Fic: Courage

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Courage
Chapters: 6/10
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Friendship. Drama. Romance. Angst. Humor.
Ratings: T
Word Count: ~950
Pairings/Characters: Fred Jones/Shaggy Rogers.
Synopsis: Fred and Shaggy go from friends to more as they live through ten courage-requiring events at Coolsville High.

Comments: I’m writing slash for Scooby-Doo. I’m weird. I know. On that note, you have been warned. And, while reviews are awesome, flames will not be tolerated – they will be deleted. Original characters are mine, but everyone else belongs to Hanna-Barbera. It is set in the Mystery Begins/Curse of the Lake Monster!Verse, but does occasionally reference mysteries from Where Are You!, some references to Pup Named Scooby Doo via Red Herring, and one to Alien Invaders later on. This was also a ten-song challenge thing (that I totally cheated on) and so there’ll be song names at the beginning of each chapter, too. Enjoy! Reviews are awesome and very much appreciated!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 |

Say Anything (Else) / Cartel

"Mr. Rogers," the unmerciful history teacher calls out, singling out his least favorite student in the class, "are you prepared for your Civil War presentation?"

Shaggy swallows hard and looks around the room at his classmates, none of whom he counts among his friends and all of whom are probably expecting a negative response. "Like, I do, Mr. Vespucci, but I left it in my locker. Would it be cool if I, like, went to get it quick?"

The teacher, while surprised that Shaggy seems to have done his homework at all, sighs and waves him out of the room. "Quickly," he stresses.

He is up and out of the room in seconds. Down the next hallway and he's leaning back against the lockers and willing himself not to start hyperventilating or something. For as much as he really doesn't care what people think about him, he really hates public speaking. "Now I remember why I never do these assignments…"

"Shags?" Fred's concerned voice comes from the other end of the hall, Daphne's a few feet behind him. He figures they're coming back from volunteering to help set up the gym for the Snow Dance. "What's wrong?"

"Yeah," Daphne echoes, "you look a little… green."

"I, like, have a presentation to do in history and…"

"And you forgot it?" Daphne guesses. Usually she'd be right.

He pulls open his locker and retrieves the folded up poster-board, "No, I actually did bring it, but, like, I… I don't exactly like giving presentations and I'm, like, kind of nervous?"

Daphne's attention zeroes in on his dilemma. It probably was not a good idea to admit to stage fright in front of the President of the Drama Club. "Oh, well then. That's easy enough – you just have to focus on what you have to do, try not to look at your notes too much, and don't fidget," she grabs his hand, where it's absently tugging at his shirt, "and don't mumble or slouch or add in too many of your 'like's."

Suddenly overwhelmed by the overdose of advice that mostly contradicts his entire persona, he's even more nervous than before. He feels dizzy and right now bailing on the project and going to the nurse sounds like a pretty good game plan.

"Whoa," Fred says, catching and steadying his friend when he starts to sway alarmingly, "easy there, buddy. Daph, I'll catch up to you later, I'm gonna try something different."

"You can do it, Shaggy," she says, and she leaves them to it.

"Shag, listen to me, okay? Forget what she said," Fred tries, as he settles calming hands on Shaggy's shoulders and forces the older boy to focus, "Tell me what your presentation is about."

"Uh," he starts, "we're talking about the Civil War and we each have to do a different battle. Mine's Antietam – figures I'd, like, end up with one of the important ones."

Fred nods, "Okay, and you just have to describe the battle and who was involved and stuff, right?" Shaggy nods, "If I asked you to tell me about it, right now, could you?"

"Well, yeah, but that isn't going to make me pass this class," he says, rather confused as to where Fred is going with this. "You're, like, a lot easier to talk to than a class full of people who think I'm an idiot."

Fred grabs up the poster-board and steers Shaggy back toward the classroom, "I have a plan."

Shaggy can't help but laugh, "Of course you do."

"Just give your presentation, everything'll be cool. I promise."

While not entirely sure how that is a plan to keep him from having a panic attack in front of the entire class, Shaggy takes Fred's word for it and slips back into the room.

"That was not terribly hasty, Mr. Rogers," Mr. Vespucci complains, sitting at the desk angled toward the front of the room because of the presentations.

"Like, s-sorry," Shaggy says, moving to set up his board. His notes shake in his hand as he turns to face the class. Eyes closed, he takes a deep breath before he begins. "The Battle of Antietam took place on…" He fumbles over his words, looks down at his notes and can't make himself look away, "September 17, 1862. It, ugh, was…" he looks up again, at the disgruntled sigh from his teacher and his eyes scan the room of bored on-lookers.

Something catches his eye in the back of the classroom, though. Fred's sitting there at Shaggy's desk, which earns some odd glances form the people around him, but Shaggy doesn't care because Fred's signaling for him to keep going.

With a grin, his hands stop shaking and he continues, "Also known as the Battle at Sharpsburg, there were three main confrontations throughout the day: one at Miller's cornfield, another at the Sunken Road, and the final one at what would later be called Burnside's Bridge." From there, he continues on without issue, detailing the basics of each skirmish, the General's involved in each, the staggering number of men lost, and the flaws in some of the battle plans. Shaggy really had done the work on this one, no one could deny that.

He sees Fred slip out just seconds after he's finished the speech, before Mr. Vespucci can turn around and notice him there, but then the teacher is congratulating him on his work and that's never really happened before.

He finds a folded up sheet of paper on his desk when he is allowed to return to it. 'Awesome job, Shags,' is all it says, but he spends the rest of the day grinning.

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Also, I did not realize how applicable to my own life this chapter was. I just found out I have to present a paper at my school’s English Colloquium this weekend. I hate presenting. I wish I had a Fred to keep my mind on track.