Nanowrimo extract
Title: The Carnival is Over
Word Count: 2421
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original
Pairings (if applicable): Steven and Nell friendship
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/etc): none
Excerpt or Link to:
Extract taken from between this extract and this extract
Not much more progress was made over during their session sat at the kitchen table. Any useful talk about the couple's future plans quickly dissolved into Nell and Steven debating about music, both from the folk side of things and the rock side of things. Mary Anne eventually gave up any pretense of being interested in this conversation and admitted she was in desperate need of a lie down. Nell was quietly amazed at the girl's resilience. She and Steven could go on and on with their back and forths like this for hours on end, and indeed they had frequently done so in the past, but even music devotees like Ian and Tim usually flaked out long before this.
Nell let Steven go ahead and offer to take Mary Anne up to her room. Without the music talk to distract her, she felt more tired that she had before, positively knackered in body, mind and soul. Even if she could have managed it up the stairs to her room, she would have collapsed onto her bed, guest or no guest. When the two sets of footsteps had retreated up the stairs, Nell heaved herself up from the kitchen and wandered heavily, blindly and limply in the direction of the living room. None of the two sofas and three arm chairs looked particularly comfortable for sleeping on or in for the long term. Her favourite red chesterfield armchair night serve for curling up with a good book, or spending an evening singing along as to the boys playing on their guitars but attempting to, or more accurately letting herself, fall asleep in it would not have done her any good even if she had not been in her current condition.
There was a solid, reassuringly familiar knock on the three quarters closed living room door. Steven stuck his head through, calling her name with a grin plastered over his face. His expression quickly fell to being a more serious one once he got a good look at her.
"Christ, Nell, you look awful," he said. "What's up with you?" Nell shook her head at him and he pushed his way through the door and tried again, this time asking, "What's the matter, love?"
"It's too much, seeing her here and how quickly the two of you can make the decision to get married."
Steven stepped forward, and grabbed her upper arms. It was almost as if he wanted to hug her but was afraid to do it properly. Or perhaps he was afraid she was going to keel over where she stood. To be perfectly honest, she felt as though she might do just that.
Steven got her to look at him and asked, "Nell, love, what's this about? It's not really about me, is it? Some bloke's led you along and let you down. And you've just been bottling it all up until it all bursts out. Like you always do."
Nell nodded. "Yeah." It was all she could manage.
"Who is it?"
"Who do you think?," Nell asked him, her voice dull as a stone washed up on the beach. "Who the bloody hell do you think?"
"Quin? What's that bastard done to you this time?"
"Oh, Steven, he's not a bastard. Not really. It's my own fault for getting involved with someone who doesn't even live here."
"That's no excuse. I got a girl from Scotland in trouble. Bloody Scotland, Nell! And what am I doing the right thing by her and marrying her as soon as I can."
"I know that. God, I have been here for the past hour remember."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. All I'm saying is that living in a different country from your girlfriend is no excuse for not treating her right."
"It's not like he's not treating me well. It's just that he can't get over here. For God's sake he's been trying to since before I went to see him in the summer! And he doesn't even know yet, so you can't start blaming him."
Steven let all his annoyance and anger be known in one furious and ferocious sigh. He practically rumbled his next words, "Nell, you are not-" he broke off and as her face crumpled in the failed attempt to hold back three months worth of repressed tears. The floodgates were about to open, a dam was about to burst, and all he could say in a strangled, heartfelt whisper was, "Oh, Christ. Oh, God. You are. Oh, Nell. I so, so, so sorry, love."
He enveloped her in a hug that spoke to her of every moment of the years long friendship, the good, the bad and the overwhelming good bad of their many arguments and debates. He let her cry for as long as she needed to, which felt like an impossibly long time. She grew tired of her own tears long before he did.
When they finally broke apart enough to speak, though still in a half hug that kept Nell on her feet even if she did not feel entirely steady, Nell told Steven, "You shouldn't be allowed to be a big brother to me like this. You're four years younger than me!"
"Three and a half!" he countered with a laugh in his voice, a laugh which Nell echoed except it came out as a gaspy sort of hiccup.
Steven gave her an extra squeeze of reassurance and asked her, "Are you going to be all right now, Nell, love?"
Nell responded with a nod and a bit of a snuffle, which was a far more positive response than the one she had given several minutes before and Steven seemed to take that as a good sign.
"Do you want to come up to mine and listen to something? Your choice." He added with a cheeky grin, "Even if it is bloody folk music."
She told him, "It bloody well will be 'bloody folk music', mister! I'm playing you those records Rose sent up."
"Fair enough," Steven said with a shrug. "I suppose you've given them both a listen already?"
"Naturally."
"You've always got to be the first, haven't you?"
"Of course. I would not have it any other way." She poked him in the ribs. "I'll bring you round to my way of thinking eventually."
"On the folk music?"
"And so many other things," she said with a grin of her own. Her face was still stiff and sticky from crying but she could already feel her cheer coming back.
"I can bring your record player down here if you like."
"Wouldn't that disturb Mary Anne?"
"Hmmm, yeah I suppose you're right." he conceded.
"I think you best just fetch the records and let her carry on sleeping. If she's awake you could pretend you were just checking on her if that makes you feel less guilty."
"Nell," Steven said pointedly, "I'm not as much of a cad as you're trying to make me out to be, you know."
"I know but you do have to admit there is quite a lot of evidence that might point to caddish behaviour if someone did not know you. You've taken that poor lass away from her parents, after getting her pregnant, mind. Do you know that most people would think of running to Scotland to get married, not away from it."
"Whatever you say, Nell. Any more requests from milady's record collection?"
"Anything that you fancy listening to. I've found my two records I will listen to 'til the end of time."
"Until good old Reliable Rosie sends you their next long players up in a week or so."
"You may think that, I couldn't possibly comment."
"Because you know perfectly well I speak the truth," Steven told her, turning serious again as he asked her, "Do you think you can make it up to my room? You looked a bit shaky before."
"I'll be fine," Nell promised him.
Though to be honest she suspected she might well not be fine if things carried on the way they were going. She could not afford to get so emotional again, particularly in front of anyone who was outside her closest circle of friends, which pretty much consisted of the band, Rosemary and Quin. And it would have to very soon include Mary Anne, she supposed, as she could not hope to hide the signs of her pregnancy for very long from another woman who would recognise those signs from her own experience.
"Yeah, you say you'll be fine but I know you and I know when you are not confident about something, and you, Miss Nell, are not confident that you will be fine, are you?"
"No, all right, fine. I am not sure I'll be fine. Happy now?"
Steven shook his head and admitted to her, "No, I am not happy because I don't like the thought of you not being fine." He paused for the quickest of pauses and added, "And I'm not happy that you were considering pretending to be fine when you are not, in fact, fine."
"All right. Look you're spinning my head a bit with all this. Please just tell me, Steven. Are we going upstairs to your room to listen to records or aren't we?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes we are. But if I think you look even the slightest bit off colour, I'm sending you to a doctor and I'll get your Auntie Lydia to go along with you. She'll get you to take care of yourself. That's if she even knows about about it."
Nell looked at him with a gaze that could freeze fire. "Steven, she knows. Of course she knows. I couldn't not tell her. She's been my mother in all but name since I was small. I would not under any circumstances keep something this big from my Auntie Lydia."
"Yeah. I mean now I think it through of course you wouldn't keep something like this from her. I'm just not getting things right today. I know you'll probably say I'm being my usual unthinking, inconsiderate oafish self, but I really think everything that's happened with Mary Anne and her parents and the whole journey down has really thrown me."
"I understand what you mean, Steven, I really do. And I'm not holding any of it against you." Nell smiled at him as she added, "Not right now at any rate. I might rake some of the worst offences up in three or five years time when I run out of things you've done wrong in the mean time."
"And I'm sure you probably will, but I honestly am trying my hardest today. I thought I already had enough to deal with with a pregnant girlfriend but now a pregnant best friend under the same roof... blimey its going to be a nightmare with you two."
"Best friend? Really?" Nell asked, chosing to ignore the nightmare comment just for now, just as she had promised.
"Well, tied in first place with Ian and occassionally tied in second place with Tim when I really disagree with you over something," Steven said nonchelantly.
"Fair enough," Nell said with a shrug, but she felt strangely flattered all the same. "Come on now, enough with this mushy, sentimental stuff. Let's go and listen to those records."
Steven followed her all the way up the first set of stairs to the landing with her room leading off it, and up the second staircase and then up the final narrow, steep and suddenly extremely treacherous looking staircase up to Steven's attic room.
"You doing all right, love?" he asked when she paused halfway up these stairs, his hands hovering on either side of her in case he needed to catch her.
"Yeah," Nell said breathlessly. She took a few deep gasps of air and said, "Nearly there."
"Yeah. Nearly there." Steven rubbed her shoulder gently, reassuringly.
At the top of the stairs, Nell saw that the double bed had been made up with her spare set of bedding, the one with the sunset colours of orange and pink which always warmed in winter with its bright firey colours blending into one another. Her two newly borrowed records were already there, stren across the bed along with her cuddly pig, polar bear and dragon. Nell was confused for the first few seconds after she saw all this. Then she looked behind her at Steven. He responded with a smile and a shrug.
"You know I felt extremely guilty about driving you out of your own room. I didn't want to have you sleeping in the living room for God knows how long it will be. I know you well enought to know that you need your own space a lot more than I need mine."
"Steven you are wonderful. You really are far too wonderful."
"I do feel a bit bad about making you climb all these stairs now I know about your... well."
"I'm only a couple of months gone, Steven," she reminded him. "And I know its the getting upset about things that's taken it out of me today. And being so worried about you and Mary Anne as well, of course."
"Nell, you really don't have to worry about us. We'll sort things out just as soon as we can. We talked about this stuff on the journey down. We believe it was something that was meant to be. A sort of sign that we should be together and stay together for the rest of our lives."
"I'm glad at someone in their house is so confident about their relationship," Nell said, the hint of ruefulness in her words and her voice tasting bitter as she admitted it.
Steven did not give her an answer for that, as if he sensed that he could not give her any response that he felt to be honest that might also reassure her. He instead gave her another hug and then asked her which record she wanted first. For the next few hours laying at opposite ends of the bed, top to tail, listening to the music was their chief concern. They had made an unspoken agreement to save their arguments about the music and the singers and the songs for later. For now music was the important thing. For now they needed to drink in this untouchable thing that was their hobby and their work and that they were both quietly confident would be the rest of their life.
This entry was originally posted at http://alicia-h.dreamwidth.org/43427.html
Word Count: 2421
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original
Pairings (if applicable): Steven and Nell friendship
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/etc): none
Excerpt or Link to:
Extract taken from between this extract and this extract
Not much more progress was made over during their session sat at the kitchen table. Any useful talk about the couple's future plans quickly dissolved into Nell and Steven debating about music, both from the folk side of things and the rock side of things. Mary Anne eventually gave up any pretense of being interested in this conversation and admitted she was in desperate need of a lie down. Nell was quietly amazed at the girl's resilience. She and Steven could go on and on with their back and forths like this for hours on end, and indeed they had frequently done so in the past, but even music devotees like Ian and Tim usually flaked out long before this.
Nell let Steven go ahead and offer to take Mary Anne up to her room. Without the music talk to distract her, she felt more tired that she had before, positively knackered in body, mind and soul. Even if she could have managed it up the stairs to her room, she would have collapsed onto her bed, guest or no guest. When the two sets of footsteps had retreated up the stairs, Nell heaved herself up from the kitchen and wandered heavily, blindly and limply in the direction of the living room. None of the two sofas and three arm chairs looked particularly comfortable for sleeping on or in for the long term. Her favourite red chesterfield armchair night serve for curling up with a good book, or spending an evening singing along as to the boys playing on their guitars but attempting to, or more accurately letting herself, fall asleep in it would not have done her any good even if she had not been in her current condition.
There was a solid, reassuringly familiar knock on the three quarters closed living room door. Steven stuck his head through, calling her name with a grin plastered over his face. His expression quickly fell to being a more serious one once he got a good look at her.
"Christ, Nell, you look awful," he said. "What's up with you?" Nell shook her head at him and he pushed his way through the door and tried again, this time asking, "What's the matter, love?"
"It's too much, seeing her here and how quickly the two of you can make the decision to get married."
Steven stepped forward, and grabbed her upper arms. It was almost as if he wanted to hug her but was afraid to do it properly. Or perhaps he was afraid she was going to keel over where she stood. To be perfectly honest, she felt as though she might do just that.
Steven got her to look at him and asked, "Nell, love, what's this about? It's not really about me, is it? Some bloke's led you along and let you down. And you've just been bottling it all up until it all bursts out. Like you always do."
Nell nodded. "Yeah." It was all she could manage.
"Who is it?"
"Who do you think?," Nell asked him, her voice dull as a stone washed up on the beach. "Who the bloody hell do you think?"
"Quin? What's that bastard done to you this time?"
"Oh, Steven, he's not a bastard. Not really. It's my own fault for getting involved with someone who doesn't even live here."
"That's no excuse. I got a girl from Scotland in trouble. Bloody Scotland, Nell! And what am I doing the right thing by her and marrying her as soon as I can."
"I know that. God, I have been here for the past hour remember."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. All I'm saying is that living in a different country from your girlfriend is no excuse for not treating her right."
"It's not like he's not treating me well. It's just that he can't get over here. For God's sake he's been trying to since before I went to see him in the summer! And he doesn't even know yet, so you can't start blaming him."
Steven let all his annoyance and anger be known in one furious and ferocious sigh. He practically rumbled his next words, "Nell, you are not-" he broke off and as her face crumpled in the failed attempt to hold back three months worth of repressed tears. The floodgates were about to open, a dam was about to burst, and all he could say in a strangled, heartfelt whisper was, "Oh, Christ. Oh, God. You are. Oh, Nell. I so, so, so sorry, love."
He enveloped her in a hug that spoke to her of every moment of the years long friendship, the good, the bad and the overwhelming good bad of their many arguments and debates. He let her cry for as long as she needed to, which felt like an impossibly long time. She grew tired of her own tears long before he did.
When they finally broke apart enough to speak, though still in a half hug that kept Nell on her feet even if she did not feel entirely steady, Nell told Steven, "You shouldn't be allowed to be a big brother to me like this. You're four years younger than me!"
"Three and a half!" he countered with a laugh in his voice, a laugh which Nell echoed except it came out as a gaspy sort of hiccup.
Steven gave her an extra squeeze of reassurance and asked her, "Are you going to be all right now, Nell, love?"
Nell responded with a nod and a bit of a snuffle, which was a far more positive response than the one she had given several minutes before and Steven seemed to take that as a good sign.
"Do you want to come up to mine and listen to something? Your choice." He added with a cheeky grin, "Even if it is bloody folk music."
She told him, "It bloody well will be 'bloody folk music', mister! I'm playing you those records Rose sent up."
"Fair enough," Steven said with a shrug. "I suppose you've given them both a listen already?"
"Naturally."
"You've always got to be the first, haven't you?"
"Of course. I would not have it any other way." She poked him in the ribs. "I'll bring you round to my way of thinking eventually."
"On the folk music?"
"And so many other things," she said with a grin of her own. Her face was still stiff and sticky from crying but she could already feel her cheer coming back.
"I can bring your record player down here if you like."
"Wouldn't that disturb Mary Anne?"
"Hmmm, yeah I suppose you're right." he conceded.
"I think you best just fetch the records and let her carry on sleeping. If she's awake you could pretend you were just checking on her if that makes you feel less guilty."
"Nell," Steven said pointedly, "I'm not as much of a cad as you're trying to make me out to be, you know."
"I know but you do have to admit there is quite a lot of evidence that might point to caddish behaviour if someone did not know you. You've taken that poor lass away from her parents, after getting her pregnant, mind. Do you know that most people would think of running to Scotland to get married, not away from it."
"Whatever you say, Nell. Any more requests from milady's record collection?"
"Anything that you fancy listening to. I've found my two records I will listen to 'til the end of time."
"Until good old Reliable Rosie sends you their next long players up in a week or so."
"You may think that, I couldn't possibly comment."
"Because you know perfectly well I speak the truth," Steven told her, turning serious again as he asked her, "Do you think you can make it up to my room? You looked a bit shaky before."
"I'll be fine," Nell promised him.
Though to be honest she suspected she might well not be fine if things carried on the way they were going. She could not afford to get so emotional again, particularly in front of anyone who was outside her closest circle of friends, which pretty much consisted of the band, Rosemary and Quin. And it would have to very soon include Mary Anne, she supposed, as she could not hope to hide the signs of her pregnancy for very long from another woman who would recognise those signs from her own experience.
"Yeah, you say you'll be fine but I know you and I know when you are not confident about something, and you, Miss Nell, are not confident that you will be fine, are you?"
"No, all right, fine. I am not sure I'll be fine. Happy now?"
Steven shook his head and admitted to her, "No, I am not happy because I don't like the thought of you not being fine." He paused for the quickest of pauses and added, "And I'm not happy that you were considering pretending to be fine when you are not, in fact, fine."
"All right. Look you're spinning my head a bit with all this. Please just tell me, Steven. Are we going upstairs to your room to listen to records or aren't we?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes we are. But if I think you look even the slightest bit off colour, I'm sending you to a doctor and I'll get your Auntie Lydia to go along with you. She'll get you to take care of yourself. That's if she even knows about about it."
Nell looked at him with a gaze that could freeze fire. "Steven, she knows. Of course she knows. I couldn't not tell her. She's been my mother in all but name since I was small. I would not under any circumstances keep something this big from my Auntie Lydia."
"Yeah. I mean now I think it through of course you wouldn't keep something like this from her. I'm just not getting things right today. I know you'll probably say I'm being my usual unthinking, inconsiderate oafish self, but I really think everything that's happened with Mary Anne and her parents and the whole journey down has really thrown me."
"I understand what you mean, Steven, I really do. And I'm not holding any of it against you." Nell smiled at him as she added, "Not right now at any rate. I might rake some of the worst offences up in three or five years time when I run out of things you've done wrong in the mean time."
"And I'm sure you probably will, but I honestly am trying my hardest today. I thought I already had enough to deal with with a pregnant girlfriend but now a pregnant best friend under the same roof... blimey its going to be a nightmare with you two."
"Best friend? Really?" Nell asked, chosing to ignore the nightmare comment just for now, just as she had promised.
"Well, tied in first place with Ian and occassionally tied in second place with Tim when I really disagree with you over something," Steven said nonchelantly.
"Fair enough," Nell said with a shrug, but she felt strangely flattered all the same. "Come on now, enough with this mushy, sentimental stuff. Let's go and listen to those records."
Steven followed her all the way up the first set of stairs to the landing with her room leading off it, and up the second staircase and then up the final narrow, steep and suddenly extremely treacherous looking staircase up to Steven's attic room.
"You doing all right, love?" he asked when she paused halfway up these stairs, his hands hovering on either side of her in case he needed to catch her.
"Yeah," Nell said breathlessly. She took a few deep gasps of air and said, "Nearly there."
"Yeah. Nearly there." Steven rubbed her shoulder gently, reassuringly.
At the top of the stairs, Nell saw that the double bed had been made up with her spare set of bedding, the one with the sunset colours of orange and pink which always warmed in winter with its bright firey colours blending into one another. Her two newly borrowed records were already there, stren across the bed along with her cuddly pig, polar bear and dragon. Nell was confused for the first few seconds after she saw all this. Then she looked behind her at Steven. He responded with a smile and a shrug.
"You know I felt extremely guilty about driving you out of your own room. I didn't want to have you sleeping in the living room for God knows how long it will be. I know you well enought to know that you need your own space a lot more than I need mine."
"Steven you are wonderful. You really are far too wonderful."
"I do feel a bit bad about making you climb all these stairs now I know about your... well."
"I'm only a couple of months gone, Steven," she reminded him. "And I know its the getting upset about things that's taken it out of me today. And being so worried about you and Mary Anne as well, of course."
"Nell, you really don't have to worry about us. We'll sort things out just as soon as we can. We talked about this stuff on the journey down. We believe it was something that was meant to be. A sort of sign that we should be together and stay together for the rest of our lives."
"I'm glad at someone in their house is so confident about their relationship," Nell said, the hint of ruefulness in her words and her voice tasting bitter as she admitted it.
Steven did not give her an answer for that, as if he sensed that he could not give her any response that he felt to be honest that might also reassure her. He instead gave her another hug and then asked her which record she wanted first. For the next few hours laying at opposite ends of the bed, top to tail, listening to the music was their chief concern. They had made an unspoken agreement to save their arguments about the music and the singers and the songs for later. For now music was the important thing. For now they needed to drink in this untouchable thing that was their hobby and their work and that they were both quietly confident would be the rest of their life.
This entry was originally posted at http://alicia-h.dreamwidth.org/43427.html