Always, Yours

1 - Scraped Knees and Get Better Kisses

warnings: childhood bullies, use of a homophobic slur, fluffy fluff

***

Present Day

Tom looked at the very first photograph of you and him, one Nikki took the first day the two of you met. She captioned it 'tom and his new friend!!!'. Three exclamation marks. Before you, Tom didn't make many friends, and that was okay because he was young and a little awkward. So it was reasonable for Nikki to include three exclamation marks because she was ecstatic that Tom was making friends. Even if it wasn't by any usual method.

***

Six Years Old, 2002

You didn't like school, you never have and probably never will. School at the age of 6 was supposed to be fun. You're supposed to have friends or at least one friend. But so far, a month into classes, you have been able to make friends with exactly nobody. Your mom always told you that your stutter made you unique, that even though you go to speech to help fix it, that you'll probably always have it.

But that meant absolutely nothing to you now, at six years old when you've been in school for a month and nobody talked to you for more than a day whenever your stutter would stop you from being able to respond to them quickly.

So you sat at recess, looking through a scrapbook your mom put together, you loved looking at the different polaroids of your moms, you, and your sister, all with little captions at the bottom.

Hayley and Renee at their 'wedding'. You giggled at this photo, both your moms were wearing silly Hawaiian shirts and shoving cake into each other's face. They couldn't get married yet, but in basically every aspect of the word other than legally, they were married. Another was your first trip to Disneyworld when Allison was seven and you were four, two years ago. You were all wearing cheesy Mickey Mouse ears and smiling, lips stained blue from ice pops.

You allowed yourself to get distracted every single day from the chaos that happened all around you because it was easier than trying to find something in common with kids your age.

"Hey, look at Tom," some kid said, catching your attention when you looked up and seeing them mock punching their palm with their other fist.

You closed your scrapbook, watching as two boys walk over to a kid doing some weird dance.

You stood up, and to the present day, you had no idea why you did.

You weren't quick enough to stop them at first, watching the brown-haired boy tumble into the gravel and rocks, wincing in pain as they dig into his skin.

But you wanted to stop them from hurting this poor kid for any longer.

***

Tom probably shouldn't have been practicing his ballet during recess, but he had rehearsal later today, and he didn't think anything of it as he began to settle into his releve as kids around him ran around playing basketball, tag, swinging on the swings.

"Hey! Are you a girl?!" Someone shouted and before Tom could drop into a normal stance, he's being pushed forward, his bare knees slammed against the gravel.

"Yeah, what're you? A-," a boy jeered before being cut off by someone.

"H-h-ey! Bug-g-gar off-f-f!" A small voice shouted.

Tom looked up through the brown curls hanging low in his eyes and saw you. Your small hands were clenched into fists at your sides and your lip was trembling like you were trying to form more words on your lips.

"Ha, y/n, the girl who can't speak, what are you gonna do? Protect the fairy?" The boy sneered and Tom bit his lip as more tears welled in his eyes.