Alex's New Life: Next Generation Chapter 16
Welcome back to Nick gets screwed over...I mean Next Generation. Time to see how Lucas is doing. As usual don't forget to donate to Nifty https://donate.nifty.org/ and if you want to get in touch then drop me an email sithspawn78@yahoo.co.uk
Chapter 16
\\\ Ben ///
"FUUUUCK!!!" We heard Lucas before we even got out the car and we quickly dashed out to see what the problem was. We burst through the kitchen door to see Lucas standing there in a rage with the dishwasher door in one hand and some mangled cutlery in the other.
"Lucas what the fuck?!?!" Sammie yelled.
"This stupid piece of crap came off in my hand!!" Lucas screamed back as he raised it up, ready to smash into the ground.
"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!" Josh bellowed from behind us, scaring the crap out of me as I watched Lucas turn white. "Put the door down carefully and sit down." Lucas did as he was told and put the crumpled up cutlery on the table in front of him. "Ok, now what's going on?"
"Yeah and why was Nick here?" Sammie asked.
"I found him in the stables this morning so we brought him in to get cleaned up and gave him some breakfast; then Dad took him home." Something didn't add up about all this.
"Ok, so why did you feel the need to pull the dishwasher door off?" Sammie asked, earning herself a scowl from Lucas. She threw her hands in the air and carried on pressing him. "Well you're clearly pissed off about something."
"Fine! He was talking to Dad about comics and he said some things that made me realise he'll never accept me." Lucas sighed, now using the mangled cutlery like a stress ball.
"Like what?" Sammie asked.
"Like how he'd be scared if he found out someone he grew up with had super powers. Dad kept asking him questions about how he'd feel if mutants existed, like he was trying to see how Nick would react to us. Seems to me like he'd be scared and jealous, but now he's gonna be part of your family so he'll find out about us sooner or later and that'll be it, he'll never accept us." I could see why Lucas was worried but I didn't think it would be as bad as he made out.
"Well if you remember I wasn't exactly thrilled about your little secret for a long time but I got over it." I said.
"And if you're lucky you can pick the right time to tell him. I didn't have that luxury with your dad, or even Ben's dad for that matter but everybody took it well." Josh added.
"But when will be the right time? And what happens if Luke or someone else tells him, thinking he already knows?" Lucas whined.
"It'll be fine, we'll make sure no one tells him until you think he's ready to know, and then you can always ask any of us to help you out when the time is right." Josh replied, and then sent us off to the studio to hang out while he tried to figure out what to do with the dishwasher.
I stayed at the farm for the rest of the day and I could tell the conversation with Nick was still getting to Lucas. All day he just seemed down and when Alex returned home he grounded Lucas for not telling anyone that he knew Nick was at the farm; a detail Lucas had neglected to mention earlier, and for breaking the dishwasher. Lucas was confined to the farm for the rest of our week off school, which didn't seem to bother him too much. I got the feeling he actually wanted the time alone. He seemed to be avoiding me any time I went to see Sammie as well, even though his punishment didn't mean he had to. Hopefully getting back to school would take his mind off things but then again, being nearer to Nick might make things worse.
\\\ Nick ///
When Alex dropped me back home I could tell Mum was relieved that I was ok, but then came the real awkwardness of her wanting to punish me for worrying her but also not wanting to do or say anything to upset me. For the whole week that I had off school I felt like she was treading on egg shells around me, seemingly wanting to talk about the past but not knowing how to do it. We mostly avoided each other as I either stayed in my room in the evenings or went to the music store during the day time. Mum also seemed to be spending more time with Luke as well and, even though I didn't see much of him over that week, he seemed like he was trying to make the effort with me, and they both seemed to be dropping hints that maybe we should all move in together. I didn't really mind that idea, although I hadn't really seen where Luke lived. Hopefully he lived somewhere that wasn't as shitty as where we were, and maybe I'd even get a bigger room at last.
Most of the week in the music store was spent trying to get my head together. I didn't know where I stood with the Fleeks as I hadn't spoken to any of them since Halloween. I didn't know if they'd even still want to know me anymore since they found out I was gay and after I punched Jamie. Not only that but I didn't even know if I wanted to even speak to Danny after finding out that he'd been hiding what he knew about Brandon not being my dad. It made me wonder what else he'd been hiding from me.
Since I'd come out to the whole school at Halloween my mind kept drifting towards Lucas and how awesome he was. I kept thinking back to waking up in the stables with him calling me cute, or how much fun we'd had in his studio just messing about with the music. How he'd brought everyone together on the dance floor at Halloween and just the look of sheer joy on his face as he had everybody moving with him. Even the way Alex had been amazed by how in sync we'd been made me think that there was a definite connection between us. All that had been stopping me before was the way I had been brought up to hate his family but with Brandon gone all that was over.
As the week wore on though I became less sure about our connection. Lucas seemed to be avoiding me for some reason as every time I messaged him he either wouldn't reply or it would take him ages to respond, and even then it'd just be a short message. It was almost like he didn't want to spend too much time talking to me. I tried asking him to hang out, sending him little jokes and anything I could think of, short of flirting with him but he was just blanking me. I messaged Sammie a couple of times asking her if anything was wrong but she just said he'd been grounded so maybe that was it.
By the end of the week I was thoroughly depressed. I'd had no contact with Lucas, the Fleeks or anyone else from school besides Sammie, and even that was fleeting. I'd been using the equipment in the music store to polish up the song I'd created for Lucas but as the week went on I started to wonder if there was any point finishing it. I could give it to him and he probably wouldn't give a shit anyway so why bother? When we started back to school I didn't know what to do. Should I apologise to Jamie? And how should I deal with Danny? I ended up just trying to avoid everybody and even though he was no longer a part of my life, I could still feel Brandon's influence on everything around me.
The first two days back were miserable. It seemed like people were gossiping about me as obviously they all knew about what had gone down at Halloween, so I tried as hard as I could to ignore that. The only one of the Fleeks I saw was Noah and he seemed ok with me, but I did my best to stay away from them as I didn't know what to expect. Danny never seemed to be with any of them though and I only saw him in school once, but as he saw me he quickly turned around and went the other way. All the time during these days I could feel my anger rising. I thought I'd made friends here; thought I was starting to make a better life but yet again Brandon fucked it all up for me.
Finally it all came to a head around lunchtime on the Wednesday when I was walking past the cafeteria and looked over at the trophy case. There was that picture of Brandon again, smiling in victory next to all his trophies and I just lost it. I smashed my schoolbag repeatedly into the case sending broken glass and wood flying in all directions. I grabbed the picture and smashed the frame on the floor before tearing it to pieces and then threw the trophies on the floor, stomping and kicking them as much as I could until I suddenly felt my arms pinned to my sides as somebody pulled me back to stop me.
"Hey...calm down, it's alright, just calm down ok?" I tried to squirm free but whoever was behind me held on tight. By now a crowd had started to form as everybody had heard the ruckus but I didn't care.
"GET OFF ME!!" I yelled, getting angrier as I struggled to get free.
"Nick it's me, it's Jamie... come on, calm down...he can't hurt you anymore, you're just gonna end up hurting yourself and I don't want that to happen." He said soothingly and for some reason I instantly stopped fighting him as all the anger drained out of me. He eased up his grip and I was able to turn round to look at him and I instantly burst into tears as he held me in his arms. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed him as I started crying into his shoulder. All too soon though I was hauled off to the principal's office as I was obviously in big trouble for damaging school property.
I was made to sit outside his office as I waited for them to call my mum in. Jamie was in speaking to the principal about what had happened and soon came out to sit by me. For what felt like an eternity we just sat there in silence as I didn't know how to start apologising to him.
"Soooo...you're definitely gay then? I kinda figured that out pretty early on." I didn't quite know how to respond so I carried on looking at the ground. "Probably explains why you hit like a girl." I could almost hear him smiling as he said that and I tried not to laugh.
"You still went down like a sack of shit." I replied, finally looking up and smiling back. "I'm sorry I hit you though, I just kinda lashed out without thinking."
"Don't worry about it, I probably would have done the same with all that shit happening. At least I came off better than Danny."
"How is he?" I asked, suddenly concerned about him, even though I still wanted to be mad at him.
"He's alright now, but he was pretty badly bruised last week." He let that hang in the air for a while and I didn't know what to say. "Ben and Lucas are still pretty mad at him."
"Why is Lucas mad at him?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
Jamie just let out a sigh and then said. "Because Danny's not being truthful about things and it's messing with people too much."
"Oh." I couldn't think of anything more to say.
"It's kinda splitting Fleek Flow up as well; we haven't all been together since Halloween and I'm not sure we will be again."
We sat in silence again and after a little while my mum turned up which meant it was time to see the principal. Jamie had explained a lot to him about what had happened and, even though I'd destroyed school property, I got off pretty lightly by just being suspended for the rest of the week. I really wasn't too bothered about the punishment though as I was more concerned about what Jamie had said about Fleek Flow being divided. When I got home I knew I'd be grounded but I was determined to make the most of it. Jamie had reminded me that Brandon was gone and I needed to move on. That night when Luke came over I decided to tackle everything head on. We sat down in our crummy lounge and I decided to just let out everything I'd been feeling for the last few days.
"I'm sorry about what happened today." I started. "And I'm sorry for being a complete arsehole since Halloween."
"Language!" Mum chastised.
"No he's right, he has been an arsehole." Luke said, giving me a little wink as he smiled.
"I guess everything just got on top of me and when I saw all that stuff in the trophy case I just lost it."
"Look, it's not surprising that you've been feeling messed up since Halloween." Luke said. "Your da...I mean Brandon blindsided us all with that news but you can't hold your mum responsible."
"I know, and I'm sorry I did. I just didn't know what to think about any of it but...I dunno...I think smashing that case up today just showed me how much anger I still had for him, but there's not really any point in feeling like that."
"It's ok to feel like that, it's been tough on you." Mum said.
"Yeah, but it still feels like he's controlling my life, so I just wanna try and make a fresh start. From now on this is my family, just you, me and Dad." This was actually the first time I'd called Luke my dad and I could see the emotion building up in his eyes as he stood up to give me a big hug.
"I didn't realise how long I'd been waiting to hear someone say that. It's hard to believe I actually have a son, and I couldn't be more proud of you. Remember you've got more than just us though; you've got your Uncle Sam, Aunt Becky and don't forget Ben's actually your cousin now, not to mention the grandparents you haven't met yet." Holy shit!! With everything going on it completely passed me by that Ben and I were cousins, I mean, I should have realised with my dad and his dad being brothers but it just never occurred to me until then. "You realise I've got fifteen years' worth of Christmas and Birthday presents to catch up on don't you?"
"Don't worry about that, it wasn't your fault...although there is this guitar in Adrian's shop..." I felt cheeky for mentioning it but maybe he could loan me the money for it and I could pay him back.
"I was actually thinking of something a bit bigger. How about a bigger bedroom in a bigger house?"
"Huh?"
"Well you've probably noticed that your mum and I have been talking about moving in together for a while, so I was in the process of buying a bigger house for all of us before everything went down with Brandon. That's on hold at the moment but if you're up for it then we might be able to move in a couple of weeks."
"What, and leave this dump behind?" I asked.
"Well you can bring those curtains from your room if it'd make you feel better."
"You can fu..."
"Language!!" Luke scolded as he knew exactly what I was going to say. He showed me the plans and some photos of the new house and it looked amazing. I took the pictures of my new room upstairs so I could figure out how I was going to have it decorated, and started thinking about how things were finally looking up.
I spent another day going through all the photos on my phone to get rid of any from the past that I didn't want anymore. So no more photos of me looking battered or anything like that but there were some good memories there with my mum and grandparents. I even had some good memories with Brandon's parents which made me feel a little sorry for them as they'd been lied to as well. The last thing I needed to get rid of was all the paint on my guitar, but once I had I actually missed it. I had an idea for how to rectify that though and I messaged Sammie to see if Alex could maybe do a little painting on it for me. She said she'd see what she could do so I just had to hope he could do something with it.
The next thing I needed to do was to fix everything with the Fleeks. The biggest problem seemed to be that Ben and I had big issues with Danny which meant the other guys didn't know how to take sides. I decided that it was time to get rid of those sides and bring everybody together so I set up a little meeting for us all. I messaged Jamie, Tom and Noah to see if we could work out how to do it and we decided to get everyone together in the same place and deal with it all head on. Noah's house was the obvious choice as he had quite a big, open plan kitchen where we could all get together and he didn't have a beef with anyone. I briefly considered asking Sammie if we could use their place but that would bring up a whole new problem with Lucas ignoring me, so that would be something to tackle later on.
When the weekend came I arrived at Noah's first while Jamie and Tom went to pick up Ben. When Jamie messaged me to say they were on their way back I had Noah's brother Aaron dash off to bring Danny over, as they were friends in school. When Ben arrived with the others we all went into the kitchen and just hung out like always. Noah's place had quite a lot of counter tops and a breakfast bar type island in the middle, along with a small dining table off to one side. Ben and Jamie sat on the counters while Noah sat at the island and Tom was on one of the chairs by the table. I stayed standing but leaning against the wall near the door as I knew Danny would be along soon, and sure enough we soon heard the tell-tale sound of new arrivals. Danny walked into the kitchen and his eyes went wide when he saw the others.
"What's he doing here?" Ben snapped, and I saw Danny turn to leave but Aaron was in his way and I was able to grab him before he could, so he had nowhere to go without a fight.
"I wanted him to come, the same as everyone else. We've all fallen apart since everything happened at Halloween and I want to get us back to how we were before. Now you, go and sit over there next to Noah." I said, pointing to where I wanted Danny to go. The younger boy shuffled over miserably as if he was about to get chastised by everyone.
"So you're not pissed off at him?" Ben asked.
"To be honest...no." I replied to Ben's surprise. "I'll admit I was at first but I was pissed off at everyone after everything went down. I was pissed off at Brandon, my mum, Luke and even you guys."
"Us? Why?" Tom asked.
"Because Danny obviously saw something when he looked at me and I was sure you guys had as well but didn't tell me." Tom looked like he was about to protest but I cut him off. "It was literally for a few seconds when I was trying to get my thoughts in order so don't worry about it. Over the last week I've come to realise that every one of us has been a victim in this. I was convinced Brandon was my dad so even if you guys had doubts you probably wouldn't have said anything. Danny on the other hand decided to investigate it but when Brandon arrived it kinda forced his hand."
"He still should've told you sooner." Ben scowled.
"When? There was never going to be a good time to tell me, and what if he'd said something and it turned out not to be true?" There was a bit of murmuring from Ben and I could tell he knew I was right. "As far as I'm concerned it's all out in the open now, even though it wasn't done in the way I would've wanted, so let's draw a line under it ok?"
"Fine." Ben sighed and then turned to Danny. "I guess I was a little too hard on you so I'm sorry, but next time don't keep big stuff like that to yourself."
"Hopefully there won't be anything else like this coming up again." Danny said and we all agreed.
"This has all been kinda good in a way." I said with a smile, earning me a few confused looks. "I'm serious. I finally feel like I'm free from all the shit that happened in the past and I can make up my own mind about who I want to be. Not only that but it's gone from being just me and Mum to having a whole family."
"It still feels kinda funny thinking of you as my cousin now instead of just a friend." Ben said with a huge grin on his face.
"Yeah, and now I get to call your dad Uncle Sam."
"Now all we need to do is get you and Lucas together." Jamie said and I was about to say something when he cut me off again. "Don't try to deny it mate, we've all seen how you're crushing on each other."
"Yeah, it was obvious from the first time you laid eyes on him." Danny added.
"Maybe to you Batboy but I didn't even know he was gay." Tom quipped, pointing at me.
"I dunno what's happened to him lately though. I've barely spoken to him since Halloween." I said solemnly.
"Don't worry about that, I'll talk to him tomorrow. I think I know what's wrong." Ben replied and I noticed him give Danny a knowing look.
"Ok, there's one thing left to ask." Tom got that devilish smile back on his face as he was inching his way towards the back door. "We all know that you're gay now but..."
"Don't you dare!!" Ben yelled, pointing threateningly at Tom.
"Does your mother know?" He asked and then, laughing like a maniac, he quickly took off into the garden with Jamie and Ben in hot pursuit.
Noah had a pretty decent sized garden with a huge lawn and a trampoline off to one side. After they'd got their licks in on Tom all the guys started to stretch themselves out and were soon back in the rhythm of practicing flips and tricks. Danny and Aaron took turns on the trampoline and I could definitely see Aaron was taking after his brother with the moves he was pulling off. For the rest of the day we just hung out like old times and for the first time in ages I felt like I was finally moving forward, all I needed now was to figure out how to get Lucas to like me again and everything would be sweet.