Aesthetic Form
Jul. 15th, 2003 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doyleTitle: Aesthetic Form
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Connor/Oz
Rating: G
Summary: post-Home. Connor makes a new friend on his campus.
Connor's friends tease him over how much time he spends at the library. Freshman year is supposed to be about getting drunk and getting laid. So far he's done very little of the former and none at all of the latter, but he's breezing through his classes and turning assignments in early. His mom and dad are proud. They tell him this over the phone at least six times a week.
Nobody knows that most days he bypasses the floors of art and history books, the things relevant to his electives, and heads straight for psychology. He's amassing quite a file of photocopies on sleep studies, multiple personalities, schizophrenia, even weirdness about past lives he cribbed from his roommate's back issues of Fortean Times.
He tried talking to the campus counselor, but got sent away with a line of sympathetic bullshit about his first semester being a time of great upheaval, and that the dreams would stop once he settled in. He thought of explaining that they'd started three months before he attended his first class, but the door was already closed behind him.
They're getting more vivid. He can remember details now - not much, not faces yet, or words, but there are images he has frozen in his mind. The sky raining fire. A coffin in the sea. A sci-fi/fantasy worldscape he could find his way around blindfold, except he's tied to a tree and there are sharp-toothed demons sniffing him with suspicion.
He drank a lot of coffee the week he had that one.
The library's dark inside, and when he steps into the open air the switch from feeble fluorescent striplights to bright California sunshine blinds him. He holds the folder up to shade his eyes as he walks along.
Which is why, when he turns the corner, he trips over someone.
He stumbles, gets his balance, starts to apologise, and then wonders why someone is sitting on the ground.
"Sorry," he says anyway.
The boy - Connor still privately thinks of himself as a boy, and this guy, he can tell, is only a few years older - glances up, gives him an "okay" and a quiet smile, and goes back to his guitar.
The melody isn't one Connor recognizes. It meanders from chord to chord, and he realises the guy isn't playing anything. He's just playing, left hand moving along the guitar's neck with slow grace. Long fingers, Connor thinks, and he's never noticed another boy's hands before, but he tells himself it's because he's never seen a man wearing nail polish. It's chipped, and a shade lighter than the blue-black hair that's stark against the red brick.
He looks up, doesn't stop softly strumming as he says, "hey."
"Hey," Connor says back. "Um... it's good. What you're playing."
The nod's almost imperceptible. "Cool."
And there's just something about this guy; like somebody made an e.e.cummings poem person-shaped and dressed it in dadaism.
He feels gawky and foolish as he tells this stranger his name and what he's studying, and asks if he's a senior.
"I'm not a student here."
"Oh."
"Oz," the guy says, and it's a puzzling, random statement, till Connor realises it's his name.
"You're very... peaceful," he blurts out, and immediately wants to throw himself under the nearest truck.
But Oz doesn't laugh. He looks up at him, eyes half-lidded and head tilted a fraction to one side, and says, "thank you. That's a good thing."
The question's out before he can stop himself, like that other-Connor he sometimes half suspects exists has taken control of his mouth.
Oz nods. "Coffee would be excellent," he says, his hand stilling on the strings as the last chord fades away.
END
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Connor/Oz
Rating: G
Summary: post-Home. Connor makes a new friend on his campus.
Connor's friends tease him over how much time he spends at the library. Freshman year is supposed to be about getting drunk and getting laid. So far he's done very little of the former and none at all of the latter, but he's breezing through his classes and turning assignments in early. His mom and dad are proud. They tell him this over the phone at least six times a week.
Nobody knows that most days he bypasses the floors of art and history books, the things relevant to his electives, and heads straight for psychology. He's amassing quite a file of photocopies on sleep studies, multiple personalities, schizophrenia, even weirdness about past lives he cribbed from his roommate's back issues of Fortean Times.
He tried talking to the campus counselor, but got sent away with a line of sympathetic bullshit about his first semester being a time of great upheaval, and that the dreams would stop once he settled in. He thought of explaining that they'd started three months before he attended his first class, but the door was already closed behind him.
They're getting more vivid. He can remember details now - not much, not faces yet, or words, but there are images he has frozen in his mind. The sky raining fire. A coffin in the sea. A sci-fi/fantasy worldscape he could find his way around blindfold, except he's tied to a tree and there are sharp-toothed demons sniffing him with suspicion.
He drank a lot of coffee the week he had that one.
The library's dark inside, and when he steps into the open air the switch from feeble fluorescent striplights to bright California sunshine blinds him. He holds the folder up to shade his eyes as he walks along.
Which is why, when he turns the corner, he trips over someone.
He stumbles, gets his balance, starts to apologise, and then wonders why someone is sitting on the ground.
"Sorry," he says anyway.
The boy - Connor still privately thinks of himself as a boy, and this guy, he can tell, is only a few years older - glances up, gives him an "okay" and a quiet smile, and goes back to his guitar.
The melody isn't one Connor recognizes. It meanders from chord to chord, and he realises the guy isn't playing anything. He's just playing, left hand moving along the guitar's neck with slow grace. Long fingers, Connor thinks, and he's never noticed another boy's hands before, but he tells himself it's because he's never seen a man wearing nail polish. It's chipped, and a shade lighter than the blue-black hair that's stark against the red brick.
He looks up, doesn't stop softly strumming as he says, "hey."
"Hey," Connor says back. "Um... it's good. What you're playing."
The nod's almost imperceptible. "Cool."
And there's just something about this guy; like somebody made an e.e.cummings poem person-shaped and dressed it in dadaism.
He feels gawky and foolish as he tells this stranger his name and what he's studying, and asks if he's a senior.
"I'm not a student here."
"Oh."
"Oz," the guy says, and it's a puzzling, random statement, till Connor realises it's his name.
"You're very... peaceful," he blurts out, and immediately wants to throw himself under the nearest truck.
But Oz doesn't laugh. He looks up at him, eyes half-lidded and head tilted a fraction to one side, and says, "thank you. That's a good thing."
The question's out before he can stop himself, like that other-Connor he sometimes half suspects exists has taken control of his mouth.
Oz nods. "Coffee would be excellent," he says, his hand stilling on the strings as the last chord fades away.
END
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no subject
on 2003-07-14 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2003-07-14 07:01 pm (UTC)Yeah. Amen.
This is a great slice of -- I was going to say life, but I think intersection's a better word. Poor jittery Connor, going the Wes route and trying to understand things through books. And sweeeet soulful Oz, crashing college campuses just like I always knew he would. Just lovely.
(You saw
no subject
on 2003-07-14 07:05 pm (UTC)(You saw katemonkey's call for Oz fic, yes?)
Hmm, believe I missed that...
no subject
on 2003-07-15 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
on 2003-07-14 08:09 pm (UTC)This line, and the fic as a whole, made me feel very dream-like. Something fluid, something poetic. Very soothing and strange. I enjoyed it immensely.
Quite... COZy...
on 2003-07-14 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2003-07-14 09:58 pm (UTC)I can see these two complementing each other very well. Oz's inner and outer quiet offering a kind of balm to Connor's turmoil, and Connor providing Oz with a link to something real and maybe a bit needy.
Lovely prose as usual - very spare in keeping perfectly with the mood of the piece.
no subject
on 2003-07-16 02:39 pm (UTC)like somebody made an e.e.cummings poem person-shaped and dressed it in dadaism.
Moremoremoremoremoremoremoremore! :)
no subject
on 2003-07-19 02:23 pm (UTC)I read this line several times - its so Oz. Fabulous way of describing him *lol*. This is really an excellent fic, go you!
no subject
on 2003-07-19 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2003-07-30 03:38 pm (UTC)And I love this little story.
Of course, being me, I want more. No pressure on you, just a gentle request if you feel inspiration strike again.
Connor's situation, the situation of how the two meet, just lovely extrapolation of canon.
I must go thank
no subject
on 2003-07-30 03:42 pm (UTC)Of course, being me, I want more. No pressure on you, just a gentle request if you feel inspiration strike again.
Yep, it was always meant to be the setup for a sequel, so I hope to get back to it one of these days.
no subject
on 2003-11-12 08:25 pm (UTC)