bury me — r&v / in every universe
Sept 12, 2024 10:12:39 GMT -5
Post by tick 12a / calla on Sept 12, 2024 10:12:39 GMT -5
It’s a painful silence. Worse when Vin speaks up. The room shifts into something charged.
Roe almost opens his mouth again to drive it home, keep digging the grave, last nail in the coffin. But then Mat turns around, and Roe actually sees the look on his face.
He stops. Little bit of hesitation in it. Mat’s expression gets worse.
The thing is, Roe thinks about Mateo a lot.
That's kind of the deal when you only have one friend. That's kind of how it works. Inseparable for life. Inseparable for three years. And then Dune happened. And then the drive-in happened. The Van Halen fight. The party. The other party. Funny how inseparable became very easily separable. Funny how it only happened after Vin came into the picture.
Being friends with Vin can't have caused Roe to start being a terrible friend to Mateo. That doesn't make sense. That's what happens with girls, and Vin was never actually Roe's girlfriend. They won't be.
In the beginning it was all Mateo. Roe didn't want Vin. He didn't even want them in the band. He didn't want them near his only best friend because they were much more likeable, and much easier to be around, and they would end up taking him away and Roe would lose him and be all alone again.
And then. And then what.
That best friend allure faded away. Roe started to care less about what Mat thought, they fought more, it was worse for them to be around each other for a while, when Roe was so obsessed with Vin that it made him insufferable. He didn't care what that was doing to his relationship with Mat. He didn't care about his band getting ruined, or his party getting ruined, or how worried Mat actually was that December when Roe disappeared.
It sounds terrible to say. It is terrible. Mateo's still his best friend. He'll always be his best friend.
So how can he want Vin more. How can he still want them more.
It's just that he really can't lose Mateo. That little knobby kneed kid with the too-big shoes. Annoying tiny thing, pushed off the slide, shoved into the lockers, his lunch scattered into the dirt outside. Roe’s lucky he didn’t go to juvie for what he wanted to do to those kids. Because there was Mat, lunchless, sulking on the side stairs, listening to Roe crack his knuckles and telling him to leave it alone, it’s not worth it, he'll just get himself into worse trouble.
That first Thanksgiving. That first Christmas. The first family that sort of actually felt like a family. Laurel never tried to be his mom, because Roe was real defensive about that in the beginning. She never made him feel bad about it. He got to take leftovers home, and he got to help set the table, and he got to sit outside drinking cocoa with Mateo's cousins while the adults caught up inside.
Mateo taught him how to properly roll the sticky November snow into something big enough to pass for a sad lumpy snowman. Roe taught him how to hide ice in the snowballs to win any snowball fight.
Mat let him in on his Poptart stash, and he let him touch his comics, his cassettes that were so revolutionary, he patiently guided him through every movie from the last two decades that he hadn't seen, which was a lot.
He wanted to start a band together.
Roe's screwed up so many times and somehow they've always been able to fix it.
Still. Again. He'll probably never stop screwing up.
Even now, during the come-down, he's breathing a little too hard, looking between Lou Reed's stupid face and Mat's even stupider one.
Vin's still standing there. The room is still very quiet.
Well.
What do you mean?
Don't say he never did anything for Mateo.
“Mat’s got bad taste.” He settles on, and he tosses the record away in a blasé sort of motion that makes Mateo lurch across the kitchen to catch it.
He takes it back to his room. Doesn’t look at either of them on the way. He comes back to get Sally Can’t Dance and puts that away too. They all sit back down again.
Sgt. Tyler is badly wounded on the front and brought into the O.R. He tells Hawkeye that if they can't save the leg, don't save him at all. He plays football back home, he's the running back from Iowa, tied for the Big 10 rushing record. He needs this.
They operate. They can't save the leg. Hawkeye's the one that has to tell him. Sgt. Tyler wakes up from the surgery and is inconsolable. What can he possibly do now, after he's discharged, what kind of future does he have. War is war, hell is hell. He asks for sleeping pills.
We broke up two weeks ago, Vin says.
Time passes very quickly after that. Roe loses a week just shuffling back and forth to work, borderline moping, enough that the guys at the shop start ribbing about how his girlfriend must have dumped him.
It's not that. It's nothing. It's fine. Vin drives them to the mall and Roe doesn't mope. He doesn't bring up Arcadia at all. He listens to Theatre of Pain three times in a row. He forces Vin to pick a favourite track. He acts normal. Because that's what he decided to do.
There’s no word of Vince Neil’s sentencing. Theatre of Pain climbs the charts. It’s unbelievably successful. Most teenagers bypass the note that says it's dedicated to the memory of that drummer he killed. MTV plays Home Sweet Home a lot, but they play Smokin’ In The Boys Room even more. The world tour starts early July. People Magazine slams them for the new style, their sleekly eerie, pouty looks. They call Vince Neil the hottest peroxide-blond hermaphrodite on the head-banger circuit.
The glamour shots turn some of the fans away, now they're wearing more lace than they ever did leather. Pink leopard print and sequins. Grease paint. It's like Tommy's decided to never wear a real shirt ever again. Nikki Sixx says that if George Washington was allowed to wear a wig and make-up, then so is he.
Mateo thinks it's dumb. It's fake and pretentious and they don't even look that good. Roe carefully aligns his opinion.
But the album really marks a change. Not just in America, but worldwide. The shift to glam rock happens quickly, in the grand scheme of it all. Other bands start to move and manoeuvre, and smaller ones, more upcoming ones, bands like Cinderella, Poison, they get ready to take to the scene.
Hair metal is coming.
But not quite yet. Roe still needs to win Mateo over a little more. He'll get there eventually, and he'll quietly tolerate the Poison phase that Roe thinks he does such a good job at hiding.
But Mateo needs to own it all a little more, in Roe's hypocritical opinion. If you’re gonna be like that, just be like that. How are you ever gonna get laid, dude. Javier still probably thinks you're into Maia.
Mat goes from very quiet about this, to very defensive, to dishing it right back to Roe as good as he gets it. He doesn't want to be beaten to a pulp after school, so would Roe kindly quit it, stop trying to interfere.
Except Roe will kill anyone that gives him trouble for it.
He says this. Outloud. Mat turns a little green.
Go worry about your own sad love life, he says.
But Roe can't. And so he doesn't.
Mateo, almost inconceivably, almost impossibly, is convinced to get his ear pierced, on the condition that Roe will do it too.
But Roe just wants the right one, because Mat’s doing the left one and they both know what that means. Or actually, Roe pretends not to know what it means, as Mat tries to explain it very stiltedly.
And this way they only have to buy one set. It's a good plan.
And it's very punk rock actually. It's very metal. There are rockers who have their ears pierced, Roe's pretty sure.
Mat still looks scared shitless. He's given Roe one of Laurel's sewing pins and they're sitting on the bathroom floor, Mat's gangly legs are getting everywhere in the cramped space. Roe has to smack his knee every time it starts creeping towards his ribs, some kind of impulsive defense reaction even though they haven't actually started yet.
Vin has the double duty of manning the music and also keeping watch in case someone comes home early, but now they hang in the door, holding the cup of ice cubes for Mat's inevitable freak out.
Is it going to hurt, he asks again.
Roe gives him the same answer he gave the last three times he asked.
Probably.
There’s only a tiny bit of blood, but Mat immediately flies up, he’s hunched over, his hand over his ear while Roe sits there with the pin hovering over the empty space, very unimpressed. This is why they're doing it in the bathroom. They can't make a mess of the carpet. The tap's right there, just wash the blood off. But he still needs to put the stud in, he argues, reaching for him. Hole’s done already, get back over here.
Mat whines the whole time. He complains that the stud going in hurts more than the pin did. Roe cuffs him on the back of the head. Vin hands the ice over a little more sympathetically
He doesn’t even need to ask if they want one too. But he still jokes, still holds the pin up, says if there’s anyone who would understand a few extra holes, I think it’s Jesus.
But when it’s Roe’s turn, Mat’s still looking not well. He’s still a little too pale, sitting on the lid of the toilet and half heartedly scooping applesauce out of the little plastic container Vin went and got for him.
Well. Well, fine. Coward. Vin can do it then.
And no, he really shouldn't be inviting them further into the bathroom after every other thing that's happened in a bathroom, but Mat's here this time. He's here looking very sick in the corner, very pathetic, and so that should be a fine enough buffer. Roe gives the pin to Vin. He makes them sit on the floor, and Mat doesn't move his stupid long legs so Roe shimmies onto his side to put his head in their lap. His own legs spill out into the hall.
He stares at the door of the cabinet under the sink, reminds them in and out, don't hold the it in there like they do in the movies. It's fine if there's blood, they've handled that before, and he isn't a wimp about it like Mat is. Antigone did this to him, but times a thousand. And he's got an actual tattoo. How bad can one poke be.
Roe almost opens his mouth again to drive it home, keep digging the grave, last nail in the coffin. But then Mat turns around, and Roe actually sees the look on his face.
He stops. Little bit of hesitation in it. Mat’s expression gets worse.
The thing is, Roe thinks about Mateo a lot.
That's kind of the deal when you only have one friend. That's kind of how it works. Inseparable for life. Inseparable for three years. And then Dune happened. And then the drive-in happened. The Van Halen fight. The party. The other party. Funny how inseparable became very easily separable. Funny how it only happened after Vin came into the picture.
Being friends with Vin can't have caused Roe to start being a terrible friend to Mateo. That doesn't make sense. That's what happens with girls, and Vin was never actually Roe's girlfriend. They won't be.
In the beginning it was all Mateo. Roe didn't want Vin. He didn't even want them in the band. He didn't want them near his only best friend because they were much more likeable, and much easier to be around, and they would end up taking him away and Roe would lose him and be all alone again.
And then. And then what.
That best friend allure faded away. Roe started to care less about what Mat thought, they fought more, it was worse for them to be around each other for a while, when Roe was so obsessed with Vin that it made him insufferable. He didn't care what that was doing to his relationship with Mat. He didn't care about his band getting ruined, or his party getting ruined, or how worried Mat actually was that December when Roe disappeared.
It sounds terrible to say. It is terrible. Mateo's still his best friend. He'll always be his best friend.
So how can he want Vin more. How can he still want them more.
It's just that he really can't lose Mateo. That little knobby kneed kid with the too-big shoes. Annoying tiny thing, pushed off the slide, shoved into the lockers, his lunch scattered into the dirt outside. Roe’s lucky he didn’t go to juvie for what he wanted to do to those kids. Because there was Mat, lunchless, sulking on the side stairs, listening to Roe crack his knuckles and telling him to leave it alone, it’s not worth it, he'll just get himself into worse trouble.
That first Thanksgiving. That first Christmas. The first family that sort of actually felt like a family. Laurel never tried to be his mom, because Roe was real defensive about that in the beginning. She never made him feel bad about it. He got to take leftovers home, and he got to help set the table, and he got to sit outside drinking cocoa with Mateo's cousins while the adults caught up inside.
Mateo taught him how to properly roll the sticky November snow into something big enough to pass for a sad lumpy snowman. Roe taught him how to hide ice in the snowballs to win any snowball fight.
Mat let him in on his Poptart stash, and he let him touch his comics, his cassettes that were so revolutionary, he patiently guided him through every movie from the last two decades that he hadn't seen, which was a lot.
He wanted to start a band together.
Roe's screwed up so many times and somehow they've always been able to fix it.
Still. Again. He'll probably never stop screwing up.
Even now, during the come-down, he's breathing a little too hard, looking between Lou Reed's stupid face and Mat's even stupider one.
Vin's still standing there. The room is still very quiet.
Well.
What do you mean?
Don't say he never did anything for Mateo.
“Mat’s got bad taste.” He settles on, and he tosses the record away in a blasé sort of motion that makes Mateo lurch across the kitchen to catch it.
He takes it back to his room. Doesn’t look at either of them on the way. He comes back to get Sally Can’t Dance and puts that away too. They all sit back down again.
Sgt. Tyler is badly wounded on the front and brought into the O.R. He tells Hawkeye that if they can't save the leg, don't save him at all. He plays football back home, he's the running back from Iowa, tied for the Big 10 rushing record. He needs this.
They operate. They can't save the leg. Hawkeye's the one that has to tell him. Sgt. Tyler wakes up from the surgery and is inconsolable. What can he possibly do now, after he's discharged, what kind of future does he have. War is war, hell is hell. He asks for sleeping pills.
We broke up two weeks ago, Vin says.
Time passes very quickly after that. Roe loses a week just shuffling back and forth to work, borderline moping, enough that the guys at the shop start ribbing about how his girlfriend must have dumped him.
It's not that. It's nothing. It's fine. Vin drives them to the mall and Roe doesn't mope. He doesn't bring up Arcadia at all. He listens to Theatre of Pain three times in a row. He forces Vin to pick a favourite track. He acts normal. Because that's what he decided to do.
There’s no word of Vince Neil’s sentencing. Theatre of Pain climbs the charts. It’s unbelievably successful. Most teenagers bypass the note that says it's dedicated to the memory of that drummer he killed. MTV plays Home Sweet Home a lot, but they play Smokin’ In The Boys Room even more. The world tour starts early July. People Magazine slams them for the new style, their sleekly eerie, pouty looks. They call Vince Neil the hottest peroxide-blond hermaphrodite on the head-banger circuit.
The glamour shots turn some of the fans away, now they're wearing more lace than they ever did leather. Pink leopard print and sequins. Grease paint. It's like Tommy's decided to never wear a real shirt ever again. Nikki Sixx says that if George Washington was allowed to wear a wig and make-up, then so is he.
Mateo thinks it's dumb. It's fake and pretentious and they don't even look that good. Roe carefully aligns his opinion.
But the album really marks a change. Not just in America, but worldwide. The shift to glam rock happens quickly, in the grand scheme of it all. Other bands start to move and manoeuvre, and smaller ones, more upcoming ones, bands like Cinderella, Poison, they get ready to take to the scene.
Hair metal is coming.
But not quite yet. Roe still needs to win Mateo over a little more. He'll get there eventually, and he'll quietly tolerate the Poison phase that Roe thinks he does such a good job at hiding.
But Mateo needs to own it all a little more, in Roe's hypocritical opinion. If you’re gonna be like that, just be like that. How are you ever gonna get laid, dude. Javier still probably thinks you're into Maia.
Mat goes from very quiet about this, to very defensive, to dishing it right back to Roe as good as he gets it. He doesn't want to be beaten to a pulp after school, so would Roe kindly quit it, stop trying to interfere.
Except Roe will kill anyone that gives him trouble for it.
He says this. Outloud. Mat turns a little green.
Go worry about your own sad love life, he says.
But Roe can't. And so he doesn't.
Mateo, almost inconceivably, almost impossibly, is convinced to get his ear pierced, on the condition that Roe will do it too.
But Roe just wants the right one, because Mat’s doing the left one and they both know what that means. Or actually, Roe pretends not to know what it means, as Mat tries to explain it very stiltedly.
And this way they only have to buy one set. It's a good plan.
And it's very punk rock actually. It's very metal. There are rockers who have their ears pierced, Roe's pretty sure.
Mat still looks scared shitless. He's given Roe one of Laurel's sewing pins and they're sitting on the bathroom floor, Mat's gangly legs are getting everywhere in the cramped space. Roe has to smack his knee every time it starts creeping towards his ribs, some kind of impulsive defense reaction even though they haven't actually started yet.
Vin has the double duty of manning the music and also keeping watch in case someone comes home early, but now they hang in the door, holding the cup of ice cubes for Mat's inevitable freak out.
Is it going to hurt, he asks again.
Roe gives him the same answer he gave the last three times he asked.
Probably.
There’s only a tiny bit of blood, but Mat immediately flies up, he’s hunched over, his hand over his ear while Roe sits there with the pin hovering over the empty space, very unimpressed. This is why they're doing it in the bathroom. They can't make a mess of the carpet. The tap's right there, just wash the blood off. But he still needs to put the stud in, he argues, reaching for him. Hole’s done already, get back over here.
Mat whines the whole time. He complains that the stud going in hurts more than the pin did. Roe cuffs him on the back of the head. Vin hands the ice over a little more sympathetically
He doesn’t even need to ask if they want one too. But he still jokes, still holds the pin up, says if there’s anyone who would understand a few extra holes, I think it’s Jesus.
But when it’s Roe’s turn, Mat’s still looking not well. He’s still a little too pale, sitting on the lid of the toilet and half heartedly scooping applesauce out of the little plastic container Vin went and got for him.
Well. Well, fine. Coward. Vin can do it then.
And no, he really shouldn't be inviting them further into the bathroom after every other thing that's happened in a bathroom, but Mat's here this time. He's here looking very sick in the corner, very pathetic, and so that should be a fine enough buffer. Roe gives the pin to Vin. He makes them sit on the floor, and Mat doesn't move his stupid long legs so Roe shimmies onto his side to put his head in their lap. His own legs spill out into the hall.
He stares at the door of the cabinet under the sink, reminds them in and out, don't hold the it in there like they do in the movies. It's fine if there's blood, they've handled that before, and he isn't a wimp about it like Mat is. Antigone did this to him, but times a thousand. And he's got an actual tattoo. How bad can one poke be.
