Strangelove

By MozzoJijo

Chapter 1

Disparate Exchange

(Note: Do I LOOK like Martin Gore to you? Cause even if I DO kind of look like the other guy, I don't own the song!)

—-

The sun shined almost endlessly over the foraged grasslands, giving it a yellow tang throughout the surface of every plant. It was peaceful and satisfying for the most part.

As it continued towards a few hills coming, the view soon became odd for anyone who expected the season to grow, especially if the groundhog saw its shadow after all. Most people didn't care if winter came with contrary weather results; it was just nature's way of preparing them for the next season in line. In which case, only Peter and Steve could say they were ready, as they carelessly laid down on the grass, their heads rested on a tree exploited for shade.

"Sigh, what a day" said Steve amiably. He might have woken Peter up by saying so, even though the latter was too indolent to care.

"What a day indeed" Peter replied effortlessly. His hat covered his open eyes so as to make sure all was dark. As long as the day remained, the shade was never enough.

"Kind of sets the scene for spring, don't you think?" Asked Steve, exercising the same effort used by Peter a second ago, who on the other hand, seemed to convince Steve that there wasn't a reason to preoccupy on anything right now.

"Totally" Peter replied.

"Yeah" said Steve.

Both teenage boys sighed at the idea. It was nearly the end of February, giving them a chance to wait for the upcoming exams, or rush if they wanted to. Apparently they were the kind to take advantage of free time to think it all through while actually using it to relax, within a comfortable location and a climate that mimicked summer.

"Steve?" asked Peter.

"Tsup Pete?" asked Steve, his eyes closed now.

"You don't feel guilty of where you are, right?" Peter continued, forcing Steve to open his eyes and summit them towards his friend.

"Where I AM?" replied Steve, subconscious towards the implications of the comment.

"Yeah" said Peter, after adjusting his hat out of his eyes and sitting up to look at Steve, who also slightly sat up on the tree to make it easier in recollecting Peter's facial detection. Steve almost doubted how Peter really was planning all the tranquility that could've awaited them.

"Golly, unless this tree tells me, not really, I'd just freak out" replied Steve.

"No" began Peter, satiated to see Steve was for the most part listening "I'm talking about our lives"

"Our lives?" asked Steve, nearly accusing Peter of lunacy within that tone.

"Yes" Replied Peter, in hopes Steve knew what he was referring.

"Mmm, I don't know. What's wrong with our lives?" asked Steve.

"Well you see, I've been thinking" began Peter, turning towards his right side to get an image comparable to a medium shot of Steve. "There are guys like us in this cruel world, right?"

Steve looked up, distorting puzzlement with a brief scowl, wondering if he should be concerned with Peter's question, or just Peter. The assumption had to come if he didn't feel like worrying, so Peter's question it was.

"Well, I doubt it, but if you say so" replied Peter.

"JUST talking about our ages, 18 or more" said Peter, making Steve's eyes open wide.

"AH! Well doy! There's more than we can count!" replied Steve, hoping that logic had nothing to do with opening the seminar Peter was planning to reveal without request whatsoever.

"Exactly, see, here's what bothers me the most" said Peter, unaware of the aggravated hint Steve's face made after it nearly looked away. "There are two types of teens going on 19 out there. Ones like us, who're spoiled with whatever they want, and ones who are either off getting killed, exploited, or lost without family, covered in newspapers sleeping on some street, dreaming of a life wishing they'd have it at least half as good as we do every day, regardless of difference. And even though we know that, still we do nothing, not because we can't, but because we won't, sad isn't it?" All this time, Peter was only attempting to clean his conscience by allowing his friend to join him.

"Gee, that DOES sound saddening" replied Steve, a wave of sarcasm undistinguishable to his friend's ears. Thanks to that, he turned his head to lay his back on the tree once again.

"Right?" replied Peter, assuming he obtained the feedback he wanted.

"Mmm-hmm," said Steve. "That's why I don't worry about it"

Deep down, Steve was intolerable towards guilt, especially his own. All it did was remind him of how cold the world really was and unhelpful its core accomplished from him. The only effort he used was the one to forget about it, regardless of knowing he could never prevent it.

"Come on, Steve, can't you shrink your pity just enough to THINK about them for a bit?" Asked Peter with frustration. Steve converted the anger his own frustration was gaining, due to this, into potential energy to sit in a position that made him look ready to stand up. By now, Steve knew it was too late to recover the moment of peace he hoped all this would remain to be. What was left was to use the spare denial to clean out any argument he knew wasn't worth the time anymore.

"Do I have to?" asked Steve, more goaded than pissed off "Cause if that's the case, maybe I should dedicate a daily ten minutes to worry about some narcissistic peasant I'll never meet in a hundred years so I can keep wishing he had a better life and feel terrible about him until depression ends up swallowing me and shitting me out as the emo that same peasant was any-fucking-how from now on!"

"Geez, Steve, come on, do you really have to take it THAT far?"Asked Peter, thinking a smidgen of humor might keep this situation from shifting into a chew-out more than a friendly conversation. It didn't.

"OH do I?" said Steve, utilizing humor like Peter, but for the opposite deeds "Well I don't know, cause maybe you're right! I really don't know enough to say how every moment I cherish, day after day after day, is gold compared to what others have yet don't deserve but are stuck with anyhow no matter how hard they try to reach it, whether it's on their own accounts or generation after generation after generation!"

So the message was as clear as Steve's vision towards anarchy in this world. The tree's shade tried, but Steve proved that obscurity never failed to have more than just a comfortable side. Only Peter knew how to distract this idea from apparent view. He knew it was doubtful, seeing as he really wanted to worry less than Steve, yet humor was his only recurring option.

"…You're not on your period, are you?" asked Peter, struggling to contain his smile. Steve was now a mixture of anger and confusion as he processed that comment in order to figure out how ensnaring it actually was after thinking about it. Because of that, he could only try to regain the moment of angst that almost obliged him to lose his mind.

"…Shut up, man, you're nasty!" smirked Steve, noticing how Peter smiled along with him.

"Well hey, what do YOU want to talk about?" asked Peter, persisting the now friendly impression he'd guided Steve into.

"What do you think?" asked Steve, returning to the laid back arrangement unknown to any uncomforted alternative. "Nothing, that's what I came here for, to flush away my worries, is that too much to ask?"

"That depends, is a simple conversation topic too hard?" Replied Peter, almost making Steve assume he honestly wanted to get on his nerves, a tactic that failed upon hearing his reply.

"Look, man, I didn't want to talk about something THAT cynical, all right?" said Steve, who almost reminded Peter of Paige, during the time she was too sunken deep into her Vogue magazines to give a damn for Peter or his concepts of idealization towards fun, or in other words, his own beeswax.

"And yet you made an uproarious commotion on it one way or another" said Peter firmly.

"No, what I did was PROVE it wasn't a big deal by MAKING IT a big deal through your point of view!" replied Steve, thinking a mind game was at least half enough to make Peter quit.

"Oh okay, but you still made a big deal of it, right?" replied Peter, releasing a grin of insolence that waited for Steve's response.

"Yes!...No!...Yes, GAH! Who are you, my mother?" yelled Steve, caught up in a whimsical situation faithful enough to jump on Peter as though obliged to wrestle for the right to remain quiet. Peter fought back by grabbing onto his arms after he was flipped over until both were out of the shade, tumbling away like a human steamroller. They stopped after one of them was too tired to fight back, though it looked as if both hadn't much of a choice.

"For?" asked Peter, no longer caring that the clouds covered the sun, giving them all the shading they wanted without the need of a tree. Steve shuffled out of Peter's grasp in order to catch his breath before replying.

" Gasp…Cause this is…gasp…. just another reason….gasp… why I didn't want…gasp… to talk AT ALL!" said Steve, more tired, now that Peter and him chose to take it easy.

"And that would be?" asked Peter, always in the mood to get to him no matter what. This just made Steve lightly punch him in the back.

"STOP IT, PETER! You KNOW" said Steve, too tired to feel anything but humor, to Peter's fulfillment.

"Oh yeah!" said Peter, overcome by the aftermath of exercise to give a proper rebuttal. "Sure I do"

This made Steve sigh for the last time and land on the grass as the sagacity once portrayed by him, with fatigue, was torn away by apparent submission disguised as a smart-alecky avowal of frustration combined with the absurdity thanks to it.

"Wow, Pete, how I ever managed to stay friends with you for this long is beyond me!" said Steve.

"Ah, Steve, it's like they say" Began Peter, as the image of the sun finally emerging from one of the clouds left behind a reason for him to be. "Opinions are like assholes, we've all got one"

Seconds later, Peter copied his friend by allowing his body to rest on the flat grassland in monotony for a while.

—-

In 2010, I put all my efforts into this fan fiction a few weeks before graduating High School. In 2012, I deleted it out of uncontrollable rage. As the years went by I felt painfully nostalgic and missed this fan fiction more than anything. Regret was my own punishment as I had given up too much due to the fact I thought it was gone for eternity.

Thanks to the creation of the miraculous tool known as the Wayback machine, it was as if a part of me I thought I didn't deserve anymore was brought back.

Happy ending, right?

Not really.

As grateful as I was to regain this fan fiction, returning to its fandom was like returning to a college you hadn't been to in almost as much time: if you saw anyone you knew, odds are they were not only going to look greyer but they wouldn't exactly look at you in such a happy way again, let alone act as if they still recognized you.

Heck, just a few weeks ago I tried to bring back my "original characters" which I hadn't used in 5 years…only to have them tie me up to a chair and violently interrogate me on why I did so in the first place.

And if you knew anything about my history with FoxTrot (which trust me: you don't want to) you'd probably know it's worse in this case.

Muuuuuuuch worse.

In fact, not only am I releasing this fan fiction heavily edited out for our convenience, but I removed a few subplots here and there given how the inclusion of certain characters does not bode as well with me as it used to.

If I'm to be honest I should've just avoided the pretense that I didn't only like FoxTrot because of Denise Russo, despite my best efforts to appreciate any other character.

So here is my once magical story reduced to just a generic tease fic.

Enjoy.