Happy Holidays, Villainny!
Title: ALL HALLOW'S EVE
Recipient: Nny (villainny)
Author: hsavinien
Rating: PG-13 (warning for language and young men)
Pairing: Legal!Brian/Wensleydale
Notes: Happy Christmas/winter holiday of your preference, Nny! I had great fun with your “holiday” prompt, but Brian refused to tell me the story of what happened at Christmas, so you get an earlier holiday... Thanks to girlfriend!beta for tolerating several weeks of “how does this paragraph sound?”
Summary: In which there are endings, as befits the time, and beginnings, as befits our theme
.
***
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
ADAM - an antichrist and University student (Humanities)
PEPPER - a part time auto mechanic and continual University student (Justice and Peace Studies)
WENSLEYDALE - a University student (Law) and intern focusing on non-profits and aid organizations
BRIAN - likewise, a University student (Ecology) and OUR HERO
***
It was Brian’s idea of a perfect holiday, albeit one with trappings imported from the United States. There was stuffing oneself with sweets until one was sick all over the pavement, and being somebody else for a day (but then being able to go right back to being himself, without any danger of getting stuck that way.) And pranks. Sure, they were a bit childish now, especially as the Them were off to University for their second year, but festooning some old tosser’s car or front garden with loo roll still hadn’t ceased to be entertaining, especially when they were washing the chocolates and toffees and sugar down with a pint every few streets.
Adam had declared that they were not too old for dressing up, by a long shot, and the Them had attended lecture and, in Pepper and Wensley’s case, part time jobs, in their costumes before going out for the evening. Granted, Pepper’s hadn’t been really different from what she normally wore to the garage, since her green coverall fit the part as it was, but the addition of the flowery shirt underneath and the bright paper umbrella that Brian had located in a Chinese antiques shop fixed her up. The streaks of motor oil that she picked up during her work shift completed the costume, really.
Adam had contemplated the idea of going as Eddie Izzard, but he didn’t look like Izzard when he’d tried on the spangly white frock in the Salvation Army. He just looked very, very pretty, golden and almost disturbingly angelic. If Brian hadn’t already known that he, personally, was poofy as a feather duvet, he would have been having serious doubts about his sexuality. Adam resigned himself, however, and spent the day as a gentleman pirate. If Johnny Depp were blond and a bit younger, Adam would have made a good stand-in. Anyway, this way he got to wave a rapier around all day, which pleased him better than the idea of memorizing comedy routines anyway. Brian suspected that he’d borrowed the sword (without permission) from the fencing club.
Brian had developed a taste for comics...well, never lost it, rather, and through that got into an author named Gaiman. He picked up a battered, dark greatcoat and great, trompy, black leather boots, got Wensley to figure out how to tie a cravat, and declared himself to be the Marquis de Carabas. No one really caught the reference, but that was all right.
Wensley, now... Brian had to gulp and focus on the floor every time he saw or even thought of Wensley. Though he hadn’t read the books, he had gone to see the film with Wensleydale when it first came out (and Adam and Pepper were off to see the Lord of the Rings for the fourth time.) The worn, dusty-looking black waistcoat and breeches, with a brown coat over top and a scrubby-looking neck-cloth, Wensley assured him, fit in well with the book description, though he left off the tie-wig and simply cropped his hair short. Oddly handsome though Paul Bettany was, Wens made Doctor Maturin into something slight and precise and pointed and quick that Brian so wanted to touch... But no. He would make Wensley uncomfortable. So he didn’t touch, and tried not to look too long.
Brian and Adam picked up Pepper from the garage at five in Adam’s horrible old van, then dropped by the curry take-out window for supper before stopping by the law office to collect Wensleydale. He clambered into the back seat next to Brian, slamming the door twice before the latch caught. Brian passed over his dinner as Adam talked the van into starting again and they were off. Wens looked a little tired, rubbing the crease between his eyebrows, but he answered cheerfully enough when Adam called for suggestions on where to stop first.
The last time Wensley’d gone in to get new specs, he’d chosen small, circular metal frames that looked old-fashioned and should’ve been incredibly silly, but weren’t. They fogged over as he opened the waxed paper curry bag. Brian swallowed hard and stared intently at his chips, dropping his eyes away from his friend’s face. He mangled a bit of chip, resisting the urge to steal the glasses and drag his thumbs across the lenses, smearing the fog away and marking them with grease.
Instead, he said, quietly, not disturbing Adam and Pepper’s conversation in the front, “Tell me about Hallowe’en.”
Wensley nodded, swallowed a mouthful of curry and started talking. Some of it Brian remembered vaguely, from articles in the New Aquarian, about Samhain and seasons and the harvest fires. Wensley glanced at him a couple of times, quickly, without turning his head. He told Brian about the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls and El Día de los Muertos. Brian nodded once in a while, focusing on the quiet authority of Wensleydale’s voice more than the words.
“All right, we’re here,” Adam called from the front, slipping the van up to the kerb with a rattle and a clunk as he set the handbrake. “Want to split up? People get a bit tetchy about four uni kids wandering around asking for sweets, but two should be less threatening.”
Pepper growled something dire about the fate of anyone who called the police on them, but climbed out quickly enough. She snagged Adam’s elbow in one hand and swung the umbrella up on her shoulder with the other, striding authoritatively down the street. Adam’s crackling, electric laughter trailed after them.
Wens stashed his briefcase under the seat and met Brian behind the van. Brian blinked a little dazedly and stared at the ground in silence, trying to come up with something intelligent to say. He couldn’t think of anything.
Wens coughed. “Er. Shall we go this way, then?”
“Awright,” he said, miserably.
They walked in silence, not touching, their steps slowly falling into rhythm as they crunched through the fallen leaves.
“Brian,” Wensley said, finally, “what’s gone wrong?”
“Hunh?”
“Something’s - I don’t know - off. It has been for a while.”
“Dunno what you mean,” Brian mumbled. He kicked at the pavement as he walked, sending up little clouds of the yellow and red leaves.
“Look,” Wensleydale said harshly, suddenly right there in Brian’s face, one hand hard on his upper arm, swinging him ‘round and making him stumble. “This isn’t funny. It’s not a joke, Brian. I don’t know what kind of shite you’re dealing with, but you had better fucking well not take it out on me.”
He gulped, suddenly realizing that Wensley was as tall as he was. It was something of a surprise. “Er...” And Wens was using swears that hadn’t come out of that mouth lightly since they were newly-minted teenage idiots. “Er...”
“What’s the problem? I’m bloody sick of you getting twitchy every time you look at me!”
It was probably the sharp edge of hurt in Wensley’s voice more than anything else that made Brian crack. The bit of him theoretically known as his brain had given over to a habitat for hyperactive squirrels and he honestly couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I...I fancy you. A lot. And...” He sat down on the pavement in a heap of elbows and knees, hiding in his coat. “I don’t want to mess you about. I was trying not to.” He tried to disappear into a convenient lamp-post, but it didn’t work.
There was a pause. Brian was pretty sure he was going to be sick in the gutter and he hadn’t even had any sweets or liquor yet, which wasn’t fair at all.
The blow swiped across the top of his head and, despite a bit of a sting, felt more like a hair-ruffle than an attempt to kill one’s friend for scarring minds and ruining friendships. “Daft bugger.” And that was Wensley’s voice, sounding amused and relieved and not uncomfortable at all.
Wensley’s hands, long and wiry, the chubbiness of childhood long since burned away, tugged Brian's arms away from his face. When he chanced a glance up from his protective huddle, he was fixated by a sharp glint in Wens’s specs. No...the glint came from behind them. Wensley was gazing at him in a way that looked contented, but also somehow hungry. Brian felt it himself, suddenly, bright and hot in the pit of his stomach, burning away the sick feeling in a second. “Oh,” he said, belatedly, glad suddenly that he was sitting down.
Wens folded his fingers into Brian’s cravat carefully, putting the folds of cloth into disarray. Then, again too quickly for Brian to work out what was happening, he was down on the pavement as well, kneeling in front of Brian and pressing him against the lamp-post. The rough metal bit into his back through his coat, but it didn’t really matter, because Wensley’s mouth was rough and hot against his and the hunger flamed bright through both of them.
“Oh,” Brian said again, blankly, once they’d stopped for air. “Wow. That’s good, then.”
“Yes, it is,” Wensley replied, looking very pleased with himself and slightly pink-faced and not the distant, sharp man he’d seemed recently, but the friend Brian had grown up with. It was brilliant. He told Wensley as much.
“A bit more than that, I believe.”
“Well, ‘course.” Brian levered himself up off the ground with the help of his lamp-post and pulled Wensleydale up after him. He grinned and raked a hand through his hair. “Right.” He beamed around at the evening in general and Wensley in particular. “Right. Shall we go after some sweets, then? For now, at least.”
Wensley prodded him sharply in the arm, but he was smiling too. “For now.”
***
Author’s post script. The Them’s costumes, for those who didn’t guess.
Pepper - Kaylee Frye: Joss Whedon tv show Firefly, film Serenity.
Adam - gentleman pirate.
Brian - The Marquis de Carabas: Neil Gaiman novel Neverwhere.
Wensleydale - Doctor Stephen Maturin y Domanova: Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin novels, film Master and Commander.
Happy Holidays, villainny, from your Secret Writer!
Recipient: Nny (villainny)
Author: hsavinien
Rating: PG-13 (warning for language and young men)
Pairing: Legal!Brian/Wensleydale
Notes: Happy Christmas/winter holiday of your preference, Nny! I had great fun with your “holiday” prompt, but Brian refused to tell me the story of what happened at Christmas, so you get an earlier holiday... Thanks to girlfriend!beta for tolerating several weeks of “how does this paragraph sound?”
Summary: In which there are endings, as befits the time, and beginnings, as befits our theme
.
***
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
ADAM - an antichrist and University student (Humanities)
PEPPER - a part time auto mechanic and continual University student (Justice and Peace Studies)
WENSLEYDALE - a University student (Law) and intern focusing on non-profits and aid organizations
BRIAN - likewise, a University student (Ecology) and OUR HERO
***
It was Brian’s idea of a perfect holiday, albeit one with trappings imported from the United States. There was stuffing oneself with sweets until one was sick all over the pavement, and being somebody else for a day (but then being able to go right back to being himself, without any danger of getting stuck that way.) And pranks. Sure, they were a bit childish now, especially as the Them were off to University for their second year, but festooning some old tosser’s car or front garden with loo roll still hadn’t ceased to be entertaining, especially when they were washing the chocolates and toffees and sugar down with a pint every few streets.
Adam had declared that they were not too old for dressing up, by a long shot, and the Them had attended lecture and, in Pepper and Wensley’s case, part time jobs, in their costumes before going out for the evening. Granted, Pepper’s hadn’t been really different from what she normally wore to the garage, since her green coverall fit the part as it was, but the addition of the flowery shirt underneath and the bright paper umbrella that Brian had located in a Chinese antiques shop fixed her up. The streaks of motor oil that she picked up during her work shift completed the costume, really.
Adam had contemplated the idea of going as Eddie Izzard, but he didn’t look like Izzard when he’d tried on the spangly white frock in the Salvation Army. He just looked very, very pretty, golden and almost disturbingly angelic. If Brian hadn’t already known that he, personally, was poofy as a feather duvet, he would have been having serious doubts about his sexuality. Adam resigned himself, however, and spent the day as a gentleman pirate. If Johnny Depp were blond and a bit younger, Adam would have made a good stand-in. Anyway, this way he got to wave a rapier around all day, which pleased him better than the idea of memorizing comedy routines anyway. Brian suspected that he’d borrowed the sword (without permission) from the fencing club.
Brian had developed a taste for comics...well, never lost it, rather, and through that got into an author named Gaiman. He picked up a battered, dark greatcoat and great, trompy, black leather boots, got Wensley to figure out how to tie a cravat, and declared himself to be the Marquis de Carabas. No one really caught the reference, but that was all right.
Wensley, now... Brian had to gulp and focus on the floor every time he saw or even thought of Wensley. Though he hadn’t read the books, he had gone to see the film with Wensleydale when it first came out (and Adam and Pepper were off to see the Lord of the Rings for the fourth time.) The worn, dusty-looking black waistcoat and breeches, with a brown coat over top and a scrubby-looking neck-cloth, Wensley assured him, fit in well with the book description, though he left off the tie-wig and simply cropped his hair short. Oddly handsome though Paul Bettany was, Wens made Doctor Maturin into something slight and precise and pointed and quick that Brian so wanted to touch... But no. He would make Wensley uncomfortable. So he didn’t touch, and tried not to look too long.
Brian and Adam picked up Pepper from the garage at five in Adam’s horrible old van, then dropped by the curry take-out window for supper before stopping by the law office to collect Wensleydale. He clambered into the back seat next to Brian, slamming the door twice before the latch caught. Brian passed over his dinner as Adam talked the van into starting again and they were off. Wens looked a little tired, rubbing the crease between his eyebrows, but he answered cheerfully enough when Adam called for suggestions on where to stop first.
The last time Wensley’d gone in to get new specs, he’d chosen small, circular metal frames that looked old-fashioned and should’ve been incredibly silly, but weren’t. They fogged over as he opened the waxed paper curry bag. Brian swallowed hard and stared intently at his chips, dropping his eyes away from his friend’s face. He mangled a bit of chip, resisting the urge to steal the glasses and drag his thumbs across the lenses, smearing the fog away and marking them with grease.
Instead, he said, quietly, not disturbing Adam and Pepper’s conversation in the front, “Tell me about Hallowe’en.”
Wensley nodded, swallowed a mouthful of curry and started talking. Some of it Brian remembered vaguely, from articles in the New Aquarian, about Samhain and seasons and the harvest fires. Wensley glanced at him a couple of times, quickly, without turning his head. He told Brian about the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls and El Día de los Muertos. Brian nodded once in a while, focusing on the quiet authority of Wensleydale’s voice more than the words.
“All right, we’re here,” Adam called from the front, slipping the van up to the kerb with a rattle and a clunk as he set the handbrake. “Want to split up? People get a bit tetchy about four uni kids wandering around asking for sweets, but two should be less threatening.”
Pepper growled something dire about the fate of anyone who called the police on them, but climbed out quickly enough. She snagged Adam’s elbow in one hand and swung the umbrella up on her shoulder with the other, striding authoritatively down the street. Adam’s crackling, electric laughter trailed after them.
Wens stashed his briefcase under the seat and met Brian behind the van. Brian blinked a little dazedly and stared at the ground in silence, trying to come up with something intelligent to say. He couldn’t think of anything.
Wens coughed. “Er. Shall we go this way, then?”
“Awright,” he said, miserably.
They walked in silence, not touching, their steps slowly falling into rhythm as they crunched through the fallen leaves.
“Brian,” Wensley said, finally, “what’s gone wrong?”
“Hunh?”
“Something’s - I don’t know - off. It has been for a while.”
“Dunno what you mean,” Brian mumbled. He kicked at the pavement as he walked, sending up little clouds of the yellow and red leaves.
“Look,” Wensleydale said harshly, suddenly right there in Brian’s face, one hand hard on his upper arm, swinging him ‘round and making him stumble. “This isn’t funny. It’s not a joke, Brian. I don’t know what kind of shite you’re dealing with, but you had better fucking well not take it out on me.”
He gulped, suddenly realizing that Wensley was as tall as he was. It was something of a surprise. “Er...” And Wens was using swears that hadn’t come out of that mouth lightly since they were newly-minted teenage idiots. “Er...”
“What’s the problem? I’m bloody sick of you getting twitchy every time you look at me!”
It was probably the sharp edge of hurt in Wensley’s voice more than anything else that made Brian crack. The bit of him theoretically known as his brain had given over to a habitat for hyperactive squirrels and he honestly couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I...I fancy you. A lot. And...” He sat down on the pavement in a heap of elbows and knees, hiding in his coat. “I don’t want to mess you about. I was trying not to.” He tried to disappear into a convenient lamp-post, but it didn’t work.
There was a pause. Brian was pretty sure he was going to be sick in the gutter and he hadn’t even had any sweets or liquor yet, which wasn’t fair at all.
The blow swiped across the top of his head and, despite a bit of a sting, felt more like a hair-ruffle than an attempt to kill one’s friend for scarring minds and ruining friendships. “Daft bugger.” And that was Wensley’s voice, sounding amused and relieved and not uncomfortable at all.
Wensley’s hands, long and wiry, the chubbiness of childhood long since burned away, tugged Brian's arms away from his face. When he chanced a glance up from his protective huddle, he was fixated by a sharp glint in Wens’s specs. No...the glint came from behind them. Wensley was gazing at him in a way that looked contented, but also somehow hungry. Brian felt it himself, suddenly, bright and hot in the pit of his stomach, burning away the sick feeling in a second. “Oh,” he said, belatedly, glad suddenly that he was sitting down.
Wens folded his fingers into Brian’s cravat carefully, putting the folds of cloth into disarray. Then, again too quickly for Brian to work out what was happening, he was down on the pavement as well, kneeling in front of Brian and pressing him against the lamp-post. The rough metal bit into his back through his coat, but it didn’t really matter, because Wensley’s mouth was rough and hot against his and the hunger flamed bright through both of them.
“Oh,” Brian said again, blankly, once they’d stopped for air. “Wow. That’s good, then.”
“Yes, it is,” Wensley replied, looking very pleased with himself and slightly pink-faced and not the distant, sharp man he’d seemed recently, but the friend Brian had grown up with. It was brilliant. He told Wensley as much.
“A bit more than that, I believe.”
“Well, ‘course.” Brian levered himself up off the ground with the help of his lamp-post and pulled Wensleydale up after him. He grinned and raked a hand through his hair. “Right.” He beamed around at the evening in general and Wensley in particular. “Right. Shall we go after some sweets, then? For now, at least.”
Wensley prodded him sharply in the arm, but he was smiling too. “For now.”
***
Author’s post script. The Them’s costumes, for those who didn’t guess.
Pepper - Kaylee Frye: Joss Whedon tv show Firefly, film Serenity.
Adam - gentleman pirate.
Brian - The Marquis de Carabas: Neil Gaiman novel Neverwhere.
Wensleydale - Doctor Stephen Maturin y Domanova: Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin novels, film Master and Commander.
Happy Holidays, villainny, from your Secret Writer!