Fic: Undesirable Synth-Pop
Title: Undesirable Synth-Pop
Author: fadedpresence
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Characters/Pairing: Rufus/Lily (young and present)
Prompt: 'And so we meet again'
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 808 words
Notes: A request for chocky-mousse. I have no idea if I'm doing this right or not... I don't watch Gossip Girl very often and I don't know much about Lily and Rufus (shhh!) but I hope you like it anyway ;)
Quick glances, ones she pretends don’t mean a thing (oh, they mean so much), take her back to plaid skirts teamed with leather jackets and spilt sodas. They were each other’s extremes, she the synth-pop to his grunge-rock.
“Is there any reason why I’m the synth-pop?” she would ask him. “Again.”
He would be unable to ignore that hint of irritation.
“You have a problem with being synth-pop?”
“I always have a problem being synth-pop.” Lily glares at him, her right arm positioned in a perfect right angle against her hip. Even though they might be deep within the city (downtown, don’t forget that) and streets away from fresh pressed linen and champagne, Rufus can’t forget that Lily is just that bit more refined than he is. She tries to hide it - maybe even wants him to forget - but her actions betray her, and they speak louder than words.
“Well,” he smiles. “I’m the one holding a guitar. I’m not synth-pop today.”
Lily opens her mouth to protest, but he’s already got his mouth pressed to the mic again. She throws a few choice phrases at him, but they’re drowned and unheard as the speakers combust with the sounds of her Friday night escape.
If things went well (ie: they didn’t kill each other), Lily would find herself in Brooklyn by three in the morning. Sometimes she’d be unable to remember how or why she ended up there, but thankfully, when it mattered she remembered.
Rufus sat beneath peeling posters of underground rock bands, tucked in the corner with that damn bowler cap sliding over his left eye. He’d grown so attached to the thing and Lily didn’t have the guts to knock it off his head again. (Back in 2008, she smiles at how they found it… abandoned, dirty… left on a park bench in Central Park…)
His fingers - calloused and sometimes bandaged with colored electrical tape - swept deftly over the strings of his guitar. Lily had one leg tucked up into her lap, black marker in her right hand as she scribbled on the shiny surface of her shoes.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to take the shoe… off?” Rufus says slowly from his corner.
The shoes were bright red with no designer label inside, only a scribbled dollar sign on the sole. The look on her mothers face was her incentive for buying, and they’d quickly become her shoes for Friday’s. Friday’s were her escape from mirrored walls and pink satin lace-up slippers.
“I don’t do things easily,” she volleys back, drawing lyrics against the blood red plastic.
Rufus says nothing to that, which was a shame because she had been kind of counting on his answer. Instead, he sits his guitar aside and takes out a cigarette from his jacket pocket.
“Does your mother know where you are?” he jokes, looking up at her from beneath the brim of that bowler cap. They both know her mother would have a fit if she knew.
Lily crawls her way to his side, kicking off her shoes halfway. He hands her the cigarette and she doesn’t ask what kind it is, she just presses it to her lips and inhales. She trusts him, even though they’ve been in the back of a police car on more than one occasion.
Soon she can’t feel much else.
“I’m thinking that I might want you to kiss me,” she tells him matter-of-factly, with the chorus of a power ballad belting out from the radio turned down low. He seems unruffled by her statement, adjusting the hat on his head like she’s just spoken about the weather. “So much so that I might agree to being synth-pop permanently.”
He looks at her then, now that the stakes are high and all of a sudden serious.
“Synth-pop, permanently?” he clarifies. She nods once.
“I can’t say no to that.”
Things get more complicated when you’re older. Old shoes get trashed, lyrics hold old memories but do little more than make money for their writers and things you once did are things you don’t want repeated by your children. I-told-you-so’s aren’t restricted to ages, unfortunately.
“You’re just like your mother,” he says with a hard smile. It’s not a compliment.
Still, Lily bares it and smiles. “Living in Brooklyn, I hear?” That’s not a compliment, either.
Rufus matches her false grin. “You used to like Brooklyn.”
“I was eighteen,” she says, her usual defense when it comes to all things ‘Rufus’. “I also liked depressing music and tight pants on men.”
Rufus laughs at that. “What would our eighteen-year-old selves think of us now?”
Lily wants to leave that question open ended, because she’s fairly certain she knows the answer. Thinking it is difficult enough, but saying it out loud would just be painful.
Maybe their kids will get it right this time.
Author: fadedpresence
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Characters/Pairing: Rufus/Lily (young and present)
Prompt: 'And so we meet again'
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 808 words
Notes: A request for chocky-mousse. I have no idea if I'm doing this right or not... I don't watch Gossip Girl very often and I don't know much about Lily and Rufus (shhh!) but I hope you like it anyway ;)
Quick glances, ones she pretends don’t mean a thing (oh, they mean so much), take her back to plaid skirts teamed with leather jackets and spilt sodas. They were each other’s extremes, she the synth-pop to his grunge-rock.
“Is there any reason why I’m the synth-pop?” she would ask him. “Again.”
He would be unable to ignore that hint of irritation.
“You have a problem with being synth-pop?”
“I always have a problem being synth-pop.” Lily glares at him, her right arm positioned in a perfect right angle against her hip. Even though they might be deep within the city (downtown, don’t forget that) and streets away from fresh pressed linen and champagne, Rufus can’t forget that Lily is just that bit more refined than he is. She tries to hide it - maybe even wants him to forget - but her actions betray her, and they speak louder than words.
“Well,” he smiles. “I’m the one holding a guitar. I’m not synth-pop today.”
Lily opens her mouth to protest, but he’s already got his mouth pressed to the mic again. She throws a few choice phrases at him, but they’re drowned and unheard as the speakers combust with the sounds of her Friday night escape.
If things went well (ie: they didn’t kill each other), Lily would find herself in Brooklyn by three in the morning. Sometimes she’d be unable to remember how or why she ended up there, but thankfully, when it mattered she remembered.
Rufus sat beneath peeling posters of underground rock bands, tucked in the corner with that damn bowler cap sliding over his left eye. He’d grown so attached to the thing and Lily didn’t have the guts to knock it off his head again. (Back in 2008, she smiles at how they found it… abandoned, dirty… left on a park bench in Central Park…)
His fingers - calloused and sometimes bandaged with colored electrical tape - swept deftly over the strings of his guitar. Lily had one leg tucked up into her lap, black marker in her right hand as she scribbled on the shiny surface of her shoes.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to take the shoe… off?” Rufus says slowly from his corner.
The shoes were bright red with no designer label inside, only a scribbled dollar sign on the sole. The look on her mothers face was her incentive for buying, and they’d quickly become her shoes for Friday’s. Friday’s were her escape from mirrored walls and pink satin lace-up slippers.
“I don’t do things easily,” she volleys back, drawing lyrics against the blood red plastic.
Rufus says nothing to that, which was a shame because she had been kind of counting on his answer. Instead, he sits his guitar aside and takes out a cigarette from his jacket pocket.
“Does your mother know where you are?” he jokes, looking up at her from beneath the brim of that bowler cap. They both know her mother would have a fit if she knew.
Lily crawls her way to his side, kicking off her shoes halfway. He hands her the cigarette and she doesn’t ask what kind it is, she just presses it to her lips and inhales. She trusts him, even though they’ve been in the back of a police car on more than one occasion.
Soon she can’t feel much else.
“I’m thinking that I might want you to kiss me,” she tells him matter-of-factly, with the chorus of a power ballad belting out from the radio turned down low. He seems unruffled by her statement, adjusting the hat on his head like she’s just spoken about the weather. “So much so that I might agree to being synth-pop permanently.”
He looks at her then, now that the stakes are high and all of a sudden serious.
“Synth-pop, permanently?” he clarifies. She nods once.
“I can’t say no to that.”
Things get more complicated when you’re older. Old shoes get trashed, lyrics hold old memories but do little more than make money for their writers and things you once did are things you don’t want repeated by your children. I-told-you-so’s aren’t restricted to ages, unfortunately.
“You’re just like your mother,” he says with a hard smile. It’s not a compliment.
Still, Lily bares it and smiles. “Living in Brooklyn, I hear?” That’s not a compliment, either.
Rufus matches her false grin. “You used to like Brooklyn.”
“I was eighteen,” she says, her usual defense when it comes to all things ‘Rufus’. “I also liked depressing music and tight pants on men.”
Rufus laughs at that. “What would our eighteen-year-old selves think of us now?”
Lily wants to leave that question open ended, because she’s fairly certain she knows the answer. Thinking it is difficult enough, but saying it out loud would just be painful.
Maybe their kids will get it right this time.