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 Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:39 pm
It was a mistake to bring him up, but at the same time every reminder of their difference was still a blessing. Stormy felt her face grow warm as Gale spoke, her shoulders sinking back down at the words I believe you; they were almost as miraculous as the other three words he had used. "You're amazing, you know," she found herself saying, watching him get comfortable with a grateful expression. Her mouth hung a little open as if to say more, but second thoughts urged for an economy of words tonight. Besides, they were alike in that they enjoyed rebuffing the other's compliments.
Stormy moved to the foot of the bed where down on the ground sat Michelangelo flopped on his side, forgotten in her earlier madness. Thankfully he smelled a lot better than his owner previously had since the perfume bottle had somehow snuck under him. With the red panda plush in tow, she crawled onto the bed, Eeyore slippers and all, and sat back against the other pillows. ""Talking, talking . . ." Stormy mused down at her plushie companion as if silently asking him for advice. At length she nodded and plopped Michelangelo down between them, looking up at the ceiling.
"When I was ten or so, I didn't really talk a lot, and when I did it wasn't always clear; I didn't know how to express myself really, except through music. Most of the time that just made me look shy which was fine and all, but I always got embarrassed when the nicer kids approached me and tried to make me open up and stuff because . . . well, I didn't know how to people. I liked reading even thought I had a lot of trouble stringing words together, and I liked playing piano at midnight which was way past my bedtime and probably the most rebellious I'd ever been at that point, and I liked marrying and divorcing and heroically killing off beanie babies who were on adventures all the time, and I liked hugging strangers if they looked sad, and that was about it. None of that needed talking. So whenever they'd ask me stuff, I'd mess it up somehow, like saying too much, or nothing at all, or mixing my words up like word salad, or replacing the first letters, or like this one time when I switched to Spanish for no reason, or talking about something completely different since even then my head liked to be anywhere except the present . . .
"I figured I could just skate through school like that, but this one English class I was in had a final project: we had to give a speech in front of the class on anything we wanted for ten minutes. And that was basically like sentencing me to hell, you know? Having to get up there in front of the people who didn't really know me but knew I was the kid who took forever to read a paragraph just to get it right. I . . ." She gave a soft, wry laugh. "I literally couldn't concentrate on the assignment--like just bzzzz in my head whenever I sat down and said I was gonna do it. Like my body was just refusing to accept I had to do anything so uncomfortable, deciding that if I didn't have ideas then it'd just go away or something.
"I had maybe half a page of notes on possible topics up by the time it was due and was sweating bullets. Needless to say, when I got up there, I, uh . . . Hah. It wasn't pretty. A solid minute of the most awkward silence in the world before I just sorta started crying and ran to the bathroom.
"I was lucky, though. The teacher was a sweet lady, she said she'd let me make it up by memorizing a poem with every four lines being a bonus point on my last test grade.
"I was determined not to let her down this time. I could've done Robert Frost since we studied him earlier, but I really wanted to wow her, you know? I felt like I didn't just let myself down but her as well by not doing the assignment . . . So I looked around for a few days and came across the longest one I could find that didn't rhyme, just to prove that I could do it. That's how I got introduced to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".
"It wasn't even like memorizing a poem, though, it was more like . . . I dunno. Like someone had looked at my mind and then wrote about it for a bit, all confusing and winding and lyrical. It took a while to get all those lines down, but I did it before the summer," she said with a little smile. "Memorized it all, spat it back out, and told her she owed me either 32 or 33 bonus points, depending on if she rounded up. And that's the story of how I passed that class~
"You've heard me say it lots of times before, though. It's kinda like a stress reliever . . ." Stormy trailed away, realizing she had been going on for a while now, and turned her head to see how Gale was doing.
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 9:37 pm
"I'm really not," Gale said, his face pushed into the pillows, but he was smiling. "You, on the other hand, are several shades of amazing that come in a variety of colors, feelings, and music so that everything sort of collides together in this enormous cacophony of chaos that's really quite lovely."
He was listening to her speak and the words washed over him like a balm, familiar and wonderful and beautiful. Stories were most definitely Stormy's forte, even when they revolved around things as small and simple as a class project. It didn't matter the subject, what mattered was the listening and the worlds she managed to create just by sound and inflection.
Gale felt himself drifting, though he tried to stay awake for the majority of her story. The exhaustion stemming from the overwhelming rollercoaster of emotions that had taken him for a ride all day long, it seemed, had finally managed to catch up to him, making his eyelids feel heavy.
He stretched out his hand towards her, half asleep, and by the time Stormy turned around to check on him, he was all the way asleep, face pressed against the pillows, one hand still reaching towards his girlfriend as though somehow even in sleep he'd be able to reach her.
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 1:06 am
With Gale fast asleep first for once, she was allowed a rare opportunity to see him at his most relaxed, and her expression softened at the outstretched hand. "'But this bed', said Galedilocks, 'this bed is just right!'" Stormy narrated quietly, a warm smile appearing on her face. "Ah . . . Most people would be offended that them talking puts people to sleep, but not I, not I~"
Long after her rant had finished, his last words for the night still lingered in her ears. Several shades, huh? She sat up with a pleased hum and let her head sit against a shoulder, reaching out to take his hand gently. "Everyone has shades, you know . . . Take you, for instance. Look at how pastel you are with me," she observed, still with a soft tone. "But with most everyone else, it's stark white and gold. All business, very little humor. That's not bad though, so stooooooop saying you're not amazing, because you aaaaaaare okay?"
Stormy realized most of what she was saying wouldn't be registered. It hadn't mattered when Nevada was in a coma, however, and it wasn't going to matter here either. Who knew, maybe on some level Gale could hear her.
She hesitated, then realized that she was far too tired to bother getting out of bed, shoving her stuff off Nevada's, and borrowing it for the night. Sharing a bed after her little stint earlier was laughably pathetic on her part, but already her fingers were mindlessly sliding between his anyway . . . Yawning, Stormy reached for the covers and eased them up to chest level for him before pulling her side over her head. Still holding fast to his hand, she then pulled her legs up and curled into a semi-circle facing Gale, with obvious space between them but with their arms as a sort of bridge; Michelangelo served as the buffer between legs.
"Thank you," she whispered, kissing his knuckles. Something softer left her, but it was inaudible even with her own ears, weak and mostly choked off when the words left her throat. It was sad that she didn't even have the nerve to say it while he slept, but then again today was the day Stormy was just a very sad person overall, in various definitions of it.
Time. That was all she needed, really. Just time to think and put things together instead of letting them explode and careen around like they had today. She took longer than most, but some things--some people--were worth that time and ache.
"Buenas noches, cariño," Stormy murmured as he eyelids fell closed. "Que tengas felices sueños." She had no idea what tomorrow would hold, but it was hopefully something that would give her a break. But even she knew as she fell asleep that that sort of thought was reserved for stories and nothing more; out there, beyond her room, there be more than just dragons.
She curled her fingers more securely through his to remind herself he existed and drifted into sleep.
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