FIC- Friday Night Lights (Santiago, Coach, Tami)
Title: A Fool's Mentality
Rating: still pg13, but it's definitely getting more adult
Word Count: 2639
Summary: A little bit of a Juliago twist on the events of Seeing Other People. Hard not to look away...(Part IV in the Permission To Exist series)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
It's sort of hard not to look away. A hushed hallway and big crowd gathered around can only mean one thing in high school: fight. But this time, it's not Bradley or Reyes with some poor, unsuspecting band geek. It's everyone's favorite guidance counselor and the English teacher who's just starting to tap dance on Santiago's last goddamn nerve.
It's not really so over-the-top, he guesses. It's not like Mr. Barnett is groping Julie in the middle of class or anything (and if he was...well, Santiago's knuckles turn white just thinking about it). But it's pretty obvious, especially when you look at her. She's as excited as a cocker spaniel when he calls on her in class, and Santiago always watches over his shoulder as he's leaving, and she's always dawdling by his desk, swaying her sweet hips and grinning like a cheshire, a pretty blush in her cheeks.
And Mrs. T? Is one smart lady. So if she thinks something's up, it probably is. Santiago's blood boils as he thinks about having to sit through English in an hour. Fucking Mr. Barnett. Some of the guys he knew in juvie, they'd show Fucking Mr. Barnett what he could do with his special attention for the pretty young blondes in his class, they'd show him real good.
* * *
His uncle used to tease him that when he got nervous his ears twitched. His ears are practically ricocheting off his head now. It's ten minutes into English and Julie isn't where she's supposed to be, sitting two seats ahead of him, twirling her silky blonde hair between her fingers and gazing adoringly up at Fucking Mr. Barnett and completely ignoring him behind her. It's not sitting well with him. In fact, it's making his fucking blood boil.
He's staring at the clock on the wall behind Fucking Mr. Barnett, so as not to look at him. If he looks at him, he's going to snap. And he can't put his finger on why. Julie Taylor's honor isn't his to protect. And who the fuck knows why she's not in class? For all he knows, she's ditching to go shop with that leggy blonde she's always with.
The seconds are ticking by until the end of class. Until he can escape and hit the weight room for lunch period. Mac has told him he could use some work on his legs and he needs to do something with all this anger- if he doesn't, he'll explode. When the bell rings, he jumps up from his desk and almost runs to the door.
"Mr. Herrera?"
Fuck. He turns and steps to the side of the door, letting the other kids file out of the classroom. "Yeah?"
Barnett waits until the room is empty except for the two of them, and then just stares at him for a good thirty seconds, his chin resting on his steepled fingers. Asshole. "I wanted to talk to you about your Shakespeare paper, Mr. Herrera."
Santiago swallows hard. Here it comes. His football eligibility is gone. He looks down at his shoes as Barnett pulls the sheet from a stack on his desk. "You got an A-."
Santiago's head springs up. "I did?"
Barnett's grinning. Asshole. "Yes, it was very impressive. Most people don't take A Midsummer's Night Dream that seriously, but you pulled some very complex themes out here. We always want what we can't have." Blood pounds in Santiago's head as he hears Fucking Mr. Barnett echoing Julie's words from a few days ago. Barnett hands the paper back to him. "Julie told me that she helped you out with it."
Santiago is so absorbed with looking down at the neatly typed paper with the bright red A- at the top (Buddy Junior had helped him with the computer) that it takes him a minute to register that Fucking Mr. Barnett threw that Julie told me... in there so easily.
He clenches his jaw. "Julie Taylor?"
Mr Barnett nods, still smiling that godforsaken smile. "You know, she's a really smart young lady. Actually, I think she's been pretty sad lately. We were talking the other day and-"
Santiago's blood pressure has rushed to his eyes and he cannot take one more Julie is this...Julie is that... coming out of Fucking Mr. Barnett's mouth. Something old and viscious is rising in him, something that he thought he'd buried with meeting Lyla Garrity and learning what kindness could be.
Without breaking eye contact, he reached behind him, grabbed the closest desk and tossed it to his right. Barnett jumped back, eyes going wide with surprise and fear. He's slowly backing towards the door. Santiago's scared him, and he is so, so fucking happy about it.
"What the hell is going on in here?" Santiago looks towards the door and shit, it's Coach. Looking so mad he could spit and Santiago's never been more scared in his life.
"Coach Taylor," Barnett is breathing hard, color returning to his face as he sees his 'protection'. "Mr. Herrera was just leaving." He looks Santiago in the eye. "Principal's office. Now."
But Coach already has an iron-clad grip across the back of Santiago's shoulders and is waving a tense hand at Barnett. Santiago can't look anywhere but at his shoes. "You don't mind if I take him for a minute. I'll make sure he gets straightened out." Barnett doesn't argue, though Santiago can almost hear the man's jaw clench. When Coach Taylor speaks in this school, it's the final word any everybody knows it.
The hallways are empty as it's lunch time, and when they're safely out of earshot of Barnett's classroom, Coach whispers in his ear, and nothing has ever been so deafening in his life. "What the hell is going on with you and that teacher?"
They've stopped and he's facing Santiago now, but still gripping him hard across the back of the shoulders. Santiago opens his mouth to answer, but before he can say anything, Coach continues. "Shut up. Have you seen anything going on in that classroom, anything weird with him and the female students?"
Santiago's jaw drops, "I..." If it's spread this far, he doesn't know what he's supposed to say. What's right in this situation. "I..."
Never breaking his hold, Coach turns them back down the hallway. "Shut up. You're coming with me, we're gonna take a little walk."
Santiago's belly drops to the floor as he realizes where they're going, and he don't know if he can handle this. He almost tucks tail and runs in the other direction when they enter the guidance counselor's office and Coach waves at the secretary, smiling, charming the ladies, and strolls right into Mrs. Taylor's office, purposefully closing the door behind him. "Hi there Mrs. Taylor, can we have a few moments of your time?" He's never seen anyone smile the way Coach does at his wife right then, and it is absolutely the scariest thing ever.
But Mrs. T doesn't seem quite fased by that as she is by seeing Santiago in her office. "Well, hey- hey Santiago, how are you?" She quickly pastes her own smile on, and she is far more terrifying than her husband. "What- what can I do for y'all?"
"Well, first, I'd like to state that anything said in this room will be...confidential, correct, Mrs. Taylor? A guidance counselor's confidentiality?" Coach is sort of pacing the room right now, gesturing the word confidentiality by circling his hands into a little globe.
"Ah, well, sure...I think...Yeah, that's okay," Mrs. T is just looking back and forth between Santiago and her husband, still grinning like a Cheshire (her and Julie have the same smile).
Coach points at him with one finger. "I just walk by Mr. Barnett's classroom and my new varsity player had just tossed a desk across the room."
Mrs. T's eyes widen at him, shock and concern crossing her face. "Santiago, that sounds like a real violent outburst..."
"I'm sorry, I'm not finished," Coach interrupts before she can get to the bottom of that. "And a little while before that, I heard an ugly rumor. Something about my wife and Mr. Barnett getting into it real loud in front of the entire school, going back and forth about something concerning my daughter and me going to beat the crap out of some scrawny little English teacher."
Mrs. T's eyes go even wider, he can see almost her whole pupil now and she tries to break in, "Eric-"
"Tami," Coach continues and well, it's clear the gloves are off now. "Now maybe these two things aren't related, but these are two kids that I care about having a problem with one teacher, and now you need to tell me, as these kids' guidance counselor and as my wife...Is there something I need to know about?"
"I..." Mrs. T opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again, and closes it again. "Santiago, honey?" She turns on him and he can feel his insides twist a little bit. "Why did you toss a desk across the room?"
Panic runs through Santiago's mind because he knows he doesn't have a good answer. Because if Fucking Mr. Barnett said Julie's name one more time, I was going to strangle him.
"Have you noticed Mr. Barnett being inappropriate with our daughter?" Coach asks.
"I..." Santiago can't answer that honestly. Because while yes, he's definitely noticed Julie making googly eyes at Fucking Mr. Barnett, he's not sure if that's all that's made him want to wring the fucker's neck, or if he's really been seeing the creepy bastard stare a little too hard at Julie's slim dancer's legs, her soft pink lips, the scattering of golden freckles across the bridge of his nose. No, it might have been Santiago being the creepy bastard all along.
"Eric," Mrs. Taylor says, grabbing both of their attention. " Excuse me, Santiago, I think this may be more of a family matter, would you mind if I spoke to my husband in private?"
He steps outside the door and waits for Coach, not sure if he should be hightailing it to the principal's office or not. He knows he's fucked up and it could mean off the team or fuck, kicked out of school. Mr. Garrity's been real good to him, but he doesn't think he'll keep him around if it means no more football. The door opens abruptly and Coach grabs him by the shoulder again, yanking him out of the chair. "Come on, son." Santiago breathes a sigh of relief when Coach escorts him right past the principal's office on down to the athletic department and his own office.
He shuts the door and gestures for Santiago to have a seat. When he takes his own seat behind the desk, Coach stares at him for a good long time, and Santiago can feel his ears ricocheting again. The man could make God nervous. "Santiago, I'm going to do something that screams against every one of my natural instincts," Coach says, through gritted teeth. "I'm going to square it with Mr. Barnett, you staying in that class. You are not going to be throwing any more desks, any punches, any goshdarn temper tantrums for the rest of your high school tenure, you got that?"
Santiago swallows and breathes a sigh of relief at the same time. "Thank you, sir, I really appreciate it."
"Shut up. I'm not done with you yet. You are going to be disciplined and I am going to be running you so hard, you are going to wish all you got was detention." Santiago swallows hard. That's a promise he knows Coach can make good on. Coach gives him another good, long stare before he continues. "You are going to stay in that class. You are going to be my eyes and ears as to what's going on. If he smiles at Julie, if they have any inside jokes, God help me if he touches her-"
"Coach, I..."
"Shut up. Listen...I know where you come from. I know about the culture, I'm not asking you to snitch on anyone. If that bas- if there is a teacher who is not acting how he should be with a young girl, my daughter, the proper authorities need to know about it. Do you understand?"
Santiago breathes deep, taking this in. "Yes sir." Coach is by all means hiring him to body guard his daughter. Matt Saracen is in their class, too, and Santiago knows all about their history- well, he knows there's a history anyway. He doesn't have to ask why Coach is turning to him instead of his favorite quarterback. Saracen still cares about Julie, anyone can see that, even if he is all hooked up with that cheerleader chick. Saracen doesn't have the mentality to throw a desk across a room at a teacher, he thinks before he acts. If, God forbid, Barnett does *anything* to Julie, Coach wants the bastard punished immediately.
And he knows Santiago knows how to do that.
* * *
Santiago usually waits in the library after practice for Mr. Garrity to pick him up. It's the best time for him to get homework done, once they get home, Mr. Garrity wants to talk about 'his day' (i.e. practice) and is usually buzzing around, so nervous about being a good guardian, that Santiago can't get a thing done.
It's particularly empty today, really just Santiago and sweet little old librarian Mrs. Deckler, who's probably in her early hundreds. He's concentrating so hard on his flashcards for his biology quiz- science don't come quite as easily to him, that he doesn't even hear her stalking through the library until a heavy encyclopedia volume goes whizzing by his head, missing by a mile. He looks up to see Julie standing in front of him, so mad she's shaking. "How do you like it when someone throws things at you?" She's not quite crying yet, but he can tell she's going to be, any second now, and that she probably has let the tears loose a few times already today.
"Julie, I..." he tries to stand up, but she backs away as soon as he moves, and he realizes that she's afraid of him now, and his skin begins to crawl.
"Don't come near me," her eyes are blurring now, tears glistening on sooty lashes and blue pools spilling over. She looks down and takes a deep, shaky breath and when she looks back up, the tears have spilled over but she's gotten ahold of her breathing and her voice comes out clearer. "Everything they said about you was right. You are an animal. I don't ever want to talk to you again."
She turns and runs out of the library, her hair flying behind her like a golden waterfall. Her words are a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of him, and Santiago slumps in his seat.
The fact that he'd allowed people around him (Lyla, Mr. Garrity, Mrs. T) let him think he could be anything more than an animal has been the cruelest trick of the mind. And the fact that he'd allowed himself to hope for anything so pure as a Julie Taylor in his life was just a fool's wretched prayer.
Rating: still pg13, but it's definitely getting more adult
Word Count: 2639
Summary: A little bit of a Juliago twist on the events of Seeing Other People. Hard not to look away...(Part IV in the Permission To Exist series)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
It's sort of hard not to look away. A hushed hallway and big crowd gathered around can only mean one thing in high school: fight. But this time, it's not Bradley or Reyes with some poor, unsuspecting band geek. It's everyone's favorite guidance counselor and the English teacher who's just starting to tap dance on Santiago's last goddamn nerve.
It's not really so over-the-top, he guesses. It's not like Mr. Barnett is groping Julie in the middle of class or anything (and if he was...well, Santiago's knuckles turn white just thinking about it). But it's pretty obvious, especially when you look at her. She's as excited as a cocker spaniel when he calls on her in class, and Santiago always watches over his shoulder as he's leaving, and she's always dawdling by his desk, swaying her sweet hips and grinning like a cheshire, a pretty blush in her cheeks.
And Mrs. T? Is one smart lady. So if she thinks something's up, it probably is. Santiago's blood boils as he thinks about having to sit through English in an hour. Fucking Mr. Barnett. Some of the guys he knew in juvie, they'd show Fucking Mr. Barnett what he could do with his special attention for the pretty young blondes in his class, they'd show him real good.
* * *
His uncle used to tease him that when he got nervous his ears twitched. His ears are practically ricocheting off his head now. It's ten minutes into English and Julie isn't where she's supposed to be, sitting two seats ahead of him, twirling her silky blonde hair between her fingers and gazing adoringly up at Fucking Mr. Barnett and completely ignoring him behind her. It's not sitting well with him. In fact, it's making his fucking blood boil.
He's staring at the clock on the wall behind Fucking Mr. Barnett, so as not to look at him. If he looks at him, he's going to snap. And he can't put his finger on why. Julie Taylor's honor isn't his to protect. And who the fuck knows why she's not in class? For all he knows, she's ditching to go shop with that leggy blonde she's always with.
The seconds are ticking by until the end of class. Until he can escape and hit the weight room for lunch period. Mac has told him he could use some work on his legs and he needs to do something with all this anger- if he doesn't, he'll explode. When the bell rings, he jumps up from his desk and almost runs to the door.
"Mr. Herrera?"
Fuck. He turns and steps to the side of the door, letting the other kids file out of the classroom. "Yeah?"
Barnett waits until the room is empty except for the two of them, and then just stares at him for a good thirty seconds, his chin resting on his steepled fingers. Asshole. "I wanted to talk to you about your Shakespeare paper, Mr. Herrera."
Santiago swallows hard. Here it comes. His football eligibility is gone. He looks down at his shoes as Barnett pulls the sheet from a stack on his desk. "You got an A-."
Santiago's head springs up. "I did?"
Barnett's grinning. Asshole. "Yes, it was very impressive. Most people don't take A Midsummer's Night Dream that seriously, but you pulled some very complex themes out here. We always want what we can't have." Blood pounds in Santiago's head as he hears Fucking Mr. Barnett echoing Julie's words from a few days ago. Barnett hands the paper back to him. "Julie told me that she helped you out with it."
Santiago is so absorbed with looking down at the neatly typed paper with the bright red A- at the top (Buddy Junior had helped him with the computer) that it takes him a minute to register that Fucking Mr. Barnett threw that Julie told me... in there so easily.
He clenches his jaw. "Julie Taylor?"
Mr Barnett nods, still smiling that godforsaken smile. "You know, she's a really smart young lady. Actually, I think she's been pretty sad lately. We were talking the other day and-"
Santiago's blood pressure has rushed to his eyes and he cannot take one more Julie is this...Julie is that... coming out of Fucking Mr. Barnett's mouth. Something old and viscious is rising in him, something that he thought he'd buried with meeting Lyla Garrity and learning what kindness could be.
Without breaking eye contact, he reached behind him, grabbed the closest desk and tossed it to his right. Barnett jumped back, eyes going wide with surprise and fear. He's slowly backing towards the door. Santiago's scared him, and he is so, so fucking happy about it.
"What the hell is going on in here?" Santiago looks towards the door and shit, it's Coach. Looking so mad he could spit and Santiago's never been more scared in his life.
"Coach Taylor," Barnett is breathing hard, color returning to his face as he sees his 'protection'. "Mr. Herrera was just leaving." He looks Santiago in the eye. "Principal's office. Now."
But Coach already has an iron-clad grip across the back of Santiago's shoulders and is waving a tense hand at Barnett. Santiago can't look anywhere but at his shoes. "You don't mind if I take him for a minute. I'll make sure he gets straightened out." Barnett doesn't argue, though Santiago can almost hear the man's jaw clench. When Coach Taylor speaks in this school, it's the final word any everybody knows it.
The hallways are empty as it's lunch time, and when they're safely out of earshot of Barnett's classroom, Coach whispers in his ear, and nothing has ever been so deafening in his life. "What the hell is going on with you and that teacher?"
They've stopped and he's facing Santiago now, but still gripping him hard across the back of the shoulders. Santiago opens his mouth to answer, but before he can say anything, Coach continues. "Shut up. Have you seen anything going on in that classroom, anything weird with him and the female students?"
Santiago's jaw drops, "I..." If it's spread this far, he doesn't know what he's supposed to say. What's right in this situation. "I..."
Never breaking his hold, Coach turns them back down the hallway. "Shut up. You're coming with me, we're gonna take a little walk."
Santiago's belly drops to the floor as he realizes where they're going, and he don't know if he can handle this. He almost tucks tail and runs in the other direction when they enter the guidance counselor's office and Coach waves at the secretary, smiling, charming the ladies, and strolls right into Mrs. Taylor's office, purposefully closing the door behind him. "Hi there Mrs. Taylor, can we have a few moments of your time?" He's never seen anyone smile the way Coach does at his wife right then, and it is absolutely the scariest thing ever.
But Mrs. T doesn't seem quite fased by that as she is by seeing Santiago in her office. "Well, hey- hey Santiago, how are you?" She quickly pastes her own smile on, and she is far more terrifying than her husband. "What- what can I do for y'all?"
"Well, first, I'd like to state that anything said in this room will be...confidential, correct, Mrs. Taylor? A guidance counselor's confidentiality?" Coach is sort of pacing the room right now, gesturing the word confidentiality by circling his hands into a little globe.
"Ah, well, sure...I think...Yeah, that's okay," Mrs. T is just looking back and forth between Santiago and her husband, still grinning like a Cheshire (her and Julie have the same smile).
Coach points at him with one finger. "I just walk by Mr. Barnett's classroom and my new varsity player had just tossed a desk across the room."
Mrs. T's eyes widen at him, shock and concern crossing her face. "Santiago, that sounds like a real violent outburst..."
"I'm sorry, I'm not finished," Coach interrupts before she can get to the bottom of that. "And a little while before that, I heard an ugly rumor. Something about my wife and Mr. Barnett getting into it real loud in front of the entire school, going back and forth about something concerning my daughter and me going to beat the crap out of some scrawny little English teacher."
Mrs. T's eyes go even wider, he can see almost her whole pupil now and she tries to break in, "Eric-"
"Tami," Coach continues and well, it's clear the gloves are off now. "Now maybe these two things aren't related, but these are two kids that I care about having a problem with one teacher, and now you need to tell me, as these kids' guidance counselor and as my wife...Is there something I need to know about?"
"I..." Mrs. T opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again, and closes it again. "Santiago, honey?" She turns on him and he can feel his insides twist a little bit. "Why did you toss a desk across the room?"
Panic runs through Santiago's mind because he knows he doesn't have a good answer. Because if Fucking Mr. Barnett said Julie's name one more time, I was going to strangle him.
"Have you noticed Mr. Barnett being inappropriate with our daughter?" Coach asks.
"I..." Santiago can't answer that honestly. Because while yes, he's definitely noticed Julie making googly eyes at Fucking Mr. Barnett, he's not sure if that's all that's made him want to wring the fucker's neck, or if he's really been seeing the creepy bastard stare a little too hard at Julie's slim dancer's legs, her soft pink lips, the scattering of golden freckles across the bridge of his nose. No, it might have been Santiago being the creepy bastard all along.
"Eric," Mrs. Taylor says, grabbing both of their attention. " Excuse me, Santiago, I think this may be more of a family matter, would you mind if I spoke to my husband in private?"
He steps outside the door and waits for Coach, not sure if he should be hightailing it to the principal's office or not. He knows he's fucked up and it could mean off the team or fuck, kicked out of school. Mr. Garrity's been real good to him, but he doesn't think he'll keep him around if it means no more football. The door opens abruptly and Coach grabs him by the shoulder again, yanking him out of the chair. "Come on, son." Santiago breathes a sigh of relief when Coach escorts him right past the principal's office on down to the athletic department and his own office.
He shuts the door and gestures for Santiago to have a seat. When he takes his own seat behind the desk, Coach stares at him for a good long time, and Santiago can feel his ears ricocheting again. The man could make God nervous. "Santiago, I'm going to do something that screams against every one of my natural instincts," Coach says, through gritted teeth. "I'm going to square it with Mr. Barnett, you staying in that class. You are not going to be throwing any more desks, any punches, any goshdarn temper tantrums for the rest of your high school tenure, you got that?"
Santiago swallows and breathes a sigh of relief at the same time. "Thank you, sir, I really appreciate it."
"Shut up. I'm not done with you yet. You are going to be disciplined and I am going to be running you so hard, you are going to wish all you got was detention." Santiago swallows hard. That's a promise he knows Coach can make good on. Coach gives him another good, long stare before he continues. "You are going to stay in that class. You are going to be my eyes and ears as to what's going on. If he smiles at Julie, if they have any inside jokes, God help me if he touches her-"
"Coach, I..."
"Shut up. Listen...I know where you come from. I know about the culture, I'm not asking you to snitch on anyone. If that bas- if there is a teacher who is not acting how he should be with a young girl, my daughter, the proper authorities need to know about it. Do you understand?"
Santiago breathes deep, taking this in. "Yes sir." Coach is by all means hiring him to body guard his daughter. Matt Saracen is in their class, too, and Santiago knows all about their history- well, he knows there's a history anyway. He doesn't have to ask why Coach is turning to him instead of his favorite quarterback. Saracen still cares about Julie, anyone can see that, even if he is all hooked up with that cheerleader chick. Saracen doesn't have the mentality to throw a desk across a room at a teacher, he thinks before he acts. If, God forbid, Barnett does *anything* to Julie, Coach wants the bastard punished immediately.
And he knows Santiago knows how to do that.
* * *
Santiago usually waits in the library after practice for Mr. Garrity to pick him up. It's the best time for him to get homework done, once they get home, Mr. Garrity wants to talk about 'his day' (i.e. practice) and is usually buzzing around, so nervous about being a good guardian, that Santiago can't get a thing done.
It's particularly empty today, really just Santiago and sweet little old librarian Mrs. Deckler, who's probably in her early hundreds. He's concentrating so hard on his flashcards for his biology quiz- science don't come quite as easily to him, that he doesn't even hear her stalking through the library until a heavy encyclopedia volume goes whizzing by his head, missing by a mile. He looks up to see Julie standing in front of him, so mad she's shaking. "How do you like it when someone throws things at you?" She's not quite crying yet, but he can tell she's going to be, any second now, and that she probably has let the tears loose a few times already today.
"Julie, I..." he tries to stand up, but she backs away as soon as he moves, and he realizes that she's afraid of him now, and his skin begins to crawl.
"Don't come near me," her eyes are blurring now, tears glistening on sooty lashes and blue pools spilling over. She looks down and takes a deep, shaky breath and when she looks back up, the tears have spilled over but she's gotten ahold of her breathing and her voice comes out clearer. "Everything they said about you was right. You are an animal. I don't ever want to talk to you again."
She turns and runs out of the library, her hair flying behind her like a golden waterfall. Her words are a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of him, and Santiago slumps in his seat.
The fact that he'd allowed people around him (Lyla, Mr. Garrity, Mrs. T) let him think he could be anything more than an animal has been the cruelest trick of the mind. And the fact that he'd allowed himself to hope for anything so pure as a Julie Taylor in his life was just a fool's wretched prayer.