The Rise of Dan Ashcroft: A Revistory Part 2
Title: The Rise of Dan Ashcroft: A Revistory
Author: Concupid
Rated: PG-13
Warnings: language, sexual references, drug references, Nathan Barley speaking
Fandom: Nathan Barely
Pairing: eventually Dan/Jones
Summary: Nathan Barley comes up with the word revistory. Jones and Dan meet.
2014
“Hey, Sugar Tits. I have something in my pocket that is going to put a smile on your face,” Nathan announces as he struts into the office. He’s wearing what Claire thinks of as his “Miami Gangster” look. Nathan has been working on his arms, and they are well-defined but absurdly pasty in his sleeveless shirt and against his pastel outfit. Naturally, he is wearing a fedora because the fedora is the current trend among assholes. The trend makes Claire sad, because she quite likes fedoras.
“I do not want to go near anything you have in your pocket,” Claire assures him (not for the first time). “It isn’t as exciting as you seem to think.”
“I’m not talking about my cock. I said it would make you smile, not see God.”
Claire glares as Nathan leers, but she lets it go. For Nathan, it was a fairly tame dick joke.
“What have you got that can make me smile after spending four hours trying to edit Doug Rocket’s ramblings into a coherent interview?”
Nathan sits down and rolls his seat until he is unnecessarily close to Claire before holding up a memory stick.
“Sugar Ape is turning thirty, and they want us to put together a package revisiting their history. A revistory, if you will.”
Claire sighs. “Nathan, revistory sounds like you’re planning to revise history.”
Nathan throws his arm around Claire’s shoulders, resting his hand too close to her breast for comfort.
“Stop being such an Ashcroft for a moment and enjoy the magic.”
Claire pushes his hand away, but plugs the memory stick into her laptop. She nearly falls out of her chair when Dan’s face fills the screen. He is baby-faced and very clearly shit-faced. His little eyes are red, as is his nose. Claire laughs until she in tears as Nathan begs her to be quiet so he can hear what Dan has to say, as though Dan could ever be heard over the blaring Ace of Base in the background.
“Look at Preach! What’s going on with his hair?” Nathan is clearly enthralled. His eyes are wide with amazement as he beholds Dan’s mid-nineties glory.
Claire wipes the tears from her eyes as she says, “Those would be box braids. That was probably Jones.”
“Why would Jones be braiding Dan’s hair? They weren’t fucking yet, were they?”
“Don’t be gross, Nathan. Jones used to be a stylist at Stanley Knives.”
Nathan’s mouth falls open. “Fuck me with a rusty pipe. That must have been mental!”
1994
Every time a Spice Girls song plays, a piece of Jones’s soul breaks off and falls to the floor, and then a man named “He” comes by and sweeps it up.
His next customer is already in the chair. His thrift shop clothes are too short in the leg and at the wrist, and his t-shirt is ironic. His curly hair is shellacked into place with a product reminiscent of epoxy. If he’d gone with a bedhead barnet, he’d almost pull off his gangly scarecrow look, but the hair is the proof that he’s trying, and it ruins any chance of looking unaffected and therefore cool.
“What look are you hoping to create today?” Jones asks in the weary voice Stanley Knives favors.
“Well, I just accepted a position as a writer for Sugar Ape, so…”
Jones keeps his face neutral. He’s done a lot of work for Sugar Ape. He’s styled them for their dreadful photo shoots.
“So I think it’s time for a new look. Something with a big of edge, but not trying to be cool or any of that bullshit.”
Jones remains neutral. There is no greater crime than appearing to want to look cool. Shoreditch is full of people who spend hours trying to look like they just stumbled out of bed.
“Any suggestions?” the man asks. He seems to be shrinking into his seat. Jones had pegged him at about twenty-eight, but he suddenly looks younger.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four?”
“What’s your name?”
“Dan? Dan Ashcroft?”
“We’ll strip your hair, then dye it dark purple. It will look like your hair is the same, but then POW!, it’s actually purple. Mental. Subtle. Edgy.”
“How much would that cost?” Dan asks. He looks nervous but intrigued.
“If you have to ask, I don’t think you can afford it.”
“Sounds great. Do it,” Dan says with a weak effort at cockiness. Jones smiles for the first time since arriving at work. His tables will be getting a serious upgrade, and Dan Ashcroft will be eating pot noodles for a week. Jones feels a few bits of his soul returning to his body. Coloring Dan’s hair purple will take hours, but at least he’ll be able to call it a day when he’s done. Most days, he drinks a pot of coffee and takes in as many clients as he can to save up for a workspace he’s been eyeing. He hopes to start DJing on a regular basis, but he needs better equipment and more practice. Shoreditch is full of half-assed DJs, so he needs to bring something different to the tables if he wants to make a living.
Today, he just wants to go home and get away from the very concept of ‘cool.’
“We should start by washing out that hair gel,” Jones says before touching Dan’s hair. It is rock solid with product. “Might need a bit of paint thinner.”
“It’s… curly.” Dan makes it sound like a sordid confession.
Jones shrugs and points out that curls are cool. The look of gratitude on Dan’s face is disarming. As much as Jones wants to hate the idiots that fill Stanley Knives, they are so full of desperation and fear. They all want so badly so be someone.
Jones gets Dan’s life story as he bleaches his dark hair white, so that it can be dyed purple. Dan’s Northern accent gets stronger as he talks about life in Leeds. Jones only speaks enough to keep Dan going. Idiots are always desperate to talk about their ambitions, as though saying them out loud will make them a reality. Dan is no exception, except for the fact that he has actually landed a precious berth at Sugar Ape with apparently no inside help. He must be talented, because he isn’t nearly pretty enough to be window dressing. He’s handsome and quite sexy in a rough around the edges kind of way, but he’s no Sugar Ape pretty boy.
Dan is endearing when he talks about his family. Although he is older than Jones, he is very much a kid when he talks about the plan he made with his family to move away. For all his efforts at being cool, Dan seems oblivious to how bourgeois he sounds when discussing how his mother had him create a budget based on the average expenditures of life in London that she found on the internet. Dan Ashcroft is neither a trust-fund kid nor a rebel flying the coop. He politely left the coop with his parents’ blessings and his money in his sock, in case he got mugged. Of the idiots Jones grooms that day, he finds Dan Ashcroft the least distasteful.
Xxx
Dan stares at the mirror in a state of shock. His hair looks the same but completely different. His dull brown hair is slightly darker and looks almost black from a distance. It makes his skin look porcelain white, darkens his eyes, and makes his cheekbones pop. As usual, his hair is sticking out in every direction, but in a manner reminiscent of a bed-headed rock star rather than a tramp in a wind tunnel.
“How?” is all he can ask.
“You have to respect the curl,” Jones observes like a wise old monk as he musses Dan’s hair a bit more. Each movement makes Dan’s hair look even more perfect.
He doesn’t flinch at the bill. He had prepared himself for worse. At his parents’ urging, he saved up enough to survive for six months without income. He still has four months of savings, and he’s already landed an amazing job. He sees the haircut as an investment, and a wise one at that.
Dan looks in the mirror and he sees someone who belongs at Sugar Ape: someone who is young, sexy, and cool. At some point, he went from playing the role of a hot commodity and became the genuine article.
“Remember the story of Narcissus.” It’s hard to tell if Jones is joking, but there is a twinkle in his eyes that contrasts with his bland expression.
Jones gives Dan a real smile when he gets his generous tip, and Dan whistles the whole way home.
Author: Concupid
Rated: PG-13
Warnings: language, sexual references, drug references, Nathan Barley speaking
Fandom: Nathan Barely
Pairing: eventually Dan/Jones
Summary: Nathan Barley comes up with the word revistory. Jones and Dan meet.
2014
“Hey, Sugar Tits. I have something in my pocket that is going to put a smile on your face,” Nathan announces as he struts into the office. He’s wearing what Claire thinks of as his “Miami Gangster” look. Nathan has been working on his arms, and they are well-defined but absurdly pasty in his sleeveless shirt and against his pastel outfit. Naturally, he is wearing a fedora because the fedora is the current trend among assholes. The trend makes Claire sad, because she quite likes fedoras.
“I do not want to go near anything you have in your pocket,” Claire assures him (not for the first time). “It isn’t as exciting as you seem to think.”
“I’m not talking about my cock. I said it would make you smile, not see God.”
Claire glares as Nathan leers, but she lets it go. For Nathan, it was a fairly tame dick joke.
“What have you got that can make me smile after spending four hours trying to edit Doug Rocket’s ramblings into a coherent interview?”
Nathan sits down and rolls his seat until he is unnecessarily close to Claire before holding up a memory stick.
“Sugar Ape is turning thirty, and they want us to put together a package revisiting their history. A revistory, if you will.”
Claire sighs. “Nathan, revistory sounds like you’re planning to revise history.”
Nathan throws his arm around Claire’s shoulders, resting his hand too close to her breast for comfort.
“Stop being such an Ashcroft for a moment and enjoy the magic.”
Claire pushes his hand away, but plugs the memory stick into her laptop. She nearly falls out of her chair when Dan’s face fills the screen. He is baby-faced and very clearly shit-faced. His little eyes are red, as is his nose. Claire laughs until she in tears as Nathan begs her to be quiet so he can hear what Dan has to say, as though Dan could ever be heard over the blaring Ace of Base in the background.
“Look at Preach! What’s going on with his hair?” Nathan is clearly enthralled. His eyes are wide with amazement as he beholds Dan’s mid-nineties glory.
Claire wipes the tears from her eyes as she says, “Those would be box braids. That was probably Jones.”
“Why would Jones be braiding Dan’s hair? They weren’t fucking yet, were they?”
“Don’t be gross, Nathan. Jones used to be a stylist at Stanley Knives.”
Nathan’s mouth falls open. “Fuck me with a rusty pipe. That must have been mental!”
1994
Every time a Spice Girls song plays, a piece of Jones’s soul breaks off and falls to the floor, and then a man named “He” comes by and sweeps it up.
His next customer is already in the chair. His thrift shop clothes are too short in the leg and at the wrist, and his t-shirt is ironic. His curly hair is shellacked into place with a product reminiscent of epoxy. If he’d gone with a bedhead barnet, he’d almost pull off his gangly scarecrow look, but the hair is the proof that he’s trying, and it ruins any chance of looking unaffected and therefore cool.
“What look are you hoping to create today?” Jones asks in the weary voice Stanley Knives favors.
“Well, I just accepted a position as a writer for Sugar Ape, so…”
Jones keeps his face neutral. He’s done a lot of work for Sugar Ape. He’s styled them for their dreadful photo shoots.
“So I think it’s time for a new look. Something with a big of edge, but not trying to be cool or any of that bullshit.”
Jones remains neutral. There is no greater crime than appearing to want to look cool. Shoreditch is full of people who spend hours trying to look like they just stumbled out of bed.
“Any suggestions?” the man asks. He seems to be shrinking into his seat. Jones had pegged him at about twenty-eight, but he suddenly looks younger.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four?”
“What’s your name?”
“Dan? Dan Ashcroft?”
“We’ll strip your hair, then dye it dark purple. It will look like your hair is the same, but then POW!, it’s actually purple. Mental. Subtle. Edgy.”
“How much would that cost?” Dan asks. He looks nervous but intrigued.
“If you have to ask, I don’t think you can afford it.”
“Sounds great. Do it,” Dan says with a weak effort at cockiness. Jones smiles for the first time since arriving at work. His tables will be getting a serious upgrade, and Dan Ashcroft will be eating pot noodles for a week. Jones feels a few bits of his soul returning to his body. Coloring Dan’s hair purple will take hours, but at least he’ll be able to call it a day when he’s done. Most days, he drinks a pot of coffee and takes in as many clients as he can to save up for a workspace he’s been eyeing. He hopes to start DJing on a regular basis, but he needs better equipment and more practice. Shoreditch is full of half-assed DJs, so he needs to bring something different to the tables if he wants to make a living.
Today, he just wants to go home and get away from the very concept of ‘cool.’
“We should start by washing out that hair gel,” Jones says before touching Dan’s hair. It is rock solid with product. “Might need a bit of paint thinner.”
“It’s… curly.” Dan makes it sound like a sordid confession.
Jones shrugs and points out that curls are cool. The look of gratitude on Dan’s face is disarming. As much as Jones wants to hate the idiots that fill Stanley Knives, they are so full of desperation and fear. They all want so badly so be someone.
Jones gets Dan’s life story as he bleaches his dark hair white, so that it can be dyed purple. Dan’s Northern accent gets stronger as he talks about life in Leeds. Jones only speaks enough to keep Dan going. Idiots are always desperate to talk about their ambitions, as though saying them out loud will make them a reality. Dan is no exception, except for the fact that he has actually landed a precious berth at Sugar Ape with apparently no inside help. He must be talented, because he isn’t nearly pretty enough to be window dressing. He’s handsome and quite sexy in a rough around the edges kind of way, but he’s no Sugar Ape pretty boy.
Dan is endearing when he talks about his family. Although he is older than Jones, he is very much a kid when he talks about the plan he made with his family to move away. For all his efforts at being cool, Dan seems oblivious to how bourgeois he sounds when discussing how his mother had him create a budget based on the average expenditures of life in London that she found on the internet. Dan Ashcroft is neither a trust-fund kid nor a rebel flying the coop. He politely left the coop with his parents’ blessings and his money in his sock, in case he got mugged. Of the idiots Jones grooms that day, he finds Dan Ashcroft the least distasteful.
Xxx
Dan stares at the mirror in a state of shock. His hair looks the same but completely different. His dull brown hair is slightly darker and looks almost black from a distance. It makes his skin look porcelain white, darkens his eyes, and makes his cheekbones pop. As usual, his hair is sticking out in every direction, but in a manner reminiscent of a bed-headed rock star rather than a tramp in a wind tunnel.
“How?” is all he can ask.
“You have to respect the curl,” Jones observes like a wise old monk as he musses Dan’s hair a bit more. Each movement makes Dan’s hair look even more perfect.
He doesn’t flinch at the bill. He had prepared himself for worse. At his parents’ urging, he saved up enough to survive for six months without income. He still has four months of savings, and he’s already landed an amazing job. He sees the haircut as an investment, and a wise one at that.
Dan looks in the mirror and he sees someone who belongs at Sugar Ape: someone who is young, sexy, and cool. At some point, he went from playing the role of a hot commodity and became the genuine article.
“Remember the story of Narcissus.” It’s hard to tell if Jones is joking, but there is a twinkle in his eyes that contrasts with his bland expression.
Jones gives Dan a real smile when he gets his generous tip, and Dan whistles the whole way home.