Darkness is the devil's time
Feb. 26th, 2004 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zarahemlaI wrote this to cheer up ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
winter_baby, who is having a bad week. Come on, girl! Quit reading all that fic and get working! Uhm ... I mean ... fic makes you feel better, so read more of it. Yeah.
Title: Darkness Is the Devil's Time
Author: Zara Hemla (shutupmulder@yahoo.com)
Site: http://if.lightquencher.net/
Fandom: The Hire ("Beat the Devil")
Rating: R
Summary: Every single one of us, the devil inside.
Darkness Is the Devil's Time
You think the place is fucked up, yeh, but fucked up in a good way, like another dimension or something. Lights go on and off on their own, and the guy in the wheelchair ... he is something else for certain. Mr. Brown talks to him like he's the devil. You're not so sure. You think you saw the devil once, down in Central America, and he was brown-skinned and carried an AK.
Maybe the devil can change his shape. Something you haven't thought of, something that makes you profoundly uncomfortable. And why does the devil have an English accent? Is that for your benefit? To make you believe?
***
James Brown. You recall him from when you were a kid, lapping up American TV like every other bucktoothed English boy. Shaking like his whole body was on fire. You tried to dance like that once: it didn't work, but your mom thought you were having a seizure, which was pretty funny at the time.
And now he's doughy-faced, sagging at the edges. His sparkly cowboy boots look pathetic. He's trying too hard. You stand behind him, secure in your own body and reflexes, watching him beg a nutter in a wheelchair for more time to perform. You feel like you should turn away: not even witness the travesty of a man so electric, so alive, being reduced to this.
But you don't turn away.
***
"Didn't I deliver?" asks the man in the red-striped jumpsuit, whoever he is. You hate his cheap jewelry, the fawning note in Mr. Brown's voice. The way that they're talking about you like you aren't there. You're determined to be above it all, a conscientious driver, but then he asks you if you like girls, and he looks so put out when you answer yes.
"Don't know what you're missing," he says. But you do, ever since 1997 and an incident with a drunken American on a black ops mission. Apparently the devil can't read your mind. One point for you.
"You don't like girls, do you?" The question recalls a sheaf of black hair, a head pillowed on an arm at an airport bar. You don't like them -- exactly -- more like you're tied to them with every emotion, every subconscious movement. It's not a bad thing. It keeps you sane.
***
Dragging the Strip is like driving through a cartoon. The casinos are larger than life, and even at dawn, the streets teem. Women in clubbing outfits flash past; old men grumpy from a long night at the slots; bright dancers, glitz-feathered. You love Las Vegas for the way it brashly outfaces time: hours flash by and suddenly it's Thursday, Sunday, two months later.
Lights blur together and you handle the wheel as always: if there were a word for you it would be something like "centaur": half man, half greased machine. The vermilion in the rearview gives way to sky-blue, saffron, green, and back again.
Your passenger hoots in his own language, one that you can barely understand no matter how long you spend in this country. It sounds joyful, as joyful as you feel behind the wheel: this kind of speed makes everyone happy. This is the reason you were hired: not because you've got a soul that interests the Devil (though he might be intrigued, you flatter yourself), but because you are a fuckin' maniac behind the wheel, which is what your boss said to James Brown's agent when he enquired after a man who could drive to beat the devil.
"Auwwww!" yells Mr. Brown, and it's actually a rock-n-roll experience to have him throw his hands up in the air while you keep yours on the wheel, flicking your gaze from mirror to mirror to speedometer, hoping for just a few minutes of open desert.
***
There's a moment, going over the rail there, that you think, *this is it, and where am I going? Heaven or hell?* But it's just a moment, because you shift into sixth and you give it just a squeeze on the pedal, and the car gives you all it's got in a roar of rubber. It's an orgasm of the hand and brain: the triumphant feeling that yes, *yes*, you can get past anything.
Then you hear the subdued crunch of metal and your rearview mirror fills with fire. And that's it, that's the end of him, whoever he was, poor stupid sod.
*Fucked with the wrong two people*, you think almost hysterically. *The wrong man was behind your wheel*. You feel feverish, about to erupt in flames yourself. You want to smash the windshield: you want to drive, wheels burning the road, through the flat brown morning until you hit ocean.
***
It's only as you turn around and begin winding back to the city that Mr. Brown begins to hum, slapping his hand energetically against the doorframe and then breaking out into song: "Don't say I ain't got it," he wails in that trademark voice, "cause I can't do without it. Too much, but not too bad, but it's better than dying from something that you never had."
Only then do you realize something: the devil is a fat black man in a lacquered hairdo, who sings happily only minutes the fiery death of another man who had the misfortune to drive American. And just like that, you're done with it -- let the scorpions crawl back to the scorpions. Time to quit.
You order him out of the car and, goodnaturedly, he goes. And as he exits there's something new about him, something leaner, hungrier. It's only as you glance behind you during acceleration that you see the slim, straight figure execute a perfect flip.
It isn't possible. It takes a moment for your brain to register, and then it makes perfect sense -- *if*, in fact, Mr. Brown had been telling nothing but the truth. If, in fact, you and James Brown had just outdriven the Lord of the Flies.
You grin, safe behind your sunglasses, and you watch the lights of Las Vegas rise up before you. As they glow benevolently, you say to yourself consideringly, "I'll be damned."
--end--
This was written forwinter_baby, is dedicated to winter_baby, and in fact would never have been conceived of without Winter winter_baby's new Clive Owen obsession. ::mwah!::
The James Brown song used in the story is called "I'm A Greedy Man (Part 1)."
winter_baby, who is having a bad week. Come on, girl! Quit reading all that fic and get working! Uhm ... I mean ... fic makes you feel better, so read more of it. Yeah.Title: Darkness Is the Devil's Time
Author: Zara Hemla (shutupmulder@yahoo.com)
Site: http://if.lightquencher.net/
Fandom: The Hire ("Beat the Devil")
Rating: R
Summary: Every single one of us, the devil inside.
Darkness Is the Devil's Time
You think the place is fucked up, yeh, but fucked up in a good way, like another dimension or something. Lights go on and off on their own, and the guy in the wheelchair ... he is something else for certain. Mr. Brown talks to him like he's the devil. You're not so sure. You think you saw the devil once, down in Central America, and he was brown-skinned and carried an AK.
Maybe the devil can change his shape. Something you haven't thought of, something that makes you profoundly uncomfortable. And why does the devil have an English accent? Is that for your benefit? To make you believe?
***
James Brown. You recall him from when you were a kid, lapping up American TV like every other bucktoothed English boy. Shaking like his whole body was on fire. You tried to dance like that once: it didn't work, but your mom thought you were having a seizure, which was pretty funny at the time.
And now he's doughy-faced, sagging at the edges. His sparkly cowboy boots look pathetic. He's trying too hard. You stand behind him, secure in your own body and reflexes, watching him beg a nutter in a wheelchair for more time to perform. You feel like you should turn away: not even witness the travesty of a man so electric, so alive, being reduced to this.
But you don't turn away.
***
"Didn't I deliver?" asks the man in the red-striped jumpsuit, whoever he is. You hate his cheap jewelry, the fawning note in Mr. Brown's voice. The way that they're talking about you like you aren't there. You're determined to be above it all, a conscientious driver, but then he asks you if you like girls, and he looks so put out when you answer yes.
"Don't know what you're missing," he says. But you do, ever since 1997 and an incident with a drunken American on a black ops mission. Apparently the devil can't read your mind. One point for you.
"You don't like girls, do you?" The question recalls a sheaf of black hair, a head pillowed on an arm at an airport bar. You don't like them -- exactly -- more like you're tied to them with every emotion, every subconscious movement. It's not a bad thing. It keeps you sane.
***
Dragging the Strip is like driving through a cartoon. The casinos are larger than life, and even at dawn, the streets teem. Women in clubbing outfits flash past; old men grumpy from a long night at the slots; bright dancers, glitz-feathered. You love Las Vegas for the way it brashly outfaces time: hours flash by and suddenly it's Thursday, Sunday, two months later.
Lights blur together and you handle the wheel as always: if there were a word for you it would be something like "centaur": half man, half greased machine. The vermilion in the rearview gives way to sky-blue, saffron, green, and back again.
Your passenger hoots in his own language, one that you can barely understand no matter how long you spend in this country. It sounds joyful, as joyful as you feel behind the wheel: this kind of speed makes everyone happy. This is the reason you were hired: not because you've got a soul that interests the Devil (though he might be intrigued, you flatter yourself), but because you are a fuckin' maniac behind the wheel, which is what your boss said to James Brown's agent when he enquired after a man who could drive to beat the devil.
"Auwwww!" yells Mr. Brown, and it's actually a rock-n-roll experience to have him throw his hands up in the air while you keep yours on the wheel, flicking your gaze from mirror to mirror to speedometer, hoping for just a few minutes of open desert.
***
There's a moment, going over the rail there, that you think, *this is it, and where am I going? Heaven or hell?* But it's just a moment, because you shift into sixth and you give it just a squeeze on the pedal, and the car gives you all it's got in a roar of rubber. It's an orgasm of the hand and brain: the triumphant feeling that yes, *yes*, you can get past anything.
Then you hear the subdued crunch of metal and your rearview mirror fills with fire. And that's it, that's the end of him, whoever he was, poor stupid sod.
*Fucked with the wrong two people*, you think almost hysterically. *The wrong man was behind your wheel*. You feel feverish, about to erupt in flames yourself. You want to smash the windshield: you want to drive, wheels burning the road, through the flat brown morning until you hit ocean.
***
It's only as you turn around and begin winding back to the city that Mr. Brown begins to hum, slapping his hand energetically against the doorframe and then breaking out into song: "Don't say I ain't got it," he wails in that trademark voice, "cause I can't do without it. Too much, but not too bad, but it's better than dying from something that you never had."
Only then do you realize something: the devil is a fat black man in a lacquered hairdo, who sings happily only minutes the fiery death of another man who had the misfortune to drive American. And just like that, you're done with it -- let the scorpions crawl back to the scorpions. Time to quit.
You order him out of the car and, goodnaturedly, he goes. And as he exits there's something new about him, something leaner, hungrier. It's only as you glance behind you during acceleration that you see the slim, straight figure execute a perfect flip.
It isn't possible. It takes a moment for your brain to register, and then it makes perfect sense -- *if*, in fact, Mr. Brown had been telling nothing but the truth. If, in fact, you and James Brown had just outdriven the Lord of the Flies.
You grin, safe behind your sunglasses, and you watch the lights of Las Vegas rise up before you. As they glow benevolently, you say to yourself consideringly, "I'll be damned."
--end--
This was written for
winter_baby, is dedicated to winter_baby, and in fact would never have been conceived of without Winter winter_baby's new Clive Owen obsession. ::mwah!::The James Brown song used in the story is called "I'm A Greedy Man (Part 1)."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-26 11:37 pm (UTC)And you threw in The Wife from Follow. *smooches*
You might just get an icon for this. One of Clive maybe? Something else you'd like?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-29 09:01 am (UTC)And I didn't do it so you'd feel like you had to make an icon. Then I would have to write you a fic in exchange for that icon, and we'd be caught in a neverending spiral of useless creation. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-13 10:31 pm (UTC)thank god you didn't slash them, either. although there is one little part of my brain that would really be amused to see someone sex up gary oldman in a unitard. *obsessed* :D
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-14 12:07 am (UTC)I've watched about half the movies so far, and damn. I'm in love with Clive Owen. Especially after reading this. I'm also in love with the stunt driver.