spikedbats | [ximilia] :// inbox

Well, yeah, we had desks. [ sometimes steve takes for granted how privileged he was, but then again public school never really struck him as a privilege, it was just something that you were expected to attend until you graduated. ]

Tell me about it. I hated math, like trigonometry's ever going to come in handy. I knew I wasn't gonna, like, become an engineer or anything. [ he wrinkles his nose, tries not to think about how dim his future had been looking for a while there. ]

[ unfortunately, trigonometry means nothing to mal at all and it shows on his face. he tilts his head slightly. ] What in the Saint's name is trigonometry?

[ he knows what an engineer is, at least, though probably not in the way that steve knows it either. it is a clash of worlds, after all. ]

[ oh no, how does steve even describe this to mal? steve barely understood what it was when he was taking it! ] Um. It's, uh. [ yes, steve looks about as puzzled as mal likely does. ]

I just remember it involves triangles, and studying the angles of them. Like, you could calculate the angles and the lengths of the sides of a triangle depending on what information you're given. [ which, saying it out loud like that, it sounds kind of silly that they were expected to know this at all. ]

And that's... useful? [ mal asks, not sure exactly how that would help someone unless they wish to build things like an engineer. honestly, it sounds awful and he can't keep a grimace from his face. ] And everyone has to learn it?

We just had to know how to count coin and write the basics. [ he lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck. ] At least most of us did. The army didn't need much more and that's where most of us orphans went.

[ simple, said without much care for the words of the inevitability of where his life lead him. it would have been ordinary, really, if not for that blasted first supply trip into the fold where alina snuck on to the skiff he'd been assigned to. ]

[ something about mal's response has steve laughing, although it comes out as more of a snort than anything else. ] Trust me, it's not useful unless you're going into a very niche field after. [ he shrugs; the way the curriculum was laid out was just yet another thing he took for granted. ] The argument was always, you never know if that's what you wanna do with your life until you're exposed to it, but like. I don't know, it always felt like a punishment for the dumb kids like me.

[ not that steve is stupid, per se. he just never was very good at math outside of simple arithmetic. ]

You were an orphan? [ that doesn't escape steve's notice, and there's something about that admission that clenches at his chest. reminds him of eleven a little bit, and he tries not to let his thoughts wander too much to worrying about whether she's doing okay back home.

he feels like he should say something, like shit, i'm sorry man, i had no idea, but it also feels like it's one of those things that maybe he doesn't need to comment on, but just leave the floor open for mal if he wants to elaborate. and if not? steve could appreciate not wanting to talk about uncomfortable subjects very often, of which steve himself has a couple surrounding family. ]

[ mal shrugs at the explanation, he supposes when you're not faced with war and needed to fight to survive there's room for more. knowing how to measure angles at any age is important then and, if he thinks about it, maybe it'd help some one understand how to better shoot a bow or where to aim a their rifle.

maybe.

but then steve focuses in on him being an orphan and mal remembers that that's not a commonality in mostly places either. so he nods, looking a little wry. ] I forget that's not as common in other places.

My home was ravaged by war, orphans were plenty. [ he shrugs. ] Some of us were lucky enough to make our own families.

[ to find someone to call home; so the sure sense of belonging is something linked to them and not a place after all. ]

[ suddenly, there is so much that steve feels himself take for granted. he feels ashamed that, for all his complaining about having parents who are assholes and sometimes rarely are ever even home except to berate him about his lack of a future, but he has parents.

and yet, sometimes it almost feel worse than if he didn't have them at all. if he were more like eddie munson, who at least has an uncle who loved him fiercely, insisted he wasn't the monster everyone insisted he had to be. ]

I guess I know a little bit what that's like. Making our own families, that is. [ he thinks of claudia henderson, of dustin, the rest of the boys and girls he pretends to begrudgingly babysit, but in reality would consider them brothers and sisters any day of the week. ] We weren't even orphans, our parents were just...oblivious.

Oblivious? [ mal asks carefully, not sure he can imagine that. he knows families are far from perfect but the memories he has of his own feature attentive parents (in truth he's not sure if that's the reality, or if memory and fantasy have clouded and created something new.)

in the villages, the parents were always fussing over their children and hoping to keep them safe and alive. more often it was because they needed help on their farms, needed working hands but there was still love and family mixed in. mal had watched as a child, often in the distance and on the side-lines because no one wanted him and alina around. no wanted the mutts around. ] They didn't watch over you when you were young?

[ childhood, after all, ends early in ravka and by mal's standards the both of them are grown men who have left youth long behind them. ]

[ there's a deep sigh from steve as he reminisces. he can't fault some of the adults. without concrete evidence of what actually happened -- with the blatant covering up by the lab and the government, they had no way of knowing what really was happening to their children.

and then there's the harringtons. the low blow that it had been to wake up in the hospital after starcourt to nothing, to nobody. later he would get a half-hearted apology, that they couldn't change their flight but they swear they tried, and steve had been too exhausted to care. ]

There was a lot going on. Only a couple of adults knew the truth, and I -- [ he would never forget henderson roping him into helping him out with his demodog problem. he can't help but wonder if there were a universe that existed in which he didn't help the kid. ] Well, someone had to keep an eye on the kids while they insisted on helping their friends without their parents knowing. Turns out I'm actually a pretty damn good babysitter.

[ 'babysitter' isn't a word that exists in ravkan so what malyen understands is that steve is a nanny. it probably paints a picture different than what the other youth intends. mal decides not to prod on that, to nod instead.

it doesn't sound like steve's talking about being much younger than he is now, if he's talking about other children and doesn't consider himself one. then again, he's a man by ravkan standards too.

he wonders what it was that was hidden, frowns and decides to prod there. ] The truth about what? What were you protecting them from?

[ steve's childhood paled in comparison to most his age. he's always known there was something lacking, in the way he would watch other children hang off their parents' legs and not be shooed away. steve realized he had been more of an accessory than a part of his own family, so maybe a part of him doesn't want to see that happening to these kids. not that it would happen to dustin; claudia is much too caring for her own good.

but knowing what exists underneath their town, connected only by a thin portal between realms, it feels like steve owes it to these kids, these teenagers to have more of a childhood than he ever had. if they can live to see another day, maybe have one more day at the arcade without worrying about a monster attacking, then steve can sacrifice a little bit of himself along the way. ]

I don't know how it is in other worlds, but in mine monsters aren't just a story parents tell their kids to frighten them into behaving. It's why I carry that bat around. [ he shrugs, as if it's nothing. ] Only a handful of us know about these monsters, I don't know, I guess --

[ he remembers dustin all but demanding steve come along with him to find dart. how the rest of the party had been nowhere to be found, and even though steve just wanted to apologize to nancy and go on living a normal life, there was no ignoring the bitter reality that hawkins had a dark secret and no amount of pretending could make it just go away. ]

I wanted to make up for being an utter douchebag, and I dunno, I never had anyone look out for me, so. I knew if I were in their shoes that's what I'd want.

[ 'if only a few know, isn't it exactly the sort of story you'd tell?' mal thinks for a moment. but he doesn't know a world without monsters, without the fold tearing his home in half and turning children into orphans before chewing those orphans up and spitting them back out as soldiers to fight against the creatures in the fold.

so he nods, trying to let empathy speak for him instead of the urge to snort and compare. what's normal for him, a fact of life, is what haunts the nightmares of another. ] It's hard being one of the few to see the monsters and tell the tale.

[ he says instead. after all, mal carries the scars from surviving the fold once. the creature's fangs dug into his sides and into his leg, he's lucky he didn't lose it. ] I know a bit about that.

[ he grows quiet again when steve talks about the kids again and that--- that mal gets. wanting to protect others that couldn't protect themselves; that's why he'd started to fight, to grow stronger to protect alina in the end. ] Not everyone would do that, you know. Look out for kids they don't know.

[ximilia] :// inbox

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