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 Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 6:55 am
'Little Dreads' had been less than enthusiastic to discover Charonite actually agreed to go to prom with Nealite, after the teen had done the asking for her. He was repulsed that he'd had to give her CPR, which he'd feared sent her the completely wrong signal. He wasn't happy to see a mocking part written based off him in Nealite's so-called masterpiece. Being told by Nealite that he had to try out for the play had sent him just over the edge enough that wandering around the theater the other night armed with only a lighter had seemed like a brilliant idea. He felt betrayed. So, as was natural for him, he sought some form of vengeance, cut his pound of flesh from whatever he could find related to his victim. It was some distant hope people would understand how they'd wronged him by the actions he took against them, but nobody ever learned. Nealite hadn't. The play was meaningless to him, but meaningful to her, and a perfect candidate for sacrifice in the name of Khaldun's cryptic message to her. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a... script bonfire for a caricature.
The teen's dark eyes followed her movements, and paused to size up the cell phone she lay on her desk like an ancient and powerful artifact. They began to rove again, but there would be further interruption. For the beginning of her threat, he could lie back with that smug expression while she was presumably pulling a page out of Hillworth's book and giving him some form of easily-escaped or avoidable detention. It turned out Nealite was a good deal smarter than the Hillworth principal.
Information was, when it came to Khaldun, a surprisingly effective weapon. His expression shattered like glass into something jagged and dangerous. The crispy sheafs of paper flapped in his grip as he slapped both hands down on the armrests of his chair and arched his spine like he was going to leap up and out. She didn't dare to <******** say that - not his ******** father - he could go die in a god damn fire. The very idea, the potshot, the threat lost him his zen cool, and soon he was attempting to interject in the middle of her warning to him in a bitterly maligned voice. "He's not--"
But she didn't stop there, oh no. Son of a b***h. Son. Of. A. b***h. Daughter of a b***h really, Nealite, for taking this so far. In the short silence, he licked dry lips and turned his attention to the toes of his boots, grimacing. Nothing like a ******** rock and a hard place to get wedged between. But not even Nealite compared with Charonite's anger, no matter how bad she got. He'd earn the lesser of two evils if he started talking now.
"Alright, I did it," he stated flatly, seething inwardly. There, Nealite had her confession. He was still giving the question of 'why' a wide berth, and didn't give any indication he'd elaborate on his own.
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Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 7:14 am
The scowl turned into a pained grimace. This was going to be like pulling teeth, but at least they were getting somewhere, to start off with.
"I was and am quite aware that you did it, Khaldun. That is telling me something I already know, and not answering the question I did ask you."
She rose from her chair and slowly made her way around to the other side of the desk. Bracing her weight with her hands against it, she moved to sit atop it, staring down at him. After a moment of pause, she slid off her glasses and gently placed them at her side, her legs crossing to make herself more comfortable. While her temper over the scripts was fierce, she wasn't completely irrational. Something had egged him, something had caused him to strike out at her, to take away from her the one thing she was enjoying at this new godforsaken school. Something that was eating at him, and she was going to find out what.
"Khal...."
Shaking her head, one hand moved up to brush aside an annoying wisp. "Little Dreads, what the hell is going on? Why are you acting like this?"
While she'd reasoned and justified to herself that she had every right under the goddamn sun to be furious with him, the pain from being hurt was overwhelming at the same time. "Out of all of the people, out of all the... untrustworthy people we work with, I really thought I could trust you. I know you have a history, I know you own a record at Hillworth as long as my credit card statement.... but me? You'd do this to hurt me? Don't you think I deserve to at least know what's going on, if you're going to completely destroy something I was proud of, something I worked my goddamn a** off with writing?"
Her hands moved back to her sides, gripping the edges of her skirt.
"Khal, I thought.... I thought you'd be different than the others. Are you really as heartless as they are?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:32 am
No response. Khaldun leaned even farther back into his seat as she approached and sat herself down across from him to close the gap and get personal. His fingers strummed on the armrest and gripped it tightly when she spoke, while the burnt script was dropped to the floor loosely with the other hand. Using the soles of his uniform boots, he slowly pushed his chair back a good two or three inches from the imposing woman. He was still trying to clamp down on his expression, but no matter how tightly he made a mask of it, his eyes were still half-lidded and glaring out from underneath. The game was changing, and it wasn't one he had much experience at playing. He knew Hillworth's disciplinary system and could handle just about anything but a Killingworth detention, but Nealite kept coming at him with one surprise after another. Just when he thought she was angry, she was sitting here with tears in her voice.
There was suspicion and animosity in those dark eyes. He hadn't told her Charonite was his legal guardian, that was the boss himself, though Khaldun admittedly had covered it up pretty well for a year. But he had told Nealite bits and pieces of what he managed to remember from his past, small useless things, but that had been because she'd been present several times that it had happened and he didn't want to come off looking like he was a ******** narcoleptic. She revealed it all, just like that, like it was nothing, using it against him. And after she'd stuck him with that knife, she twisted it - she'd had the gall to be angry at him for keeping secrets, for not telling her that the man she idolized was the father-figure Khaldun despised. This was the purpose of his shell, facade, that human guise he wore that desperately attempted to blend in. He didn't want anyone to know he felt about anything, ever, because this exact ******** thing was always going to happen. Secrets were dangerous; it had been his own idiotic mistake to think she was... trustworthy. ******** nobody was but himself, apparently. Lesson ******** learned. His mistake to resuscitate her on orders, or to ever do anything she'd made him agree to. ******** it all. Just ******** it all. He wasn't here at Barren Pines for Nealite's theater bullshit. In the meantime, the harder Nealite pressed him for information, the louder he'd metaphorically hiss and rattle his tail.
As Nealite barreled through her questioning, Khaldun reached up one hand to cover his mouth, sprawling the other fingers over his nose and cheek. His voice would be slightly muffled by the action when he spoke. He turned his head downward, letting stray dreadlocks obscure his eyes from view. And then he appeared to let his composure go, a six foot teenager all but crumpled in a chair. He looked small and sad and defeated, and even his voice seemed tinged with uncertainty. "Ursula... it's..."
He seemed to choke up, or maybe having to breathe Charonite's secondhand smoke for the past year was finally catching up with him. His coherence didn't improve when he found his voice again. "It's just... there's something you should know. I... I don't know how to tell you this. I'm sorry, but......."
And then he lost it again, and the hand that wasn't guarding his facial features was waved in the universal sign of 'give me a minute here to get it together'.
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 8:50 pm
She watched his reaction, studied his movement and what expression she could see lurking beneath those dangling dreadlocks.
It was his voice that inevitably betrayed him. She'd known him for well over a year, and throughout that time had gone through hell and back alongside him. They'd suffered Charonite's wrath, they'd argued, they'd goofed around. Not once out of all of those times, not ******** once did he ever come close to breaking down. And now he was about to tear up over being called into a teacher's office? Uh huh.
Her face hardened, her hands falling into her lap as her eyes narrowed in his direction.
"Just get on with it, Khaldun," came the blunt response, her patience now running dangerously thin. Did he really think he could play these mindgames on her, like he had for all the Hillworth staff? "You forget I've seen your acts before. Why you think I'm going to fall for them is a bit insulting, I have to admit."
She looked away from him then, studying the bookshelf sitting directly behind his chair. Shelves were lined with baubles and romance novels instead of the playbooks and storybooks a typical theater teacher might have.
As hard as she racked her brain, she was having difficulty comprehending just why he would lash out. He was forced to come to this school just as she had, and he had seemed thrilled with the idea, at least. Was this about what had happened after the Castor battle? They hadn't spoken of it, but Ursula couldn't fathom how any of that would have offended him...
"I only want the best for you, you know."
Her eyes drifted back towards his turned head for a moment, then returned to the shelf. "I know you heard what he asked of me, but I also know I'm nowhere close to being a perfect role model for you, Khal. If you were in my position, what would you do? Told to look out for a teenager you care for, but have no earthly idea how to help.... it's tough, Little Dreads."
Sliding off her desk, she moved towards the bookshelf and lifted up a paperweight, her hands in need of something to fidget with.
"I don't want your sympathy, I just want you to....understand."
One hand still holding the paperweight, the other reached out and gently touched his shoulder. "I want you to tell me how I can help you, Khal. I'm here for you, but that obviously isn't enough. I need you to tell me what I should be doing, if we're going to get anywhere with this. He cares, I care, and I only want what's good for you, but if you can't help me, I can't help you."
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Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 1:30 am
"That obvious?" he grunted from beneath the cover of hair and hand, all traces of sadness gone from his voice. There was a dark chuckle, and he looked up again, dropping the hand and shaking the dreads out of his face. He tried to look nonchalant, amused, but there was still some kind of ugliness working its way into his expression and voice, getting more pronounced as he kept talking. "Then maybe you can drop me from that play and we can get back to work. Ugh, I can't believe I'm saying that. But I heard you cast me as ******** Ch-Kill- ******** if I know what I'm supposed to call him here. Just about anything's better than having to pretend to be your goddamn boyfriend on stage."
Dark eyes watched Nealite's movements, from her glance to her walk to her return pass. The teen was still awkwardly situated in the chair, legs splayed wide out in front of him while his head was practically touching the back of the seat. It sure as hell wasn't going to help his posture. But Nealite was touching a statue more than a fellow human being - it was probably not the first time she'd seen or felt him react that way, since the boy wasn't the best example of normal behavior she could have found. She could feel it under her fingers that Khaldun didn't acknowledge the human contact; there was no shoulder-dropping or shrug or attempt to lean away or bat away her hand. If he wasn't flinching or throwing a punch in response to physical contact, he simply didn't react at all. He stared straight ahead at the wall behind Nealite's desk, or through it to somewhere else entirely.
He heard what she said. That she cared. But he didn't - couldn't - believe it. It was impossible. People looked out for themselves first before anyone else. It was a ploy. A trap. And Khaldun wouldn't fall for that sort of s**t now that he'd identified it. Words, only words. Charonite had put her up to this. Charonite would hear every god damn thing he told her, as though this were a ******** direct line to him. She was ridiculously infatuated with the General-King, Khaldun was well aware. No matter how well she meant by spilling his secrets to the Negaverse leader, he felt ill at ease telling her anything. He cares, she said, he cares, and yet Khaldun distinctly remembered overhearing some comments about bashing his head in. Was that Nealite's brand of caring too, then?
After a minute or two of silence, he sighed as though he were incredibly frustrated, and then spoke. "I just want to keep secrets, Ursula. From other people. From the boss. And even from you. My life, what little I've got to remember of it, is not supposed to be a ******** open book. Especially if he's the one asking questions about it. You already know how I feel about... the boss. You already know why, or at least I sure as hell hope you do..."
"Here's something you can do for me if you really want to help me - don't tell this to the boss. Okay?" He sat up slightly in the chair, looking bitter as ever. "Every ******** day I've been in this ******** job I've thought about running away. Getting out of Destiny City too - anywhere but here. And I never did. Because..."
This time, he really did cut himself off. It wasn't an act. He regrouped himself quickly. "Eh, ******** it, it's not important why. But there's something you can do to give yourself a pat on the back. You're helping your boyfriend and you're not ******** me over, whoopee."
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Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 2:10 am
"That's not fair."
The paperweight was returned to the shelf and her full attention was returned towards the boy as he finished his statement. She was even to the point of being so upset that even at having Charonite referred to as her 'boyfriend' (of all things), didn't change a hue on her cheeks. No, her mind was focused elsewhere, focused on the angry young man seated before her.
Her hand moved, both of them now resting on his arm atop the armrest, and she kneeled beside him, her eyes now having to look up towards him.
"Khal...." she sighed, then shook her head before looking back at his face, ignoring his scars and concentrating on those cold dark eyes, "Khal, darling, why didn't you say anything? I mean, I know I can get to be a bit...demanding, or what have you, but jesus, Khal, burning my books? Just because you were upset that I wrote something that I was actually proud of writing?"
She sighed again, allowing a few moments of silence to pass between them as she weighed her options, thought over everything. Finally, still looking down, she nodded her head. "Alright, you've got your wish. You're out of the play, and I'm sorry for inconveniencing you."
Rising from where she'd knelt, she moved back around to the other side of her desk, taking her place in her chair. Her hands moved out to pick up her glasses, and her fingers idly played with the ends as she thought over what he said. It worried her that he thought of running away - where did one in the Negaverse run to? Life was nothing but work, it seemed, and yet Khaldun had yet to realize it, despite being a part of this world longer than she herself had been.
His last comment, though, stung enough to warrant a response out of her.
"Play the hateful child, Khal, you have every right to as far as I'm concerned. You won't look past your own issues to see the bigger picture, and I'm beginning to think that you just... wont. While you and I may feel differently about him, I remind you of the fact that if he had been anything but concerned for you on a personal level, your a** would have been gone months ago."
She swallowed, quickly trying to think over her words prior to speaking. Ursula felt wretched, to an extent, for her harshness, but the boy was lost in his own little pity world. "You did absolutely nothing for practically the whole past year and he let you. He might have been cruel, he might have been nasty about things, but goddamn it, Khal, he let you sit around and do jackshit while everyone else was working. He let you ******** up time and time again, and yet, you're still here. He doesn't know how to act with you, I'm sure he's just as new to the parenting game as you are to the part of being a kid. Cut him a ******** break and maybe he'll do the same for you."
Rubbing her temples, her head sank gently. "But you just... do what you have to do, I understand. I'll be here."
Picking up her pen, she motioned towards the door and then began to scribble some words on the pad sitting before her. She was done with him for now, her brain still attempting to wrap itself around the harsh words he'd uttered only moments earlier. No, Ursula had done things, was doing things for Khal's benefit. She would not be sorry.
But she would feel guilty.
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:16 am
"Well." His head turned slightly when she put her hands on his arm. His voice was full of a bitter understanding, assured he knew exactly how the world worked down to the smallest detail. Typical teenage grasp on reality. So far as he could tell, he wasn't allowed to make his own decisions. The opportunities to do so were a struggle in and of themselves, this time, every time. "Would you really have let me say no to being in that play if I'd said anything? Just like that? I didn't think so."
"Thank you." He slapped the armrests with his hands and leaned forward to get up. In one baffling sinuous motion he managed to escape his uncomfortable position in the chair. He seemed unaffected by her words and attempts to get through to him up until about this point.
He was halfway to the office door when Nealite started in again. His walking pace slowed, and by the time he had his hand on the doorknob he had temporarily lost interest in turning it. Khaldun stared at her from in front of the doorway for a long minute, looked as if he was going to say something. That he had bigger problems back then, important teenager problems of a nature Nealite could never understand, what with being a good four or five years older than him. That he sure as hell didn't choose to be adopted, by Killingworth no less, and he still didn't know why he had been save that he wasn't going to find it out by asking directly. She couldn't blame him for that. His hatred was perfectly justified! Wasn't it?
So he laughed. It was a nervous, forced laugh, but it said the same as any words or excuses he could have scrounged up - she'd caught him off-guard, and there was nothing he could say to her accusation on such short notice. With a swift jab on the doorknob, he pushed the door open and slipped out, slamming it shut behind him. He'd been feeling confident, he'd been winning. What the hell happened?
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