Author's Note: So. NaNoWriMo 2008! XD I'm always so sad when these end. Because then, what do I have to do for six or seven months? Besides wait on JulNoWriMo? I kinda base my life around my WriMos. For November, I have to make sure that I get all of my Christmas shopping done on weekdays so I can have weekends to write. I make sure I have a good lead before I sit down for Thanksgiving. If not, I'm eating as fast as possible and I'm off to get in a few more thousand before my family notices.
They're hard, WriMos. Even for the seasoned, I'm sure. But they're fun. You get attached to your characters, your babies. Everyone's inquiring "how far are you?", "will you get done in time?", and, my personal fave (from my parents, believe it or not): "are you working on your NaNoWriMo?!"
It's better when you have people participating with you. But it's even more fun when you cross that finish line and you've done it all by yourself. It's your own little haven. :3 (I know I have friends online who've done many NaNos, but my real life friends aren't so interested.)
So... after a long, daunting thirty days of being curled up with my laptop and blasting my favourite Nano, Tokio Hotel, and my actual NaNoInpiMuse (funny y/y?) playlist, I present to you my second NaNoWriMo Novel. Complete at 50, 014 words...
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Bombastic Love:A Love For All Seasons
Karasu November 2008
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Summary: (NaNoWriMo 2008, mxm, harsh themes) Summer and Autumn are inseparable. When Autumn loses his memory, Summer helps him get it back… in some interesting ways.
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Disclaimer: The main characters in this story are loosely based off of Drake-Pendragon and myself. We've been through so much shit together that it's almost hard not to have characters that reflect us both. But nothing could ever replace her in my life. And I hope she realizes that. :) Thank you, my Garden, for putting up with me and my baggage, and for never giving up hope. I love you.
Disclaimer, Again: This story will contain a few nods to Jangalian's story, "Orange Juice." She inspires me and keeps inspiring me to this day, and I wish I could do more than just "nod" to her. Her writing style is almost as lovely as she is, and I bet I'll be kissing her ass until the day I die. :3 Thank you, Carebear, for being there for me, and for being my best friend. I love you.
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Prologue
Autumn Ayres is my best friend. The end. We're closer than Laurel and Hardy, closer than Shaggy and Scooby-Doo, and yes, closer than Batman and Robin. That's the way it's always been, and that's the way it always will be.
People like to make fun of our names, though. Like it's fucking hilarious to be Summer and Autumn. Whatever. People don't make fun of Batman and Robin's names. They just poke fun at the fact that Robin is in tights. And his name is The Boy Wonder.
Pfft.
Batman was such a pedo.
But I digress…
Where was I again?
Ah, yes…
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I first met Autumn Ayres when he came to my first grade class to read to us. Apparently, from what I gathered at the time, he was some sort of reading genius. Whatever. I had a seventh grade reading level in the first grade. I didn't think he would be any hot shot.
And I was right.
The first thing I noticed about Autumn was his red hair. Okay, okay, auburn. Whatever. But it was a weird colour.
And it was up in pigtails.
What kind of boy wears pigtails to school? In the third grade, no less!
Mrs. Carpenter, my old as dirt first grade teacher, welcomed him into the classroom with open, cobweb-filled arms. But I didn't like him. Nope. Not one bit.
He wore fucking pigtails.
But, ugh, he was nice. To everyone. Yes, even me. And he had these cute little melted chocolate-coloured eyes that just sparkled as he took in our room. He clutched Stuart Little in his thin little arms. Mrs. Carpenter instructed him to take a seat at the head of our class.
Which meant he got to sit in a little plastic chair to read to a semi-circle of first grade brats while Mrs. Carpenter went out back to puff on her cigarette for thirty minutes.
Everyone won in this situation.
I was, of course, the last one up from my seat (I was writing my latest best seller about a little boy who grows up to be a badass doctor. Shut up. It sounds lame now, but it was amazing when I turned it in to the writing challenge we had that year. It won first place, bitch). As the circle of kids was forming, I saw Autumn's curious brown eyes peering at me.
"What?" I growled, as threatening as a five year old could be.
Autumn looked at me for a few more moments, then smiled disarmingly, "You have pretty eyes."
Excuse me?!, I wanted to scream. Boys weren't supposed to tell other boys that they were "pretty." That was a girl thing.
I was infuriated, to say the least. How dare this third grader tell me I was pretty. Bastard.
"Your pigtails are stupid and girly," I fired back, placing my hands on my hips. The kids from my class gathered around Autumn and I, all curious eyes and thoughts filled with "fightfightfight!"
Autumn looked crushed. He held onto Stuart Little a little tighter. "That was mean of you."
I stuck out my tongue like the mature five year old that I was. "So?"
I thought he was going to be a bitch back to me, but I soon learned that that wasn't part of Autumn's personality. "Well, you have nice clothes."
Dumbfounded, I didn't know how to reply. He just complimented me. Twice. Even when I told him his pigtails were stupid and girly, he still complimented me.
"I don't think you know how this is supposed to work, Autumn," I spat out. "I'm supposed to make fun of you, and then you're supposed to make fun of me. Then we get mad, and I end up kicking your tushie."
The kids around us gasped. I said tushie. Oooh.
But Autumn didn't seem to be impressed. "I don't want you to 'kick my tushie.' I just want to be friends."
He smiled, holding out his thin arm, extending his hand. I slapped it away. Some of the kids mumbled and "ooh-ed" and "aah-ed." I liked the attention.
So I was an attention whore at a young age. Whatever.
Autumn turned around, clutching Stuart Little so hard I thought it was going to be too flat to read when we finally got around to it. He sighed, and said, "C'mon everyone, I came here to read you guys a story, not fight."
The kids let out a group "awww," but settled into their places.
But I remained where I was. You didn't pull the wool over Summer Eugene Rogen's eyes! No siree!
"Hey, you girly pansy, I'm not done with you!"
My friend (who you'll hear more of later, I'm positive), Macy Cath, turned her head sharply to glare at me, "Leave him alone, Summer."
Well, son of a bitch.
I sat down. It wasn't worth losing a friendship with Macy to make a point. Honestly. She's just that great. But she's like my sister. And when I think of being in a relationship with Macy, I think of being in a relationship with my non-existent sister. And that's just weird.
Needless to say, Autumn read to us, and we listened, and we had a good time.
I lost.
The first round.
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The second time I met Autumn Ayres was when Macy introduced us in Junior High. I went all that time without seeing him or talking to him. And then Macy had to become his fucking best friend.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
He was wearing a scarf, I remember. In the middle of May. He didn't have the ridiculous, girly pigtails, though. Which was a good thing. I was liable to be more pissy this time. I was a fucking horrible middle-schooler. I was moody and ungrateful.
But when Autumn saw me, something in me held my tongue.
He was beautiful.
Macy grinned to me, and Autumn walked forward. I knew he remembered me. I could see it in his eyes. The way they lit up when he first looked at me. And I remembered him.
I was eating a hearty helping of my words from six years or so ago. It was a good thing that he was girly. Like I said, he was fucking beautiful.
We didn't say anything for a long, long time.
But, finally.
"Hey, Summer."
I was almost too shocked to speak.
"Summer, you remember Autumn, right?" Macy tentatively smiled in my direction. She knew very well that Autumn and I didn't get along.
Well, no, I guess I shouldn't exactly say that. So we had a tiff over five years ago. It's not like we had some running, hate-filled fighting going on or anything. So I was jealous that he was far more attractive than I was. So I thought he was a pretentious bastard.
Didn't mean I hated him. Right?
Right.
"Yeah, I remember," I said, nodding to him.
I could see the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. He held up a delicate hand in response.
"Well," Macy continued on, obviously not noticing the something that clicked between Autumn and I, "we're going to go to the mall and grab something to eat. Wanna come?"
Of course, we were standing outside in the fucking blustery, December wind. I was hard-pressed to find a better deal than going to the mall with Macy and Autumn.
Note the sarcasm.
But I figured something had to come from it. Macy was pretty well off in the money department, so maybe I could puppy eye my way into a cheeseburger and french fries. Besides, it's not like I had anything better to do at the time.
I was twelve.
What is there to do, in any fucking city, when you're twelve?!
Nothing, that's exactly what.
Macy's mom picked her up after school. So when I saw that BMW slink around the corner, I hoisted my messenger bag up on my shoulders, and followed Macy and Autumn to the sleek black machine.
If there's one word I can use to describe Macy's mom, it would be gentle.
The woman has never been in one argument her whole life. It's not possible, I swear it. She's tiny and petite like Macy, with a frail voice and a worrisome attitude.
It must be nice.
My old lady was cool and all. But she was more immature than I ever thought about being. Holding parties that lasted into the early morning hours. Hustling drunken men around our house like it was a brothel.
I didn't like to stay home, but I had no choice.
Anyway. You'll hear me bitch more about that later, I'm sure.
"Hello honey," Macy's mom smiled her way, "how was your day?"
"Great, Mom," Macy smiled, showing off her braces. "Hey, uhm, can you drop us off at the mall? We're kinda hungry because the school lunches suck really bad. Is that okay?"
Macy's mom nodded, still smiling like the little tame housewife she was.
Her motto for life was "smile and nod, everything will work out in the end."
In fact, I think she told me that once. When we got to talking.
But I digress.
Macy thanked her mom and it was off to the shitty-ass mall we went.
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I've given you reasons why I went that day. But I think I lied to myself at the time. I was a really fucking horny twelve year old.
And the fact that Macy was a little… loose was promising.
Hey, she was hot.
She still is.
And Autumn… oh dear sweet baby Jesus. Dear. Sweet. Baby. Jesus.
Okay, okay. I can hear you already. "What the hell?" I knew I liked men. I knew I liked women. I was more of a… free-spirited kinda guy. I guess. Yes, even at that young of an age.
So the reason I went with them is because in my adolescent, angst-filled brain, I was going to get lucky.
It didn't work out like that, though. Thank dear sweet baby Jesus.
That day, as fucking corny as it sounds… I found out a lot about myself.
Autumn, Macy, and I started a pact.
If one of us was in some deep shit (or shallow shit, really), we'd be there. If someone's ass needed kicked, it was brutalized. If someone needed to hear a good ole lesson about how the birds and the bees worked (and what slang meant what), there was a seminar.
Best friends forever bullshitting, really (not that that was a bad thing, of course; we've kept that bond to this day).
And I love Macy.
I love Autumn.
I do.