Chapter Text
It was lonely on the playground.
It was nothing new, of course. He was only seven, but his entire life had been lonely outside of home. He had his family, but no friends. Moving schools hadn’t alleviated things… in fact, the bullying had started up again even sooner.
Burton didn’t fit in. He sometimes didn’t feel as french as all the other kids. Which was stupid, because he was born in France… But his mother had moved there from Tahiti while she was pregnant with him. It made him feel like he didn’t have anywhere to belong, sometimes. It didn’t help that he was also a large kid for his age. He towered over everyone else in his grade and weighed a fair bit more than them too. It didn’t bother him, but it bothered the other children, it seemed. After realising they couldn’t use his size and strength to their own advantage, the class bullies quickly made him a target. They wanted to see him lash out. To see what power such a beast of a seven year old could possibly achieve. Alas, Burton was not easy to break. He ignored every taunt hurled his way, sighed at the attempts to physically threaten him, and seemed quite content to be on his own. In fact, if his entire life were to pan out like this, he was sure he could deal with it. Even if he was lonely.
But fate had other plans for him that day.
As he sat in the corner of the playground, running his hands through the mulch, someone noticed him.
“Hey.” Called a voice. Burton looked up, expecting to see another mean-spirited bully. But this was different. A child his age looked up at him, hands on hips, a scowl on their face… But a curious look in their eyes. It was hard to tell if they were a boy or a girl… Because they were completely bald. In fact, with their rail-thin build and their neatly ironed shirt, the kid almost reminded him of a middle-aged businessman. Looking so old at such a young age was quite impressive.
“Are you looking at my head? My mother shaved it because I had lice. But I don’t have them anymore so don’t worry.” They explained.
“...Congrats?” Burton wasn’t exactly sure what the strange looking kid wanted with him, but hey, it was company that wasn’t negative.
“Anyway, why are you in my playground spot? This is where I sit.” The scrawny kid pried. “I haven’t seen you around before.”
Great, am I about to be kicked out from this spot too? “Oh… I’m new. But I haven’t seen you around before, either.”
“That’s because they suspended me. It’s because I bit a kid. But he was being an asshole and deserved it. Don’t tell the teachers I said asshole, I’ll get in trouble. I won’t bite you though. Unless you’re also an asshole. Please don’t tell the teacher I said that word three times.”
This kid had a lot to say. Now that he thought about it, Burton remembered one of his tormentors sporting a rather fresh bite mark on their arm. He opened his mouth to speak again, but was cut off.
“This spot is for me. Well, me and my friends. But they all go to different schools.” It was a lie and they both knew it. The kid rocked back and forth on their feet.
“Well… I don’t have any friends either. It’s okay.” Burton replied, causing his interrogator to look very embarrassed. They crossed their arms and looked away. Not wanting to drive away the one person who hadn’t antagonized him, he spoke up again- “We could be friends, if you like. You seem nice.”
The kid whirled around, a look of surprise on their face, followed by a big grin with a few missing teeth. They caught themselves and quickly recomposed a serious face. “Well. Um. First I have to see if you make a good business partner.”
“Business partner…?”
“Yes! I’m going to be a rich and famous inventor when I grow up, and I need to make sure you’re worthy of my ideas.”
Burton snorted. “Ah. Of course.”
“First of all. My real name is bad. So everyone calls me Mr Stiff because that’s my last name. Or if you REALLY have to, you can call me Scott. That name’s alright.”
Going by his last name already? He really was just a young middle aged man. What a character. “I’m Burton.” He replied.
“Burton… What? What’s your last name? We can’t just be ‘Mr Stiff and Burton’. It’s not professional!”
It was Burton’s turn to get embarrassed. Great.
“...Lardo. That’s my last name.” He whispered. His last name was not the best. It was the only thing that tied him to his biological father, who he’d never met. That wasn’t important at the moment, though. He eyed Mr Stiff carefully, waiting for him to burst out laughing and tease him.
“Mr Stiff and Mr Lardo… Why, it’s perfect!” He exclaimed, surprising Burton.
“I… Really? You think so?” You’re not going to laugh at me?
“Why wouldn’t I? We can be… A dynam…. A dynamite… Dynamic duo! Mr Stiff, the world famous inventor, and his best friend, Mr Lardo!” He began, extending a hand to his new best friend. His first best friend. “You passed the interview, Bu… uh…”
“Burton.” He corrected, a smile appearing on his face. Mr Stiff nodded, muttering something about how he wouldn’t forget again. Burton shook the scrawny kid’s hand, his heart filling up as their palms met. He had a friend! A best friend, at that! He couldn’t wait to tell his mother-
“Hey, look! Baldy and Fatty are holding hands!” Teased a new voice. Burton turned around to see another classmate had come over to laugh at them. “What a cuuuute couple!”
“Ignore him.” Burton said to his new friend. “He’ll just go away.”
“Yeah, Baldy! Listen to your booooyfriend~”
Burton tried to hide his face. Great, now Mr Stiff would surely get embarrassed and leave him. He felt Mr Stiff let go of his hand, and assumed the worst. But he quickly looked again when he heard screaming.
His new friend had his teeth deep in the arm of their tormentor. The other child screamed, flailing about, trying to rid himself of his assailant. But despite being thin and looking nonthreatening, Mr Stiff held steady, biting as hard as his little mouth could muster. Burton could swear he even heard growling. Other students called for the teacher, but nobody dared to stop the feral, biting child, and the teacher was nowhere to be seen.
Desperate, the bully turned to Burton. “Stop him! Get him off me!” He blubbered. He was a mess, wailing and crying and trying to run away. It was then that Burton was struck with an idea.
“Do you promise to never bully me again?” He said, a hint of chill to his voice.
“I-” he was cut off as Mr Stiff bit deeper. The bully let out a wail. “ALRIGHT! FINE! I’LL NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN! I WON’T EVEN LOOK AT YOU! JUST STOP HIM! AURGH!!”
Perfect. Now Burton actually needed to figure out how to stop his friend from biting. He stood up to his full height, towering over everyone else in the playground. Carefully, he placed a hand on Mr Stiff’s back.
He immediately stopped growling at the touch, and almost mechanically unclenched his jaw. His victim ran away, wailing and crying. All the other students gave the pair a wide berth too.
“You think I showed him who’s boss?” Asked Mr Stiff, a giant grin on his face.
“I think… You’re nuts.” Burton replied. He shouldn’t endorse violent behaviour… but his new friend had just bitten someone for him! That was some crazy dedication.
“Oh, well. That’ll show them not to mess with Mr Stiff and Mr Lardo, right?” He giggled.
It was a sound that made Burton feel something strange. Not a bad feeling, but… he really wanted to hear that laugh again. Whatever. It was probably nothing. Just before he could reply, the bell rang. Break was over.
“Come on, we can’t be late. I’ll get in more trouble!” Mr Stiff said, running off. Burton trailed close behind, his mind a whirl, but one thought very clear:
He finally had a friend.
~~
“How was school?”
Burton looked up from his food as his mother entered the dining room. She smiled warmly at him and sat next to him. “You seem happy.”
He was very close with his mother. Well, that was to be expected, of course. But they rarely argued, and it was usually over silly things like cleaning rooms or not fighting with siblings. Her skin was dotted with moles, like stars in the night sky. That’s why her name was Raiana- it meant ‘starry sky’ in Tahitian. She had to be very smart, thought Burton. She knew Tahitian, French, and English. She was also incredibly tall- to the point she often needed to duck through doorways. It was very obvious where Burton got his genetics from. Her hair was a deep, rich black, just like his, though she always kept hers up in a bun.
Burton smiled as the sun hit him through the dining room window. “I made a friend, mom!” He excitedly proclaimed. “He bites people!”
His mother was only slightly deterred by the biting thing. “Oh, I’m so proud of you! He doesn’t bite you, I hope?”
“No! He wouldn’t be my friend if he bit me . Nuh uh, he bit one of the kids who was being mean to me! He says we’re business partners!” He continued. The smile on his face grew as he talked and he rocked back and forth in his chair happily.
“Business partners, eh? What’s his name?” His mother asked, picking up Burton’s empty plate and moving to wash it.
“His name’s Mr Stiff! He’s got no hair because his mother shaved it because he had nits! And he looks like an insect!”
She couldn’t suppress a laugh at this comment. She knew how much her son loved insects, and that he would’ve meant it as a compliment, but something about the way he said it was specially adorable. “You should invite him over! The house gets very rowdy when your brother has his buddies over, you need to balance it out…”
“I’ll ask him! I hope his parents are alright with it.” Burton affirmed, still rocking back and forth in his chair. It would be scratching up the floorboards, but the house was already very old, and… lived in. Not dirty by any means, but the place had been patched up several times. It gave it charm, made it feel comfortable. The cobwebs in the window corners had watched him grow up.
His mother was right, too. Gabriel, his brother, was only a year and a half younger than him, but his friends were very loud. Gabriel went to a different school, as he had no troubles fitting in, and although they were siblings and naturally the best of friends, Burton couldn’t help but feel lonely when his brother was playing with his friends and he had… no one. Apart from his mother, who would hold him and tell him he was much too young to be worrying about such things and comb through his short hair with her hands.
But he wasn’t lonely anymore! He didn’t need to mope about! Burton hopped down from his chair, and instead went to grab his favourite book, an atlas of all the different types of insects. Some of the words were a bit too big for him to understand, but the large pictures of the insects made him excited. He loved bugs. Hell, he loved all animals, but bugs held a special place in his heart. Not many people liked them, or found them cute, but they were very important to him. He wanted everyone to see their true colours! But he was a bit too young to effectively get that across, so he often paraded around the house with live insects, much to his family’s… Distaste. He wondered what Mr Stiff thought of insects. Did they have to both like the same things to be best friends? The whole concept was so new to him. He’d have to ask his father when the man got home. He had a lot of friends.
Well… Technically, his father was his stepfather. His mother had explained this to him at a young age. But to Burton, it didn’t matter. He’d been there since he was a baby, and treated Burton exactly the same as Gabriel, who was his biological son. So as far as he was concerned, his father was his father, and nobody could change that.
Just as he finished thinking about that, he realized the sun had slipped below the horizon. He’d been looking at the insect atlas for hours! Burton carefully put the book away, heading to the kitchen to see if his mother needed help cooking dinner. He didn’t help her because he had to, rather he really enjoyed learning about cooking. He’d already mastered the art of using the microwave, even though it was a flash new piece of technology, and he happily took the spoon from his mother to stir the pot for her while she cut vegetables to put in the soup. She was really good at making lots of foods, but soup was one of Burton’s personal favourites.
It was while he was cooking that his father finally got home. He swung the door open, dropping his bag at the door. “Where’s my family, eh?” He said, following it with a hearty laugh as his sons tried their best to tackle-hug him. He was a tall man, but nowhere near as tall as his wife, who planted a kiss on his forehead as he laughed. “Dinner will be ready soon, Pierre.” She said in a soft, loving tone. “Kids, don’t give him too much trouble, he needs to unpack!”
“Come on, sweetheart, you know I don’t mind.” He chortled, picking up a child under each arm as they squealed with laughter. He sat down on the couch in the lounge, depositing a child on either side of him, putting his briefcase on his lap. He was the weather reporter on the local news, so he was always nicely dressed and kept his briefcase full of everything he might need. Today, however-
“Have you kids behaved today?” He asked, earning enthusiastic nods from both of his sons. “Well, if you insist-” His briefcase popped open, and he fished around inside. He handed each child a small object.
“Someone at work was getting into wood carving. He asked what your favourite animals were, so I told him, and he made these!” Each small wooden animal was hand-painted. Gabriel’s was a lamb, painted a creamy white with a touch of pink on its nose. Burton’s was-
“A weevil! Oh, dad, you remembered my favourite animal!” He practically squealed, turning the small carving over in his hands. It was a browny-orange with black spots, and didn’t appear to be any particular species, not that it mattered in the slightest.
“It’s hard to forget it, it’s all you talk about!” He joked as both his kids thanked him again. “Now, go help your mother finish preparing dinner while I get ready, will ya?”
Dinner was delicious, as usual. Though the soup burned everyone’s mouths because none of them could wait for it to cool. The family sat around the table, discussing their days with each other, and occasionally shooing away the family cat, who had shown up, and wanted to eat everyone’s dinner.
“So, Burt, what’s this I hear about you having a new friend?” Asked his father, causing Burton to look up from his dinner immediately.
“Oh, he’s so cool! He bites people!” Burton began, happy to talk about his new friend again. After they met on the playground, they’d tried to stick together while learning, too. He talked about how smart his friend was. Burton was, by all means, a smart kid, but Mr Stiff was on another level. He flew through the schoolwork like it was nothing and helped Burton with the tricky parts. He was a bit of a grump, but not towards Burton- rather, his new buddy seemed to just be mad at the world in general.
His father laughed once more at hearing that. “Boys like that’re something special. Odd ones, sure, but always good to keep around. You better be planning to invite him over to meet us all!”
“Yes, definitely!” Burton moved the cat away as she tried to lap up what was left of his soup, much to her distaste. “I think you guys will like him lots!”
“Will like him a lot, ” His father corrected. Since he spoke on television, he always made sure his children knew proper grammar. It was something he took pride in “But yes, I’m sure we will!”
And, even as the conversation shifted, Burton couldn’t take his mind off of his strange new friend. He couldn’t wait to see him again.
~~
“You got in trouble again today.”
Scott Stiff… well, stiffened as his father spoke. His face was obscured by the newspaper he was reading, but smoke from his cigarette rose from behind it. His father was always smoking. It made him feel dizzy, sometimes.
“I did. But it was because he was being mean to my friend!” He insisted.
That caught his father’s attention. He lowered his paper, meeting his son’s eyes with a steely gaze, obscured by his glasses. “Finally made a friend, eh?”
“Yes! His name is Burto-”
“I didn’t ask that.” His father stated bluntly, blowing smoke from his mouth before going back to his newspaper.
That was how it was every night. His parents would ask him about any pressing matters, and that was all that would really be discussed. His mother had ordered take-out for dinner, again, which was causing his father to mutter under his breath about how ‘what good was she as a wife if she didn’t even cook’.
Scott didn’t care. He went back to picking at the various cuts and scrapes on his arms that had been caused by all sorts of incidents he’d gotten into. He was a clumsy kid and he didn’t have anything better to do.
…He thought about Burton, though. About what his new best friend might be doing at that time. He’d probably already forgotten him, like most people did. But his mind still wandered to that face. Burton had a round face and a wide nose. It was the opposite of Mr Stiff’s thin face and his long, somewhat comical nose. He thought Burton’s face was interesting. He thought Burton was interesting. The way he talked, the way he moved, the way the corner of his eyes wrinkled when he smiled. Maybe it was just because he was Stiff’s first friend. But maybe-
“God, you’re bleeding all over the table!” His mother finally spoke up, her voice dripping with more disgust than usual. He looked down. Indeed, he’d picked at the wrong scab, and was dripping blood onto the fancy dining room table. Before he could even utter an apology, his mother continued, “Go bandage yourself up and go to your room.” She instructed, not at all worried that her son was hurt. That was alright. He was used to it, and he usually went straight to his room after dinner anyway. He washed up in the sink, sticking a band-aid that looked older than he was onto the wound. It didn’t hurt too much. He wondered if Burton would care if he got hurt.
Actually, he wondered about Burton until he fell asleep. Like clockwork, every night at around 8:30, his parents would start arguing. He never knew what they argued
about
, but he was used to it. He was used to everything his parents did. It was normal, after all. He didn’t like the yelling, but it probably happened with the parents of every child. And so, he lay in his bed, trying to fall asleep, thinking about his new best friend.