Melt Their Faces (A Hit List Mafia AU)

Ambitious and Dumb

Henry sat in class, writing in his torn, water/beer-damaged notebooks, trying to come up with clever lyrics. He didn't pay attention as usual -- his plan was to study the entire class two weeks before they would introduce it. So whenever he would be called on the teacher, he'd have a quick response and the teacher in shock. He never got a question wrong. GPA scores have never been this high in any of the school's history.

Sadly, the senior didn't care for academics or how it could better his life in the upcoming future. Why get a Nobel Prize when you could play at a small venue and scream into a microphone like a banshee? Henry's dream was to make someone faint at how good his music was. Beer, coke, cigarettes, and his trusty Les Paul were all he needed in life. No student dared to "fuck" with him.

Contact with his parents wasn't frequent. Parents as in "parent." Mom was the only thing living at this point. Henry couldn't care less. Freshman year and he was already kicked out to live on his own. Who the fuck needed anyone? Certainly not him. He was obviously excluding Zoe -- or rather "Ivy" now. He couldn't live without that purple-haired-gay-female-platonic partner of his.

Henry tapped his lip with his bitten pen and jotted down some lyrics that took him five minutes to figure out.

"he fucked you but in the end you fucked him in the head."

Rad.

The bell rang and Henry dumped everything in his backpack and walked out of the classroom to the "secret place" outside. The secret place was a wall with two benches at the back of the school. No one went there or even cared to see if anyone was there. Not even couples made out there. It was Henry and Ivy's safe space. 

Henry lit a cigarette as Ivy emerged from the distance, carrying two boxes of pizza. He took a drag and breathed out the smoke from his nose. Ivy placed the pizzas on the second bench and broke one open. She inhaled the smell of baked crust, cheese, and sweet sauce. She smiled as her mouth watered. 

"Got these for free. Free, Henry-beth."

"Working has its perks, Ivy-deth," Henry said as he opened a bottle of Newcastle and handed it to Ivy. She took it and clinked it against the other in his hand.

"You can say that again." She finished and took a sip. "Time-consuming though."

"I thought you said you got those for free."

"You know what I mean, cunt. At least I don't have it as bad as you." Henry chuckled and grabbed a slice from the box.

"Bartending is great, dude. I don't know what you're talking about. Lemme tell you, aside from the guys, the girls look real good under purple lighting."

"Shit, those are my two favorite things. I apologize." Ivy took a cigarette from Henry's shirt pocket and lit it with his lighter. She took a drag and exhaled it out into the air. "Any good bands recently?"

"Oh man, you have no idea. These guys came in the other day- I think they called themselves the Antarctic Donkeys or something, but they sounded real tight. Cute too."

The two became silent. After an exchange of biting into their slices, drinking their beers, and smoking their death sticks, Ivy spoke up again.

"You've been putting the Mafia off again haven't you?"

"No-"

"You have all the fuckin' time in the world, yet you can't even write chords for a guitar solo in a month. We don't even have a drummer. Some frontman."

"Don't piss me off right now, Ivy. I've already got Clarkson breathing down my neck 'cuz of a couple 'obscene' verses I wrote. I'm glad I'm not expelled at this point."

Ivy rolled her eyes. "Oh please, you're the school's whitest star student, and you're worried about a couple teachers critiquing your work? If they found out you were pan I'm sure nothing would change. Meanwhile, I'm a female, gay, and Hispanic."

Henry grabbed Ivy's arm and pulled her into a meaningful hug. It smelled like an atomic bomb of cigarettes exploded and infected a whole city.

"I'm sorry..." Henry said, dragging out the "o." "Gay is good though." The both of them chuckled. 

"Let's just finish this pizza and beer, then we can call it a day."

"Sounds good to me."

-

Henry walked down the street. He was almost home. Walking home was really a sense of relaxation. You had all the time to think to yourself and the only objective was to get yourself home at the moment. God, "Heartbreaker" by Led Zeppelin was a masterpiece. Henry tapped the beat against his khakis.

In the distance, his eyes landed on the cluster of apartments all owned by different groups. Sometimes he forgot which one he lived at because there were so many. An Asian woman stared Henry down from her porch, tapping a fan against her thigh. He waved hello to her.

"Hi, Mrs. Song." He said and continued his way home. 

Henry had a good relationship with his neighbors but not the best reputation. Complaints of the smell of cigarettes and weed, along with ear-splitting volumes of hard rock music poured in through his mailbox almost on the daily. Good thing that he and Ivy rented out a small studio for the both of themselves. 

Henry unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside. He dropped his backpack down to his hand as he closed the door behind him. He sighed in relief and opened the fridge for another beer then flopped onto his couch to watch kids cartoons. Wow, they were different when you weren't 100% stoned.

Ugh. Henry had to take care of that Mafia thing at some point.