Author's Note: ((does a happy dance)) HOORAY FOR KYRIEL!! We're exchanging one-shots, so here is my contribution. It's random and odd and completely bizarre (three synonyms, I know), but I'm hoping she'll like it anyway. ;-)
Disclaimer: I don't own the newsies, Kyriel belongs to herself, and any song lyrics either belong to the opera Les Misérables or else their respective bands/artists.
Standing in Petunias.
And if you look, you look through me
And if you talk it's not to me
And when I touch you, you don't feel a thing...
-Stay (Far Away, So Close), U2
As cliché as it sounds, I fell for Michael "Skittery" Goorjian from the moment I laid eyes on him. We were both in Mrs. Blagdon's seventh grade English class, and he turned to me on the first day and asked me if I would pass him a copy of Habibi from the shelf. He sounded exactly like a combination of Marty McFly and Peter Parker, and I nearly had a heart attack. He didn't seem to notice.
As it turned out, Habibi was quite possibly one of the most painfully boring books I had ever read in my life. I was sick with pneumonia for a week after I finished it, and every night I had nightmares about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and ugly boys named Omer.
Skittery loved it. He was just nerdy like that.
"The cultural differences between living in Israel and living in the United States were beautifully portrayed," he would say. "I don't think I've ever read a more realistic novel. It was incredible."
"If that is the case, then I would rather eat hair out of a stranger's shower drain than move to Israel," I would reply.
Needless to say, we were best friends.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kyriel, and I am loud, sarcastic, and overly music-orientated. I live in the middle of nowhere, also known as Boxborough, Massachusetts, and I'm the girl who sits in the back of the class and dreams of a far off place where exciting things happen, also known as New York City. I'm also in love with my best friend.
Organization has never exactly been one of my strengths. My friend Bumlets was starring as Marius in our high school production of Les Misérables, and Skittery, Snitch, and I were planning on "surprising" him by coming to opening night on Friday. He knew perfectly well that we were coming, of course. Snitch had never been one to keep his mouth shut.
I came home from school on Friday afternoon, dumped my 80-lb backpack onto the floor, curled up on the sofa, and promptly fell asleep. I didn't take into consideration that I would have to be awake and clean and ready at 6:30 so that we could get decent seats; I was tired, and that was that.
I was having a very vivid dream about Paleolithic koala bears chasing me around the North Pole when I felt a sharp poking sensation on my right shoulder. At first I suspected that it was one of the koala bears, and I turned to tell it to bugger off and leave me to my business, but I soon realized that the poking was coming from the vast world of consciousness. So I opened my eyes.
"Kyriel, you are a moron," said Snitch, tutting loudly.
"Why do you say such things, monsieur?" I asked sleepily, closing my eyes again and wishing the koala bears would reappear.
"Because it is 6:30 and your mother claims that you've been asleep for the past three hours."
My eyes flew open. "Are you kidding me?!"
"Not at all!" Snitch held out his wrist for me to see that it was indeed half past six. "And we're gonna be late if you don't hurry, so get your ass off the couch and come on!"
"...I've been asleep for three hours?"
"Yes. If you need physical evidence, check the mirror," said Skittery with a grin. "I hope you weren't intending on freshening up or anything."
Snitch looked at him. "Never say that again."
"What?"
"'Freshening up'. You sound like a thirteenth century Shakespeare wanna-be."
"Except that Shakespeare only came into existence at the end of the sixteenth century, and he never used the term 'freshening up'."
"Shut up."
I got unsteadily to my feet and made my way, yawning and scratching and cursing, to the closet. "Mom, where's my coat?" I yelled, leaning against the doorframe for support.
"You spilled Mexican food on it at Dominic's house last Wednesday, remember?" she called back.
I glanced out the window and noted that it was raining harder than ever. Dammit. Why the hell did the Luceros have to eat so much Mexican food? They weren't even from Mexico! "All right, that's fine," I yelled after some hesitation. "I'm going to the play now, I'll see you later!"
"Bye, hon! Have a good time!"
Snitch was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet out of sheer anticipation. "You ready?" he asked.
"Yep."
"You're going out there without a jacket?" Skittery lifted an eyebrow, looking me over.
It was suddenly brought to my attention that I was wearing a pair of blue jeans with rips at the knees and a thin, long-sleeved t-shirt. I was going to freeze to death.
But then again, I'd rather freeze to death than wear a jacket with a bright orange stain across the chest in front of the love of my life. "Yeah, I guess," I said, shrugging.
"She's lost her mind."
"What mind?"
"Shut up, Skittery."
The three of us made our way out of the house and into the rain, Snitch demanding that he walk between us and we wrap our arms around him. He had a very "delicate state of health", and he wanted to be kept warm. To be sure, he did get sick quite easily — but I was the one with no jacket. Ah well. Who ever said life was fair? Besides, if I died, I wouldn't have to take the History test I had on Monday. Ohh, how I loathed my History teacher...
Skittery must have spotted the nasty expression on my face, because he laughed suddenly and flicked my shoulder behind Snitch's back. "You nervous about Bumlets?" he asked. "Don't worry, he's gonna be great."
I blinked. "What?"
"Man, you're still asleep, aren't you?"
I nodded fervently. "And cold," I added.
"REEEEEEEED, THE BLOOD OF ANGRY MEEEEEEEN! BLAAAAAAACK, THE DARK OF AGES PAAAAAAAAAST!" sang Snitch happily.
"So—" I began.
"REEEED, A WORLD ABOUT TO DAAAAAAWN! BLAAAAAACK, THE NIGHT THAT ENDS AT LAAAAAAAAST!"
"Kyriel, do—" Skittery started.
"HAD YOU BEEN THERE TONIGHT, YOU MIGHT KNOW HOW IT FEEEEEEEEELS!"
"Should I dr—"
"TO BE STRUCK TO THE BONE IN A MOMENT OF BREATHLESS DELIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!"
"My car—"
"HAD YOU BEEN THERE TONIGHT, YOU MIGHT ALSO HAVE KNOWWWWWWWWN!"
"No, y—"
"HOW YOUR WORLD CAN BE CHANGED IN JUST ONE BURST OF LIGHT! AND WHAT WAS RIGHT SEEMS WR—"
"SNITCH!" Skittery roared, clapping a hand over his mouth. "YOU'RE NOT MARIUS, NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR A MINUTE!"
And Snitch did.
Skittery turned to me. "We can't take my car, because Bumlets took it to get to school. His isn't working — I think his little brother poured orange juice into the gas tank or something."
"I see."
"And you don't have a car, so we can't drive that," he continued thoughtfully.
"Right." I grinned at him.
"And... Well, Snitch's car is a piece of shit, so honestly, we don't want to drive that."
"Hey!" said Snitch indignantly through Skittery's hand.
"Don't worry about it, Snitch," I told him solemnly. "I don't even have a piece of shit; I have to admire yours." (1)
Snitch considered this for a minute as the three of us stood there on the sidewalk, getting slowly covered in snow, but in the end he seemed satisfied. "Okay," he said slowly, and he wrenched Skittery's hand off his mouth and began singing Les Mis again.
It was in this way that the three of us walked to school, cold and wet and singing Les Misérables at the tops of our lungs. Perhaps it was good that Bumlets didn't see us coming in; he probably would have died of mortification.
It was about halfway through the play that I began to realize that there were serious downsides of having two straight guys as friends. I mean, Bumlets was fine; he sang and laughed and smiled and danced and flipped his hair back and gave lots of hugs—but then again, he was also gay. Snitch and Skittery were very straight, very masculine, and very determined not to be impressed by the incredible music and acting skills that our high school production of Les Misérables were showing off.
In other words, within the first twenty minutes, Snitch fell asleep. Skittery stayed awake, but that was only because he wanted to see Bumlets running around and singing on stage... I don't think he realized that Marius didn't really come in until the end of the first act.
When the scene with the beggars on the street finally began, Skittery didn't even recognize Bumlets until he was standing center stage with his arms outstretched and his voice ringing through the auditorium. "Holy holy shit," Skittery murmured in my ear. "I had no idea he was that good. Ahhh..."
"Do you think we should wake Snitch up?" I asked.
He glanced at the other boy, who was curled up in his seat, thumb in his mouth. "Nah."
"Hey Eponine, what's up today? I haven't seen you much about," sang Bumlets to a small, pretty beggar girl.
"'Ere you can always catch me in," she told him.
"Mind the police don't catch you out!"
"Always the motherly type, ain't he?" I chuckled.
"'Ere wotcher do with all them books? I coulda been a student too! Don't judge a girl by how she looks; I know a lot of things, I do," sang Eponine.
"Poor Eponine, the things you know you wouldn't find in books like these..."
"I like the way you grow your hair," she sang dreamily.
"I like the way you always tease!"
"HAHA! She has a crush on him!" Skittery crowed. "He's GAY, GIRLFRIEND! FIND A STRAIGHT GUY AND BE HAPPY!"
"Shhhhhhhh!" hissed an old lady in the seat in front of mine.
"Little he knows... Little he sees," sang Eponine sadly.
"Aww," Skittery whimpered. "That's TRAGIC!"
"I can relate," I muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing."
We watched Eponine try to get Marius the hell out of there so that he wouldn't get hurt during the robbery, thus causing him to bump into Cosette—and so began the dreamy, romantic music as Bumlets sang in a breathtakingly soft voice, "I didn't see you there... forgive me." Ohh, it was so beautiful!
I grinned, waiting for Skittery's sarcastic comment on how their faces were about three inches apart and how he wished that he would bump into a pretty girl and be able to sing to her, but it never came. Looking over at him, I saw that he was suddenly looking wistful and almost... well, lovestruck. Oh my god, he was in love with Bumlets. Skittery was gay, holy shit, AHH! The world as I know it is collapsing in on me!
I looked back at the stage. Never mind, he wasn't gay. He wasn't even looking at Bumlets.
But this was just as bad.
He was looking at Gloria Hallman, who was playing Cosette. Skittery had had a major crush on her since before I could remember, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why—she was absolutely gorgeous, with long, dark hair, a slender, pale body, and eyes like the sea after a storm.
I was using phrases from "The Princess Bride", now. Shit.
But the point was that Gloria Hallman was perfect. I wish I could say that she was a moron, but she wasn't—all Honors level classes, a flawless body, and man, could that girl sing. There was a reason she was cast for Cosette; she had a voice to rival Julia McKenzie's, and she could continue up the scale until all dogs within a three-mile radius would bury their heads in the ground and die.
Not really. But you get my point.
Anyway, Skittery was staring at Gloria with his mouth slightly open and an expression of longing in his eyes. I could just hear his thoughts: I am not turned on, I am not turned on, I am here to watch Bumlets act, not Gloria walk around in a gratuitously tight dress, I am not turned on...
He was turned on, though. I could tell. If the entire school were to burst into flames at that very moment, he probably wouldn't even notice.
The rest of the play wasn't quite as enjoyable as I had hoped. I ground my teeth together so hard that I was surprised they were still in my skull by the end of "In My Life - Rue Plumet", and I was barely watching when Eponine died. All I could think about was Gloria, the only thing standing between me and the love of my life!
But why, though? I thought later that night as I washed my face before going to bed. All things considered, I was pretty decent-looking when my face wasn't covered in soapsuds—I mean, I was no Catherine Zeta-Jones, but I wasn't grossly disfigured or anything. And I wasn't that tone-deaf, and I'd definitely made Skittery laugh a fair few times. Why Gloria instead of me?
I decided to ignore the enormous list of reasons automatically forming in my brain, and went to bed, cranky. The world was indeed blessed that I was not being forced to wake up at 6:00 AM the next morning; a grumpy, still-half-asleep Kyriel suffering through unrequited love on a school morning would not be a pretty sight at all.
"Bumlets, how do you get a man who doesn't love you to change his mind and decide to love you?" I asked as I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Splashes of color exploded in front of me and formed into Never Land, just like they say in that Peter Pan movie. I watched the lost boys wander around for a couple of seconds as I waited for my friend's response.
"Lacy black lingerie," said Bumlets solemnly.
"Hey!"
"Lure him into your bedroom, but on Barry White's greatest hits, and begin to do a seductive—"
"I'm serious, dude, c'mon!"
There was a pause, and I took my hands away from my eyes and blinked a couple of times to clear my vision. The pair of us were sitting cross-legged on top of a picnic table at Kimball's, waiting for Snitch and Skittery to come back with the ice cream cones. I wasn't hungry.
Bumlets pushed both his hands through his hair and frowned. "I don't think you can make anyone love someone they don't love," he said finally. "It just doesn't work that way."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
He looked at me, his hair kind of floppy. "I've never seen you like this, Ky," he said, sounding concerned.
"Me neither."
"You all right?"
"Heh."
"Who is this guy?"
"You'll never know, and God bless you."
"Do I know 'im?"
"Possibly."
He looked at me for a minute, eyes narrowed quizzically. "Well look at it this way," he said after a moment. "Always assuming this dude isn't me—Hey, stop laughing, it's possible!—he's most likely straight, right? Which means you have much more of a chance with getting to go with this guy than, say, me. Most guys aren't as turned-on as I wish they were by lacy black lingerie on a skinny Spanish kid, y'know?"
"Swifty was," I pointed out.
"Swifty has serious issues."
"But he's your boyfriend."
"He's also got a major crush on David Ortiz and watches Sesame Street on the weekends. He doesn't count."
"AHOY! WE RETURN VICTORIOUS!" came Snitch's triumphant shout as he paraded over to us with the ice creams, Skittery close in tow.
"Snitch, I don't think you should balance your sundae on your head like that," Skittery advised, obviously trying not to be amused.
"Why not? It's perfectly safe."
"Not really. I mean, if you were to drop it—"
"CRAP! AHH, SKITTERY, I DROPPED IT!"
"I'm astounded. Really."
"Hold on, I need to get another one. I'll be right back, okay?"
"You do that, Snitch." Skittery looked over at us and grinned as Snitch sprinted back to get another ice cream. "I'm just thankful he insisted on balancing his own ice cream on his head," he said, making his way toward us. "I mean, God forbid if he ever dropped Kyriel's..." He gave a mock shudder.
"Aw shut up," I laughed, punching him in the arm.
"All right, so we've got a mocha chip and black raspberry—that's mine—and then a vanilla frozen yogurt for the man who's almost too gay to function (2), and then a chocolate and pralines & cream for Kyriel." He paused. "You seriously got pralines & cream?"
"Garth mentions it in Wayne's World; how could I not get it?" I replied, taking the ice cream from him and sticking my spoon into it.
"He does?"
"Benjamin is no one's friend. If he were an ice cream, he'd be pralines & dick," recited Snitch, coming back with a second ice cream balanced on his head.
"That's disgusting," Skittery laughed.
"But it's, like, the greatest movie ever," I insisted.
"Amen, sister," said Bumlets without looking up from his very gay vanilla frozen yogurt. Snitch sat down on the table too, crossed his legs, and dug into his ice cream—triple chocolate chunk with chocolate fudge and whipped cream. Holy crap, he was gonna be hyper this afternoon...
"Oh my god, what the hell is Gloria Hallman wearing?" Bumlets laughed under his breath.
Skittery and I both whipped around (for two entirely different reasons, of course), almost I almost dropped my ice cream. I decided to ignore Snitch's sniggers and focus instead on Gloria and her friends, who had just pulled into Kimball's in Gloria's beautiful, perfect, shiny black convertible.
"What is she wearing?" asked Snitch curiously, too busy eating to look up from his ice cream.
"Not much," I said.
It was true. She hopped out of her car without opening the door, and I saw that she had on a light blue mini-mini-mini-skirt and a very revealing black halter top. I looked back down at my ice cream, rather disgusted, but Skittery's eyes remained glued to her. I hated how she did that to him, how she turned him into a drooling idiot just by showing him a little thigh.
A lot of thigh, actually. I simply could not believe how goddamn high that mini-skirt was.
Skittery turned and looked at me, his face still oddly slack. "Could you hold my ice cream?" he said.
"No," I answered irritably, leaning back against the picnic table.
"Please?"
"No."
"But—"
"No."
"I just—"
"No."
"Could y—"
"No."
He rolled his eyes at me and turned to Bumlets. "Could you please hold my ice cream cone, Bumlets?" he said in a distinctly overly-polite manner.
"Sure," said Bumlets, and, oblivious to the evil glares I was sending his way, he accepted the ice cream. Skittery grinned triumphantly at me and hurried off in the direction of the approaching slut, and I resisted the urge to flip him off and instead continued to eat my ice cream.
"He's such an idiot," said Snitch idly. "She barely even knows he exists."
"Oh she knows, all right. He's been stalking her since the fourth grade," said Bumlets.
"She still doesn't know his name, though."
I watched as Skittery said something to Gloria. She graced him with a pained smile and tried to brush him off, but he said something else, obviously a sad attempt to make her laugh.
I probably would have laughed.
"So this is the guy with whom you are completely and utterly smitten, hmm?" said Bumlets, eyebrows raised and a slight smile on his face.
I looked at him. "What? No! I mean—he—well, not really..." I stuck my spoon viciously into my ice cream. "How'd you guess?" I said lamely after a minute.
"Out of all the glares Gloria Hallman has gotten over the past few years, yours is by far the most livid," said Bumlets sagely. "You're obviously incredibly jealous."
"I am not!"
He lifted an eyebrow.
"Well—not really, anyway," I said crossly. I looked back over at Skittery, who was now practically hanging by his fingernails to Gloria and her group. Poor guy. Man, he was looking so cute and nerdy today...
I really was smitten, wasn't I? I don't think many people actually think of "nerdy" as a positive adjective.
I turned back to Bumlets. "Fine, I'm jealous beyond comprehension," I said.
"I know," said Bumlets with a smile. "Don't worry, he'll get over her."
"Bumlets, he's liked her since fourth grade," said Snitch sardonically. "That's eight years, and he hasn't gotten over her yet."
"Shut up, Snitch," said Bumlets.
"Shutting up," said Snitch, turning back to his ice cream.
"The thing is," Bumlets continued as if there had been on interruption, "at some point, he's gotta realize that Gloria has no interest in him whatsoever. And that you were always there for him. I'm not saying that he's going to fall head over heels in love with you like that—" He snapped his fingers to add emphasis, and all I could think was, He's so goddamn GAY! "—but he won't like Gloria forever. Just remember there's a light at the end of the tunnel, all right?"
Gay gay gay...
"Yeah, all right." I cleared my throat awkwardly and mashed my ice cream around the paper container a little. I still wasn't really hungry. "The thing is... I think I'm, like, in love with this guy or something. I mean, everything he does is just beautiful, and I feel like I'm the only person who sees that, and he doesn't seem to notice that I'm seeing it... And he's the only person who laughs at my jokes—"
"Hey!"
"Well, except Snitch—but he laughs at our math teacher's puns, too, so he doesn't count... But Skittery's just incredible, and he wastes all his time pining for Gloria, when he doesn't need Gloria... I don't know why, but I love h—" I stopped. "What, Bumlets?"
Because the Hispanic boy was making an extremely odd face and nodding not-at-all discreetly over my shoulder. I turned.
"Ky?" said Skittery, eyes very wide.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...
I was cold. It hadn't occurred to me just how cold it was outside until I was sitting on the bench in the garden in my pajamas at ten o'clock at night, rubbing my arms to try to get the shivers to stop. My parents were in bed, and they were under the impression that I was going to soon follow suit. They had no idea that I had been transformed into a temporary insomniac over the course of twelve hours.
How could I have been so goddamn stupid?! Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid, why the hell couldn't I have just kept my mouth shut...
I had probably made it worse by dashing off in the opposite direction once I realized that Skittery knew what I was talking about. I had never been the kind of person who could face my problems, but literally running from them would never solve anything. And now he probably hated me.
Stupid!
I leaned back so that I was lying horizontally against the bench, one arm hanging limply and brushing against the icy ground. The worst part was that Gloria probably saw me run—not that she cared, but the fact that she saw was just painful to think about. And that Skittery probably still liked her.
On my own, pretending he's beside me...
"This sucks," I said aloud.
"Eh, could be worse," said a terribly familiar voice.
I sat up so quickly that I almost hit my head on a low-hanging branch. There, leaning against our ugly picket fence, was Skittery, grinning at me. "Why the hell haven't you been pickin' up the phone, Ky?" he asked. "I've been tryin' to get hold of you all afternoon. This is a bit of a last resort, comin' to your house at ten at night."
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to evaporate. "Well you found me. How can I help you?" I said carefully.
There was silence for a minute, and I looked at him. He was staring at the ground with an unreadable expression on his face. "Whatever you have to say, it might be easier if you say it real fast," I added dryly. "Don't worry about hurting my feelings, 'cause I don't have much feelings to hurt anymore."
I was talking in clichés. My entire life was one, big, pathetic cliché.
Damn...
"You want me to say it fast?" said Skittery finally.
"Yep."
"All right then." He cleared his throat dramatically and said, "I love you, Kyriel."
Okaaaay, then, not exactly what I expected him to say.
I froze, staring at him, ignoring the shivers running repeatedly up and down my arms. It may not be what I expected him to say, I realized, but it was exactly what I wanted him to say.
Skittery shifted awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I'm probably doing everything all wrong—"
"Now you see, that's where you're mistaken," I interrupted. "The only way to a girl's heart is to stand in her mother's flowerbed and confess your love to her. Please, come join me in the garden and crush the petunias with me, would you? I believe now would be the appropriate time to kiss passionately?"
"Gladly, mademoiselle," he said, and he climbed over the fence and kissed me.
Eh, I thought vaguely, could be worse...
(1) Ferris Bueller, baby. I am so fucking unpredictable, it's not even funny. XD
(2) MEAN GIRLS, WOO HOO! I watched that for the first time ever the night before last... Am I the only person who found Kevin Gnapoor incredibly sexy? (Newsies: YES.) Oh. I thought so...
Author's Note: That was pretty goddamn cheesy. Ah well, cheese is good. :-D Anyway, please leave a review—THREE CHEERS FOR KYRIEL! ((tackles her))
-Saturday