A DASHing Hero.

☾

Riley wouldn’t have been able to protect herself even if she tried. On the ice she could take a check to the boards but this was different, this was real life. “I think the stick could’ve done at least a little damage, right?” She tilted her head, looking down at her weapon of choice. “I’d be toast… Wouldn’t I?” The girl exhaled then as she accepted the fact of the matter. 

She didn’t know what to say. She’d been caught red handed, he knew something was up. As much as she wanted to hide it all she was discovering this was a secret she could only stretch so far. “It’s just….” The girl kicked the ground and sent her stick skidding across the dirt. “It’s hard to explain.” Riley sat down on a stump while her hands scratched at her finger nail to distract her brain as it overthought. “I messed up pretty bad. It’s because of me the house flooded…” She felt the tears coming again, trying to blink them back. “They’re real upset, it’s going to be a lot of damage.” An exhale into a whisper. It was more for her than him. “And it’s all my fault…”

-

“No, I would have saved you,” Dashiell said confidently without hesitation, resting his hand on her back as he bent down beside her where she sat on the weathered stump. He listened to her, tensed slightly as he focused to keep himself still to give her his full attention. “I’ll help you guys clean,” he volunteered, rubbing the back of her shoulder, “I don’t get how it’s your fault. Did you bust a water pipe or something? That sounds more like an accident than anything.”

☾

Riley hadn’t expected his to be the face that came through the trees. All the chaos going on in her head and of course he was the one who found her out here. She tried to keep her eyes down so he didn’t see. The last thing she wanted was for him to think of her as a freak, or more than he probably already did. “Don’t-” Her tone was more stern from her fear but it calmed down right after she paused. “Don’t scare me like that again.” She finished before dropping the wood. 

She exhaled, her eyes not leaving the ground. How was she even supposed to explain? Her parents usually helped her come up with some excuse that made sense to normal people. “Yeah. Yeah, all good.” Riley shrugged in hopes of convincing him of her own lies. “Don’t worry about it.” Maybe if she changed the subject he wouldn’t have any concern for what had happened. “What’re you doing out here anyway?” She asked as she slowly raised her eyes. 

-

“I could say the same to you, o’ bearer of large sticks. Remind me to teach you proper self defense later,” Dash said, trying to lighten the mood - and also made a mental note to do that. She should know how to defend herself if need be.

Her determination to avoid eye contact as she answered his question didn’t make him believe her for one second. “So... You running out of your flooded house full force at 7 in the morning is all good? What’s the all bad equivalent?” He asked, being direct and straight forward with her. “I was on my way out the door to workout when I saw you. What’s up? You can trust me, you know that, right?”

[ 𝙾𝙿𝙴𝙽 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙴𝚁 ]

She’d only been able to fight them off for so long. The dreams. They were back again. Since she’d arrived at Prentiss her sketching was keeping her imagination contained but it all fell apart the harder she pushed against it. Her parents finally seemed to be doing okay, they weren’t looking at her like she was a problem anymore. Then she woke up to the house flooded, an inside rainstorm clouding her dreams. Before she was even able to apologize her father was upset and her mother thought it was best if she left for a little while as they cleaned. Riley felt the guilt eating at her, running into the only place she felt she couldn’t hurt anyone. The trees felt like a safe haven where it didn’t matter if she was Riley or a threat to everyone around her. It was just her. 

Then she heard footsteps and her head snapped up. The girl looked around, quickly pulling down her sleeves to wipe the tears. “Hello? Who’s out there?” She grabbed hold of a stick for protection, as if it would do anything. Just as the figure came into view she went to strike before stopping suddenly. “Don’t sneak up on people like that!” She said before throwing the ‘weapon’ back down and going to wipe her nose. 

-

It was early, and Dash, even though he lived for the opportunity to sleep in any chance he could get, was up and running. It would be a busy day that would hopefully end with a football game, assuming that the calculus test he’d obsessively studied for until his eyeballs bled went as well as he’d hoped it did. He was anxious and eager, and needed to get some energy out of his system, so he’d gotten up earlier to get ready to go workout. 

He’d only taken a step out the door when he saw Riley run out of her house unexpectedly, a trail of wet foot steps following behind her. A question mark immediately popped up over his head. He let her run, knowing he could catch up easily, and took a few moments to investigate by peeking into a few of her downstairs windows. Had a pipe burst or something? ...All of them, all over the house?

Dashiell went to catch up with Riley next,  stopping periodically to let her have some distance and go wherever she needed to go. She looked upset, and he didn’t want to upset her more if she was getting some energy out of his system. He ran laps around the world when he was frustrated. It was not the same thing - but similar.

“Hey - hey, hey, hey, it’s just me, it’s Dash,” Dash said, holding his hands up in surrender when Riley brandished her makeshift weapon in the air at him. “No need to pummel me with your stick. I saw you run out of your house this morning. Are you okay?”

☾

“Oh definitely. That’s what I would call real-life application!” She stated firmly with a nod of her head. “Isn’t that the reason we’re learning stuff anyway? They want us to go out and use it to which I’d say refusing a bomb is basically that times like ten.” Riley didn’t know the serious undertone to the conversation but she couldn’t help but grin like a fool around him. As usual, she was in over her head. 

Riley felt herself melting into his words. He made her feel a little normal, even if he didn’t know the truth behind her own statements. “Clouds can be anything, you know and they’ve got the upper hand, the element of surprise.” The girl leaned her chin into the palm of her hand. “I’m only fast on ice, you’d be the only hope for humanity if there was a cloud attack.”

Her face shifted into that of disgust, her tongue sticking out as she made a gagging noise. “Ew, that sounds awful. I think you’ll need those for the game anyway,” she said, trying to shift away from that mental image. He seemed surprised by her answer but she was too shy to push anymore. “Of course… Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Her cheeks flushed and she hoped he didn’t notice. Every time they hung out she would chew at the inside of her lip nervously. He made her feel even more like a bumbling idiot than usual. “You’ll do fine, I am sure of it. Maybe we just need to use some real life application, you know, like defusing a bomb.”

-

It was funny - the way he hung out with Riley now. She’d started as Violet’s friend. He remembered the first time his sister brought her over. He’d been chilling on the couch, watching a football game with their dad, and he brushed it off while making some mean, offhanded comment at Violet. He was always nice to Riley, but after she had become more of a constant and was around more, he’d hung out with her a little when she’d come over to wait for Violet. Eventually he hung out her here and there, too. Now it kind of felt like he was more friends with her than Violet was, just given the way they’d gotten into the habit of studying together even if it was for different courses.

“I’ll get you a pair of rollerblades and you can be fast on land, too,” he laughed, shooting a flattened palm through the air to emphasis the speed she could have, “Rest assured, the fate of the world is safe in my hands.”

“You’re welcome for my vivid imagery. I paint masterpieces with my words, I know,” Dash teased her as he grabbed the last cookie on the plate and snapped it in half to share with her, “I also watch too many horror movies. My bad.”

“I guess I better try hard then if you’ll be there, right?” he said, sighing as he pretended to stare at the page explaining the formula Ltx→0 (xn - an)(x - a) = na. (n-1) - It made his eyes go cross-eyed.

“Dash, honey, as much as I can commiserate with you…I will not let you destroy school property on my property.” she sighed, passing him a cookie. She did feel bad for him, especially since she couldn’t help herself. “Do you want me to text Hiro or one of his friends? I’m sure that one of them can help because they’re all geniuses.”

-

“That’s okay, I know where an active volcano is. I would never jeopardize my study spot. Don’t even worry about it, Cass,” he grinned at her, dropping the book to the table and throwing  his hands up in the air. “I already feel pretty insecure about how hard this is. I don’t think a bunch of geniuses making it look like simple addition and subtraction when it’s literally another language to me is going to help me much.” Dash groaned as he leaned back onto the back legs of the chair, throwing his hands up behind his head. He let out a sigh, and shook it off to smile at the cafe owner.

“Please just help me drown my sorrows and frustration in like, 3 more cookies,” he requested, jonesing for some carbs to soothe his soul, “And then a few to go for my little brother. Jack loses his mind if he finds out I was here and didn’t bring him back anything.” 

☾

“I think that’s way harder than calculus. It’s like… real life adaptation or something, right? It should count,” she said with a laugh, not knowing the truth behind the statement. To her he was just the cute boy next door and not a superhero. Not that she was innocent herself, keeping her own abilities a secret from everyone. Her parents said it would be better for her that way and easier to adapt. It always seemed to cause more issues than not when anyone knew. Riley was already considered weird enough without everyone knowing she can also create things in her dreams.

She shrugged a little because it was hard to entirely explain. “Oh, nothing, really. I have just been thinking a lot about the clouds and what all they’re capable of.” Her mom’s greatest fear was if she made it rain meatballs like in a movie she saw once but Riley’s imagination never quite understood what fun would come of that. Although, having the clouds turn into creatures was another story. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

“You’ll pass, I can make you some practice problems too for a pre-test test!” Riley felt herself hold her breath, a smile breaking through. Did he want her there? Was she just overthinkig it? Either way, she felt herself getting a bit more nervous. “Yeah, I’ll be there, for sure.”

-

“Not to mention the life or death stakes,” Dashiel said with an as a matter of fact tone that made him sound like he was joking when he was totally serious. It was his way of being both amusing and honest about his life. “Blows extra credit out of the water, if you ask me.”

Dash glanced out the window to look up at the sky, spying a cloud and starring at it suspiciously. “I mean, yeah. Clouds. Gotta watch out for them, you know? Totally deadly if one sneaks up on you, I bet. Wouldn’t sneak up on me, though. I’m too fast.”

Adding more of her creativity to the mix might be the very opposite of what he wanted. Riley was still scared he would somehow find out what she was capable of and think she was a complete freak. If they didn’t live next to each other he probably would’ve never noticed her. “I think if you defused a bomb they should give you a passing grade.” 

The girl waited for a moment before hearing his defeat. She was usually quite guilty herself of taking quite a few study breaks because of her wandering mind. It never hurt to give it a rest and clear the head. “What’s new with me?” She repeated, almost surprised he even asked. “Nothing really. Been drawing a lot, trying to get through school, the usual.” She couldn’t bring up all the recent dreams she’d been having or the strange things that had popped up because of it. “I know, your light has been out.” Riley gave a small smile. “How’s practice been going? When’s your next game?”

-

“...You think they would? In that case, I’ve got at least three to cash in,” Dash said, not kidding, but he knew it would come off as a joke. He’d helped stop a lot of terrible people with his family. It was a bummer not being able to talk about it with his friends, but he wasn’t interested in putting them in any danger.

“Oh yeah? What has that eccentric brain of yours been coming up with lately?” He asked, “you’ve got enough imagination for both of us, that’s for sure.”

“It’s next friday. My math quiz the day before that will dictate whether or not I’ll get to play, so we’ll see. If I do, will you be there?”

Riley always felt herself get a little more awkward when she was around Dash. He was way cooler than her socially and way cuter than her physically. She couldn’t help but sometimes stare a little too long. “I can think of at least 5,” she said with a small smile coming across her lips. “We’re going to make sure you pass.” Riley wasn’t usually very good at math but she’d understood Calculus more than she would’ve thought. She wasn’t one of the smartest in her class but she could at least help Dash pass. “But once you pass, you can destroy it in celebration.” 

-

Dashiell sighed, letting the book plop forward dramatically out of his hand to the cafe table. He leaned forward, resting his chin on top of his knuckles of a propped up arm. “I am open to all of your suggestions. The more creative, the better,” he said, exhaling sharply when she insisted he would pass, “I think I have a better chance defusing a bomb than I do getting my grade up, but I reluctantly accept your optimism to keep trying.”

location: lucky cat cafe, studying

“How many ways do you think we can destroy this book?” Dash said with a frustrated grunt, raising up his calculus book in the air. He forced a grin on his face, teeth pressed together as he tried to contain his agitation over how much he hated math. “If I don’t get a passing grade in Calculus, coach is going to sideline me next three games. And as much as I don’t want that to happen, I would really like to obliterate this book out of existence and never look back.”