A/N: I'm limbo-ing under deadlines again. This fic is what happens when the majority of your week's earworms has been Florence + the Machine.
Disclaimer: Characters are copyright to Nintendo.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
SCINTILLA
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
You suppose the markers, if you have to restrict the red thread of fate, are Gates 32 and 33 of Heathrow Terminal 5. It's a cloudy May's Thursday at 19:18, destination Edinburgh.
You're on the concourse, triple-checking you have your passport and ticket, when she passes you after stepping off the moving walkway. She's merely another stranger, another nameless face in the backdrop of your life, until you notice the scarlet fabric wrapped round her head. It separates her long hair from her fringe, finishes in a ribbon just below her left ear.
You stare; she notices.
You want to say her hair is beautiful, but your hands are full with luggage and newspapers, and so, she just slips away.
.o0o.
You used to be a racer. Top class, all confetti and shaken champagne. You drove an iconic blue Maserati, wore an iconic crested helmet, tied an iconic scarf round your neck for every race.
All you did was drive a flashy car, but they called you Captain, as if between logos plastered across your body and the racetracks burned into your memory, you had checked the boxes to become a leader.
"Nicknames are good," Conor O'Donnell said, thin fingers already stretching for the money it'd make. "Captain has a far better ring than Douglas Jay."
You remember glancing up from your glass and wondering whether a smile or a frown was appropriate. "'Captain Falcon'? O'Donnell, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life with a name meant for an action toy."
"No, I think we're onto something here," his manager replied with a sly grin. "I like the sound of it. You could probably make a good pun of it as a title for your biography."
"I told you, I'm not writing that."
"Good, 'cause that'd be an autobiography." O'Donnell deflected your resentment with a simple shrug.
"What I mean is, I'm not having some book published about me."
"Well I hate to break it to you, but you don't get to decide that. People are going to write whatever shit they like; we might as well throw a bone to keep them distracted, save them from writing about how you're from bloody Peckham and your parents still live in a semi." O'Donnell refilled your champagne glasses and clinked them out of habit, although you had nothing to celebrate. "Cheers, Captain Falcon."
.o0o.
It's a groundless worry, but you give it a permanent lodging within your queue of thoughts: what if someone recognises you?
You haven't been spotted for months, and you hope it will stay that way. You hate the scrutiny and commercialism and more to the point, you're not Captain Falcon any more. Besides, the world has moved on. It's some other biography on the shelves now, some other poor sod's body cranked open to keep the vultures fed and the safari in business.
Of course, that doesn't mean you'll ever escape. There's still a chance Regular Joe will be reading Captain Falcon: In the Lead. There's still that chance Joe will look up and realise who's waiting for the same plane as him.
That blonde girl with the red ribbon hasn't gone far. It turns out she's getting the same flight, the same short haul journey with a budget airline to Edinburgh. She sits with her back to the display monitor; you sit down to face them both. The flight attendants are shuffling papers at the check-in desk, but it doesn't look like you're going anywhere yet. You settle behind your newspaper, eyes glazing over the double spread car ad for the hub of weary travellers beyond.
She's got a mini suitcase and a duty free bag. Baggy jeans rolled up to just below her knees, old ballet pumps stretched and shapeless with overuse. There's a tattoo on her left ankle. She's right in the middle of putting her plane ticket away when her head snaps round to you. She catches you staring – again – and there's a moment, a trick of your mind like the flash of light trapped in spinning glass, a scintilla of an echo breaking through the walls.
You swear you hear her laugh.
She studies your own duty free bags, where you have grouped bottles of whiskey, devilish soldiers lined up for the world to frown upon. She offers a grin, exasperated and bemused, as she uses her feet to turn her bag to the side, and through the clear plastic, you spot boxes and boxes of cigarettes, her vices as clear as your own. You smile back, and she curls up in her seat to sit comfortably in your gaze.
The opportunity comes and goes, like the blue tail, white wing planes in warm up, rolling past the giant window and disappearing for good. She returns to reading the travel stamps in her passport, and you go back to the silence.
.o0o.
You resented Captain Falcon, the way your dad resented the advancement of technology and then came home with a plasma TV. A little patience and familiarity with the new was all it took to keep the doors open. A few goes with the persona, and then you were hooked.
"Captain Falcon isn't a racer; he's a showman," O'Donnell said. "The same racers keep winning first place; the whole thing's boring. Crowd's tired, Douglas, and a tired audience is easy money."
"I'm not a gimmick," you protested, but your manager flat lined your insecurity with the heaviest of throwaway lines.
"I completely agree. You're not a gimmick; you're an icon." He shifted in his seat to mirror you perfectly – previously, his upper body had twisted round to observe a pretty bartender – and he spun a coaster between his fingers, round and round. "McCloud might come first in every race but he doesn't have the public backing him. He's stuffy, static. You, however, are the right mix of down-to-earth and showy. Or at least," he finished with a sharp laugh, "that's how I'm going to make you. You hear that, Douglas? I'm going to make you an icon."
You heard him, all right. At first, you doubted O'Donnell could fit you into that celebrity vacancy, but he knew the process well. He took your natural quirks – your loud laugh, the way you used your arms to express yourself – and made that the nucleus of Captain Falcon. Authenticity, O'Donnell called it. (You gave it another name later: irrevocable.)
At one of the Oxford races, you placed a disappointing seventh, but you leapt on top of your car and struck a ridiculous pose and salute. You thought that was it, your career down the drain in a final sputter of stupid behaviour, yet the crowd appreciated the gesture – just as O'Donnell said they would. Some returned your salute; others were happy just to shake your hand.
O'Donnell slapped your shoulder at the end of the night, his only way of communicating job well done. "Those who come here for the race have McCloud; those who just want to be entertained have Captain Falcon."
.o0o.
Everyone looks up from their newspapers and phones simultaneously. Their heads turn to the display screens and then to the cluster of stewardesses. They start boarding. You stand up, but not before a stewardess touches your arm and helps you, as though you can't do it yourself.
Good afternoon, Sir, she says, around a well-rehearsed smile. My name is Z-E-L-D-A. If you need any assistance, please do let me know.
You thank her as she takes you past the queue. One quick check of your passport and ticket – she smiles at your name, but you don't know if that's just standard procedure – and you receive priority boarding.
It's been years since you've flown with a budget airline. Before, it used to be first class and cocktails thirty thousand feet in the air. You and O'Donnell – much to the airline's annoyance – used to crack open the beer before the plane even took off. Now, it's all about wrangling your way down the tiny aisle, hoping you'll spot a free window seat that won't get you boxed in by someone unpleasant. You can feel the aircraft humming beneath you, a steady thrum that soothes you as you battle on with your luggage.
Zelda pats your arm again and gestures to a seat in a middle row by the window. Please, Sir, take a seat. Can I take your luggage?
She lifts your suitcase as though it weighs nothing, slots away all your whiskey without batting an eyelid.
Thank you. How long is the flight again?
Just one hour, Sir.
She smiles and moves on to help a tired mother. You hide behind your newspaper again, reading the same articles over and over if it means no one will talk to you, when there's red in the corner of your eye.
You start and spot the girl in the red ribbon, putting away her bag and cigarettes. There's a glimpse of her midriff as she stretches, a fleeting smell of vanilla and amber musk, and then she slumps into the seat next to you. Her lips move, quick and perfect; whiskey, you just about catch. She smiles and waits, pleased because she's just said something funny to break the ice, and you feel yourself break inside, like pliers snapping your ribs.
Your newspaper crumples on the floor, in the space between your feet, as you set your hands free. I'm so sorry, you sign. I'm deaf.
.o0o.
O'Donnell was the best friend you wanted to kill. He was arrogant, conniving, greedy. He shouted you down every time you had an opinion and controlled you with silky strings and smooth words. On many occasions, he belittled you in front of others and never thought an apology was necessary. Some other days – those times when Captain Falcon was getting bad press and you didn't have the energy to face it – he yelled his reminder that you had a full time job and could never take a break from wearing that mask. He treated you as nothing more than a money maker, an insignificant cog who kept the numbers rolling. You knew that and yet, the best days you ever had always had him at its core.
No one made you laugh like O'Donnell did, or lift your spirits as easily as he often did. Sometimes, he'd come out with a remark so sharp, so great, you laughed until tears streamed down your face and you groaned with the ache that seized your stomach. Like opening your front door, you had to be very careful with who you let in. You didn't want people who'd steal or scrounge from you. O'Donnell vetted everyone, so you didn't have to.
There was a race in Genoa once, when Captain Falcon was only a work in progress, and you visited Portofino at O'Donnell's insistence. He had family there, he later told you. While his father was Irish, he was Italian on his mother's side. You hadn't considered much of O'Donnell's personal life before; the same way he had regarded you as a marketing device, you had returned the favour. Until Portofino, Conor O'Donnell had just been the free manager every racer got.
O'Donnell had grown up as a fisherman. The world of racing had been just the tiniest buzz of the engine beyond the cloudy hilltops; you remember he took you to a jetty that bridged him back to his childhood. He used to spend hours there with his grandfather, learning how to cast the rod, how to wait.
"Patience, he used to say. Good things come to those who wait."
You remember studying that lined face in thought, the way the sun combed silver into his grey hair, and in the backdrop of that fishing village and the quiet upbringing where ambition seemed futile, you forgave him for everything.
.o0o.
She's a little thrown by the situation you've put her in. Her reaction is more gracious than others have been. She nods a few times and says sorry, busies herself with jamming her seatbelt on and pretending it needs adjusting. You pick up your newspaper but slot it away in preparation for takeoff. She sits very still, back rigid. Her knuckles go increasingly white when the plane eventually starts to move; her breaths are shallower. These are the sorts of things that stand out clearly in the absence of a sense. You can sidestep the noise and observe the slightest movements and vibrations to know she is frightened of flying.
She doesn't understand proper sign language, so you opt to use a universally understood gesture. You tap her shoulder for attention, and you make a circle with a thumb and index finger. Okay?
She nods, then laughs and gives an honest shake of her head. Quick words, perhaps more nervous jokes to put herself at ease. She laughs again. You imagine her voice sounds like bubbles on water, or the fizzing of champagne. Her right leg shakes up and down, and she forces all of her attention onto the air stewardesses going through the safety procedures. Her brow is creased with worry, but she seems determined to beat it. She presses her lips together and waits.
The plane does a smooth right turn to the runway. You think about how many times you've done this – all across Europe and the States – and how for all the occasions, it had always been O'Donnell next to you. You still can't decide if you miss him or not.
The body begins to vibrate as the plane takes off. The invisible force pushes your shoulders flush against your seat, the outside whips by in a stream of green and white. The plane leaves the ground – signalled to you by the smooth feeling of the vibrations beneath you slipping away – and you idly look out the window to watch London shrivel out of sight like paper on dying coals. The girl next to you stares determinedly at her shaking legs, but as the plane climbs higher and pushes its way through the clouds, she chews her lip and her left hand flies out to scrabble for yours.
She's warm, clammy. You can feel her breaths coursing down her arm and rattling behind your ears. She spends the best of takeoff with her eyes firmly shut and her hand wrapped tight round yours. It's only when the seatbelt sign switches off that she relearns how to breathe. She lets go.
You take your hand back, wondering what you can sign to her now. She moves her shoulders in circles, testing them, regaining some control over her body. You watch as she digs into her handbag. She glances back at you occasionally to make sure she still has your attention.
Pen and paper. She drops down her tray and writes.
I'm Sam.
Hi Sam, you write back. I'm Douglas.
.o0o.
Your routine was a three-step process: touch the gold stripe on the Maserati, get in right foot first, wear the scarf. A lot of racers had superstitions, but with the right marketing, O'Donnell made yours iconic. At sporting events, people queued up to copy you, greedy hands reaching for the lucky stripe. It was a popular photo pose, with one hand on the car and the other doing Captain Falcon's salute. You found it rather pathetic; nevertheless, you enforced it just by driving to these rallies.
"A lord of superstition," O'Donnell had said, time and time again. He had chosen to forget he had implemented them personally. "That bit alone will be three chapters in your biography, what do you think?"
You could feel yourself slipping with each race you went to. Captain Falcon was a showman; everything you did as him was all just an act. The flamboyancy, the media circus you insisted on, the way you regarded just driving – not winning – as your passion. The superstitions, too, were only there to flesh out the Captain. And yet, you were bombarded with subliminal messages of bad luck and misfortune if you didn't continue. You found yourself really checking you had touched that stripe; you made certain you had packed your scarf before any journey to the next race.
One time, you thought you'd forgotten it. "Stop the car now," you said. O'Donnell shot you a quizzical look before leaning across the width of the limo and shouting, "You heard him!"
The car pulled over and your aide leapt out to open the door for you. On your orders, your team emptied the boot and cracked open the suitcases, subjecting your limo to a fierce and public vivisection. You searched frantically; you didn't even bother telling the others what you were looking for. It was only when you found it, and whacked the nearest aide in the chest with your fist clenching the red fabric, that they understood.
"From now on, that gets its own box and a seat in the car."
You sent your poor aide to find and buy a box for it, right there and then. You waited inside your limo, while O'Donnell leaned on the open door and grinned at the gathering cameramen. "That was a good PR move," he remarked, although he knew fully well that you hadn't been acting at all.
.o0o.
Sam's handwriting is a little shaky, mostly owing to the uneven surface of her bag. In the moments when you're writing and she's waiting, she studies anywhere but out the window. You learn, through three pages of written conversation, that she's on her way to a funeral for a distant relative. When she asks what waits for you in Edinburgh, you make a hash of your answer and fill the page with more scribbles than words.
Castles, you write finally. She looks over your shoulder, but you can't quite read her expression. You continue: Between you and me, I don't like heights, but the views are worth it.
She pauses when writing her answer. You suppose she is debating whether to ask if taking lonely holidays is a thing you do often. However, when she passes the notepad back, she's smiling.
Is the whiskey for courage?
More than you know.
Sam keeps writing, convinced the moment you both stop, she'll remember she's still on the plane. I want to hire a car and just drive. Round Edinburgh and all the way to Inverness if I can (for Loch Ness!). I wonder if I can fit in Aberdeen too.
You watch her while she writes. Deaf people are 'intense'. The fact you have to stare and study often causes discomfort for both parties, but you don't have the hums of thought or the tapping of a pencil to guide you along. It shouldn't surprise you that the more you look, the more you notice how beautiful she is. She's twisted a little in her seat so that it's easier to share the notepad. You can smell her perfume; it reminds you of the end of summer.
I went to Aberdeen a long time ago.
Nice place?
You pause for a moment, embarrassed. Well, their hospitals are good!
.o0o.
When you were in Paris, the closest you got to the Eiffel Tower was a tacky figure of it attached to your hotel key; in Rome, everyone said you had to visit the Colosseum, and you never did. You had more travel stamps than your passport could handle and yet, you couldn't say you had seen the world at all.
There wasn't a specific point in time when you gave up. It was gradual, a collection of burdens and taunts and disparaging remarks that grew over the years until you wanted out. O'Donnell hadn't made you a success, only Captain Falcon.
Captain Falcon wasn't allowed to study photography or buy a small cottage in the Cotswolds. He couldn't choose pubs over gentlemen's clubs, or give the chat shows a miss. He couldn't be modest or quiet or subtle. They didn't fit.
(You didn't fit.)
You admitted once, sat out in a beer garden and thinking mistakenly you could sometimes be honest, that you wanted to see the countries you visited. O'Donnell thought you meant you wanted to participate in more races and rallies. When you clarified, he laughed and patted your shoulder as though he was comforting a homeless person. "Don't be a pansy, Falcon."
It was then that you wondered how long O'Donnell had gone without calling you Douglas, and if he was aware he had been doing it. He had taken your identity, helped you up with reassuring arms and words, swiped your wallet at the same time. You kept saying you weren't Captain Falcon, but then what else was left of you?
The next day, the next time he called you Falcon, you fired him on the spot. The truth was, (you had been made to forget) he ultimately worked for you. O'Donnell smiled at first, a grin cutting across his face as if waiting for the punch line.
"Seriously?" he said, when you told him you weren't joking at all. "Is this punishment because I wouldn't let you sit on some bloody sightseeing bus?"
You didn't have much experience with talking back to O'Donnell. It was more trying than you thought it would be. You had rehearsed lines, thanking him for his efforts but politely calling your career to an end after this season; you forgot them all in the wake of his cold stare.
"I'm done," was all you could manage. "Find someone else to be Captain Falcon. I'm done."
.o0o.
I wish I could hear you.
I don't actually talk that much. This is the longest conversation I have ever had.
.o0o.
You wanted to close Captain Falcon's biography in a way that'd do him justice. Pulling out of a race season right on the finishing corner was out of the question, so you put yourself forward for one last race in Aberdeen. You promoted your nervous aide to manager, got him to organise the traditional showcasing and tried to reassure him that being like O'Donnell was not a prerequisite at all.
"Calm down, Roy. Trust me, it's going to be all right."
But Roy kept grimacing, as though standing on a racetrack without O'Donnell was like weathering a storm on a ship without sails. "I'm sorry, Mr Falcon, but I—"
"Douglas," you corrected.
"Your scarf's not here," Roy cut in. He fell back into the safe zone of constantly apologising. You scoffed at the empty box, shaking your head.
"Don't worry; I don't need it."
You laughed it off. After all, was that the best O'Donnell could come up with to get back at you? They were Captain Falcon's superstitions, not yours.
Roy settled you in the Maserati, fresh gloves and helmet. He tried to call you Douglas but connecting you with your real name seemed like mixing oil with milk. You realised seconds after you had done it: you touched the gold strip, you got in right foot first.
Your neck felt bare and cold and tight. Something grappled the sinew and tendons, wringing you like cloth, pushing you to the brink. "Bad luck, bad luck," O'Donnell whispered in your head. Bad luck, read your speedometer. "Bad luck," you thought you heard Roy call.
"Show me your moves," said Captain Falcon.
(So you did.)
.o0o.
You get to see the loch, but no monster. There's whiskey hidden in your bag and Sam's jittery for her next cigarette. She pores through newly-purchased postcards of Loch Ness while you revisit your photos of Edinburgh Castle. You smell fresh heather, feel the tall grass nipping your ankles as you walk back to the car. When you drive, it rains and rains and sings.
You try to buy an umbrella. Sam soon convinces you to let the idea go. She's a girl for wet weather, who finds enticement in puddles and notes in lightning. She likes it when her hair is stuck to the sides of her face and she's shivering; she laughs against you when you both fight to share an anorak.
In evenings, when you should really be travelling back, Sam wants to learn more words, just a few extra to add to her growing vocabulary. S-A-M, she practises, and D-O-U-G-L-A-S too; then she asks how to sign rain and sun. When you drive back to the hotel, she sings along to the radio. You can't hear her, but somehow it soothes you, makes you smile.
You haven't ever felt this great at driving.
.o0o.
Your hair is beautiful in that red scarf.
.o0o.
A/N: Thanks very much for reading! As an avid fan and writer for FalSam, I couldn't submit a contest entry without them really. That being said, Falcon conveniently fitted the bill for the contest requirements. For a character who is so emotive, expressive and famously flamboyant (in canon and fanon), my OOC take on him was to strip him of that and write him without his 'moves'. I had a brilliant time writing this, even if I rushed it a little. Again, thanks for reading; any feedback is greatly appreciated.
B.