Fic and some film blathering
May. 10th, 2010 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99 From The Ashes of Disaster - part 4/12
Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, Spyglass Entertainment do. No money being made.
Pairing: Quinn/Creedy, eventually. Some Creedy/OFC in the first part.
Rating: M, especially later on.
Spoilers: None. Prequel to ‘He Who Fights Too Long Against Dragons’ - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/471485.html.
Summary: In the ruins of Britain, humans still try to eke out a living where the dragons cannot find them. A band of roving bikers arrive in the remnants of Birmingham, both sides have to try to reach an agreement.
Part 1 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/589916.html
Part 2 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/598026.html
Part 3 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/610429.html
~~~~
Creedy popped back to the Prof’s house to report what had happened.
“How is he?”
“He’s fine. Last I saw he was sitting down about to eat tea.” Creedy dropped Quinn off after they’d finished the days tinkering, which, after the near fight, had been a slow, tetchy business. Quinn lived with the rest of the orphans, guarded over by matrons and the rest. Creedy, despite his age, lived in a little flat not far away. He thought that the people in charge were just as glad as he was that he didn’t live there. “I told him to keep his head down.”
“Do you think he will?”
“Not a chance. But it ought to blow over, these things always do.”
“That sounds dangerously close to ‘boys will be boys’.”
“It’s true. Give ‘em a weakness and they’ll go for it. The only reason I’m not in their sights is because they know I’ll smack into next Sunday if they try anything.” The Professor harrumphed. “You can say what you like, it’s truth. You and Quinn, you’d both be happier if you knew how to make people do what you think’s right for them,”
“Not happier. More satisfied.” The Professor interrupted. “We’d rather not be right about this, but we don’t think our suggestions are the right thing, we know it. You’re not a stupid man, Creedy, look around you. Do you really think we can maintain this for much longer if we keep on this way?”
Creedy quickly said his goodbyes after that; he knew what the Prof was like once he got going. Did he really think people were going to listen, especially when they lived comfortably the way they were? If Creedy maybe noticed that they were running out of metal, and that they’d be stuffed if a dragon did come because there wasn’t a guard tower, and the few spotters they had were haphazardly scattered around the town, and were normally absent on a cig break.
It didn’t help that life on the road had taught him not to be wasteful, and he could see people burning through fuel that they only had limited amounts of; using it to light up rooms that no one was in, that sort of thing.
And, if, as Creedy was being forced to admit, the Prof was right, then, no matter how much Creedy wanted the easy life, he had to help. It was only right. It didn’t mean he had to like it.
Creedy’s signal of surrender was attendance at the Prof’s English lessons, but only them. Quinn bounded up to him after one, everyone else had gone.
“I was worried, I mean, when the Prof said he’d spoken to you about it. Everyone else he’s told about it mysteriously started to avoid us.”
“That’s because he didn’t tell me about it, he suggested I see what was in front of me.” Pointedly Creedy added, “that might work better than telling for most people.”
“Most people aren’t going to bother to look, not if there’s a chance that they won’t like what they find.”
“So young and yet so cynical.”
That was how Creedy was inducted into the Professor’s plan for maintaining the human race. It was multi-faceted, and covered every conceivable eventuality. There were plans for education, for industry, for agriculture, policing and politics. Everything was written in thumping great ledgers. Creedy did try to point out that writing what you thought were the most important documents for the future on a material that was highly flammable was a bit silly, especially given that dragons were their problem, but the Professor pointed out that there was very little else they could use, there were no computers now, and Quinn was equally certain that metal would melt under the dragon’s flames just as well as paper did. Quinn also said he had no intention of attempting to write on stone tablets again.
They talked for such a long time that Quinn had to go back to the orphanage, leaving Creedy and the Professor to finish the discussion.
They’d raced through health and social policy, a quick overview that the Professor said he’d go over again someday, when Creedy had to ask why him.
“I would have thought it was obvious. Someone is going to need to back Quinn up when he takes over from me in charge of this. I have, if not the support of the general community, then at least their understanding. I helped set up the food and the machinery, they owe me and they know it. Despite all the work that Quinn’s put in, I don’t think they’ll give him the same respect. People are very short-sighted sometimes.” And Quinn was an unspeakable nerk, frequently. “I need to know that there’s a plan in place.”
“What, you going somewhere, Prof?”
“I have a heart condition. It’s mostly being kept under control with digitalis, but I like to make sure of these things.”
“Right hold on a minute, even saying I was willing to do that,”
“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t still have been here. You would have walked out the door four hours ago.”
“Still, if you want me to go along with this, I want something first.”
“Go on.”
“I want to know what the deal is between you and Quinn. I figure you aren’t related so,”
“I would have thought you were too clever to fall into the illogical belief of there being no smoke without fire.”
“Not true, plenty of ways you can have smoke without fire; I’m just trying to make sure this is one of them.”
“Do you think I’d be stupid enough to tell you outright if I were doing something ghastly to Quinn?”
“No, but I like to believe I can tell when someone’s lying right to my face.”
“Very well,” the Professor sighed. He took a photo from his wallet. The photo was of a younger Professor, a woman who looked to be about his age and a man who had to be their son, because he looked like the woman but had the Professor’s colouring. “When the dragons came, my son was working in London. He’d always wanted to go into radio and was working as an assistant producer for one of the smaller stations. When it all happened I went down to London.” The Professor paused briefly. “Yes, I know. But hope is always the last thing to go. His mother, God rest her, wasn’t around anymore, and I felt I owed it to her, owed it to them both if I was being realistic, to go and make sure that if there was even the smallest glimmer of hope that I could be there for him.” Creedy didn’t want to hear this. He knew what had to have happened.
The Professor continued, ploughing on while Creedy awaited the telling of the horror of whatever it was he’d seen. “Of course, it was futile. The station broadcast from by the Thames. They tell me that even if he’d known the dragon was coming, it would have been over before he knew about it. Still I stayed. I was already sans everything; it wasn’t like I was losing anything by staying. Then something very strange happened. Quinn walked out of London.”
“Nobody walked out of London.” It had burned, burned for days and weeks and for all anyone knew it was still smouldering.
“Quinn did. As you can imagine, he was in a bad way.” Creedy could imagine all too clearly. “They got him on a drip and fixed him up, but he wasn’t communicating with anyone. He seemed to be following conversation, and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him, although it was a very rudimentary medical camp. They tried talking to him, counselling him, pleading with him. Nothing was getting through. I hadn’t really intended to do anything, I set up a makeshift chess set, actually trying to cheer one of the doctors up, but he came over and started playing. And we got to talking. He’s very good at chess as it happens. People were astonished, I think he would have started talking again anyway, I only provided a reason. Of course they tried to find out who he was and what had happened, which only drove him back into his shell. We had a name at least. I think everyone gave up in the end, trying to find out his background, when we realised London really was lost for good, and Quinn was just unwilling or unable to talk. People started going home, and they decided I was the nearest thing he had to a suitable relative so I ought to look after him when we evacuated out. Well I say evacuated, that suggests some sort of urgency; it was more of a dispersal. I came back here and tried to get things going, and Quinn came with me. That’s the whole truth.”
It made sense. Creedy had been in Glasgow when London started burning, and there’d been such a sense of shock and horror, even before the other dragons awoke. If he’d been right there, right near the centre, would he have bothered to try and get the family details of an unresponsive boy, or would he have handed him off to the first suitable seeming person?
The Professor didn’t seem to be lying and Creedy wanted to believe him. He probably did believe him, truth be told, but he was still going to keep a close eye on Quinn. Not that he’d really be able not to if he was going to help the two of them out, which he was going to have to do, because most of the plans had the distinct look of having been written by clever, good people, who had assumed that everyone was like them. Creedy was going to have to knock these plans into shape so that they’d actually work for real people.
~~~~
Film stuff
Housemates got Dante 01, a French sci-fi film of particular pretentiousness, out from the library. I, well, I'm not sure enjoyed is the right word, but I certainly seemed to get more out of it that they did. Particularly the random, jumpy non-ending at the end. I am presently being blamed for the existance of such pretentious rubbish, because apparently I encourage film-makers to make things with inexplicable non-endings, because there's always a wazzock like me in the audience claiming to get it.
Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, Spyglass Entertainment do. No money being made.
Pairing: Quinn/Creedy, eventually. Some Creedy/OFC in the first part.
Rating: M, especially later on.
Spoilers: None. Prequel to ‘He Who Fights Too Long Against Dragons’ - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/471485.html.
Summary: In the ruins of Britain, humans still try to eke out a living where the dragons cannot find them. A band of roving bikers arrive in the remnants of Birmingham, both sides have to try to reach an agreement.
Part 1 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/589916.html
Part 2 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/598026.html
Part 3 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/610429.html
~~~~
Creedy popped back to the Prof’s house to report what had happened.
“How is he?”
“He’s fine. Last I saw he was sitting down about to eat tea.” Creedy dropped Quinn off after they’d finished the days tinkering, which, after the near fight, had been a slow, tetchy business. Quinn lived with the rest of the orphans, guarded over by matrons and the rest. Creedy, despite his age, lived in a little flat not far away. He thought that the people in charge were just as glad as he was that he didn’t live there. “I told him to keep his head down.”
“Do you think he will?”
“Not a chance. But it ought to blow over, these things always do.”
“That sounds dangerously close to ‘boys will be boys’.”
“It’s true. Give ‘em a weakness and they’ll go for it. The only reason I’m not in their sights is because they know I’ll smack into next Sunday if they try anything.” The Professor harrumphed. “You can say what you like, it’s truth. You and Quinn, you’d both be happier if you knew how to make people do what you think’s right for them,”
“Not happier. More satisfied.” The Professor interrupted. “We’d rather not be right about this, but we don’t think our suggestions are the right thing, we know it. You’re not a stupid man, Creedy, look around you. Do you really think we can maintain this for much longer if we keep on this way?”
Creedy quickly said his goodbyes after that; he knew what the Prof was like once he got going. Did he really think people were going to listen, especially when they lived comfortably the way they were? If Creedy maybe noticed that they were running out of metal, and that they’d be stuffed if a dragon did come because there wasn’t a guard tower, and the few spotters they had were haphazardly scattered around the town, and were normally absent on a cig break.
It didn’t help that life on the road had taught him not to be wasteful, and he could see people burning through fuel that they only had limited amounts of; using it to light up rooms that no one was in, that sort of thing.
And, if, as Creedy was being forced to admit, the Prof was right, then, no matter how much Creedy wanted the easy life, he had to help. It was only right. It didn’t mean he had to like it.
Creedy’s signal of surrender was attendance at the Prof’s English lessons, but only them. Quinn bounded up to him after one, everyone else had gone.
“I was worried, I mean, when the Prof said he’d spoken to you about it. Everyone else he’s told about it mysteriously started to avoid us.”
“That’s because he didn’t tell me about it, he suggested I see what was in front of me.” Pointedly Creedy added, “that might work better than telling for most people.”
“Most people aren’t going to bother to look, not if there’s a chance that they won’t like what they find.”
“So young and yet so cynical.”
That was how Creedy was inducted into the Professor’s plan for maintaining the human race. It was multi-faceted, and covered every conceivable eventuality. There were plans for education, for industry, for agriculture, policing and politics. Everything was written in thumping great ledgers. Creedy did try to point out that writing what you thought were the most important documents for the future on a material that was highly flammable was a bit silly, especially given that dragons were their problem, but the Professor pointed out that there was very little else they could use, there were no computers now, and Quinn was equally certain that metal would melt under the dragon’s flames just as well as paper did. Quinn also said he had no intention of attempting to write on stone tablets again.
They talked for such a long time that Quinn had to go back to the orphanage, leaving Creedy and the Professor to finish the discussion.
They’d raced through health and social policy, a quick overview that the Professor said he’d go over again someday, when Creedy had to ask why him.
“I would have thought it was obvious. Someone is going to need to back Quinn up when he takes over from me in charge of this. I have, if not the support of the general community, then at least their understanding. I helped set up the food and the machinery, they owe me and they know it. Despite all the work that Quinn’s put in, I don’t think they’ll give him the same respect. People are very short-sighted sometimes.” And Quinn was an unspeakable nerk, frequently. “I need to know that there’s a plan in place.”
“What, you going somewhere, Prof?”
“I have a heart condition. It’s mostly being kept under control with digitalis, but I like to make sure of these things.”
“Right hold on a minute, even saying I was willing to do that,”
“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t still have been here. You would have walked out the door four hours ago.”
“Still, if you want me to go along with this, I want something first.”
“Go on.”
“I want to know what the deal is between you and Quinn. I figure you aren’t related so,”
“I would have thought you were too clever to fall into the illogical belief of there being no smoke without fire.”
“Not true, plenty of ways you can have smoke without fire; I’m just trying to make sure this is one of them.”
“Do you think I’d be stupid enough to tell you outright if I were doing something ghastly to Quinn?”
“No, but I like to believe I can tell when someone’s lying right to my face.”
“Very well,” the Professor sighed. He took a photo from his wallet. The photo was of a younger Professor, a woman who looked to be about his age and a man who had to be their son, because he looked like the woman but had the Professor’s colouring. “When the dragons came, my son was working in London. He’d always wanted to go into radio and was working as an assistant producer for one of the smaller stations. When it all happened I went down to London.” The Professor paused briefly. “Yes, I know. But hope is always the last thing to go. His mother, God rest her, wasn’t around anymore, and I felt I owed it to her, owed it to them both if I was being realistic, to go and make sure that if there was even the smallest glimmer of hope that I could be there for him.” Creedy didn’t want to hear this. He knew what had to have happened.
The Professor continued, ploughing on while Creedy awaited the telling of the horror of whatever it was he’d seen. “Of course, it was futile. The station broadcast from by the Thames. They tell me that even if he’d known the dragon was coming, it would have been over before he knew about it. Still I stayed. I was already sans everything; it wasn’t like I was losing anything by staying. Then something very strange happened. Quinn walked out of London.”
“Nobody walked out of London.” It had burned, burned for days and weeks and for all anyone knew it was still smouldering.
“Quinn did. As you can imagine, he was in a bad way.” Creedy could imagine all too clearly. “They got him on a drip and fixed him up, but he wasn’t communicating with anyone. He seemed to be following conversation, and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him, although it was a very rudimentary medical camp. They tried talking to him, counselling him, pleading with him. Nothing was getting through. I hadn’t really intended to do anything, I set up a makeshift chess set, actually trying to cheer one of the doctors up, but he came over and started playing. And we got to talking. He’s very good at chess as it happens. People were astonished, I think he would have started talking again anyway, I only provided a reason. Of course they tried to find out who he was and what had happened, which only drove him back into his shell. We had a name at least. I think everyone gave up in the end, trying to find out his background, when we realised London really was lost for good, and Quinn was just unwilling or unable to talk. People started going home, and they decided I was the nearest thing he had to a suitable relative so I ought to look after him when we evacuated out. Well I say evacuated, that suggests some sort of urgency; it was more of a dispersal. I came back here and tried to get things going, and Quinn came with me. That’s the whole truth.”
It made sense. Creedy had been in Glasgow when London started burning, and there’d been such a sense of shock and horror, even before the other dragons awoke. If he’d been right there, right near the centre, would he have bothered to try and get the family details of an unresponsive boy, or would he have handed him off to the first suitable seeming person?
The Professor didn’t seem to be lying and Creedy wanted to believe him. He probably did believe him, truth be told, but he was still going to keep a close eye on Quinn. Not that he’d really be able not to if he was going to help the two of them out, which he was going to have to do, because most of the plans had the distinct look of having been written by clever, good people, who had assumed that everyone was like them. Creedy was going to have to knock these plans into shape so that they’d actually work for real people.
~~~~
Film stuff
Housemates got Dante 01, a French sci-fi film of particular pretentiousness, out from the library. I, well, I'm not sure enjoyed is the right word, but I certainly seemed to get more out of it that they did. Particularly the random, jumpy non-ending at the end. I am presently being blamed for the existance of such pretentious rubbish, because apparently I encourage film-makers to make things with inexplicable non-endings, because there's always a wazzock like me in the audience claiming to get it.
