Hand outstretched towards Gauge, Samantha realized that the extended fragility of such a situation - the fox staying down, nobody entering the hallway, Gauge not being, well, himself - was bound to die. There were just too many variables waiting to destroy everything. And surely enough, a single variable changed, shattering the entire situation and bringing the curiously beautiful moment crashing down on its head.
Behind Samantha came the sound of movement, movement that was panicked, quick, not something she wanted especially to hear right this moment. Hand dropping as she spun around, Samantha turned around to face the fox as he sat upright for a moment. Fur disheveled, expression disoriented, hooks in his chest - he looked a mess. But most striking about him were his eyes. They spoke to something she'd never seen before in another creature – panic, anger, fear, she couldn’t place her paw on it for the life of her.
She hardly had time, however, to think on this before he instantly began to lose it. "What the f@$k are you doing?” he hissed at them, face absorbed by emotion. “I was going to destroy him ruin his life like mine was destroyed."
There were normal circumstances where Samantha would never, ever have found herself involved in something as . . . utterly unbelievable as this. As utterly unbelievable as the present situation before her. Quite jarring, however, was the forced acknowledgement of the reality of the fact that Samantha was far beyond any one of those points. She was very much in her present situation whether or not she wanted to be. And now, she needed to deal with it, like, well, like an adult.
Holding out a hand in a calming gesture, Samantha started in, talking to the fox before her. “I, I don’t-” She truly didn’t get far before being again interrupted as he completely and utterly began to lose it again.
Whirling around violently, he banged his head into a locker, presumably because he was disoriented or dizzy from just being tased. Samantha couldn’t help but gasp just a little as the metal clanged under the response from his head.
The apparent head wound seemed to have little effect, however, as he immediately turned back to them and spoke up again. "Well then you actually gonna fight me or not? And where's my knife?" he spat at them. Well then, this was precarious. She couldn’t give the knife back, obviously. Out of the question. She knew that. But more importantly, he was supposed to know that.
See, in both their worlds, worlds that intersected at the school, there was a common understanding of certain things. Namely, really, those things boiled down to the rules. The school had established rules and regulations for what they could and could not do. There were smaller rules, and there were big rules. The smaller rules could be broken, with a varied range of generally small responses from different teachers. The larger rules were not broken. Such was the understanding.
One such larger rule was that you did not use or display weapons on school property.
Of course, it should be noted that these “rules” and “understandings” were dependent on Samantha’s individual point of view. However, the ultimate point was that students realized the reality of the fact that knives were a no-no on school property, especially during school hours. Therefore, asking for one back from a teacher, was especially odd. Few students would ever do something like that.
So why did he? Well, what could be deduced was that he wanted it very badly for some reason. Most likely because he had something to fear, and that knife was his safety blanket, the difference between the bright, comforting light of day, and the all consuming depths of darkness – so to speak. Either way, she couldn’t give it to him, that much was obvious. But how, then, to defuse somebody who so desperately wanted something that she couldn’t-
"Staying down would’ve been smarter. Or even just pulling out the hooks in your chest so yah know. This doesn’t happen." She whirled around just in time to see Gauge dive for the taser and press the button, yet again sending bolts of electricity into the chest of their victim.
Good God. Their victim. She’d just thought of this fox as their victim - and she'd thought of him as their victim. But the truth was, she made little movement to halt Gauge, half-assedly reaching out a hand towards him, no more. She made no utterance as he pressed down the button on the taser, made no movement towards him as he held it down for an ungodly long amount of time, didn’t try to stop him at all during any of these acts. She simply allowed herself to be guided numbly as he popped out the battery on the taser, leaving the weapon behind, before he put an arm around her and moved her away, saying words she did not process. Hell, she barely even thought about the fact that Gauge had a protective arm around her. They walked past other canines whose questioning glances were quickly discouraged by Gauge’s aggressiveness before they finally came to her empty classroom. And her mind was still foggy.
They stood there a long moment. Gauge’s arm was held protectively around her, she close to him. She was far, far too confused to speak or act for those moments, and . . . well, she was comforted by it. By the warmth of animal contact. There felt like an incredibly swiftly newly arrived kinship between the two of them, born as quickly as the arrival of an instant in time. They were, the two of them, connected. She wasn’t entirely certain if they would ever be the same.
Her mind began to rush back to her. There was gravity here. Real, serious, palpable gravity. This situation was bad. She’d not the faintest idea of how she was gonna fix any of this. Shit. Um. Shit.
Mind clearer, she gently pushed herself back from him. Looking directly at him, she said all that seemed logical - it was said against her better judgement, it should be noted. It was not what she should have said. Yet she said it nonetheless. “Gauge. We’ve got a problem.”
