For He Swallows Rocks
by in the jungle dances
a/n: for lisa (it's uber belated, sorry). i don't know what i would do without you, birthday girl. you're always there for me to talk to, and you fucking win at life. fucking win. plus you're a great writer but you always deny it. poo.
happy [belated] birthday to you, happy [belated] birthday to you, happy [belated] birthday dear lisamoo, happy [belated] birthday to you. prompts: browning maple leaves, hobos on park benches, and soft cookies. yay for jolicia!
disclaimed, and happy holidays!
Josh feels febrile on a Saturday; sort of ailing.
::
He finds this somewhat anomalous— his only practices consist of being distastefully flippant around his parents, playing video games, and demolishing sacks of insalubrious potato chips.
He spends the morning tamped against ceramic and he can't stop gagging. There's a draw in his throat that feels charred and his fingers clench the bowl until they snap with stinging solidity.
Josh can move in an hour, but with flaking formality and a shattered facade. He sets himself at the base of the television, eats cheese puffs, and eradicates zombie after zombie until the game controller is supple potage in his hands.
He feels a bit like paper in a gale.
::
It's almost as if his mother is making up for his lack of motion and resolve to live by being twice as disagreeably vivacious.
Josh tells her to leave him alone like four times and when ultimately she complies, it's because the door bell is chiming.
The cheese puffs from earlier are rapidly climbing up this throat, so he hardly disquiets himself with the inquisitiveness on who it could be and lunges for the sink.
::
Josh has seen her around school before; she's like the seasons, flitting her way around in ethereal comportments and secreting herself behind polished raven hair and severe brash eyebrows.
She's very slight, and incongruously bony, with mammoth fingernails and coffee-touched hide.
"Alicia Rivera," she introduces assertively, her tongue lipped with Latin tinges. "We go to school together." She's so chock-full of buoyancy that she appears frigid. "We only just moved across the street— I heard you were sick; I made you a cemita poblana and a tub of cazuelas."
Josh, enormously mystified, gauchely mutters, "That was nice of you."
Alicia places herself tenderly beside him, like she's chinaware and the room is a cavern wizened with craggy knives. She passes Josh the cemita and crosses her arms good-naturedly.
"I'm sick; maybe you should leave," Josh mumbles. Close beside him, she's redolent of fiery chocolate; he can taste it in his mouth.
"I have nothing better to do today," Alicia spits acrimoniously. "Eat."
Feeling constrained, he does, and it's strikingly delicious.
::
She bakes for him on Sunday.
Josh had roughly alleged that she would turn up again, though the rationales for her actions were anonymities.
He feels healthier, not entirely improved, but well enough to eat Alicia's soft bronzed cookies and play his video games.
Alicia refuses to leave again— it's almost deplorable, her balled outline and the way her long fingers bind her knees that sustain her sharp chin. She simply sits indecisively and watches the zombies detonate on his little screen.
Josh, he plays with starry-eyed ambition and serene dexterity; he's a pretentious slice of work but Alicia likes it.
::
His temperature rockets skywards when his mother fixes the thermometer under his tongue Monday morning. She swears to God that if he isn't better by tomorrow, she's taking him to the doctor.
Josh lies in his bed and tosses his football. For hours, it feels like he does this, and he's so ultimately jaded that he falls asleep.
In his dream, a massive stack of sandwiches transmute into zombies. Alicia pulls out a sub-machine gun and shoots them to peppery debris.
She splashes an idiosyncratic grin across her emaciated bones, her eyes subterranean brown—like coffee shells, and maple leaves browning with epochs— and he kisses her.
Oh my god, Josh tremors after blinking slumber from his eyes. Propped on his elbows and tongue desolately patchy with thirst, he settles that he'd never before undergone such incongruity in a dream; not ever.
::
She swans into the room after school has ended with chicken enchiladas.
"Hey," she says slowly, tenderly setting the Tupperware down in his lap. "How are you feeling?"
Josh doesn't react; he's acting very diligent, avoiding her eyes and her lengthy curtain of hair and her lips.
He can almost hear her brooding façade peak. "You know," she cries, cracking the quiet, "if you don't want me here, you could say so. You don't need to be rude," Alicia drags, filching away the enchiladas furiously.
Josh tells her no, that of course he wants her here, don't be stupid. It's principally the truth. He begins masticating the dish and she wonders aloud if he's going to play video games today.
"You can play, if you want," Josh encourages submissively. He hands her the remote and catches her beaming.
Alicia's very good at killing the zombies.
::
It's Tuesday and he's finally well again.
Josh even goes to school for the first time in what feels like an era and it's a terrific day, because his mother has packed cheese puffs and the soccer coach lets him play striker during practice.
When he finally arrives back at his house, fatigued but complacent, Josh hauls his bag to his room and plugs his gaming system into the outlet. He's killed twelve of the shaggy zombies and six of the portly when Josh discerns her dotted socks through his peripheral vision.
Alicia is biting her lip and sustaining an urn of hot cider in her arms. "Hi," she says intrepidly.
Josh draws his sleeve across his nose and gives a modest sniff. "You don't have to be here; I'm not sick anymore."
"Yeah, I know."
They clink their glasses and for a moment, all is gentle serenity.
::
After an additional hour of wooly airborne entrails, Alicia demands with something like intolerance pulped in her tone, "Aren't you getting tired of this?"
Josh contorts his expression to one of sheepish degradation. "It's the only game I have," he divulges uncomfortably.
"No, I mean," Alicia starts, beckoning with weathered fingers, "Aren't you tired of this…custom? The sadistic video games and unwholesome rations?"
Josh chokes on his cider. "What the hell else is there?"
Alicia flattens herself in the carpet, smelling Polo Black and feet. "Don't be small-minded, Joshua. We could go for a walk, maybe?" She advocates confidently, the angles of her jaw obtruding as she smiles.
"Where would we even go?"
"I dunno; around." Alicia jumps to her feet and proffers her hand. Uncomfortably, Josh allows her to pull him up. "Narnia, maybe?"
::
They don't actually go to Narnia— just the park.
Alicia prattles about school and Christmas, but Josh is too busy gaping at the heartrending hobo on the bench.
His face is insipid with the despair of forlorn woe, lucid blue veins scrawled below his sunken crimson eyes, with an ashen tongue dampening the pallid fractures on his dismal scowl.
"Hey, Alicia," Josh whispers haltingly, bending his wintry fingers across her shoulder. "Do you have any of the cider left?"
It's with grand appeal that Alicia watches Josh hand the man the remnants in the jug. "That was really nice of you," she remarks when he returns to her side.
He grins boastfully and informs her that 'nice' is his middle name.
::
They have fun at the park. He pushes her on the swings and then they race— Josh completely lets her win.
::
Thursday, they eat camote and vie against one another in the zombie-butchering game. She pitches her burnished black hair around when she wins, smiling so extensively that Josh can see her gums. Alicia isn't like the seasons anymore; she's a luminous afternoon saturated in glee.
::
Josh feels blissful on a Saturday; it's sort of wonderful.
long author's note (that i would appreciate you reading): i know that it was stupidly rushed, yes. i had this whole crap idea about them falling in love and having this really cute kissing scene i was going to write while listening to one direction's'what makes you beautiful' but then… yeah, it was stupid and so i just left it as a jolicia friendship. so, i'm sorry…
and don't mind alicia's total o.o.c.-catastrophe.
fun fact: the main idea of this story came from me actually having a couple of awful consecutive colds myself (tormenting me both physically and mentally). waarggh. unfortunately, i was not visited by a cute someone of the opposite gender who bore food; that was purely my imagination. anyway, reviews mean the world!
also, to other people- my friends and i (wee, shout-out to lisa and livvy) are holding the 2011 clique awards! –insert john green happy dance here-
we'd really appreciate it if you would nominate, or at least vote, when the time comes; we feel it's really important to have everyone's input for it to be fun and fair and such. there's a link on my profile! nominations close january first, two thousand and twelve, so contribute your opinions soon?
anyway, happy (belated, agh) birthday lisa!(:
-han