Author: April
Disclaimer: Nothing has ever been mine before, so why break tradition?
Summary: A story of overwhelming happiness, immense pain, and uncontrollable passion . . . a story of what happens when two people bring each other to life.
Category: Michael and Maria AU
Rating: Mature (sometimes heavy Mature)
Author’s Note: I must say that I am very happy with the way this turned out. I had so much fun writing it, so I hope some people out there enjoy it. I would love feedback! Thanks! Enjoy!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Roswell, New Mexico, 1999
The principal’s office was stuffy. Michael Guerin was suffocating. As if the lack of air weren’t bad enough, there were also the thoughts of his punishment plaguing away at him, too. Would he get suspended for a week? Expelled for the rest of the year?
He looked at the closed door in front of him, knowing that principal Morris was on the other side of that door, talking to someone else, probably expelling him like he did with everyone who came into his office.
It just kept getting stuffier.
As Michael sat there, he thought back to everything that had happened. It had been simple enough. He had been standing at the drinking fountain, just about to get a drink, when Adam Sieffero had come running forward, pushing him aside and unknowingly knocking his books to the ground. Adam had taken a drink for himself, not caring that there was someone else who had been ready to take a drink as well.
Something had snapped. Michael had forgotten about his books and had put all of his attention on Adam, focusing on pounding his fist into the other boy’s face, focusing on making his nose bleed and making him cry so hard that he would hear about it a month into the future.
He had hurt him. He had kept hurting him until two teachers had rushed out of the building and had pulled him away and into the office.
Now he was here, and he was suffocating.
All at once, the door opened to principal Morris’s office and a boy around Michael’s age stepped out, crying. Michael recoiled in the chair, afraid of the evident expulsion in his future.
Principal Morris stepped out afterward and looked around the room as if expecting to see someone else other than Michael. At last, his eyes settled on the recoiling boy and he said in a voice of question, “Michael?”
He stood up slowly, trying his hardest to be brave. He had to do this. There was no backing out now, even if it meant expulsion. Besides, he didn’t exactly have a choice.
He sat down in the chair in front of principal Morris’s desk, listening as the final bell rang and students flooded the halls, laughing and talking and feeling much better than Michael was. He wished he was one of them.
“Michael Guerin,” principal Morris started, “you know, I don’t usually see you in here.”
“I’ve never been in here.”
Principal Morris sighed. “Then what happened? Why are you in here now?”
Michael didn’t want to answer. “I . . .” He trailed off and hung his head, unable to look principal Morris in the eyes as he spoke. “I hit Adam.”
“Why did you hit him?”
“Because he deserved it. I was gonna get a drink, and he just came right up to me and pushed me away so he could get a drink for himself. I was there first.”
“Michael, I realize that isn’t fair, but it was no reason to hit him.”
“But it happens all the time,” Michael continued. “Every day people cut me in line or run into me in the hallway, and they don’t even care.”
“Michael . . .”
“He deserved it.”
Principal Morris sighed again. “Michael, you are a very bright student. You’re only in eighth grade, and I already see scholarly talents in you. I would hate to see that all wasted on . . . on revenge. You’re going somewhere in life, and I want to see you get there.”
He nodded mutely, understanding.
“You have something they don’t have,” principal Morris went on. “You have an overwhelming desire to succeed, and no matter what people say, that’s a good thing. Don’t ever lose that desire, Michael. Don’t ever get side-tracked and lose your priorities.”
He nodded again.
“Now, since this is a first time deal, and since I do, believe it or not, understand your reasons, I’m going to be a little more lenient than I should be.”
“You’re not gonna expel me?”
Principal Morris chuckled and shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’m going to have to suspend you for two days, though.”
Michael breathed a sigh of relief and watched as the principal filled out a paper detailing the reasons behind his two-day suspension.
“I hope I never see you in here again,” principal Morris said, handing Michael a letter to give to his father.
“You won’t,” he assured him, standing up. “I promise, you won’t.” He said good-bye to principal Morris and left the room, suddenly feeling like he could breathe again.
He walked outside just as the buses were leaving, searching for his books. He found them right where he had left them. It was typical that no one had bothered to pick them up.
Some of his assignments were blowing around the school yard. He ran around to collect them before they all blew away and then gathered all of his items together. He checked his planner as he began to leave, mentally reminding himself that he had algebra and geography to do before he watched any TV at home.
As he was walking, he bumped into two people in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, not looking up from his planner. (He usually avoided eye contact with people when possible.) He tried to keep walking, but one of the people in front of him stuck his arm out and stopped him.
Michael looked up slowly, directly into the face of Josh Jones. He was huge, a monster. Next to him was Tess Harding, who was tiny in comparison to Josh. They were a year older than Michael, both freshman at Roswell High. They were notorious for the things they had done, always getting into trouble one way or another.
What are they going to do to me? Michael thought. Are they going to hit me like I hit Adam?
“What’s this, honey?” Tess asked him, pushing his books out of his arms and to the ground. “Please don’t tell me you’re actually studying. Nobody does that anymore.”
Michael watched as his assignments fell out of the pages and floated away in the wind. “My assignments--” he started.
“Who cares?” Josh said. “It’s numbers and letters and paper. It’s not that important.”
Michael wanted to explain to him how important it was, but he didn’t dare.
“You know what else isn’t important?” Josh continued. “This.” He took the note from principal Morris meant for Michael’s father out of Michael’s hand and tore it down the middle.
“I was supposed to give that to my father.”
“Do you always do what you’re supposed to do?” Tess asked him. “You really are a loser.” She laughed a little and added, “But not a complete loser.”
“I have to get home.” Michael tried to move past them, but he didn’t succeed.
“Hey, look man, we saw you today,” Josh said, placing his hands on his shoulders to stop him. “We saw the way you hit that lame-ass prep over by the drinking fountain. I’ll hand it to you, that was some fine work.”
“It was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Tess echoed. “Lemme ask you something. Has a mistake ever felt that good before?”
Michael remained silent, not wanting to let anyone know how good it had felt. No matter what principal Morris or anyone else said, revenge was sweet. After years of taking the punches, it felt good to give a few of his own.
“I know it felt good,” Tess said. “It always feels good to have power.”
“I . . . I’m late for dinner,” he stammered.
“Dinner? It’s only 3:30,” Tess pointed out.
Josh laughed a little. “You’re gonna have to do better than that,” he said. “Look, we’re not gonna leave you alone, so you might as well hear us out, alright?”
Michael nodded slowly.
“You’re a loser,” Josh continued, “a nerd. Whatever you wanna call it, that’s what you are. But you might not be for long.”
“What do you mean?” Michael was surprised to find himself actually intrigued by this possibility. Not being a loser, not having to deal with everything he had had to deal with in his life would be great.
“I mean you could stop caring about school and homework and all those little assignments that just floated away from you. You could stop studying and go partying instead. You could stop following the rules and start breaking ‘em. You could be like us.”
“Like you?”
“Like me,” he confirmed. “See, Tess and I are doing something we rarely do. We’re inviting you in with us. You would have to be stupid not to accept.”
“And you’re not stupid,” Tess said, glancing down at the straight-A papers in his hands. “I’m pretty sure of that.”
“It’s free,” Josh continued. “It’s fun and it’s free and it’s living. No rules, man. No boundaries. What do you say?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Roswell, New Mexico, 2004
He trailed his hand up her bare leg and under her criminally short skirt, causing a groan to escape from her.
“That feels good,” she said. “Michael, that feels so good.” Tess’s eyes clouded over with darkness as she gazed at him, sitting down upon his now enthusiastic self and beginning to move slowly.
Michael leaned back in the chair, letting his arms fall to his sides as she tore open the front of his shirt before leaning down to take his nipple into her mouth.
As much as he enjoyed this, it did not stop him from becoming distracted. His eyes found the clock and he noted the time. Tess was late for work. Whenever she was late, her boss would take her into his office and punish her in a way that Tess actually enjoyed.
“You’re late for work,” he told her, taking her head in his hands and pulling her away.
She let out a sigh, depressed. “I don’t wanna go.”
“You have to.” The statement was the complete truth and the essence of everything that could be called a fact. Tess had been working at a strip club just outside of Roswell ever since she had gotten out of high school. She was beautiful and had a great body, so it did not surprise anyone that guys literally threw money at her when she was on stage.
Michael knew her body. He knew it better than any of the guys at those clubs ever would, better than her boss ever would, but he would never crave it the way they all did. Tess was his best friend, and they screwed around together a lot, but he did not feel a particular way about her, and he was pretty certain that the feeling was mutual.
Hesitantly, she stood up and smoothed her skirt down over her legs, exiting the room the way she had come in, only stopping to check her hair in the mirror. Michael took one look at his shirt when she was gone and came to the conclusion that it was never to be worn again. Nothing could fix a tear like that.
Tess would buy him a new one.
Michael smelled smoke coming from downstairs, so he eagerly found another shirt and made his way down. Josh was sitting on the couch lighting up and watching a porno on TV. Michael sat down beside him and watched as a girl was spanked in her boss’s office just as Tess would be in a short time for showing up late. He held out his hand and Josh passed him a cigarette and his lighter, and Michael started to make himself comfortable.
“What’re you still doin’ here, Michael?” Josh asked him, keeping his eyes locked on the TV screen. “Isn’t it a school night?”
“Aw, fuck you, man,” Michael joked. Josh was right. He did have school in the morning, but he didn’t care. While some kids were home resting up for the big exam, Michael was engaging in some very frowned upon activities.
“I don’t know why you’re still goin’ to school,” Josh commented. “They can’t exactly force you to stay in.”
That much was true. Michael was nineteen. Legally, he didn’t have to go to school anymore, but he was a senior now, due to the fact that he had failed the ninth grade, so . . .
“What the hell, right?” he said with a shrug. “I might as well finish it off.”
Josh laughed a little and shook his head. “Remember how you were thinking about college a few years back? You were so messed up.”
“I know,” Michael agreed. A brief image flashed across his mind, an image of what he had looked like and how he had acted, and he let it disappear. “I know.”
“Things are different now,” Josh continued. “They’re better.”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed with a nod. “A hell of a lot better.”
“And when you finally graduate, they’re gonna be even better,” Josh said.
“I should be outta there already,” Michael said. “If I wouldn’t have been so stoned my freshman year . . .”
Josh stood up. “Seven months, man, and then you and Tess and I are gonna tear it up around here more than we already do.”
“Sounds good.” Michael stretched out on the couch once Josh was gone, thinking about a number of things. In the past, no one had bothered to bring up Michael’s previous days, but with graduation getting closer every day, looming only a few months away, people were talking more and more, especially Tess and Josh. They thought it was funny, witnessing Michael’s transformation, and to an extent, it was, but to another extent, it wasn’t.
Michael’s middle school principal had once said that he saw scholarly talents in Michael.
He had been wrong.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Something was blocking the door to the trailer, keeping Michael from entering when he returned home that night. He pushed on the door somewhat, and it gradually opened. There was a mountain of trash on the other side. Typical.
Hank Guerin, Michael’s father, was sitting in the beat-up recliner with a beer bottle in his hand, struggling to concentrate on the hockey game and not fall asleep. When his son came inside, he turned his head slowly and squinted at him, as if unsure who he was. “Where you been all weekend?” he asked him in a drunken voice.
“Do you care?” Michael asked back, kicking some of the trash aside with his feet.
Hank turned back around so that he was facing the television. “No,” he said quietly.
Michael ignored the reply and made his way down the tiny hallway to his room, tripping over another empty beer bottle on his way. He slammed his door and threw his jacket down on the floor, collapsing on top of his bed. The trailer reeked of beer. It had for as long as Michael could remember. His father had always been this way.
He started thinking again, and he wished that he hadn’t. Once he started, it was hard to stop, and thinking was the kind of thing that could get a guy in trouble, make him question things. He started thinking about what he had. He had a lot. He had his friends. He had . . . well, he didn’t really have anything else, but it was more than he had had when he was in the eighth grade.
So this was really all there was. It was never going to get any better than this.
“What’re you doing?”
Michael turned in surprise and found Tess peeking in through his open window. “Not much,” he said, getting up and opening the window more so that she could come inside. “What exactly are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Yeah,” she said, “but I kinda got fired.”
“WHAT?” he shrieked. “You got fired?”
She nodded simply like it was nothing. “It’s crazy, huh? How could they fire me and my body?”
Michael couldn’t believe this. This was not good. Tess was the income, she was the cash. “We needed that job,” he told her.
“We?” she echoed in question. “I don’t think I recall seeing you wrapped around that pole every night.”
He sighed. “You know what I mean. Josh is gonna be pissed when you tell him you can’t buy his cigarettes anymore.”
Tess gave him a confused look. “I’ll get another job,” she said. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“It is a big deal,” Michael said. “It is.”
Tess’s confusion grew. “What’s your problem, Michael?” she asked him. “You’re acting stressed or something.”
“What do I have to be stressed about?” He sat back down on his bed, ignoring Tess’s questioning gaze.
“Something’s up with you,” she said. “Maybe you’re not stressed, but something’s weird.”
“How so?”
“Well, for starters,” Tess said, “I’ve been in your room for at least a minute now, and I’ve still got all my clothes on.”
Michael looked up slowly to see Tess taking off her shirt, nothing underneath. “If you won’t undress me,” she said, sitting down on his lap, “then I’ll undress myself.” She took his hand in hers and placed it on her breast, urging him to excite her as she pressed her body down on his and worked with getting his shirt off again. She didn’t tear it off this time, but it was gone just as fast, along with the rest of his clothes.
She laid down on the bed and he brought her skirt down over her hips. Soon enough, the smell of their sex began to permeate the room.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Michael,” she said through gasps as they moved together, “but you better not ever get side-tracked and lose your priorities.”
Michael stopped moving slightly. The sentence brought up a memory, a memory of that fateful day when he had hit that damn Adam kid by the drinking fountain and received those words from the principal, and later the invitation from Tess and Josh.
“Come on, Michael. Fuck me.”
He snapped back into reality and looked at the disappointed and confused girl beneath him, unsure of whether to continue or not.
He pulled out of her to her shock and laid back on the bed, reaching up to turn off the light before she had time to ask questions.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael felt Tess slip out of bed the next morning. He pretended to be asleep as she gathered her clothes and crawled out the window. When he was sure she was gone, he got out of bed and got dressed himself, knowing quite well that he was going to be hearing about the lack of sex that had taken place between them from Tess that coming night.
He made his way out into the tiny kitchen, surprised to find that his father was awake. Usually he was passed out in his chair. Today, he was eating breakfast . . . and drinking some more beer.
Michael opened the refrigerator and peered inside. It was virtually empty. There was a jar of mustard and a few slices of cheese and an expired carton of milk along with a few more beer bottles, but nothing more.
“I need you to go to the store today,” Hank said in a slurred voice. “Get some food and get me some more beer.”
“Get your own beer.”
“No,” Hank protested. “You go. You go and get it for me.”
Michael sighed, exasperated. He reached into the refrigerator and grabbed one of the last remaining bottles. He turned and threw it at the wall, barely missing his father’s head. “There’s your beer, dad!” he shouted angrily. “There’s your fuckin’ beer!” He slammed the refrigerator and made his way to the door.
“You’re useless,” Hank grumbled before he could leave.
“Take a look in the mirror.”
He arrived at school fifteen minutes late, and when he walked into the building, the principal stopped him. This guy was different than principal Morris was. He hated Michael and was looking forward to graduation day with every part of his being.
“Mr. Guerin, what time does school start?”
Michael sighed, exasperated. “I don’t know,” he said honestly.
“You used to.”
Michael felt his hands clenching into fist, and he had every desire in the world to punch this guy in the face. “I don’t need a reminder, okay?” he shouted. “Just . . .” He was trying hard to think of something damaging to say, something that might possibly get him in trouble just for the hell of it, but he couldn’t. “Just leave me alone.” He pushed past the principal and made his way to his first class.
“Nice of you to show up,” his teacher said when he walked inside and sat down at a desk in the back of the room.
His teacher droned on and on, and he felt himself starting to think again. He thought about eighth grade and everything before it. He had not been happy then, but he wasn’t exactly happy now, either.
But apparently this was a good as it got. There was nothing else. He had told himself that dozens of times now, but he still didn’t want to believe it.
An assignment was passed back and fell on top of Michael’s desk. He took one look at it and knew nothing of what it was talking about.
You used to, a little voice in his head was saying. You used to do assignments and get a 100% grade on all of them.
None of the questions made sense. It was practically like a foreign language to him. He stared at the paper for a long time, but he still didn’t know what to write down.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up and pushed his entire desk to the ground as his anger took him over. Everyone turned back and gave him strange looks, and his teacher started yelling at him to come back when he left the room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he heard the principal ask him. He ignored everyone who tried to stop him and left the school the way he had come in. He couldn’t take much more of this. All of these reminders, all of this talk about his life . . . it was making him think about things too much.
TBC . . .
Okay, so I know it starts off a little strangely, but I promise that things will be picking up in the next parts. I hope someone is interested!
