A/N: I'm lacking in reviews, people… Also, I have recently come to the conclusion that despite the time frame which I am operating within (2005-2006) I am going to throw in whatever comes to mind as humorous, thus there will be some time warp-age where things from 2007, 2008, & 2009 mysteriously find their way back in time.
"Are you okay?" Kate was sweet, Kate was innocent; Kate had absolutely no idea what was going on.
"Fantastic."
In the interest of my continued freedom and Alyssa's concern for Garwin's physical wellbeing, we'd temporarily taken up court at a table on the opposite side of the room from the Sons.
That didn't stop me from glaring, though.
"What are you bitching about?" Reid had asked me earlier in Art Appreciation. "You had a good time, didn't you?"
"It's the principle of the matter," I'd practically growled back.
"You have principles?" Teeth bearing and fingers curled into claws, Reid showed signs of intelligent thought and thoughtfully retreated down to his seat next to Tyler.
Tyler, who hadn't been able to look at me without blushing for the past two days.
"What the hell happened?" Caleb had asked me, cornering me earlier, ever the worry-wart.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." It was a bit of a stretch, me playing innocent, but I've had years of practice.
Caleb, unfortunately, had years of experience with what was rapidly becoming my male counterpart, Reid, and didn't buy my bullshit for a single second.
"Did something happen between you and Reid?" You'd have to be a complete moron not to be able to figure that one out. Every time Reid had caught sight of me in the last two days he'd been grinning, wiggling his eyebrows and his tongue, and generally behaving like an ass.
Pretty normal, save for the fact that it never stopped. Every time we were in the same room, he'd nudge Tyler, who would instinctively blush, before leering at me.
Ass.
"Is something going on with you and Reid?"
"No."
"Then did something happen between the two of you Monday?"
"No. Why? What makes you say that? Is he saying that something happened?" At this point I sincerely hoped he was; anything and everything that could paint him as the bad guy was rapidly collecting into my 'Plans for Reid Garwin' files.
Oh yes, Vengence was in the works. Alyssa had actually been looking a little more chipper the last few days because of it.
"No. He's not saying anything at all. Which is really weird." Kate frowned a moment before peering at me with no small amount of suspicion. "You didn't…do something to him, did you?"
"Of course not. Why would I? I love Reid; we're like this," I held up my hand with my ring finger and middle finger entwined to illustrate my point.
"No you're not," Kate replied, relaxing with a relieved sigh. "You're just being weird, like normal."
"Oxymoron?" I craned my head to peer around Kate at Alyssa, who stared contemplatively off into space for several beats she debated.
"No," she finally decided. "It's just you."
"Okay."
"Whatever," Kate decided, shaking her head and digging into her lunch. "You going to eat that?"
"I want him, I need him. I have to have him," DeeDee Philips sighed as she propped her head up on her hand and gazed dreamily over at Reid.
"Go ahead, I highly doubt he'll turn you down," I encouraged, flopping my paintbrush down on the piece of paper in front of me and staring at it a moment before dipping my brush back into the paint and letting it flop down again.
"He's like Edward, don't you think?" I blinked at that one.
"Edward?" I flipped through my mental lexicon of names and came up empty. There was nobody named Edward that attended Spencers.
Maybe Edward was a public school kid?
"You know, the vampire." I twisted my head around slightly to stare at DeeDee. Forget not knowing who Edward was, if DeeDee was seeing vampires again, we were all in trouble. Last time she'd had a stake and a wreath of garlic that had kept her boyfriend and regular friend free for about a month.
I was not looking forward to having her return to smelling like an Italian eatery, and not a very good one at that.
"Like in the book series?" Oh, yeah, cause that made sense. I read books about vampires named Edward all the time.
My blank look had DeeDee blinking in shock.
"No way," she breathed, straightening from her daydream-slouch to blink at me. "No. Way."
"But there has to be a way, Doctor," I replied in my best Rose Tyler voice. "We can't let the Cybermen win."
It was DeeDee's turn to look confused.
I was starting to like this game; I look confused, she looks confused. Now all she had to do was say something stupid again so I could take my turn.
"It's a book series, Angel."
"So I gathered."
"It's a freakin' awesome book series," DeeDee continued, ranting in the face of my apparent indifference. "You have to read it. Come with me to my dorm room after class."
"No thank you."
"Why not? You have a free period next and it's not like Alyssa and Zac are going to miss your presence."
"Hey! I'll have you know they weep pearly tears of sorrow when I'm not around."
"Right." In the face of DeeDee's blatant disbelief, I did what I do best in situations such as this: I pouted.
"You're coming with me. I'm not giving you an option."
Joy.
"Have you read this book series?" I flipped yet another page in Eclipse and jerked my head upright to blink at Alyssa, who had cautiously edged her way into our dormroom after a six hour study session at the library.
"When's the last time you slept?"
"Yesterday," I replied, flipping another page in the book.
"Ate?"
"I had some Doritos about an hour ago."
"Showered?"
"Wednesday."
"You need to shower again," Alyssa's nose wrinkled slightly to punctuate the statement.
"Do I? Can't tell; my nose stopped working around my twenty fifth hour awake. Got any food?"
Alyssa blinked.
"No. But the cafeteria is still open."
"Great. Grab me something?"
"No." I craned my head around to look at Alyssa.
"Why not?"
"Because you stink and I want you to bathe."
"If I bathe will you feed me?"
"No, but if you don't bathe, I'll dump a bucket of soap water over your head when you finally collapse of exhaustion and leave you like that."
"Fine. I'll shower," I grunted in annoyance, closing my book with a snap and rising to my feet. "But only if you come with and read to me from outside the stall."
"You're being ridiculous and obsessive," Alyssa informed me as I gathered up my bathing supplies, tossing them in a tote back and shouldering it before turning to face her again.
"And? Your point is?" Alyssa sighed and snatched the book from my bed.
"Never mind. What page were you on again?"
"376."
"Hey stranger," Reid Garwin greeted me, turning his chair around and straddling it before reaching over and taking a sip from my hot cocoa.
Normally, this would be the point where I snatched my cup back and made some statement along the line of "Ewww, cooties."
Reid took another sip, his eyes never leaving my face, one eyebrow arched in a curious manner at my expression.
I had my head cocked the side in a thoughtful manner and my lips pursed as I debated with myself for a long, cool minute.
"What?" Reid asked, lowering my cup from his lips and grinning at me. "Do I have something on my face?"
I furrowed my brow.
"Seriously," Reid turned to look at Alyssa. "What's wrong with here? You didn't break her or anything, did you?"
"She's thinking," Alyssa explained patiently. "Give her a few minutes."
"It takes her that long to come up with an intelligent thought?" If he was trying for insulting, he failed. His tone was way too 'what-the-hell' to be able to pull that off.
"Hey DeeDee," I called, craning my neck to get a straight line of sight on the vapid blonde.
"Yeah?" She put a pause on her conversation to turn and look at me, expectant expression firmly in place.
"I totally get it, but I'm thinking Tyler would be better."
"Really?" DeeDee gave me a doubtful expression before turning to give Reid another once over.
"Huh," she chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment as she mulled this over before shaking her head. "Nope. It's Reid, all the way."
I shook my head.
"No way. Reid's too much of an asshole to pull it off."
"Yeah, but Tyler's not edgy enough to do it either."
"He could edgy if he wanted to be," I defended my stalkee with all due loyalty.
"Please," DeeDee flipped her hair at – honest to God, she fucking flipped her hair at me – before turning her attention back to her conversation.
"Excuse me? Hello?" Reid waved a hand in front of my face, an adorable expression of absolute confusion on his face. "Yeah, welcome back. You mind telling me what the two of you were talking about?"
"Yes," I replied, taking my cup back from him and placing it on my tray before rising to my feet.
"Yes, what?" Reid asked, rising to scramble after me.
"Yes, I mind. Good-night, Reid."
"Wait a second – " Whatever Reid was about to say was interrupted by the arrival of the other two on-campus Sons. Caleb lived at home, so he was never around for dinner, which meant that things with the Sons were usually a little less stable around this time.
"Hey, Reid, what's up?" Pogue greeted, the two of them engaging in some sort of private male handshake.
"Nothing much, man," Reid stated before reaching over and slinging an arm over Tyler's shoulders. "Just waiting for Angel here to answer my question."
"What question would that be?" Tyler asked, grinning as he muscled his way out from under Reid's grip and turning to look at me.
To his credit, he lasted a whole five seconds before he flushed scarlet.
"She and Miss Dee over there just had a very interesting discussion in which you and I were the central focus and I'm just waiting on her to elaborate."
Pogue's eyebrows arched at that. Being boyfriend to a resident motor mouth, he was at least peripherally aware of my self-professed stalking of 'Baby Boy', but I didn't usually like to air my neurotic tendencies so…publicly.
Actually, I aired my neurotic tendencies all the time, I just usually kept the 'Baby Boy' stalking one to my own small little group.
And not in front of Reid. Never in front of Reid, who was strangely protective of the youngest Son.
Granted, I was almost positive he already knew, but at the same time…the only sure things in life were birth and death, and sometimes even those went wonky.
"I have no idea what you're talking about Reid," I replied with a regal head tilt and a snobbish sniff that turned into a full blown sneeze.
"See, you're lying."
"I'm sneezing," I corrected, wrinkling my nose to emphasize my point.
"You sneeze when you lie," Reid shot back.
"Well then I'd be sneezing all the time wouldn't I? And I don't. So there." I would have stuck my tongue out, but that seemed childish and immature.
"Well, you're lying now. And I want to know why." Reid's eyes narrowed. "Is it because Tyler's here?"
"No. What would that have to do with anything?" Reid's eyebrow cocked.
Oh, Shit.
"Yeah, what she said," Tyler turned his head to peer at his best friend suspiciously.
"You don't know?" Reid's grin widened as my eyes narrowed in warning. "Angel here has –"
"Shit!" Pogue swore, stumbling a few steps as he all but fell on top of Reid. "Sorry man. Lost my footing for a second there."
"Yeah, cause a flat surface is so easy to trip over," Tyler snarked, his face taking on that 'I-know-you're-up-to-something' sheen.
"Hey, man, floors are tricky things."
"You know," DeeDee moved past me at a glide, her expression contemplative as she scanned Tyler head to toe. "I think you might be right. We should take a poll."
I perked up at that.
"We should, shouldn't we?"
Still sitting at the table, Alyssa's head shot up at my tone, her head swiveling until she was staring at me.
I had just gotten an idea and boy was it a good one.
"Later," I waved off the Sons before turning to walk out the door, Alyssa hastily grabbing the muffin off her plate and stuffing it into her mouth, tossing her dirty tray onto the stacks before trotting after me.
"So?" Alyssa prompted as soon as we were out of earshot, removing the muffin from her mouth and swallowing the part she'd bitten off. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking…we need t-shirts. And a color printer. And photoshop." I nodded my head decisively before mumbling to myself. "Definitely need photoshop. Or…"
I cocked my head to the side and let the idea come to me. Slowing to a stop, Alyssa waited patiently for my epiphany to hit.
"Does Danielle Harding still have the digital pictures of last years championship swim meet?"
"What the hell, man?" Tyler was livid, also confused, but mostly livid.
"Is this your sick idea of a joke?" Tyler waved the shirt in Reid's face, so lost in his angry rant he failed to notice the look of complete and utter bafflement on the blonde's face.
"What the hell?" Reid echoed Tyler, snatching the shirt from the other boys hands with an angry snarl. "What joke?"
Spreading the shirt out on the top of their desk, I watched Reid's face carefully from my position three rows up.
World Geography was a class that I had with Reid and Pogue, so it was a bit of a surprise to see Tyler, but considering what was on the t-shirt…
I had to say, Danielle had really outdone herself. I mean, you didn't even have to squint to make the picture seem believable.
The back of Reid's neck turned red first, a sudden flushing that made me bite the inside of my lips to keep from giggling.
His fists clenched next.
And then his head turned and I had to drop my gaze.
The t-shirts were genius. Pure, mad genius – my creation.
They featured two carefully photoshopped pictures, one of Reid and one of Tyler.
One picture had had a drowsy eyed Reid with his arms stretched out, obviously stretching…as long as you were looking at him in the original photo.
In the photoshopped version, Tyler had his teeth bared, with one hand wrapped around Reid's wrist, pulling it upward, and the other disappearing behind Reid's back to make it look like they were locked in a passionate – and slightly raunchy – embrace.
I got thrills just thinking about it.
I managed a peek from underneath the fringe of my bangs and had to bite down on my fist to fight off a fit of laughter.
Reid's pissed off expression had yet to pierce through Tyler's blind rage, so the two of them were still arguing.
"Look, you dumb fuck, this wasn't me!"
"Like hell! This has your sick brand of humor written all over it!" Tyler snarled right back, getting in the blondes face.
Since their attention seemed to be solely focused on each other, I gracefully straightened from my hunch and propped my head up on my hand to better focus on the show.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Reid's voice hit new decibel levels of absolute outrage. "What the hell makes you think I'd do something like this?"
"Erica Durns, seventh grade," Tyler shot back, his fists clenched at his sides, his face flushed and nostrils fully flared in a truly sublime picture of rage.
"Oh, come on," Reid scoffed. "That wasn't even full frontal!"
"You plastered it on a t-shirt and sent it to her boyfriend!" Tyler shot back, shaking the shirt pointedly.
"As a joke! She shouldn't have let me take the picture if she didn't want people to see it!"
"And this? Did you take these pictures?" Tyler shook the shirt again.
"Ty, this is me we're talking about. I may be egotistical, but I draw the line at stalking myself. And these are definitely…" Reid trailed off for a few seconds before his head suddenly darted around and he glared, narrow eyed, at me.
Uh, oh.
I maintained my position cause ducking my head could easily be construed as a maneuver of the guilty and I didn't want that.
Besides, technically, I didn't do anything.
Technically, Danielle had done all the hard work. Well, her and Alyssa. Mostly I'd just acted in supportive roles…like position suggestions and back stories as to how Reid maneuvered Tyler into them.
So we'd gotten a little raunchier than I'd intended. Still, the results were pretty damn spectacular, if I do say so myself.
"You." Reid staunch, heartfelt declaration had all eyes, previously focused on the soon-to-be-legendary t-shirt and the boys therein depicted, swung to me.
"Yes?" I didn't try for innocent. Innocent would have made me look guilty as sin. Mostly, I went with confused, with just a pinch of curious thrown in for good measure.
"You did this." I blinked at that.
"Seriously?" Reid's teeth were bared, his hands curled into claws at his side as he glared in my general direction.
"Angela?" Tyler actually deflated as he caught sight of me, his anger simmering down to light pants as he gave his best friend a completely mystified look. "Why the hell would she do something like this?"
"Exactly," I agreed with Tyler, perhaps just a bit too quickly if the way Reid's eyes narrowed more in response.
"I mean, I know I promised to get revenge on you for the tattoo, but I was thinking something more along the lines of greasing your doorknob with Crisco."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Amused, cultured, and practically bubbling with mirth, our World Geography Professor, Steven Whitmore, was caught somewhere between youth and middle aged with a sense of humor to match.
Still, it was mortifying, especially when I reviewed the last words to emerge from my mouth.
"I so totally did not mean to say that," I managed to squeak out as Reid's scowl dropped into a semi-gobsmacked expression and Tyler's lips actually twisted up into a smile.
"Mr. Simms," Whitmore called out as he continued towards his desk. "I do believe you have Pre-Calc with Ms. Plank this period?"
"Yes, Sir," Tyler agreed politely, shooting Reid one last look before heading for the door.
Reid, in turn, fixed me with a hard, pointed look of near apocalyptic anger.
"So?" Alyssa asked, rejoining me after class. Well, sort of. I'd decided, after Reid's fifth drop-dead-any-time-now look, that it was probably in my best interest to not be in his general vicinity at the moment…or any time soon.
"So what?" I asked, carefully positioning myself so I was within optimal grabbing distance should a Reid like missile appear aimed directly at my complete annihilation.
"How did it go?"
"Great, wonderful. Couldn't have gone better."
"That bad, huh?" I blew my breath out in a sigh.
"Remember what I said at the beginning of Freshman year about you getting all A's due to my untimely death?"
"NO!" Alyssa's outburst was so sudden, so manic, and so out of character that even I stopped to gape at her.
"He will not!" Alyssa snarled, practically slamming me against the wall as she reached out and grabbed my lapels. "If he tries anything, and I mean anything, so help me God, I'll kill him! With my bare hands if I have to!"
With every punctuation and repetition of the word anything, she shook me again, sending my head slamming back into the wall.
"Alyssa, honey," Kate's voice sounded from somewhere just beyond my strangled line of sight. "You need to let go of Angel now."
"Kill him," Alyssa had the whole wild-eyed-look-of-absolute-madness thing working for her in the moment, so well, that I actually didn't want Kate to interfere.
Given that this was Alyssa's first real emotional display in nearly three years, it was good for her to vent.
And if the price I had to pay was a concussion that kept me away from the school and out of class for three, four, five, maybe even a few more days, hell, what best friend wouldn't let their best friend take out their frustration on them?
It was in the handbook somewhere, I'm sure.
"If you kill her, you won't get into Harvard," Zac's off-the-cuff statement of fact had Alyssa releasing me so fast I only had time to yelp before tumbling to the ground.
Do you know what head impacting with tile floors sounds like?
You know the sound that a bat makes when it connects with a ball? A sort of thunking crack that echoes throughout the stadium?
That's what my head sounded like.
And then there were stars, which lasted for an innumerable amount of time until I managed to blink them a little bit clear, then a little bit clearer.
I could see a figure beyond the shiny lights and for a gut wrenching second I thought maybe I was looking at God and – sweet baby Jesus – Alyssa had actually killed me.
Blonde hair, shiny and clean. Pink lips, smiling angelically. A patrician nose and blue eyes…
And when you put that all together, you find Reid Garwin, leaning over me, trying to give me mouth-to-mouth.
"So help me God, if you use tongue, I'll bite it off."
"Yep, she's fine," Zac offered his diagnoses of the situation with a harsh back of laughter that had me wincing.
"A little quieter, please?" I requested before attempting to sit upright. Reid kneeled next to me, sitting back on his heels and watching me with twinkling blue eyes.
"Just so you know, I will get you for this," I informed him with a pained wince as I rubbed the back of my head with my hand.
"Looking forward to it, Angel," Reid replied, letting my name roll off his tongue like the dirtiest of words. "Just so you know, the same applies."
"Good to know," I snapped, surly and annoyed, which just made Reid smile wider.
"Yep," Reid grinned and he got to his feet and whistled. "Gonna be good."
"Great," I replied, accepting Alyssa and Zac's offers of hands to pull myself upright. "Looking forward to it."
"Seriously?" Alyssa asked as the three of us stood there and watched the group of them walk away.
I gave her a look.
"I think now might be a good time for me to go visit my dad. I hear Tokyo's nice this time of year."
