[right][sup]Immediately after: Love Is a Battlefield
Location: First floor disabled bathroom, previously used by Trixie in [i]Thoroughbreds[/i]
[color=red]Trigger Warnings:[/color] Mentions of past child abuse[/sup][/right]
[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/34eb5c1d-d91c-495f-b87c-4fc796382847.png[/img]
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[indent][indent][quote=Decky Boaz]
To: AJackass
[color=dc143c]U better be goin 2 c Chris
Dont do smthn stupid
…
Pls[/color][/quote]

Decky’s hands shook only slightly when he pocketed his phone after sending a text off to AJ. Whatever was going on right now was not his place, AJ had already fled and that usually meant he was fleeing towards his best friend for comfort. AJ would get a hold of him if or when he needed him and at that point if school was still on then he’d either entrust Danny to Sin or grab him and ride out, but until then there was someone else that needed his attention and supply. Decky pushed open the door to see Parker pacing back and forth, frantically swiping her journal pages with a dry paper towel and mumbling curses to herself while her lip was trapped dangerously between grinding teeth. 

He hated that habit, Danny had it and they’d only gotten him to stop by making sure he had access to gum 24/7 so that his baby brother didn’t turn to less savory vices like the rest of them had. Their cousin, uncle Eiran’s son Zion, was basically a walking candy shop in the school hallways, his bag stuffed to the brim and prices unwavering, but any time he crossed little Danny in the halls, the Junior was throwing himself over the smaller boy’s shoulders and stuffing a pack of gum into his pocket. One of Decky’s biggest fears when he and Danny had joined up with Sin and her older brother Rian to move down to California and settle where his newly-discovered uncles had made their lives, had been that the loss of support from Sunshine and the rest of the Gravette crew would be damaging for both him and his brother. Luckily it became the opposite, and they maintained contact with their found family back home and found even more support in their new one.

His uncles, Aunts, and Zion had all been receptive to and understanding of the two damaged boys that arrived on their doorstep, Decky fresh out of Juvie and leaning heavily on a sheepishly waving Rian, wounds from the last ambush inside still feeling fresh even after a couple weeks. They reconnected with Monarch, whose family had moved out here while Decky and Monarch’s brother King had been serving their sentences. The Wilsons were there, AJ befriended him when his uncles introduced them and got him work at Dom’s, and with AJ came basically all the Gearheads and then some. Decky’s fear had turned out to be unwarranted, and the Boaz brothers found themselves surrounded with more family, both blood and found, than they even knew what to do with anymore. All that being said, everyone had their own way of helping, and tough love always got through Decky the best so he didn’t really know the soft approach to things.

[color=dc143c]“Hey, no, you’re gonna chew through,”[/color] He said, striding right up to the girl stuck on loop and grabbed her cheeks in his hand, pulling her face up from the journal and making her look at him as he squeezed until she opened her jaw and released the abused flesh from her teeth. Parker reeled back as she caught up with what was happening, and as she dropped her journal while raising her hand to push Decky away, he had suddenly dropped down to catch the treasured item before it hit the floor. The consequence of this was an open palm shove to the chest becoming and open palmed strike to the face, and Decky’s head snapped back while he let out a sharp, [color=dc143c][i]“Fuck!”[/i][/color] as his free hand flew protectively to the abused area. Stumbling back out of his crouch, Decky glared at the wide eyed girl across from him.

[color=fff781]“Shit, I’m sorry!”[/color] PJ fretted, stepping back too in order to put more space between them and let Decky recover. Decky just took his hand off of his face and held it up, signaling her to stop talking. Her jaw clicked shut as he scrunched his face a few times to chase away the tingling feeling spreading from the contact point. 

[color=dc143c]“I’m fine, it didn’t even actually hurt,”[/color] He assured, snapping his fingers loudly when Parker went to bite her lip again. [color=dc143c]“Stop that, christ, bite literally anythin’ but your own flesh for me, okay?”[/color] He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a Swisher foil, tossing it to Parker who fumbled before gently trapping the pouch against her chest. She opened the seal to find two blunts sitting inside, likely rolled by the boy this morning, and looked back over to him in time to see him putting her journal into the back pocket of her bookbag. She tensed again when she realized he’d been in contact and possession of her [i]open[/i] journal this whole time.

[color=fff781]“You didn’t look at the pages did you?”[/color] She asked, tone suddenly sharp instead of anxious. Decky rolled his eyes at the change in demeanor but shook his head for the girl’s benefit so she could relax.

[color=dc143c]“I don’t care about your secrets,”[/color] He answered, signature scowl back in place. [color=dc143c]“You’re welcome for fuckin’ savin’ it from this nasty ass floor by the way, don’t need ya goin’ off the rails before the Mornin’ Show’s even over. Now light the blunt, Jones, or I’m takin’ it back.”[/color]

[color=fff781]“It’s not a diary, dumbass, it’s a journal. You know, for like, poems and lyrics and stories?”[/color] PJ argued, but complied with his demand and pulled one of the sticks out with shaking fingers. [color=fff781]“And Biggie was all fucking [i]over[/i] it…”[/color] She knelt down to her bag and grabbed a lighter so they could both move over to the window. Decky reached up to crack it, having a much easier time with the task at his height. Parker took a long first hit and held it as she passed the blunt to its creator. The heat traveling through the roll had stung as the temperature hit her tender lip, and Parker realized she had bitten through the skin before Decky had gotten her to stop. No wonder he’d been so insistent. As if it were an afterthought, she threw in, [color=fff781]“Thanks, by the way.”[/color]

[color=dc143c]“I ain’t a dumbass, of course I know. One’a my boys back home is an incredibly talented writer,”[/color] Decky countered, thinking of his friend Charlie from Gravette. That boy consumed and produced literature like no one else Decky’s ever known, it was honestly astonishing, and little Danny loved his moments during video calls where he got to talk to the older boy about whatever he was reading at the time. [color=dc143c]“They’re all secrets if y’ain’t sharin’ ‘em with anyone, and I’ve seen ya almost bite off people’s heads over so much as glancin’ your way when you’re workin’ in that thing. So: secrets.”[/color]

[color=fff781]“...Okay, fine I guess,”[/color] Parker conceded when he stopped to hit the blunt himself. [color=fff781]“But I’m still not letting you see any of it.”[/color]

Decky let out a rough sigh, all the smoke billowing out towards the window before he turned to give her an exasperated look. [color=dc143c]“I just fuckin’ said I don’t- ya know what? Nevermind. But if ya really care ‘bout that shit ya should be sharin’ it with [i]someone[/i]. Jus’ sayin’,”[/color] Before she could argue with him, he soldiered on. [color=dc143c]”Anyways, how the hell is your rat thing still so bad when your twin has like twelve of ‘em stashed in y’all’s bedroom?”[/color]

Parker gave Decky a confused glance as she hopped up to sit on the decommissioned radiator under the window, trying to remember if she ever mentioned that she and JJ shared a bedroom and coming up blank. Did he know for sure or did his mind just default to siblings sharing a room? Maybe he assumed because they were twins and just happened to be right. No matter.

[color=fff781]“Because JJ is a lax parent and lets them get out and into [i]my bed[/i] at night,”[/color] PJ dismayed, accepting the blunt as it was passed back to her. [color=fff781]“Can you imagine waking up with a rat half an inch from your face, staring you down? I mean it’s jus-”[/color] She stopped when she noticed he was smirking at her with a look of entertainment, head tilted to the side. [color=fff781]”What?”[/color]

[color=dc143c]“Jones, I used ta wake up in the back yard after a night’a lockout with rats and raccoons lootin’ my pockets for scraps,”[/color] He answered honestly. [color=dc143c]“I’m not tryin’a knock your fears or anythin’, but ta me that sort’a phobia is a luxury ta have.”[/color]

[color=fff781]“Ok, that? That right there? The vaguely horrifying shit that you say so casually like it makes sense? It doesn’t,”[/color] Parker pointed out, trying to steer away from any rodent talk while also expressing genuine concern for the boy leaning against the wall in front of her. [color=fff781]“A [i]night[/i] of [i]lockout?[/i]”[/color]

[color=dc143c]“Sometimes, if they got sick’a beatin’ me and I was still bein’ obstinate or they didn’t wanna hear me moanin’ in pain all night, they’d just toss me out in ta the back yard and lock up the house so I couldn’t get back in,”[/color] Decky referred to his parents’ actions with absolutely no variation in his tone, a complete disconnect between the words he was saying and the emotions and memories that they risked provoking. As it was, in his mind there was nothing exceptionally cruel about what he was relaying, just another day in the life for him back then. He still never could refer to Alana and Benjamin Boaz as his [i]parents[/i] when talking though, so it was always simply [i]they[/i] or [i]them[/i] or [i]those people[/i]. [color=dc143c]“If I wasn’t still there when they checked in the mornin’, they’d hurt Danny, so I always just stayed where they tossed me. Raccoons can actually learn some pretty cool tricks if ya gain their trust and have food on ya.”[/color]

[color=fff781]“Decky…”[/color] PJ whispered in disbelief. Without the heartbreaking reasoning behind it, the fact that Decky just randomly trained raccoons when he was a kid would be a really cool thing to learn about the dude, in fact PJ was sure it was just another thing that would endear her lovely twin sister to him. But what he’d just said…her sister was going to have more baggage to deal with than any of the Jones girls could have imagined. What he’d just revealed to her explained so much but also added on a book’s worth of questions that she was honestly still a bit too high strung to delve into now. Not that she thought he’d give her any answers just because she asked. His ability to speak so casually about the event, as though that was just the way parents acted, the way children were punished, was so telling of how commonplace such horrendous mistreatment likely was in the Boaz brothers’ lives before California and Beverly Hills High. She took another drag, her stomach now twisting for reasons completely unrelated to rodents. 

There were a few things that Parker truly knew about Mordechai Boaz, and that was honestly only a thing or two more than most people knew about him, but it was that extra bit of insight that meant she knew he considered her a friend, if not in the inner circle the likes of Monarch, Sin, and the Gearheads. Decky Boaz transferred into BH alongside Sin Donaghue in the Spring Semester of Freshman year as an ex-gang member on probation, he has a little brother that came in as a freshman this year and had a couple more family members in the school. AJ Tyler had basically claimed him before he ever hit BH hallways and he works for the Tyler family at their garage. He’s an angry fuck, a drug addict, an incredibly dangerous fighter, and you either want to have his loyalty or not be known by him at all, as catching his ire is not something to be taken lightly. Everyone learned these things about him within the first couple weeks of his transfer. 

Things she’d learned since were that he loved and protected his baby brother more than any other older sibling she knew, and that was saying something coming from her. Only a small handful of people, and that’s including from his laundry list of sexual partners, have ever seen him without a shirt, and those who have seen his bare torso are extremely tight lipped and protective on the matter. Decky bobs his head along to music without realizing, so you can tell when he’s vibing with your tunes. He sucks at comforting words but makes up for it with action, he flinches if you touch him without warning but he reacts and learns best from well-intended physical corrections, an extremely confusing and concerning dichotomy to PJ, but he assured her long ago that the shin-kicks were understood and even appreciated for keeping him in check sometimes. Just now she’d learned he suffered abuse far worse than any rumor around school could ever fathom, and survived things that even some of the more warped minds in these halls couldn’t dream up. Another thing she’d learned over all these little chats with him?

Decky [i]hated[/i] pity, and loved dark humor.

[color=fff781]“Dude, your life fucking sucked, no wonder you’re such an ass,”[/color] She settled on after another hit, turning away from him immediately after in order to ash out the high window, arm stretched out so she could tap it all the way outside the window and avoid the wind blowing the ash back in. She froze in her action and looked over with wide eyes as Decky threw his head back and laughed, loud and sudden like a clap of thunder, and so genuine that PJ was suddenly sure that she’d never once heard his real laugh before this moment. His smile stretched out across his teeth and exposed a dimple trying to hide in the shallow laugh lines now present on either side of his face. PJ has always been aware that Decky was considered attractive, long before her sister developed a crush on him, but in that moment, with his eyes crescents of mirth and a glint of joy shining through like pure moonlight through darkened curtains, Parker finally understood the higher potential that her sister saw in this boy wrapped in barbed wire and brass knuckles.

[color=dc143c]“Thanks,”[/color] Decky finally answered, head lolling to the side from where it was now resting against the painted brick beneath the window. He turned to face her fully and grabbed the blunt from between her still-frozen fingers, raising an eyebrow at her reaction as he wrapped his lips around the dwindling swisher wrap. [color=dc143c]“I’ve been told I need therapy. Like, a lot’a it.”[/color]

[color=fff781]“You do, but honestly so does everyone in this place,”[/color] She replied, voice still soft from the shock of seeing him like that. [color=fff781]“You just need extra sessions, maybe a specialist or five.”[/color]

[color=dc143c]“Yeah yeah, I’ll get back ta ya when when money and time ain’t an issue,”[/color] He snarked before taking a long pull. Which, like, Parker couldn’t argue with that, so she simply gave a small smile and rolled her eyes at the gearhead. Comfortable silence stretched between the two after the conversation reached its natural conclusion, and the next couple minutes were spent playing puff puff pass in silence while both students rallied all of their thoughts and emotions from the events of homeroom. With everything finally regulating, Decky’s thoughts were returning to one very distinct memory that he couldn’t stop replaying in his head.

[color=dc143c]“Jones?”[/color]

[color=fff781]“Yeah?”[/color]

[color=dc143c]“How come I ain’t realize before that your sister’s got this [i]amazin’[/i] ass- [i]fuck![/i]”[/color]

[color=fff781][i]Dammit, he’s finally figured it out,[/i][/color] Parker thought dispassionately from her seat on the radiator as she watched Decky crash to the ground, thrust straight down by her swift boot to the back of his thigh. As the boy groaned on the cool tile floor, PJ spared a moment of silence for the loss of that last bit of peace that she knew in her life. [color=fff781][i]Jordyn, you better be ready for this idiot now that he realizes he wants you. He’s gonna be a lot of work.[/i][/color]


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