Hey guys!! This is a fic for/from my new favorite movie, The Fall. I schemed up this idea a few days before I saw the movie, and seeing it helped me out considerably, except I've only gotten to see it once, so for those of you who have seen it/are about to see it/intend to see it, sorry if I miss some bitty details. And no, I won't be carrying it out a hundred percent like the movie, cos the ending was not how I woulda liked it, so ye shall see an alternate ending! I hope you like, regardless of it all!! T rating for language right now, but inevitably there'll be some serious fighting, or at least as serious as I can muster...
disclaimer: don't own The Fall, or anything in relation to it. If I did, I'd be one happy fangirl! Oh my gosh I just admitted I'm a fangirl... this story could go horrendously wrong! but I doubt it! Also, don't own Jonas Brothers (just a random little reference, don't leave me just for that!!)
A/N: chapter two explains a whole lot more, and that's definitely going up tomorrow (GregsLabrat kept nudging me to post already, so post already I did). Alright already, ENJOY!!
It was a warm summer day as I sat with my friends in the shade of Faye's living room, distracting ourselves from the heat with whatever we could find; Faye, a magazine; Paige, a notebook and pencil; and myself, cardboard and string.
"August, what are you doing?"
"Making a mask."
"Masks aren't square, stupid."
"Bite me," I retorted, sticking my tongue out at Faye.
"You know where," she sighed, not bothering to look up at me from her magazine or flick her hair with sass like she always did following that reply.
"And why's it red?" Paige asked with a wrinkled nose. "If it's not a masquerade mask then it should be black and rounded, like Zorro's--"
"Whose side are you on?" I demanded with a harsh scowl.
"Mine," she replied waspishly with an air of finality, yet she betrayed her cover by asking "But seriously, why's it red?"
I flushed, mumbling out an incoherent reply.
"For human ears, I think she means, Augustine," Faye said pointedly. I stuck my tongue out at her again, to which she replied with an innocent beam.
"It's from the movie I saw the other day," I told them with a sheepish squeak as I started coloring the cardboard mask with a red Sharpie. "Faye, remember that movie I told you about a few weeks ago? The Fall? It's that one."
"And where does the mask fit in?"
I flushed deeper. "It's the Masked Bandit's."
"Oh, cos that's an original name," Faye said sarcastically.
"Hey!" I objected, hurt. "It was a bedridden stuntman telling a six-year-old a fancy story so she'd do something for him! The plot of the movie is a hell of a lot more important than a character's name, main hero or no." I grinned to myself as I tied bits of red yarn to the edges of the cardboard. "Besides, bandits are already badass-awesome, so there's not that much need to dull their title with a proper name."
"Obsessed-much," Fay said in a light sing-song voice.
"Hey, two words for you, sister: Jonas Brothers. Like you're the one to talk."
"That doesn't count, though, cos you like Kevin," she rebutted. I shook my head.
"No, you wrote me to like him, so it doesn't count," I countered, making sure she caught the wink and teasing glint in my eye.
"Whatever," she retorted, clicking her tongue.
"ANYways," Paige cut in curtly before Faye could object further. "What is it he wants her to do for him?"
"I'm not telling!" I objected. "It'll ruin the movie for when I force it upon you! So in the meantime you must make due with trailers and clips and me," I finished with a rueful shrug before donning the mask with a sly grin.
"Enough!" Faye exclaimed, flinging her magazine away and getting to her feet. "I have oranges. Anyone want an orange? I want an orange," and with that strode her way into the kitchen. I rolled my eyes - which I figured would be impossible to notice, I thought happily - and started absent-mindedly scratching at my faded henna stars on my arm.
"Faye, still got your henna tattoos?" I called out.
"No, not really. Paige? Orange?" she offered, brushing my question aside.
"Sounds good." Faye tossed her one.
"August?"
"I don't like oranges," I replied, making a face. "I'm good."
"What's wrong with you?" Paige teased incredulously. I raised an eyebrow at her.
"You really need to ask?"
She shrugged in assent. "True."
Faye clicked her tongue again, shaking her head at me as she returned to her chair. "You're missing out. These are some good oranges."
"That's nice, but since when do I trust your word on anything?" I asked ruefully.
"Ouch!" Paige chortled, peeling away the skin of her orange and setting the fragments in a pile upon the arm of her chair. Turning back to blankly watch Faye disassemble her fruit, and not seeing me do this cast a sly glance at Paige, and as Faye picked a slice free I felt the force of my friend thud into my back and twist my arms into a useless knot behind me.
"What the hell, Marr?" I demanded, squirming and twisting to try and break free, but alas resistance was futile. Faye lunged at me and came to sit upon my knees, quelling my chances of escape even further.
"Open wide for the sailboat!" Faye squeaked in a baby voice, slowly advancing the slice to my mouth.
"I don't think so!" I exclaimed through gritted teeth. "So get off me!"
"Oh, but you sooo want one," Paige encouraged, and I could hear the pent-up laughter in her voice.
"But I sooo don't - no, not fair!" I squealed as Faye started jabbing fingers into my side, making me squirm and giggle anew.
"Just eat the bloody orange, August!" exclaimed Paige, and for a brief moment I forgot to keep my teeth clenched so as I opened my mouth to retort again Faye jabbed in the piece of orange and gave me a good sharp poke, making shut my jaw sharply and bite into the fruit. Now, following this all I expected was orange juice to dribble down my chin and Faye to crow out a victory cry, so all three of us were quite freaked out to find, inexplicably, we were now sitting upon a stretch of hot sand. We all jerked away from each other and scrambled to our feet, refusing to take in the colorless dunes and cloudless azure sky.
"Is it just me, or are we all of a sudden not in Faye's living room?" Paige asked slowly, eyes glued to the horizon.
"Nope, not just you, we're not there anymore," Faye confirmed in a rush, slowly turning in place to survey the foreign landscape.
I myself was rendered speechless, which wasn't that hard to do, but still. We were standing upon a fairly wide strip of land, flanked on both sides by mirror-smooth pools of water, shallow by us but deeper and darker blue the further out I looked. The flat valley was bordered by large sand-brown hills, too small to me mountains yet too large to be mere knolls, etched and jagged from wind and time. At the tapered end of the catwalk stood a black tree, barren whippet branches curled directly for the sky, and it wasn't until looking at this facet of the landscape did the hair on the back of my neck shiver.
"Guys, I recognize this tree," I deadpanned, and they spun around immediately.
"What do you mean, you recognize the tree?" Paige demanded, and flitting my eyes between the two of them was almost frightened by the ferocity in their eyes.
"This is probably nothing cos we're all panicked and freaking out and--"
"Damn it, August, out with it!" Faye snapped.
"It's in the movie," I blurted out, then repeated more slowly "The tree, it's in the movie. I know it sounds incredibly stupid and all, but think about it. Realistically, could a proper tree survive or look in this condition in any desert? And see? There's no plants or reeds or anything growing by the water. There's no logical reason why this tree should be here, yet I recognize it, I recognize all of it, the land and the sky and the clouds."
We all knew this theory was quite unlikely, yet equally as unlikely were the chances of me eating an orange and along with two others get whisked off to some very-distant desert, so at this rate anything was possible.
"We're in The Fall?" Faye asked quietly, voice no louder than the sanded winds.
I nodded. "We're in The Fall."