#and then one random october afternoon on my way back to school my senses go off and I'm just like | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tryst-art-archive · 1 year

Text

October 2010: "Until I Sleep"

Los Angeles Police Department, Officer Dawe: Interview with “Dani California”

I went gray in elementary school. At first I just left it that way, but when dealing with the other kids got too hard, I started dying it. By then the damage was done, though, so it didn’t really help all that much. It wasn’t until Calez entered middle school with us that I started just wearing it gray again. He wasn’t called Calez then – I mean, that’s a nickname I gave him, not his real name – and he wasn’t as much of a scruffy musician either, and I guess if he had been he might have fit in better. He could have passed as a stoner that way. But back then, he hadn’t grown into his lankiness so when he walked it was like a daddy longlegs on ice. He did have the beginning of the goatee then, but his hair was too tidy for it. Turns out he needed the shaggy brown mop to complete the look.

Anyway, Calez has been into the flute for pretty much his whole life, so he was already a crazy talented flutist when he came, and he joined the school’s concert band right off and put everyone else to shame. They were struggling over sixteenth notes while his fingers choreographed strings of thirty-second notes. He’d add mordents to the compositions and play in harmony to the rest of the flutes when he got bored. So he inhabited this bizarre place in the school’s social spectrum. On the one hand he was this awkward music nerd with no appeal to the ladies, but on the other he was too talented to not leave you staring slack-jawed. For the first few days, the other kids jeered at him, and that landed him in with me and the rest of the misfits, but then the band held practice. After they heard him play, people had respect for him, and since he’d already fallen in with the losers, that meant we gained some points by association. And me? I was already becoming his best friend, y’know? So I stopped dying my hair, and in high school I decided to kick it up a notch, dye my tips crazy colors. Eventually I settled on the pink, but I went through the whole rainbow, mixed it up, just whatever I felt like. That’s when I started dressing in neon colors and accessorizing, too.

Well, anyway, the two of us were pretty much inseparable before long, so after we spent high school learning trivia through a haze of smoke – I’ll let you guess what kind – we figured we’d just go to the same college. I mean, neither of us were very into the idea of college, so I just picked a random state school and went with it. Calez tried in some other places, though. He actually got into Berkeley, but we were in Florida then, and Massachusetts was too far away, he said. So he was going to state school with me, in the end. We never wound up going, though.

Y’see, we had both packed all our stuff up, just had a duffel bag to carry us through the week before we moved, y’know? So one of those nights in the middle, we’re bored out of our minds. Our college was starting later than all our friends’, so it was just the two of us, and that was alright of itself, but all our things were packed away and that left standing around in the Floridian sun. I don’t know if you’ve ever spent a summer in the swamp that is Floridian heat, but it is not an atmosphere you want to walk through while having skin. So that pretty much left us with malls and waiting until night took the edge off a little.

We headed into town sometime in the afternoon; Calez had his flute, something he’d busted his savings on, and I had a pair of drumsticks and a tambourine ‘cause I’d taken up percussion so that the two of us could jam. I’ve got a decent sense of rhythm, and Calez pretty much taught me anything else I might need to know, so we’d go down to Miami, lay out Calez’s flute case, and just jam for a few hours at a time. When we got to the city on that particular day, though, it was sweltering so we set ourselves up in an air conditioned shopping center, sometimes jamming, sometimes dodging security, and sometimes just window shopping. Sometime after the sun had set, a group of security guards finally caught up with us and kicked us out for playing in the mall without permission. It was still too hot to be out, really, but we figured it would cool down soon so we wandered into the party district.

A couple weeks before this, a new nightclub had opened up down there. It was some kind of gay bar, and it was drawing customers like sugar draws ants. No one really seemed to be sure why since it wasn’t offering anything particularly different than any of the other gay bars in the area, but rumor had it that the place had male dancers just being sexy for the crowds and that one of them was particularly stunning. It didn’t really matter to us why the place was overflowing with people, though. Me and Calez were out to jam and make a little pocket change that night, so we headed down to the new club and parked ourselves close enough to get the attention of the people trying to get into it but not so close that its local pounding would drown us – well, mostly Calez – out.

We actually made a decent sum that night. The line into the club was long enough and boring enough for people to notice us and anyone who’d come in a group would send one of their party over to give us what they could spare. Since we’d gotten out there so early in the evening, the crowd just engorged the longer we stayed out there, so we were there for a pretty long time. Long enough for some of the dancers to come out and take a break.

We weren’t even paying attention, really, so we didn’t see them come over. Calez was just immersed in his playing, rocking with it, feeling it with his whole body, completely gone in the melody, and I had the tambourine out then so I was spinning and dancing and whooping, keeping beat and throwing in little rhythmic flairs. We just had a party of two going on right then; we were in our element. And then, bam! There’s these four slim gay guys around us, and they’re dancing with me, and one of them is singing nonsense lyrics, and another one’s invoking the spirit of Stomp, and then there’s this one just leaning against a building, smoking a cigarette, watching, and when I saw him, I stopped breathing.

I mean, he was Michael. Hair like terracotta and skin like sand and – the ridiculous part - eyes the color of blue highlighters. No joke. There he was, a tangible waif of a man in too-tight pants with a light sweater as if he weren’t in Florida, dragging on his cigarette so that the ember illuminated his face and the smoke curled through that red-brown hair falling into his face, hiding the ice of his languid stare. Michael. He just stood there with one arm folded over his chest, one foot against the wall, watching so that you knew he was watching without ever actually catching him at it.

Well the dancing guys noticed what I was staring at – I mean, I’d just stopped mid-spin, mid-laugh – and they laughed at me and said, “Don’t worry about the old sourpuss! Come on, come on, get dancing!” So I did. I danced with them and laughed with them for their whole break – you’d think they’d be tired of dancing, but no - and I kept watch on “the old sourpuss” the whole time.

Well, they had to get back to work, so they left us some money and asked us to come back another night. I told them we would, for sure. Michael tapped his cigarette out against the wall and led the rest of the dancers inside. Calez was still playing then; he actually more or less missed this whole episode. When it got late enough that we had to get back home, I had to explain what had happened to him. He agreed to come back to that spot partially for the money but mostly because he wondered why I was so eager about it. I mean, I explained to him what Michael looked like, but Calez just laughed and said, “I doubt that dancer’s prettier than you.”

Well, so we came back the next night, and the dancers joined us again, and Michael watched again. So I elbowed Calez in the side when they came, and he opens his eyes and looks where I’m pointing him, at Michael. Calez’s flute gives this stutter, the wind getting knocked out of him, and I don’t know how, but Calez managed to recover in a beat, and he was right back to the flow of his melody like nothing happened. Michael noticed it, I think. He glanced up at Calez and gave this little nod.

Well, the dancers left us money and followed Michael back in a little after that, and I said to Calez, “Well?”

Now, Calez, he’s bi, so I was expecting him to have tingles in his stomach as much as I did. Well, Calez just watched the door to the club for a while, and finally he says, “Well. He’s striking.”

I said, “Striking? Is that it?”

Calez shrugged. “I can’t get excited about someone I don’t know.” Then he grinned and elbowed me in the side. “You’re prettier anyway,” he said.

So I punched him in the arm for being stupid, and we jammed for a little longer before heading back home.

We kept going down to that corner to jam at nights for pretty much the whole week before we were supposed to move in. It was addicting, in a way. There was one night where my mom decided she and I needed to spend an evening together “like a family” – as if we counted as one after dad left – before I headed off to college, so I couldn’t go to the club to jam. Calez went without me, mostly because I told him to, though, and he said that the dancers had shown up again and told him they were disappointed that I wasn’t there. I had spent the whole night just shaking, I wanted to be down there so badly. I asked Calez, “What about the blue-eyed one?”

“He didn’t say anything.” I must have looked upset because he added, “He never does, Dani. He probably noticed you were missing, though. How could he not?”

We were pretty much obligated to spend the night before we left with our parents, and I was planning on stopping in to see Calez’s folks then too since they’re as much mine as they are his. We made it a point to be at the club the night before that.

We set up shop and started jamming, and a handful of hours later the dancers came out for their break, and Calez had this lively melody going on, and I had so much energy that night. We were glowing with the music, and the dancers noticed. They picked up on the energy, and they danced with me like they never had before. We were all just pure energy, writhing in between the waves of heat coming up off the sidewalk.

While we were dancing, one of them asked, “Is this a special occasion?”

I said, “It’s the last time we can be here!” They pretty much all gave some version of “No!” so I told them, “We’re supposed to move soon.”

Well, Michael was leaning against the wall as usual when I said this, but he was also watching like usual, and he heard. He tamped out his cigarette on the wall; it was only half-finished. He stood up straight, stretched, and walked into our dancing circle, evolving from an aloof observer into a party creature not only wrapped up in the music but being pulled by it. It was as if every limb and joint were connected to the notes flying out of Calez’s flute; he moved to the music like it was a way of life, not just the act of dancing, and he let it pull him wherever it would.

Once he was in the circle, our collective energy doubled, and we were a frenzy. The line outside the club started cheering, and some of them were clapping, and some of them were dancing, and the security guard couldn’t help but tap his foot, and it was beautiful. There was a transcendence in it.

We probably could have kept up at that the whole night, into the morning, through the day; hell, we could have kept that up for the rest of our lives, if we had a chance. Calez cut us off, though. He wound the song down and stopped. All of us except Michael were pretty much caught mid-stride. Michael followed it down, though. He collapsed with it, subsiding.

I turned to Calez, and I said, “What the hell, man?”

He said, “There’s a guy in a business suit over by the club. He looks kind of pissed.”

The dancers swore. One of them said, “Oh shit, break’s over.” They all hugged us and said they’d miss us and ran back over to the club, apologizing to the guy in the suit. All of them except for Michael. He was still standing with us.

This was the first time I’d seen him up close, really, and I was hit by his overwhelming physicality. His simple physical presence in a space just obliterates anything else. He’s there, and that’s the only thought your mind can really hold. He’s there, and he’s real, and if you touched him, he’d be a firm, solid body under your hand. But you don’t dare to touch him because it would be too much. You’d be overloaded. Because he’s got the shoulders of Adonis, he’s “Venus as a Boy,” he’s an anchoring point in your space that leaves you crossing your legs and whimpering. And then, oh, and then he flashes you one of his cocky, winning smiles, and you know you should hate that confidence, hate the assured way he looks at people, but you can’t, and you melt. You’re not a person; you’re just a pile of jelly, wiggling giblets, and what is breathing again?

Somewhere in there, your ears stop burning, and you remember that you have a pulse. You’ve got tunnel vision, but the helium in your skull is seeping away, and you realize he just said something to you. What he said is “Hi. I’m Michael. You guys are pretty good.”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Part of my brain knew I needed to be responding, but it couldn’t scrabble any language together.

Calez said, “Thanks, man,” and it sounded normal if you didn’t know Calez, but I do, and I could hear a little breathlessness there.

Michael flashed us a grin. He looked at us from the corner of his eye, looked at the guy in the business suit who was still standing outside the club, glaring at Michael now and tapping his watch, and then Michael swung his body around to us, looked us in our faces and said, “You wouldn’t happen to be off to college, would you?”

I blinked. There was air in my lungs again. “Yeah,” I said. “We’re supposed to hit up state school. How’d you know?”

He shrugged. “I been around. You’ve got that look.”

Calez said, “You’ve been around? You can’t be much older than us. Three, maybe four years?”

Michael laughed. “You’re sharp. What’s your name?”

Calez gave him his real name – which I sure as hell ain’t telling you – and then asked him to call him Calez.

“Calez?” Michael said.

“It’s what Dani calls me.”

Michael nodded to me. “I take it you’re Dani?”

“Yeah. It’s a nickname, too, though. I don’t suppose Michael’s your real name?”

“It isn’t.” He laughed. “It’s easier to not be found when no one knows your birth name.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to be found?” Calez asked.

Michael rubbed the back of his neck, furrowing his brows just a little, and I nearly died on the spot. “Aaaah. Well you know how society is. They find you, they make you live by their rules. You gotta get a job, or you can put that off with college, but either way you gotta get a job, and they mean a respectable job.” He laughed. “Thing is, if you stay in one place too long, even unrespectable jobs start making demands.” He glanced back at the man in the suit, who was fuming. “What say we go for a walk, lady and gentleman?”

I tripped over myself agreeing while Calez said, “What about your job?”

Michael just shrugged, beaming. “What job?”

We gathered up our earnings, and Calez put his flute away. Michael hustled us away from that street, ignoring the shouts of the man in the business suit, and walked us down toward the water, making idle chat along the way. Mostly, he inquired about our lives, drawing out every fact about us that there was to know while deflecting almost every question we asked about him. Where was he from? Some Podunk town up north; nothing worth mentioning. Where did he live in Florida? Everywhere. How long had he been in Florida? Not as long as he normally stayed, but too long for his tastes. Where had he been before? Wherever his feet took him; wherever he could hitch a ride; anywhere with a clean bathroom and a free shower and whatever luxuries he could steal.

“Steal?” Calez said.

Michael shrugged. “It happens. So riddle me this, friends: why are you heading off to college? What do you aspire to that requires thousands of dollars’ worth of education?”

Calez glanced at me, then raised his flute. “I have everything I need.”

I just shrugged. “I dunno that we’re aspiring to anything in particular.”

“Hmm. That sounds like a familiar story. Let me tell it to you.” He sat us down on pier where we could see the moon ripple in the ocean and stood with his back to it, so that it outlined him in white. “Once,” he said, “there was a scrawny little fag trying to eke out a life in the frozen northern hills. He wasn’t very good at it. He went through elementary and middle and high school struggling to find a way to live. He tried being straight, he tried being studious, he tried being hard-working. He couldn’t be straight because have you ever looked at a man’s hips? He couldn’t be studious because why put effort into something you don’t care about? And he couldn’t be hard-working because getting minimum wage to flip burgers just didn’t fill the gap in his life. Well, the people around him, they said he should go to college, get an education, become something based off that, so he looked into it. Of all the things in the world, he loved music and dance the most, so he sought out those paths, tried himself a university, tried to get the education and make the career. It didn’t click for him, though. He learned about the technicalities of music, but that wasn’t what he meant when he said he loved music. He learned every variety of dance they could teach him, but that wasn’t what he meant when he said he loved dance. When they gave him a project, he did what came natural, he let the love show, and they failed him. They failed him right out of their university, in fact. Well, he wasn’t such a little gay guy anymore. He’d grown into himself. He knew who he was, and who he was was too big for the frozen hills, that was for sure. So he left. He picked a direction and started walking, and when walking got too tiring, he started dancing, and he danced his way over the country.”

He paused, looking us over. “Now,” he said, “I’m going to say it plainly to you because I’ve been watching this past week, and you two love music and you love dance, and you love it the way I do. The real way. So I’ll be plain with you. I’ve been wandering across this country for a few years now, and it’s a mixed bag of good and bad, but there’s something in the homelessness that lets you dance like you’ve never danced in your life. You’re unfettered, and there’s nothing but you and the music. All the same, it gets lonely when you’re crossing the interstate at three in the morning or squirreling yourself away under some bushes and hoping the next motel you see has an unlocked window. Had someone following me around for a while, but he tied me down to him, and I couldn’t dance the way I want to. He didn’t understand the music, so how could he be anything but cement boots for me? But you two. You two understand, I think. I don’t mean to be bold, but I intend to get out of this sticky city ASAP, and I wouldn’t mind some musical accompaniment, so let me ask you this: Do you want to live the life prescribed to you by society, or would you like to live the life given to you by music?”

He laid a finger under each of our chins and looked us each in the eye in turn. Then he laughed and pulled away from us. “It’s a crazy thing to ask, but sometimes life is better crazy. I’ll come to this dock round midnight tomorrow night to say a fond ‘Fuck you!’ to good old Miami. If you’d care to break the mold, maybe you should be here. That’s all I’m saying.”

He ruffled our hair and passed between us, lighting up a cigarette and swaggering away, disappearing into an alleyway. I noticed that he was wearing the same pants he had been when we first saw him. There was a hole in the sole of one of his shoes.

Calez and I stared at each other. We said we’d think on it; we’d meet up elsewhere earlier to compare notes. I think, though, we already knew what our decision was. I wanted to go, even though it was crazy, or maybe because it was crazy, or maybe because I knew that if I didn’t go, Michael would disappear forever for me, and I couldn’t stand that thought. It closed my throat, thinking about it. And Calez? His face said he’d follow me. Because why would he go to a college when the only reason he was going there was to keep hanging out with me? That’d be pretty ridiculous.

Still, it was a monumental decision, so we said we’d go home and think on it. So we laid awake all night – or I did – thinking on it. I couldn’t get the feeling of Michael’s physical existence out of my belly.

Well, when we got to the dock the following midnight, there was Michael silhouetted against the moon again. He was still wearing the same clothes, but the way he stood in them, he might as well have been wearing a fine tuxedo hand-woven from pure silk. He could make a trash bag look good, though.

He saw us coming up, and the moon caught his teeth. He pierced us with those electric blue eyes and said, “To a new friendship.” He raised his arms up to Miami and gave it the double bird.

I guess our families thought something had happened to us since neither of us had thought to leave a note. There was something of a police search, so we had to be pretty sneaky on our way out of Florida, but once we’d crossed into Georgia, it was easier going. After a few weeks when we figured the search for us would have calmed down some, Calez called his family and tried to explain it a little. They didn’t understand, but what was he going to do about that? They were just going to have to.

By the time we’d crossed into Alabama, we’d already gotten used to each other. Calez and I could practically read each other’s minds in the first place, but it wasn’t long before Michael was in on it. It was as if we’d never been without him. He was just another one of our limbs. We were all each other’s limbs. We still are.

In Tennessee, Michael asked why I didn’t call my mom. I said, “I don’t need that anchor.” He just nodded.

So for the past few years we’ve just been wandering the country, jamming and dancing. Sometimes we take a job if we get stuck too far north or south in the wrong season, just so we can live a little easier. Not freeze to death. The usual. Most of the rest of the time, we gather up what we can, make some pocket change, try to look anything but homeless, and dance across the country. We light up every state we cross. When Michael steps into a state, it gets butterflies, and Calez makes his flute sing so the butterflies dance and whirl and live, and then I flirt with all the butterflies and ask them if they’ll be me and Michael’s concubines, and then Michael laughs, and he kisses me and Calez on our open, laughing mouths, and the whole world is bubbling syrup and heat and music, and when we dance on out the other side of that state, all the boys and girls wake up in their beds, wondering at the dream and the heat between their legs and the music in their ears, and maybe tonight, maybe tonight, they’ll live. In spite of the rules. They’ll live.

…So we aren’t vagrants, officer. We’re just musicians who dance across the country.

#old writing #writing archive #oc writing #assignments #Dani #Michael #Calez #original characters #10s #2010 #Age 19 #short story #vagrancy

1 note · View note

thekillerssluts · 3 years

Photo

We’ve Got A File On You: Win Butler

In a year when a lot of our plans have been on hold, Win Butler has been busy. In April, the Arcade Fire ringleader let us know that the band had been working on music shortly before lockdown, and then he let us hear some of it. Last week, on the night of the election, the band debuted a new song called “Generation A.” Apparently, Butler was one of the people who found quarantine more inspiring than suffocating. Just a couple weeks ago, he amended his previous hints with the update that he’s written “two or three” Arcade Fire albums thanks to having to stay still all year long.

It seems like there’ll be a whole lot of new Arcade Fire goings-on to parse sometime on the horizon, but that isn’t the reason Butler and I got on the phone one recent October afternoon. Butler’s not quite ready to talk about forthcoming music yet, aside from saying this era of writing gives him flashbacks to that which preceded The Suburbs and promising “The new shit is about some of the best shit we’ve ever done” as we say goodbye.

In the meantime, there have been some milestones this year: The Suburbs turned 10; Butler turned 40. There is, of course, a whole lot of rich Arcade Fire history between their early ’00s origins and now. There are too many high-profile collabs to dig through, too many pop culture crossovers to cover, in just one conversation. But before Arcade Fire’s next chapter begins, while we both had a moment of quiet at home in the year 2020, Butler and I took some time to dig back through highlights and surprises from across his career.

Appearing In Bill & Ted Face The Music (2020)

How did this happen?

WIN BUTLER: They were filming in New Orleans. I’m kind of the exact age where Bill & Ted really has a soft spot in my worldview. [Laughs] That was just like, yeah, of course I want to be in the Future Council. That’s the part I was born to play. No, it’s funny, it was just one of these random things that come through the email. Usually, it’s, “Nope, nope, nope, nope.” But this was, “Tell me when, tell me where, I’ll be there.” It was on soundstages. When we were filming it, Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe was back there, and he sort of disappeared at some point. I got to bring my son, who’s six. He was hanging out and we were talking to Keanu about Canada and punk bands back in the day. It was a pretty sweet hang. It was a bright spot in 2020, let me put it that way.

You say you get these emails — is that random stuff they want Arcade Fire to do, or there’ve been other cameos you turned down?

BUTLER: Oh, no, it’s mostly random licensing or stuff that goes to the junk box. But every once in a while, it’s like, “Hey, that sounds like a nice way to spend the day.” I started out in film. I went to Sarah Lawrence College in New York around 2000. I had really wanted to go to film school, and I could never get in. [Laughs] Initially, the song “The Suburbs” was an idea I had for a film and it seemed easier to make a song than a film.

The Suburbs (2010)

That was a convenient segue. The Suburbs just turned 10. I was wondering if you have gone back and revisited it much amidst that anniversary.

BUTLER: The whole experience of Funeral was such a rollercoaster. We were on the road so long. We didn’t have much of a break going into the second record. For The Suburbs, Régine and I — I don’t think we saw anyone for a year straight before we even started demoing or anything for that record.

It was a time in my life… I don’t know, I was in my late twenties, and there were all these details of my childhood in Houston. You know, I moved to Canada when I was 19. [Houston] almost felt like this other life I had. I would close my eyes and imagine riding my bike through town and trying to find the edges of my memory. There was kind of all this emotion that came up through that, and I wanted to capture it. It’s funny, as a songwriter, most of the time I feel like my mind is living in the near future. You’re listening for these little signals in the air. This was almost inhabiting the emotional space of these memories but thinking about it as the future.

When you say it like that, I’m curious if the album feels different to you now that you’re a father yourself and another 10 years down the line. Like another layer to that refracted youth, sort of?

BUTLER: Totally. In a way, I feel like the last year has been a parallel to that year before The Suburbs. Then I was kind of a hermit by choice, and this has more been the world conspiring to make me a hermit, but it has been a really introspective. In a sense, the material that we’ve been working on feels the same way, this hybrid of your emotional landscape and the future.

It’s almost seasonal, like a trade wind that blows in once in a while. I remember we played with Neil Young when he was still doing the Bridge School Benefit and hearing him sing “Old Man” as an old man, almost like he wrote the song when he was 22 to sing when he was 80. I think there’s an element on that Suburbs record that’s like that as well.

Winning The Grammy For Album Of The Year (2011)

Obviously that was a huge turning point for Arcade Fire because you won the Grammy the following year. As a suburban indie fan at the time, I had no real grasp on how big certain bands were. From where I was, it was pretty trippy that you guys won that.

BUTLER: I mean, tell me about it. It was definitely pretty trippy.

There are very, very early moments of you guys getting linked up with some iconic artists. Arcade Fire got plenty of respect from the beginning. But at the same time, the Grammys is something different. That’s a moment of mainstream insurgency. Ten years on, you’re one of the big indie bands of your generation, but also one of the only rock bands to get to that level in recent times.

BUTLER: I don’t know it was the best record that year, but it was definitely the best record nominated that year. I mean, we were up against a Lady Gaga remix record and like, Katy Perry. We weren’t up against a great Eminem record, we were up against a not-that-great Eminem record. In a certain sense, I was like, “Well, I think we should win.” [Laughs] I think we had the best record.

I remember in high school Radiohead and Björk were the two [new artists I loved]. I bought The Bends the day it came out, I bought Homogenic the day it came out. And then everything else I listened to was artists that had broken up 20 years earlier. I remember watching the Grammys the year OK Computer was nominated and it didn’t win, and I was just like, “Oh, that thing must not mean anything then.” I remember Dylan won, and it’s a really great Dylan record, but objectively OK Computer was the best record. So if that didn’t win, then what the hell does that thing mean? After that, I didn’t think about the Grammys that much. It wasn’t on my list of my dreams of my career and what I could accomplish and what I wanted to do.

For me, I was looking more at a band like the Cure or New Order, these bands that were really just artistic entities but you would hear them at a pharmacy once in a while. Like, I’d hear “Bizarre Love Triangle” come on in the pharmacy in Houston and just be like, “Is this from outer space? What the fuck is this?” My dreams for our band was to do for other people what those bands did for me, which was just throw me a fucking lifeline. Because I was just like, “What is this world, and where are my people, and how can I feel OK existing?” My grandfather played in big bands and played with Louis Armstrong, and he bought me a guitar when I was 15. I held on to that thing — if I didn’t have that I don’t think I would’ve made it out of high school. It literally saved my life. I don’t think I could exist without that.

For me, the Grammy thing was strangely moving. Even up until the moment we won, I just felt like an interloper. Even when we won, people looked at us like aliens. Like, “Who? What?” You know, I’m a competitive person. It was really exciting. Cool, awesome, the universe makes sense for one second. It’s interesting, I didn’t expect it to mean anything until we won, and then it meant something.

David Bowie (2005, 2013, Throughout)

I alluded to this earlier but: The Grammys were like an industry stamp of approval. From the beginning, however, you guys were embraced by a lot of elder artists — particularly artists who were influences on the band. One I wanted to talk about was David Bowie. He was a very early supporter; you performed together in 2005, which turned into a live EP. Then he shows up on “Reflektor” in 2013. Somewhere around 2015, you talked about how you’d come to regard him as this professor-type character in your life. He came to your first New York show, right?

BUTLER: Our first headlining show, when we played at the Bowery, Bowie and David Byrne came to that show.

Wow, no pressure huh.

BUTLER: It sort of set the table. Like, “Well, I guess this is how it’s going to be right out of the gate.” [Laughs] It’s funny, I have a photo of David in my studio that I look at when I’m working sometimes. It’s just him in a dressing room with one of those kind of Hollywood mirrors behind him. He really… I don’t know, he felt some sort of spiritual connection with us. It wasn’t like he wanted anything from us. I just think he wanted to say, “Hey guys, you’re going on the right path, keep going.”

I was emailing him over all those years. I don’t know if you have anyone close to you that’s died and you go back and read those emails, it’s really these strange digital fragments of someone you care about. After he sang on “Reflektor,” Régine and I bought him a painting in Haiti as a thank you gift. We were supposed to mail it to him and we got busy and forgot about it, and in the interim he passed. I knew he wasn’t well, but I didn’t know he was dying. Maybe a couple months later I remembered the painting and I dug it out and it was a painting of a black star. A voodoo painting of a black star with rays coming out of it.

I didn’t know anything about his record being Blackstar or anything like that. Now it’s on the wall of my bedroom. Shit like that sometimes happens in my life. I take it for what it is. I don’t know exactly what that means and I just feel grateful… I don’t know man. Even just how inspiring, what he put into his art even in death. He’s someone I think about at least on a weekly basis.

Backing Up Mick Jagger On SNL (2012), Playing With The Rolling Stones (2013)

Obviously that was an ongoing relationship, and you’ve worked with David Byrne too, and you referenced playing with Neil Young. Still: Being onstage with the Rolling Stones seems particularly daunting.

BUTLER: We were Mick’s backing band on SNL. SNL is maybe one of my favorite American institutions. I don’t know if it’s the Canadian thing since Lorne [Michaels] is Canadian. The first time we did it, it was just like, “This dude is my friend.” I don’t know if Lorne’s kids like Arcade Fire or something. But I was in New York randomly and he was like, “Mick’s doing a thing,” and I said, “We do a pretty amazing cover of ‘The Last Time,’” and he said “Come on down, let’s do it.” Then we’re Mick’s backing band. I don’t know, pretty fucking cool.

What is Mick Jagger like to work with?

BUTLER: Mick is like: As soon as the light goes on, he’s a different person. When he turns it on, it’s like this muscle memory — like if you were with the greatest ballet dancer ever, and you say go and this energy comes out of him that is so practiced. It’s someone who’s an absolute master, after practicing something for decades and decades and decades. That was pretty amazing to see. You’re chatting with someone, we’re at the piano and we’re talking about an arrangement, “OK, let’s do a run,” and then, “Boom! Shit!” There he is.

It’s this other level. I feel like people at that level, music’s not something they’re fucking around with. [Laughs] Music is a spirit. You hear something, and if it strikes a chord with you, it connects something at your deepest core. People like that, when you see them do their thing, it really is this other plane. It’s not this show thing. It’s more of a possession. You can hear it in the music.

I feel like I’ve listened to more music during COVID than any time since I was like, 18. I had this moment when I was listening to these amazing records from the 1950s. You can hear the room. It’s almost like audio VR — you can hear the drummer here and the bass player over here. There’s a sense of space, particularly to that older music. It’s a snapshot. If you hear “La Bamba,” right now, that is what it is. It’s a spirit captured on vinyl, on a piece of tape. It’s alive within that.

With people like Mick, they’re a little bit closer to the spirit of rock ’n’ roll — a literal spirit, not a figurative spirit. Bowie was the same. When he played with us in Central Park, the second he hit the stage he’s illuminated. You’re like, “Oh, shit, that’s what it is.” He’s a human when you’re talking to him and as soon as he’s in it, he’s touched by another thing.

SNL (2007-Present)

I’m glad you brought SNL up, because you’ve been on it a bunch of times, but you’re also one of the musical acts they’ve brought into skits. Like, they actually wrote a game show around you. How does that work? Did they write that sketch with you guys, or you walked in and they’re like, “Hey, by the way…”

BUTLER: I can’t remember, I think we’ve been six or seven times. We’ve been there for a couple different casts at this point. The Lonely Island dudes, those are so my dudes. In another life, I would’ve been in Lonely Island, that would’ve been my dream to just fuck around with my friends; when we were first writing music we were kinda joking around because you’re too insecure to try. A lot of times [at SNL], we’ve played for the staff when we’re there, because you get so fired up to play one or two songs and you’re playing live so your endorphins are running so we just sort of keep playing afterwards. I feel like they appreciate that, it kinda feels like you’re on the same team or something.

I was backstage at SNL once last year, and it is pretty crazy to see it all from the inside like that.

BUTLER: It’s so crazy. They write it all that fucking week, and then to see the differences between the dress rehearsal and the live show. They do a little meeting in Lorne’s office. They’ve done the dress rehearsal and it’s still this tiny office and every cameraman and every cast member is crammed in this little office and Lorne’s like, “Make it a blue light instead of a green light at minute 23, and change this word to this word, I don’t think that’s funny, change that, OK, go,” and everyone’s got pencils writing this down. It’s still fucking that. And you know, it hits and misses sometimes, but they’re doing it.

How long did you have to work on your De Niro impression for that skit?

BUTLER: It’s actually more of a Billy Baldwin impersonation, but it seemed to work for De Niro as well. [Laughs] My only real impression is I can look exactly like Billy Baldwin if I want to. If there’s any casting directors reading this and you need a Billy Baldwin impersonator, I’m your man.

LCD Soundsystem’s Goodbye Show (2011)

You’re the one who ended up serendipitously coining the title of the live album.

BUTLER: [Laughs] That is true. That was genuine. He was being a little talky.

I moved to New York before I moved to Montreal, and I would go to the city and go to shows and I didn’t see one fucking thing that was good in the whole year. I was like, “Wait, I thought New York was the shit, where is it?” All I saw was bad, very industry bands. I couldn’t find anything, I wasn’t cool enough to figure out what was going on. There’s very few bands that I really think of, like bands of my generation where I heard them and thought “These are my people.” For me it was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD, and Wolf Parade. When I heard those bands, I thought, “These are my fellow pilgrims.” It was art, DIY, no bullshit, just trying to make something great that communicates to people. It’s real and emotional.

James is really just one of us. He’s just such a great engineer and really into the way things sound and really passionate about details. It’s rare to meet people like that. James was working with us when Bowie came in, when we were in Electric Lady. James had never met Bowie before. The first 7” he ever bought was “Fame.” We’re in this studio, and the last time Bowie was there he had cut “Fame” with John Lennon, in the same studio. We were all like, “This is the right place to be.”

James is just a man after my own heart. We did a tour with them on Neon Bible. We were playing to a thousand people in Salt Like City and I was like, “Man, in a couple years a lot more people are going to wish they were at this show.” What a fucking great live band.

Scoring Her (2013)

What kind of headspace did you have to get into for this vs. making an album?

BUTLER: Spike [Jonze] came to a bunch of our early shows on Funeral. The second I met him he was just immediately one of my best friends. He thinks about the world the same way. Even though we work in different mediums he was someone I knew I’d be working with in some capacity. I was visiting LA and I was staying with Spike just randomly one time, in the early days of him working on the script for Her. I was reading the script and immediately thinking about how it could sound, and I was like, “Well, we should fucking do the score to this movie.”

When you’re working on a record, it’s so rigid, what works on a song and what doesn’t work on a song. It can be so limiting in a way. Within the band, there’s so many different talents and color palettes and things people bring to the table, so it was cool to do something where the boss is the picture. It doesn’t matter how anyone feels about a piece, if it’s working for Spike, if it’s working in harmony with the picture, that’s what the boss is — the emotionality of the picture. It’s not about you, it’s in service to this bigger thing. It was a cool opportunity for all of us to use different aspects of things we do, and to work with Owen [Pallett], who had done a lot of strings on our records. It uses a totally different part of your brain.

Do you want to do more of that kind of work, or was it this specific story from Spike that spoke to you?

BUTLER: I can say pretty confidently that I’ll work with Spike in the future. It definitely takes a lot of energy. It’s definitely something I’m interested in, but I feel like while I’ve got the juice it’s good to spend as much energy writing songs as we can. It’s pretty fucking hard to make a record, believe it or not.

Future’s “Might As Well” Sampling “Owl” From Her(2017)

Are you a big Future fan?

BUTLER: I love Future. There’s something in the rhythm of the thing he does that actually reminds me of some music from Haiti, in this really deep, subtle way I can’t put my finger on. There’s something almost mystical in the way he sounds, and I thought that was really cool that they sampled that soundtrack. His shit does sound like the future still. I think it’s pretty special.

The Reach Of ”Wake Up” (2004-Present)

This song has had this big pop-culture reach over the years. U2 used it as their walk-on music in the ‘00s. It was used in the trailer for another Spike movie, Where The Wild Things Are. Macy Gray and John Legend both covered it. Microsoft ripped it off for a commercial. It was used in a commercial for LA’s bid for the Olympics.

BUTLER: That Microsoft money went to Haiti, by the way. They did rip it off. [Laughs] Thank you Microsoft.

As far as I know that’s far from an exhaustive list, too. It’s just one of those songs that’s gone out and become a part of the atmosphere. Even a lot of big bands don’t necessarily have a song like that. What do you think it is about “Wake Up” that’s registered in so many different contexts?

BUTLER: From the time we wrote that song to now, the biggest difference in my life is I’ve traveled the world and I’ve been able to play music in all these different cultures and feel the ways different countries feel music. Not only listening to the music in other countries but seeing how they feel the music I play.

I remember around The Suburbs we played in rural Haiti. It was our first time playing in a place where nobody in the audience had any of the reference points of the music we played. We were playing in the mountains, there were people walking in barefoot to the concert. We were playing these songs we had been touring the world with, and the energy from the crowd was so different. The things they responded to, the things they felt, it actually fundamentally changed the way I heard my own music. It made me start to think about music not just from my own perspective but culturally how people hear it and feel it.

I think the one thing that kind of transcends everything across all cultures is melody. Régine was playing that melody on piano in our rehearsal room. I hear it like it was yesterday. It was like, “That’s the shit.” [Laughs] Being present and being in the room, hearing something and really giving yourself to it, just singing that shit like it really meant it and feeling the power of that melody and trying to push it until it breaks. That’s something I think about, just how great it is to have people to play music with. To say it like you mean it.

I remember singing that song in Montreal, in these lofts. Most of our early fans, the first time we played that song, they were like “Fuck this shit, I want the acoustic shit.” People were so negative. I remember a lot of early fans didn’t come to our shows after that because we were suddenly screaming at the top of our lungs and playing electric guitars. It was like, “Everyone here hates this, that means we must be going in the right direction.” [Laughs] But yeah, don’t be discouraged if people hate something. It doesn’t mean shit.

https://www.stereogum.com/2105395/win-butler-interview-spike-jonze-arcade-fire-snl-mick-jagger-david-bowie/interviews/weve-got-a-file-on-you/

#Arcade Fire #Win Butler #interview

52 notes · View notes

emmy-writes-sometimes · 4 years

Text

Roomies

You and Tom accidentally get paired as roommates, but it quickly becomes something more.

You didn’t know what you expected when you signed up to have a random roommate because you didn’t know anyone else at the school. You were hoping you’d be friends, but you’d also heard stories of people having to change halfway through the semester because they hated each other. You hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but you were getting a bit worried when you were starting your drive up and still didn’t know who your roommate was.

You were essentially on your own – your parents were helping your other sibling move into another college a few hours away and you weren’t all that attached to things you had at home, so you packed your clothes and toiletries and saved up money to buy everything the day you got there. Was it kind of ridiculous? Yeah. But would it save you a ton of time and pain moving in? Definitely.

You noticed you were in one of the co-ed dorms when they gave you the key and the packet that had codes and information in it, but you didn’t know who your roommate was. You knew the last name was Holland, and that they were an international student, but other than that your packet didn’t help you. You got into the room and picked a side without much thought into it. You moved your furniture around a little, moving the bed up so that your dresser could fit underneath it and you had a little more space for your clothes that you’d brought.

You were almost done unpacking when you heard the lock open and a guy carrying two bags walked in. You were confused for a second, and so was he.

“Hi, I’m Tom, your last name’s Y/L/N, right?” He asked. He had a British accent, you noticed, so he was an international student after all. “I didn’t realize the rooms were co-ed.”

“Yeah,” you responded. You shook his hand, giving him a smile. “I didn’t either. I can go to housing if…”

“It’s fine with me if it’s fine with you. I have three brothers, so living with a girl would be different.” You smiled at him.

“I have two sisters, so living with a guy might be nice.”

“Is that all of your stuff?” He asked as he put his things on the bed.

“Yeah, I tried to come with as little as possible. I figured I’d run to the Target up the street later if you want to join. I hope that’s not all of yours.” He laughed.

“Actually, it is. I didn’t want to pay a fortune for airfare, so…”

“If that’s everything, we could just go now. Unless you want to go to those orientation things.” He shook his head and the two of you headed down to your car. He explained that he’d just wanted to come here for college so he could move to California after, which made sense because he was going to be an acting major. Your major was similar, so you were kind of glad for the pairing. Neither of you had expected to get a roommate of the opposite sex, but you seemed like similar people so maybe it could work.

“Okay, so if you get the fridge,” you started as you looked at the list the two of you had made in the car. “If you get the fridge, I’ll get the A/C unit. I smuggled in a TV and an Xbox, so we have those, and then we can just split the snacks if you want?”

“Sounds good to me,” he replied. You both grabbed carts and got to work, buying everything you needed, and struggled to get it all up to your room later. By that night you were both unpacked, had set up everything, and you were putting the comforter you’d bought on your bed. It was your favorite color, and it was his, too, so he got a similar one. At least your room somewhat coordinated. You were getting pictures developed to put up on the wall, which he said he didn’t mind, and that was that. You were excited that Tom was so chill. The only inconvenience was having to change in the shower stall, but it didn’t matter that much.

Every time you made friends, it turned out the both of you were involved, so you considered yourself lucky that Tom quickly became your best friend. You would go pretty much everywhere together, and since you had many of the same intro classes, you had a lot of classes together, too. You’d be lying if the thought of dating him hadn’t crossed your mind, but he was your roommate. He probably didn’t want to date you, and what would happen if you broke up? Nothing good, probably, so you let it go. You holed up during fall break and snacked on junk food and played games most of the time, you studied together, and whenever you went somewhere at night he would walk you there and back so nobody would mess with you.

You were studying in the library a couple of months later when he did the first weird-ish thing. You were absolutely freezing, but it was still hot outside, so you were wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Your leg was shaking up and down and you debated walking all the way across campus for some hot chocolate. Tom looked up from his textbook and saw you were shivering.

“I have a sweatshirt,” he said with a smile on his face. “You didn’t have to suffer.”

“I wasn’t going to ask just in case you were cold!” You said. He handed it to you anyway and you put it on over your t-shirt. It was warm and it smelled like him, which was incredibly comforting considering you were worried you would fail the exam on the material in front of you. You muttered a thank you and he just gave you a smile, starting to type on his computer again.

You decided to retire first and of course he walked you back, exchanged textbooks, and went down to the dorm’s common area to finish doing his homework. You were almost asleep by the time he came in and muttered a good night, earning a small laugh as he told you to go to sleep. It was little things like the sweater that started to add up. If you fell asleep he’d put a blanket on you. If he knew you were walking back to your car when it was dark he’d make you call him, or he’d volunteer to go get gas for you so you wouldn’t be out there alone. He would often bring you back food or drinks without you even asking, just because he’d gotten to know you so well that he knew you would never pass up an opportunity for a chicken sandwich and waffle fries.

The next time things got weird was October. It was the week before Halloween and there was a party at one of the houses off campus. Tom didn’t feel like going, so he didn’t, but he told you to keep him on standby in case you needed him. You dressed up in your slutty outfit and tried to pretend you didn’t see him checking you out, and then you left. You met up with your friends, but they soon ditched you for boys they were both seeing, so you were alone.

You started talking to this one guy, whose name you had no idea of, when Tom texted you to check in for the first time. You looked down at your phone just long enough to text him back and then grabbed your PBR, chugging the rest of it in hopes that someone had gone on another run and was back with some beer that wasn’t essentially water. It tasted weird, but you didn’t pay attention. You just kept talking to the guy.

Your vision started going slightly blurry and you tried to walk straight on the back lawn, but you couldn’t. You noticed the guy was watching you and was never too far away, and you realized when your stomach started hurting. He’d roofied you. Shit, you thought. You took out your phone, crossing your arms against your chest to hide some cleavage, and called your trusty roommate.

“Hey, how’s it going?” He asked, putting his phone on one ear while he continued playing with the Xbox.

“I think some guy just roofied me,” you said, “when you texted me I looked away and he must’ve put something in it.”

“Shit. Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

“Take my car, it’s out in the parking lot,” you said as you started getting dizzy.

“Don’t hang up on me, Y/N. Talk to me.” You did – he asked you about how your night had been other than that and before you knew it he was pulling up to the front of the party house. You got in and immediately reached across the console to hug him. He concluded that you’d definitely been roofied because you were drooling by the time he walked you back to the room. He herded you into the shower and then into bed after you were dressed. You woke up the next morning and he had gotten Starbucks for you, probably having borrowed your car again (and filled it back up, because that was who he was).

“Oh, you’re a lifesaver. Literally,” you said as he presented you with the venti cold brew with sweet cream. You sat up and reached toward it and he handed it to you. You drank it like a baby drank a bottle, which just made him laugh.

“No problem. You mind if I play Xbox?”

“Only if I can too.” He handed you one of the controllers and sat down at his desk chair that was pointed toward the TV in between your two beds. “Come sit up here, you don’t have to sit there,” you said, referring to the wooden chair that was obviously uncomfortable. Tom always almost fell out of it, too, every time he used it.

“Fine,” he sighed. He walked over and climbed on your bed with you, sitting down beside you, and you wasted most of the morning playing games. You both had class in the afternoon, so you bucked up the courage to go. You sat down and lo and behold, there was the guy that had roofied you. You elbowed Tom.

“Tom, that’s the guy,” you muttered through gritted teeth, trying not to draw attention to yourself. Tom turned his head toward the guy, who looked straight at you. Tom’s arm flew around your back, pulling you to him uncomfortably.

“Anyway,” Tom cleared his throat so the guy would look away. You elbowed him again.

“What was that?” You asked.

“He was looking straight at you. If he thinks the guy who picked you up was your boyfriend, maybe he’ll let you go.” You knew he was right. You tried not to let the guy get to you and eventually class let out. You were one of the last out of the hundreds of people in the gigantic lecture hall, waiting for Tom to ask the professor about an extension on a paper. You finally went back to the room and sighed.

“There’s no need to panic, darling, you have one class with him!” Tom said as he typed away at his paper. You were pacing back and forth, shivering because the A/C unit was on full blast and you just didn’t want to walk over there to turn it off.

“Yeah, but he definitely knew you were just pretending! What if he tries to, like, stalk me or something?” Tom scoffed.

“Anyone that tries to stalk you will have to stalk me too because I live here. You’ll be fine. One of us’ll be with you all the time in classes and on campus. You really don’t have to worry. I promise.” You sat down in your bungee cord chair, pulling up the hood to the sweatshirt you were wearing. It was Tom’s, actually, you noticed. You didn’t notice when you’d pulled it out of your clean laundry, but you’d done some of his the night before since he didn’t have a full load, so it was definitely his.

“I guess.”

“Come on. Let’s go get some dinner,” he insisted, “and then we’ll go camp out in the library.” You got up and let him drag you halfway across campus to the only dining hall that was open.

You ended up going to the semi-formal with him, because neither of you had another date, and the way he treated you was strange. He opened your door for you, he paid for the dinner beforehand, and he took about a million pictures of you for your Instagram without complaining one bit. He took care of drunk you and held back your hair, got you Gatorade, and took you to get a milkshake at 2 AM because you wanted one so badly that you were crying. You drunkenly told him you loved him and he laughed, just saying he loved you too.

That phrase became familiar, too. I love you. You told him that when you were leaving him, when you were drunk, when he got you food without asking. He smiled every single time, responding that he loved you too. You always told your friends that, though, it was just who you were. It didn’t mean anything other than you valued the friendship you had together. He came with you for Thanksgiving, since he’d never been to one before, and your parents even made him sleep on the couch because they were convinced you two were together. And then there was the night of your friend’s birthday party, and all hell broke loose.

You were sitting in a circle in your friend Sadie’s room, playing spin the bottle with a bottle of Malibu that you’d all emptied together not long ago. You still had a cup of half Malibu and half sprite in front of you. Sadie had to kiss her roommate, Allie, and a couple other roommates had done the same thing. It was just a peck, so it was whatever. You’d spun it, though, and of course it landed on Tom. His face got red, immediately, but he playfully patted his lap and you giggled, walking over to him, and his legs were crossed as you got on your knees to match his level. You cringed a little as he reached out for you and finally kissed you. It was just a peck, like most of them were, but you could tell that he didn’t want to pull away. He didn’t want to pull away.

You lasted through most of the party and decided to leave once you were sobering up. Of course he came with you, and when he put his hand on your back to lead you out of the dorm you couldn’t help but look back at him.

“Sorry the bottle landed on you,” you apologized. “We’re the only co-ed roommates on our hall and of course it ended up on us.” He shrugged.

“It’s spin the bottle. Doesn’t mean anything unless you want it to.”

“Unless I want it to?” You stopped on an empty sidewalk underneath a lamp-post, turning around to look at him. In the low, yellowed light you could see that his face was changing colors, and suddenly the heat rose to your cheeks and you were burning up in the sweatshirt you were swearing. Tom’s sweatshirt. Again.

“I mean…”

“Be honest with me for just five fucking seconds,” you said. “Would you have done that if we were both sober?”

“I am sober, Y/N,” he insisted. “I am. And if you won’t lie to me I won’t lie to you, alright? Have you noticed how I always say I love you too? Or I bring you coffee and I know your order, have you ever considered why? Or did you consider at all why I came and got you at two in the morning at that party?” He walked a few feet in front of you when there was another set of people walking down the sidewalk. He paused to let them through and then looked over at you again. You were freezing in the sweatshirt. It was December, what were you thinking?

“I thought…” You took a deep breath. “I thought. But I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t say anything. And now you’re telling me you’re doing all of this for a reason and I want to believe that you like me, but it’s so complicated, and…” Before you knew what was happening, he was closing the gap between you. His hand went behind your head and his other one splayed across your stomach, pressing you up against the lamp-post in front of you, and he kissed you. This time, it wasn’t a peck. This time, he didn’t pull away. He kissed you for a few minutes and you kissed back, and you only parted when you heard another set of people about to walk by.

“Are you sure now?” You nodded, panting a little. He’d left you out of breath and the air outside was so cold that you could see it.

“Yeah,” you said quietly, reaching out to take one of his hands.

“I like you, Y/N. Roommate or not, I do, and I can guarantee I still would even if I didn’t live with you.” You smiled at him a little.

“What is this, The Prince & Me?” You asked out loud. He looked slightly confused. “It’s a movie, where this guy comes to college in America and…”

“I know the movie.” You felt heat rise to your cheeks again. “So…” You started walking again and so did he.

“So?” You looked at him. “Tom, are you sure? Are you sure you want this? And it isn’t too complicated? Because we live together, what if we fight?”

“Then we talk it out. Come on, Y/N. We can make a King sized bed with our beds put together.” You laughed.

“Is that the only reason why?” He grabbed your waist and squeezed it, making you laugh a little.

“No. I love hearing you laugh, is one of them.” You reached the dorm, finally, and rode the elevator up to your room.

You went back to the room and immediately started moving your furniture together. You talked about going into the city to get brunch as your first official date as you tucked in a set of sheets. This time when he went to change his shirt you didn’t turn away, and he didn’t get mad when you reached for one of his shirts to sleep in. You smiled to yourself as you settled in beside him, assuming the position of the little spoon, as he picked a movie to pretend to watch.

“Good night, girlfriend,” he said in your ear.

“Good night boyfriend,” you replied with a smile on your face. He squeezed your waist again and you smiled, thanking your lucky stars that you’d gotten the co-ed dorm that year.

A/N: I loved this request so much! Thank you for sending it in!

Taglist (if you’d like to be added, let me know!): @an-adventureland, @firstangeldragonranch, @ssebstann, @winterreader-nowwriter

#tom holland x reader #tom holland fluff #tom holland imagine #tom holland

43 notes · View notes

nahimjustfeelingit-writes · 5 years

Text

Soulmate

Werewolf Erik Imprints on OC.

I don’t know what to do with this but I decided to post because it’s been sitting in my google drive for about a month now and I know Halloween is in two days so if you want you can read what I have written thus far. I may or may not finish with all the other things I have to complete.

Warnings: Fluff, slight humor, mentions of smut.

Theme: Halloween, supernatural, College

It was the middle of the Fall Semester at Florida A&M. The weather wasn’t too bad, around 80 degrees during the afternoon and dropping to as low as 72 in the evening. Currently, Erik was studying for his upcoming Advanced Physics midterm. The Kappa Alpha Psi house was relatively quiet and this gave him the perfect opportunity to study before his brothers came in to disturb him. Erik took his blue highlighter, highlighting a passage before recapping it. He flipped to the next page, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses to read. As much as he loved physics and engineering his mind just wasn’t there. It was the middle of October now and his focus on knowledge wasn’t as interesting as he’d hoped for. This time of the year wasn’t always the best for him ever since he was twenty years old. That’s when his life changed.

“Thermodynamics and heat transfer.”

He read the topic while rubbing his sleepy eyes, AirMax covered feet tapping the floor to help him stay alert.

“Fuck, I can’t read this shit right now.”

Erik angrily closes his book, sliding it away from him, causing his calculus materials to fall over onto his desk. He leans back in his reclining desk chair, eyes to the swirling ceiling fan within his room. It wasn’t like he didn’t get the information, he knew it like the back of his hand. He just needed a distraction from her.

People on campus called her Poison Ivy; she was a lot to handle and Erik hadn’t noticed that until yesterday when something that he didn’t expect to happen, happened.

Ivy Crow. She was a journalism major. Ivy wrote for the school news column and she was also an activist on campus. Sometimes her protests didn’t go so well and other times her podcasts could piss people off but that’s who she was. You couldn’t miss her on campus with her goth aesthetic and camcorder in hand. Ivy was now Erik’s weakness. He needed to talk to someone about this, and the only person he could think of was his friend Trevor. Erik rises from his seat, grabbing his cross-body bag, shooting Trevor a quick text before exiting his bedroom.

He instructed for Trevor to meet him at the library in the ancient literature section since no one went there anyway. Erik made it there before Trevor, looking about him with sharp eyes to be sure that no one was around. He paced, impatient and antsy. He hadn’t seen Ivy all day. His body couldn’t stand it. This overpowering desire for her made him hungry as well. If he was hungry for regular food now he was afraid of what he would be hungry for at midnight…

“Erik? What’s going on I had to skip out of class.”

Trevor was a programming major, tall, skin like midnight, one eye blue and the other brown. Girls swooned over him.

“My bad man, I got a problem.”

Trevor grabs Erik by the shoulder, pulling him further into the aisle of books. It was dustier back against the window.

Trevor lowers his voice, “Is it a Lycanthrope thing?”

Erik hated when Trevor refers to it as that. He kisses his teeth, letting out a sigh of frustration.

“Why can’t you just say Werewolf?!” Erik argues.

“Whatever, is this what I’m here for?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you shift and get lost somewhere you weren’t supposed to be? Remember I saved your ass from nearly dying when you landed in a trap with silver near fucking New Orleans.”

Erik could still feel the scars from that on his back. If it wasn’t for Trevor, Erik would probably be dead. His back was scarred badly from that, deep gashes diagonally across his back.

“No, I haven’t shifted in two days.”

“Two days? Why?”

Erik looks down at his sneakers, “Some weird shit happened to me…”

Trevor waited for Erik to speak. He figured Trevor would know more since he’d been a werewolf since birth. It was a family curse.

“So, I was on my way to my calculus class when a rally was going on. You know, that rally about making sure ‘blackface’ doesn’t happen for Halloween this year.”

Two Days Ago:

“Catch you later, bro. You know we got that party before the hazing process.”

Erik shoulders his backpack, flashing his sexy dimples, “Y’all niggas partying before the hazing? That’s some new shit.”

His fellow Kappa brother shrugs before wrapping his arm around a random chicks shoulder, “Gotta warm them, boys, up first before the fun begins.”

He shared the Kappa hand sign with his brothers before walking away towards his class. He already missed a few for his own selfish reasons so he couldn’t afford to miss another. As Erik walked he noticed a large group of students- mostly black students crowd around a gothic chick and her protest friends, holding up signs reading “BAND BLACKFACE” Erik never really invested his time into these protests because he felt like they wouldn’t change anything but the sound of her loud voice brought his eyes to her.

And that’s what did it.

He felt as if he was gravitationally pulled towards her while glowing heat filled his veins. The class suddenly became secondary. On second thought, everything became secondary to him at that moment. He couldn’t explain it but the overpowering feeling made him want to stand there and watch her. Erik had a deep need and desire to support this girl and even protect her if someone went against what she had to say. His knees buckled, Erik stumbling a little and catching strange looks from some of the students. A few white students at Florida A&M looked frustrated with her words and that made Erik’s inner wolf growl. His eyes even turned golden without his control. He blinked, afraid that someone would notice.

“NO BLACK FACE FOR HALLOWEEN!!! It’s just as disrespectful as dressing up as an Indian!”

“She needs to shut up. She’s such a freak.”

Erik caught that and the person was on the other side of the crowd. He growls, his mind confused but his actions uncontrollable.

“She just needs some dick. She’s embarrassing us, black girls. I mean, none of these white people care about that. They wouldn’t even be dumb enough to try that.”

He felt deep disgust and rage from those words. He didn’t even know the girl and he hated the way those girls talked about her. He decided to look at her again, just focus on her to make him feel better. She talked with a sense of power, her movements confident and no care in the world that people saw her being a goth or that they thought she was a “freak of nature.”

Without being able to explain it himself, Erik walked through the crowd and towards her direction, standing at her feet while she stood on the top steps in front of the main student services building. Erik looked at her like she was a goddess. Before he could stop himself, he climbed those stairs, taking his place next to her, clapping his hands loudly and cheering her on.

Ivy pauses mid-speech with the megaphone pressed to her lips, eyeing Erik bizarrely.

“Aye! Don’t tell her to calm down she preaching the truth right now!” Erik yells down at a group of snickering students who clearly still lived like they were high schoolers. They had a long way to go.

“If you are not angry, you are not paying attention!” At this point, he was yelling out anything to support Ivy. What he thought he was doing the right way he was only pissing her off. Erik didn’t know a thing about Ivy and how she hated when people disrupted her protests, especially when it was a guy who didn’t even know she existed.

Erik snatches a sign from one of Ivy’s friends, holding it up proudly.

“Who the fuck are you?” Ivy finally speaks, not realizing the megaphone was still pressed to her mouth.

Erik lowers the sign, flashing a charming smile at her. He looked her over with an impressive eye before putting his hand out for her to shake.

“I’m Erik.”

Ivy looks from his hand to his face, “Ivy.”

Erik awkwardly lowers his hand, “You’re a fucking badass, Ivy.”

She blinks with sass, “really?”

She didn’t by that. This entire situation was strange.

“Yeah…”Erik felt that same heat in his blood. This girl, Ivy, was driving him crazy.

“Fuck these people, you can tell me about it I’ll listen.”

She laughs, pretty smile with lips colored blood red. The spiked choker around her neck along with the spikes in her ears made her look dangerous. Little did she know, Erik was even more dangerous.

“The less I care, the happier I am.”

She looked down at the steps, a frappe tossed at her feet with the liquid staining her platform doc martens. Erik looked down as well, eyebrows creasing with anger.

“It’s okay, Erik. I look at people sometimes and think...really? That’s the sperm that won.” Ivy simply shakes her head, lowering her megaphone. The crowd began to scatter and Ivy turns away from Erik, talking to her friends and instructing them to pack up and meet her for podcast talk.

Erik was compelled to help as well, grabbing posters and stacking them neatly. Not only did Ivy give him a strange look but her friends did as well.

“Are you feeling well, frat boy?” She placed the back of her hand to his forehead, Erik almost losing his control if it wasn’t for his impressive already controlled nature. He was a beast of the night, he had to keep it together.

“Maybe we should reintroduce ourselves,” she held out her hand covered in silver rings. Luckily, Erik was in his human form.

“I’m Ivy Crow, I run on caffeine, sarcasm, and inappropriate thoughts.”

Erik smiles, shaking her hand and enjoying the warmth. Since when did a chick make him delirious?

“I’m Erik Stevens. Kappa, science wiz, irresistibly handsome.”

“That you are,” Ivy had eyes she could see Erik was clearly a looker.

“So you like what you see then?”

Ivy shrugs, looking away, “Don’t get your hopes up, Erik.”

“Why? I mean, a girl like you can use a guy like me in your life.”

Ivy raises a single brow, “I see, you’re one of those niggas who think by flashing a smile and flirting with me you’ll get some pussy?”

“Nah, I mean…”

“No need. I know what this is about,” Ivy turns away with a pained expression, grabbing her bag to leave. Erik was bothered by that rejection, following her down the steps.

“Aye? What the hell did I do?”

Ivy turns to him, a glare on her face, “My middle finger salutes you right now.”

Erik felt like his world was crashing down around him. Ivy being upset with him couldn’t happen.

“Why are you mad right now? We were starting off cool.”

“I may not be the girl that everyone wants but at least I’m not the girl that everyone’s had.”

Erik understood then. She thought that he was implying that she needed him in her life to feel accepted because of who she was.

“Look,” Erik lets out a calming breath, “can we start over? I’m not the type of guy you think I am. I’m not tryna get to know you for the wrong reasons, Ivy.”

Ivy looked distant for a second until her shoulders relaxed. She folded her arms across her chest, eyeing Erik cautiously.

“I’m sorry,” Ivy pinches the bridge of her nose, “I just have a history of fuck-ups with guys.”

Ivy starts walking, motioning for Erik to follow along. He does, the pain in his chest subsiding.

“It’s just...you come out of fucking nowhere and you help me at my rally? It’s so fucking confusing.”

Erik was still confused.

“I’m confused too believe it or not.”

He needed to figure out what was going on, maybe it’s a werewolf thing. It is getting closer and closer to Halloween. Maybe he’s just having a strong sexual craving and he could see that in Ivy as well. It could be that Erik needed to fuck Ivy before a shift to sedate him.

“I don’t know you well, Erik, and I’m not good with people.”

Erik wasn’t either, he preferred to be a loner.

“I guess that makes two of us, Ivy Crow.”

“Ew, people,” Ivy cringes, causing Erik to laugh.

“Uh, is it cool if I have your number?”

Erik needed to communicate with her when she wasn’t around. In under twenty minutes he felt like he needed to hear from her.

“Sure, frat boy, I feel like you’ve earned it.”

Ivy pulls out her cell, followed by Erik, both of them exchanging numbers.

“Cool. I can hit you up later, right?”

Ivy simply shrugs, “that’s if my fingers aren’t preoccupied, frat boy.”

That sexual innuendo made the burning desire within him growl. His inner wolf wanted badly to spring free. What was it about this girl that had him weak in the knees and ten times more aware? Her scent was unique, very sweet smelling like berries. It made his mouth water.

“Listen, I'd love to chat but I have a podcast later that will more than likely stir shit up on campus.”

Ivy backs away, Erik’s eyes scanning from her white crop top with the word “Salem” down to her tight black jeans that hugged her generous curves down to her Doc Martens.

“I’ll make sure to tune in, Baby girl, what time?”

Ivy looks at him strangely, “1:00”

Erik gives her a farewell smile, never turning to leave as he watched her disappear. He stood there until her smell was gone, a heavyweight lifted from him only to be filled with emptiness. He missed her a lot for some reason.

That night in bed, Erik was in a cold sweat, growling like his other half and tossing. What was happening to him? He needed answers and quick. The next couple of days were going to be challenging.

Present:

“You’ve imprinted on Ivy Crow.”

Trevor didn’t hold back information. He laid it out for Erik.

“Imprinted? I thought that shit only happened in Twilight.”

Trevor gave Erik an annoyed look, “You’ve been a Werewolf for about seven years and you don’t know what imprinting is?”

Erik shrugs, “that’s what I have you for Trevor. You’re my Werewolf brother and my teacher.”

“Erik,” Trevor gave Erik a pointed look, “This is some serious shit, bro. You have to know everything about your Lycanthrope self or the enemies out there will hold that against you. You don’t want the enemies to know more about you than you, correct?”

Trevor did have a point, and Erik knew that. He was still trying to get over the fact that he was turned into a Lycan/ Werewolf when he was twenty years of age.

“Aight, I’ll take it more seriously. All that other shit like silver, Mercury, angel blades to the heart…”

Erik lets out a deep sigh, “I already know about that shit.”

“Well, do you know about our origin? Why New Orleans is generally not safe for our kind? How there are vampire and witch covens there and we all equally hate each other? How imprinting can be a good and bad thing?”

Erik didn’t know everything, and it pissed him off that Trevor rubbed that shit in his face.

“You want your ass beat now or later?”

Trevor laughs, “nigga, you keep forgetting I’m stronger than you?”

Erik bumps shoulder with him as he walks past, finally done with this conversation.

“We can meet up later tonight to discuss this imprinting situation. For the time being, try not to hound the girl, Erik. You don’t want to scare her away when you’re bound to her.”

That word, bound, wasn’t something he was prepared for. He was already bound to being a werewolf for the rest of his life. What if Ivy despises him to the point where she doesn’t want anything to do with him? What if she falls in love with someone else? All of those things scared him.

Ivy’s POV:

“What are you going to be for Halloween this year, Ivy?”

Ivy slips into a pair of dark turquoise high waist jeans, turning sideways to admire her outfit as a whole. She had on a black corset top with a layered silver necklace around her neck with multiple crosses on it. Her head was covered in a wig that would remind you of Uma Thurman’s hair in Pulp fiction, lips painted a glittery black and eyes Smokey.

“Probably something DIY, maybe a corpse bride.”

Her friend, Treasure; the complete opposite of her, sat on her bed, painting her toes white. She dressed like Cher from Clueless, long curly hair in two space buns. She was ginger with freckles on her face.

“I’m gonna be a Powerpuff Girl.”

Ivy chuckles, “Which one?”

“Bubbles.”

“I knew it.”

Ivy grabs her coffin-shaped crossbody bag along with her Creative Writing books before her phone goes off for the fifth time. She knew exactly who it was, he was getting on her last nerve.

Erik: Why aren’t you answering my texts, beautiful?

She locks her phone, putting it away.

“Ready?”

Treasure gives her a strange look.

“What’s up with you?”

Ivy shakes her head, “Just trying to prepare myself for yet another day of biting my tongue whenever Miss Petty Ass Bitch decides to piss me off. It’s not my fault I know more about your own class than you do. They just hire anyone these days.”

“You know she just does that Ivy because of your reputation around here,” Treasure reminds her, “Everyone is intimidated. Remember, they call you Poison Ivy.”

Ivy’s face lit up, a pretty smile on her glittery black lips.

“You know what, I just might have my Halloween costume in mind.”

Erik’s POV

He waited outside of Creative Writing.

How did he find out about her class? He practically threatened one of her guy friends and supposedly her fellow band member to give him the information. The second he did that, Erik did a late enrollment for the course. Luckily, it could look good for his master's degree. Looking from one end of the hall to the other, his nostrils flared, her smell growing closer and closer. He closed his eyes, the veins in his neck protruding from holding on control. His backpack went down to cover his crotch, dick hard for the first time in two days. The more she drew closer the more his heartbeat increased and his skin reddened from heat.

“Erik?” Ivy spoke with agitation.

His eyes snapped open from her sing-song voice, “Wassup, Baby girl?”

“It’s Ivy.”

“Well, I like calling you Baby girl,” he teases, earning a strange look from her.

“Stop calling me that or I will pour all of this hot ass coffee down your pants.”

He snapped his mouth shut, choosing to simply admire her. She tried looking at her phone but the scorching hot gaze he gave her made her look at him with annoyance.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Erik smirks at her, walking over to be face to face with his gothic princess.

“What you wanna know?” He shoulders his bag, giving her his sexiest stare but it clearly didn’t change anything.

“Why do you insist on texting me ten times a fucking day?”

“Why do you insist on ignoring me? Forreal, you got a whole ass attitude, Miss Ivy. A nigga tryna get to know you and you ignoring me? Ima tell you this now, I don’t like being ignored.”

“I do a thing called what I want.” She reminded him.

“You don’t like a nigga to be all sweet with you, huh?”

Ivy picks at her nails, “I’m not built for a soft ass needy man, I talk back and I do not listen.”

Erik’s dark eyes burned into hers. She didn’t fight it, looking at him with an equal amount of strength.

“I don’t like your type. You walk around here like you own the place and then you think you can have any girl you want? I’m not just any girl.”

Ivy picks a piece of imaginary cotton from Erik’s letterman jacket.

“You are a mean girl,” he smiles down at her, “Don't get your hopes up though I’m not going anywhere. I like em fiery, you like em dominant. That’s cool, I’m that.”

“I’m not mean, just brutally honest. It’s not my fault truth hurts. Want a bandaid?”

“As long as it’s from you I’ll take all that shit, Baby girl.”

Ivy regrets giving him her number. She didn’t actually think he would try anything with her since she definitely wasn’t going to open her legs for him.

“Ivy? Did you hear me?”

She wasn’t paying him any mind, the class was filling up and she needed to take her seat.

“There is no need to repeat yourself, I ignored you just fine the first time.”

He stood rooted to the spot, watching her disappear into that classroom. Her words literally slapped him. This is what he feared honestly. Erik couldn’t wait to meet up with Trevor so he could figure out how to work around this imprinting thing. Ivy was a lot to handle. Erik wasn’t going to back down by any means but damn, he didn’t expect a real challenge.

Erik finally walks into the class, finding a seat just behind Ivy a row above hers. She had all her things neatly stacked in front of her, eyes focused ahead. Erik whispered “excuse me” to a girl on his right as he took his seat. He decided to just bring his Macbook instead of things to write with. This was an easy course for him, he’d already taken a similar one during his undergraduate education.

“Good morning, Everyone,” a woman who looked to be in her late thirties spoke, fuchsia and purple polka-dotted blouse with a black pencil skirt. Her thin blonde hair was pulled into a tight French roll, old stocking with tears in them and a pair of heels that looked like something his grandmother would wear. God rest her soul.

“Can I help you, sir?” She yells to the back row. Erik knew she was referring to him.

“I’m a late enrollee.” His husky voice caught the eyes of nearly all the women in that room except for Ivy who chewed on the end of her pen.

“Name?” She asked with an authoritative tone.

“Erik Stevens.”

“I’m Professor Pettee, Why creative writing so late in the semester?”

Erik strokes his goatee, “Miss Ivy here gave me some inspiration since she’s a Journalism major and all.”

He could hear her clicking and unclicking her pen angrily.

“Ivy Crow?” She looked at Ivy with a sarcastic smirk, “she’s your inspiration? Well,” Miss Pettee turns on her heel, “She’s inspirational alright.”

Tiny snickers scattered the class.

“What is this fucking high school?!” Erik blurts out with rage. Ivy turns to him then with wide eyes.

“Excuse me?” Miss Pettee hadn’t expected that.

“I’m referring to the snickering. What y’all fifth graders or some shit?”

The entire lecture hall was silent, all eyes on Erik.

“What a ruckus,” Miss Pettee laughs nervously, “Are you finished, Mr. Stevens? I do have a class to teach.”

Erik sat back in his chair, motioning for her to continue. As soon as Miss Pettee’s back turned, Erik noticed Ivy staring up at him with a smoldering rage. The smile on his face turned into a blank expression. He was really getting under her skin.

“Fuck You.” She mouthed to him before turning back in her seat to pay attention. This was going to be interesting.

#erik killmonger #killmonger #black panther killmonger #werewolves #college #halloween #fluff #eye-raq

232 notes · View notes

nijiirorhyme · 4 years

Text

NaruMitsu/WrightWorth Fic: Lights, Camera, Action! Chapter 3

NaruMitsu/WrightWorth Fic: Lights, Camera, Action!

Fandom: Ace Attorney

Ship: Mitsurugi Reiji | Miles Edgeworth/Naruhodou Ryuuichi | Phoenix Wright, Ayasato Mayoi | Maya Fey/Karuma Mei | Franziska von Karma

Warnings: None

Tags:Alternate Universe - Actors, Other Additional Tags to be Added, More characters to be added

Description: Rookie actor Phoenix Wright can not believe his luck as he scores his first major acting role in one of the most anticipated movies of the year. But, what was better than starring in one of the most anticipated films of the year? Starring in one of the most anticipated films of this year with famous actor Miles Edgeworth.

A Wrightworth acting au where two dorks (eventually) fall in love!

Chapter 3/?

Alternatively, it can be read here!

Text below cut!

October 5th 1:05pm

Cafe Aroma

It finally made sense to Phoenix. As he was staring at the two of them chatting in their own little world along with the light blush that appeared on Franziska’s face, the strings that Maya pulled were actually the heart strings of the young manager.

‘Who would have thought…’ Phoenix brought his hot cup of coffee to his mouth, gingerly taking a sip before setting it back down. Phoenix casted his gaze at the man that sat across from him. He wished that the two of them could talk as animatedly as the other pair did.

The cafe Maya chose for the four of them to meet at was one she often frequented, Cafe Aroma. In fact, she went there so often that the majority of the employees would recognize Maya’s vibrant voice the moment she walked through the door with the little jingle of the overhead bell. It was a short distance away from the studio-- about a ten minute walk from the front gate. And it was because of this distance that it would be no uncommon feat if one saw a celebrity here. The first thing one would notice when opening the door was the warm and rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air. The entire cafe gave off a very intimate atmosphere, further accentuated by the warm, cozy array of colours that painted the entire place; the dark cocoa brown wooden panels that hugged the bottom portion of the walls paired with a lighter-- almost beige shade that filled in the space above it. Above each black stained table with the exception of the widow seats that faced outward towards the street, several abstract paintings aligned the walls, most of them too abstract for Phoenix to even tell what they were. From the dim lighting, to the warm comforting atmosphere, one could stay here for hours while listening to the soft piano they played over the speakers.

All of that was nice and all, but what really got Phoenix’s attention were their cinnamon sugar donuts. Seriously, paired with their signature blend, they were amazing.

Taking a bite of the fried pastry, Phoenix dusted his crumbs off on his pants before trying to engage in small talk with the man. “So,” he awkwardly laughed, scratching the back of his head like he usually did when he was nervous. “This cafe’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Quite.” Edgeworth responded in a deadpanned tone, taking a sip from his own mug, one filled with tea instead of coffee.

Phoenix took another sip in hopes that it would dispel the awkward atmosphere from the two before attempting to strike up a conversation once more, “So… How long have you been acting?” He asked, which he instantly regretted right after because he already knew the answer. He inwardly cringed at himself, ‘Nice going, Phoenix. You just had to ask.’

Edgeworth paused momentarily, giving his answer a thought before he spoke. “I can’t quite remember, but I started sometime when I was six.”

Phoenix was pleasantly surprised at the honest response. It seemed that Edgeworth truly had a passion for the art that he put the majority of his life into. He couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes softened as it looked like he was reminiscing upon the several memories he had created throughout his career. Phoenix made a mental note, talking about acting was the way to get Edgeworth to speak to him. After all, they both had it in common seeing how it was both of their livelihoods (though one was more successful than the other).

“Wow, you must’ve acted in a lot of movies, huh…” Phoenix trailed off, when suddenly another question popped into his head. He wanted to keep the conversation going as much as he could, even if it meant he sounded a little bit like an interviewer. “What was your favourite movie to work on?”

A pause once more, followed by an answer. “There are several movies that I’ve enjoyed working on, but the one I particularly liked working on was The School of Dreams.”

“Oh! That’s one of my favourite movies! An oldie, but a classic. But funny you should say that because…” Phoenix stroked his chin. “I don’t remember you being in it…”

Edgeworth paused mid-motion as he was taking a sip from his mug. He set it down, pointing his eyes into one of the glares he had shot at Phoenix the moment they first met. Phoenix seemed to have offended him. “I was one of the main characters, Wright.”

Suddenly, it all came back to him. The grey hair, those stone grey eyes… How did he blank on such an important detail? It was one of the first movies he ever remembered watching. In fact, he could even recall the exact time in his life he watched it…

It was a Saturday afternoon in his sophomore year of high school. A sleepy Phoenix who had not a single clue what he was going to do after high school found himself alone at home that day. Sitting on the couch as he cradled a bowl of cereal and milk with one arm and held the TV remote in his other hand, he flipped it to any random channel he found, stopping when he saw the title of the movie pop up on the screen. Sure, he missed the opening of the movie, but there was at least the rest of the movie to enjoy-- and enjoy he did. As a young Phoenix continued to watch, he couldn’t help but notice how phenomenal the actor who looked to be the same age as him was. His eyes gravitated towards him, as if the young man on the screen shined the brightest in the movie. He knew nothing about acting and once it was done, all he could do was remain awestruck.

This movie revolved around a delinquent—played by the young Miles Edgeworth—who continues to get mixed up with the wrong crowds at school. Without telling his parents anything, he continues to live a life where he receives blow by blow and delivers blow by blow to those who seek to challenge him until he is the most feared high schooler among his peers. One day, he meets a boy who transfers into his class and changes his life for the better. By the end of the movie, the two of them are the best friends and plan on attending the same university together. Not only did the transfer student teach the delinquent boy how warm it was to have a friend that understands you, but more importantly, the feeling of belonging he had always dreamed of having with someone. It was a beautiful and touching story of how the two helped each other grow individually, as well as together.

Phoenix recalled trying to blink the tears that pricked his eyes away. He had never felt so moved by a movie before. At that moment, something in his soul had ignited, as if he had finally found what he truly wanted to do. So, he wanted to follow the footsteps of the young man portraying the delinquent and become an actor of the same caliber.

‘Who would have thought that same actor that inspired you would become your co-worker…’ He was a bit shocked at how fate had a funny way of playing tricks on people.

It took a moment for him to recollect his thoughts before he spoke again, “Oh… That’s right that’s right-- heh, no pun intended. How could I have forgotten?” He let out an awkward chuckle to mask the heat he felt creeping up onto his face, dusting his cheeks a rosy pink. It would feel a bit embarrassing to admit that watching a movie that Edgeworth starred in when he was younger was the reason as to why he became an actor after that blunder, so he decided it was best to stay quiet on the matter.

He saw Edgeworth roll his eyes at the pun he made with his own last name. Get it, “right”, “Wright”? It was the oldest joke in Phoenix’s book. Usually, this elicited two reactions from the people he told it to: they either chuckled a little bit because the realization dawned upon them that they sounded the same, or they awkwardly chuckled alongside him in order not to make him feel bad at such a lousy pun. This man surely was neither of those people.

“Though honestly, I don’t know how you do it,” Phoenix looked down at the table at his hands clasped together. He was about to say something sort of embarrassing, but he might as well. It wasn’t like he didn’t make himself look out to be a fool already or anything. “You’ve brought so many characters to life over the years, but I’m still having trouble trying to figure out what I should do to make Ruth Liss believable.”

Edgeworth cleared his throat, “Well, it certainly isn’t an easy task, Wright. After all, there are a lot of eyes on us to make sure we do it right.”

“Yeah, there are.” Phoenix agreed. In the end, that was the goal for all actors once they picked up a script. It was their job to bring a character to life. But that was something he definitely needed to work on. Just then, an idea popped into his mind. What Phoenix was about to say was indeed, a long shot, but at least he could say he tried. “So… since you know all the ropes… I was wondering if you could, you know… give me some advice maybe? Or maybe we could practice together some time?”

Ever so slightly, Edgeworth’s eyes widened. He seemed taken aback, which made Phoenix nervous. Would he decline? Accept? The man looked as if he had the response on the tip of his tongue, when an oddly familiar ringtone sounded from across the table.

Maya gasped, “Is that the Steel Samurai opening?!”

Then, the most unexpected thing happened. He witnessed Edgeworth fish his phone out from his pants pocket, then after checking the caller id with a tsk, set the phone on the table, completely disregarding the call he received on his personal cell phone a few seconds ago. The ringtone went silent, leaving Maya’s voice to be the only thing ringing in Phoenix’s ears.

“Mr. Edgeworth, you’re a Steel Samurai fan too?!” Maya’s eyes were practically sparkling. One glimpse at her could tell Phoenix that she was ecstatic.

‘Here we go again…’ Every time Maya happened to meet another fellow Steel Samurai fan, she would lock them into conversing with her about it. This was not a hard task though, as Maya was the one who tended to carry the conversation when speaking about her favourite show. Usually when this occurred, Phoenix would be waiting for at least half an hour.

“Perhaps a little…” Edgeworth mumbled. Was it Phoenix, or did he look slightly embarrassed?

“A little?!” Maya scooted her chair closer to Phoenix, their shoulders touching as she reached over to point at the dangling charm that was attached to his cellphone. “You even have the limited edition steel Steel Samurai phone strap?! How did you even get one of those?! I tried to have Nick get me one, but they sold out just as he was about to get to the front of the line.” She looked at him, her eyebrows furrowed and cheeks puffed up.

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault someone couldn’t leave the house on time.” Phoenix retaliated.

“Yeah, it was you!” Maya accused. “You couldn’t find where you put your house keys!”

Phoenix paused, that was right. He was the one at fault. “... Oh, you’re right. Sorry, Maya.”

She crossed her arms, “When they release the steeler Steel Samurai limited edition keychain, you owe me one.”

‘... How could something be “steeler than steel”?!’

Phoenix sighed, “Alright, alright, I do. Next time, I’ll just ask Will instead.” Since he was close enough to the man at this point, he could at least ask him to do him a solid.

“So, Mr. Edgeworth, you like the Steel Samurai too?” Maya turned the conversation back to him with absolute delight evident on her face.

“It’s not like that-”

“Indeed he does.” Franziska interjected, cutting Edgeworth off. Her usual smug smirk remained plastered on her face as she rested her chin in her hand, the index finger on her other hand wagging pointedly. “Let’s not forget about the Steel Samurai statue that you have in your office-”

“Enough, Franziska.” Edgeworth snapped back, his face gradually turning redder and redder as the conversation continued.

Taking this new information into account, an idea popped into Phoenix’s mind. If he knew Will Powers, the man who played the Steel Samurai himself, then perhaps he could strike a deal… “Edgeworth, if I got you a Steel Samurai autograph, would you practice together with me?”

Not a single second passed when, “I don’t suppose I have a reason to refuse such an offer.” He answered, a bit too eagerly. “Franziska and Ms. Maya can work out the details later, but I believe I should have some time next week.”

“Great, I’ll see you then,” Phoenix couldn’t help the smile that seeped out onto his face from the satisfaction of success he felt on the inside. He outstretched his hand again. This was the ticket, the way he could finally get some hands-on experience. With Edgeworth’s guidance, he was going to make Ruth Liss the most nefarious man to exist.

Much to Phoenix’s surprise, he felt a warm, but firm hand grasp his own. “I, as well.”

As the conversation concluded, Franziska pushed herself up from her chair, “Well, our business here is done. Come now, we have a photoshoot to attend to. That foolish fool will be here any minute with the car.”

“Aw, leaving so soon, Franny?” Maya pouted.

“Unfortunately, I must. But next time, I will try to stay longer.” Franziska gave the girl a small, but gentle smile. “Oh, and Phoenix Wright…”

Phoenix’s ears picked up on his name being called. “Hm? Ow! Ouch! What was that for?!” A cool, leather whip thrashed at him, causing the skin underneath his suit to sting. He had just gotten a thrashing from Franziska’s whip and for no reason he could think of, at that.

“Just because you sport the face of a fool who deserves it. Now, the two of us will be off.” Grabbing her binder off the table, the two took their leave, leaving a satisfied Phoenix, and a satisfied Maya to their own devices.

“Well, what did you think, Nick? Isn’t Franny just the nicest person in the world?” She asked, her voice as sweet as honey. Phoenix could practically see the hearts in her eyes; she seemed quite smitten with one Franziska von Karma.

‘Nicest?! She just whipped me!’ “She was… something to say the least.” He opted to say instead. He downed the rest of his coffee, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. For some reason, this conversation renewed his spirits, his motivation to get better replenishing by the second.

‘A week from now. I have a week to show him what I’ve got!’

October 5th, 11:00pm

Edgeworth’s Penthouse

Miles Edgeworth was something of a busy man. No matter how many times his schedule had been packed to the brim, the tiredness he would feel after a day’s work was something that he would never get used to.

He unlocked the door to his place, greeted by the energetic dog he had meticulously raised since he had found the time to do so.

“Pess, it’s late. Why aren’t you asleep? Were you waiting for me?” Looking down at the dog with loving affection softening all of his facial features, a tender smile graced his face as he reached down to pet the pomeranian nuzzling against his leg. Edgeworth’s heart practically melted when he heard him bark back in response.

He set down his keys and scooped him up in his arms, to which he took the opportunity to lap at his face. He chuckled, “What did I do to deserve such a loyal dog?”

Miles gently set Pess back onto the floor, who darted from the front door to the slightly ajar bedroom door. He turned to look back at Miles, which Miles perceived to be his dog’s own way of telling him, “come here”.

Miles’ smile widened, “Alright, alright. I guess it’s time to get ready for bed.”

11:25PM

Miles slipped off his slippers and settled into bed, pulling the covers up over his entire body. At night right before he fell asleep, this was the time his brain was the most alert. Most of the nights where he had trouble falling asleep, for he was afraid of the nightmares that would plague his dreams, he would reflect on the day’s events, this one being no exception. All in all, talking to the man wasn’t such a bad experience in itself. Surely, he was a bit clumsy and awkward and just a little bit of an idiot, but what today’s conversation showed Miles was how dedicated he was. It truly seemed as if Wright wanted to improve and it made him feel a bit guilty for treating him so coldly the first time he met him. It had been a while since he had interacted with someone as inexperienced as Phoenix. After all, he had been taught that people of his stature shouldn’t interact with people like him.

“You don’t need to talk to any of these nobodies; you are leagues above them. Friends? Forget about such a notion. In this industry, you can never trust a single soul.” The words of his late mentor echoed in his mind.

He exhaled at the memory. Hopefully in a week from now, Miles could bestow upon him the advice he had been given throughout his years of being an actor. Would Wright succeed with his help? Miles wasn’t so sure, but did he want that Steel Samurai autograph?

Of course.

Hopefully, just hopefully, next week will be a good one.

#ace attorney #naruhodo ryuichi #mitsurugi reiji #phoenix wright #miles edgeworth #wrightworth #narumitsu #i tried #my fic

9 notes · View notes

act-addict-actors-matchups · 4 years

Text

@navi-chan said,

(♡1♡) Hello ˃ᴗ˂ I wanna know who I match up with in A3 Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ I'm a Virgo and IFJT girl living her life at the moment. I know and think things that are apparently weird (idk why) that makes my friends question on what I do when I'm alone (✿◠‿◠). I'm exactly 5 ft for now (still growing), wavy shoulder-length black hair and I have a fair skin tone cuz I don't like the sun too much XD. I love and enjoy to draw and read stories and articles that captivates my interest.

(♡2♡) I like to travel cuz I want to know the place and it's culture especially its art. I also like to sleep cuz whenever I'm alone and have nothing to do I would feel lonely that is why I tend to sleep the loneliness away. And, I love-hate cuddles (don't attack me pls ( ˃̵⌓˂̵)). LOVE cuz I would feel sense of comfort with the person. HATE cuz I feel like the person might disappear or will leave me behind and I would feel lonely again. Well, that's all (❁´▽`❁)

✧ Tumblr is not letting me tag you. 😔 I hope you’ll see this. Honestly, I really wanted to match you with Azuma but ‘I’m still growing part’ made me feel like you’re a minor so I couldn’t. I can be wrong though lol. Sorry for taking so long and thank you for requesting a matchup, love. 💞✨

I’d match you with: . . .

➜ HOW YOU TWO FIRST MET ; It was a hot summer day and for some reason you’ve made it into your personal mission to do random acts of kindness for the people who were a total stranger to you. So far, you’ve helped old people cross the street, helped someone load their groceries and left a copy of that days’s newspaper on your neighbor’s doorstep. You had to admit, it was a productive day and it wasn’t even midday yet! With your accomplishments for the day, you decided to treat yourself something cold, like ice cream or soda. Just the thought itself made you smile. With a nod of your head, you began walking towards the area that had the shops in it. While walking, you caught a glimpse of a boy in front of vending machine, sulking. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt with black and white patterns on it and a black shalwar like leggings. Ah, you knew what the problem was. The vending machines in this area were famous for eating the coins of people. You were a victim of them yourself many, many times. But with some brain power, you managed to come up with a single move that can get the snack or drink you’ve wanted. You were already on a kindness roll so you might as well help another person out. With a smile on your face, you cleared your throat and shot the boy a knowing look. “Allow me.” You have said before hitting a specific spot with your hip and bam! one of the sodas has dropped. Sticking your arm in, you grabbed the cold beverage and tossed it to the boy, who was looking at you with shining eyes. “Eh!? That was so cool! Teach me how to do it!” A giggle escaped from your lips at how enthusiastic he was being. You could basically see a tail behind him, wagging with anticipation. With a small shake of your head, you flashed a knowing grin as you took a coin out of your pocket and popped it into the machine, pressing the numbers of the drink you’ve wanted. You were planning on buying something cold anyway and this was more convenient for you too. And just as you thought, even though the vending machine took your money, it didn’t give you the drink. You hit the machine one more time and grabbed your drink after it fell down. You popped open the can and took a sip, turning your attention to the red head afterwards, you began to explain how hitting that exact spot was important and if he messed it up even just a little, the money would go to waste. With every word left your mouth, he nodded with serious eyes. After you were done, you took another coin and basically sacrificed it. “Alrighty, it’s now your turn. Give it your best shot!” You said before stepping aside and giving the boy a thumbs up. “Yes, ma’am.” He said before hitting the machine and successfully making the can of soda fall. His bright blue eyes lit up as he throw his fist up. “Hey, I did it! I really did it!” “Haha, congratulations. Make sure to use that power for good.” “You can count on me!” After that exchange you two grabbed your cans of sodas and sat on a nearby bench. He told you that his name was Taichi Nanao, he was a student at Ouka High School and an actor at Mankai Company. After that, you introduced yourself and you two just chatted about whatever came to mind until it was around three pm. Taichi was first to leave since he had practice with Autumn Troupe around an hour later but he didn’t leave without getting your phone number, which you happily gave without much thought.

➜ PERSONALITY COMPATIBILITY ; Taichi is like a puppy, often noisy and upbeat so there is never a dull moment when you two are together. Don’t ever worry about him leaving you behind because he is so whipped for you. In fact, I feel like you both might fear that whole ‘my significant other is to good for me what if they leave me all of a sudden?’ more than necessary. Yes, I said both of you because let’s not forget that under that positive attitude of his, Taichi actually has very low self esteem. What I’m trying to say is words of affirmation and physical touch is your canon love languages, although the later happened less in your earlier stage of relationship. IFJT people are often perfectionists with extremely high standards of performance for themselves so whenever you’re too harsh on yourself having a chill & silly boyfriend would calm you down or whenever he needs to get serious about something (ex. schoolwork because let’s face it, he’s the type of person who does his homework at the very last moment be it on the breakfast table or while the teacher is collecting them) you’re there making sure he’s not destroying his future academically. Those are just basic examples but in short, you two just balance each other out very nicely. Please just marry each other. 🥺

➜ SHARED ACTIVITIES ; Since apparently you do things that are considered weird, now you have a partner by your side to do those things. I feel like the both of you would totally be up to having intense conversations with pets, rating total strangers out of ten or texting each other weird things even though you're in the same room. If not, I can see you two going to a convenience store, buying the magazines that catches your eyes, sitting back to back or with him laying down on his back and you on top of him, making a + form and reading articles until one of you gets bored. If you’ve seen Taichi’s doodle he made in the notebook, you’d know that the boy is at the very least decent at drawing, so even though he might get bored quickly, he would do his best to draw with you. Since you don’t like the sun very much, if he wants to go outside with you he’d wait until late afternoon-evening. When it comes to outdoor dates the first thing came to my mind was amusement park date. Can you imagine how fun it would be to go on the rides with him??? I headcanon that Taichi loves rollercoasters so you bet he’s gonna beg your to go with him. If you freak out, he lets out a laugh and you feel his arm wrap around your waist, pulling you back against him, his other hand is stretched up to the sky.

➜ ZODIAC COMPATIBILITY ; Taichi’s birthday is on October 11 which makes him a Libra. Considering that Libra and Virgo are zodiac neighbours, it goes without saying that the two will be compatible. While Libra is an air sign, and Virgo is an earth sign, the two are as disconnected as they are connected. Virgo is duty-bound and nurturing. While Libra is also a sign that will do what needs to be done, their priority will be more on the reality than the idealistic acts. When Virgo and Libra join together in a love match, it can be like puting two puzzle pieces together. Each locks into the other and sits comfortably in place. Both Signs seek security in partnership, and they share a love of beauty and culture. They can work together efficiently and smoothly because they desire similar rewards. The Virgo-Libra relationship may trickle along in the beginning, but it will rev up once both partners grow to respect one another. Just like any other pairing, this pairing has its own set of pros and cons. Both these personality types have a tendency to be very similar to each other. As such, the suggestion would always be to give this relationship a shot. However, another advice would be to keep your eyes open. While loyalty is the way for both these signs, triggers for a change of duty may be something as simple as their partner not putting the toilet seat down. All the best!

#act! addict! actors!#a3! matchup #taichi nanao

7 notes · View notes

reddielibrary · 4 years

Text

Maybe It Slipped

Written by @eddieneedshisinhaler

Gift for @richiehearteyestozier

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Eddie Kaspbrak

Word count: 1400

Rating: T

AO3 Link

A/N : so this is a thing! this was my first content exchange and i had a really fun time writing this, this is my first finished fic for the it fandom and im really excited to gift this to molly. not exactly what u asked for but i hope u like it nonetheless!

Summary: Richie felt like it should have been more embarrassing, admitting how much he loved Eddie, but it also seemed like just another truth of the world. The sky was blue, the grass was green, there was a killer clown living in the Derry sewer system, and Richie loved Eddie. That startling clarity, that hyperaware sense of self did not, however, make it any easier for anyone involved.

Eddie slapped at his arm.

Once class was over, the two started their conversation up again.

“But I’m serious, Eduardo, I can’t waste Halloween. This is our last one before high school and I just wanna spend it with my,” Richie choked, his eyes flashing to Eddie. “You,” he finished lamely as they loaded his books into Eddie’s locker.

“It’s this week, right? I’ll have to come up with something to tell my mom, but I don’t see why we can’t,” Eddie shrugged, missing the flash of excitement on Richie’s face when he closed the door and spun the lock a few times.

The day of Halloween, Richie was pretty fuckin’ excited for Eddie to come over. He had a sheet hanging from the top bunk of his bed over the bottom, the easiest fort imaginable and he was standing by it, Eddie, it’s perfect. Along with that, Richie had also dug out a few strings of Christmas lights to hang up around the bottom bed, knowing they - the two crybabies that they were - would need some light source if a movie had even the slightest jumpscare.

Speaking of movies, Richie was in awe of the great horror movies he’d picked out for the evening. Amidst the horror classics like Poltergeist and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there were a few silly movies like Beetlejuice and The Man with Two Brains. Not a shabby collection, if Richie said so himself, because he had to beg his older sister to rent them from Blockbuster. He even went so far as to get Eddie’s favorite candies, spending so much on Twizzlers and black licorice that he mentioned buying stock to his parents when they asked.

But, let’s be honest, no matter just how prepared Richie felt in the literal sense, he was still (mentally) shitting his fucking pants because Eddie fuckin’ Kaspbrak was coming to watch movies and hopefully stay the night and Richie was in panic mode, ladies, this is not a drill.

See, if someone had told Richie he’d realize one sweaty summer afternoon at the end of June that he had a massive crush on aforementioned Loser, he’d have laughed and made a few ‘your mom’ jokes to deflect, and only at three in the morning would he be willing to analyze every interaction he’s ever had with Eddie ever. That was just a whole can of worms that could not be dealt with.

But it was not June anymore, it’s October and he loved his best friend with every fiber of his being. That was a can of worms that had been opened and dealt with, and yeah, it was super fucking scary to be gay in Derry, but how could the way he felt about Eddie be wrong?

Richie felt like it should have been more embarrassing, admitting how much he loved Eddie, but it also felt like just another truth of the world. The sky was blue, the grass was green, there was a killer clown living in the Derry sewer system, and Richie loved Eddie. That startling clarity, that hyperaware sense of self did not, however, make it any easier for anyone involved.

Because of course Richie was going to be a little shit to Eddie once he realized he was well and truly ass over tits for the kid, and he deliberately made their interactions so much more annoying than Eddie could ever expect. Now it’s not like he wanted his little hypochondriac darling to hate him, Richie more so just wanted to make sure all of Eddie’s attention was on Richie at all times.

In Richie’s own defence, the voice in his head was always trying to make sure Eddie was always looking at him. It honestly and truthfully felt like if his eyes weren’t on Richie for even a second, that Trashmouth himself would cease to exist.

Okay, so maybe he was dramatic and over exaggerating and also completely off track, but whatever. It was Halloween and he was freaking out.

“It’s just Eddie,” Richie said when his alarm went off.

“It’s just a friendly hang out,” he thought as he rode his bike to school alongside Eddie.

“Totally platonic,” when Eddie had whacked his arm and leaned against Richie after the latter delivered a wicked punchline.

“Nothing to read into,” as Eddie kept glancing over to him in Physics, his doe eyes shining under the flickering fluorescent lights.

(Towards the end of the day, Richie had almost stopped believing himself when Eddie kept brushing his shoulder against Richie’s in the library. (But then Bowers walked in and Eddie disappeared down a random row of books.))

It wasn’t until after school and the two were walking their bikes home side by side that Richie let himself steal glances, and his eyes followed the sweat that beaded at Eddie’s forehead and slowly slipped down his cheek before Eddie swiped it away. He turned away quickly when his friend looked over at him and grinned.

“So what movies did you get? If I have to watch Charlie fucking Brown’s Halloween special again I’m gonna fuckin’ lose it, Rich,” Eddie babbled, waving his free hand around and bumping into Richie every so often.

“I had to say we have a project in English that’s due tomorrow like I said earlier, so we might have to tell her details about this fake project on Saturday when you come over. You’re still coming, right? I finished our hats and you still have those joke mustaches, right? We’ll be the best Mario and Luigi,” he finished, somehow managing to not be out of breath.

Richie grinned and took his chance.

“Oh I’ll be coming alright, Eds, coming ten inches deep in your mom!” and then he was hopping up onto his bike, and Richie started pedaling as fast as his chicken legs can.

“Richie, you motherfucker!”

“That’s the point, Spaghetti,” Richie called back as he slowed to wait for Eddie by a stop sign, and his friend’s shorter (I’m still growing, asshole!) legs worked hard to get him to Richie.

“You’re such a dick, you know that? What is with you, you stupid fuck, we can’t even have a nice, civil conversation without you pissing all over it with your nasty jokes,” Eddie had a flush high in his freckled cheeks, and his mouth ran a mile a minute while he insulted Richie as much as he could.

“Eddie, my sweet, I have to keep you on your toes somehow,” he winked, seeing Eddie’s flush travel down his neck and under his polo; a place Richie couldn’t see.

He gulped and looked away, not seeing the way Eddie tracked the beginnings of an adam’s apple on Richie’s throat move up and down. The two stood at the stop sign, stuck in the moment, air sticky with words they couldn’t stay.

A passing car with the driver laying on their horn broke the moment, the two boys starting to pedal towards Richie’s house in silence. Eddie tried to speak, but his voice cracked and he turned even redder. He cleared his throat and tried again.

“So what movies did you pick out?”

#reddie #halloween event 2019 #eddieneedshisinhaler

75 notes · View notes

honeychilialligator · 4 years

Text

The Comfort of Strangers

Gabe's POV

The first time I saw her, it was a Saturday - most likely in the middle of September, nine months ago in a public library, four blocks away from the building that I once inhabited.

Of all things to note, the initial thing that would flash was the day - always the same day. She probably wore an average sweater, and dark skinny jeans - a style I eventually noticed. And even without the glasses, I always remembered her even back then as nerdy, introverted and of course, bookish.

It was a school research that motivated me to visit such a weary place that I couldn't imagine ever stopping-over - not because I was allergic to studying (if anything, I don't mind reading books) but because the place in itself was a bore to look at. The library was Egypt's pyramid. Historical. Old. Ancient. Pick your term. There's a helpful thesaurus inside to help you in such a predicament.

Then again, the same reason has urged me to step inside the old-fashioned site. Mr. Lanburton (not sure if I spelled his name accurately), our history teacher, had loaded us a big stack of dreadful tasks to fulfill at the end of the weekend. Surprisingly so, my memory has reclaimed the thoughts of my heavy homework, to which my class was asked to recollect important historical terms of a long list of nearby places in the vicinity of our humble locale.

It was also the first time my best friend, Google, has disappointed me terribly for failing to deliver an automatic answer to my difficulties (Apparently it was not one of those "God bless the internet" days). Unfortunately our locality and its small populace were a little unfit for specific and in-depth information about what Mr. Lanburton had required.

As tempting as it was to abandon the task at hand, my grades in that semester was not as cooperative. It took me a week to recover on an illness that got me hospitalized for days and the teachers were not very considerate. The only option left for me was to take the route to the oldest public library in town and start a customary way of active research.

The heavy creak brought from the antique wooden door entrance unsurprisingly attracted too much attention in an almost-deserted library. I met her stare as she lifted her gaze - our first contact. Yet at that moment it seemed so ordinary - so unappreciated. I couldn't recall clearly what book she was reading or how she looked at me, no matter how hard I try, but I guess that's just how I will always remember her: the girl who always has her face trained on books in the old library.

At the end of the day I was happy for having the task lifted off of my shoulders three days before the original submission, and I also recalled that my parents treated me and my four-year old little sister in an expensive restaurant outside town. My mother bought me a black jacket that I remembered wearing the next day. That specific Saturday was special in ways that I could only fully realize now.

Visits to the library were followed by more when our history teacher realized how effective it was (for him) to leave advanced schoolwork for a progressive study on our next topics. More items were given that I had to reserve extra time to the library to fulfill the task every week. The second and third time I stayed in the public library, I sat three chairs away from her and maintained the same position for the week because it was nearest to the air conditioner and I was rather comfortable. The quiet girl maintained hers just the same. Each time we were near each other I was more intrigued about the novels she was reading and how she seemed to be unfazed to her dusty surroundings with a different book each time I came. By my fifth visit, I was able to comprehend a clearer assessment on her features when I snuck in a slight glance.

Evergreen - like spring. That's how I remembered her full bright eyes. It seemed enchanting now the more I think about it, as only a few people could possess such unique detail. Her cheeks are always flushed - it must have something to do with the cold atmosphere (but later, I realized she was always like that). Her slightly-curly hazel brown hair, she always secured in a careless bun. It was curiosity that compelled me to her - a teenage girl my age who would just spend most of her time reading classic novels in the stinky dinosaur-age public library instead of going shopping or doing whatever sassy teenage girls do. Does she even go to school? Is she constantly alone if she doesn't have anyone to hang-out with? Where does she live anyway? What's in these books -these novels that got her hooked in this place? Why can't she just borrow them and bring them home to read? Why here where everything is so grubby and old, I have to stop myself from sneezing when I get too close on a dictionary?

It started as a thought, which intrigued me, and then it changed into a deep curiosity that later became a sudden interest. She was not from my university, that's for sure. I would have known. I never bothered to ask because I was uncertain on her response. It was not my forte, conversing with the opposite gender. Back then I had a mental overview on how my conversation with her would be like. I just couldn't gather enough courage to start even a casual conversation.

Scanning through old textbooks, I'd sneak in a little look at her - I don't know why I did - I always felt like even through her solemn focus on the material she was reading, I've always imagined her noticing every slight glance I pass on to her. Having her around three chairs away from me every Saturday afternoon in the library eventually turned into something natural - like a schoolmate a table away from me in our usual place in the cafeteria. Without even speaking, I guess our positions were a mutual contract. Without even knowing it, my visits and these weekly tasks no longer bothered me as much as it did at first.

Finally, I devised a plan to get her attention (it didn't sound as creepy when I thought about it before). This peculiar bookworm returns the books to its shelf and leaves the place fifteen minutes less before I could finish my research homework. On a particular Saturday in October, I took notice of the exact bookshelf location she left her novel before she stepped out of the library. Coincidentally Mr. Lanburton was kind enough to lessen our burden with simple common terms to hunt and I was able to finish the task earlier than most. I took the book out of the bookshelf five minutes after she left. I tried considering asking the elderly librarian about the name of the girl (surely she knew about her only customer in ghost town's library) but for some reason I didn't pursue it.

The moment I glanced at the cover of the book I remembered thinking: "Nicholas Sparks. Well what do you know? I guess she is a romantic at heart."

"The Choice" by Nicholas Sparks.

Reading the synopsis was my last pull to borrowing the book and bringing it home. Alas, I have also read some of his passionate collections but it was my first to encounter this specific book. I started reading that night - continued and finished it the next day. It was compelling and I was hooked. I thought about how she could be feeling the same emotions that I was sensing as I read through Spark's masterpiece, and when I am overcome with extreme emotions in the climax of the plot, I remembered how I caught her wrinkle her nose as she read through all those literary pieces as if she was dismayed by the outcome, or how a trace of a smile would form on her delicate lips for a moment at the remaining pages of her novels; all the emotions rushing out of her when she reads - I realize how she understood all kinds of sentiments organized by the author or how she paints the characters out of her beautiful imagination.

For a regular guy who sees life as a featureless routine, she was remarkable.

The next Saturday, there were no tasks to accomplish, but I returned the book to the library. When I arrived, the girl was already sitting with a different (probably about another romance) book on our usual table as I had expected. I felt her eyes follow me when I returned the book that she read. After doing so, I returned to my usual chair, took a random book on her usual bookshelf and pretended to read it - hoping she would notice me again.

The bookworm cleared her throat. Twice (in the first, I was a little too overwhelmed to hear her). "Excuse me."

"Yes?" I must have smiled like a fool back then.

"Hi," she started nervously. "I just couldn't help wondering: what genre do you usually prefer? I mean if you don't mind." Wait, British accent?

The question initially confused me, but it made me more than glad to hear her talk. I answered her in way that might have ineffectually and failingly conceal my tense and awkward self. "I-I guess I'm more into Action, Sci-Fi. Those kinds of stuff." (Not really). "And probably a little romance would do." (A guy reading a romance novel? Can't you get any weirder? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid).

"I see," she spoke out the words slowly. "Action, huh? Specifically of Sylvia Day's?"

Her tone had demanded to alert me, as I saw her look curiously on the book on my hand. I quickly turned to the cover.

"Bared to You" by Sylvia Day.

Oh.

I slammed the book shut, not daring to behold a scene of its twisted plot. Funny, how I must have looked like to her: A perverted little maniac.

That's when I heard her laugh. I was unprepared for my reaction to the most potent weapon this girl had in her arsenal - a real genuine laugh that reverberated from inside her. It was too infectious for me to resist, and on an unguarded instant, I joined in.

Of course, the librarian shushed us out of it.

"I'm sorry," she blushed - adding more color to her flushed face, and apologized to the wrinkly old librarian.

"Look, I wasn't really reading it, I mean - "(What am I getting myself into?) "I was just scan- " The girl stifled a laugh. "I didn't mean it like that, I was just...just..."(Seriously dude, stop embarrassing yourself!)

"I'm Eveline," she offered, a bright and foreign (but genuine) smile on her face and an extended hand. "You are?"

A for being attentive. I just couldn't stop embarrassing myself, could I?

"Gabriel, 'Gabe' for short" I shook her soft, dainty hand. "Nice to (finally) meet you."

"Sorry if I disturbed you." Another short laugh.

"It's fine. I wasn't really reading it," I shrugged.

"I can tell," Eveline smiled - a sparkle on her emerald eyes. "I mean I noticed you were so out of it. I didn't mean to appear so despicable."

"It's okay, really. I don't usually read novels - especially this kind."

"You're usually on research and textbooks," she added gently, and I couldn't help but grin at the thought of her noticing me.

"Schoolwork," I supplied. "My history teacher keeps giving us a big load of homework every weekend."

"Ah, I see," she nodded in understanding. I waited for her to elaborate about her high school life or at least relate to me how her history teacher could be the same terror professor, but she didn't and our conversation fell short.

"Are you always hanging around here?" I probed further.

"Only on Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays," Eve caught a stray hair and pushed it on her ear.

"Always on the same schedule?"

She nodded cheekily, "Yeah."

Her enigmatic stance put me in place and I decided not to push my luck on her privacy. "Cool."

I looked at my wristwatch and realized that I was late for my sister's little rehearsal, knowing I had to pick her up after. "It was really great to see you, but I'm done with my work here and I need to fetch my sister out of ballet class." As much as I still want to hang around...

"I understand."

"So, next Saturday then?" I said a little too hopefully.

"Of course," she smiled her gentle smile.

That night I lay on my cozy bed thinking about our hilarious - though a little ungainly, dialogue. Eveline. Witty, cute, and bashful Eveline. Even when I decided to shut my eyes, I could see a picture of her perky face in her natural glow and hear the sound of her symphonic laugh. Since that day, thoughts of her became a frequent visitor and Saturday wasn't just any ordinary Saturday. Like a refreshing holiday, I was looking forward to it.

On our next meeting, I wore a navy sweatshirt and khaki shorts - turning my charm on like a light switch untouched for decades. I smiled brightly even before I could enter the library, wanting to match hers and hoping she'd return it. Eveline would be inside, reading a romantic novel, and I hope my smile would greet her. She was still selecting a book when I came in; her face lit up as she mouthed "Hello."

Instead of going my way to proceed on my research, I watched her pick a book or two in the shelf before taking my own set of textbooks to copy information. As I derived coherent notes on my notebook, I clucked my tongue twice in a playful way of getting her attention. From the corner of my eye, I saw her glance to my direction but I pretended to be so focused on my homework. I repeated it again, louder this time to also get the old librarian's awareness. The withered old woman looked around and turned on our table, confused at my mock innocence. She shrugged a little and went back on arranging the filthy pile of old archives. From the corner of my eye, I saw Eveline smile in amusement even without her looking at me.

I purposely sped up taking down notes for research in order to catch up on Eveline on her way home. I asked permission to accompany her and I was happy that she was fine with it. She owned an average bike for transportation and her street was 2 miles away from mine. I offered to guide her bike as a friendly gesture while we talk a little until we reached my apartment building.

"You're not as behaved as I thought you are," she teased lightly.

"You mean what I did to that librarian? Well at least she has someone to watch over. A little hobby might get her rusty old brain working a little," I winked and she laughed.

We shared jokes even though they were mostly mine. I enjoyed making her laugh and smile. I began talking about myself when we started sobering up; about my family, high school, my hunky best friend named Kevin, and my favorite sport, tennis. I casually asked her about her own share of the bargain and I was more than pleased to hear her describe a little more about herself. Financial problems had caused a temporary break for her education when her father was dropped out on his business firm. She didn't talk about her plans for the future which seemed odd when I think about how much I disclosed my desired career as an architect, but I still marveled at the way she talks about her present and how she sees her life like a ready canvass. She loved her parents dearly even if they couldn't give her siblings to take care of. Eveline had a little pet dog named Sponge, and he was her only best friend.

Little facts added to my little biography of her, and each Saturday I was determined to get closer to her as I know she was a keeper for a friend. It turned into a fantastic innocent habit. When Saturday comes, I'd still stay on my usual distance and she'd read books peacefully. I'd cluck my tongue like a little check-up call and she'd smile. We'd pretend we didn't hear anything when the librarian gets irritated, and we'd squeeze ourselves to hide a laugh. But still I was afraid of annoying her on her reading with my behavior so I'd stop and sneak glances at her instead. Overtime she started whistling, a sign that she wasn't bothered about my tongue-clucking at all. The first time she tried her 'notorious' act and the librarian glared at me accusingly, I bit my tongue so bad to conceal a hideous laughter and my stomach was aching, it was so hard to breath. On our journey home, I was able to make her play "20 questions" where we take turns in interrogations about ourselves. Each new detail was a new color to add to cluster of feathers she blooms each day.

By the time we agreed to meet up on days besides Saturday, I had nicknamed her "Eve" even when her mother calls her "Lynn". On our first "friendly" date, I took her to a little café and treated her with chocolate cake that she told me was her favorite. I bought her "Papertowns", a novel written by John Green, and she was so happy and giddy that Eve kissed me tenderly on the cheek; I wasn't able to hold a blush.

Even though I was afraid to admit it, when I was with her, it seemed it was worth doing all those normal things that normal people do.

She was amazing in ways that I couldn't describe. Eve could make simple seem complex. Everything about her had a deeper sense of sentimental value. There are certain ways only she can do that could make me immeasurably happy.

Eve had suggested I meet up with her on a night of meteor showers last December. It had been my dream rendezvous. As we sat there stargazing, I had took the book that we both loved from my sling bag, "The Choice" and read a little excerpt of Nicholas Sparks, one that I intended with meaning.

"It was inevitable for people to try to create a sense of normalcy in a place where nothing was normal. It helped one get through the day, to add predictability to a life that was inherently unpredictable."

She had listened with her eyes closed, lying on the evergreen grass that sent a neon glow to her emerald eyes.

"You've been quoting my books," Eve grinned, after a long moment of observing the distant, twinkling stars.

"Sadly, you've miraculously turned me into a bookworm like you," I sighed melodramatically.

"Well I never forced you to read them," she smiled.

"But there was no other way of getting your attention," I pouted, playfully.

"There was, you're just too dumb to try it," Eve laughed.

"Name one."

"I don't know, how about just a casual 'hi!'" she muttered sarcastically and I rolled my eyes. "You could also have tried asking me what I was reading. Did I appear that stiff to you?"

"To be honest, yeah" I said teasingly.

"Dud!"

"Nerd!"

Tickle fights are the usual aftermath of our casual bullying. How we managed to get that close so fast? I have no idea.

So yeah, we rolled off our butts in the prickly grass like it was no one's business. And after we finished laughing like hyenas and sobered up, we just lied there peacefully under the stars.

"Well I'm glad you did it," she suddenly brought up.

"Did what?"

"Read the book I mean," Eve chuckled.

"How come?" I arched an eyebrow.

"I guess there was no better way to get me to trust you." (She was serious, by the way.)

"Yeah, right" I smiled. "Starting a book club, eh?"

"You're my first member," she joked and we both laughed.

"You've put me in a lot of effort for just a simple conversation," I whispered.

"Nothing that's worthwhile is ever easy, remember that," she quoted a memorized sentence from the book that started it all.

It was her own happiness that did the trick: in her brilliant smile, in her adorable pout, or in the way she smudges ice cream all over her mouth, or how she falls asleep with her lips slightly apart, or how she seems so vulnerable and honest and kind that it would be a difficulty to stop the urge to wrap her in your arms and protect her. She was heavenly, but earthly in that amazingly complicated way.

Yes, indeed. I, Gabriel Felix, a plain average teenage boy who couldn't appear normal and comfortable with teenage girls, was falling in love with a bookworm. At that time when I came to terms with my little crush, I surrendered and didn't fight back. I didn't have anything to lose except for our strong bond and resilient friendship (that I couldn't imagine ever giving up). But knowing Eve, I knew it wouldn't take long for her to figure out about what I really felt. Being in love, I comprehended, was not about being concerned if she could ever accept your feelings and affections. It's more engrossed on ensuring the happiness of your loved one above yours, even if that took you out of the equation.

Every time I have these insecurities in my mind when I think about confessing, I replay all the moments we spend together inside or outside the library. The way she smiled made me feel like it was mutual, and I know I had to try; Eve was worth it.

So I decided to express my intense emotions towards her on our next meeting next Saturday, in the place where it all began - our sanctuary.

That morning I put on my favorite black jacket, and styled my raven black hair with gel. In the bathroom while having my shower, there was nothing else in my mind but on what to say and how to express it without her running out the door. I was nervous even though I've made up my mind.

I read through my lines and my cheesy quotes (obviously it's from the same book), knowing she'd appreciate it. I slipped further into my own fantasies, understanding that there was a big chance of rejection, but all I cared about was being close to her, keeping her. I wanted so badly to keep her.

By then I knew, the moment I stepped inside the public library - as I saw her empty chair, that a love like this was too good to be true.

When I arrived at her address, I asked around for her and she wasn't home - none of her family was. None of her neighbors knew where they went. I went to random places - anywhere where hope could blossom. I tried the café, Borders (her favorite bookstore), the central park, but I was chasing fiction.

I never felt more drained in my entire life the moment I reached home. I attempted to call her number but only voice message replied.

Days passed, and Eveline still remained as a haunting mystery. I didn't break my visits to the library even though it was already summer vacation - hoping she'd show up with her dazzling smile on a sweater shirt and black jeans and explain how she disappeared and I'd forgive her, then she'd reassure me that she'd stay.

I've had my heart broken by love songs and I've had my own share of repetitive and agonizing travels to memory lane. Theories crossed my mind but it was worthless when there is no evidence to support them. Five times - I think - did I visit her house, only to find it empty once again.

"Do you ever do this, you think back on all the times you've had with someone and you just replay it in your head over and over again and you look for those first signs of trouble?"

Why, Nicholas, are you a psychic?

Months passed; each day was a struggle on moving on - on filling this void in my chest whenever I see her empty chair on lonely Saturdays.

My own copy of "The Choice" had been repeatedly thrown off the wall but I still had no perfect reason to hate her - even more in forgetting her. And in doing so, I've shunned myself in taking chances in romance. The harder I wanted to forget the more I kept remembering.

"But things change. People change. Change was one of the inevitable laws of nature, exacting its toll on people's lives. Mistakes are made, regrets form, and all that was left were repercussions that made something as simple as rising from the bed seem almost laborious."

I was able to memorize this stupid passage from that stupid book the day I had given up in waiting for Eve to come back. It seemed pitiful, but there were things you couldn't prevent from spilling. But then maybe I deserved this much for being too attached and for trusting too much on our "mutual" contract.

Unfortunately again for me, I didn't also deserve a "goodbye".

Time did its magic - no matter how slow. I've tried smiling again, and I went back on track with my priorities. On my next semester, I did better and passed every subject. I've tried playing sports like football and I was busier every day.

But still life has a way of proving you wrong. Three days ago, another research came up that needed public library help. The thought brought back unwanted memories that I've tried so hard to ignore but it can't be helped. At the same time, I dared myself to go through this like a test - to prove myself that I've really moved on.

So yesterday I took a step inside the ancient place, purposely in the same time that I practiced my past routine. The librarian regarded me with a look, as she bent down her spectacles to observe me. I tossed her a smile as if we were old acquaintances and I wasn't sure if she could still remember me in the way she returned my friendly greeting.

I took the same old World History textbook, and sat on my old place. Turning the pages, I was suddenly aware of the seat three chairs away from mine. I felt a familiar ache in my heart as I took down notes.

This was too much, I shouldn't have done this.

The price of going back through everything was not worth the pain. I closed the textbook wearily and decided to leave at once, when I heard it.

A whistle.

As if it was a sound of a bullet piercing through my ear, I turned around, perplexed and slightly hopeful.

The librarian was looking at me, her hand on her mouth and a smile on her pale and bony face.

"Made you turn," and she laughed (although it sounded more like a witch's cackle) "I knew that would do the trick." She motioned me towards her, and as the confused bloke as I was, I complied (It's not like she's harmful anyway).

"Your girlfriend," the librarian muttered. "She came here a week ago."

"She's not my girl - Say what?" I think my heart just did a somersault.

"Between you and me, who do you think is supposed to be deaf?" the old woman laughed, betraying her age. "She left something - inserted it on this book," she took "The Choice" (the book that I borrowed) out from the drawer. "You teenagers seriously need to remember that a library is not meant for -"

"Did she say anything?" I cut her off impatiently, taking the book from her wrinkled hand.

The now-annoyed librarian shook her head no.

I removed the little piece of paper from the pages of the book and read the note.

You probably didn't expect an apology from me after I left you alone without any explanation. You didn't deserve it and there is nothing I could say worthy of your forgiveness. You can crumple this paper or forget me - I'd accept all of it. But even after everything that I did to you, it would be such a shame to say that I did it all intentionally.

But here is my explanation: I was dying. My cancer was spreading and an operation could only result to a fast demise or a little chance of survival. From the start I meant to keep this from you - after all, who would have thought that a stranger like you would mean so much to me.

Everyday I wither in the pity of those around me, when all I really want is to do more than just breathe - I want to live. That's why I read lives that have happy endings, something I thought I was never granted to have. It was a torture I designed for myself. At that time all I really thought about was that since this cancer started controlling my life, all I am allowed to feel was pain.

I noticed you long before you borrowed the book. In all honesty, I was just as nervous to talk to you as you mentioned to me. I thought it was a game, really, on who can approach who first. And I lost when you did the irresistible: taking an erotic novel and pretending to read it with an expressionless innocent face. That little encounter started all the hilarious jokes and the little dates. There was nothing wrong about your questions and little interviews but forgive me if I am so reserved (Yes, the reason why I didn't choose to finish school was because of my condition). You'd never think of me as the same bookworm in the library if I told you all of my secrets - specifically about Leukemia.

But we started to hang-out and I let it all happen. There was nothing more refreshing than taking your guard off and having fun. I don't know what made me trust you- maybe it was because you don't look at me with pity, or the way you made me feel safe or that you built up some hope in me. You were a constant reminder of who I can't and never have. But you were there, three chairs away from me, so close yet so far. Ever since I started getting to know you, all I wanted was to close the distance.

So I made a gamble with myself, to give this one last chance, if that meant I'd have an opportunity to have a future with you, even if all we will ever end up is friends. And I accepted the operation, provided with the risks. I couldn't explain everything to you before I'd undergo operation. What's the point of worrying you over something you can't control especially if I'd just end up dead?

God answered my prayers, and I was saved. I got my second chance and all I want to do is spend it with you. But that's your choice. I'll be right here waiting where the heaven's cried.

Love,

Nothing that's worthwhile is ever easy. I know Eve.

I know.

1 note · View note

timmyrx2000 · 6 years

Text

Dipper Steps Up: Chapter 6

Chapter Index: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)

Chapter 6

When Wendy and Dipper left the Shack, the sun had just set. The night insects had not yet tuned up, but bats twittered overhead and out in the forest the woodpeckers, who didn't give up until the light was almost gone, drummed away. "Where are we going?" Dipper asked as they stepped off the trail.

"Into the woods," Wendy said. "You bring a flashlight, dude?"

"Yeah, I have one of the prototypes Grunkle Ford made."

"Good deal. I got the one I use camping. We'll need light on the way back."

In the gathering twilight they hiked on, uphill and down, skirting thickets of huckleberry, boggy growths of cobra lily, and stands of trailplant, threading their way through second-growth fir and pine forests, passing expanses of tree stumps and seedlings. "Dad logs all through here," Wendy said in one clearing, the air sharp with the scent of freshly-cut wood. She switched on her own flashlight and said, "Not far now."

Finally, they reached the cleared crown of a domed hill. Stars spangled the sky overhead, lots more than Dipper had ever seen in Piedmont, where the light pollution from Oakland and San Francisco dimmed them. No moon yet—it was gibbous and waning and, because of the recent change to Daylight Saving Time, it wouldn't rise until nearly eleven.

Creatures howled in the distance. Like the panda duck that Dipper had tried to win for Wendy, the species were indeterminate. In Gravity Falls, they might be anything. Wendy stood beside a stump and took a deep breath. "OK, dude, I know you won't freak out, but this might be rough on you. Remember I'm here for you, though. Wanna hold my hand?"

"Anytime," Dipper said. Her hand was warm in his.

"OK, Gramps, I brought him!" Wendy yelled into the night.

Dipper looked at her, but she had turned off the flashlight and he saw only her silhouette against the stars. "Huh?"

"He said not to tell you till he got here. Gramps! It's me, Wendy!"

In front of them, a greenish fog coalesced. Floating a couple of feet above the ground, it pulsed and brightened and then shrank in on itself, transforming into a hulking, bearded human figure.

"Oh, my gosh!" Dipper said. "The ghost from the Northwest mansion!"

"Dipper," the apparition moaned in its deep, rumbling voice. "I have to talk to you. I mean you no harm!"

Dipper almost sagged with relief. "No problem, sir! Wendy, I'm not afraid of him. You look a lot better, Mr. uh, Lumberjack. Your beard's not on fire, and your missing eye seems to have healed up. And the, uh, axe in your head's gone."

"I'm not haunting anyone now," the ghost explained, self-consciously straightening the blow tie it wore on its . . . beard. "I have no wish to terrify. When you're a ghost, you can take many forms."

"Dude," Wendy said, squeezing Dipper's hand, "this is Archibald Corduroy. He's, like, my great-great grandfather!"

"I wondered about that!" Dipper said. "I saw his picture in your house—uh, it's nice to meet you, Mr. Corduroy."

"You treated me well," the ghost said. "I regret tricking you and then turning you into wood."

"That . . . was sort of scary," Dipper admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

The apparition shrugged modestly. "Well, I am a ghost."

"Yeah. Uh, excuse me, but I thought that after Pacifica let everybody in, you had gone on to, you know, your reward."

"I could not bear to leave this forest that I loved so much in life," the ghost said, gesturing with a sweep of his glowing arm that took in all the surroundings. "Also, once free of haunting the hated Northwest house, I wondered what had become of my family. I soon discovered I have a mighty descendant in Daniel, and a beautiful one in Wendy." The ghost floated next to Dipper and confided: "She likes you, boy!"

"Aw, Gramps!" Wendy said, laughing. "Cut it out, dude! Look, I brought Dipper, like you asked, so just tell him what you've got for him, OK?"

The ghost backed away from Dipper, towering over them both. "He's a brave, intelligent boy, Wendy. You could do a lot worse."

"I really like your great-great granddad," Dipper said to Wendy.

Wendy giggled. "You guys! C'mon, Gramps."

"Very well. Dipper, the root of your friend's trouble is another ghost from the past. An evil one. Well, I say 'evil,' I suppose I went a little overboard myself, but my anger branched out from the betrayal the Northwests committed against my friends and me—no, no, I'll cut that short. Forget it. I'm sorry for the bad things that came from my long hatred, leave it at that. But now an ill-intentioned spirit is trying to possess your fiend Taylor. If he succeeds, terrible things will happen. You have to stop him."

"How?" Dipper asked, his throat feeling tight.

"I'm a lumberjack, not an exorcist," the ghost said a little irritably. "You must discover the way to help. Speak to the boy's family. Seek out his mother. Tell her. She will sense the truth of what I've told you. And beware! The spirit that threatens your friend is implacable, his grip as strong as cypress roots!"

"Dude," Wendy said, "you have, like, a really good vocabulary for a nineteenth-century lumberjack!"

"Being an outdoorsman doesn't mean you have to be illiterate, girl." The ghost started to dim.

"Wait, wait!" Dipper said. "Uh, sir—who is the ghost? That would help!"

"You already know in your heart," the fading ghost said. "It is a spirit that wishes to reincarnate—for revenge!"

"Bill Cipher?"

For just a second the ghost became a little brighter and clearer. "Who? No! Think human!"

And Archibald Corduroy went out like a candle flame in a wind.

"Who did he mean?" Dipper asked in the sudden darkness.

"I'm stumped," Wendy confessed. "Man, Dipper, you took that whole thing a lot better'n I expected! First time Archibald appeared to me, I totally freaked!"

"When was that?"

"Fall, two years back, after you an' Mabes went back to California. Along in October. I was in the woods behind our house cuttin' down some deadwood for the fireplace, and there he was, floatin' right in front of me. I kinda attacked him with my axe, but that went nowhere fast. He eventually calmed me down and told me who he was and all, and said he was gonna watch over our family and protect us, and since then I never saw him again—until I started asking around about the Northwests. Few days ago, he appeared to me in a stall of the girls' bathroom at school. Now, that was awkward. Anyhow, he seemed to know you were gonna come to Gravity Falls and said I needed to get you an' him together so he could tell you something, and he said you might be scared, so not to let you know who I was takin' you to see. You weren't scared, though. Good for you, dude!"

Dipper shrugged. "Those first ghosts I ever saw, the ones in the Dusk 2 Dawn, scared the heck out of me. Mainly because of what they were doing to Mabel and your friends. But I've kinda learned that most ghosts don't want to hurt you. Who could be haunting Chuck Taylor, though?"

"Dunno, man," Wendy said. They'd both switched on their flashlights and were headed back through the woods.

They didn't talk much. But when the lights of the Mystery Shack gleamed through the trees ahead, Dipper stopped in his tracks and said, "Reincarnate. Oh, no!"

Wendy stopped too. "What's wrong, Dip?"

"No," Dipper said. "No, no, no. I hope I'm wrong."

"About what?" she asked.

He swallowed hard. "Nathaniel Northwest."

The rest of the week flew by without any substantial developments in the case. Grunkle Ford lent Dipper a few detection devices and taught him how to use them, and then Grunkle Stan drove the kids home the next Saturday.

They spent Sunday and Monday brushing up for the CAHSEE that the school would give on Tuesday and Wednesday, and to their relief, the tests didn't seem all that hard. "I hope you didn't get bored and start putting down random answers," Dipper told Mabel after the last exam ended.

"Nope!" Mabel said. "I learned my lesson after the test I took in fifth grade that said I should be busted to kindergarten."

Chuck had seemed OK, and that afternoon, their first practice since the early spring break, he recovered his playing form again, pitching hard, hitting hard, running full-out. The Thursday practice was good, too, and Dipper began to think that everything was all right again.

Saturday brought a big game with the Bay City Blues. Their win-loss record tied Piedmont's, and Coach said that the teams were a pretty close match in ability, too. The Blues had a good pitching staff, some good hitters, and typically racked up scores of five to ten points in a game. They weren't the most spectacular team, but like the Panthers they played a steady, relentless game.

Saturday morning, the game started out well. Bay City won the toss and chose to take the field. Their pitcher had game: he struck out both Mike and Petey with three pitches each, and Dipper began to think the Panthers were doomed to an early loss.

However, Chuck, looking healthy, belted out a solid double, and following him at bat, both JD and Barb managed singles, sending Chuck home for the first run of the game. Unfortunately, Jon J sent a sweet high fly ball deep into left field—and right into the fielder's glove.

Chuck's pitching began unsteadily. The first batter racked up one strike and three balls before hitting a single. The second man up got a double on the first pitch, putting the runner on third and ready to score. From the bench, Tripper watched Chuck wipe sweat from his face, kick at the mound, and then lean forward, looking determined.

Off on the sidelines, Mabel, in her cheerleader costume, acted subdued. The Panthers had a bigger crowd than ever—their away games had frankly pitiful attendance, just the kids' parents and maybe five or six students—but now the bleachers were nearly full of cheering kids and adults. Except Mabel's enthusiasm had ebbed. Dipper knew she was worrying about Chuck.

However, Chuck promptly struck out two Blues in a row. The next two batters both got on base, though, one single, one double. Then when Vance McCall stepped into the batter's box, Chuck took his time considering his first pitch. McCall was the Blues' best hitter by far.

And he proved it by pulling a low fly to far right field, where it hit and bounced, for a moment looking as if it would go straight to Petey DeFoy—but then it bounced again, taking a bad hop deeper into fair territory, making it hard to field.

McCall wound up standing on second base. The first two Blues scored, and there went Piedmont's lead. As though to apologize to the fans, Chuck struck the next guy out with three fast pitches.

Second inning began with X-Man getting a single, trying to push it into a double, and getting tagged out. However, then both Hi-Ho and Bobby made it to base—Hi-Ho successfully stealing second before Bobby's single put him on third. Dub struck out, and it was Dipper's turn.

He'd been working hard on his batting. He let a ball go by, choked up on his grip, and took a swing at the next pitch—and connected. It was a grounder, skipping just past the third baseman and running right along the foul line.

Miracle of miracles, it didn't cross the line, and Dipper made it to first! More, it took Hi-Ho home—Dipper's first RBI. For a moment, it looked like a Piedmont rally, but Big W's hard grounder was snagged by the Blues shortstop, who fired the ball home just in time for the catcher to tag Bobby out.

The Blues couldn't get anything going in the bottom half, and the second inning closed with a 2-2 tie.

The Panthers came to bat for the third inning. Coach sent Dipper and Krenk in as subs and asked Chuck how he was feeling. "I'm OK," he insisted, though Dipper thought he was sweating harder than usual. It was a dismal inning, three Panthers coming up to bat, two being put out, one getting on base, and then with Jimmy in scoring position on third base—Krenk went down swinging, one, two, three, to retire the side.

In the bottom, Chuck's pitching was noticeably slower and less accurate. Still, he held the Blues to just one run, though that put them ahead again, three to two.

Before the turnover, Coach walked out and asked Chuck, "You gonna be OK? I can pull you."

Dipper saw Chuck shake his head and heard him mutter, "I think laying off practice last week put me off my game. I'll stay in."

In the top of the fourth inning, Mike, first up, got a single, and Chuck matched it. Coach called for time out and said, "Pines, you're faster. Go in as a pinch runner for Monohan."

Though he felt a flutter of anxiety, Dipper did. He led off second, tense, ready to jump back if the Blues pitcher suddenly turned and threw to the second baseman. Like Chuck, the Blues pitcher seemed to have lost some steam, and JD blasted his first pitch into a hard liner into the gap and dug out on what looked to be a double—but the right fielder scooped it up and got it to first in time to hold him.

But Dipper, running full out, tagged third, saw the coach motion him, and, imagining the Gobblewonker nipping at his heels, blasted for home. He could hear Mabel, not leading a cheer, but just screaming "Go, Bro, go, go, GO!"

The catcher stepped up, mitt raised, and Dipper fell into a slide, raising dust. The ball smacked the mitt. Dipper's cleats touched home plate, the catcher tagged his calf, and the ump yelled, "Safe!"

The crowd went wild. Well, mostly Mabel went wild, but still. He had tied the game again, 3-all.

There the Panthers lost their luck. One man out on a pop fly, and then a double play ended their chance to pull ahead.

Chuck didn't look as if he felt well when he stood on the mound. But he bore down and struck out the first two Blues at bat—the second out was actually their first man in the rotation. Then he got two strikes past the third batter—and as he wound up for the third pitch, all at once he tottered and went down on one knee, the ball on the ground, his right hand going out to brace himself. He croaked, "Coach!"

Waylund, Dipper, and the other Panthers hustled out. "What's wrong, Chuck?" Coach asked.

"Real dizzy," Chuck gasped. "Better take me out."

The crowd applauded as Waylund helped Chuck to the dugout, and Dipper saw Mr. and Mrs. Taylor coming down from the bleachers, looking anxious. Waylund sent in Jon J as replacement pitcher, and he did his best, but Chuck's second near-faint had shaken up him and the other Panthers, and Jon J let another two Blues batters on base before the next one got a single, pulling the Blues ahead by one run. Then he pulled it together and struck the last man out.

Dipper hastily trotted in to ask Chuck how he was feeling. Chuck, huddled on the bench, shrugged miserably. "We'll take him back to the doctor," his dad said.

"Not until the game ends," Chuck said firmly. "Just a little dizzy."

It might have gone better if he'd gone then. The Panthers, keenly aware that Chuck was sick and was watching them, lost their concentration. They fought the game out, even managing another run in the top of the seventh, but it ended with a Blues win, 9-4.

Dipper had missed an easy catch and had fanned three pitches, striking out in the worst way possible. As soon as the game ended, the Taylors took Chuck away—he was walking under his own power, at least—and the team morosely apologized to the coach.

"Forget it, men," he said. "I'll stay in touch with the Taylors and get word out to you if it looks serious. Let's hope it isn't."

"We're all hoping," Mabel said. She had come into the dugout, and tears stood in her eyes.

In the back seat of the family car, as their mom and dad stood outside talking about the game—and probably Chuck's illness—Dipper said to Mabel, "I'm going over to the Taylors' this afternoon."

"I'm coming too," she said.

"If you want. Listen, do me a big favor. You get Chuck and his dad aside somehow. I have to talk to Mrs. Taylor."

"About what?"

Dipper's voice was grim: "About a family ghost."

To be continued

Note from the Authors: This was just an idea I had but the one who really worked his magic and wrote almost all of this is none other than BillEase. He’s an amazing author who usually hangs out at fanfiction.net. Don’t pass up on a chance to check out his stuff. This guy is AMAZING. He wrote the story, I just gave the plot.

#gravity falls #gf #au #baseball #dipper pines #mabel pines #dipper and mabel #mabel and dipper #wendy #wendy corduroy #dipper and wendy #wendip #fanfic #fanfiction #Dipper Steps Up #northwest mansion mystery #chapter 6

5 notes · View notes

dearmyblank · 6 years

Text

hi. how are you?

i know we haven't talked in a long time—a long time—but i find myself wondering about you every now and then. it's only natural, i suppose. we were practically family from the age of six until high school. i spent more time with you than i did with anyone else, lost count of how many sleepovers we had and how many times i hung out with you after school, so it makes sense that i would think of you from time to time.

we haven't spoken since we were juniors in high school, before we'd even taken the sat and were really thinking about college, and now we'll both be graduating from college in the next few months. we'll be graduating from college on opposite sides of the country, because we both went to our parents' alma maters and mine is where we're from in the northeast and yours is in california. i don't know for sure, but something tells me that i'm never going to be running into you on the street here, because i don't think you're coming back.

it's funny how our relationship turned out, and also kind of sad, honestly. i spent so much time at your house, stayed with your family for the better part of a week at your cabin more than once, and yet when i see your mother on campus now, she has absolutely no idea who i am. i get it, because i'm taller than i was when she saw me all the time and i dress differently and my hair is a different color and i'm more self-assured, but i also don't, because she was practically my second mother for a third of my life and i don't think i've changed that much.

i was the first person that you told about your sexual orientation, after a three-month fight our freshman year of high school because i was worried about you and i knew you weren't telling me something but we had gone to different schools after eighth grade so i couldn't pry it out of you before class one day and you were being horrible to me for reasons i couldn't understand at the time so i didn't push it.

it took you popping up in my inbox on facebook one day, several months after we blew up at each other, and two hours of me reassuring you that i wouldn't hate you for you to tell me the truth, and i didn't know how you could ever possibly think i would hate you for something like that. you were my family, and i'm a hufflepuff—i'm loyal to a fault. i get why you were scared, but you didn't need to be. it was me, not some random girl from your high school. yes, i hated you sometimes, but never like that—i hated you because you knew me so well that you knew exactly how to push my buttons and infuriate me, but i still loved you when it was happening.

the last message i sent to you said that i didn't want us hanging out and catching up to be a once a year thing. you never responded, and i guess that should've been a sign. i wish you a happy birthday every year and we follow each other on instagram, but we don't talk anymore. we haven't talked since we were sixteen years old, that one afternoon when we spent a few hours together and promised we'd hang out after we took the sats in october and then never planned anything again.

part of me misses you, though. i don't think our friendship would work anymore—i'm too prep school and all those things that we used to have in common (runescape and aom, our horseback riding lessons, just to name a few) aren't commonalities any longer (on your end, anyway. i never lost my love for them)—but that doesn't mean it didn't matter. you were my brother.

you were there for all my birthdays until high school and you brought me back presents every time you went on vacation (i still have the hair clip you brought me from israel and the necklace you gave me when i turned twelve, amongst other things). there are things that i still do because you got me started on them—i'm still playing runescape, over ten years after you first got me hooked on it, but it's not the same without you running around questing and skilling with me as we pm'ed from our bedrooms ten miles apart after school. i still think of you on march 16th every year. i still have your cell phone number memorized, and your mother's, and your home phone (though you guys probably don't have a landline anymore).

i don't know if we'll ever talk again, or if we're destined to just be acquaintances who were best friends a long time ago, those people we'll reminisce over to our kids in the future when we're flipping through old photos and wonder how they are, but that's okay.

you were my friend during a time when i really didn't have any, and i'll always be grateful for that.

i still love you, in some strange and unusual way. i hope you're doing well.

- a

#dearmyblank #dear my blank #a #j #submission

9 notes · View notes

queerastronauts · 7 years

Text

Under Clean Waters

This is a gift fic for Skylar @nwesninski, who asked for andreil alternative meeting and high school au, among like a hundred other prompts - it was a great selection, thank you! I hope you like it.

This is part of the @aftgexchange.

Read on ff.net and ao3

[1]

It had been two years since Neil had last stepped into a pool, which was probably for the best. Swimming was like – a loss of control. A loss of control he couldn’t afford.

But California, it seemed to him, worshipped swimming pools. As far as he could tell there was a swimming pool on every corner, and of course, the Olympic pool at the school. They were unavoidable, and Neil didn’t like things that were unavoidable.

The towns he’d gone through on his way to this town, through three states and back, had almost never had a pool. He was grateful for this. Ever since his mother died, he couldn’t look at the water without thinking of the taste of her burning flesh in the air. A year later, and he still woke up sometimes in the night, the smell of it at the edge of his senses. Like a gust of wind had carried her back to him. It was comforting, sometimes, to know that he still had her, in a way.

But most of the time – most of the time it was like his sense were attacking him, and he couldn’t breathe.

The school he was going to was relatively small, but part of a large enough town that not everybody knew everybody. After a month long stint in a town called Millport, he decided this would help preserve his anonymity. He didn’t like the gossip of small towns. It made him anxious. On edge. He felt watched.

His papers said he was a year and a half older than he actually was, and therefore legally able to sign any document the school required himself. He did have to do a lot of catching up if he was skipping a grade, but considering how often he changed schools, this would have been true anyway. He wouldn’t mind graduating high school early. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered, if it weren’t for the exy.

The exy, and the showers. Hot water might have been rare, but the water was there nonetheless. And yeah, he might’ve looked longingly at the pool sometimes, but only sometimes.

Most of the time, he was pretty good at ignoring his own heart.

Most days, the first thing he did in the morning was run. He ran for about an hour at a steady pace, on a route that ended in the school, about half an hour before classes were supposed to start. He’d shower quickly in the locker room, open for morning practices, and spend the day avoiding attention in class. He paid special attention in his language class, Spanish, because his was extremely rusty, but the class wasn’t particularly helpful in reviving it. He spent his lunch break in the library, doing homework. And at the end of the day, he went to Exy practice.

He had only tried out for exy because he couldn’t bear the idea of watching it. He had severely underperformed, partially by choice, partially because he was very, very out of practice. He had stamina for running, of course he did; this earned him a role as striker. But he got to play very little, which he was partially grateful for, and mostly very, very bitter over.

There were always parts of him fighting each other. He had a warring soul.

[2]

The first time Andrew spoke to Neil, Andrew had almost broken his nose, and it was even by accident. A matter of bad timing; Neil was walking into the locker room just as Andrew had picked his racket up. It swung towards Neil’s face, and really, it almost blinded him. Neil bit back a yelp of surprise, and took a step backwards.

Andrew said: “Oh, hey.” And when Neil didn’t answer, he took his things and left.

The second time Andrew spoke to Neil, he’d actually managed to get a couple words out. He’d been readying himself for a rare afternoon run – Exy practice had been cancelled at the very last moment – and he glanced towards the pool for a mere second. Andrew, who was walking out of the gym with what was clearly a bag of dirty clothing, turned to him and asked: “Do you swim?”

Neil stopped stretching and stared at Andrew for a moment. “I used to.”

Andrew nodded and walked away.

Neil spent exactly one moment feeling confused before he pushed that feeling aside, and instead focused on the pleasant burning sensation he felt as he stretched.

The third time Andrew spoke to Neil, Neil actually initiated it. Andrew and Neil were in the same math class, but Neil had accidentally spaced out during the last five minutes, and had completely missed what their homework was. Upon realizing Andrew was the only person in the class he even recognized, he ran up to him and said his name.

Andrew immediately turned around, lazily looking Neil up and down. “What?” he said flatly.

“I missed what the homework was,” Neil said. Under Andrew’s gaze, he felt awkward and gangly, misshapen somehow, like his limbs were out of alignment. It was an odd feeling, and he was pretty sure he disliked it. “I was wondering if you caught what it was?”

Without even pulling out his notebook, Andrew said: “Chapters 6 through 8, problems 11 through 23 and 45 through 66, and problem 69.”

“Oh, thanks,” Neil said, quickly committing it to memory. “See you at practice.”

There was something about Andrew Doe that bothered him immensely.

Maybe it was the quiet that seemed to radiate off of him, a seriousness not shared by other people in their class. Maybe it was the way he felt watched whenever they were in the same room. Maybe it was just the fact that he seemed to remember anything and everything without a problem, which makes lying much more difficult. He relied on the fact that he was forgettable, but Andrew seemed to do nothing but remember.

The evening in the first week of October when he dyed his roots, and they came out a little darker than usual, he panicked, because he knew Andrew would be able to tell. They’d only known each other a month, but every time they interacted Neil was even more sure of it: Andrew had the ability to perfectly recall anything and everything. He’d gotten into the habit of asking Andrew questions, all random facts from class or practice, and he never missed any of them, remembering even the tiniest of details – details that Neil himself had forgotten, at times.

And the most irritating part about it was that Neil couldn't seem to force himself to forget Andrew, either. Every time he felt Andrew's eyes on him it distracted him. He couldn't focus on classes, or on practice, or on studying - because Andrew always seemed to be in the library when he was.

He was beginning to get sick of it. After a few weeks of this, as he got settled into his favorite spot in the library and, as usual, felt Andrew's eyes, he turned and stared right back, meeting the shocking spark in Andrew's otherwise emotionless face.

And to Neil's absolute shock and horror, Andrew didn't sit down in his usual seat two tables away from Neil. No. He came and sat in the seat right in front of Neil.

"Hey," Andrew said.

"Hi," Neil said.

Andrew took out his Math homework, so Neil did the same, and they studied in silence.

Neil wasn't quite sure how this became a routine, but it did. Neil and Andrew would sit together during every lunch period, and - at first - besides polite greetings, they studied in silence.

Andrew was the first to speak during these study sessions. He said: "Do you know any German?"

Neil's heart beat fast in his chest, but he forced himself to raise his head slowly, as if he was still reading a sentence in Spanish. What did he mean? Why was he asking? What -

"I'm taking it this year as my language elective, and I don't remember what this word means," Andrew explained. He seemed disinterested, but Neil felt as if his eyes were -

Well.

"I took a year of German," Neil lied - well, really he was just bending the truth. "I might be able to help you."

Andrew silently moved his notebook closer to Neil, and he turned it around. Andrew pointed at the word he meant.

"That's stay," Neil said.

"Hm." Andrew said. "Why are you taking Spanish if you've taken German before?"

"Why so many questions?" Neil countered.

For the first time, Neil saw Andrew smile. It was a small, sarcastic thing. Not a true smile by any means, but a mockery of one, worn by someone who hasn't the patience for the joy necessary for a smile.

"We can trade."

Neil just looked at him.

"You ask me something, I ask you something. We both answer honestly. We end on equal footing."

What could Andrew possibly say that would interest Neil? "Pass."

"Are you sure? I will not make this offer again."

Neil thought about it. Thought about the constant, consistent presence of him, the spark in his eyes, and about how he never seems to leave Neil's mind. And suddenly he was curious, unreasonably curious. If his mother knew that he was about to be honest with this - this boy, this random student he has spent almost no time around -

"Alright," he said, before he could change his mind. "I thought Spanish could be useful. Why have you been staring at me?"

"I was curious," Andrew replied. "You aren't just new, you’re - off. I look at you and all I see is a gray blob of nothing."

"I am nothing," Neil said. "You shouldn't be curious about me."

Andrew took his notebook back, began to shove his things into his bag. "I'm sure I'll be over it soon," he said. "But for now -" he shook his head, cutting himself off. "I'll see you at practice."

"Yeah," Neil said. "Right."

Andrew walked off, and Neil wondered to himself what had just happened.

[3]

“Why don’t you swim anymore?”

Andrew had managed to startle Neil. It was the end of practice, and Neil was doing what he always did: pretending to be busy with something in order to delay his inevitable visit to the locker room. He usually managed to stay on the field until everybody left, at which point nobody cared what he was doing. This had proved to be consistently successful, so he was incredibly surprised that Andrew had lingered as well.

“What?” he said, pretending to have misheard.

Andrew didn’t seem to be buying it, but repeated himself anyway. “Why don’t you swim anymore?”

“Is this your next turn?”

“Yes.”

Neil took a deep breath to calm himself. “I don’t like the loss of awareness. Everybody can look at me, I can’t see them.”

“Hm.” Neil met Andrew’s piercing gaze. In his eyes, he saw –

“I’ll take my turn later,” Neil blurted. He grabbed his bag and got pretty close to sprinting away from the field. He’ll skip his shower today; he didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary on school grounds right now.

Later, he lay on the floor of the empty house he was sleeping in currently and thought of Andrew’s intense eyes. It kept him up until the hours, at which point without even noticing he drifted into a light sleep, riddled with dreams as confusing as Andrew Doe.

[4]

“Do you want to go see a movie sometime?” Andrew said a week later, as they silently sat and studied.

Neil didn’t even have to force himself to pick his head up slowly. He was finally getting some progress with his Spanish, and didn’t want to lose his train of thought, so he hummed to signal that Andrew should wait a second for his response. Once he finished translating the sentence he’d been working on, he finally registered what Andrew had actually said. “What movie?”

He shrugged. “I don’t really care. Maybe that new Marvel film. Do you want to?”

Neil considered it. What else did he have to do, anyway? “Sure.”

Andrew’s features slowly transformed from their usual blank slate to a vaguely pleased expression. Neil didn’t know what it meant that he could tell the difference when the change was so small, and he frowned and pushed that side to be dealt with later.

They set a time to meet at the local movie theatre and that was that.

[5]

So now they were hanging outside of school as well, and fairly regularly as well. It seemed to Neil that they were meeting almost every other day, to go to the movies or to go eat together or, once, to go ice skating. They often shared a smoke before or after these outings. He knew his mother would berate him for wasting so much money, but he found himself enjoying these outings.

After yet another shared dinner, Andrew surprised Neil yet again. “Would you like to come visit my house tomorrow? Meet my foster mother?”

It was a Friday, a chilly night in the middle of November. Above, clouds blocked the stars; below, neon lights would have prevented them from seeing stars any way. Neil had a feeling it would rain that night.

Neil shot Andrew a look, but for once, Andrew was looking up at the starless sky instead of him. “Depends,” Neil replied.

“On what?” Andrew said.

“I want to take my turn.”

Andrew dragged his head down and examined Neil thoroughly. He gestured with his hand, saying go ahead.

“Do you know who your biological family is?”

Andrew let out an insincere snort masquerading as a laugh. “I found out last year, yes.”

“Who are they?” Neil pushed.

Andrew stood still for a second, before releasing a breath and saying: “I have a twin brother, Aaron. And a mother who doesn’t want me.”

Neil could feel the words hitting him. His heart, he was surprised to find, ached for Andrew. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“It’s not your fault,” Andrew said. “So don’t apologize.”

“Alright,” Neil said. “I’ll – see you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow,” Andrew echoed. And then he was gone, and Neil felt very, very cold.

“I like your foster mother,” Neil remarked as they climbed the stairs to Andrew’s room. “She’s nice.”

“Yes, she is,” Andrew said, and if Neil didn’t know better, he could’ve sworn he heard affection in his voice. The door slammed behind them, and Neil took the time to examine Andrew’s room. It was small, but bare, practically as sterile as the house Neil broke into every night. There was a large bed, which took up most of the room, along with a dresser and a small bookcase. There was also a laptop, but no desk. Maybe Andrew did his studying in another room?

Andrew sat on the bed and Neil awkwardly mimicked him.

“So this is Andrew Doe’s room, huh?”

“I think that’s rather obvious,” Andrew said.

Suddenly, Neil knew that Andrew was real. He’d known it all along, of course, but until this very second somewhere in the back of his mind he’d been doubting it, thinking that this complicated young man couldn’t be anything other than a figment of his own imagination. Seeing his bedroom, his house, his home, knowing that Andrew existed beyond Neil’s perception of him – it was dizzying.

“I want to play another round,” Neil said.

“No,” Andrew said. “I don’t want to answer your questions right now. And I have too many questions to ask to choose just one.”

“Ask me something anyway,” Neil said.

Andrew looked at him oddly. “Yes or no?”

Andrew surprised Neil again and again. He’d managed to get under his skin and Neil hadn’t even noticed until it was too late. He baffled Neil, but also challenged him, made his stay on his toes, and before he even knew it, he was attached to him.

“Yes,” Neil said.

Andrew surged forward and kissed him. It lasted only a moment, but it felt like an entire lifetime. Neil found himself surprisingly pleased with the experience - once Andrew pulled away, he brought his left hand to his lips, partially shocked.

Andrew was looking away from Neil, visibly angry, his hands curled into shaking fists. Neil had learned better by now than to touch Andrew unexpectedly, so he resisted the urge to put a hand on him and instead opted to murmur Andrew’s name. He looked at Neil then, a strange look on his face. “Do you want me to leave?” Neil asked.

“No,” Andrew said, but he seemed to be doubting himself.

Neil compromised by sinking to the floor beside the bed. Not leaving, but also not too close. He decided he’d give Andrew a second to relax, but that second turned into minutes, into hours, and eventually, in that quiet room on that bare floor leaning against the plain white wall, he fell asleep.

In the early hours Neil woke, sudden, quick. He blinked as he surveyed the room around him. The door was slightly ajar, letting the orange hallway light in; Andrew was nowhere to be seen, but he could hear murmuring from down the hallways. Neil felt like he was swimming in the stifling heat of the room as he rose. Neil hadn’t brought his duffel to Andrew’s, but he searched for it anyway before he remembered. He glanced at his watch – it was only nine o’clock. He’d been asleep for maybe a couple of hours, but it was still too long. He should leave.

As the door creaked as he opened it and the voices silenced immediately. Once Neil’s eyes adjusted he realized it was Andrew and a young man he didn’t recognize, and who he immediately disliked. His figure was overbearing in a way that reminded him too much of the people his father had surrounded himself with, and the closer Neil got to him, the clearer the young man’s expression became, the more he disliked it.

“Andrew,” he said, a smirk adorning his terribly handsome features. “I didn’t know you had a guest.”

“He – “ Andrew began, but Neil cut him off.

“I fell asleep just as we were going to start watching a movie,” Neil said. “I’ve been overworking myself at exy practice. Andrew, are you coming back?”

Andrew gave a curt nod, and walked away from the young man. Neil didn’t realize how tense Andrew was until they stepped into the bedroom and he relaxed, if only a bit – Andrew didn’t like this young man any more than Neil did.

Neil shut the door. “Who was that?” he demanded.

“Drake,” Andrew said. “My foster brother.”

They did watch a movie together, although they paused around ten o’clock so Neil could pretend to call his mother and tell her he’d be sleeping over at a friend’s. They started a second one, but Neil could tell he was tired, so he suggested they continue it tomorrow, and they both went to sleep.

Neil woke up at his usual time – five thirty am – itching for a run. He knew he’d have to go home first to change and grab his things, but he wasn’t sure he had the time. Luckily, Andrew woke up the moment Neil began moving.

“You,” Andrew said, “wake up far too early.”

“I need to go home and get my things,” Neil said.

“C’mon,” Andrew said, “I’ll drive you.”

Andrew did drive him – after leaving a note for his foster mother that he was borrowing the car –but Neil had him drop him off a block away, giving a few excuses in succession, hoping one of them would stick and Andrew would drive off. Andrew didn’t leave, but he didn’t insist on driving down the street; instead, he said he’d wait for him on the corner until he came back.

It was almost six-fifteen, too late for Neil to take his normal route to the school anyway. On a whim, he grabbed his swimming trunks and a gray shirt and put them in his bag. This early, there’d be nobody to see him, anyway.

When Neil got into the car, Andrew asked him: “Yes or no?”

[6]

Neil and Andrew now had a new routine. Just after six Neil would meet Andrew, who would drive them to school. They would spend a few minutes kissing, and then Andrew would drive to school. Andrew remained in the car while Neil went swimming for half an hour, leaving him enough time to shower and get to first class, nodding at Andrew in the hallways as if they were mere acquaintances. Then they would sit together in the library during lunch, and Neil would spend half the time thinking about his homework, and the other half he spent watching Andrew and… trying to understand.

Andrew had told him to stop looking at him like that a couple of times already, but he truly had no idea what he meant until, one morning, Andrew took his turn.

They’d already passed the physical stage of the morning, but Andrew didn’t start the car.

“I’m taking my turn,” Andrew said, carefully examining Neil’s features.

Neil nodded.

“Who are you running from?”

Neil’s world once again shifted, and he physically recoiled.

“Answer me,” Andrew said.

“Andrew – “ he began. He thought of lying to him, but a lump in his throat stopped him from doing that. “This is more than I can give.”

Andrew looked at him for a long time, clearly expecting more. Neil shook his head. He wasn’t going to give any more. Instead, he took his own turn: “I’ll tell if you tell me what Drake is doing to you.”

“Fuck you,” Andrew said.

Neil said, “Don’t ask questions like that if you don’t want me to do the same.”

Andrew started the car and a pregnant silence settled over them as they drove. When Andrew parked the car by the school, Neil made for the door. Andrew spoke before he could even touch the handle.

“He rapes me,” Andrew said in a voice so raw and angry Neil physically recoiled. “He comes into my room at night, and – “

“No, you don’t – you don’t have to say anything else,” Neil said.

Empty eyes met his own. “You asked. Don’t ask if you can’t handle the answer.” Neil took a deep breath to steady himself, refusing to look away. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Neil finally asked.

“Like I’m your answer.”

“What if I’m yours?” Neil countered.

Andrew laughed darkly. “You have yet to answer my question at all.”

And how could he be anything but honest at that?

“My father,” he said. “It’s my father who I’m running from.”

He opened his eyes, and the waters were clear. He’d swam what felt like one hundred laps; he’d lost count. He shouldn’t be in the water. The water could turn his shirt sheer, show his scars, and anybody could sneak past him, attack him the moment he left the pool. But he never felt freer than he did when he was immerse in the water and chlorine all alone.

He spent his usual half hour in the water, but when he left the water he found himself unexpectedly face to face with Andrew.

“Who are you?” Andrew asked.

Neil looked at him, doing his best not to shiver from the cold. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“I’m moving in with my biological family. My uncle won me last week,” he spat. “And I’m going to leave.”

“Oh,” Neil said. It was December, he realized. They were going on break next week. This was probably a very good time for Andrew to leave.

“Who are you?” Andrew repeated, slowly, slowly walking closer. Neil closed his eyes, tried to steady himself.

“I can’t give you that,” Neil breathed.

“You owe me one last question,” Andrew reminded him. Neil knew he did, but he didn’t know how to give himself away like this.

He didn’t know what to do.

His chest hurt. He couldn’t breathe.

He looked away. When he looked back, Andrew was gone.

[7]

He took one last swim. It was the last day of the semester, and half the school was out sick; even the staff was spread out thin. He had two classes that day, and had been considering skipping; what was the point, anyway?

He’d decided he was going to leave.

For some reason, he’d made it official. Went to the office and told them his parents were transferring, and he was going with them. Said he wanted the transcripts. They would be useless to him; he wouldn’t turn 17 for a few months, and they said his 18 birthday had been months ago. Even if he did have to continue studying as a senior, he couldn’t have anything tying him to a place he’d already been, saying: I’ve been here, now I’m elsewhere. I was here.

Maybe he wanted it for himself, the knowledge that Neil Josten had existed, that he’d had something with Andrew Minyard nee Doe, and that he wouldn’t anymore.

And suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

He wouldn’t have Andrew anymore, and he didn’t know why or how, but that mattered to him more than survival.

He was running. He knew Andrew wasn’t at school today, had checked, and had also known that he’d be leaving that afternoon. That meant that right now Andrew was at the Spear’s home, and that he was most likely packing, and that Neil would miss him, and that he would never know unless he –

He made it. He knocked on the door. He waited.

“Andrew?” he said.

The door opened, and Andrew was –

He swallowed his first instinct, to reach out and pull him as close as possible.

“You’re moving to Columbia, right?”

Andrew nodded.

“It’s a funny coincidence,” he said, the words spilling out before he could stop them. “But so are my parents. Last minute transfer. Odd, right?”

Andrew didn’t react.

“Maybe when we’re there,” Neil said. “I’ll be able to answer your question.”

“Maybe,” Andrew said. He shut the door, and, smiling, Neil turned away.

Maybe.

#tfc #the foxhole court #aftg #all for the game #andreil #andrew minyard #neil josten #tfc fic #tfc au #high school au #Gail writes #Gail speaks #books

112 notes · View notes

lainahastoomuchsparetime · 5 years

Text

…clearly I couldn’t think of a title for this post. Original Twitter thread found here.

Today we’re going to be trying to figure out the time period that Anne of Green Gables is set in and talking about the fashion of that time. This is going to be a multi-part series with a lot of images. Seriously, I have like 10 pages of notes and a LOT of pictures bookmarked.

So I’m gonna ask y’all to be patient with the speed on this one, okay?

Let’s start with what we know about the time period of Anne of Green Gables. (Not any of the sequels – in this thread, I will be treating AOGG as a standalone work.)

First, Montgomery wrote it in 1906 so it can’t be any later than that. In “Anne to the Rescue”, the Prime Minister who’s visiting Charlottetown is definitely John A. Macdonald. Marilla comments on his nose and that was something many political cartoonists caricaturized about him.

He was Canada’s first Prime Minister, and also technically the third as he served twice with another dude between his two terms. The first time was from 1867 to 1873 which is way to early to be Anne’s time period IMO.

Going by the fashion of the time alone, you’re looking at straight, tight sleeves and very slight bustles. Puffed sleeves don’t fit.

Purple dress by Southend Museum Services via Wikimedia commons. Red dress photo is public domain from the Met via Wikimedia commons. First fashion plate is public domain via Wikimedia commons and the second is by Nicole.c.s.y93 via Wikimedia commons.

John A. Macdonald’s second term was from 1878 to 1891. “Anne to the Rescue” takes place in January of Anne’s second year at Green Gables. December of Y2 is when Matthew gives Anne the Christmas dress, and that year the size of the puffs have gotten even larger.

Let’s backtrack slightly and define our time periods.

Canada became a country (according to white people) in 1867. I’m sure y’all knew that. In any of the time periods Anne could be set in, the British influence will still be very strong. Because of that, in this series, I’m going to use the British eras for reference. (Eras in British history refer to who was ruling at the time.)

Queen Victoria = the Victorian era. King Edward VII, her son = the Edwardian period. Victoria’s reign was 1837 to 1901, and Edward was on the throne 1901 to 1910, but there is actually some overlap when you’re talking fashion, since fashion changes aren’t instant. Like, if you look at early 1990s, they look very 1980s.

As well, sometimes the term Edwardian is retroactively applied to fashion things that happened during the actual Victorian period as Edward was a big leader and influencer of fashion. So some stuff from before 1901 can be considered Edwardian. I know it’s a bit complicated, but we’re all on the same page, yeah?

Also Victoria Day is May 20th this year. Her birthday was May 25th so our holiday is the Monday before the 25th. May long weekend is also my town-wide garage sale. Not related, just a fun fact.

As Canada is a Commonweath country, obviously the British influence was huge. And still is, to some extant. We have the Queen on our money, we have Victoria Day, Boxing Day, we spell thing with u’s. It was even greater in Anne’s time period, though. Canada was colonized under Queen Victoria’s reign. So when we’re talking fashion, it makes the most sense to me to look to that direction than to look to the US for context.

Another thing I find interesting – they have afternoon tea in Anne, and Queen Victoria was the one who made that a Thing. One of her ladies in waiting began having a small meal in the afternoon, usually around 4, as she couldn’t wait for til a 9pm dinner. (I get that. My blood sugar isn’t down for that schedule either.)

The lady would invite friends into her dressing room for it and Victoria caught wind of it and really liked the idea, and it became an elaborate thing. That’s where “tea gowns” are from. Which I’m not going to get into because this thread is going to be long enough, but look up sometime. That was in the 1850s and you can see how normalized it is in Anne by our time period.

I just thought that was neat lol.

So, 1870s fashion we talked about.

Moving into the 1880s, it’s not too different. Still narrow sleeves, and skirts narrow as well besides a brief resurgence of the bustle in the middle of the decade. This is, I believe, the fashion period that Marilla is using to make Anne’s dresses in the beginning of the book.

This, for instance, is a great picture from the mid 1880s – from this site, used with permission.

This was a wealthy family from Ontario wearing their best clothes, so this wouldn’t be so much everyday clothes but it helps you get the idea.

Random trivia, the lady on the bottom left with the very short hair – she may have been recovering from a bad illness. A lot of the time when women in this time period cut their hair very short, it was because they were very seriously ill and couldn’t manage the upkeep.

In general, your early 1880s has a lot of 1870s influence… typical for most decades of fashion. It’s pretty minimal in silhouette.

Brown plaid dress and floral dress by the Met via Wikimedia commons.

The bustles from the later half of the decade are kind of great though. (Bustles are the big butt bumps.) This isn’t even as big as they could get.

LACMA, Met, Met, they’re all public domain, I’m getting tired here, lol.

Going up to the very end of the 1880s, you’re still in that same area.

Some pictures from 1888. Pictures from here out are from Libraries and Archives Canada or the Met’s fashion plate collection. All are public domain. Click to enlarge I think.

And some stuff from 1889

Oh and this is a series of photos from I think an ice show in early 1889 which… what is going on in this ice show? There’s another I can’t find now, I think, where her skirt is just a tennis net?

Okay, back to establishing our timeline. Sleeves begin to puff as we move into 1890. Some of these pics have specific dates which is super cool.

So, we have March 1890, May 1890, and July 1890.

I particularly like this one from October 1890 that’s titled as “Nidd, Mrs. & Friend” and how much it looks like an awkward prom picture.

Last one from 1890, specifically December 1890.

Moving into 1891, the sleeves continue to get larger but usually not as huge as they’ll eventually become.

Also I keep wanting to make up backstory for these people. Like that second picture especially. Who are they?

More from 1891

Now the reason I’m focusing a little extra on 1891 is because that is the absolute latest that “Anne to the Rescue” could happen. John A. Macdonald was no longer Prime Minister after June 1891.

He was also dead.

I found a couple articles that referenced Macdonald visting P.E.I. in 1890, but it was a casual visit to a Senator friend in Charlottetown. The political meeting of the book seems to be purely fictional.

That Senator friend just happened to be Donald Montgomery, one of L. M. Montgomery’s grandparents. (Her father’s father, not the one she lived with after er mother died.)

Montgomery even met Macdonald on that visit. It happened in August 1890.

There’s an article out there called “The Hijacking of “Anne”” by Virginia Careless that puts the year Anne came to Green Gables as 1880. She uses the sequels to make this timeline and honestly? My suspicion is that as we get into sequels we’ll mostly discover that Montgomery wasn’t great at math.

Careless uses later events that I’m not looking at because I only want to use evidence from AOGG itself for this particular thread.

And I’m sorry, but puffed sleeves were NOT a thing in 1880.

Do you see a sleeve puff??

Careless says, “That date is more in keeping with her longing for puffed sleeves in 1880, when she came to Green Gables. In 1877, her eleventh year according to the Treasury, such sleeves were not possible with the fashions then current.”

NOPE makes no sense! I know the article is from 1992 but like. You got paid for that, Careless.

Going by the date of Macdonald’s visit to Charlottetown and his death, and the fashion trends of the time, I am comfortable saying Anne came to Green Gables between 1889 and 1891. Specifically I think she came in June 1890. I think Macdonald’s fictional visit happens in 1891, and Anne gets her dress in December 1891.

Thing in the sequels may contradict this, but that’s where I think we stand judging by AOGG alone.

The timeline I think works: 1890 – Anne comes to GG in June, is 11, Y1 1891 – Croup in January, Christmas dress, Anne is 12, Y2 1892 – Hair dye, Queen’s class, Anne is 13, Y3 1893 – Mostly just a lot of school, Anne is 14, Y4 1894 – Queen’s exam, white sands hotel concert, Anne is 15, Y5 1895 – Year at Queen’s, Matthew’s death, Anne is 16, Y6

Also you can’t just say any puffed sleeve fits Anne’s time period. Sleeve puffs in the 1830s are much lower than the ones in the 1890s (and beyond).

Plus it doesn’t work with the tea thing. Can you tell I’ve discovered a pet peeve?

I think that’s about good for today. Not the last thread you’ll be seeing on this though! We have many things to discuss.

Shout out to Library and Archives Canada and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s fashion plate collection.

Both were big helps in this and future threads.

Editing Laina: #LainaReadsAnne will be returning live soon! I’m getting caught up on a few things, and then we’ll be getting back into recaps! My summer job just got in the way.

Peace and cookies, Laina

#LainaReadsAnne, but make it fashion ...clearly I couldn't think of a title for this post. Original Twitter thread found here.

#historical fashion

0 notes

buzzdixonwriter · 4 years

Text

The Seven Secrets Of Pure Dumb Luck

“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair.”

-- The Joker, The Dark Knight

Sandra Newman’s meme has been bouncing around the Internet for a while now, and while many people get it’s point, some fail to realize she’s satirizing not people who fail to achieve success (however one chooses to define “fail” or “success”) but rather the mindset of those who are “born on third base and believe they knocked a home run”.

It’s the mindset of privilege, and while her meme specifically focuses on those with the privilege of wealth, truth be told privilege comes in many shapes / forms / fashions depending on when and where and to what group one is born.

But let’s focus on the wealth-based form she cites.

Chance, as Louis Pasteur observed, favors the prepared mind.

It’s certainly solid advice for everyone to strive to be as mentally / emotionally / physically fit and healthy as possible, to develop productive habits, and to constantly be open to learning new things.

Before they became glorified trade schools, universities’ classical liberal arts degrees didn’t teach students what to think but how to think, the goal being to produce a cohort of graduates who -- regardless of what situation they found themselves in -- would be able to analyze what was needed and figure out how to achieve it.

Nowadays, thanks to libraries and the Internet, it’s possible for anyone to be their own polymath.

All it takes is the will and desire.

But despite being prepared, there is no guarantee chance (or fate, or fortune, or destiny, or God’s will, or plain ol’ dumb luck, or whatever you want to call it) will provide you with an opportunity to succeed.

Indeed, as our friend The Joker observes, chaos is fair.

It will dash you down just as easily as it lifts you up, and sometimes it will lift you up only to dash you down all the harder. (Cue Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana - O Fortuna”.)

You can’t complain about that. As Jimmy Durante observed, dem’s da conditions wot prevails.

Life is neither pure intellect -- such as chess -- nor pure chance -- such as roulette.

Rather, it’s more like Monopoly.

Now, as a game, Monopoly starts off fairly (well, kinda…each player brings their own particular skill set / insight / personal history to the proceedings, and sometimes a player’s background can provide either a distinct edge or disadvantage).

Every player starts with $1,500.

The bank owns all the properties.

Play is determined by a random roll of the dice, and a random distribution of Community Chest / Chance cards when one lands on those spaces.

Player wheel and deal, each trying to force the others into bankruptcy, thus winning the game.

(It’s really a damn tragedy that Monopoly -- which began life as a socialist teaching tool called The Landlord Game -- has become a cultural touchstone for sociopathic success instead of a dire warning for community disaster.)

Now imagine Monopoly played under these conditions:

Of the maximum number of eight players at the start of the game, two only get $100, two only get $500, two get the full $1,500, one gets $2,000, and one gets $5,800.

The two wealthiest players never go to jail, never pay any penalties.

The players with the least money pay double.

The two wealthiest players get their $200 every time they pass Go.

The other players only get $150…or $100…or just $20.

The two wealthiest players can borrow as much as they like, any time they like, and pay back at their leisure with only minimum interest.

The other players can’t borrow enough to meet their needs, and what they do borrow, they need to pay back on a rigid schedule at usurous rates.

The two wealthiest players can purchase properties and houses and hotels whenever they like.

The other players are either limited to what they can buy or denied the chance all together.

It would be bad enough if the unequal benefits were handed out purely at random, but in order to more perfectly model real life, this version of Monopoly would require the owner of the game not only get the most money but be the banker as well, that their best friend takes the #2 position, and that lesser acquaintances fill in the bottom six slots on the roster.

And to make it even more realistic, imagine that the top two players are allowed to keep their winnings and properties from the previous game every time a new game was started.

Now, it is possible for a player starting with only $100 to come out on top and win the game through a combination of shrewd business strategy and uncommonly good luck --

-- but that ain’t the way the smart money bets.

At a certain point, no matter how brilliant one may be regarding financial strategy or computing mathematical odds, the only “winners” will be those pre-ordained to win by the owner of the game.

Every successful person is successful for a combination many different reasons, but unless one admits pure blind luck random chance is one of those reasons, one is lying.

Case in point: My personal history.

Random factor #1: I was born as a male into a white middle class family in the American South in the early 1950s. For most of my life, I had advantages millions of others -- black, white, and female -- were denied.

Random factor #2: Because my father changed jobs a lot, we moved frequently, averaging out one move a year, usually to a different town or at the very least a different school district. As a result, I grew up with no lifelong friends or neighbors or schoolmates.

Random factor #3: Because we were always moving into new schools, I gravitated towards science fiction fandom. It gave me a group of friends and pen-pals who were never further away than my mailbox, and a sense of permanence lacking in real life.

Random factor #4: Because I was involved in fandom, and because I had a creative bent (and because my father once harbored ambitions himself of being a writer -- throw that in as random factor #4b -- and thus could provide me with books and magazines on writing), I started writing science fiction / fantasy / horror stories and reviews / articles / letters of comment to fanzines.

Random factor #5: I was drafted at age 19, and thus missed an opportunity to go to college straight out of high school.

Random factor #6: I met and married my wife while in the Army, and we started a family. This gave me an incentive to stay in for the full 6 year enlistment, as well as an incentive to find employment in my desired field as soon as possible once I was discharged.

Random factor #7: Though the GI Bill got me into USC’s film school, that started in October of 1978 and I was discharged in February of 1978. We came to Los Angeles to find a place to live and hopefully for me, a mail room or driver job in the film or TV business so I could make a little money and get my feet wet in the industry before starting film school.

Random factor #8: After visiting nearly 100 other studios and production companies (no kidding!) in search of a mail room or driver job, I worked my way down to Filmation Studios. By chance I was there during what was called hiatus season (i.e., the lag time between the end of production on the previous season’s shows and start of the next) and Filmation’s live action producer / director Arthur Nadel Jr. was twiddling his thumbs in his office, bored out of his mind, so when the receptionist asked if he wanted to see the guy looking for a job, he said sure, send him back, anything to kill an afternoon.

Arthur took a liking to me. I told him about writing but not selling short stories for sci-fi magazines (see random factor #4 above). Arthur asked if he could see some, and to make a long story short, when October rolled around I was making too much money as a staff writer at Filmation to go to film school that year (see random factor #6), so I decided to put it off until 1979.

Which became 1980…1981…1982…

Random factor #9: Filmation downsized and turned me loose in early 1980; I found a staff position at Ruby-Spears, and there met Steve Gerber and several other people whom I’d work with repeatedly in the ensuing years, becoming dear friends with many of them.

Random factor #10: For various reasons, Steve and I left Ruby-Spears. Steve was hired to story edit Sunbow’s G.I. Joe series.

Now here’s an important point: I was not one of the first round picks for staff positions at Sunbow.

Indeed, I was told even freelancing there would likely be a long shot.

However, Steve knew I’d served in the Army (see random factor #5) and, realizing the stories they were getting lacked a certain sense of verisimilitude, asked if I would look them over and give him some feedback. I did so gratis because we were friends (see random factor #9).

From that feedback, Steve recommended to Sunbow they hire me as a staff writer / technical advisor. That quickly morphed into an assistant story editor position, and from there I went on to story edit the second season of G.I. Joe.

I’m going to break off my narrative there; clearly there were a lot of other random factors that impacted me through the next 35 years of my life.

My point is, had any one of random factors #1 through #10 been changed, the subsequent events of my life and their random factors would have changed as well.

If I hadn’t been drafted and sent to Korea (random factor #5), it’s extremely unlikely I would have ever met Soon-ok (random factor #6).

And while one can argue these random factors carried combinations of good and bad circumstances (and sometimes what seemed bad -- being drafted and sent to Korea, f’r instance -- turned out to be really, really good), had I not been steered into the direction of sci-fi fandom (random factor #2), and / or if my father hadn’t encouraged me (random factor #5), I wouldn’t be posting this, you wouldn’t be reading it.

Would I have been a better / happier / more successful person under different circumstances?

Good question -- and I’d like to think no (at least to the better and happier parts).

But I would certainly have been different.

To return to my central point: I got breaks other people didn’t get because of my random factors. Assuming all the random factors averaged out with good nullifying bad and vice versa, I can feel a certain sense of accomplishment in my career.

But there are others who had far more advantages due to their random factors, and others who faced far more obstacles due to their random factors.

Looking back at our Monopoly game, while there’s nothing wrong with a truly random advantage, there’s also something profoundly unfair about ginning the game to stack the odds in your favor.

#writing #creativity #privilege #success

0 notes

kinetic-elaboration · 5 years

Text

October 25: Conference 2

I definitely had a let-down feeling after the conference but I think I am feeling better now. Except that it doesn’t seem real, now, like something that really happened. I had a good time overall and I’m glad I went, and even though I was worried about making it through today, it was a lot easier than yesterday.

We had to drive all the way back, which was kind of weird--it’s that weird amount of distance that, and I realize I am not being very American right now, is I guess short enough to warrant not paying several hundred dollars for a hotel room, but is too big to really feel like it’s right to be commuting back and forth, especially since the conference atmosphere is so unusual. I suspect none of this is making sense. It’s just a strange thing to be going back and forth from is what I’m trying to say.

Anyway, we got there later than intended and so I was about two minutes late for the first session. Also my co-worker was going to a different first session, and hers was in a library that is, weirdly, like, off the hotel, and so she found the door right away and was like ‘peace out, bye,’ and I was like WAIT WHERE’S THE HOTEL? because like I don’t have a smart phone or a map so ???? Lol but it was fine. I just walked into a circle until I found it, and I was still almost on time. The session was on a public library turning themselves around from press disaster to model system, which actually was more relevant to me than perhaps you might guess because their advice re: not being a disaster was very general and adaptable. Also it made me feel good that there are still good faith people out there tbh because all of their advice really just boils down to don’t be a dick, behave reasonably with the people around you.

The next session I wanted to go to was in the same room, but I also needed caffeine, so I went across the way to the main ballroom and got some chai tea (not really my thing but I couldn’t find anything else caffeinated so it had to do) and also a really stale bagel. Then back for the next session, which was on diverse Virginia. It was mostly public library focused--what isn’t???--and I had to do some very quick translating of my own to figure out how I might apply some of this stuff to my library’s foreign born population, which is actually quite sizable, but not quite the same as the public library immigrant population. Still, I enjoyed it.

After that I had a very long lunch period, about two hours. My co-worker had met some people at the workshop she’d done in the morning and they invited me to lunch with them. I had a wonderful breakfast-type-dish (was it a sandwich? was it just a collection of random stuff in a box? not sure but it tasted good) from this soup-and-sandwich-type place; we ate in the weird little mall that connects to both the hotel and the library. The women were very nice and we got to share some of our experiences in our respective libraries and also in the earlier sessions we’d attended. (Later conversation turned to husbands and children and dogs, all of which are ??? topics for me but that’s okay.)

The other women were from quite far away in the state, so they left after lunch, while J and I wandered the mall a little; we picked up baked goods and I grabbed a fucking delicious pumpkin latte from a fancy coffee place. Then we went back to the hotel and looked at the gift baskets being raffled off. There were a couple that would have been perfect for our supervisor but unfortunately the drawing was after our planned departure time and in order to claim a prize you had to either be there yourself or use a proxy so that kind of killed the plan to win one for her. Which is a shame because I would have liked to see the look on her face if we’d shown up with one but oh well.

We separated after that, J to a session on creating a crafting program on a shoestring budget, and me to a session on research using newspapers. Mine was...okay. The first presenter wasn’t great. I feel bad saying that because I got what he was trying to do, but I felt like it could have been shorter and livelier. Like the idea was there but I could tell it wasn’t quite shaking out as intended. The second presenter was better, both in the sense that he was a somewhat more engaging speaker and also in the sense that he was actually showing us how to use the resources they were discussing, but by then there wasn’t that much time left. I will say that the Library of Virginia is doing some super nifty digitizing, including digitization that the Library of Congress isn’t doing (”we’re not really supposed to be prioritizing this but what are they going to do, throw me in library jail?” = one of the funniest sentences I heard over the course of the two days) (right up there with “I have a tattoo of Peter Rabbit, I promise you I am not intimidating?). They have Civilian Conservation Corps newspapers, which is apparently a thing, and also some old papers run by African-Americans, and now they’re trying to find and digitize antebellum newspapers as well, which are apparently pretty rare online. And they’re collecting old fugitive slave ads, which excites me as someone who’s tried, however briefly, to research specific slaves and found it very difficult--like for obvious reasons, but that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating to find oneself in this research desert. And it was just an academic project for me, not a personal thing, or a genealogy thing, where I’m sure the frustration must be more acute and more painful.

There was only one more session after that. J and I met up by accident in the restrooms and then realized we were both going to it. It was on making one’s library affirming for trans and non-binary people. The presentation was really good, really well done; basically the presenters explained what they’d done in their library, following the recommendations of committee on inclusivity on which they’d all served, and then we did short little conversations with our neighbors on how these issues might play out in our libraries. My situation is, again, weird in that my library is not autonomous, and a lot of policies really have to come from the law school or even university level, but I had a few things to share, and it was interesting hearing about my partner’s experiences trying to do what she could in a library where the people at the top of the hierarchy were somewhere between neutral and cool on even having inclusivity as a goal.

It was still pretty early at this point but the conference was basically wrapping up. We went across the street to check out a nifty little bookstore. I picked up a book for my mom that she hopefully does not already have and a book for my dad that he will hopefully like. Because this town is a port, it has a lot of boat-related stuff and it just seemed a shame not to get something for my dad at such a place. But it was also had to tell what books would most interest him. For example, there was one big one that looked like it was full of nice pictures--but it was also super expensive and shrink wrapped and I’m not dropping that kind of money on something that I can’t look inside, sorry. Another one was an autobiographical tale of a man building a wooden boat himself, which I was very close to getting, but I couldn’t tell if it was mostly about the building or mostly about, idk, a spiritual journey, so I chickened out on it and got one one the history of seafaring instead.

The drive back was much easier than yesterday in part because we didn’t miss an exit or get lost and in part because I wasn’t struggling to stay awake. We ended up talking pretty much the whole way back, and I got home at about 4:30. I wasn’t really that tired physically but my brain was like Nope to the possibility of doing anything, so I took a nap to try to reset.

I woke up feeling kind of bummed and lost, but dinner and catching up on The Good Place helped. I’ve also been working more on my Halloween fics. The third one is officially done in draft form and I have a tentative moodboard for the second.

I want to go the farmer’s market tomorrow and get apples for this apple crisp I have some weird idea I’m going to make. And then... idk... might walk around, might try to call R. Gonna try to write in the afternoon/evening. Just--Halloween!!!!! Yeah! Time to get spooky!!

#the year 2019 #2019: rl

0 notes

jackfollmanwriter-blog · 6 years

Text

The Yearbook

All Luke left in our old apartment for me was a single banker’s box of what he considered to be “my possessions.” One of those white cardboard boxes with the handles built into the side, the box truly signified that I had been fired from my seven-year relationship.

The move was cruel and calculated, but it was factual. A Texas vagabond who never left owned enough possessions to where she couldn’t pack up and move to another town at the drop of a hat, the few things which were truly mine sat cased in that box.

I tipped the contents of the box out onto the floor to take stock of my arsenal. A hairbrush, a stick of Secret with only 25% remaining, a frayed toothbrush, a half-filled pint of cheap vodka and a few changes of clothes (unwashed) fell out onto the stiff carpet. Stuck in the bottom of the box were my only non-essential possessions that Luke returned to me - my high school yearbooks.

I laughed out loud when I saw the yearbooks lying there next to a pair of stained socks. The yearbooks were the only possessions of mine recovered from my mom’s house after she died, mailed to me by my aunt Helen along with a note which scolded me for my lack of sobriety at my mom’s funeral.

Nothing else to do on a Winter’s Sunday afternoon and a pinch of sad nostalgia coursing through my veins, I sat down on the floor and started combing through the yearbooks. I never could have imagined my early adult life would get so sad that I would yearn for the days of acne, broken braces, 7:50 a.m. bells and my fickle group of friends from East Lubbock High School, but that’s where I was. Sad. Sad. Sad.

The yearbook at the bottom of the pile was not mine. Bound with leather, full-color and featuring a golden emboss of a stately-looking manor on the front, I figured it had to be from Luke’s private school in Dallas - Worthington Academy.

A few turns of thick pages confirmed my thoughts and sent me flipping through endless headshots of well-put-together teens bound for success or at least inherited money and inane messages written in permanent marker.

I stopped on the Class of 2000 which produced Luke Hanratty, a thin bastard from third-generation money with jet black hair that always perfectly fell to the side, dark eyes and years of suppressed rage he hid behind passive indifference. I found his portrait and stared into the face that I loved for almost seven years and felt those same emotions I had before he sent me a text saying it was over. I still loved the guy, even if I hated him.

I found the messages scribbled next to the portraits more interesting than Luke’s senior portrait. It was like an ancient Facebook - portraits of people’s best looks next to their names and their activities, but the best part was the photos which had comments written on them in black ink.

Luke had a lot of thoughts about his classmates and none of them were nice.

FAG...FAT...HORSE FACE.... BITCH....ASSHOLE….

I couldn’t believe I had attached myself for so long to a man so vile. Luke was known for having a caustic sense of humor, but this was over the top. He almost never went home to visit his parents in Dallas. Maybe it was because he hated everyone he grew up with, or vice-versa.

I skimmed through most of the insults, but one particularly caught my eye. A black-haired girl with a pale face and dark makeup named Kirsten Butler drew extra hate from Luke’s pen.

SLUT was written above her head, but that was just the start of it. Her entire profile was covered with a dark X, her name was crossed out - I could only actually read it because the ink had faded, and her eyes were dotted with red marker.

I at first assumed Kirsten was just one of Luke’s high school exs that we never really talked about, but I also recognized that name and that picture of the dark-haired girl half-smiling with the dimpled cheeks. I hit up Google on my phone for Kirsten Butler from Worthington Academy.

The results sucked the breath out of me and confirmed that I was vaguely familiar with Kirsten.

Kirsten Butler went missing from her dorm at Texas Christian University just a few weeks into her first Fall semester in October of 2000 and was never seen or heard from again. No body, no rumors of popping up in another country with a different name, no clothes found on a desolate country road out in West Texas. Nothing.

Kirsten’s case was before the days of social media where she would have become a national celebrity, but she was a brief regional celebrity around Texas and I was vaguely familiar with her case from back when it happened. I had no idea that she went to school with Luke though, let alone was in his class and a most-hated figure of his.

Google produced a little on Kirsten’s case. I found some old Dallas newspaper articles, a missing person’s report, even a few posts on Reddit in a section for Unsolved Mysteries, but not much information.

The yearbook ended up unearthing more clues than the Internet. I noticed a message from Kirsten scrawled in the back pages of the book in the signatures section.

Luke - Creative Writing rocked with you in it. Let me know if you want to swing over to Fort Worth sometime next year if you get bored sticking around in the big D at SMU. 214-555-3116. Kirsten.

I called the number. No one answered. I thought nothing of it.

I received a call from a 214 area code I didn’t recognize when I was walking out of a depressing job interview.

“Hello.”

“Who is this?” An elderly woman’s voice crackled through the phone sounding confused and accusatory at the same time.

“Um. Who is this? You called me.”

“You called Kirsten’s pager.”

It took me a few seconds to register what a “pager” was, but I eventually journeyed back to the call I made to Kirsten’s number in Luke’s yearbook.

“Ooooooooh. Yeah, I’m sorry. I found that number in a yearbook and called it. Uh…”

I really didn’t know what to say. I never thought my random sleuthing would produce anything and I didn’t really have anything that I wanted to accomplish.

“Well, I’m Kirsten’s mother, Susan. No one has called that pager in seventeen years. You understand how I could be a little tuned up? Whose yearbook was that in?”

My first thought was to protect Luke. Then I thought about the breakup. The other woman. The horrible things he said to me in fights.

“Luke Hanratty.”

The other end of the line was silent for a good five seconds.

Susan’s confrontational abrasion melted away into the sweetness of a Southern grandma, sweet as molasses.

“Now sweet thing, do you think you could bring that yearbook to me up in North Dallas?”

“Can I just mail it to you or drop it off?”

“I can fix you dinner and explain you why it has to be this way if you can do that. There are some things you probably need to know I can only explain in person.”

Susan lived in a little house in a part of Dallas that will probably be cool in five years, but is just shitty now. I had to avoid 10 landmines of dog feces as I walked up to the faded and rotted pink front door. I knocked on the door softly as to not disturb a hornet’s nest which bustled above the door frame.

The yips and clawlings of what sounded like a dozen lap dogs erupted as soon as I knocked.

“Heavens,” I heard Susan growl from the other side of the door.

The door opened and five different dogs all only a little larger than your average squirrel darted at my feet. I tried to act like it didn’t bother me, probably failed.

Susan looked better than I thought she would. Thin, but healthy with a head of long blonde hair (dyed, but dyed well) and a classy outfit of black leggings, a black and gray cardigan over a plain white shirt and hipster glasses. She was far from the obese, elderly pile of ash I expected to find.

I handed Susan the yearbook, but she made no move for it.

“No, no, no. I made short ribs and peach pie for two, not one.”

Susan gave me a warm smile. The kind I yearned for from a parental figure my entire life. I relented and followed her into her home and held my breath, fighting against the burn of pet urine mixing with the scent of baking food.

Susan cooked the kind of food I always wished a parental figure would cook for me - gourmet, but down home, hearty and filling. I felt over-indulged about three bites in, but couldn’t stop eating.

“I’ve been waiting for someone to dial that pager for seventeen years,” Susan turned the conversation to the real reason I was there after about 10 minutes of small talk while I was in mid-bite.

I had forgotten why I was even there for a second.

“We got that pager for Kirsten as a compromise. She wanted a cell phone, but we didn’t want to give her everything we wanted, so we met in the middle with that thing. I liked that it helped us keep tabs on her when she headed over to Texas Christian, but Dave wasn’t sure.”

Susan nodded her head sideways at a headshot of smiling middle-aged man in a Sears photoshoot who I assumed was Dave. His mug was pinned up on the wall next to a toaster.

“Dave passed just a couple years after Kirsten went missing. Pancreatic cancer. Awful. I think he was poisoned by the awfulness of what happened to our only daughter. We spent all the money we had on his no good pancreas and the pursuit of any clue we could with Kirsten. Had to eventually downgrade to this jalopy, move out of the community we raised Kirsten in, but, the good news is, we got our first god forsaken clue, for free, fifteen years after I had given up, right?”

I didn’t know how to react.

“It’s okay. I’m as happy about it, as I can be,” Susan went on. “And I’ll give you a break. I had you come here because things aren’t as simple as you might think they would be.”

“Okay…”

I couldn’t help but be pensive, and not just because one of Susan’s dogs was licking my ankle.

“We believe someone was actively working against us in the Dallas Police Department. Anything we ever, I mean ever, turned in as evidence always seemed to go missing. Any question we had, we never got an answer to. They blamed everything on Dave putting the investigation into his own hands early on, saying he crossed a lot of boundaries that negated evidence, but it was bull. Dave only made a few calls. Checked out Kirsten’s dorm room, talked to her roommate, because the police weren’t. Kirsten’s roommate called us up one day asking if the cops were ever going to talk to her because it had been weeks and they hadn’t even contacted her.”

“Wow.”

“But supposedly, Dave inviting Kirsten’s roommate over here for salad one night was enough to poison the whole investigation. So...that’s why I don’t want you to just turn over that yearbook to someone. I also want you to know that...this is hard to say...but...you might want to be careful with how you handle this as well. We had some early potential leads from a couple kids at Texas Christian who may have saw something, knew something, but they quickly fell off into the ether, and we never found out why. So...I don’t know what in the world it is, but just know that dialing that number, may have changed your life.”

“Okay, well, thank you, I guess.”

“I’m sorry. It is what it is. I want to ask you if you are comfortable answering some questions though?”

“I guess I might as well.”

“You said the yearbook you found belonged to Luke Hanratty?”

“Yeah.”

“And what is your relation to him if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh, sorry if I opened a wound.”

“It’s okay. It was already still open. It’s only been a few weeks.”

“Well, I hate to say it, but he might be Jake Doe. You see, we know there was a boy in Kirsten’s life around that time, but we have never had a slight inkling as to who he might be. They did everything in heavy secrecy, because she was technically still with her high school boyfriend, Brady, even though he went to A and M. They were trying to do the long distance thing, but her friends at TCU said they think she was hanging around with another boy. He would block his number before he paged her. She would call him from the phones in common areas around the campus. Maybe it was your Luke?”

At this point, I didn’t know what else I could do for Susan. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t want to spend anymore of my life doing anything that had anything to do with Luke Hanratty. I was ready to move on.

“I can give you the yearbook,” I said.

“I looked up Luke online before you came too and it looks like his parents own Hanratty and Hanratty, the big law firm downtown. They’ve worked defending the police in big cases. They might be blocking evidence through their connections knowing their son might have something to do with it.”

That made sense based on the soulless, yuppie, workaholic, only care about what people think image I got from Luke’s parents every time I met them. Luke told me once they would murder a baby if they thought it might help them get a big new case.

“Can I see it?”

Susan finally asked for the whole entire reason I was even there. I blushed when she quickly flipped to Kirsten’s picture and read the horrible things scrawled in there. I played with the last of the food on my plate.

“Well this is certainly interesting,” Susan whispered across the table.

I looked across the table and started to see tears form in Susan’s eyes behind her thick glasses.

“It’s just…

Susan had to stop and let out a few sobs.

“It’s just...I know Kirsten wasn’t a bad girl. She didn’t do these kinds of things. She was a good girl. She didn’t deserve this.”

As bad as I felt for Susan, the situation was just too much and too awkward for me. I wanted to get out. I figured I had helped her as much as I possibly could and I had my own problems. I was beginning to think my boyfriend of more than five years may have killed someone. No matter how good that peach pie in the oven smelled (and it smelled really, really good), I wasn’t going to stick around for it.

I thanked Susan for her time. Told her she could keep the yearbook and excused myself before dessert. I took the 20 minute drive to my home on my friend’s couch with the plan to not do a single thing more and hope everything just blew over and took care of itself. It was basically a smaller version of my overall life plan.

A few days passed with nothing. I held some brief relief that the whole thing would be over.

Then the calls from Luke started.

I ignored the first few. Let him leave vague voicemails about how I needed to call him back about something “serious.” This was his usual MO for when we were about to break up. He would start a horrible fight or do something really bad and then try to pull the romantic comedy move of doing something over the top romantic, or would buy me some piece of jewelry and the wounds scabbed over enough to drag our doomed relationship onward. Not this time.

The calls from Luke kept coming and coming and coming and I kept ignoring and ignoring and ignoring, but I knew he was going to do something drastic, I just didn’t know what. An oozing sense of dread seeped into me and stuck me on my friend’s couch for days where I was crashing, unable to move anywhere but between the couch, bathroom and refrigerator.

Luke made that drastic move in the middle of the night during one of my trips to the bathroom. I heard his voice whispering from outside the open window as I washed my hands in the near dark.

“Hey, Kayla.”

I screamed as loud as I ever have in my entire life. I looked out the half-opened window and saw the shadow of Luke standing in the bushes outside my friend’s ground-floor apartment. He looked at me through the cover of a dark hoodie, with his shaggy hair jutting out the front.

“Sorry, I knocked on the door, but no one answered and you won’t answer your phone,” Luke whispered.

“So you fucking go Norman Bates and look at me through the bathroom window? Get out of here!” I screamed back.

“No, you don’t understand. You did something you shouldn’t have done, now these people are after me.”

“No. You did something you shouldn’t have done!”

I slammed the window shut.

“If I see you again, I’m calling the cops,” I yelled at the closed window.

The texts started to come in from Luke as soon as I got back to the couch. I deleted them without reading them and eventually blocked Luke’s number after about the tenth call and text.

I covered myself in a blanket on the couch and planned on staying right there until the day I died.

I started to ease back into life as the days past without communication attempts from Luke. I got back up off the couch and started my job hunt again, went on walks to the park, went shopping for food with the little money I had a couple of times and even went for a couple aimless drives around town to clear my head after my friend said she had to move out in two weeks because she was going to move in with her boyfriend.

One of those blank-minded drives took me out to the edge of the city, to the parts of town where the urban sprawl started to melt into the hints of rural America. Little patches of woods and lonely gas stations dotted the roads.

Officially lost, I pulled over so I could load up directions to get back home on my phone. I slowed down next to a little patch of woods between run-down houses on a dark road.

A knock came at my window before I could get my phone out. I screamed even louder than I did when Luke confronted me in the bathroom.

I looked up at the aged face of a woman that I knew, but couldn’t quite put my finger on why I knew her.

“Can I talk to you really quick?” The woman asked, her voice also vaguely familiar.

I stared at the woman for a few seconds and it started to register. It was Luke’s mom, Nancy. She had aged a lot since the last time I had seen her.

I rolled the window down about two inches.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Another long look revealed exhausted eyes in Nancy’s skull and a coat of sweat.

“Have you seen Luke?” Nancy asked.

“No. I’ve been avoiding him, and I think you’re pretty disgusting, personally,” I spat back.

“What are you talking about?”

“I found out about Kirsten. The missing girl from TCU. It seems pretty clear Luke was involved, and you helped cover it up.”

“What?” Nancy shot back, sounding offended. “You have no idea,” she then muttered under her breath.

Nancy returned the long, hard look I was giving her.

“You probably don’t realize this, but you’re in serious danger. I need to know what you did, and who you talked to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just listen,” Nancy cut me off. “I’m guessing you talked to Susan for some reason.”

“Yeah, um.”

“That was a bad idea,” Nancy cut me off. “You have no idea what you did.”

A pair of headlights drove up behind us and stopped to the right of Nancy’s car which was parked behind mine.

Nancy looked over to the headlights. The last drops of life flushed out of her face.

A bang sound rang out in the night and Nancy’s SUV started to sink to the right.

“Shit,” Nancy seethed underneath her breath.

Nancy turned to me with her eyes wide.

“Let me in the car,” Nancy said.

“Why would I let you in my car?” I asked.

I was interrupted by the sound of a car door closing behind us, over by Nancy’s SUV.

Nancy started wrenching on the door handle. The door wouldn’t open. I already locked it.

“Please,” Nancy pleaded with a depth of desperation I had never heard come out of a human being.

I heard heavy footsteps come up towards the back of my car from behind.

“Pleeeeeease,” Nancy whined out.

I flicked the unlock button.

“Go to the back door,” I said.

Nancy jumped over to the backseat door behind me and slipped in the car. I hit the doors lock as soon as she opened the door.

“Go. Go. Go,” Nancy yelled as soon as she was in the backseat.

I floored it. My Ford Focus jetted off. The force snapped my neck back.

I didn’t let up off the gas until we were well away from the scene.

“What was that?” I screamed.

“What did you do?”

“I found Luke’s old yearbook, saw that he had written slut and all this horrible stuff on Kirsten’s yearbook picture and then found her phone number written in the back of the thing. I called the number, an old lady called me back and said I needed to bring the yearbook to her. I did.”

“I can’t believe you made it out of that place alive,” Nancy said with a laugh.

A pair of headlights entered my rear-view mirror.

“I think they’re following us,” I said, frantic. “Is that her?”

Nancy looked back, then back at me.

“Just keep driving.”

“Why is she...

I hadn’t been paying attention to the road, distracted by Nancy and the headlights. I stopped talking because the curve of a road was just feet in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. We careened into a ditch and smashed into the hard ground.

The world went into slow motion for a few moments. I saw my cell phone fly by my face. I heard the sound of glass breaking. I felt something hard smack against the back of my head. Then the lights went out.

The coppery taste of blood stung my tongue when I woke up. I gagged and coughed before I opened my eyes and threw my body forward to hit the ground, but couldn’t. I was suspended by something which tethered me from behind.

I opened my eyes and saw nothing but a blank, white wall in front of me. I had never been so terrified in my life to see just a blank image. I screamed out without even knowing exactly what I was screaming about yet. My body had a thick, dull ache, my core tingled with sharp pain when I screamed.

“HELP!” I screamed. “Please, please, please, please,” I punctuated my bellar with pathetic pleads.

“At least you’re up,” a voice whispered from behind me.

I jumped from the sound of a voice, but calmed, once it registered in my brain as belonging to Luke.

I tried to wiggle in my seat and turn around, but couldn’t. The lashes of rope tied tight around my wrists and feet wouldn’t let me. I was stuck staring at the blank wall.

“Don’t fight. Save your energy. There is no use trying that yet, and you’re probably really hurt,” Luke said.

I stopped and took in a few huge breaths.

“What is this?” I asked with sobs building in my jaw.

“She locked us somewhere in her house, I think. She had me blindfolded when I got brought in here. Someone must be helping her, because someone carried me in here and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have that kind of strength,” Luke explained.

“What is the deal?”

“This woman has always thought I was responsible for the disappearance of her daughter, and she is right, but not for the right reasons. I helped her daughter disappear her freshman year at TCU, but only so she could get away from her, and her sadistic husband. We were semi-dating and she told me all about the awful abuse she suffered and she worried because it was getting worse as she got older, more physically mature. The truth was the cops knew they could never prove anything against her parents and they believed me and my parents when we told them about why and how she ran away, so they didn’t care.”

“What does she want with me?” I screamed back.

“My parents were able to keep it so she never knew who I was, but now thanks to my wonderful ex-girlfriend, I’m tied up in this psycho’s basement while she probably prepares a Hansel and Gretel marinade for us. Congratulations.”

Guilt burned in my stomach. Or maybe it was just the overall pain from the wreck?

“But why did you write slut, and all those horrible thing on Kirsten’s photo?”

“Oh Jesus Christ. That was Daniel. Daniel tried to date her in high school, but she wasn’t having it and he vandalized the shit out of my yearbook one drunken night. He wrote horrible things on like a quarter of the school’s photos. You know him. He’s a ten times even bigger caustic dick than me.”

I believed Luke. I had met his friend Daniel around 10 times and he had greeted me with a passive aggressive semi-insult about my hair or outfit pretty much every time. He was one of those guys that thought every day was one of those Comedy Central roasts.

“Well, what do we do now?”

My question was answered by a creaky door opening from behind us and what sounded like above us.

“Too late,” I heard Luke mutter under his breath.

The lights went out. The room went into complete darkness. I shivered. The sound of footsteps descending wooden stairs squeaked out from behind.

“Please…”the word quietly leaked out of my lips.

My soft pleading was answered by the sounds of gut-wrenching screams from Luke which started just a handful of feet behind me. The steps went back up the stairs and I heard a door close again.

I let out a deep breath. I listened to Luke’s screams fade away. I held my eyes closed tight even though the room was still pitch black. I think I hoped that if I closed them long and hard enough that it would all go away.

Wishful thinking. I opened my eyes and still stared at the darkness.

I started to cry. I wiped the moisture which trickled out of my nose from the top of my lip and tried to suck it back up into my nasal cavity with a hard snort.

“Don’t cry,” a voice whispered from behind.

I jumped up in my chair. Probably got the whole thing a couple of feet off the ground I was so startled.

The chair hit the solid ground hard on the way down and I felt both of the back legs fracture to where my seat was now wobbly. I leaned back against them to test them. They hadn’t snapped yet, but I felt I could make that happen if I worked at them hard enough now.

“You remind me of her,” Susan whispered from behind me.

The lights came on. I squinted tight against the burn for a few seconds. I slowly opened my eyes and saw that a large mirror had been stuck up against the blank wall in front of me.

I looked back at myself with a dark wig stuck on my sandy blonde hair, a pale shade makeup and purple lip liner caked on my face a late-90s outfit of loose jeans and a jean jacket wrapped around my shoulders. I was pretty sure I recognized the jacket from Kirsten’s yearbook picture. The white makeup looked familiar. I looked like a Kirsten impersonator.

Susan stepped into the field of vision provided by the mirror. She walked up behind me and put her hands softly on my shoulders, looking like a hair stylist who is about to ask “how does it look?” After a haircut.

“I couldn’t help but think it once you walked into my house. I can see why Luke had such an attraction to both of you,” Susan said, locking eyes with me in the mirror.

I looked off Susan’s eyes and leaned back in the chair, felt those back wooden legs flex just a little bit. It would only take one hard lean to snap them and make an attempt at a bolt.

“He may have taken her from me, but he can’t take you,” Susan whispered into my ear.

I put all of my weight against the back legs of the chair. The wooden pegs gave out and threw me hard against the floor. I grabbed hold of Susan’s coarse hair on my way down and dragged her down with me.

I ripped my tied hands off of the back of the chair and pulled Susan’s frail neck into my chest with a strength I had never felt come out of me. I squeezed Susan’s neck as hard as I could until I could feel the bones in her neck flex just like the pegs of the chair had below me.

“You’re going to let me go right now,” I whispered into Susan’s ear. “You deserved whatever happened to you. Luke told me what you were doing to Kirsten. You’re not a victim.”

“That’s not true,” Susan gasped out.

“Cut these ropes off of me,” I screamed into Susan’s ear.

“You gotta let me move my arms,” Susan yelped out from the vice grip of my squeeze.

I let Susan’s arms get clear just enough to move, but to where she could only make a small range of motions. I felt her pull something hard from her pocket. I looked down and saw a thick pair of scissors.

“Cut me loose,” I screamed into her ear.

“You think I’m bad...you don’t even know about him,” Susan muttered under her breath.

“What”? I fired back.

Susan didn’t answer. She just silently sniped the rope that tied my wrists together.

I recoiled from Susan and stood in front of her. I snatched the scissors away from her and went to work on the rope around my ankles.

“What are you talking about?” I asked as I ripped away the rope around my ankles.

“You’ll find out,” Susan muttered.

I pushed Susan away from me. I didn’t have time for whatever she was trying to do.

I saw a flight of wooden stairs at the other end of the room. I ran at them as fast as I could, leaving Susan crumpled on the cement floor behind me.

I pushed the door at the top of the stairs open and burst into what looked like a barn. The thick smell of hay and musty animal feces overwhelmed me once I stepped out of the basement I had been held in.

I didn’t have time to analyze where I was anymore. I just ran straight forward until I found another door and opened it up.

The hot sting of a summer day said hi when I opened the door. I looked around and saw a rural backyard lined with dense forests of trees which formed a U around a pale yellow farmhouse. It was a beautiful, quaint setting for the most-horrifying event of my life.

Little did I know at the moment, that dash through the backyard would only be the beginning of the horrors I was going to experience. I was only a few strides into my run across the grass when I heard a frantic clicking sound ring into my ear and felt myself get flung high up into the air.

I hung in the air for a few seconds feeling weightless. I looked down and saw a crude crater in the ground where I just was. An ugly scar on the otherwise beautiful grass. I tried to form an idea around what had happened, but couldn’t before I fell hard back to the earth.

I felt footsteps approach me from the direction of the house as my ears rang. I looked up at the sky until my view was overtaken by the face of an elderly man who I vaguely recognized for a few seconds before I went out.

It was Susan’s husband, Kirsten’s dad, Dave, his face horribly weathered since that photo which rested in Susan’s living room that I saw when I made that fateful visit. He smiled at me before everything went dark.

My entire body seared with hot pain when I woke up. I felt like a piece of meat in a frying pan.. The pain was so intense I could barely breath.

I knew the feeling of a hospital bed from when I had my appendix taken out as a kid. I was all too familiar with that thudding pain which develops in your lower back when you lay down in a stiff bed for too long.

“Ugh,” I groaned.

I looked around the lonely hospital room thinking about how much whatever happened was going to cost me. Well, cost may be the least of my concerns. Nancy walked into the room before I could even buzz a nurse for some pain medication. She sat down in a chair at the foot of my bed and looked at me with a stone face.

Nancy filled in the missing pieces from the incident. She had been left at the scene of our wreck, but I had been taken away by Susan. I was taken to a farmhouse Susan and her husband owned outside of the city where I was held with Luke. The story Susan told me about her husband being dead was fabricated. He was alive and well and was a doomsday prepper out in the sticks with a yard filled with homemade landmines, one of which I was unlucky enough to step on.

Stepping on the mine was actually a stroke of luck though. The neighbors were always on red alert for one of Dave’s land mines going off so they called the cops the second they heard one explode and ran over seconds after to find me knocked out in the yard, scaring Dave back into the house. It actually probably saved my life.

Luke wasn’t so lucky. He was still missing. Luke’s mom was pushing to get Susan and her husband arrested for taking Luke, or killing Luke, she wasn’t really sure, and kidnapping me for a period of time. She needed me to talk to the police to tell them what happened.

I agreed, but I just needed to heal up in the hospital for a few days. Luke’s mom was pleased. She said officers would be by soon to take my story right before she left.

It has been a day now and officers have not yet been by. However, something came by this morning that has given me alarm. It is probably just a coincidence, but a heaping piece of seemingly-homemade peach pie was on the food stand next to my bed this morning. It smelled delicious, but I didn’t care.

I threw the thing in the trash next to my bed and pushed the button for the nurse so I could ask her to remove the basket as soon as possible.

Originally published by Thought Catalog on www.ThoughtCatalog.com.

1 note · View note