fic: staring at water lilies
Oct. 29th, 2011 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbancateTitle: Staring at Water Lilies
Pairing: Karl/Serena van der Woodsen (RPF/Gossip Girl crossover)
Length: ~800
Notes: Written as comment!fic for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
1297 ages ago, but her journal seems to have been deleted *sad sad face* so I am reposting here. Original prompt: it's written all over your face. Also, I know nothing of Gossip Girl or Serena but what Google/Wikipedia could tell me in a few minutes when the prompt grabbed me because I cannot resist Karl. WHAT.
If Serena van der Woodsen were in the habit of feeling sorry for herself - if it were a skill she had ingested with bottles of formula when she was an infant, bottles of vodka much later (but not really that much later) - if feeling sorry for oneself was something any van der Woodsen spent any time indulging in, then, well, right now, Serena would be feeling sorry for herself. If.
As if her life has become the alternate, non-happy ending of Notting Hill or something. She looks rather like someone who was famous once for a while.
This is normal, she tells herself, asks herself, asks nobody (this is not something you talk about). It's like a mid-life crisis, except her life is only beginning. And if that's the case, why does it feel like her life is sort of over, too? Twenty-seven is still young, right?
Flying across the Atlantic to escape the ghost of who she used to be is not turning out so well as anticipated. China might have been a better plan than Paris. What had she been thinking with this running off to Paris to have her birthday to herself plan?
Again, things she does not say out loud. Questions she stirs into her coffee, here in this small and charming and anonymous cafe. It is not a bad thing to become anonymous, she thinks.
- - -
She stirs her coffee and looks out the window as if she is not seeing what she is looking at. She looks sad, he thinks. Her lips twist a little - a soft, wry sort of movement in a face that is a little sharp. Elegant is probably the better word, and maybe she isn't sad at all. Maybe she's just French.
Dark blonde hair pulled back tightly from her face - adding to/creating that sharp effect - a scarf half-twisted around her neck, diamond stud earrings - touches of sparkle over what looks to be designer-simple black. Definitely French, he decides. Except her lips are pink, not red, not painted. And why is he staring at her, anyway?
What a perfectly fucked up idea, he can still hear in his head. Paris is not a good place to be alone, man. But here he is, against all advice. He should probably head eastward, southward - Bavaria, more beer, more friendly, less - whatever this place is - something bordering on morose.
Lord, what a head case he's become.
- - -
She stays in Paris. It is easier to stay, to be thoughtful and quiet and stare at art and bridges and pick apart croissants.
- - -
He stays in Paris. It is easier than looking at a map to follow the Autobahn in hopes of finding something more comfortable or familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all.
- - -
She half-notices him for a few days, in the same cafe - it's become her place - where she stirs coffee and questions, the philosophy of self. He is handsome, ridiculously so, better than on-screen. Of course she knows who he is, but maybe he is looking for anonymity, too.
- - -
He starts to catalogue the details in his head, a fine collection of photographs never taken - the precise curves of her lips, the day she ordered chocolate and something in her eyes seemed lighter for a moment, the length and wave of her hair on the days she wears it down. He is less convinced she is French.
- - -
She has started to haunt Musee Marmottan - Monet knew things about light, she keeps trying to grab whatever that is right off a canvas, as if it might hold all the answers. It never works. At least not quite like that. Answers come less directly. If you stare at water lilies long enough, everything else in the world goes away.
Which is exactly what she says when he appears at her side one day and they contemplate Monet together. "If you stare at water lilies long enough, everything else in the world goes away."
- - -
He is like the water under the Japanese foot bridge, she thinks - beautiful and compelling and probably more dangerous than you might think. So she holds on tighter.
She is like the threaded gold sunlight woven through a canvas, he thinks - beautiful and warm and elusive. So he holds on tighter.
"We'll always have Paris," is something they never say. It's just understood.
Pairing: Karl/Serena van der Woodsen (RPF/Gossip Girl crossover)
Length: ~800
Notes: Written as comment!fic for
1297 ages ago, but her journal seems to have been deleted *sad sad face* so I am reposting here. Original prompt: it's written all over your face. Also, I know nothing of Gossip Girl or Serena but what Google/Wikipedia could tell me in a few minutes when the prompt grabbed me because I cannot resist Karl. WHAT.If Serena van der Woodsen were in the habit of feeling sorry for herself - if it were a skill she had ingested with bottles of formula when she was an infant, bottles of vodka much later (but not really that much later) - if feeling sorry for oneself was something any van der Woodsen spent any time indulging in, then, well, right now, Serena would be feeling sorry for herself. If.
As if her life has become the alternate, non-happy ending of Notting Hill or something. She looks rather like someone who was famous once for a while.
This is normal, she tells herself, asks herself, asks nobody (this is not something you talk about). It's like a mid-life crisis, except her life is only beginning. And if that's the case, why does it feel like her life is sort of over, too? Twenty-seven is still young, right?
Flying across the Atlantic to escape the ghost of who she used to be is not turning out so well as anticipated. China might have been a better plan than Paris. What had she been thinking with this running off to Paris to have her birthday to herself plan?
Again, things she does not say out loud. Questions she stirs into her coffee, here in this small and charming and anonymous cafe. It is not a bad thing to become anonymous, she thinks.
- - -
She stirs her coffee and looks out the window as if she is not seeing what she is looking at. She looks sad, he thinks. Her lips twist a little - a soft, wry sort of movement in a face that is a little sharp. Elegant is probably the better word, and maybe she isn't sad at all. Maybe she's just French.
Dark blonde hair pulled back tightly from her face - adding to/creating that sharp effect - a scarf half-twisted around her neck, diamond stud earrings - touches of sparkle over what looks to be designer-simple black. Definitely French, he decides. Except her lips are pink, not red, not painted. And why is he staring at her, anyway?
What a perfectly fucked up idea, he can still hear in his head. Paris is not a good place to be alone, man. But here he is, against all advice. He should probably head eastward, southward - Bavaria, more beer, more friendly, less - whatever this place is - something bordering on morose.
Lord, what a head case he's become.
- - -
She stays in Paris. It is easier to stay, to be thoughtful and quiet and stare at art and bridges and pick apart croissants.
- - -
He stays in Paris. It is easier than looking at a map to follow the Autobahn in hopes of finding something more comfortable or familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all.
- - -
She half-notices him for a few days, in the same cafe - it's become her place - where she stirs coffee and questions, the philosophy of self. He is handsome, ridiculously so, better than on-screen. Of course she knows who he is, but maybe he is looking for anonymity, too.
- - -
He starts to catalogue the details in his head, a fine collection of photographs never taken - the precise curves of her lips, the day she ordered chocolate and something in her eyes seemed lighter for a moment, the length and wave of her hair on the days she wears it down. He is less convinced she is French.
- - -
She has started to haunt Musee Marmottan - Monet knew things about light, she keeps trying to grab whatever that is right off a canvas, as if it might hold all the answers. It never works. At least not quite like that. Answers come less directly. If you stare at water lilies long enough, everything else in the world goes away.
Which is exactly what she says when he appears at her side one day and they contemplate Monet together. "If you stare at water lilies long enough, everything else in the world goes away."
- - -
He is like the water under the Japanese foot bridge, she thinks - beautiful and compelling and probably more dangerous than you might think. So she holds on tighter.
She is like the threaded gold sunlight woven through a canvas, he thinks - beautiful and warm and elusive. So he holds on tighter.
"We'll always have Paris," is something they never say. It's just understood.
