(In)Security.
A/N: I've got quite a bit written, but I don't want to post until I reach a point of no return. And there's little inspiration to be found in this fandom, after the initial burst. Ah well.
Love Buzz.
He got a ride in her car after practice. Her dad was there to pick her up, and it was freezing cold outside again, so she offered to drop him home and he accepted immediately. She sat up front with her dad, arguing over radio channels, and he sat in the middle at the back, legs spread open and seatbelt hanging ignored.
"That's Shocking Blue, Dad," she was saying. "I wanna listen to them!"
"I don't care if it's the Grateful Dead, Katie, I'm really not in the mood – "
"You sure it was Shocking Blue?" asked Freddy.
"It was," she grumbled, "until he changed the channel."
Freddy grinned. When he was younger, he never even got this far in the argument with his mother. Now – well, he couldn't remember the last time they'd sat in the car together like this. "We were on College Radio 87 day before yesterday – did you hear it?"
She turned around in her seat to face him; her dad made a disapproving sound. "We were? You should've told me! What did it say? What did we sound like?"
"So not like us. I heard the drums and I thought, dude, I can drum better than that!"
She grinned. "That's 'cause you probably can. Wasn't anything said about us?"
"I didn't really catch it – the guy was just saying something to the effect of 'local group finally making a comeback with new single' and then it was the song, and it was so crap, the transmission sucked and the bassline was – " He bit back the 'fucked' for Mr. Brown's sake, " – barely audible, the whole thing was just flying off into the sky, man – "
She looked like he'd punched her in the gut. "Was it really? I told Dewey it needed to be louder, the song wasn't grounded enough – but I heard the final mix, it seemed okay – "
"Actually I think it was the transmission," he said, and he didn't say it just to make her feel better. "I could only actually hear Zack's solo, the rest was just drowned out."
She nodded. "Why didn't you call me when it came on?"
"Honestly? I didn't think of that until the song was over."
"Glad to know I'm the first thing on your mind these days," she muttered, and he didn't say what he wanted to because her dad was right there, and she was being really stupid if she thought parents didn't hear that sort of thing.
Maybe her dad wouldn't mind, but in his experience it was perfectly okay to let your mom know you had a girlfriend – as long as you never showed any kind of affection in front of her. Or the expectation of any.
So he settled for, "Plus I knew you'd all already heard it that time last week."
"That was different – we were in the radio station then. It's totally different hearing it in your car!"
"It was Zack's car," he said, but in a low voice.
The girls' bathroom was always empty during the time they had gym; he didn't know why, but that was how it was. He'd been here before during gym class – once with Penny Hopkins, twice with Rhonda Watts, even once with Marta, three years ago – but this was the first time he'd ever been here with Katie.
Any guy walking out of the girls' bathroom after gym probably seemed to everyone else like the boy in deodorant ads who'd been accosted by a group of scantily-clad girls – the boy who emerged with crooked glasses and pink lipstick marks all over his face. Freddy understood that; he felt like that. Dazed. Confused. Katie was all over his mouth and he was thinking Led Zeppelin.
This time it was his head hitting a hard surface, his hair making odd static-y noises against the white tile. Her lips felt different today; he supposed it was lip gloss, he wasn't sure. It was all over his lips too – it felt strange, sticky. And when she kissed his neck he could still taste it – her – on his lips and he thought maybe his knees would give way.
So many layers of clothing – he'd never hated school uniform the way he did now. Blazer and pullover and shirt and tank top and his hands were scrabbling uselessly at her back but he wasn't finding any skin, and he pulled extra hard and she gasped against his neck, and it felt good and he wanted her to do it again –
"F-Freddy?" she said, and her voice was all wonky.
"Mm, yeah?" he said, and he had reached her shirt now, there could only be one layer left –
"I think gym is almost over."
"No," he said with certainty. Her breath was cooling the wet spot on his neck – it made him shiver. "We – we just got here – "
She laughed, shakily. "Not quite."
He tore one of his hands away from her back to check his watch. "Fuck," he said.
She looked at him, tousled hair and smudged lip gloss. The side of her cheek was shining. "You should go?" she said, and the worst part was that it was a question.
"I should," he agreed, but he tightened his hold on her and hoped she wouldn't leave.
Except she did. She stepped back, and he let go, and she peered out to see if there was anyone in the corridor, and he left a good five minutes before she did, so that even if anyone saw it wouldn't seem that suspicious.
Up until around seventh grade, Freddy's best – more like only – friend had been Frankie. He'd never been the kind of friend Zack was, but they hung out together and sat together and ate lunch together and Freddy just kinda assumed that all this made Frankie his best friend. And maybe it did.
He supposed it had been because Frankie was just big enough to be safe from Freddy's bursts of aggressiveness, and because he had bursts of aggressiveness himself. And together they weren't bullies, not quite, but if it had been a bigger school, and there had been a few more kids like Freddy or Frankie, they might have been.
And it didn't change just after Dewey and the band, although he was sure that's where it started. That band made them a group of friends the way nothing had so far; it made Lawrence have drumstick sword-fights with Freddy Jones, it made Frankie sit on the school steps with Michelle and Eleni, it made Summer Hathaway shut up and listen to Zack Mooneyham. It broke down all the barriers of cool and uncool that had just started to cement themselves.
If you were to ask him back in fifth grade to predict who would be fast friends in their senior year of high school, he wouldn't even have dreamed that almost-bully Frankie would be friends with giggly-girls Michelle and Eleni, or that obnoxious Freddy Jones would spend most of his time with introvert Zack Mooneyham. Or silent Katie Brown.
They stopped sitting together at the back in the summer after seventh grade, Freddy and Frankie, and it wasn't some big huge breakdown in their friendship. They didn't feel like sitting together, so they didn't. Frankie moved up a seat, and Freddy stayed there, behind Zack as always, except it seemed to mean something now because he saw Zack after school all the time at band practice. So he talked to Zack, and it was sort of easier to hang out with him, what with the band and all, and … then they were friends.
Thinking through his friendship history made him feel very deep and introspective, which he supposed Zack and Katie felt all the time, so he leaned across and blew a spit bubble in Marta's ear.
"Ewww, Freddy!" she shrieked, and almost fell off her seat.
He felt better – a little more like his usual self – when Zack looked at him and said, "I thought you'd have grown out of your ADD by now. Because, honestly, the food's coming. You just have to wait a little."
He heard his mother's voice in his mind.
"Oh, that's just low, man," he said. "As if you haven't been trying to lessen your boredom by sticking your hand up Summer's skirt."
Maybe that was a little much, he decided, as Zack jerked uncontrollably and Summer's face went redder than her red red lipstick. Summer might never wear a skirt again.
He looked innocently at the tabletop until their food arrived, and continued to look innocent as he shoved fistfuls of fries in his mouth. Cracks about his ADD days didn't usually bother him, but this one had been a little too uncalled-for, he thought. His response had been uncalled-for as well, but his mom had been ragging him all afternoon about his grades and she'd said almost exactly what Zack had said, only she hadn't meant it the way Zack had meant it, and … well, it wasn't Zack's fault that Freddy had embarrassed him.
It was the price of friendship, he decided.
They had a gig the next day, and this was their usual pre-show dinner. Saturday nights were always a good night to play; it meant you were doing well, you were in demand, and many people would pay to see you. Which meant Friday night was for celebrating that particular fact.
Katie, Dewey, and Gordon hadn't been able to make it yet – Katie had a family wedding to attend, Dewey was out with Miss Mullins, and Gordon had a date. They'd all been insulted by Gordon's excuse, even though it was exactly the same as Dewey's – they'd given Gordon the 'the band isn't your priority anymore, is it?' speech until his ears went as red as they could, and they'd smiled at Dewey and asked him how his 'courtship' was going.
Freddy had almost not wanted to come because he knew Katie wasn't coming, but then he decided he wasn't one of those asswipes who didn't have a life outside of their girlfriend's existence, and plus these guys were his friends. So he went. And pretty much destroyed any understanding he'd reached with Zack concerning Summer.
Maybe not, though; Zack did let him finish his milkshake.
Gesture of friendship, or a glass full of spitballs? Whatever. He'd give Zack the benefit of the nice boy upbringing.
… and besides, Katie probably wasn't his girlfriend. He wasn't sure.
The mood had picked up a little by the time they'd downed their burgers and fries; Michelle and Eleni, who only ever came along for dinners and groupie-duty, never band practice, started relating every scandal they'd ever heard, and Frankie sat between them like a baby whale – silent and slightly shiny-looking. Zack wanted to know who had the new Halo – apart from Gordon, obviously – and Freddy started writing down all the cheats he knew on a napkin for Leonard, who only had the first one.
"Dewey!" said Marta with a loud squeal, suddenly, launching herself out of their booth.
The girls all seemed happy to see him; the boys looked at him in horror. "You're back this early?" said Freddy.
Dewey grimaced. "Ros had some family emergency."
"Dewey, man, girls always pull that one," said Zack, and got a light smack from Summer.
"I actually did have to go that time – my uncle was really sick – "
"You woulda thought they'd grow out of it," mumbled Dewey, and slid into the booth with them. Freddy, already jammed up against the wall, felt the breath being squeezed out of his lungs.
"Well, Miss Mullins still thinks she's underage," said Summer, and they all looked at her in silence before anyone laughed, because Summer never made jokes like that.
"Underage girls are more willing than she is!" said Dewey, loudly. And then, "Not that I would know, of course."
"Dude, we're all seventeen. Feel free to share lewd sex details any time."
"Don't be sick, Freddy." That was Marta, predictably.
He leered at her and went back to his napkin.
He was the last one out because he'd been the first one in, and he heard a group of guys commenting on them on his way out. He stopped to listen, pretending to tie his shoelace, because he'd always been one to pick a fight.
"Private school brats," said one.
"Hear they're in a band."
"Oh yeah – School of Rock, isn't it? Don't quite suck."
"Rich daddies – prob'ly bought off the label they're on – "
"Nah, really, they're not that bad – drums could use some work though."
Oh, ouch.
"Saw 'em playing Rock 'N' Rollover a few weeks back – their bassist is hot, man."
Maybe this particular fight was a little beyond him. After all, the guy was entitled to his opinion – if he thought Katie was hot, he thought Katie was hot – it wasn't like he was wrong – Freddy thought Katie was hot, didn't he, and he knew he wasn't the only one but he'd never actually heard any guy say that since they'd kissed that first time –
His hands slammed down on their table. "Drums can use some work?" he snarled.
