Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ash hadn’t fully grasped the fallout of everyone’s little ‘you’re probably not straight’ talk with Juna until the following day. Hell, nobody had thought there’d be any kind of consequence. Just some good natured teasing. Or, it was supposed to be. In hindsight, maybe dumping all of that info on her and not elaborating on some of it might’ve been a bit overwhelming.

Exhibit A, that Juna had tried to hand out letters of apology to everybody at the branch campus before Musse and Altina had managed to stop her from doing that. Ash could only really guess as to why she went with a whole blanket assumption that every single person at school was in the same shitty boat—and he kinda wanted to read the one she’d written for Principal Le Guin—but it’d be…kinda nice, if she were right.

Probably wasn’t, though.

Exhibit B was that Juna had decided to change tactics and deliver personal verbal apologies, like the one Ash was in the process of being assaulted with in the library. Felt like she freakin’ jumped him for his wallet until she started talking. And she was still talking…

“...so, uhm, right, I—” Juna continued blushing so much that her hair looked pale by comparison, fidgeting with her fingers as Ash continued to wonder how the hell she got Tatiana to stay outside for this long. “I’m sorry I’m not as cool as the rest of you; figuring out all your cool feelings because everybody around you isn’t cool, or, wait, I guess they are, because of all of the other people with cool feelings, even though everyone else—”

“Okay, breathe, you’re going in circles. And you sound sarcastic.” Ash snorted as Juna averted her eyes, but didn’t run away. “I know you didn’t mean it like that, though. Look, Filly, none of this bullshit is cool. Causes problems. Makes a mess.” He leaned back in his chair. “It’s not a bad thing, but not everybody’s realized that yet.”

“That’s why it’s cool!” Juna threw up her hands, her face still a bit flush. “You’re just doing stuff that so many people would never ever think to do, because you want to do them, because, uhm, they feel…” She blinked and furrowed her brow, staring at him very intently. “Good? Right?”

“Loaded question.” Ash shrugged. “Kurt isn’t pinin’ over Cedric because it feels good.”

“Oh. Then… why is he doing that?”

“Because feelings are complicated and sometimes you just can’t change ‘em no matter how hard you try. C’mon, you knew that one.” Ash waved her off. “People do a lot of stupid shit that isn’t good for them.” He frowned and righted his chair, resting his arms on the table and looking directly into Juna’s eyes. She didn’t flinch; good. “Juna, this isn’t cool. It’s just—it just is what it is. There’s nothin’ special going on.”

“Yes there totally is! It’s different, so it’s cool, which sounds pretty special to me!” countered Juna, fists flying everywhere as she fought something so deeply conceptual that Ash honestly thought she might win for a few seconds. “And this whole time, you guys were this specific kind of cool, and I didn’t—I didn’t even know. I had no idea that I might, uhm…” She swallowed and crossed her arms, looking down at her feet, then up at the ceiling, then out the window, and then, finally, surprisingly, landing on Ash. “I might…also be cool. Like you.”

“Better late than never, but why does it matter to you if you knew or not?” Ash shrugged. “You do now.”

“Because it’s a lot to think about! Mostly stuff that I never thought to think, or perspectives that I never knew existed.” Juna took a shaky breath and sat down across from him after a bit of hesitation, glaring at the chair like it might have been covered in barbed wire. “Because I didn’t think the people having them were real. That’s so screwed up!” she stammered, tensing. “I…thought all of this was a joke that I didn’t get the punchline of. I feel horrible, Ash.”

“Ah, shit.” Ash rubbed the back of his head. “Hey, listen—you’re focusing too much on this. It’s not the end all everything about you, okay? It’s just part of you, and whatever that is, that’s still you.” He smirked as she perked up at that. “You’re not any different than you were a day ago, and nobody, I promise, is thinking anything bad about you.”

“That—that’s good. It’s good. But, it doesn’t—” Juna scowled and banged her fists on the table, jostling his pile of books. And Tatiana’s. “That doesn’t change that I would have gone through my whole life just—I don’t know!” she groaned. “Deaf, dumb, and blind to stuff right in front of my face. I already miss things as it is, but this is bigger than that.” She set her hands in front of her, measuring the distance, and then pointed to both of her eyes. “People loved each other barely an arge from my face and I couldn’t see it!”

“Why the hell would you? You didn’t know any better.”

“That’s my point! I didn’t, but you all did! Why did you?!”

“Filly, you wanna know why we figured this shit out faster than you? The answers aren’t great.” Ash took a very deep breath. Never thought he’d have to break this one out. But, it was for a good and worthy cause. Probably. “Raquel’s nightlife serves everybody if you’ve got the cash, and my mom did the work. Sometimes, those people would say hello during the day.”

“Okay.” Juna tilted her head. “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”

“Are you shittin’ me?” Ash sat up straight and scowled. “What if your mom or your dad did the same job, and you’re walking to Sunday School with ‘em, and suddenly, out of the blue—” He snapped his fingers. “Somebody you’ve never seen before in your life starts makin’ small talk and innuendos they think you don’t catch.”

“Still not getting it.”

“Juna.” Ash sighed and briefly looked at the wonderfully ignorant ceiling. “Knowing my mom’s regulars was fucking weird and really uncomfortable.”

“Ohhh. I get it now.” Juna winced and shivered. “Wow. That is really creepy.”

“Yeah.” Ash grimaced and pushed all of those thoughts out of his head like an old rusted over orbal truck. Not easily. “Musse went to an all girl’s school for a while.”

“Yeah, wait, that sounds—ohhhhhhh, that’s good, right? That’s a good thing?” Juna looked at him expectantly, her eyes slowly narrowing the longer it took him to respond. “Kay. So. No? What could possibly be the problem with that?!”

“The odds of someone being on the same page as Egret in a fancy ass school like that in Erebonia, where we still give a huge shit about lineage and birthright and all that crap, isn’t zero.” Ash slid further onto the table, and Juna matched him. “But the girls want it to be zero.”

“Wait, I think I get this one!” Juna nodded several times and smiled. “Because if they like girls then they might not like boys, which means when they’re married off later they’ll—” She paled and settled back in the chair, covering her mouth for a second. “Oh, Aidios, that is—I feel sick.”

“Probably how she felt for a while. It might be how she still feels, on some level.” Ash shrugged and shot her a sad smile. “Lucky for her, she’s charming enough to make a move and then hand wave it away if things don’t go well. Most people can’t fall back on that.”

“No kidding—woah, that’s what she’s been doing with me for like, six months!” Juna’s eyes bugged out so much that Ash was a bit concerned they may fall out of her head. “Crap, and I didn’t even realize it. Gotta think about that, too, I guess.”

“Well, there’s…” Ash chewed on his cheek and looked away, grumbling. “You don’t have to. No rulebook to follow.”

“I do. I really do! You don’t need to explain Kurt to me. I get it now.” Juna’s head fell onto the table and she groaned. A lot. “It sucks. It’s horrible. Lots of hiding and lying and running. I hate doing those things! Ughhh!”

“For shit’s sake…” Ash reached across the table and squeezed her shoulder without thinking better of it. Screw it. Already did it. “How about you figure your own shit out and then worry about whether or not it’s gonna be a problem, okay?”

“Fine. Okay. You’re right.” Juna snapped back up and nodded with more confidence than she should probably have. “Maybe I like girls—”

“Maybe?” Ash snickered into a cackle, almost falling out of his chair. “I’ll eat Egret’s hat if you don’t.”

“Shut up. Maybe I like girls and boys. Maybe just boys.”

“Yeah.” Ash slowed to a chuckle and smirked. “Hey, could even be nobody.”

“Oh for—are you kidding me?!” Juna gaped and Ash regretted what wasn’t a joke but also wasn’t all that serious at the same time. Dammit. “Not only was I completely oblivious to love right in front of my face forever, but that not happening at all is also a thing?!” She reached over the table and grabbed his collar. “What else is there that I’m missing?!”

“Easy! Easy—are you trying to actually be a wild horse?!” Ash wriggled himself free and frowned. “I’m not your damn tutor for—this isn’t my job!”

“Yes, it totally is, because you started this conversation, so you have to finish it.”

“I didn’t start it. You did. You practically leapt down from the ceiling to talk to me.”

“Oh, right. I did do that.” Juna rubbed her chin and furrowed her brow at Ash. “Please?”

“Your ace-in-the-hole is please? It’s not an actual magic word; we’ve both heard enough of the real ones and none of ‘em sound like ‘please’.” Ash was about to make some remark about how ridiculous that was before he realized that it was actually magic because it had indeed worked, and he was entirely willing to be her very much unqualified ‘tutor’ for…whatever this was. “Well. Shit. Okay, gimme a minute to think about where to start…”

“Sure, sure. Whatever you need.” Juna beamed. “Thank you, Ash.”

“I wouldn’t; I’m not an expert.”

“I don’t want an expert, Ash. I want your help, because asking somebody who knew more wouldn’t really be the right thing to do.” Juna nodded with absolute confidence. “I wanna catch up to where you’re all at. Know what you know. Understand the same things, and not know the same things. That’s where I’m supposed to be, right?”

“There’s no ‘supposed to’, but…” Ash snorted into a smile. “Yeah. You ain’t wrong, Filly.”

Chapter Text

“You overplayed your hand; she now knows and understands too much,” whispered Musse, leaning over towards Ash’s seat while Schwarzer was yakking about the Calvardian Revolution. “What happens next is entirely on you, Ash.”

“I got no clue what the hell you’re talking about.” Ash scoffed and his eyes flicked very not obviously down to the back of Juna’s head, that bob of pink bouncing a bit more by the second. Why was he even still surprised when phonylocks was right? “It’ll be fine. How bad could it—”

“WAIT.” Juna shot up out of her seat, and the entire class flinched in surprise. “I—” She spun around, her entire head bright red as she shivered, looking at Kurt. “You—” Her head zipped to Musse. “And—” Then to Ash. “But—” Then she hid behind her hands. “WHAT?!”

“Juna, what’s wrong? Do you need—” asked Schwarzer, about half a second before Juna broke out into a dead sprint out the door, her cheeks ballooning as she very clearly held in a panicked scream. “I don’t think she’s hurt if she can run like that. Does anyone know what that was about?”

“Ash does,” said Musse, ignoring the death glare Ash was giving her. She even had the damned gall to wink at him. “Is our dearest Juna in danger, Ash? If you don’t speak, then we’ll surely send the school into a panic. Why, if you’re not careful—”

“Juna has likely come to the realization that there are multiple individuals who harbor romantic feelings for her,” interjected Altina, even as Kurt stammered and clammed up more. “I am fairly certain she will come to a second realization in a few moments.”

“Shit.” Ash pinched his brow as he, and everyone else, started hearing Juna loudly whimpering on the roof about how ‘it wasn’t fair’ and ‘this is too much pressure’. “Yeah. That’s on me. Didn’t think this through, either.”

“If this level of emotional distress is somehow your doing, Ash, then you need to run up to the roof, right now, and help her,” stressed Schwarzer, crossing his arms and frowning. “Regardless of what’s going on in the background, Juna is still overwhelmed enough for this to happen.”

“So, you’re ordering me to talk to her alone?” Ash grinned at Musse. “Calm her down? Listen to her feelings?”

“Yes! Go, Ash.”

“That’s not—” Musse pouted and kicked the table in front of her, scrunching up. “Just go.”