Pavlov Part 2

A/N: My better half wrote a large portion of the Petey dialogue here.

The only good thing about gym was that dodgeball kept me from staring at the clock all period. Past that—well, Petey, was on my team today, and it took everything I had not to fucking clobber him for flailing around like an ass. At least I forgot, for an hour, how long it was until curfew and I could get the fuck out of Bullworth.

Of course, I couldn't just get to my room and get to the city. That'd mean things were going smoothly, and shit hadn't gone smoothly since I'd gotten here. I sighed loudly. "What is it now?"

Petey was standing in front of my door, still in his stupid little gym shorts, as if he'd been waiting for me for hours. I'd say he looked nervous, but that was just his regular facial expression. Jittery and nervous, and ready to scram. So why wasn't he doing that yet?

"Hey, Jimmy…"

That fucking tone…it was the tone that I heard when people were asking for something. From Petey, it just meant that he wanted company, but I was sick as hell of that tone.

"What is it, Petey?" If I sounded as annoyed as I was with him, maybe he'd go away.

It didn't work. "What are you up to?" He moved out of the way of my door, at least, so I unlocked it and went inside. Petey came in behind me, still talking. "I meant to talk to you at lunch, but I realized I had a test to make up in biology…"

He trailed off, looking towards my bed. I glanced over; my backpack was there, where I'd left it, so that I could leave as soon as I got out of class. I turned back to him. "Yeah? And?" He wasn't moving, so I went to my closet and grabbed another shirt. If I made like I was going to change my clothes, maybe he'd go away.

Petey shook himself out of whatever thoughts he was having. "Oh! Right, um…just seeing what was up, because I came by the other night to hang out, and you weren't here."

"Yeah, sorry, I went out," I muttered. I wished I hadn't taken a shower back at the gym, otherwise I could use that as an excuse. "What is it?"

Petey shrugged. "I don't know…came by last night because you weren't there two nights ago either." I blinked at him. Seriously? He couldn't be serious. Wait—I was talking about Petey. Petey didn't know how to joke. And he kept looking at my backpack like he hadn't seen it before.

"I'm here now, Petey," I groaned. "What is it?"

Petey jumped. "Sorry, I just…" He turned as if to walk out, and Iet out a breath.

Too soon, of fucking course. "Hey, Jimmy?" He turned around like he'd forgotten something.

"Yeah?" I grunted.

"Are you going to the asylum?"

I blinked. "Why?"

He swallowed and fidgeted for a moment, twisting back and forth like a pinned down bug, before clomping over to the bed and lifting my backpack.

Which was opened.

Which was why the orderly uniform fell out.

Fuck me.

What was I supposed to say? No, I was loaning it to a friend? "Yeah, so?"

"Why would you need to go back to the asylum?" Petey questioned. "I mean, no one's there now, 'cept for—" His eyes got wide and he dropped the backpack. "Oh my god, Jimmy, you went to see G--"

I quickly slammed my door closed and locked it, before Petey announced my personal business to the entire hallway. Fucking idiot didn't know volume control for shit. "Shut up, Petey, Jesus, someone's going to hear you!"

Everything was clicking into place in Petey's head, and I could watch it happening. I suddenly felt real sick. "I knew something was up, I knew it when you weren't here for like, three nights straight—" A week straight, but fortunately Petey had other things to do with himself the other four nights of the week, "—and then I waited late for you two nights ago, but you didn't come back 'til after four, because that's when I went to bed, and then you were in such a bad mood the other morning, and—Jesus, have you gone and seen him for the past three nights--"

That was enough. I covered his mouth. His eyes were still wide, like he wanted to keep babbling—or like he thought that I was going to punch him, I don't know. Well, I wasn't going to hit him. After throwing that punch at Gary, the little creepo had me all paranoid and shit.

I moved my hand slowly, so that if Petey started again, I could put my hand back right away. "I swear to god, if you say anything to anyone, I'll…" I took a deep breath. "It's nothing. It doesn't matter, okay?"

"Of course it fucking matters, Jimmy!" Since I'd just been covering his mouth, that meant he was screeching in my ear. I jumped back, cursing under my breath. He inhaled deeply, but not to calm down. It was just to start again. "Of course it matters! What if something happens and you're not here! What if—what if someone plans a coup!" Petey kept forgetting that I didn't straighten out the school to run it. That was Gary's idea. I just wanted shit to calm down around me.

"Wait, so I can't ever leave the campus now? Shit might happen?"

I stared at him, and he whimpered for a minute before saying, "It might, you know! And you're all, I don't know, doing who knows what with Gary—"

"—wait a minute," I narrowed my eyes. "What the fuck do you mean, 'who knows what with Gary'? I'm not doing anything with Gary." I could practically hear Gary's howl of laughter if he heard any of this nonsense. I shook my head.

"Well, then why do you only go at night?" Petey demanded hysterically.

I sat down on the bed, shaking my head. "Because that's when I feel like going, Petey. It's when I don't have any class, or anybody coming to me with their problems with all the other cliques and shit like I'm the fucking godfather or something." This wasn't that difficult to get. Fuck, Russell could understand this.

"You are the godfather." Petey sounded like he thought I should know this. "You're the king, Jimmy."

I made a face. "If I'm the king, why the hell are you getting on my case, then?" I snapped back at him.

"B—because!" Petey squeaked. "Because you can't just go leaving your kingdom to deal with a-a-a," he was stammering all over the place. "—a traitor like Gary!"

Petey lived in an alternate universe. He didn't live in this world. Too much time as Gary's punching bag had melted his brain. That was the only explanation. "This isn't G&G, Petey." He stared at me. "Bullworth can handle if I do what I want at night." Not everyone was a retarded goliath like Russell who needed constant attention. They just needed no Gary.

And, hey, Gary was fucking occupied right now, so they'd be fine.

"You really think so?" Petey yanked up the orderly uniform, waving it around like it was the flag at the beginning of a race or something. "You think if Bullworth knew you were sneaking off to see Gary Smith of all people, Bullworth could handle it?"

"This isn't about Bullworth!" I stood up again, in Petey's face. He pulled back slightly, shaking. Not everything in my life was about the goddamned school. I didn't know what this was about for sure—it was about me, about Gary…but not everything about me was public information. Some shit was private. Gary, apparently, was private now. "And Bullworth ain't gonna know about this." I snatched the uniform away from Petey, shoving it back in my backpack.

Once my back was turned to him, he seemed to recover from cowering. "Yeah? Well you're sure not being careful Jimmy!" He gulped, took a deep breath, and spoke again, this time slower. "This is totally fucking crazy."

I didn't even turn to look at him for that. I was being careful as hell. The only reason that Petey knew anything about what I was doing at night was because the kid stood outside my door and waited, and wouldn't leave me alone. But it was crazy that I was seeing Gary.

Okay, so he was right about that. "Yeah, okay, crazy." I zipped up my backpack. "That's the story of my life at this point, tell me something that I don't know."

Petey walked over to my desk and sat down on the chair, looking like someone kicked his puppy. Or him. Maybe he was the puppy—okay, maybe I was spending too much time around Gary. "It's over, all of it's over." He shook his head. "You wanna restart it again? I mean—Gary's gone. What do you wanna do, bring him back?" His eyes went wide, and he looked like he was about to panic. "Oh my god—you do want him back!"

"I don't want anything restarted—what the hell makes you think I want him back?" The idea of seeing Gary on campus again was enough to make me lose my lunch.

"The fact that you keep going to see him," Petey snapped. I raised my eyebrow, and he looked down immediately.

"That doesn't mean I want him here. Maybe I like seeing him in a cage." And oh Jesus fuck, I hope he didn't twist that like Gary would. Gary would eat me alive for fucking saying something like that.

Petey was quiet before saying, "That's a little sick, Jimmy. That's sick like him."

I rolled my eyes. "He's not a threat in there. But I want to keep an eye on him. That's it. That's all." Nothing weird or creepy about that at all, so if Petey even made it sound worse than that, fuck my paranoia, I was going to beat the shit out of him.

"They've got people to keep eyes on him already," he pointed out.

I sighed. "I don't trust anyone else to do the job right." I was the only person who hadn't rolled and fallen all over Gary and his crap so far, so I wasn't about to go relying on anyone else to make sure he wasn't a danger.

Right.

That was it.

Petey didn't look happy, but he looked less freaked. "I still say it's better not to give him more chances to mess with you. Just leave it, man."

I stared at my backpack for a minute. "Whatever. Don't worry about it. Just keep your mouth shut, okay Petey?"

He actually pouted. The teenaged five year old fucking pouted at me. "Yeah, okay Jimmy."

I shook my head and looked up at the ceiling. This was such a fucking joke. Now I wasn't going to be able to walk around without Petey looking like a fucking mess until I distracted him. I hated this shit.

I exhaled, picking up my backpack and tossing it on the floor. Petey looked at me curiously. I dropped down to sit on my bed. "So what was it you wanted to talk about?"

It took about ten minutes before he seemed distracted.

TBC