Fandoms: Slings & Arrows
Characters: Ellen Fanshaw, (Geoffrey Tennant, Oliver Welles)
Rating: G
Length: ~450 words
Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, I don't own them, I derive no profit from their use.
Summary: We never had much to say to each other, really.
1.
Yes, I can see you. Not just the once, like I told Geoffrey.
But you never try to talk to me, you just stand on the other side of a room and look. And leaving aside the fact that I don’t want to look like a crazy person, I don’t feel any particular need to talk to you.
We never had much to say to each other, really.
2.
I’m not sorry.
I know that makes me a bad person. But I also know that if Geoffrey had stayed, I would have spent my career in his shadow, or worse, as Geoffrey Tennant’s Wife. Maybe I’m not the best Ellen Fanshaw I could be, or the most famous, either, but at least people know who Ellen Fanshaw is. And I made her myself.
3.
I’m afraid that he’s still crazy.
I don’t mind his moodiness and his mania and his obsessions the way he steamrollers everyone when he gets an idea in his head. All that is what makes him the man I (yes, Oliver, still, always) love. And I have strategies for dealing with him. I can stand up to him, I can punish him, I can ignore him, I can even (sometimes) redirect him or make him see reason.
What terrifies me is when I look into his eyes and see someone unrecognizable—and worse, someone who doesn’t recognize me. Or when the lights go out in there and I can’t tell if anyone’s home at all.
The worst thing is that he needs me then—needs someone—and I have absolutely no idea how to cope.
Sometimes I do things that are guaranteed to piss him off, just to get a reaction. Just so I know who I’m dealing with.
4.
I belong here at New Burbage, but Geoffrey doesn’t.
Probably he never did, although he wanted it badly and tried so hard.
I doubt he’ll ever see it this way, but in the end, you (we) did him a favor.
Sometimes, when I’m at my most charitable, I think maybe you even knew it at the time.
5.
Geoffrey’s the only person in the world who still hasn’t grasped the fact that you were madly in love with him. Which is the kindest, most loving thing he ever did for you.
That and the fact that he kept on loving Shakespeare after you used it to destroy him. If he’d gone off to be an accountant you would have slit your wrists years ago.
I hope you at least give me credit for keeping my mouth shut.
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Comments
And what a great way to use all those wonderful icons! *g*
It's funny about the icons: My S&A writing instincts do seem to be towards Ellen, or really, Ellen/Geoffrey, but so far it's largely been Ellen-POV. But I don't think of Ellen as being My Thing that I'm identified with, particularly -- but having the icons and using them changes that, in sort of a cargo-cult way... :) She's also, so far, the biggest counterweight to my very male-heavy body of fic, which I really need to work on leavening with more women. (I think I've written maybe two fics ever that pass the Bechdel test? Very sad.) :)
(Though, amusingly, I just counted 4 fics for the female-characters badge, 3 of which were S&A, all featuring *different* female viewpoint characters, woo hoo!)
I kind of think this is Ellen being cruel to Oliver, though: We never had much to say to each other, really. Clearly she does have things to say to him. *g*
ETA: Also, with all those Ellen icons, you kind of look like her in my head now. *g*
Edited 2012-09-21 03:54 pm (UTC)
Ellen is being kind of cruel, yeah; Geoffrey's not the only one who has Issues with Oliver. On the other hand, she hasn't actually told him any of this. Yet. :)
Yeah, the whole using-icons-with-someone-else's-face thing meshes oddly with the interacting-with-people-you've-only-met-on-the-internet thing. :) I don't, in fact, look much like Ellen (or Martha Burns) apart from being short and Caucasian.