AN: Imagine my surprise this weekend when I saw so many lovely reviews for this story! Much thanks to my awesome reviewers of Chapter 53, The Little Corinthian, Writer of the North, Alice'slittlemidgetfriend and Smidgie and the rest of my fabulous readers out there in the dark. I'm in a crazy rush with school, but I do promise I haven't given up on these guys yet! Here's a nice long chapter for you to (hopefully) enjoy!
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, I make no profit. Such is life.
It's a hard-knock life for us!
It's a hard-knock life for us!
'Stead of treated, we get tricked!
'Stead of kisses, we get kicked!
It's a hard-knock life!
-Annie
The show was…fine. That was the best that could be said for it, it was passably fine. The singing was good, the dancing was on-point, but the performance was nothing to write home about. Erik got a nice earful from Tim about how this revival stuff wasn't how live theatre was supposed to be, the performances were emphemera, there was no chance to capture the magic of that initial run six months later, he wasn't sure why they'd done this, they were never going back, blah, blah blibbity-bloop.
For the first five minutes of his rant, Erik nodded and made appropriately sympathetic noises, but he quickly gave up the pretense of caring; Tim obviously wasn't listening. There was another show going up after theirs, a re-imagining of The Merchant of Venice set in an English girls' school in the 1960s or something stupid like that and at least one school had to clear out their set pieces before the other show could move in. Since Godspell had the smallest set, they were the lucky bastards chosen to hightail it out of there. Erik thought that was bullshit, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to get kicked in the face by karma again, so he bit his tongue when it occurred to him that the Giant Star Trek Cubes from Hell (as he'd privately nicknamed the Burn set) were taking up the most space and should logically be packed away. He even tried to gain some Brownie points by offering to stay behind with Tim, Chester and Slade to get everything tucked away in the U-Haul. He figured it bumped his score up in the little game he'd been playing for the last eighteen years affectionately known as Erik vs. The Universe. So far The Universe was winning.
When he bid the other men good night and wandered back to his room (having to try the damn key card three times before the door would budge), he found the rest of his classmates mid-orgy. Alright, not an orgy, but it looked like they were well on the way there, half-empty bottles of Gatorade littered the room, which was stuffed well beyond what the fire code would permit. Apparently, they'd invited some of the kids from Emerson who were staying down the hall, which would have been fine if Erik had been able to pre-game before this little sociable.
Medication evened him out, it didn't make him friendly. Before he discovered the joys of mind-altering substances in high school, the only parties he attended were those his parents dragged him along to, usually at Tim and Chester's or the home of another couple or person from Memorial. He'd be paraded around, pat on the head, feeling awkward and humiliated the whole time before someone took pity on him and let him sit in the bedroom with all the coats to watch a movie or play video games until it was time to go. If the household had other children, though, that could be a problem. He didn't have any close friends, other than Ahmed and sometimes Meg, until he got to high school since other kids thought he was a total freak, fake nose aside. It was the late 90s, people with "disabilities" were featured on every kids' show on PBS. Hell, there was a girl in a wheelchair at his elementary school, compared to Nadia, Erik was pretty mundane. They all knew it was wrong to pick on people for things they couldn't help, like the way they looked, but in the primary school jungle general weirdness were still fair game.
Things started to change for him around sophomore year when suddenly being a surly, musically-inclined theatre geek who wore a lot of black was cool and though people weren't exactly lining up to be his friend, he wasn't being shoved into lockers or tripped in the lunch room anymore. Still had some leftover social anxiety, but the weed took care of that. Naturally, when riding back to a hotel with your foster fathers, weed was not an option, so Erik found himself unprepared to deal with the glut of people in his personal space, especially People He Did Not Know. That was the worst.
Apparently, Erik lingered in the doorway a second too long, since that was all the time it took for Jamie to squeal that "ERIK'SHERE,GUYS!" and for a general cheer to go up that accompanied drunkards seeing something new. Well, okay, he could grin and bear it for ten minutes then steal a key card off one of the girls and hang out in there room until Sorelli brought some new boy thing along with her. Maybe Charlotte would come be antisocial with him, she was kind of a party pooper by nature.
Ah, no. It only took him a second longer to see that Charlotte had heard the demon call of the bottle and was sitting on some stranger's lap, sucking face, as the kids' called it these days. Poor Charlotte, she had it pretty bad when they were little – and recently, as he recalled. Though he was a twig himself, he had common sense enough to know that size 14 was perfectly respectable. She gave Sorelli a good slut-shaming about once a week, but he figured it was largely motivated by concern with a sprinkling of jealousy for flavor. Gah, this is what he hated about being sober, he became so analytical.
Jamie was gabbing on next to him to some ginger kid about how he was sosmart and so cool and Erik so did not want to hear it. When he was feeling like shit, he preferred to wallow in self-loathing and not have his stellar personality traits drunkenly slurred to complete strangers.
He extricated himself from her death grip and searched for Ahmed or Freddy or someone who could do something helpful, like give him a buzz. No way he was sampling the Gatorade bottles, not after what happened last time he got drunk. An advantage to being the tallest person in the room on any given day was that he generally had a good view of the crowd and could ascertain people's positions relatively quickly. As was to be expected, Ahmed and Freddy were toking it up with some Emersonians near an open window and Erik was about to wander over to them, when he was struck by the feeling that something was missing. An impromptu headcount revealed that one of their number was missing and it was immediately clear to him who that was: Christine.
Erik shifted through the crowd, muttering "'scuse me," as necessary though he was sure no one noticed his attempt at manners. He poked Raoul in the back of the head to get his attention. The shorter boy's blue eyes were hazy as he looked at him. At first he exclaimed, "Erik!" with a big grin, which faded slowly into an uncertain smile, as though he thought he shouldn't be happy to see him, but couldn't remember why.
"Hey," Erik said nonchalantly as he could manage over the chatter and noise from the television. Someone had the bright idea to BLAST the Broadway music channel (who knew they had digital cable in New Hampshire?) and Idina Menzel's voice reminded him of a cat's yowling on the best of days. "Where's Christine? Back in her room?"
Erik was pretty sure he could faintly see the steam gushing from Raoul's ears as he tried to puzzle out an answer. God, how had this kid graduated high school if it took him so long to formulate a sentence? He must have done lots of extracurriculars in anticipation of what must have been dismal SAT scores.
"Uh…she…huh. She was here a minute ago…"
Scratch that. ACTs. Raoul didn't seem like SAT material.
"She's mad at you," he said, comprehension dawning on his face like a light in a dark room.
Erik rolled his eyes, sure Raoul wouldn't notice or care. "Yeah, I know. Let me know where she is and I promise to avoid her." No way he was sneaking in the girls' room if Christine was in there by herself. That was a level of awkward he wasn't sure he was ready to descend to that night.
Raoul was talking, but he stopped listening some time before. "…I don't know, I guess it's not a big deal to you, but you could have…y'know. Said."
Oh, for fuck's sake, did everyone have to know his business? Raoul wasn't even involved that night and Erik really wanted to be able to privately lord it over the other boy that he was smarter and taller and more awesome than him in every way. If Raoul knew he was just the living embodiment of a bad Mel Gibson movie, then he'd have nothing to feel superior about. Working up a good scowl Erik said, "Yeah, you know what, it's not really something you go around telling people."
God, he was even more stupid than Erik realized since Raoul frowned right back at him (which made a dimple appear, Jesus, who did this kid think he was being all boyish good looks right now?) and said, "Why not? I mean, it's not like something like that should be a secret."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Erik demanded. "I mean, are we seriously having this conversation? Are you that dense? Please tell me you're not that stupid."
"I'm not!" Raoul exclaimed, color flaming in his cheeks. "I'm not stupid, you're an asshole. Christine really likes you, it-it wasn't fair that you didn't tell her about your girlfriend."
…girlfriend?
"Or boyfriend," he added quickly, glancing around the room. "Whatever. You still should've told her."
Erik was silent for a long moment. What was this shit? Was Raoul trying to be funny? Trying to tease him or some shit? Or was he really the Lord of the Idiots who thought Christine was mad at him because she had some unrequited crush?
"Fuck you," Erik said finally, feeling that response encompassed his feelings on all of the above. Okay, screw karma, Raoul just really got on his nerves.
He was about to head out without a destination in mind, the vague urge to sneak into the locked hotel pool for a private moment with the chlorine and his thoughts when he heard the sound of someone dying behind the bathroom door. That gave him pause. Everyone else was talking or singing along to the music from the television and didn't seem to notice that a person was dying in the bathroom. Goddammit, this was not his night.
You know, it really wasn't his problem. He could just walk out the door and leave everyone else to deal with what would inevitably be a corpse by morning, but his better nature (probably spurned by the guilt he'd been carrying around all day) prompted him to pause and knock lightly on the door. "You alright?" he called through the metal to whoever was in there.
A groan met his inquiry, followed by a low, moan of, "Erik, shit - " and more retching.
He recognized the voice immediately, even if it was made raspy by what had to be excessive vomiting. "Christine? Hey, are you okay?" Clearly not, but he should probably check.
After a momentary pause, her shaky voice came through again, "Fine, just…just fine. I'll be out in a minute."
Yeah fucking right. Erik tried the knob and was pleased to find that the door wasn't locked. "Can I check on you?" he asked, having enough experience with drunk friends to phrase his questions appropriately. "It'd make me feel better if I could check on you."
More retching. Then, "No, no, really, I'm okay – "
"Come on, Christine, I promise I won't respect you less," he said as sincerely as he could under the circumstances. That did the trick, or maybe she passed out because she stopped protesting and he heard the toilet flush. It was really very thoughtful of her, he reflected as he made his way in, quickly shutting and locking the door behind him.
Poor girl looked a mess. Her eyes had been tearing and she hadn't taken her eye makeup off after the performance and it was all running down her face. She was compulsively wiping her mouth with a hand towel and the front of her shirt was wet with water she'd used to wash her mouth out. She was pale and sitting on the edge of the tub, holding her head with her free hand. "Hey, buddy," Erik said lightly, perching next to her – not too close in case she went all Linda Blair again. "How're you feeling?"
"Awful," Christine said truthfully. "I don't even know how this happened, I just had…like…three drinks. Or three Gatorades, whatever, they didn't taste strong."
"Must've been bad vodka," he said with a shrug. Meg's favorite cocktail, Everclear, grapefruit and cranberry juice, apparently tasted like fruit punch going down and a punch in the face coming back up.
"Or something," she said, leaning forward and resting her face on the cool edge of the shower tile. She sighed and muttered, "I want to lie down."
"The tub is not comfortable," he said immediately. "Trust me, I know from experience."
She gave a hollow laugh and made a face since mirth made her queasy. "I wanna go back to my room," she said plaintively.
"Okay," Erik said, standing up and offering her an arm. "I'll take you – want to take the trash can or do you think you can make it?"
Apparently that was a good question. Christine thought about it for a minute and used his arm to drag herself unsteadily to her feet. "I think I'll be okay, she said, fumbling in her pockets and handing him her key card. "Just get the door fast if I tell you."
"Noted," he agreed, opening the door and leading Christine out with an arm around her shoulders – oh, gross, puke in the hair, he really hoped she didn't get any on him, he planned on wearing this shirt again tomorrow. On their way out, a dudebrodude Erik didn't recognized saw him leaving with Christine and let out some kind of howl of approval.
"Solid, man!" he said, pounding his chest with a fist twice, then making a peace sign. "Solid!"
Erik assumed this young man was approving of the notion that he was about to take sexual advantage of a drunk girl and he just shot him a disgusted look. That's it, once he got Christine situated, he was coming back to take stock of all the girls and make sure none of them wound up with this douchebag. Christ, when did he become the responsible one?
"Gross," he muttered once he and Christine were out in the hallway.
She sniffled a little. "Sorry," she said, noticing the mess in her hair as she tried to clean it up with her hands and then wiped her hands on her jeans.
"No, no, you're fine," he said absently, sighing a little.
"No, I'm drunk," she observed sadly. "I'm drunk and I want to drop out of school."
Yeah, Erik heard about that. Meg sourly informed him that he was not only a 'fucking dramawhore,' but that his 'whore tendencies' made Christine so upset that she was thinking of transferring to another college. "You shouldn't," he said. "Well, I don't think you should. How about I go? Did you know I got accepted to MIT?"
Apparently she did not. "For theatre?" she asked, cocking her head questioningly.
Erik shook his head, "For engineering. I tinker."
"That's cool," she said and even though she was wasted, she sounded sincere. "How come you didn't go?"
Erik shrugged and told her a half-truth, "It was too expensive." And it was expensive, very expensive and he certainly hadn't gotten a great financial aid deal. It was one thing to get into MIT it was another thing entirely to get in with a free ride.
"And your friends are here," she observed, offering her own half-truth, even if she didn't know it. "That's nice. I don't have friends here."
"Sure you do," Erik said, stopping them in front of her door and swiping the card. Luckily it opened immediately. "I'm your friend. I mean, I'm a shitty friend, but I'm your friend."
Christine stumbled forward, rubbing her eyes and moving away from him. In one swift, unexpected moment, she took her shirt off and flung it on the floor. "I'm gross," she said vaguely, stumbling toward the bathroom, "I'm gonna shower don't…don't look or anything."
"Okay," Erik said, but he didn't react quickly enough since she shed her pants (the shoes were long gone, she hadn't been wearing them in the bathroom) and he got a good look at her panties sort of accidentally on purpose. They didn't match her bra, which was blue with white polkda-dots, her underwear was bright pink with orange stripes. Sorelli would have commented that she clearly wasn't planning on getting laid that night. She once informed Erik that she made sure her underwear matched if she planned on having sex. Why that memory would pop up now, he had no idea.
Averting his eyes up to the ceiling, Erik was so concerned with not paying attention to what would at any minute become naked!Christine that he missed the fact that she was yelling at him from the bathroom.
"What?" he asked, standing just outside the door, straining to hear through the spray.
"I forgot my PJs," she said, voice distorted and echoed inside the shower. "Can you get them? They're just sweatpants and a t-shirt, they're on my bed."
Well, there were sweatpants and a shirt beside the bed, so he assumed that was what they wanted. He quirked an eyebrow in amusement when he saw the word 'PINK' half washed-off printed on the back of the pants. Christine did not strike him as a Victoria's Secret kind of girl. Full of surprises, that one.
She took the shortest shower in the history of mankind, emerging a few minutes later, dripping wet, a towel wrapped around her haphazardly. Erik handed her clothes over without a word and she took them with a muttered, "Thanks," closing the door as she changed.
Erik stood uncertainly in the room, not sure what to do with himself. Should he leave? Well, he should probably make sure she wasn't going to pull a Hendrix and choke on her own vomit in her sleep, so he stuck around as Christine emerged, averting his eyes as requested since her shirt was clinging to her in all the wrong places. She sort of face-planted onto the bed and Erik, feeling pretty shitty for her since he knew exactly how she felt, turned up the covers and half-carried, half dragged her under them, placing a wastebasket next to her as needed.
"There," he said, sitting next to her on top of the covers and tucking the blankets under her chin. "Better?"
"Yeah," Christine said sleepily. "Can you put the TV on? I sleep better when there's noise."
The TV was already on the local PBS station and as luck would have it, Great Performances was showing Faust. He was in luck, the Jewel Song was just starting up as he turned it on.
"Oh, is this the one you like?" Christine asked, sitting up a little.
"Yeah," Erik said, surprised that drunk!Christine would remember a detail like that. "How'd you know?"
"After you said it was your favorite, I listened to this song on YouTube a few times, it's pretty," she explained, propping a pillow up between her head and his arm so she could see the television. "I didn't find the song about the angels, though."
"That doesn't come until the end," Erik explained. "Hopefully you'll be asleep by then."
"Well, poke me awake, I want to hear it."
"You want me to stick around?" Erik asked. Damn, the night was full of surprises.
"Yeah," Christine said, snuggling –legitimately snuggling against him. "I'm not mad anymore. You're being sweet. It's like you're two people, Sweet Erik and Asshole Erik. I like Sweet Erik, with the tucking in and showers. You should be him all the time."
The tucking in and showers, huh? Erik suppressed a smile and said, "Okay, I'll work on that."
"You should," Christine said, closing her eyes. "Poke me when the angels come on."
"The angels don't actually turn up during that song," Erik said, eyes flickering back to the screen. "She's just having a hallucination, you know, some productions don't even include the whole angel thing. I think it's kind of a cop-out myself, the 19th century morality tale ending it's just stupid. Things don't really turn out like that in reality, the angels coming and saving the good people and the bad guys getting dragged to hell. Real life is way more like a Sam Raimi movie, everyone gets fucked, regardless of intentions. Sam Raimi should direct a production of Faust, it would be awesome."
But a soft snore alerted Erik that Christine hadn't heard a word he said. She was fast asleep beside him as Mephistopheles and Faust arrived upon the scene.
