Fic : Watching
Sooooo.... I finally broke through my writers block and I bring you guys this. It started out being for the advent challenge, then it just took on a bit of a life of its own, including some angsting on my part if it was any good. I've been MIA for the last 6 months while life kicks me square in the teeth (I'm getting a divorce, it's a thing, it sucks but I'm much better off without her, etc). You can stalk me on tumblr f you want the details.
So this is truly the first thing I've been able to finish since my life started going to shit. I hope y'all enjoy.
Title : Watching (hey, how do you know it is a Dani Kin story? It has a terrible overly-obvious one-word title!)
Rating : PG for mild stalking
Words : 900
Beta : Sharelle :D
Summary : A certain blue alien watches a certain nosy reporter
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Megamind knew that it wasn’t right the moment he arrived. He knew that he needed to give it up. Heroes, he told himself do not stalk people. They do not perch on the ledges of roofs at night and leer in at the people inside opposing buildings. It was pathetic, it was cheap, and it was below him.
But some habits are hard to break.
It was a Thursday, and Thursdays had certainly become habit. On Thursday she had late meetings and usually arrived home after dark. In the past he’d told himself that he was only doing this to ensure the safety of his prized hostage. But the thing was, he couldn’t stop watching, even when she was safely in her apartment.
He was a hero now, which meant he was supposed to be protecting the city, not peeping through windows. His villainous habits like the Thursday night ritual should be firmly in his past. But he couldn’t stop himself from even these small glances.
Every Thursday she would arrive home bearing bags of food from the takeout place around the corner and barely had her shoes off before she was opening a bottle of wine and pouring herself a generous glass. She would flop on the sectional with her takeout or sometimes eat at the counter while playing on her phone. He would watch every moment with laser-like focus.
In his Thursday night fantasies, things went a little differently: He would cook for her, have a feast laid out, and she would open her eyes in delight, the way she had when he had shown her the restored paintings at the Metro City art museum. There would be ravioli and garlic bread, or maybe pork tenderloin and a nice beet salad (prepared with Minion’s help of course). As soon as she came home, he would kiss her and ask her about her day. Sit her down and pour her a glass of wine - red or white, depending on the meal. And they would eat together, sometimes laughing and gesturing with their forks, sometimes holding hands in the silence.
It was what he’d seen normal people doing on a thousand other nights, as he peered through windows into a world he could only imagine.
God in evil heaven, he wanted that. Wanted to be beside her. Wanted her to kiss his blue cheek as she said, “Hi honey, I’m home.” He’d wanted this private little Thursday night fantasy for years. Sometimes he dreamed about rubbing her feet after dinner or - when he was feeling particularly bold, - kissing her and touching her as they sat together on the oversized red sectional in her apartment. He knew humans usually made love in bed, but he’d only seen her bedroom once, during a kidnapping gone awry. So his Thursday night fantasies normally featured the sofa he had stared at for so very long.
And, of course, there was another reason why he shouldn’t be here.
Tomorrow he was taking her out on a real date, where he would wear his own face. It would be their first since the incident with Titan. She had smiled at him when he’d asked, even as he hesitated and rambled through the entire invitation. Miraculously, she had accepted. Clearly, she didn’t know that she was going on a date with a peeping tom who’d spent years lurking and fantasizing about her.
Tomorrow would be real however. He would pretend to be normal, pretend that eating in restaurants undisguised was something that he did all the time. On the inside he knew that he would be a block of ice, wondering who was staring at him or if his mere presence would make a baby cry. Or worse yet, he would be waiting for the moment when Roxanne realized that she only liked going out with him when he looked like another man. A human man.
And even worse, what if she smiled at him? That little smile of hers always made everything in the world fall away, which would only make it worse when something would inevitably remind her that she was on a date with a blue alien freak.
Do you think I would ever be with you?
No the little fears in his head whispered darkly to him. They insisted that it would be better to call off this farce or simply not show up. That way, he could continue as he had before, his Thursday night reverie uninterrupted by the harsh light of day.
Megamind took a breath. He knew he could not hurt her like that. He’d already hurt her enough for a lifetime. Instead he worked to push those voices aside.
Roxanne Ritchi was not a stupid woman. She’d agreed to go out with him exactly as he was, and if she had regrets about it, she certainly wasn’t communicating them. She had even called his brand new cell phone this afternoon to double check the time and because, in her words, “I just wanted to talk to you”.
Him. She just wanted to talk to him. The big-headed blue alien who had kidnapped her for years and nearly gotten her killed recently. She wanted to talk to him.
He stood for one last moment on his ledge, then hopped down onto the gravel of the roof where the hoverbike was so neatly parked nearby. Heroes didn’t lurk in the dark, wrapped in these soothing shadows. It was below him.
And it paled in comparison with the bright lure of tomorrow.