laurent-ofvere · 7 years ago
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@howdoidemi: “this is my first time writing the CP characters, so I’m not confident enough to actually make a story, but I love this au you guys keep talking about and you asked so…”
It was hot, Laurent thought. The day, of course, definitely not the spectacle his brother’s best friend made in the pool. Laurent had come outside earlier in the day when it was still cool enough to be tolerable, intent on doing a little landscape sketching. So much of the garden was in bloom that the air was constantly laced with a warm sweetness. It was just becoming noticeably, almost uncomfortably warm when the back door to the house opened and Laurent heard footsteps. He was more focused on his shading than on who was approaching, so his attention was really only caught when his feet caught some of the splash of what had surely been an impressive cannonball. Snapping his head up towards the pool to immediately yell at whoever had nearly gotten his sketchbook wet, Laurent’s words quickly died in his throat. Damen broke the surface of the water with a gasp that was quickly followed by a boisterous laugh. “It’s colder than I expected!” He called towards Auguste who was just dropping their towels in a nearby chair. “Hey Laurent!” He waved cheerfully. Laurent frowned slightly in response. The big, beautiful oaf had nearly gotten him wet. He’d been coming to their house for years. Everyone knew how protective he was of his sketchbooks. “Are you going to stay outside?” Auguste asked as he leaned over, trying to get a peek at what his brother was working on before the page was tipped away from his view. “If so, we’ll be careful not to splash in your direction.” “Thank you,” Laurent said sincerely as his eyes fixed once more onto the paper in hand. He tried to continue with what he’d come outside for, really he did. But it was just unfair how eye-catching Damianos was. Even on a normal day just sitting around their house and hanging out with Auguste, Damen had Laurent’s attention. He had several filled sketchbooks from throughout the years to prove it. But during summer, in the sun, dripping with the crystal clear water of their pool, Damen was truly in his element. He glowed, and Laurent hated the things it did to his stomach. Without meaning to and before he was even fully aware that he was doing it, Laurent’s pencil was tracing the lines of Damen’s hair, more wave than the usual curl as it was weighed down with water. His smile was blinding in the sun, that cursedly perfect dimple standing out on his cheek despite how much darker his skin had gotten from constantly being in the sun these past weeks. He and Auguste were roughhousing, originally playing some version of water basketball that had turned into more of a wrestling match than anything else.
Laurent could hear them laughing as they played their games, but he was more focused on the cut and curve of Damen’s well-muscled frame and the shadows the afternoon sun was casing on him. Damen and Auguste were both tall and athletic, but their builds were markedly different. Where Auguste was lean muscle, strong but narrow, Damen was all broad shoulders and thick curves. Before he knew it, Laurent’s page, originally meant for the garden’s landscape, was full of Damen. Damen’s arms, Damen’s back, Damen’s smile, and - Laurent’s cheeks flushed ever so slightly - Damen’s abs, accented by a happy trail. That damned happy trail had haunted Laurent’s dreams on more than one occasion. Again: it was unfair how eye-catching Damianos was. “Laurent!” Thoughts interrupted, Laurent looked up to see his brother waving at him to catch his attention before pointing down at his arm. Laurent looked down at his own arm and almost groaned. The sun had shifted and he’d apparently been sitting in direct sunlight for a good while judging by how pink his skin had gotten. Flipping his sketchbook shut and setting it down on the table next to him, he turned to give Auguste a stern look. It was only when Auguste nodded in understanding and waved him on that Laurent headed inside to find some aloe and sunscreen. “He really does burn easily, doesn’t he?” Damen asked as he pushed his hair out of his face and watched Laurent leave. Swinging his attention back to Auguste, he asked, “Why don’t you?” “Genetics,” Auguste shrugged as he reached for the small basketball they’d been playing with. “He got our mother’s skin. You’ll rarely catch either of them in direct sun for very long.” Damen nodded with a small hum. As he thought back on it, he realized that Auguste was right. In all the years he’d known the family, he couldn’t recall Laurent or their mother being outside much. “I need something to drink,” he announced suddenly, slowly wading towards the steps to exit the pool. He wasn’t even anywhere near the chair with their towels when Auguste called out, “Be careful of Laurent’s sketchbook.” “I know,” Damen laughed. Laurent was more protective of his sketchbooks then most people were of their children. He would never intentionally do anything that could damage one. That being said… Damen looked over his shoulder, back towards the house, as he dried himself off. Laurent was extremely talented. It never failed to amaze him on the rare occasion he managed to talk Laurent into showing him some of his recent works. He had a eye for depth and detail that Damen usually didn’t even notice existed until he saw it put on paper in pencil or charcoal. But one thing Laurent never let him look at, never let anyone look at as far as he knew, was what he kept in those personal sketchbooks of his. Stepping closer to the table and making sure that his hands were thoroughly dried, Damen reached for the edge of the sketchbook that had been left behind. “Damen," Auguste warned, now leaning along the edge of the pool closest to where Damen stood. “If Laurent catches you, he may very well kill you. You are aware of that, yes?” “I’m just going to take a quick look,” Damen insisted. “The curiosity has been killing me for years.” Even as he heard Auguste saying something about refusing to take responsibility for whatever befell him, Damen flipped through a few blank pages until he got to the most recent page Laurent had been working on. There were the garden’s flowers and bushes and trees, of course, but scattered among them was something that surprised Damen. It was him. His heart stuttered a little not having expected to see himself in such finely drawn detail. Damen wasn’t exactly what he would call vain, but he knew that he was attractive. Still, there was something about the way that Laurent had drawn him that seemed to accent all of his best features. It was flattering if he was completely honest. Extremely so. He was smiling so wide his cheeks were starting to hurt. Clearing his throat, Damen quickly let the sketchbook fall shut once more and turned his attention back to Auguste. “Do you want anything to drink while I’m inside?” “No,” Auguste sighed. The smile on Damen’s face said everything. Auguste had never looked through one of Laurent’s private sketchbooks, but he knew exactly what his friend had found inside. It couldn’t have been more obvious from his reaction. With a skip in his step, Damen made his way inside, towel slung around his shoulders to catch any stray drips from his hair. He ran into Laurent about halfway to the kitchen. “Laurent,” he greeted, “I’m getting drinks. Want anything?” Laurent looked at Damen carefully. Something was different. Cheerful seemed to be Damen’s default disposition, but the way his sparkling smile stretched across his face with extra enthusiasm bordered on suspicious. “No,” Laurent answered at length. “Thank you.” Damen smiled at him even brighter - if that was possible - and continued on his merry way to the kitchen. He’d known Damen for years and even with all of their various interactions in that time, Laurent felt that moment in particular had been odd. Different, somehow. It was in the way Damen smiled at him. Not in the normal way he did, as someone smiling indulgently at their best friend’s younger sibling, but in a way that was more specifically aimed directly at him. If Laurent had to describe it, he’d probably call it dopey. An idiotic kind of smile, too bright and too honest. And it was beautiful. It really was unfair.
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ashleyspinelliburnbook · 4 years ago
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S1E9: The Box/The Trial
Today I learned that I, growing up on the west coast of the United States, missed the official debut of Recess on the evening of August 31, 1997 because the networks over there were still covering Princess Diana’s death (which happened earlier in the day). The official premiere was pushed back to September 13 because her funeral took place on the original date, September 6.
I don’t know why that’s so fascinating to me. Maybe because it’s a damn thing that the first major news event I remember (not counting Hale-Bopp, but that was less news and more a comet that I was fascinated by?) and such an important TV show that I’m now dedicating a not-insignificant portion of my life to, 23 years later, intersected in this way.
Oh, well. Let’s watch more Recess.
The Box
How do you get all the ice cream you can eat? Apparently, it’s as easy as unplugging the big freezer in the cafeteria, which is what TJ and the gang have just done as the episode opens.
Our friend Hank the janitor informs the whole playground that the freezer is on the fritz and that all the ice cream — including Principal Prickly’s private stash, which I really would have liked to hear more about — is melting! So our friends step in and offer to eat the ice cream, because they’re good people.
Unfortunately for TJ, Miss Finster has discovered his frozen shoe at the scene of the crime, and so she send him to the wall (you know, the punishment where you put your nose on the wall and can’t move for however long. Fortunately for TJ, his friends come hang out with him at the wall. Miss Finster is incensed by this — he’s being punished, but having fun with it — and vows to come up with a better way to punish kids so they really feel it.
The next day, she unveils...The Box.
The playground falls in line, military-style, as Miss Finster explains that they’re just not taking getting into trouble seriously. But when she unveils her next great punishment tool, well...let’s just say it’s no Chokey. Everyone laughs — “It’s just a bunch of lines painted on the ground!” Vince exclaims — but Miss Finster is undeterred, convinced this new punishment will make her “more famous than Mildred Frizbone” — the teacher who invented detention in 1952.
(Other things invented in 1952: car airbag, polio vaccine, roll-on deodorant, pocket-size transistor radio. Ms. Frizbone was in good company!)
Naturally, TJ is the first to get in trouble, and naturally, he milks the attention for all it’s worth. Ten minutes in the box is nothing compared to his peers cheering him on! But Miss Finster then reveals that any kid who gets within 30 yards of the box will get detention for a week (perhaps an early sign that if you can’t beat Ms. Frizbone, join her).
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We quickly learn that four lines painted on the ground is the elementary school equivalent of solitary confinement, though — that is, extremely bad (relative to, you know, kids’ attention spans). As TJ realizes he can’t play catch because his ball rolled out of the box, he can’t watch clouds because there aren’t any, and he's too impatient to nap — something he says he hasn’t done in a long time, but um, it’s been literally one episode — he starts to crack.
TJ hallucinates the box sinking into the ground, and all his helpless friends see from a great distance is him clawing at the walls surrounding him like a mime. When Miss Finster arrives to collect TJ after the worst 10 minutes of his life, he’s ready to do anything to never have to go back in the box again.
As the extent of TJ’s apparent PTSD sets in — he can’t eat square foods, like the ravioli and sandwich that Gretchen and Mikey offer him at lunch the next day — the gang realize they have to do something. Gretchen, of course, has an academic answer, while I’ll quote in full:
“According to Dr. Freud here, trying to take a person’s mind off his fears is just playing into them. The only cure is to make the person confront those fears. In other words, TJ must go back in the box.”
Now, as someone who somehow has a psychology degree, I’m wondering if she means Sigmund Freud, who was notably known for a lot of things, exposure therapy not being one of them. Maybe not. Maybe it’s a different Freud. In any case, this course of action seems like a good thing to try, except it also means the gang has to ensure TJ goes back in the box by framing him for a crime (in this case, spitballing Miss Finster in the back).
Back in the box, TJ immediately hallucinates again...until he’s hit in the head with a dodgeball, snapping him back to reality. He’s too shocked to throw it back to the kid who lost it, so the kid just comes into the box to get it, and TJ realizes if people can come into the box, he can get out of it! Wow!
When Miss Finster (and that snitch Randall, who gets his own episode coming up!) arrives to collect TJ from the box, she’s expecting a puddle of goo where TJ’s body used to be, more or less. But...TJ is fine. “I’d have to be nuts to be afraid of that!” he says, as Miss Finster sobs over her (apparently) failed creation (sample size of two?).
Takeaway: TJ can be vulnerable! Which...again, is something we learned ONE EPISODE AGO when he was taken prisoner by the kindergarteners and regressed to being a kindergartener. Which is way more of a Freud thing than exposure therapy is, by the way!!!!
The Trial
THIRD STREET SCHOOL, Ark. — The charge of throwing a rock in a dirt clod war against fourth-grader Ashley Spinelli was thrown out, though the trial took a surprising twist at its end.
Spinelli had been charged with violating the playground constitution by throwing a rock at playground snitch Randall Weems. The prosecution argued that Spinelli’s action was worse than cutting in line, throwing slush balls or spitting loogies in the drinking fountain, per the constitution.
“What kind of rotten, evil kid would throw a rock in a dirt clod war?” an anonymous digger told Recess News.
Though Weems’ reputation as a snitch preceded him, with many on the playground reluctant not to indict Spinelli but to give Weems any benefit of the doubt, the consensus was that the constitution was clear.
The punishment for violating the playground constitution in such an egregious manner, according to the document, is a swirly. According to Urban Dictionary, a swirly is “a prank often pulled in high school, in which a group of kids hold one kid upside down over a toilet then dunk their head in and flush it, resulting in a ‘swirl’ style hairdo.”
A high school-level punishment befitted the crime, King Bob said in a statement, but a trial would be required to prove Spinelli’s guilt.
The case’s first twist came when Gretchen Grundler, a close friend of Spinelli’s, was named prosecutor by virtue of being the smartest kid on the playground — another rule from the constitution.
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Then, Recess News learned Spinelli herself would not be taking the stand, citing self-incrimination. Spinelli’s defense team told Recess News they were not in agreement with their client on this strategy.
The first surprise testimony came not from Weems’ own depiction of the incident, but from Mikey Blumberg, another close friend of the defendant. Blumberg told the court that he had witnessed Spinelli threatening Weems before the alleged rock throwing took place, but had not seen the incident in question.
“When will you people learn war is not a game?” Blumberg cried in the day’s most impassioned speech. “It’s not a game!”
But the second surprise testimony came as Spinelli herself opted to take the stand. She told Recess News later that she credited her friend Vince LaSalle with the decision.
“He goes, ‘This isn’t just about you anymore, it’s about all of us,’” Spinelli said. “That was all I needed to hear.”
Spinelli had left the scene to rescue a cat, she testified, and that cat turned out to belong to playground overseer Miss Finster, the teacher to snitch Weems’ teacher’s pet. Weems was so jealous of the attention Spinelli received that he threw the rock at himself and blamed it on her, he revealed.
Grundler immediately withdrew the charges upon this revelation, leaving the playground in a state of disarray.
This is a developing story. Recess News will update this page as news of Weems’ impending swirly is confirmed.
Takeaway: I don’t use the word “badass” very often — it’s pretty overused, IMO — but my goodness, was Gretchen telling Spinelli “I’ll see you in court” badass.
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