BrigitsFlame, March - Week 2
Original fic forbrigits_flame.
Title: Snipets of You -- Balance
Prompt: Balance
Word Count: 1346
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Once in a while, we forgive the distance. Because our ruined memories belong encased in this song.
Author's Note: Stand-alone part two of four! Scene 2, we find out a little more about who the narrator was addressing from the previous section, and her relationship with Cleo, but this time from Cleo's POV. Again, not as clean-cut as I'd like because I'm one of the world's greatest procrastinators. :D
A bird is singing outside your window. It’s loud.
You wander to the kitchen, grimy-eyed and cotton-mouthed. Afternoon sunshine is streaming in through the porch’s sliding glass door, cracked just a bit so lazy acoustic lyrics along with the faint sounds of traffic and more birds float into the apartment. She’s out there…stretching? No. There’s a grubby towel under her feet, and she’s doing a fairly wobbly version of the downward dog. You chuckle, because the idea of her doing yoga is funny. Which is why she didn’t ask you for your yoga mat or help; she’d knew you’d laugh.
You guess she’s probably high.
Making the rest of your way to the refrigerator, she sees you through the door and falls out of her pose grinning widely. She comes in as you’re pouring yourself some orange juice.
“Morning! Or, uh, afternoon…sleepy head!”
You grimace out a smile before drinking, and she comes over to get a soda out of the fridge. She smells like smoke and outside all at once.
Things get quiet and awkward for a minute, and you know one of her half-questions is coming.
“You were out pretty late last night,” she started conversationally, leaning against the counter with her drink. You ignore her and start getting out breakfast ingredients-an apple, bread, jelly…you try not to screw your mouth into a half-amused, half-exasperated smile. You can hear her previous balls shrinking back, as always.
“…so, you wouldn’t mind a generous wake and bake, right? C’mon.”
As always.
You don’t see her as much anymore, though she’s an almost constant fixture at the apartment now. She walks all over and more than you ever did, ever since she gave her car to her parents. In earlier years, all of you used to go everywhere in that thing. The memories of half-baked afternoons, parked on some neighborhood side street and gazing up at the blue, bright sky through the moonroof, or driving out to the nearest farmlands to find and feed a horse a carrot to make sure Toni had fed a horse at least ONCE in her lifetime-the memories still make you smile.
She never seems to be around when you leave the apartment during the day, but you always catch glimpses of her around town. Once you get back, though, she’s fixing dinner or chattering about something or another on the news, and when you leave again she’s still there on the couch with the bong watching cartoons.
Somebody mean would call it pathetic, but when you leave she’s always the one who exclaims a bright farewell as you’re rushing moodily out the door. And one Sunday morning you stumble into the apartment, just as the edges of the horizon start to tinge white-blue, and promptly trip over a bed sheet lying out in the living room floor. Cursing, you switch on a lamp to untangle your limbs-and stop to stare at the myriad of bright colors and sweeping, chaotic patterns. You get up and lay it out proper, just looking at it for a good few minutes before stumbling the rest of the way to the bedroom. It’s a visage of nothing but color that doesn’t make sense, nothing of any obvious effort.
But does make sense and it’s so beautiful.
The next morning, you ask her about it. She shrugs and laughs a little hopelessly, pouring some tea for herself. “Dunno, I wanted to make something pretty. Kind of turned out a mess, huh? But don’t worry, I did it on the porch so Kelly wouldn’t complain about what we did to her carpets.”
You sit and she stands in silence for a moment, listening to the television blare some infomercial for stackable tubberware. You glare at the wall beside the television. You hate hate hate it when she can’t see what she’s created.
“Let’s hang it here,” you manage, pointing at the wall behind you.
She stares. “Wha-”
“It’s perfect, it’d go perfect here.” You’re collecting the corners, holding it up against the wall as best you can from standing on the lumpy
couch. “See?”
You can hear her blinding smile through the following second of quiet. “Sure,” she says happily. “I’ll go get some pins.”
“No, get nails and my hammer, left drawer at the bottom of my closet,” you say, ignoring how she practically skips to follow your directions. She’s like a puppy sometimes.
You hang the art together that afternoon, then toke with the porch door slid open. Locusts call lazily in the late spring warmth over laughter and conversation, and you feel as if something is fixed for a little while.
You wake up violently, sweating and eyes jumping all over the room you’re in-yours, the lamp turned on in the corner was throwing you off. Groaning quietly, you stare at the alarm clock as your breathing evens. You’ve barely been asleep two hours.
You need a shower.
Getting up, you thump sleepily over to the bathroom and notice she’s not in her bed. The door’s cracked open, and light from the kitchen leaks into the bedroom. Her murmurs echo through the apartment.
“Yeah, an hour ago,” she’s saying lowly. Her voice sounds weird.
A pause.
“No…don’t be, it’s okay.” She sighs. “He wouldn’t have recognized me anyway.”
You realize why her voice sounds weird. It sounds as if she’s been crying.
“…I don’t know yet. I’m worried about my dad, but he doesn’t even want me to come down. Says tickets are too expensive for me to fly down for only one or two days.”
Another pause, and she starts sniffling. You feel guilty. You remember how she hugged you when you found out about your grandmother, but can’t make yourself open the door.
You go into the bathroom and start the water.
Anything art is her soul. You decided that long ago. Easily, she can put all she is into whatever she wants-she just has to want it. That’s why, when she dances, the sea of bodies part for her and the flashing lights accent her movements. There’s no wild abandon or completely unfettered moves, but there’s something just as enchanting if not more so-she gets lost in the beat and the music, and finds some semblance of balance that causes others to stare. She is dancing, while others are merely moving.
Maybe that’s why you love leaving her behind.
She envies you for your recklessness and live-hard-die-hard heart, you can see it in her eyes. It flatters and frightens you.
It frightens her, too. The envy and the reality.
You had a conversation with her in a hotboxed closet once, one you’ll never forget. She asked how you know what you want to do with your life, and you replied life is too short not to know. She pondered that for a minute, and then shadows and light crossed her face in frenzy as she lit the bowl again.
“But…how do you know you’ve got it right?” She passes you the pipe.
You shrug, take your turn. “‘Right’? You only live once, just live the life you wanna.”
You can feel her staring at you, very seriously, in the dark. Then the moment passes and she sighs. “Isn’t there somewhere I can go without wanting or wondering or even a need for ambition?”
You let out a small snort. “Yeah, but you don’t want to go there quite yet I’d think.”
She takes it the wrong and right way at the same time. “…Yeah, Heaven’ll be nice.”
You remember this conversation as you stare at the needle, thinking of promises and what heaven really even is, anyway. The toilet is disgusting but the only thing stable in your world, and you’re disgusting and she’s the only thing stable in the world when she finds you. You embrace her anger. It allows you to be angry back, to not think.
But as you leave her behind on the curb in the rain, the anger doesn’t seem worth it and you suddenly don’t feel much anymore.
-FIN PART 2-
Title: Snipets of You -- Balance
Prompt: Balance
Word Count: 1346
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Once in a while, we forgive the distance. Because our ruined memories belong encased in this song.
Author's Note: Stand-alone part two of four! Scene 2, we find out a little more about who the narrator was addressing from the previous section, and her relationship with Cleo, but this time from Cleo's POV. Again, not as clean-cut as I'd like because I'm one of the world's greatest procrastinators. :D
A bird is singing outside your window. It’s loud.
You wander to the kitchen, grimy-eyed and cotton-mouthed. Afternoon sunshine is streaming in through the porch’s sliding glass door, cracked just a bit so lazy acoustic lyrics along with the faint sounds of traffic and more birds float into the apartment. She’s out there…stretching? No. There’s a grubby towel under her feet, and she’s doing a fairly wobbly version of the downward dog. You chuckle, because the idea of her doing yoga is funny. Which is why she didn’t ask you for your yoga mat or help; she’d knew you’d laugh.
You guess she’s probably high.
Making the rest of your way to the refrigerator, she sees you through the door and falls out of her pose grinning widely. She comes in as you’re pouring yourself some orange juice.
“Morning! Or, uh, afternoon…sleepy head!”
You grimace out a smile before drinking, and she comes over to get a soda out of the fridge. She smells like smoke and outside all at once.
Things get quiet and awkward for a minute, and you know one of her half-questions is coming.
“You were out pretty late last night,” she started conversationally, leaning against the counter with her drink. You ignore her and start getting out breakfast ingredients-an apple, bread, jelly…you try not to screw your mouth into a half-amused, half-exasperated smile. You can hear her previous balls shrinking back, as always.
“…so, you wouldn’t mind a generous wake and bake, right? C’mon.”
As always.
You don’t see her as much anymore, though she’s an almost constant fixture at the apartment now. She walks all over and more than you ever did, ever since she gave her car to her parents. In earlier years, all of you used to go everywhere in that thing. The memories of half-baked afternoons, parked on some neighborhood side street and gazing up at the blue, bright sky through the moonroof, or driving out to the nearest farmlands to find and feed a horse a carrot to make sure Toni had fed a horse at least ONCE in her lifetime-the memories still make you smile.
She never seems to be around when you leave the apartment during the day, but you always catch glimpses of her around town. Once you get back, though, she’s fixing dinner or chattering about something or another on the news, and when you leave again she’s still there on the couch with the bong watching cartoons.
Somebody mean would call it pathetic, but when you leave she’s always the one who exclaims a bright farewell as you’re rushing moodily out the door. And one Sunday morning you stumble into the apartment, just as the edges of the horizon start to tinge white-blue, and promptly trip over a bed sheet lying out in the living room floor. Cursing, you switch on a lamp to untangle your limbs-and stop to stare at the myriad of bright colors and sweeping, chaotic patterns. You get up and lay it out proper, just looking at it for a good few minutes before stumbling the rest of the way to the bedroom. It’s a visage of nothing but color that doesn’t make sense, nothing of any obvious effort.
But does make sense and it’s so beautiful.
The next morning, you ask her about it. She shrugs and laughs a little hopelessly, pouring some tea for herself. “Dunno, I wanted to make something pretty. Kind of turned out a mess, huh? But don’t worry, I did it on the porch so Kelly wouldn’t complain about what we did to her carpets.”
You sit and she stands in silence for a moment, listening to the television blare some infomercial for stackable tubberware. You glare at the wall beside the television. You hate hate hate it when she can’t see what she’s created.
“Let’s hang it here,” you manage, pointing at the wall behind you.
She stares. “Wha-”
“It’s perfect, it’d go perfect here.” You’re collecting the corners, holding it up against the wall as best you can from standing on the lumpy
couch. “See?”
You can hear her blinding smile through the following second of quiet. “Sure,” she says happily. “I’ll go get some pins.”
“No, get nails and my hammer, left drawer at the bottom of my closet,” you say, ignoring how she practically skips to follow your directions. She’s like a puppy sometimes.
You hang the art together that afternoon, then toke with the porch door slid open. Locusts call lazily in the late spring warmth over laughter and conversation, and you feel as if something is fixed for a little while.
You wake up violently, sweating and eyes jumping all over the room you’re in-yours, the lamp turned on in the corner was throwing you off. Groaning quietly, you stare at the alarm clock as your breathing evens. You’ve barely been asleep two hours.
You need a shower.
Getting up, you thump sleepily over to the bathroom and notice she’s not in her bed. The door’s cracked open, and light from the kitchen leaks into the bedroom. Her murmurs echo through the apartment.
“Yeah, an hour ago,” she’s saying lowly. Her voice sounds weird.
A pause.
“No…don’t be, it’s okay.” She sighs. “He wouldn’t have recognized me anyway.”
You realize why her voice sounds weird. It sounds as if she’s been crying.
“…I don’t know yet. I’m worried about my dad, but he doesn’t even want me to come down. Says tickets are too expensive for me to fly down for only one or two days.”
Another pause, and she starts sniffling. You feel guilty. You remember how she hugged you when you found out about your grandmother, but can’t make yourself open the door.
You go into the bathroom and start the water.
Anything art is her soul. You decided that long ago. Easily, she can put all she is into whatever she wants-she just has to want it. That’s why, when she dances, the sea of bodies part for her and the flashing lights accent her movements. There’s no wild abandon or completely unfettered moves, but there’s something just as enchanting if not more so-she gets lost in the beat and the music, and finds some semblance of balance that causes others to stare. She is dancing, while others are merely moving.
Maybe that’s why you love leaving her behind.
She envies you for your recklessness and live-hard-die-hard heart, you can see it in her eyes. It flatters and frightens you.
It frightens her, too. The envy and the reality.
You had a conversation with her in a hotboxed closet once, one you’ll never forget. She asked how you know what you want to do with your life, and you replied life is too short not to know. She pondered that for a minute, and then shadows and light crossed her face in frenzy as she lit the bowl again.
“But…how do you know you’ve got it right?” She passes you the pipe.
You shrug, take your turn. “‘Right’? You only live once, just live the life you wanna.”
You can feel her staring at you, very seriously, in the dark. Then the moment passes and she sighs. “Isn’t there somewhere I can go without wanting or wondering or even a need for ambition?”
You let out a small snort. “Yeah, but you don’t want to go there quite yet I’d think.”
She takes it the wrong and right way at the same time. “…Yeah, Heaven’ll be nice.”
You remember this conversation as you stare at the needle, thinking of promises and what heaven really even is, anyway. The toilet is disgusting but the only thing stable in your world, and you’re disgusting and she’s the only thing stable in the world when she finds you. You embrace her anger. It allows you to be angry back, to not think.
But as you leave her behind on the curb in the rain, the anger doesn’t seem worth it and you suddenly don’t feel much anymore.
-FIN PART 2-