Ipanema
by Sebastian
Disclaimer: Not mine... but thanks to Mr. Woo
Pairing: Nathan, Once a Thief
Rated: E?
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking, and when she passes...
She passes... each one she passes... she passes me.
He passes me.
Across the doorway he walks - prances - grooves on down to that funky beat -struts his stuff - steps out to a music only he can hear ...
Each footstep is a garland scattered on the drab floor.
He is there, nearly every day. Sometimes he'll pass a dozen times, sometimes once, but each time my heart soars like a bird singing for the joy of his being, for the privilege of his existence.
His eyes are fixed - where? He sees something, but it's not me. It's a hundred miles away, an ocean away, where beautiful girls place a hand on his rm and beg him for his help, where intricate booby-traps tick-tock to oblivion, where hard-eyed gangsters plot and plan, charm and coerce, trade and torture.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
When she walks, she's like a samba, that swings so cool and sways so gentle, that when she passes, each one she passes -
That's me -
standing just beyond the door, making out I'm busy. Busy when those vivid eyes sweep, alert, observant as he hurries by, away to a heist, a stick-up, a swindling, shoot-outing, forging, conniving, intricate, unlikely, n-nervingly dangerous, assassinating face-off with the psychopath, the boss, the avenger, the cheat, the upper-crust once-in-a-lifetime inventor of the perfect crime.
What does he care? Not for me. He doesn't know that I am more than a facility. A human database, I am here for their convenience - they blink and stare if I have concerns, feelings.
But he will smile if I comment, suggest. They don't.
He's polite, even to the machines; machines have feelings, maybe, or maybe he's so perfect that all, we all, no matter how lowly, all deserve to bask in his glow.
I bask. I dream. I hope.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Ooh... But I watch her so sadly. How can I tell her I love her? Yes, I would give my heart gladly...
But each day, when she walks to the sea, she looks straight ahead, not at me.
He would give a tiny nod of his head, then I'd be behind him, stalking, skulking around corners, behind that pile of crates, crouched beside that rusted-out car, hidden in the shadows waiting to pounce at that moment when the bad guys say, "What are you going to do now, Mansfield? You're trapped, you're alone, your gun's gone, there's no hope, no way out, no cure, no putting out the fuse, no avoiding the big one - you're dead, sucker."
He'd turn and grin, diamond and daybreak at my shadowed form - he'd mouth, silently, "Nathan... "
Knowing I was at his back. Always ready. I wouldn't steal his limelight, who could? Attention would swing to me, so briefly... and then, when they looked back, he'd have that concealed gun in his hand, that bomb defused, that heroine in his arms.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tall, and tan, and young, and lovely The girl from Ipanema goes walking And when she passes, I smile - but she doesn't see... doesn't see...
END
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
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