#Cash for Cars Waterloo | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

readingforsanity · 2 years ago

Text

The Passenger | Lisa Lutz | Published 2016 | *SPOILERS*

A blistering thriller is about a woman who creates and sheds new identities as she crisscrosses the country to escape her past: you’ll want to buckle up for the ride.

In case you were wondering, I didn’t do it. I didn’t have anything to do with Frank’s death. I don’t have an alibi, so you’ll have to take my word for it...

Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tania Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her brown hair, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It’s not the first time.

She meets Blue, a female bartender who recognizes the hunted look in a fugitive’s eyes and offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya-now-Amelia accepts. An uneasy-and dangerous - alliance is born.

It’s almost impossible to live off the grid today, but Amelia-now-Debra and Blue have the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret...can she outrun her past?

With heartstopping escapes and devious deceptions, The Passenger is an amazing psychological thriller about defining yourself while you pursue your path to survival. One thing is certain: the ride will leave you breathless.

Our main character goes through many transformations in this thriller. While it is dubbed a psychological thriller, I wouldn’t go so far as it call it that but it is a thriller nonetheless.

Tanya Dubois

We are first introduced to our character when she is dubbed Tanya Pitts-Dubois. Written in her perspective, we come to learn that her husband, Frank, has died but she isn’t responsible for his death. According to Tanya, he fell down the stairs and must have bumped his head. But, a woman with secrets, she takes off on the run away from the town she has lived for the last several years.

We learn now that Tanya isn’t even her real name, though her identity is still kept a secret. At one point, she reaches out to a mysterious man simply known as Mr. Oliver. She requests a new identity with documents as well as $5,000 in cash. Mr. Oliver comes through with this request, and she becomes Amelia Keen.

Amelia Keen

As Amelia, she makes her way to Austin, Texas. Living in squalid motels and drinking, she is trying to figure out a way to make a living. As Tanya and married to Frank, she made a decent living working inside the bar that he, and eventually they, owned. Stepping into libraries to check into the Dubois case, she has found that she is wanted as a person of interest in the case, and that Frank had died from blunt force trauma to the head. Running, as she had, has made the authorities in Waterloo, Wisconsin suspicious of her.

Amelia one day steps into a bar, wanting to remain anonymous, but instead she meets the woman behind the bar named Blue. They’re alike in many ways, and Blue offers to talk to her but they are met by two strange men that Amelia had dubbed the Professor and the Accountant. Both women are taken by gunpoint by these men. Blue, Amelia finds, is willing to do anything to survive. She causes a car accident, and kills the two men who had essentially kidnapped them.

Amelia returns to Blue’s small cottage house with her, and lives with her for a time. She begins cleaning houses in order to bring some money in. Eventually, Blue confesses that like Amelia, she’s on the run from an abusive husband. Since both of them were involved in the killing of the two men, they try to find new identities by attending the funerals of young woman they may be able to resemble in some ways.

One night, Blue seems a bit more on edge than usual, and they go for a drive out into the woods. Together, they bury the body of a man that Blue says is her estranged husband. She claims he had found her, and she killed him in self-defense. They bury the body in a shallow grave deep in the wilderness, and when they return, Blue states that it is her time to go. Blue offers up her identity to her, and she will take the identity of Amelia Keen. Blue’s real name is Debra Maze, and while living in Ohio, had worked as a school-teacher. Blue helps her figure out how to become a teacher in the state of Wyoming, as this is where she has fingerprint cards that she gives to Amelia. Once this “transaction” is complete, Amelia is now Debra Maze.

Debra Maze

As Debra, she goes to Wyoming. She meets the sheriff of a small town named Domenic, and though initially attracted to her, he is suspicious of her. She ends up in Jackson, Wyoming. However, Blue didn’t take into consideration all of the other legal aspects of trying to find a job as a school teacher, so she ends up finding a private school. The school hires her and gives her access to the small apartment in the basement where she can live instead of attempting to find anything else.

Debra begins working as a teacher. She gains the trust of her charges, and even goes on a fishing excursion with one of the students in her class as nobody else had agreed to want to go. But just when she thinks that she could live a life in Wyoming, she notices a strange man hanging around the school, and Domenic, the sheriff from another town, arrives and begins asking her questions.

The strange man turns out to be Jack Reed, the husband of Debra Maze the original, or Blue as we have come to know her as. Debra is shocked by this, as she thought the man she and Blue had buried in the woods had been her husband. Working once again in self-defense, Debra kills Jack by shooting him in the head and chest, and pushing his body into the water. As we’ll come to find out later, we do not find out the outcome of whether or not he is found.

Emma Lark

At some point during her time as Debra, she found another young woman named Emma Lark who had passed away. Though she doesn’t have any legally binding materials to become Emma, on her travels back to the East Coast, she introduces herself as Emma. She does so to a woman she meets on the train to New York. Unfortunately, the woman recognizes her from her photo’s circulating when she lived as Tanya, and that she is currently wanted for questioning in the mysterious death of her husband.

This spooks her, as she can be recognized as one of her previous selves, and begins attempting to squat in various vacation homes or empty summer camps.

Her life is becoming a bit hectic. She does eventually find an empty vacation home and stays there for a time. She begins to get comfortable, but when her inhibitions are hidden due to sleep, the owner of the home arrives one day. She has to become someone else entirely for just a short time.

The owner of the home, Gina, calls her Paige.

Paige

The owners of the home had two sons, Toby and someone else unnamed. During her time as Emma, she found out that Toby had passed on and seemingly committed suicide. When Gina arrives, they talk and Gina is quite rude to “Paige”. Assuming that Paige was somehow involved with Gina’s son, she apologizes. But instead, it turns out that Paige was sleeping with Gina’s husband, Leonard. Though she isn’t truly involved, she apologizes anyway.

The rest of the story is a bit jumbled, so I’m going to skip ahead to the good stuff. We eventually learn the cause of why our mysterious main character has been on the run for the last 10 years.

Her name is Nora Jo Glass. She grew up in a town about two hours outside of Tacoma, Washington. It was a smaller town. She ended up falling in love with the Oliver boys (remember, Mr. Oliver!): Logan first, then his brother Ryan. Logan is a sociopath, and Nora actually saw him injure a cat by breaking its neck in the woods. This put her off to him, and she eventually fell in love with Ryan, the more quiet of the Oliver brothers.

However, Nora had a reputation in town thanks to her drunk mother and the death of her father by suicide. Mr. Oliver didn’t want her around his children, but Ryan decided that they could hide their relationship for two years until they could be together and nobody could say anything about it. In the midst of all of this, Nora began competing for the swim team, and eventually met Melinda, a new student who was also on the swim team, but appeared to be better than her. They became quick friends despite the amount of competition between them.

Nora, who Ryan calls Jo, eventually makes it to her senior year, and she and Ryan attend prom together. Melinda dated Logan for a time until he showed her his true colors, and she moved on with another boy named Hank, who she attended prom with. Logan shows up at the after party held in the woods, and begins watching Melinda and Hank. When they leave the party, he follows them, bringing Jo and Ryan with him.

When they get to a dangerous bridge, Hank loses control of the vehicle and tumbles into the water, with Logan following in the car that Jo had been using. Logan rescues himself, but Ryan is paralyzed with fear and Jo helps him. When she comes to in the hospital two days later, she learns that Hank and Melinda had died, and she is now being plagued a murderer.

Mr. Oliver decides that he’s going to help her run. Her mother, whom has had an affair with Mr. Oliver for as long as she could remember, agrees to this, and thus began Jo’s 10 years on the run for a crime she didn’t commit. However, in one of her identities, she learns that someone has come forward with new information, and that she should return home to Washington in order to clear her name, as she will now be a free woman.

She does so, and learns, from Blue posing as a reporter named Laura Cartwright, that both her mother and Ryan came forward with the story that corrobarated hers when she first told it to the police: Logan had been driving that day, not her, and thus he’s responsible for the deaths of Hank and Melinda. Jason Lyons, a once friend and now a prosecutor, has stated that she is a free woman, and she should also return to Waterloo to finalize anything there, as she is a free woman in that case as well.

Unsure of what to do with her life now, she stays in Washington to finalize anything she might have to. She and Ryan agree to never see each other again. Now she can remain herself, and as Nora, she goes to visit Domenic in Wyoming on the way to somewhere else.

There is much about this book that truly made me so angry. It sort of reminded me of Gone Girl, but without the true psychological effects of that book. But, the worst part of this book is that she realizes why Mr. Oliver helps her. He was her dad...therefore, she ended up having relationships with both of her half-brothers.

Discussion Questions

1. Did you initially believe Tanya when she states that she had nothing to do with Frank’s death, and that he died simply after a fall down the stairs? How does your perception of Tanya’s innocence or guilt change throughout the course of the novel? In the beginning, sure. You want to believe to the main character right? But, I’ve read so many psychological thrillers with demented main characters in it up until this point, that eventually, I began to question whether or not she was telling the truth. Especially when we learn that while she doesn’t want to harm anyone initially, she has no problems killing people.

2. Did you find Tanya to be a reliable narrator? At which points in the novel did you trust her account of events, and at which points did you feel she was hiding all or some of the truth? In the beginning no. She was changing identities so quickly it’s hard to actually trust that anything she said was worth a damn. It wasn’t until she returned to her true self, as Jo or Nora, that I realized that she had been set up as a young teenager.

3. What techniques does the author use to ratchet up the tension and suspense throughout the novel? Discuss specific moments that were unnerving for you as a reader, and how the author kept you on edge. How did the author use humor to lighten the mood periodically? Honestly, I didn’t see much humor in this story. Blue gave some comedic relief here and there, but I guess maybe I don’t understand the humor the author was using? I also didn’t find much tension or suspense throughout the novel, but that’s just me.

4. Why does Amelia decide to trust Blue? Do you think that Blue ever trusts Amelia? Would you have trusted Blue if you were in the same position? Amelia feels a kinship with Blue, as they are in similar circumstances to one another: husbands that did them wrong in some way. However, I don’t think Blue ever trusted Amelia 100%, as she shouldn’t. Nobody should be trusted when they’re virtually strangers.

5. How much of Blue giving Debra Maze’s identity to Amelia is altruistic, and how much is malicious? Do you believe that Blue’s gift is intended to be a way out of a trap? While I didn’t initially think so, I do believe that Blue’s motive for giving Amelia her identity was malicious. She even admits that there was a chance that her husband would find her, which he did. And that ended up in his life being taken.

6. How do the emails between Ryan and Jo inserted throughout the novel help you to understand their relationship and what happened ten years ago? Why does Jo continue to communicate with Ryan, and why does she seem to trust him? In the beginning, it doesn’t help us understand who Ryan and Jo were, or even what happened in the past. It simply alludes that something terrible had happened many years ago, and now Jo is on the run while Ryan is able to continue to live his life, albeit guiltily.

7. What does each new identity or potential identity represent to Tanya? What does Tanya’s ability to shift identities so easily say about her personality and her motivations, and in what ways does taking on a new identity change her? Discuss in particular the chances Tanya makes to her hair and makeup to make herself alternately more attractive or less attractive, and how these changes make her feel. It means that Tanya has never felt like Tanya, therefore she has been able to mask herself in many ways using identities from other people. Every time she changes her appearance, it shifts something in her, and while she can change herself however she wants, the changes always make her feel like less of a person.

8. In Recluse, Wyoming, Debra comes close to making a life for herself as a small town schoolteacher. What do you think would have happened if Jack Reed hadn’t appeared on her doorstep? Could Debra have ever lived a relatively normal life in Recluse? How do her actions there alter the course of her journey and her self-perception? Relatively normal? Sure. But, she would eventually have to move on. Recluse was small, but it wasn’t a town that people hadn’t heard of before.

9. Violence toward women is a major theme of the novel. What sort of statement is the author making by presenting so many relationships where women have been abused or wronged, and what does it mean for these women to get revenge? It makes women appear weak, when this is farthest from the truth.

10. Discuss Tanya’s relationships with the men in her life: Frank, Domenic, and Ryan. Is she truly in love with any of them? Who does she reveal herself to, and why? How does Tanya use men and her sexuality to get what she wants? She only revealed herself to Ryan, her true self. The others, not so much. But then again, she was two completely different women when she was with Frank and her brief time with Domenic.

11. Why does Tanya decide it’s so crucial for her to tell the police about Reginald Lee? Does her attempt to stop Reggie from committing a crime absolve her of any of her own transgressions? She is attempting to make what she has done right. She couldn’t with good conscience have him take the lives of many people despite having taken the life of two men at that point, Reggie being one of them. It’s one thing to take one life, but it’s another to her, to take several.

12. Did you feel empathy for Tanya or any of her many alter egos? How did your feelings toward her fluctuate over the course of the novel? Did you ever feel that she went past redemption in your eyes, or did you root for her to succeed? She was annoying in the beginning unti we got to the end and it’s revealed what happened. Then I was sympathetic to her plight.

13. Why does Nora ultimately decide to go home? Were you surprised by what happens when she gets there? I wasn’t surprised, because the author said it would happen. But Nora wanted the past to go away.

14. What do you think happens to the characters after the novel is over? Do you think Nora will finally find peace? I think Nora was going to live the life that was stolen from her, and we see she returns to Domenic, so I think she is going to somehow end up living in the town in Wyoming with him, and they’ll be together.

Questions issued by the publisher.

0 notes

every-last-inch-of-me · 5 years ago

Text

Waterloo Sunset || Marginally Catholic

[Backdated: Late August, shortly after the HP AU.]

Gaston drags Claude on a day trip into the capital, where Claude admits his intentions of leaving the church and Gaston makes a discovery.

TW: light mentions of abuse, death and trauma

@hellfire-damnation

GASTON:

Gaston had been up, for once, in what normal people could consider 'the morning'. The birds had been singing, the sky a bright blue and the breeze cool, wafting through his window and tickling his sleeping body awake. It felt like summer, for real this time and, since the bar's shifts were covered all day, he was desperate not to waste it.

He'd thrown on his clothes and made his way across the road to the church, where the priest was just finishing up his morning service. For a second, he waited by the doors, just to be certain that it was closer to the end of the service than the start (though really he had no idea) and threw the doors open with a resounding CRASH.

"Ok, everybody! Up and out! Church today is cancelled!" He called, as he strutted down the main aisle, before raising an eyebrow at the old lady who hadn't got out of her seat yet. "That means you too, Petunia."

"My name's-"

"Less talking more walking. We," he threw the priest a jacket and shirt he'd found spare at his house, "have places to be. Chop chop. Haven't got all day. We have trains to catch."

CLAUDE:

Of all the things he expected to come through his door this morning, a loud and insistent Gaston LeCarriere was not one of them. Specifically, one that was up this early. Not that Gaston lazed about, really, but not many people were up with the sun like Claude was.

A hazard of the position, he supposed, among other things.

Regardless, the man's brow furrowed as he watched Gaston come up the main aisleway, weaving between the elderly patrons of the church easily as they shuffled about. The last one out, as usual, was Edith.

Shaking his head at the other man's antics, not commenting because he was used to them by this point, Claude caught the clothing that was tossed to him with one hand as he moved around to help the older woman up onto her feet. Thanking him, she gave his arm a pat and he smiled, bright and warm, as he watched her walk out into the church courtyard.

Once she was out of the building, Claude heaved a sigh and began undoing the buttons of his priest's habit. "Is this even mine," he questioned, arching a brow at the white t-shirt in his hand. "And what are you on about? Trains? Where are we going?" As he spoke he moved around the room, hurriedly putting everything away, hands untucking the collar at his throat and removing the rest of the clothing of his office like it was second nature. It probably was, but that still didn't explain why he was doing it. Other than the fact that Gaston had said they were going somewhere, somewhere that obviously did not require his being dressed as a priest.

GASTON:

Gaston could feel his toes buzzing as he watched the priest helped the slowest old woman in the world onto her feet and watched her leave. He'd never been very patient. By that point, if the pressure in his legs that was stopping him from picking her up and throwing her straight out of the door could be used, he'd either be knee deep in the stone or levitating.

He shrugged at the first question and let out a quick, "You tell me." After the first time Claude had stayed, bloody and beaten, there had been a silent exchange of clothes. The priest had liked a jumper, so he kept the jumper out when the man came by in the evenings. A t-shirt fitted, so if it came too late to cross the street, the shirt became his. And in turn, there were bits of the priest's clothes in his basket waiting to be washed. Of course, they were technically Gaston's, in that he'd bought them. But he was fairly certain he was the less frequent occupant.

The one in Claude's hand wasn't particularly distinguishable, but it had looked small when he'd picked it up and that was good enough for him.

"And we're going out," Gaston said, crossing his arms and tapping his finger into his arm. "Hurry up or we'll be late."

CLAUDE:

As soon as he had returned from helping Edith out the door and had his collar and habit off, Claude was slipping the shirt over his head and the leather jacket he kept at Gaston's across his shoulders. After the first night he had stayed in the other man's flat, clothing had sporadically appeared, intermingling with what was already there. He still even had one of Gaston's jumpers somewhere in the wash, though he could hardly tell you which one.

Likewise, he had some of the man's own clothing scattered around. A jumper that was a bit bigger in the shoulders, jeans that were longer at the inseam. It had become almost habit these days to accidentally find himself tossing on a shirt and realizing it wasn't his.

And he could not have really told you when it started happening, just that it had.

Out? Well, that was certainly news to Claude. Still, he did nothing more than raise an eyebrow and gave a small nod, bemused at the run around he was being given. The priest didn't really have to worry, to be honest. If it was anything overly important, the other man would have told him. No, this was something he wanted to do, and Claude was being brought along with him.

He ushered the other man out of the building with a hand between his shoulders, turning and locking the doors up once they were outside, before turning and folding his arms across his chest. "Care to tell me where it is that we are going, or is it another of your surprises?" The last time that had happened he'd been blindfolded and led into a cellar.

GASTON:

Gaston shoved his hands into his pockets and took a deep breath, thankful they were moving before his impatience succeeded in vibrating him through the floor. It was also a relief to see that the clothes he'd picked up actually looked quite nice, in a Claude-y kind of way. The priest had a way of pulling things off that Gaston hadn't mastered.

Of course, Gaston did look good in a lot of things because he was musclebound and had the face of a God. But there was a balance when it came to a lot of clothes, in being the right shape and size to not make him look like a) he'd dressed in a sausage skin; or b) he was about twenty-five stone, and not in the good way. It seemed the priest avoided that dilemma by merit of being perfectly slender.

He waited until the door clicked and shrugged. "This time I'm actually selling you into slavery. Don't want to keep the human traffickers waiting," he teased, resting an arm on Claude's shoulder as he finished locking the door. "You'll be blessing black market holy water."

CLAUDE:

Rolling his eyes at the non-answer, Claude recognized he would probably not be getting anything out of the other man anytime soon. Still, the off-color quip made him shake his head, fighting the curl of a smile as it edged at the corners of his mouth. He snorted instead. The words 'not for much longer' were on the tip of his tongue, so close he just wanted to say them. But, he knew if he did, if he said it and then was denied, somehow, he was dashing his hopes as surely as he had gotten them up.

"They would give me back. I am a particular brand. Not many people can afford me nor do they know how to handle me," he teased, moving away from the door and speaking over his shoulder as he took the steps two at a time. He did not have to check to know Gaston was following behind him, excess energy and all.

Whatever it was they were doing, the other man was positively brimming over with it. Stopping once he was at the end of the drive, the priest inclined his head towards his car, gave the keys in his hand a shake. "Are we walking to the station or shall I drive?"

GASTON:

Gaston turned his head and let out a quiet laugh. "Can't afford you or handle you? What're you? An inspirational facebook post for fourteen year olds who've just broken up with their boyfriend?" He teased, prodding him in the ribs and hoping by this point the bruise was far enough healed that it didn't hurt too much.

For a moment, he stared at the priest and then his car. He'd forgotten he had a car. He'd forgotten he could drive even. Swynlake was the sort of town that there wasn't all that much need for it. Gaston had long gotten used to walking and, as a teenager, it had definitely saved him money. And, probably, brushes with the police.

"But nah, why the fuck would I choose to get robbed by the station car parking machine. If we don't drive, I've got more cash for drinks."

CLAUDE:

Claude chose not to reply to the ribbing. Instead, he just smiled, still flicking his keys in his hand while he waited for the other man to reply. He had only been joking but there was also a part of him, a very small part, that knew it was the truth.

With his past, with his idiosyncrasies and the way he was, very few people could tolerate him. Or, at the very least, that was always what Claude had believed. So, yes, he was grateful to the man, even if he was being an ass about it.

"You forgot I can drive didn't you," he quipped, smile widening to show his teeth as he laughed. Then, Claude pocketed his keys and shook out his shoulders, angling alongside the man to match his gait. He didn't mind a walk, not really, and if they were going to be drinking...wherever it was that they were going, well, Claude would leave his car anyhow.

GASTON:

The walk to the station wasn't long, though a little sticky in the swelling heat of the rising sun. He'd almost wished they'd driven by the time they'd made it. He was overheated, of course, brow dripping with sweat as he settled under the closest seat to the aircon and directed air into his shirt under the amused (or perhaps disgusted) gaze of the priest, while the landscape slid past in swells and dins of roaming hills and sneaking urbanisation - until the first tower blocks of the city sprung from the ground.

The last time he'd been to London was when his parents had died. The French, forever bureaucratic, had struggled with a detail in a translated document that, after weeks of fighting by post, had miraculously disappeared from their possession. In the end, he'd decided to go to the embassy so he could fight them face to face.

He stepped from the station, breathing in the city air and smiled. He loved it up here. Though they'd struggled through crowds just to get to the street, there was a errectic peace to the world. It was an absolute state, between the people and the cars and the way the concrete made the heat throb, but the city seemed quite content in itself. It was the sort of thing he wished he could bottle and take with him wherever he went.

"Cool, isn't it?" He smiled, meeting the priest's gaze for a moment before glancing off down a nearby road. "I think if you head that way it's only a couple of minutes to the waterfront."

CLAUDE:

During the walk to the station, Claude had time to mull over where exactly it was they were headed. To him, there did not seem to be a countless number of options though he knew the system could take them most places across England. It was not something he often thought about, in truth, because he had been so used to driving in France. The town he and Laurent had resided in was small, barely more than what could be considered a hamlet, and he'd had to drive into the city often.

Once university had begun, it was a similar experience, though the loosening of his leash had only lasted so long.

He had not, however, expected Gaston to be taking him into London. Following the other man a bit speechless at all the activity. He had not been into London since helping Quasimodo, and that was nearly a year, perhaps two, ago. Even then he had not stayed long. And what Gaston seemed to be suggesting that they stay the day, perhaps see the sights.

Claude nodded, eyes taking in everything around him, speechless for the first time in a while. There was so much to see and, when he turned to the man beside him, a grin stretched from ear to ear across his face. He nodded his head, glancing down the street, before giving a bit of a shrug.

"I've no idea where I am going. I have been here only a handful of times. So, please, lead the way."

GASTON:

Gaston stepped ahead of him, beckoning him forward with a hand as his head stuck a little into the road so he could see if there was anything he recognised. Frankly, he had no idea where he was going either. But he was well seasoned in the art of winging it and at worst he could subtly look at the maps on his phone when the priest wasn't looking - like a true man, he'd never admit he was lost.

"So, what d'you wanna see?" He said before he threw himself across a line of moving traffic before the lights had completely changed, spotting a gap in the cityscape and hoping it meant the Thames was nearby. It was almost fortunate he hadn't grown up in a big city, or at least anywhere his parents could have seen him doing self-destructive everyday acts. After all, it wouldn't have taken werewolves to kill them. His mother certainly would have died of a heart attack first. "I think the London Eye's this way. Probably some street performers," he flicked a glance over his shoulder and offered a faint smile in the priest's direction, "get an honourary Mr Whippy. With a flake, obviously."

CLAUDE:

Claude gave a shrug of his shoulders as he stepped up closer to the younger man, glancing down the street just as Gaston was. "Perhaps the waterfront, then? I do not particularly know where anything is, here. It has been longer than a year. And when I was here it was not for sightseeing."

While he'd been talking, Gaston darted out into the street, apparently intent on getting himself hit by a bus. The Frenchman protested loudly, giving the drivers that had been heading down the roadway an apologetic look. After a moment, Claude caught up to him. His brow was screwed up in a bit of a scowl and he shook his head. Still, he couldn't help the little smile that curled around his mouth.

"The London Eye sounds perfect. Just do not walk into anymore cars, please."

GASTON:

Nor had he really been to London sight-seeing. But he spent so much time on his phone, staring at rose tinted interpretations of the city through another person's camera he felt as though he could guess it almost as well as knew Swynlake. Which was probably wrong. Though he planned on pretending right up until they got lost and found again.

Gaston frowned and raised a shoulder, with something of a smirk to his mouth with Claude's words. While the dream they'd shared had been a little traumatising, it had reminded him how much he'd enjoyed being young and a little cheeky. And though he wasn't making a conscious effort to try to get back to the days before - as much as he'd loved them - he found a joyful attitude bubbling back to the surface from time to time.

"Hey now, I didn't walk into any cars," he snatched his gaze away and smiled as he watched the outline of the Eye rise along the cityscape. "Just oncoming traffic. God, it's almost like you care about me."

CLAUDE:

Following after Gaston felt almost like going into a den of lions, except he wasn't entirely afraid. It was nice to see a smile on the other's face, too. He had said it before and he would again, it was one of his favorite faces the other man pulled. And he liked when he laughed. It was something rare, fleeting and achingly personal, and it was nice.

He'd told Gaston, as he vaguely remembered it, that he felt lucky to hear it. Claude would say it again because it was true.

"Do not give me that look, LaCarriere. You know what you did." Still, he followed Gaston's gaze, drawn to whatever he was looking toward, though he kept an eye on the cars and the people around them. At the man's last quip, however, Claude shot him a puzzled look, brow scrunching together as he glanced at the side of his face.

"Why would I not?" It was quiet, and probably much heavier than he had meant it to be, but it was honest. There were many things he could think of not to care about, be it a person or a situation, but Gaston had never been one of them. Claude had cared about him, in whatever capacity he was able, from the moment they'd met.

GASTON:

Gaston shrugged and let something of a smile twist his lips. "Bit gay," he smirked, ignoring the question. People didn't tend to admit they cared about him. It was part of the male experience, he thought. You didn't care and people didn't care right back at you. Granted, on occasion a girl would claim they did, but it was usually much too soon and frankly a little off-putting.

Claude, of course, was another thing entirely. A fresh entity he didn't quite understand. Because he did care and, Gaston had realised after long nights in each other's company, he cared back too, in his own way. Not that he'd ever admit it out loud. Or at least, not where anyone but Claude could hear him.

"Wanna grab an ice cream while I get the tickets?" He asked, glancing at the queue to the attraction that was beginning to loom over the cityscape. It was still quite early (for Gaston at least) and while the air hadn't quite warmed to its height, standing in the sun in a queue full of Chinese people wasn't exactly cooling. It was part of the reason he didn't spend much time aching to visit attractions. They were always too warm and he'd much rather be soaking up the sun in a beer garden with a pint in his hand and a packet of crisps.

CLAUDE:

The Frenchman huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes, shaking his head at Gaston's smile. He shrugged his own shoulders and, in the same motion, slid his jacket from them. Tugging at the collar of the shirt that was definitely not his, Claude quirked a brow at the other man, voice teasing for a moment before dropping into something like seriousness. "Whoever said I wasn't? Besides, it isn't hard. Everyone else is just stupid."

That was showing a bit too much of a hand he didn't know he had been dealt, but Claude wasn't going to take the words back. He meant them in their entirety, even if Gaston was going to tease him about them. He did care. And, in his own way, Gaston did too. If he hadn't, they wouldn't be here.

Nose wrinkling as he glanced at the long line in the sun, the dark-haired man nodded his head. He broke off from the man and made his way to the stand a few feet off, the vendor looking unpleasantly warm herself. But, she had a smile on her face and Claude returned it, small and warm, as he paid for the ice cream. The tip he put into the jar on his way off was met with an exclamation of surprised thanks and he chuckled quietly to himself as he accepted it.

When he returned to the line, he held the ice cream out to the other man, licking at the rivulets of cream and sugar that had melted down the side of his fingers when it was pulled away.

"Did they say how long the wait will be?"

GASTON:

The barman threw a raised eyebrow over his shoulder as he began to move away, amusement tangling his lips. With a tone like that, he could never tell if the other man was being serious or messing with him. But frankly, by this point he no longer cared. After all, if a priest was going to vouch for him, he had nothing to worry about.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were chatting me up," he called behind him, before dipping into the ticket office. Surprisingly, the queue for the machines wasn't as long as he'd been expecting. Perhaps that was because it was a weekday afternoon. Perhaps it was because everyone else had already bought them on their phones and was about ten steps ahead of him.

He wandered back to the priest, tickets in hand. He wasn't very good at waiting for things he wanted: always one for instant gratification. Even if it cost him in the long run and GOD this had already cost him. Probably because they were banking on impatient bastards like him being around. "Got us express tickets so as long as it takes for them to open the door on the pod I guess," he mused, glancing back up and taking the ice cream as he shoved the tickets in his back pocket.

CLAUDE:

Smiling to himself at the quip from the other man, because really what did you say to that that wasn't incriminating?, the Frenchman waited patiently for Gaston to return, edging out of the way of other tourists. Craning his head back, his gaze was lost for a moment in the sheer enormity of the sky, the backdrop it made against the steel of the Eye. It was rather beautiful, if you thought about it in any particular way, and Claude was glad to have the sight.

Fishing his phone from his pocket with the hand not sticky with melted ice cream, Claude scrolled until he found the camera, snapping a quick photo of the backdrop. He turned when he heard the other man coming closer and, seeing him standing there, felt his finger capture that moment, too.

Stowing his phone without looking at either one, Claude handed the treat over, eyebrows arching up into his hairline at the comment. When he spoke, however, it was on a laugh as he shook his head. "Impatient. That is what you are. Stubborn and impatient. You did not need to buy them on your own, you know. I'd have split them but thank you, anyway."

GASTON:

Gaston raised an eyebrow and took a bite out of his ice cream. It was a habit that his mother had always hated. She seemed convinced that she could feel the second hand pain in his teeth when he did it. But the action had rarely bothered him, especially with soft cones.

"Split them?" He scoffed, finishing his mouthful. "What? With the 25p you have in your bank account?" He laughed at his own joke and stepped towards the entrance of the line marked Express, wondering if Claude would be offended by the thought of them taking their sticky ice cream hands into the pod. "Just shut up and enjoy yourself for once in your life. Or I'll go take these tickets to that bird over there and you can watch us from down here."

He wouldn't, of course. First off, giving women very expensive things for free set a precedent he wasn't willing to uphold. And really, he'd taken Claude out to show him what living felt like. He didn't plan on wasting the trip.

CLAUDE:

Claude watched with skepticism as Gaston bit into the side of his ice cream, eyebrows arching. He felt the cold in his own teeth and it made him wonder just how the other man got away with such a thing.

The comment was an old-born one, however, so all he did was roll his eyes and shove him with a shoulder. "I have a stipend, thank you. Just not a lot by the time heating and air and gas are paid for." The Frenchman shrugged a shoulder, more flippant than he normally was about it. The thought had settled more and more firmly into his mind that he would not be living like that for much longer.

Then again, he still needed to find another place to live, too.

"I am, actually. Despite being kidnapped again. It is...nice, being able to go out into the city." His eyes flickered to the mass of the Eye in front of them, a bit of longing in his gaze as he stared up into the sky. He missed the flying from the dream, had since he'd woken. It figured that one of the few ways he knew to obtain the feeling was to be perched on high again.

He sighed through his nose, then, and shook his head, the curl to his lip not entirely hidden by the ice cream he was eating. "You would not. We're here to have fun, nounours."

GASTON:

A wry smile twisted the younger man’s lips at the thought of kidnapping. He knew it was a joke, though he couldn’t quite stop himself from smirking at the thought of being to the church what Robin Hood was to the rich. If giving to the poor counted their own priests. Stealing misery and dishing out bundles of fun. Like a sexy Father Christmas. Though really, he was quite pleased to hear that his idea was somewhat appreciated, even if the execution was not.

A hand came round and he wrestled the man’s head teasingly into his armpit. “I’m here to have fun. You’re just my sidekick. Accessory to fun. And if I choose to take Supergirl on the flight of her life there isn’t much you can do about it apart from buy your own ticket and third wheel the fuck out of it,” he said, dragging the other man into the walkway.

CLAUDE:

Claude saw the smirk and knew it was meant to go along with his first comment yet the eyeroll and the fond shake of his head were almost second nature by now. There were many things people didn't understand about his position as a priest, one of which was his lack of money. The church was meant to provide for the people who worked for it but, even still, it was usually not enough.

"And I make your life interesting. You would not know what to do without me," he said, humming a bit to himself. The Frenchman yelped when an arm dragged him close, pressing him into Gaston's side and caging his head beneath his arm. The hand not holding his ice cream clutched onto the side of his waist that was closest, deft fingers jabbing into his side. The man squirmed a bit beneath that arm, face turning against his bicep and nipping at the skin there to get him to loosen up, eyes bright as he laughed, quiet among the crowd.

The walkway was crowded, though, and Claude watched the people around them with a critical eye. He pressed himself further into the other man's side because of that, grip tightening minutely against his side as they manoeuvred into the queue.

GASTON:

The barman rubbed his free elbow into the other man's skull as he dragged him along, laughing and trying to resist the urge to flinch at the prods to his side and the teeth to his arms. Evidently, the rest of the occupants of their queue, considerably more mature and better dressed than they were, seemed to disapprove of the mass of arms and flailing ice cream. Though frankly, he'd paid an arm and a leg for the pleasure and if he wanted to cover a man in a suit with a 99 flake he was most certainly going to.

"How? By- Ow- By making everyone think of me as the loser that hangs out with the priest?" He smirked, giving the priest's head another hard jab before taking a bite of the ice cream still in his hand.

Honestly, though, he didn't care all that much about what people thought. Proximity to him elevated everyone to God status, he thought. If it had worked for Tubso back in school, it could work for Claude too. For starters, Claude was considerably better looking - even if it was disguised behind the veil of priesthood - and considerably less noticeable.

CLAUDE:

He could feel people staring but Claude didn't rightly care. Not right now. For once, he was content to let people stare at him and not care what they saw. Gaston's arm was still wrapped around his head, though, and the Frenchman laughed louder as he pushed at his arm with a hand, teeth catching his arm again.

"No one knows I am a priest here except you, nounours. And I am magnifique, thank you very much." Finally wrestling his head free, Claude made a victorious noise, much to the chagrin of the pair in front of them in line. Claude smiled widely back, for once not caring what anyone in the world thought.

His excitement at the trip they were taking into the Eye was more noticeable the closer they came to the lift, eyes sparking with some contained joy he normally did not show, nearly bouncing as he walked. He tugged Gaston along beside him absentmindedly, watching the faces of the people around him.

GASTON:

Gaston followed the other man's lead, content to let him drag him about, so long as he wasn't complaining. Really, he was quite surprised by Claude's enthusiasm. Gaston had never really shown much interest in the London Eye on any of his previous visits as a teen or with family. They'd all preferred to drink and eat good food, and frankly there wasn't anything much worse that he could think of than being stuck in a bubble for forty five minutes as it very slowly did a tour of the London skyline.

Though, somehow that seemed marginally better than doing it all on foot. They could definitively say that Claude had seen the entirety of London and he could spend the rest of the afternoon drinking beer in the sun by the river.

"Calm down. You're like an African child seeing snow for the first time, it really isn't that interesting," he said, stepping up to the front of their queue as the other pair began to board and taking a memorabilia booklet from the server. Too fucking right for that sort of money, he thought, eyes quickly grazing the pages and paying little attention to what he assumed was a runthrough of the safety information.

CLAUDE:

There was something to be said for the enthusiasm that radiated off of him, like a switch had been flipped or a light turned on. There was an explanation for it, of course, but it was hard to put into words. Still, Claude was offended by the comparison as much as he was with anything Gaston said. That is to say, he snorted and shook his head. It might be off-color but it was not technically wrong.

Eventually, they wound their way closer to the front of the queue and waited patiently for the pair in front of them to board. Gaston was given a pamphlet and Claude tilted his head to the side to look at it, brow arching as they were held at the gate by the bored looking young man waiting there.

The glass bubble lifted them away and then another came and they were ushered into it. Except no one else had followed, as Claude had expected there to be. Suspicious, Claude glanced at the tickets Gaston had purchased, laughing aloud when he saw the name on the top.

In his hurry to purchase them, Gaston had gotten them express tickets on the Eye.

"Well this is certainly nicer than I was expecting," Claude teased, grin never fully leaving his face as he settled onto one of the benches and drew his knees up, chin resting on them as he looked up at the other man. The silence stretched for a moment as they got situated, the calm of it washing over him in a way that it did not anywhere else. He spoke again as the bubble lifted into the air, eyes bright, and took in the city as it rose around them.

"Merci, Gaston, really. The city is beautiful."

GASTON:

Gaston snatched the tickets from the other man and narrowed his eyes as he scoured the surface for the answer as the dome continued on its slow rotation. He'd thought he'd been buying express tickets, fast track, whatever you called them. After all, he wasn't much one for waiting and at the time entering a five minute queue with all the snoots had seemed far more appealing than the one that wound half way along the river bank.

Though, thinking back on it, the machine had served him a little pop up window with a picture of a peaceful looking couple, offering express entry and a relaxing experience and he'd clicked the enormous black yes, instead of the smaller paler 'no, thank you'. By the looks of things, that pop up had been the Premium Private experience. Or, as he thought of it, Daylight Robbery.

"Don't start thinking I'm always this charitable," he said, sitting down beside him and whacking him around the back of his head with his tickets before he reached towards the complimentary chocolates. Or… well… over them, to the child-sized bottles of champagne. But he could pretend that booze wasn't the first thing on his mind. He twisted the cork out with his teeth. "I was tricked."

CLAUDE:

Snorting as Gaston cuffed him around the back of the head, he twisted fingers around the man's hand and tugged it away, laughing. "That is what you get. Impatient," he sing-songed, teasing Gaston with an arched brow. Settling further back into the seat, Claude tilted his head to the side and watched as more and more of the city came into sight.

"Perhaps you should be tricked more often, then," he said, tugging the champagne bottle out of Gaston's hands with a roll of his eyes. Twisting his hand deftly, the rest of the cork came away with a pop. Handing it back to the other man, he reached over him and grabbed two glasses by the stem. He gestured with them, waiting until Gaston took one before leaning away.

"Charity has nothing to do with this. But it is nice, all the same. I have always liked being up high, you know. Feels like nothing can get you here."

GASTON:

Gaston shook his head with something of a smirk etched into his mouth as he took his glass and filled it, before topping up the other man's. This was always one thing he hated about booze that came with things - or food for that matter. It was always pitifully small and never enough to really get drunk on so frankly, what was the point? Though, in that breath, it was best forgotten that it took rather a lot to get the large man tipsy - something he attributed to his size, rather than his problem.

"Can't say I'm so much of a fan." Sure, flying had been fun in the dream. He'd loved it, truly. And some part of him hoped he'd find something he'd loved that much again. But when it came to being trapped in a floating glass bubble over a body of water, he was less certain. Not that he was scared, per se. Gaston didn't get scared. But his brain had chosen precisely the wrong moment to remind him that a runaway ferris wheel was just a windmill full of corpses.

"So," he rested his elbow on the other man's shoulder and touched their glasses. "Got anything to toast or are we giving this one to my extortionately large penis?"

CLAUDE:

Head leaned back against the cushions of the bench he was on, Claude's hand curled loose around the stem of his glass, murmuring a thank you into the air when Gaston filled his glass.

"No? Well...I suppose we all have different reasons. Mine...it was safer there than it ever was on the ground. Besides, you see many different things when you form a different perspective. It was fun, flying, in the dream. I suppose this is as close as I can get to that, hm?"

Claude stood as he spoke, eyes watching the skyline through thick glass panes, shoulder leaned into the wall of it. There was something immensely relaxing about the sight of the city spread out beneath him, a bird's eye view to the entirety of London itself. As far as sightseeing went, this was by far one of his favorites.

Tilting his head to the side to watch the other man from the corner of his eye, the Frenchman laughed, the sound reverberating off the walls of their little bubble in the sky, before falling silent. Was there? He...he didn't know. Glancing down, Claude felt the corner of his mouth curl into a grin, happiness radiating off of him in infectious waves. He turned, back resting against the glass, and said, quiet, "How about receiving my specification to practice law in Swynlake. And--my removal from the church."

GASTON:

Gaston had thought, at first, that the two would go hand in hand. He'd been aware of Claude's past in law - to some degree because of the first dream they'd shared together - so somehow he'd imagined that the two lives would continue in conjunction, as they did already, books strewn over church tables when no one was looking. But, as the second half of the man's announcement fell like a tonne of concrete blocks into the sea, he found his gaze turning and his head tilting, eyebrows furrowing as he processed the idea.

"Are they kicking you out or…?"

For a moment, he felt a flash of worry settle into his chest, that it was his fault, that he'd stolen a priest from the church like he stole the clever kid from class. After all, he'd spent too much time trying to let the other man find out what enjoying himself actually felt like, perhaps he'd ignored the consequences.

Though, by the looks of things, the priest was smiling, which added another layer of curiosity to the process.

CLAUDE:

There was something almost endearing in the worry he saw sketched across Gaston's brow at the admission. It was something he had, truly, agonized over, telling people. But...here it felt easy, like there was nothing that he could not say. Still, it was not what he had believed would happen.

The Frenchman chewed on the inside of his cheek while he waited, head tilted to the side, waiting for the shoe to drop. It did, he supposed, in some way. But he also knew people did not know the intricacies of these things. He would have to explain them. He'd known this, but it was another thing to do it.

It was most assuredly the reason he had not said anything to the other man until now.

"Non, it was voluntary. I realized...after my trip to Scotland at the beginning of summer...that the way I was helping people with my position in church...it did not help me. They gained something from it, yes, and I will never begrudge them that...but it was more than theological, for me. It was...painful, continuing."

His head tilted back against the glass behind him, Claude sucked in a breath through his nose, long fingers spinning the glass in his hand, anxiety rolling off of him now that he had begun. "It was as much a personal reason as it was a difference in theology. They are...old fashioned, do not see things the way that I do. Never have. It was squashed while I was in seminary or," he gave a shrug, a wry smile, "they tried to. But it did not...stick. And then I came here. And I found the courage to do something I have wanted to do for nearly a decade. My replacement is coming at the end of the month, perhaps a bit later, but...I have known since the lantern festival. I just...did not know how to...explain it to anyone. I know what they will say."

GASTON:

Gaston never claimed to be the sort of person who was well versed in humanity, in the psychology of man. But it stood to reason that he might want to leave. As far as he had seen, Claude was never happy while he was there. Not in a way he saw happiness. And certainly not in a way he'd seen it inside the other man - soft and glowing and full of teasing.

Paired with the horrors of his past, he didn't imagine Claude would ever be, if he felt the need to stay.

"Well fuck what they say," Gaston said, letting out a short, derisive snort from his nose. Though he could imagine a few of the parts. He'd remembered the drama Lady had made when he'd mentioned that the priest would be coming to prom and it didn't take much creativity to work out that people would come up with much worse comments on the idea of a priest defecting. "People say a whole lot of shit. But it doesn't make them right."

He turned his head, voice softening as his elbow shifted and he tapped their glasses together. "But if it's good for you, it's good for you. I'm proud of you." He looped an arm over the other man's neck and squeezed him into his shoulder. "Though, I mean, obviously now we're going to have to spend the evening finding you some A-grade pussy, break your post-priest virginity, you know. Obviously, first we're going to get you absolutely hammered too." His eyes scanned the landscape and he pressed his lips to one side. "What else can't a priest do?"

CLAUDE:

"I could say the same about the way people talk about you," he murmured, artfully shrugging a shoulder as he took a sip of his champagne. "But I do think they sometimes hurt more than you let on, yes? I understand that, believe me. It is why I waited." He would rather figure out what he'd wanted to say exactly before he opened his mouth. The only people in Swynlake who knew were the congregation themselves, and they'd all sworn themselves to secrecy, including Edith.

"The ones who know happen to also be the ones you kicked out of the church this morning. They've sworn themselves not to mention it, for which I am grateful. Edith had a very hard time though. She wanted to tell you, actually." Again, he shrugged, swirling the drink in his glass around until he was abruptly tugged into Gaston's side. A surprised bark of laughter erupted from his throat before he burrowed his face into the other man's shoulder with a sigh.

"I would rather not, thank you. Either one, but the drinking--" he huffed, irritated that he had to even warn about any of this, and pressed his forehead into the arch of Gaston's shoulder while he spoke, hiding a bit more of himself. "Drinking is fine but not...that much. It is...a control issue, for me. Laurent--used that." He grimaced, voice falling away as he mumbled the request into the man's shoulder, pulling away carefully to gauge his reaction. That was one of the few things Gaston did not know, in fact, and it was one of the harder ones to swallow. "There is a lot that we -- they cannot do, but those...are the main ones."

GASTON:

Gaston had shrugged the thought away. It was uncomfortable, really, how the priest (though he wasn't really a priest any more) could read him like an open book. Sometimes he wondered if it was an art form he used on all he came across. Or one he reserved solely on the barman. Something unique. Whether it was because he knew him so well, or because Gaston was rather more readable than he liked to admit.

Though, still, he pushed the man with a shoulder and raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Well, we've already worked out that I'd rip off that old pervert's dick and feed it to him, dead or alive. So you're safe." He took a slow sip of his drink - mostly because there was so little of it and he'd rather ration the drink as not to spend the rest of the journey boozeless - and loosened his grip on the older man. "Anyway, I've seen you on the dance floor after a drink. Get a couple in you and you'll forget all about Satan's dick stain." He nudged him. "Gaston guarantee."

CLAUDE:

“And I believe I told you it was not necessary, much as I appreciate the sentiment,” he murmured, allowing himself to be nudged about before he straightened his spine with a sigh. Still, the small, barely-there-grin was enough to set the ease of his shoulders again, allowing him to fall a bit more boneless against the wall. Claude lounged back, then, a critical eye cast over the other man at his quip.

“A guarantee, hm? Does that mean you guarantee a dance, too, or will you beg off again? Mmm, or try to, anyway. And I am not that good of a dancer. I just enjoy it, much as that may mean anything at all.” He brought the lip of his glass up for a drink, then, and considered something else, head cocking to the side as he glanced back up at the man. He noted, with some curiosity, that Gaston hadn’t moved back yet. “You obviously have a destination in mind, then. And it involves dancing. And drinking. Are you taking me to a club?”

GASTON:

Gaston unlooped his arm and shrugged, before stepping towards the rail over the opposite window and gazing over the skyline as they crawled closer to the top of the attraction. "You're the one who said it. I was just thinking about tried and tested ways of getting you drunk, Mr Frollo," he smirked, glancing over his shoulder for a moment. A hand found the railing beneath him and slid along the smooth, cool surface. "But anyway, it's not ball dancing so I think I'll be fine. And you'll get to see what proper hip work looks like."

Honestly, before prom, he hadn't known that people still danced like they had. As far as he'd known, dancing was mostly a process of getting utterly legless and sliding your hands (and groin) all over the closest person in a low cut top. It probably wasn't the sort of thing the other man would approve of. But it was most certainly an area in which Gaston excelled. "Besides, we don't have to go there straight away. There're a few waterside pubs I want to stop at on the way."

CLAUDE:

A quiet laugh escaped him and Claude shook his head, coming forward alongside the other man to lean against the railing of the opposite side. The slow movement of the bubble in the air was almost soothing, in a way, like time was suspended and they possessed every ounce of it here in the sky.

"And how do you know I do not, hm? You've seen me dance one time, and that was proper dancing," Claude murmured, smirking around the edge of his glass. He shook his head fondly, the image of carousing in a pub somehow different when it was not Gaston's own.

"How about two. And then the club."

GASTON:

Gaston's eyes scoured the skyline, as the other man came to stand beside him. He knew there was no way he would see home. The idea was faintly ridiculous. But he found it a little surprising to discover, even in the heart of the city, you could see the distant green hills of the surrounding counties. Sure, he loved the life in the city. But looking out at the green, in some parts he knew he would always be a country boy.

"Ok, deal. But that wasn't proper dancing, that was fancy wank," he retorted. As far as he was concerned, being mostly hands and groin was proper dancing. If only because he knew how to do it and he didn't know how to do anything else. After all, he was far too good looking to ever master the next most attainable style: dad dancing. You couldn't dad dance if you were hot. It didn't work like that. "It's not proper dancing if you partner isn't literally begging for your cock by the end of it. Fact."

CLAUDE:

The silence was nice, comforting even, as they looked out over the cityscape, Gaston searching for the small, sleepy town they'd come from. You could see pieces of the countryside if you really looked, strained for it, hills rolling behind great buildings and cars and roadways. That was a comforting thought, too, that he could somehow see Swynlake and think that, maybe, he could consider it home.

Gaston's words made him snort, hanging his head as he shook it. "There was nothing fancy about that, Gaston. They were only basic steps because I had to literally drag you onto the floor." The second half of that statement made him pause, mischief lighting up his eyes for a second as he straightened his back. Leaning a hip against the railing, Claude took a sip of his drink, letting the silence linger before he responded.

"No one ever said I would be begging for it, but ask nicely and," he shrugged, a wicked look on his face before he laughed. "Really, Gaston, how would you know what kind of dancing I do. I could be very familiar with it."

In fact, he was. They hadn't just taught them proper dancing in that studio. What people affectionately called 'dirty dancing' was also shockingly common. It was what people did in the clubs and, occasionally, late at night in the streets. When music played and not another soul was around to hear it.

GASTON:

The barman rolled his eyes. As far as he was concerned, anything that needed steps was fancy dancing. Basic or otherwise. Though he couldn't help but near choke on his half a sip of champagne as Claude spoke again. While the other man had always been a little excessive, a little teasing, a little flirty, there had always been the barrier of priesthood - the fact that he couldn't and wouldn't - that cushioned the impact of his quips. Or tried to.

Without it there to catch the words, it seemed to strike with full force as he found himself half laughing and half… not.

He gave a hard, painful swallow and flicked his gaze back to the man beside him. "Edith would be spinning in her grave if she could hear you, Frollo. But I mean, I'd pay money to see it. The dance, not your cock," he said, mouth crooked with a smirk. "Could probably film it too: Horny Priest Goes Wild in Club. I reckon we could get a few hundred quid for that." He gave the other man a nudge with his elbow. "Law or porn, you know? Feel like there's probably more money in porn."

CLAUDE:

Gaston choked on his drink and Claude looked like that cat that'd gotten the cream. The look on his face was smug, to say the least. It was always amusing to see what reaction he could pull from the other man, though he was not always kidding when he said the things he did. Far be it from him to let on to that fact, but sometimes the off-color quips were, privately, a little bit true.

Claude rolled his own eyes at the other's statement, the corner of his mouth ticking up as he took another swallow of champagne. "Edith is not dead, but I hardly think she would be surprised. She was one of the worst of them." The last bit of champagne was drained from his glass and Claude set it to the side, knocking an elbow into Gaston's side while he did.

"No photos. No filming. That will cost you extra, cher." He winked, then, and laughed, the sound bouncing around the room. "I would be an awful porn star, for the record." Too many hang ups, he thought, but that was another matter entirely. "Law is much easier. I can argue people into submission."

GASTON:

For a moment, he felt a spot of warmth grace his chest. As a teen, most of his enjoyment had come from terrorising others. But over the years he'd found a kind of happiness in knowing he could please those he was closest to. And Claude, by some magic, had been the closest for a long time. Closer, he sometimes wondered, than Tubso had been before he'd left after college. And certainly with the same amount of lewd jokes, even if these were directed down slightly different roads.

"I dunno, Claude. I'm pretty sure there's people out there who wouldn't mind paying you to argue them into submission either," he said, clapping him around the shoulder and giving him a flick on the cheek. "The internet is a dark place and I'm just saying I probably wouldn't be too bad of a pimp. As internet pimps go."

CLAUDE:

Snorting at the other man's words, Claude leaned back against the railing. He angled himself towards Gaston, elbows resting against the rail. "Other lawyers, you mean? They butt heads too often. At any rate, I think I am okay."

Wrinkling his nose at the younger man as he flicked him on the cheek, the Frenchman waved his hand away with one of his own. "Is this like the black market? Take me back when people do not want me anymore, Gaston?" The tone was teasing but there was a curiosity, as well, that lingered.

GASTON:

Gaston laughed and shook his head. Other lawyers. Though frankly it wasn't much of a surprise that the priest wasn't aware of the intricacies of internet fetishes. A lot of people probably weren't. But he'd ended up down a few rabbit holes while searching for interesting porn when he was bored. A lot of it he wouldn't recommend... and the rest he wouldn't admit to, for various reasons.

"Nah, not quite. I'd probably just sell people angry voice lips that they can wank to. Or you know, feet pics. Perverts love a good foot pic," he said with a teasing smirk, elbows nudging the older man's ribs. "So really, you wouldn't have to go anywhere. Disappointing, but I guess I'm stuck with you for now."

He finished his drink, wondering if perhaps he'd brought down the tone of the afternoon. And possibly ruined a rather nice view of the city with his less than appropriate talk. But then again, where was the fun in an afternoon if you couldn't talk about porn?

CLAUDE:

Pulling a face again, Claude let that thought roll around in his head for a moment before promptly locking it away in the section of his mind that had a giant "Do Not Disturb" sign plastered across it. "Should I be concerned about a foot fetish, Gaston? Is that what this is?" All things considering, it was weird, but it was not the strangest thing he had heard. You heard a lot of things in a confessional, some of them best left to oneself.

Still, he was only joking. He highly doubted Gaston would be the kind to have a foot fetish. Or, really, fetishes of any kind. "It is okay, cher, I will keep your secret." He grinned before patting the other man on the bicep and straightening up, shaking his head at the last comment.

Heaving a put upon sigh, Claude shrugged, ambling hack towards the benches and laying himself out across them, raising his voice so the other man could hear him over the barrier. "I suppose you are. What a shame that must be for you, hm?"

GASTON:

The barman threw a faint smirk at the priest and raised a shoulder. He'd noticed earlier that they'd come to the top and were starting their slow descent back down. But the way the wheel hovered over the water, he'd hardly registered that they'd made it back to the stands before the doors slid open and the operator was ushering them out.

"Not feet," he called teasingly over his shoulder as he stepped out of the bubble and into the crowded gift shop. "Nuns."

From there, they wound along the waterfront, pub by pub, and making a short tour of the cathedral. Though Gaston had possibly had one too many beers by that point to appreciate the heights or the art or the fact that Claude didn't get a free ticket for having been a priest - though, eventually, the person in the ticket office had given him a discount, probably to shut him up. By the time the dark crawled in, they'd been in a bar since dinner, knocking back made-up cocktails (which felt a little ponsey, though in Gaston's opinion, anything was better than Fosters) and laughing at the shit 80s music that seemed to penetrate every corner of the space from its speakers mounted by the dancefloor.

They'd come in because it was cheap and stayed because, despite all the creepy middle aged men and the hen parties they seemed to be preying on, it had its own unique charm.

"What's next? Wanna share a slippery nipple?" The barman laughed as he knocked back the sour bottom of his last drink, properly enjoying himself for the first time in a long while... if you didn't count the times he'd been having sex - after all, that was a different kind of enjoyment. Though he could help but tease the idea of introducing a few of those drinks into his own pub when he got back.

CLAUDE:

When the doors to their private little bubble opened and the next pair was being ushered in, Claude was surprised to find that they'd passed the time so quickly. He had discovered that, with Gaston, it was easy to lose track of himself, his anxieties and inadequacies he always felt. The laughter he let loose at the quip about nuns had him doubled over as he walked, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes.

Following after the other man from pub to pub along the waterfront was an interesting experience. Lunch at one place and then milling about at others, a walk through an old cathedral that made him miss the ones in France with a heavy pang. The architecture and the stained glass had always been his favorite part. They'd found themselves staying at one of the pubs for the music, the atmosphere somehow more enjoyable even with the older men that lingered at the peripherals of his vision.

But Claude ignored them in favor of chatting with some of the women around them, women who were there with their friends for a fun afternoon. Gaston, as well, seemed to be enjoying himself. It was nice to see the man laughing, enjoying himself. Gaston did so little of it, after all. Always working, always running around. He'd tried so hard to get Claude to enjoy himself that, sometimes, the older man thought he'd forgotten to allow himself to enjoy his time, too.

"Please do not ever say that again," he groaned, laughing, his head leaned up against a palm, body angled towards Gaston on the barstool beside him. Eyes straying past him to the dance floor, Claude gave a lazy shrug of a shoulder, gaze lingering on the dancers for a moment before focusing muzzily back on the other man. There was a pleasant hum settled beneath his skin, warm from the few drinks he'd had and the pleasant afternoon. He resolutely ignored the man at the end of the bar, the one that had set himself down and wouldn't stop staring since they'd walked in. Instead, he quirked a brow and nodded his head to the floor, "How about a dance?"

GASTON:

Gaston's eyes skimmed the drinks menu, locking his jaw to one side and muttering "I'll take that as a 'no'" quietly to himself as he perused the rest of the drinks. He'd felt eyes on them for a little while, though he'd got used to ignoring the feeling. Sometimes gay guys with nothing to lose liked to hit on him and other people were certain they recognised him somewhere they couldn't quite place - probably a crappy Next catalogue from 2008 before his dreams got ripped out from under his feet… not that he'd ever say that. Though really, he felt like he gave off enough 'fuck with me and I'll turn your penis inside out and not in the good way' kind of vibes to keep most creeps away for a thousand years.

"But I guess we could," he shrugged, pushing the sheet to one side. "Is this the bit where you show me you're able to dance without looking like a ponce?"

CLAUDE:

Cocking his head to the side, the Frenchman raised a brow. Despite the loudness of the pub around them he was close enough to hear the other man's mutterings. "I did not say no to a drink. Just the name," he said, the corner of his mouth curling. He was about to speak again, comment about the dancing that he could, in fact, do without looking "like a ponce" when something caught his attention. Movement behind Gaston made him stiffen before he could continue, body going rigid and fingers curling around the edge of the bar top, eyes wary.

The man that had been there, staring past Gaston's shoulder, was walking closer. Nudging himself closer to the larger man, Claude started talking, voice low but loud enough the other man could hear him, words strained as he kept his heart from thudding too loudly in his ears. There was something about him that was unsettling, cold. It reminded him of Laurent.

"There is a man coming over. He has been staring for the past half hour. I have ignored him but he seems not to care. He tried to talk to me while you went to the restroom. He had also bothered some of the women."

GASTON:

Gaston felt the sudden frost in the air, saw the way the man's body seized up, and followed his gaze over his shoulder with a stormy look. He wasn't much one for ignoring things like that. Mostly because he wanted people to know that he knew, that they couldn't get away with that kind of shit without incurring his rage. After all, most of the time creeps and thieves and criminals were banking on people ignoring them as a means to get away with it.

"Well, he can fuck off then, can't he," he said, pressing an agressive smile into his lips and locking eyes with the stranger, before turning back to his companion. Though somehow, he had the strange feeling that the creeper would stay where he was. And in turn, Claude wouldn't enjoy the rest of the evening for the weight of the man's gaze against his skin. "How about we just go outside for a second? Gives me more room to relocate his nose into his skull if he decides to follow us," he continued, hoping that he'd spoken loudly enough to be heard by both parties.

CLAUDE:

It was like watching a slow motion car crash, Claude decided. It had the same type of energy, chaotic and possibly dangerous to the person in its path. That was what watching that grim look cross over Gaston's face did and, for a moment, Claude could breathe again. He had been better at deflection once, could usually tell someone no and they'd leave. But this guy was another story entirely.

A twitch of a smile appeared on the older man's face at the words before it was gone just as quickly. He knew what Gaston was doing. He had already seen the man stop, hesitant at the loudness and the words directed his way. When Claude was offered a chance to leave, to breathe, he jumped at it.

Sliding from his barstool quickly, the Frenchman shrugged his jacket back over his shoulders before wrapping a hand tight around Gaston's forearm. Then, he tugged at the man, an urgency to his movements as he pulled him away from the crowd and through the bar. Gaston barely had enough time to leave any bills behind.

The moment cool air hit his face, Claude sucked it in greedily, allowing himself the chance to close his eyes, lean his head back against the wall, and breathe. He would be fine with Gaston out here to watch him. He just needed a moment, some time to gather his heart and his head back in one piece. Claude was proud when his hands did not shake as he reached into his jeans pocket for a cigarette and a lighter, sparking up in the alley behind the bar.

Sucking in a lungful of air, Claude held it for a moment before exhaling, slowly through his nose, a billow of smoke wafting out around his head.

"I used to be better at that. Getting them to leave. Some days...it is not so easy. Merci," he murmured, voice quiet, eyes flickering to the other man's face for a moment as he held the cigarette between his fingers. He took another drag before offering it over. It wasn't a drink, but it was a start.

GASTON:

Gaston didn't need Claude to tug at him to get him moving, though he followed quickly anyway. It was hard to miss the aura that rolled of the priest's skin, even as they met the cool air and tucked themselves down the side of the bar, where the rest of the world - or more importantly, that freak - couldn't find them.

He hovered beside Claude, an eye at the end of the street, watching the orange light cast shadows in the darkness, just in case one turned out to be their unwelcome addition. Though he found his eyes flicking back, as the first few sparks illuminated the priest's face and the smoke curled around him. "It happens. No one's perfect all the time. Well," he smirked, taking the cigarette and slumping on the wall beside the other man, "apart from me."

His mouth closed around the cigarette. To one side, just to be careful - he'd heard the tales that it would stop the wrinkles from forming around your mouth. Not that he was a frequent smoker regardless. The last he'd had was at a wedding two years ago. After all, cigarettes paired quite nicely with the buzz of alcohol and the setting sun.

He passed back the cigarette.

CLAUDE:

Tipping his head back against the cool tile of the wall was enough to get Claude’s breathing to slow, if only a fraction, his heart no longer beating wildly in his chest. The panic was subsiding into a dull throbbing, something like a full-bodied, bone-weary aching. The air was cold on his face, which helped, and when he breathed in through the smoke it burned down into his lungs. It was something to focus on, something other than the way Gaston was hovering at his side, watching him and the street at the mouth of the alleyway.

Snorting, the man turned his head against the stonework, a smile easing over his face at the quip. There was a bit of a tiredness hanging around him, faint but consistent with their day and the last half hour. When he spoke his voice was rounded at the edges, accent peeking through more heavily than normal, no longer attempting to regulate it.

“Yes, yes of course, because you are perfection in human form, eh?” Looking up at the darkened sky and not the other man for a moment, Claude sighed, glancing back over when the bright light at the tip of the cigarette flared closer to him. Taking it back after a second, the Frenchman let it hang between his lips, speaking around it, before taking another drag.

“The stars are always brighter outside of the city. I have often wondered...whether that will change one day. If I stop noticing. I do not want to.” A pause, then he glanced back at the other man, “I remember them from the Titanic, actually, all those stars. Before the-before it sank.”

GASTON:

Gaston threw a wink through the darkness. He was well aware of the other man's sarcasm but somehow he couldn't help himself from playing into the joke. Following the other man's gaze up to the sky, he borrowed the cigarette from his mouth as he listened to him speak.

"Don't think it will. The city's full of shit, it's easy to see something's missing." His eyes searched the sky for a moment, peering into the few faint dots that were visible through the orange haze. He wasn't much of a stargazer. He didn't know the constellations - for all but Orion's belt, which had only stood out to him as a child because Orion had a sword. Though even that was obscured by the brightness.

He took a quick drag of the cigarette and flicked the long ash into the ground before taking another. "Though can't say I remember much from the Titanic. Apart from being pissed and having a kid and a wife and you." He took another drag, feeling the nicotine - or possibly the alcohol - tingle in his lips and burn in his cheeks. There had been rather a lot about that dream that he'd tried to forget. But there was no harm in admitting he'd known he was there, that they'd had a connection and that, to some degree, he'd tried to save his life. Even if he'd blurred out the bits in the middle. For his own sanity. Or to stop him from doing something stupid.

CLAUDE:

“I wasn’t done with that,” he grumbled, turning to arch a brow at the other man as he stole the cigarette from his mouth and breathed smoke out into the alleyway. He hadn’t caught the wink, but he’d heard the sound of it in his voice. Instead, he leaned a shoulder and a hip against the wall and watched him as he spoke, the tip of the cigarette glowing bright in the dark.

Humming out his agreement, too content where he was standing to utter anymore in that stitch of time, Claude reached up and snagged the cigarette back, unconcerned when their fingers tangled, fumbling over the filter before letting it sit snugly in the V of his fingers. Licking his lips as he turned away, the older man set the stick of nicotine between his teeth, sucking the feeling of it down into his lungs and back out. The smell of it was sweet, packed with cloves and herbs, a rarity that he only kept around every so often. He did not smoke nearly as often as he had when he was a younger man, but the feeling of it was something he occasionally missed.

You. That word made him look, eyes widening for a second. He’d thought, after so long, that the memory had faded, that it would eventually disappear. They hadn’t. Sometimes, he still flinched at the sound of rushing water. He couldn’t take a cold shower, even if he wished to. And the memories remained.

He stared at the side of his face for a moment longer before looking down, shoulders dropping towards the wall as he heaved a full-bodied sigh. “It is hard to forget, yes? Something like that...it stays. And...everything else, too. It is funny...I was a lawyer then. And I am again.” Not that he had never stopped, but the exclusivity of the job was permanent now.

GASTON:

"But you're not the same," Gaston returned quietly, shifting ever so slightly in the direction of the other man and watching the glow at the end of his cigarette bounce softly off the angles of his face. It was one thing he'd used to justify the dream the longer their friendship had grown, that neither one had really been them. Claude had lacked the darkness in his past and Gaston had been driven by some sense of ambition that hadn't been quelled by the death of his parents. It had been what had led him to the man in the first place. The desire for something better.

And perhaps the same could be said for this world too, but for a different kind of better. Not want of money and acclaim, but because he'd been guided by a greater purpose. Or, at least, given into his own superstition.

He rested an arm against the wall and followed the line of the drain along the pavement with his eyes, feeling his face buzz warmly from the drink. "Do you think everything happens for a reason? You know, all that flowery wank the church wants you to believe. That God puts things in your path to lead you or to test you?" He asked, eyebrows furrowed as he gazed into the distance, before returning his sight to Claude.

His family had never been one for the softer side of religion. They believed that God would smite you for wrong doings in the end - by the bible, not by general morality - and that one must confess their sins in order to be forgiven. But the idea that God was all good and all loving and interfering with human life at every turn had been lost on them. After all, far too many decent people failed and far too many awful ones triumphed. And frankly, God had better things to be doing with his time than constantly testing farmers.

But in the event He did, that He had drawn them together as part of some celestial ritual of good and evil, Gaston couldn't quite tell who was being led, who was being tested or whether or not they were headed in the right direction.

CLAUDE:

There was something about the way Gaston said it —’but you’re not the same’—that gave the other man pause. This was something he had mulled on in the quieter moments of the evening, after, when he could not sleep and there were too many thoughts running around in his head. He had been different. Less burdened, carefree in a way he was not in this aspect of life. Claude in that dream had been able to do things he would not have in life, not then, anyway. It had almost been as though that reality...dream...whatever it was meant to be was showing him things he could have had if scars did not riddle his body and a demon did not plague his dreams.

Claude could feel the other man’s eyes on him, watching, his voice careful, and he wondered at it. Wondered why he continued, that he did not change the subject. It made him think Gaston, too, had pondered on such things. Still, when Gaston posed his question, leaned up against the wall with his face turned away from him, Claude felt like he could look, like he could listen. He snorted quietly, smiling a bit around the cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. “It depends. I was meant to. But meaning to and doing are entirely different things. Sometimes, I do think that, other times—” Claude paused, mulling over his choice of words as he shifted against the brick at his back, leather rubbing against the brickwork. The sound of it was deafening in the silence.

“If what was meant to happen to me did not take place, I often imagine what would have been different. If that...dream...was at all accurate. There are times that I think...maybe, perhaps. In others, I see nothing. Laurent existed, and now he does not. I choose to believe that was meant to happen. But..I do not know if I am meant to believe it. I never have.” It was not lost on him, how fallible he sounded. So many people believed that he was all-knowing, that his job as a priest made him a font of wisdom and godly divinity. But Claude Frollo was just a man. He wondered and he doubted. He did not know.

“If it did not, I would not be here, after all. So...yes, I suppose some things are meant to happen. But not all. And that was the hardest part to reconcile, doing what I did...I did not agree with everything they tried to teach, and it created frustrations, rifts. In a way I wanted it to happen...because then I would have gotten away. I still did but,” he shrugged, sucking on the cigarette until smoke obscured his face in a haze, “certainly not in the way I expected. If Laurent was God’s way of being a--a test or...an obstacle, it was a poor way to get me here. I do not think I could ever forgive that....” Claude shook his head, brows furrowed at the thought. Flicking the ash from the end of the filter, the Frenchman offered it to the man beside him.

“Did that answer your questions, nounours?”

GASTON:

Gaston's eyebrows stayed pinched, listening, curious as the other man spoke, as his words bounced around the alley and slid through the dull thump of the music radiating from the bar walls. It was all a little complicated, possibly why his sober mind spent more time thinking about its next drink than it did about religion and philosophy. But to a degree it made sense, yes. Claude's mixed interpretation of it, at least. Though it didn't quite answer the question he'd asked - or rather, the question he'd skirted around asking.

His fingers slid beside the other man's and gently pinched the cigarette from his hands as he leaned the top of his head against the wall. Someone - probably him - had made the filter damp. He'd never been very good at smoking. The deep, bitter taste only ever called to him when he was quite drunk, and when he was quite drunk, he was also quite sloppy.

He let the smoke curl from his mouth and shrugged. "Maybe. I suppose. And," he gazed into the light at the end of the stick as he flicked it - though really there was nothing to flick off, "what about us? Do you think we were supposed to meet?"

It had been his largest preoccupation in all of this. Their lives had skirted, meters from each others' doors for years and then, when it seemed Gaston's life was reaching its bottom, their paths had finally crossed, been cemented by a call from his mother in the darkness and the pull of the church bells. He still wasn't sure if that had been a true connection with the dead or no more than a figment of his sleeping mind and a happy coincidence. But in some parts, he hoped it was the former. If only because it justified the odd connection he felt to the other man, the way they shared space and clothes and contact and felt like they were supposed to.

CLAUDE:

Gaston pinched the cigarette from between his fingers and Claude dropped his hands to his sides, a hand coming up to toy with the edge of his jacket. Watching the other man, there was a disquiet that brewed beneath his skin. His thoughts were messy, written all over his face, and Claude could not tell if it was because of the drink or something else. Or both. Still, he slumped against the wall and he listened, eyes flicking over Gaston's face.

The question he asked made him pause, head cocking to the side in confusion, not expect that line of thought. Him. Them...that was something he did not know Gaston ever even thought about. They were friends, perhaps the best of friends, but Titanic had happened before all of that. For a time, it had colored his thoughts, had made him wonder.

Running a hand over his mouth, Claude leaned back against the wall and mulled over what he wanted to say, words coming to mind and then discarded as quickly as they'd come. What he settled on, though, he hoped was enough.

"I...believe that if I had never left France, I would have never met you. But I did. And we have. And--" he sucked in a breath, hand going up to his hair, brow pinched as he thought over what it was he wanted to say. "Do you know what I think about you? I am sure you may not believe it but...I never believed the things you would say about yourself, what other people say. Because the first night I met you...you thought I was cold and closed the pub door. That was not it. But you did not ask, you did not tell me to put on a coat. Did not ignore it. And that was how I knew you. You are a good man, Gaston. And I am glad to have been meant to meet you."

GASTON:

The barman listened quietly, as his eyebrows, once furrowed, seemed to relax. For a moment, the silence had injected a shred of nervousness into his heart. But as the words came, it was replaced with something else entirely. He watched the arm go up, the fingers into Claude's hair, and felt the space enclose around them. A corner between the other man's elbow and the wall behind them, for just their heads and just their thoughts.

He'd hardly remembered that first meet, for all but the request drunks. But it crept back hazily and he tilted his head a little further at the thought. No one had ever deemed him good before. Protective, perhaps. Charming on occasion. But never good. Nor had they admitted to being glad of meeting him. If anything, more people seemed to rue the day.

For a moment, he lingered in that sensation, in the way his body warmed, unsure what words should come next, if there were words to come at all. His eyes searched the shadows, the faint glint of light in the other man's eyes. And when he found nothing his lips spoke for him, edging nearer to the closest thing to being wanted for something more than want, until they pressed ever so softly into the plump, full mouth he'd kissed once before, somewhere in the depths of a dream.

CLAUDE:

For a moment, Claude believed that the other man's silence was telling. But he didn't move. It was like he was frozen, breathing the air in the alleyway with nothing else to latch onto. His one hand fiddled with his jacket, not knowing where this put them or what he had done. The man should have known...Claude hoped he did...he had never made it a secret, that he thought Gaston was good, that he was rough around the edges but inherently decent.

He thought--

Claude stopped thinking. Stopped breathing. Just...stopped.

All he could feel and see and breathe and think was the other body crowding him close to the wall, hands and arms bracketing him in, caging him. But for every time he had been frozen, afraid, vulnerable, there was nothing here that frightened him. Nothing about Gaston could ever. The soft hesitance of the other man's mouth against his own was like a shock to his system, Claude's lips falling open with a shaky exhale.

In a second, he was pressing close, kissing back, teeth finding the other man's lip and tugging, a whimper escaping him as a hand came up to wrap around an arm. He had wanted to do that since he'd met the man. Did not because it was Gaston, because he was important. And, for another, he had been a priest. But now...now…

Now, he angled his head and gripped fiercely, their mouths connected in a tangle of lips and teeth and tongue.

GASTON:

Gaston had been surprised by the quiet whimper, the way the other man's fingers had squeezed into the flesh of his arms, the way his teeth teased at his lips - in a way he'd only seen through a television screen. His body had moved long before his mind had and now, with a moment to think on his actions, he'd half expected a soft push apart, a gentle rejection - because you could be good in someone's heart but not good for them. But instead he'd been taken. And so his arms moved of their own accord, pressing a hand into the wall behind them as their bodies drew ever closer, the slighter body sandwiched against the wall.

Blood pulsed in his lips, a dizziness swilled in his head and left the world around him feeling blurred, for all but the points at which their bodies met and burned hot against his skin. Though the dream had been months passed and Claude hadn't quite been Claude, his lips felt just as soft, had tasted just as sweet. And for a short moment, his chest was overcome by the same swell of want, of lust, as he had in the depths of the boat, finding its way back through the motions it had memorised from that night.

CLAUDE:

Gaston shifted closer and Claude, all at once, found himself pressed into the brick at his back by the bulk of the other man. A hand came up by his head, the other somewhere else, almost far away with the way his senses had narrowed down, all at once, to the feeling of everything surrounding him.

His breath sounded loud in his ears, heavy as it heaved from his nose, unwilling to disconnect from the kiss quite yet. He didn't know yet if this was the drink or something else, but he was in enough of a right mind to angle his head and deepen the kiss, a hand coming up to wind fingers into Gaston's hair.

In a way, it was like muscle memory, something he remembered from the swill of his thoughts.

GASTON:

The breath that escaped him was soft and wanting, his lips pressing ever more fervently as Claude's fingers found his hair. His free hand slid along the line of the other man's shoulder, up the soft, hot skin of his neck and cupped his jaw, pulling it towards him. Really, somewhere in the heat and the touch, he'd imagined it would feel stranger than it did. But he'd spent so long connected with the other man, whether by the ribbons of Fate or the friendly comfort of another body to his side, it seemed natural, like nothing had changed. For all but the tongues that teased together and needy press of Gaston's body to the one beneath it.

CLAUDE:

Claude's breath puffed out of his nose against Gaston's skin, the pull of mouths against mouths and hands trailing across clothed skin an almost foreign sensation. Of course, he had kissed people before. But this...it was different. There was something different about it, but he was too drunk on it to care, whatever it was.

When Gaston's hand came up to tug at his jaw and pull him closer, head tilted further back against the brick, Claude thought he would feel skittish, somewhere in his mind, that this was too close, too much but all he was thinking was that it was not enough.

The loudness of someone crashing into the door beside them, slamming it open from the inside, had the man wrenching his head away, hissing at not only the loss of contact but the teeth that had nipped the skin of his mouth. He could taste the faint coppery tang of blood. He didn't know if it was his. Chest heaving in the space they'd created between them, Claude found himself dropping his head back against the brick and laughing to himself, low and wrecked sounding.

He hadn't taken his hands from Gaston's hair.

GASTON:

Gaston felt his heart stutter at the sound of the fire exit rattling open. His head snapped away, staring to the open door as the hand that had cupped the older man's face fell to his side. Usually, when he was caught doing things he wasn't supposed to, he kept on going, throwing challenging glances at any witnesses and daring them to stop him. But even though the light that poured through the opening bore no figure, he found himself easing to a stop, just in case. He didn't want people to see. It meant admitting things to himself that he wasn't quite ready to admit.

But still, he kept the closeness, the palm buried in the brick behind his head as he turned his gaze back with the soft sound that escaped the other man. His eyes skimmed the smile on the other man's lips. "When's-" His gaze twitched back towards the open door, "the last train back?" He asked, half wanting the peace of home, privacy and a safe space to struggle through the feeling; and half worried that if they missed it, they'd have to spend the night in a hotel - because God, he suddenly wanted to stay the night in a hotel, wanted to taste the body of a man and see if it felt just as sweet as its counterpart. The thought itself scared him, terrified him that once he'd tried it he'd never go back.

CLAUDE:

The loss of the palm and the heat that radiated from the other man’s skin left a bit of an ache behind Claude’s breast, like it had taken all the warmth with it. Or maybe that was the fuzziness that’d overtaken him at the feeling of a bit of drink mixing with the feeling of something pooling lower in his gut. Something he hadn’t quite had to define in...years. Not in the way this was making him feel, anyway. Claude breathed, then, and turned his head to watch Gaston’s face.

Tilting his head in thought, the Frenchman gave a small shrug, nudging the other man’s arm to get a glance at his watch. He really needed to stop leaving his at home. “Mmm...we probably should have been to the station, but--if we run…” Claude watched the other man’s face for a moment, eyes searching, before he sighed, quietly.

“It is up to you. We can walk, but that means hours on the road in the dark. Or...we can stay.”

GASTON:

Gaston stared into the darkness and laughed. Because he kind of wanted to stay, wanted to drink more, get lost in the moment, lost in sensations he'd never felt before. Because he kind of wanted to grab a crate of beers from an off licence and make the day's walk back to Wiltshire, because it was ridiculous and every good adventure started with drink. Because he kind of wanted to wake up in his own bed and pretend it was all a dream.

Because he kind of didn't know what he wanted.

For a moment, the hand at his side strayed, slid into Claude's palm for want of anything else to do and gently stroked circles into the back of his hand. A smile etched into the corner of his mouth. "Race ya," he said, quickly pushing their hands apart and spurting from the alley into the live street and past the figures of the night.

CLAUDE:

Claude listened to Gaston’s laughter with his eyes closed, as though if he didn’t see him doing it there wouldn’t be something that connected it to this moment. If the other man chose to stay or if he decided to leave, it would be a decision made and forever connected to the sound of that laughter. There was something comforting about living, for a split second, in that sound before it was gone. The silence stretched for one second and then two and, then, there was skin sliding against skin and a warm hand slipped against his own. Claude did open his eyes then, gaze a bit hazy, breath coming in a sharp, inhaling hitch at the contact before it evened out once more.

The feeling of where the younger man’s fingers had drawn circles into the back of his hand was hot, like a fire, warm to the touch and burning all at once.

And, then, he was gone.

This time, Claude laughed, too, and followed, jogging to keep up, head swimming with the smell of Gaston’s cologne, the drinks, and the sound of the night around them. He supposed, then, that he had his answer.

GASTON:

The cool night air burned against his cheeks as he ran, letting out a loud whoop of laughter as he skidded around a group of people, half slipping on the pavement, and darted across the road as the crossing turned green. He could hear the steady beat of Claude's feet beneath his own erratic thump, echoing off the tall buildings as they passed and turning heads as they went. Headlights rushed passed, shadows danced under streetlights. His head flicked back, grinning happily at the man on his heels, and set off even faster.

In that moment, it was almost as if the years slipped through his hair and ran free on the breeze. His tongue burned with the taste of the drink, his lips with the taste of the kiss. He felt childish, unguarded, free. In ways he never felt at home, in fear someone might catch him in the act, might see his joy and shoot it down because they thought he was undeserving.

His hand caught a lamp post and swung into the next street, watching the glowing red sign of the train station rise from the distant end of the road.

"Last one to the gate is a fucking fagot!" He called behind him.

CLAUDE:

Gaston was really fucking fast, incredibly loud, and Claude couldn’t tell if they’d drunk enough for these types of antics. He didn’t rightly care. He was having fun. Keeping the other man firmly in his line of sight, the Frenchman used his smaller size to weave through the crowds, zigging and zagging around people in an attempt to catch up to the younger man. Claude was in no way unfit; contrary to what people may believe, he worked out when he could. He just didn’t broadcast it to the world. The muscle he possessed was lean, fitting to his body type rather than attracting to it. Most of the time, one would not even know.

Picking up his pace with his legs outstretched as long as they could reach, Claude sprinted past the other man when the sign for the train station came full into view, a triumphant grin on his face when he flung himself onto the platform and then, promptly, bowed over, chest heaving. His chest heaved as he braced hands on his knees but when he righted himself there was a grin on his face. Cheeks red and hair windblown, Claude knew he probably looked a mess, but he could not find it in himself to care. Gaston came into view minutes later and Claude tilted his head, watching him, self-satisfaction oozing from his very being.

“I believe that makes me the winner, non?”

GASTON:

Gaston hadn't spotted the smaller man whiz past him, concentration spent trying not to trip over members of the crowd or get hit by cars as he skirted the pavement in an effort to gain time. Perhaps if he had, he might have tried a little harder. But as it was, he'd thundered through the entrance to the station, ticket at the ready, thinking he'd won by miles as he slammed through the gates - tempted to vault them when the barriers threatened not to open for a moment.

The smirk slipped from his lips, however, as the half crouched body raised its head, to reveal the shit eating grin of a certain Claude Frollo. "Yeah well," he started, taking the other man's wrist and slamming his palm into the door release, before pulling him onto the train. It'd be just his luck for the train to leave while they were standing right next to it. "We all knew you were a fucking fagot anyway so I guess we didn't need a race to prove it." He shrugged, stepping backwards into the crook of the corridor, a teasing grin flickering onto his face.

His hand made no effort to let go. Instead, he gently tugged the other man's body into the space he was occupying.

CLAUDE:

The self-satisfied smirk only grew when he saw Gaston make him out in the crowd. The other man’s own smirk fell from his face and Claude raised a brow, about to comment when Gaston came forward and grabbed him around the wrist. He’d seen the look on his face when he’d come through the gates, that competitiveness of his making him contemplate vaulting the gates or barreling through the people to win, but this was different. The touch was never so deliberate and, startled by it, Claude let himself be dragged onto the train.

Despite the other man’s words, Claude merely rolled his eyes, ignoring the dirty looks tossed their way from the rest of the people shoving their way onto the train. The Frenchman pressed himself closer, disquieted by the amount of bodies surrounding him, especially with the alcohol in his system.

With Gaston pulling him closer, they were basically chest to chest, Claude’s chin tilting to rest up on Gaston’s sternum. He cocked his head to the side, an easy smile curling the corners of his eyes. “Oh you knew did you?”

GASTON:

Gaston gazed into the other man's eyes and pressed his lips into a lopsided smile. For that moment, despite the bodies that weaved around them, the eyes on his skin, the way the doors beeped as a last warning and the train shuddered to life, the world was just them. Just the point their bodies touched and the sound of his voice and the look in his eyes. Sure, it might have been the drink. Or his expertise in tunnel vision.

Or perhaps it had always just been them. Sometimes it felt like it.

"I reckon I could have called it," he said, eyes raising a moment to check the distance for a pair of empty seats, with no luck. Though he was sure the train would clear the closer they got to home. "You were always a bit of a woman. Fairy. Whatever you want to call it."

CLAUDE:

Returning the smile, Claude followed the other man’s gaze when he went looking for a seat. Finding none, the Frenchman sighed, shifting on his feet as someone jostled him from behind, a slight frown pulling his forehead into a crease down the middle. The last warning of the doors’ closing sounded and then they were moving, Claude planting his feet to ensure he didn’t topple over with the movement.

Swaying, he and Gaston seemed to be connected at the hip, conjoined in a way that wouldn’t separate them even if one moved and the other didn’t follow.

“Do you? I do not think so,” he teased, humor more than anything in his voice. The words did not bother him, partially because he knew Gaston was not being serious and partially because it had always been a peculiarity of his speech. Gaston had called him a woman multiple times since they’d met, and it had only been said in jest. But, maybe there was something in that, too. “How about just a man who likes men, hm? That is as good a description as any, though I do not just like men. You, I like you. Most,” Claude shrugged, the movement halted by the arm that curled around him and crowded him close. “They do not make it easy. Nor did being a priest, for that matter but...before seminary it was different.”

GASTON:

Gaston's shoulder twitched as he thought on it, though it may not have been felt over the sway of the moving train, over the gentle rock of their bodies as they rattled against one another. Perhaps Claude was right. Perhaps he never would have sensed it. If he had, he doubted he would have allowed himself to enjoy the comfort of the other man's presence in the way that he had. Or perhaps that was why he had. Because he'd sensed it, but it had been held in a place that was unattainable and therefore no worry to his own senses or to the priest's. Perhaps it was that gentle curiosity that had guided him. Perhaps it was nothing at all.

And yet, here he found himself, stealing a moment of otherness with the man before him. Before he had to return to the grips of Swynlake and wonder what would happen if anyone found out.

Though the little admission checked him, left a soft, awed smile on his tired lips. Gaston wasn't sure if he was a man who liked men. He knew he preferred the company of men. Was that the same thing? Perhaps he'd never know. Perhaps it didn't matter. Not right now at least. Not until they set foot on Swynlake's cobbled streets.

"I like you most, too," he echoed softly, leaning back against the train doors behind them.

CLAUDE:

Claude’s eyes crinkled at the small smile he’d pulled from the other man, soft and secretive, and it lit his face up with one of his own. It had been Gaston, after all, to kiss him. Gaston who had somehow wormed his way into his life and into his brain and stayed when no one else had tried (or, perhaps, where very few had succeeded). Gaston who has seen his scars, had touched them, and had done nothing but accept them and his past. The medication, too, that Claude took was taken as it was, never made more of than it had to be. It was, perhaps, that easiness that had made him care about the other man.

Or, maybe, it was planted there from the first night they’d met and they’d sat and talked for long enough that the pub had almost emptied and Claude had not felt subconscious about anything for the longest time. Maybe it was because Gaston had seen a man and not the office he wore. Maybe it was because Claude had let him. Whatever the reason, the Frenchman did not want to squander it. The relationship he had with this man was more important to him than any other he had had in a very, very long time. Gaston was his best friend, but he was also that tight feeling in his chest, that peace of mind and safety that came with Gaston standing beside him. Just like tonight, Claude had known that, whatever happened, the other man would be there.

It was what gave him the courage to lean in again, an arm wrapping around the larger frame pressed against his and press a careful kiss to the other man’s jaw. “Good,” he said, the word almost like finality, “I had hoped you might.”

GASTON:

Gaston closed his eyes and tilted his head into the wall, hand curling up into the hair of the head that had risen to kiss him. There was a strange peace in the moment. A warmth in the other man's body, that he pulled closer. Intimacy was something he scarcely afforded himself and yet with Claude, it was abundant. Their friendship before that moment had been laced with quiet moments of intimacy, of legs sprawled over legs, heads in laps, the gentle caress of fingers through hair. And in the louder moments, it was still a tangle of arms and elbows and, occasionally, feet in your face.

He could feel the drink more now. And the weight of the tiredness behind his eyelids. Though he cracked them open one more time, to smile and place a kiss on the other man's forehead.

"Think I saw some seats clear," he hummed as the train pulled into a stop and the crowd shuffled past them.

CLAUDE:

Claude hummed against the other man’s skin for a moment, swaying with the movement of the train. He’d propped himself up against the bulk of Gaston’s upper body, the hand that had snaked its way into his hair holding him close. It was comfortable, comforting, something they’d had before this but Claude had never chosen to identify. There was a comfort in knowing that the man had been there, been his friend. His closest friend. In a way, Claude wondered if that was where this sudden feeling came from, this tightening in his chest and the ease with which he let the other man pull him into his space, his kisses.

But Claude knew that was not all that it was.

Head tilting with a quiet sigh, the Frenchman nodded and braced himself as the train slowed. He returned the smile and, once the train car had cleared a few of its passengers out, Claude pushed away from Gaston’s chest to manoeuvre them to the empty seats the other man had spotted.

GASTON:

Gaston threw himself into the chair, lolling his head back against the cold plastic panel of the nearest wall, where he kicked his feet up onto the opposite seat - much to the displeasure of the person sitting beside it - and wrapped an arm around Claude. "Not exactly my normal night clubbing," he mused quietly into the top of the other man's hair. "But I'll take it."

Between the soft scent of the other man's head, only fractions closer than he usually placed it, it was the only thought that preoccupied his mind, as the train rocked them into a shallow sleep all the way home.

Everything had changed and nothing at all.

CLAUDE:

Claude was too drowsy to make any apologies or fuss for the other man, so he just shook his head and offered the person beside them a look. They harrumphed back at him, a critical eye on the pair as the Frenchman was pulled into the larger man's side and tucked there.

It was warm and comforting and there was something about the way the other man's chest rose and fell that lulled him into a false sense of security on the train in the middle of a throng of people, like he was safe here. He was always safe here, really, but it was in the midpoint between awake and asleep that he truly felt it, keen, like heartache.

The rocking of the train helped him nod off and the heavy arm around his shoulders kept him there. At least, that was, until they were shaken awake by a kindly old hand.

Claude startled, gaze fuzzy, as he glanced up at the woman that had been seated beside them, hair graying and curling at the edges of her face. She glanced at him, once, before walking away. Rubbing a hand down his face, Claude nudged the other man in the ribs so he could stand, waiting for him just a few feet away before weaving his way back toward home.

GASTON:

Gaston's consciousness peeled back to the stark yellow lights inside the train and the gentle jostling of Claude nudging him awake. It seemed a lot less cosy, now they were far from the city and the huddle of bodies had become a faint scattering of men and women between the seats.

He pulled himself upwards and tumbled out of the train. It was probably past curfew, he realised, as they exited the station to find the world void of life. Though instead of hailing a cab, he tugged gently on Claude's arm and lead him by the back streets to where a narrow cobbled path skirted undergrowth on the outside of town and curled behind the houses, straight to his back door. He'd often take the route as a teen, to avoid trouble or more likely get into it. Of course, there hadn't been a curfew back then. But he'd come to know the streets and the trees as a safe spot from authority.

And on that warm evening, with the town hidden from view, its safety seemed all too appealing. The birds sang and a sloppy arm slung around the other man's shoulders, as he pulled them through the slim gap between the Deer and the building beside it.

CLAUDE:

The streets were empty, was Claude's first, sleep-fuzzy thought as he made his way onto Main Street, Gaston close behind. He hadn't thought they would be walking at this hour but it did wonders for clearing the fog from your head. Enough to know that the grip the other man had on his arm was one he didn't mind leaning into, now that he could, nor the fact that the path they were taking led them behind the houses.

Away from Main Street, on the outskirts of the town.

It wasn't one he'd seen used before and it didn't look it. Claude wondered how Gaston had even found it, known about it, but then those thoughts tumbled away. Gaston was raised here. Of course he knew pathways like this existed.

So, Claude let himself be led by the arm wrapped loose around his shoulders. Let himself be steered between the gaps of the buildings. He recognized the outside, vaguely, as the Deer but he didn't quite know why they hadn't gone inside. Gaston had the keys (or, Claude hoped that he still did. Gaston had moved the spare, but the Frenchman still knew where it was, regardless. Showing that meant he had to give that away). Beyond that, Claude was content to lean against the solid bulk beside him for a moment longer before pulling away.

Head tilting to the side, the corner of Claude's mouth curled up into a smirk, mischievous as it always was. His brows hiked up his forehead, asking a silent question. Were they just going to stand here all night, or was Claude going to have to trudge further down the street in the dark?

Or, maybe, was Gaston going to let him stay?

GASTON:

Gaston didn't know why he hesitated. Only that he did. The pressure of drink on his body had largely subsided, to nothing more than a faint dryness in his mouth and a twinge just above the eyebrow. He wanted water and blankets and to mindlessly pump social media directly into his brain for the next 24 hours. He also, surprisingly, didn't want the moment of soft summer warmth to end. Not in the raw, animalistic way he usually didn't want a moment to end - right up until it did end, at least for him, and he couldn't care less any more. Well… not much, anyway.

His eyes flicked across the street to the cold outline of the church, and then back to the man in front of him. "Do you," he threw a thumb over his shoulder, for once in his life unable to follow with a witty comeback (possibly because no matter how it went, the joke was probably on him) "wanna come in for a coffee?"

CLAUDE:

The smaller man watched Gaston's face for a moment, noticed the way his eyes glanced behind his shoulder. The church was behind them, looming in the dark like some malevolent entity.

The hooked thumb back towards the flat made his eyes crinkle, a huff of a laugh curling the edges of his mouth. Claude nodded his head, a hand coming up to run through his hair.

"Oui, I would like that." His hand moved, then, and wrapped, first, around the back of a bicep, tugging at it, and then skimmed higher, fingertips careful, always with a question curling his brow.

GASTON:

Gaston let the touch guide him closer, soaked into the warmth of another human being. That human being. Knowing that coffee wasn't the intention, nor the end result. Not even the beginning. He stepped closer, hands finding the other man's waist, torsos meeting gently in the middle. For a moment, he lingered like that, listening to the sounds of the morning birds as his gaze skimmed the older man's features, the lines of his face and soft fan of his eyelashes, filled with a strange tangle passion and apprehension at the night's discovery.

"I'd like that too," he answered quietly, before pressing another eager kiss onto his awaiting lips.

#convos #convos claude #docs claude #marginally catholic #waterloo sunset

2 notes · View notes

kakaji · 7 years ago

Text

The Death and Life of Punk, the Last Subculture, by Dylan Clark

Punk is dead. Long live punk. (graffito in use since 1970s)

Punk had to die so that it could live.

With the death of punk, classical subcultures died. What had, by the 1870s, emerged as ‘subcultures’ were understood to be groups of youths who practised a wide array of social dissent through shared behavioural, musical, and costume orientations. Such groups were remarkably capable vehicles for social change, and were involved in dramatically reshaping social norms in many parts of the world. These ‘classical’ subcultures obtained their potency partly through an ability to shock and dismay, to disobey prescribed confines of class, gender, and ethnicity. But things changed. People gradually became acclimatized to such subcultural transgressions to the point that, in many places, they have become an expected part of the social landscape. The image of rebellion has become one of the most dominant narratives of the corporate capitalist landscape: the ‘bad boy’ has been reconfigured as a prototypical consumer. And so it was a new culture in the 1970s, the punk subculture, which emerged to fight even the normalization of subculture itself, with brilliant new forms of social critique and style. But even punk was caught, caged, and placed in the subcultural zoo, on display for all to see. Torn from its societal jungle adn safely taunted by viewers behind barcodes, punk, the last subculture, was dead.

The classical subculture ‘died’ when it became the object of social inspection and nostalgia, and when it became so amenable to commodification. Marketers long ago awakened to the fact that subcultures are expedient vehicles for selling music, cars, clothing, cosmetics, and everything else under the sun. but this truism is not lost on many subcultural youth themselves, and they will be the first to grumble that there is nothing new under the subcultural sun.

In this climate, constrained by the discourse of subculture, deviation from the norm ain’t what it used to be. Deviation from the norm seems, well, normal. It is allegedly common for a young person to choose a prefab subculture off the rack, wear it for a few years, then rejoin with the ‘mainstream’ culture that they never really left at all. Perhaps the result of our autopsy will show that subculture (of the young, dissident, costumed kind) has become a useful part of the status quo, and less useful for harbouring discontent. For these reasons we can melodramatically pronounce that subculture is dead.

Yet still they come: goths, neo-hippies, and ‘77-ish mohawked punk rockers. And still people find solidarity, revolt, and individuality by inhabiting a shared costume marking their membership in a subculture. And still parents get upset, people gawk, peers shudder, and selves are recreated. Perhaps it is cruel or inaccurate to call these classical motifs dead, because they can be so very alive and real to the people who occupy them. Like squatters in abandoned buildings, practising subcultists give life to what seem to be deceased structures.

Or is the subculture dead? The death of subculture-- that is, the death of subcultural autonomy and meaningful rebellion-- did not escape the notice of many. For decades people have decried the commercialization of style, the paisley without the politics. But such laments have not failed to produce strategies. There is something else-- another kind of subculture, gestating and growing far below the classical subcultural terrain. For two decades thousands kept a secret: punk never died. Instead, punk had, even in its earliest days, begun to articulate a social form that anticipates and outmanoeuvres the dominance of corporate-capitalism. And as the Cold War finally disappears from decades of habit, and as the political and cultural hegemony of corporate-capitalism seems unrivalled, it suddenly becomes clear that the anarchist frameworks of punk have spread into all sorts of social groupings. The social forms punks began to play with in the early 1970s have penetrated subcultures across the spectrum. After the death of the classical subculture we witness the birth of new practices, ideologies, and ways of being-- a vast litter of anarchism.

For tribes of contemporary people who might be called punk (and who often refuse to label themselves), their subculture is partly in revolt from the popular discourse of subculture, from what has become, in punk eyes, a commercialized form of safe, affected discontent-- a series of consumed subjectivities, including pre-fabricated ‘Alternative’ looks. Punk is, ironically, a subculture operating within parts of that established discourse, and yet it is also a subculture partly dedicated to opposing what the discourse of subculture has become. As the century rolls over, punk is the invention of not just new subjectivities but, perhaps, a new kind of cultural formation. The death of subculture has in some ways helped to produce one of the most formidable subcultures yet: the death of subculture is the (re)birth of punk.

Part I. Classical Punk: The Last Subculture

Consumer voyeurism is much more offensive to punk sensibilities than song themes about addiction or slaughtering dolls onstage. (Van Dorston 1990)

At the heart of early punk was calculated anger. It was anger at the establishment and anger at the allegedly soft rebellion of the hippie counterculture; anger, too, at the commodification of rock and roll (Cullen 1996:249). Its politics were avowedly apolitical, yet it openly and explicitly confronted the traditions and norms of the powers that be. Describing the cultural milieu for young people in 19765, Greil Marcus notes the centrality of cultural production: ‘For the young everything flowed from rock ‘n’ roll (fashion, slang, sexual styles, drug habits, poses), or was organized by it, or was validated by it’ (Marcus 1989:53). But by the early 1970s, with commodification in full swing, with some artists said to have compromised their integrity by becoming rich stars,a dn with ‘rock’ having been integrated into the mainstream, some people felt that youth subcultures were increasingly a part of the intensifying consumer society, rather than opponents of the mainstream. Punk promised to build a scene that could not be taken. Its anger, pleasures, and ugliness were to go beyond what capitalism and bourgeois society could swallow. It would be untouchable, undesirable, unmanageable.

Early punk was a proclamation and an embrace of discord. In England it was begun by working-class youths decrying a declining economy and rising unemployment, chiding the hypocrisy of the rich, and refuting the notion of reform. In America, early punk was a middle-class youth movement, a reaction against the boredom of mainstream culture (Henry 1989:69). Early punk sought to tear apart consumer goods, royalty, and sociability; and it sought to destroy the idols of the bourgeoisie.

At first punk succeeded beyond its own lurid dreams. The Sex Pistols created a fresh moral panic fuelled by British tabloids, Members of Parliament, and plenty of everyday folk. Initially, at least, they threatened ‘everything England stands for’: patriotism, class hierarchy, ‘common decency’ and ‘good taste.’ When the Sex Pistols topped the charts in Britain, and climbed high in America, Canada, and elsewhere, punk savoured a moment in the sun: every public castigation only convinced more people that punk was real.

Damming God and the state, work and leisure, home and family, sex and play, the audience and itself, the music briefly made it possible to experience all those things as if they were not natural facts but ideological constructs: things than had been made and therefore could be altered, or done away with altogether. It became possible to see these things as bad jokes, and for the music to come forth as a better joke. (Marcus 1989:6)

Punk was to cross the rubicon of style from which there could be no retreat. Some punks went so far as to valorize anything mainstream society disliked, including rape and death camps; some punks slid into fascism. When the raw forces and ugliness of punk succumbed to corporate-capitalism within a few short years, the music/style nexus had lost its battle of Waterloo. Punk waged an all-out battle on this front, and it wielded new and shocking armaments, but in the end, even punk was proven profitable. Penny Rimbaud (1998:74) traces its cooption:

Within six months the movement had been bought out. The capitalist counter-revolutionaries had killed with cash. Punk degenerated from being a force for change, to becoming just another element in the grand media circus. Sold out, sanitised and strangled, punk had become just another social commodity, a burnt-out memory of how it might have been.

Profits serve to bandage the wounds inflicted by subcultures, while time and nostalgia cover over the historical stars. Even punk, when reduced to a neat mohawk hairstyle and a studded leather jacket, could be made into a cleaned-up spokesman for potato chips. Suddenly, the language of punk was rendered meaningless. Or perhaps-- perhaps-- the meaningless language of punk was made meaningful. Greil Marcus (1989:438) records the collapse of punk transgression: ‘the times changed, the context in which all these things could communicate not pedantry but novelty vanished, and what once were metaphors became fugitive footnotes to a text no longer in print.’

Like their subcultural predecessors, early punks were too dependent on music and fashion as modes for expression; these proved to be easy targets for corporate cooptation. ‘The English punk rock rhetoric of revolution, destruction, and anarchy was articulated by means of specific pleasures of consumption requiring the full industrial operations that were ostensibly were the objects of critique’ (Shank 1994: 94). Tactically speaking, the decisive subcultural advantage in music and style-- their innovation, rebellion, and capacity to alarm--was preempted by the new culture industry, which mass-produced and sterilized punk’s verve. With the collapse of punk’s stylistic ultimatum, what had been the foundations for twentieth-century subcultural dissent were diminished--not lost, but never to completely recover the power they once had in music and style.

Part II. The Triumph of the Culture Industry

Gil Scott Heron is famous for the line, ‘The Revolution will not be televised’. But in a way the opposite has happened. Nothing’s given the change to brew and develop anymore, before the media takes hold of it and grinds it to death. Also, there’s an instant commodification of everything that might develop into something ‘revolutionary.’ (Dishwater Pete, quoted in Vale 1997:17)

Having ostensibly neutralized early punk, the culture indsutry proved itself capable of marketing any classical youth subculture. All styles, musics, and poses could be packaged: seemingly no subculture was immune to its gaze. So levelled, classical subcultures were deprived of some of their ability to generate meaning and voice critique.

‘Subculture,’ in the discourse handed down to the present, has come popularly to represent youths who adorn themselves in tribal makeup and listen to narrow genres of music. Subcultures are, in this hegemonic caricature, a temporary phase through which mostly juvenile, mostly ‘White,’ and mostly harmless people symbolically create identity and peer groups, only to later return, as adults, to their pre-ordained roles in mainstream society.

The aforementioned idea of subculture is not without merit: ti is often a temporary vehicle through which teens and young adults select a somewhat prefabricated identification, make friends, separate from their parents, and individuate themselves. As a social form, this classical breed of subculture is important, widespread, and diversely expressed. In this form ‘subculture’ is partly a response to prevailing political economies and partly a cultural pattern that has been shaped and reworked by subcultures themselves and by the mass media. As such it is an inherited social form, and one which is heavily interactive with capitalist enterprise. Thus, subculture is both a discourse that continues to be a meaningful tool for countless people and, at the same time, something of a pawn of the culture industry.

With its capacity to designate all subcultures, all youth, under a smooth frosting of sameness, the culture industry was capable of violating the dignity of subcultists and softening their critique. Implied in the culture industry’s appropriation of subcultural imagery was the accusation of sameness, of predictability, of a generic ‘kids will be kids.’ To paste on any group a label of synchronic oneness is, in some way, to echo colonial tactics. ‘Youths’ or ‘kids,’ when smothered with a pan-generational movement of discontent, are reduced to a mere footnote to the dominant narrative of corporate-capitalism. Trapped in nostalgia and commercial classifications, subcultures and youth are merged into the endless, amalgamated consumer culture.

No wonder, then, that subcultural styles no longer provoke panics, except in select small towns. Piercings and tattoos might cause their owner to be rejected from a job, but they generally fail to arouse astonishment or fear. Writes Frederic Jameson (1983:124): ‘there is very little in either the form of the content of contemporary art that contemporary society finds intolerable and scandalous. The most offensive forms of this art-punk rock, say...are all taken in stride by society’. So too, ideas of self gratification are no longer at odds with the status quo. In the ‘Just Do It’ culture of the late twentieth century, selfish hedonism dominates the airwaves. Says Simon Reynolds (1988:254): ‘“Youth” has been co-opted, in a sanitized, censored version...Desire is no longer antagonistic to materialism, as it was circa the Stones’ “Satisfaction”.’ Instead young people often relate to the alienation of The Smiths or REM, who seem to lament that ‘everyone is having fun except me’; the sense of failure at not having the ‘sex/fun/style’ of the young people in the mass media. Indeed, long before ‘satisfaction’ became hegemonic, the commodity promised to satisfy. But because it cannot satisfy it leaves a melancholy that is satisfiable only in further consumption. So notes Stacy Corngold (1996:33) who concludes that ‘Gramsci’s general point appears to have been confirmed: all complex industrial societies rule by non-coercive coercion, whereby political questions become disguised as cultural ones and as such become insoluble.’ Youth subcultures, after the triumph of the culture industry, may perpetually find themselves one commodity short of satisfaction, and trapped by words that were once liberatory.

Or, as Grant McCracken (1988:133) argues, commodities cannot be completely effective as a mode of dissent because they are made legible in a language written by corporate-capitalism. As he writes:

when “hippies,” “punks”, “gays”, “feminists”, “young republicans”, and other radical groups use consumer goods to declare their difference, the code they use renders them comprehensible to the rest of society and assimilable within a larger set of cultural categories...The act of protest is finally an act of participation in a set of shared symbols and meanings.

Though McCracken underestimates the efficacy of stylized dissent, he is able to locate a defining weakness in the emphasis that subcultures have historically placed in style. My contention is that style was far more potent as a mode of rebellion in the past, and that not until the demise of punk was subcultural style dealt a mortal wound. After the demise of punk’s uber-style, after a kind of terminal point for outrageousness, there is a banality to subcultural style. And it is for this reason that Dick Hebdige’s (1979:102) ‘communication of a significant difference’ can no longer serve as a cornerstone in the masonry of subcultural identity. Following this logic, George McKay (1998:20) comments on the ‘Ecstasy Industry’ of mass culture, which has seized control of style. Thus

The Ecstasy Industry, for its part, is doing only too well under contemporary capitalism and could easily absorb the techniques of lifestyle anarchists to enhance a marketably naughty image. The counterculture that once shocked the bourgeoisie with its long hair, beards, dress, sexual freedom, and art has long since been upstaged by bourgeois entrepreneurs.

We can say, too, that the economy for subcultural codes suffers from hyper-inflation. In other words, the value of subcultural signs and meanings has been depleted: an unusual hairstyle just can’t buy the outsider status it used to. Stylistic transgressions are sometimes piled on one another like so many pesos, but the value slips away almost instantly. Thus, by the 1990s, dissident youth subcultures were far less able to arouse moral panics (Boethius 1995:52) despite an accelerated pace of style innovation (Ferrell 1993:194). In the 2000s, subcultural style is worth less because a succession of subcultures has been commodified in past decades. ‘Subculture’ has become a billion-dollar industry. Bare skin, odd piercings, and bluejeans are not a source of moral panics these days: they often help to create new market opportunities. Even irony, indifference, and apathy toward styles and subculture have been incorporated into Sprite and OK Cola commercials: every subjectivity, or so it may seem, has been swallowed up by the gluttons of Madison Avenue (Frank 1996, 1997a, 1997b).

Part III. The Discourse of Subculture, Plain for All to See

We burrow and borrow and barrow (or dump) our trash and treasures in an endless ballet of making and unmaking and remaking. The speed of this process is now such that a child can see it. (McLuhan and Nevitt 1972:104-5)

The patterned quality of youth subculture (innovate style and music → obtain a following → become commodified and typecast) forms a discourse of subculture, one that is recognized by academics and youths alike. That such a discourse is identifiable over several decades, however, does not mean that it goes unchanged or unchallenged. As a social form it undergoes change in its own right, but also because it has become the discursive object of the mass media. In particular, ‘subculture’ has been in many ways incorporated as a set trope of the culture industries which retail entertainment, clothing, and other commodities. Many observers-- academics, journalists, and culture industrialists-- fail to recognize that hegemonic appropriation of the discourse of subculture has had impacts for the people in subcultures.

Observers may fall into a classic pitfall, wherein they typecast subcultures. Any number of scholars are guilty of detailing the patterned quality of the discourse of subculture, trapping subcultures in a kind of synchronic Othering. One example should suffice:

Nowhere is the rapidly cyclical nature of rock-and-roll history more evident than in the series of events surrounding punk rock. Punk broke all the rolls and declared war on all previously existing musical trends and rules of social behaviour. Rebelling against established musical trends and social mores, punk quickly became a tradition in itself-- a movement with highly predictable stylistic elements. By 1981, just six years after the formation of the Sex Pistols, a new generation of performers had already begun to assert an identity distinct from the established punk style...Here we come full circle in the evolution of rock-and-roll as seen through the lens of punk. Emerging as the antithesis of the conservative musical climate of the 1970s, punk was quickly absorbed and exploited by the very elements against which it rebelled. Undoubtedly a new generation of performers will soon find an aesthetic and philosophical means of rebelling against the now commercial state of rock, just as punks did in [the 1970s]. (Henry 1989:115,116)

Henry, like so many other commentators, repeats serious errors in subcultural studies: (1) she conflates well-known musicians with the subcultures that listen to them; (2) rather than engage punk on its own terms she reduces punk to a type of youth subculture and little more; (3) she assumes that the ‘cyclical nature of rock-and-roll’ will continue to cycle, without considering the cultural effects of its repeated rotations. Many witnesses fail to see the dialectical motion of the discourse of subculture.

Indeed, commodification and trivialization of subcultural style is becoming ever more rapid and, at the turn of the millenium, subcultures are losing certain powers of speech. Part of what has become the hegemonic discourse of subculture is a misrepresentative depolitization of subcultures; the notion that subcultures were and are little more than hairstyles, quaint slang, and pop songs. In the prism of nostalgia, the politics and ideologies of subcultures are often stripped from them.

For today’s subcultural practitioners what does it mean when subcultures of the previous decades are encapsulated in commercials and nostalgia? Punks, mods, hippies, break dancers, 1970s stoners: all seem relegated to cages in the zoo of history, viewed and laughed at from the smug security of a television monitor. (The sign says, ‘Please do not taunt the historical subcultures’, but who listens?) Today’s subcultural denizens are forced to recognize that yesterday’s subcultures can quite easily be repackaged, made spokeswomen for the new Volkswagen.

One danger industrial pop culture poses to subsequent generations of dissident youth subcultures is that these youths may mistake style as the totality of prior dissent. Commercial culture deprives subcultures of a voice when it succeeds in linking subcultural style to its own products, when it nostalgizes and trivializes historic subcultures, and when it reduces a subculture to just another consumer preference. People within subcultures, for their part, capitulate when they equate commodified style with cooptation, when they believe that grunge, or punk, or break-dancing, is just another way of choosing Pepsi over Coke, when they believe that the entirety of subculture is shallow or stolen.

Dissident youth subculture is normal and expected, even unwittingly hegemonic. Where long hair and denim once threatened the mainstream, it has become mainstream and so has the very idea of subculture. Not only are deviant styles normalized, but subcultural presence is now taken for granted: the fact of subcultures is accepted and anticipated. Subcultures may even serve a useful function for capitalism, by making stylistic innovations that can then become vehicles for new sales. Subcultures became, by the 1970s, if not earlier, a part of everyday life, another category of people in the goings-on of society-- part of the landscape, part of daily life, part of hegemonic normality.

But this fact did not go unnoticed by many in the subcultural world.

Part IV. Long Live Punk: New Ways of Being Subcultural

Looking back at the 1980s one has to ask whether punk really died at all. Perhaps the death of punk symbolically transpired with the elections of Margaret Thatcher in England (1979) and Ronald Reagan in American (1980). The Sex Pistols broke up (1978), Sid Vicious died (1979), and--most damningly--too many teeny-boppers were affecting a safe, suburban version of ‘punk’. For many people, spiked hair and dog collars had become a joke, the domain of soda pop ads and television dramas. But did punk disappear with the utter sell-out of its foremost corporate spokesband, the Sex Pistols? Did punk vanish when pink mohawks could be found only on pubescent heads at the shopping mall? If the spectacular collapse of punk was also the collapse of spectacular subcultures, what remained after the inferno? What crawled from the wreckage? In what ways can young people express their unease with the modern structure of feeling? A new kind of punk has been answering these questions.

After shedding its dog collars and Union Jacks, punk came to be: (1) an anti-modern articulation, and (2) a way of being subcultural while addressing the discursive problems of subcultures. In fact, these two courses prove to be one path. That is, the problems of contemporary punk subcultures, after the ‘death’ of classical subcultures, prove to be intimate with the characteristics of recent modernity. Punk, then, is a position from which to articulate an ideological position without accruing the film of mainstream attention.Contemporary punk subcultures, may therefore choose to avoid spectacle-based interaction with dominant culture. Gone too is the dream of toppling the status quo in subcultural revolution. The culture industry not only proved louder than any subcultural challenge, it was a skilled predator on the prowl for fresh young subcultures. The power to directly confront dominant society was lost also with the increasing speed with which the commodification of deviant styles is achieved. It may be only a matter of months between stylistic innovation and its autonomous language of outsiderness, and its re-presentation in commercials and shopping malls.

Even the un-style of 1990s grunge (an old pair of jeans and a flannel shirt) was converted to the religion of the consumer; baptized and born-again as celebrations of corporate-capitalism. With such history in mind, new social movements such as punk attempt to forego style, shared music, and even names for themselves, for fear of being coopted by the market democracy. Tom Frank, speaking at a convention of zinesters addressed precisely this aspect of the structure of feeling in the 1990s:

The real thing to do is get some content. If you don’t want to be coopted, if you don’t want to be ripped off, there’s only one thing that’s ever going to prevent it and that’s politics. National politics, politics of the workplace, but most importantly politics of culture. Which means getting a clue about what the Culture Trust does and why, and saying what needs to be said about it. As culture is becoming the central pillar of our national economy, the politics of culture are becoming ever more central to the way our lives are played out. Realize that what the Culture Trust is doing is the greatest obscenity, the most arrogant reworking of people’s lives to come down the pike in a hundred years. Be clear from the start: what we’re doing isn’t a subculture; it’s an adversarial culture. (Frank 1996)

To a certain extent, punk means post-punk-- a nameless, covert subculture reformed after punk. To recap: early punk was, in part, simulated ‘anarchy;’ the performance of an unruly mob. So long as it could convince or alarm straight people, it achieved the enactment. For its play to work, punk needed a perplexed and frightened ‘mainstream’ off which to bounce. But when the mainstream proved that it needed punk, punk’s equation was reversed: its negativity became positively commercial. As mainstream style diversified, and as deviant styles were normalized, punk had less to act against. Punk had gambled all its chips on public outcry, and when it could no longer captivate an audience, it was wiped clean. Post-punk, or contemporary punk, has foregone these performances of anarchy and is now almost synonymous with the practice of anarchism.

Long after the ‘death’ of classical punk, post-punk and/or punk subcultures coalesce around praxis. For contemporary punks subcultural memberships, authenticity, and prestige are transacted through action internal to the subculture.

Greil Marcus’ idea of punk’s greatness is that the Sex Pistols could tell Bill Grundy to ‘fuck off’ on television. The real greatness of punk is that it can develop an entire subculture that would tell Bill Grundy and safe, boring television culture as a whole to fuck off directly, establishing a parallel social reality to that of boring consumerism (Van Dorston 1990)

Stripped nude, ideologies developed in the early years of punk continue to provide frameworks for meaningful subculture. Against the threatening purview of mass media and its capacity to usurp and commodify style, punk subcultures steer away from symbolic encounters with the System and create a basis in experience.

Punks, in my work among the anarchist-punks of Seattle, don’t call themselves punks. Instead they obliquely refer to the scene in which they ‘hang out’. They deny that they have rules, and claim that they are socially and ideologically porous. After three decades, here is what has become of many of the CCCS’ spectacular subcultures. And yet, in their stead, vibrant, living subcultures remain, with sets of regulations, norms, and their own ideological turfs. Seattle’s anarchist punks, for example, disavow an orthodox name, costume, or music; yet in many ways they continue to leave, or perhaps squat, within the classical structure of subculture. Although today’s punks refuse to pay the spectacular rent, they find that a new breed of subculture offers them ideological shelter and warmth.

From whence did these latter-day punks come? In contemporary America, the relentless commodification of subcultures has brought about a crisis in the act of subcultural signification. Punk is today, in part, a careful articulation in response to the hyper-inflationary market for subcultural codes and meanings, an evasion of subcultural commodification, and a protest against prefabricated culture; and punk is a subculture that resists the hegemonic discourse of subculture. The public cooptation of punk has led some punks to disclaim early punk, while preserving its more political features. Having been forced, as it were, out of a costume and music-based clique, punk is evolving into one of the most powerful political forces in North America and Europe, making its presence felt in the Battle of Seattle (1999), Quebec City (2001), EarthFirst!, Reclaim the Streets, and in variety of anti-corporate movements.

Like the spectacular subcultures so aptly described by the CCCS in the 1970s, current punks are partly in pursuit of an authentic existence. However, now that stylistic authenticity has been problematized by the ‘conquest of cool’ (Frank 1997a), punks have found that the ultimate authenticity lies in political action. Where subcultures were once a steady source of freshly marketable styles for corporations, they now present corporations with a formidable opponent. Punk marks a terrain in which people steadfastly challenge urban sprawl, war, vivisection, deforestation racism, the exploitation of the Third World, and many other manifestations of corporate-capitalism. The threatening pose has been replaced with the actual threat.

Perhaps that is one of the great secrets of subcultural history: punk faked its own death. Gone was the hair, gone was the boutique clothing, gone was negative rebellion (whatever they do, we’ll do the opposite). Gone was the name. Maybe it had to die, so as to collect its own life insurance. When punk was pronounced dead it bequeathed to its successors--itself-- a new subcultural discourse. The do-it-yourself culture had spawned independent record labels, speciality record stores, and music venues: in these places culture could be produced with less capitalism, more autonomy, and more anonymity. Punk faked its own death so well that everyone believed it. Many people who were still, in essence, punk did not know that they were inhabiting kinds of punk subjectivity. Even today, many people engaged in what might be called punk think of punk only in terms of its classical archetype. Punk can be hidden even to itself.

Punk had to die so that it could live. By slipping free of its orthodoxies-- its costumes, musical regulations, behaviours, and thoughts-- punk embodied the anarchism it aspired to. Decentralized, anti-hierarchical, mobile, and invisible, punk has become a loose assemblage of guerilla militias. It cannot be owned; it cannot be sold. It upholds the principles of anarchism, yet has no ideology. It is called punk, yet it has no name.

#Punk #Subculture #Post-subculture #Dylan Clark #Punk is Dead #Long live punk #David Muggleton #Hebdige #Politics #Theory

21 notes · View notes