RussiaxReader: Cake or Death pt 6

RussiaxReader

Cake or Death

Part 6

For the second night in a row you'd gone with less than three hours of sleep.

Never. Again.

The next morning, you woke to the pleasant site of your alarm clock telling you that you had less than forty minutes to eat, get dressed, and haul ass to school if you wanted to make it there before the tardy bell rang. Apparently you'd managed to sleep through your alarm (which was un-fucking-believable seeing as that annoying shit could probably raise the entire cast of Hamlet back from the dead) and your dear, loving, helpful father had come in and shut it off because it was distracting him while he was trying to read the morning paper.

He never thought to wake you up.

You were so putting your dad in a home. And not a nice one either. You'd make sure he had Nurse Ratched looking after him.

So in record time, you'd dressed (in the dark), fixed your hair (read: threw water at it and prayed for a miracle), brushed your teeth (which may or may not have included the use tooth paste), rushed down stairs (or fell, that worked, too), stole some breakfast off of your dad (well, you tried to, but your dad was more of a ninja than even Ivan), and biked your ass to school (with the only casualty being your neighbor's lawn gnome).

Be it by luck, dark magic, or the universe forgetting that it hated you right now, you managed to make it to your school minutes before the first bell rang. Sure, you looked worse than one of Lindsay Lohan's mug shots, but at least you wouldn't have to walk into class late, where everyone would stare at you in all of your hot-ass-messness.

So as you tried to ignore the dark circles under your eyes as you checked your hair in the girly ass BFF mirror you had in your locker that Dana had insisted you put in there to match hers, you made your mind up to not make the frenzied nature of your morning ruin the rest of your day.

But then Ivan happened. As he always did.

"I told you that I didn't like him."

The weird sensation of gasping and screaming at the same time reduced you into a small coughing fit. Spinning around, you found yourself face-to-face with Ivan Braginsky, and despite his usual creepy-ass smile adorning his face, you knew that he wasn't happy.

Shit, you were able to guess his moods, now.

Ivan reached behind you and slammed your locker shut, the sound making you jump. He took a step forward, you stepped back, your back meeting with the lockers, and as soon as you thought about making a break for it sideways, the bastard placed his hands on the lockers on either side of you.

You were trapped.

Fuck.

And as every swear word you knew, including those of other languages (because with a school as diverse as this one, you at least had to pick up on the swear words, you never knew when people could be talking shit about you and you just didn't understand what they were saying), ran on repeat in your head, Ivan leaned forward until you could feel his breath on your face.

By this point, your personal bubble had long since said, "fuck this shit" and went and popped itself.

You had to stop personifying your body parts and focus on not getting murdered before you graduated. Priorities, woman.

Looking past the obstruction of Ivan's big ass nose, you met his gaze and gulped, wishing you hadn't. If you weren't sure that he was crazy as fuck before, the look in his eyes confirmed it without a doubt.

By this point the hall began to fill with students and teachers, all heading to either lockers or classrooms before the first bell rang and it really became hell to navigate through the halls. A couple of students stopped to watch you with varying degrees of pity and sick fascination, before finally deciding it was best to not be a potential witness to whatever should happen to you at the hands of Ivan Braginsky. It was obvious by how the teachers just walked on by with nothing more than a pitying glance sent your way that they felt the same way.

It looked like no one was coming to your rescue on this one.

You sighed inwardly and hoped that death would be quick.

"I told you not to spend too much time with him, and what do you do? You ride home with him. That was very mean of you, little one. I'm hurt," he pouted childishly for a bit and if that wasn't the most ridiculous and, at the same time, terrifying damn thing you'd ever seen in your life you didn't know what was.

As you opened your mouth, completely prepared to beg for your life, something stopped you.

It was your inner fierce bitch.

And it was pissed as all hell.

'The fuck do you think you're doing, girl?' it raged, 'you were raised by a goddamn Marine Corps DI and the woman who managed to make him her bitch, why the fuck are you letting this boy reduce you to a puddle of wimp? All I recall him doing to you was crush you under his fat ass by accident. Dana's done worse before on purpose, you remember the Thanksgiving turkey incident?  I sure as hell do. Now get your balls back, woman, and set this clown straight! Real talk.'

You frowned. The voice in your head was right, you needed to assert yourself. And ignoring just how depressed you should've been about having voices in your head, you squared your shoulders, looked Ivan right in the eye, and set about getting your balls back.

Placing your hands firmly on his chest, you pushed him away with enough force to make him stagger back a pace or two. You immediately snatched your hands back, just in case he tried to grab you like he did a few days ago. Crossing your arms, you only allowed yourself a second of smug satisfaction at the site of Ivan's expression of surprise before saying, in a stern, clear voice, "you're just my lab partner, Ivan. You do not control who I hang out with, understand?"

Hot damn, that felt good, and that look of complete and utter shock on his face? Perfection. But his surprise didn't last long, it was soon replaced with that blank, unreadable look that never failed to make you incredibly uncomfortable. You refused to break eye contact, for to be the first to break eye contact would be to surrender.

You would not surrender.

You were getting your balls back, damn it. Not that you ever really had balls to lose in the first place, but the metaphorical shit was still relevant!

Yeah, the lack of sleep was definitely getting to you, in the worst ways.

Finally, there was a shift in Ivan's expression from blank to over-exaggerated thoughtfulness. He blinked innocently at you, "so…if I become your friend, you will stop hanging out with that annoying, arrogant fool, da?"

Your jaw dropped, your expression incredulous as Ivan began bouncing childishly with excitement. You spluttered, "wha- that's not how it works- just what makes you think I want to be friends with you?"

That last part had slipped out on its own. You watched nervously as the smile faded from Ivan's face, replaced by confusion, and wondered if you'd gone too far in your ball retrieval mission.

He tilted his head to the side, his brows furrowing, "but…I like you…"

"Well, I don't like you."

Dear Lord, you needed to shut your fucking mouth right now. Right fucking now. It was as if all of your self control concerning what you said out loud and what you kept to yourself was just gone and now everything that came to your mind was just pouring out of your mouth like water from a broken faucet.

But instead of flipping tables and shoving you face-first into your locker or curb-stomping you like you thought he would, Ivan's face just brightened with a spark of eagerness and determination, "then I'll make you like me!"

…

What.

"What."

You stared at him, your eyes the size of dinner plates. What the fuck was he trying to get at?

"I'll make you like me!" Ivan repeated, and almost manic glee shining in his eyes, "then we shall be friends, da?"

"Th-that's not how it works- fuck!" you shrieked in fear and surprise as Ivan swept you up in a huge ass bear hug, your legs coming off the ground.

Oh God… Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God ohGodohGodohGodohGodohGodohGodohGod-

You wanted to cry.

Ivan squeezed you, eliciting a weak ass squeak from you, before setting you down. You just kind of stood there, numb from shock as he bounced on his heels before you, smiling widely and on top of the fucking world.

"Do not worry, little one, soon enough you'll like me and then we'll be the best of friends!" he said cheerfully.

You threw up a little in your mouth.

Suddenly, the first bell rang, and you could've jumped for fucking joy at the thought of getting the hell away from Ivan. You made to leave when he pulled you into yet another hug, this one not as bone-crushingly painful as the last one, but still way too brutal to be called gentle.

"Have a good day, little one. I will see you in class! And do not worry, you'll like me soon enough, no matter what," he said into your hair in a soft, but still pants-wettingly-creepy manner. He then set you free and practically skipped off to his first class like motherfucking Dorothy out of the goddamn Wizard of Oz.

You stood there and stared.

And stared.

And stared off into nothing until the tardy bell finally rang and you cursed the whole world, the moon, and then even the sun as you rushed to class and were forced to walk in late and have everyone in the whole fucking room stare at you in all your hot-ass-messness.

Screw what you were thinking earlier.

This was going to be a terrible day.

And what a terrible day it was.

Apparently Ivan was a talkative motherfucker, for by lunchtime the entire school knew that he intended to make a friend out of you.

And some of the looks you were getting…

It was as if you were the stranger that rode into town at the beginning of a western film. Where everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the local outlaws took you out and they were trying to avoid eye contact with a dead man. Everywhere you looked, you'd catch people staring at you before they quickly averted their eyes. Jesus, it wasn't like you'd contracted something fatal. It was just one fucking guy that decided he wanted to be besties with you.

Though in all fairness, you were kind of reacting the same way.

He was going to make you like him? How the fuck does one go about doing such a thing?

Knowing Ivan, it was going to be one hell of a process. Or maybe just hell. Shit.

And as if your day just didn't have that right amount of suck in it, Writing Class came along.

You found Gilbert already waiting in the seat next to yours. As you took your seat, he looked up at you with a frown.

"So I heard that completely unawesome Russian bastard is giving you some trouble," he tried to sound nonchalant about it, you could tell, but there was an edge of irritation that he just couldn't keep out of his voice. An irritation you couldn't really understand. Seriously, if anyone should be pissed about this, it should be you (not that you weren't pissed, you were, under about seventy tons of freaking-the-hell-out).

Must be a guy thing. What with their dick measuring contests, and Gilbert did seem to really hate Ivan's guts.

You sighed and nodded, rubbing at your eyes. The lack of sleep had been steadily catching up with you the more the day wore on, "he seems to think that if I become his friend, I'll stop hanging out with you."

Which didn't make sense on any level of fucked up logic, and it wasn't like you hung out with Gilbert in the first place. Yesterday had been the longest time you'd spent talking with him, and outside of text messages, that was maybe a total of two hours of communication? Give or take?

Wait…

It was then that it occurred to you what you'd just confided in Gilbert and that maybe that wasn't the smartest thing you could've said.

And right on cue, Gilbert immediately bristled, "what!? That asshole! Trying to keep you away from the awesome me! Here's what you need to do, you need to tell him to shove all that bullshit of his right up his-"

"How about everyone stops telling me what to do!? Huh!? How about that!? BECAUSE THAT'S HOW I GOT MYSELF INTO THIS SHIT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!"

The entire classroom (which was now full of students as well as the teacher) went quiet and stared at you. Even Gilbert, Gilbert, shut the fuck up for your little display. The scary ass girl in front of you managed to lose all of the natural intimidation in her face as she gave you one hell of a surprised look.

And you just sat there, your face on fucking fire as the awkward silence dragged on. It was only when the tardy bell rang and snapped everyone out of their trances that everyone stopped looking at you and stiffly returned to whatever the hell they were doing before.

"Damn…" Gilbert finally said, his silver eyebrows raised almost all the way up to his hairline.

You slumped forward onto your desk, burying your burning face in your arms, "oh my God, I am so sorry…"

Your mouth just really needed to shut its dumb self today, because all it did was betray you whenever it opened.

You felt a hand on your back, right between your shoulder blades, and it began to rub comforting circles into your back. You turned your head towards Gilbert so that one of your eyes peaked out from the cover of your arms. He continued to rub your back, this gentle look on his face, the same one he'd worn the day before when offering his condolences to Feliciano when the boy was mourning the loss of his beautiful pasta.

"Hey, don't worry about it," he said, and really, gentleness wasn't something that you thought suited Gilbert very well (seeing as his usual mode was either "Narcissistic" or "Devious" and sometimes both), but he seemed to pull it off alright. He even went to stroke your hair, but since you hadn't exactly put much effort into fixing it that morning, his fingers caught on about five million knots in your hair and he almost ripped your scalp off, so he immediately went back to stroking your back, "I mean, it's actually kind of awesome that you can yell that loud. I don't even think mein bruder can do that!"

You smiled a little, though Gilbert couldn't see it seeing as your mouth was currently smothered by your sleeve in an effort to keep it from saying anything else you regretted. Though what he was doing felt nice (especially since your back still kind of hurt from the events of last Saturday) it was slightly awkward to have him do that in the middle of class, especially since people were still shooting you odd looks. So as casually as you could, you straightened in your seat and shrugged his hand off of you. You then pulled out your notebook and began taking notes for class. If Gilbert took any offense to it, he didn't say.

Once class was over, Gilbert grabbed your stuff just as he'd done the day before and walked you to your Home Economics class, his arm around your shoulders the entire time.

As you approached the class he told you, "okay, so, not that I'm telling you what to do or anything, but if that creepy bastard gives you any trouble, you can always come to the awesome me and I'll kick his ass. Got it?"

You nodded, sort of wondering why he was going to such lengths to help you out. You figured he must really, really dislike Ivan if he was so willing to help someone that was barely an acquaintance of his just because Ivan was giving them a hard time. You kind of felt used in a way. Like Gilbert and Ivan were just using you as an excuse to be mad at each other.

Gilbert removed his arm from your shoulders. The two of you entered your classroom and he set your things on your desk.

As soon as he did, Ivan appeared out of fucking nowhere like he usually did. You were beginning to wonder if he had some sort of pocket dimension that only he could use that allowed him to travel places without being noticed.

He stood close to you, so close that you were touching and regarded Gilbert with a menacing smile, "why hello there, neighbor! Still talking to my soon-to-be friend, I see. Well, that will change soon, da?"

Gilbert narrowed his eyes, "you're one seriously creepy asshole, you know that right? Don't you have anything better to do than creep the fuck out of people?"

"My, vulgar you are!" Ivan's smile only grew, "but I do believe that this dog is more bark than bite. And that is what you are, Gilbert. A dog."

OH SNAP.

You could imagine that Gilbert was seeing red to match his eyes as he lunged forward, looking ready to tear Ivan's face off, but you intervened, stepping in front of Ivan and planting your hands on Gilbert's shoulders.

"Gilbert! Stop! I got this," you said to him, even though you really didn't. Somehow you'd managed to get yourself stuck in the middle of a really bad hate-hate relationship and you needed a way out of it as quickly as possible. Though you didn't know how you would accomplish this, you definitely thought that making things worse than they already were wasn't the right way to go.

The silver-haired boy seemed to calm down. He was still glaring daggers at the Russian, but he no longer seemed to want to make things physical. He backed down, and with a quick promise to text you later, he left the room, he held high like he really didn't give a fuck.

You almost sagged with relief, but then you remembered you still had Ivan to deal with. Just as you turned to look at him, he thrust something in your face, making you let out a startled yelp. You blinked as the object in front of you came into focus.

It was a chocolate bar.

You turned your questioning gaze to Ivan.

"I ran into little Raivis in the hall earlier today and asked him how to get people to like you. He said that people like you more when you give them gifts!" he grinned, and seemed to be very proud of himself.

You opened your mouth, ready to reject Ivan's gift, because you really didn't want anything he had to give you, but then you stopped, thinking about poor, fragile Raivis. Easily scared Raivis, who would probably be in for a world of hurt should his advice fail to be effective. So, for once trying to not be selfish, you accepted Ivan's gift.

"Umm, thank you…" you said, examining it for any signs of tampering. One could never be too careful.

He appeared even more pleased and was about to say something else when the bell rang. So with one last smile at you, he returned to his seat, where his partner and reported only current friend, Yao was sitting, apparently back from being sick.

It then struck you as odd that Ivan needed advice on how to make friends when he already had one. Maybe Yao was a masochist? Or maybe Ivan had managed to inflict so much psychological damage on the Asian boy that his mind just broke? And to your knowledge, Ivan had been perfectly content with just his one friend before, so why did he need another one? More specifically, why you?

Why you?

That was a good question.

As you took your seat next to Dana and Mrs. Grey began to take role, you wondered just how many people you murdered in a past life to deserve to be a part of all this drama.

To Be Continued…