40fandoms: fandoms 8-10
Mar. 6th, 2009 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tallulahgs[Title] Dearly Departed
[Fandom] Chicago (movie)
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Post-movie. Roxie and Velma don't talk about what they really have in common.
It was two a.m., and maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was just the buzz from the performance, but Roxie couldn't resist saying, "Hey... you ever think about 'em?"
Velma, smoking as she took her make-up off, didn't even bother to look round, just rolled her eyes at the mirror. "Who?"
"I dunno." Roxie wondered why half the time she ended up playing the dumb blonde with Velma when she knew the woman was a treacherous snake who'd pounce on any weakness. Maybe it was to, like, lull her into a false sense of security or something. "Any of 'em. Like, your husband. Your sister."
Velma went all still. Roxie wondered for a moment if she was going to go to pieces, perhaps pitch a bottle of perfume or the ashtray at Roxie's head, but then the next minute she just said, boredly, "You ever think about your dearly departed ex-boyfriend?"
"Well. No."
"Well," Velma said, mimicking, "there's your answer. Geez, how did someone as dumb as you survive this long anyway?"
"Yeah, but..." Roxie sat down on the bed, started taking off her shoes. The buckles were tiny and finicky and she was getting glitter all over her fingers, so she concentrated on that and just let herself talk, rather than think about what she was saying. "But, like, I didn't care about Fred. Not really. You know? I was thinking about it and I figured it was just because he said he'd make me a star -" Velma snorted - "and he was good in bed. Really. I don't think I even pretended I was in love with him, not like some girls do. But, you know, it was your husband, and your sister..."
"Stop pretending to be stupid," Velma said, half-lipsticked mouth shaping the words very clearly, a sure sign she'd had more to drink than she'd expected. "You never gave a damn about your husband either."
"Okay, I guess not."
"My sister," Velma said, getting to her feet, wrapping a robe around her, "was a two-faced bitch who got what was coming to her. If it had been the other way round, you betcha she'd have done the same. Now shut the hell up and let me get some sleep."
Roxie poked her tongue out at Velma's back, watched her reflection do it too. It seemed silly, sometimes, them not talking about all the stuff they really had in common. But then, maybe there wasn't anything they could say.
[Title] Guilty Survivors
[Fandom] Stephen King's Carrie
[Rating] PG-13
[Notes/Summary] AU where Chris Hargensen survived the disaster.
He had the cash, of course, and so once the burnt-out girl dragged from the wreckage of the car had been identified as his daughter Chris Hargensen, she had been moved away from the cramped, understaffed, desperate hospital which was constantly full of the sound of crying and the smell of smoke, and taken to a quiet, calm building with the right sort of people and the scent of flowers.
At first she didn't talk at all, and that, coupled with the scars, made him wonder if there was a mistake, if perhaps it wasn't his daughter at all (if perhaps he wouldn't like that better). But he kept visiting anyway. He talked about pointless things, keeping his eyes on the window and the patch of cold white sky and the curtains twitching in the breeze. Drowning out the faint sounds of bleeps and footsteps and nurses' chatter. Waiting and hoping for the scars to heal, for the old Chris to slough off the damaged, charred skin.
Eventually they started to peel off the bandages, and he saw that it was her after all, and that she knew full well that the scars were never going away.
For a long while she was weak, and so no one could question her. Perhaps that was why she didn't talk. She just watched him, eyes like slits in the skin. But then she began to recover strength and then he knew that he'd have to start asking her things before other people did.
At first she said she didn't remember what happened. He returned to the question again and again, hoping that she wouldn't crack, that she genuinely would have forgotten and maybe somehow that would prove she'd had nothing to do with it.
Eventually, with a condescending air that no one this scarred should have, she said that she'd been at the Inn with a boy and they'd left in the car and then Carrie had shown up in the parking lot and caused the car to crash. She just looked at us and wanted us dead, Daddy, I saw it in her face. Her eyes dared him to make any more of it.
And the prom?
I got banned from the prom. You know that.
What had been her mouth curled into what might be a smile, and he knew that he didn't need to ask any more questions. People had been talking anyway. The few survivors had mentioned buckets of blood, bathroom pranks, threats, dead pigs.
The curtains billowed. Out in the corridor, someone was pushing a wheelchair.
They're still recovering bodies, he said.
She shrugged, and closed her eyes.
When he next came to see her, it was dark, and he found her crying - deep, wrenching sobs which stopped as soon as she realised he was there. That proved to him that the misery was real, but he didn't know if she was crying for having caused other people's pain or just for her own.
[Title] Dusk
[Fandom] My Neighbor Totoro
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Set some years after the movie. Mei wants to know why Satsuki is lonesome.
Satsuki had been sitting out on the verandah all evening, arms round her knees, watching the slowly darkening sky. Mei waited until after supper to come and join her. The air was cool, and she could hear cicadas. But Satsuki didn't say anything, or even look round.
"Are you mad with us or something?" Mei said at last. She kicked off her sandal and wriggled her toes in the dirt.
"Don't do that. You've already had a bath."
So Satsuki was still talking to her, at least. "But it feels nice."
"I said stop it, Mei."
"Why don't you come back inside? Then I won't do it any more."
"I like it out here. I'm thinking."
"Oh." Mei picked at a loose splinter of wood on the side of the verandah. She liked the smell of old wood, and the way it snapped in her fingers. "What are you thinking about?"
"Just stuff."
"Are you thinking about a boy? Have you got a boyfriend?"
"Oh, shut up!" Satsuki whirled round, and Mei expected her to shake her or shove her onto the ground or something but instead Satsuki didn't, she just put her head in her hands and started crying. Satsuki hardly ever cried, specially not now she'd got older, and when she did she usually ran off and did it in her room.
Perhaps that was why she'd come out here. Mei scowled at her feet. She hadn't known.
"I was just joking," she said.
Satsuki sniffed, rubbed a hand across her eyes. "I know. S'okay."
"You shouldn't stay out here crying," Mei said, patting her on the arm. "You'll make the soot-creatures come back. They'll think everyone else has gone away."
Satsuki laughed a bit then, damply. "I don't know, that might be quite nice."
"Don't be silly. They'd make everything dirty. What about your new uniform? Mum'll be cross if you get it dirty before you've even gone to school for the first day." Mei didn't know why she was saying all this stuff - she was kind of worried Satsuki would call her a baby - but she didn't want any more crying.
"I suppose you're right." Satsuki sighed.
"Come on back in," Mei said. "I'm bored in there on my own."
"In a minute." She looked round at Mei suddenly, grinned. "I'm waiting for Totoro."
"You just want him to give you a ride to school in the catbus, don't you?"
"Of course."
The sun had almost set. Mei couldn't really see Satsuki's face any more, and little draughts of night air nipped at her arms. She could hear the trees whispering.
"I'm going inside," she said. "You come in soon, okay?" And she scurried back into the warmth of the house.
[Fandom] Chicago (movie)
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Post-movie. Roxie and Velma don't talk about what they really have in common.
It was two a.m., and maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was just the buzz from the performance, but Roxie couldn't resist saying, "Hey... you ever think about 'em?"
Velma, smoking as she took her make-up off, didn't even bother to look round, just rolled her eyes at the mirror. "Who?"
"I dunno." Roxie wondered why half the time she ended up playing the dumb blonde with Velma when she knew the woman was a treacherous snake who'd pounce on any weakness. Maybe it was to, like, lull her into a false sense of security or something. "Any of 'em. Like, your husband. Your sister."
Velma went all still. Roxie wondered for a moment if she was going to go to pieces, perhaps pitch a bottle of perfume or the ashtray at Roxie's head, but then the next minute she just said, boredly, "You ever think about your dearly departed ex-boyfriend?"
"Well. No."
"Well," Velma said, mimicking, "there's your answer. Geez, how did someone as dumb as you survive this long anyway?"
"Yeah, but..." Roxie sat down on the bed, started taking off her shoes. The buckles were tiny and finicky and she was getting glitter all over her fingers, so she concentrated on that and just let herself talk, rather than think about what she was saying. "But, like, I didn't care about Fred. Not really. You know? I was thinking about it and I figured it was just because he said he'd make me a star -" Velma snorted - "and he was good in bed. Really. I don't think I even pretended I was in love with him, not like some girls do. But, you know, it was your husband, and your sister..."
"Stop pretending to be stupid," Velma said, half-lipsticked mouth shaping the words very clearly, a sure sign she'd had more to drink than she'd expected. "You never gave a damn about your husband either."
"Okay, I guess not."
"My sister," Velma said, getting to her feet, wrapping a robe around her, "was a two-faced bitch who got what was coming to her. If it had been the other way round, you betcha she'd have done the same. Now shut the hell up and let me get some sleep."
Roxie poked her tongue out at Velma's back, watched her reflection do it too. It seemed silly, sometimes, them not talking about all the stuff they really had in common. But then, maybe there wasn't anything they could say.
[Title] Guilty Survivors
[Fandom] Stephen King's Carrie
[Rating] PG-13
[Notes/Summary] AU where Chris Hargensen survived the disaster.
He had the cash, of course, and so once the burnt-out girl dragged from the wreckage of the car had been identified as his daughter Chris Hargensen, she had been moved away from the cramped, understaffed, desperate hospital which was constantly full of the sound of crying and the smell of smoke, and taken to a quiet, calm building with the right sort of people and the scent of flowers.
At first she didn't talk at all, and that, coupled with the scars, made him wonder if there was a mistake, if perhaps it wasn't his daughter at all (if perhaps he wouldn't like that better). But he kept visiting anyway. He talked about pointless things, keeping his eyes on the window and the patch of cold white sky and the curtains twitching in the breeze. Drowning out the faint sounds of bleeps and footsteps and nurses' chatter. Waiting and hoping for the scars to heal, for the old Chris to slough off the damaged, charred skin.
Eventually they started to peel off the bandages, and he saw that it was her after all, and that she knew full well that the scars were never going away.
For a long while she was weak, and so no one could question her. Perhaps that was why she didn't talk. She just watched him, eyes like slits in the skin. But then she began to recover strength and then he knew that he'd have to start asking her things before other people did.
At first she said she didn't remember what happened. He returned to the question again and again, hoping that she wouldn't crack, that she genuinely would have forgotten and maybe somehow that would prove she'd had nothing to do with it.
Eventually, with a condescending air that no one this scarred should have, she said that she'd been at the Inn with a boy and they'd left in the car and then Carrie had shown up in the parking lot and caused the car to crash. She just looked at us and wanted us dead, Daddy, I saw it in her face. Her eyes dared him to make any more of it.
And the prom?
I got banned from the prom. You know that.
What had been her mouth curled into what might be a smile, and he knew that he didn't need to ask any more questions. People had been talking anyway. The few survivors had mentioned buckets of blood, bathroom pranks, threats, dead pigs.
The curtains billowed. Out in the corridor, someone was pushing a wheelchair.
They're still recovering bodies, he said.
She shrugged, and closed her eyes.
When he next came to see her, it was dark, and he found her crying - deep, wrenching sobs which stopped as soon as she realised he was there. That proved to him that the misery was real, but he didn't know if she was crying for having caused other people's pain or just for her own.
[Title] Dusk
[Fandom] My Neighbor Totoro
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Set some years after the movie. Mei wants to know why Satsuki is lonesome.
Satsuki had been sitting out on the verandah all evening, arms round her knees, watching the slowly darkening sky. Mei waited until after supper to come and join her. The air was cool, and she could hear cicadas. But Satsuki didn't say anything, or even look round.
"Are you mad with us or something?" Mei said at last. She kicked off her sandal and wriggled her toes in the dirt.
"Don't do that. You've already had a bath."
So Satsuki was still talking to her, at least. "But it feels nice."
"I said stop it, Mei."
"Why don't you come back inside? Then I won't do it any more."
"I like it out here. I'm thinking."
"Oh." Mei picked at a loose splinter of wood on the side of the verandah. She liked the smell of old wood, and the way it snapped in her fingers. "What are you thinking about?"
"Just stuff."
"Are you thinking about a boy? Have you got a boyfriend?"
"Oh, shut up!" Satsuki whirled round, and Mei expected her to shake her or shove her onto the ground or something but instead Satsuki didn't, she just put her head in her hands and started crying. Satsuki hardly ever cried, specially not now she'd got older, and when she did she usually ran off and did it in her room.
Perhaps that was why she'd come out here. Mei scowled at her feet. She hadn't known.
"I was just joking," she said.
Satsuki sniffed, rubbed a hand across her eyes. "I know. S'okay."
"You shouldn't stay out here crying," Mei said, patting her on the arm. "You'll make the soot-creatures come back. They'll think everyone else has gone away."
Satsuki laughed a bit then, damply. "I don't know, that might be quite nice."
"Don't be silly. They'd make everything dirty. What about your new uniform? Mum'll be cross if you get it dirty before you've even gone to school for the first day." Mei didn't know why she was saying all this stuff - she was kind of worried Satsuki would call her a baby - but she didn't want any more crying.
"I suppose you're right." Satsuki sighed.
"Come on back in," Mei said. "I'm bored in there on my own."
"In a minute." She looked round at Mei suddenly, grinned. "I'm waiting for Totoro."
"You just want him to give you a ride to school in the catbus, don't you?"
"Of course."
The sun had almost set. Mei couldn't really see Satsuki's face any more, and little draughts of night air nipped at her arms. She could hear the trees whispering.
"I'm going inside," she said. "You come in soon, okay?" And she scurried back into the warmth of the house.
