[Master Post – Glass]
Title: Something in It
Fandom: Viridian Legacy: Glass
Characters: Arkady, Betty
Rating: T (L2 N0 S0 V1 D2)
Warnings: Expletives, references to violence, references to drugs, references to condoms, underage drinking, 1980s teenagers
Notes: I hadn't done anything with these two that wasn't somehow horrible. So, now you get something … kind of like fluff. I want to say they're probably sixteen or seventeen, here.
"Evan?" Liz leaned around the wall, looking into the living room, where Evan lay sprawled on her couch, with the first pan of brownies and a bottle of Red Stripe.
"Mmph?" He sat up and washed the mouthful of warm chocolate down with a swig of beer. "Are they done? Are you going to come eat these with me?"
"It's ten. Shouldn't you call your mom?"
Evan's mouth opened and closed, in surprise, brownie crumbs unsticking themselves from his black lipstick. "Crap. It's ten? How is it ten? It was just eight!"
"And then we made two pans of brownies. It's ten." Liz stood in the doorway, licking brownie batter off a mixing spoon.
"Shit!" Evan pulled himself off the couch and put down his beer. "Thank you, dearling," he purred, kissing Liz's cheek as he stepped past her into the hall. In the kitchen, he picked up the phone.
"Hi, mom. I'm not coming home tonight. … What? No, no. I'm over at Liz's." He'd made this call a hundred times. Nothing new.
Liz squeezed past him to check on the second pan of brownies, and then pulled herself up to sit onto the counter by the sink, where she looked contemplatively at the bowl that still had streaks of brownie batter.
Evan choked, eyes crossing as he tried to stare at the phone without taking it away from his ear. "Mom! It's just Liz! We've known each other since we were like six! Don't you think if that was going to happen it would have?"
"It already did!" Liz stage-whispered, from across the room.
Evan stared at her in horror, putting a finger over his grimacing lips, in the universal gesture for 'holy shit, shut up in case she can hear you!' He recovered, somewhat, as a blush started to spread up from his cheeks and onto his forehead. Fortunately, he was wearing enough make up that it was hard to see. Unfortunately, Liz knew exactly what she was looking for and at.
"Yes, mom, condoms. I know. No! I don't need any. Thank you. It's not like that! Oh my god, mom, it's just Liz."
Across the room, Liz had one hand firmly clasped over her mouth, as she snorted her laughter, in a most un-ladylike fashion. She might never hear the end of it, but if he said anything, she had ammunition.
"Mom, she's right here, and she's laughing hysterically. It's not going to happen." Evan waved for Liz to move her hand and held out the phone. She complied, cackling at top volume, until Evan took the phone back.
"What? Yes. I'm sure it is. No, you're right, I'll never find another girl like that." He aimed his best what-the-fuck face at Liz, who was now laughing so hard, she could barely breathe. "Liz? My mom wants me to marry you."
She fell off the counter and dropped almost gracefully to sit on the floor, her ankles crossed and her knees pulled up to her shoulders, still laughing silently, between gasps for breath.
This time, he was a little offended. I mean, yeah, it was never anything serious, but that had to have been worth at least a smartass remark. "Yeah, mom, she doesn't think that's going to happen. … No, mom, I'm not into guys. Yes, really. — What? What the hell does my lipstick have to do with anything?"
Liz finally recovered to sporadic giggles and held out her hand for the phone. "Let me talk to her."
"She wants to talk to you. I'm going to give her the phone, until you start making sense." He shook his head and gave the phone to Liz, untwisting a few tangles in the cord, so it would reach. "Would you…? I can't even…" He made an exasperated sound and stomped off to get his beer from the living room. He'd barely started drinking it, and maybe that was the problem.
"Hi, Mrs. Newkirk! Yes, we're having a great time. We're just having some brownies and listening to music." Liz laughed. "No, ma'am. My mom would never let us get away with that. Just regular brownies. … Mom? Oh, she's fine. Work, you know."
Evan came back with his beer and leaned against the stove, listening. Pot brownies; that was so his mom.
"Oh, you know Evan. He's such a sweetheart. But, he's like my brother, and that would be so weird!" Liz laughed again. "Yeah, he does. But, he looks so good in it! He does! He looks just like Jane Russell— I know! I love that movie!"
Beer. The only answer to this was obviously beer. Evan wasn't sure if this counted as Liz making it better, or making it worse. He took a long drink and stared at the bottle, for a while.
"Noooo, he's really not. I would know." Liz shook her head, and almost pulled the phone off the wall. "The girls that like him aren't good enough." She said it like it was a fact. Not that he didn't think they were good enough, but that they just weren't. "And the ones he likes all have brothers on the football team."
"I think I get punched in the face enough already, mom!" Evan called toward the phone. "Thanks!"
"Well, he does!" Liz protested into the phone. "He looks like a panda, when he washes his face! But, you know how it is, it's all about whose dad can make people's lives difficult."
She listened contemplatively, for a few moments. "Your mom says the next time somebody starts the 'my dad' thing, you should tell them your dad could have them audited by the IRS."
Evan stopped drinking and just stared. "Nerd-violence. I like it, but I don't think it's really going to help. Why are you talking to my mom about me getting punched in the face?"
"You started it." Liz laughed again. "Yes, ma'am. I do my best. I'll tell him. … No, no, I won't punch him in the other eye. … Thanks. … You too. We'll see you tomorrow."
She stood up to hang up the phone, pulling Evan's hair as she leaned past him. "Your mother loves you. Now stop leaning on the oven. I think the brownies are done."
"Brownies have been done," he protested, stepping around Liz, so his hair wrapped around her neck. It wasn't really long enough, so he ended up with his nose in her ear, until she let go. "They're in the other room, getting cold."
Liz opened the oven and poked the brownies with a skewer. "And now we have more," she said, closing the oven and turning it off. "You don't tell your mom anything, do you?"
"What? Sure I do. Just not a lot. You know what moms are like. They worry. Especially mine. Well, ok, not yours. Yours would just kill me." He paused. "Why does your mom hate me?"
"Because you look more like Jane Russell than she does." Liz laughed and headed back toward the living room. "No, I think it's your family. She can't get over how unmotivated and middle class you guys are. I mean, I think it's great that your dad's happy with his job, and he's not constantly trying to do something 'better'." She made finger quotes. "I just can't imagine my mom ever liking something enough to settle down and stop pushing."
"So, wait, she hates me because my dad's happy with his job? That's fucking stupid." Evan finished his beer and opened another one, handing the fresh bottle to Liz. "It is!"
"It's more like she thinks you'll never amount to anything because your family is happy and you're weird." Liz took the beer and cut a brownie for herself.
"I'm not w—… wait. Yes, I am. Ok, I'm weird, and I come from a happy family. So what? One day, Liz, one day we'll be on posters, and there will be screaming fans, and we'll be rich. We'll have everything." Evan turned sideways on the couch, draping his legs over the arm, and put his head in Liz's lap. "Unmotivated. Pfft. We're going to be in an awesome band."
With that, he grabbed the knife and the bottle opener and started tapping on everything he was decently sure he wouldn't scratch.
"We don't have a guitarist or a singer," Liz pointed out. "Nobody makes it without a guitarist and a singer."
"It's the eighties, Liz. Who needs guitars? You have a synthesizer. It's like sci-fi future music. We're going to be awesome. We're going to be awesomer than awesome." Evan punctuated the entire thing with the sounds of metal on glass and metal on metal.
Liz looked down. "Have another brownie, you dweeb. Are you sure you're not stoned?"
"When have you ever known me to be stoned, my darling dear?" He managed to look offended, but cut himself another brownie, anyway. "Dweeb. Me. And right after you said I looked like Jane Russell. You're lucky you make good brownies."
