World, Mostly Turning

DVD Commentary for Evanesco

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:32:54 GMT

DVD commentary for Evanesco for seraphcelene's Meta-thon.

Read the fic without commentary here.

Setting: Post-Not Fade Away
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,666 - fanfic of the devil. :-)

When I finished the first draft of this fic, I did a word count. It came out as 1,666, and I liked that number so much that I fiddled with the edits to keep it there.

Disclaimer: Joss likes fanfic. He said so.

Profuse thanks to flurblewig and sunnyd_lite - best betas ever.

I chose Evanesco for this ‘thon because it’s my favourite of the fics I’ve written. I used to be in a long-distance relationship and would make the three-hour drive from Ottawa to Peterborough (and then back again) at least once a month. Three hours on a dark highway gives your brain lots of time to wander. On one of those drives, it occurred to me that Lindsey’s last words from the end of Not Fade Away (“A flunky?! I'm not just... Angel...kills me. You don't... Angel...”) that I’d always thought were rather telling (in a slashy way) would make a good short story.

This is that story. (Cue duh-duh-duh theme from Law & Order.)

My father has written and published two murder mysteries. He had surgery eighteen months ago, and I spent a couple of days at his house dad-sitting while he recuperated. Since he wasn’t using his writerly energy, I borrowed it and wrote this at his dining room table.

~*~

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she had to walk into mine.”

Casablanca Quote #1. I can’t remember what possessed me to look up quotes from Casablanca on www.imdb.com, but I did, and for some reason I could just hear Lorne saying them. And so he does.

Lorne stared across the smoke-filled room at the slight blonde framed in the doorway.

sunnyd_lite, one of my betas, and I had a discussion of whether Eve was really a blonde or not. She said no, but I’d always thought of Eve as a blonde, so I went with it.

“What?” The bartender next to him pulled his head out from under the counter where he’d been sweeping up the detritus from a torn bag of beer nuts. “You say something?”

I tossed Zeke the bartender in here because I figured Lorne would be working the bar with someone, and it gave him someone to talk to. I hadn’t quite worked out exactly how the fic was going to end when I started writing it, but Zeke turned out to be a good stand-in for the reader at the finish—having him there allowed Lorne to voice his thoughts out loud and tie everything up neatly.

Lorne took an involuntary step backwards as the woman began to make her way towards the bar. He pressed himself against the wall as if it might somehow disguise him—a ruse that was unlikely to work given the paisley wallpaper, his green skin, and lavender leisure suit. It was like trying to hide polka dots against plaid. His eyes darted from side to side as he considered other possibilities for escape. The office—if he could make it there, he could close the door and stay out of sight.

Given that Lorne shot and killed Lindsey in Not Fade Away, Eve is the LAST person on Earth that Lorne would ever want to see again. So who better to pair him up with in a fic about Lindsey’s last words?

“Listen, Zeke.” Lorne edged along the rear wall. “If anyone asks for me, tell them that I’m, uh, that I’m…”

“That you’re what, Boss?”

It was too late—she’d seen him. Her eyes settled on him and widened in surprised recognition, and his shoulders slumped in response.

“Never mind,” he sighed. Lorne reached for his martini and downed the contents in a single gulp, then held the glass out to Zeke. “Here—would you freshen this up for me? In fact, make it a double and I’ll love you forever.” Zeke quirked an eyebrow at him, but made no further comment. Lorne turned back to the bar with a sense of foreboding.

On Angel, Lorne drank a lot of Seabreezes, a fruity mixture of vodka, cranberry juice, and grapefruit juice. By his own admission, Lorne is not like the rest of the Fang Gang—he’s a lover, not a fighter. He doesn’t have the stomach for what they do, and he was the last one to raise his hand (relunctantly) in agreement with Angel’s plan. In some ways I think his was the saddest story of all. When Lorne killed Lindsey, he killed a part of himself, and I don’t see him coming back from that anytime soon. So he’s given up his Seabreezes and now drowns his sorrows in martinis. A lot of them.

“Hello, Eve.”

“Lorne. I– I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“I didn’t expect you to find me here either.” Lorne tried to keep his face expressionless. “That was kind of the point.” He pulled a tumbler from the dishwasher and began polishing it.

Since talking to Eve is pretty much unavoidable at this point, Lorne tries a cold front of sarcasm, hoping that she’ll give up and leave.

She gave him a sad smile. It matched the rest of her—she looked distressed, discouraged, dispirited, and a whole passel of other dis’s all at once. Her hair hadn’t seen the hand of a decent stylist—or possibly even shampoo—for some time and hung limply over her shoulders. There were dark hollows under her eyes and a permanent crease of worry between her eyebrows. She’d lost weight and was trying to hide the trembling of her hands by shoving them into the pockets of her worn and faded jeans.

This is me trying to make Eve look just about as pathetic as possible. She, too, is in a pretty bad place: she’s completely lost without Lindsey.

She lowered herself gingerly onto a barstool and looked up at him.

“You don’t need to worry—I’m not going to bring the Senior Partners down on you.” She gave him a rueful look. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I’m nothing to them anymore.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m nothing to anyone anymore.” She turned her face from him, and he pretended not to notice the tears she was blinking away.

Eve was all about Lindsey: she gave up immortality for him. She never found out from Angel what had happened to Lindsey, she had no idea where to go at the end of Not Fade Away, and she still doesn’t.

It took a minute for her to get herself back under control, before she could speak again. When she did, she kept her gaze lowered, as if she didn’t want to look him in the eyes. “I heard five times that you were killed, in five different places.”

Casablanca Quote #2. Whatever happened after the screen went black in Not Fade Away, there was probably a lot of chaos, and the rumour mill was working overtime.

“Well, as you can see, it was true every single time.”

Casablanca Quote #3. Really, how perfectly do these fit in?

Lorne finished his polishing and set the glass on the counter with a little more force than was necessary. Eve cringed. He wondered briefly what her life must have been like in the last year—the woman who sat before him now was more than a few songs and dances away from her former assured and cocky self. He decided he didn’t really want to know—didn’t really care—and reached into the dishwasher for another glass.

Lorne’s trying not to care because he wants to put that entire part of his life behind him—not that he’s been that successful at it (if he had, he wouldn’t be pounding back so many martinis)—and the sooner Eve leaves, the better.

“You despise me, don't you?” Hunched on her stool, she looked and sounded like a frightened little girl.

“If I gave you any thought, I probably would.”

Casablanca Quote #4.

She nodded in vague assent and then was silent for another minute, staring dully at the blinking neon sign that hung in the dust-smeared window and at the flat, arid landscape beyond. “It’s so empty…” She said it so quietly that he almost missed her words.

Lorne’s L.A. bar was called Caritas, which is Latin for ‘charity’. I figured his next bar would have a Latin name too. He chose Evanesco for its name, which means ‘to disappear’—which is what Lorne’s trying to do. The blinking neon sign is flashing the name of the bar, but I couldn’t think of a clever, non-distracting way to insert this explanation into the fic. Anyway, now you know, and that explains the fic’s title.

After a moment, she turned to him again. “What brought you here?”

“My health.” He couldn’t keep the sardonic note out of his voice. “I came here for the waters.”

“The waters?” She looked confused. “What waters? We're in the desert.”

“I was misinformed.”

Casablanca Quote #5. I liked this one, so Lorne’s new establishment had to be somewhere deserty.

Lorne heard Zeke stifle a snicker, but Eve’s bafflement only seemed to increase. Lorne sighed, pulled up a stool, and reached for his refilled drink.

Try as he might to be a hard ass, he’s not very good at it because he’s still Lorne. Eve’s dispirited and confused state is breaking down his barriers. Instead of ignoring her or continuing to be snarky with her, now he’s talking to her.

“Eve,” he said as patiently as if he were talking to a three-year-old, “there aren’t many places that someone who looks like me can disappear. It’s not hard to get lost in a crowd, but the time had come for me to leave that crowd. This is Roswell—people expect to see the unusual here. I don’t stand out any more than that wallpaper does. No one pays me any mind and that’s what’s good for my health.”

I deliberated for some time as to which deserty place Lorne would have gone. What better place for him to hide than Roswell?

She nodded. Her head drooped again and she began twisting a ring on her finger. Lorne recognised it as one that Lindsey used to wear.

I had Eve start playing with the ring mostly to give her something to do—she can only stare out the window or try not to cry for so long. Also, it was a way of getting her to bring Lindsey into the conversation. It turned out to be a useful item, though, later on.

“I can’t find… I’ve been looking…” She paused and cleared her throat. “No one seems to know what happened that night. I know that each of you had your missions,”—Lorne suppressed a flinch—“and about the fight in the alley. I know that some of you—them—survived, but there were so many different stories, and I’ve been looking and looking, but I can’t find…” She gripped the ring on her finger and this time the welling tears spilled over her lower lids and ran down her cheeks. “I can’t find…” Her voice broke and she looked up at him, her eyes filled with fear and hope and dread.

Lorne pushed his glass towards her. “I think you need this more than I do.”

Lorne is softening up even more, in spite of himself.

He gestured at Zeke to make him another. Eve raised the drink to her lips with trembling hands and grimaced a little at the taste.

“Go on, drink up. The worst it can do is make you numb. Actually, come to think of it, that’s also the best it can do.”

Lorne knows full well that no solutions lie at the bottom of a bottle. However, he hasn’t yet figured out how to deal with his own pain or how to help himself, so it’s the bottle he keeps reaching for.

She took another sip.

“You really loved him.”

She nodded again and went back to playing with the ring. “He was my… my everything.”

It always seemed to me that Eve was much more into Lindsey than he was into her.

Her voice quivered. “I wanted what he wanted, because I wanted him. And he wanted… well, I’m not really sure now what he wanted. I thought he wanted revenge because the Senior Partners had given Angel what he’d worked so hard for and hadn’t gotten. But there was something else.”

That’s just a statement of “What the heck was Lindsey trying to accomplish in AtS S5 anyway?” It’s never been clear to me. So this was Explanation #1.

Her brow furrowed with remembered uncertainty. “Something… I don’t know.” She gave herself a shake and tried to sit up straight. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he went to the fight with you. I know what happened to some of the others—Wesley and Gunn, their deaths were in the papers—and now I’ve found you, but I can’t find… Lindsey.” His name seemed to tear a hole in her throat. “I need to find… I need to know. I’ve looked for so long. Can you… can you tell me anything? Where he is? How… Please?” The last word came out as a ragged gasp.

Eve has never really acknowledged that Lindsey is almost certainly dead. She’s been clinging, beyond all reason (which a part of her knows), to the idea that he’s still alive somewhere.

Lorne bowed his head and silently cursed the fates that had crossed her path with his. His mind recoiled from having to remember, having to relive, what had happened that night. He reached out and stilled her worrying hands by laying one of his own over them.

Still more softening. He’s about to deliver some hard news to Eve that may very well break her. Telling the person who loved Lindsey more than any other that he’s dead (and knowing that he himself was responsible for that death) is Lorne’s worst nightmare come true. But he’s going to do it, because she needs to know. And maybe he needs to confess…

“I was with Lindsey that night.” He heard the catch in her breath, but quelled her rising emotions with a hard stare. “I haven’t got any good news for you, Evie,” he said as gently as he could.

He’s gone from trying not to look at her to holding her hands, calling her ‘Evie’, and being as gentle in delivering the blow as he can. All for a person he loathed. Hard ass and Lorne are just not mixy things.

“‘Cause there isn’t any good news. Lindsey… died on his mission. He succeeded in killing the Sahrvin, but he… didn’t survive.” Lorne released Eve’s hands, picked up his martini glass, and drained it. Numb. That was the way to go.

Yeah, he didn’t quite make it to the confession—he just couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Lorne’s still a good man on the inside, but his courage failed him here.

When he looked back at Eve, she had her arms wrapped tightly around her chest and was rocking back and forth on her seat. Tears flowed unchecked down her face and she was crooning words that Lorne could just barely make out.

“Pretty as a picture. She is like a golden ring…”

I figured that Eve would be a fan of Lindsey’s music and songs. I still hadn’t quite worked out the final one-two punch for this fic; singing one of Lindsey’s songs just seemed like something Eve would do right then.

She blinked, then caught and held his gaze. Her eyes were glassy, but focussed. “You were with him when he… when he died?” The word sounded experimental, as if she were testing its validity.

Lorne accepted another martini from Zeke. The man had the makings of an excellent bartender.

“Yes, I was with him.”

“Did he… did he say anything? About me? Give you a message to pass on…” Her voice faded to a whisper. “Anything?”

Eve is desperate here for something, anything, she can hold on to. Lindsey’s gone, but maybe there’s one last sweet sentiment that she can take away with her, carry with her in his place…

Lorne stared at his olive and wished he were anywhere but here. The olive and its pimento stared back impassively. “Like I said, Eve, I’ve got no good news for you. I’m an empath demon—I know what’s in a man’s mind, what’s in his heart. And even if I weren’t—well, a man’s last words, they tell his story. Better than I ever could.” He took another swallow, then raised his eyes to hers.

“A man’s last words, they tell his story…” This is the heart of it, the idea that inspired the fic. ‘Cause what was Lindsey’s last word?

“They were about Angel, sugar plum. His last words—his last thoughts, his last feelings—were all about Angel. For Lindsey, it was always all about Angel.”

And this is as close to writing slash as I’ve ever gotten. :-) Though I did once write a drabble where Lindsey was awakened from an erotic dream about Angel, but that wasn’t revealed in the drabble (hey, 100 words doesn’t give you a lot of space!). But c’mon: Lindsey’s last word was “Angel.” How freaking telling is that?

For a few seconds, it looked like she’d stopped breathing. Her mouth moved as though she were trying to speak, but there was no sound. After a moment, she turned away from him and stood, then walked unsteadily towards the door without looking back. Lorne finished the rest of his drink.

Lorne has stripped Eve bare—she has no illusions left with which to give herself false comfort. Lindsey is dead, and she may never have been anything more than a footnote in the story of his life. She has some hard days ahead as she comes to terms with this, but she knows the truth now. Her pointless search to find Lindsey has ended, and perhaps she’ll be able to move on with her life.

“Bit harsh with that last part, weren’t you?” Zeke was regarding him with disapproval.

Lorne shook his head. “She already knew, Zeke. She already knew.” He picked up the ring that Eve had left behind on the bar. “I heard her sing.”

I was literally just a few sentences from the end when I realized that I had all the elements in place to wrap it up: Eve had sung, Lorne had heard her, and she had her last piece of Lindsey to leave behind. I guess my subconscious must have arranged that one for me.

One reader lambasted me for having Lorne be so cruel to Eve, but that really wasn’t my intention. She sung, and so he knew what she already knew but hadn’t admitted to herself. He knew what she needed in order to start rebuilding her life. And that’s exactly what he gave her. He’s Lorne—he helps people. Help sometimes feels more like a punch in the face than a hug, but that’s life, y’know?

The fact that Eve left Lindsey’s ring behind tells me that she really did already know and also that she’s going to make it. She could’ve kept the ring and clung to the belief that Lorne was lying, but she didn’t. She’ll take this hard—probably very hard—but eventually she’ll get past it and move on.

~*~

A/N: Several lines of dialogue—including, of course, the first one—were lifted from Casablanca.

There were several other quotes from Casablanca that I wanted to use, but I couldn’t fit them all in. One would have been:

Barfly (looking at Lorne curiously): What is your nationality?
Lorne: I'm a drunkard.
Zeke: That makes Lorne a citizen of the world.

Damn, that would have worked well!

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:01:29 GMT

Is there such a thing a facial-recognition dyslexia?

Some people say that they never forget a face. For me, it would be closer to the truth to say that I never remember one.

Which is an exaggeration, of course, but I do have a very difficult time remembering and recognizing people--even ones I've already met--unless there's something particularly unusual about them or until I've met them multiple times. I wouldn't exactly call it a handicap, but it's very inconvenient.

In 1989, I worked as a research assistant with a graduate student from Brazil. On my first day, I spent the eight straight hours more or less side-by-side with her in the field and in the lab. She had her hair up in a ponytail that day. On the second day, she came in with her hair down, and it took me many minutes before I was sure she was the same person I'd worked with the day before. I expect she wondered why I gave her so many peculiar looks before coming over to talk to her on that second day.

I myself was a grad student for about a hundred years, and I was often asked to invigilate exams for classes I had no connection with. It was commonplace for a student to have a question mid-exam, and I generally didn't know the answer, so I'd have to go and ask the professor who taught the course. The problem was that by the time I had the answer, I'd already forgotten the appearance of who asked the question. My general tactic was to wander down the row of desks that I hoped I'd just been in and scan faces until I saw someone looking at me expectantly.

When it comes to watching TV and movies--well, that's just a whole 'nother area of challenging. If they don't have familiar big-name stars, I'm kind of doomed. I think directors should make a point of having all their main characters have different hair colours or wildly different facial hair or something. I watched Steve McQueen's Bullit with my father years ago--what an evil movie! Not only did most of the main characters seem to be brunettes, but it had twins in it! Do you think I had a clue as to what was going on? I bombarded my father with so many "Who is that?" and "Is this the evil twin or the good one?" that I'm surprised he ever watched a movie with me again.

My cousin Stephanie introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (S5), Angel (S2), and Nikita all in the same week many years ago. Could I tell Buffy, Darla, and Nikita (all long-haired blondes) and their male friends (all brunettes) apart, and therefore keep track of which series was which? Not a chance.

I bring this up because I watched the last six hours of Heroes Season 1 two weeks ago so I'd be ready for last night's premiere. I watched all of S1, I did. I even knew who I was looking at most of the time, really (thank you to the casting director who chose an Asian hero, a short blonde, a tall blonde, a tubby white guy, an Indian guy, a black guy, etc. etc.). I even figured out that Nathan had grown a beard.

But I did not know who was in that last scene until I read his identity on my flist today.

I don't know if there is such a thing as facial-recognition dyslexia, but if there is, I have it, and thank heavens for my LJ support group. :-)

Also? I need a Hiro icon.

Pitter Pat

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:04:36 GMT

At this exact moment in time, I am alone in the house. It's just me here, and Lucy lying asleep on the back of the couch behind me. And yet I can hear little feet running around overhead in the ceiling. Fast-moving little feet that sound like they have claws.

I know that the fall crazies are well upon me, but I think I have squirrels in the attic, and not just in the metaphorical sense.

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:03:14 GMT

Jim finally made it the end of BtVS S5. We watched the last two episodes in one evening because he couldn't wait to find out how it turned out. Before he started seeing me (and therefore before he was properly introduced to the Buffyverse), he'd only ever seen the scene from Weight of the World where Buffy was suffocating Dawn with a pillow. It's no wonder he didn't think the rest of the episode was worth sticking around for.

I don't know how he thought The Gift was going to end, but not in the way that it did. "But... but... " he exclaimed, running over to the bookshelf with all my DVDs on it. "Buffy's on the cover of Season 6. *And* Season 7! She must come back, right?"

I grinned at him and said, "Maybe Seasons 6 and 7 are Buffybot the Vampire Slayer."

::snickers::

The next day, I made him read All Set Down, my alternative ending to The Gift. He was a bit taken aback by the goriness, but thought it made as much sense as Joss's ending.

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 16:26:32 GMT

Observation of the day: There's nothing like nicking yourself while shaving your legs to make it look like Norman Bates has been in the shower with you.

I seem to have been rather silent lately, haven't I? I've been on LJ every night, lurking and smoking cigarettes under that tree on your lawn... Okay, not so much with the smoking, but I've been around. Just not saying very much.

There's been a lot going on here in the past couple of weeks, very little of which has anything to do with me in a direct sense, but which has been causing me a certain amount of stress nonetheless. So much so that I walked into a colleague's office on Thursday morning to ask her a question and wound up bursting into tears instead. I haven't quite figured out how much I'm comfortable with sharing on LJ--if it was all about me, I wouldn't mind, but it's about Jim's ex and therefore his kids, and I worry about them stumbling onto my journal someday and discovering that I've been talking about them. Maybe I'll set up a filter. I haven't really decided yet.

In happier news, I talked to my mother this morning about our trip to Italy next spring, and it turns out that we have the option of flying home from either Rome or Paris. Paris! OMG, I love Paris!! I've only been there once, and that was in December when it's not really at its best, but it's still the best place I've ever been. I could so live there. Also, Mom reauditioned for the Ottawa Choral Society (the group that's going to Italy) and got back in, so she'll be going as a singer after all. This makes her very happy. I'll still be going as just a groupie, but that's fine with me. I can wander off and do my own thing when they're in rehearsals.

Jim and I are heading up to his cottage with the boys later today and will be there for the rest of the week. I'm taking my laptop (of course) and hope to make some more progress on the next chapter of Wish You Were Here. The forecast looks pretty good, and it will be some welcome R&R after the aforementioned vaguely alluded to events. Although MiddleJim wants me to try his new wakeboard, which could be an exercise in humiliation and possibly pain. Recall that I blew a tendon while trotting after a soccer ball in the spring. I has no athleticism.

See you on the other side. Hopefully not from a hospital bed.

Music Question

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 03:14:08 GMT

The last couple of times I went to see a movie, they've played a music video during the waiting time beforehand (before the 'Coming Attractions' previews). I found the song kind of catchy, but of course have forgotten both its title and the band's name. I have a vague memory that the lead singer looked a little like Mr. Universe, and the song sounded not unlike one that Queen would have done. The guy's voice even sounded kind of like Freddie Mercury's. The lead singer was leaping around in a rather ritzy house and singing to a young girl. I want to say that the chorus was something like "Why can't you love me?" but I may be making that up.

Yeah, I know, could I vague that up a little?

Does anyone have any idea what this song might be?

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 02:59:18 GMT

I just uploaded 120 userpics. Someone better be reading this!

Cross-posting Insanity

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:47:48 GMT

I think I have conquered Semagic and can get it to post to all four journals (LJ, GJ, IJ, and JF) at once. Which kind of makes me feel like I should say something really significant.

.
.
.

I got nothing.

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:36:30 GMT

Pepsi layouts. Pepsi mood theme. Pepsi virtual gifts.

Gah.

Inaugural Post

desoto_hia_873@yahoo.ca — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:37:55 GMT

Still not sure how much I'm going to use this account, but I wanted to reserve my username. So, this is me; I'm also desoto_hia873 at LiveJournal and GreatestJournal.

::waves::