The character called Peter is actually Peter Pan. Yeah, he hasn't been in the last few chapters, but he'll be in this one. Sorry about that. I'll try to involve him more later on.
DON'T DO THE ILLEGAL THING MENTIONED IN THIS STORY! Why? Erm . . . come on, I know there's a good reason for it!
The Vampire Lestat isn't actually about Satan. I just opened up a random page and saw the word Satan and decided I would use that. I hope I didn't discourage an potential Anne Rice fans from reading that book (or any of her others). They're quite good.
The song mentioned is Rewrite by Asian Kung Fu Generation from the anime Full Metal Alchemist.
Pix liking anime might be a bit out of character (is she even developed enough for that to happen?) but I wanted someone to share in Juliette's (and my) love for it. So there you go.
You never need to grow up. I'm floating. Is this what freedom feels like?
"Pixie . . . wake up!" My eye flash open and I find my little brother's face inches away from my own.
"Whoa! What the hell are you doing?" I push myself up, and I glare at him. God, can't he wake me up without yelling something in my ear? Stupid little brat. I run a hand through my hair, only to find it full of knots. I growl, and jump off the couch.
"You didn't wake up when I shook you. Why are your eyes all black?" I grunt in response as I amble towards the nearest mirror.
I look like crap. My hair's a mess, and my eyeliner is smudged worse than the night before. Then I glance at the clock. "Shit! Why didn't you tell me it was so late?" The clock face says quite plainly, 9:45. I rush upstairs without listening to my brother's answer. Okay, I have to shower, and get dressed. In fifteen minutes? It's hopeless. I rush into the bathroom and strip rapidly. I take about ten minutes in the shower, and I run into my room, shivering from the exposure to the cold floor.
In my closet I find my biggest challenge. Damn, what should I wear? I don't even know what Juliette's like. What would she consider nice? I rack my brain as I look through my closet. Well, what was she wearing yesterday? That blue spaghetti strap and jeans. She's casual. The casual type. Okay. I pick out a black baby tee and some tight jeans. I pull the clothes on, with a clean bra, socks and thong. I run back into the bathroom, and I grab the toothbrush to brush my teeth as thoroughly as I can in about three seconds.
When I'm through, I run back downstairs and I look at the clock. It's . . . 10:15. "What?" I cry, stepping closer to the clock as it's lying to me. When I verify that it really isn't lying, I look around the living room for my brother. "Danny! Did someone knock?"
"No!" comes a muffled voice from the kitchen.
Damn! All that rushing, and she's not coming? Did she do all this to embarrass me, or something? Suddenly, the doorbell rings, interrupting my thoughts. I run to the door, and I pull it open violently. She's standing there, breathing heavily, and grinning at me through her long bangs. "Sorry. I woke up late."
I can't help it. It's all so ironic that I start laughing. Immediately, she joins in and we're both standing there laughing at—what are we laughing at? I don't know, I don't think she knows either. We're just laughing at life, for the sake of it.
"Well, you ready?" She asks gently. I nod my head and turn away to get my coat.
"Danny, tell Dad I've gone to a friend's house when he gets home, alright?" I hear a muffled sound of consent from the kitchen, and I lock the door on my way out.
In the car we travel mostly in silence. She's go the same CD on, and she either hums along with the songs or sings softly. We say a few things back and forth, but she seems more subdued than the day before. We turn off a busy street onto a quieter one. I look around the small, messy houses. It's an atmosphere I'm totally unfamiliar with.
She stops in front of a light gray house, with rusted railing on the stairs, and a messy front lawn. "Welcome to my humble abode. And by humble, I mean humble. " She laughs and turns off the car. I follow suit, silently. This house really does look small compared to mine. In fact, I've never even been around this area before. It's the bad part of town at all; it's just the lower middle class part.
Instead the house, I'm greeted by a woman in the kitchen looking up at me blankly. "This is Pix, Ma." The woman gives me a nod, which I suppose counts as a greeting. In the other room there's a room with a TV in the corner, and two couches and an armchair spread around the central rug. There are several baskets with clothes in them on the selfsame rug, and a little girl seated on one of couches watching the television set silently. "This is my little sister. Say hi, Shelley."
She looks up at me, and stares at me for a couple of seconds. "Hi." Then she returns her attention to the cartoons on the screen once again. Juliette rolls her eyes at me, and turns to walk up the stairs. I glance at her mother for a second before following her up. Her mother yells something up at Juliette in a foreign language and Juliette answers back in an exasperated voice, "Lo se!"
Up the stairs there is a very tiny room of sorts, which has four doors, not counting a small one against the wall which apparently seems to lead to the attic. Juliette opens one of the doors, and pulls me into her room, closing the door after us.
I am assaulted by complete messiness. There are clothes strewn all over the room, mostly on the floor. The bed isn't made and there are three teddy bears lying on it, a huge brown one, a slightly smaller one of the same color, and a tiny white one. There's a stereo on a small bookshelf, which is filled with books. That's hardly anything compared to the taller bookcase, which reaches up the ceiling, completely filled with more books.
She laughs, noticing my expression. "I see you've noticed my books. I suppose there's a reason why my friends all it a library." Right next to the tallbookshelf, there's a short spinning display with CD cases in them.
"You don't have nearly as many CDs as you have books." She laughs and shrugs her shoulders.
"I suppose. But I'm getting mighty close." I raise my eyebrow, but I don't say anything. There can't be more than thirty CDs on that spinning display, and there are far more than fifty books on the shelves. I hear her opening the closet door and I turn. Once again my mouth opens wide and I find myself gaping. There must be ten CD cases in there! "There's at least twenty CDs in each one. You can look through them if you like, and see if I have anything you might want."
She sits down on a purple chair and rolls herself over to a table next to a window. "How's my little baby," she coos at the computer lying on the desk. There are papers completely covering the rest of the surface on the desk. I pick one up only to have it quickly snatched out of my grip. "No." She's looking at me with an embarrassed look on her face, and she chuckles lightly. "Those are my stories. I don't like having people read them." She puts the paper back on the pile and pushes the papers to the side.
"Um . . . " She looks around nervously. "There doesn't seem to be another chair here, does there?" She sighs and stands up again. "Hold on, I'll go get one." She leaves me in the room, standing there like an idiot. Okay, then. What can I get about her from this room? She likes music and books apparently. And her computer. I see I black thing sticking out from under the papers. Carefully avoiding the paper, so as to not accidentally read something, I pull it out. A laptop? She has a computer and a laptop. How is this girl not rich?
I hear grunting behind me, and I whirl around guilty, pushing the laptop back under the papers. I see Juliette lugging a chair into the room, and placing it on the ground gently. "Damn," she gasps, putting a hand through her hair. She picks up the chair again, and this time puts it down in front of the computer. Seating herself on the purple, comfy chair, she leaves me no other choice than to seat myself on the harder chair she brought up. She's not a very good hostess, is she?
"Okay, then." She rubs her hands and grins at the screen, before turning to me. "Which do you want to start out with, beautiful art with a dark plot, or a less wonderful art, funnier anime with a plot that's less dark?" I raise an eyebrow. What is she talking about? Anime, I assume, but . . . how am I supposed to decide something like that? Beautiful and with a dark plot or less beautiful, funny and lighter?
"The second one please." Okay, so it wasn't that difficult. She pouts slightly and grunts in response. "Fine. Wolf's Rain will just have to come second then. I still love you, though," she coos at the screen.
"Um. Please stop doing that." She looks over at me and grins. "You aren't the first person to say that to me, and I doubt you will be the last." Then she moves the mouse around, clicking intensely until a media player opens up. "Thank you god of free, illegal downloading!" she cries, looking up at her ceiling, and pressing her hands together in a gesture of prayer.
And then the images begin on the screen. I watch, sure I'm going to be bored, for the first few minutes. Then I . . . fuck, why should I smoothly cover this up? I, one of the most popular girls in school, a pretty hot sixteen-year-old (if I do say so myself) fall in love with anime. Or more precisely with Edward Elric. I have no shame.
kishin da omoi o hakidashitai no wa
sonzai no shoumei ga ta ni nai kara
tsukan da hazu no boku no mirai wa
"songen" to "jiyuu" de nujun shiteru yo
yugan da zazou o keshi saritai no wa
jibun no genkai o soko ni miru kara
jiishiki kajou no boku no mado ni wa
kyonen no KARENDAA hidzuke ga nai yo
Peter looks up at me in surprise. "This is Juliette's song!" I laugh gently, and I run over to my stereo and restart the song. Stupid Juliette, she's rubbing off on me!
"Well it's not her song. It's Asian Kung Fu Generation's song. So ha!" I sit on my bed and hum along with the song, a small smile on my face. I'm not that great when I sing in languages I don't even understand.
If I were to shut off the music, I know I would begin to here incriminating noises from below, and I don't know if I could stand that. In fact, I know I wouldn't be able to. The fact that Peter is here, at my house again, can only mean one thing. That his mother has accompanied him. I've grown to stand her, as long as she doesn't give me any shit. But if my father hits on her any more, I won't be able to control myself. And it's not out of loyalty to my mother. Never. Not at all. I hate my mother.
I've had to convince myself of that more as of late.
It's been about two weeks since that show, and that first Anime Party. I say first because I've been to about five. Usually it's Juliette and me, but sometimes her friend Kristen, or Peter accompanies us. We're on episode ten of fifty-one, only, unfortunately, but Juliette's promised to burn me the next five so I can watch them on my own computer.
As it turns out, Kristen goes to my school. I don't think she has a very high opinion of me, really. Especially since I brushed her off a bit at school. I'm not ashamed of it. I don't want my real friends to know about these 'others.' Even Padirac. Although, with him, I allow myself to speak with in school. I think he also doesn't want to have people connect the two of us. It would hurt more if I weren't doing the same thing myself.
Peter's turned out to be more sweet than annoying. He's like a small child, in several ways . . . slightly irritating in his complete ignorance and naiveté, but enduring at the same time. I've tried to assist him, clothing-wise, language-wise, etc. I've even been with the mall with him, but I had the excuse of him being my little brother lined up in case I met anyone I knew.
"Asian Kung Fu . . . Generation?" He asks in a halting voice. I nod my head in assurance. Peter's like a small child in that way as well. He wants endless amounts of attention and good responses and that is about all he needs to be content. He flashes me a large grin and turns away, looking around my room again. He does that a lot. It annoyed me the first few times, but by now I'm completely used to it.
"Peter . . . has Padriac said anything about me?" I've been trying to cunningly sneak this question into our conversation, but Peter never seems to get it. I always end up asking him things directly.
"About you? Erm, not that much. He said he has fun with you, once, and he laughed like something was really funny." I decide to take his laughter for a compliment. I smile at Peter, and he looks happy again. Good, simple, easy. If only everyone were so easy to please.
"Satan is our Lord and Master. In Satan, all is understood and all is known. Armand pleased-" I gasp, for a moment thinking Peter was saying these things. Well, he was, but he was only reading out of that stupid book Juliette had left at my house accidentally. Even if she's only in my house for a couple of minutes, she always manages to forget something. It's like a talent.
Except for when she leaves these stupid vampire books around and I'm forced to sleep in the same room with them. How am I supposed to sleep peacefully with a book like The Vampire Lestat sitting on my shelf, gathering dust (because I don't touch it unless I need to)? And now it seems I need to. I can't live a book about Satan in the hands of an impressionable person like Peter! I pull the book out of his hands, and I shut it, all in one fast, sloppy movement. Then I toss it under my bed, and I moan, instantly regretting it. If I can't sleep with it on my shelf (a good five feet away) how will I sleep with it right under my bed? It's not like I'm going under there and getting all dirty. Yuck.
"Stupid book," I mutter. "You don't think you can talk Juliette out of reading those sort of things, right?" Peter looks confused, and peeks under the bed for a second.
"What's Satan?" I shake my head, silently cursing Juliette's morbid taste in literature (more like her morbid taste in lifestyle).
"Don't worry about it, Peter." I walk over and tenderly ruffle Peter's hair. Funny how a sixteen-year-old kid doesn't know who Satan is. I wonder about those things sometimes. How Peter doesn't seem to know more than a child would about adult matters. But mostly, I find it comforting. He doesn't expect more of me than a child would. He doesn't expect me to be smart, or hot, or religious. He not only doesn't care about those things, he barely seems to know about them.
But Peter's cute so I stand him. He's like the little brother I never had (Danny's sometimes so mature I feel that he's the older sibling, so he doesn't even count).
