ext_87021 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
storyfan.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crack_van2011-08-14 06:17 am
storyfan.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2011-08-14 06:17 am
Entry tags:
The Virtues Series by Nyteflyer (rating: R and NC-17)
Fandom: DONALD STRACHEY MYSTERIES
Pairing: Donald Strachey/Timothy Callahan
Length: Series of 7 stories, about 50K altogether
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nyteflyer
Author Website: All Nyte's stories are listed here
Why this must be read: The fandom's movie universe doesn't give us much insight into how Donald and Timothy met, so fic writers have taken it upon themselves to give the guys some backstory.nyteflyer accepted the challenge and cleverly took her themes from the seven virtues — hope, fortitude, charity, prudence, temperance, justice and faith.
These stories are all told from Don's first-person point of view. We get a good look inside Donald's head, and we learn why he trusts no one, even a man like Timothy Callahan. As the stories progress, Donald learns to accept what Timothy has to offer and comes to realize his own self-worth and the value of true and lasting love.
Hope
He was just such a genuinely nice guy, funny and warm and interesting. You know how it is when you’re talking to someone and you aren’t sure whether they’re really listening or just waiting for their chance to speak? Callahan listened, I mean really listened, asking just the right question at the right time to keep me on track, the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen watching me from behind their designer eyewear, locked on me, barely blinking, as if whatever I was yammering on about was the most fascinating and informative thing he’d ever heard. That kindness of his, that was my undoing. He had this almost palpable aura of caring about him that made me want lunch to merge right into dinner, dinner to merge with breakfast, and breakfast to morph into an endless procession of sleepy morning kisses that stretched out into something called happily ever after.
Which was insane, of course. Donald Strachey didn’t do sleepy morning kisses. He didn’t do lunches-turned-dinners-turned-breakfasts. And he sure as hell did not do happily ever afters.
So I ran like the coward I was, making up some lame excuse and barreling out of the restaurant and out of his sight, leaving the business card he’d given me sitting on the table along with our unpaid bill for the buffet. I felt bad about that, leaving him stuck with the check like that when I’d invited him and should have been the one who paid. But by the time I realized what I’d done, it was too late to go back and make it right.
He called my cell a handful of times over the next few days, sounding upset, worried that he’d managed to offend me somehow. When I recognized his number, I sent the calls straight to voicemail, not trusting myself to avoid making a bigger fool of myself than I already had. After about a week, the calls dwindled, then stopped altogether. Somehow, the silence jarred my nerves worse than the constant shrill of my ringtone.
I’d screwed up, and screwed up bad. And I was too chickenshit to do anything about it.
Weeks passed, and I put him out of my mind. At least, I tried to. But from time to time, when I was on my knees on the cruddy floor of some dive giving reciprocal head to a guy whose name I’d never know, I’d be haunted by the ghost of those kind blue eyes watching me, asking me why I was willing to settle for this when a simple leap of faith could have given me so much more.
Fortitude
You know how when something seems too good to be true, somewhere down the road you usually find out that it is? Well, that’s exactly how I felt about Timothy Callahan.
I guess the early days of my relationship with Timmy were a mixed bag for both of us. I was crazy in love with him from the start, and that scared me shitless. I was terrified of being happy to the degree Timmy made me feel happiness, scared to death that I’d get to trust it, to depend on it, then get knocked on my ass when life does what it always does and took it away. I know I had to have confused the hell out of him at first, clinging to him like the lifeline he was becoming to me then pushing him away, clinging then pushing him away, til he didn’t know from one day to the next whether he’d see me or not, whether I’d treat him like the love of my life or like my worst enemy. I don’t have the first clue why he stuck it out like he did, why he put up with my shit so patiently for those first two months or so instead of kicking me to the curb the way I more than deserved. I mean, it’s not like it didn’t faze him, that on again, off again game I was playing. It hurt him. I could tell how much it hurt him. And I hated myself for it.
Charity
On that snowy February night when Timmy and I said those three words for the first time, those three words that sound simple as hell but change everything, he and I went to bed and didn’t get up again for four days. He called in sick Thursday and Friday -- something he never does -- and I cancelled the few appointments I had so we could hole up together in my chilly apartment and get better acquainted with the guys we’d just given our hearts to.
Over that long, lazy weekend, I got to know Timmy -- I mean really know him -- the way I’d never known anyone before. I learned his strengths and his faults, what he longed for and what terrified him, what made him happy and what made him hurt. He didn’t hold a goddamned thing back and neither did I, except for one. I wasn’t ready to open that box just yet. But even then, I knew the day would come when I would pour out the pain that was Kyle, and that I could trust him to listen and understand.
The Virtues Series — all stories are linked
Pairing: Donald Strachey/Timothy Callahan
Length: Series of 7 stories, about 50K altogether
Author on LJ:
nyteflyerAuthor Website: All Nyte's stories are listed here
Why this must be read: The fandom's movie universe doesn't give us much insight into how Donald and Timothy met, so fic writers have taken it upon themselves to give the guys some backstory.
nyteflyer accepted the challenge and cleverly took her themes from the seven virtues — hope, fortitude, charity, prudence, temperance, justice and faith. These stories are all told from Don's first-person point of view. We get a good look inside Donald's head, and we learn why he trusts no one, even a man like Timothy Callahan. As the stories progress, Donald learns to accept what Timothy has to offer and comes to realize his own self-worth and the value of true and lasting love.
Hope
He was just such a genuinely nice guy, funny and warm and interesting. You know how it is when you’re talking to someone and you aren’t sure whether they’re really listening or just waiting for their chance to speak? Callahan listened, I mean really listened, asking just the right question at the right time to keep me on track, the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen watching me from behind their designer eyewear, locked on me, barely blinking, as if whatever I was yammering on about was the most fascinating and informative thing he’d ever heard. That kindness of his, that was my undoing. He had this almost palpable aura of caring about him that made me want lunch to merge right into dinner, dinner to merge with breakfast, and breakfast to morph into an endless procession of sleepy morning kisses that stretched out into something called happily ever after.
Which was insane, of course. Donald Strachey didn’t do sleepy morning kisses. He didn’t do lunches-turned-dinners-turned-breakfasts. And he sure as hell did not do happily ever afters.
So I ran like the coward I was, making up some lame excuse and barreling out of the restaurant and out of his sight, leaving the business card he’d given me sitting on the table along with our unpaid bill for the buffet. I felt bad about that, leaving him stuck with the check like that when I’d invited him and should have been the one who paid. But by the time I realized what I’d done, it was too late to go back and make it right.
He called my cell a handful of times over the next few days, sounding upset, worried that he’d managed to offend me somehow. When I recognized his number, I sent the calls straight to voicemail, not trusting myself to avoid making a bigger fool of myself than I already had. After about a week, the calls dwindled, then stopped altogether. Somehow, the silence jarred my nerves worse than the constant shrill of my ringtone.
I’d screwed up, and screwed up bad. And I was too chickenshit to do anything about it.
Weeks passed, and I put him out of my mind. At least, I tried to. But from time to time, when I was on my knees on the cruddy floor of some dive giving reciprocal head to a guy whose name I’d never know, I’d be haunted by the ghost of those kind blue eyes watching me, asking me why I was willing to settle for this when a simple leap of faith could have given me so much more.
Fortitude
You know how when something seems too good to be true, somewhere down the road you usually find out that it is? Well, that’s exactly how I felt about Timothy Callahan.
I guess the early days of my relationship with Timmy were a mixed bag for both of us. I was crazy in love with him from the start, and that scared me shitless. I was terrified of being happy to the degree Timmy made me feel happiness, scared to death that I’d get to trust it, to depend on it, then get knocked on my ass when life does what it always does and took it away. I know I had to have confused the hell out of him at first, clinging to him like the lifeline he was becoming to me then pushing him away, clinging then pushing him away, til he didn’t know from one day to the next whether he’d see me or not, whether I’d treat him like the love of my life or like my worst enemy. I don’t have the first clue why he stuck it out like he did, why he put up with my shit so patiently for those first two months or so instead of kicking me to the curb the way I more than deserved. I mean, it’s not like it didn’t faze him, that on again, off again game I was playing. It hurt him. I could tell how much it hurt him. And I hated myself for it.
Charity
On that snowy February night when Timmy and I said those three words for the first time, those three words that sound simple as hell but change everything, he and I went to bed and didn’t get up again for four days. He called in sick Thursday and Friday -- something he never does -- and I cancelled the few appointments I had so we could hole up together in my chilly apartment and get better acquainted with the guys we’d just given our hearts to.
Over that long, lazy weekend, I got to know Timmy -- I mean really know him -- the way I’d never known anyone before. I learned his strengths and his faults, what he longed for and what terrified him, what made him happy and what made him hurt. He didn’t hold a goddamned thing back and neither did I, except for one. I wasn’t ready to open that box just yet. But even then, I knew the day would come when I would pour out the pain that was Kyle, and that I could trust him to listen and understand.
The Virtues Series — all stories are linked
no subject
no subject
I'm guessing you can't stream the others on Netflix? I wonder why that is. Probably something about Netflix that we'll never understand.
no subject
no subject
no subject
You're very welcome, and I appreciate all your lovely comments. The books and movies are very, very different, but each universe has its own appeal.
A lot more writers are archiving their work on AO3, so you'll probably find more and more there all the time.
no subject
no subject