deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 33: dog day sunrise

It would be another two hours before Sam, Belinda, Charlie, and Marla rolled into Syracuse, and at that point, the cold night had blanketed over upstate New York like a pitch dark tapestry, and Syracuse was the crown jewel of it all, like the kingdom in the thick of the night as it shone and glittered before them. Sam and Belinda were both eager to climb out of the car and search for a gift to Joey, but Charlie assured them that they would stop over in a part of town perfect for that sort of thing.
"It's also where the cabin is, too," he added as he merged lanes right as the highway expanded from two into four.
"The cabin?" Belinda stifled a chuckle at that.
"Yeah, Jon has a cabin apparently," Charlie replied, "and I know for a fact that Joey's parents live out this way and—I think, I think anyways, he went on over there the other day. So, he could be there right now for all Marla and I know..."
His voice trailed off and they were met by the sound of the first rain drops on the surface of the windshield.
"Whoa, where'd this come from?" Marla blurted out as she brought her hand to the handle right over her head.
"Didn't look cloudy by the time we actually got into the heart of upstate," Charlie recalled with a flick of the windshield wipers. "At least, I don't think it did."
Sam glanced over at Belinda, who turned her head in her direction with eyes wide with concern.
"Did you bring a jacket?" Sam asked her in a low voice, to which Belinda shook her head and her blonde locks spread all around her shoulders. "Shit."
"It's okay, we didn't, either," Marla called back to them.
"I'm sure Jon and Marsha'll have some blankets there," Charlie assured them as they made their way towards the center of town, that big donut hole comprised of still darkness. Sam thought back to when she and Joey drove up to North Syracuse for a bite of dinner: it all looked so much different during the darkness of the night and the rain, which picked up in mere seconds.
"Holy shit," he muttered as he kicked the wipers up to full gear. In spite of that, the rain poured down the windshield and the outside of the windows in the form of small rivers.
"Wow," Sam breathed out.
"Yeah, this is crazy," he called back to her.
"I don't think I haven't seen any rain like this before," she pressed on.
"Sam's first big rainstorm!" Marla proclaimed.
"First big New York rainstorm," Charlie added as he slowed down a little bit so as to better see out the windshield.
"I don't think it ever rained like this out in California," Sam confessed. "Not even out in the desert during the monsoon flows in like late summer time."
"This time of year," Belinda added.
"Sort of. The end of it should've been like around a couple of weeks ago."
Charlie slid down in his seat a bit so he could better see past the big river right before his face.
"Do you see an exit sign, Marla?" he asked her.
"I don't. I can't see anything, Charlie."
"I can't, either," he insisted.
"But if you can't see, what makes you think I can see?"
"Because you're not the one driving!"
"So? I still can't see!"
Sam and Belinda glanced at each other with bemused looks on their faces. The two of them were arguing with each other even as the rain poured down over them in buckets. The least of their problems, however.
"There, Charlie!" Marla argued with a gesture out the windshield.
"Where?" He waved his hand about a bit.
"Right in front of you!" she snapped, still with her finger pointed out the windshield. "There's the exit!"
"Fuck—" Despite the pouring rain, he merged lanes over to the one on the far right in time to reach the offramp. They veered off of the freeway and into the cold darkness. Belinda shuddered in her seat and rubbed both of her upper arms with her hands. Sam brought her arms closer to her body and bowed her head a bit.
The cold had sprung upon them but the least Charlie and Marla could do was turn on the heater.
They hung a left and it led them into even more darkness: the sole light came from the car headlights and the stray one from the trees outside. It was all blurred from the sheer amount of rain upon the windows and the rooftop. Sam had no idea where they were going, and she had no idea if Charlie even knew where he was going. Marla sighed through her nose and even through the darkness, Sam could see her give her violet hair a little toss back.
"It's up here, right?" he asked Marla.
"I don't actually know," she admitted. "You were the one who talked to Jon over the phone, not me."
Charlie let out an exasperated sigh but then they reached a stop sign. Through the sheets of rain, Sam spotted the outline of a big wooden cabin right in front of them, right across the street from them.
"Is that it right there?" Marla asked him, to which he pointed out the windshield at the same time.
"I think so." He lunged forward and they made their way closer to the curb. The front porch light next to the door frame shone across the dark drenched lawn, and she spotted the silhouette of a man there by the street. He tugged his hood down, and Sam recognized his jet black curls against the golden light from the front door.
Charlie pulled up to the curb and yanked on the parking lever. In the darkness, Joey pulled the hood over his curly head to protect himself from the pouring rain. Marla opened the door a little bit.
"You guys need any help?" Joey called into the car.
"Pretty please please," Charlie called back to him.
Keeping their heads bowed down, Sam and Belinda ducked out of the back seat in unison. The former put her purse over her head as she joined Joey with bringing in her and Belinda's things into the warm and dry cabin. Sam joined in helping Charlie and Marla inside, and their hair dripped wet from the sheer amount of rain.
Joey hung his jacket up on the hook next to the door and he ran his fingers through his rich jet black curls. His skin was even more smooth and delicate than what Sam remembered before with him: his brown eyes looked even bigger and deeper than usual as well. He was looking at twenty five years old in a few days and yet he still looked like a young boy with the little glimmer in his eyes and the smoothness of his skin.
"I'm glad you guys could come to this," he proclaimed with a bow of his head, "this—this thing."
"A party," Belinda replied as she ran her hand over the crown of her blonde hair.
"A party courtesy of Jon and Marsha," Charlie followed up. Sam, Belinda, and Marla took their seat on the couch on the side of the room so they could dry off from the rain.
But within a few moments, Aurora and Metallica showed up, drenched and with a pair of pearly white boxes full of cake. She set her hand upon the lid to protect Joey's curious eyes from the view of the frosting.
"I hope you like it, though," she told him as she lifted her index finger from the lid. She and Lars bowed into the kitchen in unison; James wandered back into the back hallway on the far side of the front room. Kirk and Cliff congregated next to the couch and the three girls; the latter showed Sam a sweet little smile.
"I'm glad you guys could make it," she told him, and Belinda huddled next to her.
"Are you cold?" Kirk asked her with a couple of steps forward.
"Oh, no, I'm just—" Belinda hesitated as she kept her eyes fixated on Cliff, who chuckled at her.
"I'm just big and striking," he filled in. To Sam, he looked strange without a bouquet of tulips for her. But his black coat coupled with his bell bottoms and his boots made her think of a true cowboy, and she wondered where he had set down his hat.
She didn't properly introduce him to Belinda, who kept glimpsing over at him with a dazed look on her face and in her eyes. She stayed silent even when Jon and Marsha showed up with dinner, and at that point it was after midnight. Sam stayed next to the right of Joey to ensure that he didn't drink for the entire night. However, Cliff lingered near her at a few points, and she caught a whiff of his cologne.
Come one thirty in the morning, Sam could feel the fatigue setting in. A four hour drive to upstate after a full day of school and she needed to rest. There were a few guest rooms throughout the cabin as well as a fold out bed from the sofa in the front room. To Sam, it was like everyone took everything all at once at a whim instead of the question to her. She watched two of the doors down the hall close part of the way; right behind her, Frank and Charlie took to the sofa bed while Scott put down a bunch of blankets on the floor beneath them.
Cliff sauntered over to her with his arms wide open for her.
"Lars and I are gonna be right at the end of the hall," he told her, "so if you need anything, knock on the door and one of us'll help."
Joey emerged from behind her: they were the only ones left to haven't have found a place to sleep yet.
"Good night, Cliff," she whispered into his ear, and she could feel the bristled mustache over his upper lip on the side of her neck. She closed her eyes and her toes curled inside of her shoes. He then let her go with Joey to one of the bedrooms in the cabin.
"There's one more guest bedroom down the hall there," Jon told them with a gesture behind them.
"Okay, thank you, Jonny," Joey told him, and he and Sam made their way down the hallway. She reached the door first and thus she let him in first. He only took two steps into the cozy room when he froze right in his tracks.
"What's the matter?" Sam asked him as she followed him inside.
"There's only one bed," he muttered.
Indeed, there was only one queen sized bed right smack in the middle of the room, right in between two nightstands. There was a dark red envelope rested upon the edge of the bed, and Sam thought of Legacy and their fan club.
"What's this," Joey said under his breath.
"Is it a fan club thing?" she asked him as she stood right next to him. He turned over the envelope and he showed her a gold sticker there on the flap.
"Might just be," he replied, to which he ran his index finger underneath it and it lifted off of the parchment. Nothing inside of there.
"Nope."
"Huh." Sam folded her arms across her chest. Joey turned his head towards her and raised his eyebrows a bit.
"You got your things in here?" he asked her.
"In here?" she echoed him, to which he nodded his head. "No. I didn't even know where we were gonna sleep tonight—" She stretched her arms over her head and let the blood flow through her.
"You want me to get our things, don't ya," he teased her and he showed her a lopsided grin.
"If you want to," she retorted as she gave her black hair a little toss back from the side of her neck. Joey kept the little smile plastered on his face as he doubled back out to the dark cabin for their bags. Sam stood there with the envelope rested on the side of the bed, right next to her hand.
She gazed down at that rich red parchment and she thought about the papers that Legacy had sent to her. Yet another thing she needed to do when she returned to New York City: to ensure she was one of Legacy's first fans before the whole thing filled out.
Joey returned to the room with their overnight bags slung over both of his slender shoulders. Careful not to wake anyone, he shut the door with his left foot. He almost lost his balance as he made his way over to the foot of the bed.
"Do you have anything precious in here?" he asked her as his knees buckled a bit.
"No."
"Well, I'm gonna be careful anyways—but—" He shrugged. "—you know."
"Oh, yeah!" she said and she couldn't resist the smile on her face. Gingerly, he put down their bags on the floor and he let the straps slide down his arms. He ran his fingers through his inky black curls and he let a part of them rest over his shoulder. He froze right in place.
"What's the matter?" she asked him.
"I've gotta change my clothes," he said in a small voice.
"Go ahead and get undressed," she told him. "It's okay—I won't look." Indeed, Sam turned around and covered her face with both hands. She stood there with the darkness surrounded about her face, and she listened to his clothes rustling right behind her. He was rather quick, given the zipper on his bag ground open and she caught the sound of flannel rustling a bit.
"Okay, you can look now," he declared as the zipper shut. Indeed, Sam turned around to find Joey had changed into shabby red flannel pajama bottoms as well as a plain white shirt: the bottom hem fit to his slender waist in such a way that made her wonder if he was far more delicate than she had imagined before. She then crouched down and she pried off her shoes.
"I'll do the same for you, too," he told her as he combed the little ringlets upon the crown of his head. Without another word, he turned away from her and bowed his head, and that was her cue. Indeed, she let her jeans drop down to the floor and she stripped off her shirt. She lunged for her overnight bag and she took out one of her camisoles as well as her own pajama bottoms. Even though it was only for a few seconds, it felt so odd to be there right next to Joey with her bare upper body exposed. He kept his head bowed and his eyes closed the whole time, but it still felt odd to her nonetheless.
She closed her bag and stood to her feet, and she ran her hands underneath her hair so it was out on her back.
"Alright, Joey," she said, and he lifted his head for her and he showed her that crooked smile once again.
"Alright, so are we gonna sleep head to toe?" he asked her with a slight nod to his head.
"I'll do what Scott's doing out there and I'll roll out some blankets as a makeshift mattress for myself." Joey frowned at that.
"You sure you wanna do that?"
"Positive. Joey, I want you to have your privacy. Have the bed to yourself. I mean, you are the birthday boy after all."
"True, true..." His voice trailed off, but he helped her do just that for herself with a couple of the blankets from the closet in the room there. Soon, she lay down on her side with a spare pillow, and he climbed into bed himself and switched off the light. He had left the door ajar by about a couple of inches to let in a bit of the ambient light from the rest of the cabin and from outside.
She caught the soft sound of Lars' snore from across the hall and she thought about Cliff. If she needed anything, just knock on the door. And yet he was sound asleep.
Despite the pair of blankets beneath her, the hard floor felt even harder than she could ever imagine. The pressure was on her shoulder and her hip. She rolled over onto her back. As hard as a rock: the sole softness came from her pillow.
She had her eyes closed and she strove to fall asleep. The rain began to fall on the roof yet again, and she sighed through her nose. That steady pitter patter overhead and it all would collect into a single wall of noise all around her. But then Joey cleared his throat.
"Nah—Sam, I have a better idea."
She opened her eyes and she was met with darkness except for the soft glow of the rain clouds as it came through the window on the side of the room.
"What's that?" she asked him.
"Sleep up here with me," he begged her. She didn't move, and in the darkness, she caught the sight of his silhouette right above her.
"Joey—" she started.
"Sam, come up here and sleep in this bed with me."
"Joey, I'm fine here," she insisted.
"Sam, no. I'm not comfortable with the idea of you sleeping down there on the hard floor. Get up here." He pulled away from the edge of the bed and the sound of the blankets rustling caught her ear. She knew Cliff was only a few feet away, in the other room across the hall from there. But the door was closed part of the way and Cliff had fallen asleep at that point. He and Lars both had long fallen asleep.
"I want you to sleep comfortably," Joey begged. "Please. Come up here. I don't feel good with you on the hard floor."
Sam sighed through her nose again and then she sat upright. She set her hands on the edge of the bed and she rose up to her feet. He had pushed the blankets back for her and she climbed onto the mattress with her pillow, right next to him. Indeed, the mattress was soft and a little bit warm from his laying there. His slender little body lay within mere inches of her, but she kept her distance from him. Sam lay there as stiff as a board.
"You wanna come on closer to me?" he asked her in a soft whisper.
"I want you to have privacy, though," she insisted in a soft whisper herself. Joey lay his left hand right before his face: in the darkness, she made sight of his long fingers as they curled towards the base of his palm. His hand and a little space in between their pillows separated her from him. She could feel the warmth of his body even though he lay several inches from her. The sole sound came from the steady patter of the rain overhead, but within mere seconds, it fell away into a something right above silence.
In the dim light, she made out the slight full shape of his hips and his thighs, accentuated by the blankets. Slender and yet slightly round in the middle of his body. It made her think of sculpting and all of the work Belinda did with her hands, and all the touching she had done with both him and Frank.
Her fingers tingled at the thought of her touching and feeling his body down by the lake. And she began to question herself, if her laying right across the bed from Joey seemed a bit ridiculous given she had caressed him down to get a feeling of his skin.
But at that point, she fell asleep.
The mysterious man appeared to her once again: that time, he sat on the edge of a front step somewhere and he glanced up at her with those deep eyes. The stripe in his hair had changed colors, that time to a rich shade of pure royal blue. When he leaned forward into the sunlight, it morphed into a softer powder blue which in turn bled onto his face like a lacy veil.
"I've been waiting for you," he told her as she took her seat right across from him; he sat right in front of her and yet his voice echoed around them as if they stood in a canyon.
"What have you been waiting for with me?" she asked him.
The blue surrounded his head and shoulders to the point she couldn't look away.
"I want to tell you that it's about to happen," he replied.
"What's about to happen?"
He didn't answer.
"What's about to happen?"
He extended a hand to her. Without thinking, she took it and he stood to his feet right in front of her. He led her away from the opposite door steps and towards an alleyway, but he never led her down that way. He seemed to drift in and out of nothing with each and every step along the sidewalk.
"Where are we going?" she asked him. He didn't answer again. They strode past the alleyway to the street corner, and she realized that it was the street outside of L'Amour. The outer wall of the club was a bright pearly white with the cold sun right above them.
The same corner wherein she and Cliff walked to following the encounter with Dave.
He then turned around and the blue that surrounded his head fizzled outward like the head of a leaking faucet.
"The clock is your friend," he finally told her with a serious look on his face.
"Huh?"
"The clock is your friend. Embrace her."
"Who?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he turned back around and he faced the street. The blue moved about like the water inside of a fish bowl.
"Who should I embrace?" She was met with more silence and then the street faded away into darkness.
Sam opened her eyes and saw Joey right across the bed from her. A part of his jet black curls sprawled down his face and his left hand rested upon the pillow. His slumbering face resembled to that of a doll. The softest he ever appeared to her.
"I wish you wouldn't drink," she confessed to him in the softest whisper. He never stirred and thus, she sat upright in the bed. She peered out the window on the side of the room and she gasped. A fresh blanket of snow had fallen out there, and yet she had no sweater, nor did she have her boots on hand.
Once she climbed out of bed and made her way out to the rest of the cabin, Sam put her hands on her upper arms to keep in the warmth. She was met with that warm smell of fresh coffee and the continuous sound of Lars' snore from the guest room across the hall.
She rounded the corner to find Belinda seated there at the counter in the kitchen. She peered over at the clock on the stove and gasped.
"How is it only five?" Sam sputtered.
"Yeah, I know," said Belinda as she folded her hands together before her. "I woke up about twenty minutes ago and I couldn't go back to sleep, so I just put on a pot of coffee." She slid the chair next to her out from underneath the counter. Sam took her seat next to her and she spotted the small coffee maker within arm's reach. Belinda pulsated her fingers as if she tried to restore the blood flow.
"You alright?" Sam asked her.
"Yeah. I'm sure you know how not making art for a bit makes you sort of tense."
"Oh, absolutely." But then she remembered what she had in store for all of them.
"But I'm actually glad I left my journal at home," she said in a broken voice.
"To be honest, I wouldn't want you to have that here out in the open," Belinda told her. "Just from what you demonstrated to me a couple of weeks ago."
"I don't really wanna ruin the little surprise I have, though."
"Oh, yeah, that! I can't wait to see that." Belinda flashed her a wink and the coffee maker gave off the signal that it was done. She poured them both a small paper cup of coffee and within time, the first orange rays of the rising sun shone through the window next to the front door.
"Brand new day, Sam," Belinda told her as she raised her cup to her.
"It's a brand new day, Belinda," she replied back to her, "and happy birthday Joey."
Sam knew they would spend the day to find something for Joey himself and the glimpse of a sunrise was indicative of it: the orange light disappeared behind the curtain of clouds about as quick as it showed itself. Given she and Belinda didn't bring their coats with them, she knew they would have to improvise something for him. She flashed back on him there tucked in the corner of the rehearsal space, as well as how he lay before her in the bed. She wondered what the two of them could do for him as she sipped on the little cup of creamy smooth coffee.