storypaint (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
storypaint) wrote2011-05-31 10:49 pm
storypaint) wrote2011-05-31 10:49 pm
Entry tags:
[Animorphs] so much bad in the best of us (Jake gen)
Title: so much bad in the best of us
Fandom: Animorphs
Length: 416 words
Prompt: fic_promptly: Animorphs, any character or pairing, pretending things are normal
Pairing: Jake gen
Other: n/a
Excerpt: Jake knew his grades were slipping, but it wasn't like he could explain his new extracurricular. "Sorry, Mom and Dad, I have to save the world after school and on weekends."
Jake knew his grades were slipping, but it wasn't like he could explain his new extracurricular. "Sorry, Mom and Dad, I have to save the world after school and on weekends." That wasn't going to fly. He might as well have added, "By the way, your other son is possessed by an alien."
It was so hard to be normal around Tom now. It was hard to sit at the dinner table and pretend that he cared that the neighbors dug up their rhododendrons and that the library was having a book sale next week. He ate and he answered direct questions and then he disappeared.
He heard his parents talk about him, some nights, when he was sneaking back in. They thought that it was puberty -- or at least, they hoped so. He could hear the uncertainty and worry in their tones. They didn't ask him what was wrong. (He was glad. He hated lying to his parents.) Tom, ever helpful, continued to try to invite him to The Sharing. After one particularly vehement refusal (Jake was tired, he'd only had two hours of sleep in the past two days), their mother found it necessary to break the tension. Jake was too old to be trailing around behind his brother now, she supposed. Well, he'd regret it later.
Jake nodded and didn't meet anyone's eyes. His food didn't taste any good, and he shoveled it in and went up to his room as soon as possible. He fell asleep over his math homework and didn't wake until 4am, with only half the problems done.
Jake was a practical boy. That was why he was the leader. He could plan and he knew what they were doing was the only thing they could be doing at the moment. There weren't enough people on his side to do anything else. Still, he dreamed sometimes about running down the street, shouting out about the alien invasion and begging for help. He'd be caught and infested before he got a mile, but the idea of just letting everything go felt cathartic, at least for a few minutes.
But he was practical, in the end. He gave up on the homework for a few hours in his own bed, and then he went downstairs and ate oatmeal, had a conversation with the thing wearing his brother's skin, and went to school.
At least, he thought, there was one bright spot about not making the basketball team. He certainly didn't have time for it anymore.
Fandom: Animorphs
Length: 416 words
Prompt: fic_promptly: Animorphs, any character or pairing, pretending things are normal
Pairing: Jake gen
Other: n/a
Excerpt: Jake knew his grades were slipping, but it wasn't like he could explain his new extracurricular. "Sorry, Mom and Dad, I have to save the world after school and on weekends."
Jake knew his grades were slipping, but it wasn't like he could explain his new extracurricular. "Sorry, Mom and Dad, I have to save the world after school and on weekends." That wasn't going to fly. He might as well have added, "By the way, your other son is possessed by an alien."
It was so hard to be normal around Tom now. It was hard to sit at the dinner table and pretend that he cared that the neighbors dug up their rhododendrons and that the library was having a book sale next week. He ate and he answered direct questions and then he disappeared.
He heard his parents talk about him, some nights, when he was sneaking back in. They thought that it was puberty -- or at least, they hoped so. He could hear the uncertainty and worry in their tones. They didn't ask him what was wrong. (He was glad. He hated lying to his parents.) Tom, ever helpful, continued to try to invite him to The Sharing. After one particularly vehement refusal (Jake was tired, he'd only had two hours of sleep in the past two days), their mother found it necessary to break the tension. Jake was too old to be trailing around behind his brother now, she supposed. Well, he'd regret it later.
Jake nodded and didn't meet anyone's eyes. His food didn't taste any good, and he shoveled it in and went up to his room as soon as possible. He fell asleep over his math homework and didn't wake until 4am, with only half the problems done.
Jake was a practical boy. That was why he was the leader. He could plan and he knew what they were doing was the only thing they could be doing at the moment. There weren't enough people on his side to do anything else. Still, he dreamed sometimes about running down the street, shouting out about the alien invasion and begging for help. He'd be caught and infested before he got a mile, but the idea of just letting everything go felt cathartic, at least for a few minutes.
But he was practical, in the end. He gave up on the homework for a few hours in his own bed, and then he went downstairs and ate oatmeal, had a conversation with the thing wearing his brother's skin, and went to school.
At least, he thought, there was one bright spot about not making the basketball team. He certainly didn't have time for it anymore.