A/N: Well, things are pretty much back to normal. Dalton's still at band camp, Sarah's still annoying, and Jack, due to his dismally low confidence, is still trying to convince everyone that he isn't gay. In fact, for the last hour, he's been up in my room, modeling his Speedo collection for Sarah and flexing his muscles.
Or at least that's what I think he's doing. Come to think of it, they've been up there an awfully long time…
SARAH: ((from upstairs)) I AM AMERICA AND YOU ARE COLUMBUS! DISCOVER ME, JACK! DISCOVER ME!
…Maybe they're just really into it?
SARAH: …BECAUSE WE'RE DEFINITELY HAVING SEX RIGHT NOW!
((dies))
So, to recap: Charlie's gone, school's starting up, won't even let me do my regular page breaks, so I have to do roman numerals, which are just SO uncool…and they've gotten rid of indentations…and, oh yeah…JACK AND SARAH ARE HAVING SEX ON MY BED.
Could my life be any worse right now?
((piano falls on her))
…I really shouldn't have asked that, should I?
And now, on with the fic!
Chinese Lantern
Chapter Eleven—
Bona Omi
"Don't worry. Nobody dies in this story. They just get really big boo-boos." –George of the Jungle
I.
There were certain things that Jack could deal with in the morning, and certain things that he couldn't. A cup of coffee was good, a little small talk with the boys, but beyond that, there wasn't much else he could handle—especially now, in the middle of God knew where, after a night sleeping on the ground. In an ideal world, he would wake up sometime after sunrise, maybe to the smell of bacon frying, a nice fire going. And then, maybe, David would see that he was awake and come into his tent…and maybe his hair would still be disheveled, and his eyes would be bright, and Jack would look at him and he would look at Jack and they might…they might…
Shake hands in a thoroughly masculine and respectable fashion, of course—what else?
Obviously, Jack wasn't counting on this happening, but still, the worst he would expect to encounter was Ram's rendition of "I'll Cover You", or "Thunder Road" if luck really wasn't on his side. In any case, he hadn't even thought of the possibility that Kid Blink might burst into his tent at five in the morning in what seemed to be a gratuitously small pair of underwear, to tell him, wild with panic, that Racetrack had died.
Racetrack dying. It was almost as high on Jack's list of inconveniences as huge, unexpected morning wood.
Around the campground, in the still-dark morning air, he could hear the sounds of the camp waking up, yawns and quiet conversations, the crying of the birds perched in bare trees outside. It was dark, and cold, and Jack had dealt with Racetrack on an early morning like this one time too many. He rubbed his eyes sleepily, and slowly rolled over onto his back. "So Race died again?"
"Yes," Blink said, exasperated.
"Oh. Okay." Jack turned over and burrowed into his warm sleeping bag.
Blink stared at him in disbelief. "Jack, did you hear me?"
"Yes."
"And aren't you gonna do something?"
Jack lifted his head and looked at Blink, crouched at the opening of his tent, completely panic-stricken. He never learned.
"Look," Jack said, "how many times has this happened, jus' in the last year? Seven?"
"Eight."
"Right. An' every time, he made a full recovery. So what are ya worried about?"
Blink watched Jack close his eyes and pull the warm covers up around his shoulders, and quietly considered his options. Maybe they were used to this kind of thing happening, but it was different this time, he knew. They needed to figure out what to do, even if Jack didn't think it was important—Jack he hadn't seen Race out there, he hadn't—because it might already be too late.
Suddenly, just a second away from panic, Blink was filled with inspiration. Leaning forward, he whispered ardently into Jack's ear:
"Y'know, Cowboy…watchin' you sleep like that gets me so hot…whaddaya say we close up the tent and--"
"AAH! I'M UP! I'M UP!"
Jack leapt out of bed, every muscle tensed, and was halfway across the campground when he heard a long, low whistle coming from his tent. He turned around, furious, to see Blink grinning like a hyena as he leaned out into the open air, and it was only when Jack saw what he had in his hand—clean, slightly faded, and being waved in the air like a white flag—that he realized how cold it was outside.
As Blink, nearly doubled over with laughter, tossed Jack his shorts, a hail of applause was heard round the campground—as well as an earsplitting wolf-whistle that could only have come from Specs—and Jack, cheeks burning, took a bow.
Watching the spectacle over his oatmeal, Snitch paused to stir in another heaping spoonful of sugar and then turned to Itey, biting his lip as he tried not to grin. "So, d'you think Jack finally took our advice and spent th' night with Blink?"
Before Itey could even open his mouth, Kid Blink, jogging over, thumped Snitch upside the head and gave him a look of mock-consternation. "Snitch, I'm surprised at you. You know I'm not that kinda girl."
"Sorry," he laughed.
"Besides," Blink added as he walked away, "I ain't a cheap date, neither. Make no mistake—a catch like me, you're gonna have to romance."
"Is it healthy to have oatmeal come outta your nose like that?" Itey wondered.
But Kid Blink was all seriousness once he reached Jack, back at the tent, where he was currently rooting frantically through the mess on the floor, looking for a clean shirt. Casting a preoccupied glance over his shoulder at Blink, he thrust something grayish and wrinkled into his hands. "Here," he said. "Smell that."
Blink took a whiff. It only took him about ten seconds to regain his balance, but he was still seeing stars when he handed it back to Jack.
"So is it clean?"
"Yeah, pretty much." Blink watched as Jack tugged the shirt indifferently over his head, and made a mental note to stay out of spitting distance from him today. "So, Jack…about Racetrack…"
Jack sighed. "Look, I just really don' think—"
Kid Blink clenched his jaw. He was beginning, just a little bit, to lose his patience. "Look, Jack, I know this has happened before, an' I know you're probably right, and I only just saw him at a distance, but…" he took a deep breath. "Somethin's wrong out there."
"You didn't let me finish," Jack said mildly as he pulled on the gloves that Coin had given to him as a parting gift, which were made of warm, soft wool, fit him beautifully, and would have been just about perfect if it wasn't for the fact that they were dyed fuchsia.
Blink looked at him flatly. "Oh?"
"Yeah," Jack said, smiling, as he pulled on his sweater, and then promptly began trying to put his head through the armhole for five minutes. Eventually, Blink took pity and tugged it down over his head, and Jack could finally finish his explanation. "I was sayin': I just really don' think it's anythin' to worry about, but if you've got a feelin', then I'll trust you."
And, as usual, Blink was right. It would have gotten on Jack's nerves if he hadn't already known for a fact that sweaters were a lot more confusing than people gave them credit for. And besides, by the time he saw Racetrack, he didn't have time to think about anything else—because he knew, from the moment he saw him that something was wrong, something was horribly wrong. And for the first time, there might be nothing he could do about it.
Racetrack was lying on his back in the dank shadows of an enormous oak tree—body stiff, arms outstretched—and cold. Cold all over. Kneeling on the ground beside him, looking at the dark snared scratch on his cheek, the strange soft violet skin around his closed eyes, Jack thought he could almost smell the animal on him—where before there had been only the smell of grime and soot, the rank smokiness of late nights, sometimes tobacco or rotgut gin, and always and the lingering freshness of newsprint, now there was something else, something he had known this way only in dreams—it was sour and thick, like bile, like rubber burning, like blood. It was the smell of darkness, the smell of nightmares. It was fear.
On Racetrack's shoulder was a deep bite mark, the sign of fangs buried deep, blood still warm. Touching it a moment, Jack looked quickly away, and then, knowing already what he would hear, lowered his head to Racetrack's chest, where a heartbeat would make itself known.
There was nothing.
By now, a considerable crowd had been drawn over, people lingering in the distance, murmuring to each other, wondering what was going on—everyone looking at Jack. He tried to think fast, tried to figure out any kind of solution, tried to keep from crying. And then, before he could stop himself, he did what was, in the end, the only reasonable thing he could think of: he screamed.
Although it was more like a yell, to be honest. Jack was hardly the high-pitched type. But it was long, and loud, and full, more than any other emotion, with absolute terror. Not loud enough to carry the length and breadth and weight of this terror, no. But what sound ever could be? All he wanted was for the world to take notice, and maybe, just maybe, for someone to hear him and come to his aid.
The scream traveled out of the clearing and into the forest, wending its way through the trees, ribboning through the branches and around the weathered trunks, through sycamore, birchbark, ash, on and on into the still morning air, waiting for someone to hear it. It didn't have to travel far.
Although they didn't know it at the time, the boys had unwittingly wandered straight into blueskin gypsy territory. Just a stone's throw away from their circle of tents, behind a stand of oak trees and past a tangle of sweet briar rose now lying dormant underneath the winter snow, were the gypsies. They had been living in the thick of the Black Forest for as long as anyone could remember—which, in these parts, was a long time indeed—rarely coming in contact with others, living off the land as they traversed the length and breadth of the countryside, bartering and stealing what they couldn't come by on their own.
They had once been as strong and passionate as legend would have it, and feared throughout the land—"do that one more time and I'll sell you to the blueskin gypsies" was once as common an admonishment throughout the peasant villages of Möbia as "if the wind changes your face will freeze that way"—but by the time the newsies wandered across the path, the blueskins were nearly extinct. Their clans had warred with each other, harsh winters had nearly done away with them, and so many of their daughters and sons had married people from the surrounding villages and become farmers that there were just over a hundred true gypsies left in the country, at best. Even the vivid, pale blue skin that they had once been known for was dismissed out of hand by most outsiders as an old wives' tale, or a side effect of the indigo they used to dye their clothes. And, in truth, their bloodlines were so diluted that there were few real blueskins left—maybe a dozen, no more. And their numbers were quickly declining.
But the boys didn't know any of this at the time. Ram didn't know. Max didn't know. Ginnie didn't know. Racetrack definitelydidn't know. And Jack, as he looked up into the face of the girl who had thundered into the clearing on a gaunt, noble horse with a bluish gray pelt, could only guess where she had come from. He looked up, his hands still grasping at Racetrack's stiff shoulders, looked up into her eyes, at her face cast in shadow from the folds of her heavy blue cloak, at the strand of coal-dark hair caught in the corner of her mouth and the softly blue shadows around her eyes and the blueness of cold at her lips, and could only think one thing.
"Are you an angel?" he asked her.
She smiled. "Angels don't ride horses," she said. "I'm Nani." She looked closely at Racetrack. "Is your friend all right?"
"I think he's dead."
"Well," she murmured. "That's serious." And, with a lissome and rather irritating little skip, she dismounted her horse—she had been riding bareback, Jack noticed—and knelt on the frozen ground next to him. She picked up Racetrack's wrist and touched it gently with her index finger, just gently enough to feel whatever was there. As she put her hands over his heart, she began to rub some warmth into the stiff skin, and she spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
"Your friend isn't dead. He's only poisoned. He must have been attacked last night—" she paused, "—probably by an Adder Wolf. You can see the marks here—" she traced the gash on his cheek, "—and here." She gingerly pulled down the fabric of his shirt and showed the puncture wounds the animal's teeth had made, already beginning to fester and swell. She looked up at Jack. "His heart's beating, but faintly. Once he's under the Adder Wolf's poison he's in a state of living death; in a few hours, he'll be gone."
The boys watched her, hanging on her every word. At the back of the crow, Specs turned to Ershey, and saw her looking forward, rapt.
"Who is she?" he asked her, and she didn't even take her eyes off the girl as she answered.
"A gypsy," she said. "A real, live gypsy."
"Have you ever seen one before?"
"No," she breathed, in a rather melodramatic fashion. "Only in my dreams," she whispered, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye.
"…That was beautiful, Ersh."
"Thank you."
Meanwhile, in the clearing, Jack cleared his throat loudly. Already on the horse were Nani, and Racetrack, or at least what was left of him. She was bent low over him, one palm pressed flat against his chest as if to search for that last remnant of life, or to bring warmth to anything that remained. She looked up, and nodded to Jack.
"Guys," Jack said, "there's a place a few miles away where we can get this taken care of. Me an' Nani are gonna ride out, find somebody to fix up Race. An' you guys just sit tight here 'till we got it figured out. We'll be back before sunset, with any luck."
With that, he jumped up onto the horse, which looked to be feeling more than a little put-upon, and they took off. As they galloped into the woods, David ran up alongside them, pulling at Jack's sleeve.
"You expect us to just twiddle our thumbs and wait for you?"
Jack looked at him desperately for a moment. "I'll be back," he said. "Trust me." And with that David couldn't keep up any longer, and fell behind, watching as they rode into the distance. He turned and wandered back to the camp, where he found everyone just as they had been before.
"So," Ram said, brightly. "Who wants to play Mafia?"
II.
Jack had done a lot of difficult things in his life. And even now, in a place that he couldn't even begin to understand, with one of his best friends missing and another one on death's door, he didn't consider it to be the worst thing that he had ever gone through. The time that he had learned to balance a spoon on his nose, for instance, was still something he looked back on proud that he had managed to keep his nerve. Jack was tough, and he was streetsmart, and make no mistake—he could handle almost anything you threw at him, in a thoroughly masculine fashion. But few people could gracefully cope with what he was going through this morning. And, it seemed, he wasn't one of them.
He never carried a watch, but by the time they had made their way out of the Black Forest he must have been on horseback with Nani for at least three hours, the sky gray above them as they galloped across uneven ground, the cold biting, and the wind messing up his hair. Between keeping his worries about Racetrack at bay and trying to regain balance every few feet, he couldn't concentrate on much else, and was really on the edge as it was. Nani, however, seemed to have no trouble with doing all this and at the same time making conversation. Jack knew, at least, that it would probably be wise at this juncture to avoid telling her just where he was from and what he was doing here, and the only way to avoid doing so was to ask her, and then be told, in excruciating detail, about the gypsies and their home and the area surrounding. And frankly, it was just a little more than he could handle.
In the first hour he learned all he really needed to know: about Nani and her tribe, how her mother was the leader, how that made her second-in-command, although she freely admitted that that didn't really mean much anymore (or about as much, Jack thought, as being the leader of the Manhattan newsies meant at the end of the day). And where they were headed: to an abbey on the far side of the woods, the only place where they could have a hope of saving Racetrack. It was a place secluded even from the familiar paths of the blueskin gypsies, a deserted castle sheltered from the winds by nothing more than dripping boughs of untended lilac, and it was there that a handful of women were secluded from the world, to live quietly and study the ancient texts and meditate on the rhythms of the old creation stories.
They called themselves vessels of the Spirit. Villagers called them witches. The gypsies called them holywives, and steered clear of them lest they try to give out charity. Whatever anyone called them, though, they realized still that they knew more of life and healing and the place that lay on the other side of light to ignore them, and whenever a child was bitten by a snake, whenever a son was sick with fever, whenever a daughter needed to get out of the trouble a boy had put her in, the sisters were there—and now, when Racetrack needed help, they would be there too.
After he had heard that, Jack stopped really listening. He held on, and watched as the forest bled past them, and watched Nani, and she was lithe and beautiful and cleverer than any city girl that he had ever met and he just wished to God she would shut up.
"…So then he said—this was Hasp, remember, you know, the boy Tiggey was in love with for a while? She wasn't anymore by this point, or at least she said she wasn't, but I don't think she really got over it until Aurora's older brother—their grandmother invented axle grease!—found that Adder Wolf-puppy and he and Tig—"
"Nani," Jack said, quite calmly, "if you don't stop talking I might be forced to sing."
"Ha," she said. "Anyway, last winter, Tig helped him take care of Brutus—that was what they named it…"
But Jack didn't hear any more because, at that point, he closed his eyes, plugged his ears, and began to belt at the top of his lungs:
"Fiiiiiiirst, when there's nothin', but a slooooow, glowin' dre-e-eam…that your fear seems to hide…deep insi-i-ide…your mind…"
Nani just stared at him in horror.
"ALL ALOOOONE, I HAVE CRIED! SILENT TEARS FULL OF PRI-I-IDE! IN A WOILD, MADE OF STEEL, MADE OF STOOONE!"
"JACK! STOP!"
"TAKE YOUR PASSION! AND MAKE IT HAPPEN! IT JUS' COMES ALIVE, YOUSE CAN DANCE RIGHT THROUGH YOUR—"
In desperation, Nani turned around and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him as hard as she could. "JACK!"
He opened one eye and looked at her critically, as if nothing had happened at all. "Yeah?"
"We're here," she said.
"Oh."
"What was that you were singing?"
Jack shrugged. "Somethin' called the theme from Flashdance. Ram taught it to me last night."
Nani paused, looking him up and down. "So Jack…" she began. "One question—"
He sighed. "No, I'm not a fairy."
"Oh, sure," she said.
III.
Through some trick of reasoning that he didn't think he would ever understand, Jack had ended up ceding his rights as a leader and letting Nani go into the abbey to see what they could do for Race, while Jack sat outside and waited. Fast talk really did work, after all.
So now he was sitting in the front garden, trying not to gnaw his entire fist off with anxiety, and wondering if he stayed still for long still for long enough the snow that was softly falling would completely cover him up. At the moment, the idea of disappearing off the face of the earth didn't really sound half bad.
The garden was really a walled-in courtyard, with overhanging winter trees and a plot of herbs dormant for the winter, and a few scrawny chickens wandering around the yard. It was freezing cold and barely light, even though it must have been at least ten or eleven; everyone else, it seemed, was inside the castle, going to morning services. Jack was alone out there but for one of the younger sisters, about his age, who was sitting on a stone bench across the yard from him. She was dressed in a plain purple dress, a woolen shawl knotted around her shoulders and covering her head, a few auburn curls escaping it as she bent over an enormous book bound in calfskin, pages thin with wear. Every few moments she would look up, murmur a few words under her breath, and then stare at a pot of lady's bedstraw as if waiting for something to happen. To Jack's utter amazement, the fourth or fifth time she tried this, a little spit of blue fire appeared on it, at which point the girl squeaked and stomped it out.
About this time, Jack started to notice raised voices coming from inside the castle, then a shrill scream that could only be Nani's. There was a noise suspiciously like glass shattering, and then Nani walked into the courtyard, cheeks blazing with fury, with Racetrack in a fireman's lift over her shoulder. Jack found this disheartening for a number of reasons, but most of all because he couldn't even lift Racetrack, and Nani was a good foot shorter than he was.
"Jesus," he said. "What happened?"
"They wouldn't do it," Nani said quietly. "They said he was too far along."
Jack just stared ahead. He didn't really trust himself to talk.
"We can take him to my family. They might be able to do something…maybe…"
Jack nodded, and stood up. They were just beginning to walk out of the courtyard when they heard a voice, quiet, steady, from the other side of the garden:
"What's wrong with him?"
Nani turned around, startled as she noticed her for the first time. "What?"
"What's happened to him?"
"Adder wolf," Nani said. "He was bitten this…this morning. A few hours ago." She paused, swallowing. "We're bringing him back to my family, to see if they can do anything…" she made what seemed like an attempt at a smile, and turned around. Jack lingered just a little longer, looking at the girl, wondering who she was, and he was staring so intently at her, studying the curve of her cheek and the pale skin of her face, unflawed but for a thin, curving scar, that stretched from her forehead to her chin, that he was startled badly when at last she spoke, even as curiously as she did.
"I can care for him," she whispered.
Soft, yes but unmistakable. Nani turned around once more, brow furrowed. "What?"
"I can do it," she said, louder, her voice clear in the still winter air. "They won't do it in there; they don't want a death on their hands. It's rare that someone survives an Adder Wolf, you know that. But I'll do it. If you want him to live, let me help."
While she delivered this little speech, the folds of her shawl had slipped from her head, letting loose a riot of autumn hair. Coloring suddenly with cold and the boldness of what she had said, she pulled hi back around her shoulders and looked straight at Nani, who only stared back at her.
Jack was the first to break the silence. "What's your name?" he asked her.
"Daphne."
He nodded. "How can you be sure you can help him?"
And, wordlessly, she slipped a slender hand under the collar of her dress, and, wincing, pulled it slowly down, revealing one bare shoulder. It was impossible now for Jack not to recognize what he saw. For there, deep and painful, from collarbone to upper arm, was a constellation of scars, in the exact same pattern as Racetrack's.
IV.
"…So, after Michael killed Sollozzo and McClusky, he split for Italy, where he went to live in Corleone, and met this girl named Apollonia—"
"But what about Kay?" Dutchy asked.
"Who cares about Kay? She was boring as hell," Specs said.
"I liked Kay," Dutchy muttered.
"So did I," Ram said. "But Michael got together with her later, so you shouldn't worry. Anyway. So while Michael was in Corleone, along with his incredibly runny nose…"
On the other side of the campfire, Kid Blink sighed leaned back onto the ground, using his balled-up coat as a pillow as he stared into the darkness of the woods, half-listening to Ram's narrative and reminding himself to put a horse head in Mush's bunk the last time he borrowed his last clean shirt without asking. Other than that, though, he was completely uninterested in the story Ram was telling. How could he concentrate anything when he had to think about the possibility that Racetrack might never again take away his money?
Jack had been gone, with Racetrack and that gypsy girl, for almost eight hours now; sunset had come yet again too soon, dusk already settling over the forest as the sky went from gray to gold to black. Pulling his sweater tighter around himself, Blink rested his head on his arm and gazed into the heavy shadows that lay outside the campfire. A cold breeze rustled the skeletons of leaves on the trees, and the wind murmured through the branches…wait. That wasn't just the wind.
Straining forward a little, Blink could clearly make out two distinct shapes crouched in the undergrowth a few yards away, talking, voices hushed. When he tuned out Ram's story, he could just manage to make out some of what they were saying. Even then, though, the meaning remained a mystery.
"Vada that bona omi with the dolly dish and the fantabulosa riah," the softer of the two voices said.
The second one laughed. "Nanti lallies."
"Shut your onk, you dolly scarper. Now. Vada those lills."
"…Omi palone, if ever I saw one, Aurora…"
"Nishta!"
Suddenly, Blink's concentration was destroyed when the horse Jack, Racetrack and Nani had departed on that morning cantered into the campground, minus one passenger. Breathless, Jack dismounted, and said, clearly having rehearsed it all afternoon: "boys, you will be happy to know that I have ventured beyond the edge of darkness, and arrived to greet you whole."
Silence.
"Well?"
Silence.
"Don't you guys have anything to say?"
"WHAT ABOUT RACETRACK, YA PANSY?" Blink hollered from his station on the ground, where he was currently lying flat on his back. As Jack peered over at him curiously, he raised his head a little and smiled. "Heya, Cowboy," he said cheerfully.
"Hey yourself," he said. "Racetrack's fine." A deafening cheer went up through the campsite, and through the din, Ram could just hear a muffled sniffle coming from Specs.
"Specs?" he ventured. "You okay?"
"I can't believe Sonny died," he wailed.
Ram patted him on the back. "I know," he said, gravely. "I felt just the same way."
Unnoticed, Nani dismounted and surveyed the scene. Walking soundlessly over in her, she clapped a hand on Jack's back and smiled up at him.
"You did good," she said.
"No one loves me," Jack sobbed.
"I love you," she said.
"Really?" he asked, hopefully. "Because of my incredible manliness?"
"Sure," she said. She really didn't want to draw this out any longer than she would have to, and she had a feeling that it could go on for a very, very long time. "In fact, why don't you and your boys come celebrate with us tonight? We're camped out less than a mile away, just through those woods? In fact…" Biting her lip, she strolled over to a bush at the edge of the campground. "Aurora! Tig! ECAF!" And, like clockwork, two teenaged girls emerged from the undergrowth, brushing leaved from their hair and blushing bright enough to read by.
"YOU!" Blink shouted suddenly, pointing at them, at which point the slightly shorter of the two nudged the other one and laughed.
"There's your bona omi, Aurora. A little dizzy, but vada that fantabulosa basket."
Aurora colored even more. "You'd scarper if you knew what was good for you, you meesey feele," she hissed. Tig just stuck her tongue out and danced off into the trees.
Nani watched them go, and then turned to Blink, grinning.
"What were they saying?" he asked, bewildered.
"Gypsy backslang," she said, shrugging. "It's probably better that you didn't know what they were saying, actually."
"Do you guys always talk that way?"
She smiled. "Only when we don't want to be understood."
And for Blink, of course, there was no real proper response to that, except turning around to walk off, and slamming into a tree.
V.
You had to hand it to them, Ram thought—the gypsies, if nothing else, definitely knew how to throw a party. When they had emerged into the campsite, where a bonfire was already roaring, figures dancing around it, laughing at shouting, all of the travelers had been welcomed into the tribe as if this sort of thing happened every night. As long as they had a good story to tell, they were given all they needed without question. Jack and all the rest sat down by the fire, a growing crowd around them, telling their story in the form of interruptions as Jack made pictures with his hands and the firelight, and they ate a dinner of lentil soup and brown bread and beer. Afterwards, Jack and Nani told everyone about Racetrack, and the sister, and how they had left them there—they would visit tomorrow—and the abbey they had visited, and everything else in between.
And then they danced--or some of them, anyway. Jack was still to busy proving his manliness to risk exposure, but most everyone else did. Around the campfire, hand in hand, eyes closed. Everyone had a different style, it seemed—Blink and Mush were attempting a tango, and Itey seemed to have a kind of Snoopy thing going on—but the music went through all of them, the fiddle and the drum, until the world melted away and the only thing left was a rhythm to make the heart seem slow, and a song, the same as every song anyone had ever heard: about love, and heartbreak, and wanderlust, and fate, and passion, and Stacy's mom.(Although that last part might have only been in Ram's imagination.)
He was tumbling down, not even feeling his feet on the ground, and ignoring, for just a moment, everything else that was going on—that his best friend had disappeared without a word, that he was now on a journey to god knew where, and had come as close as he could to stepping in the same river twice—and somewhere between the lines he lost his balance completely, and fell straight into somebody's lap.
He opened his eyes, and looked up at the girl staring down at him, the beginning of a smirk on her face.
At first he had to wonder if it was just a trick of the light, or the effect of opening his eyes after having them closed for a very long time, but after a few moments he realized there could be no other explanation—she was blue, as blue as Jake Blues, as blue as a Minnesotan on a cold day, as blue as Papa Smurf. And then some.
Her skin was smooth and flawless, pale and dusky as the sky before dawn, in perfect contrast with the strands of red-gold hair falling across her cheek. Her lips, in a dark, truncated rainbow, were the color of a deep bruise, and her neck, as it disappeared into a thin wool dress, was pale as talc. But it was her eyes that captivated him, in the middle of all that hair and shadow: bright and dancing and the bluest he had ever seen. And he didn't know if she was beautiful because of it or in spite of it, only that he had to say something right now, something funny and smart and original and wry that would make her fall madly in love with him, desperately and immediately.
He looked up at her. "You're blue," he said, intelligently.
"No," she corrected him. "I'm Sapphy."
Clearly, she had gotten this kind of comment more than once.
Righting himself and sitting down next to her, Ram paused a moment as he struggled to make a comeback.
"What I mean is…" he said awkwardly, "your skin. It's…um…blue—"
"And yours is a very nice chocolate brown color," she said slyly, leaning towards him. "Quite becoming, I have to say, but I'm not really seein' your point."
"Sapphy," he said, desperately. "Marry me."
"But what would our children look like?"
He leaned forward, and did his dramatic face, talking to her in a husky whisper somewhere between Marlon Brando and Bruce Springsteen. "We'll take a chance." He reached out and put a hand on her cheek. "It's a death trap. It's a suicide rap. We gotta get out while we're young. 'Cause, Sapphy, tramps like us, baby we were born to run."
She betrayed her coolness for the first time that night by blushing just a little bit, or at least if that was what that stunning violet flush that rose to her cheeks might have been called. "Do you want to go and talk?" she asked him.
"There's nothing I'd like more in the world," he said, still in the same voice.
She paused. "You can stop doin' that now, if you want."
"That's okay," he whispered. "I actually kind of like it."
"Good," she said. "So do I."
((tbc…))
A/N: Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, this came out long. But, I'm really proud of myself, because I managed to introduce five new original characters, which is more than I had previously introduced in the entire fic. YAY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS! ((parties)) And so, just for the record: Written Sparks owns Aurora, Teepot owns Daphne, nani at 12 o'clock owns Nani, CiCi owns Tig, and Sapphy owns herself. Also—
SARAH: ((wanders into the room holding a cup of coffee, wearing Dakki's bathrobe))
Well?
SARAH: …He's definitely a fairy.
No good?
SARAH: No, he was fine, when he kept his eyes closed, but…afterwards, what really tipped me off, was that he got into the shower and started singing Bon Jovi.
JACK: ((from upstairs)) SHE SAYS, WE GOTTA HO-OLD ON! TO WHAT WE GOT! DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE IF WE MAKE IT OR NOT! WE GOT EACH OTHER! AND THAT'S A LOT FOR LOOO-OVE…
SARAH: He's also using up all of your mango bodywash.
JACK: I HAVE TA KEEP MY SOFT SKIN SOMEHOW!
((rolls her eyes)) Well, this is as good a time as any for…
SHOUT-OUTS!
Sapphy: RAM: NOW I SHALL HAVE SOMEONE TO SING WITH FOREVER! ((sweeps Sapphy off her feet))
((grins)) You have my blessing…as long as I have dibs on "Popular".
Ershey: Crutchy's own restaurant? I'd eat there. And Jack could have his office in the bathroom. ((grins))
Written Sparks: JACK: I LOVE YOU! ACCEPT MY TONGUE IN YOUR MOUTH AS A TOKE OF MY GRATITUDE?
Dude, you brought that one on yourself…((grins))
Ccatt: "…SHIT! Her name is Alberta, she lives in Vancouver…" Yup, that's our Jack. ((grins))
Chaos89: ((grins)) You're really far too kind…I say honesty. BRUTAL honesty.
JACK: ((dances by, singing "Macho Man"))
…Please?
Splashey: ((has a cup herself)) First day of school today for me. Can we say, Newsies therapy? (If only we could protest final exams through interpretive dance…)
NadaZimri: Bwahahahaha. Dude, you're a genius.
SARAH: Lemme at 'er…
Checkmate: ((bows down)) Ask and the door shall open unto you…
JACK: ((sings)) Seek and ye shall find…
((stares))
What? I like that song!
Saturday: ((glomps)) SATURDAY, MY LOVE! ((pause)) WHY ARE WE YELLING?
SARAH: SATURDAY STARTED IT. YOU KNOW, WHENEVER IT'S THAT TIME OF THE MONTH FOR ME, I JUST TAKE SOME MIDOL. WORKS WONDERS.
JACK: Not involved…NOT involved…
me lee12: ((nods)) …That's probably wisest.
JACK: ((whispers) Say straight!
…you stay outta this.
Soaker: Makes ya wonder if Spot would be blue-ribbon material, eh? ((pause)) ((smacks her forehead)) WHAT AM I SAYING?
gasps It-it reminds you of "The Princess Bride"? ((pause)) ((stares)) ((tackles)) …I love you.
Coin: Personally, I find the Interpretive Western Thing to be a Manly Dance…even more so if they had let him keep in lasso.
JACK: …the MANLY tasso.
Yes, of course…
Lady of Tir Na Nog: Somehow, you just can't be offended by something when it's worded in Shakespearean English…
JACK: Oh?
Teepot: ((sings)) STAND BY YOUR MAN! AND SHOW THE WORLD YOU LO-OVE HIM…
SARAH: ((stares))
WHAT?
Shooter: God bless the forgetful people of the world…because without us, there would never have been…er…you know, that thing, with the stuff. XD
Next Up: Chapter Twelve, In Which Maddox Reveals and Interesting Gift, Underwear Ends Up In Some Interesting Places, And Coin Has Her Thunder Stolen, But It's All Okay, Because Crutchy Made Mac & Cheese For Dinner, And That Makes Everything Better.