Ride the Cyclone Oneshots

Poet-A Nischa AU

The old clock in the hallway chimed as it did every hour. 9 P.M.

The noise snapped Noel out of his daydream. He'd been trying to work for hours and all he had to show for it were a few poems and an ink-stained hand. Math homework. On a Friday night. Well played, Satan.

He read over the poems that he'd completely forgotten he'd written. Not bad, considering he was only half-concentrating while he wrote them. They weren't his normal style. They were happy, uplifting little things, more suited to a young lover than his tragic self. He may be the most romantic boy in town, but not due to his love life.

He grabbed his poetry notebook and copied them down before packing away his math book. Homework could wait. He had all weekend. All the time spent daydreaming had given him ideas, and it would be criminal not to write them. Words spilled onto his page in an inspired rush, his mind barely registering what he wrote.

The clock struck again. Another hour gone, though this one had arguably been spent more productively. The new poetry stood, freshly written, in stark contrast to the tragedies only a few pages before. It had rose bouquets, star-crossed lovers, first dates, kisses and happy endings. Odd.

His tragedies were comforting to him. People in his stories got to feel. They weren't stuck in a dead-end job in a dead-end town. They weren't tied down to anything. They were free. His new works were the opposite. Lovers vowing to stay by one another through everything, 'till death do them part, and keeping that vow.

What had gotten into him?

He hadn't stopped liking his old writing, that was out of the question. His old poems and novels were an escape from reality for him, he wasn't going to lose that because of some cliche fluff that he wrote. Now, though, happy endings seemed more appealing than usual. His daydreams of being Monique were still as raunchy as ever, nothing was going to change that. But other figures seemed to feature in his dreams far more than they used to.

Himself. His friends. The choir. One of them in particular.

It was a change, but a welcome one.

After having pondered the matter for a while, he snapped his notebook shut and went to sleep, hoping that the rest would give him some idea of what was causing these new thoughts.

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He awoke the next morning to a head full of dreams. They were all strange, as dreams tend to be. But they all had one thing in common. They all featured Mischa.

If his dreams were anything to go by, the boy had captured Noel's imagination far more than he had previously known. Noel was curious. He'd never really thought about Mischa very much until after the afterlife, and he was curious to find out why Mischa stood out from the rest of the choir so much in his head. He fully intended to find out why today.

He made himself look somewhat presentable, as he always did before doing anything of importance, grabbed his book of poetry and opened a new page, feeling that today may be more introspective than productive, and not particularly caring. He picked up his pen and froze before it hit the page. He needed to set a few things straight.

Mischa. Why did he care so much for the boy? He was just like most other guys in St. Cassian. A tough guy that smoked weed and listened to rap music. Except Noel knew that he wasn't. He was incredibly passionate and creative, not to mention smart. He spoke 4 languages, for god's sake! And his voice, a resonant baritone, differed completely from the high voices of the rest of the choir. He was unique. And Noel loved that. He loved him.

But, like most tragedies, his love was unrequited. Mischa had Talia. Noel had his imagination. He could try to bring his adoration for Mischa to his attention, but what would that do? He was the only gay man in their small, rural high school. That was a fact. What he thought of the Ukrainian boy had nothing to do with reality. In his reality, Mischa had a partner whom he adored, and who Noel wished to live happily with Mischa if they ever met. He hoped for the best for him, but the possibility of Talia being a catfish was always there. Noel was very much aware of that.

To further rub salt in the wound, Noel had had his first kiss with the boy. It was in the afterlife, and there was a 50/50 chance Mischa was under the control of a sentient fortune-teller, but he hoped that it had been his free will. Karnak had said that their will was their own, and Noel hoped that was true. He placed the tip of his pen to the paper and wrote.

Wrote about everything. His anger at his situation. His feelings for Mischa. His dreams about the choir. Eventually, he wrote a story. The first story he wrote in this book that wasn't told through a poem.

It was about Monique, and described her meeting a suitor that intrigued her. She let her guard down, and he snapped. She escaped with her pay, though with fresh blood on her hands. It was a cautionary tale to himself. Reminding him to not drop his guard. He wasn't going to be manipulated. Not again.

He had been fooled many times before. When he'd been desperate and alone. He'd met plenty of catfishes and people who claimed to feel a certain way about him. He'd changed himself for those people, and he'd lost parts of himself he could never get back. He had built up walls, tried to make sure that people didn't know more about him than they needed to. That was before.

Then the afterlife happened, and, with Karnak's influence, he'd opened up to the whole choir, and he'd had a drink with Mischa and opened up even more to him. And suddenly his walls were gone. The cautiousness he usually displayed was useless after having already said so much about himself.

He knew that people like the choir, like Mischa, wouldn't tell anyone if he told them about his life. So after he'd come back, he tried to open up more to them. Tell them about his worldview, his father, how he felt about life, death, and the limbo they'd been stuck in.

Even if he couldn't be with Mischa, the boy was good for him. They might not be lovers, but maybe that could change one day. No matter how unlikely it seemed, he controlled where his life went. After all, he was the poet.