| Pretty Wanting and having |
| Author: Minnie Rating: PG-13 Category: Original fiction, slash overtones Distribution: Please ask. Dedication: To Mala because I :heart: her. Feedback: Yes, please. Author's Note: The idea came, made itself at home and wouldn't leave my head until I actually put into words. Archive Date: 6/18/2002 It's always the pretty ones. They're the ones you chase, the ones you want. Efforts measured to the degree of their prettiness. Efforts wasted as they turn away from you, flocking to their own kind. It's become a habit, watching them dismiss you before you become an actual memory. It doesn't faze you because they're always there in *your* memories, in your dreams. The bar is crowded, crawling with visions of loveliness. They look past you but you keep a smile fixed on your face anyway. You tuck yourself into a small corner, standing where they might randomly pass by. Your fingertips itch to touch those who that do brush by, just to see if they're real or if they'll disintegrate. You think you've found the answer when your raised hand bumps against something solid. A shoulder. It belongs to someone but not one of them. Recognition flares on your skin. One of you. The answer becomes a question again as she stares at your hand, training slow eyes up your arms, your shoulders, your face. Her mouth parts slightly -- in surprise, you think -- before a smile breaks out on her face. She mutters, "Hi." She's sweet, almost endearing as she makes small talk. Random waves of her hands fill the silence and you nod at her actions. You glance away from her for a moment to look the beautiful people surrounding you. When you turn back, you realize she's matched the paths that your eyes take. You feel safe and comfortable and real as you point out this one and that one. "Pretty, huh?" She smiles again and her head tilts up, eyes glimmering in a familiar way that you can't place. You feel a strange kind of kinship with her. "Yes." You like her. You invite her coffee and when you're at the cafe, she doesn't dismiss you or look past you. She listens to you ramble on about everything: the way you always seemed to be five minutes late to work, the skunk lives under your house, the first time you saw this one or that one. Once you catch your breath in mid-sentence and she's staring at you like the words aren't coming fast enough from your lips. There's a hazy glow about her, making her look not quite there. There's something in your palms that feels like sweat and unease. The sweat is gone as she blinks and motions for you to go on with what you were saying. She likes you too. She drops by your house "just to catch up", invites you shyly to movies and dinners. You talk to her about splitting the cost but she keeps insisting on paying for everything because "I'm the one who invited you." When you push it, she looks lost. "That's not how it works." You back off when tears threaten to spill over her face. You decide to do the inviting the next time. You find yourself looking less and less at the pretty ones and concentrating on her. At first you thought it was because she was "just different" from everyone else and you kinda liked that. Then you thought, "She's different and I *like* that". Somewhere along the way, you stopped thinking of adjectives and reasons and thought of *her*. You're sitting on the couch at her house, watching reruns with her when she sidles up to you and puts her head on your shoulder. You reach out with your arm to tuck her in closer, dropping a light kiss on top of her head. There's a sigh somewhere on your neck and when you glance down at her, you find her head lifting, angling towards yours. The sigh becomes soft lips on yours and you feel like you're falling, drowning, dreaming. You surface and find her to be real. There's a burst of giddy laughter -- it sounds like it comes from you -- followed by a rush of cliches. You tell her you don't know why you spent so much time and effort chasing the unattainable, going after fantasies when this *here* is better because it's real. Real and warm and easy and soft and good. She's staring at you with a hazy glow again and you think you could never get tired of seeing that. You open your mouth to say that but she stops you with -- "You're pretty." Something melts inside you but -- "What?" She coddles you in her arms, rubs your back and you hear words like "pretty, pretty" against your shoulder blades. She's never told you that before. Never even said -- You aren't. She knows you aren't -- Panic seizes you and you yank away from her quickly. There's confusion on her face. You grab her chin by your fingertips and look. See it. Oh shit, oh shit. No. Glimmering eyes, unfocused yet familiar. Wanting something, a fantasy, a dream. A damn mirror. That's the look you had -- once. Once when things weren't this -- . "Am I real to you?" The question makes it past your lips even though you know the answer. Your hand drops and you cross your arms into one another. "You - I - Of course" and "You're pretty," the disjointed comments plow into you like a fist and you struggle to breathe. "But am *I* real?" you ask again, your skin burning as you dig long, sharp fingernails into them. "I don't understand. Why would you care? You're -- " You close your ears as you remember those faces, the ones you chased, the ones you wanted, the ones who dismissed you. And suddenly you understand why they did. "I have to. I have to go." You stand up and the thought of "get out, get out" is screaming inside your head. Get out before you become. One of them. Too late, you see in her. You already are. You don't ever want to be pretty again. -End- HOME ORIGINAL FICTION FAN FICTION |