Polestar in Subsidence by SnapeJuice
My first psychedelic songfic. Actually, my first songfic, period. If you don't understand what's going on, blame Isa who wanted a Remus/Tonks fic. I think she was expecting a light-hearted fluff piece. Sorry to disappoint.
Lyrics interspersed are "Out of Reach" by the Get-Up Kids.
long way from home
See if you catch on.
Pink hair, a soft, rounded nose, accompanied by soft, rounded hips with a child nestled into the crook of it.
A child flailing about wildly as said arm, creamy, soft, white, silken, cages it in place.
**lost by an echo**
There is something drastically quaint about the picture: a woman holding her offspring. He sits back and watches them together, trying to figure out how he fits into the picture. He's been thinking too much anyway: about life, about love, about children, about stains in the carpet, about Quidditch scores and cups, about the lunar cycle, about the child's preoccupation with mint green tea, about his wife's ever-changing physical appearance, about it all.
He'd always thought too much, he contemplated silently, watching her watching him - the child watching both of them.
He'd overanalyzed life; logic had beat him into submission years ago. His enslavement had been voluntarily ingrained in him, from his boyhood days when he was the good part of the bad crowd. When he was the saint amongst the sinners. When he was the devil's conscience.
i'd never of known
It was too much of a good thing - this situation he was in, being married to her. It was too much of a good thing, knowing that she loved him so fully. It was too much a good thing - like being offered caviar after bingeing on wood chips.
She was too much of a good thing.
*****
See if you catch on.
A tall man with sandy hair, graying a bit from the outside in.
i've got pictures to prove i was there
Always the same. Nothing ever changed with him. She was convinced he was born with an ancient dragon-skin briefcase firmly in hand, whether he needed it or not.
but you don't care
There is something drastically unsettling about the picture: this man staring at her intently, so intently that if she moved too suddenly, spoke too loudly, he would run scurrying back to whatever minute corner of the house he had been inhabiting. He was so isolated, so very alone, and yet she loved him. She loved him enough to know her actual place in his world. She loved him enough to live with the fact that he was here because he loved the wriggling bundle of nerves settled in crook of her hip.
She loved him enough to know that after it happened, after he'd lost it all, after he'd lost his one true soulmate, that he needed a center, a stable sort of core from which he could build his life once again. So she'd done it.
here's me overseas, across a pond by the Dover peaks
And the child was born because without the child he would have been purposeless.
There would be other children later, she was sure. He was a man after all, and she would deny him nothing. The career she'd had before the child was the career she had after the child.
She was in danger on a daily basis. And he knew it.
Even so, he was willing to have more children with her.
He's ruined her in so many ways, but yet she would be willing to dance on the cliff for him again even though she was afraid of heights.
*****
See if you catch on.
They stand in a kitchen, surrounded by pots and pans, calendars and wands, baby food and silverware. All the amenities of home. It's comfortable and small and familiar. There's a child and two parents and dishes in the sink. They argue about who will wash them nightly, and ultimately, it's him because a clean house is a happy house. It's scary at times, but they do it.
And it's a marriage.
The child gurgles and they both look at the combination of their genetics. Like their home, it's comfortable, small and familiar. She has a routine, and they have a routine. They are her's, and she is their's. And perhaps - perhaps - they belong to each other just a little bit.
i've smuggled myself into new nationalities
She likes the closeness and he likes to pretend to be close. He likes his isolation and she likes to pretend she has too much going on to care.
And it's a marriage.
you think you'd be proud of me
Except…
there's room to believe, out of mind, out of sight, out of reach
Except, the birth of a child, the birth of a marriage is the destruction of a friendship. Except, she has lost so much and and been so disillusioned in the interim. Except, she never regretted that decision to share a bed with him for a moment while he was desperate (…and lost, so lost…) , and being with him - creating the child - created stability in his life.
Except, she loses herself a little more everyday.
*****
*start over is no way to begin*
And…
have you caught on?
