A/N: File clearing. Old character study.

Disclaimer: Mine. Don't touch without permission.

Shortman Shorts

Structure

People seem to think that because he doesn't make the best grades, because he's been held back before, that he's stupid. They think that because he's not the best at remembering formulas or piecing together fine lyrics that he must be inept in every other way, too. They speak to him in small words, and snicker behind their hands when he makes any expression that's even slight in its resemblance to confusion.

To be fair, he can be persuaded to admit on occasion that some don't, but fact is that most do. His first grade teacher did, his old friends did, and the principal certainly did and does still. He's been pulled into his office more times than he can count. He's had the demand to "Obey" said to him in every possible way it can be said, every variation from "Your aunt will be very disappointed to hear about this" to the desperate, floundering "Do you want this on your permanent record?" He's seen counselors. He's seen therapists. It never does any good. They think it will, they think they know his problems. They think they can fix him.

They couldn't be farther from the truth.

Chris isn't really stupid. He just hates school. He doesn't see the point in pencils and paper and books. He doesn't see the point in tests and rules and structure. People lying to themselves, doing everything in their power to bring sense into a senseless world by enforcing these made up principles purely for principles sake. They say that you have to bring a specific type of paper and write your name on a specific side of that paper in a specific way and you need exactly this calculator and none of these types of art supplies and you'd better not spit on the concrete and you can't have your jacket on inside and no doodling on your worksheet and these clothes are inappropriate and get that hat off your head and stop snickering and you had better sit up straight and fold your hands and listen and Chris does sometimes, he really does, but all he ever hears is, "I'm terrified."

Nobody is as smart as they want to believe they are, and Chris even thinks they know it on some level, but the knowledge only spurs them harder in their quest for structure.

Structure can't give Chris what he needs to function within the principles set out by men he never wanted to read about, men who have been dead a long time yet still tower so high they cast their shadows world-wide, but it's not the love people think he craves, either. Everyone craves love but rarely get as much as they need. It doesn't stop them from living comfortably in the wake of school bells and church music. If anything, it makes them all the more desperate.

Chris knows he's loved. He even knows he's loved by his dad. He gets cards every holiday, and clothes and books and other treasures. He gets money for school and food and even the occasional letter, always signed with a slow, quaking Love you. Love has never been the problem. Love has always been with him. Love doesn't really count for much, no matter what every TV show and movie and song tries to say.

Knowing he's loved will never be enough to get him by, because nobody wants to love him.

Love itself isn't a choice. Chris knows that better than anyone. All he has to do is finger his cotton shirt and catch a whiff of sunshine to know it. If love was a choice, no one would do it. There is no structure in love. But it happens, and it drives people together and keeps the world spinning more steadily than the principal's pure, ringing voice in the auditorium ever could, with its sure, dignified insistence on the value of money, and textbooks, and obedience.

What makes Chris what he is is the knowledge of the empty chairs at the dinner table each night. The lingering hand on the molding of a doorway just before they shake their head and walk away. The wilting sigh between thin pale lips as he breaks yet another rule because that rule was stupid anyway. What makes Chris what he is is the knowledge of just how useless money, textbooks and obedience truly are when your feet are cold at three in the morning and your eyes are heavy with knowing you are too difficult to care about.

Her hair is gold and her eyes are fierce in their goodness and abidance to structure. She thinks she has it all figured out, and she has no qualms correcting people when they're foolish enough to defy her pristine expectations of the world. She acts innocent and sweet, and maybe she is in some ways – she is seven years old – but her eyes know too much. They've seen enough to have gained a wary edge to them, imperceptible to all but those who know that same wariness. She's almost obsessive in her steel-set moral code, and that bespeaks a great deal of fear. He's not sure what she's afraid of. What could a girl like her have to worry about, with her perfect grades and perfect family and perfect life?

But for whatever reason, she is, and he knows it. Her pigtails are always messy. Her bow falling out. Her pencils too often broken. She is more chaos than anyone ever bothers to see, and she tries so hard to contain it.

Sometimes, when his feet are cold, he likes to think they're exactly the same.

His crush on her isn't the most well-kept secret around. Nobody questions it, because it's an easily accepted cliché. The punk and the angel, one nasty and the other kind. There's nothing strange about it. Except for the fact it's not anywhere near that simple. People never are and life never is, but it doesn't stop anyone from assuming. He knows they think he's drawn to her out of some want of absolution, of acceptance. They think he wants her to fix him, cleanse him, remake him, but as always, they couldn't be farther from the truth.

He wants her to destroy him. He wants her to snap under the pressure, to expand and explode and set fire to his bones. He wants her hands to push him, punch him, rip him apart—her mouth to shout and growl and scream— He wants the confirmation of his own worthlessness. He wants the catastrophe. He wants to be caught in the center of the storm, smashed to wreckage beyond recognition.

It isn't healthy. It isn't easily understood. But then, nothing about him has been for a very, very long time. His problems cannot operate under any set structure they're used to, they can't be made sense of like a formula or a lyric, can't be answered by any textbook, because the only people who can solve his problems have no desire to. And at this point, he's not even sure he would accept it if they tried.

As all things, this becomes just another unexpressed truth at eight in the morning, wherein kids snicker and Amanda sits up straight and his shirt tag itches more than ever.