A/N: I've been inspired. Apparently, this is the Meg/Chris "shipper fic," and I had no idea. I have really not read any American Dreams fanfiction (for any Milo Ventimiglia fans, you may know I am primarily a GG Lit), so I am sort of confused as to how nobody could write a Meg/Chris fanfiction! Anyway, I see a lot of potential in the characters and a lot of flaws that could be developed, and I am also a big fan of the time period. So there you have it. This is Chapter 2.
---California Dreamer--- You said you noticed some Jess in Chris. I can't not agree. I wrote him in a kind of rebelesque persona to show that the frame of his character is indeed purely unoriginal. And being a diehard Literati, I sort of added in some details that I often attribute to Jess. I think the fact that the same actor portrays both affects said characters...plus, who doesn't love Milo? Thanks a ton for your review.
To my other reviewers, thank you from the bottom of my heart. They were a nice pick-me-up :).
............
Roy Orbison really isn't his thing. Neither is this bustling, overtly patriotic town – a brown and white amalgam of tension and optimism. But he leans on the brick wall now in the late afternoon, and he can seen his shadow starting to creep out from behind the sun, so he knows that soon it will be dark. When it's dark, he won't be able to see all of this bitonal anxiety and all these national flags, and nobody will be able to see him.
You could stop on the sidewalk and look down that alley, and see him leaning against the brick wall, and all of a sudden find yourself trying to place him – you're sure it was a movie poster or among the rows of vinyls at the record store or maybe, you've seen him right where he is now, where he's most at home. (Leaning on a brick wall in the hours before the air becomes purple, smoking a cigarette and giving the impression of thought.)
She is walking in her blue wool coat, the double-breasted fabric pulled snug around her and the six blue buttons all fastened in the right places. She is walking quickly so that she doesn't give the impression that she wants to walk slowly and look for something or somebody. Today it is less icy (or maybe it isn't tonight yet) so her lips are not as red as they were that first night, but they are still soft and they look like they want to be captured today. Her hair, straw curls bouncing messily on the collar of the blue woolen coat, looks too perfect.
It misses his fingers, curling each lock around his thumb and raking through them.
She is pulling in air through her thinly parted lips so quickly that it tastes warmer than it actually is, and after she passes the alley and backs up, realizing that she passed him, it is suddenly very frigid. She thinks the air looks blue. She stands awkwardly, pressing her toes into the sidewalk, trying to thaw her lungs. They feel blue.
He sees her from the corner of his eye, through the lacy smokescreen that has swathed itself around his slender form. Eyes travel slowly up from the dirty ground, running up her peach legs and from the edge of the blue woolen coat to the collar, up her neck...they stop at the lips.
Her lips are wavering, and not crimson like the first night he noticed how much he liked them. And when he finally shifts his eyes again, he sees that hers, cobalt pools, are wet and warm and full. He wonders why the hell she always seems to find him when she is sad or confused or angry. But Roy Orbison was right – she is very, very pretty and her lips are soft and her hair looks too perfect today. The thumb curled around the cigarette is getting restless, weaker.
She comes and stands next to him, and he doesn't have to say anything for her to know he isn't ignoring her. He starts blowing his smoke the other way and stands up a little straighter and shoves a hand in his left pants pocket; that's how she knows. She likes the smell of smoke though...she quickly wonders if that is an insurgent thought reserved only for the minds of girls that used to feel awkward when they kissed boys, but then kissed certain types of boys and suddenly liked the smell of smoke and the feel of roughly strong shoulders and such things.
Then she feels guilty for not thinking about her brother and that's when a stifled, feeble sort of noise escapes her throat and pushes through her soft lips.
He stomps out the cigarette, grinding it into Philadelphia with the heel of his sneaker. She sighs. It's becoming harder to keep the tears from spilling out of her eyes. She is starting to forget why she came here, and moves to look at his face – then she sees his shadowy cheekbones and the ink eyes; she forgets to fight an impulse and he twitches slightly as she runs the tips of her small pink fingernails over his rough, strong shoulders.
"He's missing." It is more of a whisper than anything else, and she doesn't bother to really say it, so it's less than a whisper. But he has good hearing because he has practiced hearing the lock click open in the early hours of the morning when his mother is done being occupied.
He faces her, his hip balanced on the white between two brown bricks. "I'm sorry." It's a statement. He's not sure if he means it because he does not know her brother and he really doesn't know what it's like to be sorry for anything (he's done some bad things, but that doesn't make him sorry at all.) But when he studies the moody raindrop eyes and the notion that something other than the sheer glacial quality of the air has made her cheeks flood with a rosy tint again, he knows that he will probably mean it later.
He feels like he should say something else because she's still locking her eyes with his. He doesn't know that she is experiencing that feeling when it's cold in the clouds but also in your heart, ad something like a pair of rusty eyes or vanishing blue smoke triggers some antifreeze. It isn't helping much, but she doesn't want much help, really...just a little. This is enough. Just so she knows that it isn't altogether missing.
He's better at capturing than saying, so he captures – her lips, in particular. They're not as red but they are still as sweet and soft, if not more, and for a second he is eating a candy cigarette and wishing that smoke rings came out of the end.
"You let me wear his jacket." It, too, is more of a whisper than something said, and it's hollow but it's also full. She is a good oxymoron for him. She is thinking while he is capturing her lips that he is a good paradox for her.
She hears what he says and she is crying, so he is even more gentle. And he can do it, too – it feels like warm wind wrapping a feathery pillow around her lips and heat is emanating from her skin.
His thumbs find her hair and all is right with the world.
............
They are walking. The night is purple, but it is also late and the middle of the week. He has a hand in the pocket of the powder blue wool.
She can't breathe freely right now, so he breathes for her so she can watch him and know that somebody is doing better.
............
His mother is asleep on the couch. It isn't much of a couch; it is three gold-colored cushions with little orange flowers on some sort of iron frame or whatever a couch is made of. She is on her side, like she always sleeps on the couch, and a blue blanket is draped over her legs. She is bad at covering her occupations up, even though she knows he probably knows. He leans against the doorframe and notices that her blouse is still unbuttoned half of the way, and her silk camisole is showing.
The occupation left his wine glass on the coffee table. He wonders how many other homes in this overtly patriotic city have wine every other night of the week. His mother is going to play housewife (without a husband) in the morning and chastize nobody for leaving a ring on the coffee table.
He'll tell her that it was the wine glass.
He turns off the lamp and he can't see her lying there on the couch anymore, and that makes him feel better. He can pretend that the blackness is just a wall, and well, nobody can walk through walls so he might as well not try to now.
Chris doesn't sleep; he sits on the front stoop and fingers a yellow thread on the end of his frayed jeans. When he runs his nails along the thread, it curls and it reminds him of her hair. Curly and yellow and easily accessable to the thumbs.
He thinks about how in his wildest dreams, he made her feel better today. And that her eyes are really nice, and that her cheeks flood with color because she feels embarrassed and that her lips change color but they're always very soft and patient.
He thinks about how as much as he hates to admit it, Roy Orbison was right. She is a very pretty woman.
...forgets to smoke tonight.
A/N: Feedback is loved, appreciated, and often times, reciprocated! ;) I am thinking of taking this fic in some new directions and showing what makes the characters who they are. Let me know what you think and how this is going. If you have any ideas, please let me know! Thanks for reading. I hope you like it.
-molly-