AN: Well, this is just gettting ridiculous...Don't stop. lol. Dedicated to *couch*reviewer number 5*cough* Just so you can do your homework...or some other lame excuse coupled with good timing...

AN2: I have everything but the very last chapter finished, so mucho reviews equals absurdly frequent updates. As evidenced by this being the FOURTH update today. (Seriously, though, you guys rock. Hard.)

Warnings: language

Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".

Chapter Fourteen
Under Control

"Daisy! Hey, Daze!" Tony calls after her as she starts out the class with at a group of other students whose names he doesn't know or really care to. They're unimportant. But Daisy picks up her pace, trying to avoid him, but he chases her down. His fingers reach out and wrap around her elbow, turn her around to face him, to force her to listen. He's not letting go until she does.

"I don't want to talk to you right now, Tony." Daisy sighs, jerking on her elbow a little but he doesn't release her.

"Fine. Whatever." He brushes off her dismissal with a shrug. "But this isn't about me so...five minutes?" It's phrased as a question, but he's clearly not going to take no as an answer at this point.

Daisy sighs heavily and lets him pull her out of the flow of the meandering students. Abbud shoots her a look as he passes, but she shakes her head. Might as well hear the prick out now, so she can shut him down and not have to deal with him again. "What do you want, Tony?"

"I get it. I'm the fucking bad guy, and you're all pissed at me. Fine and fucking dandy. But, Daze, no one is asking any questions. About anything. And that'd be fine if I'd been caught with some random bimbo, but, Daisy, it was Tea.

"It was Tay, and no is curious as to why, exactly, our lesbian friend was fooling around with me of all people."

Daisy opens her mouth to tell him to just shut the fuck up because she doesn't want to hear it, but he's starting to actually make sense. So she closes it again and lets him finish.

"You're supposed to be her best friend. And I know that doesn't mean all that much these days, seeing how mine just tried to trounce me and all, but, Daze..." He trails off, uncertain how to proceed without flat-out begging her to talk to Tea. He screwed up by not ending things with Michelle, by stupidly allowing his feeling, however confusing, to overrule his reason. So it's fine if they all want to hate him. It's just fucking fine. He played with fire and he burned his world to the ground, but Tea's doesn't have to go up in flames with it.

"Holy shit." Daisy says, eyes wide with incredulous disbelief. "You fucking like her. Like, like her."

"Just talk to her, Daze." Tony says backing away from her and this conversation that has, like so many thing in his life involved with Tea, spiraled rapidly out of his control.

Tea sighs as she watches the little kids playing. She's getting odd looks from the moms because she should obviously be in school and she's not. She's sitting in the park where Tony decided not to decide, and wondering what the fuck she's going to do now. She'll never really be part of the gang again, that's clear. The heavy weight of her and Tony's betrayal will hang over them all unbearably if she so much as tries. If they'd let her try. She's already punched Michelle twice so she doesn't think they'll be too incline to let her.

And she's not really too inclined to. Maybe Daisy and Abbud will take her back, though. They're two of her best friends, and she'll fucking miss them if they decide that she can't be forgiven. She reaches into her pocket for the miniature bottle she always has, but one of the moms is still eyeing her suspiciously.

"Christ." Tea sighs, leaving the bottle untouched in her jacket and standing up. She doesn't need more fucking scrutiny right now. She's doing quite enough self-examination right now; the rest of the world can go fuck itself for all she cares.

Lunch, Tony realizes as he ambles into the cafeteria, is a potentially lonely and destabilizing affair. He can't sit with his "friends" because they're not anymore. He could integrate himself into a different clique and assume command in that effortless way he just does, or construct a new group to replace the old. He could sit alone and read while he eats.

Or he could bail entirely and go get high.

That last sounds like the best plan for today. It feels too soon to start replacing his friends with strangers. So he turns around and abandons the lunchroom in favor of the boy's bathroom A little clichéd, he knows, as he lights the joint, but why not? It's a stereotype for a reason.

"I smell spliff." A familiar voice says before Chris's face pops up over the wall of Tony's stall. "Sweet! unlock the door. We can mix and match." He adds, holding up an orange prescription bottle and a water bottle that Tony sincerely doubts is filled with actual water.

A smirking smile twists his lips as he undoes the latch and Chris come in. It's almost just like old times as he takes the water bottle with one hand and passes Chris the joint with the other. He takes a long pull from the bottle and the immediate burn confirms his theory about the bottle's contents.

"Whatcha got?" Tony asks nodding towards the pills.

"Oxy." Chris grins, taking another hit. "Been flying all day, man."

Well, fuck, pain killer sound fucking fantastic at this point. His face is killing him, everything in his life has pretty much gone all to hell, and being numb like the best damn plan he's heard in a while.

"Yeah?" He holds out a hand and Chris obligingly places two little, white pills in his palm. Tony tosses them back, washes them down with the vodka, and takes a hit from the joint. The bell rings just as the chemicals start to kick in, and fuck last period, he doesn't care. Chris doesn't seem to mind the idea of ditching either, as he makes no move to leave. "You're not all pissed at me like the others, then?" The words slip out easy while he's under the influence, the smallest undercurrent of insecurity flashing across his face before he remembers to mask it.

"Nah, man." Chris smiles, half genuine and half too high to care. "It's all just fun, right? So fuck it. Fuck all of it."

"Yeah, Chris." Tony agrees, quietly happy to still have at least one friend when he thought he'd had none. "Just fuck it."