(In)Security.



Comfortably Numb
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"How many times have I told you, Mr. Jones, you are not to wear sweaters that do not conform to the school uniform?"

"But it's cold."

"Obviously it's warm enough for everyone else. I don't see them wearing anything extra under their blazers. And I do not see why we should make an exception for you."

"They used to let me wear something warmer back in Prep."

"I would have thought you're a big boy now. Now take it off, and sit down."

He plunked himself down next to Katie in the back row, and she said, "Well, if you'd stuck to off-white, she'd have probably let you wear it."

He looked down at the bright red sweater he was wearing and shrugged. "This is better. Warmer."

"Or it would have been, if you were allowed to wear it."

He made a face at her, and Mrs. Stanton turned around from to blackboard to say, "If I have to ask you to remove your sweater one more time, Mr. Jones, I will personally take you to the principal for disciplining."

He wanted to make some crack about women being so very eager to see him naked, but Mrs. Stanton was well over sixty, and he thought a joke like that would be more embarrassing for him than her. So he shrugged out of his blazer, took off his sweater and draped it in the most conspicuous way possible behind his chair, and pulled his blazer back on.

"Stupid witch." He ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to make it stick up more.

Katie smirked. "Where's your tie, Jones?"

He grasped uselessly at the collar of his shirt. "Oh shit."

"I think you should hide, before she sends you off to Frosty."

"Do you have any idea how ironic that is?"

"One more word from you two and Ms. Frost will be hearing about this," said Mrs. Stanton, turning around yet again. She peered closely at the two hands Freddy had clutched around his neck. "What is wrong now, Mr. Jones?"

"Nothing," he said, very truthfully.

She looked pointedly at his hands.

"My neck is cold," he said by way of explanation.

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow, and somewhere near the front of the class, Zack chuckled. She turned to glare at him, and then went back to the blackboard.

It had stopped snowing by recess, so Freddy wolfed his lunch down and went outside with Zack to throw snowballs at unsuspecting girls. Nobody had the guts – or the inclination, really – to get into a full-blown snowball fight with them, so they went back inside with Freddy railing at the world in general and Zack nodding along.

"Freddy, man, you've got to stop taking everything so personally," said Frankie, in English Lit.

"Personally? I'm not taking anything personally, I'm just saying that no one stopped and threw anything back at us! We were annoying them! We were destroying their uniforms! They just ran!"

"They ran," said Michelle from the seat in front of them, "because you were annoying them. Why would they stay?"

"To stick up for themselves! To show some backbone! To do something different."

"Shh, Watson's here," hissed Summer from the front, and they all shut up. Because Watson was strict.

He had detention after school – he couldn't quite remember for what, but he knew he had it – so he got out around five o'clock. Katie was sitting outside the school steps as he came out, and he looked at her in surprise. "What're you doing here?"

"Getting bored," she said, standing up.

He didn't think it was possible she'd sit here for two hours waiting for him. "Why were you here, then?"

"My sister has a swimming gala thing at the Prep School, so I walked her there. And then I figured you'd be around here, so I came here."

He wanted to ask her why she didn't go home instead, but he thought that just might make her actually leave. "Yeah," he said. "Detention."

"As always. What was it this time?"

"Dunno …"

She laughed. He started down the steps, and she followed him. "Do you want to go somewhere?" he asked.

"Where?" she said. "Because I have to be back to get Donna at seven."

"We could go to the skatepark," he said, "but it's past five already and we'll barely get an hour there."

"Plus you're in uniform," she said.

"Crap, yeah. So that's out. We can go to my house, then. Or yours."

"Will your mom be home?"

He grinned. "Nah. She knows we don't have band practice today, so she'll still be at work."

"Your house it is, then."

His house wasn't far; it was half the reason his mother let his grandparents pay for his school tuition – it saved her pick and drop duty, when he was younger. Small house, sandwiched between two others just as squashed as his, and you wouldn't be expecting a kid from here paying the fees for Horace Green. He wasn't ashamed, he didn't want the huge townhouse Zack lived in, or Leonard's with the swimming pool in the backyard, but he did wish his mother could have shown some pride and sent him to the local public school. Out of her own pocket.

He unlocked the front door, threw his bag in the corridor. "Coke? Ice cream? Any form of alcohol?"

She laughed. "You have access to alcohol now?"

"No, but I can ask you because I know you'll refuse."

"I want a beer," she said. "Don't come upstairs until you get me a beer."

"Coke it is," he said, heading for the fridge.

She was flipping through his CDs when he came upstairs, arms laden with cans of Coke and packets of chips. "It's a Pink Floyd kinda day," she said, looking up at him.

He thought about that. "Not so much. But you can put that on, if you like."

She did. Hey You started up, but she changed it to Comfortably Numb. He sat down next to her, elbows almost touching, and unloaded the goodies onto her lap. "Here's your beer," he said, popping open a can.

She grinned. "Thanks," she said, and her fingers slipped on the condensation on the can, slightly damp hands touching his. "Dunno what I'd do without my alcohol."

"Gimme back my gimme back my gimme back my alcohol – " he chanted, grinning.

"Don't quote Nirvana while I'm listening to Pink Floyd," she admonished, and leaned back against the side of his bed.

The music wasn't loud; he felt like it took some sort of baseline presence in his mind, there but not really. It was as if there was silence in that room, silence in his mind, silence in hers. He wondered what she'd say if he put an arm around her shoulders, what she'd say if he told her he thought she was pretty.

He thought about the dark-haired guy who'd come over to talk to her after their performance last week – he wondered if he'd told her she was pretty.

He wondered if it mattered.

"Katie," he said, and he knew he was breaking the mood, "why don't you have a boyfriend?"

She turned to him with a 'huh?' look on her face. "What kind of a question is that?"

He knew he'd dug a hole for himself. He supposed he could at least jump in with dignity. With a guitar in his hand and rock in his heart. He remembered that speech. It still made sense to him. "I'm just wondering is all."

She looked at him as if he might be slightly unhinged, and then she said, "That's totally up to me, Freddy."

He knew that, he just wanted to know why she chose not to. Why she was always so available. Maybe if she was another guy's girlfriend he could substantiate, in his mind, what was so wrong with liking her, apart from the fact that she was his friend. And that they used to change in the same room after they went swimming when they were six.

"Why do you ask?" she said, and her face was turned towards him. He could feel her breath on his shoulder, his neck.

"I was just wondering," he repeated.

"I could ask you the same thing, you know," she said seriously.

"What? Why I don't have a boyfriend?"

She laughed. "Yeah. Makes sense, don't you think? If you're going to go so long without a girlfriend, why haven't you found a boyfriend yet?"

"Is this some indirect way of telling me you're gay?"

She rolled her eyes. "Wouldn't it be easier if I was," she mumbled.

"What?" he said.

"Nothing."

He let it go. He didn't want to hear about a guy, not from her.

Eventually she put her head on his shoulder. She did that, always, if they were watching a movie, if they'd had a particularly grueling jam session, or just if neither of them had anything to say. He would have thought he was special, with most girls, but he couldn't, not with her, because she would do it with anyone she happened to be sitting with.

He never really responded. Sometimes he'd scoot down a little, so that her head wouldn't lie on the bone, or he'd lean back so that her hair didn't get in his nose. But he remembered thinking about what she'd say if he put an arm around her – so he did.

And she didn't say anything.

She shifted a little, folding into him, and her side was soft and her hair smelt clean. Washed. Girl-shampoo and girl-skin. Hers was different – every girl's was different – but it was still girl-smell, and he tightened his arm around her.

If she let him do this, maybe she'd let him kiss her.

"I like you, Freddy," she said, her eyes searching out his. And it was a weird thing to say, and his heart fell, only slightly, because it was so casual, the way she said it, it didn't seem to mean anything more than the fact that she liked him. And he knew she liked him – as Freddy the boy she'd known since first grade, as Freddy the drummer, maybe just as Freddy. But … not that way. The way she was saying it now – she didn't like him that way.

"I like you too," he said, and he was being honest. And his voice sounded just like hers – normal. Real. It wasn't an admission of anything – new.

She nodded, head nestled in the crook of his shoulder – he felt it more than saw it. And he wondered what it all meant.

Because he still wanted to kiss her.


"So how are classes going, Katie?"

"Oh, they're fine. I hate World History, but everything else is fine." She smiled at his mom across the table, her social smile. It wasn't how she smiled at him.

"Freddy's list of hate is a lot longer, isn't it Freddy?" His mother looked at him over the bowl of lasagna.

"I think my list of like's as long as Katie's list of hate," he said truthfully. "Possibly shorter."

Katie grinned at him across the table, his mother smiled. He shoveled down his food. Her mother had called around six-thirty saying that she'd pick Donna up herself, and Katie could do what she liked. So she'd stayed, and they'd listened to music, and talked some, and she'd stayed within the circle of his arm for hours.

And then his mom had come home, and they were forced to go down and help her with dinner. It didn't stop him from missing the warmth of her side.

There was silence for a while, so his mom continued doing what she considered ice-breaking. "Done with SATs, Katie?"

"Almost. Taking my last one this month."

"I'm sure you're working harder than Freddy is," said his mom with a smile. He hated it when she treated him as stupider than everyone else. He knew he wasn't smart, not Summer-smart, but he didn't want his mother to say it.

"I'm sure she is," he said, with good grace. Because it wasn't Katie's fault.

"Of course I am," said Katie with a grin, and he appreciated it.

He was told to walk her home afterwards, and he didn't mind being told even though he'd been ready to do it anyway. Her house was only a few minutes away, and if they cut through the park his house opened onto it was an even shorter walk.

There was snow on the swings, wet puddles at the base of the slides. Sometimes, in the summer, they would sit down on the tyres on their way home, sometimes to talk, sometimes to play around. But now everything was wet – it wasn't at all fun to sit down in a slushy loop of rubber.

He suggested it anyway.

"Hang around here?" she said, looking around. "Why not?"

"You don't have a curfew or anything, do you?" he asked, heading for the nearest swing.

"Not these days." Her parents were famous for their curfews – there were few times of the year Katie was free to stay out late.

"No problem, then." He used the end of his scarf to brush away some of the snow, and sat down in the tyre.

"Move up." She came around the back of the swing; he tilted his head back to look at her. "We'll share."

"Oh, okay," he said, and he pushed himself forward and she sat down behind him, her back against his. He could barely feel her weight through the thickness of their jackets.

"Swing," she commanded, and he grinned. Complied.

The night air was cold on his face; he could feel his cheeks stinging, his hands freezing where he held on to the chains. Her elbows were hooked through the chains, her hands tucked in her pockets. He couldn't sit like her – there wasn't enough space.

"One of us is going to fall," she commented, as he pushed them a little higher. He heard the bars of the swing creak.

He looked down thoughtfully. "There's only snow down there. It won't hurt that much."

"That much," she said, and suddenly her hands were over his, on the chains. Warm wool on cold skin.

"You have gloves?" he said enviously.

"I'm smarter than you, remember?"

He laughed. "It doesn't matter, I'm sexier."

"You wish."

"I do, actually."

She laughed; he felt it against his back. He swung them higher, and her hands tightened around his. He could feel the cold metal biting into the inside of his palm, the warmth from her hands seeping in from the back.

"Come on, Freddy," she said after a while. "I think I should be getting home now."

"You said you didn't have curfew," he said, but he slowed the swing anyway.

"I don't. Let's not push it until I do have one, yeah?"

"Yeah…" He judged his distance from the ground and jumped off. She fell backwards on the swing with a little gasp, back hitting his side of the tyre.

He got to his feet, grabbed the tyre with both hands to stop it. Her face was just below his; she looked up at him and her eyes were bright. "You could have at least warned me!" she huffed.

Her breath sent puffs of condensation into his face. "You should have expected it," he said, and he wondered if he was close enough.

"I keep thinking you'll grow out of it," she said, but her voice was low. Distracted. He wondered if she was thinking what he was thinking. If she wanted …

She sat up, pulling her face away from him, and he closed his eyes in disappointment. He heard the swing creaking; he looked at her, and she was turning, legs pulled up against her chest, until she was facing him in the tyre and he was holding onto it as if his life depended on it.

And then she kissed him. Slowly, on the side of his mouth, as if she was going for his cheek but had caught his lips instead. He moved, turned – and then there were cold lips full against his, and the cold tyre under his hands, and her breath chuffing into his mouth. She tasted of ice, of melting snow – of warm girl if he could just get deeper.

He wanted to touch her, to put his hands on her shoulders and pull her closer, but if he let go of the tyre she would fall. So when she pulled her face away he couldn't bring her back, only wish she'd kiss him again.

He didn't know what the expression on her face was – relief, uncertainty, numbness. He remembered, suddenly, her hand on the remote of his CD player, switching the song to Comfortably Numb. He thought, only for a second, that he was being used.

He wanted to say something characteristic, something along the lines of, "Told you I was sexy," but his emotions were too close to the surface to joke with. Maybe later he'd say that to her. Not now. He couldn't, now. So he smiled at her, just slightly.

And she smiled back. Just as slightly.

And he figured it was okay.



A/N:
I understand if the structure seems a little cut-up … I planned this as a succession of scenes, initially, slotting together for a slightly long-winded one-shot. Then it became so bloody long-winded that it'll easily be ten chapters. So much for self-assessment. grin