Always Just Duck - Wilby Wonderful - for exbex
Title: Always Just Duck
Author: magelight5
Recipient: exbex
Fandom: Wilby Wonderful
Characters/Pairing: Duck, with some vague OCs and pre-Duck/Dan
Prompt request: Duck gen
Word Count: 1196
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Squeaking in just before the deadline!
Summary: Moments in a life of watching.
He would never be one of those militantly politically queers, who, angry at the injustice, become absolutely as flamboyant as possible in an effort to rub it in the face of everyone who thinks they’re sick or wrong or disgusting. And he honestly couldn’t see the appeal of sequins and feather boas for their own sake.
But once when he was young and angry, after he had run away from the small-town small minds of Wilby (and, you know, his dad), he had a boyfriend who liked to dress him up. Skin-tight sleeveless shirt, barely-there shorts, eyeshadow and lipliner. High heels, feathers, the works.
It would have been okay if Scott had gotten off on it; that could have been hot for them both. But he just told Duck, informed him in a voice so certain he was right, that Duck’s ripped jeans and worn-soft T-shirts were, quote, a manifestation of internalized homophobia and his way of hiding who he was out of fear, end quote. But the sequins didn’t make him more gay, they just made him less Duck.
That boyfriend didn’t last long. None of them did. He felt bad about that, in a way, because most of the time he was doing the breaking, but all of the time they did the asking. He never saw anyone he was interested in enough to ask first.
***
He worked as a plumber and hated it--not the job itself, messy as it was, but the fact that he wasn’t his own man. The boss, the supervisor, the senior workers--they could all tell him what to do, and he hated that. But he stuck with it because the job paid for his liquor, with enough left over for the rent on his tiny bare apartment.
***
Once, he woke to a messy apartment not his, to a stickiness in his skin, a soreness in the back of his throat, and the pervading odor of someone not him. That someone was snoring unpleasantly on the bed, so Duck fought to ignore his pounding head as he dragged himself away and started looking for his pants. His shirt was still on.
A lamp was on in an apartment across the street, sending a warm beam of light through the window, lighting the room enough for Duck to spot his jeans in a heap in front of the window. As he pulled them on he glanced across the wet pavement to the bright window.
It was a living room--bright, comfortable, with a thick sofa. And paintings. Hung, stacked against the walls, everywhere. In the middle of the room a woman stood at an easel. Duck couldn’t see the painting, but he could see her face. She looked focused. From another room came another woman, carrying a cup of tea. She gave the painter a cup of tea, a kiss on the cheek, and a warm hug from behind. Then, yawning, she disappeared back into the other room.
Duck wanted to be that painter. He wanted that sweet, contented look directed at him. That was what he left Wilby to look for. That was what he had given up on finding, pretending that alcohol-muffled anonymous fucks were enough to satisfy him until he’d stopped questioning the lie.
***
When the news came from Wilby that his old man had kicked it, Duck drank a whole bottle of cheap scotch. He wasn’t quite sure whether he was celebrating or mourning.
***
There was no single moment, no one defining bad thing that scared him out of drinking. He woke on a dull gray morning to a dull gray apartment and a dull gray life and just decided he didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t want to run away from his old man just to turn into him. He didn’t want to look back and find whole years with no worthwhile memories.
That lasted all of two and a half days. Then he got plastered and started a fight for reasons he couldn’t remember in the morning. That bothered him. He knew he drank too much, that was obvious, but he hadn’t realized that it was actually a problem.
The next time he lasted a week. He was so pleased that he’d made it a whole week he allowed himself one drink in celebration. He lost a day and a half--all just a blank in his mind.
After his father’s death, Duck had received a note from Buddy. We could use you in Wilby. Short, tersely worded, but it meant a lot to Duck. He’d tucked it away with the few things he had that he found worth keeping, and now, after several failed attempts at sobriety, he brought it out again and considered the offer.
***
He stayed dry. He did odd jobs. He made a life for himself and learned to enjoy solitude, though discovered a fondness for people-watching. He learned to be amused by what had once made him angry, and that working with his hands settled his mind.
***
He found out about the Watch from a mainlander. He wondered if it had been a cruising spot when he was a teenager, if anyone he knew had gone there, if anyone he knew went there now.
He wasn’t interested in hooking up, so he hadn’t planned on going down to the Watch, but he was curious. That niggling curiosity hung in the back of his mind as he drove through Wilby, as he painted walls and hung signs and fixed toilets. So one evening he went down, just to watch.
There wasn’t anything so obvious as a fire, just people milling around on the open rocks, and more rustling in the trees than could be attributed to wind or animals. Duck stayed out of sight, not wishing to do more than watch.
He couldn’t explain why, but he found himself going back, haunting the place week after week.
***
The first time Duck saw Dan Jarvis, he didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to him. The Jarvises were new to Wilby and wanted some work done on the house they just bought. Duck’s impression of Dan Jarvis was that he was a tall man trying to take up less space. Duck’s first impression of Valerie Jarvis was that she knew what she wanted, but wasn’t afraid to ask for advice.
***
When Duck saw Dan Jarvis at the Watch, he first wondered if the man was lost. But he was moving with nervous intent, and as he disappeared with a stranger into the trees Duck found himself rethinking Dan Jarvis.
He knew Dan had opened a video store in what had once been Mrs. Bateman’s Handicraft Shop. He knew that neither Dan nor his wife had previous ties to Wilby when they moved, which was uncommon. And he knew Dan Jarvis was not someone he expected to walk onto the Watch that night.
The next time he saw Dan, it was like he was a completely different person. And Duck was curious. He wanted to know what drove Dan from his wife and down to the Watch. He wanted to understand Dan Jarvis. So he watched.
-end-
Author: magelight5
Recipient: exbex
Fandom: Wilby Wonderful
Characters/Pairing: Duck, with some vague OCs and pre-Duck/Dan
Prompt request: Duck gen
Word Count: 1196
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Squeaking in just before the deadline!
Summary: Moments in a life of watching.
He would never be one of those militantly politically queers, who, angry at the injustice, become absolutely as flamboyant as possible in an effort to rub it in the face of everyone who thinks they’re sick or wrong or disgusting. And he honestly couldn’t see the appeal of sequins and feather boas for their own sake.
But once when he was young and angry, after he had run away from the small-town small minds of Wilby (and, you know, his dad), he had a boyfriend who liked to dress him up. Skin-tight sleeveless shirt, barely-there shorts, eyeshadow and lipliner. High heels, feathers, the works.
It would have been okay if Scott had gotten off on it; that could have been hot for them both. But he just told Duck, informed him in a voice so certain he was right, that Duck’s ripped jeans and worn-soft T-shirts were, quote, a manifestation of internalized homophobia and his way of hiding who he was out of fear, end quote. But the sequins didn’t make him more gay, they just made him less Duck.
That boyfriend didn’t last long. None of them did. He felt bad about that, in a way, because most of the time he was doing the breaking, but all of the time they did the asking. He never saw anyone he was interested in enough to ask first.
***
He worked as a plumber and hated it--not the job itself, messy as it was, but the fact that he wasn’t his own man. The boss, the supervisor, the senior workers--they could all tell him what to do, and he hated that. But he stuck with it because the job paid for his liquor, with enough left over for the rent on his tiny bare apartment.
***
Once, he woke to a messy apartment not his, to a stickiness in his skin, a soreness in the back of his throat, and the pervading odor of someone not him. That someone was snoring unpleasantly on the bed, so Duck fought to ignore his pounding head as he dragged himself away and started looking for his pants. His shirt was still on.
A lamp was on in an apartment across the street, sending a warm beam of light through the window, lighting the room enough for Duck to spot his jeans in a heap in front of the window. As he pulled them on he glanced across the wet pavement to the bright window.
It was a living room--bright, comfortable, with a thick sofa. And paintings. Hung, stacked against the walls, everywhere. In the middle of the room a woman stood at an easel. Duck couldn’t see the painting, but he could see her face. She looked focused. From another room came another woman, carrying a cup of tea. She gave the painter a cup of tea, a kiss on the cheek, and a warm hug from behind. Then, yawning, she disappeared back into the other room.
Duck wanted to be that painter. He wanted that sweet, contented look directed at him. That was what he left Wilby to look for. That was what he had given up on finding, pretending that alcohol-muffled anonymous fucks were enough to satisfy him until he’d stopped questioning the lie.
***
When the news came from Wilby that his old man had kicked it, Duck drank a whole bottle of cheap scotch. He wasn’t quite sure whether he was celebrating or mourning.
***
There was no single moment, no one defining bad thing that scared him out of drinking. He woke on a dull gray morning to a dull gray apartment and a dull gray life and just decided he didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t want to run away from his old man just to turn into him. He didn’t want to look back and find whole years with no worthwhile memories.
That lasted all of two and a half days. Then he got plastered and started a fight for reasons he couldn’t remember in the morning. That bothered him. He knew he drank too much, that was obvious, but he hadn’t realized that it was actually a problem.
The next time he lasted a week. He was so pleased that he’d made it a whole week he allowed himself one drink in celebration. He lost a day and a half--all just a blank in his mind.
After his father’s death, Duck had received a note from Buddy. We could use you in Wilby. Short, tersely worded, but it meant a lot to Duck. He’d tucked it away with the few things he had that he found worth keeping, and now, after several failed attempts at sobriety, he brought it out again and considered the offer.
***
He stayed dry. He did odd jobs. He made a life for himself and learned to enjoy solitude, though discovered a fondness for people-watching. He learned to be amused by what had once made him angry, and that working with his hands settled his mind.
***
He found out about the Watch from a mainlander. He wondered if it had been a cruising spot when he was a teenager, if anyone he knew had gone there, if anyone he knew went there now.
He wasn’t interested in hooking up, so he hadn’t planned on going down to the Watch, but he was curious. That niggling curiosity hung in the back of his mind as he drove through Wilby, as he painted walls and hung signs and fixed toilets. So one evening he went down, just to watch.
There wasn’t anything so obvious as a fire, just people milling around on the open rocks, and more rustling in the trees than could be attributed to wind or animals. Duck stayed out of sight, not wishing to do more than watch.
He couldn’t explain why, but he found himself going back, haunting the place week after week.
***
The first time Duck saw Dan Jarvis, he didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to him. The Jarvises were new to Wilby and wanted some work done on the house they just bought. Duck’s impression of Dan Jarvis was that he was a tall man trying to take up less space. Duck’s first impression of Valerie Jarvis was that she knew what she wanted, but wasn’t afraid to ask for advice.
***
When Duck saw Dan Jarvis at the Watch, he first wondered if the man was lost. But he was moving with nervous intent, and as he disappeared with a stranger into the trees Duck found himself rethinking Dan Jarvis.
He knew Dan had opened a video store in what had once been Mrs. Bateman’s Handicraft Shop. He knew that neither Dan nor his wife had previous ties to Wilby when they moved, which was uncommon. And he knew Dan Jarvis was not someone he expected to walk onto the Watch that night.
The next time he saw Dan, it was like he was a completely different person. And Duck was curious. He wanted to know what drove Dan from his wife and down to the Watch. He wanted to understand Dan Jarvis. So he watched.
-end-