Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Chapter 36)
Title: Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (36/?)
Author: Rose Rose682
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Summary: I’d lost count of how many had gaped at my arm with shocked expressions and open mouths, curious people unsure of whether or not they wanted to know the answer asking, “Did you cut your arm?”
Disclaimer: Sadly, I own neither ATL or any other real person mentioned in this fic.
Masterpost.
DeGironimo, for some insane reason, suddenly decided to actually make his students exercise, ordering us to run around the field and into the weight room. We jogged, ahead of only Ramsay, laughing at what our idiotic instructor had yelled at us.
Alex, Josh, Kellin, and I had failed to immediately race away after DeGironimo gave us our directions, so he’d shouted to us, “Boys, you’re killing the grass!”
We’d grinned at each other and commenced running, Alex joking, “Imagine if we really killed the grass when we weren’t moving,” pointing at a dead section of the field and saying, “Josh, that was you.”
He giggled and jumped away when Josh slapped at his arm, putting me in between them as he smiled stupidly at the fake-offended boy. Josh rolled his eyes and jabbed at my shoulder, shrugging when I objected to both being used as protection and assaulted for it. Totally uncalled for.
Josh continued the joke, turning to Kellin and declaring him responsible for the circle of expired grass that we passed, receiving a punch in the bicep for it. Alex laughed, jogging close to me and bumping my hip. I continued to be surprised by how fun PE had become.
We rounded a corner, and I observed that Ramsay was a quarter of the field behind us, gesturing to an exceptionally large area of dead grass and saying, “That was Ramsay.”
Kellin coughed out a snort and almost tripped over nothing, Alex ducked his head with quiet laughter, and Josh eyed me with false disapproval, chuckling, “You’re such an asshole.”
I didn’t disagree, happy that my rude humor had my boyfriend gulping down giggles. Can’t injure someone’s confidence if they don’t hear your insults.
Realizing that there wasn’t anyone else still going around the field besides us - and Ramsay, technically - we moved quicker, joining our classmates outside the weight room in time to hear DeGironimo recount the rules of using the weights.
He made exercising in the weight room out to be extremely serious and dangerous, demanding, “Keep your bodies and weights to yourself!”
Sun tingling on my skin and jokes bubbling in my veins, I regarded this as ridiculous and hilarious, slinging an arm around Alex’s shoulders and leaning into him, mumbling into his ear, “Your body’s mine.”
He pressed himself into my side, head lolling back on my arm as he hummed, “Mmm, yeah, baby.”
I smiled widely at him and dropped my arm as we were directed into the weight room, DeGironimo yelling, “Get a partner and a pair of dumbbells, two for each person!”
Alex then grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the weights, pausing until a space to opened up between all the teenagers pushing to select the correct size of dumbbell for themselves, getting two twenty-five pound weights once it was possible. I decided to be realistic and average, choosing ten pound dumbbells and following Alex to a relatively open section of the room.
The brunet boy quirked an eyebrow at me because of the weights I’d gotten, saying, “Really?”
“I have literally no muscles,” I replied, putting the dumbbells down next to my black sneakers, DeGironimo’s orders still not completed by the majority of our class.
Alex’s curiosity seemed to increase because of my declaration; he released his weights and moved directly in front of me, curling his hands around my upper arms and squeezing as I eyed him, deliberately unamused. With a lively laugh, Alex ruled, “Your arms are like jelly.”
“Thanks, babe,” I said, silly pout tugging on my lips.
“Welcome, Jellybean,” Alex grinned, continuing when I rolled my eyes, “What are you rolling your eyes for? You love nicknames.”
“I do?” I said, challenging him to prove it with my disbelieving, derisive voice.
DeGironimo called for us to do three sets of bicep curls, fifteen reps each. Alex and I began the exercise, his muscles accentuated by the exertion of lifting the respectable weights as he confidently said, “Totally; you always smile when I call you something besides Jack - baby, sweetie, Jay, cutie, love, dear. And darling,” he paused, taking in my reaction and pink cheeks, “especially darling, darling.”
My head dipped down, hair flopping into my eyes and lips embarrassingly pulling into a grin, annoying blush coloring my face. Alex was completely correct; I adored nicknames, and my boyfriend relating them while using his defined muscles to raise dumbbells most likely had fucking cartoon hearts coming out of my eyes.
I had renounced control of my arms after Jay, and they were drooping at my sides, weights bouncing against my legs, cheeks still red as I reciprocated Alex’s teasing, “As if, Lexy Loo.”
“It’s so true, Jacky Joo, don’t even deny it,” Alex replied, lips turned up superiorly, eyes loose with amusement, arms still pumping the weights up and down.
I blinked at him, out of good comebacks, checking the time on the clock behind his head; class ended in five minutes. Alex finished his third set of reps, putting the dumbbells down and linking his hands behind his back, head tipping back as he elongated his muscles. I was close to drooling.
DeGironimo yelled for us to put the weights away, everyone taking that as a dismissal from class and running to the locker rooms. I released a restricted breath, happy that the period was over and Alex couldn’t make me blush ridiculously anymore.
___
Rolling my head reposition it on my pillow, I pulled my spine further up the mattress, readjusting my computer on my chest and turning up the volume of my music until it maxed out. My movements stopped when the song changed, the electronic beats of Love, Selfish Love pounding in my ears, causing my eyes to slip closed and my bones to repose.
“Here you’ve got your troubles, or so I’ve been told.” I mouthed the lyrics, lips shaping the deliberately soundless syllables; the clock in the corner of my screen blinked a time of almost one am at me.
My eyes reopened and my head pressed further back into the pillow as the song progressed, glasses sliding up my face as I fixated on the lyrics, their interpretations.
“God bless the sad and selfish.” Patrick Stump gave ‘selfish’ an oddly positive definition, blessing instead of denouncing the selfish. The entire song ridiculed people and popular ideals, but that usage of ‘selfish’ had me considering if it was really such a obnoxious thing to be.
‘Selfish’ was always used as an insult, but why? What does anyone ever do that doesn’t ultimately contribute to their own happiness?
People with adoration sparkling in their eyes in cliché movies often declared that they exalted in making their lover smile, something that was seen as adorable and giving. That was ridiculous, though; making someone happy because it makes you happy is extremely selfish. That’s exactly what selfishness is.
It was extraordinarily rare that anyone did anything that didn’t somehow improve their own existence. Directing a confused person through buying a bus ticket that’ll get them to their desired destination is nice, yes, and doesn’t have any immediate or obvious impact on you besides using up your time, but are you not proud of yourself and your integrity when you do something supposedly selfless? And doesn’t that itself invalidate its selflessness?
And if you someone you absolutely despised was having problems with a ticket machine and about to miss their bus, would you really imperturbably explain what button did what to them? Maybe I was a selfish dickhead, but I definitely wouldn’t. I’d ignore them completely and go do something that wouldn’t annoy me and make someone who pissed me off happy.
I didn’t have much motivation for anything anymore - hadn’t been reviewing for exams, repeatedly took twenty minutes to come up with a reason to get up for school at seven am, hadn’t contributed to any class discussions by choice in months - or any energy that I could give to anyone besides myself.
I wasn’t like I completely disregarded everyone around me, though. I faked interest during boring conversations, replied with ‘good’ whenever someone questioned me about how I was doing - even though that practice was fake and pointless - and didn’t advise anyone to go fuck themselves when they asked me to do something that they could readily do themselves.
But my expression was distorted with open irritation more often than it used to be, expletives closer to slipping off my tongue, and the verity concealed by my jokes regularly becoming more obvious.
Existing was exhausting, and I was running out of pseudo smiles and excited eyes to give to others. When you’re sad and despondent, you’ve got to prioritize your own happiness. It was incredibly illogical, doing nothing to repair yourself as insanity violates your consciousness, but still doing everything possible to make everyone else happy. Are you not exactly as much of a person as the distressed strangers you give your assistance to?
Amazing people who believed everyone to be equal somehow considered themselves less worthy of their own generosity than others, and that was idiotic. It was totally irrational, but also the mindset of so many. The idea that giving everything you have to yourself makes you a selfish, despicable person was absolutely, undeniably absurd, and it pissed me off.
I’d gone directly home that day after a demanding, interminable eternity of school, done my homework with enough detail for me to receive credit for it, and subsided into bed, decompressing with my beating music. I didn’t do anything for anyone but myself, not interacting with anybody besides Alex, who I texted while doing math so that I didn’t end up banging my head on my textbook to cure my impending headache.
Yes, that made me selfish; no, it did not make me deplorable. How would it ever be possible for me to dispel my sadness if I didn’t make myself a priority?
Being selfless, though it would positively make everyone love you, wouldn’t get you anywhere; not any closer to elation, more genuine laughter, or having a positive future.
Selfishness, despite how decidedly negative it was always regarded as, was an imperative part of existing. It had its upsides, too; making jokes to rejoice in the reaction they caused was great and made everything more awesome, and produced positive emotions for whoever inspired the laughter. Occurrences caused by selfish desires were the sources of infinite greatness.
Abusing my eardrums at one am wasn’t heroic, but everything that I loved, everything that justified the innate crap that came with being a person - medicinal music, surprising generosity, mind-deranging books - made the giver and the receiver happy. Almost everything people did was truly for themselves, but that so often also contributed productively to the earth, so, yes, as I decided while pulling open my tingling eyes as the ending of Love, Selfish Love buzzed through my ear buds, the selfish and the fucking incredible things they did really should be blessed.
I gave in to my eye’s insistent impulse to close after coming to that conclusion, pausing another Truant Wave song exactly as it began and putting my computer away, eliminating the artificial glow that had been illuminating my room. Plugging my ear buds into my phone, I curled up on my side, declining into the mattress and taking off my glasses. I had to exert my eyes so that I could properly see my phone’s overly shiny screen, relaxing all of my muscles completely with an equable exhale when I had Love, Selfish Love playing again.
Fingers squeezing my sheets and phone pushed under my head, I listened intently to the quiet lyrics and breathed evenly, hair tickling my eyelids. It used to be impossible for me to go to sleep if there was any noise at all, but, as I’d discovered while I’d been a Junior, my mind powered off much quicker when I internally repeated lyrics than when I obsessed over some inane idea.
So I silently sang along to counteractively energetic songs until my irregular contemplations became nonsensical images, earbuds on the mattress next to me, contributing a soundtrack to my selfish dreams.
Author: Rose Rose682
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Summary: I’d lost count of how many had gaped at my arm with shocked expressions and open mouths, curious people unsure of whether or not they wanted to know the answer asking, “Did you cut your arm?”
Disclaimer: Sadly, I own neither ATL or any other real person mentioned in this fic.
Masterpost.
DeGironimo, for some insane reason, suddenly decided to actually make his students exercise, ordering us to run around the field and into the weight room. We jogged, ahead of only Ramsay, laughing at what our idiotic instructor had yelled at us.
Alex, Josh, Kellin, and I had failed to immediately race away after DeGironimo gave us our directions, so he’d shouted to us, “Boys, you’re killing the grass!”
We’d grinned at each other and commenced running, Alex joking, “Imagine if we really killed the grass when we weren’t moving,” pointing at a dead section of the field and saying, “Josh, that was you.”
He giggled and jumped away when Josh slapped at his arm, putting me in between them as he smiled stupidly at the fake-offended boy. Josh rolled his eyes and jabbed at my shoulder, shrugging when I objected to both being used as protection and assaulted for it. Totally uncalled for.
Josh continued the joke, turning to Kellin and declaring him responsible for the circle of expired grass that we passed, receiving a punch in the bicep for it. Alex laughed, jogging close to me and bumping my hip. I continued to be surprised by how fun PE had become.
We rounded a corner, and I observed that Ramsay was a quarter of the field behind us, gesturing to an exceptionally large area of dead grass and saying, “That was Ramsay.”
Kellin coughed out a snort and almost tripped over nothing, Alex ducked his head with quiet laughter, and Josh eyed me with false disapproval, chuckling, “You’re such an asshole.”
I didn’t disagree, happy that my rude humor had my boyfriend gulping down giggles. Can’t injure someone’s confidence if they don’t hear your insults.
Realizing that there wasn’t anyone else still going around the field besides us - and Ramsay, technically - we moved quicker, joining our classmates outside the weight room in time to hear DeGironimo recount the rules of using the weights.
He made exercising in the weight room out to be extremely serious and dangerous, demanding, “Keep your bodies and weights to yourself!”
Sun tingling on my skin and jokes bubbling in my veins, I regarded this as ridiculous and hilarious, slinging an arm around Alex’s shoulders and leaning into him, mumbling into his ear, “Your body’s mine.”
He pressed himself into my side, head lolling back on my arm as he hummed, “Mmm, yeah, baby.”
I smiled widely at him and dropped my arm as we were directed into the weight room, DeGironimo yelling, “Get a partner and a pair of dumbbells, two for each person!”
Alex then grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the weights, pausing until a space to opened up between all the teenagers pushing to select the correct size of dumbbell for themselves, getting two twenty-five pound weights once it was possible. I decided to be realistic and average, choosing ten pound dumbbells and following Alex to a relatively open section of the room.
The brunet boy quirked an eyebrow at me because of the weights I’d gotten, saying, “Really?”
“I have literally no muscles,” I replied, putting the dumbbells down next to my black sneakers, DeGironimo’s orders still not completed by the majority of our class.
Alex’s curiosity seemed to increase because of my declaration; he released his weights and moved directly in front of me, curling his hands around my upper arms and squeezing as I eyed him, deliberately unamused. With a lively laugh, Alex ruled, “Your arms are like jelly.”
“Thanks, babe,” I said, silly pout tugging on my lips.
“Welcome, Jellybean,” Alex grinned, continuing when I rolled my eyes, “What are you rolling your eyes for? You love nicknames.”
“I do?” I said, challenging him to prove it with my disbelieving, derisive voice.
DeGironimo called for us to do three sets of bicep curls, fifteen reps each. Alex and I began the exercise, his muscles accentuated by the exertion of lifting the respectable weights as he confidently said, “Totally; you always smile when I call you something besides Jack - baby, sweetie, Jay, cutie, love, dear. And darling,” he paused, taking in my reaction and pink cheeks, “especially darling, darling.”
My head dipped down, hair flopping into my eyes and lips embarrassingly pulling into a grin, annoying blush coloring my face. Alex was completely correct; I adored nicknames, and my boyfriend relating them while using his defined muscles to raise dumbbells most likely had fucking cartoon hearts coming out of my eyes.
I had renounced control of my arms after Jay, and they were drooping at my sides, weights bouncing against my legs, cheeks still red as I reciprocated Alex’s teasing, “As if, Lexy Loo.”
“It’s so true, Jacky Joo, don’t even deny it,” Alex replied, lips turned up superiorly, eyes loose with amusement, arms still pumping the weights up and down.
I blinked at him, out of good comebacks, checking the time on the clock behind his head; class ended in five minutes. Alex finished his third set of reps, putting the dumbbells down and linking his hands behind his back, head tipping back as he elongated his muscles. I was close to drooling.
DeGironimo yelled for us to put the weights away, everyone taking that as a dismissal from class and running to the locker rooms. I released a restricted breath, happy that the period was over and Alex couldn’t make me blush ridiculously anymore.
___
Rolling my head reposition it on my pillow, I pulled my spine further up the mattress, readjusting my computer on my chest and turning up the volume of my music until it maxed out. My movements stopped when the song changed, the electronic beats of Love, Selfish Love pounding in my ears, causing my eyes to slip closed and my bones to repose.
“Here you’ve got your troubles, or so I’ve been told.” I mouthed the lyrics, lips shaping the deliberately soundless syllables; the clock in the corner of my screen blinked a time of almost one am at me.
My eyes reopened and my head pressed further back into the pillow as the song progressed, glasses sliding up my face as I fixated on the lyrics, their interpretations.
“God bless the sad and selfish.” Patrick Stump gave ‘selfish’ an oddly positive definition, blessing instead of denouncing the selfish. The entire song ridiculed people and popular ideals, but that usage of ‘selfish’ had me considering if it was really such a obnoxious thing to be.
‘Selfish’ was always used as an insult, but why? What does anyone ever do that doesn’t ultimately contribute to their own happiness?
People with adoration sparkling in their eyes in cliché movies often declared that they exalted in making their lover smile, something that was seen as adorable and giving. That was ridiculous, though; making someone happy because it makes you happy is extremely selfish. That’s exactly what selfishness is.
It was extraordinarily rare that anyone did anything that didn’t somehow improve their own existence. Directing a confused person through buying a bus ticket that’ll get them to their desired destination is nice, yes, and doesn’t have any immediate or obvious impact on you besides using up your time, but are you not proud of yourself and your integrity when you do something supposedly selfless? And doesn’t that itself invalidate its selflessness?
And if you someone you absolutely despised was having problems with a ticket machine and about to miss their bus, would you really imperturbably explain what button did what to them? Maybe I was a selfish dickhead, but I definitely wouldn’t. I’d ignore them completely and go do something that wouldn’t annoy me and make someone who pissed me off happy.
I didn’t have much motivation for anything anymore - hadn’t been reviewing for exams, repeatedly took twenty minutes to come up with a reason to get up for school at seven am, hadn’t contributed to any class discussions by choice in months - or any energy that I could give to anyone besides myself.
I wasn’t like I completely disregarded everyone around me, though. I faked interest during boring conversations, replied with ‘good’ whenever someone questioned me about how I was doing - even though that practice was fake and pointless - and didn’t advise anyone to go fuck themselves when they asked me to do something that they could readily do themselves.
But my expression was distorted with open irritation more often than it used to be, expletives closer to slipping off my tongue, and the verity concealed by my jokes regularly becoming more obvious.
Existing was exhausting, and I was running out of pseudo smiles and excited eyes to give to others. When you’re sad and despondent, you’ve got to prioritize your own happiness. It was incredibly illogical, doing nothing to repair yourself as insanity violates your consciousness, but still doing everything possible to make everyone else happy. Are you not exactly as much of a person as the distressed strangers you give your assistance to?
Amazing people who believed everyone to be equal somehow considered themselves less worthy of their own generosity than others, and that was idiotic. It was totally irrational, but also the mindset of so many. The idea that giving everything you have to yourself makes you a selfish, despicable person was absolutely, undeniably absurd, and it pissed me off.
I’d gone directly home that day after a demanding, interminable eternity of school, done my homework with enough detail for me to receive credit for it, and subsided into bed, decompressing with my beating music. I didn’t do anything for anyone but myself, not interacting with anybody besides Alex, who I texted while doing math so that I didn’t end up banging my head on my textbook to cure my impending headache.
Yes, that made me selfish; no, it did not make me deplorable. How would it ever be possible for me to dispel my sadness if I didn’t make myself a priority?
Being selfless, though it would positively make everyone love you, wouldn’t get you anywhere; not any closer to elation, more genuine laughter, or having a positive future.
Selfishness, despite how decidedly negative it was always regarded as, was an imperative part of existing. It had its upsides, too; making jokes to rejoice in the reaction they caused was great and made everything more awesome, and produced positive emotions for whoever inspired the laughter. Occurrences caused by selfish desires were the sources of infinite greatness.
Abusing my eardrums at one am wasn’t heroic, but everything that I loved, everything that justified the innate crap that came with being a person - medicinal music, surprising generosity, mind-deranging books - made the giver and the receiver happy. Almost everything people did was truly for themselves, but that so often also contributed productively to the earth, so, yes, as I decided while pulling open my tingling eyes as the ending of Love, Selfish Love buzzed through my ear buds, the selfish and the fucking incredible things they did really should be blessed.
I gave in to my eye’s insistent impulse to close after coming to that conclusion, pausing another Truant Wave song exactly as it began and putting my computer away, eliminating the artificial glow that had been illuminating my room. Plugging my ear buds into my phone, I curled up on my side, declining into the mattress and taking off my glasses. I had to exert my eyes so that I could properly see my phone’s overly shiny screen, relaxing all of my muscles completely with an equable exhale when I had Love, Selfish Love playing again.
Fingers squeezing my sheets and phone pushed under my head, I listened intently to the quiet lyrics and breathed evenly, hair tickling my eyelids. It used to be impossible for me to go to sleep if there was any noise at all, but, as I’d discovered while I’d been a Junior, my mind powered off much quicker when I internally repeated lyrics than when I obsessed over some inane idea.
So I silently sang along to counteractively energetic songs until my irregular contemplations became nonsensical images, earbuds on the mattress next to me, contributing a soundtrack to my selfish dreams.