(Author's Note: I appreciate the honest and positive reviews this story has received thus far, and hope to update at least once a week. The rating of this story will also shift soon from Teen to Mature within the next few chapters. Stay posted, my beasties.)
Juliet was surprised at how orderly the line of children following behind her looked Thursday afternoon. Yes, there was jostling, and yes, there was a constant buzz of high-pitched, incessant chatter, but at least it was a line. She wanted to congratulate the children, maybe offer to bring them in a reward for this one small act of obedience, but she was far too afraid to jinx it, and so she kept her mouth shut as she led the children to the school's cafeteria. She stopped and held the door open for her students as they scurried off into yet another line for their lunches. Odd as it was, it was the little things she enjoyed the most. Without their usual psychotic behavior, those excited, chubby-cheeked faces almost looked innocent.
Almost.
She had at least learned not to underestimate any child at the school. She had also taken to some stronger headache medication. Of a different brand than her old one. She had the suspicion that perhaps the previous brand gave her hallucinations. She had no other explanation for some of the stranger things she had seen in the cafeteria or walking through the halls. Horrible, terrifying things.
And not the usual sort from her bunch.
Thankfully not her students at all, but students nonetheless. Tentacled creatures or unnerving glares from the children that fell under the care of Eleanor Butterbean.
Not her problem. Not even real, that would be ridiculous. Best up the medication, she thought.
Juliet let the door shut behind her and stood in place for a moment, taking a sweeping glance of the large, chilly room. It was a comforting sort of chaos. The sound of the children was almost a hum, a bit like an engine running. It didn't appear anyone was fighting, either, which was a very good sign. She took a deep breath and made her way to the front of the cafeteria, following behind her students.
Across the room, practically pressed against the wall, stood Reginald Skarr. He had seen her come in and now only bided his time. He loathed being in the school at all. It reeked of snot-nosed little children and rang with their constant, shrill cries. The lunchroom was the worst place of all, he thought. He had no intention of sitting amongst all these screaming piglets while they stuffed their faces full of government-ordered slop. No, he was going to drag that woman out of this cesspool the moment he could. But for now, he clung to the shadowy side of the lunchroom. Children didn't like him, anyway, and the sight of him inspired in the little ingrates the same hatred he felt for them.
It would be a brawl, and a hundred to one was not a fair fight (never mind the fact that he was an adult and even if he did win, he would surely go to prison, which he was so desperately trying to avoid). So, perhaps it was for the best he stayed out of sight for now.
Juliet bought herself a small salad and a bottle of water. For a second it appeared she had every intention of joining the other teachers at the head of the cafeteria, as she no doubt was used to doing by now. She stopped in her tracks, then turned her head, scanning the room once more.
Aha.
She didn't know why he stood all the way over there, almost hidden behind a pillar. The sun did not reach that wall, and there were no children occupying the tables nearby, as if the whole area was taboo. She clutched her water tighter and noted how much it reminded her of a badly-directed horror film in which the homicidal maniac was so clearly in view, and yet the victim meandered towards him like a lamb to the slaughter.
Her analogy did not fill her with positive feelings, and she had to remind herself that this man was just her neighbor. Her strange, strange neighbor. And being strange did not mean that one was a maniac.
Although she had to admit it seemed to be a recurring factor in Hollywood films.
She stood in the sun, as the cafeteria was cold enough without being cloaked in shadow, and tilted her head at him.
"There you are," she said, "I nearly forgot about our lunch."
"That would have been incredibly rude of you, now, wouldn't it?" He cast a cursory glance behind her, then motioned.
"I suggest we eat outside." Juliet furrowed her brow.
"I have to monitor the lunch, I can't just leave."
"Of course you can. Put one foot in front of the other—"
"I mean it wouldn't be allowed."
"Well, I'm not eating in this concrete circus tent," Skarr huffed, apparently having his final word on the discussion. Juliet bristled slightly.
"Well," she replied, "I am not eating outside."
"Then we have an impasse. Don't be stubborn, Juliet."
"You're the one being stubborn. Why won't you eat in here?" He curled his lip at her. She caught a glint of the artificial lighting reflecting off of his teeth.
"I find myself lacking in appetite the longer I stay in here amongst these animals."
"Reginald!" Juliet frowned hard, "They're children!"
"Please. They're barely paper-trained." Juliet pursed her lips. He continued just as flippantly as before.
"Come now, Juliet. It's a lovely day today, and it isn't freezing outside. And there is no screaming. Or, at least, less screaming." He motioned to the double doors which led to the breezeway and beyond.
"And I'm hungry enough to not offer you much time in making your decision." Juliet huffed.
"Fine. If you're so hungry."
"I am. This planning has set me back a solid forty-five minutes.
"Oh, dear. However shall you recover?"
"Such biting wit," he mused, rolling his eye. He followed her to the doors and, in one quick motion, reached out to hold the door for her before she could do so herself. Juliet thanked him with a nod of her head and exited the lunchroom.
It was warm outside, he hadn't been telling a lie. Juliet shivered at the sudden increase in temperature.
"I wonder why they keep it so cold…"
"It's not them," Skarr answered, closing the door, "It's the constant presence of death."
'Now, that's morbid," Juliet frowned. He shrugged lightly and motioned to a bench next to a small picnic table. The set was one of three sitting out in the sun.
Juliet walked over and set her lunch items down, looking around.
"What a beautiful lawn," she remarked. Skarr set his lunch down across from her, but did not look around as she did.
"Yes, I know," he replied simply, unpacking his food. Juliet furrowed her brow at him, but let it slide. After all, lunch was such a small window of time. Too small to argue about such little things. At least, she was going to try not to.
"Are you in a mood today, Reginald?" she asked as she sat, tearing open a small packet of salad dressing. He raised an eyebrow at his lunch, still busying himself with it.
"A mood? No, never." Juliet thought this answer sounded very sarcastic, and was not happy with it one bit.
"Reginald."
"I told you I despise being here," he reminded her. Juliet sighed heavily, mixing up her salad.
"Well, forgive me for not lifting your spirits," she muttered. He looked up.
"That isn't what I said. Don't take it out of context," he snapped. Juliet cut her eyes at him and stabbed a piece of lettuce.
"Then what's bothering you?"
"Nothing. I just look like this."
"How unfortunate."
"You would not be the first to say so." Juliet sighed in exasperation and set her fork down.
"Is this the only way we can talk to one another?" she asked. He looked up again, and seemed genuinely perplexed.
"How do you mean?" Juliet made a few hand motions.
"This back and forth," she explained, "It's so… exhausting." Skarr furrowed his brow. He rather liked the banter. Did she not?
"…Then what do you suggest?" he asked, picking up his sandwich. Juliet made a small sound of humor, a single ha!
"I was thinking a normal conversation! With all the usual small-talk and the pointless questions." He frowned. He hated those.
"Just give it a try," Juliet pressed, giving him a sarcastic look, and she picked up her for again, "How was your day?" He took a bite of his lunch and frowned, thinking as he chewed.
"…Loathsome," he replied eventually. Juliet groaned, rolling her eyes.
"Perhaps that was a little too simple for you… let's try something else."
"Oh, goody." Juliet stabbed another piece of lettuce and looked at him hard.
"You're a very talented gardener. Where did you learn to do all this? Or was it just natural talent?" She bit down on her lettuce and watched him for a response. His face seemed to soften just a little around the eyes, but his frown remained hard. He was chewing again. God knows how long it would take. Perhaps he was doing it on purpose. Oh, that would be just like him, rebelling against her suggestion of small-talk by being insufferable.
"I had to learn on my own," he said eventually, "I had no one to teach me. It seemed liked something I could manage in a small amount of time that wasn't too difficult. I had heard it relaxes people. God knows I needed that." He sounded bitter, and she did not understand why.
"Are you so terribly stressed?" The gardener looked at her with an expression similar to that of being insulted in the highest form.
"You haven't the slightest idea," he said darkly. Juliet did not let her surprise at his tone show on her face and busied herself with a cucumber slice.
"Well, what could you have to be so stressed over?" she pressed, which was easier to do without eye-contact. Again, his answer took some time.
"…old wounds and current nuisances," he eventually offered. It was vague and, to the teacher, unsatisfactory.
"I find your answer vague and unsatisfactory," she replied lightly.
"I don't give a damn what you think about my answer," he retorted, just as lightly. Juliet chewed thoughtfully on a grape tomato, watching her fork tap-tap-tap away at the plastic side of her container.
"I told you I don't like swearing," she reminded him, still keeping her gaze lowered.
"I told you that that wouldn't stop me. And what's so interesting about that salad of yours?" He sounded irritated. Slightly more so than usual. Juliet pursed her lips.
"Nothing at all. Why won't you give me a proper answer?"
"Why is it your business?"
"It isn't my business, but you can't expect us to move on from anything but banter if you don't allow me to become more personal with you."
"I'm not the one who thinks that we need to have anything other than banter." Juliet said nothing. It would hide her hurt a little better. Skarr waited for her response. After a few bites she still had not said anything, and he realized she was choosing to stay quiet, possibly an attempt to give him the cold shoulder. His right hand clenched around his bottle of water tightly.
He didn't want that, no.
She was ignoring him like everyone else ignored him.
After a few more seconds, he asked, tentatively:
"…If I tell you a little more, will you look at me…?" Juliet's head snapped up quickly. For a second she wasn't sure if the small question had come from the man across from her, because his face was still twisted into its characteristic hard scowl.
"…it would be easier to look at someone I consider a friend than a combative acquaintance."
"I thought we were having this lunch as friends," Skarr replied, now trying to steer the conversation away from his personal files.
"Friends generally know more about one another than names, addresses, and jobs."
"Do they?" he asked, feeling successful at his redirecting.
"Don't they?"
"I wouldn't know." Juliet blinked.
"…what do you mean, you wouldn't know? Haven't you had friends before?"
Damn this woman and her skills of redirecting his redirection. He frowned harder and tapped his fingers on the cap of his water bottle, glaring at it instead of at her.
"Not really," he muttered, almost carelessly, "Friends are like pets you aren't obligated to feed… only they can be twice as obnoxious and not always house-trained."
"What sort of friends have you had?" Juliet wondered aloud, incredulous.
"I was what you would call 'friends' with a bear, once," he answered automatically. Juliet laughed lightly in response.
"A bear? Where on Earth did you come across a bear?"
"I worked for the bear," he snapped, flicking his dark gaze up to her face. She stopped laughing and hunched slightly.
"… A caretaker… isn't… quite what I…"
"I wasn't a caretaker. At least, I wasn't paid to be one. Technically speaking, I didn't work for the bear, itself, but the thing I did work for was decidedly not my friend. So." Juliet looked less surprised and more confused.
"I… don't understa—"
"I didn't expect you to," he interrupted, preferring now to charge ahead rather than backpedal away from his sudden honest streak, "Let me just say that after the military, my particular set of skills were sought after by a… man… with less-than-righteous aspirations." Juliet furrowed her brow, setting her fork down, her attention fully focused on the man before her.
"Less-than-righteous… meaning—"
"Villainy," he interrupted again, looking back to his bottle cap.
"Villainy," Juliet repeated, keeping her puzzled expression.
"Yes, actual villainy. We, that is, the organization I was a part of, did not work for a particular country or government authority. In fact, we opposed all established authority in favor of our own." Juliet sat in silence for a moment, pondering over this information.
"… You mean in order to establish a new world order?"
"Precisely. Smart girl…" he growled, narrowing his eyes at the bottle cap and his own fingers frantically tapping at it. Juliet turned a slight pink. It was fleeting.
"But…" She seemed to pause yet again in her thinking, her mouth open, frozen mid-sentence, "…Oh, but you're joking!" Skarr looked up slowly.
This was not the reaction he had expected.
Juliet waved a chubby hand at him.
"Yes, you're trying to trick me!" She managed a light, slightly forced laugh, "And you nearly did it. New world order, indeed…" She chuckled again, mostly to herself, and her neighbor merely watched her, unsure of his next step. He could easily laugh it off and walk away from it, leaving the woman none the wiser. Of course, he would have to fabricate an alternative truth the next time she asked him to be less vague, but he could certainly do that. However, the former general was not so inclined to lie to the small schoolteacher before him, nervously laughing off her embarrassment and this entire awkward conversation.
Some part of him also wanted desperately to prove this same little woman wrong. What was so funny? Did she not think he had the look and skills for a villain bent on world domination? Even if his story of villainy was unconventional and strange, it wasn't a joke. He frowned at the thought.
"I can prove it," he growled. Juliet kept her cheerful smile, but no laugh accompanied it.
"I'm sure you can, dear," she replied lightly. He bared his teeth. Juliet's smile vanished like a switch had been flipped, and she hunched slightly, staring at the snarl on the man's face.
"You seem to doubt me, Juliet," he said quietly, narrowing his eyes at her, straightening while he talked, "And I have every intention of proving you wrong. Per usual. Not today. In time. I just want you to bear in mind that one day, and the day will come, you will understand exactly what sort of man I am. I take my… pastimes… very seriously." Juliet did not respond, and when he had looked away from her, she let out a small sigh. Whether he could prove it or not, Juliet did not really care. She was almost certain that Reginald Skarr was a villain.
In some form or another.
However, she was completely sure of the fact that she was not afraid of him.
At least, she didn't think she was.
The only thing she knew she felt towards this man was intrigue. A heavy desire to pick apart that mysterious outer shell he had thrown up every time he talked to her.
Villain or no, she was fascinated.