[team four] washing on the wild way

[bluedreaming]

First of all, I have to apologize for the extreme delay in getting this round started. I know this is the slow team, with five days to write rather than three, but it's just been crazy for me and I probably should have skipped but here we are. Thank you for sticking around!

This is the beginning of a larger idea multi-character idea that I've been pondering over the past few weeks. The title is from Descent by Lawless featuring Dawn Golden.


"You're such a freak. You actually think you're going to uni?"

Stubbs' voice grates on Tom's nerves, but he just grits his teeth and ignores the boy, eyes skimming over the notes he's written carefully in the spiral ring notebook. It's too much to hope that Stubbs will get bored though; he's never proved himself to be anything more than a small-minded bully, and Tom can feel the stale breath on the skin of his neck before he feels the shift in the air, the only warning before Stubbs swipes forward to grab the notebook from the table in front of Tom.

Except his fingers come up empty, arm suspended in mid-air, his wrist held tightly in Tom's grasp.

"Wha—?" Even Stubbs' grunt of surprise is slow. Tom sighs and lets go, watches as Stubbs stumbles back. There's an angry flush creeping across his cheeks, and Tom regrets tipping his hand, but there's no use crying over spilled milk.

"Unlike you," he says, flipping a page in his notebook and refocusing on his calculus notes, "I don't plan on staying here forever."

Stubbs straightens, shirt brushing against the wall with a rustle of fabric and Tom braces himself to go all the way if he has to. Stubbs takes a step, and then spins as the door opens.

"Riddle?" They both glance towards the doorway, where Martha is standing, her sleeves rolled up, flour dusted across her apron. Behind him, Tom can hear Stubbs slinking down the path between the rickety tables and chairs that populate the orphanage's study room. Tom smiles at Martha, and tips his head to indicate that he's listening.

Unlike the other children at the orphanage, Tom has long realized that Martha is Mrs. Cole's eyes and ears here, in a place where no one cares very much about children whom no one wants. Tom doesn't have to like Martha to know that she's useful.

"A letter came for you in the post," Martha says, and she doesn't have to say anything else. At the other end of the room, Stubbs is listening. None of them ever get post, none of them have anybody at all, so naturally Tom's letter is an extraordinary development, suspicious in a place where no one has any expectations at all.

Tom doesn't care.

"Thank you Martha," he says, gathering up his notebook and pencil, tucked up beneath his arm as he follows her out of the room. There's the sound of a door swinging shut, Stubbs is probably off to spread more slander about the freak, but Tom ignores him.

The letter in his hand isn't the cheap paper envelope that he's seen bills come in, when Martha takes the post to Mrs. Cole's office. It's creamy instead, the folded paper a solid presence as it rests for a moment on his palms.

He doesn't have to open it to know what it will say.

There's a snicker at the door, Whalley by the sounds of it, his complexion still marred by the scabs remaining from a recent bout of chicken pox, which Tom has luckily escaped seemingly out of sheer willpower. He only has calculus left, and then he'll have finished all his exams.

"Yes," Tom says, without turning to face Whalley. "Your future is only worth a laugh."

"That's big talk for someone who's just going to end up working in the chip plant like the rest of us," Whalley retorts, coughing wetly into his sleeve. Tom wrinkles his nose.

"Speak for yourself," he says, unfolding the letter, the paper smooth beneath his fingers. "I'm going to university."


Tagging damagea you have five days to write or skip!