Mother Fucker.
I woke up someplace I didn't know. God, the cliches that ran through my mind. I thought this only happened in books when women had slept with an evil hunk the night before, or partied their souls out and crashed in a loser's bed. I was in a loser's bed, but there had been no sex and no partying.
The surroundings I felt with my body seemed to place me on a bed that was far more comfortable than my own and a whole lot bigger. My eyes kept fluttering open and shut to beige bed sheets and brown pillows that were soft as hell. The overall lighting in the room was yellow-tinted and it took me a moment to fully adjust, but above the bed was a twinkie advertisement that looked stolen off of a storefront and I knew where I was. Whatever semi-panic I had felt was now gone.
I stretched and sat up. I was in Peter's room sleeping sideways on what I assumed was his bed. I rubbed my tired eyes to revive them a bit and when I opened them again I half-gasped. My hair fell on my face as I looked at the room's contents. Stolen road signs lined the walls, next to posters of women on bikes, next to movie posters of recently-out films. I was trying to examine everything but Peter zoomed right to the base of the stairs that lined his room. My head turned to him.
"You're awake," he said, pointing at me with a twinkie in his hand. This was his room full of... junk. I looked at him with narrowed eyes and probable bedhead. "I haven't had a girl in my bed in two years." The first comments of the morning were of course revolving around... Peter's virginity. Lovely. I shot him a mocking smile and he put his hands up in pretend surrender.
His room was filled with everything you could have imagined. He had at least six bikes in the corner, leaned against traffic cones that were propped up against an arcade machine. He had an entire arcade machine in his room. Across from them was a pile of televisions and a traffic light. I truly had no words for him as I kept staring around his room. There was a ping-pong table folded against the far wall and he had a brown couch in the corner. Some areas were carpeted and others weren't, and hanging next to a rack of jackets was a beaded entrance.
The words came to me as I sat there, knees against my chest and in entire awe. "You called me a hoarder when you looked at my records. If I'm a hoarder... Peter, what the fuck are you?" I looked to him with my mouth ajar still. He had his arms folded over his chest and looked strangely triumphant.
"Then I am a mega hoarder. I steal what I want and I swear I have a purpose for all of this which I will explain to you later." He answered with his grin. He was in what looked like his form of pyjamas, a Pink Floyd shirt and black cargo bants. Or maybe it just looked casual without the jacket. I was still waking up. My eyes studied his entire room and I drew my eyes all the way back to his bed, which was wooden-framed and had a mirror and lightbulbs attached to it. How the fuck was he not in jail yet? "Good morning, Venus."
"Morning," I mumbled back, greatly distracted. Again, there was a loss for words. I remembered back to how exactly I got into this bed and realized I had ended up here out of care and pressed my head to my knees for a brief moment. It was a little embarrassing to dwell on, really, to think of myself that way and to think about him seeing me that way. I raised my head to him, who looked like he was trying to somehow organize his things for me. "Thank you for not letting me try and walk home in my tired state. Where did you sleep?"
"The couch is surprisingly comfortable, I didn't mind it so don't worry about it. Nice hair." He grinned and pointed at my hair. I touched my hair and immediately sought out a hair tie to get it in some sort of order. Every time I looked up I couldn't stop finding new things. It was like some ispy picture game. He nearly tripped over one of his bikes as he spoke again. "Oh and I called your mom, so she knows where you are. Do you want breakfast?"
"I"m alright, thank you." I smiled at him, now coming out of the trance the hypnotic, crowded room had given me. He had so many things, I wondered how he ever chose what to do. The ping pong table... he had said he played ping pong with himself. I thought about my mother alone. "I'm sorry, I have to get home..." I trailed off, getting up and digging my fingers in the roots of my hair. He may have called my mother, but I was more afraid of what he said or... what my mother had interpreted.
"Oh, that's cool," Peter said, sitting on the brown couch in the corner. "I didn't mean for this to be weird, I just didn't feel like it was a good idea to let you go home alone, tired and in the dark."
"No, it's not weird," I sighed, walking over to where he sat and trying to keep my eyes from his seemingly neverending room. "Thank you for letting me stay. It's just... my mother seems to think that you're some sort of fuckbuddy and this doesn't help. I don't need to go, I suppose, but I wanted to clear it up to her myself so that she wouldn't... get out of hand."
Peter's eyebrows had raised significantly. "She thinks we're fucking?"
"I mean I think so... she keeps teasing and she always says 'be safe' before we go out and I don't think she entirely means 'don't fall in a ditch'." I rubbed my temple, laughing. He nodded comprehensively.
"Is that really such a far-off thought?" He joked, poking me in the side. "You slept in my bed."
I slapped his hand, "I crashed in your bed... and as far as I'm aware, there was no sex. You slept on the couch."
We had evolved to joking about sex and I could tell that it wasn't such a taboo with him. He didn't care, nor did I. There were a lot of things I looked at in my life and didn't mind or care about, but always expected myself to. I always expecting things to either be worse than they were or to possibly disgust me, but they never did. I had only been finding myself doing this since I met Peter, which was weird, but... I didn't mind.
He lifted his head from the quiet laughing fit he had just endured and I rested my head against his wall. "You're sure you don't want anything to eat?" He asked, gesturing to a shelf that I had somehow missed. It stored a box of twinkies and two boxes of poptarts. I looked at him, then looked back at him with my jaw dropped again.
"You're kidding!" I breathed. I stepped on an empty crate to be tall enough to reach the contents of the shelf and looked through the boxes. I "What the hell is wrong with you? Why are there so many?"
"Special occasions. You can take what you want."
"I've never had a poptart before," I confessed. I looked over my shoulder and it appeared it was his turn for a jaw-drop. "What?! I've never really thought they were worth eating, so I've never had one!"
He stared at me with hatred in his eyes. "We are not friends, you need to leave. The door. The door is right there." He pointed with a straight arm toward the door of his room. "Unless you're about to try one right now, you're exiled."
"I've only been awake for fifteen minutes, give me a break!" I grabbed one of the silver packages from the poptart box and hopped down next to him again. He made room for me on the couch, shoving pillows aside and sitting against the arm, facing me. Slightly scared to try a poptart, I sat with him. Some intense morning this was.
"Do it, do it, do it!" Peter chanted from under his breath. I looked at it in my hands and was about to begin the haunting process when there was an interruption that made both of us jump, causing the record player Peter had on the small table in front of the couch to spark. I hoped it was fine, I wasn't meaning to wreck his things.
"PETER MAXIMOFF YOU GET UP HERE RIGHT NOW!" Was shouted from the top of his steps. His mother's voice was recognizable from the diner and he looked at me, pulling his mouth into a straight line.
"I'll be right back, I'm sorry about her," he mumbled as he walked past me, speeding up the stairs. Really, that woman could yell. If she was like Peter and me, I would definitely think her power would reside within her voice. I got up and walked around his room, taking closer looks at everything. So many stolen things that seemed so pointless. I guess the kleptomaniac jokes were in the right after all.
Stolen things were in every single inch of this room. Maybe the bed was bought, maybe the couches too, but there was not another item I could believe he would pay for. He was saving his money for something he didn't know about yet, he had told me. He also said he had another reason to steal and that he would tell me later but by the sounds coming from upstairs, I was sure he would be too dead to tell me.
When I wandered his room, I came to find a vent in his ceiling. One vent that probably had its twin end up where they were. "Your licence is suspended and you didn't tell me, that's an issue, Peter! You drove the car yesterday! You could have been pulled over and arrested!"
"Venus can drive- she drives us when I take the car out." He argued back. Oh, I was a part of this. My stomach sunk at the idea of his mother disliking me in any way. Perhaps I strived to be liked a little too much, but she was a nice woman from what I knew.
"She's sixteen!" His mother yelled back.
"Sixteen turning seventeen and would you calm down, she's right downstairs! She's good at driving and she drives pretty slow for a teenager. She has her licence and I just ask if she can drive and if she says yes then we go. If she says no then we hang out around here." There was a shuffling of feet and the general sound of movement.
His mother huffed loudly, "For Christ's sake, Peter, this here, this letter from the DMV is what's most important. You didn't pay the fees that went along with your speeding tickets that got your license taken away."
"I thought the license being taken was in replace of fees!" Peter explained. Well, that made sense. I would think they would do that for the less fortunate people to teach them matters of safety. But as experienced as I was with the road, I wasn't as experienced with the repercussion of taking advantage of the road.
"You have got to pay more attention, Peter. The world may seem slow when you're fast, but when you're too fast the world doesn't stop to give you a break from the rules of society." This is where I stopped listening. Eavesdropping wasn't right and it wasn't my business. I tried to shake myself of their conversation as if I didn't hear it.
I could offer to go to the DMV for him. Maybe to make up for the fact I was the reason his car was taken out at all. It wasn't my fault at all, but I felt like since his mother set me out, that it was in some way my liability. I looked at myself in the mirror that was against the wall with the arcade machine at myself in the clothes from yesterday and messed up ponytail, feeling strangely guilty.
I found my bag on the floor near the beaded entrance and took my extra clothes from it- the clothes I said I would use if I needed to change. These would do for today. I found the downstairs bathroom and quickly changed in there into the flared jeans and green v-collared tank-top I had packed. I used the comb in my bag to get my hair under control, tying it back up. I felt a little better now.
When I exited the bathroom, he was back on the couch. "I have to go to the DMV and ironic as this is... I need to be driven. Can you drive me? Apparently, I have fees to pay and they're overdue, so I'm in a little bit of trouble if I don't... I hate the DMV with my entire soul. I'm telling you right now it's the worst place on earth."
"Yeah, of course," I replied, picking up my bag. "I'm ready to go if you are." He sped over to the couch and picked up the poptart. In mere seconds, it was in my mouth.
"Got you!" He grinned, speeding up the stairs.
"Mother fucker!" I said, my mouth full, though it sounded more like 'muher-fahker'. Who shoved a poptart in their friend's mouth with their super-human power? Then again, who used it to steal two pawnshop's worth of items? I followed him up the steps. I hadn't even remembered coming down these steps. I had only been in his house once before this. Sadly, I was forced to chew.
At the top of the steps, I could hear the TV from their living room, while his mother was now on the phone. The clock read ten-thirty, it was earlier than I thought. I had no time to look around more, with Peter's tug, I swallowed and rushed out the door with him. "The fines are over $200, so we need to head to the bank first." He tossed me the keys and ran to get into his car.
"Holy shit, Peter..."
His tone was harsh and his reply was snappy, "I know, don't be a bitch about it." My fingers went cold and I was immediately attacking myself. It was childish to feel this way. The ache to be liked by everyone was one of my faults. He must have noticed me tilt my head down, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."
"I know, it's okay," I gripped the wheel and started the car. There was no point in feeling bad. Sometimes, I just felt too much. I would dismiss it because I liked him and he was a friend. I didn't mind.
"No, that was a really shitty thing to say, I'm sorry," He was backpedalling. "My mind moves fast and when I get angry, I just... I snap and I didn't mean it at all. You're not a bitch, not at all." I just started driving. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't good with insults that weren't in fun when it was someone I didn't really think of like this. "Venus, don't do that."
"I'm just driving, I'm sorry!"
He groaned, "Don't apologize, please, you didn't do anything." I nodded in response. "I always make excuses but flat out, truthfully, I said what I said and didn't mean it. You're not being a bitch, I just have no filter. You're driving me to the DMV for fuck's sake. If you were a bitch, would you drive me?"
"Well...no," I replied, finally looking up from the wheel and at him. He looked sorry. I could tell because of the way his brows furrowed in but lost their curve at the ends. He was sorry, he really didn't mean it. And I understood. The numbness in my fingers was gone. "I heard you apologize the first time, Peter. Don't be a bitch about it." And he laughed with relief as I began driving again. I think I survived that pretty well and by the reaction he had just displayed I knew it wouldn't happen again if he could help it.
I turned into the bank parking lot and he went and grabbed the money before heading to the DMV. We stood outside, him with a bundle of cash and me with my hands behind my back. Dead serious, he looked to me, "Want to run away to Russia and live by the names Pietro and Vivian?"
"No! Peter, you can do this," I said, looking back at him with seriousness on my face. "Pay the fines and I'll blow out the walls when we leave." I chuckled and he sighed, a smile on his face. The line started at the entrance. If we got in line now, we would be at the front in an estimated two hours. He looked so stressed out.
"If you're really scared I'll do it for you." I decided, taking the money from him. He let go with surprising ease and his eyes were looking all about.
"I'm not... scared. I told you I don't fare well with boredom. I start speeding... or if I stop myself from speeding then I start vibrating." His mouth pulled back into the same line, but with a smile pulling at it because he saw the way my eyes widened at his words. "Give me your hand." He held his hand out and I put my hand in his. Great, now my attention was on his hands.
"You just want to hold my hand?" I arched an eyebrow at him, playfully.
"You wish," he started making his hand vibrate and I gasped, yanking my hand back. He laughed loudly. "It does come in handy. Literally."
I stared at his hand that was now back to normal, "I'm sure it does... Jesus Christ." I shook my hand out and blew my hair out of my face. He just shrugged, as if it was a normal thing to say in passing. "Uh..."
"Mhm," he nodded, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. I couldn't take him seriously at all. "But seriously, you're willing to wait... two-ish hours?"
Venus, by Shocking Blue-1969
Waiting hadn't been a problem for me before and I had my book in the car. I hopped down, grabbed it and rested the money on top of it. "Just give me your papers, ID, and suspended licence. I'm sure they'll take it if I make a good enough excuse." With my words he was already digging his pockets, practically dumping it all on me.
"I'll see you later, then? You're so fucking cool for this, Venus, what do I even say?" He handed me the last of his papers. I folded them neatly and opened the door to the DMV. I shot him a look
"I'm your Venus." I said.
"You're my fire." He paraphrased, grinning at my lyrical reference with a pointed finger.
I saluted with two fingers, "At your desire," and swung into the crowded DMV lobby. He sped off and I turned to see the seemingly endless line. I placed my hands on my hips and sighed, "She's got it..."
Waiting wasn't so fun. There was a man who came in behind me who was staring at my ass and I made sure to shoot him the iciest of looks and he still didn't stop, so I turned to my side against the wall and read my book. Time passed and the woman in front of me kept sighing dramatically. I wondered if she had a respiratory issue.
"Does no one pity women anymore?" She muttered, which caused me to look up. "I wouldn't mind appearing helpless right about now." Which told me her issue was not respiratory.
The woman was tall, but then again, most people were taller than me. She stood at about 5'8 or 5'9 and had a long blue dress on, a little too dazzling for the DMV. The dress was a deep navy blue that fell to her knees and the fabric wrapped around her chest. Paired with her blue dress was a long blue streak that ran through her hair to match the blue earrings that poked out from under the brunette waves that followed. She was royal-looking, almost too stylish for such a place.
When she saw me looking at her, she narrowed her eyebrows, "Has anyone told you that you look like Sharon Tate? You look like Sharon Tate." Don't speak until spoken to was broken. She was young-looking. She couldn't have been older than twenty-four.
"I've gotten it once before," I told her, smiling. "It's a compliment to me, thank you."
"Sylvia Howl-" She seemed to be introducing herself but stopped herself from the last name. "My name is Sylvia and I miss when DMVs didn't exist." So maybe she was older than I had thought?
"Venus," I replied, shaking the blue-tipped hand she had extended to me. She gasped, leaning away from me in disbelief. It reminded me of when I told Peter my name in the auditorium. "After the plant, planet, and goddess."
She was shaking her head. "I'm in love with you already, I swear to the gods." She paused again, shaking her head harder so that her earrings bobbed around her face. "I know you! I know you! I almost hit your grandfather with my car! So sorry about that by the way... It was some other idiot on the road who drove me off."
I covered my mouth to try and stop my laughter, not only did she recognize me from a good week ago, but she thought Peter was my grandfather. I couldn't wait to tell him this later. "You drove the blue car blasting Eleanor Rigby!"
"Yes!" She practically shrieked. I wasn't sure how this odd woman who nearly killed Peter was lifting my sad DMV feelings, but I didn't mind it. She touched my shoulders, then my hair. "You know you're much prettier when you're not a blonde blur."
"Thank you! I'm afraid I can't say the same, your car had tinted windows." I replied. "I love your outfit, by the way." Where was this interaction coming from? I wasn't like this with any other adult. She pressed her fingers to her chest like what I said actually meant something.
But she leaned in closer, "It's not my car... and thank you." She whispered. I looked at her, a mischievous, yet questioning look on my face. "It's my boyfriend's... he's a bitch, made me come all the way down here myself because we're here looking at some stupid crumbled building just off of the highway..." her voice trailed off a little when she saw the look on my face. Something told me there weren't many crumbled buildings off of the highway. Our lives had intertwined more than once. Did she know that it was me who did that? "Are you okay?"
I shook my head, "Sorry, I just remembered something..." We were nearly at the front desks. "Continue?"
"Oh, yes. It's my boyfriend's car and I got pulled over for speeding before I crashed into this oddly placed telephone pole... I swear I can drive." She rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. "What are you here for?"
"My friend Peter was pulled over too many times for speeding that he lost his license and he's very afraid of DMVs, so I'm paying his overdue fees for him." Sylvia smiled when I expressed that to her. I had been next to this woman for this long and only speaking to her now was disappointing. She was funny and fashionable, which I greatly admired, but the bit about the crumbled building really caught me off-guard. Was she talking to me for some sort of case she was working on?
She pat me on the shoulder as the line moved forward. Her strand of blue hair kept falling over her face. I had never met anyone with blue hair before. She seemed to really like the colour. "You seem like a good friend. -And, oh, I meant to ask how your grandfather is..."
"Peter has silver hair... sorry to say you didn't almost run my grandfather over. You nearly ran over a seventeen-year-old who wasn't paying attention." I chuckled and readjusted the things in my hands. "He's okay. He's still annoying."
"...And that's a good thing? Because I could try hitting him again." Her body language was flouncy and her fingers flowed in the air as she spoke, making gestures in the air that if materialized would be as smooth as wisps of smoke. The other thing I noticed was that her voice was posh. She spoke the way a fancy rich American would, but minus the lingo. I like her energy, but that didn't stop me from still being skeptical.
I laughed, still trying to figure her out as she was nearing her turn to the counter. "I'll spare you the energy and do it myself if he becomes too much, but thank you for offering." It was her turn now.
"Why don't you meet me outside?" She said quickly, her flowy hands gesturing outside. I followed her fingers and looked back at her, still puzzled. She elaborated, "We could get a drink?"
"Oh, I'm... I'm sixteen," I chuckled under my breath.
She was unphased, "Yes, I assumed so... will you join me or not?" I nodded and as she went to do her DMV business, I did mine... or... Peter's. I was glad I saved him from his vibrational state by doing this for him. The DMV people took his papers and money and it was a much easier process than I expected, but I kept looking at the blue-haired woman as she sweet-talked the man at her booth into letting her fees drop. She actually got it to work for her and that I mentally applauded.
She didn't seem like she was onto me for anything at all... she just smiled and joked with her floating arms and old-looking dress. An odd, fancy woman was all she really was if I dropped my critical thinking. A woman who looked young and seemed to have the spirit of a cool aunt who drank wine all the time. When I was done, I shoved Peter's things into my pocket and walked outside to where Sylvia stood against the same blue car with a totalled tail, cigarette to her lips, held by an odd metal contraption that resembled a long fork.
"Venus!" She greeted me the way I expected. Sweet, open, welcoming. I was beginning to feel at ease with her. "I must know everything about you. Where is your name from? Do you smoke? If so, do you prefer Camels or Lucky Strike?"
"Uh..." I suppose I could trust an unopened package of cigarettes, but I needed to remember only one cigarette. "Camels." She tossed me the whole package. It hadn't been two hours yet, so there was time to spend with this woman who was obsessed with the colour blue. In the wind, her hair was blown away from her face and revealed her features. Thin eyebrows, a thin upper lip and a full lower lip that paired with her slightly larger nose. She was so young-looking and truly beautiful and... I didn't mean to stare but I swore my mother had painted someone with the likes of Sylvia.
"Don't mind all the blue. Blue is my favourite colour, could you have guessed that?" She said, inviting me to come closer. Her lipstick was red and popped off her pale skin the way the vibrant blue in her hair did. I flipped the cigarette in my fingers and she lit it for me while blowing her smoke out the side of her mouth.
I puffed out the smoke I had, "My favourite colour is my last name, so there's a great bit of bias from me."
"Venus Brown?" She guessed. I shook my head no. "Venus... White?" I shook it again. "Green? Venus Green."
I nodded and she tilted her head upwards in a win, "I also have an abundance of venus flytraps, so there really isn't much I can judge you on. Blue is a good colour."
"I've loved it since I was a child, all those years ago." Her cigarette fork moved between her fingers as she used her hands to speak. She spoke like she was eighty years old and on her death bed, but again, she looked much too young to speak as she did. "Blue often symbolizes intelligence and tranquillity. I am neither of those, but Venus Green, you look like you speak to roses."
What an odd thing to say. It resonated with me for a moment and I was sure I would dwell on it later. "Thank you..." I took another inhale from my cigarette and let the smoke blow with the breeze. Sylvia was indeed the cool aunt who drank wine all the time. Though I had never had my own aunt, I had seen enough of them to know Sylvia's personality was based on thrill, fun, smoke, and alcohol. Maybe... just maybe, I loved it.
Sylvia and I spoke for nearly an hour, sharing small stories and her encouragement to take the whole pack of Camels was nearly the death of me. She said she needed to get rid of them and I said the same thing, so we laughed about failed attempts to rid of cigarettes for a good while. Peter seemed to be enjoying his time away from the DMV and being left here to speak with Sylvia was the best result of him abandoning me. I didn't mind it so much when I had someone to fill and occupy that mindedness.
When it neared heightened afternoon, Sylvia insisted that she needed to meet her boyfriend and his 'monkey' for a late lunch and by late lunch, she meant she was already late to it. It made me chuckle, but I said goodbye and thanked her for being so friendly and she floated into her car and waved like the highest royalty as she drove off in her damaged car. I hadn't gathered her phone number or any way to contact her, nor did she reach to me for mine, so when she left I felt a little sad that I wouldn't see her again. I would, of course, but... I didn't exactly know that yet.
Peter sped up behind me, scaring the living shit out of me once again. "You don't need to do that every time you come up to me, Peter! My soul jumps out of my chest each time and..." I was falling into his laughter as I spoke and just gave up, hands on my hips.
"You got it done?" He shoved his goggles back up on his head, matting his hair back with them like a headband. I handed him all his things back and he grinned the wide grin that showed the dimples in his cheeks. "I can't believe you actually did that... All that time."
"I met the lady who nearly hit you with her car and she kept me company." Rocking on my heels, I explained. I had my nose scrunched in anticipation of his reaction.
He looked at me in disbelief, "The Eleanor Rigby woman with the blue car?" I nodded and he covered his mouth. "She was so cool, I wanted to meet her! Damn it!" He walked back to the car and got back in the front seat.
I got in next to him and started the car again, "Her name was Sylvia and she has blue hair. She also offered me alcohol and when she saw I was uncomfortable with drinking with her out of the blue (literally), she offered me cigarettes instead."
"Fuck she sounds fun... It's not every day you meet the woman who nearly killed your friend..." He trailed off as a movie trailer would, or the opening line to a dramatic play. I filled him in on everything Sylvia had said to me, including how freely she admit she nearly hit Peter and the aspect of her thinking she nearly hit my grandfather. Peter didn't like that bit but when I laughed at it in the retelling, he chuckled a bit too. I told him about her blue obsession and the way she moved her body so freely like she was on the air.
Peter then expressed his plans for teaching me to use my powers for about ten minutes. They were disorganized and the idea still scared me, but I agreed with everything he said and he told me we would start whenever I was ready.
We arrived back at his house, but this time I felt like maybe I had overstayed. I really liked being with Peter, but there was a nagging thought about being unwanted in his house. Thinking about a solution, I went in and got my things, made his bed again and took a look around the room while he was upstairs telling his mother that he got his things sorted out. I wonder where he had gone when I was in the DMV meeting a woman I would think about for as long as she was missing from my life.
There was one thought I was fighting as well. If I had overstayed here, I knew a place that was indoors and he would be welcomed in immediately. Something that needed to get done. Something that needed to be faced if I was to continue to hang out with Peter. So I went upstairs and asked Peter firmly. "Would you like to come over for dinner tonight?"
And he said yes.
A/N: Sylvia's creation is credited to both me and my best friend Cassey who listens to me and knows what I Venus needs most is a flowy, eccentric, blue-streaked woman to take on the role of the immature adult to her and her speedster best friend.