Merton was nearly late the next morning, staggering into the classroom a few seconds before the bell rang. He managed to shuffle to his desk and collapse in it gracelessly. His all-night research session had not only drained him of usual his energy, it had also yielded nothing by way of a cure. He had, of course, found almost every romance Eros's Revenge had induced, and none of them ended happily. Most of the victims went mad before their goal of consummation was realized, or they committed suicide rather than try to live with the curse. It hadn't really done much for his morale.
In the seat next to him, Tommy looked just as haggard, though for different reasons. He'd been plagued by... disturbing dreams, most of which involved Merton, a leash, and a collar. After waking up from these, he hadn't dared go back to sleep. He knew he was going to have to talk to Merton soon, because he knew he'd never have dreams like this if the curse had been lifted. But what if ~Merton~ had been cured? What if the dust affected werewolves permanently? The jock managed to refrain from whimpering at the thought.
Lori, sitting on Tommy's other side, stared at her two friends and instantly knew something was up. She frowned. Had some random monster attacked last night? It figured that the one time she missed movie night - she'd had to go to her aunt's birthday party with her parents - would be the time something fun happened.
As the teacher began explaining the homework assignment, Lori scribbled a note and handed it slyly to Tommy. The tall boy looked a bit startled, seeing as how she hadn't given him a note since they'd been dating.
"Okay, spill it," Lori's neat, bubbly letters began. "What happened last night?"
The simple question was enough to throw Tommy into a panic. Was it that obvious? Did he have "I Made Out With Merton" tattooed on his forehead? Had he really been checking out his friend that blatantly? He thought he'd been pretty subtle. But even if Lori ~had~ noticed, there was no way he would admit it. He tried to calm down enough to think of a plausible lie. After a few seconds, he gave up. He was never very good at lying under pressure.
"Merton could explain it better," he wrote and handed the note back to Lori when the teacher turned to write something on the blackboard.
"Well then, give this to Merton instead of me," came the impatient response.
Tommy obediently poked Merton in the shoulder to get the goth's attention, then handed him the paper to read. His blue eyes scanned it, then glanced at Tommy and Lori, who were both watching him. Lori had that "Tell the truth or I'll hurt you" look in her eyes, but Tommy's pleading expression said all Merton needed to know. Tommy didn't want Lori to know, and that he could certainly understand. After all, having the hots for one's best friend generally didn't help score get-back-together points with one's ex-girlfriend.
"We were interrupted by a poltergeist," he wrote glibly. "It totally trashed the Lair, but we got rid of it eventually. Then we spent the rest of the night cleaning up."
Tommy held back a sigh of relief when he read it. It was a perfect explanation of why both of them were zombies today. Lori pouted. She always missed the fun supernatural experiences, but she was always there for the routine capture-the-virgin-for-human-sacrifice ones. And, much to her annoyance, was usually the virgin in question. It infuriated her to know that she'd gotten farther than both her friends - Tommy had told her so, and you only had to ~look~ at Merton to know that boy was more a virgin than Mary - but demons always picked the ~girl~ virgin to sacrifice. It was ridiculously sexist.
The morning passed slowly, each one of the trio brooding. It was a good thing that Lori was now preoccupied with the supposed poltergeist, though, because now she was definitely not paying much attention to the way Tommy and Merton kept glancing at each other and blushing six shades of red. Tommy was oddly reassured by the blushing, though, because he took it to mean that he was not the only one still cursed.
Finally the lunch bell rang, and the threesome started towards the cafeteria.
"So, what exactly was this poltergeist like?" Lori demanded. If she wasn't going to get to be there, then she'd just squeeze all the details from them this way.
Before the boys could respond, though, the PA system gave a buzz and announced, "Lori Baxter, please report to the office. You have a phone call."
Lori glared at them as if it was their fault and before she headed for the office, she said, "I'll meet you guys in the cafeteria."
When she was far enough away, both Merton and Tommy let out their breaths and exchanged a look of shared doom.
"We've got to get our stories straight," Merton said. "Otherwise, we will be in serious pain by the end of lunch."
Tommy nodded, then looked around uncomfortably. There were too many people around for him to ask the question he really needed to ask. So he grabbed Merton by the shoulder and ignored the smaller boy's startled protests as he dragged him down a more deserted hallway and into the first empty classroom he saw.
"The curse isn't gone," Tommy said without preamble.
Merton sagged, and Tommy realized he was still holding Merton's shoulder. He let go immediately, face turning crimson for the fortieth time that day.
"I know," the smaller boy said downheartedly. "I spent all night trying to find a way to cure us. No luck."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"Lori already suspects something, and if we so much as look at each other..." Tommy trailed off, his blush darkening. He didn't even want to admit to himself what catching Merton's eye did to him, much less say it aloud. He started again, asking desperately, "What are we going to do?"
Merton shrugged miserably, looking up at Tommy and meeting his eyes squarely for the first time all morning. He had meant to begin speaking, but just then it seemed to sink in that they were alone and standing closer than was really necessary. He felt a blush creep up his face and he tried to take a step back, but his feet had forgotten which way that was because he ended up even closer to Tommy. The football player looked back down at him, blushing as well, but also looking like he was about to pounce.
Merton opened his mouth to tell Tommy to back off for a second and think clearly because it was obvious that the curse was asserting itself again. Unfortunately, his mouth was also disobeying his orders; somehow his lips and Tommy's had met and -
His thought process stopped right about there, which he would've worried about if he could've worry at that moment. Instead, he was just feeling how his and Tommy's lips ~fit~ together, how strong Tommy's arms were when one wrapped around his waist and the other around his shoulder. He didn't realize they were moving until he felt the wall against his back. He also didn't notice what his hands were doing until he felt smooth soft skin with taut muscle underneath.
Tommy gasped at the hands under his shirt, breaking the kiss but not pulling away. Instead, he buried his face in the crook of Merton's neck and nibbled at the boy's pale throat, which elicited a low moan and a shudder from the goth. God, this was so wrong. Both of them knew what they were doing was exactly the opposite of what they ~should~ be doing, but the curse once ignited would not be quenched, heating their breaths and making their skin fiery to the touch. Such a hellishly exquisite burn. The only thing that could extinguish this fire was letting it burn its hottest -
The bell rang.
Merton and Tommy jerked apart, panting. For a long moment they stood staring, terrified of what they'd been doing, of what they'd almost done. Noise from the hall outside brought them down to earth rapidly.
"Oh God," Tommy said, smoothing his clothes and fighting back a panic attack. The other boy was doing likewise, and neither knew how they were going to explain their absence to Lori, much less their red and kiss-swollen lips, mussed hair, and rumpled clothes. Merton looked considerably more upset than worried, though. In fact, Tommy couldn't remember the last time Merton had looked so... pained and angry.
"We can't do this," he said harshly. "~I~ can't do this. We - we have to avoid each other, Tommy. If this is what happens when we're together ~now~, I don't want to know what we'd get up to when the curse gets worse."
"But - " Tommy began to object, looking even more panicked than before.
"I'll keep up my research. Don't come over, Tommy. I'll call you when I think I've got something," Merton said, once again not looking at his friend as he all but ran out of the room.
Tommy stood there dazedly for a few moments. Everything was happening so fast that his curse-clouded brain was having trouble keeping up, but he understood one thing: his best friend was angry at him and didn't even want to see him around anymore. That hurt. A lot.
But other students were now coming in and wondering why the most popular senior boy was in the sophomore advanced biology room. He shook himself enough to move out of the room, stop at his locker, and get to class. Merton was not there yet, so Tommy said down in his normal spot next to Lori, who glared daggers at him.
"Where ~were~ you guys?" she demanded. "When you didn't show, a bunch of juniors sat down with me and tried to ask me out."
"Sorry," Tommy said bitterly.
Lori blanched at the unexpected tone. Then she saw a familiar spiky head of hair out of the corner of her eye. She looked up in time to see Merton sit down in the last chair of the farthest row away from Tommy. It was rather ironic that both boys had identical childishly sullen looks on their faces, but she knew better than to smirk at that observation.
"What happened ~now~?" she asked, sounding exasperated. In the time that she'd known them, she'd never been less than amazed at the stupid reasons that Tommy and Merton fought. They probably liked the same girl again. That seemed to be a recurring theme, what with Lori herself and that Sloan chick. Guys were dumb when it came to stuff like that.
"Never mind," Tommy said in a toneless voice. "It isn't important."
Lori took a deep breath and reminded herself not to clobber him in the middle of class. "Obviously it is, or Merton wouldn't be sitting as far from us as is humanly possible."
"I don't want to talk about it."
That was supposed to be the end of it, but though Lori knew hints when she saw them, she rarely felt the urge to heed them. "Well, I do. You're not gonna get off the hook this time, Tommy. Tell me what's going on, maybe I can help set you two morons straight."
She waited a few moments, but it became clear the Tommy was not going to be the one to spill the beans. She muttered an insult under her breath and settled back in her desk, trying to at least look like she was paying attention to the teacher's lecture on the French Revolution. She'd talk to Merton, then. He always cracked with a few quick threats.
She'd get to the bottom of this and try and beat some sense into the two boys. They depended on one another too much to be fighting. After all, she'd never seen a more devoted pair of best friends, though at times they did a good job of hiding how much they really cared about each other. She sighed, shaking her head. She doubted she'd ever understand the idiocy of men.
She caught up to Merton after school just as he reached his hearse. He gave her a dark look as she approached, but waited for her.
"What's up with you and Tommy?" she asked bluntly. "What are you two fighting about ~this~ time?"
Merton shrugged and tried to look like he didn't care. Lori glowered at him, but he managed not to cower as he usually did. He could ~not~ tell her the real reason, and he didn't want to lie because he was fairly certain Tommy would also eventually give in and tell Lori some story about why they were fighting. And he wasn't going to talk to Tommy to get their stories straight.
"I think we just need to get out of each other's way for a while," he said, which was true enough in any case. "We've been hanging out too much lately, and we're getting on each other's nerves."
The blonde looked skeptical. "You guys have hung out a lot all year. Why would you just be getting sick of each other now?"
Merton rolled his eyes. "It's ~because~ we've been hanging out all year," he said in his 'You're being dense and I'm being too patient with you' voice. "We just need a break from each other for a few days, that's all."
"Riiiiight," Lori said, crossing her arms. "Is this about a girl?"
"No," Merton replied with a small impatient sigh. He shifted uncomfortably. "Look, I'm sorry Lori, but we've all got a ton of homework. I gotta go. I'll probably be at the Factory tomorrow night if you want to hang out or something."
The girl sighed, but decided that this wasn't getting her anywhere. "Is that chick you met online going to be there?"
"Well, she said she'd come tomorrow since it's a weekend and everything. Who knows if she'll make it," he said, opening the driver's side door. "Do you need a ride?"
"Nah, my mom is going to pick me up for a doctor's appointment," Lori said. "That's what the phone call at lunch was about."
Merton nodded absently and got in his car. Lori watched him driving away, her curiosity and frustration already gnawing at her. Well, she guessed that this was as much as she was going to learn until one or the other got over himself long enough to remember that the three of them were a team and apologized. Then maybe once all was forgiven she'd be able to wheedle whatever it was out of them. After all, wasn't she being a good sport by not resorting to dirty tactics to find out what she wanted to know?
Of course, now that she thought of it...
.
TBC...
Sorry for the short chapter! I have to study now... Feedback? Please?
In the seat next to him, Tommy looked just as haggard, though for different reasons. He'd been plagued by... disturbing dreams, most of which involved Merton, a leash, and a collar. After waking up from these, he hadn't dared go back to sleep. He knew he was going to have to talk to Merton soon, because he knew he'd never have dreams like this if the curse had been lifted. But what if ~Merton~ had been cured? What if the dust affected werewolves permanently? The jock managed to refrain from whimpering at the thought.
Lori, sitting on Tommy's other side, stared at her two friends and instantly knew something was up. She frowned. Had some random monster attacked last night? It figured that the one time she missed movie night - she'd had to go to her aunt's birthday party with her parents - would be the time something fun happened.
As the teacher began explaining the homework assignment, Lori scribbled a note and handed it slyly to Tommy. The tall boy looked a bit startled, seeing as how she hadn't given him a note since they'd been dating.
"Okay, spill it," Lori's neat, bubbly letters began. "What happened last night?"
The simple question was enough to throw Tommy into a panic. Was it that obvious? Did he have "I Made Out With Merton" tattooed on his forehead? Had he really been checking out his friend that blatantly? He thought he'd been pretty subtle. But even if Lori ~had~ noticed, there was no way he would admit it. He tried to calm down enough to think of a plausible lie. After a few seconds, he gave up. He was never very good at lying under pressure.
"Merton could explain it better," he wrote and handed the note back to Lori when the teacher turned to write something on the blackboard.
"Well then, give this to Merton instead of me," came the impatient response.
Tommy obediently poked Merton in the shoulder to get the goth's attention, then handed him the paper to read. His blue eyes scanned it, then glanced at Tommy and Lori, who were both watching him. Lori had that "Tell the truth or I'll hurt you" look in her eyes, but Tommy's pleading expression said all Merton needed to know. Tommy didn't want Lori to know, and that he could certainly understand. After all, having the hots for one's best friend generally didn't help score get-back-together points with one's ex-girlfriend.
"We were interrupted by a poltergeist," he wrote glibly. "It totally trashed the Lair, but we got rid of it eventually. Then we spent the rest of the night cleaning up."
Tommy held back a sigh of relief when he read it. It was a perfect explanation of why both of them were zombies today. Lori pouted. She always missed the fun supernatural experiences, but she was always there for the routine capture-the-virgin-for-human-sacrifice ones. And, much to her annoyance, was usually the virgin in question. It infuriated her to know that she'd gotten farther than both her friends - Tommy had told her so, and you only had to ~look~ at Merton to know that boy was more a virgin than Mary - but demons always picked the ~girl~ virgin to sacrifice. It was ridiculously sexist.
The morning passed slowly, each one of the trio brooding. It was a good thing that Lori was now preoccupied with the supposed poltergeist, though, because now she was definitely not paying much attention to the way Tommy and Merton kept glancing at each other and blushing six shades of red. Tommy was oddly reassured by the blushing, though, because he took it to mean that he was not the only one still cursed.
Finally the lunch bell rang, and the threesome started towards the cafeteria.
"So, what exactly was this poltergeist like?" Lori demanded. If she wasn't going to get to be there, then she'd just squeeze all the details from them this way.
Before the boys could respond, though, the PA system gave a buzz and announced, "Lori Baxter, please report to the office. You have a phone call."
Lori glared at them as if it was their fault and before she headed for the office, she said, "I'll meet you guys in the cafeteria."
When she was far enough away, both Merton and Tommy let out their breaths and exchanged a look of shared doom.
"We've got to get our stories straight," Merton said. "Otherwise, we will be in serious pain by the end of lunch."
Tommy nodded, then looked around uncomfortably. There were too many people around for him to ask the question he really needed to ask. So he grabbed Merton by the shoulder and ignored the smaller boy's startled protests as he dragged him down a more deserted hallway and into the first empty classroom he saw.
"The curse isn't gone," Tommy said without preamble.
Merton sagged, and Tommy realized he was still holding Merton's shoulder. He let go immediately, face turning crimson for the fortieth time that day.
"I know," the smaller boy said downheartedly. "I spent all night trying to find a way to cure us. No luck."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"Lori already suspects something, and if we so much as look at each other..." Tommy trailed off, his blush darkening. He didn't even want to admit to himself what catching Merton's eye did to him, much less say it aloud. He started again, asking desperately, "What are we going to do?"
Merton shrugged miserably, looking up at Tommy and meeting his eyes squarely for the first time all morning. He had meant to begin speaking, but just then it seemed to sink in that they were alone and standing closer than was really necessary. He felt a blush creep up his face and he tried to take a step back, but his feet had forgotten which way that was because he ended up even closer to Tommy. The football player looked back down at him, blushing as well, but also looking like he was about to pounce.
Merton opened his mouth to tell Tommy to back off for a second and think clearly because it was obvious that the curse was asserting itself again. Unfortunately, his mouth was also disobeying his orders; somehow his lips and Tommy's had met and -
His thought process stopped right about there, which he would've worried about if he could've worry at that moment. Instead, he was just feeling how his and Tommy's lips ~fit~ together, how strong Tommy's arms were when one wrapped around his waist and the other around his shoulder. He didn't realize they were moving until he felt the wall against his back. He also didn't notice what his hands were doing until he felt smooth soft skin with taut muscle underneath.
Tommy gasped at the hands under his shirt, breaking the kiss but not pulling away. Instead, he buried his face in the crook of Merton's neck and nibbled at the boy's pale throat, which elicited a low moan and a shudder from the goth. God, this was so wrong. Both of them knew what they were doing was exactly the opposite of what they ~should~ be doing, but the curse once ignited would not be quenched, heating their breaths and making their skin fiery to the touch. Such a hellishly exquisite burn. The only thing that could extinguish this fire was letting it burn its hottest -
The bell rang.
Merton and Tommy jerked apart, panting. For a long moment they stood staring, terrified of what they'd been doing, of what they'd almost done. Noise from the hall outside brought them down to earth rapidly.
"Oh God," Tommy said, smoothing his clothes and fighting back a panic attack. The other boy was doing likewise, and neither knew how they were going to explain their absence to Lori, much less their red and kiss-swollen lips, mussed hair, and rumpled clothes. Merton looked considerably more upset than worried, though. In fact, Tommy couldn't remember the last time Merton had looked so... pained and angry.
"We can't do this," he said harshly. "~I~ can't do this. We - we have to avoid each other, Tommy. If this is what happens when we're together ~now~, I don't want to know what we'd get up to when the curse gets worse."
"But - " Tommy began to object, looking even more panicked than before.
"I'll keep up my research. Don't come over, Tommy. I'll call you when I think I've got something," Merton said, once again not looking at his friend as he all but ran out of the room.
Tommy stood there dazedly for a few moments. Everything was happening so fast that his curse-clouded brain was having trouble keeping up, but he understood one thing: his best friend was angry at him and didn't even want to see him around anymore. That hurt. A lot.
But other students were now coming in and wondering why the most popular senior boy was in the sophomore advanced biology room. He shook himself enough to move out of the room, stop at his locker, and get to class. Merton was not there yet, so Tommy said down in his normal spot next to Lori, who glared daggers at him.
"Where ~were~ you guys?" she demanded. "When you didn't show, a bunch of juniors sat down with me and tried to ask me out."
"Sorry," Tommy said bitterly.
Lori blanched at the unexpected tone. Then she saw a familiar spiky head of hair out of the corner of her eye. She looked up in time to see Merton sit down in the last chair of the farthest row away from Tommy. It was rather ironic that both boys had identical childishly sullen looks on their faces, but she knew better than to smirk at that observation.
"What happened ~now~?" she asked, sounding exasperated. In the time that she'd known them, she'd never been less than amazed at the stupid reasons that Tommy and Merton fought. They probably liked the same girl again. That seemed to be a recurring theme, what with Lori herself and that Sloan chick. Guys were dumb when it came to stuff like that.
"Never mind," Tommy said in a toneless voice. "It isn't important."
Lori took a deep breath and reminded herself not to clobber him in the middle of class. "Obviously it is, or Merton wouldn't be sitting as far from us as is humanly possible."
"I don't want to talk about it."
That was supposed to be the end of it, but though Lori knew hints when she saw them, she rarely felt the urge to heed them. "Well, I do. You're not gonna get off the hook this time, Tommy. Tell me what's going on, maybe I can help set you two morons straight."
She waited a few moments, but it became clear the Tommy was not going to be the one to spill the beans. She muttered an insult under her breath and settled back in her desk, trying to at least look like she was paying attention to the teacher's lecture on the French Revolution. She'd talk to Merton, then. He always cracked with a few quick threats.
She'd get to the bottom of this and try and beat some sense into the two boys. They depended on one another too much to be fighting. After all, she'd never seen a more devoted pair of best friends, though at times they did a good job of hiding how much they really cared about each other. She sighed, shaking her head. She doubted she'd ever understand the idiocy of men.
She caught up to Merton after school just as he reached his hearse. He gave her a dark look as she approached, but waited for her.
"What's up with you and Tommy?" she asked bluntly. "What are you two fighting about ~this~ time?"
Merton shrugged and tried to look like he didn't care. Lori glowered at him, but he managed not to cower as he usually did. He could ~not~ tell her the real reason, and he didn't want to lie because he was fairly certain Tommy would also eventually give in and tell Lori some story about why they were fighting. And he wasn't going to talk to Tommy to get their stories straight.
"I think we just need to get out of each other's way for a while," he said, which was true enough in any case. "We've been hanging out too much lately, and we're getting on each other's nerves."
The blonde looked skeptical. "You guys have hung out a lot all year. Why would you just be getting sick of each other now?"
Merton rolled his eyes. "It's ~because~ we've been hanging out all year," he said in his 'You're being dense and I'm being too patient with you' voice. "We just need a break from each other for a few days, that's all."
"Riiiiight," Lori said, crossing her arms. "Is this about a girl?"
"No," Merton replied with a small impatient sigh. He shifted uncomfortably. "Look, I'm sorry Lori, but we've all got a ton of homework. I gotta go. I'll probably be at the Factory tomorrow night if you want to hang out or something."
The girl sighed, but decided that this wasn't getting her anywhere. "Is that chick you met online going to be there?"
"Well, she said she'd come tomorrow since it's a weekend and everything. Who knows if she'll make it," he said, opening the driver's side door. "Do you need a ride?"
"Nah, my mom is going to pick me up for a doctor's appointment," Lori said. "That's what the phone call at lunch was about."
Merton nodded absently and got in his car. Lori watched him driving away, her curiosity and frustration already gnawing at her. Well, she guessed that this was as much as she was going to learn until one or the other got over himself long enough to remember that the three of them were a team and apologized. Then maybe once all was forgiven she'd be able to wheedle whatever it was out of them. After all, wasn't she being a good sport by not resorting to dirty tactics to find out what she wanted to know?
Of course, now that she thought of it...
.
TBC...
Sorry for the short chapter! I have to study now... Feedback? Please?