I KNOW IDFK HOW TO UPDATE REGULARLY I'M A DISGRACE AND ALSO FRAPHNE TRASH JUST READ ITTTTT
Chapter Nine: Pretty Girls Make Graves
The Honeymoon Suite was at least a hundred degrees. The thermostat was broken, which shouldn't have shocked me, considering that I'd spent the last twenty-four hours growing accustomed to the ups and downs of living in a sketchy motel. My window was wide open, but it didn't help to soothe the blistering heat.
I'd come back to the suite after leaving the hospital, mostly because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I'd considered picking up some all-day breakfast, but it wasn't quite noon yet at the time and, although I'd lost all my friends, some traditions just couldn't be broken. So, I came back here, to the closest thing to a home I had anymore.
I turned on my phone, squinting in the light as I checked the time (the Honeymoon Suite didn't have a clock- I assumed it was because they'd blown the decor budget on fluffy pillows). It was three o'clock in the morning, and I rolled my eyes, flopping onto my back. Between the intense heat and the crushing psychological weight that recent events had thrust upon me, I was having a hard time falling asleep.
I stared at my reflection in the ceiling mirror, and hardly recognized the man (a generous distinction, I know) staring back at me. I'd only been homeless for a day now, but I could have sworn it was beginning to show. My hair, golden and once perfectly quaffed, had become matted and messy. My muscular physique, which once served as the foundation of my pride, had begun to look frail and hollow, my rich tan clearly fading. Worst of all- I squinted in the mirror to be sure the blue lights from outside weren't playing tricks on me- two pimples had formed on my forehead. I reached up and felt my face with my hand, just to be sure that the worst had truly come.
I rolled over to my side with a huff, not being able to stand my reflection any longer. Biologically, I knew it was impossible for someone to change so much over the course of one day. This only brought on an even more frightening revelation- had I always looked like this? Had all of my confidence up to this point been an illusion, brought about by the devotion of my friends and family?
I quiet knock came at my door, pulling me from my shame-spiral. I pulled myself off the king sized bed, wiping the sweat off my chest and back with a furry pillow before rushing to the door- hoping (foolishly) that the repair man for the thermostat had arrived ten hours ahead of schedule.
But the person on the other side of the door was no stranger, and her presence immediately sent a burst of refreshing, cool air through my body. She smiled at me with wide blue eyes, dressed in dark green Coolsville High School Athletic Department shorts and mismatched socks that only helped to accentuate her youthful appearance. She looked like an angel standing in my doorway, the bright neon light of the "Welcome to Paradise!" sign illuminating her from behind.
"Hey." Daphne said simply, a blush present on her already rosy cheeks.
"Hey." I replied back.
At first, I didn't quite know what to make of her visit. That being said, I was sure she wanted it that way. It was textbook Daphne Blake behavior; she'd never been uncomplicated from the day I met her. Once you started to catch on to her, she'd change the game. The only consistency in Daphne was her inconsistency.
She rocked back and forth, standing on the sides of her feet in her beat up sandals. I caught myself staring, and quickly blinked before she noticed. I don't think she did though, she had been too caught up staring right back at me.
"Wanna take a walk?" She finally asked, as though hitting the town at three in the morning was a normal thing to do. For her, it probably was.
I glanced down at my boxers, and told her to give me a minute to get dressed.
She may have been crazy, but there was no denying that Daphne had be wrapped around her finger.
I didn't bother to ask where we were going, fearing I'd dent the comfortable silence. It wasn't so much that I felt relaxed walking wordlessly down the nearly deserted street with her, but rather that I knew talking would feel so much worse. I did, after all, have a lot to make up for, and I wasn't sure I knew where to start. I was sure that Daphne would get me talking eventually and the longer I could prolong that conversation the better.
As if she were being controlled by some divine entity, Daphne veered into the parking lot of the twenty-four hour convenience store, not even stopping to see if I was following her. It was clear that I was merely a passenger on her mission, like Ebenezer Scrooge being guided through his life by the Ghost of Christmas Past. I didn't mind. There was something relaxing about being out of the driver's seat once in a while.
The only car in the parking lot was a hatchback with chipped white paint that looked to be about a thousand years old. Despite the desolate area in which it was located, the convenience store was clearly open, its light casting a pale glow upon the parking lot.
The doorbell chimed as Daphne wandered into the store, not bothering to hold the door open for me as I stumbled in after her. She made a direct beeline to the large slushee machine which stood at the back wall of the store, as if this entire night had all been leading up to the moment when Daphne would grab the largest cup the store offered (forty-four ounces, I checked) and fill it right to the brim with a thick grape flavored beverage.
She tossed a straw in her plastic cup of poison and took a sip.
"You want something?" She asked as she walked up to the counter, the straw still hanging out of her mouth. My eye caught the cola flavored slush as it churned in its machine but, thinking back to my two pimples, I decided against it.
The man at the register glanced up over his Playboy at the thud of Daphne's hundred pound drink landing on the counter. He silently punched a few numbers into his machine, the total coming up as $1.50, a dangerously low price for such an unhealthy drink, I'd decided. Daphne glanced down, fishing into her bra for money, an act that caught the eye of both myself and the clerk.
She tossed a five dollar bill on the counter and the clerk retrieved her change, still without saying a word. He set her change down on the counter and returned to his magazine, and Daphne gathered up the three dollar bills and tucked them into her shirt, leaving the fifty cents behind. Generous, I thought.
By the time I glanced up from the counter, Daphne was already outside, sitting on the curb and sipping her drink without a care in the world. It impressed me that she could be so relaxed all the time- the way she could saunter through life as though she were untouchable. It was one of the things I admired about Daphne; you could hurt her and she'd never even show it. It was also something I worried about.
I sat down on the curb next to her, watching the few cars that drove past in silence. I noticed the "Welcome to Paradise!" sign up the street begin to flicker, and I said I silent prayer that it would burn out. When I turned back to Daphne, she'd set her drink down on the pavement and was watching me, fiddling idly with the ends of her hair.
I chuckled awkwardly, but didn't say anything, opting not to ruin the perfect moment that was Daphne just sitting and smiling at me. She ran a hand through her thick red hair, tossing it over to one side as she cleared her throat as though she were about to say something very important.
"So, was it weird?" She began, scrunching up her nose in a clear moment of self-doubt the likes of which I'd never seen from Daphne. "Me trying to kiss you the other night?"
I nearly did a double take. Daphne Blake, the most self-assured being to ever grace this Earth, had pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night because she wanted to talk about us kissing- or, rather, not kissing, it seemed. She hadn't been silent on our way here to add to her well-contrived mystique, she'd been silent because she was nervous.
I chuckled at this. "No," I said, my blush painfully apparent, "no, it was cool. Can I have a sip of your drink?"
She handed me the giant cup and continued. "Okay," she said, "it's just- you didn't seem that into it."
The sugary drink helped to cool my burning cheeks, but I nearly choked at the suggestion that I might not be into kissing Daphne Blake. I handed her back the drink.
"What do you mean?" I asked. She scoffed.
"I don't know, you sort of just stood there, all limp like a sad piece of asparagus or something," she said, stirring her drink feverishly. "You didn't actually kiss me back."
"I... I..." I stammered, trying to think of why I hadn't kissed her when I had the chance. I knew the real reason, which was that I was afraid, but I continued to dig for an excuse that sounded less embarrassing. I didn't get the chance to find one, because Daphne cut me off with a huff.
"You see?" She said, clearly annoyed. "That's your problem, Fred. You never do anything."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped. I didn't want to start a fight with Daphne (although technically I already had when I declared our friendship to be over earlier that day), but if she was going to bait me, I wouldn't back down. I wasn't that much of a defeatist.
"In all the time I've known you," she said, "you've never done anything without someone else holding your hand- except for when you decided to dump all your friends and become a hobo, then you were Mr. Independent!"
"What?" I spat, "So, I'm a coward because I didn't kiss you? You're going to remind me of every stupid thing I've ever done just because we couldn't squeeze in a quickie in my dad's drug lab?"
Daphne's face dropped, and I couldn't tell if it was because I'd upset her or because she knew I'd gotten her. As if there was a difference.
"That's not what I mean." She said softly, tugging on her hair. She looked up at me, all of the sweetness having returned to her face. "You don't need to be afraid, Freddy."
I sighed, letting my head fall to rest on my hands. "I wish that were true, Daph." I mumbled, gazing back out into the street.
She huffed, pulling her knees up to her chest and leaning her head against them. She reached out and poked my shoulder, causing my body to teeter before ultimately straightening once more.
"Promise me you won't go out on somebody else's terms." She said soothingly, her voice slightly muffled by her knee, which squished her cheek. "You can end this however you want to. Don't let fear chase you away."
"I want to," I murmured, "but I don't know how. I feel like the universe is against me."
Daphne reached out and tousled my hair, a genuine smile cracking her wistful expression.
"A hero with the odds stacked in his favor isn't a hero," she giggled. "He's just some guy. And you, Freddy Jones, are not just some guy."
Daphne leaped up and darted back into the convenience store, instructing me to stay behind with a wave of her hand. I watched through the large glass doorway as she shot into one of the aisles, returning with something I couldn't quite see. She paid with her leftover bra-money and the clerk put the object into an opaque white bag.
When she returned from the store, she grabbed my hand and pulled me up, dragging me away as though she'd left a bomb inside that would explode at any second.
"Did I ever tell you about my family ski trip?" She asked, tugging me into the street, almost directly into the path of an oncoming car. The driver honked and Daphne gave them the middle finger before rushing the rest of the way across the road.
"No." I inquired. I tried to peak over Daphne's shoulder and into the bag, but she pulled it out of my view.
"We stopped at this grody truck stop on the way home so I could use the bathroom," She explained. "It was one of those disgusting one-room ones, but it was covered in all this cool graffiti. There was one bit that said, 'bravery isn't the absence of fear, but the acknowledgment that something else is more important than being afraid.' At first I was like, 'okay, what the fuck?' But now I think I get it."
We entered the Paradise Motel parking lot, where my old, white van waited patiently outside the Honeymoon Suite. Daphne stopped in front of it and dropped the bag onto the ground, reaching inside of it and retrieving a package of permanent markers. She tore it open and took out one of the markers, removing the cap with her teeth and turning towards my van. She started to draw something, and I nearly yelped out in protest, but she cut me off before I had the chance.
"You've got to get out of this mindset that being scared means you can't be brave," she said, the cap still inside her mouth as she continued to scribble onto the side of the van. "Being scared is what being brave is all about, and you, Fred, have got that shit locked. I mean, look how far you've got us already!"
"But I haven't done anything!" I argued. "Velma performed the autopsies, you found my dad's lair- Hell, even Shaggy helped more than me. I'm just the guy with the van."
"Exactly!" She chirped. "You are our brave and incredibly capable leader. This isn't just a van, this is The Mystery Machine!"
She spun around, revealing the design she'd drawn with a wave of her hands. There in huge block letters were the words, "The Mystery Machine," surrounded by several flowery doodles.
At first I was furious. It was an appropriate reaction, I figured, to having your only mode of transportation defiled with permanent marker.
But there was something wholesome about the scene before me. Between the goofy looking design and Daphne's proud giggles, I couldn't help but laugh. Maybe I've finally snapped, I thought as I continued to smile at my strange misfortune. I leaned back against The Mystery Machine, lifting my face up toward the sky and letting the ugly neon light dance across it.
"We can finish this Freddy." Daphne said, reaching out to stroke my hair yet again. "There's nothing holding you back."
I didn't wait this time. I reached out and took the back of Daphne's head in both hands, letting my fingers sink into her messy locks. I pulled our mouths together, not leaving room for hesitation as I had the previous night. I could taste faint traces of the grape flavored slushee that had stained her lips and teeth purple, so caught up the odd sensation that I almost forgot entirely that we were kissing. What pulled me back to reality was the feeling of Daphne grasping at the collar of my tee shirt, as if to beg me to come closer.
I pulled my hands out of her hair, where they'd managed to tangle themselves without my consent. Instead, I reached down and took hold of her hips, yanking them towards me in order to seal the distance between us. I felt Daphne's lips part in a smile at the rough interaction, and I couldn't help but grin in turn, impressed with myself for having torn away her gritty exterior at last.
When I finally opened my eyes, as if my magic, the "Welcome to Paradise!" sign had burnt out, and we were immersed in darkness.
luv this energy for freddy... next chapter coming soon!