Title: Pavlov 10/?
Author: Faith Harris
Summary: Gary and Jimmy spend the rest of Halloween together.
Ship: GaryXJimmy, mentions of JimmyXZoe
A/N: Okay, two things. One, for all of those wanting the fifth part to this story, it can be found here: .#cutid1 . It was written as a part on its own because it's fairly graphic sexually, and I wasn't going to post it here (This part also gets fairly up there in the rating, but nothing graphic occurs). Secondly, this part demanded particularly massive and painstaking editing from my Beta Amasaglajax. So Much Love and Much Thanks to her. But mostly love.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't beat the ever-loving crap out of you."
Gary stood at the bottom of the steps, carrying a small duffel bag, looking as if he'd been watching me all night and laughing. Which, hell, maybe he had. Maybe he hadn't, and that was just the same smug expression he always wore. I couldn't tell anymore, because I was too busy figuring out whether I was relieved to see him, or if it was the last straw.
What I could process, though, was that Gary was dressed…normally. It was one of those strange moments where the least important thing was suddenly the only thing that I noticed. The fact that he was dressed in an oversized gray hooded sweatshirt and baggy, torn jeans was definitely the most bizarre thing to focus on, but it was safer than the complicated shit that was going through my head.
"Well?" I finally bit out, clenching my fists at my side.
"Well, well, aren't we in a pissy mood on this fine All Hallow's Eve," Gary taunted. He moseyed up the steps—yeah, he fucking moseyed—holding out his plastic bag for me to take. I didn't. "Now, I biked all the way from town to see you, Jimmy-boy, the least you can do is take my bags."
I stared at him, trying to read his facial expression. It was all smiles and smartassery, not telling me anything that I wanted or needed to, know. "Why are you here, Gary? And for once in your life, try not to feed me a load of crap."
Gary held out the bag for a few seconds longer before resting it on the top step. He sat down on the stone railing, crossing his arms over his chest. "Are you deaf, Hopkins? I could have sworn that I answered that one. I'm here to see you. You've visited me over a dozen times, I don't see why you're having a little girly fit when I come see you. I mean seriously, you're starting to sound like Pete or something."
Petey. The visit. "He went and saw you."
"Why, yes, I seem to recall something like that," Gary drawled sarcastically. "Yup, a skinny little twerp showed up during visiting hours. Sounds like him." I narrowed my eyes at him, taking a step forward. He raised his hands as if surrendering. "Calm down, Hopkins. Yeah, I saw Petey. Your point?"
"My point?" I exploded. "My point?"
Gary raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed with the fact that I was sick of his bullshit. "Yes, your point. You do have one, I assume. You're not really prone to rambling on. You're not actually prone to any amount of extended conversation. You should learn better people skills, James." Again, like back at Volts, he said my name with this insulting quality to it. As if I should have been ashamed that my name was James.
"My point is that you should be back at Volts right now!" I snapped back at him. He didn't even flinch, the little fucker. Of course, the only person who didn't flinch when I yelled at them was the one person I wished would. Then again, hadn't I deluded myself into thinking that was the reason I enjoyed being around him? I had to learn to make up my mind when it came to Gary.
I'd get on that as soon as he stopped yanking me around.
"I fucking show up at Volts, and you've escaped-"
"I was released. Clean bill of health and a fresh bottle of pills."
Yeah, I knew that was the case, technically, but I knew as well as Gary did that he lied and manipulated his way out of there. "—and I'm standing there like a fucking ass. And it was your fault, just like everything else that's happening to me tonight!" I moved in and grabbed him by his sweatshirt, jerking him out of his seat slightly. I shook him. "I oughta fucking kill you!"
He was shaking now. Unfortunately, he started to shake because he was trying to hold in his laughter. Made me want to haul back and punch him in the mouth. "I made you look like an ass? Ever think you do that every time you wake up in the morning? And while I think it's sweet your life revolves around me, I do, I'd love to know exactly why you think it was my fault that your life's gone tits up?"
I yanked him up completely and shoved him against the door of the dormitory. He winced—finally, some reaction besides his goddamn smugness—when his back hit the door. "It's your fault that Zoë's pissed off at me. It's your fault that I'm probably going to end up killing Petey this week. It's your fucking fault that within twenty-four hours, the whole school is going to think that you and I are having some sort of dime story love affair, and it is your fault that I had to spend the night as Beatrice fucking Trudeau's date!"
Gary didn't even try to hold back his amusement then, slouching against the door as he cracked up. He held his stomach as he doubled over with laughter. "Beatrice Trudeau? Beatrice 'I think my chem notes are actually secretly coded messages from my true love' Trudeau? You went on a date with that freakette?"
"It's not fucking funny," I grumbled, taking a step back from him and turning away.
He kept chortling. "Wait, wait, wait, do you mean a real date, in person? Or, or did she make you act it out with her Barbie dolls? Little Ken doll Jimmy walking down the aisle with Skipper Trudeau, while Beatrice's precious teddy bear officiates."
"Shut up, Gary, it's not fucking funny." In spite of myself, the corners of my mouth twitched.
"No, I've got it." He walked over to where I stood, resting his hands on his thighs as he leaned forward to look at me at eye level. "She wrote you some hearts and flowers poetry, about chemical reactions and anatomy class, and after so much time at Happy Volts, you finally caved in and went completely batshit."
I clenched my jaw to keep from laughing, but I was still able to spit out another, "It's not funny."
Gary held his hands up to his heart. "Did you swoon when she told you about how she imagined adding electrons to your ion, Jimmy? Or was it all the talk about dissecting your sphincter?"
I couldn't help it. I bit my lip, but I was still laughing, shaking my head as I looked anywhere but at Gary. "You're a dick."
"And you're a mongoloid ginger dwarf," he quipped, standing up straight and fixing his sweatshirt. But his smirk was back, instead of the laughter. "Now, Jimmy, why exactly am I to blame for your killer date?" I was about to answer, when he raised a hand to stop me. "Actually, not yet. I've got the feeling that this is a story, and frankly, a good story needs refreshments and an interesting setting. And I've got just the place."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "And where's this place, huh?" If he said my bedroom, I was going to actually murder him.
Gary grinned. "It's a surprise."
"Oh, fuck that." I'd followed Gary without knowing where he was going before, and that ended up with me up against Russell. Never again. "You tell me where we're going, and then I'll consider it."
Gary had already picked up his duffel bag and started walking down the steps. "What, are you chickening out on me, Jimmy? After all we've been through?"
My legs started to move before my brain could tell them to stop. He was forgetting that everything we'd been through would be a perfectly legitimate excuse to ditch him. Then again, Gary had never let things like logic and reality hold him back. "I'm not chickening out. I just don't trust you."
"Ah, very good." Gary looked at me as I caught up and walked beside him. "Trusting me would be a ridiculously dimwitted endeavor, even for you." He looked me up and down. "Nice costume, by the way."
"It was a present."
"Whoever got it has excellent taste."
"At least I'm wearing a costume."
"Oh, but Jimmy-boy, I am wearing a costume."
I raised my eyebrow at him warily. "Who the fuck are you supposed to be?"
"I'm you, Hopkins. I tried looking for a suitable mask, but nothing was horrifying enough to work. So, I had to go as a more attractive you, but I can't really help that." He looked pretty pleased with himself. I thought he was just being fucking lazy with his costume.
He led us to the main building, hiding in the stairs to the basement when a prefect nearly busted us. Gary pushed us both against the wall. He was still and tense next to me, and we were close enough where I could feel heat off of his body, and I wasn't sure how I felt about Gary's hand across my chest. Where he could feel the fact that my heart was pounding excitedly underneath his palm.
If he noticed it, for once in his life, Gary didn't say a damned thing. He just motioned with his head for me to follow him to the side door of the building.
"You mind acting like the juvenile delinquent I know you are and opening the door for us?" Gary tapped on the doorframe.
"I can pick locker locks. I don't know how to pick this one," I told him. Was he serious? He was relying on me to get him into his 'secret'?
"Do I have to do everything by myself?" Gary shook his head with a sigh, reaching into his back pocket and pulling something small out. He crouched down by the lock, and started picking it. Jackass. "Why do I keep you around, Hopkins? It's not for your good looks-" He paused for a second before I heard the click of the lock opening. He glanced up at me. "Or your stunning personality." He turned the knob and pushed it open, standing up and letting me walk through.
I was surprised that no one was in the building. For someone reason, I'd been under the retarded assumption that someone would be watching to make sure no one broke in and pulled any pranks. Apparently, Crabblesnitch had actually thought that we'd all be fine at the party all night. I always forgot how much of an idiot he was.
"What's in the bag, Smith?" I asked him, following him up the stairs to the second floor. Even speaking low, my voice echoed slightly in the empty halls. "Firecrackers or something?"
"Beer, mostly," Gary answered, not looking at me as he checked out the hall before continuing to move. "A bag of chips."
Beer and chips with Gary, huh? Not something that I'd ever pictured, but Gary was never quite the way I pictured him being. I was almost sure that he kept a list of everything he ever did in public so that he could make sure never to do any of it more than once. A guy had to be organized to be as spontaneous as he was.
He seemed satisfied that no one was there, and so he grinned at me again. "So, what's the deal with you and your new girlfriend, Jimmy?"
At first, I was confused, because I was pretty sure that was the sort of joke that could be made about me and him. Then I realized who he was referring to, and made a face. "Beatrice isn't my fucking girl. That's not what happened."
"Do tell, James, do tell," Gary taunted. I glared at him. "Come on, don't pout. This is too damned funny for you to look so fucking glum."
Yeah, of course Gary thought that it was hysterical. "Whatever note you gave Petey? He tossed it out. Beatrice found it and was blackmailing me with it. Up until…about forty-five minutes ago."
Gary looked impressed. "Petey's balls finally dropped? I'm kind of proud of him, actually. I don't think he's ever stood up to me before."
"Yeah, well, he picked a pretty shitty time to do it," I mumbled. "It pretty much fucked me over, and now Zoë's pissed, and Beatrice is going to show that fucking note to everyone."
Gary chuckled. "Well, it's not exactly a declaration of love, Hopkins, I think you can relax about that one." I raised my eyebrow at him questioningly. He didn't respond, heading off down one of the hallways.
"What did it say, Gary?" He ignored me, and I grabbed him by the arm, jerking him around to face me. "What the hell have I been freaking out about here? Is it a fucking grocery list?"
He pulled his arm away from me quickly, bristling at the contact. "Of course not. I don't put shit down on paper that isn't necessary to put on paper." Right, okay. Crazy. I forgot.
"Then what did it say?"
It was only then that I realized that Gary seemed to be waiting for me to notice where we were standing. I blinked; we were at the door to the roof. I stared at the door, and then at him. "You're fucking kidding me," was all I could say.
Gary shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. You'll never know if you don't get your ass upstairs." He stepped forward and pushed open the door, holding it open for me. "You up for it?"
I took a deep breath. "What was in the note, Gary?"
He sighed, rolling his eyes. "My phone number, Jimmy." What? "To my house." What? "And my address." What? "You know, just in case you were wondering where the hell I'd disappeared to. I knew that calling you at school would have annoyed you, so I thought the Petey Express would have shipped it right off. I was wrong. Shit, I hate when I'm wrong. It's inconvenient."
I felt my face go slack with shock. "You sent me your address and phone number?" He wanted me to know where he was? He wasn't just fucking with my head, disappearing and reappearing until I had an aneurysm? My stomach felt weird again, but I didn't feel like throwing up. "Beatrice has a note where you tell me where you went after you were released?"
"Apparently." Gary looked impatient. "Are we going?"
"Why should I go to the roof with you?"
Gary looked up at the ceiling, pretending to be thinking really hard about the answer. Then he locked eyes with me. "One, I have beer. Two, you like beer. Three…you can't fucking help yourself. You're dying to be up there with me one more fucking time. Get your ass up these stairs so we can sit the fuck down."
I took a deep breath. Gary had given me his contact information. In case I wanted to…what? Keep visiting him once he was out? Keep an eye on him?
Where did Gary live anyway? Was he New Coventry, or the Vale? Or was he from further away? I didn't know. I kind of wanted to.
I entered the stairwell to the roof. Hell, maybe if he got tipsy, I could get him to tell me a little about himself for a change.
***
The construction scaffolds that had been on the roof less than a year ago were gone. Crabblesnitch had even had his skylight repaired over the summer, and when I leaned over the side of the bell tower, I cold peer into office. The large bells had yet to be replaced though, and the couple of bells that hadn't been destroyed during our fight were resting on the floor.
I hadn't been up here since Gary had been dragged away. And now here I was standing in the bell tower with Gary all over again, and all I could think was that if he'd gone through all this to try and push me off the roof again, then he was even more fundamentally fucked up than I'd thought he was.
He wasn't trying to kill me right now, though. Instead, he leaned over the side of the tower next to me. He didn't seem worried that I would do anything to him—not that that was my style or anything—and he didn't seemed concerned about the fact that he could do something to me right now, and I probably wouldn't have time to react to it.
"One of these days, someone's going to look down from here and catch 'Headmaster' Crabblesnitch whipping Ms. Danvers," he commented, staring down into the unlit office as if he could actually see something. "I kind of hope it's me. It'd be a great way to get myself back in this shithole."
"You want back in?" I asked as I turned to face him, a little surprised.
Gary snorted, shaking his head as he moved back from the edge. He crouched down next to one of the fallen bells, opening his bag and tossing something at me. After catching it, I realized it was a beer. He grabbed one for himself. "Of course not. I'd rather fuck Algie than be back here—don't look at me like that, it was an exaggeration." He opened his beer and drank some. "No, I'm finally out of this place, and I only came back here to visit your dumb ass, since you hadn't called yet."
"What, were you waiting for me to call?"
"No, I was busy with the new and shiny tutors that my parents have forced onto me," Gary said. He made a face of disgust. "Since I'm sane enough to come home, but not sane enough to be trusted around the innocent youth of America, I get homeschooled by a bunch of expensive tutors."
Gary, out of Happy Volts, without a flock of people to toy with. It didn't feel like it made any sense. Not that anything that had happened today made any sense. "Must be annoying, being at home all the time."
"It's absolutely maddening," he deadpanned. "You couldn't possibly imagine." He sighed, put his beer down, and clapped his hands together once, his momentary show of unhappiness forgotten. Which was good, because that side of Gary made me more uncomfortable than the side that I was sleeping with. "So, in about a half hour, your girlfriend and the entire student body will know that you're sleeping with the guy who drove them insane and led to the biggest riot in this school's history. What do you do with the last few minutes of your secret life?"
I blinked at him. His twisted little grin spread across his features again, but for some reason, I didn't feel like punching him. Instead, I shook my head. "Fuck if I know, Gary. "
"Might I give you a suggestion?"
"Sure, but it'll probably be a bad idea and I won't listen to you."
Gary pointed with his beer towards his duffel bag. "I've got several six-packs in that bag. My vote goes for you drinking as much of it as humanly possible and getting plastered."
I considered this. It seemed like the choice I would have made. There was one problem with that, though. "I don't trust you enough to get drunk around you."
Gary rolled his eyes and stood up, walking over to me. "I'm not going to rape you, Jimmy-boy, and even if I wanted to, might I point out that you could probably put a stop to that fairly quickly, and then I'd get thrown through the skylight again." He pressed his lips together in a thin line and shook his head no. "That's not exactly my idea of a Halloween well-spent."
"That's not the point. You wouldn't have to touch me to fuck with me." And, to be really fucking honest, I didn't trust myself around him drunk. I'd either kill him or fuck him, and fucking Gary at Bullworth was weird, even for us.
Great. Now there was an us that I willingly referred to.
Gary smiled at me. "That's sweet, really, and I do take that as a compliment, but you--" He tapped my forehead and I swatted him away. "—need to loosen up."
Gary took several steps backwards, so that he was standing in the center of the bell tower. His arms were spread wide. "I mean, come on, Hopkins! You're up here, the location of your greatest moment, your claim to fame, your epic battle against evil. You stood here and you won! Why are you still in such a shitty fucking mood?"
I let myself smirk a little, mainly to mask the fact that I kind of wanted to smile. "Why are you in such a good mood, then? Didn't you get your ass kicked?"
He shrugged, looking as if all of that was inconsequential. "I didn't lose up here during the fight, Jimmy. I lost when Crabblesnitch heard me talking. Had he not heard me, you would have been dragged out of here just like you dragged me."
His logic never made much sense to me, but okay, sure. "So…I won, but you didn't lose." Gary smirked at me with a troublesome grin. I finally opened my beer and started to drink. "Whatever you say."
"We should really have a moment of silence, you know," Gary commented loudly.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He threw his arms out again, and a bit of beer splashed out of the top of his can. "Think of all the fallen lowerclassmen, the ones that laid down their lives so that…" He paused, pretending to be in deep thought. "…Well, so that the nerds didn't get beat up anymore. This drink, my friend, should go to them." He poured out some of his beer, and I laughed, shaking my head. Idiot. "Don't laugh, this is a solemn moment here, Hopkins."
Finally, I sat down on the ground, my legs out in front of me as I leaned back against a pillar. "I'm sorry, I forgot to mourn all the people who didn't die. I'll get on that." Gary sat down too, Indian-style. We were silent, drinking beer for several moments before either of us talked. I was a little surprised when I was the one that broke the silence. "You missed Trent in drag."
Gary glanced up from his drink and raised an eyebrow. "Really? Was it as terrible as the image my brain is conjuring up for me right now?" I nodded. "Wish I could have seen it."
"It was actually how I got away from Beatrice."
"What, you told her that Trent looked better in eye shadow than she did?"
"He did, but that wasn't why," I retorted. Gary snickered. "Everyone was busy watching Trent out Kirby."
"Well, aren't I lucky, then? I might have actually had to sneak into the party if he hadn't made an ass of himself and his little jockstrap honey." I couldn't help but imagine what Gary entering the party would have been like. Disastrous was the word that came to mind. Oddly funny. "I don't think I would have liked the crowd, anyway. They're all too stuck up."
"Zoë's not stuck up," I countered.
Gary shook his head, finishing his beer and digging into his bag for another. He pulled out both the can of beer and a bag of chips, tossing the chips over to me. "Especially Zoë." I waited for him to justify that statement, so I could decide whether or not it was worth it to be pissed. "She tries too fucking hard to impress you."
"Says the guy whose obsessed with me."
"I'd know trying too hard then, wouldn't I?" he snapped back, but not with the usual animosity I'd come to associate with him. "She's always super-chill, super-cool, nothing affects her, but she's completely head over heels for you." He smirked. "That's all right though, Jimmy-boy, but she doesn't seem to get that cool and collected isn't exactly what you need."
"Oh, this oughta be good." I opened the bag of chips and fished a few out. "I can't wait for Gary Smith to tell me what I need." His insights were always so interesting and flawed.
"Excitement," Gary replied. "Where the hell is the fun if you can't get any real reaction from the poor girl?"
I shook my head and looked down at the ground. "We fuck around. I don't need more excitement in my life. I've got enough with you there, anyway."
Gary's grin grew by leaps and bounds. "Bingo, Jimmy-boy." Wait…what? Had I missed something? I reviewed my words, and frowned. "Did you break something trying to think over there? Need a bandaid?"
"Fuck you." Still, something about his smile and reaction to my words rang strange. I bit my lip as I tried to figure it out. Gary actually let me sit and find the words that I wanted to use, for a change, choosing to watch my expression intently instead of speaking.
I could have sworn Gary just said that I didn't need Zoë because he was around. But that was the dumbest thing that I'd ever heard. Gary wasn't Zoë, and Zoë wasn't Gary, and when she broke up with me, I couldn't just replace her with the jerk sitting across from me. And I didn't want to date Gary anyway, and I was fairly certain that he didn't want to date me.
For about the millionth time since I met him, I just wanted to know what he was getting at. What trick he was trying to pull with this little meet-up? How did he expect me to react? What the hell was I doing right now?
The only answer I had was the obvious. I was sitting with Gary. The same way that I'd been sitting with him for—for what, over a month now? I'd lost track of the days.
Except this was different than in Happy Volts. I'd gotten accustomed to him in the small room, only a foot or two between us. While the bell tower wasn't the biggest space, there was a hell of a lot more room than there'd been at Volts, and there was actually air around us that hadn't circulated through the rooms of completely psychotic patients. I wasn't worried about a nurse walking in, but there were so many other things that I could be worried about right now.
Like Gary Smith, for one.
His patience ran out on him. "What's going on, pea-brain? You wanna share with the class?" He tilted his head to look at me more directly.
"Why show up?" I finally spat out. "Here. Why give me your number, or kiss me that first time, or any of this fucking shit? What do you want from me?" I must have asked him that question a hundred times at this point, but I still hadn't gotten a real answer. I didn't get any of it. Gary never made sense. Gary laughed, tossing his head back in that hyena cackle that I'd heard so many times. "What's so fucking funny?"
"You sound like a fucking chick."
"No I don't!"
"What do you want from me?" Gary kept laughing. "I mean, seriously, Jimmy, what do you expect? Is this where we have some deep heart to heart over the nature of our relationship?"
"Did I say that?" I snapped. "No. I just want to know why you're putting any effort into coming to see me." I wondered why he bothered to ask what I was thinking when he always thought that everything that came out of my mouth was completely retarded. I couldn't have been that amusing. At least, I didn't think that I was that funny.
Gary shook his head. "Effort? I'm bored as fuck, and I knew you'd coming running when I showed up."
"I didn't come running! You practically begged me to come with you!"
"Bullshit, Hopkins…" Gary tilted his head back and drained at least half of his beer. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Bet you were sitting in the gym thinking about me the whole time."
Only because my night was shit because of him. I didn't sit around thinking about Gary all day. If I wanted to think about Gary, I went and saw him. End of story. I sure as fucking wouldn't sit around like some emotional idiot, wondering when the hell Gary Smith was going to waltz into the room and make everything…better.
I didn't want to say it, I couldn't say it, but seeing the warped little fuck had made the evening just that much more bearable. What had he said a few minutes ago? This was the last few minutes of my current life, right? And here I was, spending it with the guy who still made my skin crawl whenever I looked him in the eyes. What did that say about me?
What that said was that his psychosis had finally been transferred to me.
"You're sitting there," I spoke up, "talking about me and Zoë like you'd want to replace her as my girlfriend or something. You sneak in here like a creep with drinks, and you expect me to just think that you were bored?"
Gary stood up again, strolling over to look below the bell tower at the skylight again. I had to twist around in order to look up at him. "I'm not your girlfriend, Jimmy. Do I look like Petey?"
"Oh, ha, ha, ha." I rolled my eyes as I got up from my seat. I didn't like how it felt to have him standing over me. "So…what? You just wanna fuck or something? Because I don't have an issue with that."
"I know that. Everyone who has ever been to Bullworth knows you don't have a problem porking anything that breathes. I'm waiting for Eunice to have to tell you her period's late." I didn't even try to hide the disgust in my expression. "You've been dating girls too long, Jimmy."
I frowned in confusion. "What the hell does that mean?" Why did I spend so much time around Gary asking what the fuck was going on? Being around him made me feel as stupid as he kept saying I was.
"That's the only reason you'd be so fucking boring as to need to know 'the status' of our shit," he groaned, making a face. Then he leaned over the edge and smiled. I don't think I'd ever get used to his mood swings. It would probably be a bad thing if I did. "Hey, check this out." He poured the rest of his beer down the side of the bell tower, and we both watched as the beer splashed against skylight. Then he dropped the can, watching it roll to a stop off to the corner of the glass.
"You're trying to fucking distract me-"
"-and you're trying to get a fucking declaration of love from me, Hopkins, and it's just pathetic." I fell silent, feeling my jaw clench tightly. He noticed, and chuckled. "We've covered what I think. I'm obsessed, probably psychotically. I think there's something immensely sexy about pissing you off to the point where you want to kill me as badly as I want to kill you. I can't explain it any better than that."
I walked towards the center of the bell tower, to get some space between me and the craziness that Gary was spewing. "Jesus Christ, Gary, can't you do anything simply? You can't just fucking be attracted to someone like a normal human being?"
Gary exhaled deeply and turned around, wiping his hands on his pants. He cocked his head at me, raising his eyebrow. "Simple? Normal? Jimmy, you'd hate me even more if I were either of those two things. Why even ask for something so…fucking bland. You want boring and sweet and shy and cute? You're looking at the wrong Bullworth student. Might I suggest Petey? Puppies and baby seals bring tears to his eyes, and if you sleep with him…well…Nothing. Exciting. Will. Ever. Happen."
He took a few steps forward, looking at me with that same look that he'd given me when I'd punched him back at Happy Volts. That same dangerous, creeping glimmer of psychosis was all over his face, that same look that both revolted me and twisted my stomach.
"Hell," he continued, now pacing around me in a circle. "If you want normal, maybe you should settle down with your little Punk Princess. You two can have the most mediocre relationship ever, and you'll be bored out of your mind—but then again, maybe you want that." He stopped behind me, speaking into my ear. It made me freeze in place, my fists tightly balled up at my side. "You know damned well that there is nothing on this campus that suprises and interests you, except for me. So don't fucking act like my love of fucking with your head is a downside here."
I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. "So I'm boring because I'd like to know that the guy I'm fucking won't screw me over?"
"Yeah, pretty much." He walked back around, directly in front of me. There were only inches between us. Funny, how the claustrophobic feeling was more of a comfort than when there was normal distance. It felt more like when Gary was in his cage, and I was in there with him. "I don't know why you keep expecting something different, Jimmy."
"I'm expecting something that makes sense."
"Well, there's your problem. You're forgetting who you're dealing with. Maybe you need a refresher course." How the hell could I? He reminded me whenever he got a chance. Whenever he made me feel comfortable—like only minutes before—he had to go and say something as weirdly bizarre as what he was saying now—
—Gary grabbed me by the front of my costume and kissed me, hard. For an absurd moment, I wondered if my costume make-up made the kiss taste funny to him, but the pressure of his lips against mine destroyed any attempts to form coherent thought. He had to lean down to kiss me, had to bear down on me in the same way he would if he tried to intimidate me or something. I kissed back automatically, my mouth opening enough so that we could properly kiss. His mouth tasted like beer, and it mixed with the taste of the chips I'd been eating. More than a minute passed, and I wondered if Gary had forgotten that he needed to breathe.
He practically pushed me away when he was done, wiping away the costume makeup, and I blinked, trying to reorient myself. He sighed. "I'm still me, Hopkins. I'm still going to forget my meds every so often and try to take over the world. I'm still going to hate every inch of you with every fiber of my being. I'm definitely going to keep talking on and on and on until you're begging me to shut up. I don't plan on changing any of that. You shouldn't expect any different."
I licked my lips and stared at him. Thanks to the kiss, it was taking me a moment to process his words.
Gary continued, though. "I mean, you don't see me bitching that you're still a fucking moron with delusions that you somehow rule this school, when in reality, you're everyone's fucking trained monkey, or that you hang out with the weepiest boy-child and most boring anarchy princess that-"
I pushed him, hard, and he tripped and hit the ground. Instead of getting pissed and cursing at me, he simply glanced up at me, his breathing speeding up. "Did I say something that bothered you?"
Yeah, everything he'd ever fucking uttered bothered me. I stood over him for a minute. "I'm not going to bend over for you, either."
"Never expected that," Gary said, his voice low as he continued to stare at me. "I've already dealt with what I want from you."
"And what's that?"
"Something interesting."
I clenched my jaw. He was going to make me grind my teeth away one of these days. I reached out my hand and helped him back up. "You're a douchebag." That didn't bother me as much as it should.
Just like the fact that I grabbed him and initiated another kiss should have bothered me. I should have been disgusted by the fact that I yanked him down to my level in order to shove my tongue down his throat, because it was the only way to shut him up and figure out what the hell I wanted from him.
I was in the bell tower making out with Gary Smith, and for some reason, this was the best part of my week.
He moved forward, trying to back me up against one of the fallen bells. I maneuvered around him, not letting myself get too far away from him. Gary ended up against the bell. He only stopped making out to yank off his sweatshirt, tossing it to the side. Underneath it was nothing but a gray wife beater. I only noticed the color because I found my hands under the shirt, trying to get that off of him too. He was too busy trying to take my top off to notice at first, until we both took a minute to yank our shirts off.
I had Gary Smith up against a fallen bell in the bell tower.
I had Gary rapidly losing his fucking clothes against a fallen bell in the bell tower.
There has never been a sexy way of taking off your own pants, but both of us managed to get rid of them quickly enough that this was only a passing thought, invading an otherwise thoughtless moment. While I was busy losing my pants, though, Gary managed to switch our positions again, making me nearly trip over my pants as I kicked them off.
He laughed at me. "You're a fucking klutz when you're horny, James."
"Shut up, idiot." I put my hand on the back of his neck and pulled him down for a hard kiss. One of Gary's hands was against the bell behind me, bracing him, and his other hand was on my waist, holding me pretty tightly. Every few seconds, he would end up grinding into me and moaning into the kiss, and I was probably doing the same.
Which is why I gave him a furious look when he pulled away for a minute. "What are you doing, Smith?" I growled at him.
"You owe me a blowjob, Hopkins."
He was joking. He had to be joking. "What?"
"You owe me from when I gave you head." That didn't sound right, but then again, my brain had ceased firing a good five, ten minutes ago. "You're not going to fucking hold out on me, are you?"
"What, we can't keep doing what we were-"
Gary lowered his mouth near my neck, and my dick nearly exploded when I felt his tongue, starting at my collarbone, trail up to behind my ear. Then, in a husky whisper, he said, "You blow me, we'll spend the last few minutes before your life falls apart doing the one thing you never thought I'd let you do."
He stepped back and stared at me. I narrowed my eyes at him. I wasn't sure if I believed him, but really…I knew exactly what he was offering. I couldn't just pass that up now, could I?
"Will you shut up while I fuck you?"
Gary snorted in amusement. "Don't push your fucking luck."
I grinned, kneeling down in front of him. It was only fucking fair, right?
TBC
