A Snippet In Time : It's Just Dirt
A Snippet in Time: It's Just Dirt
Author(s): lionelclan (Jackie) & mandy_the_pooka (Mandy)
Rating: PG
Genre(s): Humor
Originally Written: April 2008
Revised: November 2009
Circa: Late 1990s
Original Character(s): Ash Lionel (15yrs), Tawney Valentine (15yrs)
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Ash was still trying to figure his way around the school. It was sprawling and massive with buildings in all sorts of areas round the outlying areas and for the first time since he’d arrived he wondered why he decided to leave the comfort of familiarity. It didn’t matter if the education was better or that it had taken a full blown business plan to even convince his parents to let him apply to the prestigious private school.
Mostly his father, that was.
Fortunately, he was dedicated and clever, even if Jaxton Lionel fancied himself a witty wordsmith. It wouldn’t be long before he learned the reason for his father’s opposition, but that was something that Ash decided not to linger on. The stigma that was attached with his brothers, both of which he had not known existed, was what had kept him from attending the same school as they did. Payton and Weston Lionel were the least of his worries, and if they opted to loathe him that was their choice. He would continue to find worth in them, just like he did in everyone else, allowing them the benefit of the doubt regardless of if they wanted to know him further or not.
His roommate in the dorm was fairly tolerable and had agreed to keep his bed made as well as clean up after himself. Ash could handle the incessant dusting and disinfecting on behalf of both of them if Kameron would just keep his dirty laundry off the floor.
Ash was starting to wonder if he was lost and this was just a familiar hall because they all looked the same, or if he was actually in the right place, when it happened. She appeared there as from seemingly nowhere and Ash was dumbstruck by her appearance. She was covered from head to toe in thick, viscous mud. It coated her school uniform, distorting the blue and silver colors. It wasn’t just Florida sand mixed with water; it was similar to heavy top soil which, from the consistency, seemed to be mixed with glue rather than water.
“Oh! Ha! Hello there. I’m in your way, aren’t I? I was always freaking do that…you need to leave, I bet--on your way to some stellar class or something along those lines. Something cool I hope. Hey, you know what you should do? Let me see your hand.” She said swiftly; Ash almost retreated back in an effort to escape her very appearance.
She was tiny and, as their eyes met for the first time, it was silently mutually agreed that they’d never seen each other before. Yet Ash was second guessing weather everyone had likable traits or if he’d been mistaken; certainly this girl didn’t seem to have anything likable about her as he was unable to look past the mud she was covered in.
Meanwhile, she seemed thrilled for him to be there and she swiftly lashed out, grabbing his wrist with her mud covered hand. Ash went painfully rigid the moment he felt the gritty, wet mixture against his skin. His breath caught in his throat and he was positive he would die at the tender age of fifteen while she mangled his clean flesh with filth.
He knew, in that moment, he was wrong. Some people were deplorable. She was one of them and he didn’t even know her name.
She didn’t hesitate as she ran her hand along the flat of her narrow abdomen, gathering as much mud off her shirt as she could and slapped it heartily into his hand that she was still holding out for him. He had been wondering what the tiny girl looked like under the layers of dark brown mud. That thought escaped him entirely though as he stared in horror at the mess she created on his palm. He groaned out something that sounded much like a zombie as it was the only vocalization he could make as he watched the concoction ooze through his fingers like some alien gel.
"Give that to Gale--as an early birthday gift. The guy loves it when someone remembers and I always feel bad that I’m only one who does. He needs more loving, that guy." She said with a laugh and a sideways smile which exposed the only thing that looked clean on her - her teeth.
In his horror, he couldn’t fathom who ‘Gale’ was, and he couldn’t deduce that he was the director of Ash’s area of study; a man, Mr. Abraham Gale, whom Ash had met with on several occasions as he worked through his transfer to this school. The very same place where his brothers, whom he’d just met, hated him. He was lost most of the time, certainly out of his element and now (by his estimation) covered in a disgusting mess.
Yes, he certainly should have stayed in his familiar native Key West. At least there it was clean.
A frown replaced the small girls smile as she watched him stand, unmoving and horrified in his spot. "Are you broken? Should I get someone and see if they can fix you? I don’t know that much about the mechanics of a boy…I got girl parts, you know? Yeah? I mean I could whip out my screw driver and start tinkering myself but I can’t be blamed if things stop working right." She told him lightly, her eyebrows knitted together.
“No, I'm not broken." He said sharply, still staring at his unmoving hand; horrified by the thought of her touching him further. His eyes moved from his palm, where the thin layer of mud was staring to dry, back to her. "Though I could use a sink because there's no chance I'm wiping this on me...or you. I'm liable to get more on me if I touch...well..." his eyes ran the length of her body and then darted back over to his hand again in a fury of dismay. At seeing it, a visible shudder crawled up his spine and his face paled to a faint white which resembled fresh cotton sheets.
She was watching him closely, catching his cringe with wide eyes. A sort of amused and perplexed look crossed her face. “You…are you grossed out by this? Oh man…it’s just mud. Wet dirt, you know? Just dirt…very very good dirt actually. Grade A dirt even-the best you’ll find for a billion miles, I promise. It’s not going to kill you. It’s like the cleanest of all dirt.” She told him with a bouncing nod as if she truly believed that such a thing was possible.
His eyes flickered up to her and he stared for a moment; the girl’s smile didn’t waiver but she shrugged anyway, beckoning him down the hall. “Fine, fine…come on, follow. I really do have a sink--and I swear, it's clean." She moved to loop her arm through his but he took an immediate step away from her mortified by the prospect and she motioned for him to follow instead; though she was momentarily crestfallen by his hasty recoil. “You know what? This isn’t gross-it is the product of fun. Yes! That mystical being that so many miss out on because the concept is just so darn foreign. You should try it--just jump into a mess of mud. See if it doesn't change your perception of life."
“It'd change my perception alright." He said in a low off handed tone, almost hollow in his desperate throat as his eyes were fixed once more of the horrors of his hand, already imagining the white walls and strait jackets.
Ash loped beside her, careful to keep from moving too close to her in the fear of brushing against her mud covered clothes. “I get fun.” He said as he was eagerly moving along to find this 'clean' sink. He figured the more he spoke, the better he could handle the situation. As he decided to completely ignore the filth on his hand, in an attempt to pretend like it wasn't there at all. “I'm Ashton - Ash for short - by the way. You probably know my brothers-Payton and West...”
She glanced over at him, a bright smile crossed over her face. “The kids with the hair, right? I see it now--it's the nose. And the eyes, the ears too...you know, you guys have almost the same face. Which makes sense..." She tipped her to the side with an excited grin "…since you're brothers, you know." She taunted before she shrugged. “I'm Tawney, Ash-ton. It's great to meet you--I'd shake your hand but hey, I do know when to stop.”
They were in the halls of the dormitories to the school; Tawney easily led them to a room a floor above. Ash was left to the sink in the common room while Tawney disappeared elsewhere behind one of the two doors. She reappeared a few moments later, as Ash was on his third cycle of hand washing, with her hands cleaned, clothing changed and a majority of her face washed. "Here--for when you're done." She said, plopping down a towel or two next to him. She leaned up against the wall next to the sink he was at, watching him wash his hands for a moment. "Let's say for a second that you can have fun without mud-or germs for that matter-which is really killing me to say, I must tell you--enlighten me, Ashton. How do you have clean fun?"
Ash was focused on his hands and making sure there wasn’t a bit of dirt on them as he washed them for a number of times in which he’d lost count when he finally reached for one of the surprisingly clean and fluffy hand towels.
“West knows how to have fun, you should ask him sometime.” She said in passing as she nodded in a sage-like manner.
“Yes well as I understand it West also should have his own definition; as he’s a descriptor all his own. Westenite, Westonish, West-like are all adjectives in which I have heard used to define those like him; which oddly enough includes you. No offense or anything but he’s drink toilet water in a post apocalyptic world or if someone dared him. In fact I think he might bathe in the toilet too without being asked just to say he’d done it. Furthermore I don’t know him, I wouldn’t ask him.” Ash said arching an eyebrow as his eyes landed on her again. He immediately locked onto a bit of dirt still on her face. Without a second thought he moved around the sink and leaned over and, using the corner of the towel, wiped it away. It was done out of habit.
“Oh thanks, wanna check under my fingernails too?” She batted her eyelashes at him playfully. She had no idea who he was or why he was as he was but she was plenty happy to have the company. Though she immediately was distracted again with something he’d said previously and launched right into addressing it.
“It would be cool to be an adjective you know? Forget the proper noun thing, I vote to drop that and just be an adjective for sure. How freaking cool would that be? Maybe even give up life all together to become an adjective that some middle school mundane butchers in his latest creative narrative. “ Her words started to trail off as she was fixated on what he was doing and her voice rose again curiously. “Wow nothing passes you huh?” She smiled widely as she watched him methodically adjust the unused towel so it was flush with the countertop. “I bet its fun to play-pick-up-sticks or… JENGA with you.” She was like a puppy with far too much energy and no means to release it all. He was momentarily lost for words and wondered absently if he could tolerate her level of hyperactivity in a normal setting, let alone on her ground. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“That’s because you haven’t been silent long enough for me to answer it.” He said stoically as he folded the towel into a perfect square and placed it several inches from the clean one on the same countertop. “Intellectual intercourse.” He said plainly. “I like to pick brains and have mine picked. People are fascinating creatures. And I like the beach. I’ll play - if that’s a word and not some abstract concept - in the water. But look don’t bother telling me about the creatures and bacteria…I know.” He shuttered involuntarily. “But I don’t talk about it and I don’t think about it; when I can help it.”
He was a smirking and snarky sort while she was boisterous and not entirely grounded. Seemingly opposites yet he didn’t try and slip out unnoticed and she certainly wasn’t bored with him as she often got with most things. It was difficult to capture her attention.
"Do you enjoy intellectual intercourse on the beach?" She asked, poking him lightly in the side before realizing that might be breaching boundaries with him--not that that would stop her by any means.
He jumped when her finger collided with his side and he almost smiled in spite of himself though a faint unmistakable pinkish color clouded his jaw line at the underlying implication. He didn’t attempt to speak for fear that he would either smile entirely out of embarrassment or he would stumble over his words, and if there was one thing Ash tried to be as a constant it was reserved.
“Oooooh, I see that - are you blushing Mr. Ashton? Oh my, I think you are. You are going to be fun.”
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Authors' Notes
Mandy: Very little of this was re-envisioned for purposes of this posting. We wanted to keep it as true to form from when it was originally written as possible. We pulled dialogue directly in most places and fluffed around it. At the time of this writing Jackie and I both were still feeling out these characters. Ash was new to me by a few months and Tee was brand new to her; but this is what we call ‘Classic AoA’. Those that know us from A9 know we’ve been in over our heads with a trilogy there - it was nice to go home for a bit, to our familiar writing grounds that is.
Those of you who know Ash and Tawney, I’m sure you’ll remember this thread. I know Jess is waiting for a Dex and Caley story to surface, that’ll be in the works too when we decide to go classic-old-school AoA. ^.^ Give us time; we’re slow. But we’ll get there.
Disclaimer!! Kameron belongs to the lovely Juls. There was no thievery there.
In the meantime, thank you for reading. We really do appreciate it. Really this is for the friends of our who are new to Ashton and the old-time AoA lovers.
Jackie: My soul purpose, when I first enterted this back in 2008, was to get mud on Ash. It worked--he was new and the concept of his OCD was rather new too because we'd never had a character with that sort of psychosomatic illness. So I was like WEE!!! MAKE HIM FREAK!! So I made Tawney (Tee) do it for me.
Gosh I miss these two--it was fun to go back and read this and edit it and all that jazz. ^_^