The Devil On Your Shoulder

Alex Gaskarth wrote me a song.

He was always telling me how instead of crying or showing any signs of emotion he'd write songs. He told me he wrote songs for his brother, his ex-partners, he even accidently slipped in that he wrote songs about Disney films and beer. He never once told me he'd written a song for me.

"I wanna fall so in love, with you and no-one else," repeated over and over again in my head. Every time it ran through my head my stomach got butterflies, I even began smiling and blushing.

By the time I planted myself in a seat again, I'd punched Zack in the face, harder than I'd punched Alex but still not hard enough, recieved my own punch in the teeth, but succesfully gotten the sheet of paper back. The seat I sat in wasn't the one I'd sat in in English, it was no other than the ab-normal head teacher I'd been seen around 10 minutes ago.

"When I said, hope to see you soon, I didn't mean 10 minutes later, Barakat." Mr. Williams told me. He looked flushed, and I sniggered to myself, my dirty mind getting the best of me, as per usual.

He pretended to hit me on the head as he walked past me and sat at his desk which was directly in front of me. "Am I correct on saying this is your first day?" He asked me, managing to make direct eye contact with me now as he wasn't searching his desk.

I nodded, and he grinned lightly. "Am I right in saying that English is your first period of the day?" I nodded again, and his grin widened. He was definitely taking illegal drugs.

"I like you, Jack." He told me.

"I like you too, Duncan." I replied, and he let out a chuckle.

"You remind me of myself when I was your age, I was an expelled student and I got in trouble basically every day. My head teacher was a son of a bitch though, unlike me." He flashed his teeth, getting up and pulling my shoulder towards the door.

"Always a pleasure," I told him as I left the room.

"Zachary Merrick," I heard him call into his office as I began walking down the corridor. Short and sweet, not unlike myself.

Second period dragged on, but there was no Zack, Alex or Rian in my Biology, so it was a lot less painful. I sat next to a girl called Tay, who had long dark hair and had a nose ring. I liked nose rings, I always have. Back when me and Alex were a thing, I'd told him to get one. He'd refused, telling me that skinny jeans were gay, but nose rings were over the top gay. I retorted with the fact Tom Delonge has a nose ring, and then I took it back, laughing to myself as I said Tom was even gayer than Alex.

Tay didn't speak much, she had her headphones in for most of the lesson and only said a few words when we had to do lab partner stuff. She didn't make direct eye-contact with me at all, and she spoke in such a low tone I almost couldn't hear her. The mood that I was in made me want to shout at her, telling her to speak louder, but I didn't as she was small and pretty.

After second period, despite what had happened in English, I made my way to the music hall. Alex bumped into me in the corridor, taking me by the shoulders and pushing me into another unfamiliar room.

The room turned out to be the drama hall, and there was no one around. Alex flicked the lights on, and pointed at a chair, telling me to sit. Before I could say anything, he perked up. "First of all, that letter took a load of balls to write and giving it to Zack wasn't cool,"

"Hey!" I butted in.

"No talking." He scolded me. I nodded my head, knowing from experience not to waste my breath on arguing with Alex. He smirked. "Well I've taught you something then, that I always win arguements, yes or yes?" His smirk grew as he carried on talking. "Yeah, so anyway, I know you hate my guts but I feel really bad about your cuts and making you do that to yourself and whatever's going on in your head making you fall and black out and yeah, this isn't much of an apology but, here goes." He pulled out his guitar that had been hanging on his back and began strumming a steady beat. He placed one leg on the edge of my chair and looked down at me. I stared at him intently, dying to say something but his eyes told me not to.

Then, Alex began singing the words he'd wrote on the tiny sheet of paper. At first, I wanted to laugh. What was he doing? But as he went on and the words sunk in, holy hell, Alex's voice was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. It was even better than Tom Delonge's and that was saying something. The look in his eyes were unreadable, until he got to my favorite part,

"I wanna fall so in love with you and no one else could ever mean half as much to me as you do now, together we'll move on just don't turn around, let the walls break down,"

The lyrics hit home so bad, and the tears welled up in his eyes. I'd seen Alex cry 3 times before, and he looked so adorable when he did. Tears fell from his face and he carried on singing, his voice breaking in a couple of parts and he looked down every time. I stood up, pulling his guitar off him and hugging him so tightly.

I didn't know what I was doing at first, I'd told Alex multiple times I didn't want to see him again and I'd even punched him in the face. I'd convinced myself that me and Alex were never gonna happen and as hard as it was, I'm pretty sure I'd even made peace with it.

"Jack," He said, as he pulled away lightly but was still in the grasp of my arms. "I'm so fucking sorry, I didn't know about your.. you know.." He said shyly, gesturing to my arm, "You need to know I didn't mean to-"

"Shut up and kiss me, now." I told him, grinning as he set his lips on my own and gave me the kiss I'd been craving for so long. I'd missed Alex's taste, it was the best taste I'd ever tasted. It was like mint and strawberry heaven in his mouth. He smiled through the kiss, something I'd also missed. He did it every time, and it wasn't one of his grins, it was one of his genuine smiles. I felt my face burn up, another thing I'd missed. With every breath he took my heart began racing, palms sweating and it felt almost as if electricy was running through me.

I'd kissed people before Alex, it wasn't like I had nothing to compare it to. I didn't have a lot to compare it with, but I knew it was the best kiss, in the history of kisses. Think about your best kiss, then double it, triple it, times it by a million.

He pulled away from what felt like a lifetime in heaven, a short lifetime, a very very short lifetime.

Alex's POV

He was grinning so hard I thought his mouth might fall off. His cheeks were burnt red and I could tell he was giggling inside. I'd missed that about him, he always looked so happy after we'd kissed, the kind of happiness I didn't think I was able to make. He was happy because of me, and there's nothing better than being able to say you're the one who makes Jack Barakat happy.

"I'm still really pissed that you let Zack read my lyrics to the whole class," I told him, grinning. I had lied, I wasn't pissed, I was so happy. I was so happy I had my angel back.

"I'm still really pissed that you broke up with me because you didn't want your 'friends' finding out." He said, but he was grinning too. I knew that deep down he really was still hurting, but I was prepared to fix his hurt, like I'd done before.

"How are you anyway? Have you been casually collapsing or blacking out, lately?" I asked him, and he frowned at me.

"No, definitely not, you know, I've just been really normal lately, like you, obviously, you know," He told me, lying through his teeth. Jack was a good liar, he really was, but not when it came to lying to me. He knew that I knew when he was lying so he always tried a million times harder, which gave it away completely. Every time he did this I could see him kicking himself inside, and I burst into laughter.

"Hey, shut up," He told me, pushing me a little, "Stop asking me about everything, I'm okay, if I wasn't okay don't you think I would have gone to the doctors?"

"Pushing me again?" I smirked. "First a punch in the face and now you want me to have bruises all over my shoulders? And no, I don't think you would have gone to the doctors because you're way to fucking stubborn to give in to that."

He pushed me again, and I pushed him back. He tackled me to the ground, rolling me over and tickling me multiple times. A few 'fuck off's and 'I really hate you's left his mouth as I tickled him back and he burst into a fit of screaming, laughing and crying. I kissed him through his small fit, and he tried to kiss me back but ended up spitting in my mouth when I hit his ticklish spots. It was disgusting, but so funny.

10 minutes or so had passed when I heard someone clearing their throat, and I looked up to see a teacher I didn't recongize, and a few people who I did.

"Ha!" Zack Merrick spoke up first, "So the gay boy moves onto a fluffy haired freak." He chuckled.

I removed myself from Jack's stomach, getting up and punching Zack in the face. Unlike Jack, my punches weren't pathetic and were actually pretty decent. Zack fell to the floor, clutching his face, when I felt a hand grab my own and pull me out of the room.

"Let's get the fuck out of here, before we get expelled from an expelled school!" Jack screeched, pulling me along the corridor. I laughed as I gripped onto his hand tighter, and felt a rush through my body like I had done the first time I met Jack. The first time I'd been able to love Jack.