Tag Archive | character: Nathan

Coming Out In Cloverleaf

Oct15

This is a few days late, sorry!  But it came to my mind on National Coming Out Day. 

Nathen (and his headmates) are the protagonists of Afterward(s), the… ahem… novels?… I’m working on.  He’s also visible in “Dictator, Dic-TAH-tor…” and “Lightning in Autumn” (which started the whole thing), as well as “Bi Kisses” and possibly my favorite little microfic here.

This is set in approximately the 2060’s, in Cloverleaf.

~*~

The calendar was a surprise.  Nathen just wasn’t all that used to them anymore; a lot of places had lost touch with the exact days and weeks for a while, and those that hadn’t had definitely lost touch with things like printed calendars.

But this one, hung behind the bar and claiming to be the most gorgeous people in all of Cloverleaf, was there (Mr. October was indeed gorgeous, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Leo), and the days were neatly X’d off.

It was a Friday – he’d already known that; they were working, after all.  And it was apparently October 11th.

How did I never notice that before?

Because it’s usually behind the rum and the vodka.  Means we need to restock.

They did that, pulling the big glass bottles out – rum, proper rum. Or possibly improper rum, probably improper rum, all things considered. But still rum. Vodka, which of course could be distilled in formerly-Montana if it could be distilled in probably-still-Russia.

It was only when they were making sure that the glasses were stocked that the date hit Nathen.

“Oh.”  He blinked.  “It’s Coming Out Day.”  How long since he’d thought of that?  How long since Pride Parades?  How long since that one sweet co-worker who had shyly suggested to him that, since it was National Coming Out Day, maybe he had something to say?

“It’s what?”  Xia, who owned the bar was not young, per se, but she definitely was younger than Nathen.  Younger than the end of the world.

“Old holiday. Ancient holiday,” he corrected. “Back when being gay was, uh. When it wasn’t quite so accepted. Well.” He cleared his throat. “Back in America, when it wasn’t still as accepted.” There were still places here and there on the continent when just about anything wasn’t accepted. He wasn’t sure that would ever change. But here, here in Cloverleaf, things were a lot… well, easier.

“Oh.”   Xia smirked at him.  “So you’re saying ‘back in the bad old days.'”

Nathen chuckled.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I suppose I am.”

The world was doing fine, he supposed, if less than a century later, they could call the days before the apocalypse the bad old days..

Dictator, Dic-TAH-tor…

Jun6

After I wrote Council Meetings, I wasn’t 100% satisfied that I’d fulfilled the brief, err, written well to the prompt. 

So I wrote this.  This is Fae Apoc, Cloverleaf; the viewpoint character is Nathen, the star of Lightning in Autumn and the novel I am writing based around that story. The era is after that novel wraps up, a little bit into Cloverleaf’s time. 

Written to Eseme’s prompt to my Third Rail Prompt Call. 

☘️

Nathen had eaten more scones and muffins in the last 4 weeks then he thought he had in the 40 years previous, possibly excluding that one year where he was dating a baker. That have been a good year.

“I’m telling you, she might call herself a ‘Mayor ‘ but she’s a dictator!”

“There’s a Council…. Some of them are elected…”

What he was finding was that sitting in a cafe, possibly this specific cafe, was a bunch better education on Cloverleaf then the tours he’d been given. Not that the tours had been disingenuous or flat-out lies, it was just that they only told him about the bones of the city, and Nathen had always felt that learning about its heart and blood were more important.

“Don’t give me that. I’ve watched her — watched her, she’s not even ashamed of it — overturn the council’s decisions on a whim!”

“…on a whim? Are you sure?” Continue reading →

A scribble and a doodle of a story map

Mar25

Originally posted on Patreon in March 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

So I’m writing a particularly moving-around-heavy portion of a story.

Nathen saw the stairway down between two stoops going upward…. There was a closed and locked door in front of them.  Nathen glared.  Sure, opening it wouldn’t be hard – but it would be obvious.

Oh.  The Social one perked up.  Turn.

Nathen turned to the right.  The door there was almost invisible – no knob, hidden hinges, painted the same color as the wall.  He gave it a careful push.

The door swung open into a narrow hallway.  He pushed the door shut behind him and whispered a dark-sight Working just as the light from the entryway vanished.  Forward….

…He made his way down stairs that were half-gone…

…”You don’t want to go out the front.  This way.”…

…They were out the back door, up another set of stairs, and into a narrow strip of yard quickly after that.  Their guide took a quick look around and headed straight back, towards the next row of yards.  There was a gap in the fence – the Other mended it behind them – and a narrow alleyway between two buildings.

They zig-zagged through three more blocks in quick succession, leaving subtle obstructions where they would seem coincidental, until they reached a semi-collapsed row of brownstones.

So, of course, first I had to figure out this weird layout, which I did during a rather long meeting.

And then, when I started writing them fleeing, well, yes, I Excel’d up a whole set of like 6 city blocks of brownstone-style houses.

And then I figured out how to draw Nathen’s route (and then with Leo) through this neighborhood to the place where they end up.

Which, no, doesn’t have a floor plan yet.

Red dashed line on the Excel map is their route; grey is roads, green is yard and alleyways, black dotted lines are fences, and house-shapes that are in dashed lines are in a state of broken, half-falling-apart, maybe-a-dragon-landed here.

Big dragon.  Small Godzilla.  You know.

Want more?

Lightning in Autumn

Sep13

My Giraffe (Zebra) Call is open!

Written to Inspector Caracal‘s prompt.

Set after Addergoole Year 10 but before the 2011 apocalypse. 

🦌

There were tourists in the bar again, the sort of people that made what was normally a pleasant place feel like the back of the locker room.   Nathan felt his shoulders tensing, felt his grip on his drink getting tighter.  “Another?” he asked Patti.  

The bartender shook her head. “Not yet, son.  Nurse that ice a little longer, and then I’ll pour you another.”  Then she was gone, tending to the New People at the other end and the other regulars in between.

“Shit.”  How Patti did that and kept in business, he never knew.  He turned slowly on his stool, taking in the tourists at the pool table, the regulars at tables further and further away from the tourists, Liza the bouncer at the front door…

He turned back around in time to see Leo strutting up to the tourists and getting in the tallest one’s face.  Nathan’s heart did a little twist.  Leo.  That blonde hair, that arrogant, playful smirk, that – that body.  It wasn’t just Nathan’s heart that was twisting.

The tourist took a step back.  His friends were jeering.  Leo didn’t seem to notice, stepping back in to the tourist’s personal space, running a hand over the man’s cheek.  Nathan felt a stab of jealousy.  My cheek is right here!

“There’s a reason they call him Lightning, you know.”  

He hasn’t heard anyone sit down next to him, but now there was someone there, sipping a drink and watching the same scene Nathan was.  “I’ve never heard anyone call him that.”

“Yeah?”  The guy was, unfortunately, undeterred.  “They call him Lightning because he never strikes the same place – or the same person – twice.”

“I’m not the same person.”  Nathan chewed on his ice and watched Leo work.  He was louder than he normally was, and he seemed to be – from the words that wafted over the music and the conversation – suggesting that the tourist ought to come back to his place and show him exactly what his sort was worth.

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve changed,” the peanut gallery continued.  “He doesn’t care.  He just hits once and he’s gone.”

Nathan glanced over. His helpful new friend looked, in a  general sense, kind of similar to Nathan: dark hair, dark eyes, not all that tall.  “Not what I meant – ooooh!”  Leo had somehow ducked a punch the now-beset tourist had thrown and instead tossed the tourist on to the floor.  “You saw it, Patti, you saw it!  The asshole threw the first punch!”

“That’s not gonna save my furniture, now is it?  Liza!”

The fight was in full swing, as it were, when Liza waded in and hauled the tourist out of it, and then hauled his friends out.  “Parking lot!  All of you! You, too!”  She glared at Leo.  It might have been Nathan’s imagination, but he thought Leo looked a little sheepish for a moment.

They allowed themselves to be herded – tourists, Leo, two other regulars who had gotten involved – out past the pile of broken furniture they’d left in their wake and through the side door, but the swinging door showed the tourist spinning around with a punch the minute his feet hit the asphalt.

“Looks like he’s going to hit someone more than once,” Nathan muttered, not particularly generously.

“Ha.  Good one.  Yeah, he’s plenty violent, isn’t he?  But he don’t come back, kid.  Like I said.  Never the same person twice.”

“But I’m not the -”  Nathan gave up.  He didn’t want to explain to this stranger.  Hell, he didn’t even want to explain to Leo, who would probably scoff and walk away, no matter how different this could be, Nathan could be.

The front door swung again and a redheaded woman walked in.  Another tourist, Nathan thought, noting the dyed-crimson of her hair and the clothes that wouldn’t have fit in here even if she were male.  Then she kissed Liza with an intensity that suggested comfortable familiarity and an intimacy that said maybe she wasn’t all that out of place in a gay bar after all and plopped herself down at the bar next to Nathan’s new buddy.

“Telling the same old lies, Trev?” she teased.  “Don’t listen to him, kid, whatever he says.  Patti, my love.  The usual and one of whatever these nice boys are having for them, too.”

Maybe that was supposed to cover exactly HOW big the wad of money she was passing over the counter was, or how two of those top bills would probably cover the furniture damages.  

“They’re not lies, and anyway, how would you know?  You’re not exactly his type!”  Trev – if that was New Friend’s name – looked put out.  The woman just laughed.

“I know because I know Leo.  And I know you.  Like I know I’m not your type but I might… sometimes… be this guy’s type.”  She sipped her whisky – neat – and grinned at them, a grin that looked more hungry than cheerful and, Nathan had a feeling, was covering over a seething kettle of pain.  

She saw through him, he knew that much.  “Doesn’t matter.  Lightning never strikes the same place twice.”  He finished the drink Patti passed him in one gulp and laid his money on the counter.  “I gotta go.”

The redhead’s voice followed him out the door. “Don’t believe that old lie, kid.  Lightning strikes wherever he damn well pleases.”

🦌

See stories about Leofric/Leo (that have been migrated) here.

See stories about Cya(the redheaded woman) here.

🦌


Want more?