Title: Heat
Author: SnowStormSkies
Universe: Hot Fuzz
Theme/Topic: Nicholas and the places and people he has lived with.
Rating: T – some mention of sex, and other things.
Characters: Nicholas Angel, Jeanne, and Danny Butterman, chiefly.
Warnings/Spoilers: Whole film.
Word Count: 1873 words.
Time: About two or three hours. Just to pull it around and make it fit together.
Summary: For a very long time, Nicholas Angel lived without colour, heat, and passion. In the many different households he lived in, where did he find those elusive qualities. From Section 19 - Classified Pages – Prompt: Household.
Dedication: To Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright – for a wonderful film and endless amounts of laughter.
A/N: Welcome to my NaNoWriMo hell. Here, you see the first of many in the production line. I'm supposed to be writing 1667 words per day, and by tonight, I should have around 6668 words, and I have... 1475 words. Four days in, and I haven't even written enough for one day. Holy shit, that's not good. Better get on it. What will happen is over the next few days, you'll get all my NaNo work posted at once. I'm not sure how many there will be, but I've got to get to fifty thousand words. Wish me luck.
Distribution: Nyet. Not for you. Me. And my Livejournal. Link to be posted later.
Hot Fuzz – Household
Over the years, Nicholas has lived in a variety of households.
From his somewhat cool and clinical parents' home, Nicholas emerged somewhat cold and clinical himself – his entire teenage rebellion consigned to a summer holiday when he was eight and wanted to be Kermit the Frog. They weren't bad parents – far from it; they never raised a hand in anger to him, or punished him cruelly. They fed him well enough, made sure his bedroom was safe and brought him new clothes whenever he needed them. However, although they never raised hand in anger, it could be argued that they never raised one in joy to him either. One might even say they were too hands off; hugs were rare occurrences and Nicholas called his father Sir and his mother Mam in public or Mother in private. They were older and of the era which believed in strict order in their house, with cleanliness being next to godliness in their eyes. Even their religion was boring – Puritan and cold with a heavy emphasis on the more practical side of worship. In a cold, sterile house, it was no wonder Nicholas grew up to be such a realist and stickler for the rules. He rarely spent time outside in play with others and preferred solitary sports such as running and cycling to group sports such as football or rugby, which were so often the sports of his peers. He studied hard, passing first his O-Levels and then his A-Levels with determination and grit born out of patience and the knowledge that it was the only way to really separate himself from his peers. Perhaps it was for the honour of his parents – to vindicate their years of hard work and instruction as to how to live a proper and decent life, or perhaps for the respect of his teachers or even because it was his golden ticket into the police service that he so desperately craved. Years later, he still doesn't know why.
When he departed from the family home, bound for Cambridge University, he felt like he was simply moving from one view point to another on the same world. In his university dorms, he was still living in that cold, clinical world – a rigid timetable kept him chained to his desk or in the lecture halls or library, with no time for partying or drinking. He timetabled everything – from his homework to even his shopping and bathroom breaks at times. Order was what kept him sane. Everything had to be just right, perfect and in its place. Without order, he would fall apart – he knew this as surely as he knew his own name and his need to join the police.
His life was almost constantly restricted to the University, or his part-time job working for the University store as a shelf stacker or travelling back and forth to his parents' home. His household in Cambridge, throughout his entire three years was just his room – obsessively clean, neat and without a single personal effect on show. No photos, pictures or even a television to impinge upon his orderly world.
When he graduated, he moved into a Section House and moved on into the Police service. His life wasn't really changed that much by the move – an almost identical room with the same lack of personal effects, same lack of colour on the walls and a single bed for a single man. He lived in a world without colour, without heat – even his clothing was boring, timid in colour and dry.
And then, everything changed.
A moment of heat.
Bright, intense heat and colour roared into a world of grey and dullness and boring, just as a lion roars into the wilderness.
Jeanne had arrived.
Her bright clothes, her luxury red wine, her beautiful, sleek, hot to the touch body – she was another creature from a world he didn't know. She slinked into his life without a care in the world, changing it with a flick of her wrist.
And how...
For the first time that he could remember, Nicholas actively perused colour; from the burgundy of wine from France, to the vibrant fresh green of market vegetables, the pale cream and strawberries of Jeanne's body in a dark purple satin bed. He sought heat when he had never before – in his food, in his exercise, in his bed. He wanted spice and burning for the first time ever; chillies, spices and herbs became his staple diet, the variety of Chinese, Indian, even Japanese became his comfort food. He chose team or partnered activities, again for the first time and he came to enjoy fencing, competitive racing and even a game of chess. In his bedroom, sex became fun, a game, joyous in its deviancy. His parents thought it was for procreation only – he found it was enjoyable, painfully emotional and even like a physical link between the two of them – Nicholas and Jeanne, wrapped up so tightly, you couldn't tell who was who.
For four years they lived in the same house, passionately in love with colour and heat and vibrancy and flavour. From their walls to the curtains, they decorated the house with the love they shared, almost blinding in its intensity. They spoke of getting married, of living the rest of their lives together. They immersed themselves in themselves, taking holidays to Italy, Spain, Florida on cheap last minute tickets, taking only one back pack between them. Spontaneity, a lack of direction that they both flourished under, and a genuine passion for living life to the full dominated every waking moment.
And then it all came crumbling down.
They broke up.
And Nicholas sank back into the cold, clinical dullness of his previous existence.
He moved out of the heated, vibrant world, leaving behind all his colourful clothes, the interesting yet controversial books, and even the small collection of films he had built up in the last four years.
He regressed backwards, into the Section House, into grey and dull blue shirts, and boring brown coats. He ate boring, tasteless food, did his duty and came home to a cold and isolated room whilst the other residents revelled in colour on the other side of the grey door. While they partied, went to lectures and demonstrations, he reverted back to being the boring, staid man others had known before, and lost much of his drive to be different.
The drive to be the best, however, never really changed in him.
When the orders to Sandford came through, he went. From the dull grey trains, to the sameness of the village, everything felt the same as London – cold and lonely. The room at the hotel was cold, lonely and dark and the police station the same. Nowhere felt like a home – it was a household, rather than a home. The same dull wood, the same chilly metal locker rooms, the same oppressive atmosphere, cool tension and clinical impersonal air lingering around the place.
There was no colour, no change and no heat, but there was the same backstabbing nature of his fellow officers.
That, at least, never changed.
And then, for the briefest moment, there was heat and light again. Different from Jeanne's sleek deftness with colour, her knowledge of how to coordinate heat, light and energy into one single beam. This was overwhelming at the same time as underwhelming, without the sense of drama that Jeanne had brought in bucket loads.
Danny Butterman shone with a muted light, his heat cooled only by a lack of friendship between them.
That all changed, the night they arrived back at Danny's house and by chance, he accepted that extra beer. The noise around him became defined and the light engulfing Nicholas from Danny was razor sharp in its intensity, the heat became like a slow, hot summer's day. The bright clear noises from the television echoed around him whenever he moved, and it was like a blessing from beyond – after eighteen months of self imposed isolation, colour deprivation and coldness, it was like arriving back to earth with a crash landing.
And it was glorious.
Fiery, dynamic, and deep, engulfing him for ten or twenty seconds at a time. Inside, he didn't feel different, but he felt, for the first time, mellowed. Calmer, and more open to suggestion than he ever been – even five weeks ago, when he first met Danny, he was nothing like this.
He had withdrawn, frightened by the change in feelings and the alteration in his routine. He was used to being in control, but he was being led down the garden path by this disorganised, bizarrely juvenile man just three years his junior – his household had expanded to include Danny without his knowledge – the other police officers and the Andys circling unpleasantly close to his sanctuary. There was mess, personal effects and mockery that cut deep into his soul, invading past the carefully constructed walls he had so patiently crafted around his feelings over his entire life.
Gradually, it snuck back to the way it was with Danny – a household that was fast becoming a sort of home, or refuge away from the frustrations of the day, the constant battle with the Andys.
And then the NWA fiasco.
After escaping from the murdering hoard, after fleeing from the manic demons of his dreams and the shadows out of the corners of his eyes when he is awake, Nicholas staggers from the temporary police station, clutching his hand and ignoring the throbbing of his head and his shoulder and feels everything fall away. He's alive, well, and ready to move on. Paperwork is completed, there's nothing to do except wait for the court cases to begin their procession across the newspapers into the history of England.
His own household is waiting for him now.
He moves all his stuff out of Danny's house where he's been living for the last few weeks, while the hotel is still being investigated and cordoned off. Although Danny brings the heat and light back into his life, Nicholas needs his own space, his own freedom to exert his influence in a space that has his name on it. Danny likes to spread his stuff around, and it's exceedingly frustrating to find your washing in his bedroom or him wearing your socks when they were your last clean pair or your books propping up some of his student digs styled furniture.
No, he needed his own place, and his cottage is just the place to enact his own designs of colour and heat.
When he arrives, he picks his way over the mud and stones of the garden, and opened the door of his new home.
Inside, the decorators had done their jobs well – the rustic reds on the wall made the cosy, homey cottage feel warm and welcoming – something Nicholas had lacked for many years now. All the mod cons of a modern man's home and he was set - and he relished in it.
The colour, the vibrancy, the heat. It was all his, all his own devising and creation. It was his finest creation.
The next morning, Nicholas picks up a garden centre catalogue on his way home from work and rifles through it over his dinner.
The garden could use some more colour after all, he thinks.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The first Christmas present for you. Here's another tribute to my unexhausted supply of oneshots which grows by the day.
Also tonight - an update of WACIB. Sounds rather nice, doesn't it?
See you later~