Three days into Dolly's hellish tutoring and Danny thought he was going insane. She was highly strict, to the point of making Danny tidy up his uniform just to not get yelled at by her. But the thing was, everyone loved her and didn't believe him when he tried venting. She was too cute, too soft, too sweet to be any way like that.
She smiled and treated everyone; nerd, jock, goth, and everyone in between, the exact same way with patience and understanding. He had watched her stop a kickball game because a fat squirrel got stuck trying to pass through the field and she didn't want it getting hurt on accident. Hell, the other day she brought in homemade peach tarts to homeroom.
He knew he wouldn't have been believed if he claimed the one he was given had a red irised eyeball on top before Dolly chirped, "Oopsies, that's mine!" and swapped it out for seemingly normal tart from the tin. It was difficult to swallow the pastry when Mr. Welles' gave him the stink eye for not eating the treat out of politeness. Nobody commented or seemed to notice Dolly happily biting down on her treat with white goo oozing out over her fingers like icing. Despite that he still told Sam and Tuck though they insisted it was probably just a Halloween prank being done early.
To make matters worse, the school announced that there was going to be a Teacher/Parent assembly in the gymnasium to discuss student academics. Danny was pretty sure Vlad had something to do with it, he didn't know how but it was a gut feeling and his gut was rarely wrong.
He sighed and looked up at Dolly across the picnic table, the girl smiling and texting on her phone briefly before noticing she was being looked at. "Are you finished with the workbook? Let me see." She pulled out that damned red pen of hers and grabbed the workbook.
"No I only did a couple of problems. I'm having trouble with a few." He gritted his teeth, admitting fault.
"Ah..." She popped her lips and frowned, looking at his book and marking things wrong. From the amount of red she marred the pages with, Danny internally groaned realizing he was going to get a tongue lashing.
"God. Did you even pay attention to anything I've said the past few days? Are you really this dense?" She slammed the pen down on the table and glared, "Maybe we should take you all the way back to kindergarten and relearn addition!"
"Hey I'm trying my best here!" Danny barked back, ears and neck bright red and eyes narrowed. He was getting sick of her treating him like shit.
"Don't talk back to me, mister! You're the one failing this class and I'm sittin' here wastin' mah time tryin' ta teach your dumb ass! It ain't no skin off mah nose if you completely blow it!" She stood up, hands pressed against the table as she stared him down, cheeks red with anger and her southern accent thickening.
"Maybe you just fucking suck as a teacher Miss Perfect!" Danny stood up too, mimicking her pose and they were inches apart. An electricity building around them as neither were going to back down now that the gauntlet had been thrown.
"And maybe you're just braindead! Nothin' but fluff in 'tween your ears! How's 'bout I just call Mr. Welles and he can find some other poor piece of shit to try and teach ya!"
"DO IT THEN!"
"FINE I WILL!"
"Ahem..." Both teens turned and saw a 20-ish year old man with snow white hair wearing a soft blue hoodie and jeans. He was holding a takeaway coffee tray and a bag from a local cafe. His eyes were as bright blue as chips of ice in the arctic ocean. "Did I come at a bad time, honey?" He asked amused and a little concerned.
"Oh Thorek, I didn't know you were so close." Dolly's anger faded into a smile and she bounced up, kissing the man on the lips.
"I could come back later. Though the coffee will get cold." He chuckled, letting the small girl tug him to the picnic table.
"We're almost done with tutoring anyways, might as well stay."
"Sounded like you were permanently done with it." He raised an eyebrow and looked at Danny, thrusting out a hand, he wore a green bangle on his wrist like Dolly did and the halfa wondered if it was a fashion trend or... "Thorek Castren, I'm Dolly's boyfriend. You must be Danny Fenton. I heard quite a bit about you." Ah so it was a couple's bracelet.
Danny slowly shook his hand, "I'm sure you did..." He muttered, "All bad I'm betting..." He sat back down and was surprised when Thorek handed him a coffee and donut from the bag.
"I hope you don't mind plain glaze. I didn't know what kind you'd like." He smiled kindly at the teenager.
"Yeah it's fine... You didn't really have to get me anything." He sipped the coffee and found it a regular roast, black with no cream or sugar. But thankfully it looked like Thorek grabbed some packets of both and had them in the drink tray.
"Nonsense. It would have been rude if I showed up with just drinks for me and Dolly." Thorek waved his hand and sipped on his own coffee. His girlfriend was happily biting down on a peach filled donut, looking like she wasn't about to rip Danny's head off not even 30 seconds ago.
There was a bit of an awkward silence with the two males looking at one another. Sizing up of one another. Danny vaguely got the feeling in the back of his mind that Thorek probably didn't appreciate this little punk yelling at his girl.
"So... you seem a lot older than I thought you'd be." Danny said and immediately winced at how rude that sounded.
Dolly's eyes narrowed as she licked her fingers of sugar but Thorek chuckled, "I suppose. But you aren't her father now are you?" He grinned a bit, his eyes lighting up and he gently pulled Danny's workbook from beneath Dolly's elbow, looking at the problems, "Your biggest mistake is forgetting to carry over the one in multiplications. You also can't decide which order you break down the problem, just picking and choosing which are the easiest without taking in the brackets being there for a reason." He explained calmly.
Something clicked in Danny's head and he frowned, "Oh is that what I'm doing wrong?" The college student nodded and showed him a step by step process with one problem.
"I think I get it now. Thanks!" Danny beamed and tried it with the next problem.
Dolly puffed up her cheeks like a frog and looked at her boyfriend, "I've been trying to get it into his thick skull for days! Why is it when he listened to you he finally got it but not me? I even did the stupid step by step thing too!"
"Maybe it's that cute accent of yours keeps distracting him, käraste." He leaned down and kissed her. Danny rolled his eyes.
"Flattery and food will get you everywhere, mon cher" She cooed and leaned against his arm, snuggling up and sipping on her french vanilla latte with coconut whip.
"I think I'll leave you two lovebirds alone." Danny snorted, gathering up his things, "Thanks for the coffee and donut Mr. Castren."
"Please, call me Thorek." He smiled, wrapping an arm around Dolly who glared at Danny to get lost faster if he knew what was good for him.
Danny got the hint and grabbed his bag, hurrying off quickly. If he passed the next test hopefully he'd be rid of the psycho Dr. Jekyll/Missus Hyde crazy girl.
a/n: Thorek belongs to my friend Nicky
