Chapter Text
The playing field was practically all mud; brown squishy patches as far as the eye could see interjected with sad looking blades of grass that had been trampled and kicked up to within an inch of their meagre little lives. The downpour hadn't helped; three days of torrential rain and an impressive thunderstorm the day before levelling the rest of the open expanse that the football team hadn't been able to destroy.
Even right to the back where kids in blue uniform shirts and muddied up trousers and skirts huddled in small groups, coats over their heads to protect their cigarettes from the splashes of water that had yet to die. It had been that way for years, even in spring or summer when the grass was eventually supposed to grow. The mud just turned to thick clay, hard as concrete that could crack a skull if you fell on it wrong.
The school frowned on smokers, so the small copse of trees at the end of the field was the perfect shelter, especially in the rain. Suspension and a letter home was the penalty, but the teachers had long since given up caring what the students did to their lungs or minds for that matter, so as long as they couldn't see, they didn't really give a shit. In the summer they might venture over to the back of the field, but only if they fancied a walk that day, and they were accompanied by an annoying whistle that was the universal sign for "drop the smoke now."
The sixth formers were no different to the rest of the school with the exception of the lack of uniform and a cocky attitude that advertised to the world that they were with compulsory education and didn't really have to be in the building anyway. The attitude never worked, and often had the opposite effect, making them look like absolute prats instead of conveying the popular image they coveted.
Cherry just thought these people were hilarious. Not in the up-himself -better-than-everyone-else kind of way, but just watching the struggle for pole position in the cafeteria between people who didn't have a brain cell dedicated to originality amused him to say the least.
The older students did have one major advantage over the rest of the school and that was to go off campus whenever they felt like it, and Cherry thought, rightly so. He was eighteen years old and if he wanted to go elsewhere for a smoke then he bloody well would. To most people it was a blessing; they could skip classes without hiding in the toilets from teachers, or go somewhere that could actually be considered quiet when the hordes of rambling kids descended into the pathetic little library when they probably hadn't picked up a book since their mother was reading them bedtime stories.
To Cherry it was a blessing because all he had to do was hop over the fence and he would be off school property enough to have a smoke without traipsing his favourite boots through the mud. It was also a good place to hide from the general population of the school that seemed to have limited past times and need to fill in the long hours with bullying short people.
Right at the point, when this story really starts, he was happily taking a break, leaning on the wrong side of the fence that separated him from school grounds, drawing acrid menthol-smoke into his lungs steadily. Not rushing like he used to when he wore the uniform, but taking his time and savouring the sharp bite of tar and the cold wind cutting into the skin of his exposed face.
He was swaddled all in black in deference to the harsh March weather. His favourite thick soled boots were pulled over his feet, the substantial leather stopping half way up his calves and laced together with thick pink laces. His splash of colour made the winter seem a little less grey, even though he had to look at his own feet to do it. Tight black jeans that were just a little too long for his legs flopped over the top of the boots and clung to his thighs so he could feel the cold wind that was muted through the material. His fitted black cord jacket was fleece lined and covered the fitted black shirt that looked good but was defiantly not designed with winter in mind. A black fleece scarf was knotted at his neck, hiding the ends of his flaming red hair, just as the black beanie hid the rest of it.
He was trying not to think of the stack of revision notes that he had resting in his bag; in fact he was trying so very hard not to think about anything at all but the little white stick between his fingers that he completely missed the footsteps squelching up behind him, and practically jumped out of his skin when a large hand descended on his shoulder.
He back-pedalled quickly. Just because he thought of himself as unaffected most of the time didn't mean people in general didn't make him jumpy. You didn't go through years of bullying without coming out of it with some issues.
"Easy." The newcomer said, holding his calloused palms turned outwards in an attempt to look as non-threatening as possible, which he wasn't quite pulling off. "Was just wondering if you had a spare."
By the sound of his voice Cherry thought that maybe he'd had one too many already, the throaty sound a little raw, but somehow it fitted. He thought about refusing at first, but his hand had already automatically dug into the pocket of his coat and retrieved the bright green packet, hoping like hell he wasn't going to run off with the whole whole thing as he handed them over.
It was Daniel Rushton, and Cherry had only ever seen him at school a handful of times throughout the whole time they had been going there, and had never actually talked to him before. He hadn't exactly had the opportunity before, and to be honest he didn't know if he would have taken it if he'd had.
Daniel scared him more than a little, and while Cherry was never one to judge on rumours or appearances, Daniel had both in spades, none of which were in his social favour. Even with the flourishing grapevine within the school walls, or perhaps because of it, no one in the entire school was talked about more, and talked to less.
He was taller than Cherry, by about six inches, and he was almost twice his size in bulk. He was well built in a solid kind of way, but whether that was because of the baggy clothing giving the illusion of bulk or hiding potential puppy fat he didn’t know. It wasn't like the man was parading around the soaked field in a vest.
Cherry could only make out a hint of what his frame was really like, except for the broad shoulders that seemed unyielding under his army green jacket. His hair was a little greasy-looking that day and hung limply into his eyes, dark and straight but offset by startling green eyes that had the intensity of a sledgehammer when he looked right at you.
It was the gaze more than anything that sent off the not-quite-right vibe about him; intense, pure bottle green that was perpetually hard and unblinking. It made your eyes water just looking at him stare at someone; your eyeballs compensating for his non-blinking behaviour by welling up with tears. It gave credence to the rumour that he slept with his eyes open, but somehow Cherry didn't quite believe the grapevine on that score and relegated that to the "bullshit" pile of knowledge.
He was staring then, surprisingly elegant, long-fingered hands turning the cigarette packet over a couple of times before opening it and drawing one out without looking down at all. To be honest it was getting a little creepy, and Cherry checked the urge to look down to see if he still had all his clothes on, settling for taking another step backwards.
"You're Cherry Hamilton right?" Daniel asked, pushing the cigarette between his oddly lush lips, and Cherry caught himself thinking that the man wouldn't be bad looking if he stopped glaring at everyone for five seconds. He then promptly halted that line of thought just in case the rumour about the mind reading was true and feeling pretty damned uncomfortable under that gaze even if it wasn't.
On the first day of school his mother had called out across the playground for 'Jerry' to behave himself, and this, along with his bright red hair spawned the name that everyone, even the teachers eventually used. He had stopped introducing himself as Jerry or Jeremy by the time he was 13. People had called him Cherry for so long he sometimes forgot that he had a real name.
"Yeah?" He responded warily, phrasing it as a question rather than telling him outright, as if it was some sort of test and he wasn't entirely sure about the right answer. The fact that Daniel knew his name wasn't too much of a shock, it wasn’t exactly a huge school to start with, but the fact that he was bumming cigarettes off him like they were old pals and well...actually saying his name was right out there in the twilight zone. He was expecting the little green men any minute.
Daniel looked away for a moment, digging a disposable lighter out of his jeans pocket. It felt like he could breathe again now that Daniel had taken those eyes away and the ‘snick’ of the lighter being struck sounded out loud and clear as Cherry resisted the urge to gulp in huge breaths of air. He wondered vaguely if he would ever get his cigarette packet back, or if Daniel intended to hold onto it forever, or at least until the contents were in the bottom of an ashtray somewhere.
He looked like he was about to say something, mouth twitching at the corners, lips parting slightly, and Cherry tensed involuntarily, wondering if Daniels words would be harsh or not, and exactly how long it would take to drop the nearly-dead cigarette and sprint to the main building. He almost flinched away from Daniel when he looked up once more, his stare catching from under his black lashes. He could probably stop meteors with that stare.
Daniel's teeth snapped shut unexpectedly, and the emerald green packet was shoved clumsily towards him, followed by a trail of silver grey smoke as Daniel leaned in to pushing it into Cherry's palm, keeping his distance and practically balancing on one foot so he didn't have to get any closer. Cherry would have been a little affronted by that if he hadn't been so relieved since he was still piss scared and waiting for Daniel to dislocate his jaw completely and swallow him whole.
"Nice shoes." He said, his gravely voice quiet, and he turned on his heel, taking away that stare once again and walking off with a slightly hitched gait that made him look like he had a bit of a limp and didn't look back. Cherry wasn't watching him as he walked off; he was too busy looking down at my pink laced boots.
*
Cherry had always been picked on for one thing or another, ever since he started interacting with other people. His naturally vibrant attitude towards meeting new people that had emerged during infancy dimmed into near non-existence very quickly. There had always been a whole multitude of things to pick at, and the pre-alphas of the play school world grew up with him as their verbal and, on occasion, physical punching bag.
Yes, he's gay. Yes, he's a computer geek. Yes that is eye-liner, and yes, Fall Out Boy was on repeat. He was well aware he was a stereotype, but he told himself that since he was an exceptionally pretty stereotype it didn't really matter.
He was always shorter than his peers, and to his complete chagrin he stopped growing at around five feet eight inches and never did get that final growth spurt. He blamed his mother, who stood at five feet in heels and had to use a step stool to reach the top cupboards in the kitchen. His older brother, Greg got the only tall genes in the family and liked to rest his elbows on Cherry's head to piss him off. It worked more often than not.
Thankfully the orange frizzy mess commonly called hair that he had been born with sorted itself out by the time he reached secondary school and had darkened considerably into a much more presentable deep copper colour that caught the light. It still had frizzy days when the atmosphere was just a little too humid, but mostly it behaved itself and fell into sleek, natural waves to his shoulders.
He never lost the elfin look that had been thrust upon him at birth, but his jaw had sharpened into his teen years and his shoulders broadened, until there was no mistaking his male frame. The skinny from his formative years had turned into slender as he grew up and filled out at least a little bit. It didn't stop drunk club goers from occasionally mistaking him for a girl, but it didn't bother him in the least until they got dumb with it. Usually when they figured it out.
The sky was threatening to dump another flood by the time the students stepped out of the building at the end of the day. The sea of people was a little disconcerting for Cherry since it always felt like he was lost in a pack of giants, but occasionally during the winter he relished the added heat of extra bodies surrounding him, shielding him from the biting wind until the last moment when everyone dispersed like flocks of birds and left him short and shivering in the car park waiting for his ride.
About three years prior he had found Miss Popular extraordinaire Liz Banker, the worst of the offenders when it came to snarky comments both behind his back and to his face, trudging past his house. Tears had been streaming down her blotchy, unmade up face. It had taken half an hour of bitching and a bar of dairy milk that he'd found at the back of the fridge before her story came pouring out, and they bonded over chocolate and divorcing parents. Liz now saw her mother every month whether she wanted to or not. She often didn't.
That had been the transition period of his life when people stopped seeing him as a freak, and started seeing him at all, and while they didn't exactly accept him, they ignored his apparent strangeness with as much tolerance as they could manage. Results on that one varied. He just continued to ignore them as he had always done, happily going about his own business but with, thankfully, less bruising.
He knew Liz had helped ease that transition; they started to hang out both in and out of school on a regular basis, and most of her other friends accepted his presence readily enough and were actually pretty OK people, even if it did seem like they shared one brain cell and a fashion sense between them. He was 'cute' enough with his 'pixie-goth' look to do their group justice aesthetically. He had been referred to as the token goth more times than he could count, which mostly made him roll his eyes, but he could only take the posers in small doses before he started getting a migraine.
Liz was different. Not a whole lot different; she still trolled the fashion magazines like religious scripts, and got her hair cut at the expensive salon across town because every one else did, but she had layers that would probably have surprised the other clones into an early grave.
They bonded over music after she had exclaimed over Cherry's CD collection for nearly an hour. She read books for the imagery, rather than for the retro fashion hints buried apparently in gothic literature that she told everyone else. She insisted Dracula belonged in the ‘romance’ section of the book shop, rather than in ‘horror’ and believed quality (except on the subject of hair-cuts) didn't have to cost the earth.
She didn't give a flying fuck that Cherry was gay.
He usually didn't have to wait long for her to come bounding down the steps of the school into the car park, short, artfully messy hair bobbing as she bounced rather than walked away from the two blond clones that were on the social committee with her. Today was no exception, and she gave her two friends a dismissive wave as she jogged down the steps, tan heeled boots clicking rhythmically on the pavement.
"Tweedledum and Tweedledee not coming with us?" Cherry bitched as she fell into step beside him, her knitted multicoloured coat almost bursting with colour next to his all-black ensemble. They made an odd pair, but it worked.
"Oh, stop." She said, flicking a strand of hair out of her big brown eyes. He snorted, and raised his eyebrow at her, as if she could see it with his hat pulled half way down my face.
"Small doses only, thank you." He said, burrowing his face into his fleece scarf, trying to protect his nose since he could feel the tip getting colder and colder. "There's only so long I can talk about reality TV before my brain cells start to die."
"Liar," She said airily, hand flipping in the air carelessly, "You love talking about reality TV."
"Excuse me," He said indignantly, lifting my chin a little higher in the air, "Absolutely no."
A large shape detached itself from the crowd and bumped into his shoulder, the impact light enough not to send him flying, but enough to jolt his backpack straight off the shoulder it was dangling from. One of the CD cases inside poked him painfully in the hip as he caught the bag before it hit the floor and broke something. He looked up at the rude stranger, ready to let loose when he saw who it was that had bumped into him.
Bright green eyes burned through his for a brief second, and he felt his breath catch as Daniel moved past them, muttering an apology, or what he took to be an apology. It could have been "aliens are landing" for all he know, but Daniel was gone so fast that Cherry hardly even had time to register he was there in the first place.
His shoulder tingled from the contact, even through the layers of his shirt and jacket, and he rubbed the spot, frowning after the khaki green back that was walking quickly away, not even sparing a second glance.
He could hear Liz tutting about rude Neanderthals, as he gazed after Daniel like a lost puppy. He felt ridiculous in his reaction, and he got angry with himself for the tingling that hadn't quite gone away in his shoulder, or the memory of the solid feeling of Daniels body as it had collided with his.
Cherry couldn't remember ever seeing him with friends inside of school, he was always on his own. In fact he rarely saw him at all, and when he did Daniel was usually standing and glowering at people with a menacing look that promised to take people’s heads off if they got too close. Cherry swung his pack back onto his shoulder and they resumed their walk.
There was, however, something about him.
"He is a little...off." Cherry said, looking back over his shoulder once, even though he wasn't expecting to see him at all.
"Off?" Liz practically screeched in his ear, "Off?! Someone should keep that guy on a leash."
Cherry rolled his eyes at her theatrics; he didn't agree with her there. To the best of his knowledge the guy hadn't really hurt anyone; he was just generally antisocial and the subject of huge amounts of rumours. Personally Cherry found nothing wrong with being a little antisocial, and often had days or weeks when the very human race itself seemed too fucked up to deal with. At those times he left reality for computer-land gladly.
"Bit harsh, Liz." He admonished gently, "He seemed fine this morning."
Liz stopped abruptly, ignoring the complaints of the people that had been walking behind us that were almost sent careening into the bush on the side of the pavement. He checked the urge to snicker as her hand cocked on one shapely hip, knee bending slightly into her drama queen pose that he had been known to steal occasionally. It worked great to get the diva message across.
"You spoke to him?" She asked, in the same tone that she would use to ask why on earth would you go skydiving naked.
"Technically he spoke to me." He tried to move on and out of the stream of people that were giving them evil looks since the path outside the school was thin, and they were taking up most of it. Liz fell into step reluctantly, her giraffe legs quickly catching up with his shorter stride as if she had teleported.
"Well, what did he say?!" She asked, grabbing hold of his arm in her excitement. The gossip queen was at it again, and Daniel seemed to be a favourite amongst Liz and her cronies, a few of which thought he was hot.
Which was absolutely… absurd.
"Just asked for a cigarette is all."
"Oh, god," She said, her tone almost mournful, and he found himself getting annoyed with her and her soap opera acting. "I hope you gave him one."
"What if I hadn't?" He asked just to see what she would say. He knew he was tempting fate, because the bitchy side of her was on a roll, and when it reared it head Cherry's bitchy side usually arrived to butt right against it. He wanted to remind her that she didn't even know Daniel, but then he didn't either so he reluctantly left it, his stomach souring further when she answered.
"You'd probably have gotten your fingers chopped off or something. I hear he carries a knife on him." OK….Bullshit.
"You're exaggerating." He said, and then more softly, "He liked my shoes."
Liz looked down at his feet, frowning when she saw the chunky boots that she hated with a passion, with their tough, worn leather, metal heels and thick, pink laces.
"Why?" She asked, disdainfully, and he glared at her out of the corner of his eye. He loved those boots. "How do you know?"
"He told me."
"He told you?!" She shrieked, and he wondered how long it would take her dad to figure out it was him if he strangled her right then and there. "He just came out and told you he liked your shoes?!"
"Well," He said, peeking down at the objects in question. "It was more like 'nice shoes.' right before he walked away."
"Nice shoes?" Liz's voice was incredulous, and rightly so. His inner voice had been incredulous at the time.
"Yep," He agreed, both with the statement and finally, with the tone.
"That’s all he said?"
"Yep."
"Weird guy."
He kind of agreed, especially after the hundred yard stare incident in the car park that was actually really creepy now he'd come to think about it. Although it was more an 'I wonder-what-he-wants' kind of creepy rather than the 'oh-god-he's-going-to-kill-me' creepy that was usually associated with Daniel Rushton. He had to admit that he was a little intrigued.
A little.
"He was supposed to have been sent to a correctional facility for a year for stabbing a teacher in the hand with a staple gun." Liz said in a conspiring tone, casting a nervous look over her shoulder as if the man himself would appear in a cloud of smoke, staple gun in hand, ready to leave fatal little puncture marks all over their bodies. He rolled his eyes and barely resisted choking her again; he had never been so glad to reach his little three bedroom house.
Cherry just stared at her.
"Do you actually believe that?" He asked. She didn't respond, already mentally moving on now that her rumour mill knowledge had been imparted. He rolled his eyes.
"Up to much tonight?” Liz looked at the red Ford Fiesta parked at an angle in the middle of the driveway. "I see Greg has decided to grace you with his almighty presence."
Greg was three years older than Cherry, almost a foot taller, and had just started working for a local newspaper in the town where he lived just outside London. Once in a while he decided to descend on the house, cause havoc for a few days, and then wander off again. He only had to be in a room for about a minute before everything was out of place, or hidden by sofa cushions, and anyone else generally had to spend fifteen minutes hunting for the remote if they wanted to watch TV. That is, unless he'd appropriated it before you got home, then you had to wrestle him for it, and Cherry had never been too good at that.
"Apparently so." He said, unenthusiastically. He turned to find Liz sending longing looks through the front door. It was almost sickening how much she lusted after his brother. "I have a graphics assignment that will take about 10 minutes, other than that, nothing really." From the look on her face, she’d almost forgotten she had asked me a question.
"Wha’ oh yeah, same," she said, hitching up her bag and giving me a sunny smile. She didn't take graphics. "We lead such stimulating lives. Have fun with your ‘nothing’ and say hi to Greg for me!" He stood watching her until she rounded the corner, rummaging in a pocket in his bag for house keys, the brushed metal key ring cold against his hand as he unlocked the white front door and a cold draft followed him into the warm hallway.
Beads of sweat instantly started to build under his hat, and he whipped the beanie off, letting his hair tumble back over his shoulders as he unwound the scarf and deposited the whole bundle on the coat rack by the door. By the next morning it would have gotten mixed up with everything else on there, and he would spend a fascinating fifteen minutes trying to find it all again.
If he found it all again.
"Hey honey, I’m home," He yelled through the house, and a distracted voice called out a greeting from the living room, so he headed that way, stuffing his hat into the front pocket of his bag.
"Hey Titch," Greg said, ignoring Cherry's glare at the nickname and flicking the channel over again, as if something decent would appear on the screen if he clicked for long enough. "Was that Liz outside?"
"Down boy," Cherry said, settling himself into the ancient blue recliner in the corner of the room. His mother would kill him if she'd found him with his boots on the furniture, but since she didn't appear to be home he figured he was safe. "She's too young for you."
She wasn't, necessarily. Everyone was an adult, although in Greg's case that was often debatable, but there was something profoundly wrong with his best friend constantly perving over his brother, and even worse when he started doing it back. There are only so many times he could hear about how great Greg's arse was before Cherry really wanted to destroy something. He really didn't want to know ANYTHING about Greg’s arse. The fact that the attraction was apparently reciprocated didn't sit well.
Cherry was really trying not to be suspicious.
"Oh come on, she's gorgeous." Greg said, and clicked over the channel again. It’s not like they had that many to begin with; Cherry didn't really watch TV and his mother was too busy to bother most of the time, so they only had the standard channels.
"Not my type," He said dryly, and watched his brothers eyes cut to him. He made sure to have a bored look on his face for the split second that Greg was watching before he turned his attention back to the TV.
"I'd be worried about you if she was." He said his voice equally as dry. The sarcasm and playfully sarcastic comments drove mum mad when they were in the same room for too long. "You couldn't be you, and be straight, at the same time."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Cherry said, and hoisted himself out of the arm chair, scooping up his bag from where it had rested at his feet. The room was small so the armchair rested only feet away from the long sofa that took up the wall opposite the TV. It only took him two steps to cross the carpet to flick his brother’s ear on the way out of the living room door and run for his life, as Greg cringed, shot up from the couch as if it had spontaneously combusted, and pounded after him.