You may have been lying about the diamond mines and the dildos (mostly) but you definitely weren't kidding about the rain. It's been coming down in sheets for days on end, and every time you look out your windows at the forest fires you can barely see through the pouring rain you remember how grateful you are to live in a huge ass mansion instead of some shitty apartment in Houston like Strider. Though to be fair, you don't think they get rain like this, there. Or forest fires.
You might as well clean up a little, if Jade is going to be messing with your house. Make sure there actually aren't any sparkly pink dildos lying around. Unlikely, but it won't be the first time your Mom's left her toys around for the apparent sole purpose of scarring you for life. You once mentioned it to Rose, during one of the online therapy sessions she insisted on, which unexpectedly sent her on a ten minute screaming rampage, shouting how you had no idea how easy you had it and you were freaked out over one motherfucking dildo?! Did you have any idea how many dildos were currently in her direct line of site? Because the answer is twenty four! TWENTY FOUR DILDOS, Dave!
You have since refrained from bringing up dildos to Rose.
After you shove a few unsightly things in drawers, you hunt down the classy gray contact lenses your Mom bought for you to hide your embarrassing eye color on the rare occasions when you actually meet anyone. With most of your friends online and your nearest neighbor twenty minutes away, it's easy to forget that you are a mutant freak. You also tuck in your shirt, and refrain from putting on a tie, even though you do have a sweet red one that matches the fire.
In any case, you think you may actually have more pressing problems than how you look, for once. Your Mom hasn't said anything about the fires, yet, but you are honestly getting a bit concerned about them. The world deserves to have Dave Lalonde live.
Your concerns are suddenly extremely justified when the power flickers out. The various motors humming in the background, not to mention your mix tapes, all go quiet, and for a few moments the only sounds are the rain pattering on the window and the loud string of colorful curses you shout at whatever shitty gods you have suddenly decided to believe in.
You duck out of your room, which adds a cacophony of various musical instruments being tripped over to the noise. A flash of lightning throws everything into sharp relief for a split second before relinquishing the stage to a very nicely timed rumble of thunder: obviously the storm is eager to join your percussion-only one-man band. Being the softy that you are, you indulge it a bit by knocking over a set of drums and swearing even louder. You don't have time to make noise all night though. You have to get the generator working.
With another few crashes you manage to stumble out of your oversized room into the hallway, which is better-lit anyway. Lightning outlines the grand high ceilinged hallways that permeate your house, wandering in no particular direction before they all wind up at a bar somewhere, like your house has been drilled through by giant alcoholic termites. You pause in front of the glass window taking up an entire wall beside your room, to get your breath back, and to watch the roaring forest fire that has been steadily approaching your house for the last few days, headless of the rain. You might even call them… sick flames.
To be honest, though, you find these so called sick flames a little disappointing. They are just far too contained. Where's the running and screaming? What the hell kind of lame ass fire approaches slowly and with plenty of warning? Seriously, this shit is just sad. Bambi had scarier fires than this.
At least the meteors are cool.
You stand by the window for a moment, watching the rain run down the glass and blur the fire into flickering red streaks across the hallway, smooth as a lava lamp. What little of the early morning light manages to filter through the storm clouds is washed out gray, outshone by the brilliant meteors and flashy forest fires, like a classy understated picture frame holding a tacky stretched out jpeg of a glittery purple wizard. You can't even tell if it's dawn yet, though you suspect it isn't: you've always been an early riser.
You watch the rain for a few moments until your heart calms down. You hadn't realized it was racing. You hadn't even realized, in fact, that you were freaking out low-key, cause Dave Lalonde does not freak out, until you remembered knocking over all of your lovely instruments, and your mouth turns down as you try to recall if you broke anything unfixable. You adore your instruments, every one, they are literally the love of your life and someday you will marry them in a gigantic ceremony and everyone will cry. Your Mom must have bought you every instrument which was known to man, and several which were not. You are literally the best (and only) Tutu-zilla player in the world.
Another crash of thunder, almost exactly at the same time as the lightning this time, startles you back into the moment, and you decide that your matrimonial intentions towards inanimate objects can be better explored once you get the lights back on. You slink easily down the hall, all long limbs and disproportionate teenage height, a look which would be called gangly on anyone else, but when you have ballet instead of friends, you learn to make it work. You are as smooth as the rain, as deliberate as the disappointingly deliberate fire.
"Daveyyy…!"
It seems your Mom's awake. You wonder sacrilegiously if you can just avoid her this once… not just because of the outage, but because this early in the morning she might be sober enough to notice that you're dressed up, and it's only just occurred to you that you've failed to ask whether Jade is allowed to rearrange your house. Oops.
"Daaaavey." You duck into a side hall, peering down the main hallway as you try to figure out over the noise where her voice is coming from.
From behind you, apparently. "Daaavey!" Your Mom croons, clutching you from behind and shoving your face into her armpit. You gag and try to rearrange your position to make this hug a bit less awkward but that just puts your face in what Rose would refer to as her ample bosom, and that's actually much worse.
"Mom." You choke. "Mom."
"What are you doing up so late Davey?" She asks, letting you go at last. You gasp for air and attempt to repress the memories.
"It's not late, mom. It's early. It's not even that early."
"Hm." She slurs thoughtfully. "where're you going?"
"That… way?" You think it might not be the brightest idea to mention the generator, or that you plan to play with electricity in the rain. She quirks an eyebrow at you.
"Are you now? An what lies 'that way', may I ask?"
"The… bathroom." No it doesn't. The single bathroom in this mansion is two hallways down in the other direction exactly.
Come to think of it, you've never seen your Mom actually use the bathroom. You suspect that she may have her own hidden toilets burrowed somewhere in this confusing sprawl of a home, and frankly you hope she does because the alternatives are deeply disturbing.
"Nice try." Mom isn't drunk enough for that to work, apparently. She snatches your wrist in the hand that isn't balancing a martini glass, and drags you down the hall in the same direction you were going anyway. You grumble something incomprehensible in protest, but you don't bother trying to pull away. Her grip is like iron and what of ungrateful son would you be, then, anyway? You stumble after her instead, thinking how Rose would appreciate the irony that the sober boy is stumbling when his drunken mother stalks down the dark hallway in perfectly measured steps, the click clack of her heels as even as a drumbeat.
"What's the matter?" you ask when she pulls you around the corner into the kitchen, and releases her grip on your wrist to start sorting through cupboards.
"Candles." she explains, tossing something over her shoulder at you. She doesn't wait to see if you catch the matches before she's throwing you a sweet gothic candelabra far to elaborate to carry around the house, that is, unless you're a Lalonde, in which case it's exactly the bare minimum of decoration allowed for wandering around an empty house at six thirty in the morning.
"Is the backup generator on?" You ask as you light the red candles. This is a stupid question, obviously if the backup generator were you wouldn't be carrying candles. But your brain is busy failing to figure out how to solve the sBurb problem, so your mouth has been put in charge of speaking, and your mouth has always been something of a brainless beauty.
"It will be when I start it!" Mom giggles like this was comedy gold and lights her candle from yours. Hers is tapered and pink, set in a crystal candleholder, and gives off a faint scent of strawberries when it burns. You think yours is cooler.
Mom raises her candle and sets off towards the stairs. She raises an eyebrow when you make to follow her and holds her candle up to block you, like a fencer who's decided that swords just don't hold that thrill anymore, and has decided to fence with fire instead.
"And where do you think you're going, Davey sweet?"
"With you…?" You have a sinking feeling that you aren't, in fact, going with her.
"I'm sure." She materializes a second martini from somewhere and offers it to you. "Stay here and enjoy yourself, I'll be right back."
"Mom. I'm thirteen." She shrugs and sets the martini on the counter, well within your reach.
"Good point. Thirteen year olds can't be running about in forest fires." She laughs when you scowl at her logic. You roll your eyes.
"Fine. I'll wait here." No you won't.
"Good boy." Your mom pats you on the head and turns to sweep out of the room with her candle held high in front of her. You count twenty click clack footsteps before you turn and dash the other way, ducking under the stairs and taking what would be called the servants passage if you had any servants. Sorry, Mom, but you can't take any risks with this. Plus, you need to at least get high enough to get an internet signal.