Trying to Come Clean, WNBA RPS
Title: Trying to Come Clean
Author: CG
Rating: Really mild PG. Really mild.
A/N: It had to be this pairing, considering that one's an Aquarius and the other's a Pisces. Water water, everywhere indeed. 48 minutes, including listening to dad demand something that I can't possibly get for two days. Set in 2000. The lyrics used for the cut text are from Hilary Duff's "Come Clean" (don't laugh at me, 'kay?)
Disclaimer: People real, angsty slash fake. I don't know them or who might or might not be interested in who. Please don't sue.
Pairing: Becky Hammon/Crystal Robinson, New York Liberty
Summary: The only way she might save herself is to lose herself.
She wanders in the rain without an umbrella, and gladly. The warm rain falls persistently on her skin, pelting her endlessly, driving the way-
No. She's out here not to think about that.
But on the other hand, maybe the only way she can shake this feeling is to bring the thoughts up and let the rain wash them away, watch the memories roll away in the raindrops, crystalline- ha!- images reflected in clear water.
So she lets her mind wander to those precious moments in games when Becky drives to the basket like a tsunami hell-bent on destruction, fierce and ferocious despite her usual position of being the smallest player on the court, the only '99 All-American senior that no one took a chance on drafting (and Crystal knows why, feels a pang of guilt even though she would never have known Becky if the ABL hadn't folded, and maybe just maybe that would have been for the best). She allows her mind to wander over the imagined hints of slight curves that her imagination draws in from stolen glances in the locker room, a cardinal sin in basketball circles because there goes team chemistry if you're caught looking at someone who's not interested. Her mind runs free with thoughts of soft brown hair and hands roughened by years of the pebbled basketball and football in her hands.
But it's the eyes that she remembers most clearly, stormclouds looking through/around/past/anywhere but at her, cool, indifferent, sullen gray except in brief moments of high emotion; Crystal knows too much about Becky's eyes, knows that they soften to blue when she's happy, like the sky clearing after a cleansing thunderstorm- knows that they darken almost to black when rage claims her, like the first hints of a monsoon- knows that in the right light they pale almost to white, like the blinding underbelly of the cloudy sky above her. She spends too much time watching what she can't have.
And the rain's not working. Crystal turns her eyes to the sky, reminded all too soon that she is not where she belongs in any way, shape or form- this city is not her home, not in her blood and bones like the prairie or the bluegrass; her place should be with the one she loves helplessly and hopelessly, but it isn't. Wanting/needing/demanding to be cleansed by this rain, she feels instead like she's drowning; she swallows and futility slides down her throat with a salty bitter taste, salt water when fresh water is the only thing that can save her. She's drowning in the love that first drew her down a year ago, and Becky is the beacon that can save her, and Becky is the reason why she's drowning, and Becky is the ultimate destination if only she can get out of this sea of Becky-ness.
The only way out, the only way to not struggle and drown, is to dissolve. The rain falls harder and harder, and Crystal wonders if it'll start eating at her- not like acid rain, but simply with the determination that water has, start taking away skin and bone and muscle and thought with every needle-like drop that would burn into her like holy water against a fiend of hell. Some part of her wants that freedom from obligations and anxieties and demands and homesickness and unrequited need, wants to escape through the pipes to the ocean and explore the world, wants to stop being a foolish and fragile human woman. She tilts her head back, lets the rain kiss against her eyelids, roll down her cheekbones as gentle as a lover's touch might be, slip into her mouth between slightly parted lips. People look at her like she's crazy, but this is New York where everyone's crazy and everyone's sane in their own world, so the looks never last long.
She wants to feel the ache inside her melt away like ice at the coming of spring, let it run its course through her veins and evaporate as if it had never been. She wants to shake off the pain like she would shake out her wet hair after a shower or shake the water off her clean hands. She wants freedom. She wants her heart back from the unwilling prison in which it rests. She understands the frustration that the original Liberty feel as bridesmaids- she's only been to one Finals series as of yet, but the frustration sticks so easily and spreads to so much that it sticks in her craw. She feels like she's been Liberty forever and yet still has no home.
She stumbles to the wall of the nearest building, suddenly floppy and boneless, unable to stand without support. The building is wet from people with umbrellas brushing against it, from soaked-through shirts leaning against it. The water seeps through her shirt and into her saturated skin, and she can't take any more, and isn't that the way her life works?
She's tired of it all, tired of being far from home and tired of being stupidly in love and tired of feeling like an outsider because everyone knows that she's there instead of Sophia, the other Spoon. She broke up the symmetry, and it's not her fault and she feels it anyway because Sophia was there since the beginning; she can hear the scorn in some of the original WNBAers' voices for the ABL players- the whispers underlie everything that she and Tari hear: interlopers, outsiders, you don't belong, you messed everything up, it was good before and you stepped in and ruinted it, and she knows that Becky wasn't there for the two years, but she wonders if Becky's opinions were formed by some of the women she hangs around with.
And it's back to Becky again, just when she thought she'd gotten away from that, one stray tendril of thought curling around her ankle and dragging her back into the whirlpool. Crystal sighs and hits her head against the wall. There's no escape. She can wander for a year, a decade, a century, and still the thought will never let her go.
So she might as well be where the object of her desire is. At least then she can quench her thirst by drinking Becky in with her eyes, even if she cannot sate any other thirst. She turns towards the Garden and starts walking back, the rain tapping a rhythm against her shoulders.
Author: CG
Rating: Really mild PG. Really mild.
A/N: It had to be this pairing, considering that one's an Aquarius and the other's a Pisces. Water water, everywhere indeed. 48 minutes, including listening to dad demand something that I can't possibly get for two days. Set in 2000. The lyrics used for the cut text are from Hilary Duff's "Come Clean" (don't laugh at me, 'kay?)
Disclaimer: People real, angsty slash fake. I don't know them or who might or might not be interested in who. Please don't sue.
Pairing: Becky Hammon/Crystal Robinson, New York Liberty
Summary: The only way she might save herself is to lose herself.
She wanders in the rain without an umbrella, and gladly. The warm rain falls persistently on her skin, pelting her endlessly, driving the way-
No. She's out here not to think about that.
But on the other hand, maybe the only way she can shake this feeling is to bring the thoughts up and let the rain wash them away, watch the memories roll away in the raindrops, crystalline- ha!- images reflected in clear water.
So she lets her mind wander to those precious moments in games when Becky drives to the basket like a tsunami hell-bent on destruction, fierce and ferocious despite her usual position of being the smallest player on the court, the only '99 All-American senior that no one took a chance on drafting (and Crystal knows why, feels a pang of guilt even though she would never have known Becky if the ABL hadn't folded, and maybe just maybe that would have been for the best). She allows her mind to wander over the imagined hints of slight curves that her imagination draws in from stolen glances in the locker room, a cardinal sin in basketball circles because there goes team chemistry if you're caught looking at someone who's not interested. Her mind runs free with thoughts of soft brown hair and hands roughened by years of the pebbled basketball and football in her hands.
But it's the eyes that she remembers most clearly, stormclouds looking through/around/past/anywhere but at her, cool, indifferent, sullen gray except in brief moments of high emotion; Crystal knows too much about Becky's eyes, knows that they soften to blue when she's happy, like the sky clearing after a cleansing thunderstorm- knows that they darken almost to black when rage claims her, like the first hints of a monsoon- knows that in the right light they pale almost to white, like the blinding underbelly of the cloudy sky above her. She spends too much time watching what she can't have.
And the rain's not working. Crystal turns her eyes to the sky, reminded all too soon that she is not where she belongs in any way, shape or form- this city is not her home, not in her blood and bones like the prairie or the bluegrass; her place should be with the one she loves helplessly and hopelessly, but it isn't. Wanting/needing/demanding to be cleansed by this rain, she feels instead like she's drowning; she swallows and futility slides down her throat with a salty bitter taste, salt water when fresh water is the only thing that can save her. She's drowning in the love that first drew her down a year ago, and Becky is the beacon that can save her, and Becky is the reason why she's drowning, and Becky is the ultimate destination if only she can get out of this sea of Becky-ness.
The only way out, the only way to not struggle and drown, is to dissolve. The rain falls harder and harder, and Crystal wonders if it'll start eating at her- not like acid rain, but simply with the determination that water has, start taking away skin and bone and muscle and thought with every needle-like drop that would burn into her like holy water against a fiend of hell. Some part of her wants that freedom from obligations and anxieties and demands and homesickness and unrequited need, wants to escape through the pipes to the ocean and explore the world, wants to stop being a foolish and fragile human woman. She tilts her head back, lets the rain kiss against her eyelids, roll down her cheekbones as gentle as a lover's touch might be, slip into her mouth between slightly parted lips. People look at her like she's crazy, but this is New York where everyone's crazy and everyone's sane in their own world, so the looks never last long.
She wants to feel the ache inside her melt away like ice at the coming of spring, let it run its course through her veins and evaporate as if it had never been. She wants to shake off the pain like she would shake out her wet hair after a shower or shake the water off her clean hands. She wants freedom. She wants her heart back from the unwilling prison in which it rests. She understands the frustration that the original Liberty feel as bridesmaids- she's only been to one Finals series as of yet, but the frustration sticks so easily and spreads to so much that it sticks in her craw. She feels like she's been Liberty forever and yet still has no home.
She stumbles to the wall of the nearest building, suddenly floppy and boneless, unable to stand without support. The building is wet from people with umbrellas brushing against it, from soaked-through shirts leaning against it. The water seeps through her shirt and into her saturated skin, and she can't take any more, and isn't that the way her life works?
She's tired of it all, tired of being far from home and tired of being stupidly in love and tired of feeling like an outsider because everyone knows that she's there instead of Sophia, the other Spoon. She broke up the symmetry, and it's not her fault and she feels it anyway because Sophia was there since the beginning; she can hear the scorn in some of the original WNBAers' voices for the ABL players- the whispers underlie everything that she and Tari hear: interlopers, outsiders, you don't belong, you messed everything up, it was good before and you stepped in and ruinted it, and she knows that Becky wasn't there for the two years, but she wonders if Becky's opinions were formed by some of the women she hangs around with.
And it's back to Becky again, just when she thought she'd gotten away from that, one stray tendril of thought curling around her ankle and dragging her back into the whirlpool. Crystal sighs and hits her head against the wall. There's no escape. She can wander for a year, a decade, a century, and still the thought will never let her go.
So she might as well be where the object of her desire is. At least then she can quench her thirst by drinking Becky in with her eyes, even if she cannot sate any other thirst. She turns towards the Garden and starts walking back, the rain tapping a rhythm against her shoulders.