Fang likes things salty (wild_luck) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-04-27 19:35:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, claire farron (lightning), oerba yun fang |
So what’s it gonna be?
Who: Fang and Light
What: drinking turns to fighting
When: Recently
Where: Eve
status: complete
Rating: Pg-13 for language
Though it hadn't really been intended it at all, Lightning had gotten off on the wrong foot with Fang. She wasn't really that surprised, to be honest. She hadn't gotten along with Fang in any of the instances she'd dreamed about. There had always been some kind of friction or tension between them. In her dream world, she hadn't had the time to figure it out.
Thanks to the real world and its invention of naked girl magazines (which Serah was nice enough to still leave laying around), Lightning knew exactly what the tension was about. At least on Fang's end. Her treatment of the other woman had been mainly to protect her from getting any kinds of hopes up.
Or at least, that's what Light was telling herself. But she knew that it was just as much about not wanting to be hit on by a woman who drove her crazy. And Fang? Fang drove her absolutely nuts.
So she had no idea why she's marched herself into Eve. She didn't have anything to prove. Fang had written her off and she could have left it that way. But she didn't. She walked up to the bar and sank onto a stool.
Eve was trendy, and full of women. And only women. Women holding hands, women dancing together, women kissing. It's a trap!.
Only Fang hadn't intended any trap. She watched with some amusement as Lightning entered. A few heads turned, and she mentally patted her back for guessing which of the regulars would zoom in on Light. She stepped out from behind the bar. "You got this, right Sarah? Yeah."
Sarah winked at her and Fang walked over towards Light. She still had her cane, though she didn't really need it anymore. It was comforting like an old pair of jeans, and most importantly it could both throw someone off and be used as a weapon. Never again would Fang let herself be a victim. Or let someone like Vanille have to hurt someone to protect her. "Well well well, if it isn't Lightning."
Her grin was cocky.
"Don't make me regret this, Fang," Light replied, already cranky. And not because of the looks she'd gotten as she entered the bar, or the fact that it was obviously a bar for lesbians. Mainly, she was tired. It had taken her five busses to get where she was, and every bus ride had been long and agonizing.
She wished she'd been smart enough to let her arm hang in its sling. Fang was wandering around with a cane and zero shame. Light was jealous of that. Jealous of the woman's self-assured way of living.
"I came in here to buy you a drink. You keep grinning at me like that and I'll just walk right out."
Cranky Light. Well that was normal. Fang shook her head. "Fine, fine, don't let me talk myself out of a drink." She swiveled on her stool and studied Light closely as the woman sat there.
Light leaned forward a bit, resting against the bar with one hand, "I didn't think you'd turn a drink down. Especially one you weren't paying for." She waved the other bartender over, "Whisky, neat. And whatever Fang wants."
Fang’s eyes dipped down, then back up. She turned to Sarah and winked. “Same. Top shelf.”
"Yeah, make sure mine's the bottom shelf. I want to drink the closest thing I can to battery acid, and there better not be any ice in there. If I'm not coughing up a lung when I drink it, I'm sending it back," Light grumbled. She'd gotten used to far less fancier liquor out in Afghanistan, which she still lovingly referred to as 'the sandbox'.
The older woman rolled her eyes at Light's request and suggested a brand for the bartender that would still be strong and yet not taste like acid. Because she's a bitch like that. Then she slapped down some cash. "Have you...met anyone else from our dreams, Light?"
Light wondered what the cash was for, since she'd said she was buying. She eyed it suspiciously, then shook her head, "No. I keep my eyes open. Especially for Snow. But the only Snow we have is a big dumb white cat that lives with us and keeps knocking things over."
She hated that cat. It made her jumpy all the time, the noises that thing made in the middle of the night.
The cash was for something else entirely and Sarah took it. “Next time you should bet on the winning team.”
Fang stuck her tongue out at Sarah, then turned back towards Light. “Too bad for Serah, I’m sure she’d love to have him around. Did she really name a cat after him??”
"No, he was named Snow when I came home a few months ago. She got him while I was out there. It was just a coincidence."
Light shook her head and picked up the drink that had been poured for her, staring down into the depths of it for a few long moments, "It's got to be hard for her, yes. She's been lost. It's lead to some... well," she sighed. What was the word she wanted.
"Misguided attempts to find affection with inappropriate men." That was too many words, but she hoped that Fang got the gist. She didn't think her sister was a slut or anything, she just wished Serah was sleeping with Booker for the right reasons. And with a man closer to her age.
"She try girls?" Fang raised her eyebrow, but smirked as though that might be an offer that's on the table, even if it would invite Light's wrath. Especially if it would invite Light's wrath. "Maybe she just needs the right people around to help guide her, though."
There was no wrath, only a snort of disdain. Light lifted the drink to her lips and sucked down nearly an inch of it in one go. It wasn't smooth like a higher quality brand might have been, but it wasn't as rough as she was hoping, either. She sighed a bit, "She's tried girls. Thinks I should be trying them, myself. She was really pushy about that for a while, but I'm glad she backed off before I lost my job over it."
Celes was a wonderful woman, patient and understanding. Light really liked her, and she was glad that Serah stopped pushing them into awkward situations. The other blonde woman was something of a kindred spirit, but Light couldn't say she was attracted. Their one kiss had been extremely awkward.
Fang watched Light suck down the whiskey like it was water. She raised an eyebrow. “Serah struck me as someone who thinks she knows what’s best for someone, even if she doesn’t really know.” Which was true to an extent.
“Yeah. And maybe she’s right about this one. But it’s none of her damn business. It’s not anyone’s business. And when I’m pushed, I just push right back.” Light knocked back the entire rest of her glass, and shook it in the air for a refill. She wasn’t even sure why she was opening up like this to Fang of all people.
“Now that sounds more like the Light I know!” Fang beat her fist on the bar and grinned at her … well they weren’t exactly friends right now, were they? Fang felt like they were, but she had no idea how much Light had dreamed, or even if those dreams had affected her feelings at all. “World just felt wrong without you.”
“If you’re waiting for me to keep sounding like my dream self, I think you shouldn’t hold your breath.”
Light drummed her fingers on the bartop while she waited for Sarah to refill her alcohol. She desperately wanted a cigarette, or something stronger than liquor, or simply to just check out from life for a while. Especially in the face of all this dream stuff. The Claire Farron in that other world was so much stronger.
Fang had never seen Light like this before. To her, Farron was hard, like a stone wall that you had to bust through to get to the otherside, except there was no busting through her. Light wore her stoicism and dry wit the same way that Fang wore her attitude and her smirks. And likely for many of the same reasons. Fang hurt inside, she was angry, always angry, now more than ever before.
But you'd never know it if you looked at her.
So expecting Light to be much the same and seeing her so vulnerable was almost frightening. Fang knocked back some of her booze. And then the rest of it, because she'll be damned if Light out drinks her. "You look like a person tryin' to forget."
"Maybe I am," Light replied, with a sigh. She didn't want to be this vulnerable, especially in front of Fang, "Or maybe I'm just trying to remember."
She didn't bother nursing her second glass, either. It might as well have been filled with water, though she realised that if she got too drunk she was dangerously close to 'someone call this woman a cab' territory. That inevitably just made her want to get even more drunk, really.
Damn it if that wasn't the biggest 'war veteran' stereotype ever, but Light didn't care right now.
Fang wasn’t that far off from that territory either, but she always took the bus, and if she really needed there was her private office. She smirked at the thought. She’d invited girls back there before, but this wasn’t a girl. This was Light. While her body was willing her spirit and heart weren’t quite there yet. She gestured for some more liquid courage for both of them. “What are ya trying to remember?”
"How to be." Light squinted down at glass again, "Normal, I guess. The way I was before I shipped out."
“Were you all that normal? You’d have to ask your sister wouldn’t you?” Fang shrugged one shoulder, and picked up her refilled glass. “Never went military. My leg got messed up in a wreck when I was in high school, so they wouldn’t have taken me anyway. Can’t say I’d know how it would change you, but it probably isn’t much different than going to war in our dreams, either.”
"Serah wouldn't know. We still barely know each other. We were thrown into the system after mom died, separate houses." Light shrugged a shoulder and knocked back the rest of her glass, "It's a little bit different. In the dreams, I had powers. We were more than mortals. We were l'Cie. When you're sitting in the middle of a firefight in the sandbox, it's... you become very aware of your mortality."
“...sorry.” Fang couldn’t say she knew what that was like. But she knew what it was like to lose yourself, or to have your dearest person taken away from you. “Yeah. That makes sense. But even if we were l’Cie that don’t make us any less mortal than the people we fought.”
“But when you have godly powers, you start thinking that you have the immortality of a god, too.” Light reflected, while finishing off her drink. This wasn’t actually what she’d meant to talk about. Had she meant to talk about anything? Not talking to Fang was like a losing battle, “But we’re not immortal. …this shouldn’t even be a problem. It isn’t. I didn’t die. I’m luckier than most. You just don’t go back to the way you were. That’s all.”
"You're someone new. Is that a problem? Does it have to be? Better to adapt than not." Fang rested a hand on Light's shoulder. She wished the woman was healthy enough to spar. That might help her feel more like herself.
The touch sent strange ripples through Claire. It made her feel twitchy and strange, like her heart was racing and she'd just been struck by something, and she didn't like it. She didn't like it one bit. She twitched away from Fang, and shook her head, "Sure. It is. You don't need to tell me how to live. Adapt or die, everyone knows that!"
Fang rolled her eyes and dropped her hand from Light's shoulder. "Yeah, exactly, so which are you gonna do, because I'm here to help you, and I'm not gonna help you die. Least not without convincing you life is too fun to give up on."
"I don't need your help!" Light shouted, and hopped off her bar stool. She took a few seconds to steady herself, then pulled a handful of twenty dollar bills out of her jacket and slapped them down on the bar, "I don't need anyone's help. And I won't be the reason you're not with her. I didn't ask for this."
Emotions that she was usually better at playing close to her chest - so close that not even she always understood them - were threatening to crash down all around her. As far as Light was concerned, that was Fang's fault, and she wasn't having any of it.
It was probably time to leave, anyway, "Goodbye, Fang."
"Oh for god's sake!" Fang slid off her own barstool, wobbling a little bit. She grabbed Light's shoulders. "Don't you understand? Neither of us have a choice right now. We've got a focus and I already know we're going to fight it because that's what we do, but we can't fight it alone!"
"I don't CARE!" Light flailed her arms in the air, trying to break free of Fang's grip. It was pretty impossible, because the other woman was much stronger than her, physically. She always had been, even in the dreams, but it was especially true right then.
"Focus. We shouldn't even have a focus. There are no Fal'cie here. We can't be going through this. Those are dreams. They aren't real. None of this makes any sense!"
Fang grabbed the front of Light’s shirt and popped two buttons as she pulled it open. The brand was there, active, even if it was partially obscured by Light’s bandage. “Tell me that ain’t real!” She grabbed Light’s hand and placed it on the brand on her arm. “Tell me!
They were attracting quite an audience around the bar at this point - though no one was entirely sure if the two women were going to fight, or kiss, or possibly do both. Light tried to rip herself away from Fang. Her cheeks were red, and she looked down at the floor, "We're making a scene."
Light was backing down and Fang didn’t know how to process that. It wasn’t natural. “Hit me or yell at me or something! Don’t act demure and shit, that isn’t you!”
"THE ONLY ME THAT YOU KNOW IS FROM A FUCKING NIGHTMARE WORLD!" Light shouted, in response.
Fang got up in Light’s face, her own contorting with righteous anger. “WELL WAKE THE FUCK UP, CLAIRE! THAT NIGHTMARE IS COMIN’ FOR US WHETHER YOU WANT IT TO OR NOT AND YOU CAN EITHER RUN LIKE A COWARD OR TURN AND FACE IT!” She pushed the other woman in her good shoulder. “So what’s it gonna be? Are you going to be Fate’s bitch or are you going fuck her up?”
The thing that scared her was that she didn’t actually know what Light was going to do. She was so far out of her element and Claire was so much not Lightning that Fang wanted to scream. And maybe cry a little when she was alone
"I'm NOT that Claire! I'm not HER! I can't BE her!" Light's voice sounded a little choked, though obviously not so choked up that she couldn't still yell very loudly, "I WILL NEVER BE HER, SO IT DOESN'T MATTER. Don't you see!? Don't you GET it?! My sister is branded all over again. You come back from crystal. I just fought a war to get her back in my hands and now no matter what I do, we've all lost."
She pulled away from Fang and hugged herself, "I don't care if Fate fucks me in the ass with no lube at this point. There's nothing in me that's strong enough to fight back. I'll become one of those things. Or maybe I'll eat my own gun before I watch my sister turn into crystal in front of me again. And I NEVER. EVER. Asked for you to come all the way here from Australia to remind me how much of a fucking joke I am. Leave me alone and get out of my face."
"You're right," Fang hissed. "You're not her and I'm sorry I ever thought you might have been. You're just a fraud. The real Light wouldn't give up on her friends, let alone her sister. The real Light would find the strength that's there and grab onto it. If I have to do this alone, fine, I will. If I have to fight you to do it, I will. Get the fuck out of my bar, coward."
The 'real' Light. Claire shook her head at that. The only Lightning that existed was her, and no one was going to tell her who she was but herself. She snorted, then turned to go, "I was just leaving, anyway."
Fang had already turned her back.