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syren_ficSummary: Apoc has an unexpected meeting with Destiny Switch.
Invitation
It’s raining.
Fat drops slamming into the street, so thick you can't see five feet in front of you.
I’m surprised this basement of a bar hasn’t started to flood.
I watch the regulars trail in, shaking rain water off their coats, their umbrellas, greeting the bar tender in gruff voices.
I feel invisible.
But that’s a comfort as much as a curse these days.
I sip my beer, wanting a cigarette and not having one.
Why do I feel so damn disconnected?
Absorbed in my thoughts – nihilistic? – I don’t notice the chair across from me slide out until it’s too late.
I look up, a growl already on my lips, but the words die in my throat.
“Got a light?” the apparition says – not so much a request as a suggestion.
Short hair, shapeless coat, carefully buttoned shirt… that voice could go either way.
Is this a woman or a boy sitting, suddenly, across from me?
“…Alright.”
I fish out my lighter, spark the flame into life.
Lips to cigarette, cigarette to flame. There is something pointedly unsexy about the way she (he?) lights up.
Interesting.
This has to be chick, I decide. No guy’s gonna make that kind of effort to not sexualize something.
She shakes the pack towards me.
Oh, now, that’s an offer I can’t refuse.
“Thanks.”
What do you want? I wonder, but don’t ask, taking a puff, letting the smoke sit inside me – this stuff’ll kill ya – before breathing it out again.
She holds her cigarette between her thumb and first finger – like it’s a joint, or something.
She takes a long drag – I half expect her eyes to close, she breathes it like a chain-smoker would – but she doesn’t even blink.
What, is this a staring contest now?
“What?” I ask, finally. If there’s a point to all this posturing, I think I’d like to know.
“You’ve been asking a lotta questions lately,” she tells me, leaning closer. “Haven’t you, Apocalypse?”
Suddenly, I’m paying a lot of attention.
How do you know that name?
“What’s the question, Apoc?” she demands, softly, her eyes boring into mine. This feels, suddenly, like some sort of test.
I feel my mouth go dry, lean across the table, ‘til I can feel her breath, humid, against my mouth.
“What is the Matrix?” I barely whisper it, the question whose answer I’ve been chasing for two years.
I feel her breathe out.
“Follow me,” she murmurs. “I’ll take you to the answer.”
With that, she gets up, drops her cigarette into the ash tray, and starts towards the door.
“Wait,” I take hold of her wrist, to stop her.
She glances pointedly at my hand, then at me, her eyebrows lifted, challenging.
Hastily, I let go.
“I don’t even know your name,” I explain.
Her eyes flicker over me. I feel like she’s sizing me up, deciding something else.
“You’ll find out,” she answers, finally, “if you come.”
She turns away again, already turning up her collar against the rain.
Now or never, I decide.
I drop a bill on the table, and follow her out of the bar.
*~*~*~*~*
Story continued in: Unplugged.
Comments, of course, are always appreciated. :-)
Invitation
It’s raining.
Fat drops slamming into the street, so thick you can't see five feet in front of you.
I’m surprised this basement of a bar hasn’t started to flood.
I watch the regulars trail in, shaking rain water off their coats, their umbrellas, greeting the bar tender in gruff voices.
I feel invisible.
But that’s a comfort as much as a curse these days.
I sip my beer, wanting a cigarette and not having one.
Why do I feel so damn disconnected?
Absorbed in my thoughts – nihilistic? – I don’t notice the chair across from me slide out until it’s too late.
I look up, a growl already on my lips, but the words die in my throat.
“Got a light?” the apparition says – not so much a request as a suggestion.
Short hair, shapeless coat, carefully buttoned shirt… that voice could go either way.
Is this a woman or a boy sitting, suddenly, across from me?
“…Alright.”
I fish out my lighter, spark the flame into life.
Lips to cigarette, cigarette to flame. There is something pointedly unsexy about the way she (he?) lights up.
Interesting.
This has to be chick, I decide. No guy’s gonna make that kind of effort to not sexualize something.
She shakes the pack towards me.
Oh, now, that’s an offer I can’t refuse.
“Thanks.”
What do you want? I wonder, but don’t ask, taking a puff, letting the smoke sit inside me – this stuff’ll kill ya – before breathing it out again.
She holds her cigarette between her thumb and first finger – like it’s a joint, or something.
She takes a long drag – I half expect her eyes to close, she breathes it like a chain-smoker would – but she doesn’t even blink.
What, is this a staring contest now?
“What?” I ask, finally. If there’s a point to all this posturing, I think I’d like to know.
“You’ve been asking a lotta questions lately,” she tells me, leaning closer. “Haven’t you, Apocalypse?”
Suddenly, I’m paying a lot of attention.
How do you know that name?
“What’s the question, Apoc?” she demands, softly, her eyes boring into mine. This feels, suddenly, like some sort of test.
I feel my mouth go dry, lean across the table, ‘til I can feel her breath, humid, against my mouth.
“What is the Matrix?” I barely whisper it, the question whose answer I’ve been chasing for two years.
I feel her breathe out.
“Follow me,” she murmurs. “I’ll take you to the answer.”
With that, she gets up, drops her cigarette into the ash tray, and starts towards the door.
“Wait,” I take hold of her wrist, to stop her.
She glances pointedly at my hand, then at me, her eyebrows lifted, challenging.
Hastily, I let go.
“I don’t even know your name,” I explain.
Her eyes flicker over me. I feel like she’s sizing me up, deciding something else.
“You’ll find out,” she answers, finally, “if you come.”
She turns away again, already turning up her collar against the rain.
Now or never, I decide.
I drop a bill on the table, and follow her out of the bar.
*~*~*~*~*
Story continued in: Unplugged.
Comments, of course, are always appreciated. :-)
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 01:04 pm (UTC)I know it's a one-shot, but you've got me intrigued. Not that you don't alread have a zillion-chapter story with the same characters, or anything... :D
no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 07:05 pm (UTC)So, yes. :-)
Part of me does want to continue this bit.
And write the Switch Wakes Up fic - several times, maybe. One with her at age eleven (my "Live Truly" ficverse) and one with her in her late teens (probably the same ficverse as this one - or, potentially, one wherein she's unplugged after Apoc's already awake).
We shall see. :-)
I kinda want to write a Persephone fic about her and Merv when they were young and in love and running away together to be free and him saying stuff like 'I can protect you there!" when most of the people she knew (Demeter, Hades, we who were once gods and are now 'redundant programming'... all gone... I'm one of the few who are left, and I'm running out of places to hide) had been deleted.
And so they ran away to the Matrix, where Merv learned about the Mafia and became a Redundant Programs version of the same.
"And so I found myself, once again, Queen of the Underworld."
Stuff like that.
Maybe some of her thought process when she looked at Neo, and looked at Trin, and saw what they had together. Stuff like that. :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 01:25 pm (UTC)I will see what I can do. :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-18 12:58 am (UTC)Trying to write first-person-limited from the PoV of an eleven year old is really freaking hard.
Seriously.
Especially when they've got no mental context other than "I wanna go home!"
Dammit.
Poor little ghost-girl misses her family and doesn't have an anchor anymore.
So far, all I've managed to do is make her utterly, utterly miserable and alone. Poor kid. I don't wanna put her through that. :-(
no subject
Date: 2007-09-18 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-18 12:36 pm (UTC)<*is content*>
I may try to write it from the point of view of one of the adults. Probably Dozer (currently age 18). Or maybe the Doctor (I forget her name, now) from-whom Dozer learned his craft.
I've decided that Cypher (currently an enthusiastic seventeen-year-old - rather a lot like Mouse, actually, although, perhaps, a tad less talkative) is going to teach her coin tricks using a washer.
I think I need to give her a reason to want to get away from home. Like maybe Daddy's a police-man who drinks too much, or Mummy is distant and angry all the time.
Or something.
'Cause right now, they seem too well-adjusted for her to want to run away. And eleven is awfully young to want to get away *for real* without good reason for doing so.
I'll come up with something. :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 07:37 pm (UTC)So, I wrote a follow-up to this one.
It's here. :-) (http://community.livejournal.com/amazon_fiction/15265.html#cutid1)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 08:47 pm (UTC)(Do pardon me for no comments this week--I've been insanely busy. :( But I did at least get to re-watch the first have of The Matrix, and I see what you mean about Switch's shirts!)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 09:43 pm (UTC)Re: Shirts: Yup. :-D
(Currently trying to write Trin/Apoc explicitness. It's... being a bit slow, so far... We'll see how things turn out). :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 09:46 pm (UTC)Off to do more RL stuff, but good luck with the Trin/Apoc. One is quite fond of the non-explicit stuff so far in the latest two chapters. (Poor rest of crew, hee.) *still has picture of Real World Apoc (with hole in shirt) open in browser, has had for last week and a half*
no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 10:24 pm (UTC)Re: Rest of the crew: Ha. Yes. I don't think Tank's too worried about it, frankly, although I think that might (might) have been him saying "Keep it down, or invite us all in to join you".
I'm assuming Dozer's monogamous and missing his wife (and kids), so that's not a problem. Much, anyway.
Cypher, of course, is feeling grumbly about the whole thing, and Morpheus is still trying (unsuccessfully) to get over Niobe. So he's got his own issues to deal with. ;-)
Re: Real World Apoc: Hee! ;-D That's so cute. <*cough*> I mean, enjoy your Real Life activities. :-D