The Rule Of Hearsay (And Its Exceptions) - A Kellic Fanfic

Chapter One

AN: You may have seen this story posted before. I took it down and replaced Mike with Tony as the main character. If you've heard the news, you know why I have decided to do this. "If I Ever Leave this Maze Alive" takes precedence over this story, so updates may be slow for a bit. However, I do have the first few chapters or so written and I have many other parts of it written down in my journals as I have been working on this story for about a year now.

You may have also noticed that the old version featuring Mike was showing up when I first published the story. I don't know why it did that, but it should be fixed now. 

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Vic and Kellin's relationship baffled Tony. Nothing about it made any sense to him. Kellin was nearly two years younger than Vic, younger than Tony even though they were in the same grade, and had been known as 'the weird kid' since the day he first showed up at Clairemont High a quarter way through sophomore year. He talked to no one, always kept his head down, and if he wasn't wearing a hat, then the hood of his sweatshirt was pulled down low enough to cover his eyes until a teacher yelled at him to uncover his head.

"He's just shy," Vic explained to him when his older brother brought Kellin home with them after school for the first time to hang out, and Tony pulled Vic aside, asking why he invited the weird kid over.

To be honest, though, Tony wasn't entirely sure why everyone thought of Kellin as the weird kid. Someone else had given him the name, and Tony had never actually talked to him enough to confirm or deny the truth of that statement.

He told himself Vic befriended Kellin because Vic was a good guy, and that's just what he did. He stood up for people and was never a silent by-stander. That was one of the major reasons Tony always looked up to him.

If he was really, truly being honest with himself, though, and looked past the pedestal he'd placed his older brother on, Tony knew Vic was just lonely and looking for a friend like him. The film of admiration he'd wrapped his older brother in wouldn't let Tony see it, but there was always a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that Vic just didn't fit in at their school, not like Tony did, and that the other kids bullied him for it. This same ignorance let him forget most of the time that Vic struggled with perfectionism and could be overly sensitive to others' criticisms at times, and at one point in time turned to self-harm to deal with his problems.

That was not the Vic Tony saw, though. When his parents died in a car crash when he was just 4-years old, the Fuentes family, who were best friends with his parents, took Tony in and adopted him. The day Tony had been welcomed in their home, a very serious 6-yeard-old Vic sat him down and said he was Tony's brother now, that he would always be Tony's brother, and that no matter what Tony did, Vic would always be there for him. Vic promised to always protect him, and in those moments Tony admired him and never stopped. Tony saw the confidence in his older brother. He saw a kind, caring older brother who was a genius at music. He chose to ignore the parts of his brother that didn't fit into this ideal vision Tony had created of him.

He never meant to hurt anyone by doing so, but Tony saw Vic as this awesome, amazing human being, and just assumed everyone else did, too.

In retrospect, after he matured a little and lost some (not all) of the hero worship he held for his brother, Kellin and Vic's relationship made perfect sense. But hindsight is 20-20, and it would take some time for Tony to realize he was being a complete, utter, and absolute jerk.

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Tony complained a lot about Kellin at first. Is he really coming over again? Why does he have to spend so much time here? Why are you two even friends? Vic was in college now, and he assumed that since Kellin was still in high school with Tony the two would drift apart and stop spending so much time together. Instead, they spent more time together, which was nonsensical in his opinion. Even worse, his friends saw Kellin leaving while they were hanging out at his place, and a few of them made fun of him for hanging out with the weird kid.