RIOT: Julie and the Phantoms

Bonus Track: Get Lost

A/N I just couldn't wait to post this one! I think it shows Daisy's protective nature really well. Please read the trigger warning all the way. It's important to know your boundaries, and if anyone needs to reach out feel free! I'm always willing to listen.

Trigger warning: bullying, transphobia, homophobia, implied dead naming and slurs, and misgendering. Such topics will be labeled by 🔺 and 🔻 if you feel uncomfortable please skip after 🔺 and go straight to 🔻. I will include a less detailed summary of the events if you wish to read it.

2014

When Daisy found her brother's songbook a year ago, she begged her parents to get her a guitar. She wanted to feel closer to the brother she never knew, and how could her parents say no to that? They had already driven away one child, they didn't want to do it again. So, for Christmas that year, they got Daisy her first acoustic six-string. And Daisy practiced and practiced until her fingers bled. She learned all the songs in Luke's book and got lucky when she found Sunset Curve's demo online. By Daisy's fourteenth birthday, she knew every lyric and every cord to any song Luke had ever written. Or so she thought.

Daisy was proud to say she had a rock star brother, and when she met Rane and Lara in highschool they formed their own band. They called themselves RIOT, and they were the only girl fronted band in their school back then. They went to a school heavily influenced by the arts, and no one really took them seriously at the time. With anything.
🔺
"Hey!" Daisy shouts from down the hallway. "Get away from them!" She's nearly running down the hall at this point. At the complete opposite end, Rane is being shoved into a set of lockets by a guy nearly twice their size. Daisy recognizes him from the lacrosse team and makes a mental note to tell the coach later.

"No need to worry Daisy, bleep and I were just having a little chat," the guy says. Daisy now recognizes him as David, and she vows to make his life miserable from now on.

"That's NOT their name. And Rane doesn't want to talk to you, Brad," Daisy says, her teeth are clenched and her face grows red. His own face twists at her use of the wrong name.

"My names not-" Daisy cuts him off.
"Yeah, doesn't feel so good, does it Brad? Now leave Rane alone, and go back to your little jock friends, buddy," Daisy says. She grabs Rane's hand and starts to drag her away.

"No matter how much you and your little d*k* friend deny it, little bleep will always be a man!" Daisy lets go of Rane's arm and whips around to see the smug look on David's face. Without hesitation, she launches her tiny 5'4 body towards the 6ft tallboy. Within seconds he's pinned against the nearest locker with her arm across his throat and what will be a nice, shiny black eye. If there was one thing Daisy hated most, it was people coming after her friends with those god awful slurs.

"You better watch what you say, Brad," Daisy says into David's ear. "I know six different ways to castrate a man, don't make yourself my first. Now, get lost." She pushes off him and stalks back towards her friend. A crowd had gathered and soon parts just from the look on Daisy's face.
🔻
(David from the lacrosse team corners Daisy's friend Rane. Daisy rushes to defend her friend, only to witness David deadname Rane, misgender them, and call their other friend the slur for WLW. Daisy punches him and threatens to dismember a certain part of him.)

"David, you know better than to be pushing Daisy's buttons like that bro," Daisy hears one of David's teammates say to him. "You know, one of these she's actually gonna do it man."

An hour later, Daisy's walking through the gym doors in the middle of the lacrosse team meeting. She walks right past David as he audibly gulps, and goes straight up to the coach.

"Sir, I need to speak to you about one of your players." They walk off to a far corner, occasionally looking towards the team. And when Daisy leaves, David's suspended from the team until he gives Rane a public apology.