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CrazySugarFreakBoy! in Hell: CSFB!'s contribution to the current Hooded Hood masterplan Sunday, 16-May-1999 04:42:02
Dreamcatcher Foxglove opened his eyes, wondering where he was and what had happened to him recently, since he couldn't recall much of either, but then again, this wasn't much of a surprise, given that it was already a regular part of his Sunday morning ritual as a college student, especially after he'd imbibed a few too many (ie. four)Strawberry wine coolers the night before. The unexpected aspect of this particular morning involved him finding a warm female body beside him on his bed, which he quickly realized was her bed, in her dorm room, because once upon a time, not too long ago, he'd become accustomed to spending more nights in the safety and comfort of her room than that of his own. The young woman curled up beside him was barely clad in a tight, midriff-exposing black tank top, with matching black silk g-string panties, which complimented the jet black of her short painted nails, her ebon lipsticked kisser, her almost Egyptian level of midnight eyeshadow, and her close-cropped, tousled bob of raven tresses, and sharply contrasted the pale, milky white complexion of her skin. Her gorgeous, dark-enough-to-be-a-starless-sky brown eyes fluttered open with the stirring of her bed partner, and a slow smile spread across the black-pencilled lips as she recognized her longtime lover. "Dream," Isabel Shapiro sighed sweetly, her bellybutton piercing jingling and her multiple earrings jangling as she reached over to run her fingertips through his orange hair. "You've cut your hair," she noted sleepily, as her hand reached around to caress the nape of his neck. "It's nice, even though I'm gonna miss the braid you had in back. It always reminded me of your Indian heritage, that you had the blood of your tribe running through your veins. Kinda like me and my Gypsy jewelry, I guess. I like the rest, though. It makes you seem ... older, more mature somehow. Despite that, it suits you." Dream shook his head to try and clear his mind, and it didn't help that his brain was normally a confused and chaotic place to begin with - this entire scenario was wrong, in some strange way that he couldn't quite place, except that he suspected that Izzy shouldn't be here, even though she had been the love of his life for nearly a year now, and his best friend in the whole wide world for rather a great deal longer than that; however, as he stretched out on the mattress, it was Izzy herself who helped pinpoint the source of his unease. "Hmmm. The spandex superhero suit is new. The smiley-faces are cute. It's definitely you. But don't you usually wear the Peter Pan costume whenever you feel like dressing up? I'm not even going to bother asking why you donned your Halloween outfit in the middle of May, since I know that you believe in Trick-or-Treating year 'round." With these words, Dream began to recall what had happened, or at least enough of it to piece together the why behind his bittersweet mixed emotions over Izzy's presence. "It's no big deal, just something I hand-sewed a while back and finally felt like showing off. Um, do you happen to have any idea what we were gonna do today?" Izzy rolled over onto her stomach and arched her back with the smooth, slinky movements of a drowsy cat, before plopping her chin upon the flat of her palm and propping her elbow against the pillow. "Well, since it's past 10 on a Wednesday, we've probably already missed our morning classes, so we might want to make an effort to get up, get dressed, and show up for at least our afternoon study sessions, since neither one of us has yet attended a single day's worth of courses this week. After that, I figure you'll drag me over to that comic shop you always stop by in Pike's Place Market, seeing as how this is the ship date for the latest issues, as you've told me on so many occasions. Between that, your periodic action figure purchases, and your mandatory chat with the rest of roleplaying circle, as you schedule a date and time for assembling with the gang for your next campaign, we'll probably depart the store around six in the evening, during which hour we can either catch the evening movie or swing by Beth's coffeehouse. Sound alright to you, Spider-Man?" Dream's voice choked up a bit as he started to talk, and he swallowed hard against the inexplicably lump that was welling up in his throat. "How about we skip everything, and instead lie here together in bed, until the sun sets again over the horizon in our window? This'll most likely sound silly and stupid, but sometimes, I just feel like ... I don't spend enough time with you, and I don't mean doing stuff with you or going places with you, but simply being with you, and talking with you, and noticing how pretty you are, and *sniff* how lucky I am to have someone like you." Even as Dream bit his lower lip to keep it from quivering, a single droplet from the layer of tears he'd been blinking back behind his eyelids spilled out onto his cheek, and his trembling was apparent as he inhaled sharply. Izzy immediately leaned over him protectively, kissing away his silent tears and wiping of his lipstick-smeared cheeks with a tissue as she slid on top of him, stroking his forehead and smoothing back his hair as she gazed into his eyes with motherly concern. "Dream, what's wrong? It's not like you to be so ... calm. It's funny; I've actually grown so accustomed to the hyperactive blur of your hectic pace that seeing you so meditative is almost scary. You practically build your existence around the arrival of each week's new comic book titles - you wouldn't miss picking them up, even for the end of all those infinite earths you continually babble on about. And you're crying! Even back in New England, when those awful bullies beat you up so badly, on a virtually unceasing basis, I never once witnessed you shedding a solitary tear. Please, tell me what's bothering you?" Dream scooted himself around so that he and Izzy were lying side by side again, with him nestled against her and caressing the curves of her surprisingly sun-warmed skin, before he traced the outlines of her facial features with his persistent fingertips, almost as if he was deliberately attempting to commit each contour of her body to memory. He smiled appreciately at her uninhibitedly open demonstration of affection, his girlfriend's level of love and concern for his happiness oddly reflective of his own mother's gentle and protective attentiveness, as he struggled to communicate his intended meaning without concealing too much of the significant truth of the situation from Izzy. "I had a really bad nightmare," was the explanation he settled upon. Subterfuge had never been his strength. Fortunately, this honestly halfway accurate diagnosis resolved the matter, as Izzy burrowed into Dream, nuzzling her head against his neck and tapping her hand upon his lips to still his speech. "Shhh, it's okay baby, everything's fine now. No matter how horrible any of it was, it's all over. That's the good thing about dreams; once you wake up, you're perfectly safe, because none of it ever really happened in the first place." Dream shut his eyes tight as the tears streamed down his face, and he hoped against hope that the dream was what he'd woken from, wished upon wish that he wasn't dreaming right at this very second, and that for once in his life, the good stuff wouldn't just fade away as soon as the morning sun came 'round. "I promise," he sobbed, wrapping his arms around Izzy and hugging her with all of his might, "That if this is really real, I'll never ever take you for granted again. I want this moment to last forever ..." And as much as he fought against it, he could feel himself drifting off to sleep again, as Izzy's soothing voice cooed in his ear that of course it was real, and that this moment would last for however long he wanted it to; but when he reached out to hold her once more one last time,, his hands couldn't find her, and all that his fingers could locate to grasp were mounds of grass and freshly turned earth. Dream opened his eyes in alarm, to discover that he was no longer in Izzy's old dorm room bed, but that instead he was stretched out upon her grave, with her Star of David-capped headstone hanging above him in the same spot that the headboard of her bed had been positioned. All his wishes and all his hopes ... all for nothing. He would have given up everything that had come after - his fame, his adventures, the countless number of innocent lives he'd saved and the impressive resume of amazing deeds he'd accomplished; heck, his whole entire superhero career - he would have willingly given it all up, just to have stayed with her, frozen in that tiny moment of time. And in the end, none of it made the slightest bit of difference. Isabel Shapiro, the only woman he had ever loved, was dead. And at that moment, for the first time ever, Dreamcatcher Foxglove wished that he'd never become CrazySugarFreakBoy, but by this point, even the eternal optimist at last recognized the futility of wishes. So, on his knees, on her grave, Dream buried his face in his hands. And wept. It was the second time, since he'd been born, that he'd ever cried. ----- cONTINUED IN hh'S NEXT CHAPTER Well, it's by CSFB! but this is HH posting it 'cause he asked me to. Anyway, read it, it's tragic! |
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