Driven
I was thinking maybe I'd post my 43 Trading Spaces crossover drabbles today but the sheer amount of copying and pasting scared me so I'm not. Maybe later.
Instead, I thought I'd go ahead and post "Driven," a sad, short 216 gapfiller that I wrote for the "In Cars" challenge. Don't feel any need to comment on it if you already did over at
qaf_challenges -- I just wanted to have it here in my own LJ. The original post is here, I didn't change it.
Banner by
roc_abs , beta'd by
testdog65 , who also wrote a lovely fic for the challenge that I beta'd for her, which is much happier and pornier than mine, called Convinced. And I beta'd the lovely
_alicesprings ' post-513 fic, "The Crash," which is about Brian getting hurt in a car accident, which is the kind of fic I love even though it's wrong. Give them some love if you haven't already!
Title: Driven
Written By: Xie
Timeline: 216
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: This is similar to " Frost," my other Season 2 gapfiller standalone. I don't know why I sometimes get these sad little S2 fics in my head, but I do and this is one.
Driven
by Xie
Fuck Melanie, fuck roses, fuck this jeep. I pulled out of the parking lot and wished I had something sleek and low and fast to drive. I wished Melanie had kept her dyke guilt and relationship advice to herself. She hadn’t done such a great job on her own relationship, and I was the one who fixed that. Where did she get off telling me what Justin wanted?
It’s not that I cared if Justin had gone crying to them about his birthday. Justin could tell Melanie and Lindsay whatever he wanted to tell them. It was his life and his business. I just didn’t want to hear about it from them.
At the last minute I turned away from the loft, even though I had no idea where I was going. Mikey was off sulking about some problem with Ben. Justin was at school. Debbie would just look at me with that superior “I know you, Brian Kinney” expression on her face, and after this afternoon, I really didn’t need to hear from anyone else about how I should be treating Justin.
I sat at a red light, my eyes locked straight ahead, waiting for it to change. A car pulled up behind me, its lights shining in my rear view mirror. It had started getting dark. I had no idea when that had happened, or how long I’d been driving.
I switched on my headlights just as the light changed, and pulled into the intersection. I drove through it, and glanced around. I’d lived in Pittsburgh my entire life, and had no fucking idea where I was. Not a good sign.
I pulled over and parked in front of a warehouse, and let the car idle so the heat would stay on. I sat there and watched it getting darker and darker, my headlights making circles in the muddy slush in the road.
I realized the same CD had been playing over and over since I’d left the parking lot, and I punched the eject button. I reached out and grabbed a new CD and put it in.
A line of cars was sitting alongside my car, waiting for the light up ahead to change. I glanced over, and saw the bored, barely curious glance of some suburban dad heading home from a day in the city, at the baths getting his dick sucked, visiting his mistress, or maybe just picking something up at the home improvement center. Who the fuck knew. Or cared.
I pulled out when the light changed, and screeched the jeep around in the opposite direction, trying to follow my trail back to somewhere I knew. I stopped and parked on Liberty Avenue, and stood in the street outside the diner. I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want to go home, not to an empty loft, and not to Justin’s uncertain eyes.
But Debbie was laughing at something a customer was telling her, and Emmett and Ted were at the counter, and at the last minute I walked up the street and got a coffee to go. I swallowed half of it before noticing it was shit, and tossed the rest in the trash can by the flower stand. I looked at the roses, all wrapped in their tacky plastic bags, bound tight with rubber bands. I lifted them up to smell them, and the old guy asked if I wanted to buy them.
I almost laughed at how close I came to saying yes, but I told him no and walked down the street to where I’d parked the jeep.
When I got back to the loft, at first I thought Justin wasn’t home. The lights were dim, and I didn’t hear music. But after a minute I realized I did, it was just missing the thrumming beat he normally listened to. Some kind of classical shit.
I slid the door closed behind me, and let my eyes adjust to the dim light. Justin was sitting on the sofa, his head tipped back, his legs tucked under him, his eyes closed. I walked up to him, and he opened his eyes and looked at me. And he smiled.
I stared hard at him. It was his smile. His eyes were clear. He looked right at me.
I felt something knotted inside me, in my gut or at the base of my spine, or everywhere, relax. “Hey.”
He stretched. “Where’ve you been?”
I shrugged. “Helping Mel and Lindz with some shit, then I went to the diner.”
He stood up, and walked to the kitchen.
I watched him looking into the refrigerator. I was pretty sure it was empty. “Did you eat?”
He just gave a shrug. “I had something at school. I could eat.”
Justin could always eat. I smiled a little. And relaxed a little more.
I walked up behind him, and rested my hands on his shoulders. “That doesn’t look very promising.”
He turned around inside my arms, and I kissed him. His mouth was warm, and I kissed him slowly. I pulled my mouth away from his, and looked at his face in the light from the refrigerator, and laughed.
“What?” He was smiling at me.
I reached behind him and pushed the door shut, and he jumped out of the way as it swung past.
Justin looked at me for a second. “I might order a pizza or something.” He hesitated. “Do you want some?”
I shook my head. “Not this late. But go ahead.”
I went into the bedroom and stripped off my suit, and pulled on jeans and a t-shirt. I could hear Justin ordering pizza on the phone, and I padded back to the kitchen in my bare feet, and got a beer. He glanced at me when he hung up, then went over to the stereo and put on a new CD. This one was what I was used to, some pounding thumpa thumpa. He glanced at me again, and then went over to the desk, and picked up his computer stylus. He sat there, quietly drawing, while I prowled restlessly around the loft.
I finished the beer, and went back in the bedroom. I slid my feet into my shoes, grabbed my leather jacket, and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
I turned and looked at him. The light over the table was bright, the brightest thing in the loft, and I could see his face, with that little shadow, that glimmer of uncertainty.
“Out.”
I opened the door, and closed it behind me, and ran down the stairs. It was raining when I pulled the jeep out from the curb, but I didn’t turn the windshield wipers on until I got to the end of the block. I sat at the corner for a minute, not really sure where I was going. I had just started pawing through my CDs when someone pulled up behind me and, after a second, honked impatiently.
I turned right, even though I still had no idea where I was going. The CDs slid off the seat next to me, out of reach. I didn’t stop, though, just let the one I’d had in there before keep playing while I drove.
Instead, I thought I'd go ahead and post "Driven," a sad, short 216 gapfiller that I wrote for the "In Cars" challenge. Don't feel any need to comment on it if you already did over at
qaf_challenges -- I just wanted to have it here in my own LJ. The original post is here, I didn't change it.
Banner by
roc_abs , beta'd by
testdog65 , who also wrote a lovely fic for the challenge that I beta'd for her, which is much happier and pornier than mine, called Convinced. And I beta'd the lovely
_alicesprings ' post-513 fic, "The Crash," which is about Brian getting hurt in a car accident, which is the kind of fic I love even though it's wrong. Give them some love if you haven't already!
Title: Driven
Written By: Xie
Timeline: 216
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: This is similar to " Frost," my other Season 2 gapfiller standalone. I don't know why I sometimes get these sad little S2 fics in my head, but I do and this is one.
Driven
by Xie
Fuck Melanie, fuck roses, fuck this jeep. I pulled out of the parking lot and wished I had something sleek and low and fast to drive. I wished Melanie had kept her dyke guilt and relationship advice to herself. She hadn’t done such a great job on her own relationship, and I was the one who fixed that. Where did she get off telling me what Justin wanted?
It’s not that I cared if Justin had gone crying to them about his birthday. Justin could tell Melanie and Lindsay whatever he wanted to tell them. It was his life and his business. I just didn’t want to hear about it from them.
At the last minute I turned away from the loft, even though I had no idea where I was going. Mikey was off sulking about some problem with Ben. Justin was at school. Debbie would just look at me with that superior “I know you, Brian Kinney” expression on her face, and after this afternoon, I really didn’t need to hear from anyone else about how I should be treating Justin.
I sat at a red light, my eyes locked straight ahead, waiting for it to change. A car pulled up behind me, its lights shining in my rear view mirror. It had started getting dark. I had no idea when that had happened, or how long I’d been driving.
I switched on my headlights just as the light changed, and pulled into the intersection. I drove through it, and glanced around. I’d lived in Pittsburgh my entire life, and had no fucking idea where I was. Not a good sign.
I pulled over and parked in front of a warehouse, and let the car idle so the heat would stay on. I sat there and watched it getting darker and darker, my headlights making circles in the muddy slush in the road.
I realized the same CD had been playing over and over since I’d left the parking lot, and I punched the eject button. I reached out and grabbed a new CD and put it in.
A line of cars was sitting alongside my car, waiting for the light up ahead to change. I glanced over, and saw the bored, barely curious glance of some suburban dad heading home from a day in the city, at the baths getting his dick sucked, visiting his mistress, or maybe just picking something up at the home improvement center. Who the fuck knew. Or cared.
I pulled out when the light changed, and screeched the jeep around in the opposite direction, trying to follow my trail back to somewhere I knew. I stopped and parked on Liberty Avenue, and stood in the street outside the diner. I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want to go home, not to an empty loft, and not to Justin’s uncertain eyes.
But Debbie was laughing at something a customer was telling her, and Emmett and Ted were at the counter, and at the last minute I walked up the street and got a coffee to go. I swallowed half of it before noticing it was shit, and tossed the rest in the trash can by the flower stand. I looked at the roses, all wrapped in their tacky plastic bags, bound tight with rubber bands. I lifted them up to smell them, and the old guy asked if I wanted to buy them.
I almost laughed at how close I came to saying yes, but I told him no and walked down the street to where I’d parked the jeep.
When I got back to the loft, at first I thought Justin wasn’t home. The lights were dim, and I didn’t hear music. But after a minute I realized I did, it was just missing the thrumming beat he normally listened to. Some kind of classical shit.
I slid the door closed behind me, and let my eyes adjust to the dim light. Justin was sitting on the sofa, his head tipped back, his legs tucked under him, his eyes closed. I walked up to him, and he opened his eyes and looked at me. And he smiled.
I stared hard at him. It was his smile. His eyes were clear. He looked right at me.
I felt something knotted inside me, in my gut or at the base of my spine, or everywhere, relax. “Hey.”
He stretched. “Where’ve you been?”
I shrugged. “Helping Mel and Lindz with some shit, then I went to the diner.”
He stood up, and walked to the kitchen.
I watched him looking into the refrigerator. I was pretty sure it was empty. “Did you eat?”
He just gave a shrug. “I had something at school. I could eat.”
Justin could always eat. I smiled a little. And relaxed a little more.
I walked up behind him, and rested my hands on his shoulders. “That doesn’t look very promising.”
He turned around inside my arms, and I kissed him. His mouth was warm, and I kissed him slowly. I pulled my mouth away from his, and looked at his face in the light from the refrigerator, and laughed.
“What?” He was smiling at me.
I reached behind him and pushed the door shut, and he jumped out of the way as it swung past.
Justin looked at me for a second. “I might order a pizza or something.” He hesitated. “Do you want some?”
I shook my head. “Not this late. But go ahead.”
I went into the bedroom and stripped off my suit, and pulled on jeans and a t-shirt. I could hear Justin ordering pizza on the phone, and I padded back to the kitchen in my bare feet, and got a beer. He glanced at me when he hung up, then went over to the stereo and put on a new CD. This one was what I was used to, some pounding thumpa thumpa. He glanced at me again, and then went over to the desk, and picked up his computer stylus. He sat there, quietly drawing, while I prowled restlessly around the loft.
I finished the beer, and went back in the bedroom. I slid my feet into my shoes, grabbed my leather jacket, and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
I turned and looked at him. The light over the table was bright, the brightest thing in the loft, and I could see his face, with that little shadow, that glimmer of uncertainty.
“Out.”
I opened the door, and closed it behind me, and ran down the stairs. It was raining when I pulled the jeep out from the curb, but I didn’t turn the windshield wipers on until I got to the end of the block. I sat at the corner for a minute, not really sure where I was going. I had just started pawing through my CDs when someone pulled up behind me and, after a second, honked impatiently.
I turned right, even though I still had no idea where I was going. The CDs slid off the seat next to me, out of reach. I didn’t stop, though, just let the one I’d had in there before keep playing while I drove.