24.
Okay so I asked for drabble prompts and have completed, like, two of them. I will try to write everything ~eventually,~ but writing is happening off and on and in fits and starts, and, um, who really knows what I'm going to do? But neierathima was having a Brick party post and then a ficlet kind of happened. And "Brick ficlet" is fun to say!
This one is really short, and nothing happens in it. Incidentally, since literally no one has ever commented on it, but more people seem to have seen the movie by now (on account of JGL doing very well for himself!) I will link to my other existing Brick ficlet, "Like Jasmine," which is also really short, but something does happen in it -- Laura and Emily have sex. So there's that.
Title: "Summer Vacation"
Fandom: Brick
Characters: Brain and Brendan. Could be read as slash or UST, or just kind of a weird friendship.
Rating: PG
Summary: Time passes. Things change, except when they don't.
College is easy, all cool dark lecture halls and nights spent secreted away in library study rooms. Brain stayed close to home, at UC Irvine; his test scores had evidently raised some eyebrows at the higher end of the UC system, but he didn't exactly feature himself at Berkeley -- like it or not, and sometimes he doesn't, the so-called O.C. is a part of him and he doesn't leave parts of himself behind so easily. Not like some people.
So he sits in the back of lecture halls and stands in corners at frat parties and watches people, and life could be a hell of a lot worse. When the summer comes he rolls back home with the wind and gives his parents new and different opportunities to wonder where he's gone off to. Nowhere, usually. But Brain's a creature of habit, and despite his best intentions, the summer after junior year he finds himself setting up his laptop at a squeaky plastic booth at Coffee And Pie, ordering his usual as if the greasy-faced kid in the apron would know what that used to be.
When who should walk in.
Brendan's got a little more polish to him, having traded his crummy old sweatshirt for a lightweight blazer and those bed-rumpled curls for something a little shorter and more messed-around-with. But he's still Brendan, unmistakably, as if four little years could have changed the way he shoves his hands into his front pockets and hunches his shoulders like he's walking against a stiff wind. As if they could have changed anything between them, other than making Brain wish he could pretend they had.
"Brain?"
"Hi, Brendan." And then, more quietly, "Nobody really calls me that anymore." Not like many people other than Brendan had, anyway.
"What are you doing here?"
"Polite as always." Brain shrugs. "I'm writing. I've got a freelance gig for the summer. Coffee, pie and wi-fi, oh my."
Silence.
"Haven't seen you around in a while."
"Been busy."
"Busy meaning in hot water?"
"Not more than usual. You're keeping your feet dry?"
"More or less. 'Usual' could mean anything."
"Usual is usual. Meaning you don't have to sit up nights and worry."
"I don't." Most nights, anyway. There's the occasional episode, maybe.
"Good." Brendan looks at him for a minute with that weird squinty look that never tells him very much. "I wonder about you sometimes, too."
Brain returns the look, deadpan over his glasses and the propped-up screen of his laptop. He wants to make a wisecrack about how that's a surprise, but it wouldn't exactly be much of a joke, really. So he turns his head back down and picks up the cup of black coffee, and takes a long drink before it starts to get cold.
This one is really short, and nothing happens in it. Incidentally, since literally no one has ever commented on it, but more people seem to have seen the movie by now (on account of JGL doing very well for himself!) I will link to my other existing Brick ficlet, "Like Jasmine," which is also really short, but something does happen in it -- Laura and Emily have sex. So there's that.
Title: "Summer Vacation"
Fandom: Brick
Characters: Brain and Brendan. Could be read as slash or UST, or just kind of a weird friendship.
Rating: PG
Summary: Time passes. Things change, except when they don't.
College is easy, all cool dark lecture halls and nights spent secreted away in library study rooms. Brain stayed close to home, at UC Irvine; his test scores had evidently raised some eyebrows at the higher end of the UC system, but he didn't exactly feature himself at Berkeley -- like it or not, and sometimes he doesn't, the so-called O.C. is a part of him and he doesn't leave parts of himself behind so easily. Not like some people.
So he sits in the back of lecture halls and stands in corners at frat parties and watches people, and life could be a hell of a lot worse. When the summer comes he rolls back home with the wind and gives his parents new and different opportunities to wonder where he's gone off to. Nowhere, usually. But Brain's a creature of habit, and despite his best intentions, the summer after junior year he finds himself setting up his laptop at a squeaky plastic booth at Coffee And Pie, ordering his usual as if the greasy-faced kid in the apron would know what that used to be.
When who should walk in.
Brendan's got a little more polish to him, having traded his crummy old sweatshirt for a lightweight blazer and those bed-rumpled curls for something a little shorter and more messed-around-with. But he's still Brendan, unmistakably, as if four little years could have changed the way he shoves his hands into his front pockets and hunches his shoulders like he's walking against a stiff wind. As if they could have changed anything between them, other than making Brain wish he could pretend they had.
"Brain?"
"Hi, Brendan." And then, more quietly, "Nobody really calls me that anymore." Not like many people other than Brendan had, anyway.
"What are you doing here?"
"Polite as always." Brain shrugs. "I'm writing. I've got a freelance gig for the summer. Coffee, pie and wi-fi, oh my."
Silence.
"Haven't seen you around in a while."
"Been busy."
"Busy meaning in hot water?"
"Not more than usual. You're keeping your feet dry?"
"More or less. 'Usual' could mean anything."
"Usual is usual. Meaning you don't have to sit up nights and worry."
"I don't." Most nights, anyway. There's the occasional episode, maybe.
"Good." Brendan looks at him for a minute with that weird squinty look that never tells him very much. "I wonder about you sometimes, too."
Brain returns the look, deadpan over his glasses and the propped-up screen of his laptop. He wants to make a wisecrack about how that's a surprise, but it wouldn't exactly be much of a joke, really. So he turns his head back down and picks up the cup of black coffee, and takes a long drink before it starts to get cold.