Animal Magnetism

[Deamon]

The Carters had always been taught by their mother that girls were to be treated with respect and that there was a line you didn't cross. Nick crossing that line would have lost him Bret's respect regardless of who it was. If he had thrown coffee on a girl he didn't even care about or disliked he still would have thought Nick was being out of line. But the fact that it was Ivy, that really got to Bret. There seemed to be a trend around the school of people thinking that he wasn't as tough or strong as Wyatt.

He knew why they thought that, he lacked the height his twin did and unlike Wyatt he didn't get physically involved. Those people, however, did seem to forget that he had been living with Wyatt for eighteen years and Wyatt didn't turn off. He was the same at home as he was around the school. They had fought often growing up and they were proper fights with fists flying. Bret had grown up with Wyatt being around twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Unlike his classmates, he never got a break. At the end of the day, he was still a Carter and sometimes people needed to be reminded of that.

Bret sighed, he really hated getting physically involved.

His right hand shot out and wrapped around Nick's throat while his left arm wrapped around him, his hand pushed up against the center of Nick's back. In one quick motion, Bret used the acquired leverage to turn on his back foot, spin Nick around and slam him up against the wall. His right hand still grasping Nick's throat.

When he spoke his voice was steady.

"Apologise now."

[backslash]

Normally, Myles wasn't one to get so directly confrontational. If it had been anyone else, he'd have let Ivy just clean up like he knew she could, and then he could roll up in the aftermath to dish out a parting shot and collect whatever spoils were to be collected.

The coffee lid bouncing off his forehead with a comical, hollow little bip was a pretty good example of why Myles didn't usually get aggressive. A few droplets of coffee landed in his hair and on his shirt and jacket. Later, he'd be mad about it.

Right now, he had won. They had won, him and Ivy (and Bret was still here too, Myles supposed, since he was just about choking Nick out against the wall now).

They had won because they were right. They'd gotten under Nick and Gaelan's skin both, and did either of them have a comeback? Could either of them give one single, solitary reason why Myles and Ivy were wrong? Any evidence that Gaelan really wasn't a just little bit of polish on a bitter, hypocritical mess of a person, and that Nick really wasn't failing at the most basic idea of friendship by letting Gaelan stay so delusional?

No. They couldn't. Nick could only go and throw a tantrum like a little kid throwing his toys around, and thanks to that, Gaelan had missed his chance to say anything that would sound halfway credible.

So he'd be mad about the coffee in his hair later, and he'd hear all about Ivy's ruined outfit, but right now, Myles was only satisfied in his victory. He did step away from the extra layer of mess that was unfolding now that Bret was involved, gently tugging Ivy with him by their linked arms. People were looking at the five of them now, and though they'd have to all be idiots to think that the guy who had slung his coffee at somebody in public was on the right side of things, Myles was still eager to put distance between himself and the fight that now had the potential to turn even more physical.

[Fenris]

Everything was moving terribly quickly. 

The moment between her words and Nick's actions seemed to stretch into a lovely eternity where Gaelan had zero response because Gaelan was an idiot who had never won a trade of insults in his life and honestly had no business putting himself on the same playing field as her. She could have lingered in that moment forever. It was a rather comfortable place to be, though she supposed for the sake of her date continuing she ought to get a move on. Maybe poke him with a "cat got your tongue, hon?" before tossing her hair and walking away. No point in dragging out an obvious victory. But the moment was broken by possibly the least likely person of the five present, and while throwing the coffee lid at Myles would have in itself been unforgivable despite its ineffectiveness, what happened a moment later left significantly more of an impact.

Ivy took a reflexive step back as the coffee—lukewarm, thank god, in the split second before the coffee actually hit her she had painful visions of second-degree burns—splashed onto her, and a surprised squeak that she'd edit out of her memory of the event escaped her lips. It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt, and most of it was currently soaking into a replaceable oversized sweater. But it was sticky and gross and weighing her down and way more importantly the indignity of the thing made her shake with what was as far as she was concerned entirely righteous fury. The tears that stung her eyes were less righteous. Those, as far as she were concerned, were her body senselessly betraying her at a critical moment.

He had lost, that much was very clear. Nick had lost, and Gaelan had lost by extension, because they were both too dense to fight a war of words with words and had to resort to what was technically actual literal assault. She should be happy. She wanted to be happy.

She was happy. It just took the length of time between the coffee making its impact and Bret's hand wrapping around Nick's throat for her to get there.

Ivy's expression hardly had time to show distress before it shifted to a smug grin because she could not possibly have planned this better. Honestly, she wasn't beneath letting her tears fall if it got Bret to act. But he'd acted on his own accord, and it was beautiful to watch, and really, she'd be quite content to watch for a while longer. Nick Ogilvie had lost the moral high ground and had absolutely no right to complain about anything that happened to him now. The coffee thing had been assault, right? So this was basically self-defense. It was also really fucking hot. 

But she felt Myles tugging on her arm and that broke her out of her momentary reverie. Her eyes broke from the spectacle before her to observe their surroundings and she was mortified to discover that people were turning to look. She glanced down at her sweater; while the bulk of the liquid had been absorbed it had still left a very obvious brown stain on the pale pink fabric. If someone else from school saw her like this she'd never hear the end of it. And, she supposed, anyone who hadn't been privy to the whole thing might not look kindly on the boy pinning someone to the wall by his throat. As much as she was enjoying the show (and she was very much enjoying the show) the public was unlikely to look upon it quite as fondly. She sighed. Must she always be the responsible one?

She loosened her arm from Myles's, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze as she took a couple of steps toward Bret. She scrunched the fabric of the front of her sweater between her arms, temporarily hiding the worst of the staining. Maybe it'd look like some avant-garde pattern? Wishful thinking.

"Bret, love, not that I'm not enjoying this, but I believe you've made your point?" She raised an eyebrow. "People are staring."

Ivy held out her hand to him and hoped he was smart enough to take it. She assumed he would be. She'd been underestimating him too much as of late. 

[Brackie]

Really, by the time it got to the point it did, the only reason Gaelan hadn't thrown his drink right alongside Nick was because Ivy had bumped it to the ground, so Gaelan opted for just gawking on in as everything slowly went to shit.

There was this commonly pursued train of thought among his former friends, at least there was when he was friends with them, about what constituted a victory, and they always were quick to let him know back in the day when someone had lost to them. By their metric, in their own deluded world, something like Nick throwing his coffee onto Ivy when they insulted him for no reason counted as a victory on their behalf. However, Gaelan's new friends had taught him an obviously much better set of rules.

Namely, if you get coffee thrown on you, your outfit is ruined and you have no comeback for that, so to the victor goes the spoils and the loser goes the spoiled clothing.

But then Bret stepped into the fray, meat sack that he was, and made things physical. Ooh, bad choice, buddy.

The moment he saw his hand wrapping around Nick's neck he slowly fell backwards a step, but just as quickly he slipped his phone back out from his pocket again and swiped to the number pad, pressing three numbers then storming forward so that he was just out of arm's reach from Bret.

"Nick, you aren't saying shit because you aren't the one who's gonna have to explain to the police why he just assaulted a teenager in the middle of 34th Street."

Gaelan held up his phone's number pad, with the 9 the 1 and the 1 clearly visible at the top of the screen. If Nick was expecting Gaelan to come in and take on Bret in a fight in order to free him, well, Nick was going to have to think again. But there were other tools at his disposal.

"You really wanna do this, Bret?"

Gaelan threw his hands around, indicating to the people who had begun to stop and stare at the teenage melodrama.

"Got a lot of witnesses."

His voice then lost its timbre.

"Let go of my fucking friend."

[General Goose]

Nick had made a mistake. He was pretty sure of that. He didn't need the air knocked out of him and Bret's hand to compress around his throat to work that out, but it was helpful confirmation. Nick grimaced as Bret maintained this hold. He could have probably broken free if he wanted to. Nick could squirm and writhe with some pretty severe intensity, and if that failed, he was at the perfect angle to knee Bret in the crotch.

Which would, much like the coffee throwing, have been tremendously cathartic for about three seconds before the admittedly well-deserved comeuppance came home.

He heard Ivy talking - Ivy pretending to be reasonable, hah, that was a laugh - and Myles not saying anything because of course now he wouldn't, the little shit, and Gaelan talking, being a good friend. Good. There was still a premium on loyalty. Nick could appreciate that. No matter how badly this went, he'd proved to the people that mattered that he was a good friend. And that's what was fucking important.

That, and breathing.

So yeah, he needed to get out of this hold. He maintained eye contact with Bret. Opened his mouth.

"S-s-" He readjusted his head slightly, as if needing to reposition himself so he could get the requisite oxygen flowing through his airpipe, as if trying to get the right placement to speak as comfortably as was possible in the circumstances. He opened his mouth again. A ragged exhale. Nick closed it, licked his lips. Finally, he replied to Bret's command.

"Choke me harder, daddy."

[Deamon]

Bret grinned at the entire situation. It was typical really, like many others before them Gaelan and Nick had started something they couldn't finish and had rushed to find the best ways to cover for it. It didn't bother Bret in the slightest, truth be told. His point had been made and that was enough. Gaelan's lame-duck attempt to intimidate or scare him off with the threat of the police was undermined by his voice breaking and the fact Bret hadn't done anything other than restrain Nick. If Gaelan did call the police the story was amazingly one-sided to explain. A man who was much larger had thrown coffee on his girlfriend—there was physical evidence and eye-witness testimony that backed that up—and he had restrained him because he didn't know if he planned on making things more physical. As far as Bret cared Gaelan could call as many officers as he wanted. Nothing was going to happen.

So in response, he just laughed and shook his head.

"Not how it would go."

Nick, on the other hand, had been so thoroughly shown up by the entire event, that he was trying to gain something back with his response. It was almost as weak as Gaelan's attempt to get him to stop and was undermined by the fact he had already snapped both emotionally and physically which eliminated any chance he had of saving any face. Bret for his part wasn't even going to allow him the small sliver he was attempting to gain.

"Maybe next time." Bret responded, the grin still on his face as he used his free hand to pat Nick on the cheek before letting him go and stepping back.

He took Ivy's hand and adjusted his sunglasses, taking a moment to let everything settle. Then he turned his head to look at her.

"Shall we go?"

[backslash]

Do it. You won't.

Myles didn't say that, because he knew better than to corner a rat. If Gaelan wanted anything more than to make a scene, he'd have just made the call instead of waving his phone around pointlessly. There were a lot of eyewitnesses, sure, and all of those eyewitnesses had seen Nick make things physical first. And anyway, people like Gaelan -- people like Myles -- didn't call the cops on people like Bret and Ivy. It would be hell for one side only; Myles knew which one, and Gaelan did too. They all did.

Gaelan wasn't looking at Myles, but Myles stared a hole through the side of his head anyway. There was a sour taste welling in the back of his throat, and his chest felt oddly tight.

It was Nick's stupid attempt to get under Bret's skin that broke the tension before the tension could break anything else. Myles let out a short, harsh laugh as Bret let Nick go and moved away.

"So you'll say that to Ivy's boyfriend but not your own?" He grinned. It felt wrong on his face. "No wonder Tristan's always blowing my phone up asking if I can come over."

It wasn't even a lie, that last part. Myles didn't need a response. The look on Nick's face and the knowledge that his own words were absolutely true for once was enough to end this whole disaster on. Bret collected Ivy, and Myles turned his back on Gaelan and Nick to follow. The last word was his.

It wasn't as satisfying as it should have been.

((Myles Roux continued in Those Moments Were Like Flowers to Me))

[Fenris]

"You really are out of moves, aren't you."

Ivy's only real response to Gaelan was one sentence and an airy wave of her hand that succinctly conveyed the sentiment of "whatever". It was an empty threat and all five of them were well aware of it, and frankly, she was disappointed. Gaelan's side had already lost, of course, but he could at least try to make one last comeback, give her one more opportunity to shred whatever remaining hope he had. As it was, his words had failed him, and so had Nick's show of force, so he was stuck scrambling for some way to bring the whole thing to a close without losing more face than he already had. Unnecessarily dramatic, really.

The coffee soaking into her sweater was rapidly cooling and sticking to her skin. She bit the inside of her cheek in an attempt not to grimace. There would be plenty of time for that once Gaelan and Nick were gone. She raised an eyebrow at the words that came out of Nick's mouth and was a touch embarrassed that she had to stifle a giggle. As far as a comeback went it was entirely ineffective, but, she supposed, it had broken the tension for a moment. That was better than anything Gaelan had managed on his own.

"We shall." She smiled as her fingers wrapped around Bret's. She really had underestimated him. This wasn't his battleground, she'd dragged him here both literally and figuratively, but he'd held his own. And Myles-

Well. She had to cover her mouth again with her free hand for a moment at the line he dropped before linking that arm with his as the three of them left the scene. Ivy generally made a point of having the last word, but sometimes you just have to recognize when the mic has been dropped.

>> Ivy Langley continued in Those Moments Were Like Flowers To Me

[Deamon]

And that was it. It was over. The microphone had been dropped and they were leaving. There was no doubt that Gaelan and Nick would tell a different version of the story to anyone who would listen. Some of those people would probably believe the version they would be told. It would be the talk of the school before the day was out, that much was for certain. The date he had been on was ruined as were any existing plans he had for his day. The rest of it would be taken up by an endless repetition and discussion of the events that had just transpired.

Yet, despite all of this Bret couldn't bring himself to care too much. There had been certain things that he had needed to deal with and one of those things was giving people a reminder about who he was and what that meant. He was sure that by the time the story was done spreading through every facet of George Hunter Highs social hierarchy people would be aware again. It also gave Ivy a victory over Gaelan in the social arena that she so craved. Once she had gotten over the damage to her clothes he was sure any grievance she had would have vanished in the face of her success.

Bret still had some things that needed to be taken care of, but they could wait, until then he was happy to let the rest of the day its course.

He couldn't wait to hear how many different forms the story would take.

Pulling Ivy in a little closer Bret headed off down 34th Street.

((Bret Carter continued elsewhere...))

[Brackie]

There was just something so awe inspiring about someone who could walk away from a fight pretending that they've won, and right now those three were pretty much Joan of Arc.

As they turned to dots in the distance, as they became less figures and more figments, and the people who had once stopped to gawk instead went on their merry way, Gaelan raised his middle fingers to the horizon. At this point it was all he could do, aside from calling Blaise and getting her to sneak into Ivy's house, steal the rest of her clothes and destroy her washing machine so all she was stuck with was the coffee top, but he had a feeling they weren't up for that. It was bad enough Gaelan had to deal with her at school, let alone these extracurricular visits with bonus credit in the form of Myles with a grudge, so making his friends actively seek out conflict on his behalf was way over the line.

The fingers retracted. Gaelan started to lose track of the seconds he stood there, staring at a view that was now nothing. Better than nothing, now that the real nothing was gone. He turned back to Nick and for a few split moments he wasn't even sure what to say. Because of Gaelan, Nick had been assaulted in broad daylight by someone who was never going to face consequences for it, or anything else he did in his life because he was a rich fucker into sports, even though that entire family could have shown up to a Charlottesville rally with tiki torches and the school wouldn't even blink.

Gaelan wanted to apologize. But for what? An apology implied that either of them did anything wrong, and the only moral misstep they'd made that entire morning was being a curious Gaelan and trying to find out what one of his worst enemies was spying on, and then happening to run into the other one. What was there to apologize for?

So Gaelan said the only thing he could really think of.

"C'mon, I'll get you another drink."

[General Goose]

Nick had tried joking. Had tried that tone of levity as a sort of mea culpa, a way of defusing the situation. Okay, maybe not defusing it - but showing that, okay, he wasn't gonna keep on digging, he wasn't gonna be so obstinate or acerbic that he'd allow things to continue to escalate. It was his way of...not waving the white flag, but proposing a ceasefire. And maybe Bret didn't take it that way. Maybe he saw it as a chance to claim victory and then walk away and pretend that he was actually the Carter that people gave a shit about.

But the slap on the cheek and his final retort was ambiguous. Was he accepting the ceasefire or continuing it? Did he see Nick's one-liner as stepping back from hostilities or invigorating them? Nick wasn't sure, and that was fine. The ambiguity was relaxing, in this case. Reassuring. Meant that he no longer had to get all annoyed or antsy about whatever shit Bret was doing or saying, or how Bret was interpreting his actions. Even Ivy seemed to take it in a way that was, if not how Nick had intended it, at least wasn't the exact opposite.

But Myles...fucking Myles.

Nick decided to act like he hadn't heard it. Because it hurt on so many levels. Like, level one - Myles expected him to be hurt by the notion that Tristan was, y'know, using an open relationship for its intended purpose. And Nick really wasn't. So Tristan had bad taste in guys, so what? Normally that flaw in Tristan's judgement worked to Nick's favour, so he really didn't care. But Myles thought he was that petty, thought he was that possessive, that crudely sentimental. That irritated Nick. Level two - that Myles saw it as a chance to keep on escalating things, to keep on attacking. Myles was the aggressor here. Fuck Myles. When Nick had the chance, he'd break that little shit's back over his knee. Okay, probably not. But it was cathartic to imagine doing so.

Level three - Myles had successfully reopened all the wounds of what had just happened. Mission accomplished. That he'd tried to do so was aggravating enough. That he'd succeeded in doing so...urgh. What a shit. Level four - okay, actually, fuck it. If Myles was going to weaponise that he was sleeping with Tristan on the regular, yes, okay, it was hurting Nick. And that put Nick in a dilemma. Be all prudish and dictatorial in who his partners slept with, or just let the resentment bubble beneath the surface? Neither option was appetising. Level five - it was fucking inaccurate. Like, yes, he'd say that shit to Tristan all the fucking time, you little wankstain.

Luckily, Nick was able to successfully act like he hadn't heard it. Instead, he was able to act like Bret had choked him a bit harder than he'd intended, so he was keeling over, grasping at his throat, letting out haggard and croaky coughs every few seconds. Bret could have the satisfaction of having physically hurt Nick, but he wouldn't let Myles know that he'd made Nick upset. Knowing that he made Nick angry, sure. But upset? Fuck that.

When they were out of earshot, Nick stood up straight. "I uh...I think I'll head home."

So there it was. Myles implying he was a bad friend. And a bad boyfriend. Fuck that guy. Fuck that little arseweasel with a chainsaw.

[Brackie]

Gaelan wasn't really sure what to do right now. His attempt at pushing forward pretending nothing happened and treating dearly departed like the pests they were clearly wasn't going to work because it actually did affect Nick. Nick could act all he could and posture like nothing hurt him, but they were friends for a reason. Gaelan was used to bullshit like this, fighting it was second nature to him, but every single time he happened to accidentally suck someone into the conflict unawares there was always hurt feelings, and not undeservedly so. Gaelan hated it, he just wanted to have friends without dealing with bullshit.

But the fact remained, Ivy and Myles were some of the worst people he'd ever met in his entire life and if there was a very special SOTF by those terrorists a few years ago just for the two of them waiting in the wings he'd do anything to get it into production.

So when Nick announced he was going home, the small forced smile on Gaelan's face faltered, and the words were lost.

"I..."

Gaelan suddenly found it very hard to meet Nick's gaze. He felt like he'd just ruined the entire day.

"...okay."

His eyes remained on the stones beneath their feet.

"I'll message you tonight, yeah?"

[General Goose]

What had he even fucking done to Myles? That was what bewildered him the most.

Hell, Gaelan had never even managed to tell him what the gossip was that incited all of this. Nick no longer cared. What had happened here, and Nick still retained enough clear thinking and critical faculties to process this, would overshadow all that shit. Which was fucking humiliating. What had happened before, the events that Nick had no part in, they were now brushed aside. Because Nick had just unintentionally performed one of the best feats of misdirection that he could manage.

Myles was a cunt, that was apparent. The biggest cunt in the school.

Rivalled only by Nick.

"Yeah, man. Alright." Nick's voice, for once, had no emotion. It was so softly-spoken, so vacant, that even his accent was barely audible.

"Catch you later."

((Nick Ogilvie continued later.))

[Brackie]

He watched Nick leave, giving a wave when they caught eye contact again, and suddenly Gaelan was alone again. Shoppers passed him by as he stood in the laneway, half hoping any of the people that were there before would return, having just been joking, and they'd continue right where they left off only this time nobody was hurting Nick. They'd be hurting Gaelan, or having fun with Gaelan, or in either case at the very least trying to, and that would be fine.

But aside from pipe dreams there wasn't really much left for Gaelan there so he began walking. Within minutes, he found himself right outside his mother's store. He strode on in, the tiny invisible doorbell chiming as he did so. Nelson, sitting at the front counter, looked up from his phone.

"Hey Gaelan, you after Keeley?"

"Yeah, guess so."

He strode by the cash register and began walking up the tiny narrow staircase wedged around a closet and below an impromptu stockroom slash office, which is where Gaelan's mother spent her lunch break. He knocked on the door at the top and heard an indeterminate noise letting him come in.

"Hi honey, what're you still doing around here?"

"Oh, uh, I was having coffee with a friend from school, but, uh..."

Gaelan trailed off to nowhere in particular, and Keeley read the expression on his face as easily as the handling instructions on half the room's boxes.

"Want to help out downstairs then? Nelson's about to go on break so you can man the register."

"That'd be great, thanks."

((Gaelan Meloy continued elsewhere))