Title: Worthwhile Author: Jess Fandom: Clerks, with a tiny dash of Chasing Amy too Pairing: Randal/Dante Rating: Better keep it safe and say NC-17 Warnings: Meanness to Dante, Sex Archive: KSSlash, ask otherwise E-mail address for feedback: Neo_fx2002@yahoo.com Series/Sequel: Prologue-Homeward Summary: Dante's life has gone from bad to worse. But his about to be shown that it's all worthwhile. AN: Eeeee… finally I finished something on this ancient fic. This was the first Clerks plot I ever came up with and I love it too much… Some notes here…uh… this happened the day after the movie, excluding this prologue, which is about 1 1/2 –2 hours later. Dante's POV excluding the prologue and epilogue. 3-4 chp. Excluding said logs. Exclude exclude …. Kinda AU since it contradicts every Clerks thing after the movie (Cartoon, comics, JASBSB) but OH WELL!! I NAP NOW!!!! ******* Holden: Emotional penetration? Alyssa: Well, I fell in love hard with Caitlin Bree when we were in high school. Holden: Physical penetration. Alyssa: We had sex. Holden: Yeah, but not real sex. Alyssa: I move to have that remark stricken from the record, on account of it makes you come off as completely naďve and infantile. -Chasing Amy They don't listen to your reasons As original a sin Deny all that you feel And they will bring you home again -`Silent Legacy', Melissa Etheridge ****** Worthwhile Prologue-Homeward You know you've hit rock bottom when you start getting creative with Ramen. `You gotta stop thinking of it as soup, think of it as pasta. THAT'S the secret.' Randal thought vaguely, the flickering florescent sink light the only thing luminating his rare attempt at cooking. He looked quite the part of a desperate collage student; dirty jeans and wrinkled tee, hat-headed blonde hair spilling in his face, staring dully at the pot, waiting for the water to heat. His guts gurgled, pissed at having to wait. He must have eaten over $30 worth of snacks at the Quickstop that day, but was surprisingly still hungry. `Didn't anyone ever tell you watched water never boils?' Randal hissed between his teeth, poking the block of plastic posing as noodles with a fork before leaning against the counter, eyes sliding closed. He guessed it really shouldn't be TOO surprising that he was hungry; it had been a stressful day after all. Randal didn't even notice as he began to tap his teeth with the fork; a thinking tic he'd had since he was a kid, as the day's events ran through his head. Julie's funeral, `Roni, Caitlin's engagement, the dead guy. And the fight. With Dante. … The young clerk shoved THAT one away real quick. And all of it tied together with one final smack of weirdness upside the head. Alyssa Jones Alyssa-Motherfucking-Jones Alyssa who had come to RST to find out about Cait, Alyssa who had offered him a ride home. Alyssa who KNEW, knew EVERYTHING, had always known… Back in high school, everyone, in both schools, assumed he and Alyssa were gonna get together, if only for the fact that both of their best friends were fucking. Bed-mates by association. Of course anyone with eyes could see that was ridiculous because… well… Randal knew about Alyssa and Alyssa knew about Randal. The knowledge wasn't obvious… unspoken and unstated… a slight smile, a nod, perhaps stepping aside, allowing each others subtle sabotage of their friends `relationship'. But there was one major difference between the two of them. Alyssa had succeeded where Randal had, and always would, fail. ******* "You're still waiting, huh?" Alyssa's voice broke the long silence after Randal's lurid tale of that day's events. He should've been home a long time ago, but `lyssa had circled the block a few times to hear the entire telling. Randal looked up from the cigarette he had bummed from the young woman; he hadn't smoked in 5 years but all the reminders of highschool brought back bad habits. His eyes were wide and disbelieving. She bad broken the unspoken pact- `thou shalt not speck of that.' "Whaddya talking about?" he mumbled, glaring back down at the glowing tip of the menthol, flickering like a dieing star in the dark. Alyssa perked up a brow, a hint of amusement in her voice. "Don't play stupid with me Graves, you were tapping again." She mimed tapping her teeth with her own, unlit, smoke. "Smart thing to do with a lit cigarette, real intelligent." Randal didn't respond, staring out the window, watching the streetlights come to a halt as the car slowed to a stop in front of his house. Alyssa's tone softened, "It's that fight you had with Dante, isn't it? I…" She trailed off at the pained look in her old friend's eyes. Randal had skimmed over the fight in his story, and she was starting to see why. Randal sighed, unable to stop the replay of Dante's words in his head. The clerk snorted lightly, opening the car door. Alyssa reached out, a hand settling on his shoulder. "Randal I…" "I better head in, work tomorrow and all that shit…" He stepped out, turning to look back at her for a moment, flicking the cigarette down and crushing it with the tip of his shoe. "I'll… see ya around, huh?" "Yeah…" she replied, no longer meeting his eyes as she started the car. Randal watched her begin the long drive back to New York. A sudden thought, a psychic flash if you will. `I'll never see her again…' He felt that hard, gurgling twist in his gut, immediately deeming it hunger; lest he think too deeply on it and discover what it really was… ***** Randal's eyes snapped open at the sound of water boiling over, hissing as it hit the grill. "Aw SHIT!!" Yelping slightly, he jerked the pot off the heat, cursing wildly. The plastic was now a puddle of goo, a steaming puddle. "Randy?" a husky female voice floated in from the living room. "Nothing Mom… just cooking." He yelled back, dumping the slop in the sink before walking into the living room. A tall, thin blonde woman was dozing on the couch, already falling back to sleep. Even under the blanket one could see the sharp angles of her bones. Discolored skin pulled tight on her face. She was only 39, but… Randal sighed, once again trying to connect this woman to the towering Bitch Goddess of his childhood and simply couldn't. Slowly, he lifted her into his arms, cradling her as she once did him when he would fall asleep in the car. "Come on ma, time for bed…" Her weight was nothing as he placed her in her bed, careful least he break her. Randal stared down at his ghost of a mother, rubbing at his eyes. They itched and dripped. `Sleep. You need to sleep…' He plodded his way to his room, thoughts racing in circled in his mind. Alyssa, Dante, his mother. He smacked his radio, music flooding in and drowning his brain with sound, the harsh beats of some heavy metal band he couldn't name. Thudding bass in his ears was the only way he could sleep any more it seemed. A sharp bark of laughter as he flopped down on his bed, not bothering to undress, flinging an arm over in face, waiting anxiously for sleep to take him. After all, it had been a long day…