Top and Tail [boyxboy] [slash]

Chapter 18: The Jerk With the Tragic Past

Even the piercing ringing of the school bell couldn't pull me from my shock-induced daze. Rather than jumping to attention and rushing over to physics to profoundly apologize to Jay, I simply stood there and allowed myself to be swept away by the current of pupils rushing down the stairs. I was lost in an endless sea of shirts and ties, unable to distinguish Lee and Lewis from the rest of swarm.

The word 'Jay' just kept spinning round in my head like a faulty record on the blink.

"Ash! Dude, wake up!"

I blinked a few times uncertainly, trying to decide if I was still in a daydream or if Lee really was bawling in my face. A frown covered her own in a bizarre mixture of anger and confusion. Her lip curled downwards in sadness and she shot a frustrated glare at me. I wasn't sure if there was a word to describe the blend of emotion flickering across her features...

I highly doubted it though.

"Ash!" she repeated, seizing me roughly by the shoulders and shaking me like a rag doll. My head throbbed; I could actually envision my measly excuse for a brain sloshing inside my head, the contents steadily dripping from my ear.

I was way bad. And it made me feel physically sick.

"Ugh..." I grunted, clutching my sticky forehead. "I don't feel well..."

At once, a spindly arm snaked around my waist, holding me together, while another much firmer hand clasped my shoulder and began to steer me through the crowds. I let myself be pulled blindly, not caring in the slightest that we were heading in the opposite direction from the science block.

I really didn't think I could face sitting next to Jay anyway.

A pungent stench attacked my nostrils and I gasped.

"Nuh uh!" protested Lee. "No way. I ain't putting a toe in them filthy changing rooms!"

Rubbing my eyes, I glanced up and found myself in the back end of PE block, near the dingy, dark outdoor changing rooms that had long since been abandoned. I blanched.

"Well where else do you have in mind?" Lewis hissed, heaving the wooden door open with a grunt. We slipped inside unnoticed – not that anybody would be guarding the doors anyway. The outdoor changing room block was an old post-Second-World-War prefab article that just hadn't been torn down yet. A popular source of rumour and ghost stories among the younger year groups, the decrepit building was generally regarded as a death-trap by both the students and staff.

Why Lewis had picked there of all places was beyond me. Hell, the headmasters' office was probably safer.

Still, Lee scowled and bit her lip in an effort to keep silent. Instead of falling back into the usual playful fight with Lewis –the situation was much too serious for that– she occupied herself by inspecting the crumbling walls.

She wrinkled her nose as her fingers traced a rather damp section of wall. "Gross... Could you imagine having to live in one of these?"

"Hey babba ree bab, ma mammy's got a prefab," I whispered, reciting the old rhyme prefab kids used to sing during hopscotch. Lewis rolled his eyes.

"Long as you don't start singing the Jeely Piece Song next," he grumbled, clearing some dust away from a particularly rickety looking bench. We couldn't find a light switch, so our only source of light was the pale slither of early winter sunlight streaming through the cracks in the boarded up window. It cast a ghostly glare on the three of us, only partially illuminating our features. The damp atmosphere held a very surreal quality.

"Ok," Lee said, settling down on top of a large wooden crate. "What's going on? Start from the beginning."

I sighed, burying my face in my hands. "Bleh. Does it really matter? I fucked everything up big time now anyway."