[RiddleRose]: 298.Gold Dust - NaNoWriMo '07.Chapter seven

Chapter seven.

Behind him, Neil gave a grunting snore. Neil always did this right before he woke up, so Wren hastily replaced everything, and re-locked the secret panel. Behind him, Neil fell out of bed. Wren sat back, still slightly stunned by what he had read. Insane? How was Neil insane? He hadn't explained that in the diary, he had only mentioned that he was insane.

Gay... Wren was surprised, but it bothered him less and less the more he thought about it. He had never had any particular problem with gay people. You either were, or you weren't, and there was nothing anyone could do about it, either way. And really, now that he thought about it, Neil had always gotten along better with the girls in their high school than he had with the boys. He seemed to operate on a similar wavelength.

Behind him, Neil began slowly emitting the customary waking up stream of swear words that accompanied his mornings. He was unable to wake up quietly. He would either yell in protest, swear for many minutes, or fall out of bed. Sometimes all three, sometimes any combination of two. Wren occasionally made small wagers with himself as to what it would be this time.

Neil had made it to sitting position. He took a deep breath, (Wren covered his ears hastily,) and let out the lusty yell of someone who is being ripped from a comfortable, warm, soft environment, and thrust into the battle zone of day, which, for Neil this morning, had begun with a hard, cold floor.

After he had finished yelling about how much he hated mornings, and how much he hated falling out of bed in the morning, and how much he wanted to kill the person who had invented mornings, and how much he wished he was still asleep, Neil grabbed a cigarette, lit it, and stumped into the bathroom, trailing his comforter.

There soon issued the happy noises of a person who had stepped into their morning shower and found it ice cold. Then there were some thumping noises, as, Wren assumed, Neil was hitting the faucet, the wall, or the shower head, and a yell of fury as Neil remembered that he had lit a cigarette, and realized that it was now out. Wren grinned happily. Mornings with Neil were an experience he would not miss for anything.

Humming cheerily, he began to brew a pot of coffee. It was still a bit dangerous, since Neil did not begin to really function properly until he had been up for at least forty five minutes, but he thought Neil would probably be a little more awake than usual, due to his recent immersion in cold water.

As it turned out, he was wrong. Neil went into zombie mode almost immediately, but he was saved by a lucky chance. The comforter, which had gotten wedged between the door and the door frame when Neil had dragged it halfway inside the bathroom, had gotten jammed there, and stuck the door shut. Wren was treated to a serenade, the word 'coffee', repeated over and over, in a tone that grew more and more furious as time went on. It was accompanied by a rhythmic banging from inside the bathroom door. It sounded as if Neil were kicking it.

When the banging had increased to the point where it sounded as if Neil was actually throwing himself against the door, Wren took pity on him. “DOORKNOB!” he yelled helpfully.

There was a pause. Then, “Oh. Right.” came Neil's voice from the other side of the door. Soon after that, the door opened. Neil did trip over the comforter, but he recovered himself with dignity by grabbing hold of the standing lamp, and pretending that instead of falling over, he was dipping the lamp. Wren applauded, and poured him a mug of coffee.

“Coffee!” Neil yelled. 

“Yes Neil. Coffee. Did you know, you are absolutely hilarious in the morning. I swear, it's just like a slapstick comedy routine. All you need to do is make it a little more PG, and you could make movies! Be famous! I'm telling you Neil, it's a vocation!” Wren grinned, and took a large bite out of the bagel that had suddenly appeared on his plate.

“Mmf. Right. Famous. Movies. Me. Yes. Will. Can't sentence properly. Coffee.” said Neil. Wren just shook his head. Neil took a very large swig of his coffee, rubbed his eyes, shook his head, and said slowly and carefully, “What I meant by that. Was. Was, bite me. Idiot. I'm a writer.”  then he took a very deep breath, “And, um, and. Not straight. I mean. um. You know. Me. Not straight. Thought I should tell you. Best friend. Wotcher. Like, like, like. Moony. Padfoot. That. Yes.”

There was a pause, as Neil shifted uncomfortably, and Wren stared blankly, trying to figure out what he had said. Then it clicked. “OH! I couldn't figure out what the hell you were saying you morning drunk bastard. You're gay? Is that it? Um. That's nice?” there was a slightly awkward pause, then Wren said, “You know, you REALLY fucked that sentence up. And you call yourself a writer. Learn to speak buddy.”

Neil chuckled, and said, “Yes. Morning. Baaaad. Hate mornings a lot. Passion of a thousand fiery suns. Not in love with you by the way. Best friend. Only friend maybe. Dunno. Want cigarette.”

“Are you saying I'm your only friend? Neil, you realize that that's depressing. You sit in here all day and night, and you never DO anything,” and then Wren had a brilliant idea, “NEIL, I have a brilliant idea! Tonight, in celebration of your first, shitty grammared, semi awkward coming out speech, we are going to go do karaoke. I LOVE karaoke. I am the KING of karaoke. You will be the PRINCE of karaoke. It will be wonderful.”

Neil looked somewhat less than thrilled, “You do realize that the moment I get on stage I'll freeze, right?”

Wren looked shocked, “Neil! You made a grammatically correct sentence! It's your first this morning! I'm so impressed. And seriously, you think I'd let you go up there alone? We will do a duet. A duet from a musical. But it's your karaoke party thing, so you get to pick. Then you get to teach it to me, and then we get to practice for a bit, so that we can blow them all away.”

Neil still looked apprehensive, but he dragged a large box of CDs out from under the bed. In the box was everything from Pink Floyd to The Pink Panther, Metallica to Madonna. Wren had to comment on that one, “Madonna? Why didn't I guess you were gay before?”

“Because I didn't know it myself you dumbass. Here, this one.” Neil pulled out a CD called Into the Woods, and handed it to Wren, “We'll actually be doing two songs, 'Agony', and the reprise of 'Agony', because they go together. I want Rapunzel, but you can have Cinderella.”

Wren listened to the songs, and sang Cinderella's Prince's part perfectly after only listening to it once. When Neil commented, Wren just shrugged, and said, “I was in it in middle school. I forgot. I was the Wolf. 'Course, I didn't get the whole of the song then... but you know. I was eleven. Or ten maybe. I dunno.”

“That's so funny! I was Jack in fifth grade. It's one of my favourite musicals. Do you know Rent?”

“Yeah! My mom's a big musical person you know, and she always used to play her favourites in the house when I was little. She had a Rent phase. I always wanted to be Roger.”

“Ha! I always wanted to be Mark. Mark is so cool... plus, he gets to do a tango.”

“True, but Roger's got better hair.”

“Touché.”

They had a moment of Rented silence. Then Neil said quietly, “Mark was fucking Maureen though.”

Wren nodded, and they both had a moment of appreciation for this fact.

“Well,” said Wren eventually, we should get on with it. We gotta learn this thing, then I've got to do a couple deals. And then we will karaoke til the break of dawn!”

And they did.

After about a half hour of practice, in which Wren discovered that Neil's voice had changed from a tenor to a light baritone, they were excellent. Wren decided that, as the self proclaimed king of karaoke, he had to do more than just the two songs. He decided to do a couple of Beatles songs, just cause the Beatles were the best, and then he decided to do a Metallica one, because he felt like growling at people and making girls jump.

Neil got an inspiration about halfway through the day, in the middle of a video game they were playing. Wren halfheartedly killed off his character, and then decided to leave, since nothing interesting was likely to happen anytime soon anyway. Once Neil got into his inspirations, he just couldn't be reached. It was like talking to a brick wall. Except that if you actively interfered with a brick wall, it wouldn't usually punch you in the solar plexus. Also, brick walls are not black belts, and are actually quite easy to defeat. You just sing Pink Floyd songs at them, and they either swoon and fall in love with you, and obey your every command, or they crumble in horror, and try to run away.

Wren took the fanfiction book with him though, in a gesture of defiance which went completely unnoticed except for a vague mumble of something that might have been “bring it back” or could in fact have been “thing thing thing... blue, shiny, detonates upon contact with water, shaped like a fortune cookie, size of a lima bean... mumble mumble fumf.” Wren couldn't tell which it was, and considering that he didn't know what Neil was writing about, it could have been either.

Before he left, he put a container of microwaveable pad thai next to Neil, in a very obvious spot. He doubted that it would get a shred of notice until the inspiration was over and done with, but you never knew when that would happen, and Wren liked to make sure that Neil remembered to eat. He was liable to forget when not paying attention. 

Wren had known him to go for several days without nourishment except for coffee and cigarettes. It had been about two and a half days when Wren came over to find Neil slumped over his typewriter, twitching and giggling. He had almost called an ambulance, but had figured out what it was by the huge number of coffee cups scattered in a wide semi circle around the desk.

That time, he had been forced to administer water and pad thai forcefully, and in large quantities. Luckily for him, after the first few bites, Neil realized that he was practically throwing up from hunger, and had downed three packets in about ten minutes. Then he had thrown up because he had barely chewed his food. It had been an unpleasant situation for all involved, because Wren was one of those people who cannot see someone throwing up without throwing up himself. Thus they had both ended up feeling disgusting, and had eventually given up and gone to sleep, after eating some dry toast and applesauce.

Wren had no particular wish to revisit the situation, and thus whenever he was over, he always made a point of leaving food out where Neil could easily find it. He hoped that if it caught his eye, it might trigger his brain to realize that it hadn't eaten for a long time, and then he would eat it. Hopefully he would also remember to heat it up, but if he didn't... well, Wren didn't think there was anything too lethal in pad thai.

Neil, deep in his inspiration, just made a mumbling noise that could have been “thank you”, but also could have been, “that's not what you should be doing Mondego, not what you should be doing at all. Beware the evil that stalks to your left, and run to the goo that stalks on your right, for though both will kill you in the end, at least with the good on your side you'll be buried nicely. And as we all know, flowers are very important in the afterlife. And no, you daughter will not get raped by the creepy guy. Her brother gets her out of it obviously. Don't be stupid man, you know I hate rapists.”

Slightly shaken, Wren walked out of the room, locking the door behind him, and descended the stairs.