Fic
I was looking at my friends-of list, wondering if there was any point in posting something bandomy, and discovered that about ten bandom people have friended back my never-updated lj. So on the one hand, hi! Thanks! (Well, that goes to all friend-backers, even ones who are afraid of Pete Wentz. I'm afraid of Pete Wentz most days; I feel your pain.) On the other hand, also to the world at large, if one day you realize one post a month doesn't really count as an lj (Or if the exam period works its magic and I suddenly start posting three times a day), feel free to defriend; I mostly use lj for reading (er, I mean, for Studying Very Hard No Really), I won't be offended.
That said, seeing as I have less than four hours to listen to as many algebra video lectures as I can, I thought this would be a good time to post this. First bandom fic posted (well, unless you count WAP as bandom, and I suspect I'm the only one who does.) If there's anyone reading this who's both non-bandom AND not afraid of it -- I'm not sure that's something that exists -- I think you can understand it pretty well with no character knowledge.
Gen, AU; Ryan, Pete, Brendon, vague presences of Gerard and Patrick. 1,945 words. Thanks go to: pureblood-x for the beta, greenet for the encouragement (and being inadvertently responsible for this story), and runawaykael, who never minds my strange, context-free questions. Also for getting hung up on the raccoon, and the whole thing with the overall awesomeness.
Ryan puts the last careful line -- making sure to keep careful; it's custom work, even if he's made dozens like it before -- by the nose, bordering the stripe, and taps it, taking more care still with the words. A moment of stillness and the line twists with the rest of them, as the little raccoon shudders to life, blinking, then immediately tries to paw at Ryan's brush.
He pokes at its tiny nose, idly, then takes it up -- it's barely any bigger than his hand -- and puts it in the box, where it discovers the other animals and turns to investigate them. Everything's friendly enough, though he still takes a moment to watch them before turning back to the sketchbook. (Six months before, already a few long months after he started doing some of the smaller work himself but before Gerard trusted him with any of the real art, he'd come in to work in a foul mood, a stupid argument with Jon that escalated into actual raised voices. When his third dwarf hauled off and punched the first in the nose just two minutes after the ink was dry, Gerard only suggested that he take a break, then set him to work on the smallest possible details for the rest of the day, but Ryan still remembers the humiliation of it, and the failure; this is not art to put the worst of yourself into.)
(Later, while they were closing up, Gerard told them about how when he was younger -- he'd said younger, although Ryan has his suspicions -- he once made a six-inch vampire, because he thought it would be interesting to see what would happen. "Not one of my best ideas," he'd said, wincing and rubbing his thumb in memory. It didn't really help, except it did a little.)
He's about to start on the last future resident of the box, an unlikely-looking turtle -- Gerard's initial sketches are all at the back of the book, although Ryan hasn't needed to consult them for ages, and Gerard never minds, even encourages, the changes he sometimes includes -- when the bells over the main door rattle. That in itself doesn't really matter; it's still a bit early for customers, but dealing with people is Brendon's job. The enthusiastic greeting from the front room doesn't really register, but the answering voice does, just as enthusiastic, and Ryan half-grins to himself and goes to join them.
Pete is, as always, already poking through the shelves, looking into tiny houses and tracing showcase sketches with his fingers. Ryan used to suspect, just a little, that he was trying to pick up what he could, maybe planning to expand into their trade. He still wonders sometimes -- Pete is Pete, always looking for the next big thing -- but he's believed him the one time that Pete said, looking a bit wistful in a formless, vague way, "No, man, it's not really for me, this kind of thing. You put too much of yourself into it -- I don't like the furniture having more personality than I do."
Ryan's seen Pete putting too much of himself into making a cup of tea; it must mean something, for him to say it that way.
"Look!" Brendon says, when Ryan steps into the room, not giving him time to say good morning. "Presents!"
Pete turns to grin at Ryan, his fingers lingering on top of an enclosed piece of sky where two birds, half the size of butterflies, are swooping around their nest. Brendon's been at them again; the nest, originally built from ordinary-looking twigs on an old log at the bottom of the enclosure, now has bits of bright red cloth woven through it. Gerard probably won't mind that, either, though, and the birds seem happy enough.
"Early Christmas prototypes," Pete says, nodding towards the counter. "I told Patrick I'd use you guys as guinea pigs."
At the counter, Brendon is staring delightedly at a train -- not just a train, Ryan realizes after a second, but a true-to-life replica of the Hogwarts one; he's a little startled to realize it hasn't been long enough for him to be uncertain. As he watches, figures are passing the miniscule windows -- he thinks he can detect a metallic glint and suddenly wants, for the first time in years, a chocolate frog. Movement at the other end catches his attention; at the before-last window, a sign has been held up to the glass. It's smaller than his thumb, but he can still easily make out the writing on it; in the careful tracing of a First- or Second-year, it declares confidently, "Potter Sucks."
"Potter?" Ryan says, a little taken aback. "You made a Hogwarts train from the Voldemort years?" The train looks too new, too like his memory, but then, it hadn't changed through all of his school years; he wouldn't be surprised to discover it hasn't changed in a hundred.
"What? Oh, no," Pete says, catching sight of the sign just as it's torn away from the window, a sudden chaos of movement inside suggesting swift retribution. "Probably a relative. It models itself on the last trip to Hogwarts, so for now it'll be the beginning of the year."
Brendon leans down to peer more closely through the windows. "This is pretty awesome. You realize parents can totally use it to spy on their kids, right?"
Pete frowns. "I haven't really thought about that."
"Also," Brendon says, fascinated, "there are two Seventh years making out in this compartment -- well, I hope they're Seventh years."
"Maybe some changes to the design," Pete says, taking out his Kicker and typing on it. (The Kicker was initially a birthday present from Patrick, designed specifically to fit Pete's needs and, Ryan suspects, to satisfy Patrick's happiest wishes. People kept asking them if they had more like it, though, and in the end they gave in and started a line. It's a little disturbing, in a way -- well, it wasn't disturbing when it was just Pete, because god knows Pete needs all the handling he can get, but who knew so many people were willing to spend money on a device that would actually kick them when they failed to show up to meetings?)
"Anyway," Pete says, turning back to Ryan, "here's yours. Merry super early Christmas."
Ryan takes it -- he doesn't recognize what it's meant to be at the first moment; just a strangely-shaped sphere, uncolored and unvarnished, the wood pale and smooth in his hand. He turns it and sees the stem at the same time that he recognizes the hair-thin fracture lines, the little knobs -- it's a wooden apple, as big as two or three real ones, made entirely of what looks to be tiny drawers.
"It's a secret keeper," Pete explains. "Look." He takes it back and opens one of the bigger drawers, hooking the handle easily on a fingernail, and digs in his pocket for a minute before getting out a black button, looking at it in faint bewilderment, then shrugging and dropping it in. Then he closes the drawer and hands the apple to Brendon, who takes it with every sign of dramatic suspense and opens the drawer again, actually taking the time to look in carefully and feel the corners -- really, sometimes Ryan thinks Brendon's muggle upbringing did him some lasting harm -- before gleefully saying, "It's empty!"
Ryan's actually seen magic work before, but he isn't going to rain on their parade, and besides, it would probably be a lot cooler if he was eleven. Or Brendon. Or Pete.
Pete takes the apple and hands it to Ryan again, nodding at him to try as well, and Ryan refrains from rolling his eyes, instead just opening the drawer and glancing at the inside, already prepared to close it again.
It isn't empty; inside is a marble, the kind they used to play with when he really was eleven, and like the ones Ryan secretly liked best even then, it isn't zooming around or looking ready to knock other things out of its way. It's just sitting there, and when Ryan picks it up, he can see that inside its transparency is something other than the swirl of color he first took it to be -- it's a tiny view, like the ones they make at Way's but different, the colors more life-like, the lines more familiar. It takes a minute before he realizes what he's looking at, the path up the hill, the waving grass, the two boys walking, deep in conversation. It isn't until Spencer looks up, laughing, his face rounder and younger than Ryan knows, his smile the same even in this tiny replica, that he remembers.
He looks up at Pete, who's smiling, too, but not laughing, his eyes quiet; Pete knows none of Ryan's secrets would be loud ones. He says, "Do you like it?"
"I," Ryan says, swallows. "Yeah. It's beautiful." He wouldn't have said it was a secret if you'd asked before, wouldn't have even thought he remembered -- just a moment of his childhood, walking, smiling at Spencer's laughter, at the moving grass, happy and safe and loved; nothing you would put away and nothing you would find, ten years down the line, hidden in a gift made by newer friends. But he's already putting it back inside the drawer, careful to remember which one it is, certain it would be waiting when he opens it again. There are a lot of drawers -- if Ryan knows Patrick at all, you probably can't use the same one twice -- but he already knows he won't use them up in a hurry, that he'll stretch them out and wait and hope that all of his secrets are as good as this one.
"What, what?" Brendon says. "Let me see."
"It's a secret," Pete says, turning to him at full-on Pete mode again, reaching out to poke Brendon in the nose. Brendon makes a squeak of indignation and flails at him. "Didn't you hear?"
"Didn't your mom ever tell you about not passing secrets in company?" Brendon says, and Ryan thinks that's supposed to be about secrets that more than one person is in on, but maybe it's different for muggles. "Hey, I want one when you start selling them."
"We'll see," Pete says, turning back to look at Ryan, just a hint of that same smile, before waving his Kicker at Brendon again. "Patrick said we might just make the one after all."
Brendon huffs a little before shrugging, philosophically, and crouching down to look at his proto-present again. "Well, at least I got a spy train. And hey, you know what you guys should seriously make? Flying My Little Ponies."
Ryan wanders back into the back room to the sound of Brendon breathlessly explaining about muggle toys to a fascinated-looking Pete. He's actually seen the things before, and he's actually met Pete before; it'll end up with white ponies with sparkly wings and pink manes and black intricate tattoos all up their sides, at least until Patrick steps in and makes it into something beautiful.
He wants to make them something as thank you, except Pete doesn't like toys that have more personality than he does and Ryan wouldn't be surprised if Patrick doesn't, either. He doesn't really know how to make things that aren't alive, though.
Well. There's still time till Christmas.
He puts the apple down by his workstation, wanders back out to explain to Pete that My Little Ponies aren't really an exhibit of muggle magic.
That said, seeing as I have less than four hours to listen to as many algebra video lectures as I can, I thought this would be a good time to post this. First bandom fic posted (well, unless you count WAP as bandom, and I suspect I'm the only one who does.) If there's anyone reading this who's both non-bandom AND not afraid of it -- I'm not sure that's something that exists -- I think you can understand it pretty well with no character knowledge.
Gen, AU; Ryan, Pete, Brendon, vague presences of Gerard and Patrick. 1,945 words. Thanks go to: pureblood-x for the beta, greenet for the encouragement (and being inadvertently responsible for this story), and runawaykael, who never minds my strange, context-free questions. Also for getting hung up on the raccoon, and the whole thing with the overall awesomeness.
Ryan puts the last careful line -- making sure to keep careful; it's custom work, even if he's made dozens like it before -- by the nose, bordering the stripe, and taps it, taking more care still with the words. A moment of stillness and the line twists with the rest of them, as the little raccoon shudders to life, blinking, then immediately tries to paw at Ryan's brush.
He pokes at its tiny nose, idly, then takes it up -- it's barely any bigger than his hand -- and puts it in the box, where it discovers the other animals and turns to investigate them. Everything's friendly enough, though he still takes a moment to watch them before turning back to the sketchbook. (Six months before, already a few long months after he started doing some of the smaller work himself but before Gerard trusted him with any of the real art, he'd come in to work in a foul mood, a stupid argument with Jon that escalated into actual raised voices. When his third dwarf hauled off and punched the first in the nose just two minutes after the ink was dry, Gerard only suggested that he take a break, then set him to work on the smallest possible details for the rest of the day, but Ryan still remembers the humiliation of it, and the failure; this is not art to put the worst of yourself into.)
(Later, while they were closing up, Gerard told them about how when he was younger -- he'd said younger, although Ryan has his suspicions -- he once made a six-inch vampire, because he thought it would be interesting to see what would happen. "Not one of my best ideas," he'd said, wincing and rubbing his thumb in memory. It didn't really help, except it did a little.)
He's about to start on the last future resident of the box, an unlikely-looking turtle -- Gerard's initial sketches are all at the back of the book, although Ryan hasn't needed to consult them for ages, and Gerard never minds, even encourages, the changes he sometimes includes -- when the bells over the main door rattle. That in itself doesn't really matter; it's still a bit early for customers, but dealing with people is Brendon's job. The enthusiastic greeting from the front room doesn't really register, but the answering voice does, just as enthusiastic, and Ryan half-grins to himself and goes to join them.
Pete is, as always, already poking through the shelves, looking into tiny houses and tracing showcase sketches with his fingers. Ryan used to suspect, just a little, that he was trying to pick up what he could, maybe planning to expand into their trade. He still wonders sometimes -- Pete is Pete, always looking for the next big thing -- but he's believed him the one time that Pete said, looking a bit wistful in a formless, vague way, "No, man, it's not really for me, this kind of thing. You put too much of yourself into it -- I don't like the furniture having more personality than I do."
Ryan's seen Pete putting too much of himself into making a cup of tea; it must mean something, for him to say it that way.
"Look!" Brendon says, when Ryan steps into the room, not giving him time to say good morning. "Presents!"
Pete turns to grin at Ryan, his fingers lingering on top of an enclosed piece of sky where two birds, half the size of butterflies, are swooping around their nest. Brendon's been at them again; the nest, originally built from ordinary-looking twigs on an old log at the bottom of the enclosure, now has bits of bright red cloth woven through it. Gerard probably won't mind that, either, though, and the birds seem happy enough.
"Early Christmas prototypes," Pete says, nodding towards the counter. "I told Patrick I'd use you guys as guinea pigs."
At the counter, Brendon is staring delightedly at a train -- not just a train, Ryan realizes after a second, but a true-to-life replica of the Hogwarts one; he's a little startled to realize it hasn't been long enough for him to be uncertain. As he watches, figures are passing the miniscule windows -- he thinks he can detect a metallic glint and suddenly wants, for the first time in years, a chocolate frog. Movement at the other end catches his attention; at the before-last window, a sign has been held up to the glass. It's smaller than his thumb, but he can still easily make out the writing on it; in the careful tracing of a First- or Second-year, it declares confidently, "Potter Sucks."
"Potter?" Ryan says, a little taken aback. "You made a Hogwarts train from the Voldemort years?" The train looks too new, too like his memory, but then, it hadn't changed through all of his school years; he wouldn't be surprised to discover it hasn't changed in a hundred.
"What? Oh, no," Pete says, catching sight of the sign just as it's torn away from the window, a sudden chaos of movement inside suggesting swift retribution. "Probably a relative. It models itself on the last trip to Hogwarts, so for now it'll be the beginning of the year."
Brendon leans down to peer more closely through the windows. "This is pretty awesome. You realize parents can totally use it to spy on their kids, right?"
Pete frowns. "I haven't really thought about that."
"Also," Brendon says, fascinated, "there are two Seventh years making out in this compartment -- well, I hope they're Seventh years."
"Maybe some changes to the design," Pete says, taking out his Kicker and typing on it. (The Kicker was initially a birthday present from Patrick, designed specifically to fit Pete's needs and, Ryan suspects, to satisfy Patrick's happiest wishes. People kept asking them if they had more like it, though, and in the end they gave in and started a line. It's a little disturbing, in a way -- well, it wasn't disturbing when it was just Pete, because god knows Pete needs all the handling he can get, but who knew so many people were willing to spend money on a device that would actually kick them when they failed to show up to meetings?)
"Anyway," Pete says, turning back to Ryan, "here's yours. Merry super early Christmas."
Ryan takes it -- he doesn't recognize what it's meant to be at the first moment; just a strangely-shaped sphere, uncolored and unvarnished, the wood pale and smooth in his hand. He turns it and sees the stem at the same time that he recognizes the hair-thin fracture lines, the little knobs -- it's a wooden apple, as big as two or three real ones, made entirely of what looks to be tiny drawers.
"It's a secret keeper," Pete explains. "Look." He takes it back and opens one of the bigger drawers, hooking the handle easily on a fingernail, and digs in his pocket for a minute before getting out a black button, looking at it in faint bewilderment, then shrugging and dropping it in. Then he closes the drawer and hands the apple to Brendon, who takes it with every sign of dramatic suspense and opens the drawer again, actually taking the time to look in carefully and feel the corners -- really, sometimes Ryan thinks Brendon's muggle upbringing did him some lasting harm -- before gleefully saying, "It's empty!"
Ryan's actually seen magic work before, but he isn't going to rain on their parade, and besides, it would probably be a lot cooler if he was eleven. Or Brendon. Or Pete.
Pete takes the apple and hands it to Ryan again, nodding at him to try as well, and Ryan refrains from rolling his eyes, instead just opening the drawer and glancing at the inside, already prepared to close it again.
It isn't empty; inside is a marble, the kind they used to play with when he really was eleven, and like the ones Ryan secretly liked best even then, it isn't zooming around or looking ready to knock other things out of its way. It's just sitting there, and when Ryan picks it up, he can see that inside its transparency is something other than the swirl of color he first took it to be -- it's a tiny view, like the ones they make at Way's but different, the colors more life-like, the lines more familiar. It takes a minute before he realizes what he's looking at, the path up the hill, the waving grass, the two boys walking, deep in conversation. It isn't until Spencer looks up, laughing, his face rounder and younger than Ryan knows, his smile the same even in this tiny replica, that he remembers.
He looks up at Pete, who's smiling, too, but not laughing, his eyes quiet; Pete knows none of Ryan's secrets would be loud ones. He says, "Do you like it?"
"I," Ryan says, swallows. "Yeah. It's beautiful." He wouldn't have said it was a secret if you'd asked before, wouldn't have even thought he remembered -- just a moment of his childhood, walking, smiling at Spencer's laughter, at the moving grass, happy and safe and loved; nothing you would put away and nothing you would find, ten years down the line, hidden in a gift made by newer friends. But he's already putting it back inside the drawer, careful to remember which one it is, certain it would be waiting when he opens it again. There are a lot of drawers -- if Ryan knows Patrick at all, you probably can't use the same one twice -- but he already knows he won't use them up in a hurry, that he'll stretch them out and wait and hope that all of his secrets are as good as this one.
"What, what?" Brendon says. "Let me see."
"It's a secret," Pete says, turning to him at full-on Pete mode again, reaching out to poke Brendon in the nose. Brendon makes a squeak of indignation and flails at him. "Didn't you hear?"
"Didn't your mom ever tell you about not passing secrets in company?" Brendon says, and Ryan thinks that's supposed to be about secrets that more than one person is in on, but maybe it's different for muggles. "Hey, I want one when you start selling them."
"We'll see," Pete says, turning back to look at Ryan, just a hint of that same smile, before waving his Kicker at Brendon again. "Patrick said we might just make the one after all."
Brendon huffs a little before shrugging, philosophically, and crouching down to look at his proto-present again. "Well, at least I got a spy train. And hey, you know what you guys should seriously make? Flying My Little Ponies."
Ryan wanders back into the back room to the sound of Brendon breathlessly explaining about muggle toys to a fascinated-looking Pete. He's actually seen the things before, and he's actually met Pete before; it'll end up with white ponies with sparkly wings and pink manes and black intricate tattoos all up their sides, at least until Patrick steps in and makes it into something beautiful.
He wants to make them something as thank you, except Pete doesn't like toys that have more personality than he does and Ryan wouldn't be surprised if Patrick doesn't, either. He doesn't really know how to make things that aren't alive, though.
Well. There's still time till Christmas.
He puts the apple down by his workstation, wanders back out to explain to Pete that My Little Ponies aren't really an exhibit of muggle magic.