Challenge Four Prompt One
Odd Truths
Fewthistle
Challenge Four Prompt One
Law and Order: Trial by Jury
Kelly/Tracey, Kelly/OFC (Kelly’s POV)
Spoilers: None
Words: 497 (Wow, I finally made it under my own count *g*).
As always, my thanks to Peanuts for the beginnings and the ends. And for fixing the in betweens.
I fell into another, different from you. Her eyes are blue, almost the same shade as mine. The lashes that frame them are long and lush and dark, as if the hand that set them had sooty fingers. She comes from a long line of blue-eyed gypsies, she tells me laughingly; the Black Irish with their bent for melancholy humor and their talk of banshees and curses.
She doesn’t own a power suit. I’ve never seen her in red. She doesn’t have your fire, that flicker of dark flame that licks at your pupils, lightening them from espresso to sienna. Her movements are slower, much more languid than your sure, quick economy of motion. The smile that tips the corners of her mouth holds none of the world-weariness of your smile. You do have one thing in common though, one thing besides me. You know the power of words.
She is fluent in the same secretive language as you, its cadences passionate, evocative, reaching into the heart, tearing at the soul. She can sway truculent children with a phrase, a plea. So can you. I remember sitting and watching you in the jury well, watching the jury watch you, mesmerized, enthralled. You wove a tale for them, dressed your words in familiar garments, inveigled them to offer their hidden agendas, their ingrained morals, their learned ethics at the altar of your vision of justice.
I was always in awe of you, star-struck at times by the shining sword of rhetoric that you wielded with such grace. I could never understand how a woman who could sell ice to an Eskimo could fail so miserably when it came to three such simple words as “I love you”. They stuck in your throat like a gumball I swallowed when I was twelve, constricting, cutting off the air to my lungs, until a kind stranger sent it shooting out into the clear air of a September sky, a mottled sphere of greenish yellow. I could see you choking on them, your face growing dark as the oxygen seeped from your blood.
Ironic, isn’t it, that words defeated you? In the end though, it wasn’t what you couldn’t say, but what I needed to hear. I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but there it is, an odd truth. She knows those words, holds them gingerly, protectively in her hands, like the frightened birds that they are, ready to take flight at the slightest sound. She can tell me she loves me, and make me believe it.
So why do I wake at night beside her and, for just an instant, want to reach out my hand for you? Why do I murmur your name softly before reality slams my eyes open and I am left only the fact that she isn’t you? I have found what everyone wants. Love, security, affection, comfort. I have everything that most people dream will be theirs one day.
And I am lost, here.
Fewthistle
Challenge Four Prompt One
Law and Order: Trial by Jury
Kelly/Tracey, Kelly/OFC (Kelly’s POV)
Spoilers: None
Words: 497 (Wow, I finally made it under my own count *g*).
As always, my thanks to Peanuts for the beginnings and the ends. And for fixing the in betweens.
I fell into another, different from you. Her eyes are blue, almost the same shade as mine. The lashes that frame them are long and lush and dark, as if the hand that set them had sooty fingers. She comes from a long line of blue-eyed gypsies, she tells me laughingly; the Black Irish with their bent for melancholy humor and their talk of banshees and curses.
She doesn’t own a power suit. I’ve never seen her in red. She doesn’t have your fire, that flicker of dark flame that licks at your pupils, lightening them from espresso to sienna. Her movements are slower, much more languid than your sure, quick economy of motion. The smile that tips the corners of her mouth holds none of the world-weariness of your smile. You do have one thing in common though, one thing besides me. You know the power of words.
She is fluent in the same secretive language as you, its cadences passionate, evocative, reaching into the heart, tearing at the soul. She can sway truculent children with a phrase, a plea. So can you. I remember sitting and watching you in the jury well, watching the jury watch you, mesmerized, enthralled. You wove a tale for them, dressed your words in familiar garments, inveigled them to offer their hidden agendas, their ingrained morals, their learned ethics at the altar of your vision of justice.
I was always in awe of you, star-struck at times by the shining sword of rhetoric that you wielded with such grace. I could never understand how a woman who could sell ice to an Eskimo could fail so miserably when it came to three such simple words as “I love you”. They stuck in your throat like a gumball I swallowed when I was twelve, constricting, cutting off the air to my lungs, until a kind stranger sent it shooting out into the clear air of a September sky, a mottled sphere of greenish yellow. I could see you choking on them, your face growing dark as the oxygen seeped from your blood.
Ironic, isn’t it, that words defeated you? In the end though, it wasn’t what you couldn’t say, but what I needed to hear. I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but there it is, an odd truth. She knows those words, holds them gingerly, protectively in her hands, like the frightened birds that they are, ready to take flight at the slightest sound. She can tell me she loves me, and make me believe it.
So why do I wake at night beside her and, for just an instant, want to reach out my hand for you? Why do I murmur your name softly before reality slams my eyes open and I am left only the fact that she isn’t you? I have found what everyone wants. Love, security, affection, comfort. I have everything that most people dream will be theirs one day.
And I am lost, here.