forthsofar | the rocket to the moon, with a touch of clair de lune

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neil

the rocket to the moon, with a touch of clair de lune

Rosie's been busy in the week or so since Darrowfest, and not just because of school, or for the usual Nick or Sabrina-related reasons. One of the places she'd applied, the seafood restaurant down by the water at the fancier end of the boardwalk that'd been looking for a hostess and had seemed like such a long shot, actually called her in for an interview--and that had gone well enough that now she was supposed to come by one night next week, too, for a kind of walkthrough and training just to know what she was really getting into. Even though the main reason she's doing it seems terribly far off, that thought of a quiet little house near the woods with enough space for all four of them, it still feels like a step forward.

As distracted as she's been, though, she hasn't missed the change that seems to have come over Neil since the festival. He's been happy, happier than she's really seen him in months, and it feels just a little like he's finally come out the other side of losing Harry and Guy in one harsh blow. She hasn't asked why, but she's noticed, and whatever the reason, she's glad.

Today, she's spent the afternoon at home, most of it reading on the couch. She's still there when she hears the short buzz of Neil's phone that usually indicates a text coming through. She doesn't pay it much mind, but then it happens again not long afterwards.

And again. And once more, just for good measure.

Rosie still doesn't get up, but when she hears Neil coming down the hallway and into their living room, she looks in his direction. "Someone really wants to talk to you," she says, a little amused. "Everything alright?"

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"It won't be," she agrees, and knows it's probably true. Still, knowing Charlie won't be there every day--in the halls or in class, sharing a table at lunch--feels a little like losing a layer of protection, even if he's not gone like so many others. She doesn't even want to consider how it'd feel if he was.

Neil smiles, and blushes a bit, and not for the first time Rosie's struck with a kind of protectiveness for him, something deeper than affection. As awkwardly as their friendship had started out, her silly little crush coming up against his hesitant reluctance, it's become so much more since then. For both of them.

"If it's weird, I'll tell you," she promises. "And I'll do my best not to, you know, pry about things. With either of you. Unless you want to tell me anything." She laughs. "You know I'll gossip with you about boys anytime you like."

"I do like being able to gossip about boys," Neil says, and he means it, even if possibly talking about cute boys that also happen to be Rosie's friends might be a little uncomfortable.

He puts his phone aside and comes over to the couch, flopping, leaning into Rosie dramatically and taking up as much of her space as possible. It is nice to be in a better mood than he has in weeks, in months. Things feel lighter, because of Caleb.

"It's one of the best pastimes in the world," she says, mock-serious for a moment before she smiles again. "Especially here, where nearly everyone's ridiculously attractive."

Neil flops down, draping against her with the same easy and slightly silly intimacy they've both learned to use with one another; a closeness that never feels forced, and fulfills something necessary for both of them. Rosie giggles, pushing at him in a feeble attempt at moving him out of her space, but it's all feigned. It always is.

"Neil?" she says, after they've stayed just like that on the couch for a long, quiet couple of minutes. "It's good to see you this happy. I just wanted to say that."

"I...like being happy."

It feels a little weird to say, but it's true. He hates that so much of his happiness is dependent on other people and not just himself. He's tried to cultivate the armor to depend on himself, to love himself. Some days are easier than others.

He doesn't want to put everything into the hope for one boy, and he doesn't think that he is. But he likes being friends with Caleb, who's kind and tender and seems genuine. It's nice to let himself be engulfed in being cared about.

"As you should," she says, but it's gentle and soft, nothing that grates against the peace of the moment.

Rosie hasn't tried to forget, exactly, what Neil told her after Guy and Harry's disappearance; the despair, and the desperation, and the irreversible choice. As much as she'd denied it then, reflexive and horrified, and as much as she'd cried about it in the quiet of her room afterwards, it's not something that should be pushed away into oblivion. But she hasn't wanted to think about it, either, the idea of bright, alive, glorious Neil ceasing to be.

This, now, is better. He's happier. Even if it's just a new friendship, even if it's decided between the two of them that it won't be more than that, Caleb's made Neil happier.

"Do you want to order something in, in a bit?" she asks. "Chinese or something? Anything sounds good tonight, I'm not picky."

"I'm always down for Chinese," Neil says with a nod and a grin.

But for right now, it's just enough to be curled against her, enjoying their time together while they've got it. Summer is busy, and Rosie has her own life, and sometimes Neil ends up feeling at loose ends.

"How's everything going being the new hostess and all? Do you like it?" He smiles a little. "I know getting used to the schedule at the cafe was rough for me at first. Do you think you'll stay on into the school year?"

"We'll see if they assume the order's for Perry Wilson again." It didn't happen often, someone misreading the names next to the buzzer at the front door of the building, but that just made it funnier every time it did.

"I've only just started, but...I do," Rosie says, with a sympathetic look when Neil mentions the schedule. "So far, the hardest part's been trying to balance all the sections fairly while still making everyone happy who's coming in to eat. Because of course everybody wants a table by the window so they can look at the ocean, but not everyone can have a table by the window so they can look at the ocean." She laughs softly, a little wry even as she nods. "I want to stay on, probably for fewer hours than I'll have this summer. There's been fewer people interested in having their dogs walked recently, so it feels like time to start doing something more dependable."

She goes quiet a moment, aware of a need to be careful in what she says next--one she's not certain is misplaced. "Nick's been talking about getting a house," she adds. "Not anytime soon, but eventually. So I want to start saving for when that happens, too."

Neil takes on that last bit with a sort of quiet yearning. He's known, since they moved in together, that it probably wasn't going to be a forever thing. Maybe it would have been him moving out, if Harry were still here and had invited him. But it's Rosie, with Nick--and, presumably, with Sabrina and Charlie as attache.

The feeling of loneliness comes and then goes. He smiles.

"As long as I get invited over to hang out sometimes," he says, and smacks a loud kiss on her cheek. "Houses are better for throwing parties in than apartments, anyway. Do you think you'll all looking out in the suburbs, like where Charlie lives, or somewhere like the townhouses downtown?"

"Of course you're invited, as often as you like," she says, her smile brightening as she's kissed. It was hard not to miss the pause that'd preceded it, the wistful sort of loss Rosie knows she'd been anticipating, but at least Neil seems to understand. "Whether for a party or dinner or just to spend time like this."

He's one of her best friends--the first person here who'd really felt like one, even, and no matter where she goes Rosie's determined not to let that fade away.

"Somewhere in the countryside, so even further out than the suburbs," she admits. "Nick's talked about something near the woods, if he can get it. I think he likes the idea of it, the privacy even if we'd all still be able to come into the city easily enough."

"Gosh, all the way out, really?"

Neil doesn't think he ever could, and maybe that's some deep, far back Puritan part of him that still fears the wood, or finds it too primal and visceral--which is silly, given all the nights he and the boys went out to the Indian Cave in the woods behind the school.

"Is that getting to the witchy sensibilities more than anything else?" He laughed a little. "Is that mean? Sorry."

"All the way out," she echoes, with a little bit of a sigh. "And Charlie's the only one of us who knows how to drive, so I guess that'll mean learning sooner rather than later, unless I want to spend forever on the bus getting anywhere."

Strangely, that's the part of the move that feels the most like something real right now. The house itself is a far enough concept that there's still a dreamlike quality to it; it'll happen, and she can't wait until it does, but it's still easy to think of as nothing more than a potential someday. Learning to drive is something she could do now, tomorrow if she wanted, and be ready to put it into practice whenever it's necessary.

She grins, looking sidelong at him. "Maybe it's a little mean, but it's accurate," she says. "Not only are there, you know, magical rituals and things that I know they used to do in the woods back home, it's just...the forest itself is a little spooky, isn't it? Like you'd expect there to be something witchy going on."

"I guess, yeah. Can't say I've gone off to the forest around here very much."

And that's the truth. He's spent plenty of time in forests, like the one back home, but here in Darrow, he's had no particular draw to the one here. It stands north of town, and he and Guy have driven past it on that endless loop, fast and blurring, and he's looked at it from Kagura, but he's never gone to it.

"I guess not," she says. "You wouldn't really have a reason, and even I've only wandered around in there a few times. All because of Sabrina and Nick, honestly, so my perspective's a little off anyway."

There'd been that one horrible afternoon after Sabrina got all those memories from home, Rosie going in search of her down muddy, rocky paths and trying to provide what solace she could once she'd found her. And then Lupercalia, far better and more delightful, even if the memory of what had happened back in Greendale's woods to Nick and Sabrina the year before still lingered over them a little. It didn't feel like a balance, one good thing and one bad, but it was close enough.

"I'm not sure if this is a glowing recommendation to go adventuring or not," Neil says with a smile and a laugh. He smiles, and looks thoughtful. "I suppose Nick is very handsome and could be quite convincing to go through some spooky forest..."

It's a playful bit of teasing, and goes a long way from his whole woe-is-me kind of attitude that he's been languishing for months. Having a new friendship might be hard in the long run, if he loses him, but for now it's doing good things for him, and he can't be upset about that.

"Oh, he can be very persuasive," she says as seriously as she can, only just managing it before she breaks out into another bright, delighted smile. "Even when there's not a spooky forest involved. Especially then."

She wouldn't have been this bold when they'd first met and become friends; wouldn't have known how to, even. Being able to now, to keep the light shift in Neil's mood going just a little bit longer so they can do things like this, laugh and tease and have fun, seems like one of the greater successes she's found in Darrow.

"And even if Nick can't convince you, Caleb seems like he'd be alright on an adventure. Tall, and plays football and all that. You could do worse."

Sure, they're only friends. But Rosie's not letting that stop her entirely.

"Does football translate into hiking?" Neil asks, letting her have her teasing. He knows that Caleb is fit, knows he does spots--they've gone to the gym a couple times, he knows exactly how fit and athletic he is.

"Not that I think rowing and soccer do, either, but at least I spent enough evenings back home hiking out to the old Indian cave and back before we were noticed and got a demerit or something."

He smiles, though. "Shame I've missed out on watching him play, though."

"As if I know," she says, laughing. "Wrong side of the Atlantic for that kind of football, remember, and the closest I even got to sport back home was cleaning up after my brother and his awful friends when they got back from the parks, because goodness knows they couldn't be expected to do that themselves." She makes a face. "And field hockey at school, but the less said about that, the better."

The argument's the kind of easy, low-stakes thing it seems like they both need, full of nothing more than teasing and the chance to quibble about something that doesn't truly matter. It'll all be forgotten by the morning.

"I should've invited you to one of the Petros games," she says. "Although to be honest, that was Drembleydrop, not football, and I don't think there's ever a way to understand what's happening in that game."

"Probably not," Neil says, laughing. He saw one game at Darrow High before he graduated, when he was still dating Patricia, but it made about much sense as anything in Darrow did, which was to say, it didn't make any sense at all.

But he's smiling, and happy, laughing about it.

"Well, maybe the next time he wants to work out I'll suggest we all go on a hike in the spooky woods together or something. And I'll recite poetry, and Nick and Sabrina can be...witchy, or whatever."

Neil says it as a joke, or at least something that sounds close enough to one, but after her initial burst of laughter Rosie actually thinks it over. "That's not a terrible idea," she says, almost surprised at herself. "It might even be fun."

She can picture it, or at least the hazy details of some kind of plan: Caleb doing something tremendously fit and outdoorsy; Nick and Sabrina working on an enchantment or gathering ingredients for spells; her and Neil and Charlie all taking turns at recitation while the other three are off having their own kind of fun. There are far worse ways to spend an afternoon in Darrow, as well they all know.

"Maybe we really ought to."

Neil grins and nods, settled on the idea. "We'll have to find some time when the two of us aren't busy. Do the rest of them even work? Lay abouts."

He doesn't mean it, because they're good friends, all of them, and he's been enjoying getting closer with Caleb in these past week or two. And doing something silly and athletic for all of them will be good. Bonding. Silly.

"Maybe the witches can make sure we don't get bitten by mosquitoes." He pauses. "Do we call Nick a witch?"

"Sabrina does," she says, shaking her head a little at the thought of the rest of them as layabouts, idle and thoughtless in a way she knows none of them ever could be. "She works at the magic shop on Archer a few days a week, and I think Caleb's still doing something at the garage his friend used to work at. But Nick and Charlie don't, yet."

She can see that changing, needing to change, when the four of them make the move to the house. Even with the allowance they all get from the city, paying for a house seems much bigger and costlier than affording rent on a flat. For now, though, it doesn't matter, and so there's no real need for her or Sabrina to lean on either of the boys.

She snorts faintly. "Sabrina's a witch, Nick's a warlock," she says. "I mean, not that I think he cares that much, but I also accidentally called him a wizard once and I thought he was going to pass out from laughter, so. I guess wizards are also a different kind of thing."

"Wizard," Neil says, with a ridiculous sort of voice.

It does seem suiting that Sabrina would work at a magic shop, though he imagines it's the hippie-occult sort of thing, and not the sort of toy store with a magic kit or two. And he thinks that Caleb has mentioned the garage, though Neil probably processed it as working in working on his specific car.

It is a very nice car.

"I suppose they don't really have to," he says. Not that any of them do, with the meager stipend the city gives them all to get by. Neil existed on that alone for almost two years. "Though if you guys are going to get a house..."

"Well, it sounds even sillier when you say it like that," she says, rolling her eyes at Neil's ridiculous, portentous intonation. It's nothing she doesn't deserve, though, at least a little.

Once the silliness passes, Neil hones in on the exact question Rosie knows is looming there somewhere up ahead. "If we get a house, it'll probably have to change," she says. "Another thing that will need to change, anyway. It already feels like an awful lot, and we're not even close to having it happen."

"You've all got time to figure it out," Neil stays with a smile and a nod. Like getting their apartment and getting Rosie out of the Home had taken time and coordination.

"You and the spooky sex cult." He's grinning, teasing, keeping everything as light as he possibly can. He knows how silly that rumor is and how much everyone involved dislikes it.

"It's going to work out," he says. Because he has to keep looking on the up and up. They all do. It's why she's looking for a place with all of them. "But first, we'll figure out some time to go hiking."

"Me and the spooky sex cult."

There are days she minds it terribly, and days she doesn't; times she resents the rest of them for not seeming to care about it at all and others where she wonders if the fault is hers for thinking it mattered so much. One day, maybe, it'll all solidify into something steady. Rosie can't wait for that day to arrive.

Hiking and the distant plans for her future, though, are much easier topics to turn her attention to. She nods, leaning her head against his shoulder. "It'll be brilliant."

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the rocket to the moon, with a touch of clair de lune

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