oh and i know saturdays, they are busted

[stuntguy]

[ even out here, a little closer to the coast, it gets hot when the sun is out. but as dusk settles into night, the air cools and whips through the open windows of the car.

driver makes a smooth turn and pulls into the parking garage of the apartment. this is the car he keeps for them—him, irene, benicio—one that isn't of the many that have been linked to robberies around this city. he kills the engine but sits there for a while, starting out at the concrete wall.

he unlocks the apartment door and leans in through the doorway, looking around. it's a nice night out. ]

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[ex_laundering808]

[It would be romantic, to say her life has gotten better. Ever since her neighbor down the hall stole a kiss in the elevator, and then appeared at her door several nights later, his jacket splattered with gore and holding a bag of stolen bills, her life has regained a pale imitation of the color it once held. It can never be completely the same as before, she has seen too much to pretend she can think of him as just the handsome mechanic anymore. She could say, it might even be an improvement over her life.

It would also be a lie.

The city is too dangerous to stay in anymore, so they have to move. There is no choice but to run away, no matter what her fist against his cheek may have protested otherwise. Her life is no honeymoon: there was no shotgun wedding, no surprise whirlwind of affection, nothing but a plea in the dead of night and his hand holding out the car keys to her, asking, "Can you come?"

She can't get a job anymore: moving from place to place makes her employment history appear spotty, and fast food or waitressing jobs don't scrape together enough money to risk settling down in one city. Benicio gets a sitter when she can't take care of him, looking taller by the day, no longer so precocious but dark-eyed and silent, nothing like his father.

She and Driver don't have sex, never have. The closest thing to a consummation is an impulsive kiss or two, her fingers curling around the white stained, tattered edges of her jacket, congealed with blood. It's hard to find privacy, and she even thought about suggesting a hotel, but there's more than that to their relationship.

What she has traded her life for instead are long, sleepless hours of the nights, holding her breath, waiting for the police to appear at her doorstep. She watches the TV and listens to every report about the string of recent robberies, dreading the day she hears of his arrest.

This is her life now, yet she feels more like additional baggage in Driver's car, taken along for the ride. She wants more than that, she wants to be a part of his life.

When the door swings open, Irene smiles thinly, stepping away from the kitchen table, where she had just been opening fresh boxes of take-out food.]

Benicio's at the sitter's.

[She steps close to him, not stealing a kiss, simply wrapping her hand around his in affectionate silence.]

Welcome home.