Based on an idea and a set of headcanons concocted with shanlightyear.
Carswell Thorne was a businessman, first and foremost. He could schmooze, he could scheme, and he could and would do anything he needed to do to further his entrepreneurial success. But that didn't mean he liked all of it. There were certain duties he performed in the name of extra univs-like sneaking past Mrs. Chen's Doberman to get at her lemon trees or pelting down the alley behind the pawnshop when it was a little dark outside for his nine year-old sensibilities-that he really would've preferred to leave undone
Tree-climbing was one of them.
Carswell let out a sigh as he stared up into the canopy of the orange tree whose base he stood at it. It towered a good fifteen feet above him at its apex and practically groaned with the weight of the ripe fruit tucked amongst its leaves. The ripe fruit that seemed to be nowhere but in the uppermost branches. If he was careful—and lucky—he could probably come away with twenty oranges before the tree's owners spotted him. He cast a glance down the lawn at the house. The Santos family wasn't always home in the afternoons…Maybe twenty-five.
He notched one tennis shoe onto a low branch and hauled himself up the trunk by clinging to another with both hands. He'd gotten fairly good at this over summer break. It was a decent racket, given the sheer number of fruit trees, the utter lack of supervision—either from his parents or the neighbors whose fruit he was absconding with—and the level of gullibility his neighbors demonstrated when approached by a charming nine year old entrepreneur. He'd accumulated thirty univs so far—almost enough to purchase the 214 Rampion model he'd been eyeing at the hobby shop for the last few months—and he expected to have the rest by the end of the week.
It didn't take long to fill the bag he'd slung over his shoulders with fruit, but there were still plenty of tempting marks peeping at him from the higher branches. Carswell frowned. The higher he went, the thinner and more delicate the branches became. He glanced down at the concrete sidewalk below, biting his lip at the distance. He wasn't overly large for his age, but he wasn't completely sure that the slender branches would take his weight. And yet…at three oranges a univs, he could have all the funds he needed if he could take those last few.
It was a gamble he was willing to take.
He slipped the bag off over his head and carefully let it drop to the ground below to cut the extra weight before swinging up into the higher branches. Gingerly, he moved from one to the next, plucking as many oranges as he could reach and stuffing them down the neck of his button-down until only one remained just out of his reach. A breeze swept through the canopy, rustling the leaves and swaying the branch on which he stood. Carswell glanced down and promptly clutched the branch he was clinging to that much tighter. His stomach churned uneasily at the dizzying gap between his shoes and the ground far, far below. He hadn't realized just how high up he was…He scrunched his eyes closed and squared his shoulders before he opened them again. Scared or not, there was no point in giving up when he was this close. He had a Rampion to buy, after all. He tightened his grip and took a single, cautious step forward, his other arm stretching out to claim the final orange.
Snap!
Carswell flinched at the audible crack, then suddenly the world was falling away beneath him. He let out a high-pitched yell as he plummeted, leaves and branches and bark flying past him in a blur of color. Twigs lashed at him, stinging his bare face and arms as he twisted in mid-air and flailed for a handhold to slow his fall. The ground rushed up to meet him all too quickly and suddenly he was slamming into the sidewalk like a downed spaceship plowing into the soil.
For a moment, he just laid there, panting and staring up at the branches above as they waved tauntingly in the wind. He wiggled his toes experimentally, relieved to find that they still worked even if the rest of his body ached as if he'd been mowed down by an oncoming freight hover. Tiny stars danced across his vision with every shift of his gaze. He waited until they cleared before attempting to sit up, but the attempt cut off with a cry of pain before he'd even cleared the sidewalk. Sharp pain stabbed through his right arm, pulsing from his wrist all the way up into his shoulder with even the barest of movements. Carswell tried again, more slowly this time. Somehow, the pain seemed even worse. He whimpered and went limp on the concrete. He craned his head to get a look at the offending limb and frowned. It didn't look broken...He was no expert, but he had seen Dylan Simmons fall off the swings at school and come up with an arm bent at a truly horrible angle that their teacher had immediately deemed broken. Perhaps this was only a sprain. He knew even less about sprains than he did about breaks, but they sounded less serious and the less serious the injury, the more likely it was that he could get away without telling his parents about it.
Of course, whether he told his parents or not was irrelevant if he never managed to pick himself up off the sidewalk.
He had to at some point or a member of the Santos family was sure to spot him sprawled beneath their orange tree and rat him out. Carswell scowled to himself. Young Daven Santos quite enjoyed doing that when he got the chance. Well, he wouldn't get the chance today. Carswell tensed, steeling himself for what he knew was coming, and rolled to his feet as quickly as he could. As expected, the ache in his arm flared, prying a soft cry from his throat no matter how stealthy he was trying to be. But at least he was on his feet.
He clutched his arm to his chest with his uninjured limb and started hobbling toward home. If he hurried, he could make it home before Janette returned from her grocery run, but after his parents left for the charity event they were committed to for that evening. He glanced briefly at his pack full of oranges, but decided they weren't worth the effort. Every step jarred his wounded arm, sending a hot spark of pain up into his shoulder. That was going to be hard enough to make it back, even without juggling a bag of stolen oranges. Carswell's heart sank at the thought of home. And of his parents. Getting home wouldn't be fun, but compared to figuring out what to do when he got there...it would be the easy part.