Good Feelings

It always seems like you're leaving
Just when I need you here just a little longer

--Violent Femmes

As John Bender strode down the hallway toward the cafeteria, his hand idly flicked a lock here or there, just to set something in motion, just to feel something a little bit cold move under his touch. He was in a much better mood than he was usually when he had to make that walk, especially on days like today when he had no lunch.

Usually on those days he would cut lunch altogether, but today he had told Skins and Brodie he had something to do, couldn't make it to the bleachers for a bowl.

He didn't have anything to do. He didn't even have anything to eat. He had no reason to go to the cafeteria besides just feeling like it.

Sure, she'd be there. But he wasn't going to bother her right now. They didn't need some big dumb lunch table drama because ooh! Bender talked to the Prom Queen. He was pretty sure they were chill at the moment, if her smile said anything—and it did, it said than most people said in a day or week—and so right now, that was enough for him. Enough for him to call this a good day. He did not want to do anything to push it. Not now. He'd made his bank and he wasn't about to bet his winnings.

But in that case John needed a little distraction, because if he spent one more minute replaying that smile in his mind and thinking about the way her blush at the sight of him went right down the V of her soft white sweater he was going to lose his fucking mind.

In need of distraction? Check. One very hopped up nerd, reporting for duty. Down the hall, Brian Johnson was doing a kind of ballet performance of casual waiting. His arms were flailing to either side, but slowly, and his hips and face would follow. "Hey, Brian!" John called out, just to see the reaction.

Brian whipped around, flustered. "Oh. Hi! You, um, yeah. I was."

John walked up and leaned against the wall across from where Brian was standing. "Exactly what I was thinking. You put that so well."

Brian was obviously pleased with the attention but turned beet red and put his hands in his pockets. He slouched one way and looked another. He defined awkward with his body and that was before he even opened his mouth. Bender liked him.

"Yeah, right. That's very funny, and . . . right. Actually, it's a funny thing, I mean, here I was, and there you are, and I was. You know, that I might see you. See, I've got this problem."

John raised his eyebrows, suggesting that Brian should continue talking until he managed to convey any information at all.

"See, my mom, it's like she's gone crazy. She's convinced, see, that I'm having this growth spurt. She's convinced I need to eat, like double. So she packed me, like, two sandwiches, and extra pudding."

John raised his eyebrows even further. "Pudding?"

"Yeah, I mean, talk about crazy, right? I mean, you saw my lunch, right? And you see me? I mean, it's not like I'm Andy, right? I mean, far from it." Brian laughed nervously. "So do you think you could help me out?"

"Help you with pudding? It's not a challenging food, Brian," Bender's lip twisted up. He'd been right. This was all kinds or entertaining.

"I know, like what does she think I am, like, ten years old?" Brian ran a nervous hand through his hair so it all stood up straight. He kept looking expectantly at Bender.

Struggling to keep an absolutely straight face, John answered slowly, "I'm afraid that I doubt your mother will find me very convincing on the subject of your portion size, Brian, but I'll be happy to take the matter up with her when next we meet."

Brian giggled. John made a note to be a little less funny the next time. The giggling was fine, but once in a day was enough.

"No, dorkus, I meant, like, can you eat it? I mean, part of my lunch? So I don't have to waste it and stuff? I hate waste, I mean, like, Africa, you know"

"Did you just call me, 'dorkus?'"

"No. I mean, no way. I mean, I value my life, right?"

"That's what I thought." John shook his head back. He didn't want the kid to think he had to pay him to get him to eat lunch with him or something. He also didn't like feeling like a charity case. But pudding and a sandwich sounded pretty good and he hated paying his own money, money that he worked for or in this case hustled for, just because his mom couldn't be bothered to give him any food or money. It wasn't like she didn't have it. She just couldn't be bothered.

Bender's face was darkening considerably at this train of thought and Brian started trembling. "Look, man, it's cool, I mean, I could just leave it for you somewhere, you know? You wouldn't have to, like—"

Bender looked up, startled. He had forgotten for a moment that the kid was even there. He was shaking and looked like he might piss his pants. At least John had taken his weed out. But still. Good kid. He hadn't meant to scare him or hurt his feelings. Not at all.

"I tell you what, brainface, how about this. I hate the fucking sloppy Joe your neighbor's dog they're serving today. So you come, with your lunch, and you meet this kid I know, he's like, an electrical whiz. He's doing the vo-tech program for electrician. But check it out: he's failing basic math. He can't graduate without it. So we go, we sit there, we eat your mother's mania, and you tell him all about your elephant problems and he tells you about his math problems. Deal?"

"Yeah! I mean, sure. That'd be, like, copasetic."

Bender swore the kid was going to start skipping.

The cafeteria was buzzing with hostility and hormones and the smell of stale meat and tomato sauce. Bender saw to his mild disappointment that Claire was sitting at her usual table with her usual stupid friends. He didn't know what he was expecting, or why it should matter to him, but he felt his mood drop a little. She didn't turn towards him, seeming deep engrossed in some bullshit conversation, no doubt.

He wanted to come here why?

Stop.

Close eyes.

"Try not to fuck this up inside your head before you even get a chance to fuck it up in person, asshole."

Deep breath. Open eyes. Lead nerd to General Electric, AKA, Kenny Nowlin. Sit at table. Ignore bemused stares.

Bender took Brian's lunch, opened it, took out a sandwich, made a big show of examining it. He cocked his head and began speaking in his best formal style,

"Kenny, Brian here," he gestured with the sandwich, "Brian has a couple of problems. One, with too much pudding, that I'm able to assist him with myself. However, Brian also has a problem with an elephant's—ass, was it?"

Brian flushed. "Um. Sort of. I had to make this light."

Kenny was surprised at Bender's lunch company but he shrugged it off. He listened to Brian try to explain his trials with the ceramic elephant and it didn't take him long to figure out several potential sources for the failure and make a plan with Brian to go to shop after school with him in exchange for some math. Bender heard Brian explain that he really shouldn't just copy the math from someone because a) it would be really obvious that Kenny hadn't done it and b) he'd need some of it so people wouldn't rip him off when he had his own business. Kenny seemed really interested and flattered that Brian just assumed he'd have his own shop someday. And as soon as Brian was talking about math, he calmed down about his social adventure and became more normal.

Bender ate half the nerd's lunch, pudding included. The pudding was really good, he liked the smooth feel of it going down his throat and as he contemplated this he took the opportunity to scan the cafeteria again. This time he noticed Allison eating at Andy's table with some other jocks. The jocks looked to be getting up to leave, so he figured he'd head over there and check out how Allison was doing and if she was doing alright he would ask Andy about cards. He asked Brian if he wanted to take a break from schooltime at lunch for a minute but Brian actually waved him away, "In a minute, man." They were deep in some discussion of circuitry.

Amazing. But Kenny was like a stupider, poorer geek with marginally better clothes and a girlfriend. It shouldn't be a surprise they could talk.

That it was a surprise just showed how much bullshit there was to cut through.

On his way to the jock table Bender studiously did not look in Claire's direction. He'd figure out some other way of catching her eye again later. If he could figure out some way of getting within three feet of her he'd give himself a medal. He wanted to stick with his resolution not to push some kind of a choice or a scene. At least wait until they'd had a conversation before they started getting everyone to play Romeo and Juliet with them. The preps and the burnouts as the Montagues and the whoevers. Freshman English was a long time ago but that play had really bugged him.

It also bugged him that Claire was never, ever alone. Probably that's what being popular meant.

Andy had spotted him and given a nod. "Hey, Sporto," Bender began. Allison looked up, smiled and nodded like she knew exactly what was up. The other jocks at the table did double-takes almost in unison, but Andy looked up in a friendly enough way, if a little wary. The others seemed to stop in mid sentence to watch the anticipated fight unfold.

"Bender. How's it hangin'?"

"Not bad. Hey listen, I'm trying to get a poker game going this weekend. Different faces, you know? New crop of givaway facial tics. You play?"

The table of jocks breathed out audibly. This was not the conversation they'd been imagining. John Bender made no secret of hating their kind and he carried a knife. It was a little disappointing not to have the fight, but it was also a relief.

Andy nodded slowly, "Sure. I've got a match Friday and Saturday morning, but I could definitely do a little poker Saturday night."

As Bender nodded in his direction he could feel Allison staring at him. He turned.

"I play poker." She leaned into his space, making her eyes go a little narrow and pointing her chin in that way that said she was telling you something private and a little bit exciting. "I kick ass."

One of the jocks, who had been obviously trying not to react to the weird company their friend was keeping, laughed at this. Allison whirled about it. "If you doubt it, why don't you cut." She whipped a deck of cards out of her bag and started shuffling like a pro. She fanned the cards out on the table and slid them back into her hand again before offering them wordlessly to the boy, who said, "Shit."

At the exact same time, Bender said, without raising an eyebrow, simply looked at her and said, "You're in."

Andy, who had been looking on like he was watching the second coming if the second coming took the form of a goth blackjack dealer, cracked up at this. "I told you guys to watch it. My girl is not to be messed with."

Bender noted the "my girl" part, and so did Allison.

"Hey, Sporto," she said, fiddling with the hem of his shirt and staring at him with a mixture of eye sex and challenge, "I'm no one's girl but mine, remember?"

Andy looked down, blushing. The dude was fucking blushing. "Ok, as long as I can borrow you sometimes.."

"Take me out for a spin?" Allison leaned over to kiss him. Every boy at the table groaned, Bender included. Andy caught his eyeroll and shrugged. "Well hey, where's--"

Bender cut him off with a warning look. Andy frowned, confused, while Allison stared at him, obviously trying to tell him something. Andy just as obviously wasn't getting it.

Bender felt himself tense. He did not want to get into some big discussion about Claire when he hadn't even said a word to her. Not in front of these shit for brains.

Then Brian comes up and says, as if on cue, the exact thing Bender was hoping no one would say.

"Hey, guys, here we are! All we need is Claire."

Bender was getting ready to strangle the nerd when Allison spoke up, a little quickly, and studiously not looking at John. "You guys just missed her. She hung out here the first part of lunch but then she had to go deal with some wardrobe emergency from one of her friends or something."

Andy nodded, getting it. "Right. You guys were talking about lipstick. Surprisingly, I wasn't really paying that much attention."

Allison laughed. "Yeah, we were wondering if maybe we could learn to put it on with our toes. We were pretty sure," and here her eyes slightly narrowed in that intense way she had, "that I could. Claire wasn't sure she could measure up. We might get together and practice."

Without beginning to understand why this small piece of information allowed his entire body to relax, John Bender decided it felt good.

If he was going to be such a girl, maybe he should practice putting on lipstick too. With his combat boots. As soon as he was done kicking himself in the ass with them. He had to stop even starting to get angry when nothing had happened and no one had done anything.

Claire was being awesome. He was being an idiot.

Lunch period was about over and the group started making their way to the door. Bender noticed they attracted more than a few pointed looks but no riots broke out. He also noticed Claire making her way toward the tray cart which prompted his sudden decision to save Brian the trip to the garbage. Brian started to protest he didn't have to, but one look at the expression on Bender's face put a stop to that.

****

Claire had no idea when John Bender had come into the lunch room. She had already decided he wasn't coming. She knew it was after she'd talked to Allison and Andy because she'd done some pretty thorough table scanning that whole time she was over there. All she knew was that she looked up after she'd gone back to her usual table, and there was John Bender's back, sitting next to what appeared to be Brian Johnson's back, on the other side of the cafeteria, far from her and with no apparent interest.

Something bad happened to Claire's breathing. She turned back to her friends who were engaged in a heated discussion about whether being in Glee Club meant you had to be able to sing, or if it just meant people were too afraid not to let you in. Claire made a few appropriate comments but she was just on autopilot. She looked down at the frayed knee of her jeans and picked it a little more frayed.

She took a deep breath. She knew he didn't like her friends. And he had said not to worry about walking down the halls together, because it was never going to happen. She shouldn't be surprised he didn't want to talk to her in the middle of lunch in front of everone.

A part of her was even grateful to him for sparing him the drama of stopping by. If an old pair of jeans caused a whole debate, God knew what a conversation with the someone like Bender would inspire. But a bigger part just wanted him to look at her in that way, smile at her, come up to her and put his arm around her waist and kiss her very hard, in front of the whole cafeteria, and be done with it.

Wow. She didn't even know where that had come from. She was pretty sure that would be awful. Except the kissing part. There was not even one small part of Claire Standish, not a spot on a fingernail, that didn't want John Bender to kiss her again.

But she'd actually prefer a little privacy for that.

When she looked up again she saw he was gone. She turned and saw him standing over by Andy and Allison, chatting. Claire was relieved and jealous at the same time. She turned to her friends, "Glee Club means you can sing—unless you're, like, really popular. Then it just means you're popular. And you might sing, but it's beside the point."

Claire had no idea what she was even saying. She was glad John couldn't didn't, either. She didn't think he'd be impressed. Even though she'd turned her back to him again, now she could swear she felt his eyes on her and it made her feel pinned, like a butterfly under glass. She felt like she couldn't move, didn't want to move while his eyes were on her. Her mouth kept moving and sound was coming out. "Seriously. Mrs Layton knows who's, you know, like us. She went here, like, with my mom, and they were kind of like us. She knows you kinda need music for some of those colleges and so she lets us do Glee Club because she knows we don't have time to be some practicing nerd. My mom told me."

Bethany nodded. Some of the other girls looked surprised. Claire didn't pay even a little attention because she had turned so could see John Bender straightening up and still looking in her direction, though not obviously staring. Claire got up too. She grabbed Bethany's tray. "Here, I'll take that. I've got some stuff from my purse I need to throw away. I don't even know how it all gets there, you know?"

Bethany smiled. "Cool. Maid service. Thanks!"

Claire laughed, looking back, which was also the same direction John Bender was in. As she explained to Bethany that her services did not come without a price and she totally accepted credit cards, she tried to catch John's eye but he was saying something to Brian, who had joined the group. Surprising.

Whatever. She could hardly blame him if he didn't figure out that she was hoping he had some trash or something. He probably didn't even have lunch. Claire felt a little sad as she made her way to the tray cart. She didn't know why she was so lame and she didn't know why she hadn't gone up to say hi to Brian and the rest of them or why she of all people was so shy. She rested the tray on the side of the trash can and slowly tossed the mostly uneaten lunch.

Suddenly she felt someone lean slightly into her and push her slightly to one side. She didn't need to turn to know who it was. A quiet, taunting voice seemed to brush against her, "Oh, excuse me, Princess," it said.

Claire still didn't turn around. "Actually, I'm pretty sure there's no excuse for you," she said quietly, but her mouth curved up a little when she said it. She still didn't turn around but she didn't move to one side either, keeping her body firmly in place so that it stayed in contact with John's, just barely returning the gentle pressure. Every single place that their bodies were touching tingled and fluttered as if all the butterflies from before had suddenly returned and raced over to that side. She was hardly aware of anything else. Except without even looking at him, she could feel, it was like she could hear John smiling in that slow, knowing way at her response. He didn't move away either but shifted his weight slightly, not really closer or further away but just enough so that the weight of him brushed against her again, making the connection just a little bit more alive. He reached over to grab a left-over apple from the tray she was holding, bringing his mouth momentarily closer to her ear.

"You know, you're probably right about that." He bumped into her again, softly, and backed away, still without making eye contact. "Most people are smart and give up trying."

To his surprise, Claire turned and faced him. They were still pretty close together but anyone looking on might have thought she'd gotten all huffy. "You know, if you really wanted an apple, they do sell them. You didn't have to come all the way over here," she gestured toward the apple in his hand, "for that." Her words, again, sounded a little bitchy but there was a warm undercurrent to them and a note of something soft in her voice which combined with the way she glancing toward him but through her long lashes made something hitch in John's chest.

He looked right back at her, taking a beat. "You know, what I really was more in the mood for was," and he looked her briefly up and down, "a cherry, but I'll take what I can get."

Claire raised her head and looked straight at him for the briefest moment. "You know, if I were you—which thank God I'm not, by the way—I wouldn't take any substitutes for what I really wanted. If you want it badly enough, it might be worth waiting for." She turned and put the tray in the cart.

Bender could feel himself frozen in place by the garbage and hoped to hell no one was looking at him because if they were, it would be like he had an enormous neon sign over his head that said "Desperate for that chick right there."

Claire glanced over her shoulder and could see John still standing there turning that stupid apple in his hand, his face frozen into that shocked, hot expression like the one he'd had when she kissed him in the closet on Saturday. She bit her lip to suppress a smile, aware that it didn't quite work. She saw John draw in a breath a little suddenly. "Score one for the princess," she said to herself. She turned away and walked out the door without looking back.

John wasn't sure he'd ever be able to move again. He made a show of digging through his pockets looking for something. That girl had zinged him respectably and then called him out on something and then he was sure held out a promise to him of something undefined and indescribable and she did it while throwing away garbage, in front of everyone, without anyone seeing and he was so far gone. He was so far gone and he didn't even care, all he knew was she hadn't moved away when he'd bumped into her, she had pushed back, and pushed back in more ways than one and that challenge in her eyes was hotter than her lips and then she had bitten her lip and looked at him and he knew right then that if he didn't get his mouth on those lips by the end of the day the world was going to crumble and burn until there wasn't anything left of it but John Bender's ashes, still wanting to kiss that girl.

He snorted. I'm done. Finished. Here lies John Bender. He finally turned around to where almost everyone was gone but Andy and Allison were still standing by the door, looking at him and obviously laughing. He was with them in three strides.

"Not a word, Clark. Not a fucking word."

Andy couldn't help laughing. "I didn't say anything."

Bender snorted and looked at Allison pointedly, then back at Andy. "Yeah, like you're one to not say anything."

Andy nodded in embarrassment. "Point taken, man. I gotta run." He took off, leaving Allison and Bender to walk more slowly down the hall.

"Claire wants me to go lipstick shopping with her after school."

John turned to Allison in surprise. "Funny, she didn't ask me if I wanted to go lipstick shopping."

Allison hit him kind of hard in the arm. "She told me, she wanted something a little different. She thought I could help with that." Allison gave him that significant secrets look, but softly.

John nodded. "I can definitely see where she would think that." He snorted sarcastically. It was like he couldn't help himself. "And lipstick is obviously so important when you really want to make a change."

Allison turned into her locker and then turned right at him, her eyes like daggers.

"Don't underestimate people like that, John Bender. They could surprise you."

John stared at her, nodding. "Trust me. They already have."

"Then maybe it's time to wonder what you are going to do to surprise them back."