Author's Note: help i've fallen for this ship and i can't get up.

Disclaimer: The Long Walk is not mine. Not in the least.

Not one person knew Stebbins' first name.

Maybe they liked it better that way. Maybe it was easier for them to decide their feelings about him without knowing his first name. If he was just Stebbins, they wouldn't feel bad about pushing him against a locker or stealing his belongings.

At least that's the theory Stebbins had as he hit the ground with a thud, feeling papers flutter up around him like small, white birds with handwritten wings. This had happened almost immediately as he'd walked out of the library. He'd known that staying late had been a bad idea. They were getting quicker. He didn't even know who pushed him anymore. Rank? Abraham? It didn't matter to him.

He looked from boy to boy, not saying a word, trying to keep his face completely blank. "I'm sorry that you feel that way." With that, Stebbins began picking up his papers, stuffing them back into his binder. The birds' wings are broken and folded now.

Just then, he felt someone pull at his backpack and realized that his copy of Through the Looking Glass was in the hands of the other boy. "Would you please give that back?" He said in the most reserved tone he could manage.

"What the fuck do you think?"

"My best guess would be no."

The boy, who he now noticed was Collie Parker, then began to slowly, almost painfully rip out the first page of the book. There was an audible rip and Stebbins winced. "Might I ask why you're defiling my book?" His voice rose slightly.

"What are you going to fucking do about it?" Parker then grabbed a fistful of the pages and ripped. The noise made Stebbins cringe. This was nothing new, but...it'd never happened like this before. It'd never been the books.

But Stebbins would not beg. Stebbins wouldn't cry. He would watch as Parker tore the volume apart like a hungry animal, and he would act like he didn't care. "Are you quite finished?"

"Nope." Parker ripped out the last chunk of pages and let them fall to the floor. If his homework had been birds, then the book pages were butterflies. Butterflies that had been twisted and defiled beyond belief, but butterflies, nonetheless. "There."

Parker then walked off without a word, leaving Stebbins alone with the pages. The hallway suddenly seemed very dark and very silent. Had everyone left already?

"What happened to you?"

The speaker sounded somewhat condescending, and Stebbins looked up. It was a small, dark boy whose body was shrouded in a black sweatshirt. Barkovitch, he thought. That was his name. He didn't seem to have any friends and yelled a lot.

"Nothing worth talking about." Stebbins picked up a couple of the pages of Through The Looking Glass and stuffed them in a pocket of his backpack.

Barkovitch surveyed the damage. "Damn. What'd you do to piss someone off?"

"I committed the scandalous offense of being born."

Barkovitch snorted. "That's all takes to piss people off sometimes."

Stebbins finally finished with the pages and brushed himself off. "Well, this was fairly pointless. Was there anything in particular you wanted to say to me?"

"Nah. I just, well, that happens to me a lot, too. I'm not going to fucking empathize with you, though."

Stebbins looked Barkovitch up and down. His expression seemed to be in a perpetual glare, and clearly said 'fuck off.'

"Well, then." He slung the straps of his backpack over his shoulders and began walking out of the building.

"Hey." Barkovitch's voice stopped him.

"What is it that you desire?"

"Man, you are really fucking weird. But I was just going to ask if you wanted me to walk you home or something, 'cause if people are stealing your books there's a pretty good chance you could get mugged or-"

Stebbins didn't let him finish. "Thank you. I accept your offer."

"I didn't even fucking finish.'

"I am aware of that."

Barkovitch sighed. This was undoubtedly the strangest kid he'd ever stumbled upon. Sure, school was full of batshit insane people, but no one like this guy. "Yeah, I'm sure you are. C'mon, let's go." Barkovitch started walking and Stebbins followed.

He had to notice the way the guy walked. He stepped gently, like he was afraid to step on some small animals, and he seemed to pick up his feet far more than most people, like he was doing some strange form of dance.

"Are you alright? You seem to be fixated on my feet." Stebbins smirked slightly, as though he found this particularly amusing.
"You walk weirdly," was the best Barkovitch could come up with.

As they left the school building, Stebbins noticed that Barkovitch seemed to disappear into the dark. Perhaps that was an advantage of being small and intense-looking. "Where do you live?" Barkovitch tried to make the question sound as casual as he could.

"On the other side of town. You'll recognize my house."

"What, is your house some sort of town memorial?"

"No. But you'll recognize it."

Whatever the fuck that meant. He wasn't even going to try to interpret half the things Stebbins said. Barkovitch continued walking. "It appears that you were wrong. We seem to be the only ones out here."

"Which makes it even more likely that you'll get fucking robbed. How much farther is it to your house anyways?"

"As far as you would like it to be."

Barkovitch raised his eyebrows. "What the actual fuck."

"This walk lasts as long as you would like it to," Stebbins said cryptically. Who knew what went on inside that boy's head. He didn't even know himself.

"I'm getting really fucking cold, walk faster." Stebbins complied, and Barkovitch noted that he carefully stepped over the cracks in the sidewalk.

"What a lovely word you use, 'fucking.' Any particular reason for spouting it out all the time? Not that I have much of a problem with it."

"Good. And I just talk that way. Deal with it."

They walked in silence for awhile, Stebbins listening to the howling of the wind and Barkovitch looking around somewhat nervously. "We're nearly to my house, if you must know."

"Okay, good."

After a few minutes, Barkovitch realized what Stebbins had meant when he'd said that he'd recognize Stebbins' house. The house in front of them was the one that all of the boys in third grade had said contained a witch or an axe murderer. The garden hadn't been tended in what seemed like years, and the paint job was horrendous.

No lights were on inside, and in the dark it looked even creepier. "You live here?!"

"Yes, I do." Stebbins shifted from foot to foot. This was his home, messy and old as it was. "Fitting, isn't it?"

"Yeah, actually, I was just about to say that." Barkovitch looked at his watch, which glowed a green color in the dark. "It's late. I should probably get going."

"Wait." Stebbins' face was illuminated by the streetlights, making him look like a ghost in mismatched clothing. "Thank you for devoting your time to this."

"You are really fucking weird."

"Goodbye to you too."

Barkovitch snorted. "See you."

"What makes you think you will?"

"It's called saying goodbye, dumbass. You've probably never heard of it in your freak world." With that last comment, Barkovitch began his promenade back down the street.

Stebbins watched his stretched shadow as it began to fade away down the sidewalk, and lightly walked into the scarcely tended garden of his house.

I actually feel really good about this piece. What do you all think?