Okay, so this is one of those filler stories which means I wrote this to busy my brain because I didn't have any ideas for a REAL MGS story. I even resurrected my very dead original character, Olivia Steele, from my "Overpoured" story. It really is all over the place, whatever I came up with, I just wrote it. Everyone's out of character (except Olivia...she's always sharped tongued and bold) and the situations are all pretty far out. So, read it for what it is and if you like it, great. If not, well, I hope you were at least entertained. Oh yeah, the title "My Name is Trouble" comes courtesy of the band Nightmare of You who have a song of the same name. - Andi
"Real life isn't like that."
Hal looked down at the body draped across his, moving in perfect time with the rise and fall of his chest. His hand was resting lightly on her bare arm, accidentally landing back there everytime she shifted her body in a way that required him to lift it. Her body softened and melded so flawlessly around his that the glow from the television set in front them lost the line that separated them, just as he had, and bounced off of them as a one complete entity.
He smiled. "Oh, yeah?"
She looked up at him as if she had heard it appear, her glasses encased green eyes transforming the scattering glow from the television into a radiant shimmer. "Yeah. First of all, no one kisses their significant other upon waking up. That's fairy tale stuff. I needed a cup of coffee, a cigarette and, depending on the night, an aspirin before I even acknowledged Evan properly."
"It's just a movie, Olivia."
"I know...but it's movies like that that gave me the wrong idea about what love and marriage would be like when I was a kid. No one tells you that when you get married you gain the uncanny ability to start an argument over an empty toilet paper roll left on the dispenser or a defiled jar of peanut butter. Instead, they show you this," she motioned to the television right at the man and the woman shared a deep and movie long pending kiss. "A perfect, mutual, well lit and angled kiss to have every little girl out there hoping and praying for their Prince Charming to give them one just like it." She softly patted Hal's chest in anticipation for her arriving memory to surface. "Do you know what my first kiss was like?"
"Nothing like hers, I suppose."
"It was awkward and with this guy named Hal Benson. I was about thirteen or so, completely gawky and a little strange, I guess. None of the guys at school liked me. Everything about me was terribly out of proportion. My head was too big for my shoulders, my arms were too long for my body...it wasn't very pretty. But Hal, he was this sweet guy who I was friends with and one day while he was over at my house, we started talking about first kisses for whatever reason. I told him I had never been kissed and before I knew it, he was leaning over in his chair to me...only thing is, it was a little too far and he landed smack on the ground! After he got up after turning about thirty different shades of red, we both realized there was no turning back. We had to kiss then. And so, we did and I think we might have both been expecting fireworks or something but there wasn't anything between us except my attempt to stiff back laughter and his bruised ego."
"It's a good thing you've been kissed since then, huh?"
"A very good thing. What about you, Hal. What was your first kiss like?"
"I, uh, don't remember."
Olivia lifted herself off of Hal to show him her disbelief. "You don't remember. How do you not remember your first kiss?"
"Well, I...I was really young and it wasn't that memorable."
"Oh come on, Hal. It's not like I just asked you who you lost your virginity to. I just asked about your first kiss."
"I really don't--"
"Was she blonde?"
Hal blinked. "N-no..."
"Redheaded?"
"No. Olivia, what are you doing?"
"Well, since you won't tell me, I'm going to see if I can at least guess a description out of you. Tall or short?"
"Olivia, please. Can't we just finish watching the movie?"
"Sure. Sure we can, Hal."
She couldn't concentrate on the movie. She laid across him again and took apart the entanglement of emotions she had felt exit with his words and when she concluded that most of it had been buried pain, she reacted almost subconsciously by bringing his slender frame closer to her.
"Are you okay, Olivia? You cold?" He asked when he felt the added pressure to her embrace.
"No, I'm fine."
He moved his hand up and down her arm anyway. "You sure? It's a little chilly in here. I can turn the heat up."
Olivia laughed. "No, Snake will come down here and pistol whip you if you touch the thermostat. You know he likes it a few degrees lower than the Arctic."
"He'll live."
"You know," Olivia began, repackaging him in her arms when he sat back down, "I bet you were the perfect boyfriend to the last girl you dated."
He laughed, more amused by her assumption than flattered. "I don't know about perfect. A stop on the way to being perfect is usually good."
She looked up at him. "What do you mean?"
"It means that I was never very good at the relationship thing."
"I find that very hard to believe."
"It's true. I've always been terrible with people so I'm not even sure why I even attempted relationships."
"It couldn't have been that bad, Hal."
"Maybe you should call up Lauren and ask her."
"Who's Lauren?"
"My last girlfriend."
"Well, you got her number?"
"No. I think I kind of forgot to ask for it after I walked in on her with another guy."
Olivia frowned. "Hal, I'm sorry."
"It's alright. I guess I kind of deserved it. I don't know know why she even stuck around for as long as she did."
"I'm sure you're just being hard on yourself."
" I didn't experience college the way other people did. I was always studying and even if I wasn't studying, I was always had my head stuck in something about robotics or technological solutions. I wasn't around much for her and I think I only had a girlfriend was because it was the only thing that made me feel like I was actually having a somewhat normal college experience. I don't think people even knew we dated. We didn't do the coupley stuff like hold hands or go out to dinner. After about six months, I guess she finally got sick of having a...relationless relationship and one night, I walked in and saw her with someone else. The funniest thing is that there wasn't any yelling or crying like I guess there should have been. She just looked at me and said, 'We both knew it was over with long before now...I just admitted it first.'"
"Did you love her?" Hal continued to travel the length of Olivia's arm with a painter's careful brush strokes as he thought.
"Yeah." He finally said, "I felt I did, anyway. I didn't have a reason to feel like I shouldn't. She was intelligent, determined, and beautiful...but by the time our relationship ended, I realized those were the only things I knew about her. The obvious things. I didn't even know what her favorite color was."
"Don't worry, Hal. I think one day you're going to make some woman very, very happy. You'll see."
The compliment didn't rest on his face the way she imagined it would before she said it. Instead, it deflated around a small forced smile.
"We're missing the movie." He reminded her.
"What are you doing up here?"
Olivia visored her hand over eyes and looked up at the figure standing over her.
"Tanning."
"It's dusk."
She patted the patch of shingles next to her. "I still got a few minutes left. Why don't you join me? I'm sure it couldn't hurt anything."
Hal felt his body become too influenced by the steep slant of the roof and he struggled slightly to regained his dexterity and stopped himself. Olivia giggled as she watched him finally ease down into a sitting position next to her.
"Watch your step."
"Thanks for the advice. So, why in the hell are you on the roof?"
"I like it up here. It's quiet. I think a better question is how did you find me?"
"I came outside and happened to look up and see a half naked girl on the roof. Came to investigate."
Olivia passed a glance over the exposed skin running from out of the black halter top and cut off jogging pants.
"Well, I'm happy someone liked my ensemble."
"It's pretty quiet on the ground, too, Olivia." He reminded her, inflicting his own pending comfortableness at the moment.
"Yeah but you don't get a view like this from the ground."
Hal looked around at their surroundings and then back at her. "I didn't know you were such a grass and tree enthusiast."
"You see grass and trees, I see beautiful and peaceful seclusion. Plus, I had to thaw out. Snake is making me a Popsicle in the house."
Hal's eyes caught the curves of Olivia's body in the dusk lighting being splashed onto her. When she unhooked her right leg from over her left, his eyes automatically drew to the place he knew the bullet wound still existed on her. It was over grown with scar tissue now and without knowing it was there it easily looked as if it could have been nothing more than slight discoloration. But when Hal thought about the revolver bullet still lodged underneath, it made it as hard to look at then as it had been seeing it put there.
"Hey, you look like you saw a ghost."
Hal shook his head and carefully leaned back to put his head next to hers. The sky was a stir of late evening pastels that hung over the trees and gave him the feeling that they were under a bigger roof than the one they were lying on.
"Are you searching for yourself?"
Hal turned his head to the right at her. "What's that mean?"
"It means that maybe your body is here but you aren't. You've been so distant ever since a few nights ago when we watched that movie."
"I'm sorry. Wasn't intentional. I've just been thinking a lot."
"You wanna tell me what about?"
"Life."
Olivia propped herself on her elbow to look at him. "You sound like you're thinking more about how you've lived your life."
"I'm thirty-four and I've accomplished absolutely nothing, Olivia."
"Well, that's not true! You and Snake have pulled this world from the brink of destruction more than once."
"Yeah, right after we put it there in the first place. We didn't save the world, we just corrected what we had done to it."
"If that's not an accomplishment, Hal, I think I'm going to need you to define your meaning of that word."
"It means that every relationship I've had has failed in some way or another, that I'm a complete social outcast who can't make small talk with the cashier at the grocery store, and that I can't even remember the last thing I did that's made me happy."
"Oh," Olivia bit the knuckle on her index finger for a moment. "Well, it if makes you feel any better I'm a thirty-two year old widow who's a complete social outcast with no children. And a revolver bullet in her leg that makes me walk like a pirate." She added before she put her hand on his arm. "Cheer up, Hal. Happiness comes in a lot of small moments, not any one big one. How about the night we watching that movie together...you were happy then, right?"
"Yeah..."
"And how about that time we spent the entire day at Coney Island stuffing ourselves on overpriced corn dogs and riding everything that turned us upside down? You were happy then, right?"
Hal laughed. "We were both so sick the next day. I didn't think I'd ever eat again!"
"You see. You've been happy...you were just overlooking the small stuff."
"It kind of seems like all my happy moments have been with you, Olivia."
"I'm sure you had happy moments before me, Hal." She paused sharply. "What's that?"
"What? You hear something?"
She started carefully to her feet. "You don't hear that? It sounds like it's coming from inside the house. It's...music."
Hal concentrated hard on the air and finally lifted the light notes of music making their way into his ears. He followed Olivia through the window they had both come out through which put them in the spare bedroom they used as an office.
"Why is Snake playing music?"
"It's not him playing music that's weird," Hal said, "it's the fact that it's so loud."
"It sounds like it's coming from downstairs."
Olivia lead the descend down the stairs and into the living room. The loud rock music blaring from the speakers made Olivia and Hal's heads both thump in time with the deep bass rhythm--but Snake looked strangely unaffected. Hal ran to the stereo and hit the first button he could find that killed the sound while Olivia made her way over to the corner of the room Snake was sitting in.
"Snake, why was the music so loud a second ago? Snake?" She knelt down next to him. "Snake, answer me."
He finally looked at her, his eyes full of a confusion and rage that she could tell wasn't directed at her but hadn't found the right thing to be aimed at yet. She called his name again and then looked to Hal.
"Go get me something breakable."
"What?"
"A glass is fine."
"Why?"
She didn't answer but Hal did as she said anyway and brought back a thin drinking glass back from the kitchen. Without taking her eyes off Snake, she stood up and discharged the glass hard to the ground. The pieces exploded across the wood floor between the three of them and Hal grabbed her by the arm.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Olivia?"
"Nothing...but there's something's wrong with him."
"What are you talking about?"
"He just had a glass shatter 4 feet from him, Hal, and he didn't so much as blink."
"Maybe he knew you were going to throw it. Unlike me." He added.
"It doesn't matter. He should have winced or reacted in some way on impact." She knelt down again and brought her hand to his face.
"What are you saying?"
"He can't react if he never heard it."