evilbeej | Arr rah rah. Pirate cheerleader.

A short fic which follows up Benway's X-Manson Marvel cult fic.

[Pete Wisdom] "I Could Be Again"
Vesper "Miss Congeniality" Antagonist
Dec 18, 2002 13:37 PST

Apologies to Benway; I can't let it lie. Apologies to Warren for the
abuse of Siouxsie; you don't deserve this humiliation. Apologies to
Infinitepryde; I'll do the rest, I will, if it kills me.

Pete is Marvel's. So is Phoebe, though I doubt any of the bastards
remember she and her mates exist. Don't sue me, this is only catharsis.
Lyrics stolen shamelessly from Siouxie and the Banshees. And a little
bit of Phantom Planet.

Written by Vesper Antagonist, who does not beat *everyone* up.

"I Could Be Again"
Through glowing gloom, I see the flicker of treason
Dancing on the picture of what might have been
This minute will last a day, these days will last years
And those years that take ten lifetimes
Will pass without a reason
To be again, I could be again

---Fenland College of Arts and Technology, Thetford UK

9:52 AM
--
"Oh for-- Huntsman, you've got tea all over my-"

"Your shirt's seen worse."

"Oh has it!"

"I should know, shouldn't I?"

"Look here, you start the bloody class, I'm away to the washroom."

"What, you don't want to smell of peaches for your admiring public?"

"Twit."

10:01 AM
--
"Good morning. Professor Wisdom's running a bit late, so you're going to
have to save your excuses and begging and pleading until he gets here. I
don't particularly care if you haven't done your assignments; as far as
I'm concerned, if you haven't, it's your loss.

"Since he's not here, we'll be listening to Coldplay's 'Politik' and
comparing it to--what *is* it, Corley?"

"You can't mean to tell us he's vetted /that/?"

"Of course he hasn't. Are you finished?"

"It's girly."

"You'll live. Comparing it to David Reisman's _The Lonely Crowd_ and the
culture of paranoia that spawned it. While you're listening, mind the
quote you're sure to have run across, 'The idea that men are created
free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different;
they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking
to become like each other.'"

"But Miss Huntsman, we read Gibson's 'Agrippa', not Rei--"

"Shh."

10:05 AM
--
"Chrissake. *Coldplay*? Oh, you'll pay dearly for this."

"Ssh, you're interrupting, lout. Continue, Laughlin."

"Ta. So it's rather like you're implying that politics, on the whole,
arise because of feelings of inadequacy or envy on the parts of people
who consider themselves, regardless of what's actually the case, to be
have-nots?"

"That would seem to be what I'm implying, wouldn't it? Something to
think about while the Professor proceeds to bumble back to the marvels
of early Elvis Costello and the snark of Carroll."

"Ah, shut it, Huntsman. All right, you lot. Since it's not the
*politics* you have to worry about, it's the *people*..."

"...because obviously politics have /nothing/ to do with people..."

"...I'm going to ask you to open your texts to 'Agrippa' and wrest
control of the deck back from Miss Huntsman, so I can put the goddamned
Haunted disc back on and you can sit there and tell me what-all Gibson
and Poe - /not/ Edgar Allen - have in common there. Theme of...how
memory rules the present."

---Mundford Rd, Thetford

4:23 PM
--
"What was that all about, anyway, Wisdom?"

"Which?"

"Oh that's disgusting. Keep your mouth shut while you eat. You're far
too old to get away with that."

"You asked."

"So I did. What /was/ it about?"

"What was what about?"

"Stop hedging. This time every year you're cryptic and morose, and it's
bloody unbecoming. And now you've got this business with memories and
their ruling the present, and...come back here!"

"What."

"Sit down, Pete."

"I don't want to talk about it, Phoebe."

"So don't. Just don't walk off mid-tea, you'll likely end up stuffing
your sandwich in your pocket and it'll smell awful by tomorrow. Right,
yes, just sit...don't look at me like that."

"But you're talking to me as though I were five."

"You're acting like you are."

"Not either."

"See?"

"Shut up."

---Bradenham, Thetford

6:07 PM
--
The door shut behind him, closing off the sound of the motorbikes being
run through tests several doors down, closing out Phoebe, closing out
the college, closing out the world. He shrugged out of his coat,
dropping it over the back of his couch - that'll eventually have to be
replaced, but I can wait until it's completely shredded or falls to bits
on its own - and unwinding his scarf from his neck.

Six messages, blinked his ansaphone. Without listening, he could count
off who'd called and why; without listening, he erased them all and
jotted down names on the pad next to the telephone.

With a self-satisfied little feeling in the back of his chest, he shut
the television in his hall closet and wandered silently into the kitchen
- warmest room in the flat, always - and poured himself a shot of
Jameson's.

He liked his life. His boring, sedentary, predictable, safe life.
Exquisite boredom. He liked his associates, he liked his class, he even
(God help him) liked the insufferable, pretentious little bastards that
took his class every year and were shocked to find out that he was
neither gay nor a goth.

It was just that he couldn't forget, and didn't really want to.

Switching on the stereo to see if fate'd be kind or if it'd kick him as
usual, Pete tossed back his shot and shut the machine off again - a
couple of bars was all it took to get it stuck in his head.

"Well I turn pale when she walks by, I am lost in her eyes," he sang
under his breath, to his empty flat, sitting down and prodding at the
big bottle of whiskey. "She is always on my mind, she is always on my
mind."

One more shot.

One more.

And one more.

---

Taking hold a complete transformation
Just us the cameras and those wonderful people
out there in the dark
This minute will last a day these days will last years
And those years that take ten lifetimes
well I won't let you disappear

-VYA!
by the blending of breath
from the sun and the shade
equilibrium comes to the world.
(lao-tzu)