(no subject)
For xenaamber, To Love You More
So, let me just preface this by saying that the start date of this fic was 03-07-01, which means I was thirteen. And I obviously sucked. But in a delightful, omg badfic way.
Jess sent me all 67 pages of it, but I asked her to pick some highlights. So here you go.
§*~*§
Aphrodite had already forgotten what she had said, but Eve, Xena and Gabrielle saw the change in Ares' disposition.
"You guys go ahead, I'm gonna have a little chat with-" I love that Xena is going to say this in front of Ares. Like, was she whispering? This whole thing is so bizarre.
"Tall, dark and handsome? Ha. Okay. C'mon Gabby, let's go shop for things we don't need with dinars we don't have. Evie, you too." Dite pulled them into a little shop.
Xena turned to Ares and took his elbow forcefully. So she can escort him elsewhere? Why? I think they’re on the middle of the street.
"What's the matter, Ares?" she asked carefully, falling into step with him.
"Nothing." Xena stopped and looked at him. Apparently then I had no yet mastered the whole, someone speaks on one line, someone else does an action on the next, if that’s the way you want to roll. Either way, I’m confusing myself about the whole “someone speaks without using a name, then someone else does something.
"Don't tell me 'Nothing', Ares. And don't you dare lie to me." Ares kept his eyes downcast. Oh, yes. Shamed Ares. Because the man was such a pansy.
"It's none of your concern, Xena." 1) There was no space there, so it was mostly Xena Xena. 2) shouldn’t that be exclaimed? Xena placed her hand under his chin and jerked his chin up so he would look at her. Sweet God, Why? Why?
"It is too. When Aphrodite told you she wanted to go home you totally changed. Why is that?" Um, for huge reasons described in an earlier passage. Can’t you read, Xena?
"It is none of your concern, Xena!" Ah, there’s the yelling. he barked. Xena knew he wasn't really angry, that was just trying to defer her. … Yeah, see, I think Xena might think that, but then be like, asshole! And think he was angry anyway. But I haven’t seen Xena in like, six years, so what do I know?
"Then I'll make it my concern, Ares!" she challenged. He looked into her persistent, crystalline orbs. Hee! Crystalline orbs. Oh man.
And Ares told her. He told her it all. At least we don’t have to reread it. It was like, two pages long. What he had re-realized when Aphrodite had said that, said what? the anguish of being a mortal, the regret of everything, loathing of mortality, the longing for godhood. Big theme in this fic. Big. Huge.
And through it all, Xena listened. Ares had been building this up for a year, and what he really needed was for someone to listen, not to criticize, not to give advice, but to really listen to what he had to say. Yes, because Xena was all about the warm and fuzzies. Xena had no criticism to give, had no advice to offer. Wow, I think that is a total lie!
She felt responsible for this suffering. Ha!
And when he had finished, she just stood there, absorbing it. She swallowed, then licked her lips, Que sexy! before saying finally:
"If you could decide, all over again, what would you do?" Ares… gave up his immortality for Xena. Like, not cause she asked, but because it would help her. Or something. Most of my memory of this show is the weird frozen part.
Ares looked up at her, thinking how beautiful she looked in the sun's final rays before nightfall, and how difficult this question was to answer. That? Right there? Was like, pure Danielle Steel material. Win, thirteen-year-old-self, win.
His decision had brought him pain and suffering. It had brought the end of his life as he knew it, with a death warrant lurking somewhere in the back. His decision had been rash and spur-of-the-moment.
But with his suffering, he had deterred her's. Yep. Her’s. Not hers. Had he done nothing, Xena would've died, but even if she hadn't, her soul would've. Yeah, still don’t know why. Don’t much care either, it’s fun picturing Xena’s soul as a plant, and Ares’s godhood miracle-gro.
Would he change his mind? Would he do it over the same way again? Would he lose his immortality over a 'thing' for some mortal woman? Damn straight.
The answer came quite clear to Ares, filling his mind with nothing else. He looked into the blue depths of her eyes.
"I'd give up my immortality again." Xena looked into his brown eyes, Eye color is obviously very important here. searching for an answer different from the one her heart thrust at her. Hee. Dirty.
"Why?" Ares let out a light laugh. He would not leave his heart out for ridicule once more. It has still not yet recovered from last time. That was Xena speaking, btw.
"Because I'm a rash, stupid, "Gulp, "Mortal." Notice the lack of spaces and bizarre capitalization.
Xena seemed to accept this answer.
But her heart did not. Heeee!
As close as they could possibly walk next to each other without actually touching, they walked back to the shop Gabrielle, Eve and Aphrodite had stepped into. That conversation is over, bitches. Eve and Gabrielle were sitting on leather couch Yeah, a couch. You heard that right. , and Aphrodite was no where to be found.
"Where's Dite?" A real nickname for Aphrodite on the show. asked Ares. Gabrielle and Eve pointed in unison. Suddenly, a swirl of pink satin came whirling out at them.
"TA-DA!!!!!!!!!!!" it was Aphrodite, modeling an outfit.
§*~*§
They somehow managed to pry Dite from the store (while she screamed in anger) and found an inn sometime later.
One problem.
Five of them, two rooms. Oh yes, of course! The dilemma of all dilemmas! It’s Old Ares Had a Farm all over again.
Eve automatically stepped towards her mother, Gabby and Aphrodite towards one another.
Ares watched on.
“Well, I have to sleep somewhere, and with this arrangement, it'll either be with Xena and Eve or Gabrielle and Dite.”
“We could always leave you out with the horses, Ares.” Said Eve sweetly, smiling at him. Ares muttered something incoherently and balled two fists.
Eve hates Ares, and the only reason I can figure out is because when he thought she was Livia and didn’t know she was Xena’s kid, he was banging her brains out, god of war style. Then Xena came back and he was all *lovesick puppy* and Livia was all OMGWTF and then found on Xena was her mom and boo hoo reunion and she turned into Eve, lover of light and goodness and pseudochristianity. Or something.
"Well, this is easy. Blondie and Cutie share a room and you n' me n' Warrior Babe'll share one, too." She looked at them with a look as frightening as one in pink lingerie can give. Oddly enough, no one questioned her. She being Dite, but that one was easy to figure out cause of her stupid nicknames. I kind of love it.
§*~*§
The arrangement wouldn't've <- wow. Just… wow. been so bad if there had been more than one bed per room.
But there wasn't.
In Eve and Gabrielle's case, it was easy.
"Share a bed or else." growled Xena.
But in the little trio's case, 'twas not. ’twas! I said ‘twas! Winnnn!
"I call the bed!" cried 'Dite, taking a flying leap and landing in the middle of the bed.
"Ditto!" called Ares, jumping on as well. Yes, because the former god of war would totally yell “ditto” and then jump on a bed. dear god. Xena stood there with an arched eyebrow.
"I don't think so." said Xena. Ares watched her from his reclined position on the bed.
"She's my sister!" Xena arched her eyebrows further and snickered. "You've got a sick mind, Xe, a very, very sick mind." Dirty! Also, calling her Xe. Hee!
"Taught by the very best. Couch, War boy, Couch." And here we go…
"Think not, 'Warrior Babe'." he said, using Dite's nickname for her. Aphrodite watched this exchange with interest. Unbeknownst to them, Gabrielle and Eve pressed their ears against the wall to listen. Because they’re losers. Gabby hasn’t said a single thing this whole time! Wow!
"I am not sharing a bed with you, 'Studmuffin'." Xena growled, digging into her knowlegde Yep. Knowlegde. of Ares’ irritation with Dite’s hare-brained nicknames.
"That was low, 'Warrior Chick', real low." Ares also knew of Xena’s distate for them. I would hope so.
"Don't go there, 'Sweetie Pie'." Xena snarled.
Ares narrowed his eyes. "'Angel-face'!"
"'Sweetheart'!" Xena shot back.
"'Cutie pie'!" He retorted.
"Honey-bunch!" She snapped, furrowing her brows. How could he get her so riled up over a stupid BED? Yep. This is riled up.
"Snookums!" He fired back, clearing enjoying this verbal combat.
"Goody-goody!" She went for his soft-spot.
"Baby!"
See! They’re in looove! They bicker maturely!
"Ey, quit it or both y'all are sleeping on the floor. Ares, couch or floor, your choice. War Chick, step away from the hottie and shut up or else you're sleepin' out in the barn. Cutie-pie and Sweet-pea, eavesdropping is a very unattractive habit!" she said, the last phrase forcing her to bring her hand up to pound the wall and scream. She looked at her petite hand and whimpered. "I hurt my hand." Oh, Dite. You show them who’s in charge!
*~*
This is the second section Jess chose. At least I think so. I doubt I’d mastered segues.
“I wonder what they’re doing in there.” Said Gabrielle. Hello, Gabster!
“I’d rather not.” muttered Eve darkly. Aphrodite put a minute hand on her shoulder.
“Really, Cutie, y’ought to chill out a bit more. I know Ar isn’t exactly your fave person in the world right now, but don’t deprive War Babe from him! Why doncha CRY, okay? relax? I saw that Billius dude makin’ those lovey eyes at ya. Why doncha flirt a bit with him at dinner? It’d do ya some good.”
So, the plot is, in order to get people off of Ares’s tail (cause he did something bad? Or something? And now he’s mortal so he can die and stuff and Xena’s grand idea is to get them on a boat to Ch’in, which is what they called China, and Ares is playing a sheik or something named Guerrius and the girls are his harem. Still not joking. Billius is this roman dude on the ship who- I am not joking- I wrote in parentheses about “think Billy Zane!” Hence the name.
Eve would’ve glared but there was a rat-a-tat-tat at the door. “Open this door in the name of the Cæsar!” Gabrielle got up and opened the door.
“Yes?” she said, somewhat coldly.
“What cæsar?” whispered Aphrodite to Eve. Eve giggled. The Roman Guard, who had now entered the room, raised a sword and pointed it at Dite.
“What do you laugh at, woman?” Aphrodite stood up and placed her small hands on her hips.
“ExCUSE me?” said Dite, attitude going overtime. Gabrielle did damage control by motioning for her to shut up behind the Roman Guard’s back. When Aphrodite sat down, the Guard relaxed, letting his sword hang at his side.
“I’ve orders from the cæsar himself to search each ship before it leave port to make sure the criminal, Ares of Greece, does not escape.” One would think that “former god” would be mentioned, but nope.
Eve began to pale and Aphrodite opened her mouth to say something. Gabrielle quickly intervened.
“A criminal, escaped? Mercy me! May the Gods preserve us! How could anyone allow such filth to walk the earth?!” gushed Gabrielle. The guard turned to her, interested. That Gabrielle! Always thinking!
“You agree with the cæsar, then, little lady?” asked the guard. Gabrielle launched into a long drawn out conversation about the cæsar and crime. This totally happened in Old Ares Had a Farm. Hee.
Aphrodite made a face that closely resembled one that someone would make if they had swallowed sour milk. Gabrielle continued to babble on about the dangers of city streets now that criminals walked free and a bunch of other pointless comments. In the midst of this, she showed him their papers that ‘proved’ that they were Ch’inese. … uh huh. They quickly got him out of the room. He crossed to the room across the hall. Why is he zig-zagging? Other than to further my plot.
Gabrielle ran through the door into Xena’s room and explained the situation. She then ducked back into her room.
“We're screwed. They're gonna catch us for sure.” Said Xena defeatedly. “Just kill me now. Or else the embarrassment will.” Oh, that was so IC.
“No, they're not. We just need a plan." Ares said, trying to sound cheery. All he managed to sound was hopeless. Way to miss your mark there, Ares.
"You got one?" Xena asked hopefully.
"Hey, you're the brains of this operation." Xena leaned over and smacked Ares upside his head. Very true, but what?
"ARES!"
"Alright, alright, I'm thinking. Damn, girl!” I… I have no words.
“We’ve got about two minutes before that guard comes in and carts us away and you’re telling me to chill out?” She asked frustratedly. Hi, he never said to chill out. Anywhere. Psycho.
“AHA!” He said, his eyes lighting up.
"What?" Xena asked dully
"Get on the bed." Xena looked at him with disbelief.
"Aw, hell no, Ares. Only you could think of sex in a time like this." Hee.
"No, Xe, just get on the bed!"
“No!” Ares pushed her on the bed, his arms holding her down, him on top of her. Xena struggled against him.
“Ares, rape is a crime. Seriously? I can’t believe I wrote this. Get OFF of ME!” There was a knock at the door. Ares looked at Xena, who he had placed his hand over her mouth to quiet her. There was another knock.
“Open this door in the name of the cæsar!”
Ares pressed his mouth to Xena’s. She kept her eyes wide open with surprise. Slowly, almost as if against her will, her arms snaked around his neck. And, presumably, her eyes closed.
The door opened and the guard walked in. He saw a woman in a very revealing outfit and a man on top of her. I had really long, elaborate descriptions of each of their outfits. They were in a very passionate kiss. The guard took one look, checked the cabin off on his papyrus and walked away, muttering:
“Definitely not in there.” You suck at your job, guard.
The kiss did not stop there. Quite the contrary: it deepened.
In the midst of this display of affection, the door to the other room creaked open.
“MOTHER!” shrilled Eve. Eve is quite the shriller. Ares jerked away from Xena, who got up, eyes still glassy with passion. Ha! Dirty. She nervously wiped her mouth.
Eve came over a bodily dragged her mother into the next room, whirling her in, slamming the door and pushing her on to the bed.
Eve was furious.
“How- why- HOW could YOU? Mother, how could you?” Yep, those are the original underlining, italics and bolding. Eve was intense about that question.
“How could she what?” asked Dite.
“Xena, what happened in there?” asked Gabrielle in her most sensible voice. Xena narrowed her eyes and stood up.
“What happened in there?” asked Gabrielle more forcefully. Step back, Gab.
“She was-she was- she was kissing Ares!!!!” Eve, I guess.
“Oh, is that all?” asked Dite, going and sitting back down in a chair and beginning to file her nails. Oh, you goddess of love you.
“What do you mean, THAT’S ALL? That’s pretty big! Mother, how could you? HOW?” Sweet Jesus Eli, Eve, shut up and calm down.
“Eve, relax. It was nothing. The guard came in and we needed a diversion. It worked, he didn’t come in.” Xena said coolly. She looked at her daughter. In this fic, Xena mostly hates her, I think. Which is kind of awesome.
“It sure didn’t look like nothing. That looked like passion to me.”
“You’ve just got a mental block against Ares.” Said Xena, making it sound as if they had been caught chatting together instead of making out. HEE.
With that, she slithered to the door and knocked on it. Oozing charm from every pore she oiled her way across the floor.
“Ares, the ship is launching. We’ll meet you up on deck.” She said.
“Alright.” Responded Ares.
Xena turned and looked at the three of them.
“Come along, ladies.” She said, opening the door to the hallway. “We must make our presence on this ship known.”
*~*
Part 3 of Jess’s choice.
Dite’s little bag- or as she called it, a ‘satchel’- contained three bottles of perfume (‘parfum’), one sack of pouporri Not how you spell that, two love potions, three little pink darts (What in the name of Rhea were THEY for? Wondered Xena) a pink scroll that had a giant heart drawn on it. Above it, in scrawly, curlicued handwriting, it said ‘Ultimate Goal’.
And within the heart, in the same ornate handwriting, it read:
Studmuffin (’Res)
+
his warrior babe (XeXe)
=
kiss-kiss!!!!!
FTW, guys.
Xena dropped the scroll into the bag, angrily rifling through the pink, lacey lingerie and silk stockings, and the makeup she had used to make them all up. She dropped the sack and angrily kicked it a few times like a spoiled child. Because if Xena is anything, it’s that. She stopped when she heard a sharp crack and the aroma of honeysuckles waft throughout the room.
the next part had Xena saying something like, “Whoops. Wasn’t me.”
And that concludes Jess’s selection of To Love You More’s greatest hits.
For thepodsquad
Barbecue
"I didn't mean it like that." Opening line prompt by Nita!
"Then how, exactly, did you mean it, Michael? Because 'you look hot' seems pretty straightforward." Oh, season three strife.
Mike and Lauren always have fights when they have barbecues. I First person! think it's something to do with the heat and the fact that Lauren really isn't the biggest outdoorsy girl I know. She seems sorta like more of an indoor girl. She has barbecues for special events during the summer because she feels it's what is done in California, so Memorial Day to Labor Day and all the holidays in between are celebrated on their deck, french doors open wide and Lauren ferrying about hors d'oeuvre while Vaughn mans the grill and small, select groups of people talk. Cozy! I'm usually the first one there- I am alcohol man *fanfare*, and far be it from me to let my buddy Mike get saddled with the sad title of "man who lets party start sans booze." Not that any masculine man would use the term 'sans.' Not at all. I basically write Will and Weiss the same.
They have a gate to the back from their driveway, and I've got four bottles of chardonnay in a bag in one arm and two cases of beer in the other and I'm thinking that the gate is going to be opened with a combination of slamming and desperately jiggling the latch when I hear it. I do so love the whole "combination of" part because, hee. Who hasn't done that at one point or another?
"She was sick, Lauren. She looked feverish." Oh, emphasis.
"Then why didn't you say that?" Aww, poor Lauren.
"I don't know, because it didn't occur to me to worry what gossip might get back to you when my partner has the flu." Uh oh. Escalation.
"The flu! Hardly."
"She was sick, Lauren, I've seen her get sick before." I have it in my mind that when Syd and Vaughn were together, she got deathly ill from either food poisoning or the plague, but either way, she was on death's door and Vaughn had to stay with her. And I love that.
(This is never ever the right thing to say. I've heard enough of these fights to know this is going to backfire. Poor Weiss. Labor Day Weekend's barbecue was particularly nasty because Vaughn somehow brought up something he knew about Sydney and Lauren stabbed the meat with kebab sticks so hard they almost fell off. They were delicious nonetheless.)
"People talk and you're their favorite topic!" When Lauren says "favorite" you can hear her saying it spelled with a u. I should've written it with it then! Favourite!
Lower, now, and dammit, my arms are going to fall off if they don't stop fighting soon, Poor guy. He can't really leave and has to listen. "Lauren. You are blowing this way out of proportion. I honestly meant nothing by it."
It's quiet for a few minutes, presumably because he is whispering sweet nothings in french and she's coyly accepting them so I slam into the gate door a few times. "Hey, Mike, buddy, come help me out!" Yeah, this fic was fun but pointless.
Ninety Five
Sydney is usually at least 95% happy with Weiss, the other 5% varying by weather, the night's television programming, her stress level, and the amount of ice cream in the freezer. Syd is an ice cream girl. She knows that that kind of variation is definitely a bizarre way of rating her happiness with her boyfriend here I say boyfriend, later I say husband. Whoops.- usually the percentages are skewed by arguments, or forgetfulness, or barely seeing each other due to work schedules.
But Weiss- Eric, Eric, boyfriends should be called by their first names awww.- doesn’t so any of these things. Fighting is never an issue, because they either agree or compromise without much of a fuss, Why isn't that a period? Eric is remarkably thoughtful, and even when work is crazy he makes time to stop by her desk with a coffee and donut with a bite out of it. “I knew you wouldn’t mind sharing,” he’d say easily, and swoop down with a sugary kiss. I like that a lot!
Moving to DC was a good for them, away from the ruins, Yeah, I just... didn't want to describe why Vaughn and Nadia were dead. And Jack too. somewhere clean and new. Sydney personally chooses not to think about California too much, it gives her goose bumps and nausea. Which, hee! They have a nice little house in Maryland with a white picket fence this was a for a ficathon, and a white picket fence was requested. that they both laugh at, because who has those anymore? They have tulips Syd's favorite flower! to line the sidewalk and Eric is surprisingly good at gardening.
On the weekends, the few they both have off, they work on the yard, black crescents of dirt under Sydney’s nails and her knees sore from working too long. She always tries to head him off- he gets a certain face when he’s about to do it- but without fail, dirt smudged across their faces and with trickles of sweat, Eric starts, “Hey, y’remember when-”
Sometimes she is not quick enough and he gets out a name, or a place, or something they once did, and the hairs on her arms will rise, even in the midday sun, accompanied by the chill. And Syd does not like when that happens!
(The 95% is greatly affected by these false starts even though it wasn't mentioned earlier., and at those times the number can drop to dismally low numbers. Like, like, 47%! It’s not that she doesn’t love him, because she does. She just doesn’t want to think of anyone else they might have loved, or what could have happened to make those relationships end. There are certain things better left alone. She’s trying to teach him that.)
They stay in mostly, cause Syd is a homebody and Weiss'll just have to deal. watching TV or reading, or, occasionally, instant messaging each other from different rooms of the house, such as the living room and the dining room. Eric says it keeps them honest, because if one says “LOL” without actually laughing, something must be wrong. Yeah, the LOL thing was definitely written with Tess in mind. Plus, when you IM someone close by and say "LOL" without laughing, they tease you.
He usually loves her in a wholehearted, A+, 100% way, I adore that whole part but even he has his off days. They eat a lot of ice cream then, foregoing dinner and sitting side by side on the couch, individual cartons of Ben and Jerry’s. He’s a fan of Cherry Garcia, she likes Phish Food. My old roommate's favorite flavor was Phish Food. If they’re not in the mood to wallow they’ll watch something comedic, like a Mel Brooks movie. Young Frankenstein. If there’s one thing they need in their lives, it’s comedy.
(One of the things they have to come to terms with is that- honestly- neither one of them is the other’s first choice. At least they're honest about it. It’s something they recognize, and it’s a healthy thing to know, she thinks. The 95% corresponds to the 95% of the time she’s in the moment with him, happy to be with a man who has truly become her best friend and impromptu husband. See, husband here. There are worse things than being Sydney Weiss, things like ashes I think ashes and natural disasters were Vaughn and Nadia and disasters and in a very particular case, twisted metal. Daddy! Dominos, one after another, click Vaughn click Nadia click Jack as they fall.)
The hours at their jobs here are a lot more flexible. They meet their neighbors. They make trips to the grocery store without ever having to abandon a full cart to go to the office. Hee, that reminds me about the Dane Cook skit where he's like, why are we so protective of our carts? God forbid we leave ours for a minute and someone walks by, looks down and is like, "OMG, that cart has everything I need! Scoooore!" Sydney announces happily on the anniversary of their first year there that it’s the longest she’s ever stayed in the country. Yeah, see, I'd count it the opposite way. Stupid spoiled Syd.
There is the odd nightmare, of course- Eric escapes car crashes, See, cause that was Jack but earthquakes haunt them both. Fires and ashes that sprinkle down like snow, that’s what ruins their white Christmas. Maybe the world ended. Or just California.
Numbers on calendars can be difficult, days with months that mean things: birthdays or anniversaries of things that aren’t so nice, such as the day the music died or human deaths or accidents or natural disasters.
Instead of a traditional white diamond wedding ring, Sydney has a large, bright sapphire ring. It was between sapphires and rubies. So, I ask my mom conversationally what she likes, and suddenly she launches into this, like, dissertation about jewels and their worth and where they're from and I'm all teh hell? And she ends with "bet you didn't think I knew that much about gems! And I was like, you are very right. He surprised her with it in City Hall with an easy “I thought this was cooler” in front of the justice of the peace. CUTE. Later, in a hotel room where they decided that, really, hamburgers are a totally acceptable wedding dinner, she admired the ring. “I really thought you’d get me some ridiculous diamond.”
“No, ridiculous sapphires are so much cooler.”
In my head, it's totally, like, his grandmother's ring or something.
She gets complimented on it- it’s exotic and different and nothing like anyone else has ever given her, which might have been what he was going for. He has, after all, seen her other rings. This was just theirs, bright blue and new. Aaaaand segue!
That’s the theme of their house- a bright blue door, light blue kitchen, dark rich navy sofa. Eric says it gives the house a decidedly nautical theme, but they both like it. So, suddenly I mention nautical and then I became obsessed with it. Occasionally they lapse into pirate-speech, which isn’t correct, but it is fun. Even more fun to picture. On weekends when they aren’t gardening they take up sailing, which is high brow and snooty, it totally is, I wish I knew how to sail. but Sydney loves the wind and Eric loves the expression she gets, so they go to the bay.
(Even the ocean is different here, different water, different sand, but the salt air is the same. On the boat, Sydney can immerse herself in it- the swing of the sail, ropes and rudders and riggings. Thank you, wikipedia. When it’s calm and Eric is steering, she lets him take control and she can close her eyes and lean against the mast. Good for her! Also, I can totally picture this. Her hair is in a french braid. Usually the sun on her face makes her happy, but every so often the wind gives her the same chill memories do, down to 95%, sometimes even 84%, but stepping back on land brings it back up.)
(95% is nothing to be ashamed of.) I think it's a damn fine percentage myself!
The Plight of the Poor Floor Toast
"It is like a law." Will moaned as he looked at the floor. Hee, and I started this with absolutely no idea where I was going.
"Sunday morning hangovers?" Syd asked.
"No. Well, yes. That too. But this," he motioned at the floor.
Syd leaned over the counter to look at the floor by the stove. Probably with an ass shot for the male viewers.
"... Floor toast?" Who even says something like that?
"Cute, Syd."
"The Law of Floor Toast?" Francie asked as she walked out to the kitchen. Awww, the BFFs!
"Will invented it."
"Sounds like a band." I completely love picturing this whole thing.
Syd giggled. "A punkish band. Hey, guys, want to start a band?"
"Does no one care about my plight?"
"Oh, oh, that's better. The Plight of the Floor Toast." Almost, but not quite.
Francie nodded. "I would buy their CD."
"My plight, not its plight." Will said. Poor Will. They're not taking him seriously.
"But you're not on the floor."
"But my toast is on the floor. With its buttered side on the floor."
Sydney and Francie's faces turned sober. "Oh," Syd said.
"We didn't know." Now they are!
"The five-second rule doesn't even apply there," Syd whispered, leaning over farther to look, "because that's gross." Indeed. And now you'll have to wash the floor because, hi. Butter.
Francie looked too, and lowered her voice. "It is. Why are we whispering?"
"We don't want to hurt its feelings." Duuuuh.
"The toast?"
"The poor toast." Why does no one ask how Will dropped the toast? I want to know!
Francie nods. "The poor toast. Oh, The Plight of the Poor Floor Toast."
"TPOTPFT. Catchy." Absolutely. This scene was obviously partly inspired by the Gilmore Girls episode where Lane joins the band with Adam Brody and they considered calling the band like, Follow them to the Edge of the Desert or something so it was FTTTEOTD and it was amusing.
Will looked at them carefully. "You two are insane."
"Aw, Will, are you not part of our band?" Oh, pshaw, of course he is.
"We need you. With you and me and Francie and Charlie, See, it just occured to her, she's excited. we will have a total Mama and Papas thing going on. And I know you love them." this must be before he's a deceitful, two-faced, sex-crazed jackass.
Will looks into the distance thoughtfully. "I do love The Mamas and the Papas." I've got two ears and a heart, don't I?
"Only we wouldn't have that weird... triangly square thing." Syd says quickly. "Because, I mean, Cass was in love with Denny who has a thing with Michelle who was married to John and..." It was weird.
"We have all seen the Behind the Music, Syd." Francie said, and then she tilted her head to think. "And no matchy-matchy outfits." Which just makes me picture the Bradys
"Oh, no." Syd said hurriedly. "That's totally lame. TPOTPFT is anything but lame."
"Toast. Floor. Ruined." Poor Will, man.
"Aw, Will, that's a great title for our first single!" Francie smiled.
"For our album, we could have the four of us standing in a room with our instruments, and instead of floor tiles, it'll be toast." In my head, this cover is vaguely reminscent of No Doubt's Return Of Saturn CD.
"Creative."
"Thank you."
"What instruments?" Will asked. See, he's getting into it.
"Well, I play the piano." Syd said. I really love that they kept that thread up for the most part. Irina mentioning lessons, faux Little Syd practicing in Mirage, Jack playing... yay.
"And I'm sure that'll cater right to TPOTPFT's demographic."
Francie smiled. "Look at Will, getting all excited about our band's future." The original sentence was a lot closer to "look at you, getting all into it," but I changed it.
Syd laughed again. "Hey, Fran, you could try your hand at the guitar again."
"Oh, my god, shut up. I gave my teacher a nervous breakdown."
"If I remember correctly, he was pretty unhinged when he came to teach you."
"But I broke him. He said I was the sorriest guitar player he'd ever attempted to instruct." Hee! The whole exchange.
Syd patted Francie's shoulder. "He was unnecessarily harsh."
"But, guys, seriously. Can we mourn my toast?"
Shaking her head, Syd got off her stool and went to the counter to remove a piece of bread from its bag. She put it in the toaster.
"Have you mourned long enough to accept a new piece of toast?"
Will nods. "I think so."
"Good. We discuss the band now?" I also like that it ends there.
For dollsome
Rainbows on a Wave
Jenny was not exactly tidy. Personal canon!
Her apartment has a lived-in feeling, Giles thinks idly as he walks in with Willow. Poor Giles, man. She had stacks of papers to grade by her computer and dishes in the sink.
(Jenny wasn't afraid of using a red pen, As well she shouldn't be! Insult the children! Toughen their skin! thick pen strokes, a solid x for errors, a playful check for problems that were correct. Willow's paper, an exam, is the at the bottom of the ungraded stack. "I turned it in first," she whispered, "I wonder what she'd say.") Aw, it's cute little Willow! I loved her then, with her long hair and really unfortunate fashion choices
Her pantry is full of boxes ("Miss Calendar didn't like to cook.") and in her refrigerator is a head of lettuce just starting to brown, and a carton of chinese food. Mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer, dregs in the bottom of a coffee cup on the counter. There is a plant drooping on her windowsill- ("I am a convicted plant killer. Can't keep them alive no matter what I do. My thumbs? Not green.")- and the newspaper spread open on the table. A woman who had intended to return had left her house in such a state. Poor Miss Calendar. If she'd known she was going to die that day, she would've chosen a better outfit and done her dishes. Obviously.
No one will come to clear this place, so it's fallen to Giles to remove Jenny from her home, her books and paperweights, papers and pens, videotapes and CDs. The act of deconstructing a life is tedious- they'll keep what they like and give the rest away. Poor Giles! All things considered, he hardly knew Miss Calendar. He just loooooved her! A fact that is sadly neglected forever in Buffy episodes.
(Willow is in charge of clothes, and it's just as well. She folds things neatly and places them in boxes- SWEATERS and DRESSES and SHIRTS and PANTS/SKIRTS, and a few times Giles catches something he recognizes- a grey sweater, from the end of 'The Dark Age,' when the hills are not alive a flowered dress, a striped skirt Also 'The Dark Age,' I think. The hardest, for some reason, to watch disappear are the shoes- tall heels in brown and black and cream, with them the click-clack of her steps.)
The book she was reading is on her nightstand Originally, it was going to be one he had lent her, but then I realized that their relationship wasn't exactly conducive to book-lending. Booo. (bed unmade, sheets rumpled, and Willow is putting boxes in the car so it's alright to inhale her scent from her pillow Sad! So sad! and there's the scent thing again!) a jar of handcreme beside it and her page marked with a to do list (laundry, grocery shopping, papers!!!) There is dust on the headboard and the wastebasket is full and oh god, why Jenny? WHY JENNY INDEED.
Willow is standing in the doorway, unsure of how to approach him. This is hard for her too, all red-rimmed eyes and ragged nails. "There's something you should see here." Aww, Wil.
A kitchen drawer, hardly a place for anything important, unless Willow's found something horrible. Instead of a demon or scales of alligator, Jenny kept- she kept mementos, a Sunnydale High pennant, monster truck rally tickets- and that's it, other than old receipts and what might be recipe cards. He's light-headed, really- time wasted, all the places they'd never gone and things he'd never shown her, her eyes glossed over and unblinking and Jenny would never return here, never wash her dishes or go grocery shopping and never go anywhere else with him that would allow her to add to this pitiful collection she'd stashed in the junk drawer. Which is very similar to what Anya said about Joyce.
(He takes these things to stash in a drawer of his own, trying for out of mind and achieving more time between gut-wrenching realizations.)
In the end, when Willow has taken what she wanted and then gone home, he sits wrapping mugs and glassware in paper, the dishwasher humming. Tomorrow moving men will remove the furniture, and the day after that, a housecleaner will remove all traces (her dust, her fingerprints, strands of hair and lost buttons) of a former inhabitant, and Jenny Calendar will just be in the records of the building. And in your heart!
In the back of a cupboard is a set jade green mugs, personal canon!too small for the amounts of coffee Jenny needed ("I need caffeine, England.") but just the size for a nice cup of tea. He rests his head against the cupboard door, because he can hear her voice and he knows just what he would do if she were to come up behind him just now- he would draw her forward and hold her so tightly that he might just hear her bones, I do so love that part. and what would he would sacrifice for that opportunity frightens him.
(Xander, sadly, in a second. He thinks this calmly, rationally. Willow, only if he knew exactly what he was getting: Jenny, soul and body, to live out her life as a human. Yes, it would hurt, but Willow he would sacrifice. heh, he likes Willow, but not that much. Miss Calendar > Willow. But Buffy- could he sacrifice the Slayer? Not just the Slayer, the girl- light-hearted, charming Buffy who means so well and has to save the world more times than anyone will ever know? Buffy, who listens only sometimes and occasionally pouts when his attention is not fully directed at her? I totally love that observation, because Buffy is like an only child when it comes to Giles, and I think it's adorable.
The hesitance of his answer makes him sick.) Aww, poor torn Giles. He loves his Miss Calendar.
Finis
"I am not a wanderer." This was the sentence that I jumped off of, and by the end of the fic, I was so totally far from this. I kind of got fixated on Miss Calendar being a gypsy.
She says this to his collarbone as he touches her shoulder blade, bones like china, thick and delicate. I really do like that line.
"I never was."
~*~
He wakes up to find her asleep next to him, her breath rolling over him, hair rumpled by sleep. Surprise! As he scrutinizes her features she blinks awake and stares back. He exhales her name and her brow furrows when he touches her, firm and corporal. Man, poor Giles. He must be so confused.
From a separate place she knows she is Jenny, as she knows she is Janna, as she knows she is a computer teacher, as she knows she is a Kalderash. That Jenny is bright. Her spine is whole and long and straight, and the glass has been brushed from her hair. Cause of Angel crashed the paper weighty thing over her head! She is unsure of how to speak, what comes out first is nonsense, words strung together: heavy, crack, love, mistake, lost. I loooved doing this.
He doesn't understand, because it's not his language, It's a fun romani one! and she presses her lips closed to keep more from falling out (long, ache, wrong, run, soul, fail.) It is a long while before she can speak, and his fingertips are still pressed to her arms, hard enough to bruise, not of anger but fear.
"I don't know where I am," she says, and that's wrong, because she does. (But she doesn't, at the same time, the same part of her that is indifferent to names that start with Js.) She stops and inhales, her lungs thick and heavy with health, Both cool and gross. and she smiles to soothe him, lips sliding over slick teeth. She touches her chest, "Jenny," and touches his. "Rupert."
~*~
When the dead has risen to mix with the living, judgment comes only from those who are angry. Streets are crowded with bodies trying to return home, to ones they loved and the ones that loved them, who were not always the same. I tried starting with this section, like, a hundred times, but then I did what I always do: forget about exposition and make it more charactery than ploty.
(This is an aberration, worthy of research and books. The children know this, Hee, they were still baaabies here. and they depend on him to be rational. The dead must return to their graves. There isn't enough room.)
Jenny is sitting in his bed, Jenny because she isn't Janna at least to him and Jen is too clipped and Jennifer never even entered the equation, why was it on her grave? Seriously, why? Jenny, her skin supple I love the word supple and glowing with health and life. Jenny, whose breath can be heard across a room if it is silent enough, whose breath he listens to and counts on. I think originally I intended to have Miss Calendar hang out for a lot longer. She touches things, fascinated. "It's been a long time," she says by way of explanation, and her thoughts are still there, only muffled. She wants to explain, in some way, but she unsure herself. (Confused.) I love parentheses.
~*~
"It's you," he whispers, and there is a desperation in his tone and she pulls him closer until her arms ache from exertion. "You've come back."
(Rupert Giles is only a man.)
waaaah!
~*~
Buffy wants a course of action. She is tired of strangers coming to her house and knocking, thinking that they've simply misplaced their keys. Or The Key! Ha ha! The dead all seem to be unaware of any changes in themselves other than confusion of their surroundings. Willow, whose great-grandmother is now cooking in her kitchen, agrees that while it is pleasant now, things couldn't stay that way. Had the Sunnydale Press been running, reports would have already started: fights over women who had remarried, children who had destroyed the family name, men who had second families. (Three past editors-in-chief were now fighting for control of the paper while the fourth, current editor cowered under his desk. This was absolutely one of my favorite images. The whole idea delighted me.) No one thinks of Miss Calendar until they arrive at the library to find Giles missing. The mood is decidedly somber.
(This is an aberration, and Giles knows. He needs to go find out what has happened and try to fix it. But though she is subdued, it's still Jenny, who drinks her coffee with one sugar and no cream and who decided that English tea was acceptable in the afternoons, but not in the morning, when she needs caffeine. Her throat, her beautiful throat is unmarred and straight and her eyes blink open and shut and she smiles at him.) I, um, really like description, apparently.
~*~
She shakes like a chihuahua sometimes, because emotions are very harsh. When she feels like crying she instead sets her jaw and touches things: smooth tabletops and the doorknob, running water and objects in the freezer, the contents of Rupert's closet and his pillow, lightly scented with him. Ha, there's my scent thing again! He needs to go, to figure out how to right things, and she quakes, her bones twisting and blood sloshing. Another sentence I looooved. She wants to stay, even though it's wrong, because she can feel here, and she knows things. She doesn't beg (pride) but sticks her fingers under the sink's hot water to feel.
The world whizzes by as he drives, slowing as she touches her fingers to her temple (pain.) Her voice is raspier than he remembers, hoarser than she likes, so she drinks water and gathers her thoughts as Rupert touches her pulse through her wrist. I also really like writing about pulses. I have strange fixations.
The children are glad to see her, in their own way: their embraces feel like taut rubber bands and the weight of their arms is startling. Stupid kids and their too-tight hugs! Miss Calendar, they call her like I do!, dates on a page, and her smile is brittle. She doesn't want to help, doesn't want to be surrounded by books that will send her back, books that condemn with the weight of their history, heavy and ancient like the curse of her people. J-E-N-N-Y she types on the pages I do that sometimes with her fingers as she pretends to read, letters swimming. They don't know what to make of her research, the children: they assume she wants to return, because to them the afterlife is peaceful and white and quiet. They assume the opposite with Buffy! She didn’t come on purpose, she did not decide this.
They murmur around her with their studies and what they have found: no curses, demons or spells are known to have the power to raise all the dead from a given area. All other supernatural activity has been regular. Jenny shivers (cold).
~*~
She wants to be Jenny again, who she was: she wants noise and color and vibrancy and action. She wants to run and feel grass and joke and yell and dance. She wants her old car, a red dress, high heeled shoes I hate this sentence. and to kiss the man she loves, who glances over at her every few minutes. She can return to herself, she’s sure of this: the uncertain part fades more with each second she’s there, retreating as her limbs feel lighter and heart beats regularly. She can be normal here, return to the life that had been taken. (Stolen.) Letters form words now before her: d-e-m-o-n-s and p-o-w-e-r-s and d-e-a-t-h.
(Calendars get replaced at the end of the year, useless. Rupert didn’t replace her, not his Calendar, and she thinks that maybe he brings flowers to her grave as an offering, guilt and sorrow and love, she believes. She was not the favorite daughter of her tribe, they would not curse Angel for what he did a second time, not even for the fate of her uncle. Calendars mark the passage of time, but her grave has no dates on it, just a shining white stone J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R instead of Jenny, Jenny instead of Janna, C-A-L-E-N-D-A-R as a family name and not Kalderash the tribe. She trusts and is not an outsider, not a wanderer, and there is nothing different about her.) My attempt to go back to the wanderer thing
~*~
The best time for the spell is dawn, they read, and they depart to fend off the dead who were rapidly becoming more frustrated and violent. Yikes! Rupert takes Jenny back to his apartment and she eats an apple hungrily, teeth tearing through skin and flesh. Zombie!
He stutters (charmingly, endearingly) as he asks her things she’s heard in his thoughts, did she suffer, was she at peace, was she happy? (Yes, mostly, no.) She answers what he’d like to hear, because she’ll be sent back in the morning and it’s no use making him as unhappy as she is. (She thinks she was unhappy. Maybe she was just nothing at all.) (Behold my interesting use of noncommitalness!) He takes her hand first, examining the knuckles and nail beds, tendons, lines and veins. Then her wrist, where the veins collected to create a pulse (up the river, not across,) that's how my sixth grade science teacher told us to slit our wrists, seriously and he pressed a kiss there, where the blood pounded. See? More pulses. He says her name softly, reverently, I like putting that too and when he looks up, the best part of being alive comes back to Jenny, a missing piece fitted firmly in place.
~*~
“I am not a wanderer,” she says to him. Dawn comes soon and he hasn’t yet let her ago. Her voice has returned, even her wit, that I wisely decided not to attempt which she employed a few times. The shaking is gone, but heightened sensations remain. Her name (J-E-N-N-Y) is all the more precious when he says it, letters like polished stones in a row, gleaming to form something beautiful, something loved.
She accepts tea that morning against her will! (he doesn’t have coffee) and buttons his shirt and fixes his tie. Which is all domesticky She’ll stay behind, or else he won’t go through with it, she knows. It’s easier to wait behind, to disappear when he can’t see. Light is just creeping over the horizon and his hand squeezes her shoulder in convulsions. He is defeated, and tired of duty and honor and doesn’t care about the world. Poor Giles.
“I love you,” he’d said more times than she could count, to make up for his lack before, and he whispers it now when she tells him to leave. She kisses him: quick, darting kisses over his face, forcing a smile between. An exact scene taken from "Enemies: A Love Story." Lena Olin does that. It's fabulous. She tells him she’s always with him, even though she doesn’t know if that’s true, and then lets him go.
“Walk out the door, Rupert,” Jenny Calendar, having reclaimed her name, says, HATE THAT. SO MUCH. “and don’t turn back.”
(He thinks of Orpheus as he leaves, and superstition doesn’t allow him to turn.) Love the end, though.
He Laughs, a Moulin Rouge fic written when I was fourteen. Sweet God. Published 09-08-02 and I think it was my one of my more popular pieces.
It was forbidden. Which you would know if you'd seen the damn movie, Captain Obvious.
We both knew it, Uh oh, first person. yet we ignored it. We wanted too much, could have too little, and were always aching for more. Which sounds dirty and vaguely Spuffyesque.
The time we spent together was something hurried and hidden, I think I meant "sometimes" others were spent leisurely and without a care. Sometimes we could forget all the elements Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! Goooo Planet! together as we lay in bed and pretend that we were married and we owned a little house and a garden and a dog in the yard. Which I’ve been thinking about, and I’ve decided that it’s not too out of character. They were very soft. And other times our kisses were guilty, because we both felt what we were doing was wrong and evil. A village of sin!
Sometimes our eyes would catch one another's when we out in the world, but only for a moment, lest Hee, “lest.” any one get any ideas. Sometimes we attempted to ignore one another, for fear that one glance would throw us over the edge. They only attempted, though. They usually just gave in. They were both really, really pretty.
Sometimes I found refuge in his Okay, true confession: until right now, I totally thought it was Christian’s POV. Because I totally didn’t remember this fic at all, obviously. arms and sometimes I found it back in my room- his arms could shield me from the world and I felt that I could hide there for hours and days and never worry, other times I ran from his room with hot tears in my eyes because I knew I was in love and didn't want to be. That whole sentence was bizarre. Really.
Sometimes I felt I hated him because I loved him and needed him so, and other times I wanted to fight the world to keep them away from him- a harsh and cruel world that could harm my darling innocent. He’s your boyfriend, not your… I don’t even know.
Sometimes we would just chatter and sing the whole night through, That’s just creepy and bizarre. They have jobs. Don’t they need rest? Freaks. holding hands and playing cat's cradle with a piece of string, why? Whyyyy? both rushing to his typewriter when he got ideas. Okay, that’s cute. Other times we needed no words, and our lips knew their way No maps necessary and our hands knew just where to go, and nothing would be said but breathless 'I love you's repeated over and over, as if the more we said it the truer it became.
Sometimes we'd wake up and watch the sun rise through his window, pretty! and I'd lay back on him with his arms around my neck and my head against his shoulder, and I'd let myself dream of the future, about the little house and the garden and the dog I'd name Moppet Because….?, of little children whose names escaped me who squealed and giggled and played. I'd count out the dreams I had on his fingers, ooh, I like that and he'd ask me what I was doing and tears would come to my eyes because the dream was just what it was, a dream, and it could never be reality. And I ruined it with that lame ending Other days I'd wake up and feel sickened, because I loved him so much and was so bad for him, He’s addicted to her, but she knows that she’s toxic. and as I dressed I'd weep silently for influence I had over this boy that could cause his downfall, and I'd leave without saying goodbye, bitch. save for a long glimpse that I'd treat as our final farewell.
Sometimes we'd talk about what we would do when we were free, why don’t you just leave? Stupid Satine and her feelings of obligation. as if we were prisoners in the Bastille, and we'd talk of places we would go and things we would do, how unashamedly we'd swing hands and walk in step without meaning to and how if we wanted to, we could kiss in public and just be thought scandalous and not insane. Also, possibly obnoxious.
And then came the end, where I wished I had the courage to slit my wrists which would just make you a brave coward! instead of doing what I did to my poor innocent what a stupid way to refer to him, hearing him call for me and covering my ears to try to block to sound, but it was too late. I would sit just out of sight from the window and sob, Jesus, Satine. Grow a pair. hating his pleading this should be “pleas” for tearing me apart, but at the same time, not able to tear myself away because it was his voice, and maybe if I just closed my eyes I could hear his voice from happier times- teasing me and joking with me and whispering things I'd never heard before in my ears. Dirty!
Nothing mattered after that, nothing, not that I was sick or the show or anything, not because I was dying but because I would die without him near blah blah blah, and I was selfish enough to think no further than that. All I knew was that I would die soon and he would be somewhere far, far away, perhaps not even in Paris, and I would die with the girls and Harry and Marie but not with him. I was not as scared as death as I was of delirium, where my common sense would leave me and all I would want was him, and I would be no longer to recall why he wasn't there, beside me, where he should be. Wow. Considering how mild her symptoms were, I’m surprised that she thinks this’ll happen. Stupid movie TB.
And everything became a blur to me. It was a big huge multicolored Bollywood-inspired blur that gave me a huge headache when I watched the movie in the fifth row. But one must make sacrifices when you see a movie in the theatre five times.
Suddenly *gasp!* he was there, and I was fighting him off, thinking all the while how ironic it was that not only was I pushing him away but that he was being threatened with death. Isn’t that like, Alanis-calibre irony? I giddily wondered that if he was shot, would there be a bullet left for me? Giddy, huh?
And then there were bright lights and music, laughter and costumes with too much makeup and fake jewelry. Costumes with too much makeup? Or people wearing a costume and too much makeup? Honestly. Something papery fluttered down to the ground, and tears tracked makeup down my face, and the feeling that I could die right there without protest, because I had lost him. And then I sang to him!
There uncertainty and doubt, glimmers of hope and a radiance of adoration when he came to me, Cause I am like a siren, baby, a damn siren with my magical voice! and his arms came around me and there could have twenty-thousand people around us or no one, and I didn't shouldn’t that be ‘wouldn’t? care, because he was there and I loved him and all was going to be right again. Ha! He could do that to me- hold me and make the world seem full of daisies and buttercups and giggles and rainbows over houses with gardens and dogs named Moppet and little children running around who called me 'mummy' and him 'papa'. Whyyyy.
We were going to live forever, him and me, always and forever, and nothing could stop us now because we were above the clouds and the people, up in the heavens where nothing could touch us, and we would stay young and in love forever, caught in this moment, trapped in amber. Not so much, bitches!
Darkness.
It was so cold as the curtain fell, Because you’re dying, hello. and this time not even his kiss could dispel the chill that had locked itself into my bones and now around my chest. Yeah, TB likes the chest. There were things falling down from the sky- not the sky, the ceiling- little rose petals and for an instant it was spring and we were somewhere in a garden, and then a flower girl at our wedding was throwing petals as I stepped towards him. And just as I made it to the altar the ice got a grip on my chest and I couldn't breath Yep, not “breathe,” breath. again, and I started to pray, dear God, not now, please, not now... Too bad!
It was cold, colder than it had been a minute ago when the curtains were open and the lights were bearing down on me, making face paint smear and run. Ugly! Now something was running down my face but I knew it wasn't my lipstick. It’s called blood. Learn it, live it, love it.
There was a wretched noise, and I was started when I realized it came from me, Dying gives you the stupids. and that rasping was my pathetic attempt at breathing, which everyone else seemed to accomplish without much trouble. Although, really, everyone there should have TB because that bitch spreads through breath and spit and stuff, and lord knows she’s been breathing on everyone singing. And then he was holding me, getting TB and it wasn't as cold anymore, but his face was wavering- sometimes it was very close and other times very far away, sometimes very bright and other times so dark I couldn't see him anymore.
I reached out to touch him- or did he touch me? I don't remember, but I felt him, and he was there, even if I couldn't see him.
It was raining again, and I couldn't quite understand it, because a minute ago little petals
had been falling and now it was raining, but we were still inside. Oh, it’s so artsy!
But, finally I regained my vision and wasn't raining- it was his tears and my tears, all mixing on my cheeks, and they were sticky with wet face paint and liquid sorrow, *wince* Liquid. Sorrow. and I would have given all my diamonds and had them replaced with tears, because his tears were so beautiful. Jesus Christ. I don’t even have anything to say to that.
He was saying things to me, whispering words only I could hear, just like before, only now we both knew I'd never hear them again, and then his lips were on mine a final time, and the kiss was sweet and sad, and my lips were cold because death had swooped between us and kissed them first. Ew!
Now I am a ghost. I obviously spend my time lurking around him. Sometimes he remembers, and other times he forgets. Sometimes he drinks, and other times he stands in front of the creepy shrine of pictures, pictures of a woman long since laid to rest by people who claimed to have loved her.
Sometimes he forgets on purpose, and other times he remember the house and the garden, Moppet and hands held, Cat's Cradles and promises whispered.
Sometimes, he cries.
And other times, he laughs. Awww.
So, let me just preface this by saying that the start date of this fic was 03-07-01, which means I was thirteen. And I obviously sucked. But in a delightful, omg badfic way.
Jess sent me all 67 pages of it, but I asked her to pick some highlights. So here you go.
§*~*§
Aphrodite had already forgotten what she had said, but Eve, Xena and Gabrielle saw the change in Ares' disposition.
"You guys go ahead, I'm gonna have a little chat with-" I love that Xena is going to say this in front of Ares. Like, was she whispering? This whole thing is so bizarre.
"Tall, dark and handsome? Ha. Okay. C'mon Gabby, let's go shop for things we don't need with dinars we don't have. Evie, you too." Dite pulled them into a little shop.
Xena turned to Ares and took his elbow forcefully. So she can escort him elsewhere? Why? I think they’re on the middle of the street.
"What's the matter, Ares?" she asked carefully, falling into step with him.
"Nothing." Xena stopped and looked at him. Apparently then I had no yet mastered the whole, someone speaks on one line, someone else does an action on the next, if that’s the way you want to roll. Either way, I’m confusing myself about the whole “someone speaks without using a name, then someone else does something.
"Don't tell me 'Nothing', Ares. And don't you dare lie to me." Ares kept his eyes downcast. Oh, yes. Shamed Ares. Because the man was such a pansy.
"It's none of your concern, Xena." 1) There was no space there, so it was mostly Xena Xena. 2) shouldn’t that be exclaimed? Xena placed her hand under his chin and jerked his chin up so he would look at her. Sweet God, Why? Why?
"It is too. When Aphrodite told you she wanted to go home you totally changed. Why is that?" Um, for huge reasons described in an earlier passage. Can’t you read, Xena?
"It is none of your concern, Xena!" Ah, there’s the yelling. he barked. Xena knew he wasn't really angry, that was just trying to defer her. … Yeah, see, I think Xena might think that, but then be like, asshole! And think he was angry anyway. But I haven’t seen Xena in like, six years, so what do I know?
"Then I'll make it my concern, Ares!" she challenged. He looked into her persistent, crystalline orbs. Hee! Crystalline orbs. Oh man.
And Ares told her. He told her it all. At least we don’t have to reread it. It was like, two pages long. What he had re-realized when Aphrodite had said that, said what? the anguish of being a mortal, the regret of everything, loathing of mortality, the longing for godhood. Big theme in this fic. Big. Huge.
And through it all, Xena listened. Ares had been building this up for a year, and what he really needed was for someone to listen, not to criticize, not to give advice, but to really listen to what he had to say. Yes, because Xena was all about the warm and fuzzies. Xena had no criticism to give, had no advice to offer. Wow, I think that is a total lie!
She felt responsible for this suffering. Ha!
And when he had finished, she just stood there, absorbing it. She swallowed, then licked her lips, Que sexy! before saying finally:
"If you could decide, all over again, what would you do?" Ares… gave up his immortality for Xena. Like, not cause she asked, but because it would help her. Or something. Most of my memory of this show is the weird frozen part.
Ares looked up at her, thinking how beautiful she looked in the sun's final rays before nightfall, and how difficult this question was to answer. That? Right there? Was like, pure Danielle Steel material. Win, thirteen-year-old-self, win.
His decision had brought him pain and suffering. It had brought the end of his life as he knew it, with a death warrant lurking somewhere in the back. His decision had been rash and spur-of-the-moment.
But with his suffering, he had deterred her's. Yep. Her’s. Not hers. Had he done nothing, Xena would've died, but even if she hadn't, her soul would've. Yeah, still don’t know why. Don’t much care either, it’s fun picturing Xena’s soul as a plant, and Ares’s godhood miracle-gro.
Would he change his mind? Would he do it over the same way again? Would he lose his immortality over a 'thing' for some mortal woman? Damn straight.
The answer came quite clear to Ares, filling his mind with nothing else. He looked into the blue depths of her eyes.
"I'd give up my immortality again." Xena looked into his brown eyes, Eye color is obviously very important here. searching for an answer different from the one her heart thrust at her. Hee. Dirty.
"Why?" Ares let out a light laugh. He would not leave his heart out for ridicule once more. It has still not yet recovered from last time. That was Xena speaking, btw.
"Because I'm a rash, stupid, "Gulp, "Mortal." Notice the lack of spaces and bizarre capitalization.
Xena seemed to accept this answer.
But her heart did not. Heeee!
As close as they could possibly walk next to each other without actually touching, they walked back to the shop Gabrielle, Eve and Aphrodite had stepped into. That conversation is over, bitches. Eve and Gabrielle were sitting on leather couch Yeah, a couch. You heard that right. , and Aphrodite was no where to be found.
"Where's Dite?" A real nickname for Aphrodite on the show. asked Ares. Gabrielle and Eve pointed in unison. Suddenly, a swirl of pink satin came whirling out at them.
"TA-DA!!!!!!!!!!!" it was Aphrodite, modeling an outfit.
§*~*§
They somehow managed to pry Dite from the store (while she screamed in anger) and found an inn sometime later.
One problem.
Five of them, two rooms. Oh yes, of course! The dilemma of all dilemmas! It’s Old Ares Had a Farm all over again.
Eve automatically stepped towards her mother, Gabby and Aphrodite towards one another.
Ares watched on.
“Well, I have to sleep somewhere, and with this arrangement, it'll either be with Xena and Eve or Gabrielle and Dite.”
“We could always leave you out with the horses, Ares.” Said Eve sweetly, smiling at him. Ares muttered something incoherently and balled two fists.
Eve hates Ares, and the only reason I can figure out is because when he thought she was Livia and didn’t know she was Xena’s kid, he was banging her brains out, god of war style. Then Xena came back and he was all *lovesick puppy* and Livia was all OMGWTF and then found on Xena was her mom and boo hoo reunion and she turned into Eve, lover of light and goodness and pseudochristianity. Or something.
"Well, this is easy. Blondie and Cutie share a room and you n' me n' Warrior Babe'll share one, too." She looked at them with a look as frightening as one in pink lingerie can give. Oddly enough, no one questioned her. She being Dite, but that one was easy to figure out cause of her stupid nicknames. I kind of love it.
§*~*§
The arrangement wouldn't've <- wow. Just… wow. been so bad if there had been more than one bed per room.
But there wasn't.
In Eve and Gabrielle's case, it was easy.
"Share a bed or else." growled Xena.
But in the little trio's case, 'twas not. ’twas! I said ‘twas! Winnnn!
"I call the bed!" cried 'Dite, taking a flying leap and landing in the middle of the bed.
"Ditto!" called Ares, jumping on as well. Yes, because the former god of war would totally yell “ditto” and then jump on a bed. dear god. Xena stood there with an arched eyebrow.
"I don't think so." said Xena. Ares watched her from his reclined position on the bed.
"She's my sister!" Xena arched her eyebrows further and snickered. "You've got a sick mind, Xe, a very, very sick mind." Dirty! Also, calling her Xe. Hee!
"Taught by the very best. Couch, War boy, Couch." And here we go…
"Think not, 'Warrior Babe'." he said, using Dite's nickname for her. Aphrodite watched this exchange with interest. Unbeknownst to them, Gabrielle and Eve pressed their ears against the wall to listen. Because they’re losers. Gabby hasn’t said a single thing this whole time! Wow!
"I am not sharing a bed with you, 'Studmuffin'." Xena growled, digging into her knowlegde Yep. Knowlegde. of Ares’ irritation with Dite’s hare-brained nicknames.
"That was low, 'Warrior Chick', real low." Ares also knew of Xena’s distate for them. I would hope so.
"Don't go there, 'Sweetie Pie'." Xena snarled.
Ares narrowed his eyes. "'Angel-face'!"
"'Sweetheart'!" Xena shot back.
"'Cutie pie'!" He retorted.
"Honey-bunch!" She snapped, furrowing her brows. How could he get her so riled up over a stupid BED? Yep. This is riled up.
"Snookums!" He fired back, clearing enjoying this verbal combat.
"Goody-goody!" She went for his soft-spot.
"Baby!"
See! They’re in looove! They bicker maturely!
"Ey, quit it or both y'all are sleeping on the floor. Ares, couch or floor, your choice. War Chick, step away from the hottie and shut up or else you're sleepin' out in the barn. Cutie-pie and Sweet-pea, eavesdropping is a very unattractive habit!" she said, the last phrase forcing her to bring her hand up to pound the wall and scream. She looked at her petite hand and whimpered. "I hurt my hand." Oh, Dite. You show them who’s in charge!
*~*
This is the second section Jess chose. At least I think so. I doubt I’d mastered segues.
“I wonder what they’re doing in there.” Said Gabrielle. Hello, Gabster!
“I’d rather not.” muttered Eve darkly. Aphrodite put a minute hand on her shoulder.
“Really, Cutie, y’ought to chill out a bit more. I know Ar isn’t exactly your fave person in the world right now, but don’t deprive War Babe from him! Why doncha CRY, okay? relax? I saw that Billius dude makin’ those lovey eyes at ya. Why doncha flirt a bit with him at dinner? It’d do ya some good.”
So, the plot is, in order to get people off of Ares’s tail (cause he did something bad? Or something? And now he’s mortal so he can die and stuff and Xena’s grand idea is to get them on a boat to Ch’in, which is what they called China, and Ares is playing a sheik or something named Guerrius and the girls are his harem. Still not joking. Billius is this roman dude on the ship who- I am not joking- I wrote in parentheses about “think Billy Zane!” Hence the name.
Eve would’ve glared but there was a rat-a-tat-tat at the door. “Open this door in the name of the Cæsar!” Gabrielle got up and opened the door.
“Yes?” she said, somewhat coldly.
“What cæsar?” whispered Aphrodite to Eve. Eve giggled. The Roman Guard, who had now entered the room, raised a sword and pointed it at Dite.
“What do you laugh at, woman?” Aphrodite stood up and placed her small hands on her hips.
“ExCUSE me?” said Dite, attitude going overtime. Gabrielle did damage control by motioning for her to shut up behind the Roman Guard’s back. When Aphrodite sat down, the Guard relaxed, letting his sword hang at his side.
“I’ve orders from the cæsar himself to search each ship before it leave port to make sure the criminal, Ares of Greece, does not escape.” One would think that “former god” would be mentioned, but nope.
Eve began to pale and Aphrodite opened her mouth to say something. Gabrielle quickly intervened.
“A criminal, escaped? Mercy me! May the Gods preserve us! How could anyone allow such filth to walk the earth?!” gushed Gabrielle. The guard turned to her, interested. That Gabrielle! Always thinking!
“You agree with the cæsar, then, little lady?” asked the guard. Gabrielle launched into a long drawn out conversation about the cæsar and crime. This totally happened in Old Ares Had a Farm. Hee.
Aphrodite made a face that closely resembled one that someone would make if they had swallowed sour milk. Gabrielle continued to babble on about the dangers of city streets now that criminals walked free and a bunch of other pointless comments. In the midst of this, she showed him their papers that ‘proved’ that they were Ch’inese. … uh huh. They quickly got him out of the room. He crossed to the room across the hall. Why is he zig-zagging? Other than to further my plot.
Gabrielle ran through the door into Xena’s room and explained the situation. She then ducked back into her room.
“We're screwed. They're gonna catch us for sure.” Said Xena defeatedly. “Just kill me now. Or else the embarrassment will.” Oh, that was so IC.
“No, they're not. We just need a plan." Ares said, trying to sound cheery. All he managed to sound was hopeless. Way to miss your mark there, Ares.
"You got one?" Xena asked hopefully.
"Hey, you're the brains of this operation." Xena leaned over and smacked Ares upside his head. Very true, but what?
"ARES!"
"Alright, alright, I'm thinking. Damn, girl!” I… I have no words.
“We’ve got about two minutes before that guard comes in and carts us away and you’re telling me to chill out?” She asked frustratedly. Hi, he never said to chill out. Anywhere. Psycho.
“AHA!” He said, his eyes lighting up.
"What?" Xena asked dully
"Get on the bed." Xena looked at him with disbelief.
"Aw, hell no, Ares. Only you could think of sex in a time like this." Hee.
"No, Xe, just get on the bed!"
“No!” Ares pushed her on the bed, his arms holding her down, him on top of her. Xena struggled against him.
“Ares, rape is a crime. Seriously? I can’t believe I wrote this. Get OFF of ME!” There was a knock at the door. Ares looked at Xena, who he had placed his hand over her mouth to quiet her. There was another knock.
“Open this door in the name of the cæsar!”
Ares pressed his mouth to Xena’s. She kept her eyes wide open with surprise. Slowly, almost as if against her will, her arms snaked around his neck. And, presumably, her eyes closed.
The door opened and the guard walked in. He saw a woman in a very revealing outfit and a man on top of her. I had really long, elaborate descriptions of each of their outfits. They were in a very passionate kiss. The guard took one look, checked the cabin off on his papyrus and walked away, muttering:
“Definitely not in there.” You suck at your job, guard.
The kiss did not stop there. Quite the contrary: it deepened.
In the midst of this display of affection, the door to the other room creaked open.
“MOTHER!” shrilled Eve. Eve is quite the shriller. Ares jerked away from Xena, who got up, eyes still glassy with passion. Ha! Dirty. She nervously wiped her mouth.
Eve came over a bodily dragged her mother into the next room, whirling her in, slamming the door and pushing her on to the bed.
Eve was furious.
“How- why- HOW could YOU? Mother, how could you?” Yep, those are the original underlining, italics and bolding. Eve was intense about that question.
“How could she what?” asked Dite.
“Xena, what happened in there?” asked Gabrielle in her most sensible voice. Xena narrowed her eyes and stood up.
“What happened in there?” asked Gabrielle more forcefully. Step back, Gab.
“She was-she was- she was kissing Ares!!!!” Eve, I guess.
“Oh, is that all?” asked Dite, going and sitting back down in a chair and beginning to file her nails. Oh, you goddess of love you.
“What do you mean, THAT’S ALL? That’s pretty big! Mother, how could you? HOW?” Sweet Jesus Eli, Eve, shut up and calm down.
“Eve, relax. It was nothing. The guard came in and we needed a diversion. It worked, he didn’t come in.” Xena said coolly. She looked at her daughter. In this fic, Xena mostly hates her, I think. Which is kind of awesome.
“It sure didn’t look like nothing. That looked like passion to me.”
“You’ve just got a mental block against Ares.” Said Xena, making it sound as if they had been caught chatting together instead of making out. HEE.
With that, she slithered to the door and knocked on it. Oozing charm from every pore she oiled her way across the floor.
“Ares, the ship is launching. We’ll meet you up on deck.” She said.
“Alright.” Responded Ares.
Xena turned and looked at the three of them.
“Come along, ladies.” She said, opening the door to the hallway. “We must make our presence on this ship known.”
*~*
Part 3 of Jess’s choice.
Dite’s little bag- or as she called it, a ‘satchel’- contained three bottles of perfume (‘parfum’), one sack of pouporri Not how you spell that, two love potions, three little pink darts (What in the name of Rhea were THEY for? Wondered Xena) a pink scroll that had a giant heart drawn on it. Above it, in scrawly, curlicued handwriting, it said ‘Ultimate Goal’.
And within the heart, in the same ornate handwriting, it read:
Studmuffin (’Res)
+
his warrior babe (XeXe)
=
kiss-kiss!!!!!
FTW, guys.
Xena dropped the scroll into the bag, angrily rifling through the pink, lacey lingerie and silk stockings, and the makeup she had used to make them all up. She dropped the sack and angrily kicked it a few times like a spoiled child. Because if Xena is anything, it’s that. She stopped when she heard a sharp crack and the aroma of honeysuckles waft throughout the room.
the next part had Xena saying something like, “Whoops. Wasn’t me.”
And that concludes Jess’s selection of To Love You More’s greatest hits.
For thepodsquad
Barbecue
"I didn't mean it like that." Opening line prompt by Nita!
"Then how, exactly, did you mean it, Michael? Because 'you look hot' seems pretty straightforward." Oh, season three strife.
Mike and Lauren always have fights when they have barbecues. I First person! think it's something to do with the heat and the fact that Lauren really isn't the biggest outdoorsy girl I know. She seems sorta like more of an indoor girl. She has barbecues for special events during the summer because she feels it's what is done in California, so Memorial Day to Labor Day and all the holidays in between are celebrated on their deck, french doors open wide and Lauren ferrying about hors d'oeuvre while Vaughn mans the grill and small, select groups of people talk. Cozy! I'm usually the first one there- I am alcohol man *fanfare*, and far be it from me to let my buddy Mike get saddled with the sad title of "man who lets party start sans booze." Not that any masculine man would use the term 'sans.' Not at all. I basically write Will and Weiss the same.
They have a gate to the back from their driveway, and I've got four bottles of chardonnay in a bag in one arm and two cases of beer in the other and I'm thinking that the gate is going to be opened with a combination of slamming and desperately jiggling the latch when I hear it. I do so love the whole "combination of" part because, hee. Who hasn't done that at one point or another?
"She was sick, Lauren. She looked feverish." Oh, emphasis.
"Then why didn't you say that?" Aww, poor Lauren.
"I don't know, because it didn't occur to me to worry what gossip might get back to you when my partner has the flu." Uh oh. Escalation.
"The flu! Hardly."
"She was sick, Lauren, I've seen her get sick before." I have it in my mind that when Syd and Vaughn were together, she got deathly ill from either food poisoning or the plague, but either way, she was on death's door and Vaughn had to stay with her. And I love that.
(This is never ever the right thing to say. I've heard enough of these fights to know this is going to backfire. Poor Weiss. Labor Day Weekend's barbecue was particularly nasty because Vaughn somehow brought up something he knew about Sydney and Lauren stabbed the meat with kebab sticks so hard they almost fell off. They were delicious nonetheless.)
"People talk and you're their favorite topic!" When Lauren says "favorite" you can hear her saying it spelled with a u. I should've written it with it then! Favourite!
Lower, now, and dammit, my arms are going to fall off if they don't stop fighting soon, Poor guy. He can't really leave and has to listen. "Lauren. You are blowing this way out of proportion. I honestly meant nothing by it."
It's quiet for a few minutes, presumably because he is whispering sweet nothings in french and she's coyly accepting them so I slam into the gate door a few times. "Hey, Mike, buddy, come help me out!" Yeah, this fic was fun but pointless.
Ninety Five
Sydney is usually at least 95% happy with Weiss, the other 5% varying by weather, the night's television programming, her stress level, and the amount of ice cream in the freezer. Syd is an ice cream girl. She knows that that kind of variation is definitely a bizarre way of rating her happiness with her boyfriend here I say boyfriend, later I say husband. Whoops.- usually the percentages are skewed by arguments, or forgetfulness, or barely seeing each other due to work schedules.
But Weiss- Eric, Eric, boyfriends should be called by their first names awww.- doesn’t so any of these things. Fighting is never an issue, because they either agree or compromise without much of a fuss, Why isn't that a period? Eric is remarkably thoughtful, and even when work is crazy he makes time to stop by her desk with a coffee and donut with a bite out of it. “I knew you wouldn’t mind sharing,” he’d say easily, and swoop down with a sugary kiss. I like that a lot!
Moving to DC was a good for them, away from the ruins, Yeah, I just... didn't want to describe why Vaughn and Nadia were dead. And Jack too. somewhere clean and new. Sydney personally chooses not to think about California too much, it gives her goose bumps and nausea. Which, hee! They have a nice little house in Maryland with a white picket fence this was a for a ficathon, and a white picket fence was requested. that they both laugh at, because who has those anymore? They have tulips Syd's favorite flower! to line the sidewalk and Eric is surprisingly good at gardening.
On the weekends, the few they both have off, they work on the yard, black crescents of dirt under Sydney’s nails and her knees sore from working too long. She always tries to head him off- he gets a certain face when he’s about to do it- but without fail, dirt smudged across their faces and with trickles of sweat, Eric starts, “Hey, y’remember when-”
Sometimes she is not quick enough and he gets out a name, or a place, or something they once did, and the hairs on her arms will rise, even in the midday sun, accompanied by the chill. And Syd does not like when that happens!
(The 95% is greatly affected by these false starts even though it wasn't mentioned earlier., and at those times the number can drop to dismally low numbers. Like, like, 47%! It’s not that she doesn’t love him, because she does. She just doesn’t want to think of anyone else they might have loved, or what could have happened to make those relationships end. There are certain things better left alone. She’s trying to teach him that.)
They stay in mostly, cause Syd is a homebody and Weiss'll just have to deal. watching TV or reading, or, occasionally, instant messaging each other from different rooms of the house, such as the living room and the dining room. Eric says it keeps them honest, because if one says “LOL” without actually laughing, something must be wrong. Yeah, the LOL thing was definitely written with Tess in mind. Plus, when you IM someone close by and say "LOL" without laughing, they tease you.
He usually loves her in a wholehearted, A+, 100% way, I adore that whole part but even he has his off days. They eat a lot of ice cream then, foregoing dinner and sitting side by side on the couch, individual cartons of Ben and Jerry’s. He’s a fan of Cherry Garcia, she likes Phish Food. My old roommate's favorite flavor was Phish Food. If they’re not in the mood to wallow they’ll watch something comedic, like a Mel Brooks movie. Young Frankenstein. If there’s one thing they need in their lives, it’s comedy.
(One of the things they have to come to terms with is that- honestly- neither one of them is the other’s first choice. At least they're honest about it. It’s something they recognize, and it’s a healthy thing to know, she thinks. The 95% corresponds to the 95% of the time she’s in the moment with him, happy to be with a man who has truly become her best friend and impromptu husband. See, husband here. There are worse things than being Sydney Weiss, things like ashes I think ashes and natural disasters were Vaughn and Nadia and disasters and in a very particular case, twisted metal. Daddy! Dominos, one after another, click Vaughn click Nadia click Jack as they fall.)
The hours at their jobs here are a lot more flexible. They meet their neighbors. They make trips to the grocery store without ever having to abandon a full cart to go to the office. Hee, that reminds me about the Dane Cook skit where he's like, why are we so protective of our carts? God forbid we leave ours for a minute and someone walks by, looks down and is like, "OMG, that cart has everything I need! Scoooore!" Sydney announces happily on the anniversary of their first year there that it’s the longest she’s ever stayed in the country. Yeah, see, I'd count it the opposite way. Stupid spoiled Syd.
There is the odd nightmare, of course- Eric escapes car crashes, See, cause that was Jack but earthquakes haunt them both. Fires and ashes that sprinkle down like snow, that’s what ruins their white Christmas. Maybe the world ended. Or just California.
Numbers on calendars can be difficult, days with months that mean things: birthdays or anniversaries of things that aren’t so nice, such as the day the music died or human deaths or accidents or natural disasters.
Instead of a traditional white diamond wedding ring, Sydney has a large, bright sapphire ring. It was between sapphires and rubies. So, I ask my mom conversationally what she likes, and suddenly she launches into this, like, dissertation about jewels and their worth and where they're from and I'm all teh hell? And she ends with "bet you didn't think I knew that much about gems! And I was like, you are very right. He surprised her with it in City Hall with an easy “I thought this was cooler” in front of the justice of the peace. CUTE. Later, in a hotel room where they decided that, really, hamburgers are a totally acceptable wedding dinner, she admired the ring. “I really thought you’d get me some ridiculous diamond.”
“No, ridiculous sapphires are so much cooler.”
In my head, it's totally, like, his grandmother's ring or something.
She gets complimented on it- it’s exotic and different and nothing like anyone else has ever given her, which might have been what he was going for. He has, after all, seen her other rings. This was just theirs, bright blue and new. Aaaaand segue!
That’s the theme of their house- a bright blue door, light blue kitchen, dark rich navy sofa. Eric says it gives the house a decidedly nautical theme, but they both like it. So, suddenly I mention nautical and then I became obsessed with it. Occasionally they lapse into pirate-speech, which isn’t correct, but it is fun. Even more fun to picture. On weekends when they aren’t gardening they take up sailing, which is high brow and snooty, it totally is, I wish I knew how to sail. but Sydney loves the wind and Eric loves the expression she gets, so they go to the bay.
(Even the ocean is different here, different water, different sand, but the salt air is the same. On the boat, Sydney can immerse herself in it- the swing of the sail, ropes and rudders and riggings. Thank you, wikipedia. When it’s calm and Eric is steering, she lets him take control and she can close her eyes and lean against the mast. Good for her! Also, I can totally picture this. Her hair is in a french braid. Usually the sun on her face makes her happy, but every so often the wind gives her the same chill memories do, down to 95%, sometimes even 84%, but stepping back on land brings it back up.)
(95% is nothing to be ashamed of.) I think it's a damn fine percentage myself!
The Plight of the Poor Floor Toast
"It is like a law." Will moaned as he looked at the floor. Hee, and I started this with absolutely no idea where I was going.
"Sunday morning hangovers?" Syd asked.
"No. Well, yes. That too. But this," he motioned at the floor.
Syd leaned over the counter to look at the floor by the stove. Probably with an ass shot for the male viewers.
"... Floor toast?" Who even says something like that?
"Cute, Syd."
"The Law of Floor Toast?" Francie asked as she walked out to the kitchen. Awww, the BFFs!
"Will invented it."
"Sounds like a band." I completely love picturing this whole thing.
Syd giggled. "A punkish band. Hey, guys, want to start a band?"
"Does no one care about my plight?"
"Oh, oh, that's better. The Plight of the Floor Toast." Almost, but not quite.
Francie nodded. "I would buy their CD."
"My plight, not its plight." Will said. Poor Will. They're not taking him seriously.
"But you're not on the floor."
"But my toast is on the floor. With its buttered side on the floor."
Sydney and Francie's faces turned sober. "Oh," Syd said.
"We didn't know." Now they are!
"The five-second rule doesn't even apply there," Syd whispered, leaning over farther to look, "because that's gross." Indeed. And now you'll have to wash the floor because, hi. Butter.
Francie looked too, and lowered her voice. "It is. Why are we whispering?"
"We don't want to hurt its feelings." Duuuuh.
"The toast?"
"The poor toast." Why does no one ask how Will dropped the toast? I want to know!
Francie nods. "The poor toast. Oh, The Plight of the Poor Floor Toast."
"TPOTPFT. Catchy." Absolutely. This scene was obviously partly inspired by the Gilmore Girls episode where Lane joins the band with Adam Brody and they considered calling the band like, Follow them to the Edge of the Desert or something so it was FTTTEOTD and it was amusing.
Will looked at them carefully. "You two are insane."
"Aw, Will, are you not part of our band?" Oh, pshaw, of course he is.
"We need you. With you and me and Francie and Charlie, See, it just occured to her, she's excited. we will have a total Mama and Papas thing going on. And I know you love them." this must be before he's a deceitful, two-faced, sex-crazed jackass.
Will looks into the distance thoughtfully. "I do love The Mamas and the Papas." I've got two ears and a heart, don't I?
"Only we wouldn't have that weird... triangly square thing." Syd says quickly. "Because, I mean, Cass was in love with Denny who has a thing with Michelle who was married to John and..." It was weird.
"We have all seen the Behind the Music, Syd." Francie said, and then she tilted her head to think. "And no matchy-matchy outfits." Which just makes me picture the Bradys
"Oh, no." Syd said hurriedly. "That's totally lame. TPOTPFT is anything but lame."
"Toast. Floor. Ruined." Poor Will, man.
"Aw, Will, that's a great title for our first single!" Francie smiled.
"For our album, we could have the four of us standing in a room with our instruments, and instead of floor tiles, it'll be toast." In my head, this cover is vaguely reminscent of No Doubt's Return Of Saturn CD.
"Creative."
"Thank you."
"What instruments?" Will asked. See, he's getting into it.
"Well, I play the piano." Syd said. I really love that they kept that thread up for the most part. Irina mentioning lessons, faux Little Syd practicing in Mirage, Jack playing... yay.
"And I'm sure that'll cater right to TPOTPFT's demographic."
Francie smiled. "Look at Will, getting all excited about our band's future." The original sentence was a lot closer to "look at you, getting all into it," but I changed it.
Syd laughed again. "Hey, Fran, you could try your hand at the guitar again."
"Oh, my god, shut up. I gave my teacher a nervous breakdown."
"If I remember correctly, he was pretty unhinged when he came to teach you."
"But I broke him. He said I was the sorriest guitar player he'd ever attempted to instruct." Hee! The whole exchange.
Syd patted Francie's shoulder. "He was unnecessarily harsh."
"But, guys, seriously. Can we mourn my toast?"
Shaking her head, Syd got off her stool and went to the counter to remove a piece of bread from its bag. She put it in the toaster.
"Have you mourned long enough to accept a new piece of toast?"
Will nods. "I think so."
"Good. We discuss the band now?" I also like that it ends there.
For dollsome
Rainbows on a Wave
Jenny was not exactly tidy. Personal canon!
Her apartment has a lived-in feeling, Giles thinks idly as he walks in with Willow. Poor Giles, man. She had stacks of papers to grade by her computer and dishes in the sink.
(Jenny wasn't afraid of using a red pen, As well she shouldn't be! Insult the children! Toughen their skin! thick pen strokes, a solid x for errors, a playful check for problems that were correct. Willow's paper, an exam, is the at the bottom of the ungraded stack. "I turned it in first," she whispered, "I wonder what she'd say.") Aw, it's cute little Willow! I loved her then, with her long hair and really unfortunate fashion choices
Her pantry is full of boxes ("Miss Calendar didn't like to cook.") and in her refrigerator is a head of lettuce just starting to brown, and a carton of chinese food. Mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer, dregs in the bottom of a coffee cup on the counter. There is a plant drooping on her windowsill- ("I am a convicted plant killer. Can't keep them alive no matter what I do. My thumbs? Not green.")- and the newspaper spread open on the table. A woman who had intended to return had left her house in such a state. Poor Miss Calendar. If she'd known she was going to die that day, she would've chosen a better outfit and done her dishes. Obviously.
No one will come to clear this place, so it's fallen to Giles to remove Jenny from her home, her books and paperweights, papers and pens, videotapes and CDs. The act of deconstructing a life is tedious- they'll keep what they like and give the rest away. Poor Giles! All things considered, he hardly knew Miss Calendar. He just loooooved her! A fact that is sadly neglected forever in Buffy episodes.
(Willow is in charge of clothes, and it's just as well. She folds things neatly and places them in boxes- SWEATERS and DRESSES and SHIRTS and PANTS/SKIRTS, and a few times Giles catches something he recognizes- a grey sweater, from the end of 'The Dark Age,' when the hills are not alive a flowered dress, a striped skirt Also 'The Dark Age,' I think. The hardest, for some reason, to watch disappear are the shoes- tall heels in brown and black and cream, with them the click-clack of her steps.)
The book she was reading is on her nightstand Originally, it was going to be one he had lent her, but then I realized that their relationship wasn't exactly conducive to book-lending. Booo. (bed unmade, sheets rumpled, and Willow is putting boxes in the car so it's alright to inhale her scent from her pillow Sad! So sad! and there's the scent thing again!) a jar of handcreme beside it and her page marked with a to do list (laundry, grocery shopping, papers!!!) There is dust on the headboard and the wastebasket is full and oh god, why Jenny? WHY JENNY INDEED.
Willow is standing in the doorway, unsure of how to approach him. This is hard for her too, all red-rimmed eyes and ragged nails. "There's something you should see here." Aww, Wil.
A kitchen drawer, hardly a place for anything important, unless Willow's found something horrible. Instead of a demon or scales of alligator, Jenny kept- she kept mementos, a Sunnydale High pennant, monster truck rally tickets- and that's it, other than old receipts and what might be recipe cards. He's light-headed, really- time wasted, all the places they'd never gone and things he'd never shown her, her eyes glossed over and unblinking and Jenny would never return here, never wash her dishes or go grocery shopping and never go anywhere else with him that would allow her to add to this pitiful collection she'd stashed in the junk drawer. Which is very similar to what Anya said about Joyce.
(He takes these things to stash in a drawer of his own, trying for out of mind and achieving more time between gut-wrenching realizations.)
In the end, when Willow has taken what she wanted and then gone home, he sits wrapping mugs and glassware in paper, the dishwasher humming. Tomorrow moving men will remove the furniture, and the day after that, a housecleaner will remove all traces (her dust, her fingerprints, strands of hair and lost buttons) of a former inhabitant, and Jenny Calendar will just be in the records of the building. And in your heart!
In the back of a cupboard is a set jade green mugs, personal canon!too small for the amounts of coffee Jenny needed ("I need caffeine, England.") but just the size for a nice cup of tea. He rests his head against the cupboard door, because he can hear her voice and he knows just what he would do if she were to come up behind him just now- he would draw her forward and hold her so tightly that he might just hear her bones, I do so love that part. and what would he would sacrifice for that opportunity frightens him.
(Xander, sadly, in a second. He thinks this calmly, rationally. Willow, only if he knew exactly what he was getting: Jenny, soul and body, to live out her life as a human. Yes, it would hurt, but Willow he would sacrifice. heh, he likes Willow, but not that much. Miss Calendar > Willow. But Buffy- could he sacrifice the Slayer? Not just the Slayer, the girl- light-hearted, charming Buffy who means so well and has to save the world more times than anyone will ever know? Buffy, who listens only sometimes and occasionally pouts when his attention is not fully directed at her? I totally love that observation, because Buffy is like an only child when it comes to Giles, and I think it's adorable.
The hesitance of his answer makes him sick.) Aww, poor torn Giles. He loves his Miss Calendar.
Finis
"I am not a wanderer." This was the sentence that I jumped off of, and by the end of the fic, I was so totally far from this. I kind of got fixated on Miss Calendar being a gypsy.
She says this to his collarbone as he touches her shoulder blade, bones like china, thick and delicate. I really do like that line.
"I never was."
~*~
He wakes up to find her asleep next to him, her breath rolling over him, hair rumpled by sleep. Surprise! As he scrutinizes her features she blinks awake and stares back. He exhales her name and her brow furrows when he touches her, firm and corporal. Man, poor Giles. He must be so confused.
From a separate place she knows she is Jenny, as she knows she is Janna, as she knows she is a computer teacher, as she knows she is a Kalderash. That Jenny is bright. Her spine is whole and long and straight, and the glass has been brushed from her hair. Cause of Angel crashed the paper weighty thing over her head! She is unsure of how to speak, what comes out first is nonsense, words strung together: heavy, crack, love, mistake, lost. I loooved doing this.
He doesn't understand, because it's not his language, It's a fun romani one! and she presses her lips closed to keep more from falling out (long, ache, wrong, run, soul, fail.) It is a long while before she can speak, and his fingertips are still pressed to her arms, hard enough to bruise, not of anger but fear.
"I don't know where I am," she says, and that's wrong, because she does. (But she doesn't, at the same time, the same part of her that is indifferent to names that start with Js.) She stops and inhales, her lungs thick and heavy with health, Both cool and gross. and she smiles to soothe him, lips sliding over slick teeth. She touches her chest, "Jenny," and touches his. "Rupert."
~*~
When the dead has risen to mix with the living, judgment comes only from those who are angry. Streets are crowded with bodies trying to return home, to ones they loved and the ones that loved them, who were not always the same. I tried starting with this section, like, a hundred times, but then I did what I always do: forget about exposition and make it more charactery than ploty.
(This is an aberration, worthy of research and books. The children know this, Hee, they were still baaabies here. and they depend on him to be rational. The dead must return to their graves. There isn't enough room.)
Jenny is sitting in his bed, Jenny because she isn't Janna at least to him and Jen is too clipped and Jennifer never even entered the equation, why was it on her grave? Seriously, why? Jenny, her skin supple I love the word supple and glowing with health and life. Jenny, whose breath can be heard across a room if it is silent enough, whose breath he listens to and counts on. I think originally I intended to have Miss Calendar hang out for a lot longer. She touches things, fascinated. "It's been a long time," she says by way of explanation, and her thoughts are still there, only muffled. She wants to explain, in some way, but she unsure herself. (Confused.) I love parentheses.
~*~
"It's you," he whispers, and there is a desperation in his tone and she pulls him closer until her arms ache from exertion. "You've come back."
(Rupert Giles is only a man.)
waaaah!
~*~
Buffy wants a course of action. She is tired of strangers coming to her house and knocking, thinking that they've simply misplaced their keys. Or The Key! Ha ha! The dead all seem to be unaware of any changes in themselves other than confusion of their surroundings. Willow, whose great-grandmother is now cooking in her kitchen, agrees that while it is pleasant now, things couldn't stay that way. Had the Sunnydale Press been running, reports would have already started: fights over women who had remarried, children who had destroyed the family name, men who had second families. (Three past editors-in-chief were now fighting for control of the paper while the fourth, current editor cowered under his desk. This was absolutely one of my favorite images. The whole idea delighted me.) No one thinks of Miss Calendar until they arrive at the library to find Giles missing. The mood is decidedly somber.
(This is an aberration, and Giles knows. He needs to go find out what has happened and try to fix it. But though she is subdued, it's still Jenny, who drinks her coffee with one sugar and no cream and who decided that English tea was acceptable in the afternoons, but not in the morning, when she needs caffeine. Her throat, her beautiful throat is unmarred and straight and her eyes blink open and shut and she smiles at him.) I, um, really like description, apparently.
~*~
She shakes like a chihuahua sometimes, because emotions are very harsh. When she feels like crying she instead sets her jaw and touches things: smooth tabletops and the doorknob, running water and objects in the freezer, the contents of Rupert's closet and his pillow, lightly scented with him. Ha, there's my scent thing again! He needs to go, to figure out how to right things, and she quakes, her bones twisting and blood sloshing. Another sentence I looooved. She wants to stay, even though it's wrong, because she can feel here, and she knows things. She doesn't beg (pride) but sticks her fingers under the sink's hot water to feel.
The world whizzes by as he drives, slowing as she touches her fingers to her temple (pain.) Her voice is raspier than he remembers, hoarser than she likes, so she drinks water and gathers her thoughts as Rupert touches her pulse through her wrist. I also really like writing about pulses. I have strange fixations.
The children are glad to see her, in their own way: their embraces feel like taut rubber bands and the weight of their arms is startling. Stupid kids and their too-tight hugs! Miss Calendar, they call her like I do!, dates on a page, and her smile is brittle. She doesn't want to help, doesn't want to be surrounded by books that will send her back, books that condemn with the weight of their history, heavy and ancient like the curse of her people. J-E-N-N-Y she types on the pages I do that sometimes with her fingers as she pretends to read, letters swimming. They don't know what to make of her research, the children: they assume she wants to return, because to them the afterlife is peaceful and white and quiet. They assume the opposite with Buffy! She didn’t come on purpose, she did not decide this.
They murmur around her with their studies and what they have found: no curses, demons or spells are known to have the power to raise all the dead from a given area. All other supernatural activity has been regular. Jenny shivers (cold).
~*~
She wants to be Jenny again, who she was: she wants noise and color and vibrancy and action. She wants to run and feel grass and joke and yell and dance. She wants her old car, a red dress, high heeled shoes I hate this sentence. and to kiss the man she loves, who glances over at her every few minutes. She can return to herself, she’s sure of this: the uncertain part fades more with each second she’s there, retreating as her limbs feel lighter and heart beats regularly. She can be normal here, return to the life that had been taken. (Stolen.) Letters form words now before her: d-e-m-o-n-s and p-o-w-e-r-s and d-e-a-t-h.
(Calendars get replaced at the end of the year, useless. Rupert didn’t replace her, not his Calendar, and she thinks that maybe he brings flowers to her grave as an offering, guilt and sorrow and love, she believes. She was not the favorite daughter of her tribe, they would not curse Angel for what he did a second time, not even for the fate of her uncle. Calendars mark the passage of time, but her grave has no dates on it, just a shining white stone J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R instead of Jenny, Jenny instead of Janna, C-A-L-E-N-D-A-R as a family name and not Kalderash the tribe. She trusts and is not an outsider, not a wanderer, and there is nothing different about her.) My attempt to go back to the wanderer thing
~*~
The best time for the spell is dawn, they read, and they depart to fend off the dead who were rapidly becoming more frustrated and violent. Yikes! Rupert takes Jenny back to his apartment and she eats an apple hungrily, teeth tearing through skin and flesh. Zombie!
He stutters (charmingly, endearingly) as he asks her things she’s heard in his thoughts, did she suffer, was she at peace, was she happy? (Yes, mostly, no.) She answers what he’d like to hear, because she’ll be sent back in the morning and it’s no use making him as unhappy as she is. (She thinks she was unhappy. Maybe she was just nothing at all.) (Behold my interesting use of noncommitalness!) He takes her hand first, examining the knuckles and nail beds, tendons, lines and veins. Then her wrist, where the veins collected to create a pulse (up the river, not across,) that's how my sixth grade science teacher told us to slit our wrists, seriously and he pressed a kiss there, where the blood pounded. See? More pulses. He says her name softly, reverently, I like putting that too and when he looks up, the best part of being alive comes back to Jenny, a missing piece fitted firmly in place.
~*~
“I am not a wanderer,” she says to him. Dawn comes soon and he hasn’t yet let her ago. Her voice has returned, even her wit, that I wisely decided not to attempt which she employed a few times. The shaking is gone, but heightened sensations remain. Her name (J-E-N-N-Y) is all the more precious when he says it, letters like polished stones in a row, gleaming to form something beautiful, something loved.
She accepts tea that morning against her will! (he doesn’t have coffee) and buttons his shirt and fixes his tie. Which is all domesticky She’ll stay behind, or else he won’t go through with it, she knows. It’s easier to wait behind, to disappear when he can’t see. Light is just creeping over the horizon and his hand squeezes her shoulder in convulsions. He is defeated, and tired of duty and honor and doesn’t care about the world. Poor Giles.
“I love you,” he’d said more times than she could count, to make up for his lack before, and he whispers it now when she tells him to leave. She kisses him: quick, darting kisses over his face, forcing a smile between. An exact scene taken from "Enemies: A Love Story." Lena Olin does that. It's fabulous. She tells him she’s always with him, even though she doesn’t know if that’s true, and then lets him go.
“Walk out the door, Rupert,” Jenny Calendar, having reclaimed her name, says, HATE THAT. SO MUCH. “and don’t turn back.”
(He thinks of Orpheus as he leaves, and superstition doesn’t allow him to turn.) Love the end, though.
He Laughs, a Moulin Rouge fic written when I was fourteen. Sweet God. Published 09-08-02 and I think it was my one of my more popular pieces.
It was forbidden. Which you would know if you'd seen the damn movie, Captain Obvious.
We both knew it, Uh oh, first person. yet we ignored it. We wanted too much, could have too little, and were always aching for more. Which sounds dirty and vaguely Spuffyesque.
The time we spent together was something hurried and hidden, I think I meant "sometimes" others were spent leisurely and without a care. Sometimes we could forget all the elements Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! Goooo Planet! together as we lay in bed and pretend that we were married and we owned a little house and a garden and a dog in the yard. Which I’ve been thinking about, and I’ve decided that it’s not too out of character. They were very soft. And other times our kisses were guilty, because we both felt what we were doing was wrong and evil. A village of sin!
Sometimes our eyes would catch one another's when we out in the world, but only for a moment, lest Hee, “lest.” any one get any ideas. Sometimes we attempted to ignore one another, for fear that one glance would throw us over the edge. They only attempted, though. They usually just gave in. They were both really, really pretty.
Sometimes I found refuge in his Okay, true confession: until right now, I totally thought it was Christian’s POV. Because I totally didn’t remember this fic at all, obviously. arms and sometimes I found it back in my room- his arms could shield me from the world and I felt that I could hide there for hours and days and never worry, other times I ran from his room with hot tears in my eyes because I knew I was in love and didn't want to be. That whole sentence was bizarre. Really.
Sometimes I felt I hated him because I loved him and needed him so, and other times I wanted to fight the world to keep them away from him- a harsh and cruel world that could harm my darling innocent. He’s your boyfriend, not your… I don’t even know.
Sometimes we would just chatter and sing the whole night through, That’s just creepy and bizarre. They have jobs. Don’t they need rest? Freaks. holding hands and playing cat's cradle with a piece of string, why? Whyyyy? both rushing to his typewriter when he got ideas. Okay, that’s cute. Other times we needed no words, and our lips knew their way No maps necessary and our hands knew just where to go, and nothing would be said but breathless 'I love you's repeated over and over, as if the more we said it the truer it became.
Sometimes we'd wake up and watch the sun rise through his window, pretty! and I'd lay back on him with his arms around my neck and my head against his shoulder, and I'd let myself dream of the future, about the little house and the garden and the dog I'd name Moppet Because….?, of little children whose names escaped me who squealed and giggled and played. I'd count out the dreams I had on his fingers, ooh, I like that and he'd ask me what I was doing and tears would come to my eyes because the dream was just what it was, a dream, and it could never be reality. And I ruined it with that lame ending Other days I'd wake up and feel sickened, because I loved him so much and was so bad for him, He’s addicted to her, but she knows that she’s toxic. and as I dressed I'd weep silently for influence I had over this boy that could cause his downfall, and I'd leave without saying goodbye, bitch. save for a long glimpse that I'd treat as our final farewell.
Sometimes we'd talk about what we would do when we were free, why don’t you just leave? Stupid Satine and her feelings of obligation. as if we were prisoners in the Bastille, and we'd talk of places we would go and things we would do, how unashamedly we'd swing hands and walk in step without meaning to and how if we wanted to, we could kiss in public and just be thought scandalous and not insane. Also, possibly obnoxious.
And then came the end, where I wished I had the courage to slit my wrists which would just make you a brave coward! instead of doing what I did to my poor innocent what a stupid way to refer to him, hearing him call for me and covering my ears to try to block to sound, but it was too late. I would sit just out of sight from the window and sob, Jesus, Satine. Grow a pair. hating his pleading this should be “pleas” for tearing me apart, but at the same time, not able to tear myself away because it was his voice, and maybe if I just closed my eyes I could hear his voice from happier times- teasing me and joking with me and whispering things I'd never heard before in my ears. Dirty!
Nothing mattered after that, nothing, not that I was sick or the show or anything, not because I was dying but because I would die without him near blah blah blah, and I was selfish enough to think no further than that. All I knew was that I would die soon and he would be somewhere far, far away, perhaps not even in Paris, and I would die with the girls and Harry and Marie but not with him. I was not as scared as death as I was of delirium, where my common sense would leave me and all I would want was him, and I would be no longer to recall why he wasn't there, beside me, where he should be. Wow. Considering how mild her symptoms were, I’m surprised that she thinks this’ll happen. Stupid movie TB.
And everything became a blur to me. It was a big huge multicolored Bollywood-inspired blur that gave me a huge headache when I watched the movie in the fifth row. But one must make sacrifices when you see a movie in the theatre five times.
Suddenly *gasp!* he was there, and I was fighting him off, thinking all the while how ironic it was that not only was I pushing him away but that he was being threatened with death. Isn’t that like, Alanis-calibre irony? I giddily wondered that if he was shot, would there be a bullet left for me? Giddy, huh?
And then there were bright lights and music, laughter and costumes with too much makeup and fake jewelry. Costumes with too much makeup? Or people wearing a costume and too much makeup? Honestly. Something papery fluttered down to the ground, and tears tracked makeup down my face, and the feeling that I could die right there without protest, because I had lost him. And then I sang to him!
There uncertainty and doubt, glimmers of hope and a radiance of adoration when he came to me, Cause I am like a siren, baby, a damn siren with my magical voice! and his arms came around me and there could have twenty-thousand people around us or no one, and I didn't shouldn’t that be ‘wouldn’t? care, because he was there and I loved him and all was going to be right again. Ha! He could do that to me- hold me and make the world seem full of daisies and buttercups and giggles and rainbows over houses with gardens and dogs named Moppet and little children running around who called me 'mummy' and him 'papa'. Whyyyy.
We were going to live forever, him and me, always and forever, and nothing could stop us now because we were above the clouds and the people, up in the heavens where nothing could touch us, and we would stay young and in love forever, caught in this moment, trapped in amber. Not so much, bitches!
Darkness.
It was so cold as the curtain fell, Because you’re dying, hello. and this time not even his kiss could dispel the chill that had locked itself into my bones and now around my chest. Yeah, TB likes the chest. There were things falling down from the sky- not the sky, the ceiling- little rose petals and for an instant it was spring and we were somewhere in a garden, and then a flower girl at our wedding was throwing petals as I stepped towards him. And just as I made it to the altar the ice got a grip on my chest and I couldn't breath Yep, not “breathe,” breath. again, and I started to pray, dear God, not now, please, not now... Too bad!
It was cold, colder than it had been a minute ago when the curtains were open and the lights were bearing down on me, making face paint smear and run. Ugly! Now something was running down my face but I knew it wasn't my lipstick. It’s called blood. Learn it, live it, love it.
There was a wretched noise, and I was started when I realized it came from me, Dying gives you the stupids. and that rasping was my pathetic attempt at breathing, which everyone else seemed to accomplish without much trouble. Although, really, everyone there should have TB because that bitch spreads through breath and spit and stuff, and lord knows she’s been breathing on everyone singing. And then he was holding me, getting TB and it wasn't as cold anymore, but his face was wavering- sometimes it was very close and other times very far away, sometimes very bright and other times so dark I couldn't see him anymore.
I reached out to touch him- or did he touch me? I don't remember, but I felt him, and he was there, even if I couldn't see him.
It was raining again, and I couldn't quite understand it, because a minute ago little petals
had been falling and now it was raining, but we were still inside. Oh, it’s so artsy!
But, finally I regained my vision and wasn't raining- it was his tears and my tears, all mixing on my cheeks, and they were sticky with wet face paint and liquid sorrow, *wince* Liquid. Sorrow. and I would have given all my diamonds and had them replaced with tears, because his tears were so beautiful. Jesus Christ. I don’t even have anything to say to that.
He was saying things to me, whispering words only I could hear, just like before, only now we both knew I'd never hear them again, and then his lips were on mine a final time, and the kiss was sweet and sad, and my lips were cold because death had swooped between us and kissed them first. Ew!
Now I am a ghost. I obviously spend my time lurking around him. Sometimes he remembers, and other times he forgets. Sometimes he drinks, and other times he stands in front of the creepy shrine of pictures, pictures of a woman long since laid to rest by people who claimed to have loved her.
Sometimes he forgets on purpose, and other times he remember the house and the garden, Moppet and hands held, Cat's Cradles and promises whispered.
Sometimes, he cries.
And other times, he laughs. Awww.