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konstantyaTitle: ’Til Stars of Evening Cease To Burn
Fandom: Black Angel (1946)
Genre: Drama, general.
Characters: Catherine Bennett (implied Marty/Catherine)
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 318
Summary: She doesn’t drink Coke anymore. (Post-film character study, with bonus metaphysics.)
If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so on AO3!
She doesn’t drink Coke anymore.
She can’t. She tried, once, after everything, and she ended up choking, the carbonation bubbling up in her throat like bitter memories, the little bit she did swallow settling in her stomach like battery acid. So she drinks soda water instead these days, the occasional 7-Up, coffee and tea and the even rarer cocktail. But never, oh never, does she go anywhere near Coke.
Kirk has noticed. They were out one time—their first since his return (and oh, has he ever become attentive since his return)—and she ordered a Canada Dry. He smiled a little oddly at her and asked, “Ginger ale?” And Catherine smiled back, but didn’t offer an explanation.
She’s pretty sure he wonders. Wonders at her relationship with the man she brought to visit him in prison, a lifetime ago now—the estranged husband of the woman he had an affair with. Wonders if their association was some funny echo of that, going beyond mere platonic partnership and into something passionate.
Catherine lets him. Lets him think she had a full-fledged dalliance with the late musician, possibly because there is a part of her that wishes she did. She lets her live, that shadow-version of herself, in unspoken words and hypotheticals, in tricks of the light and sheer potential—intangible places where the world works differently and reality seems to bend. She thrives there, the unapologetically unfaithful wife to the previously-unfaithful husband, just as nightclub singer Catherine Carver thrived under the spotlights. She’s safe there, a comforting fantasy, and maybe in some other universe the woman truly exists. Maybe they both do, Cathy and Marty, like Carver and Martin briefly did, finally free of messy complications and murder convictions.
She dusts the piano in the afternoons and gently presses the keys on which his fingers rested, and somewhere a sip of Coke is fizzing pleasantly on her tongue.
-----
A/N: On the one hand, I can’t see Catherine straight up leaving Kirk, but on the other hand, I can’t see them falling back into a mutually happy and healthy marriage, either. Hmm.
Blamingsovay for this again, because WHY NOT?
Title, once again, from the song “Time Will Tell,” that was featured in the film.
All other fics can be found here.
Fandom: Black Angel (1946)
Genre: Drama, general.
Characters: Catherine Bennett (implied Marty/Catherine)
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 318
Summary: She doesn’t drink Coke anymore. (Post-film character study, with bonus metaphysics.)
If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so on AO3!
- ’Til Stars of Evening Cease To Burn -
She doesn’t drink Coke anymore.
She can’t. She tried, once, after everything, and she ended up choking, the carbonation bubbling up in her throat like bitter memories, the little bit she did swallow settling in her stomach like battery acid. So she drinks soda water instead these days, the occasional 7-Up, coffee and tea and the even rarer cocktail. But never, oh never, does she go anywhere near Coke.
Kirk has noticed. They were out one time—their first since his return (and oh, has he ever become attentive since his return)—and she ordered a Canada Dry. He smiled a little oddly at her and asked, “Ginger ale?” And Catherine smiled back, but didn’t offer an explanation.
She’s pretty sure he wonders. Wonders at her relationship with the man she brought to visit him in prison, a lifetime ago now—the estranged husband of the woman he had an affair with. Wonders if their association was some funny echo of that, going beyond mere platonic partnership and into something passionate.
Catherine lets him. Lets him think she had a full-fledged dalliance with the late musician, possibly because there is a part of her that wishes she did. She lets her live, that shadow-version of herself, in unspoken words and hypotheticals, in tricks of the light and sheer potential—intangible places where the world works differently and reality seems to bend. She thrives there, the unapologetically unfaithful wife to the previously-unfaithful husband, just as nightclub singer Catherine Carver thrived under the spotlights. She’s safe there, a comforting fantasy, and maybe in some other universe the woman truly exists. Maybe they both do, Cathy and Marty, like Carver and Martin briefly did, finally free of messy complications and murder convictions.
She dusts the piano in the afternoons and gently presses the keys on which his fingers rested, and somewhere a sip of Coke is fizzing pleasantly on her tongue.
-----
A/N: On the one hand, I can’t see Catherine straight up leaving Kirk, but on the other hand, I can’t see them falling back into a mutually happy and healthy marriage, either. Hmm.
Blaming
sovay for this again, because WHY NOT?Title, once again, from the song “Time Will Tell,” that was featured in the film.
All other fics can be found here.
