By
Jim Robert Bader
(Partially inspired by Nicole Manders,
who seems to enjoy sending me waffy fics like this, for which I dearly lover her)
From the moment I first saw you I knew that I wanted to be just like you.
Even from afar I felt your heat, your fire, your passion for life, the odd combination of bitterness and wistfulness that manifested in your every gesture, but mostly in your eyes...those crimson eyes, reddish brown, burning with an intensity that threatened to consume me and leave only ashes.
It also manifests in the songs you sing, the intensity with which you play, that point where life is strongest and you let slip the mask that you normally wear to conceal your emotions.
I know you so well, my knight in shining armor, even though we are still strangers newly met. I feel the kinship between us...do you feel it as well? It was that spark that seemed to pass between us at the moment of our first meeting, a moment of recognition, when somehow we both knew that we would each be significant in the other's life.
Most times you are such a mystery to me, and other times you are a source of infinite frustration and even aggravation, mostly because I can't tell what it is you think or feel when you look in my direction. Your eyes are so cold most times, and yet I've seen them soften when you look my way, as if you want to drop the mask around me and just be yourself for once, but you don't know how to do this. Trusting other people must be very hard for you...you have such a way of guarding yourself that It's almost as if you felt the world would attack you if you so much as gave it a centimeter of opportunity.
Who was it, I wonder, who hurt you so much that you feel that you must do this?
I've only known you a short while and yet I sense that there is so much more to you than you have ever shown to another. Your courage inspires me, and the fearless way that you throw yourself into a fight makes me wonder if death holds any real terror, or if maybe you might even embrace it as you would a lover? You live so close to the edge and I fear one day that you will fall off, a victim of your own momentum.
And I don't know what, if anything, I can do about this. I want to know you so much better, but how can I get closer to find out? Every approach that I make you rebuff, and sometimes I almost think that you don't like me...but then I see you looking at me again and I feel the world somehow revolving around you.
How do I explain my own feelings? I feel so left out of everything that you embody. I want to somehow impress on you the effect you've had on me, how you've changed my life, and I think much for the better. Before you I was a fairly ordinary girl with dreams of becoming something more than just another pretty face in the crowd. I was good at sports and I'm fairly athletic, but you are so much more dynamic, so alive, that you drew me our of a fairly relaxed and staid existence to want to compete with you, to somehow match your pace. It's as if the two of us have been running on a track together from the moment of our first meeting, and every time I think that I may be closing the distance you get another burst of speed and take off, leaving me to eat your dust, and do you know how frustrating that is? And why is it that I subject myself to such abuse...is it because I'm hoping that maybe you might turn around and notice how hard I'm trying to be like you?
Or is it because you've saved my life over and over that I feel this way about you?
What an idiot I feel like sometimes. Imagine confronting you that day when you almost ran me down and caused me to lose my lunch. I was so blind with rage that I didn't even think what I was doing, I just started to chase you, and looking back I must have seemed like a complete maniac shimmying down a pole just to try and head you off. The way you looked at me before turning around and heading the opposite direction, it was as if you were asking yourself, "Who is this Moron challenging me to run her over?" That hurt a lot, you know, as if you'd decided then and there that I wasn't worth your attention.
It was your eyes that stayed with me the rest of that eventful day...your reddish brown eyes, the color of dried blood, eyes that bore right through me, eyes that saw me down to the soul, eyes that I later saw reflected on a poster, by which means I eventually learned your true name, at which point I knew that I had to see you again, though at the time I justified it by saying that you owed me.
Then you turn around and saved my life, and even risked exposing your secret just to make certain that I understood your instructions. That second time I confronted you outside your nightclub I wanted to thank you, but instead I felt so angry that I demanded an apology for your earlier behavior. I went and blurted out that I wanted to join with you, and I don't know why I would have expected that you would listen. I don't blame you for the way you reacted, but you made me angry enough to try again, and this time you led me to the others and helped me to fulfill my dream, and now here I am, your team mate, and still I can't seem to get much closer to the real you.
And then that disastrous attempt I made to return the favor, to come rushing to your rescue, only to need rescuing once again, at which point you chided me and called me an amateur. That also hurt, but I was forced to agree with your evaluation of my performance. I tried to apologize and explain myself when I visited you at your trailer, but you seemed so aloof the whole time that we shared a lunch together. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask you, and I wanted to know if there was something between us besides the sharing of a secret. You just sat there all smug and arrogant, telling me that you didn't share my idealism or my values, that you were just in it for the money, and that I was an amateur because I didn't have a greater plan beyond joining the same cause. I got angry with you again and then I said something rash, something I regretted the same moment that I said it, that I intended to replace her as the top dog in our little organization. It wasn't what I actually wanted to say, but once said I was committed.
And then I ate those stupid sandwiches of yours just to prove that I could take it. I mean...what kind of a person puts horseradish and mustard on a sandwich? If I hadn't been so choked up with frustration I would have spat the thing out and ordered myself a burger!
I think it was the second time I really saw the mask go down from you eyes, the way you looked at me...like you had when I thanked you for saving my life only a few hours before this happened. It was as if for once I had you guessing about me instead of the other way around, like I had taken you by surprise and got you to asking, "Who is this crazy woman?"
And all the time that this was going on did you know what I was thinking? I was looking at you, at that trim, fit, healthy body, and I wondered about your muscle tone, or if you did any exercise to keep your figure? I was thinking about how beautiful you are, and I was wondering if you could like me...even just a little?
I later asked Nene about that, when the two of us were having a sleep over together, when the subject turned around towards you, and I coyly-or not so subtly-asked if you had a boyfriend, and when Nene laughed I naturally leaped in the hope that you might like girls, but this idea also sounded strange to Nene's way of thinking. She then told me that you once had someone you cared for, someone who died and left you alone and bitter. I felt so many things fall into place when she explained this, and now I have to wonder if I am going crazy, or is there even a chance...just a chance that you might feel about me the same way that I've begun to feel about you?
I wonder...is there any hope that there could be an "Us" in the future, and will this be a productive union or just another silly crush of mine? And why you of all people? I must be going crazy, but as I lay here on my bed thinking about you, hearing the sound of your voice in my mind I can't help but speak your name aloud, feeling my pulse quicken at the thought of one day having you at my side when you answer my petition.
"Priss?"
Until that day comes I will fight beside you, and one day, my blue-armored, red-
eyed knight, I will make you look at me with your crimson eyes reflecting the warmth I know is hidden within you.
"Linna."
And until that day comes I will be at your side, now and forever.
Okay, so a short romantic fic pairing Linna up with Priss in the new BUBBLEGUM CRISIS 2040 series might seem a bit farfetched to some,
but when you think about it doesn't it make sense to interpret those smoldering looks that pass between Priss and Linna as something more than intense curiosity? I kind of thought those two would make a cute couple (and if you ask "A Cute Couple of What?" I'm bean you). Call me weird and get over it, I like girl/girl romances.
The characters of BUBBLEGUM CRISIS 2040 are owned and licensed by AIC productions. I don't own them and I'm only using them here in a simple non-profit manner, so please don't even consider suing me, I don't have any money.
Jim Robert Bader
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