More archiving.
Title: Eight floors, a glass window and the telephone line.
Rating: PG.
Pairing: Thejalan.
Notes: This is for the lovely gonetoarcadia. Heather wanted champagne, a cat and graffiti. I tried to remember how to write. Kalan's article that is referenced is here. Happy Holidays!
Theresa’s always liked the snow. As a little girl, winter days were spent curled up on the window ledge of her parent’s upstairs bedroom, peering out as it fell carelessly from the sky. She knew - she knows - all of the old adages. That two snowflakes are never the same, that the snowflake is jealous of the butterfly because one is going up while the other is going down.
She thinks then that maybe they’re like snowflakes.
.
Kalan sits at his laptop, typing line after line of pure and utter garbage. He hates himself for this. It’s so much worse than high school, because now he’s going to submit this piece to an editor and it’s actually going to be published. People are going to read this, and some people might even care about it. Little do they know that he’s only adding another layer of paint to his mask, that he’s just using brighter colours now. When you can’t hide away from it, you hide right out in the open. He knows that pretty well now.
And when the piece is finally written, he knows that only a few line have any truth to them. The most distinct of them pounds inside his brain, knocking to be let out until his fingers finally comply.
We can't all be Mother Teresas. Or Theresas, he thinks.
.
Jacob is forever comparing Hedley’s success with that of the machine that is Kalan Porter. Technically, he knows that they’re doing better. Technically, their singles are climbing higher and faster. Technically, they’re playing bigger venues. Technically, they’re lined up to get American exposure long before Kalan ever does.
Technically doesn’t seem to count for much.
.
Two summers ago (that long?, Kalan thinks), the three lived merely steps from each other. A house that was once alive with exuberance now stilled, from ten bodies to just three. Afternoons laughing and ducking out to rehearse that elusive high note or to work on breathing techniques; nights spent on stage or back at the mansion, putting those breathing techniques to test in other ways.
There, they were friends. Akin to teenagers testing new waters, and Jacob and Kalan really were little more than that, Theresa thinks. Theresa’s body was a science experiment, Jacob’s a learning tool, Kalan’s a work in progress. Together, the three were perfection, bodies having no limit and idealism painting the air like Andy Warhol.
Friends by day, enemies by night. Jacob wonders if his mind is adding this sentiment retroactively now, or if it had always been there. It’s easier to pretend when you can sidestep the hurt and the loss, when you can close blind eyes to the obviousness of the world pounding around you. It’s easier to pretend that you’re not in a cage if you simply press your face against the bars and peer out.
By day, the three sang in harmony, voices blending to a chorus of perfection. By night, the only sounds that they uttered were prayers and rosaries to Dionysus, murmured against each other’s lips.
Ten was gone quickly, followed too fast by nine, eight, seven, six, and five. Four had to be pushed off the edge of the cliff; three, two and one stood on tiptoe to watch. Three was a brave number. Three did a flashy swan dive off the edge and in an instant was lost to them forever.
Two and one were lost without the others, never knew how to exist when not surrounded by the crowd. They lost their identity and sank lower; two fought to break the surface of the glittering water, one never did manage to get its head up.
There are things that you think and don’t say, Theresa muses, and just for a second an image of jutted-out shoulder blades and effeminate wrists flicker into her mind, something she saw on TV a week or two ago.
.
The December wind is cold against Kalan’s skin. Cheeks are rubbed raw with Mother Nature’s icy fingernails; his mask gets a visible coat of pain today. He tugs his scarf up higher, nearly canceling the purpose of this trip as lips are hidden behind wool. He doesn’t think that he knows how to smile with his eyes anymore - if he ever did - so there goes that. He keeps smiling though, trying to catch the eyes of passersby, and how the hell do extroverts do this? That’s a good question, but he has an even better one. Why is he actually fulfilling the article? It’s half a week after Christmas now; he’s left the safe haven of Medicine Hat for the glass-sharp cruelty of Toronto again. He had planned to send the article in like the useless drivel that it was, to hit that glorious ‘send’ button and forget about it until his pay cheque showed up. But he can’t. He can’t.
What would Theresa do? his mind whispers, the past intermingling with the present.
.
Jacob sits in the Starbucks window, hoping that his Gingerbread latte will unthaw more than just his chilled body. Toronto is damn cold, you know. He’s never known much outside of BC, and winter at home means rain. It means running from the house to the car on Christmas day wearing only a hand knitted sweater, because you don’t want to be too wet when you get to grandma’s. But that was last week, this is today. Jacob Hoggard lives in the present, not the past.
He taps the face of his watch absently as he stares out the window, one day until New Years Eve. A new start, he thinks. Out with the old, in with the new; something borrowed and something blue. No, wait. That wasn’t right.
But nothing ever is, he thinks, dragging his tongue against the metal of his lip ring and yelping in pain - damn hot coffee.
.
Theresa is holed up in her Saskatoon apartment when her phone rings. Three sharp rings, the kind that an office building uses. She likes it that way best. Organized, clean, clear. Perfect. Her father on the other end. A flight number, a promise that her ticket is waiting at the gate. She needs to get to Toronto stat, something about a showcase and all she can think is ‘isn’t that a little silly on New Year’s Eve?’
But fifteen minutes later she’s getting in a taxi, suitcase in one hand and Jaco in his carrier in the other. Reservations wait at the Marriott - attached to the old sky dome - and she returns to her beginnings.
No better off than when you started, her mind taunts.
.
The thirty-first is always a particularly cruel day. The numinous forces align to end one fad and start another, to up the digits by one and to smirk smugly as the world slams to a halt for the briefest second.
It is invariably celebrated with cold in Toronto, with alcohol, with loud music, with the inability to catch a cab when you really want to. Sometimes, it is punctuated by broken glass, broken bones, broken hearts.
Today is the kind of day when something is bound to break.
.
This is Jacob’s first new years away from Tammy in as long as he can remember, because they’ve got some promo thing or other that needs to be taken care of (he thinks. It’s hard to tell up from down, nowadays). It’s also his first year with Tom, Dave and Chris, and seven o’clock at night finds him toasting that for what seems like the fortieth time.
They’re drinking cheap beer in paper cups, hunkered down in the hotel room that Dave and Tom are sharing. Their New Years Eve dinner consists of vending machine Fritos and stale Oreos, a habit that has become all too familiar over the last year.
Dave is the first to pass out, like always. Chris manages to find a package of sharpies in his duffel bag, Dave’s shirt is stripped off and they all work on turning skin to brick wall, freckles and moles into graffiti.
When Tom writes I AM THE CANADIAN IDOL in block letters across the curve of Dave’s shoulder blades, Jacob shifts his gaze to look out the window.
A few minutes later he sneaks out to the hallway, cell phone in hand. He dials the familiar numbers, not even sure if the phone will be in service anymore.
It is.
.
“Hello?” Kalan recites, the familiar ritual that all kids must be taught but that none of them remember learning. “Hello?”
A click. Disconnected.
Kalan sighs and hangs up. He heads back to his kitchenette table, alone in his frigid apartment. He’s watching reruns on the small TV, the episode of Degrassi (that new generation garbage) where Emma meets that Internet pedophile. He’s seen this one before. He heats up Tomato soup in the microwave, eats it directly from the can. Eventually settles into his armchair, flipping channels and looking for Dick Clarke’s special at ten to Midnight.
Being “famous” is something. He just doesn’t know what, yet. It certainly didn’t make him much more popular, and that gaping whole in his chest hasn’t been filled by the howling of Toronto’s December wind or bars where women will slip their hands into his pants, just because he’s “Kalan Porter”. He lifts his champagne flute (the contents a gift from BMG, who were sometimes prone to random acts of kindness that weren’t really random at all) to the TV, toasting nothing in particular. He takes a sip, a familiar feminine voice drifting back into his head, sing-songing. Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold..
He gets up and puts on his coat, fingering the patches on the sleeve as he does so. He heads down to the street, down to the pub two blocks over. He can’t take this, not tonight. His newly straightened hair whips him in the eyes and he curses. His own body rebelling, surprise surprise.
.
She watches through the window as she heads back to her hotel, looking at the people walking by. She has this vague notion that Kalan lives somewhere around here now, and as she stares out the window she nearly convinces herself that she sees a head of blonde hair and a slim body that could be his. Can’t be, though. Hair’s not curly. She sighs audibly and switches to look out the other window.
She’s so tired of showcases, now. Ever since These Old Charms flopped, all she’s been doing is twisting and turning for exec after exec. They want her thinner, blonder, more talented, minus the glasses, and can she dance?
She has a vague idea what Kalan must feel like, and just for a second she wishes she were Jacob. Male, in a band, free to do and say what he wants. And he always looks so happy whenever she catches Hedley on TV, too.
She spends her New Years Eve alone in a ground floor hotel room, petting a purring cat in her lap. Eight floors above, Jacob finally picks up his cell phone from where he's whipped it, to find that the screen is broken.
.
Their lives still loop together, twirling and practicing nearly perfect figure eights around one another, but they no longer intersect. Their lives are doors sliding closed, cars waiting on the opposite sides of train tracks, hands pressed against the inside and outside of a window.
If Theresa were aware of this, she’d be apathetically sad. Jacob would smirk because in his mind, it would equal the fact that he’d finally risen above Kalan, that he was a plateau higher. And if Kalan knew, he’d feel empty.
A lot of things change, but not everything does.
Rating: PG.
Pairing: Thejalan.
Notes: This is for the lovely gonetoarcadia. Heather wanted champagne, a cat and graffiti. I tried to remember how to write. Kalan's article that is referenced is here. Happy Holidays!
Theresa’s always liked the snow. As a little girl, winter days were spent curled up on the window ledge of her parent’s upstairs bedroom, peering out as it fell carelessly from the sky. She knew - she knows - all of the old adages. That two snowflakes are never the same, that the snowflake is jealous of the butterfly because one is going up while the other is going down.
She thinks then that maybe they’re like snowflakes.
.
Kalan sits at his laptop, typing line after line of pure and utter garbage. He hates himself for this. It’s so much worse than high school, because now he’s going to submit this piece to an editor and it’s actually going to be published. People are going to read this, and some people might even care about it. Little do they know that he’s only adding another layer of paint to his mask, that he’s just using brighter colours now. When you can’t hide away from it, you hide right out in the open. He knows that pretty well now.
And when the piece is finally written, he knows that only a few line have any truth to them. The most distinct of them pounds inside his brain, knocking to be let out until his fingers finally comply.
We can't all be Mother Teresas. Or Theresas, he thinks.
.
Jacob is forever comparing Hedley’s success with that of the machine that is Kalan Porter. Technically, he knows that they’re doing better. Technically, their singles are climbing higher and faster. Technically, they’re playing bigger venues. Technically, they’re lined up to get American exposure long before Kalan ever does.
Technically doesn’t seem to count for much.
.
Two summers ago (that long?, Kalan thinks), the three lived merely steps from each other. A house that was once alive with exuberance now stilled, from ten bodies to just three. Afternoons laughing and ducking out to rehearse that elusive high note or to work on breathing techniques; nights spent on stage or back at the mansion, putting those breathing techniques to test in other ways.
There, they were friends. Akin to teenagers testing new waters, and Jacob and Kalan really were little more than that, Theresa thinks. Theresa’s body was a science experiment, Jacob’s a learning tool, Kalan’s a work in progress. Together, the three were perfection, bodies having no limit and idealism painting the air like Andy Warhol.
Friends by day, enemies by night. Jacob wonders if his mind is adding this sentiment retroactively now, or if it had always been there. It’s easier to pretend when you can sidestep the hurt and the loss, when you can close blind eyes to the obviousness of the world pounding around you. It’s easier to pretend that you’re not in a cage if you simply press your face against the bars and peer out.
By day, the three sang in harmony, voices blending to a chorus of perfection. By night, the only sounds that they uttered were prayers and rosaries to Dionysus, murmured against each other’s lips.
Ten was gone quickly, followed too fast by nine, eight, seven, six, and five. Four had to be pushed off the edge of the cliff; three, two and one stood on tiptoe to watch. Three was a brave number. Three did a flashy swan dive off the edge and in an instant was lost to them forever.
Two and one were lost without the others, never knew how to exist when not surrounded by the crowd. They lost their identity and sank lower; two fought to break the surface of the glittering water, one never did manage to get its head up.
There are things that you think and don’t say, Theresa muses, and just for a second an image of jutted-out shoulder blades and effeminate wrists flicker into her mind, something she saw on TV a week or two ago.
.
The December wind is cold against Kalan’s skin. Cheeks are rubbed raw with Mother Nature’s icy fingernails; his mask gets a visible coat of pain today. He tugs his scarf up higher, nearly canceling the purpose of this trip as lips are hidden behind wool. He doesn’t think that he knows how to smile with his eyes anymore - if he ever did - so there goes that. He keeps smiling though, trying to catch the eyes of passersby, and how the hell do extroverts do this? That’s a good question, but he has an even better one. Why is he actually fulfilling the article? It’s half a week after Christmas now; he’s left the safe haven of Medicine Hat for the glass-sharp cruelty of Toronto again. He had planned to send the article in like the useless drivel that it was, to hit that glorious ‘send’ button and forget about it until his pay cheque showed up. But he can’t. He can’t.
What would Theresa do? his mind whispers, the past intermingling with the present.
.
Jacob sits in the Starbucks window, hoping that his Gingerbread latte will unthaw more than just his chilled body. Toronto is damn cold, you know. He’s never known much outside of BC, and winter at home means rain. It means running from the house to the car on Christmas day wearing only a hand knitted sweater, because you don’t want to be too wet when you get to grandma’s. But that was last week, this is today. Jacob Hoggard lives in the present, not the past.
He taps the face of his watch absently as he stares out the window, one day until New Years Eve. A new start, he thinks. Out with the old, in with the new; something borrowed and something blue. No, wait. That wasn’t right.
But nothing ever is, he thinks, dragging his tongue against the metal of his lip ring and yelping in pain - damn hot coffee.
.
Theresa is holed up in her Saskatoon apartment when her phone rings. Three sharp rings, the kind that an office building uses. She likes it that way best. Organized, clean, clear. Perfect. Her father on the other end. A flight number, a promise that her ticket is waiting at the gate. She needs to get to Toronto stat, something about a showcase and all she can think is ‘isn’t that a little silly on New Year’s Eve?’
But fifteen minutes later she’s getting in a taxi, suitcase in one hand and Jaco in his carrier in the other. Reservations wait at the Marriott - attached to the old sky dome - and she returns to her beginnings.
No better off than when you started, her mind taunts.
.
The thirty-first is always a particularly cruel day. The numinous forces align to end one fad and start another, to up the digits by one and to smirk smugly as the world slams to a halt for the briefest second.
It is invariably celebrated with cold in Toronto, with alcohol, with loud music, with the inability to catch a cab when you really want to. Sometimes, it is punctuated by broken glass, broken bones, broken hearts.
Today is the kind of day when something is bound to break.
.
This is Jacob’s first new years away from Tammy in as long as he can remember, because they’ve got some promo thing or other that needs to be taken care of (he thinks. It’s hard to tell up from down, nowadays). It’s also his first year with Tom, Dave and Chris, and seven o’clock at night finds him toasting that for what seems like the fortieth time.
They’re drinking cheap beer in paper cups, hunkered down in the hotel room that Dave and Tom are sharing. Their New Years Eve dinner consists of vending machine Fritos and stale Oreos, a habit that has become all too familiar over the last year.
Dave is the first to pass out, like always. Chris manages to find a package of sharpies in his duffel bag, Dave’s shirt is stripped off and they all work on turning skin to brick wall, freckles and moles into graffiti.
When Tom writes I AM THE CANADIAN IDOL in block letters across the curve of Dave’s shoulder blades, Jacob shifts his gaze to look out the window.
A few minutes later he sneaks out to the hallway, cell phone in hand. He dials the familiar numbers, not even sure if the phone will be in service anymore.
It is.
.
“Hello?” Kalan recites, the familiar ritual that all kids must be taught but that none of them remember learning. “Hello?”
A click. Disconnected.
Kalan sighs and hangs up. He heads back to his kitchenette table, alone in his frigid apartment. He’s watching reruns on the small TV, the episode of Degrassi (that new generation garbage) where Emma meets that Internet pedophile. He’s seen this one before. He heats up Tomato soup in the microwave, eats it directly from the can. Eventually settles into his armchair, flipping channels and looking for Dick Clarke’s special at ten to Midnight.
Being “famous” is something. He just doesn’t know what, yet. It certainly didn’t make him much more popular, and that gaping whole in his chest hasn’t been filled by the howling of Toronto’s December wind or bars where women will slip their hands into his pants, just because he’s “Kalan Porter”. He lifts his champagne flute (the contents a gift from BMG, who were sometimes prone to random acts of kindness that weren’t really random at all) to the TV, toasting nothing in particular. He takes a sip, a familiar feminine voice drifting back into his head, sing-songing. Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold..
He gets up and puts on his coat, fingering the patches on the sleeve as he does so. He heads down to the street, down to the pub two blocks over. He can’t take this, not tonight. His newly straightened hair whips him in the eyes and he curses. His own body rebelling, surprise surprise.
.
She watches through the window as she heads back to her hotel, looking at the people walking by. She has this vague notion that Kalan lives somewhere around here now, and as she stares out the window she nearly convinces herself that she sees a head of blonde hair and a slim body that could be his. Can’t be, though. Hair’s not curly. She sighs audibly and switches to look out the other window.
She’s so tired of showcases, now. Ever since These Old Charms flopped, all she’s been doing is twisting and turning for exec after exec. They want her thinner, blonder, more talented, minus the glasses, and can she dance?
She has a vague idea what Kalan must feel like, and just for a second she wishes she were Jacob. Male, in a band, free to do and say what he wants. And he always looks so happy whenever she catches Hedley on TV, too.
She spends her New Years Eve alone in a ground floor hotel room, petting a purring cat in her lap. Eight floors above, Jacob finally picks up his cell phone from where he's whipped it, to find that the screen is broken.
.
Their lives still loop together, twirling and practicing nearly perfect figure eights around one another, but they no longer intersect. Their lives are doors sliding closed, cars waiting on the opposite sides of train tracks, hands pressed against the inside and outside of a window.
If Theresa were aware of this, she’d be apathetically sad. Jacob would smirk because in his mind, it would equal the fact that he’d finally risen above Kalan, that he was a plateau higher. And if Kalan knew, he’d feel empty.
A lot of things change, but not everything does.