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Another day in hell, otherwise known as Crankcase’s highschool.
That was dramatic, CONS comments. The symbiote has taken up residence in between his lungs today, and Crankcase knows it should feel weird as he breathes, but it doesn’t.
“I live in fucking Alberta. How is that dramatic? This place sucks ass,” Crankcase counters, keeping his voice down. He doesn’t want to be known as the crazy kid, he is already known as the trans kid, and two titles of ‘weird kid’ is social suicide. Not that he really cares that much.
The bell rings, shrill and loud. He can feel CONS shudder inside him. He doesn’t like loud noises, it hurts the alien. So he needs to stay away from shitty death metal and kindergartens. Seems easy enough.
Crankcase gets out of his seat, swinging his backpack over his shoulder as he leaves the class.
“Our English teacher makes me want to die,” he states as he speeds down the crowded hallway.
All our teachers make you want to die.
“That’s true.” Crankcase narrowly avoids getting an elbow to the face as he ducks into his English class.
At least two his friends are suffering with him in this shitty class. If his English teacher makes him read for Juliet again he is going to punch him in the face, suspension be damned. It’s not like his parents could get any more upset with him.
“Crankcase! Dude!” Misfire greets, waving him over to their assigned seats for the week.
Fulcrum is sitting next to him, not as excited to see him as Misfire is. Not that Crankcase needed Fulcrum to be excited to see him, he doesn’t care that much about him. Not compared to the small amount he cares for his other friends.
Fulcrum is the new kid, how much does he need to care for someone Crankcase has only known a couple of months?
He has known everyone else for years—or at least a year. He met CONS last year, and cares about him. He cares about him more than he knows he should but he doesn’t want to actually think about that or confront those feelings in any way so he prays that CONS just can’t tell.
He met Misfire in kindergarten and Krok and Spinister in the fifth grade. He has known them all for years, he trusts them, sort of. He doesn’t trust them enough to tell them about CONS, but that’s not that big of a secret.
Yeah, having an alien that lives inside his body, that makes him eat human heads and does his schoolwork for him is a little weird, but it’s not friendship-ruining weird.
Weirder shit has happened.
Like: the conversation that Misfire is having and Crankcase is supposed to be participating in right now.
“Okay, yeah! He’s kinda hot,” Misfire announces. Crankcase has no idea who he is talking about, as nobody at school is even remotely attractive, but, then again, Misfire has always had a shitty taste in men and women.
“Who?” Crankcase asks, searching through his pockets for the granola bar he had stashed there three weeks ago. He wonders how fucked up it got in the wash. Chocolate and oats can’t get inedible like that, right?
“Nobody. He’s not hot,” Fulcrum explains, propping his chin onto the cold wooden desk.
“Fuck off. He definitely is!” Misfire whacks Fulcrum. “Y’know that guy, the guy who’s favourite movie is Speed and—“
“Isn’t speed a drug?”
“It’s also a word. Not that you guys care about that,” Fulcrum grumbles, rubbing the part of his arm that got hit.
“Obviously it’s a fucking word,” Crankcase grunts. Just because he is failing English doesn’t mean he is too stupid to know that ‘speed’ is a goddamn word.
“It’s a movie. With the guy from Constantine,” Misfire explains, motioning wildly with his hands as he speaks.
Crankcase succeeds in finding his granola bar and rips the wrapper open. “We didn’t watch Constantine.” He specifically remembers watching Constantine with CONS.
Misfire blinks. “Yeah we did? Remember! It was that time at my house when we were in the basement.”
“Was the time when we dated?”
Misfire nods. “Yeah. I think.”
“That was the Matrix.”
Misfire shrugs. “It’s the same actor.”
Fulcrum lifts his head up. “Wait, you guys dated?”
Misfire and Crankcase look at him, and then at each other, and then back at him.
“Yeah,” Crankcase says with a shrug. “Do you know any best friends who haven’t dated?”
CONS shifts in his body, and suddenly he feels a spike of hate and jealously and possessiveness run through him like a ice bath. He puts his hand distinctively to the part CONS is settled in, tiny tentacles press into his palm. What the fuck is up with him?
“Uhm. All of them?” Fulcrum responds.
Misfire drapes his arm around Crankcase, and Crankcase has to stop himself from jolting away. He can see the pink flesh of CONS’ form seeping out of his arm.
Please don’t come out now, not in his fucking English class.
“Well all the best ones date and then break it off when they decide that they would kill each other if they got married,” Misfire says.
CONS seems to calm down at that, slipping gracefully back into him. Crankcase can still feel him, swirling restlessly around his body like a shark smelling blood.
He takes a bite of his granola bar, trying to pay attention to the conversation instead of CONS’ bad attitude.
Eventually, Crankcase’s English teacher comes over to check on their essays. Fuck that. Crankcase isn’t writing some dumb essay. He should have just skipped.