Let's get crazy,
Talk about our big plans
Places that you're going
Places that I haven't been
Build my walls up
Concrete castle
Keep this kingdom free of hassle…
– from Down by Something Corporate

Friday – Sam stumbled through the lightly populated halls. It wasn't late after the bell had rung but it was Friday afternoon, and the lack of patience students had built up over the school week finally came out on this such a day, for they rushed to the front door like they were being chased by notably hungry lions…

It wouldn't be long before the bus would be there. Sam had already been to her locker, and now she was heading over to Casey's to see if he was still there. She turned the corner and into the corridor where his was, but stopped.

James, a jock with tawny hair in a buzz cut and light brown eyes, was standing in front of Casey, who had his back to the lockers, with two other jock buddies standing behind him… he repeatedly told Casey to "get up" and if he did, he would push him back against the lockers… hard… and if he didn't, he would pull him forwards and then push him back against the lockers… hard… so, not really much of a choice there…

Sam's eyes slipped back and forth along the two walls, where a few scattered students stood at their lockers, merely watching… they disgusted her! Narrow her eyes, she stalked up to Jim, who had just pushed Casey back again and was laughing with his two block head buddies as if it were the funniest thing ever done by man.

She tapped him lightly on the shoulder with the tip of one finger. He turned to look at her, making a slight "Huh?" sound, and she drew back her arm and crashed the balls of her hand upward against his nose.

He stumbled back and grabbed at his face. By the time Sam had her hand back next to her shoulder blood was already pouring out of it and down his chin onto his neck. She smirked, but dropped it quickly, reached out and grabbed Casey by the wrist and gave him a sharp tug to get him started walking, pulling him away from the jocks and the students who had lost interest and returned to their lockers like nothing had ever happened.

Outside, the weather was mixed. The sky had been a solid wall of clouds when the students had shown up at school that morning, but it seemed the farther the day drew on the more the sun came out…

Sam didn't let go of Casey's wrist until they were safely outside. The busses had arrived, and students were just beginning to load onto them. Casey took a step in their direction, expecting Sam to follow, but instead; she stopped him.

"Let's walk," said Sam.

"Why?" Casey questioned.

"Because I want to and I'm a spoiled brat who gets everything she wants," she said it quickly, with a clear air of joking underneath it.

"But–"

"–But what? It's not that far!"

Casey sighed. "Oh alright…"

"Told you," she chirped with a wink, and then the two set off in the direction the bus would soon be following, heading home after another successful week of hell.

"… Did you see Jim's nose, though?" Casey commented. They'd been talking the entire way, and somehow, the subject of today's beat up had worked its way into the conversation. "I've never seen anyone bleed that much like that…"

"Well, that's because it wasn't a normal bloody nose," Sam replied all-knowingly, holding her chin up, arms crossed behind her back. "I broke his nose, dear Casey."

"You broke his nose?" Casey gasped, looking at her.

"Yahuh," she nodded. "A friend taught me how to do that when I was twelve… proving that even weak little children can do it… all you gotta do is just slam the balls of her hand," she displayed. "Into somebody's nose and, poof, its broken… do it twice and you stick the bone into their brain, killing them within seconds, too."

Casey shook his head and tsk, tsked. "Why do you even know these things? Why do people tell you them?"

"Power lust," she quipped.

"Okay… so… why?"

"Why what? Why'd I break his nose?" Sam asked. Casey nodded. "He's the same kid who hit you in the head with your own camera last week, remember?"

"Oh," Casey muttered, confirming, his fingers sliding up to scarcely touch just above his ear where the lens of the camera had broken the skin.

Sam smirked. "Aw, and the beauty of it all is… I get off with a slap on the wrist for shit like this. Because I do it for you, the school turns a blind eye rather then suspension or even expulsion… guess it's because if you ever told your parents they could sue considering the assaults always take place on campus…" but she stopped talking as Casey stopped in his tracks and looked to his right. "… What?"

"My house," Casey replied, looking back at her and nudging his head in its direction.

"Oh yeah…"

Casey smiled, but fidgeted, unsure of what to do now. He opened his mouth to say whatever goodbye could come to mind, but she spoke first.

"Can I come inside?" she asked. He paused for a moment, caught by surprise. She looked around quickly, then swung her backpack off her shoulders and held it up and said the following as if it were all a very attractive offer, "We can do homework together…"

"Well, um, I guess… so…" Casey stuttered. He'd never had a girl over before… of course he didn't see Sam like he saw other girls… then again Sam wasn't like other girls.

"See, I told you," she smirked and bounced up next to him as they walked up to the door. "Spoiled brat who always gets what she wants…"

"Maybe you just know how to pick your friends," Casey shot back and began to undo the lock in the door. That's when Sam noticed his parent's car was gone… but she didn't have time to comment before the door opened and he stepped inside, waiting for her. She followed, and then he shut it behind her.

"So where are your parents?" Sam asked, taking a couple steps as she cast glances lazily around the living room. Everything was off except for, of course, the clock on top of the TV.

"Dad's at work," Casey sighed, almost like he was playing back a recorded message. "Mom's at bridge… they both wont be back until late."

"Oh…"

There was a moment of silence, in which Casey felt awkward but Sam seemed just fine, before he found his voice. "Well, my room is up there, so… follow me."

She looked back at him, and he began to move, shortly followed by her, up the stairs. He led her into his room, where she dropped her coat lazily on the floor, and began to stalk slowly around the room. She looked over his walls, studying the dozens and dozens of pictures pinned to them. Most of which were random, except the corner by his bed, where he kept his special pictures, the pictures of things he really liked about life… Soon, she found her way over there.

She looked at the most obvious cluster first, the cluster of his pictures of Delilah… one a frontal view where she stood holding school books to her chest, another a profile view where she wore a black coat and was applying lip gloss, another where she was standing in her cheerleader uniform, with all the other girls in their too, practicing some little skit, and a few more.

"… You're good," she mused. "You can make a vial slut from the very bowels of hell like Delilah look human and actually pretty; you're very good…"

Casey threw his backpack off on the bed, and then stopped to offer her a weak smile, before dropping down before it. He sat there and simply was, watching her with his big blue eyes.

Suddenly, something else caught her eyes. She looked left of Delilah's photos, on the same special wall, and posed her head to look at a cluster of pictures there… they were of her… but not just the one Casey had taken of her that day in the rain, but two others.

One was of the back of her neck, the little bump where the back bone connected with the neck bone, actually… she identified it from the day she'd defended him against Delilah for the first time, because her hair was up and she was warring a black choker, just like she had that day… and the other was from the day before Tye had beaten her up, when they'd been early for school, and sat on the steps. She had started to laugh and held a hand over her mouth, and a gust of wind had came and blown her hair behind her like wild… she remembered him taking that picture, remembered asking him why he took it, remembered the shy answer of "because I wanted to"…

All the photos were in black and white.

She turned back to him and smiled. He was blushing a little, and obviously knew she'd seen his special collections there. She strutted over and sat on the edge of his bed, only a foot or two away from him, her arms propped at her sides, and turned her head to the side to look at him. There was a draw out moment of silence, before Casey ended it.

"… You don't really want to do homework, do you?" he asked her in a very low voice.

"How did you know that?" she quipped, narrowing her eyes, lowering one brow, and smirking.

"Because you left your book bag on the couch downstairs…"

"Oh," her expression flattened again. "That would do it, huh?"

"Then what is it you do want, Sam?"

"To…" she shrugged. "Talk to you, I guess."

"About what?" he pressed, imploring her with his eyes.

She sighed uncomfortably, before shifting her position until she was facing in his direction, one leg, bent at the knee, drawn up on the bed and laid on its side in front of her, the other hanging over the edge. She remained leaning on her left arm, but her right went forward and the fingers wrapped around his hand. "Why did you put a curtain up, Casey?"

"What?" Casey whispered, his eyebrows knitting in confusion.

"You put up a curtain… over your heart… and no one can see past that certain," she paused, searching his face for understanding. There was a faint flicker of it, so she went on. "It's not right to shield your heart like that. You may think it protects you, but it doesn't. It only hurts you." Casey looked away, avoiding her and her gray glare, and his eyes grew misty as he retreated back inside himself, yet so far away… she wet her lips before going one, "You can't keep hiding your heart like that, because nothing can get through that curtain… sure, not hatred or betrayal… but not friendship or love, either." She paused again. He still didn't look back. "Do you understand, Casey?"

His eyes closed, and he didn't say anything. Sam waited, but he didn't even move. With a defeated sigh, she let go of his hand as she stood up, and turned to walk away.

"I'm sorry… I'll just leave–"

"–Don't go," his voice was so soft at first she wasn't sure if she'd really heard it at all, or if her mind had just created it… but either way, she stopped dead in her tracks. She hesitated, but turned around, and noticed that she would have forgotten her coat if she'd just left like that, anyway.

"Please stay," he went on. "I'll tell you… Okay? I'll tell you everything… just don't go away… please?" His voice was lower on that last word then any other he'd spoken. It won her over immediately. She walked back slowly, and sat down beside him, and he looked at her again, with eyes that were right here and right now, and began to spill.

He told her everything, he let words flow out of his mouth like blood from his veins, he told her all the secrets he'd always kept, all the things he swore he'd never let anyone know, swore he'd take to his grave… and minutes turned into hours but time didn't matter, forgotten, cast away, irrelevant if it ever were otherwise previously… some things shared they would both remember forever and ever, some things would be lost entirely, like sand slipping through finger tips into a breeze, never once returned… but all was shared, until darkness swarmed around them, and took them into its loving arms…

Casey heard the distinct noise of someone clearing their throat… but it sounded muffled, like one would hear things if they were just waking up from sleep and in that place half way inbetween consciousness and unconsciousness… and it was awfully dark, he couldn't see a thing… that's when he realized; he couldn't see because his eyes were closed, he was just waking up!

He opened them and, reluctantly, dragged them over in the direction of the throat cleared, dreading who might be standing there, at the end of his bed… and behold his luck! It was his mother.

Although, the situation didn't really strike him for as bad as it was until he noticed the steady breathing, way too close to be hers, and the warm something he had his arm wrapped around. He then turned his blue eyes beside him, to see Sam's body there.

Her eyelids fluttered, and prepare to open. He panicked and yanked his arm off of her, too suddenly, unable to make it look casual so that his mother wouldn't think he was doing the worst with his best friend…

He jumped to a sitting position. Sam stretched her arms out over her head, her eyes pretty much open now, before she noticed the woman at the foot of the bed. "Oh… hi, Mrs. Connor."

"Hello, Samantha," his mother snuffed, and fidgeted, uncomfortably.

"It's Sam," the girl mewed, shifting up to join Casey in sitting up, propping her arms at her sides once more. She tipped her head to its right side tiredly, resting it on her own shoulder.

"Its after 10 O'clock," Mrs. Connor had a disapproving frown on her face and her brows knitted with concern… of course, she looked like that a lot, though, so… "I figured I'd best wake you up. You're parents are probably worried, anyway…"

"Ha!" Sam let out a little laugh as she stood up off the bed, catching Casey's mother by surprise. "My parents? Yeah, right… but thanks for thinking of 'em, Mrs. C." She talked as she walked, but did stop walking to swing down and pick her coat up off the ground for a brief second, before she started stalking towards the door again, and had the coat on by the time she was at its frame. Mrs. Connor's frown only deepened when Sam had finished her little sentence (not to mention display). In the door's frame she stopped and turned around half way, so that her profile and perhaps a little more was looking back into the room. She gave a small, warm, smile and spoke softly, "B'bye, Casey… see ya Monday, 'kay?"

He nodded his head only once, a look of innocent and slight bafflement on his face… bafflement for he really had no idea what to think or feel at this moment. She smiled a little bigger, before turning her back and heading for the stairs.

Mrs. Connor just stood there, and Casey just sat there, until they heard Sam's footsteps end at the bottom of the stairs, and then the front door open and close, meaning she was out of the house and into the night, beginning her walk home, before his mother began to prep herself, and he heard his father's heavy footsteps begin up the stairs, for what he knew would be another long talk… But oh well; he'd never had this one before, anyway… The Bird And The Bees could prove interesting…