Cheap Motels and Cold Hard Cash
disclaimer: me not own BtVS.. aww...
athor's notes: this is originally a parody of my high school life but it fits my fuffy preferences so i turned it to a
fuffy fic.. enjoy...
Cheap Motels and Cold Hard Cash
By bohemianathan
I want to keep you forever. You are nobody's you tell me. I love you, you hate me.
I was running aimlessly when I met you. I was literally running away from home and I expected myself to do so for a very long time. But I had to crash into you as fate had put it. You ran away with me. You taught me things I swear I could never have learned in the short life I have been living just then.
We were then so far away I couldn't tell where we were anymore. You snuggled closer to me as the cold night's air swept us a little further away. We stopped to rest, at least for that moment. I felt that it's about to rain and I told you. "Then I guess we need to find cover," you said. We started to walk fast as we felt small droplets of rain tickle our skin. We found a cheap motel across the road, two blocks away. We started to run as we feel the rain getting heavy. We stopped in front of the building. It was old and mucky and inhospitable. It had a small neon sign flickering on and off on one of the glass panes at the left that says "we have vacancies". Below it, an off neon sign says "no vacancies". I checked my money and so did you. We had two thousand and one altogether. We went inside.
The inside was no different from the outside. The lobby looked too old for our time. There were portraits of old people we didn't care much of and there was this "oldies" feeling I had when I first walked inside. Like I was transported back to the time of my great grannies. At the "great hall" as I call it, there were pictures of the guards and maids and butlers and cooks that hung up on the wall. So boring. So old. And I thought it was perfect because it makes me sleepy. Because that's what I wanted, what we both wanted-a place to sleep in.
And as if the whole place wasn't boring enough, the landlady was weird in a freaky, but still as boring as everything in there, kind of way. She had a scar barely visible-unless you stare and study her face for a while-on her forehead. She was fat but I don't think she really cares about it. She had black dyed layered hair that ran up to just below her shoulders. She looked like a dyke but I couldn't really tell because she wears a lot of fancy jewelry (she always does). We asked for a room for two and how much it would cost. "A hundred and seventy per day," the fat dyke said. When we checked in, I saw a small orange box on the floor, hidden among the stacks of books. I wondered what was inside and why it was on the floor. It was so tiny and so neat, I thought it was a special gift, set aside as trash. We gave the fat dyke five-hundred and she didn't even stop to compute (must be very good in math).
After the small "negotiation", the landlady ringed a bell twice and out came the butler. Well, it was actually a woman who welcomes guests but I like to call her a butler, just for fun. I like to call her that because she fits for the job. She has these all seeing big eyes; I bet not a nitwit punk could ever get past her without so much a fine. She wears this harlequin like make-up that goes along with her very curly hair. She wears stilettos so noisily it annoys me. It's like she wants everyone to know she's coming and everyone should behave. When we first met her she was all smiley and approachable but when we got too noisy one day, she started throwing fits at us.
We didn't learn of the other occupants until a few more days because we were so busy with ourselves, we just wanted to enjoy time on our own, you and me. We stayed there for the night and only for the night. We were always out on days. We both figured that if we wanted the place to stay in at night, we had to work. I found work at a cheap pub, playing requests, singing and waitressing. You found yours at a local paper, writing anonymous essays.
It was when we had our first paycheck that we got to know the other tenants of the motel. Since it was a Friday, we stayed up all night treating everybody with pizza and ice cream and coke. It was then that we really got to explore the whole place. We found out about the boys' quarter, which was kind of funny because we only had enough boys to fill one of our ladies' rooms—and there was not even a girls' quarter. We met other friends, more friends and we met those other guards and maids and butlers and cooks too. Who would've known a mucky place like that actually have those kind of people-only they're not really guards and maids and butlers and cooks-those are only decent names for them.
The motel has four floors each guarded by some peculiar chief or something. What was more disturbing was that all of them are women. The only man running the motel with them was the guy who always watches cartoons on the only decent computer there (at least that's what I know). On the first floor, the "supervisor" was the fat dyke, on the second was the big eyed butler and on the third was a small plump woman who's half as nosy as the butler and half as stern as the fat dyke. The fourth floor was a penthouse. It's where the managers of the motel stay. It's also where the big boss stays. Again, it's a woman. I call her big boss because she's the top owner and…she's a nun, would you believe it, a nun! Of all people to own a motel, a nun! She has this provincial accent-not that I care too much, but it's worth a laugh sometimes. She's weird-I think all of them are-because she's the owner, but she doesn't even know the rules of the building. Like that one time I was sneaking new mattresses inside my room (we're not allowed to bring in foreign stuffs) and she saw me. She just smiled and walked past me. Being an idiot, instead of just letting it go I asked her why she didn't even get mad at me for bringing in new things. Stunned that she didn't have a clue, she just stared at me a little too long. "Well aren't you honest…I forgive you…but I think it's just right that you bring in new things…try not to brake any rules again…" And she was talking to herself the whole run across the hall.
It wasn't long enough when we got comfortable staying in that motel for our sleeping needs. When we were there, we would stay up for hours fending off of ourselves, talking, laughing, sharing, eating, everything. We were our own world, we learned from and with each other. We share our load with each other- our work load, our pain's load, ourselves and the world.
Stay with me. Let me go you said. I need you, you brake me.
It has been so long since the first time I met you, but I will never forget it. I was panting from too much running, and you only went out to take a drag. You blew smoke near me; it made me harder to breathe. You said "I'm sorry." I said it was okay. We looked at each other and we knew. What happened next came in so quickly I vaguely remember. But you came with me; you ran away with me.
At the muck motel, we stayed for too long it's as if it was our home. We found comfort with each other in that motel. Despite the guards and the maids and the butlers and the cooks and all the nosy people, we got past each night without so much a nightmare. But nightmares are dreams too you told me, these are the imaginative depiction of our fear. And to fear them more, you said, is to let them in deeper inside me. You said I shouldn't let it get through me; that I should be strong and strong and strong. "After all, we have each other."
One day, when I was on my way to work, it struck me. I felt this electrical feeling throughout my body; a tingling sensation that I wanted and hated at the same time. I love you. I care for you. You are the most important person in my life. I have loved and cared for you ever since I don't know when but I just shunned the feeling like an annoying fly. I didn't tell you how I feel, but I guess you already knew. You started to avoid me. I reasoned it was part of growing up; wanting to go to other places, meeting other people, learning new things in a new way in a new situation.
I had problems with my work one time. I know, everybody has them but I felt so empty, I just used the excuse just to be with someone, anyone. I met a friend, a sloth. I call her a sloth because she said she was lethargic but I don't think she really is. Then I met another friend, a penguin. This time it's a boy. He rocks left and right too often everybody thinks they're seeing a walking penguin. Another friend came by, a turtle. This time it's a girl. She puts her hair back so hard her head looks too round it makes me think of a turtle. Then another, a slut this time. She's not really a slut; I just call her that because she's friends with many of the boys at the motel. And I felt safe again because I identify with these people. We all have one thing in common: we're all childish. Though we may be childish for different reasons, it is enough for me to relate to them.
One time, when we were still so close to each other, we smuggled liquor in the motel. We never got caught, but never mind that. I remember how you put those two bottles in your cooler, on top of them laid more than enough juice drinks for even both of us. I remember when we snuck inside a storeroom just to drink; one bottle for each of us. The storeroom was smelly, like rotting wood. It was dirty like a dumpster, but never mind that. It was painted in white and was still quite white (I wonder how it is now) then. All around it were old papers, black garbage bags, a small old table, an old wall fan, and lots of dust.
Every hour, there are these maids, including the only guy, who checks every room and sometimes even clean it on the way. One maid in particular annoys me so much. She likes old stuff too much, she always asks us about those old stuff we all know she's the only on who knows the answer. But one time she got late for her hourly check on our room, the big eyed butler had to check on her. Because I'm a trying hard good girl, I saved her from humiliation by covering up for her.
On a particular time when we were staying at the motel, the big eyed butler herself had an hourly scheduled check on our room. She would ask us lots of things, even personal things (like where we keep our socks and underwear). She would wear this questioning disgusted face on, like having a stray sock lying on the floor is a crime already. "Heeeyy, why is your sock lying on the floor? Pick it up, pick it up!...you clean your room…my god…" with matching big eyes.
Every once in a while we had to change rooms with the others but it was okay with me. Those were the same four walls anyway. Sometimes our room is smaller, sometimes three times bigger. I can never forget the one we got nearest the stair case. It was the room where we both got a little too angry. It was also at the time when I lost myself and found me back at a water fountain.
I remember the maid who witnessed that rediscovery. She was peculiar, just like the rest of them. She had this long chin and hard tongue she could barely say my name correctly. It was strikingly odd that when I found myself, I felt nothing. I don't know if I had to pay for that water fountain but I never paid anyway, so never mind. After finding myself again, I felt like I wanted to find you too. You got lost in me at some time and I wanted you back in so I started looking for you.
I remember the laughs we shared together in that motel, inside the room and out on the halls. The songs we shared, the stupid things we did together. It made me think of the old CR on the third floor, at the stair case. It was old, smelly, and filthy—without even a mirror to look ourselves at. It had all kids of writings on all possible space to cover. There are death wishes, curses, threats and phone numbers for those who might be interested. There were two filthy sinks, three or four cubicles and an exhaust window.
It is where I met my first mistake.
I'll keep in touch. I'll be gone you said. I will remember you, you will forget.
I guess the motel got too much money from us. It is now renovated, with a new building to complement. But it's the same old landlady-the fat dyke, same old butler, same old everything, only with new things to cover up its molds.
The fat dyke's been promoted. She's now a butler too. She'd walk in on our rooms anytime she wants and tries hard to see a pin hole of a mistake from us so she could punish us. She's now a butler but she's also still at the lobby. The lobby, by the way, is also still the same.
In a few more days we both shall be leaving this muck of a place. We both found a new motel, a much better, much bigger one, but in different places. Mine is across the city, two hours away from my house and about forty minutes away from our old motel. I'm still not sure where your new place is but I'll find out. I'll ask you.
It is night again and I need to go back at the motel to sleep. I see you two blocks away, finishing your drag. I come near you and you smoke so near me, I coughed. You said "I'm sorry", I say "Okay." Déjà vu. We walked to the motel, feeling the cold air slap our faces. I wanted to snuggle closer to you the way you did all those years ago. I did. This time, when we see the motel it isn't raining. We stop for a moment to look at the sky. It is full of stars and the moon is full tonight. What a wonderful night.
We stop walking and look at the motel once more. This time with the same curious eyes we had the first time we saw it—not with the weary bored eyes that didn't even bother to look at the signs like welcome and thank you. I see the neon signs that say "we have vacancies" and "no vacancies" again, only the former isn't flickering anymore-it is fixed. We have to pay rent tonight I say. "It's not like I don't have money" you said. I check my money and so do you. We have two thousand and eight altogether.
I remember every time we spent in this motel together. The time we spent at the motel wasn't exactly too long, but it wasn't so short either. There are lots of memories, lots of learning and lots of raging hormones. But we made it through that stage already, so never mind that. We go inside.
"You're not going in your rooms until you pay now" said the fat dyke. "We'll pay up until the last day," you said, "until on Friday." I give the fatty exactly six hundred and eighty—four days 'til we leave. This time she counts the money. I guess she's making sure we are paying fair. "It's exactly six hundred and eighty," I say. The fatty looks at me with cold piercing eyes, I step one foot backward. "I know you paid me exact money," she said, "but how can I be sure you're giving me real money?" Huh, I say to myself. I guess we can never be too sure of anything then…