tellwolves

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Living Room, 1980

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IT (1990) dir. Tommy Lee Wallace

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core 3's favorite movies

june

toby

finn

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News From Home (1977), dir. Chantal Akerman.

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BUDDIES (1985) dir. Arthur J. Bressan Jr.

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joel meyerowitz, "lunch at horseleach pond," 1984 and "kathleen," 1981, vintage chromogenic contact print

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(good call.)

"my friend," toby starts, crouching down to rummage through the cabinet, "is sick."

he shoots back up. the pans cling-clang as he rearranges them on the stove eyes he finds appropriate.

"he's tried before anyways. figured it'd take a stranger to teach me how to cook."

bingo! always nice to be memorable. a friendly face and all that.

(felix is not completely oblivious. he notices that toby's got that deer-in-the-headlights look about him, and hurries to make it clear he's not about to run him over.)(which is probably a bad metaphor, now that felix is thinking about it, given the whole reason they were in jail together.)(this is why felix prefers not to engage with the whole think before you speak thing.)(thinking is overrated!)

"the one and bloody only! it's your lucky day. hang on, my lucky day. or, hey, how about both our lucky days?" he's grinning like a fool. "i'm chuffed to bits. never thought i'd see you again. look at us, eh. back in class. your friend didn't fancy teaching you?"

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here's how june and finn sound. can't just use siddig for toby (not northern) (as far as i know has never played someone northern), so we're still searching for that.

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newly minted uncle finn... ❤️

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toby is tying his apron strings into a firm knot at the small of his back when felix turns. his half-conscious smile fades slightly. something about it feels confrontational.

his eyes dart around the floor. "my friend," my partner, "told me i ought to learn a few things in the kitchen other than being," he looks up, voice disappearing with each word, "in the way."

it takes a few seconds. he racks his brain trying to put a name to the face that seems to know him.

"ffffff—fel...ix? felix?" the image is vague, but he remembers dark hair and a shark-toothed grin belonging to one of the inmates that built furniture with him. felix looks awfully similar.

@tellwolves / toby said: i figured this was where the bad kids hang out.

hangggggggg on a minute. you don't hear a yorkshire accent like that anywhere in this big rotten apple. (it's comical, really; the full body, physical double take. felix was never much one for subtlety.)

"mate?" he swings around, arms thrown out. his apron is already wonky. the cooking teacher has relegated him to the back of the classroom, on account of The Incident that occurred last time.

"mate! what the bloody hell are you doing here?"

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finn, perhaps surprisingly, weakly smiles, still half-asleep. inbetween noises that are more exhale than laugh, "what? darling—"

his feet swing over the edge of the mattress, landing in velvet slippers. he makes his way over to xeno, the soles lightly scraping against the floor.

"i'm still rather—bedraggled," that's a pun, "to understand what exactly you're getting at, but if you didn't ruin them, why should i be angry?" he leans over quick enough to settle a hand on xeno's shoulder, further still to land a fast good morning peck on his forehead.

the hand drifts down to his elbow and squeezes, gently coaxing him around and forward. "which photos? talk while you walk. i'm famished."

it's a logical concept, isn't it? living in a house and being part of a family means it's called sharing, not stealing.

xeno, however, doesn't do logic very well.

he hums, listening to finn but shaking his head. "no, no, it was stealing. it was. i stole your best paints. your best. and photos. i stole your photos from you, photos you'd miss if i'd ruined them." (did he ruin them? no. but that seems beside the point to xeno, who can't accept the absolution that finn so willingly offers.)

"so you have to tell me it's bad, okay?" he draws in a breath, shoulders tense. "you have to tell me i can't do it again."

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dramatics? check. hysterics? only sometimes, usually for comedic effect. mere and harmless exaggeration? often and extremely well. perhaps his charm will somehow create fissures in cain's composure, though he does not expect it to be an easy battle by any means.

he tries to keep his own—composure, that is—when the nervous tittering starts. it is in vain, for he begins to smirk, and that is the right word for it, too. teasing is imminent.

"i think you have a wonderful sense of humor, if that laugh is anything to show for it."

A WARMTH RISES TO CAIN'S CHEEKS. He looks down upon those prone to dramatics, hysterics, even mere and harmless exaggeration. He'd hate to become one such person.

Cain is too sheepish, feels too called out, to exhibit a genuine laugh. He looks down at his hands—subtly, he hopes, checking his watch and inspecting the leather band for scuff marks, as he habitually does—and notes how his fingers seem to twist together, as if of their own accord. (He's neeeervous!)

"My sense of humor can be," He searches for a word neither too strong nor too weak, "Lacking. At times. I admit it. You will be a good influence on me, because—aha, ah—"

There it is! (Neeeervous) laughter.

"You are the only person to say something like that in my office."

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"misfortune is a rather strong word."

finn shrugs his jacket—tweed, naturally—off, draping it over his lap. he loosens his tie, unbuttons his sleeves and rolls them up, and pockets the cufflinks.

"i'm not anyone you have to curry favor with, cain." it is as if he read his mind. maybe that is a secret uncle power. "i'd rather you laugh than grovel. it looks better on you. laughing, i mean."

he leans in, cheeky and unserious. "only someone you love very much should see the other one."

@tellwolves said: you can laugh if you want to. it's funny, i know.

"I will not laugh. I do not want to laugh." Cain sounds good-natured enough, though, light and breezy in a way the professor often lacks. He feels like he's found decent company with Finn—which in the outside world, has become a feeling that comes more and more rarely. Cain himself is looking in on a world he no longer understands.

"What you think is funny about your own life is your own concern," he explains. "I will not laugh at another's misfortune." Especially not someone whose favor he seeks.

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finn remains flat and horizontal. his hand scrubs his face twice over before he slides on his glasses. the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed awakenings are largely a thing of the past. he's not sure whether to attribute that to his age or the illness.

hidden unless xeno comes to stand above him, his face morphs at the confession. (toby's feet move underneath the covers. twitchy, like two rabbits. he is undisturbed.)

"stole?" he repeats, pulling himself up onto his forearms. "whatever do you mean? if i've told you once, i've told you a hundred times. you live here. you use and take anything you want at your leisure, you aren't stealing them."

it's first thing in the morning, sunlight only just breaking through dawn's haze while xeno paces by finn's bedside.

"no," he shakes his head, "i mean, yes. you're not allowed to say anything nice. in fact, i think you should be mad about it. you should be very mad. you see, i stole from you."

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I can never get interested in things that didn't happen to people who never lived.

84 CHARING CROSS ROAD 1987, dir. David Jones

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"i'm—not," he paws around the bedside table for his glasses, half-awake, voice thick with sleep, "allowed to say anything nice about it?"

that seems backwards.

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"i'm gonna show you something. but you have to promise not to say anything nice about it."

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Niles Crane favorite looks season 3