Well, that didn’t take long, did it?
Aug. 13th, 2003 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hackthis_archiveIconography Challenge
Fandom: Everwood
Signs
Bright left on a Wednesday while his father was at work and his mother was at City Hall ‘keeping the peace‘ as she called it. It had taken him a while, twenty-three years to be exact, but Bright was finally ready to leave Everwood, and consequently, nothing else really mattered. Not Bright’s parents who kept waiting for him to ‘do something with his life,’ nor his sister who had left home long ago. Not even Bright’s long-dead best friend or the whispered words of a town that didn’t know what to make of Bright’s ‘relations’ with that Brown boy from back east.
Bright had always told Ephram he would know when he was ready to leave home; he had just wanted to wait for the right sign. The sign never came, but the worries about Ephram meeting someone else in New York were relentless, and in the end they were just as efficient as the neon sign at the jazz bar outside of town.
Leaving unexpectedly was for the best, Bright felt sure. He didn’t want to deal with the scenes and the whys and ‘you’re throwing your life away when you don’t even know what you’ll find’ stuff his dad was likely to spout.
The way Bright saw it, driving cross country to declare his undying love for some guy who probably didn’t even love him any more was hard enough -- he really didn’t need his dad telling him he was being an idiot on top of that. Besides, it wasn’t as though Bright was going to ask his dad to pay for his insane cross country voyage. He was paying for school himself, and he didn’t think he was being that much of a burden, but you could never tell with his dad.
And yes, Bright had an eleven o’clock at the community college, but he was never going to get the hang of Statistics anyway, so he shrugged it off, and packed instead.
He sniffed out the clean clothes littering his floor and tossed them in the sports duffle left over from high school. It didn’t seem like five years ago, already, but time tended to do strange things, like pass, when you weren’t paying attention.
He found his favorite tee shirt, with the strange anime boy on it, lodged in the space between the hamper and the wall, and he spent several minutes ransacking his bedroom for all his favorite CDs before moving across the hall to Amy’s room. By the time she realized they were missing, hopefully he’d be able to say she would have to come and get them herself. She was in Paris right now, but even if she was at UCD Bright hoped she wouldn’t have been that surprised by his decision. Perhaps she might have been proud, and made him a few peanut butter and banana sandwiches, his favorite, and laughed as he gathered what he could and tripped down the stairs. She could have put the CDs in a bag for him and wished him well. Or she might have told him to go to hell, he could never really tell with her.
There was a note on the counter from his mother about working late, along with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a bushel of bananas just waiting for him to take them on his trip. Obviously it was another sign, and Bright found a brown paper bag to hold several items he ‘liberated’ from the fridge, including sodas and packaged juices. There was a new package of that smoked turkey his mom knew he liked, and he threw that on the counter with the bananas, bread and peanut butter.
The last thing Bright took was a Minute Maid popsicle from the freezer. He only took one, lemon flavored, knowing that it wouldn’t last long. Ephram had always liked lemon, and Bright thought long and hard before he took a pen out the ‘random stuff’ drawer and flipped his mom’s note over.
He didn’t really know what to say about why he was leaving, or what exactly he though he was doing. He just needed to do it.
Mr. Bradley in English 205 would’ve called it a ‘running theme.’
::
The ’Bright, you won’t get it’ CDR Ephram burned for him repeated twice on the drive into the city. Seventy-six minutes full of The White Stripes, Bjork, Junior Senior, Jurassic 5 and all sorts of strange people that never toured in Colorado.
During Ephram’s sophomore year though, David Bowie had come to Boulder, and Bright had been dragged along to that concert. He wasn’t so bad for an old guy, and he’d had Clay Aiken opening for him, which Bright just found weird.
He and Ephram didn’t share the same musical tastes, and Bright certainly would never have listened to The Flaming Lips if he hadn’t dated Ephram. He still didn’t like them.
Most of all though, Bright didn’t like the ‘d’ on the end of ‘dated.’ He didn’t like the idea of things being over for them: it wasn’t over for Bright; he hoped it wasn’t over for Ephram.
The gas in Denver was kind of expensive, but Bright filled the tank of the Jeep anyway. He spent twenty minutes wandering around inside the sad excuse for a store, remembering all the times he’d stopped there when Colin was in the hospital. The selection of candy bars hadn’t improved in all those years, but there was a rack of postcards by the checkout and Bright picked one that said ‘Wish You Were Here.’
After a trip to the john, he stopped at the pay phone to call home, but no one there.
He didn’t leave a message.
Sliding back into the car, he took off the Julliard sweatshirt he’d woken up in that morning and popped in a different CD. He probably should have taken a shower before he left home, but it was kind of late to think about that. He started the car and merged back into Denver traffic, singing along with the opening strains of Incubus’ ‘Wish You Were Here.’
It was definitely a running theme, and Bright took the exit for Route 70 to Kansas City and Topeka with hope in his heart.
The signs said east, and Bright very much wanted to go east.
::
Bright drove until his vision began to swim and pulled off the highway when he couldn’t take any more of The Strokes ‘Ze Newie.‘ The city was Burlington and calling the place he stayed at ‘a motel’ was being kind. There was only one other car in the parking lot, and the next morning Bright realized he’d forgotten to lock all the doors of the Jeep. The check-in clerk never turned her head away from the episode of Jerry Springer on the television, and the bed didn’t bounce when Bright threw his duffle bag on it. When he tried to take a shower, he realized he hadn’t remembered any soap, and against his better judgment he used the grainy bar he found collecting dust next to the sink.
Bright had forgotten shampoo in his haste to leave, as well, and the shower issued nothing but cold water. The towels looked clean though, and he used two to dry off. Afterward, Bright sat on his bed and dug around in the brown paper bag he’d brought from the car, trying to find something to eat.
He’d forgotten a knife to spread the peanut butter and cut the bananas, and the juice was warm, but it was still one of the best meals he’d ever had. He meant to call his mom afterward, but he stretched out on the scratchy bed cover and fell asleep almost immediately instead.
::
The following afternoon Bright found sunglasses and a half melted cassette in his glove compartment. He ate a Snickers bar and a banana for lunch, and pulled into a gas station in Hays, Kansas to fill up and use the toilet.
He hummed The Vines ‘Get Free’ at the urinal, and bought four Slim Jims, shampoo, a small bar of Ivory soap and another postcard before seeking out the pay phone to call home. His mother answered on the first ring, and her worried voice buzzed in his ear as he studied the Kansas horizon. Everything looked sort of the same to Bright, very flat, and he steeled himself for the worst when his mother put his father on the line, but he only inquired about the state of the roads and if Bright Jefferson Abbott had enough money.
After the surrealness of their conversation, Bright hung up and found himself dialing a 979 phone number by rote. Ephram’s voice was just as squeaky as Bright remembered, even on the answering machine, and Bright hung up without thinking too hard.
It was a bit late to turn back now.
::
Several hundred miles later in Kansas City, Missouri, Bright tried to call Ephram again, and again, there was no answer on the other end. Bright seriously considered turning around and going back to Everwood, except there was even less for him in Colorado than there was in New York.
At least in New York, Bright could be near Ephram, even if Ephram didn’t necessarily want to be near him. There hadn’t been a break-up as much as break off.
Back in the Jeep, Bright popped in a KoRN CD and shrugged helplessly as he passed the city limits for Independence.
He was free now. Free from ‘what’ he wasn’t quite sure.
When he called his mother that evening she asked him if he was ready to come home, and his father said that when the car broke down, Bright would be on his own. He mocked that he hoped they’d included lessons on car repair in Bright’s copy of On the Road; and okay, so Bright hadn’t paid attention when he’d had to read Kerouac in high school, but he’d paid attention when Ephram had read the book his freshman year in college.
That was good enough.
::
Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine were before Bright’s time, but he liked Audioslave a lot. Chris Cornell could really sing, and he was kind of hot too. Of course Bright also thought Jenna Jameson was hot, but he liked to think he could appreciate all kinds of hotness. The first time he’s said so to Ephram, Ephram had laughed so hard soda pop had come out his nose, and that had made Bright laugh, too. A lot of things Ephram did made Bright laugh, but most of those were intentional, and Bright felt a twinge when he thought about Ephram trying to make someone else smile.
He shook his head and turned up the bass on ‘Like a Stone’ nodding his head in time with the music and watching the St. Louis skyline pass by. The arch reminded him a giant McDonald’s sign, which made his stomach remind him that it was almost time for lunch.
The sign for Indianapolis passed on his right while he was looking for a McDonald’s on his left, and it was almost 50 miles later when Bright realized he’d missed his exit. There was a sign for a Burger King at the next rest stop though, so instead of turning around Bright kept driving. The idea of a huge Whopper with cheese motivated him more than any basketball trophy or threat of being grounded.
The woman behind the counter was about the same age as his mom, and he shuddered when she winked at him after taking his order. The Jeep was getting a bit funky with all the time he’d been spending in it recently, so he ate inside instead of in the car. He only paused in stuffing his face when a girl with flaming red hair slid into the booth across from him. Her eyebrow was pierced and her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. She was pretty in an edgy kind of way, and she reminded Bright of Ephram. When she glanced up at Bright, he immediately went back to his French fries, and when he gathered up his trash to leave, a boy brushed by him with spiky black hair and huge green eyes. It seemed obvious to Bright that they were together because they just fit, nothing like him and Ephram, and he felt very subdued as he consulted the small map he’d picked up in Topeka.
He could get back to Route 70 by going to through Louisville, and he turned the stereo off as he headed down Route 64 to Route 65. Instead of listening to music, he rolled down the windows, and let the sharp spring air whip through the inside of the truck clearing out the smell of overripe fruit and sweaty sneakers.
::
He arrived in Columbus on Ephram’s birthday, it was Tuesday and raining. The weather in Ohio was colder than it had been any other place on his trip, and at a 76 Station, Bright bought a package of chocolate Hostess cupcakes and 101 Random Facts About Ohio. He pulled over to the side of the road when visibility got too bad, turned off the car, and climbed into the backseat of the truck. He settled under a pile of dirty laundry and read about Cleveland as the gay capital of the mid-west.
When the rain let up Bright climbed back in the front seat and slid in Ephram’s CDR of strange mood music: Chopin, The Flaming Lips and Thievery Corporation, people Ephram talked about seeing in New York. People he said Bright could learn something from. That had been one of their more original arguments.
They’d never had to look for a things to disagree about, but for almost two years the disagreements had been light-hearted, in jest. When Ephram had come home over Easter though, things had been different. Strained. Every time Bright had talked about plans for the summer, Ephram had just shrugged him off. When he’d tried to pin down when Ephram was coming home, Ephram had been noncommittal. He’d become more physically affectionate, and less tolerant of the way things worked in Everwood. He’d told Bright he was tired of trying to ‘understand.’
::
It took Bright another two days to reach Washington, PA, where he left Route 70 for the first time in days. Route 80 was long and the sky was gray and it took almost the whole day to get through Pennsylvania. It hadn’t looked that big on Bright’s Play-Skool puzzle maps.
He stopped for the night at a motel outside Stroudsburg and tried to call Amy in Paris. The connection was awful and some guy kept shouting at him in French. He sounded the way Bright did when someone woke him up.
He called Everwood, but his parents weren’t home, and when he called Ephram a strange guy answered the phone. Bright hung up without saying anything and went to take a long shower. His fingers shook as he washed his hair, and he slept badly, dreaming of Dr Brown and his father competing in a three-legged race together.
::
It was a Monday when Bright arrived in New Jersey. He got stuck in traffic on the Turnpike, and held up a line of cars because he didn’t have money for the toll booth. There were a lot more people on the east coast than he was used to; there was a lot more of everything as far as he could tell. It was something he wasn’t sure he could get his head around, and he popped in a Chili Peppers CD to combat the slow crawl of the traffic.
When the sign for the Holland tunnel appeared, rather than sighing in relief, Bright vomited into a plastic bag full of candy bar wrappers and grape soda cans. He’d come all this way to see Ephram, to show that he was willing to commit the way Ephram wanted, but he hadn‘t really thought about what he was doing until now.
The traffic was slow enough that Bright didn’t even have to pull over to be sick.
::
There was no parking on Ephram’s street, Avenue A, in fact there was no parking for five blocks in either direction, and Bright had to park so far away that he got lost trying to find his way back to Ephram’s apartment, period.
By the time he arrived, it was late afternoon, and if he hadn’t written the correct number down on the back of his hand, he definitely would have missed the ramshackle building.
A pretty girl with purple hair was leaving as Bright approached, and he smiled at her and caught the door with the tips of his fingers. She didn’t smile back, however, and Bright’s lips slid into a kind of frown. Every other place he’d visited the people had been nice, or at least not rude, but this was New York, and Ephram had always talked about how different it was. Bright had shrugged it off, but if this was his life now, he would have to get used to it.
There was no elevator, and Bright had to walk up five flights of rickety stairs to find 4F. The paint was peeling on the door of apartment, and Bright hesitated at least six times before he finally knocked.
He had driven thousands of miles to see Ephram Brown, to say something about wanting to try again, but when the door finally opened and the smell of strange food and Ephram’s favorite soap assailed Bright’s nose, he realized he had no words that would be able to completely explain what he wanted to say. Ephram stared at him, the disbelief evident, and rather than saying the wrong thing Bright handed over the collection of postcards that had taken up residence in his back pocket, each one addressed to the same person.
“All the signs pointed to you,” he said with a shrug, hoping against hope that Ephram would invite him in.
-finis-
Notes: I always said I’d write a proper Everwood story one day! (It only took me like eight months.) FYI: I will always associate Bright with the Doves ‘Caught by the River’ and that’s the sign of a good Music Coordinator. Check the icon for story inspiration.
Dedication:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
foreversmitten is an evil, sadistic woman, and this one is for her. Much love to bonibaru for beta duty, remaining snafus are mine.
Fandom: Everwood
Signs
Bright left on a Wednesday while his father was at work and his mother was at City Hall ‘keeping the peace‘ as she called it. It had taken him a while, twenty-three years to be exact, but Bright was finally ready to leave Everwood, and consequently, nothing else really mattered. Not Bright’s parents who kept waiting for him to ‘do something with his life,’ nor his sister who had left home long ago. Not even Bright’s long-dead best friend or the whispered words of a town that didn’t know what to make of Bright’s ‘relations’ with that Brown boy from back east.
Bright had always told Ephram he would know when he was ready to leave home; he had just wanted to wait for the right sign. The sign never came, but the worries about Ephram meeting someone else in New York were relentless, and in the end they were just as efficient as the neon sign at the jazz bar outside of town.
Leaving unexpectedly was for the best, Bright felt sure. He didn’t want to deal with the scenes and the whys and ‘you’re throwing your life away when you don’t even know what you’ll find’ stuff his dad was likely to spout.
The way Bright saw it, driving cross country to declare his undying love for some guy who probably didn’t even love him any more was hard enough -- he really didn’t need his dad telling him he was being an idiot on top of that. Besides, it wasn’t as though Bright was going to ask his dad to pay for his insane cross country voyage. He was paying for school himself, and he didn’t think he was being that much of a burden, but you could never tell with his dad.
And yes, Bright had an eleven o’clock at the community college, but he was never going to get the hang of Statistics anyway, so he shrugged it off, and packed instead.
He sniffed out the clean clothes littering his floor and tossed them in the sports duffle left over from high school. It didn’t seem like five years ago, already, but time tended to do strange things, like pass, when you weren’t paying attention.
He found his favorite tee shirt, with the strange anime boy on it, lodged in the space between the hamper and the wall, and he spent several minutes ransacking his bedroom for all his favorite CDs before moving across the hall to Amy’s room. By the time she realized they were missing, hopefully he’d be able to say she would have to come and get them herself. She was in Paris right now, but even if she was at UCD Bright hoped she wouldn’t have been that surprised by his decision. Perhaps she might have been proud, and made him a few peanut butter and banana sandwiches, his favorite, and laughed as he gathered what he could and tripped down the stairs. She could have put the CDs in a bag for him and wished him well. Or she might have told him to go to hell, he could never really tell with her.
There was a note on the counter from his mother about working late, along with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a bushel of bananas just waiting for him to take them on his trip. Obviously it was another sign, and Bright found a brown paper bag to hold several items he ‘liberated’ from the fridge, including sodas and packaged juices. There was a new package of that smoked turkey his mom knew he liked, and he threw that on the counter with the bananas, bread and peanut butter.
The last thing Bright took was a Minute Maid popsicle from the freezer. He only took one, lemon flavored, knowing that it wouldn’t last long. Ephram had always liked lemon, and Bright thought long and hard before he took a pen out the ‘random stuff’ drawer and flipped his mom’s note over.
He didn’t really know what to say about why he was leaving, or what exactly he though he was doing. He just needed to do it.
Mr. Bradley in English 205 would’ve called it a ‘running theme.’
::
The ’Bright, you won’t get it’ CDR Ephram burned for him repeated twice on the drive into the city. Seventy-six minutes full of The White Stripes, Bjork, Junior Senior, Jurassic 5 and all sorts of strange people that never toured in Colorado.
During Ephram’s sophomore year though, David Bowie had come to Boulder, and Bright had been dragged along to that concert. He wasn’t so bad for an old guy, and he’d had Clay Aiken opening for him, which Bright just found weird.
He and Ephram didn’t share the same musical tastes, and Bright certainly would never have listened to The Flaming Lips if he hadn’t dated Ephram. He still didn’t like them.
Most of all though, Bright didn’t like the ‘d’ on the end of ‘dated.’ He didn’t like the idea of things being over for them: it wasn’t over for Bright; he hoped it wasn’t over for Ephram.
The gas in Denver was kind of expensive, but Bright filled the tank of the Jeep anyway. He spent twenty minutes wandering around inside the sad excuse for a store, remembering all the times he’d stopped there when Colin was in the hospital. The selection of candy bars hadn’t improved in all those years, but there was a rack of postcards by the checkout and Bright picked one that said ‘Wish You Were Here.’
After a trip to the john, he stopped at the pay phone to call home, but no one there.
He didn’t leave a message.
Sliding back into the car, he took off the Julliard sweatshirt he’d woken up in that morning and popped in a different CD. He probably should have taken a shower before he left home, but it was kind of late to think about that. He started the car and merged back into Denver traffic, singing along with the opening strains of Incubus’ ‘Wish You Were Here.’
It was definitely a running theme, and Bright took the exit for Route 70 to Kansas City and Topeka with hope in his heart.
The signs said east, and Bright very much wanted to go east.
::
Bright drove until his vision began to swim and pulled off the highway when he couldn’t take any more of The Strokes ‘Ze Newie.‘ The city was Burlington and calling the place he stayed at ‘a motel’ was being kind. There was only one other car in the parking lot, and the next morning Bright realized he’d forgotten to lock all the doors of the Jeep. The check-in clerk never turned her head away from the episode of Jerry Springer on the television, and the bed didn’t bounce when Bright threw his duffle bag on it. When he tried to take a shower, he realized he hadn’t remembered any soap, and against his better judgment he used the grainy bar he found collecting dust next to the sink.
Bright had forgotten shampoo in his haste to leave, as well, and the shower issued nothing but cold water. The towels looked clean though, and he used two to dry off. Afterward, Bright sat on his bed and dug around in the brown paper bag he’d brought from the car, trying to find something to eat.
He’d forgotten a knife to spread the peanut butter and cut the bananas, and the juice was warm, but it was still one of the best meals he’d ever had. He meant to call his mom afterward, but he stretched out on the scratchy bed cover and fell asleep almost immediately instead.
::
The following afternoon Bright found sunglasses and a half melted cassette in his glove compartment. He ate a Snickers bar and a banana for lunch, and pulled into a gas station in Hays, Kansas to fill up and use the toilet.
He hummed The Vines ‘Get Free’ at the urinal, and bought four Slim Jims, shampoo, a small bar of Ivory soap and another postcard before seeking out the pay phone to call home. His mother answered on the first ring, and her worried voice buzzed in his ear as he studied the Kansas horizon. Everything looked sort of the same to Bright, very flat, and he steeled himself for the worst when his mother put his father on the line, but he only inquired about the state of the roads and if Bright Jefferson Abbott had enough money.
After the surrealness of their conversation, Bright hung up and found himself dialing a 979 phone number by rote. Ephram’s voice was just as squeaky as Bright remembered, even on the answering machine, and Bright hung up without thinking too hard.
It was a bit late to turn back now.
::
Several hundred miles later in Kansas City, Missouri, Bright tried to call Ephram again, and again, there was no answer on the other end. Bright seriously considered turning around and going back to Everwood, except there was even less for him in Colorado than there was in New York.
At least in New York, Bright could be near Ephram, even if Ephram didn’t necessarily want to be near him. There hadn’t been a break-up as much as break off.
Back in the Jeep, Bright popped in a KoRN CD and shrugged helplessly as he passed the city limits for Independence.
He was free now. Free from ‘what’ he wasn’t quite sure.
When he called his mother that evening she asked him if he was ready to come home, and his father said that when the car broke down, Bright would be on his own. He mocked that he hoped they’d included lessons on car repair in Bright’s copy of On the Road; and okay, so Bright hadn’t paid attention when he’d had to read Kerouac in high school, but he’d paid attention when Ephram had read the book his freshman year in college.
That was good enough.
::
Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine were before Bright’s time, but he liked Audioslave a lot. Chris Cornell could really sing, and he was kind of hot too. Of course Bright also thought Jenna Jameson was hot, but he liked to think he could appreciate all kinds of hotness. The first time he’s said so to Ephram, Ephram had laughed so hard soda pop had come out his nose, and that had made Bright laugh, too. A lot of things Ephram did made Bright laugh, but most of those were intentional, and Bright felt a twinge when he thought about Ephram trying to make someone else smile.
He shook his head and turned up the bass on ‘Like a Stone’ nodding his head in time with the music and watching the St. Louis skyline pass by. The arch reminded him a giant McDonald’s sign, which made his stomach remind him that it was almost time for lunch.
The sign for Indianapolis passed on his right while he was looking for a McDonald’s on his left, and it was almost 50 miles later when Bright realized he’d missed his exit. There was a sign for a Burger King at the next rest stop though, so instead of turning around Bright kept driving. The idea of a huge Whopper with cheese motivated him more than any basketball trophy or threat of being grounded.
The woman behind the counter was about the same age as his mom, and he shuddered when she winked at him after taking his order. The Jeep was getting a bit funky with all the time he’d been spending in it recently, so he ate inside instead of in the car. He only paused in stuffing his face when a girl with flaming red hair slid into the booth across from him. Her eyebrow was pierced and her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. She was pretty in an edgy kind of way, and she reminded Bright of Ephram. When she glanced up at Bright, he immediately went back to his French fries, and when he gathered up his trash to leave, a boy brushed by him with spiky black hair and huge green eyes. It seemed obvious to Bright that they were together because they just fit, nothing like him and Ephram, and he felt very subdued as he consulted the small map he’d picked up in Topeka.
He could get back to Route 70 by going to through Louisville, and he turned the stereo off as he headed down Route 64 to Route 65. Instead of listening to music, he rolled down the windows, and let the sharp spring air whip through the inside of the truck clearing out the smell of overripe fruit and sweaty sneakers.
::
He arrived in Columbus on Ephram’s birthday, it was Tuesday and raining. The weather in Ohio was colder than it had been any other place on his trip, and at a 76 Station, Bright bought a package of chocolate Hostess cupcakes and 101 Random Facts About Ohio. He pulled over to the side of the road when visibility got too bad, turned off the car, and climbed into the backseat of the truck. He settled under a pile of dirty laundry and read about Cleveland as the gay capital of the mid-west.
When the rain let up Bright climbed back in the front seat and slid in Ephram’s CDR of strange mood music: Chopin, The Flaming Lips and Thievery Corporation, people Ephram talked about seeing in New York. People he said Bright could learn something from. That had been one of their more original arguments.
They’d never had to look for a things to disagree about, but for almost two years the disagreements had been light-hearted, in jest. When Ephram had come home over Easter though, things had been different. Strained. Every time Bright had talked about plans for the summer, Ephram had just shrugged him off. When he’d tried to pin down when Ephram was coming home, Ephram had been noncommittal. He’d become more physically affectionate, and less tolerant of the way things worked in Everwood. He’d told Bright he was tired of trying to ‘understand.’
::
It took Bright another two days to reach Washington, PA, where he left Route 70 for the first time in days. Route 80 was long and the sky was gray and it took almost the whole day to get through Pennsylvania. It hadn’t looked that big on Bright’s Play-Skool puzzle maps.
He stopped for the night at a motel outside Stroudsburg and tried to call Amy in Paris. The connection was awful and some guy kept shouting at him in French. He sounded the way Bright did when someone woke him up.
He called Everwood, but his parents weren’t home, and when he called Ephram a strange guy answered the phone. Bright hung up without saying anything and went to take a long shower. His fingers shook as he washed his hair, and he slept badly, dreaming of Dr Brown and his father competing in a three-legged race together.
::
It was a Monday when Bright arrived in New Jersey. He got stuck in traffic on the Turnpike, and held up a line of cars because he didn’t have money for the toll booth. There were a lot more people on the east coast than he was used to; there was a lot more of everything as far as he could tell. It was something he wasn’t sure he could get his head around, and he popped in a Chili Peppers CD to combat the slow crawl of the traffic.
When the sign for the Holland tunnel appeared, rather than sighing in relief, Bright vomited into a plastic bag full of candy bar wrappers and grape soda cans. He’d come all this way to see Ephram, to show that he was willing to commit the way Ephram wanted, but he hadn‘t really thought about what he was doing until now.
The traffic was slow enough that Bright didn’t even have to pull over to be sick.
::
There was no parking on Ephram’s street, Avenue A, in fact there was no parking for five blocks in either direction, and Bright had to park so far away that he got lost trying to find his way back to Ephram’s apartment, period.
By the time he arrived, it was late afternoon, and if he hadn’t written the correct number down on the back of his hand, he definitely would have missed the ramshackle building.
A pretty girl with purple hair was leaving as Bright approached, and he smiled at her and caught the door with the tips of his fingers. She didn’t smile back, however, and Bright’s lips slid into a kind of frown. Every other place he’d visited the people had been nice, or at least not rude, but this was New York, and Ephram had always talked about how different it was. Bright had shrugged it off, but if this was his life now, he would have to get used to it.
There was no elevator, and Bright had to walk up five flights of rickety stairs to find 4F. The paint was peeling on the door of apartment, and Bright hesitated at least six times before he finally knocked.
He had driven thousands of miles to see Ephram Brown, to say something about wanting to try again, but when the door finally opened and the smell of strange food and Ephram’s favorite soap assailed Bright’s nose, he realized he had no words that would be able to completely explain what he wanted to say. Ephram stared at him, the disbelief evident, and rather than saying the wrong thing Bright handed over the collection of postcards that had taken up residence in his back pocket, each one addressed to the same person.
“All the signs pointed to you,” he said with a shrug, hoping against hope that Ephram would invite him in.
-finis-
Notes: I always said I’d write a proper Everwood story one day! (It only took me like eight months.) FYI: I will always associate Bright with the Doves ‘Caught by the River’ and that’s the sign of a good Music Coordinator. Check the icon for story inspiration.
Dedication:
foreversmitten is an evil, sadistic woman, and this one is for her. Much love to bonibaru for beta duty, remaining snafus are mine.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 09:08 am (UTC)I had tears welling up in my eyes the whole time I was reading, and then I got to the dedication. For me? Really?
Goddamned tears.
This was so, so, so wonderful. Bright just throwing off everything and going. Exactly what I always wanted to do. I will hopefully be making that same drive in October.
*hug* Thank you so much.
I'm gonna go cry more now.
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Date: 2003-08-13 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 09:28 am (UTC)I'm not even really sure why I'm crying. This was so lovely, so mellow, so just how it ought to be. Bright just seems so *right* here.
This was wonderful. Really, really wonderful. *loves*
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Date: 2003-08-13 11:53 am (UTC)I wanted you to enjoy it, why do my stories always make people cry? This is very worrisome.
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Date: 2003-08-13 12:07 pm (UTC)There's just something about Bright, man.
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Date: 2003-08-13 09:30 am (UTC)foreversmitten is an evil, sadistic woman
Yes, yes she is. *pets*
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Date: 2003-08-13 11:54 am (UTC)You're really making me want a Snickers bar right now, I just had to tell you that.
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Date: 2003-08-13 09:56 am (UTC)i wonder is there's anything you couldn't convince me of...
feel free to consider that a challenge. :)
i loved this. i completely believed it.
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Date: 2003-08-13 11:55 am (UTC)i wonder is there's anything you couldn't convince me of...
feel free to consider that a challenge. :)
i loved this. i completely believed it.
Harry/Neville is the wave of the future. That is my mission.
Also, if you liked this B/E at all, you really should check out
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Date: 2003-08-13 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 12:03 pm (UTC)I have something big coming out tomorrow to promote my boys. I figure go hard or go home, vive Harry/Neville!
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Date: 2003-08-13 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 11:57 am (UTC)I'm very glad that you enjoyed it, babe!
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Date: 2003-08-13 10:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 11:59 am (UTC)There are lots of things I can't write: Het. Stories longer than 25 pages. Things like that.
Also, the heat. Kat. It's so hot, even the devil left town.
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Date: 2003-08-13 10:45 am (UTC)Are we allowed to swear in here?
In any case, am I supposed to go to sleep with puffy red eyes now. Zahra, you are quickly pushing your way up my "Evil But Loveable People". I mean, you just overtook my granny who traps me in a deathgrip which she says is a "grandmotherly hug".
Pfft.
Anyway, will try to find Visine.
*quests for eyedrops while muttering Zahra = evil*
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Date: 2003-08-13 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 05:10 pm (UTC)Perhaps I should have included a pack of tissues with this story. Hmmm. I will take this under advisement for the future. I am glad you enjoyed the story, though, thank you for commenting!
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Date: 2003-08-13 04:08 pm (UTC)But you did make it hard to breathe. Bright was just rushing toward Ephram, leaving it all behind and going, and I was so worried that in the end it wouldn't work. I have to believe it works, because they are supposed to be together.
Okay, fuck. I am crying. Happy now?
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Date: 2003-08-13 05:11 pm (UTC)I'm sorry you had a tough day, but I'm glad you enjoyed the story, thank you!
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Date: 2003-08-13 04:16 pm (UTC)*love*
I adore this story. I will not ship B/E, darn you.
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Date: 2003-08-13 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-13 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-14 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-20 01:52 pm (UTC)xoxo,
Vlada
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Date: 2003-11-28 08:52 pm (UTC)