#but now im gonna make myself SICK thinking about these snips

[princessofxianle]

bodyguard behavior...

[chokefriends]

Pit-town Strays, Ch.5

Kidlaw softness and redneck shenanigans in a northern mining town. Everything’s fucked but whatever.

Rated T, no warnings. Ch 5: Law explores his escape routes but knows he isn’t going anywhere.

Ch. 1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - [Ch. 5]

Read on Ao3 too, I’m Ossicle

Law was still staring at the same channel when Bellamy and Dellinger returned an hour later. Law heard them rumble up, and muted the sound to signal the all-clear.

“Fish tacos for Bellamy, gross curry for Law,” Dellinger unpacked their takeout onto the coffee table and dug into his own.

“Thanks,” Law muttered, but didn't get up from the armchair.

“Uh,” Bellamy pointed furtively to Law's arm. The wrist was purpling.

“Shit…” Law pulled his sleeve down over it and hooked his thumb through a hole in the hem. “Whatever. Whacked it on a thing.”

Bellamy stayed standing for a minute, scuffing a toe into the carpet. “Dad’s been worried a lot, is all,” he tried eventually.

“Yeah I know,” Law answered in the same tone.

“Y’know, cuz of this one,” Bellamy jabbed his thumb at the smallest of the three and shook his head.

“...”

The blunt face creased irritably at Law's silence, and Bellamy gave up. He sat down with a grunt to tear into his own takeout box.

“Dellinger,” he grouched at the only other target in the room, “Stop tryna reconstruct the squid, just eat it. God, can you not be such a psychopath? You're making everyone upset—”

“Bellamy.” Law cut him off with a warning look. “He's right here, don't say that.”

Dellinger seemed unperturbed, but very little ever seemed to bother him. “Actually, ‘psychopath’ is not even a thing anymore? And I don't fit the criteria according to this online test I took.”

“Psycho,” Bellamy accused.

“Not!”

Law rose with a sigh and went to sit between them on the couch. “What’d you get, Del.”

“Tentacles,” Dellinger showed him his seafood, with all the squid pieces collected in a little squidlike arrangement.

“Huh. Looks better than the frog leg thing, I guess.”

“That was just an experiment. I wasn't gonna eat it,” Dellinger rolled his eyes. “I saw online that the legs move by themselves if you put em in a saltwater solution. I just wanted to try.”

“That's pretty cool,” Law reassured him.

Bellamy scoffed. “That he's killing off all the pondlife around here? Yeah it's great.”

“I’m not even killing em, just snipping off their extra legs! Most of the frogs here have like three legs and four eyes anyway. Or more, closer you get to the Pit. It's the runoff.”

“Huh… Wonder if it'll start morphing humans too,” Law mused.

“Prolly just gives humans cancer.” Dellinger gave it some thought. “You think human legs could move by themselves?”

“Only one way to find out,” Law joked.

Bellamy gave a sudden snort of disgust, picked up his dinner, and disappeared off to his room. The door thunked shut and Nickelback started blaring through it.

Law ignored all this, but Dellinger looked at the closed door in confusion, then went back to stirring his food and fidgeting. They ate in silence for a while.

“I don't wanna make people upset,” the skinny kid spoke up eventually.

Law nodded, still chewing, but didn't respond right away.

Dellinger speared a tentacle and frowned at it. “I don't think it hurts them for real. And it's not like Dad or anyone even cares about frogs. Bellamy thinks it's funny to run them over…”

“I think they're worried about how it'll look to other people,” Law explained.

“Other people are stupid.”

“Yeah,” Law agreed. “Anyway, just stick to animals with extraneous appendages. And don't take any more experiments to school.”

“It’s not like I'm gonna take the legs off people's pets or whatever. Geez. It's just frogs…” Dellinger sighed and got up to go to bed as well. His room was way upstairs on the second floor, where Bellamy and Law used to sleep when they were younger.

“Take your plate,” Law reminded him automatically.

“Why does everybody always tell me what do do… I hate it.” He started to go upstairs.

“Dellinger, take your fucking plate.”

“You take it.”

“You wanna get in trouble with Dad?” Law warned him, “You're not a baby anymore, just clean up your shit.”

“You're supposed to do all that.” Dellinger shot back, hanging off the bannister and pouting.

“I'm supposed to fucking what now?”

“Well, I'm not the one who gets in trouble when stuff's not clean. You're here to take care of us, or you have to go back to the reservation, right?”

Law's eyebrows flew up in disbelief, and then creased in anger. “I'm not fucking ‘on loan’ from wherever; I'm your fucking brother!”

Bellamy shouted from behind his closed door, “Dellinger! Take your plate upstairs or I swear to god your psycho ass is getting shipped to foster care!!”

Dellinger stomped his way upstairs instead, leaving his dinner behind.

Law snorted and sat back with arms crossed. He was going to storm off to his own room too, but he kept looking back at the leftover tentacles sticking up obscenely from the styrofoam container. He made a noise of muffled rage and threw the entire thing in the trash. There. Jesus... Now at least he wouldn't get any bruises that he hadn't fucking earned himself.

His phone buzzed.

Kidd: Where the fuk r the bandaids, u let nami use em all?

Law stared at the screen for a moment, head starting to pound, then fired back:

You: I don't fyckig know where the band-aids are im not your fucking housekeeper and I don't got any control over your shitass kid for CHRIDT SAKE

The phone buzzed again but Law flicked the notification away.

He brought up Baby's number instead and escaped outside into the darkness and silence. She didn't pick up at first and he had to call back a few times, as usual. By the time she picked up, he'd gotten himself hidden away in the passenger side of the Volvo with the seat leaned all the way back.

Baby sounded cogent but irritable. “Geez, you got Buff thinking I got another man,” she complained.

“‘Buff’ is a stupid name.” Law massaged the bridge of his nose.

“Not as stupid as ‘Buffalo,’” she sighed.

“Jesus, his parents actually named him that?”

“Yeah, they hippies.”

Law snorted. “Native hippies?”

“It's a thing.”

Law licked his lips and tried to think of what to say next, but his throat felt tight.

Baby prompted him, “Well, what up, big brother. You want a ride somewhere?”

“That's not the only reason I ever call you.”

“Haha… little bit.”

Law swallowed a surge of guilt. “Sorry. I’ve been kinda stretched thin these days—”

“Yeah I know. Big man, you. Important stuff to do.”

“I wanna see you more, though. You ever think about that thing we were talking about before? Getting mom and dad's old place back? Where we all lived before they got sick…”

Baby took a moment to answer. “Heh… I see it sometimes, when I'm driving around here.”

Law smiled. “Yeah? So how's rez life treating ya.”

“It's chill. I dunno, small. It's weird sometimes, even jus trying to like, hang with people. You know? They think I'm after something, I guess…”

“Probably just takes time.” Law reassured her. “Probably once we're both living there again and people get used to us—”

She interrupted, “Law, you don't actually think you'll end up here, right?”

“Why not?”

Baby always did that little huff thing when she had something to say. She did it twice and then put on her stern voice. “Like, what would you even do on the rez. There's no sushi, no fancy little coffee shops, and the first time you get too smart you'll get your perfect teeth all knocked down.”

“‘Knocked out,’” he corrected under his breath. “And what, you think I can't handle myself?”

“You don't wanna be here, is what I'm saying. You're too used to that whole life.”

“What whole life.”

“You know what I mean,” Baby sniffed. “Suburbia. Sunday brunch. Sunscreen…”

“That stuff’s not…! I’m not… You think I wanted to get adopted white??” Law challenged.

“Least you got adopted.”

Law had had enough. “Well, it's been a super load off my chest talking to ya, baby sister.”

“Don't get sarcastic with me,” she snapped.

“Give Buffy my bestest,” he continued.

“It’s ‘Buffalo.’”

He scoffed. “Sure. Also, he's our first cousin on mom's side.”

“He's wh—?!!”

Law hung up with a petty little burst of triumph. The feeling didn't last long, though.

“Shit…”  

He sat there kicking at the glove box and letting his anger ebb away into shame. There was a black marker in the center console, and he took up his little dot-decorations again, this time on the sleeve of his hoodie. He circled and filled in wandering patches until his foggy head had cleared and he could look at his phone again.

I do wanna see you more, he texted to Baby, who didn't reply.

Law sighed and moved on to the results of the outburst just before that one. He clicked back into the convo with Kidd, expecting harsh words.

That bad eh, Kidd had replied simply to Law's rant.

Law snorted. He tapped the phone icon and waited.

“G’day,” came the wry answer.

“The fuck you need band-aids for now?” Law questioned him.

Kidd put on a tragic tone. “I got a boo-boo, man. I need that animal sticker magic.”

“Oh? What'd you do.”

“Punched a goose.”

Law laughed out loud, unexpectedly. “You fucking did not,” he put his feet up on the dash and tried not to sound like he was smiling.

“Yeah… well, it was beating up on this one poor dog chained up in a yard. Only dog on a leash in the whole place, seriously.”

“Your yard has a dog post in it too, right? Where'd that one go?” Law remembered the lonely post with the deep path tread around it.

“Oh… yeah, dad took her with him when he left last year—this German shepherd he got us as a present because he was always gone. She was supposed to keep us out of trouble, I guess, but she kept taking off and like, trying to herd coyotes or whatever, haha… He eventually chained her up in the yard and she just wore that circle into the ground every day.”

“That's so shitty,” Law shook his head.

“Yeah. I hope he took her somewhere she can run… anyway, whatever.” Kidd coughed, seeming to not wanna talk about it further.

“Yeah. Uh… So you defeated the goose, eh.”

“Hah! Not even—I had to get back on the bike and run for it! At least I drew it away from the dog.”

Law let himself laugh. “Yeah, aw, you saved it!”

Kidd laughed too. “I should've just let it off the leash. It probably would've fucked that goose up itself.”

“Well, I'll bring you animal band-aids next time I come.”

“Thanks. Uh.” Kidd paused. “So you're gonna come back?”

Law's lightened mood abruptly darkened again. He examined the purple patterns trailing from sleeve to skin—vivid and unbearably obvious. “Yeah, uh. Maybe not tomorrow, though...”

“No?”

“I got school stuff.”

“Oh, yeah. Day after?”

“Maybe the day after that…” Law evaded. He tried coloring in the dark blotches with marker, casting around for a topic to get away from this one. But Kidd seemed to read his silence anyway.

“Hey uh. You know you can just stay here? Whenever? However long,” Kidd offered.

“Uh.”

“And I don't mean as like, a live-in nanny thing either. You don't have to do anything. I don't think of you as a housekeeper.”

Law wanted to cringe away under the seat. “Nono, I don't actually think you think that! I was just lashing out about other stuff.”

“All the cleaning is kinda weird, tee-bee-aych.”

“I know. It's compulsive.”

“But you could just… stay,” Kidd emphasized again, like all this was simple.

Law stared off into the darkness beyond the windshield. He could imagine what it'd be like, sleeping with his head on a strong shoulder, breathing warmth, in a tiny house like a shoebox-nest full of other scuffed-up odds and ends. It sounded worlds better than fucking sunday brunch and sportscars…

“I don't think I can right now.”

“No, eh.”

“Anyway, I gotta get to sleep,” Law mumbled apologetically. “School tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Kidd switched back to whatever-mode.

“I'll text you, eh? When I'm thinking of coming over.”

“Yeah, sounds good, you got my number.”

“Yeah.”

Law hung up and sat there, chewing his lip and breathing the stuffy air of the Volvo. He could just drive to Kidd's right now. Just go. But then what, wear gloves? Invent some goose story of his own? No… he couldn't leave like this, at least not yet.

But he couldn't make himself go out of the car and back to the house either.

He let his mind wander through its worries and his hands perform their restless tasks, until his phone died and the marker ran out. Then he curled up in the passenger seat to sleep.