star boy

“I only meant that you seem like a big fish in a small pond, in regards to your love of the stars and the size of Charming.” Lucius sat on the edge of his seat, genuinely excited for one of the first times in a long time. He leaned heavily on the table, his hands drumming slightly on the smooth polished wood. “Charming possesses qualities of both, as I said, in that it seems to draw all of us to it and won’t let us leave. And, similarly, like a neutron star, all our pieces, regardless of the positive and the negative, keep up squashed together, working for the same goal. What that is, I’m not sure. Hence the binary system. I’ve always thought that about this place. An explosion–a supernova–happened, and we’ve all been drawn here and begun anew. Neutral. Call it a recurring dream, but if there’s one way to merge the silliness with astrology with the facts of astronomy, waxing poetic seems to be the answer.” He liked the Sheriff’s metaphor for the asterism. It described the town most definitely. Lucius hadn’t had the chance to travel much outside of Charming, only for a few extremely obscure book signings, but he knew this place wasn’t like any other town. 

Ah, now that would make sense. Bryce nodded, his hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. The man seemed to lean into the table, raring to go. Bryce was actually quite taken with the conversation. After all, how often did people let him talk astronomy and reply with their own thoughts, not just merely tolerate his chatter? He couldn’t help nodding, appreciating the man’s metaphor the more he explained it. Lucius obviously knew his stuff, the binary description appropriate for Charming, suiting the small town rather well. “And what do you suppose this supernova could’ve been that drew everyone here? After all, most, if not all of our residents were born here. Or do you think that they were the supernova?” He arched an eyebrow. “It’s rather fitting, though I’d love to hear your thoughts on the quark star stage of Charming. What do you suppose about this town would lend itself to that analogy? Or is it simply a binary system with no progression from one stage to another?” 

     ❝ —You really don’t like astrology, do you, ❞ Bianca observed, less a question and more a statement, taking in the way he’d systematically broken down each point ( with fairly valid rebuttals to boot ). Her brows rose slightly, her arms folding across her chest as she tucked her phone against her side with one hand. ❝ Maybe this isn’t their only job. Besides — it seems like enough people look forward to these that they’re still employed, ❞ She brought her phone up again, scrolling through the page. ❝ Well, which one are you? Maybe yours’ll say something about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. ❞

 He didn’t think it necessary to answer, their earlier conversation speaking for itself, merely shrugging in response to her half question half statement. “Ah, yes, how could I forget? They probably blog about the Kardashians or write for Buzzfeed in their spare time.” Bryce rolled his eyes. “Don’t we all,” he murmured under his breath. You don’t have to, I already read mine and it says today I’ll come into money. Bryce held his tongue as the brunette scrolled through her phone. “Couldn’t tell you. Birthday is August 18th though.”

Zoella was not at all surprised that someone would sit at an already taken table. Due to the cafe’s sudden crowd she expected new friends to be made. Someone sitting at her table was a shock, though. She was not inviting. Or so she had been told before. Many assumed she was sad or lonely due to her affiliation with a darker wardrobe than was normal for a girl her age. The man was interesting but also someone she wasn’t sure she’d be keen on. The way he moved said too much to her about the sort of person he was. His waving to the waitress, his quick studying of the phone. “Those things kill your eyesight, you know.” It was all Zoella had to say before she turned back to the stranger she had been studying earlier.

Bryce glanced up at the girl at his table, the anemic looking woman already glancing in another direction. If he hadn’t been sure that she was talking to him, he’d have thought he misheard her. “Do they? I always hear that they gave you early arthritis or brain cancer from taking too many phone calls, but this is a new one. Is it the screen brightness?” He glanced down suspiciously at the device in his hand. God, he loved his smartphone, but he was still learning new things about it. Like carplay or icloud. What were those? “Or the size of text? Cause I figured out how to make that one bigger - they’ve got a text size function for old guys like me.”

She not, rather interested in what he saying. For someone that was under the curse just like everyone else, he had some rather surprising wisdom. “What exactly do you mean by that? Are you referring to your passion? You job? Your path? ..Maybe it’s that way because of alternative universes and alternative selfs.” 

"A little of all of that. It’s like my passions, my job and where I’m going in life, where I’ve been - all of it means something in the context of the universe. I just don’t know what it is. All I know is that it feels familiar. You know?” He laughed a little at himself, shaking his head. “I’m probably not making much sense, and now I sound like those zodiac nutters.”

“That’s one side of it.” Curtis said with a small shrug, thinking of his reasoning for hating it. “My dad gave me this half of me when I was barely 8. So I’ve had this shit for twenty years and I’ve never stopped hating it. The transformation, the lack of control, the inabilty to think with all my faculties. Hate it.” Curtis said shaking his head and sighing. “Never really belonged to a pack, either. So I try and just hide.“ That was the problem when he was young and transforming. He didn’t know where to go during his transformations and he had more than one bad encounter with a wandering werewolf who thought it would be fun to fuck with him. Those times alone made him want to never see another wolf, let alone be one. 

Bryce had never thought of it as a lack of control, rather as more control. He sensed more, felt more, knew more when he was his wolf self. It was a different kind of control, sitting back and letting yourself do everything, trusting that your instincts were good. It was the kind of control Bryce preferred, one he used in every day life. Then again, he’d been born with this, had always had it as long as he could remember. “It’s a shame. It’s a gift, an experience so few get. A bit of a hairier version of a period - after all, it’s no walk in the park. But it feels better if you just give into it. The more you fight it, the worse it is. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that?”

“Curtis... If you keep calling me a Pisces, I won’t pay for dinner tonight. See if we’re really dating then.”

“I can’t speak Spanish, but I feel like I should. Would definitely be useful around here. Um... no. No.”

“I uh... I wish man. How badass would that be?”

“That’s definitely a rumor.”

“I am neither a cowboy nor in space, so I’m gonna go with no?”

“Half my age would be sixteen, which would not only be disgusting but illegal. The last person I had sex with was my ex wife who was 30 at the time, thank you very much.”

“Clearly you’ve been talking to the highly imaginative and notorious liar Curtis. I don’t keep track of my zodiac sign, however I think if you google search it, you’ll see I’m not some crybaby fish, but a tough and hardworking Leo.”

With Zoe in the hospital, Vidia had needed to make a few adjustments and being saddled with a bit of bartending and waitstaff duties while the employees normally taking up the spots were moved into the back to cover for Zo was just one of them. An unfortunate situation all around made worse by the presence of Bryce. She had made the mistake of not only taking his table without realizing it was him but also the bigger mistake of glancing at the horoscope section of the paper while she had waited for his order, scoffing at hers since she never quite felt like Virgo pinpointed her decently.

“First of all, my sign is ruled by Mercury.” Vidia retorted as she dropped the section back down and loosely folded her arms. “Which, you who quizzed me on everything astrological I knew about myself on our date with your telescope should have known but —” Shrugging, Vidia improvised his words back to him. “I suppose that’s just further proof that the stars billions of light years away and you have plenty in common when it comes to giving a fuck about people, isn’t it Sheriff?“ The sarcasm was more than evident but Vidia wasn’t the type of person who forgave and forgot easily.

Bryce didn’t get it; honestly and truly didn’t get it. It’d been two dates, and true, they hadn’t gone great, but Vidia had had fair warning - he was just recently divorced and was trying to get back into the dating game after being out of it for ten years. “Mercury, Jupiter same difference. It’s all ruled by some unpaid intern at Cosmopolitan,” he muttered, suddenly feeling rather uncomfortable. He just wanted his chicken and waffles. Should’ve just fucking gone to Waffle House, but they didn’t serve beer with it. Bryce was starting to think that that would’ve been a trade off he was willing to make. Her nagging was worse than Penelope’s had been, and he’d at least been on more than two dates with his ex-wife.

“Look, if you didn’t want to look at the stars, you shouldn’t have agreed to it. We could’ve gone to a movie or dinner or coffee or something...” He paused at her last comment, letting a silence fall between them. That was uncalled for. Sure, he’d forgotten to text back once or twice, and may have forgotten to call, but it’d been ten years, he was rusty. “You know... on second thought, I realized I have somewhere else to be.” He moved to get up, plucking his jacket from the seat next to him.