The Hundred-Word Holiday Home Of Lady Paperclip

Three kind of long drabbles...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:37:03 GMT

... because I couldn't make them behave themselves and be proper actual fics.

Mason, George, Daisy | 300 words

"I'd have let you be my boyfriend," George offers. "If I was still alive."

"Really?" Mason says hopefully.

"Yeah, you'd really piss my mom off. I like that in a guy." George considers this for a moment. "Not that I really put that much effort into annoying my mom. I just used to... kind of... sit."

This is not really going in the direction Mason wants it to go in.

"How about we play a game called 'Let's Not Smash Mason's Ego Into Fucking Little Tiny Pulpy Bits'?"

George takes another sip of her coffee. "...Nah."

"'Pulp'," Daisy echoes thoughtfully. "Anyone else want fresh orange juice?"

Mason lets his head smack onto the table. "No one loves me," he informs the hard, shiny surface. It tastes like disinfectant and kind of like syrup.

"It's called 'personal hygiene'," Daisy informs him in what she obviously thinks of as her 'kind and sympathetic' voice. It is neither kind nor sympathetic. "People like that."

"Would you like that?" Mason asks, raising his head a little. "Would you shag me if I showered more often?"

"...No," Daisy says delicately. "I have standards, sweetie."

Mason winces and puts his head back on the table. The table likes him; it isn't trying to shy away or anything. If only he was one of those sick fuckers who went in for inanimate objects; it’d be easier. He tilts his head slightly. "Georgie?"

"Don't look at me," George says quickly. "I only had sex for the first time like three months ago. And you wouldn't call me in the morning."

Mason thinks about this. "Actually, I'd probably never leave," he says.

George screws her face up in a mixture of horror and disgust.

"Not helping your case," Daisy pipes up.

Mason fucking hates absolutely everyone that he knows.

Arthur, Morgana [Arthur/Gwen] | 295 words | Set post 2x02

Arthur had rather thought that The Four Days Of Which We Do Not Speak (and by ‘we’ he means himself, Gwen – who can no longer look at Arthur at all – and Merlin – who has gone oddly quiet and didn’t even bother with the usual half-hearted recriminations after everyone was all cleaned up and back in their rightful positions, which was actually a little disconcerting) would just be some rather dream-like memories, which he would take out from time to time and brood over until they stung.

Of course, as with so many things in his life, he reckoned without Morgana.

She comes sweeping down on him in a cloud of purple velvet and muted fury two days after his supposed ‘return’; Arthur’s chest still hurts with a bone-deep ache. He takes one look at Morgana and suspects that there is a chance he will not make it out of here alive.

“I can explain,” he says quickly.

“No, you can’t,” Morgana replies sharply, and that’s when Arthur knows that she knows everything. He’d be angry with Gwen, but God knows she has no one else to talk to. Morgana studies him, his stricken expression, and her look of pure wrath softens a little. “You’re a fool, Arthur,” she tells him, sighing. “Well, at least this time you didn’t nearly get drowned.”

Arthur opens his mouth, but decides he doesn’t want to know. He’s had enough unwelcome truths these last few days.

“It would never have worked,” he tells Morgana, fingers curling at his side. Justifying himself in spite of it all.

“Actually,” she says in a voice that does not quite sound like her own, and she no longer seems to be talking to him, “I think you’ll be in love forever.”

Arthur can’t ask.

Owen, Ianto | 295 words

It’s three twenty-seven in the morning and if anyone actually knows why they’re all still in the Hub then they’re doing a really good job of keeping it secret. Not that any of this is new.

Ianto sighs. He doesn’t look any less anally neat than usual, but there’s a faint air of crumpled about him nonetheless.

“My purpose in life cannot be to hate you,” he mumbles at last.

It’s entirely possible the teaboy is drunk, but if he is then he’s hiding it well. At least, he’s hiding it better than Owen used to, when he first arrived here. Not that that’s much of an achievement when you stop and consider.

“No,” he agrees. And then grins his favourite bastard grin because emotional bonding was something that got stripped away a long time ago, right along with caring about things and smiling without it hurting. “Your purpose in life is to make coffee and tidy up and keep your mouth shut.”

Ianto’s expression doesn’t flicker, which isn’t a surprise. He’s getting better at swaddling all his emotions under a nice thick layer of blandness, which Owen is completely fine with because at least it keeps things quiet around here. And if their exhausted teaboy’s soul is cracking and peeling, if he’s falling apart on the inside; well, it makes him no different from anyone else around here.

“It’s better than having no purpose at all,” Ianto responds, and though his tone is utterly without inflection the words slice deep anyway, the way they’re supposed to. He’s too good at this, and it stings.

Owen grits his teeth and says nothing because while he’d love to hit back he’s also horribly aware that Ianto has a damn good point.

Cleaning out my usb drive

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:31:53 GMT

Random Things Hanging Around On My Harddrive:

Don Giovanni, Leporello | 170 words | Set post opera

Leporello outlives his master by an embarrassingly short amount of time – a misunderstanding involving the husband of a woman he may or may not have seduced, a sharp knife, and a rather thick length of rope – and isn’t really all that surprised when he finds himself in Hell. It would have been nice to think he could be redeemed, but he hasn’t had long enough to fix all his past mistakes.

Don Giovanni almost looks pleased to see him. “I was wondering when you’d arrive,” he observes dryly.

“Is my punishment being trapped with you for eternity?” Leporello asks.

Giovanni shrugs. “Hell isn’t so bad,” he says.

The smile on his face is one Leporello has seen before. “Only you,” he sighs. “Everyone else gets eternal torment, but you’re fucking the Devil.” Don Giovanni only grins wider, flames in his eyes. “Or you already are the Devil.”

“Not yet.” He flicks back his dark hair, with that determined look Leporello has learned to cringe away from. “I’m working on it.”

Jack, Alice | 100 words | set during Exit Wounds

Jack’s teeth taste like dirt and he’s quiet in the horse-drawn cab with black curtains over its windows – they’ve done their best, after all – on the return to the Hub.

Alice is watching him with semi-crazed interest, though Jack won’t jeopardise the timeline.

“Just one thing,” she says, leaning forward, “If you’re from the future, you’ve found the Doctor.”

Jack remains silent.

“Did you kiss him and then kill him?” Alice asks outright.

He considers not telling her. But she’ll die in four months anyway.

“No,” he sighs.

She sits back, smirking in a satisfied way. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

Owen/Ianto | 125 words

“You know, Ianto,” Owen slurs cheerfully, “You’re really not so bad after all.”

“That’s so nice to know,” Ianto replies. Owen’s arm slung around his shoulders and he’s attempting not to walk their horribly drunk doctor into the road. He hates how the clean-ups are always his.

Owen laughs softly, and then leans close. Ianto turns his head so Owen’s kiss merely brushes his cheek.

“Why won’t-”

“Because you’re drunk and you won’t remember this tomorrow, and in three to five minutes, depending on how much alcohol you’ve ingested, you’re going to vomit all over my shoes, and I’m going to let you because I like you far too much and, well, these aren’t my favourite shoes.”

Owen frowns at him. “Fuckin’ mad, you are.”

Ianto | 125 words

“The aliens have eaten google,” Ianto announces in an appropriately melodramatic tone.

He is answered by a sigh, and a request for more coffee.

“I am wasted here,” he tells no one in particular. “And if they’re in the internet, the chances are they’ll be here in a matter of hours. Since there is a paper trail leading right to us as harbingers of doom and all that.” Yet more silence. “Well, the online equivalent of a papertrail, anyway.”

“Ianto; coffee,” Owen repeats loudly. “Not a monologue on… whatever it is you’re talking about.”

“Wasted,” Ianto repeats softly, because somehow it’s going to all become his fault when the aliens eat the rest of the internet and come to find them.

It always bloody is.

Becker, Lester | 258 words | Set post 3x03

When the worst of the smoke has cleared and Cutter’s body has been loaded into an ambulance, Becker seeks out Lester.

“I’ve failed, sir,” he says quietly.

Lester has pulled himself together, but there are still shreds of narrow hysteria under the surface. It’s understandable.

“Yes, you have,” he responds calmly; it somehow stings more than if he’d snapped it. Becker swallows down an I’m sorry because it would be useless.

He takes a breath and says: “I’ll understand if you want to appoint a new head of security.”

Lester frowns. “Why would I want to do that?”

“My mission was to protect Nick Cutter,” Becker points out. “And… I didn’t.”

Lester looks put-upon. “Most of this isn’t about you,” he says, in a tone that’s a strange mixture of snappy and comforting, “And I’ve got enough on my plate what with Cutter being murdered and the ARC being destroyed without having to interview new heads of security.”

Becker feels himself grimace, though he manages to turn it into a rueful smile. “Of course,” he responds, bowing his head, and turns to go and see if he can help out with the aftermath. He thinks he might be a little in shock; he thinks they all are.

“Becker!” Lester calls. He obediently turns. “This wasn’t your fault,” Lester adds, expression entirely unreadable. “We’ve all underestimated Helen on too many occasions. Better men than you have been fooled by her.”

Better men like Nick Cutter, Becker assumes. He obediently widens his scraped-up smile a little more, and walks away.

Matt/Alesha | 298 words

Beer cold and wet against his palm, Matt watches Alesha watch James. She’s subtle about it and God knows he needs to be discreet – they’re coppers, after all, trained to notice things, and Ronnie will spend tomorrow making his life hell between paperwork and croissants – but it’s still there.

They don’t do this often. The four of them, tied together with strings of evidence and the mutual desire for justice, but it’s not enough to claim friendship and so there aren’t a lot of nights like this. Matt thinks it’s probably for the best; for an evening they can get along perfectly. But James has his demons and his principles and it’s all a little too sharp.

James comes back from the bar, four glasses in his hands, a curl of a real smile on his mouth that reminds Matt that actually, he’s a nice guy; maybe just too nice, nice to the point of damage. Alesha is doing a pretty job of pretending she hasn’t been watching him pay for their drinks and bring them back, throwing stock answers to Ronnie and Matt. Ronnie doesn’t care; Matt thinks he might care a little bit too much.

Alesha is wearing a petrol blue cashmere cardigan; tidy and neat as usual. The wool looks soft and Matt curls his fingers against the drink-stained table to resist the urge to touch it.

“We should do this more often,” he says, trying for easy.

Ronnie’s look says oh, you’re a bloody idiot, and the thin curl of James’ mouth says something similar without the invective.

“We should,” Alesha agrees, her knee brushing his beneath the table.

He smiles, and the four of them clink their drinks together, leaving the toast unsaid because none of them are sure how to phrase it.

Mina, Ruby | 256 words

The words well, I was young once too crack against her teeth, splitting to ashes in her devoid mouth.

She was young once; and then not quite as young, with a husband who could never quite forgive that she did not recover, who ran out of conversation over the morning papers. That was a fate she never foresaw, teenaged and dreaming.

Ruby is youth, she smells of spring flowers and potential; the waves of her scent are golden. Mina could tell her about the futility of loving a man who has given so much of himself to the Dark that he can never hope to take it all back, but Ruby is young enough not to listen, and Mina knows at that age she wouldn’t have listened either.

Mina only drank innocent blood once (maybe twice, but she’s hiding that from Galvin because he hardly tolerates her now, whatever pretty cover he’s rolled over the whole thing). It was better than the best sex she’s ever had (which wasn’t with her poor lost husband, but shhh! that’s a secret), better than adrenalin, better than anything. It tasted like angels, and shimmered in every pore of her body.

But of course she has self-control now.

“What’s it like,” Ruby asks; earl grey and an empty afternoon.

Mina is tempted to look for clarification: what does she mean? Being a vampire? Being precognitive? Being insane? Being so old that it hurts? But she doesn’t enquire; she just sighs.

“Lonely,” she promises, and bites her tongue against seeking empathy.

Playing with shuffle on my ipod:

Take The Long Way Home
Mickey, Rose | 210 words | set pre/during season 4

You feel like your life’s become a catastrophe; oh, it has to be, for you to go, boy.
- Supertramp

~

It’s an August afternoon, he thinks, trainers scuffing the pavement. There’s sunlight, sure, but the sky is getting greyer and darker daily. And the nights…

Rose is quiet, hands shoved in the pockets of her new jeans. She’s growing more different by the day, and Mickey often finds it laughable that she was ever his girlfriend. They’ve barely got anything in common now, except that neither of them really belong here and no one’s noticed.

Sometimes, he longs for afternoons in a white van and the promise of Cybermen to at least provide him with entertainment. Now, there’s really only the television, full of the beginnings of mass hysteria and inane quiz shows that try to mask the real problems, and he knows all the answers now, even the ones they won’t say.

“Do you think there’s a way back?” Rose asks dully. Her mouth is tighter now too.

Mickey doesn’t ask where she wants to go back to; and anyway, it’s not so much a place as a who. He drove a truck until a chain snapped just to get Rose back, once, what feels like a lifetime ago. He’s never really been an option; not ever.

“I’m sure we can find one,” he mumbles, one last masochistic promise.

Could’ve Been Anyone
Alex, Gene | 190 words | set post season one

Don’t worry, you can learn to live without; you’ve got a lifetime of that to draw upon.
- Aimee Mann

~

“My parents blew themselves up,” Alex mutters into half a glass of something potent that she shouldn’t have let Gene push at her. She’s kind of… malleable – and that isn’t the word that she wants – with regard to him, and still, whatever she’s sipping that’s meant to help her with the shock is just being potent and horrible and she’s already drunk.

“That’s shit,” Gene agrees mildly, in what he probably thinks is a sympathetic tone. It’s not, it’s just drunk, but Alex’s words are slipping out weirdly and her thoughts are soap in her hands and this isn’t real but she can’t get out so she might as well leave it as reality for the moment.

Or… something.

“I don’t like you,” she spills, head dropping to rest on the table. Mostly, she feels sick, and when she shuts her eyes she can see clowns. She’s never liked clowns. Clowns are crap.

Gene just sighs. “If you’re going to mope, you can piss off.”

Alex nearly smiles. He’ll never tell her to go; never with conviction. She can’t work out if she hates or loves her subconscious for that.

Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me
Jonathan Crane [/Batman] | 200 words

You don’t know what you’re doing; babe, it must be art.
- U2

~

It is a pity, of course, poor little crazy boy, to go from Man Fucking Ruling Gotham to the considerably more pathetic Man Wearing A Sack On His Head And Dealing With Petty Criminals. Batman took everything that was worth anything.

He had an asylum once, which was lovely, all the crazy people clawing the walls and his own mask of devastation. Now it’s just a sack, and it’s there to spare him from security cameras. And most days, it’s not even that, it’s to spare him from Batman.

Sometimes, in the nights, he wakes up, skin raw with sweat, the taste of a dream with The Batman’s melting face trapped against his mouth and eyeballs. He sure created fun; slithery hallucinations for anyone who wants them. Especially for those who don’t.

Nowadays, the fun is draining out of things, and he doesn’t look at himself in the mirror mainly from frustration – because he’ll never confess to shame – and tells himself he’s not just killing time, waiting for Batman to track him down. To break him apart.

Mostly, he’s just not sure if he feels anticipation or dread. It’s a sticky combination, and the lights across Gotham are going out.

This Is How It Goes
Door, the Marquis de Carabas | 155 words | set near the end of the tv series/book

And you – what on earth did you expect? Well I can’t tell you, baby.
- Aimee Mann

~

“You still owe me a favour,” the Marquis de Carabas reminds her carelessly, voice like torn silk. “A really big one.”

Door nods distractedly, her cheeks still damp. She isn’t sure what she expected, really, since Richard spent half his time in London Below repeating I want to go home in an increasingly desperate fashion, but nonetheless she had vague hopes. After all, he’s been showered with the highest accolades London Below could give him, and yet returned home anyway.

“He’s ungrateful,” she decides firmly, the words slipping past the sizable lump in her throat. “Bloody ungrateful.”

“He’s human,” Carabas responds carelessly, with his unsettling smile.

Door doesn’t really feel better, and instead she turns away from him, from the scarf still tied around his throat and his truth and lies.

“I wouldn’t worry,” he offers, “There was a reason I didn’t say goodbye.”

It’s a nice thought, but Door doesn’t allow herself to hope.

The Littlest Birds
Claire, Zach | 225 | set between seasons 1 and 2

You pass through places and places pass through you but you carry them with you on the soles of your travelling shoes.
- Be Good Tanyas

~

The backyard is full of sunlight and it’s peacefully quiet; out here, Claire can’t hear mom trying not to cry or dad packing up boxes and sealing them with duct tape.

“So you’re going,” Zach mumbles.

Claire could say duh, but doesn’t, because he’s kind of the only thing she’ll be sad to leave behind in Odessa. There’s Jackie’s grave, which is mostly just surrounded in guilt, and Brody still messed-up in a wheelchair, leg trapped in plaster and still all confused.

“It’s not safe for me here any more,” Claire shrugs, as she’s already told him, and their shoulders are pressed together. It doesn’t seem like enough, all the things Zach’s done for her and tried to do for her and well, she kind of owes him a fucked-up homecoming seeing as how his vanished out of his head.

“Am I going to forget you?” Zach asks, like he’s suddenly reading her mind. For a second, Claire kind of hopes he magically has superpowers too and will have to flee Texas with them and then she won’t need to leave anything behind after all.

Claire shrugs, throat stinging. “I don’t know.” Her voice catches.

“Right.” Zach falls silent, gazing up at the blue sky, and Claire glances up, wondering if Peter’s still up there somewhere, and manages to smile when Zach takes her hand.

Blair, Serena | 190 | set pre season one
Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend somewhere along in the bitterness.
- The Fray

~

Blair and Serena take delight in playing let’s never communicate, mostly because Serena’s trying to forget the whole champagne sex thing and also ‘cause hey; boarding school is kind of… fun. Especially since she seems to be able to smile and get anything she wants, and sure it’s not quite the existence she wanted but writing to Blair becomes secondary because Blair is sad and Blair is tired and Serena is pretending to sparkle.

In the end, Blair stops talking to Serena because her dad is gay, of all things, and Serena apparently doesn’t care at all but Nate does, Nate who she always wanted with his prettiness and his smile and his big, warm, steady hands. She tells herself that she’s in love because, you know, not all kindergarten fantasies need to be abandoned with growing up.

In a few months, they’ve gotten around to forgetting each other, which is fine with Blair ‘cause now she’s the only queen bee, and fine with Serena because… boarding school really is fun.

Neither of them gives a single thought as to what will happen if they ever need to meet again.

Exhuming McCarthy
Jack | 200 words

Enemy sighted, enemy mad; I’m addressing the real politics.
- REM

~

Torchwood is professional of course; or, at least, it claims to be professional because the truth is just plain depressing. Under all the other leaders – like Emily, who was somewhat psychotic, but didn’t really let that get in her way; or Gerald, who was so completely damaged that no one actually noticed until Hattie died – Torchwood had a sort of honour, bruised and dirty as it was.

Jack honestly can’t work out if Torchwood now looks tired and broken because he took over and messed the whole thing up, or if it’s just that UNIT have got so cold and harsh recently that anything that’s not handled in a sterile and unforgiving manner just seems to look ragged and useless. Or it could just be that he’s stripped back all the protocol and taken it to the basics: mean aliens bad. Put an end to mean aliens. Give everyone guns. See where that goes in the end.

It’s nice that Yvonne Hartman no longer conducts ridiculously frequent spot-checks, because Torchwood Three would fail every time. It’s sad that she’s dead, of course; she was great in bed.

Of course, it’s possible that that could be the heart of the problem.

Ooh, drabbles. is surprised

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:12:53 GMT

Coffee Break Drabbles; typed up horribly late ‘cause I suck!

Week Four

Monday

Benvolio/Mercutio | 207 words |

It could be an admission, caught on a sigh, but there’s no sense in admitting to anything just yet.

It can pay to be prudent, Benvolio has learned. Espeically when it comes to Mercutio. Especially when there has been more wine than is sensible, and the outcome of this night is becoming increasingly uncertain.

“You make things solid,” Mercutio is explaining, batting away thin air. Benvolio has never been certain if Mercutio is actually insane or merely over-enthusiastic, and that conundrum has become increasingly less important over the years. Benvolio would care for him if he insisted that all the armies of Julius Caesar resided in his hair, or if he could recall his own name. There is a great deal that is attractive in Mercutio’s too-bright eyes and shuddering grin. He is a fire that no one could pull away from, no matter how burnt they grew.

“That is because I am dull,” Benvolio replies, on a piece of a smile.

“No!” Mercutio seems almost offended at this suggestion, a frown passing across his features.

“You cannot always ignore the truth,” Benvolio murmurs.

“Yes I can,” Mercutio replies, pressing his shoulder against Benvolio’s. “I always can.”

There is no sense in arguing. There is never any sense in arguing, not with Mercutio.

Wednesday

Caspian/Peter | 248 words | Set towards the end of the movie

“I have forgotten,” Caspian mumbles flatly, “I have forgotten how to be happy.”

Peter narrows his eyes against the sunlight, the shadows of trees dappling his battle-damaged face. Three bare days ago they survived more than they believed possible; now they lie in the forest and watch the trees quiver.

When Peter sighs it sounds like an ache; whenever Caspian closes his eyes he sees his uncle fall. They weren’t worth much to each other but they were at least related. Now Lady Pruniprismia pushes chests against her chamber doors, and will not let Caspian see his cousin. He has betrayed Telmar; he bites his tongue until the urge to scream fades back.

“It will come back to you,” Peter offers softly.

Caspian’s mouth shivers. He can’t work out if he wants to laugh. “Do you promise?”

Peter does laugh. “No, of course I don’t promise.”

Caspian allows himself a smile, streaks of quantified sunlight flaring across his face.

“There is so much I must do,” he mumbles. “So much that there will not be space for me.”

Peter whistles, a dry note between his teeth. It jars against the silence and the space smoothed around them. “Make room for yourself,” he orders at least.

It isn’t that simple; or maybe it is. Caspian stretches out a little, palms flat to the dirt. He hearts Peter shift, their fingers separated by scant blades of grass. Caspian could push, close the distance, but he doesn’t need to. Not yet.

Friday

Rose/New!Ten | 248 words | Spoilers for Journey’s End

He bites his nails.

Rose folds her mouth into a tidy line, fingers tapping the warm chipped ceramic of her tea mug. She wills him to stop; the sight of his teeth fixed tight to the edge of his ring fingernail makes her skin crawl. She swallows, leaving her tea to steam on the kitchen table, mumbling an excuse that he takes with a smile, fingers still pressed to his lips.

At the end of the garden, she digs her cigarettes from her jeans pocket, selecting one from the crumpled packet with the Death! warning printed on the side. The lighter wheel sticks to her thumb, and she inhales fast on the first tug of flame.

He probably wouldn’t forgive her if he knew.

Rose smokes quickly, blowing plumes of grey to the twilight sky, unconsciously counting the seconds. The house is small but big enough for their purposes; they have a garden, something unheard of for the girl who grew up in a council flat. Rose is happy, of course, because there aren’t a whole lot of options, emotionally, when someone dumps the Happy Ever After into your hands and then runs for it.

Typical Doctor.

The house is papered with post-its; name suggestions for the one who could tell her he loved her. For a moment – for nearly a week – she thought that would be enough.

But the one in her house got what he wanted, and she got second best. And it isn’t nearly enough.

Saturday

Mickey, Owen[/Ianto] | 228 words | OMG AU

“He makes me nervous,” Mickey admits, the words a flat mumble against the rim of his mug. “He makes good coffee, though.”

Owen smirks. In another, crueller past he would have passed this information straight on; but now he just shrugs and sips his coffee.

“Why does he make you nervous?” he asks, watching with amusement as Tosh tries to figure out what exactly is happening to the fabric of their universe – something’s going wrong because Mickey Smith keeps falling through. Jack is all kinds of desperately happy about this; it’s yet another piece of his mysterious past that remains so endlessly shadowed it’s as complex and about as irritating as The Da Vinci Code.

“He’s like a robot,” Mickey points out. Ianto is impassively tidying their sofa area, suit immaculate, and movements almost mechanical. “You watch him work, he doesn’t hum or anything. He just… does.”

“Ianto is unbearably professional,” Owen nods.

“It’s creepy,” Mickey decides.

Owen laughs. “Ianto’s fucking creepy,” he agrees. “But you do get used to it.”

Mickey drinks some more coffee. It really must be magical stuff, Owen muses, because Mickey does start looking less freaked-out and judgemental.

“It is great coffee,” he concedes.

“Yep.” Owen smiles. “And he’s great in bed too.”

Mickey chokes, and Owen grins wider. Mickey finally smiles back. “I’ll have to tell Rose that Jack’s contagious,” he says.

Sunday

Merlin/Morgana | 213 words | Set post 1x04 The Poisoned Chalice

Morgana is magnificence personified, of course. Today she’s resplendent in crushed purple, dark hair twined back behind her head in a style that must have taken Gwen ages.

Merlin feels even more like a small child’s doll; the seams slit open and worn stuffing pouring out of the holes. And perhaps Merlin wouldn’t be quite so hard on himself, but Arthur literally flinched when Merlin walked in this morning.

(“Go back to bed,” he ordered, “I didn’t go to all that trouble to save your life just to watch you push yourself too hard.”

And Merlin could have pointed out that his master was the one who told him to get up at the crack of dawn and report for duty, but he didn’t.)

“My lady,” Merlin stammers, feeling wan and crumpled and generally disgusting; though Gaius promises the colour will return to his cheeks soon. He tries to get to his feet for an attempt at a bow, but fails miserably.

“Don’t.” There’s a soft warmth to Morgana’s voice, a curve to her perfect mouth. Merlin stays silent, and tries to control the unattractive shivering.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” Morgana tells him, smooth and quiet.

Merlin stumbles a thanks; she laughs her tinkling laugh and leaves him drowning in her wake.

Tee hee. Drabbles & coffee.

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:45:21 GMT

Week Three

Monday

Chuck | 265 words |

They’ll call him formulaic in the morning.

The usual: anyone can do what he does, it’s easy to be him with the cigarette and the loose drawl. It just takes practise, and a lack of morals that’s deceptively simple to acquire. Mostly, these words will come from the girls who wake up to the debauched sticky bedsheets, crumpled yet clinical; and without the luxury of a phone number.

Gossip Girl accepts the complaints with all her catty good grace, listing the conquests with an eye for the sadistic: looks like someone else dropped their panties for C; do they never learn?

And he sent her the inevitable love-letter last year, dashed off from the back of his limo: I’ll do you GG; Y/N? She chose N, of course; but he likes to think he got closest. If anyone could get Gossip Girl to drop her mask and open her legs, it would be him. That, at least, is agreed.

He oozes sleaze, of course, but there’s got to be joy in the sleaze or there’s no point. He’s not apologetic for any of it; girls don’t have fantasies about fixing him because it’s embarrassingly obvious that he likes being the way he is. There’s no sense in trying to alter him; he’ll just fuck another girl in the morning, and be over it all a few minutes later.

So they’ll call him predictable, dull, formulaic; but oh, what a formula, and after all that he’s still the only one who can smile like it hurts and say: “I’m Chuck Bass” without a shred of shame.

Tuesday

Arthur/Morgana | 297 words | Set pre-show

“I think your father expects us to get married,” Morgana admits to Arthur.

They have stolen wine from the cellars; they are fifteen. Morgana was given her first personal maidservant two weeks ago, a shy girl called Guinevere, about the same age. Now they are growing up, there seems to be a great deal more responsibility for themselves and others than Morgana was expecting.

Arthur takes the news without changing his vague facial expression of bemusement and nausea. He has drunk a lot more than Morgana – “I’m the man here, I can hold my drink” – and it shows.

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” Arthur manages, eventually.

“It would be like marrying my brother,” Morgana tells him, reaching to pull the heavy gold goblet from Arthur’s loose fingers. She is going to need to be considerably more inebriated if she’s going to attempt this conversation, consequences be damned.

“You don’t have a brother,” Arthur points out, which is abut as much sense as Morgana is going to get out of him at the moment. His mouth is stained red, his eyes heavy. She is about to say you’re practically my brother when she realises it isn’t quite true. She’s grown up with Arthur, but she’s never viewed him as a sibling. Perhaps she should have done. “Being married to me won’t be so bad, will it?” Arthur asks.

“You’re insufferable,” Morgana replies, filling up the goblet again.

“Yes, well, you’re…” Arthur frowns. “So are you.”

Morgana leaves him crumpled there, taking her goblet of wine with her. Guinevere never tells, and later on, Arthur’s the one who gets the punishment from King Uther for stealing wine from the cellars.

He talks to her a lot less, once his headache has passed. Morgana insists to Guinevere that she’s glad.

Jack, Gwen, Ianto | 280 words | Set post 2x13

Every time he turns his back someone else disappears.

That, at least, is how he’s playing this. Determined not to remain culpable. There are inevitabilities and of course they happen and when they do they’ve nothing to do with him.

He’s spent most of his career at Torchwood playing with blamelessness; finding new ways to avoid acknowledging that he lives on always and no one else does.

“Does… time get new meaning?” Gwen asks, shreds of hesitancy in her tone. Her fingers drum on the warm ceramic of her coffee mug. “You have so much of it.”

Ianto is hovering, compulsively cleaning. At his most tired moments, Jack sometimes wonders if Ianto only misses Owen because he always made lots of mess, and then hates that even after all this time he still sort of thinks of Ianto as some kind of OCD robot. Maybe he shouldn’t have skipped that sensitivity training.

“Time looks smaller when you look back, and bigger when you look forward,” Jack responds. “The same as it is for everyone.”

Gwen looks disappointed, taking a mouthful of bitter coffee. Jack feels cruel again, but while he’s been playing with telling the truth recently, since two of his team members died and all, he can’t tell her this. He doesn’t remember most of what it was like to be just mortal, what it felt like to wake up and check a day off a finite list. He wasted so much of it and it was so long ago.

Jack lets himself be the silent bastard while Gwen sighs into her coffee and Ianto dusts and he thinks maybe he’s getting worse at the whole avoiding culpability thing.

Wednesday

Clyde/Luke | 290 words |

Somewhere along the line Luke is learning to fit in. Clyde is doing his best from a teenager perspective, so at least Luke talks like everyone else and manages to avoid the worst of his ‘social miscalculations’. He’ll never be cool, but at least he won’t be horrifically weird. And, much as Clyde hates to admit it, his own ‘cool’ status is dropping, the longer he hangs out with Maria and Luke. He decides it means he’s grown as a person, because he doesn’t actually care.

Sarah Jane is doing her best to make Luke normal by being a loving and dutiful mum and therefore not setting him up to be a messed-up psychopath in the future, which is always good. And Maria tends to just ignore the majority of Luke’s abnormalities, and is therefore far less critical than Clyde is ever willing to be. Between the three of them, Clyde likes to think that they’re doing a pretty good job.

Someone, though, is teaching Luke to dress better. Oh, he’s still not a fashion victim and probably no one else has even noticed, but Clyde can’t help it. The first time he sees Luke in a pair of skinny jeans, straight-cut and well-fitting, Clyde can’t help looking on them as some kind of reward for a good deed he hasn’t done yet.

He knows that it’s pretty much wrong to be appreciating the sight of his best friend in the first pair of flattering trousers he’s ever owned, but Clyde reasons that Luke has no idea that he’s doing it and since Maria seems to deliberately ignore the fact that Luke and Clyde are actually pretty good-looking, someone has to do it.

At least, that’s what he tells himself.

Gene/Alex | 266 words | Set post season 1

The world tastes hollow and Gene’s shrug is too eloquent.

“Sod this,” Alex mutters, her curls unfolding under the rain, make-up streaking down her cheeks. It’s her own mind and she can’t even control the weather inside it. If she makes herself ill from this then she is going to less than amused.

“Patience, Bolly.” Gene has sunglasses on despite the obvious, storm water speckling the lenses. Everyone has sensibly holed themselves up in Luigi’s with cheap red wine, but they’re out here, getting pissed on, and for a moment Alex has forgotten why.

“What are we doing, Gene?” she asks helplessly. “Just tell me, because I don’t bloody know any more.”

Gene’s lips curl and Alex is getting cold. She can’t work out how to get out of here; her parents are gone and Evan is a question she won’t answer and Gene Sodding Hunt is apparently the only thing she’s got left to her. For better or worse and he’s Sam Tyler’s hallucination anyway.

“We’ve got choices,” Gene explains on a sigh, and Alex feels a deluge of cold water run down her back. They got bored of screaming at each other, took it outside because an amused Ray suggested it, and now they’re here getting drenched for no good reason. “So we’re making choices, Bolly.”

Alex isn’t sure she feels better for this revelation; she nods curtly, shoulders trembling. Her own private world and she can’t control any of it.

“Come back inside,” Gene says, a hint of a give in his voice. Alex sighs and obeys because she’s run out of options.

Thursday

Cameron, Foreman | 236 words | Set during season 4

Their shoulders skim in the cafeteria, trays of sustenance and a feeble attempt to ignore each other that has the nurses laughing. They’ve always been this hospital’s favourite form of entertainment; who else has fucked up so badly? And, she reminds herself on a scowl, who else has fucked up so repeatedly?

“This is childish,” Foreman mutters, which is nearly amusing because they did this eighteen months ago, petty theft and a feud that only ended because Foreman almost died. Cameron knows this means she didn’t win, she conceded, and it’s sad because she had the moral high ground.

“You don’t have any right to judge me,” she sighs.

“You came back earlier,” Foreman points out.

“I wasn’t trying to prove your point,” she almost snaps. Chase – oh God, Robert – fold easily on everything; she suspects it’s partially because he knows they should break up but is too passive to fix that. It’s nice, Cameron reflects, to talk to someone unwilling to crack on the first sentence.

“So what point were you trying to prove?” Foreman all but demands, thrusting crumpled bills at their cashier. He’s buying her dinner, Cameron reflects, bemused.

“I just wanted out,” Cameron tells him. “I wasn’t trying to find redemption.”

Foreman’s mouth tightens, she thinks they were friends for a few months but possibly not any more.

“I knew it was too late,” she finishes acidly, and leaves him standing there.

Isaac, Daphne | 235 words | Spoilers for 3x01

The pages of his sketchbook flutter; Isaac skims his pencil in a final line and turns.

“I know you’re there,” he offers, and her laugh tinkles. Faster than a blink, faster than a thought, she steps into vision, white-blonde hair looking like she cut it herself one dull Sunday afternoon, a white-toothed grin curling across her lips.

“Of course you know,” Daphne scoffs, glancing around his cluttered loft. One of Isaac’s latest paintings is smeared, as though a strong wind blew past the paint; she grimaces. “Hope that wasn’t important.”

Isaac shrugs. “Well, I won’t know now,” he points out.

Daphne likes him because although he can’t catch her he can draw her; techniques borrowed from reading The Flash comics as a kid. Wind lines scored across images, or one person multiplied on a page, each second of her bleeding into the next. His predictions make her laugh, though she believes them. Even a girl who can outrun all possible threats doesn’t find herself entirely safe.

“Anything I should know?” she asks, ruffling her hair with impatient fingers.

“No,” Isaac responds, waving an arm out at his most recent canvases, none of which have Daphne’s tell-tale presence on them. “Not at the moment.”

“Good,” Daphne’s hands squeeze his shoulders, and she presses a soft, brief kiss to his cheek. “Can’t stop.”

She never does; Isaac reflects that if he had her gift, he wouldn’t either.

Friday

Susan, Peter | 279 words | Set at the end of Prince Caspian

What if clings stickily to the hem of her dress, slapping against her legs. Aslan’s eyes seem dark, too dark; when they were smaller, lions meant danger and teeth. Now, it has all become rather too complicated, too big for true comprehension. Peter’s sigh is regret taking flight; his fingers tighten a fraction in their lion’s mane, boots echoing on stone.

Susan wants to ask what she is supposed to do now, how she is supposed to live in the world; but she suspects she knows the answer already, and Aslan knows it too, and she will not like it voiced aloud. Once said, it’s real. And she cannot stand the way Peter will look at her, knowing the truth.

Peter’s jaw clenches, there’s anger in the angle of his spine. He’s more of a warrior than he can ever confess to; Susan saw the relief in his eyes when he first buckled his sword around his waist, the movements practised and never forgotten. He’s a schoolboy, still, but a king first and foremost. Susan doesn’t know where queen comes in her personality and it is a thought she cannot dwell on. There’s no point anymore.

The wind seems too cool, whipping through the castle courtyard, and reminding Susan that so many were slaughtered here for the sake of youth and arrogance. They have made so many mistakes that it almost hurts, the faith the Narnians still have in them.

For the best; no, but this can’t be, and Susan wonders how to explain to Aslan that leaving Narnia will break Peter, and who knows what it will do to her?

Susan gazes downwards, swallowing loss against her teeth.

Coffee Break Drabbles Take Two

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 07:12:44 GMT

Week Two

Monday

Jack/Suzie | 217 words |

Jack knows that he’s in love with her. Oh, not the be-all-and-end-all love, and he’s fully aware that he may not even remember her after she dies – which will be too early, because Torchwood demands that sacrifice – but, for the moment, there is something.

“You’re bored, and I’m lonely,” Suzie tells him, because it really can be that simple, if they want it to be.

“You’re such a romantic, Suze,” he returns, with plenty of teeth.

“And you’ve romanticised every relationship you’ve ever been in,” she counters, and for a moment looks sad. “‘Cause for a minute and a half, every time, you think it might be enough to fill the gap he left behind.”

Jack feels his jaw tense; he’s never told her about the Doctor, but Suzie is far from stupid. Flawed, yes, but never stupid.

“That’s enough,” he mutters, voice so sharp that even Owen would back off at this point. But Suzie isn’t Owen, and she won’t ever back down.

“You might as well admit it,” she shrugs. “We’re not him – whoever the fuck he was – and we just make that space bigger and colder.”

“Get out.” Jack’s voice is pale with fury, strained and trembling. Suzie says nothing as she walks away.

But he’ll still love her in the morning. For now.

Tuesday

Simon | 205 words | Set pre-show/film

His frown is fixed. “And she’s dangerous?”

“Well, yes.” His companion smiles. “Of course dangerous. There’d be no point if she wasn’t.”

This is true. You don’t stick needles in the head of a little girl in the hopes she’ll become docile. In the short term, perhaps; but there’ll be fallout, and there’ll be memories.

“How dangerous?” His voice is steady, for all that it catches at the edges. He’s this deep now, there’s no point in stepping back and quailing now. There are too many ripples from his actions; already, soldiers are questioning his parents – their parents – who remain stone-faced. Two children gone, and he hopes that somewhere along the line they care.

“Dangerous.” His companion’s teeth glitter, a wide and supposedly trustworthy smile. He’s anonymous, of course, no names and darkened drinking dens. “Unbelievably dangerous.”

He nods, accepting the slip of paper slid to him with the words phonetic on it.

“Don’t forget them.” His companion laughs, trembling and sadistic. “The day you do will be the day she rips your head off.”

“My sister wouldn’t do that.” He needs to believe it.

“She isn’t your sister any more.” The tone matter-of-fact. “Good luck.”

Simon shakes his head. He refuses to need it.

Wednesday

Merlin, Arthur | 210 words | Set post 1x01
[Yes, my friend Holly has pointed out I inadvertently quote The Devil Wears Prada. Oh well.]

“You saved my life,” Arthur says, somewhat blankly.

“Kind of wish I hadn’t, now,” Merlin replies with a wry grin. “Since my reward has been so very special.”

Arthur’s lip curls. “There are hundreds of people all over Albion who would kill to be in your position,” he says, all pretty arrogance and a self-assurance that Merlin thinks he would like to have.

Merlin privately hopes that they don’t try and kill him, but outwardly just says: “Oh, right, this is an honour. I keep forgetting.”

“I could have you imprisoned for saying that,” Arthur pushes, although there’s the slightest trace of amusement in his eyes. Merlin wonders if anyone ever stands up to Prince Arthur.

“You’ve already done that once this week,” Merlin points out. “At this rate we’re going to have to have a special cell set aside for me.”

“With your name engraved above the bars,” Arthur adds, though he’s smiling, which indicates he might not be serious. It would be nice, Merlin decides, if he wasn’t being serious.

There’s a moment that’s almost awkward, and Merlin concludes that Arthur’s just as disconcerted as he is.

“It’s going to be all right,” Merlin offers. “I’m capable of letting go of things. Unlike certain people.”

Arthur just scowls.

Claire/West | 235 words | Set… post season 2? How did season 2 end anyway?

Claire was never really all that good at the whole obeying instructions thing, and anyway this can be somebody else’s migraine.

“My father can fly,” she tells West on an August afternoon, the two of them sharing smoothies like all other boyfriends and girlfriends.

West gives her a confused look and she belatedly recalls that he doesn’t know about the whole adopted family mess; for a moment she misses the hell out of Zach. She should email him sometime, see if the Haitian got into his head or not. Is he wiped clean?

“I’m adopted,” she shrugs. She doesn’t bother name-dropping Nathan Petrelli because no one cares about him outside of New York. “My dad can fly and my mom can create fire from her hands.”

“That’s pretty cool,” West tells her. “I don’t think either of my parents can do anything like that.”

“Have you asked?” Claire enquires, grinning slightly. They both contemplate West walking in and going: so, special powers in the family? Anyone? “Maybe not,” she concedes.

She hasn’t told West about the whole New York Disaster, and probably won’t; the painter who drew her and Ted the desperate radioactive man and Sylar – oh God, Sylar. There are some things she doesn’t think West needs to know.

“My father can fly,” she repeats one last time, and mentally adds: and you sure as hell better not turn out to be my brother.

Thursday

Slight Benvolio/Mercutio | 212 words | Set pre-play

There are roses growing across his mother’s balcony, and Benvolio turns away, sighing. Not today, at any rate.

“You are melancholy,” Mercutio observes later, a smirk listing across his lips. He’s dangerous, Mercutio; dancing dark eyes and a seeming incomprehension of the word ‘no’. He can be a welcome relief, but a lot of the time he’s just exhausting. A liability. Benvolio insists to himself that he does not love Mercutio for it.

“And there’s a word I did not think you knew,” Benvolio replies, shrugging off the arm laid deliberately across his shoulders.

Mercutio purrs softly, like a cat. “Bitter, too,” he says. “Careful, or I will not help you cheer up.”

Benvolio allows himself a glare, turning away from his friend. If ‘friend’ is the word to use to describe Mercutio, and it isn’t. ‘Responsibility’ might perhaps be closer to the mark.

“So sour,” Mercutio pushes, slinging his arm around Benvolio’s shoulders. His fingertips catch Benvolio’s cheek, soft and sudden.

“Get off,” Benvolio mutters, lips pursed in a scowl. He can’t look – won’t look – and he thinks of flowers and balconies and all that he cannot have.

“One smile,” Mercutio coaxes. “One smile and I will stop.”

Benvolio cracks and lets his lips move; he wishes it weren’t so easy.

Coffee Break Drabbles

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:58:32 GMT

Basically, I buy at least one thing every day from the branch of Costa three doors down from my work, and I can’t stop myself. However, they give you irrationally huge receipts, so I’ve made the decision to write drabbles on the back of the receipts so I don’t just collect them and then have them lying around.

Week One

Monday

Owen, Ianto | 152 words | Set between seasons 1 & 2.

Ianto blames Jack, because that seems to be his default setting, and it just makes Owen angrier because the whole damn universe doesn’t need to revolve around their captain just because Ianto’s does.

“I’m tired,” Ianto is finally pushed into admitting, though it’s only pieces of the lie because in reality he feels so tired and empty that there probably aren’t words to describe it. Owen’s not getting involved because he refuses to acknowledge any of it. He will not become Ianto’s pillar of support; they still don’t like each other, after all.

“This has to stop,” he snaps, “You have to stop sitting around blaming him for his conspicuous absence and find another way to spend your time. A new hobby. Like origami. That seems lame enough for you.”

Ianto smiles wanly. “It could be worse,” he points out, “I could be blaming you.”

Owen’s shoulder aches. He doesn’t mention it.

Tuesday

Dan, Rufus | 186 words |

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

It’s a rhetorical question; you’re just supposed to nod and look repentant and focus on your shoes and hope that sooner or later the state you’re in will be forgotten.

With hindsight, and when he’s considerably more sober, Dan will remember this. Unfortunately, right now, he’s a little too out of it to escape to his room and hide from his dad’s glare.

“I was trying to get Serena back,” he suggests, though it sounds pathetic even to his ears. “I wouldn’t have gotten into Chuck’s limo under any other circumstances. Honestly.”

His dad continues to look disapproving and Dan belatedly recalls that his dad is a rock star and all and has therefore probably told these kind of lies before. It’s really late and Dan stinks like vodka and his school tie is probably still in Chuck’s jacket pocket and he suspects he’s got a horribly visible hickey. Jenny is in the doorway mouthing you are in so much trouble with a grin.

“It’s already all over Gossip Girl,” his dad adds, with a trace of amusement.

Wednesday

Lucy, The Master | 182 words

She thinks that her teeth might be bleeding, or maybe it’s her nose or she’s actually fine and it’s all an hallucination like when the bugs are crawling down the walls and Harry peels off his face to reveal he’s a Toclafane just like the rest of them. Or maybe it actually happened and now she’s lying there with her legs slit open and her wedding ring cold on the floor.

“Remember clouds, Lucy?”

She wants to remember but largely all she’s got now is the permanent sunlight and the Valiant is proving that perhaps it isn’t after all. The Bastard might be more suitable, but then God knows how they’d get the paintwork re-done.

“Want to dance, my love?”

She would call him a liar but she already knows the punishment for that; she feels wet all over but she can’t have bled that much because she wouldn’t still be alive unless she isn’t. And that’s a whole other story, her lips curling back over scarlet teeth.

“Remember when you said ‘yes’, darling?”

She shakes her head. She won’t, you know.

Horatio, Laertes | 196 words | Set during Act… 4?

“You are too angry,” Horatio presses.

Laertes answers with a curled lip; he’s too proud, considering, and he always did burn a little hotter than the rest of them. It’s his father’s fault, of course, but no one is going to say that. Especially not now.

“I cannot be ‘too angry’,” Laertes snarls back. “The Prince has murdered my father.”

Of all the lies floating about, this one has to prove true. Horatio was there for the blood trails on the stone floor and Hamlet’s determined madness; Horatio claims to be his sole confidante but even so he’s not sure exactly what means what any more.

“It’s not that simple,” Horatio attempts, though he knows that whatever he says is superfluous. Laertes is set on his path; oh, duty, and revenge that cannot be undone.

“You defend him, even now?” Laertes demands, and there’s something like hurt in his eyes but Horatio cannot think about that because there is an army of men outside shouting Laertes’ name and too much blood will be spilled.

“I do,” Horatio mumbles, and it comes out as a flat apology, although of course it is too late for it now.

Thursday

[In unrelated notes, the gigantic decaf coffee I ordered turned out not to be decaf so I was reallyreallyreally ill. Blah.]
Isaac, Peter | 200 words | Set during 0.7%.

It’s not so much the choice you make as the choice you don’t make.

“You should be running,” Peter points out with the sharp grace of a man who doesn’t like his rival but doesn’t want to see him dead. Isaac inwardly laughs, a bitter sound; they’re not rivals of anything any more. There are still smudges of Simone’s blood on his bedsheets; right, but she’s in Europe, of course.

“I know,” he mumbles peaceably.

“Sylar is going to kill you,” Peter insists, as though this is something Isaac has entirely failed to notice.

“Did you draw it too?”

Peter nods awkwardly, pulling crumpled paper from his pocket. The guy sketches better than he paints, Isaac reflects, staring down at himself, mouth open in a crimson scream.

“I’d hide it,” Isaac remarks, handing the picture back. “You wouldn’t want the cops to think this was pre-meditated or anything.”

“That’s it?” Peter asks. His voice catches.

“Save the world,” Isaac reminds him, uncomfortably patting his shoulder. Peter looks like he wants to hug him for a second, then thinks better of it. “Don’t you dare save me,” Isaac warns, turning back to his paints.

Peter says nothing, and then he’s gone.

Don Giovanni/Leporello | 226 words | Set pre-opera

“Master,” Leporello begins, uncertainty rich in his voice, “Master, this is stupid.”

“Shut up,” Don Giovanni responds, and Leorello feels a sharp pinch to the inside of his left thigh. He bites back a sound of pain, trying to look as inconspicuous as he can with his master concealed between his legs.

“Why can’t we keep running?” Leporello asks plaintively.

“Because they will catch us,” Giovanni replies, sounding exasperated, if somewhat muffled. He is hidden by their baggage and crouched contentedly between Leporello’s thighs as though this is an everyday occurrence. It is not. If it were, Leporello would surely have left by now. He tenses his fingers against the top of the crumbling wall before him, keeping Giovanni out of view. He can feel his master breathing against his legs, the heat bleeding through his breeches. He bites his tongue, hard.

“Do you like me down here?” Don Giovanni asks conversationally, and his palm is gliding too high on the inside of Leporello’s leg.

“No,” Leporello grits out, and he can see men approaching, flaming torches held aloft.

“Liar,” Giovanni responds, and bites near the top of his thigh. Leporello winds a lock of hair tight around his finger to keep from crying out, unable to hide his physical reaction. Giovanni laughs softly, and Leporello grazes his fingers against the stone pretending not to hear.

Friday

Thirteen, Amber | 184 words | Set pre-hiring in season 4.

Little girls always fall apart too fast.

Thirteen keeps her head bowed over coffee, trying to remind herself that it’s a game. It’s never a game to them, the pieces, but still. None of it matters. None of it’s meant to matter.

“You look tired,” Amber observes. Thirteen could call her Cut-Throat Bitch like everyone else does but they’ve all got their masks and maybe it’s better not to label too early.

“I’m not cracking,” Thirteen replies simply, though perhaps it’s actually a lie. They’re all cracking but no one will admit to it first and anyway, at the end of the line there might be a shiny gold star or some kind of enlightenment because God knows there won’t be any shreds of dignity left there.

Thirteen feels doomed a lot of the time, though she still won’t take the test. It’s a rational fear that she can’t seem to function within.

“Do you think you’re going to win?” Thirteen asks, with shreds of curiosity. She stares at Amber’s shoes, disinterested in facial expressions.

Amber laughs softly; she’ll never hand over that weakness.

Thursday drabbles...

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:34:55 GMT

Drabbles for femslash100, challenge #119 "Demon"

Demon ~ Tosh/Gwen ~ 200

There’s something in Tosh.

It looks out through her eyes and it breathes in her lungs and it clenches her hands into fists against the glass, but it is not Tosh.

Owen won’t go downstairs. Jack doesn’t smile any more. And Ianto makes it coffee and takes the mug down resolutely every morning even though it’s never drunk and more often than not winds up smashed on the floor.

Gwen sits, and watches, and says nothing.

{When Jack showed her a Weevil, he told her to look into its eyes, see where it wasn’t human. She looks into Tosh’s eyes and dark flames stare back.}

She says: “Let her go”.

And the thing that isn’t Tosh throws back its head and laughs, electric light glinting off its teeth, the sound harsh and ugly.

A week later, Gwen opens the cell door. {She remembers Carys, the pheromones in the air}

She whispers: “You need to stop this now”.

{Maybe it has mercy}

The creature moves forward, pinning Gwen against the brickwork {this has happened before, remember?}. Fingernails rake up the backs of Gwen’s thighs and when it kisses her she tastes emptiness, despair.

Wherever Tosh is, she isn’t in there anymore.

Demon ~ Claire/Ana Lucia ~ 100

There’s something in the jungle, something ripping up trees and ripping up people, and Claire’s hands shake on the cradle. Aaron moves in his sleep and she closes her eyes as the sounds get closer.

There seem to be too many things that all want her dead, and at night the trees crack and sway and she closes her eyes for a moment.

The not knowing is often worse.

Ana, sitting beside her with sand on her palms, says : “are you scared?”

Claire raises her chin, determined.

“No.”

Ana smiles {she knows}.

“Good girl.”

...But it’s still out there.

Because I wanted to.

Spoilers For X-Men 3.
X-Men (movieverse) ~ Wolverine/Rogue ~ 190

She knows that he’s drunk when she pulls open the door, and she looks deeply unimpressed about it. He can’t blame her. Six years of silence and he turns up so out of it he can hardly see straight.

He says: hey darlin’ like the whole thing is going to be ok. She scowls in reply, but lets him walk in anyway.

She left them all behind when she got rid of her powers, and he thinks he might still be hurt by that, somewhere deep down, somewhere silent. Her hair is dark now, shorter, she and Bobby cracked under the strain years ago.

She says: I don’t want to talk to you when you’re like this.

You don’t want to talk to me at all, he reminds her, as though she can have forgotten.

She glares at him, {bare} fingers brushing the back of the couch.

Why are you here, Logan?

She’s older, prettier. He looks exactly the same. He smirks, and wonders how she feels about him now.

I think you know what I want, sweetheart.

She swallows, anger slipping momentarily, but she doesn’t tell him to go.

First Post.

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:24:21 GMT

It's taken me long enough to get here, right? I'm bored and it's raining, so here are 4 completely random drabbles.

Fandom: House MD
Pairing: Wilson/Cameron
Word Count: 100
Notes: Set after "All In"

Red

One of Wilson’s cufflinks is gone (probably forever) and Cameron has his bow tie wrapped around her left wrist for reasons he is no longer sure about.

The sky is pinky-orange above them, reminding them both it’s a new day and neither of them have slept. Cameron stumbles in her heels, pulling him closer by the open collar of his white shirt, laughing slightly. Her lipstick is smeared, and he can taste it, waxy, on his own mouth.

It is six o’clock in the morning. Wilson presses Cameron against his car; her red dress is surprisingly cool under his hands.

Fandom: Lost
Character: Shannon
Word Count: 100
Notes: For 26_drabbles, "Over"

Pink

Shannon tries not to think about the life that isn’t hers to want.

[Because Sabrina took the only thing Shannon ever really cared enough to dream about.]

She doesn’t have a lot of talents. Spoilt little rich girls with blonde hair don’t need them; they don’t even need to ask (because they always get).

Shannon got lots of things but she didn’t get the one thing she actually wanted.

[She’s still got her first pair of ballet slippers, faded and worn and barely rose-coloured any more, in the bottom of her closet. To remind herself of the futility of wishing.]

Fandom: CSI:NY
Pairing: Lindsay/Danny
Word Count: 100
Notes: For fanfic100, "Blue". Set post season 3 finale "Snow Day"

Blue

She can’t look him in the eye for weeks.

Even when his fingers are mended and the gashes on his face have almost healed, Lindsay finds it easier to watch the line of Danny’s shoulders or the shape of his mouth forming words than actually meet his gaze.

Every time she does, all she can think is: but they could have killed you and all of this is my fault.

No one blames her, no one’s even considered blaming her, and Danny still kisses her like nothing’s changed, but it has.

And she never laughs when he’s around. Not anymore.

Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen, Ianto
Word Count: 100

Orange

The drink is fire-coloured. When Ianto sips it, it tastes quite a lot like fire too, right down to the charcoal-y aftertaste. He lets out a very undignified choking sound, deciding that next time he is invited to a party where aliens are doing the catering, he will not accept Owen’s challenge to try and drink at least one mouthful of everything on offer. It cannot end well.

Owen’s eyes are glowing with gleeful malevolence, and Ianto’s head is spinning. But he’s not going to give up.

“Right,” he says, pointing to a lavender-coloured liquid, “I’ll have some of that.”

PROMPT TABLES

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:11:47 GMT

For 26_drabbles. Fruits Basket: Hatori Sohma.

A.	Angry	B.	Blue	C.	Complete	D.	Dark	E.	Echo
F.	Fear	G.	Goodbye	H.	Hold	I.	Ice	J.	Jealousy
K.	Kiss	L.	Luck	M.	Marks	N.	Never	O.	Over
P.	Panic	Q.	Quiet	R.	Rational	S.	Subtle	T.	Two
U.	Unbearable	V.	Vulnerable	W.	Winter	X.	X-rated	Y.	Yes
Z.	Zero

26_drabbles. Lost: Shannon Rutherford.

A.	Angry	B.	Blue	C.	Complete	D.	Dark	E.	Echo
F.	Fear	G.	Goodbye	H.	Hold	I.	Ice	J.	Jealousy
K.	Kiss	L.	Luck	M.	Marks	N.	Never	O.	Over
P.	Panic	Q.	Quiet	R.	Rational	S.	Subtle	T.	Two
U.	Unbearable	V.	Vulnerable	W.	Winter	X.	X-rated	Y.	Yes
Z.	Zero