My Story

[GleeptheDragon]

“Beeaauu? You okaaay?” Enter Dave, college dropout supreme. It had nothing to do with grades or with money. He just realized that college made his parents happy. One day he was upset with them, so he left college. It’s not like it mattered. Dave could make more money ((I'm not sure what he should do for a living. leave suggestions, PLEASE!)) than as a part of the family company anytime. He had shaggy brown hair, sharp blue eyes, and hadn’t shaven in a couple days. At the moment, he was wearing his favorite old blue jeans (a little bit tight, of course) and was carrying his t-shirt in his right hand, which could be called distracting.

Dave eyed the coffee. It was dripping off Beau and off the counter and puddling on the floor. Then he turned his attention on Beau. He saw a beautiful girl with the skin of a fairy tale princess, naturally colored, bow-shaped lips, and eyes black as pits that you could get lost in. A long strand of black hair hid one of these eyes and a slightly shorter strand edged along the left side of her face. The rest of her hair was mid-neck and chin length. It was black at the ends, but became snowy white at the top. She was exquisite, but she had no idea.

Beau looked up at him piteously. She reminded him of a lost child.  

[GleeptheDragon]

“I…spilled my coffee.” Dave thought this was an exceptionally simple way to put it as he studied the mess. He looked at the rather unorthodox container in her hands then back at her.

“No s**t. What was the scream for? Dramatics?” this had happened before, he wasn’t too freaked out about it, but it was still somewhat odd.
She gestured at the messy but perfectly normal counter in front of her.

“A—uhm. Mm—a gremlin.” She said it as if she were talking about a cockroach; as if it were perfectly normal to see a gremlin in a kitchen and not really something to scream about. She tangled a hand through her hair to rub her scalp, trying to clear her head. To her, this was a perfectly normal thing, she just didn’t like it.

“Oh.” Dave stated simply, removing the beer bottle from her hand then starting to clean up the coffee and while he was at it the rest of the kitchen. Like that was realistic. About as realistic as gremlins. Then again, to Beau, gremlins were realistic. For as long as he’d known her, she’d seen things: gremlins, unicorns, gnomes. She would point out normal-looking people in the street and identify them as werewolves, vampires, elves, selkies, and plenty of other things Dave had never even heard of. He wasn’t sure if he believed her or not and had never really seen any reason why he should decide. Beau was a good if not colorful friend to have around and his main goal was to keep her out of trouble. Hard work, as you might imagine.  

[GleeptheDragon]

“Why don’t you go get a shower,” he offered. “You can borrow some of my jeans and a t-shirt. I’ll go get whatever else you need from your apartment.” She nodded and left, taking her beer-bottle coffee with her and dripping cheap caffeine along the way. Dave sighed after her. He sighed at the coffee now on his rented floor and he sighed at the troubled girl he couldn’t help.

He went up to her apartment and let himself in. She never locked the door, she probably didn’t even have a key anymore. Nothing she owned was of any real value. No T.V., no sound system made it’s home with her. Booze and books was all she had. The booze was cheap and most of it half drunk. The books were tattered and dog-eared dusty cheap fantasy paperbacks. There was no bookshelf; books lay scattered on the floor and in cardboard boxes. Most hadn’t even been removed from their boxes when she first moved in. A few were well loved and stayed on the floor by her bed. The combination of the papery library smell with that of intoxication made for an interesting scent that’s hard to find anywhere else.  

[GleeptheDragon]

He went to her drawer and got clean underclothes, on the counter, he found her black eyeliner then rummaged up a pair of sandals. One was in a box, wedged between “Faerie Wars” and “Tithe”, and the other was being threatened by a gang of dust bunnies under the bed.

Back at his own apartment, the shower kept showering. Dave went in and placed her things on top of the clothes she was borrowing then got himself a cup of crap coffee and threw away her bottle. Upon emergence, she seemed to feel better and she certainly looked better. His clothes fit her if she wanted them kind of baggy; they were the same height and he never sagged.

“Feeling better?” he asked cautiously.

“Much!” she chirruped back and pranced to his seat to give him a hug. Complete transformation. Moody Sulky and Silent became Cheerful Exuberant and Chatty. Dave laughed. This was just like Beau.

“C’mon, we’ll get lunch,” he offered, “I’ll pay.”

“Mmmyes! Food! And drinks! I’ll buy drinks! We’ll go to the Black Bird!” The Black Bird Bar was her favorite place. The bartender tended to ease up on prices for his favorite and craziest customer.

“Hmm. I was thinking Milo’s Diner.” Beau’s face fell and her eyes widened.

“There’s no drinks there—“ Dave grinned his roguish charm at her. She seemed to be catching on.

“Exactly. C’mon.” She rolled her eyes at him.

“Fine.” She said curtly, “let’s go.” Her attempt at haughtiness made Dave laugh again.

“That’s the spirit!” He clapped her on the back.

“No, that’s the lack of spirits,” she countered morosely.  

[GleeptheDragon]

In the hall, the single bare light-bulb was dim and flickering. “Beau, it’s good to be sober once in a while.” He sounded truly concerned.

“Only if you’re normal,” she retorted. Then, to drive the point home, “oh, did you know: you have a water spirit living in your toilet?” It worked and Dave stopped mid-stride. After a good long moment of shock, he made a strange sort of loud gargling noise.

“Ge-eh! Why’s it in there??”

“Exiled. There’s not much water in the city that gets replaced often enough for health. You flush quite a bit more often than most bachelors, so it gets some nutrition, but doesn’t have to stew in waste.”

“Remind me not to flush anymore,” Dave muttered as he exploded from the dimness of the apartment building into the bright sun, framing himself in the door for an instant.

Beau, two steps behind, looked at him sharply “ew! That’s gro-umf.”
She had fallen flat on her face just before reaching the low front stoop so was now sprawled in an ungainly fashion upon the sidewalk. She quickly sat up to hold her knee with one hand and shake her fist at—a clump of pitiful-looking bushes.

“Come back here, you little—” She growled in the direction of the not-so-very-green-ery.

Dave attempted to help her to her feet but she ignored him and stood on her own, brushing herself off. “Beau! What on earth just happened?”