RPF: "Ro-mahn-tique"

[cyus]

Title: Ro-mahn-tique
Pairing: TW RPS, JB/SG
Rating: PG
Length: 1100 words
Disclaimer: The events in this story are fiction, as much as the interpretation of the real people as shown in the story is a fictionalization of them and their lives. It should not be inferred that this is an attempt to represent reality.
Summary: Celebrating anniversaries; those days tend to be perfect, no, really, better than perfect.
Notes: Thanks to amand_r for the beta.

The glass screen door crashed into the lock and jumped open again from the force of impact after John's made his way through and disappeared behind the reflection of lights in the glass.

"Go on, wreck the house," Scott called to his mirror self in the glass, stared at it blurring as the door slid back to rest in the half-open position. "Bloody hell." He looked at the bottle in his hand, at the mud on his shoes and at Harris playing contrite Daddy's boy at his feet now after he'd been all too happy to piss in the corner earlier to set the final point to the evening. A healthy swig of the beer, but it tasted about as cheap as it was and he couldn't quite remember why they'd bought it. For some party or another, for people who drank beer, for Gareth, yeah, that one.

He shifted, shoes squelching with water, stretched.

His stomach rumbled for food. Still.

Torn between making this a scene and pissing off to bed to be done with the day, he pulled his coat from where he'd thrown it on the table hours earlier in wild panic at the water everywhere, and his shoes only added to the tracked mud. He didn't care. Much. He'd care again in the morning. Coat on, reasonably warm and only freezing mildly in wet shoes, he stepped outside. The dogs were happily barking while John was happily sulking on the deck, sitting on one of the plastic-covered chairs.

"Happy Fucking Anniversary to you, too," Scott muttered and lifted the beer in toast to the Welsh coast and John in particular, who was doing his best willful-fisherman-on-shore impression.

John stared over, face set. "Your suit cost 900 quid."

"I'll pay you in blowjobs," Scott replied, smiling broadly in mocking sweet.

John snorted and tipped the bottle up to drink, pulling a face before the beer could have even touched his lips. He swallowed the alcohol down, then gestured with the bottle, doing the expansive hand and feet storytelling without the entertainment smiles. Scott pretended rapt attention in clothes that were worse for wear, but John's had seen better days, too. John opened his mouth, ready for a tirade to doom the world, but he stopped before anything could spill and cocked his head, "How much is a blowjob of yours worth?"

Scott choked on the beer that was making its way down his throat. "You don't have enough money to pay me, Barrowman." He sorted out liquids and air and breathed cleanly again.

John pulled a face at the sea in the dark. "I'm hungry."

Scott played fingers over the condensation on the bottle. "Eat an apple. There are three."

"I had planned for us to be fucking our way through the roof by now." John thumped his bottle to the deck. "It was PERFECT!" The exclamation marks and all-caps bounced off the garden.

Scott shivered. A nice dinner and good sex had turned into hours in a car and a broken pipe flooding the kitchen, scared dogs and John throwing his entertainment weight around when, tired, hungry and pissed off, no-one could make the mess undone with a bit of a telly trick and a surprise, bunny-out-of-the-hat show. Scott smirked. "It's not the chicken, it's the thought behind the chi-"

"Don't!" Outstretched finger pointing, then wavering with laughter. Scott raised his eyebrows. The finger wavered more. "You haven't even seen it that often."

"And I kept staring at, the, what's his name, one of the boys, yeah." He gave John a faraway dreamy look. It's an old argument, and he had and he would again, who wouldn't. He hid his smile behind cheap alcohol as John flustered in exasperation, more mock now than actual exasperation, surely.

"I was trying to be romantic," John said, earnest pleading.

Scott rolled his eyes. "Congratulations, it failed."

John laughed, beer slipping from his lips. "No fucking kidding. This is why anniversaries don't-" he paused. "You know I love you." It carried across the garden to Scott, standing in the door in the tattered suit and hands probably still stinking of piss from when he'd cleaned up Harris' little mishap amidst water everywhere.

"That's in three weeks."

"I don't get to say I love you for the first time we fucked?"

"Cry me a river," Scott replied, voice dry.

"But I love you!" Now he was playacting, the bottle for a prop, and the wet grass for the scenery backdrop as he crawled across their garden. The dogs thought of it as the best new game and jumped around him, as he was ruining one of the more expensive suits.

"No rose in your mouth," Scott pointed out, leaning against the glass window with a wry smile.

John grinned, then bent down and came up again with a mouthful of grass. Scott laughed, surprised , embarrassed, facepalming certainly as the flood lights came on when John was close enough to the house, bathing them both in spotlight of a too long day, and not enough alcohol and this.

"Ha-" John said around the grass, single leaves falling from his lips. He reached up and plucked them out, steadied himself on Scott's knee with the other hand. He offered the grass to Scott, absently, "I should have bought some pot for-" Scott raised an eyebrow, John grinned, "Happy First Fuck And I'd Do It Again Anniversary."

"You're such an idiot," Scott said. Fondly, always. And beer and grass and dirty suits, he leaned down to John kneeling up and kissed him through all that. "I'm taking you out for dinner tomorrow," he said against John's lips.

John shook his head. "Meeting."

A laugh as Scott tipped the bottle and drank more, thought of eating one of the three apples they'd found in the fridge. "Of course you have a meeting. I'll call Rhys to check when you're free." He brushed his thumb over John's eyelids as if spreading make-up to pretty him up amidst the wreckage. Not that he needed it.

"Free now." John blinked up at him, rubbed his face on Scott's thigh.

"We're not doing it in the garden."

John stifled the laugh and got to his feet, and the kiss he gave Scott came without the dramatics of stage acting, despite the lights, despite their get up. He pressed it to the corner of Scott's lips, his cheek, hand on Scott's chest. "Get inside," he said close to the skin, and his hand slid over Scott's hip to his arse.

They clanked beer bottles for cheers and left them empty on the doorstep. The house still looked a mess, and when John stripped to t-shirt and briefs to clean up, Scott figured that celebrating had to wait until their house looked like it belonged to them again.

"Sorry I forgot flowers," John said suddenly, broom in hand, tragic expression on his face. Some grass was still stuck to the side of his cheek.

Scott laughed. "Honestly, when did you ever get me flowers?" He slapped John's arse for good measure and another kiss, then they shared one of the apples.

Good times, always.


--

A brief note:

In short, I decided to integrate my RPF/S into this account instead of continuing to use a sockpuppet (dinoegg; love the name though) because it became slightly bothersome. If you want to read past RPF, you can find it linked in this list. Significant others are and will be featured more or less prominently in the stories.

Now, if you're not into RPF, and I know a lot of people aren't, just skip the entries:

1. I'll be using this icon to go with all past and future RPF.
2. It says RPF in the subject line of the entries.
3. The tags are separate from the tags for the rest of it, so it should be easy to avoid accidental clicking on links you never meant to visit

Comments

[marita-c.livejournal.com]

LOL for anniversary fail. I usually never read JB/SG, but I find that yours are amazingly squeam-free.

Also, thumbs up for exposing your sockpuppet. I don't have the courage ;)

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Now you've made me curious... LOL

Ultimately amand_r and I reference each other and the RPF we write frequently enough, so that a super-secret identity (yeah right) became a bit annoying to handle.

But hey, I'm glad you enjoyed this despite a general tendency not to read JB/SG. I try not to be skeevy about things, but it's a fine enough line, I suppose.

Thanks for the comment, appreciate it.

[thought-ribbons.livejournal.com]

This was interesting. But I found it diffucult to follow it seemed to jump around alot and I kept having to re-read two or three times to understand what was happening.

I think it has great bones and just needs a little re-organizing to be totally awesome :)!

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Why would you say this needs to be re-organised? It's completely linear.

[thought-ribbons.livejournal.com]

Just saying that I find it a bit scattered I can't figure out why they have wet shoes ect until half way through the fic. It's my personal opinion please don't get upset when I offer up my thoughts. I'm not doing it to be mean. I'm just giving an honestly critique.

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

What's an honestly critique?

[thought-ribbons.livejournal.com]

I mean honest sorry

[spiderine.livejournal.com]

I can't figure out why they have wet shoes ect until half way through

Well, that's the point, isn't it?

BTW, it's "etc." Short for "et cetera".

[thought-ribbons.livejournal.com]

i'm aware it's etc- was just typing too quickly.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I'm not upset. But I am curious because I see those kinds of comments, and they never really explain anything. I mean, it doesn't need to be re-organised. You found it difficult to follow. Sometimes I have a hard time following Palahniuk's writing, but I don't send him a letter saying he should re-organise it, because that's the way his writing works, and I figure that I need to read it differently. I dunno. Fanfic has varying formats of writing, and this is a valid one that doesn't need to be changed--sometimes having to read something 2 or three times is a good thing, and even the point.

I am guessing that you want the whole thing to be laid out in a "they did this and then they did this and then they did this" format, and that's not where this writing is going. Different strokes for different folks. I didn't have any problem following at at all (like the wet shoes. I figured he'd get to that, and he did, less than 200 words in, at the fifth paragraph: "Torn between making this a scene and pissing off to bed to be done with the day, he pulled his coat from where he'd thrown it on the table hours earlier in wild panic at the water everywhere, and his shoes only added to the tracked mud."

I assumed that their house had flooded. I was right.

[thought-ribbons.livejournal.com]

I said that I felt that it jumped around and that is why I felt it needed to be re-organized. Not saying that it HAS to be. Just offering my Opinion.

I'm well aware that there are many different forms of fan fiction, I write several of them. I don't mind the "this and that" format I use it often, I just felt that it needed a bit more flowiness.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Okay, so what you meant to say was that you prefer your fics to be more timeline organised, in a sense, but that's just your preference, and not concrit.

Got ya.

[thought-ribbons.livejournal.com]

How is it not Concrit?

I'm telling the truth about how I feel about this fic. and I feel that if it was re-organized it would give a better read. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the story because I did. I found it adorable and endearing. I was just saying it could be improved.

I never claimed to be perfect, everyone needs work. I'd rather receive a comment like mine rather than "YAY WAS GREAT!!!" It gives you more direction rather than wandering off thinking that you've done the best work "OMG EV-AR".

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

The thing is, that the story doesn't need to be reorganised. Structurally, it already works. I wouldn't give it that as a constructive criticism, because it's a preference. You intend for him to use your advice to rework the story to your liking, when it is valid as it is.

A constructive crit for this might be that the line about pot is too vague and can be read two ways. A constructive crit about this might be that sometimes he uses run on sentences that blur narrative. But writing in a fashion that requires the reader to use context clues and inference is not a fault.

I know that no one is perfect. I just think that when you offer suggestions to improve a story, you know the difference between what you want to see and what should be seen.

[misswinterhill.livejournal.com]

Personally, I wouldn't rather receive a comment like yours above because yours doesn't actually say anything more useful than the other (positive) examples you gave. The reason why it's not more useful is that your original comment is vague. Concrit, as in beta-ing, needs to be specific in order to be of use to the writer. Saying "I felt that it needed to be re-organised" isn't specific. It's general -- what do you, as the reader, want re-organised? The sentence structures? Major events? To be useful, you need to state explicitly what you felt was out of order.

I didn't think it felt out of order at all. I'd much rather have a slow reveal of details, and I didn't have any trouble following it. The style and pace of the story, and the fact that we didn't have to have an immediate reveal added, for me, a sense of familiarity to the relationship. I'd hate to see this changed so that there was infodump in the first few paragraphs -- it's in a third person limited point of view, so too much exposition early on would mean that the characterisation took a significant hit. But that's my opinion; it's not an absolute point of stylistic worth. It's not a glaring typo or strange lapse in canonical detail. But then, if I had a serious criticism about a story, I would also take it to private messages, especially if there was no concrit request in the header.

Without detail, it's not constructive, it's just criticism. And it's just as useless as "YAY WAS GREAT!!!". Equally, an entirely positive comment can be just as useful as an entirely negative comment if you tell the author specifically what you liked about it -- whether it's a particular sentence, image or trope -- because then they know what is working about their writing, and positive reinforcement is a great motivator!

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comment, I do appreciate you taking the time. I'm sorry you found it difficult to follow (and I've read your exchange with people on here). It comes down to this being the way I construct my stories, and it's not likely going to change. I understand it's not everyone's thing, and that's cool, so thanks for your input there and thanks for taking the time to comment.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Love this. It's like my anniversaries. :D

Disasters ahoy!

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Lol, thanks Foxy. And yeah, anniversaries .. I don't even have a date for mine (only, yknow, the pseudo one of First Contact)

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

It is, as always, perfect (and I say that not just because it was written for me). You know how I love your writing, how each read brings more out, building on the richness of the tale.

Love you (oh wait can I say that here? LOL)

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Love you too. I'm gonna get you flowers one of these days, promise. Just you wait.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

I'll hold you to that.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

I love you, you know.

Sniffles.

[spiderine.livejournal.com]

I love this. Once again, I have read and adored RPF and it's ALL YOUR FAULT. You give a good, real-seeming relationship between people who have been together for more than a decade and are well-acquainted with each other's foibles. :)

[cyus.livejournal.com]

I gladly accept the blame for that. And indeed, when you've been together 16 years you don't get bent out of shape over someone having a temper tantrum anymore. Just happens.

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

This is strangely adorable. Love it.

And now we can be icon buddies.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

We can indeed! Ah I love that icon of him. His hair looks good in it. Hair = important. :P

And thanks

[wynkat1313.livejournal.com]

a wonderfully perfect disaster, I love it.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

It would be. Thanks for the comment.

[duck-or-rabbit.livejournal.com]

cyus is dinoegg?! Tricky, tricky. (Adore your TW ff).

I'm going to give the softball comment here: Great fic and I really enjoyed it.

ETA: Did you see that? I left out whole sections of code, lol. Sorry for the edit.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much. Ultimately it became too bothersome to keep a third journal and compartmentalize everything away, and amand_r and I live too much in each other's pockets fic-wise to make it work for long.

Anyway, thanks very much, and glad you enjoyed it (and the TW fic), appreciate it.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

As I said before I really enjoyed this.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and am happy to hear that again. :)

[blue-fjords.livejournal.com]

Good times! :D Piper says she loves the integral roles played by the doggies in this story. And I realized I never left a comment on the actual post. :) Overloading the smilies, but it's a sweet, romantic story and doesn't need flowers. And I totes buy beer and wine for company even though I don't drink it myself. I always have to remind myself that other people use things like salad dressing, too, and I should provide. So basically, I'm saying that I'm Scott in this scenario.

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks Blue! Trying to keep it real, really, so hey, glad it works.

[etmuse.livejournal.com]

I really liked this - it really rang true for me (unlike so much RPF, which often feels very OOC).

And I love the image of them only finding 3 apples to eat. This is the sort of situation I find myself in far too often. ('What meals can I make with half a bag of flour, some pasta sauce and a tangerine?' wouldn't be an unheard of musing.)

[cyus.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much. I have to say, this is even a touch softer than I'm entirely comfortable writing and almost playing on the emotions too much, but I think it just manages to stay clear of going too far (mostly by having the La Cage joke and the blowjobs and John doing performance art), so anyway, glad it works for you. And I do agree about most RPF.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, this is so very much the kind of anniversary we have. Fourteen years, and doing it on Dec. 28 seemed like a good idea at the time! It's a mess, and you're having the same arguments, and something crazy happens to the house and the pets think it's a laugh riot and CHAOS RULES.

The love is there, though, and you're just gonna order a damn pizza and get on with it.