Fic: Black Star
Title: The Bends
Chapter title: Black Star (Part 1/12)
Characters: JJ, Cook, Freddie
Rating: M (for language)
Words: 1699
Summary: What are we coming to?
Disclaimer: Not my characters
A/N: Chapter title and summary quote from Radiohead's 'Black Star'. Title (and all chapter titles) from their album 'The Bends'.
Effy had left them to take a bath.
One month later, JJ was beginning to suspect she wasn’t coming back. It was a very sensible idea, having a bath after being on that boat, because it didn’t look very clean, and there were likely hundreds of millions of germs there, but his own bath didn’t take more than twenty-three minutes - and that was an especially long one - so really, a month seemed a bit over the top, even given the circumstances. That and she would certainly have turned into a prune if she was still in the bath, and that is very bad for your skin as far as JJ knows, and in actual fact Effy has very nice skin, so she must know how to look after it.
Things hadn’t been all that good in the month she had been gone.
JJ wasn’t sure what had really happened on that day. The way that JJ saw it, everything should have been better. It appeared that things had been fixed, because Cook and Freddie were talking again, and they were talking when Effy was there as well, so surely that meant that they were friends again. It must do. But after Effy had left for her ‘bath’ then things changed yet again. Freddie had looked at Cook, and Cook had looked at Freddie, and they didn’t say anything, but they must have reached a decision somehow, because Cook narrowed his eyes and Freddie set his jaw, and they left in opposite directions.
So, JJ was back in the middle once more, which was not a nice place to be when the people you’re in the middle of aren’t talking properly, but are talking sometimes, but not always about the things that they should probably be talking about, and even though they sometimes pretended like it was fine, JJ knew that it wasn’t really all that fine really, because Freddie would say things like Cook’s a fucking arsehole and Cook would say things like Freddie’s a shitting cunt and that’s not what you should say about people who are your friends. At least, it’s something that JJ would never say about either of them and he’s approximately 84% sure that they wouldn’t say that about him.
It’s an equation, the three of them, and when they added Effy then it was wrong. But they’ve taken Effy away now and it’s still wrong, which isn’t how algebra is meant to work at all. There are meant to be constants, and the constants were always Cook, Freddie and him. Always.
If JJ’s learnt anything from the unmitigated disaster that was first year at college - well, actually, he did get to have real sex with a girl, (even if she was a lesbian it still counts according to Cook, in fact, he said it counts double) so maybe it was not so much an unmitigated disaster, but more of a steep learning curve that resulted in a medium sized, but ultimately manageable, failure - it’s that mathematics and emotions don’t mix and he’s only good at one of those things.
---
Things get close to being normal towards the end of summer, very close, and on the surface then things are normal. To anyone on the outside it becomes them again, the three musketeers, doing what they always do, which is, admittedly, not much. But JJ’s not on the outside, he’s on the inside, and things aren’t normal, even though they are pretending like it is, and maybe it will never be normal again.
Mainly JJ goes to the pub with Cook and watches him drink, or he goes to the shed with Freddie and watches him smoke weed. Sometimes they will do either of these things as a three. It’s getting a bit better, but it still isn’t quite right, not quite how it had been before Effy ruined it by being all fit and mysterious. She’d gone though, and JJ can’t understand why things still haven’t gone back to normal.
It’s like when he was younger and tripped and he got a huge gash on his leg and it scabbed. JJ hated that dirty big mark and how it stood out and looked funny on his leg, it felt all weird and dirty and itchy, but his mum told him not to pick at it because even though it was red and angry now, it would go back and be regular skin again on its own. But it didn’t, because the new skin that grew back there was shiny and there was a scar left over and, well, it just wasn’t the same, even though it was close, and even though his mum said that no one could notice it, he still could, and this is just the same.
JJ’s going to fix it though. He’s come up with a plan. It’s a sound plan founded on a strong evidence base and has solid tactical manoeuvres, and the end result will be that everything between Freddie and Cook will be fixed, and they can be the three musketeers again, and JJ will have his best friends back and he won’t have to run interference between them anymore.
---
His plan goes like this: He’ll invite both Cook and Freddie to his birthday party. They’ll all have some cake, and no one will mention Effy, and his mum will say it’s lovely to see them all together again, and then Cook and Freddie will realise that they’ve been bad friends, and everything will be fixed.
It’s not overly complicated, quite the reverse actually, it’s exceptionally straightforward, and certainly, there’s not that much room for error. But it turns out there is. The whole thing is error strewn, because JJ didn’t properly take into account the extreme variables of the other two musketeers.
---
Freddie arrives almost on time, and he manages to refrain from ruffling JJ’s hair, so it’s a fairly good start.
Cook arrives an hour and a half late, drunk.
Instead of just ringing the doorbell, like any normal person would do - but then Cook never does the normal thing - he heralds his arrival with a shout of “Gay-J! Happy fucking birthday you little queer boy!” as he storms down the hallway and into the kitchen.
JJ looks to his mum, whose frown indicates that she’s not best pleased with JJ’s choice in friends - or more accurately with this particular friend and his choice of nicknames for JJ - and buggering bollocking shitting cockhead, does he have to say that in front of JJ’s whole family? JJ’s trying really hard to make things better, but that’s not going to happen if his mum is mad at Cook, because then she won’t say that it’s nice they’re all being friends again, and then Cook and Freddie won’t realise that they’ve been bad friends, and then things will just stay the same pathetic crap that it is now.
“Alright Cecelia? How we doing this fine evening? Looking fit as ever,” he winks at her. Right, so Cook is winking at his mother now, and he’s, yes, he is definitely checking her out. Shittification. This could not possibly be going any worse.
Freddie looks apologetic on Cook’s behalf, as he grabs him by the collar and marches him straight back out the room. JJ’s ears feel very hot, so he gives them a quick rub, but his mum says that he should go and see to his friends, and she says it in a way which JJ has been taught really means that he has to ask Cook very politely to not shout things like “Gay-Jay” in his house, and also while he’s there he should probably mention that he doesn’t really appreciate it when Cook looks at his mum like that, and he doesn’t think that she does either and also, he’s more than certain that if his dad had noticed then he wouldn’t like it one bit.
Freddie and Cook stop talking abruptly when JJ walks into the living room. He hates that they do things like that, as if they can’t trust him to hear the things that they say to each other, as if he won’t understand. It’s not fair, because how can they know he won’t understand if they don’t give him a chance?
“Jenkins! It’s your birthday, get in mate!” Cook says with a grin, and wraps him in a tight hug.
JJ pushes him back and doesn’t return the smile, because he’s not happy to see Cook, not like this. “Why, Cook? Why do you have to ruin everything?”
Cook looks confused. “What? Nah, mate, it’s your birthday innit? You’re my mate and I’m here for your birthday,” he says carefully, as if JJ might be having trouble keeping up with what is a reasonably uncomplicated situation.
“You’re drunk, Cook! It’s my birthday and you should be here for me, but you’re drunk!” He snaps, and Cook’s smile evaporates, and then they are all just looking at each other silently, wondering how this has happened. They were such good friends, they were best friends, but now JJ doesn’t know how to fix it, and neither do Freddie or Cook by the looks of things.
There’s a throat clearing in the doorway, and all three of them look round in surprise. “The front door was open, so I just… Happy birthday, Jay,” Effy says, as she holds out a carton for him. “They were out of mango juice, so I got orange. Hope that’s ok.”
Fucking, shitting, fuck wank. JJ’s plan was clearly the worst idea since the people of Germany thought that Adolf Hitler was quite a nice bloke, and obviously things were now worse than they had been, because now Effy’s back and Cook and Freddie are looking at each other like they did last year, and JJ knows that means trouble, and they’ve gone right back to the beginning again, except not the real beginning because that would mean they were all friends. So maybe they’re back in the middle bit. Regardless of exactly where they’ve gone, it’s definitely not forwards and it’s definitely not good news.
---
2. Fake Plastic Trees
Chapter title: Black Star (Part 1/12)
Characters: JJ, Cook, Freddie
Rating: M (for language)
Words: 1699
Summary: What are we coming to?
Disclaimer: Not my characters
A/N: Chapter title and summary quote from Radiohead's 'Black Star'. Title (and all chapter titles) from their album 'The Bends'.
Effy had left them to take a bath.
One month later, JJ was beginning to suspect she wasn’t coming back. It was a very sensible idea, having a bath after being on that boat, because it didn’t look very clean, and there were likely hundreds of millions of germs there, but his own bath didn’t take more than twenty-three minutes - and that was an especially long one - so really, a month seemed a bit over the top, even given the circumstances. That and she would certainly have turned into a prune if she was still in the bath, and that is very bad for your skin as far as JJ knows, and in actual fact Effy has very nice skin, so she must know how to look after it.
Things hadn’t been all that good in the month she had been gone.
JJ wasn’t sure what had really happened on that day. The way that JJ saw it, everything should have been better. It appeared that things had been fixed, because Cook and Freddie were talking again, and they were talking when Effy was there as well, so surely that meant that they were friends again. It must do. But after Effy had left for her ‘bath’ then things changed yet again. Freddie had looked at Cook, and Cook had looked at Freddie, and they didn’t say anything, but they must have reached a decision somehow, because Cook narrowed his eyes and Freddie set his jaw, and they left in opposite directions.
So, JJ was back in the middle once more, which was not a nice place to be when the people you’re in the middle of aren’t talking properly, but are talking sometimes, but not always about the things that they should probably be talking about, and even though they sometimes pretended like it was fine, JJ knew that it wasn’t really all that fine really, because Freddie would say things like Cook’s a fucking arsehole and Cook would say things like Freddie’s a shitting cunt and that’s not what you should say about people who are your friends. At least, it’s something that JJ would never say about either of them and he’s approximately 84% sure that they wouldn’t say that about him.
It’s an equation, the three of them, and when they added Effy then it was wrong. But they’ve taken Effy away now and it’s still wrong, which isn’t how algebra is meant to work at all. There are meant to be constants, and the constants were always Cook, Freddie and him. Always.
If JJ’s learnt anything from the unmitigated disaster that was first year at college - well, actually, he did get to have real sex with a girl, (even if she was a lesbian it still counts according to Cook, in fact, he said it counts double) so maybe it was not so much an unmitigated disaster, but more of a steep learning curve that resulted in a medium sized, but ultimately manageable, failure - it’s that mathematics and emotions don’t mix and he’s only good at one of those things.
---
Things get close to being normal towards the end of summer, very close, and on the surface then things are normal. To anyone on the outside it becomes them again, the three musketeers, doing what they always do, which is, admittedly, not much. But JJ’s not on the outside, he’s on the inside, and things aren’t normal, even though they are pretending like it is, and maybe it will never be normal again.
Mainly JJ goes to the pub with Cook and watches him drink, or he goes to the shed with Freddie and watches him smoke weed. Sometimes they will do either of these things as a three. It’s getting a bit better, but it still isn’t quite right, not quite how it had been before Effy ruined it by being all fit and mysterious. She’d gone though, and JJ can’t understand why things still haven’t gone back to normal.
It’s like when he was younger and tripped and he got a huge gash on his leg and it scabbed. JJ hated that dirty big mark and how it stood out and looked funny on his leg, it felt all weird and dirty and itchy, but his mum told him not to pick at it because even though it was red and angry now, it would go back and be regular skin again on its own. But it didn’t, because the new skin that grew back there was shiny and there was a scar left over and, well, it just wasn’t the same, even though it was close, and even though his mum said that no one could notice it, he still could, and this is just the same.
JJ’s going to fix it though. He’s come up with a plan. It’s a sound plan founded on a strong evidence base and has solid tactical manoeuvres, and the end result will be that everything between Freddie and Cook will be fixed, and they can be the three musketeers again, and JJ will have his best friends back and he won’t have to run interference between them anymore.
---
His plan goes like this: He’ll invite both Cook and Freddie to his birthday party. They’ll all have some cake, and no one will mention Effy, and his mum will say it’s lovely to see them all together again, and then Cook and Freddie will realise that they’ve been bad friends, and everything will be fixed.
It’s not overly complicated, quite the reverse actually, it’s exceptionally straightforward, and certainly, there’s not that much room for error. But it turns out there is. The whole thing is error strewn, because JJ didn’t properly take into account the extreme variables of the other two musketeers.
---
Freddie arrives almost on time, and he manages to refrain from ruffling JJ’s hair, so it’s a fairly good start.
Cook arrives an hour and a half late, drunk.
Instead of just ringing the doorbell, like any normal person would do - but then Cook never does the normal thing - he heralds his arrival with a shout of “Gay-J! Happy fucking birthday you little queer boy!” as he storms down the hallway and into the kitchen.
JJ looks to his mum, whose frown indicates that she’s not best pleased with JJ’s choice in friends - or more accurately with this particular friend and his choice of nicknames for JJ - and buggering bollocking shitting cockhead, does he have to say that in front of JJ’s whole family? JJ’s trying really hard to make things better, but that’s not going to happen if his mum is mad at Cook, because then she won’t say that it’s nice they’re all being friends again, and then Cook and Freddie won’t realise that they’ve been bad friends, and then things will just stay the same pathetic crap that it is now.
“Alright Cecelia? How we doing this fine evening? Looking fit as ever,” he winks at her. Right, so Cook is winking at his mother now, and he’s, yes, he is definitely checking her out. Shittification. This could not possibly be going any worse.
Freddie looks apologetic on Cook’s behalf, as he grabs him by the collar and marches him straight back out the room. JJ’s ears feel very hot, so he gives them a quick rub, but his mum says that he should go and see to his friends, and she says it in a way which JJ has been taught really means that he has to ask Cook very politely to not shout things like “Gay-Jay” in his house, and also while he’s there he should probably mention that he doesn’t really appreciate it when Cook looks at his mum like that, and he doesn’t think that she does either and also, he’s more than certain that if his dad had noticed then he wouldn’t like it one bit.
Freddie and Cook stop talking abruptly when JJ walks into the living room. He hates that they do things like that, as if they can’t trust him to hear the things that they say to each other, as if he won’t understand. It’s not fair, because how can they know he won’t understand if they don’t give him a chance?
“Jenkins! It’s your birthday, get in mate!” Cook says with a grin, and wraps him in a tight hug.
JJ pushes him back and doesn’t return the smile, because he’s not happy to see Cook, not like this. “Why, Cook? Why do you have to ruin everything?”
Cook looks confused. “What? Nah, mate, it’s your birthday innit? You’re my mate and I’m here for your birthday,” he says carefully, as if JJ might be having trouble keeping up with what is a reasonably uncomplicated situation.
“You’re drunk, Cook! It’s my birthday and you should be here for me, but you’re drunk!” He snaps, and Cook’s smile evaporates, and then they are all just looking at each other silently, wondering how this has happened. They were such good friends, they were best friends, but now JJ doesn’t know how to fix it, and neither do Freddie or Cook by the looks of things.
There’s a throat clearing in the doorway, and all three of them look round in surprise. “The front door was open, so I just… Happy birthday, Jay,” Effy says, as she holds out a carton for him. “They were out of mango juice, so I got orange. Hope that’s ok.”
Fucking, shitting, fuck wank. JJ’s plan was clearly the worst idea since the people of Germany thought that Adolf Hitler was quite a nice bloke, and obviously things were now worse than they had been, because now Effy’s back and Cook and Freddie are looking at each other like they did last year, and JJ knows that means trouble, and they’ve gone right back to the beginning again, except not the real beginning because that would mean they were all friends. So maybe they’re back in the middle bit. Regardless of exactly where they’ve gone, it’s definitely not forwards and it’s definitely not good news.
---
2. Fake Plastic Trees