jamjar: (weird mouth origami thing)
[personal profile] jamjar
Just wanting to get this posted to my lj, as much as back up and to have it in my memories as anything else.



PLAY

He's really not designed for the outdoors. Not for the sun, and the factor 500 he's got on is still not gonna be enough.

His shoulders are probably peeling already, and he has moles that he can feel growing cancerous. Malignant.

It feels warm and friendly, but that's because the things that do the most damage to you often are. There's a pretty girl that smells like coconut and sunblock across, and she's giving him something that might be a friendly glance, but it's hard to tell.

"And you wanted to spend thanksgiving at the dorm," Ferris says, slapping a hand on Cameron's shoulder. "Why do you ever argue with me?"

"You're not always right, you know."

Ferris's smile is pure denial.

skip back

Sloane calls from Paris and sends the dirtiest postcards she can find in museum or gallery gift shops. He's got a selection of filthy art through the ages on his notice-board and she makes comments in what she tells him is lewd French on the back, although with the aid of a dictionary, he's worked out that it's mostly commenting on the weather, telling him about people she's met and asking about Ferris.

Which is funny, because she's got to be writing to Ferris more, and he doesn't know what deal Ferris has on his phone plan, but it's got to be pretty good on the long distance rates, because he knows they still talk for hours. When she phones him, she does it at least a little to check up on Ferris, because they're the product of school counsellors and therapy on TV, and they know how to talk through other people.

"You're okay?"

It's more of a question than when most people say it. "Work. Turns out, they expect you to do some of that in college."

"Yeah, all those college films lied to us."

"I feel so betrayed."

Sloane laughs at the other end. It's a little tinny. The connection isn't bad, but he can feel the miles between. He doesn't actually miss her, because it's not like she's gone away. She's on the other side of (Ferris) the world, holding on to (his hand) a phone, and that connects her to him.

"What are you doing for Thanksgiving?" It's a plural you, vous in the French, clear as if she wasn't using English.

"Turkey on the pizza, and avoiding the fraternity post-game riots. I don't know what Ferris's doing."

There's a pause, which is Sloane not asking if he's going home, and then Sloane starts talking about having to tell people she's from Toronto.

review

There are, actually, three girls Cameron has slept with. In no particular order, they are:

1) Girl at a party, who came from out of state and talked for three hours about her political beliefs, and never told him her name.
2) Sloane, the girlfriend of his best friend, and probably still his girlfriend even though she's three months into a year's studying in Paris.
3) Tricia May, the second wife of one of his father's friends, who was ten years older than him and fifteen younger than her husband, and seemed really surprised when he didn't entirely suck.


There are two boys he's had sex with, sex here being defined as any that ends with everyone involved coming at least once.

1) Ferris Bueller, best friend and boyfriend of one of the three girls he's slept with (see above) and
2) Alan Briggs, closeted drama-club member who wasn't fooling anyone, ever.


It's not an impressive selection. It's probably enough to get him disowned (more disowned than he is already, which is like being dispossessed in his own house) by his parents, but not enough to get him admiring glances from his peers.

Probably enough that if he told his shrink, if he had a shrink, she'd judge him pretty fucked up. Not enough to get him the good stuff on prescription.

Which is, actually, a pretty good metaphor for his life right there. Except for the bit where he gets to have sex with people who may, actually *like* (love) him, when he'd long since figured out that that wasn't in the game plan.

But then, even if Ferris is great with schemes, he's always been pretty lousy with plans.

skip forward

Ferris is actually pretty pale. He's small and pale and there's a reason he can fake being sick so well. Normally, you don't notice that stuff, but sometimes it's just there. He's going to burn almost as bad as Cameron is.

He should probably tell him that, but he's still feeling a little petty. He had plans for Thanksgiving, and okay, they were lousy plans, but they were his, and Ferris shouldn't have assumed that Cameron would go along with whatever he came up with, just because he *did*.

It's a pretty lousy argument, and it doesn't stand up to Ferris nodding his head at the girls playing beach volleyball, fit in every sense.

"You're gonna have the skin of a fifty year old by the time you're twenty," he says. "You're going to look like your *father*."

"And you already sound like my mother. Chill, Cam. Enjoy the fact that in this country, we are legal to get drunk, tattooed and married."

"That's not reassuring, two of those are very bad things and Ferris-- Ferris?"

Ferris closes his eyes. Cameron *thinks* he's closing his eyes, but he's got sunglasses on so it's hard to tell, and leans back in his deck chair.

skip forward

Ferris is writing a postcard. There's a picture of a beach on one side, and "Wish you were here" on the other in Ferris's surprisingly neat handwriting. Ferris is going to make him sign it before he sends it off and Cameron thinks it's actually sincere.

"And another daiquiri for my friend," he says, taking a drink off a waitress. "I think the first one didn't take." Cameron has expressed his preference for beer, or whisky, or any drink that didn't also give you your recommended daily amount of fruit, but Ferris pretty much ignores this. Ferris likes his drinks *fruity*, which Cameron points out as often as possible. Ferris is more comfortable with his masculinity than a skinny, pale, short boy with the tendency to blow his male best friend should be.

Personally, Cameron blames the parents. Society a little, but mostly the parents.

skip back

"Cam? You okay?"

He knows Ferris worries about him. Ferris worries about Cameron maybe almost as much as Cameron worries about himself, which is worlds ahead of anyone else.

"Why are you here? Why are you here, in my room?" Cameron says.

Ferris shrugs. "I have to share. I like it better here. More privacy."

Cameron does, actually, have a roommate, but he moved in with his girlfriend two weeks after the semester began and only comes round when he wants to show his parents what a clean, good living boy he is. Cameron's room is, for all practical purposes, his own.

"Don't you have class or lectures or something?"

"It's covered. Is this your roommate's? Tell me this is your roommate's, I'd hate to think any friend of mine was reading this by *choice*."

"It's required reading and give it back."

"You need a heater or something in here," Ferris says vaguely. "It's too cold."

"It's *November*. If you wanted warmth, you should have gone to the university of Hawaii," Cameron says, making another grab for the book.

Ferris smiles.

skip forward

It's almost stupid, but he likes this too much. The rest of it, blow-jobs and fucking, are great, but they weren't *easy*, not the first time or the second or the third even. You had to learn that stuff, and even if just the thought of the first time Ferris went down on him is enough to get him hard, it's still, you know, skill and practise went in to them being good at that.

This, they knew from the start. Any practising had been done at home, in the relative privacy of their own bedrooms, and no-one to be embarrassed but themselves. The logistics of a handjob as applied to someone else? Really not that different to the ones you do solo. Doesn't take much to figure out any individual kinks.

The sun is on his back and he's going to have to reapply the factor 500, because waterproof and rolling about on the sand are two completely different things.

skip back

It's not like Cameron can't imagine life without Ferris. He can imagine it clearly, in so much excruciating detail that it's less like imagining and more some kind of pre-emptive hindsight. Foresight. Whatever.

Thinking about the rest of it with Ferris there is harder. And he's been trying since fifth grade. He can just about do it in small steps, like, a week in advance or if he applies a healthy dose of pessimism.

It's a lot easier to think of things getting screwed up than it is them actually going okay, so the thought of this plane crashing is actually kind of comforting. He's got his eyes screwed up and digging his fingers into the plush, first class arm-rest as they taxi along the run way.

"Cam, Cam you gotta see this," Ferris says. He can feel him leaning across him to stare out the window. "You gotta see this sunset. Say what you want about air pollution, but it gives you great sunsets."

"If we die, I'm gonna kill you, Ferris, kill you and jump on the bones."

"C'mon, just *look*."

skip forward

Ferris looks at him and--

Ferris can get away with it. Ferris can get away with almost anything and Cameron can't, but Cameron's starting to get a sneaking suspicion that he likes that. When his father came home and saw the car...

It was the first time in years that his father looked at him. It was... it wasn't worth it, exactly, but it was a clean break.

Not literally.

--The point is, Ferris can get away with things like screwing around with men, and Cameron, he's going to get caught, and it's not going to be pretty and it's going to happen some day.

It really should be enough incentive to make him not get up when Ferris looks at him like that and follow him down to an empty stretch of beach.

skip back

Alan's hands had been small and nervous and Cameron almost told him to just stop if he wasn't going to *do* something, already, before he actually got *started*. It was about three minutes in an empty classroom at school, and Alan didn't talk to him or look him in the eye after that.

It had played out pretty much exactly like he'd thought.

skip forward

"We've got to do this again next year," Ferris says, picking himself up off the sand. "How does Hawaii sound?"

"Prone to volcanoes," Cameron says. "Spewing poisonous gas and lava." He's not quite ready to get up yet, perfectly happy where he is. Well, not *perfectly*, there's sand in uncomfortable places, but it beats actual *movement*-- where he is.

"So we should visit while it's still there." Ferris brushes the sand off his back.

"If I wanted violent eruptions, I'd go home for the holidays."

Ferris rolls his eyes. He holds out his hand to help Cameron up, then slings an arm around his shoulders. "Come on. I have it on good authority that the hot-tub fills up at six, and drinks are half-price."

END

Date: 2005-01-21 03:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] errantimpulses.livejournal.com
In all my slashy thoughts, I'd never considered THIS. Thank you....

(eee, so hot.)

Date: 2005-01-21 04:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jamjar.livejournal.com
See, I watched that movie and my *god*, Ferris and Cameron are... I mean, it's subtext like, DC level subtext, or, you know *text* in most people's eyes.

Date: 2005-01-21 04:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] girl-starfish.livejournal.com
I just sent you an e-mail! Make sure you read it as its kind of important.

Here, have a Bart icon.

I know I've said this before...

Date: 2005-01-21 06:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jamjar.livejournal.com
But I really love that icon.

Date: 2005-01-21 06:07 am (UTC)
brownbetty: (Default)
From: [personal profile] brownbetty
Cam was always the most interesting character in that movie, to me. He was so obviously in love with Ferris, and so unable to assert himself in any way. He's a bigger bundle of neuroses (I had to look it up, but that's the plural apparently,) than almost anybody but Dick Grayson. I like how you've given him a future where he's emotionally together, but but still more than a little fucked-up.

Date: 2005-01-21 06:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jamjar.livejournal.com
And the thing is, that Ferris obviously loved Cam-- you know, that whole *day* was for Cameron- but I can see ferris being oblivious/denial about it, while Cameron would use it to give himself many more issues. It was ferris Bueller's day out, but who he id it for...

And teh relationship between Sloan and Cameron was also pretty cool. Sloane, who aside from winning my heart by holding Cameron's hand, also seemed pretty okay with the "hey, so you and boy friend are in love and kind of married. Me? No, no problems with it. Just wondered if you knew... What, Ferris is proposing? No, Cameron, you explain why it'd be a bad idea if we married him right now..."

re: Sloan

Date: 2005-01-21 06:29 am (UTC)
brownbetty: (Default)
From: [personal profile] brownbetty
It's been a while since I saw it, but I kinda got the vibe (maybe I'm reaching here) that Cam lusted after her because he was a teenage male and she was pretty hot, but was a little bit in love with her, because Ferris was.

Re: Sloan

Date: 2005-01-21 10:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jamjar.livejournal.com
a lot of that, but also-- she liked him. Which was just nice to see-- I mean, she wasn't his girlfriend, but she still cared about him, so...

Date: 2005-01-21 09:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caithion.livejournal.com
Love it, love it! I think this is one of those stories I could read a dozen times and never get tired of.

Date: 2005-01-21 10:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jamjar.livejournal.com
Thanks! And thanks again for beta-reading and catching my briticisms.

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