Thanks for the reviews!! They made me feel sooo loved :) I love knowing people are actually reading this. This sure is a happening category, hmm? Lol
Just to be super clear: this happens after the living-room-mac-texts-viggo-and-all-that-jazz scene. Everyone got that? Great! Read on...
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Beep. Beep. Beep. Nate groaned, reaching for his alarm clock from under the blankets. Beep. Beep. Be-cccssshhkk. The alarm clock smashed into the ground. Satisfied with having put to death the thing that had woken him up so cruelly, Nate sat up slowly, looking around for Viggo. Just as he'd thought. Viggo must have spent the night somewhere else… again. For the fifth night in a row. The thought was less than encouraging. Nate got dressed, pulling on a jacket when he noticed that it was still snowy outside- he wondered where his thoughts were, if he actually had to see if it was snowing when he was on a snowboard tour- and trudged downstairs to the kitchen. Only some of the riders were there. Elise was making herself coffee, Psymon was eating the sort of waffles that were frozen and then microwaved, and Allegra was staring intently at his food until he noticed and in a very un-Psymon-y way, offered her some. The window of the kitchen was next to the table, and sitting on the window seat was Griff, watching Mac play his game. Mac kept inching away. And Viggo was sitting at the end of the windowseat, looking out the window and seeming unaware that anyone else was in the kitchen at all.
"Hey, cowboy" Elise noticed him first. "Please tell me you didn't break anything this morning." He made a face at the mention, shrugging off his jacket. Yet again, someone had turned up the heater in the kitchen.
"Does everyone know that story?" She nodded cheerfully. The story of when Nate had thrown his alarm clock across the room and broken a lamp seemed to have become legendary. "Well, no. I didn't." He couldn't help his disagreeable mood. Elise was still looking at him in that questioning way. "What?" He pulled out one of the stools at the counter and sat, not wanting to go near the table.
"Oh, nothing…" Elise murmured, looking down into her coffee cup. She wouldn't say it, but she was thinking about what Nate had said to her a few days previously. Her gaze slid over to Viggo, who was practically sulking.
"Liar" Nate mumbled, but not loud enough for anyone else to hear.
"What?" she looked up.
"Nothi-" he started to say, but then snickering interrupted him. He looked up to see Moby, walking into the kitchen, smirking about something.
"Hey" Moby took the stool next to him, still grinning.
"What's so entertaining?" Nate wondered if he would find anything decent for breakfast in the refrigerator, and decided that he most likely wouldn't.
"Wouldn't you like to know." Moby seemed incredibly entertained by something, in fact. Nate glowered at him.
"Yeah, I would, that's why I'm asking." Moby glanced back at the others, seated around the table. They hadn't noticed anything.
"I just found out something" Moby said, soft enough that Elise wouldn't hear him. Nate held up a hand- what? Moby grinned. "Elise thinks you're hot." He mouthed.
"What?!" Nate practically yelled. All eyes turned to him, and he blushed darkly.
"Something the matter?" Elise questioned. Nate shook his head no, looking away. Moby snickered.
"C'mon, I'll explain" He grabbed Nate by the elbow and dragged him out the door.
Viggo had a view of the porch outside the window, which was where Nate and Moby were now standing. Nate had his back to the window, and Moby was sitting on the porch railing, looking highly amused about something Nate probably didn't find very amusing at all. Viggo found that, leaning closer to the window, he could just hear what they were saying.
"-so, you gonna ask her out on a date or something?" Moby was asking. Nate shook his head no.
"I don't think I like her like that." Viggo picked up on the uncertainty there, wondered what it meant.
"Mate, everyone likes Elise, she's practically a supermodel."
"That right?" Nate shrugged a shoulder. Viggo watched his movements with something between lust and longing. Nate crossed his bare arms over his chest as the wind picked up, probably wishing he'd worn his jacket. "Can I go back inside now? It's freezing."
"Just a sec. How do you not like Elise, mate? I'm gonna have to kill you if you don't take this chance, do you know how many blokes would kill for this?" Moby laughed. "What, you like someone else?" Nate didn't reply. "Well?"
"Figure it out, Moby." Nate snapped, turning and starting away.
"Why don't you just tell me?" Moby asked hopefully.
"Maybe because I've got no idea, either, okay? Leave me alone." Viggo heard the door to the lodge slam, and a few seconds later, Nate appeared back in the kitchen, flushed from the cold and looking distracted.
"What was all that about?" Elise asked as he took his place back at the counter. Nate just shook his head, saying nothing.
"Viggggoooo" Griff whined, poking him. "Make Mac share."
"Griff, I've got an easier time teaching him to fly." Eventually, most of the people left the room; ten minutes later, only Viggo, Elise and Kaori were left. Viggo snuggled deeper into his warm jacket, hardly paying attention to them. One of his favorite things about the winter was how warm it was inside the lodge.
"-I heard the most interesting rumor from Moby-kun, and I was wondering if it is true?" Kaori was saying to Elise. Kaori was making tea, as she did every single morning. Viggo
wondered if there was something in the teapot or coffee maker that made everyone so addicted to their drink of choice.
"What's the rumor?" Elise asked, only half-interested. Kaori brought her cup of tea to the table, taking the chair next to Elise. She fiddled with one of her pigtails, hesitating.
"I heard that you like Nate-kun" Kaori whispered timidly. Elise didn't say anything for a long moment. Viggo watched her curiously, hoping desperately that it wasn't true.
"I find him to be…" Elise paused to find the right word. No, no, Viggo thought, she can't have him, he's- "admittedly attractive."
"oooh!" Kaori squealed, "you would be such a cute couple!" All Viggo's hopes died violent deaths in that very instant.
"Hmm. How'd Moby find out, anyways?"
"I do not know, but he knows." Kaori sipped her tea. Then she seemed to remember something and a look of reluctance crossed her petite features. "And he told Nate-kun."
"That's it." Elise stood up suddenly, looking enraged. "I'm going to kill him."
"Nate-kun or Moby-kun?" Kaori asked worriedly.
Let's go with whoever I find first." Elise said, looking around. Moby walked by the window. "MOBY!" she stalked out the door. Kaori looked nervous, realizing that she'd triggered Elise's wrath, even if it wasn't directed at her.
Moby must have figured out that Elise was looking for him, because he was nowhere to be found. But, as all the bedroom doors had mysteriously disappeared again, it wasn't too hard to go on a very thorough hunt for him. The first room was that of Griff and Mac. Elise strode inside, and looked around the room.
"Yo, you ever heard of knocking?" Mac asked. He was lying on the floor, looking from his game to the game's guide book, open next to him. Griff was bouncing on the bed, trying to see the screen. Mac was doing his best to obstruct the screen from Griff's view.
"There's no door to knock on." Elise replied, looking into the closet and bathroom to make sure Moby wasn't hiding there.
"yeah… still." Mac grumbled. "Goddammit, Griff, if you don't get away from me, I'm going to murder you!"
Elise moved on; she didn't really fancy becoming a witness to a murder. Not unless it was Moby's, anyways. Moby wasn't in hers and Kaori's room, either. There was nothing out of the ordinary in Moby and Psymon's room- except a pile of door hinges and screws. But for Psymon, well, that kind of was normal.
"Hey" Elise arrived at Zoe and Allegra's room. Only Zoe was there, and she was watching TV, lying on her stomach on the bed and painting her nails metallic silver.
"Hi. What's up?"
"Since when do you paint your nails?" Elise asked, pausing in her tour through the room.
"Since Moby got me this" Zoe held up the small bottle of nail polish. "Thought I'd try it out." she shrugged a shoulder. "But I swear, if anyone else gives me nail polish- it's going down
their throat!" Elise didn't doubt it, but nonetheless made a mental note to give Zoe a box full of nail polish and the like for her birthday.
"Yeah, speaking of Moby, do you know where he is?" Elise peeked into the closet, and under the beds.
"Nope, sorry." Zoe blew on her nails to dry them. "Do I really have to wait five minutes for them to dry? That's so long…"
"Yup, sometimes longer. See you."
"Auughkk… five minutes…" Elise left the room. She stopped at the door to Nate and Viggo's room, taking a breath before approaching. Only Nate was there, unsurprisingly. He was lying on his bed, throwing a tennis ball at the wall. Elise stood there, just watching him. The ball hit the wall, just above the bed. Again, and again.
"Hey" she said. The ball suddenly changed course and slammed into the alarm clock as Nate jerked towards her voice.
"Hi- oh, shit, not the clock again- sorry, hi." He was flustered, sitting up and looking between her and the alarm clock that lay on the floor. It was in pieces, as the glue he'd used to fix it before had fallen apart. "um…" he decided to address the clock, slipping off the bed and scooping it up. Elise wondered just how much he knew about her.
"I was just wondering if you'd seen Moby."
"Nope" He replied, looking up from the pieces he was holding. "Haven't since, ah… breakfast."
"Mm. Okay." She left hurriedly before she said something stupid, continuing her search outside. She heard voices up on the roof and shielded her eyes to see. Psymon and Allegra were up there, with rope, doing something. With the doors. Elise sighed.
"You guys seen Moby?" She yelled up.
"Who?" Allegra asked vaguely, not even looking down at her. Elise rolled her eyes. Allegra was so smitten with her boyfriend- that news had made Elise gag- she didn't even remember who Moby was. From what Elise had heard, Psymon had asked her out sometime when they were out practicing together. Quite romantic, Psychos stick together, I guess, Elise thought, walking away. She saw that one of the rental cars was gone, meaning that Moby had hightailed it out, probably wouldn't come back until midnight.
Nate meanwhile, had fallen back onto the bed to resume throwing the tennis ball after Elise had left. He didn't need her to complicate his thoughts even more. He had enough going on with Viggo, and suddenly Elise had been paying attention to him.
The ball hit the wall a few more times.
But maybe it was a good thing.
Maybe it could help him. Maybe that was it. She would balance out his life.
The ball hit the wall again, and he carefully angled it away from the alarm clock this time. Again and again. Then a thought hit him.
She could save him.
Spending time with her would give him something to hang onto. He didn't like all this uncertainty, feeling like that there was always something wrong, having to hide this newly discovered factor of himself, and he just wanted it to go away. He didn't want to be so wild about Viggo, he didn't want to keep finding more about him to fall in love with, he didn't want to have to deal with all of this complicated stuff. He wanted something he could count on, something he knew, he wanted something easy to deal with, that wouldn't be met with such conflict, both from everyone else and himself. And Elise, she could give him something resembling his former life, his life before Viggo. Damn, that guy had a way of turning things upside-down. From the second he'd seen Viggo, Nate should have known, and in his thoughts, going back over that moment, he could almost hear, as his world shattered, the sound of-
CRASH.
Nate jumped up, wondering if his imagination had suddenly come to life, or if maybe he was just going insane, but he could have sworn that he'd heard a distinct crashing noise. Kind of like a window shattering.
"PSYMON! DAMMIT, YOU PSYCHOPATH!" He heard Zoe's screaming. No, the window really had broken. Maybe Psymon had broken it? It was pretty likely. Nate went downstairs, curiosity compelling him to go see. True enough, the big window in the living room was broken, and Zoe was on one side, screaming at Psymon, who was on the other.
"What happened?" Nate asked Elise. She shrugged a shoulder.
"Psymon did something or other, so Zoe threw him through the window."
"Oh. Okay." He wasn't shaken by the news; no one was, really.
"Dude, what happened here?" Viggo's voice made Nate look towards the doorway, where Viggo was now standing.
"I'm going to go practice a bit" Elise said, drawing Nate's attention away from Viggo, "Want to come?" Nate glanced from her, back to Viggo, then nodded. Elise didn't notice that his eyes were on the other blonde, not her, as if some sort of gravitational pull of Viggo's had a secure lock on Nate's attention.
"Sure. I'll go grab my board."
Ten minutes later, the lodge was strangely silent. Allegra walked through the living room, glass crunching under her boots. Someone had swept most of it up, but the evidence was still all there- the window had a huge hole in it, for one.
"Psymon?" She called out. He'd vanished off after Zoe had thrown him through the window because he'd laughed at her nail polish. To the others, Psymon's momentary disappearance was a mixed bag of emotions- relieved at having peace, and worried about when he would turn up. Allegra, however, was drawn to his confidence and spontaneity, and felt honored that he would ask her to participate in all the stuff he did- and it was so much fun, too. She'd gotten to know him, and once she'd gotten past the eccentricity, she'd found out that he was considerate and fiercely protective. The discoveries pleased her to no end. "Psyyymonnn…" she heard a car pull up in front of the lodge and ran to go see. Psymon was just getting out, carrying a shopping bag from the hardware store.
"Hey, sweet thing" he greeted her enthusiastically. "Want to help me pay back Zoe?"
"Sure!" Psymon's plan turned out to include lots of brackets, tape, and tools, but she didn't know exactly what he was planning to do. He set the bag on the porch and went back for the others.
"Would you call Moby for me and ask him to go out with Zoe tonight?" Psymon asked.
"Yeah, sure" She dialed Moby's cell number. He agreed without hesitation, if a tad bit of suspicion, and said they'd leave in half an hour.
Once Zoe and Moby had gone, Allegra helped Psymon take all the stuff from the hardware store up to Zoe and Allegra's room. As the doors were still strapped to the chimney, there wouldn't have been much of a problem getting in even if the room wasn't half Allegra's.
"What're you going to do?" She asked curiously. Psymon grinned.
"All this furniture" he swept out an arm to indicate the stuff in the room, "is going to be bolted to the ceiling"
"Awesome!" Allegra exclaimed. Then she paused. "Wait. Where will I sleep?" This earned herself another smile.
"You could always bunk with Elise and Kaori, or, I dunno… in my room. I can kick out Moby."
"Ooh, sounds awesome!" Allegra started sorting through the stuff in the bags. "So, how're you doing this…?"
"You'll see." He walked towards the desk, screwdriver in hand. "Hand me that bracket you've got."
After a movie and dinner with Moby, Zoe was convinced that nothing could go wrong. She'd been impressed with how perfect it had been. This is the only guy I'd wear nail polish for, she thought, glancing over at him; he was driving, and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, wow.
But not ten minutes later, standing in the doorway of her and Allegra's bedroom, she had to come out of her heavenly haze. The room seemed strangely empty. There was no furniture.
"Where's all the- eaaaaggghhh!" Every single piece of furniture was somehow fixed to the ceiling above her head. The nightstand, the desk, the chair, even the bed. All that was left were the blankets off the bed. Even the TV had been bolted to the ceiling, who knew how. "Oh… my… god…"
Meanwhile, down the hallway, Psymon was standing in front of the door to his and Moby's room- the only room that had a door now, unsurprisingly- blocking Moby's entrance.
"Mate, we're sharing the room! You've got to let me in!" Moby insisted. Psymon crossed his arms over his chest.
"Find somewhere else to sleep, Brit. Maybe you can bunk with your girl Zoe… if you don't mind not having a bed, that is." He grinned, and went into the room, slamming the door in Moby's face.
"Now that he's gone…" he said, turning back to Allegra, who was lying on the bed. She grinned, looking like a lioness that had caught her prey after a long, hard chase.
"Impress me."
Moby was stalking down the hallway, deciding what to do next.
"No way…" he heard Zoe's voice.
"What's up?" Moby poked his head through the doorway to her room. "Woww… How'd all the furniture get up there?" She gave him a look. "Psymon, probably Allegra, too. Figures…"
Viggo stopped in the doorway to his and Nate's room, debating. Nate didn't know he was there, if he had, he probably would have been at a loss for words. He was standing at the window, looking out at the mountain. Viggo's gaze wandered through the room, remembering that brief argument that had began the standoff. He supposed that, maybe, just maybe, he'd overreacted. But… not really. The more he thought about it, the more it hurt him. That tone, that look, it just killed him. And that it had been on the very day he'd decided to tell Nate just how much he liked him. Not two hours previous to it, he'd made his decision- risks be damned, he was going to tell Nate that he really, really liked him.
He just wanted more time to think about it. He wasn't ready to deal yet... but now with Elise liking Nate too, it was like all the stakes were higher, and all the world's eyes were upon them, waiting for the next move.
She could destory him.
The thought came unbidden. Elise could take away everything Viggo wanted, steal the one guy he knew he loved. Viggo glanced at Nate once more, momentarily breathless from the silhouette of who he knew, just knew was some sort of soulmate... and then decided he wasn't ready to talk yet and continued down the hall to Mac and Griff's room, so he could hide from his problems for at least one more night.
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And so the bashing begins…
Review if you liked/didn't like it! And any ideas are always appreciated :)
Je t'aime!!
Wild-sunshine
