Note: Long ass author's note at the end of this chapter. You don't have to read it. I just wrote it because I wanted to. You can just as easily skip it.

Don't get it into your head that we were nice.

We weren't. There's a wide spectrum between nice and mean and when we were younger Dean and I were about in the middle as neutral with frequent visits to the meaner side. Because more than anything we were defensive. It's honestly hard to find genuinely nice people like Grace and Alo. More often you end up with a bunch of people like Mini or worse. Mini's like, on the better end cuz she mostly puts on her meanness every morning like it's an accessory. Some people are mean all the way through.

As Mini used to wear her mean crown, we wore our mean bullet proof vests (and if we're gonna go all the way with this metaphor, Dean probably had some mean brass knuckles too: with smilie faces on the ends).

So don't paint me as some sweet-as-pie innocent little girl or some shit. I was more fuckup than innocent and I had my very own bitch moments.

There was this girl named Sarah.

She was a foster kid too. One of the pleasant ones that the adults love. She'd been in her home for years now and if her fosters ever got the chance they'd adopt her in a heartbeat. Which seemed stupid to me, I mean honestly who wanted to be adopted anymore. I was near thirteen and a few months from meeting Geoff&Jeff, and I was a bitter and biting teenager. That was my worst year attitude-wise. I used drugs as much as I could and tried to keep a constant buzz. I was so angry. But that anger went mostly inside because I was still quiet and vaguely fearful of everyone around me.

Sarah was fourteen but in my grade. I didn't care enough to learn what the story was there. Sarah took a liking to me for some reason. She would talk to me constantly when we were at the house and every attempt to avoid or ignore her seemed to go straight over her head. She infuriated me. Who was this girl to be so nice and chatty and so obnoxious? What was she playing at? What did she want?

Every day I would complain to Dean about Sarah and he would laugh at the right moments and contribute to my scoffs. He commiserated with me when he didn't even know her because I was his Franky and he would always take my side. It lead me to believe that I was entirely in the right about my attitude toward her. She was both "too sweet" and a "conniving bitch", she was my target of scorn. But I was never outright mean to her. I never said anything. I just ignored her when I was around her and mocked her constantly when I was with Dean. She was somehow the worst person I had ever known in my mind, even though she was in reality nowhere near worthy of the title.

I was jealous of her.

She was so "well adjusted". There was no way she'd ever been left in the hands of bad fosters, she'd never have such a sunny disposition if she had been. We were well adjusted. We'd been through hell and back, obviously she hadn't. It made my blood boil.

Sarah kept trying to set up ways for us to hang out after school. Mostly I would say that I was busy, but sometimes I would agree to go to them to get her to stop asking and then ditch the actual activity. She was never daunted. When I would miss her activity she would just smile at me the next time she saw me and say, "We'll try again soon!" as if the reason we couldn't do it wasn't caused by my unwillingness and had been caused by some outside source.

One day she followed me after school. I thought I had shaken her and made my way to the pirate ship, hopping up onto the deck were Dean was already waiting with a bottle of vodka and a new pill bag full of MDMA. I held out my palm to take a pill when suddenly feet landed on our deck and Sarah's voice enthusiastically chirped, "Wow, is this where you come everyday?" I immediately snatched my hand back to my side and spun to look at her feeling guilty and angry all in one. Dean tilted his head and his eyes narrowed into feral slits. Out of the corner of my eye I could see his lips part to bare his teeth like a predator, but to most people it would just look like a wide grin. Her presence was alarming. No one came onto our deck, the kids of the neighborhood had learned to steer clear years ago. It was our space. This was an invasion. This was an offensive attack.

Sarah didn't seem to notice our fury and plopped down on the deck, beaming at the both of us. "Who's this?"

My nostrils flared and I glared at her. Dean was mine, she didn't deserve to know who he was. Before I could say anything Dean slid forward swift as a panther and stuck out his hand, still wearing the dangerous grin. "I'm Dean. Franky's brother."

Sarah looked pleased and took his hand. Dean grabbed it. I saw his nails dig in and his knuckles whiten as instead of shaking he squeezed as hard as he could. Sarah let out a startled squeak and I cackled away. She turned startled eyes toward me but all I felt was glee at her discomfort. 'That'll teach her to be so happy all the fucking time.'

Dean let go and returned to my side. We stayed standing and stood over Sarah who now had a look of slight unease on her face. She was trying to reconcile her made-up image of me as a person with this girl laughing at her pain and looking at her with cold, cruel eyes. Dean shook out a pill and I popped it. Slowly the edge went off of everything in the world and I practically melted to the deck. The shadows in my mind retreated further in for a time. Life was more tolerable.

Dean and I ignored Sarah, who sat quiet and nervous a few meters away from us. Dean and I don't have a secret language per say, but people often don't understand our conversations because we complete one another's thoughts in our head quite often and will move on to a new subject without seeming to finish the first one. I can imagine that it's fairly frustrating to listen to us. I took enjoyment from Sarah's confusion but it seemed like less of an issue now that drugs were making me feel mellow with manufactured happiness.

At some point it went from light to dark and Sarah was nudging me with an anxious expression on her face. "Franky we should go home now. It's late and i-it's dangerous after dark."

"'It's dangerous after dark'," I mimicked, then had a giggle fit and rolled so my back was to her. Dean laughed next to me, then lazily raised his middle finger toward Sarah.

"Fuck off back to the safety of your mummy's kitchen bitch. Franks don't have a home," Dean drawled. I found this incredibly funny as well and continued to laugh breathlessly. I chanced a look back at her. Sarah's face was drawn and frightened. Conflicting feelings of guilt and satisfaction battled it out in my gut, but I was comfortable where I was and Sarah wasn't making me leave.

"Come on Franky," Sarah pleaded with me. I could see her eyes start to moisten and anger tried to kick back in but the MDMA stifled it back down and I felt a pang of empathy for her. After all, it wasn't as if she knew what she had been getting in to. But she did follow me without my permission. Why was it now my responsibility to babysit her? Her mum and dad could do that.

Sarah tried pulling at my sleeve but I tugged away and rolled into Dean, who grabbed me into an embrace and made a raspberry noise at Sarah. "Can't take her from me, never ever," he grumbled against my scalp, more to himself and maybe me than to Sarah. This declaration made me giddy and I kissed wherever I could reach on Dean, which ended up being right where the fabric of his t-shirt met his neck. Sarah made a squeak of shock and pulled me away from Dean.

"I did not think you were that type of girl."

The implication made my heart skip a beat. I was not that type of girl. Not not not. I tried to tug away from her again but she had a grip on my shirt and was hauling me to my feet. I squirmed but she held on and in a quivering voice started, "You are going to take me home right this instant! Honestly you should be grateful I'm not a tattle tale! Rose and Harold would be furious with you and ground you for a month." Dean started to choke with laughter on the pirate deck floor.

"Fuck off!" I grumbled unhappily as she tried to pull me towards the side of the ship. She huffed indignantly. Disappointment was radiating off her. And it was annoying me. What had she expected? Docile mute Franky from school? I didn't even look at her much less talk to her. Why had she expected more from Franky-Fuckup?

She pulled one time too many and reflex kicked in. I hated being touched by anyone but Dean and had learned how to get people off me if I could. Sarah was a soft, nice, normal kid, not in any way prepared for my sharp elbow to her solar plexus. She let out a wheeze of surprise and, tipping backward, fell off the ship to the sand below.

Dean's laughter turned to raucous roars.

I knelt down on the deck and crossed my arms over the side of the boat, resting my chin on one of my forearms. Sarah lay on her back on the ground. She gasped desperately like a fish out of water. I recognized the redness of her face, the way her hand fluttered to her throat in confusion and fear. The wind had been knocked out of her. It was an unpleasant experience. The first time it happened, hell anytime it did, you became afraid for your life. Convinced that your lungs won't get oxygen in time and you'll die gasping. But there was nothing for Sarah to do but ride it out. I couldn't help her even if I wanted. So I just watched her over the side of the ship, listening to Dean's fit of cackling start to quiet behind me.

Sarah finally recovered. She stood shakily and glared at me with such hatred I almost cowered away. She lifted her chin up proudly and said in a cold voice, "I would have been your friend."

I just stared back at her.

She left. I lay back down on the deck. Dean crawled over and put his head by my feet. He grabbed my hand. After a few minutes he mumbled, "Wonder what she wanted."

"Dunno."

Sarah never spoke to me again.

Author's Note: I feel like I have to explain a few things about Franky and Dean and the way that I write them. For lack of a better word, Franky and Dean are paranoid. Here are some facts. It's not unreasonable for them to be. When they were younger they were in some shit places. Maybe even evil places. They've both been abused in many ways, no beating around the bush. But if I were to give an estimation of how often that occurred, it would be like a two out of ten scenario. Which is too much obviously. Franky has grown to believe that every new house is a new danger. So she never ever trusts anyone during her life as a foster kid. To the extent that her and Dean have a rule about it. So even if a person is nice or tries with them, both Franky and Dean ignore, rebuff and are even mean to the person trying. There are few exceptions.

Franky is critical and cynical about every family she ever stayed with. For example, the house I wrote about where Franky and Dean met was actually pretty good. When Dean is moved Franky makes a comment along the lines of, "they didn't want him hurting any more kids (or the rest of their plates)". The entire story is told from Franky's point of view so we never know if that's the absolute truth of it. The fosters could have been genuinely fearful of the safety of the other children. But to Franky the truth of it was that they made him leave to save their belongings and since it's her pov it's said with certainty. The thing about having a first person narrative is that what the narrator says is only their version of events. I like to play with that with Franky. But I've started to worry that since people see events through her jadedness people will start to think that every person Franky and Dean has ever met is a terrible, awful, neglectful abusive person. The truth is that the vast majority of people they meet are just normal people with good and bad attached to all of them. (note: this isn't counting the kids. Kids are heartless little beasts to each other)

Franky and Dean were troublemakers. When they were tweens and young teenagers they reveled in this fact. They loved giving people they perceived as enemies hell. And since they saw everyone as enemies they had a lot of targets. They weren't bullies. They were disobedient with adults and ignored people their own age. If someone attacked them first they were all for revenge though. This isn't to say they're bad kids. I happen to think Franky and Dean are awesome, but I would have to classify myself as biased.

Franky made the biggest exception of her life when she met Jeff and Geoff. Call it destiny maybe. I think she was floored by the fact that someone showed actual interest in her that wasn't in any way paid to do so. When she started to get to know them she started to open up her heart. Even when it was closed off Franky was the more forgiving of her and Dean. So after she moved in with Jeff and Geoff and started to feel safe in at least one place she started to not follow the rule of not trusting people as closely as she did. And when she got to Bristol at first she wasn't going to trust Mini and co, but she talked it over with her manikin (aka, with herself) and decided "New start yeah? New start", and she decided to trust.

When she did that she sort of started to overcompensate. She opened her heart so wide that she forgave Mini quickly and basically gave her new friends anything and everything she possibly could. It's like she can't find a happy medium between being shut off and being the most giving and loving person she can be. She just wants the people that she has to stay and she doesn't want to give them an excuse to not need her anymore.

And that is how I write them.