random ficlet
Mar. 15th, 2004 02:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaydeefalls
Out of the stress of essay-writing and finals, a little ficlet was born. Four drabbles. Hobbit actors, gen.
"Edge of Night"
Elijah
It's somewhere in Mordor that he realizes it, nearly on the slope of Mount Doom, when the load of endless days and sleepless nights, contracts with italicized clauses and too many beers at the pub after shooting yesterday and the slippery empty sheets against his too hot too cold skin in bed all crashes down on top of him, sends him reeling. This movie rests on his shoulders, all of it, and his back is screaming with the weight.
Elijah stumbles over too-large prosthetic feet, and falls into Frodo, and wishes he didn't understand. The ring makes his neck ache.
*
Dominic
He spends the evening memorizing the patterns in the wood grains of the pub table, tracing each line, his fingers ghosting lightly across the enamel coating. The Guinness is heavy on his tongue, thick, choking, but he swallows down pint after pint anyway. Long after the others have staggered back home, he sits, mechanically ordering refills and forcing them down until the patterns in the wood swim and dance across the table top.
Merry is all anger, and so Dominic punishes himself, one pint at a time. Too much, he thinks, meaning not the ale but everything else. Too much.
*
Billy
He needs to bounce off Dominic, needs the natural and instinctive back-and-forth banter and easy camaraderie that made their scenes lilt and spit and sparkle. Separated, his lines fall flat, swallowed by the empty air. He glances over to his other half and finds it missing, stumbles, flails about for a crutch that isn't there and falls heavily, the pain of impact reflected only in the shadows of his eyes. Upright, in control, he falls without anyone else noticing, take after take after take.
Pippin ages, lines creasing the corners of his eyes and mouth, and Billy feels every year.
*
Sean
He sees the pressure reflected in their eyes and limbs, in the slow, painful way they pull themselves into makeup every morning, the stress along the lines of their jaws. He sees it in the dark circles under Elijah's eyes, the four aspirin Dominic pops every morning to combat hangover, Billy's unnatural reticence. And he finds himself reflecting their anxiety, as he worries and nags and tries to hug Elijah and distract Dom and pull Billy into conversation, cover all bases, take care of everything without falling apart.
Share the load, Sam would say, but Sean can't find the words.
"Edge of Night"
Elijah
It's somewhere in Mordor that he realizes it, nearly on the slope of Mount Doom, when the load of endless days and sleepless nights, contracts with italicized clauses and too many beers at the pub after shooting yesterday and the slippery empty sheets against his too hot too cold skin in bed all crashes down on top of him, sends him reeling. This movie rests on his shoulders, all of it, and his back is screaming with the weight.
Elijah stumbles over too-large prosthetic feet, and falls into Frodo, and wishes he didn't understand. The ring makes his neck ache.
*
Dominic
He spends the evening memorizing the patterns in the wood grains of the pub table, tracing each line, his fingers ghosting lightly across the enamel coating. The Guinness is heavy on his tongue, thick, choking, but he swallows down pint after pint anyway. Long after the others have staggered back home, he sits, mechanically ordering refills and forcing them down until the patterns in the wood swim and dance across the table top.
Merry is all anger, and so Dominic punishes himself, one pint at a time. Too much, he thinks, meaning not the ale but everything else. Too much.
*
Billy
He needs to bounce off Dominic, needs the natural and instinctive back-and-forth banter and easy camaraderie that made their scenes lilt and spit and sparkle. Separated, his lines fall flat, swallowed by the empty air. He glances over to his other half and finds it missing, stumbles, flails about for a crutch that isn't there and falls heavily, the pain of impact reflected only in the shadows of his eyes. Upright, in control, he falls without anyone else noticing, take after take after take.
Pippin ages, lines creasing the corners of his eyes and mouth, and Billy feels every year.
*
Sean
He sees the pressure reflected in their eyes and limbs, in the slow, painful way they pull themselves into makeup every morning, the stress along the lines of their jaws. He sees it in the dark circles under Elijah's eyes, the four aspirin Dominic pops every morning to combat hangover, Billy's unnatural reticence. And he finds himself reflecting their anxiety, as he worries and nags and tries to hug Elijah and distract Dom and pull Billy into conversation, cover all bases, take care of everything without falling apart.
Share the load, Sam would say, but Sean can't find the words.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:52 am (UTC)Tell me if I'm right or not, but I DEFINATELY think I know you from the XF fandom. I believe you used to post some of your XF fic on my site the HOF (formerly at www.hofxf.com).
It's nice to see an old name from the past in the LOTRIPS world!
-arianne
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:35 pm (UTC)Tell me if I'm right or not, but I DEFINATELY think I know you from the XF fandom.
O_O Oh god. I've been discovered. Yeah, that would be me. I was all of thirteen or fourteen years old at that point. I swear, I don't write like that anymore!
Heh. Hi!
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:00 pm (UTC)Anyway, here we meet in the LOTRIPS fandom, how fun!
<3
-ari
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 08:25 am (UTC)Angsty and lovely and thank you.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:43 pm (UTC)Each one tells so much with so little.
That's the beauty of drabbles, innit? You have to condense a whole world of feelings and pressures and relationships into one 100-word moment. Mmm.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 07:13 pm (UTC)And 4 so lonely actors, each of them struggling to maintain themselves in different ways.
*hearts*