Me, a random 24 year old who is looking at the leverage tag because I really love that show: : )
Me, seeing that someone has actually been talking about The Con Job, very happy because, oh hey MY DAD WROTE THAT BOOK: : D
Me, realizing that the person talking about it definitely doesn't like the book: : (
Me, reading more and reluctantly realizing that the comments they are making are actually super funny: : 0
Me, reading through some of their other post and realizing their blog is actually pretty cool: ... Follow
No one tell my dad.
!!!!!!!!!! CHILD OF CON JOB AUTHOR MATT FORBECK IN MY ASKBOX oh god. i'm so sorry i said your dad was my enemy and challenged him to trial by combat i'm sure he's cool and normal outside of my book reading experience head in my HANDS,
if it makes you feel better plenty of people think the con job is actually a very GOOD leverage novelization there are absolutely con job fans among u in the fandom i promise i pinky swear
thank you for being a good sport about it welcome to the blog i mostly post about birds and cool bugs these days <3
rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. tag as many people as you have WsIP. people can send an ask with the title(s) that most intrigue(s) them, then you post a snippet or tell them something about it!
I have exactly two WIPs, itty bitty list so small, a good google doc and an evil google doc. they are:
Meeting Ilya's Brother Saw Trap Experience
Hello I am here for this, it's giving the opposite of 'come to my cottage' vibes.
laughing abt this yeah it is in fact giving the opposite of that it's giving Go Back To Russia, Do Not Come To My House,
Concept: Alexei shows up in Ottawa one summer wanting to meet the Hollanders, and also the three decades prior to this?
Concept but longer: what if your asshole addict cop brother who only ever calls you for money was not ALWAYS an asshole addict cop brother who only ever called you for money which is one of 30 reasons why you are always picking up and saying yes to giving him money until you snap and don't
what if you, chronic Good Son "i take care of everything" people-pleaser in a new country with two dead parents and a new family that is yours but like secondhand by marriage, yours in a different way, spent hours looking at baby photos of your husband in your husband’s parents' house, and then got your childhood friend to go get YOUR baby photos from a storage unit in Moscow, and then you looked at that bridge you very justifiably burned and went what if i could resurrect my brother pre-age-16 from the grave or at least stop wanting to do that every time i remember he exists.
and you did not stop thinking that. and you have actually never not been thinking that. and you are going to the only therapist in ottawa that speaks russian and you can never go back to your country and you are having nightmares about your dead mother. et cetera
anyway they have a couple out-of-the-blue awkward-support-in-times-of-personal-crisis phone calls and then alexei shows up at ottawa international, As One Does. this is almost unimportant the plot is not what it's about
a snippet:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
He listens to it ring and breathes through his nose, breathes around his stomach churning.
“Hello?” Alexei sounds bewildered. He’s out somewhere, from the background noise; dishes clinking, people talking, the low hum of the radio. Ilya feels, suddenly, wide awake. Feels like an idiot.
“Hello?” The background noise changes, fades. Sound of a door closing. Wind. “Ilya?”
“Hi,” Ilya says. He sounds exactly like he’s been crying for twenty minutes. He clears his throat. “Sorry, this is really stupid, I’ll hang up.”
“Okay, don’t do that, moron,” says Alexei, “what’s going on?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“It’s like four in the morning where you are.” Ilya blinks. Since when does his brother pay attention to their time zones?
“Yeah, sorry. I just—” Ilya rubs at his eyes. Presses his forehead into his knee so hard it hurts. “I don’t know. I just….”
“Ilyukha.”
“Could you just like talk to me for a minute?” It comes out as one word, one rush of breath.
“O…kay.” He hears Alexei light a cigarette. “What about?”
“Whatever, anything, whatever.”
“Okay.” Drag. Slow exhale. “You watch any good hockey, still, or just the American shit? Our guy Pastukhov’s been killing people.”
Ilya hasn’t, actually, been keeping up with the KHL. He’s been barely keeping up with the MLH. He’s been barely managing getting dressed and eating and not waking up his husband with his bullshit every night. He thinks his brain might hate him. He leans heavily against the wall and listens to his brother shit-talk SKA and feels very old, and very young, Moscow lost to him and living in him somewhere. Something in him unwinds a little. Loosens.
He realizes Alexei’s trailed off somewhere. “Where are you, anyway?”
“Oh, good, you’re still there. I’m at the in-laws’.”
Ilya squints into the dark. “I thought you were getting divorced?”
“Yeah, well.” Low rush of breath. “I thought so, too. Turns out not.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. Is it true you’re married?”
Ilya has forgotten about the possibility of this topic entirely, has forgotten who he’s talking to and when. Isn’t braced for this hit anymore. He curls up on himself tighter, teeth clenched; suddenly, he can feel the air conditioning, shirt damp and cold with sweat.
“Yes.”
A long, heavy pause. His heart beating.
“And you…and you’re, like—”
“With a man, yes.”
“Don’t be fucking stupid, Ilya, I know you’re with a—I’m asking if, like—is it good, there?”
“...What do you mean, is it good?”
“Like…” Shuffling. Adjusting his phone against his ear, maybe. His voice comes out so softly, when he speaks again, that he hardly sounds like himself. “Like is it good for you.”
A raw, warm feeling in his chest, then.
“Yes.” His eyes burn. “Yes, it’s—yes, it’s good for me. They’re good to me. Yes.”
“Okay.” A long pause. “He doesn’t, like, hurt you or anything?”
“What?”
“I don’t know, you’re calling me crying at fucking four in the morning, you sound like Mama, what do you want from me? Maybe your weird little gay husband’s an asshole, what do I know?”
