Time Is Running Out

By J. S. Danskin

Author's Note: Hey. Sorry it's been a while. Thanks to all who reviewed, as always, much appreciated. I'd love it if you reviewed some of my other stuff too (wink, wink) but here's the next chapter anyway! This is going to be a REALLY REALLY not usually my kinda short chapter that is really short, only with one entry per character today. I know. But it's kind of an in- betweeny one, if you know what I mean. You know what I mean? Yeah? You know EXACTLY what I mean? . . . nah, I didn't think so!

Chapter Nine - Chickens In A Basket

Ash

"Now, lets not go count our chickens before they're hatched," Martin said to me, trying to get me to calm down the next morning after Jhonen's absurd behaviour that I shouldn't REALLY be mad about, because, I mean . . . Kay isn't my GIRLFRIEND, is she? No matter how much I'm beginning to wish she was. . .

"I don't want to go and count any fucking chicken, I'd rather eat one," I retorted bitterly, making the vegetarian Rhuaraidh roll his eyes at my ignorance for the welfare of animals that wouldn't be bred if they weren't to be eaten.

"I thought you didn't like Kay anyway. I thought you thought she was a bitch." Martin continued, his nosiness overwhelming me at the moment.

"I do - I mean, I don't like Kay. I just . . . well, I just didn't think she was Jhonen's cup of tea." I was doing really badly here. The two guys stood looking at me, totally unconvinced. What was it about that girl? Jhonen couldn't have gotten far enough away from her before, but last night he was going crazy at her, as if he couldn't get close enough to her, like he needed her.

"Well, obviously she is." Rhuaraidh contradicted me. I blinked, and looked at him, confused. I had only half-listened to what he'd said.

"What?" I asked.

"She obviously is his cup of tea, from what you're saying," Rhuaraidh clarified tolerantly. I nodded.

"Yeah," I said, feeling very washed down with a sort of sadness very suddenly as the meaning that Jhonen liked a girl I also liked. And when Jhonen liked a girl, he always came first, and I was left feeling aside of it all, "yeah".

Kay

"Fuck off."

"What did you say to me?" my mum demanded, a sheer look of horror on her worn-out face.

I shrugged, "Fuck off." I repeated. Finally, a reaction!

"Don't you DARE speak to me like that!" my mum shrieked, "Just because you're -"

I didn't want to talk about the phone call. I just wanted to make myself feel better by pissing my mum off. There didn't seem to be a lot of alternatives.

"You say "fuck off" to me all the time. It's repetition, right? Kids get it from their parents. You're supposed to be a role model." I eyed her up and down, "Which you're not, by the way."

My mum did that thing where she looked like she was about to hit me. Sometimes she did and sometimes she didn't, but she knew me, she knew I was only taking out my hurt emotions on her, so she decided just to use words.

"What are you, now, a fucking parrot?" she exclaimed nastily, sneering at me with her teeth.

"Yeah. And I want a fucking cracker, so I'm going down to the shops to get some. Or better yet, why don't I go down to the hospital, 'cos it looks like I'll be spending a lot of time down there anyway, I better get used to it!"

"Kay . . . "

"No. Don't fucking speak to me. You shouldn't try and be all nice and different just because I'm sick. I'm not ill yet. I don't fucking give a shit yet, Mum. Just leave me alone until I start to waste away. Maybe you'll begin to finally care about me then, Mum. But by then it'll be too late."

"Kay, you're being so melodramatic. Most people who get leukaemia are cured now. It's a controllable disease. You need to calm down, and stop being so fucking exaggerating," my mum patronised, and I didn't say anything else, because there wasn't anything I could think of to say to throw back at her. But for once, I didn't argue with her, because I hoped she was right.

Jhonen

"NELSON?" I screeched in horror at the name my third cousin Jessica had suggested she use on the small, round baby boy - who was also screeching - bouncing in her lap. She looked up at me, her face screwed up into a fuck- you-you-nasty-little-toerag-what-do-you-know-about-twenty-first-century- names? way.

"What's wrong with Nelson?" she snapped back at me. The name hadn't been finalised - thank God - so there was still hope of salvation for this poor little boy, if I could save his life.

"Well, more than half of people called Nelson commit suicide," I shrugged off-handedly, trying to look like I knew what I was talking about, as if I'd researched it, but really I was improvising. In other words, it was a load of bullshit, "they're like . . . lemmings. I mean, apart from that they jump off buildings instead of cliffs, and off the end of the building there's not much water to drown in."

I was trying to freak her out, and she was getting seriously freaked out. My Mum and Dad cast me shocked stares from the luxurious sofa they were sitting in. I was sprawled out inelegantly in my armchair, but why should I be decent just because the clueless wonder and her bastard child - from Barbados, no less - had arrived, negative the red carpet?

"That's not . . . that's not true, is it?" she gabbled. I rolled my eyes while nodding my head at her in the affirmative. For a brunette, she was acting like a complete bimbo. I wonder if her hair was dyed. Like, lots.

I continued nodding while inspiration came, "Aye," I confirmed, "and it's sad, Cousin Jess, but that's the way the name has the effect on the world's Nelsons."

My dad tried to stifle a laugh, but due to Jessica's weakness, she took it as a small sob. And that was what changed her mind.

"Well . . . I really liked the name Nelson . . ." PERFECT! The usage of the past tense was more for me to decide happily my mission had been a success.

"I mean, you could take the risk," I explained to her, falsely sincere, "but it would be a big risk, you realise. Over half of the Nelsons, Jess. Your child could be one of them."

"We're Catholic," she tried desperately, only providing me with more ammo. She was looking at her scrunched up baby as if she were imagining it to fall off her knee and die already. She held it to her chest instinctively, "we can bring him up to strongly oppose suicide!"

"We?" I sneered. I couldn't help it, but I had already made up her mind, "With no father figure, there's no one for little . . . Nellie . . . to depend on. But again, it's a risk you're either willing to take or not."

Jessica cracked. She looked around the floor for some kind of sanctuary, but there was only the "IT'S A BOY!" card from my parents shaped on the floor like a tent to hide in, and Jessica DEFINITELY wouldn't fit in there.

She nodded, and looked at my mother. "How about Harry?"

I'm sorry, I'm so nasty today, but I admit I was pretty full of myself after pulling bloody Kay Winters. It's not really something you do every day, I've got to admit.

After discovering that Carrie's actually a shallow, scary psycho bitch that DOESN'T like me, I suppose I saw Kay's better side, and the whole argument thing just turned me on, to be bluntly honest. I like her, I've realised, not that I'll go announcing that to the whole fucking Universe. I'm not even going to tell her that until I've spoken to Ash about it, 'cos he's always up for speaking about stuff like that. I'll explain what happened, and take his advice.

That's what friends are for, aren't they?

A/N: Okay, not much of a cliffhanger there but leaves you wondering what Ash is going to say to Jhonen, doesn't it? No, I didn't think so

Anyway, will Ash tell Jhonen he likes Kay?

Will Jhonen ask Kay out?

What will happen to the band without a lead singer?

And . . . what will the doctor say to Kay about her leukaemia?

Tune in next time to find out

cheesy theme tune commences and happy people dance