Fic: "One Week", The Pretender
Man, I'm posting fic like a demon at the moment. I blame being in love.
Title: One Week
Fandom: The Pretender, Miss Parker/Jarod
Rating: M-ish
Disclaimer: Steven's and Craig's, not mine.
One Week
Pretender-verse
---
Author's Notes: Beta'd, as always, by bantha_fodder. For, as always, bantha_fodder. Written at the counter of work when I was supposed to be analysing reports. LOL.
---
MONDAY
She's two hours late, but no-one bats an eyelid. Legs for days,
careening towards who-knows-what, and amplified by Manolo Blahniks
across the tiled floor.
The moment seems to go on forever in their minds. In hers, it only
takes a second before her and her busy mind smacks through the office
door for another day of intelligent lies and substandard espionage.
She isn't surprised to see the box on her desk, untidy from travel and
being handled by foreign hands. He hasn't put enough postage on it,
and she knows it's because he'd given twenty bucks to some urchin to
post it, only to have his good deed turned into a through way of cheap
liquor and a couple of Big Macs.
Still, the box arrived, barely, and she turns it over in her hands.
Don't open until Friday, is written on the front in his
handwriting, so she puts it in her bottom drawer to forget about it.
She doesn't.
TUESDAY
Her father is standing in front of her, half-heartedly trying to
organise a dinner for Sunday night. She bites down on a curse word
and, instead, tells a lie as smooth as Hessian but he's so desperate
to escape, he pretends to believe her.
He leaves, and she wonders when their relationship turned from loving
to nothing, from animate to inanimate, but she can't quite put her
finger on it.
The cigarettes she's trying to quit are in the bottom drawer; if she
doesn't have self-control then she won't have anything at all.
WEDNESDAY
They're following a lead that all three of them know is useless.
An aged man tells of Jarod like the second coming, how he turned his
burden of a life upside down and owes him everything because.
She lights a cigarette that she bummed from some kid on the corner,
and waves her hand at Broots to go back to the car while Sydney thanks
the man for his time. He watches as she drags her feet back to their
vehicle, back to The Centre.
"What? It's hump day," she spits at him, and they both know the burden
of Sunday is hanging between them.
He leaves it, and she could kiss him for doing so.
THURSDAY
She gets through the day with illicit nicotine and a box of
chocolates, by yelling at Broots and sneering at her brother through
extremely thinly veiled disdain.
Later, she skips out early and runs past Sydney's questioning eyes,
and dives into a bubble bath. She plays at being a normal, single
female, and tries to ignore the excitement building over such a
simple, tiny item that lies at the bottom of her disused contraband
drawer.
Twelve to midnight, and it's all she can do to not climb in her car
and rush to the office to open it the exact moment Thursday turns into
Friday.
FRIDAY
The tiny origami bird nestled in tissue paper doesn't surprise her as
much as her faceless secretary's shock at her being in at 6am.
She's angry at herself for the smile tickling at her mouth, as the
bird unravels into a plane ticket with her name on it and the
destination printed as "Tokyo".
"Fuck this," she breathes, and walks out of the office to hail a cab
to the airport. She has two hours to hitch her plane, and only two
hours to wonder why she's doing it in the first place.
SATURDAY
Tokyo is teeming with faces that look the same to her, but only
because she's searching for one in particular.
"Miss Parker! Miss Parker!" A heavily accented voice is waving her
down, and an excited young man dressed as a bellhop runs to her, unaware of her
grasp of his language. "This way, this way!"
She's lead to a hotel lobby, nameless, faceless, and told to wait.
"You much more beautiful than Jarod say," Hyoko (her escort's name
being) says, before he bows and dances back to his post at the
doorway. Occasionally, he grins at her and taps his watch and she
again tries not to smile.
It's a strange ballet that continues for hours, as she progressively
finds herself becoming crankier and crankier. Finally, Hyoko bounds
towards her and points at the check-in desk. "You check in, Miss
Parker, I finish work now."
She wants to run, to yell at this happy-go-lucky freak in his own
language, to shock the grin off his face. But she doesn't, and she
follows, and wonders why she's being so damn obedient when being so
obviously fucked around.
The nasty little voice in the back of her mind whispers the answer
she already knows. She chooses to ignore it, and instead, concentrates
on checking in without saying a word.
He prattles to the receptionist for her and she's soon outside her room,
trying to repress the hazardous anger growing inside her as she swings
open the elaborate electronically locked door.
The room is swimming in rose light, as hundreds of origami cranes hang
from every conceivable space to create a flock of beautifully coloured
birds swimming through the air with the soft breeze flowing from the
silent air conditioner.
She sits on the bed and stares, until eventually she falls asleep,
dreaming of empty nests and the beauty of freedom.
SUNDAY
He's sitting across from her as she wakes, and no part of her is
surprised. He smiles, and she smiles back, before he comes to her in
the bed and neither of them can tell the other apart.
It's April, and it's been years, so many years since her mother died,
that she finds it hard to remember the exact number or the exact way
in which it happened. So many years of hurt and pain, of chasing paper
cranes without bothering to gather them together to create the magical
thousand in an attempt to bring herself latent happiness.
It doesn't matter, now, because he's seen what she needs before she
even does. As they play in the sheets as a way of escape, they both
know tomorrow they return to their respective roles of chaser and
chased, but it doesn't spoil anything.
At the end of the week, another begins; like the years and months and days.
But at least for one day, as far away from her life as possible, she
flies along side the crane instead of trying to harbor him and it
tastes like freedom.
---
Fin.
---
Draw = drawer. Right, Pen? I don't think it's possible to love a show as much as I love this one.
Title: One Week
Fandom: The Pretender, Miss Parker/Jarod
Rating: M-ish
Disclaimer: Steven's and Craig's, not mine.
One Week
Pretender-verse
---
Author's Notes: Beta'd, as always, by bantha_fodder. For, as always, bantha_fodder. Written at the counter of work when I was supposed to be analysing reports. LOL.
---
MONDAY
She's two hours late, but no-one bats an eyelid. Legs for days,
careening towards who-knows-what, and amplified by Manolo Blahniks
across the tiled floor.
The moment seems to go on forever in their minds. In hers, it only
takes a second before her and her busy mind smacks through the office
door for another day of intelligent lies and substandard espionage.
She isn't surprised to see the box on her desk, untidy from travel and
being handled by foreign hands. He hasn't put enough postage on it,
and she knows it's because he'd given twenty bucks to some urchin to
post it, only to have his good deed turned into a through way of cheap
liquor and a couple of Big Macs.
Still, the box arrived, barely, and she turns it over in her hands.
Don't open until Friday, is written on the front in his
handwriting, so she puts it in her bottom drawer to forget about it.
She doesn't.
TUESDAY
Her father is standing in front of her, half-heartedly trying to
organise a dinner for Sunday night. She bites down on a curse word
and, instead, tells a lie as smooth as Hessian but he's so desperate
to escape, he pretends to believe her.
He leaves, and she wonders when their relationship turned from loving
to nothing, from animate to inanimate, but she can't quite put her
finger on it.
The cigarettes she's trying to quit are in the bottom drawer; if she
doesn't have self-control then she won't have anything at all.
WEDNESDAY
They're following a lead that all three of them know is useless.
An aged man tells of Jarod like the second coming, how he turned his
burden of a life upside down and owes him everything because.
She lights a cigarette that she bummed from some kid on the corner,
and waves her hand at Broots to go back to the car while Sydney thanks
the man for his time. He watches as she drags her feet back to their
vehicle, back to The Centre.
"What? It's hump day," she spits at him, and they both know the burden
of Sunday is hanging between them.
He leaves it, and she could kiss him for doing so.
THURSDAY
She gets through the day with illicit nicotine and a box of
chocolates, by yelling at Broots and sneering at her brother through
extremely thinly veiled disdain.
Later, she skips out early and runs past Sydney's questioning eyes,
and dives into a bubble bath. She plays at being a normal, single
female, and tries to ignore the excitement building over such a
simple, tiny item that lies at the bottom of her disused contraband
drawer.
Twelve to midnight, and it's all she can do to not climb in her car
and rush to the office to open it the exact moment Thursday turns into
Friday.
FRIDAY
The tiny origami bird nestled in tissue paper doesn't surprise her as
much as her faceless secretary's shock at her being in at 6am.
She's angry at herself for the smile tickling at her mouth, as the
bird unravels into a plane ticket with her name on it and the
destination printed as "Tokyo".
"Fuck this," she breathes, and walks out of the office to hail a cab
to the airport. She has two hours to hitch her plane, and only two
hours to wonder why she's doing it in the first place.
SATURDAY
Tokyo is teeming with faces that look the same to her, but only
because she's searching for one in particular.
"Miss Parker! Miss Parker!" A heavily accented voice is waving her
down, and an excited young man dressed as a bellhop runs to her, unaware of her
grasp of his language. "This way, this way!"
She's lead to a hotel lobby, nameless, faceless, and told to wait.
"You much more beautiful than Jarod say," Hyoko (her escort's name
being) says, before he bows and dances back to his post at the
doorway. Occasionally, he grins at her and taps his watch and she
again tries not to smile.
It's a strange ballet that continues for hours, as she progressively
finds herself becoming crankier and crankier. Finally, Hyoko bounds
towards her and points at the check-in desk. "You check in, Miss
Parker, I finish work now."
She wants to run, to yell at this happy-go-lucky freak in his own
language, to shock the grin off his face. But she doesn't, and she
follows, and wonders why she's being so damn obedient when being so
obviously fucked around.
The nasty little voice in the back of her mind whispers the answer
she already knows. She chooses to ignore it, and instead, concentrates
on checking in without saying a word.
He prattles to the receptionist for her and she's soon outside her room,
trying to repress the hazardous anger growing inside her as she swings
open the elaborate electronically locked door.
The room is swimming in rose light, as hundreds of origami cranes hang
from every conceivable space to create a flock of beautifully coloured
birds swimming through the air with the soft breeze flowing from the
silent air conditioner.
She sits on the bed and stares, until eventually she falls asleep,
dreaming of empty nests and the beauty of freedom.
SUNDAY
He's sitting across from her as she wakes, and no part of her is
surprised. He smiles, and she smiles back, before he comes to her in
the bed and neither of them can tell the other apart.
It's April, and it's been years, so many years since her mother died,
that she finds it hard to remember the exact number or the exact way
in which it happened. So many years of hurt and pain, of chasing paper
cranes without bothering to gather them together to create the magical
thousand in an attempt to bring herself latent happiness.
It doesn't matter, now, because he's seen what she needs before she
even does. As they play in the sheets as a way of escape, they both
know tomorrow they return to their respective roles of chaser and
chased, but it doesn't spoil anything.
At the end of the week, another begins; like the years and months and days.
But at least for one day, as far away from her life as possible, she
flies along side the crane instead of trying to harbor him and it
tastes like freedom.
---
Fin.
---
Draw = drawer. Right, Pen? I don't think it's possible to love a show as much as I love this one.