this is my favorite elvis song

PICSPAM: FAVORITES OF THE DECADE (FILM)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 21:08:11 GMT

Wow, this took awhile, *laughs*. What do we have here? Fifty of what I consider to be my favorite films of the last decade. And a caveat to that? Favorite does not necessarily equal the best, and I know there are some films I have yet to see that might have made the list (The Hurt Locker, I'm looking at you), but whatever, I thought I'd do this while hanging out watching Pushing Daisies episodes with the family, haha. ENJOY.

50 FAVORITE FILMS OF THE DECADE (2000-2009)

21 GRAMS
Dir. Iñárritu, 2003

CRISTINA PECK: You know what I thought when mom died? I couldn't understand how you could talk to people again, how you could laugh... again. I couldn't understand how you could play with us. And no, no that's a lie, life does not just go on.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER
Dir. Webb, 2009

RACHEL HANSEN: Just because she's likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul mate.

ALMOST FAMOUS
Dir. Crowe, 2000

LESTER BANGS: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool.

AMERICAN PSYCHO
Dir. Harron, 2000

PATRICK BATEMAN: I like to dissect girls. Did you know I'm utterly insane?

ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY
Dir. McKay, 2004

RON BURGUNDY: I'm not a baby, I am a man. I am an anchorman.

ATONEMENT
Dir. Wright, 2007

CECILIA TALLIS: Come back. Come back to me.

BIG FISH
Dir. Burton, 2003

WILL BLOOM: A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal.

BLACK HAWK DOWN
Dir. Scott, 2001

ABDULLAH "FIRIMBI" HASSAN: You Americans don't smoke anymore. You live long, dull and uninteresting lives.

BRICK
Dir. Johnson, 2005

LAURA DANNON: Do you trust me now?
BRENDAN FRYE: Less than when I didn't trust you before.

CASINO ROYALE
Dir. Campbell, 2006

M: She knew you were you.

CHILDREN OF MEN
Dir. Cuaron, 2006

KEE: Theo, the boat. The boat! It's OK. We are safe now. We're safe.

EASTERN PROMISES
Dir. Cronenberg, 2007

ANNA: Why are you doing this, why are you helping us?
NIKOLAI: I can't become king if someone else already sits on the throne.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Dir. Gondry, 2004

JOEL: I could die right now, Clem. I'm just... happy. I've never felt that before. I'm just exactly where I want to be.

GANGS OF NEW YORK
Dir. Scorsese, 2002

BILL: I'm forty-seven. Forty-seven years old. You know how I stayed alive this long? All these years? Fear. The spectacle of fearsome acts. Somebody steals from me, I cut off his hands. He offends me, I cut out his tongue. He rises against me, I cut off his head, stick it on a pike, raise it high up so all on the streets can see. That's what preserves the order of things. Fear.

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
Dir. Clooney, 2005

EDWARD R. MURROW: To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck.

I'M NOT THERE
Dir. Haynes, 2007

ARTHUR: Seven simple rules of going into hiding: one, never trust a cop in a raincoat. Two, beware of enthusiasm and of love, both are temporary and quick to sway. Three, if asked if you care about the world's problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks, he will never ask you again. Four, never give your real name. Five, if ever asked to look at yourself, don’t. Six, never do anything the person standing in front of you cannot understand. And finally seven, never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.

I HEART HUCKABEES
Dir. Russell, 2004

ALBERT MARKOVSKI: We're not in infinity; we're in the suburbs.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Dir. Tarantino, 2009

COL. HANS LANDA: Now if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and the predatory instinct of a hawk. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. If a rat were to walk in here right now as I'm talking, would you treat it to a saucer of your delicious milk?
PERRIER LAPADITE: Probably not.
COL. HANS LANDA: I didn't think so. You don't like them. You don't really know why you don't like them. All you know is you find them repulsive. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn, he looks in the attic, he looks in the cellar, he looks everywhere *he* would hide, but there's so many places it would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the Führer's brought me off my Alps in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to me. Because I'm aware what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.

KILL BILL VOL. 1
Dir. Tarantino, 2003

BILL: One more thing, Sofie... is she aware her daughter is still alive?

KILL BILL VOL. 2
Dir. Tarantino, 2004

ELLE DRIVER: Now in these last agonizing minutes of life you have left, let me answer the question you asked earlier more thoroughly. Right at this moment, the biggest "R" I feel is Regret. Regret that maybe the greatest warrior I have ever known, met her end at the hands of a bushwhackin, scrub, alky piece of shit like you. That woman deserved better.

KISS KISS BANG BANG
Dir. Black, 2005

PERRY: Do not play detective. This is not a book. This is not a movie.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Dir. Dayton & Faris, 2006

RICHARD: Oh my God, I'm getting pulled over. Everyone, just... pretend to be normal.

LOST IN TRANSLATION
Dir. Coppola, 2003

CHARLOTTE: never come here again because it will never be as much fun.

LOVE ACTUALLY
Dir. Curtis, 2003

PRIME MINISTER: Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around.

MARIE ANTOINETTE
Dir. Coppola, 2006

MARIE ANTOINETTE: This is ridiculous.
COMTESSE DE NOAILLES: This, Madame, is Versailles.

MEAN GIRLS
Dir. Waters, 2004

GRETCHEN: I'm sorry that people are so jealous of me... but I can't help it that I'm so popular.

MEMENTO
Dir. Nolan, 2000

LEONARD SHELBY: Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts.

MICHAEL CLAYTON
Dir. Gilroy, 2007

ARTHUR EDENS: Michael. Dear Michael. Of course it's you, who else could they send, who else could be trusted? I... I know it's a long way and you're ready to go to work... all I'm saying is wait, just wait, just-just-just... please hear me out because this is not an episode, relapse, fuck-up, it's... I'm begging you Michael. I'm begging you. Try and make believe this is not just madness because this is not just madness. Two weeks ago I came out of the building, okay, I'm running across Sixth Avenue, there's a car waiting, I got exactly 38 minutes to get to the airport and I'm dictating. There's this, this panicked associate sprinting along beside me, scribbling in a notepad, and suddenly she starts screaming, and I realize we're standing in the middle of the street, the light's changed, there's this wall of traffic, serious traffic speeding towards us, and I... I-I freeze, I can't move, and I'm suddenly consumed with the overwhelming sensation that I'm covered with some sort of film. It's in my hair, my face... it's like a glaze... like a... a coating, and... at first I thought, oh my god, I know what this is, this is some sort of amniotic - embryonic - fluid. I'm drenched in afterbirth, I've-I've breached the chrysalis, I've been reborn. But then the traffic, the stampede, the cars, the trucks, the horns, the screaming and I'm thinking no-no-no-no, reset, this is not rebirth, this is some kind of giddy illusion of renewal that happens in the final moment before death. And then I realize no-no-no, this is completely wrong because I look back at the building and I had the most stunning moment of clarity. I... I... I... I realized Michael, that I had emerged not from the doors of Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen, not through the portals of our vast and powerful law firm, but from the asshole of an organism whose sole function is to excrete the... the-the-the poison, the ammo, the defoliant necessary for other, larger, more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity. And that I had been coated in this patina of shit for the best part of my life. The stench of it and the stain of it would in all likelihood take the rest of my life to undo. And you know what I did? I took a deep cleansing breath and I set that notion aside. I tabled it. I said to myself as clear as this may be, as potent a feeling as this is, as true a thing as I believe that I have witnessed today, it must wait. It must stand the test of time. And Michael, the time is now.

MOULIN ROUGE!
Dir. Luhrmann, 2001

SATINE: I don't need you anymore! All my life you made believe I was only worth what someone would pay for me! But Christian loves me. He loves me! He loves me, Harold. And that is worth everything! We're going away from you, away from the Duke, away from the Moulin Rouge!

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Dir. Coen Brothers, 2007

ELLIS: Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity.

OCEAN'S ELEVEN
Dir. Soderbergh, 2001

REUBEN: You guys are pros. The best. I'm sure you can make it out of the casino. Of course, lest we forget, once you're out the front door, you're still in the middle of the fucking desert!

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
Dir. Verbinski, 2003

JACK SPARROW: Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Dir. Wright, 2005

MR. BENNET: I could not have parted with you, my Lizzie, to anyone less worthy.

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
Dir. Aronofsky, 2000

SARA GOLDFARB: I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old.
HARRY GOLDFARB: You got friends, Ma.
SARA GOLDFARB: Ah, it's not the same. They don't need me. I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress and the television and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile.

SUNSHINE
Dir. Boyle, 2007

CAPA: So if you wake up one morning and it's a particularly beautiful day, you'll know we made it. Okay, I'm signing out.

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY
Dir. Greengrass, 2004

JASON BOURNE: You killed Marie.
WARD ABBOTT: You killed Marie. The moment you got into her car. The moment you entered her life, she was dead.

THE BROTHERS BLOOM
Dir. Johnson, 2008

STEPHEN: perfect con is one where everyone involved gets just what they wanted.

THE CONSTANT GARDENER
Dir. Meirelles, 2005

TIM DONOHUE: Leave this, Justin. Go home.
JUSTIN QUAYLE: I can't go home. Tessa was my home.

THE DARJEELING LIMITED
Dir. Anderson, 2007

JACK: I wonder if the three of us would've been friends in real life. Not as brothers, but as people.

THE DARK KNIGHT
Dir. Nolan, 2008

ALFRED: Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

THE DEPARTED
Dir. Scorsese, 2006

FRANK COSTELLO: One of us had to die. With me, it tends to be the other guy.

THE HOURS
Dir. Daldry, 2002

VIRGINIA WOOLF: This is my right; it is the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the Capital, that is my choice. The meanest patient, yes, even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. Thereby she defines her humanity. I wish, for your sake, Leonard, I could be happy in this quietness. [pause] But if it is a choice between Richmond and death, I choose death.

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
Dir. Anderson, 2004

STEVE ZISSOU: Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS
Dir. von Donnersmarck, 2006

Buchverkäufer: 29.80. Would you like it gift wrapped?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: No. It's for me.

THE OTHERS
Dir. Amenábar, 2001

MRS. MILLS: Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Dir. Anderson, 2007

PLAINVIEW: I don't want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry... to have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these... people. [laughs]

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
Dir. Anderson, 2001

ROYAL: Richie, this illness, this closeness to death... it's had a profound affect on me. I feel like a different person, I really do.
RICHIE: Dad, you were never dying.
ROYAL: ...but I'm gonna live!

TRAFFIC
Dir. Soderbergh, 2000

HELENA AYALA: Now get out of the car and shoot him in the head!

WALL-E
Dir. Stanton, 2008

EVE: Name?
WALL-E WALL-E.
EVE: WALL-E? [giggles]

ZODIAC
Dir. Fincher, 2007

ARTHUR ALLEN LEIGH: I am not the Zodiac. And if I were, I certainly wouldn't tell you.

fanmix: little beasts (inglourious basterds)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:08:05 GMT

Ohhhh boy. It never ends, haha. I think I seriously have a problem here, you guys. Like, call A&E because I'm a candidate for their little intervention show. Basically Inglourious Basterds and the completely non-canon pairing of Frederick/Shoshanna/Hellstrom (ok, let's be real: primarily Shoshanna/Hellstrom) has eaten my brain and refuses to give it back. Not that anyone would ever want an eaten brain back? Ew. Gross imagery. IDK.

So. This one time I wrote a fic that was set in some insane land of AU, and this is the mix and this is the music that goes with that. I always find mixes really strange to talk about, because in my head it always makes absolute sense that these songs and this sound goes together with the story being told. It's difficult to translate that into words, but I'll try. That entire fic I wrote? Grew out of me listening to Orphans & Vandals' "Mysterious Skin" on repeat while trying to study and getting the image of a dusty, sunlit flat somewhere in Europe and a really small, bright kitchen and the three of them living in it. There would be jealousy and hatred and that cold thirst for revenge, but beyond that there would the warmer human instincts, and how when you combine all of that and a closed setting, well, you know, powder keg effect. I'm not making sense. Okay. The sound I was gunning for with this mix is something angry and lustful that gives way to a quiet resolve and desperation. I'm going to stop talking now because I feel like I sound like a fool, *laughs*. Last thing, swear it, the quote on the cover is from Richard Siken (of course, who else)'s poem "Little Beast," ergo, title.

ANYWAY. As always, this is dedicated to endearlings, my partner in crime in this ridiculously awesome endeavor. And also! You guys! I am so thrilled that people around here are intrigued by these two! Keep it up! Join the ~~cult~~ club!

HAVE SOME MUSIC. I'LL SHUT UP NOW. THANKS AND HAVE A NICE DAY.

ZIP HERE
change "hxxp" to "http"

01. LET THE DEVIL IN; TV on the Radio
Beg the bee's forgiveness as it's falling from your sleeve
watch it's guts pump poison in to sting –

So when the chariot arrives, you'd best enjoy the ride
'cause when we get to heaven's gate we're not getting inside

Better beg forgiveness
Better drop to knees
Better find your ticket
Before we join the bees

02. SO FAR FROM YOUR WEAPON; The Dead Weather
There's a bullet in my pocket burning a hole

You're so far from your weapon
And the place you were born –

Your dream of seeing fire in the them hills
But you better wipe that smile from your lips
Which of us will be the one to go?
He who hits the road's the one who lives

03. BLACK HEARTED LOVE; PJ Harvey & John Parish
When you call out my name in rapture
I volunteer my soul for murder
I wish this moment here forever –

In the rain
In the evening
I will come again

04. THE CHILDREN; Yeasayer

05. RECKONER; Radiohead
Because we separate
it ripples our reflections
Because we separate
it ripples our reflections

06. SAILING TO BYZANTIUM; Liars
Oh no no no
You won't choose reason
Oh no no no
You won't choose treason
Oh no no no
You need to tease them

07. FOG; Mason Proper
My horoscope, said "pack your bags"
Running low on hope, I can't get back
Made a hole in my head, then forgot why i did, you're all gone.
Made a run for a gate, but there's laws in this state, you're all gone.

I tried to warn you, but you were out of your head
I tried to hold you back.
I tried to warn you, but you were out of your head

08. WOLF LIKE ME (TV ON THE RADIO COVER); The Pluto Tapes
Baby doll I recognize
You're a hideous thing inside
If ever there were a lucky kind it's
You you you you -

Dream me oh dreamer
Down to the floor
Open my hands and let them
Weave onto yours

Feel me, completer
Down to my core
Open my heart and let it
Bleed onto yours

Feeding on fever
Down on all fours
Show you what all the
Howlin's for

09. LEIF ERIKSON (INTERPOL COVER); Lotte Kestner
She says it helps with the lights out
Her rabid glow is like braille to the night.
She swears I’m a slave to the details
But if your life is such a big joke, why should I care? –

It’s like learning a new a language
Helps me catch up on my mime
If you don’t bring up those lonely parts
This could be a good time
It’s like learning a new language

You come here to me
We’ll collect those lonely parts and set them down
You come here to me

10. MEET ME AT THE SHOOTING RANGE; Ballboy
But if I
if I was going to kill you
I wouldn't tell you
I wouldn't tell you
But I
I'm not going to kill you
But I realise
That that's what I would say

11. MYSTERIOUS SKIN; Orphans & Vandals
And I promise to be good
And a lot of things get abandoned along the way, don't they –

You know, I hate to leave you here
But I've gotta go
I hate to leave you here in an ugly graveyard in Charlesville-Mezieres
But your shirt's covered in blood
It's speckled on your neck and below your ear
And your mountains are covered in snow –

If a tree falls in a forest,
If a tree falls in a forest...
When I get back, decisions must be made –

If you play your cards right,
You'll find

That violence won't be far behind
Violence won't be far behind

12. THE DAY THE WORLD WENT AWAY (NINE INCH NAILS COVER); Ark Sano

&

fic: pseudonyms

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:18:56 GMT

pseudonyms

inglourious basterds. predestination does not allow an altering of history, try as you might; berlin after the war. shoshanna, hellstrom, shoshanna/hellstrom, shoshanna/fredrick. 5684 words. rated nc-17. AU.

notes: OH SHIT SON. so this actually happened? aka, this pairing ate my brain over the course of exam week and over the course of two days, despite being strung out and hungover post-finals, my brain threw up this? without question, this business would not have happened without the glorious endearlings. also, this is AU. big time AU. like, AU as in this darling trio ran off to Berlin post-war and stirred up some shit AU. that said, this is dark and filthy and strange, and i've managed to bastardize Inglourious Basterds, so go enjoy and be merry.

Names like pain cries, names like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented, names forbidden or overused.
(Richard Siken, Saying Your Names)

Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave.
(Cormac McCarthy, The Road)

1.

This is a story that starts with blood, and much like all stories that start with blood, it ends in blood as well. The discerning would call this a full circle, a coming right back to where we started from, like maybe there’s some set path that we’ve all set out on and try as you might, the stretches of map and land and sea you traverse, you wind up right back where you started from.

The discerning would be wrong. The discerning don’t like to be wrong. They like to think their observations earn them something close to a truth, but it doesn’t. Small details can be misleading, and they don’t like that either.

But this story doesn’t end where it started. To end where this started you’d have to go back to France, and they weren’t going to do that. They could never do that. To do that would mean death, would mean blood, the same blood that was emptied at the end anyway, but these here are two men and a woman, not prophets. You don’t know where and when the blood’s going to spill unless you’re holding the gun, and even then, there are no sure bets.

The point is, when your number’s up, your name’s going to be called.

You can only put off the inevitable for so long before it finds you yet again.

-

2.

Fredrick still calls her Emmanuelle.

Hellstrom knows better. Hellstrom calls her Shoshanna when he needs her name at all.

-

3.

You are unfamiliar with the way this story went. Someone took a wrong turn, someone let their hand slip and the cards dealt were shown and when you skip a step to the ending the predetermined outcome is no longer predetermined.

For example: Hellstrom knew the truth about Emmanuelle when he picked her up at her cinema. The woman who descended that ladder and crossed the street to him was no Emmanuelle Mimieux and he had known this. Colonel Landa had known too.

“She goes by Emmanuelle. Emmanuelle Mimieux,” Landa had said. “Nice name, yes?”

Hellstrom had granted half a nod and lit another cigarette. Landa had leaned in.

“Her real name is Shoshanna Dreyfus. I do believe that says it all.”

Second: Hellstrom was supposed to kill her.

“Get rid of her,” Landa said after their meeting.

“Sir,” Hellstrom said. “And Goebbels? The cinema, the premiere?”

Landa waved a hand. “Leave that to me.”

Hellstrom smiled.

“And Zoller?”

“Ah. The brave private will just have to endure the burden of young love thwarted and heartbreak, I’m afraid. Here today, gone tomorrow. Ships in the night, that sort of thing.”

The story you know did not transpire as such, and that’s fine. In this story, there are no heroes and our characters read the last page of the book before understanding the plot.

Hellstrom did not kill her. Zoller was a problem. Hellstrom did not go to La Louisiane that night. The Third Reich fell, the cinema burned, and the three of them were on the outside, the three of them ran. Emmanuelle Mimieux was wanted for the murder of the souls trapped inside the torched cinema and Major Dieter Hellstrom was an enemy of the state and wanted for trial.

Fredrick Zoller was still a hero, but that was to be expected. Dark times, they said, and they would cling to the few stars they still possessed.

This brings us to the present, and yes, of course, there are unanswered questions, but aren’t there always. We will not skip to the last page of the book (they all die), we will not try to understand why (they had it coming), but we do know this:

They arrive in East Berlin before it is known as East Berlin. There are no divisions drawn yet, the war has only just ended, the upper echelon of the Third Reich barbequed in Shoshanna Dreyfus aka Emmanuelle Mimieux’s former place of business. Zoller will take the burgeoning East German film industry by storm while Shoshanna runs the bookstore under their flat and Hellstrom flirts with alcoholism and indolence, the tables turned, a stroke of irony, as he is the one now in hiding.

Their flat is small. There is a kitchen and a too large butcher block table in the center of it. The room smells stale, of old smoke and dinners of years past. There is no door that leads to the bedroom. There are two beds, there is one window. They share a bedroom. They share a flat. They share a flat over the bookstore Shoshanna will operate and own. There are two beds that form an L-shape, one perpendicular to the other, each bed along one of the four walls. The bathroom is cramped and the water does not warm.

It sounds quaint. It is not.

-

4.

Shoshanna never addresses the bold question: why are you here?

There is nothing for you here, she rationalizes.

There is nothing out there either.

-

5.

“They want you on the stand,” Fredrick tells Hellstrom. Shoshanna is in the next room, her body curled in on itself and a book in a corner along the window.

“Lucky me, eh,” is his answer. He lights a match and then a cigarette, throws the burnt match in the middle of the table and inhales.

“They want your goddamn neck,” Fredrick says, more serious this time.

“I imagine they would.”

“They want hers too,” he hisses.

Hellstrom smiles without teeth and lines crinkle around his eyes.

“How fascinating.”

-

6.

This is the world they live in now. It is a world of shadows, no less dangerous and insecure than the world they had left, but at least then there had been sides to be chosen. Shoshanna shelves books and feigns ignorance, feigns that she does not care for the world that exists outside her front door. Hellstrom drinks, puts out cigarettes against the wood desk of the register. His French is far superior to her German. She imagines it a sign of power that he refused to speak it before, in her city, her country. She is learning; he does not acknowledge that he is teaching.

Fredrick tells them he is going to be a star.

-

7.

Fredrick loves her. He has made this much abundantly clear. But it is not Shoshanna Dreyfus he loves; it is the brief glimpse of Emmanuelle Mimieux, cinema proprietress, that he loves. He tries to bring her back, gentle her out with kind words and glances that speak openly of his adoration.

“I never did anything to hurt you,” Fredrick tells her.

Shoshanna does not know what words exist to explain this. She does not know how to explain something so base as my people, your people, my family under the floorboards, my family buried underground. She should not have to explain these things, and he should not look at her like she is the one that is destroying him.

He has seen death, and she knows this. But he has not seen it in the up close, the too bright, the people you love with everything you love about them taken and gone. He does not know that, and she will not explain that.

So instead she will shrug. She locks these things, these people away. Her family, her Marcel, herself. She will clutch the clean glass in her hand and run a dishtowel over it, inside it. From the other room a record will play and some nights Hellstrom hums along with it. It makes her scared, it makes her nervous, there is nothing soothing about it.

Fredrick will put a hand on her arm and she knows that she hates him.

Shoshanna hates him. She hates Hellstorm, too. She hates both men, she hates that her stomach can twist and knot out of fear in the presence of the one and not the other. Fredrick watches her like he loves her, like he knows her.

Hellstrom watches, too. He follows her with his eyes in a way that makes the small hairs on the back of her neck and her arms stand on end.

The point is: she watches him too.

-

8.

Shoshanna thinks about killing them both. Sometimes she thinks of killing them. In the middle of the night, she imagines it, it could be so simple. A pillow over the face held tight. Fetch a knife from the kitchen. Both men carry guns, she could steal them both – point, shoot, bang, bang. Set fire to the building. Poison them. Fingers pressed in the right pattern around a bare throat.

She knows that Fredrick would never consider these things. The closest he has ever come to cruelty was when he told her, “I forgive you your heritage,” and she had done little more than stare blankly at him.

Hellstrom would kill her. He could kill her. She knows this, just as sure as she is about Frederick. What she does not know is if he imagines it in the same vivid detail she does. Shoshanna begins to imagine the inverse, and instead of her knees bracketed on either side of his ribs and her hands clutched tight around his neck, fingers squeezing in, they are his and she is the one who lies prone beneath him.

(Hellstrom does imagine these things, albeit more lust-infused than Shoshanna’s mind will supply. It has become less about murder and more about her, begging, “please.”

Woman came from Adam’s rib. He’d like to remind her of that).

-

9.

“You have a customer,” Hellstrom announces from behind her. Shoshanna does not jump.

Hellstrom looks more dangerous out of uniform than in.

There are the sharp lines of his body, violence contained and incarnate. There is no uniform, no code to bind him, but rather untethered brute strength.

Let’s say Hellstrom is a devil. Let’s call him this to his face. Let’s say he’s a devil and spit words like that in his face, and if you do that, you’ll notice one thing immediately: pride. He might not be a devil, devils might not actually exist, might not be meant for this world, might just be a moral construct to keep us fenced in between the twin temptations of right and wrong and good and bad, but he is proud of the idea that if devils walk this earth he could be among them.

He is a man people call a bad man, and a man who has done bad things. He is less proud of these things he has done than the label it has earned him.

In this small flat in Berlin, two out of the three of them are striving for reinvention. Shoshanna is adept at this, she has done this before, and this he knows because her neck was meant to be his to catch.

Dieter Hellstrom is a proud man, and to him this is yet another sin he will not be pardoned for.

He does not know how to become someone else. He does not desire it.

Most days he thinks he should have raised his pistol and said, “do your worst,” because that’s another thing people like to say:

Devils aren’t long for this world.

-

10.

The first time Fredrick slept with Emmanuelle, the first time Shoshanna slept with Fredrick, Hellstrom was there.

Fredrick was on top and Shoshanna was completely silent.

She rolled over and Hellstrom could see the side of her face. Her eye caught his and he smirked. She held his gaze for longer than he expected.

Brave girl, he had thought.

(Know this, she slept with him because she could, because there is a such thing as power in sex and the idea of diminishing another man to something senseless, a thing that begs for release, that appealed to her baser senses.

And perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps loneliness can bleed into us in ways we don’t recognize and we do things we thought we could never condone. Maybe that happened.

Maybe it didn’t matter. She still is not Emmanuelle).

-

11.

Mademoiselle Mimieux is more plain than beautiful. Hellstrom had told Fredrick this that very first day, that first meeting among the three. Hellstrom’s mouth had been sickening sweet with the champagne and the girl had been in the company of Colonel Landa. Hellstorm told Fredrick she was more plain than beautiful.

Fredrick had barely offered him a glance, but instead smiled and shook his head.

“Admirable spirit, however,” Hellstrom said.

“What?”

-

12.

So many wolves so hungry for the slaughter, and he thinks the problem might be that they’ve run out of lambs and have begun to hunt their own kind.

This Shoshanna is hardly doe-eyed though her eyes are wide, bright, too bright, but her lower lip does not tremble and he thinks that’s what he wants from her.

Frederick never chooses wisely.

-

13.

Routine is simple. Her bed is his bed is her bed. His body fits easily with hers, and Frederick smells like a man, and as much as she would be loathe to admit it, there is some small comfort in that.

Hellstrom does not know these things. What he knows is that her bed is Zoller’s bed is her bed. He knows that she has sex with Fredrick but watches him the entire time.

Her eyes lock with his and his cock twitches. Hellstrom does not touch himself, but he watches her. Her eyes are wide, wet and gleaming in the darkened room, and she doesn’t blink – he doesn’t blink. Shoshanna sucks in a breath and bites her bottom lip. From underneath her (the sharp bend of her shoulder and the pale skin of her back that does little to hide the bones underneath) he can hear Fredrick say, “Emmanuelle.”

Shoshanna does not blink and she does not look away. She arches her back slightly, her breasts small and white and bared for him. She lifts her hips and lowers them, and if Fredrick groans, Hellstrom does not hear him. Hellstrom’s eyes dart from her breasts to her eyes, and she is still watching him, she is still looking at him, her breath catching, and Hellstrom finally relents, slides a hand down the front of his trousers.

When he squeezes, hard, and he pulls, his hips buck, and Shoshanna gasps. He likes to think it a coincidence.

(He jacks himself, long, firm strokes, and she watches him, her eyes too big and too dark, and her breasts bounce as Frederick moves beneath her. He fights the temptation to close his eyes and instead, quiet, slow, and deliberate, he pushes the thin blanket off of himself. He drags his trousers down, past his hips and takes a ragged breath in. He lays there for a moment, nude save for the trousers gathered at his knees, and looks at the beams stretched across the ceiling. Their shared bed rattles and creaks, and when Hellstrom looks back over to her, she is bent forward over Fredrick, her fingers wrapped tight around the wrought iron headboard.

Hellstrom locks eyes with her and smiles, dark and predatory, and skims a hand down his bare belly, stopping just short of his cock. Shoshanna makes a wet sound that is half a swallow and half a whimper.

His fist is tight and still not enough, but he pumps hard and fast, licks at his lips, his eyes don’t leave hers, and he wants to taste her, he wants her to slick that already open mouth of hers around him, wants her to suck him down, he wants to be the one inside her, he wants her to scream, he wants her to cry and to beg, he wants her to hurt, he wants her, he wants her –

He comes silently, his body shaking with it.

Shoshanna comes, too, on a long and broken, plaintive moan. Hellstrom watches as Fredrick’s hands rise, caressing up her sides, along her rib cage. He shushes her, murmurs something Hellstrom cannot hear. Hellstrom smiles again, and Shoshanna finally looks away).

-

14.

The fact of the matter is that the violence has been brewing since they met. The fact is, this man was ordered to kill her and this woman would not mind achieving the same for him.

It works much the same as spilled kerosene. All it takes is that unexpected spark, that small burst, the shock of metal meeting metal with perhaps a little too much strength, and the entire thing goes up in flames.

Hellstrom teases, he calls her their own little chambermaid.

She slaps him across the face, hard, and his front tooth nicks his bottom lip and it bleeds. He smiles with stained teeth and he strikes her; Shoshanna raises a hand to her cheek and stumbles back. She raises a hand to him again and he rebuts her, pushes her back and they both stumble with the force.

She punches and she kicks at his legs and they wind up grappling on the floor. His hands grab at her waist and her hips, pull at her arms and try to steady her, but she wriggles against him, her nails sharp and they scratch down the side of his neck. He catches her below the chin and she gasps; her fingers curl into the flesh of his cheek as she pushes her weight against him.

They tire at the same moment and her body slumps against his, and he makes no move against her. Her face is close and her breath hot on his mouth. There is a smudge of her own blood at the corner of her mouth and his knuckles are scraped and they sting. Shoshanna takes a deep breath in and her body shudders with it, like she has just stopped crying. Her eyes, red-rimmed, are dry.

That night at dinner there is no conversation, just the scraping of metal against china.

“What happened to you?” Fredrick finally asks.

Shoshanna’s gaze does not waver. “I fell down some stairs,” she says. She does not look at Hellstrom but takes a long draught of her wine.

“You?” Frederick asks Hellstrom.

Hellstrom clears his throat and swallows. “Me too,” he says.

-

15.

People are apt to give in to what they believe to be a natural chain of events.

Simply put: Hellstrom fucks her in the kitchen. The first time she is bent over an old kitchen table and halfway through an Edith Piaf record skips and stops.

(And you are asking, of course you are asking, how could she possibly let this happen? She wants it, and that’s the painful and true part, she wants it, and pay attention, she might still hate him but she wants him).

She is wet for it (wet for him is what he would like to think, but he is hardly sentimental, though the idea does cut in a gratifying way) and her hips arch, try to follow the path of his hand. A regular French whore, he muses, and perhaps this was why Frederick was so taken with her in the first place. But, no. That’s not it. He’s seen enough of her to know by now that was never her.

His body easily dwarfs hers as he holds himself over her. He can’t see her face, her chin is tucked into her chest, she is holding herself up by her forearms against the table, and her hair obscures his view. She is positively shaking with it, her breath sharp and rapid, his chest flush with her arched back. He grabs a fist full of her hair and draws it back from her face; her cheeks are flushed and her bottom lip is caught between her teeth. She looks guilty, ashamed – he likes that. He laughs, mouth against her ear.

Her knees slide wider apart and there is a loud noise as she hits the heel of her hand against the top of the table she is pressed against.

He bites at the skin of the back of her neck and she makes a hot and sticky noise in the back of her throat.

He kisses her for the first time after. Their teeth click and her mouth gapes open and his tongue slicks along her top lip. He grips the back of her head tight and his fingers tangle in her hair. Shoshanna’s fingers curl into the front of his shirt and her front teeth catch on his bottom lip. He can taste blood; he imagines, so can she.

He slides a bare leg between her own and he can feel her, still wet, against his upper thigh. Hellstrom groans into her mouth.

The kiss smarts same as that slap to the face.

-

16.

The second time is different. It is quiet, it happens in the bedroom, mid-day, summer. Her skin is damp and so is his. She makes a soft noise in the back of her throat as he parts her thighs, his grip tight on her hip. He is moving too slow, his body feels heavy and tired, as though his muscles won’t yield to his will.

After, they lay still in his bed, the front of her body flush against his. He stares at her. She is a fascinating creature. Shoshanna watches the open window. There is no breeze and the curtains do not move. She takes a deep breath and it sounds more like a shudder.

“Why are you here?” Hellstrom asks slowly. Shoshanna turns her gaze to him and blinks, once. Her eyes are huge and do not waver from his. Her body is hot against him and he wants to touch her. His hand twitches at his side but he does not reach.

Shoshanna rolls away from him and lays flat on her back. The blankets twist around her ankles and she lays there, nude, and lights a cigarette with a match.

“I have not decided where else to go,” she says quietly. He almost believes her.

-

17.

If this, then that.

If she shuts the door, he will open it. If she runs, he will chase.

She won’t run.

-

18.

The third time, Fredrick catches them.

The bathroom, and maybe this was them tempting fate. They both were loud, Shoshanna gasping and begging the word, “please,” a word Hellstrom does not think he had ever heard from her before. He grunted against the column of her throat, spoke without thinking, called her a good girl, didn’t mean it, asked her if she could take it, and knew that she could. Shoshanna’s ass was perched on the lip of the sink and her hair caught, static, against the dirty pane of the mirror.

Frederick stands in the doorway. “What,” is all Fredrick says, and then he falls silent.

Hellstrom turns his head to look at the other man. Shoshanna leans forward and rests her forehead against Hellstrom’s temple; he can hear her swallow thickly, her arms looped around his neck. Hellstrom is still inside her, and almost as though against her will, Shoshanna makes a small movement with her hips towards him and he slides into her deeper. Hellstrom grits his teeth and steadies her with a tight and bruising grip.

“You’re more than welcome to watch,” Hellstrom says. Shoshanna’s eyes are closed, her forehead pressed against him. Her fingers are firm along the cut of his jaw and Frederick’s eyes flicker along her bent and naked frame, her body wrapped around his.

“Emmanuelle.” Fredrick says the name softly. Hellstrom can feel Shoshanna’s chest expand as she inhales.

“That’s not my name,” she says, and her lips brush against Hellstrom’s cheek as she says it.

Fredrick stands there for a beat longer and the crestfallen expression on his face amuses Hellstrom. Shoshanna does not look at him or the door. Fredrick shuts the door behind him.

Hellstrom starts to laugh, the sound unfriendly and cruel. He grabs her by the nape of the neck and pulls back, exposing the column of her throat to him.

“This like before?” he asks, more a growl than a question. “You like it when we watch, is that it?” He thrusts hard and her body shakes, her shoulder blade hits the mirror. “You want him instead?” he bites off.

Shoshanna smacks him with the flat of her hand. Her hand meets the side of his face, curls into a fist, pounds into his shoulder and he pounds into her, relentless.

“Tell me,” he snarls then gasps for breath.

“No,” she moans, and her legs can’t touch the floor, she is bent between him and the wall, the mirror, her ass almost in the bowl of the sink. The porcelain is cold against her skin and the metal faucet digs painfully into the small of her back. Hellstrom stills. “No,” she moans again, her blunt fingernails biting into his upper arms.

“No?” he questions, out of breath. “No, what?” He thrusts once and her elbow hits an empty glass; the glass falls from the edge of the sink, shatters. Her eyes flash, furious. “No you won’t tell me?” He thrusts again, and Shoshanna’s hands slip from his biceps to his shoulders, around to cling at his upper back. “Or no you don’t want him.”

She pushes against him and raises herself off of the sink. Hellstrom’s cock slides out of her with the motion, and he groans, she gasps, at the loss of sensation. Shoshanna pushes him again, pushes him hard and he stumbles back, back to the wall, and then slides to the floor. Her hand threads through his hair and jerks his head back; she straddles him, her cunt wet against him but his cock not inside her.

“I hate you,” she hisses, and Hellstrom palms her breast. He pinches her nipple and she grunts; she grips his face with both hands. “You’re a monster,” she says, as evenly as she can but her chin trembles, betrays her. Her face is too close to him, so he kisses her. He doesn’t think, he kisses her, his mouth covers hers and her tongue is pink and wet as she licks around his. He slides a hand between them, and her body has become frighteningly familiar to him, to his touch. He slides back into her easily enough, and she stops kissing him as his hips arch and he fills her.

“You wish Fredrick was here?” he hisses, a smile cutting his face in half.

“Fuck you,” she gasps, and he rolls her, her back bare against the dirty tiled floor. He holds her hands above her head and she does not try to wriggle free from his loose grasp. The floor is too hard against his knees, but it doesn’t matter. He lifts one of her legs over his shoulder and spreads her wide open; her eyes water as he pushes in too deep and too fast, but she does not tell him to stop. Her wrists are small in his hands.

“What do you want?” he asks her in a drawn out whisper. He twists his hips and her fingers twist with his, still raised high over her head. Her grip is tight on his fingers and she huffs out a breath as he moves into her.

“Fuck me,” she grits out. Her heel digs into the center of his back and it almost hurts to breath. “I want you to fuck me,” she says in a hurry. Her voice is desperate, but her face is the same, that same hard look she greeted him with that first day outside her cinema. “I want you – Dieter – ”

“Jesus, fuck,” he gasps, and he doesn’t know what it is, he thinks it is her saying his name, but he can’t be sure, he can’t stop now. They no longer speak, except for sounds that are merely parts of words, no more names, the crook of her bent knee is sweaty against his shoulder.

“Shoshanna,” he grounds out against her ear, and he comes, one hand still clutching hers and another at the small of her back, raising her hips to meet his. Shoshanna shakes beneath him, her body wracked with gasping, sobbing breaths, her face wet.

She has started begging again, a scrambled mixture of please and oh, god and his name, she won’t stop saying his name, Dieter, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.

-

19.

“Do you love him? Fredrick asks her that evening.

Shoshanna cocks her head to the side and stares at him. She wonders if she was to say yes that would make this easier for Fredrick. She imagines it would. After this stretch of time with him, from what she knows and has learned of him, he is the sort of man to pardon certain indiscretions if done out of love.

“No,” she tells Fredrick, and he nods.

“Do you love me?” he asks.

“No,” she repeats without hesitation.

“I am trying so hard,” Fredrick hisses. And she knows the problem in an instant. It is that simple; she isn’t trying at all. She does not want to try.

“I,” she starts, and then she stops. She shakes her head and turns to leave.

She returns to the bedroom. Her robe is loose around her frame and she sits down on the edge of Hellstrom’s bed. She lights a cigarette.

She told Fredrick that she did not love him, she told him that she did not love the other man either. She is unsure if this is the truth. Shoshanna does not know how to explain it, she just knows it makes her feel ill to even consider it – that she hates him, that she hates Dieter (and she does not know this either, when he became an actual man with a first name as opposed to whatever he was before), but that she needs him all the same. That he makes her hurt, that he makes her body feel like her own again.

Shoshanna can hear running water from the next room and her knees bump together, she is still damp and sticky between her legs. She inhales tightly.

Some things get lost along the way, she does not say.

Hellstrom enters the room, towel low-slung and hair wet, drops of water dotting his shoulders. Shoshanna watches him openly. He drops the towel and opens a drawer, pulls out a pair of trousers, his back a sharp, firm line turned toward her.

He looks at her over his shoulder as he bends and pulls the trousers up his legs. Her posture is hunched and her robe gapes open in the front, hiding nothing. Hellstrom stares.

She falls asleep in his bed before the sun sets. When she wakes, it is late, it is early, that gray area between sleeping and waking, morning and night. That gray area where the shadows paint themselves in contorted shapes along the walls and you can’t decide if you are staring at reality, at nightmares, at a mangled depiction of yourself. Hellstrom stirs next to her, and she wonders if she has made a choice. Her robe is still loose around her frame and his hands are not on her body.

Why are you here? she does not ask.

When she wakes, when the sun rises hot and the morning spills across the floorboards and over to him, over to her, Fredrick will rise as well.

There will be a click first.

-

20.

The blood stretches in an arch and splatters across her face.

-

21.

Hellstrom dies in his bed. His blood soaks the pillow and sticks in her hair. There is a bullet at his temple and his eyes are wide. She does not cry. She does not feel relief either.

“Had you met previous,” Fredrick clears his throat and starts again. “Had you met before, before all of this, he would have killed you.”

Shoshanna’s eyes are flat. “And I him.”

Fredrick places the gun on the table.

-

22.

Shoshanna shoots Fredrick and Fredrick shoots Shoshanna.

Shoshanna is shot, bullets to the gut, and when she goes down her blood spilled is a darker stain of red than the dress she wears. Frederick will shoot her. Hellstrom had called Fredrick a friend out of simple lack of other words, and if his own blood wasn’t already poured out by this same friend and smeared in the next room he would have said: my friend shot her. My friend shot me.

The thing is, try as you might, you can’t alter fate. Many years before they each had been brought into this world. Each of the three took that first gasp of breath, and that was it, they had agreed. They each had said: yes, I accept this. Yes, I will live this life.

Yes, I will meet this death.

If at the end of this Dieter Hellstrom was supposed to lie dead in a basement tavern, damp in the metallic, teeth-biting stench of spilled blood and liquor alike, then Dieter Hellstrom was to lie dead. At a small basement tavern once known as La Louisiane Dieter Hellstrom was to meet death head on. He was to be shot, to take a knife to the back of the head, and expire. The order of these offenses is immaterial for the result achieved would have been the same: the young major would die, along with several of his fellow men and traitors alike.

Such is war, you would have to say. These were dangerous times.

But you forget that dangerous times don’t just stretch with war, but rather with the dangerous people themselves.

If this, then that.

If they run, they’re going to find them.

This is a story that ends in blood.

-

fin.

fic: a room filled up with mosquitoes (community)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:10:51 GMT

a room filled up with mosquitoes

community. to quote the great prophet lady gaga, you and me could write a bad romance. or something (in spanish, we would say: un romance malo; senor chang would be so proud). britta, jeff/britta, slight jeff/annie. rated r. spoilers through “debate 109.” 5005 words.

notes: um, yeah. so this happened? i really don't have anything to say other than that, heh.

On Troy’s computer the screen fades to black.

Shirley says: “Girl, you gettin’ some tonight!”

Troy is dancing, singing: “I can feel it, comin’ in the air tonight – ”

Pierce mumbles: “…but she’s a lesbian…”

Annie folds her hands and places them in her lap.

Britta looks horrified; Jeff looks pleased – way, way, way too pleased.

“You made us have sex,” she hisses as Abed walks through the door. “On your show. You made us have sex.”

“Hi,” Abed says. “The cold open is over.”

[A COMMERCIAL FOR 30 ROCK GOES HERE. IT’S WON SOME EMMYS AFTER ALL].

-

Later that day, Senor Chang enthusiastically explains to the class the power of the Spanish language and music.

Senor Chang hits the play button, and this is, like, legit happening: Enrique Iglesias is singing about how he can be your hero, baby.

“Oh, I love this song!” Shirley squeals, and Troy does some sort of sway, pop-and-lock combination with his arms and shoulders while seated at his desk; Abed blinks, Pierce snores. And next to Britta, Jeff starts dramatically lip synching.

“This isn’t even in Spanish,” Britta hisses to Jeff, just as he opens into, “…you can take my breath away,” or whatever.

Enrique sings, “Te quiero, mi amor,” and Jeff nods like he just proved a point or something.

Britta scowls and Jeff turns to Annie.

If it’s possible, her scowl deepens that much more.

Wait. What?

-

So. Jeff and Annie. Right. Britta can’t decide what offends her more: the fact that Jeff actually is some creepy cradle robber, or the fact that Shirley told her they kissed with the kind of gravitas one usually reserves for telling someone that, like, a loved one died or something tragic.

So, cornered in the bathroom, Britta says, “ew,” and scrunches her face up, and oh god, Annie is basically a decade younger than her. Britta, like, bought her first training bra when this chick was still learning how to walk.

“I know, baby,” Shirley says and pats Britta on the shoulder before hauling her into a hug. “It’s okay to cry, sweetie. Let them tears out. Does the body good.”

Rather than argue, Britta just takes a deep breath and reads the STD poster behind Shirley’s head. “Condoms are catchy, too!” it says.

Shirley pulls back. “Wanna key his car?”

-

At lunch, Annie peels her orange in the most meticulous fashion Britta has ever seen.

“This will be our third date,” Annie tells her pointedly. “The third date.”

Britta just stares at her blankly. “Okay, Sesame Street. I get it. You can count.”

“Third date, Britta. Third date. There are rules about these things, right?”

“Rules?” Britta can’t decide if this chick is, like, speaking in code or if it’s just too early and her triple macchiato or whatever has yet to hit her bloodstream, but she’s really not getting – oh. Oh. Oh.

Annie wants to bang Jeff. Annie wants to bang Jeff.

“Oh, honey, no, no, no, no,” she says.

“There aren’t rules?”

The next fifteen minutes of conversation Britta earnestly wishes she could black out. We, however, can do that for you.

[INFORMATION WITHHELD FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT. NEXT SCENE].

-

Jeff’s still living in a motel. For anyone else, it’d be kind of sad. Instead, it’s just Jeff.

Britta knocks on his door.

Jeff opens it surprisingly quickly, and okay. He’s got his shirt wide-open like he’s been studying those romance novels with Fabio on the cover, but he also has a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and a mess of toothpaste-spit-drool in the corner of his mouth.

“To what do I owe the honor?” he mumbles around the toothbrush.

Britta doesn’t answer immediately and instead walks in and shuts the door behind her; she can hear Jeff spitting in the bathroom and water running, and when he comes back out he is buttoning his shirt. He’s practically swaggering and Britta watches him with an expression of you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me.

“Yeah you can’t take Annie out,” she says. Jeff just raises an eyebrow. He sits down, perched on the end of the bed.

“Is this the part of the story where you confess your undying love for me and we go make out in the rain or something?” A thunderclap punctuates the question and Jeff just nods and smiles, like he’s got a pact with Mother Nature or something, and goddamn that bitch.

“No, no, no, a whole world of no.” She swallows. She’s not exactly sure why this is so hard to say, but then again, she takes that back. This is supreme-o awkward and weird and somewhere Annie is, like, planning out a future where she makes babies with Jeff and dinner for Jeff and on no planet is that not creepy and wrong and bad, bad, bad. Jeff opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, probably along the lines of she doth protesteth too mucheth, so Britta cuts him off. She holds up a hand and spits out, “Annie’s a virgin! Or, well. Born-again virgin?” and now Jeff’s mouth is still open and now both his eyebrows are raised and she’s not sure if that’s a look of surprise or horniness (just, ew) or maybe just I don’t know what to do with that. He recovers well though, she’ll give him that. He shuts his mouth and straightens his posture and the smile he flashes her is hardly friendly.

“…and, you have a problem with virgins? Born-again virgins? The vernacular is confusing me. Do they make you feel guilty for all that sex you’ve gotten? You’re a Catholic, aren’t you.”

“No.” Britta frowns. “That’s not the problem here. Annie…well. She wants you, she wants you to…you know,” Britta waves her hands in the air in a sort of circular motion, and Jeff just looks expectantly at her to continue, and ugh, just fuck him, or don’t fuck him, that’s sort of the moral of this whole thing, right? Britta takes a deep breath. “I don’t know, something about addiction and high school and mistakes of the sexual variety, blank slate, you know and, and, and. She wants you to…be her first. Or, technically, redo-first,” she says.

Jeff nods sagely. “And you’re jealous.”

“What? No. Dude, you really need to get past that. There is no secret agenda here. I am just, I’m a good person. That’s what I am. I am a good person, and you are a bad person. And Annie? Annie’s a good person too and good people stick together and they make sure that their fellow good people don’t get sucked in by the bad people where bad things can happen to them, and you? You banging Annie? That would definitely be a bad, bad thing. Like, almost a Roman Polanski thing. If you tried to nail her last year you would have had to flee to Switzerland or some shit. You know why? Because she was still in high school then, Humbert Humbert.”

“I lost you somewhere in that pop culture word search at the end there. That aside, you’re not really a good person. Just, you know, keep that in mind when you start lecturing others on ethical behavior.”

“What-the-fuck-ever. The point still stands: do not, and I repeat do not, get your Hugh Hefner on with Annie. Okay?”

“What do I get in return?”

“What. This isn’t some bazaar in Calcutta, dude. We’re not haggling here.”

Jeff does this whole angry sigh thing and stands up, and, okay. He’s tall. Like, really tall, and if Britta was forced to admit one thing she liked about him (as in: gun to the head we will blow your brains out if you don’t tell us one positive attribute Jeff Winger possesses) it would probably be his height. He’s just so tall. You could, like, climb him.

“Look,” Jeff says. “We’re not even dating.”

“Yeah, Annie seems to have a different picture of that situation.”

“I was just being nice. And trying to be a diligent student.”

“By taking her to dinner?”

“Um, debate prep?”

Britta crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him.

“Did you really think I was going to bone Annie?” Jeff almost looks offended and Britta is almost surprised.

“Let’s just say, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Jeff takes a step forward and Britta holds her ground.

[IF THIS WAS AMERICAN IDOL, WE’D THROW A COMMERCIAL BREAK IN RIGHT HERE JUST TO KEEP YOU HANGING].

[THIS ISN’T AMERICAN IDOL].

[IN CASE YOU DIDN’T CATCH THAT].

Jeff smiles and it is way too smug for her liking.

“I think you actually like me,” he sort of drawls, and Britta really needs to stop scowling so much. For all she knows, that old adage is true and her face really will freeze like that. Or maybe it already has; that would explain a lot.

“I really, really don’t,” she says, but Jeff takes another step forward and it’s tempting to take a step back, but she doesn’t. She wonders if this is one of his lawyerly tactics, invade a person’s personal space until they cave and tell you what you want to hear. But she’s not going to do that. Nope. Okay, he is seriously all up in her space right now, and she has to kind of crane her neck just to maintain eye contact.

Jeff shrugs, like he thinks she doesn’t mean it (she does, she definitely, totally without a shadow of a doubt – )

And then he’s kissing her.

Britta wants to be angry about it, all, hey you didn’t ask permission to stick your tongue in my mouth, but it’s not like he’s a bad kisser (he’s actually good at it, and of course he is, that’s how the world works, cocky son of a bitch), but instead of getting angry, she kisses him back?

Yeah. She kisses him back. She opens her mouth and Jeff is breathing hard through his nose and Britta makes a small squeak of a sound as Jeff steers them and the back of her knees hit the edge of the bed and she falls back onto it.

He hesitates, and she has the horrifying thought that maybe Jeff talks a big game because he has absolutely no idea what to do with a woman when he actually gets her clothes off. And that would just be sad, that would be awful. If Britta is going to actually do this, like, sacrifice her last shred of dignity and, like, get naked with Jeff and do stuff with him, it better be fucking worth it. He’s just so tall and he smells like a hair salon, but he also smells like a man, and it sort of makes up for the pomade part of it. He definitely doesn’t smell like weed, and that’s awesome, gold star right there, and his mouth is really hot (temperature-wise, his mouth is basically normal; actually, his lips are kind of on the thin side).

The biological part of her is screaming take off your damn pants, girl, but the rational side of her, Smart Britta, is saying, oh hey, you will see this man tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that while you try to learn how to conjugate verbs or whatever and can you even imagine how much smarmier that grin of his will be after he’s been all up in your lady business? It’s a good argument, especially since Jeff’s got his mouth against the crook of her jaw, right where the skin meets the column of her throat, and he’s not really biting, but whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it well, and she’s having a hard time keeping that moany-gaspy noise behind her teeth.

Her internal debate eventually proves a moot point as Jeff starts yanking at her jeans and pulling them off of her, pushing his fingers into her.

“You know,” she starts, then she pauses, sucks in a shaky breath, “this doesn’t mean I like you or anything.” She has to pause to breathe again, and whatever disparaging comment was brewing in her head is gone now, and Jeff, he looks so fucking full of himself (and Freudian fucking slip, right? because she’s the one that’s full of him, and yeah, gross, whatever, but he’s got her pinned down on a motel bedspread, which, ugh, even grosser, and he’s got three fingers inside of her and she’s pretty sure she couldn’t spell her name if you asked her to because holy fucking shit – )

So he twists his fingers, and he smiles, and for the first time since she met him, Britta thinks he might actually look a little dangerous. He twists his fingers again and she’s all but panting underneath him and, shit. He’s going to lord this over her for the rest of her life, until, she, like, hangs herself in the library out of sheer embarrassment. But, he’s breathing heavily too, so that has to mean something, please tell her she’s not reaching here.

“See,” he says, flicks his thumb up, and she really, really, really did not mean to groan that loud, or, well, at all, “I already got what I want. Right between your legs, baby. You not liking me? Really not phasing me at the moment.”

“Ew,” she says, and her breath stutters. “Stop being creepy. And don’t call me baby.”

Jeff smirks, like pissing her off is amusing to him, or maybe he smirks because it takes one and a half more twists of his fingers before she is coming, her bare heels sliding against the bedspread and her fingers curled into the thin skin at the nape of his neck.

Probably the latter.

Jeff rolls away from her as she catches her breath and she can easily see he is hard and there is no way those jeans are comfortable. He takes a deep breath too.

“We never talk about this,” Britta says. “This didn’t happen. This was…an anomaly. An aberration. An abomin-”

Jeff turns to look at her over his shoulder. “Did you swallow the A section of the dictionary this morning or something?” he asks in a strained voice. Britta can feel the scowl that has somehow become reserved for him surface on her face.

“I’m going to go now,” she says primly, or, well, as primly as you can say that when your pants are still around your ankles.

So. Awkward.

-

The next day, like every other day, Jeff sits next to her in the library. Britta stares at her cup of coffee as though she’s expecting it to grow legs or move or something. Jeff’s not saying anything to her either, and it’s kind of weird. Weirder than she expected, and for lack of anything else to do, she rifles through her notes.

“You guys did it. Didn’t you,” Abed says. He shakes his head. “Television producers are always so hesitant to let the leading man and leading lady consummate their relationship. Way to buck the trend.”

“What,” Jeff says.

“Hello, Moonlighting,” Abed says. “Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd’s characters finally did the deed after seasons of sexual tension brewing between them. They had sex. And then the show sucked.”

“You know,” Britta whispers, and she leans in to Jeff. “Annie wasn’t even alive when Moonlighting was on TV. Pretty crazy, right?”

“I thought we already established this,” Jeff hisses. “Annie and I are platonic,” he catches her eye then, and whoa boy. She doesn’t think he’s allowed to look at her like that. “Just like you and me,” he says, and okay, Britta is no genius at reading subtext or whatever, but based on the pointed way he said that, she is ninety percent sure he meant that they aren’t platonic, which, what?

“How old were you when you lost your virginity?” she asks, still in that whisper-tone.

“What? Sixteen. Why?”

“Annie wasn’t even out of the womb yet and you had already popped your cherry, Grandpa.”

“I will murder you and scatter your remains around campus.”

“Yeah, totally did it,” Abed whispers, leaning across the table.

“We did not have sex,” Jeff snaps. Abed frowns. Britta keeps her face blank.

“Something is off here,” Abed says slowly. “I will figure this out. You can’t alter your characterization midway through the season without chalking it up to poor writing. Also, on TV shows? Secret relationships are rarely entertaining – the audience wants to see the action. Or, well. As much action as a primetime slot can afford. And if you’re CSI, that’s a lot.”

“I didn’t actually murder Britta yet,” Jeff says.

“And no one said you did,” Pierce says, and then winks.

“Ugh,” Britta says.

-

A couple weeks pass, and things are as normal as you could ever possibly expect them to be at Greendale Community College (read: not normal at all). But Jeff and Annie have ceased their sort-of-whatever dates and Jeff hasn’t gotten back in her pants since that weirdo night at his motel/home.

So things are normal. Things are status quo. Sure.

Or they were. Because the thing is, Jeff is still really tall and her body apparently has a more persistent and persuasive memory than her mind (that really doesn’t make scientific sense, but roll with it) and sitting next to him while studying in the library has almost become a chore.

And right now? They’re back in the library and she just really, really, really wants him to be quiet. Like, just shut the fuck up for more than five minutes and let her study in peace. That’s all she wants, and you know, that’s really not asking so much.

So she blames his motel and she kind of blames Annie, she really, really blames Jeff, but she also blames herself and her traitorous body and hormones or whatever for what happens next (let it be known, she did not think this through, not even a little bit, which basically explains every mess she’s ever tangled herself in):

“Shut up,” Britta says. “Just, please. Shut the fuck up. Shut your goddamned mouth.” Jeff’s mouth is moving but there’s not any sound coming out and he looks so dumbstruck she could almost laugh. Almost. Jeff is gaping like a fish and Britta is working her hands over his belt (that probably cost about three months of her rent, ugh, fuck him, seriously), and he’s already arching his hips off his chair as her fingers pull the zipper down.

“Wha – ” She silences him by wrapping her hand around his cock and squeezing. Jeff scrubs a hand over his face and Britta bites her lip, because, really? This is easily one of the dumber things she’s done in her life, and needless to say, she’s done a lot of really, really stupid shit. But right now, she’s on her knees (which, PS: her tights are not nearly thick enough and her knees already feel a little raw from the rough carpet) in a library, at a community college, and she’s got this dude’s dick in her hand, and she’s fairly certain she might actually hate him at the moment.

“Do not speak, do not talk to me,” she says, and okay. From this vantage point? Jeff is actually more than a little cute. He’s actually, like, hot. Well, if you erase the look of total bafflement and confusion from his face. But he’s rocking that whole blown-pupils-which-FYI-means-scientifically-I-am-aroused look and his hair is genuinely tousled and messy and his mouth is still open and he’s breathing wetly through it and she kind of sort of wants to kiss him?

She doesn’t kiss him. Instead, she fits her lips around the head of his cock and Jeff says something that sounds like, JesusMaryJosephBrittaholyfuuuuck, which is really kind of flattering.

It doesn’t take him very long.

When she’s done, when he’s done, comes with her name held between gritted teeth, she swallows and stands. She wipes at her mouth, and, just, whoa. As ridiculous as he is and as ridiculous as this whole thing is, she is beyond turned on right now. Like, buzzing with it. And Jeff, Jeff’s sitting there, and for the first time probably in the history of his time, he’s actually speechless. Britta turns back to her chair and the abandoned Spanish-English dictionary, but Jeff grabs her by the wrist and pulls her towards him.

“Once again,” Britta says, and she stumbles into his knees. His pants are still undone and he’s just sitting there, in the fucking library, with his dick all wet and soft and right there in the open. He presses a hand against the small of her back and pushes her into his lap. “We’re even,” she says as she falls, none too gracefully, thanks, against him and straddles him. Britta blushes, because: a) she sounded hardly convincing and more breathy, faux Marilyn Monroe, all come-hither-and-fuck-me when she spoke, and; b) she is pressed right there against him, his bare cock between her thighs and there is no fucking way he is unaware of how hot and wet and ready she is, and goddamn, this is just embarrassing.

Jeff still looks sort of shell-shocked, and while she was…down there, he must have been running his hands through his hair because it’s now standing up at the strangest of angles, and Britta idly wonders how crispy it would feel under her own hands. He really needs to lay off the hair products. She’ll have to tell him that. Later. When she hasn’t, like, mounted him.

“You are legitimately crazy,” Jeff finally says and he looks equal parts surprised and impressed and I-just-came-in-a-public-place-fucking-what?, and she’s just got her hands flat against his chest. Britta is about to accuse him of being ungrateful (among other things), but before she can, Jeff winds a hand into her hair at the nape of her neck and kisses her, hard. And her mouth already tasted like Jeff, and now she’s got his tongue in her mouth, sliding alongside her own, and it’s like Jeff overload or something. So she kisses him back, of course she kisses him back, and maybe her fingers curl into the front of his shirt and maybe he palms her left breast, whatever. And if maybe she bucks her hips against his, well, then that happens – there’s something called biology and there’s also something called physics, and she may not be taking either of these classes this semester, but she’s had enough life experience to know what things are natural and instinctive, so it doesn’t matter that it’s Jeff that has her wriggling in his lap and practically pawing her way under his shirt – it’s science’s fault.

Or it’s Abed’s. Fucking self-fulfilling prophecies and storyboards.

Jeff slips a hand in the tight space between them, and then between her legs. She makes this keening noise, and she is blushing so hard right now, this is humiliating. She tries to shut herself up with his mouth, but as his fingers rub against her, the barrier of her tights still in the way (she hates her wardrobe, she hates the weather, she hates that this morning a pair of knit tights made sense, she needs skin on skin, she needs him right the fuck now, whoa, wait, what?), but the kisses turn too sloppy until she’s basically panting and moving her hips against his hand with her mouth wet and open at the corner of his. Jeff’s holding his breath, like maybe he’s afraid she’ll leave or something, which is stupid, because, yeah, dude already got his.

“What are you wearing?” he finally grumbles against her cheekbone. “A chastity belt?”

“Shut up,” she gasps, because yeah, if he stays right there, if he stays right there, if he stays right fucking there –

She comes with a muffled shriek, her head against his shoulder, and she bites down, just a little. Jeff grunts.

Britta sits up and leans back. She brushes her hair off her face. Jeff just looks up at her, his eyebrows practically at his hairline.

“Well. That was unexpected,” he says, “though hardly unwelcome.”

“I’m going to study now,” she says, her words carefully measured. Britta stands up. She smoothes out her skirt and, ugh. She feels absolutely disgusting. Or maybe debauched is the correct term? Her legs feel all rubbery and her lips are puffy, her jaw aches. Her tights feel clammy against her skin and she knows she must look sweaty beyond all belief. Jeff clears his throat and Britta looks over. He’s half-hard but he zips his pants up anyway.

She really needs to start thinking these things through.

-

Fifteen minutes later:

“What happened to you two?” Troy asks. “You lookin’ nasty.”

“Heated argument,” Jeff deadpans. He kicks his feet up onto the table and takes a long sip of his coffee.

“I won,” Britta says, crosses her legs primly. Jeff splutters and spits his coffee out; “What?” he yelps. “No way, man, I so – ”

“Cool,” Abed says. “A spit take.”

Pierce sniffs the air. “Why does it smell like my honeymoon with my third wife in here?”

“I think they’re going to edit that out. That’s just kind of gross,” Abed says. Pierce shrugs. Jeff and Britta glance at each other with matching looks of disgust.

-

So there is a day when Britta actually sits down and watches these ridiculous episodes Abed has been pumping out.

“Five years from now, I’m going to marry her,” Fake Jeff says, and this is easily more horrifying than the fade-to-black-sex scene. Britta is sure of it.

“Yeah,” Jeff says. “I never said that.”

Clearly, he’s been watching them too.

-

Towards the end of the semester someone throws a house party (just like Belushi, Pierce says), and in the kitchen, someone keeps handing Britta jell-o shots and she keeps downing them.

“You’ve met Jell-O Shot Jenny then?” Abed asks her later. Her mouth tastes like she ate all the sugar crystals at the bottom of a bag of Sour Patch kids.

“What?”

“Your mouth is bright green. You look like an alien. Or like you have gangrene of the mouth. Can you get gangrene of the mouth?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Britta holes up in an empty bedroom after that with the better part of a bottle of vodka hocked from the kitchen. She slumps into the old couch and old episodes of The Twilight Zone are on the television.

It takes Jeff roughly fifteen minutes to find her up here. He leans against the doorjamb for a moment and smiles. “Looks like I found the life of the party,” he says and shuts the door behind him. She thinks he might have locked it, and oh. Okay then.

“I’m not good at parties,” she grumbles. She takes a small swig from the bottle and grimaces. “Besides, this is a really good episode. This doll is killing people, all Chucky style.”

“Like I said,” Jeff says and sits down next to her, “life of the party.”

Britta turns to look at him. “What do you want?”

“Why is your mouth green?”

“Because I –” and then she stops. Instead of explaining, Britta places her hands on either side of his face and kisses him. He kisses her too, just as earnest, and she’s not really sure when they became earnest, but apparently they have. Jeff jerks her shirt over her head and Jeff really needs to stop wearing shirts with so many buttons. Britta’s fingers stumble and Jeff’s fingers stumble with her bra and Rod Serling is talking on TV.

Someone outside the door yells, “T-Paaaain,” and Britta fights down a hysterical laugh, because this is so surreal, right? The couch feels ratty and scratches at her bare back, and this is what people do in college, right? Meaningless sex. She repeats that to herself: meaningless sex.

(Which is such a lie, isn’t it. Because if this was meaningless then that would mean she doesn’t care. And the fact of the matter? She really sort of cares. And that really sort of makes her want to hate him even more. Except there’s the rub (she has no idea who actually said that and feels like she should, whatever, she’s in community college for god’s sake): Britta doesn’t hate Jeff. In fact, she actually sort of likes him and she actually sort of cares.

This is that revelation scene, it so is. Goddamnit).

So she decides to vocalize these feelings:

“You’re kind of an asshole,” she says, and Jeff thrusts into her, hard and slow.

“And you’re kind of a bitch,” he says into her collarbone.

Yeah, she thinks, and wraps her arms around Jeff’s neck. This is probably as romantic as they’re ever going to get.

[FADE TO BLACK].

-

And so, like, yeah, maybe they go back to his place, or probably her place since she actually has a place that doesn’t charge by the night, and they do this again, and again after that, and of course it’s awkward and of course they still don’t really like each other, not yet, and yeah, she’ll slap him at least once, and he’ll deserve it at least once, and if maybe in five years they get married, then in five years they get married. Maybe instead of “I do,” Britta will say, “we’re even,” and that will be that –

WHAT, Britta says.

Abed presses the stop button and leans back from the microphone plugged into his computer.

Narration is a popular television technique employed these days, he says. Ask Meredith Grey. Or Carrie Bradshaw. Or that dead lady on Desperate Housewives. Or –

Roll credits.

-

fin.

fic: wishbone (bones)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:48:15 GMT

wishbone

bones. pull it till it breaks (or, an assortment of moments collected among the living and the dead (but mostly the dead)). brennan, booth/brennan. rated pg. 2432 words. spoilers through season 3 (OLD SCHOOL!)

notes: oh boyyy. i don't even know. i was trying to study this afternoon, and instead this kept pouring out of me? basically, i've been watching season three lately, and basically i have this really huge problem that there is never any fallout from the whole karaoke club shoot-out, for lack of a better term, and i am sure 90% of fandom has already written about this, but whatever, this is my long-winded way of saying: i do what i want, haha.

Here is the black box, the shut eye
the bullet pearling in his living skin.

Driving, Not Washing; Richard Siken

There is a man who is leaving skeletons in the beds they once inhabited when they were flesh.

“’There’s a man goin’ ‘round, takin’ names,’” Booth says. “Johnny Cash,” he adds. Brennan has her back turned to him and he can see her shoulder blades flex, she can feel his eyes on her. The room is well-lit, it faces the east, and the sun shines in through the open venetian blinds.

“I know,” she says, off-hand.

“You know?”

“I know,” she says.

-

People die. Sometimes that happens. Inevitably it happens to everyone, you and me and him and her included. Sometimes it happens on purpose, other times by accident. They say the best way is when the clock runs out and you’re a ninety year old bag of bones who one day doesn’t get out of bed to put her teeth back in her mouth and run a kettle on the stove. They say that, but the fact is when that knife invades a chest cavity or a rope becomes a noose about an outstretched neck that same clock has run out, too.

That’s not natural, they say.

But yeah, we argue, death is. Death is the natural end for everything.

So people die. And the caveat to that?

They’re not really supposed to come back.

-

(Booth died.

And then, Booth came back).

-

“I think Sweets thinks I’m a sociopath. Or at least a candidate.”

“A candidate? Bones, you say it like it’s an election or something.”

“I think he was trying to get a rise out of me. Or it’s just his concept of humor. Rather juvenile, I think.”

“You know, we talk about Sweets a lot. A lot, a lot. Way too much a lot. He’s, like, the third wheel in our relationship.”

“Relationship?”

“Partnership. Potato, po-tah-to.”

“That implies partnership and relationship are one in the same yet go by different names.”

“…okay?”

“But that’s not true.”

“Alright. Let’s hear it Dr. Phil.”

“I –”

“– don’t know what that means. I know. I walked right into that one. Forget it.”

“A partnership is a kind of relationship, I suppose.”

“Exactly what I’m talking about!”

-

She doesn’t know how to say things like hi I love you I thought I lost you, so she doesn’t.

She thinks instead: I don’t know what that means.

(That means: “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and the sharp crack rather than the pop of a bullet and the dull sound it makes as it enters human flesh and does not leave and it’s c’mon Booth c’mon and maybe it’s the sound of sirens or maybe it’s not hearing the sound of sirens because there’s too much blood rushing in your ears, there’s too much of someone else’s blood on your hands and it’s the fact that these things leave a mark and – ).

-

“You two have such a history,” Angela said, and then she sighed. Brennan dismissed it.

“All human beings have a history. Shared, at that,” she said blankly.

“That’s not what I mean,” Angela said and sighed again. Brennan knew that. To placate her, Brennan offered a half-smile, close-lipped, and took a slow sip from her beer.

Angela just shook her head.

“I swear,” she said. “I swear.”

A week later a man was dead and she walked into a karaoke bar with Booth.

-

Tony and Roxie and Buck and Wanda, they were funhouse reflections of themselves.

Her mouth smeared in red and his smile cut a little more predatory, a little more dangerous. It didn’t come as a shock that she was so good at a game of pretend (Joy Keenan and Temperance Brennan and Bones).

(Eventually her own mouth will come to smear against his own, there will be no red, only flesh, only pink and lip and tongue. Her name will be Temperance Brennan, her name will be Bones and he will be Booth, he will be Seeley, and his mouth will taste like the same plum sauce that has leaked its way onto her coffee table and she still won’t have a TV, she still will not have said hi I love you I thought I lost you and he will have yet to say I know, I know).

-

A fourth skeleton is found on a Sunday. It is a gray day, no rain, just cloud and cloying humidity. Booth presses a hand to the small of her back as they enter the bedroom and her shirt sticks to her damp skin in his wake.

Brennan didn’t die, but sometimes she can’t breathe.

She doesn’t know what to do with that either.

-

Serial killers complicate this job in a way she doesn’t like to think about. She doesn’t mind writing about them, warm in her apartment and warm in her home and that fourth wall stands mocking as she actually types words like “her partner” and means them. Reality is different, reality is always different. It’s one thing when there’s parts of a skeleton found decomposing in a shallow grave. There are still imprints of humanity, however faint they might be.

“I was just so angry,” the perp might say (and also a note: Booth tells her that no one actually says perp, except for in the movies, and apparently her books, Booth teases, so she doesn’t say it out loud, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t think it).

“I was so jealous,” they say, and those, she thinks, have read too much Shakespeare and probably have seen too many of those movies Booth talked about, where the characters are allowed the word perp.

“I hated him so much,” and that’s rational, she thinks. Ethical, no. Moral, probably not. Rational, yes. You kill what you hate. You destroy it.

“I loved him so much,” and this, Brennan will never understand.

-

Fat Pam said: I’m doing this for us, but Brennan didn’t know that at the time.

Brennan didn’t say anything when she shot her.

-

( – Booth died, Booth died and she left the hospital with him spilled out all over her, all over her clothes. She drove home, she took a shower, water filled her throat, spilled out her mouth, spilled out all over her. She sat in the dark, the edge of her bed, hair still wet and dripping, darkening the gray of her t-shirt. The keys were solid and right in her hand so she left, so she drove, so his door was right where he left it, his home where he once lived and the door opened as it always had only he wasn’t on the other side. Only there was nothing on the other side, and hasn’t that been what she’s been saying all along? You take the life and there’s nothing left – only bone, always bone, Bones, he used to say. Floorboards creaked under her weight, hair still wet, still dripping, and maybe she shivered because of it. The door to his bedroom was open, the doors here were open, and she entered, she went in, bed unmade, a pair of boxers on the floor, the entire room was quiet and cold and smelled of him. Her fingers played against the line of buttons on the sleeve of a suit jacket in his closet, played against the line of jackets in a row, all varying shades of gray and black and somber, and if maybe she pulled and the bare hanger danced upward, the jacket fell, then maybe she fell too, and maybe she brought more jackets down with her and sat there, the floor of his closet, handfuls of suits, of him, and if she was ever going to sob and howl and beg and cry, this was going to be it, this would be it, these are the things we put in our hearts.

At his funeral she punched him in the face. It wasn’t enough; her hand met the side of his face, flesh on flesh, bone to bone, not enough. She didn’t understand it then and she more than likely doesn’t understand it now, the desire for her hand to reach past the surface, to get beneath that, get inside him and shake him, get inside and never leave, he can’t leave, c’mon Booth c’mon).

-

“You’re not leaving. Are you?”

“I can stay.”

“You don’t – ”

“I wanna stay.”

-

Booth dies.

Angela says, “sweetie,” like it means something, means everything. Brennan stands with her back turned, the glow of a computer monitor hollowing out her face in stretches of bright blue and when she rubs at her eyes, just the once, her fingers come away wet.

She takes a deep breath, and Angela says, “sweetie,” again, but the thing is: Booth died.

(The other thing is: he is a liar and he comes back. But that comes later).

-

When they catch the man, he is quiet and neat. He sits across from Booth and Brennan and stares Brennan in the eye.

“I just loved them all so much,” he says quietly, and he says it like he means it. “I just loved them all so much,” he repeats and he might as well be praying.

Booth says something glib, something about skinning people, or something, and when he slams the photographs down there are just pictures of skeletons amid floral sheets, macabre illustrations of quiet domesticity. Brennan swallows fast; sometimes she can’t breathe.

“I only left the bones behind,” the man says and he does not blink. Brennan does not blink either. “I wanted to keep them with me,” he whispers.

Booth shifts next to her and doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t say anything either. His shoulder brushes against her and she inhales, deep and audible.

-

So Booth dies. That one time, Booth died – he took a bullet to the shoulder, the chest, he took a bullet and then he fell over and spread himself out on the floor of a karaoke bar in Alexandria. The blood had been dark and sticky and soaked through the fabric at her knees.

(Brennan’s mouth had been sticky and tasted hot, a mix of bile and adrenaline and the remains of an amaretto sour Angela had bought her).

Booth dies and then he comes back. Like a zombie, he teases, once, later, when it’s still not quite funny. For that, Brennan says, like Jesus, and he frowns but it’s not genuine.

He comes back and sometimes he will stand too close and the scent will be too strong. She’ll think of that closet and all the empty hangers and the suit jackets and their sleeves that brushed the back of her head. She’ll think that’s what Angela means when she says things like, these are the things we put in our hearts (but Angela never said that, did she? she only wishes it was Angela who had said that), when Brennan knows the only things that go there are blood and oxygen and the body’s constructed pathways leading in and out. These are the things we put in our hearts, she had thought.

But Booth came back, Booth was alive, and the heart is just another organ caged in bone.

-

That Thursday, their serial killer will be behind bars and Booth will enter her office, throw a new file down on her desk.

“It’s a good one,” he’ll tease and waggle his eyebrows. “Dead dude at RFK Stadium.”

She will follow him, rifle through the file as she walks. Booth will turn to watch her.

Booth died two months ago.

-

You’re not going to betray me, Brennan had said.

No, Booth had answered.

No had been his answer and maybe Brennan had smiled a little, a tight lipped gesture. Sometimes when she smiled it was the saddest thing ever. Not to her, of course; it’s never that sad to the one who is smiling.

She drank more of the drink he offered. No, he had said, and maybe, yes, she had believed him.

In her field, you ask questions you don’t know the answers to, you ask in order to understand. This is what is known as learning.

Booth poured more booze in a paper cup and perhaps if they waited long enough the alcohol would have eaten through the thinness that gave the cup its shape. Instead she slammed it back, he slammed it back, and her cup fell crumpled to the floor.

She asked if he would betray her. This is not her field.

-

They talk a lot but there’s a lot they never say.

(She is the first to say I love you, and that surprises you, doesn’t it? It surprises her too, and it surprises him less. They are in the diner and there isn’t a case – a case has just been closed or a case has yet to start; today everyone is alive and everyone is happy and maybe somewhere decay threads through a body and bone pokes through skin and through dirt and refuge, but they do not know it, no one knows it, and though she is loath to admit it, ignorance really is a kind of bliss.

I love you, is what she says and she says it forcefully, like every other anthropological non sequitur she has ever uttered in this diner or in his presence, and this statement is no different or diminished by lack of fact.

I know, Booth says. I know).

(He will smile then, that’s what comes next: Booth smiles.

His hand will slip over hers, her hand cold from the glass of ice water, and his hand will be warm.

I love you too, he’ll say. Brennan will steal a French fry with her free hand, a flash of teeth, mouth curved in a grin and her fingers will squeeze).

(Booth died two years ago).

-

What happened once is this:

A girl he calls Bones held the snapped piece of a dead girl’s radius or ulna (he does not know these things yet, he does not know them the way she does, he does not know them the way he will come to know her) up and he watched her. She squinted up at him against the sun and she said, “What?”

Booth did not call her Bones yet. Then she was Dr. Brennan, and she still is Dr. Brennan, that part hasn’t changed.

Everything else has though.

(These are the things we put in our hearts, she will think).

-

fin.

fic: mutual assent (rpf)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:34:30 GMT

MUTUAL ASSENT

rpf. everybody here’s got a familiar face; everybody knows your name. ensemble; rose byrne, diane kruger, matthew goode, michael fassbender, hugh dancy, etc., etc. rated pg-13. 3236 words.

notes: as usual: lies, lies, lies. but fun lies. and that's what's important, right?

ALL THESE PEOPLE DRINKING LOVER’S SPIT.
(broken social scene)

AN INTRODUCTION (CREDITS AND THE OPENING THEME):

You strike metal against metal long enough you’re bound to get sparks. This is science. This is inevitable.

They’ve all known each other too damn long. And where there is history, there is controversy.

You fuck what you know. That part’s easy.

They all agreed to this at first.

THE FIRST ACT, THERE IS A PARTY:

“I’ve been trying so hard,” was what Rose told Diane over the phone earlier. The other woman had not asked her what that meant, because like the saying goes: that’s what friends are for. They’re there to be an even uglier reflection of yourself when the time calls for self-loathing and an honest sounding board when the time calls from advice, needed and heeded or not.

Diane had been trying too, but that’s a different story. Diane is better at keeping her mouth shut than Rose is – she is better at dulling the sharp emotions behind her eyes and when she says, “I’m fine, it’s fine,” you are almost apt to believe her.

That night at the party Rose isn’t trying anymore.

Hugh is a married man now and someone thought it would be a good idea to invite her to the party.

(And by someone, she thinks she means Claire and not Hugh; Hugh is smart and too clever but never intentionally cruel, at least not to her. She does not think the same can be said of his new wife).

(What she does not know and what she will finally piece together by the end of the night – after Diane leaves and after the bartender raises an eyebrow and she slurs, “another,” after the coat check, because where they live it is a celluloid world and the things the normal person would only expect on the screen she encounters on a daily basis – is that it was Hugh who invited her, that Hugh really can be just that cruel).

Rose brings Diane with her to the party. “Safety in numbers,” Diane teases and squeezes Rose’s arm.

She does not elaborate and the two of them have begun to do this more and more often: they will state half-truths and oblique references to what they actually mean without going the extra step to full disclosure. Rose does not know when this happened. She used to be so open.

There is champagne and Rose drinks two in earnest. Diane sips slowly, cautiously and her eyes watch the doorway.

Diane leaves, that same flute of champagne still clutched in her hand from when they first arrived. “Are you okay here?” Diane asks first, but her eyes aren’t focused on Rose and her cell phone is clutched tight in her hand. Rose gets it. Rose isn’t really trying anymore. She switched from champagne to white wine and there is a giggle caught behind her teeth. She shouldn’t be here. Her mouth tastes too sweet and acidic, but she smiles and nods, despite the manic feeling crawling up her throat.

Diane leaves, but Rose doesn’t talk to Hugh. She hasn’t talked to Hugh since mid-summer, where every conversation of theirs was chaperoned by a morning or late-night talk show host. Rose doesn’t know what she’d say. She thinks a congratulations is the appropriate thing, but it hurts to think she could say that and mean it.

“She looks very beautiful,” she hears people say of Claire, and it’s true: she does. Billie Holiday is piped through the speakers and Claire looks beautiful and Rose is sort of lost.

At the end of the night, Hugh grabs her by the elbow.

“You look beautiful,” he tells her. “You look very beautiful.”

She fucks Hugh in the coat check, and maybe because this is his party that means no one will interrupt them.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” he mutters against her temple. The words feel wet and hot, and he won’t stop saying them as he pulls out of her. Rose lets her arms hang limply at her sides, and she wants to slap him across the face. Hugh won’t stop apologizing and she is pretty sure he doesn’t mean to address her.

Rose pushes away from him and crosses her arms over her chest. Hugh is watching his feet and it is suddenly very cold and there are goosebumps pimpled along her bare arms.

“Why did you invite me here?” She is drunk and she knows she sounds small. The carpet is rough under her bare feet and her inner thighs ache.

Hugh runs a hand through his hair. “Didn’t think you’d actually come,” he says and shrugs.

“I don’t love you,” she says suddenly. Hugh looks more curious than offended. Rose laughs, bitter and sad. “I was originally, what I was going to say was ‘I don’t love you anymore,’ but that’s silly, that’s a lie, because I don’t, I never loved you.”

“Are you trying to offend me?” Hugh asks blankly.

“No. I’m just trying to be honest.”

“Baby steps, huh?” Hugh slides his hands into his pockets. “I know, for what it’s worth. I never thought you did. I blame Goode for that one.” Rose jerks her head up. She stands among the coats and stares at Hugh.

“I am drunk,” she hears herself saying. “I am very, very drunk and I think I should go home now.”

She slips her feet into her shoes and stumbles, her ankles weak, the arches of her shoes impossibly high. Hugh reaches out a hand to steady her and she swats it away. He obeys and takes a step back. The room smells like expensive perfume and stale smoke that has lingered on the collection of his guests’ coats. Rose stands there and doesn’t re-adjust her clothing, doesn’t fix her hair or the smudged mascara.

“Congratulations,” she says dumbly.

Hugh gapes. “For what?”

She stands in the open doorway. “Your marriage.”

In the cab, she hiccups and blinks back tears. Her fingers are clumsy with the cell phone as she dials. It rings.

“Well, well, well. To what do I owe the pleasure? This is most unexpected. Hmmm, what are you wearing, love?”

Rose sniffles. “I fucking hate you,” she says.

Matthew laughs. “Don’t shoot the messenger, peach. The curse of self-fulfilling prophecies, am I right? Well, cheers, love. You’re a big girl now.”

A FLASHBACK:

In Sundance Hugh wore oxford shirts with heavy sweaters over top. Rose wore heavy boots and outside it had snowed.

Hugh’s hand had tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck and he pulled a little and she had gasped.

He kissed with his eyes open wide and that had surprised her.

The fact she felt nothing surprised her even more. Rose kissed back harder and dug her fingers into him, desperate to prove herself wrong.

INTERLUDE – A CONVERSATION, I:

“You’re a stupid, fucking wanker,” Matthew said. “I could knock your front teeth in. I should.”

Hugh swallowed down the last of his pint. “Rose tell you?”

“‘Course not. Old girl’s a bloody steel trap. Need the goddamn Spanish Inquisition to get bollocks out of her.”

“Who then?”

“What’s it matter? You know how the rumor mill works well as I do. You shag someone, word’s gonna get out. Shag someone moderately famous while you yourself are moderately famous? For fuck’s sake, mate. Fucking New York Times might not pick it up, but the rest of us still gonna hear about it.”

“Who fucking told you?”

Matthew leaned in. “Crudup,” and then he laughed. “Wonderfully ironic. The ex-boyfriend of your fiancée, who, might I add, said fiancée left for you, you bloody tosser, was the one who told me. O. Henry couldn’t make this shit up. Billy fucking Crudup was the one to tell me.” He leaned back and ran a hand over his mouth. “That you slept with Rose.”

“You’re angry.”

“Fuck yeah I’m angry. How daft are you?”

Hugh shrugged and frowned. He picked at the cuff of his sleeve. “It’s not like anyone really belongs to anyone anyway.”

Matthew laughed. “What the fuck is wrong with you? That doesn’t even mean anything. Real nice sentiment, Romeo, but when some fucker starts sticking it to your Claire, I’d kill to see your face. Hell, if she was my type, I’d do it myself.”

“Rose isn’t yours,” Hugh said quietly after a moment.

“Yeah? Think I don’t know that? You really think I am unaware of that little fact? Kick a man when he’s down, why don’t you. Fuck you.”

Hugh shook his head and chuckled. “I’ll be damned. I’ll be goddamned. You’re in love with her.”

“Oh, fuck you. And fuck her.”

“Too late, yeah?” Hugh joked weakly. Matthew glared. “Too soon?”

Matthew smiled despite himself. “You motherfucker.”

A FLASHBACK, II:

“What time is it?” Rose had grumbled.

“Pre-sunrise,” Matthew had answered. The knuckles of her curled fist had bumped against his elbow weakly. It wasn’t a lie; there was still dark and night at his window and the entire room was bathed in gray.

“That’s not a real time,” she said. The words were muffled by his skin, the bend of his shoulder pressed against her mouth. Neither moved, and he remained flat on his stomach and she remained curled around him. “I want a number,” she said. Matthew had snorted.

“3.14…um, one, five…something, something…”he trailed off. “Can’t be arsed to remember the rest.”

“Nerd.”

“You love it, don’t deny it.”

They had been quiet and the room had been gray, the bed warm.

“I have a flight,” Rose had said quietly. Her voice had been reluctant, or at least that’s how Matthew remembers it.

He had rolled her underneath him and nipped along her jawline.

“Not yet,” he had said. “Not yet.”

INTERLUDE – A CONVERSATION, II:

“Billy, bloke. How goes it?”

There was the start of a laugh on Billy’s end of the line and then he cleared his throat. “Things are good, man. Things are real good.”

“So why call then, hmm?” Matthew lit a cigarette and exhaled loudly. “You’re the bloody equivalent of the goddamn Grim Reaper. Never hear from you unless it’s bad news, so let’s have it.”

Billy chuckled and then almost felt bad for it. It was a cool morning in Los Angeles.

“I, uh, I was, well. We had the premiere the other night, so the cast headed out for some drinks. And I’m sitting there, right? With, uh, Marion, you know, Marion and that blonde chick Diane was there with her guy, and Marion and Diane got to talking, both drunk as fuck, right? And Marion asks about Rose, and Diane just starts laughing, says something to the effect of, I don’t know, fuck, I don’t know why I’m even telling you this, I haven’t even been to bed yet, man.”

The smoke was thick in Matthew’s mouth. “What did Diane say?” he asked, quiet and restrained.

“She was, she was joking, man. She said to Marion that Rose was fucking her way through the Queen’s territory and Marion asked her what that meant, and Diane said – fuck. Dude, I’m sorry. Rose slept with fucking Hugh Dancy.”

“Is that all?”

“What the fuck, man. What do you mean ‘is that all’?”

“I don’t, I don’t quite have the words for what I’m trying to say,” Matthew said. "I guess."

“There’s a first,” Billy snorted and then sighed. “Can’t help you then, kid.”

OLD FRIENDS BECOME ENEMIES BECOME FRIENDS AGAIN, 2 DRINK MINIMUM:

“Diane! I was not expecting that I see you tonight,” Marion said.

“Hi,” Diane said and smiled wan, and Josh nodded at her side.

“I’m gonna,” he started and stopped, gestured to the left and Diane smiled wider. Josh stepped off and a man slapped him on the back in greeting.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I am good. I am very good,” Marion answered. “And you? How are you?”

“Marvelous. Winning and wonderful and – ” she paused and her smile faltered. She smiled again and took a long sip of her drink.

“I have not seen you since London. That is a long time ago.”

Diane laughed. “Not that long. Long enough, I suppose.” There was something cold to her eyes and Marion kept her face friendly.

“And where is your Michael this evening?”

Diane had smirked. “I imagine I could ask something similar about my former husband?”

“He is in New York.”

“Let’s pretend Michael is there too.”

“How is your friend doing? The pretty one – Rose, yes? Last time I see her with you she looks so sad.”

Diane leaned in.

"Well..."

INTERLUDE – A CONVERSATION, III:

“Oh god,” Rose said. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this. But if I don’t tell you or if I don’t tell somebody I know myself and I’m just going to start running around and telling everyone. Or Brendan.”

“And that would be bad?”

“That would be bad.”

There was a pause.

“I slept with Matthew.”

Diane slammed her coffee cup down. “Now why’d you have to go and tell me that?”

“What?”

“‘I slept with Matthew,’ Jesus Christ, Rose. What the hell do you want me to do with that? This, this is like a conflict of interest. This is majorly a fucking conflict of interest.”

“What the hell are you talking about.”

“I know Matthew. And now you’ve fucked Matthew. That’s just, that’s weird. That’d be like me saying I slept with Hugh or something.”

“Shut your fucking mouth. It’s not like that at all. You never slept with Matthew.”

“And you slept with Hugh?”

“Fuck. I thought I told you.”

“Um. No. No, you most certainly did not.”

“Irrelevant. You saying you slept with Hugh would be like me saying I slept with Guillaume.”

Diane scoffed. “That’s what Marion says. Or what she would say. If she wasn’t so French.”

“But you’re not friends with Marion.”

“No. No, not really. I wouldn’t call us friendly exactly.”

“And you don’t do brunch with her and she doesn’t sit and tell you the juicy details about a guy that you used to sleep with a lot.”

“This is hardly comparable,” she drawled. “I mean, call a fucking spade a spade: he was my goddamn husband. That’s a little different than your British bed-hopping or whatever the hell you’re getting yourself up to these days.”

“Oh fuck you. Not all of us can be so perfect and have our perfect little boy toys and all the perfect little pictures of you two being all perfect and perfectly fucking happy.”

“I fucked Michael,” Diane spat out.

Rose grinned, all Cheshire Cat. “Now this? This we can talk about.” She leaned back against the faux red leather on her side of the booth. “Waitress? More coffee. Please.”

A CAR CHASE FOR THE HERO & THE HEROINE:

There are people who line the hallways and want to know their names.

You are you and she is she, you are you and he is he and that is him and that is she, they say and call. There is a rhythm to it, a tide that beckons and catches their turned heads.

You are Diane, they say, and fewer still say: You are Michael.

This is London and this is a hotel. This is him and this is her, and there is her ex-husband and there is a woman who once was her.

When Diane first met him, she had thought this:

He looked the way a man should look. Because this was Hollywood, and there were some rules, rules that didn’t govern ethical behavior or the bracketed line of morality, but rules that dictated what men should look like. And a man should look like him: cut jawline and muscles set on edge, primed for action.

When Diane first met Michael it was not on the set of a Tarantino film.

When she met him it was after she shot her first film and she was a stranger, a skinny blonde who once modeled, and he was a stranger, too. He chain smoked all night and she bummed two off of him. This was New York. That night it rained and they stood on a front stoop, a party behind the door they leaned against, and she could feel the vibration of the bass against her shoulders.

After she finished the second cigarette he kissed her.

But this was a long time ago.

In Berlin, Diane said:

“I forgot all about you.”

Quentin had laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? You two know each other?”

Michael had grinned, his teeth as sharp as she remembered.

“May auld acquaintance be forgot…” he teased.

Later he called her a liar. Later he would come to call her a liar often. But that is later.

After dinner in London – one table, him and her and Guillaume and Marion – Diane wraps her coat tightly around herself and steps outside. She hears the flick of a lighter and doesn’t turn around; she smiles anyway.

“I have a car coming,” she says by way of explanation.

“Didn’t ask,” Michael says around his cigarette. They stand in a silence that is neither comfortable nor uncompanionably tense. Michael smokes and Diane keeps her hands in her pockets.

A black car pulls up and Diane steps down off the curb. It is a cold night and there is the bite of snow on the air and Michael breathes it in deep.

The driver opens the door for her and Diane glances back over her shoulder.

“Put that out if your coming,” she says and then she gets in.

Michael’s lips twist in a closed smile. He grinds the cigarette out under his heel.

He closes the door behind him.

Michael was right:

She is a liar.

She never forgot about New York.

INTERLUDE – A CONVERSATION, IV:

“I saw your film,” Guillaume said. Michael quirked a brow.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The Basterds,” Guillaume said with a dramatic flair. “Real good. You were fantastic.”

Michael smirked. “Well. Yeah. Thank you.”

Guillaume shifted forward in his seat and rested his forearms against the edge of the table.

“How is Diane?” he asked.

“Marvelous,” Michael said. And then he lit a cigarette. “She’ll be in town later tomorrow.”

Guillaume smiled. “And you know this…?”

Michael smiled. “I know this.”

THE END IS THE BEGINNING (& NO ONE GETS WHAT THEY CAME FOR):

They were in a bar with no name in a town with all too well-known a name: New York City.

Diane and Rose and Matthew and Rose and Diane and Matthew.

Diane introduced Rose to Matthew. Diane introduced Matthew to Rose.

Maybe everything started here.

Maybe Diane has always been prone to fall for bad advice and maybe these two were the best at offering it. Maybe Matthew knew he loved Rose then, and maybe she didn’t know or care. Maybe Diane was still a married woman and maybe Matthew had yet to become a father. Maybe: such a problematic, ugly little word.

Diane introduced divorce to the conversation and Rose infidelity and Matthew had laughed.

“How I do love conflicts,” Matthew had said then. “Always leads to so many delightful surprises.”

This came first.

THE MUSIC LIFTS, A DIRECTOR IS NAMED:

There are no strangers here.

(You want to love what you know. That part has never been easy enough).

THE END

fic: another apple to slice into pieces (criminal minds)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:08:31 GMT

another apple to slice into pieces.

criminal minds. maps can chart more than geography – they’ve been everywhere and they’ve seen it all. hotch; hotch/prentiss. rated pg-13. 2384 words.

notes: no real spoilers? basically this takes place in some nebulous made-up period where either the season 4 finale never happened or has yet to happen. so AU? i guess?

We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero’s shoulders and a gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.

(Richard Siken)

1.

There are people. There are stories. The people think they shape the stories, but the reverse is often closer to the truth. Alan Moore.

2.

In New Orleans a woman tells him: You a dead man, but you be alright.

They have no reason to put her in handcuffs, so they don’t. Hotch thinks this is the closest he has come to hate in a long time.

(The woman had called herself a psychic and Hotch had stood with Prentiss on the other side of the room, their skepticism shared in their mirrored body language.

She hears what the woman tells him, and later, as they walk to the car, the evening thick with humidity she will say:

She’s full of shit you know that right?)

3.

It begins on the plane. But before that it began in a locker room, and before that a different city and a different precinct, a different locker room (the same plane). Before all of this, it began when a woman walked into his office and said: My name is Emily Prentiss, and he tried to say no.

If you want a list of the things he will not speak of, she would rank somewhere near the top of it.

4.

In Tampa it is hurricane season.

In the elevator her skin looks damp; she had gone for a run, and he had been on the phone with Jack.

There are dead teenage boys being drowned in swimming pools. Outside his hotel room he can see the hotel pool, an unnatural bright blue that glows empty and unused.

In the elevator she had said: “I was thinking of taking a swim, but I thought. Well. Right. You know?” She had swallowed and there was a perfect line of sweat that found the raised ridge of her collarbone.

“I used to love to swim,” she said.

5.

On a Monday they stand shoulder to shoulder and she stirs sugar into her coffee. He pours his black.

There is to be a memorial service later in the day. A good man died. A good man always dies; a good man is always dying. Hotch thinks of his son; he burns his wrist on a spilled drop of coffee and hisses.

Prentiss arches an eyebrow but she doesn’t ask if he’s okay.

Instead she asks: “How was your weekend?”

He honestly can’t remember.

6.

In a suburb outside of Lexington there is first a car chase and then a crash. Hotch drives. Prentiss sits shotgun.

This is winter and the tires skid. One car flips over and Hotch slams the brakes; another car catches them from the side and as they spin out there is the wrenching shriek of metal on metal and the spray of shattered glass.

And then there is nothing.

The seatbelt cuts into his neck and his hands shake a little as he reaches to unbuckle it. His eyes burn in the cold air; he can taste blood in the back of his throat.

Next to him Prentiss groans.

He cups her face like it is the most natural thing in the world and she blinks fast, her lashes sticky with blood, the same blood that slides down the curve of her cheek and over his fingers.

She has a concussion but she’s fine. They’re all dying but they’re fine.

7.

“You ever think about leaving the BAU?” he asked her once. It had been late. She had a disposable cup of coffee at her elbow and a file spread out in all its macabre glory. He leaned in the doorframe but did not enter.

“Sure,” she said. “Sure. I think about it the same way I think about, I don’t know, settling down, getting married, having kids. Maybe someday. Just not now.” She had paused and fingered the lid on her cup. “Why you ask?”

He had shrugged. “No reason,” he said. No reason.

8.

Do you ever get tired keeping company with the dead?

9.

In Reno the lights hurt his eyes and he pops three aspirin. Prentiss wants to gamble.

He thinks they already are and the house keeps winning.

10.

In Reno, this starts.

There is a man killing high-price call girls. This man will turn out to be a hotel employee and the son of a prostitute but they don’t know this yet.

They use Emily as bait. She goes undercover and a man winds up spread across a baccarat table, his insides for outsides.

Hotch walks in on her in the locker room and there is a feel of a pattern, or there would be, if this was to happen once more. The problem of profiling is you sometimes see constellations where none exist. The problem of profiling is you see everyone but yourself.

He understands most people. He doesn’t understand her.

He walks in and she pulls the dress over her head. He had seen her in the dress earlier. It was a little clingy black thing that he imagines is supposed to be generically attractive. There is blood on her dress.

She pulls the dress with the blood on it over her head and there is nothing on underneath.

“I’m sorry,” he says and his mouth is dry.

Emily does not hide herself and her nipples are hard, pink.

“Don’t worry about it.” She says it like a laugh and pulls a pair of jeans on.

11.

On the plane, sometimes he lets himself consider it. Her big, wide eyes growing wider – not with fear, but something he doesn’t know how to name, he can’t open his mind that far – as he pushes into her that first time.

All men think like this. Reid would have statistics and Morgan would have pride. Hotch just has his certainty and images he can never shake.

12.

In Washington DC someone is murdering aides on the Hill. The murders are neat and confined to the restrooms of the Senate and the House Office Buildings, never the Capitol. He hangs them with rope.

Hotch and Prentiss interview the offices now down one aide. The phones ring the entire time and teenage faux lobbyists fill the doorway with fliers protesting the war and baby killers and the President of the United States. The answers they get are useless and distracted.

They stop in a bar in Foggy Bottom on their way out of the city.

He drinks too much but drives them back anyway. He thinks this could be called evidence; he thinks this means he’s slipping.

Their killer gets sloppy by the end of the week. They catch him. He was one of the aides they had initially questioned.

“We’re all going to hang,” he snarls.

“Get him out of here,” Morgan barks.

Hotch holds the rope.

13.

Before, in the bar in Foggy Bottom, on one television a Nationals game played and on the other an old Clint Eastwood film.

He ordered a beer and wished he had ordered something stronger. For his next drink he would.

Prentiss took a sip of her beer and then leaned in. “Alright, spill,” she said. “What’s up?”

The beer wasn’t cold enough. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t give me that. You’ve been more…stoic lately than usual. No, that’s not the word I’m looking for. Or maybe it is.”

“What’s your point?”

“Something’s bothering you.” She pointed at him suddenly and accusatorily. “And don’t give me that ‘we don’t profile each other’ bullshit. I’m not a profiler right now. I’m just being your friend.”

“My friend?”

“Sure. Two friends, having a drink after a long day of work.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

Over closed captioning Clint Eastwood said: go ahead, make my day.

14.

He thinks about her and his bed and there she would be Emily and there she would call him by name, not Hotch, not there, and these things matter. The names we give and the names we choke on matter. He thinks about her wide eyes and all that dark hair, pale skin –

“Sir?” JJ says. “We’re ready.”

There are dead schoolteachers in Vermont.

15.

In Des Moines, Prentiss shoots the unsub in the head and there is the usual shock of bright red that explodes first into the air and then onto the pavement. It spills like tar, just as dark and sticky and sweet, and Hotch takes a deep breath and a step back. Prentiss lowers her gun. Her eyes are flat and unfocused.

You saved my life, he thinks but does not say it.

Instead she stands there with the flat, unfocused eyes and a hand at her hip and the holster. The locals swarm the scene and the cops take tentative steps towards the dead man (the dead devil) and the expanding pool of blood, like maybe it’s poison, maybe it’s quicksand, maybe it will like the taste of their boots.

Hotch steps towards her and she blinks. Her hair is pulled back tight from her face and she looks less like a woman and more like a weapon. He grips the jut of muscle that connects shoulder to neck and squeezes; the Velcro of her vest crackles under his hand.

She turns her head to face him sharply and her eyes burn too bright. It takes a moment, a tense moment of penetrating eye contact on both their parts, before she purses her lips and nods, once.

Hotch doesn’t say thank you. He thinks it would have been redundant.

16.

“You look tired,” he said to her.

She laughed. “Oh, fuck you.”

He sat across from her and almost smiled. The plane hit turbulence and her own smile faltered.

“I’m very, very tired,” she whispered. “I’m always tired.”

He turned off the light.

17.

In Charleston she almost drowns.

She is pushed over the edge and the waves crash over her head. The ocean is warm but her body is still cold when they pull her out. There is makeup under her eyes and her cheeks are sunken; she shivers and he gives her a blanket that smells like burning leaves.

In Savannah they almost lose Spencer.

A gun fires, a house catches fire, and he gets caught somewhere in between. Morgan finds him first, Reid’s mouth gaping open, a fish with no water. A doctor says he’ll be fine.

In Boise he almost shoots an innocent man.

The key word here is almost not innocent.

18.

“You make house calls now?”

“Can I come in?”

“What are you doing here? You don’t come here.”

“Can I come in.”

19.

It almost hurts to kiss her. There is a good moment where they just stand there – she has a cautious hand on his elbow and he wants to tell her that’s not necessary, that he’s steady, that he isn’t going to flee, not yet, not ever, he was never taught how to run fast and blind enough to flee, but he doesn’t think that’s what the hand is for. He has a hand barely skimming the narrowest point of indentation to her waist and the cotton under his fingers feels used.

It’s not even that they’re kissing. Suddenly he is old and he is tired and suddenly she is the safest bet for him to keep. His forehead rests against hers, and their lips skim, their mouths open and it is more that he breathes her in than actually kisses her.

“Please,” she says.

20.

It’s easy to say he has wanted this since he met her. It’s easy because it’s a lie, because it’s not the truth. He had not liked her then, he had Haley then, he did not want her there.

That said, there is a comforting and lulling rhythm to the idea that maybe he had wanted her, that he had wanted this, the second she walked into his office and the second after when he politely tried to kick her out.

There is still a romantic somewhere in there, beneath the layers of child support payments and the one bedroom apartment and the law degree and the stack of photographs that depict little more than the evils one human being can perpetuate against another. There is a romantic.

Because that’s the thing everyone always forgets: the hero in these stories is always dark, he is always brooding, he is tragic and last of all, his romantic tendencies are the very last to erode.

(Romantic doesn’t mean what you think it does here. It does not mean roses and Sinatra and the best table at the best restaurant in town. Romantic here is a synonym for love, and in this business other words always masquerade in its place).

“I should have seen this coming,” Emily says. Hotch doesn’t argue with her. He lets her slide his shirt down his arms but he does not argue with her.

21.

He fucks her (finally, finally, beat his hips, but that’s poetic and stupid, hips can’t talk and he would never say that) in front of the window that looks out onto the Potomac in her apartment.

It’s not what he imagined.

Then again, it never is.

22.

On a Monday she stirs sugar into her coffee and he pours his black.

She does not ask him if he’s okay. She asks him how his weekend was.

Hotch doesn’t know how to answer that. Instead he wonders if it is possible to still smell his skin on hers.

In the conference room he watches the cut of her jaw out of the corner of his eye.

There is a man creating young widows in Minnesota.

There is a man stabbing old widows in Maine.

There are devils everywhere.

23.

They’re all dead but they’ll be fine.

24.

We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. T.S. Eliot.

25.

fin.

fic: broken jaw and all

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:37:43 GMT

broken jaw and all

inglourious basterds. two guys and a girl walk out of a bar; this is what happens next. bridget von hammersmark/archie hicox. rated nc-17. 2098 words. AU.

notes: LOL you guys I don't even know. i feel like anything and everything i write these days needs to be preempted with a disclaimer of just how shameless i've become in the writing department. HI I AM SHAMELESS. also, in the late night hours, three glasses of vino in, i stumbled upon the Inglourious Basterds kink meme. and have i mentioned i have no shame? the prompt in question was: "Bridget von Hammersmark/Lt. Archie Hicox, gunplay, talking dirty. Bonus points if Stiglitz watches." did you really expect me to resist THAT? that said, this has ZERO literary/fic/shame-free merit, and um, i still can't believe i wrote this?

Let’s be clear on one point: it was never supposed to turn out like this.

Things went bad, things went real sour at La Louisiane.

The Nazis had been there and Wicki bit it and everyone else enclosed in those four walls under the ground that wasn’t Bridget, or Hicox, or Stiglitz bit it too.

After, there was only one obvious thing to do: lay low. They were each a mess: Bridget had lost her hat and her hair had come undone. They all had varying degrees and sources of blood spattered across them.

In the end, they stopped at an inn. “I know the owner,” Bridget had said, and Hicox and Stiglitz exchanged glances behind her back but followed her anyway.

All of which has brought us to this:

Stiglitz pressed the blade to Bridget’s throat and she inhaled sharply.

“Now, Stiglitz,” Hicox said, “that’s hardly necessary. I’d say that’s enough of that.” He waved a hand. Stiglitz glared but after a moment he dropped his knife and stalked over to the armchair and took a seat. Hicox turned to Bridget. “Hardly gentlemanly behavior, now is it?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but there was the cocking of a pistol and Hicox had that same opaque grin on his face but he aimed the gun at her temple.

“Bridget von Hammersmark,” he mused. “I must confess. As big a fan as I myself am of your, well, considerable talents, we find ourselves at a bit of a crossroads here. See, one of our own took it right between the eyes as a part of your little planned rendezvous – ”

“In a basement,” Stiglitz grunted.

“Yes, old chap’s correct, isn’t he? Your planned rendezvous just so happened to be in a basement, swarming with none other than the enemy. I’m sure an intelligent woman such as yourself can imagine how suspicious this looks on the outside.”

Bridget sighed and her shoulders slumped forward. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “You think I set you up, yeah?” she snapped. She glared. “That would have been suicide. If I wanted you and your men dead, there are easier ways to go about it.”

“Given this a bit of thought, have you, dear fraulein?” Hicox asked.

She huffed. “I am now. Get that fucking gun out of my face.”

He pressed the metal into her cheek and she fought a gasp. Hicox leaned in close and his hot breath was a sharp contrast against the cold of the gun. “Darling. You are hardly in the position to make such demands,” he said quietly.

“I’m not lying,” she said between gritted teeth. “I had no idea, no idea at all. They weren’t supposed to be there! I don’t – I don’t know – what do you want me to say?” She raised her chin at the last question and aimed for something like defiance. The tip of the gun slid along her cheekbone; her palms were damp and she clenched her fingers into a fist.

Hicox clucked his tongue but he did not back away, he did not lower his weapon.

“What do I want you to say…” he drawled. “I’ve personally always been a proponent of the ‘actions speak louder than words’ school of thought, I’ll have you know. Words, well, words can so easily cloud the truth. But actions? Once witnessed, those are a touch trickier to deny, wouldn’t you agree?”

Bridget swallowed. “What are you asking me exactly?”

He smiled. He smiled and it was all teeth, wolfish and dangerous, and for the first time since meeting him Bridget took him seriously.

“Why, I’m asking you to show me, of course.”

Perhaps if she was a more proper woman, if she was the sort of woman the world assumed her to be, she would have gasped. She should have been shocked; his words belied an undeniable sexual undertone and any respectable woman would have balked at the proposition.

Bridget's not really that sort of woman; this would not explain what happened next.

Bridget’s hands were still clenched into fists at her side.

She punched him in the face. It caught him just along the jaw and he stumbled back. She took the chance and knocked the gun from his hand; it hit the floor and fired, a hole pierced in the side of a bureau. Bridget caught Hicox around the throat and held him against the wall. Her hair was in her face and although surprised Hicox was still smiling and they both were out of breath.

Stiglitz’s boots were heavy on the floorboards and they creaked under his weight. Both Hicox and Bridget turned to appraise him. His posture was casual, his knife unsheathed and what looked like a smile and a question on his lips.

“I believe I still have this under control, Stiglitz,” Hicox said. His voice sounded almost wheezy and Bridget pressed down harder against his throat. Stiglitz shrugged and returned to the chair, kicked his feet up, and watched the two of them at the wall out of the corner of his eye.

Bridget’s face was still turned to Stiglitz and the knife and the chair; the back of his head against the wall, Hicox’s face was turned to her. “You were saying?” he said tightly. Bridget caught his eye then. Hicox’s eyes were dark, narrowed, pupils blown, and it was stupid, but she liked that. She liked the effect she could have on a man, and what honest woman would dare to claim otherwise? But this was different. There was the gun on the floor and the bullet hole in the bureau, there was the collection of dead men in a basement tavern, the man with the knife who was watching them and there was her hand, his throat, and the beat and skip of his pulse against her skin.

She licked her bottom lip and Hicox swallowed. She could feel it inside her fist.

“This wasn’t what you had in mind, Lieutenant?” she asked, her voice pitched low, her voice pitched the way the cameras and the audience liked her best. “When you asked me to show you,” and this she said with dramatic disdain, “this wasn’t what you had in mind?”

Hicox smirked. “Similar concept,” he drawled, or however best a man can drawl when a woman wraps five fingers around his throat, “though a bit more favorable to my person in execution.”

“What,” she sneered. “You thought I’d suck your cock? Get down on my knees for your pathetic prick?”

“One could hope.” He still grinned and still was oddly unconcerned. It was unnerving.

Later, if asked (although, who would ask?) she would never be able to come up with a reason for what happened next.

She kissed him.

She caught his bottom lip with her teeth and Hicox sucked in a breath. She kissed him. Her hand was still tight around his throat and when her teeth nicked his bottom lip, when she swiped her tongue along the same path, met by his own, she felt his Adam’s apple bob beneath her hand as he sighed.

He did not touch her, he did not touch her yet and it amused her. She smeared her mouth wet over his and made a small keening, falling sound. This was apparently what he had been waiting for. This should have made her angry – this was what he expected to happen. Their mouths and their tongues met and she made the small keening, falling sound and Hicox finally touched her.

He grabbed her by the hips and his grip was tight as he pushed his own off the wall to grind against her. She gasped and pulled back.

“Hmm, you can dole it out, but you can’t take it?” he murmured and quirked a brow. He kissed her this time, his mouth just as sloppy and bitter as her own had been. She kissed back, of course she kissed back.

He did not bother with her blouse or her jacket, the line of buttons and the layers underneath. He clutched at her over her clothes, his hands rough against her breasts and it wasn’t enough. The medals that weren’t his that adorned a jacket that was not his scratched at her hands as she pushed back against his shoulders. He did not yield; he pushed forward with the momentum earned off the wall and her ass hit the high footboard at the end of the bed.

“Turn around,” he grunted, and she did. She complied without thought. One hand was under her skirt and the other was flat against her back, pushing her down.

He had her bent over the footboard. The edge of it caught her right below the ribs and it hurt but she did not try to move. She braced her hands, white-knuckled, along the wood. Hicox did not remove her knickers; he pushed them to the side and she could feel the rumble of his laugh as well as hear it as he leaned forward – his front pressed along her back. He smeared two fingers along her and her breath caught in her chest. “Enjoying this, darling?” He laughed again and Bridget released a shaky breath as his thumb skimmed her clit.

“Don’t answer that – I have all the proof I need.” His two fingers slid into her roughly, easily, and she grunted. Her hips bucked back against him. She cursed under her breath in German.

Hicox laughed softly again. “You know,” he said, and there was the jerk of his wrist and she bit her lip in a bid for silence; she failed. “My opinion of you has been greatly altered over the course of this evening we have shared.” His tone was completely light and even as he said it. The only things that gave him away were the sharp intake of breath at the end of his sentence and his hard cock pressed against her ass. His fingers picked up pace and a light groan escaped her.

“Here, I had spent all this time imagining you quite proper, a real lady. But,” and he paused; his fingers twisted inside of her and she clenched around him, “apparently all it takes is some violence, idle threats and a bout of physical altercation to part your legs.” He pulled his fingers completely out of her before driving them back in; she moaned, loud and long, despite herself.

“I mean, look at you,” Hicox said, “you’re positively dripping.” His fingers were immobile inside her and between that and his words it was too much, she was too close, it was too much.

“Oh god,” she moaned. “Please, please, just fuck me, I don’t even care, just fuck me.”

He chuckled. “As the lady wishes…” There was laughter from across the room; she had forgotten Stiglitz and she gasped. Hicox’s fingers had left her and there was the sound of the buckle of his belt come undone. She turned her head and Stiglitz was plainly watching the both of them, clearly amused.

“Jesus Christ,” she snapped, “make him leave.” Hicox did not answer at first; one hand was pressed in the middle of her back and the cloth stuck to her sweaty skin. He gripped his cock with his other hand and teased her before sliding partway in. Bridget breathed heavily through her nose.

“Don’t be rude,” Hicox said. His voice was labored and under her skirt his hand was trembling against the bend of hip to thigh. “Old boy’s earned himself a bit of entertainment as well. Besides. I thought you liked it when they watch.” On that, he thrust all the way into her and she let out a choked shout. Her hips banged against the wood and the footboard rattled in its frame. Hicox was merciless in the pace he set, the snap of his hips against hers, and it didn’t take long, it didn’t take long for either of them.

(She came first, practically sobbing for him not to stop, and he came only a handful of thrusts after that. He growled a yes that was predatory enough to make her shiver beneath her coat).

And after:

The color was high on her cheeks and a strand of hair lay misplaced over Hicox’s forehead.

Stiglitz sharpened his knife.

“I still think it was a set-up,” Stiglitz said and he shrugged.

“Are you kidding me?” Bridget spluttered, indignant, and Hicox laughed.

What did it matter? They were all dead within twenty-four hours anyway.

And for the record: that was not her fault.

fin.

fic: mr. demille (rpf)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:22:21 GMT

mr. demille (we are ready for our close-up)

rpf. you know the expression well: a picture is worth a thousand words. you forget that often what goes unsaid matters most of all. diane kruger/michael fassbender. rated r. 4528 words.

notes: credit in part is dude to the always marvelous C, fated_addiction for letting me bounce ideas off of and being one of the best enablers around, *laughs*. also, this was written with notyourtea's current challenge, SCANDALS, in mind, heh. and as always: the following is not true. the end.

Something has to be done, but nothing too original, because hey, this is Hollywood.

(L.A. Confidential)

we're filming a movie called planet of love-
there's sex of course, and ballroom dancing

(Dirty Valentine, Richard Siken)

1.

Today the top three searches on Google are (in order):

1. Michael Jackson;

2. Big Brother;

3. Serial killers.

This tells you everything you need to know about what comes next.

-

2.

That’s a lie. This tells us nothing. This tells us people are curious about dead pop stars and their much muckraked legacy and whether someone will end up behind bars or not. This says that people like to watch behind the safety of television screens and cameramen the people who move in miniature pretend are not there.

This tells us most importantly that what we love is a good story, a juicy story, one that ends in expelled bodily fluid – be it blood, semen, spit, or D) all of the above – and that we like it when people slip. We like to kick them when they’re down.

In fact, we revel in it.

This doesn’t tell us anything about the two people of our story however. Or maybe it does. Keep an eye out; you might catch something we have missed.

-

3.

There were eleven pictures leaked in total.

In the pictures, you see what the textbooks call copulation and the priests call sin and the boys on the subway call fucking.

You don’t know these people. You know the people they have pretended to be and the performances pulled in interviews and publications. You know the woman is named Diane and the man, Michael, and once upon a time they had been costars – at least in a more official capacity than this.

Like a detective, and any of us can be a detective if we know where to look, you know that one time in London, these two people drank too much (there are two glasses, empty, on the table behind them; there are two bottles, one poured empty and dry as well, the other still holding at half) and in their haste or their inebriation, their foolish tempting of fate, they did not close the curtains to her hotel room.

The view was perfect from the building across the way. But you know that too.

-

4.

Her agent is the first to discover the photos.

“How could you be so fucking stupid?” is what Diane is asked. She does not know to what the agent refers; she catches on quickly.

“Oh,” is all she says when met with her own self, a month earlier and an ocean away.

“Oh.”

We’re not the only ones watching now. Pay attention. This is when it gets really good.

-

5.

The first photograph isn’t really all that incriminating. If you eyeball it once, it looks like two people mid-conversation. And that’s what the photograph is of – there are no secret optical illusions here, no I Spy game underfoot. There are two people and they are talking. The problem is that if you go back for a second glance, you do a double-take, raise the picture to the light, put on those reading glasses you deny you own, you see something a little different.

You see the hand on the waist (his, hers, respectively). You see the proximity of two faces, even in this grainy print. You see how serious he is, how maybe in another context you would say concerned, but here he is just serious, he is concentrating and if anything Diane looks nervous in return.

In the first photograph, Michael and Diane stand talking. There is a film in black and white on the television screen behind her head and they talk and they pay it no mind.

You think that might be Grace Kelly on the screen behind her head. That, dear inspector, is irrelevant.

-

6.

When they were young and in their acting classes (or maybe they were more organic than that and laughed in the face of training and canned soliloquies, but it’s not like they have mantels of awards to show for said rebellion) or waited on line at a casting call, a sea of interchangeable and unmemorable faces, no one pulled them aside and said: they’re going to chase you with lights and they’re going to chase you with the shutter and the zoom. You’re never going to escape yourself, no one said. And maybe it’s like “break a leg” is code for a “good luck” superstition won’t let your tongue slide around – you don’t want to jinx the future.

You’re never going to escape yourself, no one said, because maybe they were unsure there was a person there worth chasing, worth the effort to hide from.

Maybe they were right. Are you going to argue on their behalf?

-

7.

Michael promotes his movie that summer and Diane lays low. She is cleaning her kitchen when he calls. She pulls the yellow gloves off with a snap and the smell of bleach is still too sharp.

“Can we sue them?” he asks her over the phone.

“What for? The pictures are already out,” she sighs.

“I want to fucking sue them.”

“It’s not worth it,” she says.

Michael sighs this time over the line.

“Do you ever think – do you ever think, that, fuck, I don’t know, that maybe if, maybe if no one knew – do you ever think about, you know, fuck, don’t make me say it for Christ’s sake, Jesus.”

Diane’s eyes fix on the digital clock on the microwave and she does not blink.

“No,” she says, “I don’t think about you.”

She hangs up first.

-

8.

The second photograph is where things get interesting.

In the second photograph, they kiss. Of course, the inherent problem with photos is their lack of motion. We think he kissed her first; you think so too.

His hand is large and it captures the expanse of her jaw. His eyes are closed and hers are open; there is a miniscule triangle of open space between their open mouths and if there was sound to accompany the image, we might hear her gasp and him say, “Yes.”

-

9.

Let’s do this right. Let’s start at the beginning.

-

10.

In a hotel room across the way, there were two men. The first spoke of Lily Allen and a nightclub and how much upskirts were earning on the market. “For her,” the second said, “not much.”

The second man looked out the window, and then he said: “Holy shit, mate. You can see right into that fucking hotel room.”

The first man had joined him. “You’re right. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”

“Isn’t that what’s her name?” the second asked.

“What’s who’s name?” the first asked.

“The broad, you wanker. She’s somebody. I recognize her.”

“Wait a tic. Yeah, yeah, yeah – she’s that German, that Tarantino one, shagging that Dawson’s Pike, River, Creek, whatever the fuck, bloke yeah?”

“That’s not the same bloke, I reckon.”

“No, sir.”

“Get the camera,” the second man said.

You know what happened next.

-

11.

As for the beginning of them, you should probably know this:

Quentin and Michael and Diane and Brad and Til and other people you don’t care about are in a bar. This is a long time ago and this is Germany and shooting is to begin within the month. They all hold their pints to their mouth and they drink. Quentin drives the conversation and Brad plays a good second, as you would expect. The rest of them just listen and they laugh at the appropriate intervals, but mainly they drink.

“So, we’re in a bar – and have you ever noticed that?” Quentin is saying. “How the best stories, those stories worth telling always start like that? ‘We were in a bar,’ ‘a man walks into a bar,’ – but I digress. We’re in a bar, and you know, we’re past a couple of drinks and into a few of them – ”

She does not hear the rest of the story.

Diane’s knee bumps against Michael’s knee under the table, and the first time it happens, it is an accident. We know. You don’t believe that. You’ve been taught and trained to believe differently, in those crafty things like ulterior motives. Stop squinting so hard. There’s nothing else to see here.

Her knee bumped his knee, and later, she steadied herself with a hand on his elbow as she rose to leave the table.

If we need a timeline, and we know, we do, you have no imagination, we can call this the starting point.

We can call this the point when trouble walks into a bar.

-

12.

The third photograph is far more indecent.

In the third, Diane has her hands hidden under his shirt. Their mouths appear fused together and she is clad in only her bra and a pair of tights. You can see a pair of shoes kicked off in the foreground; if you look a little closer, you can see his belt undone.

You can’t see their faces.

That bothers you, doesn’t it? Her hair and his hand obscure any view and besides, they’re too hungry, they’re too desperate; principles like distance and proximity have lost meaning.

You’d still like to see that though. We know.

-

13.

There are six questions journalists ask when covering a story:

Who, what, when, where, why and how?

You only ask the who and you only ask what and of course you want to know the how. You don’t care about the rest. You especially don’t care about the why.

But you should know this: the why is the most important part.

On Perez Hilton the headline reads: Kruger’s Treasure Plumbed.

Just Jared just says: Inglourious! Notorious!

In People, they call him a critically-acclaimed Irish up-and-comer (no pun intended, we’d imagine, People is not that crass). They call her “the divorced German actress, girlfriend of Dawson’s Creek alum…”

She is not the ex-girlfriend. Not yet. Don't look so anxious.

-

14.

He was supposed to get his big break years ago. He’s said it himself, we’re not just being snide.

His big break was supposed to come with Spielberg, and then with Snyder, and now Tarantino.

He gets his break all right. He gets that household name. And it’s a Disney moral, be careful what you wish for!, tied to his name on the covers of tabloids and photographs of her mouth stretched around his cock.

-

15.

The fourth picture is pornographic.

Diane is topless, she is on her knees.

Michael sits perched on the side of the bed and he is leaning back on his forearms. The bedspread looks like it’s the kind that is slick to the touch and it makes you wonder, if maybe, eventually, his arms slid out from beneath him, that he collapsed under his own weight, and had to scramble for purchase against the slippery bedspread.

You’ll never know.

In the picture, you can see her bare breasts and she is on her knees and Michael is on the bed and her mouth is open around his cock. In the fourth picture, she sucks him off.

This makes you uncomfortable; are we right? That’s okay though – it made us uncomfortable at first too. Sex is one thing. Sex is a shared effort. But this? This is something else. Maybe it’s the lighting of the picture or maybe it’s her nudity and the fact he still has a shirt on (but his pants around his ankles), maybe it’s the expression on his face – a curious mixture of surprise and desire and something you don’t recognize – but it all is a little too intimate.

Do you feel like an intruder yet?

-

16.

Vanity Fair calls.

They want her to do the July cover.

“We’re thinking something like, ‘Moving past the scandal: in her own words,’ it’s a little rough, but something like that, are you still living with Josh, where’s Michael?” they ask her all in one breath.

She turns down the cover. That surprises you, doesn’t it.

She turns down National Treasure 3.

That surprises no one.

-

17.

In a coffeeshop in New York, Diane hides behind a pair of large, red plastic sunglasses and a book, but we see her. She has a Danish in crumbs, ripped apart into the bite-size but otherwise untouched next to her elbow. She sips the coffee (or the tea, we are too far away to tell) and turns the page of her book.

The scarlet woman is reading Madame Bovary, and honestly we cannot make this shit up.

Perhaps she is shopping for a role, or perhaps cliché can really be that earnest and accidental and she has turned to the fictional for commiseration and comfort.

You think this is about a film, don’t you.

You are watching her drink her coffee or her tea and you are watching her read her book, but you have no sense of the periphery. On the corner, outside the shop, a construction worker rides his jackhammer into the ground and the entire block shakes with it. Sugar is upset from its bowl and the tea or the coffee sloshes in her cup; she steadies it with an equally trembling hand.

There is a table of women behind Diane, and one has brought a child in a carriage and they are laughing over a collection of wedding photos.

What you can’t know is that Diane hates these women.

Here’s the thing: one of these days one of these women will fuck it all up. One of them, maybe the mother of the sleeping kid with the stuffed turtle grasped tight, will fuck a man who isn’t hers. And she’ll probably be kicked out of this table in this coffeeshop in New York and her husband will probably want to kick her out too, but the spread of the news and the gossip and the consequences will extend no further than her home, this coffeeshop, the shared address book kept in a drawer next to the phone.

The kid wakes and throws the turtle on the ground. The jackhammer pauses and the silence is deafening. The women laugh and Diane hates them.

-

18.

Classify this under things you don’t know (also known as: things Us Weekly and Ryan Seacrest forgot to tell you):

Michael already has a girlfriend (American). She lives in Bel-Air (the swanky end) and truth be told, not much more is known than that. A number of inferences can be made though, about this girlfriend (American) who lives in Bel-Air (the swanky end). None are favorable; you’ve seen the films. That’s so hot.

That’s not the point. Spite is not the key. We don’t care about her, do we? She’s a tertiary character in all of this. If this was a film (for all the world’s a stage, and Willy Shakespeare needs a facelift), she would not get billing on the poster; on the Internet Movie Database you would have to click the full cast link to see her name. She does not matter here; she is window dressing.

That sounds a touch cruel, doesn’t it? We’re only following your lead.

You like her now because she makes this messier, don’t you? Busted, caught red-handed, much like our male and female leads.

Hey. Maybe that’s a theme.

-

19.

In the fifth photograph he is between her legs; her back arched up and off the bed.

You can see the lines of his back, the way they ripple when the muscle is strained into force and motion. You can see her bent knees and the cascade of blonde hair, the tilt of a chin and the stretch of her neck.

Michael’s mouth is pressed to the skin of her collarbone and all you can see of their coupling is the bracket of her bare hips and his bare ass in between.

You’re blushing right now – you’re totally blushing.

-

20.

Today the top three searches on Google are (in order):

1. Michael Jackson (+ homicide);

2. Megan Fox;

3. Diane Kruger (+ naked)

It’s an honor.

-

21.

In pictures six through ten he fucks her and she fucks him back.

You can’t see as much as you probably wish you could.

It is a tangle of two bodies and at one point their hands are joined over her head. You can’t see his face, only hers – the open mouth, the small O her lips make, the dazed look of her eyes when they are not closed.

The television is still on in the background.

You had forgotten that detail. Don’t argue; you had.

-

22.

It is an easy device to say: if you knew the truth you’d hate me.

That’s probably true.

The opposite is just as likely true as well. If you knew that we were lying, if you knew the words we are saying at this very moment were false, you’d hate us as well.

But we don’t say that. The lies serve as pardons, little masks for the truth you’d so hate us for to hide behind.

Diane says: “If you knew the truth you’d hate me.”

Josh doesn’t say anything, and maybe she expected that, it’s hard to tell. But she sits there with those sharp, hunched shoulders and that look of distracted worry, and underneath that, there sits something else. Something like calm, and something sure.

When he leaves – Vancouver, of all places – he takes his bags and he takes his belongings.

She remains calm until his cab disappears into the sprawl of New York traffic and then she starts to cry.

You don’t like this part. Either does she.

-

23.

Everybody loves Josh now. And of course we all do.

The good guy takes the hit again. Poor, poor thing.

He just inked a deal to star opposite Christian Bale next fall. It’s a film about infidelity and aliens and there is a bad man and a good man and a woman in between.

Michael gets film offers too. He gets offers for every villainous role, great or small, demonic or just plain petty.

He does not get offered the Christian Bale movie; the villain has already been cast and he is not Josh.

No one knows what to do with Diane. We never know what to do with the bad girls, other than ship them off to Los Angeles with a plastic baggie of coke and a prayer for the worst.

(Diane poses for small European magazines and wears ensembles more costume than clothing; she reads scripts for films without budgets and films without stars. She drinks a lot of tea. This is disappointing for you, but sometimes people do that, sometimes they don’t deliver).

-

24.

Picture eleven makes you feel guilty, doesn’t it?

In picture eleven, Diane is smiling and it is the saddest thing you have ever seen.

She has a hand in Michael’s hair and his face is buried in the crook of her neck. He holds her tight.

You’ve invented that last part. You have no way of knowing how loosely or how tightly he held her. But you’re pretty sure that in the picture he holds her tight. You’re pretty sure he’s holding on for dear life.

If it means anything, we think so too.

-

25.

You know what you saw.

This is what you missed:

His hand covers the column of her throat and Diane tries to catch her breath. His body is heavy and damp on top of her. She blinks rapidly. “Oh, god,” she sighs. “Jesus,” and then, she laughs. She smiles and she laughs but it sort of sounds like she is crying. Michael looks up at her and then kisses her shoulder.

“I thought,” she finally says, when the laughing or the crying subsides, “that this would fix it.” Her throat catches on the word fix and Michael stills against her. His fingers dig into her side. She is still smiling but there is something broken about the stretch of white teeth and the lines at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes are wet and Michael watches her carefully. “I thought I could be rid of you.”

“Should I be offended?” Michael asks, the humor more self-defensive than good-natured.

Her smile falters. “No,” she says firmly. “No,” she repeats, and her hand runs down the back of his head and rests to cradle the nape of his neck. “No. I – ” and she stops.

Michael kisses her.

“I know,” he says. She kisses him back.

And if for a moment, that moment where his mouth is wet and it is hers, where she is open and she is his, she thinks something like this cannot end you cannot fault her. What she does not know is that this, London and the city outside her open window, his mouth, wet, and herself, open, is all the good they will have for now. That the good can end and give way to the bad, that there is a balance to these things and they have yet to pay their due. She does not know this and he does not know this and somewhere a camera has already snapped and they have posed unwillingly and she can taste her own skin on his tongue.

There are no pictures of this part.

-

26.

And now.

They’re back in the kitchen where she lied once and she told him that no, in fact, she does not think about him, and if he thinks about her, then he thinks about her – it is not a problem for her to solve. Are you watching closely? You see the way she wrings her hands with the dish towel, the way she tries to hide her shaking fingers in all that yellow and white and blue fabric? You see the way he looks at her hands and he looks at the towel – you see the softening of his mouth? Because he knows. He knows that she’s a liar and he knows that he’s a liar and maybe this is one of those grand feats of love – the allowance for forgiveness and acceptance. It allows you to see the yellow and the white and the blue, the shaking fingers, and maybe those two tied together are that elusive thing we call the truth.

Who knows. They don’t know; they just feel. The towel’s probably soft and a little damp beneath her hands and she twists it like a rope to hang.

“Diane,” he says, and Diane, she stops with the towel, lays it on the counter behind her, and you heard him say her name. But did you really hear him say her name? We say a lot, you know, in the little stops and gasps of words and names and places. We reveal in the stretch of syllable and manipulation of sound. He says her name, and I know you heard it, but he said more than that. I think you know that too. Because this is the after and we already know what has happened before. They know it too, and of course they do, they lived it. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? That’s where that expression comes into play, right? Can’t see the forest for the trees?

Watch the way she rubs at the back of her neck and you know that she’s lost, and you knew that he was lost when he said her name. They can’t see the forest because there are too many trees and it’s so easy to get lost in all that green.

“Michael. Don’t,” she says.

You know she doesn’t mean that, right?

-

27.

Josh takes Vancouver and Diane keeps New York.

Michael comes to talk to late night hosts and for film premieres.

He comes for her, but he never tells her this and she never asks.

-

28.

Perhaps these two are the exception and not the rule.

You know there are the others.

“I want,” they all say, and they reach – a child without aim.

They are the little children, they are the dead children. They do not grow and they do not learn; they speak an alphabet of jumbled sounds and broken noises – they cannot spell their letters. They are the children who cannot count, where one and one is a value less than two, than double – where it’s something greater, a property too dense for them to understand.

They are the children raised without limits and for every scraped kneecap and pointed elbow they clamor for more. These are the kids lost in the divorce proceedings, the shuffle of back and forth and carpools and empty parking lots. They hit back and they bite. They love – they hate – without reason.

They are the stunted and the coddled, the violated and the dispossessed. These words have no meaning to these wayward children, children who gamble and shoot for all the marbles without fully comprehending what lies at stake.

And you still want them? Don’t you know – damaged goods don’t always come for half the price.

You click the remote, you turn the TV on, no one’s computer actually says you’ve got mail anymore. And after that? You point and you laugh, and you say those three words that are supposed to make all of this – all the hair-pulling and the tears you don’t see, all that quiet anguish that makes us too uncomfortable to imagine, all that deep, dark personal hurt that sticks and clings to the insides of chests and the cavity of a ribcage – okay:

They deserve it.

-

29.

This is the part that we don’t see:

There is a bathroom in her apartment and there is the fog on the mirror and dampness has settled from the hot water, now off, and the steam, now gone.

It is the holiday season. The tree is up in Rockefeller Center and snow threatens on the air. Diane holds a toothbrush up to her mouth and Michael wraps an arm around her waist, a towel slung low on his hips.

What we think you have somehow managed to forget is that sometimes people can fit together. Sometimes there is a grand plan and a scheme involved, that there are people in this world who eventually find those other people in this world and one day realize: yes, this is where I am supposed to be.

And if you believe in love, if you can still bring yourself to believe in something like that, then maybe this is it.

You forgot that. It’s okay though; most people do forget. That’s the greatest flaw in this plan.

He bends and he kisses her shoulder blade and when he kisses her mouth she tastes like the toothpaste, like the steam, familiar.

Know this: this is the part you’ll never see. And this is the part you will never know.

He kisses her mouth.

-

30.

fin.

fic: events inspired by sergio leone (rpf)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 08:48:54 GMT

events inspired by sergio leone

rpf. these things can be classified as the good, the bad, or the just plain ugly. diane kruger/michael fassbender. rated r. 6632 words.

notes: for fated_addiction! my fellow enabler! yeah, i went there. because seriously, dude. i apparently have no shame in the realm of rpf? whatever. lies, lies, upon more lies up in here.

EVENTS INSPIRED BY SERGIO LEONE
CRACKED ACTOR, DAVID BOWIE // VENUS, AIR // UN AMICO, ENNIO MORRICONE // DREAMS, TV ON THE RADIO

Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. / Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party / and seduced you / and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing. / You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?

(Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out, Richard Siken)

You made up a list of your luckiest stars, and you made me familiar to you in the dark.
And you made me familiar to you in the dark, when you said that you wish you were worse than you are.

(Magic vs. Midas, Sunset Rubdown)

CHAPTER ONE
La Louisiane

THE SET OF INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Our story began in a basement tavern that was not real.

“All levity aside, what are you doing in France?”

“Attending Goebbels’s film premiere as the fraulein’s escort.”

“You’re the fraulein’s escort?”

“Somebody has to carry the lighter.” Michael flipped the lighter and Diane took a drag of her cigarette.

“And – cut. From the top – we’ll take it from the top.”

-

BEFORE

In rehearsals they had sat around a card table in folding chairs. There were venetian blinds on the windows and the slight buzz of fluorescent lighting above them. “Really sets the scene,” Diane had joked.

Michael had been the last to arrive. When he did, it was Diane and it was August, Gedeon and Til around the table, engaged in a conversation of rapid-fire German.

“Glad I brushed up,” Michael said in German as he sat down.

"We're all friends here," she teased, but a part of Michael believed her. That he was an outsider, an interloper. That she knew these men and they knew her and he was something different, something new.

He would have been right.

-

AFTER

It was too early in the day for this heat. Diane fidgeted in her seat and the legs of her chair scraped against the wood of the floor. Next to her Michael wiped at the line of sweat that dotted his forehead.

"Fucking oven in here," he grumbled, and she smiled, wan. She could feel the line of sweat trickling down her back beneath her costume, pooling at the dip of the small of her back. She shifted again and cursed under her breath.

"Roasting as well?" he asked.

She scoffed. "I have on just as many layers as you - so, yeah. I'm frying over here."

Across the table Til pulled at his collar. "The lights," he said. "They make it too hot."

"I'd say so," Michael said and slouched a little lower next to her. His elbow bumped against her arm.

-

AND AFTER THAT

The blood was not real but it was still sticky and still red, still frustratingly insistent against her skin.

“Ah, and the buckets of blood have begun,” he said.

“This is new for me,” she said with a tight grimace. Michael cracked a smile.

“You learn to love it,” he said. Off her skeptical look his smile grew. “That’s not even true. Don’t know why I said it. One time, for one film, bunch of punks butchered me up good in the forest,” he told her. “I mean, real nasty business. Barbed wire was involved,” he said.

Diane pulled a face, and said, “Yuck.” He laughed. Her bare leg was coated in candy apple red and her fingers were slick with it. She picked at the dried fake blood on her left hand.

“Did you die?” she asked. Her face was far more serious than the question warranted.

Michael nodded, mock solemnly. “Tragically,” he said. And then, as an aside: “They lit me on fire.”

“This sounds like a terrible movie,” she said.

He smirked. “From my character’s vantage, I’d imagine he’d agree. Tho’ looks like I’m getting my nads blown to bits in this one and I think it’s still got a fair shot of being a pretty damn good film.”

“Rocks fall, everybody dies,” Diane teased and he laughed again.

-

They took lunch at three o’clock that afternoon. They left the basement and the day was overcast. Earlier that morning her phone rang and she had not answered. It had been Guillaume and his odd habit of bestowing good wishes on anniversaries that did not exist anymore.

“You ever marry?” she asked around a bite of sandwich. She pulled a napkin to her mouth. “Sorry,” she said, her mouth still full. “So unladylike.”

Michael laughed. She swallowed dramatically. “No,” he said.

“No?”

“Your question – no, I’ve never married.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You have,” he stated.

“You google me?” she asked wryly.

He shook his head, but his grin was mischievous. “Hardly necessary. Read an article on you once. They used the word divorced like a bloody qualifier or something. ‘The divorced German actress…’”

She laughed despite herself. “Sounds like quite the feat of journalism.”

He shrugged. “I was in an airport. You take what you can get.”

Their eyes met over their lunch and paper napkins, disposable cups of coffee and she looked away quickly.

“I don’t know why I asked you that,” she mumbled. She felt a flush of embarrassment and picked at the crust of her sandwich.

Michael smiled. “I’ve been asked stranger questions.”

-

Quentin scribbled something in the margins of the script and handed it back to her.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t say where you’ve been.”

Diane frowned. “I don’t think the expression works like that,” she said. “I think you have it twisted.”

Quentin shook his head and pounded her on the shoulder. “Director’s always right, ma cheri,” he shouted. “What I say goes! Your life is in my hands! Yada yada yada – get your ass back to work.”

-

CINEMA DE TARANTINO

Thursday night was movie night.

It had been one spaghetti western after the other, and this was no exception.

“He said this was his favorite?” Michael asked.

“So it would seem,” Diane drawled.

They sat arm to arm next to each other. She concentrated on the taste of the salt stuck to her tongue and the popcorn grease on her fingers. She concentrated on him as well, the heat of his arm pressed easy and natural against the length of her own, but this was without intent.

That matters, she had thought. Clint Eastwood’s face filled the screen and Michael’s arm shifted beside hers but he did not pull away.

She flexed her fingers and her pinky and ring finger bumped against his. His fingers were warm and the screen was in black and white, the sound too loud, a gunshot fired, and behind them Quentin laughed. Diane did not. Diane had not seen anything funny at all.

Her fingers wound easily with his until they loosely held hands. He ran his thumb over her knuckles and her heart pounded, the bag of popcorn forgotten in her lap.

After the film, Quentin asked her if she had liked it.

“It was my favorite,” she said, and she blushed.

-

THE SET OF INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

“I want so many things,” she told him once. It had been late and she had still been dressed as Bridget and he had been dressed as Archie and in the dim lighting of their fake tavern the muted khaki of their sleeves had matched. Later he would wear grey and she would still wear the khaki, but at that moment they had matched.

“I want so many things,” she told him, and if this was something he remembered, then it was something he remembered and held. If it was something he forgot, then he let it slip away like so many other pieces of wasted knowledge and private, personal intelligence.

This was something he remembered.

She had been tired and earnest when she said it. That was something else he remembered. He remembered that the scene had paused, that a cameraman had dropped something he should not have, and that Quentin had said, “cut.” There had been music and Michael had thought it the sort you would play in 1960, in a diner, in America, that it was happy and bright and had no place in the claustrophobia of this den, that it had no place with him or with her.

He did not remember why she said it. He could not recall what he had said to draw such a confession from her, but it happened. This was something that happened.

-

CHAPTER TWO
English As A Second Language

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

What you are supposed to want is for people to know your name.

Diane never wanted this.

She wanted the specific; she wanted that handful of men to know her name and to say it with a reverence she might not deserve. It was a matter of intimate linguistics.

Michael had another movie at Cannes, Michael had other costars.

“I want you to meet Diane,” he had told them.

“This is Diane,” he said.

-

BEFORE THE PREMIERE

“Talk to us about the film,” the man with the microphone said.

“Ah, it’s fantastic, it’s really fantastic,” Michael said; he smiled large from behind his sunglasses. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and leaned back on his heels. Diane stood to his left, an arm around Melanie and another around Brad as the photographers snapped. Michael was loud; even above the din of the crowd, an unintelligible mass of French and English, she could hear him.

“And your character? What was that like?”

Michael ran a hand over his mouth before releasing a sharp bark of a laugh. “He’s a real relic, isn’t he? He was a blast. And, well, I got to take part in, what I think at least, was a truly excellent scene – in the tavern, yeah? It was a good solid two weeks, and I got to work with some of the best, such great, great actors – August, uh, Diehl, and Til – Til Schweiger. And of course, Diane.”

“And of course Diane!” the man with the microphone echoed, like it meant something. “Thank you for your time, best luck.”

“Mademoiselle! Ici, ici!” they called. Diane smiled, all teeth and distracted.

Michael slipped away.

-

AFTER THE PREMIERE

There had been a reception and there had been champagne.

“You make me nervous,” she slurred.

“I think I like that,” he murmured. He brushed a lock of hair off her neck.

“It’s not fair though,” she said slowly, each word measured. “That gives you, hmm, inordinate power over me.”

Michael laughed at her pronunciation of inordinate. He dipped forward, his mouth next to her ear.

“Believe me, love, we’re on equal footing.”

She did not ask him what he meant by that, but she inhaled sharply. His hand skimmed down the exposed skin of her back.

“Maybe you should…” she started and the trailed off. He was close enough that he could not just see but feel her swallow.

“Maybe I should…?”

She leaned back away from him and tipped her face up to look at him. She was barefoot and her shoes were clutched in her left hand. Josh was gone. Josh had an airplane, Josh had a transatlantic flight. These details mattered.

“I was going to suggest you come back with me,” she said, and for a moment she felt brave. Michael’s eyes narrowed and there was slight tic of his jaw as he suppressed a smile.

“You were going to,” he said, “meaning you now rescind the offer?”

Diane’s grin was curious and close-mouthed. The bank of elevators waited behind them and the carpet of the hotel lobby was thick under her feet. For the first time she glanced behind him; there was no one else there. They were alone. Her chest felt tight and his tie was undone and he was watching her mouth, and this is how it starts, she had thought. He met her gaze.

“The offer still stands,” she said quietly. She turned and picked the length of her dress of the floor and walked over to elevators. She pressed the up button.

-

The elevator doors closed and he kissed her.

There was a small chime and she had pressed the button of her floor and then his mouth was on hers.

The mirrored walls of the elevator car were chilly against her bare back and she curved away from it, into him.

"Please," she said quietly, into his jawline, and he bit at the skin just below her ear.

He had a knee pressed between her legs and her shoes had dropped to the floor of the elevator. She let out a sound a cross between a whimper and a moan and her body arched too easily against his.

She had wanted this. She knew that much.

Both her hands framed his face and she kissed him back in earnest. He gripped her waist too tight and his mouth was wet and smoky, sharp and open against hers. This was what she wanted. She wanted more.

The elevator doors opened and Daniel stood there. Diane pushed Michael away; Michael turned his back to the both of them and cleared his throat, adjusted his clothing. Diane blushed and Daniel snickered.

“Oh shut up,” she muttered as she stormed out of the elevator.

Michael grabbed her shoes and followed after. Daniel entered the abandoned elevator and shook his head.

-

"This is a mistake," she said outside her hotel room.

"It is," he agreed. "You're right, it is," he repeated.

She was suddenly tired. The night had been long, the day longer. The hallway of the hotel stretched out in either direction and her feet were bare and her dress was too much. He was too much.

She reached for her shoes and her fingers brushed against Michael's. A long time ago her fingers had brushed against his in the dark.

"It's late," she said quietly.

"It is," he said again.

Neither of them said good night. She opened the door to her room and shut it behind her. She flipped the deadbolt. She could not hear him as he left but when she looked through the peephole minutes later he was gone.

-

THE LONDON PREMIERE

In London Quentin told her: “He’s not coming.”

“Oh,” she had said. There was the curious sensation of deflation coupled with relief. She might have let her shoulders slump and her posture bend, but she breathed in deep and perhaps that was the most important part.

-

Quentin called her hotel room. “Ah, fair fraulein,” he said. Diane laughed, fiddled with the clasp of her bracelet. “Bad news – old Fassbender’s not coming.”

“Oh,” she said. She sat down at the desk with the telephone.

“He’s fallen for the allure of Comic-Con apparently. The Trekkies have taken him hostage!”

“Hmm,” she murmured. The clasp was stuck and her fingers were not nimble enough to undo it.

“That was a joke, Big D. Get in the game.” She snorted, pressed her thumbnail into the hinge of metal but it would not give. “I just wanted to let you know,” Quentin was saying, “that his little Irish eyes won’t be sparkling the red carpet here tonight.”

“Okay then,” she said brightly enough, convincingly enough and hung up. She gave up on the bracelet.

-

THE LOS ANGELES PREMIERE

“I hate it,” he said, “how all those American ask, ‘can I smoke here?’ Is that supposed to be polite, hmm?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t smoke.”

She snatched the cigarette from his mouth and took a shallow inhale. Her fingers had passed over his lips, just barely, and he licked.

“You were going to say, ‘all you Americans,’” she said and took another drag from his cigarette. She tapped it slightly and ash fell.

“Beg pardon?”

“Before, when you were talking about Americans and their smoking and manners, or lack thereof. You said ‘all those Americans,’ but you paused. You were going to say, ‘all you Americans.’”

Michael studied her. His hand covered hers for the briefest of moments and he took his cigarette back. He pressed it between his lips and the papery tip tasted of smoke and nicotine; it tasted waxy, the way he imagined her lipstick would smear against his tongue.

“I don’t know what the fuck that’s supposed to mean,” he said with gritted teeth, the cigarette burnt down more than halfway hanging from his mouth.

She shrugged. “Nevermind,” she said. “It’s not worth it.”

Michael exhaled heavy in smoke and ground the cigarette butt out beneath his heel. He took a step forward. Diane did not take a step back. He cocked his head to the left and her arms hung at her sides.

“Don’t know why you’re so bloody confrontational all the sudden.”

Diane shook her head. His eye caught the empty champagne flute in her hand.

“You don’t get to lord last night over me,” she said suddenly. Michael arched an eyebrow.

“Love,” he said, “I hadn’t even mentioned last fucking night. That’s all you.” She looked away from him. They were by a service entrance. She must have taken a wrong turn at some point; she had asked for fresh air and a waiter had said, “This way, ma’am,” and she had cringed at the word, but she followed him. She had followed him and she had stood, alone, in a parking lot next to a loading dock, in a party dress with a flute of champagne until he showed up with his pack of cigarettes and dirty mouth, with last night in tow.

“You were right,” she finally said. “When you apologized, last night – you were right.”

Michael shook his head and smiled. “You don’t mean that. I didn’t mean it then and you don’t mean it now,” he said.

He watched her face closely and she blinked rapidly before shifting her eyes to the ground. She sniffled once and then looked up, her eyes bright and her mouth hard and angry.

“I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t know what the fuck you expect, following me out here.”

Michael took another step forward. “I don’t expect anything from you,” he said quietly and Diane bit her lip. He wound an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek slowly.

“Have a good night,” he said.

Diane’s eyes were wet and she watched their feet and said, “Bye.”

She watched his feet walk away.

-

CHAPTER THREE
A Dinner Party

VINO E CUCINA, BERLIN

They were strangers when they met. Not all of them were strangers, but the two of them, Diane and Michael, had been variables, unknowns, when they met.

They went to an Italian restaurant in Berlin. “Quentin swears by this place,” Brad said, and they all believed him.

-

They each took turns introducing themselves.

“Til Schweiger,” he said, and held up a hand and waved.

“They call him the German Brad Pitt,” Diane hissed in a loud stage whisper.

Brad slammed his drink down. “Fuck that. There is only one Brad Pitt.” Everyone laughed. “’Sides,” Brad continued, “this son a bitch is far better looking than I ever was or will be.” He reached over and ruffled Til’s hair and the two men laughed.

“So modest,” Diane crowed.

-

TWO DRINKS LATER

“My French is piss poor,” he told her. He leaned over and inclined his head as though what he had just said was secret, a confession unknown to the table at large.

“Your German any better?” she asked in her native tongue.

“That’s fucking hilarious,” he answered, in kind.

His accent was impeccable. She did not tell him this. Diane watched him finish his pint and watched Gedeon laugh at whatever Michael had just said.

He turned his attention back to her and simply smiled at her with raised eyebrows. She returned the gesture with a soft laugh.

Michael stretched back in his chair. His mouth sounded sticky when he sighed.

Beneath the table Diane crossed her legs.

-

THREE DRINKS LATER

Her mouth was stained from the empty bottle of burgundy on the table. Her teeth were darker and her lips were near purple. She did not seem to notice; he did not mention it.

"I'm going to regret this in the morning," she said.

"Most things worth doing are regretted come morning," he said.

"That's not even true," she said. "You're just trying to be cute."

"It was a valiant effort, if I do say so myself," he said, and it earned a small laugh from her.

-

AN INDETERMINATE NUMBER OF DRINKS LATER

“You seem like the kind of dude who’s good at keeping his business quiet,” Brad said to Michael. Brad was drunk. Michael was almost drunk.

Michael only laughed. “Thanks, I think?”

“Nah, man,” Brad said. “That’s a good thing. That’s a fucking attribute, man. I mean, I was with you at that table. You give nothing away – I don’t know shit about you. And there’s really only two industries that comes in handy, right? The CIA. And Hollywood.” Brad sobered for a moment. “Probably politics too. But that’s just sticky, man.”

Michael smirked. “You telling me if this doesn’t pan out I’d make for a good spy?”

“Fuck yeah. You’re all wiry and shit. You’d be sly on your feet. Don’t know if you’re a good shot, but I bet they’d teach you that.”

“Thanks for the career advice.”

“My pleasure.” Brad threw an arm around his shoulder. “And here’s another little tidbit for you – when we get back to the table, tell Kruger we were talking about her. She’s been watching us the whole goddamn time.” Brad looked over at her quickly and then back, studied Michael. “Scratch that, my friend. I’ve been e-fucking-clipsed.”

“How’s that?” Michael asked.

“She’s been watching you, motherfucker,” and Brad opened in a laugh. Michael cast a surreptitious glance over to the table they had abandoned and Diane jerked her head quick to the right, nodded her head along with whatever Daniel was saying.

“I’d make a damn good spy too, you know,” Brad added. Michael turned back towards the other man and laughed; he needed another drink.

“I have no doubts,” he said. They rejoined the table.

Michael sat beside Diane.

-

CHAPTER FOUR
Ad Lib

COMIC-CON, SAN DIEGO

“You look fucking beat,” Brolin told him.

“Hmm,” Michael hummed. “It’s a living.”

“You got shit on your mind, don’t you.”

Michael’s line of sight slid to the side and he leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped before him.

“I think you cross a certain threshold, an age let’s say, and you’ve always got something on your fucking mind.”

“Don’t sass me. Asshole.”

Michael chuckled. “Apologies,” he said, and then shook his head and leaned back heavy. “Yeah,” he conceded, “I got shit on my mind.”

There was silence. Megan had not yet arrived.

“You got that big premiere coming up, yeah? Los Angeles?”

“That’s right.”

“When you headed out?”

“After this. Quentin wants a cast reunion of sorts, night before,” and laughed at that, “and you know I never miss a fucking party.” He laughed again and this time it sounded accusingly anxious.

Josh frowned. “You worried about the film?”

Michael sighed. “Sure.” Josh let it slide.

-

TWELVE HOURS LATER

That evening, after the convention, after, what Josh coined “the fucking pack of nerds” none too cleverly, they found the hotel bar. Both men drank whiskey.

“So what’s her name?” Josh asked.

“Beg pardon?”

“Fucking Europeans,” Josh said with a laugh. “Always so goddamn insufferably polite. I asked you what her name is.”

“I don’t have a her to name,” Michael answered, glib.

“Fuck that, man. You’ve got the look of the pining and the unconsummated all over your ruddy Euro face.”

“Point taken,” Michael said. He finished his drink and ordered another. He waited until the bartender delivered the glass, a new napkin underneath the sweating drink.

“No names,” Michael said suddenly.

Josh only laughed and gestured wide with his hand. “If that makes it any easier, then by all means.” He clapped a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “I am here to guide you, Mikey. Let me – let me be your fucking Oprah.”

Michael snickered into his drink and crunched down hard on a cube of ice.

“Since I can’t get a name, tell me how you met her then.”

Michael’s mouth pulled in a mock grimace. “Let’s just call her a business associate.”

Josh let out a catcall and then began to laugh uproariously. “She’s a fucking actress? Well done, my friend. Well done. Aim high, I say.”

Josh finished his drink. “So you work with her?”

“I have been in all of two films you are aware of, one of which I was costar to your leading man role. Unfair question.”

“So that’s a yes.”

They drank in silence and a cover band started up with Sinatra’s greatest hits. Josh groaned and Michael stifled a yawn. After another drink, Josh turned to him.

“Diane’s a good name for a girl. But then again, I might be biased.”

-

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

“Let’s do lunch,” Rose had said earlier in the week. “You’re back from Los Angeles, you’re back in New York, and we always, always say we’ll get together, blah, blah, nothing ever happens. So. I’m taking charge. Executive decision: we will be ladies who lunch this week.”

They met for drinks instead.

“How’s Josh?” Rose asked.

“Vancouver,” Diane said. She caught Rose’s confused face. “I’m sorry. I thought you said where.”

Rose only nodded. “So Vancouver, huh? You going out there?”

“Eventually,” Diane said quietly. Resigned – that was the word for it. She took a large gulp of her martini.

“Oh, Krugs,” Rose said. “What is it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Liar.”

“How are you?” Diane asked; she spun it on the other woman.

Rose sighed. “I have no idea.”

Both women drank in silence.

Rose leaned in. “Were we always this cagy with each other? What the hell happened to us?”

Diane knew what had happened but she did not know how to explain it. There are some things and some events and some people you must admit to yourself before you can share them with others. She was not there yet. Los Angeles was still too fresh and still too far away. To admit Los Angeles and to admit him would be something too great for her to stand.

-

THAT ONE TIME, A LONG ENOUGH TIME AGO

She knew things just as everyone else knew them. Guillaume had a film with Keira Knightley coming up. Guillaume was shooting a film with his Marion. She remembered that about him. He liked to work with the women he loved. She thought she understood it; she knew she had understood it once with him.

There was a day when Josh had teased her and suggested she guest star on his TV show.

“God no,” she had said. He had laughed but the sound had been false and unfamiliar. Over the rest of their dinner following that, he had not looked her in the eye.

I didn’t mean that, she didn’t say. I didn’t mean it like that. She had meant it, but she had not meant for it to hurt.

This was before Cannes. This was before Berlin and before Bridget von Hammersmark.

This was before Archie Hicox, because sometimes, and let us be honest, thinking in terms of the fictional and the slightly detached, albeit familiar, is the easier path to take.

This was before Los Angeles.

-

INTERLUDE: A PHONE CALL

“Sorry to bother,” she had said.

“No,” Melanie answered. “You are good practice. An English lesson, yeah?”

Diane had smiled. “Yeah.”

And then:

“I’ve done some stupid – some really stupid – things,” Diane said.

“That part’s easy,” Melanie answered. “That part? It is done. Now you go forward – now you fix it.”

Diane rubbed her thumb over the handle of the empty white coffee mug before her.

“What if I don’t want to fix it?” she asked quietly. Melanie did not answer at first.

“Then maybe these things, these stupid things you talk of are not that stupid.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that maybe this is not a problem. Maybe it is solution, maybe it is…an answer. Something new to start with.”

“You sound like a goddamn fortune teller.”

“Merci.” Diane stood and placed the mug into the sink and braced herself against the edge of the sink.

“You do know what we’re talking about here, right?” Diane asked.

Melanie laughed hard. “Give me some of the credit. That is the expression, no?”

Diane laughed this time. “Something like that.” There was a beat and Diane looked out the window, Diane looked over New York.

“He cares for you too, you know this,” Melanie said. Diane imagined a shrug on her end as she said it. “He looks at you like that, like he means it. I do notice.”

“What?” Diane asked; her mouth was dry. “Who?”

“Michael,” Melanie said, and that was all.

-

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, ALWAYS NEW YORK

There was a party. This was New York. They met.

Autumn had arrived in the close of summer and the temperature dipped. Their film remained only in half-price theaters and the smallest of venues lost in the expanse of Middle America.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she said, and let him kiss her cheek.

He smiled without teeth and looked at her carefully. “I figured you would.”

Diane frowned. “Know that you’d come?”

“No,” he said, “just be here.” He smiled for real this time. “This is New York.”

Diane smiled in return.

People are context specific. People are the places they live in.

The adverse holds true as well. This was a city built on the very people who lived in it. This was a city of old lovers and lost lovers, new lovers, current lovers, all the lovers she would never meet and never come to possess. This was the city that continually broke her heart yet found new ways to mend it. This was the cite of resurrection and new beginnings.

This was New York.

-

CHAPTER FIVE
Il buoni, il brutto, il cattivo.

LOS ANGELES

A person can only fight realities for so long. You can argue against gravity even as it presses you down, keeps you tethered to this earth. You can argue until it hurts, until that very pressure breaks you down and you relent – you give in.

Quentin had a house in Los Angeles and Quentin had a party.

-

"We should talk," she suggested. Michael did not answer but he slammed back the rest of his drink and hissed as it went down.

"We'll talk then."

Quentin had hired a band. Or maybe they were here for free, Diane did not know. But there was a bar and there was a band and the sound was deafening, vibrating the floor and the walls around them.

She jerked her head toward the staircase and he followed her as she began her ascent.

-

A BEDROOM

"So," he said. Diane shut the door to the spare bedroom behind her and leaned heavy against it, her hands behind her back. "Talk."

"I just," she started and then she stopped. Cannes sat between them. "I just wanted to make sure we were okay."

Michael pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and lit one with a match. He dropped the match onto a set of coasters on a side table and inhaled before answering her.

"We're okay then," he said.

"That's not terribly convincing."

"Not sure what you want me to say." He took another drag and began to pace the room. "I'm fine. I was under the impression you were fine as well - it's been how many bloody months, eh? Figured that meant you were well, good, marvelous. I've been well, good, marvelous. Like I said. Not sure what you want me to say. I’m an actor. I’m a lying bastard. I’ll say what you want."

"I," and she stopped again. She glared. She pushed off the door and walked towards him. Michael stopped his pacing and looked at her expectantly.

"You want me to tell you it won't ever happen again?" he asked. There was something dangerous in his tone; Diane chose to ignore it. "Because as I recall, and I believe I do recall correctly - excellent memory, mind you - it was you who invited me up to your room."

"You kissed me first," she shot back, ready.

"Chicken or the egg," he drawled and stabbed out his cigarette in an ashtray next to a lamp.

"We're fine?"

"If you're asking if I'm going to tell, or if I've told, mum's the word, love. Nothing to fear."

"That wasn't what I was asking."

"Then cut the bullshit here and tell me what you're asking exactly. This is fucking exhausting." He ran a hand over his eyes and looked at her, his face frighteningly open.

At that moment her phone rang.

“Jesus, fuck,” she muttered under her breath and her hands shook slightly as she opened the small black purse. JOSH, the display read. “Fuck,” she repeated and stared at the phone in her hand.

“Duty calls?” Michael asked, the smirk on his face too much for her.

Diane did not look up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe,” he said, and she raised her head at that. “I do know you’re here, with me, and you have yet to answer him. What are you afraid of?”

She slapped him.

She went to slap him again but he grabbed her by the wrist. She dropped her purse and her phone on the table, next to the ashtray, next to his spent cigarette. She had not meant to hit him the first time, nor a second.

“That expression, what’s it again? Fool me once, fool me twice.” Diane only shook her head; her eyes narrowed a little more. Michael leaned in a little and she held her breath. He looked more amused than angry. “I may be drunk but my reflexes aren’t completely shot yet.”

Her nostrils flared as she fought for some semblance of control – control of him, control of herself.

The corners of Michael’s mouth softened slightly as he looked at her. His cheek was bright where her hand had been. “I didn’t realize people actually did that in real life,” he said. His grip was still tight. “I knew it happened in soap operas, those Spanish, what you call them? Telenovelas? I just didn’t think real people slapped other real people.” And then he laughed.

She kissed him.

She swallowed the sound and she kissed him. It was all teeth and his lip and he gave her back exactly what she deserved. Their mouths clashed and she had not remembered it this rough or this ugly back in France. He still gripped her wrist tight, too tight, and she wondered if later, if in the morning, if at the premiere the next evening, there would be a mark. She scratched her nails down the length of his neck and there was a shaky sigh against her mouth.

His hand slid along her bare thigh and her legs parted for him. This was easy, she thought. This was so easy. This should have happened sooner, she thought as well, but she dismissed the thought. It didn't matter. This was now. This was the present. His fingers ghosted along the dip of thigh and hip then lower and this was happening.

His fingers twisted in the thin fabric of her panties, damp and then to the side.

His hand under her dress felt too good to be anything that lasted.

Diane pushed his jacket off his shoulders and just as quickly pulled the shirt beneath over his head. He was all lean and muscle and she pushed against him, her hands along the stretch of chest and down lower, abdomen to hip.

He pushed her back and back until her legs hit the edge of the bed and she fell. He fell with her.

She wore her black party dress and her black purse was spilled open on the end table.

She threw her arms behind her head. She would not look at him.

She had stripped him naked; she remained clothed – the satin black party dress with the little puff sleeves and the high waist. Michael had told her she had looked pretty. Hours ago, at the front door and before her first drink but after his – before he followed her down that hallway and before she shut the door behind them.

His hands held her ass and raised her off the mattress. She gasped first for that and second when he thrust hard into her. Her dress made small swishing noises against the fabric of the bedspread.

He moaned, mouth open against the length of her throat, and her fingers curled against the nape of his neck and pulled his head back. Just as she would not look at him as he had first entered her, now he was all that she wanted to see. His nose bumped against hers as he leaned in to kiss her; she breathed thickly between his parted lips. She raised her hips to him and he fought to push her down with his.

Michael said her name and she clutched at him, her nails blunt against his skin. He moved to bury his face in the crook of her neck, and Diane said, “no, no, no;” she choked out, “I want to look at you,” and he obliged.

When she came her eyes were open.

So were his.

-

AND AFTER

She waited for the guilt; it did not come.

Michael stood to pull his trousers up and as his fingers caught to adjust his collar, she stopped him. She stood behind him and her fingers overlapped with his – she kissed the back of his neck and held him. Without her heels he was taller and she rested her face against the hard muscle that joined shoulder to shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Shut the fuck up,” she mumbled into his skin, the shirt that covered it. “Shut the fuck up,” she said, and the words were satisfyingly coarse in her mouth, against the press of cotton to her lips. It was not what she wanted to say. What she wanted to say was, “You can’t mean that, please don’t mean that,” but even with his back to her and even with her face hidden, his out of view, she could not bring herself to say it.

They returned to the party.

She returned to New York.

-

ONCE UPON A TIME ON THE SET OF INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

These were the places they visited and these were the places they claimed. These were the places months later could not be left behind. Memory was involuntary more times than not.

These were the events in question. These were the events an outsider might pick up in print form and read, and upon arriving at the closest thing to a construction of a conclusion would say: how romantic.

These were yet to pass.

There is a movie screen and there is a popcorn machine in the corner and the entire room smells of the old cinema you would visit as a child.

“It’s not a joke, it’s a rope, Tuco,” Clint Eastwood says. “Now I want you to get up there and put your head in that noose.”

Michael’s arm stretches along Diane’s arm. She does not flinch, he does not pull away. The bone of her wrist presses against the bare skin of his forearm; she reaches her fingers out and perhaps he does the same. Perhaps they brush, perhaps they twist – they undeniably meet.

Our story does not end.

-

CREDITS ROLL.

friends cut

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:16:27 GMT

Hey guys. I apologize, but I just did a rather extensive cut of my friends list. Tomorrow I start my first day of law school and I imagine I won't be on here much to begin with, but the size of my friends list had managed to get a little unwieldy, and I basically cut the people that a) hadn't updated in awhile, b) who I hadn't spoken with in some time, or c) no longer share similar interests.

I wish you all nothing but the best and it's been great; thank you!

fic: pins in the atlas (rpf)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:37:44 GMT

pins in the atlas

rpf. actor might just be another word for a professional, a liar; hollywood might just be everywhere. rose byrne/hugh dancy. rated pg-13. 2966 words.

notes: for oonak who requested these two! as usual, these are all lies on top of lies and some more lies. fun to write, but so not the truth, heh.

PINS IN THE ATLAS

AN EP: IS THIS IT? (STROKES COVER); ROYAL CITY // HEY SNOW WHITE; DESTROYER // UNWIND; JULIAN PLENTI // JUST LIKE HONEY (JESUS AND MARY CHAIN COVER); GUITAR

the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but god knows the answer to that is, don’t we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.

(elaine dundy)

-

Try as you might Hollywood is a place that can never be called home.

The houses here are missing insides and all stairs lead to nowhere. Day occurs in the middle of the night, a giant light bulb raised in pale imitation of California sun. We have Bacardi and Patron and Cristal, we’ve got the powders and the pills guaranteed to make you feel good, at least for a little while. We’ve got the clowns that crack for smiles and all the pretty girls that think they’re something special.

Hollywood is a cynic’s playground, where every conversation you hear was written on the page long before.

No one calls this place home, but they all build houses with no insides and stairs that lead to nowhere. They all date the same men and fuck over the same women, and vice versa, and reverse, and et cetera, and et cetera, so forth.

Hollywood neither starts nor ends in the state of California. It stretches with the stars.

No one is an amateur here. We’re all professionals.

Line, please.

-

1. NEW YORK CITY

The first day they met Hugh said:

“How is it that we haven’t met sooner?”

Rose had ducked her head and pressed her hands flat against the table.

“I am quite evasive,” she said. “In another life I might have been a spy. Or something equally sneaky that I just can’t think of at the moment.”

He had smirked. “A thief, perhaps? Cat burglar?”

She nodded energetically. “Most definitely.”

-

They film in New York and she lives in New York. She likes that. They have less than a month to shoot; she does not like that so much.

In between takes he reads volumes of Tolstoy. Rose mocks him, calls him The Professor. Hugh feigns offense, but he doesn’t bother to try and hide the smile as he dives back into his open book.

They both rib the other about their American accents.

“You have a lot more bloody practice than I do,” he complains.

“Why,” she drawls, a flat American accent shading her words, “’cause I’m a New Yorker now?”

“That,” and he points at her, “and your little show about the legal system. I’ve seen it. You don’t talk at all like you’re from the land down under.”

She stops mid-eye roll. “You’ve seen the show?” she asks.

He nods and looks back down at his notecards.

He writes out his lines, long, uninterrupted monologues about space and theaters and all kinds of random shit she is grateful not to have to memorize. She meets Claire one afternoon, but it is early in the shoot, too early for it to mean anything other than, “so this is Claire.” Rose takes him to her apartment, later, and when he tells her it is not what he expected she is unsure what to say to that.

This is later though; this is towards the end of things, when meeting Claire would have been wrought with something Rose has no desire to name.

-

In her apartment they drank red wine. She told him about the time she drank a pitcher of sangria in Madrid and wandered out of the bar with red-stained teeth and told strangers she was a vampire.

“That’s a good story,” he told her, and he said it like he meant it. She had thought it a strange response but she did not comment. She drank the wine and he drank the wine and outside the weather had turned colder, the night a little darker, and they drank the wine.

“I haven’t done the shopping,” she told him. “I have mustard and yogurt to my name at the moment. I’m a terrible hostess.”

There had been two bottles and he told her about Oxford and she told him about Sydney. They talked about nothing and everything, the way people are apt to do when the curiosity is mutual, when it borders on the edge of something far less innocent, something like attraction, something worse.

They had not turned on the light in her kitchen. The light from the hallway and the adjoining room filtered in, and in the semi-darkness his smile was bright. Rose had thought that for most people this is a moment, this is a moment that matters.

For them it was too but Rose insisted on discounting them as something separate.

In the dim Rose had stood at the sink, the faucet on high and hot as she rinsed their glasses out. She had felt him before she saw him, his breath at the back of her head and the sound of the start of a sigh. Rose turned the water off and gripped the edge of the sink.

“Hugh – ” she started.

“No,” he said. She had turned around at that.

And then he kissed her.

He never came back to her apartment again.

-

The film wraps as quickly as it started and as the crew packs up and heads home, Rose heads to her own home still enclosed in the embrace of New York City.

Hugh leaves, too. Of course Hugh leaves, and she chides herself for the thought. He goes back to London and she stays in New York.

“Be seeing you soon,” he had said with an odd smile, and she had returned it with the burst of an awkward laugh.

“Oh, the press junkets and I will be waiting for your return,” she teased, but that strange smile had remained until he pulled her in for a tight hug.

She had felt small in his arms, but not short. Rose let herself be drawn into the hug and her nose had brushed the bottom of his chin and his arm held tight and neat around her waist.

Rose was the first to pull back.

“You better get going. I don’t think you’re famous enough for them to hold the plane.”

He laughed and then he was gone.

-

2. NEW YORK CITY, PART II

The next time they meet is at the Met Ball.

For the Ball (and as an aside: Jesus fucking Christ, she goes to things like balls now, she gets invited to places Kate Moss and Madonna show up to, and if that’s not totally rad, she’s not sure what is), she wears a yellow dress that dips off both her shoulders.

Early into the night she spies him, off to the side with his arm around Claire. She waves. She raises an arm and her hand gives an awkward shake of a greeting and he just smiles and nods back. Claire does not notice her.

Her stomach twists, just a little, but she assumes it’s not a problem that can’t be solved with a little champagne.

-

They don’t speak until after the dinner.

“Marc Jacobs invited me,” she tells him, conspiratorial, and maybe she regrets that last drink. Maybe not because his smile is slow and his eyes are kind of watery and she wonders just how drunk he is. She thinks about last time they were drunk, and then she pushes it away.

“Well, well, well,” he murmurs. “Look at you. Our little Cinderella. How’s the glass slipper treating you?”

She’s not really sure what he means by that but she giggles all the same.

“It’s past midnight,” he says, then peers around the room. “Where’s your pumpkin?”

Rose leans in and rests a hand just above his wrist. She almost regrets the movement as she can feel his forearm tense beneath her fingers. She grips a little tighter and she might have imagined it, but she is sure his eyes narrow.

“Unlike you,” she says, “I’ve never excelled at fairy tale humor. Most likely an industry thing. No one has ever put me in a pair of tights and called me Prince Charming.”

His laughter is loud and genuine.

“Their loss I would imagine,” and her hand is still on his arm and he has not moved away; she can feel the heat of his skin below the suit jacket, below the pressed white shirt underneath. He looks her up and down, or as best he can with so little distance between them. “You’d look good in a pair of tights,” he muses.

Rose takes a step back and arches a brow. “In only a pair of tights?”

Hugh licks her bottom lip and this is stupid, this is so beyond stupid and the sort of trouble one is supposed to skirt away from, especially in a public venue. But she does not back down. Her chin is still raised and her smile is still close-lipped.

He walks towards her and rests a hand high on her waist, just below her ribcage. She inhales sharply and her chest raises with the breath; his thumb traces the jut of bone beneath dress and skin of her bottom rib. She clutches her drink tightly in her hand and the glass is slick with sweat against her palm.

“Only that,” he whispers in her ear. His breath is hot and almost clammy; his nose bumps along the side of her head and his forehead quickly brushes her temple.

Rose exhales and his fingers slide a little higher along her dress. And then nothing.

He pulls back and looks down at her, something twisted in his smile. Rose does not smile back but she does not look at him unkindly.

“You look wonderful. By the way,” he says. He clinks the lip of his glass against the lip of hers and then takes a heady sip.

“Cheers,” he says, and then he leaves.

Rose downs the remainder of her drink in one heady gulp.

-

3. SUNDANCE

Rose invests in knit hats and scarves. She buys a pair of mittens with some sort of Scandinavian pattern to them but forgets them at home in New York.

She likes the film festival.

Their film is received well. There are press calls and Hugh sits to her right, and they take photograph after photograph and Hugh is still at her right.

They drink hot chocolate and she keeps asking about Robert Redford and he rambles about his new love of Dickens and they both discuss the snow but they never talk about New York.

-

It is in Sundance that they are mistaken as a couple.

And to the untrained eye, why wouldn’t they be? They both walk together, that same narrow strip of sidewalk beneath a coat of ice, a man and a woman, nightfall. It is a rather obvious conclusion. All in all, it should not be considered anything close to surprising.

What is surprising is Hugh’s reaction.

They sign autographs for strangers in parkas and ski caps and Hugh repeats himself, stumbles over the same words, a refrain of: no, not her, not together, Claire.

Rose’s face flushes and she blames the cold.

To the strangers Hugh explains himself; Rose just laughs, her face bright red.

-

In New York, in her kitchen, his fingers had been tight on her wrist and his mouth had been light and open against her own.

His sweater had been thick in her fingers as she gripped along his chest; she had been the one to deepen the kiss, a slicking of her tongue and his bottom lip, then wet muscle along muscle. Both their mouths were stained with the wine, and perhaps outside it had begun to snow.

The apartment was silent.

She pulled back first.

-

Later, the pictures that come back, all those endless photo shoots, are something of a shock.

There she is. Her eyes are wide and underlined with dark circles. She looks old, skinny and tired. She doesn’t remember looking like that; she doesn’t remember feeling like that. At the time, there had been winter, there had been snow, and she liked the sweater she wore that day – the way her fingers could hide easy in the overlong cuff. At the time she had thought she had been happy but the face that gazes back – the pages of fucking InStyle, she doesn’t even read InStyle, no one reads InStyle – is the most miserable thing she has ever seen.

There is an obvious thread of connection between actor and pretend and liar but she chooses to ignore it.

-

4. WASHINGTON DC

The press tour starts late in the summer.

Earlier, back in the middle heat, the Emmy nominations went out. He called her then, the first time they had spoken since the spring.

“Congratulations,” he had breathed over the line. “Told you you were good.”

“Liar,” she cursed back. “You told me I had a good accent.”

When she hung up, her apartment felt a little colder. She drummed her fingers along the kitchen tabletop.

It is symmetrical, she had thought: he has someone and she has someone. The press calls these someones “partners” as though they are that easily interchangeable.

It’s not true, she knew, but it is something.

-

The face from Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood, USA Today or wherever brings up a simple word, chemistry, and Hugh is quick to deny it.

“I don’t really believe in that,” he says, and Rose inclines her head only slightly in his direction. She watches him out of the corner of her eye. She thinks he is a liar. There is something tight in her chest and she hears herself rambling something complimentary to what he just said, and it’s just – she hates these stupid junkets, she hates the same questions and the automatic answers that spill sans thought. Hugh doesn’t believe in chemistry and he’s a liar, but she’s a liar too and hate is such an angry and dangerous and self-incriminating little thing, isn’t it?

“It’s all the writing,” she says with a slight jerk of her wrist, a vague hand movement in the air.

Hugh does not look at her; he bites his lip and nods.

-

For the time being, an afternoon stop over before Chicago, they share the same hotel suite.

“I hate the word quirky,” she sneers into the mirror. She scrubs her make-up off; their flight is not for another three hours. There is the sound of rustling clothes against body, and in the reflection Rose can see Hugh pulling his jacket off his shoulders. “And off-beat. And charming. I never want to hear those words again.”

He snorts.

“Shame,” he says and he unbuttons the top button of his shirt, “I was going to say they are the perfect adjectives to describe you.”

She glares and turns to face him. “Wanker.”

Hugh steps forward in front of her. With the pad of his thumb he wipes away at the errant streak of smudged lipstick off the corner of her mouth. “Missed a spot,” he murmurs and Rose stares at the triangle of exposed throat, the rise and fall as he swallows.

He does not move his hand. He stands there, the width of his hand cupping her jaw, and when Rose looks up at him she wishes she had not. It all comes back, of course. It all comes back like that, every glance and every exchange, every time the two of you might have ever toed the line.

“I never told you,” Hugh says, “but I really do like your apartment.”

She kisses him first this time. This time, neither of them pulls back and her fingers snag along the line of buttons that end at his belt, the waistband of his trousers. His left hand is firm along the bare expanse of her back and his right hand is too tight at the nape of her neck.

She stumbles back against the sink and the bathroom countertop and there is the start of a laugh that never gets finished, because, yes, it’s symmetry again.

He pulls her dress above her hips and she takes him between her legs.

-

5. LOS ANGELES

Every city is the same as in all the hotel sheets are white and all the elevators rise on a ding and open on a ping. Every bathroom comes with bottles in miniature and every wake-up call from concierge rings with an all too similar accent with no discernible origin.

In Hollywood everything is steeped in degrees of the same.

She had understood what he meant, that very first day: how is that we haven’t met sooner? They probably should have. They walk the same circles and they attend the same parties; they have the same friends who had the same costars who walk the same red carpets at the same premieres for the same movies.

She had understood him, but she had not agreed. There is a pattern to the things and events at play in a person’s life. You meet the people you are supposed to meet when you are supposed to, never earlier. She does wonder though. Rose wonders. There are the tangle of what ifs that pollute and spill, that question of roads not taken and alternate realities to be had. She does not voice them.

They’re all professionals. The press tour ends and for him there is to be a wedding and for her there is more of the same.

They separate and leave past cities behind.

-

How is it that we have never met before?

In Los Angeles, in Hollywood, a young woman meets a young man on the street and they both pretend it is for the very first time.

-

fin.

fanmix: there is no end, but addition (true blood)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:12:04 GMT

You know how I roll: the second I latch on to a fandom or pairing I feel inclined to make a fanmix, haha.

This is no exception. Consider spoilers through 2.09 of True Blood. 7 tracks, available in a zip. Title is from T.S. Eliot's The Dry Salvages.

ZIP HERE

I. Run, Air
sands of time / are lying / on my chest

II. Master of None, Beach House
we run our fingers together / you know it's easy, but devil's plan / on your own

III. When I Live By The Garden And The Sea, Eluvium
instrumental

IV. Little Shadow, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
to the night, will you follow me?

V. Back In Time, Au Revoir Simone
do you think / if we could go back in time / do you think / that i'd like you then

VI. Lovely Allen, Holy Fuck
instrumental

VII. Sun Will Shine, Akron/Family
the sun will shine / and i won't hide

fic: a common consensus (rpf)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:57:56 GMT

a common consensus

rpf. an actor’s life is comprised of the fabric of repetition and the lives of others. billy crudup; ensemble. rated pg-13. 6020 words.

notes: for viennawaits! she had requested billy crudup/anna friel, and it sort of wound up being more ensemble-y? idk. but as usual, this is all LIES, LIES, LIES. no offense meant.

A COMMON CONSENSUS
AN EP: CHERRY TREE; The National // THE DEPARTMENT OF FORESEEABLE OUTCOMES; The Lovely Sparrows // LIKE A ROLLING STONE (BOB DYLAN COVER); Jimi Hendrix // LOVER'S SPIT (BLACK SESSIONS); Feist

apartment in new york, london and paris
where will we rest, we’re all living on top of it

(FOOL; cat power)

wise men say only fools rush in

(elvis presley)

1.

We all start with something. And we all leave with a little less.

He started with plays. He started in the theater, and sometimes he still thinks that way. Act I. Act II. The exposition that gives way to the rising action. The climax and the wind-down to a resolution.

And in all stories it is something rather simple:

You – that ambiguous, all-encompassing you – start out blind. But then you learn.

Billy’s still learning.

He still likes to think that in the end it all comes back.

2.

Reporters and journalists like to ask questions that end in why?

Why this? Why act? Why this career?

There never really is a right answer to a question like that. For some people, he thinks it’s simple – they’re the goddamn Laurence Oliviers or the Paul Newmans or what-the-fuck-evers of this generation and straight from the womb thirsted for the stage and the media spotlight.

That’s not him.

He went to college, he did the frat thing, and still. He somehow wound up here.

If pressed, and if he were to channel the introspective, he would probably say they’re all in this business for reasons along the same: a preoccupation with the lives of others.

People don’t like that answer so much.

3.

He meets Matthew for lunch.

The place is a dive. It’s the sort of place where the lunch menu is the dinner menu and all entrees are served in a plastic basket lined with grease-stained paper.

They both order their usuals and Matthew still has a pair of sunglasses on.

“I was reading about recycling today,” Matthew says as he sits down.

“Oh Jesus,” Billy mutters; Matthew ignores him.

“And did you even realize we’re all eating our own garbage?”

“What?”

“It all goes back into the soil. Or they reprocess it. Or something. And it’s like the bleeding Lion King and the Circle of Life and you’re eating the same shit you threw in the garbage bin the other day.”

Billy stares at him. “Are you still drunk?”

Matthew freezes with a bite of sandwich held up to his mouth. “Yeah. Probably. Yes. Yeah. I am. Most likely.”

4.

“I’m getting old,” he tells Jennifer by phone.

She chuckles. “Aren’t we all.”

5.

In Baltimore he shoots a crime film.

His is the good cop with the bad partner.

Michael Fassbender is cast as the bad cop. When Billy is told this, he says, “who?” and the director laughs.

Anna Friel is to play the female lead. According to the script, she is supposed to be déclassé, to put it lightly. They dress her down and highlight every imperfection to her face.

He meets Michael and Anna the same day. Michael is the first to arrive, eyes squinted and a cigarette caught between his lips, a convenience store cup of coffee in hand.

“So Tarantino, huh?” Billy says.

“I’m an up-and-comer,” Michael says with a smirk and an amused note of self-mockery. Billy can’t place his accent. Based on a quick internet search alone, he knows the guy is European – German or British or Irish or all of the above. His accent does not belie this. Instead it is flat, vague, as though he could be from anywhere.

The man rambles as he finishes his cigarette and cup of coffee.

There is something about Michael that reminds Billy of Matthew. The two men strike him as easily amused and more than that, easily debauched.

“You’d like him,” he tells Matthew later.

Matthew snorts. “You think I like any non-American who takes offense to your bloody Yankee anti-smoking legislation.”

Billy shrugs. “Struck me as quite the boozehound.”

Matthew laughs. “Bring him ‘round next time then. Cheers, you bastard.”

6.

On set Anna and Michael joke about their adopted American accents. They argue as to who is the more convincing of the two while Billy serves as the impartial judge.

Anna is very pretty, Billy decides. She is married, or not married, but might as well be. He knows there is a daughter, but Anna does not offer much more information than that.

Later, Anna reports to wardrobe or make-up, her trailer, and Michael and Billy sit in their matching police uniforms on the front stoop of an abandoned warehouse. From across the way Anna stands, her small figure clad in a white robe and a woman with a brush chases after her.

“You fancy her?” Michael asks and waggles his eyebrows. His face is knowing, wolfish, but his eyes are crinkled about the edges as though on the verge of laughter.

Billy doesn’t answer, and as the silence grows he realizes this is the worst answer he could have offered. He realizes that this is an affirmation, as much to Michael as it is to himself.

Michael finally laughs. “Fuck,” he says. “They need a goddamn rulebook when it comes to this mess.” He shakes his head. “Dating and costars, eh? Or you know, let’s call it what it really is, hmm? Fucking and costars. Pretty much goddamned inevitable, I wager.”

Michael says it like he knows it. He says it like he has experienced it. A thought dawns on Billy. “You’re not, uh, interested in Anna. Are you?”

Michael laughs even harder. “Fuck no.” He shakes his head, still snickering. “Just commiserating, is all.”

Billy doesn’t press him. For one thing, he hardly knows him. For another, they are both sober.

“The sad part is,” Billy mulls, “I’ve already been there. Done that. A filthy number of times.”

Michael stretches his arms over his head. “Old dogs and new tricks,” he yawns.

7.

“Wisdom’s supposed to come with age, right?” he asks Jennifer.

“So they say,” she says.

“You any wiser?” he asks, only half-serious.

She sighs.

“I still talk to you, don’t I?”

8.

He heads to New York for the weekend.

They run into Rose at a bar. She is with a girl neither of them know.

“Who’s your friend?” Matthew leers. Billy rolls his eyes.

“Ha ha,” Rose says.

“I’m not kidding,” Matthew says. “She’s bloody gorgeous.”

Rose ignores him and turns to Billy instead. “I was just about to head over to the bar for a drink – care to join?”

Billy laughs and nods as Matthew scowls. “That’s not fair,” he says.

“Go make friends,” she calls over her shoulder as she leads Billy to the bar.

“How’s filming?” she asks, her voice half a shout over the music. Billy’s face draws in confusion. “Matthew, he told me you were down in, what was it, Baltimore, I think? That you’re filming a movie there?”

“Right,” he says. “Right. It’s going well.”

He is unsure what it is exactly that he said, but Rose’s mouth spreads in a bright smile and she giggles. She leans in.

“So,” she mocks a whisper, “what’s her name?”

9.

They wrap early one evening and the three of them hole up in the first bar they spot in Baltimore.

The wineglasses are dirty and the beer costs two dollars.

“Now this,” Michael says as he leans back heavy in his chair, “is my kind of place.”

“No ladies to attend to this evening?” Anna teases him. Michael laughs, shifts a little and averts his eyes. Billy finds it more amusing than he should.

“Not tonight, I’m afraid.” He polishes off his glass and slams it down on the table. “Looks like I’m gonna have to settle for the two of you.”

They drink. Anna is slow and Michael is fast and Billy rests somewhere in between. The conversation is maddeningly opaque: not a one of the three mentions anything of the personal save in the broad strokes. Anna has a daughter. Anna has David though she never calls him this by name. Michael, seemingly, has no one. Michael has a career. Billy has the girls that leave him, but he does not tell them this.

Last call and before they leave, Michael’s phone rings. He stares at the screen for a long pause before answering it. Billy takes the window to glance over quickly and he catches a D and an I and an A, but that is all.

He knows it is a woman if only for the way Michael ducks his chin and lowers his voice, the way he walks away from the table in a slow, predatory gait.

Anna opens an old medicine case. There are what look to be two aspirin and something the size of a horse pill.

“What’s that all about?” he teases. She pops all three into her mouth and swallows them down with the remains of her wine.

“Vitamin B,” she says after. “I’m too old for hangovers.”

10.

Billy stands in the dirty kitchen.

Dust has collected in the corners and the countertop’s grouting is lined with grime. The old fridge is a distasteful shade of avocado green; it is not running. A good half of the kitchen is filled with cameras and lighting equipment. He has a prop gun tucked into the back of his jeans.

Anna has eye make-up artfully smeared under each eye. Her jeans shorts are old and frayed and the lining of the pockets hangs down below the short hem. She clutches a pack of cigarettes and fiddles with a green lighter.

“Ma’am,” he says, tired, as though leading into a question he has already asked.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she snaps and finally lights a cigarette. Her cheeks hollow out as she inhales and there is a shake to her hands. She is good, he thinks.

The film is about cops and robbers and good people and bad and Billy thinks he likes that. He likes that the entire world can be separated out into two distinct camps, that it all can be classified. He doesn’t think it’s true, but it is a nice thought.

11.

“I think I’m gonna head out to L.A. soon,” he says. “Once I’m done with Baltimore.” Jennifer laughs.

“God, I hate Baltimore,” she says. “Such an ugly city.”

“Lucky you then that you’re not here with me now.”

Over the line Billy can hear her inhale but she does not say anything at first. In the background there is the sound of a television, something high-pitched and bright, accompanied by intelligible young voices canted loud. The sounds shrink as she walks. He pictures stairs. He pictures a house in the suburbs he knows does not exist for her but he can envision it anyway.

“It’s hard when there’s kids,” she finally says. Her end is quiet and he wonders where she is. He knows what she means, but he wonders why she said it.

He thinks she’s partly right, that this has always been their problem.

They had never simply been in love with each other. There were always the others to love too.

The film wraps four days later.

Billy does not go to Los Angeles.

12.

There is a party. It is an industry event; he goes and Anna goes. Michael does not go, something about London, something about New York and if anything Billy knows it is something about a girl and he just laughs at him.

Billy arrives before Anna. Anna arrives late. The only alcohol they seem to be serving is champagne and Billy downs two before she finally appears.

Her dress is small and black and the hem rests high on her thigh. There are sharp sequins and beads that decorate the fabric and he wonders what they would feel like beneath his palm.

She reaches and grabs the flute of champagne he holds in his hand. She drinks it one heavy gulp and when she smiles at him her eyes are bright and wet and her cheeks are flushed.

“Cheers,” she says. “I needed that.”

She links arms with him and she introduces him as her friend Billy.

Later:

He finds scotch and she finds vodka and everyone they meet wants to talk to her about pie and him about blue penises. First they find the scotch and the vodka and then they find the dark corners all parties are apt to have.

Anna stands on her tiptoes and leans in, her palms flat against his chest, her weight on him.

“This is one of those bad, bad, very bad ideas, isn’t it?” she asks, her mouth just next to his. Her eyes glint and there is a smile and he thinks she already knows the answer.

So he kisses her.

She kisses him back and she tastes like the vodka, she tastes waxy like her lipstick.

He does not know this now – how could he? – but this will be as far as this ever goes.

13.

In New York Matthew throws a party.

Matthew is always throwing parties, impromptu gatherings of the like-minded and the ones who call their morals “loose” with equal parts a sneer and a leer. He explains this to Anna on the way there and she nods like maybe she already knows him.

They arrive early and Matthew is half-dressed and digging though his liquor cabinet, setting out wine glasses and hauling a bag of ice into the freezer.

“Salutations and good evening, dear friends,” he calls from the kitchen. He is barefoot and clad in black dress pants and a white undershirt. Anna giggles and teeters in her heels as she follows Billy.

“How do you two know each other again?” Anna asks.

“Mutual friends of Mandy Moore,” Matthew says and Billy laughs into his drink.

“If that’s a joke, I don’t get it,” Anna says, and Billy can’t decide if she is merely feigning a lack of amusement or if it is genuine.

“Get her a drink,” Billy says with a smirk.

-

Later:

Matthew’s apartment is crowded. Ashtrays are filled and the entire living room is clouded over in a film of smoke. Someone spills a glass of red wine. Matthew only laughs and throws over a roll of paper towels. The music is surprisingly gangster rap, but no one tries to dance to it. Instead they all just sprawl about the furniture and the conversation is loud and filled with mockery and profanity.

Billy doesn’t really know anyone there. Michael shows up reeking of cigarettes and whiskey and Billy claps him hard on the shoulder. “Didn’t know you were in town, man,” and Michael only laughs.

When Rose arrives she is not alone.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Billy mutters.

“What’s that?” Michael mumbles. He is already lighting another cigarette and there is a redhead to his right trying to chat him up.

Diane is with Rose, and more than that, Hugh is with Rose and Billy watches Matthew greet the three of them. He offers Hugh a handshake and he says something that makes the four of them laugh. He first gives Diane a hug, and then he gives Rose a hug and even from across the room Billy can see how stiff the two of them are.

Claire is not here.

Hugh’s eyes narrow when he spots Billy, or maybe Billy just imagines that. Either way, Hugh grins and it is sly and the corners of Billy’s mouth twitch.

Even later:

“That motherfucker,” Billy grumbles in the kitchen. From his vantage point, not that Matthew’s flat is overly large to begin with, he can see Hugh and the girl Rose and Rose’s mouth opens in a bright, stained laugh. “That motherfucker,” he repeats.

“They’re all motherfuckers anymore,” Matthew says from the sink. Billy turns to look at him, drags his attention away from the other room. Matthew sounds almost distracted. He pulls hard, the sharp end of a corkscrew stuck in the cork stuck in a bottle of wine. “Not a saint among the lot,” he mutters, and with a pop, the cork is pulled free.

Billy jerks his head towards the other room as Matthew fills his glass full to the lip.

“He’s making time with your girl.”

There is a brief gasp of a second where Matthew blanches, but he covers well. He takes a deep swig straight from the bottle rather than the glass held in his other hand.

“I don’t have any girls this evening.” He tries for levity and it mostly falls flat. He drinks from the bottle again and Billy tries hard not to smirk. These things are funny, amusing, only when they happen to someone else. It’s only something to laugh about when the liar caught hard around the throat by the truth isn’t you.

“’sides,” Matthew points out, “didn’t he play a fucking retard or something in that movie with her? That’s hardly the shit that get’s a lady going, right?”

Billy laughs and slaps Matthew on the back, hard.

14.

Billy remains in the kitchen for the majority of the party. Anna sticks to the living room and he watches the way her legs hang over the arm of the couch. Hugh is next to her. He waves his hands as he explains something and sometimes Billy can hear her laughter.

He watches Michael and Diane collide.

There is a degree of intimacy to the exchange that Billy had not expected. Neither of them registers surprise as they meet, body to body – the entire right side of her tucked against his front. They are similarly matched in height, or at least her choice of footwear earns her this, and her right shoulder finds him just below the throat, square in the chest, and her right hip, his lower abdomen.

Michael presses a hand low, low on the small of her back and propels her forward. Diane presses a hand to his forearm, the arm connected to the hand not touching her, and he thinks this a gesture of apology.

It looks to him entirely natural. It looks to Billy that the sharing of space and the feel of one pressed against the other is an old and tired habit.

Michael walks away and his laughter booms and bounces back from the next room. Diane has not moved on yet. She smoothes the unwrinkled pleats of that short dress of hers, and it’s then that Billy sees it:

Diane blushes pink and there is a small smile hidden by closed lips.

She blushes deeper as she catches Billy’s eye and she refills her glass with red.

“Oh shut up,” she mutters.

15.

The bathroom nearest the kitchen has been taken for the better part of a half hour. Billy’s pretty sure he saw that Cillian guy head in there, but with who he didn’t see.

He heads for the bathroom off of Matthew’s bedroom. As he reaches for the doorknob to leave, the following occurs:

“I’m not with him,” he hears Rose say.

“Oh, really? Really now? Because I seem to recall you showing up at my goddamn front door with that…poncey git in tow only a few short hours ago.”

“Jesus. Really, Matthew? I had lunch with him earlier – ”

“You had lunch with him earlier,” he mocks and Rose glares.

“Shut it. We had lunch and I mentioned the party and he seemed, I don’t know, lonely. And I figured there was little harm in it and I asked him along. That’s all.” She puts her hands to her hips and stands up a little straighter. “Besides, I don’t really see where you get off. It’s none of your business.”

“It is my business,” he says, “It bloody well is my business. You should have thought. You should have known better.”

“About what?”

“About, about, Billy. Billy for starters.”

“What the fuck are you even talking about?”

“Oh, come off it. Billy and Claire and then Hugh and Claire and everyone knows that, Rose. Everyone. And then you waltz in here with the same bloke that ran off with his girl not really quite all that long ago, and it’s callous is what it is.”

She sets her jaw. “I didn’t think of that. Okay? You caught me. I am cruel and I am heartless and I don’t think of the feelings of others. Once again, you win.”

“Damn right I win,” Matthew says, oblivious to the sarcasm of her tone. “Billy is my friend and I’m your friend and you’re supposed to think of your friends.”

Rose drops her head. “We’re not friends,” she says.

“What?”

“I said we’re not friends. We’ve never been friends. We’ve never been friendly. Never.”

“My mistake then,” Matthew drawls.

There is a pause. “I still can’t believe you’re making such a big deal about this. You’re such a child.”

“Fuck off,” he says and turns his back to her.

She snorts. “Why do you care?” she goads. Matthew whirls back around and points at her.

“You’re making me look bad,” Matthew hisses. Rose laughs.

“Like you really need me around for that.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You going to ask the world to collectively suck your dick again?” Matthew laughs.

“It bother you that much that I’m hardly judicious when it comes to who I let suck my cock, eh?” Rose scowls. “And I believe, at the time, I had a bit more on my mind than dressing up as some raging queen of a superhero. Not that you’d know. Or care, rather.”

“Fuck you,” she mutters. “Fuck you.”

There is quiet and for a moment Billy fears for the worst: that he will peer around the corner, around the doorframe and the two of them will be going at it and he’ll see more of the two of them than he ever desired.

What he sees is this instead: Rose leans against an end table, decorative not functional, near the door that opens up into the hallway and her hands brace her weight along its edge. Matthew is perched on the end of the bed, hands dangling limp off his wrists between his spread legs and he hunches forward.

“I promised myself that you’d be different,” Matthew says and it startles.

The smile on Rose’s face is sad and her eyes are kind. “That was stupid of you,” she says. She leans back a little further and her shoulders raise, her collarbone juts out a little more, stark against the pale expanse of chest her dress bares. “It never works like that.”

Billy doesn’t know much, but he does know this: whatever there was between these two people, between his friend and this woman who never became more than an acquaintance to him and maybe that was the first sign, it’s something near to over.

16.

“This is a nice party,” Anna says.

Billy wants to kiss her but he knows he won’t.

At the front door he watches Hugh kiss her cheek instead.

17.

Two weekends after the party, Michael, Matthew and Billy decide a night out is well-earned. Michael and Matthew share cigarettes and as the two men talk, Michael’s voice takes on a lilt that had been absent their entire stay in Baltimore.

Diane and Rose are at a posh bar; Matthew calls Rose and tells her that they should meet up.

The men arrive. Rose is dismissive of Matthew and Diane and Michael are awkward; it makes Billy wonder what happened after the party, though he is sure he already knows and the two of them are proving it to him.

They have coupled off and he is bored. He calls Anna, tells her that he is out with a few friends. She agrees to join them and when she arrives it is with Hugh in tow.

“You need to stop throwing parties,” he hisses to Michael. “All they do is fuck our lives up that much more.”

Anna looks comfortable, oblivious with Hugh and maybe that’s a relief. He had pegged her as malicious but maybe he can take the word back now.

He wants to ask him about Claire, he wants to ask where she is and what the hell Hugh is doing without her and with another woman – but, no. No. There is a sinking in his stomach.

They are the same men. They get what they want and then they go in search for more.

Maybe that’s all men, he thinks. Maybe that’s everyone.

He will tell Matthew this thought later but Matthew won’t appreciate it.

“You make us sound like bloody, pillaging pirates, mate.”

Instead Hugh and Billy do not talk. They don’t exchange a word until the end of the night when Billy, drunk, claps a hand on Hugh’s arm and says, “Best luck.”

Hugh smiles and says, “And you.”

18.

There are things Billy has no way of knowing. There are the exchanges behind closed doors and lunches and dinners he would never be invited to attend. And the people talk, they interact, they explain their actions of the past and the future without the actual words.

Rose meets with Romola and the first woman looks exhausted while the second beams. They talk about people and their problems instead of their own.

“How’s Matthew?” Romola asks. Rose purses her lips together.

“Who?” Romola only shakes her head.

In another part of town and on another day, Diane and Rose hide behind sugary, expensive drinks neither particularly enjoys.

“Are we going to talk about him?” Rose asks her.

Diane takes a sip and grimaces.

“Which one?” she asks.

Elsewhere, in a hotel room, Anna sits on a neatly-made bed with her phone pressed in her hand.

She does not make the call.

19.

A week later and Matthew fumbles with a pack of cigarettes.

“I need to go to Rose’s,” he says. He says it like he is ashamed and that makes Billy want to grin.

“That so, huh?”

When they arrive there, Diane is passed out on Rose’s couch with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc just out of reach. There is a sip or two left at the bottom.

“Rough night?” he asks.

Matthew has already disappeared down the hall toward what he imagines is the bedroom. Rose watches the empty hall and then offers Billy a small smile before leaving the room. There are voices. A door shuts.

Billy sinks into the armchair opposite Diane and the couch.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he says quietly.

Diane holds a hand up to her eyes and groans.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he repeats.

It had been a warm night but Diane has a jacket draped over her frame. There is mascara smudged beneath one eye and she stretches and yawns.

“You know,” she says, sleepily, quietly, “people like to tell you how lucky you are. Like, if they don’t remind you there’s a chance you might forget it. Someone once told me I should feel so blessed, so lucky. That I have it so easy. That Hollywood makes everything look easy.” Diane sighs. “I could have slapped her,” she says.

He quirks his head to the right and for the first time she looks at him.

“When did you get here?” she asks.

20.

“It’s hard when there are kids,” Anna says and Billy raises his head sharply.

“I know,” he says, and he wonders if she has slept with Hugh yet.

21.

The fall arrives and summer ends. August wanes into September but the heat still tries and afternoon thunderstorms soak the city. There are puddles next to the tables at the outdoor café but they do not eat outside. Stale raindrops leak off the slopes of umbrellas.

Nothing lasts, he thinks.

“Nothing lasts,” Billy says.

“Stop saying that,” Matthew snaps. The man’s reaction surprises Billy. He puts his fork down and stares openly at Matthew but Matthew is watching the sidewalk, the people at the crosswalk, the passing traffic. He chews slowly and runs a hand over the patchy beard grown in along his jaw.

“You can’t have it all, man,” Billy hears himself say. “Best learn that one now.”

Matthew does not say anything.

Billy thinks of Matthew’s bedroom and the sad, sad look on Rose’s face. He thinks about how young the two of them still are, how much room is still left for the two of them to fuck up and fuck around and maybe he hates them a little for it. He still has time too, and he knows that. He also knows there are children to be had now, there are weddings that are planned, there are the women that were once his and now say, “I do” and he wonders if that’s what time does, if everyone has their own breed of disappointment to cope with and this one is his.

“You’ve got problems,” Billy says to Matthew. It is not a question.

Matthew scoffs. He turns back to face Billy and his eyes are angry. This is a surprise as well. “Fuck that,” he says. “Fuck that. Life is meant to be enjoyed, yeah? Yeah. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m enjoying life. ‘I’ve got problems.’ Listen to you. Fuck that.”

“So you’re happy then,” Billy says, droll.

“No one’s ever actually happy, per se. At least not on a continuing, constant basis. I mean, if you were then that would be the status quo, am I right? So happy would cease to exist and you’re right back where you started – never bloody happy.” Neither man speaks for a moment. Matthew studies his wine glass and Billy watches the now abandoned crosswalk.

“Does it really fucking matter?” Matthew finally says. There’s no venom to the words, just a lazy sort of indolence. On any other man, Billy might consider it to be exhaustion, exasperation, all those terrible words that start with the two letters E and X.

“I didn’t say anything,” Billy says.

“No. I guess you didn’t.”

22.

“It’s just sort of hard, man, you know?” Aaron is saying. They are in Las Vegas for the weekend and they do brunch at the Wynn. “When you respect the other dude? I mean, it’s one thing if you wanna throw down with the guy, but it’s totally another when it’s like, you’re a good dude, bro. Let’s grab a beer and a sandwich, or whatever bros do.”

“Bros don’t do that,” Matthew says over the lip of his glass. He resumes drinking.

“Whatever, man. I think Peter is a good guy. I think he’s a good actor. I also just so happened to bang his girlfriend.”

“Wife,” Matthew corrects in an obnoxious whine.

“Mother of his child,” Billy throws in.

“I find it ironic that you would choose that as the phrase to describe her, mate…” Matthew trails off and then cracks into a giddy laugh. He laughs along with him and lets Matthew and Aaron talk about Batman and superheroes and just how big of an asshole Christian Bale may or may not be.

It doesn’t stop, Billy thinks. It doesn’t change. He finishes off his beer with a long swallow and there is a revolving door of actors and actresses big budgets and big expectations have thrown together. There are the photographers and there are the tabloids and there is the truth, there are the rumors and the lies and it never really ends.

23.

There are the shapes these things take.

Jennifer has a husband and two children. Mary-Louise has their child. You spread yourself thin enough and everything can make you hurt, make you twinge. You deny it, of course. But it’s there. The shape these things take, the people old lovers become – the sharp edges still find you. The reminders of dangerous thoughts like alternate histories linger on, and all you’ve really got is the hope you’re not the only one left wondering those two self-pitying words: what if?

He met Jennifer over ten years ago. He met her when he was pushing thirty; now, she’s pushing forty. They have that, he thinks. They have a timeline. They have years and maybe they never had each other but at one point he had thought it possible, and if nothing else, it serves as a nice memory.

Billy has never understood the geometry of people. One thing he knows: he knows the arithmetic of adding one and one and still wanting more than two.

24.

Their film premieres and the reviews are decent. Billy flies out to Los Angeles to read for a film adaptation of a Norman Mailer novel. Anna returns to television and still, no one really knows Michael’s name.

It’s more of the same:

Hugh and Claire get married late in the summer and Billy reads about it in the back pages of the L.A. Times.

There are tabloid photographs of Anna and her daughter and a park somewhere, both with their hair in matching braids.

Diane stars in an action film broadly panned by the critics and moves to New York. They all move to New York, he thinks. It is a rite of passage.

Michael moves to New York.

Matthew returns to London and Rose wins an Emmy. Matthew calls that weekend but does not mention her by name. Instead, he does say, “you were right,” and Billy does not ask him to elaborate.

He picks up his phone. She never calls him.

She answers on the third ring.

They have their roles to play, and Billy –

He is a very good actor.

25.

He goes to Los Angeles. He visits the kid. He reads the Norman Mailer script.

His costar, his female foil, is young, a brunette. Her eyes are wide and bright and she smiles with teeth that are wide and bright as well.

Michael had called it fucking inevitable. Billy believes there is another word for it.

Everything is employed as a poor man’s something or other. Everything is an adaptation of something that has already come to pass. Originality is a myth. Remakes are the way of the world; history plays itself on repeat.

“I think I read about something like this in a book once,” Anna had sad that night at the bar in Baltimore. That evening had been overcast and humid; there had been no stars.

“I’m sure you have,” is what he said. I’m sure you have.

But it was a lie.

She never read about a scene like that – two men and a bar that reeked of rotting wood and piss and Coors Light. She had been there before, she had been there in the past, not Baltimore, no, but a moment like that. Men and the stench and the beer, the heat and the sweat dampened skin beneath clothes, she had been there.

The past is revisited in the present, in the future. I read about that in a book once, you might say. Déjà vu! another might call.

The point is, we do these things without intent, we do them without meaning, and perhaps that makes them all the more touching. There are moments of sheer happiness, there are moments where anything short of optimism and the promise that we shall always feel like this is impossible. And we spend the rest of our lives trying to seek them out again, trying to recreate them.

“I’m preoccupied with the lives of others,” he tells a journalist and she nods her head like she understands. A pen in hand and his words on the page, perhaps she does.

Perhaps she understands that the words are in fact a lie and that there is only one life he is preoccupied with and that is his own.

He films the Norman Mailer film in Los Angeles and friends old and new alike fade in and out of focus. Women he once called lovers build families with other men and he will run to Los Angeles, he will read about this in a book.

We all leave with a little less.

fin.

fic: we don't bleed (when we don't fight) (lost)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:35:11 GMT

we don't bleed (when we don't fight)

lost. five points of reference in the life of eloise hawking. eloise; charles/eloise. rated pg. general season five spoilers. 772 words.

notes: for lenina_20! her prompt had been this icon, and, um. it would up being moreso about eloise than charles? *laughs* that said, hope you enjoy!

1.

Let us begin:

The island has always been a rock, a jut of land, surrounded by the sea and the brine and the salt. It has always been framed in sand, sand baked white in the glare of a sun that burns and beckons, that refuses to forgive.

That very first day, Ellie had waded in from the surf and as the sand reached up from wet to damp to dry she had sneered.

“Nothing special, is it?”

The sun was bright and she squinted, she sneered, she stood caught in its glare.

A boy kicked at the back of her shins. She peered over her shoulder and the boy’s mouth, lips cracked a pale pink, was drawn down by the edges into an angry frown.

“Get a move on, eh?” he said to her.

Ellie turned her back to the boy and she remained still for a moment. Birds did not call from inside the hooded canopy of the jungle. There was no rustle of branches or underbrush as unseen creatures scattered from left to right and then back around again. There was nothing, she heard nothing.

The sun had been hot and a chill crept the length of her spine. She did not shiver.

No. Ellie did not shiver.

She smiled.

2.

“Sometimes,” Richard had said to Jack, “love is complicated.”

Jack had nodded as though he understood, and maybe he had. Richard could not be sure. Richard had not really cared. Maybe this Jack, maybe he knew the complexities of love and maybe he had experienced them firsthand.

Eloise and Charles stood over the body of a dead man who claimed to be her son.

Richard had run a hand over his chin and watched.

3.

“Maybe it’s a sign,” Charles said. He said it more to the sky and the night than to her. His lips were pressed down even in a frown he employed as often as any other man might employ a smile.

Ellie scoffed. She did not believe in things like that, not then. And maybe, maybe, not at present either. It is hard to say. There are some things out there she can look to and believe in. She can look to the turning dial of a clock, the stretch and expanse of a minute, an hour, a second hand. She can look to that and say: yes, I believe in that. I believe in the passage of time. I believe that some things can happen, events can come to pass, and man will just stand there idle, let time stretch old and weary over him.

I believe in time, she could say. I believe we all grow old but we don't really die.

Charles never thought like that. He thought of things he could hold, tangible things like flesh and bone and blood, like the profit and the loss.

Maybe he thought of her, because that night – the same day the strangers came and just as suddenly disappeared – he kissed her.

4.

She loved him when she was seventeen.

The problem with that is simple: seventeen only lasts for one year and after that there are different numbers and different years. After that, Ellie is a different woman. Charles is a different man.

After seventeen, she decided the word love was a liability. And maybe it is. Maybe, maybe it is.

(Charles did not love Ellie when he was seventeen.

He loved her later. He loved her when he was seventy, when he was sixty, fifty, forty, the numbers shrink. He loved her throughout the intervening years, the way time trips up and creates human absence, creates a nostalgia that rounds the rougher edges of a person.

He did not love her when he was seventeen).

5.

The slap is easy across his face. Charles barely flinches.

They grew old. Color gave way to gray and white and bodies went brittle and sad. They call her Eloise now and the island remains, history remains.

In 1977 she will shoot her grown son in the chest and he will die. There is that.

In 1977, Charles Widmore will tell her he loves her, he will say it like he means it, say it with the same strength and veracity he will allow every other lie to pass from his lips.

She will listen, and then she will leave.

Know this:

Ellie believes in the passage of time.

They grow old but they don’t die.

She had loved him first.

fin.

fic: accidents (star trek)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:47:07 GMT

accidents
FOUR WAYS THIS NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED
also known as, four clichés to get you into bed

star trek. the problem with sex and love and every transgression in between is the simple lack of a step-by-step recipe to follow. christine chapel; christine/mccoy. rated nc-17. 8303 words.

notes: UGH. this fic! um, i can't even put into words as to how relieved i am to have finished this ridiculous, ridiculous story, haha. basically, one day i was surfing around the interwebs and LJ and apparently there is such a thing as a cliche_bingo and while i still don't even get what that means, i thought "oh hey, wouldn't it be awesome to jam a fic full of all those hilarious fic cliches"? so, um. i did that? and i'm sort of warring between extreme amusement and embarrassment of this and figured i'd post it in my bid to be rid of it, becuase ugh, be gone foul beast, haha. ummm, vague spoilers for the movie? and by movie, i mean the recent reboot since that's the only incarnation of Star Trek i am familiar with. i know, i know - fandom sacrilege. apologies. anyway, enjoy the cliche and the porn, yo!

i've got one friend, laying across from me
i did not choose him, he did not choose me
we’ve got no chance of recovery
sharing hospital
joy and misery

(HOSPITAL BEDS; cold war kids)

They say the shortest distance from Point A to Point B is a straight line.

When it comes to people, when it comes to crossing that bridge from stranger to acquaintance, from stranger to something more, it never works that way. People don’t just meet and fall in love. People don’t shake hands and in the same breath of an introduction also say: yes I would like to spend the rest of my life with you I love you. Christine is sure of this.

She is also sure that the terrain of relationships (such a dirty, dirty word for the flighty and the commitment-phobic, for those that curse monogamy and marriage with equal vehemence) it is never that easily navigated.

The unexpected and the unintended trump all.

It’s like this, she thinks: humans have inertia too, they gain momentum, they are subject to the same values and rules of physics as any other collection of atoms suspended in gravity. You travel in the same circles and you are bound to meet. You run about the same sphere of thought and influence and you’re bound to collide. These accidents of human interaction happen all the time.

This really isn’t all that different.

1.

THAT ONE TIME AT THE ACADEMY

The Academy had made sense.

She had been young and ambitious and the recruiter she met with had persuasively emphasized words like adventure! and space!, and she had liked that. So she enlisted.

This whole nurse thing though? That came as a bit of a surprise.

Christine had always excelled at the sciences, and while she herself wasn’t exactly patient (pun completely and utterly unintended) she was good with people. And it wasn’t that the idea of being elbow-deep in gore and ropes of intestines and parts you’re never supposed to see let alone touch exactly compelled or repelled her, but the nursing track just seemed more and more logical and likely for her. Over time she had convinced herself it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to have drive and ambition but with no goal to attach to the twin motivations, but now she had this, she had potential for something horribly adult like a career.

“That’s the thing that no one tells you,” her roommate says, cross-legged and Zen on the strip of floor between their two beds. “Being a grown-up and having a job and all that other…pedantic shit – it totally sucks.”

-

They meet in the library.

It is the midterm crunch and the entire library is packed. Christine squeezes herself between the shelves in the back corner, a small strip of wall with her back to it and a collection of books scattered at her feet. Anatomy. Physiology. One about a study involving rats and alien fetuses and humans and after two re-reads she still doesn't quite get what the point of it was.

It’s not that she’s a procrastinator per se, but rather that she likes to take things up to their limit. Her index finger runs over lines of text and she scribbles down notes in the margins and in a notebook balanced on a separate stack of books next to her.

“Planning on sharing?” a gruff voice asks above her.

Christine raises her head quickly and bangs the back of it against the wall, hard. “Agh,” is what she says, some odd jumbling of “ow” and “ah” and maybe “ugh.” The guy narrows his eyes and doesn’t even try to disguise the fact he sort of wants to laugh at her.

“You a med student?” he asks. “I think I would’ve remembered seeing a girl like you around.”

“No,” she grumbles. She rubs at the back of her head and lets the book in her lap slip closed. “Nursing.”

He snorts. At that, she raises her chin and she can already feel that defiant set of her mouth, the clenched teeth and she sort of glares, and right. Leonard McCoy.

Christine knows McCoy with the same familiarity she knows any other classmate – they’ve all been absorbed in the cult of medicine, and whereas she is to be a nurse, he is a doctor. But she’s heard of him, everyone has more or less heard of him. Rumor reports that at one point the good doctor had been married and now he’s broke and divorced and that’s why he’s here. Looking at him now, the low lighting of the back shelves of the library and the arrogant and vaguely annoyed lines of his face she decides it wouldn’t be all that surprising if it was true.

“That a problem?” she bites off, and she doesn’t really get it. She doesn’t get why her default reaction to this relative stranger is antagonism, but it is. Maybe it’s the way he’s standing over her. Maybe it’s the way his face twisted into something holier-than-thou the second she said nursing. Or maybe it’s the swelling bump on the back of her head and the pressure of things, like, passing exams and not failing and maybe it was just the smarmy way he looked her up and down when he first spoke to her.

He laughs lightly. “Not at all,” he says. “Though I’d consider working on that bedside manner of yours.” His smile this time is full-blown and he’s leaning against the shelves and her face softens, maybe a little.

Because here’s the thing: he’s hot. Like, exaggeration and hyperbole-free, he’s a good-looking son of a bitch. But it’s not like Jim Kirk, Academy Legend, where it’s glaringly obvious, almost to the point of being counter-productive. Christine has always been able to appreciate a fine specimen of the male population, and okay, McCoy is certainly one of them.

She clears her throat. “Was there something you needed?”

He arches on eyebrow and then he leans down. His right arm brushes against her left knee and he grabs the first book off the stack next to her.

“I’ll be sure to bring it back, Nurse…?”

“Chapel,” she says. “Christine. Christine Chapel. And it’s not nurse yet. I sort of have to pass the exams first.”

“Well,” and he looks on the verge of laughing again. “I’ll be sure to return this to you, Not-Quite-Nurse Chapel.”

Christine rolls her eyes.

-

People are like anything else – patterns inevitably emerge.

Christine sticks to her same study schedule and haunts the same corner of the library and McCoy picks up on this. A begrudging friendship forms, if only out of routine habit, out of the shared studying and the comparing of notes and diagrams.

It’s nice. It’s not that Christine has ever wanted for friends, it’s not that she walks alone or hides behind her studies, but it’s nice. McCoy’s different.

She’ll call him “old man” and he’ll feign offense. He’ll make sexist remarks and jabs she is never sure if he means or not, but she’ll school him in the basics of feminist theory all the same. They try and one-up each other with tales of past anecdotes and stupid, drunken decisions. They talk about the Old South and whether bourbon trumps whiskey and they talk about that boy she thought she was going to marry that one time and he talks about that woman he actually did marry, and her roommate mocks her.

“I’m going to come home some night and you’re going to have, like, a stethoscope hanging on the doorknob,” she said, once.

Christine had frowned.

“That doesn’t even make sense. Why would we have a stethoscope?”

The roommate waved her hand like some dead prophet or two-bit gypsy fortune teller.

“Wait and see. You wait and see.”

And of course she was right. She was always right.

-

It starts at the bar and it ends in her dorm room.

It is a Friday, it is the weekend, it is springtime and whatever that means for the majority of Starfleet. Somewhere between her second drink and her fourth, she runs into McCoy.

After that it goes a little fuzzy.

After that –

Oh God. She is drunk. Drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk. Drunk. Her tongue feels dry and sandpapery in her mouth and she can’t seem to stop licking at her lips.

“It’s a good thing your name isn’t Chris,” she hears herself saying. “Or Christopher. But it’d probably have to be Christopher in order for your name to be Chris. No one names their child just Chris. At least I don’t think they should. But I once knew a girl and her name was Shelly and it was just Shelly, it wasn’t, like, a nickname for anything. She was just Shelly. And I thought that was sort of cruel of her parents, right? To give their child a nickname instead of a name-name. Chris is a nickname, but Christopher is a name-name.”

McCoy is staring at her and her glass is sweating in her hand.

“What in the goddamn hell you even talking about?”

“Your name. It’s Leonard,” and oh Jesus Christ, her voice has taken on that sing-song lilt to it. She is drunk. She needs to put this glass down and never pick up a glass or a bottle or anything even vaguely alcoholic again in the future. “And I was just saying it’s a good thing it’s not Christopher. Because Christopher and Christine? Yuck.” She sticks out her tongue at that and her face twists into the kind of face a person would make if on the verge of vomiting. “Chris and Chris? Chris and Christine? We’d sound like some awful brother and sister singing duo. Or something. We’d probably sing about picnics or carnivals and only really, really old people would listen to us.”

McCoy smirks at this.

“You talk like we’re some kind of item or something. Christine,” he makes a point of saying. He takes a swig from his bottle.

She sneers. “And you talk like some sort of inbred redneck more often than not, but you don’t hear me complaining about it.”

He only scoffs at that.

“Besides, we are a partnership in a way. You’re a doctor, I’m a nurse. That sort of makes us a team. Right?”

He drinks to that.

-

It’s near closing time when she actually says it:

“I think we should probably have sex tonight.”

McCoy, to his credit, merely quirks an eyebrow up. “Blunt,” he says. “I like that.”

She narrows her eyes. “I don’t like you. I don’t like you much at all. I just want to make that clear.”

He smirks and polishes off the rest of his drink in one swallow. “Crystal.”

-

She discovers that when sex is planned, when it is spoken of as they more of less spoke of it - "I think we should probably have sex tonight," she had said, and it was never like he disagreed; his agreement was unspoken, his agreement with the plan was him sticking his tongue down her throat at the first available moment, not that she hadn't welcomed it, but still - it's strange. That's her point here. Sex with designs such as they had, sex with people you don't exactly care for, is odd. Almost like a business transaction, she thinks, except not at all.

His mouth is still hot and wet and right against her throat and she likes it, she likes it more than she really thought she would. Her hands grab at the muscles of his upper back, the chunk of hard flesh just above and connected to his shoulders, and dig in, sharp. He hisses somewhere under the hinge of her jaw and she bumps her hips against his. They're not the right height, she's too short, and her hips can't meet his the way she wants them too.

“This is stupid – this is so fucking stupid,” she mumbles into his mouth.

There is one breathy note of a chuckle from him before his teeth slide against the edge of her bottom lip and his tongue follows suit.

“Don’t look at me,” he says. “This was all your idea. I’m just playin’ my part.”

-

He casually eats her out. However it is one does that casually. He takes his shirt off halfway through. She watches the ripple to his back as his hands flex against her thighs, hold her hips, her legs open to him. He licks at her slowly.

She had not worn a bra that night (it’s almost like she planned this, she thinks) and he pulls the front of her top down and open as his tongue works her clit, as his tongue staggers down and plays with her entrance. Her knee bumps the wall and she moans, loud and plaintive. She grabs the side of his head.

He laughs straight into her.

He bites at her hipbone, her stomach as he crawls back up and his mouth is sloppy against her own. He thrusts fruitlessly against her, his cock hard against her thigh and she spreads her legs wider for him to fit between them.

McCoy slips a hand between them and brushes the head of his cock against her slit, teasing. Christine makes a small hiccup of a sound.

The lips of her cunt part for him. “Farther,” he says, and then, “yeah, that’s it, girl.” The muscles of her inner thighs ache a little as she stretches a little more, fit around the bracket of his hips a little more, a parenthesis for whatever idea he, this, represents.

He feels good inside of her. He moves fast, rough, and she pushes back with everything she’s got. Her heels skid on the sheets as she fights for purchase against him and McCoy bites at the curve of skin that connects jaw to ear and it’s then that she comes.

It’s a surprise and she wonders how much of this she’ll remember in the morning.

(When he comes, he says, “oh God Christine,” all on one stretched out breath and his body is heavy and limp on top of hers).

-

After:

“I still don’t like you very much,” she mutters into her pillow.

McCoy snorts. “Yeah, well that doesn’t really seem to be a problem, does it?”

His body is warm next to hers and it is impossible for the two of them to fit in the small bed without touching. Her body is still damp with sweat, and so is his, and the sheets tangle and cling to them both.

“I don't know how to make this work,” she confesses, mumbles.

“Make what work?” McCoy asks. His voice is already stained rough with sleep.

“This. You, me, whatever this is. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

He yawns.

“Don’t sweat it,” he says. “It’ll come.”

-

She can picture exactly how this conversation will go with her roommate come morning. They will both be hungover, there will be brunch, and Christine will push her mash of eggs or potatoes or whatever around her plate with the tines of her fork until guilt or embarrassment or the simple desperate need to confess an OH MY FUCKING GOD THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED moment to a friend or confidante gets the better of her and she will say:

“I fucked the hot doctor last night.”

“You fucked the hot doctor last night.”

Christine will scrape her fork against her plate on accident and wince at the resounding screech.

“Yeah. That actually happened. ‘I fucked the hot doctor,’” she parrots.

“Christine. What. Christine. You really fucked the hot doctor?”

“We were really drunk,” she will say by way of an answer. “Like. Really. Drunk.”

“This is such a big deal!” her roommate will squeal. “So, like, what now? What happens next? And – wait. I thought you said you didn’t even like him. Or was that a different hot doctor?” Her face will draw down in a frown that just as quickly disappears. “Who cares. This is such awesome news. This is the best brunch ever. Details. Spill.”

“I – I don’t know. I was drunk and so was he, and he’s hot, right? It just sort of happened and then it was sort of morning and then he was sort of gone and – ”

“Wait,” the roommate will say and hold up a hand. “He left? Asshole.”

Christine will shake her head. “It’s probably for the best, you know? We got that out of our system. This is a good thing. This is definitely a good thing.”

“Whatever. I still want details. I bet he has the biggest – ”

Actually, that is exactly how their conversation goes.

-

She wakes just before eight o’clock.

Next to the bed, McCoy rummages in the half-dark for his clothes and Christine keeps her eyes half-closed feigning sleep.

Later that week, there will be the library. Later they will talk but she doesn’t imagine it will ever be about this.

She’s right.

-

2.

THAT ONE TIME WITH THE TOXIN

She doesn’t die. She thinks that’s pretty important.

So, the Enterprise. They survive, and that’s all sorts of “beat the odds” awesome, but then, things go on. There is all that other shit to attend to and all other sorts of mundane disasters that require them.

It’s then she realizes that McCoy is sort of a big deal. For one thing, he becomes the Chief Medical Officer.

For another, she becomes Head Nurse. So, right. Maybe she’s sort of a big deal too.

Maybe she had been speaking the truth, way back when at the bar, completely sauced, when she spoke of a partnership between them.

Working side by side a tacit companionship is born whether wanted or wished. Her own hands mirror his own and she can predict his actions even before he can. She does not know if the same can be said of him.

She doesn’t like that the thought smarts more than it should.

-

It’s a normal day, and maybe that should have been the first indication of trouble.

Christine walks into sickbay, and it takes her a moment to realize this is the least professional moment of her professional career. There is a patient on the table and all that surround him are head-to-toe in Hazmat. Christine throws a bare hand over her bare mouth.

“Oh fuck,” she mumbles.

“Damnit, Nurse Chapel,” McCoy barks from behind his mask. Only his eyes are visible through the Plexiglas panel, and that’s really enough. “Get the hell out, woman!”

What happens next: she turns to leave, and that’s innocuous enough. What she had not planned on was the rookie nurse behind her and the tray of what she can only describe as green, gelatinous goo, and what she had planned on even less was the subsequent head-on collision with said rookie nurse and the splattering of said green, gelatinous goo all over her person.

No one speaks, but she’s pretty sure she heard McCoy say something involving the words “mother” and “fucker.” She chooses to ignore that and instead focuses on all the, well, green.

A nurse Christine cannot recognize, decked out in the same protective gear as everyone else, grabs her by the arm and hoists her up.

“Let’s go disinfect you,” she says.

-

“Am I going to die?” she finds herself asking as they walk. The green goo has left a film on her skin and it tingles in its wake. Not really a bad tingle, she thinks, and she shivers a little. “Am I going to die?” she repeats, because this is how it happens, right? One wrong turn, one stupid, ill-advised decision and that’s it – you’re dead.

“What was that green stuff? What was wrong with that guy? What’s he have? Is he dying? And what the fuck is all over me?”

The nurse clucks her tongue. “We don’t know. He was quarantined when we found him on his planet so we’re taking the appropriate precautionary measures.”

“So it could be nothing?” Christine asks in earnest. They stop in front of the shower stall and the nurse crosses her arms impatiently.

“It could be nothing.” The water turns on cold and full-blast and a faint green color collects at Christine’s feet.

It’s not nothing.

-

The first sign that should have indicated that things were far from the status quo was the fact that Christine was suddenly aware of just how good-looking the entire crew of the Enterprise was. Even Jasper, the custodian with the multiple missing teeth – he had his merits. He probably had really strong shoulders from pushing that mop around all day.

But it wasn’t just Jasper. It was everyone.

And the second sign. The second sign. She can’t really remember what the second sign was supposed to be and maybe that is the second sign, this whole distracted business. It’s like she has the attention-span of a small, small child, but the thoughts of some sex-craved pervert.

She doesn’t think there’s a third sign.

“Dr. McCoy would like to see you now,” the nurse says, and whoa. So, she doesn’t swing that way, but if she did? This chick’s got a hell of a rack. She wonders dimly if she is too old and any kind of lesbian-esque encounter can no longer be chalked up to just a heterosexual experimenting. She does like the penis though. Cock. Dick. Pecker. Fuck.

“What…” Christine drawls.

“Dr. McCoy, Nurse Chapel. He would like to see you.”

Christine smirks as she walks to his office. She bets he’d like to see her. She bets he’d like to –

“Oh, Christ on crutches,” he says. “Get in here.”

“What’s wrong?” she asks and does her voice always sound like that?

“You’re infected, damnit, that’s what’s wrong.”

She sobers for a second. “Wait. What? What – what is it?”

They like to say that doctors make the worst patients, and maybe the same can be said for nurses, who knows. Maybe it’s the curse to be carried of the medical profession. But McCoy stands there, all hands on hips and he stammers out things like “alien,” which isn’t that surprising, and “er, sex, ahem, drive,” and well, that sort of is, and then he just clears his throat, and then he’s spitting out:

“Son of bitch what I’m saying is that your…libido has been significantly…” and he trails off again, and finally ends with one word: “amplified.”

Christine stares for a moment. There’s half a smile trying at her teeth and the pads of her fingers are borderline electrified. She’s sure of that. She’s sure it’s taking way too long for these words to properly process. She’s sure –

“You’re basically saying I’m, like, bionically horny?”

She thinks he’s blushing. Which is sort of a feat in itself, but she’s not really in a state to appreciate it. Instead she thinks flushed, she thinks flushed skin, she thinks skin, no clothes –

“No,” he says, “that’s what you’re saying, sugar.” He takes a deep breath. “We need to talk practicality here. We don’t got a vaccine, though lord knows the pharmaceutical market would love to get their hands on you right now.” She thinks she’d like him to get his hands on her, but that’s a different story and she’s sort of impressed at her restraint for keeping the thought caged behind her teeth. Teeth. Bite. Fuck fuck fuck.

“I’ll be fine,” she insists.

He arches an eyebrow. “Get to your quarters,” he says. “Can’t have you tartin’ up the sickbay.”

“I’ll be fine,” she repeats, and when she turns to leave she might cock her hip, she might sway a little more than necessary.

Whatever. She’s got great legs.

-

It’s the third time she brings herself off that she gets it: this is so not enough.

It’s too much, it’s just too much, and she’s left her room before she even really considered the action or more importantly, the consequences.

She walks the hallway and tries valiantly not to catch the eye of anyone who dares passes, because she’s not stupid. And she really doesn’t want to jump a stranger. It’s muscle memory that guides her more than anything, and she finds herself outside his office still formulating the greatest pick-up line in the history of sexual advances. She opens the door.

What she says is:

“I can’t take it anymore you need to fuck me right now. Please.”

McCoy takes a moment and his jaw clicks like maybe he’s clenching his teeth.

“You might want to close the door first,” he drawls.

The door clicks behind Christine. She takes a deep and steadying breath, and so much for whatever kama sutra seduction techniques she had been hatching in her head. “Look,” she says, “I am basically crawling out of my skin. You either need to fuck me or sedate me. Doctor.”

McCoy only gapes at her.

“Oh my God,” she says. “You’re seriously considering sedating me?”

“I got to admit, the idea does have its merits,” he grouses.

She waves a hand in the air furiously.

“Okay. Here’s the deal. It’s not like we haven’t done this before, and you managed to get me off then, and I was drunk, like, really, just wasted and you still managed to make me come, so that’s saying something, right? And whatever this…toxin is that has gotten into my system, it clearly has expedited that, at least based on my own experimentation, and that was just with my own hand – ”

“You need to stop talking,” McCoy grits out.

It's like this: she's practically liquid between her legs and her skin feels so tight and hot and flushed she's positive she looks like some tragic fever victim or porn star or some strange combination of the two. And she's standing there, in front of him, basically begging him to have sex with her. If she wasn't completely blown out of her mind right now - blown, the word blown makes her think cock makes her think mouth makes her think him makes her think his cock her mouth - she'd maybe, no she'd definitely, be humiliated, but whatever. She thinks she's about to fall over any minute or maybe just spontaneously combust and that would be bad, that would be gross. That would be a mess far more difficult and horrifying for him to clean up than whatever state it is she's in right now and whatever it is she needs from him.

"Do not make me beg," she says, but it sort of sounds like she's begging already.

The look McCoy gives her is full of something she doesn't understand or she's just choosing not to understand, but she thinks it's what they call "bedroom eyes" in all those god-awful novels her mother used to keep around the house.

"Get over here," he says, and his voice is kind of hoarse, his voice is the sort of thing they probably write about in those god-awful books her mother used to keep around the house.

She does. Her knees feel honest-to-god weak, but she walks around to his side of the desk and just stands there. He's still seated. There are still charts open on his desk and there are three empty mugs of what she imagines was once coffee. He places a hand just above the swell of her knee and she can't help it, she moans, just a little. And, okay. There's enough of her left in there to reason that this is embarrassing, embarrassing for the both of them, but it's not like he's the one pleading to be fucked.

She swallows hard and his hand just rests there, four fingers behind the concave curve of her knee and his thumb on her thigh. His hand is hot, her skin is hot and without thinking she spreads her legs, a little.

Christine watches his throat instead of his eyes. His Adam's apple bobs once, twice, and then he raises the hand on her leg and stands up.

He pushes her against the desk and his fingers toy with the elastic edge of her panties. And she's panting, isn't she? That's her? Her cheeks are already flushed so it's not like he'd notice her blushing, but it really, really suddenly doesn't matter when he presses his fingers against the crotch and makes this small, falling gasp noise. She's wet, like, soaking wet and maybe he's just getting that now. She had thought he was more knowledgeable of this toxin than she was, but maybe not. Maybe he hadn't really understood the word desperate when she said it, but she thinks he gets it now.

She knows he gets it now, if only based on the rush he adopts. He pulls at the damp crotch of her panties and just as quickly slides a finger inside of her. Her hips buck and her fingers curl white-knuckled onto the edge of the desk. His thumb brushes her clit and everything feels as though it's caught in her chest.

He fingers her – and okay, okay, she thinks as two more fingers join the first, this is what I was missing earlier. He pumps her steadily, his thumb still toying her clit, and it doesn’t take long. McCoy does not kiss her, but his mouth hovers close, just over the whorl of her ear and his breathing is amplified, hitching at some points and catching at others. He twists the fingers inside of her and her hands scramble over his chest, and it’s, “yeah, yeah, don’t stop, don’t,” she murmurs over and over again. He doesn’t. He pushes his fingers deeper inside of her and increases the speed and his mouth is wet next to her ear and she wants it over her mouth.

When she comes it’s on what sounds like a cry of anguish.

“Is that enough?” he asks and it sounds like his breath or his voice is lodged somewhere in the middle of his throat.

“No,” she whines, and what part of this does he not understand? She’s not even human right now, she just needs to be filled and stay filled, and she can feel him, hard against her leg, so it’s not like he doesn’t want this too. Everyone wants this. Everyone wants to be filled and remain full.

He undoes his pants fast, pulls his cock out and pumps it once then twice. She watches, she watches and then feels her mouth shaping around the word, "Please," and that's all it takes. His hands take to the back of her thighs and she wraps her legs around him. He grunts as he slicks himself with her and he grunts again but does not enter her.

"Stand up," he says.

She does.

He turns her around and fucks her over his desk.

He pushes in hard and easy and the muscles of her stomach clench. Paperwork sticks to the damp skin of her forearms as she sprawls forward. This, she thinks, this. There's the slow burn and the stretch and this is it, everything is almost clear and bright and normal, she's her again, she thinks, this is okay, she's going to be okay, they're all going to be okay –

-

The next morning she wakes up with what she can only describe as the worst hangover in the history of ever. Her head throbs and her mouth is dry, sandpapery and harsh.

She sticks her tongue out and reaches for the water bottle next to her bed. "Yuck," she mutters under her breath.

And actually, it's not just her head. It's all of her. All of her hurts and aches in a rough and used way, and –

"Oh," she whispers. "Oh, fuck."

-

She knocks first. It takes three times before he finally yells something that sounds like, "come in."

“Um, hey,” she says and, ugh. She sounds so small and hesitant, and is this what sex does to two people? And if so, how had she not ever noticed it before?

McCoy glances up at her, silent.

“I just wanted to thank you, and uh…” she stammers and trails off.

“Don’t mention it,” he says, all gruff and all “this subject is closed, now back away slowly.”

Christine doesn’t do that. Instead she clears her throat and says, “No. Really. I, um, appreciate – fuck it. Okay. I’m just trying to say thank you, alright?”

McCoy blinks. “And I’m just sayin’ don’t mention it. Ever.”

Their eyes meet and she is the first to look away. And wow, this is a level of awkward she herself had up until now never realized could be reached. And, besides – what had she expected? She doesn’t know, and maybe that’s the problem.

3.

THAT ONE TIME ALIENS MADE US DO IT

Things go wrong. Things go really, really, amazingly wrong.

What had started as a routine evacuation operation somehow ended in her lack of consciousness and awakening in a bright room of white. The walls are bare; there is no door. There is just her. And there is McCoy.

“You think there’s a way out?” she whispers. She idly pulls at the bindings that hold their hands together.

“I’m a doctor, not a secret agent,” he hisses back. “So, no. No, I don’t think there’s a way out.

Things like this aren't supposed to happen. She doesn't think they have contingency plans for things like this, at least not for her, not for him. For the captain, maybe, but for her? No way. The likelihood of abduction was always factored in as something small, something neglible, the same odds as getting struck by lightning twice or whatever else those old wives' tales like to spin.

Christine's throat is dry and her hands are still tied to his. McCoy doesn't fidget and for some reason that surprises her.

"Are you scared?" she hears herself asking. He doesn't answer, but maybe that is his answer - acquiesce in silence. She doesn't press it. She doesn't press it for the simple reason that the idea of him being scared sort of scares her even more.

They wait. There isn't much else to do but wait when you're tied together and left in a room made of little more than blank walls and seemingly no door. Christine starts to hum. McCoy bumps her with his shoulder. She stops.

Aliens, she thinks. Fucking aliens.

-

What happens first is this: a pair of aliens (and she still has no idea what species these creatures are supposed to be, and frankly, she doesn’t really care) enter the room. The wall slides to open and the two of them enter and stand before them.

The fear she had anticipated and fought to clamp down earlier is curiously absent. So, she thinks. This is it. This is really it.

His fingers twist with hers and she jumps a little. McCoy’s hands are sweaty and so are her own and her wrists ache and his index and middle finger wrap around her pinky and ring finger.

It takes about fifteen minutes for the two aliens to make their objective clear.

They wish to study human coitus.

McCoy blanches. “Lemme get this here straight,” he stammers. His face is pale, and Christine thinks she gets what the aliens mean and she’s not half as horrified as he is. She’s not sure what that means.

“You want me,” he says, “you want me and her to – you want us to – and you want to watch?”

The aliens want to watch. Christine almost laughs. It's just ridiculous. Like, of all the things. Here, she had been envisioning some sort of awful torture contraption involving lasers or electricity or just plain old barbarism, but instead, they want her to fuck him. There are worse things imaginable, she thinks, and once again she is tempted to laugh.

"That's...almost a relief," she says. McCoy doesn't answer at first but he does snarl something unintelligible under his breath.

“Maybe for you,” he grunts, and Christine chews her bottom lip.

"Well, you know. Just close your eyes and think of England or whatever," she snaps. She doesn't really mean it. She's not really mad, she really doesn't have a right to be. If anything he's made it clear in the past that he's at least mildly sexually attracted to her, but then again there's always that feminine fear that men really are the lust-addled animals popular culture makes them out to be and they'd fuck everything and anything in a decent pair of heels. She is digressing. She is distracting herself. She is fighting like hell against insecurity and that immature self-awareness she thought she kicked with her teenage years.

“Just another day at the office,” she mutters.

McCoy’s fingers are still tight with her own.

-

And, right. So it’s not like they’ve never done this before. Granted, the first time she had been borderline blackout drunk and the second time, well, she was technically under the influence too, but still. This shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? Just parts fitting together, just anatomy completing an expected biological function. Nothing to it. Nothing to it at all.

Except that there are a lot of somethings.

It's like this: Sex is a weapon.

She doesn't mean it in the whole Machiavelli, manipulative, hey let's advance my career or hey let's ruin your life sort of way. What she means is that it destroys things. It takes simple friendships and makes them that much more complicated. It takes lust and it adds something more, something tangible, something you can point to and say - there's my sign, there, that tells me that at some point you wanted me.

It's awful, she decides. She decides she will never have sex again. That she will be celibate. That she will be like those nuns she read about and she'll cover her head with that habit thing and walk around with a crucifix around her neck and call Jesus her man or however that works.

You know. After she lets the aliens watch.

-

He won’t look her in the eye. She’d ask him what’s wrong, but she sort of has an idea what the answer would be:

Well, darlin’. Aliens are making us fuck, and oh yeah, they like to watch.

It’s funny though. Despite her career and despite the handful of one night stands scattered throughout her adult existence, she has never looked at sex as something simple, as something scientific to be documented. If anything, it has always been on the other end of the scale, as far as possible from abstract principles like logic and reasoning and rationality. It’s the passion, it’s the lust, it’s the thing that thrums deep in the bloodstream that you couldn’t name even if you wanted to. It’s needy and it’s heady in all the ways a textbook and diagram never could be.

It makes sense then, she thinks, why this feels so off. They are on a glorified exam table and the room is bright, entirely white. Everything that makes them who they are (and is there even a they to speak of? she wonders) has been stripped away and all that’s left are the fundamentals that make this the same for everyone. She doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want that at all and he shouldn’t want that either.

So she kisses him.

-

It's not that the sex is bad. In fact, it almost feels sort of good. Christine has never considered herself an exhibitionist, and after this, she really doubts she ever would, but there's something to be said in the knowledge that the two of them, together, are worth watching.

It's simple missionary. Her knees are raised and she thinks the word gynecological and fights down a hysteric laugh and like the first time, McCoy fits right and firm between her legs. Her hands grab at his ass to pull him in deeper and she's not wet enough and it burns more than it should. Her breath catches once he is all the way in, once he pauses.

His breath moves the hair next to her ear. "You alright there?" he murmurs.

Christine squeezes her eyes shut and raises her hips to fight against his own. And there's her answer, she thinks. That's her answer. Because if anything he taught her that first - sometimes words won't do, sometimes there are too many words, sometimes words aren't all we've got - and she moves her hips first up and then down and his own mirror hers. The rhythm is shaky, choppy and she leaves her hands resting on his ass, light, barely touching. He has an arm wrapped around her waist and his face is buried in the crook of her neck. She buries her face in his, and from this angle all she sees is skin, all she sees is him. Her eyes flutter open and shut and open and shut and she can forget the wall of glass that surrounds them, she can forget the eyes and she can forget, almost, she can almost forget that they are not alone, that she is not alone.

She does not come but he does. She feels him hot, wet inside of her and when he does come the only sign of it is the tensing of his body, the tight set of his shoulders and upper back and the gasp of air that gets lost in the angles that connect her face and neck and shoulder. And then it’s, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and she doesn’t know how to make him stop. She presses her lips to the underside of his chin once, twice, and again and he is silent.

Christine relaxes into the table. She takes a deep breath. That wasn't so bad, she thinks. That wasn't –

-

Jim Kirk always has impeccable timing. Or maybe it’s Scotty. Christine isn’t sure who to credit for the whole here one minute and gone the next thing, but she’ll take it.

When she looks up, the inside of the Enterprise has never been such a welcome sight. Well, it would be more welcome if she was clothed. And if McCoy was clothed. And if he wasn’t on top of her.

She hears his laugh before she sees him.

Kirk stands over them and his grin is huge. “Well, well, well, what have we here?”

Chekhov is backlit against the white light of the hall and he waves.

“Hello!”

McCoy gives them both the finger.

4.

THAT ONE TIME WE MEANT IT

The thing she forgets sometimes is that space is serious. The limitless black emptiness it presents can be terrifying, but sometimes she slips and she forgets.

Things go wrong all the time. It just seems more often than not, they – the doctors and the nurses, Christine, him – are left to reap and sort out the consequences.

Death and space go hand in hand. Of all the places to disappear, this is the most obvious. Science can fail and technology can backfire. Things meant to better the future can slip down and wreak havoc on the present. She handles burns on a daily basis and clucks her tongue and makes idle small talk with the revolving door of patients. That, she can deal with. The stitches, the small cuts and scrapes and minor breaks. That is normal.

But sometimes they come back in pieces. Sometimes they come back unrecognizable.

I get very tired, she confessed once.

McCoy only nodded.

It's a living, he said. It's a living.

She had frowned and thrown out her rubber gloves.

-

“Nurse,” he snarls.

“Yes, Doctor,” she hisses back.

It didn't use to be like this. If anyone notices these things, they don’t bother to say.

The thing is, behind the medical masks and the tools she passes his way, next to the sick and the ailing, with lasers and internal organs let out to air, they are usually fine.

Despite it all, they have still managed in a professional setting. But they don't seek each other out. They haven't really since the Academy. And she misses it. She misses it, she imagines, for multiple reasons. There is something to be said of the appeal of the possible, of the undiscovered, of all that's out there left to find and claim as one's own. And maybe that's what they're all doing here. Maybe that's the purpose of the Enterprise and maybe they're just a population of eternally curious beings who want more, who need more. But once upon a time there was the Academy and she still didn't have a grasp of space travel and she still didn't know what she wanted.

You forget it sometimes. The same way she can forget the fear in space she can forget that youthful idealism. That's sad, she thinks. She thinks of her roommate. Fucking grown-ups, she imagines she would say.

She wonders what happened to that girl.

“Nurse,” McCoy repeats.

-

The problem, of course, is that they’re both liars.

No worries. The truth has its way of making itself known.

-

At one point, the following occurs:

“What’s the matter with you?” she hisses. They smell of chemicals and the copper tang of blood. Her hair is in her face and there are lines drawn in the corners of his eyes and around his mouth.

“I love you,” he says. His tone is blunt and doesn’t really broker argument, she thinks.

She thinks, she thinks, she is always thinking.

“What? No. No, no, no,” she stammers. “You don’t get to use that as an answer. You don’t get to say that to me.” It doesn’t happen like this, is what she doesn’t say.

“I love you,” he repeats.

“You don’t just go around saying things like that to people – ”

“Baby, I hardly just go around saying that to people,” he spits.

She takes a deep breath and holds up her hand. It is quiet, the lights are dimmed, an energy-saving procedure. “First of all? Don’t call me baby. Not now, not ever. Secondly…”and she stalls. “Secondly. Secondly, that’s not fair.”

“That’s not fair at all,” she says.

What she means is: why now why wait so long why now why didn’t you ever mention it sooner?

-

What happens before:

He kisses her and it’s like the first time all over again. No, it’s not like first time at all. There is still that urgency, still that fear that one of them might just slip away and disappear, but it’s new, it’s fresh. He kisses her like he means it, and she thinks she means it too. She’s not sure exactly what it is the both of them mean, but she thinks it’s some terrifying hybrid of I want you, I need you, and those other three words that have always left her too skittish to even think them.

She kisses him back and his hands almost hurt as they press and grab at her neck, the nape, the sides of her face.

And there's the truth: she cares. She cares about him, and of all the stupid things she has done, this might be the worst.

-

What happens after:

He pulls her to the bed, an exam room. From behind he pulls her to him, he pulls her to the bed, and he wraps a lazy arm around her neck. He kisses her like that: the length of his forearm behind the arch of her neck, the back of her head resting against it. His fingers ghost against the bite of chin there and she reclines back, easy.

His other hand slips down her body and two fingers enter her, easy.

(First though he tested. First though he was careful and that part was the unexpected. His fingers found her and with the pads of fingertips he had pressed gently, four fingers, against the dampness of her cunt. Pink and wet and he pressed, felt rather than entered).

-

And after it all (after the Academy and after the booze and after everything toxic and everything alien and everything not their own, after that, after introductions and intervening years and black holes and dead bodies and the live - )

“Jesus, girl,” he says and runs a hand through his hair. “We’ve gone about this one all kinds of wrong.”

Christine is suddenly aware of her nudity. She doesn’t do anything about it.

“There’s a right way?” she asks weakly. He only frowns.

The truth is, she doesn’t think there is. She doesn’t think it’d be very fair of this universe or any other to make there a right and wrong way to go about things like this – whatever this is. There is no formula when it comes to love. That’s what this is after all, right? Love?

McCoy slumps against the wall and idly buttons his pants back up.

“I love you too, you know,” she hears herself saying. “You insufferable bastard,” she sighs.

McCoy cracks a small crooked smile. “You miserable harpy.”

She ducks her head and attempts to hide the matching grin on her face.

-

Tomorrow there will be more to deal with, there always is. The recruiter had not been lying when he threw words like adventure! in Christine’s face.

This is an adventure.

And they’ll go about it all wrong and they’ll stumble into walls they themselves had erected and maybe aliens will kidnap them (again) or there will be war (again) or maybe this world or that world will end (again) but they’ll pull through it.

After all, it’s what people do.

They’re really not any different.

-

I don't know how to make this work, she confessed, once.

She gets it now.

No one does.

-

fin.

fic: and your skin is something that i stir into my tea (rpf)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:48:05 GMT

and your skin is something that i stir into my tea

rpf. these stories happen all the time; just because you have not heard them does not mean it didn’t happen. anne hathaway/scott speedman. rated r. 3501 words.

notes: i just realized i had not posted fic in close to two months. that is sad, sad times. and i think i have been working on this one for the better part of a month? haha, whoops. anyway, this is much in the vein of every other rpf fic i have written where no, none of this actually happened, but these people are rather hot and i feel like they probably should get it on, idk. also, a long time ago viennawaits wrote her own take on this pairing, a little bit elementary, and i love it to pieces and credit it for why i even bothered writing these two, haha. OKAY. BYE NOW.

you're not going to fall in love are you?
not with someone who’s always leaving.

(OUT OF AFRICA)

You’ve got your guys and you’ve got your girls and you’ve got the connections and the little beginnings, middles and ends they create for themselves.

You’ve got the things that happen.

This happens. This happened.

So there’s that.

-

First, a movie happens.

A screenwriter sits down one day, maybe in a coffeeshop, maybe in a diner, maybe in a cluttered den only he himself is privy to. But he sits and he writes and he churns out page after page of HE SAID – , SHE SAID – , of the exposition, the rising action, a climax, and the fall.

Maybe he was the sort of writer that saved the resolution for last. Or perhaps not. He might have been the sort who started with a vision of the end in mind and built up and up and off of that.

A script is written. That happens.

Faxes are sent and calls are made and something like movie magic occurs and suddenly there is a whole list of names attached to these sheets of bound paper – a producer, the money, a director, a sound mixer, titles endemic only to Hollywood.

A cast is assembled. Auditions happen.
They meet.

Yes. That happens.

-

Before he even read the script, words were thrown around, two words in particular: sexual frankness.

He didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. He didn’t think he liked the imagery it inspired. Sexual frankness. He thought of the French, he thought pretentious, he thought full-frontal nudity. He thought Chloe Sevigny swallowing around some guy’s dick or whatever.
He was pretty damn sure he didn’t want to be that guy.

He auditioned anyway.

“What the fuck else you got on your plate?” his agent had barked.

His acquiesce was his answer.

-

“Anne,” she said. Her shoulders were set back and she had a long neck, a swan’s neck.

“Scott,” he said and when he took her hand her grip was firm. He had not shaved in close to a month and her eyes had roamed over the stretch and curve of his jaw and chin.

“Marvelous,” she chirped.

-

Before, what he knew of her was this: her mouth was too big, almost grotesquely so, and one time she was a teenage princess and another time her Euro boyfriend ripped her off or, like, pretended to know the pope, or something, and went to prison and then she was nominated for an Oscar – but not because of the shady, incarcerated boyfriend, rather because she played some faux-ugly drug addict or whatever.

Not bad for the under thirty crowd.

Like he would understand that.

(“You get close to the top, right? But, buddy, it’s like, it’s like fucking treading water, okay? You gotta work at it, you gotta keep moving, you gotta – ”

He needs a new agent).

-

The film is to be shot in Cape Town, South Africa.

He had imagined that Anne would arrive for their flight dressed as though heading off on a safari deep into the Serengeti. He thought there would be khaki shorts with too high a rise and long, pale legs that led down to feet clad in fashionable heels with no function. She would wear a white Oxford shirt tucked in and there would be a hat. He would want to hate her for all of this, the ostentation, the declaration of Hollywood and high fashion and the promise, the threat, that he would be stuck with this for the next handful of months.

Instead Scott does not recognize her from across the airport terminal until she stands beneath the sign for their gate and she bites her bottom lip in a gesture of confusion and concentration.

Her jeans are tight and dark; they hug her thighs in a way he likes more than he would ever care to admit. Her t-shirt is striped, black and white and black and white and faded. The worn cotton clings to her chest, the neckline cut down in a deep V; a knotted red scarf hides any flash of skin and flesh from him. Her hair is messy, a ponytail loose at the nape of neck and her face is clean and bare.

Anne’s mouth slices open wide in a smile when she spots him. She waves. He lifts a hand back and twin clusters of lines crinkle at the corners of his eyes.

It isn’t that he does not like her. He doesn’t even know her. It’s just that there are some things Scott is sure of, and chief among which is the simple fact Anne is not what he wants.

-

Rehearsals were in Los Angeles.

Rehearsals are never enough to get a feel for a person.

It’s called practice for a reason, he reminds himself later.

(Then, then, Los Angeles and the glare – the sun, a windshield, lens flare – he had thought her overblown, he had thought her theatrical, and she, Anne, she had opened her mouth and laughed and laughed and laughed).

-

On the plane, Anne reads from a pamphlet.

“Do you like whiskey?” she asks him. Scott shifts in his seat, his seatbelt still buckled and tight low on his hips.

“Beg pardon?” he says. The shades are drawn on the window next to their seats. Anne sits by the window; Scott has the aisle. First class, and there is leather, oversized seats but still not enough leg room. There’s an ache in his knee that started in Los Angeles and has persisted since their connecting flight in London. He rests his left cheek on his shoulder as he turns to look at her.

“Apparently, the charming resort we are booked at is renowned for its, uh, Whiskey Bar? And Wine Bar? But that’s not what I’m talking about.” She thumbs back a couple of pages and bites her bottom lip, knits her brow. “360 whiskies. Like, I am hardly a booze connoisseur or what-have-you, but that sort of strikes me as a whole lot of whiskey.”

He snorts and smiles into the sharp curve of his shoulder. Anne flips back to whatever page she had been reading and Scott can see photographs of open-air cafes and a beach and he’s pretty sure she didn’t see his grin.

“The pool looks nice,” he says softly. Anne stills and the corners of her mouth crinkle in a smile without teeth.

“I thought so too,” she finally says.

-

Scott packed a couple Hemingway paperbacks, still brand new – their spines rigid and clean, the pages stiff and unturned. He throws a Grisham in, a measurable guarantee that it will be read before any of the other novels are cracked open.

“They’re called best-sellers for a reason,” he once sneered to an ex. She had mocked him, teased him for his reading selections while she sat there with her thousand page tomes of Dostoevsky or what-the-fuck-ever.

“So pedestrian,” she had said.

He remembers: he had not liked that. He had not liked that at all.

-

“Are you in love with him?” Scott asks, his voice canted lower and rougher than usual. An unexpected wind kicks up and he wonders if it will ruin the shot.

Anne has an arm wrapped tight around her waist and a hand raised to her eyes, against the glare of the afternoon sun. She shakes her head slightly, her mouth firm and serious.

He knows that the unspoken question here is supposed to be, “Do you love me?” - that this is the big dramatic scene or whatever, amid all the dust and the brown and the unending stretch of flat sky and dry, aching heat.

Their eyes meet and he knows they got their shot.

-

The dust continues to kick. Filming is canceled for the rest of the day. The screened-in porch off of the hotel restaurant proves a refuge to cast and crew alike. Anne curls neatly in a wicker armchair with faded striped cushions. He settles into the chair next to hers, its mate, and their feet share the matching wicker ottoman. He opens his book.

“You like Hemingway?” Anne asks. She wears those sunglasses, the huge ones, round and oversize, the sort of sunglasses you might find in a senior center, a shuffleboard court, on his grandmother, on women older than his grandmother, the women of Palm Beach, of apartments on the Upper East Side he has never seen.

“Sure,” he says, noncommittal.

“What’s your favorite?” She poses the question like maybe she’s an expert. He can’t see her eyes or much of her eyebrows behind the plastic tortoiseshell of her glasses.

He pauses, plays like maybe he’s mulling the question over in his head.

“I guess the one with the bullfights – I really liked that one,” he says, the timbre of his voice slow and lazy, thick as the same heat that engulfs the open porch, the same heat that creeps in unbidden, paired with the bursts of green in the stalks of thirsty plants and drying grasses.

“The Sun Also Rises,” she says. It’s not a question. He does not acknowledge it.

He still can't see her eyes.

-

Anne hides from the sun.

Out here, her skin stays pale and untouched. Scott does the opposite. He relishes in it, likes how at the end of the day his skin feels taut, rough and baked and pulled tight across his warmed muscle and bone.

He will wake in the morning, throw back the curtains and stretch.

He wonders if she does the same.

-

The film wraps that day. They celebrate.

Their hotel has a bar and lounge on the first floor. The lounge opens up in a wall of glass and ajar French doors. There are low-hanging lamps lit by low-watt bulbs and the couches are a red plush that strikes Scott as out of place.

Anne dances. He drinks. Anne drinks and she dances, but Scott only drinks. He drinks and he watches and if there is a degree of self-consciousness to her she does not show it; either she buries it well, or maybe, and perhaps more likely, she simply does not possess it. He settles into the out of place red plush couches and he watches.

There is something wild about her.

Untamed might be the better word for it.

Later, she insists on shots that she calls Lemon Drops at the bar and the taste is too sweet, too tart as it goes down and he insists on a shot of Jack to balance it out.

Anne agrees.

She drinks and she dances and he settles into the out of place red plush couches. There is a formula at work here, a formula those who frequent scenes such as this are well-acquainted with – there is a closing of perimeter, a lessening of distance between two people.

He nurses a beer and his spine is slick with sweat. Her arms raise and her hips have found a rhythm all their own.

Her teeth gnash into a smile, her knee bumps against his and she dances over him.

Two separate points on a grid, and the line has been drawn; they have been connected.

Her knees settle on either side of his thighs and her hips still move, a counterbeat to the music and he watches, he watches still.

-

They shot the sex scenes early on.

The director referred to them as “love scenes,” but after that week of shooting, Scott found little sexual and even less romantic or love-fueled to be found in the proceedings.

It had all the spontaneity and passion of a routine physical, a game of anesthetized pre-pubescent Twister.

Your right hand on her left hip.

Her mouth on your mouth.

Raise her leg but lower your own.

There had been little thought the first time he kissed her. It was quick, dry and passionless. He had given it little thought, and they were forced to reshoot it a dozen times.

Finally, it was Anne who said: “For God’s sake.”

She took his face in both her hands and her mouth had opened wet and wanting over his and his lips and tongue moved back in kind.

He had not thought then either.

-

She smells like alcohol and girl and sweat.

“I thought you girls were supposed to be better behaved than this,” he drawls, his mouth thick, up the column of her throat, along the whorl of her right ear. A strand of dark hair catches against his upper lip.

There is an undignified start of a giggle from her. She braces her weight on her knees and the curve of her ass brushes against the top of his thighs. His hand fits easy in the crook of damp skin behind the bend of her knee.

“Us girls, huh?” she says on a grin. Anne presses a hand flat against his chest and leans back a little, her eyes bright but still a little guarded. His fingers rub idly up the back of her thigh; his other hand grips the smooth fabric of the couch. The hand on his chest presses firmer against him and then slides down. Her hand slides back up as he inhales tight. She toys with the line of buttons before smiling, all straight white teeth and stained lips.

“So ladylike,” she hums and undoes his top button, the one just below the valley of his throat. The pads of her fingers are warm against the now-exposed skin of his chest. Anne rakes through the light patch of hair and her smiles grows.

She settles her hips down against his and he grunts. He’s half-hard against the seam of his jeans – against her, and that scrap of a skirt rides up even more, he’s half-hard against her, between her legs – and there’s a drop of sweat slicking down his spine. He thinks she has to feel this – he lifts his hips and shifts just a little beneath her and his hand slides higher up her thigh; his fingers catch the hem of her skirt.

Anne leans in. Scott looks up at her.

“Was I supposed to say please first?” she asks.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathes and her mouth is too close to his own.

A remix of an old, familiar pop song starts up and out of the corner of his eye he can see a handful of people swaying on a small square of dance floor. No one’s watching here. No one watches in Los Angeles either, not him at least, but they’d watch her. They would watch Anne, all pale skin and vintage couture or whatever the fuck that means anyway – dark hair and big eyes and maybe she is a big deal and maybe he’s not.

It doesn’t matter.

She rocks her hips against his, a simple back and forth motion, and Scott nibbles at her bottom lip.

Scott knows how these things work. He thinks he knows how these things work. They are on the edge here, they are walking a fine line. If he opens his mouth to her, if she opens hers, if they allow the spit-slick tangle of their two tongues – it’s all over. Tomorrow is going to ache enough as it is, a painful hangover as a reminder paired with the heat of embarrassment.

Anne sighs quietly and he can feel the scratch of fingernails against the nape of his neck.

She kisses him and he kisses back.

-

The final shot of the film takes place on a landing strip.

A plane idles in the distance and the propellers beat. The plane is inoperable, a prop, but the propellers still turn and the engine still whirs and the entire airfield reeks of gasoline.

His character is dead. Hers is alive.

She wraps a gray shawl around her bare shoulders, the white hem of her sundress stained a tawny brown, and runs to the plane.

“Here’s looking at you kid,” Scott had muttered from behind the camera that final shot.

Anne looked back over her shoulder.

-

Her room is quiet. The curtains dance in front of open windows and outside the sea crashes against a waiting shore and Scott thinks if he tries, he might be able to hear it. He doesn’t try.

He presses his mouth to her forehead. “Are we really going to do this?” she asks. The sound is muffled against the downward slope of his neck and he swallows. Anne’s hands are light on either side of his chest, fingers skimming his shirt, just below his shoulders. There is a lilt to her voice that makes him smirk against her hairline.

He thinks that he’ll regret this. He thinks he has never really liked girls like her, but he goes with it – he leads with it – all the same.

He knows he will regret this.

He knows other things as well:

She likes it when he bends her in half, legs open and ass perched on a countertop, a desk, a table, the vanity, dresser, anything but a bed, apparently. Her knees bent and braced tight on either side of his chest, bare back arched in a neat curve he can feel with the palm of his hand but can’t see;

She is quiet when she comes but her hands are strong and fight against the firm weight of his shoulders and close and clench around the muscles of his upper arm;

Her bed smells like her and her skin is bright, too bright, even in the darkened room;

They will not talk about this come morning. He will leave early, before she awakens, maybe, before the sun rises fixed and firm, perhaps. But he will leave and she will wake and they both will shower in their separate bathrooms and they both might still be able to smell the other on their skin but neither will dwell on this. They will not talk about this.

Autumn has come and their plane will leave and maybe she knows all of this too, maybe that’s why she asked him, “are we really going to do this?” in that timid and small voice that got lost against his throat.

It was a question she already knew the answer to, but she asked it anyway.

Maybe it was her way of saying to him, “I thought so too.”

When he leaves the sun is orange and trying for height in the open sky.

-

“You talk like you’re drugged,” she said one afternoon. She chewed on a strand of her hair as she said it and Scott had tried to avoid her eye over the rim of his aviator sunglasses.

“I don’t know what that means,” he said.

Her smile, he had thought, would be cruel on anyone else and he wasn’t sure what he did to deserve that. On her it was merely mocking, teasing but not completely malicious.

“You talk like you’re tired. Like a tired cowboy.”

“That might be the greatest compliment I have ever received,” he deadpanned.

She laughed.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “I thought so too.”

-

There was never an agenda here.

Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes people meet and sometimes they fall in love. Sometimes they don't. It never works in that simple addition and subtraction route easy things like romantic comedies and thin paperback best-sellers are apt to lead one to believe. But it does happen.

Maybe that’s the miraculous part of all of this.

It does happen.

-

Late in the fall their plane will taxi at LAX and Africa will have set behind them.

At the airport terminal her luggage will arrive first, circling the carousel in slow motion, and she will be the first to leave.

They will not meet again until the winter.

Winter in Los Angeles is a misnomer, is misleading, but she will wear velvet and he will dress as though the possibility of snow is on the air.

“Anne,” he will say with a nod.

“Scott,” and perhaps her own movements will mirror his own. Perhaps not.

That’s the problem with people, isn’t it?

You think you’ve got them right there, you think you’ve got them pinned down and each and every action and exertion their body will expend can be predicted and foretold.

People are like the weather in that sense. There is always enough wiggle room for that surprise storm.

Winter in Los Angeles does not exist. Pressure systems can be miscalculated and rain may arrive instead of shine. We can never correctly predict these things, we can merely hope and guess.

To their premiere they will arrive in different cars; they will exchange greetings and pose for photographs and maybe their skin will touch.

What will happen next we cannot say.

-

fin.

fanmix: little monsters (lost)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:39:07 GMT

SO. Fanmix time! I'm just going to go ahead and put this whole thing under a cut because I have no idea how spoiler-y this could be considered. But you know. Assume spoilers for the bulk of season five?

So, from way back when - like episode 3 of this season? - I decided Charles/Eloise was where it's at, haha. And then, you know. There was that whole canon confirmation with the reveal that Dan is Eloise and Charles's kid (...not so shocking, haha) and then Richard telling Jack that "love can be complicated" when he inquired after the relationship between these two, and I DON'T KNOW. They're sort of epic, and they're Others and young!Widmore is really hot. That's really the only defense I need.

On that note (no pun intended), fanmix time!

ZIP HERE

ONE. LITTLE MONSTERS; charlotte gainsbourg
little monsters that rule the world
you don't know what you're really saying
stop before someone ends up getting hurt
can't you see that we're only playing

TWO. SOLDIER'S GRIN; wolf parade
this place here is no friend of mine
what is passed, we'll just leave it behind

THREE. SEPARATE AND EVER DEADLY; the last shadow puppets
and he stands separate and ever deadly
clings onto my throat and won't let go

FOUR. UNDER PRESSURE (QUEEN & DAVID BOWIE COVER); xiu xiu
cause love's such an old fashioned word
and love dares you to care for the people on the edge
of the night
and love dares you to change our way of caring about
ourselves

FIVE. UNFINISHED BUSINESS; white lies
you've got blood on your hands
and i know it's mine
i just need more time

SIX. HITCHED; the kills
don't you leave me here
get my name stitched on your lips so you won't get hitched

SEVEN. PREGNANT; cold war kids
you worry me
when you don't believe

EIGHT. GOODBYE BABYLON; the black keys
now our boys, the fallen, our leaders are all appallin’
and you can bet by god, good will is gone

NINE. KNIFE; grizzly bear
i want you to know
when i look in your eyes
with every blow
comes another lie

TEN. CREATURE FEAR; bon iver
so many territories
ready to reform
don't let it form us

ELEVEN. THERE THERE (THE BONEY KING OF NOWHERE); radiohead
in pitch dark i go walking in your landscape
broken branches trip me as i speak
just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there…
we are accidents
waiting, waiting to happen

TWELVE. THE MEN ARE CALLED HORSEMEN THERE; sunset rubdown
if i'm sorry, then so are you
cause i, i go where you tell me to

THIRTEEN. SKELETONS (ACOUSTIC); yeah yeah yeahs
love my name
love left dry
frost or flame
skeleton me

fic: the worst-case scenario survival handbook (lost)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:16:30 GMT

the worst-case scenario survival handbook

lost. a plane crashes in the jungle. if no one is alive to hear it, does it make a sound? original characters. rated r. 7860 words.

notes: haha, oh boy. this shall be known as the fic that ate my brain. and yes - original characters in a lost fic. oh, er, original of me? so, you remember that one time nikki and paulo were around and they were supposed to just be two random crash survivors and wound up being the most annoying jewel thieves on the planet? i sort of ran with that idea (minus the jewel thieving) and made two random background characters up and told the story through their eyes? THAT SAID: this is cracky and ridiculous and has zero literary (or fic) merit, haha. basically, i just really love deserted island stories. the end!

will you meet me down on a sandy beach
we can roll up our jeans
so the tide won’t get us below the knees

(colors and the kids, cat power)

Every story has a protagonist. And every protagonist has his sidekicks. Behind the sidekicks stand the aptly named background characters and Molly understands that. She understands that so she stands in the background.

She watches the news. She has read the books. She knows the words they use for people like her.

She’s pretty sure it’s called collateral damage, and she is pretty sure that does not bode too well for whatever future chain of events time and history and god or the island (what-the-fuck-ever) has planned out for her.

On September 22, 2004 her plane crashed.

But you already knew that.

-

Want to know the real problem here? Want to know what’s going to be the wrench in all of this, the thing that blows the train off the tracks and makes this that much sadder and that much bigger of a mess than it already needs to be?

No one ever looks at themselves and thinks white noise. No one ever looks in a mirror and no one ever sits back and calls themselves anything less than the main character. We’re all the main characters in the stories of our lives. That’s how that works. That’s how it has always worked.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern got their own fucking play out of the concept, man.

Molly Brighton won’t get her own but that’s okay too. That doesn’t totally have to suck. She has always thought the theater was for losers anyway.

-

It starts with the words tray tables in their upright position, or maybe that really didn’t happen. Maybe she dreamt it the same way people dream about car crashes and train derailments and the long tumble down an unreal flight of stairs.

Molly can’t remember now, but that might be on account of the large cut on her forehead. It aches like hell, but it really hurts when she wrinkles up her forehead or just, like, moves her eyebrows up and down. Not that she does that a lot. But she’s doing it a lot now, now that she knows it makes the wound wince, which sounds so totally creepy and masochistic and she doesn’t mean it like that, but she’s just curious.

She furrows her brow once and it hurts, and when she furrows her brow again, this time a little deeper, it hurts even more.

“I have a bleeding head wound,” she says out loud, but no one’s really listening. There’s this blonde chick just, like, standing there, screaming her head off but Molly can’t really hear her from where she’s sitting. The propellers are still making noise and everyone seems to just be yelling and screaming, though unlike the blonde they’re all scurrying around. Bees in a hive or ants on a hill or something, and she’s not really sure what any of them are trying to accomplish, running around like that, but whatever. To each his own. She’s just going to sit there, on the beach, far enough away from the fire and the burning jet fuel (which fucking reeks, for the record, she’s never going to get that smell off her skin, out of her hair, out of her nose) and the gentle lap of the ocean.

-

She sits there for awhile.

She thinks they call this shock. She is trying her best to remember everything she ever learned from middle school health classes or that CPR course she took when she was like 16 and worked at the Des Moines Community Center, or, hell, any of those creepy ass medical shows she used to watch on TLC.

Nothing really rings a bell.

Instead she sits in the sand and she’s far enough away that she can’t feel the heat from the still smoldering fires and she can’t really hear the things people are saying and yelling to each other, and that’s okay. She likes the distance. Her forehead has stopped bleeding and she thinks about her boyfriend Donny and whether or not he is still in Sydney and whether or not he has heard about the crash and whether or not they are even still boyfriend and girlfriend after last night. She thinks about New York, she thinks about what all her friends will say when she tells them this story in a couple days. “Our plane fucking crashed,” she would say and they would drink martinis to celebrate awesome things like cheating death and rescue helicopters and being alive and well in New York City. And maybe Donny would forgive her, or, like, fuck Donny, maybe she’d meet someone better, maybe she’d get to go on Oprah and tell her tale of survival and –

“Are you okay?”

Molly looks up. There’s this guy standing above her. She raises a hand and shields her eyes but he’s still backlit too bright against the sun. He’s tall, but then again she’s sitting down, so, like, a Muppet or a midget would probably appear tall to her. Still. She’s pretty sure he’s tall by most standards, sitting or otherwise. He’s young, or at least as young, if not a year or two older, than she is. He has dark hair and he looks like he hasn’t shaved in a day or two and his neck is all caked with dried blood. Gross.

“Sure,” she says. Her throat is really dry and the word makes it hurt.

She stays seated and he stays standing and he looks at her all intently, and great. She’s found the one creeper stalker that was aboard their plane. Awesome.

“Do I know you?” this guy asks her. Molly shakes her head, which was sort of stupid. It makes her neck ache that much more. “You sure?” he asks. Molly’s face sours and she purses her lips. Like, why would she lie about knowing him? He’s not her type at all – his shirt has a collar and his sleeves are rolled and there’s a Jackson Pollock-esque dash of red blood over the breast pocket and his belt matches his shoes and he’s got a face that says fine breeding the same way his shirt says his initials, AFW, over the pocket and the blood and his chest.

“Well,” she says, pauses for effect. “We were just on the same plane. You might know me from there.” She can almost taste the acid of her words on her tongue, and it tastes good and that makes her smile.

His smile in return is cautious and guarded but his teeth are sharp and she sort of likes that too.

“Alec,” he says and extends a hand. “I’m Alec Webb.”

She takes his hand and stands.

“I’m Molly Brighton.”

-

People are already starting to act like this is fucking home now. Home, despite the monster in the jungle that sounds more like a broken piece of machinery than Godzilla, and home, despite the polar bears, whatever the fuck that’s all about. These weirdos seriously start acting like this might be home.

Molly hates these people.

They all take the blue, regulation airline blankets and they try to drape them over glorified twigs and sticks and call it a home. It depresses her.

And, okay. Maybe the main reason this is beyond depressing for her is because back home she could barely even put together the bookcase she bought from Ikea that one time. She is not a fucking carpenter. And trying to build a house all MacGyver-like out of the broken remains of a jumbo jet coupled with, like, foliage and mud isn’t exactly easy.

So she just stares for awhile. She crosses her arms over her chest and stares at the collection of various items before her. Thinks about Gilligan’s Island and HGTV. Neither are proving really all that helpful at the moment.

“Need a hand?”

Molly whirls around and when she does she is defiant. It’s dumb. Whatever. Asking for help is lame and Molly doesn’t want to be lame, but she also doesn’t want to be homeless, so, yeah, hello, crossroad.

It’s that Alec guy from earlier. He’s still dressed like he’s going to meet the good old boys at the club later for a scotch, but like a wrinkled and cranky version of that. Actually, he looks sort of like the morning after version of that scenario with maybe a strip club or two thrown into the mix.

And of course she needs a hand. She just can’t decide if this is the sort of dude you ask for one.

She shrugs.

Alec takes that as a yes.

-

Some dead dude (or chick, she guesses) aboard their plane was a total klepto, because, like, she finds this suitcase filled with all those tiny shampoo and conditioner bottles hotels give you for free. Or maybe he worked for a hotel and sold those little bottles, but she doesn’t think that’s how it works.

But she has shampoo now. So that’s sort of awesome.

Everyone bathes in the ocean here, which is just. Ew. Total Third World country-esque or something nasty and unhygienic.

Molly wanders down the stretch of beach, primarily because she is not a total exhibitionist like some of their former fellow passengers. No one needs to watch you try to wipe yourself down in the ocean. Like, no one.

So she wanders down the beach, wanders far enough down so that no one can see her, but not too far in case, like, Poseidon or some sea monster tries to eat her they’ll all be able to hear her scream. That’s called planning ahead.

She rounds a curve, and oh shit. There is Alec. There is Alec, in the ocean. And sure, the water is up to his waist, but she’s like 99% positive he is totally naked, and yeah. Awkward.

And probably made all the more awkward that Molly, you know, stares at him.

He has a build like a mangy frat boy or something. Like maybe at some point he was really skinny and fit, a runner or whatever, but enough beer or keg stands and Monday night football nacho sessions have had their toll and all that’s left of previous muscle definition are a few lines and a sort of flat stomach and not much else.

Not that it’s a bad thing. No girl really wants to go to bed with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or at least no girl should want to go to bed with Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his current incarnation or, like, ever.

Not that she wants to go to bed with Alec. That’s not what she’s saying at all. Nope. Not at all.

She turns on her heel and heads in the opposite direction.

She can wash off later.

-

Some people move into the caves. Molly stays on the beach. Alec stays on the beach too.

She sort of hangs out with Alec out of lack of anyone else to talk to. The feeling seems to be mutual because it’s not like he acts like he resents talking to her or whatever. Sometimes he hangs out with Scott or Steve and sometimes she sits around with Shannon, but Shannon’s more of a Debbie Downer than the situation really warrants, so yeah.

“What were you doing in Oz, hm?” he asks her.

“Ew,” she says. “Don’t call it that. You sound super douchey.”

Alec rolls his eyes. “Fine. What were you doing in Australia?” He puts an unnecessary emphasis on the word Australia so he sounds just as douchey and obnoxious as he did the first go round.

“Is this your idea of small talk? Because it sucks. This isn’t the airport lounge or a singles mixer or wherever you seem to think we are.”

“Are you always this charming? Or are you just trying to avoid the question?”

“Fuck off,” she sighs. “I was in Australia because my boyfriend is a DJ and he had a gig there. The end.”

Alec frowns.

“Was he on the plane?” This makes her laugh. And based on Alec’s reaction this is probably not the most appropriate thing she could have done.

“Jesus. No. You think I’d just be chilling out if my boyfriend was missing right now? Or, like, dead?”

“I don’t know,” Alec says. “You don’t strike me as the most sentimental girl I’ve ever met.”

“That’s, like, not even being sentimental. That’s just…I don’t know. Being a human. You don’t think I’m a human?”

He smirks. “No. I happen to be of the opinion that you’re a robot. At the very least.”

Molly glances up at the sun. Sweat drips lazily at the back of her neck and along her spine. She wants to squirm but she doesn’t want to let Alec see that. “Are you waiting for me to rust out here?” she asks.

His mouth is lazy around a smile. “Sure. I think it’ll look good on you,” he says, and fuck, it’s like they’re flirting or something mildly dangerous, or sort of dangerous, but, like, not as dangerous as a plane crash. But almost.

She sighs loudly.

“I left him in Sydney.”

“What?”

“My boyfriend. We, we had a fight the night before and I decided I’d just go back to New York and we could work things out there. So I left. Got on the plane. And I imagine you know the rest.”

He nods his head and smiles this rue smile, and maybe he’s always smiled like that and nothing’s changed for him at all.

“What about you?” she asks and Alec looks confused. “Australia,” she prompts.

“Oh. Bachelor party.”

“In Australia?”

Alec shrugs. “He likes to party hard.”

Molly hums a little in the back of her throat, like maybe what he said makes sense, and in a way it does. She flew all the way to fucking Sydney for a party too.

“Are you from Los Angeles?” she asks. She doesn’t know why she keeps asking questions, but she does know that there is something threatening and all-consuming in the possibility of silence and she doesn’t want that. She wants the noise and she wants people and if that means continually asking this guy questions, then so be it.

“What? No,” he says. “New York. I’m from New York. I live in Manhattan. I, uh, work on Wall Street,” he says. Molly’s smile is genuine.

“Really? Me too. Well, the living in Manhattan part. I definitely do not work on Wall Street,” she says. Alec smiles too, but Alec is always smiling. “I work in a Starbucks. In Manhattan. I mean. I live there now. I was living there, Manhattan. I’m from Iowa originally. My parents still live – ” and she stumbles.

Alec catches the stumble for her.

“My parents have always lived in Manhattan,” he says in this bland sort of way, but he is watching her carefully. He’s watching her like he thinks she is seconds from some sort of massive hysteric breakdown, and fuck him, maybe she is.

“Oh yeah?” she finds herself saying in reply. “I bet that was nice.”

“Yeah,” he says, then pauses. “No. Not really. We were never exactly the happiest of families,” he says. “It was sort of all, trust no one, I guess.”

Molly snorts.

“Dude. That’s, like, totally from The X-Files. ‘Trust no one,’” she mimics. “Was your dad Fox Mulder?”

He narrows his eyes at her. “You watch The X-Files?” Alec says it like it’s a bad thing, or that she should be embarrassed about it, but, like, fuck him.

She twists a lock of hair around her finger and widens her eyes like he’s stupid and an asshole and shouldn’t say such annoying things to her.

“Well. What else do you watch at three in the morning?” And it’s so true, you know. There’s not much on TV at three in the morning. And it’s, like, sad that she watches TV at three in the morning. Taking hits of blow or just downing enough shots to keep her hips swiveling to the music used to make her so fucking horny, but lately it’s just been sort of like who cares. She doesn’t know if it’s the men who have become less attractive or she’s just getting older, but a woman’s libido is supposed to increase as she gets older, right? So that can’t be the problem, and the very thought that she’s bored of sex is just too depressing for words, so whatever. Back to the point. TV and Fox Mulder and Alec Webb and three AM and how her viewing choices do not make her a total, irredeemable loser. Because, like, sure, there are those infomercials about knives, but those are so fucking trippy when you yourself are already tripping, and there’s usually a Sylvester Stallone or Jean Claude Van Damme movie on, but fuck those guys, so she’ll settle on the aliens and the government and David Duchovny.

“I usually just settle for the Ambien,” he drawls, and Molly thinks she might really hate him. She looks to the ocean.

“What is it with your rich people and the whole not sleeping thing?”

Alec laughs a little and it’s unexpected. She draws her knees in to her chest and there is sand stuck to the backs of her legs and the grains smear across her hands and it is so official: she hates the beach.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Isn’t it, like, a proven fact that rich people don’t sleep well? All those medicine cabinets full of sleeping pills or whatever.” Her fingers draw patterns in the sand in the small space between her right hip and his left. “Maybe it’s a trade-off.”

“Hmm?” he hums.

“Maybe it’s, like, because you’re rich and you have all that money and wealth and like eight houses you don’t get to sleep well anymore. Like Faust. You get the whole trade-off. You have to give up a good night’s rest for the riches.”

He snorts.

“Totally worth it,” he says. Alec leans back on his elbows, some sort of portrait of Gatsby-era relaxation, like he’s Robert fucking Redford, but his face mars the image. His mouth is thin and tight, like his teeth are clenched real tight together and he’s grinding them down. That can’t be good for the enamel, Molly thinks. That can’t be good at all.

“Liar,” she sighs.

Alec doesn’t argue with her and she doesn’t know him well enough to know what that means. She has enough presence of mind to imagine it must mean something, and it probably does.

There is sand stuck to her calves and sand stuck into each and every pore of her skin and she hates it. Her body itches and the sun makes her glow tan and she thinks of leather a lot these days, imagines that’s what she’ll come to look like and it is gross and it frightens her a little.

The skies are blue and open and empty here and that scares her too.

-

So, like. Time passes.

It’s not like they get invited on hikes or anything. Or if hikes are really the sort of thing where invites are sent out and RSVPs are expected, but it kind of seems that way here at least. And Molly doesn’t really care. Nature can suck it. She doesn’t like the bugs and the mud and how everything on this damn island sticks in gross, gross places and it’s like she can never get clean (but maybe that’s because she showers in the motherfucking ocean now and fish pee in that same motherfucking ocean and oh Jesus Christ she’s been showering herself in fish piss for the last month, ugh).

It just gives her that much more downtime. And if anything, she has learned that downtime absolutely sucks when there is nothing more to do than pace the same strip of land or try to build a fort out of airplane wreckage or befriend a group of misfit strangers.

The bald old dude and the sort of hot guy with the blue eyes (“My name’s Boone,” he had told her and she had laughed and actually said, “Like Daniel?” and he had rolled his eyes like he gets that one at least once a year) go into the jungle on a sort of daily basis. Or at least the two of them are gone every morning and they come back every evening all Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The doctor is bossy and boring. There’s the former rock star dude and he’s sometimes good company, same goes for the knocked up chick. It’s just, Molly sort of forgot how big of an effort it can be to make friends.

“I thought making friends was supposed to be all natural and easy,” she tells Alec one evening.

“Well. You are sort of a bitch,” Alec says. And then he smiles and raises both his eyebrows all high like he’s saying, “ah-ha!” only without the words and only his eyebrows instead.

She glares at him. Alec puts down the knife he’s holding (he’s like whittling sticks, what the fuck is this?) and he looks at her all mock serious.

“What? The kids not being nice to you on the playground?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Fuck off. Asshole.” She looks over her shoulder. The Middle Eastern dude is fiddling with something technical looking by the bonfire. Hurley is with him. She likes Hurley. She thinks Hurley likes her too, so that’s nice. Maybe she can count him as friend. So that gets her up to…one? That’s sad. That’s really past the line of pathetic and into crazy cat lady territory.

And, oh, God. It’s like she misses everything right now. She misses skim lattes and she misses that fucking Norah Jones soundtrack Starbucks played all fucking day long while she made drinks she can’t even pronounce let alone comprehend their composition. She misses loud music and strangers and the way New York was always something new, how it didn’t matter where you went but you might see a familiar face, you might not but either way it was home and that always means something.

Her teeth sink into her slice of mango and this is so fucking lame but she’s blinking back tears and how goddamned pathetic is that? Like, at one point she was cool and at one point she might have even been considered badass, but here all she really wants to do is, like, weep, which, ugh. Lame. Lame, lame, lame, she wants to go home.

She turns back to Alec.

“Aren’t you lonely?” she asks. Alec purses his lips together. He’s one of those people with those ridiculously expressive faces. She’s getting that now. “I mean, I have zero friends here. I’m not used to that. I’m used to people. I’m used to company. I’m not…I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

And she doesn’t.

Alec picks up the knife again and then just as quickly he puts it back down. He stares at the knife and the handle and the collection of wood and wood shavings there and Molly is just on the point of asking what the hell he is even doing when he speaks first.

“I’m your friend,” he says. He looks at her directly, and he is way, way better at eye contact than she is. Molly tries but she does a pretty shitty job of maintaining it. She wants to, like, yell at him because really – his face is sort of beyond distracting. It’s just, he’s got those blue eyes and he’s wearing a blue shirt and it’s like the two sort of match and that’s not fair and he’s trying to pin her down with those same blue eyes, and he’s gotten tanner since they’ve been there and it doesn’t look bad on him, and his hair’s still dark and messy and he’s still got the stubble and Jesus Christ she finds Alec attractive. That’s what this is about. She finds this Alec Webb guy attractive. That complicates things a little. It always complicates things at least a little when you find someone attractive. It’s just, well, natural then to start extrapolating things like romantic or maybe just sexual potential and –

“Wait. What?” she says.

He shrugs and he doesn’t even look a little self-conscious. That’s not fair either. He twirls the knife between his fingers.

“I’m your friend.”

Alec is her friend. Molly is his friend.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” she says and Alec looks at her like a lot of things are really obvious, things like this, and well. Okay then.

-

A storm knocks out most of the camp. It’s one of those freak, middle of the night sort of things.

Molly wakes up to thunder and lightning and the roof of her tent caving in on itself and her.

“Great,” she mumbles into the plastic and the rainwater.

The next morning Alec helps her put it back together.

“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles. His hands slip over the wet fabric of her makeshift tent. “I could use a fucking drink,” he says.

Molly snorts.

“A nice cold beer?” she suggests.

“A bourbon on the rocks.”

“A dirty martini.”

“Jack Daniels, straight.”

“A margarita, no salt.”

“A sidecar.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

Alec shrugs.

“I don’t think anyone really does.”

They fix her tent and Molly laughs.

-

For awhile there, they all had something close to normal. There was even a golf course, for Christ’s sake. So they had that. And they had coconuts and mangoes and boar meet that was more akin to beef jerky than anything else.

It was close to normal. And maybe that was the problem. Maybe they all got too complacent, because now, now it’s like everything is bad and sad and scary. That pregnant chick Claire disappeared in the jungle, and then she came back and now apparently she’s giving birth. That guy Boone fell down and now he’s dead, and it’s not like Molly really knew him, but it still makes something sad twist inside of her.

Alec and Molly sit in a tense silence outside of his tent. She watches him, she watches his profile – the sharp bend of his nose and set of his lips, the beard that still threatens to grow in full, and –

“Oh my god,” Molly says.

“What?” Alex mumbles.

“I totally know you,” she says. He looks at her funny and clueless, and she gets that what she said is majorly fucking cryptic, but she’s sort of busy doing that thing in her brain where you connect the dots or arrange the film strip of your life, or whatever.

“Sydney,” she says. “I was there – the club,” she says. “I’m not making any sense.”

“No. No, you’re really not,” he says.

“I saw you at that club in Sydney. The night before the plane and the crash and everything. You were there. I remember you now. I saw you by the men’s bathroom.”

Alec narrows his eyes and then he laughs.

“Jesus Christ. I’ll be damned.” He laughs again, and there is something mocking in the tone of it. “You were the chick getting totally boned by the pay phones?”

“Shut up. I wasn’t getting…boned.”

“It totally looked like you were, man.”

There is a pause.

“I saw your nipple. By the way.”

“What?” she says. This is humiliating. And besides that, who the hell says that? Oh, by the way I saw your nipple, like, a month or so ago while you were macking on some dude. Awesome. Fuck.

“Your right nipple,” Alec says. “Yeah. Definitely saw that while you weren’t busy getting boned.”

“Stop using the word boned,” she snaps.

“Fine. You were that girl with her right tit hanging out while you were not having sexual intercourse outside the men’s bathroom. That better?”

Molly bites her bottom lip.

“Not really. No, actually.”

Alec makes a face as he takes a bite of boar meat. “Fucking sick,” he mutters, and then he looks up at her.

“Was that your boyfriend?” he asks.

“What…”

“The dude and the wall and your boobs – was that your boyfriend?”

“Um,” is all she says, and somehow the embarrassment of all of this just keeps growing, like, exponentially. It defies mathematics and logic and she really just wants to go all ostrich-like and burrow her way under the sand.

Alec smirks. Of course he fucking smirks.

“I thought as much,” he says. Molly sighs.

“Oh my god what does it even matter it’s not like I’m ever going to see him or the other him or any of the hims again anyway.”

Molly takes a deep breath and this is sad. There are a lot of things sad right now. It’s sad that she’s such a slut and sort of had sex with someone that wasn’t Donny and it’s sad that she used to do that shit all the fucking time and it’s so, so sad that this was the time that had to go and break the camel’s back and Donny had to go and scream at her and she had to scream back and it’s sad that it was enough to make her leave, make her buy a plane ticket, make her get on board and it is the fucking saddest thing on the planet that this plane had to go and crash and the last thing Donny ever said to her was that she was a whore and he hated her. Molly doesn’t know what to do with that. Molly doesn’t known, has never known, what do with the serious things life has to offer like people and responsibilities and goodbyes and love and anything really.

“Holy shit,” she says in this quiet, dead, like, robot voice. “They all think I’m dead.”

Alec looks at her funny. Again. But actually, no, his face isn’t that funny. His face is just really sad – another sad thing to add to the list, right there with ‘Claire had a baby in the jungle,’ and ‘that guy Boone went and died’ – and the whole world must think he’s dead too.

It’s like they are ghosts. It’s like they don’t even exist in this world anymore.

“You’re not dead,” Alec says, all firm and authoritative, and that’s stupid. She knows she isn’t dead. “You’re not dead,” he repeats, and the sun is setting all orange and red and yellow behind his head and into the ocean.

“You’re not dead,” he repeats, and it’s earnest and she doesn’t know what that means exactly.

His fingers brush over hers in the sand and she does not move a muscle.

For the first time since meeting him, Molly wonders what it would be like to kiss him. She watches their hands – his over hers – in the sand and her eyes wander to his mouth. She does not look at Alec’s eyes.

She decides that his mouth probably tastes like boar meat and she is glad she does not kiss him. She is glad he does not kiss her.

Sort of.

-

Things go from bad to worse. Like, if that’s possible.

So, this crazy bitch is all French and all, “The Others are coming,” like any of them know what the fuck that means.

The doctor tells them to go to the caves.

So they do.

Molly lays down with a blanket wrapped around her and Alec just sits next to her, his back curved.

“I know how to sail, you know,” he says, like, totally at random.

“Um,” she says. “No. No I didn’t know that.”

Alec doesn’t elaborate. Molly sits up on her elbows.

“Why didn’t you go on the raft then? You could have – you could have left,” she says.

Alec looks at her and Molly is nervous. But, you know. That could be on account of these Others that are supposedly coming or the fact they are sleeping in a fucking cave or maybe just the part where they are stuck on a deserted island. Or maybe it’s none of the above. Maybe she’s nervous because Alec looks at her and for once he isn’t smiling and that’s something new, that’s something different.

“You could have left,” she repeats quietly.

Alec shakes his head.

“No I couldn’t have,” he says.

The Others do not come that night. Which, like, praise Jesus or whatever.

They return to the beach in a couple days time and she returns to her tent and if Alec returns to her tent too, then so what? It’s not like they’re being all scandalous and fucking like rabbits (she will not be another Claire, hell no), but sometimes it’s nice to have company and sometimes it’s nice not to fall asleep alone and it’s nice the way she wakes up in his arms even though she didn’t fall asleep there and –

Yeah. This could be a problem.

(“So, like, you and Alec?” Shannon asks her.

“Whaaaat,” is all Molly says.

Shannon laughs and shrugs at the same time.

“Everyone knows he spends the night in with you.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Right.”

Bitch).

-

Day-to-day routine becomes defined by the existence of this creepy bunker thing that apparently saves the world?

She will never be able to wrap her head around that one. No way in hell.

But she’s on duty sometimes, and as nice as it should be to be surrounded by the trappings of civilization, it’s really sort of not. It’s actually really sort of creepy.

She doesn’t really know what it means that comfort and home or whatever has come to be defined by her tent and the evening and Alec in there with her.

She doesn’t think about it. She presses the button and she tries to make a smoothie with the blender (and fails) and listens to music she has never heard of. She does that, and then:

Sawyer comes back with a bullet and that Korean couple is reunited and Shannon dies, Shannon dies and there are all these people from the backend of the plane and they all walk and talk like ghosts, and it’s then, of course it’s then, that she remembers:

This place is fucking hell.

-

It’s like this: there is a bang or a blast or something really not normal and something potentially, like, fatal. That happens and the sky goes purple. Seriously. Purple.

The air goes funny too, a high-pitched noise all caught up in it and Molly clamps her hands over her ears and hunches over.

Later, it’s a group of them that decide to head into the jungle. It’s a group of them that decides to go looking for Hurley and Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Michael, and in that group is Alec but not Molly.

Later, it’s this:

“I’ll be back,” he says, like it’s nothing, like he’s running to Taco Bell for a fucking chalupa or something. But it’s not nothing, Molly doesn’t say. It’s not nothing – it’s really sort of everything. If he goes into the jungle chances are he won’t come back out. She isn’t stupid. She’s been paying attention. There are things in this jungle and things on this island that eat men alive and take men and don’t give them back, and maybe it’s the green and the jungle itself. Maybe this is motherfucking Jurassic Park and there are angry dinosaurs all pissed at Mother Nature and comets and God for that extinction business, and it’s not even that she likes Alec, but she’s just really not a fan of the idea of him being ripped limb for limb by a pack of vicious velicoraptors or whatever, and that’s totally understandable. You don’t wish death on people, you don’t wish violent dismemberment and gore. Even if you don’t like them and even if they are named Alec Webb and they talk all condescending and like they know shit you’ve never heard of just because they work on Wall Street, but Charlie Sheen did that too and look where it got him.

That’s not the point here. The point is Alec fills his water bottle with the collected rainwater that always manages to taste somehow both stale and sweaty and he says, “I’ll be back,” and shrugs a little. There’s already sweat collected in the center of his chest and the light grey of his t-shirt highlights this as it darkens from the moisture.

“You don’t have to prove anything,” she says. Alec glares and frowns at the same time and, wow, that was really the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it. “That’s not what I mean,” she says quickly.

Alec’s voice is cold when he says: “Then what exactly did you mean?”

Suddenly it’s like Molly can feel everything and it’s too much. The sun is too hot and her hair is too heavy, clinging thick in a ponytail at the back of her neck. There is sweat everywhere and sand everywhere and she is tired, she is really tired because it’s like everything on this little piece of land is such an effort and it’s exhausting after awhile. It’s exhausting, this whole pretending not to care but wanting to survive game they all seem to be playing. And Alec is exhausting. Alec with his stupid grin that scares her more times than not, and it’s not fair that Alec gets to be tall and Alec gets to be strong and that she has to be Molly and she has to wait on the beach, that she has to be afraid all the time. It isn’t fair that she wants him to stay, that she wants him to stay right here with her and she just doesn’t have the voice or the lack of pride to tell him.

It’s so fucking stupid.

Instead of the truth she puts her hands on her hips. Molly puts her hands on her hips and she says two words – “be careful” – and it’s so fucking stupid because it’s all she can say because suddenly she has this knot in her throat that’s not giving up and she wants to cry, but it’s not just Alec, it’s a lot of things, but maybe it’s just Alec too.

-

Alec comes back. Of course Alec comes back, why wouldn’t he?

He comes back and the bottoms of his jeans are soaked clear up to his knees and there is mud, everywhere. There is an angry gash along his collarbone and the blood has dried brown along the slight dip of a V of the collar of his shirt. His beard has grown in a little more. He looks like hell.

“You alright?” she asks him.

“Sure,” Alec says, and his eyes are wide and sort of glazed – like they were dropping acid or smoking blunt after blunt out there in the wildlife. Or then again, maybe not. There’s fear there too, and the knuckles of his left hand are bruised and bloodied.

When he grabs her by the wrist it catches her off guard. His thumb moves back and forth over the jut of bone at the corner of her wrist, like he’s soothing her or something and that’s stupid, she thinks. She’s fine. He’s fine and she’s fine.

When Molly turns her head and raises her chin, when she looks him in the eye, her breath catches in her chest.

“Alec,” she says and the sound is hesitant, unsure, and those are two things she is too. She swallows hard.

And that’s that.

He kisses her.

-

So if she was being rational and if she was being all honest she would say something like, “this was only a matter of time,” because that’s the truth.

He kisses her and she kisses him back and his mouth is hot and so is hers.

The button of his jeans is warm beneath her fingers. The zipper is warm too. All of him is warm and warmer still when she slides his pants down past his hips and lets them catch at the tops of his thighs.

Alec is big. Like, yeah. Big. Bigger than she expected, though it’s not like she’s been sitting around wondering how big his dick is because that would be stupid. And vaguely whorish. You don’t just meet men and then spend time wondering what they look like with their pants off. That’s the polar opposite of ladylike. That’s, like, not even on the same continuum as ladylike. Ladies don’t think about penises. Or at least that’s what Molly’s mother taught her, or, you know, taught her implicitly and without words because, gross.

Alec cups her face with both hands and he kisses her slow, slow like he’s studying her; Molly presses a hand flat low on his abdomen. The muscle tenses and contracts beneath her hand and his tongue is lazy against her own.

That’s not what she expected. If anything, she expected vicious and angry and fast. She expected for him to throw her down and for it all to be over just as quickly as it began and the whole thing would bleed into some sort of bizarre one-time memory and that would be that.

And maybe it will be a bizarre one-time memory. Maybe they’ll both be dead come morning or maybe she’ll wake up in a hospital room back in New York or Sydney or Los Angeles and this was all some horrifying coma-initiated dream. It doesn’t matter. Alec takes his time and her hips fit neatly below his hands and it’s easy to wrap her legs around his hips and arch into him.

If after he was to say, “I love you,” and if Molly was to return the sentiment, then so what?

Stranger shit has happened here.

-

(Her nose brushed against the column of his throat and he had swallowed. She felt it. Molly felt a lot of things like full and loose and tired, scared, content, like, every emotion ever, apparently.

Alec tangled a hand in her hair. His lips brushed against her forehead.

“I love you,” he murmured.

Molly shut her eyes.

“I love you too.”)

-

So, it’s like. Shit happens. Everyone knows that. Shit happens. Cars crash and trains derail and sometimes, and supposedly and statistically not all that often, planes fall out of the sky and your life as you know it ends. Shit happens. And it’s totally like Robert Frost once said –

she thinks it was Robert Frost, but she really can’t remember, college feels like a fucking extinct era ago, man, and it’s not like she can fact check any of this shit, but whatever, she digresses –

about how he can sum up everything he learned about life in three words: it goes on. And the dude was so right. Life does go on. Even though they all look like varying degrees of Tom Hanks from Castaway, life goes on. The big problems are no longer rent and paychecks and morning commutes and the traffic and marriages and relationships that fizzle and fade in the face of everything else. But life goes on. People still fight and people still fear and sometimes people still fall in love, and of course people die but just as some people die some of them live.

Some of them live.

-

The events all spill closer together now:

A woman falls from the sky and tells them that the world thinks they’re all, like, dead;

They hike to the radio tower and Jack promises rescue and there is this wild burst of a second where Molly actually believes him and Alec believes him and Jack talks to people on a boat, somewhere;

Charlie dies and they split – Molly follows Jack and Alec follows Molly and if there is meaning in that, well, then there is meaning in that;

There are gun battles and men in camo and it’s all sort of like a really bad action movie, and Molly doesn’t even like action movies but it’s all just like that, and people come and people go and there is a boat and then there isn’t a boat and it’s like rescue has become the biggest cock-tease on the planet and in the end in the end in the end –

They travel back in time.

What. The. Fuck.

-

So they run.

The jungle is dark but the arrows light their way. The arrows, all embedded in the trunks of trees, all bright with fire and Jesus, it’s like some sort of Indiana Jones bullshit or something, but she runs and he runs and they run together.

They run, they’re going to keep running, they’ll never stop running, she thinks, and if they keep running then they keep living, run to live, run to live, and Alec’s fingers slip and cling against her own and she follows him and she runs and –

(She falls first. She falls face down into the dirt and the loose jungle floor of greens and browns and there is an arrow square between her shoulders. Her shirt catches fire but she doesn’t feel it, and maybe that that’s the most merciful thing to come of any of this.

A plane crashed and she crashed and he crashed and they survived that, they survived a lot, and if she could maybe she would laugh. Right into the heart of the jungle, her cheek pressed against the packed and caked mud she would laugh because for her it ends like this.

The fire consumes her and Alec’s fingers hold tight to her hand and he drags her without meaning to because he keeps running. He keeps running with her.

The arrows fly. They found her and they find him and their story ends).

(Miles and miles away and in another time, in another era, Jack and Kate, Sayid and Sun, Hurley and that orphan baby return to the world they all left behind. Ben moved the island and Locke goes back, Locke brings them back, and as time flips and twists, shifts as only here it is apt to do, Molly Brighton and Alec Webb disappear).

“So fucking unfair,” Molly would maybe have said, once upon a time – New York and the drugs and the beats that skipped instead of soothed.

“So fucking unfair,” she might have said.

But what’s it really matter?

She’s dead, he’s dead, and the story continues on.

(Time skips, it travels backwards, forwards, back again. She took the wrong plane, she used to say. She should have waited, she shouldn’t have taken that plane. But it’s a lie.

There are manipulative things at work like fate. Things happen for a reason – it’s what all the old women of the world say together in unison. These things happen. They’re not all bad.

Molly falls and Alec doesn’t let go).

He doesn’t let go of her hand.

-

fin.

fic: bind with grout (lost)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Tue, 05 May 2009 02:01:11 GMT

bind with grout

lost. a confrontation in confined space (the bathroom smells like soap and him and her). juliet; jack/juliet. rated nc-17. spoilers through 5x11. 1866 words.

notes: for lenina20! her prompt was "jack/juliet, shower" and, yeah. this is exactly what you think it is: pretty much an AU continuation of this scene. so this is total porn. with angst! angsty porn! enjoy!

we’re rotten fruit
we’re damaged goods

what the hell, we’ve got nothing left to lose

(backdrifts. (honeymoon is over.), radiohead)

There is a line of black mold growing between the cracks of the linoleum tiles that frame the corner of the sink.

This does not surprise her.

This place is a perfect breeding ground for anything and everything of a toxic nature.

Juliet stands there for a full minute while Jack finishes his shower. She does not say a word. She rests her back against the panel of her door and her elbow brushes the faux gold handle as she crosses her arms before her chest. The handle is warm. Everything here is warm.

Jack makes noises in the shower. It isn’t a song or a melody that he hums, but just a low tuneless sound from between his lips. She thinks there is something distinctly masculine about it, and maybe, maybe another time she would have found it endearing. Maybe another time.

She thinks she hates him a little now, and that part is easy.

The water turns off.

-

(“Juliet, I’m sorry. I can’t help you,” he said.

“I’m not asking for your help. Jack,” she said.

“You made it pretty clear you weren’t interested,” she said).

-

She kisses him first. This is important. Juliet kisses Jack first and there is this terrifying skip of a pause where it is just Juliet, her hands clenched at her sides, and her mouth open and gaping over his.

The stubble of his chin bites against her jawline and it might have been here that she considers this all to be a horrible mistake –

(But no, probably not. These things don’t work like that. Regret and the naming of people and places and events, transgressions, as mistakes doesn’t happen until you are safely housed in the after. And then you look. And then you look back and maybe you cringe and say, “that was a mistake I shouldn’t have done that it was a mistake.”)

She kisses him first but before that they stand there silent.

She has crossed the room at this point and his space is hers and hers, his. There is symmetry in that but the shower has left the room too humid, Juliet’s chest is too tight, and she does not have the presence of mind to recognize its beauty.

They stand in an unspoken mutual stalemate. She hates him maybe more than a little. He came back. He came back he came back but in order to come back you have to leave first.

So she kisses him.

She kisses him because he came back and because he deserves to be punished too.

-

(“I came back here because I care. I came back here because I was trying to save you,” he said.

“We didn’t need saving,” she said.

“We’ve been fine for three years.”)

-

The very first time she kissed him – in the jungle, on a hill, dirt and the breeze caught in her hair – it had been as though on a dare.

The second time it felt as inevitable as the push and the pull of an accident.

This time it feels desperate.

Her lower lip rests below his and her upper above his and he does not move. Jack grips the edge of the sink and she knows if she were to look the knuckles would be white and maybe there is a triumph to be found in that fact alone. She doesn’t touch him but she kisses him with an open mouth.

And then he kisses her in return.

A jerk of his head and his bottom lip, the edge of his teeth, catches her lip and he is kissing her back, sloppy. His nose presses into the curve of her cheekbone and her eyes alternate between open and shut and open and shut – he tastes like mint and coffee, like nothing, nothing, skin and muscle, his tongue under hers, over, he tastes like a man.

His hand leaves the sink and presses flat against the small of her back, over her clothes first, and then under. Jack’s fingers are sticky with sweat and maybe she shudders – his palm, his hand, his fingerprints, her skin.

Their hips collide before she finally touches him. And then her fingers do little more than catch at the thin fabric of his t-shirt while his catch at the waistband of her jeans.

(Their kisses – the first and then the second – had always been of a chaste nature. It was his mouth and her mouth, both their lips pursed and closed then pressed. They kissed without commitment, and she realizes that now. They kissed each other like maybe they didn’t mean it; there were no tongues to betray them, no wet slick of spit, no risk of the sharp clank of teeth to teeth – he was never once inside her.

She gets that now).

His skin is still warm and pink, damp from the shower. Her hand slips below the collar of his t-shirt, down, to rest at the base of his neck and Juliet has the ridiculous thought that they are doing things out of order. He stood naked before her, he got dressed, and now, now, now –

Nothing makes sense here. That should not be a surprise either. That should never come as a surprise.

-

(“You came back here for you,” she said. “At least do me the courtesy of telling me why.”

“I came back because I was supposed to.”

“Supposed to do what?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well then. You better figure it out.”)

-

He drops the towel.

The edge of the porcelain sink is painful against the left side of her hip and he drops the towel. They kiss, the sounds of their mouths colliding and then separating noisy against the tile and the glass, and with the hand resting just above her ass he guides her hips to his.

She does not say his name and he does not say hers. They don’t say anything, but his hand catches in her hair and hers might rest above his heart and he drops the towel and she can feel him, Juliet can feel him hard against her.

Juliet makes a fist around his cock and Jack sighs like it hurts, like it’s sad, like the two of them are tragic and helpless and already gone. And maybe they are, she thinks. Maybe they are, and she slides her fingers loosely around him.

She’s been fine for three years.

Jack’s fingers are clumsy with the button on her jeans and she doesn’t help him. It isn’t right that everything can be ruined over the course of a handful of days. It isn’t right that she was fine for three years and now she’s not. Her jeans and her panties pool around her ankles and she steps out of them with a stumble; with both hands she pushes her hair back off her face and Jack stares.

Jack’s eyes are dark and there are more lines around them than she remembers. She doesn’t remember him being this strong, this direct, but that’s foolish of her. She thinks of the Hydra, she thinks of chains and the sweeping rush of water. She thinks of glass and glass and hand to hand behind the glass. His eyes bore into hers and he takes a step forward. His hand finds her hip and it’s not like last time, it’s not gentle, he grips to bruise and just as rough, just as possessive, he crooks his wrist and slides two fingers inside of her.

(“You came back for you,” she said.

“You came back for you.”)

The angle is awkward and all wrong. His fingers feel thick inside of her and she gasps. She gasps and then Jack gasps, the sound heavy and just above her ear, and she wonders if it’s out of pride, if he’s proud, if the fact that he can get her wet between her legs is enough to make him gasp, make him hard. He twists his wrist, she bites her lip, and with the other hand against the curve of her right hip he pushes her back and back until she sits half-perched on the lip of the sink. Jack moves in closer, his fingers still, unmoving, inside of her and when he slides one leg between hers (spread wide open and she still has yet to think this is a bad idea this is a terrible idea) the only barrier between her cunt and his cock is his hand cupping her. And then there isn’t even that.

Both of his hands bracket her hips – a parenthesis, she thinks, how appropriate – and pull her toward him. Her toes skim the floor first and then she draws her legs up, wraps them around his waist, her kneecaps pressed against either side of his ribcage.

Jack does not ask her if it’s okay. Jack doesn’t ask her if this is what she wants, if she’s sure. He doesn’t stop and step away. He doesn’t sigh and run a hand along the back of his neck and tell her everything she will be telling herself in one hour’s time, the second this is over.

Instead he slicks himself between her legs and pushes in.

Her gasp or moan or whimper, whatever needy noise she was about to make, catches stillborn in the back of her throat but she does not close her eyes. They do not kiss either. Jack moves his hips roughly and his cock hurts, Jack hurts, Juliet hurts, and she slams her own hips up to meet him over and over again. There is the sound of the slap of skin to skin and Jack’s mouth rests against her cheek, her eyelashes dust against his face.

She clings to him. Juliet clings to Jack.

(“I came back here because I was trying to save you,” he said).

She comes first and she might hate him a little more, hate him a little less for it – she can’t decide. Her body is racked with frightening shudders and she slips a little along the sink, she buries her face in the crook of his neck and that’s when he finally says her name –

“Juliet.”

Jack pulls out before he comes. He pumps once with his hand and then her hand joins his and he says her name again. Juliet closes her eyes.

Her fingers are wet with him and there is a smear of his come near the hem of her shirt. Jack breathes heavy. He grabs the towel off the floor and wraps it around his hips, again.

She doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything. The bathroom is still humid and damp. It smells of soap and him and her. Jack looks to the floor and Juliet looks to Jack.

“That was…we shouldn’t have done that,” Jack finally says.

Juliet is not surprised. She steps away from the sink.

She aches.

-

(“I needed you,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said).

-

fin.

fanmix: three (lost)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:28:37 GMT

You guys. I have no idea what it is. But I have spent the better part of my day with a) a migraine headache, and b) watching old Jack/Juliet clips on YouTube. I am feeling a giant renaissance of love for these two fine doctors, and as such decided to celebrate said love with my preferred method: A FANMIX!

MIX HERE

1. AGENBITE OF INWIT; The Most Serene Republic
instrumental

2. ALMOST CRIMES; Broken Social Scene
we got love and hate -
it's the only way

3. I WILL (NO MAN'S LAND); Radiohead
i will
lay me down
in a bunker
underground

4. I DO WHAT I WANT, WHEN I WANT; Xiu Xiu
could it be you were the one
who is waiting patiently for me
to disregard caution
to feign deafness to wisdom

5. UNTIL WE BLEED (FEAT. LYKKE LI); Kleerup
lights black; heads bang
you're my drug
we live it
you're drunk, you need it
real love, i'll give it

6. WE OWN THE SKY; M83
we kill what we build
Because we own the sky

7. SALTWATER; Beach House
love you all the time
even though you're not mine

8. LOVELY LOVELY LOVE; Alaska in Winter
and you always hurt the one you love

9. ONE OF THESE MORNINGS; Moby
one of these mornings
won't be very long
you will look for me
and i'll be gone

fic: honesty: the very best policy (better off ted)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:03:00 GMT

honesty: the very best policy

better off ted. at veridian, we pride ourselves on being truthful – as well as using said truthfulness against our enemies. ted/veronica. rated pg. 1180 words. vague spoilers through 1.06.

notes: for dollsome! her prompt was "contagious, ted/veronica." hope you enjoy!

It starts in the lab.

But then again just about anything worth mentioning at Veridian Dynamics starts in the lab.

Or the bathroom.

But that would make this a different kind of story.

-

Actually, it starts with this:

“We want to wage domestic warfare!” Veronica had said from the doorway to Ted's office. Ted had tilted his head to the left.

“Come again?”

“Domestic warfare, Ted. We here at Veridian have pioneered and championed advances and strategies in nuclear, chemical, guerilla, invisible and intergalactic warfare. We want to aim a little closer to home. We,” and she paused, “Want to get personal.”

“Oh boy.”

-

“We call it The Tourette’s Contagion!”

Phil held the vial up to the fluorescent light. Lem clasped his hands together and smiled.

“Look at how the green toxins catch the light. So beautiful, so potent.”

“‘The Tourette’s Contagion?’ Really, guys?” Ted said. “That isn’t, what, a touch politically incorrect?”

“Chemically forcing others to confess their most random and most personal and potentially most damaging and incriminating thoughts at the forefront of their mind is politically correct though?”

“You might have a point there, Phil.”

“I thought so.”

Ted had leaned back on his heels; Phil and Lem continued to beam like proud parents or Henry Higginses, or something less creepy and Eliza Doolittle-related.

“Explain how this works,” Ted said.

“It’s rather simple,” Lem began. “It must be absorbed through the skin and after that…well, whatever you’re thinking? You say it.”

Phil raised an index finger. “But wait! There’s more!”

“Yes, Phil, there is.” Lem had stepped in front of Phil; Phil still had the one finger raised. “If you come into personal bodily contact with another human organism, skin to skin only, the contagion will be transferred to that person, and so on and so forth until we have an entire planet of people audibly sharing their innermost secrets.”

“Instead of blogging about them,” Phil said. He shot Dr. Bhamba a particularly cold look.

“It’s called Twittering,” he snapped back over his microscope, then started muttering something about “tweets” and “nosy nancies.”

“So, it’s like pink eye?” Ted asked. Phil, Lem and Dr. Bhamba rolled their eyes; Ted is pretty sure that Patricia had been trying to check out his ass.

“The pink eye of the mouth, maybe,” Phil said. “The pink eye of…words.” His face had bunched up as he considered this. “That doesn’t really work, does it?”

Lem just shook his head.

-

What happens next is this:

“I like how the…green catches the light,” Veronica said.

And then what happens is this:

A chain of events begun by a certain Twitter post by a certain beleaguered scientist (who we shall call Dr. Bhamba) finally broke the straw of a certain camel’s back (who we shall call Phil) and this certain camel ran at this certain scientist with a certain fire extinguisher into a certain conference room:

Phil ran at Dr. Bhamba;

Dr. Bhamba ran at the conference room door;

Phil raised the fire extinguisher;

Dr. Bhamba fell into a large graph displaying a study pertaining to dinosaur fossils and their exposure to radioactive gelatin;

Said graph fell, catching Ted between the shoulders;

Ted fell;

Veronica fell;

The Tourette’s Contagion fell.

“Don’t touch them!” Phil shrieked. Dr. Bhamba’s mouth was opened in horror; his chin rested on a picture of a T-Rex. The fire extinguisher was forgotten.

A light green film covered the better part of Veronica’s hand.

Ted’s hand covered the better part of Veronica’s bare ankle.

This is where we are now.

-

“They’re not allowed to lock us in here,” Veronica keeps repeating. “That is not allowed. That is not allowed at all. I am an authority figure. I have always been an authority figure. I’ve got the authority. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time – ”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Ted finds himself saying. “You don’t even make sense. You with your gold hair and your fancy lady suits – ”

“Powersuits, Ted. They’re called powersuits. I wear powersuits because I am in charge and I have the authority and they’re not allowed to lock us in here like we’re lepers or old people.”

“Stop pacing. I can’t stop staring at your legs,” Ted says, and he sort of wants to throw up because he keeps talking, he just keeps talking, it’s total word vomit, and Phil and Lem really should be congratulated for this, because he is pretty sure he just told Veronica about his penis and a certain corresponding anatomical part of her own he wants to revisit.

Veronica’s eyes are very wide. With horror, is what Ted thinks, though he cannot decide if it is horror directed at their current situation or at what he just said or at the fact that her own mouth appears to be moving of its own volition and the same can be said of the words that depart this particular entrance/exit.

“I do like you, Ted,” she is saying and her eyes widen a little more. He thinks his own do too. “I like you. As a woman likes a man. Or, I guess, as some women like other women. Or some men like other men…this shouldn’t be so complicated, I like you, a lot.”

And then they’re not talking.

And there is a table.

And there are her lips – he thinks he compared them to the sweetness of Swedish Fish and somehow that has to be Rose’s fault, right? – and there are his lips – “they are thin, but I’m okay with that,” Veronica had said – and and and –

Linda opens the door.

“You motherf- ”

-

The antidote proves easy enough.

“Oh, I might like the purple even better in this light,” Lem says.

Phil nods like he agrees.

-

The next day:

“We want to wage domestic warfare!” Veronica says from the doorway to Ted’s office. Ted tilts his head to the left.

“Wow. Déjà vu,” he says. “I’m not Bill Murray and this isn’t Groundhog Day?”

Veronica waves a hand.

“I am choosing to ignore that cultural reference. We want to wage domestic warfare.”

Ted tilts his head even farther to the left.

“Yeah. We tried that one. You wound up telling me that you think my neck smells like lemons and I think I told you that your legs clad in that black skirt make my pants really tight. And then we were just about to make out on the table in the conference room, but, um, Linda. Right. Yeah, was that the brand of domestic warfare you wanted to try and wage again? Because if so…I can see if the conference room is still available.”

To his esteem, Veronica appears to consider the suggestion for all of three seconds.

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She smiles and bounces on the balls of her feet.

“We want to launch a social networking site!”

-

fin.

fic: the predatory nature of the sky (lost)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:41:33 GMT

the predatory nature of the sky

lost. the island watches; juliet never left; they all came tumbling back. juliet, jack/juliet, juliet/james. rated pg. 1127 words. spoilers through season five.

notes: for torigates! her prompt was "zoo," and i don't think i really stuck to that? *laughs* and i honestly have no idea where the majority of this came from, but, um, general season five spoilers?

there's the weapon you hold
there’s the thing you hold it to
and the thing you hold dear.

(for the pier (and dead shimmering), sunset rubdown)

1.

The jungle is human.

Juliet has always known this.

The jungle sees and the jungle hears and the jungle breathes with every twisted emotion she has ever felt.

It watches them. The jungle watches them. And as such, she knows they are watching too.

“It’s not that easy,” she had told James, had told Horace. She told the men with their surveillance equipment and their man-made devices erected in the name of protection.

They handed her a jumpsuit and her knuckles stained with grease. She stayed.

They would know if she had left.

-

2.

Juliet does not care for flowers.

She does not care for them but she accepts them with grace and manners and will fill a vase with water and set a place for them at her table.

Juliet does not care for flowers.

She does not ever tell James this.

-

3.

“You didn’t think this could last – did you?” Jack asks her. His mouth catches loose strands of her hair and she watches the ends disappear between his lips.

She turns her head and he bites her neck, and maybe she moans, just a sound not a name, but he doesn’t need to know.

Jack doesn’t need to know that the answer is yes, that the answer has always been yes.

“We’re happy here,” she told James that morning.

The heel of her palm catches on the edge of the countertop and Jack’s mouth tastes like chamomile and heat.

“We’ve been happy here,” she said.

Jack hurts inside of her, but he doesn’t need to know that either. She beats her fists against his shoulders and all five of his fingers brush against the bare side of her hip.

She does not dare look over her shoulder.

She knows they watch.

-

4.

Kate is different here.

Juliet can’t decide if it’s a good thing or not. Maybe that’s what returning does to a person. Maybe that’s what Los Angeles does. The city streets that stretch flat under tire treads and air conditioners that hum late into the night. There, she is sure, sweat doesn’t stick unless you go looking for it.

Jack is different here too.

Jack and Kate are different here and Juliet has always excelled at reading people.

She wonders how much of those three years they spent together. She wonders if they fell further in love, if they’re the sort of people that do that, but then that starts a line of thought she usually chooses to ignore.

“Let me introduce you to the neighborhood,” she told them with a closed-mouth smile.

They followed her.

-

5.

Juliet looks at Jack and she remembers the width of his palm and the span of his fingers against her skin.

She looks at Jack and she thinks of bars and she thinks of cages; she thinks three years ago.

(This island is a cage, this island is a prison, and he left it, he left, she didn’t, the bars still remain, the lock’s still here, he left it all and she didn’t and he should never have come back, he never should have stepped back inside, they’ll never escape, not now, not this time, he came back, this place is a prison, they’re watching them, they’re always watching outside the bars).

At the time it made her ache.

Now it just makes her tilt her head and say: how nice.

But time is cruel like that – shells on the beach caught in the onslaught of the tide, it erodes.

-

6.

In her dreams she talks to Richard.

She wants to laugh when she wakes, but mostly she just stumbles for breath and chokes.

“Get ready,” he always tells her.

Her lab coat is white and her name is stitched over her breast. There is always a wall of syringes behind Richard’s head and Juliet does not remember that from the future.

Richard will lean forward and Juliet will lean back.

“These things don’t last,” he’ll say and shrug.

“Get ready.”

When she wakes her knuckles clench and her chest is tight.

-

7.

They watch for them.

They’re watching through the windows.

They’re always watching through the windows.

-

8.

She boils water. Juliet boils the water and Jack stares at the walls and the miscellaneous collection of photographs that hang on nails buried deep into the drywall. All the pictures are nondescript, here when Juliet and Jim (Jim, James, Sawyer, some days she can’t keep up, some days she can’t see straight, some days she forgets his name) moved in and decided to call it home. Jack looks at them like maybe they are hers, like maybe he can remember who she was and who she became after three years by studying a poor watercolor of unidentifiable, probably made-up flowers. They almost look like lilies.

“Here,” she says when she hands him his tea. He grimaces when he swallows but does not ask her for sugar or milk or honey, and Juliet thinks he has made his decision regarding her already.

She blames the almost lilies and takes a sip of her tea too. It is weak. She does not add anything to it either.

Neither of them moves to sit. Jack’s eyes wander back to the wall of framed pictures and there is one of a sailboat and another of a beach unlike theirs.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but his eyes settle on the framed photograph of the Dharma Initiative, 1970. Juliet isn’t in that picture; neither is James. They weren’t here yet. Jack looks at it as though he thinks they were.

“No you’re not,” she says.

He looks at her. His lips are parted and his eyes are dark, and he looks at her.

“Okay,” he says, and he takes another sip of tea.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” she says after a minute.

And that’s when he kisses her.

-

9.

After the first year she had started to forget.

She was Juliet Burke. She worked the motorpool. She lived with Jim LaFleur. She was happy.

That was easy.

“This is my son Ben,” Roger had said to her one day, and her throat went dry.

She remembered. Of course she remembered everything.

There is no way out, she had thought that night.

History is a loop; time, a noose.

There is no way out.

-

10.

“Get ready,” Richard says.

Juliet can’t breathe.

The gun is shot, the child bleeds.

“We can be happy,” she said, and it begins.

-

fin.

fic: there is no leaving new york (rpf)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:05:11 GMT

there is no leaving new york

rpf. memory is not foolproof, but neither are they. matthew goode/rose byrne, ensemble. rated r. 7439 words.

notes: wellll. this jumped up a notch. or seven. i had this whole vision of this - very much in line with the Rat Pack, or, hell, even Gatsby-esque: very much so about the rich and the famous and the tangled lives they lead. that really didn't happen? i don't know. instead we have a super long piece about the OTP introduced to me by the marvelous ineffort. and there are various cameos throughout the whole thing, it assumes that the events of this happened. and, uh, yeah. there will probably be another installment? i have no idea. my brain has been eaten. no offense is meant to any real people portrayed here within.

lastly, have some music to go with this.

you act like you’ve never had love
and you want me to go without
(one, u2)

it is february and not lying is impossible.
(maira kalman)

1.

“I’m so sad today,” Rose says from the bed. Her voice is hoarse. There is a cup of coffee next to her and what looks like a bottle of Grey Goose cast in the sheets with her.

“And why might that be?” he asks. He pulls at his tie, loosens first the top button and then the next one under it. From his vantage point he can’t tell if she is dressed or not. There are too many blankets and her frame is lost in all that white. It makes his top lip raise in a smile, the idea of digging through the sheets, his hands rough with the fabric, to discover her beneath.

“It’s Sunday,” she tells him. She holds a hand up to her forehead, scratches at her temple. Her shoulders are bare. “I am always sad on Sundays.”

This is New York.

This is the start.

-

2.

In the end none of this really matters.

They’re all stars.

They all think they shine so bright.

You can’t touch them. No, you can never touch them. Stare on, stare on, and wait and watch – they will collide.

They think they’re all stars.

Watch them drift too close to the sun –

And ignite.

-

3.

Friendships are strange in this town.

Matthew doesn’t really get it. He’s always been the sort of guy to find himself buddies with just about anyone. Impressive what a couple of pints and a few smokes and generic conversation can do, but truth be told, it’s how he’s met the better portion of the people who have entered into his life.

He does not understand this Hollywood thing. He does not understand this whole “keep your friends close and enemies closer" mentality. It goes against everything he finds natural and easy.

He and Ben hit it off best. Matthew likes to joke it’s because they were supposed to play gay lovers that they became such good friends, but more times than not when he says it he is met by a confused face and slightly nervous laughter.

He meets Billy for the first time in Vancouver. Before the CGI suit and before the blond hair, they meet.

There is a shared cleverness between the two men. Something the two of them alone seem to get, and over a twelve-pack in Canada they laugh about it.

“I don’t understand these people,” Billy says. “I don’t understand how you can fucking act across from someone and not fall in love with them. It’s fucking impossible.”

Matthew has no idea what he means but he nods all the same.

“You have to fall in love,” Billy says. “Or what the fuck’s the point?”

Matthew has no idea what he’s talking about. At least, not yet.

But this is a long time ago.

Matthew learns. Matthew learns fast.

-

4.

In Las Vegas there is a hotel room.

“I’ve been thinking,” Matthew says. He stamps out his cigarette in the crystal ashtray on the side table. He stretches on the balls of his feet in front of the blackened window. Among the city lights and the faint night fog his reflection stretches back. “It would be absolutely brilliant to star in, you know, Japanese television commercials. Right?”

“What?” Rose murmurs from the bed. The mattress shifts as he presses his weight into it. When she looks over her shoulder at him he has the bulk of his frame balanced on his fists, his body bent in half. He looks at her expectantly, a goofy smile.

“You know. Scads of stars do it. Brad Pitt does it, did it. And, uh. Well. I can’t think of any others. But they do commercials there. I think it would be a riot.”

“What would you even try to sell?” she asks, indulges him.

“Oh, I don’t know. Sushi. Hello Kitty. Karaoke.”

Rose hits him with first a pillow and then her hand. He falls into the bed next to her but does not touch her.

“You’re such a racist!”

He sits up, adopts an expression of mock affront. “My dear lady, I may be many things, but a racist is not one of them.”

“Listen to you. You’ve completely stereotyped Japanese culture. You really think that’s what Tokyo’s like?”

He chuckles.

“I saw Lost in Translation, love. Nothing happens in Tokyo, clearly. Nothing.”

“Oh, god. Listen to you.”

“No. No, really. I saw that movie, and Bill Murray – Bill Murray’s character had the right idea. He went there, and he filmed that, what was it? A commercial for whiskey or scotch or Bartles and fucking James, I don’t remember. But he did that. I do recall that, because I remember thinking, yeah, way to go, Bill Murray. You drink that. You have a drink of that, because, goddamn, if I wouldn’t kill for a drink rather than be stuck here, watching this bloody awful film.” Rose scoffs next to him and Matthew keeps talking. “So, right. Tokyo. And Bill Murray and his little advert. Then him and Scarlett, they sang karaoke, and she wears a wig and he tells her a secret, and I think that was about it, eh?”

“You have no heart,” Rose chides.

“I guess I could do that, hmm? Go to Tokyo and sell some spirits like Bill Murray. There are worse fates, I imagine.”

“You have no heart,” Rose repeats. Matthew hums next to her.

He rolls then, presses the entire length of his frame against the back of hers. His chin tucks neatly against her bare shoulder and his nose bumps along her jawline. He holds one hand flat against her stomach; the other rests high on her thigh, drags close to her hip.

“What else don’t I have?” he mutters against her skin. He rubs the bare cradle of his hips against the curve of her ass.

“You have no heart,” she says again, and she ducks her head. Her lips brush his nose when she speaks. “And you have no brain,” she says and he plants a wet kiss on the column of her throat. “And you have no courage,” she concludes.

His mouth rests open against her collarbone.

“You,” he says, “you I can’t even imagine.”

“Doing Japanese commercial work?” she asks the ceiling. He snorts.

“Sure.” He looks up at her with wide eyes. “You would sell something terribly serious. Terribly and awfully serious. Something serious for serious-minded people who never smile.”

Her hand stills at the nape of his neck. Her nails press sharply into the thin skin. Whatever moment they had achieved a few moments ago feels lost now.

“What? No. That’s not me at all,” she says. “I smile. I smile loads,” Rose says.

Matthew snorts again.

“Not around me, you don’t.” He says it good-naturedly enough. She can hear her teeth click as she sets her jaw firm and her eyes stay trained on the ceiling. His chin presses uncomfortably above her left breast. He has an arm looped around her back, the arm attached to the hand pressed against her stomach, and she feels trapped. His other hand pulls at her nipple idly. There is a rush of breath behind her teeth.

“Jesus Christ,” she hears him say. There is a note of awe that makes her flush pink.“Just look at you. So bloody serious.”

He punctuates the last three words with a nip of his teeth down the slight slope of her breast.

His lips first and then tongue, the hard enamel of teeth, settle and she gasps.

-

5.

He is crass and she is full of grace.

Their last weekend in Vegas is unknown as such for the both of them.

“You’re the devil,” she says, her voice bland.

“Probably,” he shrugs.

Rose glares. If anything Matthew has taught her how much she hates the escapist safety of words like probably and maybe and perhaps. Matthew uses these words all the time.

Rose glares and Matthew, he shrugs.

“No,” she grounds out. “You are. I’m sure of it.”

-

6.

After Las Vegas she throws her cigarettes away.

Twenty minutes later she reaches a hand into her kitchen trash and fishes the pack of cigarettes out. The knuckles of her left hand brush against still wet coffee grounds and she shudders at the clammy, sticky sensation.

She lights a cigarette; her phone rings.

“What the fuck you want?” she grits out. The cigarette is held between her teeth.

“Now, now. Where your manners, Rosie?”

No one calls her Rosie. No one.

This is their last conversation for the better part of a year.

-

7.

It’s not just Kevin Bacon. It’s six degrees of everyone.

I know you and you know her and she knows him and he fucked her and she co-starred with him.

I know you and you know her and no one really knows each other.

-

8.

For such a densely populated locale there are few places to hide in Manhattan.

Chris stumbles into view when Rose takes a turn out of Saks.

“Well, if it isn’t Rose,” he says. “Rose Byrne,” and he laughs.

“And Chris. Chris Evans.” She hugs him. He has grown his hair out some since she last saw him. They grab lunch together.

“Why is it, huh, that every man I know these days was once a superhero?” she asks him. She chews noisily.

“I think you need new friends,” he says around a mouthful of sandwich. He smiles, just enough self-awareness behind the flush to his cheeks.

“Yeah? Well good thing you’re just a stranger, kid,” she says.

Chris laughs.

She steals one French fry.

-

9.

Time passes.

“People leave you,” Billy says. “It happens. It’s not like any one person is ever always going to be there, you know? People don’t do that. They’re not…stagnant like that, right. It doesn’t work that way. People are – ” Billy pauses. He leans forward; his elbows rest against the edge of the table. “People are like landscape, man. You pass through so many of them.” He takes a sip of his beer.

“That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

He shrugs.

-

10.

He almost falls asleep in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

It’s not the real one. It is a replica, a miniature. All strung up with lights it dazzles yet blends in with the competing landscape of high-voltage light bulbs and repetition of colorful and controlled chaos.

Las Vegas – a commercialized capital for sin, he thinks. He’s not sure he likes the marketing approach of that. Sin works better when employed as an accident, sheer happenstance. A truck with a billboard on its side stalls at a red light in front of him. Plastered along the side is the mug of an ugly comedian with an equally gruesome smile.

Matthew takes a final drag off his cigarette and sleep threatens to claim him.

The heat is immense, even this early in the morning and this early in the summer. The thin fabric of his shirt sticks along his spine and he is too lazy to peel it off.

He lost at craps this morning. The loss, though little more than pocket change, has left him cross, tired and aggravated with maybe something greater than himself.

Or maybe it really is that simple and he’s just angry with himself.

He flicks his cigarette and shuts his eyes.

-

11.

Vegas starts because of Joe.

He had liked the kid then, back a couple years with that movie no one saw.

Joe is there, shooting some sort of Rat Pack-esque miniseries for HBO. Over the phone Matthew teases him:

“Ah, well. I have yet to succumb to the particular allure of the boob tube.”

“Fuck off, Goode. You know no one wants to see your face in the middle of primetime anyway.”

Matthew chuckles, says something glib about the FCC.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Joe says. “Quit being a dick and get out here to the desert.”

Matthew has never been the sort to decline an invitation such as this.

Honestly though, Matthew has never been the sort to decline any invitation.

-

12.

“Coming up later – Paula and Simon on last night’s American Idol. Is that flirting we spy? And still ahead – Brangelina: the fights, the nannies, and Brad’s graying hair. Stay tuned!”

See: these are not the sort of people who pop up routinely on entertainment news television.

It gives them that much more of a wider berth to misbehave.

“Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer – on-again? Or still off?”

The prosecution rests.

-

13.

One year. One year passes and they do a film together.

He gets the lead role in an epic film about two people that live forever. Half the film is adapted from a Peter Hammill novel, and the other half they made up on a whim. They’re all already raving about the script – Benjamin Button without the creepy CGI and pseudo-pedophilia! Forrest Gump, without the whole mental retardation thing! Titanic! Twilight, sans the bloodsuckers!

She gets the lead role, his time-enduring counterpart.

Matthew walks in, swaggers in, she thinks she might hate him a little, and the whole thing is so horrifyingly reminiscent, “the one that got away,” that sort of shit.

That alone is enough to make her hate him just a little.

-

14.

“This is rather silly, you know,” Matthew says. “If I could fucking live forever I wouldn’t be some whiny pain in the arse about it.”

Rose thinks she hates him. Just a little.

-

15.

They met in what she calls the Lost Weekend.

It was New York.

There was a party, one of those immensely tangled mutual engagements (Rose knew Cillian who knew Keira who knew Matthew) where eventually, over trays of drinks and declining sobriety, they were introduced.

He had been sprawled across red velvet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (she thinks that's who it was, she can’t remember, time passes) next to him, trying to strike up a conversation with Sienna.

Cillian had said hi to Keira and Keira had said hi to both of them.

“You know Goode, don’t you?” she had said. Rose shook her head and Cillian had laughed.

“No, ‘fraid not. But I hear you know him rather well.”

“Oh fuck you,” Keira said.

After that it was effortless. His hand had been cool against her hand when they touched, and she had found him charming and worrisome and too attractive for her.

She had insisted on his hotel room instead of her apartment. There was something about the idea of having him there that made her stomach clench.

-

16.

He shoots a sex scene and she watches from the side.

It is strange, to watch a familiar body stripped bare and in motion. She wonders if that’s what he looks like naturally – the lean lines of his back as he braces his weight on his hands and not on the nameless actress beneath him.

She watches him kiss her and move his hips.

Later, she watches his profile.

There is a small grin that does not part his lips ghosting his mouth. There are small smile lines that indent along his jaw, his eyes. Even in repose he looks as though he is in on some great practical joke.

For a long time Rose had thought it just an act. No one can be that affable, that cheerful or jolly, whatever, all the time.

He pops grapes in his mouth and hums the theme to an old television program.

She thinks the word maybe and hates herself for it.

-

17.

Production is slow. She keeps to her trailer and keeps to the fringes of things. Matthew makes the crew laugh and has befriended craft services.

She arrives early on a Tuesday. He arrives early too.

There is quiet and the smell of coffee.

This is going to be one of those moments , she thinks, and she is sure of it, where they let poorly submerged things like the truth float to the top.

She can picture it now:

They will be sitting there, side by side, and maybe they will both have their laptops open, or maybe she will have the script in her lap, a script they don’t even need anymore, and maybe he will have the morning paper. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they will sit there and they will be next to each other, and first they might say good morning, and next they might ask how the other is, they will inquire about the fate of the weather, if the clouds will hold today or not, and then –

If they let their eyes meet she thinks she will say something stupid. Something like, “I think about you when you’re not around and it’s not in a nice, neat, innocent way either, but it’s something scary and large and looming and what do you think about that? You talk so much so I’m sure you have something to say, so tell me. What do you have to say about that, Matthew?”

But she won’t say that. No, she won’t say that if she does not look at him. She won’t say it if she keeps her lips fixed to the lip of her paper coffee cup. She won’t let the gummy syllables of his name stick in her mouth and she will keep the truth down that much longer.

She can’t say the same for him. And that’s the problem of course. That’s the problem of people and all that bullshit about hearts and love and caring (and now, there she is, using words like love, words like that, and shit). You don’t know what’s on the other side. It’s dangerous in such a mild way, and that makes her angry.

This morning Rose is careful with her coffee. She adds one packet of sugar and stirs slow, a counter-clockwise motion and she sits prim, her back straight. She sits like she is waiting for something and that makes her angry too.

Matthew unfolds in a riot of limbs next to her and her forearm goes tense as she braces her coffee cup, too full for the jostling of the small sofa.

“Watch it,” she hears herself say. It sounds too sharp, too brittle; it makes her want to duck her head and she does not know how to act around men like him. She raises her chin instead, childishly defiant about everything.

His eyes crinkle. He adopts a look of mock chagrin, and she imagines that is his apology.

-

18.

On the set, in upstate New York, they reenact the Civil War.

Their house is burnt down by Union soldiers and Matthew (or rather, Matthew’s character) kills them.

They cover him in faux blood and it makes his clothes stick funny to his chest. It makes him smell sickeningly sweet.

They rub dirt into her cheeks. The crew lights fires and they shoot the same scene over and over and over again – Matthew and Rose fall down together into the wreckage and embrace. They fall and they fall and they fall. They get back up, and they fall.

The director calls, “cut,” and Rose stays flat on her back. She is tired. The sun is setting and she is tired.

“Rose,” Matthew says and her hand, curled half-hearted in a fist, catches him beneath the jaw. She tries to push his face away but she is tired. Matthew is tired too and his dead weight slumps against her and this she allows. This she allows if only out of lack of strength and will. She keeps her hand there, in the catch of bone and skin and muscle where the hinge of his jaw meets his throat. The muscle there is tight and it quivers when he swallows; days-old stubble bites at her knuckles and she allows that as well.

She thinks she wants to cry. She doesn’t know what that means.

“Matthew,” she says, her voice clear and steady. He had said her name like it cost him something. She says his name like it doesn’t matter, like he doesn’t matter. Dead weight on top of her and she allows it. Her other hand lays limp, attached to a limp arm, in the dirt and the ash and whatever charred remains she has made a bed for them – they have made a bed for them. This isn’t real, she thinks, and she looks up. The sky still smells of the smoke and the burnt wood. The smell is in her skin, her hair, his as well. The top of his head brushes against the bottom of her chin and she can smell the smoke. She can smell him too, skin and scalp and dirty hair. The familiarity of it makes her tense beneath him.

He must feel this, she decides. Matthew must feel this, for when she tenses his arms slide around to hold her, to cradle her under and against him.

Rose allows this, too. His hand is flat against the small of her back and the other grips the whole of her shoulder in the expanse of his palm. The evening is getting late and the sun has begun to set.

Her eyes start to flicker beneath a canopy of trees and the raw framework of their house. There is no roof to this house, just a skeleton of broken and peeled beams.

“Rose,” Matthew repeats. His mouth is moist; she can feel his lips as they move along her throat. She does not move the fist pressed against his jaw and she does not move her limp arm laid out against the refuse.

Rose screws her eyes shut and prays for silence. She does not think she can handle another word.

“That’s not my name right now,” she says tightly.

The director calls for another shot and her skin smells like smoke, her skin smells like his. She wants to cry a little.

-

19.

“It happens,” Rose says. “People do fall in love. Matthew,” she says his name, an afterthought.

The city dazzles beneath them. Somewhere on the ground floor there is a party. There is a lounge and there is a party and pretty little glasses that catch the light are filled to the top with liquor. She thinks about the drinks and she thinks about the party, and she thinks they both should be down there by now.

“Zip me up,” she mutters under her breath. Her own hands scramble for the back of her dress in vain. She scratches at the bared skin of her upper back.

Matthew holds a hand steady at her hip and the other slides the zipper up. He hooks the enclosure in place and rests a hand on her opposite hip.

“People fall in love,” he says.

He almost sounds surprised. Almost.

This was a long time ago though. This was a different city.

-

20.

They return to New York City for the remainder of the shoot.

They finish in two weeks. Matthew does not leave New York.

Routine breeds familiarity among faces.

The exact same eight or nine people show up at Morty’s in SoHo Sunday mornings between the hours of nine and noon.

While in New York Matthew establishes himself among the regulars. He will order a cup of the house blend, overload the paper cup with packets of sugar substitute and rue the stringent local anti-smoking legislation as he drinks and makes notes in the margins of the scripts in front of him.

Rose stays in New York too, but they don’t talk about this.

-

21.

He gets lunch with Billy that week. Some new restaurant in New York, and in their old jeans and black (though not matching, thank Christ) knit hats they look obnoxiously underdressed.

“The 90s have become retro now, you heard?” Billy says with a smirk.

“Shut your mouth,” Matthew says. “You make me feel positively ancient.”

“No, man. I’m serious. The plot of this film? Love triangle. Set in the early 1990s. That’s the gimmick.”

“Well fuck me.”

Matthew orders a bottle of shiraz and Billy, a beer.

They talk about flannel and Kurt Cobain and how neither one of them really watched Friends, like, ever and how that sort of makes them pop culturally illiterate. They talk about Billy’s film. They talk about Peter Sarsgaard (Costar No. 1) and how Matthew has never met him. They don’t talk about Jennifer (Connelly, that is, and Costar No. 2). Matthew imagines it is because it is daytime, because they sit outside and New York beckons with all its grace of closed taxi doors and angry swell of tourists. He imagines those sort of conversations are meant for after nightfall, that they are meant for a certain sort of drinking – the sad kind, the depressed kind, the kind where each successive drink drags you down that much lower, where it fills your lungs that much more.

Instead it is afternoon and they laugh and their food is not very good.

By the end of the lunch Matthew will have consumed the entirety of the bottle’s contents and Billy, almost four beers.

-

22.

Rose meets Kirsten on Wednesday. What had originally presented itself as an opportunity to catch up, maybe a late brunch, proves to be little more than a liquid lunch between two former colleagues and two sort-of-friends.

Rose drinks her Bloody Mary slowly.

“How you been?” she asks the other girl.

“Good!” she says. “I’ve been good! I mean, yeah, I’ve been better, I’ve been better, but I’m good. I’m good and I am better,” she says.

Rose stares.

“I was in rehab,” Kirsten says. She leans forward like a confession and says the words as though they explain everything. When Rose looks at her, tries to catch her in the eye, all she gets back is a double reflection of herself in the tinted mirrors of Kirsten’s sunglasses.

“I heard,” Rose drawls.

Kirsten falls back in her seat and lights a cigarette. The patrons at the table next to them glare.

“It’s just so depressing, right?” she says. She sucks on the end of her cigarette. There is not enough Tabasco in Rose’s Bloody Mary. She is disappointed. She plays with the stalk of celery in her drink and the couple at the table to the left of them continues to make their disapproval known through silence and furrowed brows.

“I mean, like, I did the whole Amy Winehouse thing. Ugh. So embarrassing. Fucking rehab.”

“How are you…now?” Rose hedges. Kirsten polishes off her last sip, her second drink. It is 11:00, but Rose is on her second drink too.

“Oh, I’m good. I’m great. I’ve been better,” she trills.

She orders another drink. So does Rose.

“And you?” Kirsten asks after a long pause. “How have you been doing, huh?”

“I’m good, I’m great, I’ve been better,” Rose echoes.

Kirsten laughs and cries, “Cheers!”

-

23.

She is about half of the way done getting ready for the wrap party when she stops. She stops in front of the mirror, her arms raised, a bobby-pin in one hand and she just stares. Her arms drop and her shoulders slump. She decides then and there she has no desire to go, no desire to go anywhere, and perches herself on the end of the hotel bed.

She is wearing her nice trousers, a pair of heels. Her make-up is done but her hair is not. She is still wearing the old white v-neck undershirt without a bra. Rose sits there, half-ready and half not and her knees bump in together while the lower half of her legs point out in opposite directions.

“Fuck,” she curses under her breath.

“Fuck.”

-

24.

Everyone has children these days.

Everyone has a boyfriend, a girlfriend, husbands and wives. Everyone has children these days.

No one gets the first marriage right. Not anymore. Trial run the first go-round, and when that fizzles in slight tabloid fodder and hefty divorce attorney fees, the occasional custody battle or two, the argument over who gets the keys to the Florida condo and which one of them now needs to go real estate hunting for a new bachelor(ette) pad, marriage number two rears its head.

“Fuck marriage,” Matthew says.

“Fuck marriage,” he says all the time. And maybe he’ll forgo the rings and the ceremony, the slip of paper that reads man and wife. But he’s still got the girl back in London that in her mind and to anyone who dares ask calls him hers. He’s still got a child. But it’s still, “fuck marriage,” he declares.

“What the rebel,” Rose mocks.

“What a Romeo,” Ben chimes in.

They both laugh. They both laugh for different reasons.

“Fuck marriage,” Matthew continues to crow. He still checks his phone for missed calls from across the Atlantic.

-

25.

She runs into Diane in New York. She runs into everyone in New York.

The woman insists on coffee and Rose does not have a reason to argue otherwise, so she agrees.

“Josh is in Harlem,” Diane says by way of explanation. For what, Rose isn’t really sure. She says, “Oh,” all the same.

There is a pause. “And what are you doing?” Rose asks.

“Just saw my therapist,” she says. There is another gap in the conversation.

“I used to see a psychic,” Rose offers. Diane nods. One in the same, her nods says. One in the same.

“I find fidelity incredibly complicated,” Diane says confidentially.

“You were married though, right?” Rose says without really meaning to.

Diane waves her off.

“That doesn’t really mean a damn thing and you know it. Besides, he has that French girl now.”

“And you have the man in Harlem,” Rose finishes for her.

Diane laughs like it was funny.

-

26.

Rose met Diane’s husband once, and that was a long time ago.

Then, neither of them were really famous (none of them actually, and it’s not really like Rose Byrne or Diane Kruger or Guillaume Canet became current household names or anything after, but that’s probably another story for another time) and Diane was the face that launched a thousand ships or however that goes, and Rose was the slave that netted Brad Pitt.

It was Cannes. It was France. It was her French husband and Rose had remembered thinking she had liked him well enough. He had a good smile, and sometimes he would wink.

“What do you think?” Diane had asked. Her elbow had met Rose’s ribs and Rose had shrunk back a little.

“Hmm?”

“I can see you looking,” Diane said. “What do you think?”

“I think he’s harmless,” Rose said.

Diane had laughed, the sound light and reedy.

“Jesus, you’re an idiot,” she had said.

Rose had stared and Diane had rolled her eyes.

“There’s always another woman. Always.”

-

27.

Matthew leaves New York.

He goes to her apartment once. He buzzes up to her, and when he says his name he expects a no.

She proves him wrong.

He goes up, and her place is as cold and unfamiliar as he remembers it. Rose folds her arms around herself and looks up at him, waits.

“I’m leaving,” he says, after a stumble.

“Oh,” she says.

And that’s that.

-

28.

He finds the girl at LAX. He is an arrival and she is a departure.

They buy each other a drink.

“You look bloody miserable,” he says to Keira.

The airport lounge is crowded. Afternoon rush, a weekend, and he balances a Manhattan on his knee; Keira watches planes taxi onto the runway.

“I’m tired,” and she sneers.

“You’re always tired,” he says.

“Fuck off. I’m tired, alright? I am very, very tired and I want to go home and sleep for several days.” The way she says it, it carries like a line memorized. That alone is enough to make him laugh. But he knows she’s serious, terribly serious, and it is beginning to seem that every woman he comes across these days is so, so serious. He’s not sure when that happened.

“Things that bad, eh?”

She does not answer him, and Matthew takes that as a yes.

“I see,” he says. “He doesn’t love you back. That the problem?”

This catches her attention. Her fingers fiddle with the blue cap on her bottle of water and her bottom lip juts out as she stares at him.

“Who?” she asks.

Matthew laughs.

“Whichever one it is this week, love.”

Keira’s face is pure venom, and it strikes him as funny. He remembers her face adopting a different cast, more lustful and more attractive, but that was New York. And more than that, that was James and he knows that counts for something.

“I fucking hate you,” she tells him.

Another plane hits the ground and grows in size as it approaches their bank of windows.

He thinks she means it. He laughs anyway.

-

29.

He stays in L.A. for a day.

He takes the first flight out.

-

30.

“Where the fuck you get off to, eh?” Ben asks.

“Vegas, mate.”

“You’re fucking kidding me. Vegas?”

“Sure,” Matthew drawls. “Where you?”

“London.”

“As always.”

-

31.

“You left your bloody girl seconds before your kid was about to drop. Don’t know why the fuck I listen to you,” Matthew says.

Billy laughs wolfishly.

“How’s London? When’s the last time you hit up Heathrow, jolly old chap?” The fake accent fades and the expression on his face is dark and spiteful. “You fucking arrogant asshole.”

Matthew scowls.

Billy leans forward.

“You think you’re some relic, some prize from the Golden Age or some shit, I don’t even know. But you’re not. You’re just like the rest of us – a selfish son of a bitch out to get whatever the hell it is you want today. So cut the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou bullshit, okay?”

Billy grimaces when he swallows. Matthew’s not sure the drink is to blame.

“There are no gentlemen and there are no ladies waiting, my friend.”

This is not in Vegas. This is after filming and after the wrap party, but before the premiere.

This is when Matthew is tired and still struggling to find a place to go.

-

32.

“I think I should do a comedy,” Rose says.

Matthew wrinkles up his nose.

“Why? You’re not particularly funny.”

He means it in a good-humored way, but Matthew is not always particularly funny either. Rose smiles in a hard way that makes him hurt a little, though he will deny that. He will deny anything that dares to defy that careful, careless image he has cultivated of himself.

“You get on my last fucking nerve,” Rose says from behind that same smile.

Matthew laughs – to prove he is a funny man? perhaps – and he does not stand up to overmatch her height. He opens the newspaper.

“You just make it that easy for me,” he says. “Funny Girl.”

Her eyes are very cold and wet. He looks at the stock quotes and the picture of a foreign finance minister. He looks at the business section but does not read it because looking at her, and her cold, wet eyes, makes him hurt.

This was before, too.

-

33.

People as landscape, is what Billy said.

You pass through, and you never really do go back. If you try, it’s not the same. The entire affair is marred and haunted by a wide-eyed nostalgia – the kind of nostalgia accompanied by a lump in the throat and the very real threat of tears.

“I can never return to you,” is never said, but it is felt. Maybe it’s that first real good-bye, the separation of lovers into friends, worse, perhaps, into acquaintances, or most terrible of all: strangers.

Maybe it is felt in that first hello after a term of absence. Memory at times serves others too kindly. Grievous character flaws become little more than personal quirks and hiccups, the sort of trait that would endear you to them through the believed beauty of imperfection.

But everyone knows this. This is hardly anything new.

It is the sort of knowledge that falls under the same categorical umbrella of those who offer up personally applicable and sound advice: it is rarely ever heeded.

-

34.

He stays in Vegas.

He stays at the same hotel as last time, as all the times before.

He finds her by the blackjack tables.

Her dress is backless and a deep purple and her hands are empty as she stands and watches the cards and the players in front of her.

He approaches. Matthew presses a hand against the small of her back and she flinches, jerks away from him, and then relaxes.

“If you say a fucking word about gin joints...”she hisses.

He chuckles and leaves his hand there.

-

35.

“I feel like a total dog in the morning. Until I have my coffee,” he tells Rose. The coffeepot in his hotel room is a miniature, meant for a single serving only.

“A total mangy, dirty dog,” Matthew mutters nonsensically as he arranges the filter and rips open the package, dumps the coffee grounds in.

“You look like a mangy dog,” Rose says from the window. Her back is turned to him. Matthew flips the switch on and the machine starts to gurgle.

“Excuse you then?” he says. Rose stands at the window. She wears the dress shirt he wore last night. The cufflinks are still on the end table, next to the chunky gold bracelet she had worn. The clasp had caught in her hair and he had untangled it from her wrist, kissed the pale skin there, and set it on the bedside table.

Matthew wears nothing. He pads around his hotel room without a stitch on, and as he watches Rose, that lithe frame, his shirt ending mid-thigh, her profile and the early morning sun, he feels himself start to harden.

“You need to shave your face,” she says to the glass. “You look fucking homeless,” she says. The cheer is missing from her voice, but the cheer had been absent from her last night as well.

Matthew runs a hand over his chin, rubs at the sparse beard grown there and the coffeepot slows to a stop.

Their room does not smell of the coffee. It smells of them, it smells of her expensive perfume and the aftershave he has used for years. It smells of sex, the combined efforts and exertions of their joining and separation. The sheets are still damp with them, and Rose stands at the window and Matthew stands at the coffeepot.

“I think it makes me look rather distinguished,” he finds himself saying. His heart’s not in it. Rose’s back is still turned to him and it has been a year and he’s hard for her.

Rose does not answer him.

“I remember Vegas differently,” she says. Matthew does not answer. He is beginning to think it had been a mistake to meet her here.

After:

They make love (and, yes, he thinks the words make love and he means them; he thinks the words as he feels the cool expanse of thigh and hip under his hand, as she refuses to kiss him and keeps her eyes trained ahead) against the window. They are high up and the mountains stretch, tan and flesh-colored, before them and then taper off into flat desert, the suburbs.

They make love against the glass and below them the Strip rests sleepy.

Cars line the street. Traffic is heavy, the traffic is always heavy, but the pedestrians that dot the sidewalks are few and far between. They are the help – the late-shift guards and casino workers who shuffle off and the maids and the housekeepers who march toward the back service entrances.

Neither Rose nor Matthew notices this.

They notice the handprints left on the window panes and on each other’s skin.

They notice the absent scent of coffee on the morning but recognize the way one body bends into the angles and curves of the other.

They notice that things are not the same, but this is just another thing that goes unmentioned between them.

-

36.

“I smell burnt toast,” Matthew says and sniffs at the air. Her apartment is messier than he expected.

“You’re having a brain aneurysm,” she says, distracted. She has the toaster held between her hands and is also trying to jam a fork into one of the metal slats. Crumbs spill out onto the counter.

“I sincerely hope that’s unplugged,” he says as he approaches.

Her smile is playful and dangerous. He takes the fork from her and she watches, both her hands resting on her hips, arms akimbo.

A broken toaster and burnt bread on a Saturday morning, and this is as domestic as the two will ever get.

This is New York. There is no Vegas. There is no movie.

This is New York.

-

37.

The first time she slept with him, she had been afraid.

He was tall and his smile was bright, the sort of smile that reached one’s eyes, glazed as his were, and it frightened her. There was a depth of emotion and of feeling, of enjoyment of life and all the people in it that she did not know what to do with.

So she had kissed him.

His mouth had been dark and smooth, and she had remembered the pint of Guinness he had downed shortly before they left. He tasted like that. He tasted like a lot of things, the way men are apt to taste when you’re overwhelmed by something more than lust.

That scared her too.

They almost broke a lamp in his suite when they tried to turn it on, and he had laughed. She had felt the rumble transfer from her chest into hers and her own laughter had carried over his.

The sex had been fast and sloppy. The sheets had caught at her ankles and the room was too warm. Sweat pooled between her breasts and it had been a shot straight through her when Matthew had bent to lap it up – his pink tongue and her flushed skin.

It had been a windy night, and this high up his windows rattled and his bed shook under them; when he rolled them and she was on top she had looked down, down, down, and been afraid.

She came hard, her hair a curtain over the both of them.

“Rose, love. Rose. Rose. Love,” Matthew had panted.

She had hoped never to see him again.

She thinks she knew then.

-

38.

That’s what people do.

They meet and they separate and sometimes they come back together again but the pieces never fit like they’re supposed to.

You remember people as places. You remember an expanse of skin the same way you remember a hotel bed, the same way you remember mornings raised with the sun on the promise of all the things you want but can never name. You remember faces the same way you remember maps, the same way you remember the fresh smell of linen and cleaning products and the way the lights bump off the curve of a glass and the equally sharp curve of a smile.

Nothing is static. People come and people go. Sometimes people come back, and sometimes they don’t.

Years will pass and Matthew will think of New York, and he will think of her. He will think of Las Vegas and the top floor of a hotel, and he will think of her. He’ll think of sound studios and backlots and the barren streets of Los Angeles, and there she will be.

He will have given her too many places to haunt but it is the sort of permission you grant without realizing.

If they both possessed the same admirable and foolish degree of courage, perhaps one would call the other and say:

I think of you sometimes. You’re still in my head.

They remember people as places, and the world is so big.

City by city and bed by bed, sweat against skin and wet, open-mouthed confessions, they will shrink it down.

-

39.

They never make a movie together again.

She stays in New York.

He comes back to New York.

New York stays the same.

-

40.

fin.

fanmix: i shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled (rpf)

falseeyelashes08@yahoo.com — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:42:29 GMT

I WENT THERE.

So, ineffort and I have created an entire rpf-verse of awesomeness. And to commemorate said awesomeness, A MIX. And, uh. This is what happens when I eat gummi bears and have a lot of time on my hands. There are lots of pictures under the cut. Lots. And there are 10 songs, plus a bonus (namely because it's a song I think all people should have and adore) in a zip. Let me know if you want anything individually.

Enjoy!

So! This mix! While making it I had, for whatever reason, this vision of New York City in my head. New York City, and laziness, sex, and the initial weightless feeling you get when you're in the first stages of falling for someone.

THIS WAS THE RESULT OF THAT.

Other notes: the title is ripped off of T.S. Eliot; this is all fictional and based in no way on fact, so no offense meant to either Matthew Goode or Rose Byrne.

ZIP.

1. BLACK TONGUE; YEAH YEAH YEAHS
Boy you just a stupid bitch
And girl you just a no good dick.

2. FAST AS YOU CAN (FIONA APPLE COVER); COLD WAR KIDS
Sometimes my mind don’t shape and shift
But most of the time it does
And I get to that place where I’m begging for a lift
Or I’ll drown in the wonders and the was

3. SO FAR AROUND THE BEND; THE NATIONAL
I know you’re a serious lady
Living off a teacup full of cherries
Nobody knows where you are living
Nobody knows where you are

4. USE THE SAME OLD SONG (KINGS OF LEON VS. THE FOUR TOPS); MIGHTY MIKE
You’re sweet as a honey bee
But like a honey bee stings
You’ve gone and left my heart in pain

5. NO ONE DOES IT LIKE YOU; DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES
Out in the morning calm
You don’t need to ask an alibi
And in the morning calm
You don’t need to be so honest

6. NOT EVEN JAIL; INTERPOL
I’m erring on the side of caution
Betraying no other symptom
But girl you shake it right…

I pretend like no one else
To try and control myself
I’m subtle like a lion’s cage
Such a cautious display

7. I WAS A LOVER; TV ON THE RADIO
Ennui unbridled, let’s talk to kill time
How many styles did you cycle through before you were mine?

8. YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE; NINA SIMONE
instrumental

9. OL' 55; TOM WAITS
And now the sun’s coming up
I’m riding with Lady Luck, freeways, cars and trucks

10. STADIUMS AND SHRINES II; SUNSET RUBDOWN
Can I lift my dress up for you?
Can I lift it in the night?

Well, I’ll lift it up to the ceiling tiles
Of stadiums and shrines.

+ I LOVE YOU (ME EITHER); CAT POWER & KAREN ELSON
You the wave, me the naked island
You go, you go and you come
Between me

note: all Matthew Goode images from here and all Rose Byrne images from here