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madistidious-blog · 7 years ago

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crosbywilde‌:

“I’m a product of my environment.” He said with a shrug, though there was a smirk gracing his features. It was a cliche and he was mostly kidding, a fact he was sure she was aware of. She knew him surprisingly well when it came to that kinda thing.

Mindlessly he reached for one of her hair pins, playing with it between his fingers. Usually he’d fidget with a cigarette, but it seemed wrong to pull one out in Madison’s presence, especially in her house. Even if he didn’t light it. “Is that what I’m supposed to be thinking about, something that’s gonna make me happy? Dunno, seems naive to me.” Crosby was too realistic for his own good half the time, borderline pessimistic, but he never saw himself as the guy with a future worth dreaming about. “Finding a career that can make me good money and keep me out of jail was really all I was going for.”

Leaning back in his chair, Crosby crossed his arms over his chest, intently listening to Madison go on. She was making sense, which he hated, and doing it in that Madison McCarthy way – rambling a bit, trying to play it cool while baring her soul because Crosby always played it cool, just being…Madison. This, this right here was the reason she was the one he went to in the middle of the night.

“Dr. Wilde. Shit, could you imagine that?” He laughed, running his hands through his hair because honestly even the hypothetical mention of it was crazy to hear. “My mom would have a freakin’ stroke. I’d probably have one too. Don’t think I’m all that great at helping people, honestly. Or all the school it would take to get there. It’s a nice thought though.”

“Besides, it’s different. I care about you.” People in general? Fuck them. But Madison..he cared about Madison. Helping her mattered, it meant a hell of a lot more than he ever admitted. “There’s no way I’d put in effort to help some random nutjob I’ve never met. My whole tough love thing wouldn’t work with them either I don’t think.”

It shouldn’t have taken her by surprise - I care about you.had It shouldn’t have taken her by surprise, but it did, and she had to drop her gaze to try and hide the immediate blush that bloomed over her cheeks.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know that. She knew he cared about her - he wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t, and anyway, he’d shown his care more times than Madison could count before he left.

But he had left, and maybe it was just that Crosby would never stop taking her by surprise.

“Maybe not Dr. Wilde,” Madison said, voice coming out too-light, “even though I still think you’d be better at it than you think.” It made her sad - that Crosby wasn’t even willing to factor in his own happiness, that it was so far removed from his life that it didn’t even seem like a worthwhile criteria to consider.

Madison sighed. “Maybe it is naive,” Madison said, pulling her mouth to one side in acknowledgement. “To think anybody can be really happy at all, nevermind happy and not-broke.” Madison smiled wryly - these were the questions she was thinking about, too. What would turn the fastest buck, what would bring stability, how she could best take care of her family, and how those things stacked up against what she actually wanted to do.

“But,” Madison continued, “there’s lots of people who just - you know, do a job, get a paycheck, and the rest of their life is where they get their joy from. Not...you know, working for the weekend and hating the other five days a week or anything, but like...their job is just something they do, not something they’re especially passionate about.” Madison shrugged; that would, all things considered, be her reality. At least for a while. Maybe forever. She wasn’t the type to get lucky. “But I think it’s worse to...I don’t know, not even consider your happiness as a factor. It’s one thing to take a job knowing it might not make your socks roll up and down, but it’s wholly another to not even consider that before you go into something, right? I think you should at least have that as a box to check or not, even if it’s not the deciding factor. You can have a career that keeps you out of jail, pulls enough money to get you above the poverty line, and makes you happy. I know you can.”

She so wanted Crosby to be happy. She’d only ever wanted that for him.

“I read in a book somewhere - there’s three different categories of work. Working with stuff, like...being a mechanic or a factory worker or something; working with people, like customer service or retail; and working with data, which is like business and science and stuff. All jobs are some combination of the three, but all jobs use one more than the other, and it just depends on which thing you’d be most comfortable doing for most of your time.” Madison paused, a little smile playing at her lips. “I guess it all comes back around to that big question,” Madison said slowly, picking up one of her other pins to copy his fidgeting gesture.

“What do you want, Cros?”

#crosby: all

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madistidious-blog · 7 years ago

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crosbywilde‌:

Madison was still as sweet as ever. Was there an act as pure as getting cookies and milk together? He was charmed, the smile on his face evident of that fact, he couldn’t help himself. While parties and all the recreational activity that came with them were his usual source of entertainment, he eagerly took his fork, slipping it into the cookie the same way she did. “It’ll be our little secret.”

The silence that fell between them was odd because it wasn’t. There was no amount of awkwardness, not like he expected there to be. No, he was still entirely comfortable around her, more than capable of simply enjoying her company without having to say much of anything.

“Don’t know. Never checked.” He shrugged, dunking his cookie in the milk before tossing the whole thing in his mouth. “Dire, life and death.” He joked, still mid-chew. “Options, uh, everything I guess? I mean I’m not really good at anything, unless you count drug dealing but I get the feeling you won’t.” Usually he wouldn’t be so blunt about it, he wasn’t even entirely sure if Madison knew that was how he made extra cash during high school, but it’s not like it would be some big surprise. It made sense, given his general miscreant behavior. “Guess I could be a business major.”

Madison smiled fondly, shaking her head goodnaturedly. “You’re good at plenty,” she said, light and sure as anything. “I never got why you bought into the idea that you weren’t.” Madison leaned back in her seat, gently unclipping the pins that were keeping her hair up as she thought.

“I don’t think going into business would make you happy,” she said after a few moments of consideration, “but I guess you could be good at it, especially if you focused more on the entrepreneurial aspect than the nine-to-five, live-and-die-by-the-stocks thing.” Madison shrugged and ran her fingers through her hair.

It was so easy. It was easier than it had any right to be. It was like picking up a conversation they’d been having five minutes ago, instead of over a year ago. Or...it wasn’t, because before, back then, she’d practically had to beat Crosby over the head to get him to listen to her, and now he was seeking her out. Randomly and in the middle of the night, which had been his M.O in high school, but it felt...different. More grown-up.

He still looked like he belonged there - sitting across from her, pale eyes glinting in the light. It still felt like he belonged there.

“Have you thought about psychology?” Madison asked, leaning forward to take another cookie. “I know, emotional stuff wasn’t - wasn’t something you thought you were good at,” she said, holding up a hand in mock surrender, “but--you helped me.” She let that hang there for just a moment, then carried on, voice level and purposefully casual. “You have a way of...” Madison trailed off as she finished her cookie, then gave another little shrug. “I guess I should say had a way, but I’m sure you still do--of making these things that seem too big and too scary more...manageable. Therapy isn’t all about letting people cry on your shoulder, or it doesn’t have to be. It’s about helping people, and that’s all drug dealing is. Heck, if you become psychiatrist, you can still do that, just...legally, with a pharmacy involved.”

Madison paused, a grin slowly spreading on her face. “Dr. Wilde. That’s got kind of a ring to it, don’t you think?”

#crosby: all

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madistidious-blog · 7 years ago

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crosbywilde‌:

Crosby went from feeling nothing at all to feeling everything at once, his own emotions almost overwhelming him as she enveloped him into a hug. It wasn’t the reaction he was expecting, but the one he secretly hoped for, and he’d never admit it but he was so damn happy over it. “Hi.” He replied, a low chuckle escaping from his lips. He’d never been much of a hugger, but his usual rules never really applied to Madison, did they? “You look good.” He said it to break the silence, ease the nonexistent tension, stop her from staring, and honestly because he really freaking meant it. There was something different about her –she grew up. There was a sense of confidence in her that he wasn’t used to, the girl who all too often worried about who she was, her intensity, the things that made her Madison, she didn’t appear to question them now, and he was both proud of the girl and jealous he wasn’t there to witness it himself.

Putting out his cigarette, on the bottom of his shoe like he’d done so many times before, he follow behind her, placing the butt in his jean pocket because for some reason throwing it into her lawn just felt wrong. “Figured it was about time I showed up, you know?” He failed to mention the fact that he came here before anywhere else, seeing Madison easily taking precedence over any desire to see his own father. “Needed my self proclaimed guidance counselor to help me pick a major. Only idiots go into their sophomore years still undecided.”

“You too,” Madison chirped back over her shoulder, glad the dark of the house hid her blush as she led him through to the kitchen. She flipped on the light gestured toward the kitchen table. “Step into my office,” she said with an impish grin, before she toed the stepstool agains the cupboard and used it as a boost to kneel up on the counter.

After a few moments of rummaging, she pulled a mostly-full container of Oreos out and slid off the counter, grabbing a mug, two forks, and finally the half-gallon of milk from the fridge before she joined him at the table. She poured a glass of milk, slid the cookies between them, handed him a fork, and then grabbed a cookie and stuck her fork in the double stuf, creating a handle for less-messy dunking. “Don’t tell Mason,” was all she said, innocent grin on her face.

After a few moments of quiet, which Madison used to dunk her cookie and then pop it in her mouth, she rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand to look at him. She couldn’t believe that Crosby was really here, again; she couldn’t stop smiling. “So. Do they not have real guidance counselors in Philadelphia?” Madison asked, resting her chin in her hand as she gave him a teasing smile. “The situation must be pretty dire if you’re looking for my help,” she chuckled and shook her head; she didn’t know how much help he actually needed and how much it was a convenient excuse to visit her after all this time, but she wasn’t going to complain. “What are the options? We can whip up a good old fashioned pro/con list.”

#crosby: all

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madistidious-blog · 7 years ago

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crosbywilde‌:

As much as Crosby cherished Madison’s friendship, it wasn’t enough to get him to keep in contact. Graduating high school for him was a triumph, and somehow screwing a college into accepting him was an even bigger one, he had to go. Drexel (his father’s alma mater) was close enough for him to make visits if he really wanted to, a short plane ride from Philly to Lima the only thing standing in his way, but he didn’t make the effort. It’d been over a year since they saw each other, not having spent any time together since the summer before his first semester, and nearly just as long since they spoke. They texted a lot at first, like high school friends tend to do, but between her busy schedule and his unfortunate out of sight out of mind thought process, it didn’t last long. By the time October rolled around they barely spoke at all, a couple of Instagram likes here and there being there only form of interaction.

He shouldn’t be here.

Sitting on the McCarthy’s doorstep after being MIA for a year was wrong in so many ways, but there he sat, with a cigarette in his mouth right on their steps. Senior year had started for her, he shouldn’t have been surprised she wasn’t home. It was naive of him to stroll back into town and expect her to be right where he left her. A week before classes started for him, after so many months of staying put in Philly, not even making a trip to see his family, he decided to come back.

He heard the sound of her laughter long before she came into view, a small smirk pulling at his lips until she saw the clown she had on her arm. Some douchey football player from the looks of him. At least she had the good sense to break things off with Carter. Maybe he should’ve felt sorry for interrupting date night, but he wasn’t. “I would’ve waited inside, but no one’s home.” He said plainly, rising to his feet once her boytoy finally walked off. “Who’s the guy?”

Sophomore year had been a blur. A happy, tumultuous blur, that ended with some of the people she loved the most stepping (or, in some cases, being shoved) into the next steps of their grand adventures. Carter graduated, and by some miracle Crosby did too, and the next year the rest of her boys followed in their footsteps. It had been hard, at first, to go back to being on her own, but she’d realized - slowly, the way you realize the most important things - that just because they were gone didn’t mean things would go back the way they’d been before. It couldn’t - she couldn’t. She’d realized that she hadn’t been left behind - she was being allowed to grow into whoever it was she was meant to be.

Madison was determined to make the most out of her senior year. Sure, college was on her mind all the time and she was more worried about finances than she’d ever been before, but between taking duel-credit classes at Lima Community and saving every penny she could from her job at the Lima Bean, she managed to find time to date, a little. To go to movies. To treat herself to spa days or library visits that had nothing to do with homework. She was determined to squeeze every inch of responsibilityless teenagerdom she had available into the last year of high school - because if she didn’t do it now, she never would.

So she said yes, when the second-string wide-receiver asked her out. She did her hair and got as dressed up as a first-and-probably-last date warranted, she let Mason have the car for the night, and she went to dinner and tried to find something in common with the boy across from her. That was what being a teenager was supposed to be, after all; it was just that she was under no illusion that this boy was her forever, and that made it so much easier to laugh at his stupid, memey joke.

Her laughter turned into a startled squeak when a voice emerged from the shadows of the house, but she didn’t even have time to form a word before she realized who it was.

It was like getting hit by a train. All her breath left her and she felt her eyes go wide - the boy on her arm, Mike, she heard him dimly ask who he was and Madison almost wanted to laugh. How could he not know? “Um, I’ll--I’ll see you at school,” Madison managed, absently patting Mike’s arm. “Thanks for dinner.” She knew it wasn’t the end of the evening Mike had been angling for, but she truly didn’t care. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Crosby, lest he vanish into a puff of smoke - she was distantly aware of Mike muttering something before he turned and left, and then they were alone.

At Crosby’s question, Madison just shook her head - while the answer was obviously ‘no one important’, it was enough to jog her back to her senses, and she closed the distance between them quickly and without hesitation, tugging Crosby into a tight hug. “Hi,” she said into his shoulder, staying there just long enough to be sure that yeah, no, this was real, he was here. When she pulled back to look at him in the half-light of the porch, she remembered, suddenly, how Crosby used to make her feel - the way she wanted to say everything at once, and how it never seemed like enough. That just made her smile grow wider, now - she wasn’t sixteen anymore (thank God), and she was (probably) capable of having a conversation around her surprise.

And then she realized she was staring. He looked - well, older, obviously, but still so familiar, it almost ached, like a bruise you didn’t remember earning. “Let’s go inside,” Madison said, smile not dimming as she stepped around him toward the front door. “And you can tell me what the heck you’re doing here.”