notbravebychoice·:

Well, now he’s mad. Which was to be expected. But he’s also undressing, which was….not what she was expecting at all. And actually, the calmness in his reaction is unsettling. She was expecting him to yell, or at least say something to her. Instead, he’s standing half-naked in her living room, quetly glaring at her.

“No witty comeback? That’s a good boy.”

Part of her knows she needs to be careful if she doesn’t want things to turn ugly. But, again, she did warn him. And he did break into her house (again) with every intention to scare her witless (again).

“Bathroom’s that way, in case you want to clean up. We’ll find you something to wear while those dry off.”

Should she count this as a victory? Probably. But she doesn’t want to jinx it. So, she’ll wait until he’s back.

Consider the turning of his face from that sallow yellow to bright red his response. It’s like he’s back in high school with the back of his underwear pulled up over his head in an atomic wedgie, courtesy of Bo Briggs. For a moment, he swears his dick shrinks in the shame that he’s trying to hide as he trudges towards the bathroom, hands over his crotch like a freshman.

In her bathroom, he soaks up the remainder of the tea on his skin with a towel before hastily embarking for the bedroom. After a few minutes pass, he’s emerging once more, not knowing if he was better off naked.

Becky’s trousers are too short for him, you see. At least they’re not too small, given that she has more width to her hips and thighs than he does – but approximately one mile of leg and ankle are showing above his shoes. Likewise on sleeves, they reach to the middle of his forearms. The length of the shirt is wanting as well, given that the last few inches of his midsection are showing.

Looking down at himself and then back to her, the glare is even stronger now. Seething is the word for it.

“I will have my revenge for this. Mark my words.”

Well. She did warn him.

Sitting there looking like a wet cat with his extinguished cigarette in his mouth, Jonathan is stunned for a moment as he processes the fact that he is soaked in scalding hot fluid. Then, after that fraction of a second, he’s shot up out of his seat and started tearing off his soaked clothes. Hitting the floor with sad plops, his wet shirt and trousers reflect his demeanor – which is to say scalding.

But, there he is in his underpants, glaring at a girl half his height. She’s the one with this shit-eating grin now, isn’t she. And he can’t do much about it because whatever intimidating air he might adopt would instantly be neutralized by the fact he’s in his briefs.

Completely disarmed. How to be terrifying after such an affront? He’s speechless.

Jonathan, standing two heads taller than his lab partner and easily half her weight, flinches when she says the word spooks. It’s one of the names he’s been called by the other kids since he started school. One of many – spook, scarecrow, beanpole, anything to point out his grotesquely slight frame. But he knows she doesn’t mean it. He can’t recall this specific girl ever throwing rocks at him or tearing pages out of his books. Girls are usually the ones that are the kindest to him. Something about masculinity prompts the other boys around him to prove their worth by beating him down and taking away his.

“Oh, uh. My great-grandmother gets home from bible study. She, uh. Wouldn’t like me having a girl over.” The library being closed for fumigation really doesn’t leave him a choice, though. Moths eating the paper. “She’s, uh. Strict.”

Nobody at school knows what he goes through at home. But they’ve certainly noticed the bruises and the cuts. Volunteer candy-stripers at the hospital would know of his worse injuries – the times he’d been burned and broken beyond what can be handled covertly with a first aid kit. Those people – usually girls at his high school – left him alone. But they also didn’t say or do anything to stop the bullying beyond the situation at home.

And, here it is. The Old Keeny Farm. The cornfield and the silo face the old country road and make it smell like chlorophyll and sweet kernels. The dirt road that spouts off the main road opens up into a sort of cul-de-sac full of old, broken down farm equipment. A doghouse is empty at the foot of the old Victorian house that overlooks the field. Further beyond, the weeds have grown waist-high and a trail through the grass leads off into the woods beyond, where the canopy keeps the path in the darkness – a portal to the chapel that Jonathan dreads.

The door to the old Victorian opens with a long creak, and Jonathan opens it slowly because of his anxiety at breaking the rules. The moment Becky Albright sets foot in this house is the moment he’s sealed his fate. Beyond the front door is the living room, set up with antique furniture that is clean, but falling apart. The floors creak as they enter. The door, closing behind them, seems louder than before as the latch sinks into place.

Jonathan puts his book bag down on the floor beside the door.

“Sorry. There’s no food in the fridge. Do you, uh, want a sweet tea?” Southern hospitality. Jonathan feels terrible he can’t offer more. 

Jonathan’s favorite subjects in school are chemistry and English. He signed up for AP Chem and English at the start of the year, but since the classes at Seville High School are small and resources are low, he only placed in the latter. It wasn’t much of a disappointment for him, though, because reading is his one true passion. Holding To Kill A Mockingbird and his chem textbook, walking home down the long dirt road, he can’t politely read while he walks, as usual, because he’s not alone, as usual.

He doesn’t know how Granny will take it. Luckily, she attends a bible study group every Wednesday from 3:00 in the afternoon to 6:00 in the evening. So she’ll have been freshly gone in her 1940s Ford pickup, cane in hand and bible in tow.

Walking beside Jonathan is his lab partner, Rebecca Albright – the pretty, awkward redhead that sits on the other end of the classroom. They got paired when no one else would pick either of them as a partner for the project.

“So, uh…” His accent is thick – the bumpkin type that drawls too much. “I was thinkin’ we could do somethin’ like… the Pavlovian experiments? There’re tons’a rats in th’barn we could catch. Ring a bell and… give ‘em little pieces’a cheese. Or… somethin’. But we gotta be done by 5:30 tonight.”

He can’t look her in the face. She’s a girl.

“5:30. No later. Please n’thank you.”

@notbravebychoice  wants a high school au