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GamecubeGril1: This stuff is all pre-written in a folder; I had it all in my comp and was going to submit it as one big work when I had twenty stories alas the computer fried so I am transferring it yet again and just posting it as I get it done. One-shots I can do, but it's the longer fics I need my notes for.
Tear Intelligencer
"What's the matter baby?" A hand shoved him into the earth. He grunted, caught himself and resisted the urge to cry in pain as his knees scraped against unyielding earth. "Gunna cry?"
Don't ever give them that satisfaction; don't ever let them see you cry because if you give them what they want they'll only come back for more.
Wiping his face he managed to stand, he quietly picked up what he'd dropped, a book and some papers, and those safely tucked under his arms he went on his way.
X
That was life, walking around and being shoved. Sometimes being hit, but mostly it was being shoved. That was life, life because he had pointy ears and was different from everyone else. If he wasn't short, if he didn't have those horrible pointy ears they'd leave him alone wouldn't they? While logic said yes because it answered all their taunts and made them lose the ability to throw their words in his face something in him said no. They'd never stop, there would always be a difference, even if he couldn't see it there would be a difference between him and them. He had always wondered what that difference was until he'd met someone who knew the ins and outs of bullies, having been where he'd been once before. His friend, his human friend, had given him an insight a small crumb of comfort. There was a difference between him and them, they were jerks, they were the jerks and he wasn't. It was a small comfort, a thin comfort, and he'd take all of those he could.
X
"Hey Genis, what's up?"
Genis let his lips curl in a smile, dropped his sulky guarded expression and smiled for the first time since recess started. He looked up and Lloyd looked down at him. Legs wrapped around a thick branch, brown hair hanging over his rounded pink ears but pointing to the ground the human of sixteen smiled despite hanging from a branch upside down. Or maybe Lloyd smiled because he was hanging upside down, who knew with Lloyd?
"You are, up in a tree."
"Why do you have to be so liborrol?"
"Literal Lloyd, the proper pronunciation of the word is literal."
"Pro-non-sense-ate-shin?"
"Nevermind!"
"So watch ya doing?"
"I am wondering if your poor pronunciation and your sub-par intellectual ability are contagious."
"Huh? Ok I didn't understand that so it had to be a sneaky dumb joke right?"
"Yep." Genis grinned and Lloyd laughed.
"Well I didn't get it, but I got it."
"Un huh… which of course means…"
"-in one ear out the other."
They both said the last together, it was after all an old joke, ancient even, well as ancient as anything could be between an adolescent and a child.
"Bored bored bored…" Lloyd swayed on the branch, rocked back and forth, the motion made his hair sway with the rest of him. "I wanna go fishing but it takes too long."
"Well I want to conduct an experiment on the…."
"Whoa whoa, no experiment talk OK! You know I can't even follow your lectures any better then I follow Raine's!"
"Oh, sorry I forgot."
"You just get caught up in stuff so of course you forget little things like how dumb I am." Lloyd yawned and stretched. "It's so warm and quiet… I could take a nap."
"Upside down?"
"I've napped in weirder places." Lloyd shifted around a little, then suddenly his eyes flared open, seemed to absorb everything they saw. "What's really going on Genis, really?"
Genis blinked, startled by the intensity of Lloyd's voice and stare.
"N… nothing…"
"Un huh, and Noishe's a rabbit who thinks he's a dog."
"With those ears you never know." Genis grinned, and Lloyd did not return it, only gave him a long hard look that was older then both their years combined.
"Ivan huh?"
"Of…" Genis blushed at Lloyd's "I'm not Raine trust me OK" glare. "Yeah, Ivan, you know how it is."
"Do you wanna know how it is, really?" Lloyd grumbled to the air. "It sucks. He kicks my butt when we fight now so he thinks it's OK for him to go after yours."
Genis grimaced, recalled just how bad what Lloyd called "getting his butt kicked" really had been.
"So what'd the bastard do this time?"
And that was all that was needed to get Genis to start talking, and for the stinging behind his eyes to grow and bud into full blown tears. He cried a bit as he talked, he could cry now that he was safe.
Lloyd knew where Genis had been, was still there himself, and for someone normally dumb he was pretty smart in this. It was Lloyd's advice he followed then he got shoved and knocked around by people twice his size.
It was the advice Lloyd learned first hand when he had done all the wrong things.
You never gave them what they wanted, that was the first rule and the second…
Have someone you trust to talk to.
Genis gulped, wiped his eyes though he smiled while he did so. Lloyd was now cussing out Ivan, something that Genis didn't have the guts to do. Lloyd was brave enough or the both of them, handed out bravery and listening, and said what needed saying even when no one else wanted to. Normally it was a bad thing, especially when he yelled "boring!" one day in history, but here it was good.
"When'd you get so smart?"
"What? Did you just call me smar… ahhh!"
So surprised was Lloyd he lost his grip and slid from the tree and landed right on his head.
"Oww…"
Genis laughed. "I meant dumb, if there was any hope that you were smart now it's as gone as your brains!"
"Shut up!" Lloyd dragged himself to his feet nursed his aching skull. "That's so it! You, are gunna get dunked!"
"You and what army?" Genis stuck his tongue out.
Snarling a few words Lloyd ran after Genis, laughing the young wizard summoned spans of ice and Lloyd Colette-stepped all the way back to Iselia.
