OVER THE RAINBOW, (Tag: Birdie)

[STAN MAYHEW]

I FINALLY REALIZE WHO I AM

I'M THE BAD GUY

The past month had been a hectic one for Stan. He had discovered that Echo Galaeus of all people was his sister, made friends with more of the Mall Rats, saved some of the Mall Rats from crazed survivors, and he had begun to bond with and become attracted to a woman he knew -- Allison. His own life was filled with so much personal drama that he had been caught off guard when hordes of zombies launched their attack on the galleria, and his friends had paid the price for his mistakes. Stan blamed himself for the people that had gotten hurt during the Mall Rats battler with the legions of the undead. Moreover, Birdie had broken her arm, and he felt guilty. He had once told her that he would make sure nothing happened to her because she was his friend. He had failed both Birdie and himself, and it was weighing heavy on his heart. Stan knew he was better than the way he had been acting over the past month. His willpower was stronger than he had been letting on.

Baking brownies earlier in the day did not help his self-image either. He had become too domesticated, in his own mind, and he needed to toughen up. Stan decided to do this by fixing his friends and his life, starting with Birdie. The woman had a broken arm, and an injury of that nature might not have sounded bad to someone like Stan who got hurt a lot, but Birdie was a nice person. Her getting injured was like a toddler being shot in the face, and it irked Stan. She did not deserve to be in whatever pain she was in, and he had the perfect cure for her woes – drugs. Yes, his master plan was to get her high, but he knew that she would not go along with it willingly. She would have to be forced with a delivery system, and the perfect delivery device was the old brownie recipe that Stan had learned inside of prison.

Stan hated prison, but he had to admit that it had taught him a lot of things. It had been like college for him. He had learned how to cook by working in the kitchen, how to farm by tending land for ten cents an hour, and a multitude of other things outside of the knowledge that his mentor had given him. “Bye, bye, Birdie!” Stan sang loudly as he approached the Pillow Pets kiosk with his right forearm wrapped around a pan of brownies, “Get your lazy ass up, Birdie! Your friend, Stan, has a surprise for you. I made you something to help you feel better, and you should feel lucky because I hardly ever make anything for anybody!” It was true. It was not generally in Stan’s nature to make things or gifts for other people, but Birdie was a special exception. She treated him like a normal person, even when he shared details about himself that would cause most people to revile him as a monster, and he appreciated her for her friendship.

Stan poised himself in front of the kiosk entrances, and held the pan of brownies out like an offering with both of his hands. He speculated that Birdie would not be able to notice the drugs inside of the brownies, until the drugs began to take effect, and he looked forward to seeing how she reacted to being high. Furthermore, he planned to partake in the brownies as well, once Birdie had a healthy portion, and his mind was already trying to picture what kind of hijinks they would get themselves into. The pair were about to embark on a wild journey, and Stan looked forward to it because he needed to get high as well. He was stressed and moody without his medication, and usually the only thing that helped was a cold alcoholic beverage or some really potent weed and magic mushrooms. After everything he had been through in the past month, he felt that he at least deserved a fun time with one of his best friends.

TAG: BIRDIE <3 · WORDS: 694 · TEMPLATE BY 1UP

[Birdie Flynn]

Birdie wasn't really all that worried about anything or anyone just then… she was napping, sleeping the sleep of someone childlike, calm and relaxed, her body curled up with her hands under her head, her hair in a messy braid and sprawled over the pillows she'd set along the floor. Of course, she'd covered those animal-shaped pillows in one of the pretty pink comforters she'd found in one of the department stores just further down the mall. Funny that the most girly of bedding wasn't snapped up, she'd thought THEN… but she was pleased. And it made her little home more hers. It was perfect.

But no matter how deeply she was sleeping, there was no way that she could doze through the sound of someone yelling, and whimpering a little as she stretched out along the pillows, she took a second to try to place whose voice that was before cracking one eye open. "Stan?" she called out in her somewhat sleep-gruff voice and then sat up slowly, rubbing at her eyes. She didn't think that this was normal, because he'd never really really come to visit her kiosk. That, and did… did he just sing 'bye bye birdie' she asked herself?

She glanced down at herself, making a little face at the pyjamas she was wearing that were covered in little pictures of parrots… and then got to her feet, slowly poking her head over the counter at her friend. She didn't understand what he was talking about until she'd spotted the brownies and then blinked. "Is that chocolate?" she asked even as she tried to settle her hair down, her eyes huge in her face, her cast-covered arm against her chest. "That's my surprise? It's for me?" she said and then slowly grinned. "I can't eat all that by myself. I'd get sick. You want to help?" she asked him and turned to duck around the little door to the inside of the kiosk. She had no reason NOT to trust him… he did save her life once.

"Why is that for me? It's not my birthday for another month," she told him with a coy little tilt of the head but it wasn't that she was flirting, she was trying to figure him out. "It's nice and all, but I'm okay, really. I feel okay," she said and then remembered her arm. "All except for this but in four to six weeks, this'll be off… and I'll be good as new… but enough about me. How're you?" she asked him, all the while leaning against the outside of the kiosk. "You wanna come in? It's pretty comfy."

[STAN MAYHEW]

I FINALLY REALIZE WHO I AM

I'M THE BAD GUY

Stan smiled at his friend as the confusion set in on her face. He imagined that it must have been extremely odd to see him of all people standing there for her with a pan of brownies, while singing the song ‘Bye, Bye, Birdie.’ Part of him had to admit that even he had not expected himself to do what he was currently doing when he had woken up that morning, but he felt bad for his friend. She was injured from the zombie attacks, and he knew that being winged and having to wear a cast on her arm must have been difficult. “I’ll help you eat it, but it is for you. I baked them earlier for you. I figured some chocolate would make you feel better, especially with your hurt arm.” Stan replied, while conveniently forgetting to mention that he had drugged the brownies with marijuana and magic mushrooms, “Besides, can’t I do something nice for my hurt friend. Am I really such a bad guy that people can’t imagine me doing something out of the goodness of my own heart?”

He was playing into the woman by attempting to make her feel guilty for questioning his offering of food. Stan knew that he could convince the woman to eat the brownies with him easily, especially now that he had begun to try to manipulate her. Part of him felt guilty about deceiving one of the few friends that he had, but he reasoned that it was for a greater good. In Stan’s mind, Birdie needed to get high so she could forget about her troubles, and he wanted to join her in the adventure. He had demons of his own that he wanted to forget about for a little while, and drugs were the best answer he could think of that day. “This place looks like a plush toy’s wet dream.” Stan commented as he toted the pan of brownies into the kiosk where Birdie was living, “I am sure it is very comfy. Perfect for a two person brownie party, which I assure you doesn’t mean the same thing in prison as it does here.”

His jokes were rife with crudeness, but the humor he was spouting was the cleanest he had discharged in a long time. Stan took a seat on a blanket close by and set the pan of brownies down on his lap. He pulled out a plastic knife from his pants pocket, which he had stolen from the food gallery earlier, and he commenced cutting the pan of brownies into individual squares. “Here you go, eat up Disney lady.” Stan muttered cheekily as he handed a rather large brownie to Birdie before claiming one as his own, “I hope you like the brownies. I put a special ingredient in them for you…they were made with love for my hurt friend.” He grinned from ear to ear, like a child who was up to no good, and took a large bite out his brownie as he set the plastic knife down on the pan of remaining baked goods. Stan devoured his brownie without hesitation to put to ease any potential suspicions that Birdie may have had about the foodstuffs, and he could feel the drugs start to work their magic moments later.

His pupils became dilated and his mind started to wander as the room around him initiated a spinning motion. The drugs were definitely working already, but Stan knew he needed a heavier dose to coax his immunities into giving into his wishes. His hues watched Birdie carefully and he stifled a laugh that was trying to fight its way out. Stan could tell already that he and Birdie were going to have an odd couple of days together, while high out of their minds, and he wondered if his friend would be mad at him for playing such a terrible prank on her with the goal to make her feel better. Either way, he was beginning to become amused by the walls of the kiosk, which caught his attention as the structure seemingly started to melt around him and Birdie. “It has begun. The brain aliens are among us!” Stan declared loudly in a serious tone as he practically inhaled a second brownie, “Math doesn’t make sense because numbers equal letters. How can a number be a letter, Birdie? It doesn’t make sense.”

TAG: BIRDIE <3 · WORDS: 733 · TEMPLATE BY 1UP