Title: The
Gutter and the Stars
Author:S.T.Shimi, stshimi@excite.com
Category: Roswell, UC
Rating:R
Summary: Love sucks.
Disclaimer: Story is mine, characters are Jason Katims.
Dammit.
Thanks: The usual suspects.
But who are you? Why are you still livin' and
breathin' and ridin' in this car? Oh that's right. You're
here 'cause I love you. Ain't that sweet?
--Lonnie, "Meet the Dupes"
I.
The world tilts crazily as she lies on her back,
breathing. The sky tips stars towards her, teasing her
with what may never be. The sickly sweet smell of rotting
food and the skitter of little paws takes her back. One
gutter is very much like another.
The joint is stained with the lipstick of the one she had
to leave behind. She sucks fiercely on it, one hand
moving frantically and sadly below, hoping to take in
some remnant of what was once true and tender between
them.
She wants to remember the fleeting moments between the
sharp spiky words and fierce, bruising grasps. She wants
to remember words that were never said and never will be.
They leak out of her onto the dirt and she is a soft
shell again, made for purposes beyond her understanding
and desires.
The stars are cold and moving too fast for her as she
lies on her back and sucks on the embers of a false
memory.
One gutter is very much like another.
* * *
II.
Her back presses against the cheap, crackly pleather as
the universe speeds past her and careens over potholes
towards the tiny town. She sees herself in the rearview
mirror; herself and yet not herself, a mask, a mirror in
a mirror, a beautiful distortion. A mistake made right in
fire and smoke.
Swirling breath on her lips below echo the sweet hot
swirl of smoke on her lips above and she sinks back into
her nest of plots and power plays. She doesn't look down
to mark her fistful of peacock locks as they feather her
lap. She never looks down, ever.
The shock of a cool metal stud in a warm, tender tongue
slides across her hot flesh. She tightens her muscles and
the grasp of her fingers with exacting cruelty. She never
looks down.
If there is a mew of protest she ignores it.
Nothing happens without the crook of her finger bidding
it.
She has made and unmade worlds with her desires.
What is one gentle, bleeding heart compared to that?
* * *
III.
They are cupped together, moist and naked, on the peeling
and stained couch set askew amongst blasted beer bottles.
The other two are comatose and still, incubating in the
detritus of their underground palace. The rumble of
trains shake the ceiling, like incoming asteroids.
"What happened today?" she asks, small cold
hand tracing lazy circles around aureoles as wide and
mysterious as the hostile sky, seldom seen. Her lover's
face has yet to settle into hard kohl-rimmed lines that
she has come to fear. Now is the stretch of seconds
between, when kisses seem tender and real and she can
transcribe sweet responses onto their shimmering silence.
She pushes her off roughly and hunts for the papers under
the pulpy grey-ish green oranges, stolen from the
fruit-stand to the left of up above. She rolls the joint
efficiently, trying not to look at the one who wants to
keep her honest; who doesn't understand or care about the
future that blinks faintly and furiously like oncoming
traffic. She lights it with a flick of her finger and
inhales fiercely.
"Things are gonna change," she says, passing
it," Things are gonna get better."
They sit still as the smoke rises around them, shaking
out the lines of the room, soft as stars freefalling into
supernova silence.
"You- talked to them? What did they say?"
She turns and looks at the gently blurring face next to
hers. Something sharp and cold is rising up within her
and she can feel the time between seconds rush away. Soon
it will be over, soon it will start, soon the stars
behind her eyes will be in the palm of her hand.
Her mouth fills with sweet smoke, overwhelming the musky
salt that had danced on her tongue eons of seconds
before. It goes down smooth, no chaser. She wishes she
could wave her hand and make the ceiling disappear, make
presents of unknown planets to the one she loves. Before
she takes them, unasked, for herself.
"Are we going to the stars?" she asks her.
She reaches and runs her fingers through the brilliant
green hair. She can feel the coiled tension running like
electrolytes under her lover's scalp. She knows she put
it there. She wants to be sorry but she can't remember
how. She tries to memorise the galaxies that rise and
fall in the blue skies of eyes that gaze sweetly at her.
She twines an emerald lock tightly around her be-ringed
finger and changes it to a tender lilac because she can.
She looks up at the stained ceiling and sees it peeling
away to reveal-what? The joint sputters to a standstill
and is lost in the sea of trash that sloshes gently
around them.
"Yeah, baby,"she says,"We're going to the
stars".
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