Disclaimer- I did not create Dick (although I am quite fond of it (oops, did I write that aloud?)) or Mac. But they're just so damn much fun to write about, so, honestly, how could I resist?

Author's note- My first foray into the land of a Mac/Dick WIP. Hope it satisfies.

Managing an independent movie theatre was nothing like what she’d imagined for herself four, five years ago. But it was okay, and sometimes even fulfilling. Occasionally, it was a little daunting when she would suddenly come to herself, to find her hands shoveling popcorn into a shiny paper bag, or pimping worthless candy that would eventually turn the customers teeth to blackened stumps, if they kept stuffing their mouths with the processed sugar confections. Considering that she had once been, at her old high school, the go-to girl for all things computer related, sometimes it was a little more than daunting. But things had changed.

They’d changed a lot.

It wasn’t that she’d stopped caring; she wasn’t like that. But her life had seemed constricting after the events that had torn through it like a tornado, her goals had seemed insignificant, compared to the things that went unnoticed under Neptune’s seedy belly. And she’d stopped sleeping, to an alarming extent, which did not bode well for little, trivial things, like going to school, paying attention in school, and not leaving school.

Eventually she’d given up, and left college. Her parents had been heart-broken. But the nightmares, and general insomnia, she suffered from had insisted.

So she’d started helping Veronica with cases, more and more, until Keith had actually pay-rolled her, and she was more of a partner to her best friend, than a sidekick. The lack of inaction helped to assuage her feelings of guilt. There was definitely something to be said for finding out horrible truths before things climaxed to a sudden and heart wrenching conclusion.

The nightmares had not left her, though.

And eventually Neptune had proved to be too full of ghosts; of one ghost in particular, and she’d had to leave.

New Orleans had seemed like as good of a destination as any other. Besides, she thought the old stone architecture, and the general gothic appearance was interesting, and eye-catching. Plus, The Garden Bar served some really good veggie shrimp po-boys.

The Medea had been hiring, and two days after she’d arrived in town she’d been given a job as a box office cashier. It was menial work, but it made it possible for her to keep the small garage apartment the majority of her Mars Investigations nest egg(let) had gotten her.

On her second day, while walking the six blocks to her new job, she’d passed a yard sale. The bike she purchased there was old, a Schwinn with curvy handlebars. There were purple stripes painted on the black frame. The previous owner had upgraded to a street bike, better for the courier work she did. The bike cost Mac ten dollars. She loved it.

It took Mac six months to convince the management to let her train in projection. When her pleas were finally heard she took to it like a pro. And the few digital projectors they had were like putty beneath her hands; there hadn’t been a cancelled show since she’d begun their maintenance.

She liked the older, thirty-five millimeter projectors, too. She liked the feeling of the film sliding through her hands as she threaded, she liked watching the platters spin placidly, paying out and taking in film, in accordance to one another. She wished life was like that.

She learned to build films within two weeks of taking on the new duties of projectionist trainee. She enjoyed the solitude of the job; their small theatre had but nine booths, and she was spending more and more time in them, splicing film and watching the reels spin and spin, one small reel after another, on an inevitable journey to become something bigger than their separate parts.

After three years she was made assistant manager. Nine months later the theatre manager had been promoted to District Manager and his position had been offered to her. She took it.

She’d worked here for five years. Five years of serving large popcorns with extra butter, and Diet Pepsis to fat men who sat in the back of the darkened theatres and watched movies like Sex And Lucia, and Swimming Pool, pretending they weren’t watching for the explicit sex scenes, and hiding behind the title ‘Independent’. Five years of selling tickets to people who thought they knew everything there was to know about the world of indie film, and who weren’t afraid to express that belief. Five years of college kids forgetting to mention the word student until after she’d finished the transaction, and of lipsticked middle-schoolers asking if “they had any real movies here.”

Sometimes she hated it. But most of the time she loved it.

Sometimes, alone in the booths, or closing the theatre at the end of the night, she believed in ghosts. And sometimes they came back to haunt her.

The new cashier rang up a matinee ticket for the third time in a row. It was nine-thirty at night. Mac had an intense desire to just shove the bleached-blonde newbie out of the way, and ring up the rest of the customers herself. At least then she wouldn’t have to listen to them complain about missing the beginning of their movie.

“You have to ring up a regular ticket.” She told the guy, for the third time.

“Oh, yeah. Duh.” The cashier slapped himself on the forehead, also for the third time. Mac had a sneaking suspicion that the repeated bleach applications it must have taken to get the guy’s hair that particular startling shade of white had resulted in an accidental partial lobotomy.

Of course, she wasn’t really one to talk. She still wore two brightly colored stripes down either side of her waist length hair (blue and red streaks this month). But so far she had escaped the fate of slapping herself repeatedly on the forehead, so she was fairly convinced that she was safe from the bleach epidemic.

She moved towards the counter, a brief lull in customers allowing her the time to take care of the small stack of refunds the new guy had racked up. She was around four tickets into the stack when she heard her name spoken in dumbfounded accents.

Irritated, she continued in her computer glaring, an over-ring clenched in her hand.

“If it’s important, tell me- otherwise I’ll get to it when I’m done with this.” She knew her tone was unreasonably sharp, but she’d gotten even less sleep than usual the night before, and there were four new employees in the concessions area that absolutely did not seem to be able to get the hang of the espresso machine. She was a little testy.

“Mac.” The voice said again. With a sigh, Mac turned towards the concession stand. Bernie, her best friend, was frantically shoveling corn into a large bag, attempting to make up for the new kids’ lost time. The other employees were diligently punching away at their registers, or staring in utter incomprehension at the espresso machine. No one was looking at her, though.

A hand waved in front of her face, forcing her eyes off of the butter-saturated area before her. Said eyes followed the hand up a tanned arm, over the seams in the sleeve of a yellow t-shirt, and up to a grinning face. Mac’s mouth dropped open.

“Uh... hi,” was all she was able to force past her suddenly unresponsive lips.

“Dude, Mac. What the hell?” Asked her dead, mass murdering, ex boyfriend’s older brother.

Mac stared, shocked. At the sight of the (even five years later) mocking eyes, and the sun-bleached hair, and the smirking mouth, a thousand memories rushed at her, encompassing her, all of them involving one, slight, adorable, and very psychopathic boy, who she had used to be in love with.

She turned, her hands blindly reaching for the counter, which seemed intent on evading her questing grasp. Her eyes met Bernie’s, who let yet another bag of popcorn drop from his red-enameled fingertips and proceeded to hurry towards her.

“Mac? Girl, you all right?’ Bernie leveled a fierce glare in the blonde chunk of hunk who stood at the counter, as he was seemingly the reason for Mac’s distress. “What did you say to her?”

Blondie threw his hands in the air. “I just said her name. She got all catatonic, though; I don’t know what that’s all about.” The slightly distressed glance he cast at the counter, at these words, belied the statement, and Bernie gave him his very best Glare of Death, which no one came away from unscathed.

The hottie blanched, and Bernie congratulated himself before turning back to his best friend, who was staring at the guy like she was looking at a ghost. The guy glanced once at his companion, a tall brunette, before leaning forward on the counter, his brows contracted. “Mac. Dude, snap out of it.”

Strangely, the only thing that came to Mac’s mind was, “I can’t believe you still say dude.”

Dick Casablancas (Dick fucking Casablancas!) laughed. He laughed. Then he looked her up and down, and the smirk intensified. “I can’t believe you‘re still... um, you. Only, you know, more.” His eyes traveled from the tips of her solid black Chuck Taylor’s, to her stripey knee socks, to her layered black and brown skirt, to the faded yellow Medea Theatre t-shirt, and finally to her long pigtailed hair.

“I, um.” Mac looked at Bernie for assistance. Bernie took in the slightly dazed look and leveled a look at the person causing his Mackie discomfort. “Look surferboy, I don’t know what you said, or why Mac doesn’t like you, but you better just get gone.”

“How did you know I surf?”

Bernie just looked at him, an eyebrow arched. Mac looked at Dick, finally.

“You have a tan. In New Orleans. Your hair is sun-bleached. And you’re wearing a SurfDog t-shirt.” She paused. “Also, you’re on the cover of practically every alternative sports magazine in existence.

“Oh.” Said Dick, ignoring the cacophony of throat-clearings behind him, as customers expressed their displeasure at being kept waiting.

“Pass them in.” Mac said, mistily, to the cashier. Then she turned around, preparing to walk away. The cashier rang up two free passes, and Mac let Bernie lead her away from the weirdness.

“Mac.” Came Dick’s voice again. “Hold on a minute.” He grabbed his tickets from the cashier, without a glance, and hauled his companion down the counter, towards Mac and Bernie. The brunette with him followed willy-nilly, looking bored. Mac felt a glimmer of amusement. The tall, perfectly coifed waif was so very Madison Sinclair- if you ignored the lack of a high-pitched and haughty voice expressing the opinion that they should leave the geek to her job (this would be said with disgust, as Madison had never had to even consider getting a job in her life) and order a skim-milk caramel latte from concessions.

Mac looked at Bernie. “I think I’d like to sit down.”

Bernie nodded his similarly perfectly coifed head, and they exited the box office, heading for the row of low red plush benches that perfectly matched the rest of the decor in The Medea. The red velvet look (it covered the walls, the ceiling, the furnishings, and the floor) was thought to be classy by the theatre’s owners. Mac just thought it was tacky.

Out of the corner of her eye Mac saw Dick hurriedly give his tickets to the usher and take long, athletic strides towards them, and she accidentally trod on Bernie’s toes in her hurry to get somewhere that was elsewhere.

Dick. Dick Casablancas was here, in her theatre, in her carefully constructed version of a life. And with him came all of the turmoil that she thought she’d left behind in Neptune, because, with Dick, came the phantoms of the tragedy that had catapulted her out of innocence.

“Look, Mac-.” Dick was cut off by the glare Bernie directed his way, and he, deciding that the flaming drag queen could damn well take what he gave, met him stare for stare.

“You’re in New Orleans.” Mac pointed out to him.

Duh.

“Duh.”

Mac tried again. “Why are you in New Orleans?”

“Visiting.” Dick said. “You know, sightseeing, drinking all night, getting hammered on Bourbon Street, the whole nine.”

“It’s overrated.” Mac said shortly, resting her hands on her thighs as she thankfully sank down on a cushy bench.

“Says you.” Dick retorted, as if that explained everything. Which it sort of did.

“What are you doing at my theatre?” She asked, a trifle sharply.

Dick looked around. “You own this place? It’s not exactly... you, you know.”

“I manage it.” She said tiredly, looking down at her hands and taking a deep breath.

“Oh, well then... I guess you don’t get any say in the decorations.”

Mac shook her head confusedly. “What are you doing here, Dick?”

“Um, seeing a movie? You know, like you do at a movie theater.”

“Since when did you like indie films?” Mac looked up and asked.

Dick just shrugged. Mac sighed. “You’re missing your movie.”

“Dude, whatever. It looks crappy anyway.” Nevertheless, he turned towards his companion and told her she might as well hurry along to see her arty-farty movie. The woman dug her mauve painted nails into his arm and smiled coyly. Dick patted her on the backside. Mac rolled her eyes at Bernie. Bernie grinned. Perfect Coif whispered in Dick’s ear. Dick grinned. She stuck her tongue in his ear. Mac tried not to gag.

“See you inside.” The woman said, and added, with deep meaning, “With bells on.”

Dick smirked and turned back towards Mac, who was watching the brunette sashay away with horrified fascination. She faced him in indignation.

“Dick Casablancas, were you planning on having sex in my theatre?”

“What?” He said in equal indignation. “Of course not!”

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

“Well, we were maybe gonna fool around a little bit.” He conceded sheepishly.

“Ugghh.” Mac shook off her revulsion, the normal half disgust, half amusement she usually felt in the company of Dick sliding back into place, and crowding out the panic that had taken her over at the sight of him.

“Dick, what are you doing here? You hate movies you have to think about, and this,” Mac gestured around them, at the film buff customers surrounding them, “is so not your scene.”

“How do you know what my scene is? For all you know, I might be into this crap these days.” He told her, with a patented 09er look.

She took that look and gave it back two-fold, 02er style. Dick gave up. “Camille thinks it’s good for her image if she’s seen in these places.”

“Her image?” Bernie asked curiously.

“She’s an actress.”

“Actor.” Mac corrected absently.

“Whatever.” Dick said impatiently. “Anyway, it’s not like I’d see this piece of crap movie by choice.”

“High Heels is not a piece of crap.” Mac expostulated, while Bernie practically jumped out of his seat in sheer indignation. Mac shook her head in disbelief. “Dick, its Almodovar.”

“What, that dude who dresses guys up like chicks and has them do other dudes in the butt? Thanks, I’ll pass.”

Bernie huffed resentfully. Dick glanced his way, and smirked slightly.

Mac pulled a leg up underneath her. “You’re talking about Bad Education, right?”

Dick looked at her and shrugged. “If that’s the movie where the writer dude finds his old school buddy and then busts out the chick kicks and a wig, then yeah.”

“That one’s a classic.” Bernie said to Mac, slipping into film buff mode. “But it’s nowhere as good as Talk To Her.”

“Hable Con Ella?” Dick asked. “It should’ve been called Hable Con Sucko.”

“You know the Spanish title?” Mac asked, taken aback.

“Saw it.” Dick answered. “It sucked. Hard.”

Bernie stood. “That’s it. I cannot listen to this, this... ignoramus slaughtering Almodovar.” He looked at Mac. “You gonna be okay?”

Mac nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay now.” She paused and tried to find a plausible reason for her reaction to Dick’s presence. “I knew him a long time ago.” She said, waving her hand in his direction, and settling for half the truth. “Seeing him brought back some weird stuff. But I’m better now, promise.” She leveled a humorous look at Bernie. “Now, get back to work before I have to pull out those write-up slips.”

Bernie hah-hahhed and left with a wave of his hand and a swish of his ass. Mac looked after him fondly.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually friends with that... that.” Dick said in a tone of deep foreboding.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Mac asked sweetly, steel in her eyes.

“That dude... or.. whatever. You actually, like, kick it with him? What, do you guys like, have slumber parties and paint each others nails, or something?”

“We’re friends, Dick.” Mac said, sliding to her feet. “Look, I have to start a movie in,” she consulted her watch, “five minutes ago. It was nice to see you.”

She stuck out her hand. After a second, Dick took it. “Dude, we’ve seriously got to kick it while I’m here. We can totally rock this town!” He pumped his fist in the air.

Mac looked at him like he was crazy. After a few moments he relented. “Uh, maybe I’ll, like, see you around, or something.” He backed away, and snapped her a salute.

Mac gave him an uncertain little wave and turned, heading for one of the booths on her rotation. From behind her she heard Dick’s voice above the noise of the customers.

“Hey, Freaks and Geeks!”

She turned. He pointed at her.

“You’re so busted. You totally drool over me in the surfer mags!”