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howrry · 5 years

Text

when you need me

a/n: here’s that slowburn i mentioned. there WILL be a part 2 so don’t hound me on it!!!! i promise she’s coming!! enjoy :~)

w/c: 5.1k

warnings: sfw! brief mentions of violence

***

Harry and Y/N were friends for exactly one summer.

Y/N and her family moved in next door to Harry when she was seven, and her parents were delighted to find out that the boy was the same age as their daughter. Sure, at the time of the move, Y/N wasn’t intensely attached to any of her old friends or her old home or her old school, but it was good to have someone to ease her into the new life.

The two clicked immediately. They played every day that summer, either swimming or playing cops and robbers or drawing on sidewalks with chalk. They rode bikes around the neighborhood, and shot basketballs in the hoop that belonged to the teenager down the street, and explored the small forest behind their home for squirrels. He taught her cool card tricks and she taught him how to make perfect chocolate milk without using an overwhelming amount of chocolate sauce.

It was a match made in heaven—up until a few days before the beginning of classes, the last time they would've openly called the other a "friend". It wasn't that when the summer ended, they'd had some big fight or randomly stopped talking to each other; it just... wouldn't have been logical to remain associated once the school year picked up.

They’d been playing in a sandbox at the local park that day. Sure, they were a little old to be playing in a sandbox, but the only people there were a family occupying their usual spots on the swing set. Harry dug around in the sand forming both holes and piles around him while Y/N drew pictures with a stick.

“Look what I found!” he yelled, holding up a little earwig he’d dug out from the sand. He waved it in her face, to her disgust.

“Gross, Haz.” She backed up and almost stumbled back out of the sandbox.

Harry laughed and tossed it back into the sand, where it burrowed itself. “You’re such a girl sometimes.”

“Because I don’t want you shoving bugs in my face?”

“Tommy and James like bugs. They think they’re cool.” His gaze dropped down to the sand where he began to mimic her drawing.

Y/N paused for a second. “Well I’m not Tommy and James, am I?”

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. “So… you don’t want to be friends with them when we go back to school?”

“Not really. I don’t like bugs. I like…” She scanned around the park. “Flowers. And art!”

He laughed. “I guess we’re just different people at school. What are we gonna do?”

She thought it over but didn’t answer. “It’s getting late. Let’s start walking home.”

The two strolled back to their homes, kicking rocks and not saying much. Once they’d reached their front lawns and the street lights flicked on, she broke the silence.

“Just because we can’t be friends doesn’t mean we can’t say hi.” Such a simple conclusion. “And we’re pretty helpful to each other.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I taught you how to shuffle cards.”

“Exactly. Let’s make an agreement.” Y/N had been watching some Law and Order episodes when her parents weren’t around. They mostly bored her (since she was far too young to understand what was going on) but the legal parts of the show enticed her. “Let’s just be there for each other when we need it.”

“Like when we’re in trouble?” he asked, brows furrowing.

She giggled. “Yeah. But just in general too. If one of us needs help, the other will do what they can.”

Harry nodded, staring past her. “Sounds fair. Shake on it?”

The two shook hands and went inside their homes, with no idea what can of worms they’d just opened. ***

The first time the pact is utilized, it's for a jar of dewberry jelly.

The school year had arrived, and Harry and Y/N had almost no contact other than a brief ‘hello’ whenever the two ran into each other during the day. He hung out with Tommy and James who laughed too loud in class and threw dodgeballs really hard in Phys Ed. She made new friends with girls in art class who put stickers on their binders and gushed about fashion. Their agreement went unused for a very long time—two years to be exact, but it’s not like a child is gonna find themselves in deep trouble at every turn.

Y/N's parents were still in bed asleep one Saturday morning and she really wanted some toast. It was quite an easy breakfast to make for a 9-year-old by herself, up until she went to open the jar. Nothing. Not even a budge. It was almost ridiculous how much she was struggling to open the stupid lid. She even tried going on Google for tricks on how to open a jar: tapping the lid with a knife, running it under hot water, using duct tape, etc. No dice.

The idea of waking up one of her parents for help flashed over her mind, but stirring them before noon after a whole week of hard work just seemed evil. She had no other option but to ask Harry for help.

She grabbed the jar and ran next door, using the knocker to alert them of her presence. Gemma opened the door, one headphone in her ear and the other dangling. She scanned Y/N, and before the younger girl could even open her mouth, Gemma turned around.

"Harry, your friend is here!" she called and drifted back in without inviting her in. Fortunately, he appeared in the doorway before Y/N could realize how awkward the situation felt.

"Oh, hey, what's up?" he asked. Instead of answering his question, Y/N just shoved the jar into his hands.

"Please help me! I just wanted some toast but the jelly doesn't want to get eaten!" she whined, crossing her arms in a huff.

He inspected the jar a bit before laughing and popping open the lid with ease. When he handed back the jelly, their fingertips brushed together but he pretended not to notice. "Enjoy your toast."

"Thank you!" And she went off with her opened jar, skipping back to her house.

***

The second time, he needs her.

It's been two or three years since the jar fiasco, and Y/N had started to get an inkling that she wouldn't be seeing much of Harry anymore. If he could go so long without needing her or even acknowledging her in the hall, maybe that was the end of the two of them. The long amount of time without H had somewhat given her closure anyways.

Her mother had already gone to bed and she should have as well, but late-night reruns of Full House were so much more appealing than sleep. Y/N could feel her eyelids get heavier and heavier and she almost drifted off right there on the couch before there was a tap on the living room window looking out into her backyard.

She nearly jumped out of her skin, but when her eyes adjusted and she realized it was just Harry, her shoulders relaxed. As quietly as she could, she opened the back door and guided him inside, holding a finger to her lips so that he’d remain silent. Y/N took him to the dining room, an area far from her parents’ room so that they could talk freely.

“What’s wrong?” she finally asked, eyeing the backpack draped over his shoulder.

“Mrs. Williams is gonna fail me if I don’t get this project done,” he breathed, setting the bag on the table. “It’s a collage piece, and I’ve tried to do it m’self three times now and I ruin it every time. You’re an art genius, can y’help me?”

She smiled at being called an art genius. Sure, Mrs. Williams gave her an A on every piece and she even won an award at the local art competition for her stop-motion movie on a butterfly hatching, but she wasn’t Van Gogh. Still the compliment rang in her ears and the pact itched at the back of her mind. “Of course.”

It was a simple assignment, using magazine clippings to make a collage about anything they wanted, and Harry picked football. He pulled out several magazines, most of which had been cut out of already (presumably for his first three attempts) but there was still enough left to make a coherent project.

As Y/N got to work, he stared at her. “You’re not using enough glue,” he noted as she arranged David Beckham in the center of the cardstock.

“Who’s the art expert, again?” she snapped. The cutout stuck perfectly and he hummed in deflation. “I see why your first three projects didn’t work,” she joked, making a little smile appear on his lips.

As Y/N finished up the cutting, the two of them could no longer contain their yawns and Harry began rubbing at his eyes with his fists. "Do you ever think that we shouldn't be this tired, at this age?" she asked, breaking the heavy silence lingering over the dining room.

Harry unceremoniously dropped his chin into his palms, watching her work. "I think we'll be thinking that for the rest of our lives."

***

Y/N hated being late.

First there was the issue of wasting other people’s time, then there was the whole show about feeling awkward when you did arrive. This was all her history teacher’s fault—he was so freakin’ deaf he didn’t hear the warning bell and griped at the students who tried to pack their bags or leave. Once he’d realized what time it was he griped even more about how nobody told him it was time to go (they did; he just didn’t hear).

So, she somehow had to make a five minute journey across her campus in negative two minutes. Easy peasy. Y/N had no other option but to book it, until she unfortunately ran smack into Cara, one of the mean girls in her year.

“Watch where you’re going, spaz!” she whined, even though Y/N was the one who crashed onto the floor. Two other girls stood behind her, one of whom was named Lacey and the other was just some bitch who copied Cara to get ahead.

At the beginning of eighth grade, the secretary at the front desk of the school chose a few students each class period to help her with filing and giving notes to teachers and so on. Cara was one of the students chosen which virtually gave her the free pass to wander around whenever she wanted. Her friends, not so much, but if Cara told you to do something, you did it, even if it meant skipping class.

Y/N scrambled back up without apologizing, adjusting her bag and planning on walking away and ignoring her. Unfortunately, Cara stopped her by stiff arming her. “What’s the rush?” she hissed, a malicious smile curling up. Her eyes fell down to the ground. “Nice shoes. Do they come in women’s sizes?”

Okay, she was just trying to psych Y/N out. They were plain black Doc Martens, for crying out loud—it’s not like she was in steel toed work boots. “Are you done?” Y/N asked, unamused.

The grin on Cara’s face dropped and was replaced by a grimace fit for a cartoon villain. “Now listen—” she started, ready to chew the other girl out, but was interrupted by someone behind Y/N.

“Fuck off, Cara, or I’m telling the headmistress that your clown posse is skipping class thanks to you.” It was Harry, of all people. (Why he wasn’t in class either was a whole new can of worms, but Y/N chose to be grateful.)

She huffed out of her nose, realizing she was backed into a corner. Cara shoved past Y/N and slammed her shoulder into her, her goon squad following behind hot on her coattails.

Y/N breathed out a very appreciative thank you to Harry, and when he nodded at her, she went back on her way to her class, now with negative 4 minutes.

***

Y/N’s first mixer party was a night to remember, to say the least.

It took ages to convince her parents to let her go, but in her defense, both her mom and her dad were going to parties at 15. Plus, that was in the age of serial killers and before cell phones, so she definitely had the upper hand in that argument. Besides, it’s one party, what’s the worst that could happen?

Someone in her geometry class had invited her, and the same day she went to get a new flowy top from H&M to wear there. One of her art friends, Jenna, had already gotten her license and drove the two of them to the party where things were already in full swing once she’d entered.

It was a very mild kick back. It was a lower attendance than she’d anticipated, but the main point of reference she had were those crappy teen movies. The only thing people had to drink were those Smirnoff Ices that have almost no alcohol and a ton of sugar in them, which totally repulsed Y/N. Guess it’d be a sober evening for her.

After a few hours of chatting with people (that she would just talk to in school anyways) and listening to music, Y/N was about ready to call it a night. She excused herself from the host’s living room in search of Jenna when she felt someone tug at her arm.

It was Tyler, one of the centers on the school basketball team. “Y/N, hey! What’s up?”

She was totally caught off guard. Tyler was reallygood looking and didn’t usually spend his time around the art students. “Oh, um, hey. I was actually about to—” she started, eyes drifting to where he was holding her elbow still.

“Leave?” he finished, flashing a pearly white smile. “No way, it’s so early! Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”

A pit formed in Y/N’s stomach. What could Tyler want with her? Her eyes narrowed, but she figured she’d probably regret leaving more than finding out what he wanted. “Sure, what’s up?”

“In private, I meant.” He gestured towards the back porch, which eased her mind. If he was just trying to get handsy with her, he’d take her to a bedroom—not outside by the pools where everyone could see.

“Okay,” she finally agreed, letting him guide her outside into the yard.

The backyard was large and well taken care of. The pool had lights that changed colors, and all of the furniture matched the mahogany color of the deck, fence, and pool shed. A black grill looked like it had never been touched and the grass was a beautiful shade of bottle green.

“Are you having a good time?” he asked, breaking the ice and shoving his tanned hands into his pockets.

“Kind of. Not many of my friends are big partiers so this scene is pretty new for me,” she admitted, eyes dropping down to her shoes.

“That’s why I was surprised when I heard you were coming.” His hand came out from his pocket and lifted her chin up so that they were making eye contact. “I figured it was my only chance to tell you how pretty I think you are.”

Y/N was, how you say, shook. Her eyes widened and she squeaked out a “really?” before being alerted by a noise coming from the pool shed just a few feet away. “Did someone just laugh?” she asked, head snapping over to the shed in question.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Tyler claimed, trying to get her attention away from the shed to no avail.

“No, I swear I heard a laugh,” Y/N absentmindedly insisted, leaving Tyler to go yank open the doors of the shed.

What happened next was in light speed. The doors flew open to reveal Cara and Lacey, the former holding a 5-gallon bucket and the latter a cell phone as if she was filming. Before Y/N could even get a dazed ‘what?’ out, Cara had dumped the contents of the bucket onto Y/N. Ice water.

She let out a shriek at this, frozen in every sense of the term. When she could feel her feet beneath her again, she spun around to see Tyler laughing his ass off along with the girls.

“I almost couldn’t do it!” he yelled, clutching his stomach.

“Thanks, Ty,” Cara purred, going to loop an arm through his. “You earned that $20 fair and square.”

Y/N didn’t stick around for any longer. She didn’t want to go back in the house in the state she was in, and everyone had probably seen what happened anyways. Rather than face even more humiliation, she did the only thing that came to mind: run.

Y/N could text Jenna later. She ran and ran and ran until she was home, but rather than go inside and cry her eyes out in bed, she found herself at the base of the oak tree next to Harry’s window.

She frantically shimmied up the tree, pausing only to wipe tears out of her eyes. Her knuckles collided with his window and for a moment she wonders if it was too loud. Then the thought of Harry not hearing the knock at all flashed through her mind, and she was left wishing she'd hit it even harder.

The room brightened just a little bit, as if he'd turned on a lamp. She perked up at this, leaning forward but keeping her balance in the tree. He pulled aside the dark curtains and opened the window carefully.

"Y/N?" he asked groggily. "What are y'doing? Why are you soaking wet? Y'scared me half to death." She opened her mouth to explain but her eyes just welled up and she felt her face turn pink. "Wait, are you crying? Get inside." He lifted the window even higher so that she could tumble in gracelessly. Without asking any more questions, he pulled her into a big hug, where she sobbed quietly into the crook of his neck. It took a moment to get the sad out of her, but once she was ready to let go, his hug lingered for a half-second too long.

So there she sat, on his bedroom floor, covered in cold water and trying not to shed any more tears then she already had. Harry handed her a fluffy towel and she wiped her face off before starting to babble. "I'm sorry it's late, and you were probably sleeping, but it's been a really - hic - long and rough night and I just needed someone. I know I needed you last and it's not my turn but I didn't know who else to go to—"

"Wait wait wait, what did you say? Your turn?" he asked, holding a hand up and completely halting her babbling.

She nodded, wiping at the mascara running under her eyes. "I mean... yeah. The past eight years we've switched off who gets the next favor. You helped me last time when Cara and those other girls were picking on me, and now here I am again."

His eyebrows were knitted together in sheer confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said slowly. "It's never been on a turn system. Whenever you come to me in a time of need, or vice versa, we help each other." Y/N nodded, feeling dumb. "Besides, you didn't cometo me that time. I was just in the right place at the right time. Even if we were doing turns—which we're not—it's still technically yours anyways."

He was trying to make her laugh, and it worked. Her wobbly and blotchy face broke into a cute smile without her even trying, and Harry always found an underrated beauty in a laugh after a good cry.

"Now, do yeh wanna talk about tonight?" he pressed gently, sitting on his bed and offering her a spot next to him. It was hard explaining what happened without crying again, but once his hand started rubbing up and down her back, it was easy to relax and tell her story.

He was disgusted with what he’d heard, of course. “I’m so sorry about that Y/N,” he stammered, unsure of what to say. “You don’t deserve those kinds of people in your life, not now and not ever.”

She smiled and it was totally contagious. “Thanks H.”

“Do y’want me to get you some of Gem’s clothes?” he offered. “Yeh look like a sad puppy, shiverin’ and all.”

Y/N shook her head. “No, I think I’m just gonna go home. I can tell my parents I fell in the pool. Thank you for listening, and everything else. You’re a great friend.”

She returned the towel and left the same way she came in, Harry making sure she safely got to the ground before she ducked into her home. Something felt strange for a few minutes afterwards and Harry couldn’t put a finger on it until he was tucked into bed and drifting out.

That was the first time she’d called him his friend in eight years.

***

Fuck, my laundry!

Three universal words that will have anyone throwing themselves out of their bed late at night to go dig through a washing machine and pray it hasn't been so long that the clothes need to be rewashed.

Y/N was one of these people, on a night where she should probably be out with friends. It was Saturday night, but that meant tomorrow was Sunday and the day after that was Monday and that meant her stupid Calculus homework would be due. Who said that senior year would be a breeze? She wanted to kick their ass.

Fortunately, the clothes were fine, and on the way back to her room she was imagining how she was going to backflip into her bed and knock the hell out for nine hours. Just before she went upstairs, she saw a shadow in the corner of her eye fluttering outside the front door.

Her blood ran cold. Her parents were long asleep at this hour; if this was some intruder, she wouldn't be able to make it over to their room and have them awake quickly enough. Her mind scrambled over dozens of plans and ideas (all of which ended with the intruder totally catching her) before something really surprised her.

A knock at the front door.

Umm... people planning on breaking into your house don't knock. Well, they do, but only at two in the afternoon when they're checking if someone's home, not when it's well after midnight. She tiptoed to the door and peered through the glass to see none other than Harry.

She swung the door open instantly. "Harry? What are you do—?" She stopped when her eyes adjusted and finally was able to see that he was notin good shape.

Harry's hair was mussed up, lacking its usual composure. He wasn’t able to stand up straight without leaning on the column, like he was drunk as hell. One of his eyes had a purple smudge under it and his nose trickled a tiny amount of blood. His arms were covered in scratches and bruises, but the most pressing issue was what seemed to be a paper towel soaked in blood he was holding against the side of his torso.

"Oh my God!" she whisper-yelled, guiding him inside and taking him upstairs to her bathroom. She sat him down on the edge of her tub and dug through her cabinets for a first aid kit.

Y/N didn't ask any questions. She washed her hands, found a clean rag, wet it with warm water, and rubbed a tiny bit of soap on it. Harry was still sitting with the paper towel, which she tossed in the trash can immediately.

"Can you... uh..." Y/N trailed off, gesturing weakly towards his black t-shirt. He nodded, understanding exactly what she meant, and slowly reached up to the back of the neck on his shirt to yank it off his body. He hissed when he was able to lower his arms, and she got straight to work cleaning up his wounds despite his whines.

She'd never been this close to his skin before. That was kind of a weird sentence when she thought about it, but it was true. It was tanned and firm, and a few inches above the cut on his side were the ripples of the serratus muscles. Nice.

Once the cut was cleaned up, it was clear to see that it wasn't bleeding nor had it been very deep in the first place. To be safe, Y/N used an alcohol pad to sanitize the wound once more (which Harry was not a fan of, since he didn't see her pull out the packet nor have time to brace himself) and bandaged it up with a Band-Aid bigger than the palm of her hand.

Harry watched her intently while she tended to him. He noticed how when she focused really hard she always pursed her lips, just like she did when she did his art project. Everything she did to him was delicate, as if getting his ass beaten was enough excitement for one night. Even just her stepping back to admire her handiwork and cocking her head was so... gentle.

"Hmm... you're pretty," he goofily mumbled, making her head snap up. As soon as it was out in the room, he shook his head and ran a hand down his face. "God, sorry about tha'. I think I'm still a little drunk."

"Wow, the first boy who compliments me immediately takes it back and blames it on being drunk. Just my luck, right?" she joked dryly, cleaning the bloody rag and rewetting it with fresh warm water.

He stared at her. "Wait, are yeh serious? The first?"

Y/N paused, staring down at her hands. "I mean... does my dad count?"

Harry laughed at this but only for a second before wincing from the pain. He figured she wasn't counting that skeez who'd tricked her back when she was 15. "Then I take back taking it back. You're beautiful and caring, and I really appreciate you--ah, fuck-- doing this for me."

She'd started dabbing at the dried blood from his still-sensitive nose. "Thank you, Harry. That means a lot." Y/N further inspected his nose, gingerly feeling it and holding the rag below it to prevent any further bleeding. "Doesn't feel like it's broken. Think it's just a little sore. In a day or so you'll be right as rain." Her focus moved up to his black eye, and Harry didn't breathe while she let her thumb ghost over the thin skin. "This doesn't look that deep, either. I'll get something to cool it down, and if it still looks bad, I'll give you some makeup to cover it. Be right back."

She left him alone in the washroom but returned quickly with two little boxes of apple juice. "Why'd y'get two?" he asked, taking them from her.

"So you can drink one. You looked parched." She went back to cleaning the remaining blood from the rag and hanging it to dry on the towel rack. Once the bathroom had been reorganized and Harry had finished his juice box, she sat on the lid of the toilet. "So... if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but... can I ask what happened?" She waved a hand around his entire body.

He snorted. "Honestly, whenever I think about it, I cringe a little. It's so cliché."

"How so?"

Harry inhaled through his bruising nose sharply. "So m'at this party with my mates, right? I didn't know a lot of people there, so I was just trying to mind my business and have a pint or four. I'm sitting in the corner of this house near the front door and I see this girl trying to leave. She's totally wasted, and it kind of looked like she was calling an Uber. I tried t'keep an eye on her 'cause, y'know, world's a dangerous place. Just as she's about to leave, some guy comes up to her. Looks real mad. Demands that she go home with him, which she protests, says her ride is there. They kind of argue while she's going out the door, so I got up to follow 'em." Harry paused to roll his neck side to side, one pop one each side making the only sound in the bathroom. "Out on the porch, he's practically got her in a bear hug. I go into panic mode and start yelling at him.

"I'm yelling at him 'get off her' and 'what's your fuckin' problem' and stuff till I catch his attention. He shoved me, I shoved him back, then it's kind of a blur. Guess he got a couple in on my face before one of his buddies joined in on kicking my arse. I got knocked down and I landed on somethin’ rough which is what cut me up so bad." He gestured towards the bandage on his torso.

"Jeez, Harry," she breathed out, eyes like saucers.

"I know. The girl managed to make it out to her ride while all this was going on. Some other blokes pulled the fighters off me and I didn't know what to do. I grabbed some paper towels from a gas station t’stop the blood and came straight here.” Once he’d finished explaining, his gaze dropped down before adding a soft, “Didn’t know where else t’go.”

She nodded. “I appreciate that. I’m glad you’re okay and I’m glad that girl is as well. The universe will reward you for this for sure.”

He laughed at her ominous remark. “Little weird, but it’s not like I expected normalcy from the art expert.”

Y/N guided Harry back downstairs after giving him a big shirt to change into. “I’ll wash this and give it back as soon as I can, okay?”

He nodded and stopped at the front door. Harry looked down at his little Florence Nightingale, decided to do the one thing he’s wanted to do for almost ten years now, and leaned down to plant a kiss on her lips.

For a second, she was pliable and willing, and he thought she was about to deepen it, but instead she pulled him off. “I need…” she started, dazed. “I need you to forget that just happened.” Then she opened the door, pushed him outside, and closed it in his face.

#harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles one shot #harry styles fan fiction #harry concepts #harry styles masterlist #permanentcross #majorharry #harryforvogue #jawllines #haroldloverboy

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littlemissgeek8 · 6 years

Photo

So, I wasn’t sure if you were asking for a picture, or a fic, or just me rambling for a while in an ask, and well... I got inspired, what can I say? ^^;;; Sorry the art isn’t anything super special, I got focused more on the story and I wanted an illustration but nothing was working. So a simple little picture and about 2500 words of fluff. :3 Hope this is acceptable!

The Man Behind the Masks

AN: This story takes place after the events of The Florence Nightingale Effect part 1

The warm, golden tones of late afternoon had faded into the soft blues of evening outside Tommy Jarvis’s cabin, but light still glowed in one upstairs room. Beside the small television across the room, the Nintendo Entertainment System sat abandoned. There was only so much Mario one could play in a day before growing tired of it. Tommy leaned back against a pile of pillows on his bed, his eyes half-closed, but not yet tired enough to sleep. The soft faint clink of a glass being placed on the bedside table caught his attention, and he blinked a bit, opening his eyes as he did so.

Rousing himself enough to look at the person who had placed the glass there proved more difficult than he expected, and by the time he turned to look, she was no longer standing there. Instead, Deborah Kim was standing near the tables by the door of his room, quietly inspecting the series of latex masks that covered the surface. He expected her to speak or something, but all that came back to him was silence. Maybe she had thought he’d fallen asleep while she was refilling his glass. Softly Tommy cleared his throat, feeling slightly guilty when she jumped as if she expected to be scolded.

“Do you like them?” he asked, his soft voice raspy from his cold. Deborah turned to face him, her hands clasped over her stomach in that way he’d come to realize meant she was trying not to touch something.

“They’re very impressive,” she said, her eyes darting around and not meeting his face. Tommy exhaled softly in a not-quite sigh. It seemed like she still thought she’d done something wrong.

“Thanks.” Tommy put a little extra effort in to make sure his lips formed an actual smile, despite how tired his illness had left him. “I’m glad you like ‘em.”

Deborah glanced back at them over her shoulder. “Did you make them yourself?” He waited until she looked back to shake his head.

“Only customized. I could probably make my own but…” He shrugged. “I don’t know; time, money, effort? It’s just a hobby really. Passes the time.”

“It’s a lot of work for just ‘passing the time,’ isn’t it?” Deborah said over her shoulder. She’d bent down to look at the masks closer, twisting her clasped hands a bit. Tommy took a deep breath. The masks on that table were precious indeed; he’d always been selective about who he let touch them. Still..

“You can touch,” he said softly, feeling his heart beat faster even as the words left his mouth. There was really no reason to be nervous about Deborah touching the masks, but somehow his body hadn’t quite gotten the message from his brain. She won’t hurt anything, he told himself, but still the anxiety clung to his skin and wound its way around his heart.

Deborah looked back at him, then down at her hands, before looking back at his face with an inquisitive tilt to her eyebrows. Tommy nodded, hoping to get across the message that he wasn’t joking about it. He saw her bite her lip before she turned and gingerly reached for one of the masks. It seemed to take a few seconds for her to be able to gather up the courage to touch, but finally her fingers landed on a rounded, grey mask with a faint alien-ness to the face.

Tommy swallowed. “Be gentle with that one, it’s about ten years old.” Deborah froze, the mask held in her hands as if it were made out of blown glass instead of latex. She blinked a few times, clearly doing mental calculations, her brows knitting up in concentration.

“Ten years… You were eleven when you made this?”

“Customized, but yeah something like that. Careful, the latex might be a bit fragile.” His fingers itched to take it back, put it carefully back on its stand, but he didn’t say anything. Besides, he could barely manage getting up to use the toilet at the moment, hanging around the table to do something so fiddly would be far too much strain. Deborah turned the mask over in her hands slowly, examining the care in the painted details.

“I can’t believe you were eleven when you did this,” she murmured.

A small wry smile crossed his face. “Well, this might surprise you, but I wasn’t exactly your typical eleven-year-old.” Deborah looked up with a mock surprised expression.

“Nooo, who could have ever guessed that?” Tommy wrinkled his nose at her sarcasm, but it was a teasing gesture, not a malicious one. She moved to put the mask back on the stand, but Tommy reached out a hand and motioned her to bring it over. Deborah carefully walked over and set the mask in his outstretched hands before standing uncertainly beside him. Truthfully Tommy barely needed to look at the mask, he knew every fold of the rubber like it was part of his own body. His fingers curled around the opening for the wearer’s neck and he felt some of the anxiety ebb.

“Why masks, though?” Deborah asked. “It’s an… unusual hobby, isn’t it?”

Tommy shrugged, staring ahead without really seeing anything. “It was cool?” The small chuckle he gave afterwards seemed to indicate his answer was a joke, but deep down he couldn’t be sure. Thoughts swirled in his head as he turned his gaze to the mask in his hands, not really noticing or caring how long he stared. It was enough of a pause that he caught Deborah shifting her weight out of the corner of his eye, but any further words felt trapped in his throat.

Why did he decide to make masks when he was so young? It was hard to recall. Like a face on the other side of a dirty window—so close, yet entirely unreachable and blurred by years of grime. When he finally moved, it was slowly and laboriously, tugging a sigh from his chest as he did so. Deborah had wandered back over to the table again.

“I didn’t really have a lot of friends as a kid, you know,” he said softly, not looking at her as if out of fear that his words would vanish again if he did. “Well, not really many my age, I guess. I hung around Trish and her friends when they were over, but that wasn’t often.”

Deborah turned to look at him, a touch of worry crossing her face. “I guess that was their loss then. You’re cool, Tommy. I mean, you’re smart and creative and—”

“—weird.” Tommy finished bluntly. He turned his gaze on her for a second before looking away again. “Kids are cruel. They see every abnormality, every weakness, every little social failure. And no, before you ask, nobody beat me up. I think I got into one or two fights when I was little but that wasn’t really the same thing.” He shrugged. “It was just… nothing. Spending lunch and recess and everything all by myself because I got branded weird almost as soon as I started school. Any ‘friends’ I made didn’t stick around long, or only spent time with me if their other friends were busy.”

“And you figured the masks would make you cool.” Deborah had walked back across the room and sat down beside him while he talked. He’d barely seen her move.

“Maybe.” He squeezed his fingers lightly on the opening of the mask, his fingertips gliding along the smooth latex on the inside. “Maybe… I dunno, it felt nice to not have to be me some days. I could come home and well, not have to wear my face for a while.” Reluctantly he set the mask onto the blankets over his knees. A small, tight smile crossed his lips as he glanced over at Deborah. “Guess I’ve always been a bit crazy.”

Deborah shook her head, leaning her weight onto her hands, clasped in her lap. “It’s not crazy at all. A lot of people find that wearing a mask can let them do something they’d otherwise be scared to do. Like…” she trailed off, fishing for an example. “Like robbing a bank!” Almost immediately she grimaced, and Tommy’s face took on a curious yet slightly repulsed expression. “Sorry, bad example. What about Halloween? It’s really scary to knock on a stranger’s door and ask for candy, but it’s less so if you can pretend to be someone else.”

Tommy gave a half-hearted shrug. “Yeah, I guess.” Deborah’s comment about people committing crimes in masks wouldn’t leave his head. It was all he could do to force the image of a white hockey mask out of his head, and still it lurked in his subconscious. He could feel his heart beating faster despite his efforts, this time driven by different fears than before.

Beside him, Deborah kept talking, seemingly unaware of Tommy’s distress. “They actually did some studies a while back about kids and Halloween candy, and the ones with a certain amount of anonymity, like say, a mask, were more likely to take more candy than others. It’s part of de-individuation…”

“Don’t.” Tommy’s voice was low, his hands balled into fists on top of the blanket, his knuckles starkly white as his nails dug into his palms. All at once Deborah realized what was going on, and her voice cut off abruptly. She leaned in, placing a hand on the blanket beside him.

“Tommy? Are you okay?” she asked, the worried tone in her voice sticking a needle of guilt into Tommy’s gut. Deep down he hated worrying her like this, and yet it kept happening. “Was I analyzing you again by accident? I’ll be more careful…”

Tommy shook his head sharply, feeling like the hockey mask in his mind was lurking just out of sight, and he was too tired to fight today. Even worse, the cold he was struggling with left his brain feeling foggy, causing every attempt to draw his mind onto something else to end in failure. Even sitting up felt like too much work all of a sudden, and he collapsed back onto the pillows behind him. Distress aggravated the eternal drizzle of mucus down his throat and sent him into a coughing fit, gasping red-faced for air with his eyes shut tight.

Then, he felt a cool, gentle hand come to rest overtop of his own. As the coughs subsided, he glanced hazily at Deborah next to him, crouched over his bed. “It wasn’t the psych stuff at all, was it?” she asked softly. Tommy shook his head so slightly it was barely noticeable. Her other hand crept underneath his own, and the coolness of her hands was a welcome feeling compared to the elevated heat of his own. Somehow, focusing on her touch made it easier to think.

He stared at Deborah’s face, not daring to speak after coughing like that, but thankfully he didn’t need to. “You’re not Jason,” Deborah said gently. It was hard to know exactly what expression he was making with his thoughts all jumbled again, but it must have been one of surprise because she took notice. “I didn’t read your mind, I just figured that must have been part of it. Tommy, you’re not Jason; you’re not like him and you never will be. You’re you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Slowly his hand closed over hers, squeezing gently as he gathered the strength to talk. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice raspy and soft, each word tickling his raw throat and threatening to send him coughing again. “What if I’m too close?” Deborah stroked the back of his hand with her thumb as she listened. “What if…”

“’He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster.’ Is that what you mean?” Deborah asked. Despite the seriousness of her words, Tommy smiled. He should have counted on her to have some quote or other squirreled away for just such an occasion. If he was less tired and his throat less scratchy, he might have asked more about it, or gently teased her about knowing so many fitting quotes, but not today.

Instead, all he said was, “Bookworm,” the single word softened by the affection in his voice and the tired smile on his face. Deborah, in return, stuck the very tip of her tongue out at him.

“I don’t think you have too much to worry about with that, honestly,” she continued, as if he’d never teased her at all. “You’re at least aware that there’s a risk, and you’re getting help with it. And from everything I’ve heard, you’ve made a lot of progress. It’s probably feeling a lot worse right now because you’re tired from being sick, right?” Tommy nodded. Deborah stood, leaning over as she did so to press a soft kiss to the top of his head. “I’ve probably kept you up too long. You should sleep so you can get better.”

Reluctantly she pulled her hands away from his and picked up the mask off his bed. “I’ll put this back on the stand, okay?” Tommy knew he should tell her to clean it, since it was handled, but that would be too much explanation and honestly he was just too tired. He nodded. Cleaning would have to wait, and hopefully any oils wouldn’t hurt it too badly in the meantime. Once the mask was carefully replaced on the Styrofoam wig stand, Deborah walked over to his bed again and placed a plastic bottle of painkillers on his bedside table.

“You should be ready for another dose in about two hours, so if you’re still hurting or your fever’s still bad, you should take some more. Stay hydrated, okay? And if you need anything you can call me.”

Sleep tugged at Tommy’s eyes but he managed to look up at her. “Sorry it wasn’t a very good date,” he said, his words slightly slurred from weariness.

“Nonsense,” Deborah insisted with a smile. “C’mon, dinner? A… well, video games aren’t movies but it was entertainment at least?” She gestured towards his display of masks. “And a museum? I don’t think anyone could complain about that!” Despite the tickle in his throat, Tommy laughed. It was one way of looking at the evening, that’s for sure.

Tommy reached out for her hand one last time before she left, and she took it with a soft squeeze. “I’ll lock up on my way out; I think I remember where the spare key’s at. Get some rest, okay?” She raised his hand to her lips, pressing a light kiss to the back of his hand before letting go, in lieu of a more “proper” goodbye kiss. Tommy didn’t mind though; he’d rather not pass the germs that plagued him on to her too.

Deborah paused at the doorway to his room to say goodnight, but Tommy was asleep before she even closed the door, a faint smile on his face.

#friday the 13th #f13game #friday the 13th the game #friday the 13th game #tommy jarvis #deborah kim #tomorah lives #Lots of fluff #my writing #my art #gosh i hope this reads okay XD #i wrote most of it while being so gosh darn tired i could barely see or focus #which i guess helps for Tommy's mental state in the story? XD #>.> this story might be a bit based on my headcanon that tommy has undiagnosed autism #but it's only vaugely implied tbh #so it's not that big of a deal

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