Mysterious Skin - I Wish I Was (2/15)

[osaki_nana_707]

Title: I Wish I Was (2/15)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Pairings/Characters: Neil, Eric, Wendy
Rating: PG-13
Warnings:language, mentions of abuse
Summary: Brian's not through with Neil. Neil's not through destroying himself.

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Chapter 2

(Neil McCormick)

I knew Eric was there before I opened my eyes. I had been lying on the bed with my eyes closed for hours, but I wasn't even close to asleep. I hadn't slept on Christmas Eve. I didn't sleep on Christmas Day. The twenty-seventh came and went, and I still didn't fall asleep. Now it was the twenty-eighth, and I was still awake. I was fucking exhausted but still awake.

"How long are you gonna pretend to be asleep?" Eric asked, voice laced with humor but it was weaker than usual.

I opened my eyes and stared down my nose at him. "What do you want?" I asked, folding my hands behind my head and smiling lazily. Act Naturally. The phrase passed through my head, and I thought it was weird because why would I have to act natural?

"You didn't come to the park. I left you a note every day for the past few days. Don't you think I have a right to know what happened? Brian won't tell me."

I really wished he hadn't mentioned Brian. I couldn't shake off the image of him with his bloody nose and hopeless, puppy dog eyes. Hearing his name only made his image more vivid in my mind. "Maybe he didn't tell you 'cause it ain't your business, Preston," I offered, but I just didn't have much strength in my voice. I hoped he didn't notice it, but of course he did.

It really wasn't fair that he was so much in love with me. He noticed little details about me that even I would sometimes not. Some people would feel flattered to have so much admiration coming their way, but for me it was nothing more than an added frustration.

That sounded kind of mean…

"C'mon, Neil, can't you tell me something just this once? I'm tired of being in the dark all the time."

I stared at him blankly.

After a minute, he sighed, running a hand over his hair. "Okay… well, can you just tell me if what I think happened is true?" He hesitated, checking the door to make sure it was closed. "Neil… did your coach… you know…"

My eyebrows knitted together. "What part of it ain't your fucking business don't you get?" I asked, clenching my jaw. "Get the hell out. If you want your answers, you can get them from Brian because I don't give a shit."

Actually, I did. I did more than I should. Normally I could take any bad feelings or emotions and shrug them off of my shoulders without so much as a flinch. I could wipe fear or discomfort off of my face with the palm of my hand and be fine. I'd made it a habit and then a skill to not be able to feel anything because to feel something would be a disaster in my line of work.

This though… this… Brian Lackey… I couldn't shake it. I couldn't shake the look on his face or the sounds of his cries as it became so fucking clear that alien abduction was something he should have accepted and just used it as an interesting story to tell for the rest of his nose-bleeding, passing out kind of life. I had never been bothered by what happened to me before, but Brian… when he laid there in my lap, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut, and I felt… bad… really bad… horrible even. Days later, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I couldn't sleep because of it.

Eric waited helplessly for an apology and an explanation that we both knew weren't coming, but after two minutes he shrugged, sighing through his nose, and left. "Fine, be that way. It's not like I expected anything else. At least call me before you go back to New York and say goodbye."

He slammed the door behind him, and all too suddenly the room became just too fucking quiet. A moment passed where I considered getting up and running after him, but that was stupid so I didn't. I didn't need him, and I didn't need anyone else. I was fine.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

I stared up at the ceiling to try to lapse into some sort of sleep, but when I looked up, it reminded me of that time when… so, I turned on my side and found my eyes catching sight of my little league trophy, and that made me think of… so, I turned on my other side and tried so hard not to think about it, but that made the bruise on my face sting, and that stinging bruise reminded me of something else.

I'm fine. I kept saying it in my head. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

I just needed a little bit of time to convince myself that what happened in New York never happened and that Brian Lackey didn't exist. I was sure that once I got back to the city, it would be much easier.

I didn't know why the idea of going back to New York made me feel sick. Maybe I did, actually, but I wasn't about to admit it to myself.

---

Wendy called on the twenty-ninth, while I was packing my stuff. "Hey, you ass," she said on the other end of the phone. I glanced at my reflection in a nearby picture frame. The bruise on my face was mostly gone.

"I'm heading back tonight," I told her, knowing that that was what she wanted to know. "You get me anything for Christmas?"

I heard her scoff. "Did you get me anything?"

"Uh…" I paused grinning a little. "Sure I did."

"You never even sent me postcards, so I don't expect anything from you," she said, feigning disappointment. She was so used to me by now. "Yeah, I got you something. I think you're gonna like it."

"I'll take you out to dinner. Promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

She told me about how her Christmas was and how the party at her job had been totally lame but there had been this really hot guy there and… that was about where I stopped listening. I stretched the cord of the phone as far as it could go, slipping into the kitchen to get something to eat. My mom had been pestering me from the moment I got home that I was too skinny and needed to eat more. I grabbed a bar of chocolate and ripped open the packaging with my teeth.

"So, what do you think?" Wendy was saying.

"Uh… yeah, whatever," I replied, biting into the chocolate.

"I knew you weren't listening," she said, but there was a smile in her voice, "you asshole. Why am I friends with you?"

"I don't know."

It slipped out, humorless, completely serious. I wasn't sure where it had come from or why I had said it, but after it had been said there was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"Neil?" she said.

"I gotta finish packing. I'll see you soon." I hung up before I was forced to explain myself because I didn't exactly have an explanation. I gnawed on the chocolate bar, but it suddenly tasted bitter, so I went back into my room and set it down on the dresser.

I lazily rolled clothes into balls and tossed them into my suitcase until my sights caught on to the key-locked drawer I hadn't dared to look into since before I'd left. Even though I knew what was inside, even though I knew it was my stuff, suddenly the sight of it, the thought of it made me feel queasy.

Not to be made a pussy, especially by myself, I unlocked it and pulled it open.

A stash of weed. A pack of cigarettes, only two left. A cassette labeled N. McCormick. A familiar picture of myself as a child. Some porn tapes, some porn magazines. At the bottom of the porn, a porno of a bunch of older dudes with young, young guys that looked so much younger now than they had, and oh God, fucking Jesus Christ, why did they all suddenly look like Brian? I slid it back into the bottom of the pile, trying to ignore the sudden, unexplained shakiness of my hands, and my eyes fell upon the picture of my little league team, and onto the eyes of…

"H-hello?"

I slammed the drawer shut, causing things on top of it to rattle. I turned my head with eyes I was sure were like some sort of wild animal, and there was none other than fucking Brian Lackey. He was standing awkwardly in the doorway of my room in a dark gray sweater, the light gleaming on the lenses of his glasses.

I stared, unsure of what else to do. Finally, I decided to say, "hey."

"Um… you're probably busy. I should just come back later-"

I would have preferred that he did run off with his tail tucked between his legs, but damn if he didn't look so fucking pathetic, so goddamn fucking pathetic, that I couldn't just let him run away. He had a reason to be here, I knew it, or he wouldn't have come. He was here to talk about Christmas Eve or of that summer ten years ago or the Halloween two years later. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to hear it again. That summer that had been so precious to me… it had been… tainted. Shattered.

"If you got something to say, say it now. I'm leaving for New York tonight."

My stomach twisted. I swallowed and tried to display as little caring as possible.

"Oh… well…" Brian paused, looked up at the ceiling and down at his feet. I thought for a minute he was going to chicken out and leave, and then he asked me a question.

It wasn't the question I'd been expecting.

"Um… were you… Were you really mugged on your way to the airport?"

I blinked a couple of times, and he seemed to get even more nervous when my eyebrows knitted together.

"I mean," he jumped back in, voice cracking a little in his panic, "Eric, he told me about what you did for a living… just before you came back, I mean… and so I thought that maybe… Well, I don't know what I thought."

I dug a cigarette out of my pocket, realizing it was the last one, and I thought about opening the drawer again to get out the two left inside, but immediately I decided that that was a bad idea. I lit it and hoped my hands weren't shaking. I sat down on the edge of the bed and offered him a puff.

"Oh, I don't… I mean… I…" he stammered for a long moment, sighed, and sat down as far from me on the mattress as possible. He took the cigarette, carefully making sure to avoid even brushing a finger against mine. He ended up in a pathetic coughing fit and handed it back.

I would have found it funny if I didn't find it so fucking sad. He was so young, so young, so young.

And then I remembered that he was my age, and that left me even more confused.

A long pause, and then he said, "So… were you?"

"Was I what?" I asked. I had forgotten his question when my thoughts had distracted me. I really did need to get some sleep, I thought.

"Were you mugged?"

I opened my mouth to spew out a magnificent lie, the ones I had gotten so good at telling throughout my life, but as I did, it all came flooding back to me. The water, the pain in my head, the blood…

Take it all, Slut.

"Neil?"

I realized I was staring at him, and I couldn't tell what my expression had become, but if it was anything like his, I had a problem. "What does it matter what happened?" I asked, and even I didn't recognize the lack of everything in my voice. "You and me, we don't know each other. We're not friends or any kind of shit like that."

Brian's eyebrows dropped. His lips parted slightly. "But…"

"You're not any different from any of the other guys I've fucked," I said, and even I thought it was a horrible thing to say. There was no similarity with the burly jackasses I'd found myself in bed with that paid me or didn't and that little scared eight year old boy that I'd helped ra… that I'd helped… that I'd…

I shut my eyes tight, feeling a headache working its way in.

"Neil?" Brian said again, and his voice was less sure now than ever. Maybe he didn't believe what I had said, but it didn't matter if he did or not.

"What, are you concerned for my safety or some shit?" I asked, forcing on a cocky smirk. I reminded myself that the coke had run out of my system before even coming to Hutchinson, so I couldn't figure out where the defensive paranoia was coming from. I didn't like being so unfamiliar with myself all of a sudden. I'd always been so sure of everything, and then this little, pathetic kid had come into my life and fucked it all up. I hated him. I hated Brian Lackey, and I hated everything that he stood for in my life.

"S-sort of," he answered, quiet and awkward as always. The only time I'd ever heard him raise his voice was that night in my lap. I imagined he didn't let himself feel much. I could understand the feeling. "Sorry… I guess I just feel like… I should know you better…"

I could get that too, I guessed. I was the first one to kiss him, the first one to give him a blow job, to do all kinds of things that should have been wonderful first things in his life that I'd gone and done before he wanted it. He could have grown up a completely different person if it hadn't been for that one time in the summer.

"If you want someone to sympathize with about not knowing every fucking thing about me, talk to Eric," I said bitterly, handing him the ignored cigarette and getting down on the floor to zip up my suitcase. I couldn't take my eyes off of that drawer, key still stuck in the lock.

"I shouldn't have come… I'm sorry. I won't bother you again," he mumbled, setting the cigarette in the ashtray next to the bed, even though the cigarettes had been put out on the nightstand because my spare change had taken up residence in the ashtray.

He left. I'd wanted him to leave so badly that I'd taken a leaf out of Eric's book and willed it with my eyes. Now that he was gone, I'd gotten what I wanted, but I didn't feel better at all.

For some reason, I wanted him to come back.

Maybe it was because without him, all I had was the familiar faces in the drawer and my own solitude.

And I still couldn't sleep.

---

I passed out.

It was January 2nd, and I was in the middle of a shift at the sub shop, and I just… dropped like a lead balloon. I woke up after a few seconds with the manager and the other guy I was working with, some dumb fucker with red hair named Frankie, hovering over me.

"McCormick," the manager, Mr. Creary said, and he was lifting my head off of the floor as if to check and make sure I didn't bust it open. I was pretty sure there wasn't any blood, but I was still dazed. "You all right there, son?"

I wanted to spit in his face and tell him that I wasn't his goddamned son, but I was having a hard enough time getting my thoughts straight that I didn't want to try with my words and actions.

"M'okay," I managed to mumble as he pulled me to my feet, and Frankie pressed his hands against my back to make sure I didn't topple over again. My head lolled forward, chin pressing against my chest a couple of times. I was feeling a little better than I had been before I crumpled.

Mr. Creary handed me a glass of water. I sipped at it weakly, looking around at the surprised faces of the customers that Frankie was already back to tending to. "Do I need to call a doctor?" Mr. Creary asked.

"No… no, I just need some sleep," I said. "I think I'm sick."

"Do you need someone to drive you home?" he asked, and I was quickly growing agitated by his questions. The headache that had slid inside my skull the day I left Hutchinson had done nothing but get worse since. I couldn't shake it off, and I couldn't get to sleep, and I was beginning to think that Wendy was catching on that something was wrong.

I walked home in a haze. The way was longer than it should have been, but after that night, I couldn't take the same route again. That paranoia hung around me, reminding me that he might be there again. I found myself staring into the windows of every car that passed me by, sick with fear that it might be him. I'd never been scared of anyone, but him… fuck.

The stairs were intimidating, and I hated that our building didn't have an elevator. I sucked it up and climbed them before forcing my way through the stuck door and collapsing onto the couch.

I shut my eyes.

SLUT.

My eyes snapped back open.

Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. I kept saying it to myself. Go to sleep. You need to sleep. Please, for the love of God, GO TO SLEEP.

At some point, my body seemed to listen because I found myself in a familiar park in the hot, hot summer of Hutchinson, Kansas. Around me were the murky renditions of every john I'd ever fucked, faces blending together in some bizarre little mish-mash of things I remembered from one person to another. They were all staring at me with colorless eyes, and the heat was so hot that I could feel my clothes and hair sticking to me.

And suddenly, the air became thick with more than heat. Tension wound up my spine and before I could even brace myself I was tackled by all of them, and they were ripping my clothes off of me while my sweat and blood mixed into the dirt, and suddenly they weren't all blurry faces, and all the hands were touching me all over, and a voice whispered in my ear, "Here we go."

SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT

I gasped, shooting up from the couch. My heart was thudding so heavily against my ribcage that I thought for a minute that it might just burst through. I barely managed to scramble to the bathroom before I puked my guts out.

I leaned back against the wall when I was done and stared up at the ceiling at all of the speckly, sparkly things. "Fuck you," I managed to croak out, and I passed out again.