So a meme went around where everyone listed 20 lines from their favorite songs and then people wrote drabbles/ficlets/whatever that were inspired by them. Here's my hodgepodge colleciton. :)
sweetestdrain: You speak in riddles, I answer in code. (Arkora)
reinabelle: Hear me now and don’t forget, I’m not the man my actions would suggest (Sykora pov), Ice baby, I saw your girlfriend and she's eating her fingers like they're just another meal. (Arkora, Elias pov)
twistinside82: I sit and watch your flowers wilting in the kitchen. (Yzerman/Shanahan), You stay away from me because you know I'm good for you. (Arkora), I knew a boy who would not share his bike, oh but he let me go sailing. (Renberg, Niinimaa)
wide_ocean: With my teeth locked down I can see the blood of a thousand men who have come and gone (Arkora)
burnitbackwards: It's funny how a morning turns a love to shame (Post-wedding Arkora)
sweetestdrain's list:
(An Arkora goodbye)
15. You speak in riddles, I answer in code.
"Have to Explode", the Mountain GoatsThis is you: speaking slow, and low and serious. We can't do this anymore. Things have changed. We're too old, too knowledgeable, too aware, and we know what we're doing; we know the consequences of our actions. This is wrong, and we know that.
This is you: pushing me away, holding up your hands. Stop. Why are you doing this? Why are you making this so difficult? Why won’t you just let go?
This is you: desperate, and wild, wanting me gone. Stop. Please, stop. Don’t come by here anymore.
This is me: tapping out my reply against your skin.
(Petr. Being the man his actions wouldn't suggest.)
1. Hear me now and don’t forget, I’m not the man my actions would suggest.
Debonair,The Afghan WhigsThere are times he wants to be vindictive. If he could, he'd call her up and he'd tell her about her husband's indiscretions. He'd tell her about secret motel rooms, pseudonyms, the nights out with the boys. He’d tell her about her husband’s tongue in his mouth, on his throat, on his cock, up his ass. He’d be crude. He’d listen to her cry just because he could.
Only he can’t. Because Jason stopped returning his calls months before the engagement was announced. The last time he saw him was the last game of the season. If only, he thinks.
(Arkora. Elias pov.)
17. Ice baby, I saw your girlfriend and she's eating her fingers like they're just another meal.
Summer Babe, PavementIt’s hard to watch your friends make foolish choices.
Biting back questions--where were you last night? why didn’t you come home?, chewing on pride, swallowing hurt. He looks sick to his stomach, and I can’t say a thing. It’s not my place. He’s made that known.
“It’s my relationship, Patty.” And he takes a deep breath. “I can take care of myself.”
I watch him eating his fingers and wait for him to disappear. Slow, painful process--gnawing on his convictions, and I watch them pass behind his tongue--a bolus of abandoned principles. I can’t help but think, “No, you can’t.”
(Lisa and Catherine bake cookies. Yzerman/Shannahan)
2. I sit and watch your flowers wilting in the kitchen. Get You In, Better Than Ezra
Lisa opens her mouth, but no noise comes out. Just a gaping hole, a black one, sucking everything in and she swallows, choking, gagging, as her husband's indiscretions manage to lodge themselves in her throat.
I’m sorry, she thinks, stupidly. I’m sorry, and she’s sitting at the kitchen table, entertaining one twin while Catherine holds the other. She’s out of place and when she closes her mouth, she tastes flour. Slightly sweet and a little bit is manageable, but this… She coughs, and white powder flies; a cloud of flour hanging over them.
I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault.
(Arkora. As per usual.)
19. You stay away from me because you know I'm good for you. Treat Me Like Dirt, Patti Rothberg
It's hardly consolation to know that Jason loves him. He dreads midnight phone calls: Jason whispering into the receiver, holding the phone so tightly Petr can hear it squeak, crying for reprieve. Petr can't help Jason's mobile; he can't even help himself. Each night he finds himself in this place consisting of if onlys and really truly love yous.
Great, Petr drawls.
If only Jason would move on so that he could. He’s tired of having the long-distance boyfriend. He’s too old for this shit.
His label, the other woman, doesn’t have quite the same appeal as it used to.
18. I knew a boy who would not share his bike, oh but he let me go sailing. Snow Cherries From France, Tori Amos
(Sailing? OH CHEESE SANDWICH ME.
Janne Niinimaa/Mikael Renberg)
He is careful where he puts his things. I watch him unpack every weekend, because he'd never be so inconsiderate as to jam his clothes into my overstuffed drawers, or leave them, dirty and used, on the floor, like wayward soldiers or balled up kleenex. I watch him unpack, and there is such a concerted effort to place his things separate from mine. His sweaters are never tossed around haphazardly, and his toothbrush barely grazes mine, even though they rest in the same red cup.
Every weekend he repacks his things and surgically removes himself from my life. He returns to his life, his little town, and I could search all week, but I'd never find a trace of him.
Once, I slept in one of his shirts, and the following Friday, I wore it, grinning as he arrived. It caught him off guard, and even as he smirked and complimented me on my taste, I could tell that he was perturbed.
I wore another of his to bed, and on Sunday morning, surreptitiously he removed it, leaving me panting and dazed, and by the time I recovered, I'd forgotten about it. Tuesday, I remembered, but I didn't bother searching underneath my bed.
I visit him rarely. He always manages to find me, to surprise me before I even think to look for the keys to my car. Since the season's end, he's made it a habit to stop by once a week. Years ago I suggested he leave some of his things behind, and he smiled, lips thin, nearly patting me on my head as he would his own child, patronizing and loving: "Let's not fool ourselves."
Let's not fool ourselves into thinking this is more than it is. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that this will last, is what he meant. But it's been five years, and he still slips into my life once a week.
He has problems giving, especially when it comes to me. He will never allow me one toothbrush, one sock, one shirt. And yet, the times I do visit his home, I find my two year old toothbrush in his medicine cabinet, a forgotten album of mine on the table by his bed. It's strange to find myself all over his home, though I've barely spent two weeks there my entire life.
When he leaves me, as he probably will, it will be easier because there will be nothing of his left behind to act as reminders of what once was. Perhaps these are his thoughts; he is looking out for me. Considerate and kind, selfishly, he makes the decision for me. There is nothing for me to consider throwing away, or burning when this ends. Even my memories will fade on their own accord, so I long for, and wait patiently for the day that he will accidentally on purpose leave something behind.
He never will, though, and I hate him for that. Hopelessly without any semblance of control, and this is what being in love is like.
(Arkora.)
1) "With my teeth locked down I can see the blood of a thousand men who have come and gone" (The Von Bondies - Cmon Cmon)
Petr finds a tear and all tolerance flies out the window. Nonjudgmental, understanding Petr consumed by fear: chlamydia, herpes, HIV, and he’s going to die and this is all Jason’s fault. Jason: the slut, the whore, and now the murderer. Petr had just been looking for a good time; he doesn’t want to die. He doesn‘t take risks; he’s never gone bungee jumping.
He avoids Jason like the plague for weeks and when the tests come back, he cries.
Shamefaced and red, he avoids Jason for another three weeks. Eventually, Petr tells him and Jason punches him in the face.
(Post wedding. Arkora.)
11. It's funny how a morning turns a love to shame (Patty Griffin -- Every Little Bit)
He has never been more in love. A warmth in his stomach, and he sighs, closing his eyes, feeling it spread, traveling through his veins searching for escape, and finding none simply travels as far as the surface, bringing his skin up to a low simmer. Hot, but not boiling, uncomfortable. Perfect and he could fall asleep. He is floating in a sea of warmth, and love, and two lips attached to his neck and life has never been better.
He never tires of this feeling; it will never become old, or boring, or routine, because he is in love. And he has never been more certain.
They fumble in the darkness. They are clumsy and nervous, and they have done this hundreds of times before, but it's new every time. Jason discovers new details: a gasp, a new scar, longer hair. He laughs against Petr's neck because he is so in love; it's almost a little too ridiculous. He was never much of a romantic and here he is, whispering crazy, stupid things in the dark, in Petr's bed, against the smooth warmth of Petr's skin. He's a fool. He's a sap.
He's so fucked.
Morning light reflecting, bouncing hard and fast off his left hand, and he recalls the night before, swallowing hard. His mouth, bitter and disgusting and smelling of day-old beer, works from memory. Petr isn't even awake this time, but he's heard the monologue before. He's not missing much.
Jason sits up and his stomach drops: a hangover of a different kind, because he's always been a two-beer man. Fuck, he thinks.
Fuck. And it's funny, because last night he would have called it love.