Iowa | Thursday FT

[pursuedthestars]

Iowa was boring. It was really, really boring and it was starting to eat away at Jim's psyche. He felt like he'd done everything, seen everything, knew everyone and it was boring. He didn't know how much more stagnation he could take. The urge to do something, anything, was growing in his belly, hot and fierce and strong.

Jim kept ignoring it because he knew (he knew) what he might end up doing. He ignored it to drink and to date and to walk and drive and fight. But, it was still there. Still waiting and Jim knew he wasn't going to be able to ignore it for much longer before he gave in.

It was dark tonight, warm and sticky. Jim's feet were stretched out in front of him, dirt gathering on his boots. Inside, Frank was watching something loud on the television and his mother was off somewhere, doing her thing. It was just him and the vast openness in front of him.

He sighed and tapped the porch with his fingers, watching streaks of light brighten the night sky before it sunk back into its darkness. Those people were doing something. Something good, something new and something that wasn't sitting on a damn porch on a Thursday night.

God, he sucked.

[NFB but open for usual things]

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[whenshewasnice]

She glanced over, quirked another little smile at him.

"Is growing older healthy?"

[pursuedthestars]

"Just the way you put it," he said and shrugged. "It just sounds strange. I'll take your word for it, though."

[whenshewasnice]

"It's normal," she assured him, returning her attention to the sky. "It's just a weird way of doing it. A weird experience."

It could be a little disorienting to come back and have work things be further back in her memory than they were in Peter's.

[pursuedthestars]

"Why're you doing both?" he asked her quietly. "Why not just do school?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Because I don't want to quit." It was oddly simple when she could just put it like that. She was watching the stars as she spoke. There was a faint sort of fondness to her tone. "I don't want to leave Peter. Not yet, anyway."

[pursuedthestars]

"Think he'd fall apart without you?" he asked, sounding faintly amused.

[whenshewasnice]

"Not entirely."

That was an honest answer, whether he'd expected one or not. Peter wouldn't fall apart entirely, no, but there would be cracks.

[pursuedthestars]

"I was teasing."

He sighed and glanced up at the sky and the stars for a second or two.

"How's school going, then?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Well," she said. "Some people like to try and give me a hard time because of my status in the Hegemony, and I'm not too fond of my roommate, but other than that, I like it."

And she didn't mind those things too much, either. She'd kind of expected them, if she was honest.

[pursuedthestars]

"They know what a Hegemony is?" he asked. "Your universes are connected?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Not really," she said, although she supposed they were now, through her. "But where I'm from is more accepting of the idea of multiple worlds than, I guess, most places are."

They had subspace travel and all kinds of weird and wacky things.

"A letter of recommendation from Peter was a part of how I even got in when I did. Because I started in the middle of the year and I'm missing some of the academic credentials I should've had before entering university."

[pursuedthestars]

"They're probably just jealous all they have on their resumes is a job at some fast food joint or a paper route," he joked, snickering at himself. "What's wrong with your roommate?"

[whenshewasnice]

"I don't know, she just seems annoyed all the time." Ugh, Julie. "Our interests seem pretty incompatible."

[pursuedthestars]

"You guys in an apartment together or something?" he asked curiously. "Or something like the island?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Almost exactly like the island." Well, except for the invasions and the weird weather phenomena. "We have dorms. We share a single room. Pretty weird after the duplex at the Hegemony compound."

[pursuedthestars]

"Hmmm." He sighed and tipped his head back, eyes up on the sky. "Sounds positively thrilling."

[whenshewasnice]

"I know."

She quieted down for a moment, looking up, her head against his shoulder. Her fingers rubbed his wrist absently. She enjoyed having him close.

"What do you see?" she asked, quietly. "When you look up, what do you see?"

[pursuedthestars]

"Stars," he said, shrugging a shoulder. "Space. Both literally and metaphorically. Emptiness."

[whenshewasnice]

"Anything else?"

She wasn't sure why she was asking.

But, she was.

[pursuedthestars]

He shrugged again.

"Not really," he replied after a spell. "I see a way to escape. To get swallowed up and never come back to the ground."

[whenshewasnice]

"And do you think that's a good thing?" she wondered quietly. "See, the one time I went to space, I hated it. It was claustrophobic and I just wanted nothing more than to come back down again."

She knew that had to do with the circumstances of how she'd ended up there. But it had been a pretty vividly unpleasant experience for her.

"But from down here, even after that... It looks like so much possibility."

[pursuedthestars]

"Maybe." He sighed and closed his eyes for a brief moment. "My mom probably feels that way too. She spends most of her time there."

[whenshewasnice]

"Does she?" Natalie murmured. "I didn't know that."

There was a lot she didn't know.

[pursuedthestars]

"I never told you that?" He blinked and glanced down at her shoulder and the empty landscape around them. "Huh."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie shrugged a little, with a glance back at him. "I guess it just never came up."

She'd met her mother but still felt like she knew more about his father instead.