Smoke ~ a Goth Kids fanfiction

Old Home ≠ New Home

TW: abuse

The car ride was fairly quite, a Bauhaus song playing faintly from the radio. Pete cut the silence with an inquiry.

"Hey, y/n, do you want me to drop you off at home or...?"

"Oh yeah! Yeah! I live literally 3 houses down from yours." I say, sort of embarrassed that I hadn't thought of going home sooner.

"Hey um, do you guys wanna come inside, maybe meet my dad or something? He's probably gonna need a valid reason for me to have been out last night." I scratched the back of my neck.

"Oh sure!" Michael agreed.

"Yeah that sounds fair." Pete said, rubbing the steering wheel.

"Thank you guys so much, I literally just met you a day ago but you've been so incredibly kind and amazing to me." I say softly.

"Hey, any time. It's honestly not very often when someone is genuinely nice, and doesn't either make fun of us or use us, so it was invigorating meeting someone without any outside opinions." Michael stated. 

"Outside opinions?"

"Oh! Yeah, well... like 6 years back, there was this reality show that was filmed here, we were sometimes on it... the main subjects were these 4 boys, but we sometimes made a cameo. The show was called 'South Park', if you've ever heard of it." Michael laughed.

"Holy shit I used to love that show! So wait, like Stan and Kenny are real then? Not actors!?" I exclaim, dumbfounded.

"They're real all right, thankfully the show was kinda forgotten, I mean we were into some crazy shit back then." Pete interjected.

"Yeah, I mean the camera prompted a lot of it, but we got into HEAVY smoking, literally at age ten, but no one really cared, everyone was sort of absent. We got to go around causing as much havoc as we could, we even full-on committed arson at one point..." Michael reminisced, not looking too happy.

"Burn down hot topic... before it takes your soul... holy shit I remember that!" I exclaim.

"Dammit! Well, I'll have you know that we've changed... a lot. I'd rather be a lot happier now than wallow in pain like I used to, it wasn't fun. The show basically threw me into a deep, dark hole that I couldn't escape, depression at age 10 isn't fun, I didn't know what was happening. It was hard." Michael almost whispered.

I gasped, taken aback. "Michael, that's... that's  fucking horrible. I'm so sorry that you had to deal with that, that's fucked up, grown adults wrecking kids lives for TV viewings." 

"Yeah, that's what I thought too. About a year ago I decided to watch an episode, and only then did I realize how screwed up it was." Pete sighed.

"We thought we were so cool, with our smoking and poetry, I mean, calling people conformists was satisfying, but you can change your attitude like that..." the tall goth snapped his fingers. "Some things are harder to erase, that's why I still smoke. And of course, the poetry and coffee is still a tradition, but it doesn't hurt anyone. We kinda got off on making people feel bad." 

"Yeah. And now our reputation is ruined, we are still viewed as the same conformist-hating assholes, especially since no one else really changed, we were grouped with them." Pete twiddled his thumbs at the wheel.

"The only way they'll let you change is if you go to urban outfitters and change your style." I shake my head.

"Basically. But wait! We already did that! Remember, Pete, and everyone was like "oh the kid with the big nose and the dude with the acne scars!" So we decided to just stay goth, that makes me feel better anyways." Michael said with a mournful chuckle.