurses office.
"come in," finney opened the door and walked into the small room,
"oh finney, on the first day?" mrs. shurley, the nurse asked
"can i get some ice?"
"oh yes just sit down and wait until im done with mr. arellano," finney froze, arellano? well at leat now he knew why he wasn't at lunch
"finney? are you okay?" finn snapped out of his thoughts and looked at mrs. shurley
"hm? oh yeah sorry," he said and went to sit down at one of the only three chairs that were in the nurses office. he turned up the volume on his music, waiting for the ice as pain covered his entire body, the shaking in his leg coming to life. sometimes it felt like it was mocking him, bouncing up and down in celebration of his failures, and boy was it happy today.
finney was brought back to reality by the sound of the chair next to him scraping against the floor. he looked to his side and found none other than robin arellano sitting there, the other chair empty. why is he sitting here? theres another chair.
"finney, right?"
"what?"
"your name, you're finney blake," this time he said it as more of a statement than question, like he had figured it out in the seven seconds beween this and his previous words
"oh y-yeah,"
"im robin," said the boy next to him and extended his hand, finney took note of the bandages around his knuckles and hesitantly brought his hand out of his pocket and shook the others extended palm, his hands were rough and dry, probably from all the fighting finney had assumed.
"those guys are jerks," robin pointed to finneys face, which he assumed was covered in blood and bruises.
"yeah," was all he could say, he was still stunned that the robin arellano wanted anything to do with him, let alone talk to him.
"finney? im ready for you," it was mrs. shurley speaking from the back room, where she kept all the equipment. finney and robin both got up, robin heading to the exit door,
"i gotta go, see ya in math finney,"
"o-oh yeah, see ya," finn didnt even know robin was aware they were in the same math class, he wondered if he knew that finney spent 85% of that class just staring at him. he hoped he didnt.
he left the nurses office 30 minutes later, with a black eye, bruised cheek, sprained ankle and an ice pack. he walked through the halls heading to his locker to retrieve his backpack.
after gathering his things, he decided to head to math class even though he was 10 minutes early. he knocked on the door and walked inside, only to find him in there with the teacher.
"oh finney hi, take a seat, im almost done with robin," how many times am i gonna run into him today? he nodded and quickly made his way to his usual seat, all the way at the back to the left, with no one next to him.
he opened his bag and pulled out his copy of carrie by stephen king, he wasn't much of a horror fan but he had seen robin reading that book a couple weeks back so he picked it up from the library in hopes of having an opportunity to talk to robin.
"you like stephen king?" finney looked up, it was robin
"huh? o-oh this is the first one i've read,"
"he's good," finney nodded in response and went back to reading, to be completely honest he was kind of liking the book so far, even though he never really enjoyed horror.
"can i sit?" he looked at robin again to see him pulling out the chair next to him,
"oh yeah sure," he looked away and pulled the book closer to his face, in an attempt to hide his blush. hopefully he thinks i just feel hot or something.
"hey uh you're good at math, right?"
"i guess, why?"
"well um, i'm kinda failing this class and i was wondering if you could, you know, help me out a bit?" ah, so thats why hes talking to me
"oh, i mean, maybe,"
"please?" finney sighed and looked away
"fine,"
"thank you!" robin smiled and gave him a small side hug.
robin's pov
"thank you!" robin smiled and gave finn a small side hug. after he pulled away he noticed the boy blushing and smirked a little he's kinda cute. he then reached into his backpack and pulled out his sketchbook and pencil, opening on a blank page and starring at it thinking of what to draw. he then looked at finney and smiled,
"can i draw you?"
"what?"
"just keep reading, i wanna draw you,"
"oh, alright," he turned back to his book, his face looking bright red. robin smiled and started sketching him, it wasn't his best work but it'll do.
"you're done already?" robin nodded and looked back at the drawing, finishing up the last details
"can i see?"
"oh..sure," he didn't know why but he wasn't expecting him to say that, dumbass you literally drew him of course he wants to see it
"here," he handed finney the sketchbook and for a while, he just stared at it, a light blush on his cheeks
"this is really good," he said handing the sketchbook back
"thanks," robin smiled at him and extended his hand
"so, friends?"
"friends," finney shook his hand and they smiled at eachother
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1752 words😨
anyways hope yall liked this!! bc i did🧍🏻
