Lethal Fixation

CHAPTER 4

Song: 

Justice - Stress

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When arriving at Craig's house, Kenny's nerves are shot. He had wanted to run away the whole walk over, but it would have seemed too suspicious, so he pushed the instinct down and went along, despite his thoughts telling him not to. It didn't help that Craig had shot down all alternative ideas he had for where else to work on the project, mainly ones where other people would be.

Craig opens the front door and Kenny hesitantly follows him in. He is met with the sight of a very normal, typical, family household layout. Partly surprised by it at first, but then figures it makes sense when thinking that the parents were probably behind it.

He jumps as the door behind him slams shut and Craig walks past him.

"Take off your boots," he instructs, "or my folks will complain about it." Kenny does, after Craig and walks over to the couch. "I'll be right back," he adds before heading upstairs.

As soon as Craig is gone, Kenny lets out a sigh, breathing easier. He takes a seat on the couch, his hands resting on his knees in a sweaty grip. He hated being here, but the sooner he got through this, the quicker he could head home and be done with this. So no matter what, he needed to try and act as normal as possible.

Tension fills him, when hearing Craig come back down the stairs. But he forces it away, reminding himself to try and be calm. Craig returns in a shirt and jeans, having removed his jacket and hat now. He drops some books onto the table, then sits down on the couch next to him.

"Alright, you ready?" Craig asks, bored.

"Yeah..." Kenny muffles out.

"Huh?" Craig says. He looks at him, his eyebrows pushed together in annoyance. "I can barely understand anything you ever say with that dumb thing on. And it's going to be a pain to have to keep asking you to repeat stuff with it on all the time. So can you take it off or something?" Kenny's heart rate spikes. He didn't want to remove his parka, it was the only thing he felt like was keeping him and his identity safe. "Well?" Craig asks, growing annoyed at the lack of response, "You going to remove it or what?"

"I..."

"What?"

"I... I uh."

"Oh for christ sake," Craig says.

Before Kenny can react, Craig reaches over to him and forcibly pulls his zipper down. It startles Kenny and he quickly moves back. Craig's grip, still on the zipper, only ends up unzipping it the whole way down when he tries moving away. The sides of his parka fall around his waist, resting there, while Craig looks at him. Craig's eyes are wide at first, seeming caught off guard by the sudden reaction, but only remain that way briefly, before going back to their usual state.

"Geeze dude, calm the fuck down," he mutters, moving away.

Kenny stays stiff for a while, until Craig shifts his gaze to the books on the table and he slowly realizes that he didn't recognize him. He calms down some more and sits back up.

"So," Craig says, "you always act this way? Being so hard to talk with? Or is this a recent thing you developed?"

"No, I just... you caught me off guard is all..." Kenny murmurs.

"Oh wow, I could actually understand you that time," Craig deadpans.

Kenny looks down at his book and the two get to work on their project.

For the most part, Kenny is able to keep his composure and talk somewhat when needed as they progress. Just as they enter into the final stretch of the project, Craig's father comes home, which relieves Kenny a bit, since now someone else was there. That is until his dad asks how long they will be, wanting to watch a show on T.V. It leads to Craig and him getting into a small argument over it, where Craig eventually lets out an irritated sigh and tells Kenny to follow him.