Monsters
In the back of her mind, she always knew it would happen. She never actually thought she could hide forever.
She's pretty sure they all still think she's dead. He wouldn't have told anyone, not after the last time she'd told him her secrets. Him, though, well, he wouldn't need to be told.
He looks the same as ever- well over six feet tall, white hair, eye patch. Handsome in a way that he shouldn't be- she is far too attracted to him. She, on the other hand, is not the girl he knew.
She doesn't ask him how he found her- she doesn't want to know- and she doesn't ask him why. She just sits quietly and sips at the cup of coffee he bought her and he tells her what he came to.
When he slides the plane ticket across the table, she doesn't ask questions. She slides it into her purse, thanks him, and walks away. She doesn't know if she'll see him again and she doesn't care. The name on the ticket is the same as the one on her driver's license and her student I.D.- Kirsten Takahashi. This, as far as she is concerned, means he understands.
"Hi," she says.
She is waiting in the lobby of his hotel when he gets in. She's never been to
Vegas before and she isn't sure she likes it. The glitz seems like over-kill, kitschy rather than glamorous.
His suit is pale lavender and his tie is hot pink. Anywhere else he would stick out- she isn't sure whether the suit would be more or less noticeable than his green hair and skin, really- but here she almost misses him in the crowd. In this flashy of a location, he is nothing special. She wonders if that's why he likes it here.
"Hi," he replies. The girl sitting on the red velvet couch across from him could very well be a stranger. She has gotten pretty- she's wearing make-up and heels and her gold-colored hair seems silky rather than scraggly. She is not the girl he knows. Despite this, he recognizes her immediately.
She declines his offer to buy her a drink- she's only twenty, she reminds him, a fact he hadn't forgotten. He orders her a decaf coffee anyway and gets himself a martini- she half expects him to request it 'shaken, not stirred'. She hears his laughter in her mind like a ghost. They stare at each other in silence.
"How'd you find me?" he asks.
"Someone told me you'd be here," she answers. "I hear you're undercover."
That's one word for it. "The case shouldn't go much longer," he says.
"I know why you're here," she says. He laughs, darkly.
"Your 'someone' told you," he tells her.
She glances at the people around them. There seems to be an event going on- the people are, for the most part, wearing evening gowns and tuxes. Her cocktail dress- the forest green velvet her "sisters" gave her for Christmas- is situation appropriate, easily the nicest thing he's ever seen her wear. It bothers him.
"Do you want to talk somewhere private?" she asks.
He's thinking of ripping it off with his teeth. "No."
She makes a clicking noise with her tongue. "Okay."
"Is this some kind of intervention?" he snaps. "Did they put you up to this? Because as far as I concerned they're just as bad as I am and…"
"You're the key figure in an assassination plot!" she exclaims. "Do you honestly think that…"
"Do you start lecturing me about this!" he shouts, rising to his feet. The couple, a bit older than them, sitting at the next table over, gives him a frightened glance. He sits down and tones it down
"Are you eating?" he accuses. She smiles.
"You figured me out, huh?"
"Dick figured you out," he explains, quietly, not looking her in the eye. "I was too stupid."
"You weren't stupid, you were fifteen," she says.
"You were thirteen," he tells her. She nods. She can't argue with that.
She takes a long, slow drink of her coffee. She takes it black these days. "Most of the time," she answers. "And they don't know I'm alive," she reminds him, matter-of-fact.
He nods. "It's against a supervillain."
"Well," she says, her coffee bitter on her tongue. "You know what they say about he who fights monsters."
"He becomes one," he finishes. His eyes go dark. "Do you want to see it?"
She folds her hands in her lap and crosses her legs at the ankle. She is almost unnatural about it, her movements too precise. He knows she'll slip up, go clumsy, if she doesn't think about it. "I'm not here to talk you out of it."
He clutches his martini glass in his hand, so hard she can see the tendons "Then what are you here for?"
They look at each other, planning their next moves like chess players.
"Who's next?"
He throws the martini glass across the room. He gets it now.
"You… You bitch!" he screams. "He sent you!"
"People are staring."
"Didn't he?"
She presses her lips together. "Yes."
He laughs. She thinks vaguely of the Joker, of crazy people.
"I don't believe you," he laughs. She thinks he might be drunk. She wonders what number martini this is. She wonders if any of the others got chucked across the room. "I don't believe you. God, I thought this whole thing was about getting away from him. About having a normal life. And now you're talking to him? Working for him?" He's shouting again. "You're a bitch, Terra! A hypocrite and a bitch and…"
"Kirsten," she reminds him.
"Right," he hisses. "Kirsten."
She stands up, smooths out her dress and picks up her purse. "Right," she repeats. "Well. I guess I'll go now."
She tries to turn towards the door but she can't make herself do it. "Is there… Anything I can do?" she asks, carefully.
He sneers. "You could have done a lot of things."
She takes a step backwards, her heels clicking on the floor like pennies falling in a wishing well.
"Stop wanting me."
"Stop making me want you."
So she does.
She kisses him like she's hungry. Like she's suffocating. He kisses her like the beast he's already becomes.
"So, I'm pretty sure we're supposed to have pillow talk now, but I shredded the pillows the other night, so…" It is a weak attempt at a wisecrack, at the old him. It does nothing but remind her how bitter he has becomes
He watches her put her dress back on like a vulture, a hyena.
The dress looks like it has been attacked by a mountain lion. As far as he's concerned, it has been. He thinks she would have happy about not having to wear it anymore, back then. Now he's not sure.
"What happened to you?" he asks.
She looks at him. Her eyes have always reminded him of the ocean, restless and unstoppable. For a moment, though, they seem still.
"What happened to you," she says. It isn't a question.
"You know, I used to love you," he says. "I still do."
"I love you, too," she says. "I always have."
She puts her hand on the doorknob, but he stops her. "What about him? Did you love him?"
For the first time that night, he seems like himself, the way she knew him. Small, weak, naïve. Loving. It is in this moment that she realizes that, until just a few minutes ago, he was a virgin.
"Yes," she answers.
"Do you still?"
She brushes her hair out of her face. She's quiet.
"No."
"Liar," he tells her, and he smiles, because there, finally, is the girl he knows.
She leans against the door. "Is he next?" she asks.
He shrugs. "Do you want him to be?"
Her eyes, for a moment, remind him of a tsunami.
She walks to his side and leans in, her lips dangerously close to his ear. He does not know much about tsunamis, about what happens when you are caught in one. Does it tear you apart? Or maybe you just drown.
She tells him what he wants to know, then leaves without another word. She has, by telling him this, just handed him a loaded gun and they both know it. Part of her wants him to pull the trigger. Part of her hopes he won't be able to.
Author's notes:
So this is my annual BBxTerra one-shot. It's a pretty direct follow up to Diary on an Empty Bedroom and Bastille My Heart, really. I'm actually not sure what to say about this one, though I kind of like it. The last couple of times I've written these two they've been sort of at a stand-still. They haevn't been able to progess beyond "being madly in love but unable to do anything about". So I really wanted to move them beyond that. I don't see this as them ending up together- in fact, I wonder if its the last time they'll ever see each other. But its a step for them- not sure what direction its a step in, but irs a step. This is them, after standing still for a good six years, taking a step. Other then that, I guess 'll just note that I mostly wrote this around the "stop wanting me" exchange and that "He Who Fights Monsters" is a TV Trope. XD Trainspotting should update soon and I'll keep you guys posted on Hope on a String. Hope you're all having a great summer!