Safe If We Stand Close Together chapter four
Title: Safe If We Stand Close Together
Author: setepenre_set
Summary: AU. Roxanne attends 'Lil Gifted School.
Rating: K+
Warnings: none
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"A sleepover?" Roxanne's dad takes a bite of his cornflakes. "Sure, kiddo; don't see why not."
Roxanne grins and pours a second helping of Fruity Marshmallow Krispies into her own cereal bowl. Operation: Get Dad to Agree to a Sleepover With Syx Since Mom Won't has been successfully implemented.
She picks up her spoon and quickly begins to devour the cereal; it goes all soggy and gloppy if you leave it in the milk too long. For a couple of minutes, Roxanne and her dad eat in silence.
"Dad," Roxanne says after a while, "people deserve second chances, don't they?"
"Sure they do, kiddo," her dad says, standing to put his bowl in the sink. "That's why I do the job that I do, you know? I mean, take your average Joe: he gets in a bar fight, hits someone a bit too hard, gets picked up for involuntary manslaughter-nine times out of ten, you let him off the hook, he's gonna be so grateful you'll never have to worry about him ever again! It's not like he's gonna be running around bumping people off left and right! So you try to get him off with a fine, a short sentence, give the man a second chance." He stops and clears his throat a bit awkwardly. "I mean, uh-let's not tell your mom I said-"
"Involuntary manslaughter's different than murder," Roxanne murmurs thoughtfully.
Her dad looks startled and then beams at her with approval.
"Hey, that's right!" he says. "I didn't know you were interested in this stuff, kiddo; we'll make a lawyer out of you yet!" He winks at her, and then looks a bit sheepish. "But maybe don't mention to your mom that we talked about this, okay? She's got definite ideas about age-appropriate stuff, always hated me bringing work home, even, and I, for one, do not want to get-" he holds up his hands as though to warn off an invisible attack, assumes an expression of terror, "one of those phone calls!"
Roxanne giggles and he smiles, going back to rinsing his bowl."Yeah, okay," she says.
If her mom doesn't talk to her dad at all for the next month or so, maybe she won't find out about Operation: Get Dad to Agree to a Sleepover With Syx."So second chances, I would say, yes," her dad says, turning off the sink and reaching for a towel to dry his hands.
"Right," Roxanne says, and takes a breath, steeling herself. "Then I might want to invite one more person to the sleepover."
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Roxanne sighs and looks over at Annie's easel. Annie's picture is almost finished; she's painting in the grass now. Roxanne glances over at Syx; he's painting furiously. She looks at her own paper. Still blank.
This is the last day to work on their watercolor 'home' paintings. They're moving on to modeling clay next week.
Roxanne dips her brush in the black paint and holds it up, hesitates a moment, and then draws a line from the top of her page to the bottom, dividing it in half. There. Problem solved.
She rinses her brush vigorously in her cup of water, and then dips it into the red paint (it still goes a little maroon, in spite of all the rinsing) and starts to paint the outline of her father's apartment building on the right side of the paper.
It's not until she's almost finished with the brown shape of her mother's apartment building, on the left side of the paper, that Roxanne glances over at Syx's page.
He's painted a big gray building with barred windows and a tall fence around it: the Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted; Roxanne recognizes it. And hanging in the sky above the painted building is-
"The sun's supposed to be yellow," Annie points out, "not blue."
"It isn't the sun," Syx says quietly.
"Is it your planet?" Roxanne asks, making a guess.
Syx hasn't ever told her about his planet. She kind of always got the feeling that he didn't want to talk about it, like something bad happened there (it'd have to be bad, wouldn't it, for his parents to just leave him on Earth all alone?)
Syx nods and closes his watercolor box.
"Yes," he says, without looking at her, "that's my home."
Roxanne opens her mouth to answer.
"But it can't be your home," Annie says, "because you don't live there any more. That doesn't make sense."
Roxanne thinks of the yellow house with its perfect-for-a-treehouse tree.
"Yes, it does," she says.
"Besides," Annie continues, "it doesn't belong in the picture, anyway. Your planet doesn't float around in the sky where we can see it from the ground."
"No, it doesn't 'float around' in the sky," Syx says flatly, looking at the page, at the blue circle on it. "It doesn't 'float around' anywhere any more. At all."
A cold feeling settles in the pit of Roxanne's stomach.
"What do you mean?" she asks slowly.
"My planet," he says, still looking at the paper. "It's gone." He looks up at Roxanne finally. "It got pulled into a black hole. It doesn't exist any more."
Roxanne covers her mouth in horror.
"The same thing happened to Wayne's planet," he continues, face so calm that it's completely expressionless and that is wrong, so wrong; Syx's face should never look like that.
"Syx," Roxanne says, and moves to put her arms around him.
"What do you mean," Wayne says loudly from three tables over, "my planet?"
Syx stiffens in Roxanne's arms and starts to pull away. She lets him, reluctantly.
"Um," Syx says to Wayne. "Your-you know, your planet. The-the planet that you're from?"
Wayne stands, face pulling into a sneer. The rest of the class falls into a hush, eyes on Wayne and Syx.
"What are you even talking about?" Wayne demands, folding his arms. "I'm not an alien like you. I'm a real person."
Roxanne sucks in a breath and grabs hold of the back of a nearby chair.
"Ah," Syx says, eyes darting, an expression of confusion on his face. "You are-you don't remember?-we came here in pods!-your planet, it was in the Glaupunkt system!"
"You're making up words, now?" Wayne asks scornfully.
"I am not making this up!" Syx insists, raising his voice. "You are from a different planet! We came here on the same day, in pods! There was an asteroid belt; you bumped into me, you have to remember this!"
"Stop lying!" Wayne shouts, face red.
"I am not lying!" Syx screams back. "It was your planet; you can't just forget your planet-"
"That is enough," Miss Simmons says coldly.
Syx stops, chest moving rapidly as he pants for breath. Wayne is breathing hard, too, looking at Syx like he wants to-
(hurt him hit him with those twin beams of hot red light I could make you look at his eyes Roxanne look at his eyes-)
Roxanne grips the chair harder; she can throw it, distract Wayne, make him look away-
"Wayne," Miss Simmons says, "take Syx here to the Bad Corner, please." She smiles, thin and pointed. "We don't tell lies in this classroom."
The red light dies down out of Wayne's eyes, and a smug expression replaces his look of rage. He swoops over to Syx and picks him up none-too-gently by the collar, yanking him off his feet (Syx makes a slight choking sound) and flies him over to the corner, where he drops him, turning him with a rough shove so that he's facing into the cabinet.
Wayne sticks his tongue out at Syx's back and blows a raspberry at him, then flies back over to his table.
Roxanne swallows and tries to breathe normally, tries to loosen her hold on the chair.
It takes her a minute.
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Syx seems to be more upset by the fact that Wayne has apparently forgotten his own planet than about his own unjust punishment or the way that Wayne very nearly fried him with his laser eyes, a circumstance that Roxanne, personally, feels warrants a little more attention.
"He forgot his planet," Syx says over and over again, when they're behind the supply shed during recess. "His whole planet, and he just forgot it. Like it never even existed."
"You could have died!" Roxanne says for the third time.
"A whole planet of people, generations and generations, all that-all that history," Syx looks like he's about to cry. "And now it's all just gone. Like it didn't even matter. Like it never even happened." He blinks rapidly; Minion rolls over to bump into his knee. "At least Minion and I remember some things about our planet," he says in a low voice, placing his hand on Minion's ball.
Roxanne puts her hand over his on Minion's sphere.
"Do you-want to tell me some-" she starts.
"Are we going to do something now?" Annie asks, rolling her eyes.
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"You don't think Wayne's an alien, do you?" Annie asks Roxanne on the bus. Her tone says that she, clearly, doesn't believe it.
"Yeah," Roxanne snaps, "I do. Maybe he can zap me with his eye lasers," she adds, raising her voice a bit, so that it carries to the back of the bus, "if he wants to prove how human he is."
It's a stupid thing to say; Wayne can zap her with his eye lasers, can't he, if she makes him mad enough, but Roxanne can't seem to stop herself.
"But he can't be an-" Annie drops her voice like she's saying a bad word, "-alien. Aliens are all weird looking and weird colored-"
"Like Syx, you mean?" Roxanne asks, eyes narrowing dangerously.
Annie must notice, because she huffs out a breath.
"All I'm saying," she says, "is that Wayne looks like a real person to me."
Roxanne freezes.
Not a real person, Wayne had said, and Syx hadn't even argued, hadn't even looked offended.
"Don't you ever," Roxanne hisses, leaning close to Annie's face, "say that again."
Annie rears back in surprise and some fear.
"What's your problem?" she asks, voice high and squeaky.
"Don't you ever," Roxanne doesn't back off at all, "say real person again like Syx isn't one."
"Jeez, lighten up, Roxy!" Annie says. "I just meant 'not like an alien', is all!"
Roxanne leans back and looks out the window.
"Did you," she says icily.
The two of them don't talk for the rest of the bus ride.
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"Mom," Roxanne says that night, pushing peas around her plate. "If one of your friends'-you know, other friends-is saying something behind their back-should you tell them?"
Her mother sighs and wipes her mouth on her napkin.
"Sweetheart," she says, "that's the way that fights get started. Haven't you had enough of that sort of thing? You don't want to end up alone again, do you?"
Roxanne actually physically flinches, struck by the mental picture of Syx sitting side by side with Annie, of him turning toward Annie, turning away from Roxanne, turning his back on her.
"No," Roxanne whispers. "No, I don't want that to happen. You're right; I won't say anything."
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"Okay, so maybe this will help you picture it," Syx says. "We'll do an atom of deuterium; that's a type of hydrogen, which-isn't really relevant it's-it's a really simple one; it'll give you a good idea of the general-anyway! In the middle of the atom-" he takes Roxanne's arm and moves the two of them a few steps away from the supply shed, "-is the nucleus. That's where the protons and the neutrons are. Neutrons aren't positive or negative. Neutron," he gestures to himself, the assumes a stiff, robotic pose. "I do not feel feelings," he says in a bored tone.
Roxanne snickers; his eyes flick towards her, but he doesn't break his rigid stance.
"Unsweetened oatmeal is an adequate foodstuff," he adds, and Roxanne laughs again. Syx grins and drops the act.
"Protons," he says, putting his hands on her shoulders, "have a positive charge."
"Oh! Um," says Roxanne, and puts on a wild grin, bouncing on her toes, "Everything is wonderful! I love unsweetened oatmeal; it's just the best!"
Syx laughs.
"And electrons-" he points at Annie, seated over by the wall of the supply shed, "-have a negative charge."
Syx and Roxanne look at Annie expectantly.
"This is boring," she says.
"Just like that!" Sys says. "All right, so, the electrons-"
"Move around," Roxanne finishes, "I remember that."
"Yes! The electrons move around the nucleus, which-" he hesitates a moment, and then wraps his arms around Roxanne. "This is not an entirely accurate representation," he says, arms still around her. "But for an accurate representation, you'd have to be in several places at once, and there's not really an opt-"
"This is boring," Annie says again, louder. "I want to do something else." She scuffs the dirt hard with the foot that isn't in a cast. Minion, who has already rolled several feet away from her, startles and rolls even farther. "It's all science and hugging with you guys and it's boring."
"Oh," Syx says, looking downcast as he pulls away from Roxanne. "I didn't-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be boring. Is there-what would you like to do?"
Annie scuffs at the ground again, scowling.
"I don't know," she says. "Something not boring."
"Okay," Syx says slowly, clearly thinking hard.
But I was interested Roxanne wants to say. She bites the inside of her cheeks instead as Syx tries to come up with a way to entertain stupid Annie.
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"-definitely the coolest!" Roxanne protests.
"Second coolest!" Syx waves an admonishing finger. "Second coolest, I will give you, hands down, Princess Leia, yes, but! Darth Vader-"
"Loses, which makes him less cool than-"
"-has a cape; it doesn't get any cooler than a cape and besides that, he doesn't lose, he switches sides, remember, which is the only reason that the good guys are able to win! Am I right?" He turns to Minion expectantly, but Minion, who is still refusing to talk around Annie, gives him a blank look. Syx rolls his eyes and looks at Annie expectantly instead. "Aren't I right?" he repeats.
"I don't like Star Wars," Annie says.
Roxanne and Syx both gape at her in appalled shock.
"It's for boys," she adds.
Syx gives Roxanne a look of absolute horror, which she returns, with a feeling of offended irritation underneath it. Was that meant to be aimed at her?
Syx closes his eyes for a moment, emotions playing across his face, and Roxanne can see that he's forming a perfect rebuttal of Annie's ridiculous assertion, and then he opens his eyes and visibly swallows the words down.
"Well, um," he says, "what-kind of movies do you like to watch, then?"
Roxanne wants to scream.
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"It's pronounced 'wheat', you know," Annie says scornfully, "not 'w-heat'."
Syx goes absolutely still for a moment. So does Roxanne.
"Please," he says quietly, "I would like you not to-um, please don't do that."
Annie raises her eyebrows.
"Roxanne does it all the time," she says.
"That's Roxanne," Syx says firmly, and Roxanne feels like she can breathe again. "We have an arrangement. Please, I-don't feel comfortable with-"
"Whatever," Annie says, turning away.
Syx flushes.
"Well, um," he says to Annie after a moment, "which do you think is less gross, oatmeal or cream of-" he screws up his face in concentration, "-weee-yt?"
Annie shrugs and continues doodling on her cast.
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Annie gets her cast off that Tuesday.
And Tommy gets picked last for dodgeball instead.
Roxanne, from her place beneath the jungle gym, sees Annie move to stand next to Miranda, sees Miranda turn and say something to her, sees Lisa join them, sees all three of them start to throw their balls at Tommy.
She sees that Annie throws hers the hardest.
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When they come in from gym class, Annie's got her arms linked with Miranda and Lisa.
Syx smiles brightly at Annie, who turns away from him pointedly to whisper to Lisa and Miranda. Syx looks confused, and then hurt and dismayed. Wayne smirks.
Annie sits between Miranda and Lisa during music and the three of them snicker whenever they look in Syx's direction.
Roxanne moves closer to Syx, so that they're pressed side to side, as though, if they're just close enough, she can keep him safe.
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"You," Roxanne hisses, catching Annie's elbow as they're waiting in line to get on the bus, "you are not invited to my birthday party."
Annie yanks her arm away and tosses her hair.
"Like anyone," she says, "wants to come to your stupid birthday party anyway."
And then she takes Miranda's hand and pulls her to the front of the line, leaving Roxanne standing by herself.