a_t_rain: (wereflamingo)
a_t_rain ([personal profile] a_t_rain) wrote2014-12-07 09:05 pm
Entry tags:

more Vorkosigan fic

I should note that neither this nor Protective Coloration were the stories I set out to write in this fandom. What I intended to write were some missing scenes with the various (more Byronic than the Byrons, and two-thirds awesome) Vorrutyer cousins during A Civil Campaign, but for some reason I seem to be having an attack of burgeoning backstory. Oddly enough, I think this is backstory for Richars more than any of the others, even though he's barely in it, because that is pretty much the only way to write a story in which Richars is an even vaguely sympathetic character.

Five cousins, various equations of protection. Gen, but has references to rape, abortion, homophobia, and (probably) prostitution.



I Am Myself Alone

As brothers go, Pierre is pretty useless: he is too old to play games with, and he doesn’t even tease and joke like other people’s much-older brothers. Actually, he doesn’t do much of anything. Most of the time he locks himself in his room and broods. And then sometimes he bosses her around.

“I don’t have to stay here. Da said I could come downstairs and visit for a while.” Their father hasn’t actually said this, but he hasn’t forbidden her either; he doesn’t usually pay attention to Donna, because she is a girl. “And he wants you to come downstairs. He says you’re antisocial and have no manners.” That part is really true.

“Well, I’m not going, and you shouldn’t go either.”

“You’re not Da, and I don’t have to obey you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“But why can’t I? I want to know what they’re talking about.” The sounds of raised voices filter up through the floorboards. One time, somebody had smashed a window, and she’d missed that too.

Pierre doesn’t answer. What he does say, after a while, is, “Donna, you’re not really afraid of anything, are you?”

“No,” she says, and then “Yes, I am too afraid of some things,” because she knows that Pierre is afraid of a lot of things even though he’s a boy and almost grown up, and she doesn’t want to make him feel bad. She tries, hastily, to make some fears up, in case he asks her what they are.

“Well, just ... stay here with me. Please.”

“All right.” She tries, she really tries, but it’s boring in Pierre’s room. She edges toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom,” she says, because he can’t very well say no to that. She tries not to look cunning.

“Fine. But come right back. If you do, I’ll ... we can play Jump Pilots.”

“Can we play right now?” she asks before he can change his mind. “I don’t really have to go to the bathroom. I mean, not really bad.”

Normally, Pierre hates playing Jump Pilots, which you do by spinning around and around until you turn dizzy and fall over, and then you lie on your back and let the world go on spinning and spinning, and then you pretend to explore another planet. Then you start over. It’s Donna’s favorite game, but Pierre says it makes him sick to his stomach.

They explore five or six planets together, and Donna has completely forgotten that she wanted to go downstairs, when she hears the front door slam. She runs to the window and peers out, curious to catch a glimpse of their departing visitor.

“All right,” says Pierre. “Enough Jump Pilots. You can go downstairs now if you like.”

“I don’t want to now,” she protests. “It’s not fair. You’ve never even let me really meet Uncle Ges.”

* * *

He has been crying, and he knows that he will probably start crying again if he lets Donna comfort him, but he runs to her anyway. One nice thing about Donna is that she won’t care if he cries, so it doesn’t matter.

“What’s the matter?” she asks. “Richars getting to you again?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to beat him up for you?”

She can do that, even though she is a year younger than their cousin Richars and a girl. For now, she is taller and stronger. Richars said that wouldn’t be true when they were grown, and then he said some other things about what he would do to her then.

“No,” says Byerly, and then, “What does faggot mean?”

She pulls him in closer. “Never mind what it means, By, it isn’t a nice word.”

“That isn’t helpful,” he says, in the tone that makes other kids accuse him of talking like a grown-up, except that another nice thing about Donna is that she doesn’t laugh at him when he does that. “I mean, obviously it isn’t a nice word, or Richars wouldn’t be using it.”

Richars used some other words that he didn’t know, but he can’t ask Donna about those, because Richars was talking about her when he used them. He will have to try looking them up in the dictionary later, although the dictionary never seems to have any of the words that are really interesting, or else it says they mean something completely different from what the person seemed to be using them to mean.

“You know what they say, By,” she says, in that bright voice Donna gets when she is trying to say the things that his mother would be saying if his mother were normal. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but –”

“But that isn’t true,” he says, and that makes Donna stop, because even though she’s older she’s still just another kid, and that means she knows he’s right. “I want to know all the words. I need to know them so I can use them back.”

“All right,” says Donna. “I’ll tell you what it means.”

* * *

“Got it!” Byerly grins, and tosses the money down on her desk. “A thousand marks.”

How did you get it?” she asks.

“Don’t worry about that,” he says, which means sex or drugs or possibly both. “I got you a present, too.” He pulls the scarf from the palm of his hand like a conjuror’s trick. “Try it on. Oh, yes, very nice – a little boyish, but you can pull off that look. I thought it would look better on you than me.”

“Where did you get that?”

“A bonus of sorts,” he says, with a sly smile.

Sex, then. Unless, of course, juba addicts are so grateful to get their fix that they give presents to their dealers, which seems unlikely. She feels guilty about having made her brother do that, but he doesn’t seem to mind about it.

“So,” he says. “You’re sure it’s going to be safe?”

“She said she hadn’t killed anyone yet.”

“Well, but not being killed is ... rather a low bar as damage goes, isn’t it? If we lived in a civilized place, you could go to a real doctor, instead of an old Greek woman from the hills. No, scratch that, if we lived in a civilized place you’d have had a contraceptive implant in the first place ... Julia, let’s move somewhere civilized after you finish school.”

“Where? The city?”

“Dream bigger. I was thinking farther away from here. Like, maybe, Earth.”

Even you can’t possibly sleep with enough rich older people to get us to Earth, she thinks, or sell enough drugs, either.

“Julia?”

“Mmm?”

“You know you haven’t done – aren’t about to do – anything wrong, right? At least, I don’t believe any of it is wrong, and I’m conceited enough to think that my opinion is the only one that matters.”

She is not sure what she believes, herself, but she nods.

“Good.” He touches her on the shoulder and smiles. “And I hope he was good-looking, and you had a very good time.”

She tries to smile back. Her brother doesn’t need to know it wasn’t completely voluntary.

* * *

They have shared understandings, these cousins of his. He doesn’t know what they say to each other in private, but he can see it whenever two or more of them are together: the looks they exchange say I will look after you and I’ve got your back.

None of them has ever invited Richars in. He isn’t one of them, but that doesn’t matter, because he isn’t like them. He isn’t weak enough to want protection, and still less does he need anyone to protect.
hamsterwoman: (Default)

[personal profile] hamsterwoman 2014-12-08 07:16 am (UTC)(link)
I really liked this one as well! Especially your Byerly and young Donna, but I also really like what we see of Pierre.

even though he's barely in it, because that is pretty much the only way to write a story in which Richars is an even vaguely sympathetic character.

Heh, true!

Also looking forward to the By and Dono adventures during ACC!

[identity profile] a-t-rain.livejournal.com 2014-12-08 01:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I reckon Pierre has to have been pretty decent...