FIC: Damsel in Broken Heels

[ashmusing]

TITLE: Damsel in Broken Heels
FANDOM: shatterverse
WORDS: 1, 266
PAIRING: Josh/Samuel Rand
PROMPT: Naughty, broken shoes, sunset.
RATING: Um. PG/R, with adult themes and non-explicit sex
DISCLAIMER: Josh is mine. Sam Rand belongs to alas_a_llama, who is unlikely to sue me.
NOTES:…if Sam is wildly OOC, I’m really sorry, Eric.

Damsel in Broken Heels

You are an artist; you create art. Fill the air with butterflies, fill the ruins with a thousand waltzing lords and ladies, spin yourself a dress of moonbeam silk and make ‘em think they are dying.

It takes imagination, and thus it is art. It’s just not real. But real is boring, flat, empty. Real is dead.

You are an illusionist; you create illusions.

~

illusion, n. delusion, hallucination, VISION, apparition; chimera, mirage, bubble, figment [of the mind or IMAGINATION]; dream, fool’s paradise; misconception, self-delusion, ERROR, legerdemain. See DECEPTION

~

Well, whatever.

~

You used to, when young and dreamy and your father was ‘Daddy’ out of guileless affection instead of calculated charm, argue that you made things better. You spun stories in the air, butterflies to tickle skin and glitter to dance, a coat of magic to hide the mud and cracks and shit of this world. It was better.

You used to, when young and idealistic and a bunch of raw nerves behind hazel eyes, worry about truth and fiction. Truth and fantasy. Truth and lies and you’d sob and sob about everything being empty and false and it’s wrong it’s wrong I HATE IT and end up quite hysterical.

~

You got over it.

~

Now you call yourself trickster; trickster with a smile of gonna make anything of it and a smirk of yeah, whatever bitch.

He said, you seem like a tricksy person and that made you stop and eye him. Sharp tack, aren’t we, boy, although you didn’t say that.

You’re shallow, not stupid.

~

There is one reality in this world, and you aren’t sure how to handle that. This world isn’t yours, and you really don’t know how to go about getting home without thinking of being unable to leave, and you don’t know how to think about being stuck with breaking down.

So, you don’t.

You don’t get home; you don’t handle anything; you don’t think.

You lie on a roof and surround the air with gently glowing butterflies and when Sam offers a ride in his flying car you are, like, there. You think of him as Sir Sam of the Nice Ass, Sam Knight of Snark and Magic, Sam who does a mean glass of water and you never, ever, ever think Sam who told you that you couldn’t leave.

~

Okay, so the three pasts thing threw you for a moment. Then you shrugged and went ‘cool’, ‘cause it was, in a way. Hurt your brain when you thought about it, but…

When was the last time you really thought hard about anything?

~

May, in the barn, is the second time you kiss him. There’d been some tequila and limes and it’s a well known fact that heat makes people act like an idiots.

There is music and intoxication of laughter and then there is a pile of Josh and Sam with him apologizing and forgetting half the words. It is adorable. You kiss him as the CD player sings but to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear, and by the time Boney M’s Rasputin comes on again, you are trying to catch your breath so you can apologize for dragging your claws down his back.

Heat of the moment, so to speak.

~

That had been Sam with no magic, just his odd genius for something he called the Force. You don’t really keep them straight, but you are clever enough to keep up with the random changes.

Sometimes being smart really does mean that you get lazy.

~

Three pasts, one present, three futures. Or rather, three ways of dying and yes, you shouldn’t have looked, but you were born without that little voice that told others stop, to think, to pull their fingers back from the fire.

Three deaths.

Maybe they all had to happen, before he’d actually die.

Or…

Something.

(You link your hands behind your head and study the pink and orange and red of the sun’s daily dying and you don’t even think of forgetting. You just forget.)

~

Lazy means hanging around him and being sarcastic, showing off and flirting and inn-u-en-do and sure, you have to think to keep up, think to keep sharp and on the ball and reply, but it’s not thinking.

You build a galaxy of smiling moons and grumpy suns and aloof planets, and he plays pool where you aim for the sun with asteroids and try and collect as much as you can along the way. If the other problem with being smart is being unable to stop thinking, then the best thing is diversion. Every illusion means another moment ignoring the twisting of panic in your chest, and you don’t stop.

You kiss him to distract yourself from the fact that it’s growing harder to breathe, and hope that he doesn’t notice.

~

The sandcastle was still totally his idea, though.

~

Okay, the boathouse was your idea.

~

So was the sex, actually, but the silence had been stretching too long and anyway you never asked him to respond like that, did you? Nope. There’d been hands around your waist and a wall and he’s almost a foot taller than you, so there was a certain amount of shoes-off-of-floor. Only the wall was rough and wood and digging into the bare skin of your shoulder, so you told him, somehow, that if you got splinters you were going to kill him.

The doorway wasn’t much better, but at least you could brace yourself.

Sex is fun, ridiculous, half touch me there and half laughter. At least, it should be. This is something darker, something raw and forbidden and you come so hard that you forget where you are.

You must have looked as startled as you felt because Sam asked if you were alright. You nodded, not trusting your voice, and you slipped down to stand on your own two feet. You intended to straight your dress, catch your breath and catch your hair, only it turns out that the crack you had heard before was the heel of your sandal. The shock of ending up on the floor was enough to make you cry, nevermind the pain spreading from head and butt and hands. Nevermind that it hurts and it’s real and there is blood on your hands that you can’t vanish away and nevermind Sam hovering awkwardly, torn between pulling up his pants and…actually, you have no idea what else.

Keep things shallow, expect them shallow, keep things light and what happens when ugly, heavy reality intrudes?

You don’t know.

That makes it worse.

So you just sit there and sob, gasp out things in Persian, English, Arabic, Tamazight and the Japanese gets stuck in your throat until you think you are going to choke. You can’t…it’s too much…it’s real and squalid and-

It’s only when the storm has passed, when you are hiccuping and sniffing and wishing that your eyes would stop stinging already, that you realize Sam has his arm around your shoulders.

Which is…nice. Nice of him.

“So, uh, if I ask if you’re alright this time,” he says just a little hesitantly.

“I’ll say that I feel like shit but don’t think I’m up for a repeat performance.”

“Oh.” You curl up a bit closer, because he’s there and warm and it’s kind of comforting and he resettles his arms. “Well, uh. That’s. That’s good.”

“Mmhm,” you reply, shutting your eyes. It’s easier to calm down when you aren’t looking and if he minds, well.

He shouldn’t have stayed.