Another request from Gaby (Apples Of Avalon on here), who responded to one of the ask-box prompts I posted. Thank you for helping me realize Yuck and Yo sassing each other was something I really needed in my life, and for writing kick-ass horror.
Title: Your Life's A Bad Blooper Reel, Holden
Summary: Yuck doesn't agree with Yo's parenting too much. A short AU ending to 'Upstanding Yuck'.
Rating: Teen, because I can't write a Yuck that doesn't swear like a sailor.
Notes: In case anyone isn't also following my fic Mars Hill, there's a school that works in conjunction to Camp Magic Pants. But go read Mars Hill, if only to watch my downward spiral to Looney tunes-style nuttery.
Enjoy!
xxxxxxxxx
Master Yo's musical tastes are rather contradictory. Well, no, Yuck realizes that's the wrong word as soon as he thinks it. Juxtapositional. Not sitting even remotely near each other in the high school cafeteria of musical tastes. Yo puts his backpack at the start of lunch down in Yuck's section, that of metal or deathcore or whatever the hell they're calling it nowadays, but puts his tray down in the middle of Disco's table, and yet abandons both to go off-campus and buy some soft pretzels.
Vinyls and framed posters decorate the walls like tribal war masks. All the phonograph records and Runman cassette mix-tapes and plastic CD cases have formed rival camps on either side of the room, Montagues and Capulets. The bookshelves, two for each camp, go almost to the ceiling. Lined up in the front of the room are instruments for unlocking their data, surround-sound speakers that also reach heavenward, and two glass display cases holding drumsticks or disco balls, a guitar or a keytar.
But on the ceiling is a huge mural of four pandas; between the two speakers is a mounted, scarlet star-shaped guitar. Pandangerous.
Thankfully, the music that's playing out of the not-enchanted speakers is not the old man's pipe-dream, but Scar Symmetry's 'The Kaleidoscopic God'. Thankfully, this is where Yuck got at least some of his musical taste. Been meaning to have a chat with the old man, he has, now that he's grounded and all for getting pissed during training and accidentally blowing a portion of the wall outside into oblivion.
The dull green that still lays hidden under his scrubbed-unto-knuckles-are-bloody clean, turquoise coat has been showing up in brief flashes over the last week— which is coincidentally the entire time he's been here. It'll show up on his stiff hackles, around his fists as though the fire spell is burning all the (beatings) lessons away.
But Yuck can handle it. He just needs to find his balance, his YinYang (pun intended).
"'Rack City Bitch' is a masterpiece of modern music."
But sometimes he can't resist. Yuck gives the CD case spinning on his fingertip another slap. Across the carpet, the floating panda cracks one eye open, but doesn't turn his head. Yuck can sense, however, that Master Yo is giving him a look to make children weep and puppies slink away with their tails betwixt their legs. The rabbit causally steals across the room, the CD case spinning like a planet, his face alit with mischievous eyne and grin. "I mean, is there—"
"What artist is that?" Master Yo interjects.
"Uh—Beppe Loda."
"Put it back, but under the 'A' section of disco, right at the top, because I know Yang likes to shuffle the CDs around and replace the discs with baloney slices."
"I can kick his a—butt him for that."
"No. There's another leprechaun nest in the outhouse he can take care of when he gets back." Master Yo turns at these words, his lips suddenly stretching into a wide smile from—"And then you two can clean the rest of the dojo, top-to-bottom!" — schadenfreude.
The heavens above rattle a bit with the little rabbit's lament. Master Yo pulls his legs out of the lotus-position, rolls his shoulders about as the music shuts off mid-solo. From the air he plucks a candle from the baker's dozen that have formed a loose circle around him, and all the flames extinguish as he blows this one out.
"Dare I tempt fate and assume no magic's allowed?"
"Level five skills, possession, and clairvoyance!" Yo's meaty, calloused paw chafes the top of Yuck's crown, which the rabbit tries to shove away only to find his strength subjugated. "Maybe you are the better student!"
Yuck's shouts register as earthquakes in the town ten miles from here, with all the bombastic rage of a thunderstorm. "Maybe? I run circles around those two dip-sh—sh—sticks! It took them over a season to get to what, level one? I got there in less than six episodes!"
"The special effects may be shiner," the panda nearly sing-songs as he strolls towards the door, which opens up to a staircase back up to the first basement level. "But you know what they say: the sequel is never better than the original."
xxxxx
Yuck nearly rips Terry's intestines out by his obnoxious vocals as the otter's face goes from purple to more of a dark blue. He hides said face in his hands, his frame shaking with gigglesnorts forcing their way out of his throat. He bangs on the stone table. He nearly falls out his seat, his cheeks turning bluer still as he tries to find a chance to breathe.
Thus Yuck leaves halfway through lunch with his palms bloody from digging his nails into them, to keep the fists from being introduced to a certain wet weasel's smug face.
Boys throw themselves against the cold stones of the walls, flattening themselves so that not even their last breaths can enter the ring of Yuck's personal space, which is about a football field length in radius on days like this.
Fucking memory charm lessons; fucking teacher for calling on him to showcase them; fucking Terry for badgering him into telling the story. Fucking fuck just—
Yuck lets out a feral scream as he drops his head into his pillow. The boys in his dorm scramble into the corners of the topmost bunks, if they aren't hunkering down into the large community storage chests or outright running from the room with their pants sodden with fright. The rabbit kicks papers and dull feather-pens and textbooks onto the floor as he rips the counterpane over his form. Like a child.
He can allow himself to be a twelve-year-old boy, just this once.
xxxxxx
Eventually Yuck raises his head up, spitting out some of the plumule that once stuffed his pillow. The only sounds in the room are the whisperings of the other boys and his own harsh breathing. He sits up, green glow wrapping itself around his fallen belongings, hefting them onto the bed. "Might 's well get some work done," Yuck mumbles under his breath, as lunch is the last period before free, which is seventh. He inches himself back until his spine touches the wall, settling a chaotic grab of papers into his lap. Blank, some girl from fifth's owl number, and...his mid-semester report card. All A-pluses, of course, with a little smiley face from one teachers for the reduction in the amount of times per week he falls asleep during class, and 'good jobs' and 'superbs' for his spell casting and magical beast handling.
Yuck sighs and runs a hand over his (dull) turquoise jowl.
His usual fountain of complacency dried up a long time ago. Now the classes are more of a chore, the magical duels and gladiatorial fights against rabid mutt-griffs and trolls equal bores. When was the last time he had fought so hard he could feel every cell in his body afire with—?
When...
If Yin and Yang had a pick of his classes, you'd scarcely see them without a grin nearly breaking their jaws.
Yuck can remember being like that for the first two days of his enrollment at the dojo, the way he can also remember being a relapsing alcoholic, slinking back to the same old bar. And when was the last time he' had ordered something other than than Power over rocks? Oh yeah, after he'd been beaten day and night and forced to listen to shitty crunk-rock until he agreed to try Righteousness with a hint of lemon.
He's an idiot.
"Master Yo," the letter starts, and from then on it's a short but incomprehensible passage of demon scrawl, with only a few words able to be made out without microscopes. Words like "why the original" and "coming home next year."