Author's Note: I don't know. This is nothing. It's been three days since St. Patrick's Day and I'm still celebrating by drinking green beer all day and eating green cookies. Just dying my mediocrity in shamrock and everything is just whatever. Forget day, it's St. Patrick's Week for me.
Beh. This is a piece of crap, always just another piece of crap. Except this time it's green crap.
"Just let me borrow it, I won't be long."
"No, I don't think that's a good idea."
Marcese glances over to the owners of the voices, still sitting on the steps outside the school as she waits, and is incredulous to discover Castiel and Viktor.
"C'mon, it's not like you need it," Castiel grunts as he trails down the sidewalk just a step or so behind the future businessman.
"I don't see how you need it either," Viktor replies mildly.
Marcese has turned to stone where she sits, eyes bugging and head tilted in bewilderment because since when in the hell do these two know each other!? How? When did this happen? She blinks rapidly as if she expects the uncanny scene of two she people she knows quite well and would never have expected to know other dissolve, but they're still walking together and almost out of earshot.
She almost leaps up and invites herself over to ask what and when and how, when who she's been waiting for loops her arms around her neck from behind and lightly rests her chin on her head.
"What are you staring at?" Debrah asks with moderate interest.
"Them," Marcese squawks and she points to Castiel and Viktor. "Since when do they know each other!?"
"Oh?" Debrah follows her finger. She hums thoughtfully and Marcese can feel her shake her head. "I don't know the black-haired guy. Who is he?"
"My friend, kinda," Marcese mutters, shock dying down to tepid bemusement as they round the corner and disappear from sight. "Viktor."
"Your friend 'kinda?'" Debrah mimics skeptically. "Your boyfriend?"
"No way," says Marcese, her face screwing up. "He's really not my type."
Debrah snickers softly and shifts a little. "I'm your type," she chirrups and presses a lipsticky kiss to Marcese's cheek.
"Unfortunately," Marcese teases. Debrah playfully pushes her over. She rolls off onto the grass and Debrah pins her with ease, knee languidly sliding between her legs.
Amber emerges from the school just in time to see it and stops dead, eyeballs gawking and nose wrinkling. "That's disgusting! Get a room!"
Debrah and Marcese flip her off in unison as their lips unite.
xXx
Castiel doesn't know what's happening until it's already over.
The world slopes at an unusual angle and he greens a little as he peels himself up from the road and sits. The world aligns again and there's Viktor's motorcycle, a couple meters away, front tire blown out and flat as a pancake.
At least the road was devoid of other vehicles.
But that is scarcely a silver lining.
"Shit," Castiel spits aloud. He starts to stand, but that's when the pain registers. A burning lance shoots up his leg and arm in concurrence. He hisses and sits back, eyes shifting to the damage. Leather is split to showcase flesh ground raw by skidding, blood welling in the fissures of pink meat. Bits of gravel are embedded here and there, more so in his leg, and create connect-the-dot patterns worthy of a children's puzzle book.
Fuck!
This is the worst possible thing that could happen today!
Grumbling irritably under his breath, he fishes his phone out of his pocket. The screen is a spiderweb of fracture, completely useless.
Alright. Now this is definitely the worst thing that could happen today.
Castiel grits his teeth and stands despite the paroxysm of scorching needles and stiffly trudges over to the fallen motorcycle. The tire is already flat, so kicking at it won't really make things worse.
It won't really make things better either, but Castiel's pissed and it suffices as an outlet.
XxX
Amber takes walks sometimes. Walking is a great way to break in new shoes, after all.
She's out taking a walk texting Charlotte about shopping later, when she spots something somewhat unnerving further up the road. Some guy kicking at something, it looks like.
Huh. He looks pretty damn angry. She's a bit wary of continuing her walk.
After all, what if he's like one of those psychos in those creepy books her brother is always reading? The kind of guy who'll explode the second she enters his peripheral and drag her down into the ditch, and kick her face in and—
Wait. What if that's what he's kicking over there? Some undeserving person's face!?
Oookay. Yeah, she's definitely not going over there. She likes her face where it is and her skin on her body, thank you very much.
She pivots on her heel and starts briskly back the way she came, but she's just a second too late.
"Hey! You over there! You got a phone?!"
Amber instantly goes rigid. Damn it. He's seen her, now he's going to chase her down, kick her face in, butcher her and tan her hide like she's a buffalo, and turn her into a skin suit. And then it's going to get published in one of those 'true crimes' books and Nathaniel is going to read it, and— and then it occurs to her she knows that voice.
"Castiel!?"
"Ey, Amber! I know you have a phone! Get over here!" He impatiently gestures to her and she squints across the distance, heart squiggling in her chest.
Without another word, Amber actually sprints all the way over and comes to an abrupt halt before him. Her eyes widen as a gasp flies from her lips. For most other people, this would probably be a natural reaction to a wreaked motorcycle. Or better yet, to a classmate with fairly extensive road rash. But because Amber is Amber, she instantly knows the real problem here.
"Oh my god! Your outfit!" Her hands swoop to her open mouth.
"You're telling me," Castiel scoffs heatedly. "I just bought this."
"And it was real leather too," Amber laments sympathetically.
"Yeah. Fucking expensive." He kicks at the deflated tire with a little wince and then raises a brow at her. "Hey, how'd you know it was real?"
"I recognize quality anywhere," Amber states as the fact it is, tapping a finger against her equally real leather belt.
Castiel nods his approval.
xXx
Charlotte sighs and puts her phone away. Amber had suddenly stopped texting her, so it seemed like they weren't going to pick Li up and go shopping after all.
Well, what else is there to do with the rest of her day?
She supposes she'll go to the park. She could use the fresh air and the tranquil setting. Then again, couldn't everybody?
Charlotte pockets her phone and strolls there accordingly. It's nice. The breeze is light and warm, but far from muggy. Ducks swim quaintly through the pond, bobbing down now and then with their feathery butts in the air and doing who-knows-what beneath the surface. The clouds above are moving, but only just, lengthening by mere fractions. They're the kind that look like good weather, even if that's not necessarily what they're really indicating. Cumulus clouds.
Despite the fantastic conditions, Charlotte seems to be the only one here. The path is empty, the grass is vacant, the bridge is unoccupied. Not that she holds any opinion toward this one way or another. It's just an observation.
She walks along the path in a leisure stride, inhaling the scent of grass and wildflowers.
"Oh, finally! Someone!"
Charlotte pauses. She searches for the owner of the voice and doesn't find them. From the looks of it, she's still the park's only inhabitant. This naturally makes her uneasy.
"Up here!"
Charlotte tips her head back and looks up a tree beside the path. About four meters or so up is a person in the branches, a girl with pink-streaked blonde hair and binoculars around her neck. Her small fingers curve tightly around the branch she sits on and the flicker of anxiety in her gaze suggests she's nervous about something; probably falling, when Charlotte couples that with her bodily cues.
"What are you doing up there?" she asks mildly.
"I was checking on my boyfriend. He lives in the apartments over there." The girl nods her head in the direction, binoculars bouncing against her chest. Charlotte almost rolls her eyes. A boyfriend, really? This girl can't be more than thirteen. Whatever she's doing, it's more like stalking.
"I don't think I can climb down," the girl continues on, voice raising slightly with fright. "Do you think you can catch me?"
Charlotte genuinely feels inclined to help, given that the girl seems scared. "That isn't a good idea. But my school is nearby and there's a ladder in the garden, so I could—"
The words and wind are crushed out of Charlotte's lungs as the girl plummets from above and lands squarely atop her. Throbbing in her back explodes like fireworks and then the girl's weight is removed as she shimmies off and stands up.
"Thank you," she exclaims brightly, no worse for wear.
Her breath is still gone so Charlotte couldn't curse her out even if she wanted to. No, Charlotte simply lifts her head and locks her eyes onto the younger silver ones, giving her a caramel death glare that could make a hundred Spartan warriors piss themselves.
The girl squeaks and run away, pigtails streaming behind her.
Charlotte sighs and looks up to the treetops, studying the peek of sun against the leaves. "Today's just one of those days," she murmurs to no one in particular.