Title: Change In The Making
Summary: DALTONVERSE Micah's life in North Carolina.
A/N: So this started out as a one page essay on Micah in general. It's now over 7,000 words and is only halfway finished. *headdesk* Apparently, I can't listen to Taylor Swift OR Addison Road now. This first installment's 2,962 words, so it's not horrible. I'll try to update by next Friday.
And I think I fudged some facts here-I have no clue where Stanton's located, Aimee's supposed to be in Ohio, I don't even know if Micah's relatives are really named Evelyn and Thomas Saffield or if Micah has a younger sister named Sara. I hope this isn't too blasphemous.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. Except for Alice. I own Alice. She's mine.
Cross posted here and at Livejournal, pick your poison.
"…I laugh 'cause it hurts when I scream…"
North Carolina wasn't so bad, Micah reflected, staring at the ceiling in his room. Aunt Evelyn was nice enough, even though she was sure Micah was just confused ("Oh, I'm sure you just haven't met a good Christian girl yet. That's why you thought you were gay, Micah! Not because you're gay, but because you just haven't met a good girl yet. You Nevadans have no sense of God whatsoever. We'll fix that, don't you worry!") and Uncle Thomas was just the same ("Micah, my boy! This whole misunderstanding will clear up in no time at all!"). His six cousins (Leah, Esther, Adam, Paul, Benny and Jacob) were all off at college or running their own lives, so it was just Micah, Uncle Thomas and Aunt Evelyn in the rambling house.
A knock sounded on his door. "Micah, sweetie? Can I come in?"
"Sure, Aunt Eve," Micah replied, sitting up.
"Oh, good, you're awake," Aunt Evelyn pushed open the door, a wicker laundry basket balanced on her hip. "How're you settling?"
"Fine, Aunt Eve."
"Mind if I sit?"
Micah shook his head no, so Aunt Evelyn sat on his bet, setting her basket at her feet. Micah noticed that it was filled with clean blue towels neatly folded with Aunt Evelyn's usual military precision.
"I'm glad you're here," she said, and pulled him into a warm hug. "Everything in Stanton is just so ridiculous. It's good that you're here. Safe. We're working on getting Sara out here too. This whole incident with the Anderson boy must be a result of their marriage problems. But you're out of there now, and Sarah should be here in a few weeks."
Micah bit his lip to keep from replying rudely to that—yes, his parents had marriage problems, namely disagreements over education and jobs, but that was normal and he hadn't fallen in love with Shane just because his parents were fighting a lot of the time. He just loved Shane—and he just nodded, resting his head on Aunt Evelyn's shoulder.
Mom hadn't hugged him like this in forever. She'd always been busy, too busy for anything more than a quick kiss on the top of the head as she dashed out the door for work. Aunt Evelyn hugged like she could fix anything with a soft embrace.
When Aunt Evelyn pulled back, she kisses him on the forehead.
"Lights out by ten-thirty, Micah. Church is tomorrow at nine, breakfast at eight. Sleep well, okay, sweetheart?"
She shuts the door behind her when she leaves, although the basket stays on the floor of his room. Micah lies back on his bed, studying the neat white paint as if it held the secret to life and the key to the universe. For all he knew, it might. It made as much sense as everything that had happened over the past two days, which was to say, none at all.
He wondered what Mom and Dad were telling Sara. She was only eight, half his age, and she hadn't been home when Mr. Anderson had threatened Micah's family. Sara had been over at her best friend's house for a sleepover, and Micah hadn't even gotten to say goodbye to his baby sister.
She was probably home by now, twenty-three hours later, probably thinking Mi-mi (the childhood nickname Sara refused to let go of) was over at Shay and Blaine's. Unless Mom and Dad had decided to explain the birds and the bees and why Micah couldn't love another boy and had messed up, Sara was going to be told a spectacular lie. He wished he knew what it was so he could call her and tell her he was alive and that Aunt Evelyn wanted her to come visit.
Sara probably didn't even know that Micah was at Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Thomas's house. Micah was still surprised he was there himself, seeing how fast everything had happened. Life was normal Thursday afternoon, Friday morning it had been the same but by Saturday morning, he had been threatened against seeing his boyfriend ever again, forcibly outed to his parents and packed across the country, all within eight hours. Freshman-sophomore summer was not turning out to be anything he'd ever expected.
He switched off his bedside lamp, not minding that it was only 9:30 (and his brain still thought it was 6:30) and not bothering to change into pajamas.
He fell asleep within ten minutes.
.
The next morning, he was awake by five, after nightmares had plagued him all night. He changed into clean clothes—what did people wear to church here anyways? He picked a button down and jeans—and quietly moved into the kitchen with his hardworn copy of Don Quixote to wait for Aunt Evelyn to get up.
The light was better in there to read, and besides, his eyes were already tired from trying to read on the plane with little sleep.
He surprised Aunt Evelyn when she got up two hours later.
"My stars, Micah! What are you doing up so early?"
Micah shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."
Aunt Evelyn laughed. "Exactly the opposite problem of my boys. Wild horses couldn't drag them out of bed before ten in the morning. I'm glad they're off at college now—we can get to early service, so it's not as crowded."
The kitchen was mostly quiet for the next hour, the only sounds Micah turning a page in his book or Aunt Evelyn clinking spoons against bowls or a spatula against a frying pan. When Uncle Thomas came downstairs for breakfast, he was bleary eyed and sluggish, more the teenage morning stereotype than Micah himself.
Breakfast was a quiet affair, everyone either reading (Micah his book and Aunt Evelyn the newspaper) or attempting to wake up without the help of coffee (Uncle Thomas. Aunt Evelyn explained to Micah in a whisper that the doctor had ordered Thomas to not drink any coffee due to chronic migraines, but that Thomas had been addicted to coffee for thirty years and was having a hard time cutting back).
When they left for church, Aunt Evelyn turned into a chatterbox, talking about everyone Micah would need to meet and who would like him, what "sweethearts" might catch his eye, about everyone and everything. Uncle Thomas grunted noncommittally when Aunt Evelyn directed a question to him, sleepily steering the car.
Micah worriedly double checked his seatbelt several times after multiple near collisions with other vehicles, a cat and two inexplicably located plastic light-up Christmas reindeer (why they were placed in the middle of the freeway during July was far and beyond Micah's logic capabilities). For some reason (probably the same inexplicable logic that had Christmas decorations out in July), neither Aunt Evelyn or any of the other drivers batted an eyelash at Uncle Thomas's questionable driving abilities, although Micah was certain he was going to die by reckless driving.
"Oh, Micah! There's Brookfield High, where you'll be going when school starts up in August. And then there's the library, right next to it."
Micah watched the nearly identical brick buildings pass by through the window. Brookfield High looked like a really small school in comparison to Stanton, only big enough for a few hundred students as opposed to several thousand.
"We go to Calvary Chapel, it's the big brick church there on the other corner," Aunt Evelyn explained. Uncle Thomas screeched into a parking spot and Micah let out an inaudible sigh of relief.
As they walked up the steps, people called out greetings to Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Thomas and gave Micah a few odd looks before welcoming him with warm smiles and cordial handshakes. Aunt Evelyn led Micah through a maze of corridors and up two flights of stairs to a large back room where about fifteen teenagers were milling about.
"Evelyn!" A tall man, perhaps in his mid-thirties hurried over to greet them. He had short, spiky black hair and rectangular glasses much like Micah's own, although his were wire, not plastic. "So good to see you! Are you here just to visit, or…?"
Aunt Evelyn put an arm around Micah's shoulders. "Michael, this is my nephew, Micah. He's moving in with Thomas and me. Bad situation at home," she added in a conspiratory whisper. "Godless parents, no wonder he's got a few problems." Her voice returned to normal volume as she said, "Usually I'd ask one of my boys to show him around, but they've all moved out and left me with an empty house! Do you know if anyone would mind showing Micah around?"
Michael laughed. "Of course! Pleased to meet you, Micah. I'm Pastor Mike. Evelyn, I think Alice wouldn't mind. Hey, Alice!"
A girl with curly red hair turned and came over, tucking her hair behind her ears.
"Yeah, Pastor M?"
"Alice, this is Micah. He's new and I was wondering—"
"If I'd show him around? Sure thing." To Micah, she said, "C'mon. We've got ten minutes before service. I'll introduce you to a couple'a people."
The next ten minutes passed in a blur of faces and names (Charlie, Tally, Matt, the other Matt, Monique, Jay and Annabelle were the only ones he remembered, although he met at least a dozen more people as they came in the door), but when the lights flashed once, everyone scrambled for seats, although no one sat down.
Pastor Mike stood at the front of the room on a stage-like raised platform and said a prayer, announced upcoming events (paintball, youth group cookout, would Katie and Eric please stop bringing soda and mentos to youth group meetings, the janitors are getting pretty ticked off at the mess, thank you) and then a sermon began.
It wasn't as bad as Micah was expecting—it wasn't all fire and brimstone, about how gays and Muslims and anyone not Christian was damned to hell—but instead a sermon about being kind to people and doing service work because they were able bodied and others weren't.
Micah agreed with about half of it. He nearly dozed off twice in the other half.
After service, Alice dragged him to meet more people or more specifically, her group of friends, which consisted of Aimee (a freckled brunette who wore a dozen necklaces and bracelets, each with an odd color combination or shape), Cameron (apparently always late for everything, as he had been sprinting through the hall, muttering "not again") and Zade (a black haired boy who wore chunky black headphones that were apparently soundproof, so communicating with him involved emphatic hand gestures and Alice finally yanking the headphones off to yell at him).
"We're generally nice people," Alice explained, carefully skirting a group of toddlers. "There's not much new around here, so you're kind of huge news. I'm pretty sure Bethy's planning to add you to her list of conquests, even though no one knew you existed until an hour ago."
"Great. Something to look forward to," Micah said sarcastically. Alice laughed, waving to a group of girls across the lobby.
"I think you're the first person to ever say that and mean it that way. Nice. I think we'll get along just fine, Micah Randall."
Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Thomas found them at the coffee table, Alice telling a story about Pastor Mike's cat and a church camping trip.
"…and then Cameron threw the pepper spray while Pastor Mike went for the curling iron, and that's why if you hear 'mind the cat', it means 'shut the door right now or else.' Your daily lesson in North Carolina vernacular brought to you by the one and only Alice Betz."
"Hey, Alice-honey," Aunt Evelyn greeted, hugging the blonde and then Micah. "Thanks for showing Micah around." Uncle Thomas was staring greedily at the coffee and Aunt Evelyn smacked his arm. "No, Thomas. You know what Doctor Hazelwood said."
Alice stifled a laugh and said, "Oh, no problem, Mrs. Saffield. I was actually going to ask if Micah wanted to come to the cookout with me this afternoon. I was going to go with Addison, but then…well, you know."
"Summer flu," Aunt Evelyn nodded. "Your mother told me. Poor boy. Of course Micah can go with you. As long as he's home for dinner."
"Sure thing, Mrs. Saffield."
"Have fun, Micah, Alice!" Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Thomas vanished into the throngs of people, leaving Micah to stare semi-wistfully at their retreating backs.
Alice handed him a thick paper cup filled with a creamy coffee blend and lifted her own. "Hope you don't mind milk and two sugars. I didn't know how you made yours, so I mixed it like mine."
"S'fine." Coffee with milk and two sugars was Shane's style, actually, and Micah preferred one sugar, no milk, but he'd drunk enough of Shane's coffee that it wasn't really a problem. Except for the twenty million or so memories, but he could (kinda) ignore those. Maybe.
"C'mon. We can talk on the steps." They wound their way through the masses of people and out the front door before settling on the steps. Alice sat crosslegged on the top step, mindless of her floral dress. Micah carefully sat next to her.
"So, spill. What got you exiled here?"
"Excuse me?"
"What'd you do? No one gets sent to a relative just because, and especially not on short notice. You obviously did something. The question is what exactly did you do?" Alice took a sip of coffee and tapped her fingers on her lip. "Hm. You don't look like the type to get a girl pregnant and you're obviously not a chain smoker bad boy, you don't seem to have anger management issues and I'm ninety five percent sure you didn't kill anyone and are on the run from the law and you don't look abused. I'm betting bad divorce and custody battle." Alice glanced at him. "Am I right?"
Micah shrugged noncommittally. "It's my business, and I really don't know you well enough." He gulped down some of his coffee and bit back a memory, the first time he'd tried Shane's overly sweet coffee concoction.
Alice laughed. "Fair enough. The cookout's at eleven, by the way. It's only ten-fifteen now. Tell me about life that's not in the middle of nowhere."
Micah cracked a grin. "I'd never really left my hometown before I came here, so I'm not much help there. I'm from a smallish town—take that with a grain of salt, Stanton's still quite a bit bigger than here—where was I? Oh, yeah, smallish town in Nevada. My school was pretty big, maybe three thousand people? I dunno, but we were five grades, eighth through twelfth. I transferred into Stanton High at the end of eighth grade, so I missed out on the class trip to Washington DC. Everyone says the Library of Congress was great, though."
The redhead laughed. "You're a reader, then. You'll get along great with Cassie, she loves it when people read to her."
"Cassie?"
"Cameron's twin sister. She's blind, so she likes it when people read to her."
They chatted for an hour, sharing little information about school and themselves.
The youth group cookout was just a big barbeque, Micah found out. No one sat around sharing bible verses—instead, they played volleyball and bickered over movie choices and someone set up an iPod and speakers. Alice kept a running commentary on who was whom and who to avoid. A buxom blonde girl kept running her eyes over him hungrily, which made him more than a little uncomfortable.
Alice drove him home after the cookout, explaining that most teenagers in Brookfield learned to drive by fourteen but actually got their permits at fifteen and official licenses a month after turning sixteen. He must have looked worried about her driving abilities because Alice showed him her license before starting the car.
Aunt Evelyn waved to Alice as she drove off and welcomed Micah into the house.
"Dinner's in an hour, Micah," she informed him. "And the twins are coming home for dinner, too."
"Benny and Jacob?"
"Mm-hm."
"They're always late though, so don't hold your breath," Uncle Thomas called from the kitchen. "Eve, are you sure I can't have any pie just yet?"
"I swear, he's worse than any of the boys," Aunt Evelyn told Micah with a smile. "Thomas, touch that pie and you don't get ice cream with everyone else!" she called, hurrying into the kitchen.
Micah took the stairs two at a time and crashed on his bed, only kicking off his shoes. He closed his eyes, promising it was just for an hour, or until Benny and Jacob got there, whichever came first.
He was sound asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
...
R&R?
(it picks up next chapter, I promise. :D)