Love Amongst the Ewoks (het, PG, Tessa/Mac)
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Tessa or Mac. Who else did you all think I
could write a love story about? They belong to Davis Panzer. I make
no money from this.
The lyrics at the end are from Sinden, who sent me..."When Will You
Fall For Me" (lyrics/music by Mark Seymour, but sung by Linda and
Vicka Bull). The challenge, from Alice was to write a love story.
And man, I want to cry. I am moody, I have a cold and I just watched
the Shawshank Redemption. But the title came from hilarity. Do not
think too hard about it. You will rupture something. I cannot be
sued for brain dysfunctionality; the doctors are sure mine is on its
way out as it is.
------------------------------------
Love Amongst The Ewoks
by Amand-r
------------------------------------
OCTOBER, 1983:
The coffee is cold.
It is a terrible thing, cold coffee. There are some quirky and brave
souls who actually drink it, and claim that they like it. Cold coffee
for cold hearts. They pour it out into their ceramic mugs and sip it,
pretending that it is the best thing they have ever had. They will
tell you they don't mind.
I think it's an excuse for people who don't like to waste things, or
perhaps those few coworkers who let their coffee sit, and then they
don't want to get up and go to the office microwave and heat it up.
Cold coffee is less than a nuisance. It is certainly not going to
register higher than anything I have dealt with in the past few years.
It is certainly not keeping me up nights.
Duncan does that. And so very well.
I suppose then, that if we were married I would be able to express
this view of coffee. Maybe I should. Maybe it would make no
difference to him. He drinks coffee cold, you know. Ice cold, as if
nothing bothers him. Maybe nothing does bother him.
That is wrong; I shouldn't say such things. I should know better.
Still, there is a little cringe in me when I watch him sip what I know
is cold. Why would he choose cold coffee when there is a steaming hot
pot in the other room?
I bought him a hot plate. It is a little thing, big enough for a mug,
and it keeps your coffee warm. I should have known better than to
think he'd use it. He does, but he never turns it on. He just sets
his mug on it. It is, to him, a glorified coaster.
It is of this that I am thinking when the movie we have gone to see
ends, and the lights in the theatre go up.
Why does he like cold coffee? How can he?
I don't know a great many things about Duncan, even though we have
been dating for over four years, and living together for three. I
know his favorite toothpaste. I know of his hate of packaged
lunchmeat, and how much he loves to polish things. I know that he
hates sauerkraut, and that he can smell Macaroni and Cheese from a
mile away.
I do not know why he chooses to live the way he does, swinging from
idea to idea, from place to place. I do not understand his
immortality. I know that he is immortal, but there is no explanation
for it. I think that he is as perplexed as I am, because when I ask
him if there are others, he slips into his native accent, and his
brows darken as he whispers "Oh, aye." Then all is quiet.
Walking out of the theatre, I wonder just why we went to see that
film. I wonder why, of all things; I found it interesting and
fantastical, a magnificent battle of good and evil, with a knightly
hero, like Duncan, and a cast of thousands.
"What drew you to this choice?" I ask. "Why this film?"
Duncan steers me to the exit, and smiles. "I like the main character.
I like the idea of 'a long long time ago...'. It makes me feel
young."
I laugh. Young Duncan. How sweet. Two years ago, I would have been
amused for a different reason. But immortality changes the sense of
humor on a great deal of things.
It would have been so very easy to throw up my hands and leave him at
that moment when he first told me. But I would never do that. It is
hard, and it will get harder I know, but right now all I can see is
that he is older, and I am younger. Perhaps this will change as the
birthdays multiply for both of us, and the only presents time chooses
to lavish on him are wisdom and money, while I receive illness, gray
hairs and arthritis.
"It's funny that love can bloom anywhere," I say, thinking of that
little tourboat on the Seine, where he leapt over the railing onto the
deck, and proceeded to correct my whole speech for the rest of the
tour.
"Yes," he replies, smirking as he maneuvers the T Bird out onto the
street. " I mean, you *knew* Han and Leia were going to hook up.
But the suspense was so good." I snort. "I mean," he continues, "the
look on his face when he realizes that he's free to love her because
Luke is her brother...."
I roll my eyes. Of course that is what he was thinking. I am off
into our lives and he is still in action-packed Jedi land. It is the
swords, I think. He loves those swords.
Of course, watching these movies with Duncan is funny, because he
scoffs at the swordwork in the middle of the theatre. Then, I know in
his heart he wishes he had a lightsaber.
"The saddest part in the whole movie," I say quietly, "is when the two
ewoks are blown back, and then one gets up, and the other doesn't." I
frown. "It's stupid, really. But then it reaches over and nudges the
other one, and realizes that it's not alive anymore..." I give a
nervous laugh. "But it's just a movie, and they aren't real."
Mac says nothing. I just picture the little furry ewok in the film.
Whether I am premenstrual or not, I think I feel a little tightness in
my throat. It's like killing kittens or puppies. I know that the
director did that little scene on purpose to make me feel this way.
Why do they wring things like that from you? Why does he make you
feel bad about a little muppet? In reality, I know it is a character,
and I don't even know if the other ewok was his mate. Maybe they were
little ewok best friends. Maybe they were just tribe mates. Perhaps
they were old drinking buddies, as Mac would say.
"Come on, let's go home and make a fire, and you can play Leia to my
Han," Duncan teases.
"Oooh," I decide to add, knowing that I need to stop thinking about
the little muppets. "You mean, I get to unfreeze you from carbonite
and defend you with a blaster?"
Duncan's hand slips onto my thigh as we turn a corner. "Well no, I
was thinking about that brass bikini," he mumbles.
I consider this in play. "Well, I do have the equipment to make one."
**********
Making love to Duncan is like playing with fire and sugar. It is
something at which he has had many years of practice. It is slightly
unsettling to know that he is the better partner. But nothing could
change that, even if I was to live forever, just as he does. He has
too great a head start.
Duncan says that sex is something that is so varied over the centuries
but stays the same at its core. The ways in which it is done, he
tells me, are so very much up to the style of the era. The core
meanings behind it and the rudimentary basics are the same.
That is why, he has noted, he prefers this century. Duncan says that
people's ideas as a societal whole change with the times, and that
this affects everything. Love now, he believes, is at its most
tender, its most upheld. If I believe him, then I must admit that
despite all the whitewashing we do to sex, there is an innocence in
touching bodies that prior centuries lack.
So Shakespeare never felt what we feel, I argue. What the hell does
that mean? Who can judge? Duncan just looks at me. I forget
sometimes, that he was *there* for things.
That is all right, I always say to him. Just to hear his explanation
sometimes takes the fun out of him lauding my prowess, or the curves
of my body. Science dulls romance every time.
We lie here in the bed, two people, lost in the night, so comfortable
with each other that we do not need to touch, just lie there. We no
longer need to talk.
I imagine us an old married couple, or perhaps just like the two ewoks
on screen, arguing or quiet, two people sharing the same space in a
reality of our choosing. Never mind that he will not age. Never mind
that we are not in a galaxy far far away.
Duncan reaches out and clasps my hand as we stare at the ceiling.
"I'm up for a little while," he says, rolling away with a kiss. I sit
up and luxuriate in the feel of the warmed bed. "Are you going to
sleep?"
I shake my head. "No. I think I'll read."
He nods. This is what it is all about. Love, and then these times
where he does his part in the house, and I do mine. We are together
but apart. I like these moments; it says to me that we are capable of
being together without demanding the attention of the other. There is
a kind of trust that settles upon couples who enter into this
agreement. It is a reward of its own.
I pick up a mug of coffee from the table, and sip it.
"Eugh," I say. "The coffee is cold."
Duncan smiles. "I bet you have never had cold coffee."
"That's right, never on purpose" I say, putting it back onto the
nightstand. "Cold coffee is sacrilegious."
Duncan laughs, and gets up from the bed. I know he will go out into
the showroom, to the open space, and play with his sword.
"You won't know until you try it," he tells me. He roots around on
the floor for his t-shirt. I stare at the coffee cup and wish it
away.
Then I think, for another moment, of the movie. In my head, as I
watch that little ewok, I think of a mate, of a whole life that these
two creatures built. They had children, and they fought over
miniscule stuff. They probably have never had coffee, or fought over
parking tickets like Duncan and I do, but I imagine that they are in
love.
There are very few animals that mate for life. The mourning dove is
one. I hit one with my car once, and felt sick for days. Mourning
doves don't just move on. They mourn, and then they pine away and
die.
The coffee is cold. There is a ring of it dried inside the cup. His
footsteps wring a little shudder from the floorboards, and the coffee
sloshes a tiny bit against the walls of its cell.
I pick it up again and drink it, watching his body in the shadows. He
is playing with his lovely sword, twisting it in the moonlight. I sip
a little bit more, choke back my face and smile when he turns to me.
No, I'm not moving from this bed, not even for warm coffee.
And I never waste a thing.
************
END
************
I fudged. This song was really sad, kinda. I played with the
sentiment, but since they are already in love...the line I used was
"You won't know until you try it."
When Will You Fall For Me (lyrics/music by Mark Seymour, but sung by
Linda and
Vicka Bull)
Who's gonna save you darlin'?
Gonna save you when you fall?
Before they come to take you down
Take your picture off the wall
Who's gonna wait until you're strong
I hope it's not too long
Let me know if you're alone
Before I come to take you home
When will you come to your senses
When will you fall for me?
Oh yeah, the truth is in the telling darling
Every lovers got to learn
Oh I remember every word you said
What's left I will return
If you tell me one more lie
My love will slowly die
Let me know if you're alone
Before I come to take you home
When will you come to your senses
When will you fall for me?
Sooner or later darling
Your eyes will open to the sun
You're gonna have to face the morning
There'll be nowhere else to run
Let me wait until you're strong
I hope it's not too long
Let me know if you're alone
Before I come to take you home
When will you come to your senses
When will you fall for me?
My love you can't deny it
You won't know until you try it
Give it air, let it breathe
Let it burn like a fire
I can't contain my desire
Give it air, let it breathe
When will you come to your senses
When will you fall for me?
could write a love story about? They belong to Davis Panzer. I make
no money from this.
The lyrics at the end are from Sinden, who sent me..."When Will You
Fall For Me" (lyrics/music by Mark Seymour, but sung by Linda and
Vicka Bull). The challenge, from Alice was to write a love story.
And man, I want to cry. I am moody, I have a cold and I just watched
the Shawshank Redemption. But the title came from hilarity. Do not
think too hard about it. You will rupture something. I cannot be
sued for brain dysfunctionality; the doctors are sure mine is on its
way out as it is.
------------------------------------
Love Amongst The Ewoks
by Amand-r
------------------------------------
OCTOBER, 1983:
The coffee is cold.
It is a terrible thing, cold coffee. There are some quirky and brave
souls who actually drink it, and claim that they like it. Cold coffee
for cold hearts. They pour it out into their ceramic mugs and sip it,
pretending that it is the best thing they have ever had. They will
tell you they don't mind.
I think it's an excuse for people who don't like to waste things, or
perhaps those few coworkers who let their coffee sit, and then they
don't want to get up and go to the office microwave and heat it up.
Cold coffee is less than a nuisance. It is certainly not going to
register higher than anything I have dealt with in the past few years.
It is certainly not keeping me up nights.
Duncan does that. And so very well.
I suppose then, that if we were married I would be able to express
this view of coffee. Maybe I should. Maybe it would make no
difference to him. He drinks coffee cold, you know. Ice cold, as if
nothing bothers him. Maybe nothing does bother him.
That is wrong; I shouldn't say such things. I should know better.
Still, there is a little cringe in me when I watch him sip what I know
is cold. Why would he choose cold coffee when there is a steaming hot
pot in the other room?
I bought him a hot plate. It is a little thing, big enough for a mug,
and it keeps your coffee warm. I should have known better than to
think he'd use it. He does, but he never turns it on. He just sets
his mug on it. It is, to him, a glorified coaster.
It is of this that I am thinking when the movie we have gone to see
ends, and the lights in the theatre go up.
Why does he like cold coffee? How can he?
I don't know a great many things about Duncan, even though we have
been dating for over four years, and living together for three. I
know his favorite toothpaste. I know of his hate of packaged
lunchmeat, and how much he loves to polish things. I know that he
hates sauerkraut, and that he can smell Macaroni and Cheese from a
mile away.
I do not know why he chooses to live the way he does, swinging from
idea to idea, from place to place. I do not understand his
immortality. I know that he is immortal, but there is no explanation
for it. I think that he is as perplexed as I am, because when I ask
him if there are others, he slips into his native accent, and his
brows darken as he whispers "Oh, aye." Then all is quiet.
Walking out of the theatre, I wonder just why we went to see that
film. I wonder why, of all things; I found it interesting and
fantastical, a magnificent battle of good and evil, with a knightly
hero, like Duncan, and a cast of thousands.
"What drew you to this choice?" I ask. "Why this film?"
Duncan steers me to the exit, and smiles. "I like the main character.
I like the idea of 'a long long time ago...'. It makes me feel
young."
I laugh. Young Duncan. How sweet. Two years ago, I would have been
amused for a different reason. But immortality changes the sense of
humor on a great deal of things.
It would have been so very easy to throw up my hands and leave him at
that moment when he first told me. But I would never do that. It is
hard, and it will get harder I know, but right now all I can see is
that he is older, and I am younger. Perhaps this will change as the
birthdays multiply for both of us, and the only presents time chooses
to lavish on him are wisdom and money, while I receive illness, gray
hairs and arthritis.
"It's funny that love can bloom anywhere," I say, thinking of that
little tourboat on the Seine, where he leapt over the railing onto the
deck, and proceeded to correct my whole speech for the rest of the
tour.
"Yes," he replies, smirking as he maneuvers the T Bird out onto the
street. " I mean, you *knew* Han and Leia were going to hook up.
But the suspense was so good." I snort. "I mean," he continues, "the
look on his face when he realizes that he's free to love her because
Luke is her brother...."
I roll my eyes. Of course that is what he was thinking. I am off
into our lives and he is still in action-packed Jedi land. It is the
swords, I think. He loves those swords.
Of course, watching these movies with Duncan is funny, because he
scoffs at the swordwork in the middle of the theatre. Then, I know in
his heart he wishes he had a lightsaber.
"The saddest part in the whole movie," I say quietly, "is when the two
ewoks are blown back, and then one gets up, and the other doesn't." I
frown. "It's stupid, really. But then it reaches over and nudges the
other one, and realizes that it's not alive anymore..." I give a
nervous laugh. "But it's just a movie, and they aren't real."
Mac says nothing. I just picture the little furry ewok in the film.
Whether I am premenstrual or not, I think I feel a little tightness in
my throat. It's like killing kittens or puppies. I know that the
director did that little scene on purpose to make me feel this way.
Why do they wring things like that from you? Why does he make you
feel bad about a little muppet? In reality, I know it is a character,
and I don't even know if the other ewok was his mate. Maybe they were
little ewok best friends. Maybe they were just tribe mates. Perhaps
they were old drinking buddies, as Mac would say.
"Come on, let's go home and make a fire, and you can play Leia to my
Han," Duncan teases.
"Oooh," I decide to add, knowing that I need to stop thinking about
the little muppets. "You mean, I get to unfreeze you from carbonite
and defend you with a blaster?"
Duncan's hand slips onto my thigh as we turn a corner. "Well no, I
was thinking about that brass bikini," he mumbles.
I consider this in play. "Well, I do have the equipment to make one."
**********
Making love to Duncan is like playing with fire and sugar. It is
something at which he has had many years of practice. It is slightly
unsettling to know that he is the better partner. But nothing could
change that, even if I was to live forever, just as he does. He has
too great a head start.
Duncan says that sex is something that is so varied over the centuries
but stays the same at its core. The ways in which it is done, he
tells me, are so very much up to the style of the era. The core
meanings behind it and the rudimentary basics are the same.
That is why, he has noted, he prefers this century. Duncan says that
people's ideas as a societal whole change with the times, and that
this affects everything. Love now, he believes, is at its most
tender, its most upheld. If I believe him, then I must admit that
despite all the whitewashing we do to sex, there is an innocence in
touching bodies that prior centuries lack.
So Shakespeare never felt what we feel, I argue. What the hell does
that mean? Who can judge? Duncan just looks at me. I forget
sometimes, that he was *there* for things.
That is all right, I always say to him. Just to hear his explanation
sometimes takes the fun out of him lauding my prowess, or the curves
of my body. Science dulls romance every time.
We lie here in the bed, two people, lost in the night, so comfortable
with each other that we do not need to touch, just lie there. We no
longer need to talk.
I imagine us an old married couple, or perhaps just like the two ewoks
on screen, arguing or quiet, two people sharing the same space in a
reality of our choosing. Never mind that he will not age. Never mind
that we are not in a galaxy far far away.
Duncan reaches out and clasps my hand as we stare at the ceiling.
"I'm up for a little while," he says, rolling away with a kiss. I sit
up and luxuriate in the feel of the warmed bed. "Are you going to
sleep?"
I shake my head. "No. I think I'll read."
He nods. This is what it is all about. Love, and then these times
where he does his part in the house, and I do mine. We are together
but apart. I like these moments; it says to me that we are capable of
being together without demanding the attention of the other. There is
a kind of trust that settles upon couples who enter into this
agreement. It is a reward of its own.
I pick up a mug of coffee from the table, and sip it.
"Eugh," I say. "The coffee is cold."
Duncan smiles. "I bet you have never had cold coffee."
"That's right, never on purpose" I say, putting it back onto the
nightstand. "Cold coffee is sacrilegious."
Duncan laughs, and gets up from the bed. I know he will go out into
the showroom, to the open space, and play with his sword.
"You won't know until you try it," he tells me. He roots around on
the floor for his t-shirt. I stare at the coffee cup and wish it
away.
Then I think, for another moment, of the movie. In my head, as I
watch that little ewok, I think of a mate, of a whole life that these
two creatures built. They had children, and they fought over
miniscule stuff. They probably have never had coffee, or fought over
parking tickets like Duncan and I do, but I imagine that they are in
love.
There are very few animals that mate for life. The mourning dove is
one. I hit one with my car once, and felt sick for days. Mourning
doves don't just move on. They mourn, and then they pine away and
die.
The coffee is cold. There is a ring of it dried inside the cup. His
footsteps wring a little shudder from the floorboards, and the coffee
sloshes a tiny bit against the walls of its cell.
I pick it up again and drink it, watching his body in the shadows. He
is playing with his lovely sword, twisting it in the moonlight. I sip
a little bit more, choke back my face and smile when he turns to me.
No, I'm not moving from this bed, not even for warm coffee.
And I never waste a thing.
************
END
************
I fudged. This song was really sad, kinda. I played with the
sentiment, but since they are already in love...the line I used was
"You won't know until you try it."
When Will You Fall For Me (lyrics/music by Mark Seymour, but sung by
Linda and
Vicka Bull)
Who's gonna save you darlin'?
Gonna save you when you fall?
Before they come to take you down
Take your picture off the wall
Who's gonna wait until you're strong
I hope it's not too long
Let me know if you're alone
Before I come to take you home
When will you come to your senses
When will you fall for me?
Oh yeah, the truth is in the telling darling
Every lovers got to learn
Oh I remember every word you said
What's left I will return
If you tell me one more lie
My love will slowly die
Let me know if you're alone
Before I come to take you home
When will you come to your senses
When will you fall for me?
Sooner or later darling
Your eyes will open to the sun
You're gonna have to face the morning
There'll be nowhere else to run
Let me wait until you're strong
I hope it's not too long
Let me know if you're alone
Before I come to take you home
When will you come to your senses
When will you fall for me?
My love you can't deny it
You won't know until you try it
Give it air, let it breathe
Let it burn like a fire
I can't contain my desire
Give it air, let it breathe
When will you come to your senses
When will you fall for me?