A/N: So, I didn't give this a proper introduction in the first chapter. So here it is. Welcome to Baby Mine, what will probably be my longest fanfic to date. A bit of background on it: As I stated in the summary, this is based off of a text-based RP that I've been doing with another author from here for about the past year. It will follow mostly the same course of events as that RP, but I'll be taking some liberties, changing some things, and weaving it into a novel-style story.
For example, I changed the location here from LA to Olympia, Washington. This wasn't the case in RP, but I just felt that Olympia was more fitting for a ghost story and for Parker as a character. Though in my head-canon, the shooting usually took place in the spring of Tate's junior year, I'm changing it here to the fall of his senior year. And you will notice other little changes made here and there.
I'm really excited to share Parker with the fanfic community as a whole. He's one of my favorites (okay, probably my absolute favorite) and has become something of an alter ego for me. I don't expect a story where Tate Langdon is shipped with a boy to be wildly popular, but I hope at least a few of you come to love Parker as I do.
And just to clarify: yes, Parker is a gay man. Tate, in this fic, isn't specifically gay, but he's fluid and they are shipped. Like I said, that might bother some people, but he's been put with girl OC's over and over and some of you might like something different. Okay, anyhow, on to the fanfic!
It was noon. Parker sat slumped in his chair, his arms crossed protectively over himself and his eyes glaring warily at the seven students and two counselors who shared the small circle. Since he showed up to play practice drunk a few weeks prior, the teacher had insisted he attend the school's weekly therapy group. Parker hated it. The drama teacher had forced real-life drama on him, technicolor and sobbing. It made him want to choke.
"You have a problem," Mrs. Termine wailed. She was near tears, which pissed Parker off more than ever. It was his problem. If anyone deserved to cry about it, it was him, and he wasn't. "And you'll never fix it if you won't open up and won't deal with your grief over your mother..."
"That was like, five years ago," said Parker flatly. "Yes, it sucked, I was sad. But time passes. You get through things. You get over them. I really don't see what everyone suddenly ganging up and yelling at me is supposed to do..."
"Okay, first of all," spoke up Cassie, a girl whose syrupy voice made Parker nauseous, "it just seems like you really want attention. I mean, you come in here and tell us how sick you are, how you're drinking, how you almost died, but you don't really want a solution. You just want to be looked at. Second, my mom died, too: you never get over it..."
"-No, you never got over it!" Parker exclaimed, cutting Cassie off. "You don't get to own my experience! Fuck! I am so goddamn sick of everyone telling me what to feel all the time about my life! My family! She loved me!"
To Parker's chagrin, tears of pure anger shot to his eyes. Mrs. Termine passed him a tissue box.
The box made something snap inside of him. His feelings were not sweet and tender and painful. They were fiery and violent. He didn't want to be babied and pampered and patronized, and he sure as all hell did not want a goddamn Kleenex. What he wanted was for his rage to be recognized and acknowledged. He took the box and threw it hard across the room-right at Cassie. It missed her when she ducked and instead crashed into the wall behind her and fell to the floor with an unsatisfactory silence. The cardboard came open a bit on impact, scattering tissues on the floor. Parker liked that part.
Amidst a chorus of indignant shouts he fled the office, walking out through the double doors and through the student parking lot.
Outside the mid October day was sunny and mild, not as bright as summer had been but still lacking the season's usual gray fog. The fallen leaves, as crunchy-stiff as old bones, swirled in circles from the trees around Parker's car, their colors autumnal and brilliant. The old Ford Escort his dad let him use was making funny sounds again, its congested engine trying to drown out Weezer in the tape deck. It was more like a lawn mower than a car.
The world has turned and left me here, sang Rivers Cuomo mournfully through the din of the engine. Just where I was before you appeared. And in your place, an empty space, has filled the void behind my face...
Parker swore loudly, bashing his fists down on the steering wheel, his voice cracking. The engine paid little mind, and Rivers seemed unbothered. His voice stayed as even and disaffected as always. In Parker's peripheral vision plastic skeletons and cardboard gravestones taunted him from faded green lawns. They seemed to belong to people who had never known loss at all, fortunate people making a mockery of everything traumatic that had ever happened to him.
He parked at Oddfellows, the large cemetery a few blocks from Olympia High. Normally he just would have walked, but he didn't want to risk being caught this time and dragged back to high school. For a quick moment he was feral, kicking and beating the old vehicle, making dents in it until he was exhausted. His dad wouldn't notice. And even if he did, the old drunk wouldn't care. Parker would just say that someone hit him in the parking lot and didn't leave a note.
Sighing, he took a cigarette from his backpack and lit up, lying down on his back behind a row of trees. He only ever smoked when he was very upset or very drunk. He shook his head, exhaling. In side profile he caught sight of a little, flat grave marking nameless newborn twins from the earlier part of the century. Parker grimaced, shaking his head. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, running one hand over the old stone. "So so sorry..."
Parker didn't know how long he lied there, quiet and squinting into the wan sun while skeletons danced in his head. But suddenly he heard a rustling behind him, as if there were squirrels in the trees.
Parker turned his head, slow and disinterested, only to be hit in the face with a big pile of leaves. He cried out, sitting up blindly.
Tate sank down next to him, laughing. "I scared you."
Parker took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled through his nose, rolling his eyes. "No," he countered, trying not to smile, "you surprised me. I keep telling you there's a difference."
"Whatever," Tate shrugged, studying a fallen leaf with all the intent of a true naturalist. Parker reached back and stubbed his half-gone cigarette out on the root of a tree. He knew that smoking bothered Tate's stomach.
"Whatcha thinkin' about?"
Parker's eyes cast upward, surveying the orange and red kaleidoscope of the treetops. "Skeletons," he said flatly. "Dead babies."
Tate's straight nose wrinkled. "Charming," he quipped, studying Parker. "You're pale."
The dark-haired boy coughed into the threadbare sleeve of the black and white cardigan. "It's fine," he dismissed.
"No, you're cold," Tate insisted, stripping off his thick, padded flannel jacket to reveal a blue thermal shirt below. He draped the plaid coat around Parker's delicate shoulders. "Here, take it. You know I have the immune system of a medieval warrior."
Parker couldn't help but giggle, sullen mood be damned. Tate had that effect on him. The blond boy stood, holding a pale hand out to Parker. "C'mon," he said. "Let's get out of here. If I wanted to hang around dead people I'd go to my house. At least those ones talk."
Parker grinned, pulling his arms into the jacket, and took Tate's hand. His fingers were longer than Tate's even though they were the same height. "Kay," he said, standing. "Let's go to my place."