"Evening" Harris Arden/Buddy Wittenborn
Jul. 17th, 2007 03:35 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
white-lady-111.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
rareslashSaw Evening last night and knew I had to write a story about it, but nothing came to me that wouldn't be a fix-it for the movie. Since the whole point of the movie is the tragic ending, I thought that would be too bad. So I was watching Ella Enchanted today (I never found Hugh Dancy all that attractive until last night) and let my mind wander a bit. This is what happened. Weird.
Harris Arden's Guilt.
Fandom: Evening movieverse
Pairing: Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson)/Buddy Wittenborn (Hugh Dancy), non-con.
Summary: Harris Arden feels guilty about Buddy's death..
Rating: Let's say R, for non-con. but nothing graphic.
Disclaimers: The characters and movie do not belong to me. I make no money from this.
Warnings: Non-con. Also, I don't like Harris Arden. In the book I felt like he was using Ann for his own entertainment until the very end where it did seem like he cared. And while Patrick Wilson is very charming, I don't get why everybody was falling for him. Thin character is all I'm saying, I actually like Patrick Wilson. He can sing.
Story un-betaed and un-revised. Read at your own risks.
The ambulance races through downtown Chicago, a paramedic fighting to get air into his lungs and keep his heart beating but Harris Arden is already far away. He's always heard your life is supposed to flash before your eyes when you die, but he never pictured it quite like this. He's floating - flying, really - over Chicago, and in a flash he finds himself looking down at a green slope, a large white summer house, and the sparkling sea beyond. It feels like home even though he hasn't seen it in over thirty years.
He feels guilt grip his heart and has to close his eyes against the memory. Strange how close guilt feels to a heart attack. His eyes re-open, focusing first on the white roof of the ambulance, then on their faces. Ann Grant and Buddy Wittenborn, so similar with their large innocent eyes and dazzling smiles.
Ann told him how she heard the car that night, but wouldn't go back because she didn't want to share him, how horribly selfish she felt that they'd made love while Buddy was dying a few feet away. But they couldn't have known, could they? They made love while pretending that Buddy wasn't standing between them the whole time. Ann's guilt or selfishness was nothing compared to his. His burden he couldn't even share, couldn't put his betrayal of Buddy into words.
Harris was a rock they all clung to in those first few hours. Buddy had been carried to the house and put to bed, Harris had examined him but it was too late to do anything for him. Ann went for a walk, wallowing in self-pity and grief, didn't return until late into the night. By that time Harris was beyond her compassion.
He volunteered to watch over Buddy through the night, stood by the bed looking at his smooth handsome face. A jumble of thoughts and memories swirling through his mind; all the times Buddy had looked up at him with adoring eyes, wrapped his arms around his neck shoulders waist chest, warm breath against his cheek tingling down his back to his lower belly, voice catching on his name. Thought stopped when he sat by the unconscious form and pressed hard lips against the unresponsive mouth, tongue searching for the taste he hadn't enjoyed under Ann's shocked stare.
He mourned Buddy's death even as his hands roamed over warm flesh, gripped by heat unlike anything he'd ever experienced, head buried against his friend's neck. Booze, spicy aftershave, salt both from the plunge into the sea and Harris' tears.
He sobbed for what felt like hours after he emptied himself, walked to the bathroom to wash then gently wiped any trace of his shame from Buddy's body. He couldn't face Ann while she confessed, regret chocking him already, knowing he would have to carry the knowledge of his guilt - sin - unshared forever.
He left before the funeral, then spent the rest of his life doing exactly what he should. Married, had children, kept the memory of Ann Grant's and Buddy Wittenborn's kisses in his heart and all the ways he'd failed them in his soul. He still wept every time he tended to a young man in a coma.
Please read and review! And if you know of other stories in this fandom, please let me know!
Harris Arden's Guilt.
Fandom: Evening movieverse
Pairing: Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson)/Buddy Wittenborn (Hugh Dancy), non-con.
Summary: Harris Arden feels guilty about Buddy's death..
Rating: Let's say R, for non-con. but nothing graphic.
Disclaimers: The characters and movie do not belong to me. I make no money from this.
Warnings: Non-con. Also, I don't like Harris Arden. In the book I felt like he was using Ann for his own entertainment until the very end where it did seem like he cared. And while Patrick Wilson is very charming, I don't get why everybody was falling for him. Thin character is all I'm saying, I actually like Patrick Wilson. He can sing.
Story un-betaed and un-revised. Read at your own risks.
The ambulance races through downtown Chicago, a paramedic fighting to get air into his lungs and keep his heart beating but Harris Arden is already far away. He's always heard your life is supposed to flash before your eyes when you die, but he never pictured it quite like this. He's floating - flying, really - over Chicago, and in a flash he finds himself looking down at a green slope, a large white summer house, and the sparkling sea beyond. It feels like home even though he hasn't seen it in over thirty years.
He feels guilt grip his heart and has to close his eyes against the memory. Strange how close guilt feels to a heart attack. His eyes re-open, focusing first on the white roof of the ambulance, then on their faces. Ann Grant and Buddy Wittenborn, so similar with their large innocent eyes and dazzling smiles.
Ann told him how she heard the car that night, but wouldn't go back because she didn't want to share him, how horribly selfish she felt that they'd made love while Buddy was dying a few feet away. But they couldn't have known, could they? They made love while pretending that Buddy wasn't standing between them the whole time. Ann's guilt or selfishness was nothing compared to his. His burden he couldn't even share, couldn't put his betrayal of Buddy into words.
Harris was a rock they all clung to in those first few hours. Buddy had been carried to the house and put to bed, Harris had examined him but it was too late to do anything for him. Ann went for a walk, wallowing in self-pity and grief, didn't return until late into the night. By that time Harris was beyond her compassion.
He volunteered to watch over Buddy through the night, stood by the bed looking at his smooth handsome face. A jumble of thoughts and memories swirling through his mind; all the times Buddy had looked up at him with adoring eyes, wrapped his arms around his neck shoulders waist chest, warm breath against his cheek tingling down his back to his lower belly, voice catching on his name. Thought stopped when he sat by the unconscious form and pressed hard lips against the unresponsive mouth, tongue searching for the taste he hadn't enjoyed under Ann's shocked stare.
He mourned Buddy's death even as his hands roamed over warm flesh, gripped by heat unlike anything he'd ever experienced, head buried against his friend's neck. Booze, spicy aftershave, salt both from the plunge into the sea and Harris' tears.
He sobbed for what felt like hours after he emptied himself, walked to the bathroom to wash then gently wiped any trace of his shame from Buddy's body. He couldn't face Ann while she confessed, regret chocking him already, knowing he would have to carry the knowledge of his guilt - sin - unshared forever.
He left before the funeral, then spent the rest of his life doing exactly what he should. Married, had children, kept the memory of Ann Grant's and Buddy Wittenborn's kisses in his heart and all the ways he'd failed them in his soul. He still wept every time he tended to a young man in a coma.
Please read and review! And if you know of other stories in this fandom, please let me know!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-11 01:15 pm (UTC)Your fic was short (which I love) and yet still managed to capture a lot of emotion, particularly the tragedy and heartbreak that seeps through in the film. Those stupid bloody rich kids couldn't help but screw things up for each other and what Harris just did to Buddy up there was pretty screwed up indeed! :O But I liked it. ;) And furthermore, I believed it too, which must be nothing if not a compliment: to your reading of the characters and the conviction of your story telling.
My thoughts of Buddy/Harris tend to be focused somewhere in what is probably Buddy's fantasy realm: what their relationship might have been like had Buddy been more open and Harris more receptive, or what it might have been like had Buddy lived and Harris come 'round to the concept of the two of them together. Sappy and unoriginal, but tried and true nonetheless. Your take is probably more appropriate and that's another reason why it hurt. :(
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 12:55 am (UTC)I actually went to this movie expecting to write a fic, and it was so haunting the mood of the film stayed with me and I couldn't write a happy fic. Plus, Patrick Wilson's acting always suggests an incredible depth of hidden darkness... Okay, maybe not Raoul but one freak in that movie is enough! ;-)
Thank you so much for reviewing, and if you find other Evening fics, please pass them along!