Ophelia McCarthy (breatheoutside) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2019-01-24 12:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | #november 2017, ophelia, ophelia x sebastian, sebastian |
Who: Sebastian and Ophelia
Where: The McCarthy House
When: Evening, Tuesday, Nov 28th
Status: Complete
By the time Sebastian got home from school on Tuesday, his head was pounding, the black eye Kyle had managed to give him starting to show on his pale skin. He could feel the fight now through all the little aches and pains and it made starting in on homework more of a chore than usual. He couldn’t concentrate and knew it was likely a pointless endeavor until his headache subsided, so he took a couple painkillers and wandered over to Ophelia’s room, knocking on the door. The holidays had been uncomfortable, at least when their father was home, and he had a feeling this was just going to make things worse. He might as well give her a head’s up.
Phee was feeling mopey and down and just ... not great that evening. For some reason she hadn’t been able to figure out yet, someone was fuckng around with her at school. Phee was pretty sure she knew who the culprits were -- a couple of them, anyway -- and they were the kinds of people who got away with whatever they wanted. There had been a couple of melted candy bars shoved into the slats of her locker the day before, and then while she’d been in class, a note had come her way that was just a drawing of a pig with curly hair and freckles. When she’d gotten home, she’d gone straight up to her room and locked herself away, playing music too loud and crying a bit and just feeling generally awful.
The knock came between tracks, and Phee covered her head with a pillow for a second. She really didn’t want to talk to anyone. She definitely didn’t want to go down to dinner. The thought of eating tonight made her feel vaguely queasy. Phee sighed into her pillow, then took it off of her face. “Who is it?” she called.
“It’s me,” Sebastian answered, leaning against the wall as he waited. “Bastian,” he added, probably unnecessarily. Their father would have said so, he clearly wasn’t his mother, and he didn’t think Greg often dropped by her room. Or, if he did, then Sebastian clearly hadn’t been paying attention. He’d never really thought about Greg being in the house before and not being with him, but that was a possibility these days. Though probably not with their parents home. It was a lot to think in the span of a few seconds, but that was how his mind was working these days. It never seemed to stop, spinning from one worry to the next without reprieve.
The name was indeed unnecessary, but pretty cute anyway, and a tiny smile quirked the corner of Phee’s lips upward. “Come in,” she told him, picking up her phone so she could turn the music down on the bluetooth speakers. She sat up as her brother opened the door, smoothing one hand over her hair and crossing her legs in front of her. Phee knew her eyes were a little red and her face was probably puffy, and she was preparing to explain that away somehow when she looked up and saw Bash’s face. “Oh my god,” she said, her mouth dropping open. That was definitely the start of a shiner on his eye. “What happened to you?”
Sebastian cringed in response and immediately regretted it as pain tingled across the side of his face. “I got in a fight with Kyle,” he said, coming to sit at the end of her bed, his legs crossed under him. He was going to have to come up with a good response, a standard one, for when people at school asked him, but he hadn’t put much thought into it yet and didn’t mind giving the details to his sister, who wasn’t looking so great herself. While it wasn’t near as obvious as a black eye, she looked like she’d been upset, her eyes red in a way that he associated with crying. “What’s wrong?” He asked, concern pushing his own issues aside for the moment. “You look upset.”
“With Kyle?” Phee echoed, wrinkling her nose a little in sympathetic distaste. Kyle was kind of an asshole, from what little Phee knew, but he was still one of her brother’s teammates, and she knew that was important to Bash. He also just didn’t get into fights, so Kyle must have deserved it. His concern was sweet, but not something that Phee wanted to deal with yet, so she attempted to brush the question off with a wave of her hand. “Oh y’know, just ... girl stuff. Why did you get into a fight with Kyle? I mean, are you okay and all?” Phee glanced him over -- he didn’t look broken or anything.
Recognizing that they were both concerned for each other, Sebastian accepted Phee’s answer for now, fully intending to come back to it. “He was being a jerk and I… let him get to me,” he sighed. “I’m sore and have a headache, but I’ll be fine. We’re both out tomorrow’s game though.” Which wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It was one game. It bothered him more that he’d snapped the way he had. “Dad’s gonna be pissed, but… I don’t know what I was supposed to do once he pushed me. I mean, I kinda just reacted, but… I don’t want them thinking I’m a pushover.” That felt important right now, that he not be seen as vulnerable, probably because he was more than ever before.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Kyle had been a jerk about. Which was a way tamer word than Phee would have used. She frowned and felt a flash of anger that was probably amplified by what she was going through herself. If Kyle had appeared right in front of them, she might have punched him too. “If he pushed you first, then Dad totally can’t be pissed about it,” she said, pissed on his behalf. “‘Cause that’s just self defense. But ohmygod what an asshole! Did you kick his ass? Does Greg know yet? He’ll totally kick his ass. Not that like, you can’t, but still ...” She gave an angry huff and leaned in closer to peer at Sebastian’s eye.
“I think it was a pretty equal beating,” Sebastian said with a little twist of his lips as Phee leaned in to get a better look at his eye. Sure, he’d like to say he’d totally kicked Kyle’s ass, but that would be way easier to believe once the painkillers kicked in. “Greg knows. He got there after, while Coach was chewing us out in his office. And I’m sure he’d love to kick Kyle’s ass, but he’s not worth it. It’ll just make things worse and we have to play on a team together, you know?” He didn’t want the guys thinking that he needed Greg to come to his defense and he didn’t want anything that might cause a bigger rift than there already was. He needed to work on repairing the damage and this was the exact opposite.
Well, at least it hadn’t been all one-sided or anything. Not that Phee thought it had been -- Sebastian wasn’t the kind of person to just let himself get beat up if he could fight back. He wasn’t going to start shit, but he wasn’t going to just take it, either. “Yeah,” she vaguely agreed, still looking disgruntled about it all. What was with those popular dickheads lately? They were picking on her and starting a fight with her brother ... was it just open season on McCarthys now? Were the incidents related? “I’m sorry that happened though. What a fucking asshole.” She reached out to give Bash’s arm a little squeeze. “It’s just one game, right? And hopefully he’ll keep his dumb mouth shut from now on.”
“I doubt it, ‘cause it’s Kyle, but… I feel like I should’ve been able to handle it better,” Sebastian said, really appreciating the support, even when he wasn’t sure he deserved it. “Like… Yeah, he’s an asshole, but I knew that. He said worse to me when I came out. But I was just so done, you know?” He’d turned over all the possible options in his head, but when it came down to it he’d reacted on instinct. There hadn’t been time to think ‘should I hit him or just push him back’. He’d always considered himself good at de-escalating a situation, but in that instant he’d been ready for a fight. He’d practically welcomed it. “But yeah, just one game. I’ll be back on the court by Saturday.”
If Phee had been the coach, she would’ve kicked Kyle off of the team fast enough to make his head spin, but maybe she was a little biased. Still, homophobia was stupid and shouldn’t be tolerated with guys who were supposed to be teammates. She thought maybe their parents ought to go down there and yell at some people, but that was probably just ‘cause she was all fired up already. “I don’t blame you for being done,” she said, heaving a sigh. “He totally had it coming. There’s like ... no reason for that kind of crap.” Unfortunately for her brother, it was possibly only the beginning of the crap he would encounter. Phee hated it, it was so stupid, but that was the way some people in the world still were. “Watch you guys lose on Wednesday ‘cause you’re not on the court,” she added with a snort and an eyeroll. “It would serve them right.”
It was more than Kyle he was done with, but Sebastian didn’t want to explain how frustrating things had been at home. He was sure Ophelia had picked up on the tension, it felt impossible not to, even when Sebastian had nothing specific he could complain about. Things just kept piling up and it felt like he couldn’t quite catch a break. Maybe this weekend would be better, though he had nothing planned at the moment, other than the game Saturday night. At least he was playing in that one. “I don’t want to wish a loss on them, but it would feel good to be needed,” he said with a little smile. “Unfortunately, he’s not playing either, so he could say the same.” He thought he was better than Kyle though. Or at least a better team player. “We’ll just have to win Saturday. Because of me,” he grinned. That he might be able to pull off, if he was lucky.
It had been impossible to miss the tension in the McCarthy household, but it was something Phee had largely tried to stay out of. She hated that there was tension at all, but it felt like something she could only make worse if she tried to interfere. Plus, admittedly, she’d been pretty wrapped up in her own sudden social life. Sebastian and her parents would work it out, she felt sure. Maybe this would even help James see it from a different perspective -- his son was already catching bullshit for coming out, he didn’t need to add to it. Phee laughed a little at Bash’s conclusion, nodding. “I mean yeah, you obviously have to be like, MVP all season just to rub their noses in it,” she agreed. That sounded easy, right? “And I’ll cheer for you extra hard from the band section. You and Greg, you’re the only ones who get my cheers.”
“Should be easy,” Sebastian grinned. “Maybe I’ll score myself a basketball scholarship in the process.” As good as he was, he wasn’t that good, nor did he really want to play in college. But he thought that being valued might help, so he’d do his damnedest to be needed. “Cheer for Hunter, too,” he reminded her. “I think this is harder for him than he’s willing to tell me.” Maybe he was wrong, but Hunter was putting up with so much drama because of him that Sebastian was starting to feel bad for even telling him about it. He didn’t want to hide things from his boyfriend, but he was a little worried that at some point he’d be more trouble than he was worth. “So what’s going on?” he asked, giving her a little nudge. “Greg’s not being a bad boyfriend, is he?”
Phee nodded that she would cheer for Hunter too. Lately, she was starting to wonder the same thing about herself, if she was being honest. Whether Greg would start to think she was too much trouble. Granted, she wasn’t the one causing it, but his popular peers had apparently decided that she deserved harassment, and Phee wasn’t sure what to do about it. She blinked a little when Sebastian brought the subject back around, then licked her lips and averted her eyes. “No, it’s not him,” she said. That much was true, Greg was being a completely awesome boyfriend. Phee sighed. “He’s super amazing, actually, things are going good. It’s just ... some assholes at school, being assholes.” She tried to shrug it off again, but couldn’t help the unhappiness that had crept into her expression.
Sebastian hadn’t really thought it was Greg, though it wouldn’t have surprised him if she had some complaints. He loved the guy like a brother, but he’d not been the best boyfriend in the past. Then again, he’d never seen Greg as into anyone as he seemed to be with Ophelia, which Sebastian considered a good thing. He wanted the best for both of them and it was so much easier when they were both happy together. “Being assholes how?” he frowned, noting the change in her own expression, a sign that it really was bothering her. “Who are we talking about?” he added on, aware that he couldn’t track them down and shake some sense into them, but also wanting a feel for who she was dealing with.
Greg may have been Phee’s first boyfriend and she may have still been young and inexperienced, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think they wouldn’t have problems eventually. That was just how people were, and they were fairly different people. She was just going to ride out the honeymoon phase as much as possible, because being with Greg made her feel really good and she loved it so far. As long as other people didn’t end up fucking it up, they could probably be okay for quite a while. Sebastian wanted details, and it didn’t feel like Phee could successfully divert the subject. She let out a frustrated noise and flopped dramatically back against her pillows, covering her face with her hands for a moment. “They’re just ... being mean. Putting stuff in my locker, passing notes. It’s like ... Justin, Billy, Brian ... those are the ones I’ve caught oinking at me in the hall anyway.” Phee sighed heavily. “They probably think like, I’m dating out of my league or whatever. Or Victoria told them to.”
“What the fuck?!” Sebastian snapped, his eyes wide and his face turning red. He completely understood why Ophelia didn’t want to tell him, because he was instantly ready to go beat the shit out of those three assholes. It didn’t matter that there were three of them, or that he’d never had a problem with them before. He couldn’t just stand by and do nothing while they tortured her for no fucking reason. “It’s none of their damn business who you’re dating! Why do they care? And why the fuck would Victoria tell them to?” He knew she could be a bitch, but he’d never had problems with her before. Though, now that she said it, he realized what all three of those guys had in common other than being on the basketball team with him—they were Todd’s closest friends.
Phee had to admit the strong reaction from her brother felt kind of good. She had never needed much protecting, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like that he would jump to her defense. Just like she jumped to his about that dickhead Kyle. Only Phee was much less likely to punch anyone. She sat up to look at Sebastian again, pulling her pillow into her lap to hug. “Probably because like ... she was saying shit to me at that bonfire party after the dance, and I told her to shut the fuck up. And then Greg told her off about it at lunch after that, so she’s probably like, mad that we’re not taking her shit.” Phee rolled her eyes. She couldn’t imagine having nothing better to do with her time than mess with people, but she wasn’t a jerk, so she probably didn’t understand how they thought.
Sebastian rubbed his palms against the bed as he tried to calm himself down, aware that being angry right this second wouldn’t help anything, but that didn’t make it go away. “She’s such a fucking bitch,” he seethed, shaking his head. “What’s Greg say? Is he gonna talk to the guys?” ‘Talk’ probably wasn’t the right word. If Greg approached them about this, it was probably going to be with his fists. But that wouldn’t do much if the real problem was Victoria. It was just like her to orchestrate something like this and Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure how to handle it.
As soon as Sebastian said Greg’s name, Phee started to shake her head. Her face was a mix of sheepish and alarmed. “I haven’t told him yet, and you can’t either, Sebastian, okay?” she said. “It’s just some dumb shit they’ll get bored of soon, and I don’t want him like, getting into trouble on my account.” Phee winced a little as she said it, since Bash had just gotten into trouble, but some asshole being a homophobe was a better reason to fight. Phee knew Greg would be livid, and she didn’t want him suspended from the team for the season or anything. It was his senior year, she didn’t think a bit of fat-shaming was worth that kind of mark on his record.
“Phee,” Sebastian said, cringing at the thought of keeping this from Greg. He knew she was right, that he would be furious, and he had every right to be. But he also knew that all three of the guys she named were on the team with them and things were already rough. Sebastian couldn’t go around starting fights with all of them, and Greg probably shouldn’t either, not if they wanted to stay on the team. Coach would only put up with so much. Fuck. “If he finds out…” He bit his lip as he shook his head. This was going to be bad. He could feel it. “If it doesn’t just go away, if it gets worse, you have to tell him. I mean it. He hates secrets and… This isn’t okay.” He had to figure out a way to help her deal with this other then punching the guys in the face. He couldn’t just go around punching every guy that deserved it, no matter how much he might want to.
Phee was prepared to argue her case more if Sebastian was going to insist on telling Greg, but it sounded like he was relenting to what she wanted, and that was a tiny relief. “I know, of course it’s not okay,” she said, because that was obvious. “I just don’t want to like, make a big deal out of some childish bullshit, you know? They’ll all get bored and move on to something else if they don’t get a reaction out of me.” That was the theory, anyway. As for lying to Greg ... if nothing escalated and it just fizzled out, maybe she could tell him later. It would just be a delayed truth, right? Phee knew that probably sounded bad, but she didn’t want to go running to her boyfriend every time she had a problem with someone either. “But I’ll tell him if it gets worse, I promise. Okay?”
It wasn’t just childish bullshit in Sebastian’s opinion, though maybe that was because she was his sister and he didn’t like the idea of anyone making fun of her, especially about something so personal. It was also possible he was overreacting, but he couldn’t tell. It felt like people were coming at them from all sides, picking on things they were insecure about just to get a rise out of them. He’d given into it finally and he wasn’t sure if he’d made things better or worse. He couldn’t fault her for wanting to be quiet about it and hope it stopped. “Okay,” he finally said, even if he still wasn’t sure it was the right answer. “I’m gonna hold you to that. If they don’t drop it, you tell Greg and we’ll… we’ll deal with them.”
Phee was skeptical that her boyfriend and her brother would ‘deal with’ bullies in any peaceful way, but they would cross that bridge when they came to it, she guessed. She didn’t want to agitate Sebastian even more by insisting that they not punch anyone ... and maybe a part of her kind of wanted to see that happen anyway. She moved the pillow out of her lap and shifted up on her knees, scooting in closer to her brother so she could wrap her arms around him from the side. Phee plunked her head down on his shoulder for a moment. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I hate that things are so shitty lately. It’s like ... if it’s not really really good, it sucks.”
Sebastian wrapped an arm around Ophelia, hugging her back, his head resting lightly against hers for a moment. It really did feel like the world was against them at the moment. They seemed to both be on a rollercoaster, reaching a peak where things were fantastic, only to drop down into hell right after. “Yeah,” he sighed. “It can’t get much worse, so… it’s got to get better, right?” There had to be a light at the end of the tunnel. This could only last so long. The key was to remember all the good things they had going for them and let the other stuff fall away. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.
It was probably incredibly naive of them, but Phee agreed that it had to be uphill from here. All the problems would pass, and things would get back to being normal and fine. That was just how life worked, right? She gave her brother a tighter squeeze before letting him go. “Right,” she declared, like saying it with confidence would make it so. “It’ll get better. And then you’ll go to college and everything will be awesome.” Phee smiled at him, though it wasn’t as bright as he wanted it to be. She still hated to think of him going away and leaving her alone with their parents, even if she knew it had to happen eventually. “You want me to kick your ass some at Mario Kart before dinner?” Phee offered.
Though he knew that everything wouldn’t necessarily be awesome when he went away to college, but Sebastian sometimes felt that would be the case, at least if some of his plans panned out. And then Phee was only one year behind him, so it wasn’t like she’d be stuck there at home for long. But that felt a long way away right now. He was really hoping things got better by Christmas. “You can try,” he smiled back at her as he began to climb off the bed. “Don’t expect me to go easy on you though. I aim to win.” Even if he didn’t, it would be a nice distraction, and that seemed like something they both needed at the moment.