Obscure to Obvious Part 1
A/N: So this is a repost. It got taken down for some reason so I am just reposting it. :)
Disclaimer: Disney owns Austin and Ally. I own nothing. This is all fiction, however a few of these characters (Tanner and others) are based off of my life.
I know. You aren't supposed to do that. It isn't the best writing. Well, I don't care. The beginning part of this happened and my mind just went crazy. Tanner is actually depressed in real life, and…well just read along and kind of guess. However, I did not actually do this stuff with him like Ally.
Ally's POV
Tanner Carr. I couldn't help but blush. That boy had something else altogether. He was on the skinny side, but I couldn't complain when it paired with that face of his. Boy, did I mention the hair?
Oh, right, he was also mine.
It helped with the looks. Guys with girlfriends weren't as hot as you'd think, though. So he wasn't technically mine, but he might have well be. He and I had a lot of history as strict friends. I remembered when the first time we admitted our feelings for each other. It was about ninth grade.
His face had appeared on the tiny little screen full of shock. I had averted my gaze but kept my phone pointed at my face. Damn, I had hoped I looked good. I couldn't see my reflection well because when you face time a person, you were downsized.
"You liked me in seventh grade? I liked you!" He had smirked with pleasure.
"Shoot, we could have had an awkward middle school relationship!" I had retorted back.
Since then, we face timed a lot. He and I grew to be best friends, better friends than Trish and I were. She moved away last year, but she never did take my feelings seriously. Tanner almost had to. He had depression, after all. For him, feelings were intense so sometimes he assumed mine were, too. I didn't want to tell him most of us with a normal chemical balance in our brains didn't feel such strong emotions. I also didn't want to tell myself that what I felt were, in fact, strong emotions.
I helped him through his two-girl struggle, which ended in both girls throwing their fists in his face. I watched in horror as he read the text messages I sent to Trish obsessing over Tanner. And I watched with dismay as he played it off with a laugh, taking the extra ego booster but not bothering to 'boost' mine.
I stopped talking to him for a while. Who wanted to be around somebody who didn't want to be around them, more than anyone else? Then I had an idea come to mind. Maybe that didn't matter. So he was more outgoing than me. So he partied most weekends. So he smoked pot…every day. That didn't matter. His dirty jokes made me blush and feel scandalous. His hands, when I was so graced with feeling them brush along my thighs, made me all hot and bothered. So I started talking to him again.
When he made a move on me, however, for some reason, something wasn't there. I wasn't in the mood; we were in my basement with my dogs barking up a storm and my dad singing horrendously in the kitchen, watching Harry fucking Potter of all sensual movies. He grabbed my hand and I just didn't lean in for the kiss.
He left quickly and we didn't speak of it again. Then he went through a never ending girl period that I wasn't too sure had stopped until he just now kissed me. He tried time after time to get with a bunch of freshmen girls and I laughed it on by. Slowly, he opened up more to me.
I wanted to help him. Tanner Carr wasn't just the school's number one pothead fuck-boy. He wasn't just the school's most popular partier. He wasn't just that and nobody saw it. His friends angered me more than anything. They didn't take in the fact that he was fucking depressed! Showing little to no discourage on his drug usage was bad enough, but they encouraged it. The drinking, the pot, the girls; they were all his escape.
So I had a plan. I had a perfect plan. He would slowly open up to me without realizing how close it brought us. He would fall for me. As he had suggested a month ago, we would become fuck-buddies. I refused to actually have sex with him, but I'd give him pleasure and in return, we spent more intimate time together. He'd find absolute trust in me. Medication would have been damn helpful, but his laboring parents claimed life wasn't fair and he'd just have to tough through it.
Bullshit.
Anyhow, I could help him sort through problems. I could. I was strong enough to listen and console him. I didn't mind. He was medically diagnosed with depression and his stupid doctor didn't give him the proper care. Well, I was going to be a doctor someday, albeit a surgeon, but I'd be a doctor first. I could give him my own personal care, altered slightly from the medically sane because I didn't have ethics and law to worry about.
Where was I? Ah, yes, I was explaining Tanner Carr's and my background. That wasn't my only background.
At the end of junior year, I dated a goody-two shoe with a name that started with an A. It was only two weeks. I was a totally different girl back then. I was a pure virgin and he stole my kiss. Two weeks later, I broke up with him for reasons I'd rather not discuss.
Anyhow, that's how I got my first kiss. After that, Tanner dropped all hesitation in jumping me. We talked about it until we finally got the time to hang out and there I was, sitting with my legs open and his face between my thighs. I was consumed with both pleasure and our odd background throughout the moments leading up to my finish.
When he was done, I finished him off and he pressed his lips against mine in a deep kiss, nearly choking me with his tongue. So he wasn't the most caring person, but he did know how to please a girl. "Make sure to vote for me in homecoming, babe."
I expected my heart to flutter, as it often did when my ex's called me babe. It didn't, but I didn't let that faze me. Of course it wouldn't after just experiencing far more than a pet name. I searched his eyes, making sure he was good. A week ago, he'd explained how he initially wrote a suicide note in the beginning of the school year. Now it was late October and he had just finished getting around to burning it.
I thought of that as either progress or such huge steps back that we'd be falling off the cliff, literally, sooner rather than later. Of course, I called my close friend, Carli. We'd met at a summer camp and although she lived in Boston, we talked all the time.
She gave me an insight into a depressed kid's mind, and how sometimes the signs weren't all that obvious. She, too, was depressed. It came as a huge shock to me – she was always so chipper. She said camp helped a lot, but nothing would help Tanner besides medication. After a day's deliberation, I did go to my school counselor and explained the situation in short, though I left out more details than I was comfortable with.
She didn't do a thing. I tried to urge her to, and she claimed she had. She claimed she didn't have the rights to tell me. Well, I knew she did bullshit. I doubted she even put our meeting on file. I was so pissed for the longest time, but I saw not a change in Tanner, but not a decrease. I wasn't particularly worried because he wasn't depressed at the moment; he wasn't in one of his 'moods.' I decided I'd cross that bridge when I got there.
When I did arrive, he claimed it wasn't that bad, nothing a little weed couldn't fix. I hated that he resorted to such travesties, but if it helped – which I knew it did – I couldn't deny him that solitude. He did a 180 after he smoked. I hated it, but I hated seeing him so depressed. He saw life as a meaningless void and only beer, girls, and pot brought much stimulation up in him.
That was where we were today. I didn't love the situation, but my mood changed when he came up to me Wednesday and wrapped his arms around my backside, hands resting just below my hips. To old Ally who dated boring guys, it would have been far too low, but new Ally liked this. And new Ally needed to stop talking in third person.
"You have something on your ass," he whispered loudly into my ear. I rolled my eyes to my friends. There were four of them. Sam was very, er, open with her body to any and everyone, but we weren't that close. She was annoying. Paige was a good friend, though a little distant when things came down to it. Still, she was the one I trusted most; the one I could relate to more. Jodie was on the curvy side, and she was a bitch, honestly, and got on my nerves, but she was the only one without a boy toy now, though I didn't know if Paige and Sam could technically call theirs 'boyfriends.' Then there was the fake friend but not in the way you might think. We all knew about her home life, but Taylor swore she had a happy two-parent home. She laughed and put on a show, but we just couldn't get her to open up. She was always smiling, but we saw through it. Taylor had a new boyfriend, who I was slightly jealous of. She opened up to him. Currently, Paige was looking at me like I was giving up my virginity this very moment.
The only reason they didn't think I was a slut was because I wasn't, not truly. Sure, I was slutty for one guy, but did that make me a whore? Tanner and I weren't dating, but I wasn't planning on doing anything close to what we did with anyone else. We knew each other for a year or so before even becoming friends with benefits.
Besides, I didn't tell them one word. They wore shocked expressions. As his hand squeezed my ass while the other groped my front. I spun around and kneed him in the balls, tugging Tanner by the ear to the janitor's closet. We slipped inside after my friends were out of sight.
It was pitch dark but pretty big. I was shouting before the door even cut off any of the hallway's noise. "What did I tell you about privacy!? I said if anyone suspected, your dick wouldn't get touched in a long whil-,"
Somebody other than Tanner cleared his throat. I blinked and fumbled for the light. When the room flooded with yellow, I saw two other people in the room with us. There stood none other than my most recent ex, the one whose name I couldn't remember. A little brunette stood at his side, head not even reaching his shoulders. I recalled they were dating. She was a freshman named Maggie. Now why couldn't I remember his name?
"Austin Moon," Tanner stumble forward so his hand wrapped around Austin's shoulder. Oh, now I remembered him. He was a much more gentle kisser than Tanner. I had thought it was too gentle, but my still bruised lips begged to differ. "What's up, football star?"
"Is he drunk, Ally?" Austin let go of his girlfriend to steady Tanner. I shook my head defiantly. Tanner promised to never show up drunk.
"He's probably just high," I debated even with myself. Austin's brown eyes bulged.
"Just," he snorted. And I couldn't help but agree with him.
"He's not doing cocaine. I think he's doing okay," Maggie said with too much enthusiasm. She sent a dazzling smile towards Tanner.
"Thank you…Maggie!" He snapped his fingers as he recognized her. I watched with amusement as his eyes traveled up and down her body. "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie…I can't believe you're only fourteen."
Austin shoved off Tanner easily considering his arms were about triple the size of Tanner's. I wasn't kidding. "Are you okay here, Ally?" Austin stared at me. I blinked and nodded, unsure what I was. Was I okay? No, I wasn't. I felt oddly dissatisfied. "Good, see you in science."
I waved too long after the door shut. My mind only then processed what happened. Why had Austin and Maggie been in here in the first place? It was a classic hookup spot, one that normally was high in demand. Athletes got first pick – mainly because every other guy was scared stiff of the football and wrestlers, which Austin was both.
"Sorry, Ally," Tanner spoke with little regret. I crossed my arms. "I won't speak of it again." He held his hands up in surrender. I sighed. "Hey, you signed up to fuck the pothead. I'm not responsible for myself when I'm high."
He grinned, knowing full and well how much that comment angered me. "One, you're not a pothead. Stop saying that. It's different with you. Two, we aren't fucking and never will. Third, you are high right now, idiot, and you're very much responsible for every secret and action. Clear?"
He smiled again. "Crystal. Hey, did you and that Austin guy ever do your dirty dancing?"
I rolled my eyes as we exited the closet again. Thankfully, nobody was in the hallway. "No. He doesn't like getting drunk or partying."
"He sounds boring. I should take Maggie off his hands…and on my lap," Tanner hissed as his eyes locked on the retreating pair waking briskly ahead of us. I snorted.
"Boring he certainly was." I had no idea how wrong I'd later find myself to be.
. . .
I felt Tanner's eyes burning the back of my neck and turned around. His long, slightly angular face was handsome. His tan skin complimented his nickname and Cherokee heritage. His brown eyes winked at me, causing my whole body to jump and turn around. He was such a flirt and he knew it. That move always got to me. I heard a giggle as he used it on the sophomore sitting beside me. She turned around faster than I considering she, too, had a boyfriend. I eyed him again just as the announcements turned on. He was tall compared to me but many other guys matched and beat him. He dressed in a preppy, Southern Tide t-shirt that cost what three of my original tie-dye shirts would, though I wasn't wearing those today. I hardly wore my comfortable clothes anymore except to sleep in. His shorts were salmon (pink, but you didn't hear it from me) with little swordfish here and there. Like I said: preppy.
"Excuse the interruption, but we will now announce the nominees for the homecoming court. Here's how it has been decided…," rang from the intercom. I righted myself and sighed. This was what they disrupted my normal schedule for? I walked all the way to the bottom floor to my homeroom for this bullshit of a contest?
I slumped against my desk and played on my phone while Tanner scooted forward, his foot kicking up into my outstretched butt. I shook him off, annoyed with the boy for interrupting my intense game of word search. I couldn't find the word 'integrity' and he made me drop my phone before the timer ran out. Dammit, I hated the 'Morals' pack. Those were a hard choice of words.
"Listen, Ally, I'm a shoe-in," Tanner shook my shoulder, effectively ending my word streak. I shut off the device and stuffed it in my backpack, fuming.
"Jace Wayland, Jared Howe, Daniel Alton Wing, and Olaf Summers."
Dead silence filled the room. I looked to Tanner's crestfallen face and immediately regretted it. He looked so crushed, like all his pot got flushed down the toilet. Then he took a deep breath and slumped over in his desk. So much for the high he was riding. I turned back around and bit my lip.
"The girls are Clary Fairchild, Wanda Stryder, and June Iparis, and Ally Dawson. Have a wonderful day."
The bell rang. I grabbed my bag and began walking to the hall, owning a heavy frown. Since when did people know me? All those other girls wouldn't dream of speaking to me. Okay, I take that back. Wanda was a nice girl who studied with me from time to time. June scared the piss out of me alongside her boyfriend so I was the one to un-instigate that greeting. Clary was an artsy girl whose protective brother had to approve of all her companions, hence why he didn't approve of me and my tendencies to sneak off with the weed addict.
I didn't fit in with any of them. They all had rather large cliques that voted for them, I assumed. Clary was part of what most people called the Shadow hunter clique. Wanda was loved by every single being. It was impossible not to. She was known, as well, for being the class president. June was the top athlete. She was dark and mysterious but also brought a lot of winning for the soccer, basketball, and lacrosse team.
Where did I fall? I didn't party. I didn't have some large group of friends. I had my old, preppy friends, and I had my real friends, who had slightly less known and geekier friends that knew me by name but not personality.
I supposed it was all in my head. I was the top of the class. Everyone knew me because everyone saw me for tutoring. It didn't explain why they voted for me. I didn't find myself smoking hot – not ugly, sure, but hot? It didn't explain the guys. I had good fashion sense, I supposed, but I didn't spend every waking hour talking about it so it didn't explain why girls voted for me.
"Ally! You're on the homecoming court!" Paige ran into me, throwing her arms around my neck. I squirmed away.
"Eh, eh, don't touch my body!" I snapped. She grinned like that rule didn't apply to her. Tanner came from behind me and threw his arm around my shoulders like it wasn't anything new. My eyes burst into flames. "No touching my body!" I shouted again, running away from them. They caught up quickly.
"Who would vote for you, Als?" Tanner asked while waving from friend to friend. I sighed and Paige did the same. She pulled me aside where we found Taylor as well. She shot into the air and encircled me in an awkward hug.
"Ah, my little flower has blossomed," she said into my ear, again in the most awkward voice she could manage.
"Blossomed…right," I glared as the two went on and on about how they spread the word in less than two days.
. . .
Tanner was a walking water balloon. I wasn't kidding. He was stick straight in the air, and I didn't mean just his torso, but kept falling over. So I tightened up his belt, prayed the black blended in the night sky, pulled down my dress, and wrapped my arm around his torso. Then we trudged under the bleachers towards the line up to the field.
He was wasted.
I wasn't talking tipsy. I wasn't talking nauseous. I was talking with one more beer, he'd be vomiting all over me. "When you agreed to be my escort, I assumed you knew you had to walk across the field!" I hissed.
Tanner shuddered suddenly. I couldn't move. We were outside of the football locker rooms and they were walking out. I was cornered because Tanner had enough trouble going forward, there was no way in hell he was moving back. I threw his arms off me at the last second, but the putrid vomit still made its way up and out.
It didn't get all over me. The liquid substance landed above my right breast and that was it. Tanner was still hacking when I let out a disgusted scream. Nobody but the football players were around us, but I was too distraught to be paying them any attention.
"First, you make sure I'm 'wearing something black.' Then you make me cover for your drunk ass to my own parents on the walk here. I carried you the length of a football field in high heels. Now you puke on me?" I screech. "Tanner you drunken idiot!"
My fists were headed straight for his face when a strong hand jerked it away. "Don't break your hand, Ally," came a slightly familiar voice. I spun around, tears streaming down my face. I was on my period, got all dressed up, my gut in a knot because I had to walk out there in front of my entire school only to never get that crown, which was a display of embarrassment on its own, nevertheless me walking on grass in heels, and now I had puke on my shoulder. I was so pissed off at Tanner. Couldn't he have the decency to think of somebody else for once in his life. He had depression and he wasn't doing anything to help. He went to a therapist. If he just told her half the things he'd told me, she'd give him medication.
By his lack of feeling and judgment, he clearly needed to buck up and get past his trust issues with him. I was at my breaking point. Was there a time when you should truly give up on somebody with so much potential? I wasn't a quitter, but it didn't matter if Tanner was the quitter. It didn't come down to me; it came down to him.
I couldn't fix him. I realized this only then, as the strong arms embraced me to keep from hitting the man passed out on the ground. I didn't know what I was doing. So he had a good couple of days. All it took was one little thing to upset him. Now he was killing his liver and lungs, driving his car down an icy bridge where the destination was nowhere but over. I couldn't have done anything to change it. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't his fault either, not truly.
No, we both could have done one thing; we could have found him real, proven help sooner. My naive brain thought a fuck buddy would help. Ha! The chemical imbalance in his brain was the only problem. There was only one solution; it needed balanced. Sex, love, or even trust couldn't solve it. Some of those things probably didn't even help.
"You go on without me. Ally needs help," the slightly boyish yet also deep voice spoke from above my head. I stiffened. Arms were around me. I hated being touched, not unless I initiated it. After the slam of a metal door the loud crowd suddenly lessened by tenfold. My ears were ringing along with the pounding of my head.
"Ally, I'm sorry I grabbed you like that…" I was placed on a soft couch in the middle of a locker room. The lockers all had names on them. This place was massive. The couch looked to be in the center, facing the end with a white board on it, but something blocked the view. Oh, a person blocked the view. I squinted my eyes as he kneeled down in front of the sniffling me. "Ally, it's me."
"Austin," I nodded, recognizing his beach blonde hair. It was such difference from the brown I was used to looking at. His wider face and a warm smile offered me some peace. This face couldn't hide anything from an emotion to a secret. It was plane and clear in these chocolate brown eyes that seemed darker up close. I found myself remembering times when Tanner's elongated face offered such different emotions I wracked my brain for hours trying to pinpoint his mood. Austin's mood was clear. He was very much concerned. And about me, it seemed. "Austin!"
A/N: So what do you all think? Part two will be up when I get four reviews? Sound good?