Scarlett Slydale Fox sister

Source

PepLett

Bored

With those who weren’t her parents the assumption was that Hazel was named for Hazelnut. It tasted kind of chocolatey so i made sense for her parents to name their next unwanted ball of fluff after that. Hazel actually referred to dark, as in, dark chocolate. If it weren’t for the reasons, she’d probably quite like her name.

As it was currently, Hazel Chocolate didn’t really like -anything- school was dull, learning impossible thanks to her classmates, and in some ways herself, most other kids were either her siblings, her cousins, or just flat out annoying, and to top it off she couldn’t leave for most of the week because of the stupid boarding rooms for people who, like her parents, didn’t feel like keeping their kids in the house anymore.

There were four kids in each dorm, two upper school and two middle school, Hazel’s fellow dorm mates were Sabrina, Tiffany and Scarlett. Sabrina was the fellow middle school girl. So she seemed to have taken this as a sign that Hazel wanted her company. Hazel actually wanted to be left alone and to just sleep, but hey, what did her opinions matter, right?

This especially was the case when someone decided it was time for “dorm games”, like somehow staying up late and playing dull games with these people would fix Hazel’s mood at all. A particularly annoying instance of this was the Truth or Dare game. “Well I think it’s important we all make memories and bond.” Tiffany had said. The only memory Hazel was going to get from this was being annoyed and hating this game. The game was mostly full of just “Who do you like?” This was normal until it landed on Sabrina who said “Everyone” the first time then when told they meant like a boyfriend shouted her brother’s name. There was a brief panic until Scarlett laughed and specified “No,no we mean you want to date them.” “Oh! Then Hazels!” No one really wanted to ask much more on that subject. Least of all Hazel herself who announced immediately she was going to bed.

And that really had been the plan, lie in bed, block out the noise from the game, hope for a long expanse of dreams to take her away. But then Sabrina had come running to the side of the bed begging, “Come on Hazels please? I want to keep playing!” “Play without me” Groaned Hazel, trying not to look at the girl currently starting to pat at her bedsheets. The one weakness in the girl practically named for her bitterness was the way she just couldn’t say no to Sabrina’s teary face. She didn’t understand why, contenting herself with the view that the little cat was just so pathetic that if Hazel did not take care of her, then no one would.

She regretted succumbing to Sabrina’s whims almost the second she told Tiffany “Gimmie a dare.” “I dare you to take a dance lesson” ANOTHER lesson? Hazel wanted nothing more than less being taught. But unfortunately she had agreed, so it was this or face the backing out dare. Then Scarlett was given the same dare. Because what could be better than being forced to skip around like an idiot? Adding more people to the room. Hazel felt like hitting something until Sabrina came up again. “Dare!” “I dare you to take a dance class too.” The little cat girl clapped, cheered and added “With Hazels?” Tiffany nodded and Hazel could swear Sabrina almost squealed with delight, running to hug her arm and be gently pushed off.

This might just be fun after all.

New bean style!

ScarAbelle

Maybe It’ll End Up Fine

Buster was, ironically enough, their little Christmas miracle. Or more specifically their two days after Christmas miracle. He was expected to come around that time, Velvette was jokingly disappointed that he didn’t actually come on the day, so for a few years they joked that he was a little fashionably late. Velvette started to realize something was going wrong when Buster was old enough to play with toys. While her second child, little Scarlett Slydale, cried a lot too, it was nothing compared to Buster’s near constant restlessness as an infant. Then there was his tendency to go from happily cuddling his little teddy to seeing how far he could throw it, to screeching no matter what was done for him until Velvette removed the toy from the room. As if it somehow upset him. Then he’d go back to crawling around until he started crying because he didn’t have a teddy. Slick was usually at work while this happened, with two young children and the price of babysitting so high Velvette couldn’t work for now, this was probably for the best. She loved her children, she just wished Buster wasn’t constantly upset. It felt like she was doing something wrong for him, but it wasn’t for lack of trying, she tried giving him time alone, he sobbed until she came back into the room, she tried carrying him everywhere, he wriggled until she put him down again, toys, food, singing, it worked for a time but then he’d be right back to misery. Slick was the one who usually tried to see if maybe their baby boy was sick or if “Maybe this toy will help?” Or “Does he need to sleep more?” But eventually it seemed all they could do was wait it out and hope he was just a difficult baby. Putting him in for Nursery had been a long conversation. If he was so bad at just playing on his own what would he be like with other kids? Velvette really didn’t want to have to start worrying about him having a hard time or the ladies who worked their judging them as parents if something went wrong. Buster was a lovely baby but he just… Velvette began boiling the kettle as a distraction, it didn’t really work. Was it her fault? It must be, kids don’t act up if they have good parents right? “Maybe the other children will be a good influence?” There was Slick again, calming, optimistic, gently smiling like nothing was wrong at all as he picked up two mugs.

He had to be right.

So she dropped Buster off and prayed no one would call home. Scarlett was a lot less of a cranky toddler now that afternoon naps didn’t get interrupted by her brother at least, but the lack of screaming from Buster kept Velvette on edge all day. “There was a little upset today.” Oh no. “Oh I’m really sorry I keep telling him he shouldn’t hit things when he’s upset is the other kid o-” “No, no your son didn’t do anything wrong.” The nursery aide interrupted. “One of the other boys isn’t good at sharing and accidently knocked him over, your boy is alright now, don’t worry.” Someone hurt her baby? Velvette felt guilty for assuming Buster did something wrong almost instantly and picked him up, he clung onto the fabric of her shirt, surprisingly content compared to the usual calm down he usually needed.

Buster was back to playing with the blocks once he got home but Velvette sat with him for a few minutes, talking to Buster was important after all. “So did the boy say sorry?” Buster shook his head but kept his little grin, “Nope!” Concerning. “That’s not very nice of him…” Velvette started. “It’s okay! He wanted the toy.” From the same toddler who cried when Scarlett picked up the teddy he threw last week this was… Odd. “You should always say sorry when you hurt someone.” Velvette insisted, both because her baby boy better not let people treat him badly, but also because she didn’t want her little one to grow up thinking it was okay to bully other kids. The first few days of proper school were not exactly peaceful. Despite everything Buster was still prone to his sudden changes in temperament within what seemed like seconds. He spoke about another boy named Earl a lot, to the point where Velvette worried he was struggling to pick up friends from a new environment to the nursery. But still, at least he was speaking to someone right? Velvette crushed her worries as nothing more than motherly concerns and tried to encourage Scarlett to just eat even one bite of her peas. Maybe she didn’t like them? She ate mash potatoes just fine, if a little messily, but they didn’t have any right now. At least the children got along well. Buster still freaked out over almost anything but he  seemed capable of playing for at least half an hour with his sister without issue. The more nine year old Buster spoke about his “friend” the more Velvette wanted to rip Earl as far away from her little boy as possible. But all attempts to explain to Buster why friends shouldn’t order their friends to do things for them or give them parts of their lunch and how friends -definitely- shouldn’t hit each other were met with excuses and evasions of what happened or him insisting that ALL the boys were like that with each other. The worst part of hearing her little jewel of a child say all this was the way he believed all that crap he was saying. And no amount of demonstrating with teddies or calm talks or telling him to demand an apology at least was going to fix it. Or maybe it would if she wasn’t such a woefully incompetent mother, Slick never had these problems growing up, neither had she in that distant past, they hadn’t even been raised by their own mothers. But here she was and nothing about her son was going right, his mood was erratic, his only friends were his sister and an asshole who was too young for Velvette to yell at herself, and he thought that eating the same meal for days on end in order to avoid buying too much food was normal. Slick was doing everything just fine, he worked and then even made an effort to talk to the kids before he crashed out asleep, exhausted. The problem had to be her. Even little Scarlett wasn’t doing well, being so close to her brother meant she seemed to feel like she had to be quiet and do anything herself to avoid upsetting anyone. That wasn’t the responsibility of an eight year old girl, not to mention she seemed to understand she wasn’t as well off as the girls she saw when playing outside in the local park everyday. One day her mother found her in the local library reading books on maths far too advanced for her age and when Velvette asked her about it Scarlett started crying and told her that she already was worrying about if she’d ever get a good enough job to be like the women she saw walking around those shops Velvette knew they’d never afford to shop in. She didn’t have the heart to tell her little angel that there was almost no chance things would ever be like that. Just patted her on the head and said “Those are big girl books, you’ll understand them one day.” Things just got worse and worse and worse and Slick was constantly at work or sleeping and Scarlett looked miserable and Buster was being treated like some worthless rich nine year old’s personal servant and saw nothing wrong with that and all Velvette could do was keep telling the two perfect darlings she was horribly failing that things were going to be perfectly happy one day. But the only thing she could ever think to do for her little precious broken gentle children was hope it’ll all end up fine.

Thought Better of It

The concept of sibling rivalry rarely hit the Slydale children. That didn’t mean they got on perfectly, Scarlett a seeming golden child who, despite a lack of close friends kept up a decent reputation for herself, and Buster who was… Well not a bad kid but… Buster. When Buster brought home friends they tended to be surprised the two were actually related, as well as how different they were. Scarlett recalled an incident where Earl had asked why she bothered to read so much when she could just ask Buster to do things for her. She’d considered hitting him but Buster had joked he already did Earl’s homework and wouldn’t have time for his sister’s and Scarlett thought better of it. How exactly Buster and Earl were friends Scarlett never really understood. A large amount of the late night chats her and Buster had were on the subject of things Earl did to Buster, he seemed to think nothing of it, Scarlett felt like that almost made it worse. When Buster started smoking Scarlett was the first to find out, he’d been careless and left them in his pocket so they fell out. Scarlett figured it was no big deal. They weren’t bad for anyone really, but he was a bit too young for them still given that he was 13. She considered asking who sold them to him but the look on his face suggested he was worried their parents would be upset with him so she stayed quiet about it. Eventually she found out her brother shared them with Earl. Of course he did. Buster did just about everything for him. For example when Scarlett was 13 she started finding bruises from her brother getting into fights. Buster laughed it off, said it was “Nothing really Scar,” but then would flinch sometimes if touched. Then she’d seen him punch an older kid for saying something about Earl being a bad influence. She wished she could tell her brother that what he’d done had really just proved the guy’s point. Scarlett wondered sometimes if things would have been better if she just asked him a little more. Or just told their parents something. Or even just stopped Buster somehow before he got himself into any more trouble. As with most things, Scarlett was also the first to find out Buster’s worst secret. Things had been going okay, there was a girl at school he liked and talked about a lot, Scarlett had seen him talk to her at school a few times, quietly rooting for him. But then one day that seemed to have just stopped and when Scarlett asked about her Buster simply shrugged and said he wasn’t interested anymore. He then smiled and told her he realised he liked someone else. But it wasn’t the good smile. Not the cheerful one he used when he got presents, not the mischievous one  Buster used when he wanted to play, definitely not the same one he used while talking about the girl and not even the kind of smile you give when pretending everything's okay. Buster’s smile was the tense, frightened, desperate scream of someone pretending they weren’t about to die. Something was wrong. “Who do you like?” “Ha,” Trying to sound casual, “just someone.” He reached for his cigarette packet. “Buster…” She hadn’t meant to panic him but that was always the way with her brother. “Just! SOMEONE! OKAY!” Scarlett started moving away at that. Her brother’s mood swings were at this point normal to her but frightening nevertheless. As if sensing he’d gone too far the shouting lessened but his face didn’t relax much. Just enough for Scarlett to pick up on the way he was avoiding looking at anything but the wall. A calm down trick their mother taught them, more so for him, after an incident where Buster threw a ball at the floor and it bounced and broke something. It didn’t really “work” but it kept him still which gave anyone time to remove dangerous objects from the vicinity and if they’d offended him, time to backtrack a little. Scarlett slid the glass of Hot Chocolate away from arm's reach and considered if she needed, or could, take his lighter. But pretty soon Buster simply walked off out somewhere. About an hour later Buster came in shaking and upset and apologetic. The shaking was new but the rest was, again, common practice with her brother’s moods. It was only after he apologised for yelling, offered a hug, and then climbed into his bed that Scarlett realised something was very, very wrong. Buster was crying?

Buster, HATED, crying. Especially if there was the slightest chance of being seen. Last time Scarlett caught him crying he’d immediately pretended to be laughing at some private joke and yelled at her to go away. Something about how boys aren’t meant to cry, especially not boys that were friends with cool people like Earl and his little group. So the fact he came home meant he hadn’t expected this.

The new problem was what to do with this information. Scarlett couldn’t exactly just ask “Hey Buster why are you suddenly crying?” Because then he’d know she’d noticed and the way he was choking on his tiny sobs suggested he didn’t want that. But she couldn’t just casually leave either, not with him in a state like this. His parents wouldn’t like it and besides, if he shifted back into being angry he might break something. So instead she pretended to be asleep while she waited for him to calm down. At first this seemed to work until half an hour in Buster starting saying things to himself quietly, more directed at his pillow, or maybe some unseen toy he kept with him. “I’m fucking messed up.” Self deprecation from Buster usually came in the form of a joke, usually more for Earl’s sake. So this was unsettling. After a punch to his pillow Scarlett heard, “What the fuck kind of weirdo gets it into his head that he’s in love with best friend?” Scarlett tried very hard not to react out loud. Buster loved? Earl? That was a bit weird. But not because of anything wrong with her brother to be honest. Scarlett wondered if she should talk to him. But thought better of it. “It’s probably not even love. Fucked up weird people who find their own sex attractive are just…” Scarlett never liked church the times where she and her brother were forced to go, but she heard enough from everyone who did go to understand it said that same sex attraction was “immoral” and “sinful” and she remembered someone talking about how “the homosexuals” would burn in hell. That didn’t make much sense when she applied it to her brother. Finally the speaking stopped and the crying slowed as Buster fell asleep. Scarlett moved Buster’s covers back onto the bed after he’d kicked them off, and hoped he’d leave some option for them to talk calmly. “Temperamental. Apparently that’s what some people call it.” The excuse Scarlett had given, where they’d spoken about this in school today, was an utter lie. But with a month gone and Buster saying nothing, this would have to do. It was funny, because sometimes their parents would try softening Buster’s behaviour in discussion by saying he could be temperamental at times. The awkward silences and short answers Buster was giving were enough to prove Scarlett’s prediction Buster had been avoiding the subject on purpose. But if all this was enough to make him cry he needed to know he could talk to his sister. Scarlett was starting to wonder how to bring up that night subtly. or at least without upsetting her brother, when Buster took the cigarette out of his mouth for a moment and asked her, somewhat nervously if there was a word for someone who loved men and women. This confused Scarlett a little, was that possible? She shook her head and answered truthfully. “I’ve never heard of anyone like that before.” at this Buster returned to the cigarette and laughed bitterly. “I suppose someone like that would have to be the worst of them all, huh? Like. They CAN be attracted to the right people but instead they just keep being wrong.” Scarlett couldn’t really see her brother as wrong. Certainly not the “worst” person in any sense. She almost thought better of saying anything more and Buster asked her about the rest of the school day. But she needed to make sure her brother could talk to her. For once Scarlett needed to do something more. “I wouldn’t say someone like that was wrong. Just. A bit different.” Buster looked shocked, frightened, confused and then happy all within five seconds. But then he said it didn’t really matter and tried very hard to look disinterested.

“Buster I heard you crying a while ago.” Scarlett could swear she saw Buster’s face break for moment as his stomach churned. “What do you mean?” He forced that same smile from before back onto his face. Panic flooding through his head and almost into hers. “Buster I really don’t mind.” He didn’t move an inch. “If you’re temperamental I mean.” But he didn’t get angry or cry either. A few seconds later she could vaguely see Buster process this. “You. Dont? Think I’m? A freak?” Scarlett smiled and got up to make another hot chocolate. “Of course not. You’re my older brother. According to that lot we’re off to hell anyway.” As things fully calmed down an idea came to Scarlett and she tapped her brother on the shoulder as he walked off. “If you like both... Maybe you just need a phrase to describe yourself instead of just one word?” Buster turned and listened. “Because I mean, you are temperamental, but not, just temperamental, and you sometimes get temperamental in the other way too.” At that comment Buster looked a little embarrassed .but could tell the comment meant no harm. “For example, maybe…” Scarlett smiled and realised she’d got it..

“You’re just a little temperamental sometimes.” She giggled, “in more ways than one.”

Everything’s going to be fine

Sylvania wasn’t so bad. The air was nicer than London at least, and there was a novelty in sometimes being the only person in a section of the park.

Funny how the main reason he had to LEAVE London was the main thing Buster missed. On the level of just pure logic, Earl was terrible. He’d used Buster for everything, from homework, to cigarettes, to beating people up; then threw him away when he found out just -why- Buster was willing to do all that. Earl literally ruined his life.

But he’d been so pretty and his voice was soft and he called Buster “Bustie” and  said he was wonderful and his “Best friend” . Even that arrogant self confidence was almost magnetic. The truth of the matter was, turns out a cocky smile and a pair of nice eyes was enough for Buster to give everything up for just a glimpse of his hopes.

Buster rubbed his cheek and then flinched. “That’s why we’re not going back.” He said it to himself but tried to imagine he was explaining to someone else. Like there was some other boy called Buster Slydale who’d told his best friend he loved him and, as a result, spent the last two months being attacked everyday at school. Like it was some other Buster who had found themselves bleeding on the floor after Earl had found a particularly sharp stone and decided hitting Buster with it was worth the disgust of touching something on the ground.

Or just the disgust of being anywhere near Buster.

Usually it was easy to at least, pretend to, hate Earl. But then it would be dark in the house, Scarlett and his parents asleep, when the main reason Buster was awake at all was just the heavy sensation of a cigarette craving. Maybe it was just Buster’s fault. After all he was some sick depraved person who was attracted to Earl despite both of them being, well, male. No wonder Earl reacted that way, Buster was already not really good enough to be friends with him and then he admitted something like that? Fuck it Buster needed weed instead, tobacco wasn’t going to numb this.

Buster was faintly aware he shouldn’t have been smoking at all, let alone that stuff. But he’d stop when they stopped being the only thing that seemed to help with his problems. Too angry? Smoking kept him calm, too stressed? Again, calming. Waking up in the middle of the night and thinking about how the boy he grew up friends with and would probably die for knows everything and hates him? Well at least this sends those thoughts elsewhere for now. Hell, it was even fixing the money troubles after moving here. Speaking of all that, Buster was able to pick up a regular already. He felt both happy and guilty about this. But at least for now it was just usual cigarettes to one of the rabbit girls in this town.

She was? Pretty? Not a perfect person to be idolised and do everything for, but nice in a different way. A normal sort of thing where he could have a crush on a girl, talk to her sometimes, share some jokes. The biggest problem being the way Buster had trouble remembering names and was kind of awkward about talking so almost all conversations were blunt matter of fact transactions. But at in some ways that was better.

As long as this kept up. Everything was going to be okay