Work Text:
Kaylee has a memory, or a dream of a memory, of a beautiful woman in a pink dress crouching down beside her on the street outside her daddy’s shop and tying a ribbon in her hair to keep it from falling in her face as she set her stubby hands to fixing one of the discarded parts she had picked up off the floor of the shop. She smelled like bubblegum and dust and had long blonde hair and a too-bright smile like something the world forgot, and had pink sparkles on her fingernails.
Her father told her it must be a memory of her mother, but the cold feel of metal in her hands always brings back the memory of pink and bubblegum and a golden light, and the pictures say her mother was hard and angular and had dark hair. Her daddy insists it must be a memory of her mother, but when she’s sixteen and stumbling out the backdoor of Peter Lambert’s father’s pub and runs straight into a woman with long blonde hair and a pink dress that sparkles in the streetlight and they kiss pressed against a dirty wall, she really hopes that she’s not lusting after her dead mother.
That would be weird.
Even if she wakes up the next morning with only the memory of soft lips and a high-pitched voice whispering in her ear, You’re a lot taller than I remember.
And maybe that memory is just a dream, anyway.
She wears that pink ribbon in her hair until Patty Simmons steals it from her on graduation night and tears it into shreds. She can’t explain to her daddy why she would punch Patty Simmons in the face, but a very sheepish Lucas Melvin takes full responsibility for the incident and since Kaylee’s neck is covered in purple bruises, everyone at the station just laughs and sends Kaylee home with a ‘stern’ warning never to fight again in public.
She throws herself into machinery because metal and dust always twangs her senses like bright bubblegum. She chafes at the idea that this thing that makes her feel so light and pink and sparkly is supposed to be the thing that makes her less than the other girls who don’t allow grease under their fingernails.
Growing up is harder when you know what you are.
She thinks that maybe it would be easier if she let the world shape her the way it wanted.
Maybe growing up is about being molded, not being stubborn.
She buys herself a new pink ribbon and ties her hair back and gets to work and grows her own way, like a weed poking through a crack in concrete.
She’s attracted to soft things, boys with long lashes and pouting lips, girls with round faces and gentle hands. She gathers them to her as if she can soak in their delicacy. She feels a bit like a succubus and it becomes easier to be bright and shiny herself.
She’s attracted to hard things, boys with strong chins and harsh laughs, girls with lean limbs and sharp teeth. She feels herself soften to make room for them. She feels a bit like their victim and laughs brighter at the thought of it.
She seeks out blonde hair and tan legs and pink fabric. She spends nights in dark clubs with flashing lights bouncing off mirror balls with a drink in her hand and her eyes peeled for the woman in pink. (Even if she’s long ago given up on her being real. Even if she knows you can’t look at her straight in the eye, she’s always lurking in a corner where you can’t see.
Like a ghost.
Her own pink bubblegum ghost.)
What is this? she’s younger than Kaylee maybe – or far, far older – and her hair is the softest blonde Kaylee has ever seen in these parts.
She reaches to her neck, at the imperfect circular scar there, pure white against her tanned skin, Birthmark I guess. I’ve always had it.
The woman leans over and kisses her softly right where the scar tears her flesh with memory.
Or I guess… I don’t really know when I got it. When I was a teenager maybe. Kaylee shrugs and takes another drink from her glass, I’ve been told I like things a little too rough for my own good sometimes.
Have you ever been here before?The Lambert pub? Sure. I practically grew up behind the bar.
The girl looks moodily down at her elaborate drink with the fancy straw. I usually kill people before they can remind me how old I am.
That’s a good way to lose all your friends.
Or all your lovers.
Kaylee snorts in a very unladylike fashion, That’s a good way to destroy humanity.
Pink sparkling fingernails tap a rhythm on the bar and something in Kaylee’s heart lurches at a memory at a dream.
Why do you smell like bubblegum?Do you like it? she’s too bright again, almost blinding.
Kaylee presses a hard kiss against her lips because that’s the only answer she has, I’m sorry I had to grow up.
Thanks.
They make-out against the dirty wall behind the pub, Kaylee’s fingers slipping up the edge of her skirt and making her gasp against her neck. She feels like she’s been practicing her whole life for this, keeping time for a girl in a dream and counting out the years in kisses against a wall. Her scar is a fresh wound in the morning and all she lets herself remember is pink.