Music education

[st_artliving]

Xavin had been invited, the first time she and Hurley had met, to go visit him in his room. She had not, to this point, done so, but after conversing with the gnome Scanlan she had an excuse. Hurley knew music, and she did not. And if she took something like special care with her appearance, as in an especially pretty (she thought) sundress in purple, that was only polite. She was a guest!

Or hopefully would be. She hadn't considered, before raising her hand to knock firmly on Hurley's door, that he might not be in his room. There was, after all, no real reason why he would be.

She finished knocking anyway. If he wasn't in, she'd just try again later.

Comments

[st_illkindalost]

Hurley wasn't expecting guests.

Not that guests wouldn't be welcome. The only thing he'd done all day was flick through the hotel's few TV stations ad nauseum, hoping something good would come on. Nothing ever did, but it didn't stop Hurley from cycling through the channels every now and then until he gave up and inevitably let whatever was playing keep playing.

Hurley pushes himself off his bed and heads for the door. When he opens it, Xavin's standing there, looking almost impossibly pretty.

For a second, Hurley forgets how to use his words.

"Oh, hey," he says, smiling. "Long time, no see."

It hadn't been a long time. The two of them had seen each other a couple of times since the cafe, but it always felt seriously long, even if it wasn't.

[st_artliving]

"Hello." Xavin smiled back, part simple pleasure to see him and part... smiles were infectious. It was always pleasant to be around Hurley. "I hope this is not a bad time?"

[st_illkindalost]

"No, not a bad time. It's never a bad time. You wanna come in?"

Hurley opens the door wider so that Xavin can slip inside if she wants to.

[st_artliving]

Xavin slid past him into the room and looked around. "This is a pleasant room." It was! Warm-colored carpet, wood, brick. Xavin enjoyed her own room, but it was decidedly cooler in style. This suited Hurley well, she thought. "I have heard that you know music?"

[st_illkindalost]

"Yeah, the place reminds me of my dad," Hurley says. There's the smallest hint of irritation in his voice at that -- not pronounced enough to make his irritation immediately palpable, but just enough that someone listening for that shift in tone could find it.

Hurley considers what Xavin has said. "I guess you could say that," he says finally. "I like it, anyway. It's probably the one thing I missed most while I was on the island."

Hurley reaches for the portable CD player on his nightstand. Hurley's earbuds are still connected to the port, the earpieces sitting neatly atop it. He offers it to Xavin.

"The first song is by Driveshaft. It's a band a friend of mine used to be in."

[st_artliving]

"I know only one song well. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." Xavin accepted the earbuds and put one into one ear. That much, she knew. "What is this song called?"

[st_illkindalost]

"Uh," Hurley says, suddenly worried he's going to seriously disappoint Xavin by introducing her to Driveshaft before anything else. "It's called You All, Everybody. Charlie, my, uh, my friend -- he's the songwriter and the bassist for the band, but he sings in this one, too."

[st_artliving]

Xavin nodded. then closed her eyes to attend seriously to the song in the earbuds. The singing was a little high-pitched, the lyrics repetitive, but it was entertaining nonetheless. Quite likely this would never be her favorite, but it didn't make her want to render herself deaf. And it was good enough that she bopped her head a little bit, to the beat. "Your friend is talented, I think."

[st_illkindalost]

"Yeah, he is," Hurley says. "I mean, my friend Johnny and I used to make fun of it all the time before I ended up on the island. But after listening to Charlie playing it on the beach, it didn't seem as stupid as it used to."

It probably helped that Hurley liked Charlie, a lot.

"There's some other songs on that CD, too. It was all random. I got the CD player and the CDs in an Easter egg the day I arrived here."

[st_artliving]

Even the Inn wanted to be kind to Hurley, giving him back something he'd missed from his island. It was not surprising at all. "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds reached my people by radio signal and luck. I knew it was Earth music - the language, you know? - so I offered it as a wedding song. My fiancée had been raised on Earth. The wedding did not happen, but not because of the song. When we went to Earth, after, there was not much time to take in more music."

[st_illkindalost]

"The Beatles are pretty cool, though," Hurley says. "Lucy's probably one of their better ones. Track 7 on that CD has my favorite one by them. It's called --"

And it's only then that Hurley realizes exactly what song it is and what the lyrics sound like and how they might sound to Xavin.

"-- Something," he finishes. It was too late for him to back out without making things super awkward.

[st_artliving]

Xavin nodded and hit the 'forward' button until the number seven showed up on the screen, then took a seat on one of the beds to listen. It seemed strange to just stand in the middle of the room, and she doubted that Hurley would be offended by the fact that she hadn't waited to be invited to sit. He didn't seem the type to stand on ceremony. And perhaps he would sit as well.

Talented as Hurley's friend had been, this song was decidedly better. More melodic. And, once she listened to the lyrics, much more romantic. Probably not Hurley's intent, but she smiled at him anyway. "I mean no offense to your friend, but I like this one better."

[st_illkindalost]

When Xavin sits, Hurley does, too. A part of him's relieved that she sat down because it meant that she wanted to stick around for awhile. Maybe it was kinda pathetic, but he didn't consider the possibility that maybe Xavin would want to hang around for more than just a few minutes.

Hurley sits down on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking beneath him.

"Yeah," Hurley says, smiling. "I like it better, too. I wouldn't tell Charlie that, though."

Hurley takes the CD player from Xavin.

"Your Lucy song, though -- a lotta people thought Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was some sort of vague reference to LSD," he says. "John's kid, Julian, actually drew one of his classmates, Lucy, flying and called it Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. They took the title and they ran with it."

[st_artliving]

Xavin slid closer, to keep the CD player in range in case there were other songs Hurley thought she should hear. "I found after returning to Earth that Karolina - my ex-fiancée - code-named herself Lucy in the Sky, when she and her friends thought they should have such names. That it came from a child's drawing seems very appropriate." The song had come from a place of innocence, as Karolina herself had always seemed to have done.

[st_illkindalost]

Hurley doesn't mind it when Xavin sidles closer towards him, but it is weird and disconcerting for Hurley in a way that it probably wouldn't be if he looked differently.

"Code names? Like superheroes or secret agents or something?"

[st_artliving]

"Like superheroes, yes. They had some idea of doing that, before the reality of being runaways set in." And had ended up doing quite a bit of 'superhero' activity while trying to survive. Fun, but not the point. "I don't believe any of them consistently used the names they chose for longer than a week or two."

Re: OTA

[st_illkindalost]

"That sounds like teenagers, honestly," Hurley says. It really does. "There's probably worse ways to cope with being runaways, though. I mean, they could be doing drugs or something."

Superhero names were definitely better.

Re: OTA

[st_artliving]

"They would not have. One of their parents ran most of the drug trade in Los Angeles at the time. Doing drugs meant they would have been found and brought home." Xavin shifted to tuck her feet under her skirts, which tilted her to lean slightly against Hurley. Which was fine with her, he was comfortable. "I only met one parent, in unusual circumstances, but they were all evil. Supervillains."

Re: OTA

[st_illkindalost]

"I think if you met her, you'd like my ma," he says. "I mean, she kinda hassles me sometimes, but she's good people. My dad, though..."

Hurley shrugs, and only then realizes that Xavin's leaning slightly against him. He doesn't mind it -- but it's totally unexpected.

Was she into him? Hurley quickly pushes the thought aside. He was reading too much into this.

"He's not a supervillain or anything, but he did kinda abandon me and my mom."

Re: OTA

[st_artliving]

"Villain enough," Xavin acknowledged. "My parents both died some time ago. I do not know exactly how long. They were... not good people." Xavin had loved them, they had been good enough parents. But truth was truth, and they had been good Skrulls but bad people. "I imagine you are right and I would like your mother. Where on Earth are you from?"

Re: OTA

[st_illkindalost]

"Originally?" Hurley asks. "Miami, but we moved to Santa Monica when I was pretty young." They were living in Santa Monica when his dad left.

"I'm sure if you came over my ma would adopt you in a second. She'd probably like you better than she likes me."

Re: OTA

[st_artliving]

"Oh, California! I know California, a little." The Inn, to Xavin, was not really California. Not really. "I lived for a time in Los Angeles - La Brea I think - and then later in Malibu."

Xavin's lean turned, briefly, into a hug. "I am certain your mother would still like you best. You are her child, and I am a strange girl who is sometimes a boy." Or a strange boy who was sometimes a girl. Either way.

Re: OTA

[st_illkindalost]

"Yeah, great places. The traffic in Los Angeles sucks, though. Traffic in La Brea isn't that bad. Not compared to downtown and Hollywood."

People generally didn't think of La Brea as a tourist destination. Save for the tar pits.

Hurley smiles when Xavin hugs him. It's not just that he hasn't gotten a hug for awhile; it's also that Xavin's the one hugging him.

"Even if she loved me best, she'd still give me a hard time if I brought you home."

Probably because she'd think they were dating.

Re: OTA

[st_artliving]

"I would protect you." It made no sense and Xavin knew it, but she said it anyway. It was... nice, somehow, to think about meeting someone else's parents. That someone else's parents - that Hurley's mother - wasn't evil, was simply a parent who loved their child and occasionally made things embarrassing. "I have never actually seen a normal human household. In La Brea, we actually lived in the Tar Pits. Under them, rather, in a secret base. Malibu was another such base, though it looked like a house."

Re: OTA

[st_illkindalost]

Yeah, it might be a little weird of Xavin to say that she'd protect him from his ma, but it was nice, and Hurley can't help but smile at it, anyway.

"Wait, there was something under those tar pits?"

That's really weird to even think about.