Who:Henry Townshend and Derek Souza What: Running into each other at the park When: Mid-November Where: Park near UCI Rating/Warnings:Status: Complete!
Derek had more pent up energy than usual lately. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was closer to becoming a werewolf or because he was still angry at Chloe for being so stupid and summoning a zombie. Either way he was going on runs more often than usual. He was up to three times a day now, when under normal circumstances he usually went for runs in the morning and in the evening, sometimes skipping his evening run.
He was currently running through a park near campus, letting all thoughts and worries leave his mind. Yeah, this was where he belonged.
Henry was still working full time at the porn studio. His hours were very flexible. What errands had to be run, what photos had to be taken and processed and sent to the distributors and publishers - as long as all of those things got finished, it didn’t matter when he decided to show up. So Henry was able to sneak in a few mornings a week to work on his technique and get shots to add to his portfolio. At some point, Henry hoped his work would soon be ready to sell. He could get his name out there better if he had some sales under his belt.
So this particular morning found Henry in that same park near the school campus. The leaves had changed and were littering the ground. The area was one of few in Orange County that looked more like an autumn in a rural northern location than bright sunny southern California. It was serene and peaceful. Henry’s mission that morning was to capture that serenity on film.
There were a number of people around already that morning. Students cutting through the park on their way to classes, dog walkers, people going for early morning jogs. Henry had to be careful when he took his shot, as no one seemed to mind getting into the photographer’s shot. One such person darted straight through Henry’s current scene.
Henry blinked and lowered his camera. Huh. What were the odds? “Hey!” He called out before he realized what he was doing, “Derek?”
Of course Derek hadn’t noticed the photographer. Derek barely noticed anyone in general, but especially not when he was out for a run. He was completely oblivious to the rest of the world.
But, wait…
Was someone calling him? Derek wasn’t used to people knowing him, let alone recognizing him. Still he turned to hear who was calling him. Oh. It was Henry. Chloe’s boyfriend. “Hey,” Derek said with a nod jogging back over to him. “What are you doing here?” he asked jogging in place, not even noticing the camera.
It was Derek - Henry hadn’t mistaken him for someone else jogging through the park. Oh, it had happened. Henry calling out thinking he saw someone and then feeling highly embarrassed when it turned out it was someone completely different.
He hadn’t expected Derek to come over to him, more like a wave in acknowledgement and then moving on. Henry hadn’t intended to interrupt his run. But now that he had, Henry waited where he was until Derek had come over to him and ask him what he was doing in the park.
Amber eyes flickered down to the rather large complex looking camera in his hands and then back up at the other man. Apparently not as obvious as Henry would have thought. “I, uh, am taking pictures,” he told him, the fingers of his left hand tapping the camera lightly. “Parks are about the only places around here that show any kind of change of seasons. That and...well the mountains surrounding the area, but I don’t get a chance to get out there much. Going for a jog this morning?” Well, duh, Henry. What else would Derek be doing out here dressed in athletic clothes and running?
At the mention of Henry taking pictures Derek finally noticed the camera. Well, that made sense. Henry’s question was just as inattentive as Derek’s had been though. Given he had been running and was dressed for a run. So he didn’t feel too bad about being oblivious to the camera.
“Yeah,” Derek agreed. “I miss the snow sometimes.” Although it wasn’t conducive to running. “You go to the same parks every season? Show a passage of time?” Derek really had no idea about art, that was more Chloe and Simon’s thing. That was his best guess.
“Yeah,” he said again slowing down his in place jog. “I usually go before class.”
“I try to,” Henry answered. He glanced at the trees around them. Most had dropped their leaves and their bare gnarled branches were reaching up towards the sky. In October they could look spooky and threatening, probably because Halloween dominated the month. But in November it was different. With the right lense and filter emphasizing the right colors, bare trees like these could still look melancholic, but at the same time sort of inspirational. November was just one stop in the cycle of death and rebirth. There was an odd sort of comfort in that Henry enjoyed.
He turned his eyes back to Derek a little surprised. Snow. What an odd thing to find in common with someone. “Sometimes I miss the snow too,” he said. “My mother lives in Maine and sometimes I spent the winters up there with her. I’ve always kind of liked it. Snow, I mean,” not so much the time spent alone while he lived with his mother. “It’s so quiet. Like, sometimes I’d go walking in the woods behind my grandparents’ house after it snowed and it would be utterly silent. It was like being in another world.”
“You ever go back to visit?” Derek was originally from New York. Until the incident in high school. Then they all moved to Nevada. It still snowed there so he hadn’t missed it until he went away to college. “I’m going to visit my dad with my brother for Thanksgiving,” he offered. Though why he was sharing with Henry he had no idea. Derek wasn’t exactly a sharer. “But I don’t think it’s snowed there yet.”
“No,” Henry answered a bit too quickly. He hadn’t visited his mother since he’d graduated from college and started living a very nomadic life as a freelance photographer. “I, uh, I don’t…” Henry fumbled and then trailed off. He wasn’t much of a sharer either. But Derek had and it was only fair that Henry did as well. “My mother and I don’t have a great relationship - But you’re seeing your dad for Thanksgiving. Where does he live?”
Well there was clearly a story there. Derek had caught onto that much. But he wasn’t the type to pry. Especially with Henry’s rambling and subject change. “Sorry,” he offered because he had heard the comment about Henry’s relationship with his mother. “Yeah, he’s in Sparks,” he paused for a moment before adding, “Nevada.” Just in case Henry didn’t know where that was.
Smooth segways and subtlety were not friends of Henry’s, but Derek had taken the awkward and blatant shift in conversation in stride. Good for him. And good on him for not wedging his nose further into Henry’s personal life. Henry liked Derek just fine, but the guy didn’t need to hear his entire story. Maybe some other time. Over drinks. If Derek drank. Who knows. “Thanks, it’s um, complicated,” Henry shrugged. The “sorry” was appreciated.
“I’ve been to Sparks,” Henry went on, satisfied they could move on. “I did some work for the travel bureau in Reno a few years ago and I stayed in Sparks for a few days. Real pretty up there. Especially when it snows. My dad lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Kinda similar,” only not really save for the whole living in the desert thing. “Is that where you’re from? Sparks, I mean. Not Phoenix.”
Most things people didn't want to talk about were complicated. Just further proof that it wasn't something Derek should push. Not that he was ever the type to push anyway. Unless it was Simon. But his brother as the chattier one of the two. He rarely had to press for information.
“Yeah,” Derek agreed. “Probably good for photography?” Normally he would just say something like that as a statement. But instead he phrased it as a question. Henry knew a hell of a lot more about art and photography than he did. “More or less. We lived in New York too.” Or well the majority of his childhood but his time isn't something he wanted to elaborate on. “Never been to Phoenix.”
“Yeah,” Henry nodded. This conversation was going a lot better than the one they’d had over lunch. Still a little awkward and without a chair to sit in, Henry was shifting from foot to foot. His camera in his hands gave him a little more confidence to chat. His camera always did and always had. It was something he could hide behind “It’s really good. I got some of my favorite shots up there. There is one of this valley outside of town. Snow had just fallen the night before. I got up early and headed out to the area. The sun was just coming up over the ridge line and the snow just sparkled. Like diamonds.” There was a pause, but not an awkward one, which kind of surprised Henry a little. “I’ve been to New York. Stayed there for a little bit while I was a contractor for a magazine. I didn’t really like living in the city, so I rented a place just north of Yonkers.” That had been a long and expensive commute and Henry hadn’t been all that disappointed when his contract with the magazine ended.
“Phoenix is, ehh,” Henry shrugged. He didn’t have an attachment for the city, despite having spent a chunk of his childhood there. He felt the same way about Maine. Henry wasn’t really the sentimental type. “Sparks is better, I guess.” There was another pause and Henry looked out over the park. Then after a moment he said, “it snowed here last year.”
The way Derek heard Henry talk about photography was probably how most people felt when he talked about genetics. It was clear the guy was passionate about it, but Derek barely understand anything he said. You’d think he would have picked a few things up from Simon, but his brother was a comic book artist. Not a photographer. “You’d probably get along with my brother,” was the only thing he could think of to say after that. Simon wasn’t all that different from his dreamself. Which made Derek briefly wonder if Henry knew anything about him from Chloe.
“That’s odd,” Derek commented in regard to the snow. This was not the climate for it. But then again that was hardly the oddest thing that happened around here. Hell Derek was practically a werewolf after all.
“Everything about this place is odd,” Henry answered with a light shrug. “When it started, I took a picture of a palm tree with snow covering the fronds. At the time it represented everything that’s weird about this place.” A frown pulled at the corners of Henry’s mouth. That had been before the hole had opened up in his bathroom and he had inadvertently unleashed a monster-filled fog into the county for a week. Before all the really weird shit had happened, back when Orange County was still kind of awe inspiring. That was what the frosted palm tree had represented
“Snow isn’t so bad,” he said, glancing out over the park. “It’s better than being turned into a demon horse, or storm troopers pouring out of Disneyland, or vomiting blood, or ghosts and zombies randomly showing up, or a friend literally pulling your heart out of your chest…” he trailed off for a moment. “Kinda makes you wonder why the fuck we stay here.”
Derek certainly wasn’t expecting Henry to go into that ramble of strange Orange County occurrences. Clearly he was speaking from experience. But the heart thing? That was too much for Derek to believe. “I’m sorry, what happened to your heart?”
Oh. Right. Derek hadn’t been around for that debacle. Henry glanced at him out of the corner of his eye debating whether or not he should explain and if so how much. Derek was protective of Chloe. Henry’d go so far as to say fiercely protective and Henry didn’t want to say something that would make Derek think that he was dangerous for Chloe to be around.
“A friend of mine experienced a dream bleed over,” Henry explained - names protected to protect the innocent. “It was a curse from his Dream World and while he was under that curse he was heavily influenced to the side of evil. I tried to help and kind of...screwed up and he took my heart. Well...more like my emotions. But they came in the form of a heart so…” Henry shrugged. “I got them back,” he assured Derek.
Derek wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Of course he didn’t want Chloe getting hurt, but it seemed more likely he would hurt Chloe with the whole becoming a wolf thing then Henry would. Although not having emotions? Yeah, that didn’t sound good. Had Henry been with Chloe at that time? What exactly did he do without his emotions? There were so many questions.
“How does that work? Having no emotions? You just didn’t care about anything?” Well he’d start with those at least.
“My friend Revy said it was like I was some kind of fleshy robot,” Henry said. “I had no interest in anything. Nothing made me happy or mad or whatever. All I could do was think in a purely logical way. Looking back on it, it was hell. All my friends were upset about what was going on with The Dark One and I couldn’t even help or offer support, or anything. I was just there. Existing without a purpose, without a drive, just accepting whatever happened like it was nothing.”
“That doesn’t sound like the best way to live.” Of course he wanted to ask what happened to Chloe during this time but Derek was still unsure about when it even happened and if he had been dating Chloe. It didn’t really matter anyway, clearly they got through. And from now on Derek was going to be there for her. If anything ever happened to Henry again. “I should let you get back to your photography,” he said already beginning to run in place again.
“It wasn’t,” Henry agreed. But he had gotten his heart back and shortly after he’d met Chloe while doing laundry. And he had been really happy ever since, totally head over heels for the girl. He smiled faintly when Derek started jogging in place again. “Yeah, I’m sorry I interrupted your run. I’ll see you later.”
Maybe if it snowed again this year he and Derek could go out exploring in it. Henry hadn’t had the chance to go into the more rural areas of the county last year to take pictures and he’d like to do so this year if he could. And since Derek also liked the snow, it might be nice to have him along? Henry would just have to see.