(no subject)

[stbethadettes]

Beth finds the door with the number that Todd gave her. She's still in the costume provided by the bar, but she has a black coat, something she specifically asked the bar for, draped over her shoulders.

After a moment's hesitation, she knocks on the door.

Comments

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

There's a few muffled sounds from inside, and then the door opens. Todd stands there looking a bit more like his regular self - Kansas t-shirt, jeans, sneakers. His hair's a trifle more mussed than usual, though.

He grins. "Hi there, Beth. Come on in." Steps aside to allow room for her, adding, "You look a bit more comfy now."

[stbethadettes]

She grins back as she walks through the door.

"I look a little more decent, I guess. Don't want to give you a reputation or anything," she jokes.

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

Todd chuckles, shutting the door behind her. "Don't worry. I wasn't." He pauses, then asks - "Do you mind if I lock the door? It's habit. I'd do it staying at any hotel."

[stbethadettes]

"Go ahead. I lock my door here, too." She shrugs and looks for a place to sit. "Habit, like you said."

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

Todd locks it, turning around with his hands on his hips. "Sit anywhere you'd like."

The room. It's small, but impeccably neat - for a teenage boy it's nearly uncanny. There's a twin bed pushed up against the wall - made, of course, with a plaid bedspread and pale orange sheets. There's a rolltop desk and a chair in the corner, next to a small closet, which is in turn next to the bathroom, which is in turn next to the door.

Over near the window, several photographs are tacked up. There's really very little in here that's personal, otherwise, although his bed is pretty seventies looking. There are a lot of Coke cans in the garbage, however.

[stbethadettes]

She sits in the chair beside the desk, but her eyes fall on the photographs up by the window.

"Did you take those?" she asks before she gets up again, heading over to check them out.

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

"Most of 'em," Todd answers, smiling faintly. "It's a small sample. I've got loads more."

There are a bunch. A Brady Bunch-esque picture, circa late '60s or so, of a blond man and blonde woman who are probably his parents; a group of circa 1978 teenagers with big smiles and feathered hair; several of himself. A couple of them are strange, blurry, tilted Polaroids - another is in black and white and shows him looking remarkably solemn in three-quarter profile. Plus there's a picture of Thom dressed in seventies clothes, rather inexplicably.

There's also a few of inanimate objects, especially flowers, but most of those are stacked on the windowsill.

[stbethadettes]

Beth looks over them, grinning. She doesn't know who Thom is and can't be surprised at that particular picture. It's just like looking through a relative's old yearbook or something.

"I like them," she says, taking some of the photographs from the windowsill and glancing through them.

"Show me some of your favorites." She smiles.

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

"From that collection, or other ones?" Todd goes over to the closet, gets out yet another key, and unlocks it. He clicks the light on inside - and the light is red, just like a darkroom. A faint smell of chemicals eminates from inside. He starts rummaging around in there.

[stbethadettes]

She decides to sit cross-legged right there on the floor and watches as he searches in his closet.

"How about both?"

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

"No problem." Todd emerges with two large black photo boxes. His Polaroid is balanced on top as he comes over and rolls back the desk, placing them there. Some of his school textbooks are also there, neatly covered in Santo Donato High book covers, as well as that silver copy of The Shining.

He leans over Beth and points to a group of laughing teenagers. He's actually sitting right in the center of them all, and although there's no doubt that he fits in, there's something slightly...different about him? Almost glowing. Separate. A wolf in sheep's clothing. With the herd but not of them.

"These are my friends back home. That's Grace, I'm dating her currently." He points to a highly attractive blonde girl with a Farrah cut, twinkling blue eyes and a great big smile. She could be his female equivalent. "And that's Betty, her best friend-" He points to Betty Trask, who's actually been in the bar... "And Betty's boyfriend Jeremy...and that's Dave Crewe and his girlfriend..."

[stbethadettes]

She unconsciously straightens the coat around her shoulders.

She looks over the picture, noting the way Todd is both a definite part of the group in it, but doesn't seem quite like the others.

"Betty looks familiar," she mentions. "I think I saw someone here who looks kind of like her." She pauses. "Unless that was actually her." Which she has to admit is possible. Just look at Val's situation.

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

"It might have been," Todd tosses off. He'd rather not think about Betty right now.

"Those are my folks." He points to them. "I can't remember if I showed you this or not. But it's kind of an old picture - nearly ten years old by this point. Summer of '69."

[stbethadettes]

"Hey..." she starts. "Your mom looks kind of like me." She's actually rather struck by the resemblance. Todd's mom, of course, doesn't have a scar across her face.

She looks from the picture to Todd and back again. "What're their names?"

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

Todd swallows. If the thought had crossed his mind that Beth looked like Monica-baby before, he hadn't much thought of it. But Monica, in her op-art style dress and bright smile, around thirty in the picture, definitely resembles his current companion.

He shrugs a little, smiling faintly. "Guess you're right. My mother is Monica, and my father is Richard - but everybody calls him Dick."

[stbethadettes]

"Monica and Dick, huh?" She stares a little. Well, maybe that is what Todd likes about her.

She looks at him curiously. "Do I remind you of your mom?" But before he can answer, she shakes her head.

"Show me another."

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

It's a good thing she moved on, because Todd-baby surely doesn't want to go there. He's a thorough boy, however, so he says, "You do look a little like her."

Then he opens up one of the boxes and pulls out one of the first pictures on top. He hands it to her with a grin.

"This is me when I was ten." It's his Little League Photo! Down at the bottom it's dated "1971." Little Todd is ridiculously adorable, with an impish grin and glittering blue eyes that resemble current Todd's at his most open and free. There's a breeziness to this Todd that the older one might even be lacking, you could say.

He's in a cute white and blue pinstriped uniform, kneeling on one knee with bat and baseball glove. "I was the star pitcher for my team for years, 'til I grew too old for it. Now I'm the star pitcher on varsity." He laughs a little. Modestly, of course.

[stbethadettes]

Beth is appropriately charmed by this. She takes in the uniform, the mischievous grin, the bright eyes. He sure was an adorable little kid.

"That is so cute," she laughs and reaches to ruffle Todd's hair.

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

Todd grins a little kid grin of his own and ducks his head, though he allows the ruffling. "Thanks. I've got loads of pics from my childhood. My parents were total shutterbugs." He laughs, almost fondly.

He likes talking about his childhood. It's...comforting.

[stbethadettes]

Beth can easily see, for just a second, Todd as the kid in the picture. He seems cute and young and innocent. She smiles at him.

"My parents took a lot of pictures when I was little, too."

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

"Yeah? I guess a lot of parents do. My house is just full of 'em, though." The kind of house where you can't turn a corner without facing a grinning, blond-haired, blue-eyed charmer, under glass and in a frame.

Todd pulls out another picture - another from his childhood. In this one he's even younger, perhaps four or five, and riding a tricycle. He has a look of absolute Dennis the Menace bliss on his face. His hair is sun-bleached blond and he's radiantly healthy-looking.

[stbethadettes]

She grins widely. The picture is absolutely darling.

Todd is a golden boy through and through. She thinks it's kind of amazing, really.

"Look at you. Not a care in the world."

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

Todd tilts his head and looks down at it too. A touch of something vaguely wistful steals into his eyes, only for a moment.

"Yeah," he says quietly. Then he looks back at Beth and grins, forcing the wistfulness away. "Those were the days, huh?"

[stbethadettes]

Her grin isn't quite as wide, but it's still there. Her eyes are soft.

"Yeah," she agrees. "We didn't know how good we had it."

[toddbaby.livejournal.com]

"No," Todd murmurs, shaking his golden head. "We sure as heck didn't."

He takes in a deep breath, through his nostrils, and his smile turns gentler as he lets the breath out. His eyes have wandered to some far off place. "Sometimes I really think it'd be super to be a kid again. But you can't go back." He shrugs.