Not the Bad Guy
By TheBucketWoman
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Degrassi or anything else I reference herein. That includes the Gone with the Wind quote. No profit is being made and no infringement intended.
A/N: Fair warning. There's some salty language and there are some possible triggers due to portrayal of some ableist attitudes and mentions of homophobia herein, mostly because Owen can be a real jerk sometimes, even when his heart's in the right place. It should go without saying (but it won't go without saying) that his opinions IN NO WAY reflect mine.
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"The fuck, Tris!" Owen said as he entered the kitchen. He didn't even drop his bag on the way in. His little brother perched at the island, eating a microwave burrito with a fork.
"Hello to you too, brother dear," Tristan said.
"Fuckin'…" Owen ran out of words for a second, paced the kitchen, looking for something to hit his little brother with. A dishrag, or something.
"Full sentences are good things, you know," Tristan said. "Verbs for example, really help one to get one's point across."
Owen took a deep breath.
"Yeah," he said. "Sorry about that. I just find it a little hard to be articulate after first having to listen to my teammate bitch about how Eli Goldsworthy is the Devil for ruining his sister's play, and then coming face to giant Photoshopped face with you and Dave posing like Gone With the Freakin' Wind."
"Why does Eli get to be the Devil?" Tristan interrupted. "I kinda wanna be the Devil. Or maybe I can be, like, the Trickster instead, like on Supernatural? Maybe put Becky and Luke into a seventies sitcom or something? They can ride tandem bikes and eat huge sandwiches…"
"Tris."
"So Becky and her brother don't like that I got this part," Tristan said. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
"Do you need me to spell it out for you, Tris?"
"No," Tristan said, cutting a piece of burrito and gesturing with his fork as he spoke. "I'm already gay in public which is bad enough, and now I'm about to be gay in a musical in public, which counts as extra special gay and that means I should be stopped."
Tristan always did that—twisting Owen's words and making him sound like the bad guy. He was not the bad guy.
"It's not about you being gay," Owen said. "You know that."
Tristan rolled his eyes and popped the fork into his mouth.
"It's not about you," he said. "It's about everyone else," Owen said, rubbing his temples. "No matter how many times I try to tell you, it's like you just don't get it. We're in high school—"
Tristan gasped. "Are you trying to say the school's full of homophobes? The hell you say!"
"I'm just—"
"You're just looking out for me," Tristan said. "I'm a helpless little thing and I can't be trusted to stand up for myself."
"There's a difference between standing up for yourself and antagonizing people," Owen said.
"You make it sound like I'm tying people up and forcing them to watch me be gay," Tristan said. "I'm playing a gay character in the school musical. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that most homophobes aren't big theater fans. It's safe to assume they're not buying tickets."
"What about the posters?" Owen asked.
"What about them?" Tristan asked. "Think a couple of people drawing on them is going to bug me? Eli had, like, a bajillion of em made, so no matter what the hockey team draws on them, there will be new ones to take their place."
"That's another thing," Owen said. "Eli."
"Let me guess. You don't like Eli," Tristan said.
"I think Eli can't be trusted," Owen said. "He just wants to do something edgy or some shit so he can get into university—"
"Yeah," Tristan said. "Your point being?"
"Not to mention the fact that he set the fuckin' stage on fire last time they let him do a play. And I mean that he set the stage on fire. With a lighter."
"I heard he just burned up the script," Tristan said.
"That makes it okay? He's crazy," Owen said. "For-real crazy. When this play blows up in your collective faces, what do you think's gonna happen? They're gonna find him hanging out backstage with Elvis and Napoleon, talking about how the butterflies are trying to eat him."
"Wow," Tristan said. "That is really offensive. Even for you. And anyway, he treats me with way more respect than you do, so I'm not gonna pick on him."
"Go ahead and defend him. Do you think he's gonna be responsible if anything happens to you?" Owen asked.
"'…think he's gonna be responsible if anything happens to you?'" Tristan mimicked in what sounded like Andre the Giant's voice. "And you call me dramatic."
"I'm just saying. This is real life, not an episode of Glee," Owen said. "This shit you're doing is dangerous." Owen wanted to point out how often kids like Tristan got bashed, but that would make him the bad guy.
"Shyeah, I might get tossed through a glass door or something," Tristan said.
That was a low blow. Owen had been paying for what he did to Adam Torres for more than a year. He was done answering for it. Having his little brother throw what he did in his face for the hundredth time made Owen really want to punch the kid. But that was what bad guys did and he was not the bad guy.
"Tristan," he said, teeth clenched. "I'm starting to think that maybe you don't want my help."
"Since your help usually consists of telling me to 'be straighter' so people don't beat me up, I'd say no, I don't want your help," Tristan said.
"I'm your brother," Owen said.
"Whether you acknowledge it in public or not," Tristan said.
"What?"
It occurred to Owen that in the last couple of minutes, all the sing-song had gone out of his little brother's voice and the temperature in the room had dropped. A lot. Part of him wanted to tell the kid to stop talking like that and go back to normal. Owen wasn't the biggest fan of Sassy Tristan, but he could deal with him. He had trouble with this new, cold Tristan in front of him.
"Listen," Owen began. "If that's what it takes to get you to stop putting yourself in danger I'll shout that you're my brother from the rooftops."
"Wow," Tristan said. "Well…just…wow. I really must say that your sacrifice just brings me to tears."
Shit, Owen thought. Another deep breath. "That's not what I meant."
"Yeah it is," Tristan said. "I'm a big redheaded inconvenience to you, but guess what: you really don't need to do me any favors."
"So you want me to back off?" Owen asked.
"Yes, Owen," Tristan said. "That's exactly what I want you to do." With that, he took one last bite of his burrito and tossed the plate and fork into the sink, leaving Owen standing in the middle of the kitchen alone, without a clue about how he was going to fix this.