Title: Pavlov 11/?

Author: Faith Harris

Summary: Things stop being so enjoyable. It's girl troubles.

We snuck back out of the main building without incident, just a little before the party was supposed to be over. I didn't finish off the beer like Gary had suggested, but we'd both had finished a couple each. For the moment, I could believe that the night wasn't going to go completely down the shitter, that I could relax until the morning. If I thought about it, I knew that wasn't going to happen, though, so I made sure not to think too hard.

"So…you're back at home, huh?" It sounded like dumb conversation, but the silence gave me room to think.

"Didn't I tell you that already? Yes, Hopkins, I'm back at my house. Stop asking repeat questions. They make you sound actually mentally retarded." He had slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and was busy picking at a thread on the side of the bag.

I rolled my eyes. "Where's home? Coventry?"

He snorted. "Jesus Christ, no. My parents live in the Vale." So he was a rich kid. I always sort of knew that, could see it in the way he looked down on everyone without exactly being jealous of them, but having some solid information about him was nice.

"If Zoë or Beatrice tear up that note, I'm going to need that shit again."

"Who says I still want to give it to you?" He smirked at me, and I just stared. "You'll get it when I feel like giving it to you, Hopkins." Gary had mastered the art of talking about one thing and really talking about sex. It was almost impressive.

"Well, whenever you feel like it, let me know, all right? Don't be a smartass and say that you felt like giving it to me but I didn't ask or some shit."

"You're catching on to my methods," he deadpanned. "Hope I'm not getting predictable." He'd also mastered the art of sounding like an asshole.

"Shut up Gary," I snorted. "The day you get predictable is the day I kiss Petey, all right?"

Gary raised an eyebrow. "Really now? You promise?"

"No. Don't say another word." We stopped walking for a minute, and I leaned back on the stone wall, crossing my arms. Gary kept picking at the threads of his bag, acting as if he wasn't paying any attention to me. The only benefit of knowing he was obsessed with me was that I knew this shit was an act. Just like being King, it was a little bit of an ego trip. I doubted this one would get old, though. Tiring maybe, but never old.

"I mean, I guess Petey's cute," Gary said slowly, "if you like them weak and fragile…"

"Didn't you sleep with Petey?" I pointed out.

"I didn't sleep with the runt. We fooled around," Gary corrected me, sounding as if the last thing on earth he'd ever do was sleep with Petey. "He gave me a blowjob, and that was about it. I hadn't had one before, and he hadn't given one before. I decided to try a little experiment, that's all." Experiment, right. In Gary's world, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that every single one of us looked like lab rats.

I shook my head. "I don't get it."

"Get what?"

"You. Petey."

"Neither did I," Gary drawled. "That's why it didn't work, Hopkins." I chuckled under my breath. "He's so needy and clingy, it's annoying as hell. You can't get rid of him." The irony of Gary saying that to anyone, especially me, was hysterical, but I kept myself from laughing too hard.

Which was probably for the best, since Beatrice and Zoë were marching straight up to us from the Girls' Dormitory, and if Zoë had come over and we were laughing it up…

…she probably would have punched me harder than she did. Which was pretty damned hard.

Gary stepped backwards, giving us some room. I think I was more grateful for that than if he'd tried to interfere. This was between Zoë and me. And possibly Beatrice Trudeau's corpse, when I was finished talking to Zoë.

My hand went up to where she'd punched me. It was already tender. "Zo, fuck, did you have to punch me?" Yeah, it was the wrong thing to say. Yeah, I knew it. But I'd seen this coming all day, and at this point, I was just anxious to get it over with.

"Don't 'Zo' me, dickhead!" she snapped. "Is Beatrice telling me the fucking truth?"

Well, since Gary was standing next to me, I thought that was a dumb question, but I asked a lot of dumb questions when I was angry. I asked a lot of dumb questions when I wasn't angry, too.

"Depends what she said," I mumbled, trying to move my jaw as little as possible. That shit was going to hurt tomorrow and probably swell up. Even if I hadn't deserved it, I still couldn't hit her back, though. I couldn't even hit Beatrice, no matter how much I wanted to.

When Zoë got mad, her face turned colors. Her face became red enough to match her hair, and it was kind of unnerving. Well, Zoë mad was unnerving in and of itself. I almost wanted to throw this in Gary's face, after his 'nothing affects her' comment. But the last thing I was going to do was encourage him to enter the conversation. He was having enough fun just watching the train wreck.

Zoë waved a piece of paper in my face. The note from Gary. I snatched it out of her hand. Sure enough, it said his number and address, along with a little message: I may die of boredom, so if you're going to come by, make it sooner rather than later. I nearly laughed at it, but I clamped down on the smile.

"It's a note. From Gary," I answered, shoving it into my back pocket before Zoë could snatch it back. "I told you she had something of mine." I knew damned well that wasn't a good enough bullshit excuse, but I had to say something.

Beatrice piped up, sounding hyper and betrayed. "That's not all, and you know it! I heard you talking about Gary to Petey in the store and-"

Zoe turned and glared at her, but it was Gary who made her shut up. "Beatrice, how can I put this in a way that you'd understand? How about…no one wants you here, and no one gives a flying fuck what you have to say right now?"

"You stay out of this, Smith, you fucking creep," Zoë snarled at him.

Gary leveled a look of old-school Gary Smith-style boredom at her. "Or what, you'll screech at me?"

"Gary, I hissed at him. "Last thing I need right now." He didn't look sorry. Not that I was surprised or anything. I wasn't under the delusion that sex would make things run more smoothly with him. At least, I wasn't anymore.

He held his hands up with a shrug and took a couple of steps back. While he did that, I noticed a small crowd of students gathering to watch. They were whispering and staring at Gary and me. Which, you know, didn't feel like the first day of school all over again. Being stared at, probably with half of the student body wanting to take a swing at me.

At least, Zoë's fist felt like half of the student body had taken a swing at me.

I turned back to Zoë, taking a deep breath. "Zoë, baby-" The look on her face when I said 'baby' said that was the wrong strategy to employ. I quickly tried to cover it up, "Zoë, what do you want to hear from me?" If I could, I'd say whatever she wanted, but I wasn't going to lie or make up stories. That was more Gary's line of expertise.

Zoë looked like she wanted to spit at me. I even got ready to dodge it. "What do I-" She cut herself off, damn near laughing with disbelief. "-What I want? I wanted a boyfriend who wasn't a liar, for one. I wanted a boyfriend who wasn't screwing a freaking psycho behind my back! And don't even try to pretend like you weren't doing it behind my back, Jimmy."

"I wasn't going to," I countered.

"You're a fucking bastard, you know that?" Zoë turned and glared at Gary. "And you're even worse. I bet you got some sort of sick pleasure out of the fact that you had him lying to me, didn't you?"

Gary shrugged again, his arms crossed. "That was one of the many benefits of the situation. I assume you don't want to hear the rest of them, Zoë."

I would have killed him them, if Zoe hadn't launched herself at him first. She went for his balls, kneeing him hard enough that Gary doubled over. It took me a moment to go over and pull her away. Gary deserved the hit, anyway, so I couldn't feel bad for not preventing it.

I held her in place, even though she was alternating between trying to hit me, and trying to hit Gary. "Zoë, Zoë, stop it, come on, I'm sorry alright?"

She stopped wrestling with me for a minute, turning to look me in the eyes. She stared down at me, and even I could see that she was trying to keep her eyes from watering up. The calm that I'd had walking from the bell tower had curdled into a nauseating ball in my stomach.

"Don't fucking tell me how sorry you are, Jimmy," Zoë snapped, yanking herself away from me. "I don't want to hear it. I wasn't asking for some deep shit. Hell, I wasn't even asking for monogamy from you. I was asking for you not to be a totally sick prick." She swallowed a lump in her throat. "Well, I hope you and Gary have a great rest of the semester, douche bag. You can go fuck yourself. I mean, if Gary's not too busy doing it for you."

She shoved past me, kicking Gary once before marching through the small crowd towards the girls' dormitory. Everyone cleared a path for her, and then turned back to stare at me.

"What?" I shouted back at them, stepping forward with my arms wide. They all stepped back from "You got something to say to me? Go on, say it, I dare you!" No one spoke up. I could see some of them lean into each other, ready to start whispering. Others glared at me, with only slightly less disgust than Zoë had. "Fucking say something if you want to, come on!"

And then there was Beatrice. Fucking Beatrice, who actually had the nerve to take a few steps closer to me, still looking like she was furious with me too. "Jimmy, we had a deal, and you broke it, and so I had to tell her."

I stared at Beatrice, eyes wide. Was she really this fucking retarded, or was she really just as delusional as Gary was? "No. No. Fuck no. Beatrice? This isn't about you. There is nothing about this that is remotely about you, so back off, alright? I'm not in the mood."

"You ruined my evening!" Beatrice countered indignantly. "This was supposed to be the perfect date and-"

"Wouldn't the perfect date involve someone who was interested in you, Beatrice?" I shook my head at her. "I'm not attracted to you, I never was, and I never will be. So whatever lies or blackmail you wanna come up with to try to convince me that I do? Go ahead. I'm fucking done."

She looked like she was going to cry, and as much as I hated to watch a girl cry, I didn't feel any sympathy towards that mess. I turned from her, to where Gary hadn't gotten up from the ground yet. I held out an arm to help him up. He looked at me suspiciously for a minute before accepting the help.

"I can't believe you let her kick you in the balls," I said.

"Do I look like the type of masochist that just lets girls kick him in the nuts?" he retorted. He shook his head. "As lovely as all this excitement is, I'd say it's about time for me to head back before the maid notices I've gone missing."

When he left, I didn't have to worry about him butting into my arguments. But when he left, I had to deal with everyone else. So it sucked, either way. "All right. Try not to fucking destroy the world this week."

Gary rolled his eyes. "I'll try. Not sure if I'll manage."

He walked through the crowd, towards the exit. I had to laugh, just a little bit, as people moved out of his way. Crowds always fucking conformed to what Gary wanted, and in spite of the fact that I knew that was a bad thing, it was still funny as hell when I saw it happening.

And I needed to find some humor, in something, before I had a heart attack at sixteen.

"I'm going to fucking sleep," I announced to everyone else. "You wanna get on my case about everything? Do it tomorrow, or next week or something. I'm fucking exhausted." I shoved past most of the students, going as fast as I could without running so that I didn't have to listen to any of them talk shit.

I still managed to hear Trent mumble, "Jesus Christ, Beatrice is a bitch."

TBC