Work Text:
Bzzzzzt
A message lit the screen of Riley’s phone, it shook his bed lightly. It was only 8 p.m., though the pitch black sky would have one believe otherwise. Of course, Riley had been in bed since school got out at 2:15. His heart skipped a beat when he heard the buzz. He only keeps notifications on for one person, Chaz.
“Party at 9?”, it read.
“It’s either that or I lay here for the rest of the night”, Riley thought. “Why not.”
“Sure, you driving?”, he sent back sarcastically. Just last week he failed his driver’s test again and still had a whole month to go until he could take it again. He knew he’d probably never get his license. His parents would get sick of paying for the tests sooner or later. Riley shook the thought out of his head and rolled out of bed to begin getting ready.
Not even five minutes had passed when another message appeared, “Coming? Thought we could hang out a bit before going in :)” Riley’s fur stood up and he rushed downstairs to get his shoes on. He’d known Chaz since elementary school, and wasn’t really sure where this nervousness had come from. He fumbled at the laces of his shoes before giving up, per usual. Knots had always given him trouble. He shoved them into his shoes, hoping Chaz wouldn’t notice. Chaz waved from the driver’s seat of his car as soon as he saw Riley open the door. Riley smiled at him awkwardly, walking up to the car. Upon opening the door, he was hit with a familiar smell, but not one he would have expected from Chaz.
“Chaz..”, Riley began, but the look on Chaz’s face told him Chaz knew this question was coming.
“They asked me to pick up some beers for the party. I swear I haven’t had one yet.”, Chaz explained.
“Yet?! How about you don’t have one at all? Chaz, you’re 17. I’m 17. This isn’t something we can get caught with.” Riley hated to have to be the mean one, but he seriously couldn’t have his parents finding out about this. They were already mad enough about his grades and the fact he still couldn’t drive himself to school.
“I’m sorry, Riley. It’s just that some of my brother’s friends from BU will be there. I’m trying to get on their good side before I start college this fall. Besides, no one saw me picking it up. I swear.”
“Just drive, Chaz”, Riley sighed. BU? He couldn’t even dream of going to college. What kind of manic willingly signs up for four more years of school?
Just as soon as the car started moving, freezing cold gusts of air rushed in through the cracked windows. Chaz never rolls them up. His fur is thick enough that he doesn’t even notice it’s frigid out. When he turned to see Riley shivering he let out a quick “Sorry..” and rolled them all up. Riley blushed at the fact that Chaz cared enough to do that. There weren’t a lot of people in his life that gave him that much attention, or any attention at all.
When they arrived at the house around 8:20, they still had time to kill. Riley plugged his phone into the car to put on some music, and Chaz pushed his seat back slightly to get more comfortable. Riley looked over at him, just admiring. “Why does he even hang out with me?”, he thought, “What does Mr. Straight A’s, bright future, loving family see in me? What am I even going to do when he ends up being all successful and I’m on the streets, or worse, still living with my parents?”
“I love this song.”, Chaz piped up, breaking Riley from his trance. “Fuck, how long was I staring at him?”, Riley thought. It was almost 9 so clearly quite some time.
“Do you wanna go in now?”, Riley asked.
“Oh, shoot, yea,” Chaz said, un-buckling himself. He had also just noticed the time. “I’m sorry to ask, Riley, but there are 10 cases of beer in the trunk. Would you mind?”
“Yea, I don’t mind,” Riley lied. They both carried one case in each of their paws, but Chaz took one of Riley’s as well when he noticed he was struggling to carry two at once.
“Fucking finally!”, a frat-boy voice yelled from the open door. “Dudes, party’s already started. Get in here!” The guy then gestured to some people inside the house who promptly sped out to grab the rest of the beer.
The front door led straight into the living room which reeked of weed. With his free hand Riley covered his mouth and nose.
“I know it doesn’t help with the smell, but I promise you can’t get high off second-hand smoke, so don’t worry about that,” Chaz whispered to Riley to reassure him.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Riley questioned.
“If it gets too much, my brother said there’s a room upstairs they’re leaving to the high-schoolers.”
“I’m sorry I’m ruining this for you,” Riley sighed.
“No, man, not at all. I only know a handful of people here. Once I say hi to them I won’t have anything left to do. I’m glad you’re here.” He looked down at Riley’s melancholy face. Riley met his gaze, but was slightly thrown aback by the fact that he had to raise his head at all to look Chaz in the eyes. Ever since Chaz hit his second growth spurt he’s seemed so much scarier to Riley, more adult, more mature. A part of Riley even liked how small and fragile he felt standing next to Chaz, though he’d never say it out loud. Riley imagined how easy it would be for Chaz to overpower him, and the thought sent an excited shiver through his whole body. His daydreaming was interrupted when he smacked directly into a huge guy who had to be at least 24.
“Yo, watch where the fuck you’re going. Almost made me drop my shit,” the doberman barked, some powder falling off of the dollar bill tilted towards his nose. Chaz pulled Riley away, his claws accidentally digging into Riley’s arm. The sharp pain that shot through Riley’s body brought him back into his daydreams. He imagined how helpless he would be if Chaz randomly turned on him, how easily he could just tear him apart like some sort of helpless prey. When he finally snapped out of it, he noticed that Chaz was nowhere to be seen.
“Fuck,” he thought to himself as he started looking around for where Chaz could have gone. He walked into the kitchen where his ears were accosted by some awful heavy metal blaring from a JBL speaker on the counter. A red solo cup filled with an unfamiliar liquid was then forced into his paws. He looked up to see who had given it to him, but the kitchen was so filled with smoke it fogged up his contacts. At the very least he could tell from the brown fur it wasn’t Chaz so it didn’t matter to him.
“Woah, you gonna be ok, man?” the guy said, which confused Riley until he breathed in more deeply and realized the smoke surrounding him was from catnip. He rushed over to the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror. His eyes were completely dilated, and be it by the catnip or the placebo effect, he was already starting to feel it. The door that Riley forgot to lock was pushed open and Chaz walked in.
“I thought I’d find you here. My brother told me there were some boardgames in that room I told you about if you wanna play something.” Riley stumbled over to Chaz without saying a word and the two went upstairs together. The room wasn’t hard to find. A piece of paper with the word “highschoolers” written on it in pencil was lazily taped onto the door. They walked in and saw no one else was using the room. There were, in fact, boardgames, but nothing name-brand. The room seemed to belong to the younger sibling of whoever’s party this was. A large bed rested in the corner of the room. There was no curtain on the adjacent window and the hard rain that began not long after they had arrived pelted it head-on.
“Nice, a guitar!” Chaz blurted out as he ran over to grab the wooden instrument resting against the closet door. Riley schlepped over to the bed and slammed his face into the soft mattress, letting out a long sigh. Chaz ran over to the bed and hopped up, grabbing Riley’s shoulders and pulling him fully onto it. He tuned the guitar and when he finished, he began to play some basic chords from songs the two of them knew. Riley sat up and listened, intrigued. After a few minutes Chaz got bored and set the guitar down against the bedframe. Chaz lifted his arms above his head and stretched. Riley couldn’t help but stare. The catnip was still running through his system and he felt unable to control himself. He rested a paw on Chaz’s chest.
“Are you ok, Riley?” Chaz asked, confused.
“Please, Chaz, I need you,” Riley shouted as he shoved Chaz backwards onto the bed. Riley purred and rubbed against Chaz’s chest. When he began to move his head lower, grabbing at the strap on Chaz’s pants, Chaz shoved him away.
“Riley, what the hell are you doing?!” Chaz yelled. This shocked Riley so badly he began to think more clearly and realized what he had done. “You gotta sober the fuck up, man. I’m not doing this.” Riley’s stomach dropped and he scrambled to get out of the room. His heart was racing as he ran throughout the house to get to the door. He ignored the stares from the others at the party. They didn’t matter. Nothing did.
Riley slid on his shoes and whipped the front door open. He had no ride home and his house was a twenty-minute walk away. He didn’t care. He just ran. The streets were dead silent. The flickering street-lamps didn’t even phase Riley like they normally would on such a dark night. As he began to approach his house he tripped on one of his shoelaces which had since fallen out from his shoe. His arm got caught on the fence in front of his house as he fell. The sharp top of the gate tore a long, agonizing gash from the top of his arm to his wrist which bled instantly. Riley couldn’t feel it, not one bit. He fumbled at the lock of the door for a moment before shoving it open. His parents still weren’t home. They never were. He ran to the bathroom.
Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Riley bawled up his paws. He let his claws dig into his palms, pushing harder even when he felt his skin begin to tear. He couldn’t feel anything, his brain was too occupied with terrible thoughts to accept the pain signals. He knew could never take back what he did. He also knew he didn’t want to. “How much of that was the catnip and how much of that was me?” he wondered. He couldn’t shut his brain up. How could he ever face Chaz again after that? In an act of rage he punched the mirror which broke on impact. Large glass shards fell and sliced open his paw. The sharp pains broke through his thoughts, silenced his screaming mind. He picked up an especially large shard and began to saw at his arm.
“Why couldn’t he have just felt the same way?”