#also tbh this phase of his life was 100% engineered to get people to leave him alone

[bosspigeon]

maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Pairing: Gen, with Tina Poname & Male Detective Friendship Word Count: 2187 Summary: Tina Poname’s the new kid in a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere, and is learning the hard way that making new friends in a place like Wayhaven is easier said than done. Luckily, she’s got a can-do attitude and a forceful personality to help her befriend even the surliest of loners.

I just think Tina’s such a good character, and I loved trying to write from her point of view, and I love thinking about her friendship with the Detective. Especially with my boy, Arlo. I also read a bunch of articles trying to put together his infodump on the Satanic Panic fhdasjhgjskahg. Title, of course, taken from “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance. (I like to think I’m Funny)

Tina takes her lunch in the courtyard.

It’s overcast outside, looking like it might rain later, but the courtyard is nice enough, landscaped with flowering plants and rustic stone pathways, though it is kind of small. She’d rather sit inside, just in case it does start pouring, but every table in the cafeteria was full, and the ones that weren’t very quickly became full when she walked past with her lunch bag. She’s learned quickly that small towns like Wayhaven tend to be pretty… insular.

She’s trying not to let it get her down. She’s the new kid, and with time other students will warm up to her, but for now she feels like she’s the ugly duckling set adrift in a little pond, and all the other ducklings think she has the plague or something. The metaphor gets away from her a bit, but her head’s been a bit of a jumble since the last move. But that’s leading towards things she’d rather not think about, so she doesn’t. Simple as that.

Instead she looks around her, taking in the very pretty little courtyard, even if it’s washed in the moody tones of the grey sky overhead, made more moody still by the shade of a tall, gnarled old ash tree in the center. There are a few wooden picnic tables scattered about, all of them empty.

All of them but one.

Tina almost doesn’t see him at first. He’s hunched over at a table directly under the ash tree, his back to her. His long black hair hangs almost to the bottom of his shoulder blades in loose waves, and all she can think is that he’s never seen a boy with hair so pretty before. Every time she sees a boy with long hair, it’s always a frizzy mess, and whenever she brings up that they really shouldn’t use all-in-one shampoo, they get all annoyed with her.

She makes the decision to flounce right over, rounds the table, and wiggles into the bench across from him. “Your hair’s so pretty!” she chirps by way of greeting, unzipping her lunch bag and beaming at him. He looks up at her, and she’s a bit stricken when she sees his face properly. His dark brows are bold slashes scrunching over pale grey eyes lined in smeary black makeup that streaks down his freckled cheeks. He’s got a square jaw and a strong nose, but he still leans more into pretty territory than handsome, and she’s beginning to figure out that the uniform guidelines in the student handbook are taken as more suggestions than law, given that his lip, nose, and ears are pierced.

He doesn’t respond, squinting at her, his mouth twisting into a frown.

“I’m Tina!” she offers cheerily. “I like your makeup!”

He frowns harder, almost snarling, with a bit of teeth showing, like he’s hoping to scare her away. Well, Tina Poname isn’t so easy to scare, and she’s determined not to spend lunch alone. She just smiles right back and starts rooting through her lunch bag, pulling out the neatly packed containers of healthy fruit and veggies and hard boiled eggs to find the yogurt-covered pretzels hidden at the bottom. She crunches on one while she eyes her new tablemate, who seems to have resigned himself to her delightful company and has turned his attention back to a notebook he’s doodling in while absently eating something she thinks is a kind of pretty little spring roll. It looks really good, and she’s a bit jealous.

He staunchly ignores her eyes on him, shifting a bit and tossing the hair hanging in his face over one shoulder, so she can properly see the black enamel inverted cross dangling from his ear. Without thinking, she leans across the table and flicks it.

He flinches away from her and glowers with such ire she’s surprised her clothes aren’t smouldering. She smiles sheepishly, but brushes off the surprise and barrels on. “I can’t imagine you’re too popular wearing those in a quiet little town like this,” she chimes in a teasing sing-song. “Wonder how many old die-hard religious types burst into flames at the sight of you?”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes so hard it gives Tina a headache. But she’s also more than a little pleased she’s gotten a reaction out of him.

She leans into it, figuring she’s found her in. “So, are you a Satanist or what? It’s cool if you are! Just think it must be hell in this place.” She can’t help but cackle at her own joke, slapping the tabletop and wheezing. When she recovers enough to notice, she catches him eyeballing her like he can’t quite figure out exactly what’s wrong with her. It’s a look she knows pretty well at this point.

“I’m not an anything,” he sighs, tapping his fingers on the wooden tabletop. His nails are painted black, but they’re chipping at the tips, and he’s wearing a few really cool rings, a couple of which looks like they might be antiques. “Besides that, the whole inverted cross being a symbol of Satanism is bullshit.” His voice is pretty deep, but not nearly as deep as she expected it to be, and softer besides, with a light, lilting burr to it. Regardless, Tina’s delighted to have gotten anything more than grunts and glares from him at all. She leans forward, crunching another pretzel. “Wait, really? What’s it mean, then?”

“It’s the cross of Saint Peter,” he almost bursts out, and then pinches his lips shut, like even he’s surprised he said anything. He looks at her warily, but she just waves at him to go on. He hesitates for another moment, before he continues haltingly, “When Peter the Apostle was supposedly executed under Nero, he’s said to have requested he be crucified upside-down, because he felt he wasn’t worthy to die the way Jesus did.” His broad, tight shoulders are loosening bit by bit the more he talks. “It’s a symbol of humility. It’s even used in the design for the papal cross, because the Pope is supposed to be the successor of Peter. And because of its mistaken associations with Satanism, now people like to claim the Pope is the antichrist.”

He rolls his eyes again and picks up another spring roll, gesturing at her with it before taking a bite and continuing while he chews. “I’m not sure exactly when people decided turning the cross upside-down suddenly makes it evil, but it can probably be traced back to the whole Satanic Panic debacle that kicked up in the 70s through the 90s. Anton LaVey—fuck that guy, by the way—published The Satanic Bible in ‘69, but most of it was pretty much plagiarized from a lot of other authors who philosophized about self-actualization and whatnot, including Ayn Rand—fuck her too—and then The Exorcist movie came out, and those things combined with the whole Manson cult thing earlier in the 60s and kicked off this sort of pop culture fascination with the occult and macabre. A lot of metal bands and other counter-culture music artists started using them in album art along with other bastardized religious imagery, and it turned into a whole thing with religious pearl-clutchers.”

Tina is astounded. Not just by the subject of the conversation (which is really cool, in kind of a weird way?) but with the way the boy  turns into a completely different person in the blink of an eye. Just a few minutes ago, he was all dour and moody and mean, looking as if he was a second away from biting her head off, and in the space of a few seconds, he’s morphed into someone totally different. His eyes are brighter and more expressive, he’s talking with his hands, and even the kind of monotone voice she’d heard from him before has changed. “Wow,” she says with no small amount of awe.

He seems to regain himself when she speaks, as if he’d forgotten he was talking to another person entirely. She watches him shrink, hunching his shoulders and looking down at the table, scooping up his pen and viciously scribbling a little spiral into the top corner of his notebook.

“No, seriously!” she blurts, standing up and bracing both hands on the table so she can lean into his space. “That’s really cool! How do you know all that?”

He gives her that same wary, hunted look from earlier, and she can’t help but pout. She wants to see what she saw just a second ago, when he looked like he was excited to talk about something. “Just stuff I picked up a while ago, and thought it was cool, I guess.” He shrugs and looks away, tugging at the spiked chain around his neck partially hidden under the crooked collar of his uniform shirt. “There’s this bookstore a couple towns over that kind of specializes in this stuff.” He lifts his hands and wiggles his fingers, mouth cocking in a wry almost-smile. “Plus, there’s always the magic of the internet.”

She laughs brightly, and it takes every ounce of her meager self-restraint not to reach out and try to physically drag that other boy out of him. “Oh, that sounds fun! We should go together sometime!”

He blinks at her, like she’s hit him over the head with her lunch bag. “Wh… what?”

She leans forward harder, until she’s essentially standing on her tip-toes and bouncing. “We should hang out! I’m sure if I ask really nice, my stepmom will drive us out there. It’ll be great!”

He keeps staring at her. She bounces a bit faster, hoping he doesn’t notice the pimple she couldn’t quite cover with foundation before she had to leave this morning. And if he does, she hopes he doesn’t say anything about it, because she doesn’t think trying to fight him will ingratiate her to him overmuch.

“I’ll buy lunch and everything,” she wheedles.

“I…” He looks away, eyebrows all scrunched again, but she can see him wavering. She wants to punch the air. Never doubt Tina Poname! “I guess? But why?”

Her smile falls a little at the genuine confusion in his voice, the way he’s not looking at her anymore, even to glare, the way he’s twisting one of his rings around his finger and almost hiding behind his thick, dark hair. She tilts her head and blinks at him. “Because I think you’re cool? Besides that, this town is kinda weird about new people? And you’re the only person who didn’t put a bag or book on every available seat when I walked by.”

“Mostly because I didn’t see you coming,” he mutters under his breath, and she barks out a laugh.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ambushed potential friends,” she giggles. “Hasn’t failed me yet. Except when it has, but I don’t count those.”

He finally looks at her again, still kind of hidden behind a curtain of hair, but she thinks he’s actually smiling at her. He starts to open his mouth to say something, but flinches instead when the shrill ring of the bell indicating the end of lunch interrupts him. He swears under his breath and starts to gather up his things, and Tina starts shoveling pretzels into her mouth while pushing her untouched plastic containers back into her bag. She’s going to regret eating nothing but pretzels later, but at least they’re more filling than melon or carrot sticks.

“Hey wait!” she exclaims through a mouthful of pretzels as he begins to stand, almost tripping over the bench to block him in before he can leave. She’s staggered, suddenly, when he rises up to his full height and she’s looking very up at him. She’s been taller than most boys all her life, so this is a bit bizarre. He looks down at her with his brows raised, tucking his notebook into a satchel covered in patches and pins. “Wow, you’re tall,” she says astutely, swallowing her pretzels.

“Uh… yeah, I am,” he responds.

She shakes off her shock and backs up enough to let him out of his side of the table, but she blocks his path to the door still. Though she’s not sure she could stop him from going anywhere if he really wanted to get past her, with those long legs of his. “I forgot to ask! What’s your name?”

He hesitates again before he quietly says, “Arlo.”

She shoves a hand out at him, “Tina Poname, at your service!”

He grants her a shake with his big, ring-laden hand, obviously bemused, but he’s doing that maybe-smile again, so she thinks she’s done pretty well here. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.” He turns and walks a few long steps away, then pauses and turns back towards her, waiting for her scamper to his side.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” she says a little breathlessly, swinging her bag and turning to him with a sly little smile “since you’re the local here, what teachers will let me get away with eating in class?”