Studies of Resonant Bodies Chapter 12
Word Count: 2491
Spoilers: To the end of Season 3
Rating: NC-17
"So how's she look?" Pierce asked, peering down over his shoulder. Grunting, Troy finished tightening the bolt he'd been working on. He wiped the back of his forehead with the back of hand and stood up.
"I don't think whoever you got to put this water heater in knew what they were doing. I'm pretty surprised it took this long to break down." Pierce muttered something under his voice about Mexicans, but Troy ignored him. "It's fixed now, though."
"That took you like five minutes!" Pierce said. Troy shrugged. "How'd you figure out what was wrong with it so fast?"
"I…" Troy scratched the back of his head. He'd never tried to put it into words before, what happened when he fixed things. "I just… figure out what each piece is supposed to do. From what's around it, you know what I mean? And how they're supposed to work together to form something bigger. And then I just figure out which part isn't doing what it's supposed to and… fix it. Does that make any sense?"
"No," the older man said bluntly. "But I'm glad I've got hot water again. Want something to drink?"
"Sure!" Troy answered, following Pierce up the stairs out of the mansion's basement. "I'd love a glass of water, I'm pretty thirsty."
"That's not the kind of drink I meant! I got my hands on some more of that Serbian rum." Troy remembered that stuff. It tasted awful. It must have shown on his face, because Pierce frowned. "Come on, don't be a pussy! Your ball and chain isn't here."
"Yeah," Troy said, bristling as Pierce clapped him on the shoulder. "'Cuz if there's one thing Britta hates more than anything else, it's drinking."
"Oh, don't be like that!" Pierce objected as they made their way into his lavish kitchen. He produced a bottle of dark brown liquid and a couple of glasses from a cupboard. "Just one drink. We've barely spent any time together since the year started. Please, Troy. Don't make me drink alone."
"Fine," Troy said, softening. He might have been neglecting the old man a little lately. "One drink."
"There we go!" Pierce said, pouring a couple of fingers into one of the glasses and sliding it to him across the table. "Now. Did I ever tell you about the time I met Eartha Kitt?"
#
"And then *BRAAAAP* -'scuse me- then John Astin turns to me said: I thought you said forty."
Troy choked, booze stinging his nasal passage as he tried to keep from spitting up all over himself in laughter. "Oh man!" he cried, after safely swallowing. He didn't know who most of the people in Pierce's stories were, but that had stopped mattering to him so much after the second or third drink. "That is crazy, man. You're crazy."
Pierce blinked suddenly, looking out the window. "Ah, Jesus! It's dark out. When the fuck did that happen?"
"Uh, probably when the sun went down?" Troy said, grinning goofily. "Dumbass!" He laughed. Damn he was funny.
Pierce laughed too. "You never could hold your god damn liquor you fucking lush."
"Fuck you!" Troy shouted. He stood, shakily. How dare he! He was the best drinker. "I am the best drinker!"
"Do you want me to pay for a cab?" Pierce asked, squinting up at him.
"Nah! I'll call Britta. She'll give me a ride. I mean pick me up. I mean- shut up!" Troy shouted, grabbing his half-full glass. He stumbled out into the hall, fishing his phone out of his pocket. He steadied himself against a nearby end table as he struggled, briefly with his cell phone. After a couple of tries, he managed to get the dumb fucking thing to call his girlfriend's number.
"Hi Troy!" Britta said brightly, after a couple of rings. He loved the sound of her voice, bubbly and cheerful. He licked his lips. "What's up?"
"Heeeeeey baby," he said, grinning.
"Hi," she repeated, and he could hear her smiling too. "Sounds like someone's been having fun. I take it the water heaters fixed?"
"Pierce made me drink too much," he said, resting his forehead against the wall next to him.
Britta tsked. "Well, he is just a bad influence, isn't he?"
"I tried to explain how much danger he was putting me in," Troy continued.
"Oh no!" Britta gasped. "From what?"
"From naughty, sexy older women," Troy explained. "Who might take advantage of a poor, naive young boy who doesn't know about their wicked ways."
"How awful!"
"I need someone to come protect me," Troy said, trying to sound as pitiful as possible.
"I don't know, I suspect these aging spinsters you're worried about might be in for a disappointment," Britta countered. "It's hard to steal an innocent baby lamb's purity if he's too drunk to get it up."
"Baby, I don't need a hard dick to get you off," Troy said. "I will go to town on your vagina. My tongue will buy a house there. He'll get a mortgage." Britta laughed, and the sound was like nectar to him. "Buy a dog. White picket fence. But then his hair starts falling out. He takes out a second mortgage. Sales start slipping at the plant. They cut back his hours. His wife leaves him because she finds out about the gambling."
"Jesus, you're wasted! Did you try to keep up with Pierce? He's got like 30 pounds on you!" Britta said, still giggling.
"I'll have you know I'm the best drinker. In the whole entire world. Ask anybody."
"Has anyone ever told you that you're a really happy drunk?"
"I'm always happy when I'm talking to you," he said in a lower voice.
Britta cleared her throat, in the way she did when she was flustered, and he felt a stirring in his loins in spite of all the alcohol pumping through his body. He could picture her, then, see the way her cheeks reddened at something so minor. God she turned him on so much. "Okay, so you're still at the mansion? You can use Pierce to keep those women of poor moral character away from you until then." She paused. "I'll see you soon."
I'll see you soon. Not I love you. He swallowed. It's not what he wanted.
Stop it, he thought. Stop looking for reasons for things to be shitty. He knew how Britta felt. Words were less important.
"G'bye," he said. He hung up.
He stumbled back into the kitchen, but it was empty. "Pierce?" he called, sticking his head back out into the hall. "Where'd you go?"
"In here!" he heard the old man call back. "In Mom's room."
Troy felt his stomach sink deeper into his bowels. He didn't like going in there. But, right now, he wanted to be alone even less.
Maybe words were more important to him than he was willing to admit. He swallowed the rest of his drink.
#
Pierce's mom's room had been on the bottom floor; she'd had trouble getting up and down the stairs in her twilight years and had protested bitterly at the idea of having to ride one of those stair lifts.
"The indignity of it!" she'd told Troy when he'd brought it up, half joking. She'd been a cool woman. He missed her.
Now that she was dead, the place that had been her room was used to house her "Energon pod". Pierce was standing in the middle of the room, holding it in his hands and looking into it lovingly. The bottle of rum sat, abandoned for now, on the small end table where the pod usually rested.
This place made him uncomfortable enough sober, this little mausoleum to a women Pierce didn't even think was dead. Drunk, it was almost unbearable. It made him envy Pierce's capacity for self-delusion, the simple elegance of dropping a couple hundred thousand dollars on a lava lamp and then never having to lay up thinking about death, about where we go and why, and if we don't go anywhere than what was the whole point of anything in the first place? And then you roll over onto your side and realize that it's 4:13 A.M. and you're probably not going to get to sleep tonight.
He shook his head roughly, trying to scatter his thoughts. A wave of nausea swept over him though, so he stopped.
"What are you doing?" he finally asked Pierce.
Pierce placed the glass tube back onto its altar. "Reflecting! I'm old and drunk I'm allowed," he said, picking his booze back up and turning to face Troy in the doorway.
"Oh, I didn't mean it like that…" Troy said, shamed by the anger in Pierce's tone.
"Oh, don't listen to me," Pierce said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I'm just a grump." There was an awkward silence, for a moment. "You know, you really do have a talent, Troy," Pierce said finally, walking over to him.
"Oh," Troy said, suddenly remembering the reason why he'd come to the mansion today in the first place. "It was really no big deal."
"No, really, you do. I never really had that, you know, something I was good at? Just a big fat inheritance, a pretty face, and an ass the size and shape of a baby pumpkin. And don't get me wrong," Pierce said quickly, throwing his arm around Troy's shoulder, the bottle of rum thudding against his chest. "All those things were great! But… a calling. That's a rare gift." He paused. "We should open up a business together!"
"What?" Troy asked, half-laughing in surprise. "Pierce, I'm… I'm still in school. I have- I don't want-"
"I know, I know," Pierce said, the enthusiasm already starting to ebb away from his voice. "You're 22. And in love. I just… I worry sometimes. About what's going to happen to you guys after… after I'm gone…"
The hair on the back of Troy's neck started to stand on end. This was not a conversation he wanted to have. "Oh, come on…" he mumbled, looking away.
"I just want to make sure you'll all be okay. And… and that you have something to remember me with."
"Pierce…" Troy said. "We all love you. You don't need to become business partners with each of us to prove it. You know that."
"I know," Pierce said, smiling. "You guys are more of a family to me than anyone I've ever known. Except for you, Mom," he said, over his shoulder to the glass tube. "You guys put up with me even when I'm being an asshole. I don't know why you do, but…" he swallowed. "Thanks Troy. For drinking with an old man."
"Anytime, Pierce."
"And think about my offer, would you?" Pierce added. "Only don't take too long."
Troy frowned. "Why not?"
"Come on, Troy," Pierce said, his voice sad. "The way I've lived? How much longer do you think I have?"
Troy started shaking his head again, slower this time. "No."
"I mean, I was already in pretty bad shape before the two broken legs and the pill addiction. And let's not pretend that my mind hasn't been going downhill lately…"
"Pierce!" Troy said forcefully. He'd screwed his eyes shut. There was a pounding his head that kept building, kept thud-thud-thudding against his skull louder and louder. He was going to throw up. He felt the saliva build up in his mouth, faster than he could swallow it. He remembered the advice Britta had given him, the first time they'd gotten high together, and tried to breathe.
He felt Pierce rubbing his back, and opened his eyes. He wasn't aware until then that he'd doubled over. "Hey! Are you okay? You look like you're going to puke."
He pulled in a lungful of air, and expelled it just as slowly. The little twisting shapes in the edges of his vision began to fade.
"I'm fine. It's okay," he said. And it was true. He'd gotten the physiological reaction of his body to the wave of panic he'd felt rising up in him under control. But his psyche was still reeling from the idea of the old man in a casket. Of Pierce, rotting under the ground. Of the same thing happening to him. Or to Britta.
That was just life, though. It was a circle, a system, and each part of the process required the other two. People were born. And they lived. And then they died. That's what made the whole thing beautiful; Pierce's mom had been right about that. There was nothing to fix, no magic speech to give. What were you supposed to do about that?
"Can I get you anything?" Pierce asked. Troy looked up at him. The old man was staring down at him, worry and guilt in his eyes.
Troy lifted his empty glass. "One more for the road?"
Pierce smiled, sadly. "I can do that."
#
The rest of that night was a blur. He vaguely remembered a car ride, remembered studying the red floral pattern of Britta's towels as he rested his cheek on the cool porcelain rim of her toilet as thin, warm fingers played through his hair.
He woke the next day in her bed. His shirt was gone. Had he puked on it, maybe? That sounded familiar.
"Morning sleepyhead," someone shouted.
"Ow," he said, squinting and sitting up. Someone handed him a glass of water and a pill. He swallowed one, and then the other, a little bit of the second spilling out of his mouth a bit and down onto his chest. It tasted really good. He smacked his lips, which felt dry and crackly. "What time is it?"
"It's 2:30." It was amazing how much it looked like Britta was whispering, when her voice lashed red hot across the surface of his mind. "Headache?"
"Yes. I am never going to drink any alcohol ever again." She stroked his cheek, giving him an exaggerated pout. "Don't mock me when I'm in pain."
She tittered a little at that. "You know what'd help?" she asked.
He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. She produced another glass tube from behind her back, different from the one from the one that had made him drink too much the previous night.
"Okay," he said.
#
He lay in her bed later, high, with Britta's head resting gently on his chest. She was talking about something important sounding, something about fictitious capital and banks and how they were fucking them all over. He was still too far gone to follow her, but between the aspirin and the weed her voice was now a soothing balm instead of an air horn. He craned his neck, reaching down to kiss the top of her head. It was good that the "living life" part of the equation could be so nice. It helped make up for how shitty the other two were.