Who Cares Who Wins? (boyxboy)

Chapter 4. Barriers Crumbling.

Wyatt Oleff as Trevor 'Toad' Harrington.

Xander's POV.

I couldn't believe what was happening. Cliff was actually doing something about the bullying being levelled against me. No one had ever done anything quite like that before.

'Master' just stood there with his mouth agape, being ineffectual as usual, as Cliff came and put his books on the empty desk beside me. He turned and glared at Toad and drew the battle lines by announcing. 'The choice is yours... Trevor! Pick on Xander and you pick on me' before sitting down and giving me a wink.

I died right there on the spot from embarrassment. After all I had done to make him feel unwelcome he had gone and put his head on the block for me.

"Are we all done now?" Master inquired sarcastically as he came and stood in front of Cliff. "If you cause another disturbance like that in my class again, young man, I'll report you to Mr Cunningham."

"I doubt that you would dare do that Sir!" Cliff insolently replied, "otherwise Mr Cunningham would learn how you allow bullying in your classroom."

Master huffed and puffed as a redness formed on his cheeks. "Enough of your insolence, boy! You may be Mr Dickinson's new star player but this is still my classroom and I call the shots in here.... Not him...., and certainly not you."

Cliff wisely didn't answer back but I knew that the smirk on his face would have annoyed Master.

When Master turned his back I mouthed a 'thank you' to Cliff and gave him a weak smile of gratitude. He dismissed it with a wave of the hand as the lesson began.

The fact that the rest of the lesson went without any more abuse did not escape me. It was the first time in years that I had survived a lesson of Master's without constantly being bombarded with water pellets, a variety of small objects, and gay taunts.

I began to feel quite guilty for the way that I had treated my roommate and felt ashamed that I had gone on the defensive and had prejudged him before even knowing anything about him. I felt bad and embarrassed that I had been so unwelcoming on his first day. A treatment that it now looked like he didn't deserve.

I started to question why he had gone up against his teammates. Was he against bullying in general or maybe he was just trying to ingratiate himself with me? If so, why?

Well! Whatever the reason was I was grateful but I knew I would still be cautious of him until I knew him better.

"Thank you!" I said as we packed up our books at the end of the lesson. "That was a very brave thing to have done. Toad is one of the biggest bullies here and no one has ever gone up against him before and survived the day."

He gave a cheeky laugh. "There's always a first time for everything."

As soon as we were in the corridor Toad confronted Cliff.

"You wait until this afternoon's practise.... Then you'll find out how smart it was to bad mouth me in there." Toad jerked his thumb towards the classroom we had just vacated before prodding Cliff with his forefinger high up on his breastbone. "Dickie or no Dickie .... you're gonna be a dead man!"

Cliff didn't flinch at all. He just stood his ground and smirked. "You're not very bright, are you Trevor? Anyone with any brains would know that it's not wise to threaten someone before you know what they are capable of. I've already sussed you out. I'm no cactus expert... but I know a prick when I see one. You are only capable of bullying other boys because you have these other dipsticks around you." Cliff tossed his head in the direction of Kasper, Fabian, and some of the other members of the rugby team, standing, looking gormless, behind Toad, before casually grabbing hold of my elbow and forcibly marched me off down the corridor.