Title: Dissecting the Conundrum
Description: It isn't love, but it's not exactly like anything he's ever had before. It's a connection. Sort of Archie/OC
A/N: Hey people. What's up?
So, here's the thing. I love The Chocolate War. Absolutely l o v e it, and I feel like there needs to be way more fanfiction for it, so I'm writing some (or at least just this one). It'll be a three part little story. I'm not quite sure I have Archie's character right, but hopefully it's not too far off. He's so hard to get down! XP
Thanks for reading, anyway, and reviews are always welcome. Constructive criticism too. :)
(Gahhh, I need to get back into the habit of writing FULL SENTENCES.)
Part One
He likes the softness, their hands roaming and touching. He likes the way the girls pant beneath him, grasping at his shoulders as if he's an anchor for them. (Grasping at the shoulders that are still clad in the jacket of his school uniform, because he won't even make that concession. This isn't about skin on skin—it's about relief, about needs. The sweat and the saliva just get in the way, too human for him to really want to partake in.) He likes the way they stare at him in awe when he whispers filthy things in their ears, and makes them come, screaming his name again and again. Archie, Archie, Archie! They always react the same, always assume the same liberties of freely using his name, as if they actually know him.
He likes the way he can manipulate them, the way he can always know exactly what's coming, but sometimes it does get boring. Sometimes, he wants a surprise. It never seems to come though, and he contents himself with knowing that all it means is that he's still better than them all. There's no one he can't dissect.
It's the same at this party that he's sitting in on. The music is loud, too much so for his tastes, pumping through the house's wooden frame with a vengeance. People dance and pump their fists with it as it vibrates up from the floorboards and through their bodies. They scream, communicating mindlessly, like wild monkeys. Dirty. Uneducated.
Archie watches as a girl frees herself from the crowd, pushing the boy she'd been dancing with away from her in the process. He sees the vicious curl to the boy's lip, the way he sways in a half drunken glaze before stumbling after her, fingers twitching with the beginnings of violence, and knows what's going to happen already. Horrible. Beautiful too, in that vicious way of human beings, but mostly horrible.
He wonders if she'll cry afterwards. She pushes the boy away again, trembling, when he reaches her, and then scurries out the door. Oh yes. She'll sob. Or perhaps someone will come to her rescue before that, and save the poor, screaming damsel in distress.
Either way, the boy-monster follows her out.
The couch dips beside him, human warmth permeating the space along with a faint perfume. A girl then. He leans back, relaxing into the couch without looking at her, and waits for her to strike up a conversation. They always do, after all, but he waits and nothing comes. Silence. He allows himself a glance at the girl, and takes in a still, undeterminable expression framed in drooping brown locks. She doesn't glance at him once, and something about it irks him. He narrows his eyes and turns back to the crowd.
It's only when a slow dance starts, and people scurry about more frantically than ever, trying to find partners, that she speaks. "It's so stupid, isn't it?" she mutters. It seems to be more to herself than him, the question posed not expecting an answer. She falls quiet again after saying it, and doesn't put forth anything more.
His mind wanders to other things as he looks back at the crowd, and finds the quiet ringing in his ears. Would she be so quiet as he ran his fingers across her skin? Would she let go and scream as he took her? Or, even then, would she try to keep it in and bite down on her lip with muffled gasps? She's average looking—hell, she's a little overweight to be honest. Nothing special. She's just—quiet, and he wonders. Again he finds himself irked, because he doesn't know.
He reaches out to her, formulating the motions in his head as he goes, fingers brushing lightly against her arm. "You don't look like you're having much fun," he drawls, his lips twitching upwards in a sympathetic smile (one that is only half faked, as he can't say this is exactly fun for him either).
She pauses, opens her mouth. Her tongue darts out, wetting her lips, and he lets his eyes follow it briefly before returning to her face. "You don't either," she finally says. He smiles more pronouncedly, and this time what she says is expected. "You wanna go outside and talk? I could use a second away from…this." She waves a dismissive hand at the party and he nods, the small triumph calming the discontent that had been bubbling inside him.
When they get out, they do talk. For a minute. He's on his game now though, spinning his webs and catching her up in them.
They end up doing it in the back seat of his car. It's unplanned. It's messy. He deals with it though, as he pushes her back onto the seat and begins to move. Neither of them takes off anything that isn't necessary for the act, but he plays it down to them being in a car, not her being unpredictable. Not to her being unlike the other girls, who simply whimper and squirm beneath him as he pushes their shirts up over their heads to reveal milky, gentle curves.
What he can't play off to the car is that she falls into neither the "screaming" nor "lip biting" category. She makes one of her own. Bar the panting she is dead silent, not a single noise slipping out, and that throws him off just a little more. He wonders, wonders, what else there is to this girl that he can't predict. What else to this girl isn't what it seems to be? He's thinking too much now though, he assures himself, and continues to move, pressing his mouth to hers tightly to drown out the silence.
A few more minutes and he spends himself, though he hates to think of it in such terms. He tries not to think about it in general, instead pulling back and laying himself languidly against the back of the seat. He lets out a deep breath and affords her a glance, only to find that she's pulled her panties back up under her dress and is opening the car door to get out.
It takes a second for him to realize that he is about to ask her where she is going, because none of the other girls have ever just left. They always try and talk to him after, quietly, pressing against him. She doesn't. He bites his tongue, swallowing the urge, and without thinking about it his slender fingers curl into clenched fists. Archie Costello can dissect anybody. This girl isn't an exception.
It just takes time, once in a while, he assures himself. It just takes time.