fic: under the painted moon
title: under the painted moon
pairing: chuck/claire
rated: pg
note: fill for motorkink
Claire doesn’t even blink when the sweaty, trembling shadow falls across the table for the third time. She swirls the straw through the brackish substance the menu had classified as blended crème with a grimace. That’s another thing she couldn’t get behind when it came to Motorcity; weird food. Weird food, weird clothes, weird people. She’s finally looks up at Chuck who only shrieks mildly hands fumbling up to keep his heart from escaping through the air.
“Go on,” she says when it looks like Chuck is about high tail it to the Burner’s table.
“Um. Hi. Claire again. Aaaah. Humma huh around here?” squeaks Chuck. “No, I mean. Aaahcan’tdothis.”
Someone coughs encouragingly from the shadows proving they had everyone’s attention in Antonio’s.
“I mean. You know?” Chuck begins again, emboldened. “If you want. With me. I could. If you want? We could go around town tomorrow which is out. We could go out? If you want?”
Claire arcs a finely sculpted brow. “Really?”
Chuck’s fingers flap wildly.
She must be catching the weirdness because she totally understood that and she’s about to say yes. He’d never managed a full sentence before. It is an improvement that should be rewarded.
“I suppose you mean another here in Motorcity.”
Chuck, face bright red, nods.
“One condition. You have to show me what’s worthwhile down here. Promise me a good time and,” Claire finds herself staring into Chuck’s wide, incredulous eyes. “Promise me and I’ll be here at four.”
“No. Wait. You’re. This is a yes?”
“Promise me.”
It shouldn’t be cute the way Chuck wavers between terrified, hopeful, and dumbstruck in the blink of an eye. “I promise.”
“Then yes, Chuck, I’ll go around with you.” Claire hides a smile behind her hand. He really should have waited for her to leave before doing that victory dance.
:::
The fear sending Julie running to the depths of Motorcity for answers had sent Claire to the Detroit Deluxe Archives. A top student, Claire quickly discovered histories dealing with the Great Conflagration and the evacuation of Old Detroit that followed. She knew about the dark clouds that covered the sky and poisoned the water sources. Everyone heard about the mutations and the illnesses that preceded the Mechanical Uprising and all of Michican’t was cordoned off from the rest of the world. Things changed after the Union United gained control up. Twenty years later KaneCo was born and life got better fast. For the first time in a hundred years people could see endless blue and sunshine when the stepped outside.
Why would anyone want to live beneath the dusty heliodome when there was the sky?
It was the one question Julie never managed to answer.
Chuck is the one to come close using actions and the city instead of words. The day starts with Claire floating down Conduit Six and finding Chuck practicing poses against the hood of a bright blue car. So, he really is a burner, she thinks, not unkindly.
“Hey Chuck,” she calls. “Is that your-“ There’s a shriek and a scramble of long, pale limbs windmilling before Chuck drops out of sight. “Car?”
Chuck pops up with a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah. Hi, you’re here?”
That amount of disbelief is actually kind of insulting. Claire turns her nose up as she sashays down the steps.
“Yes, I am. And I’m ready to have a good time.”
“Hey. Yeah, I mean. You will. I mean. I promised didn’t I?” Chuck gives her the smallest smile in the world. He looks down at his hand. “And. And you look pretty. Ah I mean, pretty awesome. Like a lightning bolt punched in half,” he mumbles. “Kachaw?”
It’s enough to put her in the passenger seat without questioning things like safety or Chuck’s driving ability.
“What do you want to do first?”
“I want you to take me on a ride. Show me how you beat that Duke of Dicks guy.” Julie said Chuck had one a major race for the Burners or whatever but seeing is believing.
The rich ombre of pink Chuck turns is seriously to die for. “Detroit. You mean the Duke of Detroit.”
“That’s not what Julie says.”
“Right.” Chuck shifts into gear and they’re off in a modest peel of blue flames and a yelp.
Riding with Chuck is completely different than when Julie coaxed her into 9lives. It’s noisier, each rev of the engine accented by muffled yips but that’s okay. Chuck is super careful, hands welded to the stirring wheel running three whole speeds down from Julie who takes every curve head on. The run through the tattered alleyways is actually fun until Chuck punches the gas hurling the car toward two sagging buildings that they can’t possibly fit through.
“This is it!”
“This is what?” Claire whips her eyes between the road, the ramp, and Chuck’s howling mouth. “Chuck! Charles!”
“Whahahaangon!”
Chuck twits the wheel viciously. The car spins up the ramp and Claire knows they are flying end over end like a Kane coin on a string. An unimaginable image reflects back at her as they wheel between the building: Chuck’s wide eyes closed and her own expression changing from horrified terror to terrified glee.
“Oh my god! I can’t believe you did that with your eyes closed! That was I. Unbelievable! So yeah.” She settles back in her seat. “It was really cool, Chuck.”
“That’s me,” he pants. “Cccool.”
“So what are we doing next?” Even Claire can hear the eager curiosity in her voice.
He runs long fingers through his hair and gives her a second smile, brighter than before. “Hang on.”
The Station is a warren of tunnels hollowed out hundreds of years ago before people had turbo boosted cars or aeropods or lightways. Chuck edges them across the shadows careful with chattering teeth and whimpers. Claire curves very close to him when she hears chittering in the distance.
“Oh good. Here it is,” says Chuck when he finds the power converter.
The Station springs to life at the touch of a button. Color splashing down the tunnel walls and over the curved ceiling. Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe the things she’s seeing. It starts with a city, with Detroit Deluxe only that can’t be right. Half the buildings are planted into the ground in the same way Motorcity’s rows of crumbling buildings. The rest float above the faces of smiling people. Further down is a picture of the Burners with tiny controllers in their hands. The intensity leaps out in the veins of Texas’ neck and Mike’s furrowed brow and the way Julie cocks her head when she’s about to get things done.
Next is a picture of Kanebots. At first she thinks they are patrolling but the next bots’ light highlights figures spinning on the sidewalk. They’re nothing but shadowed angles and poses, the human body moving in such astonishing ways. It’s so far out, it’s, “Solar,” she breathes. “Who did this?
“Dutch. He’s a genius when it comes to machines but his passion is right here. That’s what being a Burner is all about, you know?” Chuck has started forward without her and maybe that’s why he’s able to string together a complete thought. Something like that should definitely be rewarded.
“Really? So what’s your passion?” Claire spins into Chuck’s back and has he always been this tall?
“Oh. Oh boy.”
“What is it?”
“No-nothing!” Chuck squawks. “Nothing at all, let’s. Next place, right?”
But Claire has already sidestepped the panicking flail of limbs. She’s stopped short by the beauty of a painted moon in shades. Shadowed in the colors of warm summer nights is the silhouette of a girl with smooth curves and a sassy updo leaning her head against the shoulders of a tall guy. Their hands are clasped together.
“Come’on,” she says, taking the hint Chuck tries to leave behind. She tugs their folded fingers until Chuck unthaws enough to trot behind her. “I wanna see your passion.”
:::
“The garage?” It was honestly the last place she’d thought Chuck would take her. He promised her a good time, not hours spent watching him play with the data screens.
“No, no, no. That’s not what I want to show you.”
Claire follows him into the dark maw of the broken building with a fist full of distrust. He flips the generator switch for the lights and nothing happens.
“C’mon, Mikey, c’mon,” Chuck says under his breath. The first buzz of neon rattles a long, green bulb. The next light shakes on and the next. They walk into the clean garage and long rows of bulbs hanging low in the center of the room.
“I like your style,” she whispers. Turning under the light Claire can see how different looks. The dirty corners she always avoided look mysterious, her own clothing luminous under rainbowed light. Even Mike Chilton’s green machine looked special, dangerous, thrilling. She turns around to find Chuck shuffling towards her with a covered platter.
“Ta da.” His quiet voice is underscored by metal sliding across metal. In the center of the platter stands a tall fluted glass filled with creamy white foam.
“Is that what I think it is?” Claire closes her lips over the straw and sucks gently. “It is! How did you get a shake down here?”
How did he know it was her favorite thing ever? And how in the world did he manage to make one? Or if he got it from Deluxe, why is it still chillingly perfect.
“Hahaaa.” Chuck dances away before his cheeks could burst into flame. “I have my ways. So my passion. Right. It’s. I mean, they’re. You know I kind of. I’m big into data tech.”
“And larping.”
“And lar-hey? Who told you that?”
Claire shrugs. “I have my ways.”
“Right. But I really love these. Mikey and me were out savaging for parts when we found this awesome place blocks away from an old parts plant.” Chuck unlocks a flat, green box to reveal a machine that couldn’t possibly have been built in the past century. Or the one before that. In fact there was nothing tech about it, just a box with a round indentation in the center. Chuck pulls out a flat, round disc from a wall she’d never noticed before. He fiddles with the machine and the disc until a crackling sound lights through the air followed by the soft strains of something unfamiliar.
“What is it?”
“Music.”
“Music?” It doesn’t sound like music. In Detroit Deluxe music sounds like three rapid notes followed by Kane singing the anthem. If it’s not the anthem, it’s some variation, either fast enough to make shopping fly by or slow enough to bring bored tears to the eyes.
“Yeah. Rayon says these things are really rare. Er. Claire?”
He’s tense as a particle board when she curls onto the cushion beside him and the first time he says her name all day his voice cracks. Typical Chuck. She smiles around her milkshake and listens to this new old sound.
But in reality she doesn’t even know me, croons a bygone voice, soft, sweet, hopelessly hopeful, and quietly strong, just like someone she’s coming to know better. Just my imagination.
She decides that she likes it before the song ends and another beings, hand claps and finger snaps and another soft voice. “You know, you’re full of surprises. I wouldn’t have pictured you as being so outgoing.”
“Outgoing? No, I. The Burners and stuff, yeah, but really? Everything I really like is in this room.” Chuck looks at her, truly looks, blond hair shoved back, cheeks pink, brown eyes deeply honest.
Claire’s smile is suddenly small and shy. “Really?”
“Yeah,” says Chuck taking her hand. “Really.”
end
:: 1965
pairing: chuck/claire
rated: pg
note: fill for motorkink
Claire doesn’t even blink when the sweaty, trembling shadow falls across the table for the third time. She swirls the straw through the brackish substance the menu had classified as blended crème with a grimace. That’s another thing she couldn’t get behind when it came to Motorcity; weird food. Weird food, weird clothes, weird people. She’s finally looks up at Chuck who only shrieks mildly hands fumbling up to keep his heart from escaping through the air.
“Go on,” she says when it looks like Chuck is about high tail it to the Burner’s table.
“Um. Hi. Claire again. Aaaah. Humma huh around here?” squeaks Chuck. “No, I mean. Aaahcan’tdothis.”
Someone coughs encouragingly from the shadows proving they had everyone’s attention in Antonio’s.
“I mean. You know?” Chuck begins again, emboldened. “If you want. With me. I could. If you want? We could go around town tomorrow which is out. We could go out? If you want?”
Claire arcs a finely sculpted brow. “Really?”
Chuck’s fingers flap wildly.
She must be catching the weirdness because she totally understood that and she’s about to say yes. He’d never managed a full sentence before. It is an improvement that should be rewarded.
“I suppose you mean another here in Motorcity.”
Chuck, face bright red, nods.
“One condition. You have to show me what’s worthwhile down here. Promise me a good time and,” Claire finds herself staring into Chuck’s wide, incredulous eyes. “Promise me and I’ll be here at four.”
“No. Wait. You’re. This is a yes?”
“Promise me.”
It shouldn’t be cute the way Chuck wavers between terrified, hopeful, and dumbstruck in the blink of an eye. “I promise.”
“Then yes, Chuck, I’ll go around with you.” Claire hides a smile behind her hand. He really should have waited for her to leave before doing that victory dance.
:::
The fear sending Julie running to the depths of Motorcity for answers had sent Claire to the Detroit Deluxe Archives. A top student, Claire quickly discovered histories dealing with the Great Conflagration and the evacuation of Old Detroit that followed. She knew about the dark clouds that covered the sky and poisoned the water sources. Everyone heard about the mutations and the illnesses that preceded the Mechanical Uprising and all of Michican’t was cordoned off from the rest of the world. Things changed after the Union United gained control up. Twenty years later KaneCo was born and life got better fast. For the first time in a hundred years people could see endless blue and sunshine when the stepped outside.
Why would anyone want to live beneath the dusty heliodome when there was the sky?
It was the one question Julie never managed to answer.
Chuck is the one to come close using actions and the city instead of words. The day starts with Claire floating down Conduit Six and finding Chuck practicing poses against the hood of a bright blue car. So, he really is a burner, she thinks, not unkindly.
“Hey Chuck,” she calls. “Is that your-“ There’s a shriek and a scramble of long, pale limbs windmilling before Chuck drops out of sight. “Car?”
Chuck pops up with a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah. Hi, you’re here?”
That amount of disbelief is actually kind of insulting. Claire turns her nose up as she sashays down the steps.
“Yes, I am. And I’m ready to have a good time.”
“Hey. Yeah, I mean. You will. I mean. I promised didn’t I?” Chuck gives her the smallest smile in the world. He looks down at his hand. “And. And you look pretty. Ah I mean, pretty awesome. Like a lightning bolt punched in half,” he mumbles. “Kachaw?”
It’s enough to put her in the passenger seat without questioning things like safety or Chuck’s driving ability.
“What do you want to do first?”
“I want you to take me on a ride. Show me how you beat that Duke of Dicks guy.” Julie said Chuck had one a major race for the Burners or whatever but seeing is believing.
The rich ombre of pink Chuck turns is seriously to die for. “Detroit. You mean the Duke of Detroit.”
“That’s not what Julie says.”
“Right.” Chuck shifts into gear and they’re off in a modest peel of blue flames and a yelp.
Riding with Chuck is completely different than when Julie coaxed her into 9lives. It’s noisier, each rev of the engine accented by muffled yips but that’s okay. Chuck is super careful, hands welded to the stirring wheel running three whole speeds down from Julie who takes every curve head on. The run through the tattered alleyways is actually fun until Chuck punches the gas hurling the car toward two sagging buildings that they can’t possibly fit through.
“This is it!”
“This is what?” Claire whips her eyes between the road, the ramp, and Chuck’s howling mouth. “Chuck! Charles!”
“Whahahaangon!”
Chuck twits the wheel viciously. The car spins up the ramp and Claire knows they are flying end over end like a Kane coin on a string. An unimaginable image reflects back at her as they wheel between the building: Chuck’s wide eyes closed and her own expression changing from horrified terror to terrified glee.
“Oh my god! I can’t believe you did that with your eyes closed! That was I. Unbelievable! So yeah.” She settles back in her seat. “It was really cool, Chuck.”
“That’s me,” he pants. “Cccool.”
“So what are we doing next?” Even Claire can hear the eager curiosity in her voice.
He runs long fingers through his hair and gives her a second smile, brighter than before. “Hang on.”
The Station is a warren of tunnels hollowed out hundreds of years ago before people had turbo boosted cars or aeropods or lightways. Chuck edges them across the shadows careful with chattering teeth and whimpers. Claire curves very close to him when she hears chittering in the distance.
“Oh good. Here it is,” says Chuck when he finds the power converter.
The Station springs to life at the touch of a button. Color splashing down the tunnel walls and over the curved ceiling. Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe the things she’s seeing. It starts with a city, with Detroit Deluxe only that can’t be right. Half the buildings are planted into the ground in the same way Motorcity’s rows of crumbling buildings. The rest float above the faces of smiling people. Further down is a picture of the Burners with tiny controllers in their hands. The intensity leaps out in the veins of Texas’ neck and Mike’s furrowed brow and the way Julie cocks her head when she’s about to get things done.
Next is a picture of Kanebots. At first she thinks they are patrolling but the next bots’ light highlights figures spinning on the sidewalk. They’re nothing but shadowed angles and poses, the human body moving in such astonishing ways. It’s so far out, it’s, “Solar,” she breathes. “Who did this?
“Dutch. He’s a genius when it comes to machines but his passion is right here. That’s what being a Burner is all about, you know?” Chuck has started forward without her and maybe that’s why he’s able to string together a complete thought. Something like that should definitely be rewarded.
“Really? So what’s your passion?” Claire spins into Chuck’s back and has he always been this tall?
“Oh. Oh boy.”
“What is it?”
“No-nothing!” Chuck squawks. “Nothing at all, let’s. Next place, right?”
But Claire has already sidestepped the panicking flail of limbs. She’s stopped short by the beauty of a painted moon in shades. Shadowed in the colors of warm summer nights is the silhouette of a girl with smooth curves and a sassy updo leaning her head against the shoulders of a tall guy. Their hands are clasped together.
“Come’on,” she says, taking the hint Chuck tries to leave behind. She tugs their folded fingers until Chuck unthaws enough to trot behind her. “I wanna see your passion.”
:::
“The garage?” It was honestly the last place she’d thought Chuck would take her. He promised her a good time, not hours spent watching him play with the data screens.
“No, no, no. That’s not what I want to show you.”
Claire follows him into the dark maw of the broken building with a fist full of distrust. He flips the generator switch for the lights and nothing happens.
“C’mon, Mikey, c’mon,” Chuck says under his breath. The first buzz of neon rattles a long, green bulb. The next light shakes on and the next. They walk into the clean garage and long rows of bulbs hanging low in the center of the room.
“I like your style,” she whispers. Turning under the light Claire can see how different looks. The dirty corners she always avoided look mysterious, her own clothing luminous under rainbowed light. Even Mike Chilton’s green machine looked special, dangerous, thrilling. She turns around to find Chuck shuffling towards her with a covered platter.
“Ta da.” His quiet voice is underscored by metal sliding across metal. In the center of the platter stands a tall fluted glass filled with creamy white foam.
“Is that what I think it is?” Claire closes her lips over the straw and sucks gently. “It is! How did you get a shake down here?”
How did he know it was her favorite thing ever? And how in the world did he manage to make one? Or if he got it from Deluxe, why is it still chillingly perfect.
“Hahaaa.” Chuck dances away before his cheeks could burst into flame. “I have my ways. So my passion. Right. It’s. I mean, they’re. You know I kind of. I’m big into data tech.”
“And larping.”
“And lar-hey? Who told you that?”
Claire shrugs. “I have my ways.”
“Right. But I really love these. Mikey and me were out savaging for parts when we found this awesome place blocks away from an old parts plant.” Chuck unlocks a flat, green box to reveal a machine that couldn’t possibly have been built in the past century. Or the one before that. In fact there was nothing tech about it, just a box with a round indentation in the center. Chuck pulls out a flat, round disc from a wall she’d never noticed before. He fiddles with the machine and the disc until a crackling sound lights through the air followed by the soft strains of something unfamiliar.
“What is it?”
“Music.”
“Music?” It doesn’t sound like music. In Detroit Deluxe music sounds like three rapid notes followed by Kane singing the anthem. If it’s not the anthem, it’s some variation, either fast enough to make shopping fly by or slow enough to bring bored tears to the eyes.
“Yeah. Rayon says these things are really rare. Er. Claire?”
He’s tense as a particle board when she curls onto the cushion beside him and the first time he says her name all day his voice cracks. Typical Chuck. She smiles around her milkshake and listens to this new old sound.
But in reality she doesn’t even know me, croons a bygone voice, soft, sweet, hopelessly hopeful, and quietly strong, just like someone she’s coming to know better. Just my imagination.
She decides that she likes it before the song ends and another beings, hand claps and finger snaps and another soft voice. “You know, you’re full of surprises. I wouldn’t have pictured you as being so outgoing.”
“Outgoing? No, I. The Burners and stuff, yeah, but really? Everything I really like is in this room.” Chuck looks at her, truly looks, blond hair shoved back, cheeks pink, brown eyes deeply honest.
Claire’s smile is suddenly small and shy. “Really?”
“Yeah,” says Chuck taking her hand. “Really.”
end
:: 1965