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rainbowfic2015-09-19 01:49 am
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-09-19 01:49 am
Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 13
Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival)
Characters: Scissors (POV), Frankie, Satchel, Kit, Milo… Would be easier to list who isn’t there. :P
Colors: Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 13 (I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.)
Word Count: 1,900ish
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: The gang learns about the true power of slactivisim.
Note: I jumped ahead a bit in the timeline, but nothing I post is in order, anyway, so who cares?
Idle Hands Make Light Work
“…Frankie, if there was a mouse living in your sink drain, it would, like, drown.”
We’d been going back and forth about this for the last hour, and all the way from my apartment to the sidewalk that circles by the park, but he still wasn’t convinced.
“I saw something looking at me, man!”
You fucking did not. I shook my head, tried to change the subject. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone I thought I knew.
Two someones, actually. I stopped to wave.
“Hey, Milo. Hey, Kit.”
Milo waved back without saying anything. They were sitting under a squat, spread-out little tree in the park. Frankie and I were walking to a fast-food joint, but I wasn’t so hungry I couldn’t take a brief detour. I walked over to sit next to them.
“So, what are you guys up to?”
Kit pointed at something a few yards away.
“That guy’s gonna rip down this tree. But he probably wouldn’t run us over, so we’re gonna sit here until it gets late and he has to go home.”
I looked where he was pointing. A little ways away, there sat a man in a yellow backhoe, talking with someone on the phone. He didn’t look happy.
“So this tree is like, important?”
I asked, because I had zero fucking context for this situation. Why were they trying so hard to protect it? Why did the guy want to rip it down in the first place? Milo shrugged.
“It is to us. We used to sit under it all the time when we were living at Sawyer’s place.”
Kit, who had been staring at nothing in particular, suddenly snapped to attention.
“…Hey, we can call Sawyer and have him come help!”
Milo shook his head.
“Nah, not just yet. He’s probably busy.”
This, of course, isn’t the kind of thing busy people do. It’s the kind of thing you do when you have a shitton of time on your hands. In other words, I was just what they needed.
“Hey, if you guys need help, I can keep sittin’ here.”
Kit elbowed Milo in the ribs. Milo flinched, but seemed otherwise pleased.
“…Oww. Those might still be a little broken, kiddo. Anyway, yeah, sit with us!”
I leaned back against the tree, starting to settle in. Then I remembered why I was out here in the first place, and leapt back to my feet.
“…Actually, I was about to get some food. You guys hungry?”
They both did some noncommittal shruggy-noddy thing. Frankie was fiddling with his phone, and probably didn’t hear me.
“Cool. I’ll be right back, okay?”
*****
I was a little late getting back from the burger place, because I got stuck behind a man with three whining kids, who was trying to return a half-eaten hamburger. Like who returns a fucking hamburger? It’s already masticated. What are they gonna do, wrap it right back up and give it to the next guy? They better not! I’m the next guy! And, by the time I got to the park, we’d been joined by a fifth party. Before I was even half a block away, I knew who it was.
Oh, great.
Fucking Satchel. Normally, I’d be glad to see him, but he always turns this sort of thing into a shitshow.
And, from the sound of it, he’d already gotten started.
“We have the right to peaceful assembly! First Amendment, jackass, look it up!”
I sat down without him noticing. Every time the man in the backhoe so much as looked at his phone, Satchel cupped his hands around his mouth and repeated his little speech.
“…You can call the cops, but they won’t be able to do anything!”
I could feel the man’s exasperation from all the way over here.
“I’m not calling the cops, I’m calling my boss!”
Satchel wasn’t impressed.
“Your boss has no legal authority!”
He was trying to sound angry, but he was obviously enjoying every minute of this. Most people avoid this sort of conflict, but Satchel dives in just to get the satisfaction of throwing his weight around. And goddamn, is he ever melodramatic. I nudged his leg with my shoe.
“Yo!”
He turned around, keeping one eye on the backhoe.
“Hey, Scissors!”
I handed him a burger. He persecuted the backhoe guy between bites.
*****
“Remember that teacher we both had for sixth grade? And that weird south-up map he used to make everyone think or whatever?”
That said, Satchel went blank, like he was having a war flashback. Frankie rubbed his temples.
I thought, not this shit again.
“God… Yes. I mean, that’s the sort of thing you don’t want to think about.”
Satchel shook his head.
“What was with our teachers? Remember that one guy? Tenth grade geography? How he had that whole lesson about how fucked-up the Mercator projection was, and he kept flipping back and forth between that and this weird one where everything looked all stretched-out and wrong?”
Just when I thought this was the stupidest conversation I ever heard in my whole life, stupider even than the last time I had to listen to it, Frankie outdid himself.
“Yes. Jesus Christ! Then the map I’d been looking at my whole life never looked normal again, and all I could think about was how huge and bloated Alaska was. Remember that map in like, every classroom? The one that was, like, round, but had all the continents on it? That one drives me nuts! What is on the other side!?”
I was hoping Satchel would disagree, but having sat through this discussion before, I knew damn well he wouldn’t.
“…See, that always drove me nuts! I spent like, half my childhood wondering when we’d get to learn about the stuff on the other side.”
“I know, right!? And why can’t people just pick one map and stick with it? Do we not know what the world actually looks like? How can we not know that?”
Satchel fiddled with his phone, then shoved it in Frankie’s face.
“Look at this shit. I could fuckin’ go back in time and shank Buckminister Fuller for that.”
I knew what they were looking at, and that it didn’t warrant Frankie’s look of dull horror.
“…Satch, please close that image.”
I heard someone approaching, looked up to see who it was, and felt like I’d been rescued.
“…Kelsey! Hi! Who’s your friend?”
She was accompanied by a dark-haired lady I hadn’t seen before, who carried a shiny green cane and was wearing a shirt advertising a dinosaur exhibit in some museum. Kelsey pressed on her arm a few times.
“That’s Rilla.”
The other woman, Rilla, cut in. Her voice had a blurry sound to it I couldn’t really place, but was clear and assertive in its own way.
“Yeah, we were like, high-school sweethearts. Long time ago, man... I was in the area and thought I’d drop by. So, what do you have goin’ on here?”
Milo, who wanted to get off the map topic at least as badly as I did, answered.
“Protecting this tree.”
She looked up at the tree.
“Ah, cool!”
Satchel must have seen the backhoe guy do something hinky, because he was standing up again, and not talking about Map Trauma anymore.
“Like I said, you can call the cops, but I know my fuckin’ rights! You’re not gonna get anywhere, buddy!”
Kelsey was typing something on her phone. Rilla went to stand beside Satchel.
“Y’know, if the cops do come, I could film them. I’ve done documentary work before.”
They shared a high-five without even taking their eyes off the backhoe.
*****
“Hey, all! So… That’s the tree?”
Jesus Christ, who is it now?
It was Zach, apparently. Barclay was lagging behind him, wearing that “why in god’s name did you drag me out here?” look he always gets. He hardly ever leaves that darkened cave of an apartment, but then again, if I had some passive, good-natured stoner waiting on me hand and foot, I probably wouldn’t, either.
“Yep, the one and only!”
Satchel was still intermittently screaming at the backhoe guy. Occasionally, he’d yell at a passerby and suggest they join us, but they always quickened their pace, which pissed him off. Rilla stood next to him, phone camera at the ready. Milo and Kit decided their little sit-in would be more effective if they actually got up in the tree, and were perching on the branches like vultures. Frankie was trying to cough a bronchial cast in to a discarded cheeseburger wrapper. Kelsey and I were just chilling in the grass, like normal goddamn people. Barclay took all of this in. I couldn’t tell if he was squinting in disdain, or if this was just his normal I-hate-the-sun-and-can’t-see-for-shit squint.
“So… Everyone is just sitting here?”
I looked around.
“Yup.”
Barclay sat down in the grass, next to Kelsey.
“Sitting, I can do.”
Zach noticed the burger detritus, and looked absolutely downtrodden.
“Aww man, there was a big freakin’ bag of dollar cheeseburgers, and I missed it!?”
Rilla swiveled around, nearly losing her balance.
“…What the fuck, there were burgers!?”
Kit reached in to Milo’s jacket pocket, snatching his phone.
“Okay, that’s it. I’m taking control of this situation.”
*****
“So… You just wanted the burgers?”
Apparently, Sawyer wasn’t busy after all. Kit nodded.
“Yeah! And for you to sit with us!”
Sawyer looked around, counting heads.
“…For why?”
Milo answered with the kind of staunch, earnest seriousness that only he could pull off without sounding like a giant joke.
“To save our tree.”
Sawyer rested his hand on the bark, apparently deep in thought.
“…Okay. This is a good tree.”
Kit swung down from the branches, hanging by his knees.
“And if the guy tries to bring the backhoe over here, you could probably stop it with your bare hands!”
Sawyer laughed.
“I’m not that strong.”
Rilla, holding on to Zach for support, started poking Sawyer with her cane.
“Yo, burger guy. Burgers.”
Zach took the bag, apologizing under his breath. Even though Sawyer didn’t seem to give much of a shit. With Rilla satisfied, the two of them started eating; talking about movies, and the whole general tree-concept. I leaned against the trunk of the tree and started playing games on my phone. Somewhere in the background, Satchel was still yelling about the constitution, getting hoarse. Frankie kept trying to hoark up a lung. Everything seemed pretty business-as-usual.
Then something incredible happened:
The man in the backhoe, looking none too happy, turned around and drove off.
Mission accomplished, I guess.
We all sat around looking dumbfounded for a while. Kit was the first to speak.
“…Hey, Milo?”
“Yeah?”
“What now.”
A pause.
“I guess we come back tomorrow?”
Kit hopped down from the tree.
“Alright! Same time, same place?”
It took a few moments, but eventually, everyone responded with some sort of nod. Except for Rilla, who didn’t live around here, I guess.
Honestly, I wasn’t surprised.
I mean, after all, what the hell else are we doing?
starphotographs Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival)
Characters: Scissors (POV), Frankie, Satchel, Kit, Milo… Would be easier to list who isn’t there. :P
Colors: Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 13 (I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.)
Word Count: 1,900ish
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: The gang learns about the true power of slactivisim.
Note: I jumped ahead a bit in the timeline, but nothing I post is in order, anyway, so who cares?
“…Frankie, if there was a mouse living in your sink drain, it would, like, drown.”
We’d been going back and forth about this for the last hour, and all the way from my apartment to the sidewalk that circles by the park, but he still wasn’t convinced.
“I saw something looking at me, man!”
You fucking did not. I shook my head, tried to change the subject. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone I thought I knew.
Two someones, actually. I stopped to wave.
“Hey, Milo. Hey, Kit.”
Milo waved back without saying anything. They were sitting under a squat, spread-out little tree in the park. Frankie and I were walking to a fast-food joint, but I wasn’t so hungry I couldn’t take a brief detour. I walked over to sit next to them.
“So, what are you guys up to?”
Kit pointed at something a few yards away.
“That guy’s gonna rip down this tree. But he probably wouldn’t run us over, so we’re gonna sit here until it gets late and he has to go home.”
I looked where he was pointing. A little ways away, there sat a man in a yellow backhoe, talking with someone on the phone. He didn’t look happy.
“So this tree is like, important?”
I asked, because I had zero fucking context for this situation. Why were they trying so hard to protect it? Why did the guy want to rip it down in the first place? Milo shrugged.
“It is to us. We used to sit under it all the time when we were living at Sawyer’s place.”
Kit, who had been staring at nothing in particular, suddenly snapped to attention.
“…Hey, we can call Sawyer and have him come help!”
Milo shook his head.
“Nah, not just yet. He’s probably busy.”
This, of course, isn’t the kind of thing busy people do. It’s the kind of thing you do when you have a shitton of time on your hands. In other words, I was just what they needed.
“Hey, if you guys need help, I can keep sittin’ here.”
Kit elbowed Milo in the ribs. Milo flinched, but seemed otherwise pleased.
“…Oww. Those might still be a little broken, kiddo. Anyway, yeah, sit with us!”
I leaned back against the tree, starting to settle in. Then I remembered why I was out here in the first place, and leapt back to my feet.
“…Actually, I was about to get some food. You guys hungry?”
They both did some noncommittal shruggy-noddy thing. Frankie was fiddling with his phone, and probably didn’t hear me.
“Cool. I’ll be right back, okay?”
I was a little late getting back from the burger place, because I got stuck behind a man with three whining kids, who was trying to return a half-eaten hamburger. Like who returns a fucking hamburger? It’s already masticated. What are they gonna do, wrap it right back up and give it to the next guy? They better not! I’m the next guy! And, by the time I got to the park, we’d been joined by a fifth party. Before I was even half a block away, I knew who it was.
Oh, great.
Fucking Satchel. Normally, I’d be glad to see him, but he always turns this sort of thing into a shitshow.
And, from the sound of it, he’d already gotten started.
“We have the right to peaceful assembly! First Amendment, jackass, look it up!”
I sat down without him noticing. Every time the man in the backhoe so much as looked at his phone, Satchel cupped his hands around his mouth and repeated his little speech.
“…You can call the cops, but they won’t be able to do anything!”
I could feel the man’s exasperation from all the way over here.
“I’m not calling the cops, I’m calling my boss!”
Satchel wasn’t impressed.
“Your boss has no legal authority!”
He was trying to sound angry, but he was obviously enjoying every minute of this. Most people avoid this sort of conflict, but Satchel dives in just to get the satisfaction of throwing his weight around. And goddamn, is he ever melodramatic. I nudged his leg with my shoe.
“Yo!”
He turned around, keeping one eye on the backhoe.
“Hey, Scissors!”
I handed him a burger. He persecuted the backhoe guy between bites.
“Remember that teacher we both had for sixth grade? And that weird south-up map he used to make everyone think or whatever?”
That said, Satchel went blank, like he was having a war flashback. Frankie rubbed his temples.
I thought, not this shit again.
“God… Yes. I mean, that’s the sort of thing you don’t want to think about.”
Satchel shook his head.
“What was with our teachers? Remember that one guy? Tenth grade geography? How he had that whole lesson about how fucked-up the Mercator projection was, and he kept flipping back and forth between that and this weird one where everything looked all stretched-out and wrong?”
Just when I thought this was the stupidest conversation I ever heard in my whole life, stupider even than the last time I had to listen to it, Frankie outdid himself.
“Yes. Jesus Christ! Then the map I’d been looking at my whole life never looked normal again, and all I could think about was how huge and bloated Alaska was. Remember that map in like, every classroom? The one that was, like, round, but had all the continents on it? That one drives me nuts! What is on the other side!?”
I was hoping Satchel would disagree, but having sat through this discussion before, I knew damn well he wouldn’t.
“…See, that always drove me nuts! I spent like, half my childhood wondering when we’d get to learn about the stuff on the other side.”
“I know, right!? And why can’t people just pick one map and stick with it? Do we not know what the world actually looks like? How can we not know that?”
Satchel fiddled with his phone, then shoved it in Frankie’s face.
“Look at this shit. I could fuckin’ go back in time and shank Buckminister Fuller for that.”
I knew what they were looking at, and that it didn’t warrant Frankie’s look of dull horror.
“…Satch, please close that image.”
I heard someone approaching, looked up to see who it was, and felt like I’d been rescued.
“…Kelsey! Hi! Who’s your friend?”
She was accompanied by a dark-haired lady I hadn’t seen before, who carried a shiny green cane and was wearing a shirt advertising a dinosaur exhibit in some museum. Kelsey pressed on her arm a few times.
“That’s Rilla.”
The other woman, Rilla, cut in. Her voice had a blurry sound to it I couldn’t really place, but was clear and assertive in its own way.
“Yeah, we were like, high-school sweethearts. Long time ago, man... I was in the area and thought I’d drop by. So, what do you have goin’ on here?”
Milo, who wanted to get off the map topic at least as badly as I did, answered.
“Protecting this tree.”
She looked up at the tree.
“Ah, cool!”
Satchel must have seen the backhoe guy do something hinky, because he was standing up again, and not talking about Map Trauma anymore.
“Like I said, you can call the cops, but I know my fuckin’ rights! You’re not gonna get anywhere, buddy!”
Kelsey was typing something on her phone. Rilla went to stand beside Satchel.
“Y’know, if the cops do come, I could film them. I’ve done documentary work before.”
They shared a high-five without even taking their eyes off the backhoe.
“Hey, all! So… That’s the tree?”
Jesus Christ, who is it now?
It was Zach, apparently. Barclay was lagging behind him, wearing that “why in god’s name did you drag me out here?” look he always gets. He hardly ever leaves that darkened cave of an apartment, but then again, if I had some passive, good-natured stoner waiting on me hand and foot, I probably wouldn’t, either.
“Yep, the one and only!”
Satchel was still intermittently screaming at the backhoe guy. Occasionally, he’d yell at a passerby and suggest they join us, but they always quickened their pace, which pissed him off. Rilla stood next to him, phone camera at the ready. Milo and Kit decided their little sit-in would be more effective if they actually got up in the tree, and were perching on the branches like vultures. Frankie was trying to cough a bronchial cast in to a discarded cheeseburger wrapper. Kelsey and I were just chilling in the grass, like normal goddamn people. Barclay took all of this in. I couldn’t tell if he was squinting in disdain, or if this was just his normal I-hate-the-sun-and-can’t-see-for-shit squint.
“So… Everyone is just sitting here?”
I looked around.
“Yup.”
Barclay sat down in the grass, next to Kelsey.
“Sitting, I can do.”
Zach noticed the burger detritus, and looked absolutely downtrodden.
“Aww man, there was a big freakin’ bag of dollar cheeseburgers, and I missed it!?”
Rilla swiveled around, nearly losing her balance.
“…What the fuck, there were burgers!?”
Kit reached in to Milo’s jacket pocket, snatching his phone.
“Okay, that’s it. I’m taking control of this situation.”
“So… You just wanted the burgers?”
Apparently, Sawyer wasn’t busy after all. Kit nodded.
“Yeah! And for you to sit with us!”
Sawyer looked around, counting heads.
“…For why?”
Milo answered with the kind of staunch, earnest seriousness that only he could pull off without sounding like a giant joke.
“To save our tree.”
Sawyer rested his hand on the bark, apparently deep in thought.
“…Okay. This is a good tree.”
Kit swung down from the branches, hanging by his knees.
“And if the guy tries to bring the backhoe over here, you could probably stop it with your bare hands!”
Sawyer laughed.
“I’m not that strong.”
Rilla, holding on to Zach for support, started poking Sawyer with her cane.
“Yo, burger guy. Burgers.”
Zach took the bag, apologizing under his breath. Even though Sawyer didn’t seem to give much of a shit. With Rilla satisfied, the two of them started eating; talking about movies, and the whole general tree-concept. I leaned against the trunk of the tree and started playing games on my phone. Somewhere in the background, Satchel was still yelling about the constitution, getting hoarse. Frankie kept trying to hoark up a lung. Everything seemed pretty business-as-usual.
Then something incredible happened:
The man in the backhoe, looking none too happy, turned around and drove off.
Mission accomplished, I guess.
We all sat around looking dumbfounded for a while. Kit was the first to speak.
“…Hey, Milo?”
“Yeah?”
“What now.”
A pause.
“I guess we come back tomorrow?”
Kit hopped down from the tree.
“Alright! Same time, same place?”
It took a few moments, but eventually, everyone responded with some sort of nod. Except for Rilla, who didn’t live around here, I guess.
Honestly, I wasn’t surprised.
I mean, after all, what the hell else are we doing?
no subject
Mostly this is an adorable found-family saving a tree piece which is right up my alley so yes write more of this.
Also I feel bad for the backhoe guy.
(ps I think you may have a broken italics tag?)
no subject