short story - Kenneth Grey: Delinquent Geek Extraordinaire
short story - Kenneth Grey: Delinquent Geek Extraordinaire
Notes: Every so often, I'll sit at the computer and not let myself get up until I've written something. Usually, I have no idea where the first sentence comes from, and the rest slides into some semblance of order as I type. Emphasis on 'some.' So here this is. I'm actually posting it because of an interesting bandwagon: On www.fictionpress.com, authors Angelic Hooligan and i_nv_u50 post their oneshots snapshots/drabbles/vignettes/whatevers in series. And I read them and saw that they were good. And I was like, 'what fun.' So I tried one myself. Sue me. (Or don't.)
Warnings: old
*
"I'm not sure this is the best way to do this."
"What do you mean?" he asked, releasing the crowbar with a gloved hand to wipe his nose. I frowned at him. Kenneth, just a shave taller than the average girl in our class, and dangerously thin to boot, was sniffling, and his cheeks were flushed in the biting cold; his parents kept him home from school today to shake off the remnants of his weekend cold, so being outside certainly wasn't good for him. If I hadn't cut soccer practice to tell him about Anderson, he would still be peacefully sleeping through his little cellular war instead of flying into a rage and dragging me here, set on breaking into our star forward Cory Mathis's house and doing hell knows what. I looked pointedly at the ground below, the crowbar in his hands, and Mathis's window, then trained a full glare to my friend's pale face. "What?" He blinked, adorably confused as only he can be, and then his eyes widened with understanding. "Oh, this? Here." He handed me the crowbar and nodded apologetically toward the window. "You should have just said so! I'll check the driveway and make sure no one's home yet." Unthinking, I accepted it and watched him shuffle toward the arch in the roof overlooking the driveway, his fat, garish coat two sizes too small standing out against the drab gray tiles like a beacon for fashion police everywhere.
I shook my head. "Sometimes I just don't understand you," I muttered. I quickly checked the window for damage. Thankfully, I didn't see anything incriminating, but Mathis sees dents in his SUV that the FBI would miss, so there was no telling what he'd see when he looked at it. I still didn't understand why the break-in was necessary. Mathis was an ass to anyone without a letter, and even though I was on the soccer team, my friends and I were geeks from every other department. We've learned to live with Cory's (admittedly less frequent) teasing. Now that I'm on the team and have proven myself athletic, he leaves me alone more often than not. Anderson, a great guy and our Photo Geek Extraordinaire, is not so blessed.
Kenneth Grey, I'm thinking, will be renamed Delinquent Geek Extraordinaire; he whooped excitedly, coughed uncontrollably for a moment, and straightened up with a pained smile, motioning toward another window. "It's open," he rasped. He gave it a sharp yank, crouched low, and stepped carefully inside. Reluctantly, I followed.
"So, what are we doing here?" I trailed off. If he were in a Greek epic, Cory Mathis's epithet would be 'god-like,' because at 6'2", with a natural tan, perfect, easy smile, and dirty blonde hair that curls just right at the ends, Mathis owns our school; Mathis's room was strangely bare for so celebrated an athlete. There were no trophies or sports certificates of excellence anywhere. Where I had expected the walls to be adorned with posters of Beckham, Jordan, and Playboy centerfolds, they were whitewashed with odd dents and scuffmarks scattered liberally, as if furniture had been moved carelessly or shoes thrown at or kicked against it. Mathis's bed was just a plain twin bed with a dark blue comforter, pushed into the far corner of the room. He had a wooden desk covered with random articles and school supplies scattered haphazardly on its surface, a small bookshelf covered with CDs, movies, a CD player, and a handful of battered novels, and a laptop was shoved halfway under the bed, its cord trailing snakelike across the floor and behind the desk.
I heard a loud BANG echo through the small room. I started and turned around, anxious good-boy heart pounding at the thought that Cory had returned and was glaring down at us from his doorway, but it was only Kenneth...ransacking Cory's closet. "What the hell are you doing?" I cried.
It came out as a stage whisper, to which Kenneth only smirked and shoved aside another shirt before gripping his mousy brown hair in exasperation and frowning around the room. "Do you see a dresser anywhere?"
"No." I let out a short bark of laughter. "What were you gonna do, run his boxers up the flagpole? This is ridiculous....Oh shit!" His desk clock flashed 6:00 in blood-red bars at my stunned face. "I'm usually home by now!"
He rolled his dark brown eyes at me, and launched into a coughing fit with a surprised look on his face. Then he shrugged and sniffled a bit, eyes darting around the plain room in search of Kleenex and something else obviously not found in Mathis's closet. "I'm supposed to be sleeping this cold off, but here I am. Your parents won't care." Kenneth sniffed again and walked into the hallway. "I'm gonna go find a bathroom."
Was this kid crazy? He'd never been so rash and...delinquent!...before. I followed him into the hall, where I heard him blow his nose before I saw him sniff contentedly and emerge from the dark room by the stairs. "We need to get outta here. He'll see my car, for one thing, when he gets home in, like, five minutes!"
This warning did not have the intended effect. "You worry too much," was Kenneth's only response as he slid past me back into Mathis's room and started shuffling through the desk drawers.
"We need to leave now. Kenneth? Kenneth, what are you doing?"
"Me and Mr. Mathis need to have a little talk about being rude to Anderson." For a moment his eyes hardened, and I almost believed he could take on Cory Mathis and win. Then he put on Mathis's headphones and started sifting through CDs on the shelf, muttering something about jocks and bad taste, and he was just nosy Kenneth with a cold again. Kenneth who had just broken into the house of Geek-slaying Cory Mathis.
I heard a door slam downstairs and froze. Mathis would kill me if he found me here, so Kenneth didn't have a prayer. I tried to manhandle him toward the closed window, gave up when he pushed me and continued bobbing his head to the music, and concentrated on getting the window up. I crouched on the roof and looked in anxiously. "Grey! Grey, get out there! He's home!" He ignored me.
I was about to crawl back inside when Cory Mathis's door swung open and the man himself casually stepped into the room. Self-preservation instincts on high, I ducked around the side of the house, distantly heard a backpack drop on the hardwood floor, and--
"What the fuck are you doing in my room?"
And then, wonder of all wonders,
"Kenny?" Shuffling. "I thought you had a cold! I heard you called in sick...And, Jesus! Why's the window open? It's freezing outside!" The window slammed shut and I couldn't hear anything else.
I was obviously missing something. I sneaked a glance in the window.
The headphones rested around Kenneth's tiny neck, and his ugly coat lay like a beached whale on the light wood floor. He looked pissed. The binder Mathis took from Anderson this afternoon - the start of this madness - was dropped on a hastily cleared space on the desk. Kenneth reached forward to grab it, and the headphones snapped backwards off his neck. He made an awkward move to catch them, but failed. Mathis, rather than beating him to a bloody pulp, laughed at his horrified expression and reached around him to put them on the shelf. I ducked back against the wall so he wouldn't see me when he turned around.
When my pulse rate had slowed, I hazarded another glance. Anderson's math binder was open on the desk, only it didn't look like equations were in it...was that...were those...pictures? And What. The. Hell. Mathis had his arms wrapped comfortably around my poor friend's waist and was grinning over his shoulder, and Kenneth was flipping through Anderson's notebook, completely absorbed and oblivious. Until Mathis bit his neck. He bit him! Vampire! Who bites their friends? Ken and I have been friends since 2nd grade, and we don't bite each other! And until five seconds ago I didn't think Mathis bit people either! How long have they been hanging out? I frowned, confusion at their behavior written into my face. Mathis was tickling Kenneth now, his large sun-browned hands under Kenneth's shirt and rippling the fabric from underneath. And then...and then Kenneth stopped laughing and Mathis's hands stilled and they just looked at each other.
...Holy shit. They're kissing. How did I miss this? I ducked away from the window feeling like the trespasser I was - Kenneth obviously had a permanent invite. Kenneth was gay, or bi, for that matter. But golden boy Cory Mathis? I thought this over for a moment, and shrugged. Whatever. I figured now would be a good time to leave, seeing as they looked pretty busy. I reached over and guiltily grabbed the crowbar from where I'd chucked it climbing back out, then snuck a last glance - I couldn't help it. I'm *so* getting Kenneth for not telling me he was dating. And for not telling me the real reason he was pissed about the Anderson incident, which obviously wasn't as cruel as it looked during school.
Their lips were slowly pulling apart when I looked back in. The two looked thoughtful and self-satisfied at the same time, and stared into each others' eyes in a way too cliché for me to excuse from anyone, even poetic, waif-like Kenneth. They leaned in again.
And Kenneth sneezed.
The mood seemed broken, because Mathis backed out of my field of vision, and Kenneth's apologetic look melted into laughter.
I walked to the gabled edge of the roof and looked over, then back at the window I could no longer see inside. Grey had no idea how lucky he was; climbing back down was gonna suck.
AN: Sorry it ended up being yet another stereotypical-mousy- geek/stereotypical-antagonistic-popular-jock-boy fic, hope it's not too cliché. It just came out that way, honest! I'll hang convention later.
(I *do* have a thing for mousy people though.)
Notes: Every so often, I'll sit at the computer and not let myself get up until I've written something. Usually, I have no idea where the first sentence comes from, and the rest slides into some semblance of order as I type. Emphasis on 'some.' So here this is. I'm actually posting it because of an interesting bandwagon: On www.fictionpress.com, authors Angelic Hooligan and i_nv_u50 post their oneshots snapshots/drabbles/vignettes/whatevers in series. And I read them and saw that they were good. And I was like, 'what fun.' So I tried one myself. Sue me. (Or don't.)
Warnings: old
*
"I'm not sure this is the best way to do this."
"What do you mean?" he asked, releasing the crowbar with a gloved hand to wipe his nose. I frowned at him. Kenneth, just a shave taller than the average girl in our class, and dangerously thin to boot, was sniffling, and his cheeks were flushed in the biting cold; his parents kept him home from school today to shake off the remnants of his weekend cold, so being outside certainly wasn't good for him. If I hadn't cut soccer practice to tell him about Anderson, he would still be peacefully sleeping through his little cellular war instead of flying into a rage and dragging me here, set on breaking into our star forward Cory Mathis's house and doing hell knows what. I looked pointedly at the ground below, the crowbar in his hands, and Mathis's window, then trained a full glare to my friend's pale face. "What?" He blinked, adorably confused as only he can be, and then his eyes widened with understanding. "Oh, this? Here." He handed me the crowbar and nodded apologetically toward the window. "You should have just said so! I'll check the driveway and make sure no one's home yet." Unthinking, I accepted it and watched him shuffle toward the arch in the roof overlooking the driveway, his fat, garish coat two sizes too small standing out against the drab gray tiles like a beacon for fashion police everywhere.
I shook my head. "Sometimes I just don't understand you," I muttered. I quickly checked the window for damage. Thankfully, I didn't see anything incriminating, but Mathis sees dents in his SUV that the FBI would miss, so there was no telling what he'd see when he looked at it. I still didn't understand why the break-in was necessary. Mathis was an ass to anyone without a letter, and even though I was on the soccer team, my friends and I were geeks from every other department. We've learned to live with Cory's (admittedly less frequent) teasing. Now that I'm on the team and have proven myself athletic, he leaves me alone more often than not. Anderson, a great guy and our Photo Geek Extraordinaire, is not so blessed.
Kenneth Grey, I'm thinking, will be renamed Delinquent Geek Extraordinaire; he whooped excitedly, coughed uncontrollably for a moment, and straightened up with a pained smile, motioning toward another window. "It's open," he rasped. He gave it a sharp yank, crouched low, and stepped carefully inside. Reluctantly, I followed.
"So, what are we doing here?" I trailed off. If he were in a Greek epic, Cory Mathis's epithet would be 'god-like,' because at 6'2", with a natural tan, perfect, easy smile, and dirty blonde hair that curls just right at the ends, Mathis owns our school; Mathis's room was strangely bare for so celebrated an athlete. There were no trophies or sports certificates of excellence anywhere. Where I had expected the walls to be adorned with posters of Beckham, Jordan, and Playboy centerfolds, they were whitewashed with odd dents and scuffmarks scattered liberally, as if furniture had been moved carelessly or shoes thrown at or kicked against it. Mathis's bed was just a plain twin bed with a dark blue comforter, pushed into the far corner of the room. He had a wooden desk covered with random articles and school supplies scattered haphazardly on its surface, a small bookshelf covered with CDs, movies, a CD player, and a handful of battered novels, and a laptop was shoved halfway under the bed, its cord trailing snakelike across the floor and behind the desk.
I heard a loud BANG echo through the small room. I started and turned around, anxious good-boy heart pounding at the thought that Cory had returned and was glaring down at us from his doorway, but it was only Kenneth...ransacking Cory's closet. "What the hell are you doing?" I cried.
It came out as a stage whisper, to which Kenneth only smirked and shoved aside another shirt before gripping his mousy brown hair in exasperation and frowning around the room. "Do you see a dresser anywhere?"
"No." I let out a short bark of laughter. "What were you gonna do, run his boxers up the flagpole? This is ridiculous....Oh shit!" His desk clock flashed 6:00 in blood-red bars at my stunned face. "I'm usually home by now!"
He rolled his dark brown eyes at me, and launched into a coughing fit with a surprised look on his face. Then he shrugged and sniffled a bit, eyes darting around the plain room in search of Kleenex and something else obviously not found in Mathis's closet. "I'm supposed to be sleeping this cold off, but here I am. Your parents won't care." Kenneth sniffed again and walked into the hallway. "I'm gonna go find a bathroom."
Was this kid crazy? He'd never been so rash and...delinquent!...before. I followed him into the hall, where I heard him blow his nose before I saw him sniff contentedly and emerge from the dark room by the stairs. "We need to get outta here. He'll see my car, for one thing, when he gets home in, like, five minutes!"
This warning did not have the intended effect. "You worry too much," was Kenneth's only response as he slid past me back into Mathis's room and started shuffling through the desk drawers.
"We need to leave now. Kenneth? Kenneth, what are you doing?"
"Me and Mr. Mathis need to have a little talk about being rude to Anderson." For a moment his eyes hardened, and I almost believed he could take on Cory Mathis and win. Then he put on Mathis's headphones and started sifting through CDs on the shelf, muttering something about jocks and bad taste, and he was just nosy Kenneth with a cold again. Kenneth who had just broken into the house of Geek-slaying Cory Mathis.
I heard a door slam downstairs and froze. Mathis would kill me if he found me here, so Kenneth didn't have a prayer. I tried to manhandle him toward the closed window, gave up when he pushed me and continued bobbing his head to the music, and concentrated on getting the window up. I crouched on the roof and looked in anxiously. "Grey! Grey, get out there! He's home!" He ignored me.
I was about to crawl back inside when Cory Mathis's door swung open and the man himself casually stepped into the room. Self-preservation instincts on high, I ducked around the side of the house, distantly heard a backpack drop on the hardwood floor, and--
"What the fuck are you doing in my room?"
And then, wonder of all wonders,
"Kenny?" Shuffling. "I thought you had a cold! I heard you called in sick...And, Jesus! Why's the window open? It's freezing outside!" The window slammed shut and I couldn't hear anything else.
I was obviously missing something. I sneaked a glance in the window.
The headphones rested around Kenneth's tiny neck, and his ugly coat lay like a beached whale on the light wood floor. He looked pissed. The binder Mathis took from Anderson this afternoon - the start of this madness - was dropped on a hastily cleared space on the desk. Kenneth reached forward to grab it, and the headphones snapped backwards off his neck. He made an awkward move to catch them, but failed. Mathis, rather than beating him to a bloody pulp, laughed at his horrified expression and reached around him to put them on the shelf. I ducked back against the wall so he wouldn't see me when he turned around.
When my pulse rate had slowed, I hazarded another glance. Anderson's math binder was open on the desk, only it didn't look like equations were in it...was that...were those...pictures? And What. The. Hell. Mathis had his arms wrapped comfortably around my poor friend's waist and was grinning over his shoulder, and Kenneth was flipping through Anderson's notebook, completely absorbed and oblivious. Until Mathis bit his neck. He bit him! Vampire! Who bites their friends? Ken and I have been friends since 2nd grade, and we don't bite each other! And until five seconds ago I didn't think Mathis bit people either! How long have they been hanging out? I frowned, confusion at their behavior written into my face. Mathis was tickling Kenneth now, his large sun-browned hands under Kenneth's shirt and rippling the fabric from underneath. And then...and then Kenneth stopped laughing and Mathis's hands stilled and they just looked at each other.
...Holy shit. They're kissing. How did I miss this? I ducked away from the window feeling like the trespasser I was - Kenneth obviously had a permanent invite. Kenneth was gay, or bi, for that matter. But golden boy Cory Mathis? I thought this over for a moment, and shrugged. Whatever. I figured now would be a good time to leave, seeing as they looked pretty busy. I reached over and guiltily grabbed the crowbar from where I'd chucked it climbing back out, then snuck a last glance - I couldn't help it. I'm *so* getting Kenneth for not telling me he was dating. And for not telling me the real reason he was pissed about the Anderson incident, which obviously wasn't as cruel as it looked during school.
Their lips were slowly pulling apart when I looked back in. The two looked thoughtful and self-satisfied at the same time, and stared into each others' eyes in a way too cliché for me to excuse from anyone, even poetic, waif-like Kenneth. They leaned in again.
And Kenneth sneezed.
The mood seemed broken, because Mathis backed out of my field of vision, and Kenneth's apologetic look melted into laughter.
I walked to the gabled edge of the roof and looked over, then back at the window I could no longer see inside. Grey had no idea how lucky he was; climbing back down was gonna suck.
AN: Sorry it ended up being yet another stereotypical-mousy- geek/stereotypical-antagonistic-popular-jock-boy fic, hope it's not too cliché. It just came out that way, honest! I'll hang convention later.
(I *do* have a thing for mousy people though.)