Nott and Beau - I'm Sorry, Also, Shove it Up Your Ass

[ax_goblin]

Someone probably should have told Nott that Beau came back to the school with the others. Their reunion starts poorly, goes okay in the middle, and the end... Welp.

Sometime around two in the morning, Beau found herself stumbling out of bed to find the bathroom. The drugs they'd had her on had worn off somewhat, but she was still a little groggy as she stepped out of her room in hospital gown, leggings, and barefeet. The big hulking guy had told her where to find the restroom, but being so late at night, the lights were dimmed in the main portion of the infirmary, making things a little more difficult to make out in her state. Especially with one eye almost swollen shut.

Nott hadn't been sleeping. Oh sure, she'd curled up next to Caleb on his bed and listened to him sleeping, and she'd told the doctor guy she wanted some rest. But mostly she was lying there reassuring herself that Caleb was alive, that Trent couldn't have followed them through a teleporting whatever, and trying to figure out what all of this meant. Until she really needed to pee.

So she'd scuttled very stealthy-like out of the bed, not wanting to wake Caleb, and crept along the dimly lit hall in the direction of the bathroom she'd used earlier. It was so quiet that Nott didn't really think she needed to be on high alert, and when she turned a sharp corner, she definitely wasn't prepared to stumble right into somebody's legs. She jumped back immediately, catching herself from toppling over with a small hand with tiny claws gripping the wall. "Ooof! Sorry, so sorry, I didn't-"

Beau looked down and blinked, then smiled warily at the sight of the girl she'd uh, kidnapped and all. "Oh. Heeeyyyy, you."

Nott looked up and blinked, her yellow eyes going as wide around as they could go (which was really pretty big). She didn't say anything for a second, taking a big, deep breath. Then...she shrieked, louder than it seemed should be possible for someone her size, and spun around to run away.

"Whoaheywhoashhhhh," Beau hissed, reaching out to grab the back of Nott's shirt to keep her from running through the infirmary screaming her lungs out. "Shhhhhh!"

"KIDNAPPER," Nott yelled in answer, struggling hard against Beau's hold but not making much progress. The other girl was nearly twice her size and carved out of wood. "Kidnapper at the school! Help! She's gonna beat me to a pulp and drag me back to Trent! Save me, Dr. Sexy!"

"I'm not a kidnapper!" Beau protested louder, then paused. "Okay, yes I am, but I'm not a kidnapper now! I'm not going to drag you anywhere! Just stop screaming before you burst an eardrum!"

Nott's heart felt like it might pop right out of her long ears, but she did stop yelling and struggling for a moment just enough to think about what she was seeing. The Kidnapper Girl was wandering around the infirmary of the place Caleb had called his home with a busted eye, in a drafty hospital gown. That definitely made her less intimidating than before, even if was the same 'ol abrasive attitude Nott remembered. "You're not? ...Then...what are you even doing here?"

Slowly, carefully, Beau let go of the smaller girl. She rubbed at one ear, then leaned back against the wall. "I got kidnapped. Kind of. I mean I guess I'm here because I want to be now, but it was a whole thing. You were knocked out and Trent started having his goons beat up that kid. It wasn't...wasn't what he said it was supposed to be, okay?"

Nott's face scrunched as she tried to put together what the girl was saying over her pounding heart. "Wait, wait. Trent's goons were beating up a kid..." She thought of the concussion, the bruised face and broken glasses, and how she'd thought for one moment Caleb had actually duked it out with Trent himself. "Red hair, glasses, very skinny and weak?"

"Yeah," Beau confirmed. "Which made it all the more idiotic that he was standing up to them, trying to rescue you."

That made Nott's heart flutter in an entirely different way, and she frowned. "So they beat up Caleb when he showed up, and you..." Had the girl said she was kidnapped too? "But you were working for Trent," Nott pointed a finger in accusation, her words picking up pace. "You chased me down and took me to him as Caleb-bait! What do you mean, it wasn't what it was supposed to be?!"

"Keep your voice down," Beau growled softly. "I didn't know that's why he wanted you! He told me that we were getting a dangerous mutant off the streets. That he was going to teach you, like he taught me!"

"You keep your voice down," Nott hissed, only appearing to stop and consider the absurdity of the meaning to those words after they'd already been said. "That's - You know what - W-what could someone like that even teach you? An advanced class in how to beat up people who are smaller than you, is that it? What you did was TERRIBLE, and you almost killed me and Caleb and-" Hadn't he said something about a friend being the one to get them here? Other kids? "And other people, probably! Did you just take this guy at his word that all of that was cool?"

"No! I mean, I mean yes I did, at first!" Beau took a tentative breath, wincing softly. "He - helped me! He taught me how to use my powers! And no, maybe I didn't look too closely at why, okay? But what matters is that when I saw what he was doing to you and your friend, I snapped out of it."

"So, what, some eccentric old man shows up and tells you he's a mutant and that he understands you and you should come home with him and he'll teach you how to use your powers and give you room and board and you can stop running for once in your life and maybe beat up some bad guys along the way, that's supposed to be everything you need to hear...to justify..." Nott stopped to take a breath. "Huh. Okay, that actually sounds- But hold on a minute, how did that get you here, with us, in an ass-flashing gown and a shiner?"

"Hey, I've got leggings on, thank you very much!" Beau argued, showing off the soft black leggings underneath her not-so-flattering gown. "And I'm here because I helped keep the guys off of your friend long enough for him to get you out of there. Then for some reason, some friends of his show up, say we're leaving, and when I go with them to get away from Trent, one clubs me over the head like a jerk and I end up here."

Nott was actually quiet for a beat, working on all of that. Her tone was less aggressive than it had been once she started back up again. "Which friend was it? With the clubbing over the head?"

"What?" Beau stared down at her. "I don't know. Why? What does it matter. One of the blonde ones or something. The purple one was driving."

"No reason," Nott warbled quietly, in the direction of her toes. Just maybe she liked that one best, that's all. But no, it probably shouldn't matter. (Purple, really?)

Nott looked back up at the girl, still a little wary, but not terrified or angry like she had been. "What's your name? You know mine already, but I don't know yours."

"Beau, and come on, my bladder is gonna burst, so you can ask me twenty questions while I pee," the older girl told her, leading the way down the hall to the bathroom the doctor had showed her.

Nott seemed unsure, but she decided to follow before Beau was more than a few steps ahead of her. Which, she hustled to catch up all the same. "Yeah, I gotta go too," she admitted. Neither of them made a very delicate young lady.

Beau left the door cracked as she took care of business, wincing at the sight of her face in the mirror, then called out to Nott, "Look, whatever, I don't apologize for much, and it wasn't really my fault, but I'm sorry for that whole mess in Chicago."

"Is that what you call an apology?" Nott waited outside to use the single-toilet bathroom situation, calling back at Beau. "I understand you didn't realize what you were getting into, okay? But if you're going to say you're sorry, because maybe you feel bad that you almost killed a few of the people you're about to start going to school with, even unintentionally - you can do better than that."

The toilet flushed, and Beau moved to the sink, staring at her face in the mirror a little longer before turning on the water. She didn't answer Nott right away, washing her hands, then drying them, but when she opened the door, she crouched down in front of her. "What do you want me to say? I'm sorry I ever trusted this guy that came along and acted like he was helping me? They were going to ship me out to some island for...I don't even know what, but he took me away. So yeah, I did what he wanted, and I didn't think too hard about why he wanted me to do it."

Nott blinked at the girl, suddenly, strangely at eye-level for a change. "Uh. Not really?"

She looked at the swelling around Beau's eye before she met her gaze again, and took a deep breath. "Earlier today... An eccentric old man showed up and told me he's a mutant, and that he understood me. He said he'd try to help teach me how to use my powers and give me room and board. That I could stop running for once in my life. And maybe, if I told him some of what I knew, I could even help stop what happened to me and Caleb from happening to somebody else." Nott shrugged. "I get it. It's just... If you're going to apologize for something, you should mean it. And really try not to be bitchy about it when you say the words."

“Yeah well, that’s not really something I do well,” Beau told her, frowning.

Nott was shifting restlessly in place now, biting her lip as she danced the universal pee-pee dance. "See, it's that face, that tone in your voice," she told Beau even as she pushed past her into the bathroom. "You seem like you're about to take my lunch money, not make nice," she said, peeking out with the shield of the bathroom door between them. Then she scurried to go do the thing.

Beau used the wall to carefully push to her feet, then leaned a shoulder against the door jam as she waited. "Well, to be fair, I'm more used to taking lunch money than making nice."

After a momentary clamor and a pause, the piddling sounds started, and Nott sighed her relief. "That was a crummy apology. But I'm also pretty sure you wouldn't have turned on Trent if you didn't really feel bad about what happened. And if he ever did anything to you like what he did to me..." A shiver went down her spine. "I believe you. That it wasn't really your fault."

Beau's jaw tightened and she stared at the wall. She didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to wonder... how much control he'd had over her actions. How much of that had been him, and how much of it had been her? Had any of it? Her stomach turned over and she turned and kicked at the hard stone wall. "So, what? We're good?"

Nott straightened for a moment, flexing her ears at the sound of impact on the other side of the wall, but she relaxed when there didn't seem to be more violence coming. "We're okay," she agreed, rustling around to finish straightening herself out in there and coming back, leaving the door open behind her for the next person.

She looked up at Beau, and it was as direct a look as she could muster at her height. "I can forgive what happened. But I don't trust you either." It had crossed her mind that if Trent wanted to put someone in the school, as a spy or something... This would be one way to go about it.

"Fair," Beau shrugged and turned back toward the area where the rooms were. "I probably wouldn't trust me either."

"Are you going to apologize to anybody else who was there?" Nott had no idea if Beau would actually bother, but she did watch Beau's expression with interest as she tagged along.

“Uh.” Beau looked down at her. “Why should I? I didn’t hurt them.”

"Caleb got hurt all the same," Nott reminded. "Because of Trent. Because of you. Sort of." Because of me. "The other kids who were there, I don't know."

"Yeah well, that's on Trent," Beau sniffed, trying not to think too hard on what Trent might have made her do. "You, I get. The others? Hell, I probably saved their asses."

Nott gave her a dubious squint, but then decided it wasn't worth arguing about. If Beau really didn't care, some stranger telling her maybe she should wasn't going to change anything. And if she really did care - well, the same, come to think of it. "If you say so."

"So - can you not scream 'Kidnapper' at me the next time you see me?" Beau asked. "Because I guess I'm sticking around for a little while until Trent stops looking for me, and it would be kind of awkward."

"If you're all done kidnapping for now, yes." That reminded Nott of something else. "Hey, how did you even do that thing, when you caught me? You were way behind and then you were on top of me in no time flat. Way faster than you could've run it, with all those people in the way. Unless you run like, crazy fast, and that's your power!"

"In bursts," Beau agreed, nodding. "Yeah, I can put on a burst of speed when I need to. So I just, you know, waited until you turned down that alley, then sprinted ahead of you."

"Wow," Nott thought aloud. "You did use your powers for evil, and you've got a horrible attitude, but that was impressive!"

"Uh. Thanks?" Beau frowned. Was the little girl insulting her or complimenting her? Who could tell? "So was your little illusion trick, by the way."

Nott cocked her head slightly as she looked up at Beau, as if doing her own puzzling over if that was honest or not. "...Did you really think so?"

"Yeah?" Beau frowned. "Why the hell would I say it if I didn't mean it? You nearly had me fooled. You should get your story straight next time though. You know - get into character."

In contrast, Nott's lips spread in an amused smile around her sharp fangs. "I did! There was the whole - I had a name for her, I found a stick for her to walk with, like an old person, I talked about Florida!"

"That's what gave you away," Beau pointed out. "No old person just runs off to Florida, no plans. I mean, not one that isn't planning to go off themselves instead or something."

"I wasn't exactly planning on getting grilled for backstory details going in to buy some booze," Nott said in her defense.

"Guess you have a point there," Beau agreed grudgingly.

Beau acted so tough that it surprised Nott when she agreed to something. She walked quietly alongside her for a minute, making up her mind about something.

"Caleb really likes it here," she said once she was almost back at the room they were using for the night. "He says it's like his home now. And I sure don't have any other place to go. Maybe if we tried, it could be that way for us, too."

"You keep complaining that I'm evil, and you're suggesting that I stick around and be school buddies with you?" Beau asked, stopping outside her door.

"You don't have to be buddies with me." She didn't know if Beau even liked her or not, or the other way around. They'd only just met - really met. "I think you did a bad thing," Nott explained. "Absolutely. But doing one bad thing doesn't have to make you a bad person for the rest of your life, does it?"

"How do you know that was the only bad thing I did?" Beau asked her.

"I don't," Nott said with emphasis, because it was a good point. "I have no idea what you might've done in the past, to other people in other places. All I know is what I see you doing from now on. If you keep doing bad things and I see that, well, I'm going to have a low opinion of you." She paused briefly, tipping her head back to actually look Beau in the eyes instead of just in her general direction. "But if I look at you and I see someone who's trying to get her shit together, who's trying to do good things, even if they don't pan out all the time, and, and, figure herself out... That's hard work. That sort of a person deserves some respect."

Beau's features darkened at the whole 'get her shit together' part. It sounded all too familiar - words said right before she lost two years of her life to the Soul and afterward, Trent. "Hey, here's a thought. How about you take all of your judginess and shove it up your ass. Respect me or not - I don't give a shit, but I also don't care what you think my life should look like, or how I should act. I like myself - I approve of myself, and yeah, maybe trusting that dickwad was a mistake, but overall, I'm a fucking awesome person, and if you think I have to work at it to deserve your respect, then maybe you need to learn a little more about how to respect yourself."

Nott blinked, nonplussed for a moment. "That's... I thought you were - That we were - I was just trying to -" Trying to give Beau some credit, since it seemed like she cared what someone else thought for a moment?

Then she shook her head with an annoyed look, flapping out her ears. "Fine, you're right, what do you care what I think anyway? You're SOOOOOO fucking awesome," she muttered, turning back for the room she was sharing with Caleb for the night.

Turning on her heel, Beau disappeared back into her own room, closing the door. Okay - so maybe that could have gone better. Maybe she had some stuff to work on after all? But Beau was so tired, and so pissed about... well, life, that she didn't bother thinking too hard on it just yet. A problem for another day.

Comments

[ax_spellbinder]

These two are so perfect on their own and then you go and write them together and idek man it's just great.

Beau, I love you, never change

Nott, you are the best of best friends

[ax_glory]

Aw, they were soooooooo close up to those last 3 paragraphs. <3

So perfectly in-character for these two!

[ax_artist]

Omg that was so brilliant. <3 <3 <3