87*A/N: I'm done now... after many past-midnight scribbles which hopefully I stuck together in the right order! Long and waffly A/N at the end, like normal. I hereby dedicate all the smoochies I never wrote to Yodes. =p And I dedicate the rest to someone who should really learn what it means to be Northern. ;)
*
The streets were wet
And the gate was locked
So I jumped it and let you in
And you stood at your door
With your hands on my waist
And you kissed me like you meant it
And I knew that you meant it
/ Dashboard Confessional / Hands Down
* * *
"Would you be too offended if I said I really wasn't looking forward to the drive back?" Mally was watching as Daz dumped his stuff in the trunk of the sorry-looking Bug, not bothering to hide his trepidation as the car sagged feebly.
"Tell me about it." Daz raised his eyebrows at Mall. "Can we please consider driving back here in something else?" he added, turning to me.
"Like what? Thin air?" I challenged him. Daz didn't have a better option, and we both knew it. "Go on," I added in mock irritation when he reached up pointedly and started picking flakes of yellow paint off the roof of the car. "Stop vandalising Billy and go and say goodbye to your girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend," Daz claimed unconvincingly as he trotted off cheerfully towards Alex, who had been hanging around in the background pretending to be extremely interested in everyone else's leaving rituals.
"Course not," Mally agreed sarcastically, and purposely for Daz's benefit, who tried not to look too embarrassed. He paused. "And why is your car named Billy?" he asked after a moment in which he seemed to be debating whether it would be best left unanswered.
"My brother named it after his wiggly bits," I told him matter of factly, then wandered off quickly before he could get back to me on that one. Unfortunately, I wasn't making it up. But if Lee could overshare that information, then I wasn't about to keep it a secret for him.
Mally opened his mouth, shut it again, and then nodded. "Oh." He shrugged. "Okay." He seemed to be pondering this new piece of information with something between amusement and horror as I dumped the rest of the stuff in the back of the car, and we both pretended not to be at all interested in Daz and Alex's version of saying goodbye. Which was why it was totally accidental that I even noticed at all when Alex waved me over as Daz wandered back over, studiously avoiding my eyes, mostly because he was grinning like a complete fool.
So was Alex, for that matter. Rich would have a complete breakdown at this rate.
She was also evidently still observing Daz's progress back to the car when I went over, only to catch herself and turn the (figurative) drool off when she realised her audience had changed. "Oh, hey." She managed not to look too disappointed, which was nice. "Belated thank you to you," she beamed happily, and gave me a hug.
So I was being held responsible for the extra happy vibes now. "Um, no problem," I managed to squeak out. Alex was, in general, a happy kinda person, but this was edging off the scale completely. She was hopping around like someone possessed. When she let me go, she grinned and said, "can we call it quits now?"
"Fine by me." I smiled.
Alex nodded distractedly, like she had way more important things to think about. Mind-reading was definitely not at the top of my agenda at that moment, either. "You look tired," she observed finally, snapping back into the conversation and apparently saying the first thing that came into her head.
"Yeah? That's what you get for living next door to a saxophone playing sex addict," I told her, wondering if she was even listening to me at all.
She smirked and raised an eyebrow, proving she was picking up on at least some of it. "Not at the same time?"
I shrugged. "Not something you stick around for."
"No." She nodded in vague agreement and went back to staring straight over my head.
"You know what this means, don't you?"
"What's that?" Alex frowned in considered thought.
"We're gonna be just like Abba," I revealed dryly.
Alex laughed. "Yeah, that reminds me. When you deliver our band back here in a few weeks"- cue momentarily crestfallen expression as she registered the length of time- "we gotta get some serious practising done, okay?"
I grinned. "Missing us already?"
Alex poked her tongue out at me and smiled. "Do I even have to answer that?"
* * *
I remembered this journey from the first time around. Except it had been way different then. Not because of the state of the car- which was still precariously held together with blue twine and generous amounts of duct tape- or because of the fuzzy Mid Western radio stations, or even the road, despite Daz's hideously improvisational map reading which could still quite easily see us spending the winter break in the middle of Idaho. But because Daz was different and I was different and now it felt like we'd finally got over that.
The deal that had been struck ran along the following lines. When Mally drove, I got to ride shotgun. When I drove, Daz sat up front And when Daz drove, he and Mally were left to their own devices.
Taking advantage of the fact I could sleep in the back had therefore fizzled out as an option right about the time Mally located the cassette tapes in the glove compartment of my beloved wreck of a car. I was seriously considering Lee's motives for letting me have honorary ownership of the old junk heap in the first place.
I had opened my eyes, and more reluctantly my ears, to the sight and sound of Daz and Mally singing along in dubious harmony to a scratchy version of "California Dreamin'". I would have been sorely tempted to laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of the whole mismatched scene, but that would have most likely stopped them in their tracks. Daz had copped for singing the parts which ran an octave higher, which was worth being quiet for alone. But then again, the reason that Mally was a drummer was suddenly becoming increasingly obvious, and unfortunately it had nothing to do with a childhood desire to follow in Ringo Starr's influential footsteps.
"Do you do requests?" I asked them finally, when they'd finished. Daz suddenly pretended to study the road ahead very intently, which was ridiculous, because the only other vehicles of note besides us were tractors and the ghosts of cars who had given up halfway, apparently of the blinding realisation that there really wasn't much point at all in bothering to go to Minnesota. Unless of course you were leaving Nebraska.
Mally turned around and grinned. "Like what?"
I shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe you could do Sonny and Cher."
Daz glared at me in the rearview mirror. "Don't even think about it," he muttered. "Anyway," he added brightly, "I think it's your turn to drive."
I pulled a face at him. "It can't be," I protested feebly.
He smirked. "Nice try," he observed, scanning the road ahead for a place to pull up. "Come on, I'll read the map."
I exchanged looks with Mally. With Daz attempting to navigate, we might never get home again.
* * *
Eleven hours.
Eleven extremely long hours, in which Daz was lucky not to be killed in whatever way was most painful with a road map.
Four of those hours we'd spent without the better part of a back bumper, but Daz was dealing with that in payment for having almost guided us into a completely different state from the one we were meant to end up in. Then he was going to intercept Adam, while Mally and I hopefully intercepted Brittany, before either of them did something totally stupid like try and talk to each other. Or, more to the point, before Brittany tried to talk to Adam.
"So." Mally was doing a good impression of someone who wasn't completely under-whelmed by my shoddy little hometown, even though it had taken us about ten minutes to walk around and point out all the supposed interesting things, which amounted to about one and a half. We were supposed to meet Brit by the lake, seeing as the only other place we ever used to meet each other was the Matchbox, and that was closed right now. "This is Dunsten Hills?" He gestured vaguely to the lake and beyond.
"Yeah." I pulled a face. I wasn't getting a job on the tourist board anytime soon. "Actually, that's Duke Falls, but you got the general idea."
Mally grinned and stretched his legs out in front of him. "Cool."
"Sure it is." I picked up a handful of snow from what was left on the bench and mushed it around in my hand idly. Not quite snowman weather, but it was getting there. My dad had definitely been sizing Mally up as some kind of snow-shovelling helper. When he wasn't asking him if he liked any sports, and looking slightly disappointed when he realised he didn't spend much time at all playing football.
He smiled. "No, really. I'm interested," he claimed.
I shrugged. "Fine. That's where I went to school." I pointed in the direction of Duke Falls, which was only slightly more interesting than where we were now. "And..."
Mally cut me off. "Okay, I lied," he admitted cheerfully, and I grinned and dumped the handful of snow on his head. "Hey!" he protested, shaking his head so the snow that hadn't melted straight away onto his hair sprayed in all directions. "Not fair!"
"Fair," I countered, swiftly grabbing hold of both of his hands before he could distribute the snow between his own gloves.
"But..." he started, before I leant forward and covered his mouth with mine, muffling his words before he shut up and kissed me back slowly, and with the bit of my brain that was still solid I telepathically willed Brittany not to show up. I'd just spent half a day acting like Mally was some kind of surrogate brother after Daz had installed some warped and altogether evil no touching rule, which my mom had also been working on, apparently, because she was practically stalking the two of us.
Still, I was having fun trampling on Daz's rule right about now, and Mally seemed to have the same idea, unfortunately just as Brittany made her crash landing and converged upon us, apparently from nowhere.
She nearly knocked me right over as she came hurtling towards me, stopping herself just in time to throw both arms around me, hence the precarious balancing act we had going for a moment. It was part a friendly, welcome- home hug, and part quiet-desperation hug. I was concentrating firmly on the welcome home part. Brit's apparent renewed need for help could stew for a while. I didn't owe her anything and there was nothing in the way of practical solutions I could offer it the reason she was clinging to me now was what I thought it was.
"Jez!" she squeaked happily. "You're here! Great timing!"
Yeah, terrific. "I guess so," I answered, still unable to move very far.
"Adam's here," Brittany informed me quietly through my hair.
"And Toby isn't?" Starting to feel slightly ridiculous, I pulled away and Brit shook her head firmly, her hands still gripping my arms like she was afraid to let go. "He's still in Duluth," she told me.
"And are you guys... you know. Still together?"
Brit shrugged, her expression etched with uncertainty. "Kind of. It's just... well, a bit weird." She sighed. "Adam must really hate me," she mumbled despondently.
Now probably wasn't the best time to point out that it had been her entirely conscious decision to leave him for Toby. Luckily, I didn't have to say anything, because she finally loosened her grip on me and turned her attention to Mally. "I've heard all about you," she said pointedly, and when I pulled a face at her, she grinned. "I'm Brittany," she added, somewhat redundantly.
Mally smiled awkwardly and stook her hand out, his rather shy-sounding "hi" demolished at once by the power of Brit's unexpected hug. I grinned at him over her shoulder and he raised his eyebrows in bemused amazement.
"It's so weird," Brit jabbered on when she let him go. "I mean, you guys are here and everything, and Jess isn't, and..." She carried on, and I tried not to look too much like I'd tuned out. I couldn't help it if my mind wandered sometimes. And I already knew what she was telling me, right? So if I spent some time wondering if I could bribe my sister to sleep in my brother's room, then it didn't matter too much, surely...
"Jez, are you listening to me?" Brit chastised lightly.
"Um, sure. Yeah." I nodded and worked on not looking too guilty. Mally looked at me quizzically, but about five seconds later his expression changed and he didn't seem to be listening to Brit either. Maybe Jess had had the right idea after all, I thought, not coming home. But it sure seemed like the easy way out, when you thought about it.
"Come on," Brit was saying, when I started listening again. "Daz said he was gonna meet us down at the Matchbox when it opened, right? He'll be there by now. You guys have got to tell me everything," she added, somewhat ominously, or maybe that was just my imagination.
As she led the way back the way she'd appeared and onto the main street, and Mally and I hung back and worked some more on killing Daz's rule stone dead while Brit pretended to ignore us, I thought idly about how it felt being back there. It was okay leaving home, I figured. Until you made the mistake of forgetting to leave home where it belonged. And to get rid of all the crap that had followed me out of Minnesota I'd had to take all of it back there myself.
Only this time I was going to make damn sure I left it there.
* * *
A/N: Okay, confession time, I've never finished a story before now. This is my first "last" chapter, if that makes any sense. =) Anyway! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed this, ever, and to everyone that I kind of... reinvented for the purposes of this. Yeah. Again. =p It's took me that long to write that most of them are in places unknown now, but never mind. Special Eskimo thanks to the people who reviewed me last time:
Yodes: This has took me so fecking long it's unbelievable! Yes, writer's block is evil! And new ideas? Dude, I have to finish all my others first, as you so thoughtfully reminded me... =p
IAmVulcanLady: lol, another Shaggy fan! Scooby Doo rocks! I'm 17 and I have an obsession with it... disturbing, I know. Well, the eyebrow thing was just something I made up, but glad you liked it. Hope you enjoyed this...
Faded Soulfire: cheers for your two reviews... glad you're enjoying it! Well, it's ended now, but there you go. =p
Jacaranda: Hey, nice new name =) Although I get the feeling it did gratify my readers, Zannah was meant to get bashed originally, although I didn't quite know how to write it in, I admit! Anyway, thanks for all your reviews.
Someone Out There Cares: Hehe, so you like the Shaggy dude? I want my own Shaggy dude! Lol. Thanks for your review! Hope you liked this.
The title of this chapter is from the Matchbox 20 song "Real World", and the one before was from the Zwan song "Honestly". And to sign off: GO READ "STUPID WHITE MEN". *grins* Sorry. I've been recommending it to anyone who'll listen. =p Toodles.