Tripping Over Themselves

[brian_campo]

The moment the final note of music faded from the sound system, Brian tugged his earphones off his head and dropped them carelessly on the synthesizer. For once, he was grateful that his band wasn’t popular enough for an encore. On many nights, he had gotten the short end of the stick when one of his band mates ditched after the show and left Brian to pack up their gear. Time to turn the tables. In fact, it was long overdue. “Mads...” He pulled a mic off its stand, swung it by the cord, and sent it sailing in an arc toward the brunette’s personal space.

She caught it. “Watch it!”

“Later, I’m out.”

‘Wait, what--?’

Too late, Brian thought. He shouldered past Seth like a shoplifter making a break for it and hit the ramp at a jog. Thump, thump, thump. He nudged through a throng of other musicians and regulars to creep up behind the petite blonde with the incredible body. He snaked his arms around her waist and raised her off the ground. “Hey, beautiful,” was muffled against her neck, and they were turning, turning, the room going ‘round and ‘round, the lights streaking purple and blue and neon orange. Brian’s shirt was drenched in sweat. He felt as rubbery and loose as a piece of stretched taffy.

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[valerie_vause]

During the first song the blonde had pressed her back against the wall and closed her eyes to listen. The second soon had her feet wiggling back and forth while fingers drummed out the beat against her thigh. For the third she’d stood up, swayed with the music, and enjoyed the space backstage as she watched Brian do his thing. Valerie started to feel the effects of the pill while the fourth played out, a fuzzy kind of warmth that made her head feel so very light, floaty almost in the nicest possible way. By the fifth the sway had become a dance, as if she were out on the floor amongst the throng of people who equally bounced and girated to the sounds filling the establishment. Though it was during the sixth and final song that she began to lose herself to what coursed through her system and the dance became wildly enthusiastic as inhibitions melted around the edges.

Even if she momentarily ran her hands across her jeans and shirt. To an outsider it could seem provocative but in truth she was enjoying the feel of the fabrics, soft and coarse, against her fingertips.

”Brian!” It was a breathy whisper of delight when those arms wrapped around her. Valerie’s hands clasped over his and she leaned into his tall, strong frame as he lifted her off the ground. The scent of his sweat was like an earthly musk that clouded her senses. She giggled unabashedly as his lips tickled against her neck, arms splayed out as he spun around and Valerie grinned as the colours shifted and blurred together, some changing faintly in the briefest of flickers, like a cluster of stars twinkling back at her. “You were great up there.”

Once they’d stopped spinning Valerie wriggled free from his grasp just to turn and gaze up at him with a bright smile, pupils no doubt dilated until the colour barely remained as a slim outer circle. Which wasn’t really a new look for her, just different circumstances, in the dark while she patrolled she resembled most predators, at least in the eyes. Both hands lifted to glide across Brian’s chest, a motion she repeated on a loop for several seconds before announcing, “So those lessons did pay off after all.”

Valerie pushed up against him to take in a deep breath, her cheek rubbed affectionately against his ribcage before she pulled back to ask with excitement, “So what do we do now, what do you usually do after a gig?”

[brian_campo]

He watched her nuzzle his chest. ‘Valerie, Valerie, my Valerie.’

“Um…” He looked at the ceiling, which pulsated, lowering and lifting until he was reminded of a squeezebox, and they were caught inside the folds. Two tiny figurines surrounded by an enormous instrument.

What did they do after hauling equipment to a van, other than have a few beers and talk to whoever walked up? They often wound up at a house party or eating pancakes at a Denny’s. Brian’s fingers laced into her hair. “This.” He kissed her and started inching her slowly backwards, one tiny, incremental step at a time, away from the territory of his band, who might interrupt.

Brian’s shoulder bumped a person. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and then he chuckled and kept kissing her. “I’m not sorry.” He was navigating them loosely towards an emergency exit. When her back hit the push-bar, a piercing noise screeched at them. “Oh no, I think it’s a dragon.”

[valerie_vause]

When Brian’s lips touched hers the rest of the world faded as she closed her eyes. It didn’t matter where he guided her, even blind she trusted him, and she grinned with amusement as he confessed the apology was meaningless. “Me either.” She mumbled against his mouth as her hands snaked around his hips so that they moved in tandem as one. The impact of the door was gentle but insistent as it gave way with a shriek of an alarm.

Valerie felt herself laughing before she heard the sound. One hand pushed the door open wide while her other caught Brian’s with a mischievous tug. When she spoke her voice was deliberately dramatic, like a fairy tale character in some cartoon. “Then quick, dear Knight, we must flee the beast and head into the darkness!”

Fingers twined with his and she pulled him outside to be with her. The door sprung closed with a loud click though the blonde barely noticed. Warm air swept around them in a breeze, her fingers found his hair and she kissed him again until her lungs screamed for air. When she pulled back she tipped her chin up to gaze at the stars, then spun around with a short burst of rich laughter. “I feel like anything is possible with you.” Valerie stopped to look at him, her grin Cheshire as she pondered that.

[brian_campo]

“Maybe it is.”

He knew the feeling. He only thought about her and the world got brighter, smells sharper, tastes sweeter. It wasn’t just the drugs. She made him think in possibilities. He was done with considering himself as afflicted; he had a gift other people wrote stories about, and a girlfriend who was brave and ridiculously pretty, and he had music, and most of the time his apartment had electricity.

Brian picked up a long lock of Valerie’s hair. The end of it tapered and curled, and he could’ve sworn that tiny sparks flew from it. He grinned stupidly and touched the hair to her nose. “Hey, sparkplug, wanna see something?”

He had been practicing. He had gone to the library and checked out all books about meditation and mental focus. Over the course of three days, he spread them open on his living room floor and drank only water as he pored over their contents, making notes in a spiral-bound book and chewing pencils until they splintered. Every night since, he tried it, and only when he felt calm did he attempt to move things.

It was hard – maybe the hardest thing he’d ever done – but he was getting better. “Wait a minute…” Brian’s fingers dove into her pockets in search of the guitar pick, and if he took his time feeling around, that was legitimate. “It’s around here somewhere.” When his fingers alighted on the pick, he held it up between their faces.

[valerie_vause]

“I’m starting to think so.”

It could have sounded mad, or maybe she just sounded high, but even in her current chemically induced state she knew it was so much more than the drug. Valerie felt it every time her eyes caught sight of him, when they touched it skyrocketed. Brian set her insides aflame like nothing on earth, sometimes just the thought of him kept her breathing. Frighteningly intoxicating, the way she couldn’t imagine life without him in it when a few months ago he hadn’t even been in the picture.

Valerie chuckled at the tickle of hair against her nose and beamed at being called sparkplug. It was silly and brilliant and left her more floaty than before. “Mmm, I do, show me.” She flirted back with a coy little smirk and raised her eyebrows. Whatever it was Brian had to show her she clearly felt pleased about it. Though she cocked her head when he told her to wait and opened her mouth to ask why except his hand in her back pocket was entirely too distracting.

The guitar pick had been forgotten, but she certainly wasn’t going to protest to a pleasurable fondle when he felt like it, so she leaned against him and enjoyed the touch for all it was worth. “Depends what you’re looking for, I’d say lower if your hand was in the front pocket.”

Oops. Brian’s hand retreated but not because she’d put her foot in her mouth. When her eyes focused on the pick her face lit up, “Oh! I’d forgot about that. And now that you have it what are you going to do with it?” She questioned curiously, one golden eyebrow raised as she watched him.

[brian_campo]

In his book, that little joke was about as valuable as a signed permission slip.

“Next time, it’ll be in the front,” he promised. “Just not in your pocket.” Because he was dying to touch her there, and had spent about a dozen hours going over the scenario in his daydreams. Brian flicked her chin with the pick and then he took a step back.

“Watch,” he said softly, “and be amazed.”

The yellow pick rested in the palm of his hand, which he held at chest height between them. Brian took a deep breath and blew it out, and hoped he had the sense to know when the pick was actually airborne as opposed to just looking that way to his addled mind. Man, would that be embarrassing. The yellow, which had been the harmless color of a banana, seemed to Brian to glow on a backdrop of his palm’s pale skin under a solitary streetlight. Up, he thought, projecting the command to the piece of plastic and giving it a little bump in the air.

And that was all it took. Brian eased his palm away and the pick hovered in a far more controlled display than the accidental toppling of household objects and exploding of light bulbs that Valerie had witnessed. Spin. The pick began a wobbling rotation, and when it obeyed, damn if he didn’t look as surprised as she might.

[valerie_vause]

No words were given to Brian’s statement because a shiver ran through Valerie that caused her eyes to close. Nerve endings screamed for his touch but she forced herself to stand still. Finally she looked at him when he prompted, the street lamp glowed a dirty orange red and she blinked a few times before realising it was just the pill working. Nothing to worry about. The blonde released a slow breath then felt her jaw slacken.

Suspended in the air between them floated the pale pick. Perfectly still as if frozen in time once he’d taken his hand back. Then ever so slowly it began to spiral around and around, hypnotic in it’s methodical movements. Precise, controlled, movements. Valerie felt her chest swell with pride until she was sure she’d explode. “You did it.” She breathed quietly, a grin tugged the corners of her parted lips and she looked up at him, utterly in awe.

Excitement tingled through her body like electricity. Valerie didn’t think twice as she lifted her hand up to expose the palm. “Can you place it in my hand?” The idea that it could put Brian under pressure didn’t occur to the blonde, who eagerly wanted to encourage him. Captivated by the moment she could only think of the possibilities, and how far he’d come so quickly on his own. If he acquired skill so fast there was a chance she could actually take him with her on patrol if he felt up to it. Not that she had plans to walk him into danger, but to give him a chance to see what was out there, and how useful his talent could be for protection if the situation ever called for it.

[brian_campo]

“Yeah, I think so,” he said.

Brian ran his fingers through his hair and took another breath, which he expelled against his palms before rubbing them together in an attempt to stay lighthearted. The trick was to place the pick in her hand, not through it. “Ready.” He stared at the yellow triangle and Valerie became a blur in the physical world beyond it. Excitement, anticipation, really any emotion had to be subtracted from the situation or he too quickly lost his way and objects became volatile.

Easy, he told himself, first willing the object to stop its rotation, and then giving a gentle, mental command to lower until it met her palm. Then quickly, blinking, ‘stop’ as it came to a rest.

Brian released his control of the pick and focused his eyes on Valerie.

It was all he could do not to grin like an idiot, but the smile worked steadily at one corner of his mouth, anyway. “What do you think?”

[valerie_vause]

“Ready.” Valerie agreed with a nod, totally transfixed on the small pick as it sailed through the air gently then hovered above her hand. It felt like magic, watching the way it carefully floated down until it rested in her palm, light as a feather. This was a huge deal, Brian was learning control, not just in levitating objects but being able to actually direct them how he wanted where he wanted. Those little shurikens would work. “Incredible.” She whispered, more to herself than him before she shook her head and tried to focus.

“I think you’re amazing.” Valerie stepped closer to him and offered back the pick. One hand splayed against his shoulder then trailed delicately down his chest, where her fingers tapped gently. “Alright.” She confessed with a wicked little smirk. “I’m also thinking that given enough time you’ll be opening buttons from across the room but that still falls under amazing.” Really, she couldn’t help herself, she was delirious with joy.

“We should get out of here and go…” Valerie looked around then shrugged with a grin. “Well, anywhere that isn’t a dark alley.”

[brian_campo]

“God, that is a really good idea,” he whispered, narrowing eyes and squinting into the shadows above and beyond her head, which loomed large and shrank away, looking like solid entities as the chemicals did their number on his brain. The buttons. The possibilities were endless. Maybe someday, years from today, he’d learn to move objects he didn’t have within his line of sight, and then he could seriously torment her.

But he kept such thoughts to himself, instead capturing her hand and kissing the back of it. “Where do you want to go?” Brian walked backwards and guided her toward the nearest intersection, each step bringing them farther into the light. “What do you want to do? Are you hungry, are you thirsty? Are you tired of wearing clothes?”

The noise of the Dive increased as they neared the curb and its front door, which had been propped open to better circulate air and attract patrons.