Queen of the Borderline

[MessengerOfDreams]

So here’s a story that I can’t imagine anyone ever expected on fanfiction.net. An Alternate Universe/humanized romantic/friendship fanfic between two fringe stars no one ever shipped together, both of whom are in their fifties, one of which is trans, with themes far too heavy for a story about goddamn Waluigi and Birdo to be about in the first place.

I don’t care.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing, and let them forget nothing.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Ready,” you lie, but it’s a start.

The garage door creaks open slowly, like it doesn’t realize the emotional urgency. You lift it as hard as you can with those skinny arms of yours I still worry will fall off with the way you work yourself to the bone. I don’t know how you do this for a living- sometimes I worry you’re still a bad stretch away from falling apart, a subject I’m entirely familiar with.

It goes up, and there she is, your prized possession, a project and a statement all at once. A candy purple ‘85 El Dorado that looks like it stepped off the assembly line, but one far too many years in the making. It’s taken six of them just to get to the start, turning the engine on for the first time since you dug it out of the junkyard. I’m not even expecting to even go anywhere today- miracles aren’t exactly handed out on the streets. It’d be nice to get this baby down to the corner store. I know it’d make you thrilled, even if you don’t think you’d show it.

I look over at you as we stand in reverence of this moment. You’ve worked on this from before we ever met, but I swear I’ve waited even longer than that to see the look on your face when you know where we are. It’s apprehension and impatience. You’re already back at the drawing board. When you start walking in, I follow, almost running headlong into the hood trying to read your expression. I step around the car right before it’s too late, my skirt dragging along the surface of the hood. I’m surprised you don’t whip a brush out of your pocket and clean up any possible cotton that might have sullied it- impressive restraint for someone with such attention to detail. You’re too far in your own world to notice me making things a little more… interesting for you.

I reach the door and climb inside. I’m moving as carefully as possible. Seeing the work put into this makes me hesitant to even sit down, but I’m sure as hell not wasting any more time. I plop down with about as much grace as expected, getting a faceful of my own graying lilac hair. It settles with a small shake of the head, but I still see it from the corner of my eye. I smile, because even if it is gray and wilting, it is my hair, and I love it more than I knew I was supposed to. Sometimes I forget just how much I am blessed to have it.

I spend thirty seconds in here alone before I realize you’re still standing outside of the car, hand hesitantly on the seat’s edge, taking a deep breath. I beckon you in with my head, my hair dousing me again. “We gonna do this?” I ask.

You nod, but don’t say anything, as if you don’t trust your own gesture.

“You’re never gonna find out if you don’t open that door, Wally,” I promise you, because I know.

“Right,” you say, smiling weakly. You open the door and gently step in, as if your buck-fifty spread across six feet is gonna be what weighs down the car too much when I’m in it. Shush, you, I have to remind myself. Your weight does not matter. Leave it be.

You grab the wheel, and I remind you “Ignition, honey.” You nod as formally as I’ve come to expect and yank the keys from your chest pocket, knees already up to the dash. Your own shirt is covered in auto body chemicals and paints, so much so that I wonder why you’re so worried about perfection when you’re such a mess. If you have that duster in your pocket, you could use it to get caked-in soot out of your skin that oft-forgotten showers in the midst of your mission seem to miss. I know how much this means to you, but you forget to take care of yourself more than you take care of things like these, though far be it from me to judge you for past dictating the present.

You grab the wheel and force a smile, but it’s nervous, queasy. “It’s on,” I volunteer. “That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

You nod. “It sounds nice.”

Nice, you say. Adjectives with you don’t waste time, meanwhile I get caught up in my own head trying to describe every moment I’m alive, justifying it to myself. This car sounds strong, itching to go, awoken from a slumber, and to you, I know it sounds like the past. Clear your throat all you want, but I can feel the weakness itching to burst out. I know it, I know it so well, but it’s time to go.

“Are you ready?” I ask, reaching for your hand resting on the clutch.

You nod. “It’s time. I think this baby’s been missing the road.”

“That she has,” I agree, and so have we.

You finally push down on the ignition and we leave the garage, slowly slinking onto the road. I notice we’ve left the door plumb open, but after all you’ve put into this baby, there’s not much left to steal from you. The car rolls a little rocky, but I don’t mind it. I look at you as you turn onto the road, your nerves breaking ever so slightly as the car continues not to break down. The road by the place we share is an empty thoroughfare miles from the city, but for once it doesn’t feel lonely, because for once you feel like you’re here.

“Wally,” I whisper with excitement, like my voice could corrupt the engine somehow. “You did it, hon.”

You nod and smile, mustache twitching. I clap you on the back, and you jolt again, but keep your hands on the wheel. You don’t speak until the house is out of our rearview mirror.

“Guess I did.”

I smile and let my hand slide across your stained shirt, as if to remind you I’m here. “Thanks for letting me join the inaugural ride.”

Even quieter than usual, you reply “Of course,” as if I shouldn’t have asked. I let a few seconds go by, out of things to say, before I reach for the dial, looking at you for approval. You nod quietly, meeting my gaze from the corner of your eye for too long. I want to tell you to keep your eyes on the road, but I can’t deny that I love how you’re looking at me, the one woman you’d ever take on the road. I smile and turn the radio on, searching for a moment to find a station suitable. When I hear some glossy 80s pop I recognize from my college years- possibly the last time I was ever okay after the transition- I stop and slide out of your view, because you deserve your moment.

As the music flows from the speakers and changes the atmosphere, I look into the side mirror. There’s no cars behind us, and all I can see is myself. I instinctively reach for my hair, trying to untangle it, trying to look proper. I have to catch myself and let myself believe that I look okay, or at least recognize that if I really cared about how I looked today I’d have put a little makeup on my aging skin and worn something a little nicer. That’s not who I am, anymore, but decades of training and ill-informed habits will do that to the ex of a politician. My days of being a princess are too far beyond me, but my days as a woman still feel far too new.

I start to get fidgety and annoyed the longer I look at myself, so I succumb to temptation and tie my hair into a knot behind me, and feel a little something fall away as my hair leaves the corner of my eyes. I leave my reflection behind- unruly hair, dark aged islander skin, tired eyes and all, and I steal another glance at you. I’m amazed that you haven’t cracked yet. I would have. You’ve seen me crack far too many times, yet your sorrow is simply base facts delivered with the barest hint of emotion. I envy your composition, yet I also pity it. I know what it’s like to feel your heart chained up and smothered, but not what it’s like to do that to myself.

I notice signs in the distance that indicate we’re near the state highway. It’s no freeway- none of those things where we live- but it’s how you get out of here if you’d ever want to. I can’t imagine myself anywhere else, but in a car like this, with music like this, with a driver like this… I’d go anywhere, and I mean that. Without saying a word, you take a right on the highway, and step on the gas and crank the clutch so quickly we’re at seventy before we know it. I don’t remember speed like this since back when these songs came out, but I cheer anyways, even as I feel like I’ve been tied to a space shuttle.

I feel your eyes on me for a moment and I let them rest, because as long as we’re moving someone has to keep their eyes on the road. I’ll do it, because there’s no one else around as far as the eye can see. It’s just you and I on this endless straight road bumping up and down through the hinterlands, king and queen of the highway. I can almost believe it.

Eventually the speed becomes a new normal, and your eyes return to the road so subtly I’m still under the impression you’re watching me. I start singing before I even notice it, so familiar is this song to me. I couldn’t tell you who sings it, and I’m not even sure if I comprehend the lyrics… it just is so engrained in my consciousness that it’s become a meditative chant.

“You have a lovely voice” is what snaps me back to reality. The compliment flushes me in ways I didn’t know this old skin could burn, and I can’t believe you don’t notice it. I feel like someone’s always watching me- it’s engrained in me- and I know this fictional being has to see how obvious I am and how oblivious you are. Match made in heaven, I guess.

“Thanks,” I reply awkwardly, but now I’m back in reality and I stop. I hear the song and realize it’s Every Breath You Take. I used to love that song, then I had the misfortune of relating to it far too much. Any ability to sing stops dead in my throat, and I stare at the yellow stripes in the road, reading them like a thousand consecutive warning lights.

“Hey…” you slowly ask. “Why’d you stop?”

I don’t have a response that could take less than an hour of regurgitating things you already know, so it takes me a second of thinking to realize that you feel responsible. “It’s not you,” I reply too quietly. “I promise.”

You seem to comprehend to a degree, as if you just heard the radio. “Oh, this song,” you mumble with disgust. “This is a creepy song. Want me to turn it off?”

I think for a second, but by then the song’s ended and another one’s in its place. I don’t think any song could hit me as hard as that one did, so I just say “I think we’re good.” Then, for good measure: “Eyes on the road, champ.”

“Ah, yes,” you respond quickly. “Sorry about that.”

I shake my head with a smile. “Goober.”

You chuckle dryly, and the music becomes the only voice in the car. The sun takes up prominence in the windshield. I honestly would believe that you looked up the scheduled time for the sunset, but I don’t bring it up because it would embarrass you, because you have no idea how charming I find these things. Insecurities are a blinding hurricane on the soul. I guess all we know how to do is weather them, but as I look headlong into the sun with only my hand as a visor, I want to drive into the eye of the storm no matter what it takes.

The song’s familiar to me, but only vaguely. I think I recognize the song but I don’t want to guess who it is and get it wrong. Luckily for me, you break the silence. “I know this,” you muse so quietly it’s like I wasn’t supposed to hear it.

I play dumb. “Come again?”

“I know this, Bird,” you repeat with more intensity, and I perk at my name. “My brother used to play this guy all the time when I was a kid. We had all the cassettes and everything.”

“Wario was a Springsteen fan?” I ask before I can stop it. You nod quietly, and I feel bad for continuing the conversation on him, but you started it, and I can tell you’re itching to despite yourself. So I add “Bro had good taste, I see.”

“Springsteen was a tough guy,” you muse. “But he had heart.”

“It’s a perfect fit, then.”

You nod quietly, swallowing. I don’t know how much you actually know about Springsteen- probably what you can remember from your brother. If you told me your brother knew every album he had even those posthumous to him I wouldn’t doubt it. Still, however much you know about the guy, you sing his lyrics just like I sang the song beforehand- your voice has always had a nasally tint but your singing is comfortable regardless. Whether we like it or not, certain songs are part of us. Certain moments, certain memories, certain tragedies. Whatever our paths were before, they intersect here and now on this road into the sun with the yellow stripes that never end.

You stop singing, and you’ve gone bright red. “I don’t even know if I should be singing this stuff,” you admit. “Half the time he sings about some dark stuff and it flies over my head.”

I’ve been conned by music before so I listen to the lyrics for a moment. I give it thirty seconds before deducing it’s a harmless romantic song. I smile and say “It sounds nice to me.”

“Good,” you reply. You leave it on against your better judgment- I can tell you’re shaken up by the way your mouth twitches that you’re choking something down. I want to turn the dial, but just like facing myself in the mirror, I leave your strength in your hands, because I want to believe there’s a reason a song like this is on. He claims to be tougher than the rest trying to sway this person to a dance, and even though we don’t look the part, I know we have to be tougher than the world will ever give us credit for.

Finally, you speak loud enough for me to make out your voice for the first time since we opened the garage doors.

“I think he’d have been proud of me.”

I nod, realizing that the car is running so well I’ve taken it for granted, as if it’d never been destroyed, as if we really are back in 1985. I feel like a young woman in over her head with emotions she can’t trust, but can’t resist at the same time, riding in a car with a total dreamboat, the tall-dark-handsome type who compels her too much to let go of.

“You did a great job,” I assure you. “It runs beautifully. It looks the same. All of this work, and it works like a charm.” I reach for your hand, which comfortably rests on the shift. You notice and smile, leaving it be.

“The car’s nice,” you admit. “I’m proud of that too. I don’t think that’s what would make him proud, though. I think he’d tell anyone else to just leave it in the junk heap and go buy a new one if they wanted one so badly. When even a little cash was a fortune, things were replaceable, disposable. Everything except for…”

“You?”

You swallow, and I feel the speed of the car decrease. Go figure, the first thing I do is look for a cop, but I realize that you’re finally processing everything. You’ve been here before, and somehow I feel like I have too, and I don’t know if it’s good or bad. Twenty-three or fifty-three, a sunset ride with someone you’re finally admitting you want in your life for as long as you can stand each other still has the same hypnotic hold on me.

The only thing I can think of, though, is that I shouldn’t be here. It should be him. It should be your brother. But if it wasn’t, I don’t know if I’d ever have met you, and I don’t know if I can give that up. Somehow, even two decades of a marriage that took my identity from me and made me a trophy seem worth it for how real, how treasured I feel right now. I still can’t even fathom what it’s cost you.

“Wal?” I ask. “You okay, darling?”

“I’m…” you don’t respond at first, and the silence drowns out the music. “I’m gonna pull over.”

“Go for it,” I respond, and you do. Gradually, the speed reduces to a comfortable stop as you pull out of the driving lane. This stretch of road looks the same as ever- more empty fields untamed by farmers or development, whether it’s unwanted or undiscovered. Same yellow lines leading to somewhere eventually, nowhere at the moment, give it time. I notice once the car has stopped that you’re wiping tears out of your eyes with oil-stained hands. All I can do is open the glove compartment in hopes that there’s tissue in here, and come up empty.

Instead, I unbuckle and reach for you. You hold your hand out, but instead I wrap one arm around you, pulling you to my chest. You expended the only few tears you’d allow, but you stay nonetheless, breathing heavily. You’re here. It’s bittersweet, and it hurts, but it’s where you are. It’s the result of sleepless nights in the garage where insomnia’s your excuse. It’s the result of only explaining your life a few words at a time while being able to process hours of tear-soaked rants as I sort through a wild mess I used to call love. It’s when you admitted you just needed a friend and I dropped everything to move to the edge of the Earth because I realized that just because I lost someone didn’t mean I didn’t need someone, just one person, to keep me steady. Every road we travel would run off a cliff if we didn’t have a place to stop and take it all in.

“I think he’d be proud of this,” you explain after a few moments of deep breathing, and I sneak my hand under your cap and run my other hand through your hair. “The fact that I was doing something. That I was dedicated to doing something important to me and saw it through.” Your words catch on your own tongue as you swallow down your grief. “That’s what he’d want to see from me. I just wish he could.”

I drop the pretenses and hug you with all of my might, and you let me, returning it. You keep yourself from crying, and even though I know it’s better for you I can’t find it in me to tell you to let it go, even if I owe you that, because it hurts me to see you so sorrowful. You’ve carried so much around with you and I don’t know if the rest of our lives will be enough to unpack it all.

All I can remember is you telling me something your brother said- “Poverty will at its best make you resourceful and at its worst being complacent” and I understand this is what it took to break the chain- not emigrating from Germany without any other family, not the money the two of you came into, not even Wario’s death. Something about this car, the wreckage it came to you in, was the closest you could ever come to undoing everything you thought was wrong with you, when it was the process it took to get here that changed you as a man before my own eyes.

I don’t know if I believe in heaven. I can’t promise you that he sees this from above. I can’t even warn you if he were to spin in his own grave. So I promise you “All I can tell you is that I see this. And I know. If that’s worth anything, I want you to know that.”

You nod. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

Slowly, you motion for me to let go, and I trust you, so I do. You don’t start driving again, and in fact turn the ignition off, but I’m okay with this, because I realize that my heart’s been racing ever since you kicked up the speed and I haven’t paid a mite of attention to it. I lie back and close my eyes as the sun begins to disappear beyond the horizon. I should be paying attention, but I need a moment of rest.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” you tell me. I hmm, content. It’s quiet for a couple of seconds before I feel your hand on my leg, and my eyes shoot open. I mean, a girl has her hopes, but that doesn’t mean I expected this. I feel a tightlipped smile cross my face, but flip a coin and I could probably vomit right now.

“Hello,” I coo.

You chuckle and are about to let me go until I promptly place my hand on yours, and you stay put. You turn the volume of the radio down, causing me to sit up, suddenly fully rested, go figure. All too quietly, as usual, you tell me “This is something I’ve held onto for awhile, this… car.” The words claw themselves out of your throat like your own bile is pulling them back in. “I don’t think I’d have finished it if I didn’t know it’d be put to good use. If I didn’t know that I could let go like this. If I didn’t have someone I could… look at, and find ways to let go.”

“What do you mean?” I’ve waited too long for you to tell me something like this.

Sadly, all you come up with is “...you know.”

Somehow, that’s all that needs to be said. It’s the bridge that brought us together not just as acquaintances but as companions, and it’s the wall that keeps us there. I feel like some days I’ve shown you worse carnage than this car has seen, and I wish you didn’t have to pack that away with the rest of the things you carry.

“I wanna say I’m over it,” I explain. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be completely over it. You know… I see her in the mirror. The messy hair… she’d hate that. I used to think she liked the fact that I was different.... That I wasn’t born this way… then everything became about appearances. I hear her in the radio. The type of music she never listened to anymore, because I guess she wanted to come off as above it all, like I’d never seen her before. Like I could never meet the standards she felt she set for us when she took office. She called me her princess. I didn’t realize until after we split up that if she was the king, I was the queen all along.”

You nod, uncomfortably, sadly. We sit in silence for a full minute as I try and figure out exactly what I want to say to you, if I can. I think I was wrong- I did just tell you every way the idea of romance broke my heart in thirty seconds, and it just now hit home who was riding in the passenger seat of your journey- someone too wounded to be the princess, someone too hardened to be anything but the queen, one who stood alone.

It’s when you pull away out of politeness, that formal, self-sacrificing respect for boundaries I’ve already let you cross, that I realize I already miss your presence on my skin, a piece of my heart I’d never give back, even as the rest remain shattered.

“That’s not the period, though,” I tell you.

You turn to me, hand on the ignition.

“That’s just the comma.”

You don’t move, eyes wide, desperate for me to speak as I always have.

“Wal, if you turn on the keys and you drive away, I understand,” I say. “If you want to go home and let this moment rest as a final moment for one part of your life, I understand. I don’t want it to be that way, but I understand.”

You don’t move, but your hand is frozen stiff at the ignition.

“What do you want?”

I reach for your hand and you let me move it away from the and back onto my leg.

“I want to watch the sunset with you.”

Somehow this says everything, and you lean onto my shoulder again, your breath lighting a fire on the side of my face. I turn to you, away from the sun, because we both know it’s not about the sunset. You don’t move as I lean in closer, because you know the safety I feel in having at least some control over where things go from here, but even as controlling as she was, I always had to be the one to initiate the kiss, as if I wasn’t worthy of someone coming to me first.

In the minute it takes for you to kiss the side of my face, for the first time in too many years, I’ve already untied my hair.

Now our journey may begin.