< HSoS 107 | High School Of Scenes | HSoS 109 >
< HSoS 106 | H So S Timeline | HSoS 105 >
Altair "... and so I was running away COMPLETELY NAKED at midnight with only the handkerchief on hand, with lil' Altair swingin' wildly and them all shouting after me." He laughs, turning a corner faster than he ought to be driving.
Antares "Yeah, I guess church would have been weird after that."
Antares slumps against the window looking out, apparently not bothered by his driving.
Altair "Quite." He makes a turn... and then brakes quite noisily, before them a scene of charred and melted iron, people crowding around it just down the street... "Huh. I could swear this bridge was here yesterday."
Antares shifts her eyes sideways to look without lifting her head. "Guess they shouldn't build those things so flammable."
Antares "Why do you hate Johnstone?"
Altair "Ah well." The car sped up again, going around it. "I've known him since I was little. Imagine THAT."
Antares "Okay. Do you hate everyone from when you were six?"
Altair "I clearly hate Furud, so, hey,a pattern!"
Antares "So he fucked your sister, big deal. Furud fucks everyone's sister."
Altair "Oh, really? She must hate you fucking him too." He grins as he cuts a corner, making someone else horn angrily at him. "And Johnstone was a prick. Always pushing Aldebaran. Always with that damn smile when he met my parents. Letting people get kidnapped, telling them where to find..."
Antares slouches a little lower, propping her boots on the dash. "Never trust anyone in charge of anything."
Antares "Find who?"
Altair "Stars, apparently." He finally stopped in front of his house, and begun to chuckle, then to laugh, again. "So obvious, such stupid obvious cazzata. All on the names." He slumps against the wheel, looking at the big gates and walls of home. "He told his friends where to find them. And they disappeared."
Altair makes a 'poof' gesture
Antares rolls her head sideways a bit to look at him. "So you came back here to disappear with the rest of us?"
Altair looks at her, stares at her for a moment, before clicking the remote control to open the gate and park his car somewhere on the garden. A pool not far away, the garden well-tended, but empty. "I told you. That's why I'm here. I screwed up... came here to disappear, right?"
Antares shrugs. "People said a lot of shit to me the last couple of days, you think I remember all of it?" She knocks open her door, unrolling from the car and stretching with the slight dreamy unfocus she's had all evening. "Go find your good pot, I can still think too straight."
Altair "Fine." He got up and vanished into the house, and a moment later he was back, opening the little metal case that was once for foreign tobacco and housed the pot, the scent so PURE waffing up to her. He sat down on a stone bench and begun to roll it.
Altair "Where DID you find that stinky stuff? That two-bit dealer on the corner of the school? Or that girl in school... Melissa, was it?"
Antares sits down on the ground and slouches back against the bench, looking up at the stars again as she waves her hand vaguely. "Melissa's friends. They're okay guys, I guess." She glances up and over at him. "You want peace and quiet, you should hitch the first ride out of town."
Altair "You think that's what I want?" He grins, as he finishes rolling it, a veeeeery long one. He was showing off, clearly. He gives it to her to do the honors. "THIS is all the peace and quiet I need."
Antares pats her pockets till she finds a lighter, takes a long pull, and then closes her eyes and holds it up to him. "S'nice," she says about the house and garden after a minute, blowing out smoke.
Antares "Crashing into Johnstone's kid, is that the worst thing you ever did?"
Altair Acacias and Camelias seemed to be looking at her, a rosary at the corner of her vision. He took it and inahled deeply before looking at her, his words coming out with thick smoke. "Maybe. Maybe tellin' everyone 'bout Furud was. Everything started to go bad then. Maybe it was the Academy."
Altair "Everything I do, people get hurt and die..."
Antares "If that's true, why fight it? Everyone says you gotta do what you're good at."
Altair "'cause I'm a fucking slow learner, I guess. Fair warning: I'm trying to help you."
Antares "Oh, now we're back on track. Tell me how you can see I'm lonely, that I need someone to protect me." She reaches up for the joint, eyes still closed.
Altair "Oh," He leans closer to her as he puts the joint in her hands, "Why should I say anything, for that?" A touch to her cheek, his lips so close, she can TASTE them... "actions speak louder than words, donniciola." and his lips were away, the joint filling Antares' instead.
Altair waits a moment before asking, "And what did you do?"
Antares A ghost of a smile crosses Antares' face as she inhales again, then she lays an arm across her eyes with the joint dangling loosely from her fingers. "Mm, me? There was this thing with a bus, once. It doesn't really matter now."
Antares "All of that shit, none of it matters."
Altair "And what does?"
Antares "Dunno. Nothing, maybe." She smirks, a more bitter edge on it now, then that fades also. "I'm so tired. Do you know what I did last night? I slept."
Altair looks at her. So... oddly. "... you... sleep?"
Antares "First time. I wonder if dying's like that." She coughs a little laugh, blowing smoke at the flowers.
Altair "So you're just giving up? Because of the bus, of Maia?"
Antares shrugs loosely. "Right now, I don't give a shit about any of it. Feels... nice."
furud In the distance the gate rattles as it slams closed.
Altair "It should. You don't deserve that. You're a goddess." He leans closer to her, taking the joint from her fingers, his lips so close again... "Let it go." And then, a kiss.
furud slouches over, sunglasses, black jeans, long sleeves despite the warmth. "That supposed to be payback?"
Antares doesn't pull away or lean into the kiss, though she smiles a little. At Furud's approach she finally opens her eyes, head still resting back against the bench. "Pay... oh, his sister." She shrugs. "I dunno, Altair, was it?"
Altair breaks the kiss, looking at Furud a little nervously. "I guess. Maybe." He hands Furud the joint.
furud smiles a little at Antares, and shoots Altair a measuring look. He takes the joint and inhales, holding the smoke for a few seconds, sitting on the ground in front of the bench, on the opposite side of Antares from Altair. He sighs and passes it to her. "How about we skip all that and go back to the way it used to be?"
Antares "Sure. I already got my bag packed, I'll head down to the station as soon as we finish this joint." She snickers, then whispers elaborately loud. "Get it, bus station?"
furud "Not THAT" he elbows her, laughing half-heartedly. "I just mean..." He waves his hand in an attempt to illustrate"
Altair "Like... what?" He answers Furud, his gaze to him as warm as usual.
furud "Remember when I used to get lost in the city? Didn't know enough Italian to ask for directions. You always found me, hell even stood back to back with me when those assholes tried to shake me down for my, what, five Lira I had in my pocket?"
Antares "Sweet," she comments, her eyes drifting closed again.
Altair "... yeah." Altair looks a little shaken, drifting his gaze to the stars. "I'd come back here every summer, all my slang outdated, and you'd keep correcting me. You'd keep saying you hated Milano after you got lost, and some nuts and clubbing later you were back to lovin' it..."
furud "I miss it. Everything." He pulls his knees up and rests his arms across them, staring at nothing. "We were all so... young."
Antares "Yeah, like the bus crash, or the other kids calling Dee a retard, or sleepovers at Maia's so mom and dad could fight. Good times."
Altair "Before everything went wrong..." He sighs, not listening to Antares. For HIM, they were good...
furud "Not everything was so bad, was it Antares?" he asks quietly.
Antares shrugs. "I got no complaints. Right now, I can't remember why I ever cared about any of it." She snags the joint for another pull, then hands it off to Altair. "To the good old days."
furud "Summers we'd all go to the lake, remember? Sneak off and hike through the woods."
Altair "I remember..." He looks down. "I wanted to fix it, you know. I just wanted to fix it all."
furud pulls the torque from his neck and turns it in his hands. "I'm sorry."
Antares "Mm, the lake was okay. The woods went on forever, seemed like." She looks over at Furud, giggling a bit. "Funny thing. Since last night, I can't hear the music at all."
furud moves his hand to her knee, not nearly stoned enough to giggle along with her. "Not at all?"
Altair seems like he is going to say something to furud, then stops "... music?"
Antares "Nope. S'funny." Then she blinks her eyes open to look at Furud. "Oh, hey, Mero was looking for you. She seemed uptight about something, but I guess when doesn't she?"
furud "Oh." He forces some lightness into his tone "Did she say what she wanted?"
Antares "Nope. She was just being weird." Then she rolls her head to the other side to look at Altair. "You ever hear it?"
Altair "All the time." He closes his eyes. "Louder now."
furud casts a worried look at Antares. "It'll come back."
Antares shrugs. "Maybe." Then she smirks, bitterly. "You know Maia just walked out of the hospital on her own? Guess we were a couple of dumbasses, freaking out like that."
Altair "It's who you are. It's what you are. They can't take it away. They CAN'T."
Altair "Yeah." He amends Antares, "I talked to her, before she left."
furud "She what? That bitch, I was looking for her for hours."
Altair "I know." He replied with a grin.
furud "Damnit Altair."
Altair begins to chuckle, giving Furud the joint, "I guess that makes us even?"
Altair More than the joint, it was like... extending his hand to him.
furud "You bastard! You..." He looks like he's about to knock the hand and joint away for a second then his eyes flash and he seems to pull back into himself, the calming ritual recited silently to himself. "Fine. We're even then." He looks up, gives Altair half a smile, then takes the joint and proceeds to try to forget the recent events.
Altair Their hands touch for a moment, lingering, and he smiles, "I missed it too."
< HSoS 107 | High School Of Scenes | HSoS 109 >
< HSoS 106 | H So S Timeline | HSoS 105 >
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