Paper Heart

"What the hell was that!?" Flynn hissed, rounding on Clara as she closed the door behind them.

That was my wake-up call, Clara thought bitterly, her tainted triumph at trumping Flynn's date out of a date now beginning to leave her. Flynn wasn't hers, not anymore, now or then. But to think of anyone else with Flynn was enough to send her spiralling into insanity again. In response to his question, she shrugged her shoulders, making Flynn childishly kick the wall.

"You are completely cuckoo, you know that!?" Flynn snapped, rumpling up his hair afresh with agitated fingers. "Doollally!"

Clara just shook her head before going over to Flynn's bed and throwing herself down on it, curling up into a ball.

"Hey," Flynn protested, "you can't sleep in my bed!"

Clara just rolled onto her other side, turning her back on him, completely ignoring his admonishments. Flynn stared at her, the heat creeping up the back of his neck. This was breaking new ground, ground he wasn't sure he wanted to break. A girl in his bed in his room? Sweating now, he snatched up some paper and his favourite packet of felt pens, before sitting down in the shadows cast by his bookcases, retreating back into his boyhood habit of scribbling down his imaginary adventures with his father, childishly illustrating his words with stick figures and sword fights, losing himself in a lost world.

Pictures I'm living through for now
Trying to remember all the good times
Our life was cutting through so loud
Memories are playing in my dull mind...

~*~

Dawn soon came and went, Flynn getting up now and again to go to the bathroom or to stuff himself with stuffed mushrooms, before breaking into his banana stash just as the sun began to rise. At some point he'd covered up Clara with the duvet, studying her face for a long moment, trying to understand only to find he couldn't. So he started drawing again, not wanting to face his future, finding peace in a paper past instead.

"What are you doing?" Clara asked over his shoulder, startling him.

"Nothing," Flynn said hastily, trying to cover up his latest creation, his hands shaking from lack of sleep.

"It's not nothing," Clara said, sitting down beside him, "it's obviously something."

Flynn stared at her, taking in her pale face and lank hair, noticing how she was still wearing his increasingly crumpled clothes. For a moment he saw himself in her, both trying to bear a burden they couldn't carry, and almost against his will, he removed his hands from the pile of paper, his shoulders hunching slightly.

"Oh," Clara said quietly, recognizing the littlest stick figure by his messy dark hair. "It's you," she said, smiling slightly, pointing to it.

Seeing she wasn't mocking him, Flynn pulled out one of the pages from the bottom, starting to lose his self-consciousness. "This is me in the Caves of Complete Doom," he said pompously, showing her his stick self brandishing a bow, "just before I defeat the Darkness, piercing its heinous heart with a poisoned arrow."

"Who's that?" Clara said, pointing to a taller stick figure standing in the cave entrance, perusing what appeared to be a scroll.

"My – my dad," Flynn said, suddenly snatching up his drawings, "and he's none of your beeswax."

"Flynn" - Clara said brokenly, but Flynn just stumbled to his feet, shoving his pens and paper in a drawer before throwing himself down on the ground again, his back hitting bookcase, only to set off an avalanche of books, their spines striking him like spears.

"What the hell!?" Flynn yelled, throwing his arms over his head.

"Oh my God!" Clara exclaimed, catching sight of a familiar white envelope amongst the deluge.

"What is it?" Flynn asked, startled.

Clara frantically pointed at the envelope, dark eyes suddenly demented, completely confirming Flynn's theory she was as bats as a teatray in the sky.

"Okay, okay," Flynn muttered, lowering his arms and reaching for the envelope. As he opened it, becoming increasingly baffled, he pulled out a blank sheet of crisp white parchment, only for it to suddenly glow gold, slanting script appearing on it as though written by an invisible hand. Flynn dropped the letter like it was a hot coal, eyes widening in shock, Clara snatching up the letter she should have received at seventeen, holding her own future in her hands.

"You have been selected to interview for a prestigious position with the Metropolitan Public Library," Clara read aloud, making Flynn's eyebrows climb up his forehead. "You have to attend this interview," she said firmly, turning to him, "it's imperative."

"Hold your horses," Flynn flared up, "I am done with the academic domain."

"Well, it's not done with you" -

- "Yeah, it is," Flynn snapped, staggering to his feet, "so stick that in your pipe and smoke it."

"You can't let that professor ruin your life," Clara said, making Flynn freeze, "so just... don't."

Flynn studied her for a long moment, his stare making Clara feel like her soul was being scorched. "Why are you here, Hartley?" he said slowly, advancing on her. "My whole world implodes and you show up" -

- "What exactly did he do?" Clara said, getting to her own feet, still clutching the letter from the Library. "What did he say that made you" -

- "Made me what?"

"Made you give up," Clara said, her voice cracking.

Flynn's lower lip trembled. "He kicked me off the course," he said, his own voice cracking, "all but barring me from the university. He said I had to stop studying and start living, but that is my life." He angrily dashed the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, hating himself for being so weak.

Clara bit her lip, not sure what to say.

"I like living this way," Flynn cried, gesturing wildly around him, "Spiderman pyjamas and all. I live with my mother and sleep with the light on. I stuff myself with sherbets and watch Jane Austen serials on Sunday mornings. I dress up as Wolverine in my spare time. I live to learn, to read and think and study. This is my comfort zone, what I'm used to. But now that's gone" -

- "It doesn't have to be," Clara said, shaking her head, thinking of the Flynn with his receding hairline and spectacles who'd faded from her, who this Flynn would become, "you can still live this life but just in a bigger way" -

- "It's my choice" -

- "And it's one you'll regret," Clara snapped, rounding on him, remembering -

- "You... you made your choice, Flynn," Clara said, unwillingly allowing herself to be side-tracked. "You know what you wanted, and you made your decision based on that."

"But maybe I should have chosen differently," Flynn said, taking his spectacles off, "at least it would have been a life of choice, not a life of safety, spent alone, on the sidelines" -

"I know myself, what I'm good at," Flynn raved, ripping Clara out of her reverie.

"And you'll be amazing at this," Clara cried, feeling the future beginning to slip through her fingers like sand, "I know that."

Flynn just stared at her, suddenly looking like the little boy he'd been, lost and alone.

"These paper worlds you build," Clara said quietly, taking his hands in hers, securing Flynn's unspoken surrender, "you can make them real. You can make them breathe. That life will live."

~*~

Clara smoothed down her black and white plaid mini-skirt self-consciously, feeling like a Nineties throwback, Clueless calling. She wore a frilly white blouse teamed with a black cardigan, her shining black brogues paired with black knee-high socks, the ensemble finished off with a jaunty black box jacket. Her dark hair was held back off her face with a velvet black Alice band, the sight of her so making Margie clasp her hands together with joy, Flynn rolling his eyes before resuming stuffing what remained of lunch down his gullet.

It made Clara very uncomfortable to be reliant on Flynn for a roof over her head and food to fill her stomach, not to mention the clothes on her back and the shoes on her feet. She'd confessed to him that morning she was practically destitute, asking him for help through gritted teeth, but to her surprise, he didn't seem bothered about it, shoving a wad of creased dollar bills into her hand, before retreating back into his books, casting the letter from the Library suspicious glances from time to time. The whole set-up reminded Clara of when she first met Flynn, relying on his largesse to live, until he gave in and gave her a job, Clara realising in bitter hindsight it had never been a real job, Flynn only humouring her.

But the memory didn't stop Clara from making lunch for the three of them and cleaning up afterwards, before hoovering the house from top to bottom, Margie stopping her from washing all the floors, taken aback at Clara's extreme enthusiasm for housework. Now she was here, hovering around the dinner table, waiting for Flynn to finish up so she could wash his plate and cutlery, Margie getting ready to interfere again.

"I can get that," Margie began, only for Clara to quell her into silence with a death-stare. While she was here, she would work, and that was that. Nobody was covering her expenses, so she had to make up the difference somehow, not being a free-loader.

"You're a good cook, Clara," Flynn said through a mouthful of pecan pie, "I'll say that for you."

Clara just looked at him, remembering how he'd made her live off Christmas puddings.

"We live in the heart of one of the city's best shopping districts," Margie said, glancing with approval at Clara's outfit again, unaware Flynn's money had paid for it, thinking Clara had gone home to get changed, "so maybe we can have a girl's day out together some time, hmmm?"

"Mom, Clara's not my girlfriend," Flynn protested, making Margie roll her eyes. If Clara was kissing her son and sleeping in his bed, that made her his girlfriend in her book. Flynn had made sure to leave his bedroom door open, Margie making several unnecessary trips past his room, slightly confused at seeing Clara snoring for England and Flynn on the floor colouring in, but she'd concluded they were just as bizarre as each other, making them a match made in heaven.

"That would be nice," Clara said to Margie, ignoring Flynn's outburst, whilst enjoying annoying him further.

"Good," Margie beamed, "now let me get that plate." Before Clara could react, Margie had swiped Flynn's plate and cutlery, taking his cup for good measure.

Flynn got up out of his seat, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, before tripping and stumbling out of the kitchen, Clara following him. As soon they reached his room, Flynn whirled around, slamming the door shut behind him, making Clara cringe against the wall. He took a step back, startled, suddenly ashamed of his aggression. "I'm sorry," he said hastily, holding his hands up, "I'm – I'm not going to hurt you – I – I'm just having a really bad day and you're really not helping."

Again, Clara just looked at him, putting herself in Flynn's shoes. His carefully constructed world had been crushed, and now he was saddled with a stranger, one he was feeding and clothing at his own expense against his will, not having the heart to turf her out of his house. To all intents and purposes she was playing him for a fool. "I can leave," Clara choked out, her words going against every reason as to why she was here, "you don't have to put up with me."

Flynn sat down on the edge of the bed, holding his head between his hands, tempted to take her up on his offer. With Clara gone, he could rip up the letter from the Library and try to rebuild his broken world. But he remembered how she smiled when she looked at his drawings, looking like she actually understood, and he hesitated. "No," he said slowly, glancing up at her, "you... you can stay here."

Clara's shoulders slumped, the terrible relief etched in her eyes making his heart twist in his chest. Flynn studied Clara standing there so prim and proper, suddenly unable to stomach the idea of throwing someone like her out on the street. Even though he lived in a world of books, he knew enough to know someone like her would eaten alive, completely underestimating Clara. Yet at the same time it was an insane undertaking letting her stay; Clara could be a crazed killer for all he knew, but then again, Flynn had never been quite the full shilling either.

"Look, I don't know what the hell is happening," Flynn said, straightening up, "who you are or why I'm getting magical letters, but we need to lay down some ground rules. No more m-m-making out and no more making out to my mother you're my girlfriend" -

- "It's an issue of strategy," Clara said coldly, "it makes it easier for me to be here if your mother thinks we're together. It'll also stop her trying to set up you with frankly unsuitable females. Plus, for the whole time I'm under your roof, using your resources, I'll cook for you both, and I'll help out around the house. I'm not going to take something for nothing."

Flynn thought about it for a moment, before nodding his head, seeing no other option but to agree. What else had he to lose anyways? "You're leaving?" he said, the prospect making his heart sink strangely.

"At some point," Clara said carefully, thinking if everything worked out, she might be out of here sooner than she thought, "but until then, I'm... here."

"And why are you here, Hartley?" Flynn reiterated, getting to his feet. "It's do with that possessed piece of parchment, isn't it?"

Clara cast her gaze down to the ground, her silence more telling than words.

"You know what," Flynn said, flinging up his hands up in the air, "don't tell me. Let's just leave it in the laps of the gods, shall we?"