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Takes place later in the same evening as this Ru snippet.
Ru belongs to the lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tsuki_no_bara and Eden, of course, is cicirossi's. Much affection and thanks to both of them.
******************
In the end she couldn't bear to be in the flat any more. The showers had got rid of every mark that they were going to, and it was making her twitchy, just watching the walls and pacing and trying not to think. The hi-fi had been flashing 2.37. The clubs started to throw out at 3, which meant people in Denny's, just to take the edge of the panic. So she'd put on her makeup around the bruises, enough so as to make herself real again, and now she was here.
The place was still kind of quiet, but at least the waitress hadn't said anything, just poured out the coffee and took away the empty sugar and brought back a full one, all without saying anything.
Mal kept her eyes down, hunched in the corner of a back booth, her back to the wall. She concentrated on the feel of cheesecake sliding off the spoon and smooshing against the roof of her mouth, cool and creamy and cleaning out the taste of blood and bile.
The waitresses were tossing back and forth bits of gossip mixed in with their orders and cutlery rattling in baskets. Every few minutes, the double doors swung open with a wumph of warm air and a waft of traffic noise that cut off again a moment later. Customers came and went and brushed past the end of her booth on their way to the bathroom, and placed orders for milkshakes and burgers and ice cream sundaes with two spoons please.
“Mal?”
“Yeah?” She looked up without thinking. “Oh – hey Ru.”
“Fuck Mal – are you ok?”.
"Not really, no"
There was a split second's drag before she recognised her own voice, harsh and amused
"What happened?"
"Some group of shit-head wankers though I looked like an easy touch."
He looked at her like she wasn't quite making sense. Guess it couldn't hurt to get this - this fucking nightmare out of her head.
"Sit down, yeah?”
He slid into the booth facing her, and pushed his damp hair off his face. His t-shirt was soaked too, even with the arms torn out. Dancing all night despite the heat – at least part of the universe still rolled on.
She sighed, wincing a little as her ribs moved.
“OK - I was downtown earlier for the bandwidth."
That look was definite confusion. She thought everyone knew that.
"The bandwidth? All those businesses piled up on top of each others, there's all sorts of spots you can plug in and get online down there without having to pay the damn phone company to run lines, you know? Fuck - and I've only got another week till the results."
She went to run her hand over her hair and hit one of the patches of livid bruising, hissing at the pain.
"Results?"
"Yeah - it's the end of the semester next week."
"I never knew you were in school."
She grinned and for a moment things felt normal again.
"Yeah - well I don't actually *go*, but the computer science school? If you can hack the grades database before they send them through to the admin office - you can keep the pass. And the fucking assholes took my laptop. Shit"
It slammed back into her, and she pinched hard at the bridge of her nose. No more crying, and anyway, her eyeliner would run and then she'd just look even more stupid, and that racoon thing - so not her. She took a deep breath and tried to ignore his worried look. She didn’t need people to worry about her, right?
"I guess I look like a mark - sat in the back of Wintermute - that's my car, yeah? 1978 hearse? - with the doors open 'cos it's so damn hot - and fuck! I can't believe I was so stupid. I should have ... "
She trailed off - should have been somewhere else, someone else. Should have been in school like a good girl, and not hanging round back alleys in the business district in the early hours of the weekend looking like a slut and dear lord fucking Jesus how was she going to tell her parents?
***** ***** *****
Originally posted 24th March 2003
Ru belongs to the lovely
tsuki_no_bara and Eden, of course, is cicirossi's. Much affection and thanks to both of them.******************
In the end she couldn't bear to be in the flat any more. The showers had got rid of every mark that they were going to, and it was making her twitchy, just watching the walls and pacing and trying not to think. The hi-fi had been flashing 2.37. The clubs started to throw out at 3, which meant people in Denny's, just to take the edge of the panic. So she'd put on her makeup around the bruises, enough so as to make herself real again, and now she was here.
The place was still kind of quiet, but at least the waitress hadn't said anything, just poured out the coffee and took away the empty sugar and brought back a full one, all without saying anything.
Mal kept her eyes down, hunched in the corner of a back booth, her back to the wall. She concentrated on the feel of cheesecake sliding off the spoon and smooshing against the roof of her mouth, cool and creamy and cleaning out the taste of blood and bile.
The waitresses were tossing back and forth bits of gossip mixed in with their orders and cutlery rattling in baskets. Every few minutes, the double doors swung open with a wumph of warm air and a waft of traffic noise that cut off again a moment later. Customers came and went and brushed past the end of her booth on their way to the bathroom, and placed orders for milkshakes and burgers and ice cream sundaes with two spoons please.
“Mal?”
“Yeah?” She looked up without thinking. “Oh – hey Ru.”
“Fuck Mal – are you ok?”.
"Not really, no"
There was a split second's drag before she recognised her own voice, harsh and amused
"What happened?"
"Some group of shit-head wankers though I looked like an easy touch."
He looked at her like she wasn't quite making sense. Guess it couldn't hurt to get this - this fucking nightmare out of her head.
"Sit down, yeah?”
He slid into the booth facing her, and pushed his damp hair off his face. His t-shirt was soaked too, even with the arms torn out. Dancing all night despite the heat – at least part of the universe still rolled on.
She sighed, wincing a little as her ribs moved.
“OK - I was downtown earlier for the bandwidth."
That look was definite confusion. She thought everyone knew that.
"The bandwidth? All those businesses piled up on top of each others, there's all sorts of spots you can plug in and get online down there without having to pay the damn phone company to run lines, you know? Fuck - and I've only got another week till the results."
She went to run her hand over her hair and hit one of the patches of livid bruising, hissing at the pain.
"Results?"
"Yeah - it's the end of the semester next week."
"I never knew you were in school."
She grinned and for a moment things felt normal again.
"Yeah - well I don't actually *go*, but the computer science school? If you can hack the grades database before they send them through to the admin office - you can keep the pass. And the fucking assholes took my laptop. Shit"
It slammed back into her, and she pinched hard at the bridge of her nose. No more crying, and anyway, her eyeliner would run and then she'd just look even more stupid, and that racoon thing - so not her. She took a deep breath and tried to ignore his worried look. She didn’t need people to worry about her, right?
"I guess I look like a mark - sat in the back of Wintermute - that's my car, yeah? 1978 hearse? - with the doors open 'cos it's so damn hot - and fuck! I can't believe I was so stupid. I should have ... "
She trailed off - should have been somewhere else, someone else. Should have been in school like a good girl, and not hanging round back alleys in the business district in the early hours of the weekend looking like a slut and dear lord fucking Jesus how was she going to tell her parents?
***** ***** *****
Originally posted 24th March 2003