be afraid, beautiful people (Karl/OFC)
May. 2nd, 2010 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbancateSO. 1500 words of IDEK. It all started with the end, and then I had to find a way to get to the end. But HEY I wrote something this weekend.
Title and cut text from "The Geeks' Guide To World Domination"
be afraid, beautiful people
girl meets boy / boy meets girl:
"You're, like, impossibly beautiful, you know, right?" It's the first thing she ever says to him, blurts out from the censor-free depths of two vodka-tonics and two or three - dear gods, she has lost count - raspberry kamikazes. He's just sort of bumped into her at the edge of the dance floor and she looked up at him and that's what came out of her mouth.
He lifts an eyebrow and smiles - dimples included - and she wishes her mouth would work further, spout out an apology or something. Almost wishes he were less beautiful.
Almost.
Because what's a little selective mutism in the face of such a man.
"Sorry 'bout that," he says, and one of his hands is close to her back, as if to make sure she's going to stay upright.
"No apology necessary," she finally finds her voice. Is he apologizing for bumping into her or for being beautiful? His hand stays where it is, not touching, but present, and it's a little ridiculous that she can feel him not touching her.
The bass thumps a little heavier across her nerves and she steps further away from the dance floor. She was already getting out of here, anyway. She steps past him and that, as they say, is that.
- -
She's on her third cigarette and feeling less dizzy, which is more the nearly-empty bottle of water at her feet and the solid cement where she's parked her sorry ass. She'll call a cab in a few, she figures. Leave her so-called friends to the rest of this so-called night of fun. And forgetfulness. Because going out drinking and dancing with the girls was supposed to take her mind off things.
Things.
Fuck vodka for not doing what it was supposed to. Fuck the party scene. Fuck Eric. Fuck Turkish Silver for tasting so bad and good all at once. Fuck the whole fucking universe.
"What did the universe ever do?"
Her head snaps up to find the voice, the intruder - hello, she's busy feeling sorry for herself here - and, well, shit. It's the beautiful man from inside.
"That's it," she says. "I'm never drinking again."
"That bad, huh?" He sits down on the sidewalk next to her and she should be alarmed or at least wary, because she is drunk and vulnerable and there are a lot of not-nice men in the world. Especially on a Saturday night. And this guy, with the dimples and accent, he could be a psycho killer for all she knows. Instead she feels a little steadier and it's the weirdest thing and she'll just chalk it up to the vodka-induced hallucinations tomorrow morning.
"Yeah, " she sighs. "One of those weeks. Months. Year. Whatever."
girl forgets boy / boy loses girl:
He packs her into a cab and sends her on her way, after she blabs his ear off about everything. The grand universal scheme to fuck Ellis Madden over but good. It pours out of her mouth - do not pass brain, do not collect $200 - where's that goddamn selective mutism when it wold actually be useful. She feels rather pathetic, telling all of this to a total stranger who then helps her into a cab and looks sympathetic - and still beautiful, too, which is so not fair - and gives her a wink and a salute as he closes the door.
Apparently nice guys do exist.
For couple of weeks or so, when she wakes up in the middle of the night it's to half-remembered details like broad shoulders and dark hair and a blue and white striped button down shirt. For a couple of weeks she wakes up to vague notions of wondering whatever happened to Mr. Beautiful, whose name she never did catch.
But the feeling passes and the notion fades completely. She has other things to worry about, after all.
- -
He's become a sad, sad, sorry case. And if he didn't already know it for himself, Pine is always there to remind him.
"What was it with this chick, anyway? Did she have Princess Leia hair, is that what it is? Is that why you're mooning around like Han Solo at the same stupid club every goddamn weekend?" Chris thinks he's hilarious, and John seems to agree, and Karl knows he has totally set himself up for this shit.
He should never have told anyone, let alone Chris The Gossip Queen Pine. He should stop going to the club. Hell, he should never have started. He needs to stop feeling like Fate handed him an opportunity and he completely fucked it up. Fate does not exist, at least not at clubs on Saturday nights. She was just a pretty girl who'd had too much to drink and looked sad and made his silly macho warrior-protector instincts sit up and take notice.
"Fine," he says to Chris. "Pick someplace different." And for the record, Han Solo never mooned over Leia, he doesn't add.
He finishes his lunch and tells himself he's finished acting like an idiot.
And he tries, he'll give himself that much. If he still occasionally remembers the swing of her hair across her shoulders as she sat on a sidewalk and told the universe to fuck itself or the way she called him beautiful as if it were an odd scientific fact - well, he keeps it to himself. Let's Pine run his social calendar, to a certain extent, and has a little fun - out with his mates, on the town, since he's sort of stuck here in this ridiculous city for a while.
the universe turns around / fate intervenes:
"I'm sorry, have we met before?" She is both genuinely curious - there is something about him that is familiar beyond the usual everyone-in-L.A.-looks-familiar thing - and trying to be a little cool. She's not used to strange men approaching her while she's occupied with chopsticks and hamachi.
"Ellis, right," he asks, and his smile is stunning - he has dimples - grown men should not have dimples like that.
"Yeah," she replies, still a little confused, but shaking his hand anyway.
"I'm Karl."
"Nice to meet you, Karl. Um," she hesitates, trips over words coming from somewhere other than her sensible brain. "Would you like to join me?" There's an empty chair next to her at the sushi bar because she is out alone because it is only Wednesday night and she wanted sushi and life is good, so let there be sushi.
"Love to, thanks."
- -
Totes get it now, Chris texts him later, Your mystery woman is FINE. I forgive you for abandoning me.
- -
Somewhere over the second shared roll as he tells a joke on himself and raises an eyebrow rather wickedly, it dawns on her.
"Ohmygod...I...It was months ago, right? At that club, with the terrible music," she laughs and it's rushing back to her, every embarrassing technicolor detail. She can feel her face flaming with heat, drops her chopsticks and tries to cover the blush with her hands.
"Exactly," he says, with that stunning smile again. "I always kind of hoped to see you again." It's such a naked, raw admission that she drops her hands.
"Why?"
"I believe in fate."
happily ever after / all that jazz
She could tell him she's not this kind of girl, that she doesn't usually do this sort of thing, but she knows he knows. The sympatico more than stuns her, when she pauses to think about it, pushing play on Smokey Robinson and sipping wine while anticipation pulls a fine ache through every part of her body.
He turns her around and sets the wine glass down and it feels like a movie, except for the part where it's definitely happening to her.
It's past time for talking - he already has half her life story anyway - and she bites her lip as his thumb rests for a moment in the hollow of her throat.
And then the time for the anticipation and slow seduction passes in an instant when their lips meet - hungry and hot.
It's a long, mindless, cosmic sort of burning that starts there, in the dim light of her living room, moving on to her bed and eventually everywhere else. He invades and possesses and she claims all that is her due in return.
- -
If he's being honest and had to tell you the exact moment he fell in love with her, he might tell you the truth - that she told the universe to fuck itself while she sat on a sidewalk outside a club in L.A. and her spine was tall and straight and her eyes spit fire.
What he's more likely to tell you, if you ask, is about the time she gave him a book as a gift. "For no reason," she said. "It just made me think of you." He peeled away simple brown paper and found "A Geeks' Guide To World Domination (be afraid, beautiful people)" staring back at him.
And, really, both are true.
Title and cut text from "The Geeks' Guide To World Domination"
be afraid, beautiful people
girl meets boy / boy meets girl:
"You're, like, impossibly beautiful, you know, right?" It's the first thing she ever says to him, blurts out from the censor-free depths of two vodka-tonics and two or three - dear gods, she has lost count - raspberry kamikazes. He's just sort of bumped into her at the edge of the dance floor and she looked up at him and that's what came out of her mouth.
He lifts an eyebrow and smiles - dimples included - and she wishes her mouth would work further, spout out an apology or something. Almost wishes he were less beautiful.
Almost.
Because what's a little selective mutism in the face of such a man.
"Sorry 'bout that," he says, and one of his hands is close to her back, as if to make sure she's going to stay upright.
"No apology necessary," she finally finds her voice. Is he apologizing for bumping into her or for being beautiful? His hand stays where it is, not touching, but present, and it's a little ridiculous that she can feel him not touching her.
The bass thumps a little heavier across her nerves and she steps further away from the dance floor. She was already getting out of here, anyway. She steps past him and that, as they say, is that.
- -
She's on her third cigarette and feeling less dizzy, which is more the nearly-empty bottle of water at her feet and the solid cement where she's parked her sorry ass. She'll call a cab in a few, she figures. Leave her so-called friends to the rest of this so-called night of fun. And forgetfulness. Because going out drinking and dancing with the girls was supposed to take her mind off things.
Things.
Fuck vodka for not doing what it was supposed to. Fuck the party scene. Fuck Eric. Fuck Turkish Silver for tasting so bad and good all at once. Fuck the whole fucking universe.
"What did the universe ever do?"
Her head snaps up to find the voice, the intruder - hello, she's busy feeling sorry for herself here - and, well, shit. It's the beautiful man from inside.
"That's it," she says. "I'm never drinking again."
"That bad, huh?" He sits down on the sidewalk next to her and she should be alarmed or at least wary, because she is drunk and vulnerable and there are a lot of not-nice men in the world. Especially on a Saturday night. And this guy, with the dimples and accent, he could be a psycho killer for all she knows. Instead she feels a little steadier and it's the weirdest thing and she'll just chalk it up to the vodka-induced hallucinations tomorrow morning.
"Yeah, " she sighs. "One of those weeks. Months. Year. Whatever."
girl forgets boy / boy loses girl:
He packs her into a cab and sends her on her way, after she blabs his ear off about everything. The grand universal scheme to fuck Ellis Madden over but good. It pours out of her mouth - do not pass brain, do not collect $200 - where's that goddamn selective mutism when it wold actually be useful. She feels rather pathetic, telling all of this to a total stranger who then helps her into a cab and looks sympathetic - and still beautiful, too, which is so not fair - and gives her a wink and a salute as he closes the door.
Apparently nice guys do exist.
For couple of weeks or so, when she wakes up in the middle of the night it's to half-remembered details like broad shoulders and dark hair and a blue and white striped button down shirt. For a couple of weeks she wakes up to vague notions of wondering whatever happened to Mr. Beautiful, whose name she never did catch.
But the feeling passes and the notion fades completely. She has other things to worry about, after all.
- -
He's become a sad, sad, sorry case. And if he didn't already know it for himself, Pine is always there to remind him.
"What was it with this chick, anyway? Did she have Princess Leia hair, is that what it is? Is that why you're mooning around like Han Solo at the same stupid club every goddamn weekend?" Chris thinks he's hilarious, and John seems to agree, and Karl knows he has totally set himself up for this shit.
He should never have told anyone, let alone Chris The Gossip Queen Pine. He should stop going to the club. Hell, he should never have started. He needs to stop feeling like Fate handed him an opportunity and he completely fucked it up. Fate does not exist, at least not at clubs on Saturday nights. She was just a pretty girl who'd had too much to drink and looked sad and made his silly macho warrior-protector instincts sit up and take notice.
"Fine," he says to Chris. "Pick someplace different." And for the record, Han Solo never mooned over Leia, he doesn't add.
He finishes his lunch and tells himself he's finished acting like an idiot.
And he tries, he'll give himself that much. If he still occasionally remembers the swing of her hair across her shoulders as she sat on a sidewalk and told the universe to fuck itself or the way she called him beautiful as if it were an odd scientific fact - well, he keeps it to himself. Let's Pine run his social calendar, to a certain extent, and has a little fun - out with his mates, on the town, since he's sort of stuck here in this ridiculous city for a while.
the universe turns around / fate intervenes:
"I'm sorry, have we met before?" She is both genuinely curious - there is something about him that is familiar beyond the usual everyone-in-L.A.-looks-familiar thing - and trying to be a little cool. She's not used to strange men approaching her while she's occupied with chopsticks and hamachi.
"Ellis, right," he asks, and his smile is stunning - he has dimples - grown men should not have dimples like that.
"Yeah," she replies, still a little confused, but shaking his hand anyway.
"I'm Karl."
"Nice to meet you, Karl. Um," she hesitates, trips over words coming from somewhere other than her sensible brain. "Would you like to join me?" There's an empty chair next to her at the sushi bar because she is out alone because it is only Wednesday night and she wanted sushi and life is good, so let there be sushi.
"Love to, thanks."
- -
Totes get it now, Chris texts him later, Your mystery woman is FINE. I forgive you for abandoning me.
- -
Somewhere over the second shared roll as he tells a joke on himself and raises an eyebrow rather wickedly, it dawns on her.
"Ohmygod...I...It was months ago, right? At that club, with the terrible music," she laughs and it's rushing back to her, every embarrassing technicolor detail. She can feel her face flaming with heat, drops her chopsticks and tries to cover the blush with her hands.
"Exactly," he says, with that stunning smile again. "I always kind of hoped to see you again." It's such a naked, raw admission that she drops her hands.
"Why?"
"I believe in fate."
happily ever after / all that jazz
She could tell him she's not this kind of girl, that she doesn't usually do this sort of thing, but she knows he knows. The sympatico more than stuns her, when she pauses to think about it, pushing play on Smokey Robinson and sipping wine while anticipation pulls a fine ache through every part of her body.
He turns her around and sets the wine glass down and it feels like a movie, except for the part where it's definitely happening to her.
It's past time for talking - he already has half her life story anyway - and she bites her lip as his thumb rests for a moment in the hollow of her throat.
And then the time for the anticipation and slow seduction passes in an instant when their lips meet - hungry and hot.
It's a long, mindless, cosmic sort of burning that starts there, in the dim light of her living room, moving on to her bed and eventually everywhere else. He invades and possesses and she claims all that is her due in return.
- -
If he's being honest and had to tell you the exact moment he fell in love with her, he might tell you the truth - that she told the universe to fuck itself while she sat on a sidewalk outside a club in L.A. and her spine was tall and straight and her eyes spit fire.
What he's more likely to tell you, if you ask, is about the time she gave him a book as a gift. "For no reason," she said. "It just made me think of you." He peeled away simple brown paper and found "A Geeks' Guide To World Domination (be afraid, beautiful people)" staring back at him.
And, really, both are true.
