Empty Apartment: Chapter 20
Authors Note: Hey guys, hope all is going well for you this fine Thursday. So I know a couple of you were sad about the extra wait between chapters, but I promise this will be better for everyone in the long run. I also want to repeat myself about updates now being every two weeks, instead of every week. So that means the next update will be the 20th.
Anyway, this chapter will provide some more insight on what's going on with Phineas. Let me know what you guys think!
When the bell to eighth period rang Ferb still hadn't returned to math class. Phineas would be lying if he said it didn't bother him. He'd wanted the British boy back in the room the moment he'd left.
As Phineas stood up to get his things he pulled his jacket up higher on his neck. The shirt he wore that day was white and he was worried that the blood from his shoulder would soak through. He reached up to scratch his shoulder at the thought, but managed to stop a second before he did. He had to force his hand down to grab his books.
"Are you coming, Phineas?" Baljeet asked as he looked back at Phineas.
The redhead nodded as he moved to walk beside his friend. "Yeah, sorry." He smiled as he said it.
Once they had exited the room they only walked a couple of feet before Baljeet stopped. Phineas stopped too, wondering what was wrong. He felt panicked that Baljeet had seen the blood still under his fingernails.
"You have next period with Ferb, do you not?" Baljeet asked as he looked around the halls.
"Yeah." Phineas was trying to keep his face from looking nervous. Being around Ferb was the most calming thing Phineas had ever experienced. Being asked about Ferb was probably one of the most anxiety inducing.
"Does he, I do not wish to speak badly, but does he ever get into trouble there?" Baljeet asked.
Perhaps Phineas should've felt relieved that Baljeet chose to ask that question, but he didn't. He still felt like it was about him. He still felt like Baljeet was asking him why he'd slept with Ferb. Every time someone talked about Ferb he felt that way.
"No, he's pretty quiet." Phineas answered. Ferb probably talked more in art class than he did in any of the other classes they shared, but he didn't want to say that.
"Oh, I just wondered. Do you think perhaps he acts out because he is bored here? I know I enjoy school even when it is easy, but he does not seem to like it-"
"Baljeet, we're both going to be late. We can talk about it later, okay?" Phineas asked, forcing a smile on his face.
"Oh, you are right! We shall speak later. Goodbye Phineas!" He called before he turned to head to his class.
Phineas let out a sigh of relief as he headed to the bathroom. Once he got to the boys bathroom he walked in and looked around. There was only one guy inside using the urinal. Phineas didn't know him, but someone else being there bothered him.
He quickly walked to the sinks and wet his hands. The blood on his nails almost gave him a light headed feeling. He wasn't squeamish, he just felt dizzy knowing the blood was his. He had made himself bleed.
He was doing it again.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to put soap in his palms and scrub off the blood. It was fine, it would all be fine. He was breathing just fine, he wasn't going to pass out, his airway was still open.
He felt better as he rinsed his hands, all traces of blood gone. He grabbed a couple of paper towels and dried his hands before he headed to art class just as the other boy in the bathroom was approaching the sink.
He hoped Ferb would be in the room. He needed him to be there. Phineas was doing it again. He needed to calm himself down. He needed to stop before things got bad again. He wasn't too far under yet. Things were still okay.
Phineas wanted to fall to his knees and thank God when he saw a mop of green hair sitting in the seat across from his.
He walked over to the table and sat down.
"Hey, Phineas." Adyson greeted pleasantly. She'd been pleasant since The Fireside Girls had auditioned for a birthday party Monday. They were playing the party next month, and all of the girls were excited, including his girlfriend.
"Hey, Adyson," he kept his voice steady, but it felt hard to do so. It was hard not to think of all the ways he was letting down his perfect girlfriend when her best friend was sitting beside him.
Phineas then set his sights on Ferb.
The taller teen had removed his jacket and was only wearing his green t-shirt. His jacket being off was a tell that he'd been smoking. There was also the faintest smell of smoke coming off of him. Phineas knew no one else would notice.
Phineas wanted to beg Ferb to come over after school. Phineas didn't want to be alone; he also didn't want to be with anyone besides Ferb. But Phineas knew that wasn't how things worked.
Ferb wasn't his friend. He knew that without a doubt. Ferb wasn't the type that would humor him. Ferb didn't want to be close to him, and it was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to pretend that he did.
Things had been different since Ferb had come over to his house, but Ferb didn't want to be friends. No, Ferb had just started to pay more attention. Phineas didn't think anyone else had noticed, but he had. Ferb wanted something. It wasn't friendship, it wasn't sex, but whatever it was Phineas was sure Ferb wanted it from him.
That meant Phineas had to figure out what Ferb wanted and use it to make Ferb want him. That meant Phineas had to be patient.
Phineas was starting to think he didn't have time to be patient. He needed what he needed and he didn't have time to figure out how to make Ferb comply.
Phineas tried to clear his head as the boy in question looked at him with a raised brow. He might not have time to figure out what Ferb wanted from him, but he had about forty-five minutes worth of art class to get the British teen to come home with him to find it.
"You made a pretty big scene in math class," Phineas said with a smile. "How much trouble did you get into?" Phineas asked.
"Detention." Ferb said without making any form of movement. Phineas wanted to imitate his body language.
"What'd ya do now? Kids are still talking about what happened with Mrs. Clearwater." Adyson said joining the conversation.
"Caused a distraction." Ferb said without further information.
"Well, that's super informative. Thank you, Ferb," Adyson said sarcastically before she turned to Phineas. "What happened?" She demanded.
"Mr. Richardson got mad because he was reading while we were going over our tests. They disagreed about whether reading was a distraction, and Ferb got sent to the office." Phineas explained, leaving out the part about how Ferb had completely disrespected Mr. Richardson.
"Wait! Mr. Richardson sent you to the office?" Adyson asked as she turned back to Ferb. "He's, like, the most laidback teacher in the whole school. How'd you manage to piss him off?"
"Wasn't as difficult as everyone seems to think." Ferb said while he rested his head in his outstretched hand. He was bored. Phineas needed him to be interested.
Of course Phineas didn't get a chance to say anything because Miss Mulberry had clapped her hands from her spot in the middle of the room, signaling that she wanted everyone's attention.
"Okay, I hope you all came in with fresh ideas! I'm going to pass around the posters you'll be doing your project on. Those of you who already have supplies can start gluing, those of you who haven't can keep going through newspapers and magazines, or mark down where you want things to go on the poster." The woman rambled on.
Phineas hated this project. Putting down his soul on paper wasn't something he could do.
Because when it came down to it, Phineas Flynn knew he was a horrible person. He caused the people he loved trouble, he hurt the people he was supposed to love, and he did things that would make people sick to their stomachs.
This project was just another time that Phineas had to lie. He hated lying. He felt at his lowest when he did it.
He did it all the time.
Lying was the only way he could avoid hurting the people he cared about. He could never come out and tell everyone who he really was. He could never confess to what he really wanted, or how he really felt. He just had to keep pretending. He was always pretending.
When he received his white poster he was a bit surprised, he'd been so far in his head that he hadn't even noticed.
He looked down at his left hand. He had a bit of blood under his nails. He hadn't even noticed himself do it. He usually didn't.
He rubbed his nails against his jeans, hoping to get the blood off. He was lucky when it all seemed to come off.
"So, have you guys figured out what you're doing yet?" Adyson asked. She already had a Ziploc bag full of pictures she'd cut out sitting on the table.
"I'm just gonna look through magazines today." Phineas said keeping his smile bright.
"Well, I guess that's slightly more productive than the last two days," Adyson delivered dismissively. "What about you? Still don't give a rat's ass one way or the other?" Adyson asked looking at Ferb.
Ferb shrugged.
"You could always make yours about how you terrorize middle aged men." Adyson said taking a stab at Ferb for getting Mr. Richardson upset.
"Top left corner." Ferb replied sarcastically.
Phineas lightly laughed. He liked how quick witted Ferb was. There were always people like that on TV or in movies, but in real life they always seemed far and in between.
Ferb looked at him vaguely, and Phineas smiled lightly. He didn't hold Ferb's attention for long; the taller teen was soon looking down at his poster again.
Phineas was frustrated as he left the table to get magazines; Miss Mulberry had brought in dozens for the students to look through. He wanted to get Ferb's attention, but he wasn't sure how to do it. In order to get his attention he needed to know something about him. All Phineas knew was that he liked music and soccer, and was really smart. Sadly that didn't give him a lot to work with.
He grabbed a stack of magazines from the pile and took them back to his table. He laid them in the middle so that if Adyson or Ferb wanted to they could look through them. Adyson seemed like she had enough of her own pictures to get her started, but Phineas had no idea what Ferb's plan was.
He hoped Ferb wouldn't get in trouble again. He really didn't want him to leave the room.
Phineas tried to concentrate as he opened a magazine and began to flip through it. He hadn't even looked at what type of magazines he was grabbing. He was just hoping to find something that would work. He needed to find enough pictures to fill up his poster and look like it actually described him.
He heard a ripping sound and realized Ferb was ripping a picture out of a magazine. It was a magazine from a stack Ferb seemed to have brought from home. There were three magazines in total, and the one Ferb was going through seemed to be one for music.
Phineas liked music. He liked it a lot. It had sent a rush of joy through his body when he'd found out that Ferb could play guitar, and the fact that he'd said he could play more only added to the feeling.
Music was the one thing Phineas liked that he could actually be honest about, although sometimes he felt like people didn't like it when he was too into it. Phineas could spend hours playing, but no one else seemed to have that sort of attention span. Of course Ferb had played with him for a couple of hours and had seemed perfectly content.
Phineas flipped a page and saw a picture of a car.
Ferb liked cars didn't he? He'd never said so, but he didn't say a lot of things. He carried around a blowtorch in his pocket and had easily changed the oil in his father's car though. Plus his car looked pretty awesome from what Phineas could make out in the dark. So there was a good chance that Ferb liked cars.
Phineas was willing to take the risk. He didn't have much time to get Ferb's attention. "What kinds of cars do you like?" Phineas asked. He tried to sound as though he was really confident that Ferb like cars.
Ferb shrugged. Phineas could imagine him saying that he liked many cars.
Phineas held up the magazine so Ferb could look at the car.
"'S nothing special," Ferb said looking at the car. "But I'd take it for this." Phineas ripped out the page and handed it to him easily.
"What makes a car special?" Phineas asked.
"That's like asking what makes Batman better than Aquaman." Ferb said before he began cutting out the picture of the car.
Phineas took a second to think. "Hard to explain unless you know something about them, but super obvious if you do?"
"And there's always that one douchebag who disagrees." Ferb said with a nod.
"And people who talk about it like they're informed, but really aren't." Phineas added.
"And now you understand." Ferb replied.
"Ug, Boys." They both heard Adyson mutter under her breath.
Phineas smiled at her, but otherwise didn't say anything. Phineas liked Ferb even more knowing that he liked superheroes. Phineas felt like he liked Ferb more every time he learned something new about him.
It was a few seconds later that Ferb motioned to hand Phineas a picture. It was of a red Epiphone brand guitar. Phineas smiled as he accepted the picture.
The rest of the period went on like that. While Adyson was working quietly the two boys continued to pass pictures back and forth. Phineas couldn't help but feel like the stress was lifted off of his shoulders. He felt no stress in letting Ferb hand him different things. They were mostly music and soccer related, but it was more than enough to make him happy.
He also felt like he was learning more about Ferb from the project every time he took a guess on whether or not Ferb liked something.
By the time the bell rang he felt like a lot of the stress he walked into the class with was gone. He still felt like the second he returned home to his empty house he would feel the anxiety, but for the moment he felt calmer. He hoped that he said or did something that made Ferb decide he wanted to spend time with him.
He got up from his seat and began to put away the magazines. Miss Mulberry was shouting about everyone being ready to continue working the next day. Once they were put away he hurried to his locker, hoping to catch up with Ferb.