Post by dianahawthorne on Aug 11, 2011 16:24:25 GMT -5
A Case of You - a Jean Brodie fic (bookverse)
The song "A Case of You" was written by Joni Mitchell. I don't own anything.
It's been forever since I've written any fanfic, let alone Brodie-fic, so here's a little something I just wrote
Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constantly in the darkness
Where’s that at?
If you want me I’ll be in the bar.
‘Are you – that is, is there... someone else?’ She taps her cigarette into the ashtray with nervous fingers, her voice and every movement of her body betraying her anxiety. Even her eyes, heavy-lidded as they are, reveal her concern.
‘I am as constant as a northern star,’ he says, his voice curiously emotionless and his words, too, oddly chosen. She supposes, in a brief moment between anxiety, that it’s from a poem or, worse, from that woman, and that thought starts her up again.
She stubs out the remnants of her cigarette with vicious anger and stands up abruptly, skirt swinging.
‘Where’s that at?’ She doesn’t given him time to respond before continuing. ‘If you want me, I’ll be in the bar.’
Oh, I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
and I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid.
He watches her move through the ripples and eddies of school life, navigating the sometimes treacherous waters with an innate ease. What is it about her that captivates him?
He hears that she switches churches every week, rotating through all the non-Roman denominations, proclaiming everywhere she goes that God is on her side. And she goes, serene in her knowledge, on her way rejoicing.
When she kisses him, or he kisses her (he can’t remember – all he can remember is the kiss, and then pulling apart) it is he, more than her, who cannot go through with it. She is willing, even eager to kiss him again and go further, but he pushes her away and later is told, when she sends Sandy to warm his bed, that she absolves him from everything, that she claims she gave him up. It relieves him of the responsibility but deposits a burden that is too heavy to carry.
If only he had loved her more... or maybe he loves her too much. He cannot decide. All he knows, in the end, is that he’s afraid. And he hates that she is not.
Jean sends him Sandy as a way of forgiving him, as a way, he knows, of ending her relationship with Gordon. It is a symbolic gesture, and sometimes he hates that he is able to do with Sandy what he was never able to do with Jean, no matter how much he loves her.
I remember the time you told me, you said
“Love is touching souls”
Surely you touched mine
’Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time.
When had she said it – ‘love is touching souls’? That night in the studio, that one night? Or before or after or just, quite simply, in his dreams of her? Or was it the line of some spell she cast upon him, cursing – or blessing – him forevermore? For every painting now – at least the paintings of her girls – looks like Jean.
But he hears the words clearly, even if she had never said them. He knows her. He knows this is something she would say.
I met a woman
she had a mouth like yours
she knew your life
she knew your devils and your deeds
and she said
go to him, stay with him if you can
but be prepared to bleed.
Jean sends her to him as a peace offering, she is told; as a way, she divines, of ending her relationship with Gordon. It is a symbolic gesture, and sometimes she hates that she is so under her thumb, and that he is too. How does no one think to question this? How does no one realise what is going on?
How does his wife not see, on their outings together, that she is in love with him and he is in love with someone else?
But that’s what it comes down to in the end – love. He loves Jean, and while she herself may love him he does not return that love.
It’s an equation that none of them have any hope of solving.
Jean loves Teddy and Teddy loves Jean. That part is simple enough. Rose was supposed to be with Teddy but Sandy takes her place. Teddy is with Sandy and is married to Deirdre; Deirdre loves Teddy and Sandy loves Teddy. Sandy was given to Teddy by Jean, inadvertently, and Sandy loves Jean and Gordon Lowther loves Jean, Gordon is sleeping with Jean.
After Jean finds out her plans have fallen apart and Sandy is in Teddy’s bed, she looks at her for what seems, to Sandy, to be the very first time. She sizes her up, measures her against the ideal she believes Rose to represent, and apparently does not find her lacking.
Quite seriously, and with a bit of sadness in her voice, she tells her about Teddy and ends saying, a tear rolling down her face, ‘Go to him. Stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed.’
For a long time she does not know what she means by that, but when she falls in love with him and throws herself repeatedly against the stone wall of his love for Jean, she knows, she bleeds.
Oh, but you are in my blood, you’re my holy wine
You’re so bitter, bitter and so sweet.
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling,
Still I’d be on my feet.
I would still be on my feet.
She kisses him and pursues him as best she can, though with each advance she fails. It’s only at the end of it all, the end of this game that is no longer fun, that she admits it to herself. And then her entire life is open to the classification of ‘trivial’ – for what has she really done? Even her girls have not succeeded, have all become ordinary. All except Sandy, but in the end she had moved beyond her power.
And Teddy. Teddy, Teddy, always Teddy. He is here with her still, flowing through her blood. She can feel the thrum in her veins when she thinks of him, even now, even all these years later. He has never left her, not in spirit, and he never will.
She wishes, at the end of it all, that they had had what she so desperately desired, what he had apparently not wanted enough.
She wishes that this sacrament, what he had so clearly been to her, had not, in the end, been mere show.
The song "A Case of You" was written by Joni Mitchell. I don't own anything.
It's been forever since I've written any fanfic, let alone Brodie-fic, so here's a little something I just wrote
Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constantly in the darkness
Where’s that at?
If you want me I’ll be in the bar.
‘Are you – that is, is there... someone else?’ She taps her cigarette into the ashtray with nervous fingers, her voice and every movement of her body betraying her anxiety. Even her eyes, heavy-lidded as they are, reveal her concern.
‘I am as constant as a northern star,’ he says, his voice curiously emotionless and his words, too, oddly chosen. She supposes, in a brief moment between anxiety, that it’s from a poem or, worse, from that woman, and that thought starts her up again.
She stubs out the remnants of her cigarette with vicious anger and stands up abruptly, skirt swinging.
‘Where’s that at?’ She doesn’t given him time to respond before continuing. ‘If you want me, I’ll be in the bar.’
Oh, I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
and I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid.
He watches her move through the ripples and eddies of school life, navigating the sometimes treacherous waters with an innate ease. What is it about her that captivates him?
He hears that she switches churches every week, rotating through all the non-Roman denominations, proclaiming everywhere she goes that God is on her side. And she goes, serene in her knowledge, on her way rejoicing.
When she kisses him, or he kisses her (he can’t remember – all he can remember is the kiss, and then pulling apart) it is he, more than her, who cannot go through with it. She is willing, even eager to kiss him again and go further, but he pushes her away and later is told, when she sends Sandy to warm his bed, that she absolves him from everything, that she claims she gave him up. It relieves him of the responsibility but deposits a burden that is too heavy to carry.
If only he had loved her more... or maybe he loves her too much. He cannot decide. All he knows, in the end, is that he’s afraid. And he hates that she is not.
Jean sends him Sandy as a way of forgiving him, as a way, he knows, of ending her relationship with Gordon. It is a symbolic gesture, and sometimes he hates that he is able to do with Sandy what he was never able to do with Jean, no matter how much he loves her.
I remember the time you told me, you said
“Love is touching souls”
Surely you touched mine
’Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time.
When had she said it – ‘love is touching souls’? That night in the studio, that one night? Or before or after or just, quite simply, in his dreams of her? Or was it the line of some spell she cast upon him, cursing – or blessing – him forevermore? For every painting now – at least the paintings of her girls – looks like Jean.
But he hears the words clearly, even if she had never said them. He knows her. He knows this is something she would say.
I met a woman
she had a mouth like yours
she knew your life
she knew your devils and your deeds
and she said
go to him, stay with him if you can
but be prepared to bleed.
Jean sends her to him as a peace offering, she is told; as a way, she divines, of ending her relationship with Gordon. It is a symbolic gesture, and sometimes she hates that she is so under her thumb, and that he is too. How does no one think to question this? How does no one realise what is going on?
How does his wife not see, on their outings together, that she is in love with him and he is in love with someone else?
But that’s what it comes down to in the end – love. He loves Jean, and while she herself may love him he does not return that love.
It’s an equation that none of them have any hope of solving.
Jean loves Teddy and Teddy loves Jean. That part is simple enough. Rose was supposed to be with Teddy but Sandy takes her place. Teddy is with Sandy and is married to Deirdre; Deirdre loves Teddy and Sandy loves Teddy. Sandy was given to Teddy by Jean, inadvertently, and Sandy loves Jean and Gordon Lowther loves Jean, Gordon is sleeping with Jean.
After Jean finds out her plans have fallen apart and Sandy is in Teddy’s bed, she looks at her for what seems, to Sandy, to be the very first time. She sizes her up, measures her against the ideal she believes Rose to represent, and apparently does not find her lacking.
Quite seriously, and with a bit of sadness in her voice, she tells her about Teddy and ends saying, a tear rolling down her face, ‘Go to him. Stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed.’
For a long time she does not know what she means by that, but when she falls in love with him and throws herself repeatedly against the stone wall of his love for Jean, she knows, she bleeds.
Oh, but you are in my blood, you’re my holy wine
You’re so bitter, bitter and so sweet.
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling,
Still I’d be on my feet.
I would still be on my feet.
She kisses him and pursues him as best she can, though with each advance she fails. It’s only at the end of it all, the end of this game that is no longer fun, that she admits it to herself. And then her entire life is open to the classification of ‘trivial’ – for what has she really done? Even her girls have not succeeded, have all become ordinary. All except Sandy, but in the end she had moved beyond her power.
And Teddy. Teddy, Teddy, always Teddy. He is here with her still, flowing through her blood. She can feel the thrum in her veins when she thinks of him, even now, even all these years later. He has never left her, not in spirit, and he never will.
She wishes, at the end of it all, that they had had what she so desperately desired, what he had apparently not wanted enough.
She wishes that this sacrament, what he had so clearly been to her, had not, in the end, been mere show.
