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rainbowfic2015-03-20 10:45 pm
bookblather) wrote in rainbowfic2015-03-20 10:45 pm
Spring Green 5, Clean Again 8, Azul 14: Strange
Author: Kat
Title: Strange
Story: Shine Like It Does
Colors: Spring green 5 (this world can't be saved, only discovered), clean again 8 (Beautiful Lengths), azul 14 (Test of Time) with shipwreck_light's paint-by-numbers (Baby Smokey grows up. He knows he's special, but... )
Supplies and Materials: canvas (Smokey is considerably older than the Hennessy siblings), watercolors (Vulnerability), stain ("A shy man no doubt dreads the notice of strangers, but can hardly be said to be afraid of them. He may be as bold as a hero in battle, and yet have no self-confidence about trifles in the presence of strangers." - Charles Darwin), stickers (Marc Bolan called his son Rolan Bolan.), glitter (This Is My Call for Apologies, Amy Lingafelter: No jobs like that,/struggling to be all day out of the way./No hot air./Nothing in the way.)
Word Count: 897
Rating: PG
Summary: The trouble with being strange is.
Warnings: none
Notes: This may not actually be coherent. Also, you may remember Smokey as the baby Tommy Hennessy may or may not have fathered in canon just before he died.
The trouble with being so strange is... is...
Is there trouble with being strange?
Smokey blinks away the thought and starts over again. The trouble with being so strange is that your mind keeps wandering, he writes, looping the letters smooth and quick over his notebook paper. You keep thinking of things that aren't real.
You're a strange kid, people tell him, sometimes affectionately (his mother ruffling his hair) sometimes not (the kids in his class, sneering at him). Which, he knows. He's strange. He doesn't mind.
Anyway his name is Smokey and he's pretty sure that if your name is strange you have to be strange too. He writes this down and stares out the window.
He's the weird kid, too. Strange and weird are different things, he thinks; strange is sort of otherworldly and distant while weird is more ew, gross, nobody wants to spend time with you. He's over that though because he's a strange kid and he can spend all his time watching the ocean roll up to the beach and roll back out again. He likes to set little fires so he can watch the smoke puff up into the sky and dissipate. He likes to write things down so he can watch his handwriting sprawl out over clean, lined pages.
Mom calls him special sometimes and Smokey isn't sure it's a compliment.
Of course Mom can't really talk because for the first five or six years of his life she was pretending to be his aunt. It was only when she came back from college with a degree and blue hair that she told him the truth. She dyed his hair blue too, when he asked. He still dyes the tips of his hair sometimes, when he feels like it.
Anyway Mom was lying to everybody for a while, though not really to him exactly because she never told him either way, he just lived with his grandparents and stayed in his room and watched bugs circling the light outside, spiraling in until they died in a sudden flourish of light. It seemed familiar somehow. But Mom's still lying, he knows, though still not really to him exactly. She says his father was somebody she met in a club and Smokey knows that's not at all true. He's not sure how, but he knows.
Mom's name is Asia. He likes it, the long vowel and the soft shush at the end. He doesn't like his name as much. Not enough sibilants. It has to do with how I got you, she tells him, and he wrinkles up his face and says I know how you got me, you did sex, and sex doesn't have smoke in it and Mom laughs and says sometimes it does. He doesn't know why Mom's name is Asia though.
He draws a little series of waves at the bottom of his notebook page, where there's not enough room for him to write anymore. They wash things away and they bring things back, sea glass and driftwood for sand and dead fish. Mom took him to the Salten Sea once but Smokey knows that's not a sea at all, just a dying lake full of salty water. He made her take him home right away.
He knows his father is dead too. He doesn't like dead things.
Mom smokes sometimes when she thinks he isn't looking, cigarette tips glowing red between her fingers. She tells him she's trying to quit but some days, some days. Smokey doesn't think she's really trying at all, but then Mom doesn't try for many things, except sometimes boys that she brings home. They're not boys like Smokey, they're boys like grownup men, except Mom calls them boys in such a strange voice, and he knows that's not a compliment either.
Maybe his father was a boy like that. He definitely wasn't a boy like Smokey though. Nobody is a boy like Smokey is.
Some days Smokey doesn't know what's real and what's not. Mom is always real, and so is he. His grandparents usually are. School is, his teacher is, his notebook is. His father is hardly ever real.
Some days he wakes up and he's convinced that the sea isn't real any more. It's disappeared in the night, or he imagined it to begin with. Those days, or nights, or twilights or noontimes or dawns, he gets out of bed and he runs to the ocean, half a mile away, to stand with his feet in the water, feeling sand rush out and the tide drag at his ankles. The soft shush of the waves is like his mother's name. It calms him down.
He wriggles his toes in his shoes now. He likes the way it feels.
He writes things down. Some kids in school stole his notebook once and read it out loud, but he'd been in a noticing mood that day and all they got was descriptions: the sky, the clouds, the grass growing in the sidewalks on his way to school. His teacher told him after that he should be a poet, but he thinks that's stupid. Poems always mean something. He doesn't mean anything but what he says.
He wonders why he's writing all of this in third person.
Probably because it's strange, and he likes strange. Maybe he'll talk like this for a while.
Title: Strange
Story: Shine Like It Does
Colors: Spring green 5 (this world can't be saved, only discovered), clean again 8 (Beautiful Lengths), azul 14 (Test of Time) with shipwreck_light's paint-by-numbers (Baby Smokey grows up. He knows he's special, but... )
Supplies and Materials: canvas (Smokey is considerably older than the Hennessy siblings), watercolors (Vulnerability), stain ("A shy man no doubt dreads the notice of strangers, but can hardly be said to be afraid of them. He may be as bold as a hero in battle, and yet have no self-confidence about trifles in the presence of strangers." - Charles Darwin), stickers (Marc Bolan called his son Rolan Bolan.), glitter (This Is My Call for Apologies, Amy Lingafelter: No jobs like that,/struggling to be all day out of the way./No hot air./Nothing in the way.)
Word Count: 897
Rating: PG
Summary: The trouble with being strange is.
Warnings: none
Notes: This may not actually be coherent. Also, you may remember Smokey as the baby Tommy Hennessy may or may not have fathered in canon just before he died.
The trouble with being so strange is... is...
Is there trouble with being strange?
Smokey blinks away the thought and starts over again. The trouble with being so strange is that your mind keeps wandering, he writes, looping the letters smooth and quick over his notebook paper. You keep thinking of things that aren't real.
You're a strange kid, people tell him, sometimes affectionately (his mother ruffling his hair) sometimes not (the kids in his class, sneering at him). Which, he knows. He's strange. He doesn't mind.
Anyway his name is Smokey and he's pretty sure that if your name is strange you have to be strange too. He writes this down and stares out the window.
He's the weird kid, too. Strange and weird are different things, he thinks; strange is sort of otherworldly and distant while weird is more ew, gross, nobody wants to spend time with you. He's over that though because he's a strange kid and he can spend all his time watching the ocean roll up to the beach and roll back out again. He likes to set little fires so he can watch the smoke puff up into the sky and dissipate. He likes to write things down so he can watch his handwriting sprawl out over clean, lined pages.
Mom calls him special sometimes and Smokey isn't sure it's a compliment.
Of course Mom can't really talk because for the first five or six years of his life she was pretending to be his aunt. It was only when she came back from college with a degree and blue hair that she told him the truth. She dyed his hair blue too, when he asked. He still dyes the tips of his hair sometimes, when he feels like it.
Anyway Mom was lying to everybody for a while, though not really to him exactly because she never told him either way, he just lived with his grandparents and stayed in his room and watched bugs circling the light outside, spiraling in until they died in a sudden flourish of light. It seemed familiar somehow. But Mom's still lying, he knows, though still not really to him exactly. She says his father was somebody she met in a club and Smokey knows that's not at all true. He's not sure how, but he knows.
Mom's name is Asia. He likes it, the long vowel and the soft shush at the end. He doesn't like his name as much. Not enough sibilants. It has to do with how I got you, she tells him, and he wrinkles up his face and says I know how you got me, you did sex, and sex doesn't have smoke in it and Mom laughs and says sometimes it does. He doesn't know why Mom's name is Asia though.
He draws a little series of waves at the bottom of his notebook page, where there's not enough room for him to write anymore. They wash things away and they bring things back, sea glass and driftwood for sand and dead fish. Mom took him to the Salten Sea once but Smokey knows that's not a sea at all, just a dying lake full of salty water. He made her take him home right away.
He knows his father is dead too. He doesn't like dead things.
Mom smokes sometimes when she thinks he isn't looking, cigarette tips glowing red between her fingers. She tells him she's trying to quit but some days, some days. Smokey doesn't think she's really trying at all, but then Mom doesn't try for many things, except sometimes boys that she brings home. They're not boys like Smokey, they're boys like grownup men, except Mom calls them boys in such a strange voice, and he knows that's not a compliment either.
Maybe his father was a boy like that. He definitely wasn't a boy like Smokey though. Nobody is a boy like Smokey is.
Some days Smokey doesn't know what's real and what's not. Mom is always real, and so is he. His grandparents usually are. School is, his teacher is, his notebook is. His father is hardly ever real.
Some days he wakes up and he's convinced that the sea isn't real any more. It's disappeared in the night, or he imagined it to begin with. Those days, or nights, or twilights or noontimes or dawns, he gets out of bed and he runs to the ocean, half a mile away, to stand with his feet in the water, feeling sand rush out and the tide drag at his ankles. The soft shush of the waves is like his mother's name. It calms him down.
He wriggles his toes in his shoes now. He likes the way it feels.
He writes things down. Some kids in school stole his notebook once and read it out loud, but he'd been in a noticing mood that day and all they got was descriptions: the sky, the clouds, the grass growing in the sidewalks on his way to school. His teacher told him after that he should be a poet, but he thinks that's stupid. Poems always mean something. He doesn't mean anything but what he says.
He wonders why he's writing all of this in third person.
Probably because it's strange, and he likes strange. Maybe he'll talk like this for a while.