noteasytobepink | Wheelsy AU ~ Hollywood Nights

"She said she didn't feel safe, that it wasn't home anymore."

There were times Bill wondered what his staying said about him; if it was a sign of strength or stupidity. He must be stupid, because everyone else saw the benefit in leaving.

"I reckon if you go by that line of thought it'll be better for me that she don't come back."

He hardly believed that, but there was nothing he could do now regardless.

It said, quite frankly, that he was not normal. That he, like a few others with all the proper tendencies, was a hero who lived and dealt with terrible things in ways far different than most. Clarice could relate. That didn't mean she didn't understand how abnormal it was.

"Not her home, true. How would she fit back afterward if you think about it? Can she do the same job and live the same life she once did or have things changed in her so much that it's not a good fit anymore?" 'Home' was a place people often out grew or changed so much that they couldn't fit back into the same holes. That was why people moved Homes. "Wheelsy as it is now doesn't have a place for the shape of puzzle piece she's become."

So to speak anyway.

"I think it'll be better for you to have your answer, yes, because limbo sucks."

"This sucks," he replied, and it bordered on petulant. Everything she was saying made sense, and none of it was helping him.

"I shouldn't've come out here, I shouldn't have tried tellin' her how I felt."

Feel, though it's a feeling tainted with misery, and blackened by the truth.

"Yes, that sucks to, you're right." Life just did that sometimes. "But you had to go, and you had to try. Now you can bleed the wound clean and let things heal." Because she was practical like that.

"You got years of pent up emotion and twisted attraction in you Bill. Enough so, and stewing so long, that it was interfering with your real life instead of the one you wanted in your head."

He drained the plastic cup again, then chased it with his beer.

"Think I'd be better off with the lies in my head, than livin' with knowin' that even as the last man on earth, I never had a chance with her."

Ignorance is bliss, isn't that what they say?

"If she said that she's an idiot," Clarice growled softly. Angry. "She wouldn't know a damn thing about what you'll do when you're the last people alive and it was cruel in any case."

Clarice might have a low opinion of this Starla lady.

"We were for awhile there," he reminded her quietly. "An' I find out all I rated was an 'almost' good enough."

Why bother with a cup, when it was so much easier to drink from the bottle? Bill decided this, and the bottle sloshed as he took a drink and lowered it again.

"Everything that happened, all I went through for her, an' none of it means a god damn thing."

"You were in a limited area and she probably told herself, and you, that because she was embarrassed about being attracted to you after all that messed up stuff." And frankly, civilians were idiots.

Ah, she could hear that bottle over the phone, Bill.

"What else you drinking Bill? That's not beer." Bottles near a phone had a different sound.

"No, that's what she told me tonight, when I asked why we wouldn't work out. She ain't attracted to me at all."

All the banter, the teasing, the long conversations, all this time, he'd been reading things that weren't there, imagining there was something more.

Eying the bottle, he wondered just how good those pointed ears of hers were.

"M'havin' Turkey for dinner."

"Don't let that get to you Bill, you have ample evidence that you're attractive and a fanclub that would love to hit her with sticks for you." Just saying.

Turkey? Turkey...what kind of booze companies were there in this world? Judging by previous 'I need to drink' nights though, she could guess. "Whiskey. Fun. Do I need to come out there and glare at you?"

"Yeah, they see me as a challenge, right?"

Which probably meant he could get laid, but it still left him lonely.

With a dry chuckle, he leaned back in his chair.

"S'a long flight, especially if you gotta switch planes somewhere. Probably be done 'fore you get here."

"Some see you as a challenge, every world gad people like that, but a lot worry about you and think you deserve better." That was just the truth.

And...really Bill? REALLY?!

She snorted into the phone, pulled up the pic he'd sent her, then decided to employ one of the sticks she'd brought to sharpen across the long night. What? Girl needed her weapons.

And teleport facilitators. "I think..." she drawled, looking at him through the rather large, glowing portal, "...that you forget who I am sometimes."

"BWAH!"

Bill teetered on his chair, nearly toppling over before righting it again.

The whiskey bottle he just barely manged to save, and he glared daggers at Clarice.

"That ain't funny."

"Didn't do it to joke," she pointed out. She did it to check on him point in fact and he'd been ridiculously easy to talk into giving her a picture for targeting!

"You're right, this is pretty far away." It was a strain to hold open a portal across that distance. She wasn't crossing through though, just hanging up the phone on her end and leaning back on her chair. "Wanna come home and finish the night shift here?"

Bill hung up his cell, and tossed it onto the tabletop.

"M'not exactly fit for duty here."

She'd be better off dragging the deputy out of the tank, he'd at least had a few hours to sober up some.

"Was a joke anyway. If you were coming home it'd be to take a shower and go to bed. That or to lounge around and tell me how I'm doing things wrong here." Either one she could handle really!

"I brought a lunch for tank guy. Want it? For later?" So his stomach didn't hate him so much?

"You're doin' fine." And he meant that, even if it was an offhand reply. She had been a big help to the department so far.

"I ate dinner awhile ago. Starla took me to a restaurant when I got here."

"For later tonight Bill. That's a big bottle and you'll be up all night fretting anyway." She pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out a bundle wrapped in a bandana. "Home made bread even."

"Alright." He'd take it just so they wouldn't have to argue about it, and maybe he'd eat some.

Bill started to reach for it, then pulled his hand back.

"Could you-- "

He still didn't trust the creepy crazy portal things.

She laughed, a honest, amused sound and tossed his lunch through the portal. "It's perfectly save, I promise. I transport things far more delicate than people after all!" Geeze. Trust much?

"Safer than airline travel even."

He caught the bundle, and set it on the table.

"I'm sorry, it's just a little bit too weird for me yet. I'll get used to it eventually."

"That or you'll carry a life long paranoia and refuse to allow me to be helpful in the travel business but hey, your call." See her beaming at you Bill? This was an indication that she preferred teasing over morose drunkeness!

"Either way it shouldn't affect me too much. In case you haven't noticed, I don't do a whole lot of travellin'," he drawled.

"But I wanna be there when you send the doc off, may be good for a laugh."

"Spoilsport. Traveling is fun. Don't you want me to see a beach sometime?" Cause, in fact, she wouldn't go wandering without him.

"The doc is adventurous. He'll be just fine."

"We got a beach, up at the lake. Good fishin', no sharks, an' it ain't all salty."

He sips at his beer, and pulls back the bandana a bit too see what's inside.

"You might be right about the doc. I'm still not convinced doc ain't crazy."

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