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“You really should check on Alice,” Fred told FP for what FP could swear was the millionth time, and he scowled up at the other teen, hoping his point was made through visual expressions alone. “What? They’ve been fighting for what seems like hours.”
“People fight,” he said with a shrug. “Sure as hell hear a lot of it in the trailer park.”
Who even knew what Hal and Alice were arguing about, anyways? Whether her shoes matched his tie? FP felt like he barely knew Alice anymore. Part of him hated it. The other part couldn’t blame her for taking Penelope’s bullshit as a way to carve a path to escaping the Southside.
He would have escaped, too, if he’d had the chance.
“They fight like them?” Fred asked, and he let out a low whistle.
“No, normally there’s more throwing of plates and shit than verbal discourse,” FP admitted, and he rolled his shoulders back. “Punches are thrown, arms broken. Who even knows if Alice considers this a fight?”
FP was tired of listening to the two idiots fighting behind the Homecoming stage, mainly because Fred was trying to be Good-Boy-Freddy and trying to convince FP to see what said idiots were fighting about, but also because FP didn’t think that Alice and Hal had a damn thing to fight about, and the fact that they apparently had enough fodder to flip shit for over half an hour was treading on his last nerve. Alice had given up on them before they had even started over some bullshit that Penelope had said, and as far as FP was concerned, he wanted nothing more to do with her.
Well. That wasn’t entirely true.
It was Alice that wanted nothing to do with him.
“I don’t understand why you’re being like this, Hal!” Alice exclaimed, and FP acknowledged that there was desperation in her tone. “I thought you were different. I am not letting you take me to an appointment. This is my child. I--”
“Your child? So the bastard’s not even mine?” Cooper demanded, and FP peered over the bass speaker, not out of concern, of course, but out of avid curiosity. He had always wanted to know whether or not Northsiders had actual issues, and here there were, weren’t they? It had nothing to do with the fact that Cooper was beat red with unspent rage and Alice looked downright terrified. Of course not. FP didn’t do emotions. He didn’t care that Alice was fighting with her douchebag boyfriend. “How far along are you, anyways?”
“I don’t know,” Alice insisted. “I just found out!”
“You’re full of shit,” Cooper snarled. “You think I don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“I know that that abomination is FP’s. Hermione Gomez told me. She’s been telling everyone. I’ve just been waiting for you to admit that you’re a goddamned slut. But, I mean, of course you are, you’re from the Southside.”
“She said she would keep it a sec--” The crack of flesh meeting flesh rang through FP’s ears. “What are you doing?”
“Putting you in your place,” Cooper snapped. “You won’t let me take you to the appointment? I’ll let the appointment come to you.”
FP had heard enough, even before he heard the sickening thud that he accurately assessed as a right hook to the gut, and even before he fully processed that the thing in Alice’s stomach that Hal was trying to ‘make the appointment’ come to (FP had no idea what punching someone had to do with taking them to the doctor to make sure the baby was alright, but Northsiders were a strange breed), he found himself dragging 250 pounds of useless asshole off of his ex girlfriend, and tossing him to the ground like he was throwing a football.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cooper wheezed, from his position on the ground. “You had no right to interrupt me putting her in her place.”
“Seems to me like I interrupted you trying to
off
my child,” FP snarled. “That’s right. I heard you. And I don’t like how you were ‘putting her in her place’, either.”
“FP--”
“You know what, Alice?” Cooper said. “You want to keep your bastard child and play happy families? You want to waste your potential instead of going away to the Sisters for the duration, or going to the clinic in Greendale? You can have that--with him. I’m done with you. I’m done with this.”
FP watched silently as the bastard put himself to rights and stalked off, not daring to say a damn word to Alice about any of it.
“FP--”
“Save it, Al,” he said. “I’m sure you had your reasons. I have to go get ready to perform.”
“He hit me in my stomach,” she whispered, and he could swear he heard fear in her voice. “I’m not sure, but, I think I’m bleeding. It’s okay, though. I’ll be okay. Just go to your show.”
“Fuck it,” he mumbled. “Fred can get fucked. I’m not gonna get on stage and bang on the damn drums so he can attempt to score chicks while you think that you might be bleeding,” he said. “Not if that’s my kid. Not if it’s anyone’s kid.”
“Do you mean that?”
Alice seemed so small, clad in her preppy-as-fuck fancy dress, and he nodded slowly, before he put his arms around her, in an awkward hug. He didn’t want to fuck anything up more with the baby than had already been done, courtesy of the wonder that was Harold Cooper.
“Yeah, Al, I mean that,” he said. “Even if the dad is a pompous ass.” He sighed. “Why don’t we borrow ol’ Freddy’s wheels and get you to the hospital, yeah? He won’t mind. We’ll check on the little one, see how it is? Make sure everything’s okay?”
Alice sniffled. “You’re sure he won’t mind?”
“Nah,” FP shrugged. “You know Fred. He’s a good guy.”
He had no idea what the hell he was doing, but he was going to be damned if he stopped Alice from checking up on the kid, not if she was worried about it. He didn’t care how much it cost.
“Are you going to stay with me?”
“Don’t worry, Al,” he said. “I’ll stay. For as long as you want.”