(AND… what you’ve all been waiting for… THE FINAL CONFRONTATION(s)!

I am so psyched.)

Pain isn’t an emotion, like anger or joy. It isn’t an action, like love or hate. It’s this terrible seething thing that is in you, but completely separate from you; it’s an other that takes over your body like some body-snatching alien that you want to force out, that you could force out, if you just knew how. Pain is something beyond real description, but that’s all right because everyone knows it. Everyone knows the alien that is just another part of the self intimately. And that’s not a good “intimately.”

I’m just shy of being nothing but pain. Nate might as well be taking a brisk jog, for all the pain he’s experiencing, despite my best efforts.

When you’re duking it out psychically, it’s never just psychically. Think about it. If you’re capable of walking and talking on a cell phone and thinking up excuses as to why your essay isn’t done and navigating your way through a rather crowded campus among other things, you’re more than capable of throwing a physical punch alongside a mental one. That is not the problem. The problem is that Nate is around two feet taller than me, in much less physical discomfort than me, and much stronger in the psychic department than I am.

Still, one must do one’s best. I guess that’s why I’m hanging onto him, literally tooth and nail, while he pins me bodily against the wall and chokes me with his forearm. He’s the one who put his hand over my mouth to keep me from attracting any unlikely help, so he can hardly be surprised that I’m about to rip a chunk of meat out of his palm.

“Are you having fun?” he asks, and through a haze of red-bright pain I glare at him. He’s not exploding into my brain like Quin did in what seems like two eternities ago. A thick, black-ish smog is surrounding me, and I’m to that point in oxygen deprivation where I can’t distinguish whether it’s purely psychic or a product of being throttled.

I have the time and the ability to think, which is odd, considering slower reaction time due to extreme fucking pain. It’s also not a good thing; while it means I can keep a vain hope of turning the tide, it also goes to show that Nate’s not really trying. He’s taking his time. He’s enjoying my suffering. And there’s only one person, it seems, whom he seems to find more fun torturing.

The thought barely clears my clouded mind when Nate laughs aloud and says, “Quin never had any use for idiots.”

I almost ask why he hung around Nate for so long, but content myself with grinding through another few layers of skin.

He’s reading the more obvious thoughts in my head. All right; more reason not to focus; to remain confused and near the point of fainting. I shake my head, still biting down on his hand like a terrier that means business, damn it, and force one of my aching hands to let go of Nate’s arm. The pressure on my throat doubles before he can correct—he doesn’t want me unconscious; that would ruin the fun—and that gives me time enough to grab at his face and hopefully take out an eye.

See how much anyone’s going to appreciate him when he’s got a fucking eye poked out—

There’s a sudden sharp jab of crystal in my mind and I can’t hold back a whimper, releasing my hold on Nate entirely and nearly achieving unconsciousness for a moment. But I don’t want to actually go out, either. I’m a contender or something.

I hurt so, so much…

I’m slammed back against the wall, the harsh crack of my skull against the bricks actually bringing me around, and Nate’s smirk slowly solidifies, becomes real again. In probably the most pathetic voice I’ve ever managed, I croak, “Fuck off.”

Even semi-conscious, the banality of that one pains me. It hurts me more than it does Nate, anyway.

While I’m wincing at myself, along with just wincing in general, Nate pulls me close to him in the classic hostage pose: my back to his front and his arm around my neck. He swings so that we’re facing the mouth of the alley and to make things more fun, starts to increase the psychic pressure around my mind. This, in turn, creates a sense of physical pressure in my head that, in my confused and near-unconscious state, causes my nose to start bleeding.

A cheap, yet effective way of heightening Quin’s inevitable tension. I snort, even though it hurts, and hopefully force the blood out with enough force to splatter the fucker’s arm.

“Just relax, Zac,” he advises me, ducking his head to speak directly into my ear. It’s probably the only way I would’ve heard him; my ears are ringing right now, and I know it’s my ears because I don’t have a cell phone. If I did have a cell phone, it wouldn’t have such an annoying ring. It’d have the “Mission Impossible” theme or—

“Quin,” Nate says, almost chiding, like a kind but tired host. I whip my head around from its loll on Nate’s chest and, through the pain and fuzzy black, see Quin standing at the edge of the alley, framed by two brick walls and their shadows. He has a horribly empty look to his face, like he’s been all hollowed out.

Which means we’re back to the whole “stand here and look pretty until someone breaks” scenario. And I have this awful feeling that it’s me who’s going to break—literally. I’ll make some stupid move and Nate’ll fry my brain like the guy with the egg in those “this is what your brain is like on drugs” commercials. Quin’s eyes meet mine then and I remember: I have no fucking shields whatsoever, and most of my surface thoughts might as well be really big subtitles in red on a black and white screen. Nate’s arm tightens around my throat but that thought was it; towering ocean blue against crazy orange flame. Nothing physical beyond my sudden inability to breathe, Nate, you stupid fuck!

I fight against Nate’s hold with that sudden adrenaline-fused rage that hits most people when they really realize, “Shit, I’m going to die!” There’s absolutely nothing recognizable in my vision as reality; because of my fragile state of consciousness, the world is nothing more than blurred shadows behind a lightning snap of psychic battling. It’s not actual colors that I’m seeing; it’s like looking at a laser show over a still background of a man I love dearly and a man I hate with all my soul watching each other, waiting for one moment of weakness, one split second of fracturing from the single main goal of shattering the other’s mind to pieces too small to pick up and put back together.

But the thing is, when you’re entirely focused on one thing, you don’t realize that a near-dead psychotic blonde’s been keeping secrets and that I’ve finally worked myself up to the point of being able to reveal it.

Nate doesn’t mean to let me go, but his fight with Quin and my sudden strength is a little too much for him to deal with all at once. His attention is diverted but Quin, channeling stupidity like we blondes are supposed to do, lets his attention switch to me, too. I don’t have time to scream at either of them for being morons; I pull my old friend, the penny sock, out of my pocket and swing.

Something like a razor, like a shriek with vampire teeth, slices into my brain and I can’t see; can barely feel Nate’s arm slamming against mine in an attempt to block the blow. I’m falling, in my mind and in the physical world, but both are leading down some dark rabbit hole where, if I’m lucky, a caterpillar with a bong is hanging out. I could use the drugs; skip the tea.

I’m halfway down when I feel the unmistakable thud of a few hundred pennies slamming into someone’s skull.

I’m unconscious for most of the hospital part.

I wake up in snatches that are somehow unfocused in time: there’s a nurse holding my wrist and looking up at the wall.  There’s an older man arguing with Quin.  Someone’s lifting me up.  Someone’s wheeling me somewhere on what I assume is a stretcher.

Someone’s shaking me awake.  I hadn’t realized I was asleep.

“Zac.”  It’s Quin’s voice, but it’s wrong.  I stare up at him blearily and wonder why his eyes look bruised.  “You have to drink this.”

I open my mouth to speak and this weird, squealing little croak comes out.  If I could, I’d look at myself askance.  Quin lifts my head up—hey, I can’t lift my head by myself.  But I manage to swallow the water he pours into my mouth in small gulps.  It’s cold.

“Could he choke down some broth?  Give me ten minutes in your kitchen, and I’ll make a broth a dead person would wake up to drink.”

There are pillows.  I wake up with my face pressed into one and wonder when I fell asleep.  There’s sunlight on the floor… it’s carpeted.  The floor, I mean.  I’m not sure where I am, but it’s familiar.

Someone’s hand is on my forehead, brushing my bangs away.

Time rolls on somewhere, but I’m not with it.  I don’t know what happens first and what happens next, what has happened or what’s happening later, which doesn’t make sense.  Or maybe it does.  I don’t know.

“I know I don’t know Zac as well as the rest of you, but I don’t think we have to worry.  He’s not going to let Nate win.”

There’s sunlight on the floor.  The pillows are piled up taller than my head and I turn into them because the smell is nice.  This is now, rather than before, I think.  Everything’s blue and gray and empty, and it feels nice in my mind.  I feel like an early autumn afternoon on the seashore, somewhere quiet and hidden away in the woods.

Anna’s sitting by me and looking up at the ceiling, her face oddly serene.  Her hand is wrapped loosely around mine and she jumps when I squeeze it, gasps and starts to speak, but the sound hurts my head and I close my eyes.  She’ll be around, I think, when I wake up again.

Someone’s shaking me awake.  I hadn’t realized I was asleep.

“Come on, Zac.  We’re waiting to give your medal for complete stupidity in the face of mortal danger.”  Eli is grinning and I think he’s the only one who would be.  I think I manage a smile, because his grin gets bigger, but there’s a lovely stretch of beach in my mind that’s waiting for me.

I should have spent more time there.  I could have found it any time.  Of course, I usually did my weird meditation along the stretch of suburbia that defined my life with Mom and Dad and Lucas…  I want to call them.  Mom and Dad, I mean.  I feel like I’ve been out of here for months.  How long have I been sleeping?

“When you start worrying about how long you’ve been away, you’ve realized there’s something to get back to.  You’re on the road to recovery.”  It’s Luke’s voice, I think.  Wait, no—it’s my thoughts using his voice to get through to me.  I think I smile.

There’s moonlight.  The shadows are sliding along the floor with the clouds.  I can’t sit up yet, I’m still living second to second, but I know where I am now.

I don’t mind waking up in Quin’s room all that much.

“Are you awake yet?” Jesse asks.  I smile into the pillows and let the emptiness in my head—it’s a good emptiness, a clean kind of emptiness, but still emptiness—slowly soak up his aura.  His voice is soft, which is good.  I still feel like loud sounds might split my brain apart.

It wouldn’t hurt.  It would just be inconvenient.

I roll onto my back and look up at the ceiling, waiting for him to wander into my line of vision.  He feels like sunlight.  “I think so…”

There’s Jesse, sitting down next to me and smiling with his whole body and soul.  I feel good enough to sit up and am vaguely surprised that nothing hurts, nothing protests.  It feels nice to move around.  A tiny voice in the back of my sunlit mind mutters about how I’m being a fucking goof.

I think it’s me.

“You’ve been in and out for three days,” he says simply.  “We spoke to your professors, so they’re working out a way for you to have another week and a half recovery.”

And there’s me, somewhere in the back, rubbing my hands together in satisfaction.  Another week and a half off is another week and a half to sit in this room and smell the pillows.

“I know you’re still out of it a bit, but—“  He stops, looks up at the ceiling for a moment, and his aura gets just a bit shadowed.  It’s uncomfortable.  Beyond my oh-so-content outer shell, the me that’s really me and still healing is getting paranoid.  It’s also getting stronger.

I mean, I’m getting stronger.  “What’s going on?”

“Quin’s… having problems.”

“He’s missing his bed?”  Ah, my inner me snuck that one in.  I think I’m actually waking up now, though.  I don’t feel so hollow.  Memories are trying to crowd their way to the surface, to fill the space that the shore has been taking up, but I’m taking real control over my brain and telling it firmly that those things can be dealt with later, when I’ve got time.

Just like that, I’m stuck in time again.  Being out of it is overrated.

Jesse smiles at me, as if realizing I’ve finally managed to claw my way back into my body.  I can’t help but roll my eyes a little and something on the dresser, across the room, catches my eye.  It’s the penny-sock.

“So, do I have to hit him with that?” I ask, nodding to it and shoving the memory—sharp crack of his skull, darkness rushing up all around me—somewhere else, where it can be remembered later.  I don’t have time for this.

Nate isn’t my fucking problem anymore.  Whatever happened at the end of that fight, he brought it on himself.  The thought echoes in my head and, quite suddenly, I understand.  Jesse doesn’t have to say anything.

There’s this great big wall of ice somewhere in this town that’s hiding away around a billion tons of guilt, and I’m going to crack it like a walnut, Zac-style.

Bethie left a great big pot of broth in the fridge.  I know it was Bethie because it makes the world a better place just by being consumed.  That, and she mentions it in the group “Get Well” card.

I’m somewhat miffed that I’m here, at Quin’s apartment, rather than at home.  It’s university policy that students over eighteen are adults, and they’re not going to call your parents if something happens to you unless you have an emergency contact card stapled to your ass.  In a manner of speaking.  But my wonderful friends decide to leave my parents in the dark when I’m slipping in and out of consciousness for three days?  Assholes.

Yeah, okay.  I’m suffering from a lack of motherly concern and fatherly pride.  And my dad would be damn proud to know I managed to kick the ass of someone far stronger than myself.  How else would I have managed all my life to kick ass without getting myself thrown in juvie?

Besides, if I was at home, I wouldn’t have to deal with Quin, the walking, talking guilt complex.  His shields are still around the place, after all, and they resonate with whatever he’s feeling.  Concern’s a biggie but the guilt is threatening to drown it.

The door opens and Quin walks in, stops, and I can feel that he’s thinking about running.  The tension in the air is as noticeable as pot smoke after a group of high schoolers troupe out of the bathroom between classes.  But I think he knows I would run him down, because he continues into the kitchen anyway.

I put down my bowl and ask, “He die?”

“No.”  Quin looks over at the far wall and a muscle along his jaw jerks.  “He had a concussion.  It complicated my job, but it’s done.”

“So what’s the problem?”

He almost laughs, which is the strangest thing.  I’m closer to attacking the fish bowl again.  “Zac.”

He doesn’t say anything else, even when I wait a whole fucking minute.  He stands there, his mouth open just a bit like he means to say something, but he doesn’t.  I don’t have to push my way past his shields to know that everything inside of him is falling down like the walls of fucking Jericho.

“Here’s a question,” I finally say, standing up.  “Whose fault is it if I go outside right now and stab a couple of motherfuckers in their backs?”  Ah, blank stare.  Well, it’s a kind of response.  “It’s my fucking fault.  It’s my fucking choice.”

“Zac—“

I don’t give a fuck if he has something to say now, I’m not done.  “What Nate did, Nate did.  Okay?  It isn’t your fucking fault anymore than it’s mine.  And I know it isn’t my fault that I nearly ended up possessed and dead a couple of times even if, at the last, I went out there when I knew what was going to happen.  Because I didn’t make the choice to hurt me, do you understand?  You didn’t make the choice to become a raving fucking psycho.”

He doesn’t say anything and I can’t find a way to say what I’m trying to say, which just makes the anger worse.  I stalk around the table and head for the hall, where my shoes are lined up on the welcome mat.

“What he did, he’s got to pay for.  Not you, not me.  And when you understand that, when you realize that you’re not Nate and you can’t take that for him, when you’ve got that fucker out of your system, look me up.”  I flash a bitter, hating smile.  “We can do lunch.”

Quin is staring at me with an absolutely blank, icy face, and I guess he’s too shocked to react at all because his shields feel exactly the same way.  I don’t give a fuck.  The door slams open, the door slams shut, and I am gone.

The walk back to the dorm would be lonely, but I’ve got a lot of anger to keep me company.

I’ve still got a whole week and half off to recover, so I pack up my bags after leaving a message on my parent’s answering machine.  Eli’s lying back on his bed, watching me.

“Mind if Ben stays over while you’re gone?” he asks innocently.  “I have yet to get him back for that dirty trick.”

“Weren’t you even a little suspicious?” I ask sourly, shoving yet another textbook into my backpack.  “Good fucking god.  I’m never going to get caught up.”

Eli shifts into a more comfortable and seductive position, though I’m not the subconsciously intended audience.  “I don’t question hot kinky sex, especially when there’s lots of it.”

That gets me to laugh, which, in turn, makes Eli grin like he’s just won the match.  I don’t even want to wonder about how long he and Ben will stick together; it’s just nice that, for once, Eli isn’t dating one person and talking about sixteen others.  I’m sure that hot kinky “spur of the moment” sex has a lot to do with it, but again, I don’t care.  People base relationships on less mutually-enthralling things.

I am not feeling sorry for myself.

“Going to tell your parents everything?” he asks then.  I zip my backpack shut with a bit of trouble and turn to face him, wondering if my eyes looked as bruised as they feel.

“I don’t think lies or omissions are going to be something I engage in for the foreseeable future,” I say with a grimace, half-trying to pass it off as a joke, half-being serious.  Eli nods and hops up, checking my alarm clock and reaching for the duffel bag.  In a companionable silence, we walk out into the hall together.

People call out “see ya!” from their rooms and ask if we need any help carrying stuff, but it’s two bags and Eli and I catch the elevator by ourselves.  The bus station is a fifteen minute walk away, but Jesse and Anna put up for a taxi.  I feel loved, and it’s not a bad feeling at all.

Ben and Bethie show up at the last second for goodbyes, as if I’m going to be gone for a month, not a week.  Bethie’s even baked up a little care package for the two hour bus ride and Ben hands me a gift bag.  Inside is a bottle of Dr. Pepper and a packet of Pixie Stix.

“Next time, give us a bit more notice,” Eli says with a leer.  “We can have a real going-away party.”

“I’ll be gone for a week!” I say, laughing, but he just shrugs innocently.

“Any excuse for a good party, I say.”

Bethie has something else for me; after almost crushing me in a warm, giant-leprechaun hug, she hands me a small envelope and says, “From the Pope.”

“He’s finally gotten around to making me a saint?” I ask, but the taxi guy is starting to get impatient and my friends push me into the backseat, calling out their last goodbyes and advice for long bus trips.  Eli’s advice on giving road head is rather out of place but Jesse’s reminder to sleep lightly so that I don’t miss my stop is traditional, ever since I woke up three stops down and really pissed off my parents.

The taxi trundles away, leaving them behind, small and getting smaller.  I hold my gifts tighter and then remember the envelope; I tear it open and blink at the small, generic “Get Well Soon” card.

It’s from Melea.  There’s no note, but the card’s enough.  And if Bethie’s delivering it, I guess they blame her for my stupidity as much as they blame Ben, which is to say “not at all.”  My choice.  My consequences.

If Quin can accept that, well.  Things might not have to suck royally after all.

My mom has a picture of me and Luke on the mantle.  I pick it up and grin; he’s looking straight at the camera, smiling openly, and I’m looking off to the side, trying to appear innocent while also getting ready to pinch his ass.  It’s a classic photo from a classic camping trip.  I don’t think it’s a bad thing, to remember these things.

“Zac!  Phone!” Mom calls from the kitchen.  I set the picture back and take my sweet ol’ time moseying over there, earning an equally amused and exasperated look from my mother.  She hands me the phone and gets back to making dinner; Dad is at the sink, already washing the ones she’s done using.

“Yeah?” I say into the receiver, wandering back into the living room.

“I wanted to ask you something fairly important,” Eli says, and I can hear the suppressed snicker in his voice.  Anna is laughing openly in the background and Bethie is telling her to shut up.  I imagine Ben and Jesse are there, and that the conspiracy against me is amusing them all equally.

“Go ahead,” I sigh, looking up at the picture again.  Those were good times, but that’s what gets messed up: people start to think that those good times are the only good times.  I’m guilty of that.

“If I were to give your home phone and address to your boss, would that be a bad thing?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I demand, loud enough that my mother looks over at me in concern and Ben, who must be the one closest to Eli, bursts into uncontrollable laughter.

“Well,” Eli says loudly, attempting to be heard over the peanut gallery, “I hear someone told him to look you up.  You weren’t around the dorm, which is where all of his contact information has you, so I helped out a bit.”

Bastard.  I close my eyes.  “When did you do this?”

“Just now.”  And then the phone beeps—someone else is calling.  I feel like hanging up and going to my room to sleep for a few more days, but…

“There’s someone on the other line.  I’ll call you back if you’re lucky.”  And, while Eli’s shouting something at me and the cheering and laugher in the background becomes overwhelmingly loud, I switch to the other line.  “Hello?”

Quin’s voice is quiet, like distant waves.  “Hi.”

It’s amazing how that one word serves as confession, promise, question, and disclaimer, all in one.  I don’t think I could manage that, but my skills lie elsewhere.

Like in taking these chances.  I say, “Three days, boss.  Take a vacation.  See a movie.  Invite someone out to dinner.”

I can feel his smile over the telephone wires and know that he, at least, isn’t going to fight.

(The End.  *dies*)