Maddie & Clint | Monday Afternoon

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Having gotten Clint's text message, Maddie goes to find him and a discussion of sorts ensues. Mostly, it's a friendly session of WWMJPD.


It was too cold and windy outside for Clint to camp on his usual spot on the roof, so he was inside instead. A disused room was his space of choice - at least it was on the third floor and had big windows. Not that he was making much use of the windows at the moment. Rather, he sitting on the floor with his back pressed against a wall, ignoring all of the books he'd brought with him in favor of staring off into the ether.

Among the many gifts she brought into their friendship, Maddie had the uncanny ability to sense when Clint was in a rut and needed to talk. Okay, so he had told her he was having an existential crisis, and where he was currently hiding, but she had totally picked up from his telling her these things that he wanted someone to talk to. That he wanted to talk with her, more specifically. Personally, between sucked into the world of an internet meme come to life and finding out about Topaz's messing with Tandy's emotions, Maddie kinda just wanted to build a blanket fort and decompress. But Clint needed her help, and she would not crush his spirit by withholding her awesomeness.

It was hard being so awesome.

So, without bothering to knock and announce her presence, Maddie swept into the room where Clint was currently holed up, and unceremoniously plopped herself down beside him. "So. Penny for your thoughts," she asked, pushing one of the untouched books with her foot to make more room. "What's up, Chicken Butt?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Clint answered, shifting around so Maddie was less likely to gouge her flesh on his physics book. "Seriously. What are we even doing here?" Maybe it was a little more existential than he'd initially thought when he told her he was having an existential crisis. Or maybe not. "I'm seriously avoiding the internet except for the school website and the thought of going home makes me twitch. And..." He waved his hand. "Tandy said you knew about... her stuff. All that. Just. Jesus."

A quick smack to the back of his head (a love tap, really) was probably not the sort of response he was searching for, but it was the one Maddie delivered along with a very pointed stare.

"Ow, what?" Clint rubbed at the back of his head and scooted away from Maddie a bit. "What was that for?"

"Smack some sense into you," she replied, as if the point should have been obvious. "You think too much."

"That doesn't even make any sense," Clint said. "There's a lot to think about."

Sigh. For a smart person, Clint was seriously dense and slow on the uptake. "Yes it does. You think yourself around in circles until you're dizzy but you still keep thinking and thinking. One thing at a time. Okay? What do you want to think about first?"

Clint opened his mouth to reply, then paused and closed it again. He made a face. "I don't know what to do about Tandy. Like, can I help her or would I just be getting in the way and making things worse?"

Ah, good. They were starting with the easy one. Not that anything was really that difficult, they were teenagers after all. "She needs all of our help," Maddie's tone softened. "Yeah? I mean, I guess you kinda know what she's going through, but at the same time you don't. She is going to be in pain and dealing with the loss of her parents. You can't take that away from her, as much as you think you want to. Be there for her when she needs you."

"When it doubt, just ask yourself 'What would Maddie do?'"

Snorting, Clint smiled a little despite himself. "I'm pretty sure she wouldn't appreciate getting smacked around." He bumped his shoulder against Maddie's, though, and then shrugged. "I can't even imagine what it was like for her, meeting her biological father the way she did and everything. And then her parents dying on top of it. I can't... honestly, I can't remember either of my parents. So it's not really the same at all."

"No Maddie," she self-chastised, ignoring Clint for a moment. "This is not the time to make an inappropriate joke." And it was so obvious too! But this was a serious conversation, alas, so she would keep her juvenile sex humor to herself for now. Returning her attention to her friend, she reciprocated the shoulder bump with a smile.

"Basically, don't be a dick. Don't pity, empathize. And be there if she needs you. Continue watching your movies and stuff together, give her a sense of normalcy in this turbulent time. Think you can do that?"

"Yeah," Clint said, smiling. "I think I can do that. Not so sure about successfully continuing to avoid the majority of the internet, though."

"Yeah what's with that?" She shifted to face him better. "I mean, how are you going to get porn?"

"Subscribe to Playboy and Penthouse," Clint deadpanned. "Or rent from a video store, if any of those even still exist."

"You're too young, genius."

"Lift a subscription card from one of the magazines at a store and they won't know how old I am when I send it in," Clint said, though truthfully he hadn't thought about that at all. "Seriously, though - internet memes shouldn't come to life."

She quirked an eyebrow, dubious of this claim. "Lolcats." That one word said it all. That a) cats doing ridiculous stuff was awesome to watch and b) they already did that stuff in real life, thus rendering his protestation completely moot. "Which begets the question of which came first, the Slendermen or the meme? Amanda said something about them being the Magic Student Bogeyman. If Slendermen were first then your statement really should be 'life shouldn't become an internet meme'. Which, hate to break it to you, too late to prevent."

"Just don't go on those sites." What did Doug say they were, again? "Fourchan? Read-It? Whatever. Again, you need to be more like me. I had no idea what this meme was until, you know, they came out to play."

Letting his head thunk back against the wall behind him, Clint said, "Do you have any idea how many people put pictures of Slendermen up on Tumblr? Or a bunch of other websites? Avoiding the whole internet would almost be easier than trying to pick and choose which sites to go to." Then he shrugged. "But you have a point on the other stuff. However, I think I stand by what I said about memes becoming real in regards to lolcats. We don't need more blatant feline overlords."

"So don't go on those sites, dumbass!" Seriously. Were it not for Doug she would have no idea any of these things even existed. So clearly it wasn't as impossible as Clint thought, avoiding these things. Whatever. She flipped her hair and ran her fingers through the strands to push it back from her face. New topic time. "So points one and two are taken care of. Are you still weirded out by Steve and Andre wanting to adopt you?"

"No, that's cool," Clint said, shaking his head. "I mean, I talked with them about it and everything earlier this month. They're going through with it and I'm good with that. It's just... some stuff that happened when the Slendermen took us, is all." Bringing his knees up to his chest, Clint rested his chin on them and linked his fingers at his ankles. "I don't... actually want to talk about that." It was the first time he'd ever said that during one of their conversations, but it still felt too raw to examine under the microscope of Maddie's brand of honesty.

"Okay." She looped her arm in his and rested her head against his shoulder. Despite appearances to suggest the contrary, Maddie could, and would stop her hounding. This was not one of those "I don't want to talk about it but I really do need to talk about it to get it all out" times. The way he coiled in on himself, it was the reaction of someone who needed to feel comforted and protected, not someone who wanted to spill all their innermost thoughts.

"You want me to go?"

"No," Clint said, not really having to think about it. "Being alone wasn't doing a whole lot for me, anyway. Have you started on the English homework?"

"If I say 'yes' do you promise not to tell Kyle?" Maddie wrinkled her nose. "He already thinks that I'm turning into a giant nerd because I read Les Miserables over the break."

"I make no promises," Clint said, smiling. "But it's more likely than not that Kyle won't found out you finished your homework early from me."