Chapter 20

"Slow Day."

Bill lied in bed, staring up at the ceiling. School hadn't been interesting, when is it, anyway? Just the typical stuff, read, try to wrap his head around physics and survive his normie classmates.

But today something bugged him. He heard some girls of another class gossiping amongst themselves during recess. It wasn't weird, but he heard them talk about you.

It wasn't like he never heard people gossip before, in his mind it was still something utterly idiotic to do. And they didn't even say anything too bad about you. But despite it, it still made him tense.
He wasn't a stranger to teasing and getting singled out because of being into nerd stuff. He learned to ignore it overtime.

It's not like he cared... Definitely not. He just... He didn't even know, maybe he thought you wouldn't be able to take it as well as he did.

You'd probably go home crying, poor little idiot! How would you survive if you couldn't take the bullying that came with being a nerd? Sigh, you were just so pitiful in his mind.

There was no helping it, he'd have to step up and lend you a shoulder to cry on, like the gentleman he is!
He smirked to himself as he placed his hands under his head, what a hero he was.

He could already see you, running to him (imagine it with a very crudely drawn anime style) and hugging him.

"Oh Bill! Those girls in my class were so mean to me!" You would cry to him, and he would wrap his very muscular arms around you.

"Don't worry, dear. I'll take care of it for you." He would then say, letting you cry on his shoulder. He chuckled under his breath, feeling proud of himself even though his daydream was nothing but a very cringe fantasy of him being the alpha once again.

But when he thought a bit more about it, when he imagined your face, looking at him with that stupid look on your face... Seeing you cry would be...

... Dammit. He huffed, turning to his side as his face began heating up like a kettle. You were so stupid. This was stupid.

It was only because you were cute, he couldn't fall in your witch claws just because of that. That was stupid, he swore he'd never do something like that, even less for a poser like you.

"Hey Bill?"

"Hm?"

"You're not half as bad, you know?"

"..."

... He was so royally fucked. The guys would kill him if he didn't kill himself first because of what he was thinking.
This couldn't happen! You were supposed to be his enemy since day one, since the first time he saw you invaded his space with your presence... But he was too weak.

Weak because he couldn't muster telling you in your face to get away from him, weak because you completely made him forget that he was supposed to hate you when you chatted with him about Sonic and asked things about the X-Men.

... Damn you. You really were a witch.
You casted a spell on him, or you were just acting. There was no way someone like you could be real.

He wanted you out of his head, before his thoughts trailed to your body instead of your face.

♪

"Duude! I've been looking for this volume!" You say with a bright smile as you grab a book in your hands, eyes practically shining as you looked down at the cover. "I didn't know they were selling this here! Holy shit."

Jerry leaned over to see what manga you were talking about. Gintama, volume 14. He hummed as he scanned over the cover. "I haven't watched Gintama, is it any good?"

"It's uh, it's a comedy with action. It's actually really good! You should check it out, I think you'd like it." You told him as you flipped through the pages, smelling the scent of a new book was almost intoxicating, kind of like the scent of gasoline.

He nodded and kept looking through the mangas on the shelf next to you. "I might give it a watch, I've been wanting to watch more things asides from action nowadays."

"Ooh, yeah. I get ya. I've been watching umm... Ouran High School Host Club, it's a shojo but it's pretty funny." You commented as you held onto the Gintama manga and joined Jerry in looking for other manga.

"That's such a long ass name... I'm not even gonna remember that 5 minutes from now." He scoffed as he took out some manga from the very back of the stack he was looking at.

You chuckled at his words, looking over to him. "Oh, it's not that bad. I'll send you the link of the website I've been watching it on when I get home." You offered, bumping his should with your own.
You looked down to his hands as he flipped through the pages of the book in his hands. "What's that?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Looked cool though, look at the cover." He said as he stopped to show you the cover. A certainly interesting looking manga with a cryptic name and a cool, futuristic artstyle.

"Ooh, Mania? I haven't heard of this one... Maybe it didn't reach Shonen Jump." You speculated as you looked over the book.

"Bidi-bidi-bidi, maybe buck!" He muttered, making you snicker with how it off-guard caught you. You almost had forgotten you first knew him as the Human Twicky before he was Jerry, it's been a while since you last heard him say that.

"You think it's worth the read, Twicky?" You chuckled, getting a nervous laugh from Jerry like he didn't even notice he said the phrase.

"Uh- ma-uh, haha– maybe." He panicked a bit before stammering his answer, opening the book again and passing through pages to focus on the drawings rather than your proximity.

You two looked over some of the drawings, stopping to comment on some of the art. That was, when he stopped at a page near the middle of the book, the girl from the cover completely nude and restrained by some sort of futuristic-looking machines filled the entire page.

Your eyes widened and you almost choked before you cracked up laughing. Jerry's eyes, that had been narrowed like they always were, went as big as they could.
It was admittedly funny seeing his pale skin go red as a tomato in the matter of seconds as you laughed.

"Uh... Ma- Maybe not worth the uh- the- the read..." He muttered as he quickly put back the book where it belonged, far away from him.

"HAHAHA! Oh- Oh. holy shit, bro– PFFT–" You wheezed after a moment, grabbing Jerry's sleeve to regain composure. "That's some kinky shit... Oh god, that was so funny."

"I hope nobody saw that..." He muttered, putting his hands over his whole face embarrassedly.

You chuckled under your breath, patting his arm before pulling him away from that section. "It's whatever, that was really decieving, man." You sighed, still smiling widely.

"I know, but still! I don't wanna look like a pervert!" He ushered quietly, walking with you out of the store and into the main area of the mall.

"Relaaax, you're fine!" You assured him, still pulling him gently with you. You giggled still as you guys walked away from that place, still amused by the ordeal. "Come on, let's go to the music store, I wanna buy some cds!"

♪

There was a lot of noise in the house. It wasn't strange, it was an everyday mental chore to deal with. The sound of yelling, the Tv volume high enough you could hear it from anywhere in the house, what sounded like 30 voices gathered from hell itself echoing under his feet.

That wasn't hell though, but it was similar. It was his family, dear family that made home sweet home a place he wanted to be as far away from as he could most of the time.

Pete shifted in his bed, fiddling with his Jason Vorhees bootleg figurine he got off of Craigslist a year ago. He was trying to watch a low-budget horror movie, but he could hardly hear anything over all the noise.

He sighed, grabbing the remote and pausing the movie. He'd watch it later, for now he guessed he could write something or draw to pass the time.
One of his older brothers was using the computer right now, so he couldn't log on any mmo, or anything else for that matter.

He walked barefoot over to the old desk next to the door of his room, sitting down and reaching for his backpack that was hanging from the chair. He unzipped it and pulled out his pencilcase and his notebook.

He grabbed a random pencil and ripped a blank page from the book, dusting the table off a bit before placing the page down. He thought real hard about what to do. He though he could doodle something to take the stress from school off.

He was failing almost every subject at school, which wasn't unusual for him, but his parents were giving him a hard time about it this year. Especially his dad.
He huffed, brushing a thought away as he began thinking about what to do.

He didn't really know what to draw, so he just started drawing random things. Pretty girls cut in half, gross monsters, one or another slasher he liked, organs and guts... He wrote little notes on the side of the page, just anything that came to mind.
Subconsciously, the lines he traced appeared more familiar, like something he's seen before.

As the grafite stained the white paper, those eyes that stared back at him seemed lively. The hair strands that fell over the face, over your face. He paused and leaned back on the chair, to see the whole picture.

He couldn't quite place it, but he could swear he might've seen this before. He shrugged and kept going.

As he lost himself in the corners of his mind, he drowned out the striking sounds that reigned his house eventually. He thought of writing some stuff, something he did every once in a while as a hobby outside of comics and the usual stuff he did.

The words flowed from the river of his conscious down pouring over the paper. It might be angsty, the words might be dramatic and if any of the guys saw or heard what he wrote down he'd either get called emo or a fag.

But what mattered was that it made him feel less lost, put a bit of rest on his mind that festered with horrors most of the time. It was a bit of calm in the chaos that overflowed from his life.

They were dear to him, just a little less than his stash of horror tapes were to him. That's how much he cared about this, even though it would forever get shoved on the back of his mind and the back of his closet.
God, he didn't even want to think about his brothers finding out about this, even less his dad.

He'd have to fight them off with nails and teeth if they ever found this damned notebook.

Maybe it was better to just keep it as it was for now.

In the back of his mind.

♪

You wrote down on the paper of a book that you brought with yourself, noting of important things you'd have to remember if you wanted to play D&D with the guys. You paused for a moment, putting a hand up and Jerry stopped speaking.

"Wait, what does Constitution mean? Some sort of uh... Of magic thing?" You asked after you wrote down the word next to a bunch of other stuff.

"No, Constitution basically means your health. How healthy or, like... How tough you are to go down and stuff." The blonde explained, pointing with his index to the page.

"Oohh, okay. Man, this is way harder than I thought it'd be..." You sighed a laugh as you rubbed the back of your neck, looking down at the page filled with a bunch of information. Who'd say D&D would be so complicated to get into?

Jerry laughed at your look of dispair, patting your shoulder pitifully. "You'll get used to it. Once you get the hang of it, it's a lot easier, don't worry." He assured, and you smiled at him.

"You sure the guys won't mind me playing with you all? I'm gonna be really bad at it." You chuckled, turning your head to look at Jerry instead.

"Of course! I'm usually the Dungeon Master, so I'll make sure to go easy on ya." He smiled at you, and you reciprocated with gratitude.

"You're a hero, Jer. I was afraid Bill was going to be DM and make my life living hell." You told him and he laughed with you.

He thought about it for a second and shook his head. "Nah, as much of a dick Bill can be, he wouldn't go that far. Plus, he sucks at being a DM." You laughed at the remark, nodding along.
"But um, if it makes you feel any better uh– he uh- he's not a very sentimental guy, y'know? He keeps things like that to himself but um... I think he does like you around, everyone does, I- uh... I think..."

You looked at him and blinked, before giving a shy smile at the thought. "Really? I mean..." You trailed off, before sighing a smile, looking down to the side. "I don't know. It still feels like Bill and Josh don't like me as much as you or Pete do."

"Josh is uh... He's a pretty shy guy. And Bill... Well uh, he um... He's not very good with new people. But hey, he hasn't been too mean to you, has he?" You thought about it, and then shook your head hesitantly.

"He did tell me to go back to the kitchen last time we hung out but like..." You recounted, tapping your index against your chin before chuckling. "Yeah, I think he's been going easy on me."

"Haha, what an asshole." You nodded your head and laughed at that. "That's just Bill, though. 's just a matter of time, y'know? Just uh... give them a little more time to adjust. I'm sure they'll warm up to you uh... Eventually..."

You hummed, looking back down to the page. He was probably right, you barely knew them and they were getting to know you too.
Jerry was reassuring, a very kind guy, he made you feel less foreign to the group when he was around. Hanging out with him alone was a good change of pace rather than hanging out with all of the guys at once, admittedly.

You had a lot in common with him, and when the others were around you barely got to talk to him much.

"Yeah. Thanks, Jer." You turned to him, smiling warmly.

He seemed to finally take notice of how close you two were sitting right now, his face flushed quickly. He turned away and laughed nervously.

"Ahaha! No uh- no- no problem, buck!" He stammered, and you chuckled at his shyness.

You laughed, patting his back light-heartedly. You appreciated the moments where he wasn't as nervous as he usually was with you—though he always came back to stammering in the end.
To save him from himself, you spoke up again, more casually. "Hey Twicky, keep explaining about the races, I wanna see which is cooler to choose."

♪