Gretchen made her way to Spinelli’s apartment and knocked on the door rather forcefully. She’d hoped that some time would help it all blow over, but she was still getting radio silence from her best friend. At least she came bearing gifts. In the week or so it had been since the discovery of the truth, she’d gotten something special worked out for Spinelli, something Gretchen hoped would keep her friend from being violent with her. The other gift was in her hand, a small thumbdrive that was close to being crushed in her fist if she clutched it any tighter. Waiting for Spinelli to open the door was like arriving at the circus all over again. Except this time she knew there would be anger. And Flynn wasn’t there to hide the kitchen knives or the toaster.
Gretchen sat with her head in her hands after Flynn left her apartment. Her phone was on the table, looking thrown there haphazardly amongst all the other papers and books. She couldn’t even imagine how things got so messy. Sleeping with Flynn was literally the last thing she ever wanted to do, and she knew it was only a matter of time before everyone and their dog knew what happened. Spinelli was amazingly angry at her, she’d never seen her best friend this angry.
She needed to talk about all of this, so she stood from the couch and made her way across the room to her open laptop on the desk. She pulled up the webcam and what she saw made her heart stop beating. There, at the top of the screen was the little red dot, the dot that told her the computer was still recording. “Did I not turn this off?” she asked herself as she hit the button to stop the recording. It was an agonizingly painful wait as the video loaded into the folder. Gretchen reached over to snatch the remote off the shelf and click on her music while she waited, setting the remote beside her computer and clicking her nails on the desktop impatiently. There was hours upon hours of recorded data that she was saving.
With a heavy sigh, she made her way over to the kitchen to cook up some lunch. Only half of the fixeo had been saved yet, and she was too impatient to just sit there and wait. She hummed and sang to the music as she cooked, trying to not let it get to her. Just as she was putting the top slice of bread on her sandwich, her computer dinged with the notification that told her the video was ready to be watched. Gretchen ran to the desk again, sandwich in hand, tripping and jumping over obstacles on the way. When she reached the chair, she fell into it ungracefully, cursing the pain in her foot after stubbing her toe on the leg of the coffee table. She clicked open the video and started watching it. It started with her last video diary entry, before she went to the bar, and she fast forwarded through it. Then two hours of nothing while she was out drinking.
As she fast forwarded through the empty room, she sat up once the front door opened and she and Flynn stumbled in. Her expression twisted into a cringe when she saw how messed up they were. Alcohol was awful. Gretchen put the video back at normal speed and watched with bated breath as she and Flynn laughed and drank more. “God, I am awful at flirting,” she muttered, her lips pulled into a frown, “and he’s really stupid when he’s drunk.” There was the wine all over the place, quickly followed by the water...and then they collapsed on the couch.
Nothing. There was nothing after that. She sat up and a smile tugged at her lips as realisation started to dawn on her. They hadn’t done anything but passed out once they got back. Before she could get too excited, though, she fast forwarded through the next seven hours just to make sure nothing happened in the middle of the night. Nothing more than just the normal shifting during sleep. And then their entire conversation after they woke up.
They never slept together. Nothing happened after they got back to the apartment.
Gretchen jumped up from her seat and ignored the pain in her foot in favor of jumping around the room in excitement. She must have danced for ten minutes before falling back into the seat with a grin on her face, staring at her face on the laptop. Nothing had happened. She was about to get up and go run straight for Spinelli, when she realized maybe she’d enjoy a peace offering first.
After her conversations with King Bob and Gus, Gretchen steeled herself for the inevitable reintroduction with her best friend, Spinelli. Knowing the other girl, she was probably still harboring a grudge or two over the fact that everyone had left. Not that she could blame her. It had been years since they had had a sit down, and Gretchen was nervous. She had asked around for where Spinelli’s apartment was, and she’d gotten a couple of different answers. So she wrote them all down on her hand and thought she’d make her way through the list.
By the time she’d reached the first apartment on the list, her hands were clammy and she’d been fiddling with her sleeves so much that the ink was starting to rub off. If she didn’t have luck at this one, she’d have to start going down the halls until she found it. Gretchen cleared her throat before knocking on the door. “Spinelli? You in there?”
It had been Gus’s first and only question when he entered the Circus of Dreams. In fact, it had probably been the one question he had been pondering about for the last few weeks. He had asked nearly everyone by now; ringleader, circusers and even random visitors, if they knew something about TJ, Spinelli, Vince, Mikey or Gretchen, but all he had gotten were shaken heads or annoyed glares.
Calvin Wyrm eventually was the one who gave Gus the answer he had been looking for for so long, the name he wanted to hear. “Spinelli, Ash-” “Okay!” Quickly Gus interrupted the man and turned his head to look around, almost as though he’d expect Spinelli to jump out of the shadows to tackle them. One should think that after getting trained to fight in a war, Gus would be less afraid to step on his friend’s bad side, but growing up around her he’d learned his lesson. Never ever say her first name... Unless you hate life and you have a serious death wish. “Thank you, Sir!” Gus gave Calvin a short nod, shouldered his bag and walked into the direction he’d been pointed at.
A hint of a smile was showing on his lips as he walked through the oddly familiar place. It wasn’t the Disney Circus and yet it was like he had come back home. If only he knew he’d be welcomed like that as well.
Cecil, Fairhurst, Drakos, Laurent... Gus’s eyes wandered from one name plate to the other until they stopped on the one he was looking for. Hesitating he lifted his hand to let his thumb brush over the engraved surname. It wasn’t his apartment. It was hers. He was either brave or completely stupid for coming here, but if he was going to face her and his judgement - and there was no way around it - he’d at least do it voluntarily.
Gus straightened up, brushed over his clothes and before he could change his mind, he knocked on the door firmly. Three times and with ever knock another Oh shit was running through his mind. He hadn’t thought about what he would say, or what she could do. Shit. Shit. Shit. If he was lucky, she wasn’t home. Though... were those steps behind the door? Shit. Somebody help! The door opened and although he suddenly wished he’d have stayed in the army instead of coming here, a smile forced its way on his lips.
“Good day, Spinell! Gus Griswald reporting for duty.”
