Issue 1 Downtime

Stephanie stood outside the door to Ryan's room, hesitated for a moment, but then knocked.

Ryan answered the door, looking a bit the worse for wear. His shirt was (still) not present, and he was currently cleaning out the scratches from Chloe's talons and showing some mild burns from Melody-explosions. "Hey," he said, unenthusiastically.

"You've not had a good few days..." she said, after staring at his chest in surprise for a moment. She looked back up at his face, genuine concern in her eyes. "Can we talk?"

Ryan sighed. "Yeah, come in. Leave the door open," he said.

Steph walked in. "Should we do this even more publicly? At this point I don't really know if the rumor mill can even be stopped."

"I figure this is going to be short anyway."

"I don't." she said, crossing her arms.

"Have you talked to Rachel?"

"Yes," he said.

"And are things at least sort of resolved between you?"

Stephanie leaned against Ryan's wall. "I don't mean to pry. But you clearly brought the issues with you into class, and the kids could tell, and it wasn't....*you*"

"We're dealing with it. It's not easy, but we're dealing with it."

"Good. Good luck. I'm sorry that I...or at least our history was part of the issue."

She cleared her throat a bit uncomfortably.

"That's not my main reason for coming here though. Main reason is as your colleague. Can we go back to working together? Can we not call the kids--" she dropped her voice to almost a whisper,"--little shits within earshot of them?"

"I didn't call them that in earshot," Ryan scoffed.

"We have shifters and telepaths. Consider it within earshot,"

"Well, consider it motivation for Haley to learn to keep her mind to herself, then."

"What the hell is wrong with you? You were never, ever like this before." she looked almost hurt. "These kids need us, and we can't just check out because they have attitude problems."

"No, they don't need me. They're resentful and obnoxious and they don't even want to be in that class." He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out the ream of lesson plans and student notes he'd amassed for the class, letting it thump down on the desk for her.

"Most of them have no where else to go. They're in a completely alien environment, and they have been kicked out of their own country, and are still dealing with hormones and powers they barely control. You do all of this prep with me and you can't see how much they really DO need us? You are my friend, Ryan, and so I care about you, and I really don't want to lose someone who I *know* could help me do so much good with these kids."

Steph appeared to have something in both of her eyes. She bit her lip.

"It doesn't matter if they need me or not if they don't want me. It's been a month and a half and none of them give two shits what I say or what I expect, give us any amount of respect, or see any point to being there. They don't want me there, you don't want me there, well fine." He made a sweeping gesture to tell her to just take all the notes.

"FINE," she said, snatching the papers, doing a poor job of containing her tears at this point.
She spun on her heels and started to storm out, struggling to restrain herself from sobbing.

"Oh what," Ryan shot back, rolling his eyes. "You're the one who threw me out of the class."

"Because you weren't yourself, damnit!" she said, tears running down her face. "And I thought you might come to your senses later, but clearly you won't, and you don't give a shit about all the work we did to help these kids, and how much more we could do."

She clutched the papers to her chest tightly.

"What can I do!" he snapped back at her, now, almost shouting. "Have more sleepless nights worrying about kids that don't want me to help them? Beat myself up more wondering why I can't get through to them? Or should I just accept that the kids don't want me helping them and go from there!"

"They're kids, Ryan! Kids who've been through a lot! I know it's hard. I've cried myself to sleep many, many nights, and you know how little I normally cry. I know it's hard, but you can't do it and expect them to immediately and politely thank you!"

Stephanie was shouting at this point as well. So much for not causing a scene.

"You were through a lot! I was through a lot! We all were through a lot, and none of us acted like that! Let's fucking face it, Steph, I've got nothing to offer them! I can blast apart a fucking sentinel, I can't get a teenager to take me seriously!" he shouted back.

There was a sound of footsteps approaching, but at the climax of the shouting, they stopped dead in their tracks.

Stephanie's ears twitched, and she held up her hand to Ryan to shush him. She sniffled through the tears and then smelled the air.

She sighed, explaining softly, "and we have an audience..."

"You think you have nothing to give, but you're wrong. You're wrong on so many levels," she said very quietly, her voice thick from her tears.

"Uhm... I can... come back later?" Came the voice from the hallway.

Stephanie wiped her eyes and face in vain, clearing her throat.

"What did you need, Brigid?"

She was no longer crying but it was painfully apparent that she had been.

Ryan sighed, slumping against his desk. "Just come in, Brigid."

She awkwardly stepped into the doorway.

"Er, I wanted to go over my assignments with Mister Gabriel, but if it's a bad time..."

"Up to him. If he's busy, I can probably help you."

Ryan sighed, then reached for a shirt in his dresser. "Yeah, just... take a seat, give me a minute." He finished pushing the bandage onto his hand, then shrugged into the shirt.

Brigid pulled up a chair and sat, giving an awkward look to the two.

Stephanie set down the lesson plans she had been clutching on the end table next to the small love seat and leaned against the arm, giving Brigid the whole couch to herself before she grabbed the chair she sat in.

im crying and he's shirtless. Probably looks like the scratches are from me. We can't win...

"All right," he said, looking a bit tired as he took a different seat on the other side of the love seat. "What's the problem?"

"Well... it's kind of embarrassing, but..."

She shifted in her seat.

"Okay, I think the assignments are helping. It's just... it still feels so violent."

"What sort of things are you doing for practice?" he asked.

"I'm the one that's doing all those leverage tests. I mean, I appreciate you don't have me swordfighting and all..."

"Well...part of this training is about getting more comfortable with what you can do. Knowing really what you can do. Do you...have any thoughts on things that you could do to accomplish the same goals?" Stephanie suggested, her arms crossed in thought.

"Well er... is there anyone who can tutor me who isn't Captain Swords-Are-Cool? I mean, no offense..."