Chapter Text
I need respect, I need love
Nothing in between
I will not spell it out for you if you can't see
'Cause you're not worthy, you don't deserve me
And now I'm gone
- Demi Lovato “Everything You’re Not”
Going solo was probably simultaneously one of the best and worst decisions he’d ever made.
Going solo was great because, let’s face it, he didn’t have to deal with the soul-crushing grief that came with enduring the malice of the club. He chose how to handle every spectral situation he came across- on his own with nobody jumping to using violence. He chose when he went on patrol around his school, which was significantly larger as a high school had to fit more classes and students and teachers, etc. Most of all, he got to choose who he told about being a spectral because Spender had no reign over him anymore and he could kiss his butt. Of course, that wasn’t to say Isaac had actually told anybody. After all, he would run the risk of being sent to the local asylum (which his parents had already considered for him and they didn’t need further incentive). Being a loner opened up a few doors in the ways of communication with spirits, too. Some were much more receptive to reason, having confidence in knowing he had no malign affiliations. If anything, that told Isaac his decision to step away from the activity club was a good idea. Then there was the perk that nobody could keep secrets from him if he wasn’t around to ostracize. Max could go down that road all by himself. He’d made it more than clear Isaac was superfluous in his world. That might change the deeper down the rabbit hole Max would get, but Isaac wouldn’t hold his breath.
Of course, there was a large list of reasons going solo wasn’t the grand endeavor Isaac thought it would be. He’d glorified being a hero, sure, and maybe even assumed he’d make a few friends with a few chatty spirits. More often than not, Isaac found, for every spirit that was willing to listen to him, there were three who just wanted war. Isaac found out fast that it was really freaking hard to fight three-against-one, even with his weather powers and arguably impressive fast mind. Fights that he’d usually walk away from unscathed were leaving him trudging home, covered in bruises and scratches that’d been bleeding but were closed by the time he got to his bed. The following morning he’d find patches of pinks and blues and purples all over his arms and chest and, probably, his back.
Yes, being on a team had made him stronger as an opponent, but that didn’t mean going solo was awful. That’s what he told himself when he started worrying about what the club was doing. Try as he might, he still cared about whether they were having a rough time without him, or if one of them had gotten hurt in a battle with the random spirit of the week. He worried that they were getting into fights they couldn’t win, or combat they’d been trying to avoid for whatever reason. He worried Max was growing increasingly lost every day because Isaac knew how horrible the rest of the club was about explaining anything and everything.
Isaac groaned and glanced out the window beside his bed. His blue curtains gusted in his face with every breeze that passed through his open shutters. The night wasn’t very young anymore; at least it didn’t feel like it. He’d had another one of the “battle it out” nights that he hated so much. The fight against this odd worm-fish-human compound had lasted longer than he’d been expecting it to, especially when he found out it had an entire pond-full of buddies. By the time he’d finished the fight and went to head home, he’d had to sneak in the back door because his parents would be waiting by the front door. I’ll be getting an earful in the morning. He’d opened up the window primarily because he thought that the cold wind of the rising winter season would help ease his muscles. He’d been right, kind of. His entire body ached and throbbed where he’d stacked bandages, every pulse sending a sharp pain through his veins. He vaguely wondered if he’d been poisoned. The spirits had the mouths of humans, so it didn’t seem likely, but they had the teeth of an anglerfish and the flexibility of some crude earthworm he could have found in the dirt on any given day. Panic, white hot and sweaty, choked him. If he was poisoned, where would he go? Just to a regular hospital? What if it was some type of ectoplasm thing and they wouldn’t find it in him and they’d think he was faking it? What if they asked questions about his bruises?
Isaac swallowed the lump in his throat and painstakingly twisted so that he was on his side. The wounds were probably just infected, that’s all. He’d just look it up on the internet. His rational side told him that was a stupid idea and he’d be better suited to just ask the school nurse for advice because the internet lies, but he was keen to not draw attention to the wounds he couldn’t hide under clothing or concealer. If worse came to worst, he could always return to the club with his tail between his legs. It wasn’t like he’d parted with them on bad terms. In fact, Spender had reached out to Isaac a few days before summer started to let him know his graduation didn’t mean he was graduating from the club. The conversation was awkward, consisting of nothing but him nodding to every sugar-coated deceitful anecdote Spender could think of, and Isaac walked away from it feeling a little guilty, but he’d decided months beforehand that as soon as graduation day came he was out of there. They’d probably expected him to show up in the clubroom come the first day back to school, but he’d headed as far down the hills of Mayview as he possibly could without getting completely lost. It was surprising that he hadn’t run into any of them, now that they were three months into the new school year. Mayview was a small city. They’re avoiding me. They didn’t want me around, anyway- this is just proof. The rational part of him piped up again. It was letting him know they might just figure that he wants his space, which he did. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that none of them had reached out to him. Seriously, three months. They’re not even worried about me? Maybe I got into it with a spirit I couldn’t handle? They’d probably seen him around town without his knowledge and that was why they hadn’t said anything. Because they didn’t care enough to, doi. The rational part of him didn’t have a lot to say to that, aside from what Isaac already knew:
He wasn’t doing this for their attention. He wasn’t going solo and getting into trouble that left him with battle scars every night because he wanted them to care that he’s hurt. He wasn’t doing this because he wanted to get a glimpse at a side of them that might prove all of his doubts about their relationship wrong. He wasn’t doing this to piss them off or make them as angry at him as he was with them. He wasn’t even doing it to gain the respect from them he’d pined for almost three long years. He was going solo because he’d have control over his own story. He was going solo because he’d get to decide how he handled his powers and who he fought for. Without the club, he could be the silent hero Mayview’s paranatural population didn’t know it’d needed; so it didn’t matter what the club was thinking about him. He could fake not caring until he actually didn’t care anymore, and he had hope that day was coming soon.
High school hadn’t been what he was expecting. Where the movies portrayed high school as a sexed up, drugged up, dumpster of a place to be, he wasn’t finding a lot to complain about. All of his teachers were pretty nice, and obviously used to handling freshmen. There were couples making out in the hallways, but teachers reprimanded them quickly. Three months into the year, and he hadn’t heard about a single party. People talked to each-other about getting drunk, but he’d never seen anybody swaying with the wind on campus. The hallways were crowded, but not as much as he was expecting them to be. All in all, high school wasn’t the awful experience he was imagining it to be.
That wasn’t to say there weren’t things that bothered him. Because Mayview only had the one high school, there was a mixture of social classes that clashed almost violently on a normal basis. The kids with less money hurdled insults at the group that was visibly better-off, to which the ‘rich’ kids offered snooty if not abnormally witty remarks. The two groups went at it every morning, so much so that there were rumors about certain kids from one group dating kids from the other. With each passing day there was a growing animosity but affection to the way they mouthed off to each-other. Isaac often sat around just to keep an eye in case things escalated. More often than not he found the same old scene boring and repetitive, but that was when she wasn’t involved- Clara Appleby. She was a freshman with charcoal hair and a resting grimace somebody could see from yards away, even behind her overly large round glasses. Despite appearances, Clara was a peacemaker, although she was more aggressive about said peacemaking than Isaac hoped he’d ever be. She was a girl with no association with either group, just an observer like he was. Isaac had taken an interest in her the day things had escalated to a physical level. The guy Isaac had dubbed “Scar-face” for the clearly painted scar over his eyebrow, the ‘leader’ of one group, got into a fistfight with “Jack NICKELson” (get it, because nickels are currency), the ‘leader’ of the other group. Upon the first swing the two juniors took, they both went down on the pavement like bricks. When Isaac looked closer, he’d seen their shoelaces were tied together.
Clara had tried to start a conversation with him on multiple different occasions, but he’d always been too flustered by the concept that somebody actually wanted to talk to him to respond meaningfully.
“What did you think of Sarah Tony’s speech last night when she won that Grammy?” Clara was bent around in her seat to talk to him, elbows resting on his desk as he scratched away at their bellwork. “It was all about climate change and I think it’s wonderful she’s using her influence to inspire that kind of movement, don’t you?”
I was actually incredibly impressed. I didn’t think a lot of Sarah Tony before, considering a lot of her work is auto-tuned and I don’t really listen to that stuff, but I really like her. Any artist willing to put their fame to good use is an example we should all follow. “It was fine, I guess.” Isaac felt his cheeks heat up. Of course he had an opinion on the speech, why couldn’t he just say that? “Sarah Tony is cool.” Well, that was insightful. Clara pursed her lips and tapped her jaw where her fingers rested, but otherwise didn’t seem too put-off by his lackluster response. He had to come up with something better to say. She was the first person to try to be his friend in an incredibly long time so messing up was absolutely not an option.
“So…”
“Do you like anime?”
Clara’s eye widened, but not in the ‘wow yeah I love anime how did you know’ way. It was in more of a ‘what the hell is anime’ way that he knew so upsettingly well. Isaac felt whatever hope he’d had for a friend fall deep into the pits of his stomach. Not to mention that probably sounded incredibly racist, considering she’s Asian. If he could just walk away, dig himself a grave deep enough to burn inside the Earth’s core and die there, that would have been great. Class was about to start, though, and he actually liked taking math with Mister Carver. “Uh, when I was ten, maybe. You’re still into that stuff?”
Isaac had retraced the number 4 about fifty times, each line darker than the last. “Maybe.”
“Okay, I don’t know if you and I are on the level that I can tease you for that yet, so I won’t.”
Isaac broke the tip of the pencil. He coughed on the thick smell of lead coming in wafts off of his paper, and maybe on the realization that Clara recognized there was a thing called ‘boundaries’. He’d so been expecting another cruel whip at his hobbies like he would have gotten from Max or a snicker like he would have gotten from Ed. Whatever he was expecting- it wasn’t that. His coughing jerked his body just enough to remind him that he was covered in black and blue bruises. He hid the jolts of pain behind the very fake sound of clearing his throat. Clara tilted her head down at his broken pencil, pulling the one she had tucked by her ear out and handing it to him. “Good job, Hulk. What’s next, your desk?”
Against all odds, the awkwardness of the conversation was slipping away, and Isaac was chuckling at a joke at his expense. “Who keeps a pencil behind their ear, anymore? Are you eighty?”
Clara snickered and wiggled her fingers around in front of his face, unbearably impersonating twilight zone sound effects. “Maybe I am! Who’s to say, hm?”
Isaac brushed her hands away and gave her his best awed expression. “Old Lady Appleby! Your complexion is magnificent!” Clara laughed, and for a few seconds he could see the wheels turning in her head as she searched for a response. There was a beat of silence, and it was eerily similar to the awkwardness he’d felt earlier, but the ball was in her court- not his. It was kind of refreshing, being teased and enjoying it.
Four months into the school year and Clara was quickly becoming the best friend he’d ever had. She laughed at his jokes- and at him. That was okay, though, because he got to laugh at her, too. She snored while she slept in class. She once checked out a book and never returned it to the library. She got sent to the principal’s office because she stuck gum in the teacher’s hair when she was nine. If he was embarrassed about watching anime, she was embarrassed about watching soap operas because the guys were hot. Clara was as imperfect as he was and she was perfectly fine with letting him see her be imperfect. That was why, and he knew it was crazy, he was very seriously debating telling her about spectrals- namely that he was one.
He didn’t know why he was so spooked about it. It wasn’t like he couldn’t play it all off as a joke if she didn’t believe him. If she was skeptical but willing to listen, then he’d just conjure a small rainbow. He wasn’t worried she’d tell anybody (because nobody would believe her). Every scenario he ran through his head had a backup plan, but he was still incredibly nervous about it. Maybe he was worried she’d be scared of him? Play it off as a joke, then. Say you’re just a magician and it was a magic trick. Even with his safety nets in place, he couldn’t help but hate the idea of her rejecting it all; he couldn’t stand the thought of her rejecting him. She was probably going to need some time to think, and that was understandable, but what if she never stopped thinking? What if she kept her distance from him and avoided him? Even if that stuff didn’t happen and he managed to play it off like some golden magic trick, would he be able to handle lying to her? Would he be able to handle knowing every day that she’d be terrified of him if he hadn’t lied at the last second?
Isaac closed his locker and exhaled, slamming his head against the closed door.
“You okay there, Red? You’re lookin’ a little pale, even for a ginger.”
That was a voice he was very familiar with: Hardy Deering, a junior. He was probably the cockiest jock to have ever walked the Mayview High gym, which was funny considering he was objectively terrible at any and all sports. Isaac shared PE with the guy and often observed him showing off with a basketball. Well, it was less observation and more first-person experience. Hardy would toss the ball in the air just to catch it when it fell, because he sure as heck couldn’t twirl it on the tips of his fingers. Isaac still shivered when he remembered Hardy giving him a wink before he completely missed the shot. He played football, but the coach had him on the benches near constantly. When the class played volleyball, he repeatedly hit the ball into the net if not straight into the ground- on his side of the net. Aside from that, he wasn’t an awful guy. Hardy flirted a lot, but he wasn’t a jerk about it, so it wasn’t something to be paid a lot of attention to. Isaac twisted around so he was leaning against the wall of lockers, blowing an imaginary piece of hair out of his face. “I’m fine, Deering. Why are you asking?” He didn’t usually refer to people by their last names, primarily because he felt that would clue people into his weaboo status like a giant red arrow, but Hardy never called anybody by their first name. Isaac would just ignore the ‘Red’ nickname. Hopefully he’d never use it again.
“O’Connor, right?”
“Yeah?” Isaac raised an eyebrow, more curious than anything.
Hardy tugged at the rim of his beanie, giving the appearance that his normally-sized forehead was much smaller than it really was. His tousled hair fell far past the ends of his hat, down to his shoulders. It really completed the whole baggy-pants “rulz suk” look he had going. The longer they stayed silent, locked in some sort of glaring contest, the more Isaac was crawling under his skin. The fingers on his books clenched enough for him to feel the beginnings of a paper cut. His other hand clenched the strap of his backpack with enough force for his knuckles to turn white. “So, I heard some rumors from some of the freshmen I’ve taken under my wing.”
“Okay, and I’m assuming those rumors have something to do with me?”
“Yeah, they do” Hardy shrugged. “Wanna know what I heard?”
“Not really, no.”
If there was one thing he didn’t need, it was to be involved in some half-baked high school scandal. He was happy for the first time in a very long time, and no stupid rumor about him hooking up with some sophomore nobody likes was going to ruin that. Isaac pushed off of the lockers, turning on the tips of his toes to head for the staircase. He wasn’t expecting Hardy to corner him against the locker with two slams to either side of his body. Isaac gulped and glanced from the hands beside his shoulders to the junior trapping him. “I heard that you talk to thin air, like you’re speaking to ghosts or something.” And what, he's gonna beat me up for it? I didn’t peg him the type. Great, Isaac, you’re a horrible judge of character. Fantastic. Exactly what you need on top of all the other daily stresses.
Isaac wanted to tell him to shove off, maybe use some colorful language now that he was a young adult, but nothing was louder in his mind than the primal instinct of self-preservation. He stayed silent, gulping and staring Hardy down from his place a few inches below him. “Well, is it true? Do you talk to ghosts?”
Isaac shifted uncomfortably, eyes casted down at their shoes. “I, uh…”
“Look,” Hardy readjusted so that he and Isaac were on eye level “do you see spirits or what, ‘cause if you do then that means I’m not friggin’ crazy.”
That wasn’t what Isaac expected to hear.
It hadn’t occurred to him that there were spectrals out there the club didn’t know about- kids who didn’t explode when they got their powers, or maybe kids who did, so they kept it quiet. Looking at Hardy then, he wasn’t nearly as menacing. In fact, the guy looked akin to a nervous wreck, a small bead of sweat falling down the side of his face- more than anything Isaac had seen him sweat during a game- not that he went to his games. Hardy’s green eyes darted back and forth as he awaited Isaac’s reply. It was kind of amusing, actually, having such an ego-maniac at his mercy.
Isaac reached up to one of Hardy’s wrists and gave the skin a small, but noticeable, shock. Hardy yelped and pulled that hand away, shaking it and glancing between the tingling skin and Isaac. His lips parted to say something, but he resigned to merely pointing at his hand in a silent question. Did I do that? Yes, I did. The medium gave him the most wicked smile he could and shrugged, crossing his arms in a manner he presumed was cool while he held his books. Hardy stood there, eyes switching from his hand to Isaac, Isaac to his hand, and the cycle repeated until the obvious clicked in his mind.
Isaac was anticipating some joyous ‘woots’ or enthusiastic leaping, maybe even a bone-crushing hug. After all, Isaac knew what it was like to finally find somebody like him, and he was kind of starting to feel it all over again. Hardy would be the first spectral he’d met outside of the activity club- somebody he could talk to about spirits and somebody to depend on in the heat of battle. Maybe he wouldn’t have to go crawling back to the club when he needed help? Maybe he could teach Hardy and they could learn the secrets of the spectral world together?
Hardy smiled when the reality set in, a wide toothy grin stretching across his face the longer he stared at Isaac. The medium was almost proud of himself, making another person so happy. It was even better that it was just because he existed in Hardy’s universe. “There’s probably a lot you don’t know. There’s a lot that I don’t know, too, but I think we can figure that stuff out together, if it’s cool with you?”
Things turned topsy-turvy fast, much faster than Isaac could handle. Hardy cupped Isaac’s face in his hands, large happy grin turning almost mischievous. Isaac’s heart leaped in his throat, hands clenching and uncleaning in rhythm at his books and bag. Hardy didn’t seem to notice how nervous Isaac was and, if he did, he presumably enjoyed the power of it. His Cheshire grin sent chills down Isaac’s spine the larger it grew. “An excuse to see more of you? I’ll buy it.” Isaac struggled to think of something cool or witty to say- something to rip the power right out of Hardy’s arrogant hands. All that came to mind were some quotes about the importance of teamwork from some animes he hadn’t watched in six years.
Hardy’s breath was hot on the medium’s face. As badly as Isaac wanted to knee the guy, Hardy was harmless. More than that, he was not worth breaking his vow of peace for. Hardy’s thumb grazed Isaac’s lips as he pulled away, fast enough Isaac didn’t register the missing body heat until the jock was already a couple feet away. In seconds he was running backwards down the hall, waving at Isaac jovially as though they’d just exchanged pie recipes like sweet little old ladies. “Catch you later, O’Connor! I’ll find ya when I need ya!”
Isaac watched him go, fingers touching where Hardy’s thumb met his lips. Slowly, he sank to his butt, staring vacantly out the windows.
Clara had been staring at him for a full five minutes. Isaac was sure of it. He sat there with a rain cloud in one hand and a miniature hailstorm in the other. Her eyes were reading blank, but the rest of her face said that she was riddled with curiosity and fascination. She hadn’t doubted him when he said he had powers, but she wasn’t completely sold to the idea, either. She asked for proof, and he’d provided it just as he had planned to. So far, things had gone exactly as planned, except now was the true moment of truth- the hard part. Clara blinked and readjusted her glasses so they weren’t falling off her face. “Well, if that isn’t the weirdest thing to happen in Mayview, yet.”
“So, you believe me?”
“Assuming there aren’t any mirrors or cameras hidden in this dark dirt path that I didn’t know about, sure.”
Clara took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose, lips in a twisted frown. Isaac was a ball of nervous energy, his heart bouncing in his ribcage like some kind of crazed loony tune character. He was sure they’d have seen it attempt to jump out of his chest, provided he’d had elastic powers. Maybe he should have waited a few more months. This was a lot of pressure to put on somebody he’d been talking to all of October and November. By the way, Clara, you made friends with a freaky medium who has weather powers- hooray! As much as he’d hated himself for it, that was pretty much what he’d managed to stutter through anxious gulps of air. When she finally put her glasses back on, Clara seemed stoic about the entire situation. He wasn’t sure if she was internally screaming at the top of her lungs or if she genuinely was that calm. “Who else knows about this?”
“Uh,” was it a good idea to tell her about the activity club? Telling her about his powers was up to him, but outing the club without their permission? Was it a good idea to tell her about Hardy? Isaac cringed at the name, a shiver running down his spine at the memory of his thumb tracing his lip. He could still feel it on his skin and it freaked him out. Isaac hid the chill with a hand scratching the back of his neck. “Uh, well…”
“Scratch that- tell me you don’t have one.”
“Have one what?”
Clara rolled her eyes and slapped his arm like he should have known exactly what she was talking about because ‘GOD Isaac you’re SO STUPID’. She waited patiently for him to hiss in pain, but it didn’t come. She frowned at him, but he just shrugged. He’d had a lot worse hit him harder in the last six months, not that she would know that. “Come on, you know.”
“What? A superhero name? I’m not a-!”
“No, idiot! Well, yes that too, but I’m talking about a techy! A sidekick from the sidelines! Somebody who helps you escape the abandoned building with a detailed map of the layout! That sort of thing!”
Isaac arched an eyebrow. Clara exhaled and stomped around in a circle, flipping the bottom of his sweater instead of smacking him a second time. “Isaac, I wanna be the Felicity to your Green Arrow. The Sisco to your Flash. Get it?”
“I’m ninety percent sure you have no tech experience, like, at all.”
“I can learn. Books exist for a reason.”
Isaac massaged his temples and turned around, continuing on the trail that would eventually lead home. “I knew I would have a headache, but not this kind. Not for this reason.”
Clara was right behind him, falling naturally into the same step on their way down the path.
“Oh, my god, Clara what is this?”
“A thermal sensor. It helps me see the ghosts you’re seeing. Well, see their heat, anyway.”
Isaac timidly handled the oddly-shaped camera-looking device in the palms of his hands. He wasn’t sure if it was expensive tech, but he didn’t want to find out. He wanted to tell Clara he wasn’t sure that was how any of it worked, that ghosts wouldn’t necessarily show up on a glorified mood ring. He wanted to tell her that he’s not sure she can really help him do his job, if that’s what he was calling it. While he appreciated all of her support, there wasn’t a lot a normal person could do. He was starting to think that was another reason why Spender’s mysterious superiors always said “don’t tell anybody about being a spectral”. Maybe it wasn’t too late to tell her he was just a magician?
Isaac opened his mouth, but the words died in his chest before they could reach his tongue. Clara had set up a system for herself. He could see tabs of detailed maps of Mayview’s many small patches of forests, floor plans for buildings he knew were near cemeteries. She was working hard and it was to make him feel supported. He’d been asking for a friend like her his entire life, then fate hands her to him and he’s going to lie just to get her to calm down? He couldn’t do that.
“Clara?”
She paused in the middle of a very long-winded rant about books she’d read and hadn’t entirely understood, concepts she was sure she could pick up over time, and looked at him. Her lips stayed parted, as though she was prepared to continue talking when he was done with what he had to say. She was excited and, as great as that was, he had to slow the tracks a bit. “Maybe we should just start with you knowing about this for a bit?” Isaac gestured to the set-up he could already tell was going to be more complicated than either of them could understand “Instead of jumping straight into whatever this is?”
Clara blinked, looking at Isaac with an unreadable expression. He could match a lot of emotions to the way her eyebrows furrowed, and her lips thinned. More than anything, he was sure he saw embarrassment. “I- oh yeah, of course. I got really carried away. I do that sometimes! I’m really sorry.”
“Clara, it’s okay, really!”
“No, it’s not! I didn’t even ask! Oh my god, this is way too much.”
“For right now, maybe!”
He placed his hands on her shoulders and shook her lightly, squeezing where she was tense. Clara’s feet shuffled against the floor, eyes scanning the laces of her shoes. “Look, just let this grow on its own, you know? Here, I’ll take the thermal sensor and I’ll see if you can see the spirits and ghosts with it and stuff. Does that sound okay?”
Clara nodded, meeting Isaac’s careful gaze with an optimistic one. “Alright, yeah. That sounds like a good idea.”
It was early in the morning on a Friday, the day that nobody wants to put up with anything because they are within inches of the sweet weekend escape. Isaac was at his usual spot, leaning against a pillar just close enough to the bickering of the social classes to hear them without being obvious. Clara sat beside him on the ground, scratching down some last-minute homework answers before the bell rang to report to their individual living nightmares. The two sat in comfortable silence, enjoying the breeze that swept the walls of the courtyard. Isaac was looking forward to the winter and all that came with it: snowmen, warm fires, tea with a book and a blanket, snowball fights…
He remembered last winter, the first time Max was experiencing cold without the comfort of the city. They’d all poked fun at him for shivering under two jackets and a sweater, his teeth chattering so loud they could hear it from a foot away. Isaac told him it would be a good idea to switch his cap for something warmer, like a beanie, but he’d rejected the idea vehemently. It was Ed who broached the subject of a snowball fight- well; he tossed a snowball that hit Max square in the face, if that was what broaching meant. Isabel was too busy hunched over laughing to notice Max reaching down to gather snow. Isaac remembered watching the batter with complacency as Isabel got a scoopful of snow shoved down the back of her jacket. She’d screeched and struggled to get the white fluff out of her clothes, all the while screaming that Ed should have been the one to fall victim to Max’s heinous act. Ed was readying another snowball when one of Isaac’s hit him in the side, knocking him off of his balance and sending him face-first into the snow. Isaac had rarely felt as proud as he did, then. Max had patted him on the back, sarcastically hailing Isaac as his ‘hero’ for avenging him. The attention had been welcome if not desired. Isaac had been too busy soaking up the recognition to notice Isabel rolling a rather large snowball, roughly the size of her torso, with the anticipation of smacking him in the face with it. The excessively large snowball nailed Isaac in the chest and he fell backwards under the force of it. Max had reached out to help him, but retracted his hands at the last second because he was laughing so hard his sides hurt. The four had gotten into the biggest snowball fight Isaac had ever had, splitting into unclear teams with no rules and no signs of cover in sight. It was one of Isaac’s more treasured memories, one of the few times attending Mayview Middle was ‘fun’. The four of them not only missed the tardy bell, but all of first period and some of second.
He pondered vaguely on what winter would be like now that he hadn’t seen them in half a year. He missed them and he knew it, but it wasn’t enough to make him fold on his resolve. Isaac turned his attention to Clara, who was banging her head repeatedly against the sides of her notebook as she struggled with her homework. Clara seems like the type to have a snowball fight. A snowball fight with Clara could be fun. The yearning he’d been feeling eased up, but it was far from disappearing. Memories of the activity club that didn’t make him want to tear his hair out were becoming increasingly common and he hated it. There weren’t enough of them to make him change his mind, darn it! His guilt was getting to him and it was ridiculous. Being a part of the activity club had regularly drained him, left him feeling empty and angry and helpless. They lowered his self-esteem. They made him regret ever learning about spectrals, which sucked because he loved his powers. Cutting the club out of his daily routine was just a part of him growing stronger. Maybe he’d yearn for their company every now and again, but quitting the club was ultimately the best thing he could have done for himself.
He must have been lost in that train of thought for a long time, because the hand that was waving in front of his face started snapping. Isaac swallowed and glanced up to see Hardy standing there, an eyebrow cocked and the traces of a sneaky grin tugging at his lips. “What’s got you so down, Red?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Fine, whatever. You’re such a buzzkill for a guy with an Irish lineage.”
Isaac blanched. “How did you know I’m Irish?”
“Your last name is O’Connor- ‘ts pretty damn Irish.” Hardy glanced at Clara, who was looking between the two of them with a question at the tip of her tongue. She’d probably said something about not knowing he knew Hardy Deering, but Isaac hadn’t heard it if she had. Isaac watched Hardy with crossed arms and a grimace that he was sure made his lips look unappealing, not that he thought Hardy was genuinely interested in him or anything. “Listen, dude,” Hardy gripped the sleeve of Isaac’s shirt, sending a jolt of energy through Isaac’s body that made his face heat up so much he couldn’t even feel the cold pre-winter air “can I talk to you alone?” Isaac thought about saying no. He thought about telling Hardy that Clara knew about spectrals, but when he looked at Hardy- genuinely looked at him- the guy was in a nervous sweat. He kept shifting like somebody was watching them, throwing glances over his shoulder, and worrying his lower lip. His eyes were wide with fright Isaac couldn’t understand, but he was willing to try.
“What’s this about, Deering?”
“I saw something last night, man.” Hardy was pacing back and forth in the empty hallway, running his hands through the locks of hair that weren’t hidden under his huge black beanie. Isaac watched him with what felt like curiosity and concern. He didn’t think much of it. It was in his nature to love humanity and care about other people. It was in his nature to want to help. Hardy definitely looked like he needed it. He was shaking under his clothes. Isaac chose not to say anything about it since there was no reason to embarrass the guy. All it would do was make Hardy distrustful of him, and he was just about done dealing with not being trusted. “I was just listening to my music, ya know? I plugged my headphones in and it was almost like time stopped or something!” Oh. “There was this creature just, like, staring at me. I don’t know if it was a spirit or what, but it looked like a dog and it had these huge-ass megaphone ears and holy shit, dude I’m freaking out!”
“Calm down, it’s perfectly normal. Everything’s alright, you just met the spirit in your tool is all.” Hardy dropped all of his weight against the lockers across from Isaac, running his hands over his face as he recollected all the air he lost panicking.
“Wanna tell me what a tool is?”
Isaac smiled and pushed away from his spot against the wall, laying a cautious (friendly) hand on Hardy’s shoulder. “Here, let me start by saying we are called spectrals and you and I are not the only ones.”
“Okay, try it again.”
Deep emerald spectral energy- almost Ed’s color, but deeper. It was comparing the grass in spring to an old oak tree. Isaac found himself staring at Hardy’s eyes when his energy flared- it was the same color. Often he shook it off and pretended that he hadn’t just been staring deeply into the arrogant jerk’s eyes, because romance was far from his intention. It wasn’t even in the ballpark.
Hardy’s already unusually stern expression became focused, determined, as he twirled his tool (a pair of white headphones) around the tips of his fingers. With a huff of hot air and a lash of the chords so fast it sounded like a whip, Isaac could almost see the soundwave echo through the air before it went crashing into the decoy wooden person Isaac had constructed last minute. Where before, each limb fell individually, there was a clean cut right down the middle of the dummy. Isaac watched with curious eyes as the top half came sliding to the ground, leaving the bottom half unevenly stacked atop Isaac’s eighth grade text books. It soon fell to its side, succumbing to gravity. “That was pretty impressive, Deering!”
Isaac breathed into his hands, warming them up as best he could without gloves. It’s not like it was that cold outside, yet; he just kept getting chills for some reason.
Hardy popped his headphones into his cell, smirking at Isaac from underneath his beanie. “I’m just an impressive person.”
Isaac rolled his eyes and handed Hardy his book-bag, nodding to the exit of the abandoned parking lot they’d stumbled upon. Well, stumbled upon wasn’t so much the truth as they’d spent an entire weekend looking for one. It was just that the forest was a hotspot for paranatural activity, so not actually hitting anything would have been hard. It wasn’t like Mayview had plenty of large, grassy open fields- the city was pretty much nothing much copious hills. The next best thing had to be an empty parking lot. Hardy didn’t seem to mind, but he also didn’t seem to mind being trained by somebody with little more idea than he had himself.
Isaac wasn’t exactly sure what to do. It wasn’t like he’d ever had proper training, himself. How was he supposed to teach a new spectral much of anything? That was the problem- he wasn’t. Eventually, he’d have to tell Hardy about the dojo and about the club and about what he’d done-!
Hardy would abandon him, too.
Having Clara around was great, really great, but she wasn’t a spectral. She could only help him up off the ground and dust him off. She couldn’t see the things he’d seen or fight by his side or joke with him about particularly unsettling spirits. Her understanding of his world could only go so far- Hardy was different. Sure, he told Hardy about how there were other spectrals in the world and that everything he was experiencing was perfectly normal, but what if Hardy started asking other questions? What if he asked if Isaac knew other spectrals? What if he decided Isaac wasn’t good enough anymore?
“Hey, Red! Let me walk ya home.” Hardy wrapped an arm around Isaac’s tense shoulders and pulled him toward the exit. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. How about I show you my favorite place?”
Isaac fought the smile that was urging him to giggle like a schoolgirl- which he was not, darn it. He was a macho teenage boy bursting with testosterone. “Are you asking me out?”
Hardy shrugged, and something told Isaac it was an excuse to brush their shoulders together. “Well I’m not not asking you out.”
Isaac snorted and elbowed his friend in the chest, not very hard, just enough to set him straight. “Only if you’re paying.”
He took a few paced steps to get ahead of Hardy, snickering when he heard “Well that’s kinda what date implies!”