AN: New story, but I'm not abandoning Tattoo. Keep calm. Just something a little different. We'll see how two projects at once go. I may be taking on more than I can handle but hopefully not. Thanks, Abbie, for the praise! :D I apologize for the fail summary. Keep in mind that this is rated high for a REASON. I'm not going to get into details, but there will be potentially offensive content, especially language. As always, please let me know what you think!

Chapter One

I wasn't supposed to be watching. I had absolutely no right to be there. But I was glad I stayed.

Sid dithered uncharacteristically, looking absolutely tongue tied as he shuffled his feet nervously. Sammy looked more patient and calm than I'd ever seen him, though the minute clench of his jaw—almost imperceptible—betrayed his true irritation.

"Are you going to punch me or dump chili fries in my boxers or what? I have to get lunch, so hurry up." He tensed himself for the blow that must surely be headed towards his face, but it never landed.

Instead, Sid's hands had scrunched up into knots at his sides, brows scrunched together with so much tension contained in his expression that it was obvious he was sick over the words stuck at the back of his mouth. "Willyougooutwithme?"

I was so damn shocked that it took me a minute to actually convince myself I'd heard correctly.

"Huh?"

"I…uh…I like you and I want to go out with you…."

Sam was clearly just as stunned as I was. "Oh. Well, um, I'm really flattered and all but…"—Sid's expression turned to stone—"…I just don't like you like that. We could be friends though, if you're okay—"

I saw the punch coming before Sid even thought to throw it. My hand latched over his in seconds, narrowly missing the blow myself. Sammy was agape with a mixture of fear and disbelief.

"Bane," he sneered, and his voice had my blood running frigid. "What do you think you're doing?"

I knew in that moment that Sammy and I weren't going to get out of serious punishment if I didn't come up with something fast. "Uh, Sam, you go get lunch. I'll meet you later, okay?"

"But Bane—"

"Just go."

Casting one more fearful glance behind him, he hurried off in the direction of the cafeteria, and I felt a momentary surge of relief. One down, now just how to get out getting the crap kicked out of me.

Okay, there really was no way to avoid that, unfortunately. So try to avoid getting suspended or humiliated was probably the best I could hope for.

"Ready for a beat down?"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at that, and focused instead on making the best of a really terrible situation. "Sid."

"Yeah?" He looked confused that I was addressing him and not cowering in fear.

"I know that you have to beat the shit out of me to make sure I don't say anything about this…." Oh god. My inner masochist was squealing with glee at the idea. "But I really, really, really do not want to get in trouble."

"So?"

"So I'll let you use me as your personal punching bag as long as you do it somewhere private and don't leave any marks where people can see."

He mulled this over with a frown, his brain working overtime to process my reasoning behind this request. Finally he arrived a conclusion. "I get it. Faggy Prince to Princess Sam's rescue?"

Fag. The word hit me like a piano in one of those ridiculous cartoons. Fag. "I'm not a faggot," I growled.

Sid just laughed. "Yeah, you're straight as a rainbow." He accentuated the statement with a punch to the shoulder that had me stumbling back a few steps.

"Not here!"

"All right, all right. Whatever you want. Just don't back out or Sammy gets it too."

I looked up at him incredulously. "I thought you liked him."

"Not anymore, homo. And keep your voice down. Else you'll be getting more'n few bruises. Got it?"

"Yeah," I responded sourly. "I got it."

My last two classes of the day were a struggle due to the storm of thoughts that raged in my mind. Had I really made the right decision? Yes, I knew Sid, and he certainly wasn't one to be humiliated and let it go. It was never that easy.

Sid, Sammy, and I had all been friends once, but it ended our freshman year when Sid decided the best way to boost his self-esteem was to persecute the "fags". Clearly this had been a symptom of his internalized homophobia, likely a big reason he projected a homosexual identity onto me, where none existed.

Yeah, Sam was gay and that was fine by me. But jut because we were best friends did not mean we were banging each other. Not in the slightest.

One new message.

Alley a blck down from school on wst side of Oak

I stared at the text quizzically. Who is this?

sid

How'd you get this number?

had yr numbr 4 forvr jackwad. whod u thnk wuz prank calling u?

I had a headache from trying to decipher his butchery of the English language.

When at last the final bell sounded, I realized I wasn't ready for this at all. Foolishly, I'd offered myself up as a sacrifice in a moment of what--heroism? Masochism seemed more likely.

I couldn't deny that I'd always had a fascination with causing myself pain. I had been "accidentally" burning fingers and slicing palms for too long to lie to tell myself I didn't enjoy hurting. Physically, anyway.

I was late enough to avoid the after-school crowd, and. I knew my friends would take their sweet time like always before walking over to the student lot across the street. I followed a trickle of students after retrieving my books from my locker but diverged from the herd after passing through the school gates. After that it was just a short walk to the dark alley between two apartment buildings, where Sid was already waiting.

He looked too comfortable, too casual, considering the sinister nature to their arrangement. I wasn't too sure exactly how I appeared in comparison. Scared? Eager?

"Hey Bane."

"Sid." It took enormous effort to even acknowledge him with the tiniest incline of the head.

"Ready?" he asked, grinning.

I nodded, biting back the smartass retort I could feel bubbling to my lips. He looked at me expectantly, and—fighting the bile rising in my throat—I peeled off my sweatshirt and then my tee, leaving my torso bare and exposed for his sick pleasure.

He balled his fists and cracked his knuckles. Not menacing so much as amateurish, but I flinched at the sound anyway.

"This is gonna hurt."

"I know."

The blows rained down without pause. I'd thought that maybe I'd get used to the pain, that I'd be numb to it by the end, but each punch seemed sharper than the rest. By the time Sid had taken out his unholy rage on my body, he was red faced and panting, and my skin was unendingly purple, my cheeks wet and eyes red.

He picked up my discarded clothes and tossed them at me. "Go the fuck home." Then he turned around and walked away like nothing just happened. Like we hadn't just struck the most twisted deal in the universe. Like we both hadn't secretly enjoyed it.

I could barely lift my arms high enough to pull my shirt over my head. I didn't bother with the sweatshirt though it was freezing, and I'd been half-naked in the cold for who knows how long. I pulled my phone out of my pocket with trembling fingers to check the time. By my estimate, only ten minutes or so had passed. It had seemed longer.

I tumbled out of the concealed nook and over to the stream of stragglers now being herded out of the school building. I could see Rochelle and Sam standing apart from them, looking round, presumably for me.

"Happy birthday to you!" Rochelle chirped as I slowly approached, latching onto my arm—I managed to avoid wincing—and ushering both of us through the school gate with a pronounced skip in her step.

I gave her a dazed smile. "What are you talking about?" I queried pleasantly, feigning ignorance. Sam was looking at me innocently, and I knew he wouldn't tell.

"Stop it." She punched me gently. Ouuuuch. "Your brother spilled the beans last night."

"Did I ever tell you how creepy it is that you're sleeping with my brother?"

"So very many times, Bane. But that's not the point of this conversation, so don't change the subject. We're going to meet Tasha at her house and get you ready for tonight."

Her cheerfulness was invoking a rather unpleasant reaction in me, and the evidence of that was a nauseous stirring in the pit of my stomach. "Tonight…? I don't really—"

"Shush! It's all been taken care of and you have no say in the matter. It's your birthday, and you're going to enjoy it."

Except that I wasn't. This one was guaranteed to be at least as miserable as the last seventeen.

Sam gently entwined his fingers with mine on the other side of me, and smiled sadly. "Are you okay?" he whispered, as Tasha joined us and immediately engaged Rochelle in rambling conversation.

"Fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

He looked hurt. "Don't pretend I don't know what you did."

"It's not a big deal, Sam," I lied, knowing as I did so that he would see right through it. "Just forget it ever happened, okay?"

I knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell to him doing so, but he did at the very least drop the subject was we were still in Rochelle's vicinity.

The three to us crossed the street to the sound to Rochelle's happy chatter, and Sammy communicated with his eyes that he was calling shotgun. I graciously conceded the front seat to him when we approached the car located dead center in the lot.

Thankful that Sam had spared me the trouble to engaging Rochelle in coherent conversation--at least for now--I sat gingerly in the leather seat, pressing my forehead against the back to Sammy's headrest in order to spare the bruises in my back the brunt to Rochelle's sketchy driving and sub-par shocks.

Luckily, Tasha's house wasn't too far from the school and consequently I didn't have to endure that agony for too long.

Tasha did homemade tattoo artistry in addition to the hair-styling business she ran through Facebook. Though with one look at her, you'd never be able to tell she made people look like badasses for a living. Tasha was the epitome of "Plain Jane", at least on the exterior. Only a few knew about the inner wild-child.

"Bane!" the diminutive brunette exclaimed was we walked through the front door and into a living room that smelled faintly of baked goods.

"Hey, Tasha," I murmured in response, returning the bone-crushing hug she foisted upon me immediately.

"Let's get you all dolled up."

I arched an eyebrow but didn't protest as she took my hand and led me up the stairs to her room. Once inside, it was a flurry of activity to beautify me for whatever birthday surprise my friends had plotted.

After I'd been dressed by two giggling girls--and resisted their staunch attempts to put eyeliner on--I was blindfolded and loaded up in the car once again, this time in the backseat with Sammy. They didn't give my eyesight back until I was out of the car, drinking in the smell of sweat and cigarettes, feeling a pulsing bass beat vibrating up through the soles of my feet. Then the cloth was pulled from my eyes and I could see that we were outside the club Rochelle had been raving about for ages.

"You sure this isn't really a birthday party for you?" I asked her with a smirk.

"Oh, come on. You'll love it."

The first thing I saw after being marked as underage and walking into the bar was Hal's face.

"Hal, you're a bastard." Those were the first words out of my mouth when I was finally within appropriate speaking distance of my older brother.

"And what did I do to deserve such unveiled enmity?" he asked smoothly, sliding down onto a barstool.

I mimicked the action, but with far less grace. "You know exactly what you did. Why would you tell her?"

"You need to get over yourself."

"Forgive me if I don't feel like celebrating on the anniversary of my mother's death."

"You don't have any right to feel guilty about her."

"Like hell," I growled, but already giving up on the age-old argument. "Just buy me a drink already."

He emitted a quiet sigh, but complied easily with my request, handing me a martini with a stony expression on his face. "Happy birthday Bane," he said softly, raising his own glass to mine.

"A few more drinks and I might actually be inclined to agree with you." And even though Rochelle had arrived mid-sentence and begun wrapping herself sinuously around Hal's muscular frame, I failed to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

She appraised me worriedly. "Are you going to dance? There're tons of pretty girls who would be glad to join you, I'm sure."

"Not interested," I replied curtly, and then nearly coughed up my drink in unison with Hal once I realized what my response implied. "Agh—I—in the dancing, I mean. Not interested in dancing."

Now the two of them were staring at me with concern. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Fine. Just peachy."

Hal spared me a few more seconds before turning back to his drink. "Would you like your present now, or when we get back to the house?"

"Now?"

He nodded, and Rochelle finally detached herself from him with a quick kiss, taking a seat on the other side of me instead.

"Homicide case," he said simply, but it was enough to make my eyes widen to the size of golf balls.

"You're going to let me sit in on this one? For real?" He nodded again and I had to suppress a squeal of delight as I seized Hal in a bone-crunching embrace. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," I practically sang, bursting with pure excitement.

After Hal lectured me on staying professional and acting like an adult, Sam and Tasha finally coerced me into moving toward the dance floor. They decided it would be an excellent idea to sandwich my body between theirs as we writhed to the music. It wasn't. I was starting to experience some rather uncomfortable sensations in my nether regions while pressed up against Sam's rather globular ass.

Not that it meant anything. Grinding pressure on my dick was the same no matter it's source, and any red-blooded human male would react as I was.

Finally, I had to excuse myself before my problem became more noticeable.

Two hours worth of drinks and dancing, well....

I was drunk. I was soooo drunk.

"Um, Bane, I can't carry you because you're like a foot taller than I am?"

I giggled at Sam's worried expression, which seemed to be melting as I continued to look at him. "Wouldn't it be like so suuuper cool if…if…if you um, yeah you were like Pinocchio but instead of your nose your legs grew so much and you'd be a really giant tall liar!" I started cackling again.

Hal was staring down at me disapprovingly. He sighed and handed his keys to Sam. "I'll get a ride with Rachel. Can you take him? I ducked out of work early and I have to go back."

"Well what am I supposed to do with him?"

"Throw him in the tub, give him some coffee, I don't care. Call your parents and tell them you're staying overnight. Make sure he doesn't kill himself."

For some reason, the suicide reference made me laugh even harder, though it really wasn't funny, and I really wasn't happy.

"Can you walk to the car?" Sam's fingers were rubbing my back soothingly as he guided me to the door, and I nodded complacently.

"Can I sit in the front?"

"Uh, sure."

The lights outside the car window all blurred together into the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, but that wasn't the reason for the tears on my skin. Sam sensed that questions would do nothing but hurt, and he helped me inside the house with only soft murmurs that had me moving in the direction.

"Bane. You need to take off your clothes. Bane."

I giggled madly as he gave up on trying to get through to me and started instead on unbuttoning my pants and shirt. "Are we going to play Mommy and Daddy, Sammy?" I laughed some more and Sam blushed pure scarlet.

"Get in the damn shower, Bane."

I winced as Sam rubbed tenderly along my shoulder blades and spine, letting the warm water soothe the pain in the wake of his touch. Tears were pouring down my cheeks though I couldn't recall what had caused the flood of emotion.

"Bane, why'd you let Sid do this to you?"

I started to sob. "I don't know," I cried. "I just needed to." I looked up at my best friend to see him eyeing the marks on skin with a tortured expression.

"It kills me," he said quietly, "that I don't know how to save you."