fic 34 - Churches. [jesse/john]
title: Churches.
fandom: Taking Back Sunday/Straylight Run/Brand New
pairings: Jesse Lacey/John Nolan
rating: PG-13
synopsis: Five things which happened in churches and a few which didn't. / A history of a relationship over many years.
author's note: To make up for coming back with HP fic. No names used because I'm stylish like that. It should be pretty clear though. Second person adressee is John.
word count: 1400w approx.
1.
You’re standing at the front of the church. You haven’t stood in front of a congregation since christingle services as a kid. This time you’re not holding an orange impaled with cloves and cocktail sticks loaded with sweets. You’re wearing a suit, the suit your father married your mother in. This time it’s you who’s getting married. Your wife-to-be is standing next to you and at your elbow’s your best man (who is not your best man). Your real best man is sat halfway back on the end of a row, a late arrival. You know this because your sister whispered it in your ear minutes before the organ started playing and the actors in this ancient theatrical rite fell into their positions, waiting for their cue (to stand, to cheer, to object). You can just about see him, the top of his head, but if you hadn’t been told he was there you wouldn’t have believed it.
Your actual best man-the one at your elbow-exchanges a smile with you as the bride approaches down the wide aisle. The best man you’d asked, time and time again,-the one who told you he ‘probably couldn’t make it’ even when you offered a change of date-isn’t smiling at you. From what you can tell he’s not even looking at anything other than the floor, all you can see is the top of his head (tilted earthward as if in mourning or prayer) and his untidy hair.
When the time comes to give objections none are given. You are almost surprised, almost sad. You almost wanted him to object. But he’s never had a word to say on the subject of your marriage-or not a word that means anything anyway.
5.
Another time. Another place. Another church. You’re handing out the monthly church newsletter (dates of special services, obituaries of parishioners, an advert for the church choir). You’re nine years old. Your younger sister stands on the other side of the doorway doing the same. A boy files in who you’ve never seen before. He takes a newsletter from your sister but turns toward you instead and smiles. You think the smile is expressing sympathy, poor kid. It’s your father’s church.
He sits near the back of the church in an empty pew. You look back at him once or twice from your seat near the front. His eyes are closed and you aren’t sure whether he’s listening at all.
4.
He is now fifteen years old. You know he must be, or thereabouts, because you see him at school now sometimes. He’s loitering in the graveyard outside your father’s church. It is not yet dawn. You are cleaning the church because the woman who normally does Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays has fallen and slipped a disc.
By the time the sun comes up rain is falling light as cold mist. By the time he realises this he’s already pretty wet. He comes inside, stands in the doorway and says: mind if I wait here? You don’t have a response so you don’t give him one, nor do you ask what he’s waiting for. He takes your silence for affirmation and sits in one of the pews watching you clean. You barely look around.
He asks what music you like. You don’t answer. He tells you what he likes. You smile as you dust the pulpit but he doesn’t see it.
You walk to school together. You don’t realise that this was what he was waiting for. You learn his name. He learns yours. You’re in the same grade. You’ve seen him in corridors sometimes. But you don’t have any classes together.
3.
He appears in the doorway of the church again one weekend. The service is already over. He smiles as he tells you that he didn’t go to church with his family this morning. You think that they must have thought he was coming here not because he normally tells them that or because he’s ever done this before but because you used to go to other churches with friends sometimes. Secretly, you consider him a friend.
He tells you he’ll go to confessional later so don’t worry. You can skip church as much as you want so long as you apologise later, he says. You can’t tell if he’s joking and you’d never pegged him as a Catholic (but you never could tell with him).
Your father comes over. He reminds you of earth and stone, pastoral things; not fatherly things like games or books or beer. Your father introduces himself and says hello, I haven’t seen you here before. Your father smiles at the pair of you. You tell your father that he’s a friend from school and then feel embarrassed because you’ve never called him your friend before.
Once you’ve made your excuses and got away, he pulls your around the corner, out of site of the door, and kisses you. He tastes like sherbet and feels like dragging your teeth along the D string of an acoustic.
2.
17 is a good year. Most of 17 seems like summer and the only piece of winter is Christmas and New Year with a cousin who’s older and plays the guitar better than anyone you know, teaches you new chords and makes you mix tapes the best of which you make copies of and give to him (your friend who you still don‘t know if you should call a friend) after the holidays, pretending they’re your own.
17 is also the year his big brother gets married. You sit in the second row back on the groom’s side and play footsie, intertwine fingers and put hands in each other’s pockets. A few people notice but no one tells you to stop. You see this as a sort of triumph.
Neither of you think the bride is pretty but he says his brother isn’t either.
After the church service you steal alcohol from the party and leave, unnoticed, by going one-at-a-time to the toilets near the exit then sneaking out of the door. You go first.
By eleven o’clock you’re both sat on the steps of a church neither of you have ever attended. It’s got a notice board free of notices except for a pun, a bad one. You drink your loot and kiss with lips tingling with alcohol and rebellion.
1.
No objections are given so you take the ring from the hand of the man who is not your best man and say those two fatal words.
At the after party you do your bit. You talk to your wife’s aunts, her parents, your aunt, your mother (who cries), the cousin whose mix tapes you stole. He talks to your high school friends but not to his replacement (the second best man).
He ducks out early.
He sits on the steps of a church with bad puns on its notice board and drinks legally. He finds a man with legs that are thinner than yours and with eyes which don’t need anything to help them see and he goes home with him and pretends it’s all the same.
0.
You don’t stop spending time with him and one time he tells you that he’s thinking of going to confessional to tell them he’s in love with a married man. You don’t know if he’s joking and you’re still in doubt as to whether he might be Catholic.
Your father doesn’t have a church anymore but you revisit the building it used to be in and your wife takes photographs of you there. You give one to him. In the photograph, you’re stood against the wall where he first kissed you and you’ve hidden your left hand behind your back.
He asks you if you’re happy. You don’t know how to respond, so you don’t. He says he’s sure you made the right decision. You don’t smile until you’re sure he’s not looking.
It doesn’t occur to you that nothing but the ring on your finger and the lines on both your faces has changed but it probably does to him.
fandom: Taking Back Sunday/Straylight Run/Brand New
pairings: Jesse Lacey/John Nolan
rating: PG-13
synopsis: Five things which happened in churches and a few which didn't. / A history of a relationship over many years.
author's note: To make up for coming back with HP fic. No names used because I'm stylish like that. It should be pretty clear though. Second person adressee is John.
word count: 1400w approx.
1.
You’re standing at the front of the church. You haven’t stood in front of a congregation since christingle services as a kid. This time you’re not holding an orange impaled with cloves and cocktail sticks loaded with sweets. You’re wearing a suit, the suit your father married your mother in. This time it’s you who’s getting married. Your wife-to-be is standing next to you and at your elbow’s your best man (who is not your best man). Your real best man is sat halfway back on the end of a row, a late arrival. You know this because your sister whispered it in your ear minutes before the organ started playing and the actors in this ancient theatrical rite fell into their positions, waiting for their cue (to stand, to cheer, to object). You can just about see him, the top of his head, but if you hadn’t been told he was there you wouldn’t have believed it.
Your actual best man-the one at your elbow-exchanges a smile with you as the bride approaches down the wide aisle. The best man you’d asked, time and time again,-the one who told you he ‘probably couldn’t make it’ even when you offered a change of date-isn’t smiling at you. From what you can tell he’s not even looking at anything other than the floor, all you can see is the top of his head (tilted earthward as if in mourning or prayer) and his untidy hair.
When the time comes to give objections none are given. You are almost surprised, almost sad. You almost wanted him to object. But he’s never had a word to say on the subject of your marriage-or not a word that means anything anyway.
5.
Another time. Another place. Another church. You’re handing out the monthly church newsletter (dates of special services, obituaries of parishioners, an advert for the church choir). You’re nine years old. Your younger sister stands on the other side of the doorway doing the same. A boy files in who you’ve never seen before. He takes a newsletter from your sister but turns toward you instead and smiles. You think the smile is expressing sympathy, poor kid. It’s your father’s church.
He sits near the back of the church in an empty pew. You look back at him once or twice from your seat near the front. His eyes are closed and you aren’t sure whether he’s listening at all.
4.
He is now fifteen years old. You know he must be, or thereabouts, because you see him at school now sometimes. He’s loitering in the graveyard outside your father’s church. It is not yet dawn. You are cleaning the church because the woman who normally does Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays has fallen and slipped a disc.
By the time the sun comes up rain is falling light as cold mist. By the time he realises this he’s already pretty wet. He comes inside, stands in the doorway and says: mind if I wait here? You don’t have a response so you don’t give him one, nor do you ask what he’s waiting for. He takes your silence for affirmation and sits in one of the pews watching you clean. You barely look around.
He asks what music you like. You don’t answer. He tells you what he likes. You smile as you dust the pulpit but he doesn’t see it.
You walk to school together. You don’t realise that this was what he was waiting for. You learn his name. He learns yours. You’re in the same grade. You’ve seen him in corridors sometimes. But you don’t have any classes together.
3.
He appears in the doorway of the church again one weekend. The service is already over. He smiles as he tells you that he didn’t go to church with his family this morning. You think that they must have thought he was coming here not because he normally tells them that or because he’s ever done this before but because you used to go to other churches with friends sometimes. Secretly, you consider him a friend.
He tells you he’ll go to confessional later so don’t worry. You can skip church as much as you want so long as you apologise later, he says. You can’t tell if he’s joking and you’d never pegged him as a Catholic (but you never could tell with him).
Your father comes over. He reminds you of earth and stone, pastoral things; not fatherly things like games or books or beer. Your father introduces himself and says hello, I haven’t seen you here before. Your father smiles at the pair of you. You tell your father that he’s a friend from school and then feel embarrassed because you’ve never called him your friend before.
Once you’ve made your excuses and got away, he pulls your around the corner, out of site of the door, and kisses you. He tastes like sherbet and feels like dragging your teeth along the D string of an acoustic.
2.
17 is a good year. Most of 17 seems like summer and the only piece of winter is Christmas and New Year with a cousin who’s older and plays the guitar better than anyone you know, teaches you new chords and makes you mix tapes the best of which you make copies of and give to him (your friend who you still don‘t know if you should call a friend) after the holidays, pretending they’re your own.
17 is also the year his big brother gets married. You sit in the second row back on the groom’s side and play footsie, intertwine fingers and put hands in each other’s pockets. A few people notice but no one tells you to stop. You see this as a sort of triumph.
Neither of you think the bride is pretty but he says his brother isn’t either.
After the church service you steal alcohol from the party and leave, unnoticed, by going one-at-a-time to the toilets near the exit then sneaking out of the door. You go first.
By eleven o’clock you’re both sat on the steps of a church neither of you have ever attended. It’s got a notice board free of notices except for a pun, a bad one. You drink your loot and kiss with lips tingling with alcohol and rebellion.
1.
No objections are given so you take the ring from the hand of the man who is not your best man and say those two fatal words.
At the after party you do your bit. You talk to your wife’s aunts, her parents, your aunt, your mother (who cries), the cousin whose mix tapes you stole. He talks to your high school friends but not to his replacement (the second best man).
He ducks out early.
He sits on the steps of a church with bad puns on its notice board and drinks legally. He finds a man with legs that are thinner than yours and with eyes which don’t need anything to help them see and he goes home with him and pretends it’s all the same.
0.
You don’t stop spending time with him and one time he tells you that he’s thinking of going to confessional to tell them he’s in love with a married man. You don’t know if he’s joking and you’re still in doubt as to whether he might be Catholic.
Your father doesn’t have a church anymore but you revisit the building it used to be in and your wife takes photographs of you there. You give one to him. In the photograph, you’re stood against the wall where he first kissed you and you’ve hidden your left hand behind your back.
He asks you if you’re happy. You don’t know how to respond, so you don’t. He says he’s sure you made the right decision. You don’t smile until you’re sure he’s not looking.
It doesn’t occur to you that nothing but the ring on your finger and the lines on both your faces has changed but it probably does to him.