Disclaimer: All things Mighty Ducks related belongs to Disney.
Author's Notes: this is my first MD story but obviously not my first in fan fiction; I've been around awhile with LOTR and HP but recently got into Adam/Charlie and thought I was the only psycho in the world who thought they'd be extremely hot together. Since then, I've found out that I'm not (thank god!) and thought to try my own on this new obsession of mine.
Also there may be a lot of factual errors (it's been ages since I've watched the movies) so I hope you all won't mind and that you all will enjoy this~
~*Radio Song*~
~*Chapter One*~
Is it just me or does it seem like everyone is falling apart? I don't mean just how Averman's been sick with the flu for almost three weeks now or how Fulton and Portman are basically flunking every class. I mean there's none of this "ducks fly together" togetherness. Basically everyone's been doing their own thing and without hockey to tie us all together we get to see what we're really like. Sure there's still some people that hang like Connie and Guy, whatever is up with them, and some other people but I don't know. I just don't feel it; maybe it's just me.
With me I've just been sinking deeper and deeper into all this work with studying and homework. I barely have time to sleep and definitely no time to hang out with the Ducks. Except Charlie. Thank god for Charlie, he's keeping me sane and keeping me alive. He stays awake until I finish my papers and he makes sure I have some time to chill, without him I'd probably go crazy or die or both. Thank god for Charlie, I hope he never goes away.
Adam stopped his continual writing and looked at what he had written with a slight frown on his face. Was it just him or did that sound decidedly gay? He flushed slightly and nearly crossed it out but then remembered the pact he had made with himself when he had started writing in journals in the first place, that he would write absolutely everything down even if it meant cringing when looking back. If he didn't say it here then he might say it in a potentially more dangerous situation.
Hearing the doorknob turn, he slammed the small book shut and stuck it under his pillow, not the most discreet place to hide something so intimate but it'd have to do. As if his thoughts had materialized from the paper, Charlie walked through the door, obviously back from running with his hair still wet from the shower hanging in his face. Charlie was the kind that always had to be outside, always had to be in motion. It was Adam that eventually had to keep him from burning out completely.
"You should have come," was what Adam was greeted with.
"How? With all this work to do?" He gestured to the whirring laptop and stacks of papers and books scattered across his bed. Charlie shrugged and grinned and fell onto his own unmade bed.
"Come on, the paper's not even due until Friday and the rest of that stuff? You don't have to read all of it, it's all BS and bullshitting is an art that you have yet to learn."
Adam looked up at Charlie's grinning face. How did Charlie slide by so easily when he was supposed to be the smart one?
"What?" he finally said. He closed his laptop.
"I mean just pick a page and say something meaningful about it." Adam laid back too on the bed, feeling the hard book underneath his pillow.
"Yeah well it's a little easier to say it than to do it."
"Come on, it's Saturday and your best friend is bored." Adam tried to keep nonchalant as he picked up a book and studied the cover intently. He thought for sure of Charlie as his best friend but it was another thing to have Charlie say it too. He felt pleased but was determined not to show it.
"Don't you have to go home on the weekends?" Adam finally said. A cloud fell over Charlie's face. He was so easy to read, like an open book, unlike Adam who was always wearing his façade.
"I don't think this week will be a good time to go back," he said. Adam didn't want to press but the best friend comment was still fresh in his memory.
"Is everyone okay?" The other boy's face crumbled even more.
"You know how my mom is. I just don't see how she can't see that each guy treats her even more like crap than the last one."
Adam couldn't help marveling at how different they were. Charlie didn't have a problem with trusting people, with talking to them, and most definitely didn't have a problem with asking for help. He would always be open and loving and kind and be surrounded by people that love him. And Adam…well he'd be lucky if he were still invited to family reunions. Often called cold hearted, Adam wondered if he were.
"Have you told your mom how you feel?" If someone offered that advice to him, he would have told them to get lost, but he knew how close Charlie and his mom were so maybe this would work.
"I try but the only time she's happy is if she's got a man in her life." He says the word as if it hurts his mouth. They lapsed into silence when Charlie, with a determined look of happiness in his eyes, says, "Okay, let's not get all depressed and teenage angst on a Saturday. Maybe Tuesday, but definitely not Saturday."
Adam feigned laughing.
"Alright, fine, I'll do homework tonight." Charlie nearly bounces on his bed with happiness like a dog as he waits for Adam to get dressed.
"On second thought, let me shower quick, okay?"
"You're such a girl Banksie."
"Yeah well I don't like smelling gross." Not much of a comeback but it was true. Adam grabbed a clean towel and headed out the door and was out the door.
~*~
Charlie's POVI watch my friend walk out the door, looking tired in sweats and a shirt, feeling only slightly guilty for dragging him out when he's looking so beat up. Or maybe that's just Adam, he always looks a little tired.
Sometimes, when I can't sleep or when I'm feeling especially low, I can't help wondering, fantasizing maybe, what it'd be like to be Adam. I know he's not that much different from us; money doesn't always equal happiness and especially some family attention. What my mom and I have, or used to have anyway, was beyond what Adam would ever have with his parents and I knew that.
But still, there was something extremely appealing about being Adam, just for a day, just for a moment, to be the one with those blue eyes curtained to the outside world. I wanted to be the one with all those emotions and thoughts inside my head, not letting anyone know. I wanted to explore them all, one by one.
He was, in short, perfection, always a step away from everyone else. I thought rooming with him and being friends with him would make him more human. Maybe it has. But maybe it's put him even further from me. It's just frustrating that I never know what he's thinking; sometimes I feel like I don't even know him at all.
As if my thoughts have suddenly solidified, there, peeking out from underneath his pillow, was the corner of what appeared to be a black book. What was so special about that book that it had to be kept hidden? I couldn't help walking to Adam's bed and picking it up, knowing what it would be even before my fingers made contact with the cool cover of the book.
It occurred to me that Adam, if I were him and he were me, would just put the book back underneath the pillow. He would never even consider opening the book. Opening the book and reading the last entry, just for a little bit.
But I wasn't Adam. Even with the guilt already pressing down on me, I opened the book and flipped through the worn pages, full of Adam's neat handwriting. I caught snatches of sentences from each page. There was the announcement that we had won the Varsity-JV game, there was another about hating all the schoolwork, and then there was another one, the latest one.
Adam was even sharper than everyone gave him credit for. Sure he was our team's genius on top of being the hockey star but he knew to empathize and he knew what to look for in people. And he showed me, through his writing, that I wasn't the only one who thought that the Ducks were falling apart. I was just hoping that when hockey season starts off again, we would reform and be ready to work together again.
I can hear footsteps approaching the door and I drop the book before finishing up the entry. The last line I read is Maybe it's just me. I shove the book back under the pillow and suddenly realize that I had just read my best friend's journal.
When Adam walks back in, his eyes unconsciously flick to his pillow and my guilt deepens. But when he smiles, it's forgotten.
"What you want to do?" he says. His hair is wet and he doesn't bother to gel it. He smells clean and nice, nothing like the perfumed, cloying, sickly sweet scents that girls seem to bathe in. He's just simply Adam and nothing else.
"Whatever you want."
~*~
Adam's POVCharlie doesn't know how deep I'm in. With all this work to do the last thing I needed was a Saturday wasted. Well, not wasted, nothing with Charlie is wasted. But now I don't know how to handle all this work. I was never good with stress, I stress too easily and worry about everything.
I dream of dying and it makes me wonder why I'm even here. The worst part is that I have nothing to be worried over. Just everything seems to be falling apart around me and so am I. I feel guilty that I can't handle a little bit of stress while Charlie is able to keep his life running smoothly as well as trying to help his dysfunctional mom.
I can't sleep; my eyes feel like heavy marbles in my head. I feel so far apart. I want to be me again but I can't. I don't feel anything anymore. Maybe everyone's right and I am cold-hearted. I'm just numb, like my bones are brittle and chalky, ready to crumble into dust and fly away. I wish I could fly away.
I make sure that Charlie's asleep before getting up and heading for the bathroom. There I find my razor. I can't cry; boys don't cry. Instead, I let my arms cry for me. They cry tears of blood.
~*~
a/n: that's all for now but the ideas are turning in my head and I can't wait to write everything down. Please R&R on your way out~