Chapter 6: Yellow



Roxie Hart felt so full of happiness, more happy than she'd been in a long time, more free and pure than she'd felt since she first let Fred Casely's slimy hands touch her ass. She could also feel Velma's own joy spilling over her walls of icy composure like a kettle of water starting to boil over.

She felt so good mostly because of Velma's unchained bliss. She had been so afraid for a while that she was slipping away from her, slipping deeper and deeper, a victim to an illness of soul that Roxie could not name, nor cure.

She had never seen her partner look this happy before, but still, Velma could not fool her. The thing that was eating the other girl from the inside was still there, whatever it was, and no amount of smiles, gin, and makeup could hide it.

And somewhere under the booze and giddy laughter, it was starting to eat at Roxie, too. She would bring it up; she had to. Maybe then it would stop consuming them and leave them to their picture perfect evening.

"Velma..." Roxie started awkwardly, "About what I said this morning..." Her voice trailed off.

Velma's voice, drunken with contentment and gin, suddenly became harsh and strained. "What about it?" The defense gates were up.

"Just, I just thought that...I was just wondering..." Damn, why was she stuttering? Velma didn't scare her. Well, Velma didn't, but what she might have to say did.

Velma sensed her weakness. She smiled a smile that would have been sly had there not been so much pain and desperation underneath it. She held the bottle of liquor out to Roxie. There was still some left. "You know what, I have no idea what you're talking about."

She smiled the smile of a thousand temptresses, and Roxie was trapped. She didn't want to rain on their perfect night. She wanted to drink it away until it hurt them no more. She wanted to pretend there was nothing wrong, even though she knew she couldn't. Velma's smile told her to forget it, and she wanted to. So she did. But it never forgot her.

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Roxie Hart sat up in bed with a start. She wasn't sure what had disturbed her slumber, but she did know that when she fell asleep, waking her was a feat the likes of which few had ever mastered. She'd have thought that if all she'd had to drink that night didn't keep her sleeping, all she had to hide from in the waking hours would easily shut her blue eyes until at least noon- or whenever Velma decided to wake her.

But, in fact, that was exactly what had just happened. It was Velma's screams that reminded her numb mind what had woken her. It was Velma's graceful form that was thrashing on the floor as if she were being chased by demons in her sleep. It was Velma's blood staining the carpet.

Roxie was suddenly wide awake as she ripped aside the sheets she'd so contentedly been wrapped in only moments ago, and began to shake Velma in a panic.

She wouldn't wake. She kept thrashing and screaming like a demon from hell. She fought Roxie like a tiger, scratching and biting blindly.

"Velma! Velma! Goddamnit, Velma! Wake up! Jesus Christ!" It took all the curses she knew before Velma's eyes opened, and several more before she lay still. But all the curses in blazes couldn't make her stop trembling. Nothing could change what Roxie saw, flooded in yellow, when she finally willed her shaking hands to turn a lamp on.

Velma gazed up at her with the eyes of a deer caught in the headlights of speeding car, looking more vulnerable than Roxie had ever seen her. Roxie couldn't get over how small she looked, lying there on the floor, speechless for once in her life.

Roxie wanted to throw her arms around her cold glass form, but she knew if she did, Velma would break into a thousand pieces before her eyes, the soft flawless craftsmanship of her ice-cold form shattering like a glass figurine dropped to the tile.

But then she saw the way Velma was clutching her stomach, so frighteningly tight. She had never noticed before how Velma always covered her torso religiously. Now she did, and she knew why. The ghosts of numerous cuts and bruises decorated the pale stomach of the toughest woman Roxie Hart had ever known.

And now she knew where the blood had come from. Red seeped from the reopened wound at Velma's fingertips, a cruel reminder that the past would never go away. No matter how many times she healed over, the scars would never leave her.

Roxie knew she shouldn't, but she did anyway. She held Velma's delicate form to her, and prayed she wouldn't break. She could see in her eyes that she wanted to hide inside herself again, cover the scars with her flimsily nightgown and pretend Roxie had never seen her fall, but she couldn't. Roxie couldn't let her. She couldn't let her do it alone.

Roxie held her tight, breathing in the smells of pain and weakness, smells that all perfume and self-control couldn't mask, until they became hers as much as they were Velma's. Then her voice emerged; steady even while the rest of her shook. It was so soft, but its firmness was as erasable as the scars on Velma's white torso.

"Tell me everything."

More very soon, I promise...