Alarm (Inglourious Basterds, Shosanna, R)

[drive_through_rx]

Title: Alarm
Fandom: Inglourious Basterds
Pairings: Shosanna/Marcel, Shosanna/Fredrick
Rating: R
Word count: 535
Notes: Weird, sort-of-second-person ficlet which I blame equally on amory_vain, my sister Julia, and the twisted part of me that said upon waking "If Julia's letting this alarm wake me up, she better be either out of the house or dead." I'm still not sure which one it is. I should probably go check on her. Spoilers for the whole movie, obviously.



It goes like this:

The bell is ringing. The bell rings in the mornings until it is shut off. The time is 1:27 p.m.

Shosanna always turns off the bell when she wakes up.

This means one of two things: either Shosanna woke up somewhere else, or she did not wake up at all.

If Shosanna woke up somewhere else, the odds are even that she did not plan to be elsewhere, or she would not have set her alarm. In this case there are three options, or rather two options and a specific sub-option: either Shosanna is with Marcel, or the Nazis have got her, or the very persistent Nazi who has been dogging her heels has her. Again there are two possible meanings: either Shosanna woke up well-fucked, or she did not wake up at all. (Or, third option, she woke up unsatisfied, but a man like Fredrick Zoller who runs his mouth so ably generally is able to put it to better use than self-promotion, and he's been all-too-obviously salivating for her since the night he caught her up on the ladder.)

If Shosanna in fact woke up elsewhere, deliciously sore from a night of passion, then she did so either in the dark arms of the man she loves or the pale arms of a man she despises, and that will tell us all we need to know about Shosanna's plot for revenge. Either she opened her eyes to a familiar room and the rich taste of vengeance served piping-hot and in flames lingering in her mouth; or she saw a place she's never seen before and the failure of her plan tastes like the ashes she failed to mother. More likely than not, either way she was roused by amorous touches, Marcel's lips on her throat or Fredrick's hand on her breast, a hopeful advance to match the man's moodset: either shared victory with Marcel, or Fredrick's pride at finally snaring the elusive Mlle. Mimeaux.

Pause for a moment: empathize with Shosanna for just one second. Can you imagine opening your eyes to a new day with the realization that you have after four years avenged your family's murder, not only on the specific man who killed them (what luck!) but on the entire Nazi High Command? Can you imagine her elation at the knowledge returning to her all at once that Hitler is dead and she killed him?

No?

Try it again, then. Can you imagine waking up in the arms of a new lover, glancing back at his face only to have your skin crawl and your heart sink so low it must surely be underground, to know defeat in both a failed plan and the loss of your own integrity to a man you hate your body for wanting? Can you imagine her horror at being sleepily pulled closer when she tries to escape his bed?

No again?

Well, perhaps it is for the best. Because as the bell rings on, Shosanna (and Fredrick, and Hitler, and every soul that was in the theater save Marcel) is ashes in the burnt wreckage of her cinema, and she will never wake up to turn off that alarm again.

Comments

[vellum.livejournal.com]

i really like this.
and that will tell us all we need to know about Shosanna's plot for revenge and i like that line best.