-1Of Plastic Weapons and Siblings!

AN: Hokay, thankyou to everyone who reviewed, especially considering that I re-read that chapter and felt like hiding under my bed and never coming out

Ahem.

The school gate. It’s unremarkable brick façade and brass plate an ingenious disguise for the evil it represents. A cruel device, a barrier between students and freedom. The strange thing is that in place of the usual resentment I felt towards it, today all I wanted to do was cling to it and never let go. Why, oh why, must the weekend come upon us so quickly? I find I cannot bear to be parted from these fluorescent halls and sweaty classrooms, not if it means I have to live up to myself and talk to Liam.

I stand at the threshold, staring at my feet and likely blocking much of the flow of human bodies and it takes me a moment to realise someone’s standing next to me. No surprise, it’s Lucy.

“Is there a reason,” she begins, eyebrows rising. “That you’re standing at the gate?”

I look from her face back down to the ground. “Not really.”

“Meaning there is a reason and you don’t want to talk about it! Well, we can’t keep blocking the gate or people will think us a new addition to the structure and start to scribble on us, and I’m sure you’ve no desire to have Debbie’s latest boyfriends name carved into your elbow. So,” She took my hand and, with a rather fierce grin, propelled us both out the gate.

“Oh Gods,” I moaned. “I hate you.”

“I know. But after I’ve bought you coffee you’ll love me again.”

This, of course, was true.

We went to Starbucks, of course, where all the arty people hang out and talk about politics and nail polish. That said, I’m pretty sure I’d do the same if I was man enough to talk about nail polish with anyone, but I’m not. Matt’s working behind the counter, but he doesn’t see me because Lucy takes the first opportunity that presents itself to push me into a chair and does the ordering herself. Considering what we’ll end up talking about, I pretty sure that’s a good thing. I mean, I could just refuse to answer any of her questions, but honestly, I want to tell someone. I want consoling, and pity, and epic amounts of coffee!

The last of which arrives in Styrofoam cups in short order.

“So, pet. What’s happened?”

“Pet?” I ask, sipping hesitantly at what turns out to be a mocha. “When did I acquire this term of endearment?”

“Oh, I call everybody names like that. You could be shnookums instead, if you wanted?”

“Pet will do.”

“Thought so. Now, details! You’re acting all strange and emo, and I know that with the hair and the black you are kind of on the emo side of things, but no. I won’t allow moping like this.”

I sigh and place my cup on the small table near us. “Okay, well. The basic idea of it is that I like someone.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, ‘And?’ That’s kind of it.”

She looks confused. “Everyone likes someone at some point, though.”

This is going to need to be more blunt than I’d hoped for.

“I like a guy called Liam who I met not long ago. He’s a friend of the guy who gave you coffee who I also met not long ago. This troubles me because now I want…”

“Oh, I see,” Lucy nods and folds her hands together. “Is he cute?”

“Well-” I begin, but am rudely interrupted by-

“You’d better say yes to that one, or I’ll tell on you.”

Lucy turns around and smiles at the guy from behind the counter who gave her coffee. I bury my head in my hands and groan.

“Oh, fuck.”

Matt, it just so happened, had been sweeping the shop floor because hey, he does that at four in the afternoon, seen us, and come over to say hi. Of course, he’d managed to hear my damning confession as well. I was starting to hate life, but a hand descended upon my shoulder in a hearty slap that made me spill coffee on my pants.

“What?” I think I was snappish.

Matt just smiled. “I said, don’t worry so much about it. I mean, I can’t say anything for sure, but come on. We all saw the way the two of you were acting at the pool. I mean, seriously. Something needs to be resolved or we’ll end up having to bar you both from public places involving minimal clothing, and that would suck.”

“But I’m not even sure that he’s gay!”

“Cal, he’s gay.”

“But how do you know? I mean, maybe he’s just…” I trail off and look at my hands.

“He told me.”

“Oh.”

“See!” Lucy grins and does some sort of midget punch into the air. “You’ve got nothing to lose!”

But I do, my mind tells me. I’ve got lots to lose, not least of which are my friends and the mall. Because you just know that one person asking another person out and getting rejected puts a dampener on things when there are only four of you. Five if you count Lucy, now that she’s met Matt. I don’t think that’ll be acceptable, though.

“Fine. I’ll talk to him.”

“Yes, you will,” Matt grins. “Because tomorrow morning you’re going to be here and we’re all going to go play arcade games because its fun.”

He turns to Lucy and invites her along, all the while extolling the virtues of DDR and Deer Hunter II.

I feel sick.

Saturday

My insides obviously think that this is a really bad idea. It feels like they’re trying to get as far away from me as possible and a part of me is beginning to believe that a fear of my stomach running for the hills is a perfectly reasonable excuse for staying in bed all day. Saturday doesn’t need me, but my bed does. If I leave it, it will pine away to nothing. My facing Liam today could end up a case of furniture abuse.

Oh god, it’s bad. I’m delirious. And my mother’s singing in the kitchen.

I get out of bed, wrap myself in a shirt and trip over the rug in the hallway on the way to the room of cooking bacon.

The singing, as it happens, made it's way across seas and mountains to infect my mother and was originally sent by my sister and carried in a envelope, the insides of which tell us that she's coming home. Well, finally. Mum's a little teary, and she holds a hand next to her collarbone and sniffles while the bacon spits at the tiles above the stove.

"Oh! Oh, Cal," she cries. "She'll be here in a week! I'll have to clean her room. And she's not coming alone! Apparently there's a man coming with her." She giggles to herself and turns to flip the bacon out of the pan, fingers still clutching to the paper. If my mother had her way, neither of her children would ever set foot beyond her line of sight again. I grab the plate out of her hands and upend to barbeque sauce over it.

"What's his name, then?" I ask. "Is it a case of airing out the spare room or making do with her double?"

I tease, trying to arrange the bacon on apiece of toast so it covers the edges and doesn't overlap too much.

"Oh hush, you. And stop playing with your food."

"Yes, mum. But it's good that Ali's coming home." I take a bite and watch the smile she's been wearing grow a little wider.

"Yes. It will be, won't it. Now, Cal. What have you got planned for today?"

"Um, food. Food, and study, and maybe going out in a few hours." She looks over at that, but doesn't say anything. "It won't be long, I promise. Just gaming with some friends. And I'll do more work tonight, okay?"

"Will that Liam boy be there?"

"Most definitely," I mumble to my bacon and take a bite.

The studying is done in relative peace, occasionally interspersed with snatches of humming coming from down the corridor where my sister's room is aired and cleaned and probably cried over. It's like some sort of ritual that's enacted every time Ali decides to come home. My sister's been travelling for a while now- she keeps in touch, but I don't think she'll ever return to the homeland to settle. It will be good to see her again, though. Not to mention interrogate this man she's dragging along behind her.

I lean back in my chair and stare blankly at the words swimming on the paper in front of me. It's almost two- time to put the books away and take myself to hell. Have I mentioned that I'm not looking forward to this chat?

The bus ride is cold and unfriendly. The plastic seat clings to my legs and there's gum stuck on the rails. Ew.

I studiously avoided making a big deal over what I wore, and opted for tweed shorts and a band shirt, again. Parkway Drive. I had bruises scattered along my arms for weeks after I saw them, and every day i'd find new ones. It was awesome, if slightly uncomfortable. The bus bounces its violent, merry way across potholes, roundabouts and those bumps they have to make cars slow down.

We pull up at the mall interchange and i propel myself onto the concrete and into the sun.

Well, here goes nothing.

The arcade is next to the LAN goodness, between it and the cinema on the uppermost level of the mall. Matt and Sky are out the front engaged in a DDR battle that looks pretty intense. Liam's laughing at them. I walk over and he waves at me, grinning.

"It's the ultimate showdown- Matt's won the last two, and today is, apparently, Sky's last chance to regain her families honour."

We watch for a while, but honestly, DDR does nothing for me and it was horribly hard to concentrate standing right next to Liam. I wandered over the desk and bought myself a handful of tokens. I wanted a game that I could shoot things in, and there were plenty on offer.

Like this one, where I'm storming a condo filled with men who have explosives. Oh, Joy. And the bots don't always die in the same places! There's this section on a staircase where cover is hard to find- I've died here once already and I'm almost through when Matt lands on the plastic gun I've pointed out of screen to re-load.

"Quick! He's near the air hockey table. I'll do this while you go talk!"

And lo, gone is the plastic gun from my fingers. Sky grins at me and winks.

"Go get 'em, tiger."

Air hockey I deal with just a little better than DDR, so I'm glad when Liam isn't there to play, but to waste his own tokens on the basketball game. He's not too bad- the game doesn't last too long.

"So," I begin. "I ah, wanted to talk to you?" I sound like a pathetic, whiny child asking someone- oh, wait. I am.

"Sure," he grins. "So long as it's not a challenge to DDR. I'm not at Matt's level of derangement yet."

I look over to where Matt's started yanking convulsively at the gun he's holding and screaming ever so softly at the 'bastard in the beret behind the bar.' "I don't think that level of derangement is something you, or anyone, has to worry about. Unless it's contagious."

"God help us all." We turned solemnly from the sight across the arcade and I remembered I was supposed to be asking a question.

"Yes. So. Matt told me this was a good idea, by the way, so if it isn't, can we blame it all on him?"

"What are blaming on him?"

"Ha. Okay. So, you remember when you gave me that list of books, and we had that pseudo conversation without words about why our taste in literature was so similar?"

Ah, there's the little light bulb of dawning realisation I was hoping for.

"Yeah. Um, this isn't about there being a problem with that, is there? Because if I got it wrong-"

The look of pained resignation on his face prompts me to interrupt. Obviously someone hit the wrong light bulb of dawning realisation switch.

"No no no! I don't have a problem with it! Um, the opposite."

"The opposite?"

"Yeah, and you're going to make me spell this out. Fine. Going on the pseudo conversation, the Placebo poster on your wall and a conversation with Matt that, after his latest display is making me wonder what ever possessed me to trust him, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to go out with me? Because I like you. More than boys usually like other boys, if you know what I mean." Oh god, shut up mouth! Why can't I ever be the reserved, almost-goth in situations where like this, rather than a rambling idiot?

Liam looks at me for a minute and smiles. No grinning, just smiling.

"You're asking me on a date?"

"Um, well, no. Not really- I'm horrible with the whole dating thing. I'm more asking you to be my boyfriend. Please don't make me organise dinner and a movie."

"Well, after such a romantic proposition, how could I refuse?" He slings an arm around my shoulders and goddammit, I'm blushing. "Although, why chose here to ask I'll never know. I don't think leaning you over the air hockey table to answer your question properly would be met with applause and well wishes."

"Probably not. More likely you'd be hit in the nose by the puck and I'd have to find someone else to spend time with."

AN:

With hot air balloons full of thanks to:

Koryuu

Worship my bitchin' pen name

Wizard of souls

paputsza

Error Author

The can-can group and

XxAlicexX

For you wonderful reviews I'm so sorry this chapter was so very long in coming, but now I have the interweb once more, and the last few paragraphs of this story actually started to flow as I wrote! I felt like I'd lost Cal's voice for a while, but now maybe I'm finding him again, (I hope!)

Thanks again, and i hope you all enjoy, despite the glaring need for a beta reader, oh my!

Love to you all,

Sy