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Mirrormask ficthing
(I totally can't remember the movie well enough for this, but oh well.)
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bantha_fodder -
five things Helena knows about Valentine
1) The first time she calls him Valentine he looks at her strangely, but he doesn’t comment. It catches on fast; sometimes he complains about the girly nickname, but it’s a good solid stage name and she knows he likes it for the feeling of belonging that it represents.
2) He’s afraid of the dark, the creeping nighttime shadows, and he thinks that kind of fear is stupidly juvenile so he never talks about it.
3) They get into an argument about the choreography of their new routine. It’s nothing major; just a decision about ball direction and whether or not to include a trick that they still screw up every now and again, but it’s enough that Helena feels justified sulking for an entire afternoon.
Valentine marches up to her and pushes a cup of coffee into her hand with enough force that it almost spills. “It’s okay.” His mouth is thin. “We’ll do it your way. You’ve been doing this longer. It doesn’t matter.”
But he’s already a showperson to his fingertips and it does matter, to him.
On opening night, two bars before the cue, she winks at him and lifts two fingers. They do it his way.
4) He thinks she’s too good for him.
5) The first time they sleep together it’s a lukewarm spring night and all the circus folk are on edge because of some new council regulations about vagrancy and the public space. The trapeze comes loose in the dress rehearsal, one of the acrobats turns her ankle, and Helena and Valentine set a new record for the number of balls dropped during their act.
“Fuck,” Helena says, kicking around a clod of grass behind her trailer, running her hands through her gelled hair. “This is so. Fuck.”
Valentine is leaning against the trailer, arms folded, watching her with an expression that it’s too dark for her to see properly. “Anything I can do?”
She considers that, and four seconds later she steps up to him, puts her hands at the back of his neck and pulls his lips down to hers. It's deeper, better, bigger then she thought it would be, and she's a little out of breath when she breaks away. “Yeah, actually.”
Tension hums down his body. “I – Helena, I just want to – you –”
Helena rolls her eyes, grins, and tangles her hands in his hair. “Shut up, Valentine.”
She knows what he’s trying to say.
and
five things Valentine knows about Helena
1) Whenever she feels upset about something she locks herself in her room and paints her fingernails a new colour. Her record is three times in a single day; he remembers her passing him a ball and seeing specks of paint around her cuticles in black, gold and green.
2) The day she found out about her mother’s sickness was the worst day of her life.
3) The second time they sleep together it’s in his tiny trailer bed, and Helena has a quiet, intense nightmare during which her face goes blank and her hands move in a familiar rhythm. She could be juggling.
“Hey. Helena, hey.” He shakes her shoulder, kisses her forehead, and her eyes open.
“Thank you for waking me up,” she whispers, and he knows that there is more to that statement than is immediately apparent.
4) She has dreams that are larger than the biggest circus tent in the world, but still hasn’t found anything that gives her greater, purer joy than the sound of applause coming from the annulus of darkness outside the artificial light of the ring, and the exhaustion that falls over her at the end of a show.
5) She tries on a veil as part of the costume for a new act, a Middle Eastern thing that involves half the circus, and waggles her head at him.
“What do you think?”
“Well, all I can see are your eyes, but…” He grabs the sequined tassels on her top and tugs her closer, whispers in her ear. “I could fall in love with just those.”
“Huh.” She sounds very pleased, and all of a sudden the heels of her makeup-smeared hands are over his eyes, masking his vision, just the lower half of his face remaining uncovered. “Well,” she says, in the quick dry voice that he’s learned is a way for her to deal with being embarrassed by her own sentimentality, “I fell in love with just this.”
She leans up and presses a kiss onto his lips.
It’s silly and implausible, but he knows that she’s telling the truth.
For
bantha_fodder - five things Helena knows about Valentine
1) The first time she calls him Valentine he looks at her strangely, but he doesn’t comment. It catches on fast; sometimes he complains about the girly nickname, but it’s a good solid stage name and she knows he likes it for the feeling of belonging that it represents.
2) He’s afraid of the dark, the creeping nighttime shadows, and he thinks that kind of fear is stupidly juvenile so he never talks about it.
3) They get into an argument about the choreography of their new routine. It’s nothing major; just a decision about ball direction and whether or not to include a trick that they still screw up every now and again, but it’s enough that Helena feels justified sulking for an entire afternoon.
Valentine marches up to her and pushes a cup of coffee into her hand with enough force that it almost spills. “It’s okay.” His mouth is thin. “We’ll do it your way. You’ve been doing this longer. It doesn’t matter.”
But he’s already a showperson to his fingertips and it does matter, to him.
On opening night, two bars before the cue, she winks at him and lifts two fingers. They do it his way.
4) He thinks she’s too good for him.
5) The first time they sleep together it’s a lukewarm spring night and all the circus folk are on edge because of some new council regulations about vagrancy and the public space. The trapeze comes loose in the dress rehearsal, one of the acrobats turns her ankle, and Helena and Valentine set a new record for the number of balls dropped during their act.
“Fuck,” Helena says, kicking around a clod of grass behind her trailer, running her hands through her gelled hair. “This is so. Fuck.”
Valentine is leaning against the trailer, arms folded, watching her with an expression that it’s too dark for her to see properly. “Anything I can do?”
She considers that, and four seconds later she steps up to him, puts her hands at the back of his neck and pulls his lips down to hers. It's deeper, better, bigger then she thought it would be, and she's a little out of breath when she breaks away. “Yeah, actually.”
Tension hums down his body. “I – Helena, I just want to – you –”
Helena rolls her eyes, grins, and tangles her hands in his hair. “Shut up, Valentine.”
She knows what he’s trying to say.
and
five things Valentine knows about Helena
1) Whenever she feels upset about something she locks herself in her room and paints her fingernails a new colour. Her record is three times in a single day; he remembers her passing him a ball and seeing specks of paint around her cuticles in black, gold and green.
2) The day she found out about her mother’s sickness was the worst day of her life.
3) The second time they sleep together it’s in his tiny trailer bed, and Helena has a quiet, intense nightmare during which her face goes blank and her hands move in a familiar rhythm. She could be juggling.
“Hey. Helena, hey.” He shakes her shoulder, kisses her forehead, and her eyes open.
“Thank you for waking me up,” she whispers, and he knows that there is more to that statement than is immediately apparent.
4) She has dreams that are larger than the biggest circus tent in the world, but still hasn’t found anything that gives her greater, purer joy than the sound of applause coming from the annulus of darkness outside the artificial light of the ring, and the exhaustion that falls over her at the end of a show.
5) She tries on a veil as part of the costume for a new act, a Middle Eastern thing that involves half the circus, and waggles her head at him.
“What do you think?”
“Well, all I can see are your eyes, but…” He grabs the sequined tassels on her top and tugs her closer, whispers in her ear. “I could fall in love with just those.”
“Huh.” She sounds very pleased, and all of a sudden the heels of her makeup-smeared hands are over his eyes, masking his vision, just the lower half of his face remaining uncovered. “Well,” she says, in the quick dry voice that he’s learned is a way for her to deal with being embarrassed by her own sentimentality, “I fell in love with just this.”
She leans up and presses a kiss onto his lips.
It’s silly and implausible, but he knows that she’s telling the truth.
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I LOVE THESE A LOT. Fishnets.
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I approve of all the sleeping together, I must tell you.
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♥
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BUT I GOTTA SAY
MIRRORMASK VALENTINE/HELENA YAY
thumbs up.