Title: La Valise Argentée
Author: A Crazy Elephant
Summary: Or 'Five Times Someone Saw the Silver Case and the One Time it Didn't Matter'; Companion to "Le Famille"
Category: Family/Friendship
Word Count: 1926
Disclaimer: Inception belongs to Christopher Nolan, not me. Sad.
Author's Notes: And welcome back. So, as I've mentioned before, I've been reading unhealthy amounts of Inception fanfiction since this summer and I've come to find I love the family types the best. Since I'm steadfastly avoiding the excessive amounts of mildly inebriated extended family presently pervading my parents' upstairs I thought I'd go ahead with another fuzzy family piece of my own.
These don't really have a point, just a little series of chronological (beginning some months before the events of the film) vignettes concerning the silver case and someone who notices it told from the perspective of that someone. Most of these (including this one: see Le Famille Chapter Five for the initial introduction to the point man's family) are heavily based in the rough sketch of the families as seen in my earlier piece, Le Famille. I highly recommend you take a look at that fic before coming back to this one. This will make loads more sense having read that one.
And not that it is of any consequence, but in this chapter, the town is fictional, the county is real. Again, I'm using a different tense than my usual style; let me know if I slip up. Reviews are loved; I'd love to hear what you think. = ) Happy Christmas all!
1 – Green River, Shelby County, Texas, United States of America
"Hark the herald angels sing; glory to the new born king!"
It's the Christmas pageant video, the first and last event of its kind Charlotte can remember participating in. Her sister Bobbie had been five at the time of that particular event and one of the Herald Angels, brother Junior at four had been an auxiliary shepherd and she at three had been a sheep. There had been singing, robes made of dishtowels and fleeces made of cotton batting. There had been the requisite 'For lo onto you is born this day' and more singing complete with a candlelight serenade at the appearance of the plastic baby doll posing as Christ. It was at that point in the evening, where she'd stood behind the older boys playing the Wise Men, dressed in the little white cotton covered track suit with her nose darkened in with eyeliner and holding Junior's hand in her left and a candle in her right that the hot wax from her candle dripped right through the little cardboard sleeve and onto her fingers. Naturally at three and the shock of such a burn, Charlotte had shrieked and dropped the burning candle which successfully set light to both the dried hay of their makeshift manger and her brother's dishtowel. Mrs. Edith, the woman who has played the organ at Green River First Baptist Church for as long as Charlotte can remember and directed that infamous Christmas pageant had leapt into action, extinguishing both the set and Junior before things got too ugly.
"So I can send this to Carol?"
The whole disastrous affair has been neatly captured on VHS by Daddy's meticulous camera work that has documented each Christmas morning, birthday party, graduation, 4-H showing, and sporting event they have participated in for the last thirty years and now plays from the laptop at the kitchen table. Every adorable moment of off- key children's choral work, wooden recitations from the Book of Luke and handmade costumes are recorded on that tragic little tape which ends abruptly with Daddy forgetting he's taping, rushing forward to collect his sobbing children and dropping the camcorder with a crash and mess of static onto the seat of the pew. It's an unfortunate piece of home video, to be sure. They are all adorable in it – Mama had let Bobbie wear the tiniest bit of lipstick that night and had neatly combed all of Junior's hair into a precious little coif while Charlotte herself spent most of the evening sucking at her thumb and hanging on her brother's hand like a lifeline – but it is not something she particularly wants all of Mama's friends reliving.
"You can-" Junior begins.
"But," Charlotte interrupts. "We'd take it as a kindness if you didn't."
"Oh Charlie Ann! Don't be that way! Junior's only tryin' to help!" Mama scolds. "Ain't you sugar belle?"
"Yes Mama," Junior answers dutifully. He's set the laptop and the converter on the kitchen table and is patiently trying to explain to their mother how exactly one transfers the epic collection of home videos and family photographs into digital files. He's looking very much like he's regretting purchasing the converter as a birthday gift and she can see him silently berating himself for forgetting that Mama, while an enthusiastic pupil, has not mastered anything more technologically advanced than the voicemail on her cell phone. Moreover, he looks less than thrilled that Mama has selected one of the more humiliating home movies in their collection (one that involves him wearing a dishtowel and sandals and getting lit on fire) to test the birthday gift in question and he is clearly not appreciative of Charlotte's presence.
That ain't her fault.
That's United goddamn Airlines fault for booting her off the 6:30 AM from DC. If she'd left Regan International on time, she'd have been home in time to bake Mama's birthday cake. She would not still be standing in the kitchen well after Mama's birthday dinner with a piping bag of royal icing and her half finished angel-food masterpiece. She would not be looking foolish in one of Mama's gingham aprons and the now wrinkled suit she'd worn on the flight because there had been some dispute with the baggage handling so that her suitcase and her faith in commercial aviation bureaucracy now drifted in limbo somewhere between Dallas and DC. And she certainly would not be listening to Junior repeat his instructions for turning on and utilizing the converter a third and fourth time for Mama's benefit.
"Model son, I know." Charlotte sticks out her tongue like they're six again and Junior breaks down, let's his professional grown-up façade crack and makes a face right back.
"None of that now - I know y'all are jetlagged, flyin' in from all over creation, but I don't want y'all fightin' on my birthday!" Mama insists. "And Charlie Ann, butter bean, you sure don't have to worry about the decoratin' - y'all are here and that's what matters. It ain't often anymore I get to have all my babies home before Christmas, you know."
"Yes, Mama," She rolls her eyes and Junior shakes his head, trying to bury himself back into the project at hand and just stay the hell out of it.
"Now see here, that little red light means it's recordin' -" The tape has skipped through the static and straight onto Christmas dinner of the same year as the infamous pageant and Daddy showing off his camcorder to all their uncles. This portion of the tape is almost more regrettable than the pageant – not long after Daddy finishes his speech for the camera than Bobbie busts in hauling a bleeding Junior and a crying Charlotte behind her with a tale of woe concerning a four wheeler and older cousin Henry's poor driving skills. It had not been a good Christmas that year. "Hey now! Roberta Lee – y'all are trackin' mud into my dinnin' room – Arthur Edward Junior! What the hell you done to your nose, boy?"
"Jesus, Wart!" The sister in question exclaims as she retreats from the family room and the John Wayne film Daddy's got playing on television. "Couldn't y'all pick somethin' less . . . distressin' to test that damn thing?" Bobbie's looking more than a little tired tonight and her fuse is looking short, but Charlotte doesn't say anything because her sister's been here with Mama and Daddy all week while she and Junior have only just got in. A whole week with Mama is enough to wear anyone out and Charlotte's rather impressed Bobbie ain't angrier than she is.
"Roberta Lee! My land, you and Charlie Ann both! I don't know why y'all think our home movies are just a special kind of torture – they're wonderful memories." Mama scolds and both Charlotte and Bobbie snort giggles of the 'you've got to be kidding' sort.
"Mama picked it," Junior supplies, still trying to just finish the damn converter project and be done with it all because Lord knows Mama's attention is now hopelessly lost.
"Come on now Junior, you can't honestly say you like watchin' Charlie light you on fire and Henry bust your nose?" Bobbie snorts again, eyeing Charlotte's cake appreciatively. "Or that Clark Gable hairstyle you had -" The buzz of Junior's phone from beside the laptop interrupts and Bobbie snatches it up before their brother has so much as blinked.
"Cobb," She announces as Junior makes a grab for the gadget. "I though you said it was your partner's anniversary – what the hell's he callin' for?"
"Bobbie Lee-" Junior warns, but Bobbie's all ready got on that wicked grin she wears when she's going to get them in trouble and clicks the talk button.
"Junior's Phone, this is his sister speakin'." She greets gleefully, but sobers as she listens. "Oh, I see." She says seriously. "He's right here." Bobbie holds out the phone. "Junior, I think you need to take this – somethin's happened." It must be serious. Bobbie wouldn't give up a perfect opportunity to torment Junior without good reason and he knows it. The look on his face, something akin to terror and anticipation, says there's about a hundred awful scenarios running through his head as he takes the phone that would cause his esteemed colleague to not only interrupt Junior's weekend off, but his own anniversary.
"Cobb?" He asks into the phone.
"Junior," Mama calls as he moves out of the kitchen out onto the porch. "Sugar belle, what's wrong?" He doesn't answer and instead lets the screen door bounce on its hinges as he leaves them with the distant strains of the Western and the chatter of the home movie (in which his four year old self is presently bleeding profusely from a broken nose while the camcorder sits abandoned on the dining room table). Bobbie gives her a look, a guilty sort of look with a bit of 'do you see our brother?' and Charlotte shrugs.
When Junior returns, pocketing the phone, he's set his jaw and he's got that same hurt in his eyes Charlotte remembers from cousin Jack's funeral when they were in high school, almost like something of him has been broken.
"Junior, butter bean - " Mama begins. She must see it too; the fragments of whatever's shattered in him, because she doesn't sound like her usual overbearing self.
"Something has happened." Junior repeats and his voice doesn't waver. "I have to go." And then he's up the stairs to collect his duffle and attaché and it takes Bobbie and Charlotte all of thirty seconds to follow him up. Mama hangs back, presumably to give him some space and to talk to Daddy, but they're his sisters and they'll all be ninety years old before they give him space.
"Wart - " Bobbie tests. "What happened, little brother?" She asks tentatively from the doorframe. Junior's still flexing his jaw as he checks through his pockets for passport and papers and Charlotte can tell he's slowly reaching the limits of his composure.
"Nothing." His voice still hasn't faltered, but she's not fooled. "Cobb needs me in Los Angeles."
"Junior . . ." Charlotte tries, but her brother doesn't give her a straight answer either, just keeps shuffling through his things.
"It's fine," Junior insists. He's clicked open his attaché case. Inside is a smaller, sleeker silver case. It looks cold, hard, like something television mob bosses hand over millions in cash in. He pauses a moment and for just a moment, Charlotte thinks something like anger and rage slips into his eyes at the sight of the case, as though that little metal briefcase is responsible for whatever it is that's troubling him, but it's only a passing glint and then Junior's moving again, slamming the attaché shut and slinging his duffle over his shoulder. "I'll call when I land." He assures them, pushing between, through the door and down the stairs. "I'm sorry."
"Junior -" But he's all ready down the stairs and they're just fast enough to catch him cracking the front screen door and apologizing again to Mama and Daddy who are caught somewhere between concern and disappointment at his sudden departure. She looks to Bobbie on the stair below her and there share a shrug and she is struck with an odd, childish resentment towards that phone and that case for stealing Junior away to his great big grown up life all over again.