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@havetoflyhavetofight
Well hello, you fine people - you.
It’s been ages. Yes, ages indeed! And you probably thought I forgot all about you! Here I am again, Tootles - good as new.
Checking in to see what’s been going on!
Leave me some love. You know you want to ;)
Second star to the right and straight on till morning!
The Bus Terminal
"And how do Greek boys my age live?" He asked curiously, raising his eyebrow at her. "I’d be thrilled to know what it is like." He adjusted his sweatshirt, rolling up his sleeves. He wanted to shower - badly. He wanted to rest and lay his head down on a pillow, but it seemed it would be several more hours until then.
"And so, while I stay in the Guest House, where will you be?" Tootles already figured she’d be in the main house with her family, where she belonged. It was better to leave him out in the guest house, transition them back to the way things had been - with them away from each other. Perhaps separation would be easier that way. He hoped that it would be the case for himself.
"First they shower," she told him. "Then have dinner and drinks with the men, and head out to go clubbing for at about eleven. You might want to sleep between dinner and leaving, though. You don’t usually come back until early in the morning and I can’t imagine you slept well on that plane." Apollo could probably be persuaded to postpone the outing, and most likely would be. Taren would likely be harassed by her family with questions about himself, and would be tired from that on top of the long flight that they had just taken. She was positive that all of that – paired with the stress that the two of them had experienced a the bus terminal – would make him sleep like the dead.
"For now, I’m sleeping on my brother’s couch. His wife just had a baby, so their guest room was converted and my parents converted my room after I graduated high school and didn’t return to Greece. I think they assumed that I would never come home." Meg, herself, had assumed that she would not return to Greece for many years. But, clearly, things had changed. "It’s only temporary. I’ll get an apartment nearby soon and live there."
They walked through the airport to where they would grab their bags and waited for the luggage to appear. Meg had almost been too paranoid to let the airport handle her luggage, but she knew that the large knife that she had inherited from Jack would not go over well with the TSA. When the large black duffel bag came around, she grabbed it and put her arms through the loops like it was a backpack. The two of them walked down to the strip where cars of people were picking up their loved ones, and Meg hailed a cab.
Tootles watched as she hailed a cab, speaking in her native-tongue. She was so beautiful. He couldn't stop glancing at her, despite their fatigue, and despite what all had transpired back at his apartment. When they slipped into the cab, he sat quietly, glancing at his dead phone and then back at her.
"Maybe.. you can tell them that I'll go out with them, if I can get some rest before hand." He said quietly. "Should I expect anything or anticipate anything from your parents? Anything you want me to say, some story to stick to?" He would at least give her the benefit of a pre-determined story.
"You know - you wouldn't have to get your own place. If it came to it, you could stay in the Guest House. I can go stay in a place or something, if it is that I stay. And if its not, then you at least have a temporary home there instead of a sofa."
He didn't want to think about possibly leaving, but it was something that could happen - and he knew that.
"You know - I have to ask this to you, Meg. Do you want me to go out with other women? Would you really be okay with that?" Tootles was hardly planning to do anything in Greece - not living with her family, and certainly not with her carrying a baby- whether it was his or not. "You're going to find that I have no interest in dating other people at the moment. Call me an idiot, but I'm only here in hopes to rekindle things with you."
He probably was the biggest idiot, and he was okay with that. "And I'm going to do whatever it takes. Like it or not." He didn't look at her for that part. He stared straight ahead. When the car seemed to halt, Taren scratched his head a bit, smirking. "And here I thought we were going to have to ride a donkey the rest of the way. That your family lived in one of those blue-top homes out near the sea with no in-door plumbing." He could have swore he heard her say something about watching too much Mama Mia. Which he would have clearly denied. Come on- him? Mama Mia. He might have seen it like.. once.
"I guess I'll let you do the talking." He murmured, smirking.
The Bus Terminal
Tootles didn’t have much to say on the cab trip to the airport, nor did he in the lobby area, awaiting the plane. Nor did he on the plane. He stuck his headphones into his ears and started to play the gentle hum of music on his phone, letting his eyes grow heavy from exhaustion. It had just been a few nights ago that he had been mak- having sex with Meg, and now they were both on a plane to go visit and see her family. He was the friend. The odd ball out. How was he going to evens explain his presence. Perhaps it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like Meg was going to introduce him as the child’s father. He was the friend. Maybe, some day, he’d write a letter to his child, and tell them how he had come to Greece, to make sure that their mother was alright - and that he wanted to be in their life; he wanted to make sure Meg was happy and cared after. That’s all he had ever wanted.
Tootles dreamed of that time before. The time of cigarettes and starry nights. He dreamed of gold bracelets and tears. He had come along way from that time.
When he woke, he felt a head on his shoulder, noticing it was Meg, who had fallen asleep. The cabin around them was quiet, as was everyone else asleep. He asked one of the stewardesses to give him a blanket, handing over a few American bills to them, and then carefully, wrapped her in it.
As soon as the wheels of the airplane touched ground, Meg jolted awake. The flight had been long, and she had ended up sleeping most of the time, but her sleep had not been restful. She kept having those dreams. Horrible ones with loved ones dying in her arms over and over, as if the world was on repeat and wanted to watch her suffer. It was all she could do not to scream out as she was suddenly shocked back into consciousness. Instead, she white-knuckled the arm rest and concentrated on getting her heart rate back to a normal state. The nightmares weren’t new, she just wasn’t used to experiencing them with an audience. When she realized that this audience – Taren, specifically – was looking at her, she took a deep breath and smiled at him. “Landings have always freaked me out,” she informed him.
This was not one bit a lie, it just happened to be compounded with the lingering memory of watching the likely father of her child dying a very painful death. When they were told that they could use phones again, Meg pulled out hers and dialed her brother’s number. He answered and she had a quick conversation with him about arrangements for sleeping and how the day was going to go. The conversation was held entirely in Greek, though hers was a bit worse off than she had hoped, and she knew that Taren would not be able to understand it.
"That was my brother," she told him, though she guessed that he could tell that already. "He says that my pa- grandfather is very excited to meet you. Apparently he’s already got the guest house set up. My parents will be meeting use for dinner at his house, but they won’t be staying too late. I guess my dad has to work in the morning or something. Mama doesn’t want him too tired, I suppose. But Apollo said that if you were up to it, he would like to take you out and show you ‘how Greek boys your age live.’ His words, not mine."
"And how do Greek boys my age live?" He asked curiously, raising his eyebrow at her. "I'd be thrilled to know what it is like." He adjusted his sweatshirt, rolling up his sleeves. He wanted to shower - badly. He wanted to rest and lay his head down on a pillow, but it seemed it would be several more hours until then.
"And so, while I stay in the Guest House, where will you be?" Tootles already figured she'd be in the main house with her family, where she belonged. It was better to leave him out in the guest house, transition them back to the way things had been - with them away from each other. Perhaps separation would be easier that way. He hoped that it would be the case for himself.
☾
Tootles opened his eyes to see Meg asleep. The main menu to "The Walking Dead" was still playing on his TV, and he scurried around the bed sheets, trying to find the remote - and finally. Finally. He turned it off, and was left in the quiet. He wasn't going to wake Meg up and make her get back home. He wasn't that ruthless- whatever she might believe. He glanced at her again and smiled. She wasn't all that bad either - He pushed himself up from the coverlet and took one of the extra blankets and covered her with it. And after a moment, Tootles made his way to the living room, where he crashed on the sofa.
The Bus Terminal
"Buy your own." He mumbled softly, sliding a hand through his hair as he pushed past her towards his bed and closet. He started to pull out his suitcase and quietly folded up shirts. It had been a long while since he had packed - and longer still since he had actually made an effort to have his clothes look half decent in the suitcase. As he packed, he started to think about what this would mean for him - moving to Greece. Being only the friend - meeting woman who would speak lovely Greek and perhaps throw themselves at him. Perhaps it would only take one for Meg to come back to him - to know that she loved him.
Perhaps it wouldn’t matter how many. He watched her as he remained quiet. The after-effects of their conversation was still fresh in his mind; realization of who she was, and who she had been in his mind - perhaps even who he was, and who he had thought he was to her. Would they always be this confusing storm? He felt as if he were trapped on a roller-coaster, watching everything getting smaller and smaller as the cart moved higher and higher on the track; Meg’s beautiful smile greeting his with an assurance that “Everything would be okay.” But the impending doom of knowing that gravity falls - everything must come to an end in a certain way - innocence is lost. Relationships either move forward, ending a chapter and beginning another, or they end completely. Life is lived and then it is over. Green Lights ultimately become Red. Tootles would always be a boy who loved his lost-girl, but perhaps she wasn’t as lost as he had thought - or even so, perhaps she was so far from his grasp that he’d never get the chance to love Meg again.
Not the way she deserved - and not the way he imagined.
He closed his suitcase, and made a jumble of a few more things, as he grabbed his cell-phone, deciding to order his tickets right on one of those stupid niffty apps. At least one of them had come into handy.
"Ready?" He asked after a moment, glancing in her direction.
"Ready," she repeated. Meg had been prepared to leave at a moment’s notice for weeks. She had a go-bag ready, a clean passport, and enough money to get her anywhere she needed to go. Taking someone with her was not what she had expected to come from this little trip into the past, but she wasn’t entirely sure it was a bad thing. She was finally going to be done with fear instilled in her from the Carte family. This plane ticket was her way of telling them that they no longer had to worry about her. She was almost directly in between Singapore and Chicago. Anything that happened in either place would no longer be of her concern, and she hoped that they knew that. After all, the family was quite resourceful. If they wanted her dead, they could have killed her long ago. But she had been allowed to live. There must have been some merciful god looking down on her.
Meg emailed her ticket to herself, then grabbed her bag. She had ordered a cab to take the two of them to the airport while he was packing. She would have to call her brother from the airport to give him fair warning about her returning home. She knew that he and her grandfather would be happy to see her. Her parents were a different story all together.
Tootles didn't have much to say on the cab trip to the airport, nor did he in the lobby area, awaiting the plane. Nor did he on the plane. He stuck his headphones into his ears and started to play the gentle hum of music on his phone, letting his eyes grow heavy from exhaustion. It had just been a few nights ago that he had been mak- having sex with Meg, and now they were both on a plane to go visit and see her family. He was the friend. The odd ball out. How was he going to evens explain his presence. Perhaps it didn't matter. It wasn't like Meg was going to introduce him as the child's father. He was the friend. Maybe, some day, he'd write a letter to his child, and tell them how he had come to Greece, to make sure that their mother was alright - and that he wanted to be in their life; he wanted to make sure Meg was happy and cared after. That's all he had ever wanted.
Tootles dreamed of that time before. The time of cigarettes and starry nights. He dreamed of gold bracelets and tears. He had come along way from that time.
When he woke, he felt a head on his shoulder, noticing it was Meg, who had fallen asleep. The cabin around them was quiet, as was everyone else asleep. He asked one of the stewardesses to give him a blanket, handing over a few American bills to them, and then carefully, wrapped her in it.
send me a ☾ for my muse waking up to find yours in their bed in the middle of night
The Bus Terminal
Start new in Greece. Start new with her – or evens perhaps with someone else. Leave everything he knew behind; his job, studies, everything. He glanced at his watch and then back at the passport in front of him. “I’ll give you a deal, Meg. I’ll play by your rules with an incorporation of mine.” He flipped the book back and forth in his hands and sighed.
“I’ll go with you. And I’ll stay a month. In that month – I’ll be your friend. And if we fall in love and you want me to stay, I’ll figure my life out and bring it to Greece for however long. All nine months, years, whatever. I’ll cross that bridge if I get to it. If we don’t work things out, then, it doesn’t work out.” He shrugged. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge as well, if we do.” He didn’t look at her when she mentioned the other women. That was something he wasn’t even thinking about.
“I guess the next thing I should ask is what king of clothing should I pack?”
Meg smiled. He was going to try. For her, he would try, and that meant more than he would know. The emotions that the two already had for each other, compounded with their current situation, could make things very complicated. But the fact that he was willing to try to be friends first would make it all a little easier.
"Anything you want," she replied. "It’s getting colder and wetter, but we still should have some warm days." He was going to regret this. She knew that he would. She was not the type of girl meant to be in a long term relationships. Aden had been her longest relationship, and that hadn’t ended well. It seemed that the longer a relationship of hers went, the more toxic it became. But she wanted to be selfish. Gods above, did she want to be selfish. She knew that her emotions were all over the place, her thoughts taking her in different directions and different paths. But everything felt like a guessing game. One wrong step could lead her towards something that she was trying to avoid. She had to be careful.
"Why don’t you go pack and I’ll buy the tickets," she said.
"Buy your own." He mumbled softly, sliding a hand through his hair as he pushed past her towards his bed and closet. He started to pull out his suitcase and quietly folded up shirts. It had been a long while since he had packed - and longer still since he had actually made an effort to have his clothes look half decent in the suitcase. As he packed, he started to think about what this would mean for him - moving to Greece. Being only the friend - meeting woman who would speak lovely Greek and perhaps throw themselves at him. Perhaps it would only take one for Meg to come back to him - to know that she loved him.
Perhaps it wouldn't matter how many. He watched her as he remained quiet. The after-effects of their conversation was still fresh in his mind; realization of who she was, and who she had been in his mind - perhaps even who he was, and who he had thought he was to her. Would they always be this confusing storm? He felt as if he were trapped on a roller-coaster, watching everything getting smaller and smaller as the cart moved higher and higher on the track; Meg's beautiful smile greeting his with an assurance that "Everything would be okay." But the impending doom of knowing that gravity falls - everything must come to an end in a certain way - innocence is lost. Relationships either move forward, ending a chapter and beginning another, or they end completely. Life is lived and then it is over. Green Lights ultimately become Red. Tootles would always be a boy who loved his lost-girl, but perhaps she wasn't as lost as he had thought - or even so, perhaps she was so far from his grasp that he'd never get the chance to love Meg again.
Not the way she deserved - and not the way he imagined.
He closed his suitcase, and made a jumble of a few more things, as he grabbed his cell-phone, deciding to order his tickets right on one of those stupid niffty apps. At least one of them had come into handy.
"Ready?" He asked after a moment, glancing in her direction.
The Bus Terminal
Meg dropped her head and smiled. Jack would have loathed having a kid named after him. The only kid he ever cared about was Lucy, and Meg had a sneaking suspicion that that was only because she latched on to him like a barnacle on a ship. That girl was his pride and joy, though Meg knew that Jack wished to save the child from the fate of his childhood.
"I don’t know what I want you to be there for," she told him, "Just that I want you there. I couldn’t ever take your child from you again. I know I was running away like that was dumb, but I just couldn’t get your hopes up only to kill them if I was wrong. I was scared, and I let my fears get the better of me, just like I have all my life." Meg hated that she let her fears take over like that. It wasn’t fair to her or to anyone else involved in her life. It was a weakness that she had experienced most of her adult life, and – as much as she hated it and wished that she could put it behind herself – she knew that it would take time to get over.
She walked up to him and took the passport, gently leafing through the pages. “We’re going to Greece,” she told him, knowing that he wouldn’t change his mind on that fact. “I’d like to start over. You could meet my family, and I would introduce you as a friend. We could get a chance to start things all over again. You and I, we are no where near the people that we were in boarding school. We’ve both changed. In some ways for the better, some ways for the worser. I want to get to know the you that is here before me, now. If everything works out, maybe we can fall in love again. I just don’t want to go in to this whole thing with a skewed perspective of you, and I don’t want you to have a skewed perspective of me.”
Meg leaned agains the table where his computer was placed. “We don’t have to start over. I know starting over is hard. But I think we would end up better as a pair because of it. You could stay with my family’s guest house and get to know everyone, and experience Greece on your own. Maybe date some pretty Greek girl. Learn why we have the most sex annually.” She smiled, remembering the fact that she had loved to shove in Toulouse’s face. He had always been proud that the French were known for being good lovers, but Meg liked to tease him with that little fact. It had diminished his ego once or twice.
"So what do you say?" she asked, locking eyes with him. God, if this was his child, it was going to have the most beautiful blue eyes. "I’ll buy my ticket and you’ll buy yours. It could be a good time."
Start new in Greece. Start new with her – or evens perhaps with someone else. Leave everything he knew behind; his job, studies, everything. He glanced at his watch and then back at the passport in front of him. “I’ll give you a deal, Meg. I’ll play by your rules with an incorporation of mine.” He flipped the book back and forth in his hands and sighed.
“I’ll go with you. And I’ll stay a month. In that month – I’ll be your friend. And if we fall in love and you want me to stay, I’ll figure my life out and bring it to Greece for however long. All nine months, years, whatever. I’ll cross that bridge if I get to it. If we don’t work things out, then, it doesn’t work out.” He shrugged. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge as well, if we do.” He didn’t look at her when she mentioned the other women. That was something he wasn’t even thinking about.
“I guess the next thing I should ask is what king of clothing should I pack?”
I came to listen to your stories. My stories? But they're all about you!
peter pan quotes (inspired by x)
The Bus Terminal
Meg hadn’t thought about her mother in ages. The woman took up no place in her life. She was no more than a distant memory, one that Meg had been happy to forget. Hearing Taren bring it up again almost made her want to throw up. “It was never a game to me. Sure, the first time we met I might have been counting the seconds until I scared you away, but… It wasn’t a game. I did love you. I just don’t know what I’m feeling anymore. I’ve been battling a very real depression for a while now and…” Her voice trailed off, but she picked right back up with her next thought.
"Emotions aren’t coming very easily to me anymore. I’ve been pretty numb for a while. I know I felt something that first night back with you, but it was just a blip compared to what I used to feel. And that makes me sad. But it was something, which is why I stuck around for longer than those three days. I wanted to believe that you and I could be something. That my depression could get better and I could go back to being a normal person."A weak smiled worked its way on to her lips. ”For a few days, I really had convinced myself. I was almost starting to feel happy again.”
She licked her lips and clenched her jaw. “But then I realized that I was pregnant, and the only thing that I felt was fear. Horrible, crippling fear. I was reminded of Wendy, and I started having these really bad thoughts. I thought that if I got away from this place, went somewhere else, I wouldn’t be so horribly reminded of that mistake. I thought that I could leave and recover from my fears and go back to the way I was.” Even if the way she was wasn’t what she should have been.
"I would want you to find me, yes. I just don’t know if you would want you to find me."
Tootles was quiet, listening to her: listening to her inner-most struggles. He was such a bastard. Getting all twisted up in his own emotions, his own thoughts and wants. You’re still a kid, no matter how good you have yourself convinced that you’re not. Tootles slid a hand through his hair and looked down at the floor. Would he really want to go after her? Would he get himself on a plane, travel to a place that he had only ever spoken about with her, and find her? Yes. Yes I would.
Tootles thought back to the day that he had met his new friend, Meg, who was very tom-boy-ish, and nothing like his Meg; Nothing at all like the soft girl who put on a hard exterior. His friend was too busy mourning over her loss of her boyfriend, Sam or whatever his name was, to really focus on anything else around her. Had he been the same way? Is that why he took such refuge in her? What would she be telling him now? He certainly felt the smack over his head, and telling him that hope clearly was not lost.
“You’ve been waiting for a moment to see her again, haven’t you?” She had asked once, late when night when neither one of them could sleep. He had agreed to meet up with her at a truck-stop to get some coffee. It had been the worst coffee he had ever had in his life.
“Yeah. I guess you can say that.” He said, shrugging, trying to seem apathetic towards the whole situation. The more distance between him and his feelings, the better; he didn’t know when he’d ever see Meg again.
“Why don’t you go looking for her?” Meg-the-friend asked. He glanced up at her over his coffee-mug and sighed.
“I have gone looking for her. The problem is, I have no idea where to start to look. The last time I saw her, it was at the school we went to together. There’s a lot of stuff that happened, that I really don’t want to get into.”
“That’s okay – you don’t have to.” She said, shrugging. “It really doesn’t make a difference to me.” Meg took another sip of the horrible coffee, while making a face. “I think my only question for you is this, Tootles. If you had the chance to see her tomorrow, and she was different – she wasn’t at all what you’ve created in your mind; she’s not at all the way you remember her – would you still want her? Still love her?” It was a difficult question; the idea of Meg being different – the idea of Meg not being the Meg he knew . . . but it was a reality. Everyone changed. Everyone grew up – himself included.
Tootles knew the answer, and he still knew his answer with her standing there in front of him.
“I would want you to find me, yes. I just don’t know if you would want you to find me.” Her words echoed in his mind; almost as if the words continued to echo around them, bouncing from wall to wall.
“I’d be on the next flight after you, Meg.” A part of him wanted to still be angry with her. To feel some sort of bitterness towards her. A part of him was heartbroken to know that if Jack was alive, he’d be in the far back of her mind; she wouldn’t be looking for him. She’d be out, putting herself in danger. Who was he to her? He’d be that boy who loved her in high school, and nothing more. He braced his hands against the counter and hung his head for a moment. He felt like a fool; a fool that had loved the idea of someone – the idea of who Meg had been to him a long time ago.
When he looked up at her, he saw the question in her eyes, Would you?
“I’m not going to lie to you, and say that I wouldn’t stand here and think about it. Think about everything that you just told me and how the situation really is. But it doesn’t matter how angry I might be, or hurt. First and foremost, I’m your friend. I have a feeling Jack would kick my ass if I didn’t go after you and at least try.” The part was probably truer than he had realized. If Jack had been the one supporting them from the get-go, he owed it to not only him, but to her and the child to have a father figure.
“If you want to do things on your own, then that’s fine.” He lifted his hands up in the air. “I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything.” Tootles walked over to one of the drawers in the kitchen and pulled out his blue passport, flipping through its empty pages.
“You should know by now, though – that running away doesn’t make things go away. Just like me drinking – it doesn’t make Wendy Rose any less real.” He glanced at her and then gestured towards her stomach. “You won’t be alone in this – just like last time. I won’t let you go through this by yourself, even if you can get through it by yourself, which I have no doubt. You’re a strong and beautiful woman...” He shrugged. “.. and maybe it’ll be a boy this time. You could name him after Jack or something.” He was quiet as he walked towards his laptop, deciding that he’d just get the plane tickets, so that they could go; the sooner, the better.
“But I’ll go with you.” He murmured with a nod. “Just a friend, or whatever it is that you want me to be.”
