( CHAPTER TWO ! )

( CHOCOLATE BROWNS AND ICY BLUES )

•

Earth was turning so fast, too fast and to keep your feet on the ground, sometimes you had to latch onto something familiar.

Colin liked to use two items as anchor. First one was his sister's ring.

It shouldn't have been this easy to get rid of someone but basically it was very simple. When Cassie Archer had left their home, their father had dedicated himself on erasing her from their house. They had started by moving to another city, carried on by throwing her things away. Colin had kept that ugly ass ring she never actually used, wore it on his pinky finger. To never forget her, and what he did to her. How he felt when she left.

Second item definitely was not as sentimental as the first. It was his plain black leather jacket that he had bought from a dirty little shop which sold pre-owned stuff. It was rather large for a twelve year Colin back then, but he had fallen in love with the worn out look of it that screamed history. The jacket had a character of its own and Colin felt safer under that layer. It was still loose around some edges but was enough to make him look like he had broad shoulders. He didn't like the thought of people viewing him as skinny. (He was not skinny in the traditional sense, he just felt naked without the jacket, he felt fragile.)

While wandering though the corridor in order to find the library and a quiet place where he can process it his second day at the school, he played with his pinky ring and held on tight to his jacket.

What he didn't think at that time was another concept about anchors. He hadn't been thinking about the solid figures in his life. People who didn't leave (like Cassie or his mother).

While he was walking through the halls with several thoughts lingering inside his head, he almost bumped heads with Flash Thompson, one of the constant figures in his life, apparently.

The surprise on Flash's face mirrored his own before it turned into a scowl for forgetting this fact. He was too caught up with trying to adjust to the system of the school, and Peter, and his sunny smile and warm stories. Too distracted that he had forgotten about the fact he was bound to bump into his old classmates since this was the town they used to live in before. Before Cassie left and everything went downhill.

Flash grinned despite Colin's scowl and took a step forward, maybe he wanted to hug him or something. With an instinct, Colin took a step back, afraid that he might get all touchy feely on him.

"Well, fuck me," Colin's blinked with the familiarity of the voice and his eyes landed on Samuel Smythe in his glory. Colin's attention quickly switched from Flash to Sam, and the objectively beautiful girl standing next to them. He was dumbstruck; he acknowledged that and the uncomfortable expression on the girl's face told it all. Colin couldn't bring himself to crack a joke, he didn't have the words but apparently Sam did. "Man, I thought time was supposed to heal your wounds or some shit. Your face is still ugly as hell."

Flash snickered at Sam's lame attempt at breaking the tension and Colin had to admit that it was working. He looked away with a bashful smile on his face. It felt like everyone near them was watching the exchange with curious eyes.

"It's good to see that some things never change. Like, your lack of game, Sammy."

Sam let out a laugh, Colin was surprised to see his once upon a time best friend this relaxed in public. His stomach clenched with envy, they used to be so similar. Reserved, quiet and cold. Guess some people are able to move on and build a new life, unlike him.

At least Flash was the same with his pettiness and his itch to take the spotlight from natural leaders. It was odd to see two of his friends still sticking together after all these years. They had been able to function perfectly without him, hell Sam looked like a brand new person with his wit showing off. Maybe they never needed him in the first place.

Colin was having a hard time, overwhelmed and confused. The girl, Liz, was also confused about this strange reunion. He found comfort with not being the only one.

•

Colin was dragged into the lunch he had been aiming to skip, and had been forced into sitting with a large group of people. He had enough time in his head to rethink his life choices as he zoned out on the actual conversation, and focused on his old friends instead. Flash was insecure as always, Colin decided, he was still taking his humor from dragging others down and he was very noisy, like Colin remembered. Their friendship had always been odd anyway, Colin never understood why he didn't hate the boy's guts but he found himself rolling his eyes and smiling at some of his comments even still.

The Sammy in his memories was a private kid, with a smile that made anyone swoon over him. His laughs and jokes and wits were used to be only reserved for Colin and close friends but apparently he was a rather stereotypical leader now. He was like the sun of the group, all shiny and warm; he was too bright but it was impossible to look away and people orbited around him naturally, following him around without questioning it.

The rest of the gang, Colin didn't pay attention and was not planning on doing so, until he was dragged into the conversation.

"Who is your tutor Colin," Liz asked and she seemed genuinely interested in the answer so he tried not to come off as pissed. (which he was, since he had to talk.) "Such an odd way to help a new student, really," she continued when Colin failed to respond instantly.

"It's Parker."

"Peter Parker? I mean, Penis Parker," Flash delivered his sentence as if it was supposed to be so funny. Everyone laughed a little, Colin frowned at the amount of people who found it genuinely funny. "Dude, he has such a big mouth and ugh. That boy is a hopeless case."

Colin glared at him very openly and he knew for a fact that Flash knew what his look meant.

"He is annoying as fuck, really," Sam(uel) (Colin had to remember, these boys weren't the kids he used to know.) stated as matter of factly. Some people agreed- which honestly felt fake, Samuel must've been holding a larger power over them than Colin had first assumed.

Samuel was sitting right in front of him and Colin turned his glare on him, which Samuel replied with a tilt of his head. As in, you wanna challenge me? No, Colin didn't want to. At least their dynamic was similar, Flash still didn't have it in him to challenge Colin and Sam was up for a game. "What, you are fond of that loser?"

Colin's heart rate started to pick up since all eyes were on him and he squirmed under their gazes, clenched his fist and his ring dug through his palm.

He was about to answer if it wasn't for Flash and his need to be the center of attention. "Parker! We were just talking about you."

Colin snapped his head to direction Flash was speaking to and saw Peter standing like a deer in the headlights with his tray in his head. "What do we say guys," Flash raised his voice enough for almost everyone in the cafeteria to hear. "Penis?"

"Parker!"

Almost everyone shouted back and Colin could tell this was an inside joke for the school. Fucking teenagers, honestly. All these morons repeating the words to be included, most of them without bad intentions. Too bad that intentions didn't mean anything as he saw the way Peter flinched at the words. Maybe Colin was the odd one here because the joke wasn't even funny nor it was clever. Flash laughed though, everyone else laughed and Peter looked pissed rather than hurt after the initial shock.

Their eyes met and that's when Colin saw disappointment in the other boy's gaze. He wanted to say something, didn't know what to say and couldn't say when everyone else can hear, he watched Peter shake his head dismissively.

"You have serious issues with yourself, Flash," Colin muttered faintly, through his greeted teeth.

Flash rolled his eyes playfully. And then he patted Colin on the shoulder and gave him a little squeeze. "Relax, dude-"

One thing he couldn't handle was people who found the right to engage into touchy gestures. He saw red as he stood up with the rush, almost knocking the table over. "Don't touch me, dude."

He grabbed his bag that was placed next to his feet and left the table in a hurry.

Peter Parker was nowhere to be seen and Samuel Smythe and his whole crew must've been thinking he was insane. Fantastic.

It was day two and Colin Archer had managed to piss everyone off.

•

He was in an awfully bad mood even when he reached his house.

As if it wasn't enough that he had managed to piss of the only person who could help with his school work (Peter), and had managed to become the main focus of his old friends (Flash and Samuel); he also had to go and almost punch a perfectly okay kid. (That was also one of Peter's best friends apparently.)

It wasn't intentional but that didn't mean that it made his actions okay.

Colin was about to leave school and was too focus on trying to decide which route he would take with his motorbike to reach home when he snapped at Aamir. He was distracted by his own thoughts and he was off guard. And when the boy had grabbed his arm without showing himself first, he just lost it.

The next thing he knew, he was turning around and pushing the boy away with all he got, that resulted him falling on to his back. Aamir had a fairly lanky body, Colin's push had a big impact on him, to the point he hit his head a bit.

As the boy let a small cry of pain, Colin was starting to panic. This wasn't someone scary, it was just a teenager who looked completely harmless. After the initial shock he tried to help him up back on to his feet. There was no blood ( which wasn't enough to make him feel okay), the boy was scrubbing the back of his head with a frown but he looked fine.

"I'm so sorry, man, I didn't see you coming and I thought-"

"I'm fine," the boy replied quickly. He did look okay physically but he was obviously startled and shaken up. "It was stupid, Peter is your tutor and Peter is my best friend so I thought I would introduce myself, It was dumb..."

Colin wanted to hit his head on a hard surface, rapidly. The way the boy was trying to defend himself made him feel terrible; the fact that he looked slightly scared made it worse. He screwed his eyes shut and tried calm himself down. He hated how he got sometimes, just a simple touch and his hands were shaking, his face was pale and he wanted ran off. "Don't- don't say that. It's my fault." There were some curios glances on them, they were barely out of school properties. Colin exhaled a deep breath. "I'm Colin."

There were a few steps between them and Aamir still looked like he was about to bail. Luckily, he didn't and offered his name in return.

Colin found some type of solace in that but he still felt guilty and sick about the whole incident. He curled his fingers into a fist and the ring on his little finger dug into his skin. The sharp pain kept his sanity at bay, he gathered up some courage to explain. "I didn't see you coming and I don't like people touching me with me knowing. I don't like touch in general." It was the half truth but it was more than he usually gave anyway. At least he owed Aamir a some type of honesty here.

The understanding expression on Aamir's face sickened him. The boy ran his fingers through his long hair and had the audacity to smile kindly at him. If it was pity, Colin would've hated it but it would've been easy to deal with. Aamir Geller was all about empathy, his gestures were as sweet as the best chocolate in the world, his eyes resembling the color of that chocolate with light shining trough them.

From the start, Colin knew he couldn't stand being near that boy because he felt ashamed of his own coldness, his movements and expressions that were icy, even the blue of his eyes were reserved and ice cold.

So, no. He was not in a good mood when he reached the house. Everything that happened was about to trigger his migraine. Even the rock on the pavement annoyed him, the birds chirping outside annoyed him, his poorly decorated house annoyed him.

The only thing that made his life slightly bearable at that moment was his brother, their favorite cartoon Brother Bear and and ice-cream.

Colin wrapped himself and Cory into his favorite blanket (the oldest one was always his favorite). He pretended his whole world was this, hanging out with his little brother without a care; pretended that the time of his father's arrival wouldn't come, pretended that he didn't have to face with the consequences of his actions tomorrow.

Nevertheless, tomorrow came, without asking if he was ready. Colin just had to deal with it.

•

( AUTHOR'S NOTE! )

edited.

also, i decided to post more since i want to get the old chapters out of the way, remove some stuff and go on with my plans. i miss writing colin and i suck at editing anyway...