do you want it all ›› rory

[Victoria Camilla Welsh]

(( what she wears ))

Victoria has walked to the library twice today, and as much as she liked reading, it bothered her that her teachers hadn't let her know a bit earlier. The note on the English II classroom was a godsend for most other kids, but she groaned and stomped her foot at the sight, annoyed and frustrated that she had to head back where she'd been that morning for Chemistry. Was there something wrong with the classroom? She wasn't sure she understood what the purpose was of the students meeting there. Was there something she was missing? Her heart raced, and she hoped it was all for a good reason.

She got there just before the bell rang, and after asking the librarian where her class was, she went and joined them in the study area. A stack of papers was promptly handed out then, and Victoria tapped her fingers nervously. Her heart dropped at the assignment paper, which said they needed to write a group essay on any current issue, and back it up with a novel and several news sources. Her eyes focused on the possessive words, knowing they were in plural form. Her hand shot up in the air. "Excuse me," she started. "Are we working on this with partners?" The teacher was getting to that, and it was just after her question did she pull out a hat with numbers: they would draw for their partners, everyone in the class. Victoria whimpered and played with her hands.

It's not that she didn't want to work with someone she didn't know, but how was she supposed to know their writing ability? What if her grades suffered? She considered for a moment if she could ask the teacher if she could work by herself, but that would be disappointing to her too. Without realizing, her name was called a second time, and she jumped out of her seat. "Oh, uhm, sorry!" Her face got hot with embarrassment as she ran up to the table where the hat was. She was the last one to draw, and she read the number carefully: 2.

Heading back to her spot, she made the stack of her notebooks neater while she waited for the other number two to sit with her. She wondered if she should go find them herself, but there were so many people walking around and shouting numbers already, despite it being a library and it was a necessity to be quiet in one. She hoped it was someone nice that she would be working with, and hopefully someone who wouldn't mind her structuring the whole thing in order to make it perfect. Timidly biting her lip, she saw a royal almost sit down with her and nearly panicked. God, had it been a long day.

[Rory Andrew Cook]

BUT I'M STUCK IN THIS FUCKING RUT
waiting on a second hand pick me up
( and I'm over , getting older ! )

Rory kept his gaze down as he walked through the halls. It was how he dealt with the crowds. He didn't particularly like crowds, especially when he was alone. It was nicer whenever he was with Andy or someone else he was close to. Not to say that he couldn't handle being in crowds alone, he could. It was just a personal preference to avoid them. His eyes snapped back up to make sure he didn't hit anyone or anything. That would have been terrible. People were scary. You never knew if they were going to be mean about bumping into them or nice. He hated annoying people so he just avoided it. Bumping people was bad for another reason too. It forced one to speak with other humans. That was something he wasn't good at. Then again Rory didn't really think he was good at anything. He could't even successfully kill himself. He frowned. Andy wouldn't forgive him either. His younger sister.. brother? wouldn't even speak with him. It hurt, a lot.

Once more his gaze shifted down to the ground after he rounded the corner to his English teacher's classroom. He almost smacked right into someone standing in front of the door. "I'm sorry!" he exclaimed, his cheeks turning a deep shade of red. The person didn't even acknowledge him. Good. Being invisible was good. Rory looked at what the other person was looking at and smiled. The library! He loved the library. It was a great place. It was full of books. Books always took him away to other places. He bit his lip. Why hadn't the teacher told them previously?

He shrugged and turned on his heels in the direction of the library. Rory moved his pale hands up to hold onto the straps of his backpack. Backpacks were funny things, well funny looking. They were actually really ordinary now that he thought about it. They kind of reminded him of a weird octopus, that was cool. He smiled a little as he walked quickly towards the library, keeping his head up as he went. He wondered what they were doing, hoping that it would be fun. The library had become a good friend while he was hiding from his roommate. He'd seen his sister... brother there the other day. He frowned, he needed to get used to Andy's transgender-ness. Alright, so he'd seen his brother there the other day, but it was probably for a live lesson of anatomy from one of his boy toys. He worried about Andy sometimes. He could still get pregnant and hurt. He wasn't physically male yet.

Rory chewed on his lip nervously as he pulled open the library door. Right, all he needed now was to find his class and hope that a table in the back was open. Invisible, it was easiest for everyone. He found a table that was close enough to the back for his liking and sat down. The bell rang soon after and all the others filtered in. His eyes shifted up to the teacher and he listened to her instructions, his happiness dying with every sentence she uttered. A frown replaced his smile. Partners. The only good part about that was that the partners were chosen. Okay, good. He'd just do the whole thing... that's what usually happened. He didn't mind. It worked out better that way.

When it was his turn he quietly wandered up and took his number from the pile. 2 alright, that was a start. Rory returned to his seat and waited for everyone else to go. He stood up and picked up his backpack and moved towards his partner. A girl. Not too incredibly scary. Maybe he could handle this. Quietly, he slid into the seat next to her. "Hi." he said quietly. She looked nice enough but appearances were often deceiving.


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[Victoria Camilla Welsh]

Stilling nervously tapping her fingers against the table, Victoria didn't even look up at first when her partner came over to say hello. Her ears twitched a tiny bit and, after shaking herself out of her over-concentrated gaze at her books, she moved her head up to see him. He wasn't much taller than her, except for that particular moment when she was sitting down, and had these amazing bright blue eyes. She made eye contact with him at first, but quickly realized how weird that might seem to someone who was otherwise a complete stranger. "Hi," she decided, her heart racing with nerves. Why she continued to act this way, she didn't really know. It's not like she had a problem with boys her age... Then again, she didn't know him yet, so maybe she was scared for good reason. She opened up her notebook to further distract herself from the idea of fear.

"So what kind of social issue do you want to present?" she asked, flipping to an empty page. "It doesn't matter to me, though personally, I wouldn't want to choose abortion or gay rights, just because everyone is going to want to do those first; they're too easy." Victoria clicked the back of her pen twice. "I mean, we could do child slavery, or maybe plastic surgery? I'm not really sure which you'd prefer." She started to write down a few ideas and a number of novels. "Do you want to use a novel we've both read? That might be more helpful." She felt the other people walking around her, grabbing books off of the shelves without a concern. As the drone of the class got louder, she got more and more scared. What if they weren't done in time? The paper said three weeks, but if other teachers gave her projects, that meant it wasn't a lot of time. She wanted things to fall into place, she did, but--- Oh, what did it matter? There was no way any other class would give her such an extensive project. Never. Still, her heart kept pounding and her hands shook as she scribbled down some thoughts.

"Uhm, do you mind if I write it?" The sentence came out without a second consideration. "I just don't want the structure of our writing to differ that much- I mean, write what you want, but I don't have a problem with writing the final draft. I-" She cut herself off. It drew on her then how she was acting, and she pressed her back against the chair and put her pen down quickly on the table, as if continuing to use it would cause it to implode. Her lips pursed: God, was she always this rude? Her eyes cast themselves down, ashamed for a moment, only to come back up to the blue-eyed boy next to her. "I'm sorry, I, uhm..." She laughed at herself pathetically. "That was really rude of me. I should have at least asked your name first." She quietly tortured her hands, twisting her fingers. "I'm Victoria."

[Rory Andrew Cook]

BUT I'M STUCK IN THIS FUCKING RUT
waiting on a second hand pick me up
( and I'm over , getting older ! )

Rory shifted his gaze to the floor when she made eye contact. He wasn’t very good at social intereactions. It had been his downfall for a while now. God he was so lame. Most of his social interactions were initiated by other people and he still didn’t know how to deal with them most of the time. The ones with Andy and Mason he could handle. Well, the ones with Andy used to be easy. Now he refused to even look at Rory with a smile. The younger sibling often looked at him with angry eyes, not that he blamed him. Maybe Andy finally realized that he was a terrible person. Probably not. He felt guilty though. Guilty that Andy had to be the one to find him. He should have thought that one through better. Andy was always coming into his room for any reason. Hell, Andy slept in his room a lot of the time. He shook his head. No, Andy wasn’t here right now; he needed to focus on his partner. He moved his eyes to the table, barely acknowledging her reply to his greeting.

Social issues? he bit his lip. He hadn’t really been focusing on the world as a whole. He’d been focusing on his specific issues. Why was he so selfish? So not abortion and gay marriage, he thought quietly. He didn’t actually understand why those were the biggest concerns anyways. Rory may not have been focusing on the world as a whole, but he knew that those were petty problems. There was always something worse like world hunger or the epidemic of AIDS/HIV in Africa. Plastic surgery wasn’t really a social issue… was it? Well, maybe if it went along with those overly perfect magazine models. He frowned. Maybe he should be focusing more on other people. He was so fucking selfish.

Rory listened to her speaking, unsure of how to respond to the list of ideas she had come up with. ”I don’t mind the topic, honestly, but if you wanted a suggestion, bullying? I mean… I read some articles on it,” his voice was small as he spoke, and was almost drowned out by the sounds of the other students. He was bad at this whole conversing thing. ”Yeah, sure.” he replied to her question about novels. He read a lot, but he wasn’t sure that the books he read would be relevant to this project. Rory chewed on the inside of his cheek nervously. She probably thought he was an idiot already. This sucked. Why the hell did the teacher pick group projects? It was so difficult and everyone here was so different. There were reasons as to why everyone was here; wouldn’t it be better if they were locked in cells or something? Then again, maybe that was just best for Rory. He had a lot of anxiety dealing with others and always jumped to the worst possible outcome.

”You can write it… if you want to, I mean.” Rory forced a smile in return to her question. She really did think he was an idiot. Smooth, Rory. Really smooth, he thought to himself sadly. Thanks for the pity, he thought bitterly to himself. Now she was making excuses to make him feel better. He always jumped to the worst thought first, he was so damn pessimistic. Rory’s eyes shifted down to the pen on the table, focusing on it. ”Rory.” he said replying to her introduction. Not that it mattered what his name was. He'd already made a terrible first impression of not talking and not knowing about current social issues. God, he really needed to stop feeling sorry for himself. In his opinion it was his worst flaw. It was up close to being a loser and being stupid. Did he really have anything good going for him?


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[Victoria Camilla Welsh]

Rory. That was a nice name, and she said so. "Very interesting," she continued, her eyes moving toward the ceiling as she thought about it. She gave a little half-smile to the air. "Yeah, I really like it." Finally, she looked at him, really, for the first time. He had this cute little nervous manner about him that made her feel warm and cold at the same time; she knew there was something up with him, but she found his sadness, his meek stature, a bit endearing. She wondered if girls liked him a lot, chased after him like a prize, but figured they wouldn't feel the same as she did when it came to his demeanor. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a small, strawberry chap stick and applied it tentatively, mulling in her thoughts as she moved her mouth back and forth.

Victoria hadn't considered bullying, but then again, most people hadn't until recently. Her ears perked up at the other groups, who were discussing the typical ones: marriage rights, pro-life views, legal rights for immigrants... They were all so boring and expected. She wondered if most people would shy away from bullying because of their own experiences, or because they feared the royals so much. Turning back to her partner, she scribbled down the topic. "I like the bullying idea," she explained. "What are some good books on it? Let's see..." Tapping her pen at corner of her lower cheek, she listed the novels she knew. They could do so many things with that topic, and that was something she really enjoyed. She was already thinking of strong arguments, interview questions, articles... She thought, could they use movies as sources? There had been a documentary recently, hadn't there? If not, she knew tons of others, and they were so raw and true to life.

She looked back at Rory. "We could use videos too," she stated. "Perhaps do a short presentation or compilation to go with our essay. I know MLA formatting has a citation for that kind of thing..." Writing it down, she heard her father's voice in her head, telling her to take it easy, and let other people have a chance to run things. Could she trust Rory? She did hardly know him, but he seemed really smart and, after all, it was his idea. "Hey." Her voice carried in the silence between them. "Listen, I'm sorry if it seems like I'm taking over: I'm just not used to... I don't know." She chortled at herself half-heartedly. "Anyway, if you have any more ideas, just put them out there. Table's always open." Victoria tried to give him a reassuring smile: He seemed like he needed more of those.

[Rory Andrew Cook]

BUT I'M STUCK IN THIS FUCKING RUT
waiting on a second hand pick me up
( and I'm over , getting older ! )

Rory smiled a little as she praised his idea. Bullying was pretty relevant to him as well. All throughout school people hadn’t been very nice to him. He’d also witnessed it a lot with his little sister… or brother rather. It got even worse when Andy came out to everyone as girl who felt more like a boy. Yeah, Andy probably had it worse than he had. There wasn’t a day that the kid didn’t get tormented in middle school. The funny part was that it never got to him, he kept smiling. Rory, on the other hand, had let it eat him away slowly since he was in elementary school. It might have been what contributed to his self-harm. ”I’m glad you’re okay with it.” he replied softly, his smile still present on his face. A real smile from Rory was rare; it was almost an extinct species. It was even more rare for him to smile for a stranger, maybe she was special.

He chewed on his lip gently listening to Victoria speak. ”Articles, articles might be better than books… maybe journals too.” he added finally taking a seat next to her. He felt like a huge dumbass standing up. Articles seemed like a good idea. There’d been so much reporting on bullying lately and not just grade school bullying. There was also the possibility that they could talk to some of the counselors and students as well. Rory wouldn’t have been surprised if a lot of the students here had faced some cruel form of bullying in their life. ”We could even narrow it down by using specific forms of bullying.” His voice sounded a little less nervous, he was getting used to her. It was a good thing.

He nodded at her agreeing with her suggestion. Wait, presentation? ”We don’t have to do a presentation… do we?” he asked nervously. He didn’t want to present. He held a fear of public speaking; it was why he spent a lot of time in the back of classrooms pretending not to exist. To him it was easier than thinking someone was making fun of him. It was the second alternative to just disappearing completely from school. ”Because… I’m not good at presenting things.” he said quickly. He was panicking already and it probably showed. Rory took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. He needed to calm down before he embarrassed himself. ”Sorry,” he apologized looking back up at her.

Rory shook his head. ”It’s alright, I don’t mind. You just want to get a good grade. I understand.” he smiled at her and scratched his hair gently. Maybe her taking over was for the best. There was no way he would be able to write a great paper with all the extra homework he’d taken on from Mason’s load. Sometimes he didn’t understand why he bothered doing his roommates homework. It wasn’t like he liked him, he was mean and touchy. Who could like that? He almost blushed violently thinking about the touchy aspect. There was no way he didn’t like that part. It made him feel like such a slut.


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[Victoria Camilla Welsh]

Rory was proving to be the best choice for a partner, and his smile was proof of that: Victoria's heart nearly exploded when he did it. He had a cute, sweet sort of smile, and she wished desperately that he would do it more... But she was getting distracted. It was class, and that meant she had to work!

Journals were a great suggestion! Victoria wrote it down eagerly, along with articles. "We do have to use one novel though, it says in the sheet. Have you read 13 Reasons Why?" Someone had bought her a copy of the book several years before as a birthday present, but she never had the chance to crack it open. People said that it was good, but then again, people thought that Twilight was reputable literature. She cringed at the thought. However, in the time she'd suggested the book, she hadn't noticed her partner starting to worry about the idea of presenting. He apologized, and she looked at him fretfully. Was he all right? Not knowing, she put down her pen and turned to face him. "Hey," she cooed, "it's not a big deal. I didn't mean it like 'presenting' anyway; I was suggesting we make a powerpoint to hand in on a disk or something as well." She felt terrible, freaking him out like that. There was a part of her that wanted to reach out and touch his hand for comfort, but she figured that might seem strange, so she placed her hand back on the table and gave him a smile.

"And I don't mind you writing as well, that's perfectly fine!" She was partly lying, but she knew it would make him feel better. She didn't like the make people feel dumb, it just came across that way sometimes. Sure, some people were stupid beyond compare, but... oh, she was doing it again. Perhaps it was time to move on to something else, and with that thought, she rose from her seat. "Come on, we should gather some stuff before the period's over." They still had twenty minutes of class, and two weeks to hand in the final product, but she wanted to get something done before the end of the day. Realizing she was walking ahead without a care, she turned back and grabbed Rory, her hand grasping his without a second thought. She let go soon enough, once she approached where the periodicals were, but it was still enough to make her blush once she realized.

What was with her? She barely knew him, for god's sake, and it's not as if she'd never talked to a person before. Perhaps... no. Did she even have an idea of who he was, what his hobbies were? Rory, to her, was sweet, smart... just plain, old simple Rory. To think she could... Victoria shook her head: she had to stop this nonsense and get back to work. Picking up a newspaper from ten years before, she flipped through and came to a story about someone named Tyler Clementi. Skimming through, she called out to him. "Hey," she suggested, "What do you think of this?" She remembered the story from the year before, but not completely. Her hands clasped to the edge of the newspaper as she leaned against the shelf.

[Rory Andrew Cook]

BUT I'M STUCK IN THIS FUCKING RUT
waiting on a second hand pick me up
( and I'm over , getting older ! )

Rory shook his head in answer to his questions, he had no idea what that was about. Judging by her suggesting it, it must have been about bullying, cool. Well, not really cool. Bullying sucked. It had been a problem for him, personally, since elementary school. ”There’s this novel called Speak that’s sort of about bullying… well it is a little bit.” It was really more of a girl coming to terms with being sexually assaulted, but she was bullied along the way. It was sad. There were other novels he read that had bullying in them. There was Perks of Being a Wallflower and Spaz & Stoner… What else… You Don’t Know Me, Twisted. There were so many, but he was coming up basically blank. Did The Catcher in the Rye have examples of bullying? It had been so long since he read it.

He swallowed hard and looked at her. With her words he relaxed, well relaxed as much as he ever did. ”Oh.” he said dumbly. That made him feel better about it. There was no way she’d be able to coax him to stand up in front of their class. He’d rather hide out in the boys bathroom or something, anything that could potentially get him out of presenting in front of a room of his peers. He was embarrassed that he’d reacted so harshly towards her suggestion. Had he have been anyone else he’d have been happy to present to the class, alas he was a coward.

”No it’s alright. If you want to that’s alright. I’d probably do a bad job anyways.” he offered, smiling at her a little. He had taken on doing Mason’s homework, perhaps this worked out for the best. He chewed on his lip, ”Unless you would like me to write it.”

[/b] Rory hoped not. It was wrong of him to think like that. The work of their project would be distributed unevenly and here he was allowing her to take on most of the work so he could finish his and Mason’s homework. He was such a shitty person. ”I don’t mind if you want me to, I just have a lot on my plate at the minute.” Now he was just going back and forth. Why would she want to leave the writing to him when he’d just announced that he was a shitty writer? He made no sense.

While he was lost in his mind she’d grabbed hold of his wrists. He turned white. What if she could feel his scars from when he attempted? She was going to think he was gross. Why didn’t he try some other way? Someway that wouldn’t have left him with thick white scars all over him. Rory pulled his hand away as soon as he could pry it out of her grasp. Realistically the scars felt the same, for the most part. The only difference was the color and the fact that the scar tissue might have been a little smoother. He chewed on his lip nervously, hoping to God she didn’t feel it. Rory was ashamed of his scars. They were proof of how big of a failure he really was. He couldn’t even kill himself for Christ’s sake. It also could have been that he failed to choose a way that would cause death swiftly. They were also signs that he wasn’t strong enough to live. He really was a terrible person, no wonder Andy wouldn’t talk to him anymore. Rory didn’t really blame him for it.

Rory looked over her shoulder at the article and bit his lip. 2010… That was a long time ago. he thought to himself. The story did seem familiar though even though it was ten years old, but it was obvious as to why. ”It’s sad how common trends are,” he stated sadly. Bullying and suicide, why did they always seem to go hand in hand? It disgusted him, but he understood it. He was in the same place. When you heard you were worthless enough it really got to you, eventually you start to believe it. He frowned and turned away. ”That works,” he said, nodding a little. He’d never faced anything as bad as what that kid had faced, he could only imagine how bad it was.


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[Victoria Camilla Welsh]

(( sorry this kind of took forever, I had a lack of muse, but it's back now! ))

"Yeah. It is." That was all she could really say. She'd never experienced anything like that before, wanting to die: the only time she could have felt like that was when her mother left, but she was too young to understand that back then. Hell, her only association with death was when her grandfather passed away when she was nine, and as sad as that was, she hadn't seen him more than once or twice a year. Victoria tried to imagine what it must have been like for the boy's family, and it frustrated her that she couldn't. Rory seemed to understand, and was very sullen, but she couldn't wrap her mind around it.

This poor kid: killed himself because some scumbag decided it was a good idea to expose his darkest secrets. Shaking her head, she folded up the paper and eyed up the date. "You don't think this is too old, do you?" she asked. "I mean, I don't think it's irrelevant, but still..." Walking over to the computer stations, she intended to find newer stories they could use as well, but the tables were full, so she stood there and stared vacantly at the wall. What an awful thing. She wondered if it would ever get like that for her, but it seemed like a very morbid thought, so she pushed it into the back of her mind for that particular moment. Turning to Rory, she sensed something was up, so she opened her mouth. "Hey..." She gave him a reassuring smile, so he wouldn't feel like she was judging him or anything. "Is everything okay? You've been awfully quiet the whole period." She paused. "Did I say something?"

She always had the habit of doing that, both assuming and hurting people's feelings. She didn't mean to, really she didn't, it just came across as brash because she wanted to make everything perfect and work out in her favor. Why did she have to assume it was her fault though? Maybe he had family problems... Oh, she didn't want to think about that either. Her mind wasn't the most helpful place to be that day, so she considered pulling out a book and reading for a while. No, that was rude. There were no winners here, and she sighed, feeling terrible and full of this strange new melancholy.

[Rory Andrew Cook]

BUT I'M STUCK IN THIS FUCKING RUT
waiting on a second hand pick me up
( and I'm over , getting older ! )

Rory completely understood the kid. He’d been bullied. He knew how much words could hurt. It took a million compliments to build someone up and then one negative thing to bring it all down. He’d remembered how hard it was to come out to his parents about being gay. If they had have turned away from him he might have tried to end his life sooner. Some people responded positively to bullying though. Andy always seemed to smile in the face of people trying to bring him down. He didn’t really understand how his little brother could deal with that, the kid was stronger than anyone ever gave him credit for being. He nodded a little when she spoke.

”No, I think it’d be a cool idea to have something old and maybe something new to point out that this isn’t a new issue…” He ran his fingers through his hair gently thinking about it. Parallels between the new and old always seemed to be a cool idea. It underlined the fact that bullying was an issue and probably would be for a long time. His eyes shifted back to his companion and he was suddenly on alert. ”What? Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”

[/b] he asked nervously. Was it that obvious that he was being an emo douchebag in his mind? God he hoped not. He gnawed on his lip gently. ”I mean… This is how I normally am? I don’t really talk, I’m not good at it.” he added sadly. He used to want to make friends, but over the years he’d given up all hope of finding a group of people who understood him completely. Mason sometimes tried to be his friend, if that counted, but it could also be that Mason wanted in his pants. This topic was too close to him.

The boy turned back to their work. ”We should probably do some more work. I’d feel bad if you did all the research and writing.” He smiled a little and printed the article that she was looking at. Rory jumped up and retrieved the papers from the printer and brought it back over to their work area. Realistically he’d feel guilty either way, he always did. If he wrote the project he’d feel guilty for not doing the best he could. In this situation he felt guilty that she’d be doing the writing portion of the project. The kid could never win. Maybe Mason would be in a snuggly mood when he got back to the room later. He could use a hug right now. Andy would have been preferable to Mason, but he was still mad at Rory. Rory didn’t blame him for that though.

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