Yuletide Fic: "Let's All Meet Up In The Year 2000." (Baby Driver) G
Title: Let's All Meet Up In The Year 2000. (On Archive Of Our Own)
Author:
lannamichaels
Fandom: Baby Driver
Rating: G
A/N: Happy Yuletide, JackEPeace! The title is from Disco 2000 by Pulp, which is a Debora song that was shamefully missing from the name-song conversation scene.
Summary: Debora's always itching to get away.
Mary doesn't like road trips. Debora's always itching to get away, to put some miles between her and anyone who knows her name, but Mary just doesn't get it. Mary's a fan of set schedules; Debora's a fan of the freedom of the road. She can stop whenever she likes. She can make whatever detours she likes. She can arrive early or late, and it won't be because of an airline's bullshit. She calls the shots. It's fantastic.
"I can't believe you like sitting in traffic," Mary says to her one day while Debora is expounding on this topic and Debora sticks her tongue out at her sister, which, yes, juvenile, but sometimes some juvenility is called for.
"Commuting is traffic," Debora says. "Travel is the road the traffic is on."
"You realize that makes no sense," Mary says. "Seriously, you're nuts." She shrugs. "Guess you and your getaway driver are made for each other."
By this point, Debora's known Baby longer through letters than through meetings or any physical interaction. She comes to visit him in prison, but it's not all that often that she can make it. And she likes writing. She likes finding postcards and jotting down thoughts and mailing them off. It's like music; it's crafting an experience and giving it to someone. A conversation is organic. A letter is planned. A letter is deliberate.
She likes being deliberate with Baby. She likes being spontaneous, but they can't really be spontaneous right now. So she might as well go all the way to the other side. If you're going to be deliberate, go all the way. Do it well. Do it like you mean it.
"He likes the journey," Debora says. "I don't know if he likes the destination. I don't think he's had much experience of them." From what she's gotten out of Baby, he's never really left Atlanta, not on purpose, not for fun. He joy-rided as a kid, then got caught up in a criminal enterprise and had to jump whenever his boss told him to. It didn't sound like it left time for vacation, even a weekend trip to another state. Baby was probably only crossing state lines to rob banks and then he was coming straight back to count the cash.
Debora's hours at the store aren't great and the pay is even worse, but she's visited seven states in the last six months and sent Baby a postcard from each one. A little bit of freedom experienced vicariously for someone in jail. A little bit of possibility experienced for someone who might never have had it.
And, maybe, a little bit of possibility of something more.
It's not the kind of long-distance relationship that her friends are familiar with. Mary's high school boyfriend had moved to Miami after graduation and they'd lasted two months after that. Debora's old roommate Jill has been online dating the same girl for three years and they've only met in person once. Debora's possibly-boyfriend is in jail and might never get out. They'd been lucky the prosecution hadn't pushed for the death penalty. Debora hadn't made any real promises to Baby, and he hadn't made any real promises to her. She knows he gets fanmail and it's his business if he writes back. He knows she's gone on a couple casual let's-see-what-happens dates.
Debora's honest with him. She isn't waiting for him. But they're friends and she hadn't lied at the trial. They'd both been hoping for something more. And that hope hasn't gone away.
At this point, they're friends-with-absolutely-no-benefits, but... but there's still something there. It's all modern love bullshit, Jill would say. Be who you are, be who you're with, even if you can't be with them. If it doesn't fit into some box, who the fuck cares. Put on some mood music and just live your life and fuck the haters.
"You need to stop making me feel sorry for him," Mary says. Mary's got her earrings in and she tosses one of Debora's scarves loosely around her neck. "Seriously, he made you an accessory. It's my sisterly duty to hold a grudge if you're not going to, because someone goddamn has to." Mary examines herself in the mirror critically, then re-applies her lipstick. "Do I pass?"
"Yeah, go knock 'em dead." Debora knows she's lucky her sister's a lawyer. It's just sometimes hard to remember to be grateful when Mary's reminding her about things. Things like how quickly and how easily Debora had been about to slip into a life of crime herself. She'd been the getaway driver for the actual getaway driver. Baby had shown up in her life and, in a blink of an eye, she'd helped him steal a car and kill a man in self-defense. That's not something a normal boyfriend drags you into. That's the kind of thing cautionary tales are made of. Debora's basically notorious in their friends group now. Debora is of the opinion that Baby's worth it, and Mary's of the opinion that he better be. Debora's lucky her entire life didn't get derailed and she knows that, but, well, sometimes being reminded about that is just plain annoying.
She'd lost her job at the diner. She'd gotten angry calls and voicemails from everyone who loves her. She doesn't know what would have happened to her if Mary hadn't gotten her a good lawyer. But... but her time with Baby was amazing. It was full of promise. It was full of potential. It had nearly gotten her killed, but it had been exhilarating.
So, yeah, her life's basically a cautionary tale right now. It's not great, and she'd certainly change parts of it if she could. But she can't regret meeting Baby. Before she met Baby, she hadn't gone anywhere either. She'd had dreams, fantasized about road trips, yearned for the feel of the road, but she'd never done anything about it. She'd never arranged her schedule and taken two days and just driven. She'd sat down before with Google Maps and thought maybe, but she'd never worked out routes before, she'd never been serious. And now she does it in her spare time, now she keeps itinerary ideas, now she jots down recommendations for roadside inns and attractions.
She could have done it without meeting Baby, sure, but she hadn't done it without meeting Baby. There's no point in dwelling in possibility. She did meet Baby. She did do some, in retrospect, really stupid things. And now she writes to Baby in jail and he writes back to her, and maybe they're dating and maybe they're not dating, but they've got some kind of relationship going, and maybe they'll have something more if and when Baby gets out, and maybe they won't, but it doesn't really matter what happens in the future. It matters what happens now.
And it's not like she doesn't have complaints, because she does, and it's not like she doesn't regret some of it, because she does, but she wouldn't trade it. It happened how it happened and she can't change it. Time hasn't stopped. Nothing that was true when Baby went to jail has changed, it's just had time to live longer. And Debora still cares about him, cares about him a lot.
She'll be there for him if and when he gets out. Maybe as a girlfriend, maybe just as a friend. But she'll be there for him. And maybe it's stupid and maybe she's just living out more of that cautionary tale, but fuck it, it's her life. It's her life to live. Fuck the haters.
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/993188.html.