Alfred groaned when his alarm woke him up, the blonde teen rolling over in bed so that he could fumble to turn it off.
He really didn't feel like getting up this morning, but Alfred knew he only had five minutes before Matthew started pounding on his wall for him to get up, and another five before their mother snuck into his room and switched his self-made radio on to max volume.
Letting out another loud groan, Alfred kicked out of his Captain America bed sheets with an awkward and uncoordinated flail of his scrawny limbs. He laid in a crooked position for a little while, running his tongue over his braces until the pink mass of muscles bumped against the rubber-bands that were hooked into the metal abomination that was cemented onto his teeth.
Why couldn't it be a Saturday? That way, he wouldn't have to worry about school for a few days, and he could play video games with his friends all weekend...
And he also wouldn't have to think about being stuck with Braginski for the rest of the school year...At least for a little while. But, no! Today had to be a freakin' Tuesday!
Why was his life so fucked up?
"Alfred! Get up already, your breakfast is in the toaster!" came Matthew's thought-interrupting voice from the other side of the wall, a series of fast pounds on the wall rattling the action figure-laden shelves above Alfred's head.
"Alright!" Alfred yelled back in a whiny, drug-out tone. Mustering up the strength and ambition he needed, Alfred flopped out of bed and onto the carpeted floor with a muffled thump. Getting up and trudging to the door, he paused for a moment, his brain waking up enough to start thinking again.
Braginski = Hockey. Mattie = Hockey. Teammates = Familiarity?
"Hey, Matt, wait up! I have a question!" Alfred exclaimed, scrambling down the stairs after his step-brother.
So, as Alfred quickly stuffed a Peanut Butter Pop-Tart into his mouth, Matthew waited with slightly frustrated patience for the sandy blonde teen to ask his all-important question.
"So...You play hockey with Braginski, right, Matt?" Alfred asked through a mouthful of heated peanut butter and pastry, his question coming out garbled.
Matthew stared at his step-brother for a long moment. "I'm sorry to say that I understood every word of what you just spewed out there, eh," he sighed, shaking his head.
Alfred rolled his eyes, taking a large gulp of his milk. "Whatever. Can you at least tell me how to survive dealing with him so I don't die?"
"Well," Matthew hummed out, sounding thoughtful, "When Ivan kept sitting on me during art class, and I couldn't get him to stop by simply asking him to, I started to leave out maple candies on the desk space next to me. After a little while, he stopped sitting on me in favor of getting the candy. Apparently, Ivan's got a major sweet-tooth, so if you ever feel like you're getting into dangerous territory with him, try to mellow him out with something sweet. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it worked for me, eh."
"Okay, first off: You're saying that you basically trained him to not sit on you? And, second: He sat on you in art class? What the heck?! How are you not a cripple, or dead?!" Alfred blurted out, pushing his glasses further up onto his nose when they slipped down from his abrupt movement.
Matthew gave his brother a flat look. "And that's exactly the sort of thing that will end with his fist lodged in your face, Al. You don't have an internal filter, do you?" he muttered, sipping at his apple juice.
"Pfft, you know I don't," Alfred snorted, getting up from the dining room table to put his dirty dishes in the sink.
Matthew followed close behind, scrubbing off his own dishes, as well as Alfred's, and giving them a quick rinse before setting them in the dish drainer to dry. "Right, right..."
"Are you two almost ready? We've got ten minutes to spare before we need to head out!" Mrs. Jones called from the living room.
"Almost, Mom!" Alfred replied, pushing Matthew out of his way and racing back upstairs to change out of his PJ's. He tugged off his shirt just as he was entering his room, swearing when his glasses got caught in the soft material. After wrestling with his pajamas for close to three minutes, Alfred quickly searched through his drawers for something to wear; eventually, he settled on one of his Legend of Zelda T-shirts, a pair of faded skinny jeans, and his slightly-too-big-for-his-feet sneakers.
Collecting his schoolbooks and several - overdue - homework assignments, Alfred shoved everything he would need into his backpack and sped downstairs once more, dropping his stuff onto the floor by the front door. Sprinting back upstairs to the bathroom, Alfred let out a frustrated huff when he arrived to see that the door was closed; Matthew's self-satisfied whistling could be heard through the door when Alfred pressed his ear to the whitewashed wood. Glancing down at his watch, Alfred brushed his fingers through his sandy blonde hair, deeming himself good enough to go without actually combing through it. Giving up on being able to get into the bathroom and stay on schedule, the bespectacled boy tromped downstairs and started fishing around in his backpack for some gum and the extra bottle of spray deodorant he kept in one of the inner pockets.
"Wow, you managed to get ready in only...six minutes. That has to be a new record!" Mrs. Jones cheered, smiling exuberantly at her step-son.
"Hey, at least I don't take an hour and a half to shower, like Mattie," Alfred remarked, stuffing a strip of root-beer float flavored dental gum into his mouth. It tasted surprisingly good, and, since he hadn't had the time to brush his teeth, it was better than nothing. He'd wait until they got to One World High, and he could scuttle into a bathroom, before putting on his deodorant.
"I've got hockey practice, Al. Do you really want to eat dinner, sitting across from me, and smell my entire workout the whole time?" Matthew huffed, coming down the stairs with his own book bag. "When you have to join one of our school's teams and start playing a sport because of your punishment, I reserve the right to complain about how long you take in the shower after games or practices."
"Aw, fuck! I forgot about that," Alfred moaned pathetically, slapping his hands to his face.
"Get over yourself, Al," Matthew chuckled, heading out the door once their mother grabbed her car keys.
Ivan groggily woke up to a wet tongue licking his cheek, the beige haired teen groaning as he rolled over and rubbed at his face. "Laika*...What are you doing in here? You know Papa doesn't like you being in the house...," Ivan yawned out, picking up the dog from off himself and setting her on the floor.
The husky-terrier mix* wagged her tail at him, and let out a short bark.
Ivan stretched as he got up off the ratty couch he had slept on, wincing when the new bruises he had acquired from the previous night flared up with pain. He carefully edged past the ajar door on his way to the kitchen, knowing that his father was still asleep in the other room. He padded quietly into the small kitchen, which was situated at the back of the house, Laika trotting along behind at his heels.
Ivan stopped abruptly in the doorway, Laika swerving around his legs to avoid a collision.
"Hey, kid. You're up early," a smokey voice commented.
"Isn't it a little early for a drink?" Ivan muttered, keeping his distance from the red-headed woman as he stalked over to the loudly buzzing refrigerator for something to eat.
Knocking back the remainder of her whiskey, the older woman laughed, "And, maybe if you're a good boy, I'll share with you!"
Ivan grunted disinterestedly at the offer, grabbing a take-out container of Chinese food from a few days ago out of the fridge. "No, thanks, Ms. Summers," he replied in a drawling tone, kicking the refrigerator door shut as he went in search of a fork or a spoon.
"Please, call me Eloise*. You're so damned polite...it almost makes me sick, kid. You make me feel old when you call me Miss, like I'm some sort of Grandma or something," Ms. Summers griped disdainfully, fishing around in her leopard print handbag for her lighter and a cigarette.
That's because you are old enough to be someone's Grandmother..., Ivan remarked to himself, shoveling a spoonful of cold pork fried rice into his mouth.
After an awkward yet pitifully familiar bout of silence between the two, Ivan sharing his leftovers with Laika as Ms. Summers puffed her way through her morning pack of smokes, the middle-aged woman asked, "So, are you taggin' along with me downtown again? I know your old man's busy doing...whatever the hell he does during most of the day...and I know he hates it when you wander around all on your own, just lookin' for trouble."
Ivan tossed the empty take-out box into the almost overflowing trash can - making a mental note to take it out and dump it next door when he got home; the neighbors were a bunch of crackheads, so they never really gave a flaming rat's ass about it - dropping the spoon he had used into the sink full of dirty water and other dishes. "I have school," he stated bluntly, opening the backdoor so that the dog could get outside.
Laika bolted out of the kitchen like she'd been shot out of a cannon, her claws clacking rapidly against the worn laminated floor.
"And?" Eloise hummed, blowing a plume of bitter smoke from her just lit cigarette in Ivan's direction. "You've skipped out before, so why are you playing the good little schoolboy now? C'mon, I'll take you to the pier! We can do a little dipping*, flick some cigs at the gulls, fun stuff!"
Ivan could never really figure out how he felt about this woman. When she wasn't around his father, she was usually enjoyable to be around; she was loud, rambunctious, and knew how to have fun with whatever situation she was presented with. But, when his father was around...
"I have to go. I got the Principal breathing down my neck about almost punching out this arrogant, loudmouthed, know-it-all...," Ivan trailed off angrily, swiping at his cheek absent-mindedly. "Anyway...I'm in trouble, and if I don't show up, then I'll be in even more shit."
Taking another drag on her cigarette, Eloise smirked, "Bah, you wouldn't of punched that twerp out anyways, so why the hell are you in so much trouble?"
Ivan blinked, his mouth turning downward into a vague frown. "What do you mean, I wouldn't of punched him out?" he asked in a slightly defensive tone, folding his arms as he leaned up against the door frame and looked outside.
"Unlike your father, you're all bark and no bite," the woman replied, patting the teenager on the cheek as she joined him by the door. "You're too much of a sweetheart to do any real damage. You just play a little rough, is all. Most people don't understand that, but I've been around enough men to know how to tell the difference between an overenthusiastic love-tap, and a real hit."
Ivan watched for a silent moment as Ms. Summers blew a stream of smoke out into the air, the light breeze that was blowing catching it and drifting it off beyond the house. "I'm a lot more like my father than you think I am. I've hit people before, and I've hurt them because of it. How is that any different than what he does?" he muttered, pressing his cheek against the chipped door frame as he spoke.
"Because you only hit once, and never to such a degree that it would cause damage like this," she replied, nonchalantly lifting up his shirt to reveal the vivid purple bruises that littered his sides and middle. "You're not anything like him."
Ivan quickly pushed his shirt down to hide the painful marks again, his round cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "I, uh, I have to get going. I'm already late," he stuttered out, slipping past the older woman and hightailing it into the other room.
"Not like him at all," Eloise murmured, flicking her spent cigarette into the dirt.
Laika: Laika was one of the first animals sent into space, and orbited the Earth. She was never expected to survive, since the technology for de-orbit hadn't been developed yet and the effects of spaceflight on living creatures was still not known, and she tragically died several hours later from over-heating - which was caused by a malfunction in the mechanics. Her name means "Barker" in Russian, and she was believed to have been a husky-terrier mix. Obviously, this isn't the same dog, but I wanted a dog that was inspired by Laika in this story.
Eloise Summers: This is the personification of Summer, just like General Winter. Her name, Eloise, is sometimes associated with the Greek word "helios" (sun), which is why I chose it for her - even if there isn't a likely connection between the two, it was the only English name I could find that had anything to do with the sun.
Dipping: This, as I've been given to believe from my little bit of research, is a slang term that means to pickpocket. I don't know if that's correct, or even up-to-date.