A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys. They make my day. I probably should've posted this earlier, but I was busy and forgot, sorry. I made this chapter a little longer, but I'm still unsure if I'm good at getting these people in character. I hope so.

Enjoy.

Turtledoves

xxx

On the first day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me;

Two turtledoves,

and a partridge in a pear tree.

xxx

School is out, and red glitters on the white blanket like winter poppies. Some of it is pooled below, staining the snow; the rest colors your fingers, armored in rings.

It's not an unfamiliar scene. The greaser lies behind you - beaten, bloodied, and completely out of it. The derisive laughs of your friends hardly reach your numb ears, reddened by the cold and almost making it look as if you were embarrassed. Oh well - at least your blood is still in your veins. There are worse things to have than red ears and noses. That's obvious, glancing at the unlucky black-haired fellow sprawled out painfully on the ground. Blossoms of blue and purple are growing in his skin, the seeds sown by your own hands and feet. You're a gardener of sorts, planting bruises wherever you go. Everyone is, in this town.

The whole scene is gone and your hands are no longer planting bruises, but driving a car. A blue Mustang, to be specific. The rumbling purr of the engine is a reminder of everything that makes up your social status; the wealth, the superiority, the issues. All rolled into one big package already delivered to any Soc at birth. The problem was that it didn't come with a return address. It was as though the minute you were born, society decided to stick a label to your head with Super-Glue. The only way to get rid of the label was to not care about it - but no one here would ever want to ruin their reputation like that. We're all too familiar with the way things are.

You drive and turn around various roads, your eyes scanning blankly over your friends' houses as you drop them off. Though each one is a little different, all East side houses are the same in general; prim, proper, and expensive-looking. All the same, all the same.

"Hey, Bob!"

You turn. You aren't sure how she got here, but her car is pulled up next to yours. Two of her friends are in the backseat, giggling crazily about God-knows-what. Her features are full of laughter and happiness, but her smile is starting to fade as her gaze travels down to your hands. You try to avoid her face, afraid of what expression you might see, and instead focus on the Sting Ray. You want to laugh at the familiar color and how it matches her name. Cherry's cherry car.

"Bob."

Her voice is shaking this time, with the kind of crackly edge that's usually followed by tears. Her friends stop chattering at look at her worriedly, soon turning their made-up eyes towards you. You feel like a museum exhibit, uncomfortable under the weight of all their looks. Guilt and panic close up your throat.

"Your hands..."

Though you were smart enough to take off most of the rings a while ago, you look down and feel your heart sink at the sight of the dark red dried blood on your fingers. Your mind whirrs desperately in search of an excuse as Cherry's emerald eyes look at your hands and well up.

"I thought you promised me you wouldn't fight anym-"

"Cherry," you interrupt hesitantly, "relax. I-" - you're wracking your brain while she's staring at you with those angry, hurt eyes - "David broke his nose again in football, the idiot, and I was just helping him clean up. I wasn't fighting, Cherry." You meet her gaze and put on your most honest face. "I wouldn't break my promise."

Her lip stops quivering and the salt water threatening to spill over her lids starts dissolving away, but your practiced eye still detects the trace of doubt nearly veiled behind her jaded irises.

"Alright," she says finally. "I believe you."

You don't believe her.

xxx

"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way-"

The quadrupled voice of the Beatles blares mercilessly on the radio, the scritch-scratch of static growing steadily by the moment. The door slams shut behind you, the sound reverberating throughout the relatively quiet house. You can see her already; brown eyes sunken, too-bright eyeshadow and lipstick smacked on her formerly beautiful face like a thick, repulsive mask to hide the ugliness underneath. A trick, and a clever one at that. She turns her gluey eyes away from the television, and when she sees you, her mouth breaks into a toothy yellow grin. Too bad for her that there were no dental cosmeticians in Tulsa.

"Bobby, my boy, you're home," she says with fake cheerfulness, as if it wasn't plainly obvious.

"Oh, what fun it is to ride on a one-horse open sleigh…"

"Hey," you reply neutrally, hurrying up the spiral steps to wash the scarlet stains off your hands.

Your mother's eyes shoot to them – surely she notices the blood, but doesn't say anything about it. Instead, she gives you another smile, one that looks more like a grimace than a grin this time. "Dinner will be ready soon."

"Yeah," you call back carelessly, turning on the silvery faucet. A stream of cold water plummets out, like it's been waiting there forever just to finally be released. Halfway down it becomes tinted with maroon as it takes the dry stuff with it, lifting it off the fibers of your hands and washing it away down the drain. Washing your rage, anger, hopelessness and hatred down the drain. Your sin.

Your heart beats fast and you quickly shut off that goddamn faucet, that stupid flowing causing confusing thoughts in your mind, and make your way to the window. You look down at the ivory ground and the little white puffs drifting from the sky and you suddenly want a drink. It's immediate and irrational but you want a drink so badly you think you might drop dead if you don't get one.

So you do.

All it takes is a phone call and a ride to Jay's and there's the liquid burning down your throat like fire, but it feels oh so good. At first you can tell what song is playing, but as the shots pile up, the lyrics begin to swirl around in midair and jumble around, banging on your eardrums. It's giving you a headache, but you don't care. Laughter and pulsing music and clinks grate on the air around you, but you couldn't give less of a fuck. You want to forget everything, to drown all your troubles. Drown them in the liquid fire, just like that. So easy. So easy.

Sometimes, too easy.

"Not today, Bobby."

You cling to his leg beseechingly, squeezing your eyes tightly shut and shaking the mop of black curls quickly growing on your nine year-old head. "Papa, it's the last game of the season. Please?"

Mr. Sheldon looks down from the telephone and at you with glaucous eyes, worry drawing creases and lines over his forehead. Someone is speaking in harsh, unintelligible words on the receiving end of the phone, but he's moved his ear away from it. His mouth is taut, yet lifts feebly at the corner when he looks into your pleading expression. His smile is sad. "I'm sorry, buddy. I have business."

Business. You know all about business. Business means strange, well-dressed men coming to your house and hearing your father's late-night angry conversations from upstairs in your room. It means money, suitcases and telephones.

Business means no Papa.

Dejected, you walk to the door, grabbing your cleats on the way out. Your mother waits there, young and beautiful, chocolate-colored eyes glimmering with an understanding sadness. You look back despondently at your father, who tries to make up for his absence with an inplausible wink.

You turn away and and go out the door.

Two hours later, you have the taste of victory infecting your soul. Triumph and glee give you a smile too big for your face. You have just beaten the Bixby Battlers in the last football game of the season, and you couldn't be more proud of yourself. You can't wait to tell Papa everything.

"Papa? You home?"

You push the door open carefully, stepping out from the darkness into the dim light of the parlor. Confused, you head up the stairs, glancing at Mama, who's on the phone with her friend and unloading her purse at the same time, chattering absentmindedly. Your hear ragged breathing from your parents' room and decide to surprise your dad. Grinning like a lion, you burst into the room, shoving the door open with the most magnificent arm flourish you can summon. "Hey Papa! Guess wha-"

Your voice cuts off abruptly as you see your father.

He's staring at you, wide-eyed, seemingly at a loss for words. Empty amber bottles line the floor, and he's just set down the half-filled one in front of him. His eyes are huge and bloodshot, filled with surprise and some other unreadable emotion. The smile drops off your face as you both stand there, illuminated only by the murky light of a lamp.

Suddenly, something snaps.

"Get out!" Your father screams, shooting up from his armchair and rushing towards you. "Get out! Get out!"

Stricken with shock and fear, you dart out of the room quickly and head to the bathroom, hearing Papa loudly slam the door shut behind you. Your heart is pounding so loudly you swear you can hear it as you shut the bathroom door and lock it, sitting down on the lid of the toilet. Something suddenly stings behind your eyes, and before you can do anything to stop them, rivulets of tears are running down your face. You hurriedly try to wipe them away, but you give up when you see the sleeve of your football shirt is soaked and the flow isn't stopping. You let them fall.

You sit there wallowing in troubled misery, when a gleam from something in the wastebasket catches your eye. Sitting in it, still full almost to the lip, is another one of those amber bottles. On a whim, you grab it by the neck and pull it to yourself. It reads "Jack Daniels" on the label. You don't know who that is, but you don't really care. Temptation, led by curiosity, is seeping its way into your veins. Should you try some? If Papa can have it, why can't I?

Why not?

Decisively, you tilt the bottle back and let the inferno blaze into your neck. You never knew that it was the beginning of the end.