adventures v5.5 opening

Chapter 1 – Alvy and the Exchange
It was a strange day when I met Alvy Piper. But first, I gotta tell you about myself. I’d basically had a bad day at school. None of the teachers liked me today, sue me. And I was sitting in class, the last of the day, when opportunity struck.
Wanna go get high after school?
The message on snapchat killed itself. I looked up and at the person who sent it to me, sitting on the other side of the classroom. Steven Starr, the blonde pyromaniac, 19 year old - currently staring into the back of Ms Trendell’s head as she scribbled shit on the board. I already know all this, ugh, why am I in college anyway?
k hmu
I snapped back. His eyes went down to the android on his lap, head not moving till he looked back at me. I stuck my tongue out and winked at Steven. Bet he blushed when he turned away real quick. Hehehe.
It’d not been long since I arrived here. About a year. Got into the Cannonshire College of Physics and Other Sciences for sixth form, straight out of Dhaka City. Got straight A’s innit. I worked hard for it. I’d plans, with several girls in and out of the internet with love on my mind and I’d lost every plan each time. Honestly? I’m the sorta guy who has nothing go his way ‘cause even the universe itself would fold itself around my relative existence and ruin things beyond my control. Bit of depression, here and there, four attempts to commit that failed, still attempting the current one really.
Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s important. It’s my story, I can do whatever I want.
So here I was in a town that looked creepily a bit too similar to Dhaka’s layout, if you looked at it on google  maps.  Especially where I lived back home. That’s where the College is in Cannon. And the “lake” nearby is a river.  Now? I live in the College dorms, down Little Tyne St. Nice place really, small apartment for each person. I made friends, Steven Starr included, with my neighbours. After school, I’m partying every weekend. Smoking pot. Dropping acid. Taking ten people to McDonalds and lining up at the same time, ordering 10 cheeseburgers each, calling it “DDOSing the world”.
One evening, Steven, with Candyce, his girlfriend, and I were up at my place. Steven had imported Russian drugs. Perevitin, the Russian super-secret soldier drug, or Vint, for short. After all, Steven /is/ the teenage drug lord in this story.
The other teenage drug lord in this story is Alvy, who had been a voice in my head for as long as I can remember. I’m schizophrenic. Or, I used to be. That night, Steven Starr and Candyce and I got terribly turnt. We discovered cloud generators, I walked through walls, made cheeseburgers appear inside fridges and at the end of the first morning we lay down with the topic of life, the universe and everything.
I was laying between Candyce and Steven. They had cornered me. Well, I won’t lie, I tell the best stories. My opinion on the universe truly is a topic to pry out of me. To be honest, both of them were touching me all over the place. They knew it’d fuck me up, and it was. It felt like I was laying between angels, and denying their existence.
“Max, tell us love,” Candyce ran her finger down my neck. Steven was digging his nails into my sides, with some sort of silent anger going on between him and me. It wasn’t the first time we’d done this. Threesomes have happened before. I was on soldier drugs and I felt insanely happy, but high enough to feel guilty for being this happy, and laugh.
“Can I keep it short?”
“Please,” Steven smirked.
I rolled my eyes at him. He burst into genuine laughter. Pressure on my ribs decreased. Candyce put her arm over me and her head on her elbow, staring into my eyes rather impressively. Her curly brown hair suddenly fell over her face and mine. Couldn’t obviously see her eyes, it was too dark. I hardly notice the colour of people’s eyes.
“Open up, you know you want to,” she whispered at me and leaned back.
So I did. It was nice having friends like them, so I did. Alvy never really liked it, but I’d known them for almost a whole year, after all. I told them all about how demons are real, souls are real, about the one world order, about the black knight satellite, and I told them about the guardian of earth, whose name is has been tainted across civilizations as the ultimate evil, and the crucified black man who was high on some major drugs thanks to his girlfriend, and he was an agent from the Against.
By the time I had finished, Candyce was sitting up, head on her knees; her stare out the window almost splitting the curtains apart. Steven was just fucking flabbergasted.
“You should write that down,” Candyce said to me out of nowhere.
“Aye, I will,” I sighed.
“Fuck!” Steven exclaimed and jumped off the bed and onto the chair by the desk where my laptop was sitting.
“What’chu doing love?” Candyce asked.
“Googling this shit,” Steven mumbled.
“Oi, don’t you believe me?”
“Nah Max, shut it a sec mate,” he snapped back. Steven’s hands met at his face and he breathed into his palms as google loaded. Click. Loaded some more. He stopped scrolling.
“I’ve been doing this thing lately,” Steven rotated ominously on the chair and moved the laptop slightly. Ugh, I wish he wouldn’t do that, I’m quite fucking OCD about where my stuff should be. “Look, how to summon demons!”
I zoomed in to see occult circles and stars and it seemed like the best idea in the world. Candyce sprang up and the three of us set to work immediately. We picked the name of a wish-granting demon, and then we had some fun with candles, fire and paper, and drawings, scales and rulers and even blood, from papercuts.
Eventually, like around noon, we realized it was light out and went out to get starbucks. We were strolling down the walkway by the river that we normally took on our way to school, when suddenly it was sunset. It was just when we were discussing how the sun is what it is, a star, glowing brightly in the distance, that the other voices in my head began to make themselves heard.
For a second, everything started to go black. My eyes were open and I couldn’t see as a shade of deep green, bright metal glowed around the darkness that should’ve been my vision.
“Max!” I heard Alvy.
I couldn’t move.
“I can’t hold them back, you have to do something!”
“Close the portal!”
And by then, it was too late. I never heard Alvy’s voice in my head ever again. My eyesight returned to normal and I found myself leaning back against the walkway railing, breathing heavily.
“You okay pet?” I heard Candyce.
“A-aye, hold on,” I whispered.
“What happened?” Steven asked.
“I- I was meant to follow her into the portal,” I stuttered. The stupidest, self-depreciating excuse of an explanation I could’ve come up with at the time. I was, after all, still on super-secret soldier drugs.
The worst part was not being able to tell Candyce or Steven about what’d really happened, instead I’d told them I just felt like I was dying.
And here we are, today, after three days of other rather unremarkably trippy things, in the last class, Steven snapping me pictures of lame internet memes. Yeah, he’s one of /them/.
And there went the bell, making the College feel more and more like an elaborate high school, if you know what I mean.
“Candyce won’t be joining us today, she’s got piano lessons,” Steven said, running his hand through his hair in relief as we walked away after saying farewell to his friends.
“Where are we going?” I asked, pulling up my hoodie as he did his. My shiny new adidas denim low tops were gonna get muddy.
“Alvy’s, gotta get our delivery of the week,” he said nonchalantly.
Excuse me, to who’s? For some reason, I knew I oughtn’t ask.
“Uh, and after that?”
“A few joints and then we go home,” Steven said shortly. I kept my mouth shut for most of the way. We walked down alleys, met up with the river, crossed bridges and had walked far enough that we should’ve taken the metro. Except we didn’t have one. Newcastle that way, Liverpool this way. Cannon was in a very awkward place.
What Cannonshire also had were wall after wall of graffiti. Every wall. All the walls, all the walls. You could literally divide the town into two districts on each side of the river ‘cause of the motif in each region. They’re not intrusive, they blend beautifully into the architecture. And I admired the people behind them.
We passed from the purple and silver paintings of the Collegiate district and into the Riverside Backwoods, named after the great Backwood highway that cut a path through flats on either side, where the graffiti was black, tribal, slutty, loud and very intricately geometric.
Steven even had to grab my arm and pull me off the road to avoid random, creepy cars playing creepy ghetto bass music.
Then we were almost under the highway, at the foot of great British defiance against whatever, a Victorian looking council house, so big, that the highway had to cut a tunnel through its middle. Somewhat contemporary, shabby looking added-balconies adorned the bloody mess.
“What the fuck?” I stared up at it, stopping in my tracks.
“This is it, Castle Backwood,” Steven sighed at me.
“That’s not what it’s really called, is it?”
“Nope,” he grinned and walked up the steps and opened the door and walked right in. I followed him into a giant entrance hall with a great, dusty chandelier hanging above. Typical entrance hall, really.
“Up the stairs and to the left for apartments, right for council offices and childrens’ shelter,” gathered Steven as he went up some more and turned right.
His boots were making muffled wooden thuds on the heavily carpeted floor and he walked with intent. I’d no fucking clue what was going on. We walked straight past two doors with lit windows and a third counter where an old fat lady slept soundly where we turned back immediately and took a different route. Honestly, it felt as if Steven had just forgotten which way to go. I could tell he’d been here before, and in his defense this place was already like a maze.
Steven pointed at a door on the left and swiveled his point, moving to the right. I ran up and tried, it clicked open quietly under my hand. Steven was looking up the windows in the last door up a flight of stairs perhaps, ‘cause mine had stairs on the other side too.
He skipped over and we began our quiet ascend up the floors.
“Remember to be polite,” Steven giggled.
“What?”
“Girl’s a bit of a nutter,” he stopped and smiled at me. We were probably five floors above the ground. “I never take anyone to see her so be nice.”
Everytime Steven said shit like that it’d make me melt. I looked up to him as if he and Candyce were my parents in this fucked up city. They’d lived here for ages, and I’m an only child. It was meant to be. Some two or three floors later we turned up outdoors.
“Highest point of Castle Backwood, this is where she lives, lucky bitch,” Steven muttered. We walked across a tiny aluminium bridge with a huge drop below us and onto a stack of wooden floors with a cottage built on top, complete with iron railings, very reminiscent of the graffiti downstairs, around a tiny garden.
“How?” I asked as Steven knocked four times on the door, thrice.
“Nobody knows,” he shrugged, pulling his hoodie down and digging into the pockets of his jeans as we waited.
The door clicked and swung open. A full four inches shorter than me, missing a pinch wide on the curvy side of an athletic build, and bright, crystalline grey eyes, and straight, dark brown hair, silver tips and highlights on her fringe, bangs if you will, tiny white denim shorts and mint blue jacket over a white tank top with some sort of punk pop band’s screaming in scribbled text, barefeet, angry.
Till her eyes met Steven’s.
“Ayy!” she exclaimed, jumping onto him, stealing hugs. “Whaddup Starr?” she smiled at him.
“Came to see you, been a while since I’d time to walk all the way down here,” he and Alvy, yes this is /obviously/ her, stepped indoors and I followed quickly, closing the door behind me as they walked into the living room, and I followed into a dimly lit, hotboxed room. There were three other boys, white, white and black, and two rather cute black girls in pink tops and mint green shoes. To be honest, the colour reminded me of the same metallic shade I’d seen a couple of days ago when Alvy disappeared for three days.
“Oh, who’s this?” she said. Her voice made me snap turn towards her.
“Yo,” I said meekly.
She stared at me curiously, then smiled a lustful smile at me. I made sure not to break eye-contact till her smile turned kind, I smirked back, and she finally turned, smiling brightly at Steven. “Did I choose well?” and she turned right back at me. “Heart of ice… Cyberdemon Max…”
“Ice?”
“Aye,” she reached stealthily and slipped her fingers between mine. “You’re catching on, I like that, I like that a lot…” Alvy turned back to Steven. “The exchange is fair, Starr. Take anything you want.”
“Anything, m’lady?” Steven laughed. But he seemed so calm, everyone in the room seemed calm. There wasn’t a hostile feeling in the air, okay, one in the corner but not towards me.  I glanced at Steven carefully.
“Aye, he’s worth it,” Alvy whispered, staring into the back of my eyes, her face burning through rods and cones and into my mind. Her hand gripped mine and she pulled me towards the couches where everyone was, and I finally saw three glass bongs sitting on a table around a big box full of drugs. Herbs, pills, syringes, powders, blotters, everything. Steven was helping himself to a handful of everything, putting them in bags.
“Not taking any for friends?” Alvy asked him. Apparently he was taking small amounts.
“Nah, this is a bit more personal, I’ll need them with Candyce while you do your shit innit,” he sighed, then looked up at me. I was being sold off at a high price, really. A phone on the table began ringing and one of the girls threw it at Alvy, who caught it with one hand.
“Aye, they’re here,” she paused. “I’m busy,” and she hung up.
I was pushed into the armchair facing everyone and the TV and Alvy sprawled swiftly across my lap and the armrests, grabbing my hands and placing them on her stomach, under the open minty jacket, her hands on top of mine. Steven was taking a hit from a joint passed to him.
“Nikki,” she said towards the girls, and Nikki’s eyes shot up at Alvy. “We can sit here all day, or I’ll throw you all out that window over there,” Alvy pointed at the TV.  I saw Nikki tremble for a second at the idea as the joint came to me. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.
Could I have expected anything else? Nah, and it was truly, mint weed. Pure, cold, sweet and dank.
“Calem, what say you?” Alvy sighed in my exhale.
“I want my fucking money back,” Calem growled.
“WELL YOU AIN’T GETTING IT!” Alvy screamed and the black guy who was not Calem or his friend had grabbed and pinned him to the wall. “HOW DO YOU FUCKIN’ EXPECT MONEY AFTER PUTTING /MY/ BITCHES THROUGH THAT?”
“He sold your girls?” I looked down at Alvy and asked.
“They were going to two but they got five guys and a fatty share them in a restaurant,” she said.
“How much?”
“Faggot over there got a k’, says he’s owed another two while Nikki and Carly over there just got 30 quid taxi money.”
“His business innit, getting the money back? What’d he sell to, Arabs?”
“Fuck, you /do/ catch on quickly,” Alvy looked up at me. “Pakis, actually.”
“Hate ‘em.” I’m a paki, sue me.
“What do you think?”
“Uh, why are the girls so expensive?” I’d to ask.
“Hahaha, look at them!” Alvy shifted slightly in my lap as she took the joint away from me, inhaled, passed it along to the third boy and exhaled. “Two of my loveliest wee numpties.”
I looked up at them. The girls had been sitting silently with their heads down ever since Calem found himself stuck to the wall. “Hey Nikki,” I called out. “Was he there?” I pointed at Calem.
Her eyes went wide ever so slightly, and Alvy noticed too. “Max…” she whispered.
“Take his phone. Take whatever money he has. Take that jacket, I like that jacket,” I said. Steven looked at me as if I’d just committed blasphemy. To be honest, everyone did. Except Alvy, she still stared at Calem.
“Go on, he’s got me on his lap for fuck’s sake, you listen to everything he says,” Alvy ordered. The big black guy muttered something rudely at Calem before taking his stuff.
“Bring him to me,” I said. Oh, I was enjoying this very much. Calem stood in front of me and looked at me, his face stony and pale. I could finally feel hate emanating from him, those first bad vibes since I walked into this cottage. “Names and numbers,” I said.
“Fuck you,” he spat. Black guy’s fists clenched in the background. I nudged Alvy off me and she slipped gracefully into sitting beside Steven as I got up.
“Names and numbers, or I’ll have your sister impregnated,” I growled. Silence fell around the room as Alvy let out a delighted gasp. Calem gave in and tried to reach for his phone on the table when Steven’d grabbed it.
“Names and numbers, you heard him,” he said.
Calem hesitated, then gave it up, naming two, claiming he didn’t know the others. I turned to Black Guy as Steven threw Calem’s phone at him.
“Find them, hurt them, wreck their shops, pull loans out in their names, and…” I paused, wondering if Alvy’s crew was capable of actually doing all that. I looked at her. She was staring ever so intently at me, as if she’d never seen anything more amazing. A wee bit unnerving, really. She nodded.
“And make him watch,” I finished. “You ever try reselling girls after that it’ll happen to you.”
“Out of here then you lot,” Alvy got up, thumbing her android. “Tegan and Toby are waiting at the bottom of the stairs for you.
I flopped down on the armchair as Alvy went to see the defense and prosecution out her door.
“Told you she’s a wee nutter,” Steven sighed, lighting up another joint.
“Oi, you just fuckin’ sold me!” I sat up again, almost laughing at Steven.
“Nigga we’ll be trippin’ for months!” he laughed first, holding up a sheet with Homer Simpson’s face printed on it.
“I’m tripping right now,” I sighed as Alvy walked back in, jumped onto the big couch and sat on her knees, grabbing some rizla and bud. The sun was setting and I could see the city lights coming on, out the window. Each light must’ve had a person near it, doing something with their lives, unsharable with anyone else. Their ideas and their despair, shit they put up with even when they don’t want to, and so on.
“Why’d you let me work /your/ negotiations?” I asked.
“Test, maybe,” Alvy giggled.
“Bet I passed.”
Alvy burst into laughter, “Amazingly.” She licked the paper, rolled and lit up. “I hit a low, I needed some help.”
“So you asked your counterpart, King Starr of the Collegiate to pick for you, Prin-”
“QUEEN!” she yelled.
“…er, no. /Lady/ Alvy of Backwood Castle.”
“Carry on,” she smiled, curious.
“You asked him for … something.”
“Oh I love how high you are,” Alvy giggled. “Starr, tell him some things please.”
I’d totally forgotten Steven was actually still here. After all, he was still busily packing drugs away into a backpack I didn’t remember him having. My messenger bag … where was it anyway?
Steven exhaled into the ceiling. He was fucking holding a drag in for /how/ long?
“Alvy asked for the last person I would sell,” he said.
“And?”
“I thought it’d be Candyce at first, so I told her,” he continued. “Then I realized nah, it’s you. I can imagine being in a situation where I might even have sold her but /you/, I can’t even imagine. You’re not even a girl.”
“Uh,” this was weird. “How did selling people become handing over best friends?”
“Politics, diplomacy, and some meth really,” Steven laughed. “Alvy asked me weeks ago.”
“We’ve been friends for a year!” I shouted at him. I don’t know, I felt like I /ought/ to be upset.
“Max.”
I turned to Alvy.
“If it makes you feel any better, I paid for your existence in my life. Not for what you think,” she said grimly at me. “You can get up and leave now but I’ll still have to give Starr what I owe him for you.”
“Why would you even do such a thing?” I laughed. I didn’t even expect an answer, nor did Alvy entertain the notion.
“Max,” Steven interrupted. “What she wanted was a good human for a friend. A sixteen year old girl just paid about ten grand in drugs for the one person /I’d/ trust blindly. Do you even know who she is mate?”
“No I don’t!” I injected. “I’m up in some crazy house above Hogwarts and I feel like I’m tripping balls, and I don’t fucking know how she’s real!”
There was an air of hesitation among all three of us as I almost apologized, Steven almost got up and walked me out, and Alvy broke it for me. “Some things don’t always have an answer immediately, love,” she whispered at me.
It calmed me down. It was /her/ voice, of course it’d calm me down.
And I sat quietly brooding in my armchair as Alvy and Steven began talking about other people, other deals, rumors and gossip as if they’d known each other for ages.
Some lovely trap music began playing in the background. It was a nice break from all the hip hop and rap that was happening all this time. I opened my eyes and looked over at the girl.
It was too good to be true. The girl who was once nothing more than a voice in my head, and my only friend against all the others in there, had turned real. For the second time in my life, something lifechanging happened in the aftermath of consuming something hard. The first time, it was on acid. Vint was altering reality. Oh well. She’s still sitting right there, though.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Steven brung me back to life. Both he and Alvy were looking right at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me about her any earlier?” I asked him.
“Never felt the need,” he sighed and got up, backpack in hand.
“What, are we leaving?!”
“I am, gotta pick up Candyce from piano. You’ve stuff to do here,” Steven winked and turned to her. “Take care of him, will ya? He means some weird shit to me and… Candyce is gonna miss him hard.”
And with that, he was off ‘round the corner and out of sight, ceasing to exist even. Alvy didn’t get up for him. The door slammed shut and clicked automatically afterward.
“Hi Maxxie,” she was staring at me.
“Alright,” I replied.
“Guess what?”
“Whaddup?”
“I’m real.”
“How?”
“I dunno, I just woke up one day with all this. I’m everything /you’d/ want to be.”
“Before that?”
“Won’t tell you.”
“Why not? You’re fitting /something/ that ...was in my head, a bit too perfectly.”
“’cause that’ll ruin it.”
“I feel like you know every memory I have,”
“Aye ‘cause I can read it off you, I don’t need to /know/ anything!”
“You know nothing about me!”
“Max! You – ugh!” Alvy spat, as if I were doing wrong by demanding an explanation of something that was already obvious. It /was/ obvious, I was thinking of the same thing.
“I /need/ an explanation, love,” my tongue slipped. It made her look at me rather than away.
“I- I found you,” she sighed after a second. “I know from people you’ve talked to that they hardly know shit about you, meaning they aren’t your friends at all. Then there was Candyce. She put the idea into my head. She needed you to leave ‘cause it was hurting Steven Starr.”
“I’m over here ‘cause fucking Candyce wanted me to leave?!  Why didn’t she just fucking tell me herself?”
“Because you’re not!” Alvy barked. “Let me fucking finish, ugh.”
“Go on,” I waved my hand. I didn’t know how but Alvy and I were arguing as if we always had this sort of a relationship. Like it was normal for us to be close in the first place.
“I’d people let me know when and how much pot you bought, I’d friends follow you around to see if /you’re/ real. Broke my heart to find you’ve been fucking sleeping around with randomers from the raves!”
“How is that my-”
“Not your /fault/, Max! /Each/ fucking girl that dropped you, ‘course you’ve got a heart of ice. /That’s/ what broke my heart. Watching you try filling the void like that shit even works!”
“And how the fuck would you know that?”
“Necklace, on you right now, obviously belonged to a girl from ages and ages ago at least mean’s you’re a fuckin’ romantic. I saw scars on your arms when you pulled your sleeves up! You, /asshole/, belong to /me/! And it hurts to see this shit already on your shoulders.
I closed my eyes and leaned back. “Did I even belong to you before, like, twenty minutes ago?”
“The more I had you watched, the more I liked you, really, everything I found out just made me want to meet you. I told Steven I was in the market for boys, ‘cause I was, and /then/ Candyce shows up here one day.”
“Why you?”
Alvy giggled. “Why wouldn’t it be me babe?”
“Right.” Popular, straight-A’s, cartel leader, honour-roll, (everything I’d want to be), the one with all the answers, powerful, young, pretty, was in the  market for b- “You’re a virgin!” I exclaimed.
“Yup!”
“Why?!”
“I’m here to be everything you’ve ever wanted,” she said rather quietly, almost robotically. Creepy.
This had to still be real life. “Are you /that/ desperate for love?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“One that won’t break my heart,” she whimpered and looked away, curling up into the couch. I put my hands on the armrests and stared at her. Her /existence/ was breaking my heart.
“I can promise you, it eventually will,” I grumbled.
“You won’t,” she purred.
“Me? How’d you reckon’?”
“You’re sitting right there.”
“’cause you paid for my existence in your life.”
“I paid for love!”
I gave up. It was set up too good to be true, the signs of a trainwreck, before it’s ever left the station. She made my mind tired, my nonexistent heart to grow back and even ache, to just hug her, but that’s exactly what she wanted. Somehow, everything I imagined her to look like when she lived in my mind was right there in front of me, down to the very last thread of the clothes she was wearing, and every last strand of her hair. What’s more, Alvy’s the kind of girl that would never stoop as low as setting up an unreal exchange of friends over a huge deal of money just for love. There was something else.
There was always going to be something else.
I got up, walked over to the couch and sat on the floor on my knees. “Hey,” I smiled at the back of her head. She turned around. “You did well. I needed you too.”
Alvy stared back at me with an expression I will never be able to describe. Lustful, gentle, keen and hopeful, all together maybe.
“I like your black hair, and your jawline,” Alvy giggled like a stalker with her prey. It made me blush, well, I bit my lips subconsciously and she saw it, looked back in my eyes, and I kissed her. Yeah, I deffo had to. I wanted to. I wanted to taste her soft, tiny pink tongue just to see if it was as sweet and minty as I hoped it to be, so I did. All of a sudden she pulled back, gasping. I raised my eyebrow at her. “D-don’t judge, I- I forgot to breathe,” she panted.
“Wow,” I smiled and got up. /Now/ I could be unpredictable. “Let’s go get some air,” I held my hand out at her. She looked at me with a pout that meant she didn’t want to move, purred as if she wanted nothing more than to just fall asleep in my arms for once, and then she played along.
“You’re lucky, mate,” she whispered as she got up. “Wouldn’t listen to anyone and here you are, ordering me around.”
“I know,” I said, and I watched as she slipped socks and sneakers on. We left the cottage, as the sun set completely.

Chapter 2 – Alvy and Max
Outside, the air was chilly, foretelling the coming winter. I’d Alvy by my side trotting down a street I’d honestly never been to. I was pretty lost. She was breathing heavily.
“There’s a cute café I wanna show you,” she said promptly.
“Do you /ever/ use those stairs?” I asked. Alvy gasped at me. “Yes or no answer, I don’t /expect/ you to use stairs.”
“Now how could /you/ possibly know that love?” she smiled her words into me.
“You come from my imagination, I know everything about you already,” I looked up, into a sky full of too many stars for a city night. Strange. “This place is surreal,” I sighed.
“Shows you hardly know a thing,” Alvy skipped a few steps, waited for me ahead by the corner and walked alongside again after turning me right. “I want some ice cream. Reckon chocolate will be a nice break from,” she paused. “Mints…”
A small cornershop was beside the café we walked into. Typical tiny place with an odd scent of tobacco lurking in the air. Wooden panels, brightly lit.
“Alright Alvy,” the girl behind the counter hailed.
“Whaddup Sammy,” Alvy said, hanging up her jacket on the wall. “Fancy you could whip me and my boyfriend up some …” her voice trailed away naughtily.
“Aye, so that’s who he is,” Sammy smiled. I simply turned my left palm to the air and looked at Alvy, the first of what would become known as my ‘what the fuck Alvy?!’ look.  Normally, I’m used to getting ‘what the fuck Max?!’ looks from people, and now I felt their pain.
I walked over to the windowside table for two, taking the corner. Alvy looked outside worriedly before sitting down.
“I’ve got so much to do now, oh my god,” she sighed.
“Stuff?”
“Nah blud, not stuff. I do stuff automatically,” she looked out the window again.
“What can I help with?”
“Everything,” she looked back. “That’s why you’re here, innit?”
Sammy arrived with two big bowls of ice cream. Chocolate with sugar sprinkles for Alvy, giant chocolate-chip mint scoop for me.
“She swings both ways, mind ye,” Sammy smiled with a don’t-fuck-this-up-or-I’ll-kill-you tone of voice.
“I’m up for threesomes,” I quipped.
“Max!” Alvy turned at me, gasping into her hands on her mouth with a giggle. She put her hands down and gave Sammy the brightest look of appreciation anyone could ever get. “Thanks pet, I’ll let you know before I leave.”
Sammy walked away and I found myself biting my lips at Alvy again. “Queen, huh. They all love you loads.”
“Fears,” Alvy corrected me, digging into her ice cream with a spoon immediately. She was going to mush it all up. And as fast as she’d started she shoved a giant spoonful into her mouth. “Loads!” she finished, giggling childishly. Hot.
“And loves,” I insisted, picking out the chocolate-chips and putting them all under a giant chunk of mint cream. Alvy literally reached into her bra, pulling out a joint and a lighter.
“Sammy, ashtrays!” she barked.
Sammy appeared in seconds with one, disappearing in a flash.
“Nice,” I grumbled. “See your problem.”
“First I make you my boyfriend, then I let you handle all this pressure,” Alvy sighed.
“You want me to run your scene?!” it finally hit me. Sort of.
“Yeah,” she moaned. “I need a vacation.”
There was stuff hidden away in her head. “What did you plan?” I asked, casually shoving ice cream into my mouth as she lit up.
“Wake up safe in your arms every morning, take the stairs down,” she smiled dreamily, staring out the window. “Catch a bus to school ‘cause there ain’t any other way we’d make it on time,” she sighed. “Get high in the evenings, somehow make it back here in time for homework, and,” she looked me in the eyes. “I’d make us random shit from the kitchen and we’d hardly eat it, eat pizza instead, grow fat together,” she made me laugh. “Do fucked up shit all night long and then sleep a wee bit, snort some amphy for breakfast and it’s back to school…”
“Ain’t gonna be that simple, though,” I said, though unable to hold my grin back.
“Your face says you want it,” and Alvy was right. I was doing every ten thousand quid’s worth of falling in love with her. And it felt like all the drugs, all the drugs. She passed me the joint.
“You’re gonna put me through some fucked up shit alright,” I put up one last wall.
“You’re gonna put /me/ through some,” she broke it down.
Speechless.
“I’ve some things to take care of, Maxxie, and I won’t be able to do ‘em without someone to protect me.”
“You think I can do that?”
“Aye, you think like me, that’s the best part,” she finished her bowl and threw the spoon in, stretching back. My  android started vibrating suddenly and I pulled it out quickly.
“Bring Alvy and come to school,” Candyce said urgently. “I’ll meet you guys in front of the Observatory in ten minutes.”
“What the fuck?” I mumbled as I put my phone away and told Alvy.
“Duty calls,” she sighed and pushed her chair back. “Leggo.” I hopped up to follow her, she barely even said a word to Sammy as she grabbed her jacket and we stood outside on the pavement. “Well, fuck. We’ll have to wait for buses.”
“Nah, we’ll walk, I can see the river,” I said, heading towards it. Alvy ran after me.
“Seriously?”
“Do you walk, /princess/?” I glared.
“A-aye,” she squeaked. “I don’t, not really..”
“Come on doll,” I sighed, grabbing her hand gently. I’d figure out her issue against walking some other time. We talked about some silly shit about her friends in the College when we realized we had Quantum Theory lectures together, the only time of the week our timetables overlapped. The last two hours of every Friday in school were Quantum Theory lectures.
Eventually we crossed the last bridge into Collegiate, and up a path through the park where the Observatory was. There were benches everywhere under secluded trees and, well, it’s between these trees that I normally bought my weed from. There’s always someone in the evenings. Seemed a little empty for this time of the day.
“There they are,” Alvy pointed out as the dimly lit building-with-the-giant-telescope came into view and I could see Steven, Candyce and a few others standing outside.
“You’re late!” Candyce shot out.
Alvy was about to start when I said “Aye I’d her busy, what do you need?”
“Your /friend/, Calem,” Steven started. “Shot in the head. They found him there, under the trees. Thought you’d like a look before we called the cops.”
“Where’s Devon?” Alvy asked as we walked slowly into the woods. Probably the big guy from earlier.
“Haven’t the slightest. Had you called up as soon as my lads hit me up.”
A lump of dead human lay in the grass between some trees and Alvy and I walked up to take a look.
“Shine a light babe,” I said, and Alvy pulled out a mint coated pen out, turned it around and it turned into a wee LED torch. The light fell on the face and we stared at the gruesome expression of Calem’s fatal surprise. “Pity,” I shrugged.
“Ye,” Alvy grumbled too and shone the light around.
“Check his pockets,” I said, and Alvy promptly fished a phone out of the dark, wet jeans. “Ew,” I rolled my eyes as she handed it to me by the tips of her fingers.
“He oughtn’t have anything else on him,” she sighed and I pocketed the phone as we walked back to where the others were. “He was dying ‘cause he was bleeding out of the stab wound in his leg, was shot afterwards ‘cause he was taking too long.”
“Right,” Steven rubbed the bridge of his eyes. “Let’s go, I’m getting cops called.” Alvy stuck on my left, grabbing my hand and Candyce came out of nowhere and grabbed my right arm and I followed Steven and his lads, sandwiched by the girls, in the direction of the dorms.
“Do you like him?” Candyce asked suddenly.
Alvy puffed a giggle. “I can see why you do.”
“I feel like a sandwich,” I had to.
“Shut up or I’ll eat you,” Alvy smirked. Okay.
“Hang on I’ll grab my keys,” I said once the lot of us were up in the dorms and Steven’s back-up went their separate way. Then we were in my tiny flat after a few hi’s and hello’s between mainly Alvy and everyone we crossed on our way.
“Fuckin’ dead bodies,” I grumbled, flopping into bed. Steven did that thing he does and went straight into the kitchen leaving Alvy to drop her jacket on the floor and climbed atop me. Candyce sat down beside.
“When are you breaking him in?” she laughed at Alvy, who moaned “later” into my neck. I smiled and shook my head at Candyce.
“Good game love,” I said.
“No hard feelings cupcake,” she smiled back lovingly.
“Share the drugs and there won’t be any!”
“Mmmno, no more drugs for you tonight,” Alvy moaned into my neck again and pressed her breasts into my chest and I put an arm around her.
“Why’s that?”
“I gotta get you hooked onto me,” she looked up and giggled.
“H-honestly Max, what’ve you done to her?!” Steven suddenly reappeared with mugs of coffee in his hand. Alvy got up and even said ‘thank you’ cutely as she was handed her mug. The next thing I knew, I was snuggled up to while I sipped my coffee and Candyce was having a whispered conversation under her hair with Steven, sitting across his knees, quiet squelches of kisses every now and then.
Her hands went between his thighs and I saw Steven clench up slightly.
“Enjoying it, aren’t you?” Alvy whispered.
“Mum and dad finally found me a babysitter,” I chuckled.
“What are you on about, /I’m/ your mum,” she stared at me and pouted as if I’d hurt her feelings.
“You’re the biological one!” I whispered. “They adopted me, they count too.”
“Fair enough,” Alvy actually seemed to like that answer and she licked my chin cutely.
“She went through a lot,” I sighed in Candyce’s direction. “Just to get-” Steven’s hands clenched tightly, tightly at her waist, “those emotions out of him.”
“Aye, he’s starting to realize what she’s done,” Alvy rubbed her cheek on my chest, letting the feel of just the fabric of my shirt turn her skin to cotton. I closed my eyes, wondering how we could be discovering dead bodies and then cuddling twenty minutes later. I sighed, bit loudly. “Oh, don’t worry love, I got this,” Alvy whispered.
“Can you read my thoughts?” I asked.
“Maybe,” her nose brushed against mine. “I know you want them out so you can… get some sleep, really.”
“Been a bit of a day, really!” I exhaled.
“Mum and dad!” Alvy yelled suddenly, jerking my eyes open and Steven and Candyce out of liplock.
“What?!” Candyce glared.
“Your boy needs some alone time with his girlfriend and you two need to be off to the suite!”
“Ugh, ruin my life won’t you,” Candyce cried as she jumped off Steven and grabbed her shit. I pouted and made my best I’ll-miss-you face at Steven who, well, looked slightly drunk. Power of women.
“Y-you!” he roared. “You lil piece of shit, you let me know if that one treats you badly!”
“Which one?” Alvy piped up.
“Both of ye,” he got up and held the door open for Candyce. “Cheers, Max, Alvy” he finally called out, and they were gone. What’s with Steven and closing doors behind him everytime? Oh well.
And all of a sudden, Alvy was off me, inspecting every aspect of the tiny flat, opening my wardrobe, going through my desk, frantically attempted at cracking my laptop’s password till I simply told her it and she gasped as if it should’ve been obvious, and then she went around checking the view out each window while I sipped at the last of my coffee. Coffee made me yawn. When I put it down on the bedside table, Alvy actually turned the lights out and climbed onto bed and onto me.
“I can’t sleep like this,” she whimpered at me all the same. Sighing, I slid my hands under her shirt. Girls’ shirts always felt so much more comfier than what we get to wear, but Alvy’s shirt felt extra soft, extra smooth. So did her skin as my hands went up her back till I unclasped her bra and pulled it out and threw it to the floor. Won’t lie, her sigh of relief made my blood rush.
“Stand up,” I said, and she did. Between her legs, I slid out of my jeans and pulled my shirt off, leaving me in just the boxers I’d underneath. Then I unzipped her denim shorts and pulled them down her legs, and she tip toed as I worked it off her ankles and threw it aside as well. “Grab the blanket on your way down.”
And that was it. I wrapped my arms around her as she laid on me, her head on my chest. It probably wasn’t even midnight. I guessed if my mind needed a little bit of rest, hers did too. Without goodbyes, without goodnights, she rested on me. Her soft breathing became thick within minutes into the silence and I stroked her back tenderly. Alvy was ticklish as I’d always known, and her body squirmed cutely on mine whenever I stroked her waist with just my fingertips. But she’d fallen asleep so fast, so deeply, and anything the world needed from her would have to wait till tomorrow.
I hadn’t done my homework. I closed my eyes real quick.
Well, I didn’t wake up to anyone in my arms. Instead, I woke to Alvy at my desk, sitting delicately perched on the chair, reading my blog on my laptop. A stack of my notebooks sat beside, with post-it notes stuck into several of them.
What the hell Alvy?!
I groaned and rolled over under the covers.
“Wake up!” she whispered eagerly, definitely not for the first time.
“Ugh,” I moaned, lifting myself on my elbows.
(lol to be continued, etc)