A/N—Disclaimer first. I don't own this. Michael Scott owns everything.
Okay…so this is a request piece for a friend. Please bear with me on this piece, because it's the first Josh and Sophie centered piece I've written. I've made pretty liberal use of their POVs, really early on in my FF writing (which is not on FanFiction), but I've never centered anything on them. That changes now.
Summary: Her tears turned the plastic moon into a silver droplet. Out of the corner of her vision, she could see the burning orb of the golden sun
Friendship only! Please read/review!
willshakespeare-immortalbard
Plastic Moon
A plastic mobile swung alluringly over the heads of the sleeping twins. It rocked back and forth, a silent lullaby. Glitter sparkled on the plastic ornaments; a shining sun and moon, spinning about, twirling in the air, warm with candle flames and sharp with the scents of oranges and lemons. Brilliant blue eyes fluttered open, briefly hypnotized by the mobile, and then a small hand reached up, swatting at the silver moon-
"Josh?"
She liked to believe that she was slipping on the grass because it was wet, not because her legs were shaking.
His eyes were brutal when he turned to look at her. Red specks shone there in the brief instant that he bestowed his glare upon her, and she saw hardened years (centuries…millennia…) flashing behind his eyes.
"Josh? We have to stick together, like…like we used to. Remember? We don't have anyone else. I guess now, looking back on what we know, we never did."
Josh snorted, and his hand tightened around Clarent. "We never did even when we thought we did, Sophie. Alright? Because they weren't there, were they? No. They weren't. We spoke to them on the phone, and we e-mailed them. Every once in a while we—"
"What about the trips, though?" She was contradicting herself, she knew. He agreed with her, that they'd never really had their parents, and she was contradicting the statement that she'd started. But the part of her that was still fifteen years old stood up for her parents, and tried to believe that he was saying the wrong things…even though she didn't want to believe that, of all the wrong things her brother had ended up doing, making the wrong choice had turned out to be the one he chose.
His laugh was bitter. "The trips. They left us alone even then. They did, and so did Flamel. He wouldn't let us out of his sight, but he never helped us. He left us all alone. Everyone did. Because did anyone tell us what we needed to know? Did anyone tell us there was another path, another choice? Shakespeare was the only one who came close, and he only told us (in no real words) that the only other choice was wrong."
"And he was right!"
And they had hit the well-spring.
"He was right, Josh! Because look what Dee did! He—"
"He took a boy, and he made him into something. He just demanded payment. That's the same thing Flamel did to us, Sophie! He made us what we are. His payment was that we follow him, even if he was wrong. No. If Dee's wrong, then Flamel's wrong, and all our talk about choice is useless, as, in the end, we both made the wrong choice."
The silence between them was rock hard. For the first time, Sophie was truly angry at her brother. And for the first time, he was truly angry at her…
—cupping the plastic moon in a silver-coated palm. The nursery was cold and quiet, the epitome of an abandoned room. Left unwanted by the twins as they grew older, there had been no parents, she realized, to keep it, to love it. It was the way it had been that last day, when all their toys that they actually wanted were moved out. The crib was dusty, the covers still rumpled from the last time Josh had jumped on the mattress. The springs could still be seen, half-sticking out of the bottom. Tears burned at her eyes, turning the dusty, glittering moon into a silver droplet. Out of the corner of her vision, she could see the burning orb of the golden sun—
…and his golden aura sparked around him, though he was barely whispering.
"I always felt like I had a lot in common with Shakespeare. When he was telling his story, I just…I understood him. And I felt sorry for him, then. I feel sorry for him now, but not for the same reason. Then, I was sorry because he had suffered so much. Now—now I'm sorry for him because he was stupid enough, not to leave Flamel, but to go back."
"He made the wrong choice, Josh! He realized that! And now you've made the wrong choice! I just…I just don't want to believe it. I know that I made the right choice, but I don't want to believe that you made the wrong one. I don't." Tears were pouring down her face, morphing her brother's gold-lined form into a blazing sun.
"Yes, Sophie. Shakespeare made the wrong choice. So did you. Flamel is the wrong choice. You both made the wrong choice, and I—I—I'm disgusted that you did, Soph." She winced, hearing her nickname slip from his lips in pure revulsion. "I always looked to you, because you were older than me, if only by a few minutes. And you made the wrong choice, Soph, when you had a better one before you!"
He rocketed to his feet. The red sparks in his eyes were little fires.
Outside of the dirty window, the sky was as dark and starless as her future.
"Sophie." The nickname was gone. He was back in control of his anger, and he wasn't crazy with hate. Clarent's burning red flame and the sparkling tongues of fire in his blue eyes were the only sign that he still wasn't her brother.
"Sophie. Sticking together doesn't work anymore. It never does, once you reach a certain age. Even before Flamel, I wanted to get away. I wanted to be me, not you and me. That's all I ever was. Even before Flamel, I was stir-crazy. Even before Flamel, I wanted, just once, to get invited to something, all by myself. I wanted, just once, to have a friend who was just mine, not yours. It wasn't even Flamel that caused all of this, Sophie. We were going to fall apart anyway. Flamel was just the catalyst, and we were stupid enough to believe that we were."
He stormed away, and he didn't look back.
And the glitter stained her hand silver even after she tore her hand away.