Infinity Smashed: Homecoming
Aug. 3rd, 2014 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeHi everybody! What better way to kick off the half-price sale than with this old story from Foolathon back in April. It is based off of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rix_scaedu's prompt requesting raspberry fools, and was sponsored by the lovely zen_of_cayenne! But this story has more importance than just that; it is also the final prompt in my Stuff100, a project we have been working on since 2005! Yes, after almost nine years, we've finally finished, which means a new big Infinity Smashed project is on the horizon. Stay tuned readers, and happy writeathon!
Homecoming
Prompts: Stuff100 “Orange,” HC/Bingo “grief”
Word Count: 1500
Summary: After disappearing when Josephine MacGilligan was eleven, her big sister comes home, and it turns out she was keeping a lot of secrets.
Notes: This takes place after Time to Go, and there is constant misgendering and complete trans cluelessness here.
When Josie MacGilligan answered the knock at her door, the reflexive terror surged in her throat. Then her sense kicked in; the man was twenty years too young and three shades too dark. Not her father, just someone with an uncanny resemblance to him, someone she’d surely seen before…
She wrestled her face straight. “May I help you?”
The stranger shoved his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders in a familiar-but-strange way, and she’d just realized where she’d seen it before when he said, “Hey, JoJo.”
Nobody called her JoJo, except Mama and…
Josie put a hand to her mouth. “Beth?”
A wince flashed across her big sister’s face, almost too quick to catch. “I… don’t go by that no more.”
Of course she didn’t, she’d been going by Biff even before she’d left. Beth had always been the tomboy of the family, but everyone had assumed she’d grow out of it, settle down, not…
“God,” Josie said before she could stop herself. “You look just like Daddy.”
Now the wince was clear. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah. You… you come on in.” Josie let go of the doorframe and cleared the way. “You ain’t gonna run again, are you?”
Beth wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Dunno.”
Well, at least it was honest. That’d have to be a start. Beth came in, and the bowlegged swagger, the stocky frame, all were familiar, but the angles of her face, the dark hair on the backs of her hands, the voice… Josie never would’ve known she was a girl, as a stranger.
Before she could stop herself, she said, “You ain’t done nothing permanent, have you?”
Beth just looked at her.
Josie took a deep breath and pushed her fingers back through her hair. “God,” she said. “No wonder you left.”
Beth shrugged and looked away.
“You always been like this?”
“JoJo,” she said gently, “I don’t want to talk about this now.”
Her accent had changed too, more Southwest.
“Yeah,” Josie said, nodding. “Okay. We don’t got to talk about it.”
What she really wanted to do was take Beth, shake her, ask how she could’ve done this to herself, turn from Josie’s big sister into this stranger who looked like her father but blacker. All those years of not knowing where she went, why she went, if she was okay…
Much to her mortification, she started to cry. Beth went antsy and big-eyed, like she was about to bolt again, vanish out of Josie’s life for another forever, so Josie shut the door and blocked it to keep her from going anywhere. Beth hovered, then stepped forward to awkwardly pat her shoulder. “Hey, don’t cry, huh? ‘M sorry…”
Josie was taller than Beth now. Impossible; in her child’s memory, her big sister had always seemed so big.
Then again, so had her father, and he’d turned out to be only five foot three.
Sniffing, Josie approached the kitchen table, not sure what to do. Part of her wanted to wipe down the table and clean away the toast crumbs like Beth was a customer, and another part wanted to pour her coffee like she was family, but Josie didn’t know how Beth took it. If she took it at all; she hadn’t used to drink coffee, before she left…
Beth saw her indecision. “I’ll make something.”
Too overwrought to speak, Josie nodded, and Beth fished through cabinets, pulled out cream and orange juice and the last of the raspberries like she’d never left. Like Josie was eight again and she and Millie were begging their big sister to make them something. The blender noise meant Josie didn’t have to talk or be silent.
Finally, Josie swallowed her tears. She tried to light a Pall Mall, but her hands were trembling too much to work the lighter. After a moment, Beth put the raspberry puree into the fridge, pulled a Zippo out of her pocket and lit it for her.
“When you start?” She asked Josie with a hint of disapproval.
“After you left.” She took a drag, and Beth lit up too. Marlboro 72s. “Don’t know why you surprised. You smoked, Mama smoked.”
“Figured you too smart for it.”
She laughed bitterly. “They needed a new bad kid after you left. Millie was too quiet, so I got the job.” She inhaled, let the heat and smoke curl sweet around her lungs. “Helped me remember you.”
Beth gave a curl of her hair a tug. “Quit relaxing too.”
Josie fluffed her curls proudly. “Bad kid, remember? Week I start smoking, I shave that shit off my head with Daddy’s razor.”
Even after everything, Beth’s chuckle was still the same. It felt good, and so Josie kept going.
“Mama find me in the bathroom, surrounded by sad little straight hairs, big chunks hanging off the back of my head, and she about died. Got that little plastic smile on her face—you know the one I mean—and she walk away. Daddy about killed me, but after you and the ambulance, he couldn’t afford to put another kid in the hospital, and why’d you have to go?”
Beth was silent.
Damn it, she was crying again. “Years, you gone. Years. Last time I saw you, I was eleven. You bleeding all over the kitchen, and then you gone. No phone call, no mail, no shit, and now…” She waved with her cigarette at Beth’s new, male body. “Now this. You didn’t tell me shit, and you still ain’t telling me shit. Why you leave, Biff? Why you leave me?”
She couldn’t talk anymore. All she could do was cry.
After a moment, Beth came up and hugged her. Stiffly, like she hadn’t hugged anyone in a long time, and rocked her. And even though she was shorter than Josie and smelled like man now, Josie hugged her back and cried until she had nothing left, and she felt better.
“’M sorry,” Beth said. “I had to leave. I was going bad.”
“No. Not you.” As the years passed, her big sister had been shadowed with rage, coming home with bruises from somewhere else, but she’d never, ever— “You kept us safe.”
Beth just gave her a sad look.
“Never.”
Beth let go of her and went to whip the cream by hand.
“But you came back. To me.”
“Only one I could find in the phone book.”
Josie drew on her cigarette. “Yeah. Yeah, Mama remarried. She go by O’Donahue now.”
“Old man?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
“Millie?”
Josie looked down. “She didn’t make it.”
Beth’s arm stopped whisking a moment. They were silent, remembering their sister, who’d always been so quiet and good at math.
“She always was the good one,” Beth said.
“Yeah,” Josie said, “for all the good it did her.”
“How’s Mama?”
“Ain’t spoken to her since Christmas. Same old story. Would you believe I tried to save her sad ass? When she finally divorced him, I thought maybe… but nope, moved right on to O’Donahue. I swear, our mother got a thing for mean white men.” She shuddered. “Bet I inherited it too. ‘S why I don’t date.” A thought occurred to her. “You got somebody?”
Beth looked deeply uncomfortable and redoubled her whisking. “I…”
“No, I mean… anybody. I mean, folks here, they know, and it hard, but I’m… not like you. You got anybody? Tell me you didn’t do all,” she gestured vaguely at the stubble, the deep voice, the everything, “all that on your own.”
Beth shrugged. “Yeah, I got somebody. A… a friend. She came with me.”
“She like you?”
Shrug. “She don’t care.”
“Good. That… that’s good.” She couldn’t imagine someone not caring. “She here?”
“Outside, yeah.” The cream was whipped. Beth pulled the puree out of the fridge and started folding it in. “You don’t gotta meet her.”
“You don’t got to introduce her. But if you want to. Or talk. I wish…” Well, there were a lot of things she wished. “I want to help. Make things better. You know?”
Beth spooned some of the raspberry fool into a coffee mug and came over to put it on the table. “I don’t talk much.”
“Our family never talked. I’m over that tradition.”
Beth hesitated, then said, “I’ll get her.”
She walked towards the door, and then paused. Turning to give Josie a reassuring smile over her shoulder, she said, “I won’t disappear.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
The screen door slammed, and Josie ate a bite of the raspberry fool. It was cool and light, and her big sister had come back. Maybe things were going to be okay.
Beth did come back. And things were.
rix_scaedu's prompt requesting raspberry fools, and was sponsored by the lovely zen_of_cayenne! But this story has more importance than just that; it is also the final prompt in my Stuff100, a project we have been working on since 2005! Yes, after almost nine years, we've finally finished, which means a new big Infinity Smashed project is on the horizon. Stay tuned readers, and happy writeathon!Homecoming
Prompts: Stuff100 “Orange,” HC/Bingo “grief”
Word Count: 1500
Summary: After disappearing when Josephine MacGilligan was eleven, her big sister comes home, and it turns out she was keeping a lot of secrets.
Notes: This takes place after Time to Go, and there is constant misgendering and complete trans cluelessness here.
When Josie MacGilligan answered the knock at her door, the reflexive terror surged in her throat. Then her sense kicked in; the man was twenty years too young and three shades too dark. Not her father, just someone with an uncanny resemblance to him, someone she’d surely seen before…
She wrestled her face straight. “May I help you?”
The stranger shoved his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders in a familiar-but-strange way, and she’d just realized where she’d seen it before when he said, “Hey, JoJo.”
Nobody called her JoJo, except Mama and…
Josie put a hand to her mouth. “Beth?”
A wince flashed across her big sister’s face, almost too quick to catch. “I… don’t go by that no more.”
Of course she didn’t, she’d been going by Biff even before she’d left. Beth had always been the tomboy of the family, but everyone had assumed she’d grow out of it, settle down, not…
“God,” Josie said before she could stop herself. “You look just like Daddy.”
Now the wince was clear. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah. You… you come on in.” Josie let go of the doorframe and cleared the way. “You ain’t gonna run again, are you?”
Beth wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Dunno.”
Well, at least it was honest. That’d have to be a start. Beth came in, and the bowlegged swagger, the stocky frame, all were familiar, but the angles of her face, the dark hair on the backs of her hands, the voice… Josie never would’ve known she was a girl, as a stranger.
Before she could stop herself, she said, “You ain’t done nothing permanent, have you?”
Beth just looked at her.
Josie took a deep breath and pushed her fingers back through her hair. “God,” she said. “No wonder you left.”
Beth shrugged and looked away.
“You always been like this?”
“JoJo,” she said gently, “I don’t want to talk about this now.”
Her accent had changed too, more Southwest.
“Yeah,” Josie said, nodding. “Okay. We don’t got to talk about it.”
What she really wanted to do was take Beth, shake her, ask how she could’ve done this to herself, turn from Josie’s big sister into this stranger who looked like her father but blacker. All those years of not knowing where she went, why she went, if she was okay…
Much to her mortification, she started to cry. Beth went antsy and big-eyed, like she was about to bolt again, vanish out of Josie’s life for another forever, so Josie shut the door and blocked it to keep her from going anywhere. Beth hovered, then stepped forward to awkwardly pat her shoulder. “Hey, don’t cry, huh? ‘M sorry…”
Josie was taller than Beth now. Impossible; in her child’s memory, her big sister had always seemed so big.
Then again, so had her father, and he’d turned out to be only five foot three.
Sniffing, Josie approached the kitchen table, not sure what to do. Part of her wanted to wipe down the table and clean away the toast crumbs like Beth was a customer, and another part wanted to pour her coffee like she was family, but Josie didn’t know how Beth took it. If she took it at all; she hadn’t used to drink coffee, before she left…
Beth saw her indecision. “I’ll make something.”
Too overwrought to speak, Josie nodded, and Beth fished through cabinets, pulled out cream and orange juice and the last of the raspberries like she’d never left. Like Josie was eight again and she and Millie were begging their big sister to make them something. The blender noise meant Josie didn’t have to talk or be silent.
Finally, Josie swallowed her tears. She tried to light a Pall Mall, but her hands were trembling too much to work the lighter. After a moment, Beth put the raspberry puree into the fridge, pulled a Zippo out of her pocket and lit it for her.
“When you start?” She asked Josie with a hint of disapproval.
“After you left.” She took a drag, and Beth lit up too. Marlboro 72s. “Don’t know why you surprised. You smoked, Mama smoked.”
“Figured you too smart for it.”
She laughed bitterly. “They needed a new bad kid after you left. Millie was too quiet, so I got the job.” She inhaled, let the heat and smoke curl sweet around her lungs. “Helped me remember you.”
Beth gave a curl of her hair a tug. “Quit relaxing too.”
Josie fluffed her curls proudly. “Bad kid, remember? Week I start smoking, I shave that shit off my head with Daddy’s razor.”
Even after everything, Beth’s chuckle was still the same. It felt good, and so Josie kept going.
“Mama find me in the bathroom, surrounded by sad little straight hairs, big chunks hanging off the back of my head, and she about died. Got that little plastic smile on her face—you know the one I mean—and she walk away. Daddy about killed me, but after you and the ambulance, he couldn’t afford to put another kid in the hospital, and why’d you have to go?”
Beth was silent.
Damn it, she was crying again. “Years, you gone. Years. Last time I saw you, I was eleven. You bleeding all over the kitchen, and then you gone. No phone call, no mail, no shit, and now…” She waved with her cigarette at Beth’s new, male body. “Now this. You didn’t tell me shit, and you still ain’t telling me shit. Why you leave, Biff? Why you leave me?”
She couldn’t talk anymore. All she could do was cry.
After a moment, Beth came up and hugged her. Stiffly, like she hadn’t hugged anyone in a long time, and rocked her. And even though she was shorter than Josie and smelled like man now, Josie hugged her back and cried until she had nothing left, and she felt better.
“’M sorry,” Beth said. “I had to leave. I was going bad.”
“No. Not you.” As the years passed, her big sister had been shadowed with rage, coming home with bruises from somewhere else, but she’d never, ever— “You kept us safe.”
Beth just gave her a sad look.
“Never.”
Beth let go of her and went to whip the cream by hand.
“But you came back. To me.”
“Only one I could find in the phone book.”
Josie drew on her cigarette. “Yeah. Yeah, Mama remarried. She go by O’Donahue now.”
“Old man?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
“Millie?”
Josie looked down. “She didn’t make it.”
Beth’s arm stopped whisking a moment. They were silent, remembering their sister, who’d always been so quiet and good at math.
“She always was the good one,” Beth said.
“Yeah,” Josie said, “for all the good it did her.”
“How’s Mama?”
“Ain’t spoken to her since Christmas. Same old story. Would you believe I tried to save her sad ass? When she finally divorced him, I thought maybe… but nope, moved right on to O’Donahue. I swear, our mother got a thing for mean white men.” She shuddered. “Bet I inherited it too. ‘S why I don’t date.” A thought occurred to her. “You got somebody?”
Beth looked deeply uncomfortable and redoubled her whisking. “I…”
“No, I mean… anybody. I mean, folks here, they know, and it hard, but I’m… not like you. You got anybody? Tell me you didn’t do all,” she gestured vaguely at the stubble, the deep voice, the everything, “all that on your own.”
Beth shrugged. “Yeah, I got somebody. A… a friend. She came with me.”
“She like you?”
Shrug. “She don’t care.”
“Good. That… that’s good.” She couldn’t imagine someone not caring. “She here?”
“Outside, yeah.” The cream was whipped. Beth pulled the puree out of the fridge and started folding it in. “You don’t gotta meet her.”
“You don’t got to introduce her. But if you want to. Or talk. I wish…” Well, there were a lot of things she wished. “I want to help. Make things better. You know?”
Beth spooned some of the raspberry fool into a coffee mug and came over to put it on the table. “I don’t talk much.”
“Our family never talked. I’m over that tradition.”
Beth hesitated, then said, “I’ll get her.”
She walked towards the door, and then paused. Turning to give Josie a reassuring smile over her shoulder, she said, “I won’t disappear.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
The screen door slammed, and Josie ate a bite of the raspberry fool. It was cool and light, and her big sister had come back. Maybe things were going to be okay.
Beth did come back. And things were.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-05 08:13 am (UTC)Is the friend who came with Biff M.D.? Also, I love the expression "another forever." That really drives home Josie's loneliness and her grief over her sister.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-05 11:22 pm (UTC)It's this weirdly delicate situation, but I wanted to depict Josie as someone who is completely, utterly ignorant, and overwhelmed, but not a bad person. I have stories where trans people come out and the person is more knowledgeable and things go better, but seeing Biff's family... I just couldn't imagine it going that smoothly. He's been gone a REALLY long time.
But damn was it hard remembering to constantly misgender him, unpleasant as it was.
--Rogan
EDIT: oh yeah, and yes, M.D. is with him. He is basically using her as a meat shield, since she can talk enough for two people.