Not so Alone

Foolish

Park. Saturday. The four of us. 

It was supposed to be...fun. 

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Autumn certainty beautiful, it signaled the end of a rather irritating summer of heat and displeasure, and of course the soon beginning of a transition into winter where it was nice and cool, and tolerable. Of course, autumn was cozy in its own way, amber leaves, crisp air, and a nice quiet atmosphere that summer and spring never seemed to provide. 

Now of course, Emil would have loved to take a stroll in the park and enjoy the scene around him without worrying about schoolyard bullies and a heartless father, yet he could only stand and wait impatiently for his other...acquaintances to arrive. Adjusting his scarf for the fourth time, Emil sighed at the action, he didn't mind winter clothing, really he didn't. The majority of his wardrobe had been winter clothing anyways in attempt to spite summer and stay nice and cozy. It was just that once Lukas and Mathias had found out their "Little Icey" (of all nicknames) had finally made some friends at school and if he was heading out, he might as well be wearing something to keep him warm. Honestly, the two were more of his parents rather than his elder brother and said brother's childish lover. 

Checking his phone once more in an effort to distract himself from the absolute boredom looming over him, Emil began regretting the decision to not give out his phone number, hell, even agreeing to this. If he didn't see them in about ten minutes then he'd be better off leaving, surely he'd find an excuse for Lukas as to why he returned home so early. 

His patience was already running thin, so the addition to a rather loud, thump, thump, noise simply irritated him further.  Just when he was about to turn around and berate whoever in their damn mind thought it was okay to be this loud of all times, a gloved hand wrapped itself around Emil's eyes and of course he had to be struck on the head. The autumn floor was not exactly the place he had wished to spend his time at. 

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His head throbbed with pain. Any normal person would flee, maybe some courageous ones would fight, and maybe some would even beg. However, the snowy-haired boy simply remained motionless on the ground as he waited. It was as though everything had merely stopped. This was it or perhaps this was another night terror. 

Rough hands began rifling through the pockets of his jacket, picking out what little the teen already owned. Emil was at the very least grateful that he had been able to land on his phone, blocking it from his assailant who probably wasn't too experienced judging by the shaky way his hands moved as they combed through his belongings. At some point however, the thief left, however, not without a lovely parting gift of an agonizing kick to his arms and legs. 

Slowly, he attempted to stand up. His body was sore with faded red marks where he had been hit that soon would become an ugly purple. He had lost all the money given by Lukas for food and emergency as well as the small puffin charm he had made for himself back in his other..."home."  Whatever the loss, he couldn't just stand there. Back then, beatings were normal and of course it's not as though he would be able to escape them here, no matter how much his head just throbbed in pain at the moment, he would simply have to suck it up and keep walking. After all, nobody wants to deal with some kid whose pockets held more worth than him, crying about how much pain he was in. 

Nobody had come to his rescue, nobody had came to be his friend. So the boy went home. 

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The lights flickered on as Emil sighed in relief. Lukas didn't seem to be home, this should give him plenty of time to do something about his injuries. Glancing at his phone one more time, he noticed small streaks of dirt on it as well as an unnoticeable, yet still present crack on the corner of the screen. He'd clean up that later. 

As he attempted to make his way to his room, he was stopped short by a hand on his shoulder. 

"Hej , Icey!" Called that ever so obvious cheery voice. 

"Hi, Mathias." Quickly replied Emil as he struggled to try to leave without having the Dane worry to much. 

"You okay? You came back pretty early and your jacket looks all beat up." 

"I'm fi-" Before he could finish his sentence, Mathias had already turned him around and his face immediately went serious. 

"Emil, you're all beat up. It's been over half an hour since you've left, you don't have to tell me, but are you okay, kiddo?" 

Emil sighed in exasperation, he just wanted to deal with this himself and not drag anyone into this, yet it seems it'll never happen at this rate. "I am, please just leave me alone!" 

"At least let me help you a little here. I got into a lot of fights, ask Lukas about them, he'll tell you I lost a lot of them, but he's lying." 

"I didn't get into a fight, Mathias!" He could feel his temper rising, why couldn't these people leave him alone! 

"Alright. Just avoid trouble the best you can and if you ever need someone to beat someone up, I'll be there!"

"Mathias I'm not a defenseless little kid. don't worry about this." 

"Well, Lukas and I care about you, and family's got to look out for each other."  As his grin wavered and flickered, hints of worry and panic could be seen between that smile. Funny, how little you could know someone and not even have the relation of blood, yet he cared and worried for this boy as much as a parent would. "We probably should do something about your head."

"Yeah. We should."