disclaimer: the chocolate war is not mine.
He knows he isn't special.
His report card in seventh grade had 'unremarkable' in the comments, as though he really needed to know. He's always been told that he was a good kid, a good boy, he'd get into a good school and having a good wife and a good family.
But he'd never be special. He'd never be the one who stood up, who changed things, whose name was remembered. Hell, he bet that half of Trinity never even knew his name. Or, at least, not his real one.
And the thing was, Jerry Renault had made the unremarkable boy known as The Goober feel special.
It was almost as though knowing Jerry himself had somehow let The Goober in on the world of the hero, the world of the boy whose name will be remembered in the end. In Jerry's world, he was always being watched,
Jerry always said it hurt, that he'd done a bad thing The Goober had always thought that he couldn't understand that, because how would being really, truly noticed hurt?
And now he understands.
Because Jerry is lying in his arms, blood trickling through his hair and large bruises covering every patch of exposed skin, and all The Goober can do is cradle him and tell him that it's all going to be alright, that he's going to live, that Janza's beatings aren't fatal.
Because even Emile Janza isn't a killer. They're good Catholic school boys, not killers. They're too young to be killers.
A voice in the back of his mind tells him that that's wrong, that anyone can be a killer. Archie Costello and his dumb, voiceless stooge Obie, who spend their nights planning together how to next assign a poor student to their deaths.
The Goober has always found it stupid to just make them out as purely evil, but seeing anything that isn't evil in them right now has proven to be a hard task. Jerry mewls softly, and he suddenly feels a rush of guilt.
He saw Jerry as a hero. He wanted Jerry to keep on going, because it made him feel like he was a hero. He'd forgotten about his best friend who he'd tease about being slow when in reality, Jerry could run faster than he could if he tried. He'd just done what everybody else did. He'd forgotten that people, killers, and heroes were really all the same when it came down to it.
Panic rose in The Goober's throat. He was a fuck-up. He didn't have any chance at being a good kid, living a good life, growing up and having good kids and a good wife and a good job anymore.
Because he'd killed his best friend. Brother Eugene, too. Probably. He'd followed the rules, just the way everyone had said to, and it had destroyed him. The Goober bites his lip until it bleeds, because somehow he can't stand the idea of both of them being broken by Archie Costello. Somebody has to stay together.
"I'm sorry, I really am," is all he can manage. He runs a hand through Jerry's hair, feeling his forehead. When he brings his hand away, there's blood on his fingers. Jerry's eyes are closed, probably squeezed shut to keep out searing pain. He lets out a small whine again, and The Goober can't do much other than gently rock him back and forth and stroke his hair and tell him that it's really, really going to be alright.
If anybody's going to come help, then they'd better come fucking soon, he thinks.
He thinks that he saw Obie call somebody to help, which is ironic, really, because Obie is Archie's stooge, Archie's other half that seems to be the one thing he actually needs. Everyone else is expendable. So it must be that Archie wanted for a paramedic, because otherwise Obie wouldn't do it.
The Goober looks down at Jerry again, and then the tears come. They're not violent sobs like he'd imagined, but somehow quieter. They're the tears of somebody who's afraid to be too loud. Someone who's afraid to speak up.
The paramedics do come, in a whirl of flashing lights and yelling. It doesn't surprise him that nobody questions him about it and Jerry is lifted out of his lap before he can even say anything. There's a large red stain on his pants and he feels unclean and wretched, but it doesn't really matter because Jerry might not be dead. Hurt but not dead.
And then he remembers that he didn't do anything. He did just as his father would have wanted him to. He did just as Archie Costello would have wanted him to.
And The Goober turns back to look at the ambulance, and then The Goober runs. Because he's a coward, and seeing Jerry lying down hooked up to a bunch of machines won't help much.
His father had always said that the fourteen-year-old heart can't really break. Most fourteen-year-old hearts have never been seen their friends bleed to death in their arms.
i don't really know where this came from i thought about this pairing and then i just...did the thing