Fic: Two Little Girls (Amanda Palmer/Regina Spektor, PG)
Title: Two Little Girls
Author: wakeupsparrow
Rating: PG
Pairing: Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls)/Regina Spektor
Word Count: 628
Disclaimer: Not real, obviously.
Notes: Written for the fanfic100 prompt "Strangers".
Because they are two girls who are supposedly separated geographically by the small space that exist between Boston and New York, they should in theory still be on familiar terms. Regina begins every song with a story about a why or a how or a character that isn't her, it makes Amanda feel like she's watching a movie. This is a movie about a girl named Regina who sits on a dimly lit stage with her mouth painted bright red like a 1940's movie star and her hair curled in a similar glamorous fashion to support that aesthetic. Regina is not a star in a traditional sense. She may be painted a million and a half pretty colors and under the lights she may look like a still-photograph representation of another era, but something about the cartoonish shapes she twists her mouth into when she sings and the strange question-mark notes she seems to end every song almost make Amanda want to burst out into a fit of laughter every time.
As Amanda watches Regina scream and shout and pound at the piano keys while telling cryptic stories about fictional identities that have never existed, something becomes blindingly clear. This is an entirely different woman than the one that Amanda first set eyes upon nearly two years ago to the day. This identity, this supreme poetic force of nature weighted down with humor and awkwardness is a Regina that has gone out into the world on her own and somehow carved her name into every flat surface she can, so anyone walking down the street or washing their clothes at the laundromat or ordering at the deli can see in giant letters 10 feet high, REGINA SPEKTOR WAS HERE. Amanda could write her letters, she could call her on the phone, and it wouldn't make any difference. This Regina is her Regina as much as Amanda is the white-makeup covered screaming combination of exhausted rage and every performance art cliche in the book. Each of them can flip through some ultra-scene rock magazine and pick out a random article on the top 10 "bands you need to know for next year" and stare for hours at the other's picture, but that's all it is. A picture. Performance. Theatre. Acting. Music.
What then, is left of the Regina of two years ago, the Regina and Amanda with lipstick and eyeliner in the bathroom of a tiny Manhattan club? What is left of the Regina who let out a triumphant A-HA! as she finally got the knack of the intricate design of Amanda's eyebrows? What is left of the Amanda who begrudgingly smeared her lips with Regina's candy-apple red after claiming it was far too orange, and what is left of all the trails of black and red and lipstick and eyeshadow and eyeliner after these two perfectly made up faces pressed together in a kiss that was controlled at the beginning but desperate toward the end? What is left of of the two of them as women and lovers rather than artists and performers?
When Amanda makes her exit through the crowd of detached indie-rock fans with entirely emotionless faces she doesn't hide the fact that she is crying openly, and an hour later in some random bar across the street those tears are dried in the corners of her eyes like an anchor to reality, and she doesn't care who sees. She raises her glass with an awkward laugh to no one in particular, "To Regina Spektor, out in the world"? and for some strange reason with those words, everything is okay. She doesn't know why. She probably never will.
Author: wakeupsparrow
Rating: PG
Pairing: Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls)/Regina Spektor
Word Count: 628
Disclaimer: Not real, obviously.
Notes: Written for the fanfic100 prompt "Strangers".
Because they are two girls who are supposedly separated geographically by the small space that exist between Boston and New York, they should in theory still be on familiar terms. Regina begins every song with a story about a why or a how or a character that isn't her, it makes Amanda feel like she's watching a movie. This is a movie about a girl named Regina who sits on a dimly lit stage with her mouth painted bright red like a 1940's movie star and her hair curled in a similar glamorous fashion to support that aesthetic. Regina is not a star in a traditional sense. She may be painted a million and a half pretty colors and under the lights she may look like a still-photograph representation of another era, but something about the cartoonish shapes she twists her mouth into when she sings and the strange question-mark notes she seems to end every song almost make Amanda want to burst out into a fit of laughter every time.
As Amanda watches Regina scream and shout and pound at the piano keys while telling cryptic stories about fictional identities that have never existed, something becomes blindingly clear. This is an entirely different woman than the one that Amanda first set eyes upon nearly two years ago to the day. This identity, this supreme poetic force of nature weighted down with humor and awkwardness is a Regina that has gone out into the world on her own and somehow carved her name into every flat surface she can, so anyone walking down the street or washing their clothes at the laundromat or ordering at the deli can see in giant letters 10 feet high, REGINA SPEKTOR WAS HERE. Amanda could write her letters, she could call her on the phone, and it wouldn't make any difference. This Regina is her Regina as much as Amanda is the white-makeup covered screaming combination of exhausted rage and every performance art cliche in the book. Each of them can flip through some ultra-scene rock magazine and pick out a random article on the top 10 "bands you need to know for next year" and stare for hours at the other's picture, but that's all it is. A picture. Performance. Theatre. Acting. Music.
What then, is left of the Regina of two years ago, the Regina and Amanda with lipstick and eyeliner in the bathroom of a tiny Manhattan club? What is left of the Regina who let out a triumphant A-HA! as she finally got the knack of the intricate design of Amanda's eyebrows? What is left of the Amanda who begrudgingly smeared her lips with Regina's candy-apple red after claiming it was far too orange, and what is left of all the trails of black and red and lipstick and eyeshadow and eyeliner after these two perfectly made up faces pressed together in a kiss that was controlled at the beginning but desperate toward the end? What is left of of the two of them as women and lovers rather than artists and performers?
When Amanda makes her exit through the crowd of detached indie-rock fans with entirely emotionless faces she doesn't hide the fact that she is crying openly, and an hour later in some random bar across the street those tears are dried in the corners of her eyes like an anchor to reality, and she doesn't care who sees. She raises her glass with an awkward laugh to no one in particular, "To Regina Spektor, out in the world"? and for some strange reason with those words, everything is okay. She doesn't know why. She probably never will.