Countdown:
Just a short bit of drabble on Alisha/ Simon, tell me what you think (:
III
The first time was in the bathroom. Alisha had been searching through her bag for a tampon and the photograph had slipped out onto the grimy public floors. When she had scrambled around for it, and turned it onto its face, parts of it were distorted by muck, misdirected piss had curled the corners and her Simon's face was blemished.
"Shit", she muttered, before noticing that to an outsider, it almost looked as if she was alone in the photo; a lonely face in an empty memory.
It was almost as if she were staring into a reflection; the photo was projecting the loss, the inconceivable grief that had been casting shadows across her old self ever since his death.
She was changed. She was damaged goods. No returns accepted.
Alisha must have been crying for an hour before Simon heard her tears and knocked once on her cubicle. It wasn't her Simon though, it was someone else.
"Alisha", his voice was almost inaudible and he said her name with so much concern and naivety, it only made her cry out even harder for what she had lost.
"I'm fine", she confessed through uncontrollable sobs, her words contradicting her obvious distress.
"Would you like me to leave?" Simon hesitated, hovering over his words before he committed to them.
She wanted nothing less. She wanted his presence and his smell. It wasn't intoxication, a shop-bought scent that represented every male of a certain age. Her Simon had smelt like mornings and late nights, he had smelt like a day confined to sheets and a night of lust and penetration.
She longed for that smell, but she had let it burn away.
Alisha flicked the lock of the cubicle, and waited, the minute, maybe more, it took for Simon to gently nudge the door until she was naked and exposed.
"Would you like me to leave?", Simon repeated, his nerves leaving his chest heaving with deep, unsteady breaths.
Alisha shook her head and Simon shut the door behind them both, leaning back against it and staring at her with the intense, blinding glare that her Simon had mastered.
It broke her down into sobs and he watched her cry for half an hour.
II
The next time was after the charity party, after he had lost his virginity, after she had saved him from Jessica's psycho dad and the five of them were walking in the direction of home.
He hadn't looked at her since; it was as if the role reversal had unsettled him. As if he knew, somewhere inside his subconscious, that he was the one who was supposed to do the saving, not her.
When it was only the two of them left, Alisha danced around for something to say; something they would both understand.
"You don't usually walk this way", she said, forcing a light smile which rose in all the wrong places and left her feeling broken.
The sudden conversation startled him, "I don't live this way", he said, as if the words alone explained everything.
Alisha stopped in the pavement, waiting for him to walk a few more paces and then notice her disappearance, "So where are you going?".
He was troubled when he found her, "Why did you", his tongue obstructed his words, "Why did you save me? From Jessica's dad, why did you save me?", his forehead was pained, his eyes demanding.
She rubbed her collarbone, shrugging and pretending a quick laugh, "I wasn't gonna just let you die, fuck, would you rather I let you die?", she continued walking, brushed past him briskly, as if he were invisible, "anyone would have done it".
"No", his voice seemed distanced, "but it wasn't just anyone. It was you"
"Yeah", she swallowed, turning back to face him impatiently, "and a thanks would be nice".
"Thank you", Simon said instantaneously, his eyes pleading for what he didn't understand. She wanted him to understand. She really did.
Alisha shook his thanks away with her head, her black wig bobbing about in the wind. She could have been anyone at that moment and she would have loved to have been anyone but herself at that moment too. But the memories that designed her pain would always be with her; like a scar. It could fade, but it was always visible. If you looked hard enough.
Simon was beside her suddenly. So close that she could no longer hide from the truth in his eyes, the rejection and the loneliness that he still carried but her Simon had concealed. She wanted to mask it, blanket it with affection and hope, and she let a single tear drop because she knew, one day she would.
"Did someone hurt you?", his eyes followed the tear until it reached her chin and slipped onto her chest, "Is that why you're so sad?"
She nodded and watched as he caught his sleeve and tugged it over his hand. She watched as he raised his hand and brushed the shadow the tear had crafted down her face.
Alisha felt a patch of skin slip underneath the Lycra material and meet her own. She smiled because he remained unaffected.
I
The third time was where the two roads met. She felt them both at the same time, once, together.
She had been remembering his promise and falling beneath the sheets with the photo of them both in Las Vegas, a glimpse of a possible future.
Then Simon had appeared and pulled her back into the present, somewhere less bright, less promising and less satisfying.
Alisha had told him everything; she had watched the thoughts enter and immerse themselves in his head and she had watched them battle everything he thought he understood, everything the past had taught him.
She let herself fall back onto the bed, the sweet smell of her Simon slowly leaving everything he had left behind; the sheets, the walls, her skin, her memory.
She didn't flinch when Simon met her, too falling back onto the bed beside her, an act of bravery that he hadn't questioned. Alisha let her hands fold around his, feeling over the familiar crevices and lines of his fingers.
They lay there for a long while, the timers on the walls telling them that time itself was standing still. Because for that moment- in the company of only what they knew to be a future and two bodies, joined by two hands which fit perfectly- the countdown had always been set.
They're such an amazing pairing, I love the misfits people for making this one happen. I liked the idea of the countdown so I thought I'd create something around it, review if you like!