Chapter Text
America Chavez is twenty years old.
She thinks.
To be honest, she hasn’t really kept track of that since she was maybe...sixteen? Since the last time she’d had the same group of people around her for more than eight months. All she knows is that after that, she skipped town. Her ‘friends’ left her to the whims of the police after one too many poorly planned shenanigans. While waiting for her boozehound foster dad to come pick her up from a quick release (being underage and orphaned with a decent public defender made her too pitiable to keep around) she found herself staring at the train station across the street from the county courthouse. She stared until she was picked up, driven home the few blocks to their shitty apartment building. She ignored the hoarse shouting that chased her into the stairwell.
She kicked in a door on the second floor. Splinters and paint chips showered inward. She heard shouts in the living room but ignored them. She went into the kitchen, rummaged under the sink. A boy with blond hair came in, shouting until he realized who it was.
“America? Babe? What the fuck did you do to the fuckin’ door?”
She answered him with a massively satisfying kick to the groin. As he lay groaning on the dirty linoleum, she pulled out a duck-taped plastic bag of cash. She stepped over him saying, “This makes us even.”
She walked down the stairs, out of the building, and back up to the train station. She was on the next train out, and didn’t think of what was behind her.
Instead, she focused on what was ahead.
----
She thinks she’s twenty, as she gets off the bus in a small southern town. She’d been in several big cities-St. Paul, Pittsburgh, San Francisco-but now she wanted to see a smaller town. The town name rang a bell in her head, she couldn’t figure out why. But hey, one place was as good as another. She was happier than she could remember being. No ties, no connections other than the convenient brief friendships she might stir up with her coworkers at whatever place she found employment. Not that she always found friends. Sometimes months would pass without any real conversation. She’s okay with that, mostly. She can’t say she never gets lonely.
But lonely’s better than miserable she figures. And god, was she miserable before.
Here, she gets off the bus and walks down Main Street with her hood pulled up over her head. It’s late, past midnight. She’ll find one of those all night diners, grab a newspaper and look up apartments. She doesn’t see any bus stop signs as she walks, passing gas stations and a couple liquor stores. She finds herself on a bridge after a forty minute walk. Sighing she leans back on the concrete railing, digging around in her coat pockets for her cell phone. She’ll have to Google this dumb town, see if it even has a damn diner.
Someone’s standing on the railing across the road, their back to America. Someone else sits on the road, a young man, his bored face shown in the light of a cell phone held in small hands. The kid sitting down laughs and waves vaguely up at the person standing on the railing. He looks up, and sees America. A semi truck roars between them for a few seconds. America surges into action as the red of the taillights streak across her vision.
She walks three quick paces forward before slowing to a normal walking speed. She listens carefully for approaching cars when she’s blinded by the streetlight nearby suddenly flickering on. The kid grins sharply up at her, and in the sudden light he looks older.
“Hi,” he greets cheerily. “You’re new here.”
“Is your friend okay?”
His grin turns down slightly. “Master William, are you well?” The guy standing stock still doesn’t answer. “He’s fine. Just having some existential crisis.” The boy makes a careless flap of his hand. America glares at him in confusion. The boy sighs. “He’s a big kid, he can decide whether he’s going to jump for himself.”
America starts. “You’re just going to let him...” She doesn’t jump forward, afraid she could accidentally tip the guy over the edge.
“I’m not going to let him do anything,” the boy seethes. “He’s an adult, technically. If I yank him back now, what good will that do? Will it stop his depression? Rid his mind of anxiety and hatred? No. He’ll just try again. Swallow painkillers, walk into traffic, get into his grandpa’s guns. And why shouldn’t he? It’s his life.” The boy takes a deep breath, holding it for a moment. “He can decide for himself if he wants to end it now. If he really wants to, he should.” The guy standing makes some choked noise. America is still, gripped by a wonder at what in the hell she’s gotten herself into. Her hands are at her sides. Her knees are bent slightly, ready to jolt forward. “But. If he has any reason not to, any thing that keeps him waking up each day...the new season of Game of Thrones. A boyfriend that would make Adonis and every Disney prince feel inadequate . Friends that would walk two miles in the middle of the night to make sure you don’t do anything too stupid.” A chuckle drags itself out of the guy. “If any single joy would make tomorrow worth seeing, he should get his overdramatic ass off that ledge.” Silent seconds follow the end of his speech.
William laughs finally, loud and strange. He steps to turn around, and slips. America jumps forward as soon as she sees him moving. Her hand digs into stretchy jersey knit shirt, her other arm wraps around a skinny torso. She twists, throwing him to the asphalt.
The boy still sits, tapping away on his phone. “You all right, Billy?” he asks airily.
The guy lets out a harsh breath, throwing his head back onto the ground and covering his face with his hands. “Yeah. I’m good. You’re a dick.”
“Debatable,” the boy answers as he stands. America stares at him as he puts his phone away and stretches his arms over his head. “So, pancakes? I think you should treat, considering-not the face, not the face!” America rears back, her fist clenched hard, and punches the jackass. She’s panting as he falls backwards.
Billy sits up, wiping his eyes. He looks from America to the boy she just hit. “Did...did you just punch him?”
The boy groans from the ground.
“Yeah,” she says.
Billy snorts, then laughs, then falls back and laughs loudly into the still night. America suddenly becomes aware of the breeze swirling the heat of the sun-warmed asphalt with the cool air of the spring night. She hears the cars of the highway under the bridge, driving by unconcerned of the three people above them. She squints as the bulb of the streetlight pulsates weakly.
“I’m sorry?” she says quietly as both boys manage to stand after a while.
Billy smiles happily at her. “Don’t be. Loki’s deserved a good punch for a while.”
“I resemble that remark,” Loki says sullenly. “Anyway. Loki,” he points to himself. “Billy,” he waves carelessly to the other boy. “Pancakes?” he asks with a wide sweep of his arms.
That’s how she finds herself sitting in a diner that sat just on the other side of the bridge with a plate full of eggs and bacon. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” Billy says sheepishly, pushing his salad around his bowl.
“Shit happens,” America says lowly, dumping Tobasco on her eggs. “I’m just glad no one got hurt."
“Excuse me,” Loki whines, clasping his water glass to his chin sadly. “I got hurt. Because of you.” America just quirks her eyebrows at him. “God, if we end up being actual friends I will complain so much,” he mutters as he reaches for the syrup.
“Anyway, America, what brought you here?” Billy asks.
She shrugs. “I travel around. This was as good a town as any.”
Loki blows a raspberry. “You’re sorely mistaken. But I assume this means you need living quarters?”
“Well, yeah.”
Loki quirks his eyebrows at Billy, who twists his mouth in confusion. “No one has any space. Unless-wait, Noh? Really? You think-”
“Just tell him she punched me and she’s in,” Loki says flatly. Billy bops his head to the side in agreement, and pulls out his cell phone.
That’s how America ends up sleeping in the spare bedroom of a spacious house owned by a boy with whiter hair than should be natural. She doesn’t ask him any questions, and he doesn’t ask her anything either. His bedroom’s on the second floor, so she doesn’t even see him until two days later. She’d been around, found a job at a fast food place three miles away, and wondered if it’d be okay for her to put some food in the fridge.
“Hey," her host says as she comes in with a newspaper under her arm, plus the numbers of a few realtors from different signs she’d seen around town written on it.
“Hi. Thanks for letting me stay here. I’ve got a job so I’ll move out when I find a place-”
“Why?” he interrupts.
She stares at him. He’s practically one with the sofa, empty chip bags and soda cans surrounding him. “Were you looking for a roommate?”
“Not-not in so many words.” He sits up, his taut belly barely wrinkling over perfect abs. He hardly ever wears shirts, as far as America can tell. The fact that he hasn’t caught her rolling her eyes at him blatantly surprises her. He rakes fingers through white hair, dark roots showing. “I was with Kate. Kate’s Billy and Teddy’s best friend. I’m not with Kate anymore so I don’t see Billy or Teddy so much now.”
America now sees the filth surrounding the aesthetically beautiful boy as what it is; every sordid stereotypical representation of guilt. “What, you cheat on her?”
He grins. “No. Not even. I. I made the wrong choice.” He stands, stretching truly magnificent back muscles within a foot of the young woman. “And I’m suffering for it.” America has never been more sure that she’s gay as fuck in her life. “Anyway, this place is paid for. I’m okay, financially. You can stay as long as you want, I don’t care.”
“Why?” she asks blandly. She doesn’t have to say, 'Why me, why a person you barely know who your friends only know as a random girl who found them on an overpass?'
He shrugs. “You punched Loki. That, in itself means you’re a decent person.”
They never talk about it again. It really is the worst for either of them, neither one of them willing to talk about anything. Noh does whatever he does and America gets used to this town, works her crappy fast food job which is the same as any crappy fast food job she’s had before (with extra southeastern US bigotry thrown in). Her coworkers are fortunately not as awful as she’s experienced and like to leave things well enough alone. For three weeks America doesn’t even meet Kate.
Because Kate closes at the restaurant. And America was training, but she’s going to close. That was why she got the job, so she could work the late nights no one else wanted. And Kate has closed for as long as she’s worked there. And she overhears the daytime cashiers talk about “Oh you’d better restock those cups, Bishop will bitch all weekend about you if you don’t!”
She didn’t know Kate’s last name was Bishop.
She has no idea what she's in for.