Summer of '11

by moviemaster8510

Chapter III: Day N' Nite - Kid Cudi, February 2008

Oli opened the door for Jessie, who stood and waited while he placed the spare house key back under the mat.

“And then she said, ‘Meet us in 24 hours,’ I read the spell, and I came back here.”

Jessie was let into her house with a motion of Oli’s arm, still in awe over everything he told her. “Wow. That actually happened?”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t go through telling you all that if it weren’t, especially since you’re probably going to–”

“You have to take me with you!”

“…Yeah, that.”

“Come on!” Jessie ran to the kitchen toward a sliding glass back door.

Oli followed in a walk. “What are we doing?”

“Come on, come on! Let’s call Princess Celestia and tell her to bring us up here!”

“That’s not how that works, Jessie.”

Jessie was beyond reason, throwing the door open where it hit the jamb with a loud clatter and bang. Oli just kept his eyes on the floor near the doorway, keeping an eye on–

“MRAH?” the squeak of a young Scottish fold sounded to Oli’s left as it curiously made its way toward the outside.

“Ah!” Oli snapped and pointed, the cat freezing still in its tracks long enough for him to step out and close it behind him.

“We’re right here!” Oli looked back at the sizable backyard as Jessie hopped as high as she could, flailing her arms out to get the attention of whatever was up there. “Come on, we’re–” She heard Oli’s footsteps on the grass, somehow making her even more excited than she already was. “Look, it’s Oli! You know him! Let us up!”

“Jessie, please.” Oli was firm, but compassionate. “I told you that’s not how that works.”

“Then how does it work?” She was getting very frustrated now.

“I would need to use that book to transport us, but–”

“Then get the book already and let’s GO!”

“Please, let me finish.” Oli held his hand out in a “stop” gesture, and refused to continue until he was certain she would let him. “I don’t even know if I can bring other people with me. I’d hate for you to be ready and then I leave you here in your boring little house.”

“Hey, my house isn’t boring, YOUR house is boring!”

“I agree, but until I can figure out a way to take you with me, I can’t do much of anything.”

Disappointed, Jessie stood still and crossed her arms with pouted lips. Oli sighed; he knew this wouldn’t be easy, but it was at least nice to be able to tell someone.

He walked up to her and knelt down, struggling to get her to look into his eyes. “Jessie, you’re the one who got me into this show in the first place; you know I wouldn’t pass up on an opportunity to take you to Equestria if I had the chance, but… that chance just doesn’t exist at this moment.”

“Then MAKE it exist!” She stamped her foot on “make.”

“I’m trying. I pretty much spent my the rest of my day reading through the book looking for someway to bring other people with me. He­– Heck! If I could bring Twilight and her friends here, I bet you’d like that too!”

“Then why aren’t you making it happen?”

“The simple answer is, because I don’t know.”

“Then you’re the worst babysitter ever!”

With her arms still crossed, Jessie marched her way back inside the house, Oli staying behind her each step of the way. Throwing the door back open and stepping in, she waited for Oli to come up. As he lifted his foot to step inside, Jessie grabbed her cat and pushed him out of the door, who let out a rattly moan as it worked to acclimate to the suddenly new surroundings.

“Jessie, that wasn’t nice.” Picking the cat up, he suddenly heard the door close.

Tilting his head up, he watched as Jessie gave him an absolutely evil smile before the pushed down on the door’s latch, locking both him and the cat outside.

“Jessie!” Oli didn’t raise his voice too loud, but Jessie still opeted to sprint to the front door away from him. “Jessie come–”

He watched through the window as Jessie opened the front door and picked up the spare key under the mat. Oli’s eyes went wide with fear as she closed the door back up, locked both the knob and the deadbolt, and then went upstairs. He couldn’t hear, but he could see she was laughing.

“Hey– HEY! JESSIE!”

Oli began to breathe heavier, unsure what to do now. By now, the cat in Oli’s arms was squirming wildly, discomfited by his yelling. With its claws beginning to grab his skin, Oli was forced to let it go. To his immediate surprise and relief, the cat stayed still before sitting down and looking up at him. The two engaged in a period staring, neither sure what to do from here.

Oli sat cross legged on the patio as he held a maple leaf above Jessie’s cat, who was writhing around from curling to stretching as it tried batting and swatting at the piece of plant he teased it with.

“At least you’re easy to entertain,” he reasoned.

He was alerted by the sound of a knock on the glass of the back door. Turning around, Jessie stared at him, almost angry in her expression. Raising the leaf up, he goaded the cat into standing up so he could scoop it up with his free arm. As he approached the back door, she held her hand out at him to stop, and he did so, the tired cat now content to rest in his arm.

Jessie slid the door open a crack. “You better not be lying to me about being able to go to Equestria.”

Oli relaxed, knowing progress was already made. “I was trying to tell you, I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that. I know the first thing you’d want to do was either go there or meet Twilight and her friends, and I obviously couldn’t do that if neither were real.”

Jessie maintained her doubtful pout. “And you promise you’ll let me meet them?”

At this moment, the fact that he could very well never be able to take her to Equestria or bring Twilight and her friends to their world dawned heavily on him. However, with her keeping guard of her house and his lack of desire to tell on her to either to her parents, he knew what answer he ultimately had to provide.

“Yes, I promise.”

“You Pinkie promise?”

The moment of truth; and he was already in too deep to back out now. For what it was worth however, if it weren’t for her, he’d probably never give the show they ultimately bonded over a chance at all. He owed it to her. Staring her in the eyes, he took his cat-less hand and marked an X with his fingers. Next, he dip his hand down before shooting it forward, and then concluded with balling his hand into a fist and pushing it onto his eye.

In that instant, Jessie’s defenses melted, and she relaxed both her body and face over the binding agreement he gave her. With a flick up of the latch, she pulled he door open wide for him and her cat to walk back into.

Oli broke his phone out, browsing through the online menu for Domino’s. “What would you like on your pizza?”

“We already had pizza today!” Jessie’s loud voice was a perfect mixture of both amusement and disappointment over his forgetting.

“What, you’ve never had the same food twice in one day?”

Jessie began to contemplate. “I guess not. But daddy might get angry if he knows I ate that much pizza.”

Oli bobbed his head. Fair enough. “So, you in the mood for something else then?”

“I don’t know, what else is there?”

“I mean, if you’d like, we could run to the store and get some stuff to make something here?”

“Ooh, like cupcakes?”

“…Not exactly what I had in mind for a meal, but we can pick up some stuff to make cupcakes.”

Jessie gasped. “I had a great idea! What do you think Pinkie Pie’s cupcakes are going to taste like?”

Oli chuckled, the anticipation getting to him too. “I don’t know, probably happiness that you can eat.”

“Oh my gosh, why can’t we go to Equestria sooner?!”

“Yo, I’m workin’ on it!” Oli’s light New Yorker accent put Jessie into a giggling fit.

Oli checked his watch; it was already well past five o’clock. “Say, why don’t you get your shoes on so we can get to the store before it gets any later?”

“Okay!” Jessie ran up the stairs, going so wildly fast that she tripped and fell onto the carpeted corners.

Oli reached out to help, worried that he hurt herself, but she quickly got back up and ran equally as fast to her bedroom. Patting his car keys in his pocket, he went to the front door to put his own shoes on.

Oli leaned against the jamb of Jessie’s bedroom doorway as he watched her gently stir in her bed underneath her Twilight Sparkle-adorned covers, partially illuminated by the Princess Celestia nightlight plugged into the opposite wall. The plethora of other My Little Pony merchandise and toys adorning the walls and floor only served to strengthen his resolve to fulfil his promise to her. Leaving her to sleep, he turned out the hallway light and went downstairs to await either of her parents’ return home.

Sam quietly turned the knob to his own front door, quickly pushing it open to eliminate the awful creaking sound that would usually erupt should he had closed it any slower. All the lights were off, and he was certain his dad was sound asleep by this point. Though physically and mentally wiped by the day’s events, there was still so much that he felt needed to be done, especially with his pact with Jessie now looming over him.

Nimbly bounding up the steps two at a time, he walked with rapid tiptoe back towards his room, finding his door slightly ajar. A pang of intense fear sprung up in him, and without breaking his stride, he threw his door open, his eyes trained directly on where he knew he left the book. If it wasn’t for the burst of adrenaline running through him, the relief would have left him collapsing on the bed and falling asleep on the spot. The book was indeed where he left it, half buried under the covers of his unmade bed.

Looking at his watch, finding that it was just before 11, he looked back to the book and contemplated the decision he was going to make next. Turning back and peering at his dad’s slightly-open bedroom door, he kept his eyes on it as he turned around and head back to the stairs. Walking to the kitchen, he grabbed two Pepsis from the fridge and returned upstairs to his room with them.

Setting them down on his desk, he removed the day’s clothes and put on a new shirt and gym shorts. He then took the book from his bed, closed his computer lid, and opened the book down onto it. Grabbing a pen from the cup to his computer’s right, he opened the book about a quarter of the way in where a half-folded sheet of paper marked his place. Unfolding it and setting it to his left, he took a look through the notes he already made, nodding in reluctant acceptance of the uselessness of them.

Finally, he cracked open the lid of his first Pepsi can, marking the start of his long cram session.

One hour in, and he was now about a third of the way through the book. Only two new notes were added to his sheet, both as currently useless as the ones preceding it. Lifting his can up, he groaned at the realization that he was at most one big gulp of his first soda away from finishing it, and hardly any progress had been made. With his eyelids feeling heavier and heavier by the minute, seemingly unaffected by the sugar their owner was feeding to it, Oli stared at his current spot in the book, wondering if he should hurry up back to bed before he could fall asleep at his desk, a scenario that was quickly becoming a certainty.

Shooting himself up and shaking his head, Oli opened his second Pepsi before guzzling down the remains of the first. Placing it on the top of the trash in his garbage bin, he focused back on the text of the book, hoping to find something inside that would permit him to keep his promise to Jessie.

More minutes passed, the time between now and daylight continued to close, and Oli’s last Pepsi was getting emptier and emptier. Worst yet, the exhaustion creeped back in as insidiously and unnoticeably as before. He was about ten pages from the traveling enchantment in the very middle, and he was already fairly confident that he would not stay up to even reach that point.

Sam stretched and yawned for what he knew would be the final time, finishing his can of soda in three determined, almost painful gulps. Placing it beside the first can, he began to scan skim through the words of the following pages, just wanting to find something, anything, that would be useful to him and Jessie.

Within twenty minutes, Oli reached the halfway point, the passage that would take him to Equestria now back in front of his eyes. Between his self-deprived sleep and the determination he felt to continue going, he simply stared at the familiar text now in front of him.

Friends to inspire… learn from… and laugh with… Oli could hardly even register having read any words at all. Whether separated by inches… I shall cross… for nothing is more valu…

Oli was barely even conscious as his eyes closed, his body hunched over his desk. Though the words were no longer there, he still continued to think about them even as sleep took–

*CHTCK*

The snap in Oli’s head jolted him awake, and as he looked back down at the book to continue reading, he realized then and there where in the book he was and what he must have done to make the center sink in the way it was.

Oli could only look up at his wall and mutter the only thing he could think of.

“Shit.”

From both his bitter acceptance and the spell’s activation, Oli fell forward into the book as it dragged him. With the sudden rush of freefall waking him up, he forced his body to prepare himself for his imminent “landing.” Flipping over and thrusting through the threshold in Equestria’s book, he landed more firmly on his feet than he had at any point so far. As the rest of himself was ejected from the book, he kept his stance on the floor until he was entirely spat out. Even in his half-tired state, he could tell from the books that surrounded him inside the dug-in shelves within the walls where exactly Twilight had placed the book and where he had ultimately ended up.

“Oh boy…”

Every candle on each sconce throughout the room went alight with a white flame, producing the same effect as lightbulbs in any house on his own world.

“Oli?!” Twilight’s irritated hiss seemingly twisted Oli’s neck around for him to look at her, her mane and tail disheveled with bedhead. “Oli, what are you doing here? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

The shame he felt in his mistake quieted him temporarily. “…Yes, I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

“How do you come here by accident?!”

“Twilight?” The boyish, drowsy voice of Spike sounded up on Twilight’s level. “Who are you talking to?”

The purple-and-green dragon and Twilight’s almost-lifelong companion made himself visible as he peered over the edge of the third floor bedchamber to spot Oli standing stiffly where he had been the moment Twilight made her presence known to him.

“Whaah!” Spike ran behind Twilight and hid behind her flanks. “Twilight, what is…” Fear and anxiousness soon gave way to a growing sense of realization. “Wait, is that…?”

Twilight audibly groaned over what she’d now have to deal with this early in the morning. “Spike, please follow me.”

His eyes traced both Twilight and Spike as they went down the stairs to Oli’s level, Spike staying close behind each step of the way. Finally, both pony and dragon were within feet from each other, Spike still somewhat uncertain.

“Spike, this Oli. You were supposed to meet him tom– earlier this morning, but I suppose someone just couldn’t wait to come back here.”

“Please,” Oli mumbled, “it’s not like that. I was up late reading through the book looking to see what I can find on there.”

“Like what?”

Oli sighed, unsure if his next choice of words were going to come off offensive. “Look, the point is I reached the passage that sends me here, I was too tired to forget to not read it, and it sent me here.”

Twilight let out a long sigh. “Okay, I understand, but you really need to be careful about what you read in that book from now on.”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry.”

“What exactly were you trying to look for?”

Oli could only help this would sound less awkward than his question yesterday. “You wouldn’t by chance know if it’s possible for any of you to come to my world… do you?”

Twilight cocked her head. “Why do you want to know?”

“It’s just… I’d like to maybe like to have you and your friends over at my place sometime. Was just curious if it was even possible.”

Twilight seemed only slightly confused. “I mean, this could have waited until later, but if you must know, yes, Lauren and I did spend time in your world, but I never left her house, and she was always careful to hide me from her friends and parents. She had no idea how they would react, and she didn’t want the worst to come to pass.”

Spike stepped forward to make himself seen. “You aren’t suggesting that you want us to meet your friends and family, do you?”

Twilight and Spike awaited Oli’s answer, but his inability to do so, seemed to be all the confirmation Twilight needed. “Oli? You… haven’t told anyone about us, have you?”

There was no getting around it… again. “She’s a six-year old girl that I babysit. Not to keep driving the story thing into the ground, but she’s actually the entire reason I know of your story in the first place. I told her about what happened yesterday morning and I promised her that I could let her meet you. Whether I bring you to my world to meet her or have her accompany me to Equestria doesn’t really matter, it would really mean the world to her.”

Twilight frowned at Oli, her tired bloodshot eyes making her look far more annoyed than she actually was. “And you haven’t told anyone else?”

Oli shook his head. “I felt like I needed to tell someone, and she just seemed to be the safest one to confide in.”

Twilight closed her eyes and blew out a sigh, appearing much more relaxed and at peace with the situation. “If it’s just a child you told, I don’t think that should be too much of an issue, but the next time you choose to tell someone about us, please make sure all of us are aware of it. I don’t know how much your world has changed since I last saw Lauren, but I don’t want you or any of us getting in trouble because you decided to tell the wrong people.”

Oli relaxed himself too, a weight lifted from his shoulders. “Thank you. I’ll be much more diligent next time.”

“Alright. Now, let’s both get back to bed. My friends and I actually have to take a train to Canterlot and I have to be up in only a couple of hours to get ready and meet them at the station.”

Oli decompressed again, feeling even more shameful for his intrusion. “Right. Like I said, I’m sorry for bothering you so late. For what it’s worth, I do look forward to tomorrow.”

Twilight blinked hard before opening her eyes in a softened expression, managing to pull off a genuinely happy smile. “I do too, Oli. I’ll see you in just a little bit.”

“Have a good rest of the night, Oli!” Spike called with a wave of his hand.

“Thanks a lot, little dude.” Oli got to one knee and reached his hand out to shake, Spike not hesitating to approach. “I don’t think we got a proper introduction. Name’s Oli.”

Spike could only get his claws around three of Oli’s fingers, and Oli closed them around his hand accordingly. “And I’m Spike. You… probably already knew, but I’m Twillight’s #1 assistant!”

“Cool.” Oli nodded as he stood up, slowly backing toward the book on the stand. “Thank you two again for bearing with me. I hope you can get some more sleep.”

Twilight yawned, feeling confident that she would soon get to. “Yep. See you around, Oli!”

Not wanting to waste any more of their time, Oli went back to the book and quickly read through the passage left there when he had arrived. Feeling his head snap, he let the book take him in and drop him back down into the portal back to his world. With as deliberate of flexes and stretches as his feet could allow, he landed back on the floor of his room on the tips of his toes before lowering his feet to just above the floor, his return to his world silent save for the blast of rattling paper that came from the book.

Oli stayed in his position as he awaited the sounds of his own dad’s footsteps, unsure if he had still managed to wake him. After a minute of soundless waiting, Oli stood up, took one step towards his bed, and fell on top of it, losing consciousness the moment his head hit the pillow.

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[Justwantad]

100% garbage step away from the keyboard asshat