Death to Bumble Bees

14: bee vs alien

LORD, I LOVE THIS CHAPTER *fans face* 

Listen to Going Under by Evanescence 

Chapter Fourteen: Bee VS. the Alien

Bee walked to class numbly as she pulled her sweater tighter around her.

She only had a few more hours of lectures and then she could go to bed and hide from the world. Eventually she'd have to go take photos at some point in the week during the athletic games, but she had a few days of rest before then. She didn't think she could stand the accusation in Shawn's eyes or the worry in Tess'. If she had to be alone, she wanted to be truly and completely alone.

Jason had left, not even leaving a note for Shawn, and the gossip it had spun up on the small campus was nearly suffocating. It was her fault, apparently she didn't order her Golem around specifically enough like leaving notice of his departure, Bee thought bitterly with another aching pain of shame and hurt. It had only been a few days, but she already missed him like she couldn't breathe, and the idea that she could love something that wasn't real, made her feel completely and utterly broken.

"Root beer float?" A musical voice hummed out cheerfully.

Bee stopped dead in her tracks, her ears ringing with strong emotions. White-hot emotions. She looked up with fire in her red-rimmed eyes, seeing the face she had come to dread the most.

Rath.

Her teeth clashed together as she stared at him in disbelief.

Despite not aging a day, he looked nothing like the first time she had seen him; his wavy hair still messy in the front but contained with the back pulled up into a small bun, all dyed in a half-and-half style. Peach and orange. He had shaved his face and he looked, dare she think it, like something straight out of a photoshoot as he lounged against the hood of a fancy looking sports car wearing all high-class clothing that showed off his perfectly lean and long body. Like before, he wore many patterns, the difference this time was he seemed to learn the concept of fashionable matching; his pants a grey soft plaid, paired with a fitted and very loud floral blazer, with a loosely buttoned white dress shirt underneath that revealed thin gold chains against his toned sun-kissed chest. But it was his eyes that really gave him away--those iridescent blue eyes that haunted her nights, and had been the single cause of all her pain in the last three years.

All while having the audacity--sipping from a separate cup himself--to hold a root beer float out to her. Like it was a peace offering.

Before she knew what she was doing and before he could react, her palm collided into his smooth cheek with a loud slap, knocking his head to the side and spilling his drink down his white pristine stupid fancy shirt. Her breath came out ragged as her hand stung with both the hit and electricity his skin instantly zapped into her bloodstream. "Fuck you." She spat venomously at his still turned and frozen clenched face. "Get the fuck out of my life, you damn alien. And don't you ever dare show your face to me again." Whacking the root beer float in his outstretched hand out of her way, she walked away from him in strong angry strides.

She felt his presence before he spoke, "You're angry." He pointed out, as if it were not made clear to him just a second prior when her hand made contact with his stupidly hard yet smooth face.

Did she want him to show him how angry she was again? She bit back a sarcastic remark, refusing to acknowledge him as she walked faster.

"Is it because I disappeared two--or perhaps more--years ago?" He asked, completely and irritatingly clueless. "There's a reason for that." Rath said, easily keeping pace with her, even going so far as to walk backwards to face her as he talked--bothering her even more. "Remember when I touched you?" He asked, making her glance up with a glare so hard, she couldn't fathom how he didn't even seem to notice it. Instead, he kept talking, reaching out to his own face as he touched his cheek to demonstrate what he was talking about.

She felt her own cheek burn with the memory.

"Well, I shouldn't have." He bluntly said, making Bee grind her teeth together loudly. "Because I could have blown you--and everyone around you--up." He clicked his tongue amusedly--laughing to himself at the apparently really fucking funny memory.

This time Bee faltered, looking at him in complete horror, her mouth gaping at the new information. Her cheeks flamed, her rage somehow doubling as she watched him laugh to himself, still walking backwards despite her no longer being beside him.

He seemed to notice her finally after a few more seconds as he stopped and cocked his head--causing the pastel hair on his forehead to fall into his eyes, "You look concerned... I mean, obviously I didn't blow anything up." He stated slowly, as if her still being alive and all wasn't clear to her. "It was just, you know, a risk--it could have happened. Which is why I had to leave you." He shrugged, waiting for her to start walking again.

Her breath was uneven now, her lungs inflating and deflating with vigor. She wanted to throw something. Maybe break his new shiny toy parked on the road. She wanted to do something that would hurt him. She just didn't know what. Did he even feel pain? On a physical level or emotional?

"I mean.. you can stay angry about it--that's your choice and I will understand completely." He shrugged a bit sadly, like a kicked dog, "But I really had no other choice. It was that or blow the world up."

Bee's head was pounding now. She didn't even know how to human properly as she willed him with her mind to shut up.

Rath scratched his neck lightly, an awkward gesture as he leaned his weight on his other foot; feeling uncomfortable with the prolonged silence. "The explanation doesn't seem to have helped..." Muttering to himself, he looked away with a frown.

What else did she want? What else could he say to make her understand it wasn't a choice? Not if he didn't want to risk her life. How did he make her feel he didn't mean to cause her pain?

He smiled then, as if understanding perfectly what could make it all okay again. "Ah yes! And I am--of course--so very sorry, Bumble Bee, for leaving you. I know that hurt and confused your young mind, and I am sorry for leaving you with those very uncomfortable feelings." He spoke humbly, closing his eyes as his long blonde lashes curled like a doll's; holding a hand over his heart, as if to bow apologetically.

Bee was going to swing again. Ohh, she was going to smack him back to whatever planet he had came from.

Marching directly over to him, with as much force as she could put in her tiny body, she hit his chest with her palms. "How." She hit him again as he opened his bright eyes in surprise. "Are." With another hit he stumbled back, "You." The sound of her skin slapping his sounded out, "So--" Rath held his hands up in surrender, shock still frozen on his face as she pounded against his flesh. "So... so...!" She suddenly shrieked wildly--unable to think of an adjective strong enough to use. "You whole freaking stupid, alien!" Her voice squeaked as the force from her lungs and throat broke her voice. "I can't believe I waited for you!" She screamed hoarsely again, staring at her hands clenching into fists as she hit him again, her strength wavering. "I can't believe I wasted three years of my life, waiting for you to come back and explain things!" Shoving him back from her, she glared at him with vile hate seething from her soul as she forced the scratchy words out of her sore throat, "Only for you to send a goddamn corpse to distract me instead."

Rath watched her, his breath ragged as if he had been the one yelling himself coarse. His cheeks tinged rose as he held out his hands in surrender again, opening his palms as if that would stop the hate in her deep honey gold eyes from being aimed at him like weapons. Weapons, that for some reason, made his chest ache uncomfortably.

Bee spoke with a broken voice, the sound dry and barely any louder than a whisper--spearing him once more in the chest, "Just do what you're good at and leave me already."

Rath swallowed loudly, his hands dropping limply to his sides, "I... I can't, Bumble Bee." He finally spoke lowly, his face flinching as she aimed a killer look at him as a response.

She could not deal with this right now. Spinning on her heels, Bee turned away from the blastedly maddening alien--she didn't know where she would go. Perhaps back to bed after all. She should have never left it in the first place.

Rath's long fingers wrapped around her wrist then, his hand warm as she bristled from head to toe at his electrifying touch. "Beatrice, I'm serious." His melodic voice no longer held the cheerful note from before, his hand held in an impenetrable grasp.

As badly as Bee wanted to cover her ears and run away while singing, something in his now-perfectly-human voice made her body shiver and her legs cease beneath her... And also, there really was no escaping his shackle-like hand that wound around her small bones like a bracelet.

"Don't touch me." She croaked instead, her hand balled into a fist as her body shivered in response to his skin. She hated that someone so disgusting as Rath could make her feel so euphoric with just one brush of the hand. It was hardly fair.

Hesitantly at first, Rath released her--his own body buzzing with something he too didn't understand. "Don't leave." He spoke, the sound soft. "Please try to understand--I'm trying to fix everything now."

Bee wanted to laugh at the irony. Closing her eyes instead, she turned on her heel, facing him again. She took a deep breath, unable to open her eyes and look at him in fear that all the rage and hate would burst out of her again. "What do you need, Rath? What can I possibly do for you, so that you will leave me alone?" She forced the strangled noise out of her teeth, trying to be a civil as possible in order to get it all over with already.

"Well, first, I need your help with the ho--with Jason."

A sting of pain shot through Bee as she fell to the ground in a crouch--holding her knees to her chest tightly as she breathed through the lightening hurt. The wound in her chest gaping open from hearing his name.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head, "It's your lucky day--I already fixed that." Her already dying voice sounded far away as it came out in puffs of air, as if she were trying to gasp in missing oxygen.

Rath let out a weird hum, the sound one of apprehension. "Not... not exactly." He finally forced the bleak words out.

Filling her lungs with air, Bee opened her eyes with a loud exhale and looked up at him. Rath had a hand in his hair, pulling at the roots as he ground his teeth uneasily. Avoiding her gaze, he opened his lips to speak, only to shut them again. He did this three times until Bee finally snapped.

"What is it?" She growled out from her crouch, holding her legs tight to not jump up and strangle the peach haired freak.

Dragging a hand down his face, he closed his eyes with a groan. "You didn't fix anything. He isn't doing something he genuinely wants or enjoys; he's doing something that will make you happy." He tried to explain, still not looking at her as she tried to understand. "There are no loopholes, Bumble Bee." Rath said slowly, frowning as he finally looked at her. There was something like... anger in his expression now. "His reason for living and for feeling anything, is you." With a clenched jaw, he continued, "So, not only did you force him into doing something he will feel no joy in doing, but you also essentially told him that you would be happier if he disappeared from your life... The reason for his being told him he wasn't needed anymore." Spelling it out in a drawl with a scornful look at her, Bee felt herself hollow.

Her hands dropped from her legs as she stared up at Rath in devastation as the realization of what he was telling her gradually dawned on her.

She had made him... made him think that he wasn't--for lack of a strong enough word--wanted. Purposeless. Empty. Discarded.
Rath's face twisted, seeming to regret his choice of words as he back peddled, "--not that you could have possibly known that. It wasn't your fault... not really. I should have said something before it came to that..." He trailed off, seeing that the damage was already done as Bee's tawny skin paled with every second passed. "We can fix it." He whispered, bending down cautiously as the tiny ball of a girl seemed to cave in with a despair that he could feel. "It's my fault." Crouching down on the balls of his feet, he gingerly reached a hand down towards her.

Like he had done all those years before, his fingertip very lightly brushed over her cheekbone--following the trail of freckles on her skin. Her tearful, mesmerizing brown eyes met his and he held his breath out of some strange habit he had picked up during his years passing in and out of the human realm. A strong surge overcame him as he leaned down closer to be level with her face, his fingers lingering on the side of her face as bolts of electricity passed through them.

"We'll fix this." He breathed, his bright blue eyes the only thing she could see as the cool air of his breath rolled over her blazing skin. Not one word of a thought passed through her brain now as every part of her seemed to become prisoner to his every word, movement, whim, wish.
He watched, captured in her deep gaze as her cheeks filled with pink and her heartbeat thrummed unevenly just beneath the skin on her throat. The desire to lean in further, to close the short distance between them, made him suck his bottom lip between his teeth--pulling himself back as he dropped his hand from her inflamed cheek.

Giving his fuzzy head a slight shake, he looked up at the sky--his blood rushing through his body as the spell between them broke. When he spoke, his voice was low, a rough note in it that made Bee swallow back the tightness in her throat.

"So, will you help me fix this?"

And Bee knew she would for all the wrong reasons.

End of Chapter Fourteen

laughing, crying, and fanning my face all at the same time. I instantly love Rath again. He is SUCH an idiot. My god. But Bee is SO funny. That slap had me in tears (violence is never the answer unless you're up against an immortal being that doesn't seem to feel pain). but omg Jason, I feel SO BAD FOR HIM. MY LITTLE MONSTER DOESNT DESERVE THIS. So many emotions rn.