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propergoffickThe great thing about giving up on actually finishing any fic is that when I finish a bit of a fic I can just POST it (eventually) and not have to slog through all the in-between bits that get one from A to B. It's underrated and I should have done it years ago.
This is more of the "proper writing" companion piece/backstory to the epistolary fics, of which I'll be posting another instalment very very soon.
It took over two weeks for her to wake up. A long and hellish weekend of not getting to see her, because apparently seeing inside someone’s open skull is a three date minimum activity, and then every goddamn minute of visiting hours sitting with her in case she decided to open her eyes and tell me I was making a pig’s ear of the Times crossword. I got one clue, on the third day, MARINA for “maiden, hooded (version)”, and that was only ‘cause Stingray was on the hospital telly, and I desperately wanted her to notice that and note that I had a whole two brain cells.
The rest of the time, I was working.
On an anticlimactic Thursday morning, Harrow finally opened her eyes. It took her a hot minute to focus, cough, and register the glass of water and the little straw by the side of her bed. She still tried to croak something at me until I put the straw in her mouth. The moment her voice was working again she mustered an enfeebled “what’s the time?” and started drinking again.
“It’s, uh, about ten past eight. It’s the fifth of December. And you’re in hospital, in a place called Methley, because I thought it was funny.”
“Methley? Private? Get me out. These places charge by the minute.” I think she would have shouted, but she couldn’t exactly breathe, and even pushing herself up onto her elbows was an effort.
“It’s taken care of.”
“How. How is it… taken care of?”
“I… made a record. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I got some bodies… Cam, and whatshername, Jodie, from the record company… and we jammed for two days straight and some songs happened, enough for an EP. And — don’t hate me for this — we didn’t pay jack shit for it, it was off contract because you weren’t on it, I told Pal what happened to you and he, uh, told Dulcie apparently, and she basically bought us a studio for a week. We rushed it out but it’s getting good airplay, and because Dulcie paid for the whole thing it’s going to be pure profit. We’re in the clear.”
Harrow blinked. Fast, and frail, and for a minute I thought she was going to pass out again so I made to catch her, and somewhere in that the signals must have got so confused because suddenly she was hugging me. Which had technically happened before, but only round the shoulders, on stage, and I’d always initiated. This was her clinging to me like she was drowning and I was the only floating thing in sight, nails practically going through my shirt. And because I’m an idiot, I was hugging her back.
Sweet Jesus, she was warm, and bony as hell, all sharp edges and — because the gown didn’t have a back on it, so I could discover these things — surprisingly good skin for someone who wore three layers in high summer.
We held on to each other for give or take a small eternity, her on her knees and me craning awkwardly onto the bed. When this became uncomfortable I sort of sank down onto my knees with my forehead touching hers. This was an extremely different sort of uncomfortable but at least I wasn’t getting a stitch from it.
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried,” she said, “the Lord do so very much to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.” Which was a lot, and a weird way to say thank you, and I had zero clue what to do about it. I mean, what do you say to that? You’re welcome? You’re weird? I love you, let’s elope to an island and adopt two hundred kids, some of whom are dogs?
“I did good, then?” was what eventually came out of my mouth.
“The best. You are the very best of all friends and colleagues who could possibly be upon this Earth. I do not deserve you in the slightest, and if you had any sense you would have taken that money and gone home or… or something equally terrible, and I am fortunate beyond all reason that you are a complete ass, Nav, an absolute buffoon.”
“Hey. I think your verbal abuse lobe is still broken. It sounds a tiny bit like you didn’t mean that."
“I never did, you dolt. I was impressed by you from the beginning. I have spent the last four and a half years trying my utmost not to admit it, to anyone, least of all you or me, and to play it as cool as I possibly could in the circumstances, and if I have ever seemed unkind or ungenerous it has always been in service of that end. I…”
“Back up,” I said. “Back all the way up. Since the beginning? I kicked two guys’ asses for you and what, you swore undying love or something?”
“Nothing is undying,” she sniffed, settling back down, keeping a hand on my shoulder, still bunching up my shirt like she needed to be sure I wouldn’t bolt. Her dignity was somewhat compromised by the long slurp as she emptied the glass; all those words had taken a lot out of her. “But… as close as can be managed, yes. In the circumstances. In an imperfect world.”
“And you agreed to be a band, purely to keep me around?”
She nodded — not hard, just a little bob of the head.
“And you came on stage with me — which I know you hate, by the way — because, what, my ass looks so incredible while I play that you couldn’t bear to not keep an eye on it?”
Another little nod, and a murmur that might have been also you’re very good at it.
“And you broke your fucking brain doing all this — I mean, this has to have been a factor, right? The stress and all. Of being a chronic liar.“
Yet another little nod.
“And I, somehow, am the stupid person here?”
“Self-evidently,” she said, and hit me in the shoulder with exceptional feebleness, almost falling over in the process. “You didn’t work it out — ”
“No, I did not, which is a pain in the ass, Harrow, because for the last four and a half years we could have been doing this — “
This, of course, was the moment I kissed her again. It was not, to be honest, an all time award winning kiss — I didn’t go as hard as I wanted to because, you know, recently reawakened coma patient, and also Harrow had struck me as a biter. It was a lot more restrained than the last fifty-five months of not wanting to admit it to myself really justified. It was also shorter, because I was acutely conscious that we were in a hospital and someone was bound to tell us this sort of thing was unhygienic. Even so, the sound Harrow made in the back of her throat told me we needed to do this again some time.
“We’re idiots,” I said to her, afterwards.
“We are damned malicious fools.”
This is more of the "proper writing" companion piece/backstory to the epistolary fics, of which I'll be posting another instalment very very soon.
It took over two weeks for her to wake up. A long and hellish weekend of not getting to see her, because apparently seeing inside someone’s open skull is a three date minimum activity, and then every goddamn minute of visiting hours sitting with her in case she decided to open her eyes and tell me I was making a pig’s ear of the Times crossword. I got one clue, on the third day, MARINA for “maiden, hooded (version)”, and that was only ‘cause Stingray was on the hospital telly, and I desperately wanted her to notice that and note that I had a whole two brain cells.
The rest of the time, I was working.
On an anticlimactic Thursday morning, Harrow finally opened her eyes. It took her a hot minute to focus, cough, and register the glass of water and the little straw by the side of her bed. She still tried to croak something at me until I put the straw in her mouth. The moment her voice was working again she mustered an enfeebled “what’s the time?” and started drinking again.
“It’s, uh, about ten past eight. It’s the fifth of December. And you’re in hospital, in a place called Methley, because I thought it was funny.”
“Methley? Private? Get me out. These places charge by the minute.” I think she would have shouted, but she couldn’t exactly breathe, and even pushing herself up onto her elbows was an effort.
“It’s taken care of.”
“How. How is it… taken care of?”
“I… made a record. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I got some bodies… Cam, and whatshername, Jodie, from the record company… and we jammed for two days straight and some songs happened, enough for an EP. And — don’t hate me for this — we didn’t pay jack shit for it, it was off contract because you weren’t on it, I told Pal what happened to you and he, uh, told Dulcie apparently, and she basically bought us a studio for a week. We rushed it out but it’s getting good airplay, and because Dulcie paid for the whole thing it’s going to be pure profit. We’re in the clear.”
Harrow blinked. Fast, and frail, and for a minute I thought she was going to pass out again so I made to catch her, and somewhere in that the signals must have got so confused because suddenly she was hugging me. Which had technically happened before, but only round the shoulders, on stage, and I’d always initiated. This was her clinging to me like she was drowning and I was the only floating thing in sight, nails practically going through my shirt. And because I’m an idiot, I was hugging her back.
Sweet Jesus, she was warm, and bony as hell, all sharp edges and — because the gown didn’t have a back on it, so I could discover these things — surprisingly good skin for someone who wore three layers in high summer.
We held on to each other for give or take a small eternity, her on her knees and me craning awkwardly onto the bed. When this became uncomfortable I sort of sank down onto my knees with my forehead touching hers. This was an extremely different sort of uncomfortable but at least I wasn’t getting a stitch from it.
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried,” she said, “the Lord do so very much to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.” Which was a lot, and a weird way to say thank you, and I had zero clue what to do about it. I mean, what do you say to that? You’re welcome? You’re weird? I love you, let’s elope to an island and adopt two hundred kids, some of whom are dogs?
“I did good, then?” was what eventually came out of my mouth.
“The best. You are the very best of all friends and colleagues who could possibly be upon this Earth. I do not deserve you in the slightest, and if you had any sense you would have taken that money and gone home or… or something equally terrible, and I am fortunate beyond all reason that you are a complete ass, Nav, an absolute buffoon.”
“Hey. I think your verbal abuse lobe is still broken. It sounds a tiny bit like you didn’t mean that."
“I never did, you dolt. I was impressed by you from the beginning. I have spent the last four and a half years trying my utmost not to admit it, to anyone, least of all you or me, and to play it as cool as I possibly could in the circumstances, and if I have ever seemed unkind or ungenerous it has always been in service of that end. I…”
“Back up,” I said. “Back all the way up. Since the beginning? I kicked two guys’ asses for you and what, you swore undying love or something?”
“Nothing is undying,” she sniffed, settling back down, keeping a hand on my shoulder, still bunching up my shirt like she needed to be sure I wouldn’t bolt. Her dignity was somewhat compromised by the long slurp as she emptied the glass; all those words had taken a lot out of her. “But… as close as can be managed, yes. In the circumstances. In an imperfect world.”
“And you agreed to be a band, purely to keep me around?”
She nodded — not hard, just a little bob of the head.
“And you came on stage with me — which I know you hate, by the way — because, what, my ass looks so incredible while I play that you couldn’t bear to not keep an eye on it?”
Another little nod, and a murmur that might have been also you’re very good at it.
“And you broke your fucking brain doing all this — I mean, this has to have been a factor, right? The stress and all. Of being a chronic liar.“
Yet another little nod.
“And I, somehow, am the stupid person here?”
“Self-evidently,” she said, and hit me in the shoulder with exceptional feebleness, almost falling over in the process. “You didn’t work it out — ”
“No, I did not, which is a pain in the ass, Harrow, because for the last four and a half years we could have been doing this — “
This, of course, was the moment I kissed her again. It was not, to be honest, an all time award winning kiss — I didn’t go as hard as I wanted to because, you know, recently reawakened coma patient, and also Harrow had struck me as a biter. It was a lot more restrained than the last fifty-five months of not wanting to admit it to myself really justified. It was also shorter, because I was acutely conscious that we were in a hospital and someone was bound to tell us this sort of thing was unhygienic. Even so, the sound Harrow made in the back of her throat told me we needed to do this again some time.
“We’re idiots,” I said to her, afterwards.
“We are damned malicious fools.”
