Old drabbles
Feb. 19th, 2012 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chekhovs_gunmanI'm dumping these here so they don't get lost to the wilds of LJ deletion.
((Inspired by a bit of canon exposition that can be found here where we find out that the Dylandy family home was forcibly bought out in the interest of constructing a Solar Power Reception System and that it affected Lyle deeply.))
"The Old Homestead"
He knew it wasn't a good idea. There wouldn't be any warm fuzzies from this particular trip down memory lane. Still, he was in the area. That was enough that the pull of morbid curiosity was too much to resist, and Lyle found his feet carrying him to the quaint little wooden house before he completely realized what he was doing.
The once cheery paint on the shutters was faded and peeling. The rose bushes were overgrown and the actual blooms were wilted, bowed on their stems as if they were too tired to hold themselves upright. The grass was high enough to reach beyond the tops of his boots. The place was never the Ritz, but his parents had worked hard to make sure that it was neat and cozy, Dad working on all the little maintenance bugbears that popped up and Mum happily finding new ways to make the little patches of garden in front of and behind the house look like a place the fae folk would be happy to call home. Lyle had never much cared for the phrase "enough to make them turn in their graves" but it kept coming to mind, despite his best efforts to push it away.
The curiosity turned from morbid to 'trainwreck syndrome' and Lyle began trudging through the small jungle that was once a lawn to peer into a nearby window. Correction: he found himself wiping the years of grimy, dusty build-up off of the window, then peered in. The little romp room, the place where he and his brother had been forced to take off their boots and any other unseemly muddy apparel before their mum even thought to let them further into the house, was full of an odd collection of alien junk. Lawn gnomes and assorted other garden statues, long stretches of garden hoses of varying colours and sizes, faded and dirty remnants of plastic toys that looked like the sort of thing they would have played with as kids had the objects not been unfamiliar enough that he knew better. There were even a couple of fragments of engraved stone that he could only guess were old grave markers. The empty tugging sensation that had started in Lyle's chest when he saw the house only grew stronger. As far as he could tell, these were the remnants of things that had been dug up by the nearby construction. It hurt that the family home he had grown up in had been taken away and was now being used as a glorified junk room for anything and everything to be tossed. At the same time, he found a surreal sort of connection with the owners of this brick-a-brack. Had their owners been run off as well, their personal history confiscated and then treated like so much useless debris when it was uncovered? Most likely.
Swallowing the lump that he wouldn't admit was building in his throat, Lyle headed forward once more. There used to be a row of sturdy oaks and rowans that he and Neil had climbed (and fallen out of) more times than he could count. Now, in it's place, stood a deep and ugly trench, likely where they would be laying down cables to transmit solar power. It was a Sunday, so no workers were around. Small blessing that, because nobody yelled at Lyle for walking right up to the edge, the toes of his boots hovering over the drop and sending little crumbles of dirt and rock rolling downward. He frowned at the miniature chasm, then at the bulldozer that sat on the other side across from him. In a rare display of anger, Lyle picked up a nearby clod of dirt and rock, hurling it at the bulldozer with a grunt and a cry. The clump exploded on impact and, predictably, didn't make him feel any better. It was one of the reasons he tried to rarely show his anger; it wasn't as if it really changed anything, after all. Better to tamp it down, pretend it didn't matter, and go on with things. Which is just what he planned to do right now.
He almost walked right past the house without another pause, but a flash of red caught his eye. In the backyard garden was a little clump of something that wasn't dead, dying, or turning wild. Flowers of some sort, but damned if he knew the names of them. Mums, maybe? He should have paid more attention when his own mum talked about this sort of thing--then felt himself ready to either laugh or cry at the pun. Lyle did neither. Instead he carefully gathered a couple handfuls of the flowers, then set them aside gently. He wiped another window clean and was rewarded with a view of the kitchen. It was blessedly untouched, unlike the romper room. Lyle took his pocket knife out and went to work on the sill, which had been painted shut but not locked.
It had taken half an hour, give or take. Most of that time was spent prying the window open without making it look like someone had broken in. The rest of the time was spent looking for the little wooden vases that his mum had always kept tucked away in the back of one of the top cabinets. He was on the outside looking in once more, and feeling just a little bit of comfort at how the flowers on the table had a way of brightening the place up. Making it feel like his home used to, instead of some drafty little hovel commandeered by strangers. He closed the window, carefully so as not to disrupt any more of the paint, and started walking away for good this time. The air had turned crisp, cold, and heavy while he had been inside. Lyle gathered his collar closer around his neck with one hand and started fishing around in his pocket for his smokes with the other as delicate, fluffy little flakes started to drift down around him.
Timeline Note: I'm placing this at about when Lyle received the Lancia and some time before he joined Katharon.
((Because I felt like writing early Katharon shenanigans.))
"Great Escape"
When he had first joined Katharon Lyle's contact, Ikeda, had told him not to expect anything too exciting early on. At first he would gather information, do a little recon and a lot of paperwork. And, if he was lucky and showed he had the stuff for it, they'd train him on one of their Mobile Suits. It was a little depressing to be told he shouldn't get his hopes up, but Lyle contented himself with the fact that even this much rebellion would piss off the Feddies if they knew about it.
Not long after he mentioned to a fellow operative, off-handedly, that he had a fast car. That unexpectedly opened the door to some of the more interesting field work.
His phone chirruped urgently. It was the tone he'd picked out specifically for 'special business numbers'. He politely excused himself from the nondescript, balding manager he had been chatting with at this Chamber meeting, left the building, and holed up in a nearby alley to take the call.
"Dylandy speaking."
"You still got that car you were bragging about?" a rushed, harried voice breathed into the receiver.
"I wasn't bragging about it, but sure."
"Got it with you? If so, can you get it to the Parliament buildings in five minutes?"
"I'll be there in four."
"...Really?"
"Hell, yes. I owe it to you guys for getting me out of that dull little meet and greet."
Three minutes and forty-nine seconds later, Lyle came careening down the lane in front of the Parliament buildings in the car that his brother mysteriously left him. As garish as the Lancia's paint job was (really, Neil had no taste) he had to admit that the car could move. He fishtailed to a stop behind a nearby pub, threw open the passenger's side door, and watched in his periphery as Ikeda and some guy with scruffy sideburns and a long coat scooted out of the alleyway beside the dive and half-scrambled, half-dove in. He didn't wait for them to close the door before taking off again. That was their problem.
It seemed the guys were, in fact, smart enough to get themselves situated and secure and, once they did, Lyle pulled out into a wider street and really put the car to the test. Swerving around cars on the more crowded roads, then going close to full speed once he hit the little country roads. He didn't even realize that he'd started laughing until the scruffy guy, apparently convinced that no one was around to see him, popped his head up from where he had ducked in the back.
"Enjoying yourself?"
Lyle shot him a smirk in the rearview. Enjoying himself? This was only the first time he'd felt alive in a long time. He could get used to this sort of thing.
"You could say that. So what did you bastards nearly get caught out at, anyhow?"
"Grabbed a few confidential files before they could be destroyed. Really interesting stuff. I'm Klaus Grado, by the way."
Lyle got the impression that Klaus would have shaken his hand if it didn't mean distracting Lyle from controlling his car at the breakneck speeds they were going at. So he simply nodded in the man's general direction, "Lyle Dylandy. Pleasure playing chauffeur to you knuckleheads."
Ikeda was still slouched down in his seat, knuckles white from gripping the armrests. "The pleasure's all yours, Dylandy. Trust me."
Now it was Klaus's turn to laugh.
((Inspired by a bit of canon exposition that can be found here where we find out that the Dylandy family home was forcibly bought out in the interest of constructing a Solar Power Reception System and that it affected Lyle deeply.))
"The Old Homestead"
He knew it wasn't a good idea. There wouldn't be any warm fuzzies from this particular trip down memory lane. Still, he was in the area. That was enough that the pull of morbid curiosity was too much to resist, and Lyle found his feet carrying him to the quaint little wooden house before he completely realized what he was doing.
The once cheery paint on the shutters was faded and peeling. The rose bushes were overgrown and the actual blooms were wilted, bowed on their stems as if they were too tired to hold themselves upright. The grass was high enough to reach beyond the tops of his boots. The place was never the Ritz, but his parents had worked hard to make sure that it was neat and cozy, Dad working on all the little maintenance bugbears that popped up and Mum happily finding new ways to make the little patches of garden in front of and behind the house look like a place the fae folk would be happy to call home. Lyle had never much cared for the phrase "enough to make them turn in their graves" but it kept coming to mind, despite his best efforts to push it away.
The curiosity turned from morbid to 'trainwreck syndrome' and Lyle began trudging through the small jungle that was once a lawn to peer into a nearby window. Correction: he found himself wiping the years of grimy, dusty build-up off of the window, then peered in. The little romp room, the place where he and his brother had been forced to take off their boots and any other unseemly muddy apparel before their mum even thought to let them further into the house, was full of an odd collection of alien junk. Lawn gnomes and assorted other garden statues, long stretches of garden hoses of varying colours and sizes, faded and dirty remnants of plastic toys that looked like the sort of thing they would have played with as kids had the objects not been unfamiliar enough that he knew better. There were even a couple of fragments of engraved stone that he could only guess were old grave markers. The empty tugging sensation that had started in Lyle's chest when he saw the house only grew stronger. As far as he could tell, these were the remnants of things that had been dug up by the nearby construction. It hurt that the family home he had grown up in had been taken away and was now being used as a glorified junk room for anything and everything to be tossed. At the same time, he found a surreal sort of connection with the owners of this brick-a-brack. Had their owners been run off as well, their personal history confiscated and then treated like so much useless debris when it was uncovered? Most likely.
Swallowing the lump that he wouldn't admit was building in his throat, Lyle headed forward once more. There used to be a row of sturdy oaks and rowans that he and Neil had climbed (and fallen out of) more times than he could count. Now, in it's place, stood a deep and ugly trench, likely where they would be laying down cables to transmit solar power. It was a Sunday, so no workers were around. Small blessing that, because nobody yelled at Lyle for walking right up to the edge, the toes of his boots hovering over the drop and sending little crumbles of dirt and rock rolling downward. He frowned at the miniature chasm, then at the bulldozer that sat on the other side across from him. In a rare display of anger, Lyle picked up a nearby clod of dirt and rock, hurling it at the bulldozer with a grunt and a cry. The clump exploded on impact and, predictably, didn't make him feel any better. It was one of the reasons he tried to rarely show his anger; it wasn't as if it really changed anything, after all. Better to tamp it down, pretend it didn't matter, and go on with things. Which is just what he planned to do right now.
He almost walked right past the house without another pause, but a flash of red caught his eye. In the backyard garden was a little clump of something that wasn't dead, dying, or turning wild. Flowers of some sort, but damned if he knew the names of them. Mums, maybe? He should have paid more attention when his own mum talked about this sort of thing--then felt himself ready to either laugh or cry at the pun. Lyle did neither. Instead he carefully gathered a couple handfuls of the flowers, then set them aside gently. He wiped another window clean and was rewarded with a view of the kitchen. It was blessedly untouched, unlike the romper room. Lyle took his pocket knife out and went to work on the sill, which had been painted shut but not locked.
It had taken half an hour, give or take. Most of that time was spent prying the window open without making it look like someone had broken in. The rest of the time was spent looking for the little wooden vases that his mum had always kept tucked away in the back of one of the top cabinets. He was on the outside looking in once more, and feeling just a little bit of comfort at how the flowers on the table had a way of brightening the place up. Making it feel like his home used to, instead of some drafty little hovel commandeered by strangers. He closed the window, carefully so as not to disrupt any more of the paint, and started walking away for good this time. The air had turned crisp, cold, and heavy while he had been inside. Lyle gathered his collar closer around his neck with one hand and started fishing around in his pocket for his smokes with the other as delicate, fluffy little flakes started to drift down around him.
Timeline Note: I'm placing this at about when Lyle received the Lancia and some time before he joined Katharon.
((Because I felt like writing early Katharon shenanigans.))
"Great Escape"
When he had first joined Katharon Lyle's contact, Ikeda, had told him not to expect anything too exciting early on. At first he would gather information, do a little recon and a lot of paperwork. And, if he was lucky and showed he had the stuff for it, they'd train him on one of their Mobile Suits. It was a little depressing to be told he shouldn't get his hopes up, but Lyle contented himself with the fact that even this much rebellion would piss off the Feddies if they knew about it.
Not long after he mentioned to a fellow operative, off-handedly, that he had a fast car. That unexpectedly opened the door to some of the more interesting field work.
His phone chirruped urgently. It was the tone he'd picked out specifically for 'special business numbers'. He politely excused himself from the nondescript, balding manager he had been chatting with at this Chamber meeting, left the building, and holed up in a nearby alley to take the call.
"Dylandy speaking."
"You still got that car you were bragging about?" a rushed, harried voice breathed into the receiver.
"I wasn't bragging about it, but sure."
"Got it with you? If so, can you get it to the Parliament buildings in five minutes?"
"I'll be there in four."
"...Really?"
"Hell, yes. I owe it to you guys for getting me out of that dull little meet and greet."
Three minutes and forty-nine seconds later, Lyle came careening down the lane in front of the Parliament buildings in the car that his brother mysteriously left him. As garish as the Lancia's paint job was (really, Neil had no taste) he had to admit that the car could move. He fishtailed to a stop behind a nearby pub, threw open the passenger's side door, and watched in his periphery as Ikeda and some guy with scruffy sideburns and a long coat scooted out of the alleyway beside the dive and half-scrambled, half-dove in. He didn't wait for them to close the door before taking off again. That was their problem.
It seemed the guys were, in fact, smart enough to get themselves situated and secure and, once they did, Lyle pulled out into a wider street and really put the car to the test. Swerving around cars on the more crowded roads, then going close to full speed once he hit the little country roads. He didn't even realize that he'd started laughing until the scruffy guy, apparently convinced that no one was around to see him, popped his head up from where he had ducked in the back.
"Enjoying yourself?"
Lyle shot him a smirk in the rearview. Enjoying himself? This was only the first time he'd felt alive in a long time. He could get used to this sort of thing.
"You could say that. So what did you bastards nearly get caught out at, anyhow?"
"Grabbed a few confidential files before they could be destroyed. Really interesting stuff. I'm Klaus Grado, by the way."
Lyle got the impression that Klaus would have shaken his hand if it didn't mean distracting Lyle from controlling his car at the breakneck speeds they were going at. So he simply nodded in the man's general direction, "Lyle Dylandy. Pleasure playing chauffeur to you knuckleheads."
Ikeda was still slouched down in his seat, knuckles white from gripping the armrests. "The pleasure's all yours, Dylandy. Trust me."
Now it was Klaus's turn to laugh.
