for a minute there (i lost myself) [1185 words] ||
shattered_ink .
PG-13: swearing.
hanna beth/ryan ross.
summary: jac sat behind them in last-period english, and somewhere in november - between finishing to kill a mockingbird and starting the catcher in the rye - she tossed a note to ryan that said look to your right, a note to hanna beth that said look to your left, then she reached forward, threw her arms across their shoulders and whispered, “now look in front of you; meet your new best friend.”
disclaimer: don't own them. this didn't happen. title belongs to Radiohead's "Karma Police."
a/n: this was written forever ago. a pretty short, straightforward high-school au with one of my favorite couples that never was. i know i haven't been here posting in forever, but i want to get back into this world. i've missed it & i need to catch up! well, here's a blast from my past that i'm posting now & i hope it's enjoyable.
“karma police,” she said, sliding a candy cigarette from its pack. “i’m arresting you, ross, because your hair is always in your face.”
“then fix it, officer.” he rolled his eyes, but when she reached over and brushed the mop from his face, the laugh he’d been planning died somewhere in his throat. she grinned at him, at his dumbstruck expression, at the way his pupils ballooned and his mouth parted when he was confused. “it’s your turn,” she reminded him. “karma police. who are you arresting?”
and he thought, you, hanna beth, for what you’re doing to my head, but he mumbled, “oh. pass,” and waved his hand. “you’re much better at this anyway.”
*
karma police had always been their thing - the bridge between this loner and a girl with bangles up to her elbows. she was his duplicate: a dark-haired drifter who did too little and thought too much. she was married to her make-up, he was wedded to his words, and they would never have noticed the other if not for a girl named jac.
jac sat behind them in last-period english, and somewhere in november - between finishing to kill a mockingbird and starting the catcher in the rye - she tossed a note to ryan that said look to your right, a note to hanna beth that said look to your left, then she reached forward, threw her arms across their shoulders and whispered, “now look in front of you; meet your new best friend.”
jac said it, and it was so.
by the time snow had carpeted the streets, hanna beth and ryan had become hannabeth&ryan: trademarked, copyrighted, and complete with inside jokes and sometimes-kisses that were never supposed to mean anything until suddenly -
suddenly, they did.
*
he sensed something was off when she approached him in silence. most days, she’d have half her thoughts out of her mouth before she’d even reached his locker. today, her lips were pursed and she kept pushing her bangs from her eyes, ignoring the hair clips and bows in her bag. her fingers twitched. she needed something to do with her hands.
“who died?” ryan asked. not serious. not sarcastic. somewhere in between.
“trace and jac,” she said, and laughed. “trace and jac, trace and jac, trace and jac.” she threw her fists at his locker with each mention of their names. her knuckles came away peeled and bloody, with the vent-like impression of the locker front branded into them. “trace and jac,” she croaked.
“they died?”
“they fucked.” she pounded the locker again.
“stop that.” he reached for her arms, but she yanked them from him and covered her face. he rolled his eyes; he could still see her body, tiny and frail, shaking as she cried. “you’re not hiding anything from me.”
“shut up.”
“he was an asshole.”
she dropped her arms. sniffed and wiped at her nose. in the breathless voice of someone who’d been slapped, she said, “i loved him.”
ryan wondered if they were the only two left in the school at that point, if anyone would spring from the science lab or the supply closet if he were to pull her in and hold her. he didn’t, though. he only imagined.
“karma police,” she said softly, to the floor. “he - she - they broke my heart.”
*
on monday, jac looked brighter and healthier than hanna beth could ever remember seeing her. she wondered if there was a certain lucency one acquired when they had a boyfriend, and she wondered if that lucency had vanished from her, left her looking like a wrinkled newborn under fluorescent lights.
“you’d look fine if you didn’t keep staring at them,” ryan mumbled, and hanna beth blushed a furious red- the closest she could come to glowing.
“i can’t believe you still love him,” ryan went on, voice low and humming, so hushed that he could read the complete works of shakespeare and no one would realize he’d been speaking unless they were straining to catch each word. “he’s such a dick, hanna. you’re better than that, than him, why would you even -”
“karma police. you’re lying.”
“actually -” ryan drummed on the desk. “actually. i’m not.”
*
she brought microwavable popcorn and movies to his doorstep that afternoon, and he let her in.
he let her choose a movie while the microwave hummed and the popcorn bag rattled in the background. she chose Forrest Gump. the microwave beeped and the popping slowed. then it stopped.
ryan dimmed the lights, hanna beth started the movie, and the two of them sat curled in front of the glare, leaning toward each other, not touching. fifteen minutes in, ryan said, “he’s so stupid.”
and she said, “who, forrest?”
and he said, “no,” and cut the movie off.
the sudden dark stunned both of them, until the light seeping in through cracks in the windows and doors became enough for them to see each other’s silhouettes. “what’d you do that for?” hanna beth reached blindly for him, found his shoulders, his face. “ryan?”
“we’re going to play a game of karma police.”
somewhere between their laps, a screen lit up sharply - ryan’s iPod. His thumb rounded the scrolling-wheel; he buried one bud deep in his ear and handed the other to hanna beth. if they both didn’t know the words by heart, they wouldn’t have really been able to make them out between thom yorke’s accent and the hypnotic melody building behind the words. but this had been their song - their thing - and hackneyed high school shit like that was hard to let go of. hard to forget.
ryan turned the song down until it was a tiny humming somewhere in the corner of their heads. “karma police. you’re under arrest for that time in, like, november, when you came to school with that fake ring through your nose and freaked the shit out of everyone.”
“karma police. i arrest you for that time you wore those purple pants to the halloween dance.”
“karma police. you dated trace cyrus.”
“karma police. you were best friends with jac.”
“karma police. you actually tried getting into audrey kitching’s in-crowd at the beginning of the year.”
“karma police. you didn’t try to stop me.”
ryan turned the volume all the way down. he pulled the bud from his ear and let it fall. “karma police,” he said. “i’m turning myself in. for being stupid. for being pretty much in love with you since the day we met. for never being able to say it.”
she fumbled with her own earbud as though she could still hear something out of it. “karma police,” she said. The iPod screen glowed white between them, throwing light onto their faces. “karma police, ryan ross. you stole my thought.”
*