AN: So I got mindfucked, spent the next several hours chain-smoking in the dark while listening to horribly depressing music, and wrote this.
Summary: "I can't imagine feeling that way about anyone. Maybe I got a screw missing." "Maybe it just needs tightening."
Warnings: Language, some lemony content
Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".
Chapter One
Disconnected
"Too out of touch, out of touch, to touch you
So disconnected
Going through the motions again
So disconnected
Everything goes over your head"
~~Trapt
Michelle's hands rove over his body, skin seeking skin. His hands do the same, lazy and smooth, as he traipses across her soft curves. She familiar and warm beneath him.
And he feels nothing.
She moans his name in a frantic mantra as he moves within her. She clings to him, nails digging into his back, desperate to pull him closer. Tells him she loves him when it's done. Cuddles against his side as he lies motionless beside her.
And he feels nothing.
He wraps and arm around her, a gesture of closeness he's obliged to perform. Runs a hand through her fiery hair, holds her beside her. Their chests heave with the labors of their actions.
And Tony, with his beautiful girlfriend lying spent and satisifed in his bed, feels nothing.
Michelle saunters in, a sexy walk meant to catch his eyes and stir his desire. Tony's seen it before and the reaction it inspires in everyone around him. But his response isn't what it should be.
Sure, he wants her. In a vague, sexual way. He's fucked her before and he'll fuck her again, and it'll be good. But he doesn't want her the way Stan wants her. Tony doesn't love her. Feels nothing for her at all.
She settles into his lap, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him. Hot and heavy and passionate. Tony does what is expected, what he's supposed to, and kisses back. His hands moves smoothly over her body, traces over all the familiar paths he'd long ago made and memorized.
He feels like a ghost as she tangles her fingers in his hair; her touch fades through him. Intangible.
The eyes of everyone around dart to them and away. The school's hottest couple. Untouchable. The thing all want to be. What a fucking joke. It's all a house of cards, waiting for the slightest breeze to blow it down and reveal that for all the power he wields, Tony is empty inside. Hollow.
He pulls away from Michelle's greedy lips, under the pretense of breathing. She notices nothing; she never does. Thinks he wants her the way he was always supposed to, maybe even that he loves her though he's never said the words. He smirks like the king of the castle because, well, isn't he? A castle of cards is still a castle and even with this nothingness inside, he is still the king of all he sees. The universe bends itself to his will and everything falls into place.
He wonders what it would be like to drop the pretense, to just let it all fall away and act like the numb creature he is. But the very idea frightens him. To lose control, to lie beneath the current of lies and manipulation instead of its master. To be vulnerable that way, it's terrifying.
So he won't do it. Can't do it. The fear is all he has left. The control the only thing still his. Everything else belongs to the man he pretends to be, the boy who would be king, trembling in his own shadow.