Briar's nap is interrupted a few hours later by a few light taps on her shoulder and a deep, yet smooth voice.
"Hey? I hate to bother you, but is this seat open?"
Briar grumbled. Of course her sleep gets interrupted, why wouldn't it?
"Hey, um, are you awake?" the voice quietly asks.
No point trying to hide it now. She's already blown her cover. "Yeah, yeah... gimme a second…" She props herself up and pushes herself back into a sitting position, back popping about a dozen times. She rubs her eyes, and finally looks up to see the source of her awakening... and immediately flinches back.
You can't blame her (much). After all, you probably wouldn't react too well either if you woke up to a massive whale boy leaning over you. Although, once you realize that he's dressed in hawaiin shorts and that his lean is more akin to a hunch, he's a lot less threatening than at first glance.
He smiles awkwardly, and scratches the side of his head. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he says. "I'm just… kinda scary looking, is all." He laughs dryly. Briar can't help but feel a little bad for the guy. He probably gets that reaction all the time. Might as well be nice for once.
"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have reacted like that. This seat is open, if you still want it," Briar says, moving her bag out of the way. She didn't particularly want to share a row with someone, but since she was the one being rude, it was the least she could do. Besides, he probably didn't want to sit next to her anymore, anyways-
"Oh, thank you!" he responds, face lighting up (or, at least, Briar thinks). He promptly swings his red and black suitcase up into the storage compartment, and practically throws himself into the seat. With that, Briar's plans of sleeping the entire trip away are ruined in ten seconds flat. She doesn't show that disappointment, though, and instead turns her attention to the window. Hopefully, he'll just leave her alone for the rest of the trip-
"My name is Orson, nice to meet you," he says, holding a blue, fin-shaped hand out. Briar thinks that she should stop making assumptions.
"Briar." She responds, resisting the urge to groan. She doesn't return the hand shake, and after a few moments, he retracts it awkwardly. They sit in what is a silence blissful for the platinum blonde, and an awkward one for the cetacean mutant besides her. After a few moments, the bus revs up once again, back on its route to the school. Or the next bus stop. Whichever comes first.
The bus is louder than it was when Briar first got on it. Granted, it was early in the morning, and nobody was really awake enough to hold conversations, but now that it's later…
"Heads up!"
Just as the bus hit a bump, what looked like a glass container sailed over Briar, who was thankfully slumped over in the seat, and narrowly missed Orson's head. The bus exploded in laughter and screams, with one loud cackle sounding over all of them.
Briar scrambles onto her knees to see over the seat. The culprit sat only a couple rows away, leaning against the headrest with her arms crossed over her chest, dressed in jean overalls (rather distasteful in Briar's opinion). She's laughing jovially, head tilted back, with steam radiating off of her. She's holding a tube in her hand that appears to run into the backpack sitting next to her, what Briar assumes to be the origin of the container.
"Jesus! What the hell is wrong with you?" Despite the students around her looking Briar's way, the scarlet-haired girl doesn't acknowledge her, instead slouching back down in her seat with a satisfied grin. Briar swore she felt a vein pop.
"Hey!" The girl continues to ignore her, now laughing at something on her phone, still grinning like a maniac (which she probably was). Briar feels a small tap on her shoulder, and after violently whipping around, she's face to face with a random kid holding the engine-looking thing thrown earlier. "Hey, can you pass this back to Bonnie?" he says, waving the glass tank around lightly.
Orson went to take it, chirping an affirmation, but Briar slapped his hand away, staring intensely at the boy. "Who's?"
"Bonnie! That red haired girl up there? She threw the-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," she says, ripping it out of his hands. The boy flinches back before falling back into his seat, muttering something Briar couldn't make out. Orson shot her a concerned-slash-confused glance, before starting a conversation with the boy in front of them. She didn't bother to hear what it was about.
"Hey! Bonnie!" She yells, holding the container above her. "I got your tank here!"
Finally, the being known as Bonnie acknowledges her existence. In half a second, she tosses her phone to the side and throws herself over the seats between them with her hand stretched out. The people sitting in those seats yelp and duck down, but she pays no mind.
"Dinnae hold ya horses, then," she heaves, "haun it over!"
It took a moment for Briar to process what Bonnie had said. And then she internally groans, she's going to have to deal with this girl for another week. Joy.
Her glare hardens. "I'll give it back," she spits, "if you agree to stop throwing it around."
Bonnie snorts and dismissively waves a hand. "Howfur come ye care? Juist gimme th' pumpin' pairt awready!" She then, much to Briar's surprise (although in retrospect, she should've expected it), proceeds to launch herself over the seats.
Briar jerks back, hitting the back of a seat and sinking to the ground. A Bonnie-shaped shadow casts over her, and when she looks up, she sees the girl is inches away from falling on top of her. She spares a glance at Orson- his expression is a painful-looking mix between concern and a cringe. His arm is swung out haphazardly to stop Bonnie's descent. Briar squeezes her eyes close and braces herself.
A few seconds pass.
No impact, but instead, a barrage of curses and threats paired with an explosion of heat.
When she opens her eyes, she sees why. The top half of Bonnie dangles over her, arms flailing around awkwardly as she tries to escape. She's steaming even more, now- it's rolling off of her in intense, hot waves, and Briar can't help but find relief in the cool wax flooring of the bus.
Orson isn't the one to have stopped her. He was leaning back as far as he could without outright moving seats, and shielding his face with his arms. Briar doesn't really blame him.
No, instead, Bonnie is being held back by the straps of her overalls by a blonde, muscular looking girl, dressed in a neon pink tank top. She's also cringing back from the heat- but somehow, she manages to keep her grip on the girl long enough to haul her into the seat beside her.
The students around the group giggle and murmur, pointing fingers at the group, but Briar can't find it in herself to care much. She sighs heavily in relief, and sags to the floor.
The tension comes right back, though, when the vehicle comes to an abrupt stop, followed by the engine shutting off. Silence washes over the bus like a wave, with only the sound of heavy footfalls to spare.
Oh boy.
Briar pulls herself back up into her seat right as the bus driver gets to them. He eyes the group with a disgruntled look on his face. Orson seems to wilt under his gaze, shifting his gaze down to his legs.
"You four. What are your names?"
After a few moments of silence, the unknown girl speaks up.
"Alexis Harper," she reports, standing up. Her hands look unusually wrinkly and pale, and shake lightly by her sides.
Bonnie grins and stands up besides her. "Bonnibell Campbell, heir of the Cambell-"
"I didn't ask." He interrupts, rolling his eyes. Bonnie's grin turns sour, and she drops back down into the seat next to Alexis, with her arms crossed over her chest. "What about you two?"
Briar nor Orson wanted to test his patience, spitting out their names as soon as the bus driver's gaze landed on them.
He surveys the group for a moment before speaking again.
"Cambell, why is your quirk activated?"
Bonnie pauses mid-sulk. "Weel, a'm missing pairt o' mah quirk gear. It has th' steam ah mak'. If that Briar boot gave me mah steam tank back, we wouldn't hae this kinch…"
The bus driver's stare snaps over to her, and Briar can't help but jolt a little. "And why do you have her quirk gadget, Hayes?"
"Because she was throwing it around, sir. It almost hit Orson."
He hums. "Is that so? Wellerman, Harper, can you corroborate that story?"
They both answer yes in unison. Bonnie, of course, vehemently disagrees.
"Bullshit! Ah wis juist passing it tae someone-"
Briar scoffs. "Across the bus? Yeah." She retorts.
"Th' bugger dae ye ken, ye wee blonde jobby-"
"What does that even mean-"
"It means ye'r a great eejit, that's whit!"
"Both of you, shut up!" the bus driver yells. Bonnie and Briar snap to attention. "If you two keep at each other's throats like that, I'll kick you off at the next stop, ya hear?"
Neither of them had a retort for that. Bonnie dropped back down into her seat with a huff, and Briar crossed her arms.
"Alright, then. The four of you better not cause any more ruckuses for the duration of this trip, ya hear me?"
They all nod vigorously.
"And if any of you repeat this behavior on my bus for the rest of this trip, I'll kick you off, capiche?"
They nod in affirmation once again.
The bus driver shuffles back to his seat, and after a few moments, the bus revs to life, and continues its journey to Seattle. The rumble of voices and laughter resumed soon after, dissolving the tension.
Bonnie had moved back to her own seat, and after about two minutes back on the road, started up once again with her nonsense, this time throwing a potato (?) across the aisle. At least this time she was with people who actually wanted to deal with her shit.
Orson had taken up conversation with the girl from earlier, Alexis. Something about how Alexis recognized him from kindergarten, or whatever- they were speaking too quietly for Briar to really understand. Not that she was complaining.
While not ideal, it was a good enough environment to sleep in. Maybe it wouldn't be the most comfortable rest, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. Yawning, she checks her phone.
The numbers 11:32 glowed back at her.
What.
This was going to be a long trip, wasn't it?
A/N
word count: 1833
this took a bit longer than i wanted it to but ah well
Trying to write the final page killed me for some reason BUT HERE IT IS
Orson belongs to BigChokka, Bonnie belongs to TamashiNoSenshi, and Alexis belongs to Lightning2T. Let me know how I did writing them!
Thanks for your patience guys :) the last month has been rough and i'm sorry to have kinda abandoned y'all like that
Also here's the discord: 6b5WMqrv
cyall later