Sucker Love
Chapter Four
"Drain You"
The first time he has to come to some sort of compromise just so he can continue to be near Her, is in Coach Adamski's office.
It's nothing sexual, despite the homophobic mindset he has inherited from the cock sucker, he kind of wishes that it was. At least that way he could get the fat bastard locked away for child abuse. But Coach Adamski is not demanding sexual favors, or even pushing drugs, he simply wants him to run Track again, and to go back to Phys Ed class before he is forced to fail him.
However, the two hour slot allocated to Phys Ed on the Friday afternoon, has now been replaced with Her double study period in the library. No matter what, he will not give that up, because he's greedy like that. He wants to be near Her as much as possible.
He will have to compromise, even if it means making the cock sucker happy by default. It brings him absolutely no pleasure in doing so, but such sacrifices are needed. He also needs to make a lasting impression that will ensure Coach Adamski forgets all about seeing him in another Phys Ed class for the rest of his High School career.
So he starts to cry.
He doesn't collapse straight away into a sobbing mess. He still needs to be able to articulate himself. If the circumstances call for it, he can and will be prepared to do so however. It's not hard, he can practically cry on demand after so many years of practice. From experience he has learnt that it is often better to play the lamb rather than the lion, especially around adults. They eat that shit up.
But as his eyes begin to water, he finds his thoughts drifting to how it would feel if he never saw Her again, and it is more than enough to make him incredibly distressed.
"Kid! What's wrong?"
He doesn't answer, he stares down at his feet, hands gripping his upper arms as he rocks backwards and forwards, the tears falling freely from his eyes. He tries to ignore it, it's not real, it hasn't happened. If it ever did happened, he would find Her, unless She no longer wanted him to be around, and then he wouldn't know what to do.
"Is someone bullying you?"
He wants to punch Coach Adamski. The man is talking too much. He's not being bullied, he's never been bullied. It's an utterly ridiculous notion because if anyone ever tried to touch him, he'd kill them. He's just sad, because he's worried about what will become of Her, if he's not there to take care of Her, if someone tries to take Her away from him.
A fatherly hand on his shoulder snaps him back from his dark thoughts. It is clear from the troubled expression on Coach Adamski's face that his tears have worked, almost too well in fact. He cannot claim it is because of his marvelous acting skills this time however.
"I know you've been having a tough time," says the man in his gruff but kind fashion. "I heard you were in hospital over the summer and after what happened with that window, well, I'm not surprised to hear you've been getting some grief— Not that you deserve it. You're a good kid... Do you want to tell me the names of the guys responsible?"
And then he remembers what it is exactly he is supposed to be doing.
"I can't..." He pulls on his hair, wipes his eyes and slowly looks up into the man's face. "...Please... Please, don't make me go back to Phys Ed... I can't... I'll run track! I'll do anything! Just please!" He wrings the sleeves of his sweater between his fingers in distress.
"That bad, huh?" The Coach takes off his blue cap and rubs his bald patch. "Okay, kid, I promise you that I'll talk to Principle Figgins about it, and we'll be able to reach some sort of agreement. Hell, if you run track again that'll more than enough to cover your credits. You've got a 7:21.36 best in the 3k, and that's no mean feat. C'mon, you're a champ. First class Olympic material, kid. Don't let those guys get you down, you hear me? You're better than that-"
He only vaguely listens, nodding his head once or twice with a grunt as Coach Adamski tries to stuff him full of winning bullshit. It's too easy, way too easy for him to slip in and out of emotions. It's almost as if he is trying on clothes. Sometimes it makes him wonder if there is another person inside, or several, but the truth is nothing so simple as multiple personality disorder. They are all him, just different parts, fragments that were supposed to make up a proper human being, a good one, but then someone forgot to glue them together.
"-I know what's going on. I seen it happen hundreds of times before, kid. I get it that you feel that narking might make the problem worse but you know, if you need someone to talk to, I'm here."
He nods, mumbles his thanks, and after recovering himself to a satisfactory enough standard, Coach Adamski lets him go.
As he walks down the corridor, a large smile splits across his face. He has one less thing standing in the way between them now.
The first time he preforms in front of an audience for Her, is at their usual spot underneath the bleachers.
It's not really an audience, only Stephanie, but he still has to put in some effort.
They are there already when he arrives. The goth girl gives him a polite greeting as he sits down, but he can see the ridicule lurking in the depths of her bluish grey eyes. Since the Chemistry incident, he has acquired a reputation as the resident suicide case.
She greets him with a warm smile however.
For the most of their conversation he stays silent, out of angry protest that Stephanie has dared to infringe upon his time with Her. But he also wants to see what type of girl she is, and if any of his original impressions were correct.
He is a little disappointed to find that they are. Admittedly, he would have preferred to have been proven wrong, just so he could believe that She also has an impeccable taste in friends. But then he remembers that unlike him, She is kind, and therefore more suited to putting up with the mindless drivel of their peers.
He is very careful not to roll his eyes as Stephanie prattles on about vegetarianism, Wicca and why her favorite poem by Edgar Allen Poe is the Raven. She is one of those individuals who likes the idea of the darkness, but only in a clean, safe sort of way. The blacks she wears are a homage to it, but she would never dare to invite the darkness in, nor has she ever been held by it. Stephanie had one admirable quality, her sharp tongue, but it is callous and cruel without the humorous edge he admires in Her.
It is only when She mentions that he has joined track during Stephanie's tirade about jocks, that he is forced to interact. He keeps the explanation very short, without the crying and twists it so Stephanie believes he is being blackmailed into it, just for his own general amusement.
He's also pleased to see that despite knowing a truer version of what really took place, She goes along with it. It is possible that Stephanie is grating Her nerves as well, or it might just be because she is feeling vindictive today.
"I'd totally drop out if I were you," says Stephanie the second he is finished. "I'd rather shoot myself in the head than have to run around after a bunch of numbskull jocks."
He's very tempted to take up the offer on her behalf. In his opinion, Stephanie would look good with a bullet lodged in her temple, blood matting up her blonde locks, her skull and brain exposed.
He doesn't give a damn about their various cliques, about the who verses who, or the clothes they wear. As far as he is concerned, variety doesn't play a deciding factor in the culling fields. They're all the same; walking sacks of meat, whose one purpose in life is to shit where they eat. Really it would be so much kinder on all of them if they were all dead.
There is of course one exception; Her.
He pushes down the beasts and flashes Stephanie a smile. "The only time I'll ever run after any of them is if I have a shotgun-" They laugh because they assume that he's joking, so he lets them think that. "-Other than that? They'll be running to catch up with me... What does it matter about jocks anyway? Don't give those shit heads the time of day. If you join a school sport just to be popular, or to kid yourself into believing that you're a part of something important, then you've just signed up to be an asshole for the rest of your life. And honestly? I feel sorry for them. I mean the best memories they'll ever have will be of High School. How shit is that? After this they're gonna have no options cause let's face it; Survival of the fittest is dead-"
He looks up to see them both watching him intently.
"I tell you something though-" he looks at Her. "-it's people like us who have it made. We can be anything, do anything we want. We can create art, or write music and poetry, or even whip up a whole nation into revolution using words alone... cause unlike the body, a great mind hasn't got a sell by date."
He keeps his eyes on Her for a few meaningful seconds after he is finished. In his opinion, She could really be anything, She could save the world from all the shit and the piss and the vomit. If there were more people like Her in charge, the world really would be a better place.
"Why aren't you in drama?" asks Stephanie in awe. "God knows they're in desperate for someone who can actually act. I was in it for like a week, and then I quit cause they all fucking suck. If you join, it might actually be worth going back to."
"I don't like the idea of pretending to be somebody else-" He's lying of course, he does it all the time. It's kind of fun to fuck with Stephanie like this, because she's lapping it up like water. "-Don't you know that the two types of people you can't trust in this world are actors and psychopaths?"
"Eh, Tate? You forgot to mention compulsive bullshitters. You deliberately say things a certain way just to fuck with people's heads." She looks at Steph with a sigh. "Langdon is the King of bullshit, Steph. Consider yourself warned."
He shoots her a goofy grins in reply. She is still yet to contradict the story he told Her friend. She can be mean too, for Her own pleasure, and maybe for his as well. He likes that.
For the remainder of recess he is both charming and charismatic because he knows She would like him to be nice to Stephanie. For the most part the girl just stares at him in dumb shock, or nods and makes a nasty comment at someone else's expense when he says something she agrees with. It's only when he takes his stories too far, She interrupts with a cynical comment or a snort of 'bullshit', but he doesn't mind. It means that She is listening, and that is what he wants.
At the end of it all, Stephanie insists that they both go with her to a concert on Halloween, and promises that she will get them fake IDs.
He agrees to go because She wants to. It's all for Her after all; the pretty speeches, being nice to Stephanie, even the agreement with Coach Adamski to rejoin Track. Everything he does is for Her, because he wants to be close to Her. He wants to stay with Her, and he wants Her to feel the same way.
He never wants Her to go away.
The first time She comes to his house, he does not arrive until about halfway through Her visit.
She calls on the Thursday afternoon while he is out at his therapy session, and the cock sucker invites Her in.
When he comes through the door, he's in a good mood. He slashed the tires on Doctor Harmon's car, although he wishes he had cut the breaks instead, but that might get him charged with murder, and then She wouldn't like him anymore. Still, the gratifying knowledge that he has inconvenienced him is more than enough to amuse the monsters.
His mood quickly fades however, when the cock sucker calls him into the kitchen about a visitor. Much to his horror, She's sitting there, around the island, a cigarette in hand, with a somewhat bemused expression on Her face as though She cannot quite comprehend what it is She has gotten Herself into.
Immediately, his glare lands on the person he is supposed to call his mother. One by one, the monsters begin to snarl.
"Oh don't start, Tate," the woman snaps. "I haven't done anything to the girl. She came over while you were at your session— You'd swear he thinks I'm going to make a show of him," he hears her whisper to Her.
It becomes imperative that he gets Her out of there immediately, before the cock sucker says something that will force him to snap. Without a word, he grabs Her by the arm and yanks Her off the chair. She drops the cup She is holding with a smash, while the cock sucker screams after him about how only "colors" manhandle ladies.
Once outside, he has to take a few minutes to collect himself, to stop himself from running back in and battering the woman to death with her tea pot. She watches silently, Her arms folded across Her floral print maxi dress.
"You're pissed, aren't you?" She asks as he paces up and down the porch for the twentieth time. "I shouldn't have come over."
His head snaps at this. "What? No! Of course not!" He closes his eyes and winces at the roughness in his tone. "...Sorry. Are you okay?"
"Well, the scars will heal in time but the untold emotional damage may last forever— Just kidding," She assures him when he tenses.
The muscles in his back relax a little. He's not happy. He did not want them to meet Her, ever. Every fiber of his being is calling on him to go in an enact sweet bloody revenge on Her behalf. Instead he places his hands on either one of Her upper arms and stares down imploringly into Her eyes. The warm light brown of Her irises help to calm him.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine," She says, in all seriousness this time. "I would have called but someone conveniently forgot to give me their phone number. I gotta say your mom is-"
"An evil racist bitch?"
"...Very politically incorrect," She settles for after a pause. "But since you know her better, I'll go with what you said. Guess we're both pretty fucked on the parents front. Although your mom seems to think that the sun shines out your ass for some reason-" He rolls his eyes at this. No matter what he does, the cock sucker will forever be convinced that she can live her life through him. "-Do you mind if I stay over tonight?—I already asked your Mom. Mine said it was okay too. I kinda got into a fight with my Dad last night on the account of him being a shit head."
He's not sure whether or not he should be happy. On the positive side, he'll get to spend more time with Her than usual. On the negative, he has his family to deal with, but he can easily hide Her away from them.
Their evening is spent mostly up in the attic, away from the prying eyes, playing scramble and eating pizza. Addie joins them of a while, but soon leaves when they decide to watch "Nightmare on Elm street". Fond as he is of his sister, he is selfish when it comes to Her, and therefore deliberately pulls out a selection of movies that Addie will not enjoy just to get her to go away. Margaret and Angela keep themselves out of sight, although he has a feeling that this might have something to do with the cock sucker.
It's lady's choice. He usually prefers the stoic, silent killers of the seventies, whereas She likes anything with a strong female lead. He does not complain however, because he is eager to be impressed by anything She likes, because maybe She has a different interpretation of it. As the movie progresses, he quickly discovers that they both can appreciate a good murder, although Her thirst for blood is more out of a genuine desire to scoff in the face of fear.
And later, while everyone else is in bed, they sneak down stairs with torches and liberate a half bottle of whiskey from the drinks cabinet in the living room. After that they trip off, hand in hand, to explore the decaying grottos and rusty cages of the old, abandoned Griffith Park Zoo.
Midnight to the blue dark of early morning is spent wandering through the empty enclosures, hollering animal calls back at one another, while they laugh at the absurdity of man's attempts to mimic the natural world.
And although he holds Her hand tightly in his the entire time, She was the one to put it there. Maybe it it is just the whiskey mixing with his meds, but for Her to take the initiative for once makes him feel needed, wanted in ways that he has never experienced before.
He misses more than one chance to kiss Her that night, and he kicks himself for it afterwards. But then he wants to do it when She least expects it, like when She's angry. Because even if She does not like it, She will, at the very least, appreciate the surprise.
The first time he trips the school fire alarm for Her is seconds before the class bell rings at the end of recess on the Friday.
It is not to impress Her. Despite Her nihilistic outlook on life, thoughtless acts of delinquency bore Her at best. She prefers it when there is a target, and justice to be served.
He does it because She is about to fail a test, algebra to be exact, and because it is his fault that She has not prepared for it.
When she came over to his house the day before, she brought with her school books, but due to their late night excursions, they remained untouched. The next morning, at seven am, when they dragged themselves from their respective sleeping arrangements, She suddenly remembered about Her test that day, one which counts towards her overall grade.
Because it is important to Her, and because it is largely his fault that She was out so late, he blows up a row of lockers with a firework.
It's all a sequence of lucky coincidences really. In the run up to Halloween, there's more fireworks knocking about Westfield than in a "Slitty eyed Sweat Shop" as the cock sucker might say. For reasons he's never really understood, the entire student body like to indulge in a week of pyromania appreciation.
Very rarely do the fireworks get set off, unless the person responsible is looking to end their Westfield career with a bang. Most of the time the students just like the idea of having something potentially dangerous on them, as if they believe that it will somehow make them dangerous as well. It's completely pathetic, because real monsters do not need to carry around any props. They are very good at adapting to their surroundings.
He is about halfway towards his History class when he spots the fuse of one sticking out the side of someone's locker door. The corridor itself is busy, most of his fellow classmates are up ahead, waiting outside for the teacher to arrive.
Without stopping, he pulls out the zippo that he carries on his person purely for Her benefit, and lights the wick with one downwards flick of the thumb. No one notices, he's very good at making sure they don't.
As he passes the locker, he deliberately knocks shoulders with one of the passersby, and allows himself to be shoved roughly to one side; It gives him enough time to light the fuse.
About five steps away, he quickens his pace to make it look as if he's hurrying to class. About seven steps away, there's a ear piercing screech, followed by a thunk as the lifting change launches the shell into the air and comes into contact with the top of the locker.
He forces himself to freeze for a mili-second, and casts a surprised look over his shoulder, just to appear as though he is as much an idiot as the rest of them. He only keeps the position for a moment, because he has a strong feeling that it is not the only firework sitting in locker.
A bang later, and the corridor lights up like the fourth of July.
His suspicions about the amount of fireworks were correct; blue, yellow and red sparks shoot out in waterfalls amid the flashes and the bangs. The fire catches on very quickly, accelerated by the gun power and paper, it licks up through the gaps, spreading from locker to locker, and more fireworks go off.
Within minutes the whole corridor is a blazing inferno of black smoke and screams. In retrospect, it's a good thing that the chair board are yet to invest in CCTV, otherwise he would be in a lot of trouble.
People are rushing everywhere, knocking into him as they run for safety. The sprinklers have come on but they are of little use. There's people hurt as well. A boy is lying on the floor, dazed, his forehead split open from when the locker door was blown off its hinges and hit him. Other people are injured too, nothing deadly but there's a few nasty burns and some people have been hit with flying debris such as pencils.
Everything is fire and blood, and he is the one who caused it. He knows that shouldn't satisfy him, that it's wrong, but he cannot help the chills of pleasure running up and down his spine as he grazes his eyes over the mess he has made.
So he turns away from it, allows himself to be carried along by the panicked crowd. He even helps support one of the casualties, the boy with the gushing forehead, out towards the emergency services lining up by the front of the school.
No one looks at him, no one guesses. Any monster worth his salt can adapt to any situation after all. They can change the tone of their voice, arrange their expression to mimic that of the human next to them, and therefore easily hide themselves amongst the masses. But most of all they are good at pretending, even to themselves, that they are not the thing that lurks beneath their skin.
He finds Her outside, scanning the fleeing crowd with a worried expression. When She spots him, She smiles and with one hand, waves him over.
All at once he feels human again; She can never, ever know.
To be continued...
A/N: I wish I could say that that is the worst he is going to get... And I also feel that I should point out that none of the characters are particularly nice in this... Apart from Addie and Vivian.
Once again, thank you all for reading and for all your feed back on the previous chapters. Please remember to sign in before you review so that I can write you a response. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and the best New Years!