Farewell


by Yez & Ice

aka

Claws, Clicks and –poofs-




They sat in a tiny room, typing together. It used to be a big room, or, at least, it seemed to be a big room. Freedom of thought made it much bigger than it actually was. Now it was just so damn… confining.

"Yuck…" Ice curled her lip back as she held up a filthy poster. It was mostly verbage, with a well-written motto that fit neatly under the name of a web site. An adorable logo of a lit bulb capped it all off nicely. "What'll we do with this?"

"Well," Yezra started, sneering at the dingy poster. It looked like it had caught fire then was hastily stamped out. "If I were you, I'd simply replace the words 'free your soul' with 'lose your account' and pin it back up." She continued mirthlessly. "Then you can tack it up to the New Wall, ha ha ha."

Yezra tossed a stress-relieving ball in the air repeatedly, tying to hit the ancient overhead fan's sticky blades. It made very little breeze, but the control switches had recently been removed, so the room's occupants were condemned to watch as it continued to rotate in slow, getting-us-nowhere circles. The ball only made contact once every seventeen tosses or so. She caught the ball and eyed the dismal spot on the wall where there used to be a window… there used to be an opening in the room, just like the fan used to have a switch. The window let in sun and fresh air, and that signpost of joy that all writers look for, New Freaking Ideas. Yezra sneered and looked away, and went back to tossing the ball up into the stale air.

Ice dragged her hand across the New Wall, sighing deeply as a frown creased her young brow. The spot that had been the window, that symbolic patron of open minds, was now an obviously patched section of prison-style cinder blocks and cement. And it hadn't even been painted to match the rest of the wall.

"Give it up girl, even Harry Potter can't make it come back," Yezra drawled. The gooey ball missed again, this time on the thirteenth toss. "Fuck!" Yezra spat. She threw it with more venom this time, but Ice reached out and caught the squishie ball in mid air. She gave her author friend a pointed look.

"That's enough, dear," she said, putting the ball in the cardboard Bekins Brothers box with their other stuff. "You're defeating its purpose. Stress reliever, yes? Not inducer."

Yezra grinned at her young friend. "What would I do without you to keep me in line, chica?"

"I dunno…" she sighed, "Watch me die of boredom, maybe?"

Yezra smirked and sat back up, biting a nail as she looked at the monitor of her iMac, glowing in the dimly lit room. "Not if I can get you out of this room, princess. And not before I go insane and give all my money away to bag ladies." She changed the subject rapid-fire, as usual. "We took waaaaay too long to write this." Yez leaned back in her chair and gave Ice The Frown.

"I don't know. Look, we gave it a chance. That's more'n most did."

Yez grit her teeth. "True… but it's gone like Chutes and Ladders around here. Kiddie-land. I wanna play poker, not jacks. I want my NC-17, dammit!"

Ice giggled at Yezra's immediate defensive nature and stood up, fists on hips. She adopted a most unbecoming and very un-Ice-like uppity face, and said, "Put away your placard, Yezra."

Yez stared back at her, blinking. She narrowed her eyes for just a moment, then they both started laughing. "Oh, shut the hellup!"

Ice gasped, but still smiled, and clamped her hand over Yezra's mouth. "Shhhhhh! Be careful, or you'll get a lightning bolt shot up your ass," she hissed, looking around melodramatically.

With a wry _expression, Yez bit her finger – just lightly. Ice yelped and let go.

"Dammit," she quipped, her merry, dark eyes gleaming with fake anger. On the verge of laughter, she added, "You bitch!"

"Oh?" Yezra blinked repeatedly. "I didn't break skin, did I?"

Ice rolled her eyes, flexing her finger in Yez's face. "Not to worry… I'll just get my Hordes Of Fanboys to kill you."

"Ah! Fanboys. Do we have those?"

"Nah. Not really. What we have is a small group of supportive reviewers who understand our tongue in cheek crap and realize that fanfic is a fun, non-profit experience that is not meant to be critiqued as though it is Serious Published Work." She smiled. "However… If we wanted fanboys, first, we'd need to build ourselves a pedestal to Lord Over the Masses with as We Stand Upon it. All will bow to Our Opinion. Those who won't are not – whatchacallit? 'Expressing themselves?' No, they are Simply Wrong." She giggled. "And then we'd have to create a new, um, haven where-" she waggled her fingers and put quotations around her next words, "All Are Welcome… just so long as they agree with everything we say." She smiled a fake, saccharin smile reminiscent of the Red Menace and flipped her hair. "All this, I tell you Queenie, must occur before we can have Fanboys. And Fangirls, for that matter."

Yezra smiled at her. Ice was so damn witty. "Oh. That's what I thought. All that and no NC-17? Gee, where do I sign up?" Yezra tossed a pen into the box. "No thank you, I'm afraid of heights. And I prefer men to boys."

They turned their heads as one when Nature Boy and The Meatball suddenly came into the tiny room, filling it up with their awesome manliness like a threatening presence.

And that, of course, made the room even tinier.

Logan smiled at his author warmly, in a way no ink had ever allowed. "Hey, we was wonderin' where you two got off to. Haven't seen you in this place for a long time."

As he came closer to her, Ice stood up and gave Logan a quick kiss. "We were just packing our gear and tying up a few loose ends."

Nick leaned over behind Yez's chair and planted his palms on either side of her mouse and keyboard. She smirked, acting like he was not in the room, much less surrounding her on three sides. Nick read Sparky's screen from over her shoulder and grinned when she finally grabbed his collar and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek.

"Hey! Whatcha gals writin', Queenie?"

"Hum… we're not really writing, you know? Just leaving a forwarding address is all." She hit send and smiled, then shut down her trusty iMac. With the help of their manly-man muses, the two intrepid authors finished packing Darcy and unplugging Sparky. They got everything onto a cart and the muses wheeled it outside to load the contents into a borrowed SHIELD van.

Alone again, Yezra and Ice looked around the room, holding hands.

"We had some good times here, Princess. Made some author-buds. Truly wonderful people. Ramos. Metro. Fuzzyblue. Ascian. Quite a few others… not to mention the reviewers, who were like gold."

Ice sighed. "I know, but… Remember, to change thy mind and to follow him that sets thee right, is to be none the less the free agent that thou wast before."

"Owch. Heady."

"Bother…" said Ice. "Okay, then: Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them."

Yezra rolled her eyes. "Good gravy, Ice. Eat lunch with Hank much?"

"Um… Change is good?" Ice concluded on a higher note.

"Damn skippy." Yezra smiled evily.

Ice giggled. "C'mon, let's go. I'm finally old enough, and I want a martooni."

They turned off the lights – leaving the fan running, of course - and exited the room. Ice locked the door carefully, and put the keys in an envelope, grimacing as she licked the yucky glue and sealed it shut. Yez scribbled a few sentences on a postee-note, and slapped it unceremoniously to the door, and they were gone.








Occupants have moved on.

Please send any and all correspondence to:

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/clawsclicks/

Have a nice day.
















fin.

and this time we really mean it.

really.

*snicker*