Author's Note: I thought this would be a fun summer fic to fill some time before I continue the Conspirator's Complex...please let me know if you like it. Reviews would brighten my pain-riddled heart.
Does He Worry You Smoke Too Many Cigarettes?
x.
Michael leaned against the back of the Swashbuckler's Fudge Hut and smashed his cigarette under his boot. It was Renaissance Faire season, aka the only acceptable time to walk with a cane in public without a visible disability, the very reason he'd left his at home. He and his friend's yearly pilgrimage to the Renaissance Faire began long before any of them had enough money to pay for the weekly passes. They used to be small enough to crawl under the wire fence at the far end of the park between the archery stand and the porta potties; a dangerous, yet worthwhile act of juvenile delinquency.
Firkle was waving a bag in front of Michael's face. "Let the savory smell of Magic cards bring you back to reality," he said with a smirk. "Seriously, it's buy two packs, get one 50% off over at the Trading Company, plus I could use my discount for you." The piercings scattered over Firkle's face gleaned in the fading sunlight and Michael had to work to focus on the younger teen's eyes. That was probably the point.
"I need my money for gas and food," he said, realizing that he was beginning to sound like some teenage Republican. Firkle shoved the bag of cards into his coat pocket with a shrug. Michael wanted to tell him that he was sorry for being such an ass, but it felt like the moment had passed by the time he'd decided to say it.
They both looked back at the line formed in front of the ticket booth. Michael had put up a "back in 10" sign. He couldn't decide what it was about that basic information that khaki-clad soccer moms with sticky-faced kids failed to comprehend. His job was to sell tickets to the maze, which mostly meant he spent his days waiting for the inevitable screams of some lost kid. He wanted to tell them to get used to the feeling.
"My shift was supposed to be over fifteen minutes ago, I'm waiting for what's-his-head to get here." But as he said it, he caught a glimpse of his co-worker coming down the path. He was a thirty-something overgrown nerd who mouth-breathed and spoke of the on-goings of the park like the actress that played the Queen was true royalty. "Let's go," Michael said, grabbing Firkle by the arm and walking the long way around.
The pair made their way to the tea and coffee bar at the other end of the park where Pete worked. The only one who didn't work a shift at the park was Henrietta, who quit her job as the resident witch at the Wicked Pickle last summer when some kid chucked a water bottle at her to see if she'd melt. Truly, hell is other people. But still, there was something about the rustic Fairgrounds that kept him coming back every summer. Maybe the fact that someone built a place that valued a time when literature and plays were the main forms of entertainment. There was even an Edgar Allen Poe reenactor that was good friends with the Shakespeare reenactor and would speak in character until they'd both had too many rounds of the Foolish Fryer's ale. Plus the drama of puffy shirts and the constant smell of burning patchouli incense only added to his regard for the Faire. It reminded him of the smell of Henrietta's bedroom all those nights of his childhood he'd whittled away there reading Lovecraft and scribbling in his notebook, thinking he was some child literary genius.
The tea and coffee bar, or Manic Merlin's, that Pete worked at had live music playing, with a large deck stretched out in front of it. Typically it was full of people, but since it was the middle of the week, only a few regulars were seated at the picnic tables chewing on stale scones with commemorative mugs in front of them.
At first it'd seemed like a reprieve to Michael to be assigned to the solitary ticket booth stand as opposed to any place sociable at the park. Still, walking the five minutes down the path out of the games area to the more adult end of the park left him with the impression that he was missing out. A pretty girl was rewriting the daily specials on the chalk board that sat next to the register. "Where's Pete?"
She motioned to the back, obviously too good to speak to either of them, and they walked in the backdoor. The owners of Merlin's insisted that the tight corseted "bar wenches" (or bar bitches as Michael called them) worked up front while Pete had to stay out of sight, washing the dishes in the back. Only today he was sitting on the floor in the back with some of the Vamp kids from around the faire, bent over a lute like it was an electric guitar. His hair obscured most of his face as he plucked uncertainly at the strings. He was in the middle of some crude rendition of Just Like Heaven. Michael knew that Pete didn't even like Just Like Heaven, it was probably just the most recognizable thing he could think of. Crowds like this could be so limiting. He resisted the urge to walk over BloodRayne's fingers as he walked towards his friend. Seemingly recognizing the boot in front of him, paused mid-strum and looked up.
"Oh, it is 6 already?" he said, passing the lute back to the emo douche-bag pirate to his left. "Let me grab Henrietta's present and I'll be ready."
"Aren't you staying for the bonfire dude?" the douche-pirate asked. Every night the faire ended with the employees gathering around a bonfire that was just behind the jousting court. Michael had always suspected it was a way to burn excess trash to keep the utility bills low for the owners. But it had become a time for all the hormones and drama of the workday to play out to an appropriate backdrop.
"Nah, we're headed out." Pete said, swiping his bangs out of his face.
They were supposed to be meeting Henrietta at Benny's. It wasn't a pressing engagement, but somehow Michael felt a growing need to extract his friends from the backroom. He looked down at the Vamp kids in general with a sneer, "and we're late, Henrietta is—"
"I told you that I can pass as twenty-one," a familiar voice cut him off and he turned to watch as the lithe form of Mike Makowski spun into the backroom. He passed Michael without notice and leaned closely towards Pete to hand him one of the cups. "Drink it slowly Peter, I want you to appreciate the clove and orange spice. Mulled wine is meant to be savored." With his free hand Mike pushed a veil of bangs away from his cheek. His hair was long enough to brush against the historically inaccurate studded belt that outlined skin-tight trousers He'd insisted that he'd grown his hair out for his role as the Queen's loverboy Knight. But Michael knew it was a way to detract the crowd's attention away from the Queen's long red curls. He played a Knight at the faire, which basically gave him the status of a pseudo-celebrity, with visitors asking to get their picture taken with him.
Pete rolled his eyes and quickly downed the cup he'd been given. "Not bad Makowski. Maybe the owners will stop being such cheap bastards and not water down the alcohol." In spite of his statement, he made a slight grimace at the bitter taste of the red wine. "I guess quality is too much to ask."
Mike laughed, "I could say the same thing about your British accent." The Vamp kids laughed, Firkle laughed, and Michael turned his head in disgust to see Pete laughing too. Maybe the alcohol wasn't watered down. They were all supposed to talk in a British accent when they were around "guests," something Michael never understood. It's not like they were fooling anyone that they weren't all just white trash in cheap costumes.
"Hey, we should probably go if we're going to go," he interjected, feeling like some sort of sitcom mom coming in to break up the fun. He tried to sound bored at best with everyone, which wasn't much of a stretch.
Pete nodded and stood up, pulling off his apron. The puffy shirt he'd been given to wear opened loosely around his neck and his bare chest was evident as he stood. Michael looked quickly at his friend's feet.
"Remember, your liquid eyeliner isn't your jousting pole Makowski," Pete said, following Michael and Firkle towards the door before pausing. Michael supposed it was some inside joke that wasn't funny. Mike Makowski clearly thought he was his generation's Oscar Wilde.
"Guess where I'd like to joust, per say, you Peter," Mike called as Pete flipped him off. "Bloodrayne did tell you fags that the Musketeers are going to play a show tonight for the staff at the bonfire." Michael wasn't into the Celtic drum circle/bagpipers who liked to bill themselves as a rock band. They constantly made jokes about beer and being Irish, but he was pretty sure they were all from Buffalo New York.
"Sounds cool," Firkle said with a shrug, settling in next to Bloodrayne. Michael would never take Firkle into battle with him. He was too eager to fit in with the outcasts, too unwilling to maintain disgust at the Vamp kids for stealing their look, their attitude, and finally—invading where they worked.
"Alright if Firk's in, I'm in," Pete said, turning hesitantly, "what about you?" He was talking to Michael without really looking at him, something he'd gotten pretty good at this past month.
"I have plans," Michael said in a manner he hoped conveyed how they were abandoning him and Henrietta. Mike smiled into his mulled wine as he took a slow sip like he thought he was goddamn Prospero or something.
"I'll invite Henri!" he heard Firkle call to him as he walked out the back door. He lit his cigarette and resisted the urge to throw the still flaming match at the door.
As he drove to the diner he thought about how he'd liked it better when he'd felt like it was the four of them in a lifeboat from the rest of the world. No one came into the lifeboat and no one got out.
"Hey," Henrietta said as he approached her in the diner. She wasn't quite looking completely up from the book lying open over her messenger bag. He tried to make out of the French title across the top of the page to no avail.
"Flowers of Evil?" he guessed at the title, trying to recall some detail of her life so he wouldn't seem completely selfish with the haul of complaints about Mike Makowski he was about to unload.
"Fleurs," Henrietta mouthed, tipping her cigarette into an empty coffee mug.
He was immediately annoyed that she didn't seem alarmed that he was alone. He ordered a coffee and sulkily watched her underline a passage. If she didn't want to notice that her friends had abandoned her, then he wasn't going to point it out.
The diner was dead without the vamp kids taking up half the booths. It almost made him glad they were at the faire. "No vamp kids here for once," he said motioning at the sea of empty booths.
Henrietta rolled her eyes, "no one calls them that anymore Michael."
"I do," he mumbled. It's like one day everyone woke up and let go of how things used to be. So what if he couldn't forget that Mike Makowski used to wear plastic vampire teeth every day to school until ninth grade…did that make him petty?
"How was work, did you finally dig that ditch in the middle of the maze?" She said finally, closing the book over her pen.
"No, but I've considered releasing plague-invested rats into it. I figure it'll add to the realism if your kids goes home having contracted the Black Death."
"You'd probably be given a raise for the innovation alone."
"Exactly," Michael said, bored of the joke.
"So where are our two favorite peasants anyway?" she asked, looking at the spot where they normally sit, like maybe they'd been there all along.
"At the bonfire," he tried not to say with too much spite. It seems that Firkle hadn't actually called her. Must have gotten caught up in all the festivities. "Apparently the lure of burning rubble and a drunk drum circle was too strong."
Henrietta looked thoughtfully at Michael's hunched shoulders with a tinge of concern. "When are you two going to talk about it?" she asked quietly.
"What?"
Henrietta pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. "Whatever the fuck happened between you before prom. I'm seriously not going to pretend that I'm an idiot so you can keep up your fantasy that you're unfazed by Pete's avoidance of you."
He thought about denying it but Henrietta's lips were pursed too tightly to allow resistance. He played with his earring thoughtfully, leaving her hanging for a second, allowing her to think that he was maybe about to lay his heart out on the table for her alongside the coffee creamers and the crusty salt shaker. Finally, he looked over at her and said, "it was just one of those things."
Henrietta laid her hands flat on the table like she was presenting the case to a judge. "Let's review the facts. You both showed up an hour late in separate cars and Pete was so shit-faced that they wouldn't let him in. When I suggested that we all go somewhere else you decreed that you weren't going to miss your prom, as if it suddenly mattered to you, and left him with me at the door. Do you have any idea how heavy Pete can be when he drags his creepers against storm drains?"
"You seem to know the story," Michael waved his hand dismissively.
"Yeah the end of it."
"That's the only part that matters of any story." He lit a cigarette and threw his boots up onto the booth where his other two friends should be sitting.
"You're so full of shit," Henrietta said but she didn't look annoyed. She leaned back in the booth and examined Michael like she was looking for some loose piece of him to tear him open with.
But what would it hurt to tell her, he wondered, glancing at the worried look across her dark eyes. "Look, he told me he loved me," he whispered across the table. Henrietta made a face and leaned forward.
"What?" she mouthed.
"He told me that he loved me," he repeated, thinking back to that night. Pete had shown up at his door in tight plaid pants, a matching vest, and a crooked black bowtie. Even in the memory Pete seemed larger than the room, taller than him, and hard to look straight at. "And he, um, wanted to know if I felt the same way."
"And what did you say?" Henrietta asked. Good thing the table was in front of her, it looked like she could fall out of her seat if it wasn't holding her in place. He was so glad that his life could serve as a visceral amusement park ride for her.
"That I'd have to think about it."
"What?" Henrietta practically yelled this time. The waitress gave them a dirty look from the front counter and Michael was sure everyone in the diner could see his soul blushing.
He'd assumed it hadn't been the right response when Pete had nearly gagged on the words. He'd stood in Michael's bedroom and said quietly, "You either love me or you don't." Michael had shaken his head, trying to make his friend calm down, he could even remember holding his hands in front of him, palms up in some sort of universal 'let me help' motion. "So you don't," Pete had said shrilly, backing out of the room like he was in a horror movie. Every time Michael had entered his bedroom since then those three words still seemed to vibrate off the walls.
"You do love him though," Henrietta said, looking unsure, like maybe he was feverish or had his body snatched by aliens. "You know you love him…right?"
"I…." But he didn't have a response. How could he?
"Oh Michael," Henrietta said after a minute of waiting to see if he could articulate some reasoning, some rationale as to why he'd fucked up so horribly. "You smoke a pack of cigarettes a day but cringe every time Pete puts one between his lips. You never say anything but I know it bothers you. He means something to you that the rest of us don't."
He knew what she was saying was true. He just couldn't confirm it. Not out loud. It felt like something dead inside him was trying to climb out of his throat. "It's just too much sometimes," he said, pressing his long fingers against his cheek, almost surprised that his skin was warm.
"I know," she said, sounding desperate to be comforting in a way that she'd never had to be towards him. He tugged on his earring until it started to hurt and then let it swing back into place again. What did anyone want him to do? Life had gone on since then and he couldn't do anything to stop it. The best he could do was pretend it hadn't happened, he was good at that. He had been pretending that he wasn't in love with Pete for years. He hadn't been prepared to stop.
He and Henrietta sat in silence for awhile, sipping down coffee until his skin crawled. As she returned to reading her book her dark hair covered her cheeks and Michael stared out the window. The shape of every car's headlights seemed exactly like Pete's car until they got close enough and his heart would slow down again.