Work Text:
There’s an old saying that goes something along the lines of: ‘the devil shivers when a nice person loses their temper’. Most people don’t know just how true this saying is until they find themselves face-to-face with the wrath of someone they had until then considered incapable of harming a fly. There’s often the case when, if pushed far enough, it can go well beyond a simple verbal attack. And you can only push someone so far until they snap.
Tina Belcher found out just how far she could be pushed on a particularly windy Friday afternoon.
Now, everyone knew the eldest Belcher child was not one to engage in physical altercations at the drop of a hat. Tina was as meek as they come; incapable of ever harming a hair on anyone’s head. But when push came to shove, she ended up surprising even herself.
That fateful day had begun just like any other — just another run-of-the-mill school day for the Belcher children. They walked to Wagstaff whilst indulging in their usual juvenile banter, had their respective morning classes and joined each other in the cafeteria for lunch. The most notable thing that happened was that Tina got back the Math quiz she had taken the previous week and managed to earn a C instead of her usual C-, so she was pretty happy with herself.
The first clue that something was off happened during lunchtime. While the three Belcher children ate and talked amongst one another, one strange pair of brown eyes bore into them from a few tables over, watching their every move from afar. Upon closer inspection, however, one could easily see that they were not actually watching all three Belchers; those eyes were laser-focused on Gene.
This strange pair of brown eyes belonged to a new kid in Gene’s class. His name was Keith and word around the hallways suggested that he had been expelled from his previous school due to bullying a kid for so long that they had to be institutionalized. Although, rumors do tend to get out of hand pretty easily, so nobody knew if this was actually true. What they did know was that Keith had been held back a few grade, so Wagstaff now had a potentially unstable thirteen-year-old in their sixth grade class. Nobody had yet dared to talk to him and he never spoke a word himself, content with just sitting alone and constantly staring off into oblivion.
That is, until the last couple of days, when he decided to focus all of his attention on Gene and Gene alone. Nobody had a clue why, but his gaze was glued to the middle Belcher child virtually every minute of every day. It was getting to the point that it began to get on his nerves, such as it did on the day in question.
“New kid’s staring at you again.” Louise said with a mouthful of pepperoni pizza.
“Still? Sheesh, I wish he’d quit it already.” Gene grumbled as he rolled his eyes. “I like attention, but this is overkill. He’s being way too creepy.”
“Straight up Dahmer-level creepy.” added Louise.
“Why does he keep doing that?” Tina enquired. “He doesn’t do that with anyone else, right?”
“Maybe he has a crush on you and is trying to figure out how to tell you.” Louise suggested before taking another bite of her lunch.
“I’m flattered, but he is so not my type. I’m saving myself for someone better. And even if I wasn't, I can do way better.” Gene stated, then leaned forward and cupped his hands around his mouth. “You hear that? Not interested!”
Keith remained unfazed by that statement, his unwavering glare all but burning a hole into Gene’s head. Although Tina could’ve sworn she saw something flicker in his eyes. But then again, that could’ve just been the cafeteria’s crappy ceiling lights.
After lunch, they all returned to their classes and the day carried on without a hitch. Once the final bell rang, everyone in Tina’s class ran out of their seats, racing home to start the weekend. Tina took her time, carrying her books to her locker and rearranging them inside the small metal compartment as best as she could while making a mental list of all the homework due for Monday. There were those few pages in her Math book, a History worksheet, that English paper she had been putting off… oh, and she really needed to choose a topic for her next Science project. She couldn’t help but sigh in exasperation, exhaustion beginning to set in. She was looking forward to getting home as soon as humanly possible and taking a much needed nap.
She had just slid in her last book when her ears picked up the sound of hurried steps coming down the hallway and approaching fast. She was quick to dismiss it, assuming it was just a student who had forgotten something in their own locker and was in a hurry to retrieve it before they missed the bus, but that assumption went out the window when the steps loudly skidded to a stop right beside her.
“Tina, oh my God!” Jocelyn exclaimed, painting as she tugged at her arm. “You gotta come quick, it’s your brother!”
“Gene? What happened?” Tina quickly asked, her heart sinking at the possibility of any harm befalling her brother.
“That weird new kid just attacked him!”
Tina didn’t even bother to ask for more details; she just ran down the hallway after Jocelyn, her only stop being to get Louise from her own classroom. Her blonde classmate led her outside to an area behind the building. Tina was already out of breath when they arrived, but what she saw made her breathing all but stop: Keith had pinned Gene down on the ground, sitting on top of him while holding both his arms behind his back in a hammerlock. Her brother writhed and protested incessantly, his feet desperately kicking behind him as he fought to be released.
“Let go of me, you creep!” Gene cried out as he attempted to wiggle out of his grasp.
“How did this even happen?” Tina exclaimed.
“No clue. One minute Gene was just sitting there and the next he was being straddled by the new kid.” said Tammy, who they had just noticed was standing there with her phone out and filming the entire thing. “It’s like he went feral or something.”
“And you thought the best thing to do was record it for posterity?” Louise asked angrily.
“What? I’m collecting evidence. If things get ugly, we could nail him for attempted murder.”
“Tammy, please! Just go get a teacher or someone to deal with this.” Tina ordered while pointing towards the building, her patience growing dangerously thin.
“Alright, don’t get your boobs in a bunch.” Tammy groaned as she pocketed her phone and walked off.
“I’m getting really uncomfortable over here!” Gene whined, his flailing legs never stopping. “I’m starting to think he’s not really into me!”
“Alright, time to put this son of a bitch in his place.” Louise growled as she rolled up her sleeves.
“No, Louise! He’s twice your size and way too unpredictable! It’s too dangerous!” Tina pleaded, wrapping a hand around her sister’s arm to stop her.
“I eat danger for breakfast.” Louise shrugged her off and stomped towards the bully, violently grabbing his shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, Tyler Dunderhead! You have two seconds to get your paws off my brother before —”
What happened next was so quick that Tina probably would’ve missed it if she had blinked: Keith’s right hand flew up and his fist struck Louise square on the nose. The impact was so great that she stumbled back a few feet before falling on her backside, her hands clutching her face as she hissed in pain. Tina could see some blood seeping out of her nose and running down between her little sister’s fingers.
In that very moment, Tina’s eyes widened and her heart dropped. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides as her blood began to boil inside her veins. Watching her siblings fall victim to such violence made her feel something she had never experienced in her young life:
Rage. Pure, unbridled rage.
“Aw, you dirty mother—”
Tina hardly registered her sister’s expletive as she stomped past her. In a flash, she grabbed the back of Keith’s shirt and pulled him off of her brother. The minute he was on his feet, seemingly startled by her strength, she shot her fist in his direction and hit his jaw. The punch had been delivered hard enough to cause him to topple over, and Tina took that as an opportunity to straddle him and throw more punches at his face.
It was truly a sight to behold, but for all the wrong reasons. Tina didn’t let up for even a second; she just landed blow after blow to Keith’s face, not giving a damn about the consequences. He had managed to get a few punches in at some point, but she hardly noticed them. She was running on sheer adrenaline, and all she could think about was making that bastard pay for ever laying a finger on her siblings. She could hear Gene and Louise begging her to stop, but their voices sounded like distant echoes in the back of her mind. The entire world seemed to have vanished without a trace, the only thing that mattered at that moment was beating Keith’s disgusting face into a pulp.
She only stopped once she felt someone grab her by the arms and drag her away from the now partially disfigured thirteen-year-old. Once she realized it was Mr. Frond who had pulled her off of Keith, she snapped back into reality. The boy who had attacked her brother was now unconscious, his body lying lifeless on the ground and his blood staining the freshly mowed grass. Her arm muscles ached with exhaustion and she was out of breath, almost feeling as if she had just run a marathon. From the corner of her eye she saw her siblings, looking positively horrified at what they had just witnessed. She couldn’t blame them; she would’ve never believed she was capable of beating someone senseless if she hadn’t witnessed it, either.
After sitting through a very stern talking-to from Mr. Frond and being told that Tina was suspended for a week — no sort of violence was tolerated at school, but seeing as it had been her first offense, he decided to be somewhat lenient with her punishment — all three Belcher children were sent to the infirmary to get their wounds tended to, specifically Tina and Louise’s. While the latter only received an ice pack and some toilet paper to stick up her nose, Tina had to be thoroughly observed by Nurse Liz. Not only were her knuckles bruised and bloody, but some of the punches Keith had thrown her way during their confrontation managed to break her nose, crack her glasses and give her a black eye. Nurse Liz bandaged her up as best as she could, but she advised that it would be best if her parents took her to the hospital.
As they waited on the school's front steps for their parents to pick her and her siblings up — seeing as Mr. Frond had to call them and let them know what had happened — Tina tried her best to process what she had done and understand what had triggered such an out-of-character reaction. Never in her life had she known to be capable of such violent acts, but something inside her had shifted when she saw her siblings in peril. Now she knew what some people mean when they say they are so angry that they see red; it really felt like the world had turned that color for a moment while she pummeled Keith into the ground. Her body still shook with remnants of the adrenaline that had coursed through her veins, and she had to hug her books tightly against her chest to keep her body from shaking too much.
Now that her good judgment had returned, a slew of emotions washed over her, the most prominent one being guilt. Guilt from injuring another kid, guilt from resorting to violence, guilt from breaking her glasses and putting her parents even more in debt… But most of all, guilt from having Gene and Louise see her in such an altered state. The look of horror she saw in their faces was permanently engraved in her memory. Never had she imagined doing anything bad enough to earn such a reaction from her siblings. She had probably scarred them for life and they would never look at her the same way again. She had never felt so ashamed.
“Tina, you’re my friggin’ hero.”
Her head quickly snapped in her sister’s direction, questioning if her ears were playing tricks on her. One look at Louise’s face was enough to prove she had heard right. If the nine-year-old had once looked terrified by her older sister’s actions, now she stared at her with absolute admiration.
“I never thought you could be such a badass!” said Louise, her face contorting for a split second due to the pain emanating from her bruised nose. “You were like a wild animal out there!”
“You were like a woman possessed! Probably by Muhammad Ali.” Gene added with great enthusiasm.
“You gotta teach me how to punch like that.” Louise almost begged, inching closer to her sister. “Where did you even learn how to do that?”
“I have no idea.” Tina shrugged humbly, extremely relieved to see her siblings back to normal. “I just acted on instinct, I guess.”
“Whatever it was, it was awesome!” Louise exclaimed, giving her sister a hard pat on the back. “I never thought you had it in you.”
Neither did she, if she was being honest. It came out of the blue and took over in an instant, as if her body had been acting on its own accord. A part of Tina was worried she was turning into a rageaholic, concerned if she would now become one of those people who loses their cool with the smallest provocation. But another part of her was amazed at how well her protective instincts worked. She had never felt the need to resort to violence when it came to protecting herself, but that day she found out just what she was capable of when it came to protecting the ones she cared about. To her, that was something to be proud of, and if it also earned her siblings’ adulation, it might just be worth the risk.
As the wind blew through her bangs and she saw her parents' red station wagon turning the corner, Tina felt like she was prepared to tackle any new challenge thrown her way from then on out. And she vowed to never allow anyone to lay a hand on Gene or Louise ever again.