Rhythms
Dedicated to and written for whoreoftortuga, who really knows how to tell a story.
AN: Amber belongs to whoreoftortuga, and this little tale takes place prior to her fic 'Loser,' when the relationship between Raphael and Amber is barely in its infancy.
Warning: Tortured imagery dead ahead!
New York City! A vast, sprawling organism with skyscraper bones and highway arteries; within its borders a melting pot of a hundred varied cultures and eight million dreams. It grows inexorably outward, moving with the slow ponderousness of one who knows no time. Its breath is the collective sigh of its inhabitants; their quick-time tread its pulse.
Some cities have long ago settled on their stone laurels, their cobbled veins slowed and thickened by the dust of centuries. Others test the bounds of civilization, huddling for warmth against a sheltering mountain range, their questing eyes hidden behind a veil of trees. Still more are jewel-strewn divas with proud, uplifted chins; their wild-eyed youth betrayed by caffeine jitters and blunt, dirt-rimmed nails.
New York is one of the latter, and out of all these bright ladies, she is perhaps the most memorable. She may not be the prettiest or most sophisticated of her sisters… but God! How she sings.
It is to this tune that a lone figure moves. He glides across the city's ribcage, bounding from rooftop to rooftop with a feather tread, each step like a fingertip ghosting across skin. His breath trails behind him in broad paint-strokes of steam, and his blood pounds in time with the sounds welling up from below. Car horn honks and construction clatter, amalgamated with the laughter, shouts and cries of people as unique as their voices. It mingles and flows together in a swelling ocean of sound, which crashes against his senses in a way that is not always pleasant, but never fails to allure. A lover's song sung with a smoker's rasp.
His brothers don't understand his fascination with this singular lady and her eerie, captivating tune. They have lived beneath her all their lives, hearing her slow heartbeat and nurtured by the warmth of her bones, but her singing is nothing more than a racket, and they do not imagine themselves a part of her. Their unknowing rejection is sometimes an irritant, but for the most part, he is grateful. It is a relief to have something that is only his. His, and his alone.
The city's song is muted in other districts, smothered beneath a blanket of cold November night. But here on Redfern Street, a place of small, unnoticed sins, its sidewalks and alleyways still hum with city song. Cocooned in music, the sidewalk teems, ablaze with a kind of life that only some ever see and fewer still appreciate. On this night, it is fortunate to find a rapt audience in its sudden visitor, who touches down on his favorite rooftop and peers over the crumbling concrete ledge. His eyes gleam through a gargoyle's shadow as he all but drinks in the sight.
The rhinestone glitter of neon lights and the sight of several slick, shadowed cars holds its own fascination, but it is the people who immediately capture his gaze. These shadow-veiled denizens, the unknowing lifeblood of the city, whose faces he knows better than his own, and whose lives are as rich and varied as any he can ever dream.
There, to the right, is Bengy; his angel face and ancient eyes offset by the designer phone pressed to one ear. In the right lane of the street coasts Clockwork John, faithfully following his routine, one pudgy arm hanging out the window as he searches for a few moments of paradise. A streetlamp throws his car's shadow over Ray's table, briefly blotting out the sight of slender, ring-laden fingers moving spider-quick over a deck of cards. Just beyond the table, the lights blaze inside Lenny's Vintage Vinyl shop, where the old man leans beside his record player and bobs his head along with a classic tune.
And in the center of it all, Amber dances. She should be lost amongst the wash of noise and neon lights, her raw-boned frame swallowed by it like Jonah and his whale. Yet the street kids clap and cheer, Larry smiles and turns the music up… and Raphael, the silent watcher, cannot tear his gaze away.
It is a source of some confusion for him, this unwavering regard. True, he had saved her life, but he has done the same thing for many other women over the years. Memories of them play behind his eyes from time to time, but they have never entranced him with a snake charmer's ease. They have never haunted his dreams.
Tires suddenly screech in the distance, a lengthy C sharp that cuts across the background tune whispering passed his ears. The sound fades to nothing even as he instinctively glances up, and the light perched atop a far-away skyscraper flashes once, as if indulging in a conspirital wink. He has the sudden, distinct impression that someone is laughing at his expense.
With an air of sullen defiance, Raphael turns away and allows himself to be recaptured by the street's hustle and flow. Amber had lit a cigarette during his brief moment of distraction, and the cherry now bobs like a firefly near her right hand. Smoke escapes her mouth in a dragon's sigh as she kicks out with a booted foot, and when one of the kids lets out a lewd whistle, there is something almost feral about her answering smile.
Something taps at his awareness then, a certain nascent understanding, and he shakes his head as if bothered by a fly. She is just a skinny nothing girl, and there is no greater truth to be found in her track-marked arms and shadowed eyes. Something about her may draw the gaze, but her movements are all wrong; an off tempo twirl and sway that doesn't quite match the vinyl beat.
Unaware of the weight of his gaze, Amber continues her shifting dance, her hair fanning about her shoulders in a long arc of red. It is a wild, chaotic display, done with much exuberance and little skill, but as the night wears on and the records change, the housefly tapping returns. He tries to ignore it, but as she smokes and dances and sings (her strong, crackling voice belting out stories of blue raincoats and broken speech, of liquid clocks and the deaths of kings), comprehension comes in a flood. The answer can be found in the splay of her red-raw fingers and the thrust of a dagger hip, and the way the streetlights play across her face in a ghost of beauty.
Her voice keeps time with the record player, but her movements are pure city song.
The revelation brings with it a hitch in his breath and a new tightness to his grip on the rooftop ledge. In a single heady instant, it all makes sense… and as the car horns blare and the record player scratches out a crescendo, he can swear he hears the city's approving chuckle. So many people are unaware of the breath and life that surges through this place, and until now, Raphael had thought he was the only one who could hear its voice. But on this street of the ignored and forgotten, he has found another. On some level, Amber hears and replies.
Raphael is so used to being estranged, an enigma even amongst his own family, that the thought of having company in his unique perception brings with it a strange sort of paralysis. Trapped in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, he remains a motionless sentinel atop his perch of concrete bone. Below him, Ray continues to fleece the unwary, Bengy leaves for his nightly run, and Amber taps and stomps at the asphalt, her boots beating out a Morse code love note to the city that has embraced them all.
Calmed by the familiar tableau, Raphael's confusion gradually gives way to a quiet, cautious peace. The mystery has been solved, and buoyed by this now understanding, he now itches with the desire to know more. Did the city sing to her as it does for him; a pushy, joyous noise? Or does it hum sweetly; a butterfly whisper in her ear? Does she know that there are others who can hear it, too? Does she know that she is not alone?
So many questions, and it soon becomes apparent that none will be answered tonight. A rust-spotted Chevy chooses that moment to roll to a stop in front of her, its passenger side door popping open in obvious invitation. Amber tamps out one last beat against the pavement, before tossing a jaunty wave at Lenny and making a beeline for the car. With one last flash of her pink coat and a glimmer of flyaway hair, the door closes and the vehicle pulls away with a belch of exhaust, leaving the street a little quieter and that much more alone.
It is tempting to follow her, but even though light has yet to bring color to the edges of the world, he can feel the cool weight of approaching dawn. With it brings a desire for a familiar warmth, and so, content in the knowledge that there will be other nights and other dances, Raphael allows the city song to entice, cajole and carry him home.