Bad Influence (Erik)

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"....did you get my tumblr messages?" Oriel asked, feigning apathy. Nonchalance. Though the act of asking in the first place betrayed that intention outright.

Oriel was leaning up against the side of the bed, where he'd done on a number of occasions over the past year. Wow, he thought. It really had been over a year since these two met...since they'd had their first night of collective "fun"...and just short of it since they'd had their "altercation" right in this very room which landed Oriel in the hospital. The thought of having something so consistent over the course of six months was a wonder for him, but a whole year? Call him soft, but it gave him silly tickles inside.

A shimmer of his glee would break through his "I don't care" face every so often. Erik could probably tell he was trying to hold back.

Even being separated from Phoenix still - something that he couldn't believe was still perpetuating. He'd made progress, hadn't he!? - wasn't obstructing Oriel from appreciating his frieeeeeeenship with Erik.

Or maybe those meds were just messing with his head again?

Oriel sighed and flopped down onto his side, releasing a long, wailing groan. "I wanna see Phoee-hee-hee-heeeeeenix~!"

[Erik Stewart]

Erik hadn’t spoken to Phoenix since the snake-biting incident nearly a year prior. Neither of them had made a move to reconcile. Erik was in no rush to; neither, it seemed, was Phoenix. He was leaned up against the side of the bed, too, his old laptop sitting on his curled-up thighs. Occasionally, he lifted a finger to tap at the keyboard.

“What messages?” he mumbled back, unconcerned. Erik looked up to find said ‘shimmer of glee’. One of his eyebrows raised.

Then Oriel was dropping down on the floor; he moved his foot, slightly, away. “Well go an’ see ‘im then. Go climb in his window or some shit. Hell, tell ‘im t’fly out the window. He can do that, can’t he?”

[Deleted]

Oriel pouted and retreated to fiddling with his fingers. “Uh….you know…the one ‘bout your boobs…and then the freckles…and then the woodchuck…and then there was…” There was a number of them and Oriel couldn’t exactly remember them all. Oriel had been entertaining himself lately with the magic that was social media. It was pretty much one of the only ways Oriel could keep in regular contact with Phoenix. Aside from just texting him or calling him outright.

Oriel groaned again. “Tried that already…said if we do it again, this ‘separation’ shit goes on even longer.” Oriel still felt trapped by these fucking rules, as was evident by his continual melting into the floor. “Hey…last year, how long’d that fucking Black Beauty follow you ‘round?” She was nice and all, but he was getting sick of having a 300lb shadow.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik looked up, face pinched in distaste. “My boobs?”

He hadn’t heard the whole story to Oriel’s and Phoenix’s plight, but he knew what he knew. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him. He scoffed at the idea of it. “You mean t’tell me this guy shows up outta nowhere and pretends like he’s in charge of his kid’s life again? Bull. Tell your boyfriend t’grow a pair an’ shove that ‘separation’ shit back up his ass. Ain’t really that hard, is it?”

Phoenix’s lack of agency rubbed Erik the wrong way, though he didn’t bring it up much around Oriel for obvious reasons. Not that Oriel couldn’t tell. Erik’s verbal bites might have been indirect, but they were there all the same.

Erik didn’t protest the change in subject. “A few months, I think,” he said, looking back down at his computer. “Remind me what you did this time?”

[Deleted]

Yes, his boobs. That was exactly the face Oriel was going for, so mission accomplished. Oriel wondered if he made that same face when he replied to that absurd question?

Oriel…wasn’t sure what to say in response. At least not yet. Because it wasn’t necessarily Phoenix’s father who was keeping them apart. If anything, he was helping them(for what reason, Oriel couldn’t fathom), with driving Phoenix to their date locations and picking out snazzy clothes for Phoenix to wear on their dates. Though, Oriel was still pretty sure the guy would shoot him in the spine given the chance.

Oriel blinked, looking up surprised at his friend. Didn’t he…?

Well, not that he thought of it, Oriel supposed he did avoid the subject for a long time, so it was entirely possible that Erik didn’t have a clue of what happened between him and Phoenix. Oriel rolled over, meshing his face into the carpet. “S…….sorry, I thought you knew,” he muttered. Or had at least heard the details from someone else. Yeah, right…from who? Oriel took a breath. How should he say this? “……………I hit Phoenix in a fit of jealous drunken rage, and now the school won’t let us see each other without Precious hanging off my back.”

[Erik Stewart]

For a moment, Erk’s eyes widened in surprise. Oriel, smackin’ Phoenix in the face? They’d always seemed so lovey dovey to him…though he knew Oriel had quite a temper attached. Erik knew that first hand, and he wondered if Phoenix had ended up like he had, sans the snake bite.

“Well shit, Oriel, what’d you go an’ do that for?”

Erik was honestly curious. He’d simply supposed that Oriel had cussed out one too many teachers; he would have been less surprised if he’d admitted to beating up some random student instead of his boyfriend.

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This was the part that he didn’t want to have to explain. The why to it all. No matter how “good” he was doing, Oriel didn’t think he’d ever be comfortable explaining his reasons to people…

“Don’t know….made perfect sense at the fucking time. I hate seeing ‘im with…that fucking bird boy best friend of his…walks in like he’s fucking special and just takes Phoenix’s number 2 spot with no fucking effort….” Even though that guy, Gryph, had essentially abandoned Phoenix when things just got too fucking hard…and then he comes in once things are all better again. It pissed him off so much…that Phoenix let him in so easily….

“S’why I don’t fucking drink…’cause I can’t keep that shit in check when I’m…………heh…can barely do it when I’m sober…” Oriel had yet to bring his face out from it’s place within the carpet and his cage of arms wrapped around his head.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik was furrowing his brows. He had no idea he was talking about Gryph. He’d only met him once, after all, and he had no way of knowing that he was what Oriel called a ‘bird boy’. No one had told him any of this previously. It seemed a little out of the blue: the two of them had been perfectly alright, the last time he’d heard of it. Now his dad was getting in the way and Oriel was punching him in the face. Sure wasn’t good – that was what they called ‘domestic abuse’, he heard.

Now he wasn’t about to denounce Oriel and cast him from his sight. Oriel hit people. It was what he did. So, too, did Erik: the whole deal, hitting and cursing and yelling. But – there was something about smacking someone like Phoenix around (that dumb little marshmallow) that made him frustrated.

“So it was the drink?” he said. “Y’know, that sounds an awful lot like my old pop used t’say. I get drunk sometimes. I don’t recall hittin’ any little boys.”

[Deleted]

“Piss off, Erik,” he snapped, offense billowing in his voice. “’fore I smack you around too.” He snorted. It was bad joke, and left a sour taste on his tongue. Oriel lifted his head and rested his chin over his folded arms, his narrowed eyes digging holes into the bare wall a few feet in front of him.

He was silent and stewing for several moments, his fingers digging painfully into his upper arms. “…ain’t the fucking drink. I’m a fucking asshole even without it.” He’d felt that in him long before he ever laid a hand on Phoenix. “Just….the drink makes it easier to not fucking care who’s on the other side o’ that fist,” he grumbled. He knew it sounded like an excuse. And it probably was. But for now, it was how he could live with himself, until he figured out this “progress” they wanted him to make.

Oriel didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “Oy….what’re you doing tomorrow? You working?”

[Erik Stewart]

Erik squinted. They both knew how that had turned out last time, and he didn’t feel like it bore repeating. Not that he anticipated it; Oriel just sounded like he was billowing smoke out his nostrils, nothing more, and besides – he wondered just how much trouble Oriel could get in before they locked him up somewhere and threw away the key.

“You sure are,” he said.

Erik wasn’t about to lie about it. People who hit the ones they thought they loved couldn’t claim anything better. He threw his laptop to the side (gently, of course, though the thing was all old and creaky and it’d die any time soon now), and drew up his knees. When he looked at Oriel it was with a curious look – not judgmental, but flat, and a little cold. Still, he reached into his pocket to offer Oriel a cigarette.

When Oriel looked for a change in subject, Erik turned his head and allowed it, with a simple shrug of his shoulder. He put his own smoke in between his lips. “No work, no plans,” he said. “No detentons either.”

[Deleted]

Oriel was nothing more than a snarling lion at this point. He didn’t intend on following through with that threat…then again, he never intended on doing half of the “smacking around” he ever did to anyone right up until he threw the first punch.

The confirmation stabbed at him more than he thought it would. Of course he was an asshole, he called himself that everyday…but to hear it out loud from someone else, without even a shred of denial…it hurt. Oriel buried his face into his arms again, to stifle the heat forming in his eyes.

Such a fucking crybaby…

He barely saw the offered cigarette from the corner of his eye. Oriel was supposed to be quitting. He snatched it anyway and put it between his lips without lighting it, glowering back at the wall. “Good,” he said with a tenseness in his voice. He knew it was a long shot, but thought he’d “ask” anyway. “I got some shit community service to do tomorrow. Come with me.”

‘It might make it more fun’, that fucking TA had said. Right…

[Erik Stewart]

Erik didn’t see the forming tears, and even if he had, it wasn’t guaranteed that he’d stop to address them. He might’ve leaned close and squinted and asked, ‘are you cryin’?’ but that would’ve been it. If you wanted to dish it out, then you had to be willing to take it, in Erik’s humble opinion.

Erik paused. Community service? Wasn’t that what they gave delinquents?. Oriel sure as hell wouldn’t do it out of his own free will – so that’s what it had to have been. His first thought was No. No, absolutely not. What made him think he’d go out and rake leaves or whatever the hell else he had to do for nothing? It wasn’t him that was getting penalized. Wasn’t getting paid, neither.

The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized that he wouldn’t be doing anything instead. It wasn’t uncommon for him to stay in bed well into the afternoon hours during his off days. And he knew that it had to have been a stretch for Oriel to ask.

His answer slid from the red zone to the yellow. “What kind of community service?” he asked. “I’m not cleanin’ up any more floors.”

[Deleted]

This was why he didn’t cry. Especially not in front of people. Because they didn’t care. It meant nothing to them. If they did notice, then they either said nothing, meaning they gave no shits, or they said something like “boys shouldn’t cry”. Crying never did anything for nobody. Especially not Oriel.

It was another reason why he missed Phoenix. Phoenix noticed. Phoenix cared. Fuck, he missed him.

Oriel expect a very quick and curt “no” to come from his anti-social friend. As soon as the question(not question) had come out, Oriel felt like taking it back, or that he’d never done it in the first place so he couldn’t be disappointed by Erik’s answer. The fact that it didn’t come immediately unnerved him.

But when Erik asked about it, Oriel was up quick enough to get whiplash, the cigarette pinched between the fingers of one hand with the other settled on his knee, and he leaned forward with anticipation. “No! It’s not that,” he asserted, his tears forgotten. Fuck, Oriel wouldn’t have bothered if it was something like that. “It’s….” He hesitated. “…cleaning the highway.” Which arguably, didn’t sound that much better. Oriel paused for a moment, thinking of anything that might make it more interesting. “….we get to clean up road-kill,” he offered. That was cool for Oriel, but given some of the morbid things Erik had talked about before, and what he was always pasting on his tumblr, Oriel thought it might appeal to the other boy. Maybe.