faun

[shesepankh]

Saturday morning sees Bella with her notebooks about magic all in her knapsack, her medallion safety-pinned by its chain to her bra just in case she trips the wrong way, waiting with Charlie for pickup for the Avalon trip.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"And you're perfectly capable of hoarding her and preaching about what an awful thing that would be to do to a person."

[castmyown]

"Actually, if you'd been paying attention, you'd notice that wasn't what I was doing at all. My argument was that you are not treating her with enough respect and that it is literally impossible to hoard her like she's a collectible item. Savannah and I asked her for her preferences, did what she wanted, and moved on from there. If you want to think otherwise, go ask her rather than trying to bludgeon me into submission with bad logic, then you can see exactly how she feels about the subject."

[alicornucopia]

"You're -"

Heeeeeere's the history teacher! Mike falls silent, continuing to glare.

[castmyown]

Darren gives him his very best 'Fuck you' smile.

Then, to work.

[morethanimaginary]

Savannah waits until the teacher's not looking, and then flips Mike the bird.

[alicornucopia]

Mike pushes her chair with his foot.

[morethanimaginary]

Savannah laughs with utter contempt. Come on now, twit, you can do better than that!

[alicornucopia]

Apparently he cannot!

After history class is dismissed he's out the door, possibly looking for Bella.

[morethanimaginary]

Yeah, she thought so. Pathetic.

"I never knew you had claws!" she laughs to Darren when class is over. "Go you!"

[castmyown]

"Mm," he replies, noncommittally. He doesn't like arguments, but he's of the opinion that it was quite justified. "We should find Bella. At least warn her that there is a delusional idiot heading her way."

And then he walks off to go do that.

[morethanimaginary]

His sister follows!

[shesepankh]

Mike found her first.

She has her arms folded and is listening to him make more or less the same argument he made to Darren, although he has toned down the creepy language some for this rendering.

[castmyown]

Of course he did. Damn.

Well. Darren will jump in if she needs him, but he thinks that she can handle this just fine.

(He doesn't feel any sort of pity for Mike.)

[shesepankh]

Bella waits until Mike has run out of things to say and is looking at her expectantly.

"I suspect," she says, "that actually dealing with the content of what you just said will be a thankless task, so let's address the consequences that have you so bothered. Hi, Mike. I'm Bella. Tell me something about yourself to justify the minutes of my life you just commandeered. Perhaps you are kind to animals or passionate about raising the minimum wage or talented at origami, I'm pretty flexible."

"...What?"

"You wanted to get to know each other. What's there to know about you? Do you have traits?"

"...Uh, I help out part time at my dad's sporting goods store -"

"Do you have interesting traits?"

"Um, I'm - in the band elective?"

"Congratulations, Mike. You might be able to hold a non-disastrous conversation at some time with some girl who cares at all about music, if you do more than just show up and count minutes in your band elective. But I don't care. Now I have gotten to know you and I am rejecting your company on its own merits. Go away."

Mike splutters.

[castmyown]

Darren laughs. Oh, Bella is amazing.

[shesepankh]

"You can't just -" begins Mike.

"Oh, please, you pathetic creature, of course I can. I'm a college-bound introvert, I do not need your friendship or the friendship of anyone who is sufficiently dull-witted to listen to anything that comes out of your mouth about me, and if you choose to escalate beyond social drama we get to play 'does that meet the legal definition of assault' and 'does Bella have any qualms about running straight to Daddy if it might'. You may leave at any time, you don't have to continue standing here letting me be rude to you, you know."

[castmyown]

Is Bella his girlfriend? He wants Bella to be his girlfriend. He's recovered from laughter, now, just a faint smile on his face. Now he is just sort of watching, seeing just how deeply Mike is going to dig this grave of his.

[morethanimaginary]

Savannah isn't even subtle about her grin. Just watching, grinning, available as backup if Mike decides to try anything violent.

[shesepankh]

Mike is sort of staring at Bella.

"I can go on, but I'm sort of worried about encouraging the parts of my brain that make up scathing commentary, because rarely am I sufficiently disgusted with someone that I feel it is worth the tradeoffs involved. Run along, Mike. Practice the clarinet or whatever it is you play. Develop characteristics. Interact with people before or, if you decide to aim really high, even instead of developing entitlement complexes about them. Go."

Mike mumbles something growly and incomprehensible, shoots the Sanders twins a dirty look, and stalks off.

[morethanimaginary]

Savannah bursts into helpless laughter.

[castmyown]

"He went after me in history," says Darren, heading over to Bella. "Savannah, do you want to explain what I said? I might get rambly if I tried."

[morethanimaginary]

"Ha ha, sure," laughs Savannah, and then she says, "Darren was not happy with how he was talking about you and took offense and spent most of his time bludgeoning him with logic that he wouldn't pay attention to! He had metaphorical claws, it was great!"

[shesepankh]

Bells snorts. "I guess it didn't take. Well, that was unhealthily fun."

[castmyown]

"I'm going to compare it unfavorably to arguing with a brick wall. Did you know he used the word hoarding? As a way to describe what he thought I was doing? Utterly seriously? Like I could actually manage it?!"

[shesepankh]

"There probably exist human beings who could be something-that-might-ineloquently-be-described-as-hoarded with the right kind of gaslighting. So basically he was accusing you of a nasty abuse tactic aimed at isolating me. His concern for my welfare might be charming if it... existed."