fic: Someone else's heart pumping someone else's blood (Heroes; Elle - PG)
title: Someone else’s heart pumping someone else’s blood
rating: PG
word count: 1230
warnings/spoilers: through Eclipse Pt. 2; outside POV
summary: The new girl’s tiny and pretty, crackling with energy.
01.
The new girl has worked there for a couple of months when the front page of the paper is an article about a body some kids found up in the hills, cooked to a black, crusty crisp.
Caroline likes the new girl, who calls herself Darla. She’s a nice change from the dull-eyed model types Regina usually hires to staff the boutique.
“They can’t figure out how it happened,” Caroline says, not looking up from the article. “‘Foul play suspected,’” she reads. “Gee, you think?”
Darla snorts. Darla snorts a lot, actually. Caroline thinks it’s because she’s tiny and adorable, and when you’re tiny and adorable you can get away with snorting all the time.
“All they can tell is that the body was an adult male,” Caroline continues, shaking her head. “They can’t figure out how he got so well done, or how he got there. None of the surrounding vegetation was burned.”
“Maybe he was zapped,” Darla suggests, folding another sweater. “I’m not from around here. Are there electrical lines in that part of the hills?”
Caroline shrugs. “I don’t know.”
02.
Caroline brings in coffee one afternoon. Darla’s working a double and Caroline’s taking over from Regina. The boss takes her coffee and heads out.
“I’m kind of pregnant,” Darla explains, looking wistfully at the cup Caroline brought for her.
“Oh,” Caroline says, nonplussed. “Hey, congratulations!”
Darla frowns and sighs. “Not so much,” she says. “But thanks.”
Caroline had an abortion two years earlier, but it really fucked her up for a long time. She learned not to sleep with producers after that. She didn’t get the part, a real date, or even a phone call.
She doesn’t say anything.
03.
There’s something off about Darla, Caroline notices. Regina schedules them together a lot, so Caroline gets lots of chances to observe her. She can’t quite pin down what it is, but Darla’s really skittish. She has red hair and blonde eyebrows, and sometimes it takes her a few seconds to respond when people call her name.
Caroline doesn’t believe for a second that her name is really even Darla.
Darla especially freaks out when tall, dark-haired men come into the boutique. Caroline usually sends her into the backroom and handles the customers herself. She likes guiding clueless guys to the perfect items for their girlfriends or wives, anyway. She likes the nervous gratitude she gets for her troubles.
“I’m sorry,” Darla says once, after the store is empty again and they’re both leaning against the register counter. “I just got out of a very difficult relationship and-” she pauses, and then she shakes her head and gives Caroline a painful smile. “It’s just hard, you know?”
Caroline’s noticed the scar on Darla’s forehead, where it peeks out from behind her fashionably too-long bangs sometimes. It’s shiny and pink, not an old scar.
“Yeah, I know,” Caroline agrees. She wonders about the baby, definitely visible now under Darla’s pretty clothes.
04.
Regina has a birthday in March and they all go out to celebrate, all the girls who work at the boutique. Gabby from Rhode Island, who works days and smokes like four packs of Camels a day, is a bartender at some trendy club downtown. She gets them free drink tokens, and Darla drives.
Caroline is pretty drunk, and totally exhausted from dancing when Darla has a minor meltdown. Across the club, there’s a dark-haired man with a prominent brow and a large nose, looking around with a very intense look.
“I have to get out of here,” Darla says, squeezing Caroline’s forearm so hard her nails bite into her skin. “Please, I’m sorry.”
Gabby takes pity on her and leads them out the back way, past the restrooms. Darla takes a detour to the ladies’ room, actually, claiming the baby’s pressing down hard on her bladder. Caroline waits outside, watching in drunken awe as the lights in the hallway go haywire for a second.
05.
Another body turns up a week after that, fried in an alley near UCLA’s campus. This one’s female.
Regina starts scheduling a third person when Darla works because she’s in her third trimester and can’t do as much. It’s usually useless Svetlana, who Caroline despises, but at least Svetlana mostly sticks to the register and doesn’t speak.
“Cops still can’t figure out how it happened,” Caroline summarizes, shaking her head and folding the paper back up.
“Struck by lighting, maybe?” Darla offers, not looking up from the pants she’s steaming. She’s very systematic; the wrinkles don’t stand a chance. She’s heavy with baby now, sitting on a stool while she works.
“Hey, maybe,” Caroline says. The weather has been kind of crappy lately.
06.
An older, harried-looking man in glasses comes in a few days after that, not too long after Darla leaves for a doctor’s appointment. He has a grim face, a mole, and he gives Caroline a vague sense of the creeps.
He flashes a photograph at her, but all Caroline notices is the gun tucked discreetly in his waistband when his jacket flaps back.
“Have you seen this girl?” he asks and Caroline focuses. The girl in the picture is tiny, blonde, and smiling a little bit evilly.
“No,” Caroline says.
He looks annoyed, flips the picture to another one. “Have you seen this man?”
Caroline takes note of the dark hair, the prominent brow, the long nose. She shakes her head. “No,” she says.
07.
“Where are you from?” Caroline asks her not too long after she starts working there
It takes Darla a long time to come up with an answer. “Nowhere,” she says finally, staring off into space. Darla’s kind of socially retarded.
“Yeah, me too,” Caroline agrees. She straightens another stack of shoeboxes. Well, okay, it was Ohio. Came to LA to be a movie star, you know. Wanted to be noticed.”
“Really? I came here to escape,” Darla says.
Caroline doesn’t think that LA is a very opaque place to hide, but whatever. She figures Darla’s going for the lost-in-the-madding-crowd thing. She thinks New York probably would have been a better choice.
08.
There’s a blackout one night, not too long after Caroline and Darla lock up. Caroline stands in the road out front, watching as the street and the valley below go black.
“So much for staying inconspicuous,” she hears Darla mutter as she rounds the building and catches sight of the mess.
“My cat’s probably flipping out right now,” Caroline says, thinking of Thumper. He has to have nature shows on while she’s out, chirping at the screen, or she comes home to shredded toilet paper all over the bathroom, trash all over the kitchen, and a lot of broken stuff.
“I’m legally dead, you know,” Darla says almost cheerfully, rubbing her hands over her belly. “Baby and me? We don’t even officially exist anymore.”
“Um, okay.” Caroline isn’t sure how she’s supposed to respond to that.
09.
Darla doesn’t come back to work, doesn’t answer her phone when they call. Caroline stops by her apartment on her way home from work, but it’s empty.
There are scorch marks on one of the walls in the living room.
End.
Notes: I'm sorry it's weird and choppy. It's been so long since I wrote something non-Supernatural, it's hard to get out of the Winchester boys' headspace. And don't ask me why I called her Darla.
rating: PG
word count: 1230
warnings/spoilers: through Eclipse Pt. 2; outside POV
summary: The new girl’s tiny and pretty, crackling with energy.
01.
The new girl has worked there for a couple of months when the front page of the paper is an article about a body some kids found up in the hills, cooked to a black, crusty crisp.
Caroline likes the new girl, who calls herself Darla. She’s a nice change from the dull-eyed model types Regina usually hires to staff the boutique.
“They can’t figure out how it happened,” Caroline says, not looking up from the article. “‘Foul play suspected,’” she reads. “Gee, you think?”
Darla snorts. Darla snorts a lot, actually. Caroline thinks it’s because she’s tiny and adorable, and when you’re tiny and adorable you can get away with snorting all the time.
“All they can tell is that the body was an adult male,” Caroline continues, shaking her head. “They can’t figure out how he got so well done, or how he got there. None of the surrounding vegetation was burned.”
“Maybe he was zapped,” Darla suggests, folding another sweater. “I’m not from around here. Are there electrical lines in that part of the hills?”
Caroline shrugs. “I don’t know.”
02.
Caroline brings in coffee one afternoon. Darla’s working a double and Caroline’s taking over from Regina. The boss takes her coffee and heads out.
“I’m kind of pregnant,” Darla explains, looking wistfully at the cup Caroline brought for her.
“Oh,” Caroline says, nonplussed. “Hey, congratulations!”
Darla frowns and sighs. “Not so much,” she says. “But thanks.”
Caroline had an abortion two years earlier, but it really fucked her up for a long time. She learned not to sleep with producers after that. She didn’t get the part, a real date, or even a phone call.
She doesn’t say anything.
03.
There’s something off about Darla, Caroline notices. Regina schedules them together a lot, so Caroline gets lots of chances to observe her. She can’t quite pin down what it is, but Darla’s really skittish. She has red hair and blonde eyebrows, and sometimes it takes her a few seconds to respond when people call her name.
Caroline doesn’t believe for a second that her name is really even Darla.
Darla especially freaks out when tall, dark-haired men come into the boutique. Caroline usually sends her into the backroom and handles the customers herself. She likes guiding clueless guys to the perfect items for their girlfriends or wives, anyway. She likes the nervous gratitude she gets for her troubles.
“I’m sorry,” Darla says once, after the store is empty again and they’re both leaning against the register counter. “I just got out of a very difficult relationship and-” she pauses, and then she shakes her head and gives Caroline a painful smile. “It’s just hard, you know?”
Caroline’s noticed the scar on Darla’s forehead, where it peeks out from behind her fashionably too-long bangs sometimes. It’s shiny and pink, not an old scar.
“Yeah, I know,” Caroline agrees. She wonders about the baby, definitely visible now under Darla’s pretty clothes.
04.
Regina has a birthday in March and they all go out to celebrate, all the girls who work at the boutique. Gabby from Rhode Island, who works days and smokes like four packs of Camels a day, is a bartender at some trendy club downtown. She gets them free drink tokens, and Darla drives.
Caroline is pretty drunk, and totally exhausted from dancing when Darla has a minor meltdown. Across the club, there’s a dark-haired man with a prominent brow and a large nose, looking around with a very intense look.
“I have to get out of here,” Darla says, squeezing Caroline’s forearm so hard her nails bite into her skin. “Please, I’m sorry.”
Gabby takes pity on her and leads them out the back way, past the restrooms. Darla takes a detour to the ladies’ room, actually, claiming the baby’s pressing down hard on her bladder. Caroline waits outside, watching in drunken awe as the lights in the hallway go haywire for a second.
05.
Another body turns up a week after that, fried in an alley near UCLA’s campus. This one’s female.
Regina starts scheduling a third person when Darla works because she’s in her third trimester and can’t do as much. It’s usually useless Svetlana, who Caroline despises, but at least Svetlana mostly sticks to the register and doesn’t speak.
“Cops still can’t figure out how it happened,” Caroline summarizes, shaking her head and folding the paper back up.
“Struck by lighting, maybe?” Darla offers, not looking up from the pants she’s steaming. She’s very systematic; the wrinkles don’t stand a chance. She’s heavy with baby now, sitting on a stool while she works.
“Hey, maybe,” Caroline says. The weather has been kind of crappy lately.
06.
An older, harried-looking man in glasses comes in a few days after that, not too long after Darla leaves for a doctor’s appointment. He has a grim face, a mole, and he gives Caroline a vague sense of the creeps.
He flashes a photograph at her, but all Caroline notices is the gun tucked discreetly in his waistband when his jacket flaps back.
“Have you seen this girl?” he asks and Caroline focuses. The girl in the picture is tiny, blonde, and smiling a little bit evilly.
“No,” Caroline says.
He looks annoyed, flips the picture to another one. “Have you seen this man?”
Caroline takes note of the dark hair, the prominent brow, the long nose. She shakes her head. “No,” she says.
07.
“Where are you from?” Caroline asks her not too long after she starts working there
It takes Darla a long time to come up with an answer. “Nowhere,” she says finally, staring off into space. Darla’s kind of socially retarded.
“Yeah, me too,” Caroline agrees. She straightens another stack of shoeboxes. Well, okay, it was Ohio. Came to LA to be a movie star, you know. Wanted to be noticed.”
“Really? I came here to escape,” Darla says.
Caroline doesn’t think that LA is a very opaque place to hide, but whatever. She figures Darla’s going for the lost-in-the-madding-crowd thing. She thinks New York probably would have been a better choice.
08.
There’s a blackout one night, not too long after Caroline and Darla lock up. Caroline stands in the road out front, watching as the street and the valley below go black.
“So much for staying inconspicuous,” she hears Darla mutter as she rounds the building and catches sight of the mess.
“My cat’s probably flipping out right now,” Caroline says, thinking of Thumper. He has to have nature shows on while she’s out, chirping at the screen, or she comes home to shredded toilet paper all over the bathroom, trash all over the kitchen, and a lot of broken stuff.
“I’m legally dead, you know,” Darla says almost cheerfully, rubbing her hands over her belly. “Baby and me? We don’t even officially exist anymore.”
“Um, okay.” Caroline isn’t sure how she’s supposed to respond to that.
09.
Darla doesn’t come back to work, doesn’t answer her phone when they call. Caroline stops by her apartment on her way home from work, but it’s empty.
There are scorch marks on one of the walls in the living room.
End.
Notes: I'm sorry it's weird and choppy. It's been so long since I wrote something non-Supernatural, it's hard to get out of the Winchester boys' headspace. And don't ask me why I called her Darla.