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31_days2009-06-02 09:03 pm
footseer.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2009-06-02 09:03 pm
[Jun 2][Culture Shock][Coded love]
Title: Coded Love
Author: footseer
Day/Theme: June 2nd//Lovely 2 C U
Series: Culture Shock
Character/Pairing: Christopher/Bets
Rating: PG
Notes: This is from an original series I've been working on, not a 'fandom'.
It was a code, pure and simple, and it took her ages to learn it. It was easy loving him on the surface, taking everything he said at face value and hoping for the best. But after a month in his company, Bets began to notice the way his eyes sometimes shifted when he spoke, hiding a part of himself that he was unwilling to let others see.
Normally, she would have let it go, or simply ended their developing relationship. She worked around criminals and liars daily, it was not something she wanted to come home to at night. She wanted a partner who could be just as honest with her as she with him. But it was the way he shut down that piqued her interest and instead merely gave her an added incentive to decipher the mysterious person named Christopher. He gave that smiling, false look to the rest of the world and the more time she spent in his company, the more she realized that he only shared the private real smile with her, and her alone.
It wasn’t her place to ask hard questions or to pretend to know more of people than she did. But after six years on the beat, she recognized that false face he showed to the world. The blank smile that never went deeper than an expression…Bets saw it daily on the faces of mothers, children, and homeless people. It was a smile that – if you knew the code – asked ‘please’. “Please, its just one night. I want to be safe, just once.” “Please, they don’t understand. I just want it to stop hurting.” “Please, its not for me, but them.” It was a smile that expected absolutely nothing from the world, and covered up the pain that living a broken life caused.
The code said “It just hurts so damn, much, sometimes. I look at the world, and I see everyone unhappy. People I care about, people that I see on the streets. Everyone. And I try and I try but in the end there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Why can’t I ignore it?”
She didn’t know the answers. And she didn’t know why he – a man who had come to her station to ask how to ‘fit in’ with the lower class – had the same expression she found in people who were struggling so hard against the world.
The expression was familiar for another reason. She saw it every day when she looked in the mirror, or when she nodded good evening to the officers coming off shift. She found herself using it with friends and family, people she had no intention of deceiving. It was an expression learned from being hurt, and from watching the cruelty of the world. It was an expression learned from knowing what people could do. It was an expression learned from seeing the worst humanity had to offer, and knowing that every single person was capable of doing the same monstrosities –all it took was enough time and pain.
She saw it on herself every day, whether it be in the reflected face on her computer screen as she warily listened to an ex-cons excuse for beating his wife, or reflected in windows as she smiled down and handed her pocket money away to an old man she still couldn’t help but see as a ‘potential threat’.
She even caught herself using it around him.
“How was your day?”
“Busy. Had a few interesting cases, but nothing major.” Smile, pretend her persona protected her better than it did, pretend she wasn’t overworked and horrified at humanity.
“Really?” Skepticism in his voice, quiet but there. “My day wasn’t too bad either.” Then the same lying smile, forcing her to ask – what is he hiding? What hurts so much that he can’t tell me?
It wasn’t her place to ask that question. Not yet, not when she had just known him for less than a month, perhaps not ever as that hurt was something almost impossible to share. And it could have broken their relationship, the way they lied to eachother to hid the hurt and make things simpler.
But…there was a code, and just like it screamed SOS with certain expressions, it sometimes broke down, unable to hide the truth. And sometimes, oh so rarely, he didn’t need it.
Just one of his real smiles made it worth it. Just being in his presence, knowing that – somehow – he knew what she did, and could still love her for it. Knowing that he could still give true smiles at the crazy wonderfulness of the world gave her the faith to look for those same wonders herself. He reminded her of something she had lost, and that was worth the unanswered questions and lonely nights. And she wouldn’t want it any other way.
Author: footseer
Day/Theme: June 2nd//Lovely 2 C U
Series: Culture Shock
Character/Pairing: Christopher/Bets
Rating: PG
Notes: This is from an original series I've been working on, not a 'fandom'.
It was a code, pure and simple, and it took her ages to learn it. It was easy loving him on the surface, taking everything he said at face value and hoping for the best. But after a month in his company, Bets began to notice the way his eyes sometimes shifted when he spoke, hiding a part of himself that he was unwilling to let others see.
Normally, she would have let it go, or simply ended their developing relationship. She worked around criminals and liars daily, it was not something she wanted to come home to at night. She wanted a partner who could be just as honest with her as she with him. But it was the way he shut down that piqued her interest and instead merely gave her an added incentive to decipher the mysterious person named Christopher. He gave that smiling, false look to the rest of the world and the more time she spent in his company, the more she realized that he only shared the private real smile with her, and her alone.
It wasn’t her place to ask hard questions or to pretend to know more of people than she did. But after six years on the beat, she recognized that false face he showed to the world. The blank smile that never went deeper than an expression…Bets saw it daily on the faces of mothers, children, and homeless people. It was a smile that – if you knew the code – asked ‘please’. “Please, its just one night. I want to be safe, just once.” “Please, they don’t understand. I just want it to stop hurting.” “Please, its not for me, but them.” It was a smile that expected absolutely nothing from the world, and covered up the pain that living a broken life caused.
The code said “It just hurts so damn, much, sometimes. I look at the world, and I see everyone unhappy. People I care about, people that I see on the streets. Everyone. And I try and I try but in the end there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Why can’t I ignore it?”
She didn’t know the answers. And she didn’t know why he – a man who had come to her station to ask how to ‘fit in’ with the lower class – had the same expression she found in people who were struggling so hard against the world.
The expression was familiar for another reason. She saw it every day when she looked in the mirror, or when she nodded good evening to the officers coming off shift. She found herself using it with friends and family, people she had no intention of deceiving. It was an expression learned from being hurt, and from watching the cruelty of the world. It was an expression learned from knowing what people could do. It was an expression learned from seeing the worst humanity had to offer, and knowing that every single person was capable of doing the same monstrosities –all it took was enough time and pain.
She saw it on herself every day, whether it be in the reflected face on her computer screen as she warily listened to an ex-cons excuse for beating his wife, or reflected in windows as she smiled down and handed her pocket money away to an old man she still couldn’t help but see as a ‘potential threat’.
She even caught herself using it around him.
“How was your day?”
“Busy. Had a few interesting cases, but nothing major.” Smile, pretend her persona protected her better than it did, pretend she wasn’t overworked and horrified at humanity.
“Really?” Skepticism in his voice, quiet but there. “My day wasn’t too bad either.” Then the same lying smile, forcing her to ask – what is he hiding? What hurts so much that he can’t tell me?
It wasn’t her place to ask that question. Not yet, not when she had just known him for less than a month, perhaps not ever as that hurt was something almost impossible to share. And it could have broken their relationship, the way they lied to eachother to hid the hurt and make things simpler.
But…there was a code, and just like it screamed SOS with certain expressions, it sometimes broke down, unable to hide the truth. And sometimes, oh so rarely, he didn’t need it.
Just one of his real smiles made it worth it. Just being in his presence, knowing that – somehow – he knew what she did, and could still love her for it. Knowing that he could still give true smiles at the crazy wonderfulness of the world gave her the faith to look for those same wonders herself. He reminded her of something she had lost, and that was worth the unanswered questions and lonely nights. And she wouldn’t want it any other way.