Listen my children and you shall hear…: So. Those of you keeping up with my LJ will remember that some time ago (several lifetimes, if you're going by butterfly life spans), I promised a trilogy of EPIC PROPORTIONS (or not). Well, here it is.
Why the ridiculous delay, you ask, when most of you know my policy is dicking around with something for a week before posting? Answer: I was waiting for it to be looked over, since I had written the end of the trilogy before I'd written the beginning and middle bits, and I wanted to make sure it all made sense to someone else (as my perception of my writing is largely suspect most of the time after I've been staring at it for hours). Today, it was finally sent back to me and given an okay, along with a lot of browbeating when I expressed hesitance at posting it today. So thank my friend Christie, because without her badgering, you would have had to wait a while longer to see this.
Originally, there was only one story, what ended up being the last of this trilogy, Stranger Things Have Happened. I was sitting at my computer, listening to the Foo Fighter's "Stranger Things Have Happened" off of their fantastic album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and it was raining pretty heavily. Inspiration struck and I banged out about 3 pages—barely a short story, really. But it was weird and had come out of nowhere and I liked it, so I showed it to Christie for an opinion. She loved it and said she wished there was more. Further urging from my friend Luis after he'd read Stranger prompted me to revisit this piece you are about to read (assuming you bothered reading this A/N at all). The beginning of this originally opened Stranger, but I didn't like the way it was going, so I started with something new and put this aside. Christie and Luis, then, saved this from languishing in a folder indefinitely, so thanks go to them for that.
Anyway. I'll shut up now. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
And I Dream About Somewhere
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It was one of those days where you got up even though it seemed like too much of a hassle.
The rain had been coming down steadily for days, the sky overcast and gloomy, and everything wet and dim. Life didn't stop because the rain wouldn't, though.
Too bad, really—would've been a good day to sleep in.
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As a rule, he didn't lay about in seedy bars while the sun was out. There was something so very pathetic about it. Anyone who saw you thought you'd hit rock-bottom, and while he generally didn't care what people thought of him, he refused to be an object of pity.
But today was just one of those days, and he was through giving a shit. He felt old, and he wanted to be some place where he could nurse his funk in peace, so he ducked into a seedy little bar and after shaking himself off, he made his way to a corner table and sat down, tossing his sodden jacket into one of the other chairs.
Once he'd wedged himself into the corner, back to the wall, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and went about getting his dose of nicotine. It was too wet out for him to walk around smoking the way he usually did, which was one of the reasons for his current black mood.
Mostly, though, life hadn't been treating him very well.
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She laid her forehead against the counter. It was sticky and smelled like stale liquor and old sweat, but she mostly ignored that.
Of all the places she could have chosen to hide from her problems, she mused, this place had definitely been a good one. It was nowhere someone like her would have ever dreamed of being, which meant she was safe here.
She felt someone approach her, heard a glass come down close by her head, felt the vibration of it as it landed gently. She slowly raised her head; the bartender was already walking away to languidly fill another order. She looked at the glass blankly, trying to remember what she'd ordered. Something stiff? She could use one today.
She finally picked it up and took a cautious sip. Whisky.
She took another sip, a larger one.
Whisky would do nicely.
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He leaned his head back and watched the smoke drift lazily from the end of his cigarette up towards the roof.
He thought about ordering a drink, then decided against it. He wasn't in the mood for liquor. All he really wanted was a dim bar and a smoke, and both of those had been fulfilled.
No need to be greedy.
So he watched the smoke curl upwards and meditated on many things, such as: Could he afford to get into another fight? Such as: Did he have enough cigarettes to last him through the night? Such as: When was the last time he had an afternoon to kill?
That thought made him pause.
…Maybe he wanted a drink after all.
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She finished her drink, decided she'd hidden here long enough, then paid and took up her coat and purse and walked out. She shrugged into her coat as she stood under the small overhang, barely wide enough to keep her out of the rain, then stepped out into it, using her purse to shield her head until she reached a newspaper stand and could buy one. She had a bad habit of forgetting her umbrella right when she needed it most, even if she reminded herself to grab it on her way out.
She made it to the stand just up the street from the bar, ducked under the overhang and bought a paper before venturing back out, head covered more adequately now.
She didn't really want to go back.
But she was running out of places to hide.
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He ordered a drink, and then another and then another before he decided his plan to nurse his funk in a bar wasn't going all that great.
Besides, it was getting late, and he had to go to work soon.
So he paid his tab and shrugged into his coat and left, hands jammed into his pockets, shoulders hunched against the rain even though it didn't do a damn thing to keep him dry, and started walking back to his building. It wasn't a long walk, and he was in the foyer soon enough, shaking like a dog to get some of the rain off, before he started up the stairwell.
He heard the yelling before he reached the fifth floor, and once he did he casually looked in the direction it was coming from, then paused when he saw a guy land a good, solid hit on a woman's cheek that sent her sprawling. He tensed, then, wanting to get involved but uncertain if he should.
Turned out he didn't have to: the guy spat at the woman, told her to get the fuck out of the building or he'd kill her, then went into an open flat and slammed the door shut before throwing the bolt home. He watched as the woman, clutching her cheek, sent the door a black glare.
"Fuck you Hideyoshi!" she yelled.
Then she painfully picked herself up and turned to leave and came up short when she saw him watching her.
She had the beginnings of a very impressive black eye, and her lip was bleeding. She also looked completely mortified.
"You look like you could use some ice," he said after a minute. "My place is two floors up."
She watched him, gray eyes flicking up and down, trying to assess.
"I don't think so," she said finally.
"Okay, how 'bout a smoke?" he asked.
Again, she hesitated.
"No thanks," she said.
He rolled his shoulders, then shrugged.
"Fine," he said, then kept going against his better judgment.
He didn't understand the impulse that had made him say anything. Probably because he felt sorry for her.
Silently, impulsively, he decided he was going to be paying "Hideyoshi" a little visit later.
He paused when he heard tentative footsteps behind him, and when he looked over he found the woman, six stairs below him, one hand clutching the banister so tightly her knuckles were white, the other arm wrapped protectively around her stomach. She looked nervous. He watched her for a second, then turned and kept going, and relaxed a little when he heard her footsteps after a short hesitation.
He got to his floor, walked up the hall to his flat and took out his keys, unlocked the door and walked in and held the door open, waiting patiently. A few minutes later, the woman cautiously appeared in the doorway, looking uncertain. He watched her, waiting for her decision. Her left eye was starting to swell a little, and the area all around it was turning an ugly, angry purple. Up close, now, he saw the cut on her lip that had been bleeding, and decided she'd probably cut her lip with her own teeth, from the location. Her left cheek had a big red welt on it, and he thought that was probably going to bruise soon too.
She finally shuffled in uncertainly.
He shut the door—he never locked it when he was here—and shrugged off his coat and toed off his shoes before he brushed past her to go to the kitchen. She ended up there a few minutes later, her coat gone, socked feet silent against the floor. He set ice in a plastic bag wrapped in the dish towel on the counter.
"Put that over your eye," he said.
She nodded; he didn't wait to see if she followed his directions. Instead, he poured water in a glass, set it down in front of her, then went to his cramped little bathroom and grabbed a few aspirin. When he got back, she was sitting on the counter, head tipped back, bag of ice on her eye. The glass was in her other, unoccupied hand.
"Take this," he said, holding out the aspirin.
She set the glass down and took the aspirin from his hand, fingertips scraping against his palm, then dropped them in her mouth and swallowed them with a mouthful of water.
"Thanks," she said.
"Yeah," he said. Pause. "You can crash on the couch for a while."
Her right eye considered him.
"What's in this for you?" she asked.
He smirked.
"You're my good karma deed for the day," he said sardonically. He turned and headed back for the bathroom, hands jammed in his pockets. "Imma take a shower—don't steal anything."
Which was a joke—he didn't even have a TV.
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She watched him disappear around the corner, then went back to staring up at his ugly ceiling.
When she'd seen him, she'd felt a rush of shame and embarrassment, and thought it would choke her. Hideyoshi had hit her before, but no one had ever been there to see it—no one wanted to interfere in something that wasn't their problem.
His offer of ice had been a surprise, and immediately she'd been a little suspicious. Nobody ever wanted to get involved. Why was he offering?
The one for a smoke was an even bigger surprise, and more amusing—a cigarette was not going to fix the shiner she could feel forming, or take away the pain throbbing in her cheekbone.
His casual dismissal had also surprised her, piqued her curiosity even more, and that was the only reason she'd followed, hoping he didn't end being a creep.
So far, he hadn't been a creep. He was a little intimidating—and the amber eyes were more than a little unsettling; they looked at you and through you at the same time—but after a good long look at the door, he hadn't really looked at her again. He'd been efficient, too, like he'd done this before.
She smirked. Probably had, living in this neighborhood.
After she heard the water rumble in his pipes, she slid off the counter and headed to the couch she'd passed on her way to the kitchen. She plopped down on it, then eased down onto her back on it, wincing at the unpleasant way her stomach roiled. It settled after a moment, and she sighed and closed her right eye.
Ceiling was still ugly.
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He frowned twenty minutes later when he found her on the couch.
"Oi," he said, shaking her shoulder. "Sit up."
She opened her right eye; it silently asked why.
"If you're gonna lay down, prop yourself up with some pillows," he said, gesturing for her to sit up. "Keeps the swelling down."
She propped herself up on one elbow, and he shoved a few cushions under her head. She settled back against them.
"You said something about a smoke," she said.
He eyed her, then sighed softly and pulled the cigarette he had between his lips out of his mouth and passed it to her. She took it and took a deep drag, and he decided, morose at the thought, that he was going to have to get another pack of cigarettes while he was out.
Speaking of which:
"There's food in the fridge. Get some more ice when that melts. Don't steal anything."
"You're leaving?" she asked, incredulous and not shy about showing it.
"I got work," he said, going to the door and once more donning his coat after he stuffed his feet into another pair of shoes that had been sitting by the door. "Be back in a few hours."
Then he opened the door and walked out and shut it and locked it and hoped he hadn't made a huge mistake.
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She stared at the door, stunned, long after the sound of his footsteps had faded away.
He'd been serious, she decided, still unable to quite believe it, when he didn't come back half an hour later.
Either he really had faith in his fellow man, or he was a nut.
Probably the second one, she decided.
She eventually fell asleep, and her stomach woke her up a few hours later. The flat was shrouded in darkness, but it was small and didn't have a lot, so she was able to make it to the kitchen and a light switch without killing herself. She found some leftovers in the fridge and ate them cold, straight out of the carton, not feeling up to reheating them, while she sat on the counter. After dumping the empty carton and generally cleaning up after herself, she replaced the ice as he'd ordered, and after a little hunting, found the aspirin and took a few more.
Then she went exploring.
His flat was made up of a small kitchen, a small living room, a small bathroom, and a little shoebox of a bedroom. The bed was unmade, shoved up against the wall under the lone window in the entire place. There was an ashtray on the sill, and several old, crumpled butts in it.
It was the saddest, loneliest place she'd ever been in.
She crawled onto the bed after she killed the lights and sat in front of the window and looked out over the city, or what she could see of it from here. He had a nice view: this building was a little taller than the ones around it, so he had an almost unobstructed view for a few blocks before the newer, taller buildings started blotting out the sky. Still; they were far enough away that it didn't really matter. She could make out lights from Kabuki-cho, not that far away, and here and there pockets of bright, psychedelic color lit up the night.
When it started raining again, she grabbed his pillow, folded it in half, then laid back on it, her head and shoulders higher than the rest of her, and closed her eyes to listen to the rain splatter against the glass.
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He was so fucking tired.
He opened the door to his flat, rolling his shoulders, and walked in, letting the door slide shut before he leaned heavily against it and shoved it snugly, firmly, into the frame. He stayed that way for a moment, then slowly straightened and shrugged out of his coat and toed off his shoes and left the entry, pulling off his jacket, yanking the knot out of his tie.
He didn't remember the woman until he saw her on his bed, asleep, the ice pack forgotten on the bed beside her.
"Shit," he said quietly, sagging against the doorjamb.
Annoyance flared—he'd said she could have the couch, not his bed—then died.
He was just too tired to give a shit.
So he tossed his jacket into the corner, followed by his tie, then went to the bed, grabbed the ice pack—now a bag of tepid water—and tossed it on the bedside table, then rolled onto the mattress next to her, back to her.
She was crazy if she thought he was giving up his bed for her.
He felt her move against his back.
"You're back," she said, voice sleepy.
"I live here," he said.
"Hn. Still raining?"
"Yeah."
Long pause. He almost thought she'd fallen asleep when:
"Mind if I stay a little while longer?"
Oh for the love of—
"Shut up and go to sleep," he said irritably.
She snorted.
"Thanks," she said, sounding a little amused but more insulted.
He ignored it.
Whatever it took to get through the night.