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Slashing the Slashers - done
So I actually finished it. Like, I am so deadline girl. RIGHT at the wire.
Anyway, for those who don't know, slashing the slashers was a challenge--you got the names of two people and write fic around them. It was--interesting. Read--I have to be high. Even if I don't know it.
Anyway, here's my contribution. *grins* The one done on me and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bonibaru was VERY cool.
Title: Faded
Author: jenn (jenn@thegateway.net)
Distribution: anywhere
Disclaimer: None of them are mine.
Ratting: PG-13
Dedication: Stubbleglitter and Hetre_z, for you. I hope you enjoy it.
Notes: Bonibaru, Pearl-o, and val for the handholding.
Spoilers: none
*****
You see the shape of her eyes in a woman who passes you on the street. Her mouth spread wide around a sub sandwich in the park. Once, her hands wrapped around your shoulders, but you turned, and it was too-bright hair and a jangling bright smile that moved by you to catch the bus you'd watched for hours. She taps on your windows when it rains with fingernails you've never seen, and once, you caught the scent of her in the middle of downtown and followed ten blocks before you lost it beneath the scent of dumpsters and the coming of a storm.
At work, you catch yourself watching out the window, where you taped a ragged ticket stub. The date's faded from the sun, pale lavender on white, but you know every word by heart.
At night, you hear her sing and wake up with your hand on your mouth. There's an unfamiliar taste that fades from your tongue, and by morning, it's always gone.
You're not really sure what it means, but then again, you're not really sure you care.
It was just once--one too-dark night when even the stars were hiding, and the music was so loud you pressed your fingers into the skin behind your ears and felt the vibrations there, too. The stadium was hot and packed, overfull and screaming, packed tight with bodies, teenyboppers voices lost, mouths shaping words in shades of bubble-gum pink and red.
You were all here for the same thing, though. You were up close so you see them, an almost-touchable fantasy, a thousand times different from the separation of a television's screen or a pair of headphones by the stereo. Glittery, pretty, almost incandescent with light that sparkles around them like something living.
You thought you could smell them, you were so close, see the sweat bead on their foreheads and trickle into the hollows of their throats, and if you reached out just right, you might just touch--something.
Them. Probably not.
You were jostled a few times and you hated that. Hated plastic-teen energy bouncing around you, hated the way they leaned against the fence as if being sixteen would get them through from will alone. But only a little, because you had the best spot in the stadium and every word they sang on stage could have been just for you.
That's why you didn't see her at first.
She was small--not emaciated-thin and blonde and loud, and you think now that's why you missed her, because you can't imagine how you didn't see. Dark, thick hair cut short surrounding her face, and you'd watched the light reflect off gleams of metal circling her throat and the colorful flash of beads.
She wasn't bouncing, and somehow, space was around her, just enough for cool air and reason, and you wondered why. Red lips were forming words and her eyes never left the stage, and you got that, you did, but you wanted--
-wanted her to look at you. Dark eyes, you thought. Crooked mouth, or maybe that was just the dizzying flash of lights burning spots into your retinas. Dusky skin, and it looked soft.
You didn't know when you started moving--meaningless plastic bodies to push aside, and you'd never been this careless before, moving so far outside your own skin that nothing else mattered, not even the murmured 'sorry's that you didn't even mean.
Closer, and you saw she was moving--small, delicate movements, rhythm beneath the skin, and this close, somehow, you could hear her voice, too. Tiny and soft, but it had to have been loud to penetrate the purity of the noise.
You didn't mean to touch her, but her hair wrapped around your fingers like it wanted to hold on. Her eyes turned up and they were just as dark as you'd thought.
Dreamed, maybe, before you knew what you were dreaming about.
Now, you blame it on the music, on the boys, on the energy of those kids around you that seeped into your skin like osmosis, that made you stay there, staring down at her. Even when her hand slid over yours and pulled it down, and she took a step back, fitting so perfectly under your chin it was like she was meant to be there.
She taught you with her body--the gross, immature movements of the crowd lost in this slow, classy haze of liquid swaying. You didn't know your body could do that. You still think it can't, though you've tried in the mirror, and it's never looked quite the same.
You wanted to keep your eyes open--the glitter brightness of the stage, the dark of her hair brushing your chin, the way your hands settled on her waist, slow and soft, and she covered them, her nails cutting into your skin like she was writing her name in soft whirls and lazy cuts.
You look down now and remember the impression lasted for days, angry red fading to pale pink into nothing but memory. You think you can feel them now.
But then.
It lasted forever. You remember that--remember how you muttered sorry when your hands slipped on her hips, over the layers of her shirts, and how she laughed and leaned into you, singing in your ear. Her voice was like glitter--bright, sparkly, falling freely around you in a shower that you never wanted to leave.
You thought, this is why I came.
You were less careful after that. You let your hands slide up her sides with the slow beat of the music--layers hiding and revealing, only touch telling you what was beneath. She sighed when you breathed into her hair, the scent of night-sweat and excitement, and her nails slipped over your wrist when you asked her name.
"Maggie." Her lips formed the word, and yours echoed it, just before you kissed her.
That's the taste that wakes you up at night. That's why you touch your mouth.
She tasted like nothing and everything, like a long night in a hot room under bright lights. She tasted like music sounded and you knew then you'd never hear this song again and not feel her.
It was over before it began. You found yourself alone, with the slick smear of her lipstick in your mouth and a ticket clutched in your hand.
That's the one you hung in your window at work.
When you take it down, you turn it over, like you haven't since the day you taped it up. Lipstick, faded from red to beige, disappearing a little more every day. Crude numbers and a name, and you smear your thumb across it and wonder if you could taste her there, too.
Your mouth forms her name in soundless syllables, and there's a bus that leaves every hour. You can see it from here.
One day, you may take it.
the end
Anyway, for those who don't know, slashing the slashers was a challenge--you got the names of two people and write fic around them. It was--interesting. Read--I have to be high. Even if I don't know it.
Anyway, here's my contribution. *grins* The one done on me and
bonibaru was VERY cool. Title: Faded
Author: jenn (jenn@thegateway.net)
Distribution: anywhere
Disclaimer: None of them are mine.
Ratting: PG-13
Dedication: Stubbleglitter and Hetre_z, for you. I hope you enjoy it.
Notes: Bonibaru, Pearl-o, and val for the handholding.
Spoilers: none
*****
You see the shape of her eyes in a woman who passes you on the street. Her mouth spread wide around a sub sandwich in the park. Once, her hands wrapped around your shoulders, but you turned, and it was too-bright hair and a jangling bright smile that moved by you to catch the bus you'd watched for hours. She taps on your windows when it rains with fingernails you've never seen, and once, you caught the scent of her in the middle of downtown and followed ten blocks before you lost it beneath the scent of dumpsters and the coming of a storm.
At work, you catch yourself watching out the window, where you taped a ragged ticket stub. The date's faded from the sun, pale lavender on white, but you know every word by heart.
At night, you hear her sing and wake up with your hand on your mouth. There's an unfamiliar taste that fades from your tongue, and by morning, it's always gone.
You're not really sure what it means, but then again, you're not really sure you care.
It was just once--one too-dark night when even the stars were hiding, and the music was so loud you pressed your fingers into the skin behind your ears and felt the vibrations there, too. The stadium was hot and packed, overfull and screaming, packed tight with bodies, teenyboppers voices lost, mouths shaping words in shades of bubble-gum pink and red.
You were all here for the same thing, though. You were up close so you see them, an almost-touchable fantasy, a thousand times different from the separation of a television's screen or a pair of headphones by the stereo. Glittery, pretty, almost incandescent with light that sparkles around them like something living.
You thought you could smell them, you were so close, see the sweat bead on their foreheads and trickle into the hollows of their throats, and if you reached out just right, you might just touch--something.
Them. Probably not.
You were jostled a few times and you hated that. Hated plastic-teen energy bouncing around you, hated the way they leaned against the fence as if being sixteen would get them through from will alone. But only a little, because you had the best spot in the stadium and every word they sang on stage could have been just for you.
That's why you didn't see her at first.
She was small--not emaciated-thin and blonde and loud, and you think now that's why you missed her, because you can't imagine how you didn't see. Dark, thick hair cut short surrounding her face, and you'd watched the light reflect off gleams of metal circling her throat and the colorful flash of beads.
She wasn't bouncing, and somehow, space was around her, just enough for cool air and reason, and you wondered why. Red lips were forming words and her eyes never left the stage, and you got that, you did, but you wanted--
-wanted her to look at you. Dark eyes, you thought. Crooked mouth, or maybe that was just the dizzying flash of lights burning spots into your retinas. Dusky skin, and it looked soft.
You didn't know when you started moving--meaningless plastic bodies to push aside, and you'd never been this careless before, moving so far outside your own skin that nothing else mattered, not even the murmured 'sorry's that you didn't even mean.
Closer, and you saw she was moving--small, delicate movements, rhythm beneath the skin, and this close, somehow, you could hear her voice, too. Tiny and soft, but it had to have been loud to penetrate the purity of the noise.
You didn't mean to touch her, but her hair wrapped around your fingers like it wanted to hold on. Her eyes turned up and they were just as dark as you'd thought.
Dreamed, maybe, before you knew what you were dreaming about.
Now, you blame it on the music, on the boys, on the energy of those kids around you that seeped into your skin like osmosis, that made you stay there, staring down at her. Even when her hand slid over yours and pulled it down, and she took a step back, fitting so perfectly under your chin it was like she was meant to be there.
She taught you with her body--the gross, immature movements of the crowd lost in this slow, classy haze of liquid swaying. You didn't know your body could do that. You still think it can't, though you've tried in the mirror, and it's never looked quite the same.
You wanted to keep your eyes open--the glitter brightness of the stage, the dark of her hair brushing your chin, the way your hands settled on her waist, slow and soft, and she covered them, her nails cutting into your skin like she was writing her name in soft whirls and lazy cuts.
You look down now and remember the impression lasted for days, angry red fading to pale pink into nothing but memory. You think you can feel them now.
But then.
It lasted forever. You remember that--remember how you muttered sorry when your hands slipped on her hips, over the layers of her shirts, and how she laughed and leaned into you, singing in your ear. Her voice was like glitter--bright, sparkly, falling freely around you in a shower that you never wanted to leave.
You thought, this is why I came.
You were less careful after that. You let your hands slide up her sides with the slow beat of the music--layers hiding and revealing, only touch telling you what was beneath. She sighed when you breathed into her hair, the scent of night-sweat and excitement, and her nails slipped over your wrist when you asked her name.
"Maggie." Her lips formed the word, and yours echoed it, just before you kissed her.
That's the taste that wakes you up at night. That's why you touch your mouth.
She tasted like nothing and everything, like a long night in a hot room under bright lights. She tasted like music sounded and you knew then you'd never hear this song again and not feel her.
It was over before it began. You found yourself alone, with the slick smear of her lipstick in your mouth and a ticket clutched in your hand.
That's the one you hung in your window at work.
When you take it down, you turn it over, like you haven't since the day you taped it up. Lipstick, faded from red to beige, disappearing a little more every day. Crude numbers and a name, and you smear your thumb across it and wonder if you could taste her there, too.
Your mouth forms her name in soundless syllables, and there's a bus that leaves every hour. You can see it from here.
One day, you may take it.
the end
no subject
I haven't heard of most of the slashers I've read fics centered around, but as long as they're as compelling as this one, then I guess that's beside the point!
no subject
That is the most stressing thing I've ever written. *shakes head*
And yes, I just friended! Sorry! I wasn't payng close enough attention! *hugs*
no subject
no subject
Yours is going to be marvelous. I need to take a couple of hours soon and read all of them. Just. So. Cool. *g*
*hugs* Thanks. I'm glad you liked it.
Where oh where?
(Anonymous) 2003-01-19 11:18 am (UTC)(link)Re: Where oh where?
Thanks so much! I hope you have fun reading!
no subject
She tasted like nothing and everything, like a long night in a hot room under bright lights. She tasted like music sounded and you knew then you'd never hear this song again and not feel her.
It was over before it began. You found yourself alone, with the slick smear of her lipstick in your mouth and a ticket clutched in your hand.
*whimper*
Lovely. Absolutely.
no subject