Ethan Yeager in Lawndale
Ch 3 Rise Above the Bollocks
Numb, that's all that Sandi Griffin wanted to feel was numb as the funeral home's selection of depressing music played in the background.
The pain pills the hospital had given her had helped, she glanced down at the cast on her left wrist, and was still aware that she had quite few stitches up and down her arms and a couple in her cheeks.
She had only gotten up from her chair to go to the bathroom or when the press of people wanting to view her mother had proven to be too much.
"She looks so unreal…" Sandi thought to herself as she lifted her head and once more had a bird's eye view of Linda Griffin, laying in repose in her expensive oak wood coffin. The morticians had had their work cut out for them in repairing the left side of her body to be made fit for viewing.
But it didn't matter to Sandi, she still thought that what was lying in the coffin looked nothing like her mother.
On either side of Sandi were her brothers, Sam and Chris, who for once weren't fighting each other or ganging up on her.
"They're as miserable as me." Sandi thought to herself, unable to cry since she had spent so long at it that everything was either numb or in agony.
But she continued to stare at the coffin, since whenever she looked behind her she would have to look at her father, a quivering mass of useless flesh being comforted by the person who had been forced by necessity to plan the damm funeral.
Tom Griffin's mistress, Evelyn Jericho.
"I need my pills…" Sandi thought to herself, forcing her arms to make the simple gestures to open her purse and get out the little orange bottle and the bottle of water.
"Well it doesn't seem that even death can stop the gossip mill." Josh Decker said to himself before taking a bite out of the 'Mystery Meat' that the cafeteria was serving that day.
"You have to admit that Tori is in fine form." Ethan said very dryly while they and the rest of the people in the cafeteria got to hear Tori Jericho talk very loudly to her friends at the Style Girls Club's table about the funeral of Linda Griffin.
"And I was thinking that since, my aunt and Sandi's dad are an item that they shouldn't really bother to wait, like, a year and just get married now and put all this sadness behind them."
"And here I thought that even the Style Club would have some decency in them." Jane Lane snarked over her peas.
"Uh… Jane." Daria began, "Remember whom you are referring." And then pointed at the Style Girls table.
"Oh yeah."
Ethan did look and he did notice that not all the members were comfortable with that particular line of discussion.
"Brooke looks perturbed, and… I wonder where that Stacy girl is…"
"I must ADMIT that for a LONG time that I honestly BELIEVED that you were just making up the dyslexia thing in order to get out of HOMEwork." Mr. DeMartino said to Joey Black, one of the infamous Three J's, who was unusually not with his other two friends.
He had skipped out of lunch in order to talk to DeMartino who usually ate his food in his classroom, he preferred to be alone for at least some time before dealing with more idiots.
Exceptions could be made however, for example one of those idiots finally proving that his stupidity wasn't (completely) his own fault.
"Now don't worry sonny boy," Mr. D said in an unusually calm tone, "There are PROgrams available at the local library to help teach basic literacy SKILLS to those with learning disabilities."
At that, Joey perked up and glanced at his companion and smiled at her.
Stacy Rowe smiled right back and mouthed, "I was right!"
"I will CONtact an old FRIend of mine who works there for you." DeMartino continued on before going to his desk to dig out his little black book.
And at that, Joey and Stacy reached for the other's hands and then smiled sheepishly at each other when they realized that the other was reaching for them as well.
When Mr. D found his personal phone book and looked back up, he saw Joey and Stacy holding hands and grinning like fools.
"Awww…" Mr. DeMartino thought to himself, unable to stop the impulse towards softness to a display of affection that he should have put a stop too.
But he didn't.
"Hey Ethan what are you sketching?" Bob Sorenson asked out of curiosity while tuning out Mr. O'Neill's useless emotional verbal diarrhea.
"Just a couple of tattoo designs I'm thinking about."
"You're thinking about getting some ink? Didn't take you for the type."
"I've always wanted some, but I never had the money until recently."
Josh Decker then perked up at the mention of body modification, having been about to fall asleep, "Yeah, E has created some pretty impressive stuff."
Then he slipped Bob a few of the pictures that Ethan had drawn Josh earlier that day in Art class.
"This is good…" Bob said to himself, flipping through the sheets of paper, "This is damm good… I like this one."
He then showed them the stylized tribal phoenix bird that Ethan had done up when Ms. Defoe had been distracted by one of Brittany's attempts at drawing the day's subject.
Josh Decker gave the drawing a thoughtful look and said, almost to himself, "Yeah, it is impressive isn't it…"
Ethan Yeager smiled at that and put a few finishes touches on an image he saw real potential for, a black and white drawing of an evil Buddha, one hand holding up devil horns, his tongue sticking out, sitting on a dead dragon, and around the image red and yellow flames danced.
"And so class, I want you to select a book from the list in front of you and write a report about it's moral intention." Mr. O'Neill finished just before the bell finally rang.
The students in the room then hurried for the door, but Daria stayed behind…
"And so now I have to write a story with moral intentions, rather than just do a report on one I've already read." Daria complained to Jane, Ethan, and Josh, while they were heading for Jane's house.
"That's what you get for knowing more than the teacher." Ethan quipped.
"Well all you have to do is write about people you know and make them do what you want, I'd make them crawl I tell you. CRAWL!" Jane roared the last and beat her fist to her chest.
"That sounds nice, but I'm not sure what I want to write about… I think I'll sleep on it."
Josh then said, mostly to Ethan, but the other girls could hear it as well, "The track team is still looking for a couple new runners."
"I thought you hated Coach Morris." Ethan replied, knowing that his boyfriend loved jogging and running, but wasn't a member of track.
"Yeah, that's what I told Evan but he's still trying to talk me into joining the team."
At the mention of the name, Evan, Daria Morgendorffer noticed that Jane had perked up and was now paying attention and trying to seem like she wasn't at the same time.
Her act wouldn't have fooled those boys in Highland, much less Daria.
"You shouldn't join something because others think you'd be good, you should join in only if you want to." Ethan answered.
"Yeah…" Josh replied, "But imagine if you joined the football team or something."
"Oh God, my parents wouldn't let me hear the end of it!" Ethan then shuddered at the thought of the endless rants about 'unhealthy competition' and his dad trying to make him rock climb again.
A little later after they had arrived at Casa Lane, the sound's Trent's guitar playing was joined by the discordant sounds of Josh Decker trying to learn his first cords on a guitar he had borrowed from Trent's friend Jesse.
"So besides adding ambiance to the room, does the music disturb you while you write?" Jane asked Daria while she worked on her latest painting.
Daria was lying on Jane's bed on her stomach, a blank writing pad in front of her.
"It would if I was doing any writing…"
Ethan was going through his sketch pad and glancing at what Jane was creating and felt like an amateur.
Jane took a few steps back to look at her painting of a woman's warped face while Daria began writing on her pad.
"Well Daria you're not the only one who's work is lacking right now." Ethan muttered to himself without realizing it and put his sketch pad onto his lap.
At that Jane couldn't resist going over and asking Ethan for the pad and then flipped through it.
"Actually E, this stuff is pretty good."
"Really?" Ethan asked with a note of happiness.
"Yeah, I really like the Buddha you drew towards the end."
She then held up the image for Ethan to relook at, "You're just being too hard on yourself, you've just gotta keeping plugging away and eventually it will look and be just right."
"It sounds like good advice." Ethan noted, realizing that Jane wasn't just talking to him.
Daria then growled to herself and wadded up whatever she had been writing and threw it over her shoulder in disgust.
The disharmony that was playing in the background was then broken by a much improved G note being played on a Rhythm Guitar.
"That would be Josh," Jane thought aloud, "That was much too good for Trent's caliber."
Daria and Ethan both agreed with that, even if they were both willing to forgive Trent for his bad guitar solos due to his inherent awesomeness and desirability.
And everything else that sucked about Mystik Spiral as well.
"I have to admit that for a beginner, you sure have potential." Trent Lane drawled in his slow, lazy voice, as Josh Decker put down the guitar.
"Thanks man." Josh replied just in time for the door to Trent's room to open, and for Ethan Yeager to enter.
"Hey Josh, Trent." Ethan said in greeting. "So how's practice coming along?"
"Well considering that I'm just starting out it's not so bad." Josh said, trying to allow for the fact that he wasn't good at the moment while trying to put it in the best light possible.
Ethan then sat down on the floor with the other two guys and chatted a bit about Daria's writer's block and what Jane had told him about his drawings.
"Can I see your sketch book?" Trent asked, curious to see the Buddha that Jane had apparently liked.
After a few minutes of flipping through the book, Trent said, "This stuff is pretty good… and a lot of it would look great as tattoos…"
"I've been thinking about getting one done." Ethan blurted out, causing Josh's eyebrow to rise up, but he did his best to hide his annoyance.
"Hmm… I do know a guy that does good work for cheap… He's not the cleanest, but he doesn't ask a whole lot of questions." Trent answered, while one of his fingers idly traced an outline of one of the snakes that Ethan had drawn.
"Tell you what, I've wanted to get my eyebrow pierced and Axl gives discounts for two-for-ones, if you're willing to get a piercing with me. I'll take you to him."
"Sure." Ethan said very quickly.
"Cool," Trent replied, "I'll take you later, or tomorrow, or whenever. I like to play these things loose."
Josh's face was now a mask but his eyes burned and his said curtly, "I think I've played enough tonight, come on Ethan, you wanted to go to Zon with me, remember?"
"Oh right, sure." Ethan replied, snapping out of his dreamlike stasis and putting his complete focus on Josh.
As the pair left the room, with Josh putting his arm around Ethan in a very possessive manner, Trent felt as though he was looking at something familiar, but it took him a few hours to piece it together.
"Whoa, I think Ethan has a thing for me and Josh is jealous of it." Trent said to himself, unfortunately he said this when he was supposed to be singing Mystik Spiral's new song during rehearsal, which then threw practice into chaos and required thirty minutes of confused explanation.
Daria crumpled up another sheet of paper in disgust and sighed, "I might as well sleep on this."
She then turned out her light and slipped into bed, she had already changed into her pajamas hours earlier.
But sleep wasn't forthcoming and it was already two in the morning.
"School is going to suck more than usual." Daria thought to herself as she began the tossing and turning game again.
"So, what kind of piercing are you going to get?" Bob asked Ethan in between bites of the non-food that Lawndale High served its students.
"Not sure yet." Ethan admitted, "I'll probably just get my left earlobe pierced and call it a day."
"Well that works," Bob replied, "But it's kinda boring."
"But I've never had this done before."
"True…"
Josh in the meanwhile thought he found a way to inject himself into the conversation.
"Well a lobe piercing doesn't hurt very much, but the more interesting ones are much more painful to get."
"That's true," Bob admitted, "The ones in the ear cartilage hurt bad, but not as much as ones in the face or the nipples."
"Is this from experience?" Josh asked, unable to hide his curiosity since he had never gotten nipple rings.
"Yup." Bob replied with a grin, "Do you want me to show you?"
"Maybe later." Ethan and Josh answered at the same time, and then laughed when they realized what they had done.
Meanwhile at the opposite end of the table, Daria was scribbling furiously into a notebook, oblivious to the world or the absence of Jane Lane.
For a whole minute, Jane Lane had the satisfaction of seeing the harsh taskmistress Coach Morris rendered speechless and amazed by what she had just heard.
"Could you run that by me again Ms Lane?" the Coach asked the normally unmotivated and notorious slacker from a family of slackers.
"I want to try out for track; I heard that you need a new runner or two."
At that, the information finally processed in Morris's head and she said, "Of course Ms. Lane, after school during regular Track practice I'll have you do a few sprints and time you and see where things go."
"Well this isn't turning out the way I planned," Daria thought to herself as she continued to write the fifth page of what was supposed to be Mr. O'Neill's assignment.
But unlike the other attempts this had… potential… What kind though remained to be seen.
"This isn't something I thought I'd ever attempt." Daria admitted to herself as she continued to work out what a leprechaun would be able to do, "But it's quirky, imaginative, and… so far it's good!"
As the teacher droned on in the background, Daria decided to see if she could pawn her way out of O'Neill's writing assignment after class was over.
"I knew it wouldn't work." Daria fumed to Ethan and Josh as they walked back home.
"It was worth a try." Josh replied, trying to build Daria back up to little avail.
"Now I not only have to write a story with moral intentions, I have to include a damm card game as well."
"Well you could do a story about poker and how it ruins… stuff." Ethan suggested weakly, not believing his own suggestion at all.
"Only if I was a bible-thumper."
"Ugh!" Ethan and Josh both muttered, both having gotten more than their share of dirty words and looks for Lawndale's religious students.
Then a blue corvette pulled up beside them and a familiar drawl could be heard as the window came down.
"Hey Ethan," Trent said, "You ready to go to Axl's?"
"Right now? Sure, but can Josh come along?" Ethan asked.
"Sure man, oh hey Daria." Trent answered after noticing the third member of their group.
"Oh hey Trent." Daria answered in a mumble, her face slightly flushed.
"Where's Jayne?"
"She said she had something to take care of after school, but she didn't say what." Daria answered, clearly miffed about being left out of the loop.
"Care to come along?" Trent asked.
"Umm… Sure." Daria answered and then before either guy could move made a quick beeline for the passenger side door, thus forcing the love birds to sit in the back.
As his passengers got into the car, Trent couldn't help but to smile a little at Daria's cleverness, since putting either one of those two in the front would probably have led to some sort of drama.
And Trent didn't need any more drama.
Sandi Griffin had gone through her first day back to school in a complete daze, she didn't remember any of it. She had barely spoken a word other than muttered 'Thanks for your condolences.' Even when the conversation had nothing to do with her mother's death.
And now, after school, Sandi was doing what she did normally.
She was shopping.
But not at her usual places.
This time she was in an untrendy thrift shop, picking out clothes that were either cheap, out of style, or completely not her.
Once she had what she wanted, Sandi planned to make a beeline for her house with what felt like (at least to her) contraband and planned to hide everything.
A half-baked plan was forming in her mind, a plan born out of an unexamined desire, but both things were taking shape in the physical world.
Even if Sandi herself wasn't aware of it at a conscious level.
"Wow Ms. Lane," Coach Morris breathed as she kept glancing back and forth between Jane and her stop watch, "You've done better than most of the members of the track team! Congratulations your now on the team!"
At that the entire track team began to cheer, even to Jane's delight, the brown haired and dark eyed beauty, Evan.
"Is this place… safe?" Josh asked after a moment's hesitation to find a polite enough word to use.
"Heh, Axl's might be a little grungy but no one I've known has gotten sick." Trent answered as the group of four entered the small tattoo and piercing shop on Dega Street.
A dark haired and heavily tattooed man looked up from a magazine and waved at Trent and said, "Hey man, what'ca need this time?"
"A piercing right here." Trent said and pointed at his right eyebrow, "And this kid here is getting… something…"
"Just my left earlobe." Ethan filled in.
"Yeah that, plus E and Josh wanted to look at some of your tattoo work." Trent finished before swaying for a moment and then coming back to himself.
"It's ok… Just almost dozed off for a second." Trent said, waving off the concern of the three teens that had come with him.
"Well let's get this show on the road." Ethan said and took a chair, while Daria and Josh decided to pass the time by flipping through Axl's photo book of his best works.
Trent in the meanwhile took a seat next to Ethan and promptly passed out.
"Meh, he does that." Axl said to himself and used it as a chance to pierce Trent's right eyebrow quickly, not even that brought Trent out of his unconscious state.
"Now your turn kid." Axl said to Ethan, "But I'll need you pick what you want, size wise."
"Size?"
"Well sure, there are different hole sizes, called 'gauges' and the lower the number the bigger the whole. Plus you can choose between types of earrings to get, I recommend a horseshoe style since they can be taken out and changed for other earrings more easily than the semi-permanent hoops that have become popular."
"Well let's just go with a normal one then." Ethan said, hoping that whatever was 'normal' wasn't oversized.
"A fourteen gauge horseshoe then." Axl said before going over to his tray of prepackaged earrings, looking for a fourteen gauge horseshoe admist the pile.
During this, Daria had gone over to check on Trent and heard him talk in his sleep.
"Um… Monique…." Trent muttered to himself, "That belly ring… so hot…"
No one noticed the thoughtful look on Daria's face as she seemed to zone out of herself while Axl found what he was looking for and instructed Ethan through the process of the piercing.
"Now breathe in," Axl said and Ethan sucked in a breath, Axl then said, "Breath out."
As Ethan breathed out, Axl pushed the piercing completely through, the pain was sharp but brief and then Axl said, "Finished."
"Hey Ethan." Daria suddenly said, "You want another piercing?"
"Why you ask Daria?" Ethan asked, curious about the oddball question.
"I want a belly ring and I have enough cash for a two-for-one deal."
Ethan noticed that Josh had dropped Axl's book in his lap and was staring at Daria in total shock; never in a million YEARS did he think that the Queen Bitch of Lawndale would ever do anything like this… ever!
Ethan only took a moment to absorb the information, running on a small adrenaline rush from the first piercing and said, "Ok, Axl you can pierce the right lobe then."
Axl couldn't resist smiling at that, "This is why I do the two-for-ones," he thought to himself as he readied another piercing for Ethan, "It brings in more customers and they tend to repeat afterward."
"You see Joey," Stacy Rowe said to the tall dark haired jock, "There's was nothing to be scared of, it's just a library and Mrs. Chaser was as nice in person as she was on the phone."
The two were standing just outside of the office of the head librarian of Lawndale's public library, in order to get into the program Joey needed to be interviewed first, but there is a bone crippling shame that comes with illiteracy and he couldn't face it alone.
So Stacy had been kind enough to accompany him.
"Yeah… she was nice." Joey said, relived that it had been so much easier than he had ever hoped, "She didn't even blink when I told her about my… problem." During this, he followed his instincts and offered his arm to Stacy.
"I'm sure you're not the first person to deal with this Joey." Stacy answered and followed her instincts and accepted his arm and began to head out, but when they passed by the history section they saw an unexpected sight.
The main Offensive Lineman for the Lawndale Lions, Robert Tavare, reading an actual book and sitting very, very close to the new nerdy kid, Ted DeWitt-Clinton.
Stacy and Joey decided to make some noise when approaching them, to give them time to reorient themselves if they wanted.
But shockingly they remained in place, except to turn and for Robert to say hi to them both.
"Hey guys, this is Ted, Ted this is Joey Black and Stacy Rowe."
"Hello Joey and Stacy," Ted said in greeting, his very demeanor as sweet as could be, "Are you here to study too?"
"Sorta." Stacy said while Joey said, "No."
An awkward silence hit the four before Joey sucked in a deep breath and decided to fess up and see what happened.
"I came to sign up for the learning disability program."
"But is that for people who can't read…" Ted began before he made the mental connection, "Oh... Oh! Oh my… I'm sorry man."
"I'm dyslexic." Joey offered up, "And… I'm actually doing something about it."
Stacy gave Joey a beaming smile and said, "And I'm proud of you for doing it."
"Aww babe." Joey said in an 'aww shucks' manner, and then realized he called Stacy 'babe'.
"Uhh…" Joey said embarrassed that he had done so but Stacy cut him off with a squeal and a hug, which was then cut off by a "Shush!" from a passing librarian.
"Well you guys seem busy so we'll just leave you too it." Stacy said quietly after that and she hustled Joey away and continued towards the exit.
Robert Tavare then looked at Ted and said, "I never knew that about him."
"Getting treatment for dyslexia this late in life… That's going to be a tough road to walk." Ted said, only partly to himself.
"At least he isn't alone." Robert commented, noting that if Joey and Stacy weren't dating yet they soon would be.
"And neither are we." Ted said with a warm smile at the big guy sitting next to him.
Robert gave Ted a big grin and ruffled the little guy's hair.
"Nope," Robert said softly, "We are never alone little guy."
They could be heard all through the house, the moans, the groans, the pitiful begging from her father for more, more pleasure, more pain, more, more, more, more!
It was enough to make anyone sick, or go crazy.
And Sandi Griffin had been forced to listen to her father and that… whore! Go at for hours!
She glanced in the bathroom mirror one last time; the temporary dye had left her hair completely pink with blue streaks that could be washed out with a special rinse.
The clothes she was wearing, the skimpy shredded top with a band logo she didn't recognize (the Sex Pistols), the tight low cut ragged jeans, the black high-top converse sneakers, plus an ankh necklace and a wraparound bracelet completed this completely different look.
Sandi sucked in a breath, and then she took a pill and swallowed it dry, and glared at the ugly cast on her left wrist before heading to the bathroom door and opening it.
She took a single step out and realized that her brother Sam had left his bedroom door open and he, her youngest brother Chris, and their friend Brian Taylor (Brittany's half-brother) had seen her.
But they themselves were also busted with two six-packs of beer and Brian had been lighting up a cigarette.
"I'm going out." Sandi said lamely, "If you don't talk, I won't talk."
She then left before any of the three could say a word.
At the Zon, Ethan and Josh were listening to Trent's girlfriend Monique perform with her band the Harpies. Along with their friend Bob and his two girlfriends Angel and Burnout, they were telling them about their trip to Axl's.
"And Daria got a piercing?!" Angel asked, her long blown out blond hair quivering with her every word.
"Yup, her first piercing is a silver belly ring." Josh answered, still amazed himself at what he had witnessed.
"Wow!" Burnout said in awe while brushing her overlong bang away from her eye for a moment, "You guys are sure that… this isn't a different Daria… right?"
"Yup, it's the Daria Morgendorffer that Quinn has denied being related too for years now." Ethan said, making everyone laugh at the bizarre lengths that the Queen of the popular girls would go to deny something that everyone had already figured out by comparing their last names and, well… Everything about them!
The five of them then enjoyed some idle chat before Angel noticed something and asked, "Who's the new girl over there?"
The gaze then fell on the sight of a chick they didn't know who looked to be about 15 chatting up one of the punks who hung around Zon.
"I like her hair…" Burnout drawled, she loved bright pretty colors, even if she never wore them herself.
"Pink and blue do go together." Josh admitted.
"Why does she look so familiar…" Ethan wondered for a moment before turning his attention back to Josh and asked him which of Monique's songs he liked so far.
Bob was silent, keeping his thoughts to himself, but excused himself when the pink-haired girl left with the punk everyone called "Spike".
He had a feeling in his gut that the girl the others hadn't recognized was about to bite off more than she could chew and would need some back up.
"Sandi Griffin don't you dare get hurt before I get there." Bob thought to himself as he did his best to follow and hang back as Spike lead Sandi through a side exit out of the Zon and towards the back alley.
Sandi felt the stranger's tongue slide in between hers while his greasy hands pawed at her chest and pretty much everywhere. She felt her back press up against the brick wall and she kissed back and groped him in turn, despite feeling the bile in the back of her throat.
"I wanted to feel something besides pain…" Sandi thought to herself, "I didn't want to feel, like, disgusting."
Sandi pushed against the spike haired punk's chest, shocking him into taking a step back, both of them panted for breath.
"I'm sorry…" Sandi breathed, "I'm not ready…"
The punk gave her a dark glare and said, "I don't feel like playing the hot-and-cold game tonight lassie."
Those words rendered Sandi Griffin paralyzed, fear gripped her spine and turned her bowels into jelly, never in her entire life had any guy come within a mile of such a threat.
Her focus fell purely upon the muscular, skanky, punk in front of her, time seemed to slow down and she the rip of a small condom package being opened.
"No…" Sandi whispered allowed in a tiny squeak.
Her focus had fallen so completely upon the man in front of her that she didn't even notice the blue-haired guy come up behind Spike and clocked him so hard from the side that he hit the ground in one punch.
Time sped up for Sandi, and her blue haired savior was now on top of the other punk and within two punches had rendered him unconscious.
"You alright Sandi?" her still nameless savior asked and she managed a small squeak and a nod, still gripped to the marrow with fear.
"Don't worry about Spike," he said with a dismissive wave, "By tomorrow he won't remember a damm thing. Lucky for him, I guess."
"Hey Bob," a female voice emerged from the background as two girls Sandi recognized from school emerged from a nearby open door, "We were looking for… Oh shit! What happened?!" upon the sight of the punk on the ground, Bob's bloody knuckles, and the girl from earlier terrified and shaking like a leaf.
"We need to get out of here for the night, Angel, Burnout, go get the others." Bob said with conviction.
"I have a car parked…" Sandi managed to chatter out.
"That'll do." Bob replied, giving Sandi a kind smile, hoping that getting her out of here would help.
Sandi Griffin's sports car was a tight fit for six people, but Bob was elected to do the driving (without a license), Ethan in the passenger side seat, and Sandi in-between Angel and Burnout with Josh on the other side in case having a guy nearby so soon would be too much.
"This was so stupid." Sandi said to herself, while Angel and Burnout continued to do their best to soothe and comfort her.
"I just wanted… I just want to be someone else. I don't want to be me."
"A breakthrough." Ethan thought to himself, and then thought better of it.
"My mother is dead and Tom brought that… that… woman! Into my mother's house…"
"And my brothers… oh god! My little Sammy and Chris… and their twisted friend… drinking and smoking…"
"Aren't' they ten or something?" Josh asked himself in his mind.
Then Sandi fell back on the topic of her father and his mistress, and the fact that they were having very loud sex in the Griffin house and had been doing so for hours on end.
"Everything is falling apart! I'm not popular anymore… Quinn still rules everything I did once, my family is dead! My wrist hurts… Where are my pills?"
Sandi then began digging in her purse, but as soon as the pill bottle came out, Angel snatched it and chucked it out of the speeding car.
"HEY!" Sandi roared in outrage.
"Drugs are the last thing you need right now." Angel replied simply and then went back to soothing gestures and sounds as though it didn't happen.
After a few minutes of simmering anger, Sandi then fell into a silence before saying, "I just wanted to get away… I wanted to feel… alive again."
During this entire explosion of emotion Sandi had been staring into space, but now her head turned towards the passenger seat to her right and said more clearly.
"Ethan, I know that I, like, fucked up bad, using you to get at Quinn, and I wish I had listened to myself and not did it, but I… I listened to my mother and everything she said about getting to the top."
"By stepping on everyone else…"
Sandi then fell silent for a long moment; in fact the other passengers were deathly silent before Sandi broke the silence again.
"I'm sooo sorry…"
"Apology accepted." Ethan replied quietly from the front, yet his voice carried towards Sandi like a golden chariot and for the first time in what felt like ages, she began to feel just a tiny bit better.
"I'll let Sandi stay the night at my place with the three of us." Bob said quietly to Angel and Burnout after he dropped Josh off at his house, Ethan following in his wake.
Both Angel and Burnout nodded at this, ok with having their later night activities postponed due to the… Situation.
Sandi managed to say a weak, "Thank you." Before her car sped it's way to Bob's house, where thankfully his parents were out visiting friends in Oakwood for the next two nights.
"I love you." Robert said simply to Ted from across Robert's queen sized bed.
The duo were at the Tavare residence, Ted once more helping Robert study, and under Ted's tutelage Robert had made some improvement despite his hazy memory.
That I love you, so random in the conversation about algebra it threw Ted off balance for a moment, then it clicked in his head what he had heard.
"I… I… what?"
"I love you Ted." Robert said again, keeping his fear in check, hoping against hope that his guess about Ted was right.
"I… I… I… I never thought…. You liked me… like that…" Ted stammered, his face quickly turning beet red.
"I do."
"Idotoo." Ted said in a rush, mashing the words together.
He then cleared his throat and said more forcefully, "I do to."
"I mean I never thought that anyone felt this way… besides me." Ted began before Robert cut him off with a peck on the lips.
A peck that quickly turned into a full on kiss, Robert's second with a guy, and Ted's first kiss in his life, but Ted proved to be a quick learner in this as in everything else.
And he proved to be a quick learner in what came next as well.
After about an hour, Ted felt the expansive muscular frame of Robert upon his skin and managed to stop panting from his very first time.
"That was incredible." Ted wheezed out.
From beneath him Robert managed to reply with, "Yeah… it was."
"I'm disgusting." Rex Attor thought to himself as he washed his mouth out with a small bottle of Listerine. The crisp late night air was such a clean contrast to the skanky bathroom he had been in for over two hours, having sought out a release that he often sought out here with others in denial.
"I wish I was fucking normal," Rex thought to himself as he spat out the mouthwash and some of the taste onto the ground, "Why can't I be normal…"
Rex walked away from the skanky bathroom and began the walk back home, to sleep at least a little bit with his demons at rest.
The next day would begin the same old song and dance again.
"And your story made your mother cry?" Jane asked her friend Daria as they walked to school.
"Out of happiness, that's the sick part." Was Daria's reply.
"And what will you do if Mr. O'Neill cries?" Ethan asked from behind them, a grin on his face.
"I'll have to kill myself."
"Nah, kill O'Neill, you'll be doing him a favor."
"And us." Jane added.
The trio then continued their walk in silence, which Ethan found unusual since Jane and Daria were fond of snarking the morning away before they reached school.
For the practice if nothing else.
Then Josh Decker jogged up from the distance to join his boyfriend and gave him a warm peck on the cheek and greeted Jane with.
"I heard you made the track team, I'd congratulate you but you'll be dealing with Coach Morris."
"What?!" Ethan asked in shock.
Daria said nothing, but sped up, leaving the three behind in her wake.
"Yeah…" Jane replied, her gaze on Daria, "I decided to show Morris that the Lanes are more than just slackers."
"Your slackers who can haul ass from the police?" Ethan asked.
This brought Jane a small laugh, but it died as she looked at Daria's back in the distance.
"Thank you Bob." Sandi said quietly to the boy in the passenger side of her car, Angel and Burnout were already climbing out of the back.
"Don't mention it Sandi." Bob replied, "That guy is dirt and needed to be beaten down long ago."
"But won't your friends here…" Bob began as he took in Sandi's totally changed appearance.
"They weren't really my friends," Sandi answered weakly, "I mean we called each other friends but… the only ones I felt a connection too went with Quinn…"
"Besides, I kinda like it."
Sandi had spent the night at Bob's, asleep on the couch, curled up in a borrowed blanket in the fetal position. In the morning she had showered quickly and simply borrowed a shirt from Angel and just wore everything else from last night.
The shirt in question was a shredded white cotton t, promoting an older band called 'Crass'.
Her hair dye had mostly washed out, but there were still obvious flecks of pink and blue and the total effect was…
"Kinda cool." Sandi thought to herself when she glanced at herself in the rearview mirror before stepping out of the car and walking through the parking lot towards the building. The word of her transformation spreading faster than she could move towards the entrance.
"I can't BELIEVE that Sandi has gone punk!" Tori said in overtly loud tones as a gaggle of Freshman girls walked passed.
"I knowww." Tiffany replied.
"And did you hear about Stacy…" Tori began before Quinn came up behind her and said, "What about Stacy?"
"Oh… Hey Quinn!" Tori answered, covering her surprise very quickly, "I was just telling Tiffany the word about the school and… well…"
"Well what?" Quinn began before Tiffany gasped and pointed.
"Looook!"
Coming towards them, was Stacy Rowe and Joey Black, one of the Three J's and Quinn's unofficial lapdogs and safety dates.
And Stacy and Joey were walking hand in hand, the official first flag given to indicate a dating status.
"Oh this ought to be good…" Tori thought to herself as Quinn seemed to have become a statue, paralyzed by shock.
But it wouldn't last long.
"Stacy!" Quinn squeaked out in her most sickeningly sweet voice, a very blatant early warning sign of trouble ahead.
"Oh hey Quinn…" Stacy answered picking up on the cue.
Quinn didn't even look at Joey, keeping her focus purely on Stacy, who didn't even have the decency to be ashamed.
Quinn opened her mouth to do… What exactly not even she knew but then the other two J's ran up with their usual sycophantic offers.
For a brief moment Joey's body did an instinct lurch towards them and Quinn but he quickly adjusted himself and stopped and said to Stacy as quietly as he could. "Sorry Stacy, force of habit."
But it wasn't quiet enough and that's what set Quinn off.
"Force of habit…" Quinn said, emphasizing each word like they were obscenities, "That's all I am to you then, a habit like, smoking or something nasty?"
"No no no…" Joey began, trying to think of a way out.
"Quinn what I think Joey meant to say is…" Stacy began, but Quinn cut her off with an impressive glare.
Stacy fell on an instinct "Eep!" But then berated herself for falling into old habits herself.
Stacy sucked in a breath and then managed to speak just as Quinn was opening her mouth.
"Joey and I are now officially dating. As in seriously dating."
Quinn's mouth just hung open.
"I know you think of the J's as your property and if Jeffy and Jerome are ok with it then fine, but Joey and I… we clicked after the Medieval Fair and we are going to see where this goes. If you want to show everyone that you're my friend and support us then that's great, but if you don't want too that's ok too, I'll just… I'll just find some new friends."
And with that, Stacy pulled on Joey's arm and led him away from the flabbergasted Quinn and the other two J's, who were stunned at Joey's defection.
"I'm Jamie." Jamie White said very weakly.
"Shut up." Quinn said out of force of habit.
Tori Jericho stood in the background, taking mental notes and twisting things to make it sound more horrid for the gossip mill.
Tiffany however had found her reflection in a beam of light on a nearby locker, she was oblivious to the world.
"Daria…" The familiar voice of Quinn said from behind Daria Morgendorffer as she closed her locker, "I want to talk to you."
Daria sucked in a breath, a bad day had just turned worse.
"About…?"
"Well it's kinda… it's about Stacy. Well you see, for some reason she and Joey met at the… Fair." Quinn still had difficulty in bringing up that atrocity. If it hadn't been for Linda Griffin's death that same day, Quinn's disaster of a performance would have been such a dominant topic that she doubted that her popularity would have survived.
"And…" Daria drawled, wanting to end this quickly.
"Well they're now dating and… It's not fair!"
"What's not fair about it?"
"The J's are… Well they're…"
"Yours?"
"Yes!" Quinn said excitedly and clapped her hands together once, "Yes that's it exactly."
Daria sucked in another breath and decided to press forward, "Quinn, just because those three would, and have, bent over backwards for you doesn't make them your personal servants."
"But…" Quinn began before Daria cut her off.
"They are their own person… persons!" Daria corrected herself, even she had difficulty in keeping the three of them separate in her mind.
"If Stacy and Joey want to try and date each other exclusively for a while, then let them, it's their right. Besides, it's not like Jeffy or the other one is hooking up with Tiffany and Tori, right?"
Quinn began nodding to herself and quietly said, "Hey yeah! Your right Daria. Thanks a bunch!" Then the Queen of Style hurried off, lest one of her fashionista friends saw her with someone so… unpopular.
"Thank god for minor miracles." Daria said to herself before heading off to gym, thankful that the conversation had been a short one.
Tori Jericho, the unofficial Gossip Queen of Lawndale High had just finished regaling her audience of fellow Gym students changing before the start of 'Agility Training' when she glanced over and saw something that stunned her.
Daria Morgendorffer had just lifted up her ugly mustard yellow shirt to change, which revealed a silver belly button piercing upon her person.
"Is it a fake?" Tori asked herself before concluding due to the redness that it was both real and new.
"Oh this should be worth an hours' worth of conversation at least." Tori thought to herself, before making a beeline for the other Gossip Queen of Lawndale, Brittany Taylor and quietly whispered to her to look at Daria.
"DARIA!" Brittany squeaked in shock, drawing the attention of the entire girls lockerroom, "You got a belly ring!"
"Wow I didn't know a person could turn beet red from the face all the way down." Tori said to herself quietly as she witnessed Daria's reaction.
"You know I've never actually been inside this place before." Josh said aloud as he and Ethan entered the Yeager's storefront.
"And I've never met your father," Ethan teased and then backpedaled when he saw Josh turn white and his face began to shift to fury, "Joking, joking man, relax."
"Yea… Joking…" Josh muttered, "Just don't bring him up again."
Josh then went quiet, and used the excuse to look around to be by himself for a few minutes, it was a nice storefront, but a bit small.
"Then again, E did say that most of their business comes from online orders, I'll bet the rest of the building is used for making all this stuff." Josh thought to himself while he felt up a tie-dyed shirt for a minute.
Ethan made a beeline towards the cash register and asked the new clerk, Artie to go tell Coyote that his son was here.
"Ethan!" Coyote Yeager said a booming voice as he emerged through the beads that sealed off the way between the store's front and the rest of the building.
"Hey Dad, wazup?"
"Not much son, I see you brought Josh over to see the pride and joy."
"Yeah Dad, and I wanted to ask you something…" Ethan then paused to look around and saw that Josh was checking out the bongs.
"Coast is clear son." Coyote whispered slyly.
"I want to do something nice for Josh… Like real nice but I can't come up with any good ideas." Ethan said, the frustration evident in his tone.
"You know what Ethan," Coyote replied after a long moment, "Let me talk to your mother so we can brainstorm something… Nothing real out there!" He added as he saw the look in his son's eyes.
"We'll help you come up with romantic."
"Thanks Dad," Ethan answered, but couldn't add more since Josh was heading their way with one of the bongs that his father had made out of a can of Pepsi, cleverly made up to look like it was still full.
Willow Yeager answered the phone, hoping that it was that very nice man who had offered her an exorcism for their dog Leary IV since he had started to seem depressed since the move.
Instead a voice she hadn't heard since her college years came from the other end.
"Sarah?"
"I go by Willow now sis." Willow answered quietly, in complete shock at this call.
"I know but you'll always be Sarah to me."
"How did you get this number?"
"Hehehe… Sis, remember I did marry a Sloane, I do have the resources to track things down if I need to."
"And why did you need to track me down after all this time?"
"I… I heard you moved to Lawndale."
"Yes…"
"And I… I want to try and patch things up."
Willow was silent for a full minute, but her sister pressed forward.
"I'm sending you, your husband, and your son an official invitation to my husband's beach home at the Cove, a short weekend trip and we can…"
"Try to bridge a gulf that is now decades old?" Willow asked quietly, unable to articulate the complex wave of emotions that were flooding her body.
"Yeah… something like that."
Willow took in a deep breath, "I'll need to talk to Coyote and Ethan about this."
"Of course."
Willow took in another deep breath and then said, "I'm… I'm glad you called."
"Thank you Sarah… Willow."
"You're welcome Kay."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
Willow put the phone on the hook and then sat down on the couch and just hugged her arms to her body and began to shake. Her mind taking her back to a time before she met Coyote, before she had found her life taking an unexpected turn.
When she had been Sarah Haywood and her sister Kay Haywood had been the debutantes of a world of riches and wealth that Willow had left behind… For love.
Sandi Griffin sat on the living room couch, thankful that her father and his whore had been out when she had gotten back home.
"I wonder if anyone, like, noticed I was gone." Sandi asked herself aloud as she stared at the still turned off television screen
"We knew you were gone." the voice of her oldest brother, Sam, called from the stairs.
In a few moments, her two bratty brothers had come down the stairs to the living room, a tangle of limbs and jerky movements.
"Sam… Chris." Sandi said with a sad smile and did something she hardly ever did, she gave them hugs.
And after the perfunctionary protests that all little boys give, they then returned the hug to their normally bitchy elder sister.
"I've had a rough night," Sandi told them quietly after they settled themselves on the floor, "And a tolerable day, I'm not in the mood to talk about it."
Sam and Chris both nodded at that.
"But while I won't tell Father what you two have been up too I do, like, want to ask, why are you two…" Sandi trailed off, the obvious answer hitting her like a ton of bricks.
Sam filled the void with, "We're trying to feel something other than misery… and it helps when Father is…"
"That's enough." Sandi cut him off, "I understand, more than you should know."
Chris then asked the question that was burning in his gut, "Why the new… look?"
Sandi gave a sad smile once more, "I wanted to try something different, go somewhere different, be someone different, I almost got hurt real bad but I met someone…"
She was cut off by the sound of a car pulling up in the garage, none of the three Griffin children bothered to get up as they heard a single set of footsteps head towards the front door.
Tom Griffin came in, spilling legal papers all over the floor, his face streaked with tears, he shut it behind him and completely broke down sobbing.
The Griffin children were unable to move from the shock.
"Evelyn… she left me…" Tom sobbed, "Linda… oh god! What have I fucking done?!"
Tom slowly sank to the floor while he did this, and at the last syllable, curled up into a ball and his body began wracking itself with his misery.
Sandi cautiously approached her father, brothers following in her wake, she tried to put a comforting arm on him but he shook it off.
Then from behind her she her Sam ask, "Hey are all these papers Mother's will?"
"And I thought Morris was a hardass in gym," Jane Lane thought to herself as she continued to put in her all during training for the upcoming track meet, her very first as part of the Lawndale Track Team.
"Faster! Faster! Keep your pace hard and strong!" Coach Morris roared like demon from the pit of Hell itself.
Jane asked herself why she had subjected herself to this before catch the sight of Evan, beautiful, delicious Evan outstripping the rest of the team.
"Oh yeah." Jane thought to herself and then put in even more energy to try and catch up to what was apparently Hermes given mortal flesh.
Ethan gave Daria a small, supportive smile as she looked at him from her prone position on the hospital bed and said, "I'm sorry about the whole piercing thing, I should have talked you out of it."
"Don't be sorry Ethan," Daria replied, "It was my choice to get it, remember."
"True, but I still feel kinda bad, especially since mine are fine." Ethan said while flicking his two ear lobes and the horseshoe hoops that dangled from them.
"Besides," Daria continued, "Dr. Phillips is convinced that this was a combination of an infected piercing and the intense stress of having everyone staring at it at once in the girl's locker room."
"Well as long as the antibiotics work you should be fine right?"
"Yeah, some of the redness is already fading."
"I assume that the hospital made you take the belly ring out then?"
"Yup, and if they hadn't then I'm pretty sure that Mom or Dad would have broken out the pliers."
"New or rusty?"
"Meh… Not sure, maybe I'll ask them once they've calmed down."
Both Ethan and Daria paused and glanced at the closed door where they could hear the murmuring voices of their parents, the Morgendorffers and the Yeagers.
"So what's got your parents so worked up anyways Ethan?"
"My Aunt called my Mom today."
"I assume this isn't an ordinary occurrence."
"They haven't talked since the sixties."
"Oh." Daria said simply, and then mentally berated herself for not making the leap in logic.
"And now we've been invited to 'The Cove' so that Mom and Aunt Moneybags can mend fences." Ethan said in a dull monotone.
"It sounds like the start of a bad slasher film."
Ethan couldn't help but laugh at that, "Hey yeah, it does doesn't it…"
After a long day of track practice, Jane had gone straight to the hospital to check on Daria before heading back home to try and catch up on homework.
At least that had been the plan, but for some reason the pages of her math book were all blurry and they seemed to be getting closer and closer…
Thus an hour later when Trent came in her room to ask if there was any food in the house he found his little sister asleep with her face buried in a book.
"Best fix this." Trent said to himself and did a very rare thing, he exerted actual effort into getting Janey out of her desk chair and onto her bed.
"Night sis." Trent whispered softly before shutting the light off on his way out.
Rex Attor was in grungy clothes, which was fine since he was at the Zon, looking for a drink, a fight, or (only admitted in the depths of his mind) a hook up with a random stranger.
"God the music sucks here." Rex slurred to himself as the vodka really began to kick in, the room felt all spinney.
"I've gotta go…" Rex said to no one in particular as he stumbled to what he hoped was the guys bathroom, though in a place like the Zon it was doubtful that anyone would notice a difference.
By keeping his hand on one of the walls, and ignoring the strange growths there, Rex found the door with the correct symbol and stumbled in.
The bathroom was mercifully empty except for one other guy using one of the two urinals.
Rex reached the empty urinal to do his business, and checked to make sure his aim was right, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the blue-haired guy next to him was kinda cute.
Rex just had enough presence of mind to finish pissing and put everything back in working without any embarrassments.
But it didn't extend to the bad idea of hitting on the cute guy next to him in a strange club that was in his hometown.
Bob Sorenson in the meanwhile fell on his instinct to list things in his mind, like A) Rex Attor the School's best Tailback was next to him at Zon, B) Rex Attor was drunkenly hitting on him, and C…
"Well this explains a lot." Bob thought to himself just as he noticed Rex's eyes became a little more focused and recognition entered into them.
"Hey do I know…?" Rex began to slur before it finally clicked, "Oh fuck!"
Joey Black and Stacy Rowe were sitting next to each other in the movie theater on their first official date, watching a cheesy action movie.
"I'm so glad you talked me into this." Stacy said to Joey just as the killer robot blew up, saving the Earth from utter defeat at the hands of the Robo-Aliens from Alpha Centauri.
"I figured we could use something with explosions." Joey replied quietly and nuzzled Stacy's neck, making her giggle and causing quite a few people in the theater to stare at them.
"Sorry!" They both said as quietly as they could and still be heard.
After the movie ended and the credits began to roll, the happy couple strolled out of the theater arm in arm.
"So how have your study sessions been going?" Stacy asked, using the agreed euphemism for Joey's classes at the library to work on his dyslexia.
"So far it's been about working on 'comprehension of letters'," Joey replied, taking care with the unfamiliar big words, making sure he said them right, "Ms. Chaser says that while there isn't a cure, that with practice I can manage this so I can read and write ok."
"That's good Joey." Stacy replied as she rested her head on Joey's shoulder.
The couple walked towards a nearby park, found the nearest bench and then did what red-blooded teenagers did best.
They made out, hardcore.
"How did I get so lucky?" Robert asked aloud while lying on his stomach, naked as the day he was born after some of the best sex of his life.
"Hmm… Not sure big guy…" Ted replied from above, "I wouldn't think about it too much and just… go with it."
Ted then laid himself upon Robert's back and just… stayed there for a while, enjoying post-sex bliss.
But eventually reality had to intervene and Ted needed to go to the bathroom, but when he came back, Robert had shifted and was now sitting on the bed with a blanket wrapped around his waist.
"Hey Ted," Robert said quietly, "I've been thinking… I want to tell my parents about… All of this."
"Are you sure?" Ted asked in trepidation.
Robert nodded and continued, "I'm sick of living a lie, especially since I found… you."
Ted couldn't help but smile at that and added, "If you're going to do this, then I will too."
Robert looked concerned at Ted and began to open his mouth but Ted cut him off.
"No big guy, I know my parents will probably react badly, but… I don't care."
The dopey grin that formed on Robert's face was contagious, it spread to Ted's face, and then it spread to other parts of their bodies and then…
As Ethan Yeager shucked off the last of his clothes and began to get ready for bed, a sudden thought stopped the whole process cold.
"Wait, that trip to the Cove falls on the same weekend as Jane's big track meet… Oh fuck! I'm going to miss this for a journey into McRichland!"
"Hey Jane wait up!" Ethan said as he caught up to Jane in the hallways of Lawndale High, as Ethan reached her he noticed that the guy she was talking to was one of the guys on the Track team.
"Oh sorry if I was interrupting…"
"It's ok Ethan." Jane said, "What's going on?"
"Not much Janey," Ethan replied, "I just wanted to tell you… I won't be able to see your big track meet."
"Oh." Jane said quietly, "Are you mad at me like Daria?"
"What? No of course not." Ethan replied, "Wait, and why is Daria mad at you?"
"It's complicated," Jane answered, clearly not happy with the situation, "But why are you bailing?"
"Cus my parents are dragging me to the Cove."
"The Cove?" Evan asked, annoyed at being ignored, "Isn't that where the Rich people go to relax from counting money?"
"Yeah…" Ethan said sheepishly, "My mom and her sister are having a reunion of sorts, and Aunt Sloane has invited all of us for this 'happy reunion', I predict the apocalypse."
"Sloane…" Jane said while stretching out the word, "As in the Sloanes?"
"Yup, Kay Sloane is my aunt; my mom is her estranged sister."
"Whoa." Jane and Evan both breathed.
"Yup," Ethan answered, "and on the whole I'd rather be at the track meet than dealing with boring old money types."
"Yeah I could see that." Evan answered and decided to change the subject by asking how Ethan stayed fit despite not being on a sports team.
"Well up until recently my parents were big on 'living off the land', so if we wanted to eat we had to do the work to grow food, after the move I guess gym class and running with my boyfriend keeps me in shape." Ethan answered.
"Ah." Evan breathed, "I've seen you during Coach Gibson's classes, your pretty good with a pigskin… I'm surprised he hasn't drafted you onto the team."
"My parents would kill me if I did that," Ethan answered with a laugh, "Hippies and sports don't really mix and all that."
Then when Ethan noticed that Josh was approaching he was forced the leave the conversation at that and left.
As Jane Lane half-listened to Evan's running commentary on how he could talk Ethan and Josh into joining the track team, now that he knew they were both running, she thought back to the conversation she had had with Daria over the phone that morning.
"I'm sorry Daria," Jane said to herself once more, "I don't really have a choice if I want to keep that C average in math, I'm going to have to take a Bye."
"This sucks man." Josh said once Ethan informed him of everything that had happened between his Mom and his Aunt in the last 24 hours.
"If you don't mind me asking, what did happen between your Mom and Kay Sloane?"
"I'm not sure," Ethan answered quietly, "She doesn't talk about it… ever. And now out of the blue, Aunt Sloane was to try and fix things? I don't get it, this whole thing makes no sense."
"Well if you guys do fix things, can I borrow 50 bucks?" Josh asked jokingly.
"Ha ha, very funny." Ethan sarcastically intoned.
"Well while you're away at the lair of the Idle Rich, make sure you have as many distractions as possible tucked away in your bags, cus otherwise this is going to be a dull weekend." Josh said more seriously.
"Already ahead of you on that Josh." Ethan replied, having already packed an extra bag that was basically a lifeline of the entertainment industry.
"Good boy." Josh said with a grin.
"You wanted to talk, so talk." Rex said with hostility as he looked at the blue haired Punk in front of him, the guy he had accidently flirted with at Zon.
Bob Sorenson glanced around to make sure they were alone, they were hanging out near the back of the school at the dumpsters during lunch, they wouldn't be bothered but better safe than sorry.
"So about last night…" Bob began, curious about the response.
"It doesn't matter, it was nothing, nothing!" Rex said hurriedly, the panic rising with every syllable, "I was drunk… Yea that's it… just the booze was all… I need to go…"
"You're not going anywhere." Bob replied forcefully, causing Rex to stop in his tracks as he tried to turn.
Bob took in the sight of the football player standing before him, a quivering mass of intense emotions, a volatile mix of extreme rage and crippling depression.
"You've been giving quite a few people a very hard time over the years for not fitting into 'the box' of conformity. And all this time it's just been you compensating for not fitting into it either." Bob said in quiet, dangerous tones.
Rex Attor stood before him like a child being scolded.
"Look, I don't have any issue with you being gay, bi, or just 'curious', but I do have a serious problem with self-serving hypocrites."
"I… I… I…" Rex tried to stammer out, "I'm disgusting…"
"No you are not Rex," Bob said, "Though your behavior has been."
During this Rex had been slowly backing up against the dumpster, and then he sank to the ground and then began to hold himself and shake.
Bob was forced to kneel in order be eyelevel with Rex in order to continue… Whatever this was, at this point Bob was just following his instincts.
"You should start with some honesty, for your own benefit if nothing else."
"I… I'm not… normal." Rex finished the last with tears welling up in his eyes.
"No one is Rex, no one is." Bob said with his first sign of sympathy.
"I try… I've tried so fucking hard… But I've… done things… in bad places…" Rex managed to say in between fighting back sobs.
"It's ok man, just let it out." Bob said quietly and held out his arms.
Within a few moments, Rex Attor was crying like a child and hugging the blue haired Punk fiercely for support.
"Hmm… Maybe David is right," Bob thought to himself as Rex let out years of repressed emotion, "Maybe I should consider becoming a psychologist."
Ethan Yeager smiled to himself as he got into the families new Volvo, it looked simple on the outside but the inside had quite a few luxuries.
"Even 'pleather' interior," Ethan thought to himself with an inner smile, "Or at least that's what Dad told Mom what it was."
Since the move the Lawndale, and some advice from Jake Morgendorffer, the Yeager's little business was humming along quite nicely indeed.
"Though I'll be driving the old VW once I get my license." Ethan reminded himself, dreading dealing with that old piece of junk.
His parents were silent as they drove away from Lawndale High, having picked up their son right after school since the drive to the Cove would be a long one.
Everything was already packed, and the best of the Beatles was playing at a decent level, a good compromise since everyone in the Yeager clan loved the Beatles.
Beyond that there was significant division between Ethan and his parents about music, since his parents were slavishly devoted to the tunes of the Sixties and Seventies.
Ethan had a much broader range that went from Classical to the angriest Heavy Metal that existed.
At some point that Ethan couldn't remember he fell asleep in the car, but was awaked with a jolt and got to see the Cove for the first time.
"Ritzy." Ethan thought to himself as the Volvo moved through the main gate and into the private community getaway for the obscenely rich.
The Sloanes apparently had decided to greet the Yeagers at the front entrance of their getaway home which, to Ethan at least, looked like a mini-palace imported from Pride and Prejudice.
"Sar… Willow." Kay said warmly as the Yeager clan reached the top of the steps.
"Kay." Willow answered in turn and gave her sister a hug, which was returned by Kay, Ethan noted that it was awkward for both of them.
"An unusual occurrence, normally Mom would hug anyone, even the Devil and love every minute of it." He thought to himself before taking note of the other Sloanes.
The patriarch of the clan, Angier Sloane was an older man and was wearing the ugliest sweater that Ethan had ever seen.
His aunt, Kay Sloane was dressed as though she expected to be playing tennis at any minute, the same with the daughter, Elsie Sloane or something like that.
But the son, now he looked interesting.
"Average looking clothes that could have been picked up at the same thrift store as my stuff…" Ethan noted, "Plus he doesn't seem stuck up or spoiled… Is it possible that there is someone… cool here?"
As polite greetings were given out, Ethan got a chance to speak to the guy and introduce himself.
"Hey I'm Ethan."
"Tom." The guy answered.
"So Tom, is there anything to do around here that's interesting?"
"If only," Tom replied, "This is a place that has been thoroughly scanned in advance to ensure that the old rich people that come here won't be bothered by anything that would disrupt the 'idle' part of 'idle rich'."
"Makes me wish I had brought a flare gun or something…" Ethan answered with a sardonic grin.
Tom laughed and replied once more, "Well unless you brought your own supplies, all there is to do around here is talk to other people."
"Oh God, perish the thought of social interaction." Ethan stated ironically, "But I guess as long as there is at least one oasis in the desert then I can survive."
"Funny I was thinking something similar." Tom replied with a sense of relief, sensing that this might be his first trip to the Cove that would be… interesting.
Great Aunt Mildred von Trier (nee. Sloane) was extremely old, but how old was impossible to tell, she clearly had had plastic surgery, plus her very retro attire made an exact guess impossible to tell.
Then she opened her mouth.
"I guess she's kept alive by spite." Ethan thought to himself as his distant great Aunt began to speak.
"It's so good to finally meet my lovely Kay's sister." Mildred said with false sweetness, while her wizened eyes took in the Yeagers.
To be fair, Coyote and Willow had dressed to impress, but within the context of 'Hippie', which meant that they were wearing new clean clothes and that was the end of 'impress'.
Willow was wearing a long, flowing yellow-orange summer dress, nice shoes, and wore a sunflower in her hair.
Coyote was wearing his best pants, tied-dyed shirt, shoes, and had trimmed his mustache.
Ethan had only bothered to wear shoes with socks, other than that he was wearing one of his usual black shirts and jeans, and he had kept the earrings in.
But never the less, Ethan played along and gave a polite hello and felt very dirty for some reason, he glanced at Tom and the other Sloanes who were getting much more sincere greetings and hoped to the God he didn't believe in that the weekend would go by quickly.
Then he heard a door open and suspected that there were more Sloanes about the crawl out of the woodwork.
Tom Sloane caught Ethan's gaze after he extracted himself from Aunt Mildred's tentacles and nodded his head slightly towards another door, Ethan Yeager didn't need to be told twice and snuck out with Tom before things got worse.
"So on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the highest, how much does this place suck to you?" Ethan asked with theatric gesture towards the various 'get-away' homes of the Cove.
"I'd have to give it a 5 for the scenery, throw in the residents then it would be a 12." Tom answered without a trace of irony.
But it still made them both chuckle.
Then to change the subject, Ethan asked Tom about the rest of the Sloane family and who was going to be there that weekend.
"Well since it's just a weekend affair, Grandfather and Grandmother Sloane won't be gracing us with their presence. Uncle Michael apparently has issues at the office so he's just sending my… Our cousin Tristan as a representative." Tom had forgotten that he was related to Ethan, but Ethan just shrugged it off.
"It's ok man, this is all new to me too."
Tom gave a small smile at that and continued, "Tristan is… well…"
"An arrogant, spoiled brat who looks down on everyone that doesn't have right looks, height, muscle, money, blood, and everything else." A voice called out from behind them and Ethan turned to see a shorter than normal teenager running up to catch up.
"Oh hey Pee Wee." Tom said with a cheeky grin and then dodged a fake punch from the kid.
"Oh Ethan, this is my guest for the weekend, Stephen Pierson-Wells II, but everyone just calls him Pee Wee."
"And I don't like it either." Stephen replied, "Not even from you Tom."
Ethan cracked a smile and said, "Hey man, I'll spare you Pee Wee if you'll let me call you Steve."
Stephen chuckled and said, "Sure, but who are you?"
Tom then apologized and said, "This is the cousin I told you about."
"Oh." Stephen said quietly and then after a pause tried to move on with, "Well I hope you brought stuff to distract yourself with, because otherwise there is nothing but old people and us to talk to."
Ethan Yeager's smile grew bigger and he answered with, "Well I brought a couple books, some music, my sketch pad, and… some other stuff."
"You draw?" Tom asked with his curiosity piqued.
"Yup." Ethan replied with some pride, "I'll show you some of it if you'd like."
"Cool," Tom said, "But we'll have to get back, otherwise I think Aunt Mildred will send out security to find us."
By the time the trio returned to the Sloane's summer residence, the rest of the Sloane clan that was going to come had already arrived.
"And thank God it's just Aunt Sibylla and Tristan," Tom thought to himself, "Otherwise I think the Yeagers would be eaten alive."
As it was from the disheveled looks on Coyote and Willow's faces they had clearly been put through a meat grinder.
While Ethan went over to his parents, Tom slipped by his mother's side and whispered a hurried suggestion that the Yeagers be shown to their rooms to get ready for dinner.
"I'll go with Ethan." Tom added, trying to make it seem as though he was just doing something nice without any other motive.
"Oh that's ok Tom," Kay Sloane whispered to her son, "In fact it's the reason we're all here, to bond and heal… old wounds."
Tom gave his mother a quick, comforting look and pat and slipped away towards Ethan just as his mother began to speak, suggesting that her sister and her husband might like to freshen up before dinner.
A suggestion that Willow and Coyote practically leapt on and were visibly relieved as they followed one of the servants away from the interrogation chamber.
Ethan in the meanwhile felt like he was breaking out of a prison as he followed Tom and Stephen towards wherever they were going to lodge, not noticing that Tristan was following in their wake.
Though it did click in Ethan's head once they reached the room that he would be sharing it with Stephen.
"Well at least it's not with that Tristan character." Ethan thought to himself as he heard the preppy rich boy speak to Tom once more in very loud tones about 'disreputable characters'.
Stephen Pierson-Wells II was kind enough to shut the door behind him, cutting out the sound of the snob.
"This is going to get worse before it's get better isn't it." Ethan said to no one in particular as he set his bags down on the bed.
Stephen gave him a sympathetic look and replied, "At least you're not sharing a room with him, I had to endure that once and that was enough for me."
A little later, after Ethan had unpacked some things, Tom Sloane had joined them and then shut the door behind him and breathed a very loud sigh of relief.
"I swear he is getting worse by the minute." Tom muttered as he sat down on the floor next to Ethan and Stephen.
Ethan had broken out his CD player and had the Nine Inch Nails album 'The Downward Spiral' playing at a low volume. It had been fun introducing the nice preppy kid to music outside of his comfort zone, the look of sheer terror on his face had been priceless and now he was grooving right along to it.
"Hey Tom, we're fine but how are you?" Ethan said with a smile that said butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
Tom laughed at that and said, "Now that I'm here, better by the minute."
The three of them then spent the next few minutes getting to know each other a bit, Ethan learned that the two of them went to Fielding Prep, and that they were part of a rag tag clique that were the 'rebels' of the school.
"I have a feeling that 'rebel' might be purely a matter of perspective." Ethan snarked lightly, causing both Stephen and Tom to laugh.
Ethan then told them a little bit about himself, "Well I grew up with my parents floating from commune to commune, until they settled in a small town in Illinois, but we moved a few months ago to Lawndale for my dad's business."
"And what does he do?" Stephen asked out of polite curiosity.
"He and Mom make stuff out of hemp."
Stephen laughed until he realized that Ethan wasn't kidding.
Tom filled the awkward silence with a question about life at Lawndale High.
"Well I was the pariah until I came to Lawndale," Ethan said, "Now I seem to have quite a few friends, I think I have a couple pictures somewhere…"
Ethan then dug out a small envelope out of his bags and found a couple snapshots.
"This is at the lunch table, there's Bob with the blue hair, his girlfriend's Angel and Burnout, Angels' got the big hair, the big Goth chick is Andrea, the kid that looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo we all just call Shaggy…" Ethan then realized he didn't know Shaggy's real name.
"But next to him is his girlfriend Kelly, she's wearing the floppy hat, and next to her is… Josh." Ethan said the last with some warmth but decided not to explain things further for the moment.
Stephen didn't notice the pause, but Tom did, but he said nothing as Ethan continued.
"The girl in the preppy clothes is Brooke, she just came over for the picture, and at the far end of the table is Jane and Daria, Jane's the one making the face."
Tom's gaze seemed to linger on Daria and Jane and he commented, "They seem a bit isolated from the rest."
"Yeah…" Ethan reluctantly admitted, "But that's by choice, they're more my friends than anyone else's at the table."
"Ah…" Both Tom and Stephen breathed before there was a knock at the door and then it opened a few seconds later to reveal Tristan who said in a pretty snotty tone.
"We're expected for dinner, don't be late."
The food being served for dinner was delicious and that was the best thing that could be said about the entire experience.
Everything else just plain sucked.
Ethan noticed that Kay and his mother were forcing small talk and at the same time trying to force themselves to stick to small talk. While Angier Sloane was chatting away with Mildred about how well his company was doing and bragging without quite bragging about this year's ridiculous purchases.
"Makes me yearn for the past of communal simplicity." Ethan thought while playing with his peas, he hated peas.
Ethan noticed that Tristan, Tom, and Stephen were masters of the art of not paying attention while making look like they were.
Elsie Sloane was having an involved conversation with Sibylla about her newborn son, Alasdair, who was in a baby seat and making the most vile sounds and smells that Ethan had ever heard or smelled come from an infant.
Then through the din of stuck up elitism Ethan heard the cutting voice of Aunt Mildred call out, "And what about your sister's child dear Kay, Ethan was it? I'd like to ask him a few questions…"
Ethan sighed inwardly and readied himself for his auto-da-fe and wondered if he should bother to pray despite being an atheist.
Time seemed to slow down to a trickle as each grating syllable from Great Aunt Mildred von Trier emerged from her demonic throat like a siren from Satan's bowels.
"And what fine young lady are you paying court too?" She asked while readying another bite of the very fine mutton, reaching the question that Ethan had been hoping to dance around for at least a night or two.
Ethan purposely waited until she was putting it into her mouth, while thinking, "Time to try and flat line this snobby BITCH!"
"His name is Josh Decker." Ethan answered matter-of-factly, as though he was discussing the weather.
Then he got to enjoy looks of outrage on Tristan and Syblla's faces, shock on Kay and Angier's, and the pleasure of having nearly killed Great Aunt Mildred as she began to choke to death on her mutton while the other Sloane's tried to process what Ethan Yeager had just said.
Ethan glanced at the younger members of the clan and noticed that while Stephen seemed a bit stunned, and Elsie was rushing to her aunt, Tom was taking this all in with a very small smile.
But it was a smile.
Ethan then took a bite out of the mutton and relished every single tingle on his taste buds.
"Well I think this weekend ended before it began." Ethan said aloud to Stephen as Tom and his sister Elsie entered the room.
"Oh don't worry about that," Tom said with his face now covered in a shit-eating-grin, "It's not every day that Aunt Mildred is actually faced with the Grim Reaper."
"Yeah, we've been expecting her to outlive us all by at least a century." Elsie added, revealing that she could hang with the best of the snarkers.
"You guys are taking it better than I expected." Ethan conceded, "I'm impressed."
"Thanks!" was the general cry of the three other's in the room.
"Now what?" Ethan asked, nearly killing the mood until Stephen boldly asked Ethan to dig through his music collection for something, anything, that was outside the norm.
Ethan gave a wicked smile and said, "You've got it Steve."
Within an hour, Ethan had played several mixed CDs containing what he considered to be the best of the best of various forms of Rock, and yes Johnny Cash counted as 'Rock' in Ethan Yeager's opinion, just because he was Johnny Cash.
And as soon as they finished singing along to 'A Boy Named Sue', all four of them fell over laughing, which ensured that they didn't hear the door open and Tristan entering to try and ruin their good time.
"Hm…" The preppy boy sniffed at the lot of them once he had gotten their attention, "And what perversions is our… relative leading you into?" Tristan said the word relative like an obscenity.
"Oh we were about to have an orgy." Tom said as plainly as he could.
"Speak for yourself; us lower-class types don't do the inbreeding thing." Ethan retorted jokingly.
"Well Pee Wee isn't any of our direct relation…" Elsie mused, piling on.
"I'll flip you for him, heads or tails?" Ethan jumped right on.
"You get one end and I'll take the other." Elsie replied.
"Hey what about me?! Don't I get a say in this?" Stephen asked, not quite sure if anyone was serious or not but deciding to plunge forward and see what happened next.
"What about you?!" Tom, Ethan, and Elsie all said at once, and then all three laughed at their synchronized snark.
Tristan, having been effectively shut down, made his first wise decision of the evening and left the room before anything worse was uttered.
Willow Yeager stood in the shadows, having wanted to go and comfort her son, but hearing the laugher and seeing the snotty brat flee in retreat made her have second thoughts.
But as she turned to depart, a very familiar figure emerged and an equally familiar voice spoke.
"Willow?"
"Yes Kay?"
"I… I'm sorry about what happened at dinner."
"I know you are and I know you didn't mean for any of that to happen, but it happened."
Willow then raised a hand just as Kay Sloane tried to speak, "No sis, I need you to listen for the moment."
Willow Yeager then took a deep, calming breath and called upon everything she had ever been taught about peace and tranquility, and took the plunge into the dark depths of the past.
"It happened, just like me meeting my husband, Coyote at Woodstock, it happened like you meeting him and us and saying how happy you were for us, how much you wanted us to be happy…"
"Me to be happy."
"Willow, I…" Kay tried to interject, but Willow cut her off.
"Then when I introduced him to our parents, and they… they… did what they did… and I asked you for help… you wilted…"
"You abandoned me to the wolves, saying that 'father knew best' and 'listen to mother Sarah', well you know what Kay? I listened and what they had to say was vile and they demanded that I abandon Coyote, never see him again, and marry 'properly' as they saw it."
Willow then took another calming breath, felt the white-hot tears on her face, but ignored them.
"Then I realized that they were wrong, because if I went with Coyote, struck out on my own without so much as a penny to my name that I would have a loved one that they could never take away."
"And you know what? I was right Kay. I was right."
Kay Sloane had been rendered speechless by her sister's calmly spoken, yet passionately felt speech, the words clearly things she had been yearning to say for years.
"I have my husband, I have my son, and they love me as much as I love them, and I can see that your husband loves you and your children love you too Kay, and for that I'm happy for you."
"Willow… I'm so sorry for what I did… I wish I could take it back, I just… I failed you… I… I… I fucked up!"
Now it was Willow's turn to be stunned, her sister Kay swearing?!
"Yes, I can say bad words too." Kay said answering the unspoken question.
There was a long silence at that until, and neither sister was sure who started it; they started to chuckle, which then grew into full blown laughter.
Angier Sloane glanced up from his nightly reading as his wife slipped into their allotted bedroom for the trip.
"Kay where were…?" He began to ask before his wife simply kissed him and said, "Making a start at fixing things."
Angier knew better than to ask for elaboration at that point, in fact his wife had spoken to him about her estranged sister on a number of occasions in the past, and within the last month when they learned that she had relocated so close to their home.
"It's going to be a long road ahead for them both." Angier Sloane thought to himself as he took in his wife's countenance, which was heavily drained and yet slightly glad at the same time.
"But you have to start at a beginning and then go forward."
Ethan Yeager sat in the back of his parents Volvo as they departed the Cove early in the morning, and much earlier than initially planned, in his pocket were the numbers for Tom & Elsie Sloane, and Steve.
In his hands was a copy of a short story Daria had handed out to some people at lunch, asking them to read it and then give her their honest opinions, it was titled 'Depth Takes a Holiday'.
"He he he…" Ethan laughed as he got to the part where he and Josh tried to help the spirit of Thanksgiving come out to his family during dinner.
"Thanksgiving asks his mother to hand a gay man the mashed potatoes, she gives them to his dad."
In the front of the car, Willow also had a number in her pocket, and back at the Cove, Kay Sloane had one as well, even while she was tuning out Mildred ranting about filth and perversion and faggotry.
"Just die already you crone." Kay thought to herself, almost trying to will Mildred's very timely death with her thoughts.
"What the fuck?!" Ethan breathed, stunned to the core by the amount of chaos he had missed while at the Cove for just a night.
"And that's not all," Josh Decker informed him, "Jane Lane quit the track team right then and there after the big win, saying that they were trying to turn her into something she wasn't it. Whatever that means…"
"How'd she get away with it?"
"She had some major blackmail on Coach Morris and Ms. Li according to the rumor mill."
"And Robert and Ted came out to their folks?!"
"Yup."
"How'd the rents take it?"
"Robert's depressed that his Dad called him a disappointment, but at least his Mom was cool with it."
"What about Ted?"
"His parents kicked him out."
"Oh God…"
"Yeah… But he's staying with an aunt and still in Lawndale."
"Cool… But how's the school reacting?"
"Better than expected, Rex isn't even giving them trouble… In fact… He's been hanging around Bob and his three girlfriends."
"Wait, three girlfriends?"
"Well Sandi Griffin's been around them enough I guess she's dating him too… Or it could be that no one else will take her in. Not sure about that one."
"What about Daria?"
"Oh she's going to be out of the hospital in a day or two, the redness is almost gone but they'll probably need to keep her under observation, her weekend is effectively shot."
"Bummer…" Ethan muttered while fingering the numbers he had gotten at the Cove, "But I think I've met some cool people for her to meet Monday night…"
THE END
Notes: Some lines taken from 'See Jane Run' and 'Write Where It Hurts'. The characters Stephen Pierson-Wells II and the extended Sloane family (minus the Yeagers of course) were borrowed from 'God Save the Esteem'.
