Ficlet: Trip

[serai]

.
Here's another surprise. Watched The Virgin Suicides last night, and today I got this...

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Trip
by Serai


Jeanine flies out the door and down the driveway. I watch through the windows as I wash the dishes. He meets her halfway up the asphalt, and I size him up. Of course he doesn’t live up to her gushing praises – they never do. He’s pretty enough, flashing a bright smile whose charm he’s obviously rehearsed, but there’s something about his lanky, hipshot walk that unsettles me. The affected way he bobs his head as he approaches her, and the curve of his neck when he looks down into her eyes… Looking up at him, she sees the Cutest Boy Ever, but I see a snake, a cobra or a rattler hypnotizing its prey. Rattlesnakes aren’t evil, they’re just doing what they do. Things turn out pretty badly for whatever crosses their path, though.

Now he touches her nose with a fingertip, and I can easily imagine her expression that I’m too far away to see. I sigh, wondering if they make snakebite kits for a broken heart.

Comments

[gabi-fics.livejournal.com]

That last line sums up the drabble brilliantly. I've deleted three lines that poorly explain how I get this. Just know it's brilliant.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Thanks again. I've found last lines are so incredibly important in tiny fics. The first and the last are the linchpins - everything in between serves to connect them.

[aliensouldream.livejournal.com]

This is the essence of him, a force of nature! Why do we all crush on the Trips hoping just this once that nature can be denied? The unsentimental pity makes this great.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

It was kinda heartbreaking, how Trip started out as this luscious drink of water and ended up being just another self-involved little shit. But then the revelation that he's in rehab made me question his nonchalance when talking about Lux. How deeply did the subsequent events influence him? Or were his later troubles related to them at all? I love unanswered questions like that.