Fanfic: Bright Spots [Do Over]

[argentum_ls]

Title: Bright Spots
Show: Do Over
Summary: Pat accidentally reminds Joel that the 80s had their good points.
Word Count: 1922
Notes: Future fic, written for belmanoir as a yuletide treat.

 

Joel Larson leaned back on the couch and dropped the TV remote on the cushion next to him with a reflective sigh. In the years since his adolescence had been rebooted, he had become pretty good at balancing the two perspectives he lived with every day: his memory of the 80s as they had occurred the first time he passed through him, and his perception of the 80s as he passed through them with a grateful knowledge that they would not go on forever. As hair got hair-sprayed bigger, bangs stood up straighter and taller in the air, pink and yellow got more fluorescent, and jeans got tighter, he had to remind himself often that kitsch was only temporarily a word. The time was not far off when no one would use it or remember what it meant.

Even when cultural progress appeared to be going backward, some things did get better. The fact that this apartment had basic cable was a huge step up from the last one that still relied on a terrestrial antenna, which made the channels nearly unwatchable through the snow and static. There still wasn’t anything new on television, but he was able to catch up on shows he’d missed the first time around—like 21 Jump Street, which he had been too busy getting drunk on his first pass through college to appreciate (OK maybe it was Holly Robinson he appreciated, but still. Tight jeans worked for some people). And then there was the—

“Yo! Dude!” Pat called. He bounded into the living room where Joel sat. He had flung the door from his bedroom open so hard that Joel could hear the reverberations of the door stopper spring all the way down the hall.

Yo, dude? Joel mouthed to himself, tearing his mind away from his contemplation and looking up at his best friend. He immediately wished he hadn’t.

Pat now stood between Joel and the TV and he was wearing … he was wearing … Joel squeezed his eyes shut, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Pat? What are you wearing?”

Pat swept his hands down his body and did a slow turn in place. “Never let it be said that Patty is one to follow the fashions,” he said, as pleased with himself as only Pat Brody could be.

Joel eyed his best friend who shouldn’t be capable of surprising him, but somehow always was. Pat was wearing Doc Marten boots with steel toes, jeans with the knees and most of the thighs and shins torn out, a black band t-shirt (Yup, it was Guns ‘n Roses. The terrible one with the picture of the girl on the back with her panties around her ankles. Joel made a mental note to “accidentally” destroy that shirt at the first available opportunity.), and a black and red plaid flannel over-shirt. All of the clothing items had been made for someone at least two sizes larger than the barely 5’8”, slender young adult. He had been growing his brown hair out for the past two years until it hung past his shoulders. Now he had it held it out of eyes with a black and green patterned bandana wrapped in a wide swath around his forehead. The style only emphasized the fact that he was starting to go thin on top.

Joel shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it. “You always follow the fashion trends,” he pointed out. He tried not to let the sarcasm into his tone, and almost succeeded. Granted, Pat usually picked the trends of whatever counter-culture movement was currently pissing off his parents, but the point remained. Joel preferred to stick with basic jeans and t-shirts or dress shirts, knowing that they always remained acceptably in style, and therefore looked good, especially since he had chosen to hit the weight room on this pass through college instead of the fraternity parties.

“Well not this time,” Pat announced. “Thanks to my time-traveling best friend, I’m now the trend-setter, not the trend-follower. What do you think?” He did another slow turn. The flannel swirled out behind him, completely ruining whatever effect he was going for. The ensemble looked pretty much like what Pat always wore, except for it being much darker, much looser, and having not one item that matched any other item. OK, that last part wasn’t new.

“You’re early,” Joel replied. He pushed up from the couch, unable to take another minute of the fashion show, and headed to the kitchen nook for something, anything to distract himself with. A glance in the nearly barren fridge revealed that the two roommates would be ordering pizza that night, and Domino’s still had their 30-minutes-or-it’s-free campaign running. Joel pulled out the last can of Coke, the lone occupant of the top shelf, and noted with a small grin that it was Coca-Cola Classic, with the proper cursive typeface and everything. The era of New Coke had finally, mercifully ended. That was a second bright spot at the end of the 80s.

Which had to be why Pat had chosen now to remind him what came after the 80s.

“How early?” Pat followed Joel to the fridge, his boots thumping on the linoleum floor. “Hey, where’s the love?” he asked when Joel popped open the can and slurped off the foam of their last cola. Joel handed the can to Pat who promptly tilted his head back and downed half the contents in one long swallow. The boy had learned too many of the wrong lessons in college.

Contrary to popular belief—or rather, Pat’s singular belief since Pat was the still the only one who knew the truth—remembering when exactly things happened wasn’t all that easy. The 80s, and especially the last few years of it, all kind of blurred together in Joel’s head. (He’d learned too many of the wrong lessons in college, too. The first time.) A lot of things he didn’t remember at all, and a lot more he didn’t remember until he was half way through re-experiencing them—such as nearly every John Hughes movie after Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. An involuntary shudder ran down the spine: Home Alone would soon be here. But he was pretty sure that grunge as a fashion trend didn’t get moving until the very end of the 80s, right around the time the Berlin Wall fell. Oh yeah, that was another bright spot. He couldn’t wait to tell Pat about the death of Communism. He grabbed the Coke away from Pat before the guy could finish mooching all of it and cradled it close so he wouldn’t lose possession of what remained: a few lousy sips based on how light the can had become.

“At least two years,” Joel replied. He tried to visualize the extensive CD collection he’d built up the first time, the one that had a whole wall of his apartment dedicated to housing it. He could see the Nevermind disc, could hear the tune for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but all he could think of were the words from Weird Al’s parody. He could remember buying the disc, but he couldn’t remember when. It was definitely after graduation. “Yeah.” He nodded, deciding to err on the side of being too confident. It’s not like Pat would know otherwise until it was too late, and then Joel could always plead the fact that most cultural events didn’t have a set start or end date. “We have to get through Hair Metal and umlaut abuse first.” Fortunately, he liked Hair Metal. Always had. Plus it meant a few more years and a couple more rock sub-genres for Pat to forget that Joel hadn’t written that Green Day song he’d taken credit for way back in high school.

Pat frowned, a stubborn, determined set to the expression. “Like I said: trend-setter. Two more years of … what did you say this was called, again?” He tugged at one of the sleeves of the flannel, paused, then grabbed the sleeve and yanked as hard as he could. It ripped open along the shoulder seams with a loud tear. “That’s better,” he commented, admiring the new hole in his clothing.

“Grunge,” Joel replied. He swallowed back the rest of the Coke just to have something to do that wasn’t sigh. Or cry. How could he have repressed the fact that the 80s lead to the 90s. Sure, the music arguably got better, but the fashions left a lot to be desired. And the attitudes. If Pat was going to pull off grunge, he was going to have to re-learn a level of cynicism he hadn’t had since he was fourteen, and a level of disaffection he’d never had. And, no, Joel decided vehemently and right then, he was not going to tell Pat about his own experiences with the trend, no matter how much Pat prodded at the topic.

“Grunge?” Pat nodded slowly, as if he were now testing the word out for the first time and finding it to his liking. He rubbed his chin, which was still baby-smooth even this late in the day. A planning gleam appeared in his eye.

Before Pat could open his mouth, Joel flicked him on the forehead. “Forget it,” he said. “Just forget it. Your face is all wrong for a goatee.”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of me,” Pat replied. He tilted his head and cast an appraising eye over Joel’s face. “You had a goatee, didn’t you?”

Joel set the can on the counter next to the sink, then picked it up and started to rinse it out. Slowly. Curbside recycling hadn’t been introduced yet, but grocery stores still did recycling buy-backs, and one of the two boys would have to run that errand eventually. He tried to focus on the menial task, to resist answering Pat’s question, knowing that the one would inevitably lead to others. Against his will, he felt his head drooping and shoulders slumping. “Yes,” he finally admitted. No matter what, the eyebrow piercings would stay his secret.

Pat crowed in triumph. “I knew it!”

But maybe this was the brightest spot of all. Joel Larson may have done his time in parachute pants, Hair Metal long hair, Air Jordan’s, goatees, and extraneous facial piercings—but there was no proof. He would never be surprised with a picture of himself from way back when. He would never cringe after the fact at what he had done to himself (feathered bangs, eye liner, bad dye jobs), the styles he’d mistakenly thought were cool (wide lapels, skinny ties, multi-colored sweaters). Not like Pat would, especially if he persisted in trying to set the trends. That just meant Pat had more time to look and sound ridiculous.

And every passing year brought society closer to the wonders of the digital camera. Joel was saving the money from all the recycled cans; he planned to be the first one at the store the day the consumer version went on sale. “I can’t hide anything from you,” he replied, clapping Pat on the shoulder. Pat threw his shoulders back and stood up straighter, grinned his unique Pat grin, basking in the apparent compliment. The posture couldn’t have been more incongruous with the outfit if he’d tried. Yeah, Pat was going to have a hard time pulling off grunge.

But watching him try (and seeing his reaction to the evidence even later) was the bright spot that made the whole reboot worth it.