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Aradia & John Shoot Fireworks At Each Other

Summary:

Don't try this one at home, kids.

56/365

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Don't try this one at home, kids.

Aradia's home was a comfortable place to be for someone so used to suburban sprawl, without light or noise polluting the air in their imminent, staticky fuzz. No, when it was dark outside, John could sit on the porch and stare upwards and see millions of stars in the sky, the thick band of the milky way cutting across the evening air, not hearing a car swoosh by the highway or pulling into the next-door neighbor's house. Instead, there was the steady rhythm of cicadas and grasshoppers and the occasional call of small bird reaching down into the ground to eat them.

Aradia and John were sort of sitting around in the backyard of Aradia's home, while John's Dad and Aradia's Mom were indoors, probably smoking cigars together or whatever it was that parents did when they were talking with each other and not watching their unsupervised 16 year old children. And, to be clearer on the sitting situation, John was sitting on a chair, while Aradia was actually not sitting at all but was instead pacing in circles around a large plastic tub recently dragged out of the garage, typically left sitting there until the July 4th celebration each year, where Aradia's sister would come back from college, and Aradia and her would shoot off a fuckton of fireworks in the road.

I mean, like a fuckton. What cops are around for the neighbors to bitch to? In fact, for that matter, what neighbors are there to be annoyed by the crackling lights, the ferocious sound, the acrid scent of burning fireworks-stuff rising into the air like so much smog? That's right, nobody - July 4th is annual Fireworks O' Clock at the Megido household, and it turns out, sometimes Fireworks O' Clock can come twice a year. When your friend from the internet finally works out a time to come visit, you generally should put some work into impressing them.

That being said, in this case, the fireworks were John's idea. The conversation went a little bit like this:

"Oh, hey, I actually passed one of those big fireworks warehouses on the way here! Do you wanna get some and we can blow up our homework or something?"

"Oh, we actually have a bunch in the garage! We normally save them for the 4th of July but nobody really cares about illegal fireworks out here."

"Oh, fucking sweet! Can we light some up?"

"Totally! That sounds awesome!"

John laughed with nervous excitement as Aradia struck a match onto the first firework's tail and let it begin burning, turning away and ducking for cover dramatically, covering her ears with her hands and cackling like a witch. There was a loud, ear-splitting shriek as it exploded seconds later, shooting into the air past John with a high pitched whistle and lighting a bunch of other fireworks in their pile on fire at the same time. It was only when Aradia glanced behind herself and watched the fuses all alight that she stopped to consider that this may hurt in a second.

Another missile-shaped firework shot screaming through the air into John's stomach, forcing a grunt of amused, teenage-invincible pain out of them. Then, all chaos struck. To the tune of a dozen little missiles shrieking for vengeance through the sky, into the air, popping into dazzling, fizzling little firecrackers above John's head, the air was similarly filled with their maniacal laughter.


"You two played safe with the fireworks, right?" Dad asked while the two of them high fived on the way back inside, idly sipping from a cup of tea that Aradia's Mom had brewed for him.

"Yeah, it was fine, Mr. Egbert! Thanks again for bringing John out this far, it means a lot to me. Hey mom, can we go to the warehouse tomorrow so we can, y'know, like, replace the ones we used today?" Aradia replied and then asked, hands folded behind her back, beaming with impish innocence back towards the two adults while John flopped down on a nearby couch with a loud sigh.

Notes:

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