In Our Last Interaction, I Lost a Rib 'Cause I'm Out of Practice

[PUBLIC thanks to secrets week]

2011-12-15T22:07:45Z

I didn't get into any of my top choice colleges.

None of them.

College guidance thinks it's because of my behavioral record.

[locked appropriately]

2011-09-06T01:55:10Z

School tomorrow.

Ugh.

[public]

2011-08-22T12:18:54Z

I've almost run away nine times in my life.

I was too chicken to kill myself, so I tried to get someone else to do it for me.

I'm a guardian angel but I can't take care of my ward. I can't even take care of myself.

[locked appropriately]

2011-06-01T18:04:44Z

AUGH exams are a bitch.

~~fucking precalc seriously what is this shit~~

And it's too NICE out to study any way, for the first time in a hundred thousand years.

Only three more days.

[backdated to earlier in the week, locked appropriately]

2011-05-14T20:55:16Z

I fucking hate being sick.

Dreams aren't helping shit either.

[Fic] Ghosts Blown Away Like Paper Bags

2011-03-17T23:09:10Z

Leon had never really had a family.

That was what they said, anyway. The foster parents and the social workers, the public defenders and the teachers. It was whispered over his head, talked about while he sat in another room, said aloud over his head. "Leon's never really had a family."

They were wrong.

Technically, of course, they were right--both of Leon's parents had died by the time he was two, and because they were new immigrants, instead of being handed off to relatives, he was tossed into foster care. He knew that story--a social worker had told it to him at five, after his first fight.

They were still wrong. Leon had a family.

His dad--he called him Dad--was an analyst. At five, Leon didn't really know what an analyst did, but one of his earliest foster fathers had been an analyst, and it sounded professional enough to be something Leon could be proud of. His mother--"Mom"--was a librarian, but she only worked part time. He had a baby sister, who his mother had to take care of. She was three years younger than Leon, and her name was Sarah, and he loved her very much.

Leon knew better than to tell anyone about his family. He wasn't stupid, and he knew--had seen the other kids go to behavioral therapists when they refused to acknowledge that their parents were dead. He knew better than to talk about how his dad had gotten a promotion, or how his sister was really smart and could say her whole alphabet and knew which letters were vowels. But when he woke up at night from a nightmare, he didn't call for Mrs. Henderson. His mom was already there, gathering him up in her arms, and his dad was wiping his hair fro his face, and from across the apartment, he could almost hear Sarah's soft, even breathing in the dark.

So that's why Leon didn't say anything when the second grade bullies asked him mockingly about his mom, or when his dad was coming to pick him up. Mom had to be home that day with Sarah, who had a cold, and Dad was working late. But then one of the boys grabbed the back of Leon's backpack and whirled him around. "Answer me," he growled, his breath smelling like Mrs. Henderson's cat's litter box. "Where's your mom? Huh?"

"At home," Leon snapped, too annoyed to try to think up an excuse. He wriggled in the older boy's grasp. "Now let me go!"

"Bullshit!" the other kid snapped, using a word he had clearly overheard the middle schoolers using. "My mom says you don't HAVE a mom, and that you live with Old Man Henderson from the grocery store and his wife 'cause no one else wants you!"

Leon's face flashed red and without even thinking, he struck out with a tightly closed fist, connecting with the boy's nose. The boy stumbled backwards as blood gushed from his nostrils, and then he started crying, which seemed to be the signal for his buddy to tackle Leon and start hitting. "You made him bleed!" the boy shouted hysterically. "You made him bleed!"

Leon's face was a map of bruises by the time a teacher intervened, and as much as they didn't believe that a six year old had a chance against an almost-eight-year-old, they couldn't account for the bloody nose, and so they had to suspend Leon, especially after he openly admitted to starting the fight. The Hendersons explained to Leon's sweaty social worker that they couldn't handle a kid who started fights, and he was bounced to another home in another school district.

Leon switched foster parents and left his family behind. For a make-believe family, they hadn't done him much good. That black mark on his record, that was all their fault, and he would never really forgive them for it, so when he packed his bag, he deliberately ripped up their family portrait and left it in the garbage with the used tissues and rotting apple cores. He was done with them now, and he had a bus to catch.

Muse: Leon Warner
Word count: 696 words
Prompt: "Is it wrong to love a family of ghosts?" for savich_inc

[Fic] Speak with Clubs and Axes

2010-06-04T16:46:04Z

"You can't just go around hitting people," Kait used to tell him. Leon would have his fists curled up, bruised and swollen, and she would be sitting on her cheap desk from Office Max that cost twenty bucks at the back to school sale. She deserved more and he knew that and it made him mad that she wasn't getting recognition for everything she did for all the kids she worked with. "Leon. Look at me. Look at me." Leon's eyes would flicker back to her, the resentment in his eyes--not resentment at her, never at her, but at... everyone else, he guessed. It wasn't fair. He wasn't supposed to have to worry about this. It wasn't fair!

"Leon. Leon David Warner. Are you even listening to me?"

"Don't say that," he growled, adjusting in the cheap plastic chair so it didn't poke at the huge bruise in his back. "Don't use my full name. It's not yours to use."

It wasn't fair to her either, though, bringing that up. Not that she wanted to be his mother--she didn't, really she didn't--but she knew that she wasn't going to get any further with him and she needed too, because he was in trouble again. He was suspended again.

"Leon," she said gently. "Leon, I need you to understand. If you get into another fight this year, they are going to have no choice but to kick you out. Do you understand me, Leon? You are going to have to switch schools and with your current record, I don't know if I'll be able to get you IN anywhere. You've got to get an education--you're doing really well in math right now, and I don't want you to have to take geometry AGAIN as a senior."

"I hate geometry," is what he meant to say, but what ended up coming out was "I hate you." He instantly felt bad about it, but couldn't say anything because she just slumped down, the curves of her shoulders sinking in their beige top.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Leon," she said simply, no longer looking at him. Leon looked to his feet, then to his swollen fists. "I just hope you realize in the long run that I AM trying to help you. It's hard to keep you with a foster family if you're going to cause so much trouble, and soon I won't really be able to help you at all."

"I know." Leon's voice was thick, but he wasn't going to cry. He was just going to keep staring at his fists, curled up in his lap. He squeezed one shut and caught a whimper of pain in his throat.

"Okay. As long as you know," Kait said. That's what Leon liked about her the most--she didn't treat him like every word that came out of his mouth was bullshit. She believed in him, and she believed HIM. The first social worker they'd paired him up with--Roger Stevens, what a fuckhead--apparently thought that all kids without parents or living relatives to go to were pathological liars who were physically incapable of telling the truth. He used to go 'Really? Is that really what happened?' at every single thing Leon said. That's when Leon learned hitting people made them pay attention to what you said.

"Can I go?" he asked uncomfortably, wanting to get out of the awkward silence and the cold musty smell of the Child Services department. "I've got... geometry homework to do."

"Yes, you can go, but Leon, I want you to email your teachers and demand you get the homework every single night. You're not going to spend this suspension doing nothing. And I'm going to talk to someone at the soup kitchen and get you some volunteering hours, okay? I think it'd be good for you to start thinking less about hitting people and more about helping them." Kait was all business again, and Leon didn't really care too much. She'd made him volunteer before, and while it wasn't his favorite thing to do, he didn't mind it all that much.

"Okay," he said. "Are you gonna call me tonight?"

"9 o'clock," she confirmed with a nod, sliding off her desk and walking behind it to examine some paperwork. "And I want you in bed and asleep by 11:30, okay?"

"Yes ma'am," he said, holding in the urge to snap at her that he was seventeen and the Bergmans didn't give a damn what he did at night, so he could do whatever he damn well wanted. He slipped out of the office and walked down the hallway, the security guards eying him the whole time. Of course they were--he had a huge friggin' black eye and that just screamed Bad Kid. Troublemaker. Whatever. He just wanted to go home and eat dinner and do his homework.

Except when he pushed the door open, there was Ricky Cross, standing across the street smoking with his asshole friends. Ricky Cross was the preppiest prepster in the whole school who had somehow managed to gather a small army of thuggish guys so that you didn't dare question Ricky's sexuality even if he wore his sweaters tied around his neck. He wasn't wearing one today, which was unfortunate, because Leon wanted nothing more than to strangle him with one of those ugly pastel sweaters.

"Look who it is," Ricky Cross sneered at the top of his lungs, just so Leon could hear him. "The PROBLEM CHILD. Out to serve your suspension in a back alley with your people, Warner?"

"You don't even know who the fuck my people are, Cross," Leon growled, curling his hands into fists and ignoring the shooting pain that was coming from his (probably broken) middle finger. "So get the fuck out."

"Oh, I am well-aware of who your people are. Trash people. Who was your mother, Warner, a crack whore?"

Leon's wings were twitching under his skin, and it was HURTING. "Shut your mouth, Cross," he growled.

"What are you going to do, Warner? You're on suspension. You're in enough trouble as it is."

"Yeah, but that's the thing. I'm in enough trouble. I'm not going to get in any MORE trouble." And with that, Leon was throwing himself across the street, tackling fucking Ricky Cross like it was his job. He only got two or three punches at Ricky fat fleshy pink face before being ripped away by one of Ricky's henchmen, but he left enough blood to ruin poor Ricky's J. Crew polo. And that was enough--showing that he had enough fight left in him, proving he had a mark to make, in the form of a black eye. What happened next wasn't important. Leon was grinning as the other boys started in on him. Kait was going to kill him, but he had never felt so good.

Muse: Leon Warner
Word count: 1143 words
Prompt: "How satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface. To make a map of my movement - no matter how temporary."-Craig Thompson" for throughworlds