Author’s Note: Hey doddle-doodle folks. Hope you like this chapter, they’re slightly less nasty to each other here! Plus Lara gets a little action of her own! Enjoy!

Escaflowne: Thank you soooooo much for being my first reviewer. I know – three chapters is a horribly long time to go without reviews, especially since I’ve got a lot planned for this one! I’m glad you liked Trainspotting, it’s my favourite film and one of my favourite books! I’ve not gathered up the confidence to buy the sequel though, which is entitled “Porno”!!! :s Ah well, I’m glad you are enjoying my story and I hope you review often!

The Thin Line

By J.

PART ONE: Si and Lara

“You and me, always. You held my head above the waves. Paddling around pretending that it was not too cold. It was but not when you were there” – Christopher’s River, Biffy Clyro.

Chapter Four – Hymnbooks Are Bastards Too

Past

“Let us pray,” Ben requested, and the rest of the choir, all cassocked, surplussed, hymn-booked, anthem-booked and service-sheeted up bowed their heads dutifully and obediently to the thirteen-year-old. Lara, however, still didn’t know this new prayer and mumbled along, improvising.

“. . . blah rum rum blah rhubarb crumble blah . . .”

“. . . and what we sing with our lips may we believe with our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts may we show forth in our lives. Amen,” the professionals chanted.

“AMEN!” Lara ejaculated desperately, glad to know the word but humiliated at her late usage of it.

She was vaguely aware of someone sniggering behind her. Lara suspected Si and was tempted to storm up to him and tell him to fuck off, but she thought better of it. Si, the smart-arsed weasel that he was would more than likely take pleasure in her aggravation if she showed it. But then, she would indefinitely take pleasure in his aggravation as she did with that bitch Mel. The electric rush she felt at the recognition that someone was upset at her hands excited her. She could literally feel the nerve of the victim she had pushed with such skill, and felt it in her own spine like a warm spasm of victory. It was cruelty in many forms too, Lara supposed. But that was her adrenaline rush, the absolute helplessness, of a hurt, humiliated bully. It was sad and it was pathetic, but it was what Lara believed to be ‘their’ own faults for pissing her off in the first place. She never started fights; she merely finished them, and henceforth became the bad guy. It was their own fault; so serve them right in Lara’s opinion, but Lara’s opinion seldom made any impact on others. This Simon guy – or ‘Si’ – would get his share of her bitterness if he carried on with being such an arsehole to her; there was no mistake to be made about that.

She didn’t appreciate his unnecessary nastiness; he was an arsehole of the highest degree and that was perfectly blatant. Lara didn’t like arseholes like Si who did exactly what their equally as arseholic father did. She liked Si even less than she liked father because he was too weak to break away from his father’s obvious bigotry against girls arguing with boys. She hated the saying “the apple never falls far from the tree” because it was a load of bullshit. Humans weren’t apples; they could bugger off as far as they liked. Lara was tempted to go up to Si, put him in a basket and post him off to Timbuktu. But he didn’t deserve her help or her postage expenses. Although it was hard breaking away from the shadow of a person you’re with every day is easier said than done; but it could be, and she was living proof of that. She didn’t respect Si for just doing as he was told.

But it was true what Si had said the week before; she couldn’t presume she knew his family’s circumstances through and through when she didn’t even know him. She was incorrect to say that Si agreed with his father and backed him up. Si did not get on well with his father at all BECAUSE he was someone his father would prefer him not to be. Lara thought Si was the same type of person; but really he was different and trying to be more like the son of his father’s expectations; so he didn’t have to feel like an alien in his home constantly. The only one he knew felt the same was Ben, because he was different, too. Both his eighteen-year-old brother Steven and his younger brother Matthew, who was eleven, had obvious James Yorke Syndrome.

Although admittedly Si had also made unjustified presumptions about Lara and her family – that she didn’t have one. As he himself had always come to church with his whole family, he had become accustomed to the fact that everyone else must do so. He thought it strange that it would just be Lara and her mother that went to church, so decided in himself that it must be that it was only Lara and her mother together. Once he had that thought fixated in his head he found it very hard to let go. Kind of like the taste of tuna or something else very distinct. For example, one knows that what one is smelling is tuna, and you are unable – or unwilling, alternatively – to think of it as anything else, even if someone told you it was halibut. You’d automatically say: “That’s not halibut, you daft pillock, it’s tuna!” and oppose the whole world with your tunaistic views, while everyone else knew the smell was halibut.

But, the funny thing was that everyone else was right – it was halibut and not tuna – in the metaphorical sense – but for some annoying, unexplainable reason you are convinced it’s tuna through and through. Even though Si absolutely hated tuna, and didn’t even know what a halibut was, it was the principle of something you believe to be something it isn’t being stuck in your head. Like Lara’s family; or tuna.

The church was cold that day; most probably because the heating had broken down, but the insanities of the Church were not to be pondered on. Lightning strikes were considered a commonplace mishap for those who questioned the mind of the holy place’s heating system. The water boiler was like that of Asda’s supermarket trollies; they both had minds of their own that could not be controlled by a mere mortal. Anyway, the fact of the matter was that the climate in the house of the Lord was a tad chilly when compared to most of the congregation’s preferred humidity. Despite the complaints, the preferences of the temperature were unable to be changed in time for the service on the alleged day of rest. Thus, the church-going, God-fearing citizens of Glasgow were forced to endure the harshness of the winter blast.

Sitting shivering in the choir stalls during a rather uninspiring sermon by the nonchalant Father Andrew was Si, who was trying to warm his feet underneath his cassock. Unsuccessful, however, was his attempt as he was told off for fidgeting. Reluctantly Si sat plonked in his chair, shifting every so often so as to avoid Craig, the other tenor, who was trying to keep close to Si to share heat. Si, as a sixteen-year-old boy, however, suspected a come-on and worriedly tried to give Craig the proverbial cold shoulder. Eventually it seemed to work so Si victoriously shuffled to highlight the maintenance of his straight reputation. He was, however, receiving suspicious glances from his younger brother Ben and that cow, Laura or something.

Si sniffed in distaste at his thought of her. He didn’t like her one bit, didn’t trust her uncanny eyes that seemed too intent; too old; too experienced to belong in her pixie-shaped head. Lara was the first of the two to look away; Ben was sitting with an irritable expression on his face that frustrated Si more than he’d like to think it should. So he was giving the new girl snide glances – like it was a crime! Si shuffled in his seat to gain minimum comfort in the hard wooden pew, but to no avail. Sighing heavily yet not audible above the drone of Father Andrew’s calm, level voice, Si succumbed to temptation and closed his eyes.

“Si,” an urgent voice disturbed him, somewhat later than Si recalled having last being conscious. Something shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Si . . . Simon, for fuck’s sake!”

Si felt his cassock sleeve being tugged at persistently until he relented and followed suit, standing up and turning ninety degrees to face the altar at the head of the church. As Si’s eyes opened and his senses kicked in, he could have sworn to see two discs of green flashing at him. Not having time to both establish himself and look back to the girl on the other side of the choir stalls, Si opted for the former and joined in murmuring the Nicene Creed.

“ . . . the only begotten Son of God . . . begotten of His Father before all worlds . . .”

Si wasn’t really paying attention. He’d sung the Creed thousands of times; if he was going to Heaven, he was going. Spacing out in a service for once wasn’t going to make any difference. Nothing in this church made a difference to anything, Si thought to himself. It did nothing for him anymore.

Meanwhile, while Si dozed during the sermon; Lara and Ben had been up to something much more constructive: noughts and crosses. So far, Ben and Lara were tied with three games each to their name, and only one draw between them. Ben was visibly beginning to get bored, and the sermon was nearing an end so they would have to desist fairly soon. Ben attempted to ignore Lara and not hear her orders to place his “X” on the badly drawn grid, hard to write on because of the uneven wood beneath the thin service sheet on which they were doodling. This attempt, however, was futile and only invoked Lara’s anger, which had been proven to be nothing less than fatal, as demonstrated on an unrequited midge visit.

“Ben, come on!” Lara hissed melodramatically, as if she was trying to convince him to elope with her to Canada and escape her vicious husband Trevor rather than play a game of Noughts and Crosses with a thirteen-year-old choirboy. She didn’t know why she was so agitated about the game; she presumed it was because her thoughts of negativity towards Simon had frustrated her and she was in need of drainage.

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Ghost,” Father Andrew concluded, crossing himself in unison with the congregation. The choir were slightly slower as they were all waking up from their dozing. Not that the congregation were riveted by the sermon; the elder folk simply fell asleep at the beginning and were awake by the end, and the younger ones were too conscious of being in a priest’s eyesight that they dared not have some tempting shuteye lest they endure the wrath of a man of the cloth. The choir members, however, were out of sight and fell asleep nearer the end rather than the start because unlike the older folk they could concentrate for a reasonably long period of time before losing the will to live.

Thus, the failure of the lesson of Father Andrew was sustained; and the laziness of the followers of God had continued from when the Disciples of Christ had fallen asleep in the garden of Gethsemane that fateful Thursday. But it was undeniable; Father Andrew’s sermons could do with a boost, and his soothing, sleepy voice didn’t help matters of trying to stay awake.

Lara glanced up at the tenor stalls as she stood and turned to face the altar for the Creed, and saw the man . . . Craig, or whatever, nudging the Si-bastard into consciousness, which he submitted to reluctantly. For a millisecond Simon’s eyes and Lara’s caught in mid-air and turned away even quicker. Lara scowled to herself and turned her mind from him – easily done – and resolved to defeat his younger brother at Noughts and Crosses by the end of the service. Now focused on her goal, Lara forgot all about God and Si and everything else going on around her. Although not incredibly important to her as far as life ambitions were concerned, the game involving “X”s and “O”s was helping her concentrate on not thinking about important things. This happened to be just what she needed, but finding her ‘inner calm’ in the middle of a church service she was supposed to be setting an example at was perhaps a tad inappropriate.

Indeed, by the end of the service, Lara was winning, and the rector was reading out the notices; there was still time to finish the present game against his droaning. Reluctantly, Ben placed his upper-case consonant in the box that blocked one of Lara’s winning opportunities. He gave his opponent a wistful smile and wondered why he didn’t just let her win like he would usually do if Steven, Matt or Si were infected by the dreaded Competitive Bug.

“Look, I really think we should-“ Ben attempted in an effort to get Lara to pack up her music in the folder before it was time to leave. But she wasn’t listening. Instead, she marked an “O” in a corner box and her eyes gleamed green. Ben felt snatched up in them for a couple of seconds, and it was as if all his organs heaped up into his chest, because his heart felt squashed against his ribcage. Lara looked at him nonchalantly as Ben struggled for breath, trying valiantly hard to ignore funny looks from his brother he was all too aware of.

Ben knew Si didn’t like Lara; he hadn’t shut up about what a cow she was since last Sunday. He, on the other hand, found her quite pleasant. She was fun and outgoing yet mature fro her age and more aware than other girls he knew. He wondered for a moment if he fancied her; but she was two years older than him and probably already had a boyfriend. Besides, she was only talking to him so he would play her at noughts and Crosses. During the Prayers of Intercession, he wondered if she had some kind of compulsive disorder regarding paper-and-pen games. He decided that there probably wasn’t such a disorder in existence, and left the subject at that.

Craig, the PHd student, had shown Ben his thesus for Physics, and Ben wondered if her could make a similar thing with Lara’s alleged disorder, fancy font, hardback cover and all. Ben grinned to himself before recognising a sharp pain in the left side of his ribs. The attacker was Lara’s pointy elbow, and the motive of inflicting injury was to get Ben to play again. He began to reconsider his theory’s possible legitimacy after all.

“Cats’ game?” he whispered pleadingly, but of course Lara retorted with a decisive I-don’t-think-so look. The thirteen-year-old rolled his eyes but wisely obeyed her, placing a random cross on the roughly-drawn grid. Lara saw her chance and grinned victoriously at Ben – just as Father Andrew announced the unfortunate death of a three-year-old girl with cystic vibrosis. By the time Lara’s brain reacted to the declaration it was too late. She cringed helplessly and felt the cold eyes of the congregation – and undoubtedly Si’s father – lacking any mercy at her innocent human error. Ben glanced her way empathetically; he’d known that look and its effectiveness in making one feel as small and shrivelled as a raisin.

“Let us please stand for the dismissal,” requested Bill Motion, the priest who assisted Father Andrew in the clergy. People obediently stood and the dismissal was soon over and done with like an inoculation one had expected to last forever; when it was already in fact time for the celebratory lollipop. The final hymn “All For Jesus” was sung with Lara desperately trying to hide in her book to escape Mr Yorke’s glares, appearing clumsy and ungraceful.

It was in her clumsiness that when she moved to turn around after the hymn she knocked her music folder expertly over the edge of the pew stall and onto the marble floor out of her reach.

“Oh, shit!” Lara hissed, supposedly under her breath, but it was picked up over the microphone and echoed around the church above the organ voluntary. At this point Lara wanted to die as she cursed her luck – or lack of it -, the microphone, her tendency to curse, the folder, the fabulous acoustics of the church, and Noughts and Crosses.

Yet out of the corner of her admittedly tear-pricked eye, she noticed Simon snickering at her misfortune . . . or possibly just her. Either way it was the last thing she needed and decided to add Si to her Hitlist; for being such an unnecessary asshole.

What she didn’t notice was that when Si recognised the pure hurt in her eyes, he stopped laughing.

He stopped laughing and wasn’t quite sure why. He looked at her closely and realised that she was genuinely upset. Si realised that he felt bad . . . almost guilty. He felt bad not for himself: but for her.

He felt uncanny sympathy and even empathy for her even though all that had been before was apathy. She had meant well after all, and although he didn’t like her very much at all; perhaps he gained a little more respect for her that day. Which was ironic, because most people lose their respect for the cursing clumsy clot, whereas Si was now aware that she was not; she had just been unlucky. However, he knew that due to Lara’s personality she would manage to manipulate the social of acceptance of her colleagues again. So Si shouldn’t really have felt bad for adding to her hurt embarrassment . . . or had she been hurt because of him?

As Si realised the answer to this, he simultaneously discovered the unpleasant reason that he had stopped laughing. He had a conscience.

‘Fucking arsehole’ and ‘self-righteous titwitch’ were the phrases that Lara considered as suitable descriptions for Simon Yorke. What a faggot. Lara sighed heavily and exhaled through her nose noisily as she leaned back in her chair that next Friday afternoon. Se would have to see him tonight as well; but because she had been asked out that night she felt as if she could endure even Simon. Si was nothing; Si was a weird, narrow-minded, bigoted fuckwit with impertinence and arrogance for brains as well as mince and mashed potatoes. The guy she was going out with tonight, however, was slightly less of an asshole, but admittedly not widely renowned for his kind, caring personality. This was partly – or in fact, wholly – because he didn’t possess one.

Despite this he had been an interesting recent addition to Lara’s somewhat slender social circle with a circumference of three at last count. After beginning to speak more frequently with Derek after three years of acquaintanceship, their relationship turned from walking along corridors together to friendly flirtations. When he asked her to go out with him and his friends for the evening she wasn’t sure on the implication of the gesture, but realised that she would probably find out sooner or later, and to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The practice for Sunday passed unusually slowly, considering it was only for an hour and there was much to do. There was the psalm, the hymns, the setting and the anthem (Elgar’s ‘Ave Verum’), which the choir had grown sick of doing because they knew it so well. On the plus side that meant that hardly any work to be done on the piece at all. Lara made a profound point of not looking anywhere in the proximity of Simon, which he couldn’t help but pick up on as the choir packed up to leave for the night. Ian the choirmaster was shouting about how someone had left an apple core to rot in the stalls last week, and how could anyone possibly eat an apple during the service? In distaste at the lack of respect from Craig, Ian threw a hymnbook at the tenor, who subsequently suggested squatters had eaten and left the apple after using the stalls as a sanctuary.

With that suggestion, many of the choristers picked up on the lack of hygiene this presented, but Si had more pressing matters. He was actually going to apologise of his own accord. Not because he wanted to; but because he recognised for one of – if not the – first times in his life that he was wrong.

“Lara?” he attempted tentatively. Lara, who was trying to drag her mother away from the conversation about the Health and Safety conditions of the choir stalls, turned round suddenly in surprise at his trying to get her attention. Her wide eyes looked at him cautiously and she blinked twice to emphasise the unexpected presence of Si and her reaction to it. Her face subsequently hardened.

“Yes?” she enquired stonily, leaning her weight on her right leg. Si swallowed uncomfortably.

“Uh . . . I just wanted to say sorry, I suppose,” he responded, trying to appear as cool and not bothered as possible. He realised that she wasn’t stupid; she could see right through him. Si was also vaguely aware of Jean watching him from the corner of the room where she was speaking to Ben, but he chose to ignore her. Lara, however, was not so easy to ignore as she savoured the advantage she had over him.

“For what?” she asked innocently. Si shut his eyes in a loitering blink before opening them again.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said firmly, and was silently pleased with her unsatisfied facial expression but annoyed at his own pride. “If you can’t think of it firsthand, it’s obviously not life-threateningly important.”

“Obviously,” she breathed coldly, “considering that I am in fact alive and well.”

Si shrugged in a I-wouldn’t-care-if you-were-dead-and-rotting manner, gave her a withering look and walked out of the door after Ben and Jean did so. Outside, Si sighed defeatedly and waddled over to converse with his brother and friend, who overwhelmed him with bubbly conversation he could do without. He realised that Lara was probably laughing at him from inside the choir vestry, when in fact she had walked after him to the threshold and looked after him with a look of uncertainty on her face, wondering where all her hatred for him had suddenly gone.

“Hey,” Derek said welcomingly, opening his arms and engulfing Lara in an unexpected gratifying hug that made her smile warmly. She did not often get hugged by boys other than her father – hardly accountable as a boy – her cousin – who had to be bribed into hugging her – or her rather camp friend Nick, who always accompanied an embrace with a joyous, feminine squeal and labelling her as “Dahling!”

Lara stepped back from him and let her hands drop to her pockets as she smiled at him, realising as if for the first time really how good-looking he was.

“Hi,” Lara replied belatedly, and Derek smiled at her. Lara soon found herself forgetting all about Si and that odd encounter with him back at the church. She had never been out with Derek and his widely-renowned friends before. She didn’t know any of his friends because none of them were at their school and were all older than her. Derek seemed keen to introduce her, so they headed up the path to the large stone structure which looked like it had been made solely to shelter youthful loiterers from the rain. But it was not raining tonight, although the clouds gathering suggested that it possibly could later in the evening.

“I have to be back by half ten,” Lara mumbled quietly to Derek, hoping none of the others, who all appeared to be very independent and rebellious compared to her. “Would you come on the bus back with me?” she looked up at Derek hopefully, who raised an eyebrow at her request but nodded calmly and presented her with a small smile. Lara was still humiliated at having to admit to being obedient and having over-protective parents, something she could chat and complain about openly to her friends; yet to these people she was shallow and self-conscious. Lara had recently read Catch-22 at school and had become aware of the human condition since reading it, acting as if he had not succumbed to society’s categories yet here she was in all hypocrisy acting like a five-year-old in a casino, wondering what the Hell a ‘chip’ was if not something to eat; not wanting to ask these new people but quite happy to ask her parents what it was.

Lara dismissed all thoughts of deepness and sincerity, determined to have fun, which she did to an extent. Everyone except she and Derek – with regard for Lara - drank heavily, smoked heavily and pulled one another for meaningless kisses heavily. A few people stripped off naked and ran around; some fought about who should have the last tequila shot, and a few people tortured Lara and Derek about how cute a couple they would make. The two visibly became more uncomfortable with people asking if they were going out and moaning about how lovely Lara was – to which Lara snorted in laughter – and made them hug just so they could see what a nice pair they made.

When pulling away from said hug, Derek paused for a moment and placed his forehead on Lara’s for a while, staring deeply into her eyes. Lara’s eyes widened as she looked at him, wondering if he was going to kiss her, but he smiled at her again and pulled away. Lara smiled back at him as he held her shoulders at arm’s length before one of the less drunk girls came up to Lara and asked if she would like to come and sit with her. Lara nodded gratifyingly and began to follow her, but noted that Derek’s hand lingered on her arm before softly releasing her and walking in the opposite direction to help dress Kris, a boy who had stripped off and blacked out in the same thirty second period.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” Lara shrieked as she leapt off the bus and onto the grass, her ankle giving way and falling to the ground. Derek was above her in a flash to help her to her feet, and Lara wondered how she could ever have thought him to be unkind. “I am so late . . . I can’t believe it! Oh my God . . .”

Lara ran off in the direction of her house, now twenty minutes after her curfew, and she soon heard Derek’s footsteps echoing behind her. Fortunately her house was reasonably near the bus stop and she was outside in about three minutes, and by this time Derek had caught up with her. She was leaning on the lamppost next to her house trying to collect her breath and calm down before facing the storm that was her mother’s wrath. She had already had a sample from the phonecall she made to the house when she discovered the bus was going to be late, and was very reluctant to face the nasty music but she had no choice unless she wanted to sleep outside forever.

She felt Derek’s hand on her shoulder again, and she looked up at him thankfully.

“Thanks for coming home with me,” she said graciously, but obviously with a hint of apprehension in her voice as he smiled sympathetically at her. She turned around and faced the house, Derek’s hands resting on her shoulders. He pulled up the hood on her jacket and pulled it over her head. He leaned in to her ear and whispered:

“Don’t worry about it, Lara. They’re just parents.”

Lara nodded in her hood, and Derek turned her around to face him. He was about six inches taller than her, so had to bend his head down quite a bit to put his forehead on hers again. Lara smiled grimly at him, but this time Derek didn’t smile. They stood like that for a couple of minutes, breathing each others’ breath and looking at one another. Lara could only see Derek’s eyes because of the dark, but she didn’t mind. Standing here meant she was postponing death, which was fine by her on any road.

Suddenly, without any warning, Derek pushed his head down into Lara’s hood and grabbed her lips with his, pulling them out of the jacket and into the night as he prised her mouth open with his tongue. Lara was taken by surprise but didn’t resist him as she began to kiss him back. They stood there for another couple of minutes before Lara gently pulled back, apologising because she had to go in or she would die. Derek laughed at her and told her he would see her soon. Lara waited until Derek was out of sight before stumbling up the driveway path with a huge grin on her face.

Unsurprisingly, her mother went apeshit at her the moment she stepped in the house, firstly trying to use the silent treatment on her with the “I’m so disappointed in you” attitude, but Lara knew her mother and that she somewhat lacked such a skill in subtlety. After the yelling, Lara went up to bed and was quite pleased with this new way to not care about what parents say; kiss a guy. Still grinning, Lara got changed into her pyjamas and decided to be barbaric and not brush her teeth that night so she could have Derek’s taste in her mouth throughout the night.

In her dream that night, Lara replayed the night with Derek right up to the kiss on the doorstep. But when she pulled away from him, it was not Derek she had been kissing.

It was Si.

A/N: O.O !!!!!! Dun Dun DUUUUUN! What did you think of that then? It took me absolutely yonky-doodles to write so I hope you guys liked it muchfully. Yes that’s a word . . . honest. Please review, and it will encourage me to update faster! THANKS!

Peace, Love, Empathy.,

Jules xx