obsession challenge response
Nov. 18th, 2008 05:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chanter1944Alternately titled 'holy crud, I'm writing fic again!'
this has been a little while in coming. I've had the 'Welfare Christmas' reference bouncing around my head for a bit - thank you, Everclear song lyrics! but I've only just had the inspiration for the fic to go with it! Now maybe Tracy's muse will stop giving me meaningful looks... er never mind, prod me to write all you like, muse. Being pestered by headvoices is waaaay better than not being pestered by them. Maybe she'll take the hint and bring the others back from vacation, too. *hopeful*
Title: Quality Of Life
Author: Chanter
Series: original, 1992 universe
Rating: PG13 for one heavy-duty swear word and a couple much milder ones
Characters/pairings: Butterfly and Tracy
Summary: Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
writers_choice obsession challenge but it ran over. In no way related to the TNG episode of the same name. Sometimes when worlds collide, they hit with a cha-ching.
1057 words
Tracy doesn’t understand Butterfly’s obsession. Not at all.
She doesn’t get it, when she hears the first shouted conversation from the bedroom she keeps out of as a matter of course. She’s party to only one side of the argument, loud enough nonetheless to carry through a closed door and across a kitchen’s semi-shabby length, but she doubts she’d follow the logic of it all even if she could hear the rest of what’s being said. She can’t make sense of it. Not the first time, not the second, and not after any one of the half-dozen phone calls that follow as the weeks go by.
She can’t abide the whining on principle; Butterfly’s childish soprano squeals grate on her ears even from a room away. The way she figures it, there are far more important things to resort to whining about than her roommate’s chosen subject, and none of them require quite that irritating a voice to get across. The wheedling’s the same; the falsely sweet, semi-desperate entreaties do nothing but give Tracy a headache. She can’t imagine what they must sound like to the person on the other end of the telephone line. After all, they’re that much closer to the source of the noise, never mind how much of the actual distance between one end of the conversation and the other is covered by wires.
Tracy feels for Butterfly, just a little, when she hears the other girl try all-out pleading to get her wish. It’s in spite of herself, and it’s tempered by equal disgust because come on, just how old does ‘Pleeeease, Daddy, I’m your only child!’ seriously make you sound? But all the same, there’s a part of her that knows what it’s like when a person’s got no other choice, when a person needs to beg.
There’s also a part of her that admits, very quietly, that if the phrase Butterfly used had been ‘please, Mommy’ it wouldn’t have hit so many buttons. Or at least, it would’ve hit different ones.
She still doesn’t get why Butterfly’s begging for what she is, though, regardless of who she’s begging to.
Tracy stays far away from Butterfly for at least an hour every time she hears the phone slam back into it’s cradle as an argument concludes. She didn’t at first; boggled as she is by the reasoning the other girl’s using, she’s not one to ignore somebody else’s crying even if it does sound a little too forced to be much more than melodrama. Her one cautious \attempt at an “Are you okay?” was met with prompt foot stamping, pouting, and an overdone “Go the fuck away Tracy and leave me alone!” that sent her backpedaling through her own doorway in a hurry. It was enough to make her steer clear after that, even if it did come over like somebody playing for a nonexistent camera.
She didn’t even try to wrap her head around that one. That sort of reaction was about as far from sensible to her as Butterfly’s complaint at the root of it all. And it really is the root of most things, when she thinks about it. She knows enough Bible verses to recognize the irony of the situation for what it is, but good and evil aside, that situation’s still a puzzle to her.
Tracy doesn’t get why Butterfly’s so frantic to have a little more, a little more, a little of what she’s already got in piles. The desperation down the phone line tells one story, but the perfectly styled blonde hair tells another. The makeup, the designer labels on the clothes she all but models in the living room and the coats she trades depending on the day, the fancy little imported car she insists on driving even in the heart of the city – it all speaks. It speaks damn loud, to Tracy.
and it’s not even close to being a language she comprehends.
She isn’t the jealous type, really. There are corners of her mind that swear, in her darker moments, that she could live damn well near happily ever after on a quarter of what Butterfly’s got now, in a quarter of Butterfly’s life. But she tries not to think that way if she can help it, and she can. Bitterness doesn’t become her, and she knows it. So she isn’t.
Tracy tries, tries a lot if she’s honest with herself and she usually is, but it never adds up. She just doesn’t get why Butterfly’s not plenty happy, more than happy even, with what she has. God knows she would be, but she’s not Butterfly. And when she thinks about it, she comes to the conclusion that maybe that’s the whole issue right there. Tracy’s never had a trust fund, never had a gardener, never had a flashy little foreign car with a vanity license plate reading 2PRTY4U. That’s worlds away and far out of her frame of reference.
Tracy knows what having one coat rather than four feels like, down to the tears in the lining and the faded patches from the laundry and the wear that only three consecutive winters’ use of something can give. Tracy knows how soup from a can can be dinner, that much better just because it’s hot. She knows how sneakers can get holes and still stay in the closet, no matter how much sock and how many toes are visible through the ends. She knows what long shifts and working school nights feel like when a body’s living them, minute to minute. She knows how to spot a Welfare Christmas when it’s a month away, never mind when December 25 is scribbled out on the calendar and a single red-wrapped present is staring her in the face.
And worse.
And Tracy knows how to see her blessings for what they are, and to count them when she does. How to laugh a little, live a little. And then a little more.
She doesn’t understand Butterfly’s obsession with money. No way.
She had, and she has, enough of her own issues with the stuff to go around. But they don’t get near the ones Butterfly’s got. Sometimes, when her humor’s at it’s blackest, that makes her laugh a little.
Most of the time it just makes her feel sorry for the other girl.
this has been a little while in coming. I've had the 'Welfare Christmas' reference bouncing around my head for a bit - thank you, Everclear song lyrics! but I've only just had the inspiration for the fic to go with it! Now maybe Tracy's muse will stop giving me meaningful looks... er never mind, prod me to write all you like, muse. Being pestered by headvoices is waaaay better than not being pestered by them. Maybe she'll take the hint and bring the others back from vacation, too. *hopeful*
Title: Quality Of Life
Author: Chanter
Series: original, 1992 universe
Rating: PG13 for one heavy-duty swear word and a couple much milder ones
Characters/pairings: Butterfly and Tracy
Summary: Written for the
writers_choice obsession challenge but it ran over. In no way related to the TNG episode of the same name. Sometimes when worlds collide, they hit with a cha-ching. 1057 words
Tracy doesn’t understand Butterfly’s obsession. Not at all.
She doesn’t get it, when she hears the first shouted conversation from the bedroom she keeps out of as a matter of course. She’s party to only one side of the argument, loud enough nonetheless to carry through a closed door and across a kitchen’s semi-shabby length, but she doubts she’d follow the logic of it all even if she could hear the rest of what’s being said. She can’t make sense of it. Not the first time, not the second, and not after any one of the half-dozen phone calls that follow as the weeks go by.
She can’t abide the whining on principle; Butterfly’s childish soprano squeals grate on her ears even from a room away. The way she figures it, there are far more important things to resort to whining about than her roommate’s chosen subject, and none of them require quite that irritating a voice to get across. The wheedling’s the same; the falsely sweet, semi-desperate entreaties do nothing but give Tracy a headache. She can’t imagine what they must sound like to the person on the other end of the telephone line. After all, they’re that much closer to the source of the noise, never mind how much of the actual distance between one end of the conversation and the other is covered by wires.
Tracy feels for Butterfly, just a little, when she hears the other girl try all-out pleading to get her wish. It’s in spite of herself, and it’s tempered by equal disgust because come on, just how old does ‘Pleeeease, Daddy, I’m your only child!’ seriously make you sound? But all the same, there’s a part of her that knows what it’s like when a person’s got no other choice, when a person needs to beg.
There’s also a part of her that admits, very quietly, that if the phrase Butterfly used had been ‘please, Mommy’ it wouldn’t have hit so many buttons. Or at least, it would’ve hit different ones.
She still doesn’t get why Butterfly’s begging for what she is, though, regardless of who she’s begging to.
Tracy stays far away from Butterfly for at least an hour every time she hears the phone slam back into it’s cradle as an argument concludes. She didn’t at first; boggled as she is by the reasoning the other girl’s using, she’s not one to ignore somebody else’s crying even if it does sound a little too forced to be much more than melodrama. Her one cautious \attempt at an “Are you okay?” was met with prompt foot stamping, pouting, and an overdone “Go the fuck away Tracy and leave me alone!” that sent her backpedaling through her own doorway in a hurry. It was enough to make her steer clear after that, even if it did come over like somebody playing for a nonexistent camera.
She didn’t even try to wrap her head around that one. That sort of reaction was about as far from sensible to her as Butterfly’s complaint at the root of it all. And it really is the root of most things, when she thinks about it. She knows enough Bible verses to recognize the irony of the situation for what it is, but good and evil aside, that situation’s still a puzzle to her.
Tracy doesn’t get why Butterfly’s so frantic to have a little more, a little more, a little of what she’s already got in piles. The desperation down the phone line tells one story, but the perfectly styled blonde hair tells another. The makeup, the designer labels on the clothes she all but models in the living room and the coats she trades depending on the day, the fancy little imported car she insists on driving even in the heart of the city – it all speaks. It speaks damn loud, to Tracy.
and it’s not even close to being a language she comprehends.
She isn’t the jealous type, really. There are corners of her mind that swear, in her darker moments, that she could live damn well near happily ever after on a quarter of what Butterfly’s got now, in a quarter of Butterfly’s life. But she tries not to think that way if she can help it, and she can. Bitterness doesn’t become her, and she knows it. So she isn’t.
Tracy tries, tries a lot if she’s honest with herself and she usually is, but it never adds up. She just doesn’t get why Butterfly’s not plenty happy, more than happy even, with what she has. God knows she would be, but she’s not Butterfly. And when she thinks about it, she comes to the conclusion that maybe that’s the whole issue right there. Tracy’s never had a trust fund, never had a gardener, never had a flashy little foreign car with a vanity license plate reading 2PRTY4U. That’s worlds away and far out of her frame of reference.
Tracy knows what having one coat rather than four feels like, down to the tears in the lining and the faded patches from the laundry and the wear that only three consecutive winters’ use of something can give. Tracy knows how soup from a can can be dinner, that much better just because it’s hot. She knows how sneakers can get holes and still stay in the closet, no matter how much sock and how many toes are visible through the ends. She knows what long shifts and working school nights feel like when a body’s living them, minute to minute. She knows how to spot a Welfare Christmas when it’s a month away, never mind when December 25 is scribbled out on the calendar and a single red-wrapped present is staring her in the face.
And worse.
And Tracy knows how to see her blessings for what they are, and to count them when she does. How to laugh a little, live a little. And then a little more.
She doesn’t understand Butterfly’s obsession with money. No way.
She had, and she has, enough of her own issues with the stuff to go around. But they don’t get near the ones Butterfly’s got. Sometimes, when her humor’s at it’s blackest, that makes her laugh a little.
Most of the time it just makes her feel sorry for the other girl.
