What Could Have Been: Chapter 1
Title: What Could Have Been (1/?)
Author:
electric_wish
Characters: The whole gang; focusing on Tony/Maxxie, Tony/Michelle for this chapter.
Rating: R for language.
Spoilers: All of season 1.
Warnings: (Very slight) Slash
Word count: 2,623
Disclaimer: I don’t own Skins or anything connected with it. But I should.
Author’s Note: The following series takes place at the end of the last episode of season 1, and thereafter ignores season 2. This is what could have been.
Summary: Maxxie deals with the aftermath of Tony’s accident, but finds that he is taking it harder than the rest of his friends.
1. Maxxie
There we were, sitting around a table with our drinks, with Anwar rambling on about how this is going to be the last time he puts up with this sort of birthday party, when in runs Michelle, crying and gasping for air, in the middle of having a panic attack.
“What the fuck happened?” Chris exclaims as the rest of us try to calm the girl down.
“Is this about Tony again?” Jal asks. I look away, hoping that Michelle wouldn’t bring up the real reason why the two of them ended their relationship. Russia was a mistake that I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life. But it takes two to tango.
Michelle takes a swig from a glass on the table and then a deep breath. “Tony... hospital...” She says softly, and we barely catch a word of it.
“Can you repeat that, Shell?”
“He got hit by a fucking bus!” Michelle shouts, and then the tears start again, pouring down her face along with her makeup. We all exchange looks of disbelief and worry, until Michelle adds “go see for yourself.”
Taking the initiative, I make a run for the exit, knowing that the others wouldn’t be far behind. Stepping outside the club the noise from some long forgotten 80’s-band is instantly muffled. Across the road, there’s an ambulance, its sirens blaring and lights flashing as it takes off for the hospital. A bus is parked beside the pavement, the driver being interviewed by a police officer. I made my way over to them.
“He just walked right out in front of me! Crazy kid must’ve had a death wish!” The bus driver is livid, and his bald head has nearly gone completely red from his rage. He looks like the type of man that a heart attack may claim at any second. Fingers crossed. The police officer acts almost sympathetic towards him, as if this was an unjust liability to be placed on a man of his stature.
“Excuse me, what happened here?” I interrupt.
The bus driver cuts in before the officer can even register my presence. “Some hooligan tried to kill himself by using my bus! It’s an outrage - a damned outrage!”
“Officer?” I ask, ignoring him. “The boy wasn’t… Tony Stonem, was it?”
The officer swallows, and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, lad. I’m afraid it was. Did you know him?”
It hit me. Tony was either dead or dying, and I had never explained Russia to him. I’m pretty sure that the last words I had said to him were “Fuck off, Tone” when he called me a few hours ago. That’s how I had left things. And now it could all be over.
“Maxxie, is it true?” Jal appeared behind me. I could only nod, before the reality of the situation came to me and the tears started to form in my eyes.
“It’s all my fault…” I said, not really knowing why, and then I started to cry, while the officer, the bus driver, and my friends looked on in silence. Chris put an arm around me and I cried into his shoulder, hoping this was all just a bad dream.
*
Tony and I had been friends for years. We were the original Tony and Sid - Tony and Maxxie. But that had been years ago, when we weren’t even teenagers. So much changed. Too much.
We were always spending time together, hanging around in each other’s homes or in the park. People said we were “inseparable”, and they had been right at the time. We used get up to all sorts of mischief, usually due to a plan concocted by the mind of a ten-year-old-Tony who got the biggest kick out of other people’s misfortune. I suppose some things never change.
Everything got complicated between us when girls became an issue. Teenaged-Tony was always on the lookout for a girlfriend and I was always jealous. He would pressure me into finding someone to be with. Back then I would have given anything to be just like my best friend Tony. I tried - god, I tried so hard - but I knew my heart wasn’t truly in it.
Then along came Sid; the geeky, awkward boy with the glasses who couldn’t be separated from his hat. Tony saw his opportunity with this new friend of his, someone weak spirited that he could mould and manipulate into anything he wanted. Sid became his new right-hand-man, and I was left as an outcast.
“Why don’t you want to hang around with me anymore?” I had asked him one day.
Tony had shrugged, as some blonde haired girl from the year above us planted a kiss on his cheek. “I dunno, Max. Why don’t you get yourself a girlfriend?”
“I don’t want a girlfriend, Tone.”
He had laughed at that. As if it was the strangest thing in the world for a teenage boy in Bristol to want to be single. “What are you then, gay or something?” Tony smirked, as the girl and his best buddy Sid laughed. I had walked away from him, giving him the finger. He called after me, trying to impress his crew; “Maxxie! They’re recruiting people for dance classes after school!”
I cried myself to sleep that night. I realised that I had lost my best friend, and - worse than that - that I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t like everyone else.
The next morning, as I stepped out of the flat, I bumped into Tony alone. “Hey, about yesterday-”
I brushed past him. “Sorry, Tone, I can’t stop to chat, I’ve got a dance class to go to.”
*
It had been four days since I had left the house, and five days since Tony’s accident. It seemed like I was taking it all far worse than the rest of the gang. They all knew it too, and were constantly sending me text messages to try to get me out:
Hey Max. Are you coming to the gig tonight? Let me know.
- Anwar.
“I don’t want to go.” I said to myself as I lay on the couch, watching mindless daytime television like I had for the past four days.
“Don’t want to go where?” I heard Dad say from the kitchen.
“Out.”
“Why not? You’ve done nothing but sit around the house all week. When I was your age they couldn’t keep me in if they paid me!”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Max.” The most awkward silence in the world is between Father and Son. Feelings were meant to be hidden, not shared. “It’s Tony, isn’t it?”
I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say, really. I didn’t understand it myself, why everyone else could deal with having their friend in a coma and yet I had to hold back tears whenever I thought of him.
“Maxxie,” Dad stood in my line of vision, blocking out the television, and forcing me to look at him. “You’re not the only one who misses him, you know. Your friends are all in the same boat as you, and you need to talk to them about this. No one deals with this sort of stuff on their own. I would suggest that you talk to Taz about this, but he’s not the best at the old advice, you know.”
I smiled as the dog in question growled with some of the carpet in his mouth.
“Now. You can either sit here and watch more fucking Coronation Street repeats, or you can ask your old man if he would mind dropping you into town. So, what’ll it be?”
I shook my head and stood up. “Actually, Dad, would you mind dropping me off somewhere else?”
*
Hospitals creep me out. They’re clean, but dirty at the same time. Clean on the surface, but everyone knows that disease is floating about, invisible, in search of a victim. Old people walk about on crutches while young people lie comatose in beds surrounded by flowers, get well soon cards, and their favourite toys.
In a private room, lies Tony Stonem. I gasped when I entered the room for the first time. Seeing Tony on the bed with tubes hanging from his body was too much for me to handle. This was the boy that was so strong in both body and mind, the boy who had affected so many lives in ways that he didn’t even know it.
We were the only two people in the room, and despite seeing him there I felt like I was on my own. I sat down on a chair at his bedside. All over his body there were bruises - the evidence from the accident.
I could only look at him. The shock of seeing him so helpless was too great. I tried to imagine what Tony would say if he were conscious. Probably something along the lines of: “Did you come just to stare?” I shook my head and decided to do what everyone says you should do when you’re with a person in a coma - talk to them.
“Hi, Tone.” I said, but my voice cracked. This was far harder than I thought it was going to be. “Goddammit you fuck, did no one ever teach you to look both ways before crossing a road? Do you know how worried we all are about you? Well, nearly everyone has been in to see you. I guess I’m last.” I bit my lip, thinking. Could he really hear me? Doubtful.
“There’s so much I want to say to you. I want to have a decent conversation with you about just about everything; about why Moulin Rouge was an excellent film despite your criticisms, about why I think The DaVinci Code is overrated, and about the lack of Arcade Fire lately. It all seems so pointless to everyone else, but I know that you would have some actual opinions on these. But most of all, Tone, most of all, I want to apologise to you.”
I put my hand on his. “I should have been a better friend to you. I shouldn’t have left things the way I did after Russia. There is so much that I want to tell you. It’s just so hard to do it now, but I know that now might be the only chance I get if you don’t pull through this. So here it goes. I think I love you, Tone. And I don’t mean it in the sense that I love Cassie or anyone else. I mean that I love you. But there’s nothing I can do about it. You and Michelle are meant to be together, everyone knows it, and who am I to stand in the way of that? Even if you did feel the same about me... But I guess we’ll never know that now, huh?”
I stood up, and gave him a light kiss on his cheek. “I’ll seeya Tone. If you get out of this okay, then I’ll be here for you. You just wait.”
There was nothing more to say. I left the hospital feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and headed for town.
*
“Maxxie!”
I heard them all before I saw them. Michelle, Jal, Chris and Anwar all came running toward me and surrounded me in a group hug. When they let me go, Michelle was smiling. “Dance with me.” She said, and dragged me away into the crowd of teenagers under the flashing lights and booming stereos blasting techno music in all directions.
I had no idea why Michelle had picked me - of all people - to dance with her, but I was about to find out. “Shell, what -”
“I don’t blame you.” Michelle said into my ear, loud enough for me to hear her over the music.
“For what?” I asked her, even though I knew the answer.
“Russia.” It was the one word and country that would have the strangest of effects on me for years to come. “It wasn’t your fault. I know how Tony can be. It might sound heartless because of the state he’s in now but we all know that he can act like a proper bastard. I should know.”
I could only nod back at her. If she knew what I had said to the unconscious body of her former boyfriend half an hour earlier then we would have been having a very different conversation.
“Besides,” she continued, “I know that it meant nothing to you - or to Tony for that matter. He was messing around, and you were a victim of it. That’s the end of it.”
“Yeah, course.” I croaked. All conversation was cut off after that. We danced together until the end of the song, bumping and grinding against each other while the people around us wondered if we were a couple, but when the song ended I made an excuse to get some air.
Click. Snap.
A camera flash went off somewhere, but I didn’t take any notice of it as I made my way out of the club. I needed to be alone for a while. I needed to think about what Michelle had said.
Click. Snap. Click. Snap.
Further pictures were being taken, probably by a gang of friends out having a good time. I brushed past a big group of people who looked like they were having the time of their lives. For all I knew that could have been us had Tony decided to watch where he was walking.
Click. Snap.
Now it was just getting annoying. And why did all the flashes seem to be directed at me?
*
“Russia... I know that it meant nothing to you - or to Tony.”
Had it meant nothing to Tony? I know it meant something to me. Just the memory of having Tony’s lips on mine made me feel all warm inside. But what if all of it had just been one big joke to him...
I had the most vivid dream that night. I was taken back years, to one of the most fateful moments of my life.
Tony was grinning like an idiot when I arrived at the park bench - our usual hangout after school. I didn’t know whether it was because we didn’t get any homework or because he was looking forward to his eleventh birthday in a few days, but he was really happy about something.
“Look what I did!” Tony said when I sat down. He pointed at the piece of bench between us.
“What?” I looked down and saw the words ‘Tony and Maxxie BFF’ carved into the wood. “What does ‘BFF’ mean, Tone?”
Tony laughed. “Don’t you know anything, Max? It means that we’re going to be ‘Best Friends Forever’. That’s a binding contract as well.”
“Forever’s a very long time. Do you think we’ll last?”
“Of course we will. Now come on, I want to ride my bike through the bus station again!”
That bench has since been broken in half and replaced. It wasn’t the only thing that was.
- - -
Comments would be so lovely.
Author:
electric_wish
Characters: The whole gang; focusing on Tony/Maxxie, Tony/Michelle for this chapter.
Rating: R for language.
Spoilers: All of season 1.
Warnings: (Very slight) Slash
Word count: 2,623
Disclaimer: I don’t own Skins or anything connected with it. But I should.
Author’s Note: The following series takes place at the end of the last episode of season 1, and thereafter ignores season 2. This is what could have been.
Summary: Maxxie deals with the aftermath of Tony’s accident, but finds that he is taking it harder than the rest of his friends.
1. Maxxie
There we were, sitting around a table with our drinks, with Anwar rambling on about how this is going to be the last time he puts up with this sort of birthday party, when in runs Michelle, crying and gasping for air, in the middle of having a panic attack.
“What the fuck happened?” Chris exclaims as the rest of us try to calm the girl down.
“Is this about Tony again?” Jal asks. I look away, hoping that Michelle wouldn’t bring up the real reason why the two of them ended their relationship. Russia was a mistake that I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life. But it takes two to tango.
Michelle takes a swig from a glass on the table and then a deep breath. “Tony... hospital...” She says softly, and we barely catch a word of it.
“Can you repeat that, Shell?”
“He got hit by a fucking bus!” Michelle shouts, and then the tears start again, pouring down her face along with her makeup. We all exchange looks of disbelief and worry, until Michelle adds “go see for yourself.”
Taking the initiative, I make a run for the exit, knowing that the others wouldn’t be far behind. Stepping outside the club the noise from some long forgotten 80’s-band is instantly muffled. Across the road, there’s an ambulance, its sirens blaring and lights flashing as it takes off for the hospital. A bus is parked beside the pavement, the driver being interviewed by a police officer. I made my way over to them.
“He just walked right out in front of me! Crazy kid must’ve had a death wish!” The bus driver is livid, and his bald head has nearly gone completely red from his rage. He looks like the type of man that a heart attack may claim at any second. Fingers crossed. The police officer acts almost sympathetic towards him, as if this was an unjust liability to be placed on a man of his stature.
“Excuse me, what happened here?” I interrupt.
The bus driver cuts in before the officer can even register my presence. “Some hooligan tried to kill himself by using my bus! It’s an outrage - a damned outrage!”
“Officer?” I ask, ignoring him. “The boy wasn’t… Tony Stonem, was it?”
The officer swallows, and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, lad. I’m afraid it was. Did you know him?”
It hit me. Tony was either dead or dying, and I had never explained Russia to him. I’m pretty sure that the last words I had said to him were “Fuck off, Tone” when he called me a few hours ago. That’s how I had left things. And now it could all be over.
“Maxxie, is it true?” Jal appeared behind me. I could only nod, before the reality of the situation came to me and the tears started to form in my eyes.
“It’s all my fault…” I said, not really knowing why, and then I started to cry, while the officer, the bus driver, and my friends looked on in silence. Chris put an arm around me and I cried into his shoulder, hoping this was all just a bad dream.
*
Tony and I had been friends for years. We were the original Tony and Sid - Tony and Maxxie. But that had been years ago, when we weren’t even teenagers. So much changed. Too much.
We were always spending time together, hanging around in each other’s homes or in the park. People said we were “inseparable”, and they had been right at the time. We used get up to all sorts of mischief, usually due to a plan concocted by the mind of a ten-year-old-Tony who got the biggest kick out of other people’s misfortune. I suppose some things never change.
Everything got complicated between us when girls became an issue. Teenaged-Tony was always on the lookout for a girlfriend and I was always jealous. He would pressure me into finding someone to be with. Back then I would have given anything to be just like my best friend Tony. I tried - god, I tried so hard - but I knew my heart wasn’t truly in it.
Then along came Sid; the geeky, awkward boy with the glasses who couldn’t be separated from his hat. Tony saw his opportunity with this new friend of his, someone weak spirited that he could mould and manipulate into anything he wanted. Sid became his new right-hand-man, and I was left as an outcast.
“Why don’t you want to hang around with me anymore?” I had asked him one day.
Tony had shrugged, as some blonde haired girl from the year above us planted a kiss on his cheek. “I dunno, Max. Why don’t you get yourself a girlfriend?”
“I don’t want a girlfriend, Tone.”
He had laughed at that. As if it was the strangest thing in the world for a teenage boy in Bristol to want to be single. “What are you then, gay or something?” Tony smirked, as the girl and his best buddy Sid laughed. I had walked away from him, giving him the finger. He called after me, trying to impress his crew; “Maxxie! They’re recruiting people for dance classes after school!”
I cried myself to sleep that night. I realised that I had lost my best friend, and - worse than that - that I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t like everyone else.
The next morning, as I stepped out of the flat, I bumped into Tony alone. “Hey, about yesterday-”
I brushed past him. “Sorry, Tone, I can’t stop to chat, I’ve got a dance class to go to.”
*
It had been four days since I had left the house, and five days since Tony’s accident. It seemed like I was taking it all far worse than the rest of the gang. They all knew it too, and were constantly sending me text messages to try to get me out:
Hey Max. Are you coming to the gig tonight? Let me know.
- Anwar.
“I don’t want to go.” I said to myself as I lay on the couch, watching mindless daytime television like I had for the past four days.
“Don’t want to go where?” I heard Dad say from the kitchen.
“Out.”
“Why not? You’ve done nothing but sit around the house all week. When I was your age they couldn’t keep me in if they paid me!”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Max.” The most awkward silence in the world is between Father and Son. Feelings were meant to be hidden, not shared. “It’s Tony, isn’t it?”
I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say, really. I didn’t understand it myself, why everyone else could deal with having their friend in a coma and yet I had to hold back tears whenever I thought of him.
“Maxxie,” Dad stood in my line of vision, blocking out the television, and forcing me to look at him. “You’re not the only one who misses him, you know. Your friends are all in the same boat as you, and you need to talk to them about this. No one deals with this sort of stuff on their own. I would suggest that you talk to Taz about this, but he’s not the best at the old advice, you know.”
I smiled as the dog in question growled with some of the carpet in his mouth.
“Now. You can either sit here and watch more fucking Coronation Street repeats, or you can ask your old man if he would mind dropping you into town. So, what’ll it be?”
I shook my head and stood up. “Actually, Dad, would you mind dropping me off somewhere else?”
*
Hospitals creep me out. They’re clean, but dirty at the same time. Clean on the surface, but everyone knows that disease is floating about, invisible, in search of a victim. Old people walk about on crutches while young people lie comatose in beds surrounded by flowers, get well soon cards, and their favourite toys.
In a private room, lies Tony Stonem. I gasped when I entered the room for the first time. Seeing Tony on the bed with tubes hanging from his body was too much for me to handle. This was the boy that was so strong in both body and mind, the boy who had affected so many lives in ways that he didn’t even know it.
We were the only two people in the room, and despite seeing him there I felt like I was on my own. I sat down on a chair at his bedside. All over his body there were bruises - the evidence from the accident.
I could only look at him. The shock of seeing him so helpless was too great. I tried to imagine what Tony would say if he were conscious. Probably something along the lines of: “Did you come just to stare?” I shook my head and decided to do what everyone says you should do when you’re with a person in a coma - talk to them.
“Hi, Tone.” I said, but my voice cracked. This was far harder than I thought it was going to be. “Goddammit you fuck, did no one ever teach you to look both ways before crossing a road? Do you know how worried we all are about you? Well, nearly everyone has been in to see you. I guess I’m last.” I bit my lip, thinking. Could he really hear me? Doubtful.
“There’s so much I want to say to you. I want to have a decent conversation with you about just about everything; about why Moulin Rouge was an excellent film despite your criticisms, about why I think The DaVinci Code is overrated, and about the lack of Arcade Fire lately. It all seems so pointless to everyone else, but I know that you would have some actual opinions on these. But most of all, Tone, most of all, I want to apologise to you.”
I put my hand on his. “I should have been a better friend to you. I shouldn’t have left things the way I did after Russia. There is so much that I want to tell you. It’s just so hard to do it now, but I know that now might be the only chance I get if you don’t pull through this. So here it goes. I think I love you, Tone. And I don’t mean it in the sense that I love Cassie or anyone else. I mean that I love you. But there’s nothing I can do about it. You and Michelle are meant to be together, everyone knows it, and who am I to stand in the way of that? Even if you did feel the same about me... But I guess we’ll never know that now, huh?”
I stood up, and gave him a light kiss on his cheek. “I’ll seeya Tone. If you get out of this okay, then I’ll be here for you. You just wait.”
There was nothing more to say. I left the hospital feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and headed for town.
*
“Maxxie!”
I heard them all before I saw them. Michelle, Jal, Chris and Anwar all came running toward me and surrounded me in a group hug. When they let me go, Michelle was smiling. “Dance with me.” She said, and dragged me away into the crowd of teenagers under the flashing lights and booming stereos blasting techno music in all directions.
I had no idea why Michelle had picked me - of all people - to dance with her, but I was about to find out. “Shell, what -”
“I don’t blame you.” Michelle said into my ear, loud enough for me to hear her over the music.
“For what?” I asked her, even though I knew the answer.
“Russia.” It was the one word and country that would have the strangest of effects on me for years to come. “It wasn’t your fault. I know how Tony can be. It might sound heartless because of the state he’s in now but we all know that he can act like a proper bastard. I should know.”
I could only nod back at her. If she knew what I had said to the unconscious body of her former boyfriend half an hour earlier then we would have been having a very different conversation.
“Besides,” she continued, “I know that it meant nothing to you - or to Tony for that matter. He was messing around, and you were a victim of it. That’s the end of it.”
“Yeah, course.” I croaked. All conversation was cut off after that. We danced together until the end of the song, bumping and grinding against each other while the people around us wondered if we were a couple, but when the song ended I made an excuse to get some air.
Click. Snap.
A camera flash went off somewhere, but I didn’t take any notice of it as I made my way out of the club. I needed to be alone for a while. I needed to think about what Michelle had said.
Click. Snap. Click. Snap.
Further pictures were being taken, probably by a gang of friends out having a good time. I brushed past a big group of people who looked like they were having the time of their lives. For all I knew that could have been us had Tony decided to watch where he was walking.
Click. Snap.
Now it was just getting annoying. And why did all the flashes seem to be directed at me?
*
“Russia... I know that it meant nothing to you - or to Tony.”
Had it meant nothing to Tony? I know it meant something to me. Just the memory of having Tony’s lips on mine made me feel all warm inside. But what if all of it had just been one big joke to him...
I had the most vivid dream that night. I was taken back years, to one of the most fateful moments of my life.
Tony was grinning like an idiot when I arrived at the park bench - our usual hangout after school. I didn’t know whether it was because we didn’t get any homework or because he was looking forward to his eleventh birthday in a few days, but he was really happy about something.
“Look what I did!” Tony said when I sat down. He pointed at the piece of bench between us.
“What?” I looked down and saw the words ‘Tony and Maxxie BFF’ carved into the wood. “What does ‘BFF’ mean, Tone?”
Tony laughed. “Don’t you know anything, Max? It means that we’re going to be ‘Best Friends Forever’. That’s a binding contract as well.”
“Forever’s a very long time. Do you think we’ll last?”
“Of course we will. Now come on, I want to ride my bike through the bus station again!”
That bench has since been broken in half and replaced. It wasn’t the only thing that was.
- - -
Comments would be so lovely.