Work Text:
Jason doesn’t tell Cheryl everything. He’s always had his secrets, usually ones in common with the football team, boy stuff that he says is none of her business. But he does always come to her when he’s in trouble. When he’s gone a little far with his teenage rebellion and Mom and Dad are on the verge of grounding him for a month. When he’s incited the rest of the football team against him with some dumbass comment. Heck, even when he’s failing a class sometimes. He knows she’ll do what it takes to make it right. Maybe act up to get Mom and Dad’s attention away from him. Sweet talk the team until they remember Jason’s really just a harmless idiot. Get him a tutor because she might have good grades but that doesn’t mean she’s going to spend her evenings forcing her brother to study. One way or another, she’ll figure out how to get him out of his own messes okay.
Today the mess is bigger than usual.
“Why were you selling drugs on Serpent territory in the first place?” Cheryl asks. “Jason.” He won’t look at her. “Jason. Why were you selling drugs at all? You’re not that stupid.”
“I can’t tell you,” he says, staring at the ground.
“Well then maybe I can’t help.” She crosses her arms and leans back. He looks up, stricken, and grabs her by the elbows. Those stupid, pleading eyes. “How can I help you when you won’t even tell me what’s wrong?” He’s been keeping more and more secrets lately.
“That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that I heard that the Serpents are sending a whole squad to beat me up. They’re going to be watching the house, waiting to attack me. This is serious shit, Cheryl. I could be killed.”
Cheryl sighs. “What do you expect me to do?”
He just looks at her. “Please.”
He never tells her what he wants her to do, just expects her to figure that out herself, somehow patch everything together on her own. It pisses her off, but at the same time, it’s a little touching that he still, even now that they’re teenagers, has this level of confidence in her. As if she were his older sister, not just his twin. He’s never realized that half the time she’s as lost as he is, just improvising day to day. He thinks she’s some kind of protecting goddess, and even if that’s wildly inaccurate, she doesn’t want to change that.
“Stay inside the house for the next couple days. Play sick. Don’t go outside—heck, don’t answer the phone. I’ll fix this, but until then you need to stay out of the way. Understand?”
He nods frantically.
“Good.”
It’s summertime, else Cheryl would go down to Southside High to find herself some Serpents. Instead, she goes to the drive-in, their most recent gathering spot. She goes up to the first person she sees in a Serpent jacket and says, “Hey. I’m Cheryl Blossom. I’d like to talk to whoever’s in charge about my brother.”
The man snorts. “Whoever’s in charge? Look, little lady, I don’t know what you…”
“I’ve heard he’s offended the Serpents lately. On behalf of our family, I’d like to make amends.” She gives him her best cheerleader smile. It doesn’t seem to charm him. Damn it. How is she supposed to know what will sway a thug?
She sighs. “I’m going to go watch the movie. Go talk to whoever you need to talk to. I’ll be here until you do.” Even if she has to stay all night.
It doesn’t take that long. She’s only halfway through the movie when the man comes over, this time with another, thinner man by his side, who introduces himself as FP.
“We’ve had some problems with your brother selling to Southside kids,” FP says. “How exactly do you plan on making these amends?”
Cheryl smiles again, though again they don’t seem very receptive. “I would be willing to arrange monetary compensation between you and my brother.” If he’s been dealing drugs, he must have the money for it, right? Because she doesn’t.
FP snorts. “People like you think everything’s about money. Well, it’s a possibility.” He shrugs. “I’m in charge, but I don’t deal with teenagers. The group you want to talk to is the high schoolers. They’re the ones up in arms. Perhaps they’ll accept your compensation.”
He gives her an address and a time that she can meet the younger Serpents the next day.
The young Serpents are led by a boy named Sweet Pea and a girl named Toni, and they really are pissed. Especially Sweet Pea.
“What are we supposed to do with your money? Buy more drugs from the Ghoulies, or from your brother? We don’t want your compensation. We want him to stop.”
“I’m sure he will,” Cheryl says shortly. After the trouble she’s going to on his behalf, he just better.
Sweet Pea grins. He’s a little bit manic. “Yeah, well, we’ll feel a lot surer about it when he’s had to deal with some of the consequences of his actions.” Some of the Serpents cheer after that—yeah, beat him to hell! Fuck him up! Cheryl straightens her back.
She says, “If you think you’re going to beat up my brother, you’re insane. Even if I let you do that, my father would probably have you killed.” She’s pretty sure that’s not something he could actually do, but he’d at least do something, and when you’re threatening it’s best to go big or go home.
Toni says, “If you think we’re scared of a Northside bougie, maybe think again. You can’t buy your way out of this, and you can’t threaten us either.” She smiles. “Unless you want to see the Serpents’ teeth.”
Cheryl swallows.
She is running out of options. Charm hasn’t worked—not on FP and his man, and not on this crowd—the smiles she gets in return are all predatory. Threats haven’t availed. Bribery, her number one go-to for serious trouble, seems to be definitively out. Maybe she really should step back and let them teach Jason a lesson. Because seriously, drug dealing? In the Southside? He should have known better than that.
But then she has to picture what they would actually do to him. The way bruises always stand out on Blossom skin. They might mess up his face—everyone at school thinks Jason is so pretty, a real ladykiller—or break one of his bones, end his athletic career early. She pictures how he might hobble around while recovering, the betrayed way he’d look at her. Because he asked her to deal with this. He believes that she can take care of this.
She sets her shoulders back. “If you need blood, you can have mine.”
Toni says, “What?”
“Take me in his place. Hit me, do whatever you need to do to get out your anger. It’ll be a better lesson anyway. Jason hates seeing me hurt.” She’s not sure that’s true. Jason never seems to care when their parents yell at her or people gossip—but then, maybe he doesn’t know that hurts. She’s always been good at hiding her own pain.
And it doesn’t matter if it’s true. Only that they believe it.
Toni looks her steadily in the eye. “You’re serious about this? About protecting him?”
Cheryl says, “Yes.”
Some of the guys in the back have started chattering, and a couple even make wolf whistles. Sweet Pea glares at them and they hush up. He says, “Serpent men don’t hurt women.”
“But Serpent women can do as they please.” Toni touches Sweet Pea’s arm. “I’ll accept her offer and take a pound of flesh on behalf of all of us here. Satisfied?”
Sweet Pea gives Cheryl a look. He says to her, not to Toni, “Fine.”
They gather around Cheryl in a circle. Toni’s not the only girl there, but she comes to stand in front of Cheryl, and it seems she really will be the only one delivering the beating. Cheryl isn’t sure if that’s good or bad. Toni seems level-headed: that means she isn’t driven by anger right now, but it also makes her a little frightening. Calculating.
Toni puts a hand to Cheryl’s cheek. “Ready?”
She nods.
The first punch is to the gut, hard and fast. Cheryl doubles over and takes a hit to the forehead, a solid smack. She’s sent sprawling to the ground, and Toni delivers a couple quick, burning kicks to her ribs, then grabs her hair and yanks her head up. Slaps her in the face, once with each hand. Then kicks her a couple more times, then turns to the crowd. “Are we good?”
Some say yes, some say no. Toni hauls Cheryl upright and gut-punches her again. By now she’s trembling, panting, fighting not to scream or let out more than little cries when Toni hits her. Toni grabs her by the throat and squeezes slightly, just enough to make her uncomfortable. That will probably leave a bruise. She’ll probably have a lot of bruises tomorrow, though Toni has yet to spill any blood except for a couple scrapes where Cheryl’s legs have dragged against the ground.
She strains for breath, and Toni steadies her waist with her other hand. “Are we good?” she calls out.
No. They want blood. Blossom blood, she hears them calling. Blossom blood.
Toni takes a knife out of her pocket with her free hand and flicks it open. She says to the crowd, “Then let’s see it!” And she carves a quick, shallow score on Cheryl’s collarbone.
The crowd cheers. Toni lets go of Cheryl’s neck and says to the crowd, in a firm voice, “Blood has been spilled, amends have been made. We’re done.”
The circle breaks. A few Serpents actually come forward and pound Cheryl on the back in congratulations, which makes her cough and cringe. One offers her a bandage for the cut. Apparently they always have First Aid ready in case violence breaks out. That’s just the kind of crew they are.
“You’re a brave woman,” Toni says seriously. She pats Cheryl’s back too, but more lightly. Cheryl almost cries, because she’s not sure when is the last time she’s felt this admired for something actually difficult, something beyond her cheerleading and her fashion sense. They’re brutes, really—this whole ceremony absolutely barbaric—but there’s a lump in her throat and it hurts her worse than all her bruises.
She shows herself, her battle-ground body, to Jason as soon as she gets back. He is horrified.
“My god, what did they…I’ll show them,” he says angrily.
She says, “You idiot. No. You won’t be showing them anything, except a change in behavior. No more dealing on their territory. No more dealing, period.” She strips off her shirt to show him the massive bruise forming on her stomach, as well as the obvious marks on her face and neck. “This is how I fixed it. Now respect that and get your act together.”
He nods furiously. Then, timidly, he reaches out a hand to touch her stomach. She slaps it away. Maybe he means well, but she’s angry at him. Her body aches.
She covers up the obvious bruises with makeup and tells her parents the cut was an accident with a brooch. They believe her because they never pay attention to her. That’s probably why they don’t notice that she’s hobbling around, too.
She thinks about the Serpents more than she should after that. She goes down to the drive-in one evening with Jason, both of them in his car. She doesn’t go over to talk to the Serpents she sees there, but she catches a glimpse of pink hair against one of their jackets. She looks away before Toni can catch her eye.
They’re a bunch of psychos. The cut on her neck is still a white scar, not quite faded even after the scab is gone. And her sides still ache a little in the mornings, and ache now when she thinks about it. She looks back, and Toni smiles at her, and she looks away. Crosses her legs. Focuses on the movie.