From One Who's Been There
Acepilot
AN - No.22 in the Road series. This is a fic I've been wanting to write for ages, and I've finally managed to get enough of my ideas into a coherent mass to write the damn thing the way I want to write it. T/K and P/L friendship fic on the day before P/K get married. They go out for one last good time, and P and K get some advice, from those who've been there. Enjoy, and review.
Disclaimer - the characters in this fic, except James and Amanda, are property of KlaskyCsupo.
"Ow."
I bat the pillow away from my head in a sleep-dosed haze and try to open my eyes, very, very slowly. Tommy and the boys hadn't exactly gotten me drunk last night, but I had had a few more than I'd originally intended and I was sure as hell feeling it now. I wonder if there was any alcohol going around at that shower. Probably not.
"Come on, up!"
I roll my eyes at the sound of the voice chastising me from the other end of the room and roll over, pulling a pillow over my head. "Go away. I want to sleep."
"No sleep, up now," Lil orders me, flinging another pillow which bounces off the one I'm trying to cover my ears with.
"What time is it?" I ask her, fearing to look at the alarm clock.
"It's seven a.m. Come on, we've got a lot to do."
"We do?" I ask, rising slowly with a grimace on my face.
"Yep," she tells me, flinging clothes in my direction. "If you're naked under there, then I don't want to see it."
"I'm wearing trousers," I tell her, untangling myself from shirt-sleeves. "What do we have to do?"
Lil's jaw drops. "You mean you forgot?"
And my mind clicks over. "My wedding!"
I tear around my room in a mad panic, searching for wherever the hell it is I put my tux before it occurs to me that it would be in the cupboard. I start unzipping the bag only to remember that a shower would probably help.
And just as I'm about to step into the bathroom, I hear Lil laughing.
I turn and slowly, critically, appraise her. "What?"
She chuckles. "I was just pulling your leg. Your wedding's tomorrow, Phil. Come on, have a shower. We're going out."
"What the hell are we doing out this early?" I ask Tommy, who is trying to coax me awake with coffee. "That shower went really late last night."
"Don't worry, so did the bachelor party," he tells me, sipping coolly at his own drink. "But we're out this early because it's your last day of singledom and we're going to have some fun."
"What do you know about singledom?" I ask, bemusedly. "You got married to the girl you've been going out with since age 17."
"So, that's 17 years of single life to cite as a reference," he tells me. "Now, drink your coffee. We're going shopping."
"You're taking me shopping?" I ask, concerned.
"Yep." He shrugs. "I figured it'd be fun."
He's clearly never asked Phil about what I make him do while shopping. "If you say so."
"Then we're going to play some basketball, and then we might just have a bit of time at the arcade, and - "
"Are we reliving our youth or something?" I ask.
He shrugs. "Hey, it's what we did when I was single."
I pat him on the head.
"Do you wear that coat everywhere?"
I nod. "I would wear it tomorrow but Kimmi would kill me."
She quirks an eyebrow. "She's not the only one."
"What does everyone have against my coat?" I ask, helpless. "Anyway," I decide to change the subject quickly, "what are we doing at the zoo?"
She shrugs. "Looking at animals."
"Lil?"
She turns away from the Tasmanian Devil that was eying us cautiously. "Yes?"
"What's it like?"
She looks taken aback for a moment. "What? Being married?"
I nod. "Yeah. Being married. What's it like?"
She shrugs, turning around and watching the bird enclosure longingly. "I don't know. Sometimes it feels like we aren't really married or something, y'know?" She pulls open the gate to the aviary and steps in, and I follow her, shutting the wire carefully. "I mean, that kind of sounds stupid, considering we have a kid and everything, but sometimes..." she shrugs, trailing her hand along the rail as we walk up the wooden incline toward the observation tower. "Maybe it's just me and Tommy. But we just feel like...something else. Like we're best friends, like we're just living together, like we just have a kid together. It doesn't feel like anything different from when we were living together, or from when we were dating. Except..." she watches a rosella swoop overhead, toward a feeding tray in one of the trees high above us. "Well, there are moments - not all the time, but definitely moments - when we're just together, and doing something mundane - like feeding James, or doing a crossword or something - and it feels just impossibly right and..." she turns to me and smiles. "Maybe that's what being married is. Moments."
I nod. "I think I could work with that."
And we sit in the shade of the tower as the morning sun streaks across us, listening to the birds' calls.
"I'm not coming out," he tells me.
"Yes you are," I tell him. "You're coming out, and you're going to do a little twirl, and the media will be astounded at the fact that Tommy Pickles is wearing - "
"I'm not wearing it."
"Well, you must look pretty silly naked," I inform him.
"I'm keeping my real clothes on and coming out right now," he insists.
"No, you're coming out here and showing me what you look like."
I can hear him audibly sigh.
"Hey, Tommy?"
"Yeah?" he asks, his trousers suddenly appearing hooked over the changing room door.
"Do you ever regret getting married as young as you did?"
There's a few moments of silence. Contemplative silence. Then his top joins the trousers. "No."
"No? Why? What makes married life so much greater than being a couple?" I ask.
He hums for a moment. "I dunno. It's...it just is, sort of. I mean, yeah, Lil and I could have just gotten engaged that night, like the two of you did, of course, but I think it was the right time. It was what we had to do there and then. And I don't regret being married to her. Not for a second. It's not all that different from just being a couple, but...maybe it's just being able to say, 'Lil DeVille married me,' or 'Lil Pickles is my wife', or whatever. It's something special." He peers at me over the top of the changing room door. "Are you taking his name, out of curiousity?"
I nod. "Yeah. Kimmi Watanabe Finster DeVille."
"Take my advice and cut out the middle bits," he offers. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah," I answer, knowing the double-meaning. "Come on, I want to see it."
He sighs and pushes open the door.
And I collapse off the waiting room chairs and begin rolling around on the floor in hystercial fits of giggles. Tommy stands above me, resplendent in the pink shirt and white pants combo I picked out for him, looking highly unamused as he tries in vain to flatten out the incredibly puffy sleeves.
"Damn, you can be glad Phil didn't see this," I tell him. "He'd have wanted you in it for the wedding."
"I'm changing now," he tells me, turning on his heel.
"Wait!" I order, reaching up and grabbing him by the shoulder. "I have the perfect hat to go with that -"
"Changing, now!"
"There's no-one here," I tell her.
"Great. Race you to the swings!"
I roll my eyes and follow at a more sedate pace before taking up a seat next to my sister and slowly rocking back and forth. She, on the other hand, is going all out, trying to get as much height as possible. "If you're with me and Tommy's with Kimmi, then who's looking after James?" I ask.
"Chuckie and Angelica volunteered," she assures me as she whooshes past.
"Volunteered?" I ask, doubtfully.
"Maybe got pushed into it," she rescinds. "At any rate, they're looking after him."
"Are you glad you had a kid?" I ask.
She nods. Or, I think she nods. She's going too fast to be sure. "Yes. Very."
"Is it a lot of hard work?" I ask.
She nods. "Yep. A lot. A whole lot. There's the labor - which you get the better end of, no question - then there's the midnight feedings, and the nappies - though I made Tommy do all that, so it wasn't too bad - and all that. But it's worth it. Nothing in my life - not even Tommy - has compared to James." She turns to me. "Are you two talking about having a kid?"
I nod slowly. "Yeah. We have been for years." I sigh, picking up a bit of pace on the swing and staring skyward. "Can you keep a secret? From everyone? You can't even tell Tommy? Or tell Kimmi I told you."
She nods, slowing to a stop on her own swing. "You know I can."
"Kimmi had a miscarriage last year," I tell her. "She was about nine weeks along."
She claps a hand across her mouth, gasping in surprise. "Oh, god, Phil. I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
I shake my head. "No-one knew. No-one knows. We decided to wait to tell everyone, and then there didn't seem to be any reason to do so." I sigh softly. "I never thought I'd want a family, Lil. I always kind of grew up thinking I'd be me and do my own thing, and that things like a wife and kids would just be too...troublesome. I was going to be cool and hip to the end." I laugh softly. "But then, I was an idiot." I pit her with a quick glare. "And no agreeing with that from you."
She nods, barely restraining herself. "Of course not."
"Which is probably what lost me her," I continue. "I was 'too cool', or trying to be, to make things work. I took it all for granted and she left me. And it was then that I knew that I needed her. That all the artificial crap didn't mean anything because if I didn't have her - and all that that implied - then I didn't have anything I really wanted. She just made it all seem so much better. So when we got together again, I tried to make sure that everything went right."
"And now you want a kid?" she asks me.
"Yes," I tell her. "I want a family with her. I want to come home at the end of the day and be with her and teach my child or children about life."
Lil reaches over and takes my hand. "Are you trying again?"
I shake my head. "We both agreed it was too soon. But..." I sigh. "I really want to. I want to try again. I want to try and put what happened last year behind us. But it's not going to be that easy, and I know it."
She frowns at me sympathetically. "Just give her time."
I nod. "I know," I assure her, collapsing back on the swing again.
"Can you keep a secret?" she asks me, and I look up at her.
"Yeah."
"I'm pregnant again," she tells me, smiling. "I haven't told Tommy yet."
My jaw drops. "What!"
She nods. "Maybe if you can't have one of your own yet, you can help out with one of ours."
"Hey, James and I get along just fine," I tell her.
She grins. "Maybe this one will look less like you and Dil and more like me and Tommy."
I shrug. "Could do."
"I'm thirsty," she tells me. "Want a drink? My treat?"
"Nah, if you're buying then I'm getting an ice cream."
"That's another thing about pregnancy. Cravings."
"So I've heard."
We banter all the way to the kiosk.
I dribble the basketball lazily past Tommy and take a rough shot at the basket, grinning as the net swishes in victory. "So that's...uh...well, I lost count twenty baskets ago, but let's just say I'm kicking your butt."
"We could say that," Tommy tells me, getting the ball back and starting toward me. "Or we could be honest and say that there's only about ten points in it."
"Nah, no fun in that," I tell him, grabbing the ball with ease and shooting another two-pointer. "You're getting slow in your old age."
"I'm younger than you," he reminds me.
And I realize that I'd honestly forgotten. "Huh. You are too."
He laughs. "What? Forget that you were older than me when you only used to brag about it every chance you got?"
"Yeah, actually," I tell him. "I did. It's just...the being married thing."
He raises an amused eyebrow. "The being married thing?"
"Well, you're married, and you have a kid, and you have a job, and..." I shrug. "Doesn't it make you feel old?"
He chuckles. "James does sometimes. I have a three year old son. That thought kind of creeps me out, I'll admit."
"But..."
He shrugs. "But I'm happy, and I know I'm only 26, so it doesn't bother me."
I nod, slowly, bouncing the basketball absentmindedly.
"Why? Does it bother you that you're going to be married?"
I shake my head quickly. "No. God no. I want to marry Phil. But..." I finally stop bouncing the ball and just kind of stare off into the distance. "Well, it's just something I'd always kind of assumed about getting married. It's what grown ups do. Old people are married. Or people older than me, anyway. Married people are 9-5 people who dote on their kids and who stop having fun."
"Is that changing?" Tommy asks, leaning against the fence.
"Yes and no," I tell him. "I guess...I don't know. I think I'll feel old."
"You won't," he assures me. "Anyway, it's all just an illusion anyway. You're not old. Well, you're older than me - "
I fling the basketball at him, and he ducks quickly.
I pull myself up on the stone bench and watch as the sun lazily sets, turning the sky a beautiful shade of orange. I hear Lil sigh and turn to her. "You always did love sunsets."
She nods. "I still do. How longs it been since you stargazed?"
I shrug. I really can't think of the exact length of time off the top of my head. "A while. Too long."
"Why did you like the stars?" she asks.
"Why do you like sunsets?"
"I asked you first."
"Humor me. It's my wedding day tomorrow."
"I like sunsets because I look on the next day as always having potential to be better than the last," she tells me, and I quietly admire her philosophy. "Now you."
"Because they're innocent," I tell her. "Back when things went all pear-shaped with Kim and everything, I grew obsessed with stars. Because they're not like us. They don't have to deal with everything that goes wrong, they can't do anything wrong, because they just exist. They're perfectly innocent, without malice or a need for vengeance, or blame, or anything."
"I think I kind of like that thought," Lil tells me, gazing up at the stars with me as the Chinese lanterns around us come slowly to life, providing the garden with an eerie glow. "Come on, we've got to get going home. They'll be expecting us."
"They will?" I ask.
"Dil's promised to cook dinner for the bride and groom and all other's who show up. So you, me, Chuckie, Angelica, Amanda, Dil, Tommy, Kimmi and James."
I smile. "Just like old times."
"Exactly."
I sigh, and pull myself to my feet. "Alright, let's go then."
She rises and kisses me on the cheek. "I love you, little brother."
And I don't rile at the comment, for once. "Thanks, Lil. For everything."
She shrugs. "Blood relationships. Damn obligations."
I grin and together we race each other to the car park.
the place Phil and Lil spent the day was actually based on the Wagga Wagga Botanical Gardens, which are my favorite place in the world. i was going to let them go on the train ride and run through the wood ramp-maze but i ran out of conversations. hope you enjoyed this fic. please review.