Chapter one: Stephanomeria Virgata

--

Kyle sighed as he stepped away from the wall he had just walked into. He rubbed his head, pissed off at being sidetracked enough to actually hit it this time. Usually he caught himself, but no, today he’d managed to march right into the damn thing. It was all that Joey kids fault; that stupid dork who always passed him, walking to the english class they had together. He couldn’t help himself! Every time Joey was near him he’d stop and stare. No, Kyle wasn’t gay; that’s disgusting. Gay people were sick, and he wasn’t, nor would he ever be, part of the homosexual population. Why, then, could he never bring his eyes from Joey’s body?

He didn’t know, he didn’t care, he just ignored it. He wasn’t gay.

“Kyle?” a bittersweet voice rang into his ear, sounding, if possible by just one word, purely evil. “Stop staring at that wall, ya dork,” she was more or less kidding.

“It’s pretty, I couldn’t help myself,” Kyle answered as he looked toward his friend, sarcasm filling his words, and an un-amused look dancing on his face.

“Oh, come on. We’ve got english,” she turned and walked away from him, expecting him to follow. Normally he would have, but… Joey walked by again, forgetting something in his locker probably, and the expression in his brown eyes looked a little worried. Kyle’s own eyes traveled down his messy longish blond hair, slid along his stripped orange and green shirt, white cuffed sleeves, and rested on his ass.

Heather turned around, “Kyle?”

He didn’t hear her. He loved the way Joey’s hair fell, light and blondish on his shoulders -not flippy like most of the other kids in his school- gracing over his left eye a little. He loved the way his belly wasn’t perfectly flat. Loved how cute the little bit of, well, fat looked; it wasn’t bulging out in huge rolls, but it stuck out a little and drove Kyle crazy.

“Kyle!” Heather’s voice yelled again, and this time he heard it.

He blushed, mad and disgusted with himself. He was not gay, “Coming…” his voiced cracked a little, though he didn’t think Heather caught it. He turned around and walked towards her, trying to clear his head. Joey flew by them though, and Kyle caught the faint smell of vanilla, relaxing and soothing, before kicking himself mentally. He wasn't gay. People didn’t except gays. It was sickening, immoral, and just plain different.

Kyle didn’t want to be different.

“Finally! For God’s sake Kyle, stop spacing out all the time,” she scolded him. She was kind of worried about him though, he’d been really spacey lately. Heather glared at a girl with bright blue hair who was obviously eavesdropping on them, “Mind your own business, freak.”

Said freak glared back, “Oh just shut up, Heather.”

Heather whipped her red bangs from her face, not believing somebody had actually told her to shut up, “Excuse me?”

“I said shut up,” the other girl retorted, lighthearted, knowing sounding like she didn’t care would piss Heather off. She smiled at her as she walked past, feeling sorry for Kyle; he had to put up with that all day.

“Get the hell back here Lucy! And say that to my face!” Heather yelled, and Kyle just smiled on the inside, face keeping that I‘m-better-than-you look. He had always thought that Lucy girl was all right, even if she was a complete loser. She dressed weird, acted weird, but she was interesting, he guessed.

Lucy just stuck out her tongue as she walked away, fixing her frilly black skirt as she went and pulling up her knee high socks, “… I think she’s ignoring you, Heath.”

“I hate her so much. Why can’t she just die? Her and that twin of hers, what’s his name?” Heather pushed some stray red hair from her face as she began, once again, heading toward the english class.

“Joey, I think,” Kyle answered, trying to say it thoughtlessly. Heather didn’t reply, so he just kept quiet as he walked into the english class, easy strides carrying him to his usual seat. It was beside some girl he’d never really gotten to know all that well. Her name was Jacqueline, she was sixteen, and too crazy to be alive in his opinion.

“Kyle,” Mrs. Cardinal’s voice rang out over the quit murmur of chatting students, “Would you mind passing these out?” she held out a stack of what was probably homework.

“Sure,” he got up from his seat and walked over to her. He took the papers, a melancholy look on his face. It became forced as he got closer to Joey and Lucy’s shared desks, though. He could feel his cheeks heating up, and saw, out of the corner of his eye, Lucy whispering something to her twin, him shaking his head, saying something back quietly, and by the time he’d gotten to their table, Joey had turned and was looking straight into Kyle’s dark green eyes, calm and collected.

Kyle glared at him.

“What?” he demanded as he slapped two of the sheets on the desk in front of him.

“I just couldn’t help noticing what a pretty shade of green your eyes are,” Joey said, smiling, and he just sounded so smooth.

Kyle tried to keep his composure, really he did, he even mumbled a quiet ‘fuck you’ before going to the next desk, but he was blushing. And why? Because of Joey? He barely talked to the kid! When he was done with the sheets, he walked slowly to his seat, hoping his cheeks were back to normal.

“My goodness Kyle, are you blushing?” Jacqueline asked, her french accent thick, and laughing slightly under her breath, “What did Mr. Klein say to you then?”

Kyle gave her the most disdainful look he could give a person, but didn’t answer her. Why should he?

“Oh come on now, tell me or I’ll spoon your eyes out,” she was still smiling; did hurting other people make her happy or something? Was she a masochists? He sighed; might as well just tell her. They’d done this a million times, and Kyle had decided that she could get anything out of anybody eventually. Be that because she threatened to kill you or that she was trustworthy, he wasn’t sure.

“He said,” Kyle lowered his voice, “…I have pretty eyes.”

Jacqueline laughed.

“Now class, as you’ve all been told numerous times, we’re starting a new project tomorrow,” Mrs. Cardinal spoke after she noticed Kyle sitting down, “The sheet in front of you has everything your project will need to have on it in order to pass,” -she was overly thoughtful like that; most teachers would expect you to just remember everything- “It can be a report, a documentary, an experiment, whatever; be creative as you want with it. You have one month to finish it,” she paused a second, searching her brain for something she may have left out, “Oh! Also, you‘re in groups of five. And for you satisfaction, I picked them,” the class groaned, “Yes yes, I know, it’s the end of the world.” She moved the sliding part of the chalk board out of the way and reviled a list of names.

“There they are, read them and get together with your group. This is kind of a free period, so talk about your project or don’t,” and about half the class walked over to the board to read the list, succeeding only in getting in each others way. Kyle sat there, thinking them all stupid for getting excited over a dumb project.

When they all sat back down, Kyle got a clear view of the board. He looked around for his name, spotted it, and died a little inside.

Kyle, Lucy, Joey, Heather, Jacqueline: #5

Life hated him. It really really hated him.

Wait… why would it matter if he was in Joey’s group? He knew he wasn’t gay, that he didn’t like other guys -and even if he did it wouldn’t be Joey- so why would being in the same group with him be bad? It wasn’t necessarily good, but nothing to cry over. Besides the fact that most the people in his group were losers, the only bad thing was having to do this project.

At least that’s what he was telling himself. But when Joey started walking over to him, guyish hips swaying a little, half his smile covered by blond hair, Kyle’s breath hitched. Joey was just looking at him, arms down at his sides; it wasn’t anything special, most of the world walked that way, but still, Kyle couldn’t breath.

“My Kyle, I think you’re drooling,” Jacqueline so kindly put in, noticing his clouded eyes.

Kyle ran a hand through his wavy black hair, and tore his eyes from Joey’s body, glaring at Jacqueline, “I’m not gay, Jacqueline.”

“You sure?” Joey said, daring and smooth. Kyle turned his head to face him, and hopefully retort some snide comment and regain lost pride, but he found their lips only inches apart, and he wasn’t really thinking much of anything with those brown eyes searching his own.

This was disgusting, revolting, fucking scary. Another guy was questioning his sexuality. He twitched a little, because half of him wanted to just jump over the table and… kiss Joey or something, and the other half wanted to kick himself for even thinking that. He was relieved when Lucy walked over, pulling her brothers face away from Kyle’s.

“Stop flirting, you retard. We’ve gotta talk about this project… thing,” she rested her hand on her hips.

“I was not flirting!” Joey said, turning from the smooth talking calm teenager into some spastic fanboy, “And even if I was, what’s it to you, huh?” he glared at her through a faint blush, trying not to look at Kyle. He didn’t like the disgusted looks he always got from the guy. Besides making him feel worthless, they weren’t very becoming of his pretty face.

“Just sit down, ya spaz. We need t’ get to work,” Lucy grabbed two chairs behind her, one for Joey and one for her, and pulled them to the opposite ends of Jacqueline and Kyle’s desks. She groaned when she saw Heather coming up, pushing her hair out of her face.

“Let’s just get this over with. How long do we have to work on this stupid ass project?” Heather asked, pulling a chair up to the right side of Kyle’s desk, her blue eyes scoping out the four other teenagers like they were pieces of meat or something.

“About a month…” Kyle mumbled, hating life at the moment. Joey’s spilt personality was going to get very annoying over the next four weeks.

“Great.” Jacqueline put in, pulling at a random curl in her brown and pink hair.

Heather looked at her like she had three heads, “What the hell is with your hair anyway? Its like five different colours. That’s so dorky.”

Jacqueline was caught off guard by Heathers words, but she wasn’t hurt. She could take an insult, but she bit her lip, knowing it would draw some reaction out of Lucy.

And it did, or course. Lucy watched Jacqueline, her eyes filling with fake tears, and she instantly felt her dislike for Heather increase. She reached a hand out, put tension on her middle finger and thumb, and flicked the heathen in the face.

“What was that for?!” Heather stood up, outraged by the boldness of this… Lucy.

“Don’t make fun of Jacky!” Lucy stood up, eyes ridged, and would have probably pounced on Heather if Joey hadn’t grabbed her shoulder and pulled her to sit down. She didn’t even notice the sly look on Jacqueline’s face, the smirk that she sent Heathers way; it read, basically, ‘Lucy loves me and not you, bitch.’

“Now who’s the spaz, huh?” Joey whispered to his sister, “Okay, I know you two don’t like our company very much,” Heather glared at him, “…or at all, I guess. But, how about for one month, we all just get along? I mean, we don’t have to like each other, but, come on, like four weeks is gonna kill us.” His eyes were closed, moth flapping off, calm like always, but he sounded bored, maybe frustrated. Like the four people in front of him should already know what he was talking about.

Heather, Jacqueline, and Lucy, being the mostly mature and not idiotic teenagers they were, all sighed and nodded. Kyle, however, was too interested in how completely dumb Joey’s little speech had been. He didn’t even care that the five of them were from completely different social classes! He’d simply said ‘let’s just get along’. Like life’s that easy. He did look rather cute though, despite said crazy talk, sitting there lazily, happily… What the hell was wrong with his head? The thought of even breathing the same air as that dork should revolt and disgust him. Besides, Joey was a boy. Kyle didn’t do boys.

“Okay then, any ideas?” Joey let the question hang, leaning back in his chair, arms lazily falling over it’s sides.

“I say we half-ass it and grow plants or something,” Heather said, smiling a little and only half kidding. Half-assing things wasn’t always bad, and she didn’t really mean not trying to do a good job, but just not bothering to be overly creative about it.

“I hate to admit it, but I agree with you, Heather, dearest,” Lucy said, sticking her tongue out at the heathen, “We could go find some weird exotic plants and see if they’ll grow in our backyard or something.”

Jacqueline pouted. How dare Heather come up with an idea Lucy liked! Lucy was Jacqueline’s, and she always would be, “Or we could get one type of foreign plant, and see if we can match its climate…”

“Wouldn’t we need more than just one of the plant?” Lucy asked.

“Or we could-” Kyle started, suddenly thinking of something, but was cut off.

“Oh my, you can talk! I knew it,” Joey grinned at him.

Kyle rolled his eyes, ignoring Joey's comment on his momentary anti-social ness, “We could all get one plant each, and see who grows it the best.”

“You mean like a contest?” Jacqueline asked, kind of intrigued by the suggestion of competition.

“...sure,” Kyle answered. The look of determination in her eyes was actually rather frightening.

“That’d work, ” Joey said, a little put down that he wouldn’t have any reason to hang out with Kyle more. Then again, there was the buying of said plants, the written report that was on the sheet Mrs. Cardinal had passed out, and… “Shouldn’t we meet up once a week?”

“What for?” Jacqueline asked, not sure where he was going.

“So we can see the difference in the plants,” he hoped they all agreed with him. Kyle wasn’t exactly the easiest person to get close to, and Joey thought that maybe this project would be some sort of ice breaker.

“Good point. We’ll need to copy down the changes and stuff. Once a week sound good to everybody?” No one shook their head, so Heather took it as a yes, “Good. Now all we need is a plant!”

“Oooh… Can it be a flower? Please?” Jacqueline begged, voice whiny, and annoying Heather.

“Sure Jacky, what kind?” Lucy asked, smiling, and completely buying in to Jacqueline’s false sweetness.

“I dunno any…” she pouted, and Heather could tell it was fake, just to get Lucy’s attention. What a little sleazy bitch.

“Stephanomeria virgata,” Joey piped in, not wanting some weird love scene between his sister and that brat she had something going on with, “It’s called Benth too, grows somewhere in California, I think.”

“I’m not even going to ask why you know that,” Lucy said, laughing a little at him, “What does it look like, oh so obviously gay relative of mine?”

Kyle’s heart jumped.

“Well… it’s usually pink, and I’m no more gay then you are!” he leaned forward in his chair, crossing his arms on the desk in front of him, a witty look on his face. Kyle vaguely saw the chain of a necklace slip out of his shirt collar as he did so, wondering what it was…

“Not true. I’m bi, you’ve got the full blown homosexual vibes goin’ on,” Lucy stuck her tongue out at him, winning this little fight for the day. She grinned at Joey’s completely dumbfounded expression; how stupid was he? To not see that coming…?

“You guys're weird,” Heather said, bitchy like always, but maybe she was amused. Not that it mattered much, Joey didn’t hear amusement.

“There’s nothing wrong with being gay,” Joey glared at her, ready and willing to shove words down her throat if she started on about that society and morals shit. He agreed with people having their own opinion, and if Heather could offer a good reason for not liking gays, then he’d be able to deal with it; he doubted she could though.

“I never said there-” she was cut off.

“Yes there is,” Kyle said, his face vacant.

Joey felt his head get hot. It wasnt very easy to make him angry, but Kyle was doing one hell of a job.

“It’s sick, disgusting, and just wrong.” -he got right into Joey's face- “And I don‘t think it should be allowed. All you fags should go to…” he couldn’t finish. Joey looked really pissed. He'd expected sad, watery eyes, but no. Joey looked ready to kill him. Fuck, why did he care?! He hated gays, he wasn’t attracted to guys! Joey didn’t mean anything to him. Nothing. The heartbroken look in his eyes wasn’t effecting him at all… it wasn’t.

“Oh, calm your hormones, Kyle,” Heather said, sighing. She saw what was going on, kind of… she’d have to ask him about it later. She may not have been all that comfortable, or maybe just used to, gays, but she wasn’t dumb. She wouldn’t hate anybody for it.

Lucy blinked. Was Heather being open minded? Was that possible? Whatever it was, it was kind of a turn on, “I know you don’t mean that.”

“Yes I do,” he didn’t sound very sure if himself, because Joey still looked rather irked. Not that Kyle cared or anything, “It’s-”

“Just shut up,” Joey said, knowing he couldn’t take anymore of this; how could Kyle say that to his face? Right after he said he was gay…? And Lucy said it too! He better thank God every night for making him so cute, “I’ll pick up the flowers on Saturday, alright?”

“Kyle’ll go with you,” Heather said, grinning, and Kyle wanted to kill her right now.

Joey sighed, maybe he should just give up. Was Kyle even worth all this torment? He looked towards him, black hair falling into his dark green eyes, light skin contrasting in a way that shouldn’t be possible; it was too goddamn attractive, he was too goddamn attractive. His jeans were tight, clinging to his hips. Joey saw him shirtless once, his bellybutton piercing shining and drawing his eyes in. He almost skipped home, completely gone with the boy, not even knowing his name then.

“No I wont.”

“Oh yes you are.” Heather started, “Lucy and I have some shopping to do anyway, don’t we Lucy?” Lucy shrugged and mumbled ‘whatever.’

Jacqueline clenched her teeth. Heather and Lucy were going to the mall together, and Jacqueline couldn’t, “I’ve got to watch my sister.”

Heather nodded, enjoying the tormented look on the her face more than a little, “Us four are going to the mall then, and you two are gettin’ the flower stuff while we just…”

Lucy had to try really hard to say the next thing that came out of her mouth, “… hang out.”

--

Okay, well… my friend Adeya is here, and she says I gotta post this now. So yeah, I did. Sexy, right? This took me the better half of a month to write, and no I’m not bullshitting you. It takes me that fuckin’ long. xD I started the next one... it'll be done some day. & I know it kinda looks like Joey only like’s Kyle 'cause he's hot... but uh, just chillax. x3 Hope you love it, and review! (edit: 09/05/06)