Fic: Everything loose will land
Title: Everything loose will land
Characters/Pairing:Keith/Watts
Rating:PG-13
Word count: ~1600
Author's Notes: Some Kind of Wonderful fic written for taragel for the five acts meme, it kind of veered off course, but I quite like it, so I hope she will forgive me.
Summary:The cigarette burns, unsmoked in her hand. How long had she loved him?
Looking back on it, she couldn't tell you what had possessed her, but at the time, bringing Ray along with her out to Mulholland had seemed like kind of a good idea. Sure he was kind of a moron and annoying as hell, but the good thing about Ray was that he almost always agreed with everything she said, and after the night she'd had, well, she could use someone like that around.
So she sat outside his place honking the horn continuously until the neighbours started to yell and he ducked out of his house, arms shoving into the sleeves of his denim jacket as he made his way to the car, a goofy grin set on his face, like she was actually here to see him or something.
“Hi.” He stuck his head through the window of the mini, always open since the handle had come off the door last summer, and just grinned at her. God, this was a serious mistake.
“Shut up Ray, get in the car.”
“O-Ok.” Ray nodded and scrambled his way into the passenger seat, fumbling in his haste with the seat-belt clip. Watts didn't bother telling him that it didn't work anyway, just peeled away from the curb and out onto the road.
Out here at the top of the hill, laid out on the hood, she's actually sort of glad for the company. The fact that Ray's here is enough to keep her from crying like she wants to, and when he leans back on his elbows next to her and turns his head to watch her face in the moonlight, she maybe doesn't hate the way he looks at her.
But she looks back at him for half a second and he's not Keith, because Keith would never look at her like that even if he was here with her instead of in that bar watching a band he couldn't stand waiting for a girl who wasn't gonna show up. She swallows against the tears that spring up behind her eyes and she presses her lips closed so that she doesn't sob in his face, and decides that looking at the stars is a safer way to go.
“So, how long?” Ray asks, casually, lighting two cigarettes and passing one her way.
“Am I supposed to know what you're talking about?” Watts takes the cigarette between her thumb and her forefinger, studies it a moment before putting it to her lips. The warmth of the smoke hits against the back of her throat, stings her sinuses for a moment before she swallows it down. Ray is looking at her again.
“How long have you loved him?” She must look surprised because he raises his eyebrows. “What? I'm not an idiot.”
“That, Ray,” She pauses to take a drag of her cigarette, fixes her long-perfected withering glare on him, “is a debatable point.”
Ray snorts a little, like maybe he knows she's full of shit, and settles back to look up at the sky again.
And all of a sudden she's thinking about it, about Keith and her and just exactly when she had set about screwing up the only good thing she'd ever managed to hold onto.
She used to think it came on gradually, that she had started loving him in increments around about the time he started developing forearms and a jawline and she started noticing stuff like that.
But she's thought about it a lot, more than she's comfortable with if she's completely honest, and she's pretty certain she's got it nailed down to one exact moment on one exact day.
It's a day she tries really hard not to think about pretty much ever, the day her dad packed his bags and walked out on her and her brothers. It was the last day she ever let anyone call her Susan, because he had chosen it, and she didn't want to be reminded of his existence.
It was a night a lot like this one, the Los Angeles evening air stale and hot, warm in your lungs as you breathed it in, she could remember the particular shade of the night sky and the way she could smell Keith's yard through his open window, like dead grass and roses and exhaust fumes and heat.
They were thirteen. They'd been best friends for two years, since the day after her mom's funeral when she'd run away from home, made it as far as the corner of his street and sat down on the pavement sobbing because she couldn't go any further, but she didn't know how to get home. Keith's mom had found her and brought her inside where he was drawing at the kitchen table. Susan had sat down next to him, Keith had smiled, and that had been that.
Two years later, no-longer-Susan lay next to her best friend on his bed, her head pillowed on his biceps and three layers of flannel and cotton, staring at the ceiling, pretending that the stars they had painted there that spring were the real thing, and not just another lie like everything else in her life had become.
Her hair was longer then, just brushing her shoulders, and Keith had taken to playing with it sometimes, twirling the ends between his fingers when they were just sitting around quietly. She remembers the way the stray locks used to tickle her neck, the way the backs of his fingers were always cool when they occasionally brushed her skin. The hand not holding her cigarette raises unconsciously to the phantom hairs at her shoulder, she can't remember when he stopped doing that.
But he was doing it that night, rubbing hairs back and forth across each other, smoothing it down over her shoulder, his fingers brushed the place where her shoulders met her neck and she shivered, her whole body jerking.
An anomalous breeze floated in through the open window, cool against her cheeks, warm from trying not to cry. Keith laughed at her shiver, his breath hot and sweet-smelling as it skated over her face. She turned into him, burying her head in the crook of his neck, exhaled heavily when he brought his arms fully around her, pressed his nose into her hair, and for the first time all day long, Watts smiled.
She doesn't remember how long they were lying there before she fell asleep, but she remembers waking up, his fingers in her hair, warm lips resting against her forehead. The sun was coming up, the light a kind of pale yellow, she could see the dust in the air.
“Morning.” Keith had said, his voice ever soft and warm, his fingers brushing the shell of her ear. She didn't know it at the time, wouldn't be able to put her finger on it for at least another two years afterwards, but Watts knows now that that moment, his fingers on her ear and his voice wishing her a good morning, that was the moment she had fallen in love with him.
She takes another pull of her cigarette, holds the smoke in her mouth a moment before sucking it down.
“Does he know?” God, Ray, she'd almost forgotten he was here.
“There's nothing to know, alright?” She snaps, flicks her cigarette butt out over the crest of the hill.
“Alright.” He mutters, and she wants to slug him when his lips form into a moody pout, as if she's supposed to care that he's upset. She doesn't.
Her fingers start to clench and unclench, bereft of their cigarette or any other occupation, and suddenly she's just itching to hit something, feel the supple wood of her sticks vibrate in her hands as she pounds them against her drums. Just the anticipation of it has her feeling better than she has since she walked out on Keith in that club.
Full of energy now she kicks her feet in the air and slides herself down to the floor, circling the car to the drivers' side door and pulling it open. Ray's still sitting on the hood, just kind of watching her, and she rolls her eyes at him.
“C'mon man, I got things to do, ok?” She gets inside the car without waiting for a response, turns the engine over the second his ass hits the seat. She pulls up in front of his house with the same loud squeal of tires that had accompanied their departure.
Ray hesitates before he gets out of the car, and she's about to say something to shoo him out when he turns to her with a ridiculous smile on his face.
“Thanks,” he says, “this was nice.” And he's so genuine she feels like she might just throw up on him, but instead she's pretty sure she blushes.
“Whatever, man, I'll see you at school alright?”
Ray smiles again and scrambles out of the car just as awkwardly as he'd pulled himself in, and she kind of can't help laughing at him as he trips over the curb on his way to the door. Idiot. He turns back when he gets to the door and smiles, his hand coming up in an awkward kind of wave, and Watts thinks that maybe if she hadn't been in love with Keith forever, she might actually find the moron kind of cute.
A pang of renewed misery cuts across her chest as she pictures Keith's face tonight in the bar, her hands clench on the steering wheel. Definitely a Keith Moon kind of night.
Characters/Pairing:Keith/Watts
Rating:PG-13
Word count: ~1600
Author's Notes: Some Kind of Wonderful fic written for taragel for the five acts meme, it kind of veered off course, but I quite like it, so I hope she will forgive me.
Summary:The cigarette burns, unsmoked in her hand. How long had she loved him?
Looking back on it, she couldn't tell you what had possessed her, but at the time, bringing Ray along with her out to Mulholland had seemed like kind of a good idea. Sure he was kind of a moron and annoying as hell, but the good thing about Ray was that he almost always agreed with everything she said, and after the night she'd had, well, she could use someone like that around.
So she sat outside his place honking the horn continuously until the neighbours started to yell and he ducked out of his house, arms shoving into the sleeves of his denim jacket as he made his way to the car, a goofy grin set on his face, like she was actually here to see him or something.
“Hi.” He stuck his head through the window of the mini, always open since the handle had come off the door last summer, and just grinned at her. God, this was a serious mistake.
“Shut up Ray, get in the car.”
“O-Ok.” Ray nodded and scrambled his way into the passenger seat, fumbling in his haste with the seat-belt clip. Watts didn't bother telling him that it didn't work anyway, just peeled away from the curb and out onto the road.
Out here at the top of the hill, laid out on the hood, she's actually sort of glad for the company. The fact that Ray's here is enough to keep her from crying like she wants to, and when he leans back on his elbows next to her and turns his head to watch her face in the moonlight, she maybe doesn't hate the way he looks at her.
But she looks back at him for half a second and he's not Keith, because Keith would never look at her like that even if he was here with her instead of in that bar watching a band he couldn't stand waiting for a girl who wasn't gonna show up. She swallows against the tears that spring up behind her eyes and she presses her lips closed so that she doesn't sob in his face, and decides that looking at the stars is a safer way to go.
“So, how long?” Ray asks, casually, lighting two cigarettes and passing one her way.
“Am I supposed to know what you're talking about?” Watts takes the cigarette between her thumb and her forefinger, studies it a moment before putting it to her lips. The warmth of the smoke hits against the back of her throat, stings her sinuses for a moment before she swallows it down. Ray is looking at her again.
“How long have you loved him?” She must look surprised because he raises his eyebrows. “What? I'm not an idiot.”
“That, Ray,” She pauses to take a drag of her cigarette, fixes her long-perfected withering glare on him, “is a debatable point.”
Ray snorts a little, like maybe he knows she's full of shit, and settles back to look up at the sky again.
And all of a sudden she's thinking about it, about Keith and her and just exactly when she had set about screwing up the only good thing she'd ever managed to hold onto.
She used to think it came on gradually, that she had started loving him in increments around about the time he started developing forearms and a jawline and she started noticing stuff like that.
But she's thought about it a lot, more than she's comfortable with if she's completely honest, and she's pretty certain she's got it nailed down to one exact moment on one exact day.
It's a day she tries really hard not to think about pretty much ever, the day her dad packed his bags and walked out on her and her brothers. It was the last day she ever let anyone call her Susan, because he had chosen it, and she didn't want to be reminded of his existence.
It was a night a lot like this one, the Los Angeles evening air stale and hot, warm in your lungs as you breathed it in, she could remember the particular shade of the night sky and the way she could smell Keith's yard through his open window, like dead grass and roses and exhaust fumes and heat.
They were thirteen. They'd been best friends for two years, since the day after her mom's funeral when she'd run away from home, made it as far as the corner of his street and sat down on the pavement sobbing because she couldn't go any further, but she didn't know how to get home. Keith's mom had found her and brought her inside where he was drawing at the kitchen table. Susan had sat down next to him, Keith had smiled, and that had been that.
Two years later, no-longer-Susan lay next to her best friend on his bed, her head pillowed on his biceps and three layers of flannel and cotton, staring at the ceiling, pretending that the stars they had painted there that spring were the real thing, and not just another lie like everything else in her life had become.
Her hair was longer then, just brushing her shoulders, and Keith had taken to playing with it sometimes, twirling the ends between his fingers when they were just sitting around quietly. She remembers the way the stray locks used to tickle her neck, the way the backs of his fingers were always cool when they occasionally brushed her skin. The hand not holding her cigarette raises unconsciously to the phantom hairs at her shoulder, she can't remember when he stopped doing that.
But he was doing it that night, rubbing hairs back and forth across each other, smoothing it down over her shoulder, his fingers brushed the place where her shoulders met her neck and she shivered, her whole body jerking.
An anomalous breeze floated in through the open window, cool against her cheeks, warm from trying not to cry. Keith laughed at her shiver, his breath hot and sweet-smelling as it skated over her face. She turned into him, burying her head in the crook of his neck, exhaled heavily when he brought his arms fully around her, pressed his nose into her hair, and for the first time all day long, Watts smiled.
She doesn't remember how long they were lying there before she fell asleep, but she remembers waking up, his fingers in her hair, warm lips resting against her forehead. The sun was coming up, the light a kind of pale yellow, she could see the dust in the air.
“Morning.” Keith had said, his voice ever soft and warm, his fingers brushing the shell of her ear. She didn't know it at the time, wouldn't be able to put her finger on it for at least another two years afterwards, but Watts knows now that that moment, his fingers on her ear and his voice wishing her a good morning, that was the moment she had fallen in love with him.
She takes another pull of her cigarette, holds the smoke in her mouth a moment before sucking it down.
“Does he know?” God, Ray, she'd almost forgotten he was here.
“There's nothing to know, alright?” She snaps, flicks her cigarette butt out over the crest of the hill.
“Alright.” He mutters, and she wants to slug him when his lips form into a moody pout, as if she's supposed to care that he's upset. She doesn't.
Her fingers start to clench and unclench, bereft of their cigarette or any other occupation, and suddenly she's just itching to hit something, feel the supple wood of her sticks vibrate in her hands as she pounds them against her drums. Just the anticipation of it has her feeling better than she has since she walked out on Keith in that club.
Full of energy now she kicks her feet in the air and slides herself down to the floor, circling the car to the drivers' side door and pulling it open. Ray's still sitting on the hood, just kind of watching her, and she rolls her eyes at him.
“C'mon man, I got things to do, ok?” She gets inside the car without waiting for a response, turns the engine over the second his ass hits the seat. She pulls up in front of his house with the same loud squeal of tires that had accompanied their departure.
Ray hesitates before he gets out of the car, and she's about to say something to shoo him out when he turns to her with a ridiculous smile on his face.
“Thanks,” he says, “this was nice.” And he's so genuine she feels like she might just throw up on him, but instead she's pretty sure she blushes.
“Whatever, man, I'll see you at school alright?”
Ray smiles again and scrambles out of the car just as awkwardly as he'd pulled himself in, and she kind of can't help laughing at him as he trips over the curb on his way to the door. Idiot. He turns back when he gets to the door and smiles, his hand coming up in an awkward kind of wave, and Watts thinks that maybe if she hadn't been in love with Keith forever, she might actually find the moron kind of cute.
A pang of renewed misery cuts across her chest as she pictures Keith's face tonight in the bar, her hands clench on the steering wheel. Definitely a Keith Moon kind of night.