Sashataakheru (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wolfanfics) wrote2006-01-23 07:02 pm
wolfanfics) wrote2006-01-23 07:02 pm
No Doubt/Placebo: By The Way, My Sweet Prince: Epilogue
Title: Epilogue
Author: sashataakheru
Fandoms: No Doubt/Placebo RPS
Starring: Tom Dumont, Tony Kanal, Gwen Stefani, Adrian Young, Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal, Steve Hewitt
Pairing: implied past!Tom/Tony
Previous: 1 - Punishment and Tears | 2 - Strangers And Jealousy | 3 - When The Bad Times Come | 4 - The Traitor Returns | 5 - As A Phoenix Reborn | 6 - Through The Years: Leaving The Dragon's Keep pt 1 | 7 - Beyond The Mountains: Leaving The Dragon's Keep pt 2 | 8 - Maryland
Warnings: suicide, character death
Word Count: 969
Disclaimer: Not true in any way, shape or form.
Author's Notes: Setting is... SE Californian desert, near Palm Springs (IIRC). Based on a Placebo fic with a similar theme. This one took it's own journey though.
Summary: The final account of how Tom's story came to light as told by the woman who found Tom's diary.
Epilogue: How this story came to life
I discovered this story a couple of years ago. I was based in Baltimore as the local crime writer. I got a call from someone informing me that an apparent suicide had been found in some old hut on the outskirts of town. My editor sent me along to investigate the death. The man had been a local busker. He’d arrived about seven years before. He mostly kept to himself, so no one really knew anything about him. We knew him as Tom. Everyone in town knew him and liked having him around. We’d recognise him by the tattoos on his hands. Strange marks. He wore them like a brand, as if they were a burden he had been bearing for too long. His music was filled with such sorrow and loss. He played beautifully, he was one of the few buskers around town who should’ve had a great life because of his talent. Yet, here he was, sitting on street corners with his guitar, trying to scrape together enough money for food.
He’d died by cyanide poisoning. Since no one else had ever inhabited that shack except for another man named Frank, who had died 6 months before Tom had, it was easy enough to see it as a suicide. He was just sitting in his chair, looking as peaceful as anything, the glass still clutched in his hand. One of the other buskers had alerted police that he was missing when he didn’t show one Saturday. He was in town every day without fail. He had to be. How else would he get food or money? Police went up to his shack to find him dead.
When I heard of the book that had been found beside him, I asked if I could have it. I don’t know why I wanted it, just that I felt it held something of worth. A book that good and so well looked after contained something important. Once they’d released the body for burial paid for by the locals, they let me have it. I was surprised at how many calls and emails I got about his death once it had gone to press in the paper. They wanted to help. Together, we managed to get together enough funds for a simple burial for him. His gravestone said simply, Tom. Nothing more needed to be added. We all knew who it referred to. Besides, we couldn’t think of anything else to say about him.
I struggled to read through the book without crying. He’d poured his heart and soul into that book. In amongst the stories were songs and lyrics. Suddenly, Tom was coming to life before my eyes. I felt the need to tell his story. I didn’t have the address of where his parents supposedly lived, so I didn’t bother tracking them. Instead, I got the OK to investigate the story from my editor and flew to California to see if I could find the mansion.
From what information I could gather, I headed out to Palm Springs to drive around the area to see if I couldn’t track his route. Looking at maps gave me the most likely two towns for the mansion. When I got to Borrego Springs, the second town on my list, I felt like I had the right town, but no mansion was in sight. Nowhere did the town posses such a building. What confirmed it as the most probably place was seeing the same marks as had been on Tom’s hands in several places. I’d never seen them anywhere else.
So, this is where it had all started.
But, getting to the bottom of this took more trouble than I had anticipated. No one wanted to talk to me. It was a small enough town that by the end of my first day there, no one wanted me around. I left that evening. No point staying around. I did take extensive footage of the town to review when I got back home, in case there was something I missed. I headed down the highway and drove back into Palm Springs. I couldn’t locate the town he’d stopped at before going into Palm Springs. But, judging by the massive amounts of development that was on the edge of the lake, what he stumbled across might have been only a handful of houses when the developments were in their infancy. It was impossible to tell where he may have gone. I headed back to LA to go home. There was nothing left for me to find out. I was sure the mansion had existed, but had vanished in between Tom leaving it and me returning to find it.
I read through his book again on the plane home, and wondered if there’d be anyone who’d publish it. I felt he wanted his story told. I mean, why else write it down? The graphicness of some of his entries made finding someone to publish it difficult, but it was the truth, or so I was convinced, so I pressed on, and eventually found someone who was sympathetic to his story and wanted it to be published. We debated over cutting out some of the more graphic parts, but in the end, we felt it wasn’t being true to his story to edit it so.
It was typed up as it was written. The only thing we added was a title. I found the phrase in the last paragraph of the last book and found it oddly poignant. I hope that wherever they are, Tom and Tony are together in peace. I think Tom’s story is true. Maybe you might think so too. But, whether it’s true or not, it’s a story worth telling.
Sandra MacCarrie,
Journalist, The Baltimore Sun
Author: sashataakheru
Fandoms: No Doubt/Placebo RPS
Starring: Tom Dumont, Tony Kanal, Gwen Stefani, Adrian Young, Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal, Steve Hewitt
Pairing: implied past!Tom/Tony
Previous: 1 - Punishment and Tears | 2 - Strangers And Jealousy | 3 - When The Bad Times Come | 4 - The Traitor Returns | 5 - As A Phoenix Reborn | 6 - Through The Years: Leaving The Dragon's Keep pt 1 | 7 - Beyond The Mountains: Leaving The Dragon's Keep pt 2 | 8 - Maryland
Warnings: suicide, character death
Word Count: 969
Disclaimer: Not true in any way, shape or form.
Author's Notes: Setting is... SE Californian desert, near Palm Springs (IIRC). Based on a Placebo fic with a similar theme. This one took it's own journey though.
Summary: The final account of how Tom's story came to light as told by the woman who found Tom's diary.
Epilogue: How this story came to life
I discovered this story a couple of years ago. I was based in Baltimore as the local crime writer. I got a call from someone informing me that an apparent suicide had been found in some old hut on the outskirts of town. My editor sent me along to investigate the death. The man had been a local busker. He’d arrived about seven years before. He mostly kept to himself, so no one really knew anything about him. We knew him as Tom. Everyone in town knew him and liked having him around. We’d recognise him by the tattoos on his hands. Strange marks. He wore them like a brand, as if they were a burden he had been bearing for too long. His music was filled with such sorrow and loss. He played beautifully, he was one of the few buskers around town who should’ve had a great life because of his talent. Yet, here he was, sitting on street corners with his guitar, trying to scrape together enough money for food.
He’d died by cyanide poisoning. Since no one else had ever inhabited that shack except for another man named Frank, who had died 6 months before Tom had, it was easy enough to see it as a suicide. He was just sitting in his chair, looking as peaceful as anything, the glass still clutched in his hand. One of the other buskers had alerted police that he was missing when he didn’t show one Saturday. He was in town every day without fail. He had to be. How else would he get food or money? Police went up to his shack to find him dead.
When I heard of the book that had been found beside him, I asked if I could have it. I don’t know why I wanted it, just that I felt it held something of worth. A book that good and so well looked after contained something important. Once they’d released the body for burial paid for by the locals, they let me have it. I was surprised at how many calls and emails I got about his death once it had gone to press in the paper. They wanted to help. Together, we managed to get together enough funds for a simple burial for him. His gravestone said simply, Tom. Nothing more needed to be added. We all knew who it referred to. Besides, we couldn’t think of anything else to say about him.
I struggled to read through the book without crying. He’d poured his heart and soul into that book. In amongst the stories were songs and lyrics. Suddenly, Tom was coming to life before my eyes. I felt the need to tell his story. I didn’t have the address of where his parents supposedly lived, so I didn’t bother tracking them. Instead, I got the OK to investigate the story from my editor and flew to California to see if I could find the mansion.
From what information I could gather, I headed out to Palm Springs to drive around the area to see if I couldn’t track his route. Looking at maps gave me the most likely two towns for the mansion. When I got to Borrego Springs, the second town on my list, I felt like I had the right town, but no mansion was in sight. Nowhere did the town posses such a building. What confirmed it as the most probably place was seeing the same marks as had been on Tom’s hands in several places. I’d never seen them anywhere else.
So, this is where it had all started.
But, getting to the bottom of this took more trouble than I had anticipated. No one wanted to talk to me. It was a small enough town that by the end of my first day there, no one wanted me around. I left that evening. No point staying around. I did take extensive footage of the town to review when I got back home, in case there was something I missed. I headed down the highway and drove back into Palm Springs. I couldn’t locate the town he’d stopped at before going into Palm Springs. But, judging by the massive amounts of development that was on the edge of the lake, what he stumbled across might have been only a handful of houses when the developments were in their infancy. It was impossible to tell where he may have gone. I headed back to LA to go home. There was nothing left for me to find out. I was sure the mansion had existed, but had vanished in between Tom leaving it and me returning to find it.
I read through his book again on the plane home, and wondered if there’d be anyone who’d publish it. I felt he wanted his story told. I mean, why else write it down? The graphicness of some of his entries made finding someone to publish it difficult, but it was the truth, or so I was convinced, so I pressed on, and eventually found someone who was sympathetic to his story and wanted it to be published. We debated over cutting out some of the more graphic parts, but in the end, we felt it wasn’t being true to his story to edit it so.
It was typed up as it was written. The only thing we added was a title. I found the phrase in the last paragraph of the last book and found it oddly poignant. I hope that wherever they are, Tom and Tony are together in peace. I think Tom’s story is true. Maybe you might think so too. But, whether it’s true or not, it’s a story worth telling.
Sandra MacCarrie,
Journalist, The Baltimore Sun