Disclaimer: School of Rock isn't miiiiiiiiine.
ooOoo
Freddy ran outside of school as soon as it let out, followed by Katie who was not moving quite as quickly. "God, I'm glad this week is finally over."
Indeed, it had been a difficult week for them, as midterms were only a week away and all their teachers had been pounding information from the beginning of the year into their heads. Hell, it seemed as if they took their entire AP exams only halfway through the year. To be fair, they did attend one of the most prestigious private high schools in the country. He had a brutal amount of homework to get done over the weekend, and they had a gig to play on Saturday night, too.
Katie grinned. "I'm guessing you don't want to study tonight."
"You guessed right. Can't I have just one night to relax?"
"Sure. What do you want to do tonight?"
He shrugged. "I'm not really in the mood to do anything. You want to just hang out? At my house?"
She looked relieved. "Good, I'm not up anything either. Maybe we can go somewhere for dinner?"
"Yeah, okay. Let's go."
They walked to their cars, and Katie followed Freddy to his house. Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in his room, an AC/DC song playing softly from his stereo. Freddy was lying on his bed, and Katie was sitting at the end of it, her back leaning on the wall that was adjacent to it, her legs stretched out so they were on top of his. Their eyes were closed; both of them exhausted from their trying day. They were both on the verge of falling asleep, and Katie sleepily pushed Freddy closer to the edge of the bed to give her enough room to lie down next to him. Both of them were asleep in under a minute.
An hour later, Freddy awoke to find Katie's arm on his chest, her leg on top of his. His breathing hitched; she had never been so close to him, and he could feel her warm breath on his neck. She stirred, and slowly blinked her eyes open. They widened at their close proximity to him, and she turned her head to look up at his face, presumably to see if he was awake. Upon finding his eyes open and looking at her, a deep flush spread on her cheeks. She immediately removed her hand from his chest and tried to disentangle her leg from his, but Freddy wouldn't budge. Katie looked up at his face to find that he looked amused, of all things. "What's with the blushing, Posh?"
She gaped at him. "You mean to tell me that this," she gestured between them, "isn't awkward at all?"
"What's awkward? Come on, Brown, we've been best friends for over six years and known each other since we were five years old. I think we know each other well enough not to be embarrassed. It's not as if we did anything."
Katie looked at him, a strange expression on her face before she nodded and slowly settled back next to him and relaxed. They lay that way for a few minutes before Katie broke the silence. "Why don't you have a girlfriend, Freddy?"
He shrugged, looking up at the ceiling. "I don't know. Why?"
"I was just wondering."
He nodded. "What about you? Why no boyfriend?"
She sighed. "I don't know either."
Freddy suddenly sat up. "Come on, I feel like going somewhere."
Katie followed him off the bed, feeling restless herself. She looked up at him and burst out laughing. One side of his hair was plastered to the side of his head (the side he had slept on), while on the other side, the hair was completely normal. He immediately looked in the mirror and furiously combed his fingers through his hair, returning it to its normal state. He glared at her. "Oh, like yours is any better."
She immediately stopped laughing and ran her fingers through her own hair. She looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, I liked your hair pre-Dewey."
He gave her a skeptical look before rearranging his hair so it was parted and the side and lay flat on his head. "Like this? Seriously?"
She nodded. "You look like a little kid."
Indeed, the hairstyle made his brown eyes look wider, more innocent, though she doubted the word innocent could have ever been used to describe Freddy Jones.
He looked at himself in the mirror before shaking his head and messing up his hair roughly. "Let's go."
Five minutes later, they were in Freddy's car, trying to decide where to go for dinner. They finally settled on Chinese, and Freddy drove to the restaurant. They got a huge amount of food, as the only thing Freddy liked more than drumming and writing was eating. Katie was secretly jealous. What he ate in a single meal was more than she ate in an entire day and yet he still managed to keep his skinny form without doing even the least bit of exercise (besides drumming, of course, but that didn't count).
They got the food as take-out and Freddy drove back to his house. They sat across from each other at the table in the kitchen, and began to eat.
Katie finished before Freddy and rested her head on her hand. She sighed. "I'm going to miss this place when we leave for college."
He looked up from his food, which he had been shoving into his mouth. "Yeah? I'm glad we're getting out."
Her face took on a wounded expression. "You won't miss me?"
He laughed. "I think you're the only thing I'll miss, Brown."
"And the band?"
"Well, yeah, them too."
She suddenly looked serious. "Promise me we'll stay in touch, Freddy."
Freddy smiled softly. "Of course."
Katie returned his smile, and then stood up and stretched before clearing her side of the table. "Let's watch TV."
He shoveled the last of his food into his mouth before joining her at the wastebasket. "Okay."
They sat on the couch in front of the TV and Freddy started flipping channels. After a while of this, she leaned into his side and yawned. "We're so lame."
He grinned. "Aren't we? We should be at a party on a Friday night, getting wasted, not sitting at home watching whatever the hell we're watching."
She suddenly grew serious. "Hey, do you…do you remember last year? When all you did was get wasted?"
He stiffened. "Yeah. You…you know I'm over that now, right?"
He felt her nod against his shoulder. "I know you are, Freddy. But we've never really talked about it before. I…I was so scared for you, did you know that? I didn't know what to do to stop you, until you somehow came to your senses on your own. I was ready to intervene when you did that."
Freddy swallowed. "I never told you how that happened, did I? How I stopped on my own?"
She shook her head. "No. How?"
He looked down at his lap. "It was after band practice one day. You were…crying, and you rarely ever cry, and then Zack came over to see why. All I could hear was 'Freddy' and 'drinking', and I knew I had to stop. We've been friends for so long, classmates for even longer, and all I could think was that I'd never seen you that upset in my life, and that I was the cause of it."
She sat up. "Freddy…"
He looked up at her, his dark gaze suddenly intense. "I…I wanted you to know. And I'm so sorry. More than you could possibly imagine. For putting you through that. For making you cry."
Katie was not an overly emotional person, in fact, she couldn't remember a time in her teenage life when she had spilled tears twice in one week, but she could feel tears welling in her eyes. She looked at her lap, willing the tears to go away, but when she looked up at Freddy again, the tears spilled over onto her cheeks and she began crying. She slowly wrapped her arms around him, and she felt his own encircle her waist. Her face was pressed to his neck and she was in an awkward position, halfway in his lap. Freddy gently pulled her up so she was totally in his lap and tightened his arms around her. "You have no idea how much you mean to me, Freddy. My biggest fear was that you'd somehow hurt yourself or…be killed while you were drunk, or that you'd drive drunk, and that I could have prevented it, had I done something."
"What? Kates, please…please don't feel guilty! I…please, Katie…that's the last thing you should think…it was such a difficult situation, and I would have struggled with the same thing if our roles had been reversed."
She shook her head, still not believing him. "I've wanted to talk to you about this for a while, actually."
He gently stroked her hair, and then turned his head to kiss her temple. "I'm sorry. You don't have to hide anything from me- you know that, right? Why'd you wait so long if it was bothering you this much?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I was scared, I guess."
He frowned, obviously not satisfied with her answer, but didn't say anything.
"Let's go outside."
"Freddy, it's freezing."
He stood up and held out his hand. "Let's go, Brown. I'll keep you warm." He raised an eyebrow suggestively.
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Fine, let's go."
Once outside, they linked arms almost immediately, and walked towards the park. As they walked, Freddy couldn't help but look at his companion. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold and she had a small smile on her lips. Her dark hair was flying around her face in the wind and Freddy was captivated. It had killed him when she had cried earlier- to know that he had caused that to happen- again- made his stomach clench in guilt. He resolved to make sure she would never be so unhappy again.
Unbeknownst to him, Katie was having similar thoughts. She was still struggling with her guilt- that she had not somehow helped Freddy while he had been drinking- and she was wringing her hands together, something she always did while nervous. She looked up at Freddy, but he was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn't notice.
His mouth was curved into a frown, his brow wrinkled. His hair was whipping across his face, but he wasn't paying attention. Her gaze shifted to his eyes, and she was startled to find him looking at her. Coffee met chocolate in a heated gaze and both felt their respective feelings of guilt fade away. They both suddenly knew that they had nothing to hide from one another and they had no reason to linger over past events. They stopped walking simultaneously and just stared.
The next thing Freddy knew, a pair of soft, warm lips was on his, and he instinctively closed his eyes. He now hesitantly opened them to see that it was really Katie kissing him, and felt her begin to pull back, obviously not encouraged by his lack of response. Freddy quickly placed his arms around her waist and kissed her back. It had been an awkward first kiss; their teeth had clanked together when Katie had surprised him and their lips had mashed together awkwardly, but neither of them would have changed it for the world. This kiss, however, was slow and deliberate, their lips moving languidly against one another's, and Katie felt her knees weakening.
Freddy broke the kiss, and began to lightly kiss her eyelids, her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, before softly placing his lips on hers again. Her arms tightened around his neck and he closed the distance between them. Freddy pulled away slightly and touched his forehead against hers. They were looking at each other now, both of them breathing heavily. Katie opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything, Freddy was kissing her again and her brain abruptly shut down. A lack of oxygen forced them to break the kiss, and Katie placed her head on Freddy's shoulder. He held her tightly, and she kissed his cheek softly before pulling back to look at him. Freddy exhaled loudly. "This…things are different now, aren't they?"
"I'd say so, Freddy. Is it…is it a…good different?"
He swallowed. "I think so…I think it's a really good different."
She smiled at him. "Me too."
He smiled back, before smirking deviously. "I always knew you were hot for me, Brown."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're the one who couldn't keep your hands off me, as I recall."
Freddy grinned and kissed her forehead. "I think this is going to be an excellent different."
Katie grinned back and moved her face closer to his. "Shut up and kiss me, Jones."
The End
Thank you so much to everyone that reviewed! This was my first fanfiction and I'm so glad it got so many positive responses. Look for a new story soon (if I can get over my writer's block)!