gooseberryhigh | ONE MORE PLACEHOLDER

Who: A couple of Lewises
When: End of July
Where: Xavier's parents' house
What: Picking up his stuff before moving into his apartment. I just wanted to get this in under the wire B)
Warnings: language, and also absolutely nothing of interest happens in this

Xavier stands in the hall outside of what used to be his bedroom, feeling an uncomfortable mixture of relief and melancholy and anxiety tight in his throat, though none of it shows on his face. This room was never really decorated, but now it’s stripped bare. A single, large cardboard box, overfull with stuff - his stuff - sits in the center of the room. Just the one. It’s sort of satisfying, in a geometric, aesthetic kind of way. Sort of depressing in others.

This is it.

Something crunches loudly behind him and Xavier gives a start. Nisha’s there, having snuck up on him like a shitty version of the Batman, a 1000 count jug of Utz cheese balls, practically a third as big as she is, in one arm; she clutches the vat like it’s a fat baby and stuffs a fistful of the neon orange puffed corn spheres in her mouth.

Xavier inhales sharply, shoulders rising and falling, but he doesn’t look at her. “So, uh, Ankita and David – not here on purpose?”

“Dude, that’s a complicated question,” is the start of his sister’s reply, mumbled thoughtfully through a mouthful of food-like product.

He turns to her, now, corners of his mouth twitching up when he sees her cheeks stuffed full with cheese puffs. She looks hamsterish.

Nisha glares. A challenge. “Wut?”

Grin pulling across his face, Zav shrugs his shoulders. “Nothin’,” he says with barely contained amusement before turning away from her to fetch the box of his belongings.

“Mmhmm.” A loud crunch signals another handful of cheese puffs consumed. “Anyway, the question you really have to ask is: do they do anything on purpose? I haven’t figured out yet.”

He glances over his shoulder at his little sister, brows lifting. “If you say, ‘do any of us really do anything on purpose?’ I’m gonna turn you upside down.”

She tries to suck her teeth at him, but ends up aspirating cheese-product powder, instead, and descends into a coughing fit. Dropping her beloved vat-of-cheese-puffs-slash-baby on the hardwood floor as she doubles over.

There’s a moment of genuine concern that hits Xavier like a dart, square in his chest, when she starts to choke. But it also makes him laugh out loud, a guffaw that is as terribly affectionate as it is cruel. “Jackass.”

They stand around like that for a while; him laughing, her coughing. When she extends her arm, shaking, to give him the middle finger, it only prolongs the ordeal, and it takes them a while to regain their composure.

Once Nisha’s fit has calmed to one last, miserable, “ech,” Xavier turns his attention back to his things, picking through the items on the top of the box, smile fading in slow increments. A few books and notebooks, linens and a blanket, a rolled up poster, headphones, a Nintendo DS, a pencil topper of a pokemon he doesn’t know the name of, an ancient Spiderman action figure missing an arm. Underneath all that, there’s a framed photo of he and his former cabinmates, mugging for the camera and laughing. Xavier’s nerves sizzle at the sight of it, too many emotions suddenly wrestling for dominance in his head.

Xavier barely notices his sister behind him until she’s right there.

“You gonna be okay, duder?” She asks, trying to sound impatient but landing closer to concerned. Xavier feels her hand hover just centimeters away from his shoulder before she snaps it away, deciding against such a gesture.

It makes him feel worse for a second, but then it grounds him. He stuffs the photo back in the box hastily, expecting Nisha to make some snide comment if she sees it, and hefts the whole thing up into his arms. “Yeah.”

She doesn’t seem satisfied with that answer, and after an awkward gap in the admittedly already abnormal conversation, changes the subject. “Oh, here, Mom told me to give you this,” Nisha pulls an envelope from the back pocket of her jeans and stuffs it into the box. “It’s money, I told her you wouldn’t want it.”

“I don’t,” Zav huffs, curt.

“Well I took the passive aggressive note she included out for you. But you need it - the money - and I was going to just keep it for myself, but, like, first of all, I am, like, super magnanimous and secondo - I was thinking: what the hell am I going to do with money?” Xavier’s little sister shrugs heavily, then pulls something else out of her back pockets – a familiar cosmetics bag, which she waves in the air tauntingly. “Speaking of magnanimous.”

“Holy shit,” Xavier nearly drops the box in his scramble to retrieve the bag, eventually settling on setting it all down again.

“I got your drugs for ya before Annie or Dave could find them, ya fuckin’ reprobate,” Nisha teases. There is no realm in the multiverse where a 4’10” girl could successfully play keep away from a big brother who is a full foot taller than her, so she half-heartedly dangles the contraband an arm’s length away from him and lets him snatch it from her hands without further fuss. “Who stores that shit in a dresser drawer? And why you hide it in a makeup bag, anyway?”

“Maybe, I, like, hide my makeup in my drugs bag,” Xavier corrects her with one of those wide-eyed, 'how about that?’ looks. He unzips it, does a quick inventory of the contents, and then, a complete afterthought, adds, deadpan, “Don’t do drugs.”

“Only performance enhancers,” she replies, flexing her biceps like an itty-bitty Mr. Universe contestant.

Xavier laughs, a bright noise that starts as a snort. He lazily hits her with the cosmetics bag before stuffing it carefully into the bottom of the box.

His sister grins, proud, at the sound of it. “Hey, fucko, how come you aren’t asking me if I’ll be okay?”

“You’ll be fine. I’m not, like, worried,” Xavier says, hefting his cardboard box up once more.

Nisha ducks her head, as though she’s misheard him. She works her jaw a moment. “I wouldn’t mind if you were worried.”

“Alright, listen,” Zav bends forward, closing the space between them and speaking seriously. “I don’t like that you’re going to Gooseberry after what happened, but, like, you’re a tank, Nini. I’m more worried about you destroying the school than I am the school hurting you.” A lie. “Don’t fuck with the Ornery Oak, though. Or drink any tea. Or mess with things that leave you forest gifts. Or go in the Grotto. Or, like, play seven minutes in heaven. At all. Ever. Don’t.”

“What the fuck is seven minutes in heaven?” Nisha snorts, rolling her eyes.

The fact that she doesn’t know what it is fills Xavier with an almost tangible sense of dread. “Be careful,” he says, sounding suddenly, genuinely fearful.

Nisha stares at him, brow knit, as she retrieves her cheese balls and pops a few in her mouth. “Are you aware that you’re an asshole, or…?”

Xavier thinks about this a moment. He tilts his head to the side, ponderous, and steps out of his former bedroom. He’s well past his sister, most of the way down the hall,when he finally responds. “Do any of us really do anything on purpose?”

“Fuckin’ hell.”

ONE MORE PLACEHOLDER

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