Work Text:
for·ev·er
adverb
/fəˈre.vər/
for all time in the future, or for as long as you can imagine
“Fatso!”
“Pig!”
“Fat-ass!”
“Porker!”
“Whale!”
“Fatty!”
Each of these insults was directed at [Nickname], my poppet. Each of these insults came from one of her many classmates. Each of these insults made her wince and hang her head, made her slouch in her chair and stare at the ground. Each of these insults was like a stab right through her beautiful heart.
I’d love to return these stabs to every single person who had called her names.
From time to time, it would become too much for her to handle. She would break down when no one was around, and then she would cry for a long time, sitting beneath a remote tree in a park, cowering behind a rubbish container in a dirty alley, hiding in the forest near her home, just about anywhere where no one would see her.
Today was one of those days.
This time, [Nickname] was in a small park about a ten-minute walk – or, in her case, a five-minute run – away from our school. She was sitting on a bench, curled up in a ball and huddled up against the bench’s armrest. Her shoulders were shaking heavily as she cried her eyes out. Tears and snot seeped between her fingers covering her face, coating her skin with a moist, glistening layer.
As usual, no one was around except for me. I was leaning against a tree nearby and watching my poppet cry and sob and whimper. I was uncertain whether to walk over to her and try to cheer her up (or, at the very least, be there for her), or to go and track down the persons who had bullied her earlier and punish them severely.
There was a group of five boys at our school who had it in for her. They made fun of her every single day without fail, didn’t miss out on any chance to do so, and prodded her other classmates to follow suit. They were the main reason why my poppet was drowning in her sorrow.
If they were dead, no one would sneer at her anymore …
But [Nickname] needed me. I was her best friend, after all – and her one and only friend. She was the laughing stock of pretty much the entire school, and no one wanted to be friends with her apart from me.
I had been her friend for a couple of years now. I had always been there for her, but as of late, she seemed to clam up. Her [colour] eyes which were usually shining with joy went dull at times. She became quieter. She tended to stare off into the distance without reacting to me. Her movements lacked energy.
All in all, the happiness had been seemingly drained from her beautifully chubby body. I didn’t want this to happen. I was afraid of what this could lead to. My poppet and I had used to be so close, but now … We were drifting apart.
If this went on, I would never be able to tell her how I felt for her without risking being undoubtedly rejected by her. I had wanted to confess to her some time ago. But I had realized that I would only burden her even more if she didn’t return my feelings, thus I hadn’t said anything and just tried to stay as close to her as possible.
Subconsciously, I had begun to move. Now I was standing in front of my poppet, who glanced up at me, her bloodshot [colour] eyes widened in fear of her tormentors having found her. But as soon as she saw that it was just me, a sob escaped her lips. She went back to crying.
“W-What are you doing h-here, Oliver?” [Nickname] asked with a throaty voice and hiccupped. “Did you f-follow me?”
Without saying a word, I sat down next to her. I put my arms around her trembling figure and pulled her close, ignoring the tears and snot staining my violet vest. “I would never let my best friend down,” I replied matter-of-factly. “Of course I followed you, poppet.”
She squirmed in my arms, trying to wriggle out of my embrace, but I just held her more tightly. “B-But the others are already making f-fun of you too because y-you’re with me. I don’t w-want them to do the s-same to you as they’re d-doing to me.”
“So what? I don’t care what others think of me as long as I’m with you.”
“I-I’m the reason all your f-friends turned their backs on y-you. They left because y-you’re my friend.” She stirred. Again, she tried to escape my embrace, but I pressed her against my chest and didn’t let her go anywhere.
“They weren’t worth my time anyway. But you are, poppet. You are.” I let go of her after all. Grasping her shoulders, I forced her to look at me. “You are worth everything. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise, especially not those despicable boys and girls at school.”
A small smile passed over [Nickname]’s chapped lips as her reddened cheeks flushed even redder. “Oliver, I –” A hiccup cut her sentence short. She cleared her throat and averted her shiny [colour] eyes for a couple of seconds before looking back at me. “Th-Thank you for everything so far.”
I flashed her a bright smile. “There is no need to thank me, poppet. That’s what best friends do, after all.” It kind of hurt to say these words. I loved her beyond everything, but I didn’t want to force my love upon her when she didn’t even love herself.
An emotion flickered in her eyes, but it was gone too quickly to identify it. She nodded stiffly and lowered her gaze. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said. She attempted to dry her tears with the already soaked sleeves of her [favourite colour] hoodie, but to no avail, hence she accepted the handkerchief I offered her, using it to clean her face and hands.
“Oh, look at that!” a boy’s voice called at this very instant. “It’s the beached whale and her loser best friend! You thought you escaped us, huh? Well, you thought wrong!” The boy with ash blond hair and his cronies laughed loudly.
I felt [Nickname]’s shoulders tensing up beneath my hands, along with the rest of her body. She started trembling again. Her lips quivered, and her puffy face blanched. She took fistfuls of the hem of her hoodie, gripping so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
I stood up from the bench. I pulled her to her feet, shielding her from the eyes of the boys with my body. “Go to my flat, poppet,” I told her, eyes fixed on the five boys. “You know where I hide the spare key. I’ll deal with them. Don’t worry, alright? I’ll catch up with you in a little while.”
She took hold of my hand and gave it a grateful squeeze; then, she ran off.
“Protective as always,” one of the blond boy’s friends mocked. “Do you think you can stop us? Once we’re finished with you, we’ll go after her and beat her up. Without your protection, she’s nothing, just a fat, helpless chick.”
I glowered at [Nickname]’s loathsome classmates. I didn’t know their names, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered to me was the fact that they were insulting her and making others call her names too.
As soon as they were dead, [Nickname]’s torment would end, wouldn’t it?
When I began approaching them, they just laughed, but I was too lost in thought to care. How should I kill them? With a knife? With my bare hands? Quickly and painlessly? Or slowly and agonizingly? Should I tell [Nickname] about it? Should I leave a message for her other bullies?
“What’re you gonna do, loser?” another boy asked, grinning scornfully. “Fight us? One against five? You loser against us? You’ll never stand a chance. We’ll batter you.”
Their leader, the boy with the ash blond hair, stepped up to me. He planted himself in front of me. “Why do you even bother trying to protect her, loser? She’s pathetic, fa–” His sentence abruptly ended in a stertorous breath. “What the fuck –”
I tightened my grip on his throat, fingernails digging into his exposed skin. “Don’t you dare insult her ever again, you twit,” I growled, baring my teeth. “She’s chubby, if anything. She isn’t fat. She is an angel. She’s my angel. I don’t tolerate anyone making her sad. And guess what? You’re making her sad. So you have to die.”
The blond boy wheezed. “Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?!” He seized my hand which was closing off his windpipe, and unsuccessfully attempted to free himself from my death grip. “Let go of me!”
“Nothing is wrong with me.” Using all my strength, I lifted him up by his throat, leaving his feet dangling in the air a few centimeters above the ground. “I have every reason to ask you what is wrong with the five of you bastards. You are driving her into depression.”
“I-I’m sorry! We’re sorry! We’ll never do it again! We’ll leave her alone! Promise!” he assured, blue eyes bulging out. His fingernails scratched over the back of my hand as he frantically tried to get my hand off his throat.
“I highly doubt that you are truly sorry about what you all did to [Nickname], wanker,” I snarled. I evaded the boy’s feeble punch with ease. “You are only saying this because you are facing death. You want to live, but I won’t let you.”
Meanwhile, the boy’s companions were rooted to the spot. They watched their friend being strangled by me with my bare hands. They didn’t scream, they didn’t call for help, they didn’t run away, they didn’t attack me. They did nothing, and that was good. They were easier to kill this way, and I didn’t run the risk of being caught.
“No one takes [Nickname] away from me.” I dropped the boy’s dead body onto the dusty path of the park right at my feet. “She is mine, and mine alone. I’m going to protect her from any harm and make sure that she is happy, and if that means I have to kill others, I will gladly do it.”
Still, the four boys didn’t move. They were frozen in sheer terror. Their faces were as pale as a sheet and their eyes as wide as saucers as they gaped at me. Good. Their last moments on Earth would be filled with fright. That was what they deserved.
My lips twisted into a small, wicked smile. Bending down, I pulled a butcher knife from the sheath beneath my beige slacks. I often used it to gather the secret ingredients for the recipe of my special cake mixture, and it looked like I was able to stock up on those ingredients today.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Approximately an hour later, I arrived home, wearing bland clothes. (I didn’t like them at all because they weren’t as colourful and flamboyant as I would have liked them to be.) My old, blood-stained clothes were inside a rubbish bag I was carrying. I also had a sky-blue lunch box with me. It contained a couple of ingredients I had got from the five boys.
Right after I had got rid of the blond boy’s remaining friends, I had called François. He was an acquaintance of mine. He had helped me dispose of the five bodies and annihilate any evidence in the park, such as blood, intestines I didn’t need, and other things. He had also given me a change of spare clothes and a small saw to get access to the organs protected by the ribcage.
I unlocked the door to my flat and entered. ([Nickname] most likely had locked the door behind her to be on the safe side if the boys had managed to overpower me.) First of all, I put the lunch box in a locked drawer of the refrigerator and stuffed the dirty clothes from the rubbish bag in the laundry basket, hiding them beneath another layer of clothes.
On my way to the living room where I assumed [Nickname] to be, I made a quick stop in the kitchen to put a few pence in a jar on the counter. In its lid was a slit I had made with a knife. I used it as my swear jar. The name said it all: Everyone who had sworn in my presence had to put a penny in the jar because I didn’t like swearing at all. But sometimes, I, too, contributed to the growing amount of money.
Considering the amount of swear words I had hurled at the boys, it was a whole lot of pence for me today.
I found [Nickname] in the living room. She was lying curled up on the sofa with her [colour] eyes closed. Her [length] [colour] hair was wet and shimmered in the sunlight falling through the windows, and she was wearing my light pink turtleneck sweater. Obviously, she had taken a shower while I still had been in the park.
Smiling, I crouched down next to her and marvelled at her sleeping form. She was perfect. I gently ran my fingers through her hair, over her temple, down her jaw to her lips, leaving a glimmering trace of water on her skin.
I longed to kiss those lips. Hopefully soon, I would be able to kiss them to my heart’s content. I just had to wait a little longer and make sure that no one hurt her. My love, my angel, my poppet. But maybe I could snatch a kiss? A short, quick kiss. She was asleep, she wouldn’t notice it.
Without thinking twice about it, I leaned forward and brushed my lips against hers. It was merely a light, gentle kiss. A more passionate one would wake her up. Plus, she probably wouldn’t approve of her best friend kissing her in her sleep. But the feeling of my lips on hers … It made my heart swell with love and happiness.
I pressed my lips on her forehead for a brief moment. “I love you,” I whispered.
Suddenly, [Nickname] stirred. She opened her eyes which locked with mine instantly. Her face flushed a deep red within a few seconds, but she didn’t move, just continued to lie there and stare at me without saying anything.
I forced a smile onto my lips as dozens of panicked thoughts were swirling around in my head. “Oh, you’re finally awake, poppet,” I said, grateful that I managed to hide my embarrassment. “I didn’t want to wake you up. I guessed you needed a little bit of sleep. How are you doing? Do you want a cup of [favourite flavour] tea? Or rather a –”
“I love you too.”
Her barely audible voice made me stop talking immediately. But I wasn’t able to utter a single word. I could hear the blood rushing through my veins, my heart beating fast inside my chest. I didn’t know whether to be overjoyed about the fact that my love for [Nickname] was indeed reciprocated, or to be shocked that she apparently had noticed everything.
My train of thoughts derailed when [Nickname] grasped my hand and leaned forward. Her [colour] eyes fluttered closed as her lips met mine in a tender kiss.
I quickly and almost too eagerly returned her kiss while watching her completely relaxed features. This was all I had ever wanted and so much more. I even went so far as to deepen the kiss for a couple of seconds, sliding my tongue past her parted lips and exploring her mouth, before I withdrew to press my forehead against hers.
“I was afraid you would never return my feelings,” I mumbled, gazing into her half-lidded eyes. “But now I finally know that you love me too.” I locked her in my arms and breathed a sigh of relief.
“You saved me from these pricks,” she began, breaking the comfortable silence between us, but then froze and hastily added, “uh, I mean, from these guys.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I cursed. It wasn’t my intention.”
Laughing, I nuzzled my face into her neck. I peppered her skin with light kisses, making her squirm and giggle. “I’ll make an exception for you this one time, poppet. Just for you.”
She craned her neck to escape my lips, but she was trapped in my arms. “Thank you very much, you’re too kind,” she teased, her voice breathless because of her giggling. “Did you talk to them? They won’t harass me anymore, will they?”
“They will never make fun of you anymore,” I answered vaguely, deciding to not tell [Nickname] that I had murdered the five boys. This disclosure would surely scare her away. I didn’t want that, not at all. “Don’t worry about it.”
She sighed deeply. “Thank you so much, Oliver. It really means a lot to me that you got these guys to leave me alone.”
I stopped caressing her skin with my lips and leaned back, gripping her shoulders. “It’s a matter of course for me to keep you safe, poppet,” I insisted as I firmly looked into her eyes. “You don’t have to thank me for it. You are my everything and I will protect you from everything and everyone harmful.”
Blushing a bright red, [Nickname] averted her gaze, but still flashed me a shy, yet genuine smile. Then, she leaned into me again.
She thought it was merely a compliment, words to make her feel better. But it was more than that. It was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She was the most important part of my life. I would do everything to keep her at my side, and if I had to get rid of her other classmates to ensure this, I would do it unhesitatingly. I would get rid of everyone if needed.
And now that she was my girlfriend, I would never ever let her go. Nothing would stand in our way. I would make sure that we would stay together for the rest of our lives.
Forever.