fic: so far around the bend
rpf au: rockstars and politicians. matt/kaz. 700 words. Sometimes just being in the same room as her feels like theft.
notes: continuation of saved too many times. I officially have no idea what I'm doing.
She curls her hands around the lattice-work head board, nails painted a garish orange, and he stares at her teeth- just barely sinking into her bottom lip- and then at the blue lines tracing across her wrists.
She gasps around his name. Once and then again and again until he presses his forehead against hers. Breathes her air, tries to steal the red of her lips.
“I love you, Kaz,” he whispers and then wishes he hadn’t.
-
They don’t talk about the future. Living with an expiration date is hard enough without an extra reminder.
Once a journalist, or someone passing as such, asks her where she sees herself in ten-twenty-thirty years. She laughs, a casual toss of red hair, “the victim of an inevitable suicide.”
He calls her up that night, presses her into his mattress and sinks his teeth into her back, into the skin of her neck, into the smooth flesh between her breasts.
“Matt.”
“Don’t. Don’t. Just don’t talk. Not now.”
His voice stutters and shatters.
(“I hold you accountable. For the things you’ve done to yourself- I hold no one but you accountable.”
He won’t tell her this. He wants to sometimes. But that’s not enough. He isn’t enough for her.)
-
He’s still a backbencher but people who aren’t his constituents start saying his name and then they don’t stop. It’s not fame so much as reputation and it’s not something he’s willing to risk.
She laughs at him, over breakfast one day, when he tries to explain. He sketches meaningless shapes in the air, gets louder and louder until the excitement is too much and he takes her hands and spins her around the kitchen.
There’s no music, just the sound of the rain hitting the windows and her laughter and he hums old Nat King Cole songs. She buries her face in his neck as they spin and he sets his cheek against her hair and closes his eyes.
-
Sometimes just being in the same room as her feels like theft. Like he’s stealing moments from some other version of himself, some other timeline.
-
She does an American tour. There are sold-out arena shows and televised interviews where she’s half charm and half too-wicked humor. If he spends more time than usual reading the entertainment columns, it isn’t something anyone else will know.
She calls from LA, voice soft through the phone and he pictures her leaning her head against a window in some hotel, smoking cheap cigarettes because no one will say a word to stop her.
He taps his fingers against his desk. It isn’t smart to be taking the call at the office but no one else is around. He’s been working late nights. Arthur smirks at him from the desk in the front room but doesn’t say anything.
Kaz is breathing on the other side of the world and the presence of her, just that small part of it, is almost unbearable.
“I miss you,” she whispers. She has a thumb hooked under the edge of her sleeve, knees pulled up to her chest and her eyes are too wide, the way they always are when she doesn’t know what she’s doing. These are things he knows without having to look at her.
He smiles against the phone, leans his head against the desk.
-
Fame is a different animal in her world.
Intellectually he knows this but it’s hard to remember most of the time. She’s so warm and so human. All awkward laughs and jokes that fall flat but she laughs while she’s saying them so everyone else does too. He can trace every scar, every line, every imperfection and every perfection on her body from memory but some days he doesn’t recognize her.
Sometimes she sits, small and unbearably bright with fame. Every eye in the room catches on her, and he’s no different. Some days, when the tabloids print too many pictures or the whispers start to sound like screams, she wraps an arm around her own waist, slips a pill out of a bottle (that he never looks at too closely) and into her mouth.
The world sits on her shoulders and watches her every move for no other reason than that she’s talented and that she’s beautiful and that this is enough for fame to sink claws into her. For fame to eat her whole.
Those days she isn’t his. She doesn’t belong to anyone (not even herself). He still holds her close- does his best to keep her alive.
notes: continuation of saved too many times. I officially have no idea what I'm doing.
She curls her hands around the lattice-work head board, nails painted a garish orange, and he stares at her teeth- just barely sinking into her bottom lip- and then at the blue lines tracing across her wrists.
She gasps around his name. Once and then again and again until he presses his forehead against hers. Breathes her air, tries to steal the red of her lips.
“I love you, Kaz,” he whispers and then wishes he hadn’t.
-
They don’t talk about the future. Living with an expiration date is hard enough without an extra reminder.
Once a journalist, or someone passing as such, asks her where she sees herself in ten-twenty-thirty years. She laughs, a casual toss of red hair, “the victim of an inevitable suicide.”
He calls her up that night, presses her into his mattress and sinks his teeth into her back, into the skin of her neck, into the smooth flesh between her breasts.
“Matt.”
“Don’t. Don’t. Just don’t talk. Not now.”
His voice stutters and shatters.
(“I hold you accountable. For the things you’ve done to yourself- I hold no one but you accountable.”
He won’t tell her this. He wants to sometimes. But that’s not enough. He isn’t enough for her.)
-
He’s still a backbencher but people who aren’t his constituents start saying his name and then they don’t stop. It’s not fame so much as reputation and it’s not something he’s willing to risk.
She laughs at him, over breakfast one day, when he tries to explain. He sketches meaningless shapes in the air, gets louder and louder until the excitement is too much and he takes her hands and spins her around the kitchen.
There’s no music, just the sound of the rain hitting the windows and her laughter and he hums old Nat King Cole songs. She buries her face in his neck as they spin and he sets his cheek against her hair and closes his eyes.
-
Sometimes just being in the same room as her feels like theft. Like he’s stealing moments from some other version of himself, some other timeline.
-
She does an American tour. There are sold-out arena shows and televised interviews where she’s half charm and half too-wicked humor. If he spends more time than usual reading the entertainment columns, it isn’t something anyone else will know.
She calls from LA, voice soft through the phone and he pictures her leaning her head against a window in some hotel, smoking cheap cigarettes because no one will say a word to stop her.
He taps his fingers against his desk. It isn’t smart to be taking the call at the office but no one else is around. He’s been working late nights. Arthur smirks at him from the desk in the front room but doesn’t say anything.
Kaz is breathing on the other side of the world and the presence of her, just that small part of it, is almost unbearable.
“I miss you,” she whispers. She has a thumb hooked under the edge of her sleeve, knees pulled up to her chest and her eyes are too wide, the way they always are when she doesn’t know what she’s doing. These are things he knows without having to look at her.
He smiles against the phone, leans his head against the desk.
-
Fame is a different animal in her world.
Intellectually he knows this but it’s hard to remember most of the time. She’s so warm and so human. All awkward laughs and jokes that fall flat but she laughs while she’s saying them so everyone else does too. He can trace every scar, every line, every imperfection and every perfection on her body from memory but some days he doesn’t recognize her.
Sometimes she sits, small and unbearably bright with fame. Every eye in the room catches on her, and he’s no different. Some days, when the tabloids print too many pictures or the whispers start to sound like screams, she wraps an arm around her own waist, slips a pill out of a bottle (that he never looks at too closely) and into her mouth.
The world sits on her shoulders and watches her every move for no other reason than that she’s talented and that she’s beautiful and that this is enough for fame to sink claws into her. For fame to eat her whole.
Those days she isn’t his. She doesn’t belong to anyone (not even herself). He still holds her close- does his best to keep her alive.