An arm for an arm (Rio)

[Cody Chase]

'Something is not right.' Madeline; his secret favourite film. The bit where the head nun just sat up in the middle of the night, completely aware that something was wrong with her kids...well, he was familiar with the feeling. If he wanted a more manly way of putting it, he would have used a Spiderman thing. Yes, that was it. His spider-sense was tingling. It was probably less to do with his psychic abilities and more to do with his ears; there was a faint but steady thudding. What the hell? Cody left it for a few minutes, assuming security would get to it. After that, though, he stood up, shoving all of his damn paperwork to the side. He wasn't going to get anything done if he didn't ease his conscience by checking that a kid wasn't being murdered or anything.

As he strode down the corridor, he saw a small, dark-haired child running, in his direction. He recognised her; the scarring on her throat made her stand out from a crowd. Violet - a thirteen year old that had already tried to kill herself twice. Something wrong with her vocal cords, and he was working with her, coming to the classes she found different and translating her sign language for her. She headed straight towards him, tears dripping down her face, and grabbed onto his sleeve. Crap. Couldn't it have been someone that could speak and tell him what was going on? He pulled her hands away from him gently. " What's going on? " She looked around for a second, presumably searching for a pen and paper, before remembering that he understood signs.

" My roommate is...upset. "
" Where? " He signed back automatically, used to working with deaf children that wouldn't understand his speech if he tried. At her confused look, however - she seemed more adapt at signing than actually understanding the signs - he asked again, out loud. She gestured down the corridor, where he could now hear faint shouting. Oh, crap. Cody took off, sprinting down the corridor, wondering where the fuck security were and why they weren't doing their goddamn job. What was going on?

When he reached Chris, still pounding on the door and yelling, he blinked in confusion. Violet had said her roommate was upset, hadn't she? Unless she roomed with a male... 'Does it matter?' He grabbed the boy, pulling him away from the door and holding his wrists tightly. Was this a weird form of self-harm, slamming his fists against the door and swearing with it? It didn't seem to fit, somehow... " What the fuck is going on? " he demanded, before realizing that that might alienate the boy somewhat. Taking a deep breath, he kept hold of the child's hands, hoping to God he wasn't about to get punched. " What's wrong? "

((Powerplaying your own charries FTW!
Outfit.))

[Riordan Shonski]

Rio watched her as she sobbed at him, apparently unable to speak. She was hugging her hand to her chest in pain, and he idly wondered about breaking another of her bones, just to make a lasting impression. No, he'd rather... He placed one hand on her lower chest, where he could feel her ribcage, and began to press, gently at first, then harder and harder. There would be a bruise there in the morning, but that wasn't what he was after. He drew the hand back. It probably wasn't a good idea to keep pushing; if her ribs snapped and he pushed them, they could easily puncture her heart or lungs, and believe it or not, Rio wasn't keen on the idea of being a murderer. He pulled his hand back, and slammed it into her ribcage, feeling a satisfying crunch as a few ribs broke. Or at least, fractured. There, that was better.

He'd more or less given up on the idea of making her talk by now. It wasn't likely she was going to, especially with the amount of pain she was in, but he still had hopes. Besides, the boy on the outside was beginning to sound like a wild boar, and Rio didn't fancy going out there to meet him. So, he stayed put, but decided not to inflict too much more pain of the girl. It didn't look like she could cope with much more, to be honest. Looking down at her, he wondered just how far he could push her before she snapped. She was crying, and that always came quite soon before the break.

Then he heard a voice, adult, male. Not good. Well, that gave Rio some kind of twisted confidence. Stepping back from Kitty, he pulled her away from the door and opened it, leaning against the door frame and giving the blonde teacher a crooked grin. "I was doing some DIY therapy on his sister and it got him a little worked up," he drawled, glance skimming over Chris and landing on Kitty, slumped over her injured hand. If that didn't cause a fight, nothing would, he decided.

[Kitty Allen]

Chris tried to wrestle free of the teacher. “He’s got my fucking sister!” Chris growled. Well, half growled. The other half was a yell. He aimed another kick in the direction of the door, pulling away from the music guy. He didn’t care if this guy was his music teacher or whatever, if he didn’t let Chris go soon, he’d be nursing bruises at the very least.

---

Kitty felt him pushing on her ribs and she took a few deep breaths, trying feebly to push him away with her injured hand. No, no no… she wanted to tell him not to hurt her any more. It had never worked in the past, but you never knew. And she couldn’t even do that. Kitty continued to bat at him with her hurt hand, wincing every so often.

As she felt her ribs break, Kitty almost fainted from the wave of pain that washed over her and she felt her knees give up. She could feel Rio shoving her away from the door and opening it. Other voices. Chris’ voice. Kitty breathed deep and tried to stay conscious. Peeling her eyes open she watched hazily as Chris’ fist arched towards Rio’s face.

---

As the door opened, Chris aimed a punch for Rio. He had no idea what he’d done… if he did he would have aimed more than a punch. Swearing loudly, he lashed out, shoving Rio aside and kneeling beside Kitty. With a few small gestures and a look, she told him what was wrong. His first thought went to Doctor Hudson. Safe my arse… and his mounting anger. Standing up, he walked towards Rio and wished he had something, anything to hurt him with. He aimed a fist at Rio’s stomach and growled. “You touch us, even think about coming near us again and I swear to God I will kill you.” He was beyond angry swearing now. He was livid.

[Cody Chase]

Cody started in confusion at Chris for a second. What the hell was he talking about? 'He' was? Snapping his head around, he tried to find either the 'he' or the sister, and could see nobody, until he gaze fell upon the door that the boy had been attacking. Oh, hell. He let go of the boys arms abruptly, going on faith that there actually was someone in there, rather than Chris just having hallucinations/delusions and stepped forward, ready to attack the door himself, as it swung open.

He saw Chris step forward and punch at the boy that stood in the doorframe, and felt his own hands clench into fists. DIY therapy? Behind Rio, he could see a girl curled up on the floor, looking...out of it. Cody's mind immediately went into overdrive: were the boys going to fight? Should he call for medical assistance or security first? Ignoring the boys - hopefully, Chris would kick the shit out of Rio, although he was going to pretend that he'd never had that thought - he shoved the dark-haired boy aside and knelt beside the girl, trying to assess what was wrong with her. She was conscious - barely - and looked like she was in a fair bit of pain.

He grabbed her wrist, frantically trying to remember his first-aid training and how to take a pulse (and what a normal pulse was, for God's sake), when he saw her fingers. Luckily, he hadn't moved her hand, or he would have caused her more pain than she was already in. God, was that boy gonna have a long stay in iso, if he had anything to do with it. Pulling out his radio, he held the button down and muttered into the microphone. " Medical and security, needed now. In the - " where was he? " um, bit by the offices. Classrooms corridor. " Dropping the radio on the floor, he checked that Kitty was breathing - and she was - before turning his torso to the two boys. " What the hell did you do? " His question was directed at both Rio and Chris; he still had no idea what had happened.

[Riordan Shonski]

Rio's lip twisted derisively at the boy's reaction. Pathetic, really. He couldn't stand to be away from her; no wonder, considering what a bad job he did protecting her. Rio guessed that the only way to ensure their safety was to stick together, and they couldn't even do that properly. As for the teacher, he at least seemed to know what was he was doing. Except for the fact that he'd let go of Chris, who was now aiming a punch at Rio's head. A lifetime spent ducking punches thrown by angry boyfriends, brothers, husbands, fathers, and the occasional drunk, Rio was an expert in these cases. Dodging lazily, he aimed a smirk Chris' way. "Aw, honey. What's the matter, annoyed that you couldn't keep her to yourself?"

So, maybe not the most logical way of defusing the situation, but that wasn't what Rio was interested in right now. Glancing at Cody, keeping one eye on Chris, he replied, "I was trying to get her away from her brother. He was hitting her, so I pulled her away, then he went psycho," he drawled, still eying Chris in case of any further attacks. The lie probably wouldn't stay alive very long, but it was convincing enough to get the teacher, ever if Chris killed him for it.

He was going to isolation already, he wasn't going to go with a black eye and a bleeding nose if he could help it. It would ruin his looks, after all, and those security guards watching the iso cell's cameras wouldn't want a view of him day after day looking like shit, after all. He was a thoughtful person, really, when you thought about it like that. If you thought of it any other way (ie, logically, sensibly, realistically, and so on) he was the complete opposite, though, which was a bitch, but he liked himself the way he was, so it all worked out. Other people didn't, but other people didn't very much matter to Rio, as he'd just demonstrated.

[Chris Allen]

Chris was almost speechless with rage, and that didn’t happen very often. Instead he focussed everything on trying to punch Rio instead. Bastard, bastard bastard! he noticed the teacher didn’t seem entirely bothered that he was trying to beat Rio to a pulp and thanked eternity that there were at least some who understood.

“He broke two of her fingers.” Chris growled, dangerously quiet, “And she thinks her ribs are broken. Left side. Halfway down.” When Rio spoke, Chris could hardly believe what he was hearing. This was stupid, it added insult to injury… He was trying to make it look like Chris was the bad guy. In a surprisingly Kitty-like move, Chris stamped as hard as he could, aiming for Rio’s foot. Even if Kitty hadn’t done the same thing – and he knew she had. He knew his sister well enough to know what she did in a crisis – it was hard enough to break a toe. Or at least he hoped so…

---

Kitty felt someone seize her wrist and tried, weakly, to pull away. Through the haze of pain she was sure somebody was about to kick her. She would have told them not to, but, fairly obviously, she couldn’t speak. She could hear Chris speaking… then Rio. Rio’s words made her eyes open wide in terror. No. No, they wouldn’t… She stared at the teacher, praying he wouldn’t believe any of it. Rio was convincing, she knew that now… but Chris hadn’t done this to her. Why would she want to be near hin if he had?

---

“I didn’t, you bastard! You… you fucking… BASTARD!” Chris spat. He grabbed Rio as best he could. “Tell him you’re lying. What, you’re not done with us yet?” Chris wished he had a knife, a baseball bat… anything. Everything. He caught Kitty’s desperate look and pushed Rio away from him, going to sit on the floor beside his sister. There were some things more important than being angry. Kitty was one of them. She was crying… he hadn’t noticed that before.

He took a deep breath, trying to quell the anger, and reached for her good hand. “Hey…” He said softly. “It’s ok. It’s going to be ok.” Her injuries meant he couldn’t hug her and he hated Rio more than ever. Besides, if he got carted off to isolation because the idiot teacher believed Rio he was going to spend as much time as possible with Kitty. As his thumb stroked the back of her good hand gently, he could feel her calming slightly, despite the pain.

[Cody Chase]

Annoyed you couldn't keep her to yourself? Had he raped her? Cody looked at Kitty, who seemed to have all her clothing on, and tried to work out how long he had heard banging for before he'd gone to find out what was going on. A few minutes. A surge of regret came over him; if he'd just gone a little bit earlier, he could have saved this girl from broken bones and probably, severe trauma. He was such an idiot...but it wasn't the time to beat himself up. He'd do that later, when he wrote up the notes; spend a long time wondering what he could have done differently. For now... He listened to Chris carefully, believing the boys words. After all, he was right about the fingers; he was probably right about the ribs.

Cody didn't touch Kitty anymore; he would let medical do that. The girl didn't seem to be in danger of dying, unless Rio had managed to puncture a lung. No, the broken ribs were too low down for that. Well...it had been a long time since he'd been in a biology class. As Rio spoke, he whirled around, crap not being a strong enough word. What was he meant to do now? He looked from Chris - who was comforting his sister, holding her hand - to Rio, who'd just admitted that he was 'doing some DIY therapy' on the girl. He was inclined to believe Chris, instead. Turning to the smirking boy, he glared, looking as stern as he could. "Shut the hell up, and don't come near her, okay?" He turned back to Kitty, wondering if he should hold her hand or something. Maybe not, seeing as her good hand was being used by Chris.

There were footsteps behind him and he stood, gratefully, as he saw some other staff - presumably medical - arriving. Cody stood, leaving the doctors to it, and walked over to Riordan, glowering at the boy and pulling a sedative from his pocket. "Come with me, now, or I will use this." He waved the small black box threateningly, fully prepared to knock Rio out cold. And maybe break some of his bones while he was unconscious... Taking the boy firmly by the wrist, he stared at him challengingly, prepared to set off down the corridor, towards isolation. "Now, tell me exactly what happened...and don't lie. I'll watch the CCTV later, and you'll get longer in iso if you do, okay?"