someday I will give this an actual title

gods and their grudges made me like this

2008-08-21T23:43:50Z

You can't blame a girl for one little peek.
And such a box — don't open signs just cry
out to be touched. I had to satisfy
this craving to see, not one to be meek
or obedient. I fully admit
to this. But he's of a race that can say,
Guess what, dear? We invented fire today.
You can't tell me he believed I'd sit

sweetly still, neatly decorous. A word
of warning against curiosity
only makes it stronger. Divinity
should recognize such a force. It's absurd
to believe that we won't find ways to cope
with disaster. Besides, we'll need the hope.

Drabbles done for TR.

2008-02-24T19:25:03Z

He had the assistance of the NSA, the CIA, his PSP and probably the DoD. The last thing Chuck Bartowski needed to make his life look more like, you know, alphabet soup was the FBI.

It was especially strange when the agency turned up at the Buy More in the form of a slim, short blonde he was sure he'd seen on TV before.

"You're Veronica Mars?" he asked later. The plan was still to stay in the car, but they were stuck there together. One thing Veronica was good at was a good, old-fashioned stakeout, even if they were probably being watched in turn by other parts of the alphabet. There were probably whole new acronyms he didn't even know yet, all strung together in a line of unpronounceable consonants, like speaking Welsh. "You're a TV character."

"Convenient cover story," she said, smiling wryly. "Sometimes you have to be obvious to keep hidden." There was a beat as she looked over at him. Not bad. He'd kept quiet longer than most people not accustomed to life in the field did, anyway. "What, you haven't heard weirder in the last few months?"

"So you're a character posing as an actress posing as a character."

"No," she said patiently. It was a new trait she was learning. "I'm me."

"That's not an answer."

"I didn't say it was." Her gaze flickered away from him, expression contorting in frustration. "Oh, crap," she muttered beneath her breath, biting sharply at her lip before turning toward him. He glanced out where she had been looking only to see the suspects, apparently out on a walk, headed in their direction. "Trust me," she said quickly, and before he could ask why -- that sound bad, it sounded very not good, things always got bad or at least weird when they said things like that -- he couldn't say anything. She was half on top of him, hands in his hair, lips on his, before pulling back with a soft laugh, face all lit up like a girl in love, suddenly sweeter than she'd looked in the -- what had it been, twenty? twenty-four hours since he'd met her.

And then the people they'd been trailing were past and she was back in her seat like it was nothing, brushing her hair back, calm as if nothing had happened. That was the thing with these beautiful, blonde secret agent types: it was always an act.

Veronica Mars really couldn't stand him. There were things she knew, secrets she'd kept when she owed it to no one to keep them any longer, that made it impossible for her not to despise Dean Winchester. She blamed her disgust on everything else first -- the swagger and roughness of him, the quick retorts, how he always seemed to have one at the ready. She hated being matched, and craved it, too, in some part. It was that which kept her coming back to fight with him, even though she was avoiding his father and brother with all the skill in her arsenal. She ran into him again and again, and though that could be coincidence in a place like this, they were both too good at what they had been for it to really be anything but on purpose.

It could only be perfect distaste that made her lose her temper with him, obliterating the careful control she'd been working toward for months on the island. It was the arrogance of him, so familiar it stirred something sharp in her; it was the way he called her 'sweetheart,' like she was twelve or something lesser.

"Just stop, okay?" she snapped, sitting on the edge of the pool table, her legs tucked over the edge, and if she looked more like she was flirting than sparring, she would never admit it.

"Alright, shorty," he said, hands up in mock-surrender. "I'm cool if you are."

She heaved a sigh, head falling back and eyes rolling. "What is it with you people and picking on the height thing? Is it my fault you're all ten feet tall?"

"I thought you were playing nice."

He was close enough now that she could feel the heat from his body, standing near enough to goad her, to provoke a reaction. It was the little ways of pissing her off he had that bothered her more than the words and the tension encompassing her. "I never said that," she said, but her voice was softer than she'd intended. Her stomach turned -- with disgust, she thought, with horror -- in the same instant that his mouth was on hers and her legs hooked around his waist, nails digging into skin and teeth scraping against lips, and she didn't know who had started it, but they still weren't playing nice.

first draft blues.

2008-01-21T18:36:41Z

Bar Napkin Sonnet #12
— after Moira Egan

Things happen when you drink too much mescal.
One night, with not enough cash to hand or will
to stop, I let him buy. I’m a girl who’ll fall
for damn near anything or anyone. Still
against the sticky counter, I let him kiss
sticky lips — for gratitude’s sake, the least
I could do. Besides, the truth, at heart, is this
was nothing new to me or him: the beast,
the burden, of wanting more — wanting at all —
so that the ordeal of names and faces ceases
to matter much. He was warm and I could fall
for a night, even two, between the creases
of messy sheets — but even with someone
else in the room, it’s hard not to be alone.

sistertotherain @ 2007-10-29T14:19:00

2007-10-29T18:21:13Z

Stage Door

We met as stories long before we kissed,
forgetting curtains fall on every act.
We should have seen the end before the twist.

I never once believed I should resist;
restraint's a talent that you always lacked.
We met as stories long before we kissed.

The curtain call I gladly would have missed,
the day we laughed over a lovers' pact --
I should have seen the end before the twist.

In us, the great affairs briefly exist,
and Juliet would never take it back.
We met as stories long before we kissed.

The ingenue, the leading man, the tryst --
a damsel in distress must watch her back.
I should have seen the end before the twist.

Best add the fool to my still-growing list
of parts I've played and men I can attract.
We met as stories long before we kissed;
I should have seen the end before the twist.

sistertotherain @ 2007-09-20T14:57:00

2007-09-20T18:58:19Z

It’s like actors, who try so pathetically not to look in mirrors. Who lean backward trying—only to see their faces in the reflecting chandeliers.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Hotel Dureau has been home to generations of up-and-coming young actresses. When Sophie Vance checks in, fresh out of San Francisco and newly graduated with a degree in Theatre, she's just the latest in the current batch. There's Lila Taylor, who left home at eighteen to pursue life in the theatre; there's Ruby Linden, glamorous, effervescent and alone; sweet, quiet Miranda Whittaker who just might be the most talented one there, and a dozen others, each looking for her place in the theatre, whether it's holding the pen or taking the bow or on her toes. Lila takes Sophie under her wing, but that may not be enough to get the girls through a year of hardships and heartbreak, sacrifice and struggle, or to get either one of them on the stage.

Comment here to be added.

sistertotherain @ 2007-07-05T02:22:00

2007-07-05T01:24:03Z

Part One - "Keep up with me now:" Rian Johnson's Brick as film noir.

Easier to place are Brick’s two femmes fatales, “drama vamp” Kara and “Ivy-bound cheerleading elite” Laura Dannon. Kara is the lesser of the pair, and it is heavily implied that she largely works for Laura. She is clearly a femme fatale, milking her role for all its worth and wearing mask after mask; in fact, in her final scene, Kara’s mask is directly painted on her face, a Japanese-style design that is part of one of her costumes, effectively covering her expressions. But Kara is “small time,” dealing in lower crust drugs and simple blackmail – in the original cut of the film, she attempts to blackmail Brendan with the information Dode dies trying to sell.

Laura is much subtler, and therefore much better at what she does. Throughout the film, she keeps both Brendan and the audience guessing as to her end game, while Brad, the Pin and Tug completely fail to see through her. While she operates within the conventions of her archetype, Laura goes a step further than nearly any other femme fatale. She is not Carmen Sternwood, sucking her thumb and throwing temper tantrums, or Phyllis Dietrichson meeting her end begging for mercy and love. She plays her cards carefully, trying to look like she is on Brendan’s side. “Do you trust me now?” she asks after an encounter with the Pin. Brendan’s wise response is, “Less than when I didn’t trust you before,” but as the film’s close approaches, he is asking for her help. Even after Brendan confronts her about her involvement with Emily’s death, Laura continues to hold out, playing at innocent and injured until there is no hope of changing Brendan’s mind and nothing to be gained from the act. “It isn’t true,” she insists tearily, but Brendan, like Spade and Marlowe before him, will not be a sap. Though he does, at one point, succumb to Laura, caught off guard in the middle of an emotional breakdown, he never fully gives in to her or trusts her motives.

With the dignified calm and quick wit of so many who came before her, Laura is still, perhaps, closest in spirit to Brigid O’Shaughnessy, who was likely the major basis for her character. She does stop short of pulling the trigger herself, unlike Brigid, but she alone makes all her plans and carries them out, unmoved by her own cruelty. She goes through the motions of feeling without ever quite reaching a true result. It is this inability to care that makes her so effective, even sociopathic, in her methods. If Laura cares for anyone other than herself, it is Brendan, who wins her respect by being the only one intelligent enough to figure her out and challenge her. Even so, when she comes to him at Tug’s house, offering physical comfort, she murmurs “I’m sorry” and, by the film’s end, it is clear that is blatantly untrue. Laura is never truly apologetic. At the end, Laura’s performance is more to win her freedom than to keep the truth from Brendan and thus keep him. In the original script, Laura mirrors O’Shaughnessy yet again, desperately whispering, “I loved you.” “Yeah,” Brendan replies, “I think you did.” That she sent him into the “slaughterhouse” of that final meeting nonetheless makes her actions all the more chilling.

Brendan himself is firmly rooted in noir tradition. The damaged male and the detective, he takes his cues from Marlowe and Spade. Where those two had previous ties to the law, however, Brendan once had a “small time dealership.” Even if he formed his partnership with Jerr Madison only to betray him, this marks Brendan as someone once mired in the drug trade himself. He knows how this different world works and is able to play it to his advantage. Having left it, however, he still stands outside looking in, neither part of that illicit realm nor the lawful world beyond it. When Emily speaks to him, she suggests that he was damaged long before they broke up – that, in fact, that might be the reason she left him in the first place. “Who are you judging anyone?” she asks him. “God. I really loved you a lot. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get with people. I couldn’t heckle life with you anymore.” Brendan’s problems started before he lost Emily; losing her only made it worse. He promises then to help and protect her, though she insists she does not need protection, and it is clear in his later actions that he wants to save her still. Brendan is powered by his determination to find out how and why Emily died. Though he says he “can’t raise her,” there is a sense that he is attempting to do just that. He seems to feel he owes Emily a debt and that, by solving the case, he can still save her from her fate – if he solves the mystery, everything can be the way it used to be. Facing the world with dry wit and a quick temper, Brendan blocks his emotions, using them only to fuel his continued search for Emily’s killer. It is not until late in the movie that he allows himself to break down and process her death at last.

Even then, he does not give up on his quest to, in effect, save Emily from her fate. Brendan is motivated entirely by this need and his love of the girl he lost, even if he lost her long before she actually died; she asked for his help, and whatever Dode may say to the contrary or Emily herself may plead, he intends to give it. While Brendan’s purpose may be noble, the path he takes to accomplish this intention often swerves into the questionable. References are made throughout to a partnership once held with Jerr Madison, a small time drug dealer, whom he then betrayed to the authority figures in the principal’s office. “I gave Jerr to you to see him eaten,” Brendan snaps at Trueman, “not to see you fed.” He has been a traitor before and can be again, doing whatever it takes to protect Emily though she does not want to be protected. In the final scene with the Brain and Tugger, Brendan hesitates in the darkened doorway before abandoning them to their fate. He is entirely focused on the end result and cannot be made to swerve from his path, even when change might be the right thing to do. The hero of this film is not entirely heroic, and very little in Brick is black and white. The Pin and Tugger may do terrible things, but they are nonetheless painted in a sympathetic light. Dode acts from a pure need to right the wrongs he sees, maybe even to redeem Emily in the same way Brendan seeks to save her. The impetus for Kara’s actions stems wholly from greed, but Laura’s plot derives from a need for self-preservation. She, too, was greedy, and the result had the potential to put her in over her head; instead, she focused attention on Emily, who was not herself exactly spotless. No one in this movie comes out clean, as Brendan puts it. Indeed, the real ambiguity presented in this film is not moral in terms of who is good and who is bad; rather, it is on the side of the audience, made to cheer for figures who may not be following the letter of the law, either civic or moral. It is not a movie about bad people and good people. Instead, it is about people who do good and bad things, like Vivienne Sternwood covering up murders to protect her family in The Big Sleep or Brigid O’Shaughnessy asking of Spade, “Look at me and tell me the truth. Would you have done this to me if the Falcon had been real and you had been paid your money?”

Figures of authority, such as Assistant Vice Principal Trueman and the police, are painted as either incompetent or corrupt. Those who should have power use it badly and those living in a seemingly idyllic setting are only hiding the darkness these films tell the audience is inherent in the false perfection of suburbia and the rich. When the Brain asks Brendan if they should call the cops in regards to Emily’s situation, Brendan makes it clear he does not trust the police to get the job done properly:

No, bulls would gum it. They'd flash their dusty standards at the wide-eyes and probably find some yegg to pin, probably even the right one. But they'd trample the real tracks and scare the real players back into their holes, and if we're doing this I want the whole story.

While they might get the job partially done, Brendan feels they are too incompetent to do their work properly. They may not be corrupt, but they are not capable either. Trueman, who is in a position of minimal authority – not even the Vice Principal, he is the Assistant Vice Principal – is far from respectable, one of the few adults in the film. He does not understand the world in which Brendan operates, but he attempts to bend it to his needs, offering bribes and ultimatums. He has no obvious redeeming values and the message we get from him is clear: he will use Brendan as long as he can, but ultimately Brendan is on his own, left to his own devices and alone in the middle of a complex mystery. Nothing can be trusted. The Pin runs his drug trade from the basement of his mother’s house in the middle of a California suburb. Laura operates from on high, clearly wealthy and aware of her privileged status. From the outset she is described as “elite,” and she behaves as such, expecting Brendan to take her hand and help her to her feet or to mix her a drink at her own party. Although her mother answers the phone, this is a world which holds few adults; those who are shown are untrustworthy or useless. The Pin’s mother is willfully oblivious to her son’s operation, Laura’s mother leaves her to run a party from the house without interference, Trueman can be relied on only to betray and the Brain may borrow his mother’s cell phone, but neither he nor Brendan can trust their parents with the reality of their task. They exist in an empty world which they must negotiate alone. No one will stop the rich girl in her hilltop mansion or the drug lord in the midst of the quiet suburbs unless it is one of their peers; the grown ups cannot be trusted to do anything more than turn a blind eye.

It is a bleak view of life which Brick presents. From its opening scene, the feeling of futility hangs heavily overhead. The viewer knows Emily will not survive, even as Brendan races desperately to save her. Early in the film, Brendan lies in his bedroom, staring at the note he stole from her. With the ‘A’ shaped symbol and the appointed hour, midnight, written on it in stark black and white, it leans against the clock; as the hour approaches midnight, the audience is all too aware that Brendan will not solve the puzzle until it is mere hours too late. “There’s not much chance of coming out clean,” Brendan tells the Brain, and the audience is left uncertain whether there is a chance of coming out at all as Brendan takes beating after beating. He gives back as good as he gets, but he is left injured and ill, passing out and swallowing blood in Laura Dannon’s car, left at the mercy of the femme fatale. Shortly after Emily’s death, Brendan meets with the Brain in the library, and the scene which follows is terse and oppressively sad.

BRAIN: So what’s the word on Em?
BRENDAN: She’s gone.
BRAIN: Can’t raise her?
BRENDAN: No. I can’t.

We know what the Brain does not: that Emily is not merely gone, she is dead, and there is no chance of “raising” her ever again. Brendan is still in shock, unable to fully communicate, trapped inside himself. The camera pans from the Brain to Brendan, isolating each in turn. Although they work together, both are alone. Even with partners, the world is fundamentally a place of solitude for Brendan. From the beginning, it is evident that, whatever he may do, he can never actually solve his problems. No action Brendan takes will fix what has happened and he is too late every time to prevent something more from occurring. Although he may figure out who killed Emily and why and even who set Emily up in the first place, ultimately he accomplishes nothing. By the film’s end, the body count has reached seven – the Pin, Tugger, Dode, Emily and three members of the Pin’s crew are all dead, and Brendan has in no way saved them or avenged their pointless deaths. No one dies for a noble purpose or a just cause; in the end, all the deaths are at the door of one spoiled, unfeeling teenage girl looking only to save her own neck. Brendan leads the authorities to the brick of heroin in Laura’s locker, but she still makes her escape. Whether or not she is ever caught is left unsaid. Instead the film closes on an image of Brendan standing alone on the football field, watching as Laura walks away, fading into the distance – simply walking away with dignified calm and no obvious fear of actually getting captured for her crimes.

Following in the footsteps of so many that came before it, Brick goes just a bit further. It never fully escapes its conventions, instead reinventing them. Setting it in the cutthroat world of high school allows Johnson to make everything fresh again – by taking a twist on the genre, he is able to play it straightforward. Noir, he says, has “been done so well so many times over the years that the instant you see the imagery, it becomes pastiche when you’re doing a detective movie.” Putting it in a high school freed him of traditional visual cues. He maintains familiar archetypes as compelling characters by making them characters in their own right, rather than relying on stereotype. The final image of Brendan alone is reminiscent of its noir predecessors, but it is the effective continuation of traditional noir themes which grants this unlikely film its place on the list of films noirs. Corruption, abandonment, alienation, moral ambiguity and futility all play their part in the way the film closes. Unlike with The Maltese Falcon, which saw Brigid behind symbolic bars at its close, or Double Indemnity with Neff lying wounded in the doorway as the police sirens sound, Johnson has no code hanging over his head to force him to bring the femme fatale to justice; she is allowed her chance, however small, at freedom. Brendan has solved the mystery, but he has failed to save anyone, even himself. He is left still alone, still damaged, his lost love still dead. The message is a harsh one: the world is twisted and corrupted, a dark and scary place that must be navigated alone, and which can never be fixed or solved, no matter how hard he tries.

sistertotherain @ 2007-07-05T02:22:00

2007-07-05T01:22:51Z

“Keep up with me now”
Rian Johnson’s Brick as film noir

I did what she said with the brick, I didn't know it was bad, but the Pin's on it now for poor Frisco and they're playing it all on me.
- Emily Kostich

Rian Johnson’s debut film Brick tackles the constructs of noir and combines them with the pitfalls and perils of high school. Bringing the femme fatale to the schoolyard and staging its battles in parking lots and hallways, Brick reinvents the noir genre, making familiar characters and the hallmarks of a well-known style of film fresh for a new audience. While Johnson’s film rarely strays far from a well worn story, it renders an old tale all but unrecognizable by placing it in a wholly new setting. Audiences may be familiar with both the high school drama and the hard boiled noir, but pairing the two allows Johnson to play with the known, breaking the rules of each genre, and thus bringing new life to both. Because it is, from the outset, not what one expects of either kind of film, it allows the audience to look at noir with an unbiased eye, unable to predict the next turn of the plot because so many of the expected visual cues are absent. The result is a film that is genuine and original, adhering to traditional aspects of film noir in terms of style, archetypical characters and themes while taking them just one step further and rendering them yet more complex.

Brick begins two days into its action, giving us a brief, tantalizing glimpse into its hero’s future but no answers before jumping back to when it all ostensibly began, at least for protagonist Brendan Frye. The opening shot pans across an unfamiliar surface, rough and rocky, until it brings us to the blurred and bespectacled face of Brendan; when it pulls out, we see that what he is starring at so intently is the body of young blonde woman, lying face down beside a stream of running water in the mouth of a drainage tunnel. The image on which the camera closes before this sequence ends is the girl’s outstretched arm, lying twisted and immobile in the dirty water, the cheap blue plastic bracelets she wears a marker of her youth. The shakiness of these early shots, common to more recent films, mirrors Brendan’s emotional state; so much of what we will later see is filmed extensively from Brendan’s perspective. He is the eyes and ears for the audience, and they learn with him, picking up the clues as he does. The wider shot gives the audience a greater view of what is occurring, which, at this point, is nothing at all. It is a scene of complete inaction, focusing on Brendan and the girl – Emily Kostich – in equal measure. This story belongs to both of them. These shots set the stage and the mood for the rest of the film. Brendan’s silence conveys his inability to change what has happened, while the posture of Emily’s arm suggests that it may well have been broken before her death. Certainly there is nothing natural about the way she is lying. The whole scene is shot in dim blues, blacks and greys, visual evidence of Brendan’s mood and the heavy sense of futility inherent in traditional noir. What has happened has already come to pass and cannot be changed; when the storyline jumps back two days previous, the audience is already well aware that Emily Kostich cannot be saved. Starting later in the story and moving back to the beginning is a technique commonly used in noir, particularly in earlier films, such as Murder, My Sweet and Double Indemnity.

Through the film, the camera frequently returns to Brendan’s perspective, closing in on shots of the invitation to Laura’s party in Kara’s dressing room or the cigarette that is thrown from the side of Tug’s car. The camera also takes a number of odd angles, shooting the scene in Trueman’s office and the trunk where Emily’s body lies, as well as Laura and Brendan at the Halloween in January party, from below, granting these figures almost mythic status. They seem larger than life, looming overhead, intensifying the feel of these scenes in much the same way the film’s longer shots do; the camera holds steady as Brendan pounds across the blacktop toward Emily and focuses on Laura’s retreat at the film’s close as she fades into the distance. Much use is made of shadow and light, playing with the traditional chiaroscuro found in noir, particularly in the houses of Laura and the Pin; this underlines their place in the story and the darkness inside the suburban dream.

Yet, despite this use, Brick is shot as much in broad daylight as at night. Femme fatale Laura Dannon’s first direct conversation with Brendan occurs at an evening party, dim and warmly lit, but she is seen for the first time sitting atop the trunk of a car in the school parking lot in broad daylight, part of the “cream on the upper crust.” Johnson takes advantage of the natural sunlight and open space of the California suburb of San Clemente to bring an air at once of innocence and desertion. This is a world almost devoid of other people, in which everyone who appears has some marked importance, weighing heavily in the cryptic puzzle Brendan must unravel. It is empty and he is alone in it, except for a cast of potential enemies and lost loves. About his choice to film this way, Johnson said,

We built all of this into the style of Brick, as a detective movie that took more of its visual cues from Chinatown than from the dark alleyways of noir. We set it out in the open, in a setting that will catch you off guard and that you wouldn’t normally associate with menace.

The bright sunlight plays on a sense of the idyllic, but it is also the scene for fight after fight – with Brad Bramish, Tug and the hired lug, Chuck Burns – and tells the viewer that no time of day is safe. Brendan is as much in danger outdoors in the sunshine on the schoolyard as he is in the Pin’s basement at 4 am, if not more.

The language of Brick has its heritage in earlier films and hard-boiled novels; Johnson states in a number of interviews that he drew his influence from the work of Dashiell Hammett, and references are made throughout the movie to The Maltese Falcon, as well as to The Big Sleep. Indeed, when Brendan tells Laura to “honk four times – long short, long short,” it is a direct reference to the knock Spade uses at Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s apartment in Falcon. Similarly Falcon’s “Now you are dangerous,” for instance, is said to Laura Dannon. He copies a line from The Big Sleep, as well, when he tells the Pin to “Call Miss Dannon in from the hall first,” referencing the scene in which Marlowe tells Joe Brody to call Agnes in from the hall because she’s getting tired of holding her breath. An entire scene, in fact, is lifted from Falcon; Brendan’s visit with Assistant Principal Gary Trueman mirrors the one in which Spade is called in to see District Attorney Bryan. In the original, Spade growls,

And I don’t want any more of these informal talks.... If you want to see me, pinch me or subpoena me or something and I’ll come down with my lawyer. See you at the inquest, maybe.

In Trueman’s office, Brendan mimics Spade’s language almost precisely, allowing only for twists relevant to his status as a high school student:

And no more of these informal chats - if you've got a discipline issue with me, write me up or suspend me and I'll see you at the parent conference.

These paraphrases and minor thefts not only pay homage to the original, but lend Brendan some credence; he has his origins in what audiences might think of as the real thing.

Although the language serves to recall the original films, it plays a further role in Brick. In imitating the linguistic style of older movies, as well as inventing slang terms of his own, Johnson heightens the intensity of the film. When Brendan confronts Dode in the Carrows parking lot, searching for Emily, Dode tells him, “She’s with me. She was tight when she called you and came to me freaked, told me to shake you if you came by. Said you would only make things worse." The dialogue is unfamiliar, almost musical in its cadence, and certainly unlike anything heard in everyday speech. This becomes a world which only looks like the one audiences know; it is in no way realistic and it is not intended to be. The new dialect takes the characters one step further away from the expected, yet again forcing the audience to accept this film entirely on its own terms. They may not behave as ordinary high school students do, but they do not speak like ordinary high school students either, because they are not ordinary teenagers. Brendan, the Brain, Laura and Emily inhabit a world that resembles the real world only in the intensity of emotion and the vivid sense of importance that every action contains; real life high school may not be a matter of life or death, but, as Brick reminds us, it sometimes feels like it. As Emily tells Brendan, “I’m in a different world now." The linguistic style adds to the sense of the unreal and the imperative. Everything Brendan says and does is vital, immediate, and the language forces audiences to pay attention or get left behind.

This is important as Johnson plays with expectations in the realm of characterization as well. Familiar archetypes like the crime lord, the muscle, the victim, the femme fatale and the damaged male are seen in fairly recognizable forms, and yet they maintain a complexity which goes beyond the expected type. Figures like Dode and the Brain are expected more in the high school drama than in the noir genre, yet Dode is practically Brendan’s mirror image, on a quest of his own as pure as Brendan’s. He does not have Brendan’s intelligence or clarity of mind, but he is equally persistent and just as doggedly determined to discover who killed the girl he loved. “He really think that there is a right that needs to be wronged,” actor Noah Segan said of his character Dode, “and that’s very similar to what Brendan is trying to do."

The Pin, also known as the Kingpin, is “old, like twenty-six" and lives with his mother in the San Clemente suburbs. Running his drug business from his basement, the Pin steps just shy of parody, keeping a straight face through scenes of dark comedy and making confessions to Brendan which render him a figure of surprising pathos. Rather than being strictly a bad guy, the Pin is a strangely sympathetic character – crippled and longing for something more, desperate for someone to trust – who happens to do bad things. In many ways, he is reminiscent of The Maltese Falcon’s Gutman, always looking for something unattainable beyond the trappings of his dirty work; but Gutman seems to see his crimes as a justifiable means to an end, while the Pin is caught in a web of his own making. In the end, he is actually a highly impotent character, caught under Laura’s thumb, unable to control either the world around him or the people who work from him. Tugger may not be the brightest of accomplices, nor the most loyal to his employer, yet he retains a sort of fierce loyalty to Emily – even though he is he one who kills her. Throughout the film, he behaves as hired muscle is expected to behave, slamming into Brendan with little warning and going off just as easily; he has a hair trigger temper and it is this flaw on which Laura rests her plot. But he, too, seems unable to control his circumstances, much like Falcon’s gunsel Wilmer Cook. Following the scene where he shoots Dode, he is seen curled up in the bathroom, talking ostensibly to himself, seemingly unaware that Brendan is listening to his confession – even he is not sure why he killed Emily. His obvious regret and uncertainty bring a new dimension to a character who could easily be played as complete flat. The human quality of this pair add to the sense of moral ambiguity.

Emily herself presents a new twist on an old role. Although she spends very little time onscreen, she moves the action of the entire film. It is her death which motivates the characters, causing Tug to hide and the Pin to be suspicious, Dode to hunt for the killer and Kara for a way to profit, Laura to cover up her wicked deeds and Brendan to bring her to light. While she is clearly the victim, she is by no means the innocent. There is nothing of the ingenue at Emily’s core, despite the image she presents. Appearing in white and earth tones with long blonde hair, Emily is almost angelic at a distance; up close, however, the darkness under her eyes betrays her darker habits. She is, as the audience later discovers, pregnant. While Laura claims to know whose the child is, Kara tells Brendan, “If it's any consolation, it probably wasn't Dode's kid. It might have been Tug's, but frankly I wouldn't bet a horse; it was kind of a crowded field there at the end, if you know what I mean.” Despite a history of promiscuity and drugs, Emily remains almost angelic, beatified by the memories of her myriad lovers. She is a “little girl gone wrong,” but she makes no apologies for her sins; perhaps it is Emily’s defiance which renders her so compelling.

sistertotherain @ 2007-06-25T14:37:00

2007-06-25T13:38:10Z

Evening on the Ground (temporary title)
Genre: mystery - original
Summary: "When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's -- it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere."
- Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon

When Kate Archer's business partner is killed on a standard surveillance job, it's up to Kate to figure out who murdered her and why.

Notes: A work in progress still at only about three thousand words. I don't doubt it will take at least another twelve thousand to complete. But this one's due in two weeks, so it will actually get finished this time. At least, it better.

* * * * *

In this business, being average was an asset, at least when it came to looks. A stunner like Jessica Callahan stood out in any crowd and, when your line of work involved being inconspicuous, that was a liability. She was good in a baiting situation, but the fact remained that was entrapment, far from pure and never simple, and Kate Archer didn’t have much use for that in her office, tempting as it sometimes was. Jessica had received offer after offer for deals that turned out to be, in the end, little more than corporate espionage; she turned them down because Archer and Callahan had a little dignity, a little integrity. Under those bright blonde curls and that bubbly grin, Callahan was a class act.

She had smarts, too, and she was good at what she did, whatever her other assets. “I’m not gonna be the girl who walks in legs first,” she had told Archer once. “I’m gonna be the one they come in to see.” It had started as a way of proving herself, she claimed. They’d talked about their reasons one night over drinks, stretching out in the armchairs they had just bought for the clients they didn’t yet have, the office still smelling of the fresh paint that detailed their names on the front door: Archer and Callahan. Truth was, her daddy had been a field cop who’d taught her the tricks of the trade during commercial breaks, instructing her in the fine art of breaking a password over their bacon and eggs.

She hadn’t been meant for something like this.

“You’re certain?” Archer grimaced. She sat leaning against the edge of her desk, elbows pressing into the wood, the long fingers curved around the phone as rigid as her posture. “Yeah, of course. I’ll be down in ten.”

“Is it -?” Anthony’s eyes were wide. He had an unsteady air to him now, the creeping pallor of a man who won’t be standing much longer. Even as Archer thought that, she watched him slowly sink into the chair behind him.

Maybe the click of the phone as she placed it back in its cradle was too final or maybe that was just her mind playing tricks on her. It was hard to tell. “Yeah, it is,” she said. “That was the D.A.’s office.” She looked down at her empty hands, lying uselessly in her lap. He was staring at her, just sitting and staring, and she could hardly fathom the words she was saying even as she lifted her head to look him in the eye and finish the message. “They found her in the bay.”

She hadn’t thought he could go any whiter. Poor kid, she thought. Maybe this one had really loved her.

“She’s...”

“Yeah.” Again Archer looked away, the strain finally showing in her own face as she bit her lip. Sliding off the desk, she opened the door, lingering there as she reached for her coat. “Three bullets to the chest. Ellie, see Mr Spencer to his car. He’s gonna need help.”

* * * * *

The day before had been like any number of days since they had started in this business. The two women arrived roughly the same time in the mornings, with Archer generally getting in a scant few minutes before Jessica showed up. Ellie McGowan, their secretary, was already at her seat with the mail when she came in the door. “Morning. Anything worth reading?”

“The usual,” Ellie said. “Bills and checks. Hoynes called to reconfirm the two o’clock.”

Taking the mail into her office, Archer left the door open behind her. She spent the better part of an hour at her desk, going through the papers and checking messages. Engrossed in her work, Archer barely noticed Jessica’s arrival until she had come into the room to balance on a corner of the desk. They were silent for the several seconds it took for Archer to finish reading the paragraph, set the letter on her desk and push the chair out a little, turning it almost sideways as she lifted her head to look at her partner.

“Morning, sunshine,” Jessica said, taking the raised eyebrow as her cue to start talking. She grinned, teasing, crossing one leg over the other. “Got the files for the Taylor case?”

“Mm, on that corner.” Archer pointed, giving a brief nod. “I didn’t notice anything new, though.”

Jessica slipped off the desk to retrieve the folder. “That’s ‘cause there’s nothing new.” She hoisted herself back onto her corner. “I’m trying again tonight. I can’t shake her on this one. She’s convinced something’s still going on with him, so... one more surveillance run can’t hurt.”

“Has she considered that maybe she’s paranoid?”

“I’ve tried to point out this possibility, but it isn’t sticking.” Jessica shook her head, tapping a hand against the file on her lap. “Speaking of paranoid,” she said slowly, “Katie, I needed to ask your help on something. About a week ago, I overheard –”

A rapping at the door interrupted the pair, both turning to look at the doorway where Ellie stood. “Katzenwald on line two for you, Jess.”

“Thanks, Ellie, I’ve got it.” Jessica jumped from the desk, eyebrows raising jerkily at Archer. She gave a shake of her head. “Later.” With that, she was out the door and around the corner to her own office, where Archer could hear her pick up the phone and kick the door gently closed behind her.

The events that followed were in no way out of the ordinary when she looked back on them later. Between the bits and pieces, the paperwork and the messages and phone calls, she left the office for an hour on business out near Fisherman’s Wharf with a restaurant that had been having trouble with vandals in the last few weeks, returned for her two o’clock meeting with Hoynes who suspected the secretary of his board of fraud, took a late lunch alone at a quiet diner off Cherry Street and looked over the Steiger file again to see if she could finally spot the slip she was missing. She was just getting off the phone with Mrs Beeching when Jessica resurfaced.

“Nice to have good news for once, huh?” Jessica asked, smiling faintly as she leaned against the door.

Archer nodded. “It was about time we located him. You off?”

“Dinner break, then it’s time to see if Mr Taylor’s keeping something from the missus after all. I’m telling you, I don’t think there’s anything to it. He’s innocent as a kitten.”

“I got some pretty nasty scratches when I was twelve,” she said wryly. “They only look sweet. Dinner with Anthony?”

Jessica all but lit up at that. “I won’t be too long, but it’s been so busy this week, we’ve got to squeeze in what we can.”

Archer had seen her go through half a dozen boyfriends for that reason; the rest had lammed off when the pressures of dating a detective got to be too much. There was an incurable urge to go snooping into backgrounds best left untouched. Jessica resisted and resisted, but gave in, sooner or later, every time – and when she did, it was only a matter of days before another one was out the door. It was the reason, Archer told her frequently, she didn’t date. Everyone had a past. Not everyone could live with that.

“Well, have fun. Good luck with Taylor.”

“Thanks. Goodnight – and get home at a decent hour tonight, okay?”

Archer snorted, rolling her eyes a little, and nodded as Jessica slipped out through the office, saying goodnight to Ellie before she went out the door. The next half hour passed uneventfully. She was going over the invoice on the Rosenbaum case when she heard the door open again.

“Good evening, Ellie. Are they in?”

“Kate is, but you’ve missed Jess.”

Archer got to her feet, crossing her office in four steps to stand in her doorway, arms folded. “Did you need something, Carmen? She just stepped out.”

The girl who stood at the desk, slim body turned to Ellie, twisted her head to look at Archer with serious, wide brown eyes. “I was hoping she might know where I could find my brother. He’s not picking up his phone.”

“They went out.”

“Do you know where?” Carmen Spencer bit delicately at her lower lip, finally stepping to face Archer, clasping her handbag at her waist with a neatly arched wrist. “I wanted to talk to her, too. His birthday’s in a week – we were going to work on the party plans. You’ll be coming, won’t you, Kate?”

Archer gave her a long look, then shook her head with a small smile. “Can’t, Carmen. I’ve got too much on my plate to be gallivanting around –”

“It’s in the evening,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “Surely you can spare one night.”

“I’d ruin your party anyway.” Archer shrugged, relenting just a little. “We’ll see.”

Carmen nodded, lowering her head to examine the bag in her hand, fiddling idly with the clutch. “We’ll see,” she agreed. There was a curious smile on her lips now as she looked up again. “Will she be back in tonight?”

“No.” Archer took another step forward, inclining her head in a short, downward nod. Her fingers tapped against the bare skin of her upper arm. “She’s got a job after dinner and then, if she’s got any sense, she’ll go home and catch some sleep.”

“It’s hard to come by in your business, isn’t it?” The smile shifted, edging higher on one end of Carmen’s mouth. “The way Anthony talks, I don’t think Jessica ever gets any at all.”

That drew a laugh from Archer. “I don’t think she does,” she said, “but I hope for it all the same. We need it. Can’t afford not to be alert and on our toes.”

“No, I don’t suppose you can.” Carmen nodded, long fingers beating one last tattoo against the black bag. “Well, tell her I came by tomorrow, won’t you? In case I don’t get to her first.”

“Will do.” Archer watched as Carmen turned on her heels, cast a glance over her shoulder when she opened the door and disappeared into the hall.

The rest of the evening passed in numbing silence, Archer tapping her pen against the desk, unfocused, until she gave in at last. At eight thirty-three pm, she called it a night. Ellie had already been gone for an hour.

* * * * *

It wasn’t until the next day that things started to seem strange. Jessica rarely took a day off or came in later than a half hour. When she did disappear for the day, she called ahead or left a note – either way, she always contrived to let Archer know. Usually she gave more than a day’s notice, too. After the first hour rolled by, Archer started to wonder. After the second, she called Jessica’s apartment and got no answer.

By the fourth, she was worrying.

At two twenty-six, she heard Ellie answer the phone and greet Anthony. “No, she’s not here –”

“Put him through,” Archer called. She stayed at her desk until the light on the phone began to blink, lifting the receiver as her brow furrowed. “You haven’t seen her today?”

“Kate.” Anthony’s voice was a mixture of relief and bewilderment. “No, I haven’t – we were supposed to meet for lunch –” He cut himself off. In the silence that followed, she began to wonder if they had been somehow disconnected, but it lasted a shorter time than she thought. She could hear him take a deeper breath, then say, “You haven’t seen her at all?”

“She hasn’t come in today. When did you see her last?”

“Last night. I left her outside Café Arguello –”

“The Mission District.”

“Yeah. We got in our cars, I went home and I can only presume she went off to do the surveillance job.”

Archer winced at that, eyes closing as she pressed a hand to her forehead. She had no reason to distrust Anthony – he seemed like a sweet guy, he really did, and she had passed approval on him three months before when he and Jessica had first started dating – but that made her uneasy. Jessica had an unusual weakness for a private eye: she trusted people. It was endearing in its place, but this wasn’t that. There wasn’t a lot Anthony could do with that information, but there was no telling how much Jessica had told him, short of the name. She could understand the urge to share with someone, but it had only ever been just that – an urge, unfulfilled.

“She didn’t come in this morning,” Archer said again. “She’s running more than a little late, Anthony. Did she say anything out of the ordinary last night?”

Again came the silence. She didn’t like it. Instinct told her to distrust the silences and she couldn’t see his face.

“No, not that I noticed. Didn’t mention being away today anyway – I mean, we made the plans, I figured she’d keep them. She usually keeps them. Anyway, I just thought I’d check and see if she’d maybe got busy and forgot to call or something.”

“Nothing unusual?”

“No.”

“Was she behaving strangely?”

“No. Well, a little, yeah,” he said quickly, “but not really. She was just...”

“What?

“I don’t know. Quieter.”

She arched an eyebrow at that, leaning back in her chair. “Quiet’s not like her.”

“Not quiet, just quieter. Like she was distracted.”

“Any idea what by?”

“Nope.”

She shook her head, making a note as she spoke. “Well, thanks, that was spectacularly helpful. I’ll have her call you when she gets in. Give me a ring if you hear from her, okay?”

“Sure thing, Kate. It’s not that I mind so much, I just – you think something’s wrong?”

“Probably nothing.” Jessica never did this, though. It was Archer’s turn to fall quiet, worrying her lower lip as she considered what she knew. She could hear him starting to speak again, the soft intake of air as he began to talk, and she interrupted before he had so much as a syllable completed. “Anthony.”

“Yeah?”

“Think you can get down here for a bit?”

“I’ve gotta get back to the office, Kate. I can’t sit around all day, waiting on Jess –”

“Anthony. Come in for a bit.”

“Kate –”

“Anthony.”

He sighed. “Fine. But I have a five o’clock I can’t miss or my boss’ll have my hide.”

“You can buy your boss from here to Beijing, Anthony. You can come and see me.”

“If McGarry caught you saying that –”

“If McGarry were here, I’d say it to his face ten times and he wouldn’t have the guts to touch me on it or the brains to know how. Twenty minutes, Anthony. I’ll see you then.”

There were days when she wished to God Jessica had the good sense not to date someone in the D.A.’s office. Listening to the dial tone on the other end, this was one of them.

* * * * *

“What was distracting her, Anthony?” Archer looked up only to catch his face as he came in the door.

He grimaced at that, closing the door behind himself. She could see the family resemblance between him and Carmen – the same long nose and full lips, dark hair and arched brow, high cheekbones and delicate lines. He smiled more readily than his younger sister, she knew, but that was all memory. He certainly wasn’t smiling now.

“I don’t know. Why are you acting like she’s disappeared?”

“Start at the beginning.”

“Kate, should I know some–”

“Start at –”

“What am I, a suspect? Should I call my lawyer? Where is she, Kate?”

“You don’t need a lawyer,” Archer replied wryly. “You are one. Sit, Anthony.”

“Funny.” He sat anyway, pulling up a chair directly in front of her and crossing his legs. “I haven’t heard that one before. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes were on her desk, scanning her papers for... She didn’t know what for. Anything. “It’s not like her.”

His expression softened, eyes narrowing in sympathy. “You’re worried.”

“She doesn’t do these things.”

“You think something serious happened?”

“It was just surveillance.” She inhaled deeply, eyes flickering upward, focusing on him. “The job last night. Standard. She knows what she’s doing. I just don’t know.”

“She’s smart, Kate,” he said, shaking his head at her. “You should put more trust in her. She’s good at this.”

“I know that,” she snapped. Her hand tightened on the edge of the desk and she let out another sigh. “I know,” she said again. “But I also know that in the seven years I’ve known Jessica Callahan, she’s never pulled something like this. Not once.” It was all instinct, something tight in her chest telling her that the world was somehow off. She could pin that on nerves or imagination, but it didn’t change the sense that something was wrong. She just needed to figure out what.

And then the phone rang.

At the familiar voice on the other end, Archer leaned back in her chair, eyes turning to the ceiling. “I’ll get him back to you soon, I’ve just got –” Her breath caught in her throat as Anthony got instinctively to his feet. Slowly she sat up, leaning her elbows against the desk. “You’re certain?” The words hit hard and it showed, her guard let down in the shock of the moment. “Yeah, of course. I’ll be down in ten. Thank you.”

“Is it -?” Slowly Anthony sat back down, unsteady and pale.

“Yeah, it is,” she said. “That was the D.A.’s office.” Archer looked down at her lap where her hands lay useless. She could feel his eyes on her, the weight of his gaze bearing into her with a force she couldn’t stand for long. Still she lifted her head to look directly at him. “They found her in the bay.”

“She’s...”

“Yeah.” She slipped from the desk without looking at him. Opening the door as she tugged her coat from its hook at the back, she bowed her head. “Three bullets to the chest. Ellie, see Mr Spencer to his car. He’s gonna need help.”

To be continued.

sistertotherain @ 2007-06-21T15:32:00

2007-06-21T14:32:45Z

Fast As You Can
Prompt: First Kiss

"I do know you, don't I?"

Even with the glass between them, Sylar moves like he could hurt her if he wanted to, like a pacing tiger, too aware of his cage. There's an intensity in his eyes that would be frightening, if Eden were letting herself think enough to be scared. Right now, she can't afford fear.

"I live next door to Chandra Suresh," she says, and her voice is hard, stiff. He knows her. She's not surprised he doesn't remember her more clearly, but she hasn't forgotten him. Gabriel Gray, the watchmaker's son, Chandra's pet project. He was the subject of more discussions than he knows, Suresh's worries cropping up over badly made pasta; it hadn't been the information she'd been looking for, nothing she could act on. Couldn't have anyway. Those were orders - she couldn't interfere. Keep things simple, Bennet had insisted. She wasn't supposed to care.

He picked the wrong girl for that job.

And this whole time, you were the girl next door.

The gun is heavy in her hands as she steps closer to the window, but it fits her hand better than she expects. Every single time she picks one up, she expects it to be awkward and it never is; it's a perfect fit and there's nothing she wants more than to be rid of it, unless it's to see him dead. Things that go together.

When she flies forward, she should be more surprised than she is, but even she was half-expecting it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows she called Mohinder to finally say goodbye.

It's by sheer luck that she gets her free hand up fast enough that he's catching her wrist instead of her throat, and she takes the moment's delay.

You KNEW.

Too late, maybe, and not really, not fully - she hadn't figured it out until it was much too late and the death toll was rising and all she could do was what she was doing now - but she knows he's right.

That's why she has to do this.

"You don't want to hurt me," she commands. She's not expecting the gentleness in her own voice through the twist of pain that burns in her wrist, and it almost startles her when the pain fades, his hand dropping limply to his side. "Stop." When she puts all her force into a thing, all the power of her wishes, she knows even his force of will isn't enough to break her. For a long time, they stand there, locked like that, her eyes focused on his. God, how they burn. Eden's not sure anyone's ever had eyes like that, filled with such malice and darkness and maybe a little bit of confusion. He's helpless and he hates it, but she almost feels bad. Almost. Because she knew, and maybe he's right, maybe she did help him. Maybe this is - just a little bit - her own fault.

More people dead because of her. Eden's tired of blood on her hands.

Pushing up on her toes when she's already in heels, she catches the back of his neck with the side of her hand - the one clutching the gun, and she thinks there's something weirdly poetic about that as she pulls him down toward her. He goes with it, but she's pretty sure he doesn't know what to expect. She's not even sure herself and the last thing she expects is to hear herself, voice thick with honest emotion, saying, "I'm sorry."

The kiss is delicate at first, soft, a different way to make an apology by moving her lips. It doesn't stay that way long; Eden can't help thinking maybe she put more in that command than she meant to, but that thought doesn't last long either. There's no love in this, no liking, but the delicacy is gone, his mouth fierce against hers and his hand unexpectedly at her waist. She doesn't know who's behind the sudden move that has her back against the wall, but she's not in control any longer, unable to use her words against him now. He's blocking her voice more effectively than anyone else has in months, and she can't tell if that sudden sting is the realization she's backed herself into this corner or just glass pressing against her skin.

"Are you sure about that?" he says - mumbles - darkly, right at the corner of her lips, and Eden takes the opportunity to open her eyes, to look up, to catch his expression, because even with her wonderful ability, she really, really isn't sure of anything. Opening her mouth to reinforce her earlier words, she means to say Stop. Instead, she just says, "Again."

nothing fragile
Prompt: First Kiss

I'll give the dish this much, she's got more smarts than most people've got on 'em, dolls or otherwise. When she yaps, it ain't just bumping gums - a lot of show for a little sense, sure, but that sense goes a damn long way. That don't stop her from getting in a jam as often as the rest of the pack put together, but she makes trouble's head spin so fast, it's almost worth the show just to see the fall.

She comes into San Clemente like she already owns the joint. Guess she does, by the time she's through. Legs first into my English class and Kaspryzk doesn't say a word, like she's supposed to be there, but anyone with two good eyes can see the dame's either in dutch or got trouble on her heels. It's the blonde locks and the big blue eyes - the oldest trick in the book for turning a bruno into a sap - but there's something to her that says she can put the screws to you like no one's business. I, for one, don't want to try her; she's none of my business unless she gets in my business and when the bell rings, I take a powder, but she don't wanna dust.

Laura left us all a little present, turns out. She played dizzy for me and, I don't know, maybe she was, but she's long gone now - halfway to New Orleans and that aunt of hers, I figure, but the bulls haven't turned nothing up on that angle and I ain't exactly surprised she managed to gum the works but good. Either way, she must've trailed up through Neptune when she hightailed it outta San Clemente that day. That the brick in her locker wasn't all she had on her ain't the rumble of the century either. Wherever she scraped it, it made its way to Neptune and Mars here is looking for the wire on a dame long gone.

I ain't about to gab about the hows and whys of my connections, but I got words she needs to hear and maybe my own reasons for finding that two-timing piece of skirt. Her skipping out of town put me behind the eight ball when it comes to serving up revenge. So when Mars says she wants my help, with a coy little tilt of that head of hers, I give. It doesn't hurt she ain't playing it delicate like a certain old friend of mine; there's nothing fragile about this one. The old pump's twisted up, maybe, and I'm not the Brain, but I still got eyes behind these specs. I play it cool, though, so eyes or not, I'm not expecting it when she leans across the seat and pins one on me in the middle of a stake-out.

She's not Laura. And even when I see her outta the corner of my eyes, blonde hair catching in the streetlight, she ain't Em.

With her hands on my neck, though, that's silk by me. Teacher's never put 'plays well with others' on my card, but after this, I might could stand to learn how.

always seen you
Prompt: Backstory

Maybe she's always seen him. It's not like a girl has to keep her specs on to spot Brendan Frye. Even at fifteen, gawkier and more scrawny still than he'll be the last time she sees him, something about Brendan shines a spotlight on him.

Or maybe that's just her. Maybe she sees what no one else does. Laura wouldn't mind that idea, wouldn't mind being the only one to pick him out of a crowd. She ain't exactly your run of the mill chippy either, and she prides herself on that. He's not as ordinary as he looks, already unruly and tousled and smart-mouthed. His comments in class make the other students snort with laughter, but she just slides back in her chair, lips curling up in a wry little smile, well-practiced, already the cat who got that little birdie who sang too much and had it defeathered, even before she's done a damn thing to make her so smug. She's already started down her path and, even at this age, it's not quite paved with good intentions. On Monday, cheerleading practice starts. She doesn't give a damn one way or another 'bout school spirit, but that's a crowd a girl could learn to run with, or maybe just learn to run.

She never so much as says a word to him. By Monday, he doesn't even matter, just a possibility to keep in the back of her mind, a toss of the dice when she's always so sure she's gonna win. Don't need luck on your side when you've got something worthwhile in the brainpan and gams like hers, and she don't have time to gun for a guy like that in between practice and perfect, cheerleading and homework and her bit on the side.

She'll forget him later. Let it slip her mind. Not like he's important. He's different, got smarts, maybe got something more to him than most, but that don't mean she's goin' to bother watching forever. Not like she knows what she's even watching for. But some people, you just gotta keep your peepers peeled for; they make a body curious, shooting off their mouths with a wit like that. It's eggs in the coffee to get into a jam in this school. Laura can make sure of that. Just now, though, he ain't worth the time of day, let alone the trouble.

what a wicked game to play
Prompt: Backstory

When Laura was younger, still learning, she'd been caught once - not with her hand in the jar, she'd made it further than that, but out on the back porch little left but crumbs. Her mother's scolding had left her in careful tears, insisting, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Not above nine and already the kid had learned her lines.

Her mother had been just a little skeptical. "Are you really sorry or are you just sorry you got caught?"

It was duck soup, turning punishment into reward with tears and apologies enough, and she had learned her lesson. Least, she thought she had. Play the game right, don't get caught - easy as pie.

She can't figure why she's thinking that now, long legs tangled in the sheets and she can't get up the energy or the motivation to unwind them, a corner of the sheet white against her skin where she clasps it to her chest, barely covering much of anything. She's got her back to him where she lies, cheek flush against the too warm pillow, if he'd look. He's not going to look. Her arms are tucked up beneath her and maybe she's feelin' a little like a kid again, a little uncertain, even desperate though she doesn't like the word. Real emotions flicker through her, uncontrollable, like she's weighted to that bed in the house that isn't hers, where she doesn't quite belong. She can't shake the sense that somehow she's the one that just got played.

He's not a sap. She ought to've known better. She ought to've and she knows it, but it's too late now to plan more carefully; she's just gotta cut her losses and run with what she's got.

There's no way to mistake her for Emily. Shorter hair, more of a tan than Em ever pulled off, slimmer, smaller breasts, softer voice. But he was thinking of Em the whole time. She can see it in the line of his back when she peeks back over her shoulder.

Em who trusted her, whose trust was her undoing. Em whose body he knew well enough not to mistake one for the other, but he thought of her anyway. Em, who curved where Laura slants. Big blue eyes and long blonde hair, she'd screamed innocence in the simple line of her lips, so strung out she barely knew her own name. One more hopped up angel. Laura'd never figured anyone would miss her. The world was full of girls like Em, disappearing one by one.

He'd been thinking of Em and he was thinking of her now, back to her back, sliding into his clothes like maybe he was trying to forget a nightmare, rushed and mechanical. "I love you," she'd told him, still curled against him, still part of him, two halves of a dented coin; she'd said it quietly, like she said most things, lips just brushing his ear, but he'd heard her. She knew he'd heard her 'cause he was pretending he hadn't.

She sits up at last, slips back into her jeans and sits there, and, maybe the first time in this whole angle, she hesitates. She could put on a parka and it wouldn't change the fact she's a sitting duck, giving him a moment of vulnerability like she might as well have giftwrapped the goddamn thing. A moment and it matters. An hour and it might as well be her life. Three words, and she doesn't know when she lost herself, but she's gotta figure out where she stashed who she used to be and fast 'cause now he's dangerous.

She'll regain her balance in twenty minutes, thirty, an hour, but right now she's spinning dizzy as that fan overhead. Tugging her shirt on at last, she spares him one more glance before she lies down to wait and see. That's all she can do now. He's smart and maybe it's only a matter of time 'fore he knows what she's done and the bulls nail her, or maybe she can still twist this to her advantage, play him the way he said he couldn't be played. Maybe he still can't keep up with her. Whatever the odds, she's gotta give it a shot 'cause she don't have many other options but to run.

The cigarette's almost an affectation. This is what you're supposed to do, it's what the movies taught her, lying next to where he's flopped, blowing the smoke out gently. "Don't go tonight." For all her deliberation, it's three more words she doesn't expect to say.

She's not sorry for what she did. She's just sorry she got caught.

sistertotherain @ 2006-10-31T14:48:00

2006-10-31T14:48:48Z

Life Upon the Wicked Stage
A Lavender Jones Mystery
NaNoWriMo 2006

It is Mystery -- the mystery any one man or woman can feel but not understand as the meaning of any event -- or accident -- in any life on earth ... [that] I want to realize in the theatre. The solution, if there ever be any, will probably have to be produced in a test tube and turn out to be discouragingly undramatic.
- EUGENE O'NEILL

Whose word, or whose reasoning can convince us against our own senses?
- JAMES HOGG

sistertotherain @ 2006-09-19T10:45:00

2006-09-19T17:53:32Z

A month and a half until NaNoWriMo? Pfft. It's never too early to start getting ready.

Comment here if you want to read Lavender's continuing adventures come November, and if you want to get stuck with the barrage of preparation in the time in-between.

P.S. If you still want to read the final chapter, despite the edits I've made to previous chapters, or if you're willing to be a helpful dear and do some commentary/editing on those previous chapters, leave a comment for that, too.

Setting the tone.

2005-10-11T20:11:49Z

Rainy Night
Dorothy Parker

Ghosts of all my lovely sins,
     Who attend too well my pillow,
Gay the wanton rain begins;
     Hide the limp and tearful willow.

Turn aside your eyes and ears,
     Trail away your robes of sorrow,
You shall have my further years-
     You shall walk with me tomorrow.

I am sister to the rain;
     Fey and sudden and unholy,
Petulant at the windowpane,
     Quickly lost, remembered slowly.

I have lived with shades, a shade;
     I am hung with graveyard flowers.
Let me be tonight arrayed
     In the silver of the showers.

Every fragile thing shall rust;
     When another April passes
I may be a furry dust,
     Sifting through the brittle grasses.

All sweet sins shall be forgot;
     Who will live to tell their siring?
Hear me now, nor let me rot
     Wistful still, and still aspiring.

Ghosts of dear temptations, heed;
     I am frail, be you forgiving.
See you not that I have need
     To be living with the living?

Sail, tonight, the Styx’s breast;
     Glide among the dim processions
Of the exquisite unblest,
     Spirits of my shared transgressions,

Roam with young Persephone.
     Plucking poppies for your slumber . . .
With the morrow, there shall be
     One more wraith among your number.

The rules are the same this year as before: all NaNo-entries will be friends-locked. Leave a comment here if you want to read it, and I'll friend you. Otherwise, you won't be able to see it.

Love and war in Heaven and in Hell.

2005-10-02T04:53:06Z

Or, Depressing Rain Angst.

Who: Anthony Blunt (misspeacock) and Julian Bell (shelightsupwell).

When: After the party, before Spain.

What: See subtitle. Cambridge Spies.

"Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain's tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog."
- Federico Lorca

It was raining steadily by the time Anthony stepped out onto the porch, and the couples who had been tipsily lingering there for most of the night had either fled inside or gone home. He had informed the bemused Donald (Kim by then had disappeared off with some girl or other) that he was going out for some air, and now he stood just inside the door's overhang, staring out at the rain.

And at Julian. Seemingly oblivious to the rain the poet stood at the bottom of the entranceway steps. A familiar, faraway look was in his eyes as he stared down the street, and for a long moment Blunt was content to watch him in silence. Finally, though, he spoke. "You didn't used to smoke," he observed, having noted - maddeningly observant as ever - the cigarette he had earlier seen in the other man's hand.

Julian glanced back at him suddenly, startled out of his reverie. Looking up into the rain, he noted the wet weight of his clothes as if for the first time. "What? Oh," softly. "Well," he tried, "you were a bad influence." He didn't want to have this conversation. He didn't know what it was going to be, but he was certain he didn't want to have it. Acknowledging their past stung a little, and his heart was already full to the point of bursting at the myriad emotions crowding him, the hundred hundred thoughts beating against his brain. And yet he couldn't leave without speaking to Anthony. He knew that. Slowly he turned all the way around to face the other man.

Anthony's expression flickered just barely with something akin to amusement. "That particular corruption is my doing as well, then?" And most likely fully aware of the irony he lights a cigarette of his own because no, this isn't exactly a conversastion he expects to enjoy, either, even if he would never admit it.

"Well, you're responsible for all kinds of corruption, aren't you?" Julian shot back dryly. The old fondness flickered in his eyes, and he hated himself for it. The Anthony before him wasn't the Anthony he had known before, not by a long shot, and there was no use getting worked up over this business. Not now, when he might as well have been halfway to Spain. He shrugged, his shoulders dropping in resignation. "I picked it up somewhere, and you're as likely a source as any other."

"Fair enough." Anthony took a long drag from his cigarette, thankful for the silence it allowed him. "I hear you're off to Spain, then."

Julian's gaze dropped to his feet. "I suppose it would have been hard not to hear."

Anthony shrugs. "There's a fair chance that nearly half the people in there know you. Word gets around."

"Am I that popular?" he joked, still not meeting Anthony's eyes. "Dear me."

"Perhaps you are." There was another flicker of amusement, quickly banished. "Do your parents know you're leaving?"

Julian bit his lip. "I'm not a schoolbuy running away from home, Anthony. They know."

A conceding nod. "Of course, Forgive me."

"They insist I drive ambulances - safer - but it's something." He couldn't heard the need in his own voice, though he felt it. He was desperate to get out and do something.

Anthony bit back an approving response - surprisingly more difficult than he thought it would be. "Of course," was his bland response after a moment.

"Virtually useless," Julian disagreed. He shook his head violently, hands tucked firmly into his pockets. "I would have thought you'd be on your way, too, once upon a time."

Anthony was silent for some time. "One sometimes grows out of one's idealistic fancies."

"Fancies," Julian scoffed. "You grew out of a lot of things."

"Maybe I did," Anthony agreed quietly. "There are things that are difficult to explain. The world is not always as straightfoward as one might wish it to be." Well, that much was true at least.

Julian couldn't help but roll his eyes, knowing it looked as childish as he felt. "No one expects it to be straightforward. We're working to improve things - not to make it any less complex. You knew these things." He shouldn't be doing this, he knew; there was no point arguing with Anthony anymore.

"Nevertheless..." But then he stops and shakes his head slightly. "I did not come out here to argue, Julian." It is surprisingly gentle.

"What did you come out here for, then?" he asked sharply, turning his head to look quickly away. He didn't want to hear that softness in Anthony's voice again. Things had changed; to be reminded of what was past and lost was harder than he could bear now.

"To talk," Anthony replied simply. He stepped off the landing and into the now-misting rain.

Julian folded his arms and pulled them close. Now he was aware of the rain, he felt the chill acutely. At least it was letting up. "Talk?" he echoed dully. "About?"

"God knows," Anthony replied, almost rueful. "But," a pause, "I thought I owed you that much."

Julian's expression softened and he swallowed hard. "You don't owe me anything, Anthony." He frowned, bit his lip, sighed. "But thank you."

Anthony stood beside him now, though he still did not look directly at Julian, opting to stare down the street instead. "You will be careful, won't you?" His tone was mild, but the look in his eyes was deadly serious.

The desire to reach out and touch Anthony, to create some kind of comforting physical contact, was overwhelming, and Julian joined him in looking away the street, avoiding the other man's eyes. It was safer that way. "I'll be as careful as I can," he allowed at last. "How much danger can an ambulance driver get into anyway?" He hoped his voice was light. He needed it to be light. He wanted to ask why Anthony even cared, the distance between them had grown so wide, but he knew it would be petty and cruel.

"With German," and yes, he said German, and no, he shouldn't have - the nonexistence of the foreign power's presence in Spain was one of the many things those he was trying to mimic insisted upon, "planes and new weapons at everyone's disposal? You know better than to be flippant, Julian."

"Are the Germans involved then?" he asked sarcastically. "I'm not trying to be fli- Yes, I'm being flippant about it," he admitted, frustrated and a little tired and a lot cold. "But I don't mean it. You know I don't mean it. I'll be fine, Anthony, and I'll come back and let you keep pretending I don't exist, if that's what you're asking me to say."

That hit Anothony hard, harder than he would have expected and all the more so because he knew he deserved it. For a fleeting moment the greater good involved seemed foolish, but he closed his eyes briefly and took a drag from his cigarette and it was only that - a fleeting moment. Still, his next words were clipped. "Will Miss Jimenez be returning with you?"

"Miss Jimenez will do as she likes; I'd think you could show her a little more sympathy, a little more compassion. But nothing breaks that cool of yours." He shivered despite himself, and hated the display of weakness. In front of anyone else, he couldn't have cared less, but these days Anthony's icy demeanor pressed him to the same - a display of weakness in itself, he knew. "And I don't see how it concerns you, one way or another."

"It only seemed to concern you quite a bit," Anthony countered. It was a childish and uncharacteristic - perhaps not even genuine - show of jealousy. "I hardly see how I might have shown much at all to her, compassion or otherwise, seeing as we've barely spoken."

"What concerns me hardly seems to be of any matter to you at all these days," Julian returned bitterly. "Whether you've spoken to her or not, the display in the café was enough - as display as you can make a thing - You've changed, Anthony, changed horribly. I - I don't know why I even let you upset me now. You aren't the man I -" He cut off. "I should go," he said instead, abruptly. There was no point in this anymore. Maybe there never had been. "It's late. I'm wet. Cold."

"Julian-" Anthony stopped and shook his head. "I'm sorry, I should not have said that." His expression was carefully controlled, perhaps too carefully controlled. "Go in, then. You'll catch your death."

He shook his head. "No, I ought to be getting back, not sticking around. It's all right, Anthony. I -" Julian hesitated, and hated the sadness that plagued him senselessly. "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry, that things are the way they are." He removed his hand from the warmth of his pocket, offered it for one last handshake. "Maybe when I get back, they'll be different again."

Anthony finally met Julian's gaze, and there was sadness there at the edges that he could not entirely hide - not here, not with Julian. He clasped the other man's hand. "I truly hope so."

A hundred questions came to mind, but Julian couldn't allow himself to ask them. He gripped Anthony's hand tightly, not wanting to let go, hoping despite himself. Wavering briefly, he kissed Anthony's cheek quickly. "Goodbye, Anthony." He slipped his hand away and started down the road.

"Julian," Anthony called after him quickly, before he could get very far, before Anthony could even decide why he was calling him back.

He slowed to a stop, strangely relieved, and turned around. "Yes?"

Anthony came terribly close - closer than he had yet - to telling Julian everything then, but he restrained himself. "I meant to tell you - congratulations on the volume of poetry. I was impressed." And he smiled.

Julian returned the smile, though it wavered slightly. "Thank you." He licked his lips and shrugged, seeming to be on the verge of saying something, although he knew not what. "Take care, Anthony," he murmured at last.

"And you," he replied softly. "I mean it, be careful." There was another flicker of a smile and then Anthony turned away slightly, unable to watch as Julian left.

He took in one deep, shuddering breath. "I will," softly. And then he was off and gone.

"Yes, he's insane - but look what he can do." [The Last Five Years]

2005-08-03T02:53:06Z

Light Out of Darkness

He's charming — what? Charming, really — Well, don't be silly, I don't mean he's all show, he's not a show; that's the thing. He's real — he's just really real — and that's the charm of it, you know? That he's himself, and so — so certain, so sure in himself, like I — like I'm not. Not always, I mean, just that sometimes I — right, well, he's really sweet, too, and he makes me laugh. Maybe that's the best part — I don't know when I've really laughed like that, you know? not and meant it. It's been a while since I really meant it.

I Promise I Won't Lie to You

Maybe the only way to make things right is to hurt her; maybe the only way to fix what's broken is to break it more. Maybe the only thing you can do is write your goodbyes, pack your bags, walk out the door, and not apologize. It's your fault and her fault and no one's fault, but it happened. It's done. And whatever you leave behind, it wasn't what it was, and it can't be that again. So you go. Maybe you're running; maybe you're a coward. But it hurts like hell, and there's nothing to be done.

Not anymore.

Cracks/I Have to Write

"Where were you?"

"The party, Cathy," he says, and the following silence adds, The one you didn't want to attend.

That could describe any number of them — all of them — now. She's tired of people who take up all of Jamie's time, and beautiful women approaching him with their manuscripts, and standing in the corner with only a drink and a forced smile for company. She's tired of being introduced as Cathy Wellerstein — no, no — yes, right, the author's wife. She is — and she feels ridiculous for wanting it, but — she is waiting for Jamie's words to come out of someone — anyone — else's mouth: Cathy Hiatt, big time star.

"The party," she echoes. "A party, past 3 a.m."

"Well," Jamie says, "I should think that'd be obvious, Cath."

It is late, it is very late, and Cathy is tired — tired and, now that she's no longer worried, angry.

"Well, then," she says, and her mouth is that little line they both hate, "I don't see why it didn't just last all night."

"Maybe it will." He is maddeningly patient in that way that's less patient, more maddening, and all Jamie. "But I'm here, Cathy, not there."

"At 3 — 3:28 a.m."

"Better late than never," he suggests. It's supposed to be funny; he means it to be funny.

It really isn't funny.

She tells him as much, and she can hear her voice jumping whole octaves. Cathy Wellerstein, you are being a nag, she tells herself. Jamie is drawing painfully, visibly inward, and Cathy swallows hard to see him go. But what she intended as self-reprimand, her brain instead seems to interpret as command, as stage direction. "I was worried —"

"Cathy! Cathy, please." He draws it out, and it grates at her — the way, in his mouth, her name becomes that, that tone, bored and annoyed and resigned all at once. "There's nothing to worry about. You know these things can go late —"

"— anything could have happened to you, something might have happened —"

"It didn't, Cath, now did it? Don't you think you're overreacting —"

"No, I'm not —"

He pauses, and then he asks, as though it were nothing, "What were you really worried about, Cathy?"

"You," she insists. In the end, really, it's the truth.

"Me," he repeats. His eyes glitter with frustrated comprehension, strange in the light of the single lamp Cathy's turned on, next to the armchair where she was lying when he came in the door.

"Yes."

"Right." A deep inward breath, and he shakes his head at her, making her feel like a disappointing puppy. No. Bad. Sit. Stay. Please stay. His eyes running over her, he sighs, "Look, we'll talk about it in the morning. You need to go to sleep."

She watches him turn and head out of the room. "Where are you going?" she asks.

"To work."

"It's after 3:30."

"So you've told me already."

"You need sleep more than I do. You can't work now."

"I need that more than I need sleep," he says slowly, and she knows he's said something painfully true without her understanding what it is he's said. The little moments, when she used to feel they'd connected, that they understood each other, are fading into moments when the truth is right in front of her, and she knows it, but she's at the wrong angle to see it, and she can't find the right one however she tries.

But while she looks, he's gone into the room where he writes.

"Goodnight, Jamie."

She prays she's not the story.

She's terrified she isn't.

Refrain. [Jehan]

2004-09-10T03:49:24Z

They watched the women as they passed: one in quiet, blushing awe of the beauty before him, the other with a hint of a smirk, a moment's raise of an eyebrow, appraising and forgetting in a single instant. Despite their disparate methods, they both watched, charmed by the other, gentler, softer sex.

It was difficult, if not to impossible, to move Jehan beyond that, following only with the eyes and not with words and smiles and, sometimes, more, as Courfeyrac preferred. He defered with quickly flushing cheeks and downcast eyes.

"What can you do with just looking?" Alexandre teased one evening. "Come now, get up your courage; you can fight for the republic, but you can't flirt?"

Again, the lowered eyes served for a reply. "No," came the soft voice. "I don't believe I can."

"Why not try?"

"It's not the same." Alexandre heard a note of frustration in the younger man's voice. "It doesn't work right."

Courfeyrac, who had been on his way out of the café, instead seated himself opposite Prouvaire, his expression bemused. "What do you mean?" Jehan shrugged. "No, come, you started, now you have to finish."

Jehan hesitated. "It all works on paper. Everything sounds right, everything comes out right." He sighed. "The one you want responds the way you want them to, and you sound the way you hope you will."

Courfeyrac nearly laughed; but then he caught the look in his friend's face, in those deep sea-green eyes. Jehan had seen the stifled laughter, and been hurt by it, even in its silence. "Of course it does," Alexandre said finally. "You orchestrate that. These girls aren't going to do what you want, they aren't mere dolls."

"But —" He bit his lip. "Isn't it horrible? To be turned down, I mean."

Alexandre shrugged. "You won't always be. It's fun to try, anyway. Besides, you need practice at these things." He paused, trying to cajole the poet on his own terms. "How can you write about love if you don't experience it?"

"I do," Jehan protested, "just . . . from afar."

"You're too shy. That's not any fun."

"It isn't fun," he agreed. "It's —" He couldn't find the words; not, at least, aloud, and not here, in so public a place.

Courfeyrac shrugged. "Eh, well. Amuse yourself your own way. And I am off to try my way." He winked at Jehan, rising from his seat and taking his exit directly behind a passing grisette.

"It's not amusing either," sighed Prouvaire. He glanced in the direction his eyes had avoided these last ten minutes, towards piercing blue eyes, fair hair, fair limb; frowning pensively, he got to his feet and left for his empty apartment.

"But get me to the church on time" - Ron and Lina

2004-09-06T04:03:12Z

Ron Corwell belongs to Becca; Lina, alas, is mine.

For all his smirking charm, Ron Corwell had never been very good at blatantly hiding his emotions — at least not when he was under the stress that he had been over the last couple days. Nevertheless, he had managed (he hoped) to make his suggestion earlier that week that he and Lina go to dinner as casual as possible. He had even gotten through the dinner at the fashionable restaurant without faltering dangerously (or at least without running out the door), but as dessert was served, alarm bells began to go off in his head. Not much time left now...

As for his girlfriend, Lina Capernaum . . . Well. Though the suggestion — however casual — had aroused suspicion at first, the evening had been pleasant enough that the warning bells in her head had quieted themselves. And if Ron had been easily startled once or twice . . . Surely there was good reason. Things were so good between them — settled, even, she realized with surprise — that she didn't want to needlessly assume the worst. Her best friend Val had scolded her for that time enough.

Taking a bite of the cheesecake she'd chosen, however, she realized Ron was unusually silent. She tilted her head to the side, peering at him curiously. "Hey, you in there?" She grinned.

Ron realized that he had gotten lost in thought staring at his own plate, and looked up sharply in what was, in all honesty, a sitcom-worthy manner. "Yeah... Well, possibly." He managed to recover with a grin.

Lina tried (for the most part unsuccessfully) to choke back a laugh at his expression. "Right, I'd forgotten you're never altogether there."

"Keeps everyone else on their toes," he smirked.

"Just because you're not there we're expected to be?" She raised an eyebrow. "Tsk, tsk."

"Oh, c'mon, Lina, you should know that by now."

"That the whole world exists to bow to your every will? Yes, Ron, I knew that." She stuck her tongue out at him with a grin.

"Bingo." How Ron's arrogance had toned down enough to become a running joke instead of a constant annoyance was a mystery, but it had been part of the surprising sort of peace and depth that had come to their relationship - that had brought it to this dinner. His thoughts thus directed, he cleared his thoat. "Though, speaking of . . . well, sort of . . . there is something I've been meaning to ask you . . ."

A number of possible jokes about this segue leapt to Lina's mind. But one of the many changes which her relationship with Ron had brought about in her was a newfound ease in holding her tongue. Which wasn't to say that her temper was any better than it had ever been — but she had gotten better at keeping back until she'd at least given things a bit of thought. Granted, by that point the moment had usually passed; but she'd learned to appreciate the fact that this was usually preferable. Instead of a witty retort, she reached for something less sharp to see and came up with the oh-so-clever "Oh? What is it?"

It was at that point that Ron, for the first time (adventures in ring buying aside), truly considered dropping the whole matter - fleeing the restaurant, or at least responding with an easy, "Never mind," paying the bill, and going home. But then he caught her gaze and couldn't help but grin - he took a deep breath and continued. "Well... I've been thinking some about... this," he waved his hand vaguely, but then quickly corrected, "us, I mean..." He cleared his throat nervously again.

There was a flicker of amusement and confusion in her blue-green eyes. His obvious anxiety sent a shiver down her back. Biting her lip, Lina attributed it to the temperature of the well air-conditioned restaurant. The old grin had been replaced by a less caustic smile. "And . . .?"

"And I was going to think of a better way to do this, but then I thought you might think that I really had gone insane, so..." He began looking around his chair as he spoke, and said, "Shit," very quietly as he trailed off, a panicked expression briefly crossing his face. It turned back to relief as he glanced back at his jacket behind him on his chair and pulled something out of its pocket.

"I knew long ago that you'd lost it," she teased quietly, partially for something to say, partially because it would have been truly awkward if she had let that opportunity go. Even so, she couldn't keep the bemused expression out of her eyes. What on earth . . . ?

"Besides the point." Ron grinned again, though it was a bit lopsided. He set the unmistakeable box on the table between them. Dear god, dear god, dear god... "I know I've always... I mean I don't tell you often enough how I feel about you, and I thought it was about time I just showed you." He opened the lid of the box, displaying the ring inside. You have gone insane, Corwell, no goddamn doubt about it.../ "Will you marry me?"

He probably didn't realize, Lina reflected, how cute it was when he grinned like that, like some unsure puppy. Which, she knew, was probably for the better . . . Her distracted thoughts were abruptly shattered by the appearance of the ring. (She knew nothing about jewelry. Despite this, she clearly approved of his method of choosing rings.) Her mouth opened and stayed that way for several seconds before closing, fish-like, in a manner which she knew would have prompted thorough mockery at any other time. "Oh, my g— oh. You're serious?" It wasn't as if she hadn't thought about marriage, once or twice, she had to admit to herself. But she'd never fully thought it would happen . . .

Dear god, he'd done it. Ron swallowed hard and forced himself to sit back in his chair.

It occured to Lina that the silence could only mean that, yes, Ron was utterly in earnest. She wasn't quite past the surprise yet, but that was largely because of the shock of learning that she really didn't have any reservation, any desire to ask if she could just 'think it over for a few days.' She shook her head in mild astonishment. "Yes." Shrinking back a little, she grinned.

Ron let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "Oh, good..." He shook his head, unable to stop himself from grinning. "I mean..."

She laughed. "I know." Standing, she walked around the table to kiss him. Then, wrinkling up her nose in amusement, she added, "I can't believe you bought jewelry."

Ron snorted. "Just don't expect me to ever do it again, 'kay?"

"I never expected you do it at all." She grinned. "But is the product of your first, last, and only jewelry-buying experience just going to sit in the box for us to admire or do I get to wear it?"

"You have no faith in me. None," Ron scoffed. He peered at the ring, mock-considering. "Weeelll, it doesn't look bad in there, and they say if it ain't broke..."

"Liar," she retorted gaily as she returned to her seat. "If I had no faith in you, I wouldn't be marrying you." The faintest hint of a blush reddened cheeks unaccustomed to blushing. "So I must have at least a little. A very little," she moderated teasingly.

"All right, a little." Still grinning like a madman, he finally took the ring out of the box and slipped it on her finger.

"And miles to go"

2004-08-10T06:59:22Z

Crocodile tears and ragdoll smiles —
they last for years, they stretch for miles,
glittering with all their wiles,
to mean, at last, nothing at all.
What would it mean to disappear,
to know nothing of pain and nothing of fear?
To languish spread across the year,
meaningless as a mask at a ball . . .

O! to be the face which under lies,
to see the world through one's own eyes
not through a button soul which dies
the moment it is born —
to live a life worth living for,
to spread your hands out, seeking more,
ever hunting truth and lore,
equally gay and forlorn.

Crocodile tears and ragdoll smiles
wither and fade to nothing at all:
hollow and hopeless and empty they fall
as through the broken years they crawl —
the years that stretch like miles,
the endless, empty, aching onward miles.

"Veritas," for lack of a better title.

2004-07-24T01:11:06Z

The day, once held by sun,
fades to the embrace of night.
The thoughts which escaped before
are caught by the moonlight,
entrapped, enclosed in lunar snares,
held fast by milky ties.
I could hide from myself before —
the moon allows no lies.

I wrote it at work yesterday. I'm pleased with it mainly, especially the end. I don't think the beginning scans right, though. Any suggestions?

"This Side of Paradise"

2004-01-03T22:18:29Z

This is what comes of I-don't-know-what. I'm not usually this sympathetic towards Helen, but here comes this poem. Comments always are nice.(Title belongs to good ol' Scott.)

This Side of Paradise
By Stefanie Brawner

I.
Apollo must have blessed her,
Paris' golden darling.
A deity in her own right, she is —
a demi-godess, anyway,
and it shows.
Daughter of Leda,
daughter of Zeus,
curced by chance and Eris —
Eris, whose bitterness knows no bounds.

II.
By now you know her tale —
know it well —
the end of the world in
two slim
ivory hands.
The fate of so many
tied with ribbons in
her long
sunbeam locks.

III.
Her beauty is undeniable,
decreed by Aphrodite,
the kind of loveliness
which calls
one thousand ships
with their myriad white sails
from their harbors —
calls them to us,
to Troy.

IV.
It seems to me,
when I think of it, which is often now,
that our misery is her fault.
At the least,
she shares that responsibility with
Paris —
shares his bed, too,
where neither remembers
what responsibility is
as a Trojan sun
gilds them
with the same light dancing across
our fallen soldiers.

V.
I have glimpsed her:
lithe, slender,
all those words the poets use.
Her blessings leave us cursed.
Yet when I see her —
I cannot blame her.

VI.
What do they know of it?
They don't understand
the streams of blood,
the scattered limbs,
heart severed from mind
severed from soul severed from body.
But there she is,

VII.
long hair bright
dark eyes soft.
I see her and I cannot blame her.
Helen sees, too,
and she feels,
and she knows.
Oh, poor, wretched beauty!
She knows.

That's interesting . . .

2003-12-20T18:23:49Z

London recruiters began searching for marriageable women, offering free passage and trousseaus for girls of good reputation and a sense of adventure. . . . The first shipment of 90 "tobacco brides" arrived in Jamestown in the spring of 1620. The youngest, Jane Dier, was fifteen or sixteen when she left England.

Something tells me this would make good historical young adult fiction. Not, neccesarily, Jane Dier, but one of the other ninety. The required "sense of adventure" provides the makings of a character so doubly-clichéd she's original: a girl modest and shy and adhering to the morals of the time period, but with a sense of adventure, curiosity, and moments of spunk hidden behind her otherwise quiet nature. (Actually, she makes me think already of someone like Rhiannon.)

Hm. That's something to think about, anyway.

four villanelles

2003-12-06T06:25:21Z

Lona's Lament

I don't know how this will ever work, she said
For a month, I left us two alone
When we set out, I knew not where this path led

Sometimes I think he comes from in my head
All I can do is sit and moan
I don't know how this will ever work, she said

Someday I'll return to find out that he's dead
It seems as though I live beneath a stone
When we set out, I knew not where this path led

I hide myself in darkness in my bed
The fault for all my troubles is my own
I don't know how this will ever work, she said

Could someone else not perish in my stead,
To lie in sand, naught but pain and wind and bone?
When we set out, I knew not where this path led

My heart is cold and sad and lead
For I, alas, must reap what I have sown
I don't know how this will ever work, she said
When we set out, I knew not where this path led

First Star

There's a certain shade of silver in a star
and a certain kind of glimmer in your eye
I sit and how I wonder what you are

Every distances seems to me so very far
and each mile trod with a distant sigh
There's a certain shade of silver in a star

Lost in woods that only I do mar
the terrain of my mind is rough and high
I sit and how I wonder what you are

I'll sing myself a song that is a scar
and make a wish as you ascend the sky
There's a certain shade of silver in a star

The world becomes bar after metal bar
And every corner is marked with a lie
I sit and how I wonder what you are

My heart is trapped within your starbeam jar
While all the world, regardless, passes by
There's a certain shade of silver in a star
I sit and how I wonder what you are

The Wandering Mind

It seems my thoughts live only to betray
Happiness ever gives way to pain
I can't think now what I'm to do or say

Heedless, I threw myself into the fray
And let my mind wander, quite insane
It seems my thoughts live only to betray

To think these things, to go where no good lay —
My mind cares not for my heart's gain
I can't think now what I'm to do or say

What good's a mind that never will obey?
My way lies ever lost in rain
It seems my thoughts live only to betray

The fox gives scent, the hounds do paw and bay;
At the leash, my mind will strain
I can't think now what I'm to do or say

And still they go their merry, dreary way
I would stop them, but I try in vain
It seems my thoughts live only to betray
I can't think now what I'm to do or say

Refrain

It's so hard to admit to you I care
When all the world is coming down on me
I stand so small before the lion's lair

I'm brave, but in this I cannot dare
When face with the truth, one of us will flee
It's so hard to admit to you I care

In my mind, the people point and stare
My heart is open for everyone to see
I stand so small before the lion's lair

I know I can't expect things to be fair
But it would be nice if they were, just for me
It's so hard to admit to you I care

My silence on a subject is so rare
Yet in this my silence has to be
I stand so small before the lion's lair

I long so much for what I must not dare
Destruction of our friendship shan't come from me
It's so hard to admit to you I care
I stand so small before the lion's lair

Ron and Lina - "Blatant Fluff" or "November through March"

2003-11-23T07:12:43Z

It's an early evening in late fall and Ron is just returning to his apartment he now shares with Lina. He walks quickly from the subway station after work, for there is a definite chill in the air and it has begun to snow, and he ducks into the apartment with an audible sigh of relief.

Lina, sitting at the desk in the living room, is softly lit by the dim lamp. Her hair is slightly mussed as she bends over homework she'd rather not be doing. She smiles as he enters. "Hey."

Ron shakes the snow off of his clothes and smiles at her in return. "Some free advice. Don't go outside tonight. Or for, say, the next five months."

She laughs and walks over to him. "Cold?"

"And snowing." He makes a face.

Another laugh. "Oh, fun." She shakes her head. "It can't be that bad. Silly West Coast boy."

"No one understands," he laments as he sheds his jacket.

She puts her arms around him. "Alas for you," mockingly.

Ron rolls his eyes and kisses her. "You know, it would be nice if you at least pretended to sympathize with me sometimes."

"Oh, right. Sorry." She winks, and puts on a dramatic face, hugging him. "Poor Ron," she says. "Is it really that bad, though? I mean, it's just snow. There's not that much of it."

"Easy for you to say," he insists, but then sighs. "All right, all right. It isn't that bad. I would just rather not have to walk through it."

She laughs, but this time it's a quiet laugh, soft. "Awww," she teases. "Well, you're here now, and it's warm."

"It is." He grins and kisses her again.

"And you don't have to deal with snow until tomorrow," she says, and kisses him back.

"That gives me..." he peers at his watch, "about fourteen hours. I guess that should be enough time to recover."

She grins. "See? There's coffee in the kitchen, by the way, if you want some."

"I'd love some." He kisses her again before going over to the kitchen and getting a mug. "So how was the day of our local musical scholar?" he asks her with a grin.

"Hell," she says simply, "as always. Why do I have to take classes? I just want to sleep and play."

"Well, there's this thing called a degree..." smirking slightly.

She sticks her tongue out at him, sipping from her own cup. "I like sleep better."

"College students aren't supposed to know what sleep is. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?" Ron grins at her as he pours himself some coffee.

"Am I supposed to listen to anyone who tells me that? I know what sleep is, and I like it plenty." She sits back on the couch, curling her legs in under her.

Ron suddenly smirks broadly at her. "You don't act like it."

Lina smirks back. "Alright, then. I like sleeping in."

"Important difference, that."

"I guess so. And I'd guess now would be a good time for that, don't you think? Too cold to get out of bed."

"Oh, definitely," Ron agrees. "I'm all for staying in bed between now and March."

"That," she says, "sounds good to me."

"Then I see no reason not to try it out."

Lina grins. "Get over here."

"Yes, ma'am." He laughs and sits on the couch next to her, pulling her into his arms.

Laughing, she falls against him, carefully leaning over to put her coffee out of the way. She kisses Ron and cuddles up to him. "This warmer?"

"Oh, I think so..."

"Mmm, good." She settles against him and sighs. "So how was your day?"

"Completely crazy, so business as usual. All I can say is, it's nice to be getting paid not to sleep, instead of paying for it." He grins. "There was one nice surprise, though."

"Oh?"

"Well, we got a new secratary, and she really isn't bad looking." His expression is all innocence.

Lina laughs. "Oh, really? I'm sure she isn't."

"What if I think she is?"

"Is what? Bad-looking?"

"Not bad looking," he corrects.

"You can think all you want. Dating me doesn't mean you have to wear blinders," she teases. "As long as you don't do anything about it."

"I can't even get you to pretend to be mad at me, can I?" he laughs and kisses her. "Not as cute as you, anyway."

"That's good anyhow. And you can get me plenty mad at you. Just not with that." She kisses him back.

He laughs. "True. And I probably shouldn't test it. I'm assuming you still swing a mean purse." He grins.

"Oh, yeah." She grins back at him.

"Besides, then you'd leave and I wouldn't have anyone to keep me warm."

"How about that secretary?" she teases.

"Well, there is her..." he muses.

Lina laughs and kisses him. "Well, I think she'll have to wait. Don't I have dibs through March?"

Ron considers this. "Well, if you insist..."

"Oh, well, I wouldn't want to force you . . ."

"Well, you're here and she's...not. It's a matter of convenience."

"Oh, that's good to know."

Ron nods solemnly.

She sticks her tongue out at him.

Ron grins and kisses her.

"If I'm 'convenient,'" she says, "I think I'll just sleep."

Ron raises an eyebrow. "Doesn't sound very convenient if you ask me."

"That's the point."

"Well then, maybe she'll become more convenient."

"Oh, really?" Lina raises an eyebrow.

"Mm-hmm."

"Hm, maybe I ought just to go to bed then."

"Maybe you should, if it doesn't matter to you." He pouts.

"Oh, well, if you're going to be that way, you don't have to join me." She grins at him.

Ron sticks his tongue out at her. "And where am I supposed to sleep?"

"So you don't want to join me? You could stay on the couch."

"Didn't say that..." slipping his arms around her waist.

"Oh, didn't you?" She kisses him. "I must have misunderstood."

"You did." He kisses her lingeringly. "Or, you know, if you've decided to banish me, you could always just stay here and keep me company..."

"I think I'll pardon you this time," playfully.

"Oh, good." Another kiss.

"I think the bed's a bit more -- comfortable for two, anyhow."

"An excellent observation..."

"I thought you'd agree."

"You know me too well." He grins.

"Yes, I know," she says and kisses him. "I think I've been around you too long."

"Quite possibly."

"I guess I'll have to fix that." She pauses. "But I guess it can wait until March is over."

"And we get to stay in bed until then?" he smirks.

"Oh, I think that sounds about right."

"Shall we, then?"

"Yes, let's."

Ron grins and kisses her again before standing.

Rising, Lina takes his hand and leads him away.

sistertotherain @ 2003-11-01T20:41:00

2003-11-02T04:38:39Z

I wrote this tonight after catching a glimpse, at the library, of the Sarah Brightman cd that has "Who Wants to Live Forever?" on it, and I began thinking of Lily . . .

This is modeled on Katri's Lily, but is decidedly not her.

I'm actually rather proud of this one, but I'd appreciate commentary. ^_^

A Quiet Cup of Tea
By Stefanie Brawner

Lily's eyes are pools of liquid emeralds
flashing hurt, pain, stubborn rage.
She says she knows her fate,
and what's to come cannot be good.

O, the gods can be cruel tricksters,
Lily tells me over
a quiet cup of tea,
and we are but pawns
in this game of theirs.
A flashed smile, almost smirk.
Clichéd, I know —
trite but true.

Tendrils of red fall in her eyes
and she spares them
little more than a breath,
a futile attempt to blow
the hair out of her eyes.
My sight is clouded, Lily jokes,
But I see too clearly.

It's not a very
funny joke
but I smile anyway,
a little sad for her as
I will die,
she whispers into the
steam,
rising from the tea's creamy depths.
Death comes for us all,
but sooner for me and mine.

I want to fight fate,
she declares suddenly,
forcefully,
and I hear a fierce clink
as cup resolutely meets
saucer.
I can't let it come.

Too many things have been
decided for me.
A sigh.
A character in a novel,
that's what I sometimes
think I am,
for all the control
I've ever had over my life.

Dogged pursuit by a man
I never thought I'd love
leading to a
pretty little marriage,
leading to,
ending in,
so suddenly in Death.

I don't know what to do,
she says, desperately,
plaintively.
How does one win?
Who can fight the Fates?
Who can wage war against them,
the Three-Who-Are-One,
the Maiden, Mother, Crone,
and win?

Every life ends with
snip!
Scissors snapping,
closing sharp like fangs on
thread of life.
It's only a question of
when?

Too soon,
she whispers.
Too soon.

She sips her tea, and is silent.
I feel as helpless as she seems.
What can I say?
Do?
How am I to help her?
She always seemed
so much stronger than me.

Quietly, we are weak together.
I breathe in the scent of
the warm milky drink,
taste it, comforting,
soft on my tongue,
as Lily cries her tears —

Emeralds.

sistertotherain @ 2003-10-07T18:40:00

2003-10-08T01:33:33Z

Sui Generis

She saw a world that no one saw
And felt the loves that no one felt
She knew of things that no one knew
And knelt at shrines where no one knelt

She traveled in the world alone
To places where no one had been
She swam in sacred seas unknown
And learned to see what went unseen

For such as her, there was no world
Sirens were calling out her name
Beckoning to another land
Lacking pressure to be the same

The bridge they could not cross, she crossed
The magic they knew not, she knew
Though loneliness pulled her apart
And tore her quietly in two

She could not live as others lived
Approval gained in wonder's place
And so she walked the world alone
Content, though no one saw her face

Sydney - "Make It Go Away"

2003-09-23T22:05:07Z

[Author's Note: Remember, mes chères, Sydney is here on "probation." Tell me what you think of this one.

This takes place after last season's finale, The Telling, but if I've told you what the show's about and you're going to start watching now, it doesn't much matter if there are spoilers. Because, um, I probably already 'spoiled' it already, and you need to know to catch up anyway.

In any case, this is simple: my idea of what might be going through Sydney's head on the flight back to L.A. Theoretically, this would take place in the time frame of the third season opener. However, since the season hasn't opened yet and I don't know what actually happens after The Telling (y'know, aside from what's been given away by fan sites and the stars themselves), this will probably all be rendered moot on Sunday night.]

Sydney - "Make It Go Away"

Make it go away
or make it better
Isn't that what love is supposed to do?
Just make it go away
or make it better,
'cause I would do either one for you.

. . . I'm not angry,
I'm not crying,
I'm just in over my head.
You could be the angel
who stayed on my shoulder
when all of the other angels left.

— "Make It Go Away"

The world had become a stained glass window, distorted and fragile. And all Sydney could clearly see was a glint of gold.

The flight home should have been made in silence; Vaughn should not have been able to disturb her further. Instead, she was met, at first, with a steady stream of here's what we know. Sydney tried hard to concentrate, to focus an absorb, numb as she was. She managed at least to hear what was said. She had more trouble understanding.

The DNA was a match.

She didn't want to think about it. Yet, though sitting without looking at him, she still saw his face.

She had expected him to solve everything with his appearance — to have all the answers, to comfort and hug and kiss her, to warm away the frozen fear and confusion. And then he came in . . . Pain, shock, hurt, frustration where Sydney had looked for love and warmth.

Tears were stinging her eyes again. She'd been so sure there was nothing left in her body, no moisture at all. Tears had seemed an impossibility, because the flood had already come and gone.

She shut her eyes tightly against the pricking, and was confronted with a new face, eyes flying open with a gasp.

"Syd, what's wrong?"

She closed her eyes again and turned away.

Danny.

How long had she waited to start dating Vaughn?

Danny was dead. Sydney had not been.

The DNA was a match.

. . . we thought you were dead . . .

She had seen Danny's body, oh God, she'd seen his corpse . . .

The DNA was a match . . .

Vaughn had never seen her corpse. She'd known all too well that Danny was gone. There must have been doubt about her death — disappearance.

How long had he waited?

How many months had gone by before Vaughn had forgotten the cadence of Sydney's voice, the warmth of her body pressed against his, the curve of her smile? How many weeks before he had found this new woman? Before he had proposed to her?

And there was no revoking of vows. Promises were to be kept.

She could not cry here and now. Then he might move beside her, wipe her tears away . . .

Or he might not. She didn't want to know.

An agent learned to play many parts; it was simply a part of the job. Dutifully, Sydney chose her mask. Her smile polite, she murmured, "So, Vaughn, when do I get to meet her?"

"Who?" His expression was startled. He obviously hadn't expected her to speak. Sydney's smile turned grim. He either knows me too well or not well enough.

"Your wife."

There was that flash of pain again. Sydney knew that the words had jolted him, hurt him; her arrival had ruined his honeymoon, but her voice, her pronunciation of the word wife to mean anyone but . . . Saying it had solidified the marriage.

"Lauren came back with me. She should be there when we return."

Lauren.

Sinking back into her seat, Sydney prayed for the plane to crash, for something to happen — anything. Let anything happen to them, so long as she did not have to endure being introduced to, rather than as, Mrs. Vaughn. Lauren.

I've got to wake up. This is just a nightmare. Soon I'll wake up, and he'll be there, to tell me how silly I am, how it's only a dream. Let Francie be alive and Will be safe and Lauren, a product of my imagination. Just let me wake up, let him make it go away. Everything will be fine, just wake up, Sydney . . .

The plane landed.