Eerie fic, part sixteen
Aug. 12th, 2011 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
froodleTitle: Untitled
Author: Froodle
Disclaimer: Still not mine
Claim: Eerie Indiana
Prompt: 7, Lose
Characters: Simon
Word Count: for this part, 484
Rating: PG13, though sadly only for language
Summary/Warning: Where else would you go searching for a lost past in Eerie? Also, not even SLIGHTLY finished.
Beta'd the hell out of by chibimarchy and scheherezhad, once again!
PART SIXTEEN
A stream of blue sparks shot out of the top of the tachyon portal, filling the air with the smell of ozone. Both Simon and the ghost instinctively flinched away, the ghost letting out a little cry of alarm as he did so. Before Simon could sufficiently recover himself, the device gave an ominous thunk and the fuzzy, distorted image of Dash and Marshall standing in a black room yelling at each other was replaced with the much less animated blackness of a television set on standby.
“Mars?”
The tachyon portal made little pinging noises as it cooled down.
“Oh dear,” said the ghost.
Simon picked up the remote control and aimed it at the portal, twiddling the dials more out of a sense of being thorough than because he thought it might actually work. He was disappointed, though not particularly surprised, when the screen remained off.
Still holding the remote, he headed back downstairs and began to stoke up the fire. The ghost followed him, still apologizing fervently.
“I feel utterly wretched about this,” he was saying. “You must believe me, if I had known your friend would do that-”
“He’ll be back,” said Simon, trying to project a confidence he didn’t feel. Not, of course, that Marshall wouldn’t want to come back, wouldn’t desperately try, but… Simon looked at the tag on his wrist and thought about all the times he had snuck out of the house and through the tumble driers and down into the Bureau. He looked at the ghost with his silly waxed moustache and old-fashioned diction, and at the room that wasn’t covered in unwashed clothes and mouldering plates and empty liquor bottles, and he heard the wind and the rain and the surf from outside and how it sounded nothing like his dad’s drunken tirades or his mother’s harpy-like screeching.
And then he thought about all the haunted structures and bizarre creatures and eccentric townsfolk that he and Mars hadn’t gotten around to investigating, and the new season of Commander Cody, and how Mister Radford was thinking about getting a Baskin Robbins franchise installed at the World o’ Stuff and how he’d never tasted Blue Raspberry flavoured anything.
He thought about the way Mrs Teller always smelled faintly of washing powder and hot dinners, and how, when he came over and Mars wasn’t home, Syndi would roll her eyes but always made room on the couch for him and told him about the latest exploits of Todd and Donna and asked about his Uncle Morris from Latvia, and how Mr Teller would come home from work and ruffle his hair and offer him experimental foodstuffs from his company, which sometimes he would accept out of scientific curiosity and sometimes just because he was hungry and his parents hadn’t felt like going grocery shopping that week.
Simon sat in front of the fire, and he cried.
Author: Froodle
Disclaimer: Still not mine
Claim: Eerie Indiana
Prompt: 7, Lose
Characters: Simon
Word Count: for this part, 484
Rating: PG13, though sadly only for language
Summary/Warning: Where else would you go searching for a lost past in Eerie? Also, not even SLIGHTLY finished.
Beta'd the hell out of by chibimarchy and scheherezhad, once again!
PART SIXTEEN
A stream of blue sparks shot out of the top of the tachyon portal, filling the air with the smell of ozone. Both Simon and the ghost instinctively flinched away, the ghost letting out a little cry of alarm as he did so. Before Simon could sufficiently recover himself, the device gave an ominous thunk and the fuzzy, distorted image of Dash and Marshall standing in a black room yelling at each other was replaced with the much less animated blackness of a television set on standby.
“Mars?”
The tachyon portal made little pinging noises as it cooled down.
“Oh dear,” said the ghost.
Simon picked up the remote control and aimed it at the portal, twiddling the dials more out of a sense of being thorough than because he thought it might actually work. He was disappointed, though not particularly surprised, when the screen remained off.
Still holding the remote, he headed back downstairs and began to stoke up the fire. The ghost followed him, still apologizing fervently.
“I feel utterly wretched about this,” he was saying. “You must believe me, if I had known your friend would do that-”
“He’ll be back,” said Simon, trying to project a confidence he didn’t feel. Not, of course, that Marshall wouldn’t want to come back, wouldn’t desperately try, but… Simon looked at the tag on his wrist and thought about all the times he had snuck out of the house and through the tumble driers and down into the Bureau. He looked at the ghost with his silly waxed moustache and old-fashioned diction, and at the room that wasn’t covered in unwashed clothes and mouldering plates and empty liquor bottles, and he heard the wind and the rain and the surf from outside and how it sounded nothing like his dad’s drunken tirades or his mother’s harpy-like screeching.
And then he thought about all the haunted structures and bizarre creatures and eccentric townsfolk that he and Mars hadn’t gotten around to investigating, and the new season of Commander Cody, and how Mister Radford was thinking about getting a Baskin Robbins franchise installed at the World o’ Stuff and how he’d never tasted Blue Raspberry flavoured anything.
He thought about the way Mrs Teller always smelled faintly of washing powder and hot dinners, and how, when he came over and Mars wasn’t home, Syndi would roll her eyes but always made room on the couch for him and told him about the latest exploits of Todd and Donna and asked about his Uncle Morris from Latvia, and how Mr Teller would come home from work and ruffle his hair and offer him experimental foodstuffs from his company, which sometimes he would accept out of scientific curiosity and sometimes just because he was hungry and his parents hadn’t felt like going grocery shopping that week.
Simon sat in front of the fire, and he cried.
