Application for Victoria Metcalf (Due South)
((Done with permission from the relevant DS-muns.))
( Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here/Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion/Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!/No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion/Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,/Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion. )
( Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here/Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion/Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!/No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion/Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,/Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion. )
Comments 103
Reply
Victoria stared, lips parted slightly, wonderment and hurt and so much past flickering across her eyes before it was gone and it was just her. Looking back at Fraser as if he'd suddenly just given her warmth in the middle of a storm, hope when everything was gone.
One step forward, then, one tiny step and she smiled at him. Small, fragile, and all of her breath caught somewhere in her lungs.
"Ben."
Her Ben.
Reply
It had been so long since he'd last seen her, and so much had happened since then, but all that time and distance meant nothing. The sight of her erased everything that had happened since their last moments together and instantly he was not in the Sorting Room, not in Scotland, but shivering on a train platform, staring at the stars and the non-existent snow and feeling the icy hand of death dragging at him. He felt the bullet in his back twinge and swallowed.
"I--" he tried again, his voice wavering. "You found me." When he hadn't died and she still hadn't come back, he'd had to find a way to go on without her; and over time, the thought that she might return had slowly faded. That she would find him here, after he'd spent all that time in Chicago, was absurd, but she had found him, and that was all that mattered.
What they would do now that she had was another question entirely.
((I totally failed in the last tag -- that "two years" is supposed to be "three years." Whoops. Fraser's not the only one who forgot how long it's ( ... )
Reply
Another step forward and then none of the steps between mattered. The only space that ever was between them was space they put there themselves, space she could take away with a gesture, space he could erase with word. She wanted to reach out for him, but her hand fell short; fingers curling back as she caught her lip between her teeth.
"I thought you were dead."
She'd assumed. Never found out because confirming it would mean it was true, and though Victoria needed to know everything, needed to stay a hundred steps ahead, that one thing she couldn't bear. Because what would be the point, if Fraser was gone?
Who would pull her from the snow if he really was gone"Ben." His name again, this time softer. A question and a reprimand and a plea all at once. Diamonds spilled on the ground and him falling from her arms and it ( ... )
Reply
And the question also typically provided him with a good conversation starter -- something quite helpful for a boy whose opening gambit would otherwise have been something along the lines of, "Hi."
He walked up to Victoria and said, "Right. So...I'm Harry Potter. And now I'm a bit confused, because there once was a situation where I had a good chance of being turned to stone." He was referring to the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, of course. "And that probably would have happened had Fawkes the phoenix not suddenly appeared out of nowhere and pecked out the eyes of the giant ( ... )
Reply
Her contacts had told her this place was weird, but...wow.
"Where I used to live, just outside of Anchorage, Alaska, there's a mountain. It looks like a lady, sleeping." Victoria moved her hand to sketch a vague outline, a mound for the head, another for breasts, and then a long smooth line interrupted by a bump for feet. "So the natives, a long time ago, when they were settling there, made up stories for why the land was the way it was. A lot of the legends are about a race of giants who carved out the mountains."
Victoria let her hand fall with a little smile. "What I meant was you should be with the person you couldn't stand to be without. The person you'd rather ( ... )
Reply
He was relieved that Victoria wasn't suggesting that he commit bestiality, although it wasn't as though he had been about to take her advice even if she had. But it was good to know that she wasn't mental, at least about that one thing.
The onceover, however...
"Hey! I'm nineteen! And I've got a girlfriend whom I very much -- " He cut himself off, deciding that he didn't need to defend himself so vehemently to a total stranger. "What I mean is that that sort of person is their sister. Which the application conveniently doesn't mention."
Not that Harry would have wanted that, either. He did his best to be a private person, even if the media was always conspiring against him!
Reply
It'd taken her until she'd been twenty-two to discover someone worth that. Twenty-two and her whole life ruined before she'd found him.
"Well, the application also asks about cheese preferences," she shrugged with a quick grin. "I'm thinking it's not exactly a measure of sanity."
Reply
He leaned in, not close enough to intrude on her personal space, just close enough to seem as though he were sharing a secret, and confided: "They're not all they're cracked up to be, I'll agree. Champagne, caviar, Brie. I'd take my Nana's macaroni and cheese any day too."
Reply
Cool, slim fingers were held out to shake his hand in greeting and she studied Charles with a frank stare. "Victoria Metcalf," she introduced herself. "And perhaps we should start a club? Closeted lovers of macaroni and cheese?"
Reply
Time was, he'd have been happy to drink champagne every day. Champagne, or Wild Turkey, or that nasty kosher wine Richard dragged out of the dorm fridge that one time, or maybe Nyquil in a pinch. "The thing is, when you're drinking champagne every day, after a while you forget what it is you're drinking, because it all tastes the same."
Reply
One slim shoulder raised in a shrug and she smiled at Charles. "I wish more people shared that point of view; so many experiences would be heightened by knowing when to abstain."
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Nothing given away, nothing held back, just the type of greeting you might give anyone waiting for the subway or waiting in line at a cafe. Speaking of which, though...
Eyeing his mug with a quick little quirk of her lips, Victoria then pointed to it. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding slightly apologetic to be bothering him, "but is there some of that around here anywhere? I'm afraid I'm horribly jet lagged, and there is nothing like a good cup of coffee."
Reply
Diane, I've had a thought.
(Yes, sometimes his mental narrative ran the way his tape-recordings would. Addressed to Diane, his secretary at the Bureau. Because in David Lynch's world, FBI agents have their own secretaries. Or else Diane was a figment of Coop's imagination, maybe his anima, the feminine side of himself. Maybe she was both. Who could say? This was a universe in which evil spirits fed off the fear and agony of the living, as manifested in bowls of creamed corn.)
Hypothesis: Addition of roasted catnip to ground coffee before brewing might create a catnip-coffee. Humans would be immune. Face-eating cats would experience euphoria. While the stratagem is somewhat underhanded, the risks of interaction with face-eating cats may just outweigh that factor.
To Victoria he said: "You can get anything you want any hour of the day or night." Except a sweet toothsome mouthful of face. "Think of it as a medieval Scottish diner-equivalent. How about we sit down later for some coffee and a slice of
Reply
Giving Cooper a quick look up and down as if trying to assess his agenda (because everyone had an agenda and the only way to not fall victim to it was to stay ten steps ahead), Victoria then shrugged. "I could go for pie."
Reply
Leave a comment