Fic: Private Ventures (S&S Prompt fic)
Title: Private Ventures
Author: lost_spook
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 1303
Characters/Pairings: Copper, Silver
Warnings None. Pre-canon, 1840s.
Summary: Charles Smith is a teacher, that’s all, but his life doesn't seem to add up... (Prompt 27: copper - Power reversal & Boarding school AU)
Notes: Since the fic I originally wrote with Copper had him being rescued by Silver, I feel Copper would like me to point out that whole centuries go by when this doesn't happen. (Or I would have saved this one till later to type up, but it matched the current challenge on element_flash.)
***
Charles Smith ceased his pacing up and down behind his desk and turned to face the classroom. Attendance was low today, but then it often was. They were an uneven group in every way - varying ages and degrees of raggedness sitting at the mismatched pieces of furniture that had been dragged into use as desks. (He wondered why he had not done better; somehow he felt he should have.)
The boy at the back interrupted his thoughts by coughing yet again. Smith cast a stern glance over them all in response. Jack Higson in the front row was glowering up at him as ever, resenting having to be here. In the coming days, months or years, most of them would disappear to earn their way in the world, just to survive. Errand boys, servants, street sellers, farm hands, factory hands and so on. Yet it wasn’t those who resented being here that troubled him as much as those who were glad to be here, who enjoyed the learning. Tragically bright, he thought, but pushed the sentiment aside. A little education would stand them in good stead and, he trusted, improve their morals.
Smith straightened himself, and set about testing their progress with predictable questions, listening to and correcting their answers; he was strict but not harsh.
“Good,” he said, as Anne Sully gave the correct response to his last question. Tragically bright, yes, he thought again, moving back to write on the slate board propped up on the easel at the front, not looking at the thin, eager nine-year-old girl in the middle row. So young, so bright… He wanted to teach her more, something he hadn’t quite put into words and certainly not something he had found in any of the school books: the nature of the material world, the complex structures that lay behind everyday items - the fabric of their clothes, the board, the wooden desk, and his pocket watch. He’d tried the other day, but that wasn’t… that wasn’t… The memory of the incident, whatever it had been, slid away from him.
Why should he have these thoughts? he wondered. He wasn’t learned in such matters himself. He had studied the classics, he knew Latin and Greek; he knew history but very little of scientific pursuits.
“Sir,” said Jack suddenly. “Sir -”
Smith turned around, about to scold and stopped on seeing a stranger standing in the doorway. The man had arrived noiselessly and without knocking. His style of clothing gave little away (it was plain enough, of the middling sort, perhaps he was a clerk), but he had bright red hair and no hat in his hands.
“You don’t mind, do you?” said the visitor with a smile. “Mr… ah…?”
“Smith,” he said stiffly. His unease increased although he could not have said why. “Charles Smith. Who, pray, are you, sir?”
The stranger only leant back against the door. “Smith,” he repeated, and he seemed to be amused by the name. “Well, yes. Of course. Now, Mr Smith, if I may have a word? It is important.”
Smith glanced aside at the children, who were very carefully not watching the exchange, heads down but ears alert. “Can it not wait?”
“No, it can’t.”
“Very well.” Smith gave his class a warning look, and then stepped out into the corridor with the stranger. He shut the door behind him and drew himself up against it, using his height against the odd visitor. “Yes?”
The man tilted his head to one side as he studied him. “You really don’t know who I am, do you? You are still in there, aren’t you? But you must be…”
“You said this was important,” Smith snapped. The visitor’s behaviour was unreasonable - and yet there was something else, something that nagged at the back of his mind in a way he mistrusted. He took hold of himself and ignored that idea. “Who exactly are you, sir - and what is it that you want here?”
“Sir?” said the other and leant back against the wall and laughed quietly. “Copper, it’s me - Silver. Let me -”
“Copper?” With that, he should have been able to conclude that the man was quite definitely insane, but instead a cold fear was creeping over him, as if the door behind him had turned to ice. “Why do you call me that? Who sent you?”
Silver hesitated. “Well,” he said, and dusted down his jacket. “You know how it is. But Steel and Jet in this instance. You remember, don’t you? Time caught you with this - this disguise. This isn’t you, Copper. But then, you always did like to lecture, so I suppose I can see the attraction -”
Charles Smith faced him, determined to tell him to leave at once. He might even speak to the parish constable about the fellow. And yet he didn’t do that. Instead he pressed himself back against the door, his hand gripping the door-handle behind his back as he remembered something. Steel and Jet. That very odd couple who had come to his lodgings last night. He had already forgotten that. And now… and now…
… now some small but indestructible thing expands outwards from the back of his mind, giving the lie to his life, the years until this point… Days, not years. It has only been days. The memory of years is nothing but illusion.
“I can help,” Silver says, but Smith - Copper - isn’t listening. He is caught between two existences, different patterns of thought, two separate ways of seeing and he is lost, floundering.
Then he looks up, registering the other’s presence again. “Silver,” he says with reluctance. He needs to accept his help; the process will be simpler, much less confusing and painful, but all this time, he’s been the one to keep Silver in line. He doesn’t want to give Silver the advantage now. However, what matters is what must be done. It is the only thing that ever matters. The rest of this confusion is a lie told by Time.
“Yes,” Silver says, thankfully without any nonsense, and reaches out a hand to Copper’s arm.
Thoughts fly back and forwards between them and Copper moves free of this false existence, this trap. As soon as that is done, he pulls away from Silver. He doesn’t know what Silver might have seen in that exchange and he’s uneasy with the potential loss of his hard-won authority.
“You should dismiss your class,” says Silver and then frowns. “I wonder what happened to their real teacher?”
“I don’t know,” says Copper. Already, Smith’s existence has flown away from him, forgotten and buried more deeply than Copper had been inside a human life. “I’ll send word to the proper authorities. It will be investigated.”
“They should have called for me sooner,” Silver says. “I can’t think why they didn’t.”
You’re going to be impossible about this, aren’t you?
Silver raises his eyebrows in what is most likely supposed to be offended innocence. “Copper! I don’t know what you mean.”
“Let’s hope so,” says Copper, and turns back to the door, hesitating. He feels for a moment as if there are other things he should remember, but then he shakes that away.
Silver smiles. “Although, now that you mention it, Copper, you could try being a little more careful in future, don’t you think?”
“You know,” says Copper, who doesn’t enjoy having his own words cast back at him, “this was unfortunate, but not, I think on the level of that affair with the bridge and the soldier. Don’t you agree, Silver?”
Well, I can see you’re back to your old self, returns Silver but he’s still smiling.
Copper draws himself up and glares at Silver. “Entirely,” he says, with emphasis, and then heads back into the classroom to send the children home.
***
Author: lost_spook
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 1303
Characters/Pairings: Copper, Silver
Warnings None. Pre-canon, 1840s.
Summary: Charles Smith is a teacher, that’s all, but his life doesn't seem to add up... (Prompt 27: copper - Power reversal & Boarding school AU)
Notes: Since the fic I originally wrote with Copper had him being rescued by Silver, I feel Copper would like me to point out that whole centuries go by when this doesn't happen. (Or I would have saved this one till later to type up, but it matched the current challenge on element_flash.)
***
Charles Smith ceased his pacing up and down behind his desk and turned to face the classroom. Attendance was low today, but then it often was. They were an uneven group in every way - varying ages and degrees of raggedness sitting at the mismatched pieces of furniture that had been dragged into use as desks. (He wondered why he had not done better; somehow he felt he should have.)
The boy at the back interrupted his thoughts by coughing yet again. Smith cast a stern glance over them all in response. Jack Higson in the front row was glowering up at him as ever, resenting having to be here. In the coming days, months or years, most of them would disappear to earn their way in the world, just to survive. Errand boys, servants, street sellers, farm hands, factory hands and so on. Yet it wasn’t those who resented being here that troubled him as much as those who were glad to be here, who enjoyed the learning. Tragically bright, he thought, but pushed the sentiment aside. A little education would stand them in good stead and, he trusted, improve their morals.
Smith straightened himself, and set about testing their progress with predictable questions, listening to and correcting their answers; he was strict but not harsh.
“Good,” he said, as Anne Sully gave the correct response to his last question. Tragically bright, yes, he thought again, moving back to write on the slate board propped up on the easel at the front, not looking at the thin, eager nine-year-old girl in the middle row. So young, so bright… He wanted to teach her more, something he hadn’t quite put into words and certainly not something he had found in any of the school books: the nature of the material world, the complex structures that lay behind everyday items - the fabric of their clothes, the board, the wooden desk, and his pocket watch. He’d tried the other day, but that wasn’t… that wasn’t… The memory of the incident, whatever it had been, slid away from him.
Why should he have these thoughts? he wondered. He wasn’t learned in such matters himself. He had studied the classics, he knew Latin and Greek; he knew history but very little of scientific pursuits.
“Sir,” said Jack suddenly. “Sir -”
Smith turned around, about to scold and stopped on seeing a stranger standing in the doorway. The man had arrived noiselessly and without knocking. His style of clothing gave little away (it was plain enough, of the middling sort, perhaps he was a clerk), but he had bright red hair and no hat in his hands.
“You don’t mind, do you?” said the visitor with a smile. “Mr… ah…?”
“Smith,” he said stiffly. His unease increased although he could not have said why. “Charles Smith. Who, pray, are you, sir?”
The stranger only leant back against the door. “Smith,” he repeated, and he seemed to be amused by the name. “Well, yes. Of course. Now, Mr Smith, if I may have a word? It is important.”
Smith glanced aside at the children, who were very carefully not watching the exchange, heads down but ears alert. “Can it not wait?”
“No, it can’t.”
“Very well.” Smith gave his class a warning look, and then stepped out into the corridor with the stranger. He shut the door behind him and drew himself up against it, using his height against the odd visitor. “Yes?”
The man tilted his head to one side as he studied him. “You really don’t know who I am, do you? You are still in there, aren’t you? But you must be…”
“You said this was important,” Smith snapped. The visitor’s behaviour was unreasonable - and yet there was something else, something that nagged at the back of his mind in a way he mistrusted. He took hold of himself and ignored that idea. “Who exactly are you, sir - and what is it that you want here?”
“Sir?” said the other and leant back against the wall and laughed quietly. “Copper, it’s me - Silver. Let me -”
“Copper?” With that, he should have been able to conclude that the man was quite definitely insane, but instead a cold fear was creeping over him, as if the door behind him had turned to ice. “Why do you call me that? Who sent you?”
Silver hesitated. “Well,” he said, and dusted down his jacket. “You know how it is. But Steel and Jet in this instance. You remember, don’t you? Time caught you with this - this disguise. This isn’t you, Copper. But then, you always did like to lecture, so I suppose I can see the attraction -”
Charles Smith faced him, determined to tell him to leave at once. He might even speak to the parish constable about the fellow. And yet he didn’t do that. Instead he pressed himself back against the door, his hand gripping the door-handle behind his back as he remembered something. Steel and Jet. That very odd couple who had come to his lodgings last night. He had already forgotten that. And now… and now…
… now some small but indestructible thing expands outwards from the back of his mind, giving the lie to his life, the years until this point… Days, not years. It has only been days. The memory of years is nothing but illusion.
“I can help,” Silver says, but Smith - Copper - isn’t listening. He is caught between two existences, different patterns of thought, two separate ways of seeing and he is lost, floundering.
Then he looks up, registering the other’s presence again. “Silver,” he says with reluctance. He needs to accept his help; the process will be simpler, much less confusing and painful, but all this time, he’s been the one to keep Silver in line. He doesn’t want to give Silver the advantage now. However, what matters is what must be done. It is the only thing that ever matters. The rest of this confusion is a lie told by Time.
“Yes,” Silver says, thankfully without any nonsense, and reaches out a hand to Copper’s arm.
Thoughts fly back and forwards between them and Copper moves free of this false existence, this trap. As soon as that is done, he pulls away from Silver. He doesn’t know what Silver might have seen in that exchange and he’s uneasy with the potential loss of his hard-won authority.
“You should dismiss your class,” says Silver and then frowns. “I wonder what happened to their real teacher?”
“I don’t know,” says Copper. Already, Smith’s existence has flown away from him, forgotten and buried more deeply than Copper had been inside a human life. “I’ll send word to the proper authorities. It will be investigated.”
“They should have called for me sooner,” Silver says. “I can’t think why they didn’t.”
You’re going to be impossible about this, aren’t you?
Silver raises his eyebrows in what is most likely supposed to be offended innocence. “Copper! I don’t know what you mean.”
“Let’s hope so,” says Copper, and turns back to the door, hesitating. He feels for a moment as if there are other things he should remember, but then he shakes that away.
Silver smiles. “Although, now that you mention it, Copper, you could try being a little more careful in future, don’t you think?”
“You know,” says Copper, who doesn’t enjoy having his own words cast back at him, “this was unfortunate, but not, I think on the level of that affair with the bridge and the soldier. Don’t you agree, Silver?”
Well, I can see you’re back to your old self, returns Silver but he’s still smiling.
Copper draws himself up and glares at Silver. “Entirely,” he says, with emphasis, and then heads back into the classroom to send the children home.
***