there's no angels here
Title: Valley Christian High School. Chapter Five.
Author: .bennizzle.jizzle.
Pairing: Chester/Rob
Rating: R
Genre: Love and Romance, Drama, Angst
Status: Chaptered, unfinished.
Warnings: Slash.
Disclaimer: None of the following events occurred in actuality, as far as I know.
Note: lol I started this story 3 years ago. and lmfao, my original characters are oh so original. t'is short but in relation to the next chapter that's fine.
Description: Ear piercing. Lip piercing. Eyebrow piercing. Wild hair. Wild (and not to mention tight) clothes. Bright colors, particularly the rainbows. He didn’t belong. But that didn’t stop him from getting what he wanted; nothing did.
[ One.] [ Two.] [Three.] [ Four.]
The glasses shattered and the plate chipped. Cookie crumbs went everywhere and milk spread across the floor. Chester was visibly trying not to laugh as my mother pretended not to notice the mess she’d made. “And you are?” she demanded sourly.
“Chester. And I’m guessing you’re Grandma Bourdon?” He responded with a bored smirk.
“I’m Robert’s mother. The one who protects him from poor-” she eyed his clothing, “-influences and keeps him involved in good, Christian activities with good, Christian kids.”
Protects me? I nearly laughed aloud then.
“Oh, good. Wouldn’t want poor impressionable Robbie involved with any outside influences, considering that he still doesn’t know how to think and feel for himself. He’s only four years old, after all.”
Mother pressed her lips together tightly. “Say what you will, but I care for my son. I show him the love and attention that he needs. When mothers don’t do that for their children, unspeakable things can happen.” She regarded him coldly.
Chester eyed her back. “Unspeakable, indeed.”
She turned to me with fire in her eyes. “Robert, dear. I think it’s time for your guest to leave.”
I sighed. “But Mother, we haven’t even had a chance to work on our project yet.”
“No excuses, Robert. You have chores to tend to. And you’re going to find a new partner for this project on Monday morning.”
“I can’t find a new partner. The teacher picked our groups.”
“Well you will simply explain to him that there has been a mistake.” She had now resorted to pretending Chester wasn’t there at all. “And be sure to wash that blanket once you’ve cleaned up this mess.” She gestured to the mess on the floor and walked down the hall and into her room.
A headache was worming its way into my consciousness. I looked at Chester, who was now walking towards me, backpack in one hand, a slip of paper in the other. He handed me the paper and bent down to grab a chunk of oatmeal cookie from the floor. He smiled at me and bit into it as he made his way to the front door.
“Call me later, Robbie!” he said, loud enough for my mother to hear. And he was gone.
I said nothing.
‘Chester.
(562) 355-8337’
was all the paper said. I shoved it into my pocket and began to carefully put the large pieces of broken glass and cookie back on the tray.
On my way to the trash bin outside, my mother called to me. “Robert, may I speak to you for a second?”
I stepped into the room quietly and calmly.
“I think you should know better than to allow people like that in this house. I thought I’d raised you better than to associate with sinners such as him. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should have cleared the Devil out of our lives long ago. May-”
I cut her off there. “Mom.” I sighed, knowing it was best not to tell her what was on my mind. I was twitching with the effort to swallow my anger. “You can’t refer to your own flesh and blood that you raised as the Devil. It’s cruel and belittling. Whatever disagreements you’ve had or mistakes you’ve made, Annette is still your daughter. And she still means well.”
“Don’t change the subject Robert.” She’s the one that changed the subject! “Why would you disrespect and belittle me by inviting that… boy into our home?”
Get a grip! “Chester’s my partner on this project. What was I supposed to do? Ruiz is the one who put us together on this, and you’re the one who always taught me to make the best out of every situation.” That was stretching it a bit.
“Some situations have no upside. So who do I need to call to get this Ruiz fellow fired?”
My eyes narrowed involuntarily. “You’re being rash, Mother. Sleep on it and we’ll talk in the morning.” It was less of a suggestion and more of a statement. I shut the door and continued down to the trash bin.
+~+
I pressed the tan button and waited, hearing the chimes ringing within the house. After about thirty seconds, the door opened and I was greeted with a warm smile. “Hey. I thought you were working on the project with Chester?” he questioned, opening the door and letting me in.
“Things didn’t go as planned,” I mumbled, following him to his living room.
Donna twisted around in her seat to smile at me as I crossed the room and sat down. “Hey, what happened to your other plans?”
I sighed. “My mother interrupted-”
“Robert! I had no idea you were coming to visit today. What a blessing it is to see you, sweetheart. My, you’re growing more and more handsome by the day. It must be a terrible burden having as many girls as you must have chasing you.”
I faked a smile to the best of my ability. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Shinoda. And no, the girls are manageable.”
“Always the modest one,” Mike’s mother patted my shoulder and then headed down the hallway, towards the kitchen. “Milk and cookies?” she called back.
+~+
My eyes drifted off the page and towards the door of the café. A group of kids that looked to be about my age wandered in, loudly joking and laughing.
“I hate you guys. You’re all going to Hell.” One of them was saying. She was wearing a plain black t-shirt that read “kiss my asthma” in white letters, some baggy blue jeans, a pair of worn black Chucks with rainbow shoelaces, and a rainbow bandana in her hair.
“I love you too, Cami!” A taller girl squealed, hugging the first one from behind. This girl wore a black t-shirt with a rainbow across it that read “come out, come out, wherever you are”, along with a flowing black skirt and rainbow striped knee-high socks. She had two lip rings, one on the left side and one on the right side of her bottom lip.
“Chai,” another girl interrupted, obviously wanting them to hurry up and order. She wore jeans and a ripped up band shirt with a large symbol very similar to a pentagram on the front. Her lip was also pierced, in the center like Chester’s, and she had a nose ring as well.
“Chai!” the one with the lip rings grinned and stepped up to the counter, slinging her arm around the waist of a taller boy with his eyebrow pierced just like Chester’s and a lip ring just left of the center of his bottom lip.
As they took their sweet time ordering, annoying the cashier to no end, two other boys walked in, followed by a loud girl who also had her lip pierced in the center. The two boys’ fingers were laced together and it was obvious that they were a couple. The taller of the two boys had long dark hair and was very thin. The shorter and darker was not as talkative but it was obvious that he enjoyed the company of this particular crowd.
I tried to force my eyes to stick to the page, but eventually they drew over to the group across the room as they all seemed to burst into laughter at once. I didn’t know exactly what they were talking about but I had distinctly heard the words ‘queef’ and ‘nipple rings.’ The topic of conversation switched to masturbation and sex toys and flavored lube and foot fetishes. The two boys had their arms wrapped around each other and when the one with the longer hair turned and began to kiss his boyfriend, I closed my book and got up to leave.
“Asshole,” the one with two lip rings called after me just as I opened the door.
I paused and looked back at them, bewildered. She glared at me, daring me to say something. The rest of her friends turned to look at me, confused. Slowly I turned back around and left. I was unlocking my car when I heard a voice call out to me. Thinking it was Lip Rings trying to continue her little confrontation, I rolled my eyes and looked back at her with the closest to a blank expression I could manage. I was not in the mood for it.
But it wasn’t Lip Rings. This girl had no facial piercings. She was wearing tattered black pants and a black band t-shirt. She was holding a black hoodie and a large dark green backpack.
“Yes?” I asked politely.
“Sorry to bother you, but I’m totally lost. Do you happen to know where…” she looked down at a wrinkled sheet of paper. “Valley Christian High School is?”
“Yep, that’s my school.” I smiled at her. “But campus is closed right now. You might wanna try going there tomorrow.” It was nearly 7 pm.
“Well it’s not like I have somewhere else to go.”
“Alright… you’re catching the bus?”
She nodded.
“Well it’s gonna take you about 2 hours that way. Is there someone in particular that you’re looking for? Perhaps they could come get you; it’s only a half hour away if you’re driving.”
She pursed her lips for a second. “Do you know a fag named Chester Bennington?”
+~+
“So can I ask you something?”
I glanced at her and nodded, taking a left.
“If you hate queers so much, how’d you get to be friends with Chaz?”
“What? I…” I cleared my throat. “I don’t hate… them. Was… was I being an asshole?” I winced at my own language.
“Well you are staring at that gay couple pretty hard and when they started making out you got up and left in quite a hurry. Which tends to mean one of two things.”
At the red light, I turned to look at her. “Which are?”
“One, that you hate gay people.” I opened my mouth to protest but she went on. “Or two, that you’re not comfortable around them because you’re not yet comfortable with your own sexuality.”
I stared at her.
“The light’s green.”
I pulled up and made a right. This was a pretty up scaled neighborhood. The houses were big, the yards were big, the trees and exotic plants providing a cool shade from the sun, kind of like some sort of oasis in Southern California’s heat.
“8101… 8103… 8105…” She was counting off the addresses as I looked at all of the strange mailboxes and plants. “8109, this is it.”
I pulled over and parked in front of a large dark green house with dark wood furnishings. There were a lot of plants and trees in the front on the house so it seemed almost like a great place to get kidnapped or raped.
My passenger looked at me. “Aren’t you getting out?”
“Aren’t you?”
She looked up at the house. “If you don’t go with me I might kill him.”
“What makes you think my presence will stop you?”
“It wouldn’t. But from what I’ve heard, your drummer’s arms can.”
I blinked at her.
“Brad was rather ambivalent over whether or not he was glad you’d stopped him.”
I nodded. “So what, I have a reputation of protecting him?”
“You have a reputation for giving a shit. Which is more than can be said for a lot of people that have come and gone in Chester’s life.”
I removed the keys from the ignition and opened my door. “Shall we?”
The strange chimes rang inside the house and not 30 seconds later, the door opened. When Chester appeared there was a blur of motion that perhaps I should have anticipated. Jezebel moved past me and struck Chester’s throat with a closed fist before I’d even realized what was happening. I quickly reached her and held her arms down until she calmed down.
Chester coughed painfully. “Let her go,” he barely managed to whisper.
I hesitantly obeyed.
She stared at him for a few seconds and then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back and as I awkwardly stood by, I couldn’t help but hear their quiet conversation.
“You have no idea how much you scared us, asshole.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just… I was…”
“Being an idiot,” she finished.
“Yea… I’ve missed you.”
“Don’t see how you could not miss me.” She pulled away and punched him in the arm, then wandered into the house.
He winced and rubbed his arm for a second, sending a crooked smile my way. “She’s like this whether or not she’s mad.” He reached down and grabbed the green backpack still sitting on the front porch. “Coming in?”
+
Author: .bennizzle.jizzle.
Pairing: Chester/Rob
Rating: R
Genre: Love and Romance, Drama, Angst
Status: Chaptered, unfinished.
Warnings: Slash.
Disclaimer: None of the following events occurred in actuality, as far as I know.
Note: lol I started this story 3 years ago. and lmfao, my original characters are oh so original. t'is short but in relation to the next chapter that's fine.
Description: Ear piercing. Lip piercing. Eyebrow piercing. Wild hair. Wild (and not to mention tight) clothes. Bright colors, particularly the rainbows. He didn’t belong. But that didn’t stop him from getting what he wanted; nothing did.
[ One.] [ Two.] [Three.] [ Four.]
The glasses shattered and the plate chipped. Cookie crumbs went everywhere and milk spread across the floor. Chester was visibly trying not to laugh as my mother pretended not to notice the mess she’d made. “And you are?” she demanded sourly.
“Chester. And I’m guessing you’re Grandma Bourdon?” He responded with a bored smirk.
“I’m Robert’s mother. The one who protects him from poor-” she eyed his clothing, “-influences and keeps him involved in good, Christian activities with good, Christian kids.”
Protects me? I nearly laughed aloud then.
“Oh, good. Wouldn’t want poor impressionable Robbie involved with any outside influences, considering that he still doesn’t know how to think and feel for himself. He’s only four years old, after all.”
Mother pressed her lips together tightly. “Say what you will, but I care for my son. I show him the love and attention that he needs. When mothers don’t do that for their children, unspeakable things can happen.” She regarded him coldly.
Chester eyed her back. “Unspeakable, indeed.”
She turned to me with fire in her eyes. “Robert, dear. I think it’s time for your guest to leave.”
I sighed. “But Mother, we haven’t even had a chance to work on our project yet.”
“No excuses, Robert. You have chores to tend to. And you’re going to find a new partner for this project on Monday morning.”
“I can’t find a new partner. The teacher picked our groups.”
“Well you will simply explain to him that there has been a mistake.” She had now resorted to pretending Chester wasn’t there at all. “And be sure to wash that blanket once you’ve cleaned up this mess.” She gestured to the mess on the floor and walked down the hall and into her room.
A headache was worming its way into my consciousness. I looked at Chester, who was now walking towards me, backpack in one hand, a slip of paper in the other. He handed me the paper and bent down to grab a chunk of oatmeal cookie from the floor. He smiled at me and bit into it as he made his way to the front door.
“Call me later, Robbie!” he said, loud enough for my mother to hear. And he was gone.
I said nothing.
‘Chester.
(562) 355-8337’
was all the paper said. I shoved it into my pocket and began to carefully put the large pieces of broken glass and cookie back on the tray.
On my way to the trash bin outside, my mother called to me. “Robert, may I speak to you for a second?”
I stepped into the room quietly and calmly.
“I think you should know better than to allow people like that in this house. I thought I’d raised you better than to associate with sinners such as him. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should have cleared the Devil out of our lives long ago. May-”
I cut her off there. “Mom.” I sighed, knowing it was best not to tell her what was on my mind. I was twitching with the effort to swallow my anger. “You can’t refer to your own flesh and blood that you raised as the Devil. It’s cruel and belittling. Whatever disagreements you’ve had or mistakes you’ve made, Annette is still your daughter. And she still means well.”
“Don’t change the subject Robert.” She’s the one that changed the subject! “Why would you disrespect and belittle me by inviting that… boy into our home?”
Get a grip! “Chester’s my partner on this project. What was I supposed to do? Ruiz is the one who put us together on this, and you’re the one who always taught me to make the best out of every situation.” That was stretching it a bit.
“Some situations have no upside. So who do I need to call to get this Ruiz fellow fired?”
My eyes narrowed involuntarily. “You’re being rash, Mother. Sleep on it and we’ll talk in the morning.” It was less of a suggestion and more of a statement. I shut the door and continued down to the trash bin.
+~+
I pressed the tan button and waited, hearing the chimes ringing within the house. After about thirty seconds, the door opened and I was greeted with a warm smile. “Hey. I thought you were working on the project with Chester?” he questioned, opening the door and letting me in.
“Things didn’t go as planned,” I mumbled, following him to his living room.
Donna twisted around in her seat to smile at me as I crossed the room and sat down. “Hey, what happened to your other plans?”
I sighed. “My mother interrupted-”
“Robert! I had no idea you were coming to visit today. What a blessing it is to see you, sweetheart. My, you’re growing more and more handsome by the day. It must be a terrible burden having as many girls as you must have chasing you.”
I faked a smile to the best of my ability. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Shinoda. And no, the girls are manageable.”
“Always the modest one,” Mike’s mother patted my shoulder and then headed down the hallway, towards the kitchen. “Milk and cookies?” she called back.
+~+
My eyes drifted off the page and towards the door of the café. A group of kids that looked to be about my age wandered in, loudly joking and laughing.
“I hate you guys. You’re all going to Hell.” One of them was saying. She was wearing a plain black t-shirt that read “kiss my asthma” in white letters, some baggy blue jeans, a pair of worn black Chucks with rainbow shoelaces, and a rainbow bandana in her hair.
“I love you too, Cami!” A taller girl squealed, hugging the first one from behind. This girl wore a black t-shirt with a rainbow across it that read “come out, come out, wherever you are”, along with a flowing black skirt and rainbow striped knee-high socks. She had two lip rings, one on the left side and one on the right side of her bottom lip.
“Chai,” another girl interrupted, obviously wanting them to hurry up and order. She wore jeans and a ripped up band shirt with a large symbol very similar to a pentagram on the front. Her lip was also pierced, in the center like Chester’s, and she had a nose ring as well.
“Chai!” the one with the lip rings grinned and stepped up to the counter, slinging her arm around the waist of a taller boy with his eyebrow pierced just like Chester’s and a lip ring just left of the center of his bottom lip.
As they took their sweet time ordering, annoying the cashier to no end, two other boys walked in, followed by a loud girl who also had her lip pierced in the center. The two boys’ fingers were laced together and it was obvious that they were a couple. The taller of the two boys had long dark hair and was very thin. The shorter and darker was not as talkative but it was obvious that he enjoyed the company of this particular crowd.
I tried to force my eyes to stick to the page, but eventually they drew over to the group across the room as they all seemed to burst into laughter at once. I didn’t know exactly what they were talking about but I had distinctly heard the words ‘queef’ and ‘nipple rings.’ The topic of conversation switched to masturbation and sex toys and flavored lube and foot fetishes. The two boys had their arms wrapped around each other and when the one with the longer hair turned and began to kiss his boyfriend, I closed my book and got up to leave.
“Asshole,” the one with two lip rings called after me just as I opened the door.
I paused and looked back at them, bewildered. She glared at me, daring me to say something. The rest of her friends turned to look at me, confused. Slowly I turned back around and left. I was unlocking my car when I heard a voice call out to me. Thinking it was Lip Rings trying to continue her little confrontation, I rolled my eyes and looked back at her with the closest to a blank expression I could manage. I was not in the mood for it.
But it wasn’t Lip Rings. This girl had no facial piercings. She was wearing tattered black pants and a black band t-shirt. She was holding a black hoodie and a large dark green backpack.
“Yes?” I asked politely.
“Sorry to bother you, but I’m totally lost. Do you happen to know where…” she looked down at a wrinkled sheet of paper. “Valley Christian High School is?”
“Yep, that’s my school.” I smiled at her. “But campus is closed right now. You might wanna try going there tomorrow.” It was nearly 7 pm.
“Well it’s not like I have somewhere else to go.”
“Alright… you’re catching the bus?”
She nodded.
“Well it’s gonna take you about 2 hours that way. Is there someone in particular that you’re looking for? Perhaps they could come get you; it’s only a half hour away if you’re driving.”
She pursed her lips for a second. “Do you know a fag named Chester Bennington?”
+~+
“So can I ask you something?”
I glanced at her and nodded, taking a left.
“If you hate queers so much, how’d you get to be friends with Chaz?”
“What? I…” I cleared my throat. “I don’t hate… them. Was… was I being an asshole?” I winced at my own language.
“Well you are staring at that gay couple pretty hard and when they started making out you got up and left in quite a hurry. Which tends to mean one of two things.”
At the red light, I turned to look at her. “Which are?”
“One, that you hate gay people.” I opened my mouth to protest but she went on. “Or two, that you’re not comfortable around them because you’re not yet comfortable with your own sexuality.”
I stared at her.
“The light’s green.”
I pulled up and made a right. This was a pretty up scaled neighborhood. The houses were big, the yards were big, the trees and exotic plants providing a cool shade from the sun, kind of like some sort of oasis in Southern California’s heat.
“8101… 8103… 8105…” She was counting off the addresses as I looked at all of the strange mailboxes and plants. “8109, this is it.”
I pulled over and parked in front of a large dark green house with dark wood furnishings. There were a lot of plants and trees in the front on the house so it seemed almost like a great place to get kidnapped or raped.
My passenger looked at me. “Aren’t you getting out?”
“Aren’t you?”
She looked up at the house. “If you don’t go with me I might kill him.”
“What makes you think my presence will stop you?”
“It wouldn’t. But from what I’ve heard, your drummer’s arms can.”
I blinked at her.
“Brad was rather ambivalent over whether or not he was glad you’d stopped him.”
I nodded. “So what, I have a reputation of protecting him?”
“You have a reputation for giving a shit. Which is more than can be said for a lot of people that have come and gone in Chester’s life.”
I removed the keys from the ignition and opened my door. “Shall we?”
The strange chimes rang inside the house and not 30 seconds later, the door opened. When Chester appeared there was a blur of motion that perhaps I should have anticipated. Jezebel moved past me and struck Chester’s throat with a closed fist before I’d even realized what was happening. I quickly reached her and held her arms down until she calmed down.
Chester coughed painfully. “Let her go,” he barely managed to whisper.
I hesitantly obeyed.
She stared at him for a few seconds and then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back and as I awkwardly stood by, I couldn’t help but hear their quiet conversation.
“You have no idea how much you scared us, asshole.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just… I was…”
“Being an idiot,” she finished.
“Yea… I’ve missed you.”
“Don’t see how you could not miss me.” She pulled away and punched him in the arm, then wandered into the house.
He winced and rubbed his arm for a second, sending a crooked smile my way. “She’s like this whether or not she’s mad.” He reached down and grabbed the green backpack still sitting on the front porch. “Coming in?”
+