Chapter Text
[. . .]
"Lay all your burdens to rest."
[. . .]
Chapter 1
Rocky Road Ice Cream Dreams
[. . .]
Benedict Wigglestein Uno Jr. despises teenagers just as much as he does children.
Sure, he works with them on occasion. After all, teenagers and adults alike share a mutual hatred toward snotting, bratty kids.
But teenagers are just the next phase after snot and playtime, and being so close in age doesn't diminish his monumental revulsion toward those hooligans. In fact, one could argue that teenagers are worse.
High school had not been a fun experience for Benedict Uno. He detests every memory of it.
There was not a day that he hadn't gone through some form of physical assault or verbal transgression. The sole comfort he clung to was the praise of proper adults, earned through his relentless promptness and unshakable intellect. The only real validation he ever received came from teachers impressed with his encyclopedic answers and immaculate homework, after all. That was the one place he felt secure. Behind his neat handwriting and perfect scores, he built that steady rhythm of punctuality that subjugated him as a prize student.
Outside the classroom, however, was a battlefield.
Teenagers, with their smug grins and louder-than-life voices, had made him feel smaller than he already was. His obsession with organization and precise diction, even his tendency to correct others—everything about him had been ammunition for mockery. He remembers the quiet snickers passed around classmate to classmate whenever he raised his hand too quickly, or the cruel nicknames hissed in the halls, spat in his face, with his broken glasses smushed against the metal of lockers. There were a lot of times when his books were knocked from his arms and scattered across the dirty linoleum, too.
Each insult lodged inside him cruelly, irrevocably. Every damn time.
Just confirming what he already feared, what he knew, that he was an outsider. A nobody.
A joke.
It was echoed at home with ͑̂̔ͨ҉͠G͋̋͐͋ͩ̌҉̸͆̌̄r̄̀̂͌ͨ̀a̓̏̿͌ͯ̑̇̊̾͠n̛̈͗ͭ́ͧ̐̈́́͊̿͟d̓͋͜father. And it was said out of home too, by everyone else.
He endured. He had to.
He told himself he was above them, that their immaturity only proved his superiority. It was solace to keep that in the loop, even if he didn't believe it. Sometimes, though, at night, when silence left him alone with his thoughts, he couldn't help replaying the laughter in his head. It curdled into resentment that couldn't escape from him, that he hadn't known it was, and then hardened into a reserved fury toward all adolescents who thought cruelty was a game.
Who didn't see or care that what they said or did would hurt.
But.
There had been something—more so someone—that made high school tolerable.
You.
You probably don't remember him. Being the popular girl and all, you'd been everyone's favorite. Beautiful and smart, kind and confident. Everyone, and he means everyone, knew you.
To Benedict, you were untouchable, almost infuriatingly so.
At first, he saw you as nothing more than an academic rival. You were the only one in class who ever dared come close to his scores, after all. You were the sole exception who could make his palms sweat when the teacher announced there'd be a test. He would watch the graceful manner in which your hands flew across the page after every assignment, and couldn't help but feel vexed by it.
You had it all, and back then, he thought you'd take the one thing he was good at.
The thought chewed at him, at the weariness in his bones deeply embedded by the fury of a scorned child, and kept him awake at night, turning over possibilities of how he could stay one step ahead.
He just.
He couldn't lose. Not to you, not to anyone.
Without his intelligence and certainty of being the best, who would he even be?
So he began to study you.
He tracked your habits, noted how long you spent on each question, and even memorized the way you tangled the end of your pencil into your hair when you were stuck. Every detail mattered to him because every detail might've been the key to preserving the part of himself that had ever earned him some form of validation.
But something... changed.
You changed it.
It had happened during the Algebra II final in ninth grade, on a sweltering June day. The class had gotten their scores back one by one while the teacher prattled on about how proud he was of everyone for trying, which, to Benedict, meant that many people had scored average or worse. But Benedict wasn't worried about getting a low score. He was worried it wouldn't be perfect.
͑̂̔ͨ҉͠G͋̋͐͋ͩ̌҉̸͆̌̄r̄̀̂͌ͨ̀a̓̏̿͌ͯ̑̇̊̾͠n̛̈͗ͭ́ͧ̐̈́́͊̿͟d̓͋͜ Father had strict demands. And Benedict was forced to meet them.
When he finally got his paper, he let out a breath of relief—it was a perfect 100.
On smug instinct, he turned to look next to him, where you sat.
A big red 99 stared back at your face.
He had edged a single point ahead of you. For that brief, luxurious moment, he reveled in it. His heart rejoiced, and he couldn't help the stretching leer of his expression shadowing over him.
You turned to him when you saw him looking just as quick, though. You'd skipped your gaze downward to the paper he clenched protectively in his hands as Benedict stiffened, expecting mockery, or an attempt to ruin his paper so that he had nothing to go home with.
But you didn't do anything like that.
Instead, you had smiled with genuine admiration and said with no ounce of disrespect, "Nice work."
Just a mere two words that were probably casual to you, but earth-shaking to him.
No one his age had ever complimented him before.
Teenagers had only ever reduced him to a punchline and made him feel like he didn't belong. But you... You had noticed his victory and respected it. That tiny moment bloomed in his chest and became a secret he could never share, and before he even realized it, his rivalry had softened into reverence.
From then on, he adored you in silence.
Every smile and fleeting glance his way was carefully hoarded inside his chest, replayed in the evenings he couldn't sleep. To him, you were no longer just a rival with incredible charm. No, no, you became someone far greater in his eyes, less colored in the heresy of teenagehood.
You had become proof that maybe, just in that slightest percentile of everything good in the world, he wasn't someone meant to be scorned for being good at something by everyone.
Summer came and went, and in it, a bloomed crush.
Soon, it was time to go to school again.
He remembers the very first time he met you. Properly.
It was early September of his sophomore year, and it'd been cold beyond imagination. He had been sulking on the front steps of McClintock High School after his first day of classes ended, with his glasses broken and askew on his nose, and all his new notebooks tarnished beyond imagination lying unceremoniously at his feet. He'd stared downward in cold defeat at the billowing flaps of torn paper, anxious and devastated that all the money he saved up from his allowance to buy his new school supplies went into flames.
(He wouldn't admit it to anyone, not even to himself, that he'd cried that day.)
But then you came along.
"Excuse me?"
Benedict snapped his head up, quickly fixing his glasses in fear that they'd take them and smash them too. They were quite expensive.
He'd immediately started panicking when he saw you.
You, perfect incarnate, pressing textbooks against your chest in a dainty fashion, were standing before him with the most perfect face. Your perfect blouse fitted you perfectly, vivid in a color that brought out your eyes, fashioned with an open jacket and jeans, looking beautiful as you peered down at him from two steps higher.
Benedict felt like a loser right then and there.
(Well, he was. He was a total loser. But that hadn't meant he wanted you to know that!)
Here you were, beautiful as the last time he'd seen you, and here he was, ruined beyond imagination. Ben figured you wouldn't go for nerds like himself, seeing as you were a beautiful, popular girl with dozens of jocks at your disposal for choosing. But he also had the dignity to think that maybe he could at least be presentable enough when the two of you met again.
Instead, he was like this.
Sullied with shame and loss.
He looked away, ashamed. "What?" He demanded tersely, and he cursed at himself for the unintentional tone. He didn't know how to talk to people without thinking they would hate him for who he was.
Luckily for him, his terrible attitude didn't deter you. "I... saw what happened. I contacted the School Principal, so they should be dealt with shortly."
Huh?
Ben looked up, eyes wide and centered on your expression.
He immediately felt righteous fury at the pity he saw, but he stopped from saying anything.
He wasn't going to tolerate this, even from you, but...
When you lowered yourself down enough and set your textbooks aside next to him to pick up his things, he watched with a tender softness as you fixed them up as best as you could. He had wanted to tell you not to bother, that there was nothing left, and to leave him to wallow. But he said nothing in the end, because you'd been so kind, and what did he have left to lose?
His dignity?
Pah. He'd already lost it when you saw him in this sorry state.
Ben and you both cringed when you both lowered yourselves to pick at the results; only two notebooks and a few pencils had been recoverable.
"...I'll pay for them," You suddenly said.
"Wha—huh?" Ben shook his head, trying to clear out his ears because surely he was hearing nonsense. "Wait, wait, you—"
You put a hand up to quiet him, and he did. "I insist. I want to. Just... don't think it's out of righteous obligation or something..." You pause, biting your lip, and Benedict was entranced by the flush of color. "No. Actually. That's a very minor part. My brother is a total jerk."
Ben blinked. "Brother?" He repeated incredulously.
Your brother?
Your brother did this to him?
Before Ben could think you sent your brother after him for thinking him a creep for staring at you all that time, you caught his attention again.
You nodded. "I know. Not a lot of people know. I like it that way," You frown. "I don't want to associate myself with someone who bullies people for a living."
Benedict didn't do anything else but nod. Because he had no idea what to say.
You continue. "Anyway. I... was hoping to introduce myself to you, because I recognized you from last year in my biology class." You smiled tentatively at him, and Benedict's heart fluttered anew. "And then I... saw." You scowled again, but it looked cute on you, unlike your supposed brother... "So I'm—uh. This is pretty unconventional, but I was wondering if maybe you'd like to hang out? I'll buy replacements." You pointed at his broken, stupid things that didn't even matter anymore.
Ben looked away, nearly sneering, “You want to hang out with me? Is this some kind of joke?”
How could someone as beautiful as you even ask that to someone as pathetic as him?
You looked… sad. “No, I—“
”Forget it,” He grumbled, “I’ll handle—“
"Please."
That single word clamped his pathetic refusals shut. He'd taken you in with wide eyes, you and your pleading expression.
With defeat and the curl of a boyhood passion, the red in his ears flushed with fire across his cheeks and neck as he looked down at his polished shoes and spoke:
"Okay."
After that, the two of you became fast friends.
Kind of.
Benedict still held his suspicion, after all. He would have been a fool to let his guard down after your convenient save of the problem that your brother caused.
It was only fair.
But you... You held on.
He'd kept his eye on you, of course. Watching your mannerisms and all. He'd made sure to keep track of everything you did in a notebook with your name scribbled on the margins with lead hearts, measuring whether your sincerity had been real or not. For a couple of weeks, he'd allow you to come close, but not too close. Grateful he might've been for you and your endless generosity, for buying him his lost essentials, but that meant he had a debt to pay. And he didn't know whether or not you had the conscious upper hand that would one day switch and use that obligation he owes.
You said he didn't owe, but he knew.
He knew.
Plus, he didn't exactly want to be seen around you, per se. A part of him thought his image would tarnish your reputation. Or make him the renewed target of your awful, good-for-nothing brother.
There was no need for that, though.
To his pleasant surprise, your brother left Benedict alone after that day.
You must've torn him a new one, or other, because Benedict would catch more often than not, in real time, the quick change of mind. Your brother would look at him and hold a dark intent in his eyes, before he'd falter and scowl, turning away with a huff. Benedict would watch him walk away with a strange sense of disgust and triumph swirling in his chest, before he'd put it out of his mind with the relief of finally being able to walk alone in the halls without the fear of being harassed for no reason.
It wasn't just that, though.
Since he began to hang out with you more and more, it caught the attention of the rest of his peers and changed how his High School life progressed.
Instead of the usual wariness or upturned nose sent his way, he'd find himself brought into more conversations with people he would have never thought of interacting with. More often than not, he'd get shoved into meaningless discussions with petty jocks who used to look at him like he was scum under their shoe, but now wrung arms around his neck in good camaraderie, bringing him in close for side-hugs that made him extremely uncomfortable. He would endure all the falsities, though, for you—he would grit his teeth and let himself get talked over, even if sometimes he had a particular opinion in mind, just so that the smile on your face remained.
(Ben never thought talking could be so boring. Nobody else ever had anything relevant to talk about.)
And remain it did.
The rest of his Sophomore year was looking up, it seemed. It ended that way, with you as his new best friend, with people he didn't really care for treating him with more respect than he could ever dream of.
On the last day of 10th grade, you had smiled that same dazzling smile he adored. No longer did he feel small with it aimed his way, but mightier, wanted, even. You'd made fantasies he never could have conjured himself come true, too.
You'd asked him kindly if you would want to hang out outside of school, too.
During summer.
That summer, though he spent most of it locked behind a door trying to be the perfect son, had been one of his better ones. With his cooky brother off in boarding school (a null attempt made by his father at trying to instill obedience in him) and his ͑̂̔ͨ҉͠G͋̋͐͋ͩ̌҉̸͆̌̄r̄̀̂͌ͨ̀a̓̏̿͌ͯ̑̇̊̾͠n̛̈͗ͭ́ͧ̐̈́́͊̿͟d̓͋͜Father always at work during long hours, Benedict had the house mostly to himself. It meant he could call you whenever he wanted, and leave whenever he wanted—so long as he took down the surveillance his old man kept around.
It was quite possibly the most rebellious thing he had ever done in his life.
Not that he noticed.
No, he was far too hooked on you to realize it at the time. Though short, those small moments he spent with you that summer—whether it was spent in nonsensical shopping, passing along shop to shop with aching arms, or eating out in severely unhealthy places, stuffing your mouth until sickness—meant so much to him.
He had never known such a thing.
To follow along like a stupid puppy behind the girl with a thousand beauties; Ben was in a dream, and he never wanted it to end.
Junior year came and went, too.
With it came horrible, terrible realizations.
Such as the fact that he was terribly in love with you.
He'd found that out mid-year, when he'd been hanging out with you during your conjoined lunch periods, surrounded by the local cheerleader club. A lot of pretty girls surrounded him, trying to tease him for reasons he didn't understand, but his eyes only found yours—dismissing the sneering looks of envy from most of the jocks, of course. And yours only found his every time. It hadn't made sense—Ben thought it was just delusion on his part. Passion for the long-dead rivalry, or something.
But no.
No, Ben knew all too well.
But he thought this was a good thing. The way you'd made him feel, it was nothing he had ever felt before. Ben thought that this feeling, this tension between you and him, was meant to be. He didn't think it would be bad. Why and how could it be? With you around, his insides felt like sticky syrup, and the meat clinging to his weak bones felt inflamed with just a mere touch or look. It was like he was on fire. He was fire, surely. He would burn and burn, ache and beg just by your mere mention.
When prom came, he hadn't gone.
He'd almost done, but...
Ben had been too chicken.
But you'd skipped it for him.
And that night, with the two of you dressed up just to trick both of your parents into thinking you were hosting the event, together you sat on the sidewalk curb of the school's parking lot, staring up into the starry sky.
The night had been cold.
The muffled sounds of the stereo playing the newest hits sauntered as background noise in the air, tickling the ends of his spine, reminding him that he would not suffer on his own this year. While others laughed and cheered, Ben instead settled in this aching, loving silence.
"Thanks for ditching with me," You'd whispered to him, admiring the night lathering a pulchritudinous glow against your skin.
"...Yeah," He had uttered lamely, admiring you instead.
He had wanted to kiss you.
But he never did.
Summer arrived soon enough, later.
With it came his birthday, but he didn't get to celebrate it until the senior school year started. Give or take October, he believes.
It was a peaceful afternoon when the sun's light stretched its golden glow across the sky. The white clouds had softened into pastel shades of pink and orange, brushing across your perfect skin and hair. You and Benedict sat side by side at a wooden picnic table just outside Willwicker's Ice Cream Frozona. You had been craving something sweet and, on the whim of it being his birthday, had invited him by slipping him a note during third period that had smacked against the back of his head.
He'd whipped around, already bracing himself for the usual taunts he thought he had finally gotten rid of, only for the tension in his shoulders to unravel when he found you smiling at him with your eyes bright, gesturing eagerly toward the note in his hand.
His face went hot the moment he unfolded it beneath his desk when the teacher wasn't looking.
wanna hng out aftr schl 4 icecream
His honed and reflexive instincts had him immediately correcting your spelling in the margins before scribbling his enthusiastic agreement underneath with a smiley face. He folded the note tightly, then twisted in his seat just far enough to whisper to your best friend to pass it back. When she did (and wasn't it sad and pathetic that Ben still expected to be rejected or ignored, disrespected?), he quickly turned around and kept his eyes glued to his desk, fighting every urge to turn and watch your reaction.
He felt a lovesick fool right then and there, biting his lip, with his heart thumping loudly against his ears at the fantasy of your beautiful expression blooming in further joy.
And so here you both were with shoulders pressed together, each of you holding a cold confection in the opposite hand.
You'd be the only person to know just how much he adored ice cream. G͋̋͐͋ͩ̌҉̸͆̌̄r̄̀̂͌ͨ̀a̓̏̿͌ͯ̑̇̊̾͠n̛̈͗ͭ́ͧ̐̈́́͊̿͟d̓͋͜father forbade it, but Benedict wouldn't forget the first time he tried it all those months ago, when you'd offered it to him and felt the way it melted against his tongue like stolen joy.
"Happy birthday, Ben," You'd whispered to him, nudging yourself closer to him so that your faces were nearly inches apart.
Ben's ice cream had melted very fast, his face burning a terrible red that made you laugh.
(Had you known?)
It was his best birthday, ever, in his life.
Until it wasn't.
The joy wouldn't last, of course. And he would come to know on that fateful day the mysteries of your person that he had never gotten to see, long after the joys of ice cream were shared with giggles and stupid, idiotic blushes he never found the answer to.
A brownish, old-timey car slowly rolled into the curb some hours later.
Ben felt you tense beside him, and to his surprise, you had cursed. "Shit. That's my dad's car..."
He's never heard you curse before. He honestly didn't think you could, which was a silly thought that was quickly consumed by alarm when he saw a big, buff man covered in shadows angrily getting out of the car. Ben heard the hard snap of the door going shut, and he was helpless to watch your father furiously make his way toward the two of you.
You and he scrambled away from each other in sync, standing up from the picnic table, ice cream long forgotten.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Ben still remembers how his entire world began to crumble.
Why teenage fantasies were just that.
Fantasies.
Your father's words had nearly caused him to flinch at the time. They were too reminiscent of G͋̋͐͋ͩ̌҉̸͆̌̄r̄̀̂͌ͨ̀a̓̏̿͌ͯ̑̇̊̾͠n̛̈͗ͭ́ͧ̐̈́́͊̿͟d̓͋͜father. He had stood his ground, however, huddling into himself, looking from your father to you. You, who stared back at the man blankly, had lingered in place with not a twitching fear in your frame.
Ben had felt awe.
How? he had thought.
He could never hope to have that strength.
(It reminded him only a bit of Monty. That stupid, stupid fool.)
Ben could only admire briefly before his respect had shattered into shock, disgust, and anger.
Your father slapped you across the face, hard, when you hadn't responded. In public. In front of him.
You looked in the direction he slapped you, hair covering your face.
"When I talk to you, I expect a fucking answer! Why aren't you at home instead of being out here like a damn whore? You expect this damn chump to finish your assignments, you stupid girl?!"
Your father's words delved deep.
"He's my friend," You croaked.
Ben was shaking. His palms and heart had burned, but not with fear. He hadn't known it at the time, though. Contempt was quick to form solidly in his bruised heart, expression contorting into a visceral fury.
Cowardice poisoned him deeply.
But his anger was far worse.
Your father continued with his cruel charade. "I don't care. Get the fuck back in the car. You're useless to me like this."
"But I told you I was hanging out," You answered dully. The cheerful tone he was so used to from you was void now; nothing but a dull echo.
It was such a stark difference that Ben was caught off-guard when your father snagged your upper arm hard enough to startle a cry from you. Your father gritted a silent threat into your ear, and Ben—
Ben, he didn't know what came over him.
What he'd known at that very moment was that you looked scared. You looked like him.
(And wasn't that so damning?)
With nothing to lose, Ben had drawn back his fist just like his own G͋̋͐͋ͩ̌҉̸͆̌̄r̄̀̂͌ͨ̀a̓̏̿͌ͯ̑̇̊̾͠n̛̈͗ͭ́ͧ̐̈́́͊̿͟d̓͋͜father had time and time again, and struck.
What happened afterward was a blur.
His arm and hand had hurt. His face, too, throbbed with a terrible pain. He was staring at the blurry cement below him, staining it with droplets of warm blood that trickled down his nose. The fuzzy image of his glasses lay broken on the floor just out of his periphery, beside the fallen hairclip he had given to you so many months ago, on that stupid mall trip.
What happened? He had thought miserably, lifting his head.
Spotty vision; all he could see was the blob in the shape of you struggling against your father as he shoved you mercilessly into the car, with your screams of rage echoing in the background.
I failed, he thought pathetically.
And you were gone.
Time after that was...
Is not a time he can bear to think about, even now, at his grown age.
His Senior year in High School was spent with the lack of you. Separate classes were the main cause, but he had thought—he didn't know. He thought the two of you were friends.
But now the two of you would pass each other by the halls.
He would look at you, but you wouldn't look back.
You would ignore him and keep your head down. Past lockers and lunch periods, your silence would burn inside him in an agony that still swelters to this day. He had tried on multiple occasions to approach you, to talk, to beg for your forgiveness because Ben—Ben was so ashamed. Disgusted with himself, really. He had thought he was this big macho man, thinking he could take on the cause of your pain. But. But he hadn't been. He tried to defy authority and paid for it painfully, failing you in the process.
He failed you.
Ben tried so hard to say sorry. But your friends would find some way to deter him or point at him in another direction.
Months came and went.
He never gave up.
He even thought confessing to you all that you meant to him would change. He tried writing love letters and shoving them into your locker, but they would remain unopened, found in the trash. His heart broke every time.
But Ben never.
Gave.
Up.
And then you started dating some guy. One of his old middle school bullies. Harold Manfred.
And all the confidence he mustered to tell you recoiled into a bitter end.
The end of Senior Year awakened something ugly in him. He had seen you walk across that stage, had seen the pain in your eyes when you had accepted a kiss from the man of your apparent dreams, a man that your evil father approved of and even clapped the back of. Something Ben would have never had, because he was nothing in the end.
Just a loser.
And now he knew you saw that too.
So he grew up. And he hated. And now he is what he is today.
Twenty years later, here he stands, staring up at McClintock High School with utter disdain.
He wouldn't have come, but he had a mission to complete today. Unfortunate, really. Something, something, about the Kids Next Door infiltrating the premises to gather any new information on Adults. Benedict had come to pass along his message of villainy, figuring that Fulbright had a point in reminding him that old rivalries could recruit potential allies.
Benedict wasn't so inclined to the idea at first, but now...
Well.
It's worth a shot to expand his company.
As he makes his way up the cemented stairs where all of his past failures are reflected, Father takes a glance around. He finds new things here and there, like added plant-life and improved cement-work, tanked over the cracks he remembers tripping on. But there's not much of a difference.
A picture of the past, really.
And a true testament as to just how far he has really come.
He's going in with his head held high and his hands behind his back, evil intent evident, when he accidentally crosses paths with someone.
Midway in, just past the hallway where he met you, Benedict bumps into a warm body.
He stops at the discomforting cold that soils his front, looking down at his shadowed suit now covered in rocky-road ice cream.
Oh, what joy.
His favorite...
"Do you people even watch where you're going?" He grunts out, flaring his fires to melt it completely off.
He just tailored this suit, too.
Ugh.
"I'm so sorry!"
He freezes.
"I hadn't—Ben?"
Ben snaps his head up.
And finds you.