Title: Simple Pages
Part: 1/?
Author: Naisumi
Rating: PG-13
Archiving: Please ask.
Pairings: Weasel/Forge, Forge/Weasel
Disclaimer: Still not mine, still not rich, still not famous. Damn.
Spoilers: Uh. ... ... yeah, no.
Warnings: Dude, there's, like, slash! Male/male relationships! Dude! Also, this is, like, totally AU. Yup.
Notes: To those of you who give a damn, this fic is Forge/Weasel. Who is Weasel? No, he is not an OC. He is a geeky supergenius from the comics. He was seen being played brilliantly by the amazing and ubershibby Shindo (for those you who remember her) in the Life in the Other Lane RPG. The first and original one, that is.
Anyway. This is one of the sidestories I promised for Readme.txt. It's set before Antisthenes becomes a huge top-notch success. It is, in fact, a whole two years before Readme.txt, which means that Lance is just kind of skulking around and Johnny and Jubilee are bored as hell. It also means that Forge is twenty-three and Weasel is seventeen. So Weasel isn't "barely legal," he um isn't.
More useless background information that you really don't need to know is that Forge has been with Antisthenes for five years at this point. And they're still going nowhere. Um, yeah, what's up with that? Anyway. This is when Weasel first joins Antisthenes. It's fun. I swear. There's more angst than in Readme.txt (though there is a randomly spoofy t.v. conversation later on. I didn't expect that. Weasel and Forge are wonky when they're together.) and...I am totally rambling because I haven't slept at all last night. Um, yes.
Additional Notes: KaZAAM! This fic is for Olhado, who rocks so much! There is also a sub-dedication somewhere in here. Ah, yes: This is also dedicated to Lyo and Shindo, because without them, there would be no Weasel/Forge. They both rule. Bow to them. Yeah, dude, that means you.
Additionaler Notes: Wade Armstrong is also a comic character, in case you're wondering. He rules. You'll like him. He shows up later, though. Just prepping you. Go eat yogurt. It's good for you. Not that fluffy kind, though. That stuff's weird.
Enjoy and Review!!!...please?
--
Jack "Weasel" Hammer saw the ad in the Sunday newspaper. It said in bold,
Wanted: Mechanic and/or tech guy. Must bring own sense of humor and keen eye for the absurd.
Directly under were a phone number, an address, and a hastily scribble medieval scene featuring stick figures.
Owning both a sense of humor and a second-hand spyglass into the realm of uncanny and weird, Weasel decided to take a look. That, he reminded himself, was the reason he was standing outside an old warehouse that he'd always thought was abandoned.
The warehouse was tucked back and between two other warehouses, both large and looming, and was draped with chains that were rusted and clung to the briny cement like seaweed. It was on the edge of a gray-green lake and a rotted, knotholed wharf that was sprinkled with beer cans, cigarette butts, and dark liver spots of decay. A decade or two earlier might have found this particular district to be prospering and whitewashed with wealth; now it was simply a specter of its past with graveyard teeth, gaping hollow doorway eyes, and a crumbling turf toupee.
Weasel scuffed the toe of his square-toed boots on the cement. He'd had the boots for two years now, and they were well-worn: thick, ash-gray soles, a dull black with the occasional sienna-dark glow of ballpoint pen scribbles, faded orange plastic triangle patches on the sides that sported 'biohazard' symbols that he'd glued on there himself. He hadn't thought this would be too formal a meeting--after all, he was aiming for a job with a rock band--and so he'd just worn a black pair of chinos and a bright green t-shirt with a white, paint-splattered button-down over it. The button-down was open and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows so that his pale forearms were subject to the chill of the brisk autumn air.
He checked the back of one hand. He'd haphazardly scrawled the address there in electric blue sharpie and now had to squint to make out the numbers and letters. He looked the warehouse up and down, wrinkled his nose to nudge square, black-rimmed glasses upwards, and looked again. The mess of black jelly bracelets, studded bands and paperclip bangles that circled his wrists bunched up as he tucked both hands into his pockets.
This was the place alright.
One of the doors was propped open with a cinderblock, strains of music wafting out to mingle with the distinctly fishy fragrance that permeated the area. Weasel hesitated briefly before walking over to the door and peeking through the crack.
There, amid the clutter of dust and boxes and mangled gaggle of month-old newspapers was a boy with fiery orange hair. He was dancing with a broomstick and yelling along with the frenetic screams from the CD spinning in the battered, navy-blue Sony stereo nestled between a drum kit and a jumble of cables. Clad in red gasoline pants with gray piping and a black t-shirt teeming with sprawls of whiteout doodles all over the front and back, the boy shimmied over to the nude torso of a mannequin and began to airguitar back to back with it. Weasel grinned at the sight and waited for the song to end, wondering if he should applaud once it did. Keen eye for the absurd, indeed.
The last chords faded and Weasel rapped on the door. The sound of it echoed in the warehouse and sounded like a lethargic roll of thunder. The boy twisted around, peered over in his direction, and grinned.
"He-y," the boy said. "What can I do ya for?"
"Um hi," Weasel said. He squeaked by the cinderblock and stood by the door a little awkwardly, his hands still crammed in his pockets and his shoulders hunched up from the cold. "I called earlier and--"
"Oh, Weasel, right?" The boy lovingly leaned the broom against the mannequin and jogged over. "Excellente, man!"
He shook Weasel's hand vigorously, then slung an arm around Weasel's shoulders.
"I'm Johnny," said the boy with an enormous grin. Johnny made a grand, sweeping gesture with his free arm and announced, "And this is our empire."
"Impressive," Weasel said, smiling.
Johnny snapped his fingers and jabbed rather jovially at Weasel's arm. "Sarcasm not needed, my friend. Now, come deeper into our den."
His arm still draped around Weasel's shoulders, Johnny expertly steered him past piles of driftwood embedded with dark, wicked-looking nails and burial mounds of tattered magazines, some of which were missing an odd corner or letter or word while others were bereft of their glossy covers or entire continents of celebrity faces and limbs. There were heaps of soggy-looking cardboard boxes that were swathed in duct tape, and there were nests of thick, black wires that were wrapped in insulation tape and tossed rather indiscriminately into a farrago of impending electrical disaster.
Through the maze of junk and trash and general disarray, Weasel counted three pairs of goggles (one of which was shattered and looked quite beyond repair), an Aliens poster, a lone fly-fishing boot, a pyramid of milk crates overflowing with sleek-covered comic books, a Mickey Mouse beach towel, three or four water-stained mattresses stacked all on top of each other, a few empty jars with pale green fluid gelling at the bottoms, a broken tennis racket, a tight clump of irregularly shaped lumps all covered with a thick white sheet, and the saddest, floppiest armchair he'd ever seen.
They turned the corner of the main warehouse area and entered a narrow hallway of sorts. The wall was steep and gray and bumpy like unstirred porridge. Weasel glanced up and saw a set of metal stairs leading up to a catwalk that oversaw the vicinity. It looked patently unsafe. Past the catwalk stairs, the hallway opened up to a smaller room. In the room was a wall splashed with swatches of vivid, different colored paints.
The floor was spread with newspapers, a whole sea of pixilated, grubby black-and-white text and photos. Near the left wall was an army of squat opened paint cans, all lined up and neatly matched with paintbrushes that rested on the newspaper before each can. A pyre of Dutch Boy stirrers lay out to the side along with some thick, colorful gloves and an empty tin can that held an assortment of brushes of varying size, shape and thickness. A paint tray complete with roller sat despondently by itself near the opposite wall.
In front of the wall of color stood a short Asian girl with a black sports bra and a flimsy lavender men's shirt on. The collar was turned out and the hem of the shirt reached just an inch or two above her knees. She sported a dark purple beret, which was nestled snugly at a jaunty angle on her pixie-cut flyaway black hair. Presently, she tucked one hand in the back pocket of her torn and faded jeans. She was barefoot.
"Jubes," Johnny called, still leaning heavily on Weasel.
The girl turned around and pushed pale-blue sunglasses from their perch on the bridge of her nose to rest on the crown of her forehead. She squinted then grinned broadly.
"Johnny-O!" The girl spied Weasel and grinned even wider. "Who's this?"
"Weasel, our latest mechanic-slash-The-Guy-Who-Knows-What-Buttons-To-Push," Johnny said with a rather extravagant bow.
"I don't think I've been hired yet," Weasel said. "But nice to meet you."
The girl laughed. "You, too, cutie. I'm Jubilee." She wiped her hands on the already smudged shirt and shrugged carelessly. "I'd shake your hand, but..."
Weasel grinned. "Consider it shaken."
"Now, is it shook or shaked or shaken?" Johnny wondered aloud.
"I think it's shaken," Weasel said. "Or maybe shook."
"Shakened?" Jubilee tried, her hands on her hips.
"I had a kitten once, and it was shakened when my dad almost ran over it," Weasel said helpfully.
Jubilee let out a snort and giggled.
"I like him," she said to Johnny. "Can we keep him?"
"Depends," Johnny said. "We'll have to see what Lance says."
"Lance?" said Weasel.
"Alvers," Jubilee said. "He's the lead. And he's cranky," she added as an afterthought.
"Ah," Weasel said. "Well, uh--would you like me to patch anything up? I'm good with computers, too, if, you know, you need anything done with stuff like that."
"Well, I'll tell you what," Johnny said. "Y'know where the catwalk is?"
Weasel idly played with one of his paperclip bracelets. "Yeah, I saw it earlier."
"Go up it, and you should see a room to your left," Johnny said. "Check it out; we've got a ton of cables and shit like that. One of our other mechanics is in there cataloguing or whatever."
"I'll go help out," Weasel said, grinning a little perplexedly.
"Okay, hon," Jubilee said, waving a little and accidentally flicking some paint onto Johnny's cheek.
Johnny yelped. Weasel laughed and turned, walking back the way they'd come.
"What the hell? What color is this even?" he heard Johnny ask with mock indignation.
"Saltwater taffy," replied Jubilee, laughing.
"Saltwater what?" said Johnny. "Think I had some of that at an amusement park once or something..."
Weasel climbed the steep metal stairs, listening to it rattle and clank with some measure of uneasiness. Once he was at the top, he paused, hands curled tightly around the railing. The catwalk squeaked a little and wobbled like tinfoil, but otherwise seemed relatively intact.
The catwalk was made of a dimpled, blue-gray sheet of metal that looked much thinner than it actually was. The huge gaps every eight feet or so did nothing to reassure, and briefly, Weasel wondered if there was any kind of worker's comp for being a rock band's mechanic. He glanced over and out at the tangle of scraps and odds and ends below and grinned when he saw the peak of a stack of traffic cones shyly peer out from under a snarl of fishnet and broken papier-mâché piñatas. He wondered how cool it'd be to take a disposable camera and take photographs at weird angles of all the junk that was down in the warehouse and resolved to ask Lance or Jubilee or whoever if he could do so should he get hired.
About middle the way out on the catwalk was a doorway, just as Johnny had promised. The door was closed and Weasel could hear, faintly, the thrum of a bass and the sound of something soothing and mellow. He knocked on the door and glanced around, curiously looking at the dust-streaked windows of the warehouse front. Beyond it was the fleece-gray autumn sky smudged with the occasional pale of passing clouds. A few jagged rooftops were visible in the distant along with the smoky kohl-dark horizon that was, he knew, scattered with newer suburban developments filled with electrical streetlamps the color of cheddar and crushed gravel driveways and neighborhoods with no sidewalks. Those same neighborhoods, however, always had lush green lawns in the summer, and pale tender in the spring, neatly combed in the fall. They were the ones with the perfect, uninterrupted blanket of snow cuddling up to their houses in the winter--almost as if in compensation for the crushed gravel and the lack of sidewalks.
Weasel's attention was drawn back to the iron door as he heard the music's volume get cranked down. The door swung open. Weasel could hear the music much clearer now, though it was softer, and he recognized it to be the Turtles. It must've been an oldies station; WONE 105.7, probably.
"Hello," said the man who had opened the door. His tanned face was friendly and he looked a little puzzled, but mostly affably inquisitive. He was wearing a gray t-shirt with rings of black around the collar and the hems of the sleeves and faded jeans with the knees ripped, the occasional white string drifting from the jagged holes in tendrils. A thin silver chain tumbled across his collarbone, a plain necklace with no pendants or lockets or charms. He had a black wristband on one wrist and his fingers were long, tapered, the knuckles jutting out almost sharply. He had sleep-mussed black hair, the uneven fall of it wandering into his left eye but steering clear of his right, and it trailed off at the nape of his neck. He jerked his head a little, swinging his bangs out of his eyes.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
He had very dark eyes and he was very beautiful.
"Um," Weasel said.
The man blinked and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and leaned an elbow against the doorjamb, in turn resting his temple against his forearm.
"Um," Weasel said again.
"'Um'?" asked the man, who seemed even more confused now.
"I'm Weasel," Weasel said. He felt the tips of his ears burn and he shook his head a little, running a hand through the thick unruly mess of dark that was his hair.
"Oh!" the man smiled and held out his hand. In a daze, Weasel shook it and adjusted his glasses as the man said, "My name's Forge. Welcome aboard."
"I haven't been hired yet," Weasel said.
Forge grinned. "Yes, well, I doubt they'll find anyone else to work as a mechanic in this town."
"They'll find lots of accountants," Weasel said before he could help himself. "Seventy-thousand dollars minus tax equals just enough money to bypass fun."
Forge laughed. It was a very open, friendly sort of laugh, and his shoulders shook a little when he did so. Weasel felt his ears warm just a little more as something started winding up tight in the pit of his stomach.
"Well, come on in," Forge said, opening the door more and standing aside.
"Oh," Weasel said, "right."
He walked in and immediately noticed how cramped the room was. It seemed to be very much so a one-person room, and there was currently not even enough space for that: there was an avalanche of manila envelopes scattered all over the three filing cabinets that lined the left side of the room, and the right side was a swarm of black boxes and jumper cables and other miscellany technical equipment, some seeming to date back to the Middle Ages.
"Yeah, uh." Forge laughed a little, looking slightly embarrassed. "Sorry about the mess. We just moved in, what, last week? I was just getting ready to...well."
"Catalogue," Weasel said vaguely, eyes already drawn to the electrical devices strewn across the great divide between the paper and the mechanical. He stooped to pick up an extension cable and inspected the crooked outlets. "I know."
He noticed Forge watching him and he smiled a little weakly.
"Looks like this is your first job, hey?" Forge said. Friendly.
"I guess so," Weasel said. Nervous.
He put down the extension cable on top of the debris burying what seemed to look like or, at the very least, resemble a desk and took a deep breath. He grinned rather bravely.
"Where do we start?"
Four hours later found the small room in the middle of the catwalk pulsating with old '70s songs. Weasel was lounging on a haphazard heap of manila envelopes and Forge was guarding the door with his back and an armful of clipboards and prepackaged fortune cookies. They were both snickering.
"Okay, okay," Weasel said. "Where's the kitchenette going to go?"
"Next to the breakfast nook," Forge said. He clumsily tossed a fortune cookie at Weasel. A few clipboards clattered to the floor with the action and he pursed his lips at them in consternation.
Weasel caught the fortune cookie, pinched apart the plastic packaging, and cracked the cookie in half.
"'Look in all directions at all times,'" Weasel read, then added, "in bed."
Forge chuckled. "Here, open one for me."
There was a loud clattering sound as more clipboards fell. Weasel popped both of his fortune cookie halves into his mouth and caught the second cookie.
"Hmmm," he said as he cracked it open. "Yours is 'Watch your step.'"
"In bed?" Forge tilted his head. "That doesn't make much sense."
"Not much of a fortune, either." Weasel handed the cookie fragments and slip of paper to Forge.
"I wonder what kind of bed I'd need to have to watch my step," Forge mused, absently shifting the clipboards more snugly in the crook of his arm.
"A waterbed?" Weasel suggested.
Forge laughed and nodded. "Point. I think a waterbed might be a bit treacherous."
"I don't like waterbeds," Weasel said seriously. "They scare me. I always think they're going swallow me up."
"Like an alien symbiote or something," Forge agreed and Weasel laughed aloud.
"Yeah, exactly," Weasel said, grinning widely. "And then I'd be stuck inside the stomach of some creepy invader-thing."
"With that weird water-emulating goo dripping down on you," Forge said, chuckling.
Weasel nodded vigorously. "It's got to be some kind of digestive enzyme."
Forge laughed, then looked around. "So, if we get a plasma t.v. do you think it'll go in the living room or the breakfast nook?"
"Who wants to go to the living room if there's a breakfast nook?" Weasel grinned.
"We can put the living room over there," Forge gestured with his chin at a sorry, little claustrophobic corner of the cramped room, "and stick the rec room over here."
Weasel sighed and leaned back on the obscenely enormous pile of envelopes, his hands propped up behind his head. "Such a spacious office."
"Elbow room galore." Forge nodded sagely.
Weasel eyed the ceiling, then felt himself slide sideways as the envelopes began a slow, snow-slope avalanche toward the middle of the office.
"Oof," he said as he landed somewhere near Forge's knee.
Forge laughed. "We should clean that up now."
"Coffee break's over, then?" Weasel asked. He stood up and dusted off his pants. They were spackled with dust and drying plaster in places. "Oh, this is going to be a pain to wash."
"Sorry," Forge said with an apologetic smile. "Part of the job description."
"It's going to be difficult to stay a fashionable hipster," Weasel joked.
Forge arched an eyebrow. "How deck?" (1)
Weasel snickered and reached down. "Here, let me help with some of those clipboards."
He took a step back so Forge could stand up and, now hugging roughly two-dozen clipboards to his chest, peered around. They'd cleaned off the desk and filed most of the papers and folders into the cabinets. The tangle of electrical devices and tools had been catalogued and stored away into a narrow closet in the corner of the room that had been previously unnoticed because of the mountains of soggy cardboard boxes that been propped up against and in front of it. The only thing left to do now was to tabulate the number of envelopes and clipboards there were and they'd be done with inventory.
Forge stood up, rubbed his forehead with the back of one hand, and put down the fortune cookies he had been holding. He shuffled the clipboards in his hand, then grinned when he finally came on one with a thin sheaf of papers on it. "Alright. I guess we can go back after we file away all those envelopes and these things, and make sure we've got everything."
"Sounds like a plan," Weasel said. "I've got--mm--twenty-seven clipboards here."
Forge silently counted as he rifled through the clipboards in his arms. "Thirty-two for me."
"My mad math skillz tell me that that's fifty-nine altogether," Weasel said helpfully.
Forge chuckled and pulled a bic pen out of his jeans pocket. He scribbled a quick 'clipboards -- 59' on the paper, and said,
"Alright, let's pack these things into the filing cabinet and count through the envelopes."
"This is really excellent, you know," Weasel commented. "Very exciting and mechanical."
"They're putting our skills to good use," Forge agreed.
They finished the rest of the cataloguing in a matter of minutes and swept up; it'd taken them just under half an hour, and they now sat on the floor, backs to the door, spraying aerosol potpourri at the filing cabinets.
"It smells like something died in there," Weasel said, wrinkling his nose at the cabinets.
"Now it smells like 'country garden,'" Forge said.
There was a loud knock on the door, and they stood up--Weasel with some difficulty, since his left foot had fallen asleep--as Forge turned down the volume on the radio. He opened the door.
"Hello?--Oh, Lance. How're you?"
"Rare with a splash of A1 on the side," said a lethargically lazy voice.
A young man wandered into the room, hands in pockets. His jeans were torn at the knees and in small frayed patches elsewhere, and he was wearing a black t-shirt with neon-green, crumbling letters that said, 'subgenius' on the front. He had scraggly dark brown longish hair and a small silver stud earring, and he was wearing a pair of reflective black sunglasses that still had their bright-red price tag on the side. A half-ash cigarette drooped from the corner of his lips, and he took a drag, then exhaled the smoke around the cigarette.
"Wow. Whatta shithole," he said.
"Yeah, you hooked us up with a winner, Lance," Forge said, smiling.
"Shut it, wiseass," Lance said idly. He glanced around, sauntered over to the desk, and hopped up to sit on it. "I'd hate to've seen this fuckin' dump before you got to it."
"Um," Weasel said.
Lance quirked an eyebrow and took out his cigarette with one hand, removing his shades with the other.
"Weasel-Weasel, I presume," he said, breathing a lovely noxious cloud of nicotine and carcinogens up into the air.
"That'd be my twin, Weasel v. 2.0," Weasel joked. "They just call me Weasel."
"Cute," Lance said. "So, did Johnny tell you to do anything?"
"I helped catalogue some of this junk," Weasel said. He gestured toward the filing cabinet and the closet and the pitiful little pile of dust and litter that sat in a corner, waiting for a trash bin.
"Huh," said Lance. "That's nice."
Weasel blinked owlishly. Lance tapped his cigarette on the side of the desk a few times and ember-dust drifted to the floor.
"Let's see." Lance leaned back on both hands and eyed the single light bulb that clung tenuously to the ceiling, lonely and blindingly bright. "How much mechanical experience do you have?"
"Well," said Weasel.
"What about computer crap? Know lots of that shit?"
"I," said Weasel.
"Do you own tools?"
"Yes," said Weasel.
"Hired," Lance announced and hopped down from the desk. He put the cigarette back to his lips and hooked the sunglasses so that they dangled from one ear.
"Check you later," he said, nodding at Forge and grinning crookedly at Weasel. "Be here tomorrow, nine o'clock sharp."
"Aye, cap'n," Weasel said, more than a little baffled.
"See you later," Forge said and closed the door behind Lance. He grinned at Weasel.
"Hmm," Weasel said. "That confused me."
Forge laughed. "Here, I'll show you the forms you have to fill out."
"Okay," Weasel said, and they grinned at each other.
The vesper gloom of seven o'clock settled comfortably over the warehouse, a dark crushed blue seeping in through the windows and hanging from the deepening shadows on the walls like aimless ghosts. Once it hit six-thirty, a few, meager fluorescent lights had snapped on, wavering and blinking on the tall ceiling like bright, bar-shaped seizures captured in tubes. Johnny and Jubilee had disappeared and the all the doors were padlocked tight except for the front door; a cinderblock still stood vigil, thin, autumn chill keeping it company. There was a smear of orange on the floor from the bottom of the catwalk to the front door that looked like the footprints of a slowly dying pumpkin.
"Jubilee," Forge said to his companion.
Weasel nodded sagely. "I figured. Is she painting a mural or something?"
"Yeah," Forge said. "The plan's to set up a stage over there--" here, he gestured toward a lonely wall opposite the front door that had bits of gum tacked to it and graffiti that read 'Big C Wus Here' snaking across it diagonally. "--and to have a sort of makeshift green room or whatever over in the other room."
"Spiff," Weasel said, grinning. "So that's why you guys need mechanics, yeah? Because you need to get lights and stage stuff up?"
Forge nodded. "It's going to be a long haul. Lance's idea; he said that if the local venues don't have time to hear us play, we'll make our own venue."
Weasel laughed. "I bet he wasn't half as polite."
"That's true," Forge chuckled.
They picked their way through the debris, stepped over the cinderblock and outside, and stood, watching the ripple of the lake. The sun was burnt into the sky, leaving its sooty purple shadow on the clouds as it slowly and droopily sank. There was the sound of yelling on the other side of the pier, but it was indistinguishable and echoed off the cement and deadweight wood that the wharf was carved out of. The twilight made the ground seem like asphalt; dark and sparkling and grainy like chalk or herbal vitamins that tasted like the insides of rotting tree trunks.
"I'd better head off," Weasel said, watching as Forge carefully nudged the cinderblock inside and swung the door closed, locking it. He used a long, metal key that was one of many that hung from an antiquated-looking ring.
Forge tucked the keys back into his jeans pocket and frowned a little. "Do you need a ride?"
It was significantly chillier out than before; he could see dim plumbs of pale escaping both their mouths as they breathed and talked.
"No, I'm fine," Weasel said, shaking his head. "I only live a little way's from here."
"Oh, okay," Forge said. He turned and held out his hand, smiling. "It was nice meeting you."
"You, too," Weasel said with an enormous grin. He shook Forge's hand and saluted before cramming both hands into his pockets and shuddering a little.
"Jeez, but it's getting cold," he commented before giving one last parting grin.
As he walked away, Forge took a moment to look him over: tousled black hair that spiked up in all directions, thin shoulders pulling against the flimsy material of his shirt by hunching, a slightly loping walk that somehow seemed to be self-conscious yet confident and unassuming all at the same time. He knew that, should Weasel turn around, he'd see dark hazel eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses that tinted otherwise pale skin a shade darker with nonreflective lenses. He also knew that Weasel had very thin and very slender hands that had slightly calloused fingers that were very deft, that were very clever-looking.
Forge coughed a little and looked away from the fading figure in the distance. He had a thin dark jacket on that was a felt-polyester blend. There was a crumple of paper as he thrust his hands into said jacket's pockets, and he frowned a little and pulled out a sheet of paper that had Weasel's messy, angular handwriting on it. He grinned, feeling a sort of looseness in his chest that was very fluttery.
Squinting, Forge scanned the sheet in the fading light, then paused, the frown from before reappearing. He brought the paper an inch from his nose and stared hard at it.
No, he'd read it right the first time.
"Weasel!"
Weasel turned and tilted his head, his brow furrowed in bemusement as he saw Forge running after him. "Forge?"
Forge bent a little, catching his breath, then straightened. He waved the paper.
"You made a mistake on your application," he said earnestly.
"A mistake?" Weasel asked, looking even more confused.
"Yeah," Forge said. He laughed, and his laugh was a little high and a little more hysterical than before. "You, uh, said that you were, er, seventeen."
"Oh," Weasel said and laughed.
Forge grinned widely. "So--"
"That's no mistake," Weasel said with a sort of amused smile.
Forge stared. "No--what?"
"Didn't Johnny tell you?" Weasel chewed on his lower lip. "I know it's a little unconventional but--"
"It's okay," Forge said quickly. "It's fine, I just--um," he smiled weakly. "It caught me by surprise."
Weasel scuffed his shoe on the ground and looked slightly sheepish. "Sorry about that. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow, hey?"
"Right," Forge said feebly. "Tomorrow."
Weasel grinned brightly and waved. Forge watched him walk through the scraggly trees at the border of the warehouse district and fade into the darkness. Once Weasel was out of sight, Forge sagged against the brittle wooden railing that bordered the pier and sighed a little too shakily for his comfort.
"Seventeen," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head.
Collecting his wits, he stood straight and ran a hand through his hair. Carefully, he folded the damning paper and tucked it in his jacket pocket. Then he firmly ignored the little niggling voice in the back of his head that gleefully reminded him over and over again of what exactly he'd thought of when he looked at Weasel's very thin, very slender hands.
"Baby steps," he reminded himself. He'd concentrate on getting home tonight, going to sleep--without thinking about Weasel, thank you very much, because only insane people are that obsessed with someone they've only just met--and getting to work in one piece. And hopefully work would be better the next day.
Of course, nine o'clock a.m. day proved that these were very unrealistic hopes.
It was a Tuesday and Forge had dressed accordingly for the cold that had traversed from night to morning: dark gray long-sleeved shirt with a white Monkees logo on the back, faded black jeans, and thick black fingerless gloves. When he reached the warehouse, he saw that the band (otherwise known as the Odd Couple and co.) had a blatant disregard for the chill autumn weather; Jubilee was sporting a bright yellow tanktop, pajama bottoms, and thick, rain boots (which, no doubt, matched the yellow slicker that was hanging from an armless mannequin in the corner); Johnny had a flimsy peacock blue t-shirt on, jean cut-offs and high-top sneakers, green; and Lance, the ever imaginative, was wearing his usual: black t-shirt, ripped jeans.
"Didn't you see the weather forecast?" Forge asked, smiling, when he saw them.
Lance succinctly flipped him the bird, and Jubilee stuck her tongue out at him before giggling.
"We're with Rogue in spirit," Johnny said with a rather worrisome grin, "and so, naturally, we have to show it."
"Who's Rogue?" came a voice from high in the catwalk.
Forge tried not to look, but he couldn't help himself: He leaned back and felt himself go a little weak in the knees when he saw Weasel, who had both arms crossed atop the feeble railing of the catwalk and was leaning his chin on them. Weasel waved.
"Good morning," Forge called. He felt inordinately satisfied with himself for the steadiness in his voice.
"Hi," Weasel said cheerfully.
Weasel clambered across and down the catwalk, grinning.
"We actually have work to do today," he informed Forge, bouncing on his toes in excitement.
"Really," Forge said, slightly distracted; Weasel was wearing a plain black hoodie, the same square-toed black boots from yesterday, and khaki cargo bondage pants (obviously lovingly worn, from the shabby patches here and there) that was scattered with safety pins and the occasional sewn-on epigraph like, 'I am Jack's...', which took up the hem of his left leg.
"Yeah," Weasel said, practically brimming with enthusiasm. "So, who's Rogue?"
"Our drummer," Johnny said. "She's a real sunbeam."
"Doesn't talk," said Lance, who seemed to be engrossed in the latest edition of Maxim. "You'd like her a fuckin' lot, believe you me."
Weasel laughed. "So where is she?"
"Louisiana," Jubilee said. She was kicking a deflated basketball as though it were a hackysack. "Visiting family. She's been writing some letters and stuff, y'know, but I dread the day we get one written all in the blood of her relatives."
"Exaggeration?" Weasel asked, grinning at Forge.
"No," Forge said, dragging himself out of deep contemplation about how narrow Weasel's wrists were and how deceptively delicate. He smiled weakly.
"You wanna give Forge HQ's latest orders?" Lance tilted his head and the magazine and seemed to pontificate on what was no doubt a very physically impossible position that some unfortunate model was in.
"Sure," Weasel said with a skip and a hop. "C'mon."
Forge followed Weasel up the catwalk--not, mind you, paying the least attention to how slouchy Weasel's pants were--and into the room, which miraculously smelled like Pine Sol.
"I took the liberty of buying some cleaning products last night," Weasel said. "Since, you know, I'm pretty sure I never want to go to a country garden let alone stay somewhere that smells like one."
Forge laughed, startled out of watching Weasel's fingers curl and uncurl, grasping tight the sleeve-ends of the too-baggy hoodie he was swimming in.
"We could get something equally disgusting," he said. "Like seaside aria or whatever."
Weasel made a face and shook his head. He handed a manila folder to Forge and leaned against one of the filing cabinets. Forge took the folder and opened it, skimming the contents--all without, remarkably enough, noticing that his fingers had brushed Weasel's and that Weasel's chin was remarkably sharp and his lips were thin but looked very soft.
Thankfully, the contents of the folder engrossed him enough to forget that Weasel happened to be standing a few feet away, attempting to balance a paperclip on his nose.
"They want us to figure out how to set up the stage today?" Forge frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. "That doesn't make any sense. Shouldn't we be cleaning everything up first?"
"Lance's idea," Weasel said, and quipped: "'If we know where every-the-fuck-thing is going before we move every little piece-a shit, we can do the least fuckin' amount of work possible.'"
Forge laughed. "Sounds like Lance alright."
"The guy is an economic genius," Weasel said rather sincerely.
"A professor of slack," Forge agreed.
They spent the rest of the morning figuring out the rough schematics of where the wiring and equipment would have to go in order for small fires and electrical catastrophes not to happen. About an hour before noon, there was a rock 'n' roll-sounding ruckus from below, which continued nonstop for three hours before fading off to Jubilee screaming something about supersoakers. Then, around two, a very soggy-looking Johnny knocked on the door and yelled, "Hey, lovers, time for lunch!"
Up until that point, Forge had happily forgotten that he might very possibly be smitten with jailbait.
"Oh, right," Forge said and glanced back at Weasel, who was lying on the floor and singing along with the Weezer CD he'd brought and peering at the sketchy blueprint they'd cooked up. He felt a strange jittery feeling ripple from his toes to somewhere in his chest.
Johnny grinned and pushed past him before actually pouncing on Weasel. There was a very loud yelp, then the crinkling sound of the blueprint getting crushed between Johnny's very wet hair and Weasel's very squirmy stomach.
"Get off-f-f," Weasel squeaked, laughing despite himself.
Forge chuckled but felt a little nauseous.
Johnny propped his chin up on one hand and yanked the blueprint out of Weasel's hands.
"Hmmm," he said, very gravely, inspecting it. "Looks like the appendix's bust."
"The appendix of a grimy and disillusioned society," Weasel said between little bursts of laughter.
Johnny snickered and hopped to his feet and helped Weasel up with an unceremoniously hard tug. Forge took the blueprint from Johnny and fastidiously folded it and put it in the first drawer of the desk. He tried very hard to ignore how close Weasel and Johnny were standing; how Johnny was whispering something very loudly and sloppily into Weasel's ear; how Weasel was laughing, his thin, slender frame trembling with mirth. Forge tried very hard to not think about Weasel and trembling at all, but failed somewhat miserably.
"Anyway," Johnny said, snickering to himself. He slung an arm around Weasel's shoulders and said grandiosely, "Off to the nearest KFC, good fellow!"
"We're going to KFC?" Forge said.
Weasel started laughing. "Oh, jeez. High-budget spending."
He grinned at Forge, and it was a very secret sort of grin that left Forge feeling warm inside.
"We're not corporate monsters, man," Johnny said, pretending to be hurt, then added, "Something smells piney in here."
In more ways than one, Forge thought. He tried very hard not to be obscenely cheered up just because Weasel smiled at him and failed miserably at that, too.
"Let's go to lunch," he said resignedly.
~tbc~
(1) According to the Hipster's Handbook, 'deck' is now the *ahem* trendy way to say 'cool.' *giggles* Dude. Hipsters.
