storypaint (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
storypaint) wrote2010-09-21 12:13 am
storypaint) wrote2010-09-21 12:13 am
[Animorphs] you're the story (Marco/Rachel)
Title: you're the story
Fandom: Animorphs
Length: 553 words
Prompt: doomed ship comment ficathon: Animorphs, Rachel/Marco, cause laughing lovers can overcome their closest demons
Pairing: Marco/Rachel; mention of Tobias/Rachel
Other: Spoilers for last few books, discussion of death.
Excerpt: He thought that he could have convinced her to go to prom with him. If he'd tried hard enough, and everyone knew he was damned persistent. Even if Tobias was cool and famous like they were, he was a bird now. He had two hours to be human, but he thought like a bird. You weren't going to shove him into a tux and make him suffer, right? Whereas Marco could promise to be a total gentleman, and almost mean it.
Sometimes Marco thought about what would have happened if she'd lived. Rachel had been vibrant, bigger than life in a way that was quite often frightening. She was Xena, Warrior Princess, and she never let anyone forget it.
He thought he could make her laugh. Sometimes she laughed at him for being stupid or for being clumsy, but she also laughed at him for just being Marco, and that was a start. He'd find a joke for her someday - a lot of jokes.
People preserve strange objects in their grief - no one used Rachel's locker now that she was gone. Marco didn't go back to the school very often, but when he did, he always slipped something through the slats, a bad joke or a better joke or a fashion article he'd defaced with his own commentary. He thought that one day maybe it would fill up with slips of paper, that they'd poke out the sides and the top, and maybe then they'd open the locker and see just how much he missed her. They hadn't yet.
But if she'd lived -
He thought that he could have convinced her to go to prom with him. If he'd tried hard enough, and everyone knew he was damned persistent. Even if Tobias was cool and famous like they were, he was a bird now. He had two hours to be human, but he thought like a bird. You weren't going to shove him into a tux and make him suffer, right? Whereas Marco could promise to be a total gentleman, and almost mean it.
And after prom... well, there was what everyone else did after prom, but Marco would make good on his promise and just take her for coffee. They'd slip into some little diner where no one knew them - take a swift flight together first, if they needed to, because no one was shooting down predator birds anymore. He'd lean across the table and do impersonations of the waitress. She'd throw her head back, laughing in spandex, and maybe the waitress would keep giving them odd looks, but they wouldn't care.
He could have talked her into falling in love with him, Marco thinks. Could have taken some time to let Jake adjust to the idea, could have asked him to be best man. Could have had a televised wedding and a couple adorable children with their father's dark hair and their mother's determined eyes.
He could have had someone to hold him when he woke from nightmares of being stuck in morph, in half-morph, nightmares of losing someone (of losing her, always her). He could have someone to hold. They could have long-running arguments about which direction the toilet paper roll should go (Marco was an under kind of guy, but he thought Rachel would be over). He could have tried to convince her not to dye her hair when she began finding grays.
Sometimes he thought about it, and then he wrote another joke, made another public appearance, and kept moving on. What was done was done, and war never left anyone whole.
He wasn't going to turn into the person his dad had been after he lost his mom, so when people told him he was remarkably well-adjusted, he nodded and tried to be.
Sometimes, he still dreamed about her shining hair.
Fandom: Animorphs
Length: 553 words
Prompt: doomed ship comment ficathon: Animorphs, Rachel/Marco, cause laughing lovers can overcome their closest demons
Pairing: Marco/Rachel; mention of Tobias/Rachel
Other: Spoilers for last few books, discussion of death.
Excerpt: He thought that he could have convinced her to go to prom with him. If he'd tried hard enough, and everyone knew he was damned persistent. Even if Tobias was cool and famous like they were, he was a bird now. He had two hours to be human, but he thought like a bird. You weren't going to shove him into a tux and make him suffer, right? Whereas Marco could promise to be a total gentleman, and almost mean it.
Sometimes Marco thought about what would have happened if she'd lived. Rachel had been vibrant, bigger than life in a way that was quite often frightening. She was Xena, Warrior Princess, and she never let anyone forget it.
He thought he could make her laugh. Sometimes she laughed at him for being stupid or for being clumsy, but she also laughed at him for just being Marco, and that was a start. He'd find a joke for her someday - a lot of jokes.
People preserve strange objects in their grief - no one used Rachel's locker now that she was gone. Marco didn't go back to the school very often, but when he did, he always slipped something through the slats, a bad joke or a better joke or a fashion article he'd defaced with his own commentary. He thought that one day maybe it would fill up with slips of paper, that they'd poke out the sides and the top, and maybe then they'd open the locker and see just how much he missed her. They hadn't yet.
But if she'd lived -
He thought that he could have convinced her to go to prom with him. If he'd tried hard enough, and everyone knew he was damned persistent. Even if Tobias was cool and famous like they were, he was a bird now. He had two hours to be human, but he thought like a bird. You weren't going to shove him into a tux and make him suffer, right? Whereas Marco could promise to be a total gentleman, and almost mean it.
And after prom... well, there was what everyone else did after prom, but Marco would make good on his promise and just take her for coffee. They'd slip into some little diner where no one knew them - take a swift flight together first, if they needed to, because no one was shooting down predator birds anymore. He'd lean across the table and do impersonations of the waitress. She'd throw her head back, laughing in spandex, and maybe the waitress would keep giving them odd looks, but they wouldn't care.
He could have talked her into falling in love with him, Marco thinks. Could have taken some time to let Jake adjust to the idea, could have asked him to be best man. Could have had a televised wedding and a couple adorable children with their father's dark hair and their mother's determined eyes.
He could have had someone to hold him when he woke from nightmares of being stuck in morph, in half-morph, nightmares of losing someone (of losing her, always her). He could have someone to hold. They could have long-running arguments about which direction the toilet paper roll should go (Marco was an under kind of guy, but he thought Rachel would be over). He could have tried to convince her not to dye her hair when she began finding grays.
Sometimes he thought about it, and then he wrote another joke, made another public appearance, and kept moving on. What was done was done, and war never left anyone whole.
He wasn't going to turn into the person his dad had been after he lost his mom, so when people told him he was remarkably well-adjusted, he nodded and tried to be.
Sometimes, he still dreamed about her shining hair.