Soteriophobia and Snark

part four: sound and fury/ a high school au*


"Aaaand here's that new kid," Tavros whispers in my general direction, running a frightened hand through his mohawk at my fierce expression, and I wait the appropriate amount of time before looking up.

She's a girl, dark brown hair, shortish. What they might call a pixie cut in a cutesy hair salon. Her clothes are bright- she stands out in a sweeping, glittery but not tacky red skirt and white shirt, with a green clip in her hair that matches her green eyes- but her expression is stoic, and she appears to be nervous.

She says her name quietly, emphasizing the second syllable, and she spells it out quietly as well, her fingers twisting behind her back in a skittish rhythm.

K-a-n-a-y-a M-a-r-y-a-m, no nicknames, please, it's like a song. I hum the words and spelling absently, putting it to music.

This is stupid.

Anyway, while I'm busy with my improvisation of shitty music, the biology teacher writes it down to her dictation, then points her to a seat.

Fuck.

Saw this one coming.

The other students are giving each other nervous looks.

The only empty seat in the classroom is…

…next to me. Figures. We sit next to our lab partners, and I don't have one because there's an odd number of us- eleven- and "I work fine by myself," as I'd snapped at Tavros's shy attempt to pair us up. That kid is hopeless. He's the only one in the class who actually tries to talk to me.

The rest of them are afraid.

I don't mind that. I made them afraid. In lower grades, one through four, I'd been that girl who starts the fights and beats up the older boys at recess so badly that they cry, and now, in tenth grade, I'm still that girl, but more of that girl whose parents never show up for conferences, the one whose name gets whispered between teachers like a curse.

Serket. Oh God, I have the Serket girl in my class. The English teacher even writes it on my monthly detention slips, like this: Serket. Period Four. Late to three classes in one week.

I doubt half of them know my first name.

"Its! VRISKA! you! pathetic! motherfucking! asshole! loser! bastards!" I daydream about spray painting on the front of the building, in angry blue letters with a missing apostrophe and eight randomly distributed exclamation points to show every English teacher at this hellhouse exactly what I think of their lessons.

And now down the aisle comes Miss Smartypants (pardon me, Smartyskirt) with a neat stack of brand-new textbooks probably slid all prim and proper into that red backpack. Who honestly matches their backpack to their outfit on purpose? And wait till she hears about the uniform policy here. She's one of those rich fashion-obsessed girls, I'll bet on it, and her daddy will come to protest his daughter's right to dress up fancy.

"High-school cliches, goddammit," I grumble, leaning on my chair and resting my head on the counter and smoothing my messy hair. I like having the whole back lab table to myself. It feels like my own island.

Guess whose island was just invaded?

She perches tentatively on the edge of the seat next to me, busying herself with neatening her pencil case on the desk and taking out a piece of paper.

"Hello," she says eventually. "What's your name?"

Karkat, the irritable jerk of the entire class who only I can out-curse, has got his head bent back and is shaking it frantically at the newcomer with those stupid bulging eyes wide in warning, as if saying don't talk to her, she'll just bite you, she'll rip you to shreds.

I give him the most pleasant middle finger I can manage behind the teacher's back. This, I have privately nicknamed, is the-glasses-pushing-up-one where I pretend to adjust said eyewear. He looks fearfully at my hands: clenched fists. He gulps and retreats into his textbook. This is the only time he's really seemed interested in it, amusingly enough.

I open my mouth to answer the fancy skirt girl.

"SERKET! What did I tell you about appropriate jewelry!"

I cannot tell KaNAYa my name at the moment, because my teacher is now having a catastrophic fucking aneurysm over my dangly spiderweb earrings.

"Don't have any worries fill up that empty head of yours, I'll take them off, Sir." My eyes narrow viciously, and I make my way over to his desk, pull them from my ears, and deposit them on his newly graded tests, maintaining a large, quite sharklike grin the entire time. Name me Jaws. Write it on my slip. Anything but-

"Detention, Serket," he sighs. "I thought we were going to start this term off fresh. But you cannot seem to maintain a respectful attitude."

"Fresh is one way of putting it, Sir." I shoot him my most winning smile. "Also, please continue calling me by my last name only, like a delinquent. I just love it."

"You are a deliquent," Terezi adjusts her designer eyewear and fakes a coughing fit over her dreadfully unoriginal comment, and her friends burst into giggles like her cowardice not to actually say it is hilarious. Even my semi-loyal standby, Tavros, gives me his "What the heck are you doing?" face.

"Don't make me give you enough slips for a week! I am sick and tired of you mouthing off in this classroom!" His face is a humorous shade of red.

"Fine. But you might have to schedule those detentions around the other detentions they give me weekly for displaying originality and disobeying my robotic overlords- sorry, what? I meant breaking the sacred dress code and not walking quickly enough during a fire drill."

I smile winningly again and walk back to my seat, blowing Terezi a kiss with my middle finger on the way. She falls silent. I arrive back at my island. Well. Our island. The new girl is mildly in awe.

Great show, old chap. Great show. I pat myself on the back, mentally. I am so horrible and it's so awesome. It makes me feel better to act out the persona of how I terrible I actually am. But I don't get congrats on slaying the dragon (teacher, meh, same thing,) or even a stuttered apology from K-a-n-a-y-a M-a-r-y-a-m. I get something oddly pedestrian and out of place, even though it's sort of relevent.

"What is your name?"

I wait the appropriate amount of time as custom, and turn my head to the new girl. My eyes meet hers for the first time and she shivers. I have perfected my Death Stare, and it's on full power. I open my mouth.


"Vriska," she says defiantly, shaking locks of messy wavy blonde hair out of her face while still not breaking her death-grip eye contact.

"Vriska Serket." The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them and my cheeks are suddenly flooded with color.

She confirms her status as this individual with a nod.

That was foolish of me. I must appear an imbecile.

She's so confident, and although I see her terrible behavior, I can see through it, too... to what? The canvas this delinquency is painted on is a mystery.

That's a poetry sentence. I remind myself to write it down later.

"You write poetry?" The smartass arches herself back in her chair, and she gives me a withering look from behind horn-rimmed glasses. Mind-reading... does not exist. Or does it? Mild, irrational panic sets in.

"Wh-what?"

"Your notebook."

The edge of my spiral-bound journal is poking out of my bag, and it has the beginning of one of my favorite, albeit depressing, quotes on it. Vriska reads the first four words, which are all that are visible, but she keeps going.

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

"We're watching a movie, class," the science teacher says, ruining the moment and turning off the lights. Feeling surreal and weightless, I take my awe and wonder at the poetic, detained Serket girl and use it to stare at her in the dark as she sprawls out over the desks and makes dry, hilariously observant comments that nobody laughs at and tells the earnest-looking boy with a fuzzy mohawk to shut up. Her eyes glint in the dark like she knows I'm watching, and she licks her dry lips, seeming content with knowing I see her.

-Likes Macbeth enough to memorize a quote.

-Wears her uniform with unbuttoned-in-just-the-right-way flair. Admirable, but

-she doesn't care enough to tie her hair back, or is doing it rebelliously.

She squints at the TV right next to us, and I keep adding to my sparse mental list of Vriska notes.

-Wears glasses for distance, but also probably needs them for reading.

"Yeah, uh, bad poetry," I manage to stammer, answering her question from before for whatever reason. Instead of accusing me of blatant randomness, she nods and barely raises herself up, but somehow still looks me in the eyes upside down, her head and shoulders dangling, fingers gripping the cheap fake wood, white strands of hair brushing the floor.

The canvas this deliquency is painted on is a mystery.

"Okay," she says, making it seem like a few words or perhaps a paragraph. I see the way she tilts herself, looking at me with eyes that are haughty and deep in the dark room.

-Attention seeker.

"How did you know?"

"I told you. Your notebook."

"Does the love of Shakespeare define a poet? That's sort of cliche, don't you think?"

The smile melts from Vriska's face and she offers only a blink of her eyes, accompanied by another lick of her lips. She reasons with me:

"You look like a poet."

And I am just filled with idiocy today, and have to share it with her, apparently:

"So, uh, do you."

"No, sweetheart," a hiccupy laugh slips into her tone as she leans in to whisper, "no, I look like someone who smashes windows, and will rob you blind, and then smile. I look like a girl who, when you're trying to love her, will kiss you just with teeth and squeeze your heart so hard it hurts and then breaks, which is maybe why no one has asked me out. Too afraid. They're all afraid. I'm not docile and I don't spout bullshit about the beauty of the flowers. Not a poet."

Her voice is grand and strong and lyrical as she spreads her arms and legs and shrugs with her whole body.

I feel the dull thrill of more awe swim through my head, and I just stare.

I feel like I'm making stab-in-the-dark guesses, but I think I've gotten a hint of what may be behind that canvas. She doesn't contain any of the people I know. She bears no resemblance to anyone; well, maybe a pirate in an old storybook or a daring tomb robber or a runaway ruler, but no one superficial. She doesn't use the suffix "uh" or "like" after every word, like every other girl in the high school, and I can't see her on Facebook or Twitter gossiping about what the stars are up to, or even knowing any of the stars' names. She probably gives long, eloquent speeches with ridiculous, unrealistic comparisons that somehow work perfectly, like she did about poetry, and when she's done she gives a shrug, like she also did there. She probably likes risks, and will do things to impress people, but is fiercely independent.

I ache to know her, and I ache to be her friend, suddenly; I want to be the only one she trusts.


*A/N: This is actually a story-in-a-story because this AU has now caught me entirely by the collar and I can't finish it without using a few chapters. So the next chapter will also be about this. Whoo. Leave me a review, please. I like reviews very much. I never be for reviews except now. Please click the button. Tell me what you think. ^_^'