A/N: Another experimental chunk on the ol' timeline that is this bizarre "story". Sorry kid folks (those of you who are putting up with me through all this), I'm basically using this story as a Petri dish of experimental writing. In fact, I'll take suggestions and requests if you've got them. Just out of curiosity, does anyone else out there ship April/Ann? In fact, is this even a real ship? I'm beginning to doubt. Anyhow, I think it'll take a more intense twist soon.

Warnings: Language. AUish. OOCish. Angsting out.

Disclaimer: First off, the title comes from the East River Pipe Song, "What Does T.S. Eliot Know about You?" Also, let's see, there are OC, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf references in this sucker (can you guess what I've been doing with my semester?) because fanfiction is where all art forms blend in unholy matrimony. Finally, I'm pretty sure the results of the experiment mentioned in here aren't real. That's what the interwebs told me at least, but it makes a damn good motif.

All Those Months are Equally Cruel

She didn't much care where she was as long as she was somewhere. And, hell, somewhere could be somewhere beautiful, or it could be the grimy bank of a river that ran a particularly unsavory shade of brown. She wasn't somewhere beautiful – she knew that – which left her with the other alternative. The riverbank was littered fruitfully with the refuse of the empty people who she passed every day on the street (their ghostly gray eyes and their ghostly gray suits). And it made her so goddamn sad.

They were at the bar tonight. Her coworkers, that was. From the government – if you could call it that. Shitty little operation that represented the most overlooked state in the union – Lord. And she wasn't there. She didn't want to be reminded of that "temporal manifestation of futility", as she fondly referred to her life. Working at that Hellhole and chasing after that boy. Her castoff. Ann's castoff, that was.

For a while there she had stopped going to the pit at night. It was too risky or too convenient. She had forced herself to stop and for most of the summer she had held true to this self-imposed dictation. But now summer was turning to fall. The weather held a hint of bitter desperation and the leaves were dying, their crumpled shells igniting and flaming up in that brilliant shade of orange. Burning. Burning.

They had done a test. Some scientists in some far off lab (further than the eye could see on the misty slopes of the snow-baked cliffs of scientific lore – that's how she liked to think about it, at least). They had done a test where they had presented some lab mice (lab rats? guinea pigs?) with the choice between opium and food. Every time, the mice went for the opium. Every time – until they starved to their untimely, drug-ridden deaths. She didn't know if it was true or not, but that's what she had heard. That's what they had told her. The schools. The system. Society. Somebody's blog. Who knew? But somehow she had heard it.

She had gone to the pit last night. Only for a little while. She had gone there and come back and slept better than she had all through July. All through August. Probably ever…if she allowed herself to be melodramatic about the matter. Anyhow, all it did was prove those imaginary scientists correct. The pleasure center or principle or whatever it was. All she knew was that, if she were a rat, she'd push that damn lever every time.

So she sat by that river. She sat by it while all her friends (friends?) were at that bar. And she was happy about it in a way. But not happy enough.

So she called up that boy. Her castoff. Ann's castoff, that was. She called him up and he answered in that voice. That dumb, dumb voice that made her think about a show that she used to watch.

"April?" Said Andy. Like a puppy dog – to be stereotypical about the matter.

"Andy. I'm by the river. Come. Now." Because why not? He would be at the bar. He would be at the bar with them. With her.

"Oh my God. Is everything okay?"

"Duh, why wouldn't it be okay? Bring –" Ann. "Crackers."

"Crackers…?"

"Yeah. And cheese. And wine, if you have any."

"I love cheese!"

"Of course you do."

"April, I lo – April, you're awesome."

Love. Shit. The sound of the bar in the background. Her voice. Somewhere in the pulse. The pulse of fire and ice and longing and desperation and – she was being melodramatic. The pulse of mediocre dance music and mediocre liquor. All that the Midwest had to offer. No, the finest that the Midwest had to offer.

"Bring Ann if you want." Every time. The rats went for the opium. Every. Time.

"Ann?"

Until they starved to death.

"Yeah, I mean, if you want. I know she likes…cheese."

"Does she?"

"You ought to know. You dated her."

You dated her.

"Oh yeah. By the river, you said?" He wasn't confused; he just went with it. Or maybe he was always confused and that constructed the illusion of stability. Either way, she did not think he would question her. He would bring the crackers. He would bring the wine. He would forget the cheese. And Ann? Well, damned if she knew – she didn't know the boy that well after all.

"Just come."

"Be there soon! Right after I get the cheese."

Click. And. Dead space. White noise. Those other terms used to refer to the emptiness that is a lack of connection. No, a reminder of the connection that you, until this moment (this unwavering dead space white noise moment) pretended to have. Bring Ann. White noise. Opium.

The river was brown. And it wasn't supposed to be that way. It was supposed to be beautiful. Burning. Burning blue. But no, it was brown and filthy. Debris floated along it. Garbage that got caught in the mud and the dead brown branches, which reached out like fingers, like limbs, like fall in the heart of the season. Beer cans and diapers and other objects that symbolized the present moment with a dramatic essence of, what should she say – shattered…shattered something. Consciousness? Perhaps. But there wasn't enough here for grandeur in scenery or in language.

A bar in southern Indiana is bar in any other state. Only worse.

Time passes.

"April?" His voice came from far off. From out of the mist that she pretended was there. His figure was silhouetted against the dim Indiana lights and, while in an odd, pretend way, it was picturesque, it wasn't beautiful.

"No, your mom. Who else would it be?"

He was here. Her castoff. Ann's – yes, she had made it clear, even in her own mind. He was here and she tried to forget that she had called him.

"Mom? Oh, you were kidding. That's a relief." Andy sat down next to her. "I'm glad you called. You, and not my mom, that is." He placed a box of crackers and a bottle of Yellowtail down on the dirt next to her. It was the color of burning. The wine and the dirt. Neither was a good thing. He had forgotten the cheese. And he had forgotten –

"No Ann?" Her mind flickered through a series of images.

"Oh, shoot…I completely forgot. What with the wine and the crackers and everything."

"It's cool." It wasn't.

"I'm sorry." He was. Sincerely. Sincerely?

"Seriously, it's cool. I don't even know why I mentioned it." She did. The pit. Last night and. And. And nothing.

They sat in silence and it was all she could ask for. It was all she could ask for, so she had to ruin it. For a reason. For no reason. Because. Because she could.

"It's cold," she said. It wasn't.

"No it's not, silly." He called her bluff, but it wasn't intentional and that was a comfort in a way.

"Yeah, doofus, it is." She moved closer to him. Reflex? Or the pretense of reflex? Morphine is an opiate.

"If only it were summer." He said and he was wistful about it and she wasn't sure why.

She liked the fall. She liked the leaves. The burning. And the summer, well, that was far away. For all she knew it would never be summer again.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" She said.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"If only it were…April?"

"That's better."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What I meant was…April?"

"What?"

"Why did you tell me to invite Ann?" he asked. And she hadn't expected that from him. Maybe he hadn't either.

'Why not?" she countered and it wasn't really an answer.

"You hate her. I think. Or is that someone else? Leslie?"

"I hate them all…"

"Then why –?"

"Sometimes, Andy," she didn't pause, but she thought. She thought of warm lights and beautiful places and dying sunsets and, hell, she thought of opium. And sometimes you can talk about that shit. Sometimes, you really can. But you have to know when that is. And, if it was ever, it sure as hell wasn't now, "Sometimes you just have to shut the hell up, drink some wine, and maybe you'll have a night to remember."