cerozer0 — Roleplayer Guild

Location: ► Phi Kappa Delta House ► His Room ◄
Interacting With: ► Archie @spooner, Cornelius @Hushed Whispers, Dante @Dirty Pretty Lies ◄

Mike was lonely, and, honestly, it was his fault entirely.

 It was his fault for finding relationships available to him disinteresting. It was his fault he preferred the company men to women. It was his fault he was still squarely packed away inside the closet, unready to leap forward with that all-encompassing "I'm Gay!" statement. It was his fault that he was lonely, because cowardice was often not rewarded with the love and affection those who hide crave. Mike contemplated his loneliness in bed, tucked up to his chin in a mountain of blankets as he heard the distant gulls and chirps of seabirds and sparrows. It was about five in the morning, and the others were still asleep, leaving the PKD house drenched in uncharacteristic silence. Silence gave way to thoughts, thoughts gave way to wishes. Mike wished he wasn't lonely, closed his eyes, and then opened them just as quickly to find his situation the same as it was every day.

In a few hours, he would have to be awake and normal for the back to school bonfire on the beach. Right now, he was free to toss and turn and imagine a life like the other boys in the house had.

When did he become so fucking sentimental? 

The house around him offered no solace for his troubles, but the familiarity made him feel whole. His loneliness was lesser surrounded by men who offered a semblance kinship. Some of them would understand him. If he really wanted this part of him free, Mike could just say it. Everything didn't have to be hidden. But... Was it really needed, in the end? Would they care? Would it change who he was, what he stood for?

Maybe another time, another day. He could stand the dark for a while longer.

Mike shuffled and rolled and sighed as the dawn turned into a sticky, sweaty morning. His phone had been checked at least three hundred times between the hours of five and nine a.m., and he made no noise until he heard the telltale screams and slams of men waking from a late night. Mike stayed in bed a while longer, listening to these familiar noises as if they would shoo away his doubts and actless thoughts. The Mississippi fall was still legions away, and as he turned to stare out his window he saw the blue skies and tiny clouds of a sweltering summer day. Septemeber be damned; this heat wave was bound to last until the first few days of October. Mike couldn't find any real anger about that, though. He loved the sun. It did wonders to stave away his seasonal depression.

Mike sat up eventually and stretched, pushing away his mountain of blankets and pillows to welcome in the cool breeze from his table-side fan. Getting ready went like this; shower, shave, style, stare at the closet for about forty minutes until he found something worth putting on. Sunshine, blue skies, and sandy beaches meant tropical prints and self-altered shorts. Down the hall, he could hear Archer's cries of perversion, probably being directed towards a certain properly-named fuckboy, and there were no signs of their president's megaphone yet. All in all, it sounded like a nice time to escape his dark room and socialize for a bit.

He drifted like a ghost through the fraternity house, tiptoeing around still quiet rooms as he descended the stairs and stole away a protein bar from the kitchen. He munched on it quickly and managed to finish it while quickly leafing through one of the history textbooks he had left on the island counter. The chapter divulged some gory details onto the story of William the Conqueror, and Mike couldn't help but think of it as some sort of premonition for how the rest of the day was bound to go. Maybe he was just paranoid. Maybe it's Maybelline. He closed the textbook, threw the wrapper away and found himself on the front steps in a matter of minutes.

Archer's car was already rumbling and cooling down. He saw the leg of Dante entering the passenger seat and the back of Cornelius' bowed head standing just beyond the car's bumper.

"Morning, bro." Mike said as he bound over to Cornelius and gave him a hearty slap on the back. "Sexting already, man? The girls just can't get enough of you." He laughed, careless and free and teasing, and shot Cornelius a thumbs up before walking up next to Archer's car door. He pounded his fist against the roof, hard enough to rattle the wipers, and grinned from ear to ear as he saw his best friend behind the wheel.

"'Sup Archie, Dante." Mike said once the window was rolled down, "Wanna race to the beach today? I really wanna burn some rubber." His own car was parked by the curb, looking small compared to some of the other jeeps and trucks in the area. His cherry-red Pontiac (aptly named Cherry Bomb) was about thirty-two years older than him and often smelled like gasoline and rotten leather when turned on, but it was the love of his life, and one of the few gifts he'd ever received from his father. Even if it was a crappy hand me down-- at least now it was his. 

"Bet I'll win this time." He challenged, eyes glittering behind bright-red framed sunglasses.

Richard King was never good at feeling things half way. He had a knack for getting overly upset, overly angry, overly sad. It wasn’t his fault entirely, at least. Sometimes it felt like the weight of everyone else’s world was stacking onto his shoulders. When that happened, it only seems fair to cry. So King sat on his car hood and held his face in his hands, tears falling freely as he tried to find his center and calm down, calm down.

The others left. They had to pack, to hide things away, to say goodbye maybe. The only one left with him was his sister, Astrid.

He wasn’t entirely prepared for her arms around him, holding him tight, nor was he ready for the overbearing numbness she was pressing under his skin. Astrid had a strange way of displaying her emotions. She was perhaps the hardest of their group for him to read; her sadness never fully formed in the same way it did with Mal or Aiden. It stunted, and froze, and became something similar to apathy. It was frightening, but during the harder days, where King was too overstimulated to make sense of anything around him, Astrid was like a shock blanket.

“It’s not how we expected to leave Verona behind, is it?” Said Astrid, her laugh a grim echo of the panic still wedged in King’s gut.

King said, “It’s fucked up, Az.” But he remained close, digging his chin gently into her shoulder as he fully embraced his apathetic little sister, “This is fucked. The others– the freshmen, God. Do you think they’re okay?”

“I don’t know.” Astrid responded, brutally honest as ever, “I don’t want to think about it. They–” Her voice wavered, stopped, pausing to collect itself, maybe. King could hear the unuttered word in her heartbeat. She continued, “We can’t worry about it right now; it’s out of our control.”

She gave up so easily. KIng couldn’t stand that quitter in her sometimes. 

“We’re going back got them.” Said King, firm in his morals despite the cracking of his tone. He brushed away tears with a stiff flick of the wrist and leaned back enough to meet his sister’s familiar, comforting eyes. “We have to. They trust us. We have to go back for them no matter what.”  King stood up, finally, and he felt the weight on his shoulders turn back into air. Everything began to fall back into place again. “We should pack, I guess. If we’re planning on leaving.”

“There’s not much time…” Astrid nodded, though. Her agreement was plable in the air. “There’ll be a chance to make plans or– mourn, I guess– soon, just not now.” She forced a signature smile, one that told him to relax, breathe, don’t think too hard about it, and passed him a tissue. King took it with a huff and blew his nose loudly.

“Don’t say mourn. They’re not dead.”

“Whatever.” Astrid pressed her hand into King’s shoulder, rubbing the goosebumps right away. “Just… Break something if you have to? Give Dad something to remember us by.” King mused her hair roughly, and he couldn’t fight the smirk of approval his sister’s words spurred.

“I’m going to tear this fucking house down, Az. I hope you’re going to do the same. He said, and gave her one last hug before stomping out into the house beyond.

The King’s abode was much like their father; extravagant, rich, shallow. Beautiful artwork and vases and flower pots lined ornately painted walls, filling the main living spaces with a sense of otherness. Walking through the glossy foyer and the unmarred kitchen felt like stepping into some foreign land at times, full of dangers and secrets that even the natives couldn’t fully understand yet. King snuck through the quiet halls as he normally did. His room came first, full of memories and smells he almost felt guilty to leave behind.

What should come with him?

Clothes, of course, a few piles of pants and flannel shirts and band tees. He had about fifteen pairs of shoes, twelve of which he was hesitant to part with, but the buzz in his pocket told him he had no time to fret over objects like these. He chose two pairs of sneakers and a pair of expensive and heavy boots, just in case they wandered across any wild snow storms. Next came important belongings; his crystals (gifted by Astrid), his guitar, his cassette tapes and CDs, his laptop. Every one of these items were important in different ways. Memories, and all that. He knew he couldn’t take them all.

King picked out three cassettes, one made by Aiden and the rest his own, and shoved them into his clothing bag. Five crystals joined them, as well as his old and half-broken Walkman. His duffel bag was filled with his laptop, toiletries, first aid kits, books and pencils and anything else he could steal away that could be used to discredit him. And, once his bags felt full, King began to rip apart his room. He tore into his posters and threw open his drawers and tossed old textbooks straight through his window. Catharsis came every time his fist opened, his voice rang, his home crumbled.

King carried his bangs downstairs and then turned to wreak havoc on the rest of the house. Ornate vases shattered, art burned. King tore apart his father’s work and his mother’s joy as easily as they did to him. He only paused to consider his work in his father’s study. Books surrounded him, warriors carrying Henry King’s hateful rhetoric. His father was the lead author on countless anti-witch books and essays, and King knew, somehow, this was another reason for his incessant abuse. 

King walked quietly through the library, striking and dousing matches as he contemplated what to do. His father’s safe was in here as well, looking like a crown jewel in its hidden apartment behind a few fake spines. Money was inside, probably. He had a vague memory of Henry counting bills in the silence of his study, saving them for something. King rested his hand against the cold metal, dragged his finger along the dial, and then began entering codes. Henry’s birthday. His mother’s birthday. Astrid’s birthday. The day the King’s settled in America (April 1st, 1916). The day Knight, their loyal dog, died. 

He was surprised when his own birthday was the code needed. The surprise turned to unadulterated delight as he saw stacks upon stacks of green bills clumped up in the center of the safe. King quickly gathered all of the money into his duffel bag, counting out loosley at least a few thousand dollars. It was a fucking Christmas fucking miracle.

The buzz of his cellphone pulled him from his moment of ecstasy. King stared down at the text written by his sister and sucked on his lip, feeling the wrathful tentacles of anxiety curling once more in his stomach,

Was he ready?

No. But, eventually, he would have to be. Lying hopefully now may eventually lead to a real truth.

King lit a match and threw it into the safe, catching the few remaining files and papers in there ablaze. Then, with one, shaking hand, he typed out a reply:

i’m ready

Astrid waited a few heartbeats once her brother left before tip-toeing up to her room. ‘Children should be seen and not heard’ was a difficult habit to break. Shutting the door behind her, tears burned at the corners of her eyes. The smell of sage burnt in ceremony less than twelve hours ago hit her like a truck.

By sitting down on her bed she risked being unable to get back up again, and instead merely grazed her knuckles against the numerous woven blankets. Packing. She could only imagine what the others were taking from their bedrooms right now.

She wasn’t frantic enough, that was the problem. Astrid spun around like one of her records left on the turntable, but without the needle-point precision of knowing what would be important a week, a month down the line, she was just as aimless.

Deep breath. One item at a time. What should she take?

Laptop. Small and dainty, adorned with peeling stickers. While some kind Taken-esque tracking device was not outside her father’s M.O., the great Henry King was probably saving that for her college years. That could go with her. On the off-chance they seized her belongings, Astrid didn’t want her online contacts, fellow practitioners and suppliers, to be the slightest bit at risk. What else?

Polaroids. Dozens of them strung up with fairy lights. A handful pinned to the corkboard above her desk, below the whiteboard Message of the Day: ‘Cheer up!’ One flick of the wrist later and they were peeling themselves from the wall, fluttering down to land on the rug. Mal’s goofy grin. Jess, Aiden and Rich down by the river. Alex pouring over books. Charlotte and Nick clinging to each other to squeeze into frame. There would be no photos left behind for them to use on posters or milk cartons. None of her collection, at least.

She collected them all from the floor, shuffling the thick stack into its proper alignment like a deck of cards.

After that, she turned her attention to all the secret places in her room, every loose floorboard and hole in the wall. Astrid pulled out plastic containers of crystals, incense sticks and travel-sized candles from her sock drawer, spiral and leather-bound notebooks alike from under her bed –– everything she needed to assemble an altar on-the-go. They were already portable, easy to move around, easy to hide, which made selecting what to tie up in a black velvet bag was simple.

When she had two tote bags resting by the door, she texted the group:

ready when u guys are

She was not ready. 

1) There was no getting around the fact that she had relaxed prematurely, as she had yet to pick out more than a few comfortable t-shirts, a selection of unmentionables and her comfiest pair of jeans. More space was taken up by her threadbare stuffed lion (for nostalgia’s sake!) than essentials. That would have to change in the next five minutes. 

2) Could someone ever be ready to leave the home they’d grown up in, the only one they had ever known – and probably would ever know? The suits at school, they hadn’t found her. They might not even be looking for her, in the end, and she could happily live out the last of her eighteen-year term at the King residence and flee to college like a normal teenager. 

Astrid’s busy hands paused in the middle of folding a blanket to take in the car with her. What if she didn’t have to go?

Picture perfect suburbia was five friends who lived in houses adjacent to each other –– with only one small exception in Jess. Though Aiden lived on the other side of his fence, Mal didn’t stick around to wait for him in the garage. The kitchen door of the King residence swung out behind him and struck the wall hard enough for the glass to wobble; the latch on the gate at the bottom of the garden went untouched; and he made it home with tight lungs and a twinge of phantom pain.

Fumbling with the key left scratches around the metal circumference of the lock. The house was empty, as per usual. Dad would have been at the clinic, and Mom worked part-time at the mayor’s office. Whether that was a bad thing or not remained to be seen. He twisted a lock of hair over and over again, weakening it until a few strands came loose. If he had anything else as support, or anyone to tell him in quiet, calm tones that it was all going to be okay, he wouldn’t leave. Couldn’t, most likely.

But nobody was home, nobody but him. Nobody to see him speed through the house like a bat out of hell, plucking ragged tomes from the bookshelves in the living room where they hid in plain sight. Nobody to apologise to when he lifted up the rug in the bedroom and smudged the white chalk circle underneath with his shirt sleeves until it looked like a scene from Scarface.

Memorabilia littered the house, all of it his. It was the liberty of not having to hide his craft. His parents knew. They knew and they didn’t care. One of his aunts read palms. His uncles on the opposite side had libraries of illicit and illegal texts that they happily loaned out to him whenever they visited for the holidays, with the promise that he not damage the spines. Astrid and King would never understand what that felt like –– Aiden even more so. Hell, they were probably rampaging through their house like a wrecking ball, breaking and burning and ripping everything apart at the seams.

Then again, he might have been doing the same thing, albeit with intentions other than pure mischief. He threw century-old manuals and printed-out PDFs alike into a tote. Whatever he left behind in his parents’ house was dangerous, not to him, but to those he cared for. Each suspect item of magical interest was a smoking gun to dispose of.

By the time he thought he was done, he had a cardboard box full of books and a high-volume hiking bag full of miscellaneous clothes; some of them his, others borrowed from King, Aiden, Jess. A matching sleeping bag, rolled up and strapped to the outside, reminded him of how he hated their one foray into the wilderness, even after he’d spent so much on ‘equipment’. Now was the time to put it to good use, as he imagined the others wouldn’t prepare for the worst case scenario: becoming wild men of the woods, living off the land, and growing chest-length beards to scare off bears.

The dull, hazy blue of his room was a comforting blanket he never wanted to leave. Nobody had checked in except Astrid, so he still had time to do one last thing. Tearing out an unlined page from his math notebook, he folded it in two like a book, addressing it to his parents on the front. It read like this, with every third word scored out and rewritten in a messier hand:

Mom & Dad,

Incident at school today – have to leave with the others, and I’ll be gone before you get home. I can’t promise I’ll be able to call when I get to a safe place, but I’ll try my best to find some way to contact you. Get rid of anything left in the house that looks suspicious, and please, keep yourselves safe.

Love you,
Mal

When it came to packing, Jess was such a stereotypical girl it wasn’t even funny. Even when she was just sleeping over at Astrid’s for a few days, she was armed with a duffle bag full of clothes, backpack full of makeup, skin care, hair products, several electronic devices and their corresponding chargers. No matter what, Jess was always armed to the teeth with all of the things that she might need in any given situation, and even more of the stuff she would never need.

How was she supposed to stuff her entire life away into a few bags to run away? Briefly, the annoying get-to-know-you question that got asked at every single retreat and team-building exercise flashed in her mind. If you got stranded on an island and could only bring three things, what would you bring? Jess hated that question, it was so stupid. She was always the smartass that answered with some game-breaking thing like ‘a fully furnished luxury cruise ship with autopilot and the GPS coordinates for the nearest city’.

Now she was paying the price for not figuring out what was the most important to her ahead of time.

Jess tore through her room, haphazardly pulling things from shelves, closets and drawers to toss them into the growing pile on her bed. Clothes for every occasion and weather; any item that was even slightly magic-related; books, notebooks and all sorts of stationary; any and all the gifts, trinkets and presents that she’s hoarded over the years… By the time Jess finished with grabbing what she considered the ‘bare minimum’, about half of her room was picked apart and strewn over her bed and floor.

People always told Jess that she was too materialistic and that she had too much stuff. She had always denied it but now the damning evidence was staring at her right in the face. It would probably take a moving truck to fit everything that she wanted to. Even after she went through and dug out every single magical tome, artifact, tools or scribbles and dumped them into her waiting duffle bag (they were the highest priority, even she knew that), the huge pile of her belongings barely subsided.

Jess planted her hands on his hips and pursed her lips. How the hell did people on reality shows pack enough shit for three months in just two suitcases?

Aiden crept through the silent house, checking to make sure that he was one-hundred percent alone. He ghosted by every single open door, peeking in just casually enough to explain away his presence as just passing through if someone was inside. Every door was hesitantly knocked upon, with a million excuses waiting on the tip of his tongue just in case someone actually answered.

He did a sweep of the house once, twice, thrice. Checking, double-checking and triple-checking, until he finally could assure his racing heart that yes, no one was home. Even with that reassurance forced to the forefront of his mind, Aiden ran upstairs two steps at a time and locked his bedroom door firmly behind him. Unnecessary, perhaps but it was a habit and a comfort thing at this point.

The only time Aiden ever dared to even bring his magical belongings out in his room was when the door was locked and bolted, and all of the curtains were drawn. His brother had the disruptive tendency to barge into his room whenever he pleased, and his parents never really respected the “knock before entering” thing that they had instilled in him harshly for years.

With practiced ease, Aiden rolled up the rug on the floor to reveal the one floorboard that he had pried loose years ago. He traced a rounded symbol onto the wooden panel not to cast a spell, but as a passcode to remove the board. It was a simple protection charm that was surprisingly difficult to cast — Mal and Aiden had spent a week putting their heads together, attempting to figure out how it worked.

Everything that held any sort of importance to Aiden was buried here, far from the reaches of his family. It wasn’t just the well-worn spiral notebooks that Aiden had filled with notes, experimental spells, observations and even some feelings (they were quickly scrawled out with pen), the bundles of incense, the small pocket knife or the small handful of gemstones he had accumulated over the years that was hidden away here. The misshapen failed prototype of a mug that Astrid had so graciously given to him; the small walkman that was obscure and outdated in this day and age, but Aiden kept it around for King and his vintage tastes; the binder full of magical cocktail recipes that he had managed to scrape together from various resources that he had gathered as a gift to Mal; all the tarot cards that Jess declared she didn’t want and dumped it all on him; they were all in here too.

It only took a few minutes to scoop them all and carefully place them into his reasonably sized suitcase. Shirts went in next, carefully wrapped around the more breakable objects he had. Aiden didn’t have much to his name that he cared about, and it only took about ten minutes to pack up the essentials — everything else were things he was eager to leave behind.

After dragging his suitcase and bags downstairs and wreaking havoc in the immaculate house by clumsily knocking things over with his luggage and not bothering to pick them up — take that mom — Aiden found himself in the garage to retrieve some things from his car. A car charger, some cash he hid in the compartments, auxiliary cord... They were all tossed into the front pocket of his backpack.

Something wasn't right. Just as he turned to leave, Aiden pivoted around again to glance at the garage with a frown. There was nothing he could pinpoint as off, but something was different. Something familiar, but something that shouldn’t be here. The garage was silent, but it was almost as if there was some sort of hum in the air, something that he knew well something like—

Something like magic.

Aiden’s brow knit together — no one else in his family practiced magic, he was sure of that. But that energy in the air, it was unmistakable. Aiden lived it, practiced it, breathed it day in and day out, there was no way he would get it wrong. With his hand outstretched, he walked towards the empty area where the magic tingled the most in the air.

His foot knocked by a small projector-looking device on the ground, and the jig was up. As the device clattered away, an old yellow van that looked like it was straight from a 60s magazine revealed itself, seemingly materializing out of nowhere. In awe, Aiden tentatively placed his hand on the dusty surface of the van.

It was magic, he was sure of it. It was old, it had seen better days, but magical energy was humming under his fingers, and the small device couldn’t have been charged with this much magic. 

 A magical van hidden behind some sort of cloaking device powered by magic.

Guys, you’ll never guess what I found.

Send.

cerozer0 Member

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