marginalia: xiao zhan looking through movie camera (Default)
yiling matriarch ([personal profile] marginalia) wrote2004-07-27 08:01 am

fic: anything frail, anything wild. katchoo/francine

title: anything frail, anything wild
pairing: katchoo/francine, strangers in paradise
archive: .: marginalia :.
disclaimer: i own nothing
notes: by request for [livejournal.com profile] art_geek. happy birthday, m'dear! you've been a blessing in my life. and. you know. all that rot. this was really hard to write. and since it's the world's smallest fandom, no one could beta it. woe! vaguely in the high school issues. title and cut text from "northbound 35", off of jeffrey foucault's awesome new disc stripping cane.



Katchoo has to go. She really does. She has to get away from Houston, from her mother, from him. She's got to go. She'll go to Columbus. She's been planning it for a long time, planning without knowing she was planning, always unconsciously spinning a contingency scheme.

So now she's going. There's no room for change.

And it's just at that point, of course, that things do. That's always the way it works. She meets Francine (finally, after hovering around the idea of her) and things change so fast her head spins. Some things are the same, the big things she has to get away from. Johnny's still the same, her mother's still the same, he's still the same, but Francine is new. And something in Francine makes something in Katchoo new, too.

Francine does something to her, turns off the internal censor or whatever the fuck you want to call it, and she just rambles like. Well. Like she's Francine. They're laughing and talking out the window like they're in some bad teen movie and for a few mad moments she thinks about asking Francine to come along, to follow her away from the white picket fence, away from the house where everyone pretends like crazy that it's all the same and perfect. Francine on the back of the motorcycle, eyes squeezed shut, arms clinging tight, laughing in Katchoo's ear. Hair flying back, dark and light tangling together.

But. No.

Francine's house hasn't fallen apart yet, but it's bound to, and it feels right to come there after, because Francine is used to cracks and so if Katchoo shatters a little bit, it'll be all right.

Well. It'll never be all right. But they'll get through it. And curled up in Francine's arms Katchoo wonders when she started thinking "they". Even though Francine is soft and sweet and everything she wants right then she knows she has to go. She has to go until she's everything Francine will want.

The motorcycle is clinging and singing to the road, she's flying north, she's broken, she's setting herself free.

She made a promise. She'll be back.

[identity profile] art-geek.livejournal.com 2004-07-27 08:09 am (UTC)(link)
Even though Francine is soft and sweet and everything she wants right then she knows she has to go.

Aww. *sniffles*

*glomps!*

r0x0r!

You're the best, babe! *hugs you lots*

[identity profile] marginalia.livejournal.com 2004-07-28 10:03 am (UTC)(link)
am so pleased you liked it :D

[identity profile] mellyflori.livejournal.com 2004-07-27 08:47 am (UTC)(link)
omg you wrote SIP... there are no words for the ♥ I have for you.

*rereadslikefiftybajilliontimes*
starfishchick: (Default)

[personal profile] starfishchick 2004-07-27 09:59 am (UTC)(link)
I was going to recommend that you beta this for Jaci, but I wasn't sure if it was for you or not.

[identity profile] mellyflori.livejournal.com 2004-07-27 11:04 am (UTC)(link)
It's just so lovely, I would only have been able to fawn on it. I love Katchoo and I love Francine and ... oh. Wow.

This made getting caught in the rainstorm not so bad.

[identity profile] marginalia.livejournal.com 2004-07-28 10:07 am (UTC)(link)
yeah, i should have said. no one spoke up for either of them, so i am all "woe!"

[identity profile] marginalia.livejournal.com 2004-07-28 10:06 am (UTC)(link)
*\o/*

i was so damned nervous about this. ellen requested it -months- ago, but there's, like, no other sip fic out there and so i was all *flail* and stuff.

so. thank you :)

[identity profile] farothear.livejournal.com 2004-07-27 08:18 pm (UTC)(link)
god i love katchoo. and i'm so sorry i let my readership of this comic flag. the ficlet is gorgeous and captures her voice in a wonderful way. and it made me wibble more than a little bit.

[identity profile] marginalia.livejournal.com 2004-07-28 10:21 am (UTC)(link)
i'm behind on it myself - i need to go back to the beginning, i think, raid art_geek's collection.

thank you!