The Connection

He wakes up to yelling.

He ignores it, burying his sore face further into the softness beneath him. Oh right, his couch. Avery tries to prolong his sleep as long as he can; he’s so tired, and his whole body is howling for rest, or a heavy dose of pain killers. The couch is soft and cushions his battered body, and he’s toasty warm underneath something he can’t identify. It’s oddly heavy. Not really a blanket, but something like it. The quasi blanket smells really good, though.

It smells rich and warm like leather, but also like something spicy and cool. Like cloves mixed with spearmint or those stupid incenses Kat burns that only go by the very unhelpful name of Zen. But also, something earthier; like black coffee, sweat and… is that gasoline? Or maybe motor oil? Avery has no idea, but he likes it and curls father into the heavy warmth, as the yelling gets louder… or maybe closer? Avery can’t make out the words, but somewhere in his muddled brain he recognizes two voices. One raised, with a cigarette smoky edge almost wiped clean by its thread of hysteria; the other a baritone, gravel coated and calming to his buzzing skull. He tries to ignore it; curl further into himself and sleep.

“Why didn’t you call me?!”

”What? What could you have done? I practically had to carry him!”

“I so could have carried him! News Flash, Sport-o, when your Princess over there gets hammered, I take care of him! Not you! You’ve never been there for him!”

Avery rolls over, trying to ignore the sounds of a rather pointless screaming match. He burrows further into the blanket, whining pathetically into the couch cushion. Why won’t these people shut up?

“Fucking Christ, what have I ever done to you to make you hate me so much?”

“I don’t care about me, you asshole! I’m worried about him! About how he fucking feels about you and how to treat him!”

“Why don’t both of you shut the fuck up? “ A new voice says tiredly. This one he recognizes, he’d recognize it anywhere. It’s the same voice that grumbles about him drinking all the coffee and whines for him to ‘scoot over’ when she has a nightmare and curls in bed with him; hogging all the blankets and snoring.

“Quinn?” His throat feeling like he’s swallowed broken glass. Avery tries to hoist himself up on his arms to peer over the back of the couch, but gives up on the attempt when his bruised forearms scream in protest. He cracks open one sleep gummed eye to see his sister crouched in front of the sofa. She smiles sadly, her blue eyes heavy, and reaches out a hand to wipe his chin.

“You’re drooling, you lame ass.” She smiles a little bigger, a little brighter like he knows her to. Avery can’t help it; he chuckles weakly, shrugging from under his blanket.

“You want to sit up?” She prompts gently. Avery scoffs, tugging the quasi blanket tighter around his shoulders.

“I’m not on my death bed, God.” He says haughtily, and sits up. He almost throws up again as he (stupidly and very stubbornly) sits up too fast. The sudden incline of his body makes his distantly throbbing head, throb quicker and more painfully. He throws his head back against the couch and groans.

“Yeah, you’re the picture of health, Avy. You look like you just got into a fight with a convict.” Quinn laughs, and Avery can’t help but crack a smile.

“I did. He wanted my goodies, and I wouldn’t give them up. So be beat me up. It’s all rather sad.” He says drily. Quinn giggles, pushing his bangs back, with a gentle hand.

“You are a fine piece of ass. So I can’t really blame him.” She says seriously, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly. Avery snorts, pushing her hand away from inspecting his abused face.

“Is that some sort of backwards compliment to yourself?” He asks, leaning forward (very slowly, very carefully) to grab his glasses off the coffee table.

“Wow. Beautiful and intelligent. You’re to total package, big bro.” Quinn grins widely, Avery grins back, and chuckles… until his throat vehemently protest that action and a coughing fit rack s his already tender body. Quinn furrows her brow and looks past Avery to the yelling people, the Avery can only assume are Max and Kat.

“Can he have tea, or coke or something?”

“Water. Nothing heavy.” The rough baritone of Max says, followed by a much more feminine snort.

“How is tea heavy?” Kat mocks, and even though his back is turned, he can practically hear Kat cross her arms over her ample chest, and raise her eyebrows defiantly. Quinn rolls her eye tiredly, her shoulders sinking as she looks up toward the ceiling.

“Kat, just go get a bottle out of the fridge.” She sighs. Avery hears Kat huff, but her footsteps tromp into the kitchen anyway. Every cough racks Avery’s body with force and makes his muddled brain swirl painfully. Quinn hushes him, rubbing soothing circles into his knee with her petite hand. He’s still coughing when something icy cool and plastic hard is thrust into his hands. He glances up at his best friend, whose face bares a look of irritation mingled with deep concern. He unscrews the cap and takes a few greedy swallows from the bottle. He drinks and drinks until the empty bottle makes a plastic crunch in protest.

“What the hell happened, Avy?” Kat demands once Avery has downed the entire bottle. Avery shrugs, wiping a hand across his mouth to catch any stray water droplets. He throws a glance over his shoulder, ignoring the way his neck hurts when he does. Max is standing rigidly upright, his arms crossed over his chest in a pose of pure defense. This Max is a far cry from the loose and easy one that sat with him on the couch and watched cartoons until he dozed off (and Avery foggily remembers, his face turning a deep pink), his messy haired head cushioned by Max’s shoulder. This one is the Max he’s used to, cold and hard. Defensive and indifferent. A part of his heart tugs uncomfortably. He likes the former Max better. He meets Avery’s eyes and the question the registers the question that flicks through the blue depths. He nods.

“Logan Harris. He…well, he’s been on me since January and I never said anything, you know? I just kind of ignored him, stayed quite, took my beating and went on my merry way. But today… I just…I kind of egged him on and he… I guess he stepped up the beatings?” Avery finishes lamely, glancing at Kat and Quinn in turn. Quinn is furrowing her brow, the wheels of her brain spinning at warped speed, working on a solution. Kat just has that look.

It’s the single most terrifying thing he’s ever seen, well, next to his own mother’s look. It reminds Avery of those girl warriors; like Joan of Arc, and Boudicca. Like the look they wear before they lead armies off to fight and die for a cause. It’s a looks that preceded a battle; all red hot rage and ice cold calculation and such pure fierceness that has no place on the Kat’s soft, round features. It scares the hell out of him. And he wonders distantly if Cooper’s yet to this face. He kind of wonders what easy going, good humored Cooper would say to his (not) girlfriend’s battle face.

“Okay. So, what’s wrong? I mean, physically. Do you need to go to the hospital when mom gets here?” Quinn asks, her gaze flickering towards Max. Avery’s stomach drops. Oh no. No no no. He’s always been very careful treading around his mother and his less than fortunate relationship with his classmates. He started wearing long sleeve in order to hid bruises, and he’s carefully fibbed to his mother about the myriad little cuts and scrapes on his face (when he started shaving it made it much easier). He’s never wanted his mother to know how bad school was. Not because he’s ashamed. No, because he doesn’t want to see her fight a losing battle with the school. He doesn’t want his already overprotective mother to start sending him to school wrapped in bubble wrap and wielding a baseball bat.

“No, I—“ I’ll find some way to lie about this, too.

“Yeah. He needs to go.” Max’s gruff demand cuts off any plea and half formed lie on his tongue. Avery shakes his head turning towards Max.

“No! I can’t. They’ll want to know what happened and I can’t just rat on Logan. His goons will be all over me.” Avery argues, scowling at Max. Max returns the scowl, adding an eye roll to the mix.

“They won’t ask you anything like that.” Max says gruffly, but his eyes are softer than his tone.

“They’ll want to know if your parents did it and obviously they didn’t. Just tell ‘em you’re fine and you don’t want to talk about it. They won’t push you as long as your parents don’t give a reason for them to. Then they’ll give you painkillers and check for anything else serious.” Max reasons with an air of someone who’s done this a few times. It feels like a stone dropping in his stomach when Avery remembers Max probably has.

“But you already checked me! You said I’m fine.” Avery insists. He’s pouting, but fuck it, there’s no way he can look anymore lame today. Max runs a hand through his hair, sighing heavily.
“I checked simple things. You need to get a better checkup than my half assed one, Av. You could have shit I missed.” He says with a hint of pink ridging his cheekbones. Oh. Oh yeah. Avery’s own neck feels hot as he remembers the gentle sweep on calloused fingertips across the thin skin of his chest and sides and—

“Avery. When mom sees she’s gonna shit. We’ve got to tell her.” Quinn says quietly. And deep down, Avery knows there’s no lie he can come up with for this. His mother isn’t stupid.

“And you need to go to the hospital, Avy. At least to get a note to excuse you from school for the rest of the week.” Kat adds, after giving him a pointed look. One Avery hopes he’s imagining, screaming Why are you an Sport-o looking like virgins on their wedding night? And if you don’t go to the doctor’s I will drag your ass myself! Avery sighs, both at being outvoted and by the conversation he’s going to have to have with Kat.

“Okay.” He says lamely, pulling the quasi blanket tighter around his shoulders and its then that he notices that his makeshift blanket actually forms (although very loosely) to his shoulders. He looks at Kat who’s smirking widely and then at Quinn whose face is that of someone trying desperately to hold in their laughter. His face flames and at the same time Max clears his throat loudly.

“Uh. Yeah. I’ll need that back. I-I’ve got to pick up Allie so…” Avery quickly shrugs off Max’s heavy, warm, wonderful smelling letterman jacket, ignoring the chill that floods his body and clashes with the fire that fills his neck and face. He turns slightly, and feels slightly better, albeit a little confused to find that Max is studiously looking at the scuffed toes of his boots; a bright pink blush under his dusting of freckles. Max doesn’t even look at him when Avery hands him his wadded up jacket, just tucks the thick fabric buddle under his arm and glances quickly at Avery. Max looks like a child caught doing something wrong and Avery’s sure his own face bares that same look.

“Thanks. I’ll um, I’ll go now. Text you later.” Max mumbles, turning towards the door. And its then that Avery throws caution to the wind. He isn’t ready to let Max leave, even though Avery knows he needs to. Avery isn’t anything special, however, Allie is. From the way Max talks about Allie you’d think that he was her father, not some possible lawyer that Max only has fuzzy memories of. He has an obligation to protect his little sister (just like Avery himself would), and absolutely none to Avery But Avery is selfish, and need just a little more reassurance from that kind boy who took care of him.

“But what about Logan? What do I do when I go back to school?” Avery says finally. He expects Max to snort, and tell him to ‘shut the hell up when he beats you up.’ But to his surprise, a dark chuckle rumbles through Max’s chest. And the quarterback looks at him with a hard smirk pulling at his pink lips. His eyes hard and sharp, like jagged stones.

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him.” He says. Avery rolls his eyes, and shakes his head. But doesn’t say anything, what would he say anyway? He doesn’t control Max.

However, someone else takes the chance to speak.

“Hey, I’ll give you my number.” Kat pipes up, and at everyone’s incredulous looks, “In case you’re stupid ass gets into trouble again.” She scoffs, poking Avery’s shoulder gently. Max regards her for a minute with an appraising look, before he reaches into his pocket and carelessly tosses Kat his phone. Kat catches it with one hand, easily, before lobbing her own phone in Max’s mildly surprised direction with the other. Avery watches both of their thumbs dance over the keypads, as they type in their numbers. And this is good, right? They’re being civil, friendly even. Yep. This is good. His best friend and his Soul Mate exchanging numbers.

The why dose Avery have a sinking feeling in his stomach?
________

Max was right.

The hospital doesn’t ask questions. Well, they try. But with one look at Mrs. Reeves they stop. She’s dressed fresh from work; her blue eyes watery and red rimmed, as she holds Avery face in her hands and pushes back his bangs with a careful hand, all the while calling him ‘baby’ and ‘sweetie’, and promising homemade chicken and rice soup when they get home. She surely doesn’t fit the description of a child abuser, and one of the ER nurses, who drinks coffee from a Styrofoam cup, even greets Mrs. Reeves’ like an old friend. This nurse, who oddly enough only knows his mother from her frequent trips to Common Grounds, tells the doctors to lay off the questions as, “there’s no way that women beats her kids; I don’t even think she could kill a spider.”

It’s true. She always calls him or Dad to kill them.

The only break Avery gets from his mother’s smoothing hands is when the on call doctor comes in. He’s like every other ER doctor Avery’s seen. He’s probably in his early forties, but his hair is already heavily flecked with gray and his face lined. He wears navy scrubs complete with a stethoscope hanging loosely around his neck. Despite the fact that he looks like he hasn’t slept for days, he greets Avery with a warm smile and a hearty chuckle.

“Looks like you went three rounds with a brick wall, kid.” He says, but not unkindly.

Avery decides he likes him.

He asks questions, all of them invasive in words but casual in tone, as he checks Avery vitals. Avery shrugs, mumbling about a fight at school, and adding lamely, “I really don’t want to talk about it.” The doctor regards him over the tops of his glasses, and then shoots his hovering mom a look.

“Do you plan to report to the school, Mrs. Reeves?”

“Of course! I would have reported this sooner, if I’d known!” She says shrilly, blinking back tears. The doctor nods once.

“Good.”

He spends the next twenty minutes talking with Avery, his tone still nonchalant as he asks the details of the fight. Avery rattles them off, as the doctor shines a penlight in both his eyes, and runs his palms over Avery’s ribs with a slight pressure. Avery skin doesn’t seem to flare under his hands like it did with Max. The doctor checks a few other things, like the cuts on his face and the bruises running all over his body. Finally, he quirks an eyebrow.

“You’re minor injuries look taken care of already. Did you clean them yourself?”

“Ah, no.” Avery mumbles his face on fire. He wishes his mother wasn’t here; he can feel the intensity of her gaze even with his back turned, “Um. A friend did. From school.”

“Well, they did a remarkable job for a teenager.” The doctor finally remarks. He rattles off that everything Max had already told him, and presumably Kat and Quinn. Avery has a very minor concussion, a few bruised ribs and lots of minor lacerations, “nothing rest and some painkillers won’t help,” He reassures Avery’s mom with a smile, as he scribbles out a prescription and another note to excuse Avery from school for the rest of the week. After the doctor briefs his mother (rather pointlessly, as his mother’s been tending to Avery’s, Quinn’s and their father’s various illnesses and injuries for eighteen years) over the basics to Avery’s short recovery, he sends them home.

Avery hops down from the narrow hospital cot and tries to hide the wince he makes at the sudden movement. His mother notices, however, and despite his protests (“I’m almost eighteen, Mom. Not three!”), she wraps an arm around his waist. She pulls him close to her side, and overprotective bear looking out for her injured cub, and they leave the ER. When the get home, his mother orders him into bed, and promises soup, cornbread and maybe peanut butter cup cookies when she gets home from filling his prescription. Avery objects immediately.

“I’m not dying, Mom! I just got into a fight its nothing—“

”Avery William, I swear to God if you don’t get in that bed right now…!”

Avery goes up the stairs without further comment, hustling as fast as his battered body will allow.

Kat’s look is nothing compared to his mother’s