Round One: Team Alan/Mae
Title: Four Languages That Alan Speaks
Author: moraglee
Pairing: Alan/Mae
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,076
The wood is smooth in his small hands, and the strings vibrate when he touches them. The sensation is so different from the piano that Alan is startled at first.
His father, sitting next to him, reaches over and adjusts the guitar in his hands. "Now, C," he says softly, curling Alan's fingers over the strings. The instrument feels fragile and so very strange.
When he plays, though, it's the same note that he hears on the piano and when his father plays. Somewhere, a long time ago, he remembers a woman singing, and he likes to think she's his mother. It's like she's talking to him through the instrument, and he smiles.
His father shows him another note, and another, and Alan thinks about sitting with his dad and Nick and Olivia sometime, playing music, like a family. He wonders if he can convince Nick to sing, even if he would be hopeless at it.
In five years, the guitar will be put down while Alan tries to talk Olivia into a car. It will be cold, Nick will have to help Alan fight her into the backseat, and the guitar will not be picked back up. In nine, he will play a different guitar at a barbecue and a girl will not notice what the songs are about. She will dance with someone else and Alan will try not to watch.
He does not know this now, though, and he can sit on the floor of the bedroom, strumming C, and thinking about the high voice rippling through a song.
* * *
If he is being honest, his first impression of her is the hair. It's loud, jarring, bordering on irreverent, and not something Alan normally likes. But Alan isn't usually honest, so his first impression of her is the book she brings up to the counter for him to ring up. It has been some time since he'd read On The Road, and it had sat dejectedly unsold since before he started working here - he's happy to see someone read it.
He is going to say something to that effect when he notices her shirt. "Team Edgar Linton," he says, and the corner of his mouth quirks into a smile. He looks at her hair again. "What, you don't think that Heathcliff and Catherine deserve each other?"
"Heathcliff hangs puppies! And abuses children, and all the rest," the girl says. "Who could root for him?"
The machine buzzes as Alan swipes the barcode on the book. "Edgar's critics say he's spineless and gullible."
"Sure, he might be boring, but at least he's nice." Her hand brushes his when he takes her pound notes from her. "That's more than Heathcliff has going for him, anyway."
If Nick had been there, he would have asked her if she was in the market for nice. Alan isn't Nick. "I guess Catherine is just looking for something else," he says, handing the girl her receipt and the bag.
She shrugs in what Alan presumes is agreement. "Thanks," she says.
"Have a great day," Alan says, and even though it's his script that he's been saying to customers all day, he means it. The bookshop door jangles shut behind her. Alan reaches for his book - it is a slow day - and he reads the first paragraph three times before he realizes what he's doing. The shop still holds the soft scent of peaches and the faint glow of two people talking about things they love.
* * *
He's thought about kissing her a hundred times, watching out the window of the car in the dead hours of the night. He knows that he's just Bookshop Guy to her, that he always will be, but Alan's never been good at knowing who to love.
He thinks about dates (talking over menus, sitting down next to lakes, dancing, because he can dream whatever he wants to), the kind he's had with other girls in nameless towns. It's cold in the car, and the only sound is the steady drone of the engine. Nick watches the road straight ahead, body rigid, caught in his box that often seems impenetrable. It's one of those days when if Alan was asked if demons could feel, he would not answer.
Alan slides his eyes away and rests his head on the car window, the clang of an armful of bracelets echoing in his ears.
In thirty-four days, he will hold her and appreciate the kiss. He rarely has the chance to stay with anyone long enough for them to formally break up, but one such girl had called him a control freak once, and he supposes she had a point. Still, for every one kiss there were a hundred that had never happened, and he will try to tell this to her hungry lips.
* * *
For all the languages he knows and all the lies he can tell, he isn't half as good at telling the truth. Nick never knows what to do with the truth, so he is out of practice. He can say, "I love you," in Sumerian, or Tamil, or Middle English, and he can say it to any other girl in the world but Mae, because if he says it to Mae, it will be true.
She looks at him with fists clenched, shouting, and he can't be surprised - he'd known all along that she might react that way. It had been worth it, but that didn't make it any easier. "You could have broken my heart," she says, "and you wouldn't have cared."
Alan lets out his breath. In a way, he thinks, he's making it easier for her. She won't have to feel guilty about him anymore. Most people are open books to Alan, and she'd never felt anything more than pity for him, poor sensitive cripple that he was. It would be so easy to lie to her, to say that he wouldn't have cared, and maybe the more he says it, the more he'll believe it.
But he does care. "I couldn't have broken your heart," he tells her. "You never liked me enough for that."
It's not all of the truth, but it's some. That's all he can hope for tonight.
Author: moraglee
Pairing: Alan/Mae
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,076
The wood is smooth in his small hands, and the strings vibrate when he touches them. The sensation is so different from the piano that Alan is startled at first.
His father, sitting next to him, reaches over and adjusts the guitar in his hands. "Now, C," he says softly, curling Alan's fingers over the strings. The instrument feels fragile and so very strange.
When he plays, though, it's the same note that he hears on the piano and when his father plays. Somewhere, a long time ago, he remembers a woman singing, and he likes to think she's his mother. It's like she's talking to him through the instrument, and he smiles.
His father shows him another note, and another, and Alan thinks about sitting with his dad and Nick and Olivia sometime, playing music, like a family. He wonders if he can convince Nick to sing, even if he would be hopeless at it.
In five years, the guitar will be put down while Alan tries to talk Olivia into a car. It will be cold, Nick will have to help Alan fight her into the backseat, and the guitar will not be picked back up. In nine, he will play a different guitar at a barbecue and a girl will not notice what the songs are about. She will dance with someone else and Alan will try not to watch.
He does not know this now, though, and he can sit on the floor of the bedroom, strumming C, and thinking about the high voice rippling through a song.
* * *
If he is being honest, his first impression of her is the hair. It's loud, jarring, bordering on irreverent, and not something Alan normally likes. But Alan isn't usually honest, so his first impression of her is the book she brings up to the counter for him to ring up. It has been some time since he'd read On The Road, and it had sat dejectedly unsold since before he started working here - he's happy to see someone read it.
He is going to say something to that effect when he notices her shirt. "Team Edgar Linton," he says, and the corner of his mouth quirks into a smile. He looks at her hair again. "What, you don't think that Heathcliff and Catherine deserve each other?"
"Heathcliff hangs puppies! And abuses children, and all the rest," the girl says. "Who could root for him?"
The machine buzzes as Alan swipes the barcode on the book. "Edgar's critics say he's spineless and gullible."
"Sure, he might be boring, but at least he's nice." Her hand brushes his when he takes her pound notes from her. "That's more than Heathcliff has going for him, anyway."
If Nick had been there, he would have asked her if she was in the market for nice. Alan isn't Nick. "I guess Catherine is just looking for something else," he says, handing the girl her receipt and the bag.
She shrugs in what Alan presumes is agreement. "Thanks," she says.
"Have a great day," Alan says, and even though it's his script that he's been saying to customers all day, he means it. The bookshop door jangles shut behind her. Alan reaches for his book - it is a slow day - and he reads the first paragraph three times before he realizes what he's doing. The shop still holds the soft scent of peaches and the faint glow of two people talking about things they love.
* * *
He's thought about kissing her a hundred times, watching out the window of the car in the dead hours of the night. He knows that he's just Bookshop Guy to her, that he always will be, but Alan's never been good at knowing who to love.
He thinks about dates (talking over menus, sitting down next to lakes, dancing, because he can dream whatever he wants to), the kind he's had with other girls in nameless towns. It's cold in the car, and the only sound is the steady drone of the engine. Nick watches the road straight ahead, body rigid, caught in his box that often seems impenetrable. It's one of those days when if Alan was asked if demons could feel, he would not answer.
Alan slides his eyes away and rests his head on the car window, the clang of an armful of bracelets echoing in his ears.
In thirty-four days, he will hold her and appreciate the kiss. He rarely has the chance to stay with anyone long enough for them to formally break up, but one such girl had called him a control freak once, and he supposes she had a point. Still, for every one kiss there were a hundred that had never happened, and he will try to tell this to her hungry lips.
* * *
For all the languages he knows and all the lies he can tell, he isn't half as good at telling the truth. Nick never knows what to do with the truth, so he is out of practice. He can say, "I love you," in Sumerian, or Tamil, or Middle English, and he can say it to any other girl in the world but Mae, because if he says it to Mae, it will be true.
She looks at him with fists clenched, shouting, and he can't be surprised - he'd known all along that she might react that way. It had been worth it, but that didn't make it any easier. "You could have broken my heart," she says, "and you wouldn't have cared."
Alan lets out his breath. In a way, he thinks, he's making it easier for her. She won't have to feel guilty about him anymore. Most people are open books to Alan, and she'd never felt anything more than pity for him, poor sensitive cripple that he was. It would be so easy to lie to her, to say that he wouldn't have cared, and maybe the more he says it, the more he'll believe it.
But he does care. "I couldn't have broken your heart," he tells her. "You never liked me enough for that."
It's not all of the truth, but it's some. That's all he can hope for tonight.