Five Bucks

"Get out!"

The words surround me, whirling around in the room like the smoke from my cigarette, poking at me like needles, but also, they're freakin' comfortable. Cause I know them. I can repeat them at the same time you speak them, make my mouth move, synchronized with yours, if I want to. It's something we have together. Like a father-and-son-thing. It used to be go out fishin' or you taught me how to ride a bike, but that's fine. I guess I just take what I can get.

"I said, get the hell outta here!"

You sit in the couch, a beer bottle in a tight grasp and I stand in front of you, on the other side of the coffee table, your son, and this, this is our life. Our little game. Repeated every week, no surprises. You eye me, takes a sip, and you wait. I know, when I turn my back on you, you'll continue. It's some kind of rule, I think, a rule you've made up in this little act of ours. You never say it until you see that I really am about to go. I sometimes think it's because you can't stand to look me in my eyes when you say it. Or maybe you're just... slow.

I'm not. So I turn around and at the same moment, you spit it.

And don't come back.

"And don't come back."

Like I want to.

But both you and I know that I will. That's how things works, and I'm not about to change them. Not now, not today or tomorrow.

Because tomorrow I will step inside our house again, and you-

-you will take a fuckin' five dollar bill from your wallet, and it will go from your hand to my hand to my pocket, and I will shove it down deep, like hiding it, wrinkle it and pretend everything's okay with a nod. And you will smile. I will return it. You will pat my shoulder, return to your couch, to your bottle, take a sip, silently watch me when I cross the floor to my room. That's how we do this.

You pay me to forgive you and I do.

Every.

Fuckin'.

Time.

For the moment. To the next time.

It's like a fuckin' paycheck.

I don't care about the money. Not sure I want them. I'll set them on fire anyway. Change them for cigarettes - letting the smoke burn in my lungs when the bill doesn't burn in my pocket anymore. Somehow it's hard to keep them.

But I take them, cause I know when you do give them, I think that you maybe. Maybe...

like me (love me).

Someway.

But not more than the bottle you pick up and move towards your mouth. Not as much as the alcohol you pour down in your throat. I ain't stupid. If you had to choose, you would never choose me.

You throw me out once a week, but the bottles always stays. Pure love.

And I have no place to go anyway, you know. Permanently. There's a couch in a house that use to be mine, but still, it's not my place for real. It's a resting place, a roof over my head, a pillow underneath, when I need it. I never have to ask.

But if I'll live the fuckin' years to graduation, to get a full time job, to get another paycheck, and you tell me, demands me, to go-

-then you know, or no, you don't know yet, but I promise, I will go.

And then you can keep your five fuckin' bucks.

Dad.

I know, it's short, but it's all I want to tell in this little fic. Still don't own The Outsiders, and never will.

Beta-readed by Every'Piece'Has'A'Purpose

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