Starstruck

Chapter Five: Harder, Faster, Forever After

By: Jondy Macmillan

A/N: Why Starstruck? Well, I named this fic for the song by Lady Gaga. I'm not a huge Gaga fan (Just Dance and Bad Romance and Paparazzi are catchy, I'll admit) but Starstruck is the only song of hers that I just FELL IN LOVE WITH, which might have something to do with it being featured during the lesbian strip club scene on Fringe…but I digress. That's where the title came from. It's a little strange to name a Gregory/Christophe fic after it, but I had to name SOMETHING, and this story got the short straw. It's funny how after I named it though I discovered two more songs- Starstrukk by 3oh3!, which came out as a single last summer very shortly after I'd titled this, and Starstruck by Sterling Knight (Disney Channel) this winter. See I choose popular names, okay?

My second year at Yardale was no more pleasant than the first. And I say 'pleasant' lightly, because it isn't the kind of adjective that deserves to be associated with that hellhole. The torture I endured made me stronger physically, it's true, but I begged my parents not to make me go back. I told them stories of the horrors I'd seen, of the brutal beatings the teachers administered through student lackeys and the punishments that could involve being made to do obstacle courses for countless hours, all to no avail.

Not only did they not believe me, but even if they had, none of it was illegal. I had no proof that the teachers pitted us against each other than black and blue bruises that could just as easily have been gained from falling out of a tree. The obstacles courses were approved by the Yardale school board, and according to my father, I could easily tough it out. I was a Thorne, after all.

Something had changed in my time away from home that I tried to pinpoint my entire summer vacation. My father no longer told jovial stories about his time at sea, and my mother no longer stooped to kiss my scraped knees- perhaps because I no longer cried about such minor injuries, but it felt like part of a larger problem. There was a subtle tension between my parents that had never been there before, and it left me striving to escape our house more and more often to wander one strange military base after another.

When I finally was sent back to school in the fall, it was almost a relief. Almost.

That fall I was in third grade, and where I should have been learning how to survive in the social paradigm set up by my peers alongside basic maths, I instead found myself discovering how to fence, how to fight, how to make sure that nobody thought I was the weakest kid in class. Because in Yardale, being weak meant being destroyed. I'd seen kids expelled, shipped off, and perhaps the previous year I might have found such an action desirable. Now I knew that when the school sunk its teeth into you, there was no way to leave without having chunks of yourself ripped out. Those kids who'd fled Yardale's gate had been nearly catatonic. I couldn't see them ever functioning with normal, healthy lives. The only way to survive was to survive.

So I knew to fall in line my first day back. My uniforms were spotless, my posture was ramrod straight, and I'd studied up on nearly everything I could on the last, fading weeks of summer. Of course it wasn't enough. It was never enough. Our teachers demanded perfection, and I was nothing if not flawed.

My roommate for the year wasn't Christophe. This was both a blessing and curse; I hadn't exactly made many friends the previous year, but as a friend, Christophe left much to be desired. He was sullen, angry, and quite often ignored my existence. Although he showed me small bouts of kindness here and there, for the most part Christophe acted like it was my fault he'd ended up there again in the first place. In retrospect, I suppose it was.

At any rate, I was placed with a boy named Emory, who for all intents and purposes was a step up as far as roomies went. Quick to smile and quicker to laugh, I was besotted with his ability to stay happy in such a miserable environment. I desperately wanted to be his friend, and made that my main goal for the year.

Which was how, around mid-October, I ended up watching a goon squad of great, large oafs march squares around a field. It was Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps practice for the older kids, the ROTC-nazis who thought life revolved around status and shiny gold insignia. They twirled rifles loaded with actual guns, as opposed to normal JROTC units who bore neutered arms for fear they might actually hurt themselves. Weapons training at Yardale began in the fifth grade. I was looking forward to convincing my parents to get me out of there before that.

Emory wanted nothing more than to be in ROTC. He too had come from a military family, and he wanted to be just like his Air Force father, flying the vast open skies and shooting down America's enemies while breaking the speed of sound all the while. Even though I had no interest in following in my father's footsteps ever since he'd sent me off to Yardale to learn what boot camp was really like, I thought it was a noble goal. I thought Emory was perhaps the noblest person I'd ever met.

Perhaps he wouldn't have found me so noble, if he'd seen me hiding beneath the bleachers, wondering how to get close to him, how to think up a reasonable excuse for my presence on the fields. I never found out.

In the distance, I heard a great cracking boom, like a gun firing. No one else seemed to pay it any mind, presumably thinking it was a class practicing, but I'd memorized the schedules of every class; it paid to know which classes and fields would be empty and peaceful whenever I needed time alone.

Curious in a way I never would have been last year, I shuffled out from beneath the bleachers, narrowly avoiding Emory's gaze, and followed the well worn trail back to the rifle range. A large, open field stacked with hay bales and patriotically painted targets, I was familiar with the place in passing. I rarely hid there because the last place bullies needed to find me in was somewhere they had access to guns, but the range was on my route to the obstacle fields I frequented after lunch.

A group of students were milling around the range, behind the safety lines formed by bales of hay spray painted with a solid black line, a do-not-pass-go demarcation that looked every bit as dark and foreboding as it was meant to be. More than one student had accidental mishaps with guns, and it was a wonder the school's license to teach hadn't been rescinded each and every time. The students there were every age range, every height and build. In the center stood Christophe, a high caliber rifle balanced on his shoulder as he aimed directly at a distant target.

He hit it dead center.

I'd never known he was a marksman, and it was the first time I'd seen him outside of class since the previous year, and perhaps I was more than a little awed by his skill. I contribute all of that to the reason I gasped so loud, loudly enough that a few of the oldest students there swiveled to face me.

"Well, what have we here?" a tall, acne ridden eighth grader demanded, "A spy?"

"Sort of tiny, for a spy," a sixth grade murmured, "Guess that would be useful."

"D'you know what we do to spies?" the eighth grader asked, and while his tone was one of gentle amusement, I knew better. I'd already begun back up, preparing myself to run as fast as I could. I doubted it would be fast enough; most eighth graders at the school had been there since their first year. They had all the training Yardale could provide, and my measly year of obstacle courses and repetitive laps wouldn't qualify my being able to outrun him.

"I think you should tell him," the sixth grader put in, and we were beginning to draw the attention of the other students away from Christophe's shooting.

More and more eyes came to rest on me, as I stuttered, "I'm not- not-"

"'e iz not a spy," a new, familiar voice interjected. I could hear Christophe putting down the rifle with the easy practice of someone used to the action, "'e iz too much of a goody-two-shoes for zat."

"Then what iz he?" the eighth grader demanded, mocking Christophe's accent. The smaller boy's eyes darkened and he hefted up the rifle again, swinging it idly over his shoulder.

"Too curious for 'is own good," Christophe glared down his nose at me. I glared right back, but there was no heat in it. I wanted only to know what was going on, what Christophe had gotten himself into. By no means were we friends, but something about this entire scenario worried me. A third grader should not have had such capable hands when brandishing weapons.

"Oh," the eighth year's mouth curved, "Maybe he's looking to be a new recruit."

"Non," Christophe said quickly, too quickly, "'e wants nothing of ze sort. Right?"

When he looked at me in askance, I knew all he wanted me to do was agree. If I did, I could apologize and leave, which was sort of my modus operandi when it came to situations like these. If I stumbled upon bullies whaling on poor first graders, I said sorry and fled. I was gaining muscle mass and inches, but I was oft too scared to deal with the unknown. Which is why my teachers called me a lousy student, but that's a different tale altogether. So in all respects, this should have been just like those times I'd found groups ganging up on the innocent, the unsuspecting. I should have walked away.

But with Christophe's eyes boring into me, I realized that he was nothing if not an astute judge of character. I'd always been too curious for my own good, "What's going on? Recruit for what?"

The eighth grader's eyes lit up with a sort of feral joy at besting Christophe, but I could already tell the smaller boy wasn't planning on giving up.

"This is the Yardale Defense League."

"And what's that?" I asked, not at all impressed.

The eighth grader bent down so that his eyes were at my level, and he asked, "Here, the teachers only let you learn what they know. If you try to rise above that, they'll trample you back down."

I knew this. Our instructors were wise; they were some of the most sought after in the nation. But they did not take kindly to being outclassed by students. They tried to control our level of knowledge, and how quickly that level rose. If a student knew more about a subject than a teacher, that teacher would find a subject the student knew nothing about, and humiliate them in that subject until they'd once again learned their place. During our time in Yardale, the teachers never wanted to be surpassed.

"Do you know why that is?" the older kid continued, and when I shook my head he said triumphantly, "Because if we know more, if we can do more, they'll lose control. So here, we teach ourselves. Take Christophe, here. By the time he reaches the range in two years, he'll be better at marksmanship than Professor Montagne, an army sniper. And we taught him."

"'e iz not a fighter," Christophe insisted, looking like he might very well stomp his foot to emphasize the point. I couldn't figure out why he was so opposed to my joining his top secret club, but then, I thought that must be it. The place was top secret. His. Of course he didn't want the person who exiled him here to take part in the one thing he had for himself.

Which is why I decided I had to fuck with him. Not in those terms; my language hadn't quite reached that level of coarseness, although not for lack of trying. The boys at Yardale probably invented a good deal of the profanities that litter this Earth.

"I am," I insisted, "I mean, I want to be."

The eighth grader smiled at me, no warmth in it at all, "Good. DeLorne, hand him the rifle."

And that was how it started.

A/N: Ehhhhh. Short chapter. Kind of filler, but kind of how Gregory gets into guns? Yes? Yes. We will be seeing more of the YDL and Emory in later chapters, but- guys, guys, guys. Guess what the next chapter has? Can you guess? Do you know? I'll give you a hint. It's the show this whole fucking fic is based off of! It might not show up until the end of the chapter, but it will make an appearance, and that means chapter seven will be all South Park, all the time. That means the ships will begin! Woot. So please review, because then I'll get motivated to get off my butt and write it faster.