A/N: Did anybody else see the amazing chemistry between Mia Sara and Alan Ruck throughout the movie? No? Ok well go watch the part when Ferris disappears to star in the float parade, and also the part when Sloane asks Cameron if he saw her change... nope? Nothing? Ok, well I guess I'm just changing things about in my head- but that is what fanfiction is for... I present to you...
Standing on the Threshold
"You know my father, he loves that car more'n life itself.."
As dramatic as Cameron could be, in this case he was entirely, wickedly, painfully truthful. Cam's father loved the Ferrari more than life itself.
The day they decided to ditch school (which went down in Ferris' head as The Day My Sister Saved My Ass, in Sloane's head as The Day Ferris First Asked Me To Marry Him, and in Cameron's head as The Day I Wrecked The Ferrari), Mr. Frye drove home early in his Acura Integra. It was a far more practical car for practical matters. He arrived home at 5:53pm, thinking he could use a cup of coffee to boost his flagging energy levels before taking a look at the papers for the next morning.
At 5:57pm, he stood in the kitchen, kettle billowing out steam and the bean grinder on, absentmindedly looking out the window. It was a lovely summer evening, and the lighting reminded him of his fishing trips during the '50s.
Cam was summoned at 6:00pm precisely.
His father was apoplectic. His fingers trembling, curling in thin air, face ashen. It faded into incomprehension, his mind already starting to move into denial.
Cam opened his mouth. "Dad, I ca-"
"Why?"
Cam shut his mouth. The excuse melted away, and he looked younger than his years.
"You've never given me any trouble before, son. Why now? Why would you do something like that?"
Frye Sr. grasped the kitchen counter with both hands, staring out unseeing at the wreck below, the trees that had been felled and the red smear, his pride and joy.
"I was-was- trying to be my own man."
"Your own man... Right. A fool's man." He let out a derisive chuckle, and a final sightless sigh. The grinder had stopped a few minutes ago and there was an exhausted silence between them. "Your mother will be home in half an hour. Do your homework, junior."
and at 6:03pm, Frye Jr. trudged upstairs, brushed aside into his childhood self again.
Money had never been a problem for the Fryes. Happiness, however, was another issue. Mrs. Frye when she came home supported neither her husband nor her son; she was, through years of conditioning, a prickly woman, prone to snap judgements and highly unsympathetic. She merely glanced over her shoulder as she boiled pasta and told Frye Sr. that it was only a car and to grow a pair. Dinner came, and after, thel three Fryes went to their separate rooms and ways.
Tension was with them, silently instating itself as the head of the household as night fell, increasing its hold as the weeks went on.
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Sloane flopped on her bed, swishing a waterfall of hair over one shoulder, crossing and uncrossing her ankles.
"So... tell me everything..." she prodded into the phone at her ear, "are you going together?"
Annette Felderman's embarrassed alto sounded back at her. "I'm not sure, he- he said he was going to the movies with his little brother this weekend, and- and I can't tell if that means he's not interested anymore! I mean, god, I was chewing on blue bubblegum and I must have had a blue tongue and just, urrrrggghhh, who wants to get close to someone who looks like they've got X-Men virus?!"
"I heard Darren is going to talk to him tomorrow after football practice, that locker time is such a blast!"
"You think so?"
"Mhmm", her smile widened, "and if he doesn't then I guess I'll have to go see myself."
"Sloane!" Annette shrieked, titillated, "But we have cheer!"
Sloane rolled her eyes, pausing for dramatic effect.
"Who am I going out with, exactly?"
Ferris was not the guy she'd imagined herself saying yes to- she had in her head always assumed one of the wingers on the hockey team would eventually approach her and from there they'd be a power couple. But somehow his charm and his confidence swept her up until she couldn't imagine saying anything but yes to him. He had changed her, she saw now, changed her for the better. Her perspective on life was irrevocably shifted.
"But what about Gina? She'll murder you!"
This was true; Gina was the capt of the Cheerleading squad and she was a monstrous bitch of a Capt. She tried to make them practise on Saturdays! Sloane was so not about that. But Sloane knew that Gina could be reasoned with especially if she brought her Crackerjacks.
"Naw, Gina is a sweetie, she'd so understand. Besides, we can't exactly have our star flyer moping around because of some dumb guy problems, right? Of course that's worth missing practice to fix up!"
"Really? You'd do that for me? You're a babe Sloane.." Annette sighed gratefully.
Sloane dimly heard the doorbell go off downstairs,- "What was that Annie? Someone was at the door I didn't get that- oh, uh huh," and then her mother calling for her, and she uncrossed her ankles one last time and rolled off the bed, smiling a little as she did so. She padded downstairs, knee high socks silent on the carpet trim, holding onto the phone by pressing her shoulder up into her cheek.
Her mother was usually kindly, with dimples and twinkling eyes outweighing the crows' feet; today, she wrung her hands fretfully and gave her daughter a meaningful glance at the door. "It's for you, honey," she said. "I'll be in the study if you need anything."
Sloane nodded distractedly, still listening to Annette's chatter as she pulled on the handle and swung the door ajar.
"It's just Ferris, anyway, noooo, oh my gosh that happened to me too just you wait, I'll bet whe-", and her voice died.
It wasn't Ferris. It was Cameron.
She stared at him unblinking, the voice in her ear still going on about Malone and those stupid stupid boys and it had been her world before but that was all so pointless and trite because Cameron was on her doorstep.
Cameron had never come round to her house before. She didn't even know he knew where she lived. She realised she'd been staring for way too long, probably a good five seconds, and he huffed a nervous smile, a twitch of the corner of his mouth.
"Can I come in?"
"uh... sure, sure, come on right in. Shoes off by the door." She said awkwardly, aware now that Annette was on the other end of the phone and she had to tell her goodbye in a way that signalled please ask me about it tomorrow because this was Highly Unusual and Needed Gossip Emergency Response (HUNGER for short).
"Oh, Annie, my mom's calling me to go, such a shame; it's almost dinner time and I'm getting so hungryyyy…"
Annette, as fate would have it, didn't pick up on this and cheerily agreed with her saying she was thinking of getting pizza. Lucky bitch. She hung up the phone and looked back at Cameron again, suddenly curious.
His frame was hunched over slightly as he shucked his sneakers off and he was wearing that stupid Detroit Red Wings jersey again, the same one from when they'd gone downtown The Day Ferris First Asked Me To Marry Him a couple of weeks ago. She smiled up at him warmly and turned to head into their kitchen.
"I was about to open up a Poptart package, d'you want one?" He nodded, and it seemed almost kind of meek the way he followed her.
She hopped up onto the stool in the kitchen and ripped open a chocolate flavour. When she'd first met Ferris, he had always had a spare chocolate poptart in his bag. She'd asked him why and he'd given her an easy grin with eyes that said he knew girls loved a mystery, and said, "for a friend in their hour of need". Now they were going steady for just over a year, the mystery was out- they were simply Cameron's favourite. She pushed two into the toaster.
He leaned on her kitchen counter, and the red of his jersey clashed oh-so-horribly with her mom's pale pink kitchen tiling. There was an awkward silence.
"Did Ferris show you where my house is?" Sloane blurted out, eyes widening at her own apparent rudeness. "I didn't mean it like that, I just... didn't know you knew where I live..."
Cameron let out a snort, and the tension broke. "Secret's out, you've got me, I'm your nuhhhmmer waaaan stalker."
She mock-horror-faced him and they laughed contentedly. Sloane was the year below Cameron in high school but she never felt like he was one of those particularly cool people she had to be all college-grown-up for.
The toaster popped up and she took the poptarts out, exaggeratedly gasping and playing hot potato with the heated snack. "ooh! ooh! my hands! hot hot hot hot!"
He caught his from her and easily crunched into it, ignoring the scald on his tongue. Sloane preferred to nibble more delicately, wary of the heat.
"Soooo, uhm… yeah- it's my dad."
"Yeah? How's he doing?"
"He's dead."
Chocolate mushy poptart sprayed out from Sloane's mouth all across the kitchen counter as she choked. "wh-what?"
"Yeah." Cameron resolutely continued to look down at only his own poptart.
"Oh my god..."
"Yeah."
"Oh my god, how?"
"I think he shot himself."
Sloane pushed back a stray lock of hair, peeking at him askance and attempting to wipe the mess off her chin without looking extremely unattractive.
"Do you want me to call Ferris?"
Cameron tilted his head to one side, considering, watching the crumbs form in his giant hands.
"You know what? No. I'm sorry. It's stupid I came here."
Sloane tentatively reached out for his shoulder. It was far higher up against her than Ferris' and she had to stretch right out of her kitchen stool to touch it.
"It's a really awful thing that's happened, Cameron. He's your best friend and I think maybe he could help you."
"No. He won't get it, he won't goddamn get it." He set his jaw and she knew he was going to be stubborn about it. There was a reason in his head somewhere floating around and it was going to make perfect sense to him and seem absolutely crazy to her, and the best thing to do was wait until it all came spilling out of him, unchoking. Oprah said so.
"Well, okay then..." and she sank back into her kitchen stool, absentmindedly finding a cloth to clean up the crumbs. The dogs from across the road were barking and that reminded her she needed to let out their dog into the yard before she started homework. She whistled for Malcolm (so called after Malcolm X). He was the Peterson family lab, a dog far more fat and wiggly than Ferris', in occasional need of cajoling and frequent need of cuddles.
Click clack click clack click clack scrabble
Her dog's waddling paws started to speed up and he hurtled into the kitchen, a veritable whirlwind of panting and drool and wheezy black fur. She wouldn't trade him for anything.
"C'mon boy! C'mon, let's go- whozagoodboy, yes it's you, let's go!" Two pats upon his rear and he was set off again towards the back door out to the yard. Cameron watched silently, a little surprised, and oh actually come to think of it had she ever mentioned she had a dog? Maybe not.
She nodded at him and together they went outside into the golden evening. It hadn't hit 7pm yet and the sunshine was still streaming through the trees.
"Y'know," she said sheepishly, pushing a tendril of hair behind one ear, "I just got massive de ja vu. My first ever date was taking Malcolm to the park on a day as good as this."
"With Ferris?"
"Nah, with some boy who thought prog rock was the coolest thing ever," Sloane smiled a little, remembering it.
"Yeah. Didn't seem like something he'd do."
"Oh?"
"Ferris- he, he lives his life like he's the star of his own show." Cameron looked over at Malcolm, following the trail of some harebrained bunny around a tree in the yard. "Your dog seems like he'd steal the spotlight, no offense."
"Just a little!" she laughed and let the comment about her boyfriend slide. She was used to that, to be honest. Everyone had something to say about Ferris, not all of it good. People their age adored him from afar, people up close marvelled at his luck, adults found him irrepressible and incorrigible.
"I came home yesterday and, uh..."
Malcolm decided now was a good time to poop.
"One sec! Gotta get the pooperscooper!"
Sloane at least dealt with that quickly and efficiently, so Cameron still had his mouth open to speak by the time she came back to him, wheezy old furbag at her heels.
"It's OK, Cam. You don't have to tell me anything," she smiled, trying to keep the mood from falling into the strange sombriety that threatened to consume them ever since he showed up at her house, and then before she knew it, her mouth kept moving, and the words she didn't even know she wanted to say came out. "You're welcome here if you want to tell me what happened, but that doesn't have to be today. And if you don't want to tell Ferris about it, then I won't tell him what I know. Although it is kind of hard to pretend someone isn't dead."
By his wince she knew that last bit hadn't been the best joke, but she smiled at him and fluttered her eyelashes a little to turn on the charm, and his shy tentative nod back meant suddenly that that was ok. Maybe he would never take her up on it, but it was ok. She was being a good friend.
That was the only thing she told her mother when she said goodbye to him at the door.
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A/N: Thank you for reading this far! please leave a review, would love your thoughts :)
