Teddie Bear Tears

[Slam]

((Teddie Boyd continued from Yumeno Hajima Ring Ring))

Yeah, this was- this was really fucking great, you know?

Teddie Boyd was locked in a bathroom stall, knees to his chest and face streaked red with tears. He was struggling his hardest to keep quiet, so as to not alert every other boy in the room to the fact that he was having a nervous breakdown after a mere five minutes with his classmates. He had not actually seen anyone else in the bathroom when he entered, which was lucky, but he could tell from the sound of the door opening and closing that that was changing.

Fuck, he was pathetic.

What was wrong with him? All he had to do was go back to school, be happy and enjoy being around everyone. Just be cool to people, not be an asshat, and it would all get back to normal.

Instead, he had jumped down Jessica’s throat and made a huge shitshow argument, and wound up looking like a total prick over it. Now the other girls probably thought he’d become a complete bastard over the course of lockdown, and they’d never want to hang out with him ever again. And Marshall, Marshall was probably telling on him to a teacher or something. Fuck, it’s not like they were kids anymore, but he didn’t want to get chewed out. The teachers might even take away his mascot role after all this time!

“Ok, just- just breathe, Ted.” he whispered to himself, rocking back and forth on the toilet seat. He really needed to get himself under control, even though he didn’t know if he’d be able to face the rest of the school again afterwards. Maybe he could claim he had to go home sick? Maybe that was the right idea?

Finally beat the pandemic, only to run away and hide at the first sign of trouble. Way to go, Teddie. Real good job.

[ViolentMedic]

((Marshall West continued from Yumeno Hajima Ring Ring.))

Marshall had made a mistake. He was unsure which part of what he’d said had been the mistake, but he had definitely made one. He had been left behind initially by Teddie, due to an unwillingness to move faster than power-walking on the slippery floors. But there were only so many places someone could go while crying, if they wanted to keep it a secret.

He swung open the door, holding it wide open for a moment while he stared around the bathroom, in a wide-footed, aggressive stance that looked he was about to start a fight despite being there for the opposite. Someone who was in the middle of washing his hands gave Marshall a perplexed look, then returned his attention to the sink.

There was a closed cubicle not far from the door. Marshall closed the bathroom door behind him, then strode over towards it. He stopped in front of it and listened, with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face. After a moment of small noises, which Marshall couldn’t discern the nature of, he threw his brief moment of caution to the wind.

“Teddie!” Marshall bellowed at the door. “Are you in there?! I am here to apologize!”

[Pippi]

There was some kinda bullshit going on in the rest of the boy’s bathroom, and Robin Valenti had time for exactly none of it.

Cause, like, you know what 99% of decent human beings planned on doing when they entered a public bathroom? Taking a piss, or a mondo dump if they were in danger of ruining a pair of pants otherwise - cause, lets face it, if you willingly chose to shit in public bathrooms, you definitely weren’t a ‘decent human being’. The former was what Robin was here for; he’d gotten to school way too early, the months of learning from home having thrown his scheduling off like woah, and with time to kill he had decided to make the most of John Endecott’s meagre facilities. He’d filled his water bottle up, chucked most of his stuff into his locker, and headed over to the men’s room to relieve himself.

Only, it turned out he’d managed to pick the stall right next to some dude who was, like, mumbling to himself, like a drunk homeless dude you took a wide berth around on the street and made sure you didn’t make eye contact with. Was that… sniffling coming from the other cubicle, as well? Fucking christ. Yeah, it was the first day back at school - physically back at school, rather - but it wasn’t worth bursting into tears over.

Whatever. Sooner he got outta here, the sooner her could forget this emo weirdo had ever exi-

“Jesus FUCK, dude!”

If there’d been a roof on the stall, Robin would definitely be nursing a nasty concussion right now, Marshall’s yelling from about a foot away making him jump out of his skin. Seriously, had people fucking forgotten how to behave in public or something? Thank God he hadn’t even gotten round to unzipping yet, or else this whole thing woulda gotten real nasty, in every meaning of the word.

“Wrong stall, dude!" Robin yelled back, making sure his voice was at an actual reasonable volume. Not like that was exactly fucking difficult, in comparison to Marshall; even if the stall door and the mask over his face hadn’t muffled Robin’s voice, he was still in competition with someone who’d turned their own volume dial up to 11 and then ripped it right off.

“Fucking hell, seriously…”

He folded his arms and tapped his foot, trying to ignore the growing pressure in his lower half. Like hell he was about to go with a dude standing this close to him.

[Slam]

Oh Christ.

Teddie froze on the toilet seat, staying silent like a cornered puppy at the sound of Marshall’s undeniable foghorn voice. Apparently he had followed him back after his very public breakdown, with every intention of continuining the conversation. Because, you know, that made him feel a million fucking times better!

Not helping was the fact that someone, it turned out, had been in the stall next to him for long enough for Marshall to drag him into the conversation. Teddie couldn’t pin down the voice, it having been so long since he’d heard so many of his classmates, and that did absolutely nothing to alleviate Teddie’s concerns. It could’ve been his best friends or it could’ve been a total stranger; the only good option was that no-one was around to see him like this.

Teddie tried to think what to say or do, but his brain was still awash with panic and anxiety. The only thing he could think to do was huddle his knees into his chest, and all that resulted in was the toilet lid creaking under him. He put his feet back on the floor again, rather than risk it breaking and sending his ass plummeting into the toilet bowl.

With that token gesture of nothing accomplished, Teddie continued waiting silently, trembling in place. On literally any other circumstance he would chat up a storm with Marshall, or pretty much anyone. Right now he just didn’t have any coherent words in his brain though, and the last thing he wanted to do was open his mouth and humiliate himself even further. The mere thought of trying to do so was enough to make his heart beat all the faster, and his scrunch shut to try to stem the flood.

[ViolentMedic]

Oops.

“I apologize! Continue with your business!” Marshall yelled at the stall, in which a man who was certainly not Teddie Boyd was dwelling.

There was another occupied stall. That could be Teddie. There had been no response when Marshall yelled his name, however, so either there was no Teddie within the stall or he did not want to talk to Marshall. Both equally possible.

Marshall sighed, hands initially on his hips before he moved one up to irritably comb his fingers through his hair. It had gotten untidy in the power walk over. Marshall had left his comb in his locker.

If Teddie was in that stall, Marshall still needed to apologize. He had already made a mistake with his words once. Marshall had to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. He had to rehearse. Quietly.

Marshall removed a pen from one of his pockets and opened his hand. He didn’t want to mangle his English notebook. Instead he started writing on the palm of his hand.


Teddie, I am sorry you were sensitive to


No, wrong. Passive-aggressively blaming it on Teddie would not help. Marshall corrected it.


Teddie, I am sorry that you were I was insensitive to your feelings. Though you were in the wrong, I acted inappropriately and


Marshall continued to stand in the middle of the bathroom, scribbling on his hand and frowning.

[Pippi]

Robin rolled his eyes as Marshall gave his apologies. Fuckin’... whatever. The guy sounded genuine, if unnecessarily loud - which pretty much summed Marshall up to a tee - but if he’d used his brain for half a goddamn second, he wouldn’t have needed to say sorry in the first place. Knock on the stall doors if you really had to be a dipshit in a public bathroom, or better yet, realise that you shouldn’t be a fucking dipshit in a public bathroom!

Anyway. As previously stated; fuckin’ whatever. Marshall would move on and find the actual stall Teddie was hiding in, and they could both go about their merry business and let him piss in peace. Or, hell, maybe Marshall would just get bored and wander off to get into a shouting match with the school tannoy system. He really didn’t care which, to be honest, he just had to wait a little bit longer before he could relieve himself.

Waiting… Waiting… Still waiting…

…

Okay, what the fuck was going on?

There hadn’t been any sound of footsteps, or doors opening and shutting, or tearful make-up sessions, or anything like that. It didn’t sound like Marshall had budged an inch, in fact. Robin had thought that the yelling was bad enough, but the silence was somehow far, far worse, and way weirder to boot. It was unnerving, like the dude was somehow gazing right through the cubicle door, and Robin realised that he wasn’t gonna be able to rest easy until he found out exactly what was going on behind him.

.. But he also really, really badly needed to piss now, and only one of those things was giving him actual physical discomfort.

He waited a couple more seconds until, thank fuck, someone else in the bathroom started washing their hands, and he was finally able to go about his business, hoping that the sound of running faucet water would drown him out. He pulled the handle, zipped back up, turned, and unlocked the cubicle door, taking a single step forwards.

“What,” Robin asked, voice muffled by his mask over his lower face(McLaren, not Ferrari, a shocking oversight from such a prestigious organisation) and the flushing toilet behind him. “The fuck are you doing?”

[Yonagoda]

Lorenzo opened the door, just, like, because they've never really gotten to look closely on the inside of a men's bathroom, y'know?

(OK, ok, that's a horrible excuse, uh.)

They were met with a face full- well, like, ear-full of Teenaged Boy Arguing.

"What," they muttered, in a voice slightly more high pitched than the one that they are accustomed to. (Wow, big words there. Accustomed.)

"Are you guys OK?"

They didn't step into the room, of course- one foot was on the tiled floor of the bathroom, another was out, behind them at an angle, just so that they'd have some room for denial if questioned- like, 'oh, wrong bathroom,' except the shouting is probably loud enough to be heard from outside the door (for people that don't wear headphones all the time, but Ren's kind of a music addict at this point.) So maybe they can also go, 'Oh, I heard people yelling and I was wondering if they're OK' and that'll probably make them look less like the fool that they are? Yeah, that could work.

"Y'all are yelling a lot."

[Slam]

Teddie cracked a nervous smile at Marshall’s apology. ‘Business’, he had said. Bathroom. Hah.

Fuck, he shouldn’t be laughing right now.

He waited for the follow-up banging on his door, which he was pretty sure would send him simultaneously up through the roof and down even further into spirals-ville, but it never came. Was Marshall waiting out there like a hungry, sorry shark, ready to pounce on him with razor-sharp apologies when he left the stall? What other explanation could there be?

Whoever had been interrupted from their ‘business’ in the stall next to him answered that first. Teddie was starting to place the voice a bit more now, though he still wasn’t sure without a face. Not someone he spoke to regularly. Who was it?

A baseball cap with a logo of some sort flashed across his memory. There was a pretty cocky grin underneath it. That was right, it was Robin. Dated women like they were going out of style, then moved on without a word. What a dick.

He thought about Marshall having to deal with someone like that, which was kind of hilarious but also not really ideal? One of them would get chewed up and spat out by the other, and the whole thing would still be his fault. This whole morning was his fault. Good job, fuckface.

No, stop that, negative language. Don’t beat yourself up, remember? Yeah, it was fucking hard right now and everything was his fault, but he’d worked on this.

A third person was joining the conversation, but Teddie couldn’t place them that fast. Apparently their yelling was bringing the whole school into this bathroom with them. Whoopee.

Teddie knew he had to step out, try to calm the situation down and apologise for himself, but it was hopeless. The mere thought of standing up just made him nervous all over again, much less trying to confront two hotheads in their prime.

No, much better to hide in this bathroom stall indefinitely until he died. That sounded like a better solution.

[ViolentMedic]

Marshall had scrawled across a fairly extensive amount of his hand by the time he was interrupted, and he looked up as the door he’d originally shouted at.

As it turned out, Marshall had accidentally interrupted Robin Valenti rather than Teddie. A man often covered head to toe in racing gear, the teams or brands of which escaped Marshall. A terrible reputation regarding women, but he did have a regard for being safety-conscious, which was a quality Marshall appreciated.

“I am rehearsing an apology so that I do not upset the situation further, as I am sometimes prone to do!” Marshall said seriously. “It is important to correct mistakes as soon as possible! And I need to save the paper in my notebook for English! Did you see Teddie Boyd on the way to the bathroom?”

Though there was still an occupied cubicle, which had been closed since Marshall entered the room. How long did business in the bathroom take? Or was it in fact—

The door into the bathroom swung open, which was not ideal. Even less ideal is that it was a girl—Lorenza? Something like that, not someone that Marshall knew well.

“You can’t be in here!” Marshall yelled, pointing with the hand that currently had a half-formed apology written on it. “This is a place inappropriate for women to be in!”

The words were out of Marshall’s mouth before he could consider his words. He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake, such as the time he had yelled something similar at a classmate that had transitioned to male without his knowledge. That was another incident that had required an apology.

“Unless I have made a mistake and you have joined the team, in which case welcome to the men’s bathroom!” he quickly shouted, though he was still aggressively pointing. “But if you haven’t, you have to go!”

[Pippi]

Cool. Really cool. This had gone from just being a weird and stupid annoyance to a total goddamn shitshow in a matter of seconds. Which, like, he guessed a bathroom was the right place for a shitshow, speaking totally literally, but he also really didn’t want to be caught directly in the middle of one, for fuck’s sake.

“Nah, whatever dude, just let her fucking come in here, why not? Apparently you can do whatever the fuck you want in a bathroom nowadays.” Robin rolled his eyes, and was about to fold his arms in exasperation when he remembered that he was fresh out of the cubicle, and that he would rather set himself on fire than touch his jacket - one that he’d been planning to get signed by Sebastian Vettel at CotA, before the pandemic had scuppered that particular plan - with unwashed hands. He strode over to the sinks, continuing to speak as he did so.

“Aside from take a piss in peace, I guess. Like, seriously dude, stop fucking shouting, okay? You’re in a goddamn public bathroom, act like a normal human being for Christ’s sake. You wanna find Teddie, why not try the cubicle with the dude who sounds like he’s about to start scrawling emo poetry on the walls, instead of giving yourself fucking ink poisoning.”

He gave a disgruntled sigh and turned the faucet on, blasting his hands with lukewarm water and, because God just wouldn’t give him a break today, spraying it all across the counter surrounding the sink.

“Motherfucker…”

He turned to grab a handful of paper towels, when he realised that, oops, the bullshit train had no brakes and was in no position to stop, because Lorenza was still hanging out here in the boy’s bathroom, hovering in the doorway like she’d paid to see this spectacle and she wanted to get her goddamn money’s worth.

“Hey, he is right though, like, seriously dude, get the fuck outta here. What the hell did you even try come into the guy’s bathroom for anyway?”

[Yonagoda]

That’s… that’s actually kind of hard to answer, really. Well, not really, ‘cause Ren would never, ever come out for a stupid joke, but… but that sort of, like, made them think a lot about gendered bathrooms and how they’re kind of stupid and restrictive, and also they’re just here to check if everybody’s doing OK so!!!

So they’re going to just plant their feet and make sure that nobody got hurt, right? Right? Except everybody already knows they’re a coward and an easily exploitable doormat and that if they say a few choice words and look just a little miffed they’re immediately GTFO, which, OK, that’s probably a problem but it’s a problem they’ll deal with later, which means never. Never ever ever! They’ve got bigger problems to deal with!

Like not crying, for instance, because man, what is wrong with Robin?

Wait, no, that sounded mean. Nothing’s really, like, wrong- (and they thought of the word with a special emphasis, like, italics) with the guy. They’re- well, actually, she’s the one to barge in. Yeah. Yeah. The boys could handle it themselves, yeah, their presence, by virtue of not being One Of The Boys, is completely unwelcome here, so-

Blah blah blah.

Whatever.

Man, sometimes they wondered a lot about Robin. Just… the whole Romeo thing, the whole flirting thing, like, just- just, they don’t really know that much about the science behind toxic masculinity or whatever and they’d really hate to dissect other people and act all armchair psychologist-ey but, man, man, like, just- just, like y’know? Like, like that? Like-

Alright they aren’t making sense.

“Um, I’m just checking if y’all are alright? Because I heard a lot of yelling and stuff.”

And for this particular statement, Lorenzo really tried to drag out the part of themselves that they hated but their mother loved, all soft, breathy voices and shy smiles and slightly hunched posture that made them look all soft and unintimidating, elbows tucked close to their torso, shoulders raised. Body language all animated to be as intimidating and small as possible. It’s this sort of shell, this soft exterior, that they’ve learned to wrap around themselves when they feel like their fragile emotional structure was threatened, as if an armor of cotton could feasibly work as armor at all, but it doesn’t matter because sinking into this Good Girl persona felt so, so comfortable when it also made them want to tear this skin off. Like if they act enough, they’ll be small enough to be worthy of love again, to be picked up and coddled and forgiven.

They aren’t making sense again, actually, so. So maybe they should stop talking, yeah.

[Slam]

This was simultaneously hilarious and awful.

Teddie pressed his forehead into his hand as he stared at the vaguely pissy floor (how did it get covered in piss already, when the school hadn’t even been open for a full day?). His other arm wrapped around his stomach, gripping his side. Tension ran through his whole body.

Marshall’s continued shouting was only making the situation worse, because eventually he would have to leave his bathroom hidey-hole and face the music. The more the moment was built up, the more awkward it would be when he finally stepped out. The dramatic reveal of the crybaby breakdown case in the school bathroom on day one.

On the other hand, he could continue sitting there permanently and waiting until they all left or died of old age, or yelled themselves to death. Also viable.

But this third party being yelled at was causing some vaguely transphobic remarks, and Teddie was not cool with that. Of course, he had no way of knowing who they were talking to on the other side or whether there really was any transphobia going on, but he refused to risk sitting back and let that happen in front of, and because of, him.

He inhaled sharply through his nostrils, gripping his face with one hand and his ribs with the other. The stale smell of urine (seriously, how was it already stale?!) penetrated his sinuses, only adding to his motivation to get over the panic and make a stand. Finally, his legs took his full weight as he stood up. His body was still racked with tension, and his eyes were still red, but he didn’t want things to end like this.

“That’s enou-!” he started to yell, pulling the door open with a triumphant declaration. Only, he cut himself off immediately when he saw that Robin was wearing a mask.

After a silent moment, where he remembered exactly why he had been freaking out in the first place, he closed the door again and returned to his former position.

[ViolentMedic]

“You can’t get ink poisoning from writing on your hands! I looked it up, and it’s an urban legend! Otherwise I’d be dead by now!” Marshall insisted. The other part took a little longer to catch up to Marshall’s mind – graffiti was certainly not allowed, but how would you hear that? Once it did, Marshall frowned at the occupied cubicle and took a step towards it.

Lorenza was still there, expressing concern.

“Everyone is fine! No yelling is taking place!” Marshall said at his usual volume, hands on his hips. “Your concern is appreciated but unwarranted! Vacate the bathroom!”

Though now she was scrunched up like that. Perhaps Marshall was being too loud. It sounded normal to his own ears--

Ah, Teddie! There he was!

No, he was gone again. The cubicle did contain a Teddie, but he had only opened the door long enough to confirm his existence there.

Marshall needed to apologize. Otherwise he would have worried everyone for no reason, and he needed to make sure that the situation was resolved. Though, casting a look at Robin’s mask, Marshall thought the argument might start up all over again. But it wasn’t the time for that.

“Teddie! I’m here to apologize!” Marshall bellowed, hammering on the door. Thump, thump, thump-- “I’m sorry for making you cry! And for commenting negatively on your medical know-how and physical issues! It was incredibly rude of me! I can make it up to you!”

[Pippi]

Robin wanted to fucking leave.

This goddamn bathroom felt like purgatory, right about now. Not quite at fire-and-brimstone-hell levels just yet, but definitely the sort of place designed to make him, personally, suffer for as long as he was in here. Lorenza was still hovering in the fucking doorway, and - okay, yeah, fair enough, there had been a ton of shouting going on from in here, thanks to Marshall, and that was the sorta thing you either swiftly walked away from or immediately stuck your nose into to investigate, he got that. But she was still hanging around in the doorway of the dude’s bathroom, and she still had the door wide open while people were trying to fucking piss.

“Shut up.”

Meanwhile, Marshall, the goddamn siren of idiocy, was continuing to yell at the top of his lungs about ink poisoning and about how he apparently wasn’t yelling like his head was on fire, and man, if Robin could never hear this guy’s voice again in his life, he could die a goddamn happy man.

But, of course, he couldn’t actually leave yet, because he hadn’t even been allowed to wash his goddamn hands.

“Shut up.”

The stall door which Robin had identified - go him, Monty Hall didn’t have shit on him - burst open, and he had just enough time to glance over and look directly at Teddie’s gaunt white face and bloodshot eyes, before it slammed shut again, the sound echoing around the bathroom. Right. Okay. Cool. What the fuck.

“Shut uuup.”

And then - oh no. Oh, no, was this happening? Was this actually happening? Was he actually witnessing Marshall slamming his stupid fucking fists against the cubicle door, somehow shouting even louder, with his own two eyes? Jesus fucking christ, the moron was gonna break through the shitty material at this rate. If there weren’t already people staring from the corridor, crowding up around Lorenza like a goddamn Greek chorus, they sure as hell would be now.

“Shut up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up!”

Robin span around, fury in his eyes, spit spraying against the inside of his mouth as he roared at everyone involved in this goddamn mess, still somehow quieter than Marshall’s insane yelling.

“First day back at school and you’re all acting like fucking animals, did you all fucking forget how to act around people while we were in lockdown or something? You-”

He jabbed a finger at Lorenza.

“Get the fuck out of here, you-”

He turned to point at the cubicle Teddie was hiding in, as if his annoyance and anger would pierce through the stall walls.

“-get your pussy ass out of that fucking stall, and you-”

He aimed his finger directly at Marshall’s chest.

“- Shut the FUCK up and stop goddamn yelling, you dipshit!”

Robin took a deep breath, grinding his teeth together, before turning back around to face the sink.

“Lemme wash my goddamn hands in peace, please.”

[Yonagoda]

They aren't about to cry. They're not! Robin's totally not being a major huge dick right now and beating the shit out of their poor fragile heart with a spiked battering ram, nope, absolutely not, deep breaths Ren deep breaths hold it together!

"Doesn't sound like everything's over here, Rob, buddy, but aight, alright. I'll leave it up to the boys, haha," they squeezed out, holding their hands up.

A nervous laugh emitted from their mouth, out of half-fear. Boys and yelling- not a good combination. Which, like, is gender essentialist and also a bit sexist but there's this sort of fear imprinted in almost everybody who spent time perceiving themselves as female (vaguest term for it) and it's, just, well, um, they're actually scared of Robin going off the rails and hurting someone? Do they need to call a teacher? Would that make them a snitch?

Being a snitch sucks, right? You get killed in prison for it. But you also get killed in prison for being gay sometimes. In the prison that is this Hellhole of a School, the death was metaphorical and social- not saying that the majority of the student population was homophobic or anything like that, but it's a little different when they're very clearly Not Cis and Not Conforming and just Not OK. And all of these traits are kind of being clearly pointed out in their own mind, with the soothing background of a bunch of immature boys yelling around, knocking at cubicles like it's a doorbell and Marshall's a trick-or-treater, just kind of having teenage-years-induced-wackiness going on, yeah, OK, today's been a terrible day.

Lorenzo wondered what they're having for dinner. Maybe a nice big bowl of braised beef, rice-noodle stew would really help. Just the focused, methodical process of adding all the ingredients, arranging everything in the bowl, and taking a good 'ol sip of the broth, yeah, think about that, 'Renzo, don't think about how Robin probably hates you and wants you dead and you're nowhere near as socially tolerated as you'd like to think you are, mm-hm, think about the stew. Just think about that. A few pieces of star anise, some ginger, scallions, rock sugar, soy sauce, red chilies, cilantro....

Yeah. Alright. Everything's calm now. Except for their stomach, god they'd fucking kill for some good, fresh food, goddamn.

"Just don't get suspended, like, the first day of school, K? I'm out, I'm out!"

((Lo-"Ren"-Zo Araya backs away from the scene!))