i.{chronicled the days you made me want to live}
There was the before, the moments when he did not know her (those long times when he had, without knowing, passed her smile and her eyes for someone shaped with plaster perfection), they plague his mind. He wonders how many minutes he missed, the seconds she passed him by.
He turns the smoke inbetween his finger, imagines the Tracy back home, the way it could be, the house that would be theirs. The life.
He ignores the burn of his feet and the ache in his back.
Doesn't think, not even for a moment, of the sweaty uncoifed hair that sticks to his neck.
times were changing, things were different,
war and love and drugs that could make you forget it all.
The only thing he allows, is the color of Tracy's eyes, the taste of her lips on his, and the way she had looked that last night. Dressed in yellow, talking about hope and change and the world, exactly as it could be.
He takes a deep breath and holds in the smoke and the tar as long as he can.
He looks wide into the green nightmare and grins.
If he squints long enough, hard enough, he can see the back drop of the Corny show and Tracy's grin.
And it's almost home.
ii.{lack of sleep and the bloodshot eyes}
When she dreams it's of things she barely recalls. I loved him best she thinks. (his face is a shadow, his eyes are always always blue.)
She keeps the house clean and comes home from work feeling as if she's forgotten something important.
Like the sting in her hands from doing the dishes, making the beds, and running them over her hair are all things she's always longed for.
She doesn't hardly ever recall a different hope. The smell of fresh newsprint or the feel of Tiffany lamps that left her warm.
She wants this.
She does.
But sometimes, those dreams.
They make her happy.
(smallville. chloe. au from the mindrape clark gave her.)
iii.{memorized the way that it felt}
Pepper can not recall the summer she was eleven. Not past the warm air of a Tadfield summer.
Sometimes she thinks of the summers after. The look of old in Adam's eyes.
She thinks of the Autumn that came, the crisp nights, the look of ancient that still echoed.
She remembers the kiss that came in time.
Of his lips, the taste of them. Like dust. Like knowing all the things that were, of all the things that would be.
He tasted like earth and sky and later that night she cried herself to sleep thinking about how empty she felt, after knowing the full taste of him.
She could never forget the weight of him on her. The bits of him that she carried under her nails.
His whisper that made the world seem still and the fear, the waking strange fear that there was not really a Them but only him.
Too old to be hers.
Too much to hold.
She remembers the end, his face growing distant and far off as she left Tadfield for good. The smell of the old place still trapped in her throat.
She remembers everything but the beginning.
(good omens. adam/pepper)
iv.{i turned it into this kiss}
Anne begins to love the sea when she is young. Her earliest memory is of her mother and the smell of salt that keeps her dreams the same blue color.
She hates it afterward, when her mother has turned to earth and green, when Frederick has begun to fade more to lovely memory and she no longer can remember the way he smelled.
All she has of him is a kiss, the last, before she was to remember her place and store her heart and want away behind what others felt and needed.
A stolen moment.
And he tasted of salt and air and hope.
The days after, the color fell from her cheeks and her eyes could not focus.
He was gone.
She had rejected him.
And he took with him, all the things that made her beautiful.
She wishes secretly for the sea. For the air. For the color.
Instead she sits quietly and the further he roams, the more of her he takes.
It is what he's owed. What he's earned.
Her love. The rose of her cheeks and the smile that can no longer play so freely at her lips.
(persuasion. anne/wentworth.)
v.{we're not sleeping}
Chad remembers the summer he was ten, the year before basketball became everything, before Gabby, before Taylor. It was the time of boys and sweat and he remembers Troy's eyes. Blue and wide and the secrets of late nights and dreams of growing up and nothing ever really changing. There'd been forts and nights spent in tents in backyards. They'd laughed over things like Sharpay and the hats Ryan wore.
It was the summer of his first kiss.
"I don't get it, is all."
Chad had shaken his head. What wasn't to get.
"You just you know, kiss the girl."
"But why?"
"Because you love them. Duh."
"I wonder if I'd be any good at it."
"Love?"
Troy's eyes rolled and he looked up at the stars. "No, doofus. Kissing."
"It's not like it's hard. You just put your lips to the other persons."
The conversation lulled and fell quietly to buzz of insects.
"Chad?"
"Yeah."
His lips had been warm. Chapped from to much sun and his silly habit of chewing on them when he got nervous.
He tasted of Bazooka bubble gum and Chad thought maybe it was the best kind.
It had been brief and his and they'd never talked about it.
The summer had ended and Troy's dad had been named coach at the high school.
Suddenly being ten seemed to young. As if all the world was still left to learn. There'd been basketball practice for Troy and they hadn't had time for things like camp outs and dreaming under large skies. It been filled by Coach Bolton's talks of winning and hard work and somedays of high schools.
Later it had become girls, with dark eyes.
Because for reasons he couldn't say, Chad never dated anyone with blue eyes.
(chad/troy. high school musical.)
vi.{means anything at all}
She twisted her fingers around the dance card. She was spurned, slighted, horribly so. And she would never forgive Gilbert Blythe for it. It would add another mark to his blacked chart in her eyes.
To ignore her completely. As if she were...she is no longer a girl who is ignored. No longer a simple orphan that is forgotten. And she wouldn't let Gilbert remind her of things so far gone.
"Anne."
She narrowed her eyes and stuck her chin in the air. She would not turn and talk to Gilbert. He was not worth knowing.
"Anne Shirley. Please."
She could feel the heat of him as he came to stand in front of her. She stamped down the red of her cheeks. Gilbert Blythe was not worth blushing over.
"I'd like to know, Anne, if you'd like to dance."
"Thank you but my dance card-"
"Come on, Anne, I am sorry for calling that silly name. But it was so long ago."
She nodded. Her chin still high. "I suppose."
His fingers laid barely on her hip as they moved to the waltz.
"Forgive me, Anne?"
Yes, she thought, hadn't she already. None of the old fury had been behind the feud in so long. And he was very handsome, and she did wonder often what having a male friend would be like.
Instead she turned her face away. Something made her silent. Made her afraid. As if forgiving him now, would lay open all kinds of things, not even she and her imagination were ready for.
"I really am sorry. More than you can every really know"
"I'm sorry to." It was to soft, to low, to be her voice. She was bright and happy and colorful. But she was sorry. Sorry for hitting him and for hating him so much for things she could not rightly pin down.
"What for?" His warm fingers tightened at her hip.
"For holding a grudge so long. It's very unchristian thing to do. You did apologize after it happened and you have done so many things to..." Her voice slipped away.
"Then I forgive you. We can start fresh, can't we Anne."
She grinned up at him. "Yes. That would be wonderful."
He stopped dancing and led her to the side of the room. "Miss? I'm Gilbert Blythe."
"Anne Shirley. Anne with an e."
"Very dignified name."
She smiled wide and shook his hand. "It's good to meet you Mr. Blythe."
"You to, Miss Shirley. I'm sure we'll be kindred spirits."
She thought they just might.
(anne/gil anne of green gables.)
