[public] original fiction
This is for picfor1000. I can't say that I have any deep love for this, but I also don't hate it. I'm used to living with my characters for a while; these ones just showed up for 1000 words and don't appear to be coming back. I've also never posted original fic for the general public so. . . I don't know. (Would you all be surprised if I said that this was almost about baseball?/Sometimes I am unfailingly literal./Can you believe there's no slash?)
A Devastating Backstroke
Original Fiction, PG
1000 words
Picture.
Disclaimer: These people are not. . . oh, wait, I do own them. I believe that means you should not be screwing around with them.
They’ve been dating for just over two months when Jude announces that he owns a house. Natasha nods as though she’s been expecting such an admission even though she’d just recently decided that she already knows as much as she ever will about Jude. Her first words of the evening were going to be We should talk but instead she’s asking, “What color is it?” and ignoring the more obvious how?, why? and where?
Jude grins, revealing his chipped front tooth of unknown origin. “Do you want to just see it for yourself?”
Natasha considers the fifty math problems she has to do over the next three days and decides that an overnight trip won't do any harm. They stop at their respective apartments to make phone calls and pack bags. As they start out the three-hour ride Jude fills in some of the details.
"It was my grandmother's. She left it to me - well, to us - when she died four years ago. It's Goran's, too. He lives there."
Natasha almost says "The gay one?" but doesn't because Jude only has has one brother and she knows too much about said brother to simplify him that way.
"It's about a half an hour from where I grew up, where my parents live. I didn't tell them that I was coming, but I didn't tell Goran not to tell them so they might stop by the house. To meet you."
"Oh." Natasha turns the radio on to a scratchy jazz station and opens her math book, desperate to think about anything other than meeting her boyfriend's family.
When they had been in the car for two hours and forty-nine minutes Jude turns into a long driveway that already contains a blue pickup truck and a red compact car. "Well," Jude says. "My parents are here."
This is too calm a reaction for Natasha so she waits for something more, maybe a modified version of her own performance when her parents made a surprise visit to her apartment and she realized that they were going to meet Jude: one snapped shoelace, two pencils hurled at the wall, and "Oh shit, how can they be here, I am not ready for this." But there's nothing, just a shrug and a grin that bares that mysterious tooth once more, and "Maybe my mom'll cook us some dinner tonight."
When they walk inside, bags in tow, they are greeted by a graying man and woman and Jude of five years in the future. As Jude says, "Natasha, this is my mother, Rita, and my father, Al," Natasha is not listening. She is too busy focusing on Goran's eyes that are just like Jude's and willing him to smile a bit wider so she can see if he has an identically-chipped tooth.
"Natasha?"
Natasha realizes that four pairs of eyes (two a shade of green she cannot help loving) are focused on her so she forces out a smile that is actually not too forced. "I'm sorry. It's so nice to meet you all." She shakes Al's hand and receives an unexpected kiss on the cheek from Rita while Jude hugs Goran. Then Jude is grabbing her hand and dragging her back out the door, shouting over his shoulder, "I'm showing her around outside before it gets too dark."
They walk to the backyard and Jude waves his arm over the patches of grass and piles of rocks. “This was my grandmother’s garden. We used to come over and help her keep it up but no one’s had the time since she died.” Jude hunches his back, regret apparent in his shoulders, so Natasha turns to face the house and realizes that she hasn’t taken note of the color yet. It’s brick so she supposes that it would technically be red and she thinks of the brick red crayon she’d had as a child. Then she notices the brightly colored objects fluttering in the breeze a few feet away.
“What are these?” she asks as she walks over even though she can see that they are gardening gloves hanging on a lattice attached to the house. There are five pairs, no two alike, all with a fine sheen of dirt coating them.
Jude walks up behind her. “Those were, or are, ours. My family’s. We each had a pair to use when we came over.”
“Which ones are yours?”
“The ugly ones.” Jude laughs at the pointed look on Natasha’s face. “The yellow ones. I didn’t get much of a choice, you know, being the youngest.”
Natasha nods even though her life as an only child prevents her from fully understanding. “Which ones were your grandmother’s?”
“None of them. She had three pairs and we buried them all with her.”
“There are five pairs.”
Jude reaches out to finger the green pair next to his. “These belonged to my brother, Chase.”
Natasha does not feel like being tactful so she asks, “Is he dead?”
“Not that I know of. He’s just gone. He was close to Grandma and skipped town on the day of her funeral.” Jude gestures to his front tooth. “He stuck around for the service, called me an asshole and punched me on the mouth in the parking lot and then he was gone.
(Natasha pictures blood and suits and a tiny bone fragment on gravel and shudders.)
“Why were you an asshole?”
“I still haven’t figured that out. I just have to wait for him to come back. Of course, when he does he’s going to throw a fit over the garden. He loved that thing, too.”
Natasha lifts her hand to shield away the fading sun as she stares up at Jude. “I don’t know you at all, do I?”
“What, did you think you did?” Jude’s tone is teasing and rhetorical but Natasha answers anyway.
“Maybe.”
“If you’d like my parents can tell you embarrassing stories about my childhood during dinner.”
Natasha considers this and smiles. “I think I would.”
A/N: Title stolen from "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" by Vampire Weekend because that's what I was listening to when I realized that I needed to call this something. And God only knows what the actual word count is since I had several different counters spit out five different totals and I stopped fiddling when one of them said 1000.
A Devastating Backstroke
Original Fiction, PG
1000 words
Picture.
Disclaimer: These people are not. . . oh, wait, I do own them. I believe that means you should not be screwing around with them.
They’ve been dating for just over two months when Jude announces that he owns a house. Natasha nods as though she’s been expecting such an admission even though she’d just recently decided that she already knows as much as she ever will about Jude. Her first words of the evening were going to be We should talk but instead she’s asking, “What color is it?” and ignoring the more obvious how?, why? and where?
Jude grins, revealing his chipped front tooth of unknown origin. “Do you want to just see it for yourself?”
Natasha considers the fifty math problems she has to do over the next three days and decides that an overnight trip won't do any harm. They stop at their respective apartments to make phone calls and pack bags. As they start out the three-hour ride Jude fills in some of the details.
"It was my grandmother's. She left it to me - well, to us - when she died four years ago. It's Goran's, too. He lives there."
Natasha almost says "The gay one?" but doesn't because Jude only has has one brother and she knows too much about said brother to simplify him that way.
"It's about a half an hour from where I grew up, where my parents live. I didn't tell them that I was coming, but I didn't tell Goran not to tell them so they might stop by the house. To meet you."
"Oh." Natasha turns the radio on to a scratchy jazz station and opens her math book, desperate to think about anything other than meeting her boyfriend's family.
When they had been in the car for two hours and forty-nine minutes Jude turns into a long driveway that already contains a blue pickup truck and a red compact car. "Well," Jude says. "My parents are here."
This is too calm a reaction for Natasha so she waits for something more, maybe a modified version of her own performance when her parents made a surprise visit to her apartment and she realized that they were going to meet Jude: one snapped shoelace, two pencils hurled at the wall, and "Oh shit, how can they be here, I am not ready for this." But there's nothing, just a shrug and a grin that bares that mysterious tooth once more, and "Maybe my mom'll cook us some dinner tonight."
When they walk inside, bags in tow, they are greeted by a graying man and woman and Jude of five years in the future. As Jude says, "Natasha, this is my mother, Rita, and my father, Al," Natasha is not listening. She is too busy focusing on Goran's eyes that are just like Jude's and willing him to smile a bit wider so she can see if he has an identically-chipped tooth.
"Natasha?"
Natasha realizes that four pairs of eyes (two a shade of green she cannot help loving) are focused on her so she forces out a smile that is actually not too forced. "I'm sorry. It's so nice to meet you all." She shakes Al's hand and receives an unexpected kiss on the cheek from Rita while Jude hugs Goran. Then Jude is grabbing her hand and dragging her back out the door, shouting over his shoulder, "I'm showing her around outside before it gets too dark."
They walk to the backyard and Jude waves his arm over the patches of grass and piles of rocks. “This was my grandmother’s garden. We used to come over and help her keep it up but no one’s had the time since she died.” Jude hunches his back, regret apparent in his shoulders, so Natasha turns to face the house and realizes that she hasn’t taken note of the color yet. It’s brick so she supposes that it would technically be red and she thinks of the brick red crayon she’d had as a child. Then she notices the brightly colored objects fluttering in the breeze a few feet away.
“What are these?” she asks as she walks over even though she can see that they are gardening gloves hanging on a lattice attached to the house. There are five pairs, no two alike, all with a fine sheen of dirt coating them.
Jude walks up behind her. “Those were, or are, ours. My family’s. We each had a pair to use when we came over.”
“Which ones are yours?”
“The ugly ones.” Jude laughs at the pointed look on Natasha’s face. “The yellow ones. I didn’t get much of a choice, you know, being the youngest.”
Natasha nods even though her life as an only child prevents her from fully understanding. “Which ones were your grandmother’s?”
“None of them. She had three pairs and we buried them all with her.”
“There are five pairs.”
Jude reaches out to finger the green pair next to his. “These belonged to my brother, Chase.”
Natasha does not feel like being tactful so she asks, “Is he dead?”
“Not that I know of. He’s just gone. He was close to Grandma and skipped town on the day of her funeral.” Jude gestures to his front tooth. “He stuck around for the service, called me an asshole and punched me on the mouth in the parking lot and then he was gone.
(Natasha pictures blood and suits and a tiny bone fragment on gravel and shudders.)
“Why were you an asshole?”
“I still haven’t figured that out. I just have to wait for him to come back. Of course, when he does he’s going to throw a fit over the garden. He loved that thing, too.”
Natasha lifts her hand to shield away the fading sun as she stares up at Jude. “I don’t know you at all, do I?”
“What, did you think you did?” Jude’s tone is teasing and rhetorical but Natasha answers anyway.
“Maybe.”
“If you’d like my parents can tell you embarrassing stories about my childhood during dinner.”
Natasha considers this and smiles. “I think I would.”
A/N: Title stolen from "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" by Vampire Weekend because that's what I was listening to when I realized that I needed to call this something. And God only knows what the actual word count is since I had several different counters spit out five different totals and I stopped fiddling when one of them said 1000.