Fan Fiction ❯ Joseph, Agent of Love ❯ Joseph, Agent of Love ( One-Shot )

Unit2

There are many stories that I could and would want to write. Quite a few, really. Ones I've had my eye on for some time, in fact. Yet I can't do a one of them. The assignment is such that no violence should be present (mom or moo will proof it) and no pop-fiction either (it may seem copied that way). Therefore, I am left with what? A story on life

 

Yeah, I'll do one on life, subtly putting my views on paper for the world to see and be contaminated by.

 

Awesome

 

 

Joseph, Agent of Love

Yoha, eaveryone. Origionally created to be submitted as an English assignment, I finally managed to get myself talked into submiting this little thingy. Er, the characters in this story are... fictional... yeah, fictional... well not realy... but the situations are fictional enough.

“Hey Jamaisian-Jo, what do you know?” a voice shouts out to me in greeting. I groan, internally of course because I mustn't show my annoyance. They feed off of annoyance. “Why, funny you should ask that, Kats” I reply, “But I'll have you know us Jamaisians are quite well versed in pretty much everything of importance”. God, I'm going to have to find some way to stop them from greeting me like that, I'm running out of witty responses. Come to think of it, I get along with the guys walking past me pretty well, I'm solid friends with a few, have the envy of one of them, and the respect of the rest. However, I'll always turn down the fairly popular crowd to head towards the `loser's corner' and hang out with weirdos that somehow turned out to be the most fun and sensible group of people I've ever met. Odd thought, that. But then again, I'm a certified member of afore mentioned loser corner anyway. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist? Bah, I'd never listen to someone being paid to talk to me, anyway. I turn the corner and sit down in my accustomed spot on the ground by that wall beside a pleasant girl I enjoy talking to named Amy and my good friend Andrew. He's seldom earlier than me, but today he seems to already have finished his sandwich for some reason and has moved on to his geeky remote-control mini-car. He claims it's so geeky that it's cool, which it is, and is especially cool in the loser's corner where no-one can seriously attack him over it. Unfortunately for Andrew, that only leaves non-serious, joking attacks and we're all very good at that. “Hey, don't knock it till you try it! It's really awesome!” Oh, Andrew's pre-empted my attack. Nuts, he's getting better. Oh well, he'll never be good enough to stop me. “What are you talking about?” I shout in feigned indignation, I'm good at that, by the way. “I already tried it and it was awesome, and then I told you that, and then you took it back, you jerk!” Ah, yes. It feels good to ridiculously over-react. It's quite refreshing. Andrew backs down, not out of fear, but out of the common fact that I own all when it comes to mock verbal arguments of both the serious and fun nature. Only the mightily cool sarcasm of Dayle, goddess-amongst-pitiful-mortal-english-students can disarm me at the loser's corner.

We occupants of the loser's corner continue to joke about random nothingness; how we should build a dinghy and sail around the world, my `fated romance and attraction to the fat lady'. Andrew continues to play with his mini-car and his sparse few jokes are mostly centred around that, it's `uber-coolness' and innate ability to drive people away with it's loser-ness. I was more than a little shocked then, when I found that Marie, a friend of mine from Gym class was walking up to our lowly corner. I take a while to get used to the strangeness of it all. It's almost like living in a dream. Marie? Here? How is this even possible? Isn't she supposed to be in a stairwell somewhere, sucking her boyfriend's mouth off his face? Ah, he must be sick today. Suddenly the world makes sense again and I decide to greet her and invite her to come sit down. “Joseph, I need to talk to you…” she says, and she seems hesitant. Wow, now this is interesting, she seems to want a private conversation. Well, let's see what's up, then. “Okay, I'll see you guys later” and with that farewell, I lead her outside the nearest exit. We're not alone out here. It is lunch time, after all, but with any luck there simply won't be anyone out here that cares. “Well…” she starts, and I await whatever news she has for me with an interest born from the unusualness of talking to her at lunch. Now, it may not seem all that unusual, but one must understand that I've been sitting in that corner every school day at lunch without fail for the past year now, and I've never, ever seen her there. I've honestly lost track of the number of times I've passed her french-ing her boyfriend in the stairwell. I'd assumed they were doing it simply to freak me out, or it was, like, some sort of ritual in their relationship or something. But all of that is off topic, Marie has something to say, and it's going to be really interesting even if it turns out small and useless because this is all new for me. “Joseph, you're close to Sam, right?” Marie asks, she doesn't seem that troubled now that we're outside, was she worried about my friends? And of course I'm close to Sam… we're awesome friends from gym class, but Marie is somewhat his friend, too. My “Yeah, sure” is accompanied by an odd look. What is she getting at? Is Sam's birthday coming or something? “What about Sam?” I seriously want to ask whether his birthday is coming or not. I'm so poor; I'll never afford a present. Fortunately for me, Marie's next words had nothing to do with birthdays, also fortunately for me was that my heart managed to keep ticking through the shock of words like “Well, I love him” coming from Marie.

I just stand there; the shock of seeing her away from the stairwell during lunch seemed like such a pittance, then. I look to the right, my face blank. I look back, the whole thing seems somehow surreal now. Have to sit down… Marie keeps standing. After a while of sitting there, facing the ground but not looking, I've accepted the truth. No, I didn't mishear her. No, it's not a dream. She said she loves Sam, not like. I saw no signs whatsoever of this happening. Two of my closest friends could potentially become a couple, I should be happy, I should be supportive. Marie has a boyfriend that she frenches in the stairwell. Right, that's a problem. I take a second to make sure when I talk it doesn't sound strained and take a deep breath. I look up and see her just standing there, she doesn't even seem anxious or anything… “So you broke up with your boyfriend? When did that happen?” Please have broken up with your boyfriend, please, please, please, please. I've been a good friend Marie, right? I swear I'll never ask anything else from you in your whole life jus- “Well, no we haven't broken up”. Crap, I knew it and I don't know if I should laugh or cry. “Well, does Sam know?” I need to clarify that, so I add “That you like him, I mean”. I used the word “like”, and it seems Marie understands why. I do not want to hear about “love” when you've still got a boyfriend and you “like” someone you barely talk to. I don't know much about love, but I don't trust the love at first sight bit. You can like at first sight, that's easy enough. But if you love at first sight there needs to be a reason, you need to love what you see. Marie answers with “Well, no I haven't told him yet”. She continues before I finish processing the information “Do you think he likes me?” My immediate response was “huh?” Marie figured I hadn't heard, or something and asked again, “Do you think he likes me? You're his friend, right?” So that's what this is all about. I'm fairly sure that I'm his second best friend at school. Me, Sam and his best friend talk a lot during the laps around the school, or during the one and a half hour runs we get sent on every other week. “I'm sorry Marie, but I have no idea”. I feel a little bad about not knowing, because it really seems important to her. I should feel worse though, why don't I? Oh yeah… “Marie, are you sure… I mean, Sam! Since when?” I need to know how serious this is. Marie replies “For a while now, and yeah, I'm sure. We can really understand each other, and he always knows what to say to make me feel better. I like him a lot”. Well, she seems very passionate about this. That's good Marie, but you sound too naive. I turn to the field again; I have this sick feeling in my stomach, sick and painful. “Marie… Sam… he's going to Australia” she can dump her boyfriend, she can tell Sam her feelings, but she can't stay with him. And I don't know how to help her with that. “I know, I'll wait” and I believe her because when she says that, she says it simply, simply and sadly. That's not so easy though, Marie. Can you expect him to wait for you when he'll meet so many new people in Australia? Can you really wait, knowing that other couples would have advanced their relationship by now? You can only do so much on a telephone, and Australia's a long distance call, isn't it? And he may be Canadian now, no different from all other Canadians, but he was Australian first. Well, here goes “He doesn't know if he's coming back to live here, you could be waiting here forever at that rate.” The response is fast “He's coming back to visit the summer after next. And he'll still be here for a while…” I have to wonder about this, is she proposing a long distance relationship? Those aren't famous for working. I suddenly shake my head violently, what am I doing? Just because it's not likely, does that mean I should stop her? I'm not going to ground Marie's happiness on an average. She likes Sam, and apparently things aren't so great with her boyfriend. That's right, I'm too busy looking at the problem, and the solution is segmented in two parts as I see it. We'll simply take it one part at a time. I'll tell Marie the plan…“Okay, you have to break up with your boyfriend first”. She nods her head, as if that were a given. Seeing her consent so far, I continue “I'll go see if I can find Sam and interrogate him”. A grin makes its way on to my face. Interrogate, huh? So now I'm an agent of love? Not bad. “Meet back here before lunch is finished” I tell her. She goes one way, and I turn to go inside. “So I have to break up with him now?” Marie asks. Her back is still to mine. I'll answer her question with one of much more importance “Do you mind?” “No… Joseph, what do you think I should say?” She wants to know what to say? Yeah, I guess I have a reputation as a `great talker'. Marie, the only answer I can give you right now is the one you already know, and it should be enough for you, for anyone. “Tell your boyfriend the truth” I say matter-of-factly. “And Sam?” she asks. “The whole truth” I reply, and I know I'm going to have to expand on that “Tell him the whole situation, or you may sound different from what you intended. It's very easy to assume things about this kind of situation. But… It may not even come to that, Marie”. She straightens her back a little, responds with a resigned “I know”, and walks off. If I find out Sam doesn't like her, she won't have to worry about what to say to Sam at all.

As soon as I step inside the building, two thoughts enter my mind. The first is “Oh look, Sam was sitting behind the door all this time”. The second one was “I wonder if I'll have time to finish that sandwich now?” This goes to say just how unsurprised I was. Actually, I seem somewhat desensitized to conventional coincidences like this after all the stuff I've gone through. Since we were talking right outside the door, and judging by his posture, I'd say he's heard enough to know Marie's feelings for him, at the very least. Well, I may as well get the questioning over with, then. “Hey Sam?” I ask conversationally, a grin working its way onto my face again “I'm sort of here to interrogate you”. And we break out laughing, the words aren't particularly funny, but life in general seems quite amusing today. Well, now that we've both relaxed somewhat, I have my duties as an agent of love to fulfill “Marie… she really-” “I like her, too”. Sam's voice is steady and sure when as he interrupts me and he wears the most serious look I've ever seen on him when he looks up from his spot on the floor and finishes, “A lot”. What the heck? What's with these two, and how in the world did I miss it? I laugh both in relief and happiness for Sam and Marie. Sam doesn't laugh with me, but he's smiling. He's probably been thinking in a lot of depth, which is a first for Sam as far as I can tell. When I'm done laughing, I check my watch. “Sam, I can go back out there and wait for her, or I can go back to the loser corner and finish my lunch. But someone has to be there when Marie comes back.” Actually, I'm a fast eater and my lunch was quickly consumed long before Marie showed up earlier, but Sam probably knows that too. I look him in the eye and say, “I'm really hungry, Sam”. Sam stands up and says, “I'll go wait for her Joseph, you finish your lunch”. The grin on his face tells me that he's thankful that I'm letting him go meet with Marie. I feel like I should say something before I leave the two lovebirds at it. “Good luck, Sam… although I guess there's no place in this where luck can do anything, huh?” Sam laughs because he appreciates the encouragement and because I've said something stupid… that makes sense.

After lunch I head towards the gym with a hash brown that Andrew blackmailed me into eating after my stomach started growling. I stopped as I passed by the doors that led to where Marie should have met Sam by now. And as I stand there, staring at the doors and causing noticeable traffic congestion, the doors open. Marie and Sam walk in, they're not holding hands or anything but they're smiling with an air of content and calm about them. That'll do. I want to leave them alone for as long as possible but they make their way over to me and I'm forced to ask them if they've `got room for a third wheel'. We just stand there causing an increased level of traffic congestion and grinning madly enough that our stampeding peers keep a fair distance away from us. Marie and Sam stand on one side, and I'm on the other. I honestly do look like the third wheel this way. And I'll fight until there is no breath left in my body to keep it that way.

Unlike my other fanfiction(s), I honestly couldn't care less weather anyone reviews this or not.