(no subject)
You know, looking back, I'm fairly sure one of the major reasons that I kept drawing up short heroine-wise when I first tried to move into 'officially grown-up' contemporary books was that I kept expecting them to be the sort of kick-ass girls that lived in my head from showtunes. Because, all right, they were also absolute crap for the most part, but I'd been expecting that; I think I just really wanted a few of those characters to sit up and realise that, instead of sitting back to watch their respective OTLs leave them in various ways and wallowing in a pit of tar-y, tar-y despair, they could go and find someone new (or several someones, if they wanted. My world contained no concept of whorish behaviour being a bad thing in the slightest for far too long XD) who'd love/entertain them for awhile. At the very least I wished that they'd learn to pout prettily instead of boring me to tears.
And also, err, hello. *waves sheepishly* I'm back and such, for good this time.
I've been trying to get into the heads of my NaNo characters by writing future!ficlets and I think (aside from one) that I've got them all down pat, but I've no actual plot this year. At all. *worries* I was going to do a Schoolboy Mystery In Space! type of thing, but then I figured out that the characters that really want to be written RIGHTNOWOMG are in no way space-brats, so I'm left with... nothing.
I fear, grawr. *g*
To round this off, a bit of an almost-but-not-quite-finished :
Title: I Remember You Well
Author: Erie Maxwell
Rating: G
Notes: I'm not even sure where to start on this. *laughs* Err, I didn't notice where I got it from when I first wrote it? And then after I changed a few things round, I couldn't resist poking a bit of fun at the fact that I'm a complete idiot? XD Do feel free to hit me, if you'd like. And as I said, this is still a section or two off of completion.
* * *
‘I’m sorry,’ he announces quietly and waits for the inevitable sparks to fly.
It isn’t that he enjoys it, this slow ache that sneaks up into him from the hole in his sock and swerves throughout his body, laying waste to any spare space that it can find, making his toes curl. He wants to be happy, to be at peace for once in his life and he is, for the most part. It’s just on evenings like this, when the sun has retreated for the day to warmer climates, leaving behind only purple-tinted skies and a sliver of moonlight, that he begins to crave more to life: more connections, more truth, just more than what he’s seen thus far.
He’s been married twice, each wedding marked neatly on the side of a box and stored away in the attic, next to his school things. He misses his ex-wives at times, but only during the daylight when he can block out the sheer desperation and need that they had both eventually adopted. His dreams are too truthful, he thinks. They lack the wall he’s worked so hard to build up for the working hours to block out the Voice, the one that remembers the nasty look Eileen maintained during their divorce hearing and that Anne had a habit of hurling the object nearest to her at the slightest hint of an argument, when all that he wants to remember is how young he had been with them.
Once, back when he was just starting out in the world, a good friend of his (the best he had, at the time) told him that they were different, better than everyone else at their school. Andrew had said that the two of them were part of the group of children who should have escaped their prams as infants and rolled off into a more suitable destiny, but by some cruel twist of fate hadn’t. They had been singled out by the dust that hung on their brows and than left for the wolves. He had privately thought that what really separated him from the other boys was the growth spurt he had suffered a year earlier, but as Andrew had insisted that his mother had assured him it was true, he had gone along, working for months to twist his reality into the one his friend saw. To this day he still believes it, deep down inside, although nowadays he can only force a stiff smile and a few polite, meaningless words when he sees Andrew’s family on the street. The knowledge of what they had shared as children rarely hurts him anymore, although it has formed a slightly bitter crust around the edges.
He doesn’t realise that he’s asleep at first. The sudden disappearance of the books that, until what seemed a few moments earlier, had surrounded him, the fireplace that for once was alive and roaring, almost the entirety of his study with its dark wooden walls and soft crimson flooring were just a hazy disillusion that hung in the heat-thick air, scenery-chewing. It isn’t until he hears a soft, ‘Hello Oliver’ that he notices that he’s been dropped into a strange room green with fog, with nothing to protect him but the ratty old chair he is resting in. Resisting the urge to look up, he sighs.
‘ ‘Lo.’
These are the least favourite of his dreams, worse than any of his nightmares because of the sharp pain that shoots through his body just from hearing the greeting of an old friend. Even the Voice rarely tries to have him face up to this, preferring the joys of pure mental excruciation. Still, Oliver realises, he should have expected this tonight of all nights; it’s only natural that his mind might want to dwell.
The pain has reached his fingertips now and is growing by the second; fairly soon, he knows that he won’t be able to keep his head and the words down. Even now his mouth is beginning to betray him, lips, tongue and teeth working in conjunction to let out a steady stream of ‘I’m sorry’s until they flood the room.
‘Oliver? Are you all right?’ the boy asks and Oliver can see his hands now, can take the time to try not to remember which scratches and calluses are real and which he’s imagined as wave after wave of nausea crashes against the back of his throat. He can feel panic bubbling up underneath that as, bit-by-bit, he loses control of his neck and his head heaves upwards. Eyes locking, Oliver looks into the face of his confidant, his assistant, his friend for the first time in ages.
It hasn’t changed much in that time; a few folds where Oliver thinks there ought to have been something to mark the years that have passed since he’d stopped aging and those blue-grey eyes are hooded against the world a bit more than usual, but otherwise he’s the same: thick dark hair against the line of his forehead, fast forming into unmanageable clumps, hips a trifle too slim banging awkwardly against where bookcases should have been as he makes his way over to Oliver’s chair, never really a day past nineteen no matter how many lines Oliver imagines running across it.
The boy beams at Oliver and suddenly it hits him, right in the stomach. He’s out cold for a few seconds, the steady pounding on his chest nothing next to the pressure against the sides of his jaw as he grinds his teeth together, trying to halt the spew of guttural sounds he can feel rising in his throat.
I've a Halloween story brewing up as well which I'll post once I've had a bit of sleep. ^-^
Happy Halloween everyone!
And also, err, hello. *waves sheepishly* I'm back and such, for good this time.
I've been trying to get into the heads of my NaNo characters by writing future!ficlets and I think (aside from one) that I've got them all down pat, but I've no actual plot this year. At all. *worries* I was going to do a Schoolboy Mystery In Space! type of thing, but then I figured out that the characters that really want to be written RIGHTNOWOMG are in no way space-brats, so I'm left with... nothing.
I fear, grawr. *g*
To round this off, a bit of an almost-but-not-quite-finished :
Title: I Remember You Well
Author: Erie Maxwell
Rating: G
Notes: I'm not even sure where to start on this. *laughs* Err, I didn't notice where I got it from when I first wrote it? And then after I changed a few things round, I couldn't resist poking a bit of fun at the fact that I'm a complete idiot? XD Do feel free to hit me, if you'd like. And as I said, this is still a section or two off of completion.
* * *
‘I’m sorry,’ he announces quietly and waits for the inevitable sparks to fly.
It isn’t that he enjoys it, this slow ache that sneaks up into him from the hole in his sock and swerves throughout his body, laying waste to any spare space that it can find, making his toes curl. He wants to be happy, to be at peace for once in his life and he is, for the most part. It’s just on evenings like this, when the sun has retreated for the day to warmer climates, leaving behind only purple-tinted skies and a sliver of moonlight, that he begins to crave more to life: more connections, more truth, just more than what he’s seen thus far.
He’s been married twice, each wedding marked neatly on the side of a box and stored away in the attic, next to his school things. He misses his ex-wives at times, but only during the daylight when he can block out the sheer desperation and need that they had both eventually adopted. His dreams are too truthful, he thinks. They lack the wall he’s worked so hard to build up for the working hours to block out the Voice, the one that remembers the nasty look Eileen maintained during their divorce hearing and that Anne had a habit of hurling the object nearest to her at the slightest hint of an argument, when all that he wants to remember is how young he had been with them.
Once, back when he was just starting out in the world, a good friend of his (the best he had, at the time) told him that they were different, better than everyone else at their school. Andrew had said that the two of them were part of the group of children who should have escaped their prams as infants and rolled off into a more suitable destiny, but by some cruel twist of fate hadn’t. They had been singled out by the dust that hung on their brows and than left for the wolves. He had privately thought that what really separated him from the other boys was the growth spurt he had suffered a year earlier, but as Andrew had insisted that his mother had assured him it was true, he had gone along, working for months to twist his reality into the one his friend saw. To this day he still believes it, deep down inside, although nowadays he can only force a stiff smile and a few polite, meaningless words when he sees Andrew’s family on the street. The knowledge of what they had shared as children rarely hurts him anymore, although it has formed a slightly bitter crust around the edges.
He doesn’t realise that he’s asleep at first. The sudden disappearance of the books that, until what seemed a few moments earlier, had surrounded him, the fireplace that for once was alive and roaring, almost the entirety of his study with its dark wooden walls and soft crimson flooring were just a hazy disillusion that hung in the heat-thick air, scenery-chewing. It isn’t until he hears a soft, ‘Hello Oliver’ that he notices that he’s been dropped into a strange room green with fog, with nothing to protect him but the ratty old chair he is resting in. Resisting the urge to look up, he sighs.
‘ ‘Lo.’
These are the least favourite of his dreams, worse than any of his nightmares because of the sharp pain that shoots through his body just from hearing the greeting of an old friend. Even the Voice rarely tries to have him face up to this, preferring the joys of pure mental excruciation. Still, Oliver realises, he should have expected this tonight of all nights; it’s only natural that his mind might want to dwell.
The pain has reached his fingertips now and is growing by the second; fairly soon, he knows that he won’t be able to keep his head and the words down. Even now his mouth is beginning to betray him, lips, tongue and teeth working in conjunction to let out a steady stream of ‘I’m sorry’s until they flood the room.
‘Oliver? Are you all right?’ the boy asks and Oliver can see his hands now, can take the time to try not to remember which scratches and calluses are real and which he’s imagined as wave after wave of nausea crashes against the back of his throat. He can feel panic bubbling up underneath that as, bit-by-bit, he loses control of his neck and his head heaves upwards. Eyes locking, Oliver looks into the face of his confidant, his assistant, his friend for the first time in ages.
It hasn’t changed much in that time; a few folds where Oliver thinks there ought to have been something to mark the years that have passed since he’d stopped aging and those blue-grey eyes are hooded against the world a bit more than usual, but otherwise he’s the same: thick dark hair against the line of his forehead, fast forming into unmanageable clumps, hips a trifle too slim banging awkwardly against where bookcases should have been as he makes his way over to Oliver’s chair, never really a day past nineteen no matter how many lines Oliver imagines running across it.
The boy beams at Oliver and suddenly it hits him, right in the stomach. He’s out cold for a few seconds, the steady pounding on his chest nothing next to the pressure against the sides of his jaw as he grinds his teeth together, trying to halt the spew of guttural sounds he can feel rising in his throat.
I've a Halloween story brewing up as well which I'll post once I've had a bit of sleep. ^-^
Happy Halloween everyone!