Work Text:
First moment of vulnerability
It shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did.
Black Sheep knew how Sheena was. Knew how the other girl just had it out for her. For no apparent reason, no explanation, nothing. Just that from the start, she’d been as rude and antagonistic as possible, even throughout every attempt made by the younger girl to be nice and befriend her. It was as if Sheena had just decided, on first glance, that Black Sheep was an inconvenience, that she wasn’t worth her time.
The younger girl tried not to think about it too much, really. She had Gray, and the last two members of their class were nice enough to her too, so it wasn’t really that big of a deal. So one person didn’t like her, that was fine, that was Sheena’s choice. She couldn’t make someone else like her if they just didn’t.
Even still, it didn’t matter how much she told herself that, over and over. It still hurt. It still made her feel like she’d done something wrong, somehow done something to make the other girl not like her. It felt like it must be her fault, and it got under her skin on the worst of days. If Sheena would only tell her, she could fix it, change it, apologize, whatever, and they could get over it.
But that would have been too easy, wouldn’t it?
This day was another one of the worse days. Making a mistake in their first class was the start of it all, the creation to yet another opening for Sheena to jab at her weak points. Another chance to put Black Sheep down, to make her feel inferior.
And of course, she tried to brush it off. Told Gray it was okay, that it was just Sheena being Sheena, she knew not to take it personally. That’s what she said. But it didn’t make it true. And that didn’t stop the rest of the day from following suit.
Every single class went the same way. In Stealth 101, she was pretty convinced Sheena had tripped her, but it didn’t make a difference to the teacher either way since the sound of her face meeting the floor would have gotten her caught in an actual mission. Then in Self-Defence, well, there wasn’t much to be said there. Of course they were paired up together, of course they were supposed to try and win the advantage over the other. But the other girl was a bit too vicious, a bit too angry, hitting a bit too hard. Just enough that it wasn’t noticeable to others, but plenty overboard that Black Sheep was clear to have bruises tomorrow.
On and on it went. In Pickpocketing, she was convinced Sheena had done something to her paper while she wasn’t looking, resulting in her crane shredding at the seams the instant she tried to pull it to life. And of course combined with Shadowsan’s already apparent grudge against her, that resulted in points being taken off from her overall score.
And Black Sheep didn’t even want to begin to recall the events that led up to her getting pitched into a pool of ice water, the students’ incentive to stay on high ground in wet and cold climates. It left her freezing, frustrated, and excused from classes early to go “Clean up and get your head on straight.” as Dr Maelstrom had put it, only furthering her already growing embarrassment. She was better than this, she knew, and yet there was nothing she could do to make any of her classes not go completely wrong.
Needless to say, she wasn’t having a great time.
She didn’t go back to the dorms. Didn’t go shower, didn’t even go back to her old room away from the school. All she wanted to do was wander away, forget the day had happened at all, and maybe hope a palm tree would fall on her. That was how she ended up on the beach, on the far end of the island, hidden away under a sharp cluster of rocks, where not a soul could find her.
Well, all but one.
Just like clockwork, her phone rang.
“Hey Player.” She answered, trying to sound as normal as she could. She was a thief, she could lie, he didn’t have to know how she was feeling.
Player had launched into some excited tirade the instant the call connected, and managed to get a whole ten words in before he registered her tone, cut himself off, and concern replaced his previous demeanor. “Wait, are you okay?”
Of course. Just like everything else, she failed at hiding her mood, too. Why had she expected any different?
Was she really meant to be a thief? The faculty said it all the time, over and over. One mistake, and you’re gone. You can only fail once. If she had days where she failed this much in school, what would happen if she had this kind of day once she graduated?
“--You there? You’re really spacing on me right now.” Player’s voice slowly faded back to her attention, and she shook her head slightly.
“Sorry, Player.” Black Sheep mumbled, burying her face into her knees. “I’m not really having the best of days.”
There was silence for a bit, nothing but the crashing of waves to be heard on either end. It was starting to get late, too, and a chill wind was sweeping in from over the ocean, a harsh reminder she was still drenched and cold. “Do you want to talk about it?” Her distant friend finally asked, his voice low and soft, tentative.
“I’m,” She paused, thinking her words over carefully. “I’m not sure if I’m, if that’s a good idea.”
“You’ve got stuff you can’t tell me, I know. That’s okay.” He assured her, quickly. “But… you might feel better if you get some stuff off your chest. Rant a bit, have someone listen and really hear you and how you feel. You can omit the secret stuff, or the major details, those aren’t the important part.”
Pressing against the rock behind her and wishing it was warmer, she thought hard about what he was saying. Coach Brunt had always been there for her, to give her any care she needed, but was never really one for words or listening. She wasn’t good at the emotional thing, at knowing what to say and when. And beyond her? There was no one. Gray was her friend, sure, but he wasn’t really someone she could vent to about their fellow classmate who he actually got along with. Anyone else on the island would just tell her to get over it, or say to get better and prove her wrong, or stop thinking or feeling so much. Any attempt at trying to connect with someone, and feel less alone, would only end in her being reprimanded.
But Player? Player was different. He wasn’t from the island. He didn’t have the same gruff exterior, or ulterior motives, he was all about words and talking all the time and here he was, offering to be exactly what she needed.
She must’ve been silent for too long, because he started backpedaling, a slight kind of panic seeping through his tone. “Not that I’m saying you have to! Or to me, or anything like that. Just that it’s easier to get through stuff and feel better if you can talk about it and work through it, and feel like someone cares, so even if you can’t really say all the details that’s okay. I just want you to know I’m here to listen if you want to talk about it and see if it helps, because what really matters is that you start to feel better, and…” He rambled on, and it was almost endearing, in an odd way.
“I…” Player stopped speaking the instant her voice came across the line again, even quiet as she was. It took several more seconds to piece together her thoughts, to put them into words in a way that made sense and wasn’t too much. All the while, there was patient, attentive silence waiting for her. Finally, she just went with, “I guess it’s just, one of my classmates doesn’t like me very much.”
“That’s not all there is to it, is there?” He caught on, much too fast. Was she that easy to read, or was he just that perceptive?
“...No.”
Another beat passed. “Is this classmate of yours… bullying you?”
Black Sheep paused, then. Was she? “I don’t know?”
Player’s voice was firm, steady. “Tell me what they did, if you can. I can tell you if it’s bullying or not.”
That took more thought power, again. But she thought about it, hard, trying to think of a way to tell him without saying too much. “Well… I don’t have proof she actually did half of it.”
“That’s okay. Tell me what happened.”
“In our first class of the morning, I messed up, and she made a joke about it that kind of stung.” That was a start. Player hummed quietly on the other end, an affirmation that he was listening. “Then in the next one, I think she tripped me? And then I got in trouble, because the teacher thought I just messed up. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t trip over thin air, and she was the only one around!”
“Hmmm… Was there anything else?”
Well, this one she could just say, right? Nothing suspicious about Shadowsan’s class, from the outside. “We have one class where we had to do origami. And I’m really good at it, okay, but I looked away for one second and then my piece sort of shredded when I tried to touch it again. And then she was just laughing, you know? And the teacher got onto me for disrupting the class and not taking it seriously, again, and reduced my points for it. But I didn’t do anything!” She was ranting now, just thinking of it. Whether Sheena was affecting her on purpose or not was one thing, but Shadowsan definitely was, and that definitely wasn’t fair.
“Sounds like that teacher needs to chill.” Player commented, an odd lilt to his voice. Was he upset about something?
“Oh he definitely does, he’s had a grudge against me from the start.” Black Sheep said sourly, glaring out at the darkening water.
“Teacher aside for now, what else did your classmate do? I feel like there’s more.”
Black Sheep frowned. “Well… There’s one class where we get teamed up against each other, sort of like… sparring? And she was just, really vicious and angry. Everyone knows you aren’t supposed to take stuff out on your sparring partner, but she was just coming after me way too hard, but not bad enough for anyone else to notice it was anything out of the ordinary.”
Player didn’t say anything about that one, though she didn’t really question it before continuing on. What she didn’t know was that he was staring toward his headset, speechless and trying to figure out what sort of school involved making students spar against each other, and if that counted as child abuse.
“And then the last thing… Ugh. I can’t really explain this class without saying too much, but she straight up pushed me in the pool. Nobody was looking, and she just shoved me in, and they had ice in it to give us an incentive not to fall in, and then the teacher sent me out of class early to clean up and ‘get my head on straight’, and she was laughing and joking about me being terrible at everything while I left. She said I wouldn’t last much longer if I kept this up.”
It was a lot of information all at once, there at the end. There was silence for a few moments, though Black Sheep was too tangled up in her own thoughts to really notice Player hadn’t said anything. On the other end, though, the boy was trying to figure out what to get into first, but her chattering voice was a good start.
“She pushed you into a pool of ice water?” He asked, incredulous.
“Yes?”
“I can hear you shivering, and I can hear the ocean. And knowing your schedule, it’s already dark, isn’t it? It’s too cold for you to be out there in the state you’re in, probably in wet clothes no less. You need to go take a hot shower and change into something dry and warm up before you get sick.”
He was firm, sounding as if he wouldn’t accept any sort of excuse, but also managing to come across as caring at the same time. It was sort of unexpected, if she was honest, suddenly having a friend advise her on doing what was best for her health.
As if her wellbeing was really, actually important, to someone who didn’t have to care.
“But…”
“You don’t want to go back and face them. I know. But listen, you need to put yourself first, and making sure you don’t get sick is the most important.” Player stressed, then added in a soft tone, “I think your classmate really is just a bully. From what you’ve said, I think she might be jealous. Maybe she thinks you’re better than her, and she needs to knock you down to feel like she’s above you. It has nothing to do with you being bad at things, and everything to do with her feeling inferior. So you know what, I think you’re doing just fine. Stand up to her if you get the chance, or turn her attempts at pushing you down back on her. But you, yourself, right now? You’re doing great. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and don’t let her convince you that you’re not good enough.”
How he knew just what to say to make her feel better, she’d never understand. But he did. Just from listening to him speak, to reassure her, in that kind and friendly voice, it felt like some of the weight lifted.
Yes, she’d told herself from the start that it was Sheena’s choice to act the way she did, though it hadn’t helped. But hearing basically the same, from someone else, someone who actually seemed to care even when she could barely tell him anything? It felt nice. It was validating, having her feelings considered through and through and reasons explained back to her, instead of just being told to grow up or get over it. As afraid as she’s been, from the start, to tell him any details in case she slipped anything incriminating, it really did help to talk about it. Maybe she could get used to being a bit more vulnerable.
Well, maybe with just one person, anyway.
“Hey, Player?” Black Sheep finally said, her voice steadier than it had been, aside from the notable shivering. “Thank you. Really. Nobody has ever really…”
“Listened? Yeah, I get you. But it’s nice, huh? Having someone remind you that your feelings matter?”
“Yeah. It is. I’m really glad you’re here, Player.”
“Me too. You really should go warm up now though.”
So she did. And when she returned to the dorm, greeted with scorn and sneering mockery from Sheena, all Black Sheep did was smile back at her, unaffected. It didn’t matter what the other girl thought or did; she had a true friend she could turn to, if she needed it, and that was more than enough to make the palpable disdain bearable.