Given the circumstances of her upbringing, Fray had a pretty high tolerance for Bad Days, comparatively. After all, she’d spent most of her life being told how worthless and weak she was, and just accepting that because she wanted to prove herself to the fairies who told her so. At the very least, she did a damn good job looking unperturbed.
After being summarily shunned from the Fairy Realm, and without a real foothold within the human world of Fillory, Fray had been a little off balance. Here in Atlantis, she was downright self-conscious. It’d been a recipe for disaster, really -- she was headstrong and blunt, but completely out of place. That combination did not bode well for a school setting. Between her own inability to stifle her stubbornness or her curiosity and the fact that teenagers were half-merciless and half-completely disinterested, Fray had managed to top her very worst days.
She’d not come home, as a result. She’d been convinced she’d just go back to Fillory, because clearly this wasn’t going to work and she was stupid for even trying and Margo was stupid for convincing her to and everyone was stupid. Ultimately, she’d not really known how to go back, and she’d had a compelling reason to stay (which also made her feel stupid, because she wasn’t actually Eliot’s daughter and she knew he’d be angry when he found out).
So she’d climbed a tree instead, leaving her device at the bottom, and had taken to tearing blank pages out of the stupid notebook she’d gotten for class and carefully written her name on, tossing the paper balls into a pile on the ground below.
Magical relocation spells weren’t something that Eliot needed to use often, but apparently they came in handy when one’s daughter was already posting unhappily. He’d given her a little time before tracking her down, some level of creeping fear that he’d already fucked up and she was about to head home.
And, really, if that was what she wanted, he wouldn’t talk her out of it. But offering support seemed to be the thing to do here, especially with an annoyed teenager. Grabbing her sweater off the table, he waved his hand in a flourish right outside their house door, and butterflies exploded from it, fluttering off into the distance.
Eliot muttered the whole fucking way. “It’s too fucking cold out here for this shit,” under his breath and overly dramatic, cursing himself for not asking for help by the time he made it out to the line of trees. The butterflies swirled around a trunk at the same time as a ball of paper hit him on the head, and Eliot muttered another curse under his breath before retrieving it and looking up. “Well, it seems I’ve found the self-papering tree. What a marvel.”
When she’d first left school, she’d been warmed by her own frustration and embarrassment. Now that she’d been out for a little while, though, Fray was shivering through her annoyance, her knees pulled up near her chest. She really should’ve just gone home, and she knew that, but it seemed like an even more embarrassing choice and she couldn’t deal with more.
“That’s a dumb joke,” she said, definitely a little more aggressive and pouty than she really needed to be. A little bit of anxiety mixed itself in with everything else as soon as the words left her, though, and she was quick to add a curt, “Sorry I hit you. Why did you come out here? I told you not to.”
Eliot stood there, leg sticking out, hand on his hip, ball of paper in one hand and sweater in the other, and he smiled faintly. With another flourish, the butterflies carried the sweater up to her in the tree, dropping it on her head in retaliation of the paper.
“Hmm, a few reasons,” he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, taking a puff before going on. “First, I hate being told what to do. Second…” Another puff, he blew out the smoke slowly this time and looked down at the trunk. “Because that’s what halfway decent parents do, I suppose. I wouldn’t know, but you should.”
She made a sound of surprised and mumbled under her breath when the sweater landed on her head, but there was a rustling sound as she pulled it on, wrapping her arms around her legs again. A very quiet, begrudging “Thank you” followed.
“I don’t even know why you want to be a parent. You’re too young and you have better things to do,” she said, grumpy still. And guilty. “I hate school, Eliot.” Frustrated tears built up in her eyes, and she was glad he was on the ground beneath her. “The teachers are stupid and unhelpful, and the kids are idiots who stare and make jokes, and I don’t know anything.”
“I’ll be sure to do other things later, I’m sure he won’t object.” If there was anything Eliot was good at, it was being calm under pressure and able to make a joke at the drop of a pin. Not knowing the right thing to say to a teenage girl was becoming a regular thing in his life, but joking was helpful to his own psyche.
Eliot took another puff of his cigarette and leaned against the tree, letting her have a little privacy while he thought thinks out on his end. “Well, humans on the whole are idiots, epicly so as teenagers. But that’s not helpful.” He peered up. “What if I talk to the people in charge of education, and see about getting you some one-on-one teaching for a few weeks, to help you adjust better? They call it homeschooling or tutoring in my world, but we’ll find you someone you can tolerate.”
She was quiet as he offered, considering it. It sounded great on the surface, comparatively, but she still felt the sting of the more hurtful moments of her day and it made her question if private tutoring would actually help.
Fray stretched one of her legs, leaning forward a little to looked down at him as he looked up. “Won’t that just make me seem more strange and different? I’m not sure I need much help with that,” she said, frowning. “I could learn things if they’d answer my questions or just talk to me for long enough. It would’ve been easier if I could just work all the time instead of doing this stupid school thing.”
Okay. Point. Teenagers were ruthless even on the best of days, a fact Eliot was just as aware of, and had taken more than his fair share of time to build himself up against it. And he hadn’t been just thrust into it like Fray was, he’d had his own stages of pretending to be something he wasn’t, compared to creating a self-image worth liking.
“No doubt most of the people in school think the same thing.” God knows he had thought it was useless, but Eliot had never been as school-minded as people like Margo and Q. “They won’t let you work in any of the taverns here until you’re eighteen,” He paused, putting up a finger before she could protest that again, “I know, it’s stupid, but laws are laws. Was there anything good about today? If people aren’t reasonably understanding to us portal imports, I might have to go talk to them. Have them beheaded.”
She was in the middle of protesting when he paused and said it for her, so she mumbled it instead. She actually smiled a little when he finished, but it was hard to tell if it was because of the effort he was making or the idea of beheading all of the people she’d met that day. (It was a mix of both, most likely.) “This morning was okay, I guess,” she grumbled after a minute, the smile escaping again. “Then the teacher got mad because I asked questions and told her that her answers didn’t make sense. So I was supposed to go out in the hallway. I wasn’t sure what to do when I was out there, so I walked until I found someone to ask about that and then he got mad at me too.” She had been pretty definite about not wanting to talk about her day earlier, but now she was frustrated again and the words were flowing. “And then I went to lunch and I sat at this table with these people who I guess are from Atlantis, instead of the transplant people like us, and they were almost nice at first. Until I started talking to them too and asking them questions and trying. And then they left me alone at the table and moved to another one and everyone watched.”
The frustrated tears were back, and she’d ducked her chin to the knee she still had hugged to her chest. “And one of them called me an elf, because of my clothes,” she added, then continued, for good measure: “And I hate homework.”
“So, I’m having them beheaded. I’ll get the paperwork.” Eliot actually did have to stamp down the urge to march into the school and demand to speak to the teacher. After all that, he was still determined that tutoring would be the better option, but fuck. He was at a loss otherwise.
“I’ll teach you how to cheat on all your homework. And maybe how to play the system. Adults like when you tell them what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.” He finished his cigarette and immediately pulled out another, unapologetically. His next suggestion was about to be less-than-helpful, after all. “I can teach you how to play them all, if you want. How to have everyone eating out of the palm of your hands by lying your way through school like I did.”
“I want to help,” she said. “Not with the paperwork, obviously. I bet I can find something sharp to do it with, too.”
Fray’s brow furrowed curiously at his words, because she instinctively wanted to question that as well. Why would adults, teachers especially, just want students to say certain things? But really, his less helpful suggestion actually made sense to her. Playing people was, after all, a very fairy thing to do. “Okay,” she said finally, nodding. “Lying is something I already know how to do. And I really don’t like sitting alone for lunch.”
Eliot grinned up at her. “We’ll go with something sharpish, make them suffer a little.” He hoped the extra dry tone would translate, but Eliot paused and tilted his head. “That was a joke, for the record.”
He held up his hand for her, if she wanted to use him to jump down, using his height to their advantage. “Playing the system is how I got through my younger years. Also, fuck anyone who hates on your clothes. Margo and I will take you shopping if you really want, but I am a firm believer in dress for you, fuck the haters.”
“Yes. And maybe serrated,” she responded, and grinned back. She made a face at his clarification, shrugging. “We’ll see.”
She looked at his hand for a minute, and then reached for it, hopping down from the tree. She nodded to both the advice and the offer: “Maybe. I’m not sure yet if I want to change. Just because these are what I’m used to doesn’t really mean that they’re mine,” she said, and looked at him curiously. “What is that?” she asked as she pointed to the cigarette, the questions returning now that her moment of crisis was starting to pass.
Without permission, Eliot looped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed, but released after a minute just in case she had it in her mind to stab him for a half-hug. “With age you’ll get your own style, usually snide insults come from bitches who are jealous.” He grinned. “You are a princess, after all.”
He held up the cigarette and had a moment of hesitation, before holding it out for her. “Cigarette. It’s bad for you. Take a small puff, then blow the smoke out, don’t breathe it in.”
Fray stiffened a little at the hug -- it wasn’t because it was unwelcome, but because she still was getting used to those types of affectionate gestures. Fen had done well to introduce her to some of them, but they still surprised her. “I don’t think that counts,” she responded, but she smiled anyway. Lie as it was, it made her feel oddly good to hear him say things like that. And then guilty, again, because it felt good to hear it.
She took the cigarette as he offered it, looking at it curiously before putting it between her lips and following his instructions. She blew the smoke out, and made a little face as she handed it back to him. “That is so bitter. Why do you do that if it tastes terrible and is bad for you?”
Little smile on his face, Eliot finished off the cigarette after it was handed back to him. “I’m a masochist - pleasure from pain. It’s not for everyone.” He held out a hand to the path back to their house, butterflies fluttering ahead of them. “When you get a little older, I’ll teach you about safe and happy bondage with your significant other.”
Fray squinted a little, but was glad that he clarified so that she didn’t have to ask for a definition. She considered it a minute, then her eyebrows lifted and a little smile fell on her lips. “You’re an idiot,” she offered, almost playful for her, and followed the butterflies towards their home.