Archaic ||Peterick||

Cultural Appropriation

Patrick got back into the car and sighed heavily. Once he had done that, there was a silence. And then he sighed heavily yet again. There was dirt on his cheeks, and the ends of the sleeves of his cardigan were frayed and torn. He looked very worn, and slightly shaken.

"Are you alright?" Pete asked, but it was a stupid question. That question always was, when it needed to be asked. Anyone who deserves to be asked it has already given you a non-verbal answer. And the answer is generally the same. A lie.

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine."

"No I am not. What did you think, I went in and had a nice cup of tea with a demon?"

"No, but... aren't you used to this kind of thing by now?"

"Having one of my old classmates lure me to his house, develop a British accent and then try to murder me? Yeah, because that happens to me so often."

Pete couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not, because it honestly sounded like something that would happen to Patrick quite a lot, from what he knew of him. He shook his head and left the conversation there, hanging in the air, until the silence in its wake was swept away by the sound of the engine rumbling.

It was about twenty minutes later that he, in a fit of boredom and restlessness, started flicking through everything in his phone. He played some weird Flappy Bird-esque games with vibrant colours that hurt his eyes a bit, in the dark, until he tired of that, too, and flicked to his call logs. He hadn't used his phone in a while. He didn't really have anyone to text, but that was okay, because he could text himself.

There was a call from three days ago, though. A call from Ashlee. They must've found her phone. He wondered where that had been. It was an old phone, five years old, to be more exact, five years, six months and thirteen days, to be exactly precise. He'd bought it for her birthday, a week before her unfortunate demise. He looked at the call details. It had been answered, but he didn't remember answering it. According to the time stamp, he would've been well asleep.

"Patrick?" He asked, not looking up from the phone.

"Yes?" Patrick answered, in a monotonous voice. He wasn't in a very good mood. Or maybe just thinking. That was another one of the things that Patrick did that Pete didn't understand. His bad mood voice was the same as his thinking voice. It didn't make much sense to him. He was probably just thinking.

"Did you get this call, like three days ago?"

"From Ash. Yes, I did."

"And did you answer it?"

"Um, yeah, I'd heard it go off a few times before, so figured it was important."

Another lie. It seemed to be habit. Pete didn't question it though.

"Did you talk to them?"

"Well, yeah I'm hardly going to just ignore her completely. Answer the phone and stay silent. Would you tend to do that much?"

"You spoke... who was it?"

"It was like, a girlfriend of yours? Saying you had plans? I didn't have you down as that type, if I'm honest. Actually, now I think of it, maybe that's why you did tag along with me. You were looking for an excuse to skip out on one of the only commitments you've ever made in your life."

"Not true, and not the point. You said it was my girlfriend?"

"Yeah, that's what she said anyway."

"Well, it probably wasn't. What did she sound like?"

"What do you mean? She sounded like a pissed off girlfriend. I don't blame her. Forgetting anniversaries is not how you treat a lady."

"What did her voice sound like?"

"I don't know! It was kind of deep, but like, not. It was kind of... Valley Girl. Yeah that's it."

"Valley Girl... I don't understand this."

"What?"

"My girlfriend. Ash."

"You owe her an apology."

"I owe a corpse an apology?"

"The fuck?"

"She's been dead for five years! It was her anniversary three days ago!"

Patrick went quiet. He ran his fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry." He said, quietly.

"It's fine. I didn't expect you to know. Just don't assume things, okay?"

"Okay."

Another freighted silence came down on their shoulders like a particularly heavy blanket. It was now Pete's turn to let out a heavy sigh, but it came out a lot more like a deflating balloon, as he sank down in his seat. He stayed like that for maybe a minute, maybe an hour, maybe just a couple of seconds until something occurred to him. He had never told Patrick that it was her anniversary. And yet he had told him that it was. Shamed him about forgetting it. That wasn't just a lucky guess, surely.

"How did you know it was her anniversary?" Pete asked.

"What? I didn't. You told me that it was."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes you did. You said her anniversary was three days ago."

"No, you said it was before I said that it was. Did you know her or something?"

"No um.. She told me. On the phone. It was your anniversary. That you two had made plans."

"No, she didn't, Patrick. Why would we both make plans for the anniversary of her death, it's not particularly happy, is it?"

"Neither are funerals, but people make plans for those. Sometimes years in advance."

"Patrick. You said it was her anniversary. How the fuck could you possibly know that?"

Patrick glanced at him with a darkness to his eyes that said, simply "Stop or I'll make you." Pete gulped.

"S-sorry."

"What did I tell you about asking stupid questions?"

"S-sorry."

"What did I tell you about asking questions about things that I may or may not know?"

"N-not to?"

"Exactly. And stop stammering. Some people would consider it cultural appropriation."

"Cultural what?"

Patrick tutted and rolled his eyes.

"Cultural appropriation." He said, as though talking to a six year old.

"What's that?"

Patrick made a strange noise that involved throatily clicking his tongue. Pete was very sure it was meant to be a tut, but it hadn't worked out like that, so he decided that he was not going to call it that.

"I'll tell you later."

And with the morning gently creeping over the horizon, they turned a corner and drove down a quiet country road.

Going in exactly the opposite direction to the way they should be.

Pete was going to ask Patrick about it, but he didn't. He knew Patrick was in a snappy mood now, which would continue for quite a while, and Pete didn't want to get his hand bitten off. Metaphorically, of course. Besides, he knew now, not to ask stupid questions.

And Patrick didn't do anything for no reason.