lock & key » c.h

one

She could feel his gaze on her face. She stood between his legs, his right hand cradled in both of hers. She fought against herself to look up at him, meeting his curious gaze, but she was too focused on his busted knuckles to do so.

She dabbed the cotton ball into the peroxide, dabbing it against the broken skin of his knuckles. He winced, trying to pull away from the sting but she held his hand still. "You shouldn't have punched him, Calum," she said simply. "Then you wouldn't have to deal with this pain."

"I couldn't let him talk to you like that," he replied simply, his voice low but forceful. She dabbed at his knuckles again, but this time he remained stoic.

She wiped away some of the blood from his olive skin, staying silent for a moment. "You don't even know me, Calum," she said. "We don't talk." She finally chanced looking up at him, meeting his dark chocolate eyes.

Like she had guessed, they were soft. The hard gaze that everyone in school knew so well was gone. She couldn't understand why he looked at her like that, and no one else.

Calum Hood was a mystery just begging to be solved.

He was a fighter with a harsh right hook and a mean uppercut. He strolled through the hall; daring anyone to step up to him and he would put them in their place. His eyes were guarded and his jaw was sharp.

She first noticed him in her co-ed gym class clad in black mesh athletic shorts and a baggy Green Day band tee on the first day of school. They sat on the bleachers, waiting to be called out for their soccer teams.

He was picked last by the captain, but he sidled up to his team, glancing at her tentatively. The game had gone on without flaw for a while before someone had tripped Calum, his skin squeaking as he slid across the hardwood floor.

He stood up almost instantaneously, getting in the guy's face asking, "who the fuck do you think you are?"

And being testosterone fueled, the other guy yelled back and before they knew it, fists were flying and blood was dotting the floor. It took two teachers to pull Calum off of his classmate, resulting in a suspension on the very first day of school.

It was only after that day that she realized who he was. She had heard his name whispered around the halls, her best friend even telling her stories about how he punched a teacher in the face (though she didn't really believe that was true.)

And she definitely didn't believe it now, standing between his legs. Calum had defended her, though he didn't do it in the most humane way, she could tell that he had a good heart. She could tell by how he looked at her – how the hard edge faded away when his eyes settled on her.

She dabbed at his knuckles again, replaying the moment of how he got his injury over in her head. She didn't expect Calum to come out of nowhere, fists flying to get one of the most popular seniors away from her.

He had been harassing her, saying crude things about her body, about how she should come over after school let out so he could see what lay beneath her pants. But when he slapped her ass, Calum had had enough.

She whirled around to tell him off, but Calum had beaten her to it, slamming his fist into the senior's jaw. But sure enough, Calum had his work cut out for him when the senior fought back, getting in some of his own punches.

Unlike before though, Calum was only off with a warning when she had told the teachers what had happened. It was then that she drove him home, leading Calum into her bathroom to clean up his wounds. It was the least she could do.

"He still had no right to say those things to you, or touch you without your consent," Calum insisted.

She sighed, pausing her work on his hands to look up at his face again. But all she saw was the blood oozing from Calum's busted lip. "Your lip is bleeding again," she said quietly, avoiding any reply to his previous statement.

She watched as Calum's jaw clenched before he reached up and wiped at his lip with the back of his hand. The blood smeared across his hand and lip, staining the initials on his skin crimson. "It's not the first busted lip I've had," Calum said. "I'll be okay."

She believed him, but she couldn't get the image of the blood out of her head. It tinted his white teeth and filed the cracks of the delicate pink skin of his lips. She could only imagine what the other guy looked like – but she didn't stick around to see.

"You should still let me clean it," she said, reaching for a fresh cotton ball. She doused it with peroxide before meeting his eyes again. He watched her curiously as she raised her hand to his mouth, lips parting slightly for her to clean them.

She dabbed at it gently, feeling slightly uncomfortable. This felt like such an intimate moment to be sharing and she barely knew Calum. She pushed the thoughts away, making sure to get most of the blood off of his lips.

"Should I bother with band aids or are you going to take them off right after you leave?" She asked, tossing the soiled cotton balls in the trash, missing the warmth of Calum's legs around her waist.

Calum chuckled, inspecting the now cleaned skin of his knuckles. "Don't waste your band aids on me," he said, sliding down from the counter. "I'll be fine. Like I said, this isn't the first fight I've been in."

"Why is that?" She asked before she could stop herself. Calum paused, looking back to her. "And why are you only nice to me?" She continued. She might as well ask since he was silent.

"You're the only one who doesn't look at me like I'm a monster," he replied simply. "And you're not too bad to look at yourself," he smirked but winced, mainly from the cut running vertically through his lip.

"You didn't answer my first question," she said silently, trying to ignore that Calum basically called her pretty. It wasn't a secret that Calum was one of the most attractive boys in the grade.

Calum licked at his lips, his eyes falling from hers for a fleeting second. "My anger just gets the best of me sometimes," he answered meekly. "It just comes and the only way I can get it to leave is through force," he said, shaking his head slightly.

She bit her lip, glancing at him. His eyes were cast downward, mouth slightly parted as if he wanted to say something more. "But sometimes," he continued. "When I look at you, my anger goes away. And I think that's why I'm so drawn to you."

"Calum..." she found herself saying.

"I know that probably sounds creepy to you, I know," Calum said, finally looking up at her again. "I don't know why, I can't explain it. I just look at you and it's like everything I'm mad about disappears. It's never happened with anyone else. And I've been telling myself not to tell you, but I can't fight it anymore."

He waited for her to say something, to at least look him in the eye, but she never looked up from her feet.

"Calum," she repeated, his name falling from her tongue easily, as if she had said it so many times before. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"You don't have to say anything," he answered, taking two steps towards her. He towered over her by a good foot, the top of her head only reaching the peak of his shoulders. He raised his hand, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "You don't have to feel like you have to talk to me now because of it. Just..." he sighed, "just don't be afraid of me."

She could see the fear in his eyes. She could see that he was ready for her to run away. She could see that he just needed someone to stay, to see him for what he really was.

He was the lock.

"Never," she breathed.

And she was the key.