Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2008-11-28 12:03 am
ptahrrific) wrote2008-11-28 12:03 am
Entry tags:
Strangers With Candy: Why Should I Care?, part 1
Title: Why Should I Care? (1/?)
Series: Strangers With Candy
Pairings: Seamus/OMC; Chuck/Geoffrey (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Contents: Some creepy-predator vibes; crossdressing; terrible, terrible parenting; references to hot, ass-thumping sex. Not necessarily in that order.
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stellar_dust
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use.
Summary: Part of the life and times of Seamus Noblet, featuring his dysfunctional parents and a cute guy. Takes place between #4 and #5 of Five Times Seamus Noblet Spent With His Father.
Why Should I Care?
Part One
It started, as so many of these things do, on Good Time Island.
After a bad day at work and a worse evening shouting match with his mother over when he was going to get to college and Make Something Of Himself, Seamus needed desperately to unwind.
Within five minutes of entering the club, he had settled on his target. In lily-white Flatpoint, with its occasional pockets of black people set apart by a solid barrier of coolness, the boy was an unidentifiable brown. Filipino? Mongolian? Who cared? The important thing was, he was hot. Also, he had the nervous look of someone trying out his first fake ID.
Jailbait. Perfect. Seamus was feeling dangerous this evening.
After catching the kid's eye across the room, he sauntered over and started to dance. The boy immediately tried to match steps with him, which was a good sign. He was obedient. Practically begging for someone to take advantage of him.
With practiced expertise Seamus maneuvered the kid into a dark corner, not ten paces from the bathroom door. They were grinding by this point, clutching at each other's backs and shoulders, and Seamus slid his palms downwards to drag the kid's narrow hips to his, while backing him into the wall . . .
. . . only to find hands set gently but firmly against his chest, holding him off.
Freaking out this soon? Well, at least he'd learn his lesson, but without Seamus getting any fun in the meantime.
The kid leaned up to speak into his ear. "Thanks, but no thanks!" he shouted over the bone-shaking pounding of the music. "Want to keep dancing?"
A strobe light passed over them as the kid pulled away, illuminating an expression of total friendliness. Maybe he wasn't interested in dry-humping against the wall, but it didn't seem to bother him at all that Seamus was.
When he didn't get an answer, the boy leaned in again. "I'll be on the floor!" he declared, before sliding easily out of his would-be partner's stunned grip.
For the rest of the night, Seamus was thrown completely off his game. He tried to sidle up to a generic cute blond, but his heart wasn't in it. A few songs later he found himself standing on the upper level, leaning over the railing to watch the dancers below. The random brown boy had ended up doing some kind of pseudo-techno moves with a guy closer to his own age. No grinding. Lots of laughing.
When was the last time Seamus had come to one of these places to actually dance?
He shook himself. So some kid is having fun. Why should I care?
§
Their next meeting was in an organic food store.
Seamus had never been one for overpriced ingredients hawked by people who couldn't handle a little bug spray on their apples, but he was trying out a new recipe featuring some spices that were nowhere to be found in the local supermarket, if indeed they existed and were not just a practical joke played by the cookbook writers. Besides, this was for his first weekend with Dad in more than a month. He couldn't risk just winging it.
So he caught the bus downtown and found a store that looked suitably eccentric, where he slunk around the aisles until he found the spices. He was staring so intently at the names on the stupid little jars that he walked right into someone's shoulder.
"Oh, sorry!" he hissed (still hoping to attract as little notice as possible) . . . and then he found himself staring at the face of the unidentifiable brown kid. In one of the henna-colored store aprons.
Hello! My Name Is George, said his nametag.
"Can I help you find anything?" asked George brightly.
"Um," said Seamus. Did the kid remember him? He was a generic skinny white guy in a town of skinny white guys. And George wasn't displaying any sign of concern that, say, he would be outed as a person who frequents gay clubs.
But then, he hadn't displayed much concern at the club, no matter what happened.
Well, if he was going to act like nothing was odd about this, then Seamus would play along. "Do you have, uh, fennel?"
"We sure do! Do you need leaves? Seeds? Stalks? The base?"
Seamus looked blankly at the printout in his hand. "It doesn't say."
"Can I see?"
Not sure what he was expecting, Seamus held out the recipe. George scanned it for a second, then his eyes lit up. "Ah! You want the bulb. This is all seeds and dried stuff; fresh plants are in the next aisle over."
He led the way, talking all the while. "Be sure to make this soon. Fresh fennel tends to lose its flavor in a couple of days. If you want to do something quick and easy with the leftover leaves, they make a great side when you sautée them with onions . . ."
"Enough!" Seamus snatched the printout back from him. "I didn't come here for advice. Just show me where the damn fennel is."
§
There was no response when he knocked on the apartment door with his heel, so Seamus balanced the covered pan on one hip, dug out his spare key, and let himself in. Dad was probably wrapped up in grading papers, or something.
He walked down the cramped front hall, turned a corner, and found his father sitting in front of the glass-paneled cabinet that housed his Madame Precious dolls.
While the rest of the apartment was a wreck, this corner alone was spotless. There was not a fingerprint on the glass, not a scratch on the wood, and nothing on the floor for a good three feet around the base. Dad was holding one of the dolls, a cherubic girl wearing a stunningly detailed 18th-century French ball gown.
Probably he had gotten her out to brush some speck of dust from her ruffles, and gotten distracted. That would explain why he was staring absently at her, one finger toying gently with her golden ringlets.
Seamus coughed delicately.
Dad jumped. "Oh! Hi, son!" he exclaimed, glancing up just long enough to identify his guest before returning his focus to the doll, rearranging the flounces that had been jostled when he moved. "I was just, uh, cleaning up Marie here. Give me a minute."
"No problem," said Seamus. "I, uh, brought dinner."
"Oh, that's okay," said his father. "I ordered pizza. We'll crack a few beers, watch the game, have a little manly bonding time. What do you say?"
Seamus only followed baseball, and the season was long over.
"Sure, Dad," he said. "That sounds great."
It was only food, after all. No big deal. Why should he care?
§
Seamus is a child again, and he can't seem to get anyone's attention.
He knows, in the way you know things in dreams, that there is an urgent problem. Somebody needs to deal with it as soon as possible. But he's too small for any of the grown-ups to notice, much less listen to. So he runs around at their knees, looking for someone, anyone, who will help him.
It's hard to run in a billowing skirt, but he does his best.
Only when his father, a giant in the dream, picks him up does he realize what's going on. He isn't a little boy. He's a Madame Precious doll.
But as his father soothes him, stroking his hair and smoothing the crumpled dress, Seamus wonders if this isn't better. Maybe now the urgent problem (whatever the hell it is) will get the attention it needs.
§
He wasn't hoping to see George the next time he went to the store. Really.
To prove it, he marched straight up to the first aproned person he saw. Her name tag said Hello! My Name Is Donna; she had far too many earrings and a silver stud in her nose. "Do you have, uh, marjoram?"
"Aisle three," said Donna promptly.
Seamus waited a beat, but Donna didn't move, and he realized abruptly that she considered her work here done. "Thanks," he said after a too-long pause, and slunk off to the row of spices.
He spent ten minutes looking for something labeled "marjoram", with no success.
He didn't see George in those ten minutes either, but since he wasn't looking for George in the first place, why should he care?
§
"You don't have marjoram."
George looked up from the herbal teas he was organizing. "I'm sorry?"
"Donna told me you had marjoram." Ten days had passed since then, but Seamus decided not to bring up that detail. "Well, I've been through the entire spice aisle, and I don't see any."
"Do you want sweet marjoram or wild marjoram?"
There were different kinds? "Wild marjoram," hazarded Seamus.
George was already walking down the aisle. "That'll be labeled oregano. It's mostly in Europe that people call it wild marjoram. Are you European?"
"No. Oh, no. My family's spent the last few generations in exotic Flatpoint."
"Where's that?"
"A couple miles north of here." Seamus followed him up the spice aisle. "Right next to Mount Valley . . ."
"Hey, my roommate went to Mount Valley High!"
Seamus did a double-take. "Roommate? Like, college roommate?"
George paused as his hand was closing around a jar. "How old did you think I was?"
"I . . . don't know what you're talking about," stammered Seamus.
He wasn't being very convincing, and they both knew it.
"Here's your oregano," said George, holding out the little glass bottle. In a quieter voice, though his tone was still light, he added, "You, ah, make a habit of picking up high school boys?"
"Keep it down!" hissed Seamus, snatching the oregano. "Only if they're legal and interested. Which you weren't."
"You seemed kind of surprised about that."
"What can I say? Lots of young guys like a man who's a little older. You're just a special snowflake. Congratulations. Have a nice day."
§
The first time after this parting that Seamus spotted George on Good Time Island, he turned around and walked out.
The second time, he stayed in the club but promptly found something else to think about, in the form of a man sporting tight leather pants and just a sprinkling of grey at the temples.
The third time, he realized that he had probably been in the same club as George dozens of times in the past couple of months, and if he hadn't noticed it before there was no reason it should distract him now.
After spending an entire song watching the kid gyrate, he admitted to himself that this was futile.
Another song went by while he wavered between doing something about it and resigning himself to never visit this club again, and once he had settled on the "do something" option, a third round of tooth-jarring beats kicked in before he actually sauntered up to George's side.
"Hi!" he shouted over the noise.
George's lost-in-the-music grin switched off, but he didn't stop dancing. "Hey!"
"Can you—?" Seamus jerked his head towards the bathrooms.
George's eyebrows shot up.
Seamus leaned in, putting his mouth next to George's ear. "I just want to talk! I swear!"
§
It was still loud in the bathrooms, but at least you could hear yourself think. George stopped in front of the sinks and folded his arms, all business. "What's up?"
"What do you cook with oregano?"
". . . what?"
"I've got this random spice, and I don't know what to make with it, and I don't want to just throw it away. Do you know how to handle oregano? Or is your expertise limited to fennel?"
"Um," said George, clearly not expecting this kind of question. "It's . . . traditionally put on pizza . . . ."
Seamus shuddered. "Oh, God, anything but pizza."
"No pizza. Got it. Er, it goes really well with sautéed mushrooms and onions . . . ."
"Is that your solution for everything? Sautée it with onions?"
"Look, I haven't exactly been studying up on this," pointed out George. "I didn't expect to be quizzed about recipes tonight."
"Right," sighed Seamus. What was he, an idiot? "I just . . . you're the only person I could think of to ask, and . . . never mind. This was stupid."
George studied him for a moment, then said, "What's your name?"
"Me? Seamus. Seamus Noblet."
"Seamus," repeated George, slapping his pockets until he came up with a green miniature Sharpie. "You got any paper, Seamus?"
"Not on me."
"Do you mind if I write on your hand?"
Seamus held the appendage out, and George dutifully scribbled a number on the back.
Series: Strangers With Candy
Pairings: Seamus/OMC; Chuck/Geoffrey (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Contents: Some creepy-predator vibes; crossdressing; terrible, terrible parenting; references to hot, ass-thumping sex. Not necessarily in that order.
Beta:
stellar_dustDisclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use.
Summary: Part of the life and times of Seamus Noblet, featuring his dysfunctional parents and a cute guy. Takes place between #4 and #5 of Five Times Seamus Noblet Spent With His Father.
Why Should I Care?
Part One
It started, as so many of these things do, on Good Time Island.
After a bad day at work and a worse evening shouting match with his mother over when he was going to get to college and Make Something Of Himself, Seamus needed desperately to unwind.
Within five minutes of entering the club, he had settled on his target. In lily-white Flatpoint, with its occasional pockets of black people set apart by a solid barrier of coolness, the boy was an unidentifiable brown. Filipino? Mongolian? Who cared? The important thing was, he was hot. Also, he had the nervous look of someone trying out his first fake ID.
Jailbait. Perfect. Seamus was feeling dangerous this evening.
After catching the kid's eye across the room, he sauntered over and started to dance. The boy immediately tried to match steps with him, which was a good sign. He was obedient. Practically begging for someone to take advantage of him.
With practiced expertise Seamus maneuvered the kid into a dark corner, not ten paces from the bathroom door. They were grinding by this point, clutching at each other's backs and shoulders, and Seamus slid his palms downwards to drag the kid's narrow hips to his, while backing him into the wall . . .
. . . only to find hands set gently but firmly against his chest, holding him off.
Freaking out this soon? Well, at least he'd learn his lesson, but without Seamus getting any fun in the meantime.
The kid leaned up to speak into his ear. "Thanks, but no thanks!" he shouted over the bone-shaking pounding of the music. "Want to keep dancing?"
A strobe light passed over them as the kid pulled away, illuminating an expression of total friendliness. Maybe he wasn't interested in dry-humping against the wall, but it didn't seem to bother him at all that Seamus was.
When he didn't get an answer, the boy leaned in again. "I'll be on the floor!" he declared, before sliding easily out of his would-be partner's stunned grip.
For the rest of the night, Seamus was thrown completely off his game. He tried to sidle up to a generic cute blond, but his heart wasn't in it. A few songs later he found himself standing on the upper level, leaning over the railing to watch the dancers below. The random brown boy had ended up doing some kind of pseudo-techno moves with a guy closer to his own age. No grinding. Lots of laughing.
When was the last time Seamus had come to one of these places to actually dance?
He shook himself. So some kid is having fun. Why should I care?
Their next meeting was in an organic food store.
Seamus had never been one for overpriced ingredients hawked by people who couldn't handle a little bug spray on their apples, but he was trying out a new recipe featuring some spices that were nowhere to be found in the local supermarket, if indeed they existed and were not just a practical joke played by the cookbook writers. Besides, this was for his first weekend with Dad in more than a month. He couldn't risk just winging it.
So he caught the bus downtown and found a store that looked suitably eccentric, where he slunk around the aisles until he found the spices. He was staring so intently at the names on the stupid little jars that he walked right into someone's shoulder.
"Oh, sorry!" he hissed (still hoping to attract as little notice as possible) . . . and then he found himself staring at the face of the unidentifiable brown kid. In one of the henna-colored store aprons.
Hello! My Name Is George, said his nametag.
"Can I help you find anything?" asked George brightly.
"Um," said Seamus. Did the kid remember him? He was a generic skinny white guy in a town of skinny white guys. And George wasn't displaying any sign of concern that, say, he would be outed as a person who frequents gay clubs.
But then, he hadn't displayed much concern at the club, no matter what happened.
Well, if he was going to act like nothing was odd about this, then Seamus would play along. "Do you have, uh, fennel?"
"We sure do! Do you need leaves? Seeds? Stalks? The base?"
Seamus looked blankly at the printout in his hand. "It doesn't say."
"Can I see?"
Not sure what he was expecting, Seamus held out the recipe. George scanned it for a second, then his eyes lit up. "Ah! You want the bulb. This is all seeds and dried stuff; fresh plants are in the next aisle over."
He led the way, talking all the while. "Be sure to make this soon. Fresh fennel tends to lose its flavor in a couple of days. If you want to do something quick and easy with the leftover leaves, they make a great side when you sautée them with onions . . ."
"Enough!" Seamus snatched the printout back from him. "I didn't come here for advice. Just show me where the damn fennel is."
There was no response when he knocked on the apartment door with his heel, so Seamus balanced the covered pan on one hip, dug out his spare key, and let himself in. Dad was probably wrapped up in grading papers, or something.
He walked down the cramped front hall, turned a corner, and found his father sitting in front of the glass-paneled cabinet that housed his Madame Precious dolls.
While the rest of the apartment was a wreck, this corner alone was spotless. There was not a fingerprint on the glass, not a scratch on the wood, and nothing on the floor for a good three feet around the base. Dad was holding one of the dolls, a cherubic girl wearing a stunningly detailed 18th-century French ball gown.
Probably he had gotten her out to brush some speck of dust from her ruffles, and gotten distracted. That would explain why he was staring absently at her, one finger toying gently with her golden ringlets.
Seamus coughed delicately.
Dad jumped. "Oh! Hi, son!" he exclaimed, glancing up just long enough to identify his guest before returning his focus to the doll, rearranging the flounces that had been jostled when he moved. "I was just, uh, cleaning up Marie here. Give me a minute."
"No problem," said Seamus. "I, uh, brought dinner."
"Oh, that's okay," said his father. "I ordered pizza. We'll crack a few beers, watch the game, have a little manly bonding time. What do you say?"
Seamus only followed baseball, and the season was long over.
"Sure, Dad," he said. "That sounds great."
It was only food, after all. No big deal. Why should he care?
Seamus is a child again, and he can't seem to get anyone's attention.
He knows, in the way you know things in dreams, that there is an urgent problem. Somebody needs to deal with it as soon as possible. But he's too small for any of the grown-ups to notice, much less listen to. So he runs around at their knees, looking for someone, anyone, who will help him.
It's hard to run in a billowing skirt, but he does his best.
Only when his father, a giant in the dream, picks him up does he realize what's going on. He isn't a little boy. He's a Madame Precious doll.
But as his father soothes him, stroking his hair and smoothing the crumpled dress, Seamus wonders if this isn't better. Maybe now the urgent problem (whatever the hell it is) will get the attention it needs.
He wasn't hoping to see George the next time he went to the store. Really.
To prove it, he marched straight up to the first aproned person he saw. Her name tag said Hello! My Name Is Donna; she had far too many earrings and a silver stud in her nose. "Do you have, uh, marjoram?"
"Aisle three," said Donna promptly.
Seamus waited a beat, but Donna didn't move, and he realized abruptly that she considered her work here done. "Thanks," he said after a too-long pause, and slunk off to the row of spices.
He spent ten minutes looking for something labeled "marjoram", with no success.
He didn't see George in those ten minutes either, but since he wasn't looking for George in the first place, why should he care?
"You don't have marjoram."
George looked up from the herbal teas he was organizing. "I'm sorry?"
"Donna told me you had marjoram." Ten days had passed since then, but Seamus decided not to bring up that detail. "Well, I've been through the entire spice aisle, and I don't see any."
"Do you want sweet marjoram or wild marjoram?"
There were different kinds? "Wild marjoram," hazarded Seamus.
George was already walking down the aisle. "That'll be labeled oregano. It's mostly in Europe that people call it wild marjoram. Are you European?"
"No. Oh, no. My family's spent the last few generations in exotic Flatpoint."
"Where's that?"
"A couple miles north of here." Seamus followed him up the spice aisle. "Right next to Mount Valley . . ."
"Hey, my roommate went to Mount Valley High!"
Seamus did a double-take. "Roommate? Like, college roommate?"
George paused as his hand was closing around a jar. "How old did you think I was?"
"I . . . don't know what you're talking about," stammered Seamus.
He wasn't being very convincing, and they both knew it.
"Here's your oregano," said George, holding out the little glass bottle. In a quieter voice, though his tone was still light, he added, "You, ah, make a habit of picking up high school boys?"
"Keep it down!" hissed Seamus, snatching the oregano. "Only if they're legal and interested. Which you weren't."
"You seemed kind of surprised about that."
"What can I say? Lots of young guys like a man who's a little older. You're just a special snowflake. Congratulations. Have a nice day."
The first time after this parting that Seamus spotted George on Good Time Island, he turned around and walked out.
The second time, he stayed in the club but promptly found something else to think about, in the form of a man sporting tight leather pants and just a sprinkling of grey at the temples.
The third time, he realized that he had probably been in the same club as George dozens of times in the past couple of months, and if he hadn't noticed it before there was no reason it should distract him now.
After spending an entire song watching the kid gyrate, he admitted to himself that this was futile.
Another song went by while he wavered between doing something about it and resigning himself to never visit this club again, and once he had settled on the "do something" option, a third round of tooth-jarring beats kicked in before he actually sauntered up to George's side.
"Hi!" he shouted over the noise.
George's lost-in-the-music grin switched off, but he didn't stop dancing. "Hey!"
"Can you—?" Seamus jerked his head towards the bathrooms.
George's eyebrows shot up.
Seamus leaned in, putting his mouth next to George's ear. "I just want to talk! I swear!"
It was still loud in the bathrooms, but at least you could hear yourself think. George stopped in front of the sinks and folded his arms, all business. "What's up?"
"What do you cook with oregano?"
". . . what?"
"I've got this random spice, and I don't know what to make with it, and I don't want to just throw it away. Do you know how to handle oregano? Or is your expertise limited to fennel?"
"Um," said George, clearly not expecting this kind of question. "It's . . . traditionally put on pizza . . . ."
Seamus shuddered. "Oh, God, anything but pizza."
"No pizza. Got it. Er, it goes really well with sautéed mushrooms and onions . . . ."
"Is that your solution for everything? Sautée it with onions?"
"Look, I haven't exactly been studying up on this," pointed out George. "I didn't expect to be quizzed about recipes tonight."
"Right," sighed Seamus. What was he, an idiot? "I just . . . you're the only person I could think of to ask, and . . . never mind. This was stupid."
George studied him for a moment, then said, "What's your name?"
"Me? Seamus. Seamus Noblet."
"Seamus," repeated George, slapping his pockets until he came up with a green miniature Sharpie. "You got any paper, Seamus?"
"Not on me."
"Do you mind if I write on your hand?"
Seamus held the appendage out, and George dutifully scribbled a number on the back.
no subject
I like how this already has more characterization for Seamus. He is already very clearly a Noblet, and I am one of those people who find that endearing, for some reason :-P
This is adorable. I anticipate a lot of awwwwing in my future :-D
no subject
Seamus has the curious quality of both being Chuck-like and trying very hard not to be Chuck-like. Which sets him up for a lot of internal conflict, which sould be endearing to . . . well, Chuck fans =3
Thanks!