a/n: so. I've decided to write a very strange drabble. Um. Yeah. Attempt enjoyment.
Dedication: for Nikolette. She's given me work to beta, and I really love doing that, and the challenges it presents. So thank you, Nik, and this is all for you.(:
disclaimer: disclaimed.
pairing: Clairington. -gasps-
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Derrick is a lone soul; he's never really minded it that much, because he's decided to convert from being a realist to a fluttery, translucent dreamer. He likes to be glued to his tv deep into the night and ponder, and let the shallow day's happenings wash over him, until the boom of his heart slows to a reluctant puffing of his chest.
He doesn't care for companions anymore. He doesn't really even care about girls either. He isn't sure why, because he always becomes hot and heavy when breasts flash across the screen of his laptop, but he decides to throw out the strange and peculiar doings of himself, and fuck the world with his actions unto he melts away into the flicking of his tv screen.
He can almost taste his incineration.
.
He devotes his time to school, when he's not wasting away, because only the sweet mix of Calculus and Lit can truly drain him of his downfall.
He's actually discovered that he likes reading books; he had never even flipped them open before the accident, as he had always sneered and proclaimed them for fat pussies with no lives. He's realizing that he had been a very cruel person back then. Maybe that's why he likes to be a dreamer- he can forget the past, and all the stupid fucks he'd committed.
.
He recalls the only enjoyable times in his life, when he would lay in Massie's arms, and her intelligent eyes would seethe into his until he couldn't take the pressure, and he would kiss her senseless and revel in her berry and mint taste; it should bring him hope and maybe a thread of happiness, but it never does. The nostalgia slices him sharply, just under his breathy diaphragm, and fills it with lead, until he can no longer breathe or attempt one, because-fuck it all-he wants to die.
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He lays under the searing moonlight and burns under its pressure and almost wishes that myths were true, and that there really were such things as werewolves and vampires, so they could consume him quickly instead of this thing inside that's eating him ever so slowly. He can't bear thinking of it.
.
And then she comes like all the monotonous fairytales with the glittery endings and bright lights, and she's blinding, because she brings hope that he doesn't even want.
.
She's Claire. The girl made of silk. That's what she is- pretty blue eyes with no malicious nature, just lined with cotton around the edges; hair as smooth and soft and sweet and magnificent as corn threads just peeled off the stalk; her skin with not a flaw across the smooth, tilted planes, not an adolescent pimple upon the floral-tinted surface.
But she's also his deceased girl's distraught ex-best friend with the crushed heart and shimmering façade.
.
He watches her in art class drawing Pokemon-damn Pokemon-and he almost feels laughter bubbling up. Not the sardonic, the-world-has-nothing-left-for-me-kind, but the genuine ones that he never has anymore. He can't feel this way; and then he questions himself: why can't he want to laugh?
And that little voice wiggles to the surface and softly speaks- (because you'll remember that's what ruined you)
It hurts.
.
He can't watch her anymore; it bruises him too much, because amber eyes are no longer there, as they're replaced by her endearing shade of blue; auburn hair is drowned by an acute shade of cascading blonde; and a harsh, condescending, forceful persona is replaced by a sweet, gentle, considerate one.
He can't stand this.
.
Damn, she's innocent. He can see it in her; the way she gently tucks a lock of loose hair behind her ear, the tender way she places herself, as if she's scared to break herself, the averted eyes when she converses with boys; he realizes that he likes this shy, virginal Claire Lyons.
He needs to stay away, he should. But she's the little mosquito in his mind that he just.. can't target, and it's driving him fucking insane.
.
They're in art class again, and this time she's drawing the contours of a mangled face with quick strokes of her delicate hand, and he almost falls on her shoulder, because he has an inkling of who it is that she's so busily concocting; he chokes back the tears, but not quite enough; he races for the bathroom, and he's all too certain that he hears her call after him, but he's so damn tired of.. her.
There's a loud cacophony of chattering students through a suddenly agape door, and he just knows that she's in the bathroom with him.
"Derrick!"
He buries his face resolutely into his rough, dry hands and wishes her silken body could fill them. No, no, no. He can't think that way.
"Dammit, Derrick; answer me! I know you're in here."
He groans, a sliding swoosh of air, and she hears it somehow. He stares at his fingers, the sweat from his face carving around each appendage, and the rough beating on the stall becomes almost soothing. His head pounds, as he tries to obliterate the image that she had painted with her careful fingers, but it's too fucking vivid, and he can think of nothing else.
She becomes quiet and the tap of her feet, the hush of her sigh, and the opening of the bathroom door should trick him, but he knows that she's still there, waiting for him, like a damn good girl would.
(because she is one)
"Leave me alone." He doesn't even wince at the breaking in his voice.
"I'm sorry." He can almost see her stammer.
"Fuck that, Claire. Stop being sorry; you deal with it how you need to. I deal with it as I need to."
He can hear her fingernails scraping across the door. "Let me help you-"
"No." He doesn't care if he's hurting her feelings; it's just her worried soft voice, quivering along the recesses of his being. He closes his eyes and embraces it.
"Please, Derrick." She's pleading, and he has the irresistible urge to just see her, to look into her eyes and push her away and tell her to get the fuck away from him, because he's betraying his girlfriend, but he's not really-not -fucking betraying her, because she's gone, and she left them both here, two lost souls sinking into oblivion.
He opens the door and wipes his eyes, and doesn't look at her, but studies the yellowing spots on the floor instead; her arms enwrap his tight-as-a-board-body, and he's never felt such a coarse desire to just.. return it, and sink into her sweet perfume.
"I miss her too." It's a sweet whisper against his neck that sends embarrassing chills down his body; the tears roll into her soft hair, and her voice softens into a euphony of cooing tones. He hears the click of the bathroom door as she locks it, the rough swoop of soaked paper towels across his flushed face; he clenches his eyes, knowing that he can't do this to her. He's tarnishing her memory.
"I'm sorry, Derrick," she murmurs, "I know how-"
His eyes snap open, and he lashes out, "I don't think you even fucking know how I feel, Claire; no one can feel this way. It's impossible-"
"Don't tell me that; you don't know what I go through." She's actually.. angry. He's almost happy that there's really such an emotion to be found in her. "I have all of her private belongings stashed under my bed, where she told me to keep them; and you come and tell me that I don't even -fu-fuc-" (he feels the pitiful urge to laugh) "fucking know how that feels?" Her voice escalates hysterically. "I fucking know what it feels like to sense her all the time; sometimes, I swear that I see her in the hallways and my room and just everywhere, and I can't stop it. I paint to rid me of this .. pain that won't fucking go away." He knows he must look ridiculous with his tear-stained eyes, bloodshot and wild and desperate peering into her enraged face. "So, don't even tell me that I don't how you feel. Because I do. And I probably feel it a helluva lot worse than you do."
He sighs, and envelops her within his arms. "Then I'm sorry too."
She sniffs, and slaps him.
"Why-"
"You deserved that."
"Yeah."
.
She's with him in his room, and their arms are wrapped tightly around each other, their hands fisted in each other's hair, and he realizes that the pain is beginning to dissipate.
"Paint happy things for me, Claire."
"Ok!" He almost chuckles as she races to her house to get her supplies; a few minutes later, and he's sinking into the gaping tear in his chest and heaving for breath. She returns in just a few minutes, and he buries his head in her blooming chest, tenderly kissing her collarbone and holding back tears. She strokes his hair.
"I'm right here, Derrick."
"I know."
"I'm gonna paint now, k?"
"Ok," he whispers.
He gets a neon Pikachu, and laughs and giggles like a timid little schoolgirl, and it feels so damn good, because he's with her, and he can just tell that she's happy too.
.
She's helping him with US History, because he just can't get those damn dates straight, and pecks him on the cheek every time he answers correctly.
"Is this like Billy Madison, where the hot babe strips for the dumb loser when he gets the answers right?" He becomes lewd in his thoughts and is actually quite serious. She must realize this, because her face conforms into an adorable scowl, and she blatantly flips him off.
He grins, and she can't help but chuckle.
.
He traces hearts on her dewy skin at midnight, thinking of how it had become quite the habit lately. It's almost like he's sealing Claire to him forever. (not a bad thing)
"Why do you do that Derrick?"
"Hm?"
"Zone out like I'm not here?
"I'm sorry." His voice is flat and unconvincing and he's wondering what, exactly he's doing with her.
"Whatever."
She falls amiably asleep in his reluctant arms, and he carries her home, and whispers that he likes her a lot in her snoozing ear like a ten year old would do.
.
(Happy endings are ironic, as they always seem to end not so happily. )
.
She goes to Florida for a week to visit her grandparents, and everything in him shrivels and falls apart in little flakes; he soaks his bed sheets and listens to the bickering of his parents as they wonder what the hell they are to do with their fucked-up son.
His thumbs tremble over his phone; all it would take is a text, a call, but she's not really here with him. He can't kiss her eyelids or form an obscene comment and laugh at her faux-offended reaction or slide her hair through his fingers or even cry into her shoulder. She's not fucking.. here.
He dully watches the moaning figures on his laptop, but even their soulless minds can't get him off.
He almost hates her for leaving him.
.
Vodka is his salvation, and the beady eyes of her Pikachu portrait are propped up for him to trace the strokes she placed with her talented hands.
.
She's back and knocking on his bedroom door (fuck his mom for disobeying him); and bursting in, gathering him in her arms and shouting how sorry she is. He's pallid and-damn-death sure is harder than he thought it would be, because the vodka doesn't burn so pleasurably, but rather acridly and with sour notes. It-she-hurts him so fucking much, and he tells her so.
She murmurs in his ear comforting words and apologies that goes through one ear and out of the other.
"Quiz me."
"What?"
"Quiz me."
"Oh." Her hands tremble in his hair at his feeble attempt at a command.
"Whe-when was Jamestown settled?" He almost smiles.
"1620."
"That was Plymouth, dumbass." She gasps at her rude remark.
"Oh."
Tears stream uselessly down his face, and he's not sure why she would even be with someone as fucked-up as him (because she's just like you); she desperately plants a kiss on his crinkling face.
"But I got it wrong," he whispers, "You shouldn't-"
Her lips press against his suddenly and very softly; it's like a zap jolted through his body, because his arms are encircling her, his mouth steadily returning her gentle embrace, and his hands are swarming her like the mosquito that he had compared her to. He pulls away, both of them breathing hard.
"I-I-like you, Claire." They both know it's a lot more that that.
"Me too." Her lips spread into a small smile across his mouth, and he feels.. ok again.
.
He knows there won't be a happy ending for either of them, because they're just figures entwined with their forlorn destinies of failure; but he doesn't care, and neither does she, because they're actually fuckin' happy in the moments that they share, and it's not something that can be stolen.
(He guesses that this must be happiness, because after a few months, he'd forgotten what it meant.)
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"If you see the magic in a fairy tale, you can face the future."
-Danielle Steel
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fin.
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a/n: ah, that sucked arse. Review anyway?
*make your own conclusions.(: