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satansapostle6 · 2 months

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fire and ice | james cook

Cook’s interest is piqued when an old childhood friend moves in across the street.

Warning: Mature themes/language. Drug use. Sexual content.

part one.

part two. the system.

“Oi! Tiff!”

Tiffany Wheeler turned around as she headed home from school, realizing Cook was following her, naturally.

“Cookie,” she remarked.

“Going home?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she nodded.

“Me too,” he said with approval.

He walked by her side as they went in the same direction, heading back towards their shared neighborhood.

“Did you catch what that assignment was?” he asked her. “JJ had me distracted. Pulled a chocolate out of my ear. Don’t know where he found a chocolate…”

“Sure,” she nodded with sarcasm.

“What do you say, Wheeler?” he asked hopefully. “Help out your best mate? For old time’s sake?”

“Yeah. Whatever,” Tiffany scoffed.

“Alright!” Cook exclaimed enthusiastically. “Fuck yeah!”

Tiff just smiled as she walked, fully aware of Cook’s behavior.

“So, since you won’t be a good mate and shag me, how do I repay you?” he wondered. “Spliff?” he offered.

“Don’t love it, if I’m being honest,” she said as she plucked a cigarette from the pack she was holding and stuck it into her mouth as she lit it.

“Vodka, then?” he guessed. “Drugs?”

It was Tiff’s turn to give a mischievous grin, satiated by the offer.

“You’ve got a deal, mate.”

“Alright. Sorted,” he nodded, happy with their arrangement. “Come over to mine, then?” he invited her insistently.

“Yeah. Sure,” she agreed.

She objectively observed, somewhat fascinated, as he pulled out a spliff, loose somewhere in his pocket, smoking it out in the open as they walked home together. Tiff quickly realized that Cook constantly had to be doing something; if he was talking, he had to be loud, and animated.

If, for some reason, he wasn’t talking, he had to be active, running, or jumping, or otherwise doing something, like flicking or punching something. Cook had the mannerisms of a primary school student; he just needed to feel excited. All the time.

He found that he surprisingly didn’t mind Tiff’s silent, aloof demeanor, because even if she wasn’t speaking, she was always listening. And he liked to be listened to. Cook felt that Tiff had a unique way of fucking with people. It wasn’t in anything she said or did; it wasn’t in anything. Nothing about the way she would just stay there in silence was inherently wrong, or offensive, but just something about the space that she took up could make someone need more from her.

Cook kept rambling and raving throughout the entire walk to his house, secretly needing for Tiff to actually join in. She was speaking, of course, and fully engaging in whatever topic they had currently landed on throughout the entire ordeal, but she never brought herself up to his level and ranted or raved herself. She was almost always level, and cool.

“Say, Tiff,” Cook said as he sat down on his bed, passing her a half full bottle of vodka. “How come you moved back here?”

He remembered Tiffany Wheeler had moved away from Bristol just before their fourth year of primary school. At seven or eight years old, he had actually been quite disappointed when he didn’t see her that first day of school.

“My dad wanted to be close to the family again,” Tiff replied, searching her pockets as Cook held his hand out for the pack of cigarettes.

“Any reason why?” he asked curiously.

“You remember my brother, right?” she said as he took a cigarette.

“Yeah! Andrew, right?” Cook lit the cigarette. “What’s he up to?”

“He’s dead,” Tiff said matter-of-factly as he just stopped for a moment.

“Oh. Fucking hell,” James Cook remarked, seemingly genuinely taken aback. “When?”

“A… A few weeks ago,” she cleared her throat. “Or a month ago…? Honestly can’t remember, exactly. The funeral’s next weekend…”

“Jesus. Rest in peace,” he mumbled.

Tiff just nodded appreciatively. This was much more recent than he would’ve guessed. He began to feel guilty for his casual attitude, knowing he wasn’t exactly great with these things.

“How’d he die?” he asked, optimistically hoping for something standard like illness, or perhaps an accident.

“He killed himself,” she told him, seeming as if she was trying to spare Cook’s feelings more so than her own, which he found peculiar.

“Oh…” he thought awkwardly. “Was it peaceful?” he hoped.

“Car exhaust,” she informed him, as his face slowly twisted into an uncomfortable grimace. “Choked on exhaust fumes.”

“Oh.”

This certainly did not sound like a very ideal death to Cook, not that there really was any such thing.

“It’s alright. I can talk about it without turning into a weepy twat,” Tiff promised him.

Cook looked at her for a moment, nothing mischievous or teasing behind his eyes in that moment as he just nodded, silently conveying his unspoken apology for his general behavior.

“You know I, er… I remember Andrew. Sort of,” he offered. “He was a couple grades above us… Always trying to make friends with people. Drawing them pictures, and shit,” he recalled, taking a rough swig of vodka.

“Yep. That was Andrew,” Tiff nodded pleasantly. “Definitely Andrew.”

Cook did what he could to help, handing her the bottle as she accepted it gratefully, downing a decent amount of the foul-tasting alcohol as Cook handed her his cigarette.

“He was your best mate,” he said.

Tiff nodded. “Yeah,” she agreed pleasantly. “He was.”

Cook felt awkward and aimless in the heavy conversation, despite the fact that Tiff seemed complete fine. He took another long swig from the bottle, starting to really feel tingly in many different ways, between the spliff and the vodka.

“To Andrew,�� he dedicated the thoughtful act of alcoholism.

She smiled, taking the bottle, compelled to drink more.

“To Andrew,” she echoed.

“Do you know why he killed himself?” Cook asked, past the point of knowing whether or not that was an appropriate question to ask.

Tiff strangely appreciated it, never having been asked that in conversation about it before.

“Yeah… I think so. Sort of,” she provided.

She thought for a moment before responding.

“He was… He was troubled. Fucked around with pills a lot. Like, a lot. I mean, I did too, but… He was just different. Like he knew that’s how it would all end, sooner or later,” she sighed. “I guess he chose ‘sooner’.”

“That’s right shit,” Cook shook his head.

Tiff nodded in agreement, finding his take almost profound in its own way. “Yeah. Yeah, it really is.”

“Was there something you think made him do it?” Cook inquired. “Like, something that set him off?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tiff nodded with certainty, a certain bitterness or irony to her tone. “Yeah.”

He listened silently, something he rarely did for anyone, curious to hear the answer.

“He, erm… He was spiraling, after college. Barely passed to begin with. It was all drugs and weird pastimes, every day. Sometimes he’d be gone for days at a time… Mum was at her wit’s end with him… She just didn’t know what to do,” she explained. “Hell, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was the one to off herself.”

Cook still listened intently as she spoke, pondering on every word. He could tell this was a very recent and painful chapter in her life.

“Anyways. My brother. He was doing some really questionable shit, with really questionable people… It was fucked up. And I mean, fucked up. This guy, Seb, he used to party with? Rumor was, he would get fucked up on acid and do some crazy shit. I mean, like, dead cats crazy.”

“Jesus,” Cook thought, surprised at his own reaction.

“Mum had enough… She gave him an ultimatum. Either get his life together, and go to university, or get a job, at least,” Tiff recalled, “Or… he was out of the house,” she concluded.

Cook sat with this for a moment, not responding, just thinking as he tried to process. It took a considerable amount of silence, but he seemed to understand finally.

“So, Andrew…” the words strangely hurt him to say. “Your mum said he had to get his life together, so he killed himself?” he provided.

“Yep,” she nodded.

Cook gave her a funny look she’d never seen from him before in the short time she’d known him as an actual adult. It was almost a look of sympathy.

“Andrew… He would’ve rather have killed himself than try to live a healthy, functional life,” she admitted, an unimaginable pain in her eyes.

Cook truly had no idea how to respond.

“It’s fine,” she added quickly, her tone changing. “It’s whatever. My own brother would’ve rather have killed himself than stop doing drugs.”

“I’m sorry, Tiff,” Cook said after a pause, “If I’m being completely honest… I only got to talking to shag you.”

He waited guiltily for a response of any sort as she just looked at him for a while, fully aware of his patterns. Cook half-expected her to get uncomfortable in some way, or scream, or yell, or throw him out of her home, but she did no such thing. He watched in awe as she didn’t even seem to bat an eye at the confession.

“I figured,” she said, prompting him to wonder if this was all she had to contribute.

Completely flabbergasted, Cook began to spiral as he tried to communicate with her.

“You—You did?” he asked cautiously.

She nodded emptily, no longer worried about being allowed to attractive people. He still found himself praying she wouldn’t punch or disembowel him.

“Of course I did,” Tiff responded indifferently. “Most people only hang out with me because they want to shag me.”

“Yeah, I reckon so,” he said regretfully, a guilty expression on his face.

“But it’s okay,” she said, reading him easily. “I have a system; I always hang out with people at least three times. If they leave by then, then I know they just wanted to shag me.”

“But… what if they’re playing the long game?” Cook geniunely wondered.

“Well, at that point,” she thought. “If I want to shag them, then, I do.”

A large grin slowly spread across Cook’s face as he shifted the mood back to lighthearted stupidity.

“So, what if I’m still here after the third time?” he proposed excitedly.

“Then I’ll know you’re an idiot,” Tiff concluded.

part three.

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