One Shots #VariaSquad

Part of the Tradition

Tradition: trəˈdɪʃ(ə)n/

noun

noun: tradition

1.

the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.

a long-established custom or belief that has been passed on from one generation to another.

Their traditions don't come from the generation before them, they aren't entirely sure if they plan on passing them on to the generation that will come after them. They aren't customs that are part of a religion or practices that come with their family beliefs but that makes them no less important. No matter what, they keep to their traditions, even if they often complain about them.

The first tradition is started on her eighteenth birthday. They call it the birthday book and it gets passed back and forth between them every year. It's a simple leather journal with pages of parchment instead of lined paper and, to anyone else, it would seem like just another book on the shelf. He's the one that started it, confusing her completely when he had handed her a book on the morning of her eighteenth. She'd opened it to see a picture of the two of them that had been take mid-argument and lots of words that she hadn't the time to read until after they finished workshops for the day. He doesn't expect her to return it with the next couple of pages filled in just over a month later but on his birthday he finds it on the table in his vanity alongside a small wrapped gift. And so begins the tradition, every year without fail - even the year that they aren't really speaking - they pass the book back and forth with messages scrawled on the next blank page. Some years it's just a couple of hastily written lines and a photograph, others it's a page or two of mostly babble. And on one very memorable occasion, it's four pages of writing with another two pages taken up by pictures.

They're working on their fifth film together and his birthday just so happens to fall within the last weeks of shoot. He's not really expecting to do much that day, just go to set and act like it's any other day of the year; in the past few years, his excitement for his birthday has lessened considerably. The only thing he looks forward to is being given the small leather journal that he had handed off about a month earlier. Except this year he's had a lot going on in the past few days and he's pretty much forgotten about it in all the commotion.

When he gets into his trailer and sees a wrapped present and the familiar book on the table by the sofas, he smiles, finally feeling some of the excitement that's expected of him. He checks the time to see that he has about half an hour until his team gets in and decides that that's plenty enough time to read so he picks it up and sits down on the sofa, nostalgia washing over him as he flicks through the book of messages until he gets to the page that had been blank the last time he held it.

The first page - on the flip side of the one he had written on - is covered in photos. Usually, a maximum of three pictures would fit on one page in the journal but she's cut them in such a way that they fit together perfectly, not leaving a single centimetre of the page unfilled. He takes a moment to admire the pictures, wondering where she dug them all up from, before remembering that he wants to be able to read what she's written while he's still alone so he turns his attention to the next page.

Dear Varun,

Ugh, okay, let's try that again. Varun,

Before I start, I'm going to warn you, this might be a long one. And I know, you're probably going to zone out halfway through or not be able to read it all in one go but finish it at some point okay.