Work Text:
Truman liked Fiji.
It was warm, the sun embracing him as the sea misted his face with salty water. The sand was warm beneath him, soft as it adapted to the shape of his body.
Sylvia preferred the shade. She liked sipping on her drink with a little umbrella with her sunglasses on and her body shielded from the sand by her towel, though her toes dipped into the sand at the edge of the rough fabric.
Truman on the other hand loved soaking up the sun and feeling the cool waves on his skin. It reminded him he was alive. It reminded him he was out.
After the two had left, they had become ghosts, hermits hidden away never to be captured like zoo animals to gawk at ever again.
Truman didn’t know he was being watched, not like Sylvia did, not until the end. But just the taste of that paranoia made him certain he never wanted to experience it ever again.
Syliva asked him once if he missed it. And he did. It was his home, his life, his friends and family. He didn’t know any better.
He shouldn’t miss it. He knew that. But he did.
Sometimes he still got the urge to show off a product, talk to thin air the way others would, him not understanding it was paid promotion. Sometimes he got an itch deep down beneath his skin that his routine was broken and he’d never return to the safe, familiar monotony.
Sometimes he hated that place and all the people in it who lied to him. Sometimes he wondered what was real and what was fake and if anyone ever really cared about him or if it was all an act. Sometimes he wanted to get in front of a camera and scream at the millions of fans who watched him grow up and live, day and night, sleep and wake, and berate their sick voyeuristic fascination of him.
But for now, he just enjoyed the warmth of the sun and the salty sea and Sylvia with him.
Truman liked Fiji. He didn’t know if he liked it more than Seahaven. Not yet.
But he knew he liked Sylvia quite a lot. And he liked being where she was.