ext_20269 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
annwfyn.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
writing_shadows2011-02-11 06:26 pm
annwfyn.livejournal.com) wrote in writing_shadows2011-02-11 06:26 pm
Entry tags:
Some Rio snippets.
“So. Tell me about you and Arthur? How did you start seeing him?”
This wasn’t the way things were meant to work out, Rio thought with a small fragment of her brain. Not the way either she or Isabelle ever thought it would, when they were kids. But then, what does?
She dug her hands into the popcorn. Neither of them had known Arthur when they were kids and dear gods, he wasn’t the type she would have thought Isabelle would go for. Arthur is quiet, shy, solid. He’s got none of the flash or charm of Jonah or Raphael.
They’d neither of them known Ian Rock either, and he definitely wasn’t the type Rio would ever be with for more than a night; sharp and smooth with a smile and gift when it came to lying. Rio has always liked her men rougher around the edges, always clung to big solid men, like they might be the father figure who does stick around. Christ, Ian was even younger than her!
Isabelle looked a little uncertain and said in a guarded fashion (which meant she really liked Arthur) “we went out to dinner on an undercover case and I asked him to have a real dinner, and…well..you know,”
It was odd, Rio thought, as she tried to make encouraging noises, how that happened. No thunderbolt. No desperate yearning. No years of watching Jonah Wolfman from over the rim of a book. No tearful late night talks as Isabelle tried to not tell Rio that it was Raphael Knight who had broken her heart. No desperate hopes, or childhood dreams.
Just…dinner.
And that was how all the dreams died. Isabelle wasn’t going to make up with Raph and settle down and have kids. She wouldn’t live the life she’d dreamed of when she was a kid, any more than Rio would, when she’d spent hours dreaming of every single special moment she wanted to share with Jonah Wolfman. And, Rio guessed, Helen wouldn’t have either her first choice of sleazy dreamboat, or her second choice who was her stalwart best friend. She guessed that Ian and Arthur, likewise, had given up dreams they had had somewhere along the way.
And the world that she had been brought up in, that odd, scruffy, complicated, messy beloved little world, made up of pack and kin, would never really exist again.
*********************
Later that evening, Rio texted Ian. It had become a faint habit to do so. Isabelle had described Ian Rock as ‘something self destructive’ which, Rio suspected, might possibly be true. Certainly, Helen Penn wasn’t talking to her and frankly she was bloody lucky the werewolf hadn’t actually torn her into little pieces and left the bloodied remains of her corpse nailed to a tree in Ian’s back garden in order to prove a lupine point.
He was slick and sharp and cruel with a kind of brittle charm that felt like cracked ice to Rio half the time. But he was good conversation, and he’d lately taken to being bizarrely affectionate whenever she was upset. He made her laugh and always managed to make her think something she’d never thought before.
He wasn’t Jonah; she wouldn’t love him until she died. He wasn’t Lennie; he’d not stick with her through thick and thin and if she found herself knocked up she suspected that Ian’s response would be to hustle her down to the nearest day clinic to get the damn thing vacuumed out of her. He wasn’t Mal. Oh dear god! He wasn’t Mal! He was smooth where Mal was rough, and cold where Mal was all warmth beneath the surface.
She didn’t love him. And she never would have dreamt of him as a child.
’You want company’ she typed carefully. ‘Got Baileys and porn’
Tomorrow, she thought, she'd be back at the tunnels. She had translations to do, and in the evening she'd be back at her little studio flat, which didn't smell at all of lemon juice and bleach, and instead smelt of old leather from her books and patchouli from her incense sticks, with an extra faint scent in corners of the people who had come to see her.
She'd go to bed alone in a bed that felt too big and wake up shivering at how huge the world sometimes seemed to her.
"It's always been this big," Ian had said, with a faint flicker of affection in his eyes when she'd said that to him. "It's just all the parts of the world you were allowed to see were so small."
This wasn’t the way things were meant to work out, Rio thought with a small fragment of her brain. Not the way either she or Isabelle ever thought it would, when they were kids. But then, what does?
She dug her hands into the popcorn. Neither of them had known Arthur when they were kids and dear gods, he wasn’t the type she would have thought Isabelle would go for. Arthur is quiet, shy, solid. He’s got none of the flash or charm of Jonah or Raphael.
They’d neither of them known Ian Rock either, and he definitely wasn’t the type Rio would ever be with for more than a night; sharp and smooth with a smile and gift when it came to lying. Rio has always liked her men rougher around the edges, always clung to big solid men, like they might be the father figure who does stick around. Christ, Ian was even younger than her!
Isabelle looked a little uncertain and said in a guarded fashion (which meant she really liked Arthur) “we went out to dinner on an undercover case and I asked him to have a real dinner, and…well..you know,”
It was odd, Rio thought, as she tried to make encouraging noises, how that happened. No thunderbolt. No desperate yearning. No years of watching Jonah Wolfman from over the rim of a book. No tearful late night talks as Isabelle tried to not tell Rio that it was Raphael Knight who had broken her heart. No desperate hopes, or childhood dreams.
Just…dinner.
And that was how all the dreams died. Isabelle wasn’t going to make up with Raph and settle down and have kids. She wouldn’t live the life she’d dreamed of when she was a kid, any more than Rio would, when she’d spent hours dreaming of every single special moment she wanted to share with Jonah Wolfman. And, Rio guessed, Helen wouldn’t have either her first choice of sleazy dreamboat, or her second choice who was her stalwart best friend. She guessed that Ian and Arthur, likewise, had given up dreams they had had somewhere along the way.
And the world that she had been brought up in, that odd, scruffy, complicated, messy beloved little world, made up of pack and kin, would never really exist again.
Later that evening, Rio texted Ian. It had become a faint habit to do so. Isabelle had described Ian Rock as ‘something self destructive’ which, Rio suspected, might possibly be true. Certainly, Helen Penn wasn’t talking to her and frankly she was bloody lucky the werewolf hadn’t actually torn her into little pieces and left the bloodied remains of her corpse nailed to a tree in Ian’s back garden in order to prove a lupine point.
He was slick and sharp and cruel with a kind of brittle charm that felt like cracked ice to Rio half the time. But he was good conversation, and he’d lately taken to being bizarrely affectionate whenever she was upset. He made her laugh and always managed to make her think something she’d never thought before.
He wasn’t Jonah; she wouldn’t love him until she died. He wasn’t Lennie; he’d not stick with her through thick and thin and if she found herself knocked up she suspected that Ian’s response would be to hustle her down to the nearest day clinic to get the damn thing vacuumed out of her. He wasn’t Mal. Oh dear god! He wasn’t Mal! He was smooth where Mal was rough, and cold where Mal was all warmth beneath the surface.
She didn’t love him. And she never would have dreamt of him as a child.
’You want company’ she typed carefully. ‘Got Baileys and porn’
Tomorrow, she thought, she'd be back at the tunnels. She had translations to do, and in the evening she'd be back at her little studio flat, which didn't smell at all of lemon juice and bleach, and instead smelt of old leather from her books and patchouli from her incense sticks, with an extra faint scent in corners of the people who had come to see her.
She'd go to bed alone in a bed that felt too big and wake up shivering at how huge the world sometimes seemed to her.
"It's always been this big," Ian had said, with a faint flicker of affection in his eyes when she'd said that to him. "It's just all the parts of the world you were allowed to see were so small."