FicWad

Chapter 35: All brawn, no brain

Lucas shouted out in surprise and lifted his head from the pillow which he had his face buried into. He was laying on the couch on his stomach, recovering from eating fifteen boxes of Oreos in a row.

Danny, who had just kicked his butt, said with a commanding tone of voice: “Get up, you lazy fuck.”

“Why?” Lucas groaned, not even bothering to get up.

“You have to go shower so we can go out.”

“I don’t need a shower...”

Danny pulled his friend off the couch so that he landed on the cold hard floor with a tump. Lucas, whose legs were nearly bare, shivered. “You’ve been wearing those same Spongebob boxers for three weeks and you smell like shit. No one’s gonna want to suck your dick unless you clean yourself up.”

“What are you even talking about?” Lucas asked, his cheeks reddening. Maybe it was true. Maybe he had been wearing the same underwear for three weeks. So he was disgusting, but he didn’t care.

“I’m taking you to a party and I’m getting you laid. You need it. You’ve been sitting on MY couch and eating MY cereal for a month, and I won’t allow you to anymore. I’m supposed to be the lazy one!”

“I don’t wanna go,” Lucas complained and climbed back onto the couch.

“I don’t think you understand,” Danny said very sternly. “It’s either we go find you a girl, or I fuck you right here. Now what’s it gonna be?”

Lucas looked like a frightened bunny. He quickly got up on his feet, said: “I think I’m gonna go take that shower,” and he ran off like his tail was on fire.

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“What is this power you have over me?” the blonde girl asked, her lips a straight thin line from all the frustration. “I don’t even know how you convinced me into this.”

“I’m very good at convincing people,” Hazel said, smiling innocently at her friend. The two 17 year olds walked on the cold, dark streets of Belleville, and Gia had no idea where exactly they were going. All she knew was that according to Hazel, it wasn’t very far, and that it was a party. One of those parties that Hazel enjoyed, and Gia had once enjoyed as well. You know, before her little teenage heart broke into million pieces. But after Gia had been moping around her room for over a month, apparently Hazel had decided that no, none of that. Now it was time to get so drunk that they’ll take their shirts off and let strangers lick salt off their naked bodies while doing shots.

It was almost Christmas, only two weeks to it. There was hardly any snow on the ground, and most of it had gathered at the sides of the roads. The thin clothing the two girls were wearing didn’t much protect them from the cold that stubbornly tried to sneak under their garments. Luckily the walk wasn’t long.

They reached the large house where the party was being held. The person who owned the house was one of those rich 20-somethings who still hung out with high school kids in order to feel young and got them hooked on drugs just because it’s so fun. You know the type.

Before they went in through the gates, Hazel grabbed Gia’s hand and looked at her. “Okay, I know you’re not happy about this right now,” she started, trying to at least sound sympathetic when Gia pouted. “But you will thank me later. You need to have some fun. Honestly, if you were home right now, what would you be doing? You’d be eating fattening ice cream and watching Spongebob in your jammies. And the only one you’d cuddle would be Jersey.”

“Yeah I know,” Gia said, rolling her eyes. “I’m pathetic, I get it.”

“But you don’t have to be! Now let’s go have some fun, okay?”

Gia sighed. There was no way this night would end well. But nevertheless, she followed Hazel through the gates and into the house.

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Saying that they had a few drinks would be a huge understatement. Hazel was absolutely hammered, straddling the lap of a guy who looked like he took some serious steroids, and her tongue had been down his throat for so long that Gia thought that their tongues were probably fused together by now. Unlike her friend, though, Gia hadn’t had as much to drink. Still a lot, but not enough to make out with a possible gorilla. The more she drank, the more depressed she became.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Gia shouted over the music to her friend. “I thought you and Danny were together now?”

Hazel came up for air, and grinned when the pile of muscles started to nibble and bite on her neck. To Gia it looked kind of like he was confused whether she was dinner or someone to mate with, but his technique didn’t seem to bother Hazel. “Oh, that,” Hazel laughed. “Danny and I are more like playmates. We’re not exclusive. Now go, don’t be a third wheel.”

Gia got up from the couch and went to get herself another drink. Hazel was right. She would have to find something to do. All she wanted was a little bit of excitement. Little did she know, she would very soon get way too much of that.

Everywhere she looked, she saw people making out. The few people who didn’t have their food holes super-glued to someone else’s were either connected at the crotch on the dancefloor, or looked like the undesirable gorilla that Hazel was working her way through at the moment. In fact, this was the second guy Hazel had collected tonight. Gia sighed, feeling strangely lonely in a room filled with people. For a moment she wondered why so few people had tried to approach her that night, but then she realized that it was probably just her new reputation as the slut who got knocked up.The slut part might be alluring to this type of men, but if a guy knows you’ve been pregnant, you might as well be carrying a plague-infested bag of rotten rat intestines.

Gia chugged down the remainings of her drink and went to find the bathroom. After that she’d find Hazel and announce that she was leaving. This was a complete waste of time. That bucket of ice cream and a Spongebob marathon were sounding pretty good right now.

In fact, that is exactly how she was planning on spending the rest of her evening, until she was leaving and she ran into someone she really didn’t want to run into. And literally she did crash right against him. At first she apologized, but when she looked up at him, she instinctively tried to back off. Being this close to the guy wasn’t exactly her idea of comfortable. He however was quicker; his hands had already grabbed a tight hold of her forearms.

“Well look who we have here,” Ryan said, obviously happy about this little accident, at least judging by the wide grin on his face. Gia knew that she might just have a biased opinion, but even when he smiled, she swore he looked like the devil. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked her when she tried to jerk herself free. Unfortunately Ryan was a tad more muscular than she was.

Gia gave up and sighed, looking at him suspiciously. “What do you want?”

“Justice,” he said. “I’m really glad I ran into you. That little stunt you pulled last time was not nice, I’ll tell you that.”

“Yeah? You deserved it.”

Obviously Ryan didn’t quite agree with her on what he deserved. The look on his face was hard and stern, he glanced around the hall they were in. There was hardly anyone around, but he still opened the closest door and pushed her into the room, closing the door. It was an empty home office, and the lights were off. Gia could barely see anything past Ryan. The young man pushed her roughly against a wall. His other hand went to her neck, at first touching the bare skin softly, but suddenly his fingers grabbed her hair and pulled, making her look up at him. Gia instinctively tried to break free, even though she knew she couldn’t. Oh, it’s not like she was scared. All he wanted was revenge because she kicked him on the balls, which had probably hurt. Gia wasn’t exactly worried that he’d murder her and hide her lifeless corpse in the forest.

Despite it being rather dark in the room, Gia could still make out the expression on his face. He was not happy. “Ryan,” she started, sighing tiredly. “This is ridiculous. You’ve made your point. We’re even.”

“No,” he replied, his voice low, and the grip he had on the nape of her neck loosened, and his hand went down to her shoulder, down her arm and to her leg. It rested on her hip for a moment, with him looking down at it, and he played with the hem of her short skirt. His hand caressed the bare skin on her thigh, and when it began to shift to the inner thigh, the terror began to set in Gia’s brain.

“What are you doing?” she asked chokingly, although she knew it was kind of a stupid question.

“Don’t fight it,” Ryan said, and Gia did the exact opposite. Fought.

Her hands were free, so she attempted to shove him away. But his body was tightly pinned against hers, and pretty soon Ryan had grabbed her wrists and trapped her arms against the wall as well. She tried to kick with her legs, knowing from experience that if she could kick him in the crotch, he’d be in so much pain that she could escape. She had no such luck, though. He was so much stronger than she was that she was completely at his mercy.

Ryan knew better than to try to kiss her on the lips; she’d just bite off his tongue, so he instead kissed her neck. Gia tried to move, tried to avoid his lips touching her skin, but no avail. She screamed, but either there was no one close enough to the room to hear, or the music was simply too loud, because no one came. Tears started to pour out of her eyes.

“Please don’t do this,” she said, her screaming now reduced to begging. “Ryan, please let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone if you just let me go now.”

He said nothing, so Gia switched her tactics.

“You really don’t want to do this, do you? You know you’ll get into trouble. Do you know what they do to guys like you in prison? I’m serious, Ryan! People are looking for me, if I don’t go home right now, my dad -”

Her speech was cut off by Ryan’s laugh. “Your dad? Oh, what’s your daddy gonna do? Hasn’t stopped you from whoring around with everyone else, has it? You fuck everyone anyway, so why not me, huh?” He laughed again. “You know, I guess I was just a few years early. Just relax. No one’s going to interrupt us. You like this, don’t you?”

As he spoke, he moved his other hand to her crotch and under her skirt, rubbing the area through her underwear roughly. Gia, her arm now free, began to push him away again. She scratched on his neck with her nails, making it bleed in places, but when that didn’t even phase him, she began to claw on his face. Before she got to his eyes, though, he grabbed her throat tightly, and crashed her head so hard against the wall that she lost it for a moment. She didn’t lose consciousness, but for a while all she could see was black. She felt dizzy, too dizzy to fight anymore. She could hardly keep track of what was happening.

Her ears were ringing and her eyes were blurry, and she would’ve fallen to the floor if it wasn’t for Ryan. He supported her with his other arm while the other worked on pushing up her skirt to her waist.

Then, what happened next Gia pretty much considered to be a miracle.

The door opened, and a head popped in along with a ray of light. The loud music flooded the room.

“Oh sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. Can you tell me where the bathroom is?” asked a familiar voice, but since Gia could hardly even make out the words through the ringing, she didn’t recognize it. But Lucas had no problem recognizing her.

At first Lucas’ heart sunk to his stomach. He felt dumb for pining over Gia like that for such a long time when she’s going to parties and having fun sexy time with random guys. Of course she’d do that. Then he recognized the guy. And that’s when he saw the tears on Gia’s cheeks and the hopeless look on her face.

“What’s going on here?” Lucas asked, not sure what exactly all of this was.

“Why don’t you just leave, alright? This doesn’t concern you,” Ryan snarled.

“Why is she crying?” Lucas demanded angrily.

Ryan glanced at the tears she had openly running down her cheeks. The girl looked scared out of her mind, but Ryan simply shrugged and said: “Tears of joy.”

“Let her go,” Lucas commanded, his suspicions now confirmed.

Ryan simply laughed. “You’re not serious, are you? Look, after I’m done, you can have a go? Okay? There’s no reason -”

Before Ryan could finish his sentence, Lucas stopped him by punching him right on the jaw. Sure, he had been aiming for the nose but jaw worked, too. The hit hadn’t been exactly bone-smashing, but it was enough for Ryan to get pissed. He let go of Gia, who fell down on the floor right away, shaking her head, trying to clear up her brain. And this is when Lucas realized he was probably in pretty deep shit. Now, Lucas wasn’t the largest of guys. He wasn’t even particularly athletic. He used to surf and skateboard, but these days his daily exercise mainly consisted of playing golf on Wii sports and opening the fridge door. This was clearly not the case for Ryan who was much more built.

In anger, Ryan grabbed Lucas by the collar of his shirt and punched him right on the face repeatedly. Lucas of course fought back, managed to deliver some punches himself, but mainly he was playing the part of the punching bag.

Ryan wasn’t satisfied until the boy’s face was pretty much covered in blood. It was a miracle that Lucas was even still conscious, but he was in so much pain that he was sure he didn’t have many moments of consciousness left. To finish him off, Ryan kneed Lucas in the stomach, making him double over on the floor in pain.

“You really should’ve walked away,” Ryan said, looking down at the boy who wasn’t able to reply from all the groaning. Ryan glanced at Gia, who had apparently recovered from when he had smashed her skull against the wall. Her eyes were shifting from Lucas to Ryan in terror. “You know what? This is so not worth it,” Ryan announced and to Gia’s relief, walked away.

As soon as Ryan was out of sight, Gia’s complete attention turned to the bloody mess that was whimpering in pain on the floor a few feet away from her.

Gia crouched down beside him, tilting his head up and inspecting the damage. His bottom lip was busted in at least two spots, his left eye was swelling up and it seemed to hurt too much to keep it open. There was a lot of blood, and most of it was coming out of his nose which luckily didn’t seem broken.

“Hey,” Lucas said, looking up at her from the floor with his one good eye. Speaking seemed to be a great challenge. Moving his lips and jaw probably hurt like hell.

“You look like shit,” Gia sighed, feeling sorry for him and hating herself. He was in this condition because of her.

“Thanks,” he said, attempting to laugh. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“You saved me,” she said as if she couldn’t even believe it. “Why?”

“Because I am a gentleman. Damsels in distress, you know.” This time he visibly winced as he spoke. He tried to laugh it off, which just convinced Gia more that he needed some medical attention.

“I need to get you to a hospital,” Gia said, getting up and trying to hoist him up as well.

“No, no hospitals!” Lucas argued, but allowed her to drag him up. “They’d just call my parents.”

Gia sighed. She knew she should take him to a hospital anyway, but after what he just did for her, she knew she couldn’t defy his wish. “Come on. Your apartment is too far so I’ll take you back to my place,” she said.

The walk back to her house was horrible. Halfway there it occurred to Gia that she could’ve called a cab, but it was already too late. They didn’t talk much on their journey, mainly because all of Gia’s energy went into keeping Lucas up, and he had to concentrate on not losing consciousness and all of his blood.

It was already almost midnight, so the house was dark and quiet. Bandit, Gerard and Lindsey were probably in bed, so as quietly as possible, Gia brought Lucas’ nearly lifeless, limp body into the kitchen. She made him sit on one of the chairs around the small, round table in the kitchen.

“Wait here, I’ll go get you some ice,” Gia said and hurried to collect everything she’d need. Moments later Lucas was holding a bag of icy peas on his eye while Gia was filling up a bowl with warm water to wash off the blood. She sat on a chair in front of him and started to work on the blood.

“Does it hurt?” she asked him.

“Nah, not really,” Lucas said nonchalantly, but then he gasped in pain when Gia pushed a little too hard on a bruise.

“Sorry,” she quickly apologized. She washed the cloth in the bowl of water, and the water turned red. It made her feel slightly queasy. “Thank you. For, you know, saving me. You didn’t have to.”

“What are you talking about? Of course I did.”

Gia avoided his eyes when she said: “After all the stuff I’ve put you through and after what I said to you, I wouldn’t have been surprise if you hadn’t.”

Lucas, not really knowing what to say, replied with: “Well... I vowed to use my superpowers for good, so. I’m not a hero but a man -”

“Don’t start that,” Gia laughed, pressing the piece of cloth against his cheek again. The blood flow from his nose had stopped on their way there, but half of the blood still remained on his face. Gia realized that the front of his shirt was bloody as well. Just as she was about to suggest a change of clothing, they both froze.

They could hear two pairs of slippers drag against the floor towards the kitchen. Gerard and Lindsey entered, looking tired, wearing robes and fuzzy slippers. They had obviously just woken up.

“Oh crap,” Gerard sighed desperately the second he saw Lucas. “He’s back?!”

Lindsey’s reaction was a bit more acceptable, though. She hurried over to them, grabbed Lucas’ chin and stared at his face in horror. “What happened to him?”

“You should see the other guy,” Lucas joked.

“You’re hurting him,” Gia gasped and rushed to free Lucas from the overly hysteric lady. This however did nothing but make Gerard pay more attention to his daughter.

“Why is your makeup like that? Where were you? You told me you were going to Hazel’s! You smell like booze!” Gerard ranted, panic rising up in his mind.

“Dad relax, it’s okay. Everything is alright, now,” Gia insisted. “We ran into some trouble. Lucas came to my rescue. We’re ok. He just got a bit... beat up.”

“It looks like he got hit by a truck. It doesn’t look like he rescued anyone,” Gerard said, moving forward to inspect the boy’s bloody face closer. If Gia didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought he was enjoying this. “Did your head get smashed against a wall or what? Because that’s what your face looks like right now. I mean yeah, it’s an improvement to what it was before... Especially all the blood since it does cover a lot of ugly.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. He, too, had the feeling that Gerard was probably enjoying this a bit too much.

“You’ll be just fine,” Gerard stood up and decided to concentrate on what really mattered. “Now, what were you supposedly saving my daughter from?”

Lucas drew a blank. Tell him, and risk Gia’s freedom, or lie and risk his life if Gerard ever found out? Luckily he didn’t have to make that decision.

“There was a guy who got a bit frisky with me,” Gia spoke. “Doesn’t even matter, but if Lucas hadn’t shown up...

“Doesn’t matter? Linds, get my phone. What’s this boy’s name? We have to press charges! I’m calling the cops!”

“Dad, it really doesn’t matter,” Gia sighed. “It’s not that serious. He had just drank a bit too much, it won’t happen again, and really, nothing even happened. Just let it go.”

Gerard however was just getting started. “If you think I’m going to let it go -”

“Gerard,” Lindsey said in a calm voice. In fact, she was using her ‘calm the shit down before I murder you’ voice, which she used every time Gerard got a bit too worked up about something. Strangely, that something always seemed to involve his firstborn daughter. “It’s midnight. We can talk about this in the morning.”

Gia gave Lindsey a small, grateful smile as the woman was escorting her angry husband out of the room. Really, Gia didn’t know how she could ever handle her dad if Lindsey wasn’t there.

“Not that serious?” Lucas asked after the adults had gone. “Gia, I can’t believe I’m saying this but your dad is right. You have to press charges.”

“Let it go,” Gia said and got up to get him a glass of water to wash down some painkillers. “Anyway, what I’m more sorry about is what happened to you. It had nothing to do with you and you got caught in the crossfire.”

“Are you kidding me? I jumped in front of the bullet! On purpose!”

“I know. I’m sorry,” she sighed. They fell silent for a while. Gia continued to gently wipe the blood off his face with a warm, wet cloth, and Lucas just sat there awkwardly. He didn’t really know what to say, and neither did she.

“So...” Lucas started, clearing his throat when Gia rose to change the water in the bowl. “How’ve you been? I mean, besides tonight?”

Gia knew very well what he meant. He was asking how she’d been doing since the break up, without him. What she wasn’t sure of was what kind of a response he was expecting. Did he want her to admit to basically dying because she couldn’t get any Lucas-lovin’? Gia simply shrugged and said: “You know. The usual. I started studying for the finals, which I know are months away still but I figured that -”

“I want to get back together,” Lucas blurted out before she could finish her sentence. Gia, who had obviously not expected that at all, was shocked. She dropped the box of bandaids and nearly knocked over the bowl of water.

“You... What?”

“Look, everything you said on Halloween... None of it matters! Because you’re wrong, I don’t care about Janie, okay? I love you and this is insane that we’re not together because we should be! And I’m sorry I told everyone you got pregnant and everyone sort of assumed you’re a slut, and I wish I could take that back. But honestly, I don’t care if you’ve slept with hundreds of other guys! And I swear I can try to be less horny! I just want to get back together. Don’t you?”

Gia was taken aback by his rant, especially since as he was speaking, one of the cuts on his lip opened and he had a trail of fresh blood streaming down his chin. Gia wiped the blood off with the rag after he finished, but he just stared at her, expecting her to say something.

“Well?” he demanded.

“I... I don’t know,” she admitted, feeling rather uneasy by this conversation. “I do want to be with you, like you don’t even know how much. It’s just... What’s the point?”

Now it was Lucas’ turn to be flabbergasted. “What do you mean?”

“We’re together, then we break up, and then we get back together again and the circle just never ends. I hate it!”

“But it really doesn’t have to be that way. I know this is really cheesy but we’re gonna end up together whether you like it or not. I mean, you’ll like it when we do get back together, even if that moment isn’t now. I mean, I hope it is, because this is insane that we’re not...”

“Would you stop talking?” Gia sighed, wiping his chin again. “You’re getting blood all over yourself.”

“What do you say?” Lucas asked, not even acknowledging the fact that his lip was bleeding again.

Gia thought it over. But really, there was nothing to think about. Was it really better to be depressed because of something that she might or might not lose at some point, or to take that chance and be happy taking it?

He was right. This was insane.

“Well... You did get yourself beat up because of me,” Gia said, a small smile rising to her lips.

Lucas looked offended. “Beat up? I was winning! He was the one who walked away, he clearly knew there was no way he could get the best of Lucas Skywalker! Really, I was just about to turn the game around and bash his face in when he just walked -”

This time he was the one being interrupted. Gia knew he could rant to the end of the world about his masculine testosterone-filled fantasies about being somehow physically strong, so she did the only thing that could possibly shut him up. Because of his injuries, very gently she kissed him.

It worked, and Lucas forgot all about bashing faces in with his Hulk fists, and he instinctively deepened the kiss. However, he had underestimated the amount of pain it could inflict, so he winced and pulled away.

Gia looked at him apologetically. “I’m sorry, it didn't hurt too much, did it?”

“It’s okay,” he said, laughing it off. “It’s worth the pain.” However, the second their lips touched again, he shouted out. “No! I’m sorry but it’s so not worth the pain!”

Gia laughed. “Wow. It’s cool, we can do all that later. I’m getting you another ice pack.”

She rose to fetch him ice to put on the lower half of his face, and Lucas watched her from his seat. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that it took him losing at least a couple of liters of blood before they could make up, but he didn’t particularly care. Despite the fact that his entire face and some parts of his body were radiating hot, blinding pain, he was happy.

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A/N: That's all.
I promised I'd update before Christmas and I kept that promise, god damn it!
I am trying to come up with a sort of a short Christmas extra thing for this, but if I can't, I'll do a separate Christmas oneshot about something completely irrelevant :D I don't know yet. I'm shamelessly accepting ideas.
Anywho, I hope this chapter didn't make your brain die, and I will TRY to get the next update out soon(ish). I hope everyone knows by now that my soon basically means about two years.
Byebye!