you can have it all: michael donovan

[secondhand_stars]

It was a natural gravitational route. The sun lifted off dark horizon line to blot out the crater-faced moon as he shifted upon mattress and hands reached to seek out the person next to him. Daylight filtered in through the slants of blinds as he worked in opposition and found an extra shade of darkness pressed into the curve of shoulder and neck.

Sighing out, realization was breathed in with her faint scent. That awareness of his dimensions and spheres of space skipped across the surface of his half-wake and shattered all new attempts for rest. Michael fell back upon mattress with bleary eyes wide and soaking in the sparse details of his ceiling. She slept on -- an unusual event against the pattern of behavior that they had established. She always woke first. She always greeted him with the crash of water against shower walls and strange, vibrating birdcalls.

He was filled with a frantic, nervous energy full of loose ends and staccato rhythms. Smoothing a hand over his features, palm smoothed away the sweat that had broken out upon forehead and shoulders that were pasted with the thin layer of cotton t-shirt. He had to get up. He had to move. He had to... Rolling over to a side, a kiss was pressed to a pale shoulder before the professor was slipping out beneath the scraps of sheet that was left over after she had completely bundled herself up.

Hasily shoving feet into shoes and exchanging damp t-shirt for a fresh one carelessly drawn from an open drawer, Michael peeked glances over his shoulder for any sign of movement from the starlet. Her response was a steady silence punctuated only with a random flailing of her arm. Smirking, head shook and he wandered over to the roll-top desk shoved into a corner of his bedroom. Removing post-it note pad from a nook along with a pen, he quickly scribbled out a note in his neat uppercase:

Left for a run. Back in time for breakfast. - M.


It was strange how normal felt.

[secondhand_stars]

Heart thundered against ribcage and taxed lungs still worked to keep up with pulse-beat as he retraced steps back to his apartment. Pushing tangled hair out of his eyes, the damp strands clung to hairline and rumpled up in messy spikes. Something in him was still wholly unsettled and shifting. It swirled around him and had all the makings of a green-skied summer thunderstorm. Shaking his head to rid thoughts of the hypothetical "What-if's," front door was pushed open and he was greeted with his sister's presence.

Lani sat perched upon one of the worn leather arm-chairs that filled living space. As hinges creaked with his arrival, mismatched eyes shifted from the sprawling window that cut across one wall to him. She smiled easily, fingers lifting to waggle. Off one finger, a yellow post-it note clung. "The door was unlocked so I let myself in."

"Oh?" Michael rasped quietly, eyes shifting towards the upstairs that was still dark and quiet considering the hour. Scratching at the back of his neck, suspicions were confirmed as the twin cleared her throat and read off the black ink that bled through the back of note.

"Hope you had a nice run. Come back to bed --" For the best part, Lani paused dramatically and sent a dark eyebrow to arch high. "Althea."

Suddenly tongue-tied, the brother only stared at his sister for a long moment before escaping into the kitchen. Pulling open refrigerator door, a water-bottle was pulled from the neat rows of them that filled bottom shelf.

"So, she's upstairs."

Michael only nodded, twisting off plastic cap.

"You naughty boy!" She called quietly, laughter easing the stress lines that creased her exhausted face. It was only now that he realized how tired she looked.

"It's not like that. She just stayed over. It was late."

"So you guys aren't..."

"No." He took a long draw off water-bottle.

"Then I won't feel bad for keeping Althie waiting. For yooooou." Lani teased, sing-song and giggling, as body lifted from lazy settle to pad over to where brother sulked in the bright morning light of kitchen.

"You look tired, Lani. Maybe you should go back to bed too."

"Too much to be done today! No way. I'm actually leaving here for a meeting uptown." The fae paused then for a long moment, fingers playing at the zipper that ran across the pale fitted jacket she wore. "I --"

"Did you have a fight with Asher last night, Lani?"

Squinting up at her brother, head tilted curiously. "Not like... He snapped at me, I threw my shirt, he picked it it up, I locked myself in the closet, he threw stuff off his dresser and screamed, and well -- Yes, but not like for typical fighting reasons, you know?"

Michael blinked, overwhelmed by information. It confirmed something that itched his brain, though the question had been more blurt than anything else. A finger lifted off his water bottle to crook at her. "Take off your jacket."

"No!" Lani laughed, shoving him playfully. "I really have to go soon."

"I know." He mumbled, a hand smearing over his flushed features.

"It was an accident, Michael. He was upset. He was just holding too tightly. And you know me --" A hand smoothed over the sleeve of her jacket. "Yesterday was the anniversary of Serena's death."

"Oh. His sister, right?"

"The sister." She corrected, snagging the water bottle from him.

As Lani drank, Michael nodded off. "Poor Asher."

"I know. I still hurt really bad for him. I can't stand to see him upset."

Smoothing a hand over his sister's neatly smoothed hair in passing, Michael wandered over to an empty corner of the kitchen and angled elbows upon countertop. He knew that eventually she'd ask the question that neither he nor Asher could answer for her. "I know why you are here."

"I want to know. I had this feeling last night --" A hand pressed upon her stomach as if to indicate the source of her unrest. "Something really bad is going to happen."

"Yes." He agreed neutrally.

"Why won't you guys tell me? Why don't you want to--"

"Lani," Michael interrupted. "You, yourself, said you knew that something bad was going to happen. You can feel it whenever your mind wanders that way. You don't need us to tell you anything."

"What's going to happen?"

"I don't know for sure." He mumbled, fingers scratching against a stubbled cheek. Head angled sharply, but eyes never left his dizzying sister. Instead, Michael sighed and tipped his attention towards the ceiling. "But it's resolved. It's okay."

"I'm not going to --"

"No. Not that."

"And --"

"He'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course, I am." Michael murmured, mouth curving into a smile. He knew. He could see a strange new world unfolding prematurely before his eyes where dark hair ran pale and new, high voices crushed around him.

It was like he maintained: The beginning and end were always the clearest, but the middle was left unformed and fragile.

[secondhand_stars]

All things had led up to this bewitching. From the moon that hung in its fullest phase above them as they surfaced from their underwater world of quiet nudges and confession, a certain wildness had been unleashed as the city was painted in shades of silver and black. Her invitation had been an incantation: verbal charms and a grinning, sing-song mouth that beckoned him further than he could have dared without prompting.

Moon-mad, it was called.

Painted in stardust, a loveliness was unwrapped from plainclothes of black and white. Her girlhood, a pink ribbon that once looped around dark hair in ode to the heroines Alice and Snow White, had been left abandoned upon the ground level of living space. She was bewitching in this half-light; a witch-baby with mermaid hair and siren's call. This awareness startled him and turned hands and feet to fumble.

The inevitable chaos would all too soon start up in a storm of sound and shadow-play. There was no escaping the unraveling of the mind. He could design curving, figure-eights upon her skin in breath and murmur, but there was no loop-hole in the genetic design that lay beneath the surface of everything: floorboads, palms, psyche.

It was a slow devastation that would begin in the most subtle of rattling and vibrations as doors shivered in hinges and the papers that were shelved within desk began to rustle together as if invisible hands were frantically searching out secrets. Her questions would echo the shrieking of drawers as they jolted from their holds and clattering of closet door as it swung upon and jumped against the wall that angled behind it.

The answers to these questions came in a language deeply connected, but wholly different from the one that so often knotted his tongue and cluttered his brain. They were of a far more organic origin: heart that hammered painfully against ribcage and the breath that gasped out from lungs. All things worked like an epileptic reaction to the strobe-light effect of her pulse.

By daylight, he would survey the damage. In the morning after, all things would be returned into a proper order. However, for now, he was a reckless creature; sleek-limbed and prowling over her landscape. All things nervous and clumsy had been sloughed off like the simple cotton of a blue dress shirt that now littered the floor amongst the t-shirts and socks that involuntary jumped from gaping drawers.

For one so accustomed to running towards a particular nothingness, he had failed to realize the shift that came as path diverged and segued into another. Now, he was nothing but beautifully illuminated by it.

[secondhand_stars]

[previously posted July 30, 2005; taken from a liveplay between notmyvoice and landfillsky]

Simplicity could only be had in small doses. He was still building up his tolerance -- slowly, but surely. Taking advantage of her busy show-schedule, Michael had descended into his cave of dusty books and otherworlds. Two days later, he resurfaced unchanged, but at least showered. Hair was still damp and throwing off droplets as he found himself at her door. Bearing gifts, a bouquet of mixed flowers: roses, tigerlilies, and calla lilies were wrapped in simple brown paper. Scratching at a scruffy cheek for a moment as he stared down the door, fingers then curled to knock upon the panel.

Althea was glued to her television for various reasons. A scare from Lincoln had set her home bound, and then another phone call from the same brother had told her to turn on the news and watch the protesters in Boston light things on fire and get themselves arrested. The knocking was barely heard at first, over the commentary of some staunch news reporter, but when it did kick in, she was spun into motion. Reality was a terrible kick in the face every now and then. Bare feet shuffled across to the door and she peeked cautiously through the peep-hole first. A silly, distorted view of Michael caught her by surprise, and with the rattle of lock and chain she swung the door open. "Well well, look who isn't dead.." She was teasing.. maybe. The flowers were redeeming at least.. "Are these for me?" Toes twisted against the floor, a knee crooking innocently. "Come in, come in.."

His smile was instantly apologetic, if expecting a sharp scold from her for his brief hiatus from the real world. The flowers offered out at the pose, head nodded. "Yes. It had been awhile since the last batch..." Which had withered off into nothingness. Ducking in with shoulders curved, Michael pressed a kiss to her brow before stepping through into her living space. "Do you like them?"

"Thank you.." She intercepted the flowers, eyes dipping closed with a low hum at the kiss to her brow. "I do like them. A lot. You remember everything, don't you.." Sadly, she had no vase to put them in, so for now, she was going to have to divide them in thirds and stick them in tall glasses. A deep inhale of flowers and she was retreating to do just that. "While you were dead to the world, Boston has gone to shit, apparently." She called, arranging flowers as best she could without the proper tools to do so. "Protesters stopped three of the T-lines. Glad I'm not there." Reappearing, she stuck hands on hips and quickly killed the news, a television snapping to black. "How are you?"

"I try." Michael murmured, his voice echoing down the tunnel of his throat. Kneading fingers into the back of his neck, he would wander as she began to divide and conquer his bouquet. Mental note: vase. He watched the world unfold on her television screen for a long moment before the picture cut to black. "Yes. I'm glad you aren't there either. Wow." Funny the things he missed in a world without television. Twisting back around, a hand smoothed down the front of his t-shirt. "I'm good. Really good. And you?"

"Really good, hn? Why really good?" Absent-minded questions left her mouth the moment she thought of them. She took quick note of the space between them and, with headstrong resolve, closed it up again. Arms strung around him and she propped her chin against his shoulder, a not-so-brief embrace forced upon the poor professor. "I'm good. Better." Lungs sighed in release and relief, both together.

"I'm not quite sure!" Michael responded, words cinched in the middle by a laugh and her sudden embrace. Feet rocking back upon heels briefly, arms angled to catch her. Humming out a thoughtful note as a hand smoothed out her hair, Michael glanced out at her from the corners of his eyes. "Are you sure?" A pause and he slipped into her previous role. "Why better?" The corner of his mouth tipped.

"Yes I'm sure. I'm very sure." Positive, maybe, but those were strong words she didn't want to debate over. Craning back without letting go, her expression mirrored his and lips pecked sweetly at the upturned curve of his own. "I'm not quite sure." It was always fun to throw Michael's vague responses back at him in the form of your own. She could just let him wonder and guess. "You showered for me, how nice of you.." A hand lifted to flick fingers at the slightly damp strings of dark, mussed hair.

Something lurked upon the outskirts: shadow-cast and unformed. Upon the surface of his brain and against the back of his throat, he felt it. Michael swallowed down the distractions for a moment of normalcy. "Hm? Oh." Droplets slipped between her fingers and rolled along temples. "And brushed my teeth too!" Baring the neat rows of his teeth perfected by years of orthodontia, he then nipped and tugged upon the curve of her bottom lip.

Drifting and sliding.. it never really ended. No breaks were cut for either party. Eyes widened at his proclamation of dental hygiene, her hands skidding down cotton covered ribs. "What a Prince Charming. Next thing you know, you'll be shaving and everything.." Silenced by playful bites, fingers lifted to scratch teasingly at the slant of his jaw, overcome with the usual forgetful growth that she was coming to appreciate more than when it was cleared away. "Your sister and her man were at my show the other night. I saw them out in the house, but they zoomed off afterwards." She hooked fingers at the hem of his shirt and tugged it down as feet backed up. "You wanna go sit up on the roof? It's really nice out."

"I don't know about that. Shaving is tricky, you see --" Eyes slanted down to her and one brow lifted slightly. Shaving was a task that was nearly impossible for Michael considering that it required looking for an extended period of time into a mirror. He made light of his scruffy cheeks however and nodded along with her Lani-Asher sighting. "Yes, he said they were going. It was a part of this day he was plotting and planning." And proposing. Michael kept his secrets to himself if only because Asher had refused to spill the night before. Shirt stretched and he followed obediently. "Yes. Let's."

"You should let me do it. I won't cut you up, I promise. I'm gentle." Unless she sneezed, or something scared her, then he might be bleeding profusely. "Oo, plotting and planning. Sounds mysterious." Fingers waggled, and she snagged a thin blanket from the back of the couch. The roof wasn't exactly tidy, and no one liked sitting on concrete. "Should we bring snacks? Or drinks?"

"Well, as long as you'd be gentle --" Fingers rolled over the surface of a cheek protectively. Handing over a razor to the easily excitable Althea was a dangerous notion, but if she could survive him then he would bow to the whim. "And yes. Very mysterious. I'm a little disappointed that I haven't gotten a phone-call from either of them gushing yet." Not that he needed it. Trailing behind her, he rolled shoulders at the questions. "I'm fine?"

"I'm always gentle." The blanket was bundled up in arms, head ticking towards the door. "You poor thing.. so you come here instead to listen to me ramble? How thoughtful of you." Stepping into the hallway, she waited for him to follow before finding her way into the stairwell and starting to take steps two at a time. Leaning her shoulder into the heavy door that led to the roof, she pushed with a little squeak of effort until it gave way and opened.

"True." Michael agreed quietly as he followed and picked up the pacing in his steps to catch up with her as the staircase leading to the roof was bounded by smaller feet. Playing the shadow, he continued behind until the world opened up to them. The moon had drained away since the last time he noticed it."Nice view, eh?"

"It's not a bad place if you like the wind and the smog and the whole.. honking horn atmosphere." Letting the door clunk behind them, she was walking towards the middle of the sprawling cement of the roof and attempting to smooth out the blanket before the wind could blow it around. Kneeling on it for weight's sake, she was unfolding corners before she sprawled out on it in some sort of snow-angel pose. "You're the first person that I've taken up here, you should feel honored." Like it was some secret hiding place, or special tree house.

"Now, now Thea -- Don't get starry-eyed. It's just a roof. I have one too." Teasing gently in verbal nudges and lifted brows, he walked around the perimeter of the roof once before settling back upon the spot where blanket and girl stretched. Deconstructing, he lowered down with limbs angling and unfolding. Settling down in a mirror pose, he could feel the entire structure shiver with its occupants. "Am I? Then, yes. I feel quite special. I don't know quite what I've done to deserve such an honor." Fingers smoothed along her wrist.

Michael came in waves and moments: unfolding beside her, the brush of fingers against her wrist. Her hand twisted in response, and she leaned to rest temple against his shoulder, making out as much of his face as she could at that angle. "Pfft. I won't start making that list." Reason after reason came to mind, but she kept her brain tucked back to the previous nights and the way they were spent. "So what have you been up to in your absence from the conscious world? Hibernating? Shedding your skin?"

If he could cure the knotted quality of his tongue, his way, and so forth, he would. Instead, Michael clung to the moments when things were normal and steady whenever they struck and he found her near. Staring up at the blanket of starlight above them, he considered her question. There was no easy answer; only the vague. "Shedding my skin? How lurid! That would explain the shower though." Nose wrinkled up playfully and eyes slanted back down to her. "I've been picking up. And sleeping. Those things, mostly. Apparently, I've missed out on quite a bit."

"Only you would use the word 'lurid' in an every day sentence." She teased playfully, the English teacher's silly habits always managing to weasel their way into her affections. "You didn't miss much. Just news and politics and all that stuff. No one's dead or injured. Life goes on. Things rarely change when you aren't looking." Lashes dipped in a slow blink before she unstretched legs and crooked knees at the sky.

"It's only appropriate for such a claim." He defended himself in slow, flat-toned drawl and grin. Fingers folded against the underside of his jaw to run knuckles lightly against the grain of skin. At her words, they stopped in a minute-pause. Head lifted up from its resting spot to blink at her. "Wait. I always thought that the saying was that Things always happen when you aren't looking. Like how water only boils when one looks away from it?" He was struggling to remember and keep cliches here, you see.

"Well, yeah, little things like that. But.. I mean, when you really aren't looking. Bad things tend to happen when you're waiting for something good to happen, when you're on that .. hyped up, adrenaline rush of anxiety. That's when things change and kick you in the teeth." Or maybe, as usual, she was just talking to hear her own voice. Sense mattered little to Althea if she had something to say. "I don't think water boiling constitutes as a Thing. You know, like a big, real Thing."

"Do they? Well -- " Expression crumbled into a wince; eyes and mouth slanting off. He understood what she meant now, head nodding quietly before rolling back into its former pose. Sighing in a great rush of breath in and out of lungs, a palm smoothed over the flat of his chest and fingertips caught at the beating of his heart against ribcage. "I don't know about that though. Have you heard of Chaos theory?"

Without anxiety, she angled herself onto her side, hip pressed against the concrete. Fingers reached to skid lazily over the ledge of ribs. "Chaos theory? What, like.. existentialism stuff? Beckett and Sartre and all that?" That was the only chaos theory she really knew about, and could reference -- thank heavens for a dramatic background in times of heavy discussion.

"Hm." He murmured watching her fingers for a moment before sprawling his own set over them. Sandwiching the hand between cotton and skin, Michael stared off a moment in an attempt to recall the exact example always tied to the concept. "It's like... That whole butterfly wing thing. How the motion of a butterfly can cause a tsunami all the way across the globe. Now, when I --" A laugh broke through. "Try to describe it, it sounds so... Unlikely. But you have to wonder. It makes the weight of your decisions so impossibly heavy if you believe this. It makes my existence alone frightening."

The phrase 'I don't get it' didn't exactly sound that great in her head, so she refrained from voicing it. "Explain it to me like I'm six." She had heard the saying before, but had never really quite understood it. "Do you mean this.. directly, or by some strange, weird chain of events? Like.. the butterfly disrupts some cold front and then, miles away and hours later, a little island in the South Pacific is flooded?" The mention of a frightening sort of existence made her tip her head up at him, lips pressed at his shoulder, mumbling against cotton. "Do you believe it?"

"Chain of events, of course." He clarified, drowning upon the soundwaves that rippled back down the cave of his mouth into throat. "So, something like that, I assume." Mouth looped into a crooked grin for her sake before the inevitable question, he couldn't answer was voiced. Pausing for a long moment, fingers shifted off the top of her hand to smooth over the line of his features. "I don't know. I just -- There's plenty of things I can't explain. Half of them, I don't even have the want to unravel. Do you believe it?"

"I don't know. I mean.. it makes some sort of sense. If I hadn't let my laundry pile up for days and days, I wouldn't have met you.. or.. you know, things like that. But that doesn't sound like chaos to me. That sounds like order. It should be called the Order theory.." Note to self. No more stupid, asinine comments like that one. "I don't know, I never really sat down and plotted out my belief system." She found it too scary and important for someone like her to be worrying about. Funny, how Michael could force her to think about those things. "I believe in chocolate cake." What had she said about those comments?

"It's only a small part to the theory. The chaos comes later. It always does." Spine wriggled against the thin cushioning of blanket as body shifted in a disjointed roll from shoulders to hip. "..And maybe that's not a bad thing perhaps? It goes against the whole self-discovery, philosophical element, but -- Sometimes there's a certain weight in knowing." And she should float like a feather always if only because he was the anvil that broke through. Point and case in her comment. He laughed, eyes slanting to a close. "As do I."

A weight in knowing. She had never really thought about knowledge as a burden, though now it was occurring to her in slow stages. He didn't just know the fun little things that she kept hidden away, he had to know bigger things on a bigger scale, scary things. He had to know beginnings and endings alike. Michael's laughter didn't seem to knock her from her somber expression, eyes craning up rather than at anything. "Doesn't it ever scare you? I mean like.. really, freak you out? It would.. I don't think I could deal with knowing. Even if I sat down one day and figured it all out, and mapped out everything, it would just.. what would be the point? Why experience when you know what's coming?"

One eye peeked open to look at her settled expression. "Hm." Fingers rolled over the surface of his mouth, tapping out a beat against the corners. Pushing himself upright, the weight of his shoulders and head rested upon the crooks of his elbows. "Yes. It does." Honesty bled through. He wouldn't conceal or shadow over such a thing. She couldn't deal with knowing, but something evolved in him had equipped him with it. Perhaps. Or perhaps he depended simply on habit and ignorance of another sort of life. "Why experience? There's no choice, I think. I mean -- Knowing what lays ahead miles and miles away doesn't mean you know the terrain a few feet ahead of you. It's like driving some place new and never seen before. You know the final destination, that's all."

He sat up and she followed, hunching into a spine-slump indian style fold. His explanation made sense to her, in simplest metaphors. It didn't make it any easier to accept and deal with, either. "It just has to be hard. It has to be hard to think about your future when you don't have any real control over it. You can't veer off the path, you can't change anything. Or can you? Do you have like, the right to change your final destination?" She asked selfish questions for selfish reasons, her throat clogged with some rubber obstruction that made her cough once or twice into a frail, closed fist. "Why go through things that.." She trailed off, tucking loose strands behind her ear, her ponytail going to ruin.

He made her want to fall back upon the ground in a child's pose before curling up and disappearing altogether. Helpless and flailing wildly through cosmic space, Michael now felt the water-tension like quality of everything break. Everyone was merely freefalling through time and space, but he felt it far more acutely. He didn't want to talk about this anymore. He wanted to fall into some silly sort of distraction and well-worn joke. Straightening upright further, he reached up to tug the elastic gently from her loose ponytail. It was quite primitive and apeish really -- social grooming. The notion sent him to smirk absently as fingers undid and threaded through the creased result. "It complicated. It's bigger than me." -- "I don't choose to be. I don't mean to make things..." Fall apart when they were only just coming together, he thought.

"I know you don't." She noted his sentence trailing off and decided to pick it up instead of forcing him to stumble. "I don't expect it to go away, or.. get better." Her head tipped into the raking of his fingers, dark hair released from it's usual confines. "I just want to make it easier. For you." She added that on to kill the self-obsessed tone she had been taking on already. Those weren't her intentions. Scooting back, she angled her shoulder with his, staring sideways at the profile of his face rather than head on at anything. "It's just new and tricky and hard to understand." To say the least. "But not so hard that I'm going to go running."

The elastic that had kept her hair back now bound fingers to one another. Twisting the band around and around the top knuckles, he was sure it would snap from its thread covered hold painfully. Instead, it merely expanded. He paused, staring down at the example. It was a brilliant lovely thing when everything connected. Relativity, he could believe in. "You can't make it easier." He mumbled bluntly. An eye winced at his words. Clearing his throat, Michael added on, "...Save perhaps maybe making sure that nothing too valuable is in the room when." Sentence was cut off purposefully and hair-band slipped off the tops of his fingers before circulation could cut to a painful degree. "But please don't run."

Breath inhaled, her head turning, a nervous shaking rush of words ready to be unleashed on him, but instead, she was cut off by her own laughter, a hand sprawling across her face. "What are the neighbors going to think, what with things slamming and.." She teased because it was a relief, it was a break from something that weighed heavy on her shoulders as well as his. "I don't run." For the most part, that statement was true. She hung onto things until they were nonexistent in her grip. "Not from you..."

[secondhand_stars]

<center>Bones, sinking like stones,
All that we fought for,
Homes, places we've grown,
All of us are done for.
And we live in a beautiful world,
Yeah we do, yeah we do,
We live in a beautiful world

Coldplay - Don't Panic.</center>

It was only after he had settled beneath the gnarled branches of the tall tree that he realized that the window to his office was open. On his desk, papers fluttered against the wind that wheezed in and out of the four inch gap between frame and brick. He was much too content beneath his tree to get up and shut the window. Pulling a sheet of paper from the cardboard box that he carried around with him always now, hands began to fold it over and over again until the beaks and wings of the paper crane both were obvious. A thousand paper cranes for two people and one wish. It was a whimsical notion. One so superstitious and sweet that it seemed strange against the general nature of the serious and somber professor. He watched from his shade as parents hovered around lanky teenagers and skurried around with arms heavy with their own cardboard boxes. It was the university's move-in day. The air hummed with a nervous, unsteady energy. He could feel the shift in his own stomach as if he, too, were a new student. He had been once.

"What are you doing?"

The voice startled him out of his reverie. Rapidly blinking eyes cut towards the skinny child that stood next to him. She was a pretty creature with bright, inquisitive eyes that seemed to stare through him. She waited patiently for him to respond and settled hands upon child-hips.

"Where are you parents?" Michael stammered, glancing between the half-done crane in his hands and the child. For some odd reason, a feeling of fear rippled through him whenever he looked at her for too long. Something pulled his eyes away from the ocean-green of her own. No, no, a tiny internal voice corrected. Her eyes were a strange, but familiar combination: one blue, one green.

"They said I could come sit with you." She laughed. Collapsing next to him, her ballerina skirt of pink tulle billowed out as legs folded beneath her. Reaching across, fingers picked out a bright red sheet of paper. "What are you doing?"

"I'm making cranes." Warily responding, he shifted to look over either shoulder for the little girl's parents.

"I know how to make those!"

"That's nice."

"My Mummy showed me how." Elated to find a common interest between herself and him, she continued on proudly as tiny fingers expertly folded the sheet a half dozen times. "I know lots of things."

"I bet you do." Michael responded politely. Sneaking glances at the girl, he waded through an odd cousin of deja vu. He knew her. Her name, syllables and song, weighed down his tongue. Whenever he opened his mouth to speak it, a slow sigh was all that the clairvoyant could voice.

Painted in dappled summer-light, she ignored his looks and concentrated on the tiny paper crane as neck was straightened out. Spotting an imperfection, the entire construction was undone and revised.

Dropping his own paper crane into the box, hands smoothed over the knees of his worn cords and eyes focused out over the sprawling lawn. After a silent moment, little girl voice filled his ears as the tiny ballerina sang as she labored over the origami creation.

"Tio, look!" She finally announced. Shifting onto the tops of her knees, she lifted and shoved the paper bird into his face. The crane then dropped to waddle up his arm upon the underside of his crimson belly. "Quack, quack..."

Michael startled, watching the crane trail up his arm. "I thought ducks say, Quack, quack?"

"They do, silly."

"Then what do cranes say?"

"Quack, quack?"

"No," Michael corrected with a gentle laugh.

"You tell me what they say then!"

At a loss, the professor stared over at the little pixie. She stared back with tiny teeth cutting into the curve of her bottom-lip. Tipping her head at a bird-like angle, she waited for the correct animal noise. Michael, at a loss, laughed again. "I don't know!"

"Quack, quack." The girl murmured stubbornly then as the paper beak of her crane poked at his cheek.

"Quack, quack." He agreed with a sigh. Then, glancing around again, eyes jumped between her and the scatter of people who stared back oddly at him. "Mija, where are your parents?"

"My Mummy calls me mija, too."

"What's her name?"

Mismatched eyes widened brightly then. Curling little fingers over her mouth, high pitched giggles poured out from the spaces between fingers. "It's a secret!"

"I'm awfully good at keeping secrets?"

"Well," she began. Eyes slanting and mouth flattening out, the girl gave him a thoughtful look for a long moment before dipping in with a hand curling around one side of her mouth. The name was whispered into Michael's ear.

"Hey Michael!" A voice called out, sending him to shift away from his young company. Twisting at the waist, he blinked out and around the tree to where the familiar call had originated. Lani, pixie-bright and grinning, came into view with one hand lifted high in an animated wave. "Who were you talking to?"

"Oh, ah --" Paling slightly, Michael shifted back to look where the little ballerina had been nestled beside him. In her place, the red crane stood out brightly against neatly trimmed grass. A slow realization filled him, knotting at throat and shuttering away eyes. Picking up the origami shape, it was tossed in and closed off by the slants of cardboard edges as he folded the box closed. "No one. Just thinking."

"Oh." The fae murmured, flattening against the weathered line of tree-trunk. Pressing a cheek to the rough bark, eyes lowered down to her twin. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Maybe I did."

[secondhand_stars]

<center>Who sends us these messages,
oblique and muffled?
What good can they do?

In the daylight we know
what's gone is gone
but at night it's different.
Nothing gets finished,
not dying, not mourning;
the dead repeat themselves, like clumsy drunks
lurching sideways through the doors
we open to them in sleep;
these slurred guests, never entirely welcome
even those we have loved the most,
returning from where we shoved them
away too quickly:
from under the ground, from under the water,
they clutch at us, they clutch at us,
we won't let go.

Margaret Atwood - Two Dreams 2</center>

<center></center>

[secondhand_stars]

Sloppily slung over the length of his couch, he spent the last hours of his birthday in a half-stupor. In the back of his throat, the last shot of tequila had left skin crawling with a strange itching. In a sharp exhale, throat was cleared out and irritation briefly smoothed over. It was the rattling of hinges that roused him from his half-sleep rather than the knuckles knocked into door panel. With an indecipherable mumble, Michael propped himself up upon the crooks of his elbows and fumbled mentally for the locks.

The stripe of light overhead cast a spotlight over her as the door was slowly opened. Dripping down upon the crown of her dark hair and gently curving shoulders, the cheap light was made lovely. In one hand, she held a rectangle of tupperware as the other remained slack upon the doorknob. "I've come bearing gifts?"

He murmured out a string of nonsense syllables as hand lifted heavily to wave her in. Then, slumping back against the soft weathered leather cushions, Michael tucked arms around himself and squinted eyes to shut away the light she brought in.

"You're drunk," Lani snickered quietly as she padded through the darkness. Sidestepping chairs and the low trunk that was littered with his personal party paraphernalia, feet kicked out of their heels at the foot of the couch.

"I am."

"Well, I'll trade. Birthday cake for tequila." Settling down upon an empty space carved out of the negative space that his frame left upon couch, Lani wriggled off the plastic lid to the box. Immediately assaulted by the sickly sweet smell of buttercream icing and cake, she pushed the leftover cake upon her brother.

"Sorry I couldn't make it," he slurred halfheartedly. Pushing himself clumsily onto his side, the cake was tucked close and fork hidden down the length of the tupperware removed. Squinting nearsidedly through the semidarkness, he cut away a bite.

"Oh Michael, come on. We're used to it. You don't celebrate our birthday and that's cool. I didn't really feel like doing it this year either, but then Dad called and you know how it is." Leaning forward, fingers hooked around the belly of the bottle and pulled it close. Examining the label, her thumb passed over the papery front before the cap was unscrewed. Unceremoniously, a small swig was taken. Against the familiar scratchy-burn, she grimaced and murmured a low curse, "Fucking Jesus --"

"I don't think those two words should necessarily be used in the same sentence, Lan." Michael joked in lazy vowels between bites of cake. Looking over, heavily lidded eyes batted at her.

"Can I spend the night tonight?"

Round-eyed now, the clairvoyant looked at his sister for a long moment. Then, attention slinking off again, a sigh and answer was hissed through teeth, "Sure. I, don't know why that'd be a problem."

"Thanks," she murmured gratefully. "And Michael?"

He hummed out a curious note as tongue licked clean the tines of his fork.

"Happy birthday."

"You too."

[secondhand_stars]

Even after the weight of his coat had been sloughed off shoulders and tossed carelessly over an armchair, the scene stayed stuck to him like smoke in his hair and liquor on his breath. The apartment was all empty save for the shifting shadows that played from the traffic below projected onto his walls. Though the rooms he passed through like a ghost were in immaculate order with all the drawers tucked into their places and floors clean of any literary debris, he was a mess. Swaying and tripping over the edges of heavy furniture pieces, Michael cursed under his breath and weighed his options. The clock blinking from one minute to the next upon his nightstand was full of small numbers. He ached to pick up the phone and call. There was something in knowing. Reaching into the back pocket of his rumpled khakis with a certain reluctance, he flipped open the face of his phone and pressed in familiar numbers. As he waited for the line to connect, Michael folded onto the corner of his bed and stared at the tops of his knees where shadows bled out.

He didn't understand this strange subsection of people who were so much like him, yet completely removed. Where he avoided the small truths that always whispered in his ears or the strangers on the street who no one else could see, people like Harlen Prior proactively raced towards illumination. Though he would never admit it, he used alcohol to dull the weight of knowing, to blur the lines of all the different realities so they didn't seem so jarring. Cigarettes created a smokescreen. The prophet, on the other hand, popped pills in hopes of immersing himself in deeper. Unlike him, Michael had always had a sharp fear of drowning. When you were far enough in, one lost track of up and down he had realized.

"...Hello?"

Surfacing from his thoughts, Michael nearly dropped the phone as the groggy greeting cut through the running stream of consciousness. Smearing a hand down the line of his profile, eyes blinked out blearily. "Hi," he murmured. "Sorry it's so late. I'm --" I'm drunk. I'm jarred. "... We need to meet."

[secondhand_stars]

The tables had been turned. He had once been the restless, bleary-eyed student rather than the restless, bleary-eyed instructor. Everyone waited for the inevitable now as the semester drained down to its final weeks before winter exams. The handful that showed up, did so in body alone. Staring out over the desks spotted with the exhausted few, Michael paced the classroom with the heavy anthology text weighing down the open-flat of his palm. Pages rustled at a deafening volume as he pushed past the last voyage of Gulliver. Pausing just off-center, a hand smeared across a scruffy cheek. "Can anyone tell me what Swift is trying to say about humans in the behavior of the yahoos?"

The class was silent. Glancing amongst one another, the students then averted their eyes from Michael. He could have laughed at how intently they suddenly stared at their notes and poised pen over a fresh line of blue-veined white in order to make note of what some brave soul ventured to guess.

"Very well then," Michael murmured, "how about -- Does Gulliver consider himself a yahoo?"

"No," someone in the back chimed in. It was a far more simple question that required little to no deep conclusion. It never failed to amaze the professor how reluctant even the brightest of his students were to make an opinion and argue it.

"Why not?"

More silence.

Fingers lifted from the inky text pages to fold beneath his jaw. Angling out the lower-half at hinges, Michael stared out for a long moment as his own brain struggled to keep on topic rather than wander. A part of him knew he was the last person on earth who should be holding a lecture about human behavior: in satire or otherwise.

"They are primitive -- The yahoos," someone else offered. "Gulliver relates more to the horses because they are rational."

Michael bowed his head in a light nod as the halves of the anthology were closed together in a gentle click. Shifting the heavy book between hands, he then folded it against his chest with the crossing of lanky arms. "And what about you?" His chin tipped towards a meek looking girl on the first row. Her eyes widened with mortification as all others turned to her. "Are you more Yahoo or Houyhnhnm? Think back to when the Houyhnhm social structure was detailed in the section."

"I -- I," the girl choked a little as her pen nervously drew looping designs in the margin of her notebook. With certain reluctance and a shameful shrug of her shoulder, head dipped towards the page. "I'm a Yahoo."

The room hummed with a smattering of laughter.

"Remember: the Houyhnhnms are the perfection of nature. They're pure reason. No emotion, no passion. They have no private interests. They don't have family or sexual love. They don't fear death." He paused there, bottom lip running through the wringer of his teeth for a half beat. "I think most people would have to align themselves with the Yahoos. Even, Gulliver himself had to acknowledge that fact. And when?"

"With the girl?"

His head bowed in a nod. "Yes, but even then he wasn't a very good Yahoo was he?"

"No."

In the back of his head, an ache grew. Like a chill, it wrapped over the curve of his scalp and turned skin tight. Grimacing, he lifted a hand to rumple fingers through the back of his hair and loosen the tension. "Why not?"

"Because he wasn't wild?"

"The Houyhnhnms thought that yahoos were without reason and couldn't be taught, too, didn't they?" Someone else offered in words that curved with uncertainty.

"Exactly, but Gulliver was able to rise about his animal passions." Hand dropping, he gave a quick glance to the watch that peeked out from his shirt-cuff. Ten more minutes, he coached himself mentally as a hazy look was given towards the window. "Let's talk quickly about how Swift deals with the duality of human nature in today's reading today... "

Trailing off, Michael moved to the blackboard and picked up a short length of chalk. Quickly and efficiently, he made a diagram linking the spiritual world to the human to the animal in a series of short dashes. Angling away from it, the chalk was used as a pointer upon the word "human." "Humans are the link between the spiritual world and the animal. Why?"

Again, the room sank into silence.

"Can one argue it's because humans have knowledge about both worlds -- the animal and the spiritual?"

"He splits it," a voice piped in. Michael paused to nod and gesture with the turn of his hand for the boy to continue. "Uh, human nature is split. The yahoos are all animal and the Houynhnms are... Spiritual?"

"Can you cite an example of how?" He asked.

Feeling ambitious, the student straightened in his chair and tugged on the bill of his baseball cap. From beneath it, hair curled out awkwardly in bed-head tangles. "Well. Like, they don't fear death. They have reasoned it out. Everyone dies. It's just a physical transformation."

"Good," Michael said with a grin. Lowering chalk back down upon the tray, he stepped away and tucked hands into the slants of his pockets. Tipping chin over towards the one of the exit doors at the left wall of the classroom. "Hnuy illa nyha Yahoo."

"What's that mean?"

"Take care of thyself gentle Yahoo."

[secondhand_stars]

It was a classic pose and in a moment, the years that had passed since their last meeting had collapsed. He sat perched upon the windowsill with a cigarette angled out of one of the windows that had been opened out into the commons. Taking care to exhale smoke out rather than fill the small office with its ashen scent, his head was bent towards that break in the glass. His winter coat was thrown over a chair but scarf remained looped around his throat. Pushing the door open, Michael stood at the threshold and stared towards him for a long moment as brain struggled to connect with his voice. Coughing quietly, he gave a backwards look to the hall before shutting the door altogether behind the two of them. "How can I help you, Paul?"

"Michael!" He sang out. Extending from his pose as far as the cigarette would allow, a hand held out to the professor palm-side up. Pale eyes narrowed into a sharp squint as he examined his former suitemate. "God. You look great."

As one hand fit into the offered for a polite shake, his free hand lifted to tug upon the angle of his nose in a purely self-conscious gesture. Slowly, but surely Michael had grown into his sharpest curves. No longer gangly and clumsy, he was a sleek creature whose features had grown into his nose and mouth. Tongue ran over the surface of his teeth where braces were no longer hinged. From all outward appearances, he was a completely different man.

"Yeah, well. It's been awhile." He murmured, tugging his hand free from the tight clasp Paul kept around his fingers. Side-stepping his desk, messenger bag was emptied into the belly of his desk chair and a file was dropped down upon the neat stack marked upon their labels with class numbers and hours. "What brings you here?"

"How are you?" He asked, ignoring the question. Hand dropped into his back pocket to remove cigarette pack. Pushing up the lid, he wrestled free another cigarette and stuck it into the corner of his mouth. The remains of his first were used to ignite white paper as a wind gust sent files to shiver and ashes to fly off the end. Untucking the damp filter from his mouth, he offered the newly lit to Michael with a lifted brow.

"I'm fine. Busy, really. Quite. The end of the semester and such," he murmured as fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose and eyes squinted shut for a half-beat. The cigarette was taken and Michael slid into the spot across from Paul. Taking a quick drag off the recycled end, he filled his lungs with smoke and -- more importantly -- his mouth with quiet.

"That's great. And your sister? What the hell is she up to now?"

Blowing smoke out of the space between windowpane and frame, he grinned idly out into the dreary day. "Even better. She's getting married."

"You're shitting me," he laughed heartily. "Lani?"

"No, no. She's definitely getting married."

"I want to be invited to the reception. God, she knew how to throw a party. What a white wedding that'll be."

Michael winced openly at the emphasis that was placed upon the word. He knew exactly what Paul meant by it. Eyes and mouth drooping, he shook his head towards the man and tucked cigarette safetly back out the window. "No, no. She's clean now. In fact, you wouldn't even recognize her. She's really... Great. She's --" He paused to grimace a shade deeper and bow head away. "She's pregnant."

"Ahh. Congratulations Uncle."

With a shiver of a laugh, he shook his head again and breath cut against teeth to shush Paul. He concentrated upon the lawn now where students scurried back and forth between heated buildings in hope of beating out the chill that whispery falling snow brought. "What are you doing here, Paul? I thought you didn't want to see me ever again."

"Lani's not the only one who's grown up," Paul answered matter-of-factly. The cigarette, more filter than anything else now, was flicked onto the hard packed ground below the window then and final exhale of smoke tipped out. Settling back against the wall, head lolled back and the bob of his Adam's apple rolled lazily up and down with a swallow. Though Michael didn't ask -- and honestly, Paul hadn't expected him too. Not everything changed but when it came to his old friend, nothing ever did. -- he continued on, "I'm living in Paris now working as a magazine editor. I, eh... I wrote a book."

"Did you? That's wonderful."

"It's why I'm back in the States."

Michael's eyebrows rose a notch, but he didn't press on.

"I need your approval."

Laughing, head rolled back against the wall in a twin pose and the cigarette clumsily slipped from his fingers. Green eyes cut low to where it had rolled away and dimmed. Despite his amused tone, he felt his stomach turn with distinct dread. Fingers uncurled from the window pane and scratched idly upon his cheek. "You don't need my approval."

"Actually, my publisher says I do." He stopped to gesture to where a thick folder rested upon his desk. "That's my manuscript and a release form for you to sign after you've read."

"Oh," Michael mumbled as he shifted from his lazy lean and wandered warily towards the folder. Lifting the flat yellow paper from the edge of his desk, he shifted the envelope from one hand to the next. "What's it about?"

"Read for yourself. I know it won't take you long."

Pale eyes rolled to meet Paul's. Unhinging the clasp, the upper fold was pushed up and he slowly slid the pages in their cheap, primary binding free. With the pad of his thumb dragging across the pages, he sighed and watched typewriter print blur. "...Do you use my name?"

"God, no. Everyone was given different names."

"Do I even want to read this?"

Paul slowly straightened from his pose and shut the window. Stepping back to where his jacket was thrown over a chair, hands smoothed down the woolen folds of his scarf as he bypassed Michael. "...Well, you've never been one to dwell on --"

"I'll read it," he interrupted as shuttered eyes angled towards the man. Watching as arms were tucked back into the heavy sleeves and the rest of his coat was shrugged on, Michael bit back a sigh and words. What did he even have to say to Paul? Apologize? They were both in the wrong. That wasn't the question, only who was more so.

"Thanks darling," he said in sing-son as buttons were neatly pushed into holes and collar was pulled up to add another level of protection to the back of his neck. From his pockets, gloves were pulled out and neatly tugged on over fingers. "And Michael?"

"Yes?" The professor answered quietly as a hand stilled over the one of that pushed hurriedly over the pages. He had no intention of reading the work for anything more than a piece of fiction. Staring at the cut of leather over knuckles, he reluctantly glanced up.

"You're exactly how I remembered you."

"I don't know if that's a good thing or bad."

Paul laughed at the dry tone. Leaning in close, his nose pressed cold against the cut of the other man's cheekbone. Pausing for a moment, he greedily drew in the warmth from olive skin into his own pale, freckled. Michael froze into a living statue and stared out to one of the fading posters that were tacked up upon plaster walls. They had been the previous occupant's. He had never bothered to take them down and paint over the dimming effect of time upon paint.

"It's a good thing," he answered after a long moment as weight rolled back onto his heels and the writer took a step backwards. Releasing his wrist, hand slipped back into his pocket as the other reached for the knob. "When you're done reading, give me a call. My card is attached to the release form."

"Okay," Michael answered in classic response.