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roadrunnermuses2013-08-02 05:25 pm
iluvroadrunner6) wrote in roadrunnermuses2013-08-02 05:25 pm
Entry tags:
requests } { because these actually do help me sometimes
The rules are simple. I have a calendar of sorts. Each day has a word. A 100-200 word drabble will be written for that word on that day. If you would like to claim a specific pairing or combo for that particular word, feel free to comment below and tell me, and I will add it to my list.
Given how little I've actually written this year, I'm hoping to actually get this done. We'll see what happens, but these are set for September 2013.
They don't have to be characters I actively write for, they can just be for anything in fandoms you know I know. I will note all claimed prompts in this general area, I'm just too lazy to make a set up right now. GO! Prompt! Win!
Word Count:
Given how little I've actually written this year, I'm hoping to actually get this done. We'll see what happens, but these are set for September 2013.
They don't have to be characters I actively write for, they can just be for anything in fandoms you know I know. I will note all claimed prompts in this general area, I'm just too lazy to make a set up right now. GO! Prompt! Win!
01. Stefan/Bo ~ for
02. Dean & Diana ~ for
03. Bela/Lana ~ for
04. Stiles/Cora ~ for
05. Steve/Peggy ~ for
06. Neal & Anna ~ for
07. Stefan/Rebekah ~ for
08. Flack/Angell ~ for
09. Tess & Elektra ~ for
10. Alek & Ava ~ for
11. Max/Dean ~ for
12. Don Flack ~ for
13. Kol/Bonnie ~ for
14. Bo/Tyler ~ for
15. Tyler/Caroline ~ for
16. Piper & Christopher ~ for
17. Cassie & Cas ~ for
18. Sam/Allison ~ for
19. Alec McDowell ~ for
20. Charlie & Dylan ~ for
21. Maxwell & Lois ~ for
22. Dean/Christine ~ for
23. Cora Hale ~ for
24. Melinda & Penny ~ for
25. Isaac/Caroline ~ for
26. Dean & Tony ~ for
27. Anna/Neal ~ for
28. Cordelia & Elena ~ for
29. Kara/Lana ~ for
30. Stefan/Cordelia ~ for
you don't have to do all of these if somebody else wants these particular numbers
14 - Bo/Tyler
18 - Sam/Allison
25 - Isaac/Caroline
ecophobia ~ post-beyond the rift ~ 890 words
There hadn’t been one in the previous one. Stefan had looked one night, when he was trying to figure out just how different these two universes were. It was a startling realization then, to know that a place that had caused so much pain for his friends, his family, himself, simply never existed here. There was no Founding Families, on Original Family, none of the magic that had scarred the land and turned it from a place that could have been beautiful to a place that people flee from.
(Instead, people fled from Chicago, while Stefan spent weeks reveling in the fear and excitement that a city like that had to offer. He became one of the things they flee from and he enjoyed every moment of it.)
It’s equally startling to find it again. It’s sometime in the forties, and they’re passing through Virginia on the way to Washington DC and he sees it on one of the signs.
It’s funny to think how two little words can come to mean so much. This Mystic Falls is not his home, nor Rebekah’s. It’s not the place where they were both turned into monsters. But it is still a place that calls to him with a morbid kind of curiosity, an unnamed pull that tells him that he should go, see for himself. Maybe that’s how all those vampires and werewolves wound up in Mystic Falls in the first place. There was something about that sign that told them to go.
He doesn’t mention it to her until they arrive at the hotel that night, sitting at the bar as they keep an eye out for dinner. After his year in Chicago, he’s not interested in going back to animal blood again, especially knowing that anything can happen. But he’s at least managing drinking human blood a little better than he used to. That doesn’t stop the discomfort that comes with feeding off people directly. Blood bags at least had a way of guaranteeing that no one was going to die.
(Snatch, eat and erase has never truly come easily to him, but he’s learning to deal with it, even without Damon here to teach him.)
“There’s a Mystic Falls in this universe.” He keeps his voice calm, as though he’s nearly been practicing it since he found out existed. “Maybe about an hour from here.”
“Is there?” Her voice is cool, acting like she doesn’t care, but he can tell she does by the way she looks away, scanning the faces of their potential victims. “How nice for it.”
His eyebrows go up a bit as he takes another sip of his drink. “You’re not at all curious?”
“Why would I?” She flashes a look back at him. “Why would I want to go back to the place where my parents killed me? Where my mother died?” Killed by her brother out of rage for being cursed.
“Because it’s your home.”
“You say that as though I’ve had one.” She picks up her drink from the bar, taking a long sip. “Even if I did, it isn’t this one. This isn’t our Mystic Falls, Stefan. Even if this place did have a Stefan Salvatore and a Rebekah Mikaelson, what would we do if we ran into them there?” Stefan glances away at that and her eyebrows go up. “That’s what you’re hoping, isn’t it? That there are other versions of us. What, are you hoping in another fifty or sixty years there’s going to be another version of Elena running around?”
Stefan’s lips purse at that, glancing back towards the room. It’s not Elena he’s missing. It’s not Elena that this world feels unbalanced without. He doesn’t have to say anything either – he and Rebekah have been together long enough at this point that she could read him even better than she could in the twenties.
“You’re hoping for another Damon.” Her tone is softer, mostly because he knows that she misses her brothers just as much as he misses his, and she’s had longer to miss them. She swallows a bit, before signaling the bartender to refill her drink. “There are no vampires here, Stefan. At least, none that we’ve seen. If Damon was here, he’s long dead.”
“He could have had a family,” he whispers softly. “I know … I know it’s probably nothing. At the same time, there’s a part of me that needs to know.”
To see the world that they could have had, if Katherine hadn’t entered their lives. To see if they even existed at all.
Rebekah glances to him uncomfortably for a moment before deciding to let the subject drop. It isn’t a yes and it isn’t a no, but a silent request for time to adjust to the idea. To going back to that place and all it means to both of them.
“I was thinking the banker tonight.”
The one who treated her like a coat girl when they were on their way into the bar and had been eying her salaciously ever since. As far as Stefan is concerned, he has no complaints.
“Sounds good to me.” He pushes off the stool and extends a hand to her. “Shall we?”
She smiles as she takes his hand. “We shall.”
meraki ~ the vampire diaries/lost girl ~ 856 words
Bo comes home to find Tyler sketching away, the sketchpad balanced on one knee as he sits on the couch. At first she’s surprised – she didn’t know he could draw. She wheels her way around the couch, before leaning over his shoulder, and then she was surprised again.
“You’re good.”
He glances back at her with a grin before shrugging. “I’m a little rusty. But I kind of … got the urge today.”
“Rusty or not, still good.” She takes one glance at it before turning and heading back over to the kitchen. “Who is she?”
“My mom,” he says softly, leaning the pad back a bit as he does. “She’s been on my mind lately. I miss her.”
Bo pours herself a cup of coffee before making her way back again, perching on the arm of the couch behind him. “That’s natural. I’m sure wherever she is, she misses you too.”
Tyler watches the drawing for a moment before nodding and flipping the page to a blank one. “Yeah, she probably does.”
She gives his shoulder a squeeze, before reaching for the phone, thinking nothing of it. “I’m gonna order a pizza. You hungry?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
***
A few days later, Bo’s out on a job when she gets a panicked call from Kenzi telling her to come home like yesterday. Thinking that it’s probably someone out for revenge (because that’s Bo’s life at this point), she and Tamsin book it back home, trying to get there before someone (namely Kenzi, Tyler can take a lot) gets hurt. What they find when they get there is not what they were expecting.
The walls of their house are covered in drawings. People, creatures, places, everything you can possibly think of, one after the other. In the middle of it all, are Tyler and Kenzi, both looking fairly panicked.
“I can’t stop,” he spits out, hand still drawing as he does. “I’ve been trying for hours and I just … keep going.”
Both Fae blink at him in confusion. “Did you touch something? Did you meet anyone new?”
“I – I don’t know.” Tyler’s clearly freaking out and Bo can catch Tamsin rolling her eyes in her peripheral vision.
“Alright, slow down vamppuppy.” She steps forward, grabbing Tyler by the chin and meeting her eyes. “Let’s see what’s wrong with you.” She holds his gaze intensely for a moment, before his shoulders relax and she shrugs. “Oh, he’ll be fine.”
“You know how to stop it?”
“No, but I know what it is. He ran into a muse.”
“What?” Bo frowns. “Like the Morrigan?”
“Evony is Leanan Sidhe. They feed on inspiration and turns it into insanity. Muses just feed on inspiration. They keep the artist going for as long as they can until they wear themselves out. Since Tyler’s kind of indestructible, we just have to wait for the muse to get bored.”
Bo and Tyler just blink at her for a moment. “That’s your plan?” Bo doesn’t approve. “And what happens in the meantime, Tyler just draws his hand off?”
Tamsin shrugs. “Unless you want to go find the muse?” Bo stares at her, with her eyebrows raising and Tamsin makes a face. “Really?” Bo’s look intensifies. “Fine, we’ll go, but muses are finicky. You might not be able to convince her.”
Bo is already turning on her heel and heading out the door, Kenzi right behind her. “Coming?”
Tamsin sighs, before shaking her head. “Alright, sure, not like I have anything better to do.”
***
A few hours and one beat up muse later, Tyler has use of his hands again and they’re at the Dal to celebrate. The beers are on Tyler, and Tamsin and Kenzi have wandered off to shoot pool while the two of them drink to Tyler not being forced to draw everything he sees.
“I owe you one. Again.”
She shrugs as she takes a sip of her beer. “It’s what friends do.”
“Still. Thank you.” He pauses before reaching into his jacket and pulling out a folded piece of paper. “I told Kenzi she could burn most of the other ones but … ” He slides the paper across the table to her. “ … I thought you two might like this one.”
Bo pauses, before unfolding the piece of paper. In it was a sketch of Bo and Kenzi sitting on their couch, just taking advantage of a moment of quiet to sit and watch TV. She can’t help the smile that crosses her face, and she nods.
“This is lovely, Tyler. Thank you.” She folds it up and slips it into her jacket pocket. “Consider it one less you owe me.”
He laughs a bit. “You sure? One crappy drawing in exchange for bailing my ass out?”
“I consider it an investment in a budding artist,” she grins. “Besides, I also consider it an ass worth bailing.”
“Fair enough,” he nods, clinking his glass against hers, before nodding back towards the pool table. “I’m gonna go watch Kenzi school Tamsin in pool.”
“Tell her I said good luck.”
“You got it.”
fanaa ~ supernatural/teen wolf ~ 1638 words
It isn’t until the arrow hits the door frame next to him that he snaps to attention, one hand pushing the hair out of his eyes while searching for the sign of the threat. He could hear the tension of the bow being drawn again, but it’s the voice to his left that is far too familiar for his tastes.
“Sam?”
His head snaps in the direction of the voice he hasn’t heard in nearly ten years, and the expression in his face is a mix of confusion and surprise, but it’s definitely happy. (It feels strange, after everything he’s lost, but he still knows happiness when he feels it.)
“Lydia?”
The redhead is standing over his brother shotgun aimed at his back, looking at Sam like he’s something that shouldn’t be there – an unexpected variable in whatever math problem she’s trying to solve. His brother starts to move, reaching his hand up on the direction of the gun, and she cocks it without even looking, the slide moving against the barrel with a dry crack.
“Don’t even think about it,” she quips, before readdressing Sam again. “What are you doing here?”
“I … live here,” Sam repeats lamely. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re here for the research.” The second voice comes in the direction the arrow came in, and his eyes follow the trajectory back to its source. The dark haired huntress gives him a small soft smile before nodding. “Hi, Sam.”
“Hey, Allison.”
There’s a beat of silence, before Dean’s voice comes from his right again. “While I’m sure this is a really touching reunion, can I get off the floor now?”
“I don’t know,” Lydia fires back as she withdraws the shotgun, taking a step back towards the tables. “Can you?”
Dean rolls onto his back as Sam moves closer, extending a hand to help him up, and he grins lazily at his brother. “I like her already.”
“Dude, you are in way over your head,” Sam sighs, before glancing back to Allison. He hasn’t seen her in years, not since Stanford, and in that time they’ve both gotten older, but in a lot of ways they’re still the same, still holding on to those pieces that made them who they are. When he looks at her, he can almost feel like the dumbass nineteen year-old he was when he left her.
It’s probably the smartest decision he’s ever made.
“This is my brother, Dean. Dean, this is Allison and Lydia – they’re old friends from Stanford.” He ignores the look on his brother’s face that clearly says you knew hunters at Stanford and didn’t say shit?, and moves on. “Why doesn’t Dean make breakfast, and the we can see if we can help you with that research?” he suggests, and Lydia shrugs, already wandering towards one area of the bunker’s archives to browse. Allison lowers the bow before nodding.
“Still can’t cook at all, can you?”
He grins, before shaking his head. “Not even a little.”
***
After breakfast, Dean wanders off with Lydia to track down the information on the monster she and Allison are hunting while Sam and Allison are left to catch up. It’s a slow process, as neither one of them seems to know where to start, but eventually Sam manages to find the words as they wander through the stacks.
“So how did you know about this place anyway? The guy I got the key from made it seem like it was some heavily guarded secret.”
“Gerard was a Man of Letters,” she replies simply, and he leaves it where it is. He knows Allison’s relationship with her grandfather wasn’t at it’s best when he knew her, and having met the guy, he can only hope that things have stayed that way. “He … didn’t really jive with their ideals so they kicked him out, but it wasn’t before he learned where everything was. He passed the information down to my dad, and dad told me when I was having trouble finding the research.”
Sam nods a bit, swallowing his fingers continue trailing over the books. “And Lydia’s hunting with you, now? I thought she was going to win a Fields’ medal or something.”
“Oh, she will. She likes to multitask and she speaks Latin better than I do. It’s … good to have her around.” He can feel her watching him as she talks, eyeing him with no small measure of curiosity. “So where have you been, by the way? You’ve been pretty much off the grid since … ” Her voice trails off and he looks up at her with a small, weak smile.
“Since Jess.” He nods. “I’ve … been around. The first couple years were pretty bad but things seem to be evening out.” A beat. “Kind of.”
“Define pretty bad.”
Sam takes a deep breath before turning to face her. “Did you hear about the demon release back in oh-seven.”
“Yeah, someone opened a gate to Hell. Or at least that was the rumor.” She pauses, and looks back at him with wide eyes. “You were there?”
He nods. “And that big giant beam of light in the sky near Baltimore in oh-nine? That was me too. And the cold spots in Detroit, and the weird shift in creatures back in 2010? Because of something I did.”
Allison digests all of this, before looking up on him with wide eyes. “Do I need to know why all of this was?”
Sam lets out a bitter sound that could have been a laugh before shaking his head. “No. You don’t.”
“That wasn’t really a question, Sam,” she crosses her arms in front of her chest as she takes another step closer to him. “You dump me because you don’t want hunting in your life anymore, and ten years later I find you elbow deep in the middle of some pretty serious crap? I think I deserve the right to know what changed.”
“Nothing,” he replies, turning back to face her again. “Nothing changed.” Hunting has always been about revenge and survival and … drowning in it until it swallows you whole, but the only difference is this time he let himself drown. This time, he wasn’t fighting and trying to claw his way to the surface so that he could get away from it all. “I just stopped trying to fight it.”
“And you don’t have to fight it alone.”
“Allison, everyone I’ve ever cared about is dead.” The words are simple and cold and he hates the way he has to say them but it’s the only way he knows to drive the point home. “Everyone. Except for Dean and that really isn’t saying anything.” He pauses. “And except for you. You were involved with a Winchester and you got out clean, which honestly, is a miracle. So hunter or not, I’m not going to drag you into this if I don’t have to.”
“You don’t get to make that choice,” she replies simply, reaching past him to grab one of the books they need before turning on her heel. “But since I haven’t seen you in ten years, I’m definitely not going to run off and get myself killed for you.” The way she says it makes it sound like she’s teasing him, but he can tell she’s serious. And there’s no disguising the relief that slumps through his shoulders as she speaks. He’s lost too many people to bother to try and cover it now.
However, she stops before she gets too far, turning back to face him and jabbing the corner of the book into his chest. “But that also doesn’t mean I’m going to let you get yourself killed either. So if you need the help … ” She lets the sentence trail off, eyes focused on his and he stays quiet for a long time, fighting the inevitable we won’t that should come out.
He lies instead.
“We will,” he nods, getting to be a better and better liar the longer he does it. “I promise.”
“Good.” She turns with a bit of a bounce to herself, before making her way back down the aisle again. “Come on. We should see if Lydia has crushed your brother’s ego completely yet.”
Sam smirks a bit, a little too much fondness creeping into his features, so a part of him is glad she can’t see it. “I hope not. I want to watch.”
***
Six months later, he just fell short of completing the trials (just short of dying – again), Heaven is in shambles, and Sam looks like shit warmed over. Dean needs to find Castiel, it’s all he can think about, and Sam is in no shape to start a nationwide manhunt for an angel who may not even be an angel anymore.
So they compromise. He finds Allison’s number off the card she wrote it on before she left (he planned to throw it out, planned to pretend that she was never there), and he calls, holed up in the bunker where he knows it’s safe and he can at least count on nothing inside it trying to kill him. Now he just had to make sure there isn’t something inside him.
The phone rings twice before she answers. “Hello?”
“Hey,” he says softly, making a very valiant effort not to sound as bad as he feels. “I need help.”
metanoia ~ teen wolf/the vampire diaries ~ 698 words
That was a thing.
Caroline sneaks her way back to her room at the Stilinskis after, trying to calm down and try to sort her thoughts back into order. It’s not that she doesn’t like Isaac or even feel for him in that way. She just started out trying to help him, and now, all of the sudden, she took things too far. Like the way she took things too far with Tyler, only this time she doesn’t have Matt as an excuse. She doesn’t have her relationship with his best friend as a shadow to hide behind.
(Mostly because his best friend was in love with another girl. If Scott actually counts. … She doesn’t even know who his best friend is. Reason #753 why last night was a bad idea.
Even if it wasn’t in the ways where it actually counted.)
She doesn’t even have the chance to change out of her walk of shame attire when Stiles is already at the bedroom door, arms crossed in front of his chest and looking peeved. She’s gotten used to that look from him, ever since she moved into the guest bedroom, an annoyed, peeved off look seemed to cross his face when she talked to any of his friends, or helped with werewolf stuff, or just generally reminded him that she was stronger and better and faster and not the Caroline who only cared about extracurricular activities and shoes and boys. Usually they only last for a minute, because even he can see that she’s better this way, but this seems to last longer than that.
So long, in fact, that she manages to undo the straps of her shoes and grab her robe to go shower and he’s still standing there, blocking her way. “What, Stiles?”
“Scott called.”
Damn werewolf hearing. It’s written all over her face too, which only makes Stiles’s peeved face stand out even more.
“Isaac. You slept with Isaac.”
“You make it sound like he’s not a hot, athletic, member of the lacrosse team who could actually be attractive to the female gender. Isaac must think you’re a real friend.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” Stiles grits his teeth before taking a step forward into the room and shutting the door behind him. “He’s not one of those guys that you can play your usual games with, Caroline.”
“My usual games?” Caroline is liking this conversation less and less as they go on. “Wow. Guess I was wrong about thinking we were friends too.” She gives his shoulder a bit of a push – she’s a vampire and he weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet, it doesn’t really take much – before trying to push her way past him to the bathroom. “Get out of my way.”
“No, listen!” He grabs her arm and turns her to face him again. “Isaac and I aren’t exactly what you call close, but he’s been through a lot. And he’s part of Scott’s pack which means I need to look out for him.”
“And you think I’m going to hurt him? Why is it so hard for you to believe that I would be actually interested in him? That I might care about him as more than a friend.”
“Do you?”
There’s a pause as she tries to sort out the answer to that particular question and Stiles gives her a look. “Not supposed to be a stumper, Care.”
“I don’t know!” She huffs a bit as she turns to face him. “I don’t know what I feel. I just know I don’t feel nothing, so if you could give me some space to figure that out, and keep your nose out of my sex life, I would appreciate it.”
Stiles lips press into a thin line, before he shakes his head and lets her go. “Just … don’t hurt him, okay?”
Caroline can’t even say she would never. Because she’s hurt Matt, she’s hurt her mom. Hurting people is kind of what she does these days. But she can at least say this much:
“I don’t want to.”
She hates that that is the best she can do.
no subject
11 - Max/Dean
floccinaucinihilipilification ~ csi: ny ~ 365 words
“You have a problem with my kitchen, Angell?”
“I have a problem with the things in your kitchen, Flack,” she replies pointedly. She pushes back the sleeves on his dress shirt before reaching for one of the contraptions sitting on his counter. “What the hell is this?”
“A breakfast sandwich maker,” he says matter-of-factly.
“A breakfast sandwich maker.”
“I like a good breakfast sandwich,” he says with a shrug, before moving closer to take it from her. “You put everything you want in here, and it cooks it up in five minutes.”
“And you couldn’t just … make it all yourself?”
“And pass up the opportunity to buy something that can do it all for me? Why would I do something like that?” He’s mostly kidding. Mostly. “Sometimes I can’t sleep when I’m too wound up from a case, so I’ll watch infomercials. Some of the stuff is actually useful.”
Some of the stuff winds up in a closet and never used again, but that’s another matter entirely.
“I still don’t think this is one of them,” she sighs, before pushing it to the side and looking over the other gadgets. “Honestly, I just wanted to find your coffee maker.”
“Oh,” he nods a bit, before the grin stretches across his face. “Coffee maker’s broken.”
She rolls her eyes. “You keep this thing, but you can’t afford to buy a new coffee maker?”
“The shop down the street is very good to me.”
“Well, tell you what,” she laughs. “You go pick up the coffee, and I will attempt to make something using your … gadget here.”
“I’m telling you—use it once and you’ll see.”
She turns and fixes him with a look before pointing. “Go! Coffee!”
He laughs before turning and heading back to the bedroom to get dressed. “Yes, ma’am.”
eesome ~ supernatural/dark angel ~ 549 words
Whatever.
This particular mission requires something a little more fancy. Logan states that he does not care how she happens to obtain the formalwear she needs to go undercover at the black tie event, so long as he doesn’t have to hear about it. All it takes is a quick trip up to the local boutique and “buying” a slinky little number that is sure to help her both stand out and blend in, all at the same time.
Though by the time she actually tracks down the info Logan wants her to steal, it’s clear she didn’t blend in enough. An … actually kind of attractive guy in a tux is staring down the barrel of really nice Colt M1911 (or at least, she would think it was really nice if she were actually into guns), while she’s got her hands in the air and a flash drive in her hand.
“Look, I really think this is just a huge misunderstanding.”
“Really? Because to me it looks like you broke into this office and was raiding some poor rich sap’s computer.” He raises his eyebrows at her, before looking her up and down. “Not a bad honey trap, by the way.”
“Wow. You really know just how to make a girl feel special.” She may have to punch him for that later. “But I have what I came for. And considering that most of the guards around here carry guns that aren’t nearly as nice, I’m guessing you’re here for something too. So why don’t we just let this go?” She gives a bit of a shrug. “Consider it a professional courtesy.”
“And how do you know we’re not here for the same thing?” He points out. “I’m not just going to let you walk away with my score.”
“Maybe you need to get into a new line of work anyway.”
“Yeah. Not happening.” He takes one hand off his gun and gestures for her to hand him what’s in her hand. “Give me the flash drive.”
“You really don’t want me to do that.”
“Actually, I really think I do.”
“Fine,” she says with a bit of a smirk. “You asked for it.”
She’s across the room before he can even blink or think about trying to get the gun off. His gun arm goes up in the air as she delivers an elbow to the face, before using that arm to flip him over and landing him flat on his back. As she leans over him, his eyes take on a glassy haze of near unconsciousness.
“I’m not usually one to say ‘I told you so,’ but … ” She shrugs as she straightens, adjusting her dress before turning to head back out the door. “Too bad. You were actually kind of cute.”
Too bad indeed.
no subject
kef ~ throne of shadows ~ 315 words
He sleeps through most mornings, after having to stay up to salt and burn a body, or tracking something that only moved at night, or even if he was just driving through the night to get from point A to point B. The Dean Winchester before Bete Noire and Othala didn’t have lazy mornings and he certainly didn’t have someone to spend them with.
But this Dean Winchester does.
It’s a problem that isn’t really one, but still something that he can’t quite reconcile either. The idea of continually waking up next to someone (the same person) isn’t something he’s really had since Cassie, and he’s well aware of how that ended. Even though he knows that Christine already knows all of his secrets, for better or for worse, there’s still that part of him that’s always going to be waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to do the wrong thing and ruin things because in the end that’s what he does.
But so far, he hasn’t done it yet.
Still, every time he wakes up lazily, and is able to just stay where he is, soaking in the comfort of having someone close to him, he wonders if this is really how it could have been. If this is the life he could have had if his mother never died. And at the same time, there’s a moment where he feels guilty because this is one of the many reasons he doesn’t want to go home. But he can’t change where he is and what he’s doing. All he can do is keep trying to move forward.
So he’ll do what anyone would do on a lazy weekend afternoon. He’ll roll over, turning into the warmth presented him, and drift right off back to sleep.
no subject
15 - Susurrus for Tyler & Caroline
strumfrei ~ riftverse ~ 703 words
For example, once her grandmother announces that she’s going away for the weekend of her birthday at the beginning of the month, Ava nods very patiently through the speech about how she expects her seventeen year-old granddaughter to behave and not trash the house and not get herself arrested. Knowing Ava, these are very real concerns and she intends to do as instructed.
Or at least not get caught.
Still, patience to get to the weekend in question, survive the last hour before her grandmother finally walks out the door, and the immense patience that it takes to wait a full twenty minutes (just to make sure she hasn’t forgotten something and is coming back) before texting Alek with the battle cry of “Let’s be stupid teenagers” is commendable. She should be given a medal.
By the time Alek actually arrives at the apartment, she has several choices (some of which could possibly get them arrested) of entertainment for the evening, a game plan (so that they could … not get arrested), and a pizza (fuel for the night ahead).
“So?” she says with a grin, rocking back and forth on her heels as she grins at him. “What do you think?”
“I think if your grandmother finds out about any of this she is going to kill you.”
“Good. Are you in?”
Alek sighs heavily, giving her a look that says she should really appreciate him more for being her long-suffering best friend, and she truly does. After all, she keeps calling him to be the one to get into trouble with her.
(Eventually, there will come a day when she will realize that that’s not the kind of appreciation Alek is looking for, but today is not that day.)
“Alright, alright. I’m in. Let’s do this.”
She grins even wider, before launching towards him in a firm hug. “You won’t regret it.”
“Yeah,” he replies quickly before she turns and starts to drag him out the door. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
***
By the time Elizabeth Spencer returns from her trip, the house is clean, everything is in order, and no one has gotten arrested. (Ava can’t really say the same for the state of the house two hours earlier, but as of right now? Totally clean.) Her granddaughter and her werewolf friend and plopped on the couch, watching some kind of mindless television.
She pulls her carry-on case to a stop before raising her eyebrows at both of them. “Well. You two seem to be in one piece.”
Ava raises her eyebrows back at her. “Were you thinking we wouldn’t be? I promised.”
“Uh-huh.” Elizabeth does not seem convinced, but she’s too tired to argue about it now. “I remember when your mother was seventeen, Ava Lee. I am not so easily fooled.”
Ava playfully sticks her tongue out at her back before muttering, “Prove it.”
“Please don’t ask her to do that,” Alek whispers and she gives him a bit of a smirk.
“Oh, c’mon. We had fun.”
“Right. Next time we have fun, can it not involve impromptu karaoke for vampires and giant talking pinecones?”
“You got it,” Ava nods, before tipping her head to the side. “What did we do with that thing anyway?”
There’s a crash! from somewhere in her grandmother’s side of the apartment, followed what sounds like a small explosion. “Ava Lee Connor!”
“ … Oh that’s right.”
Alek just gets up, before shaking his head. “And that would be my cue.”
“No, don’t leave me here,” she pleads as Elizabeth rounds the corner, the look of soot on her face, along with a pretty serious glower.
“Nope. You’re on your own,” Alek replies, bouncing to his feet and heading out the door. “You’re the one who wanted to bring it home.” He pauses before turning to Elizabeth with a nod. “It was nice seeing you again, Mrs. Spencer.”
“You, too, Alek.”
“Traitor.”
He gives her a look right back before turning and heading out the door. Ava sits innocently on the edge of the couch for a moment, letting the silence develop between them, before starting again.
“So. About the Pineco … ”
susurrus ~ the vampire diaries ~ 1080 words
She usually picks the place. They can go anywhere in the world, and sometimes Tyler just … lacks that sense of adventure. He tells her he doesn’t need to go anywhere or see anything, he just wants to be with her, but at the same time, Caroline does want to go, to see, and she wants to see it with him because it’s what they were supposed to do, back before Klaus ruined everything. They were going to see the world together because they had all the time in the world.
This isn’t to say that she’s always dragging him away from whatever pack he’s with at the time. She is capable of coming to him. There were more than a few trysts in a small, private cabin in the woods where she could almost believe they were a normal couple, doing normal things. Aside from the blood bags in the fridge and the fact that they both looked a lot younger than they actually were, they did all the things a normal couple would do. They cooked dinner and sat on the couch watching TV and for a moment, it managed to feel real.
All the same, the wheres and whens and hows didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were together for a week or a month or however long they could manage. For this brief bubble of time, they were all there was in the world.
Until the time when there isn’t.
He runs late sometimes, that’s the nature of the world, but it’s never this late. She waits for days, calls his phone, hoping to feel that small, soft brush of air at the back of her neck that signals he’s standing behind her, but it never comes. So she does what any
insecure, neurotic control freak on crackconcerned vampire girlfriend would do.First, she calls his pack.
Then, she tracks the GPS on his phone.
The phone leads her to an abandoned warehouse off I-195, and there is a small pause inside the door, taking a deep breath to brace herself for the worst. “I swear to God, Tyler, if you ruin this vacation by being dead, I’m going to have Bonnie’s great-great-granddaughter resurrect you just so I can kill you myself.”
And she would do it. He knows how highly she values her vacations.
There’s a few quiet steps as she makes her way inside, before pausing and listening for the sound of voices.
“ … For this unbreakable bond you two seem to have, you’d think your bloodsucking whore would have shown up by now.”
“You know, you really need to stop calling her that.”
There’s a small breath of relief at the sound of his voice, and it’s another few quiet steps closer, until she’s standing just outside the room where Tyler’s being held. There’s an old, crotchety hunter sitting on a stool in front of a fire, while Tyler is strung up on some kind of apparatus across the room. She can smell the wolfsbane on the ropes from here, but she doesn’t smell vervain.
Probably because the hunter is an idiot and thought he could kill her before she got to him.
“I think I’ll call your bloodsucking whore whatever I goddamn well please. Not like I can hurt it’s feelings.” He pauses, spitting something disgusting out of the corner of his mouth before smirking. “In fact, I think I’ll do it again. Blood. Sucking. Wh – ”
There’s a wisp of wind through the room and suddenly Tyler isn’t attached to the rigging the man had tied him to anymore. Also, the man isn’t really speaking, mostly because Tyler has already ripped his throat out.
(There was a time when Caroline might have felt bad about the people they had to kill to protect themselves. Now, she barely even bats an eyelash. She wonders what that says about her, but she can’t really bring herself to feel enough about it to care.)
He straightens after the body drops, one thumb coming up to brush a bit of blood out of the corner of his mouth, before looking over at her with a smirk. She’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed in front of her chest. “Took you long enough,” he teases, and she rolls her eyes in response.
“You stood me up. In Rome. I felt it was my duty to make you suffer.” She’s only half-kidding about that. She makes her way closer, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and letting her forehead rest against his. “You okay?”
“Nothing that won’t heal,” he replies, arms sliding around her waist. “Sorry I stood you up.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not like we haven’t done Rome before.” There are always new things to see, but some things will always stay the same. “I’ve still got the villa for another week, though. We could catch a plane and be out of here before you know it.”
“We could.” He says the words, but she can tell his heart just isn’t in them.
“Or,” she draws out the word slowly, “we could see if Elena is using the Gilbert cabin right now and just hide out there instead?” To say they were on the outs with their respective families is an understatement, but Elena got left the Gilbert cabin by Jeremy, and she wasn’t always there. It was quiet, it was private, and they could just be alone for a little while, which is all Caroline really wanted anyway.
The two of them. Together. Just as it should be.
(Because some day they won’t be.)
The corner of his mouth draws up in a smile and he nods, leaning in to kiss her. “I think that sounds perfect.”
“Good,” she leans into the kiss, before turning and taking his hand to lead him out to the car. “I’ll call Elena. There’s blood in the cooler, and we can stop by your place and grab your stuff, and we’ll be good to go.”
He laughs a bit as he follows her lead, arm around her waist to keep her close. “You still have to plan for everything, don’t you?”
“It’s one of the things you love about me,” she smirks as she puts her phone to her ear, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before the line clicks open on the other end. “Elena! I need a favor … ”
no subject
Medium mode: 3 - Bela/Lana
Hard mode: 13 - Kol/Bonnie
Bonus round: 29 - any f/f ship you know I like
lapidary ~ the vampire diaries/lost girl ~ 411 words
He’s also an excellent dancer.
“You seem distracted,” he whispers in her ear as they dance, his hand straying down to the small of her back. “Is there a problem?”
“No,” she says, trying to turn her eyes back to the room again. “I didn’t realize you would be so good at this.”
“At what? At being social?”
“At … handling the stuffy Fae aristocrats.”
He laughs, continuing to move them in time to the music. “I was turned in 1864. And raised by a Southern aristocrat family.”
“So basically you speak jackass-ese?”
He laughs again before nodding. “Something like that, yeah.”
“Good to know. I might have to use you more often.” She leans into his hold a bit, and his thumb brushes against the bit of skin showing on the back of her dress. Her eyes close, and she can hear the smirk in his voice as he speaks.
“Are you sure I’m not distracting you?” His hand raises a little higher against her back, and she groans.
“Oh, I was wrong. You don’t just speak jackass-ese, you are fluent.” She sighs a bit before pulling away to face him some more. “Think you can focus on the mission, big guy? We still have a Fae family heirloom to steal.”
“I am completely focused.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I keep thinking that just because we’re on a crazy Fae mission doesn’t mean—” He pauses, giving her a bit of a spin again. “—we can’t have a bit of fun while we do it.”
She sighs a bit as she leans back into him, before pulling back to look at him. “Fun. That sounds like a dangerous proposition.”
“Why? Afraid you might like it?”
“You don’t know what you’re getting into. I may be more fun than you can handle.”
“Is that a challenge, succubus?”
“Think you can keep up, vampire?”
He smirks a bit at that, before spinning her again and pulling her in closer. “Game on.”
ustulation ~ supernatural/smallville ~ 320 words
No, there are very few reasons for which Bela would actually return to Smallville, and one of those things is the violent and sudden death of her former buyer, Lex Luthor. She’s not coming back for Lex, of course. To rob him, maybe, as what use are the items in that vault of his if they aren’t making her more money.
(She stole them. It’s only fair she gets them after one of them most assuredly killed him. Lex’s taste for extremely dangerous items was unparalleled and Bela has no reason to believe that anything else was behind it.)
Still, all the same, Bela arrives back in Smallville for one very specific reason, one that is worth the detour and the time it may cost her because if she’s going to be dying just after her twenty-fourth birthday, she is at least going to make sure that she did everything she intended to do. That she didn’t miss out on certain opportunities because even if she is damned, there should be some things she’s still allowed to have.
She stands in front of the door to the Luthor mansion and rings the bell, and waits. When the door finally opens, revealing the brunette former Mrs. Luthor behind it, she doesn’t have to say anything before Lana is reaching for her wrist and pulling her closer into a deep kiss.
“About time.”
mooreeffoc ~ faenanigans ~ 590 words
It’s nothing personal against them. Kol is sure that for some people who haven’t done certain rituals a thousand times over, they could still be quite enjoyable. Unfortunately for Kol, he has, and his small but thriving practice of getting the Fae exactly what they need to either get themselves into trouble or keep things interesting was starting to get dull. And when things start to get dull, that’s when Kol gets himself into trouble.
It takes a visit from Elena (it was easier to simply consider her his niece and leave it at that – counting the greats attached could get complicated) and her partner, Damon (that annoying little git who seems to have worked his siren song on his sister) to keep him from selling another potion that mostly does what the user wants but may also have the added side effect of spontaneous combustion. After a important Dark Fae elder happened to land on the wrong side of one of his little concoctions, he decides it’s probably best that he doesn’t wind up in one of the more … intriguing Fae prisons. Especially not as the son of the Morrigan.
Fine.
It doesn’t mean he’ll enjoy it.
All the same, when you’re a thousand year-old druid, finding yourself bored of your existence, it can take something very special to knock you out of your stupor. As far as Kol is concerned, his something special is five-two with black hair, gorgeous chocolate skin and an interesting kind of power that he can tell from the moment she walks in the door.
Hello, succubus.
“Hi,” she says with a small smile. “I was looking for Damon Salvatore?”
Damon and Elena had dragged him down to the police station where they were working for this little chat, an honor he could have surely passed on, considering Elena is family and he sees her on a fairly regular basis. But what this lovely creature was doing looking for Damon of all people, he couldn’t even fathom. He takes his feet down off of where they were resting on Elena’s desk, before turning to her with a smile.
“Can’t say I’ve seen him,” he smiles. “Perhaps there’s something I can help you with?”
“What I need is pretty Damon-specific, but thanks.” She starts to turn and walk away before glancing back to him again. “I know you, don’t I?”
“Definitely not,” he replies assuredly. “I would have remembered you.”
“No, it’s just … you look really familiar.”
“Perhaps introducing myself would help.” He pushes up onto his feet and extends his hand to her with a slow smile. “Kol Mikaelson.”
“Mikaelson? As in the Morrigan?”
“One in the same,” he says with a smile. “And by the look on your face, I’m guessing you’re Dark as well.”
“I am,” she nods, before reaching forward to shake his hand. “Bonnie Bennett.”
“Bennett. Like the Ash?”
“One in the same,” she repeats with a bit of a smirk. “You’re not going to accuse me of being a petty rebellious teenager too, are you?”
“Oh, of course not. I’m sure it’s much more interesting than that. I’m sure it’s a story I would love to hear.”
She smirks a bit, before shrugging and walking away. “Guess you’ll have to see me again to find out.”
Kol watches her go with an almost predatory gaze, before smirking himself and settling back into the desk chair. “I most certainly will.”
fuubutsushi ~ smallville ~ 307 words
Not about a woman. Not about a mermaid. She shouldn’t be riding waves of anticipation for her family’s trip back to the sea. It’s a secret she’s forced to keep, locked away with the promise of the fact that if anyone knew she would never see her mermaid again. Of all the possible punishments, of all the ways this scenario could go, that’s the one that she’d never be able to live with.
Kara also takes risks with the kinds of clothes she brings with her, hiding the bikini in the bottom of her suitcase where her mother can’t see it. She dresses in layers throughout the entire trip, waiting for the moment where she can sneak away, to get down to the lake herself without any interference from her parents. The excitement bubbles in her stomach with each step she takes, slowly shedding shoes and shirt and shorts until it’s just her, the skimpy bathing suit and the water. She’s never shown this much skin before and there’s a bit of a chill in the air as she moves closer to the waves, but as soon as she’s under it’s like she’s come home, in an odd sort of way.
She stays under for as long as she can, trying to see if she can catch a glimpse of fins in the darkness before she pushes up to the surface again, breaking only because she needs air. The silence of nightfall settles over her and just as she starts to think that there’s a chance she may have been stood up, there’s a soft splash to her left and she opens her eyes to find a familiar almond shaped pair staring back at her.
“You came,” she whispers, and Lana just smirks, reaching over to tug on her hand.
“You’re late.”
no subject
duende ~ throne of shadows ~ 423 words
Which is what led to he and Diana hanging out in one of the museum rooms, contemplating an odd piece of art as they talk.
“I’m thinking a casino trip.”
Diana blinks a bit, but doesn’t turn. “They have a room for that here?”
“They have a room for everything here,” he shrugs, before turning to move on to the next painting on the row. His head tips to the side a bit. “I found it last week when I was poking around some of the rooms.”
“Huh.” She takes a step to the side with him, her head tilt mimicking his. “This guy looks like he has an arm coming out of his ear.”
“So I’m not the only one seeing that?”
“Moving on.” She nudges him a bit to move on to the next one. “Are you still dead set on strippers?”
“It’s a bachelor party. Of course there is going to be strippers.”
“You are going to get him into so much trouble.”
“That’s how you know you’re doing it right.”
Diana rolls her eyes, studying the new painting in front of them. “I like this one. I’m not sure what I like about it, but I like it.”
Dean stares at it himself, tipping his head to the side, and frowning. “I don’t get it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she smirks. “Nothing at all.”
“Whatever,” Dean shrugs. “But it’s all set. Plus Christine is taking Pasha to some kind of spa day movie thing, so they’re going to be on the complete opposite side of the temple.”
“Provided the doors don’t swap around.”
Dean makes a bit of a face as he considers that. “Why did you have to say that? Now you just jinxed it.”
She laughs, before shaking her head. “I’m sure you’ll make it work. I’m looking forward to it. We all could use a little bit of fun.”
“Yep,” he smirks, before moving into the sculpture section of the room. “Let’s just see who can remember it when we’re done.”
(this is china)
eutony ~ teen wolf ~ 361 words
When she was younger, before the fire, she could remember the way she could pick out the different members of her family without having to really hear what they were saying. Her mother was soft and lighting, comfort and security all in one. Her uncle was smooth and slick with dulcet tones designed to make you trust him, and as a child it was trust she willingly gave. Throw in the somewhat harmonic clash of her siblings’ voices and there’s something about it that gives her the instantaneous feeling of home.
Now that she’s older, and there’s some distance from the memories, the tones have changed. Peter’s voice is slick with her sister’s blood, something that turns the sound of it in her stomach to something slightly discordant. Derek’s words hit a little harder than they used to with an anger that matches her own at times, the only fitting emotion to represent everything they’ve lost. Laura and her mother have taken on a haunting quality, a sound that’s a bit too sharp to be how they were. Her family isn’t what it used to be, and it never will be again.
There’s still a part of them that’s still family, however, and it’s that part that drives her and Derek out of town, away from Beacon Hills, the place that’s caused them so much pain. There’s a hum in the motor and the rumble of the road, and things start to fall back into place again.
It’s not perfect, but maybe one day the song will start to sound the same.
no subject
09- Elektra + Tess... or Elektra/Tess. Don't let me limit you. /innocent whistling
solecism ~ marvel cinematic universe ~ 325 words
In some ways, she’s glad. She’s worked hard to earn her reputation within the unit and while she’s sure that those who know them—those who egg him on at any given moment—would never see her any differently because of it, she knows the rest of the world won’t see it the same way. After having to claw tooth and nail for any sort of respect in the American army (and still not truly getting it, not in any real way), she is loathed to give it up over a simple matter of the heart. When the war was over and there is no enemy left to fight, maybe, but for right now she needs to focus on winning the war.
At the same time, she wishes that he would. That he would do the things that she can’t, that she wants to, if for no other reason than the fact that it was done. That, in some ways, is the curse of having a man who truly respects you. You can dress up, and put the hints out there, make it known that his interest wouldn’t be rejected, but he still wants to do things right. Only in their case, right means not at all.
After all, how can you when your first kiss is also a kiss goodbye?
kalopsia ~ post-paradisa ~ 891 words
In the end, the castle never really lets go of anything.
It always keeps its hooks in you, for better or for worse. Paradisa plays ping-pong with Tess’s life for years, even after the day she dies. After that, it’s out of the castle to points unknown, sending her somewhere where she’ll never be quite right. She’s whisked away to a world where everything is beautiful, even the things that are dark and see the world through a haze of blood and violence. Sometimes the most beautiful things are the things that hurt the most and this little corner of the multiverse that statement takes on a much more literal meaning.
But at least she’s not alone.
“I don’t think this path is taking us anywhere.”
Elektra’s voice is quiet, calm and lucid. She hasn’t been here as long as Tess has, and while there’s no Oliver to bind them in this end of the universe, they now have each other, even when Tess’s mind decides to stop making sense, the gaps forming in her memory being filled in by another life. The castle may decide to use that life one day, but only if she lets it take hold too strongly.
My name is Tess. “Paths usually only take us somewhere if we let them.” Tess Mercer, CEO of LuthorCorp. Daughter of Lionel Luther and Pamela Jenkins. “We shouldn’t stand still. Things that stand still for too long usually don’t start up again.”
Elektra’s eyebrows climb ever so slightly, but she defers to Tess’s experience regardless, and they start moving again. It’s one foot in front of the other, affirmations being repeated in her mind as she tries to not let the basics of who she is slip through the cracks. No one ever said surviving here was easy.
“How long do you think it will be before the castle picks us back up again?”
“I don’t know.” My name is Tess Mercer, CEO of LuthorCorp. Killed by Lex Luthor. Kidnapped to Paradisa. “I’ve been here … a while. It’s hard to know how much time has passed anyway.” She’s lost track of the days already, and she knows that’s only going to continue the more and more they walk.
“That’s not comforting.”
My name is Lutess— There’s something about that thought process that makes her pause, both in responding to Elektra and her constant mantra to reaffirm her sense of self. Lutessa. Lutessa Lena Luthor. Tess Mercer. There are too many names floating around her head and she shakes it off before finally responding to the woman in front of her. “Since when have you known Paradisa to ever be comforting.”
“Fair point.” The other woman studies her carefully, concern written clearly over her features. “Are you alright?”
“This place can make it hard to think straight, after a while.” She wouldn’t normally admit such a weakness, but she feels that Elektra understands her better than most. “I’ll be fine once we get some rest.”
Or maybe she’ll be worse. In the end it’s hard to really tell. My name is Tess Mercer. I am the CEO of LuthorCorp. My business partner is … The name slips through the cracks along with the face. All she can really gather is this sense of green and the smell of leather, the two of them not coming together to form a cohesive memory. She could try to claw to the surface but in the end she simply lets it drop.
It’s a memory she can probably come back for later.
“Let’s keep going then,” Elektra replies quietly, reaching out for her hand and gripping it firmly to help her keep up. There’s a feeling of security in that, of strength, and for a brief moment, she feels something more than the camaraderie of being stuck in this place together.
And a moment right after, when she can’t tell whether or not those feelings are supposed to be there.
***
They find a place to sleep, a small outcrop of a cave that kept them shielded from whatever dangers may be present, both outside and within the cave as well. When they sleep, the affirmations fall away and all that’s left is a malleable mind, free to be manipulated by dreams, turning fantasies into something more than what they were.
When she opens her eyes again, she is Lutessa and that is Elektra. All they have is each other. All they’ve always had is each other.
In the end, that’s all they really need.
no subject
Whatever comes to mind for you, I just love me some Alec. c:
advesperascit ~ behind the hollow ~ 886 words
That being said, ever since he got dropped in on Mystic Falls he’s been making more of an effort to be indoors after dark. Not because he was scared of vampires or hybrids, but mostly because he’s scared of being exposed. It’s ten years before the first transgenics made it onto the scene in Seattle, and while he knows that ten years is a long time with a lot of fear to back it up, he’s not pushing his luck. He needs to be normal and normal people don’t wander the streets of Mystic Falls after dark.
(He also doesn’t want to be mistaken for a vampire, either. Apparently the town council really frowns on that sort of thing.)
Still, there are times when it’s unavoidable. Like when Caroline throws a party or he gets bored at home or he really just doesn’t give a shit about getting caught. It’s the last one that can really get him into trouble, because dancing the line between getting caught and getting away with it can be fun, and he dances it a lot better than most.
In the end, however, he still manages to get caught.
(Somewhere, out there, Max has a strong urge to shout out “I told you so” and she’s not entirely sure why.)
“What are you?”
The look on the sheriff’s face is calm and stern, very much the image of someone who does not wish to be trifled with. Alec can understand that in a lot of ways, but right now he’s just wishing that the jailhouse lights weren’t so bright. They were only serving to exacerbate the blow to the head he probably took in the fight.
“They were hybrids.”
“I don’t care what they were. I asked about you.”
“Seriously? I’m landing in jail for beating up hybrids?”
“You have no identification. No birth certificate, no passport, no record of you even existing anywhere, so I would really focus on worrying about you and not the people you were in a fight with.”
Alec huffs slightly at that before tipping his head back and forth. “I fell through a hole.”
Sheriff Forbes pauses for a moment before blinking. “What?”
“Near as I can figure, anyway. My quantum mechanics was never really the greatest but there are fringe theories out there that occasionally holes pop up between universes and sometimes when that happens, people sort of … fall through them.”
She blinks again. “Are you drunk?”
“Probably not as much as he’d like to be.” Alec’s head snaps in the direction of Damon’s voice and his shoulders sag a bit in relief. Good thing his phone call didn’t go to waste. “Did you get to the part where he’s a genetically engineered killing machine yet?”
Then, just like that, he’s markedly less thrilled. “Dude!”
“Liz can keep a secret. She’s keeping mine after all.” Alec rolls his eyes and Liz glances between them for a moment like she can’t believe what she’s hearing.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I’m always serious,” Damon sighs. “A shame that no one ever manages to see it that way.”
“Damon.”
“Yes, I’m serious. About falling through a ‘hole’ or whatever the case may be, and about what he is. We’re … still trying to figure the rest out.”
The sheriff rubs the back of her neck as she thinks this over, trying to figure out what exactly to do with all of this. It’s not exactly normal police procedure and Alec knows it. Then she finally relents. “You’re not a vampire.”
“Definitely not.”
“Or a werewolf.”
“I have feline DNA, actually.”
There’s a beat and the look on her face tells him how much she didn’t want to know that information. She, unfortunately, is the one who asked. All the same, after that moment, she moves on. “Did the hybrids pick the fight with you or the other way around?”
“Definitely them.” That answer might be a little subjective (and by a little he means a lot considering what they did to pick the fight was ‘be in the vicinity of Elena’), but he’s willing to put his chips on the sheriff ruling in his favor on this one.
Which she did.
She reaches to her belt to grab her keys and moves to unlock the cell door. “Try to stay out of trouble? I’m not sure I can bail you out the same way twice.”
“You got it,” he replies as he bounds to his feet. He can’t wait to get out and crash in his own bed. Jail bunks are lumpy. Once they’re both out the door, Damon’s hand comes up and smacks him upside the head in the location that has the benefit of being where one of the bigger hybrids hit him. “Ow.”
“You really need to stop picking fights with supernatural beings.” Damon raises his eyebrows. “I’m starting to think you have a death wish.” Alec shoots him a dirty look and Damon rolls his eyes. “Tell me you at least won?”
At that, Alec only smirks. “What do you think?”
no subject
30. Stefan/Cordelia
myötähäpeä ~ post-beyond the rift ~ 628 words
Lois knows that her guardian, as well meaning as he is, will still take the opportunity to judge her every chance he gets. She may be all he has in this particular universe, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to overanalyze what he perceives as terrible life choices in the name of his calling.
“Until you age forty years, become a general in the army and lose all your hair? You are not my father and that means you cannot tell me what to wear.”
Lois has no such intentions of listening to him. After all, when a girl can dress up as a leather-clad warrior princess, why wouldn’t she take the opportunity? She’s in the process of making sure her hair falls properly with the headpiece before glancing back over her shoulder to where he’s standing with a cup of coffee.
“You look ridiculous.”
“I’m going to a comic book convention. I think that’s the point.” She raises her eyebrows a bit before turning to face him with a smirk. “You could come too, if you want. I’ve got a storm trooper costume in the closet.”
Maxwell blinks at her before going. “A - do I look like the kind of guy who’s into comic books and B – do I look like the kind of guy who would ever dress up as a storm trooper?”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun! Besides I’m going for a story so it’s not like you’ll have to pay for anything. It’s all on the Daily Planet.”
Granted, reintegrating herself into the Daily Planet after being gone isn’t exactly easy, but she’s managing, for better or worse. She’s back to the same hustle and jive that was her life before Chicago, even if she isn’t the same person that came out the other side. Still, her family’s here, friends, and piece by piece, she’s putting everything back together again. Integrating Maxwell into everything has been a challenge as well, but they’re learning there too.
One day at a time.
His face at the suggestion is a little hesitant, taking another sip of his coffee. “A comic book convention?”
“It’s a fluff piece. They still make me write one every once in a while.”
“Why do you want me to go? Given that you’re supposed to be working and all.”
She rolls her eyes. “Because it’ll be fun. And you need to get out of my apartment and back into the world.” She takes a breath before moving closer, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Look, I know losing Chicago has been rough, and being in a new world is weird and strange but you’re not going to deal with it by locking yourself in here and pretending nothing’s changed. You need to get out there, be part of it, and be grateful that the natives aren’t going to try and kill you because you’re from another universe.”
They may do it if it’s a day for meteor rock induced homicide (aka a day ending in “y”) but at least it’s not because he fell through a hole in time and space.
He gives her a bit of a look for the last part, but in the end he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not dressing up.”
“Suit yourself.” She grins, pleased with herself. “Be ready to go in five. We’re picking up Chloe on the way.”
It’s very clear that the bond is the only reason why Maxwell puts up with her, but at the end of the day, it’s probably better for him that he does. Otherwise, he would never have any fun.
Maxwell probably doesn’t feel the same way, but what can you do?
oniochalasia ~ the vampire diaries/buffyverse ~ 603 words
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t downsides, or situations where a normal human could have probably filled the position (though not nearly as well). Stefan was currently stuck in one of those positions. Cordelia claims he’s earned it (probably because Damon) and Stefan isn’t inclined to argue with her (because Damon) so he’s forced to keep trotting along behind her, carrying the armful of shopping bags that would probably have doubled over a normal human by now.
Then Cordelia rounds a corner into another store and he can’t suppress the groan any longer. “How much clothing do you need?”
“To make up for the skeezey feeling your brother gives me whenever he breathes?” She flashes him back a look over her shoulder. “Buddy, we haven’t even reached the halfway point yet.”
Stefan huffs a bit before making his way in behind her, trying not to look too put off by at all. He’s playing the part of the dutiful boyfriend when he is nowhere near Cordelia’s boyfriend, but when Damon is involved, he’ll consider this getting off easy. “He’s going to be here for a week, you know. Am I going to have to buy you a whole new wardrobe for every day he’s here?”
Cordelia made a face like she was thinking about it, before shrugging. “Probably not. But if he doesn’t learn the meaning of personal space? I may rethink that answer.”
“I’ll make sure my bank account is ready, then.”
Her eyebrows climb a bit, before she turns back to the rack in front of her. “Why do you put up with him anyway? I mean, you can be a brat but he takes immaturity to a whole other level.”
Stefan isn’t going to argue with the brat comment. It won’t get him very far. “Because he’s my brother and the only family I have?”
“And you’ve never tried to change him.”
“Changing Damon takes way more work and unnecessary dead people than it’s actually worth. It’s better to just … let him do what he does and hope the change sneaks up on him.” Not that that’s the most proactive approach, but it’s the best he can do.
“Or that someone stakes him for you?”
Stefan’s eyes narrow and he turns to face Cordelia again. “Is Angel planning on staking my brother?”
“Maybe he should be.”
“Actually, no. Maybe he shouldn’t.” Stefan’s face was too serious for anyone to believe he was joking and Cordelia almost looks uncomfortable. “He’s my brother. Let me deal with him my way.”
“If that way gets people killed, Stefan, I won’t be able to stop Angel.” And more to the point, she wouldn’t want to. Stefan doesn’t have to hear her say it to know it’s there, but any additions to the statement end in a shrug. “So I would keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t get into trouble.”
“I can do that.” Stefan relaxes a bit, before turning back to the rack she was looking at. He paged through a couple of shirts, before pulling one of them off to turn and face her. “What about this one?”
Cordelia looks the shirt over for a moment, before taking it from him and putting it back on the rack. “No suggestions. Just carrying.”
He smirks a bit before nodding. “Whatever you say.”
no subject
nedovtipa ~ teen wolf ~ 543 words
Opening the door to loft and finding Stiles there is not what Cora’s expecting. Not that she’s expecting much of anything when the only people she knows in Beacon Hills are Derek and Boyd. Scott and Isaac may have helped when they were out of control but she doesn’t know them enough to trust them. Not yet.
Which is why this Stiles kid showing up is not what she had on her schedule for today.
“Just … dropping by. Wanted to say hi. Welcome the new werewolf to the neighborhood.” He rocks on his heels a bit, before glancing over her shoulder. “Your brother around?”
“No.”
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
“Awesome.” He elbows past her into the loft and Cora’s eyes follow him sharply as he does. She’s not allowed to hurt him. Derek and Scott were very clear on that. Cora thinks that is a stupid rule but she’s trying to be nice.
Emphasis on trying.
“Why are you here, Stiles?”
“As I said. Wanting to get to know the new werewolf in town.” She shakes her head, turning back to the workout regimen that she has adopted for herself. She promised her brother she would lay low and she needs to do something. “Especially given that aside from the Derek, my other experience with the Hale family is a psychopath.”
She pauses just under the chin-up bar, before jumping up, gripping it tightly and launching herself into it. The burn of the activity is enough to keep her from ripping Stiles’s face off for that comment. “I’m not Peter.”
“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”
“Forgive me if I punch you in the face.”
There’s a beat. “Wow, you are so Derek’s sister.” He shakes his head before flopping down on the couch, watching her as she bobs up and down. “Are you seriously just going to … do that while I sit here?”
“Yep.” She doesn’t even slow down as she speaks, keeping a mental count in her head. She feels the burn starting to stretch through her limbs and it makes her forget the fact that she isn’t being forced to sit on the sidelines, waiting for Derek to decide the right move.
“That’s … it’s just … it’s not very hospitable.”
She pauses in the upswing of the pull up she’s doing. It takes all her self-control not to bend the bar in her grip. Instead, she drops to the ground, turns to face him and starts to stalk her way closer. “You come here, alone, force your way into an apartment where you’d be alone with a werewolf that could be a psychopath, and you want to get on my case for being hospitable?”
Stiles takes a moment to process that, and the dumbfounded look on her face makes her want to punch him even more. “I should probably … go.”
“Thank you.”
She steps to the side to let him go, and he does, before turning around one last time to face her. “One last thing?”
“What?”
“Do Hales work hard at being especially terrifying or does this all just come naturally to you?”
She rolls her eyes, before shoving him out the door. “Goodbye, Stiles.”
no subject
20. Charlie and Dylan.
arcadian ~ beyond the rift ~ 575 words
It takes him some time to become in-tune with this world as oppose to his old one, to … adjust his frequency, so to speak. But once he does, once he learns what to listen for, he can feel the way this universe flexes and pulls, those tiny holes opening and closing, to let people, creatures, anything fall from that world and into this one. It’s not stable, not even remotely, but for now it is holding and that Castiel has found a way to take comfort in.
Still, the rift is rarely ever quiet. There’s always that dull roar in the background, a sound that gets louder when it’s about to open and only quiets slightly once it’s closed. Major rift events echo in his ears for weeks afterwards, the sound of the world crying out at the way it’s being torn apart, and there’s nothing they can do to stop it.
Today, however, the rift is very quiet.
About a week before the announcement, before they’re told that they’re going to have to say goodbye to everything they love, Castiel is sitting in the middle of Grant Park, as he usually does, watching Gabriel and Cassie as they play fetch in the park. He’s watched humans so many times doing these exact things, but from his distance in Heaven he never really understood it the way he did right now. The calm serenity of this moment, where they have nothing to worry about – it’s in this moment that he’s probably the most relaxed he’s ever been.
After tossing off the Frisbee for Gabriel to chase after, Cassie comes to sit next to him again, settling on the bench and tipping her head back towards the sun.
“Almost makes me want to worry,” she says softly, and that makes Castiel frown. The day almost seems too perfect to worry.
“Everything seems quiet,” he replies. “You shouldn’t have to.”
“No, I know. Everything is fine.” The for now attached to the end of it is silent and ever-present, because anyone who’s ever lived in Chicago knows that thinks are never this quiet for long. Such is the nature of the city itself. “Just seems like we’re waiting for something. The calm before the storm, yeah?”
That seems to be a sentiment he can understand. Being prepared is always better than having the rifts catch you off guard, but at the same time, you can never know what exactly you’re being prepared for.
“Perhaps,” he says simply, before turning his attention back out to the open slope of the park in front of him. “All the more reason to enjoy the … down time … while we have it.”
She smiles a bit, before reaching over and taking her hand in his, giving it a bit of a squeeze. “You’re right about that.” Gabriel trots over not long after, bringing Cassie the Frisbee as his tail wagged happily for her to throw it again. “Back again already? Guess we’re going have to throw it a little harder this time.”
As she gets up to throw the Frisbee again, Castiel simply turns to look out at the park again, watching the people as they went about their day. The rifts are quiet, the world seems to be at peace, and maybe it is the calm before the storm.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t appreciate the calm while they have it.
sarang ~ post-beyond the rift ~ 709 words
He survives Chicago, but that isn’t really a guarantee he survives. He also survives longer than most angels of Death, but in the end, his Calling takes him anyway, like it takes everyone like him—quickly, brutally and the best that you can hope for is that you’re still you when it happens.
Charlie got lucky, but he couldn’t have done it without Dylan.
After the rifts, he, Jane and his family crash land in a whole new world. It isn’t unlike the one they came from – it has cities and countries found in the United States and countries like it, but there were no angels. No demons. No war. When six months later, one of the other angels in their community happen to stumble over a pair of archangels, one with a very familiar flash of red hair. It isn’t perfect. There are still people missing (Lena, Sarah, Amy), but it’s better than being stranded in a new universe all alone.
They have ten years together. They aren’t perfect years – nothing ever truly is—but they’re as close as they can get. Things don’t really start to disintegrate until the end. At first, its Charlie’s Calling. Instead of having episodes that last hours when he sees a death, he starts having episodes that last days. There’s one instance where he sees someone’s death and when he wakes up again, he’s three hundred miles away and he doesn’t know how he got there. His sanity had been tenuous when he was in Chicago but even without the weight and danger of the world being torn apart, he still continues to deteriorate. He sees the fear and worry in Jane’s eyes every time he looks at her, like she expects him to break soon and he knows that she’s not wrong. He will. It’s just a matter of time.
He doesn’t get an angel to sing him to his rest in the end, but oddly enough, he does see it coming. He locks eyes with a young man standing outside the local high school and the death hits him just as the other ones do. The second hand phantom sensations of seeing that person’s death through their eyes never get any less unnerving but it’s something else altogether when he’s feeling it firsthand. He’s on that street corner when the bullet’s start flying—someone fighting back when the kid tried to steal their wallet—but he doesn’t notice the white blood trickling over his stomach until after the kid is gone, and he hears Dylan scream.
It all happens quickly. One he’s standing there bleeding, and the next Dylan is next to him and he’s on the ground, feeling things start to slip through his fingers His vision is getting dark around the edges, but he can still see Dylan’s face.
(She’s crying. He wishes she wasn’t.)
“I-is it bad? Can I help? I-I don’t know how to help.” Her voice is soft and fast and she’s panicking, and he reaches over slowly and takes her hand.
“It’s alright. It’s alright, darlin’.” He gives her a small smile as he slumps to lean against her. “You just take my hand. Hold it tight.”
She does as promised and squeezes tightly. “What next?”
“You tell me everything is going to be okay.”
“But it’s not.” The protest comes out before she can stop herself, and he just squeezes her hand tighter, pressing a soft kiss to the back of her hand.
“It will be,” he nods. “And you tell Jane that I love her. And I’m sorry.” Things are getting even darker, and his grip is weakening as he speaks, but he can still feel her there, and he’s glad she’s here. “Can you do that? Please?”
“I will,” she nods, swallowing hard, before leaning closer and pressing a kiss to the top of his forehead. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He closes his eyes with that soft press, feeling the pain start to drift away and in the end, dying is almost like going to sleep. That, in itself, is oddly comforting.
“Goodbye, Charlie.”
Before he can say goodbye himself, his hand slips from hers and he quietly lets go.
no subject
12. Don Flack
effleurage ~ white collar/csi: ny ~ 637 words
He’s on loan to NYPD Homicide (with Peter lurking quietly in the background). Not normally his favorite thing to do but Detective Morasca all but presented him with a challenge that his keeping his attention very well. Much more so than the fake money that he’s supposed to be lending her expert eye to.
“Maybe it’s the convicted felon that can’t seem to keep his eyes on the matter at hand.”
The look she gives him with that statement just makes him smirk even more, and she rolls her eyes before turning back to the equipment she’s watching in the van. It’s not really a romantic interest at this point – he’s not that hopeless – but more the fact that she’s telling him he can’t. Everyone should know by now that it’s never a good idea to tell Neal Caffrey he can’t do something.
“Actually, I think it’s probably the van,” he replies smoothly. “These seats are really terrible for your back and we’ve been in here almost all night.”
“We’ve been in here four hours.”
“Hey, one bad twist is all it takes.”
“My back is fine, Caffrey. Focus on the case.”
“Whatever you say.” He manages to stay quiet for maybe ten minutes before he speaks up again. “I just noticed that you carry a lot of it in your shoulders.”
Morasca turns to face him, a look on her face that says he’s probably pushed his last button. “Would you just spit it out already so that we can get back to work and you can shut up?”
He holds up his hands innocently. “I was just going to say that I have an excellent shoulder rub.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Why would I kid about something like that?”
“And let me guess, it’ll turn me into putty in your hands?”
He pauses for a moment before shrugging. “Maybe. I was thinking more along the lines of it would help you to relax.”
“Someone is dead. And you want me to distract myself from trying to find their killer so that you can give me a shoulder rub.”
“Peter and Diana are working very diligently to find your killer. We’re on the bench. I’m just saying that the bench can have it’s perks.”
Anna runs a hand over her face. “If I let you do this will you shut up?”
He nods with a grin. “You also won’t regret it.”
“I regret it already.” She sighs, before turning her back to him. “Do your worst.”
***
True to his word, Neal doesn’t say a word for the rest of the op, and neither does Anna. It isn’t until they’re climbing out of the van back at FBI headquarters that Neal catches wind of a quiet conversation between Anna and Diana as they’re unloading the equipment.
“ … been uncharacteristically quiet.”
“Sorry. It’s just … has Neal ever done the ‘van is bad for your back’ routine on you before?”
“Won’t shut up until you let him rub your back?”
“Yep.”
“It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about … ” The end trails off as they make their way around the corner, and Neal smirks as he heads back towards the van, walking right into Peter who was less than pleased with Neal’s attempt at inter-agency cooperation.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Whatever that was.”
“Peter, I’m just trying to help our two sides work together,” Neal replies innocently. “You did say to play nice.”
“Yes, but now you’re playing too nice. Stop it.”
“Fine,” he sighs. “But you were the one who said – ”
“I know what I said. Stop it.”
Peter then turns off to head back into the FBI and Neal simply shakes his head as he turns back to follow him. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
sciamachy ~ beyond the rift ~ 492 words
It all started with a call from one of his CIs. Cultivating a good CI in a universe where you technically don’t exist is easier said than done, but when your CI is actually a cop who doesn’t get the what the big deal was about Wanderer politics, it makes his life a little easier. Marty, a local Temeluchus demon, kept his ear to the ground for Wanderer related cases, and every so often would try and toss them Flack’s way before the real Chicago PD could get to them.
In this particular instance, he probably should have left it to the locals.
The hit comes out of nowhere, slamming into his shoulders from behind like a mack truck, if only because he didn’t see it coming. His palms hit the grit of the wall, and he glances back over his shoulder, trying to see what hit him.
“Beckett!” She had been the only one in the office at the time, and she’s there with her gun up, but she’s looking a lot more uncertain than he’d like. “What is it?”
“Uh, sir? You were hit by a floating two-by-four.”
With that, he rolls his eyes before holding his hands up. “Look, we’re not here to hurt you! We’re from the Wanderer Police Force, we’re here to help.”
“Bullshit,” the voice whispers, and the two-by-four comes around in another swing, this time breaking against the meat of Flack’s shoulder. It hurts like a son of a bitch, but there’s not much he can do about it until he figures out where this person is and how to stop them.
“Flack?”
“It’s a Wanderer, just like us,” he replies, not saying anything more than he has to. “Both of us fell through the rift, and we’re here to help you. If the real Chicago PD gets here? They won’t.”
The broken two-by-four looks uncertain for a moment. “Are they coming?”
“The call came in twenty minutes ago.”
More hesitation, and suddenly the piece of wood is whipped around, like it’s something meant to be stabbed instead of swung. “Then maybe I’ll just kill you first, and get away clean. It’s not like anyone can see me.”
Before he can even protest that statement, there’s a loud clang! as a garbage an lid collects with what must have been the head of the suspect. He drops like a sack of potatoes, slowly flickering into view while Beckett steps to his side, garbage can lid in hand.
“Looks like they can see you now.”
Flack smirks a bit, before straightening to his full height standing next to her. “Thanks for the assist, Beckett.”
“Anytime, boss.”
no subject
/this is amy
nubivagant ~ supernatural/marvel cinematic universe ~ 564 words
They’re in LA for a case, which Dean hates because LA makes it impossible to drive and even worse park and right now he just wants to kill the stupid thing so they can get out of here. Sam is in the coffee shop across the street doing research and Dean is leaning against the hood of his car with his coffee and hating Los Angeles, merely for existing, when there’s a very distinctive voice just over his shoulder.
“Wait, wait, wait. Is this a ’67?”
He looks up, and it’s Tony friggin’ Stark.
Dean doesn’t really watch TV all that often but he does his job through newspapers and there isn’t a newspaper in sight that hasn’t had Tony Stark on the front of it at least once. Dean blinks at first bewildered and not entirely respond to the fact that Iron Man is standing on the sidewalk with a box of doughnuts, talking to him and asking him about his car.
“Uh … ” Smooth, Winchester. Real Smooth. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s a ’67.” A huge grin splits across his face, pushing up from the hood and taking one moment to dust her off a bit. She’s a bit dirty from the long drive but not completely unpresentable. “My dad had her, passed her off to me when I turned eighteen.”
“She’s a great car.” He pauses to adjust his sunglasses, making his way around the edges of it to get a better look. “Looks like she’s seen a lot of miles.”
“We travel a lot. She’s held up pretty well, though.”
Tony nods slowly, before glancing back to him. “I’ll give you fifty thousand for her.”
“What?” The word comes out of his mouth before Dean can even really process what the offer was, before he steps back and shakes his head. “You want me to sell her?”
“It’s a good offer. More than double what she’s worth especially with the mileage on her.”
“Look, dude, you’re Tony Stark.”
“Stating the obvious, but what does that have to do with the car?”
“You’re awesome. I mean – actual superhero awesome, but I’m not selling you my car.”
“Fine. A hundred thousand, but you’ll have to at least get her washed first, and that’s my final offer.”
“No, man just … ” He pauses before shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter what you pay me, I’m not selling her.”
Tony regards him a moment, trying to determine if he’s serious. “It’s a ’67. No one wants to keep a ’67.” But Dean’s face doesn’t flinch and the other man eventually determines that this is going to be one fight he just isn’t going to win.
For now.
“Alright, fine.” He hands Dean off the box of doughnuts, before the Iron Man facemask clicks into place. “Never say I didn’t make you a fair offer.” And with that, he’s rocketing off into the sky, nothing but the smoke of the jet propulsion fuel to indicate that he was ever even there.
Dean can’t wipe the grin off his face, however, and as he turns around again, he spots Sam’s dumbfounded expression of confusion. “Was that – Iron Man?”
“Hell yeah,” Dean says, turning back to face his brother like a kid in a candy store. “Tony Stark just tried to buy my car.”
Maybe LA wasn’t as bad as he originally thought.
no subject
24. melinda & penny
micawber ~ everworld/heroes of olympus ~ 683 words
Not to say that those words haven’t applied to situations they’ve been in before, but this is worse than normal. This is the Alamo. This is the Battle of the Bulge. This is they’re not going to make it so kiss your ass goodbye before a Hetwan eats it. And they will. Christopher’s seen a the battlefield when the Hetwan are finished and all that’s left are bones.
The last thing in the world Christopher Hitchcock wants to do is die, but right now, it doesn’t look like they have too many options.
“This is really fucking bad,” he says to the girl sitting next to him. He and Piper are hiding out under an alcove where they can’t be seen, waiting for a lot of the real carnage to pass. He can hear it already, Christopher the Coward, but he doesn’t care. He’d rather be a coward than be dead. He hasn’t really reached the part where he can graduate to hero yet. “We’re dead.”
“We’re not dead,” Piper, ever the optimist, pushes up over his shoulder so that she can see better. April is nowhere to be found. Jalil ran by not too long ago, darting into an outcropping of rocks not too far from them. Even some of the other demigods are accounted for. All that leaves is … “We just need to find David and run like hell.”
“Easier said than done,” he fires back, gripping the hilt of his sword and just in case one of the Hetwan got a bright idea to try and charge at them, “Especially when they can fly and he could be … ” Right in front of them, trying to hack a Hetwan apart with his sword. David looks bloody and beaten, but there’s a look of grim determination on his face, like he’s going to hack that particular Hetwan into little Hetwan pieces or goddamnit, he’s going to die trying and there’s a small part of Christopher that admires that.
It’s about the size of a walnut and is currently being smothered to death by his sense of self-preservation.
“We need to help him!” Piper fires back at him, and starts to reach for his sword. Christopher jerks it back before she can even get close enough.
“Whoa, whoa—what are you doing?”
“Going to help!”
“No, you’re not. If there’s anything we’re not going to do it’s hand Ka Anor Aphrodite’s demigod daughter on a silver platter.”
“Then what do you suggest we do, because if we don’t do something David’s going to die.”
So much for her eternal optimism. Christopher glances back and forth for a moment between her and David and the sword in his hand, and after a moment he closes his eyes, regretting the words as he says them. “I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“I said I’ll do it.”
Piper, at this point, looks actively concerned. “Are you sure about this?”
“Not even remotely.” But someone had to do it, and he’s the one available person who can. Who’s death won’t really matter if he fails. He’s the smart choice and he knows it, but that sense of self-preservation really hates that he knows that. He takes a deep breath, squaring his shoulders, before turning to face her again. “Just one thing. In case I die.”
He then grabs her by the shoulders and kisses her full on the mouth. He’s been wanting to do it for a while, and he thinks right before he’s about to get himself eaten is the perfect time to do it. He pulls back, picks up his sword and runs screaming into the fray, a sound that’s three parts terrified, two parts insane.
That’s basically how you keep yourself alive in Everworld.
It’s over that scream, getting fainter as he runs farther and farther into the fray, that he manages to pick up: “If you survive this, I am going to kill you.”
Yep. Christopher is aware of that already.
There’s a part of him that almost hopes the Hetwan will do it for her.
smultronstalle ~ charmed ~ 438 words
She makes her way closer, sitting down on the edge of the bed, shaking Melinda’s shoulder a bit before she starts to pull off her shoes. “Hey. Scoot over.”
Melinda responds with a sleepy grumble, before inching backwards on the bed to give Penny more room. “When’d you get back?”
“Ten minutes ago,” she says with a shrug. “Rook had me do an obligatory bit of family time, but I’m here now.” She then kicks over onto the bed, rolling onto her side so that she’s facing Melinda. “Better question – why are you here?” She’s assuming there’s some kind of fight with Chris or Wyatt or that Elder boyfriend she’s not supposed to know about, but she’s going to let Melinda tell her first.
“Just needed to get out of the house for a little while,” she replies softly. “With all three of us home, things are getting a little … crazy.”
“Understandably so,” Penny says with a nod. “Is that it?”
Melinda looks up at her, a small bit of silence as she considers whether or not she wants to say more before shaking her head. “That’s all I want to talk about right now.”
Penny nods again. “Fair enough.” She figures whatever it is will come out eventually, they just need to give it a little time and elbow grease. Or in this case, sleep and possibly a lot of ice cream. “Mind if I take a nap? The jet lag is killing me.”
“Sure,” she nods, shifting a bit so that they can both curl into each other. After she closes her eyes, there’s a small pause of silence before Penny speaks up again.
“My uncle knows you’re here, right?”
There’s a pause.
“You didn’t just orb in and crash in my bed without telling him.”
Another pause. Then in a small, quiet voice:
“Oops.”
Penny lets that settle for a moment before shrugging. Oh, well. They’ll deal with it in the morning.
since there's two slots left...
27. Anna/Author's Choice
puszipajtas ~ white collar/csi: ny ~ 503 words
It’s the question he always gets asked and it’s always the one that manages to get him into trouble. Everyone always wants to know why they should trust him, and no one should believe him when he gives them an answer. There really is no right way to answer that question.
“Because I’m not a cop.” At least that part he can answer honestly. He waits as the two men he’s trying to get to accept him as part of their crew glance between each other, before whipping out a picture of him and Anna on some New York City street. Thankfully it’s not one where her NYPD badge is visible. “Are you stalking me?”
“Investigating you,” the leader replies, coming in closer so that he’s eye level with him. “Is she a cop?”
“No, she is not a cop.” That part’s a lie. He glances back to the lackey standing behind him and raises his eyebrows. “Is everyone who spends their time in the company of a beautiful woman a snitch?”
“Of course not. But she looks like a cop. A cop who could possibly be your handler.”
Neal sighs heavily. “She is not a cop.”
“If she’s not a cop, then who is she?”
“She’s my girlfriend.”
From a great distance, he can almost hear the sound of Peter’s hand smacking against his forehead. He’s probably going to get torn a new one for this later, but consider it him thinking on his feet. He also hopes that Anna is getting a text from Peter at this very moment, telling her to play along because she’s about to be dragged into the con whether she likes it or not.
“Then you need to get a less clingy girlfriend, bro. Because I just saw her, sitting in the park. She think you’re cheating on her or something?”
Neal presses his lips together at first, before holding up his hands. “You want me to get rid of her? I’ll get rid of her.”
“Good. In fact, I’ll go with you.”
“Perfect.”
Neal leads the way back into the park, navigating his way around the crowds of people, before approaching Anna with a warm smile on his face. “Hey, sweetheart.” He speaks loudly enough for his escorts to hear, before leaning in and kissing her warmly.
They did have to sell it, after all.
Anna doesn’t fight him on it, but he can feel a bit of the tension in her shoulders as it happens. He just hopes it doesn’t show from the marks’ perspective. There’s a brief conversation afterwards, and Anna eventually makes her way out of the park. As he turns to head back towards the other men, they seem slightly more convinced that Anna was definitely his girlfriend and not a cop.
As they’re returning back to their original meeting place, however, he feels his phone buzz in his pocket with a text.
When this is over, I’m so kicking your ass.
no subject
- Dean
- Stefan
- Buffy
- Elena
Writer's choice!
estivate ~ the vampire diaries/buffyverse ~ 827 words
Elena never really paid much attention to it before, beyond the fact that there was a new girl hanging out with them and Tyler looked like he was twice as likely to punch things as he did previously. Elena actually likes her, though – not that it’s really hard for her to like anyone. Cordelia is blunt and to the point with absolutely no filter at all, but then again so is Caroline Forbes. She can’t dislike one just because she hasn’t known her since she was a baby.
That’s how Elena rolls.
It’s the summer that her parents died that she really notices for the first time why Cordelia and Caroline are not the same as they may think. Elena is mostly floating through the world on autopilot, trying not to let her own grief drown her as she keeps wondering why she survives over anything else. Her friends try to help – offering to go to the movies, or hang out at the Grill, but she can’t. Not now. Not when the world still feels like it’s going to crush in on her at any minute. She politely declines which is probably better than politely trying to struggle through a party when she’s not feeling it at all, but at the end of the day, she still winds up alone.
It’s that last week of summer, the day before school starts for the Mystic Falls kids and before Cordelia has to fly back to Sunnydale, and Cordelia and Tyler appear on her front door. Tyler’s probably here because his mom asked him to make an effort, to include the Gilberts “after all they’ve been through” but Tyler and Elena have never exactly been close, so this only makes this feel even more forced than it already is.
Especially given not too long ago, she broke up with his best friend.
“Hey, Elena,” he says, not even bothering to hide the awkward, because he really doesn’t care, and Elena appreciates that in her own strange way. “We’re having a sendoff party for Cordelia over at the house. Thought you and Jeremy might like to come.”
“I don’t know where Jeremy is,” Elena admits. She worries about that because it’s easier than worrying about herself, but she doesn’t really know what to do about it yet. He lost his parents too. It’s hard to see the line where grief becomes addiction or worse when things are slipping too far from her for her to pull her back in. Jeremy is all she has now. She just doesn’t know how to make sure she doesn’t eventually wind up with nothing at all. “And thanks for inviting me but I think I’m just gonna stay in. School and stuff tomorrow.”
“Whatever,” Tyler says with a shrug, clearly happy to just walk away with that answer. “See you tomorrow, Gilbert.”
“Oh, come on.”
Both Tyler and Elena snap their attention back on to Cordelia, eyes clearly surprised by the outburst. Elena suddenly feels defensive, for the first time in a really long time and it’s startling how a statement that simple can put her so much on guard.
“Come on what?”
“You’ve been sitting inside and moping all summer.” The other girl just challenges her right back and suddenly Tyler looks really uncomfortable with where this conversation is going. Whether it’s because he really didn’t want Elena there or the fact that Cordelia was treading in dangerous territory wasn’t really clear.
“Her parents died, Cor.”
“Yeah, and it sucks. I get that. But the rest of the world isn’t going to stop because of it and they’re not going to come back. Eventually you’re going to have to start moving on.”
It’s something she’s known for a while, but hearing it said it such a sharp way hits her hard. Cordelia’s a truth teller, she’s always known that. She just hasn’t been the one that needed the truth told to her before. (She usually had her Mom.)
“Wow,” Tyler turns to take Cordelia by the shoulders, starting to guide her off the porch. Because even if he doesn’t like her much at the moment, he at least still knows when there’s a line and that line comes with telling people to get over their dead parents. “I’m … sorry, and we’re just going to go.”
She stares at their retreating backs for a moment, almost as though she’s still trying to process the shock of it all. They’re about halfway down the stairs before she speaks up. “Tyler, wait!”
“Yeah?” There’s a hesitant look in his face, the kind of look people have been giving her all summer. A look like she’s going to break or fall apart, but in his case there’s a twinge of fear, because he’s not equipped to handle that kind of emotional reaction.
But, luckily for him, she doesn’t.
“What time does the party start?”
Time to stop being stuck.