Original Character Day 3: Non-Romantic Relationship
Hey guys! I’m late as usual to @originalficfest ‘s event, but here’s my entry with Max and Azalea:
“Hey there!” Azalea said excitedly and took a seat across from her partner, resting her face in her hand and tapping her foot. She clearly made him nervous, judging from how his eyes followed the length of the pictureless and colorless white room, when the only spot of anything fun was her. She hated to admit that it was a little funny, watching him play with his hands and squirm in his seat. She had never really had that power over someone before, much less seem intimidating to them. But there was something endearing about this kid, she concluded, something that convinced her to be nice to him, just this once. For all she knew, he was new at this.
“So I’m Azalea. It’s wonderful to meet you, really it is. It stinks that we couldn’t meet in any time frame other than the five minutes before we meet our Heavenbounders, but oh well, I guess.” The boy looked at her with wide eyes, and it was then that she realized he didn’t just appear young, he was young.
“Hey…how old are you?” She tried to coax an answer out of him. It took him a second to organize himself, sitting back against the chair and breathing in once, deeply.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that this is sort of brand new to me? I really don’t know how all this works, and you seem really confident–”
“Oh Lordy, no!” Out of instinct, Azalea reached out to grab the kid’s hands but realized halfway through that she half expected the kid to pull away. Luckily he didn’t, though, and clasped her hands around his and flinched.
“Hey…hey, check this out,” She said, holding their hands up to the light, “We’re warm! How cool is that! When was the last time you’ve been warm!” Excitedly, she shot up from her seat, the chair making its way halfway across the room from getting hit with her calves. She looked down at the kid, expectant for an answer, but he just sighed. She felt bad about that, all of a sudden.
“That’s the point, Azalea. The last time I was warm was three years ago. I was…God, how old must I have been…eighteen? No, it was seventeen, on my graduation day. It hasn’t been so long at all.” Azalea bit the inside of her lip and knelt next to the kid on two knees, like she imagined an adult would do to a kid with a scraped knee.
“What’s your name, champ?”
“That’s a pretty far out name, you know. I’m gonna call you Maxxy from now on. It’s gonna be our thing, cool?” Maximus actually laughed.
“Yeah. Cool.” He looked up at Azalea rather than the floor, and upon seeing her face up close realized that he would have to ask about it eventually, and it seemed to become more obvious the more he stared at it.
“So…what happened to you, Maxxy? You seem like a keen guy, so what are you doing about to be someone’s chicken head?”
“…Chicken head?” He had to ask. It would have bothered him all day.
“You know, like a chicken head? When someone says ‘God I hate that chicken head, they really rub me wrong’?” Azalea sighed, but she was clearly amused.
“Forget it, it’s not from your time.”
“Then…when is your time?”
“More like when was. My time came on April 11, 1964. May I forever rest in peace.” She mockingly made a cross over herself, making Maximus laugh. That made her smile, but it faded when she saw where on her face she was looking.
“I’m sure you’re going to want to know how I got these scahhs?” She said dramatically with a Brooklyn accent and pointed at the gash that began at her right eyebrow and stopped near the left corner of her mouth.
“It…yeah, it may have crossed my mind,” Maximus shrugged, which made Azalea snort-laugh. This kid was shy, but only if he wanted to be. She could tell that he was one of those “smart but doesn’t like to admit it” people, and probably got invited to a lot of cool places.
“You know, you seem like an alright guy, Maximus. You come from the good place?” She pointed up to the ceiling, which for some reason made Maximus look up himself, even if there was nothing there.
“Yeah, I guess you could call it that.”
“I can tell from the hair. They don’t really give white, white hair like that to people like me, if you know what I mean.” Maximus froze and slowly shifted his hand to his head. He tried pulling down the longest piece so that it could come close to his eyes, and he nearly gasped when he saw it. His hair really was white, not like the dark waves that used to be there.
“Hey, don’t sweat it, okay? I like it, I think. It it suits you.” Maximus looked down the floor like he was self conscious about the new hair. Looking at Azalea’s long ebony hair made him feel bad, like he had done something wrong by looking the way he did when she was stuck with a dark, dirty mess. It almost felt like he was mocking her in some way, just because Heaven bleached his hair.
