notes: the quality of this drabble is laughable, sorry. hopefully the kind-of fluff makes up for it. i tried. sort of. this originally started out a angsty massington, but i can't write massington worth shit, so... check the song out on youtube. it's inspired by john green's book, the fault in our star's. john green is an effing /rockstar/ btw. i don't really think if the song/book has anything to do with this story, but the words were pretty. xD please review if you favorite.
/beta'ed by emmy—omfg, that girl is so fetch! love you long time, gurrl.
forever breathing on, eternity in numbered words, in numbered time, side effect of living, is the dying days with you. but i'm by your side. —augustus waters
-;
[spring]
She fucks Chris Plovert one night, in a patch of canary yellow wildflowers—it's horribly awkward. Oh, and yeah. He's a virgin. (Or, at least was.)
It's not because she particularly likes him, or because he looks extraordinarily hot, and she's not even that drunk—but it's just because he was there and so was she, and his lips looked soft (and she thought that maybe he tastes like blueberry ice cream and the dreams that won't come true).
She memorizes it—relishing in it almost: her power, his groan, her majesty.
And that's how it starts.
-;
If she's honest—like really fucking honest—she's sort of in love with him (but she still doesn't like him). He holds her hand, slipping his fingers between the spaces, laughs at her jokes, even the ones only Massie could ever understand, and doesn't whisper vulgar things like ("Hey, nice legs. What time do they open?"), the white piano keys to her black, and he's just—
And everything is just so—
(He thinks it's a horrid tragedy—anarchy thrust upon him in glimmers of brunette and pale skin and sad, sepia brewed eyes. She thinks he's more kind than anything else in her world—given to her by the gods, she worships his lanky frame and socially awkward disposition.)
But all those things don't matter. Because when in god's name is she ever honest?
-;
The air is crisp. A chill crawls up her arm, but she refuses to put on a jacket, because she wants the insanity of nighttime to sink into her bones, and melt into the marrow.
The field is empty, the bleachers luminous and deserted—it's the only time she'd ever be caught dead at the football field.
"Plovert?"
"Hmm," he hums; his eyes reflect the twilight sky, darkness surrounding them in a pristine fort. Moon crescents curve around his blue irises, creating a kaleidoscope of blues and greens and greys, without even knowing, and stars fall on his light eyelashes.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" She forces herself not to look away from him. To be stronger.
"I believe in being haunted." Chris squints; his finger is invisibly tracing the constellations. She doesn't know if he's trying really hard to concentrate, or he just can't believe what she just asked.
She doesn't say anything else.
-;
Wanting him isn't a option.
It's almost too terrifying for her too fully swallow. It just stays purged in her throat waiting to fall out.
She presses her ear to the telephone receiver, the plastic cool against her cheek. The shallow breathing once he falls asleep, hoping to get a glimpse at this enigmatic boy.
(It didn't even cross her mind, that the thing in her throat—might be her heart, she thought it blackened out long ago.)
-;
Sometimes she thinks she made it up inside her head.
It's almost as if she's crazy and he's too beautiful in that ordinary way, and she imagines he'll always be hers, even when he figures out he deserves better.
-;
[summer]
She buys him blueberry ice cream.
It melts on her way to give it to him.
-;
Beneath all the cynical, destructive swirls and cobwebs of her eyes—she's obscenely lonely. Wants for a friend, a confidant—someone, anyone who gives two shits.
(Or at least one.)
She doesn't expect them to love her. She just likes the idea that someone could.
-;
"Yo," her voice is bored already.
"Um, hi, um Mas—Massie. How are you?" Chris asks cordially.
"I'm coming over." And she hangs up.
And that's that.
-;
Their dipping their feet into the water of his pool, sharing licking pineapple that she complains tastes like dog piss—and looks it too. But she eats it anyway, because she's inexplicably hungry (Chris can smell her beloved marijuana coasting on her breath, but he keeps his mouth shut).
Massie looks into the water, cleansing her fingertips, and thinks bemusedly, they look like giants.
The moment feels like something friends would do (um, ew)—or worse. Boyfriend and Girlfriend (just no. Hell. No).
But the heat his body spread through her body, twinkle of blue eyes—so pure this time, like glacier lakes, and the odd shape of his hands (because she watches them when he talks) with lines and creases that remind her of old maps, with nondescript roads.
Fuck it.
-;
"You know, Plower," Massie slurs (Chris doesn't correct the mispronunciation of his last name, or the slight sexual innuendo), and maybe because she's drunk, or just because she's really fucking tired, but somehow the words fall out without her permission. "I wish—" she pauses, something darkens in her eyes, the purple circles under her eyes seem more pronounced, "I wish I was special." Sloppily she presses her lips to his, rough, and chapped. She tastes like imperfection and stolen red wine.
Then she promptly vomits on his new shoes his mom bought him.
"That's great, Massie." He awkwardly pats her back, while helping her into his car.
In fairytales she would add, you make me feel special, Chris. Just like that, first name and true everything.
-;
The best parts of him is like the color spectrum. Everything is a wheel of frail, colliding colors.
His strength is so fragile, barely tangible, but for some odd reason she likes it that way. Really couldn't imagine Chris any other way (not that she daydreams about him at all).
-;
[autumn]
Sometimes they're driving—they don't exactly know where they've going, and got rid of the maps long ago (now only using his crinkly hands), just basking in the pleasure of getting him to skip the second day of school.
She casually links her pinky with his (like they've making a promise. Though she never really promises him anything). She leans over, her hand slips underneath his shirt, and lips and skin all over. The illegal speed their currently driving at—and her hand all over his body. It eclipses any other highs she ever gotten.
His pulse quickens, and she blinks from her trance.
Then they find their way back to (We-Breed-Gold-Diggers-Of-America) Westchester, and their equilibrium is restored.
-;
She has a—a cannabis (yeah, better to go with the technical term), propped into her lips, a hand is covering it, and she ignites it with a lighter.
"Hey, um, Massie. You, can't, um smoke in here."
She doesn't reply—instead choosing to blow out a ring, catching it on her finger.
"Can you, erm, stop," Chris brushes his wire-frame glasses up his nose. He adds weakly, "Er, please."
Massie doesn't faze.
Before he can question his obliviousness to the fact that he just asked for a death wish—he grabs her cannabis and throws it out his open window.
They sit there in silence. She hits him. He lights another one for her. She doesn't thank him.
Chris has seen better love stories.
-;
He wonders if she gets those butterflies in her stomach too.
He doesn't know if it matters, but he thinks it might be.
-;
"You know—when we did—did it." He puts emphasis on it, quite uncomfortable with saying... that word. "That first night we, you know—it wasn't my first time," Chris explains, and he doesn't know why exactly it's important to convince her, but it feels like that.
She stares at him for a long time, before she bursts out laughing.
She laughs and laughs and laughs, clutching her stomach, and tears roll down her cheeks. Her smile is wide, and boundless—blissful glory. He feels like he's won a prize—something few have attained.
The gold and red leaves crunch beneath her feet, the sunlight beams through the obstructive trees, and she reaches up to kiss him lightly on his lips.
"Sure it wasn't, Plovert." Something in her voice makes him think she truly doesn't believe him, but the fact that he can't feel his toes makes him forget. "God, you're too funny, kid."
-;
Massie fucks Derrick on Wednesday; behind the school library (she didn't even know they had one).
She tells Chris (mentions it like they're talking about the weather)—he says thank you, his voice bleak and sweet, and then offers her a pineapple Popsicle.
Secretly he kind of hates her.
-;
[winter]
Snowflakes swath into a halo around her head, it seems Mother Nature has a sense of humor.
She indulges her inner-child a bit, and sticks her tongue out, letting a flurry of snowflakes congregate. They melt when she closes her mouth—her nose wrinkles in distaste.
She hears a laugh.
Chris wears a little grin, obviously finding her dislike in the wonders of tasting snow amusing.
She partakes in the most childish thing she promised herself she'd never do. She grabs a snowball, and chucks it him.
Soon they're in a full-out snowball fight, her clothes soaking through the thick material, and her designer boots ruined.
She thinks it's worth it just for that smile.
Massie really likes his smile.
Then she remembers that Massie Block and domesticated don't go together in the same sentence, and she scrubs her skin raw until she doesn't like it anymore.
-;
It's a safe assumption to say Massie is filthy fucking rich. So, when she appears on his doorstep, looking for a place to stay, it's kind of a surprise.
-;
It's raining, and not just a sprinkle or a drizzle, but really raining. The hostile howl of thunder, and stereotypical flash of lightning. Her eyes were shaded with oversized sunglasses that she didn't need, and one hastily packed suitcase in her hand. Her minimal dress slicked to her stomach, and her mascara running like she's been crying.
Without a word she stands in the doorway, no words spoken, but he knows she needs a place to stay.
He should say no. Slam the door shut, return to his couch, and watch re-runs of Full House.
"Erm. Come—Come in."
She doesn't say thank you.
-;
His mom makes them bunny pancakes with smiley faces, because it's just what she needs to brighten her day, Chrissycakes. She says it just like that. In front of Massie.
It's like that embarrassing moment when your long-lost great aunt (who your probably don't like) pinches your cheek and takes out a baby book filled with pictures of your ass.
(Just a little bit worse.)
-;
"Massie, what, um, what happened?" Chris asks, fidgeting in his seat, he focuses on the window behind her. It's still raining.
"Why do you wanna know?" She orders fish sticks off the kid's menu, and stirs the scotch she conned from an unsuspecting young waiter, with a fork.
"Because, er, you're sort of living in my house. Not—Not that I mind, or, erm anything, but you know..." His words fumble around.
"Dude, you got to stop being so damn nervous around me if we're going to live together," her eyes meet his, the same color as her drink, except with the regular purple circles. For the first time in a while they've not covered by sunglasses. He stares back. He doesn't see hope.
"What happened?"
"No biggie. I ran away, because my daddy doesn't love me," her sugary sweet tone, edged with tartness, makes the sarcasm almost glow with masked hurt. She's a lot more destroyed than she wants him to know. "And then you got the pleasure of me ending up pathetically on your doorstep." Her smile is bitter, and it prickles his skin slightly, because this isn't the Massie he knows.
He places his warm hand on top of hers, and holds it there, his palm of maps on top of her papery thin one. "Massie, it'll—it'll be okay."
She lets her eyes fall downcast, lifting the fork in her glass to her mouth, letting the amber liquid trickle on the pristine ivory table cloth. Her mouth only catching the tangy taste of metal.
Massie murmurs, almost as if she didn't want him to hear, "If only you knew. Oh, if only you knew, Plovert."
-;
Sometimes she comes into his room into the middle of the night. She thinks he's asleep, but he's not, the light dip of her thin body, and the silent tears that seep into the back of his shirt.
The whispered cries of I'm sorry, mom and I'll be better and Chris, you're so good and I wish I wish I wish.
But in the morning she's gone, the crease in the bed from her body is evaporated and he just doesn't mention it.
-;
She stays for a while, and it's... yeah.
It's really...
-;
They're gulping back chocolate milkshakes and watching the movie Muppets. The comfort of this action and all around weirdness is not lost on him. She's Westchester's outcast—supposedly the devil amongst them commoners (by common, he means unreasonably rich).
He randomly asks. The question out before he can even take a breath of air, "If I said I love you right now, do you think you would say it back?" It takes him all he has not to stutter.
She's wearing a milk-mustache, and the most ridiculous pair of cupcake footie pajamas she borrowed from Chris's mom, she seems so innocuous and it's only funny because she's not. "Probably not."
"Would you punch me in my... privates?"
She tilts her head to the side, one side of her mouth inadvertently quirks. "Yeah, definitely."
They both turn back to the television, and let the silence wash over them.
The awkward moment... when Plovert doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut.
-;
There's that moment in your life when you realize who a person really is.
-;
[spring]
Massie stays through January, and February, and pretty soon it's March of their senior year.
He wonders how time past them so fast.
-;
William Block is every bit intimidating and detached as Chris imagined.
"I'm looking for Massie Block. Is she staying here?" He poses, his posture is rigid, and he doesn't have laugh lines around his eyes.
"Right here, William," a voice calls. Massie's. It's numb and her lips are in a straight line—like the girl he once knew never existed. The fact that she doesn't use some sort of sarcasm, or sexual innuendo frightens him.
"You're leaving this afternoon," William says. It isn't a question or a request—it's a command.
"No." Massie purses her lips.
"I'm not going to argue with you, Massie. This afternoon you're getting on that plane."
For the first time in the conversation, his marble face loses its stature of cold. William's temper flares, and suddenly his hand falls away from his pants pocket, and he's gripping Massie's wrist, with such strength, Chris can already see the purple bruises forming.
He wants to interrupt, say, hell no are you getting on any plane. He wants to scream and shout and throw a goddamn temper tantrum like an insufferable three year old.
Luckily, before he can break out his Jackie Chan moves, Massie yanks her wrist from William's firm grip.
Her fierce stare doesn't waver, hard planes of tension grooving into her wax skin, "I'm not fucking going, William."
He leans in close, enough to smell his aftershave, the arctic bite of his words falling from his lips easily. The hushed, harsh promises falling as quickly as somber wetness pools on her loopy, ocher eyelashes. She blinks them back before she thinks Chris can see.
The faint taps of expensive Italian leather float to his ears, and he turns to the door, only to see it slam close with an oppressive thump.
He turns to face Massie, only to see—she's gone too.
-;
He finds her lying in the middle of the road, eating a pint of blueberry ice cream, and running her slim fingers over the sky's moon and specks of stars.
He settles down next to her, and feels the little voice in the back of his mind say deja vu.
Chris waits for a beat, feeling the familiar words on his tongue, as not to stutter over them. "What happened, Massie?"
Massie doesn't answer for the longest time, and for a moment he thinks she's just going to glide right over the question like usual.
"You know, I stopped smoking weed when I started... living with you. I hadn't been smoking a lot since a while before that, but I just stopped. Completely," she takes a spoonful of ice cream. "I... wanted to remember, I guess. I hadn't wanted to remember since my mom died." It's the first time she's ever talked about her mom, so he lifts her spoon and has a congratulatory bite. "My dad's—god that feels so strange to say—wasn't always like that, you know, so you can stop thinking he's abusive and shit."
"I wasn't thinking that." He so was.
Massie turns to lay on her side, staring at him, as through her eyes can see past every minuscule lie he's ever told. Not that he's told many. "He's just... messed up," she whispers, "I'm messed up."
Chris opens his mouth to speak again, but her hand smothers it.
"Just let me—let me get this out, okay?" He nods. "It just... it came out of nowhere, and then—bam!—she's going through chemotherapy and has orders of dozens and dozens of pain medication, and I'm... I'm just useless."
She stops, and a lone glass tear falls.
"Massie—I'm so sorry. I—"
"Shut up!" She screams; a flock of birds flutter away she's so loud. Two glass tears falls on both side of her dark eyes.
She doesn't want—need—pity.
An array of tears clusters together on her translucent cheek.
They're still. Massie's leaning on his chest, teardrops ooze into his shirt, and she just stares at him, becoming undone at his fingertips.
"Chris," she murmurs, rough and cloudy, "I'm going—I'll tell you, I will, but it's going to take some time."
Hand over cheek, sweeping up damp tears, fireflies in both of their eyes, he says: "I'll wait."
And it's that smile he loves again. Blissful glory all over again.
She presses her lips firmly to his jaw, and leaves a slant imprint of melting blueberry ice cream.
maybe friends, maybe more than that. you interpret. i like them as both.