Eerie, Indiana faniction: Pay Attention part 10

[froodle]

There's a mountain range east of town that you can only see from one particular spot in the Eerie woods, where Dash claims to have stolen dragon eggs at some point prior to his incarceration. They're up in an enormous oak tree, trying to decide on the fastest route, when an old lady in a patched-up Lockheed Electra buzzes past them with a wheezing cackle of delight.

Sara Sue, hanging upside-down from one of the branches, cranes her neck at a spine-breaking angle to follow the plane's progress.

"I've got this," she says, slipping down from her perch. "You two stay here."

(Dash and Harley don't see what happens next, but years later, Harley's hunting out Christmas decorations and finds a crumpled sketch of an elderly woman being menaced by a slavering multi-headed bear. Between them is a figure that might be Sara Sue fending off the ravening beast with a flaming torch.

"Please tell me you didn't sic a multi-bear on a pensioner!" he says, waving the bit of paper around.

Sara Sue looks up from her easel.

"Maybe I did," she says. "Maybe I didn't."

Harley examines the drawing again.

"Why are you dressed like Wonder Woman?" he asks. Sara Sue snatches the drawing back, flushing crimson. Later, Harley picks it out of the waste paper basket, smooths it out, and pastes it securely into a bulging scrap book alongside a torn and faded picture of a bipedal dinosaur with long teeth, nun-chucks, and a baseball cap turned sideways on it's head.)

As they stand outside the entrance to the dragon's lair, the plane's engine a diminishing roar behind them, Harley takes a deep breath and adjusts the straps on his backpack.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. We've got Forrest Gump, Watership Down, the Green Mile and Dragonheart, which I have to say I still think is an insensitive choice."

"We are on an epic quest," says Dash. "Some morally-questionable decisions are par for the course."

"We'll only use that one as a last resort," says Sara Sue.

As it turns out, getting hold of the dragon tears is the easy part. The dragon in question is watching the tail-end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer season two when they show up, and doesn't question it when Harley scoops up an armful of damp tissues the size of Volkswagens. The hard part is pulling themselves together after Angel, newly re-ensouled and unaware of the events of the last few months, is sent to hell by his weeping girlfriend in order to save the world.

The dragon rubs Sara Sue's back with it's scaly claws and tactfully ignores the boys' averted faces. After a calming cup of tea and splashing their reddened eyes in a cool, clear stream behind the dragon's cave, they depart, but not before Sara Sue arranges to stop by with a copy of Firefly on DVD in the near future. The dragon waves them off as they head back down the mountainside.

"How are you going to do that?" Dash wants to know, once they're out of reptilian earshot. "Since, you know, we might die and all."

"I'll ask Mister Radford to reserve me a copy," says Sara Sue. "And if I'm not back to collect it in two weeks, he'll have it sent to the cave instead."

"I didn't know the World o' Stuff did deliveries."

Sara Sue gave him a sidelong glance.

"Well," she said. "You were in jail. Plus, there's a delivery charge. Plus, you have to be an actual paying customer."

Dash laughed, surprising himself as much as the other two. Even Harley, his mind full of other things, and his skin stinging a little from contact with dragon-tears, smiled.

When the DVD had been ordered and paid for, and Mister Radford had confirmed the delivery address in a scrying glass acquired from a condemned property on the edge of town where the trapped souls of the damned screamed at night, they headed back to the lake. The raven was nowhere to be seen. Presumably, they were not the only would-be heroes who needed it's help advancing to the next stage of their story.

Harley took a deep breath. He'd been gathering the courage to speak since before the dragon.

"You don't have to come with me," he said, stuttering slightly over the words. Had he had a stutter before Simon left? He couldn't remember.

Last year, he'd been lying in bed when the realisation struck him that he'd not-had a brother longer than he'd had one, and he'd stumbled to the darkened bathroom and vomited fish-sticks and strawberry yoghurt and lain on the cold tiled floor 'til dawn. Sometimes, he almost couldn't remember having a brother. Some days it seemed like he only remembered remembering having a brother.

He wondered if this was how Sara Sue felt all the time, when the memories of her actual travels tangled up with the personas she'd used to do it, and she couldn't remember what really happened to her and what were adventures she'd sketched out in paper and pencil. He wondered if this was better or worse than waking up without any memories at all, and all your subsequent memories being tied up with the hunt for the lost ones.

His pulse beat very loud in his ears, and he felt dizzy and sick. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, Dash is watching him with concern, hand half-raised as if to reach out and touch Harley on the shoulder. Sara Sue has scraped a shallow hole in the sandy earth, and is emptying the damp, faintly-smouldering tissues into it. She looks up from beneath her curtain of hair.

"Sorry, what?" she said. The Eerie No 2 pencil has come loose from under her t-shirt, and as it swings back and forth, the tip glints in the moonlight.

"I said..."

"I heard what you said. That wasn't a 'I failed to hear you correctly' kind of what. That was a 'the thing you just said is unutterably stupid' kind of what. I don't chill out with ravens, prank old ladies, befriend dragons, or destroy public property just to get written out of a story before I see how it ends." She pauses. "Okay, maybe that last one I just do for fun. But not the other stuff."

Dash looked uncomfortable. He stared out over the dark water, avoiding Harley's gaze, and ran both hands nervously through his hair. The bandages had been changed in the restrooms at the World o' Stuff, but already the white gauze was spotted with blood.

"You don't have-" Harley repeated, but Dash shook his head, still not looking at them.

"You were eight when it happened," he said, almost too quietly to be heard. "And you," he jerks one hand in Sara-Sue's direction. "You weren't even in the country." He swallowed. "You two don't have anything to make up for. I do."

There's nothing Harley can think to say that won't sound trite and obvious. He reaches out, and, careful of those bleeding hands, wraps his fingers around Dash's wrist. Even with the sleeve of Dash's trench-coat between them, he feels Dash flinch, instinctively start to pull away, and feels the trembling effort it takes when he stops himself. There's a susurration of feet on sand as Sara Sue joins them.

"When I was in Spain," she says, very softly, "There was this cinema that showed old movies during the afternoons. One week, they were doing all the old Universal monster movies; Wolfman, Dracula, the Mummy, all that."

Harley feels a cold sweat break out along his spine, braces himself for surge of horror he knows is coming, that always comes to him when people talk about old movies, the terror he always feels but has never understood.

Sara Sue clears her throat. "I thought it would be funny to make myself up like them," she said. "You know, jump out and scare people, start some ridiculous hysterical rumours in the tabloids." She looks down at her shoes. "I was hiding on a roof when this goofy, skinny guy in giant lapels walked by underneath me. I was all Lon Chaney'd up, I mean I was so proud of myself, and I was just about to leap down and scare the crap out of him when he looked up and saw me."

Her feet shuffle in the grainy dirt.

"He freaked out. I have never seen anyone look so scared, I mean his eyes were showing white all the way around, and he screamed," her voice broke. "I've never heard a sound like that, and I hope I never do again. He saw me, and he screamed, and he ran straight out into traffic. Some poor guy in a taxi hit him, but it was me that killed him."

Against the worn string that keeps her pencil close, her pulse is jumping.

"Dash, maybe you messed up here in Eerie, and maybe you think you owe Simon and Mars something because of that, but the guy I owe something to is red paste in front of an old movie theatre, and long past anything I can do to set it right." She inhales, trying to steady herself. "That's why I came back here. I couldn't deal with what happened, and I ran to the only place that felt familiar. So you see," she takes Harley's free hand in her own. "That's why I came with you, that first night. I helped you because I'm selfish, and because I thought it would make me feel better." Her fingers tighten painfully on Harley's own, and he squeezes back.

"Thank you," says Harley. "Both of you. Thank you."

Sara Sue gives him a watery smile and wipes at her cheeks with her free hand. Dash mumbles something non-committal, but doesn't pull away. It's what they have to offer, and it's good enough for Harley.

Comments

[deifire]

OMG! And there's even more!

The way they get the dragon tears is brilliant, and I want to hug them all so much at the end!

[froodle]

Joss Whedon: breaking hearts of creatures who existed for millenia with a single episode. I think that season is about fifteen years old now and i still dont watch it it in front of people i dont want to see me ugly-crying.

[eviinsanemonkey.livejournal.com]

holy wow!

this is just. so good. every instalment is just. amazing.

[froodle]

Thank you! I always forget that one of the side effects of reading awesome stories is that it makes me want to run off and write stories of my own, so with all the epicness the advent challenge is putting out there, maybe ill be motivated enough to finish it by the years end!

[froodle]

Thank you!