entrancelogs | and I've been away for so long now;

Entry tags:

and I've been away for so long now;

Who: Andrew Bell (Peter Rumancek) & Lori Cohen (Lana Baumgartner), Andrea Marshall (Hayley Marshall)
Where: Grandma's House, Diner
When: 10/26 Evening & Late Night
Rating: PG13
Summary: Tonight's the night he decides whether or not to pop the question to Lori, and he has dinner with Andrea.
The Story:

Lori

He's been thinking about it a lot- truth be told, he's been thinking about it since a week after the funeral, when he sobbed like a bitch on her. She didn't care, she really didn't, she was there. Young and alive where his mom wasn't, helping him cope with the torrent of anger and frustration and shit he was going through.

She was there to get shitfaced with him when he needed it. She was there when he broke his fist punching through a car window. She was there when he almost got arrested for beating up some asshole at the bar making a 'your mom' joke. She was there encouraging him to steal some shit from the mall to take his mind off of it.

She was there through the anger management and the therapy.

He's been conflicted, though. He's older than her, sure, but not by much. It's too soon, sure, but they're different aren't they? (Aren't they? He's not sure.) He's talked to Michael, he's talked to Charlie, and while they've got some good points...

There's something else influencing his decision. Some memories flooding back into him that he's desperately trying to keep out. He remembers another girl, a blonde one, a pregnant one that he loved. He remembers losing her. He remembers losing the one that came after, and the baby along with her. He's not sure how, just that it's slipped away from him too many times, and this one he wants to keep.

So he's got a ring in his pocket, and he fiddles with it with one hand while the other knocks on her door- quietly, so as not to wake her grandmother. That old lady sleeps more than any living person should, and he's still not positive she's still a-fucking-live.

Andrea

He had a thing for her a couple of years ago and they both knew it. Things were a lot different then, though- he was a stupid kid, she was pregnant, and even if things had worked out like he might have wanted them to, he wouldn't have been ready to deal with it. Fortunately, she's not the kind of girl to let things get awkward and avoid him afterward (probably one of the reasons he liked her in the first place), and over the course of their lives he likes to think they've gotten pretty close.

It's not to say that he doesn't have other friends, because he does. He's got Charlie, he's got Michael, and of course he's got Lori, but after all the shit that goes down... what he really needs is a years-old friend that, by now, feels like family.

So he wanders into the diner during her late night shift, settles on a stool at the counter, and props his chin up on his hand.

"Hardly workin'?" He offers, his voice too exhausted and flat to really sell the joke.

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Lori's at home when she hears a knock on the door. She runs to get it before the noise wakes up her grandma and makes her bitch at Lori about having visitors over. She smiles when she sees Andrew standing there, and steps outside, closing the door behind her before throwing her arms over his shoulders in a hug and kissing him hello.

"Hey, babe!" Lori is truly never more happy than when she's with Andrew. Everything could be falling to pieces around them, but so long as they're together, she feels like she could take on anything that comes. "What's up?"

As soon as her arms are over his shoulder, he picks her up, whirling the both of them around once. It's hard to keep the smile from his face, even though there's a pit of nerves in his stomach gnawing away at him like a hungry wolf.

"Not much, Loriloo," he responds, blowing a raspberry against her cheek before he releases her. He's pleased with himself, it's obvious by the way one corner of his mouth quirks up into a smirk. "Thinkin' about blowing this popsicle stand and heading somewhere better. You in?"

She giggles as she's whirled around and, once he puts her down, wipes her cheek before shoving him playfully. "Always. Let's get out of here."

She grabs his hand and pulls him down the front steps to the sidewalk. "Where were you thinking?"

He lets himself be pulled happily, fingers threading through hers and shoulders bumping together as they settle into a steady pace away from her grandmother's house.

"Actually, I've got a thing to show you," he informs her mock-seriously, playful mystery playing around his tone and expression. "Hope you're not afraid of water."

"Ooh, a thing… I wonder what that could be!" Honestly, she has no idea what Andrew has planned, but she'd totally follow him to the end of the earth if he asked her to. "Should I have brought my swimsuit?" It's a little chilly for a swim, but she looks hot in her bikini so whatever.

He seems to ponder on the question a second, shrugging one shoulder. "I wasn't planning on swimming, but you know, if you wanna throw on a bikini I'm not gonna argue."

Any excuse to get her clothes off, completely shameless about it. His lips twitch up a little, unable to keep a straight face.

She outright laughs. "Maybe later, babe. Maybe later." For now, she's content just to walk with him, hand in hand, fingers intertwined.

"Oh!" She says, as something occurs to her. "We're still on for the fall formal, right? 'Cause I just tried on my dress yesterday at Mr. L's, and it looks fabulous."

The question catches him off guard for a second. He remembers agreeing to that a couple of months ago, and he doesn't plan on bailing on her- not like he has any better shit to do anyway, right? It's just...

She's still in fucking high school. Is he crazy? Is he stupid? Is this a bad idea?

He seems to realize after a moment of silence that he hasn't answered, so he rushes a smile. "Yeah, no, totally. Absolutely. I bet your dress is foxy as fuck. When is that again?"

Lori catches Andrew's hesitation and begins to worry. "It's next week. Look, if you don't want to go, we totally don't have to. We can blow it off no problem."

Mainly, she only wanted to go so she could flaunt her sexy Older Boyfriend at the bitches at her school. She didn't mind dressing up just for Andrew (I mean, she's not going to let that dress go to waste!).

Andrew never went to his fall fling, or homecoming, or prom, or any shit like that. Every once and a while you could spot him behind the bleachers during a football game, smoking or drinking with some friends. Occasionally selling weed, if he needed the cash. Actually going was a whole different ballgame, and one he definitely felt a little too old for.

He's gonna be the creepy older asshole hanging around young highschool girls.

Fuck it, he doesn't actually care what anyone things. Anyone but her, that is, and he's not big on disappointing people he gives a shit about. So he shakes his head. "Nah, I'm going. Somebody's gotta spike the punch, right?"

Lori smiles, relieved. Here's the Andrew she knows. "My thoughts exactly." And if the teachers catch them and kick them out, so what.

She leans up on tiptoe and kisses his cheek, fond. "So. Are we almost there?"

His smile's a little more sincere after her kiss on the cheek. He wraps an arm around her waist and squeezes her a little more closely to him for a second.

"Yup, follow me." Rather than taking her up along the walkway of the bridge, he takes her hand and tugs her through the shrubbery off to the side. Behind the bushes and the foliage is a tiny, worn path littered with beer bottles. At the bottom, beneath the bridge, is a tiny stretch of land leading up to the water. It's a shielded, private circle, and on top of it are all the requirements of a picnic. A blanket stretched across it, and on top of it a basket of food and a bottle of (admittedly cheap ass) wine.

Surprise, he's a romantic guy. Who would have guessed.

Certainly not Lori. She's confused as they head down the secluded path, but once they reach the spot with the picnic blanket, she gasps, letting go of his hand to bring both of hers to her mouth.

"Oh. My. God! Andrew, you did all this!?" If it wouldn't totally ruin the moment she'd take out her phone and snap a picture so she could remember this forever. "This has got to be the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me!"

It's late and surprisingly enough the diner's relatively quiet tonight - something she's grateful for after the busy rush they'd had earlier. She's got no tables at the moment, so his unexpected arrival is a welcome reprieve. Although he gets a very intent once-over as he settles at her counter.

"Always," she quips back, arching an eyebrow at him as she comes to lean on the counter from the opposite side and giving him a faint smirk. "You know me. Always the slacker. You here for food or just to give me a hard time?" Despite the words, there's a note of fondness in the tone. They'd had a bit of a rocky start to their friendship, but looking back, she's not sure if she would have ever made it through those long months without him. He's the closest thing she has to a friend these days.

"Neither," he answers flatly, his face in his hands. It squishes up one side of his cheek, but he doesn't really seem to give much of a shit. Shortly after the answer, he changes it. "Both"

His lips press together tiredly, and one hand absently plays with the sugar packets on the counter before him, flicking through the splenda. "I need food and your suffering. Maybe some booze while you're at it."

Okay, so it's really not that bad. His day might have been... weird, but he's mostly just tired. Mentally exhausted, worn out from work, fatigued, pretty much every version of tired you could possibly think of. It's like there's something asleep deep down in his bones, something he used to draw energy from that now hibernates within him, dormant and lazy.

He could probably pay her twenty bucks to sleep in one of the booths and get by with it.

Edited (WHY WON'T THIS ICON WORK IT JUST KEEPS SWITCHING TO DEFAULT o9) 2014-11-03 01:46 (UTC)

The sad thing is, with the diner being as quiet as it is tonight, that's twenty bucks she'd probably take him up on. As it is, however, she gives him a faintly concerned look and props herself on the other side of the counter from him, mirroring his pose.

"I can provide the food and probably even the suffering, but I'm fresh out of booze and even if I wasn't I'd be drinking it myself right now, so we'll just have to share the suffering instead. What's up with you? You look like crap. Are you getting sick?"

She reaches out on instinct, cool fingers pressing to his brow as if checking for a temperature.

"It's my time of the month," he says dryly, oblivious to the irony of his statement. He's flat as a pancake as she checks his temperature. The joke's crass, but it's not particularly clever, which should really illustrate how poorly his mental state is functioning at the moment. When he realizes that, he sighs and drags a hand down his face.

"Nah, no, I don't know." He shakes his head, hair flopping in his face, arms folding over one another on the flat surface beneath them. Fingers move on to twirl a saltshaker. "It's a long story. Some... fucked up shit happened, it doesn't matter. What about you? How're you holding up?"

Considering the time of year, not to mention the way the town's been... off lately.

His flat joke gets a snort of amusement out of her as she flicks his nose with her finger and gives him a wry look. "Never make that joke to a girl unless you want kicked in the balls," she advises him dryly. "What's wrong. Spill. It obviously matters to you if you're in a mood like this."

Her expression melts into a rueful grimace at his question, because yeah, this isn't exactly the greatest time of year for her either. "Fine. Same as usual, I guess. Although I'm taking references for ninja assassins, if you know any."

"You'd kick a man in the balls while he's on his period?" He points at her accusingly, "That is fucked up."

Clearly the life lesson goes in one ear and right out the other. Moving on. He shakes hair out of his face, does his best to ignore the request to spill- at least for now. He'll come out with it in a minute, in the meantime he's going to fixate on her question, brow furrowing curiously. "What, you puttin' out a hit? Why the ninja?"

"Guess who came into the diner last night?" she drawls instead, and the anger is still there, simmering under the surface, still boiling up anytime she lets herself dwell on it too long.

They've been friends long enough that he was one of her lifesavers through the pregnancy and all the shit that had come along with it, getting kicked out, losing what little 'family' she thought she'd had, losing school, losing... everything, really. She knew he'd probably be able to guess from the anger in her tone that the 'someone' might be the person who'd caused all of it.

It's on the tip of his tongue to ask a dry, unimpressed who- at least, until he catches the look on her face and he stops, head tilting to one side, eyebrow lifting in disbelief.

"No way," he says, rather than guessing, because he already knows. Just by that anger in her eyes, it burns deeply and unmistakably, and there's only one person it burns for. He's pissed off on her behalf in an instant, a frown spreading across his features. There's a not of disbelief in her tone when he asks, "That asshole's coming around again?"

Call him a loyalist, but he doesn't fuck around with the people he cares about, and he's not cool with people screwing with them.

"Even had the audacity to tell me that if I was tired of 'the dead-end waitress gig', he could see about providing for me until I found something with a little more dignity."

Oh, there's still rage there in her tone, because it's so easy to get pissed off at him all over again. Not even her indulgent drinking binge the night before had completely subdued it. She straightens, grabbing the rag from under the counter to start scrubbing the counter top, needing to do something with her hands, because remembering inevitably brought back the urge to go find him and kick his condescending face in.

He points at her seriously, looks at her straight in the eyes, and says with conviction, "Fuck that guy."

He's not exactly the patron saint of manors and good etiquette, but even he knows that's not the kind of shit you say to anyone, especially not to her. She lost her fuckin' kid for god's sake, and even though it's never happened to him (in storybrooke), he still has this feeling deep in him like he can relate. He's maybe a little overly protective, overly defensive as a result.

"Next time he comes in here, you can tell him to shove it straight up his ass. Better yet, call me and I'll slit his fucking tires, okay?"

His assessment gets a dry look from her as she tosses the rag aside.

"Did that already, remember? That's how I landed myself in this mess," she retorts sarcastically. "And if he's stupid enough to come in here again, I'll slit his tires myself. As it was, I shoved a plate of pie in his face. It wasn't near satisfying enough but it helped."

He snorts, amusement muffled by his anger, and can only shake his head. "Now that I'd like to have seen."

As pissed as he is to admit it, there isn't much he can do about that asshole. Nothing that wouldn't get him into trouble with the law or, at the very least, his therapist. He sighs, trailing off quietly for a second, scratching his eyebrow with his thumbnail. After a beat of silence, he clears his throat.

"...So. I was thinking about proposing to Lori," he drops on her suddenly, evidently out of nowhere, without easing the conversation at all. Which would probably have been a better idea since Lori's not quite even eighteen yet and there are a dozen other reasons it's a terrible idea.

"I'm sure it'll be the talk of the town soon enough, enough people got to witness it," she sighs, flopping forward on the counter again so she can prop her chin atop her arms.

She doesn't get to brood long, however, because he drops that particular bomb into the conversation and she jerks upright again, her eyes wide with surprise.

"What? Are you serious?"

Screw what the town says, let them talk. It just means they don't have anything fucking better to do, because they're a bunch of lifeless assholes. They're all stuck on the same routine day in and day out, and apparently gossip's part of the routine.

Rather than answer her with a yes or no, he simply slides a hand into his pocket and pulls out a ring box. He slides it across the table at her, eyebrows twitching up to take in her thoughts on the whole thing.

He's been with Lori for a while now, since before his mom passed away. Lori held him up, she held him together during his worst moments, and he's... got this weird... gut-deep feeling that he's lost someone before- not his mother, but a girl that he loved. This feeling that if he doesn't secure what he has now, he might just lose it too, and he doesn't want to feel that pain shredding him from the inside out. Not again.

Which doesn't change the fact that she's only just about to turn eighteen, that she's a juvenile delinquent and he's got a much more tempered personality than hers. That it's too young for either of them, but especially for her.

So he's conflicted.

Hence the keywords thinking about it, and his rather obvious attempt at gauging Andrea's opinions on the subject.

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and I've been away for so long now;

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