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[fic] I Never Said This Job Was Easy
20 December 2011
This fic is also on AO3, if you find it easier to read there
Fandom: Hark! A Vagrant: Mystery Solving Teens, by Kate Beaton
Focus: The Mystery Solving Teens
Setting: canon setting
Length: 1,270 words
Themes:
5+1 things; family; friendship
Summary:
One person he'll tell he loves, and five he won't.
Foreword:
Written for Yuletide 2011.
Happy Yuletide, Pauraque! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
For those of you who are interested in this fic but don't know the canon, or don't remember the canon, HAVE NO FEAR. It is all of six strips long; it's a very fast read. You can find the strips here: one, two, three, four, five, six.
Thanks as always to my wonderful beta [redacted for yuletide secrecy] for betaing!
Fic:
One: his grandmother
The expression on his grandma's face when he opens the gift is a little too innocent, and Grant knows better than to trust it. His grandma is fucking awesome, and she did crazy shit back when she wasn't, like, ancient. Whenever she tells him about it, it's always with this total glee at what she got away with.
This is clearly something she is trying to get away with, to fuck with him.
It's a knitted hat, in a godawful combination of colours, with an actual bobble on top. And beyond that, his grandma almost never knits, so the hat is terrible in many inventive ways as a result of her mistakes. It's hideous. It's awesome.
"I hope you like it, dear," his grandma says, an evil look in her eyes. "It's just like the one I had when I was a girl."
Grant sticks it on his head. "Thanks, Grandma," he says, as innocent as her. "It's wonderful. I'll wear the hell out of it."
"You're such a good boy," she says, and pats him on the head, squashing the bobble a bit.
Grinning at her, he says, "Love you too, Grandma." He kind of wants to be her when he grows up.
Five and four: his parents
What the fuck. Grant rolls his eyes. "Seriously?" he says. "That sounds like a total lame-ass movie."
"Oh?" his mom says primly, but he can see the laughter in her eyes, never mind that she's not looking at him. "What would you recommend?"
She's sitting at the computer, in his way, so he leans over her, resting his chin on top of her head and taking control of the mouse.
"Your chin is sharp," she says, but she doesn't move out of his way so Grant just ignores it and clicks around the theatre website a bit. Fuck, all the movies look like the height of lame, and the weirdo arty film his dad had suggested might actually be the best of them. He clicks back over to it and gives up the mouse.
"This one, then?" his dad says behind him, and he's fucking laughing at Grant, so without raising his chin from his mom's head Grant kicks out behind him and scores a hit on his dad's knee, just hard enough to make his point.
"Fuck off," Grant says, but without any real heat, because whatever. It won't be as mind-numbingly awful as homework, so he might as well go. Plus he bets he can get them to spring for popcorn, and Thomas is out at a sleepover and can't hog it all.
Three: his maybe kind of sort of girlfriend, though probably not
"The principal is a homophobic dickmunch," Vanessa announces, sitting down next to Grant at lunch. Adrian's not there -- he's retaking a physics quiz because Mr Wayne is a total douche. Grant's maybe a little happy about that now, though, because Vanessa would have just insulted them both from afar if Adrian had been there, instead sitting next to him and insulting the principal.
"Uh huh," Grant says, and takes a bite of his sandwich.
"He's trying to fucking censor me!"
Grant stops chewing. "And this is news?" he says, around a mouthful of peanut butter.
Scowling, Vanessa throws her pencil at his head.
"Ow!" he says. "That fucking hurt!"
"Then shut your mouth when you have food in it. You're disgusting." She leans over him to pick up the pencil from the grass where it landed on his other side, elbowing him out of the way.
Grant takes another bite, and deliberately says, "What's Principal Assface censoring this time?"
Elbowing him again -- and Grant will admit he brought that one on himself -- Vanessa says, "The fucking GSA article. Fucking fuck."
"But --" Grant says, and stops. "This shitty school doesn't even have a GSA, I thought."
She looks grim. "You got it fucking right."
"The fuck?"
"Exactly!" Vanessa says, and she waves her pencil for emphasis. It narrowly avoids hitting Grant in the face. "It's a fucking big deal, and a real news story for the shitty school paper, but of course he doesn't want me to write about how he's not giving permission for us to have a fucking GSA, and waving his dick around like he's so important."
Grant evaluates that. "Homophobic dickmunch," he agrees, and finishes off his sandwich. "C'mon," he says. "Let's skip the afternoon. You don't need any more bullshit today."
"True fucking facts," she says, and stands up, pulling him with her.
Grant only complains a little bit when she drags him off to the city newspaper office, because Vanessa's totally hot when she's being all righteously angry. And maybe she'll even be able to convince then to run the article.
Two: his kid brother
Wii is the worst, but Thomas actually likes it, the hyperactive little fucker. "Please please please please please please please!" he says, bouncing up and down in front of Grant. Grant can tell he's going to just keep going forever if nothing stops him, so he tells him to fuck off, and reaches out from the couch to take him out at the knees. Thomas falls down giggling, but at least he's stopped saying please.
"Please?" Thomas says again, and he's staring expectantly at Grant like he knows Grant's going to cave any moment.
Damnit.
Thomas has the Wii turned on in like no seconds flat, and happily selects boxing from the options it presents him. Oh well, Grant thinks, at least it's not the fucking hula hoops. He grabs a controller for himself and levers himself out of the couch and prepares to fight a good fight against Thomas.
Grant is shit at Wii boxing -- he doesn't play nearly as often as Thomas does -- but he thinks he's holding his own pretty well. At least, until Thomas knocks him out for the last time and the final score shows up.
"Fuuuuuck," Grant says admiringly, and Thomas punches the air in triumph.
One: his best friend
Grant taps his cigarette thoughtfully and sticks it back in his mouth. "I dunno, man," he says. "Like. It's a stupid-ass book. But."
Adrian makes a face at him. "But you like it? Fuck, when'd you turn into such a perfect fucking student?" He grabs the cigarette out of Grant's mouth and takes a drag, then lets Grant steal it back.
"Fuck you," Grant says around the cigarette. "The use of language is goddamn brilliant, asswipe."
"Huh. If you like it so much then you can fucking write my essay too." Adrian takes the cigarette again, and when Grant tries to get it back he holds it out of reach and smirks.
It's too much effort to fight him for it, so Grant just lies back on the grass and looks up at the clouds, just a few wispy things high in the air and hardly moving at all. "Fucking as if," he says. "The book is fucking stupid even if the writing's brilliant."
Adrian flops back beside him and passes the cigarette over. "Right, man. But who the fuck cares about the words?"
"Whatever," says Grant. "It's a shitty book, anyway. If I ever met Gatsby I would punch him right in the face."
Adrian grins. "Hah! I'd punch every last one of them."
"And they'd deserve it." The cigarette is done, so Grant stubs it out in the dirt beside him and stretches out his arms. "They were all fucking idiots; no idea how to appreciate the fucking awesome things they had."
Beside him, Adrian laughs and nods, and pulls out a fresh cigarette.
Comments:
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