Work Text
Billy Batson, a foster kid who was abandoned by his only love in the world; his mother, had finally found a home after so many people whose lives he'd been thrown into. He had found a home, a family and the only reason he had stayed and had not run away like all the other foster homes was because of Freddy Freeman. The person who had helped him with his new abilities as a superhero, who showed him how to trust again, who taught him what friendship was like and lastly who made him learn how to love again. If Billy was being honest, he would admit that without Freddy, he would have never stayed or gotten along with Rosa and Victor or even his siblings, but Billy would never admit that to anyone except himself.* * *Billy stirred in his sleep as he heard Freddy's annoying alarm clock, he could never stay asleep with that thing beeping in his ears. He squinted his eyes open and looked around the dark room. The curtains were still closed meaning Freddy had not yet gotten up. Billy turned onto his back and sat up, yawning with tiredness. He was never a morning person, plus he had stayed up late last night finishing his homework that he had put off all weekend. Now it was Monday and he had school, Billy threw the blanket off himself and shuffled over to the ladder of his bunk bed, he then swung his legs down the ladder and when his feet connected with a rung, he jumped from the ladder. A dull thump was heard muffled by the soft, fluffy carpet that covered a section of the floor in the room he shared with Freddy. Freddy then groaned and turned around to shut off his Superman alarm clock. The room was now silent except for the ruffling of Freddy's blankets and the creaking of his bed as he grabbed his crutch and stood up. Billy stretched, his arms going over his head, then he walked and grabbed a random outfit from his drawer and changed into it. It was his classic red hoodie and one of Freddy's Batman t-shirts with his usual jeans. Giggles could be heard in the room, Billy looked over at his best friend and found that he loved the sound of that laugh. Freddy pointed to the t-shirt and stated with a huge grin, "You sure ya wanna wear that to school Batson?" Billy looked down at the t-shirt and mentally cringed at himself for putting on one of Freddy's shirts but tried to hide it, though Freddy clearly saw the look, and Billy replied with, "I can wear what I want, Freeman." Freddy looked at him with his eyebrow quirked and he rolled his eyes. An outfit was laid at the bottom of Freddy's bed, Billy scoffed at this. "Always gotta be one step ahead, eh?" Freddy replied with "Always… I need to be with my leg and all.'' while putting on his black jeans and looking down at his disabled leg with a look of frustration. Billy immediately regretted saying that, and guiltily looked down at himself but looked up again as Freddy said with a small smile, "Hey, it's okay I know you didn't mean it that way." Eye contact was made from across the room as Freddy grabbed his crutch again so he could put on his shirt, which was a Superman one. Billy returned the smile and grabbed his backpack while Freddy finished changing. "Look. We're matching now." Billy stated as he gestured between the shirts the two teens were wearing. A grin was now plastered on Freddy's face, as he wobbled over to the desk they shared to grab his backpack. The curtains were then opened by Freddy, Spring light glared through the window as Billy yawned again and rubbed his eyes. 8 o'clock in the morning was never a good time to be awake for Billy.”Yeah matching,” Freddy agreed, then the two boys walked down the stairs and were met with the smell of breakfast. Rosa was cooking a fry. The two teens dropped their bags by the front door and waited to be served at the dining table, all their other siblings were there chattering about anything that came to mind. Billy sat across from Freddy, so it was very easy to look at him. Freddy had already joined a conversation with Darla, and he laughed at something she had said. The room seemed as if it had lit up, Billy stared at Freddy and watched as his face flashed with joy. He left his stomach getting tighter as he watched Freddy's beautiful face. Laughter filled Billy's ears, a laughter that he wanted to hear forever, it turned his stomach into knots and his heartbeat picked up. Billy blinked hard, and thought to himself 'What the hell is going on with me' but as he looked over to his best friend and when that boy glanced over and their eyes met, he knew what was going on and he almost cried, laughed and shouted in that moment, the moment he realised that he was in love with Freddy Freeman. Though Billy did none of those three things he left like doing, all he did was smile rather sadly at the boy in front of him. Freddy wondered why his best friend smiled like that, like someone had told Billy that he had stage 4 cancer. Did he? Now that thought bounced around in Freddy’s head, but he knew that Billy was a superhero, could they even get cancer? Freddy didn’t think so but yet his mind overthought the possibilities. Then breakfast was served temporarily interrupting his thoughts, beans, scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon. Billy enjoyed Rosa's cooking but that was not the reason he wolfed down everything on his plate, it was a bad habit that he had picked up from another household. This couple tended to get mad when you left anything to waste, and that habit had stuck to him like wet paint to a dry wall. Freddy watched his best friend with worry, the way Billy ate, it scared him. Billy ate like a starved animal, finishing his plate in minutes. Freddy looked away and ate his food with thoughts about Billy’s wellbeing haunting him. Victor called for the kids to go do their daily hygiene. So after breakfast, two at a time they filled into the 2 bathrooms in the house to go wash their face and brush their teeth. Mary and Darla, then Pedro and Eugene. After a while Billy and Freddy returned up the stairs for their turn. They did their daily routine and Billy combed his hair with his finger making it look tidier. His brain was a mess, inside his mind was chaos about his sudden love for a certain someone but maybe it wasn't sudden. Maybe love was there all along but Billy hadn't known about it. Love, the one feeling that always ended with Billy’s heart broken. He sighed at himself, Freddy looked over at his best friend and foster brother wondering what had him sighing in such a way, thoughts about his cancer possibility crawled back into Freddy’s mind. Freddy sometimes hated his imagination, he unwillingly pictured Billy in a hospital with doctors talking in hushed worried voices. Little did he know, Billy faked a smile at the mirror and saw Freddy looking at him in a concerned way. He frowned slightly before exiting the bathroom. The frown was forgotten as soon as Billy’s expression changed but Freddy remembered it. He thought it was directed at him for caring and he wasn’t necessarily wrong, but it was slightly different. You see Billy had frowned because Freddy had looked at him with the concern of a brother or friend and Billy wanted to be more than that. Rosa called up the stairs, waking Freddy from his dark thoughts, “Hurry up boys we’re leaving soon!” Freddy gave up trying to fix his messy curls and followed Billy down the stairs. They grabbed their backpacks and left the house, Rosa locked the front door as Billy and Freddy climbed into the backseats.* * *Billy had never paid much attention to school, as he was always moving because he kept running from his foster homes. So his grades weren’t high but at least he passed most of his exams. Luckily he had a wide sense of common knowledge and he was surprisingly a good listener, when he wanted to be. It’s just today, it wasn't his day. I mean, he had realised he was in love with his best friend that morning. The teacher asked a question, something about glaciers. Billy let his eyes drift over to Freddy who luckily sat next to the window. “Billy, why don’t you answer and stop looking out the window,” The female teacher called on him to answer her question, he never bothered to learn any teacher's name, as he never planned on staying. Billy felt many pairs of eyes on him as he tensed up and bit down the urge to talk back. He vaguely remembered the question and answered with “Fjord.” The teacher nodded at his answer and continued on with her lesson. All eyes drifted back to the teacher, and Billy relaxed again. Freddy looked over at his best friend, noticing the dark bags under his hazel green eyes and wondered what had caused them. Realisation hit Freddy, Billy was acting strange because he had accidentally commented on Freddy’s leg. But how wrong that teen had been. Freddy vowed to fix this depressed Billy at Lunch which luckily was just now as the bell rang. The teacher called the students to sit back down and listen to the homework, but not even the teacher could go against the bell. Students filled out of the classrooms all heading to the cafeteria to get a bite of lunch, Freddy packed his books back into his bag and picked up his crutch, swung his backpack over his shoulder and wobbled over to Billy who was waiting for him at the door. They made small talk about how the classes were boring, and made their way to their lockers to get books for the next few classes. After that, the two teens made it to the cafeteria, talking echoed through the huge room. Freddy and Billy grabbed a lunch tray and lined up to get some food, Freddy was wondering when was a good time to bring up that this morning was a mistake. Food was served and they made it to their lone table which no one else sat at. Conversation was easy between the two boys, talking about what they should do after school, basically anything and everything. Their conversation was interrupted by a sweet girl, with dark skin and extremely curly hair. Billy immediately disliked her for barging into their conversation but it was clear Freddy didn’t mind as he looked at the only girl in the school who had ever talked to him in a friendly way. She interrupted by introducing herself “Hi, I’m Lilly Smith!” she then turned her attention only to Freddy, “Wanna sit with us at lunch today?” Freddy turned to look at Billy as if asking for permission to leave him alone. Billy nodded with a fake smile and Freddy agreed, getting up and leaving with the girl while mouthing “Thanks” with a look of happiness on his face.Alone, Billy left alone again as if he was back in a random school. He looked down and picked at his food, not eating with jealousy swirling in his stomach, he only ate when other people were around or when he was hungry but today he had eaten a huge breakfast. So Billy picked his tray up and dumped it in the bin walking out of the cafeteria not wanting to see Freddy smiling at some girl, he wanted to make Freddy smile like that but it was clear that his feelings were one-sided. When Freddy had sat down and started talking about superheroes with Lilly, he forgot about his vow to cheer Billy up and when he did remember and looked over at the table Billy was at. He was gone. Freddy frowned but was soon asked another question by one of Lilly’s friends and he forgot about Billy again. * * *
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was now Friday, Freddy had sat with Lilly and her friends for the week and still hadn’t resolved Billy’s seemingly deep sadness. He had tried after school for the past few days but Billy had gotten more depressed after Freddy had left him at lunch on Monday. Billy was half glad that Freddy was spending less time with him, it gave him relief that not seeing Freddy as often might give him a chance to let his feelings disappear. But the other half was poignant that he couldn’t spend as much time with his best friend, they were even in pros and cons. Freddy was seriously worried about his foster brother, there was a distance blossoming between them and that chasm in the past week had grown and Freddy hated it. So today he planned to sit with Billy at Lunch today to try and build a bridge back to the other side. Billy was sitting in Maths class, listening to the teacher babbling about algebra. There were three classes until lunch, including this one. Billy felt a ball of scrunched up paper hit his head, he glared in the direction the paper came from. A jock, Greg his name might have been but Billy wasn’t sure, that jock smiled an embarrassed look on his face. “Sorry,” he mouthed and then gestured towards the paper he had thrown. Billy looked down at the paper on the green carpeted floor then leaned over and picked up the scrunched up ball of paper. When the ball of paper was unravelled it read in his messy handwriting,
Hey, I’m George! :) Wanna sit with me and my friends at lunch today? You looked kinda lonely roaming the halls.
Billy grinned and grabbed his blue inked pen and wrote, My friends and I, correcting the jocks grammar. Then he scrunched up the paper again and threw it back at George. George opened Billy’s message and cocked an eyebrow, then picked up his black inked pen and scribbled on the note, instead of scrunching it up and throwing it, George just passed the note to his neighbour which happened to be another Jock, and he gestured to pass it to Billy. Billy took the note back and in George’s messy writing was, I’ll take that as a yes. Billy smiled down at the note, folded it and put it in his hoodie pocket. Maybe this was the perfect way to stop self-pitying at lunch or wishing he was that girl, the one that Freddy looked at, the way Billy had looked at Freddy.* * *The bell rang signalling lunch, students hurried out of their classrooms to get to the lockers when it wasn’t packed. Freddy wobbled out of his class, his crutch clicking against the school halls, he hurriedly packed for the next three classes and practically ran to the cafeteria. When he got there his eyes fell on their empty table, Freddy’s eyes wandered the hall, looking for Billy’s signature features. His gaze fell on Billy laughing, his hazel green eyes ablaze and his brown hair cushioning his head, at something a player from the basketball team said. He stopped walking, and looked at Billy, Billy laughing with someone that wasn’t him. It hurt, Freddy turned his head and went into the line to get food, ignoring the pain in his heart. At least Billy looked happier, as happy as Billy had seen him this week. So Freddy had left him alone; the chasm was now expanding, turning into a canyon. Lilly joined the line after Freddy and started a friendly conversation, Freddy was half listening, the hurt still hovering over his heart and mind. Freddy didn’t understand it, why did he feel like this? Billy was allowed to have other friends, he was allowed to have fun and laugh but it didn’t feel right if Freddy wasn’t the reason he laughed. Billy was glad he decided to sit with George, he found that hanging around George made him happier. At least since Monday, the realisation that’s what he’d call it. Billy’s eyes studied George, he had greyish blue eyes that sparkled when he laughed, and ash blonde hair that often fell over his eyes. So his hand was always pushing his hair back out of his face. “Damn, man I need a haircut,” George blurted out after pushing his hair up for the 5th time that minute. “Indeed, you do.” Billy agreed, pulling his gaze away from the ash blonde coloured strands and making eye contact. George gave Billy a pointed look and said, “Shut up, Bill,” Billy eyerolled and retaliated with “You said it yourself, dude.” Bickering continued between the two as Freddy glanced over from the table he sat at with Lilly. Freddy’s attention was soon dragged away from the one and only Billy, to Lilly. She tilted her head, curly brown hair spilling on the table, her honey coloured eyes looked concerned as she asked: “You okay?” “Yup!” Freddy replied almost immediately, and he asked her another question about herself, hoping to learn more about Lilly. Turns out her Dad is thinking of selling their house after their mom died, last year but she and her younger brother don’t want to move. They love their house and the memories they had there. So Freddy gives some advice and tells Lilly about himself. How he is a foster kid and about his life so far, she listened with interest. They go back and forth explaining the things they’ve been through.* * *Billy now had plans to hang out with George over the weekend. He plonked down on Freddy’s bed while Fred was doing his weekend homework. Billy watched with a look of love as Freddy’s delicate hands worked on the maths sums. He studied Freddy’s features, his dark hair tipping over his forehead, and brown eyes calculating. Billy took a deep breath and gulped, damn how in love William Joseph Batson was. Freddy looked over at the sound of a gulp and caught sight of the love stricken face of Billy Batson. He wondered who had Billy wrapped around their finger, Freddy knew it was love because he had seen the way Victor and Rosa had looked at each other from across the room. Freddy was now making eye contact with Billy and he watched as the boy on the bed smiled sweetly at him. Shit… thought Billy, maybe he was being too obvious and Freddy’s genius mind might find out. Billy’s smile faded slightly as he stood up. Freddy's heart melted with that smile, and he returned it without thinking.“Wanna go for a fly?” asked Billy in a deeper voice than usual. “Woah, there Batson, I’d love to but since when did your voice do that, dude?” Freddy replied. “Eh? I don’t know, I guess I'm just tired? It’s been a long week.” Billy answered his voice back to normal. “Yeah, it’s been long,” Freddy agreed, Billy then walked over to Freddy and held out his hand. “Ready?” he said with a smirk. “Always,” Freddy declared and took hold of Billy's hand. His hand was surprisingly soft and smooth. Freddy glanced down at their joined hands and stated, “What hand cream do you use?” “Er? I don’t?” Billy replied in more of a question form, his face going pink. “What? Then how are your hands so soft?” questioned a confused teen by the name of Freddy Freeman. “Magic,” Billy replied, face now a deep shade of red and pulled Freddy gently out of the desk chair. They looked at eachother and shouted “SHAZAM!”, transforming into their alter egos.While flying around they bickered, laughed and bonded. Then Billy landed on a rooftop of a very tall building, and whispered “Shazam,” Transforming back into himself. He sat back and looked up at the starless sky, none where visible in the lights of the city. Freddy landed beside him and untransformed too. “I won,” stated Billy proudly, Freddy blew raspberries and defended himself with, “You’ve been flying longer than me, so shut it,” Billy rolled his eyes, then looked at Freddy. A funny face was made and then another one and both boys burst into laughter. “We should do this more often.” Billy declared when he caught his breath from laughing so hard that his insides hurt. “Definitely,” Freddy concluded, his face pink from laughing. Billy uncrossed his legs and laid back on the flat roof of the building he was situated on. “I wish we could see the stars,” Billy stated while Freddy laid next to him. “Never been able to see them in the city, I saw them once, they were beautiful, many of them blended into each other creating a milky effect and if you stare long enough the milky stars hurt your eyes.” Billy stated. “That was rather poetic, Batson.” Freddy replied looking up at the dark sky filled only with the moon, imagining the stars Billy described. “I get B’s in English for a reason, Freeman.” Billy argued and turned his head to look at Fred, the moonlight shining on the shorter boy’s features. Smiling, Billy felt himself smiling lovingly at the boy beside him.Freddy turned his head to look at Billy too and their faces were so close. Billy looked at Freddy’s brown eyes and the loving smile stayed on his lips. The taller boy felt his heart hammering in his chest, man he had completely fallen. Freddy smiled back and at that moment, Freddy realised he didn’t need to build a bridge. There already was one that crossed the canyon, no not a rickety old wooden bridge, it was made of stone and had perfect patterns and beautiful arches. All he needed to do was cross it and so he did.