Okay.
Okay.
I have no excuse for not updating in eight months.
Okay.
Um. This chapter? Complete nonsense.
Also, I was too tired to read it, and just wanted to get this posted, because I feel so bad for not updating this story.
Um. I might change this chapter later to make it suck less.
This is just here so you know that I'm still alive, and that THIS STORY IS NOT DEAD.
Only about two chapters after this. One will be about a month or two in the future, and the other one will be an epilogue. So. Yay.
Okay.
I am so sorry this chapter is super lame.
But I really wanted to just. Before I go to bed. And. Yeah.
Disclaimer: I don't own School of Rock or the characters.
Warnings: Minor cursing.
Reviews are loved. And remind me that I have a story I neglected for almost the term of a pregnancy.
I am a horrible person.
I hate this chapter.
Let me know about any errors, yeah?
Okay.
"Can we go now?" Freddy whined, head flopping back in exasperation. Zack rolled his eyes, continuing to fill out the obnoxiously thick stack of forms on the clipboard a nurse shoved at him. "This is so boring!"
"I'm almost done, for the sixth time," Zack answered flatly, flipping to the next form and continuing to jot down Freddy's information. He was seated in yet another boxy white hospital chair, filling out the files needed so Freddy could be released.
The past week had been a bit hectic. While the doctors originally thought Freddy would adapt quickly to therapy and gain use of his legs again quickly, the initial tests where they simply asked him to move his toes and slide his legs around the bed went poorly. Freddy could move his toes and legs, but it hurt and he trembled terribly and twice they had to stop because he started crying from the pain. Apologizing profusely, the doctors reset the times for his healing. He'd have his arm casts on for three months. He'd be in a wheelchair for as long as it took his legs to recover, and Zack flipped a bitch when the doctor on duty sheepishly admitted that they didn't know how long that'd be. A new hole decorated the hospital room wall where Zack's fist of fury decided to take its frustration out.
Instead of setting a determined amount of time for therapy, the doctors decided to send an in-home nurse to the apartment twice a day to help Freddy get around and help him work on movement. Because of their timeline mess-ups, the doctors worked with Freddy's insurance company to get them to cover the in-home nurse completely. Zack wasn't completely pleased, but Freddy was just ecstatic that he'd be able to go to the apartment.
"Come oooonnnnn," he moaned, tilting his head from side to side to show his boredom. Zack shot him a warning look, snappily turning the next page over.
"Calm down. I only have two more to fill out."
"But this is so boring!"
Instead of replying, Zack chose to ignore the whining blonde and continued to write down Freddy's new home information. Having no other way to pester the brunette, Freddy took a deep breath and exhaled at Zack's head, sending some of his hair scattering. He repeated the action twice more before Zack flipped all of the papers onto the clipboard, slamming the stack down, and glaring at Freddy. He received a massive grin in return and Zack only huffed half-heartedly before standing and going off to the reception desk, sliding the clipboard to the woman behind it. "Here. Can I take him now?"
She peered at the clipboard through her red-framed glasses. "Did you complete all of the forms?"
"Yep."
"I'll have one of our nurses escort you," she said, glancing up. Zack nodded, turning as a tall male nurse (who did not give off creepy vibes, unlike one particular other male nurse) approached him. "Oh, Hector, good. Can you take this boy and his friend out? Mr. Jones will be leaving now." Hector nodded silently, grabbing the handles of Freddy's wheelchair and pushing him towards the hospital entrance. Zack followed quickly, scooping up the two duffle bags packed with Freddy's things along the way.
It took a good ten minutes and a whole lot of careful maneuvering, but eventually Hector and Zack managed to get Freddy into the back seat and strapped him in securely. Freddy had his casted arms resting on his thighs, legs straightened out diagonally so they didn't crunch into the back of the passenger seat. Zack stuffed one of the duffle bags under Freddy's legs, to cushion them and prop them up. The other one was wedged up to Freddy's side on the seat, to lessen the chances of him tipping over. It was, all in all, a very long and difficult process. But eventually, both Freddy and his luggage were settled, and Zack scooted into the driver's seat excitedly.
They would first have to go to the hotel they both stayed at to get all of Freddy's stuff, and somehow cram it into the car with Freddy taking up half of the backseat. Then Zack would have to stop at the hotel he stayed at during his little freak-out a week and a half ago.
It ended up taking three hours to get to the new apartment, even though it wasn't terribly far and the two hotels were literally two blocks from each other. Not only did it take forever for Zack to get all of their suitcases and instruments, but Freddy started wriggling his hips and whimpered that he had to pee, which took forty minutes in itself. Zack had to drag Freddy from the car to his wheelchair, incredibly careful of every limb on the blonde. And then, some jackass felt the need to use the handicapped stall when they clearly weren't handicapped, and just as Zack was about to suggest waiting, Freddy began to bite at his lower lip and squirmed harder, and Zack ended up leaving the wheelchair outside of one of the normal stalls, dropping Freddy onto the toilet and yanking down the blonde's pants and boxers as quickly as he could, causing the blonde to rock back and forth dangerously on the seat. But Freddy made it, and Zack was very happy when Freddy returned to his seat with an empty bladder and dry jeans.
And Zack was particularly pleased with himself when he thought to take apart one of the soap dispensers, take out the pouch of liquid soap inside, tear one side open, and throw it over the handicap stall. He pushed Freddy out of the bathroom quickly, both laughing madly when they heard a satisfying splat and the jerk inside let out a distressed 'Augh!'.
When they finally pulled into the parking deck for the apartments, Zack was exhausted from moving their luggage and Freddy was antsy from being cramped in the backseat. Eight trips up and down the elevator later, Zack collapsed just inside of the apartment door, glancing around the rather empty home. Freddy was seated across the room, looking around with a scrunched up nose.
"It's so boring in here," he complained, twisting his neck as much as possible to look at the room behind himself. Zack sighed heavily.
"That's because we never bought furniture, remember?"
Freddy's lips quirked downwards. "Oh. Right. I guess you'll have to do that…" he said, clearly disappointed. "I mean, you wouldn't be able to push around a shopping cart and me."
Zack settled his head against the wall behind him thoughtfully. "Well… we can look for stuff together on my laptop. And then I can go pick it up from the store. Or they can deliver," he suggested. Freddy's face lit up instantly, and Zack felt his stomach flutter.
"Really? Awesome! We… um, we should probably get started on that. In case you didn't see, we sort of don't have a bed. I mean, beds," he corrected quickly, eyes widening nervously. Zack stared at him, because didn't they cover this before?
Instead of telling Freddy that they'd really only need one bed, Zack clambered to his feet and walked over to the panicking blonde, who was still stuttering as he tried to correct his mistake.
Zack planted his hands on the wheelchair armrests behind Freddy's elbows, leaned down, and kissed the spluttering blonde's mouth. Freddy immediately shut up, tilting his head and sucking Zack's lower lip between his own.
Freddy made a high-pitched whining noise, and Zack immediately pulled back, jerking his hands away. "I'm sorry, did I hurt you?" he asked quickly, trying to remember if his hands bumped Freddy's arm casts.
"Wha- no! No, just… I keep going to reach for you," Freddy pouted. Zack looked instantly relieved, grinning at the sulking blonde. "Stop smirking at me, Mooneyham, and get on my damn lap."
Zack blinked. "Um, yeah, no. In case you forgot, your legs are kind of injured. I'm not sitting on them."
"My shins are injured. Sit on my thighs."
"Your legs are injured, and your thighs are part of your legs. I'm not going to-" Freddy cut him off by shooting his head forward, crashing his lips to Zack's, and sinking his teeth into the brunette's lower lip. Zack's breath hitched, and he had to catch himself on the wheelchair armrests again so he wouldn't collapse onto Freddy. When he didn't obey and climb on the blonde, Freddy growled and sunk his teeth further into Zack's poor lip. The brunette began to tremble, and after a minute of desperately trying to hold himself up on wobbly legs, Zack carefully lifted one knee and slipped it onto the chair, next to Freddy's hip. When the blonde didn't show any sign of pain, Zack placed all of his weight on that leg and raised the other one, placing it so he was seated on Freddy's lap, straddling the blonde lightly.
Freddy finally released his lip, turning the kiss into something sweeter, and slipping out his tongue to gently lick at Zack's mouth. The brunette quickly parted his lips, letting Freddy haphazardly stuff his tongue between them.
Admittedly, Zack wished Freddy could use his arms, because this moment would have been perfect if the blonde could wrap his arms around him and squash them together. But instead, Zack ran his hands up and tangled them into the blonde spikes of hair, tugging lightly.
Unfortunately, Zack knew Freddy wouldn't be safe for anything more than making out until he was a little more healed. He flushed just thinking about it, because even if Zack… did things to Freddy, there was still the risk of Freddy moving around too much and hurting himself.
Which is why, just a few minutes into their little session, Zack pulled away, pressing his lips once more to Freddy's before climbing gently off and standing in front of the disappointed blonde.
"Let's look at furniture," Zack said softly, walking around the wheelchair to stand behind it and pushing Freddy into the room that would become their bedroom.
"We are not getting a waterbed."
"But it would be so cool!"
Zack stared at Freddy blankly. "Dude, you have a serious habit of jumping on beds. You'd pop a waterbed in ten seconds flat."
The blonde scoffed. "In case you haven't noticed, I won't be doing any jumping for a while."
"Your hair will pop it," Zack pointed out seriously, pointing up to the blonde spikes held up by a gallon of super-strong gel.
"Shut up."
"We're getting a regular bed. King size, because you roll around a lot. Oh, look at this one. It's on sale, and it's one of those that has a super thick layer of foam over the springs."
Freddy craned his neck downward to look at the laptop screen on Zack's lap. The picture of the mattress and bed frame set on the website looked nice, although Freddy couldn't care less what kind of mattress or what color frame they got. He would be permanently sharing a bed with Zack, and that was good enough for him.
"Should I order it? They can deliver by six tonight," Zack said, scrolling down to double-check all of the product details. "This is the only thing we'll really need, besides stuff like toilet paper and towels and stuff. We can look for a fridge and other things tomorrow. How about we take a trip to the store, and pick out what we want, and then I'll get them to deliver it all?" he asked, glancing up at the blonde.
"You sure we don't need anything else? All that's in here is a bathroom with nothing but a toilet, a shower, and a sink. We don't have food, or entertainment, or anything like that."
"We'll order something in for lunch and dinner. And we can watch a movie on my laptop if I go to the rental box down the street. And… um, maybe we can watch a movie while we have dinner? Kind of, I mean… sort of like a date?" Zack stared down at his keyboard, face flushing a bit. It shouldn't have been so nerve wracking to say. He knew Freddy liked him, and they kissed [a whole lot during the week Freddy was stuck in the hospital] and they were practically a couple, except they never brought it up and neither boy asked the other out properly.
In fact, it was more like a friends-who-kiss scenario than we're-together-but-we-haven't-verbally-stated-that-yet thing.
"Zack." The brunette cautiously peered up through his dark bangs, giant brown eyes making him look even more like a timid puppy to Freddy. The blonde grinned. "Did you just ask me out?"
"Well, I mean, I just asked if this could be a date, and I-"
"You're such an idiot."
Zack frowned. "What?"
Freddy snickered, leaning over as much as he could and inhaling deeply, blowing out his breath sharply and tousling the very top layer of Zack's hair. Zack smacked his hairs down, swatting in the direction of Freddy to make him stop.
"Yes, Mooneyham. I'll go on a date to the other room of our apartment with you. Now, chop chop! Order the damn bed so we can cuddle." He paused, glancing down at his disabled form. "Or… well, you can cuddle on my chest while I just lay there like an awesome starfish."
Zack rolled his eyes, turning to the laptop and ordering the bed, paying a slightly higher price for immediate delivery. He entered his credit card information, and sat back contentedly when the order was placed.
"Okay, they'll be here in… four hours. Do you want to order lunch or something? Or should I go get the movie now?"
Freddy raised an eyebrow. "I can think of something even funner to do."
"That's not a word."
"And it involves us in the empty bedroom with you on my lap again and my tongue down your throat."
"Freddy, we didn't eat lunch yet."
"And if you feel like being naked, then by all means-"
"Freddy! I'm hungry, and we're not doing stuff until you're healed. Or at least, your arms are healed."
"And if you were a really nice boyfriend, you'd pull down my pants and give us both happy endings."
Zack blinked, and although Freddy didn't think he went too far, he still waited a little anxiously for Zack to respond to his blunt statement.
"Did… did you just call me your boyfriend?"
Freddy's nose scrunched. Did he? "Um… yeah? I think I did. Why?" His eyebrows suddenly scrunched downward and his lips pursed. "Am I not your boyfriend?"
Zack had to take a deep breath to stall the butterflies and stave off the head rush he suddenly felt. "I… um… are you?"
"I better be. Or else I'll kick your ass." Freddy's vicious words were absolutely killed by the fact that all four of his limbs were bandaged and he was in a wheelchair. "Um. Well, when I get all this stuff off, then I'll kick your ass."
Zack hastily stood, resting the laptop on the floor, out of the way. "You. You never asked."
"I didn't?" The blonde looked genuinely shocked, like this whole are-we aren't-we thing had long passed. "Oh. Zack, will you go out with me?"
Zack sputtered like an idiot, looking everywhere around the blank room besides the confident blonde before him. "Uh- I- I, uh. Um."
"Is that a yes?"
"Well- I mean, I- uh-"
"That's a yes. Okay, Hendrix, wheel me into the other room and rip off your clothes."
"What!"
Freddy burst into laughter, arms and fingers twitching like he wanted to clutch his stomach or slap his knee or something, and Zack felt his face heat up. He should have known that Freddy was just being a jerk. But instead of getting whiny and walking away like an overdramatic girl, Zack grabbed the wheelchair, whirled it around, and made a beeline for the bedroom. Freddy stopped laughing, tilting his head back to look up at Zack in shock.
"Woah, Zack, what are you doing? I was kidding, man… no pressure on you to do stuff you're not ready for-"
"We are going to sit here and make out and do nothing more and you will be happy or I will drop a superiorly heavy book on your shins." He closed and locked the bedroom door [which made very little sense, since the door to their apartment was locked as well, but whatever] and then swaggered over, sliding onto Freddy's lap as smoothly as possible.
"Well alrighty then," Freddy said breathily, tilting his head forward towards Zack, puffing his lips out expectantly. Zack stared at him for a moment, smiling gently. Freddy was just about to retract his mouth and ask what the problem was, when Zack surged forward and pressed their mouths together lightly.
"My answer is yes," Zack muttered against the blonde's lips.
"Hm?"
"Yes. I'll go out with you," he clarified, and it took a second for it to sink in. But then Freddy's eyes widened, and then they shut, and he pressed forward desperately, so much love behind the kiss that Zack felt his own eyes slip shut and he let himself melt.
Zack pulled away a few minutes later, before they got any tongue action in, because his stomach was seriously growling and he couldn't make out to his full potential on an empty stomach.
"How about I order pizza? That'll be easy enough to feed you," Zack said softly, pressing his forehead to Freddy's. Blonde and brunette bangs clashed between their touching heads, and it looked rather nice to Zack.
"Mm. And rent Something Borrowed."
Zack pulled back. "That's a chick flick."
"Which you have a secret weakness for and I know you're a closet girly-movie crier. I saw your suitcase. Sleeping in Seattle and Sweet Home Alabama are both in there."
"Wouldn't you rather watch a slightly less girly movie?" Zack asked. On a second thought, he added, "And shut up."
"I wanna watch something that'll make you cuddle up against me, and from the way you were after Penelope, I feel pretty confident that you'll end up on my lap."
Zack sulked, hating that his best friend knew about his secret obsession with chick flicks. And yes, even if it was the cheeriest movie ever, Zack still cuddled up with the nearest object, and sometimes bawled his eyes out. "Fine." He scrambled off of Freddy, walking over to his suitcase for his wallet and cell phone. "I'll be back in five. Will you be okay?" Freddy nodded.
"Just be quick. I get bored easily, just so you know."
Zack shot him a look. "Yes. I'm aware."
He walked off as Freddy giggled moronically behind him, using a normal pace until he closed the apartment door securely behind himself. Then he sprinted the rest of the way down the stairs, out of the apartment, and down the block where the movie box was. Although Freddy was a big boy and shouldn't be able to do anything destructive in five minutes, this was Freddy and casts or not, he was still a natural wrecking ball. Zack picked out Something Borrowed, and then also got Transformers for Freddy. He saw a Target just around the corner, and decided to dart inside, picking up toilet paper, paper towels, blankets and pillows, some snacks, water bottles, cups and plates, and all shower essentials, including bath towels. He grabbed a few other necessary items before paying quickly and running back to the apartment as fast as he could while carrying nine plastic bags and two DVD's.
His heart was thudding from both the run and fear as he opened the apartment door, terrified that something bad happened. He walked cautiously back to the bedroom, glancing inside nervously before sighing in relief.
Freddy had fallen asleep in the exact spot Zack had left him.
While the blonde napped, Zack moved to the small, bare kitchen they had [although it was really only cabinets; the fridge, oven, dishwasher and microwave would be bought tomorrow by the boys] and settled his purchases onto the counter. He tugged his cell phone from his pocket, calling the local pizzeria for a large pie and two bottles of Sprite.
Half an hour later, the buzzer rang, although it took Zack a minute to pinpoint the unfamiliar sound. He glanced around frantically, already having checked his and Freddy's cell phone. But then he realized that it was the apartment buzzer, and he grabbed cash and bolted downstairs.
Two hours later, Freddy woke up. Zack greeted him with a slice of somewhat-cold pizza and Sprite, and the two sat in their kitchen, Freddy in his wheelchair and Zack on the counter, and ate their late lunch.
Two an a half hours after that, the buzzer rang again, but this time Zack was ready and pressed the button next to the speaker.
"Yes?" he called into the small speaker, releasing the button instantly.
"Furniture delivery for Mr. Mooneyham."
Zack beamed, pressing the button again. "Okay. Be right down!" He shot Freddy an excited glance, heading out the door to let up the furniture men.
An hour after that, their bed was in place, and Zack had thrown all three of his new blankets over the naked mattress, stacking the multiple pillows he had purchased at the head. Nodding in satisfaction, he set his laptop on the foot of the new bed, slipping in Something Borrowed. He stacked up most of the pillows on one half of the bed, where Freddy would be able to recline.
Actually getting Freddy onto the bed took a few tries, because maneuvering the other teen was still difficult. But Zack managed, and helped Freddy wriggle up so he was slouching comfortably against the mound of pillows.
He made sure, for the third time, that Freddy didn't have to go to the bathroom, and then shucked his own jeans, choosing to sleep in his shirt and boxer briefs.
"Ooh, nudity!" Freddy exclaimed dramatically, watching as Zack shut the light and crawled in next to his friend.
"Shut up. This is as 'nude' as I'm getting." Zack initially sat next to Freddy against the headboard, pressing play on the movie and preparing for a peaceful night. Except, Freddy was staring at him and it was kind of really distracting. "Can I help you?"
Instead of answering, Freddy waited until Zack looked at him, and then pointedly darted his eyes from the brunette, to his own chest, back to the brunette, and then to his own chest. This continued until Zack sighed loudly, making a big fuss as he abandoned his own pillow for Freddy's chest. He curled up gently, not daring to put too much weight on any part of the blonde, and rested his head on his chest.
He was just getting into the movie when he felt something press softly on his head, and he realized with a swell of butterflies that Freddy kissed his head.
Zack curled further against Freddy, sliding his arms around the narrow stomach.
Yeah. He could spend the rest of his life like this, just like this, and he would die happy.