Just had to write a poem "list" for my creative writing class and my fingers just were itching to write a specific scene from my fic American Beauty/American Psycho. So here it is:
Titled: His Safe Space
Messily spiked hair darker than the souls of the damned
A black bandana, folded and wrapped around his forehead
A healing cut splitting through the pale pink chapped lips
Long shaky fingers covered in grime from the car
Thinly raised scars scattered along his arms, some white, others red
The broken car, dirt smeared and collecting dust
Parts scattered the concrete floor, waiting to be used
Tools lined the wall, carefully arranged on their hangings
A small stereo tucked in the corner, spilling out a classic guitar riff
Evening sunlight coloring the garage in it’s warm glow
The well loved motorcycle gleaming and ready for use
It’s handles urging for a touch
His black clothes tightly following the shape of his lanky form
And the stranger, unwelcome and awkwardly standing in the open door
summary noé deals with his emotions by dealing with his stomach, and there are times, like this one, that vanitas severely regrets not choosing dante as a shield
pairing implied noéjeanne
notes this is chicken scratch writing but i had to get it out. here you go.
Noé can’t see his face, but he can feel the expression that’s being aimed at him right then. He gets it a lot, but often over things that he doesn’t get at all to be unreasonable. It’s the kind of expression he’s treated to when he opens his mouth, when he flung himself headlong off of an airship to save an unpleasant human with a cursed book, when he once asked, What on earth is love?
He’s seen it many times, on many faces.
But he doesn’t get why he’s on the receiving end of it now. It’s only his fourth helping.
Or is it fourth. . . –teenth?
Noé carefully places a new plate upon his growing stack of picked-clean dishes. Then his arm shoots up.
Not for the first time, a heavy sigh sounds somewhere in the background.
“Stop,” Vanitas’ voice is frustrated, hours waiting for Noé in this forsaken teashop has frayed his patience. The waiter slides a new order of tarte tatin on Noé’s side of the table, and he pulls it to his. “Enough. You’ve had enough.”
“I haven’t.” Noé swipes for the plate. Vanitas yanks it out of reach.
“Are you sulking?” Vanitas takes one sniff of the dessert and sneers. “God, just looking at you eat this is enough to make me sick.”
“I rather think your sickness is not as bad as mine,” Noé mutters under his breath, curling his gloved hands on the table, and it’s possible that he’s never seen Vanitas become more confused at the admission. He’s oddly proud. Always it’s him who’s full of questions, fumbling about with too many things in the world outside his little forest in Averoigne that he doesn’t know. And after meeting Vanitas, he realises, he knows even less.
Flossy wisps scattering in the wind. Soft hair and fair skin and sunlight, smiling lips that he wants to touch with his fingertips to see if they feel like petals—
His stomach churns like the tide.
Vivid blue eyes take on a calculative glint. “Is that it?” Vanitas leans in, the treat all but forgotten. “Your appetite’s gone up, but you feel sick? Up and down like? What other symptoms do you have?”
Noé’s blinks. “What?”
“How long ago did you start feeling sick after you. . . your encounter?”
An awed kind of realisation dawns on his face. “That’s it!” He slams his palms on the table—it rattles and brings down his dish tower in a shattering of porcelain. Patrons yelp; waiters scramble—and shoots up from his chair. It drags across the floor with a mighty squeal, pushed back until it almost hit another table. “You’re right, Vanitas! I’ve been feeing this strange tingling ever since I’ve met her. Why didn’t I think of it before? Of course, she has to be the reason!”
Vanitas rubs an impending migraine on his temples. “And?” he snaps, looking up to glare at the idiot.
“I managed to stop the Charlatan just in time, so we can—“
“I have to go back and talk to Jeanne!”
Vanitas’ thought process stutters to a halt. “Jeanne?”
But Noé’s already pulling his coat over his forearm, plucking up both his top hat and his struggling cat by the scruff. “She might know what’s going on with me if I talk to her,” the words blurred out of him in a single breath. He places his hat on askew, barely noticing the tiny sharp teeth gnawing on his bicep. “I must go. See you later, Vanitas!”
“Wait, wait.” Vanitas waves his hands frantically, panic flooding his voice. “You can’t just go off—what about the bill? Fuck!” Vanitas groans out a curse when Noé disappears, leaving the front door ajar to slowly swing back shut with a short tinkling of a bell.
A throat clears. Loudly.
Stiffening all over, Vanitas glances up with trepidation. A waiter stares back with utter calm.
“I hope,” he begins, even and serene, “you are going to pay for that.” He gestures to the chaos his moron of a shield left behind for him to clean up.
A martyred grin cracks on Vanitas’ face. He checks his shriveled wallet and laughs, weakly. “I can,” he wets his lips, “work it off?”
Slowly, gradually, the darkness once eminating from his being faded, slipping away in favor of something he couldn't understand. The negativity once flooding his veins leaked out and were replaced by something else- emotions. Confusion, fear...helplessness. Everything he once was was slipping out of his grasp, the vessel of darkness he had known himself as gradually becoming the one thing he despised most.
A weak, pathetic boy, trembling on his hands and knees as he sought for an explanation. Summoning the Dark Corridor, seeking a place of lonesome so that he could sort out his thoughts, proved to be in vain. Calling forth even a simple Flood was a failure. Darkness wasn't his to control anymore- nothing was. Even his own being continued to shake an tremble against his will. Biting back a choked cry, the broken boy he now was curled into a little ball, praying that this was nothing more than a horrible, horrible nightmare.
//cause I'm evil jk ;w;// Goofy groan in pain before slowly opening his eyes to glance at the boy "Sorry to trouble ya but do ya have any potion on ya or something cause this wound really hurts.."
((yes you are *pokes* —nu ily fadhsjgfas))
Vanitas stared at him. Several seconds passed before he nodded slowly and produced a potion, knealing down and handing it to the wounded dog.
