Fic: The Kids in York (1/7)
Apr. 29th, 2012 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aeroport_artTitle: The Kids in York (1/7)
Characters: Marcus/Esca, Liathan, Cottia, Uncle Aquila, etc.
Rating: Eventual NC-17
Warnings: high school AU so the boys are 16/17
Word Count: 46k (8,400 this part)
Summary: Cottingswood High, Yorkshire. You get all kinds, but as someone who's bounced around Child Services, has a hot-headed chav for a best friend, and gets mistaken for a girl by the daft new student in History, Esca MacCunoval is not your ordinary kid.
PART ONE: Marcus is a Right Fockin’ Naff Who Needs a Hard Slap to the Face For Thinking ‘Esca’ is a Girl’s Name
"There's an open seat next to Esca."
No shitting way, Esca thinks, crossing his arms over his chest. He slouches low as he can go and gives an obstinate glare to Mr. Dorsen, who blithely ignores him as he ushers the new kid—some guy named Marcus, transferring from Rome, who's wearing bloody Lacoste and khaki shorts that show his fucking knees because he's either an eight year old boy from the 1920's or the age of Esca's grandpa—towards Esca's row.
Goddamn it. The empty desk to Esca's left was hard-earned; after months of Ronald "I'm rugby captain and you're just a shrimp, Shrimp" poking and prodding at Esca's arm, flicking his ear or throwing spitballs to the side of his face, Esca had finally lost his temper and framed the shit-for-brains bully in a bit of vandalism to the headmaster's Maserati. Got ol' Ron suspended from school 'til the end of the term, which means that empty seat? Is Esca's. He won the window view to the schoolyard, fair and square.
Too late, though. The new kid's picking his way over, snagging his big feet on snaking straps of rucksacks, smacking Shirley Donaldson in the back of her head with a clumsy elbow, aiming straight for Esca.
Esca determinedly faces away. The rest of the class might be watching on like drooling morons, but Esca never does what everyone does. He's his own man, aye.
Behind him, he hears:
"Hi, Esca?"
Judging from the looks on everyone's faces, something's awry. Esca snaps around, only to see—
Marcus is trying to shake hands with Marjorie Haber, who he has clearly mistaken for Esca.
"Oi!" he barks.
Marcus falters, turning to the sound of Esca's voice.
"I'm Esca, you fuckin’ naff!"
"Oh, I thought..." Marcus trails off, looking uncertainly at Marjorie again. She's giggling through her fingers, as is the rest of the class.
"Language, Mr. MacCunoval," the teacher wearily reminds him. Ent the first time. Won't be the last, neither.
"I'm Esca, you blithering idiot," he amends peaceably.
Marcus flushes, drawing a gleeful smile out of Esca. Serves him right, thinking Esca's a fucking bird. Fuck that.
The new kid swipes up his bag and moves down a row, squeezing between Esca's knees and the back of Harry Emerson's chair to claim the empty desk. He’s too big for it though, arms and legs spilling over like an overstuffed pie. An elbow catches the side of Esca’s head as Marcus settles in.
Esca goggles, appalled. Just stares as Marcus goes about unzipping his rucksack, pulling out a canvas pencil case and wide-ruled notebook. The class settles down, and Mr. Dorsen starts his lecture on the Thirty Years War. That's when Esca leans in.
"Psst."
Marcus twitches a bit, like there's a fly buzzing near his ear.
"Hey," Esca says, poking Marcus in the bicep with the rubber on the end of his pencil. "I know you can hear me."
"I'm trying to pay attention," Marcus says irritably. He has a funny accent, slow vowels and liquid drawl. Sure doesn't sound like a Mario Brother, or nothing.
Whatever. "You mistake me for a girl again, I'll end you." There. Suitably threatening, if Esca doesn't mind saying so.
Only, Marcus doesn't seem that threatened. He rolls his eyes and whispers back, eyes glued to the front of the classroom all the while, "Okay, shrimp."
Oh, that's it.
Esca is gonna end him.
-----
That is, if the rest of the boys in his year weren't trying to end Esca first.
"Eat shite, you pint-sized fudge packer—"
A foot makes its way into Esca's stomach, making him crumple to his knees, the grit of the tarmac digging through his jeans.
"You lost us our captain, you little shit," Kirby shouts. At least, Esca thinks it's Kirby, but the lot of them sound the same, don't they? Also, his ears are ringing.
"Yeah, well," Esca spits. Fuck, that's blood right there. "You lot haven't won a fucking match in years now, have you? So no great loss, yeah?"
Another kick makes a desperate attempt to unscramble Esca's intestines. Bloody ow. The concrete flies up to his chin, and Esca stifles a groan.
"Had enough, yet? For a four-foot wanker, you sure run your mouth off—"
Esca throws an arm out and snags the bottom of the closest trouser leg. A hard yank fells the footballer like a fucking Douglas fir.
"Tim-ber," Esca singsongs, even as his voice is faint and his vision's swimming with odd little bursts of fluorescent light.
After that's just a scuffle of noise, the cretins—how many are there, Jesus fuckin' Christ—go at him all at once. Esca's had the shit kicked out of him plenty of times; he makes up for his smaller stature with savage words, the combination meaning he's got to scrap his way out a fight on a regular basis. Can't win 'em all, neither.
The flashing lights behind his eyelids are gone now, he just sees red, just feels the dull, repeated ache of swift kicks pummeling him from all sides as he—
-----
When he comes to, the first thing he sees is the goomba. What was his name again? Mark. Marcus.
"Wha—" Oh, ow. Bloody hurts to talk. Esca settles for a pathetic groan.
"Stop moving," Marcus chides softly, but the hands on Esca's shoulders are firm. He chuckles lowly. "Wow, they kicked the shit out of you."
"Observant fellow," Esca glares. His glare then goes beyond Marcus' shoulder. He doesn't recognize the wall behind him, with the framed photos and the edge of a wooden desk, an Apple Powerbook propped open.
Whoa, whoa. "Where the fuck am I?" Esca asks, struggling to sit up, thin blanket sliding down his chest. Marcus just shoves him back on the bed though, and that hurts even more. Esca curls on his side, the one that aches a little less, and drags the blanket up to his chin, manfully stifling a whimper.
He hears Marcus sigh over him. "You're in my room."
"What are you, a fucking pervert or something?" Under the covers, Esca rubs a foot against his opposite shin—okay good, trousers still on. But maybe Marcus is a romantic pervert who likes to take it slow. If he's anything like that Berlusconi bloke, Esca better make sure he's on guard, bloody Italians and their roaming hands.
As if sensing Esca's thoughts, Marcus hits him on the shoulder.
"What the fuck!?"
"I brought you back here so you wouldn't get suspended."
Esca rolls over just far enough to give Marcus a cautious look. With just one eye, cos his other one's swollen shut.
Marcus continues, "I got those guys to back off, but they swore you'd get in trouble anyway. That if the teachers found out you'd gotten into another fight, you were suspended for sure. So...I dumped you in my backseat and went home."
Esca blinks. "In a car?"
"No, in a golden chariot.”
Esca generously chooses to ignore Marcus’ tone. “Bloody hell, you’ve got a car?”
“Yes, I do,” Marcus says slowly. “What about it?”
"Who the fuck in secondary has a vehicle? How old are you, anyway?"
“Just turned seventeen,” Marcus replies, looking uncomfortable. “Had to retake a year.” Marcus shifts in his seat. That's when Esca notices he's sitting so close, hand planted right next to Esca's hip. He suddenly feels very hot.
"Yeah, all right. Whatever, so you’re not the brightest bulb,” Esca rambles, as Marcus sends him a weird look. Oh shit, his gut was right, wasn't it? His arse is in danger. Esca clenches his cheeks together in alarm.
“Either way I'm not a bloody fag, you know," he says pre-emptively. "No matter what everyone says. I like cunt, yeah?"
Marcus frowns. "God, you've got a rotten mouth. No wonder people beat the shit out of you."
"Go fuck your mum."
Marcus snorts in disgust, then stands up, making the mattress rise up behind Esca's back. God, he doesn't even know why he says things like that. They just come out, yeah? Can't stop the words that burble out of him sometimes.
Marcus ent a psychic though, can't tell Esca doesn’t mean to be such a bitch. Marcus claps the lid of his laptop shut, like maybe he was on it earlier when Esca was passed out.
"I'm doing my homework in another room,” Marcus says, picking up his rucksack. “Let me know when you can stand up without puking all over my carpet. I'll take you home." He turns and strides towards the far end of the large room, where the doorway is.
The back of his orange polo shirt is tucked into the waistband of his khakis. No—his skivvies. The white "Calvin Klein" logo is perfectly clear, even from fifteen feet. Esca has to bite his tongue not to say something bitchy. Says instead, "Marcus."
Marcus pauses by the door. Turns around and fixes Esca with a wary expression. "What?" he asks.
"How'd you get Ronald's little pep squad off my arse?"
For a while, Esca thinks Marcus won't say anything, cos he's just staring at him. Esca suddenly realizes he can't be looking too pretty right now. After all, he can only see out of one eye, his whole jaw hurts when he tries to talk, and there’s the metallic taste of blood on his tongue from the cut on his mouth. He's got to be swollen all over, like a lumpy mattress that needs a good beating. Though that's the last thing Esca needs.
Marcus says nothing. Just blinks, once. Esca feels the sudden urge to hide under the covers. Doesn't though, which is good cos otherwise he'd miss it, when Marcus lifts his right hand, the back of it facing Esca so that Esca can see—
Marcus' knuckles are red and swollen and split, kinda like Esca's lower lip.
Beyond that, Marcus' face is tanned and in pristine condition. His teeth, too, are bloody bright when he cracks open a slow, triumphant smile.
Esca can't help it, then. He smiles back at the nutter.
-----
Esca doesn't know he's passed out again until he's being woken up. Warm hand making little shakes on his shoulder. Marcus' big face swimming into view.
"Whassat?" Esca snuffles, wiping the back of his hand across his nose.
"Want dinner?"
Esca blinks. Oh, and both eyes open, too; swelling must've gone down a bit.
"Time's it?" he asks blearily.
"It's eight. We're having chicken."
When he says it, Esca can smell it. Smells fucking delicious, all grease and butter and herbs filling the room like the best fucking potpurri he's ever smelled. His stomach gurgles quietly.
"Nah," Esca says, sitting up in Marcus' bed. He's stiff all over and his left side hurts like someone drove a lorry into it—rib or two's got to be broken, fuck. "No, take me home."
Marcus stopped shaking him awhile ago, but his hand's still on Esca's shoulder, he's only now noticing. It's heavy, and starting to warm through Esca's ratty t-shirt. Marcus takes his hand away.
"Sure. Just let me get my keys."
-----
Marcus drives a second-hand hatchback. Second-hand, Esca thinks, cos the car is fucking doddery, square-edged with ripped upholstery. Still, it's a smooth ride, like Marcus knows that every bump and jostle on the road is rattling straight through Esca's bruised bones.
It's gotten dark out. They don't speak. Marcus doesn't know the streets that well, so Esca mumbles out directions every so often, just when it matters. Make a left here; watch for the pot-hole there. All the while, he watches Marcus' hand on the gear stick, confident and sure as he puts it in higher gear, or changes down to a crawl.
Slows down to a stop.
"This it?"
Esca jerks his head up, hoping he wasn't caught looking. Looks out the window instead, and yeah, that's his fucking drive. Robert's '99 Focus parked on the dead lawn, yep, that's them all right.
"Keep going," he says, two fingers swinging back and forth, urging Marcus on.
The car rolls forward, slow and unsure.
"Yeah, yeah. This is good." They're half a block down, cos Esca doesn't want Marcus accidentally meeting the foster parents, if "parents" could be a word ascribed to the navel-gazing, waste-of-space asswipes of Jeannine and her mangy husband, Robert. Yeah, no. Esca'll take a pass on that, thank you very much.
With a little difficulty, Esca gets out of the car.
Marcus wraps his arm around the headrest of the empty seat and cranes forward, peering out the passenger door. "You sure this is it?"
Fuck. Out of the corner of his eye, Esca can see the porch light of his house flicker on. The peeling-painted white door swings open, Jeannine in her blue dressing gown stepping out.
"You think I don't know where I bloody live?" Esca snaps.
Under the wan light of the overhead car bulb, Marcus frown is etched in shadow. "Forget it."
Esca swings a proper look over his shoulder, and shit, Jeannine's recognized him now. He makes to close the door, hearing Marcus rock back to his side of the car with a creak of old leather, but then Esca finds himself hesitating for no proper reason. Just—it seems weird, yeah, breaking it off like this. Feels like Esca ought to...fuck, he doesn't know. Like he oughtta do something or say something. Like a thank you, maybe?
"You closing the door or what?" Marcus says, sounding grumpy.
"Yeah, sorry." Esca closes the door with a weird, half-aborted move, finally shutting it the final two inches with a hard whump.
Marcus peels away, filling the air with an obnoxious screech, the smell of burnt rubber lingering after it.
"Esca!" Just as shrill, Jeannine's voice pierces the evening calm.
Fuck.
-----
The next day is bloody hell, his body throbbing all over like he was something cold wrapped in rubber bands, then thrust into the tropics of India only to bloat uncomfortably in his constricting clothes.
"That's disgusting," Liathan sneers. "You blow up all over me, get your nasty innards on my Louie Baton kicks, I rip your fucking throat out."
"You retarded or summat? I'd be dead already."
"Yeah well, I make you extra dead."
Liathan's a fucking retard sometimes, but he's interesting enough. Plus, they both love Argy Bargy, so there's always that.
When the bell rings, signaling first period, they both swagger off to their respective classes—Liathan in Maths (for the third time), Esca to History.
-----
"Marcus. Marcus. Marcus."
Marcus ignores him. Esca frowns. Digs his biro out of the bottom of his rucksack (because the lesson started twenty minutes ago and Esca hasn't jotted down a word, so fuckin' what?) and pulls the cap off with his teeth.
He leans over to draw on Marcus' painstakingly neat notes. Right on top of Marcus' painstakingly neat handwriting.
He draws...a penis.
Marcus pauses, even as Mr. Dorsen keeps droning on.
Esca adds some hair to the testicles with short, happy flicks of his biro. Swish. Swish. Swish.
Marcus' ears turn pink.
Esca smirks.
"Mr. MacCunoval!"
Shite, the teacher’s gone all pissy, like he's been calling Esca's name for awhile now. Voice raised like Esca's gone deaf or summat, but he ent fucking deaf, yeah? Just doesn't care about the fucking French getting guillotined or whatever, they probably deserved it. Waves his hand dismissively in the air, no eye contact, then goes back to drawing on Marcus' notes. Adds some hair around the base of the cock, which he's drawn all soft and droopy cos it's funnier that way—
"Esca," Marcus says quietly.
Esca pauses, the quiet skritch of his biro going still.
Finally, he glances up at the front of the room. Mr. Dorsen's giving him an exasperated look, wrinkly forehead beneath bushy, caterpillar eyebrows that are entirely too large for his small, naked head.
"What is it, sir?" Esca asks politely.
Clearly taken aback, Mr. Dorsen takes a moment to turn to the whiteboard behind him, where he's been scrawling out random phrases throughout his lecture. He collects himself, then asks primly, "The name of the period controlled by Robespierre, just after the start of the war?"
Easy, that one. "Reign of Terror," Esca says. It's the name of a band he and Liathan went all the way down to London to see, last summer. They weren't that great, but when the guitarist took his dick out and started pissing on the front row, well. It was memorable, at any rate.
He goes back to his drawing. He's almost finished with it, just needs to be a bit hairier on the left ball, and then yeah, that’s it. It's a fucking work of art, right on top of Marcus' notes. Esca signs his name with a flourish.
To his left, he hears a little whuff of noise, like Marcus is trying to hide a snort. Esca leans back into his own seat and closes his eyes, feeling oddly content. It's barely nine-thirty; he can catch a few more winks before Geography starts at ten.
-----
School blows, though Esca can't say he likes weekends much better. It's a lot of work staying out of the house all the time, but he's got no choice, really—it's either that or be forced to deal with Robert and his naffing about; Robert, who is always home, always pissed halfway to a gutter somewhere, and always angry about a footie match, or what someone said to him that day, or bloody anything really while Jeannine's off working three jobs to support Robert's drinking and the boob job she’s saving up for.
Esca hates being home with Robert and Jeannine. They act like the world's wronged them somehow, and they can get back at it for wronging everyone else in return. Usually Esca, cos he's right there.
Fuck. He can't wait 'till his birthday, when he can hightail it out of the fucking system.
Esca hocks a loogie, ignores the twinge in his neck as he turns to spit onto the ground.
When he looks up, Marcus comes into view, walking out from the shadowed corridor of the school and onto the grounds where kids are loitering on the flat, grassy lawn, or waiting for their parents to pick them up by the kerb. Esca's there himself, sitting on some bars that are cold as a witch's tit beneath his arse, swinging his legs as he waits in front of the car park.
Waiting for Liathan, that is. He ent waiting for Marcus, don't be daft. Marcus just happens to be there. Hasn't noticed Esca yet, he's walking towards his beat-up hatchback, which is parked on the opposite side of the car park, head down as he paws through the front zip of his rucksack, likely searching for his keys.
Esca's hands squeeze around the metal bar. Liathan won't be out of detention for 'nother hour or so. No harm in saying hullo, yeah?
He makes to hop off the rails, but that's when he sees Kirby and Tom and Rupert, and another rubgy knobhead the year below start to gather around Marcus. The fuck did they crawl out from? Marcus doesn't notice, he's got his head shoved inside his stupid fucking rucksack, just look the fuck up, mate.
Esca drops onto the gritty cement with a little crunch of his Chucks, and shoves his hands into the pocket of his beloved leather jacket. Wiggles his fingers through the holes in the lining, shoulders raised up by his ears as he starts to stride forward with as much aggro as he can muster with two tender—broken?—ribs (he patched himself up last night, so no big deal. Read on the internet that broken ribs are fine, don't even have to see a doctor or nuffink). Esca reckons he’s got one more scrap in him.
By the time Marcus finally looks up from his rucksack, Esca's close enough to hear—
"Oh, hey guys." Marcus voice is cautious, but still friendly. Such a bleeding neek.
Esca sees Kirby square his shoulders, the other boys falling behind him in kind of a V-shape like they're geese or summat.
"Hey, Marcus," Kirby replies cheerfully. "Me and the boys, we're going to Chicken Cottage. You wanna come with us?"
Esca falters, thrown for a loop. He scoots behind a Ford Explorer. The situation requires further observation.
Marcus scratches the back of his neck. "What's a Chicken Cottage?" he asks.
Kirby gives a bright laugh, throws his shorn, pudgy head back and outright brays. The others follow suit, like a pack of hyenas.
All the while, Marcus just stands there. Esca can't read his expression from here, six or seven cars away, but then Kirby swings a meaty arm around Marcus' huge shoulders, having to reach up a little, but Marcus doesn't brush him off like Esca expects him to.
"It's chicken, mate," Kirby chuckles, lightly thumping the front of Marcus' chest with an open palm. "They got fried chicken where you're from? Where's that, anyway?"
"Rome. And yeah, we have fried chicken."
"So come on, then. Tom’s brother will drive, we're meeting Ronald there."
In the shadow of the Ford Explorer, warm metal at his back, Esca lets himself frown. Cos seriously, why the fuck are Kirby and his clowns sucking up to Marcus? Even worse—why the fuck hasn't Marcus told them to go fuck themselves yet?
Well, shit. The arseholes are gonna jump Marcus, first chance they get, aren't they? And they're taking advantage of Marcus' retarded lack of self-preservation by luring him somewhere the fight ent fair. Kirby said as much—Ronald was gonna be there, and Esca knows firsthand what kind of slimy, cowardly things Ronald does to win a fight.
"Sure," Marcus says with a shrug, which makes Kirby's arm slip off. "Why not. I'm pretty hungry. But I'll take my own car."
"Great," Kirby says, clapping his hands together and walking backwards from where Marcus is shaking out the keys from his pocket—no wonder the idiot couldn't find them in his rucksack—and turning to unlock his hatchback. "Just follow the black Explorer," Kirby calls, pointing towards Esca.
No, not at Esca; no one's seen him. Which means—shit, a cursory glance reveals a vaguely familiar-looking bloke sitting in the driver seat of the SUV he'd ducked behind. Tom’s brother, presumably.
Esca scampers away, hands balled up into fists inside his jacket as he makes for the kerb on the far end of the grounds.
-----
At the entrance of the car park, Esca barely restrains himself from spitting on the Explorer as Kirby and the others roll past, the naff beats of Drake thundering out from juiced up speakers.
But then they turn at the traffic lights, and it's Marcus' turn to drive up. Esca pushes off the tree he'd been leaning against and ambles up, seeing his own face in the reflected glass of the driver-side window.
He hears the motor go into neutral as Marcus rolls down the window—by hand, really?—and sticks his elbow onto the ledge, leaning out.
"Esca," he says warmly, with a soft smile. "What's up?"
Something catches Esca off-guard, makes him forget why exactly—oh, right.
Esca scowls. Rests his forearm on the hot roof of Marcus' car and leans in. "What are you doing, you idiot?"
Marcu's smile fades. "What do you mean?"
"Are you bloody retarded? Hanging out with Kirby like you lot are right proper mates, you're gonna get twattered, don't you get it?"
"Um, first of all, I have no idea what you're saying," Marcus says, his expression retreating into irritation. "Second—just because I let you copy my notes in History doesn't mean you get to tell me what to do."
"Look," Esca says, growing frustrated. "I don't care what you do, you can go toss one off in the middle of the canteen for all I bloody care. But they're gonna kick your arse, you understand. You'll look like me—" Esca points to his purple shiner, at the eye he still can't properly see out of. "—if you show up to fucking Chicken Cottage thinking you're about to get bloody chicken poppers, because that's not what’s gonna happen."
Marcus sends Esca a sharp look, like he's seeing something he doesn't like. Esca's used to that, yeah. But not from Marcus, and it affects him more than it’s got any right to.
"Esca,” Marcus says warningly. “Get off my car"
"Not until you promise me you'll go right home."
Marcus sets his elbow on the windowsill and steadies himself with one hand on the steering wheel, leaning out 'til he's nearly nose-to-nose with Esca. The steely look hasn't left his eyes, which Esca notices are green this close up.
"You made me lose their car," Marcus says, sounding friendly-like but his dark, Italian brows are furrowed deep. "So, you're gonna tell me how to get to Chicken Cottage."
God damn it. Esca plants his hands on the edge of the car roof and locks his elbows straight, away from Marcus' stupid fucking face.
Heaves a world-weary sigh. "It's a right on Atterwith, you pass three lights, and then turn a left onto Legram. You can see the sign from the street, turn left into the car park."
Behind them, someone honks their horn.
"Also," Esca adds, because he can't bloody help himself. "You can go fuck yourself, mate. See if I give a damn when you come to class tomorrow a fucking cripple."
He doesn't feel the blow so much as taste it, when Marcus splits the cut in his mouth anew with bare knuckles. Blood runs over Esca's tongue and he swallows it automatically, retching a little at the familiar taste.
"Thanks for the directions," Marcus says angrily. He pulls back into his car, puts it into gear and drives off, the car lurching temporarily as Marcus fucks up the clutch with a grinding noise that makes Esca reel back.
He curses the back of Marcus' car. Wipes his nose, gives a great sniff.
When the next car edges up, Esca sees the girl in the driver seat shoot him a dirty look. He flips her the bird.
-----
When Liathan finally pulls his head out of his arse and meets Esca in the car park, Esca may or may not ask him if he thinks Davina—Liathan's sister, who's picking them up—would want fried chicken, his shout, he feels like a Peri Peri burger, all right? No need to give a man shit for his fucking cravings yeah, and Davina's a sight nicer than her twatty little brotha, ent she? So can they get Chicken Cottage or what?
All the while he's trying to convince Liathan to go, Esca can see for himself he's gone off the bend. Stalking Marcus like some kinda pervert would, but the way he sees it—he owes the goomba one. Marcus saved his arse yesterday, cos much as Esca doesn't give a damn about his edu-fuck-cation, he'd much rather be at Cottingswood High than lousing about at home, playing punching bag with Robert. Marcus kept him from being suspended, or even expelled. So yeah, Esca's indebted to him. And Esca ent a fucking deadbeat like those rugby shitheads, he knows something about honour.
Enough to keep Marcus from getting positively twattered on his second day at school, anyway.
Liathan mumbles something like "we'll see" about Chicken Cottage, but Esca doesn''t have to wait long cos Davina's pulling into the roundabout in her sensible car, a white Subaru. Esca lets himself into the backseat, Liathan taking up shotgun in front of him.
Inside the compartment of the car, Liathan's voice is twice as obnoxious as he turns to his sister.
"Eh, Daffy," he says. "Esca promised us Chicken Cottage."
"I didn't say you too!" Esca protests from the back. "Just Davina, for driving us, yeah? I haven't got enough money."
"So fine," Liathan says, slamming back against the car seat so that it bounces painfully against Esca's scraped up knees, the little bitch. "Daffy, you take us to Chicken Cottage, an' Esca'll buy you a Mountain burger, two spicy chicken burgers, a large side of chips, and a pepsi. Oh, and whatever you want, too."
Davina sighs from the front seat, pushing her long, brown hair behind one ear. Her eyes meet Esca's in the rearview mirror.
"Esca, you don't have to bribe me if you want Chicken Cottage. We'll just need to be done before five, I’ve got a shift at the aquarium tonight."
Esca victoriously reaches up and tugs on the bristles of Liathan's dippy mohawk, bouncing his skull against the backrest of the car seat. "Thanks, Davina!" he chirps.
Liathan throws a biro at him from the front, which Esca neatly catches and secretes into his rucksack.
-----
The three of them shuffle into the overly-lit restaurant and stand in line. There are a whole bunch of other kids there, as it's just after school. Esca tries to look nonchalant as he swivels around, looking for Marcus or Ronald or Kirby, any of those goons.
Aha, he thinks, when his gaze alights on the messy hair of a bloke facing away from them, busy by the soft drink fountain. That's got to be Marcus; nobody else but some daft, foreign kid would be wearing a fucking pink polo shirt with the hem tucked into his waistband. Belted, no less. What a prat!
Marcus finishes topping off his soda—turns around with the cup in hand, his gaze colliding with Esca's. He looks surprised, then not at all, mouth going flat with disapproval.
"Esca, man. You bloody in there?" Liathan raps on the side of Esca's head with his knuckles, which Esca irritably snaps away from.
"Aye, I'm right bloody here, ent I?"
"Then order."
Oh. Esca gives a cursory glance at the overhead menu, mumbles out the first combo he sees, hands over the only note he's got in his wallet. Hopes it's enough to cover it.
It is, since he gets some money back, and then the three of them are moving along to the waiting area.
Marcus is still by the soda fountain, receipt crumpled between two fingers against his cup. His lips are wrapped around a straw as he sucks down his drink like he's trying to finish it in thirty seconds, like one a them cheap kids who want to make sure they get a refill 'fore they leave, get their money's worth. Esca knows better though; that's angry drinking, not cheapskate drinking. Marcus' narrowed eyes say so.
Liathan elbows Esca in the side, drawing his attention.
"Bloody tosser, ent he? Fucking polo shirt and tan trousers, like he's gonna go golfing with the queen or suffink. Maybe we should rough him up, yeah, bloody ponce fucking deserves it."
"Shut up, Liathan," Esca says, as does Davina. They look at each other and grin. Davina reaches over and ruffles Esca's hair.
She's only two years older than him and Liathan, but Esca doesn't mind being treated like a little kid if it's by Davina. She seems so much older. Probably has something to do with how, out of the scores of children Liathan's parents have squired, Davina's the oldest. She's basically got a little family of her own to take care'a. In a way, Esca's part of it, like a proxy child.
"The fuck you lookin' at, eh?"
Liathan's angry voice breaks Esca's thoughts, and he follows his friend's gaze to find the culprit.
By the soda fountain, Marcus stays perched against the metal condiments counter, but he pulls his mouth off his straw and straightens up, broad shoulders making him roughly the size of a brick shithouse.
"Liathan, leave it," Davina says wearily, grabbing her younger brother's shoulder but he just shrugs it off and starts walking. Fucking hell, when Liathan thinks someone's dishonoured him or his fucking family—especially when it's to do with his big sister Davina—ent no way to calm him down, not 'til someone's face is smashed in.
Esca watches Liathan storm over to Marcus with a sinking heart. For fuck’s fake, he was here to save the Roman's arse, not to set a fucking rottweiler onto him.
"Looking at my sister, were you?" Liathan snaps, getting up into Marcus' face. Doesn't matter Marcus is three times his size; Liathan ent scared of fucking nuffink. Sometimes that's a good thing; usually it's not.
"Liathan," Esca sighs, following him through the path he'd cleared, patrons bunched to one side eager to get away from the hotheaded chav with the mohawk. The staff behind the counter, too, are starting to look at them; last thing Esca wants is to start trouble for Davina. "Come on," Esca says when he reaches Liathan. "I want my fucking chicken wings, yeah?"
"You pussying out, MacCunoval?"
"Shut up, no. Just—look at me, Liathan, you think I could take on this fucking meathead right now?" Esca yanks up the hem of his tee, not even up to his black-and-blue ribs, but still it's enough to see how much damage he'd sustained the day before. Even Marcus is staring, eyes bugging out a bit. "I been pissing blood all day, mate, so can we just fucking leave it?"
Liathan gives him a long, hard look. In the corner of his eye, Esca can see Marcus' intent gaze on the both of them.
Maybe that's why Liathan pivots in place, jutting his face back into Marcus'. "Outside," he snarls.
God damn it, Liathan.
Marcus, for his part, doesn't bat an eyelash. He pushes off the steel counter with his hip and stiffly walks out the restaurant, Liathan hot on his heels.
Esca shoves his receipt into Davina's hand. Doesn't say anything; doesn't have to. She knows better than anyone what Liathan and Esca get up to.
"Be careful," she says reluctantly. "Don't want your bloodied piss in my car, all right?"
"Wouldn't dream of it," Esca says with a grim smirk.
-----
Ronald and his lot are gathered 'round the black Explorer, bags of uneaten takeaway in their hands like they're waiting for Marcus to come out. Whether to kick his arse or genuinely to share a meal, Esca won't ever know cos things are heating up now, regardless.
A few yards away, Marcus and Liathan are circling each other, hackles raised. Esca feels his arm hairs prickle.
Liathan stops in his tracks. Keeping his eyes fixed on Marcus, he stretches out an arm and points to the gaggle of footballers, addressing them.
"You lot stay out of this. It's between me and Richie Branson, yeah?"
"The fuck you got against Aquila, Freakazoid?"
Liathan whirls around. "You know this toff?"
"Well," Kirby steps up. "Yeah, I mean. I guess so. He's new. But he's reet, yeah?"
"This twat?" Liathan repeats disbelievingly. "He's faffed up like my dearly departed grandpa, and you lot think he's reet?"
"What's wrong with how I look?" Marcus asks. He’s ignored.
Ronald and Tom have stepped up now, rounding onto Liathan, bags of takeaway ditched to the ground behind them, forgotten. Tom cracks his neck, jerking it side to side like he he's gearing up for kickoff and Liathan's head is the rugby ball.
"We can't all be bloody chavs like you and your poofter boyfriend," Tom laughs, his mean eyes flicking over to Esca and back.
Liathan's vibrating with anger now, but he's outnumbered five to one. Six, if you count Marcus.
Bloody hell. Things are getting out of control.
No one to stop it but him, yeah? Esca strides forward, hand grasping behind for the blade he keeps tucked in his waistband. He might be recovering from any manner of bodily injuries, but that don't mean Esca can't be quick when it matters.
In seconds he's joined the scene where he swiftly grabs the back of Marcus' collar, earning a little gurgle of surprise as Esca holds the blade to Marcus' throat. The sharp edge sits just beneath his Adam's apple where the tissue's softest.
"Esca?" Marcus manages between clenched teeth, his eyes darting to the side, body trying to rotate around like he wants to see.
Esca doesn't answer, but kicks out the backs of Marcus' knees so that he falls to the ground, two hard knocks dropping like stones onto concrete. Marcus hisses, but Esca keeps his blade up, keeps Marcus’ collar taut against his throat.
"Ey Ronald," Esca says jauntily. "How's your mum doing? Now that you're home every day, you get to join in when the pool boy comes 'round? Threesomes every afternoon, mate, can't get much sweeter than that."
"You little shit," Ronald snarls, stepping forward. "I know how much you like getting slapped around, but don't think I don't call your bluff. You ain't gonna shank the new kid."
"You gonna test me?" Esca laughs meanly. God, he hopes they don't. His body's not up for it; he’d fold like a piece of wet cardboard.
Esca unclenches his hand from the back of Marcus' collar and roves up the nape of his neck, grabbing a messy handful of thick hair which he uses to jerk back, baring Marcus' tender throat.
"Come on," Esca taunts. "Test me."
Ronald's glaring at him like he can make Esca spontaneously combust through sheer willpower, but he doesn’t move. Not forwards, but not backwards either.
Esca flips the blade around in his hand so that the pointy tip's pressed into the base of Marcus' throat, Esca's hand wrapped around the short hilt like he's having a wank.
He doesn''t take his eyes off Ronald, cos you got to stare a beast down, yeah? So he doesn't know if he's actually drawing blood with his blade. Kind of hopes so—not cos he actually wants to hurt Marcus, but because a little blood goes a long way in terms of getting people to back the fuck off.
Anyway, whatever it is he's doing, it's working. Ronald suddenly deflates like an air mattress sprung a leak, and he retreats a few feet, back to where his goons and Tom’s brother are sneering hard enough Esca thinks their noses might fall off.
He loosens his grip on Marcus' hair. Moves his blade away—
With a surge like an incoming tide, Marcus twists around and curls his hands into Esca's shirtfront. He looks like a bloomin' lunatic, hair standing up in unruly tufts, ruby-coloured blood trailing down the base of his throat and into the half-unbuttoned placket of his pink polo shirt.
"Fuck you, MacCunoval," Marcus growls.
Next to them, Esca hears Liathan pivot, his designer trainers grinding gravel underfoot. Esca holds a hand up, signaling him to stay put.
"I saved your fucking ass yesterday, and this is how you repay me? Maybe Ronald and the others were right in beating you within an inch of your life. You're just a self-serving piece of shit, aren't you?"
With one last, dogged glare, Marcus whips his hands down, releasing Esca from the inch or so he'd been dragged up from his tiptoes. Esca stumbles a bit, but doesn't let his expression waver even as inside his head, he's thinking shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Marcus turns around and struts over to his car. Ronald and Kirby try and stop him, mumbling something Esca can't hear, but Marcus just shoves them off and gamely moves past.
The rugby goons shrug. They collect their takeaway from the ground and pile back into the Explorer without so much as a backwards glance. Maybe they're shaken; maybe they honestly don't give a shit. Either way, Esca's glad to see 'em fuck off.
Somewhere to his right, he hears a low, appreciative whistle. Turns his head. It's Liathan, sidling over with his hands in his trackie bottoms.
"Puppy can bite," Liathan chuckles. "That was fun."
Maybe for a dodgy, violent aggro like his best friend. Not for Esca. "Let's go back inside," he says wearily. "Davina's probably eaten all our nosh."
They round the restaurant and Esca enters the door, beckoning Davina over from her seat. She gets up with a little smile and patters over, unopened paper bags crumpling loudly beneath her manicured hands.
-----
On the car ride home, Esca's mind runs on repeat.
He thinks about how Marcus looked when he'd had both hands wrapped in Esca's shirt—like he wanted to throttle Esca, of course. But under that, upset for a totally different reason. Like he thought Esca was better than he is—like Esca betrayed him or something, which is fucking daft, they don't even know each other. The fuck does Marcus know about Esca, eh? Fuck all, is what.
Doesn't stop the guilt from bubbling in his stomach. Though, that could just as easily be the spicy chicken wings Esca inhaled in about thirty seconds flat.
Looking down, Esca frowns at the right mess he's made. Sweeps some greasy fried bits off his lap with a defeated sigh.
-----
Some part of Esca had hoped that by tomorrow, Marcus would've forgotten about their stupid fight at Chicken Cottage. It wasn't a big deal, anyway, just something friends do. Roughhousing, that is. Thas how him and Liathan get along, anyhow. A little scuffle never hurt no one, yeah?
Well, must'a been the dumb part of Esca that done the hoping, cos Marcus sure as fuck hasn't forgotten. He keeps picking at the small wound between his collarbones and avoids Esca's gaze. In fact, there's no acknowledgment of any sort that Esca's even bloody alive, except that halfway through lesson he scratches a piece of dried blood off his throat and flicks it onto Esca's table.
"Bloody hell," Esca grouses, swiping the little fleck off his desk. "Don't throw your nasty scabs on my table."
He hunches over his desk defensively and squints at Marcus, but Marcus just sits up straighter in his chair so that his big naffin' head blocks the morning sun streaming behind him and Esca can see his stoic expression with full clarity as he calls out, imperiously:
"Mr. Dorsen, sir. Could you repeat that last part?"
Mr. Dorsen stutters through a response, clearly unused to students paying enough attention to bother asking questions. Esca knows that Marcus is just fronting, though; his left hand's clenched so tight over his left thigh his veins are standing out, and he's taking enough notes to finish a goddamned novel by the end of first period. But all it takes is Esca looking past Marcus' tanned forearms to read the smudgy grey words—
The first year of the Revalution the 3rd estate in June the assalt—
to know for sure that bloody hell, Marcus is just transcribing the words coming out of Mr. Dorsen's mouth, skipping whole parts of sentences at that. He ent paying a lick of attention, but he's being a stubborn arse about making it look like he is.
"Gonna ignore me, then?" Esca hisses. "Look, whas the big fucking deal? I didn't want you to kick Lie-Lie's twatty little arse. I wasn't gonna really hurt you. Didn't know you were gonna be such a fucking girl about it."
Esca hears the tiny sound of pencil lead snapping. Marcus quickly thumbs out new lead, click click click, and keeps scribbling nonsense.
Esca sighs. "Marcus."
Marcus flips a page.
"Marcus. Marcus. Marcus."
Esca hears his pencil lead snap again. With a muttered curse, Marcus clicks some more out, but it’s done run out. Thwarted, Marcus throws it onto his notebook like a petulant child. Then, for the first time all day, he turns to look at Esca.
"What?" he snaps.
Esca had this all planned out, wot he was gonna say, how to make Marcus realize he was being completely daft about yesterday's non-event, but the words evaporate from his brain like they were never there.
Marcus blinks at him, quiet and expectant.
"Erm," Esca says, licking his lips. Fuck's sake. He drums his fingers on his scarred desk—most of the gouges his—trying to think of something to say—
"That's it, Um? That's what you wanted to say. Um. They should give you an Oscar for that, Esca. Moving stuff."
"Ey, fuck you. I'm trying to apologize here."
At the front of the room, Mr. Dorsen loudly clears his throat. That's usually Esca's cue to start talking louder, but whatever, Esca's got other things to think about right now. Marcus is leaning in, the cheap wood of his seat creaking beneath him.
His knee bumps Esca's under their desks, making Esca jump. Marcus doesn't seem to notice though.
"I'm listening," Marcus says seriously.
Shit. Why is he making this so hard? Esca darts a look around the room, hoping nobody's paying attention to them. He's got his fucking rep to think about.
"I'm sorry," Esca says quickly, eyes everywhere but on Marcus.
"Sorry for what?"
"I don't know. For making you mad?"
"Wrong answer. Try apologizing for why I’m mad."
"So you are," Esca blurts, feeling really shite all of a sudden.
"Obviously," Marcus says, keeping his voice down but he's starting to sound incensed.
"Okay, fine. I'm fucking sorry, all right? I'm sorry for—for—" Esca makes twitchy gestures with his hands which is supposed to mean "everything" or "whatever you want" or "I don't bloody know".
"Sorry about holding a knife at my neck, maybe? Sorry for kicking me to the ground and fucking up my knees, my leg?"
Before Esca can make fun of him for being a right weakling, Marcus barrels on, "I broke it in three places last year, right in the middle of a game where scouts were watching me, so don't you dare tell me I'm being a girl, or a pussy, or whatever it is you were about to say. Year 10 was hell for me, and then I had to repeat it, so the last thing I want to do is come to a brand new school in this—this fucking village of a city, and have a pompous little jerk-off be nice to me one day, then throw me to the wolves the next."
Marcus suddenly unclenches his left hand from his thigh and rubs at the muscle irritably, the heel of his hand rolling up and down like he's kneading dough. He still looks annoyed with Esca, but his face slowly colours up in embarrassment the longer Esca watches him. Like he doesn't want anyone to see him hurting, 'specially now he's just told Esca he's got a fucked up leg.
"I wasn't nice to you," Esca eventually says. It looks like it takes Marcus a moment to catch up, to figure out what Esca's referring to. But it teases out a reluctant smile, and that's good, right there.
"Don't kid yourself," Marcus says.
"Asshole," Esca says automatically. Fuck. "I didn't mean that," he backtracks.
Marcus rolls his eyes. "I know." There's amusement in his face though, hidden in the tiny quirk of his lips, in the long-suffering sigh he gives.
Esca hopes this means Marcus isn't mad anymore. "I'm not great at words," Esca adds. "So, erm."
The idea hits him suddenly, and it's so perfect Esca doesn't know why he didn't think of it last night, while he'd been lying awake in bed mulling over what to say to Marcus the next morning. He leans forward in his seat, wincing a little when his tender ribs bump into the edge of his desk. Hikes up the back of his leather jacket and white tee shirt, his skin prickling a little as it hits the cool air, and gropes for his blade.
He sees Marcus' green eyes track the movement. His face is eerily blank, like maybe he's still worried Esca's gonna stick him but doesn't want to show it.
He feels a kick to the back of his chair.
"Esca! What are you doing?"
It's Molly Aiken, who's generally all right but sort of uptight. She loves telling Esca what to do. He loves telling her to fuck off, mostly.
"Fuck off, Molly," Esca tosses over his shoulder, freeing the sheathed dagger from the small of his back and wagging it at her. "I ent starting nuffink, but don't provoke me."
He turns to Marcus, who's watching the weapon with outright suspicion now. Maybe that's cos Esca's pulled it out of the simple, leather sheath and pointed it at him.
"Fuck's sake, I'm not gonna stick you," Esca says exasperatedly. "I jus want you to have it. For now, I mean. Once you trust me not to stab you no more."
Marcus frowns, looking confused in the way only lumbering footballers can. Esca snorts.
"It was me dad's," he explains, turning the dagger so that it's pointing towards the front of the room. "B-R-M," he says, showing Marcus the small engraving at the base of the blade. "Brennan Cecil MacCunoval."
"Was your dad's?" Marcus asks, wrapping his huge hand around Esca's over the hilt, instead of just waiting for him to pass it over, the clumsy buffoon.
Esca extricates his hand. Scratches his neck, feeling itchy. "He's dead," he says simply. "Mum too." He's thankful when Marcus doesn't push it, despite the overt curiosity in his eyes which linger, present and invasive, like he’s trying to read Esca’s mind.
The stupid Roman finally looks away. He examines the dagger in his hand, then picks up the leather sheath from Esca's desk and tucks the blade away with overmuch care.
"Now you know I won’t kill you," Esca says, trying to shake off how unsettled he feels. "But I'm warning you, if you lose that blade I'll do it anyway."
Marcus chuckles, which makes him look like a daft ten-year-old, his smile is so fucking guileless. It makes Esca feel all a bit lightheaded.
"Yeah, yeah," Esca says with a sniff. "You call me shrimp again, I'm telling Liathan you're fucking his sister."
"Maybe I am."
As revenge, Esca digs out a permanent marker from Marcus' pencil bag and draws a pair of testicles on his forearm. Marcus, like the great idiot he is, lets him.
Next
Characters: Marcus/Esca, Liathan, Cottia, Uncle Aquila, etc.
Rating: Eventual NC-17
Warnings: high school AU so the boys are 16/17
Word Count: 46k (8,400 this part)
Summary: Cottingswood High, Yorkshire. You get all kinds, but as someone who's bounced around Child Services, has a hot-headed chav for a best friend, and gets mistaken for a girl by the daft new student in History, Esca MacCunoval is not your ordinary kid.
PART ONE: Marcus is a Right Fockin’ Naff Who Needs a Hard Slap to the Face For Thinking ‘Esca’ is a Girl’s Name
"There's an open seat next to Esca."
No shitting way, Esca thinks, crossing his arms over his chest. He slouches low as he can go and gives an obstinate glare to Mr. Dorsen, who blithely ignores him as he ushers the new kid—some guy named Marcus, transferring from Rome, who's wearing bloody Lacoste and khaki shorts that show his fucking knees because he's either an eight year old boy from the 1920's or the age of Esca's grandpa—towards Esca's row.
Goddamn it. The empty desk to Esca's left was hard-earned; after months of Ronald "I'm rugby captain and you're just a shrimp, Shrimp" poking and prodding at Esca's arm, flicking his ear or throwing spitballs to the side of his face, Esca had finally lost his temper and framed the shit-for-brains bully in a bit of vandalism to the headmaster's Maserati. Got ol' Ron suspended from school 'til the end of the term, which means that empty seat? Is Esca's. He won the window view to the schoolyard, fair and square.
Too late, though. The new kid's picking his way over, snagging his big feet on snaking straps of rucksacks, smacking Shirley Donaldson in the back of her head with a clumsy elbow, aiming straight for Esca.
Esca determinedly faces away. The rest of the class might be watching on like drooling morons, but Esca never does what everyone does. He's his own man, aye.
Behind him, he hears:
"Hi, Esca?"
Judging from the looks on everyone's faces, something's awry. Esca snaps around, only to see—
Marcus is trying to shake hands with Marjorie Haber, who he has clearly mistaken for Esca.
"Oi!" he barks.
Marcus falters, turning to the sound of Esca's voice.
"I'm Esca, you fuckin’ naff!"
"Oh, I thought..." Marcus trails off, looking uncertainly at Marjorie again. She's giggling through her fingers, as is the rest of the class.
"Language, Mr. MacCunoval," the teacher wearily reminds him. Ent the first time. Won't be the last, neither.
"I'm Esca, you blithering idiot," he amends peaceably.
Marcus flushes, drawing a gleeful smile out of Esca. Serves him right, thinking Esca's a fucking bird. Fuck that.
The new kid swipes up his bag and moves down a row, squeezing between Esca's knees and the back of Harry Emerson's chair to claim the empty desk. He’s too big for it though, arms and legs spilling over like an overstuffed pie. An elbow catches the side of Esca’s head as Marcus settles in.
Esca goggles, appalled. Just stares as Marcus goes about unzipping his rucksack, pulling out a canvas pencil case and wide-ruled notebook. The class settles down, and Mr. Dorsen starts his lecture on the Thirty Years War. That's when Esca leans in.
"Psst."
Marcus twitches a bit, like there's a fly buzzing near his ear.
"Hey," Esca says, poking Marcus in the bicep with the rubber on the end of his pencil. "I know you can hear me."
"I'm trying to pay attention," Marcus says irritably. He has a funny accent, slow vowels and liquid drawl. Sure doesn't sound like a Mario Brother, or nothing.
Whatever. "You mistake me for a girl again, I'll end you." There. Suitably threatening, if Esca doesn't mind saying so.
Only, Marcus doesn't seem that threatened. He rolls his eyes and whispers back, eyes glued to the front of the classroom all the while, "Okay, shrimp."
Oh, that's it.
Esca is gonna end him.
-----
That is, if the rest of the boys in his year weren't trying to end Esca first.
"Eat shite, you pint-sized fudge packer—"
A foot makes its way into Esca's stomach, making him crumple to his knees, the grit of the tarmac digging through his jeans.
"You lost us our captain, you little shit," Kirby shouts. At least, Esca thinks it's Kirby, but the lot of them sound the same, don't they? Also, his ears are ringing.
"Yeah, well," Esca spits. Fuck, that's blood right there. "You lot haven't won a fucking match in years now, have you? So no great loss, yeah?"
Another kick makes a desperate attempt to unscramble Esca's intestines. Bloody ow. The concrete flies up to his chin, and Esca stifles a groan.
"Had enough, yet? For a four-foot wanker, you sure run your mouth off—"
Esca throws an arm out and snags the bottom of the closest trouser leg. A hard yank fells the footballer like a fucking Douglas fir.
"Tim-ber," Esca singsongs, even as his voice is faint and his vision's swimming with odd little bursts of fluorescent light.
After that's just a scuffle of noise, the cretins—how many are there, Jesus fuckin' Christ—go at him all at once. Esca's had the shit kicked out of him plenty of times; he makes up for his smaller stature with savage words, the combination meaning he's got to scrap his way out a fight on a regular basis. Can't win 'em all, neither.
The flashing lights behind his eyelids are gone now, he just sees red, just feels the dull, repeated ache of swift kicks pummeling him from all sides as he—
-----
When he comes to, the first thing he sees is the goomba. What was his name again? Mark. Marcus.
"Wha—" Oh, ow. Bloody hurts to talk. Esca settles for a pathetic groan.
"Stop moving," Marcus chides softly, but the hands on Esca's shoulders are firm. He chuckles lowly. "Wow, they kicked the shit out of you."
"Observant fellow," Esca glares. His glare then goes beyond Marcus' shoulder. He doesn't recognize the wall behind him, with the framed photos and the edge of a wooden desk, an Apple Powerbook propped open.
Whoa, whoa. "Where the fuck am I?" Esca asks, struggling to sit up, thin blanket sliding down his chest. Marcus just shoves him back on the bed though, and that hurts even more. Esca curls on his side, the one that aches a little less, and drags the blanket up to his chin, manfully stifling a whimper.
He hears Marcus sigh over him. "You're in my room."
"What are you, a fucking pervert or something?" Under the covers, Esca rubs a foot against his opposite shin—okay good, trousers still on. But maybe Marcus is a romantic pervert who likes to take it slow. If he's anything like that Berlusconi bloke, Esca better make sure he's on guard, bloody Italians and their roaming hands.
As if sensing Esca's thoughts, Marcus hits him on the shoulder.
"What the fuck!?"
"I brought you back here so you wouldn't get suspended."
Esca rolls over just far enough to give Marcus a cautious look. With just one eye, cos his other one's swollen shut.
Marcus continues, "I got those guys to back off, but they swore you'd get in trouble anyway. That if the teachers found out you'd gotten into another fight, you were suspended for sure. So...I dumped you in my backseat and went home."
Esca blinks. "In a car?"
"No, in a golden chariot.”
Esca generously chooses to ignore Marcus’ tone. “Bloody hell, you’ve got a car?”
“Yes, I do,” Marcus says slowly. “What about it?”
"Who the fuck in secondary has a vehicle? How old are you, anyway?"
“Just turned seventeen,” Marcus replies, looking uncomfortable. “Had to retake a year.” Marcus shifts in his seat. That's when Esca notices he's sitting so close, hand planted right next to Esca's hip. He suddenly feels very hot.
"Yeah, all right. Whatever, so you’re not the brightest bulb,” Esca rambles, as Marcus sends him a weird look. Oh shit, his gut was right, wasn't it? His arse is in danger. Esca clenches his cheeks together in alarm.
“Either way I'm not a bloody fag, you know," he says pre-emptively. "No matter what everyone says. I like cunt, yeah?"
Marcus frowns. "God, you've got a rotten mouth. No wonder people beat the shit out of you."
"Go fuck your mum."
Marcus snorts in disgust, then stands up, making the mattress rise up behind Esca's back. God, he doesn't even know why he says things like that. They just come out, yeah? Can't stop the words that burble out of him sometimes.
Marcus ent a psychic though, can't tell Esca doesn’t mean to be such a bitch. Marcus claps the lid of his laptop shut, like maybe he was on it earlier when Esca was passed out.
"I'm doing my homework in another room,” Marcus says, picking up his rucksack. “Let me know when you can stand up without puking all over my carpet. I'll take you home." He turns and strides towards the far end of the large room, where the doorway is.
The back of his orange polo shirt is tucked into the waistband of his khakis. No—his skivvies. The white "Calvin Klein" logo is perfectly clear, even from fifteen feet. Esca has to bite his tongue not to say something bitchy. Says instead, "Marcus."
Marcus pauses by the door. Turns around and fixes Esca with a wary expression. "What?" he asks.
"How'd you get Ronald's little pep squad off my arse?"
For a while, Esca thinks Marcus won't say anything, cos he's just staring at him. Esca suddenly realizes he can't be looking too pretty right now. After all, he can only see out of one eye, his whole jaw hurts when he tries to talk, and there’s the metallic taste of blood on his tongue from the cut on his mouth. He's got to be swollen all over, like a lumpy mattress that needs a good beating. Though that's the last thing Esca needs.
Marcus says nothing. Just blinks, once. Esca feels the sudden urge to hide under the covers. Doesn't though, which is good cos otherwise he'd miss it, when Marcus lifts his right hand, the back of it facing Esca so that Esca can see—
Marcus' knuckles are red and swollen and split, kinda like Esca's lower lip.
Beyond that, Marcus' face is tanned and in pristine condition. His teeth, too, are bloody bright when he cracks open a slow, triumphant smile.
Esca can't help it, then. He smiles back at the nutter.
-----
Esca doesn't know he's passed out again until he's being woken up. Warm hand making little shakes on his shoulder. Marcus' big face swimming into view.
"Whassat?" Esca snuffles, wiping the back of his hand across his nose.
"Want dinner?"
Esca blinks. Oh, and both eyes open, too; swelling must've gone down a bit.
"Time's it?" he asks blearily.
"It's eight. We're having chicken."
When he says it, Esca can smell it. Smells fucking delicious, all grease and butter and herbs filling the room like the best fucking potpurri he's ever smelled. His stomach gurgles quietly.
"Nah," Esca says, sitting up in Marcus' bed. He's stiff all over and his left side hurts like someone drove a lorry into it—rib or two's got to be broken, fuck. "No, take me home."
Marcus stopped shaking him awhile ago, but his hand's still on Esca's shoulder, he's only now noticing. It's heavy, and starting to warm through Esca's ratty t-shirt. Marcus takes his hand away.
"Sure. Just let me get my keys."
-----
Marcus drives a second-hand hatchback. Second-hand, Esca thinks, cos the car is fucking doddery, square-edged with ripped upholstery. Still, it's a smooth ride, like Marcus knows that every bump and jostle on the road is rattling straight through Esca's bruised bones.
It's gotten dark out. They don't speak. Marcus doesn't know the streets that well, so Esca mumbles out directions every so often, just when it matters. Make a left here; watch for the pot-hole there. All the while, he watches Marcus' hand on the gear stick, confident and sure as he puts it in higher gear, or changes down to a crawl.
Slows down to a stop.
"This it?"
Esca jerks his head up, hoping he wasn't caught looking. Looks out the window instead, and yeah, that's his fucking drive. Robert's '99 Focus parked on the dead lawn, yep, that's them all right.
"Keep going," he says, two fingers swinging back and forth, urging Marcus on.
The car rolls forward, slow and unsure.
"Yeah, yeah. This is good." They're half a block down, cos Esca doesn't want Marcus accidentally meeting the foster parents, if "parents" could be a word ascribed to the navel-gazing, waste-of-space asswipes of Jeannine and her mangy husband, Robert. Yeah, no. Esca'll take a pass on that, thank you very much.
With a little difficulty, Esca gets out of the car.
Marcus wraps his arm around the headrest of the empty seat and cranes forward, peering out the passenger door. "You sure this is it?"
Fuck. Out of the corner of his eye, Esca can see the porch light of his house flicker on. The peeling-painted white door swings open, Jeannine in her blue dressing gown stepping out.
"You think I don't know where I bloody live?" Esca snaps.
Under the wan light of the overhead car bulb, Marcus frown is etched in shadow. "Forget it."
Esca swings a proper look over his shoulder, and shit, Jeannine's recognized him now. He makes to close the door, hearing Marcus rock back to his side of the car with a creak of old leather, but then Esca finds himself hesitating for no proper reason. Just—it seems weird, yeah, breaking it off like this. Feels like Esca ought to...fuck, he doesn't know. Like he oughtta do something or say something. Like a thank you, maybe?
"You closing the door or what?" Marcus says, sounding grumpy.
"Yeah, sorry." Esca closes the door with a weird, half-aborted move, finally shutting it the final two inches with a hard whump.
Marcus peels away, filling the air with an obnoxious screech, the smell of burnt rubber lingering after it.
"Esca!" Just as shrill, Jeannine's voice pierces the evening calm.
Fuck.
-----
The next day is bloody hell, his body throbbing all over like he was something cold wrapped in rubber bands, then thrust into the tropics of India only to bloat uncomfortably in his constricting clothes.
"That's disgusting," Liathan sneers. "You blow up all over me, get your nasty innards on my Louie Baton kicks, I rip your fucking throat out."
"You retarded or summat? I'd be dead already."
"Yeah well, I make you extra dead."
Liathan's a fucking retard sometimes, but he's interesting enough. Plus, they both love Argy Bargy, so there's always that.
When the bell rings, signaling first period, they both swagger off to their respective classes—Liathan in Maths (for the third time), Esca to History.
-----
"Marcus. Marcus. Marcus."
Marcus ignores him. Esca frowns. Digs his biro out of the bottom of his rucksack (because the lesson started twenty minutes ago and Esca hasn't jotted down a word, so fuckin' what?) and pulls the cap off with his teeth.
He leans over to draw on Marcus' painstakingly neat notes. Right on top of Marcus' painstakingly neat handwriting.
He draws...a penis.
Marcus pauses, even as Mr. Dorsen keeps droning on.
Esca adds some hair to the testicles with short, happy flicks of his biro. Swish. Swish. Swish.
Marcus' ears turn pink.
Esca smirks.
"Mr. MacCunoval!"
Shite, the teacher’s gone all pissy, like he's been calling Esca's name for awhile now. Voice raised like Esca's gone deaf or summat, but he ent fucking deaf, yeah? Just doesn't care about the fucking French getting guillotined or whatever, they probably deserved it. Waves his hand dismissively in the air, no eye contact, then goes back to drawing on Marcus' notes. Adds some hair around the base of the cock, which he's drawn all soft and droopy cos it's funnier that way—
"Esca," Marcus says quietly.
Esca pauses, the quiet skritch of his biro going still.
Finally, he glances up at the front of the room. Mr. Dorsen's giving him an exasperated look, wrinkly forehead beneath bushy, caterpillar eyebrows that are entirely too large for his small, naked head.
"What is it, sir?" Esca asks politely.
Clearly taken aback, Mr. Dorsen takes a moment to turn to the whiteboard behind him, where he's been scrawling out random phrases throughout his lecture. He collects himself, then asks primly, "The name of the period controlled by Robespierre, just after the start of the war?"
Easy, that one. "Reign of Terror," Esca says. It's the name of a band he and Liathan went all the way down to London to see, last summer. They weren't that great, but when the guitarist took his dick out and started pissing on the front row, well. It was memorable, at any rate.
He goes back to his drawing. He's almost finished with it, just needs to be a bit hairier on the left ball, and then yeah, that’s it. It's a fucking work of art, right on top of Marcus' notes. Esca signs his name with a flourish.
To his left, he hears a little whuff of noise, like Marcus is trying to hide a snort. Esca leans back into his own seat and closes his eyes, feeling oddly content. It's barely nine-thirty; he can catch a few more winks before Geography starts at ten.
-----
School blows, though Esca can't say he likes weekends much better. It's a lot of work staying out of the house all the time, but he's got no choice, really—it's either that or be forced to deal with Robert and his naffing about; Robert, who is always home, always pissed halfway to a gutter somewhere, and always angry about a footie match, or what someone said to him that day, or bloody anything really while Jeannine's off working three jobs to support Robert's drinking and the boob job she’s saving up for.
Esca hates being home with Robert and Jeannine. They act like the world's wronged them somehow, and they can get back at it for wronging everyone else in return. Usually Esca, cos he's right there.
Fuck. He can't wait 'till his birthday, when he can hightail it out of the fucking system.
Esca hocks a loogie, ignores the twinge in his neck as he turns to spit onto the ground.
When he looks up, Marcus comes into view, walking out from the shadowed corridor of the school and onto the grounds where kids are loitering on the flat, grassy lawn, or waiting for their parents to pick them up by the kerb. Esca's there himself, sitting on some bars that are cold as a witch's tit beneath his arse, swinging his legs as he waits in front of the car park.
Waiting for Liathan, that is. He ent waiting for Marcus, don't be daft. Marcus just happens to be there. Hasn't noticed Esca yet, he's walking towards his beat-up hatchback, which is parked on the opposite side of the car park, head down as he paws through the front zip of his rucksack, likely searching for his keys.
Esca's hands squeeze around the metal bar. Liathan won't be out of detention for 'nother hour or so. No harm in saying hullo, yeah?
He makes to hop off the rails, but that's when he sees Kirby and Tom and Rupert, and another rubgy knobhead the year below start to gather around Marcus. The fuck did they crawl out from? Marcus doesn't notice, he's got his head shoved inside his stupid fucking rucksack, just look the fuck up, mate.
Esca drops onto the gritty cement with a little crunch of his Chucks, and shoves his hands into the pocket of his beloved leather jacket. Wiggles his fingers through the holes in the lining, shoulders raised up by his ears as he starts to stride forward with as much aggro as he can muster with two tender—broken?—ribs (he patched himself up last night, so no big deal. Read on the internet that broken ribs are fine, don't even have to see a doctor or nuffink). Esca reckons he’s got one more scrap in him.
By the time Marcus finally looks up from his rucksack, Esca's close enough to hear—
"Oh, hey guys." Marcus voice is cautious, but still friendly. Such a bleeding neek.
Esca sees Kirby square his shoulders, the other boys falling behind him in kind of a V-shape like they're geese or summat.
"Hey, Marcus," Kirby replies cheerfully. "Me and the boys, we're going to Chicken Cottage. You wanna come with us?"
Esca falters, thrown for a loop. He scoots behind a Ford Explorer. The situation requires further observation.
Marcus scratches the back of his neck. "What's a Chicken Cottage?" he asks.
Kirby gives a bright laugh, throws his shorn, pudgy head back and outright brays. The others follow suit, like a pack of hyenas.
All the while, Marcus just stands there. Esca can't read his expression from here, six or seven cars away, but then Kirby swings a meaty arm around Marcus' huge shoulders, having to reach up a little, but Marcus doesn't brush him off like Esca expects him to.
"It's chicken, mate," Kirby chuckles, lightly thumping the front of Marcus' chest with an open palm. "They got fried chicken where you're from? Where's that, anyway?"
"Rome. And yeah, we have fried chicken."
"So come on, then. Tom’s brother will drive, we're meeting Ronald there."
In the shadow of the Ford Explorer, warm metal at his back, Esca lets himself frown. Cos seriously, why the fuck are Kirby and his clowns sucking up to Marcus? Even worse—why the fuck hasn't Marcus told them to go fuck themselves yet?
Well, shit. The arseholes are gonna jump Marcus, first chance they get, aren't they? And they're taking advantage of Marcus' retarded lack of self-preservation by luring him somewhere the fight ent fair. Kirby said as much—Ronald was gonna be there, and Esca knows firsthand what kind of slimy, cowardly things Ronald does to win a fight.
"Sure," Marcus says with a shrug, which makes Kirby's arm slip off. "Why not. I'm pretty hungry. But I'll take my own car."
"Great," Kirby says, clapping his hands together and walking backwards from where Marcus is shaking out the keys from his pocket—no wonder the idiot couldn't find them in his rucksack—and turning to unlock his hatchback. "Just follow the black Explorer," Kirby calls, pointing towards Esca.
No, not at Esca; no one's seen him. Which means—shit, a cursory glance reveals a vaguely familiar-looking bloke sitting in the driver seat of the SUV he'd ducked behind. Tom’s brother, presumably.
Esca scampers away, hands balled up into fists inside his jacket as he makes for the kerb on the far end of the grounds.
-----
At the entrance of the car park, Esca barely restrains himself from spitting on the Explorer as Kirby and the others roll past, the naff beats of Drake thundering out from juiced up speakers.
But then they turn at the traffic lights, and it's Marcus' turn to drive up. Esca pushes off the tree he'd been leaning against and ambles up, seeing his own face in the reflected glass of the driver-side window.
He hears the motor go into neutral as Marcus rolls down the window—by hand, really?—and sticks his elbow onto the ledge, leaning out.
"Esca," he says warmly, with a soft smile. "What's up?"
Something catches Esca off-guard, makes him forget why exactly—oh, right.
Esca scowls. Rests his forearm on the hot roof of Marcus' car and leans in. "What are you doing, you idiot?"
Marcu's smile fades. "What do you mean?"
"Are you bloody retarded? Hanging out with Kirby like you lot are right proper mates, you're gonna get twattered, don't you get it?"
"Um, first of all, I have no idea what you're saying," Marcus says, his expression retreating into irritation. "Second—just because I let you copy my notes in History doesn't mean you get to tell me what to do."
"Look," Esca says, growing frustrated. "I don't care what you do, you can go toss one off in the middle of the canteen for all I bloody care. But they're gonna kick your arse, you understand. You'll look like me—" Esca points to his purple shiner, at the eye he still can't properly see out of. "—if you show up to fucking Chicken Cottage thinking you're about to get bloody chicken poppers, because that's not what’s gonna happen."
Marcus sends Esca a sharp look, like he's seeing something he doesn't like. Esca's used to that, yeah. But not from Marcus, and it affects him more than it’s got any right to.
"Esca,” Marcus says warningly. “Get off my car"
"Not until you promise me you'll go right home."
Marcus sets his elbow on the windowsill and steadies himself with one hand on the steering wheel, leaning out 'til he's nearly nose-to-nose with Esca. The steely look hasn't left his eyes, which Esca notices are green this close up.
"You made me lose their car," Marcus says, sounding friendly-like but his dark, Italian brows are furrowed deep. "So, you're gonna tell me how to get to Chicken Cottage."
God damn it. Esca plants his hands on the edge of the car roof and locks his elbows straight, away from Marcus' stupid fucking face.
Heaves a world-weary sigh. "It's a right on Atterwith, you pass three lights, and then turn a left onto Legram. You can see the sign from the street, turn left into the car park."
Behind them, someone honks their horn.
"Also," Esca adds, because he can't bloody help himself. "You can go fuck yourself, mate. See if I give a damn when you come to class tomorrow a fucking cripple."
He doesn't feel the blow so much as taste it, when Marcus splits the cut in his mouth anew with bare knuckles. Blood runs over Esca's tongue and he swallows it automatically, retching a little at the familiar taste.
"Thanks for the directions," Marcus says angrily. He pulls back into his car, puts it into gear and drives off, the car lurching temporarily as Marcus fucks up the clutch with a grinding noise that makes Esca reel back.
He curses the back of Marcus' car. Wipes his nose, gives a great sniff.
When the next car edges up, Esca sees the girl in the driver seat shoot him a dirty look. He flips her the bird.
-----
When Liathan finally pulls his head out of his arse and meets Esca in the car park, Esca may or may not ask him if he thinks Davina—Liathan's sister, who's picking them up—would want fried chicken, his shout, he feels like a Peri Peri burger, all right? No need to give a man shit for his fucking cravings yeah, and Davina's a sight nicer than her twatty little brotha, ent she? So can they get Chicken Cottage or what?
All the while he's trying to convince Liathan to go, Esca can see for himself he's gone off the bend. Stalking Marcus like some kinda pervert would, but the way he sees it—he owes the goomba one. Marcus saved his arse yesterday, cos much as Esca doesn't give a damn about his edu-fuck-cation, he'd much rather be at Cottingswood High than lousing about at home, playing punching bag with Robert. Marcus kept him from being suspended, or even expelled. So yeah, Esca's indebted to him. And Esca ent a fucking deadbeat like those rugby shitheads, he knows something about honour.
Enough to keep Marcus from getting positively twattered on his second day at school, anyway.
Liathan mumbles something like "we'll see" about Chicken Cottage, but Esca doesn''t have to wait long cos Davina's pulling into the roundabout in her sensible car, a white Subaru. Esca lets himself into the backseat, Liathan taking up shotgun in front of him.
Inside the compartment of the car, Liathan's voice is twice as obnoxious as he turns to his sister.
"Eh, Daffy," he says. "Esca promised us Chicken Cottage."
"I didn't say you too!" Esca protests from the back. "Just Davina, for driving us, yeah? I haven't got enough money."
"So fine," Liathan says, slamming back against the car seat so that it bounces painfully against Esca's scraped up knees, the little bitch. "Daffy, you take us to Chicken Cottage, an' Esca'll buy you a Mountain burger, two spicy chicken burgers, a large side of chips, and a pepsi. Oh, and whatever you want, too."
Davina sighs from the front seat, pushing her long, brown hair behind one ear. Her eyes meet Esca's in the rearview mirror.
"Esca, you don't have to bribe me if you want Chicken Cottage. We'll just need to be done before five, I’ve got a shift at the aquarium tonight."
Esca victoriously reaches up and tugs on the bristles of Liathan's dippy mohawk, bouncing his skull against the backrest of the car seat. "Thanks, Davina!" he chirps.
Liathan throws a biro at him from the front, which Esca neatly catches and secretes into his rucksack.
-----
The three of them shuffle into the overly-lit restaurant and stand in line. There are a whole bunch of other kids there, as it's just after school. Esca tries to look nonchalant as he swivels around, looking for Marcus or Ronald or Kirby, any of those goons.
Aha, he thinks, when his gaze alights on the messy hair of a bloke facing away from them, busy by the soft drink fountain. That's got to be Marcus; nobody else but some daft, foreign kid would be wearing a fucking pink polo shirt with the hem tucked into his waistband. Belted, no less. What a prat!
Marcus finishes topping off his soda—turns around with the cup in hand, his gaze colliding with Esca's. He looks surprised, then not at all, mouth going flat with disapproval.
"Esca, man. You bloody in there?" Liathan raps on the side of Esca's head with his knuckles, which Esca irritably snaps away from.
"Aye, I'm right bloody here, ent I?"
"Then order."
Oh. Esca gives a cursory glance at the overhead menu, mumbles out the first combo he sees, hands over the only note he's got in his wallet. Hopes it's enough to cover it.
It is, since he gets some money back, and then the three of them are moving along to the waiting area.
Marcus is still by the soda fountain, receipt crumpled between two fingers against his cup. His lips are wrapped around a straw as he sucks down his drink like he's trying to finish it in thirty seconds, like one a them cheap kids who want to make sure they get a refill 'fore they leave, get their money's worth. Esca knows better though; that's angry drinking, not cheapskate drinking. Marcus' narrowed eyes say so.
Liathan elbows Esca in the side, drawing his attention.
"Bloody tosser, ent he? Fucking polo shirt and tan trousers, like he's gonna go golfing with the queen or suffink. Maybe we should rough him up, yeah, bloody ponce fucking deserves it."
"Shut up, Liathan," Esca says, as does Davina. They look at each other and grin. Davina reaches over and ruffles Esca's hair.
She's only two years older than him and Liathan, but Esca doesn't mind being treated like a little kid if it's by Davina. She seems so much older. Probably has something to do with how, out of the scores of children Liathan's parents have squired, Davina's the oldest. She's basically got a little family of her own to take care'a. In a way, Esca's part of it, like a proxy child.
"The fuck you lookin' at, eh?"
Liathan's angry voice breaks Esca's thoughts, and he follows his friend's gaze to find the culprit.
By the soda fountain, Marcus stays perched against the metal condiments counter, but he pulls his mouth off his straw and straightens up, broad shoulders making him roughly the size of a brick shithouse.
"Liathan, leave it," Davina says wearily, grabbing her younger brother's shoulder but he just shrugs it off and starts walking. Fucking hell, when Liathan thinks someone's dishonoured him or his fucking family—especially when it's to do with his big sister Davina—ent no way to calm him down, not 'til someone's face is smashed in.
Esca watches Liathan storm over to Marcus with a sinking heart. For fuck’s fake, he was here to save the Roman's arse, not to set a fucking rottweiler onto him.
"Looking at my sister, were you?" Liathan snaps, getting up into Marcus' face. Doesn't matter Marcus is three times his size; Liathan ent scared of fucking nuffink. Sometimes that's a good thing; usually it's not.
"Liathan," Esca sighs, following him through the path he'd cleared, patrons bunched to one side eager to get away from the hotheaded chav with the mohawk. The staff behind the counter, too, are starting to look at them; last thing Esca wants is to start trouble for Davina. "Come on," Esca says when he reaches Liathan. "I want my fucking chicken wings, yeah?"
"You pussying out, MacCunoval?"
"Shut up, no. Just—look at me, Liathan, you think I could take on this fucking meathead right now?" Esca yanks up the hem of his tee, not even up to his black-and-blue ribs, but still it's enough to see how much damage he'd sustained the day before. Even Marcus is staring, eyes bugging out a bit. "I been pissing blood all day, mate, so can we just fucking leave it?"
Liathan gives him a long, hard look. In the corner of his eye, Esca can see Marcus' intent gaze on the both of them.
Maybe that's why Liathan pivots in place, jutting his face back into Marcus'. "Outside," he snarls.
God damn it, Liathan.
Marcus, for his part, doesn't bat an eyelash. He pushes off the steel counter with his hip and stiffly walks out the restaurant, Liathan hot on his heels.
Esca shoves his receipt into Davina's hand. Doesn't say anything; doesn't have to. She knows better than anyone what Liathan and Esca get up to.
"Be careful," she says reluctantly. "Don't want your bloodied piss in my car, all right?"
"Wouldn't dream of it," Esca says with a grim smirk.
-----
Ronald and his lot are gathered 'round the black Explorer, bags of uneaten takeaway in their hands like they're waiting for Marcus to come out. Whether to kick his arse or genuinely to share a meal, Esca won't ever know cos things are heating up now, regardless.
A few yards away, Marcus and Liathan are circling each other, hackles raised. Esca feels his arm hairs prickle.
Liathan stops in his tracks. Keeping his eyes fixed on Marcus, he stretches out an arm and points to the gaggle of footballers, addressing them.
"You lot stay out of this. It's between me and Richie Branson, yeah?"
"The fuck you got against Aquila, Freakazoid?"
Liathan whirls around. "You know this toff?"
"Well," Kirby steps up. "Yeah, I mean. I guess so. He's new. But he's reet, yeah?"
"This twat?" Liathan repeats disbelievingly. "He's faffed up like my dearly departed grandpa, and you lot think he's reet?"
"What's wrong with how I look?" Marcus asks. He’s ignored.
Ronald and Tom have stepped up now, rounding onto Liathan, bags of takeaway ditched to the ground behind them, forgotten. Tom cracks his neck, jerking it side to side like he he's gearing up for kickoff and Liathan's head is the rugby ball.
"We can't all be bloody chavs like you and your poofter boyfriend," Tom laughs, his mean eyes flicking over to Esca and back.
Liathan's vibrating with anger now, but he's outnumbered five to one. Six, if you count Marcus.
Bloody hell. Things are getting out of control.
No one to stop it but him, yeah? Esca strides forward, hand grasping behind for the blade he keeps tucked in his waistband. He might be recovering from any manner of bodily injuries, but that don't mean Esca can't be quick when it matters.
In seconds he's joined the scene where he swiftly grabs the back of Marcus' collar, earning a little gurgle of surprise as Esca holds the blade to Marcus' throat. The sharp edge sits just beneath his Adam's apple where the tissue's softest.
"Esca?" Marcus manages between clenched teeth, his eyes darting to the side, body trying to rotate around like he wants to see.
Esca doesn't answer, but kicks out the backs of Marcus' knees so that he falls to the ground, two hard knocks dropping like stones onto concrete. Marcus hisses, but Esca keeps his blade up, keeps Marcus’ collar taut against his throat.
"Ey Ronald," Esca says jauntily. "How's your mum doing? Now that you're home every day, you get to join in when the pool boy comes 'round? Threesomes every afternoon, mate, can't get much sweeter than that."
"You little shit," Ronald snarls, stepping forward. "I know how much you like getting slapped around, but don't think I don't call your bluff. You ain't gonna shank the new kid."
"You gonna test me?" Esca laughs meanly. God, he hopes they don't. His body's not up for it; he’d fold like a piece of wet cardboard.
Esca unclenches his hand from the back of Marcus' collar and roves up the nape of his neck, grabbing a messy handful of thick hair which he uses to jerk back, baring Marcus' tender throat.
"Come on," Esca taunts. "Test me."
Ronald's glaring at him like he can make Esca spontaneously combust through sheer willpower, but he doesn’t move. Not forwards, but not backwards either.
Esca flips the blade around in his hand so that the pointy tip's pressed into the base of Marcus' throat, Esca's hand wrapped around the short hilt like he's having a wank.
He doesn''t take his eyes off Ronald, cos you got to stare a beast down, yeah? So he doesn't know if he's actually drawing blood with his blade. Kind of hopes so—not cos he actually wants to hurt Marcus, but because a little blood goes a long way in terms of getting people to back the fuck off.
Anyway, whatever it is he's doing, it's working. Ronald suddenly deflates like an air mattress sprung a leak, and he retreats a few feet, back to where his goons and Tom’s brother are sneering hard enough Esca thinks their noses might fall off.
He loosens his grip on Marcus' hair. Moves his blade away—
With a surge like an incoming tide, Marcus twists around and curls his hands into Esca's shirtfront. He looks like a bloomin' lunatic, hair standing up in unruly tufts, ruby-coloured blood trailing down the base of his throat and into the half-unbuttoned placket of his pink polo shirt.
"Fuck you, MacCunoval," Marcus growls.
Next to them, Esca hears Liathan pivot, his designer trainers grinding gravel underfoot. Esca holds a hand up, signaling him to stay put.
"I saved your fucking ass yesterday, and this is how you repay me? Maybe Ronald and the others were right in beating you within an inch of your life. You're just a self-serving piece of shit, aren't you?"
With one last, dogged glare, Marcus whips his hands down, releasing Esca from the inch or so he'd been dragged up from his tiptoes. Esca stumbles a bit, but doesn't let his expression waver even as inside his head, he's thinking shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Marcus turns around and struts over to his car. Ronald and Kirby try and stop him, mumbling something Esca can't hear, but Marcus just shoves them off and gamely moves past.
The rugby goons shrug. They collect their takeaway from the ground and pile back into the Explorer without so much as a backwards glance. Maybe they're shaken; maybe they honestly don't give a shit. Either way, Esca's glad to see 'em fuck off.
Somewhere to his right, he hears a low, appreciative whistle. Turns his head. It's Liathan, sidling over with his hands in his trackie bottoms.
"Puppy can bite," Liathan chuckles. "That was fun."
Maybe for a dodgy, violent aggro like his best friend. Not for Esca. "Let's go back inside," he says wearily. "Davina's probably eaten all our nosh."
They round the restaurant and Esca enters the door, beckoning Davina over from her seat. She gets up with a little smile and patters over, unopened paper bags crumpling loudly beneath her manicured hands.
-----
On the car ride home, Esca's mind runs on repeat.
He thinks about how Marcus looked when he'd had both hands wrapped in Esca's shirt—like he wanted to throttle Esca, of course. But under that, upset for a totally different reason. Like he thought Esca was better than he is—like Esca betrayed him or something, which is fucking daft, they don't even know each other. The fuck does Marcus know about Esca, eh? Fuck all, is what.
Doesn't stop the guilt from bubbling in his stomach. Though, that could just as easily be the spicy chicken wings Esca inhaled in about thirty seconds flat.
Looking down, Esca frowns at the right mess he's made. Sweeps some greasy fried bits off his lap with a defeated sigh.
-----
Some part of Esca had hoped that by tomorrow, Marcus would've forgotten about their stupid fight at Chicken Cottage. It wasn't a big deal, anyway, just something friends do. Roughhousing, that is. Thas how him and Liathan get along, anyhow. A little scuffle never hurt no one, yeah?
Well, must'a been the dumb part of Esca that done the hoping, cos Marcus sure as fuck hasn't forgotten. He keeps picking at the small wound between his collarbones and avoids Esca's gaze. In fact, there's no acknowledgment of any sort that Esca's even bloody alive, except that halfway through lesson he scratches a piece of dried blood off his throat and flicks it onto Esca's table.
"Bloody hell," Esca grouses, swiping the little fleck off his desk. "Don't throw your nasty scabs on my table."
He hunches over his desk defensively and squints at Marcus, but Marcus just sits up straighter in his chair so that his big naffin' head blocks the morning sun streaming behind him and Esca can see his stoic expression with full clarity as he calls out, imperiously:
"Mr. Dorsen, sir. Could you repeat that last part?"
Mr. Dorsen stutters through a response, clearly unused to students paying enough attention to bother asking questions. Esca knows that Marcus is just fronting, though; his left hand's clenched so tight over his left thigh his veins are standing out, and he's taking enough notes to finish a goddamned novel by the end of first period. But all it takes is Esca looking past Marcus' tanned forearms to read the smudgy grey words—
The first year of the Revalution the 3rd estate in June the assalt—
to know for sure that bloody hell, Marcus is just transcribing the words coming out of Mr. Dorsen's mouth, skipping whole parts of sentences at that. He ent paying a lick of attention, but he's being a stubborn arse about making it look like he is.
"Gonna ignore me, then?" Esca hisses. "Look, whas the big fucking deal? I didn't want you to kick Lie-Lie's twatty little arse. I wasn't gonna really hurt you. Didn't know you were gonna be such a fucking girl about it."
Esca hears the tiny sound of pencil lead snapping. Marcus quickly thumbs out new lead, click click click, and keeps scribbling nonsense.
Esca sighs. "Marcus."
Marcus flips a page.
"Marcus. Marcus. Marcus."
Esca hears his pencil lead snap again. With a muttered curse, Marcus clicks some more out, but it’s done run out. Thwarted, Marcus throws it onto his notebook like a petulant child. Then, for the first time all day, he turns to look at Esca.
"What?" he snaps.
Esca had this all planned out, wot he was gonna say, how to make Marcus realize he was being completely daft about yesterday's non-event, but the words evaporate from his brain like they were never there.
Marcus blinks at him, quiet and expectant.
"Erm," Esca says, licking his lips. Fuck's sake. He drums his fingers on his scarred desk—most of the gouges his—trying to think of something to say—
"That's it, Um? That's what you wanted to say. Um. They should give you an Oscar for that, Esca. Moving stuff."
"Ey, fuck you. I'm trying to apologize here."
At the front of the room, Mr. Dorsen loudly clears his throat. That's usually Esca's cue to start talking louder, but whatever, Esca's got other things to think about right now. Marcus is leaning in, the cheap wood of his seat creaking beneath him.
His knee bumps Esca's under their desks, making Esca jump. Marcus doesn't seem to notice though.
"I'm listening," Marcus says seriously.
Shit. Why is he making this so hard? Esca darts a look around the room, hoping nobody's paying attention to them. He's got his fucking rep to think about.
"I'm sorry," Esca says quickly, eyes everywhere but on Marcus.
"Sorry for what?"
"I don't know. For making you mad?"
"Wrong answer. Try apologizing for why I’m mad."
"So you are," Esca blurts, feeling really shite all of a sudden.
"Obviously," Marcus says, keeping his voice down but he's starting to sound incensed.
"Okay, fine. I'm fucking sorry, all right? I'm sorry for—for—" Esca makes twitchy gestures with his hands which is supposed to mean "everything" or "whatever you want" or "I don't bloody know".
"Sorry about holding a knife at my neck, maybe? Sorry for kicking me to the ground and fucking up my knees, my leg?"
Before Esca can make fun of him for being a right weakling, Marcus barrels on, "I broke it in three places last year, right in the middle of a game where scouts were watching me, so don't you dare tell me I'm being a girl, or a pussy, or whatever it is you were about to say. Year 10 was hell for me, and then I had to repeat it, so the last thing I want to do is come to a brand new school in this—this fucking village of a city, and have a pompous little jerk-off be nice to me one day, then throw me to the wolves the next."
Marcus suddenly unclenches his left hand from his thigh and rubs at the muscle irritably, the heel of his hand rolling up and down like he's kneading dough. He still looks annoyed with Esca, but his face slowly colours up in embarrassment the longer Esca watches him. Like he doesn't want anyone to see him hurting, 'specially now he's just told Esca he's got a fucked up leg.
"I wasn't nice to you," Esca eventually says. It looks like it takes Marcus a moment to catch up, to figure out what Esca's referring to. But it teases out a reluctant smile, and that's good, right there.
"Don't kid yourself," Marcus says.
"Asshole," Esca says automatically. Fuck. "I didn't mean that," he backtracks.
Marcus rolls his eyes. "I know." There's amusement in his face though, hidden in the tiny quirk of his lips, in the long-suffering sigh he gives.
Esca hopes this means Marcus isn't mad anymore. "I'm not great at words," Esca adds. "So, erm."
The idea hits him suddenly, and it's so perfect Esca doesn't know why he didn't think of it last night, while he'd been lying awake in bed mulling over what to say to Marcus the next morning. He leans forward in his seat, wincing a little when his tender ribs bump into the edge of his desk. Hikes up the back of his leather jacket and white tee shirt, his skin prickling a little as it hits the cool air, and gropes for his blade.
He sees Marcus' green eyes track the movement. His face is eerily blank, like maybe he's still worried Esca's gonna stick him but doesn't want to show it.
He feels a kick to the back of his chair.
"Esca! What are you doing?"
It's Molly Aiken, who's generally all right but sort of uptight. She loves telling Esca what to do. He loves telling her to fuck off, mostly.
"Fuck off, Molly," Esca tosses over his shoulder, freeing the sheathed dagger from the small of his back and wagging it at her. "I ent starting nuffink, but don't provoke me."
He turns to Marcus, who's watching the weapon with outright suspicion now. Maybe that's cos Esca's pulled it out of the simple, leather sheath and pointed it at him.
"Fuck's sake, I'm not gonna stick you," Esca says exasperatedly. "I jus want you to have it. For now, I mean. Once you trust me not to stab you no more."
Marcus frowns, looking confused in the way only lumbering footballers can. Esca snorts.
"It was me dad's," he explains, turning the dagger so that it's pointing towards the front of the room. "B-R-M," he says, showing Marcus the small engraving at the base of the blade. "Brennan Cecil MacCunoval."
"Was your dad's?" Marcus asks, wrapping his huge hand around Esca's over the hilt, instead of just waiting for him to pass it over, the clumsy buffoon.
Esca extricates his hand. Scratches his neck, feeling itchy. "He's dead," he says simply. "Mum too." He's thankful when Marcus doesn't push it, despite the overt curiosity in his eyes which linger, present and invasive, like he’s trying to read Esca’s mind.
The stupid Roman finally looks away. He examines the dagger in his hand, then picks up the leather sheath from Esca's desk and tucks the blade away with overmuch care.
"Now you know I won’t kill you," Esca says, trying to shake off how unsettled he feels. "But I'm warning you, if you lose that blade I'll do it anyway."
Marcus chuckles, which makes him look like a daft ten-year-old, his smile is so fucking guileless. It makes Esca feel all a bit lightheaded.
"Yeah, yeah," Esca says with a sniff. "You call me shrimp again, I'm telling Liathan you're fucking his sister."
"Maybe I am."
As revenge, Esca digs out a permanent marker from Marcus' pencil bag and draws a pair of testicles on his forearm. Marcus, like the great idiot he is, lets him.
Next
