I don't own Calvin and Hobbes. I don't own SLC Punk.

Thank'ee all ye reviewers. I loooove you!

BTW: Banana Peel – Sure, you can do what you like, as long as you give me the credit.

Wishes Don't Come True

Chapter Nine

Nothing.
Miles of nothing, just space.
You could fall in and never come out.

Aria? What the hell?

"Aria?" Susie is stepping towards her, carefully and such.

What in the world would make Aria cry like this? She's the tough as nails bitch that everyone admires as much as they fucking want to kick her ass. Why is she crying, then?

"Get the hell away! Suzz, you're just some nosy bitch that I don't want near me, not for even a second." Her voice sounds cracked and sore, and it hurts my own throat to hear it.

And I've got a hunch. It's not an amazingly insightful hunch, but as hunches go, I like it.

"It's her, isn't it? Mim?"

"Mim can go and suck my fucking cock for all I care! Get the hell outta here, Calvin, you little shit." Her words are crude, like always. I never expected otherwise, really. Not from Aria. But this is like super crude. It seems I was right, and I don't know whether or not I'm glad about it.

Susie shoots me a confused glance. "What are you talking about, Calvin?"

Suddenly Aria's out of the woods, and she's knocked me off my feet. "You shut up, Calvin! You little shit, just shut up, shut up, shut up." She's punching my face, and I have more proof how fucking tough she's tried to make herself. I suppose her theory was if you're strong on the outside, you must be strong on the inside.

I manage to push her off me, the blood spilling into my mouth, through my lips. Instead of helping me up, and asking if I'm okay like a good friend would, Susie's straddling Aria's hips, punching her like there's not tomorrow. "You don't fucking touch him, bitch. You. Don't. Touch. Calvin." I see red, and I think oh shit.

"Stop, Susie!" I'm pulling her away, even though my leg is sore from the fall. The two of us fall away from Aria, breathing hard. I don't even notice that my arms are around her, and that she's sitting in my lap. I just watch Aria, the tough as nails girl, the feminist bitch, the hardcore Goth who is rumored to be a moshing queen.

She's sobbing into her hands.

"Mim. She . . . she said she loved me. I really thought she did." Aria slams her fists against the grass, and she looks like a child throwing a tantrum. The tears are like black streams down her cheek, and whenever she runs an arm across her face her black, heavy eyeliner smears all the more. She also looks the saddest I've ever seen her, and she's been her nearly as long as I have. "And then she goes off and fucks that sick bastard. He hits her, you know. He used to, when they were going out. And then the two of them broke up when he found himself another girl. And then she came to me, and I thought she was mine. Mine, y'know, the one person that really liked the bitch I am, the fucking dyke I am."

Susie's mouth is open in shock, I can tell, even from behind. "You're gay? Mim's gay?" I squeeze her midriff soundly, trying to get through to her that this isn't the time for these kinds of comments.

But Aria's too enveloped in her own grief to care. "I found her fucking him! In our bed, no less!"

I pull Susie off me gently, and I approach Aria. She's a like rabid dog you've got to be careful with, in case she bites you. "Aria," I coo. She's still sobbing, not completely playing attention to me. As I place my arms around her shoulders, I hear her breath hitch.

"Calvin?"

"Shh," I hiss quietly, patting her on the back as I do so. "It's okay. If Mim did this to you, she isn't worth your tears."

Instead of answering, she sinks into me, and I feel so motherly. With Susie behind us, I hold her until her sobs are merely sniffles.

Ever since that day it changed from Susie and I, to Susie, Aria and I. Now I could badger both Aria and Susie for their black clothing and hair, and their thick frowns.

It was good. The Goths looked at Susie and Aria like a Catholic priest would look at a devil worshipper that had gone to his church as a child. But it was good.

"You know, why aren't you guys going out by now?" The three of us are lying on our backs on the grass, like we do too much of the time. The heavens are completely gray, thanks to the clouds that are teeming in the sky. No clouds to argue over today.

So instead, Aria has decided to harangue us.

"Whatcha mean, together?" Susie sticks her tongue out in her general direction. Then, she grips my hand in hers and hold it up so Aria can see. "Are we together now?"

"Don't get fucking smart with me, Suzz." She kicks Susie in the shin and pouts. I know she's pouting by the low squeak she lets out. It her Pout Noise, and we constantly tease her about it, which only causes her to pout some more.

You see, the tough as nails act she put on was merely that in the end, an act. Growing up—or at least spending eleven years—with an alcoholic and quasi-abusive father doesn't make you prom queen, soccer kid, normal consumer clone material, you know? So she put on the act of being tough, but she, like everyone else thought tough exterior means hard interior.

I guess she's finally figuring out its not quite so.

I mean, look at me. I'm the weakest shit you've ever seen, but shoot me a friendly glance, and I'll be scaring you off with my evil eye in a second. I don't like people getting in. Which was one of the most surprising things about this whole friendship I have with these two girls. I let them in. After years and years of crying and hardening, I let them in.

I hope to fucking god, they cut their nails. Stupid cat women, those two.

"Why don't we leave?" Aria's speaking up again, but her voice is no longer light, and teasing. She's dead serious, and Susie and I don't even need to glance at each other to know it's a sitting moment, not a lying down moment.

"Where would we go?" Susie asks, the voice of reason, as always.

"Who cares?" I ask suddenly, jumping up. "This place is eating at us! I've been here years and years and years and I simply want to die just so I can get away!" The two girls look up at me in surprise. I don't think they've seen me this energetic before.

"Let's do it, then." It's a whisper, but it feels like more. Like a promise, of sorts. Susie looks right at me as she says so, and I remember back to the first time I saw her in Ireland. She walked in, all bitch and black on the outside, but soft and lost on the outside. Her hair so black, and but on the inside she's as pink and red as the rest of us, with our organs and such.

Was it that moment I secretly realized how my mortal enemy had become so beautiful despite the weights she placed down on herself? Or maybe she's like this because of the shit she became. I don't know. All I know is that at this moment, I wanted to pull her lips to mine more than anything else.

But I didn't. Because despite the shit Aria gives us about how much we secretly want each other and probably sneak away just to make out (or make love, depending on how many curses she feels like using that day), I would never dare. Susie is my best friend, and if I were to kiss her, I have a strong hunch it would all fall apart.

My hunch worked pretty well last time, didn't it?

"Seriously?" Aria squeals, sitting up at least. Her eyes are wide and excited as she gazes at Susie.

She shrugs nonchalantly in response. "Why not? It's not like we're not smart enough. We have a little misunderstood genius in our midst, after all." She elbows me light, and I blow her a raspberry back. Cause and effect.

Aria grins, her little Cheshire cat grin, the one that makes me feel unsure about this whole plan right away. This is the grin she puts on when she's going to try and shove drugs and alcohol down my throat, or something. It's not a good omen grin. Quite the opposite. It's a something wicked this way comes grin.

Shit.

Yes, yes, I knowith. No update in a while, and then a shorty chapter. Sorry, but I've gotten taken with Two Swans and Flipped.