fangednconfused (fangednconfused) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-10-28 13:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | derek mitchell, ronnie milam |
Bad Influences
Who: Ronnie/Derek
What: A Talk and an Adventure
Where: Searchlight, Ronnie's Place
When: Present
Ratings/Warnings: Low
Sleeping alone had been the first thing to re-adjust to. He had gotten into such a routine with Penny, knowing she was there beside him helped him fade away. Otherwise, his brain thunked clumsily through different thoughts as he tried to sink into unconsciousness. Derek lay across Ronnie’s couch, his feet dangling off the end, his arms folded behind his head. Sun had fallen and he was running on maybe two hours of sleep, total. He waited for his friend to return home.
The vampire hated being alone. That was something he realized again and again in his life, and unlife. He needed people. He liked people. Why had he killed so many? This was the thought spiral he had told Mikey about. It was like following water down a drain, it ended up nowhere and only left him feeling melancholy and lonely.
Derek wasn’t the only person in the world who hated the feeling of being lonely; Ronnie had felt that way for a long time, close to a decade, until recently. With Skylar, he felt lonely, when his mother was sleeping and Derek was gone, lonely. After Rose passed on, lonely. But he couldn’t imagine what his friend was going through even if he did his best to understand and be glad that Derek was on the road to happiness and recovery. Those roads often were hard to trek at first, but they got easier the longer you walked on them.
Ronnie pushed the front door open to the trailer. It had been an okay night, nobody of any interest had been there and so he would call it typical.
For a second he’d forgotten about Derek, lost in his own head about what to start for dinner, but those socked feet dangling over the edge of the couch reminded him and he couldn’t help the grin that appeared.
“Godbro?” It was whispered in case Derek was, by some small chance, still sleeping.
He sat up at the sound of Ronnie’s voice and leaned over, switching a lamp on. It filled the darkness and he managed to return his friend’s smile, even if he wasn’t really feeling it. “Hey,” he said, pretending to stretch and yawn. Derek stood slowly and began folding the blanket automatically. Being neat and tidy inside the trailer had become ingrained in the vampire in the years he had been spending there.
“Good day at work?” Derek asked, hand reaching up to check on the bedhead situation.
“Hey man,” Ronnie returned.
Boots would come off and be set by the door as his friend shuffled, folded blankets, and stacked the items up neatly. “Yeah, pretty typical night, you know?” Thankfully uneventful. “What about you? You okay?” He knew that was a stupid question, but asking came anyway. And with that he wandered over and plopped down on the couch next to his friend.
Derek nodded, about to assure his friend that he was fine, then hesitated. “No, not really,” he admitted. “But I feel like I shouldn’t complain.” He shrugged, leaning back against the couch. His eyes drifted up toward the ceiling. “I just feel kinda lost? And dumb, but that’s not really out of the ordinary for me.” The vampire smiled weakly.
“Hey,” Ronnie sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, man. Sometimes relationships don’t work. It sucks. Like...super sucks, but sometimes you’re just better off apart.” He knew that from his time with and after Skylar. Skylar was nothing like Penny, but the idea was similar - they both wanted different things and changing wasn’t possible.
“Wish I could do more to help, but it’ll start to alleviate. It never goes away, not really. Honest truth. Maybe I shouldn’t say that but you’re my friend. You just do like me and wander on for a bit and hope someone else comes along who gets it, and gets you.”
“Mikey seems to get you,” Derek offered. “And I’m glad for you.” Of course he didn’t want to hear that it would never really go away, but he appreciated the honesty. He wondered if the same would hold true for him. One year from then, five years, twenty years? Who knew where he’d be, if he’d even still exist. If the world would. The words Penny had uttered came back to him in a painful wave, like a swimmer’s cramp. ’We would have gotten tired of each other…’
She couldn’t know it, but she had uttered one of his worst fears. Being dismissed, being forgotten. Did he even have a right to feel that way? He had broken up with her. “I just don’t know how someone is supposed to get me when I don’t even get myself.”
“That comes with time, man. I’m still trying to figure out who I am, and I’m about to be thirty six.” Ronnie laughed a little. “But sometimes other people are more receptive than you realize. I get caught up in my own head sometimes and Mikey knows how to bring me back down and put things in focus. You know what I mean? I think we are what confused us so much, man.”
“It feels like all I have is time,” Derek said, shaking his head. He could see the truth in Ronnie’s words, but feeling it was another matter, entirely. “And it’s empty. Like other people think, okay, this is when I get married, this is when I buy a house, have kids, this will be when I retire. You know? Like my parents. They planned everything out ahead of time. And each moment probably feels meaningful to them because there are only so many left.” He was acutely aware of the possibility that he was rambling on.
“I’m not saying I’d like to go anytime soon,” the vampire added. “But I guess I’m wondering...what do I do?”
“Your life has as much meaning to it as you want,” Ronnie explained. “Even if you’re gonna live forever. What’s the point if you don’t make it the way you want? Having a lot of time ahead of you can be a bit daunting, I guess. You know? With the unknown and stuff. But make today yours. You control what you do with it, dude, and how you spend it. Who cares if you have an eternity? Go do something that makes you feel worth it, makes you feel alive, and then find something else that makes you feel that spark. It’s okay to chase stuff around. You don’t have to live on a set schedule anymore, like the rest of us.”
Derek chuckled softly, looking at Ronnie. “When did you get all sage and shit?” he joked, nudging his shoulder. “It must be nice to know what you want to do, and what you’re good at,” he continued, on a sober note again. “The whole cooking thing. Everyone wants to eat. I’m good at selling t-shirts, running fast, and killing people.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “The world’s weirdest resume.”
“I’ve been watching a lot of the old Star Wars movies, bro. That Yoda dude is super smart, I get it from him,” Ronnie laughed. Then he looked at his friend. “You’re good at making people feel good, man. You did a lot for Mama when you were here, you’re really smart man. You are hilarious. Who cares if I can cook? People like having a good time and you bring that. You could totally be an internet star or like a comedic actor.”
“An actor that can only shoot scenes at night,” Derek emphasized with a grin. “That will go over well at casting calls. And asking that pig’s blood be available at the craft services table.” He paused, then shrugged. “Actually, there have probably been weirder requests than that.”
“There are plenty of late night gigs out there, man. What about like, talk shows or comedy stuff? And you know what? You’re badass at video games. You know people do that as a career now?” Ronnie shrugged. “You’ll find something, man. I know it. And you’ll know it when you find it.”
Derek recognized what Ronnie was trying to do, and grinned. “I appreciate it. I already feel better.” And he did, comparatively. He sat up straighter, suddenly feeling more energized. “You know what we should do? We should go out! Like old times.”
Then he began laughing. “Oh, guess who I saw at this place in Vegas. The suit!”
Ronnie’s expression turned amused at mention of the guy in the suit, “Nuh uh! Really? He still around here?” That had been so long ago and yet he could still see that pretentious asshole clearly in his mind. Ronnie shook his head in amusement and disbelief. Small world.
“Hell yeah. Let’s go out and have a good time. I gotta change, but I’ll be back in a second.”
Up off of the couch, he made a mad scramble for the bedroom in the back of the trailer, already set on finding something more comfortable and appropriate to wear out on an adventure.
Derek stood, too. “Yeah,” he called out in the direction of the bedroom. “Get this, he’s a lawyer. Like how perfect, right?” He began looking around for his shoes. The vampire wasn’t entirely sure where they would go, but he guessed that was the point of an adventure.
“What? Really?” Came the call returned. Ronnie pulled on one of Mikey’s shirts, jumped around until the skinny jeans fit and then bounced into a pair of socks. “That makes so much sense. Who else wears a three thousand dollar suit?” All of those years Ronnie figured the guy had just been blowing smoke up their asses, but now he felt it was a more legitimate request.
Ronnie found his boots, pulled them on, and waited. “Lawyers.” He blew a raspberry and shrugged.
“I wanted to punch him again,” Derek admitted. “He was being a dick. I mean, I kinda was, too. But like a charming dick? He’s just a smug, insufferable dick.” The vampire finished tying his sneakers and straightened, clapping his hands together once.
“Okay, where to? The sky’s the limit. The world is our oyster. You got a full tank of gas? What about an impromptu road trip?” Derek rambled on. He was ready to take on the night with his best friend at his side.
Ronnie shrugged. “I mean, his face is sort of punchable?” If that made sense. Derek would get it.
“Yeah man, truck is full of road juice and the world is our oyster, like you said. You man the radio and navigate. I’ll drive! Let’s go!” His arms would fly into the air in celebration and then Ronnie turned and walked onto the porch. He texted Mikey to let him know he was safe with Derek and also going on a random, spur of the moment trip and didn’t know when he’d be back.
Derek got into the passenger seat, shutting the door behind him. He waited for Ronnie to start up the truck, then began fiddling with the radio disks until finding a good song. Shout at the Devil by Motley Crue filled the cab. “You wanna go to Vegas, or somewhere random?”
Maybe they could hit the California border. Or make it all the way to Mexico. Then Derek remembered he didn’t have a passport.
He climbed into the truck. The engine roared to life though the sound was cut off by the squeal of Nikki Sixx’s guitar which made Ronnie grin a bit. “I don’t care, dude. The road calls, we listen.” He tapped the side of his head, glancing over at his friend, and then pulled away from the trailer.
“You’re the Navigator, remember? Fire it up, dude. Let’s get this thing moving!”
An idea came to Derek and he began typing something into the GPS. “Let’s go to the Grand Canyon! It’s not that far, right? We can pick up a six pack, watch the sun rise.” The vampire didn’t even care that it would make him sick. It was worth the view, in his opinion.
“Hell yeah! Sounds like an adventure to me!” They wouldn’t make it back here in time to evade the sun, which meant stopping nearby to let Derek rest safely. He didn’t mind. A day off from work was just what he needed, and a chance to leave trouble behind in Searchlight sounded ideal.
Ronnie twisted the wheel in that direction and began the adventure to the Grand Canyon.