The darker side o' me. ;)
Title: "Bliss"
Rating: R, for implied violence, hints of non-con
Pairing: none as of yet
Synopsis: What the hell did they kill the alien for?
We don't wanna wake monster taking over
"Tiptoe round tie him down"
We don't want the loonies taking over
"Tiptoe round tie them down"
-Radiohead, "Go to Sleep"
He was sick to death of it; the hypocrisy, the staging, everything. Casey wanted out.
Most people who’d led the kind of life he had would be thrilled to see it get left behind for fame and notoriety. For the first few days it hadn’t been so bad; in fact, it wasn’t the attention that he got that bothered him. That, he could deal with just fine. It was annoying getting called all the time for phone interviews, or seeing photographers lurking in bushes when he’d walk to school. Casey would raise his camera to his eye and take pictures back, capturing the men and women mid shot in his own lens. It didn’t serve anything but ‘just action’ to Casey, it wasn’t a form of revenge or done maliciously. He was a photographer too, and he guessed he wanted that known. Any time that fence could fall, and it’d be them getting stalked and bothered.
No, in the end that wasn’t what bothered Casey. What bothered Casey had nothing to do with Casey.
Delilah. Why in fuck had he given half a shit for her all those years? After the ‘honeymoon’ period had ended- lasting a whole entire week- she began teasing him gently, mostly about stupid shit. “Case, I hate that shirt. Makes you look even scrawnier than you are normally,” Fine. Then it was in front of others, giving him condescending pats on his shoulder while giggling stupidly. He’d grit his teeth and take it, not knowing why. For God’s sake, he’d killed off a ravenous, world hungry alien half the size of the school gym. What was some bitchy little girl compared to that?
When the rumor mill picked up and spread it around that Casey had a hard time ‘keeping it up’, he knew where to turn. He’d walked out of the lunchroom, face blazing red with fury towards the gym, where he knew she had a practice going on. The way he’d slammed the door open, making it hit the wall so hard white paint scraped and scattered off the thick stone wall caused a forming pyramid of girls to fall in a heap. “Fuck, Case,” Delilah exclaimed as she stood up and smoothed her skirt down. Her frown faded when she looked at his face as he approached.
“We’ve never even FUCKED.” Casey bellowed, uncaring to the other girls standing and watching. So what?
“Okay, what psycho mood are we in now?”
Always the firm denial of Casey’s emotions through blaming his psychosis.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve, Del. What, did it get bored around here when people stopped beating me up all the time- so you decided to give them reason to?” Casey said in a trembling voice. “Just got called ‘Can’t-Cock’er Connor.’ Didn’t know what the fuck it MEANT until Stokes told me,”
The gym fell deadly silent for a moment as Delilah rolled her eyes. “Well come ON, Casey. You’ve barely touched me since we started dating. It’s been what, two weeks?”
“So you fucking mock me?? What the HELL Delilah??
“I didn’t tell anyone but a few of my friends, it ain’t MY fault if they can’t keep their mouths shut!!”
“Fucking whore,”
That earned him a slap to the face, but it felt good.
He hated others more, however.
When he caught Delilah in the boy’s locker room after a game with Gabe, both of them locked in a furious make-out session, he didn’t know what to think. Was that some sort of twisted revenge? On both their parts? It was obvious Gabe still felt the urge to give Casey a good beat down a few more times before school ended, and he almost did when Casey’s fame started to wane. Stan always showed up at the right times it seemed, and Casey was grateful for it. Stan and Stokes, though their sickeningly sweet new relationship would make Casey downright wince, remained good friends with him, especially since the whole invasion. Casey felt like they were the only ones he could trust; Stan even managed to get a “Delilah’s a Bitch” party together, even if it just consisted of Stan, Stokes and Casey. They drank cheap wine and beer to the point of becoming giddy idiots, all of them regretting it the next morning. But bringing along all the pictures Casey had ever taken of Delilah, defacing them with the other two all night long (makeshift dart boards never looked so wonderful) was worth the nausea. He didn’t remember a lot of what went on when the chaos of their slinging darts, rocks, and torn apart pictures of Delilah’s face ended. But the next school day Stan seemed a little more protective of him. Especially when it came to Gabe. Casey hoped to all hell that his lips hadn’t been loosened too much, but he grew more wary of the sympathetic gaze that Stokes and Stan would give him every now and again when the subject of Gabe came up.
The new hates and friendships were all outweighed by one huge and nearly overwhelming hatred towards a specific person. Delilah was a bitch, but he knew that before. Gabe was a mean and despicable dick, but he knew THAT before.
And those first few days after the invasion, despite his shaking hands and trembling memory… fuck, they’d been so damned good. He took solace in the new binds he had with the others, they’d all seen and done it all with him. They had a tried and tested friendship now that he thought couldn’t be broken. Yet all it took was for someone to turn away from their former self, thinking that being a football jock would cure all ills suddenly.
Zeke had seen Casey rushing to bathroom stalls, trying hard to disappear and tend to a nose that took relentless violence. Seen Casey crouching in a piteous fetal position on the grass after getting another pole to the crotch. Seen him be the pathetic ‘decoy’ to lure what seemed to be hundreds of furious football players for Zeke to make a safe run to his car. Perhaps it was the most logical of choices at the time, but the irony made him sick to think about. He wondered if even after everything was over, Gabe had been told of this and laughed his ass off. All the players, laughing their asses off, wishing they’d been conscious through their alien-induced haze to see geeky, little Casey Connor running for his life from them.
Casey was sure they’d ask Zeke about it; after all, he was one of them now, wasn’t he? Getting his body decorated into everything from shoulder pads to jock straps, complete with that God awful jersey draped over him as if he were some Americanized poster boy. Zeke was Americana now, getting high praises for his newfound status. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the ones who’d created Casey into being the crouching invisible boy, hoping the entire team would catch pneumonia for a week’s worth of peace. So if one were to ask Casey nowadays, “Who, out of everyone you know do you hate the most?” Casey wouldn’t even have to think. To him, Delilah and Gabe may as well be best friends, as he would answer, “Ezekiel Tyler.”
What HAD they fought off MaryBeth for? Casey remained convicted in his idea of it. She’d promised them the not-so-alien idea of a communist formation, promising equality and divine bliss for the rest of their days. They’d be happy, oh so happy, all of them living as if combined into one single being. No more spending way too much on makeup for Delilah- she’d realize her inner beauty. No more confused cover-ups for Stokes- she’d know what she wanted and wouldn’t be scared to get it. No more selling drugs and acting like an asshole to teachers for Zeke- he’d grow up and further his already impeccable intelligence. No more… nothing. That would have been the trade off; ‘let’s all just get along’. Blissful ignorance to what they could just do their own damned selves without a brainwashing required.
So what did they all do? Brainwashed themselves. Forgot. Stopped giving a shit about the chance they’d all been given to take the world with gentle pressure and mold it to what it could be.
The combination of all this made Casey drop his role as photographer for the paper; he enjoyed the blank but shocked look Delilah gave him when he told her, quite frankly, that he wasn’t going to be her little ‘wunderkind’ anymore, a lackey nipping at her heels to do whatever she bid of him. Her mouth had just moved up and down, as if considering actually begging him to stay on. He knew what he was to that rag; his pictures may as well have been professional, and he’d even gotten them extra money for new equipment after the school board had seen his work. They all figured that hindering the talents working there wouldn’t be fair. It filled Casey with enormous satisfaction and pride to walk out that door.
He’d passed by the football field on his way home, seeing a practice going on. He spotted Zeke amongst them all, huddling close next to #31 and #12. Casey didn’t know #31, but he knew #12. Not his name, but his fists. All along Zeke didn’t know what anger burned about him in Casey’s mind, his very core. He didn’t want him to know either. This hate was one to simply manifest itself for whatever purpose it’d serve later on, and Casey feared that day. So he kept his distance, passing the field without another look.
Some days Casey wished he just let MaryBeth take him. Let her have the world for whatever it was worth to her. Maybe then, he’d forget all the bad things that had happened all his life, culminating to the hell of high school; along with one specific high-pitched moment where nothing existed to him but his own screaming in a locker room. Being told to ‘shut the fuck up and take it’. He took that advice to this day, and hoped he’d stayed true to that even when he was inebriated.
The way Stokes would smile at him and touch his hair made his hopes feel too high.