SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

((Eliza to be continued from High Fashion, High Prices))

Prom night. Also known as A Little Less Than Ordinary Home Alone Night.

A "normal" home alone night where there weren't any gigs in the vicinity she was interested in consisted of kicking back in only her undies for some half-assed attempt to hotbox with her favorite metal rattling the house's structure. But this time, she'd let the window stay open a little longer, slumping forward on her decal-covered desk to let the smoke filter out to mingle among the rest of the greenhouse gases. Not only was it "early" for her, this time of the year the sun took its sweet time stepping down from its pedestal on the top of the world to welcome the black starless expanse of night. So at least it'd give her time to think before she could chill proper.

And think she damn well needed to do.

Part of the reason she'd been able to do as much as she damn well could because she knew she wasn't the only one doing it. She and the other Rainier Valley Girls had each other's backs - but as of late, that just wasn't the case. Then there was what happened with Runway. Cisco Lanza leaving her to the mercy of Miranda "Queen Bitch" Millers and her prettyboy acolyte. She was damn glad that was over with.

Maybe it was that obvious explanation from every goddamn class on peer pressure that she was just looking for company to escape the grinding conflict at home. After all, this was the kind of situation that warranted it - single mom, barely getting by. There was also the weed she was smoking right now, but goddamn if it wasn't something done by "kids her age" regardless of their wealth or racial demographic or position on the high school (and college) spectrum.

Perhaps thankfully, any further thought patterns would be interrupted by the detonation of Saint Elmo's fire somewhere in the other direction, beyond the fence in the almost piss-yellow withered backyard. She closed her eyes for a moment before reaching her arms out to close the window handles.

And for a moment, she imagined she was a thunderbird.

I oughta punch out the guy that told me I was one of them anime thunderbirds. Damn if it don't fit well. she muttered to herself, withdrawing from the windowsill. The late afternoon heat was giving way to the first cool breezes of night, her piercings cooling before the chill against her spine caused her to quiver.

Fuck the rest of 'em. Tonight it would be just Eliza Patton, kicking back. Eliza, some strain, and the goddamn motherfucking metal.

Strain and the Goddamn Motherfucking Metal. That'd be a better name than 90% of those goddamn motherfucking hipster acts, she silently mouthed, before taking another whiff.

Okay, maybe the metal would wait until it was completely dark. Neighbors and repeated scolding notwithstanding, the acoustics were a lot better in the Metal Hotbox. And it wasn't like her brother would be there to grumble now that he was hopefully out the door and immersing himself in cheesy pop trash with the rest of his steroid-pumping lockerbuddies...

The house seemed to be completely in order, or as much in order as it could be with Eliza having full run of the place. All the unnecessary lights were off, supper was taken out and thawing on the counter, TV was off... Cody ran down the mental checklist as he gave the place a final once-over. It looked like he could head out to see the others at any time.

Seeing the others was definitely something he wanted to do as quick as possible. Tonight was, after all, the most important night in Cody's high school social life. Tonight was prom, and there wasn't a damn thing keeping this from being the best night ever. He and the boys were going to meet at a nearby pizza place, get the limo scheduled to come there, and then pick up their dates one by one. Prom itself would be a blast, filled with good food and dancing... best of all, he had made court, and knew himself a shoe-in for prom king.

The grandeur of said ideas faded back to the reality of Cody looking at his house. He had gotten the occasional zing at school about being poor, whether it be from one of his friends on the team or one of the high-class girls at school. He played it off the best he could, take it in stride - money meant nothing to him. In truth, though, it hurt. It hurt because their mother was struggling to make ends meet, the house was kind of a dump at times, and they WERE poor. It was the facts that were true that hurt the most. One day, Cody hoped to change all that. Maybe, if he got a big break into college ball and then the NFL, he'd make so much money that Mom would never have to work again. He had half a mind to say Eliza could fuck off but... well, Cody did love his sister. Even if he thought she'd just waste it all on whatever, he could spare a cool million to get her a house or whatever. As long as he didn't leave her homeless, that was right off of his conscience.

... Right, Eliza. It was just about time to head out the door, and Cody figured he ought to let her know he was leaving. In tux and all, he made a quick jaunt towards Eliza's door, smelling something strange. ... Something strange. What the hell was that?

"Eliza?" Cody said right as he knocked, then wasted little time turning the handle and pushing the door in. "Eliza, I'm heading ou- ... what the hell are you doing?"

Football could go fuck itself sideways if the massive amounts of steroids the athletes took didn't completely render them unable to think, let alone fuck at all. Bread and goddamn circuses. If society kept glorifying the act of butting heads over a ball, then they deserved the insurrections and the riots they had coming to them.

But that was a "some day soon" that she'd leave for later. Now was at least the time to dream. Not of diplomas or good jobs, but just being goddamn free as a goddamn thunderbird. Like all those stupid roadtrip movies, only at least she'd still think it was worth it if this one ended badly. Better to be a dead, smiling body in an alley than mindlessly following the orders of one of those coaches with those one-eared headsets.

That little anarchist "finishing house" in Beacon Hill seemed like a good place to roost once she stomached graduating. A couple gigs here and there to pay rent, and she hadn't completely forgotten how to do chores when asked to. Fuck, she wouldn't mind helping out a fellow global nomad. Or maybe even taking "orders" from them. Better than having to be caged in with a family like this. That they were her only source of food (fucking Marie Callendar's again) and shelter at this moment was about the only thing keeping her from leaving.

"Eliza?"

And with several knocks on the door and being unable to make it out of her seat, let alone toward the door in time, Eliza was suddenly reminded, there were also...family issues.

"Eliza, I'm heading ou- ... what the hell are you doing?"

Now she found herself facing her brother from her desk, in her underwear and smoking a joint. Fuck, she might as well have been caught masturbating or worse, lighting up a rock instead of some holy herb.

Maybe it was whatever was left of that "good girl" in her, but she wasn't quite ready to go down that slope until she'd released that record that made her a hit in the underground. Or she got noticed by one of those big record producers when they weren't trying to sue the fuck out of that one hapless teen just trying to share a song he liked.

Nine out of ten people caught in this situation would either deny it or make up some kind of bullshit excuse in some hopeless attempt to avoid accountability. Eliza was number ten.

"The same thing I do when you guys ain't around and the girls are busy," she sneered, before turning her gaze back out the window. "Fuck else you think I'm doing?"

Cody took a few moments to realize he had barged in on his sister while she was in her underwear. It almost would've been funny that it wasn't the first thing he would pick up on, if it weren't for a couple of things. First, this was a somewhat... uncommon, but not rare occurrence. It wasn't the first time something like this would happen, and Cody sure as hell wasn't lucky enough for it to be the last. Second, the matter of his sister lighting up a joint struck him as a little more important.

"Um, alright. I don't care if you burn yourself out in some alley or at your fucking loser friends' houses, but you're really going to do that shit here?" Cody snapped. "Does mom even know you do that shit? The fuck is the point besides burning out your brain?" Not that you use it, you stupid bitch, Cody wanted to say. Nobody with a brain would smoke that fucking shit, and it bothered him to no end that she decided she was going to do it here, in a house she shared with him, in a house that neither of them actually owned.

"And, on that note, what are you even doing? You're going to miss out on prom?" Cody wasn't entirely sure why he was asking. Eliza was, regretfully, a complete embarrassment to him at school. He loved his sister growing up, even looked up to her at some long-forgotten point, but it seemed like the more he sought to make a name for himself, the more of a loser she strove to lower herself to. She had so much promise in her compared to those fucking idiots like Cherry (Cody was pretty sure Cherry was the worst of the bunch, just from the mercifully short interactions he had with her), and yet she was blowing it all away.

"Um, alright. I don't care if you burn yourself out in some alley or at your fucking loser friends' houses, but you're really going to do that shit here?"

The mention of the word 'loser' - despite Eliza deliberately living the antithesis to Cody's (and by proxy, "standard society's") ambitions - caused her to actually get out of her seat and walk right up to that tuxedo-branded fuck of a brother and whatever imaginary army of phonies was standing right behind him. The girls from Runway, the rest of the fucking Cheerleading squad, and maybe a few detachments of those bike-riding pigs that were baying for the blood of the Zeroth Percentile. Behind Eliza, probably her friends - real friends, however increasingly little they saw each other - and a few wannabe black blocs and the inevitable cop plant.

Now if only they hadn't made a movie with that sort of scene already.

"Does mom even know you do that shit? The fuck is the point besides burning out your brain?"

Her toes curled into the carpet with every step, with only the faintest hint of swagger. As she got closer, she knew he would see every bloodshot artery in her eyes, every minor scratch on every piercing, every root of brown trying to replace her latest blonde bleach. Every little flaw on her melded to create one goddamned punk masterpiece and the monster behind that cracking human mask and oh boy oh boy was she real happy to let it out.

Potential? She remembered enough about energy conversion from elementary fucking physics class to know that this phony was about to feel the fucking thunder.

Liberation begins at home.

"And, on that note, what are you even doing? You're going to miss out on prom?"

Prom. Fuck that. And fuck what happened with Cisco Lanza. Truth be told, she had been thinking about it before she lit up, but hell, the Spanish fly probably had someone else in mind as a plan B. Made her wish she could speak Spanish too, man, what kind of masterpieces could be written in a foreign language that wasn't Nordic for once...but that was for a different venting session, one that didn't involve actually shouting at someone.

"You know what? I bet she does, and I'm probably gonna receive a scolding about it later but you know what?" Eliza continued with the smirk of a washed-up ginger actress.

She knew she was probably getting Cody second-hand cottonmouth from the wisps of smoke crawling from her own maw like every other fucking rap video on what used to be "music" channels. And like a good drag, like every fucking embarrassment she put him through she was going to savor every breath.

"I just wanna relax, that's all. Don't need you imposing your fancy shit on me."

And that's why I love you, big man.

Honestly, with the way his sisters was sauntering up to him, Cody had no idea what to expect next. He figured that the action with the highest possible chance of happening was probably a slap to the face, considering how she lit up when he called her friends losers. Well, there shouldn't have been anything with just calling it how he saw it, and they were definitely losers in every sense of the word. A bunch of girls going nowhere except the alleys and drughouses of Seattle. He didn't want that for his sister. She really did deserve better, but only if she'd let herself have it.

A slap didn't come, but some of that damned smoke did. Cody turned his head away just far enough to make sure it didn't get caught up in his nose or mouth, and possibly just because he wished Eliza would put some goddamn clothes on. So, she wasn't going to prom. Yeah, that was fine with him. It wasn't like he could force her to go, and she certainly couldn't embarrass the hell out of him from the relative safety of her own room. Sounded like a plan. Except... he really did want to see something nice happen for his sister, at least once. Looks like this wasn't that night.

"Yeah, fine... whatever," Cody said off-handedly, turning the rest of the way. "I'll be back around 1. Try not to burn the fucking house down, sis."

It didn't take long for him to get to the door, though if he had to answer for anybody's questions, he'd say it took too long.

"Hey, take your time, I ain't going anywhere," Eliza retorted as Cody turned to leave, just loud enough to be heard outside the window. She stood there and watched him until he edged out of her line of sight before making her way back to her chair.

The moment she sat back down, she did her best to savor the moment. It was a tiny victory, but a victory nonetheless. Anybody could call Eliza or her friends losers. Hell, that was their right to. Wasn't her fault that she liked to behold beauty and life in a different way than those that chained themselves to preconceived notions of "prosperity". Anybody who didn't certainly had the right to fuck off. But if they didn't? If they decided to do more than think it was wrong?

Well, Eliza was certainly proud of using her right to respond. And perhaps proud that unlike her recent previous encounters, this one went right. Now she had her space, so until Cody got back, she'd once again have that space to herself. Just her, her smokes, her music, and...

...damn.

If there was one thing Cody's intrusion definitely did, it was "harsh" Eliza's proverbial "vibes." And getting back into said vibe was a lot harder than it sounded. Especially when her thoughts started drifting back to Cisco Lanza, and whatever the hell he might be doing now. Maybe dancing it up at the prom with that other what's-her-face he mentioned. Or maybe at the dance being lonely. Or maybe at his house being lonely.

The more she thought about it, the louder that voice inside told her to just go out and check.

The same voice that was now telling her this "metal hotbox" was just another term for a "cage."

"Fuck...I'll give it a minute..." she muttered, as smoke began to trail out the window again.