Austin's POV
"Just think about it Carlile." Ronnie sighed.
"You're insane you know that?" I scoffed, finally getting my ass up off the floor. "You honestly think, after everything you've done, I'm going to come crawling back to you? Just so you can use me as a pawn all over again to destory other people's lives?"
"Oh come on Austin, no need to be like that, it's just a bit of fun." Ronnie shrugged carelessly. "Remember all the fun we had? Remember how it made you feel so much better, and good about yourself?"
"Fun? FUN?! You call destorying people's lives, making them want to end their lives, making them feel worthless and broken...fun?! What the hell is wrong with you? You need your head checked! Yeah okay, I used to be one of you, you made me one of you, you fed on my insecurties, my anger, my weaknesses and turned me into a not-as-bad version of you! But you know, Alan...he made me realise that what I was doing...it wasn't the answer. He made me realise what a huge mistake I'd made and that I'd rather be one of the one's you beat on, or try to ruin, then be the one to beat and ruin other people! And then you...you destoryed him, you destoryed us, you knew what sending him that video would do to him and since you've been using me as your personal punching bag! So yeah, you really need your head checked if you think for even a second I'm going to be one of your minions again."
Ronnie let out a dark chuckle from the back of his throat. "Oh Austin I don't think you quite get it, I'm not giving you a choice here. It's either you come back to us, or that little ginger is going to pay in ways you can't even imagine! My first step would be to tell everyone about his little suicide attempt."
My eyes went wide. "Wait, how did you even-"
"Know? Quite simple really, a friend of my dad's is a nurse at the hospital. She mentioned to him in passing that someone from my school was in hospital, she didn't give a name, but she said the kid was ginger. She was asking incase it was one of my friends and I wanted to know. So naturally, my father asked me if I had a friend, that was ginger and suddenly stopped going to school. Of course, the answer was no, butttt I said yes anyway out of curiosity, which is when he told me that his friend mentioned he was in hospital, in a bad way. Now, there's only about five, six gingers in the entire school, and given Alan didn't show up to school around that time, it wasn't hard to work out who exactly it was. Then considering he said the kid was in a bad way, and it was the day after I sent that little video, anddd the fact that even an idiot could see Alan was that type of person, it really wasn't rocket science." Ronnie held a smirk on his face that made me feel sick to my stomach.
"There is something seriously wrong with you Radke! You're now seriously trying to use Alan against me? You know damn well that even though you ruined us I'd do anything to protect him and you're seriously trying to use that against me?"
"Don't hate the player, hate the game."
"Oh get lost Radke, go find a ditch and rot in it will you, that's all your worth." I shook my head and went to walk past him, but he grabbed my wrist stopping me.
"You're clearly upset and not thinking straight here Carlile, I don't think you realise just what I'm capable of and what I'm going to do to that poor little ginger. So, I'm going to be nice, I'll let you run along home and sleep on it, and at ten to nine, just before the warning bell rings, you will meet me by my locker and be one of us again. And if you choose not to meet me there, then whatever happens to Alan, is on you." And with that Ronnie walked off, leaving me angry and fustrated.
What was I going to do? If I went back to Ronnie, I'd not only be as miserable as sin, I would blow even the tinest bit of hope of me and Alan even speaking again. He would hate me forever, more then he already does, every day I would see a look of disgust in his eyes and I'd never be able to live with myself, hell I'm struggling to do that as it is. The plus side of it was, I'd protect Alan.
On the other side, I could tell Ronnie to go do one, I'd keep my pride, I'd keep the promises I made about not hurting another soul, about not being that guy again, I'd still have that tinest bit of hope. However, Alan would get hurt, so much more then he already has, and I swore to protect him, no matter what. I'd be braking the promise I made to him, and to myself. I could do my best to defend him, to protect him, but I wouldn't be able to stop it completely.
I ran my hands through my hair fustrated and that's when I realised, I had a third option, an option I should've taken the first time around.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Alan's POV
Soon as I got home from my session, all I could do was lay on my bed and cry, it felt like I was back to square one again. I though the talk, getting closure was supposed to make it better, but it only made me worse. I'd managed to stop crying, just long enough to be driven home by my nana but soon as she and my granddad left for their Monday night activities, I broke down again.
Everything Austin said replayed in my head over and over again, with Karen's words at the end every time before looping back to when I met him outside the office. A part of my wished he said something that would've made me hate him, a part of me wished that Karen hadn't told me how it was clear that he was in love with me, and I him, and how she believed his words where true. But as much as I might wish, his words only made the pain worse. The look in his eyes when he spoke, the pain he carried, the regret he felt, the hate he felt towards himself for his mistake, it was all etched on his face, there for the world to see, and now I thought about it, it's the same looks he'd worn since it all happened.
But knowing all this, made it so much harder, because, while there was no denying, his intentions at first where solely to destory me, to hurt me, to turn me into nothing, to rip away the last few pieces I had of myself, his intentions had genuinely changed quickly. He really did fall in love with me, everything he said to me was true, if you give or take a few things at the start, and his intentions changed from hurting me, to loving me, and protecting me. But yet...he still lied to me, he still kept such an awful truth from me and left me to find out how I did and have it end the way it did. And that's what made it so much harder, if the whole thing, from start to finish had been a lie, all my memories would've become tainted, and I could've hated him and moved on. But it wasn't the case, not at all.
However, I couldn't help but think, think of how he had promised to protect me, to look out for me, to have my back, but the one time, the one time he could've done that, and should've, he left me defenceless and alone. He could've saved me, saved us with the truth, but yet he didn't, and that was what was screwing me up so badly. Was I being too harsh? Too unfair? Was it really fair on me to expect Austin to protect me at all times, to save me? After all, Austin was human, and I, like anyone know's that all human's make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are small, but then sometimes those mistakes are castistrophic, but they're still mistakes in the end. Was he honestly just trying to do what he thought was best and find away to stop Ronnie before he told me?
My thoughts where interrupted by a loud banging on the front door, I knew it wouldn't be my grandparents, one, they had keys, two, my granddad wouldn't be back from his poker for another hour and a half, and Nana wouldn't be back until granddad was, because he always picked her up from her friends on his way home, so, I decided to ignore it.
"Alan open up!" A faint voice which caused my heart to feel as if someone held a strangle hold around it rung in the air. "Please, it's important! I need to speak to you."
I wiped my eyes on my hoodie and silently crept down the stairs, I didn't want anything to signal I was home, because I still wasn't sure if I was even going to answer the door.
"Alan, please I'm begging you, I-I know I'm the last person you want to see, or speak to right now, but it's important. Y-You don't have to say a word to me, you don't even have to look at me...just, just hear me out please."
I took a deep breath, and slowly made my way to the door. It almost felt like with every step I took towards the door, time slowed down as with one step, I wanted to turn around and run back upstairs, but with the next I wanted to open the door, see his face and hear his voice. Finally my hand reached for the door handle, slowly pulling it down and opening the door, to reveal a worried Austin standing at the door. "What do you want?" I managed to choke out.
"It's...it's about Ronnie, I really need to speak to you, c-can I come in? I promise I'll make it quick." His eyes met mine, the desperation and plea clear as day. I let out a small sigh before nodding and moving out of the way to let him in.
"Uh, let's go into the lounge." I spoke quitely before shutting the door and heading towards the living room and taking a seat on the couch. "So, what about Ronnie."
Instantly Austin told me everything that happened after he left Karen's office, how Ronnie found him in the alley way near by, and everything he said, including the fact that Ronnie knew about my suicide attempt and how. I wish I could say I was suprised, but I really wasn't, I don't think anything like this could suprise me when it came to Ronnie. Austin may not be innocent, but next to the likes of Ronnie, he looked like a saint.
"I-I just don't know what to do." Austin chewed on the inside of his cheek, it was a sign that he was holding back tears of his own.
"Do you want to go back? To how things where before you met me?"
"No, never! I never want to be that guy again Alan, a-and I really don't want things to go back to how they where before I met you. They can't, and even if they could, I don't want that. B-But...I do want to protect you, a-and if this is the only way I can..."
"Don't." I shook my head. "D-Don't go back, don't make yourself miserable just to protect me. Let Ronnie do his worst to me, because I honestly don't think he could top what he's already done to me, to you, to us. So...let him, let him tell everyone about my suicide attempt, I honestly don't think people would be suprised, I mean come on, I'm the damn poster boy for sterotypical depressed, self harming kids. Don't...Don't do it for my sake, please."
"I-I swore to protect you Alan, no matter what."
"But I don't want you to protect me if that means hurting yourself...I-I couldn't live with myself if I let you do it and I had to see you every day, hurting, hating yourself. It's painful enough as it is."
"I can't watch you get hurt Alan, I've already hurt you enough, I-I can't see you go through more pain, y-you don't deserve it."
"I'm a big boy Austin, and honestly? I really don't think I could hurt more then I have the past few weeks, so just...don't do it for my sake, please, let Ronnie do what he will, I can take it." I urged, though I wasn't quite sure who I was trying to convince, Austin, or myself. The only thing I did know, is I didn't want to see Austin go back to Ronnie for my sake, the rest, well, I could only put it down to wishful thinking.
"You don't know what Ronnie's capable of..."
"Austin, please." I looked up at him, pleadingly. "Look what happened last time you thought you where doing the right thing, trying to protect me from Ronnie. No matter what you do Austin...you can't protect me from him. There's nothing stopping him from using you and still coming after me, can you honestly trust he'll hold up his end of the deal?"
Austin paused for a moment, then shook his head. "No, no I can't."
"So then what would be the point in hurting yourself, trying to protect me, when the reality is...." And that's when it hit me like a freight train...Austin couldn't protect me, not from Ronnie, even if Ronnie hadn't of had Austin as a weapon before, he would've found another way. And that's all Austin had been, a pawn in some screwed up game to try and tear me down. None of this was his fault, he was simply a guy who had been used, and then tried to fix it before it was too late. But in doing that, he made a small mistake, and all this time, I had blamed him for something that wasn't his fault. The reality of that was, in this sick game of Ronnie's, we found each other, and we made each other happy, we fell in love but we where fighting in a war, caught up in sick little games and because we didn't see it before, we let Ronnie win. "you can't, because someone like him will find away. So please, please don't make the same mistake again. If you want to protect me..."
"What? Tell me what I can do Alan please." He begged. "I-I'd do anything."
"Stay with me."
A/N: I'm just going to leave this chap right here :P hehehehe
And this chap is dedicated to barraboner as an apology for making you cry and screwing with your emotions :D
Ohhh and FYI, I'm getting myself realllly confused with all these dedications, totally loosing track of who I have dedicated a chap too, and who I haven't. Soooooo if you haven't had a chap dedicated to you yet, but you're always commenting/voting on this fic, please feel free to give me a gentle kick up the butt and be like 'hey bitch, where's my chap?!' hahaha! Honestly I couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery even if I tried >_<