A/N;; Let's see… what to say…
Again with finding a song. I didn't want to use any of the other ones I have picked out for various ideas for future chapters. So I kinda went with a bitter sweet song that has nothing to do with this chapter at all.
…not like the songs had anything to do with any of the other chapters but they set the mood.
Anyway, thanks for anything that involves good things for this story~ even when I see an alert or fav of this story I get happy. Reviews are nice, but even if I didn't get a single one I'd love this story with all my heart, because I'm a writer, and that's what I do!
Dizzy Up the Girl
Track VII
Postcards from Paradise
"And then she said I wasn't cool because…" Birgitta blocked her son out as the Dane appeared in the small kitchen, yawning and stretching. "Hi, Tilly!"
Groggily messing up Peter's neat hair, she took her seat and watched as her stepsister got up and opened their refrigerator. She handed the older female a drink, watching as she made a face of disgust. "Man up, Mathilde," Birgitta chided. "It can't taste that bad."
"You wanna bet?" Mathilde stood up, and pulled out two more bottles of the drink she was forced to drink. "Energy shakes taste like shit."
"They're good for you," Birgitta rolled her eyes as she took one from Mathilde. Peter hesitantly took the other one from the hand of the Dane. They all opened their drinks, Mathilde being the first to take a drink, Birgitta the second, and Peter taking a little sip.
Peter gagged from the little bit he had. Mathilde watched as Birgitta made a face of disgusts, but obviously trying to hide it so Mathilde wouldn't be proven right. "Taste like shit, no?"
"Okay," Birgitta licked her lips, walking over to the sink and dumping the rest of it out and watching as the messy blonde at the table smirked. "It's not the best tasting thing to hit the health market…"
"All medicine is nasty, Mama." Peter's eyes narrowed in thought, turning to Mathilde, asking, "Is this making you better?" Mathilde and Birgitta both visibly tensed, and Peter frowned. "You've gotta get better! Okay?"
"I will," and with that, the Dane gave a weak smile. The young boy's frown did not vanish. "Peter, I promise, it's going to be alright. It's not really my choice anymore, but I'm doing what I can."
"But whose choice is it?"
"…God's," Mathilde mumbled, looking over at the boy's mother, who seemed slightly annoyed. "And if he wants me to go to that paradise in the clouds with him, I can't say no." Peter smiled and closed his eyes, probably envisioning the outcome of Mathilde in heaven.
"Will you write?"
"Always." Birgitta walked over and kissed her son's forehead, looking over at her stepsister. "Anyway, looks like Mama's ready to go. I'll see you later, okay?"
"Bye, Tilly!" Birgitta walked to the closet and handed her son his jacket, sliding on her own coat as they left their apartment building in a hurry to the car. "Mama?"
"Yes?" she asked as they both slid into the car, listening as the rain poured down, hitting to metal in a rhythmic pattern. Peter looked out the window, enjoying the sight of the rain making everything blend together in a blur. "Peter?"
"I was thinking," he frowned. "If Jerk takes me away, who's going to help make sure Tilly's okay?" Birgitta frowned, the thought having yet occurred to her. Peter had always been a big help with Mathilde. "I mean… you don't have…"
"Don't worry," Birgitta whispered, fighting back the urge to start crying. "You're not going anywhere."
"So how was the meeting?" Lukas was currently sitting in his chair at the office, a picture of his father in his hands, this one taken when he was seven. Tino noticed the picture had a calming effect on his friend. The Finn shrugged his shoulders.
"It was alright," he admitted, and Lukas smirked. "Her mom was super nice, she seemed okay…" Tino couldn't help but feel a little bit antsy about the subject. "She's got it hard, that Dane was not exaggerating when she said that."
"Mathilde."
Tino's eyes widened, he leaned forward, asking, "What?"
"Her name is Mathilde," Lukas said this with little emotion, his eyes fixated on the picture. "I, uh… I met her Friday night when I went to the cemetery." Tino quirked an eyebrow, mentally telling him to continue. "I guess… I don't know. I guess she's just not…"
"A drunk?"
"I don't think so," Lukas sighed, putting the picture in his desk. "I mean, honestly, you have to have no class to go out mid-afternoon and get shitfaced." Tino laughed, and Lukas quickly changed the subject. "How was Anya?"
Slowly he stopped laughing, a perverted grin crossing his face. "Good, in both ways."
"Womanizer," Lukas sighed, rolling his eyes. "Honestly what do they see in you?"
"Charismatic, kind, good in bed-."
"I didn't need an actual answer." Lukas threw his pen at his friend. Tino fumbled around, catching it just barely.
"We're going out for lunch today," smiled the Finn, making his friend's eyes grow wide. "You'll live without me for one day, right?" he joked.
"No," the Norwegian frowned, crossing his arm. "Mostly because everyone here is a damn stick in the mud- and those who aren't are kind of dicks."
"What about Hera Karpusi?"
"If she even wakes up-." Lukas rolled his eyes at the suggestion. "Besides, she hangs out with Keiko Honda, and she's kind of a snitch when it comes to the boss."
"Do you think Hera and Keiko are like, together?"
"Why? Hera reject you earlier?" Tino nodded in response to the question, and Lukas frowned. "It's whatever, dude. So Hera and Keiko swing left handed while you swing right. You still have Francis- he swings both ways."
They stared at each other, erupting into fits of laughter. "Okay, well, that wasn't awkward," Tino pouted. "And besides, I have Anya… God, if you met her…"
"I meet a lot of your girlfriends," Lukas mumbled. "The problem is never them," he pointed out, and Tino frowned. "Shouldn't you be in your office?"
"Slow day."
Lukas snorted in response. "I should've complicated that case for you."
"Mr. Väinämöinen?" the albino secretary opened the door, crossing her arms. "Miss Braginskaya is here."
"Thanks Gillie!" Tino chimed, standing up and walking by the (taller) female, winking at her. The secretary made a face of disgust. "What?"
"That's my boyfriend's half-sister, kid," she snapped, walking away. Tino paled and Lukas couldn't stop laughing.
"Hello, little one." Mathilde Densen sat in the boring little waiting room, a look of despair painted across her face. She was an impatient person, no doubt, but the fact this creepy ass female sat down next to her and was now trying to start a legitimate conversation made it worse.
"Uhm… hi?" No one had really lectured her about the joys of not talking to strangers.
"I'm Ivana," smiled the tall, doll like girl. "You will call me Anya, da?" Blinking, Mathilde locked eyes momentarily. She had big, purple eyes that could possibly (if this was even possible at all) be bigger than her nose.
"Uh, sure," the Dane frowned, adverting her gaze elsewhere.
"And what is your name, hm?" she asked, flipping her pale blonde hair like she was some super-mega-bitchasaurus rex. Mathilde made a mental note to call her B-Rex. "It's not polite to not introduce yourself, especially when I did myself."
"Mathilde." She almost added it was her choice whether or not she gave away her information because B-Rex looked like the kind of woman who would snap and murder you. Honestly, she didn't need to deal with a psycho Russian when she had her own problems.
"Why are you here, Mathilde?" Anya (B-Rex) asked, raising an eyebrow for no good reason (probably trying to figure out if she could get her alone in a dark alleyway at night).
"I'm here to see-."
"You're boyfriend?"
"N-no." Flushing, Mathilde crossed her arms. "He's more like a friend- er- acquaintance type of guy."
"I'm here to see my boyfriend," she admitted. Mathilde rolled her eyes. 'Well that's all fine and dandy but I could seriously give less of a fuck about that,' the Dane thought bitterly, hoping the secretary called someone soon. Finally, she stood up and walked over to the office that Mathilde faintly remembered Lukas being in.
Coughing, he watched as a light, blond haired man with indigo eyes strolled up to Anya, the Russian attaching herself to his arm. "Goodbye, Mathilde!"
Mathilde waved, trying to subdue her coughing. The secretary (whom she learned was named Gillian and was a good friend of Abel von Klark, her friend) nodded her over and turned around, walking back to her desk. Smiling, she walked through the open doorway, ecstatically yelling, "Lukas~!"
Her hoarse voice made him jump; the Norwegian's shocked expression telling her he was extremely confused. Coughing, she smiled, sitting across from him and leaning over her knees. "I told you'd I see you around!"
"I didn't think that involved coming to my office when I'm neck deep in work."
"Ya have the right ta refuse ta see me." And he sighed in defeat, knowing she was right. "Aw~ you did want to see me?"
"What do you want?" he asked, rolling his eyes. She looked away just in time to not catch that gesture.
"Lunch," she stated, bluntly getting to the point. "We don't have ta even leave the building if ya want to get back to work so quickly."
Lukas frowned, not exactly sure why she wanted to each lunch with him. He figured since Tino left (ditched, he liked that word better) him to go hang out with his girlfriend, he'd have that one déjà vu moment where he'd pretend he was back in high school and eat alone.
Then again, high school sucked and at least here he had the option of sitting with someone. "Fine," he finally replied, frowning. "Not like I care if I stay or we go somewhere."
"Yoo hate working here, don't ya?"
Lukas froze, his mind going blink. He watched a scene from last the last Thanksgiving he and Emil went to at their mom's house, his mom was washing the dishes as he was putting leftovers in the containers. "Do you really enjoy your job, Lu?"
"Why wouldn't I?" he asked, scrapping the salad into the plastic container. "It pays well, I'm kind of a boss, in a sense, and-."
"This isn't what you wanted," his mom frowned, her pale blue eyes dark from sleepless nights. "You-."
"Hey, dude," he awoke to see her fingers in front of his face, snapping frantically. "Don't like, faint on me, 'kay?"
He nodded, stand up, and walking to the door. He turned around to see her still sitting, rubbing her knees. "You coming or what?" he asked, sounding a bit cross. She hummed in response and stood up, trying to masquerade the pain on her face. "Are you okay?"
Nodding, she stretched out, arching her back. "Just a li'l bit sore." He opened the door and let her pass through first, following slowly afterwards.
Dipping her fry into the ranch (Lukas found this extremely appealing, since he hated the smell of ketchup), she slowly bit the potato like food and chewed. Lukas sipped his soda quietly, watching as she cautiously swallowed the item in her mouth.
Taking a drink of water her water, Lukas decided to break the silence, "You seem like the kind who would be addicted to caffeine- coffee, soda, even alcohol- not water." He watched as she began to think, probably deciding on how to respond to this statement.
"Coffee taste nasty," she responded. "And soda is bad for you- especially diet. And of course, alcohol is all self-explanatory."
"So you don't drink?" asked the light blond haired male, his eyes trying to see through any lies she threw out there.
"Well…" she hesitated, biting her lip. "Not anymore. Kids have those wild phases, you know. They drink and smoke and snort whatever they can get their little, greedy hands on. I was like that…"
"What made you, er, change so to speak?"
Her expression became a little bit less peppy and a little more hesitant, like she was trying to hide something. She hummed in content, then answered, "Well, I went to college and let my stepsister and her toddler move in with me. That helped."
She finished off the last of her fries and grabbed her cup. Lukas slowly stood up, watching as she followed, very slowly, looking as if she would cry. "Are you okay?"
"Really sore now." In spite of this, she put on her bravest smile and walked over to the garbage can, sliding the wrappers and such into the can. Lukas bit his lip and did so. "But I'm fine. I'm tough. I used to play hockey."
He didn't doubt that, but the way she talked about herself was unsettling- she used to have a fulltime job, she used to play hockey- it was all past tense. He went to school to be a writer, he knew about his tenses. But you don't press some stranger for information.
'Then again, last time I checked,' he thought bitterly, following her to the front door. 'You don't allow some stranger into your office to distract you and eat lunch with you.'
"Where's your car?" She paused, stopping midway as she pushed the door opened. "…you don't have one?"
"I can take the bus," she smiled. "Birgie needs the car more than I do."
"Did you take the bus to get here?" She paled, shaking her head.
"N-no, I walked." She offered a nervous smile, turning on her heels and began to violently cough. Lukas' eyes widened as she hit her chest, causing the outburst to stop suddenly. "Swallowed something wrong, I guess?" she smiled, her hoarse voice causing him to shake. She waved and left the office, his head continuing to swim in thought.
This girl was strange.
"Children who were sexually abused tend to lean toward drugs as a way to cope with their addiction."
"Oh! Here's one: x times the negative square root of b to the fifth power, plus or mine five times a, all over four c minus the quantity of…"
"Kiet, shut up," Emil looked up from his book, glaring at the Thai who was kneeling on the floor, working on his math homework.
"Emil, I was not abused at all as a child," he sighed. "Maybe teased because I liked boys, but I tended to ignore that. I started doing drugs because everybody did them. Everybody still does them and everybody who does drugs will, most likely, die doing them."
"Do you see a problem with that last statement?"
"I see a problem with the book you're reading," Kiet groaned, rolling his eyes. He should've known that dating a future psychologist was a bad idea. "People do drugs for many reasons- for me, it's probably because all my friends did it, so I thought, 'Why the hell not?' Because it's all about peer pressure."
"The same can be said about any kind of addiction."
"So in the case of bulimia," the Thai began. "What are the causes of people being bulimic?"
When Emil didn't respond, Kiet laughed, getting up and sitting on his lap in the chair. "It means you're not confident. It means everybody else thinks you should be some kind of twig and you let them get to you. See? Peer pressure. The pressure is that they want you to be so skinny it's disgusting."
"So what do you do with peer pressure?"
"You tell me, Dr. Steilsson," Kiet smiled, kissing his boyfriend's temple. "Look, Emi, I've been thinking… I'm gonna be done with school next week… maybe I should go check out that rehab facility?"
"…what?" Emil mumbled, shocked at the sentence.
"I've decided that once you're done with college, we're getting married." Lacing their fingers together, Emil smiled and Kiet kissed his cheek. "And if we want to adopt, I need to be clean…"
"Thank you, Kiet!" Emil hugged him, and Kiet cleared his throat.
"However," he said, looking away from the Icelander. "You need to do something for me. You need to see a therapist or a doctor or someone. Okay?"
Emil's heart stopped. It was what was best, yes, but something told him to say no. Something was forcing him to nod in agreement, but mentally he was saying, 'If you're going to be gone then how would you know?'
"Did you tell Lukas?"
"I will tonight," he replied.
"Are you going to tell him everything?"
"Define."
"Me being a junkie, you being bulimic." As a second thought, Kiet added, "And that we're both going to get help? And then when you're done with school we're getting married and immediately going to look into adoption?"
Smiling, Emil again gave a nod, but knew he was omitting certain parts of the story. "Thanks," the Thai kissed his Icelandic lover, who returned it with as much vigor as he could. When they broke apart, the Thai stood up, stretching out his legs, and grabbed his algebra book.
"Call me when you talk to him."
"I will." Emil walked over to the door, opening it and watching as the Thai walked out, waving goodbye to him. Emil gave a shy wave back, and as Kiet pulled out of the driveway, Lukas came in afterwards. Emil's heart pounded, remembering how Lukas responded Friday night, never actually getting around to talking to him about it.
Lukas walked through the open door, and Emil shut it. "Can we talk?" he asked, and Lukas nodded, dropping all his things on the floor and walking over to the sofa, stretching out. "Lukas…" he began to ramble on, "I'm dating Kiet. We've been dating behind your back for a while now. He's a total heroin addict."
Lukas' eyes narrowed, and he stood up. "I'm not done," Emil shouted. "Today he told me that next week after graduation, he's going to rehab. He's going to get clean so by the time I'm done with school we can get married and adopt."
Lukas said nothing. He just glared, walking over to the front door. "I'm going out." He practically ripped the door open and slammed it shut, causing the whole house to shake. Emil blinked, scratching his head, frowning.
"That actually went better than I was expecting," he admitted to himself. "Maybe there is a chance this is going to work out."
"Postcards from paradise.
Delivered by mortal hands.
X marks the spot where you lay.
Now the sun burns down on the sand."
Oh, Emil. Things aren't that simple… or are they? DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN.
Next chapter… hopefully better than this? Hopefully.
Adios~!
Darlene :)
