Drabbles: I Want to Go Home, Rudy-Centric
Title: Two unnamed drabbles
Rating: For All Ages
Fandom: I Want to Go Home!
Summary: Exploring Rudy Miller
I've seen complaints that it's hard to write Rudy, which was what gave me a perverse desire to do so. Gen-ish, although I wouldn't blame you if you saw Mike/Rudy preslash.
When Rudy was 8, he broke into his therapist's office and read his file. After he looked up the word 'antisocial', he stopped pretending to humor the man.
As the years passed, he spoke to therapists, psychiatrists, and school counselors, and every one of them had the same opinion: Rudy Miller was some sort of budding sociopath.
He wasn't, though. He didn't like his peers, but that translated into avoiding them as much as possible. It was only the ones who didn't seem to understand that he didn't like them who earned more than mild dislike.
And it wasn't like he meant to be disrespectful to teachers. They just spent so much time and effort trying to make him care about things Rudy couldn't care less about, and a person who spent so much effort doing something so pointless didn't deserve his respect.
At some point, it had just become easier to respond to every request with a simple response. "I don't." He took tests and did the minimum his teachers absolutely demanded of him because he hadn't yet found a way around school, and he didn't want to be hopeless afterward.
Because (and here his counselors and therapists were right) Rudy was brilliant, and read a lot because the alternative was spending time with other members of the human race, Rudy knew enough about human reproduction to see the stormclouds gathering long before sixth grade and dances. And when it became clear he cared about girls about as much as he cared about sports and school, boys that hadn't deigned to pay attention to him before then decided that there was only one reason a boy would care so little about sports and girls.
And Rudy knew he wasn't impulsive or short-tempered, or most of the things a sociopath were supposed to be, but he knew he was smarter than all of them, and that they wouldn't understand anything he could say in response. So six months later, with no one capable of proving that any of it had been Rudy's fault, he found himself sitting on a motor launch gliding to Algonkian Island.
And it was mostly horrible, with some boy declaring Rudy to be a nut, and a clone shouting at him every other minute, as if yelling could change Rudy's fundamental outlook.
But then Mike, a pale boy who wasn't loud, intrusive, and whose only immediately visible flaw was a lack of musical skill, asked for a truce. Because the only other option would be spending a month in solitary misery, Rudy gave him a chance.
And there wasn't much wrong with Mike. He didn't much like camp, either, and seemed to think Rudy's method of dealing with authority was admirable. So Rudy took a risk and spoke his mind; while he'd never thought of himself as particularly funny, he supposed a sheltered boy brought up listening to his parents and teachers might be shocked enough to laugh at Rudy's comments.
He wasn't certain what drove him, not to apologize to Mike at the garbage dump, but to commiserate. He didn't feel bad about snapping at Mike, but as Mike had quietly dropped the argument before Rudy could get into it, Rudy remembered the image of Mike laughing, and an unfamiliar desire overtook him. He wanted Mike to pay attention to him. Rather, he wanted Mike to want to pay attention to him; there had been plenty of people whose attention Rudy had sought, but it had hardly been a pleasant experience for anyone involved.
So he'd joked with Mike about Alcatraz, suggested Mike join him in doing something Rudy'd always wanted to do, and introduced himself.
There was obviously something special about Mike; Rudy determined to find out what it was, if it took him all summer.
In the end, it took considerably longer than that, but Rudy didn't mind at all.
*
Rudy wasn't bad at escaping. He knew exactly how he would have gotten off the island. The thing was, he'd started to enjoy Mike's company, and he knew if they escaped, they'd probably never see each other again. He hadn't met the Websters, but he was sure he knew what their feelings on letting their honor student visit the boy who'd helped him escape from camp.
But the boy who'd tried and failed to escape from camp was just high-spirited, unconventional, perhaps the sort of boy the Websters would like to see their son take up with.
He just couldn't get why anyone would believe that an eleven-year-old chess grand master would be such a terrible strategist.
Rating: For All Ages
Fandom: I Want to Go Home!
Summary: Exploring Rudy Miller
I've seen complaints that it's hard to write Rudy, which was what gave me a perverse desire to do so. Gen-ish, although I wouldn't blame you if you saw Mike/Rudy preslash.
When Rudy was 8, he broke into his therapist's office and read his file. After he looked up the word 'antisocial', he stopped pretending to humor the man.
As the years passed, he spoke to therapists, psychiatrists, and school counselors, and every one of them had the same opinion: Rudy Miller was some sort of budding sociopath.
He wasn't, though. He didn't like his peers, but that translated into avoiding them as much as possible. It was only the ones who didn't seem to understand that he didn't like them who earned more than mild dislike.
And it wasn't like he meant to be disrespectful to teachers. They just spent so much time and effort trying to make him care about things Rudy couldn't care less about, and a person who spent so much effort doing something so pointless didn't deserve his respect.
At some point, it had just become easier to respond to every request with a simple response. "I don't." He took tests and did the minimum his teachers absolutely demanded of him because he hadn't yet found a way around school, and he didn't want to be hopeless afterward.
Because (and here his counselors and therapists were right) Rudy was brilliant, and read a lot because the alternative was spending time with other members of the human race, Rudy knew enough about human reproduction to see the stormclouds gathering long before sixth grade and dances. And when it became clear he cared about girls about as much as he cared about sports and school, boys that hadn't deigned to pay attention to him before then decided that there was only one reason a boy would care so little about sports and girls.
And Rudy knew he wasn't impulsive or short-tempered, or most of the things a sociopath were supposed to be, but he knew he was smarter than all of them, and that they wouldn't understand anything he could say in response. So six months later, with no one capable of proving that any of it had been Rudy's fault, he found himself sitting on a motor launch gliding to Algonkian Island.
And it was mostly horrible, with some boy declaring Rudy to be a nut, and a clone shouting at him every other minute, as if yelling could change Rudy's fundamental outlook.
But then Mike, a pale boy who wasn't loud, intrusive, and whose only immediately visible flaw was a lack of musical skill, asked for a truce. Because the only other option would be spending a month in solitary misery, Rudy gave him a chance.
And there wasn't much wrong with Mike. He didn't much like camp, either, and seemed to think Rudy's method of dealing with authority was admirable. So Rudy took a risk and spoke his mind; while he'd never thought of himself as particularly funny, he supposed a sheltered boy brought up listening to his parents and teachers might be shocked enough to laugh at Rudy's comments.
He wasn't certain what drove him, not to apologize to Mike at the garbage dump, but to commiserate. He didn't feel bad about snapping at Mike, but as Mike had quietly dropped the argument before Rudy could get into it, Rudy remembered the image of Mike laughing, and an unfamiliar desire overtook him. He wanted Mike to pay attention to him. Rather, he wanted Mike to want to pay attention to him; there had been plenty of people whose attention Rudy had sought, but it had hardly been a pleasant experience for anyone involved.
So he'd joked with Mike about Alcatraz, suggested Mike join him in doing something Rudy'd always wanted to do, and introduced himself.
There was obviously something special about Mike; Rudy determined to find out what it was, if it took him all summer.
In the end, it took considerably longer than that, but Rudy didn't mind at all.
*
Rudy wasn't bad at escaping. He knew exactly how he would have gotten off the island. The thing was, he'd started to enjoy Mike's company, and he knew if they escaped, they'd probably never see each other again. He hadn't met the Websters, but he was sure he knew what their feelings on letting their honor student visit the boy who'd helped him escape from camp.
But the boy who'd tried and failed to escape from camp was just high-spirited, unconventional, perhaps the sort of boy the Websters would like to see their son take up with.
He just couldn't get why anyone would believe that an eleven-year-old chess grand master would be such a terrible strategist.