Safety Pins || Fuenciado

Chapter 1

AN: (Nov. 2019) I'm in the process of making a few revisions to this story as I've decided I want to make physical copies available on Lulu. The original edition that I completed in 2015 is posted here. It's been a long time since I've been active on Wattpad, so I don't know if too many swear words still mark chapters as restricted, but that's why f-bombs and other words have periods halfway through.

If you want to read the revised edition of Safety Pins but don't want to purchase a physical copy, you can find it on AO3. As of today (November 8th), only Chapter 1 has been updated.

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Tony brings me to a shady punk bar on my seventeenth birthday, arming us with fake IDs and real jewelry in our safety pin piercings. My mom just about shat herself when she saw what I'd done to my nose. The ears were one thing, but even after I stretched them with screws from my stepdad's toolbox, it didn't even come close to how badly she'd flipped when she saw my left nostril with a tack poked through it.

She said she'd let me keep it if I didn't get a mohawk. It was a good compromise, because I didn't really want one anymore. Too typical, eurotrash punk. Instead, I have thick spikes all over my head. When I don't fix it up, it's just a curly mess, but the only people who have seen that are my parents and Tony. Tony, bless his soul, is a little bit stuck in 1979; he has a thick mohawk that, more often than not, he's too lazy to spike and instead lets it hang in a shaggy mess off the back of his head. When he does spike it, and when he wears his studded jean jacket, you'd think he's one of those kids who still listens to The Ramones. Which he does. But he doesn't tell anyone that, at least not anyone here. When people ask, he says he just likes the style. It's high-maintenance, but it looks badass, and nobody fu.cks with Tony.

It's raining in Los Angeles, but above the noise of the bar, it's impossible to tell. We got drenched on the way from the car to the door. It didn't help that we had to wait in line for a half an hour, but we were covered by the overhang, except for that time when it came in sideways for a good ten minutes. My t-shirt is damp and clinging to my torso. The bar is hot, though, and once I get some whiskey in me, I'll warm up.

Tony heads over to the counter, and I'm soon to follow. We're not drunks or burnouts or anything; we just like to have fun. We like to take advantage of the fact that we look twenty-one.

While I absently flash my ID to the bartender who asks, I look up to the stage. There's a group of sweaty guys yelping and shredding a cover of a song that sounds vaguely familiar. Nobody who plays here is big. This isn't even a venue. I don't mind, though. Some of the best music is the undiscovered kind.

About the time they finish off their set and I finally get my shot, I see him for the first time. The guy who's going to fu.ck me up. I don't know it yet; I don't even know him. But that's who he is. My goddamn demise.

When he first comes onstage, I have to do a double take because at first, I think he's a girl.

And at first, I double take because what the hell is a girl doing at a hardcore punk bar with a microphone? Girls can't scream. They can wail, but they can't growl.

Then something about this girl has me choking on my drink. She has balls. For real. I can see them through her skin-tight jeans. I look up to her face to get an eyeful of her eyebrow ridge and jawline and realize-oh. This is not a girl at all. This is a man.

But, come on, he must at least be a queer.

Upon first glance, I deduce that this guy has no idea what he's doing. He has long hair like fu.cking Metallica. Clearly he didn't get the memo that if you're going to be seen as anything besides a douche, you've gotta lose the locks. But this guy-he probably thinks it's cool to have hair like Rapunzel. And that's not all. He's got these weird skin-tight pants I'm sure took a hell of a lot of effort to get on. Then there's the Ziggy Stardust logo jacket, which I only recognize because my brother's best friend's sister likes Bowie. And finally, the goddamn shoes. He's wearing prom shoes. Wedding shoes. Funeral shoes. Not the kind of thing you wear onstage to a bar. I'm not even sure how to interpret it. Is he some kind of secret yuppie who will only wear the best on his feet? Does he think it will make people respect him? Either way, it's fu.cking weird, and he is fu.cking weird.