(no subject)
Hello internet.
God, leaving at five on friday, and it still seems like it's not happening, only it *is*, and my room's a mess, but I've got all my clothes ready, and tomorrow will be spent dedicating myself to the gods of packing. So naturally, I have lots of ideas for writing *headdesk*.I'm actually very glad to be going away when Harry Potter comes out, because I'll be reading it first for the story, before it gets wanked and complained about, and spoiled all over the place. I'm reading it as a text, not as a fandom, which I, uh, dig. I'll have important things to be doing like building sandcastles and skimming stones and shrimping *beams*, and by the time I get back, normal service might be on the way to resuming. I'll be up in Scotland, with my printout of the musician au, a notebook and my trusty fountain pen *beams*
But before I go completely, here's a fic!
Fandom: Hard Core Logo
Characters: Billie, Joe Dick
Length: 1000 words
Rating: about a PG-13, mentions of sex, possibly disturbing.
Notes: Postfilm, and Joe's still messing around with Billy's things.
She first sees him when she has chicken pox, a fractious fever-dream, soothed away by a cold cloth on her forehead. She recognises him, too, even with the haze that seems to cloud her thoughts. He was there, with other people, in a crowded room, with a man who made a monster out of a sandwich. She remembers smoke, and that he ignored her, but he sees her now, his face pale, his eyes the colour of the gas flame when her ma’s cooking, and won’t let her touch, because she says it’ll hurt her. Looks like a clown- Melanie had one at her party, who smiled all the time- but he isn’t smiling; it’s just that he has black around his eyes, red around his mouth. Something about him scares her away, and she turns and runs, doesn’t even turn back when she hears the bang.
She tells ma this, or tries to, but ma goes pale and quiet, her hand goes tight where it’s feeling her pulse, and she just tells her to go back to sleep, feeds her some more of the medicine that tastes like musty strawberries.
That summer, she plays in the creek a lot, climbs trees, skins her knees and stays out of ma and pa’s ways. A man in a suit comes to the house a bunch of times, and pa slams doors, and ma stands real still and quiet, then bakes a lot of biscuits. She doesn’t tell them she keeps having dreams, but isn’t sure why. They don’t tell her things, whisper behind closed doors, hide the mail as soon as it comes and she keeps secrets in return, hoards information, takes her hair ribbons out and knots them to the oak by the creek, tells them she lost them.
He doesn’t speak the first few times. She hears other sounds, other voices, rushing past like the freight trains a few fields away. Smells smoke, something thick, coppery, sweet. He watches her watching, reacting, like he’s picking teams for tag, finding out if she’s a good runner, if she can hide well, if she’ll laugh and give away her hiding place. She looks right back at him, juts her chin out and gives her the glare she gives to supply teachers and people her ma and pa invite for dinner, and her Aunt Meryl, who isn’t her aunt at all.
“Billie,” he says, the fourth? Fifth? Time she sees him.
“Ma says I shouldn’t talk to strangers,” she tells him, which makes him laugh, loud, slightly croaky sounding. Reminds her of crows. “And you looks funny. You’re wearing lipstick, and your nose is bleeding.”
He blinks, once, seems a bit shocked by that, then closes his eyes for longer, and they’re by the creek, his face is clean and now it’s not the way he looks that unsettles her-it’s more like the unsettling has been driven under the surface. “That better?”
She sits down on one of the flat rocks. Feels warm. “Who are you?”
“Call me Joe. We’re gonna go a long way, you and me,” he says with a grin.
It’s the afternoon here, and the sun’s dappling, a few strong beams coming in unhindered by the willows. He’s standing right in one of the beams, and there’s something about the way he’s standing that makes him look stonecarved, sternfaced.. “Are you an angel?” she asks. He laughs again, turns his face up to the sky.
“Be seeing you,” he says, then he’s gone, and she looks at the water until her ma wakes her up to go shopping for shoes, because she’s grown out of hers.
Her parents go tense and closedmouthed periodically over the next few years. She learns what will make them snap fastest, learns the points she can press on to antagonise them. Loud music, wearing old sweaters, wanting guitar lessons because Taylor was having them, certain films, certain ways of standing, check shirts-
There’s always fear behind the anger. She’s told not to talk to men wearing suits, and if her pa wasn’t so boring, she’d think he was a spy. She sneaks out at night, drinks and smokes, goes to gigs in the warehouse and sees him, flickering just at the edges of her vision. She feels watched, approved of even when she’s alone. She discovers gigs at the same time as she discovers sex, falls into it, messy and fumbling, but he’s worshipful, seems to care about it more than she does, wants to learn her as she lies there with a scholar’s fingers. His apartment’s one-roomed, downtown, has a mattress, a stack of books and a six stringed acoustic guitar. She sees him until he’s taught her all the chords he can, then drifts off. It’s summer again. She visits the creek a lot, and imagines he’s sat on the rock. Some things remind her of seeing him. Gunshots make her stomach clench.
She gets to seventeen before she sees him again properly, and she has to check she isn’t asleep.
“Fuck, you’ve grown,” someone says behind her, and she spins around, hairbrush still in hand. He’s sitting on her bed, boots up on the coverlet, and he’s smoking, but she can’t really smell it, can only see the faint smoke, the red glow of the cigarette tip.
“And?” she asks, coolly, hiding her shock behind what her ma calls ‘attitude’. He nods, and she thinks she’s won something, but isn’t sure of the rules of their game, then he stands up, seems to draw some sort of…substance from the room, looms over her and even if he isn’t here, she knows he could destroy her if he wanted to, and there’s fear and something else making her heart beat feel a little more pronounced. She stands up, too. There’s a door slammed downstairs, stamping up the stairs, past her room, another door slammed. He’s close, but emits no warmth.
“Got a video I think you should see,” he tells her. She looks at the tape he puts on her dressing table, looks up into his blowtorch-blue eyes.
“Would my parents agree?”
His smile curves, dark and wicked, but there’s fear there, a fear more gnawing and tunnel like than her parents’ has ever been. A different sort of stone carved angel. He fades away slowly, a piece of paper fluttering to the floor in his wake, address scrawled on it in rusty brown. The paper smells smoky, a rich coppery sweetness underlaying it. Another door slams-
She hears the bullet again, and this time she’s running towards it.
Resonance
God, leaving at five on friday, and it still seems like it's not happening, only it *is*, and my room's a mess, but I've got all my clothes ready, and tomorrow will be spent dedicating myself to the gods of packing. So naturally, I have lots of ideas for writing *headdesk*.I'm actually very glad to be going away when Harry Potter comes out, because I'll be reading it first for the story, before it gets wanked and complained about, and spoiled all over the place. I'm reading it as a text, not as a fandom, which I, uh, dig. I'll have important things to be doing like building sandcastles and skimming stones and shrimping *beams*, and by the time I get back, normal service might be on the way to resuming. I'll be up in Scotland, with my printout of the musician au, a notebook and my trusty fountain pen *beams*
But before I go completely, here's a fic!
Fandom: Hard Core Logo
Characters: Billie, Joe Dick
Length: 1000 words
Rating: about a PG-13, mentions of sex, possibly disturbing.
Notes: Postfilm, and Joe's still messing around with Billy's things.
She first sees him when she has chicken pox, a fractious fever-dream, soothed away by a cold cloth on her forehead. She recognises him, too, even with the haze that seems to cloud her thoughts. He was there, with other people, in a crowded room, with a man who made a monster out of a sandwich. She remembers smoke, and that he ignored her, but he sees her now, his face pale, his eyes the colour of the gas flame when her ma’s cooking, and won’t let her touch, because she says it’ll hurt her. Looks like a clown- Melanie had one at her party, who smiled all the time- but he isn’t smiling; it’s just that he has black around his eyes, red around his mouth. Something about him scares her away, and she turns and runs, doesn’t even turn back when she hears the bang.
She tells ma this, or tries to, but ma goes pale and quiet, her hand goes tight where it’s feeling her pulse, and she just tells her to go back to sleep, feeds her some more of the medicine that tastes like musty strawberries.
That summer, she plays in the creek a lot, climbs trees, skins her knees and stays out of ma and pa’s ways. A man in a suit comes to the house a bunch of times, and pa slams doors, and ma stands real still and quiet, then bakes a lot of biscuits. She doesn’t tell them she keeps having dreams, but isn’t sure why. They don’t tell her things, whisper behind closed doors, hide the mail as soon as it comes and she keeps secrets in return, hoards information, takes her hair ribbons out and knots them to the oak by the creek, tells them she lost them.
He doesn’t speak the first few times. She hears other sounds, other voices, rushing past like the freight trains a few fields away. Smells smoke, something thick, coppery, sweet. He watches her watching, reacting, like he’s picking teams for tag, finding out if she’s a good runner, if she can hide well, if she’ll laugh and give away her hiding place. She looks right back at him, juts her chin out and gives her the glare she gives to supply teachers and people her ma and pa invite for dinner, and her Aunt Meryl, who isn’t her aunt at all.
“Billie,” he says, the fourth? Fifth? Time she sees him.
“Ma says I shouldn’t talk to strangers,” she tells him, which makes him laugh, loud, slightly croaky sounding. Reminds her of crows. “And you looks funny. You’re wearing lipstick, and your nose is bleeding.”
He blinks, once, seems a bit shocked by that, then closes his eyes for longer, and they’re by the creek, his face is clean and now it’s not the way he looks that unsettles her-it’s more like the unsettling has been driven under the surface. “That better?”
She sits down on one of the flat rocks. Feels warm. “Who are you?”
“Call me Joe. We’re gonna go a long way, you and me,” he says with a grin.
It’s the afternoon here, and the sun’s dappling, a few strong beams coming in unhindered by the willows. He’s standing right in one of the beams, and there’s something about the way he’s standing that makes him look stonecarved, sternfaced.. “Are you an angel?” she asks. He laughs again, turns his face up to the sky.
“Be seeing you,” he says, then he’s gone, and she looks at the water until her ma wakes her up to go shopping for shoes, because she’s grown out of hers.
Her parents go tense and closedmouthed periodically over the next few years. She learns what will make them snap fastest, learns the points she can press on to antagonise them. Loud music, wearing old sweaters, wanting guitar lessons because Taylor was having them, certain films, certain ways of standing, check shirts-
There’s always fear behind the anger. She’s told not to talk to men wearing suits, and if her pa wasn’t so boring, she’d think he was a spy. She sneaks out at night, drinks and smokes, goes to gigs in the warehouse and sees him, flickering just at the edges of her vision. She feels watched, approved of even when she’s alone. She discovers gigs at the same time as she discovers sex, falls into it, messy and fumbling, but he’s worshipful, seems to care about it more than she does, wants to learn her as she lies there with a scholar’s fingers. His apartment’s one-roomed, downtown, has a mattress, a stack of books and a six stringed acoustic guitar. She sees him until he’s taught her all the chords he can, then drifts off. It’s summer again. She visits the creek a lot, and imagines he’s sat on the rock. Some things remind her of seeing him. Gunshots make her stomach clench.
She gets to seventeen before she sees him again properly, and she has to check she isn’t asleep.
“Fuck, you’ve grown,” someone says behind her, and she spins around, hairbrush still in hand. He’s sitting on her bed, boots up on the coverlet, and he’s smoking, but she can’t really smell it, can only see the faint smoke, the red glow of the cigarette tip.
“And?” she asks, coolly, hiding her shock behind what her ma calls ‘attitude’. He nods, and she thinks she’s won something, but isn’t sure of the rules of their game, then he stands up, seems to draw some sort of…substance from the room, looms over her and even if he isn’t here, she knows he could destroy her if he wanted to, and there’s fear and something else making her heart beat feel a little more pronounced. She stands up, too. There’s a door slammed downstairs, stamping up the stairs, past her room, another door slammed. He’s close, but emits no warmth.
“Got a video I think you should see,” he tells her. She looks at the tape he puts on her dressing table, looks up into his blowtorch-blue eyes.
“Would my parents agree?”
His smile curves, dark and wicked, but there’s fear there, a fear more gnawing and tunnel like than her parents’ has ever been. A different sort of stone carved angel. He fades away slowly, a piece of paper fluttering to the floor in his wake, address scrawled on it in rusty brown. The paper smells smoky, a rich coppery sweetness underlaying it. Another door slams-
She hears the bullet again, and this time she’s running towards it.
Resonance