Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter! You're all awesome!

And I'm aware of the irony in this chapter. When you get to the end you'll hopefully know what I mean.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing!

Demolition Lovers – My Chemical Romance

September 2002
Alex: 14
Jay: 15

Alex approached the furious Jay cautiously.

"I hate him, Alex! I actually hate him! He's a prick!" Jay vented loudly.

"I'm sure he doesn't-"

"Look!" He hollered, thrusting the letters in Alex's face angrily. Alex took them from him and studied them closely. "He's not even cold in the ground and he's already fucking ruining my life!just like he did when he was alive!" Jay exclaimed before Alex had even had a chance to read the letter. The song lyrics sparked a memory in her mind of when she and Jay were young. This song seemed to be on constant repeat in Jay's trailer. Jackson had the vinyl, and it was always spinning. The depressing words and striking chords took her back to her childhood, where times were simple and problems were comparatively trivial. Back then, she had no idea that Jay's dad was so unhappy, and she had no idea that her own mom was so unhappy. She didn't realize until she was nine that it wasn't OK for men to hit women. Until then, because her mom and her boyfriend of the time did it, and Jackson did it to Karen, she just presumed it was normal and that everyone did it when they were angry or sad. But then when it became a regular thing, and her mom was getting a new bruise on a daily basis, she realized something was up. And of course, the hands of time helped her learn that things weren't right. But there was no telling some people. There was no way that Alex was strong enough or fast enough to stand up to the guys that her mom bought back to the house.

Jay was blind with rage. Alex read the spidery handwriting over and over again trying to comprehend what it said.

"Why couldn't he have told me this stuff before he died?" Jay asked spacily.

Alex looked up from the parchment to look at her destroyed boyfriend. She now noticed that he'd ripped his tie off and discarded it to the ground. He'd obviously been running his hands through his hair a lot as he looked very disheveled.

"I can't believe this!" Jay whined, starting up pacing again. He muttered obscenities and curses under his breath as he paced.

"Jay! Stop pacing!" Alex had to shout.

He spun around looking worried. "I can't fucking believe this!"

"I know, you said!"

"Alex, don't start, please." He commanded, sighing hopelessly.

"I'm not, I'm sorry." Alex had to say that to stop Jay from having a nervous breakdown. "It's OK. It'll be OK."

"Ha!" Jay exclaimed sceptically.

"Look, we're gonna be late. We gotta get back over there." Alex explained motioning toward the crowd.

"I'm not going back over there."

"Jay, we've been through this! Stop being a stubborn ass. We're going, OK?" Alex spoke clearly and precisely.

Jay huffed loudly before reluctantly following Alex back over to the crowd. She quickened her pace, and he almost had to run to keep up with her.

Something happened that Jay wasn't expecting. As he and Alex stood tightly knit next to each other, and he stared down at the casket being slowly lowered into the ground, he got the urge to shout out all the things he wanted to say. He felt cold and numb. Alex's ice cold fingers entwined around his own like she could sense he needed her to reassure him it was still OK. He gripped her hand tightly and looked down at her. She gave a small smile and he returned the gesture for good measure. He switched his gaze back to the casket. It was gone now. He was gone. His whole family had disappeared. If they weren't off living the high life in Portland (Melissa and Cory), they were six feet under (his mom and dad) or doing time in a prison in England (his uncle Steven).

"See, that wasn't that bad was it?" Alex whispered to him as they walked away, slowly breaking away from the crowd.

"I thought I was gonna hurl. That was horrible." Jay muttered, gratefully inhaling the smoke of his much anticipated first cigarette of the day. He took another long hit and sent it in Alex's direction. She took it between her two fingers and took a deep drag too.

"You did it though. It's the last thing I'll make you do that you don't want to do, I swear."

"Damn right." Jay said taking the cigarette from her mouth facetiously.

There wasn't one person here that knew Jay was Jackson's son. It wasn't something that Jay liked to broadcast. They probably knew that Jackson had a son called Jay, but had no idea who he actually was. All of Jackson's friends were bum's from the bar, and from the looks of things none of them were here today. Apparently, there was other distant members of the Hogart family here, but Jay didn't stop to speak to any of them. He and Alex almost ran to the exit and jumped on the bus to take them home to Jay's apartment.

Jay changed from his funeral attire to jeans and a black tee as soon as they got in, but Alex was stuck wearing her uncomfortable black formal clothes until she went home.

As Jay clattered around in the bathroom, Alex sat alone on the couch looking around his place. It was as sparse and bare as it was when he moved in. you'd have never guessed he'd been there for a month. Jay emerged from the bathroom while she was studying the surroundings.

"What are you looking at beautiful?" He asked leaning against the door frame casually.

"This place!" Alex exclaimed despairingly. "It's depressingly dark!"

"So? It's only a roof over my head. It doesn't matter what it looks like."

"It's not very inviting." Alex pointed out.

"Do you wanna leave?"

"No."

"Quit complaining then."

this little exchange of banter was what Alex liked most. "I love this."

"Love what?"

"This." Alex repeated. Jay approached her, flopped down on the sofa lazily and looked at her with a look that needed more explanation. "Just hanging out, talking. Being... blah."

"Blah?" Jay asked sceptically.

"Yeah, blah. I couldn't think of a way to explain it."

"Well blah is fine." Jay said propping his feet up on the low coffee table. He sat on the couch next to Alex just staring at the blank TV screen. There was a thick layer of dust on the screen, and he could see a distorted version of himself and Alex. The TV had never been turned on and never would be. He didn't have the remote, he didn't have any money for batteries, and mainly, because the wires had been cut long ago.

"You should paint a picture to stick over that screen. Make some use of the thing."

"I would, but there's one fatal flaw in that plan."

"Oh yeah, what's that?"

"I can't draw." Jay said laying a small kiss on her cheek as he spoke.

"Well that would help." Alex said, kissing him back, lightly and teasingly. He fought back with a scattering of little kisses that soon turned into something more. He slid his legs off the coffee table and Alex flipped her legs over his so she was straddling him. He sank down lower into the depths of the couch and Alex leaned in lower to keep the contact. She backed off him slowly and sank to her knees in front of him. She looked up at him cautiously and he looked at her waiting to see if she'd do it. Confidently, he leaned forward and began kissing her again whilst unzipping his pants with his hands. He was a rough but passionate kisser. Alex had no yard stick with which to compare, but she liked it. Abruptly, he backed away and Alex looked down in a microsecond. Her stomach lurched, and her body stiffened with unparalleled nerves, but she shut her eyes and went for it.

She wasn't quite sure what possessed her to be so forth-coming, but she did it and after she felt kinda weird. In the milliseconds before she went down she thought she was going to be sick. She'd never ever done anything remotely like this before. While she was doing it, she was constantly wondering if she was doing it wrong. Afterwards, she wished the ground would open and swallow her up, she was that embarrassed. Like for a few minutes, she couldn't look Jay in the eye. God knows what she'd be like when – or if – they ever had proper sex. The knowledge that Jay had been there and done this before with Sunny was no reassurance. She didn't like to think about it but she wondered if Sunny had done this for him too. She snuck an extremely awkward glance at Jay out of the corner of her eye. He smiled weakly and she could do nothing but send another small smile back to him. She could feel her cheeks burning and she just wanted to get the hell out of there, but her heart and her body said two different things.

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