ObsCure - Shannon/Stan - "Eight Husbands"

[driftinginnines]

Title: Eight Husbands
Fandom: ObsCure series
Characters: Shannon Matthews, Stan Jones
Word Count: 2158
Date Finished: September 24, 2008
Author's Notes: I changed a couple details in the set-up of this. Amy doesn't room with Shannon and they don't really know each other that well at the beginning of the second game, but I changed that (lol artistic creative whatever) cause I was having fun thinking of Shannon and Amy banter back and forth. Also, this story is obviously pre-ObsCure 2. Pretty much, right before it all begins, haha. ;)

Eight Husbands

"Shannon, which one?"

Amy's voice would've startled her if Shannon hadn't been idly staring at the door to her room when the blonde popped in. She was standing there now, a shirt on a hanger in each hand. Shannon let her eyes roam over the items of clothing momentarily before leaning back in her chair and propping her booted feet up on her desk.

"Depends on who you're trying to impress tonight," she answered flatly.

It was a statement meant to be playful and a bit teasing. It wasn't really meant to be answered or responded to. But Amy Brookes never let anyone down, no sir.

"Sven."

Resting her head back against the chair, Shannon let her eyes move to the ceiling and placed her hands in her lap as she tilted the chair back and forth in a lazy fashion. She knew the answer would be Sven or her brother, Kenny. Sven or Kenny. Not that she was really expecting an answer. "Sven?" She made sure to clarify.

A quick glance at Amy showed the girl nodding so fast that her blonde pigtails threatened to come loose.

"Then you should just go in nothing. That's what he'd like."

With a high-pitched giggle, Amy vanished from the doorway back to her own space in their dorm and Shannon could hear her begin talking to herself as she rummaged through all the clothes she had. She returned moments later in a low-cut gray sweatshirt with a barely there tank top underneath it. It was actually quite conservative for Amy, who was now presenting herself to Shannon like some sort of supermodel. When Shannon quietly chuckled at her display, Amy entered the threshold of her room and pulled at her arm, trying to get her to stand from her seat.

"Come on! You're coming to Sven's right?"

"Yeah, yeah. At some point." Shannon responded, watching her arm in Amy's grasp. The girl was still attempting to pull Shannon, who wasn't budging, out of her seat.

"Don't just say that and not show up!"

"I won't. I'll be there."

"And don't be late or all the booze will be gone."

"Of course," Shannon crossed her arm back in its place and watched Amy swish her way out back towards the front of the dorm. She stopped momentarily and turned back around, remembering something.

"And we might go crash the Delta Gamma Theta party too! So you really can't be late." An angelic smile crossed the girl's face.

"Wouldn't miss it."

"Bye Shannon!" The sound of a door slamming put a period at the end of Amy's farewells and it left Shannon in silence.

She tilted her head back again and stared at the ceiling, her eyes tracing the patterns along the thin tiles. Her mind drifted to other things, like it did these days, more often than not. Not a day went by where she didn't think of what had happened to her, her brother and Stan Jones at Leafmore High School.

Stan.

A sound broke the silence a few minutes later, and it took Shannon a second or two to realize exactly what the noise was. Her phone vibrated on her desk in front of her and picking it up, she flipped it open to check the text that had just arrived. The number was recognizable to her, so much so that she didn't even have to scroll to the bottom to see the name.

bringing dinner. hope ur in ur dorm.

It was from Stan.

Shannon stood from her seat and instantly looked to the mirror that hung over her desk. She hadn't meant to do it, and scowled when she saw her reflection, but it seemed like a reflex after learning that Stan was on his way over. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and straightened her black and red striped sweater out before briefly wondering how far away he was and how long--

A knock derailed her train of thought and she found her feet carrying her over to the entrance of the dorm without a second thought.

Pulling the door open, Shannon came face to face with a grinning Stan Jones, hip cocked out to the side, head tilted, with a pizza box balancing in one palm and the other pressed against the door frame.

"Why hello there," he said, in the suavest tone he could muster.

Shannon only managed to arch an amused eyebrow, at him before waving him in and moving away from the entrance.

"What?" He entered and let the door shut behind him, following Shannon into her room and gently setting the pizza down on the small table in the middle of it. "Isn't that how all the bad porno flicks start?" He raised his hands up in the air and waved them around a bit, simulating a knock on a door. "Delivery guy! Got your pizza, miss!"

"Do I look like a connoisseur of fine porn to you?" Shannon cracked a smile and grabbed some old fast food napkins from her nightstand before sitting at the table.

Stan shrugged. He pulled his hat off after that, revealing a head of messy black hair, and shoved it in his back pocket, standing awkwardly next to the table.

"You can sit down, y'know." Shannon eyed the pizza before looking back up at Stan. "And thanks for bringing me dinner."

"Us," he corrected. He only fixed the sentence again when Shannon opened the box to a pizza missing three of its slices. "Okay, I got hungry in the van, so yeah, dinner for you. Y'welcome."

She grabbed a slice right out of the box and began eating it. She hadn't known how hungry she had been until the smell of the food hit her nose and she realized, as she was eating, subsiding the ravenous hunger that had entered her system at some point, that she probably looked pretty unladylike and maybe even a tad disturbing scarfing the food as fast as she was -- but she couldn't help it.

"Jesus, Shan, hungry much?" Finally sitting down at the table across from her, Stan couldn't help but grin.

"Just a little," she managed to say between bites.

"So what's going on tonight?"

Finishing her last bite of crust, Shannon took a swig from a bottle of Coke that was still sitting on the table from earlier in the day and answered the question only after she closed the bottle and set it back down on the table. "Sven's having a get together."

"And by get together you mean everyone sits around and gets drunk, yeah?"

Shannon nodded quickly, "Absolutely." Picking up a second piece of pizza, Shannon was about to take a bite when she stopped, adding something to her previous thought. "Amy mentioned something about crashing the big Delta Gamma Theta party tonight, so there might be that too."

"Sounds fun," Stan said blankly, picking at the edge of the table with his pointer finger.

She knew he was feeling down about that part. He always seemed a little forlorn when they would talk about something happening at the university. Even though he never said it, Shannon knew Stan felt like he was always out of the loop since he didn't go to college.

"You should come with us."

The brief ghost of a smile appeared on his lips for a moment and then disappeared as he looked from the table up to her. "I would, but I'm on break now -- I have to go back to work after this. There's more pizza to be delivered, you know."

"There's always pizza to be delivered," Shannon mumbled before taking a bite of her second slice. She wondered if there was any way he could take the rest of the night off and was about to ask when he spoke up.

"Can I get a glass of water?" He jabbed a thumb out towards the kitchen area across the dorm behind him.

"Of course."

He stood and wandered off towards the sink, grabbing a glass from the small cabinet and filling it to the brim with water. Shannon watched him do this, quietly and absently noting the way his fingers wrapped around the glass and the way his head shifted a bit as he turned the water on and off. She quickly looked back to her half-eaten second slice of pizza when he headed back into her room and sat down at the table again, sifting through his pocket momentarily before pulling out a small bottle of medication.

She recognized it instantly. It was the same thing her brother had to take. And between the medication and the thought of going back to work, Shannon figured Stan needed something, anything, to get him in at least a slightly better mood.

"So were you planning that whole porn entrance all night?" She nodded to the door with a slight upturn of her lips.

"Nah, I'm just always afraid I'm gonna deliver a pizza to a house and some skeevy cougar is gonna be there waiting to invite me in and talk about my pepperoni or something. Approaching any door with a pizza in hand makes me think of things like that now."

"Now that's a legitimate fear."

"Hey, you never know."

"So older women creep you out then?"

"No! Oh no, I mean there are some extremely hot older women." He paused to take two of his pills and then set the empty glass on the table. "But knowing my luck, the woman who would find me attractive would drag me in her house, take her teeth out and attempt to seduce me -- only after telling me how she murdered her eight husbands."

Shannon briefly got the mental image of Stan clawing at a screen door from the inside of a kitschy sort of house, screaming his lungs out, voice cracking all the way before being dragged into the bedroom by his feet and the door slamming. The sound of the door slamming in her head was punctuated by Stan slapping his open palm on the table.

"It would be a nightmare!"

"I'm sure there are worse things..." Shannon dragged one of the napkins across her lips and threw it in the almost empty pizza box, her eyes catching the sight of Stan shrugging lazily.

"I'm sure there are too."

Pushing the box back towards the middle of the table, Shannon leaned forward and rested her elbows on the hard surface, her eyes meeting Stan's. "So then if I opened the door to you, Mr. Pizza Delivery Boy, and seduced you --"

"I wouldn't be opposed to that at all."

"-- and then told you that I murdered my eight husbands."

"Okay, that's where it would get a little creepy." Stan continued to pick at the edge of the table, a grin apparent on his face. It vanished momentarily as he stood. "I guess I should get out of here."

"So soon?" Shannon inquired, standing after him and grabbing the pizza box. "I haven't even gotten to tell you about my dead husbands yet."

She moved to the trash can in the kitchen area and dropped the pizza box into it, washing her hands under a stream of warm water at the sink. Shannon figured Stan was already by the door, ready to say his quick goodbyes and leave, but after she grabbed a paper towel and before she turned away from the sink, there was a whisper in her ear.

"Well at least you finished the seduction part."

Her hands stopped fiddling with the paper towel and she turned her head, her chin touching her shoulder and her eyes caught sight of Stan Jones, behind her, his lips close to her ear.

"How?"

Shannon could feel him sigh slightly, his breath drifting across her neck. Then she watched him begin to back away, pulling his hat out of his back pocket and stretching it back over his head. There were black locks that still peeked out from the bottom here and there, but he pushed them away from his eyes and offered her a smile. "By being yourself." His backwards motion was stopped by the front door to the dorm and as Stan felt around behind him for the doorknob, he bowed slightly. "I guess I'll see you at some--"

"Come over after you get off work."

"I don't know how late that'll be..."

"I don't care," Shannon replied quickly.

Stan's smile widened as he pulled the door open and began to exit, leaning back into the frame to deliver a quick response. "Done. And tell everyone I said hey." With that, the door shut.

The paper towel Shannon had been drying her hands with was absently dropped onto the counter and it took her a few moments to tear her thoughts away from Stan Jones. She was suddenly looking very forward to seeing him again and wondered exactly what their next meeting would bring.