Original: "Hogmanay." Slash.
Summary: A year on (from this here), Stuart moves in with Charlie.
Once upon a time, if a blond man was the first to cross your thresh-hold at New Years it meant he was a Viking and he wanted to stab you to death. Today it just means that he is probably Charlie's father and he wants to eat all the canapes, but Stuart does not care.
warnings: Pigeons.
note: A peanut oat bar attacked me last Sunday and I spent the rest of the day in an diphenhydramine-induced stupor, then DEATH, and clean forgot to post this. So have a New Years (Hogmanay) story a week late! Isn't it still Sunday somewhere? HUZZAH &c.
Hogmanay
“CHARLIE,” I said, loudly because Charlie is dimmer than usual when blind with lust, “CHARLIE, there is someone at the door.”
“Phluhg?” Charlie said, less this time because he is inarticulate, and more because in my haste to sit up I’d shoved his face into the sofa cushions.
“Christ on a cracker, it’s after midnight!”
“Happy New Year,” Charlie smiled, undeterred, and pulled me, flailing, down for a rather poorly-aimed kiss, because he has the depth perception of spaghetti.
“CHARLIE,” I reiterated, thrashing free, “we have missed the fireworks.” I do not miss fireworks. They are a balm unto my beleaguered soul, tortured daily as it is by my dim, haggis-shaped uncle and awkward but admittedly fit boyfriend. Or as he shall hence be noted as: the rather attractive desk accessory that came with my new flat. This because he rarely left the desk, unless it were for the purposes of a) leaving entirely for wherever it is medical students go (presumably somewhere that smells of sick and lemon floor cleaner), b) our bed, c) the kitchen, to spread papers about like a broken glitter fairy.
Anyway. It’s not as though I’m mad for traditions. I hide plastic eggs at Easter, and the only satsumas in my stockings are made of chocolate. But some things, it’s just bad luck not to respect.
Because I am surrounded by people who seem to believe I’ve got starlight and butterflies and Jelly Babies for brains, though, everyone seems to make they extra effort to prove superstitions are a load of kitten shit. Do I care? No. If I were interested in string theory, I’d work in a yarn shop.
Which is all a very sort of roundabout introduction to what happened next, which was me throwing myself against the door before Charlie could do something impossibly dunderheaded, like open it. Luckily he was still back on the sofa, looking tousled and forlorn as a sick pomeranian, which is his default in any case, so I didn’t feel sorry for him.
“Who is it?” I shouted through the door.
“Hiyya, Stuart, it’s just Laura and Meagan with me.” Me being Charlie’s quaintly portly father, who according to photograph albums lost his good looks in his mid-forties, when he sold he soul for high season tickets to the St Andrews golf links.
Mr Gully was also, like his daughter, wife, and thusly son, incorrigibly, unrepentantly fair-haired, that sort of flat bread crust colour so favoured by chipmunks. Therefore right out of candidacy for Charlie and my first-footer. I was the only decently dark-haired one of the lot and had been too distracted by Charlie’s pantsy advances to get over the thresh-hold before midnight. My own mother and Shetland-pony-like uncle were due to visit, as well. But as everyone else in my family moves with the speed and enthusiasm of forced marchers on the Trail of Tears, even on Hogmanay, on the Trail to Beers, they had not yet arrived.
“Sorry,” I shouted through, “I’m going to have to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Stuart,” Meagan, or maybe it was Laura, opined cheerfully, in that eagerly long-suffering way Charlie and his lot have, “there is no heat on in the corridor.”
“Noisy New Years, this,” I shouted back.
“Stuart, it’s my family, stop being a dick.” Charlie had somehow made an ambush from behind and was attempting what he doubtless interpreted as a sexy wriggling attempt to pry my fingers from the doorknob.
“Charles, is that you?” his father called, sounding very much like he was splooged against the door like a woobly water toy.
“Did I mention?” I interrupted swiftly, in my very best Big Gay Hausfrau voice. “There’s a sound coming from upstairs that’s either a pigeon dying, or a couple with consumption having sex. Or maybe pigeons having sex. Every morning. Also, now. Do you hear that?”
“Stuart,” Charlie admonished in that amiably downtrodden way of his. “I am going to hit you with...with the cat. I will hit you with a baguette. With my slipper. I will muss your hair, Stuart, don’t you think I won’t.”
Charlie is horrible with threats because he has the killer instinct of a merry lambkin.
Luckily I don’t.
“Charlie, if you open that door, I will pop your eyes out with a bottle opener and feed them to the kinky pigeons. I will serve your fingers at the chippy. It will be the Cod Father. And then I will make you sleep on the little area rug in the kitchen. And no sex because the floor smells like kalamata olives.”
“Stu, that’s my...what? Olives?”
“I have been bathing myself in Greek salads for strangers on the internet, Charlie. I hate for you to find out this way, but you are just not fulfilling my feta-based fantasies.” When his face started to dribble off I added, helpfully, “You wankbiscuit, obviously I had a accident unloading the groceries. Do you not understand that if one of your Viking henchmen enters now it will curse our new home forever? Probably the oven will explode in the night, and the rescuers will find our charred remains in fellegrante delicto. Or the cat will contract a new kind of rabies and bite our throats out and turn us to Taylor Lautner. Or...or the neighbours will say rude things about our fish curtains. Is that what you want? Give it ten minutes and my lovely, dark-haired family will be here to bring us good luck and excellent home appliances.”
“Stu-pid,” Charlie sighed, which is his version of being clever, “are you just worried about us moving in together?”
“I have met lasagnas less thick than you,” I said, rather breathlessly because he was hugging me in the way he’d gotten in the habit of ever since he learnt the Heimlich manoeuvre.
“We don’t need a lucky first-footer to be happy.”
“You don’t know that, you English savage. I can’t believe I let you touch me in intimate places. Away from the door, I’m going to bite you. I’m biting you now!”
Fortunately, he liked that. It kept him off the door. Auld relations should be forgot.
Less fortunately it took my family and their lucky hair another forty-three minutes to arrive. Though this did give us extra time for some lip-luck.
Important to have some Auld Lang Sin at New Years. Tradition and that. Better safe than sorry, yeah?
Once upon a time, if a blond man was the first to cross your thresh-hold at New Years it meant he was a Viking and he wanted to stab you to death. Today it just means that he is probably Charlie's father and he wants to eat all the canapes, but Stuart does not care.
warnings: Pigeons.
note: A peanut oat bar attacked me last Sunday and I spent the rest of the day in an diphenhydramine-induced stupor, then DEATH, and clean forgot to post this. So have a New Years (Hogmanay) story a week late! Isn't it still Sunday somewhere? HUZZAH &c.
Hogmanay
“CHARLIE,” I said, loudly because Charlie is dimmer than usual when blind with lust, “CHARLIE, there is someone at the door.”
“Phluhg?” Charlie said, less this time because he is inarticulate, and more because in my haste to sit up I’d shoved his face into the sofa cushions.
“Christ on a cracker, it’s after midnight!”
“Happy New Year,” Charlie smiled, undeterred, and pulled me, flailing, down for a rather poorly-aimed kiss, because he has the depth perception of spaghetti.
“CHARLIE,” I reiterated, thrashing free, “we have missed the fireworks.” I do not miss fireworks. They are a balm unto my beleaguered soul, tortured daily as it is by my dim, haggis-shaped uncle and awkward but admittedly fit boyfriend. Or as he shall hence be noted as: the rather attractive desk accessory that came with my new flat. This because he rarely left the desk, unless it were for the purposes of a) leaving entirely for wherever it is medical students go (presumably somewhere that smells of sick and lemon floor cleaner), b) our bed, c) the kitchen, to spread papers about like a broken glitter fairy.
Anyway. It’s not as though I’m mad for traditions. I hide plastic eggs at Easter, and the only satsumas in my stockings are made of chocolate. But some things, it’s just bad luck not to respect.
Because I am surrounded by people who seem to believe I’ve got starlight and butterflies and Jelly Babies for brains, though, everyone seems to make they extra effort to prove superstitions are a load of kitten shit. Do I care? No. If I were interested in string theory, I’d work in a yarn shop.
Which is all a very sort of roundabout introduction to what happened next, which was me throwing myself against the door before Charlie could do something impossibly dunderheaded, like open it. Luckily he was still back on the sofa, looking tousled and forlorn as a sick pomeranian, which is his default in any case, so I didn’t feel sorry for him.
“Who is it?” I shouted through the door.
“Hiyya, Stuart, it’s just Laura and Meagan with me.” Me being Charlie’s quaintly portly father, who according to photograph albums lost his good looks in his mid-forties, when he sold he soul for high season tickets to the St Andrews golf links.
Mr Gully was also, like his daughter, wife, and thusly son, incorrigibly, unrepentantly fair-haired, that sort of flat bread crust colour so favoured by chipmunks. Therefore right out of candidacy for Charlie and my first-footer. I was the only decently dark-haired one of the lot and had been too distracted by Charlie’s pantsy advances to get over the thresh-hold before midnight. My own mother and Shetland-pony-like uncle were due to visit, as well. But as everyone else in my family moves with the speed and enthusiasm of forced marchers on the Trail of Tears, even on Hogmanay, on the Trail to Beers, they had not yet arrived.
“Sorry,” I shouted through, “I’m going to have to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Stuart,” Meagan, or maybe it was Laura, opined cheerfully, in that eagerly long-suffering way Charlie and his lot have, “there is no heat on in the corridor.”
“Noisy New Years, this,” I shouted back.
“Stuart, it’s my family, stop being a dick.” Charlie had somehow made an ambush from behind and was attempting what he doubtless interpreted as a sexy wriggling attempt to pry my fingers from the doorknob.
“Charles, is that you?” his father called, sounding very much like he was splooged against the door like a woobly water toy.
“Did I mention?” I interrupted swiftly, in my very best Big Gay Hausfrau voice. “There’s a sound coming from upstairs that’s either a pigeon dying, or a couple with consumption having sex. Or maybe pigeons having sex. Every morning. Also, now. Do you hear that?”
“Stuart,” Charlie admonished in that amiably downtrodden way of his. “I am going to hit you with...with the cat. I will hit you with a baguette. With my slipper. I will muss your hair, Stuart, don’t you think I won’t.”
Charlie is horrible with threats because he has the killer instinct of a merry lambkin.
Luckily I don’t.
“Charlie, if you open that door, I will pop your eyes out with a bottle opener and feed them to the kinky pigeons. I will serve your fingers at the chippy. It will be the Cod Father. And then I will make you sleep on the little area rug in the kitchen. And no sex because the floor smells like kalamata olives.”
“Stu, that’s my...what? Olives?”
“I have been bathing myself in Greek salads for strangers on the internet, Charlie. I hate for you to find out this way, but you are just not fulfilling my feta-based fantasies.” When his face started to dribble off I added, helpfully, “You wankbiscuit, obviously I had a accident unloading the groceries. Do you not understand that if one of your Viking henchmen enters now it will curse our new home forever? Probably the oven will explode in the night, and the rescuers will find our charred remains in fellegrante delicto. Or the cat will contract a new kind of rabies and bite our throats out and turn us to Taylor Lautner. Or...or the neighbours will say rude things about our fish curtains. Is that what you want? Give it ten minutes and my lovely, dark-haired family will be here to bring us good luck and excellent home appliances.”
“Stu-pid,” Charlie sighed, which is his version of being clever, “are you just worried about us moving in together?”
“I have met lasagnas less thick than you,” I said, rather breathlessly because he was hugging me in the way he’d gotten in the habit of ever since he learnt the Heimlich manoeuvre.
“We don’t need a lucky first-footer to be happy.”
“You don’t know that, you English savage. I can’t believe I let you touch me in intimate places. Away from the door, I’m going to bite you. I’m biting you now!”
Fortunately, he liked that. It kept him off the door. Auld relations should be forgot.
Less fortunately it took my family and their lucky hair another forty-three minutes to arrive. Though this did give us extra time for some lip-luck.
Important to have some Auld Lang Sin at New Years. Tradition and that. Better safe than sorry, yeah?