(no subject)
I do not need this fic idea in my head because how many of my goals for the last month have I achieved? Zero. I actually have more unfinished fics in gdocs than when I started the month. I also know much less about the Vietnam War than I would need to in order to make this work, because yes, this fic that is trying so fucking hard to exist in my head is a Vietnam War AU. I'm hoping maybe if I meta about it, it'll go away? That or I'll end up falling so in love with it that I have to crack open a new gdoc.
(If this reads like a mental ripoff of Across The Universe, well, It's the story I daydream plot out while washing dishes. I'm not claiming it's great literature.)
Okay, so it's 1969 or 1970, the draft has recently gone into effect, and Mike Carden has come upon financial difficulties, I'm not exactly sure how, but they neccesitate his dropping out of college. He does so, and in the in-between time where he's working and hoping really hard he won't get drafted, he meets incoming freshman Kevin Jonas, fresh out of New Jersey and wowed by being alone in a new city for the first time in his life.
Kevin's family is conservative, supports the war, and has kind of been leaning on him to enlist, but Kevin has always known he's *different* from the rest of his family, and he figures not going off to war is a good way to officially differentiate himself without disappointing them too badly. Plus it has the added bonus of, you know, not getting him killed. As plans go, attending a respectable school hundreds of miles away seems like a pretty good one to Kevin.
Mike is like no one he's ever met, and after the innitial fumbling of intentions, they get pretty serious pretty fast, more caught up in each other than the turmoil of the world around them. It's why they are in for such a shock when Mike's draft notice comes.
There is discussion f Mike's leaking the country, but he doesn't want to leave his family behind, and it all seems like too much, and before he knows it he's being shipped off.
Before he goes, Kevin talks about how maybe he should enlist, too, but Mike tells him not to be stupid. "The last thing this war needs is more cannon-fodder." Mike tells him that what he should do is stick around in school, keep himself safe, and get involved with the protest movement.
In his most honest mind, Mike doesn't believe that the protesters are going to achieve much of anything, but the one time he marched with them, he'd felt a kind of energy, something he couldn't explain, so who knows? Besides, Kevin looks like he needs something to believe in, so Mike tells him, "That's where the real difference is going to be made. That's where the real heroes are." He kisses Kevin's temple. "Help them bring us all home."
Mike gets sent off to training and whatever else you do when you're drafted, seriously, I don't know nearly enough about any of the things I'd need to know to actually write this thing, so it's a good thing I've decided I'm not going to. In the meantime, Kevin does join an anti-war protest group, starts helping with organizing things, gets into the inner workings of the group, and slowly starts transforming into someone his family wouldn't even recognize.
He calls home and talks to Nick, who's as upright as ever, who's planning on going to school as an ROTC, trying to end up an officer in the army, Joe who's so carefree it makes Kevin ache to think about. He loves them with everything he's got in him, but he can't help but feel grateful for the distance. He knows they'd look askance if they could see him now, hair grown out and sensible shirts from home worn untucked or even unbuttoned, out late at planning meetings at the dinner near the school, often sleeping through his earliest classes. Kevin had thought being with Mike had changed him, but fighting for Mike, it turned out, was changing him even more.
He gets letters from Mike--not as regularly as he had when Mike was in training, but every week or so, still. Long letters in a messy scrawl, filled with inappropriate jokes, bitter wit, Mike's customary biting attitude to authority (which the armed forces seemed to be brimming with), and a subtle, almost heart-wrenching warmth that pops up in the most unexpected of places. Kevin writes back faithfully, but he worries that the things he has to write about will seem trivial to Mike, who seems to be in more danger every time Kevin hears from him.
Mike, for his part, has been stationed in a fairly well populated area, at least to begin with. As such, he's fallen in with an Australian Red Cross volunteer named Michael Guy Chislett. The hit it off from the start and become nearly inseperable as time goes on. Chislett has somehow managed to bring a guitar with him, in order to boost the morale of combatants. Mike thinks it's kind of a weird idea, but he admits that his morale is boosted hugely every time Chislett lets him borrow it for a while when he's got some leave.
Meanwhile, it's been months, nearly a year that Kevin's been working with this anti-war group, marching and organizing protests and fund-raising and writing letters and anything else he's told to do, but it doesn't seem to be helping, and frankly, it's kind of killing him. The progress is slow, if it's even there at all, and Kevin feels hopelessness creep up on him.
He guesses it must be showing, a bit, during meetings, because after one gets out one evening, Ryan, a quiet guy who didn't show up nearly as often now as when Kevin had first joined pulled him aside. He'd noticed, he said, that Kevin seemed to be a little frustrated with the progress being made. He'd felt the same way, he continued,until he'd found another group. A sub-group, maybe. A sub-group with more active ideas about changing the political climate. Kevin listens, in silence, nods along, and at the end of the speech, he's still got to ask, "So why is it that you're asking me? And why now?"
Ryan hesitates for a long moment before asking, "There's someone, isn't there? Someone you're worrying about."
Kevin nods, jerky but certain. He's not about to reveal his private life, but he wouldn't deny Mike, either. He asks Ryan, "Is there someone for you, too? Is that how you got to this point?"
"There's always someone," is the only reply he recieves. "In the end, it doesn't matter much whether they're your someone or not."
...
And here is where I reveal my ridiculous Panic backstory, because it wouldn't be a product of my brain without a massive Panic backstory. If this were actual fic, I'd try to reveal this information in subtle bits and pieces as time passes, but only at appropriate moments, omitting anything not relevant to the main story. Since this is not really fic, I feel no guilt at digressing for a while (also, I may be converted to occasionally reading bden/spencer, but I'm far too set in my ways to write it just yet. Sorry for being unimaginative).
So here is what is up. Ryan, Spencer and Brendon were all friends in high school-- Ryan and Spencer were besties, of course, and Brendon sort of trailed aRound after them being kind of smit with Ryan, and became a friend kind of by osmosis. When Ryan and spencer both got into school in Chicago, Brendon followed along because his parents weren't going to be helping him with school, so really, one place was as good as another for him. I guess he was ostensibly on his Mission, but maybe I shouldn't say that, since Mormonism is another thing I know far too little about, but he may have made a few halfhearted attempts to act like a good Mormon kid on Mission, but before long he'd mostly given up.
It's hard to preach something you no longer believe, and Brendon kind of knew he was in Chicago on borrowed time, so he resolved to enjoy it. He got a job at a music shop, hung around with Ryan and Spencer, and generally lived as he wanted.
It was waiting for him to finish his shift at the music shop one day that Ryan met Jon. They hit it off, and Ryan, Spencer and Brendon had recently reallized they'd be needing a fourth roommate to keep the appartment they'd found, and before long, Jon was a pretty seamless part of their lives.
Of course, this little mental story like to bludgeon you with motifs, so it's here that we learn that Brendon, too, is drafted. It sucks. He's upset. It's also kind of freeing, though, and a couple of days before he ships out, he finally makes a move on Ryan.
It's kind of unsettling to feel so conflicted, so giddy at this new aspect to a relationship that already means so much to both of them, and yet so terrified at what is to come. When Brendon goes, they, too, proceed to embark upon an epistilotory relationship. As time goes on, Ryan Ross also gets involved in the anti-war movement, and as time goes on he gets drawn into the orbit of a group of radicals within the movement, Alex Greenwald, Z Berg, and their friends.
Spencer doesn't trust them, but Jon likes them alright, and Ryan likes spending time with people who believe in absolutes, who don't ask him to be so fair-minded all the time, like Spencer seems to expect. He doesn't always agree with their proposed methodology, though, and mostly stays on the fringes. That all changes when he gets a letter from one of Brendon's sister. Ryan's been on edge already, since it's been weeks since he heard from Brendon, and then he gets this later saying he's missing. MIA. Ryan wants to grill somebody about exactly what that means, but he's not the one they're giving information to. He's recieved a single, courtesy note from a relation who remembers that Brendon hadn't gone off to Chicago alone, and it's more than he could have reasonably expected.
After that, he no longer has so many scruples about demonstrating peacefully, about making their point without becoming hypocrites in the process. He dives into the movement headfirst, distracting himself with action rather than contemplation for the first time in his life.
He sees something of that desperation in Kevin, which is why he brings him to the meeting. It doesn't mean he really wants to go around having heart-to-hearts, though.
...and now I'm going to post this, because I'm afraid the internet is going to eat it if I don't soon. Have no fear, though (or be very afraid, depending on your personal feelings on the matter), I'll be back typing away at this nonsense tonight, I feel sure. The story isn't exactly over yet, and everybody needs a happy ending, yes? Or some kind of ending, anyway.
(If this reads like a mental ripoff of Across The Universe, well, It's the story I daydream plot out while washing dishes. I'm not claiming it's great literature.)
Okay, so it's 1969 or 1970, the draft has recently gone into effect, and Mike Carden has come upon financial difficulties, I'm not exactly sure how, but they neccesitate his dropping out of college. He does so, and in the in-between time where he's working and hoping really hard he won't get drafted, he meets incoming freshman Kevin Jonas, fresh out of New Jersey and wowed by being alone in a new city for the first time in his life.
Kevin's family is conservative, supports the war, and has kind of been leaning on him to enlist, but Kevin has always known he's *different* from the rest of his family, and he figures not going off to war is a good way to officially differentiate himself without disappointing them too badly. Plus it has the added bonus of, you know, not getting him killed. As plans go, attending a respectable school hundreds of miles away seems like a pretty good one to Kevin.
Mike is like no one he's ever met, and after the innitial fumbling of intentions, they get pretty serious pretty fast, more caught up in each other than the turmoil of the world around them. It's why they are in for such a shock when Mike's draft notice comes.
There is discussion f Mike's leaking the country, but he doesn't want to leave his family behind, and it all seems like too much, and before he knows it he's being shipped off.
Before he goes, Kevin talks about how maybe he should enlist, too, but Mike tells him not to be stupid. "The last thing this war needs is more cannon-fodder." Mike tells him that what he should do is stick around in school, keep himself safe, and get involved with the protest movement.
In his most honest mind, Mike doesn't believe that the protesters are going to achieve much of anything, but the one time he marched with them, he'd felt a kind of energy, something he couldn't explain, so who knows? Besides, Kevin looks like he needs something to believe in, so Mike tells him, "That's where the real difference is going to be made. That's where the real heroes are." He kisses Kevin's temple. "Help them bring us all home."
Mike gets sent off to training and whatever else you do when you're drafted, seriously, I don't know nearly enough about any of the things I'd need to know to actually write this thing, so it's a good thing I've decided I'm not going to. In the meantime, Kevin does join an anti-war protest group, starts helping with organizing things, gets into the inner workings of the group, and slowly starts transforming into someone his family wouldn't even recognize.
He calls home and talks to Nick, who's as upright as ever, who's planning on going to school as an ROTC, trying to end up an officer in the army, Joe who's so carefree it makes Kevin ache to think about. He loves them with everything he's got in him, but he can't help but feel grateful for the distance. He knows they'd look askance if they could see him now, hair grown out and sensible shirts from home worn untucked or even unbuttoned, out late at planning meetings at the dinner near the school, often sleeping through his earliest classes. Kevin had thought being with Mike had changed him, but fighting for Mike, it turned out, was changing him even more.
He gets letters from Mike--not as regularly as he had when Mike was in training, but every week or so, still. Long letters in a messy scrawl, filled with inappropriate jokes, bitter wit, Mike's customary biting attitude to authority (which the armed forces seemed to be brimming with), and a subtle, almost heart-wrenching warmth that pops up in the most unexpected of places. Kevin writes back faithfully, but he worries that the things he has to write about will seem trivial to Mike, who seems to be in more danger every time Kevin hears from him.
Mike, for his part, has been stationed in a fairly well populated area, at least to begin with. As such, he's fallen in with an Australian Red Cross volunteer named Michael Guy Chislett. The hit it off from the start and become nearly inseperable as time goes on. Chislett has somehow managed to bring a guitar with him, in order to boost the morale of combatants. Mike thinks it's kind of a weird idea, but he admits that his morale is boosted hugely every time Chislett lets him borrow it for a while when he's got some leave.
Meanwhile, it's been months, nearly a year that Kevin's been working with this anti-war group, marching and organizing protests and fund-raising and writing letters and anything else he's told to do, but it doesn't seem to be helping, and frankly, it's kind of killing him. The progress is slow, if it's even there at all, and Kevin feels hopelessness creep up on him.
He guesses it must be showing, a bit, during meetings, because after one gets out one evening, Ryan, a quiet guy who didn't show up nearly as often now as when Kevin had first joined pulled him aside. He'd noticed, he said, that Kevin seemed to be a little frustrated with the progress being made. He'd felt the same way, he continued,until he'd found another group. A sub-group, maybe. A sub-group with more active ideas about changing the political climate. Kevin listens, in silence, nods along, and at the end of the speech, he's still got to ask, "So why is it that you're asking me? And why now?"
Ryan hesitates for a long moment before asking, "There's someone, isn't there? Someone you're worrying about."
Kevin nods, jerky but certain. He's not about to reveal his private life, but he wouldn't deny Mike, either. He asks Ryan, "Is there someone for you, too? Is that how you got to this point?"
"There's always someone," is the only reply he recieves. "In the end, it doesn't matter much whether they're your someone or not."
...
And here is where I reveal my ridiculous Panic backstory, because it wouldn't be a product of my brain without a massive Panic backstory. If this were actual fic, I'd try to reveal this information in subtle bits and pieces as time passes, but only at appropriate moments, omitting anything not relevant to the main story. Since this is not really fic, I feel no guilt at digressing for a while (also, I may be converted to occasionally reading bden/spencer, but I'm far too set in my ways to write it just yet. Sorry for being unimaginative).
So here is what is up. Ryan, Spencer and Brendon were all friends in high school-- Ryan and Spencer were besties, of course, and Brendon sort of trailed aRound after them being kind of smit with Ryan, and became a friend kind of by osmosis. When Ryan and spencer both got into school in Chicago, Brendon followed along because his parents weren't going to be helping him with school, so really, one place was as good as another for him. I guess he was ostensibly on his Mission, but maybe I shouldn't say that, since Mormonism is another thing I know far too little about, but he may have made a few halfhearted attempts to act like a good Mormon kid on Mission, but before long he'd mostly given up.
It's hard to preach something you no longer believe, and Brendon kind of knew he was in Chicago on borrowed time, so he resolved to enjoy it. He got a job at a music shop, hung around with Ryan and Spencer, and generally lived as he wanted.
It was waiting for him to finish his shift at the music shop one day that Ryan met Jon. They hit it off, and Ryan, Spencer and Brendon had recently reallized they'd be needing a fourth roommate to keep the appartment they'd found, and before long, Jon was a pretty seamless part of their lives.
Of course, this little mental story like to bludgeon you with motifs, so it's here that we learn that Brendon, too, is drafted. It sucks. He's upset. It's also kind of freeing, though, and a couple of days before he ships out, he finally makes a move on Ryan.
It's kind of unsettling to feel so conflicted, so giddy at this new aspect to a relationship that already means so much to both of them, and yet so terrified at what is to come. When Brendon goes, they, too, proceed to embark upon an epistilotory relationship. As time goes on, Ryan Ross also gets involved in the anti-war movement, and as time goes on he gets drawn into the orbit of a group of radicals within the movement, Alex Greenwald, Z Berg, and their friends.
Spencer doesn't trust them, but Jon likes them alright, and Ryan likes spending time with people who believe in absolutes, who don't ask him to be so fair-minded all the time, like Spencer seems to expect. He doesn't always agree with their proposed methodology, though, and mostly stays on the fringes. That all changes when he gets a letter from one of Brendon's sister. Ryan's been on edge already, since it's been weeks since he heard from Brendon, and then he gets this later saying he's missing. MIA. Ryan wants to grill somebody about exactly what that means, but he's not the one they're giving information to. He's recieved a single, courtesy note from a relation who remembers that Brendon hadn't gone off to Chicago alone, and it's more than he could have reasonably expected.
After that, he no longer has so many scruples about demonstrating peacefully, about making their point without becoming hypocrites in the process. He dives into the movement headfirst, distracting himself with action rather than contemplation for the first time in his life.
He sees something of that desperation in Kevin, which is why he brings him to the meeting. It doesn't mean he really wants to go around having heart-to-hearts, though.
...and now I'm going to post this, because I'm afraid the internet is going to eat it if I don't soon. Have no fear, though (or be very afraid, depending on your personal feelings on the matter), I'll be back typing away at this nonsense tonight, I feel sure. The story isn't exactly over yet, and everybody needs a happy ending, yes? Or some kind of ending, anyway.