Chapter Twenty Five: Sojourn Obscura — Part 6

Kevin opens the door, walks through behind Daria, and closes it behind them. On the other side of that door, ChoCho is sobbing, while on the outside, Daria is smiling. She knows Joe is the cause of this, and she thinks she knows how to deal with it. She knows her way of dealing with it won’t involve brass knuckles and Joe’s face, which is more than she can say for Jynx. The girl loses all rational perspective where ChoCho is concerned. When Daria gets into the commons, Joe is just getting up, though it seems to be taking him some effort. Blake is already standing by the schedule that Heath has written, George next to him, talking in low tones. Jude is holding Gryphon in one hand while picking up papers in the other.

“You okay Joe?” Daria asks.

“Yeah.” Joe says. “My pride’s taken a mortal blow, though.”

“So what happened?” Daria sounds curious.

“ChoCho threw our table over, and started to storm out of the room. When I tried pull him around to have a word with him, he went all crazy on my ass.” Joe says.

“So what did you guys do?” Daria asks, sounding like a scolding mother, only a hint of humor in her voice.

“We didn’t do a damn thing.” Jude snaps.

“Yep.” George says, “That’s exactly what we did. And damn it all if it didn’t piss ChoCho off.”

“I will go talk to Heath, let her know we care.” Blake signs.

Blake walks to Heath’s room on the north wall of the commons as if it is a death march, unable to hide his shame. It takes a few minutes of persistent, carefully placed knocking, but Heath lets him in. Daria can’t see Heath’s door through the fireplace, so she instead focuses on Joe, who is getting up slowly, testing his joints as he rises. Only when he is certain he’s in one piece and unbroken does he let himself smile for a bit, popping his neck first one way, and then the other, his joints cracking for the effort.

“Ninjas one, pirates zero.” Joe says.

“Better not be thinking of evening the score.” Daria warns, her voice stern, almost motherly.

“This isn’t settled.” Joe sounds ready for trouble.

“ChoCho is not to be touched.” Kevin snaps suddenly, exposing all of his concern without any consideration for the politics of the moment.

Joe doesn’t do well with teenage boys, most likely because he never really matured much past being a teenager himself. “Listen kid, I know you’re all soft for the boy, but this is a matter between two men — ”

“ChoCho doesn’t let people touch him. All we ever do is cuddle during naps, or hold hands when we walk.” Kevin explains quietly.

“Oh,” Joe says, his entire worldview changing suddenly. “Oh.”

“Hey Joe.” Daria snaps, pointing at her face. “Focus here.” Her tone causes Kevin to think twice about talking again, and Joe’s eyes line up with hers as if out of instinct. “Before you go in for round two, you might want to consider the moment in your head a bit. At any point between you hitting the ground and ChoCho stepping away from you, did you consider that maybe the boy was holding back?” Daria asks quietly. “The boy owned you, didn’t he?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Joe asks.

“The boy has secrets. I don’t know them. Jynx says hands off, so I do what she says.” Daria says. “You’d best just do the same.”

“I’ll deal with ChoCho later.” Joe says, “Hey George, what’s the list about?”

“Heath’s Holiday Schedule. Very ambitious, honestly. The girl’s going to need a hand.” George is already considering. “And we’d best just put aside our papers and start working on gifts for everybody.”

“Now that is what Heath would want to hear.” Daria says, leaving Joe to consider. “Trust me on this one Joe: Hands off ChoCho. Jynx is quite protective of that boy. I am not exaggerating when I say that she is a killer.”

Joe nods, not knowing what else to do. He knows ChoCho went easy on him, and he knows Jynx won’t go easy on him, if she gets murder on her mind. But it isn’t either Jynx or ChoCho that has him concerned, at least in the moment. His biggest fear, the one lingering like a bad taste in his mouth, is that Heath might decide to poison his food. He knows it is paranoia, knows Heath is simply too sweet a creature to do something so horrific and cunning. Despite this, he knows the gift he gets her will have to be original and powerful, if he is to restore to his mind a relative certainty that his death won’t be a result of some post new year arsenic ingestion.

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