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Macfic: vignette
It's been a loooong time since I posted about writing . . . I wish I could claim I've been writing all that time!
I'm still working on chapter 9 of Reverb, and making slow and steep going of it (although I think I have most of the newest added pile of research in hand now, thanks to my Amazing and Wonderful Stunt Researchers).
So, naturally, I get bit by a plot bunny: a rather small one, as plot bunnies go. Not a smut bunny, unfortunately.
It's not at all my usual: basically a vignette/character study, about 500 words. Tags for Partners and Collision Course. I think the underlying motivation behind this one was to get some chunks of Mac's Expansion Pack Past (tm) sorted out and correlated. It's online on fanfiction.net as well. I originally thought it was going to fit into Reverb somewhere as an introspective flashback, but it doesn't seem likely to do so.
Just another morning, another cab fare; a sudden turn in the direction of his life. Except it hadn’t had any direction, not that day. Not till after that day.
Mac’s life hadn’t had a whole lot of structure since he’d gotten out from under the uncomfortable wing of the military, but at that particular point, he’d been particularly unsettled. Jack Dalton had been reduced to living in his own storage unit, while Mac had been dossing down on the couch of a mutual friend who owned a failing garage.
No, Jack wasn’t much of a friend, not on first glance. Or second. But up till Pete arrived in Mac’s life – the second appearance, by cab instead of camel – Jack had been . . . not a rock to hold onto; not that at all. But something you could count on. A friend like Jack Dalton, unreliable and untrustworthy through most of his threadbare soul, still had a heart that offered solidity when things got really bleak. For years, the only constant in Mac’s life had been change – but Jack never changed. Even when you wished he would.
The buddy’s couch, the garage, the cab – it was all a refuge. That whole period of his life had been a refuge . . . a walk along an empty mental beach, keeping himself just active enough so that he wouldn’t have to think. Wouldn’t have to plan. Wouldn’t have to figure out what to do next, not for a while anyway.
The sense of relief that had washed over him when he made the decision to quit racing had all but wiped him out. He felt as if his entire life, not just his race car, had spun out of control and careened off the track, and he couldn’t figure out what to do about it. He wasn’t really keen on figuring out anything at all just now – well, if it could be tightened, or tuned up, or oiled, or painted, or adjusted, or rebuilt, or rewired – that was fine. Other than that . . . it felt good to scour things clean, to get rid of rust and corrosion, to push hard at entropy and make it retreat, to see the rot and erosion and damage put right, just for a short time, under his hands.
It wasn’t the money – or, rather, the sudden lack of it – that was the real problem. Mac had never had much to begin with. The prize cash from racing always went to feed the wanderlust: one good race meant another new country, or three, sometimes a new continent. He’d gotten halfway across Africa for the first time on his first big win. So there hadn’t been much in reserve when he’d walked away from the race track and never gone back.
He’d walked for hours that day . . . by the time he noticed his feet hurt, it was hours after sunset and he didn’t even really know where he was. Somewhere a long ways out into the countryside. He’d finally fallen asleep, exhausted beyond the threat of nightmares, and woken at dawn, curled up in the hay of a farmer’s barn. There had been a girl . . . never mind. His French was worse than her English, and he’d wondered if she’d been a dream, but he’d felt comforted, less like a ghost.
There weren’t any ghosts here now – nobody had died today – well, he didn’t think so anyway, which meant trouble later on, but he’d think about that later on. No ghosts, no funerals, especially not his own. The wrecking yard was full of smashed cars, but none of them held any demons or cackling maniacs. And he had better, more promising things these days to study and tinker with and try to fix.
MacGyver shrugged Jack’s arm off his shoulder, looked at the lily in his hand, then tossed it away.
“Hey!” Jack objected. “I paid good money for that! Why’d you guys want them anyway? Kinda morbid, don’cha think?”
Mac clapped Jack on the shoulder. “C’mon. We can talk over lunch. Pete and I just got back from a long drive, and I’m starving.”
ETA: As a special plea, comments and reviews over on ff.net are always welcome. [ / End pathertic begging mode. ]
I'm still working on chapter 9 of Reverb, and making slow and steep going of it (although I think I have most of the newest added pile of research in hand now, thanks to my Amazing and Wonderful Stunt Researchers).
So, naturally, I get bit by a plot bunny: a rather small one, as plot bunnies go. Not a smut bunny, unfortunately.
It's not at all my usual: basically a vignette/character study, about 500 words. Tags for Partners and Collision Course. I think the underlying motivation behind this one was to get some chunks of Mac's Expansion Pack Past (tm) sorted out and correlated. It's online on fanfiction.net as well. I originally thought it was going to fit into Reverb somewhere as an introspective flashback, but it doesn't seem likely to do so.
Off Track
Just another morning, another cab fare; a sudden turn in the direction of his life. Except it hadn’t had any direction, not that day. Not till after that day.
Mac’s life hadn’t had a whole lot of structure since he’d gotten out from under the uncomfortable wing of the military, but at that particular point, he’d been particularly unsettled. Jack Dalton had been reduced to living in his own storage unit, while Mac had been dossing down on the couch of a mutual friend who owned a failing garage.
No, Jack wasn’t much of a friend, not on first glance. Or second. But up till Pete arrived in Mac’s life – the second appearance, by cab instead of camel – Jack had been . . . not a rock to hold onto; not that at all. But something you could count on. A friend like Jack Dalton, unreliable and untrustworthy through most of his threadbare soul, still had a heart that offered solidity when things got really bleak. For years, the only constant in Mac’s life had been change – but Jack never changed. Even when you wished he would.
The buddy’s couch, the garage, the cab – it was all a refuge. That whole period of his life had been a refuge . . . a walk along an empty mental beach, keeping himself just active enough so that he wouldn’t have to think. Wouldn’t have to plan. Wouldn’t have to figure out what to do next, not for a while anyway.
The sense of relief that had washed over him when he made the decision to quit racing had all but wiped him out. He felt as if his entire life, not just his race car, had spun out of control and careened off the track, and he couldn’t figure out what to do about it. He wasn’t really keen on figuring out anything at all just now – well, if it could be tightened, or tuned up, or oiled, or painted, or adjusted, or rebuilt, or rewired – that was fine. Other than that . . . it felt good to scour things clean, to get rid of rust and corrosion, to push hard at entropy and make it retreat, to see the rot and erosion and damage put right, just for a short time, under his hands.
It wasn’t the money – or, rather, the sudden lack of it – that was the real problem. Mac had never had much to begin with. The prize cash from racing always went to feed the wanderlust: one good race meant another new country, or three, sometimes a new continent. He’d gotten halfway across Africa for the first time on his first big win. So there hadn’t been much in reserve when he’d walked away from the race track and never gone back.
He’d walked for hours that day . . . by the time he noticed his feet hurt, it was hours after sunset and he didn’t even really know where he was. Somewhere a long ways out into the countryside. He’d finally fallen asleep, exhausted beyond the threat of nightmares, and woken at dawn, curled up in the hay of a farmer’s barn. There had been a girl . . . never mind. His French was worse than her English, and he’d wondered if she’d been a dream, but he’d felt comforted, less like a ghost.
There weren’t any ghosts here now – nobody had died today – well, he didn’t think so anyway, which meant trouble later on, but he’d think about that later on. No ghosts, no funerals, especially not his own. The wrecking yard was full of smashed cars, but none of them held any demons or cackling maniacs. And he had better, more promising things these days to study and tinker with and try to fix.
MacGyver shrugged Jack’s arm off his shoulder, looked at the lily in his hand, then tossed it away.
“Hey!” Jack objected. “I paid good money for that! Why’d you guys want them anyway? Kinda morbid, don’cha think?”
Mac clapped Jack on the shoulder. “C’mon. We can talk over lunch. Pete and I just got back from a long drive, and I’m starving.”
ETA: As a special plea, comments and reviews over on ff.net are always welcome. [ / End pathertic begging mode. ]