FIC: Oh, the Periphery (AtS, Bethany Chaulk/Fred Burkle, PG)
TITLE: Oh, the Periphery
RATING: PG
FANDOMS: Angel
PAIRING: Bethany Chaulk/Fred Burkle
SUMMARY: Fred was interested in secrets. Bethany was interested in Fred.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Set during AtS S3. Written for the femslash_minis Fred round for brutti_ma_buoni who requested a forgotten wing of the Hyperion, “not going out,” and resolution. Title from Fiona Apple’s “Periphery”.
Fred knew the Hyperion nearly as well as she’d known the library at Caltech. Even before Pylea, she had been drawn to quiet places. Places with secrets. Because Fred was interested in secrets, be they as large as those governing the cosmos, or as small as those hidden within an atom.
The upper halls of the hotel were quiet. Through floors of wood and insulation and really unfortunate carpet, Fred could hear whispers of talking and laughter coming from the lobby. It was comforting. She wasn’t ready, yet, to be down there with them, but she was grateful for their presence, even in the periphery.
Fred’s fingers trailed the rough skin of the wallpaper as she walked down the halls. This wing of the Hyperion hadn’t been used in many years; Fred left footprints in the downy layer of dust upon the carpet, and most of the windows were boarded up, shuttered and dark. But disused didn’t mean dead. Fred could see fingerprints smudged on doorknobs, could smell perfume lingering in the alcoves. She imagined music filtering through closed doors; she imagined laughter and talking echoing off these hallways as real as that coming from downstairs.
Fred paused. Maybe, not for the first time, her imagination had run away from her; she was sure she’d heard a noise from the end of the hall. She checked back over her shoulder, listened to the Angel’s Investigations team talking in the lobby. She had backup if she needed it. All she had to do was call out for them, and they would come for her.
There was a thump in the room at the end of the hall, and then a long creak. Fred inched toward the door, her hand settling on the varnished wood. “Curiosity killed the cat,” Fred’s aunt was fond of saying, usually after she had come across Fred dissecting the toaster.
Curiosity killed the cat, Fred thought. But satisfaction brought it back.
She pushed open the door.
The streetlights filtered in through the broken window, the boards splintered on the floor. Against the pale yellow light coming in from the street, all Fred’s eyes could make out was a silhouette. She thought of the comic book pose of masked heroines; it looked like that.
“Hello?” Fred said, voice shaking. She felt along the wall until she found the switch; the light flickered on.
The silhouette turned into a girl-pale skin, red hair. She was wearing a black cat suit, which reaffirmed in Fred’s mind the notion of a superhero.
The girl frowned. “You’re not Angel,” she said.
Fred shook her head. She shrunk against the wall. “I’m Fred.”
“Bethany,” the girl said. Her eyes narrowed slightly as they ran up and down Fred’s form. “Is Angel around?”
“Downstairs,” Fred said. “I think. Unless he’s out, you know, fighting evil and stuff. He does that a lot.”
“I know,” Bethany said, advancing on her. “That’s why I’m here. I have a problem he can help me with.”
***
Fred hung in the doorframe as Bethany spoke to Angel and his team. Big evil, as usual. Angel was going to help, as usual. Sometimes it was nice when things stayed the same.
Fred stayed in the lobby as the crowd dispersed. Angel and Cordelia and Wesley and Gunn gave her little smiles as they left, weapons in hand. That was as usual. But Bethany gave her a lingering glance as she left the Hyperion, a smile curving her lips, and that was new.
***
Fred was back in her room when they returned home, just before dawn. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, tore her eyes away from the equation on her wall. She heard voices below her, and slowly descended the stairs, pressing her body into the shadows. They noticed her, though, and smiled those little smiles, like they were happy to see her out and about but afraid of spooking her.
“Bethany’s going to be staying with us for a little while,” Angel said.
***
Fred stood in the forgotten hallway listening as Bethany moved around the room at the end of the hall.
“I can hear you out there,” Bethany said after a while, her voice clear through the door, and Fred jumped a little.
She pushed open the door, poked her head in. She eyed the broken window, the shards of glass and the splinters of wood scattered over the dusty floor.
“Why are you staying in here?” Fred asked.
Bethany shrugged. “I like it,” she said.
Bethany turned her back, tugged down the zipper at the front of her cat suit. Fred’s skin pricked up as Bethany bared her shoulders, the milky skin of her gracefully curved back. There was a draft, Fred thought. The broken window.
Bethany looked back at Fred over her shoulder. Fred’s fingers tightened around the doorknob.
“I should go,” Fred said. She found the sound of her quivering voice strange, foreign.
Fred could feel Bethany’s eyes on her as she fled down the hall.
***
Fred watched Angel and Bethany talk through the bars of the banister on the second floor. Bethany sat on the Hyperion’s front desk, swinging her thin legs as Angel spoke to her. She was absorbed in what Angel was saying, her eyes glued to the shape of his mouth as he spoke, rapt. Fred recognized the expression as her own; she looked at Angel the same way.
She listened to them speak, but the words were formless; she listened to the rhythm of their speech rather than the content. Fred brought her knees up to her chest, folded her arms around her legs. After a while, Cordelia emerged from the back room, her arms laden with files. The woodwind note of her voice mingled in with what Angel and Bethany were saying, and Fred closed her eyes and just listened to the music of their words.
***
The team gathered for lunch. Bethany mounted the stairs, her footsteps quiet; she was completely in control of the effect she had on the physical world around her. Fred pulled her knees against her as Bethany’s eyes fell to her.
Bethany fell into a crouch beside her.
“I’ve spent a lot of time watching, too,” she said.
Fred’s eyes scanned the lines of Bethany’s face, the shape of her jaw, the light color of her eyes. Fred stretched her legs out, felt the muscles in her calves relax. Bethany sat beside her, and they watched Angel’s world go on below them.
***
Bethany and Angel’s team went out again that night. Fred lay on her back on her bed until dawn was nascent on the horizon, listening to the silence of the hotel around her. She sat up when she heard feet on the stairs, her breath still in her lungs.
The door swung open silently, revealing Bethany’s superhero silhouette and the steady gaze of her light eyes. Fred exhaled.
Bethany closed the door behind her, and advanced on the bed. Fred scooted to the edge, setting her feet on the floor. Waiting, though she wasn’t entirely sure for what.
Bethany didn’t blink, and Fred felt the bottom of her shirt tug up. She didn’t breathe a breath as her shirt lifted over her head, fell to the floor.
“How are you doing that?” she asked. Her skin prickled, like static electricity.
Bethany smiled, and reached out to Fred, resting her hands on Fred’s bare shoulders. Bethany ran her fingertips over Fred’s goose bumps. Their eyes met.
Downstairs, the music of Angel’s life went on. Fred and Bethany hovered in the periphery, time suspended as their lips met.
Sometimes it was nice when things stayed the same, Fred thought. But sometimes it was so wonderful when they did not.