Protector, Protector (BL)

Chapter 4

Before the boys even knew it, the year had already started to blaze along. A few weeks of mind-numbing bliss passed without a single Shadow showing its ugly head on campus. Azame and Ajax were so immersed in their studies and planning for what they were going to do after college, they could almost believe that their lives were normal. They’d been buried beneath career planning worksheets and essays about whatever Shakespearian play their English class handed out.

However, that didn’t stop Azame from getting in trouble and getting sent to the Principal’s office more often than not. This time, he was already failing two classes and the year hadn’t even started yet. It was better than the few days he’d brawl with whatever new bully who’d laid their eyes on him. Being weird sucked. It put a massive target on Azame’s back for anyone wanting to get off on a power trip.

“You’re doing exceptional in classes already, except for these two classes here. Math and Chemistry. It’s so early in the school year, how could you be falling behind already?” Headmaster Lange stated as he leaned back in his chair. His thinning black hair had been slicked back but his eyes remained warry. He refused to meet Azame’s eyes. “I can pull some strings and have you drop Chemistry if need be.”

Azame held his tongue. The same thing had happened last year, when he’d tried to take Chemistry. Azame prided himself in his intelligence, but for some reason his brain couldn’t see formulas or numbers and he always struggled. If it wasn’t for Grandmother, he’d be taking three separate math classes this year alone. He’d barely got through his freshman year of math and then suddenly, there were letters inside those numbers and his brain couldn’t keep up.

It’d been the same way with Chemistry, to. He chose to retry again this year, only to watch himself fall behind quickly. Why couldn’t it just be easy? Even right now, he had dozens of assignments he hadn’t turned in piled up on his desk in the dorm rooms, all of which he didn’t understand and had briefly entertained the thought of torching. Was he really that stupid to need special attention again this year, just to be able to graduate?

He couldn’t bear the thought of Grandmother trekking cross country just to talk to the headmaster about what classes Azame should take, and which he should drop.

Azame nodded earnestly. “Thank you sir, but I want to really try this year. I can do it, I know it.”

The Headmaster eyed him like he was some kind of low dog, and it irked Azame. He’d spent his whole life with people looking down on him, just because he was some stray some rich person picked up for PR at their school. To be housed in BRAE was some special award and Azame and Ajax were there on a special scholarship. Who could afford such a hefty tuition price with how the pair lived? Even with the Manor backing them up financially, they still struggled. During the summers, Ajax would have to go out and get a job to support whatever apartment they’d managed to snag. BRAE wanted them to be thankful for that special attention, to grovel at their feet. But Azame didn’t grovel and like hell he’d let Ajax bow down to anyone who dared step on him.

“I’ll wait until after the first quarter, if you can turn your grades around by then, you can stay in the class,” the headmaster finally said and Azame could finally let out the breath he was holding. “But I have no choice but to pull you if you can’t. There are plenty of easier classes available.”

Sure, it didn’t give him much time. It seemed time had sped up and the days were passing by a lot faster than Azame remembered. But it was enough time to prove the headmaster wrong that he wasn’t some stupid invalid the school picked up out of mercy. Azame worked better under hard conditions and deadlines anyway. He was a major procrastinator, and had often written a paper with only two-three hours left to turn it in. His best work always came out of that ‘crunch time’, so he could do this. He could.

“Have you chosen any club activities this year… ah, with your condition though…” The Headmaster paused and scratched the back of his head. “Nevermind.”

“Ah, I was going to ask… I could make a club. A gardening club…” Azame interjected, tightening his grip on his bag. His knuckles were white. “It’d be a little different then the normal clubs, but there's some boys that might be interested. And botany is a good thing to promote for future scientists! You never know, you may be housing the next scientist to cure a previously incurable disease!”

“Ah, but this is a boy’s school. We don’t garden. It’s ok. There’s an opening in the football club, but otherwise… it’s ok. You don’t have to be in one,” the Headmaster replied before pulling out his stamp pad. He straightened the grade sheet before dipping the stamp into the blood red ink. With a final press, he stamped the sheet before tucking it into Azame Winter’s file before closing it. The name Azame had been using for six long years. But that wasn’t his name though, not his real one. He was born as Azame Jackson and he hoped that someday, when he died, he’d be buried as Azame Jackson. Not Azame Winters, not Azame Stephens. Jackson. “I’ll inform your guardian once more.”

“Ah, thank you,” Azame replied nonchalantly with a small smile.

“You’re, uh… you’re dismissed,” the man replied before looking back down at the desk.

Azame got up quickly and padded out through the door. He nodded once at the guidance counselor before entering the hall. He heard someone kick off from the wall and join him almost immediately. Ajax pulled a sucker from his mouth and c****d his head.

“I wasn’t in trouble,” Azame stated before the words could even escape Ajax’s mouth. “At least, not like usual. Unlike you.”

While Ajax wasn’t the typical rule breaker, he got called in for the exact same things every time. Whether it was because he refused to cut his long hair, which would have been offensive against his own family’s honor. Or the fact that he was the only latino boy in the school. He didn’t have the darkest skin, but as a poor latino boy thrown into the midst of a sea of rich white boys? Well, Ajax found himself at the butt end of things he didn’t do. Things he didn’t steal, but few teachers ever believed Ajax. So Ajax was constantly getting into trouble too. Even when Azame would punch whatever boy decided to be outright racist, Ajax would find himself in Azame’s place often enough.

“Ugh!” Ajax groaned before flopping onto Azame’s shoulder dramatically. “They can’t make me cut my hair. It’s a pride thing for my family. Therefore, it’s off limits.”

The older ruffled Azame’s hair with a chuckle. “Who did your haircut though? I don’t remember going out with you to get your haircut.”

“I…” Azame paused, scratching behind his ear. “I snuck out of the house… without anyone.”

Ajax frowned, obviously upset. “You just want to get killed.”

“I’m sorry,” Azame sighed, but his partner bumped his arm as he grumped away. Azame grabbed his arm and whirled him around. He pressed his head to the other male’s shoulder with a pleading look. “I’m sorrrrrry. Look how sorry I am! It was just getting too long and I didn’t want to bother you. You were talking to your mom.”

“You’re not sorry,” Ajax grumbled, doing everything he could to not meet Azame’s eyes. But they were tuned like a fine fiddle and he couldn’t stay angry. Not with someone who he shared a life and a soul with. “Don’t do it again, okie? I go everywhere you go, alright?”

Azame made the ‘ok’ symbol with his fingers. “Got it boss!”

These moments were special to Azame. The quiet ones where they could just be themselves and not what fate had decided they’d be. Normalcy. He knew Ajax carried around a lot of stress, more than an average teenager should. They were both almost 18 years old, and they looked so different from each other, it was crazy. A lot of people had stopped and gawked at Ajax especially, mumbling under their breath. Wherever the boy walked, heads turned. But now, Ajax was truly growing into his body. His jawline seemed more defined and his arms weren’t so thin and brittle looking.

He was beautiful. The perfect balance, or at least that's what Azame thought any time he looked at Ajax. Like really looked at him. His face had once seemed so boyish and soft, now looked more fine, and his eyes seemed even fiercer. He would truly be someone strong in the future. Not like he was when he was younger. Not when it was Azame holding his tongue and quelling his fists whenever someone came after him.

When Ajax hit twelve years old and he received his brand on the base of his neck, he seemed to change. Slowly, little by little. The dark rings around his eyes seemed to get darker and his training times seemed to get longer. His anxiety seemed to only get worse and for a brief period, Ajax quit sleeping. That was the first time he had a psychotic break… Azame remembered it well.

He was sixteen when it had happened, so it hadn’t been that long ago. During that year, Ajax had become almost unrecognizable and seemed to only be out to get himself hurt. He did stuff recklessly, said things he shouldn’t and had been filled up to the brim with anger. He would talk, but he would look so far away, trapped inside a head that was constantly at war with each other.

Thinking back on that year, Azame could only feel pain. Like he’d failed Ajax, who could be so utterly human one day and then nothing close to human the next. Azame knew that Ajax’s mother was pushing him well past his own bounds, but no matter how much Azame pleaded with the woman, she didn’t stop. He firmly believed that a parent’s job was to make their child’s life easier, not harder just because the parent’s life had been hard to. But Ajax’s mother could only destroy the little progress Ajax had with accepting himself.

For the first time in his life, during that hellish year, Azame thought he was losing Ajax. That the boy was slipping through his fingers. And it wasn’t until Ajax went missing one day that Azame had begun to panic.

It took Azame three hours to find the boy, sitting out on the edge of the roof lost in his own thoughts. He didn’t spook when Azame approached him, and didn’t even move when Azame sat beside him. Eventually, Ajax had spilled like a river tearing its way through the very land that housed it. He’d cried and admitted he’d come up there to kill himself, but he hadn’t even been able to do that. He was powerless to take his own life and he was ashamed of that.

Azame had understood then, just what was going on and the gravity of the situation. He cursed Ajax’s mom bitterly for ever letting such a child enter a world he wasn’t yet ready to handle. Sure, Protectors didn’t truly suffer from things like Depression and Anxiety, but Ajax was human and humans suffered!

It had taken many trips to the guidance counselor, and even a therapist that Azame financed himself with stolen money to get to the root of the problem. God forbid just as Ajax had approached that precipice of suffering, he was pulled back slowly but steadily to his old self. Or the self that had had to grow from such a horrible time. But the damage had been done and Ajax thought differently now. His brain didn’t react the same way it used to, and Azame was just now starting to learn to read it.

So Azame was truly fortunate to still have Ajax by his side. He often feared that if he had never found him that night, he would have been attending another funeral of someone he loved. Eventually, he began wanting to protect the very same person who protected him. He lived for the moments when Ajax’s days were light and peaceful. When the only thing Ajax had to worry about was education and what assignment was due when. When Ajax was just any regular student cramming for a future he hadn’t even thought out yet.

Azame couldn’t stop from smiling when Ajax threw his arm over the other’s shoulder and rambled about whatever topic had caught his attention at that current moment. The topics always changed, though, but Azame was fine with that. Such was the life of living with someone who was so intense and ever changing.

They turned down one of the corridors that broadened out to the english wing, complete with 5 sliding doors. Along the pale, snow colored walls were little plaquereds with the teacher’s names printed on them in dark black ink. It was familiar, and that reassured Azame.

However, Ajax paused suddenly, and Azame watched the boy become like ice. He turned his head and just beneath the collar of his black school jacket, Azame could see the tiny pulses of blue energy inside his veins. The same kind of energy that would tear its way through Ajax’s body to his fists, making them like iron. Azame was taken back and he turned to look at whatever had caught Ajax’s eye.

“What’s wrong?” Azame asked hurriedly.

He didn’t see anything behind him, though. Not even the hint of someone having been there and Azame didn’t feel the same kind of fear that Ajax was reacting to, so there couldn’t actually be anything there. Could there?

“You know that feeling where you’re filled with dread and it's like someone just walked over your grave?” Ajax commented quietly, his hand sneaking behind his back. “Someone just walked across my grave.”

Now, that blue energy was flaring up in his wrists, streaming towards Ajax’s small fingers and naturally curving with his fist. He looked like a cat with its hackles raised and ready, counting down to when it'd need to pounce. Azame instinctively reached out to grab Ajax’s wrists, they were still in public and nothing had attacked them yet. So, he couldn’t risk Ajax exposing them right now, right in the hallway. Any minute the bell would ring and they would be immersed in a flood of boys heading for their next class. They just had to wait it out.

“Ajax!” Someone said from behind them and the boys whirled around as if they’d been caught doing something bad.

“Mrs. Lang! Good morning!” Azame greeted and beside him, he nudged Ajax.

“Good morning,” Ajax commented quietly, letting his hand come back to rest at his side. Thankfully, the danger had passed.

“It’s great I caught you, I see you went and talked to the headmaster about your grades this year, i’m expecting better from you,” Mrs.Lang stated honestly, but she had a small smile on her face that made Azame feel less like she was mocking him and more like she was encouraging.

“You don’t have to worry about me ma’am!” Azame said positively, even giving off a mocking salute that did little for fanfare.

Mrs.Lang chuckled before she clapped her hands together. “I was actually hoping to have a moment to talk about Ajax, if that’d be ok with you?”

“Ah!” Azame nodded before pushing Ajax forward. “Have at it, I’ll meet you in class!”

Azame made to walk off in the direction of his human geo class when Ajax’s hand rushed out to catch his wrist. He whispered low, in a tone few could hear. “Be careful.”

Azame nodded before taking off down the hall with a skip in his step. He pulled his bag up high over his shoulder before going down the stairs to the first floor. Behind them, someone stepped out from where he’d hidden in a nook nearest the wall. His eyes were blood red, flickering like twinkling Christmas lights. He pushed the hair back, out of his face as he turned on his heel and disappeared within the shadows that hugged the corner.