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XxEvilKittyxX Caliver will be back! I promise. Also, I've been getting your notifications, following my other stuff, and I was hoping beyond hope that you might eventually comment when you caught up, so thank you for that.
The Sorrowful Deity that's what you THINK!
BloodGutsandChocolatePudding Yeah, he must've felt like shit.
DampishPoet ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW!?
First off, apparently it's possible to type up a 3000 word Script assignment in 4 hours before a midnight deadline, while still slightly high for your first time (edit: no it's not. I barely passed that shit). Speaking of, trying weed was... interesting. How weird is the feeling of falling out of yourself while falling out of yourself? Very, that's the answer. Very bloody weird. Apparently delayed munchies are a thing, too?
Put some gloves on, guys...
this one's
a fucking
mess.
Just, read slowly? It's not as terrible as it all sounds. Swear.
...a day before the events in the previous chapter...
An old eighties rock album blares through the stereo. The curtains are drawn. A thin blanket is draped over the lamp on the desk, casting the walls in a dim green light. Oliver's supposed to be at the stables this morning, but instead he's in Joey Song's bedroom, sitting in Joey's lap. The bed is creaking loudly, but Joey's uncle isn't home and T. Rex's is drowning the sound anyway.
'Well you can bump and grind
It is good for your mind
Well you can twist and shout
Let it all hang out
But you won't fool the children of the revolution
No, you won't fool the children of the revolution
No, no, no...'
"You're so—"
"Shush."
"—so..."
"Shush."
Oliver covers Joey's mouth, breathless and reeling and skin on skin.
'But you won't fool the children of the revolution
No, you won't fool the children of the revolution
No way...'
After, Oliver finds a lighter and a pre-rolled joint inside his boot. He wipes sweat from his face and chest and lights up, holding the joint between his lips. He spends a while lying across Joey's chest, taking in the smoke and the music and that feeling of the world melting throughandthroughandthrough itself, then Joey makes him use a mug for an ashtray.
Ashes stick to the old goats' milk at the bottom.
"You should not smoke in here," Joey says over the music. "My uncle will go ape if he smells it."
Oliver grins. 'Ape' is something Jerry would say. He passes the blunt over politely and Joey smokes in spite of himself, then puts his head back on the pillow, his fingers trailing through Oliver's hair and catching the two tiny braids hidden inside his fringe.
Oliver shuffles off the bed and wanders around the bedroom. He sets the mug on the desk and leaves his joint balanced on top, humming and nodding his head to the beat. He goes to the window and pulls the curtains open and sunlight swallows him whole. He loves it. God. But Joey rushes up and shuts the curtains after him.
"Someone could see you! My uncle already think it's weird you spend so much time 'studying' here. What you think he do when he hears rumours of you naked in my window?"
Oliver giggles.
Annoyed, Joey goes to the stereo and turns off the music. Oliver's world goes grey in silence. He grabs his joint and smokes — Joey snatches it and puts it out with a wet thumb.
"Hey!"
"Relax. You can finish later." He puts it behind Oliver's ear for him. "Oliver, are you hearing me?"
Oliver's no good at conversation, especially like this. He tips his head back and looks up to the ceiling where Joey has an Avatar poster taped up; the movie with alien people. Oliver only got to see it at last movie night. He liked the forest, how it lit up under the Na'vi peoples' feet. Oliver likes remembering forest outside Alexandria like that, like the ground glowed wherever he stepped only he just didn't see it because it was always daytime. But Oliver felt it. He was connected to the trees. He could hear them if he listened hard enough, and they could hear him back, like music.
"I've got chores," Oliver says, pulling on his clothes.
Joey's brown epicanthic eyes follow him to the window. "You can use the door..."
Oliver looks at Joey's tanned-olive skin, his floppy, black hair all scruffy with sweat over his temples, and the plantation of red and purple marks across his throat — and registers the disappointment on Joey's face.
"Sorry," Oliver says. "I wasn't going to do this."
It was true. He wasn't. The last month had been a blur. Three main events had happened and Oliver was still having trouble making sense of it.
The first thing, he and Joey. Joey was almost a year older and over half a foot taller, shy and timid and as soft spoken as a bird. The day Oliver said goodbye to Carol, he came back for supper and sat with Joey and asked how Billy was doing. He learned that Joey moved here from Beijing and that he spoke several languages, but struggled in math, Oliver's best subject, so he offered to tutor him. Oliver was there when one of the goats died suddenly. Oliver helped him bury it. He sat there by the grave and waited for Joey to stop crying — Joey's like that, cries over goats and buries them like people, and Oliver felt mean for not feeling sad. And a few days later, Joey was getting picked on by some other kids, so Oliver stepped in and beat them up. He stole one of the kid's knives and once the kids were gone, he gave it to Joey:—"Happy birthday." "But I'm not seventeen until tomorrow." "Then consider it punctual."
Joey was crying.
"Look, Joey," Oliver told him, "you have to fight back. Even if you're not tough, they won't know. Entrambi sono idioti — they're not stupid like the walkers either, easier, these guys don't bite."
"You were so angry," Joey said.
"You've seen me angry before."
"No. I see you fight. You were not angry last time."
"How would you know?"
"You like it, fighting. That is what I know."
"I just don't like assholes."
"No. You do."
"Assholes? Yeah, got me."
"Fighting."
They laughed.
"Fine," Oliver said. "I like it, alright. I like fighting."
That night, Joey kissed him — just his cheek. Oliver shoved him away; he couldn't believe him, and Joey kept saying sorry and Oliver kept saying nothing until he said, "Shut up," and kissed him on the mouth. They kissed all evening until Joey's uncle came home and Oliver had to climb out the window.
The second event, or events, was that Oliver has been kissing a lot more people at the Kingdom. He figured it didn't matter, after Isabelle and Joey. So there was Stacey. Jillian. And Mindy, who let him put his hand in her shorts. He didn't usually go further than that. The girls will talk and laugh and then they'll go make out behind the bleachers or the stables, and there was that one time when Sean thought Oliver might've been his boyfriend, but she quickly broke up with him after she realised he was avoiding her:—"You never tell me anything about yourself, Oliver. I have no idea who you are. I'm sorry... See you around." Then there's Esme, who's like the Kingdom's resident ghost. Esme is exactly a day older that Oliver, born in a hospital with the same name (Standord Hospital) except Oliver's was in North Dakota and Esme's was in California. Esme's skin is dark, hair so big and frizzy and black people get lost in it, and they use neutral pronouns which is something Oliver had never heard of before. Esme's does things a little differently than the rest of the people Oliver's been kissing. They come to his room some nights at random to fool around with him. The first time was quite a shock for him:—"Err... hey. What's up, Esme?"
"I'm bored."
"Oh."
"Can I get in? It's cold."
"Okay..."
"...Isabelle told me about what happened in the theatre room. Sounded nice. Return the favour, yeah?"
"Oh! Err, o... okay."
"Got a raincoat?"
"W...what?"
"Condom."
"Oh. Yeah."
"Nice."
"Oh, jeez. Isn't... Isn't this gonna make things... weird between us?"
"You're making it weird. Just sit back and relax, Oliver, okay?"
"Okay..."
Esme's come by a handful more times since then. Always at night. Always 'bored'. Always whispering. The latest time, about a week ago, Oliver woke up to them sitting on his stomach, humming some nice-sounding song.
"Hey, what's up?"
"I'm bored..."
"Ez, does bored mean sad to you?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"Well... you're crying."
"Look, Oliver, do you want to do this or not?"
"Not if you're going to keep crying."
"Won't have much to cry over if you go south on me."
"Will you skip class and help me steal Ezekiel's pomegranates in the morning?"
"Like a deal? You know that's prostitution, right?"
"No, no, just something to do together."
"Why?"
"I'm petty. Plus... not all friendships have to revolve around oral."
"We're friends?"
"Guess."
"You're not falling in love with me, are you?"
"Gross. I just don't wanna become Shiva-chow. So, deal?"
"Deal."
When Oliver pulled off Esme's shirt, he noticed a big bruise on their chest. Esme asked him to try not to touch it, so he didn't. Esme's mom beat them. Oliver wasn't allowed to say anything, just like he wasn't with Ron, and this strange thought occurred to him that he might've loved Esme after all, to some extent.
"Just sit back and relax, Ez, okay?"
"Okay..."
And the next morning Esme helped Oliver steal Ezekiel's pomegranates. Esme's been back since that night, but not to fool around. Sometimes Oliver'll just wake up to them sitting at the end of his bed, reading. He'll mumble, "What's up?" and Esme will whisper back, "Nothing. Go back to sleep."
Oliver remembers where he is again.
"I'll see you," he says to Joey.
Joey looks at his feet. "Yeah."
T. Rex is coming with, in Oliver's hoodie pocket. He finds his glasses and inhaler.
"Hey, Oliver? I... I was thinking about coming out."
"Cool, man."
"Yeah, uh..." Joey takes a small breath. "I was hoping you could be there, for when I tell my uncle, I mean."
Oliver's too high for this. Last night wasn't even supposed to happen. One minute Joey was sitting at his desk, shaking his foot side-to-side, like Carl when he's concentrating, and Oliver thought about that, and he heard Joey ask, "Are you okay?" and then he was under the desk, blowing Joey's world apart. He stayed over all night, and now he was here, facing the consequences.
"Isn't your uncle kind of..."
Oliver never liked Huan, who was still mad about the goat shelter incident last month, and would give Oliver disapproving looks if he saw him hanging around his place too long. Oliver thinks of him like the human embodiment of Taotie; who, Oliver read in a Chinese mythology book, was a greedy monster that would eat anything and everything and even ate its own body, so by the time it died it was just a big hungry head.
"He'll get used to it," Joey says. "It's not like it concerns him anyway. And I mean... things have been pretty nice for the last few—"
"Joey..."
Oliver's sitting in Joey's lap on the bed. Oliver doesn't know how he got here. Joey kisses him. He tastes musky and hot like air in summer. Oliver kisses him back. He sees blue eyes in his head, but outside, they're brown.
"Shit." Oliver pulls back. "Joey. Chill, okay?"
Joey watches him.
Oliver grins, chest collapsing. "Come out, by all means, don't let me stop you. Just, you know, don't do it on account of me. I'm not worth it."
Joey looks sad at that. Oliver didn't mean it to be sad. As far as he's aware, it was the truth.
"Yes you are..." Joey touches Oliver's cheek but Oliver laughs and shakes him off. Joey frowns. "What is your problem, Oliver?"
"Nothing, man."
Joey shakes his head.
Oliver's finding it harder and harder to keep grinning.
"You always act so... so... like you don't care about anything," Joey explains, "like you don't have time to let someone close."
"You don't know me..."
"I don't. But I know you flinch when people touch you sometimes. I know you can sit and stare off into space like you've fallen out of your own body, and not even when you're high, and... I know you go and talk to that old lady, and—"
"She's not that old."
"—and I know you always come back sad. I saw you crying last time. You're so... alone."
Oliver just looks at him. He shuts his eyes, waits, then laughs and steps off him.
"You are," Joey says, voice rising. "I know you mess around and I know you have lots of friends and play like some—" He says a Chinese word Oliver doesn't understand. "—who's got everything understood, but you are pretending... like performance in theatre."
"You'd know!"
"I would!" Joey yells, then sputters out quickly like a sparkler. "I've been pretending all my life..."
Oliver ignores him. He is not a sparkler. Not anymore. He's a whole forest fire. Too furious even to speak.
"I heard you say his name while you were sleeping," Joey explains. "You said... Carl."
Oliver stops breathing. He had a nightmare last night. He's had the same nightmare almost every night for weeks now. In it, it's always snowing, and he's always doing target practice with his Thunder. Joey's there, or sometimes it's Esme instead. They'll be standing right next to him. Oliver'll look over to them and smile. He never notices him —Carl— standing in place of the target. He doesn't notice. He doesn't have time. It happens before he knows it, always. Oliver cocks his Thunder, pulls the trigger, and sends a bolt of lightning right through Carl's face...
Oliver's stomach hits the floor. His cheeks sear. Joey stands close, looking down at him. Oliver thinks of how Joey looked at him like that last night. It was Joey's first time. They were trying to be as quiet as they could, sticking to the side of the bed by the wall so it wouldn't creek so bad. Joey was nervous and once Oliver had gotten all the condomy steps out of the way, he made a math joke to break the ice and Joey laughed so hard, then settled. He looked at Oliver, close, nerves in his throat and Oliver between his knees.
"Does it hurt bad, your first time?"
"Just go slow."
"Okay..."
"R— Real slow."
Oliver'd felt that same thing he did that night with Esme, like he might have loved Joey, only it wasn't quite for sympathy but rather gratitude, this time. But he didn't tell. He just laid there, watching Joey — he shut his eyes but Oliver asked him to keep them open. Oliver wanted to look at Joey and keep on looking at him, right up until it was over.
But not now. Now Oliver wants to stop looking at anyone. Go do chores. Horses don't ask you to help them come out to their uncles. Horses don't bring up your exes. They don't cry over goats or tell you you're a fake. If anything, horses know you are already, they just have the decency not to call you out on it.
You never really stop loving your first love, he thinks, not when you fall that hard. Carl left an impact like a footprint in cement and now that it's hardened up the dent only fits one shoe. Oliver can lay dirt on top, fill the empty space, plant all the seeds he likes — hell, he can grow a garden for all the universe cares, but none will ever break through the hardness. None like Carl Grimes.
"Oliver?"
Joey's said it several times already but Oliver only snaps out of his thoughts now. Joey looks guilty, and he reaches out but Oliver jerks his shoulder away.
"I... I should not have mentioned him."
Oliver glares at him, eyes wet. Joey's cheeks are crimson but he scowls back. Oliver's never seen Joey this angry. Oliver wants him to hit him, to fight back. He hates that Joey won't fight back. He hates the way nobody does here. Not Esme with their mom, or Juni when Ray and Leviathan knocked his tooth out, or Isabelle when Oliver just walked out on her, or Ezekiel when the Saviors terrorise him even if half of his people don't know it.
And it's getting worse.
In the latest trade Oliver joined three days ago, they hadn't found enough food and Oliver became the deposit, forced in the back of a truck while a guy called Fat Joseph pointed a gun at his chest. The others had two hours to find something, and in the end found some canned goods and a bunch of syphoned gas. It was enough, and Oliver was let go with a warning — which was issued because in the wait he kept asking Fat Joseph where he got his gun from. It was a Colt Python, like Rick's. Fat Joseph said, "Why don't you mind your own business?" and Oliver said back, "Why don't you suck my nuts?" and then a guy called Simon said, "I wouldn't say that, kid. Unless you wanna end up like the last guy..." and Oliver didn't know what that meant but flipped him the finger anyway. "Think you're funny, kid?" Simon asked and Oliver asked back, "Think you look good with that weasel sitting on your face?" and then Simon put a gag in his mouth and covered his face with a sack until the others got back.
So, screw it. Yes. Oliver likes to fight. Oliver likes to make trouble where trouble is due, where all the terrible angryhurtbadsad hidden inside him can come out where it's useful, where fire can light and burnburnburn.
"You think you're special?" Oliver growls at Joey. "You think you can save me? Show me how to feel? All that bull?"
"No. I—"
"We fucked, Joey!" Oliver shouts, breathless, cheeks wet. He's sick of all this crying. "That's it!"
Joey looks defeated. "That is it. We're not doing it anymore."
"Whatever." Oliver grabs the rest of his things. "Study on your own, asshole."
He slams the door behind him.
Later that morning, Morgan finds Oliver in his room, music blaring and an empty bottle of whiskey on the carpet by his hand. Morgan switches off the music. "Oliver."
"You killed T. Rex."
"What are you doing, boy?"
Oliver looks at the bottle. "It's just goat's milk. I drank the whisky days ago."
"Why aren't you at the stables?"
Oliver shrugs.
"Productive," Morgan says. "You need to keep busy. If you got up and did chores instead of getting high with all your friends—"
"No friends."
"I thought you hung out with Joey last night."
Oliver just groans.
"Get up," Morgan says. "You're rotting your brain, son. Dammit. The doctor's waiting on you."
Oliver sits up, his glasses off kilter. "My appointment! Shit. I'm late."
"You're not going like this."
"No, no, I'm good." Oliver stands. Head rush. He grips the wall and sneezes. "Good, see?"
Morgan sighs and resits Oliver's glasses for him. "I'm gonna tell Carol about this."
Oliver snorts. "Good luck."
"Actually, I'm going up today."
"She won't talk to you."
"She talks to you."
Oliver doesn't say anything. He does that falling out of time thing again and again and—
Morgan sighs. "Come on, let's go."
-oxoxo-
In the infirmary, Oliver sits on a spinny chair. When he almost tips himself over, Morgan grabs his shoulder and apologises to the doctor. "He's a little... under the weather."
"High?"
"As a kite," Morgan admits.
Oliver laughs. The doctor makes a "Hmm," noise. Everyone knows the doctor's always thought Oliver was trouble. Gets in too many fights. "This is your new prosthesis, Oliver."
He sees the thin metal instrument tangled in leather and nylon.
"Simple body powered cable hook," the doctor is saying, to Morgan mostly. Oliver is hearing words but they aren't going in much. "It's got a moulded socket, might be a little big on him but you can tighten it, and he should grow into the rest soon enough. It's made of black carbon fibre, with a metal cable running from the centre of the harness down to the hook. The harness keeps it on and the cable makes it operate."
Oliver licks his lips. The doctor gives him more water and looks at Morgan. Oliver's sure this is a mistake, surely the prosthetic should go to someone else. But Ezekiel insisted. Ezekiel's probably only so nice to him because he's got a thing for Carol: the unattainable pomegranate, the beacon of all hidden sweetness.
Ezekiel goes to see Carol almost every day.
Oliver can tell he's turning green so he tries to focus on the prosthetic. He's told to put it on. He starts with a white sock, slipping it on over his stump so it stops a few inches before his elbow. Oliver thinks it looks silly but the doctor tells him it'll make it more comfortable.
"Here, fit your arm into the mould now." Oliver does, it's a little loose and might take some time to get used to. "Reach around and flip the harness up around your shoulders."
With difficulty, he does.
"How it works..." The doctor holds both of Oliver's arms up. "The hook is blunt, and has two parts with rubber bands at the base that keep the hook closed. Look, see, it's tight enough to hold on to my fingers but not hard enough for it to hurt. The cable works off the lever here on the side of the hook, and when you put tension on the cable, the hook is pulled open."
His arms are put down.
"Reach out, the hook opens."
Oliver reaches out, the hook opens.
"Relax, the hook closes again."
Oliver relaxes, the hook closes.
"You can also do it by putting tension on your other shoulder, and a number of other ways," the doctor says, "but you'll get the hang of it soon enough. This bit, here—" A small patch of harness over Oliver's upper arm, like a small shoulder pad. "—will prevent the cable from catching your skin."
"Cool," Oliver says. He tries out some different movements but gets tired quickly. The doctor chooses to wait until Oliver is sober to go any further. So, once the prosthesis is off and put away, Morgan takes Oliver back to their place.
"I'm gonna go see her today."
"No you are not," Morgan says.
"Wasn't a question."
"Wasn't an answer."
Oliver groans and sits on his bed. He wants to argue back but this morning with Joey was difficult enough. He realises he's crying. Oliver does this when he's high sometimes. Cries for no reason.
Morgan sighs. "What happened?"
Oliver shrugs and looks up at him. "Joey broke up with me."
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."
Oliver sniffs, shrugs, giggles, then shrugs again. "We weren't even boyfriends." He wants to stop talking before he embarrasses himself but the words keep coming. "I don't even know if I really liked him."
Morgan looks like he's thinking very hard about something while he hands Oliver a bowl. It's warm, filled with ramen. "Eat, Oliver."
He does.
"Aren't you going to give me a lecture?" he says through a mouthful.
"No. I don't think you need one. Not from me."
Oliver thinks that's an odd thing to say. Morgan's full of odd things, he thinks, slurping. Odd things and pensive glances and Aikido moves. Oliver giggles.
"Get some rest," Morgan grins; Oliver realises he said all that other stuff outside his head. "You can think about all this later. Talk, to me, or Carol, if you want to."
Oliver nods even though he doesn't mean it and makes a list in his head of all the things about Joey he thinks are weird to maybe make himself feel better. Joey covers his mouth when he talks sometimes. Joey doesn't go anywhere without a thermos dangling from his belt. Joey stirs things with the wrong end of the fork. And he makes these weird little hanging paper ornament decorations and makes Oliver put them up in his room to keep away negative spirits. Then Oliver gets to thinking about Carol, how nobody knows that he hasn't spoken to her yet. Oliver waited four days to ride out there the first time on Roan, who's grown fond of Oliver, and then he waited another four days to go again, and another, and so on. Morgan wouldn't get it. He wouldn't get it like how Ezekiel and Richard don't get it. They bring Carol food and ask to talk to her but it isn't food or talk she wants. Oliver doesn't even know what she wants. But he knows not to knock. He knows not to wait around for her to open any doors. He just leaves a book and a packet of cigarettes on the step and then he rides back to the Kingdom.
He plans to go back today to see if she's finished Nancey's Saint Clare yet — the last two times she didn't give it back. But Morgan's right. Oliver's not going anywhere until he's sober, so he finishes his ramen, and some other things he manages to find in the pantry, then finds a warm and dry place in the hallway to sleep it off.
He falls asleep thinking he was wrong before. He isn't sweet surrounded by bitter. Or if he was, he isn't anymore. He's a pomegranate left out in the sun, rotted. Not too much trouble, but a lost cause all together.
Notes
Song was Children of the Revolution by T. Rex.
Was ? that ? smut ? i ? do not ? think so ? but if ? it ? was ? screw you ? you read that too ? motherfucker ? aaaaaahhhhh. I really like both Joey and Esme.
Thanks yozza, for the prosthetic arm inspiration! Hopefully he'll get another go at it soon.
As always,
Happy reading.