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 Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:08 pm
Danny was already sleepy and Roch's song wasn't helping. It was nice and soft ... but ... sad? At least it started that way. As he continued playing, it picked up, but it was almost like Roch was trying to cover up the beginning. It was still a good song though. Danny wondered why all of Roch's songs sounded so sad to her. Maybe it was a reaper thing?
His next comment was weird though. She was starting to feel a bit better, so talking to him seemed okay. "You've ... died?" Well it wasn't that unusual in Halloween to be dead, but it was unusual for someone to die. Funny how things worked like that.
Danny couldn't imagine Roch actually dying. He seemed far too stubborn. Like he would just kick death right in the face. Could you kick death? That seemed irrelevant. Roch would find a way to do it.
Sighing she said, "Are you sure you're not thinking of the souls you reap?" Roch was a reaper right? That meant he reaped souls? Something like that. Danny had never really understood reapers. They seemed to all work differently from each other. Then again, the same could be said of demons.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:13 pm
"I haven't reaped any souls," he said with a snort. "Nobody has one here and I've never been to the human world. And I didn't actually die. I just came close to it." He played idly for a moment, letting his fingers calm him down by picking at the strings.
"I didn't know I'd almost died until after the fish festival thing," he went on quietly. "I didn't realize.." He went silent, trying to figure out how to put it. "Have you ever eaten so much that you felt like you were going to explode?" he asked abruptly.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:22 pm
Danny looked up at Roch absolutely astounded. "We don't have souls?!" This was news to her. Well, everything was news to her. Danny looked down at his guitar again. It was actually quite astounding how he could talk and play without even breaking a sweat. For Danny, having to talk and play at the same time was like asking an elephant to walk a tight rope. She could probably do it with enough concentration, but it would be way too hard.
She listened quietly as he explained his near death experience. Her face fell a tad when he mentioned the floresctival. She had had a bad experience with the booths, and then was sick in bed for the rest of it. Not the most pleasant experience.
Eating so much that you felt like exploding? Honestly, Danny had never really felt that. She was actually rather good at controlling when she was full enough to stop. Like earlier, with the pizza in her dorm with Roch she had known when she was full and given the rest to him.
So she just answered honestly. "No, I don't think so... She gasped when she realized what he was implying. "You didn't explode did you?!" Death was actually a rather sad subject it seemed. Danny didn't want Roch to die. Even if she was mad at him, it would be really, really sad if he was gone.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:26 pm
"This is another one of those don't tell anyone things, okay?" Roch said quietly, looking around to make sure they weren't being spied on. "But yeah, I like to eat, y'know? But I didn't realize it because--I dunno, I was out of it each time. And..."
His fingers played over the strings, more out of habit than because he was focusing on playing. "I guess... my old man took the excess FEAR by playing for me. I just never remembered cuz, well... his sax makes me fall asleep."
Which had to be the lamest thing ever. He still fell asleep when his dad played for him? What was he, three? Not that he could remember falling asleep because of it then... he'd probably been knocked out with the first note or something.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:02 pm
Danny gasped in horror as Roch relived the story. To explode from eating yummy things would just be horrible. Though it seemed it would be better to go out that way than a few other ways. At least if you exploded, you would get yummy food beforehand. Danny was really pondering the inner workings of exploding from food.
Nodding, Danny said, "Well it was a good thing your dad was there then!" She didn't think Roch falling asleep to the sax was strange or lame at all. After all, she fell asleep in fireplaces- what could be weirder than that?
Danny yawned and put her head back on Roch's shoulder. "Well his sax isn't the only instrument to put people to sleep." Danny was actually very glad that Roch's dad had been there. No Roch would be ... well no Roch. She would probably be pretty distraught if he left now.
"That's it," she said, wrapping her arm around his stomach through the hole formed by his forearm and the knee that was up, "You're not allowed to die, okay?" It was a stupid promise, and one that Roch couldn't logically fulfill, but Danny was completely serious.
Her mind drifted back once again to Edel, and she removed her arm and head from him. He probably didn't want to be so close to her when he was probably thinking of Edel. Why oh why did he have to bring that Edel ghoul into the picture? They were perfectly happy best friends. This was a bicycle friendship, not a tricycle friendship!
Danny's arms went back to being around her legs and she started shivering slightly (human equivalent of tearing up). Oh no, this was not okay. Roch would notice and start yelling at her again!
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 6:45 am
"I've been a lot more careful," he admitted. "But Danny, I heard all sorts of stories about the students dying or almost dying here, so you can't tell me not to die. It creeps the hell out of me, but they got that Cricket ghost lady, right? She's paid to put people back together." He played for a bit longer, working up to the Edel subject.
"Hey... not everyone in the club's gonna be our best pals, okay?" he said abruptly. "I mean, take that Ren guy. He's got a good voice and all, but I can't see myself hanging out with him--" Because Roch still immediately added the word "Gigolo" to his name, even though he knew he wasn't. He often replaced it with "Crooner" but in his mind that was almost as bad.
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:18 pm
Why was Roch talking so much about dying? Danny didn't like this at all. She was shivering a bit more now, but was leaning against Roch now for support. These were sad subjects- Danny didn't like sad subjects. Part of her just wanted to get up and run back to her dorm, but she knew Roch wouldn't let her.
In fact, right now she could really use all of her flaming minis and blankets, so she could just curl up in them and get lost in the warm fuzzies. Danny would like that right now.
She tried to recapture her voice, but it wasn't working well. "I d-don't care, y-y-you can't die Roch." It was a rule. He just wasn't allowed to. No ifs ands or buts. She would sooner kill him than let him die. Wait...
If Roch was trying to bring up Edel, Danny certainly didn't sense it. She looked at him and said, "You don't have to hang out with Ren. No one said you have to hang out with him. Wait did he threaten you or something?" Danny thought back to her own "threatening." Well, it was for the greater good, so Danny figured she liked Ren, but if he had threatened Roch there was no way she was going to forgive him!
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 2:09 pm
"No he didn't threaten me," Roch said. "But he's still in the club, whether I want to personally hang out with him or not," he said. "I don't figure everyone in there will be best friends, or even see each other outside of the club meetings and maybe some classes. So..." He looked at her.
"Even if Edel's in the club you don't gotta be her best friend or anything, got it? But you do have to be at least... I dunno, nice. You're the vice president, you gotta make us look good. Just like I gotta be nice to Moure, even if he still pisses me off seriously bad."
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 2:38 pm
Of course that had to be the point of their conversation. Danny knew he couldn't just hold out a conversation without talking about that stupid ghoul Edel.
There were those words again. Have to. Crossly, she said, "Why do I have to do anything?" There were so many things Danny could argue at the moment. Like how Edel emitted cold and could probably kill her very easily if she tried. How she was all buddy buddy with both her best friend and her close friend. How she was going to ruin the club with her froo-froo ... perfectness.
Of course, what Danny would never admit was that she was incredibly jealous of Edel. Edel was what every demon mother hoped for. Charming, good looks, elegance, poise; everything Danny was not. Part of Danny, somewhere deep down, was worried that everyone was going to be so taken with Edel that they would forget all about her. It seemed to already be happening with Moure after all.
This time, Danny looked straight ahead of her, but it was as if her eyes were staring at something a million miles away. Sort of emptily, and very quietly, she said, "You know she's better than me." It was a comment said to herself, not to Roch- he just happened to be there to hear it.
This wasn't a problem that stemmed from a hatred of the cold. Sure, Danny would tell everyone she didn't like Edel because she was an ice demon, but it was more than that. They were exact opposite, both literally and metaphorically. Edel was everything Danny wasn't, and that scared her.
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 2:44 pm
"Better?" Roch repeated blankly, only to start laughing. "You think--" He was cracking up by this point, laughing so hard that his stomach hurt. Then he turned, looking her straight in the eye. "Danny. Seriously. Edel ain't you. You ain't Edel. I know both of you and YOU'RE the one I hunted down when she was avoiding me. You really think I'd do that for Edel?"
Did she not realize Roch's basic nature? "That's way too much effort," he added with a snort, leaning back against the tree. "And there's no way in hell I'd tell her about the stuff I've told you. Sheesh," he added with a snort.
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 3:39 pm
He was laughing at her. He was cracking up and laughing at her. Danny wrapped her arms around her legs and started shaking even more than before. Roch did think Edel was better, she just knew it. Somehow, Danny thought Roch saying it to her face was a lot worse than all of the worrying she had been doing. Thinking it was one thing, but knowing it? It was about ten times worse.
She was seriously thinking about getting up and running away now. Her feet were already shifting in the grass, but Roch continued. He was looking for her? He was ... concerned? This was new to her. Most of the time people didn't come looking for her, and if they did they just gave up because it was too much work.
Danny's mind floated back to her memory of her country house back in the firelands. One time she had hidden out in the forest, and her house's servants had come looking for her, because it was dinner time. After awhile though, most of the staff had given up. She remembered being in a tree somewhere, and as a servant came past she could hear them whisper "let's just go back, she's not worth it anyways." She had waited all night in the tree until Rosalie had finally found her. Of course, she had played it off like she had just gotten lost, but things like that always stuck with her.
Sniveling, she said, "I g-guess n-not." She still felt it though. Unconsciously, she was slowly wiggling away from where Roch was sitting. Even if she wasn't going to run away, her mind was still telling her to do so, however small the distance was.
There was still one thing she didn't get though. "What if everyone likes Edel better?" It was practically a whisper, as if Danny herself didn't want to say it. If it was possible, she said ever quieter, "Even you?" What if Edel suddenly became the it girl on campus? Would he even look at her anymore? Would anyone? Her problems weren't that severe of course, but at the moment Danny's mind was blowing them up to be that big. This was something that stemmed far deeper than Amityville.
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 4:17 pm
"I just said I won't like her better than I like you," Roch said, getting irritated with this pity party. "Danny. Seriously. I grew up on the wrong side of Halloween, I'm broke ninety nine percent of the time, I wouldn't know how to deal with high society even if they gave me an instruction book. I start food fights in the middle of PROM--well, it was more of a catch the ball sort of thing, but seriously--"
He looked at her. "You're stuck with me. Deal with it." Besides, he wasn't any more Edel's ideal best buddy than Edel was his, he was POSITIVE of this fact.
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 4:44 pm
Though Roch was saying the words pretty carelessly, they were ones that Danny would probably cling to for the rest of her time here. "I won't like her better than I like you." They were like shiny little pennies that had just been dropped into her hand. Small and worthless to everyone else, but they were hers.
Danny was done shaking now. She said, "I don't mind if you're stuck to me." She grabbed his guitar from him and said, "But that means you're stuck to me." She said it with a smile even if she was still sort of wobbly.
She sucked in a breath of air and said, "I ... ." Another breath. "I'll try to be nice to Edel." This was a big step. "But if she does anything funny, I'll kill her. I swear I will." She meant it too. She was not afraid to kill the poor ghoul, take her to cricket, let her get re-stabilized and then kill her again.
Danny's head once again rested on Roch's side and she began to strum a simple tune. It didn't sound the same when she played on Roch's guitar as when he did. You could still hear the tune though, so what did it matter?
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 4:58 pm
Roch grabbed his guitar back, looking BRIGHT red, so red that he practically clashed with his hair. "Dude, no, no, noooo," he said. "No playing my guitar, seriously," he told her. "That's--that's seriously awkward." He let it disappear, still looking broiled with embarrassment. "Good Jack, she just grabs it and--"
He muttered something under his breath, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. "Besides, it sounds like crap when you play it, anyway."
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 5:08 pm
Danny stuck her tongue out at him and said "Fine, then you just play it." She didn't really want silence at the moment. It seemed weird.
Why was his face so red? Was he really that embarrassed by her playing? Or maybe he was just really attached to his guitar. Either way, Danny figured it was safe to ask, "Are you okay?" She was concerned, but it wasn't the end of the world. Roch was a tough boil.
With that, Danny readjusted herself so she was laying on his lap. She was facing away from his stomach, but she was curled up in a ball, like a cat. It was too bad she didn't have a hat, or she could put it over her face and go to sleep like the guys in those old cowboil movies.
Soon a yawn escaped her mouth and her eyes began drooping. With the pumpkin shining so brightly, she could easily fall asleep then and there. Her tail wrapped around her leg like it so casually did and her wings folded up against her backside. It was nap time ...
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