fandomhighdorms | First Floor Rec Room, Saturday Morning

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First Floor Rec Room, Saturday Morning

During her shift in the library yesterday, Lucille had found some sheet music that she recognized. Taking up her piano practice would be a good thing. During the past year she had not been allowed to play, which meant it would take time for her to return the level she had been at before, and ss she played, she was torn between enjoying the music and cursing her uncooperative fingers ~~which meant is sounded nothing near as good as in the youtube clip, obviously~~. It was still music, however, which had always offered her a sense of freedom and escape.

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Oh, this meant war. Lucille didn't like boy band music? Mabel was picking out her favorite song by Sev'ral Timez, and she was turning that volume back up again.

"Oh, girl you got me ackin' so cray cray
CRAY CRAY
You tell me that you won't be my ba-bay
We're non threatening, girl
Yeah!!!

Of course it was war. Lucille felt she had the upper hand here, as that noise was not in any way comparable to Beethoven.

Of course, she didn't have the advantage of being able to turn up the volume, so she had to compensate by opening the lid to the piano and playing those chords with such force that the instrument was shaking.

Which, really, meant that Mabel was going to have to roll her eyes - yes, Lucille, your pettiness had prompted an eyeroll from Mabel - before she reached for the volume knob and cranked it up as high as it would go.

Instead of singing, she was sort of just yelling into the poor microphone, now.

"C'mon baby won't you fly away with me
Take my hand it's destiny,
We don't need nobody if we stay together,
Girl, just take my hand and it can be forever!"

Now Lucille understood that she had entered a battle she couldn't win. It wasn't a question of musical quality, all that mattered was modern technology and its ability to drown out everything. That, and Mabel's voice.

She finished the first movement of the sonata, then shouted:

"HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED SINGING LESSONS?"

Oh, that was the last straw. Mabel wheeled around on her heel to face Lucille, turning off the stereo system as she did so, and pointed the microphone accusingly at Lucille.

"HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED NOT BEING A CONDESCENDING BUTTHEAD?"

Sick burn, Mabel. Sick burn.

Lucille, regaining some of her dignity, let her voice return to normal level as the music was turned off.

"At least I am not a silly little girl with a pig for a best friend."

"I'd rather be a silly little girl with a pig for a best friend than a cold, mean person who judges people based on nothing and does her best to have no friends at all," Mabel said, giving an indignant sniff and crossing her arms over her chest. "My pig and I are happy. So are my actual, real, human being friends, too, for that matter. You don't know the first thing about me, stop acting like you're so much better!"

"And you know nothing about me," Lucille replied, "So I could say the same."

Not the part about being happy though, sadly.

"I know you've been a complete jerk since you showed up on the island," Mabel pointed out, shaking her head and gathering up her karaoke supplies. "And that's way more to go by than whatever you've decided you know about me. What do you think I am? Some backwoods country girl who can barely write her own name? What is it that you convinced yourself you're so much better than?"

"Well, aren't you?" Lucille raised an eyebrow. "All I know is that you force your idea of fun on others, regardless of whether they are interested or not, and now you try to assume the higher ground by being.. what? The annoyingly chipper one?"

"I grew up in a city," Mabel ground out. "I have a twin brother and we go on adventures together and I won Waddles while I was on summer vacation and there's nothing the matter with him, either. And any time you said you weren't interested in something, I talked about something else! That's called sharing, not forcing! But then I ask about what you're playing, and you act like I'm not even worthy of the answer! If you don't want to have friends while you're here, just say so, but don't tell me I'm aiming for the higher ground just because I'm happy! I'm a happy person! I get happy about things! That's what happy people do!"

Except for right now, when apparently she was very highly annoyed.

"This place is my home, just like it's yours and everyone else's, so stop treating me like I deserve to be here any less than anyone else! If you don't care about anything I like just because I'm the one who likes it, fine, you don't have to like anything at all."

"If you're so happy, why are you bothering me? Why are you rubbing your happiness in my face? Does it make you feel even happier?"

Yes, to Lucille that reasoning made perfect sense, sadly.

"... Rubbing it into your face?"

No, Lucille, now you weren't making much sense to Mabel at all, and she was sort of squinting her eyes and tilting her head at you.

"What, no! That wasn't what I wanted to do at all! Is it 'rubbing it in' when people are happy near you, or just when they're happy at you?"

"Is there a difference?" Lucille asked, clearly considering this an obvious question.

"Of course there is! You can't police when people are happy! People are going to feel how they feel no matter who's around," Mabel protested. "I mean, I can stop being happy at you, but if I happen to be in a good mood and you're nearby... I'm not exactly doing that on purpose."

Okay, Mabel had gone from angry to just straight-up bewildered. Did Lucille just not understand how people worked? At all?

... That was kind of sad, actually.

Lucille just wasn't used to people being happy at all, not that she was going to tell Mabel that.

"Aren't you?"

"Of course not!" Mabel ran her hands through her hair. "I mean, I have plenty of reasons to not be happy. I'm stranded here, I don't know what happened to my great uncle or anybody else in Gravity Falls and we can't contact home and all sorts of things have just been weird for the past few years for my brother and I. But if I let all of that get me down, what would be the point in trying? So I'm happy about the little things. I have good friends, I have an awesome pig, I have hobbies that I love and there are little things that I can take pleasure in, like stickers and meeting new people and singing stupid songs, even if I can't sing. But that's not because I want to make other people upset! That's because it's what's good for me. Haven't you ever done anything just because it's good for you?"

Nothing she would be willing to share with Mabel, and even then the 'good' part was questionable.

"I was trying to play the piano."

Until Mabel showed up.

Edited 2016-01-17 16:47 (UTC)

"And then I waited until between songs to give you an honest compliment-- it was good. I liked the way it sounded." Mabel ambled over to the nearest couch and sat herself down on it. "Then you said I could do whatever, even after I offered to do something quiet, and then you yelled at me for doing what I'd come here for."

So, clearly, Mabel was not welcome to do whatever. Hence her annoyance at the whole thing.

"So... can you maybe see how I'm getting the impression here that I'm welcome to be whatever, just so long as that whatever isn't me? There's something wrong with that."

It struck Lucille that perhaps Mabel was being truthful. Perhaps she really was happy and honest and... what else? Trying to be kind? As if the world appreciated kindness. Lucille shrugged. The girl was still annoying.

"Do you really expect to just be you wherever you are? No, wait, I don't think I want to know." Lucille picked up the sheet music and assumed a dignified posture. Smiling unkindly, she continued: "Please, return to your singing. I will come back another time."

Mabel frowned, and shook her head, but didn't try to stop Lucille from leaving, either.

"I've tried to be somebody that isn't me before, because somebody like you went out of her way to make me feel small," she replied. "And all it did was make me feel smaller still. So I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to pick up my microphone," she slid off the couch and re-claimed it, "and turn the music back down so I don't blow the speakers. And then I'm going to sing, no matter how badly people think I sound, because that's what makes me happy, and I have just as much right to be here and to be happy as anyone else who lives here. Including you."

Having nothing more to say, Lucille gave Mabel one final look of disdain before she left the room.

At least she hadn't brought the pig.

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First Floor Rec Room, Saturday Morning

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