I Swear I Lived.

Author's note: So I've written two Saving Elliot one-shots, both taking place after the events in Saving Elliot.

This one is realistic - in the world Rose has carefully sculpted with her words - because I'm cheesy and I wanted to add to their already existing story. This one-shot can be read alone, however, if you really want the full effect of this one-shot, I advise you to read Rose's story about the Jensen parents, Charlie and Stella, called The Story of Us. You can find it on her profile page.

The other Saving Elliot one-shot, which can be found on my profile page, is creative - because Rose suggested it and I thought it would be really cool. Now, for the creative one, I was already having a hard time using Rose's characters, let alone putting them in someone else's world. SO, I decided to situate her characters in my world, the world of a novel I'm working on. I hope you check my other one-shot out!

Enjoy!

- Asternnix

P.S. If you figure out where the title of this one-shot comes from, you deserve to listen to the song. It really reflects all the thoughts in this one-shot.

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I Swear I Lived.

I knew that, when Mac, Arthur, and I deshelved the Jensens' basement shelf in our NERF game, we were screwed.

Well, to be exact, I deshelved it, therefore, I was screwed.

Mac and Arthur had the shit idea of ganging up on me when I had been defenseless so it wasn't my fault that, when they pelleted me with bullets, I accidentally ran into the shelf. Books, folders, and other shit rained down on me and, although I could have gotten a thousand bruises, all I could think was, 'Fuck, Stella is going to kill me.'

"Holy shit!" said one of the twins.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?" Jensen's mom came storming down the basement stairs.

Mac and Arthur took one terrified look at each other and dove behind their barricade of the couch. Fucking cowards. I was left helpless to receive Stella's wrath. She reached the bottom of the stairs and her eyes leaped out, her mouth falling open like someone had disengaged her jaw.

I winced and looked around me. I was a tree in a field - and Stella was the lightning storm.

"FINTRY, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!? THOSE ARE MY FATHER'S!"

I took a closer look the mess around me. Among the books and folders were a few large squares - records. Fuck. Something in my stomach twisted. The last time I'd seen records was when Mom packed away Dad's things despite all my raging protests.

I think Mac and Arthur took pity on me because their heads popped out.

Arthur said, "Mum-"

"YOU TWO! Fintry's only here for four more days! Couldn't you three have held off your hooliganism for FOUR. MORE. DAYS?"

Mac started counting on his fingers, muttering, "One, two, three-"

"You're cleaning this all up!" she shrieked. "Scratch that - you three are reorganizing this whole basement. And if one record has a crack in it, I will personally sign you three up as cleaners for every single house on the block."

And that was why, three days before leaving for the summer, I was not with Jensen as I'd have liked to be - I was sorting shit in the basement with Mac and Arthur.

And soon, I found myself sorting the shit alone.

Arthur lifted a record and looked at it for a moment. It had 'Nat King Cole' marked across it. Then, he tossed this down.