You don't really believe that.

closed until further notice

2009-03-17T14:03:13Z

I'm going to close this journal for the time being. I don't have much inspiration/time to write like I once did and though I may very well contradict this post in a week's time/after I put up the last couple fics I have on the off chance I don't, I just wanted to say hey THANK YOU. Yeah you. If you read, left feedback, enabled me, and/or was just generally awesome when it came to my scribbles, you're an absolute star and ficcing these past two and a half years wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun without you.

So again. Thank you. ♥

lost fic rec

2009-03-05T17:30:47Z

absolutely by aurevoirsanity - sawyer/juliet [lost], spoilers for 5X08

it's amazingly written and bleeds so well into canon and the voices are exactly the ones you hear on the show. whether or not, it's your kind of pairing, it's a fantastic fantastic read.

porn round up? basically.

2009-02-28T19:49:18Z

I just realized that I've been writing lots of random porn and never posted it here so that's what I'm doing now. These were all for Porn Battle VII and the following were written for Vagina Fest '09.

here comes reflected light
prompt: lost - jack/sun - car keys, 680 words, nc-17
she visits once

She visits once. Kate out wherever Kate goes when this house and this man and this child and this life cease to be enough.

It's late. It's dark. It's the world they fought so hard to get back to and the feeling that even now, that they're finally back, it's nothing, short of a consolation prize, a bad one at that. Now that they're back, the sacrifice outweighs what they're left with.

Jack lets her in, surprised as he is to see her, doesn't ask questions. She returns the favour.

His icebreaker of choice: "Hurley's in hospital."

Her sigh sits idle in her mouth, "I know, Jack. I know."

They stand in the kitchen, a neutral enough territory, and everywhere she looks, she can't help thinking, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is all wrong. He notices her shiver, doesn't say anything she can hear.

Her car keys are still in her hands, purse forgotten in the car, and Jack's handing her a drink with an air that says i don't know what to say to you and i'm too tired to lie.

She says something like, "You've changed," and maybe he nods at that, a line of what used to be a smile seaming over drawn lips.

She doesn't mention Jin, but he apologizes anyway, the chance to presenting itself, "Sun, if I could change one thing-"

"Don't. Jack, just - not now."

His scotch pools down her throat as she tries to remember why she thought this was a good idea. Something about the claw of familiarity, something she thought would help. Something.

He kisses her first - too soft, too giving. He kisses and her teeth rip fast into his bottom lip, blood splitting back on her tongue as she's left clawing at his hair, stubble prickled over her palm and Jack picks her up, the fridge folding cool at her back, holding her there to create the illusion of distance.

"We shouldn't be-"

Her laugh slips in and out of his mouth, his gut clenching on instinct, "We shouldn't be doing this. We shouldn't have done a lot of things we did, Jack."

"Yeah, I guess that's right," and his hand runs up the length of thigh, width of her skirt tossed against her middle as her body reacts to the contact, pupils blown, an easy mirror of the ones in front of her.

It stops being soft then. Stops being kind. Fingers carve out her flesh with messages she won't bother to decipher and tongues lock only to free themselves, the process repeated as leaden hearts keep count.

Sun comes with Jack's fingers inside her, mouth breaking from his to snake air in as everything begins to blur and clear all at once.

Jack comes over Sun's fingers, cock in her hand and the island still in her eyes.

They adjust their clothes. She turns the faucet, washes her hands, wets the curve of her neck and he stands behind her, watches the water spill into her collar, pressing his thumb to her pulse for a moment while she ignores the initial instinct to move away, instead breathing in place.

"I should go."

"It's late," he returns, and his eyes dart to the clock on the microwave, acknowledging the passage of time, other things. Things not forgotten, but buried all the same.

"Yeah."

Her keys are on the floor. She bends and he with her, their hands clashing over metal before jumping back to safety of their sides, their respective prisons.

When she starts her car, she knows he's watching from the window without turning to look back.

His last words in her head, stuck for however long:

"Take care of yourself, Sun."

An intersection pops along the road and she can't remember if she told him to do the same. Her hands clench at the steering, chest halving with warmth that chokes, doesn't soothe. When the light shades into green, her foot pushes to move, onwards and forwards, never ever back.

She hopes she told him. She hopes, if anything, it might've mattered.

i got lost into the woods
prompt: legend of the seeker - richard/kahlan - it's not enough, 633 words, light r/pg-13
it's written before them

It's written before them. The fact that they cannot be. Not the way they want to. It's written and it's true, but Kahlan cleans her sword after battle, washes it with river water, the blood of those it graced flowing out into the current, and she thinks if there were a way. If there were a way would they be inclined to take it or is the fact that they are not allowed this, the very thing that draws them closer together?

"Don't think so hard. It starts to hurt after a while."

Richard smiles from his spot, a tree to his back, and she rises, opts not to meet his eyes.

"Thought I told you to stay where you were."

He laughs and it sings back into her bones, "I'm a little hard of hearing. Did I not tell you?"

This is what they do when Zed is not around. This back and forth game with no goal or destination. This is what they've accustomed themselves to.

"Richard," she says, the name little more than an afterthought to the way she says it. As a warning. As a gift. As an admission.

"Kahlan," he returns and she needs to pay closer attention to how he moves, swift, but quiet because now he's in front of her, the water at her heel and there really is nowhere to run.

They have kissed before. That much they have done. But Richard isn't kissing her now as much as he's trying to memorize her. His fingers line the inside of her wrist, jogging up her arm, to her neck and in her hair. His thumb finds the back of her neck and it pushes at skin like it's trying to get a reading, a hint of where to go from here.

"I have to tell you something. I have to tell you something and you cannot be doing that when I do."

His grin drops wide and her breath, it leaves her.

She means then to say the words that she thinks will finally put a stop to this, keep them in firm line, but her hands are on his cheek, the skin cooled beneath her touch, his mouth waiting.

Kahlan kisses Richard with the truth in the back of her mind. It's slow, steady enough to control and thankfully, he follows her lead, her eyes opening for a moment to find his closed before closing once again.

She moves her attention away from his lips and his confusion is short-lived as her palm slides over fabric to rid him of it, bare chest and her hands chasing down its length, then her mouth.

"Kahlan."

There's a question in that, but she has to keep her wits about her, her focus the only thing that can save either of them, so she ignores it for now. Instead it's a tongue over the scar above his fourth rib and the gasp he makes with her movements something she instills into memory.

But there are limits and she never forgets so it's back to his face, the brush of those lips against hers, and she has to will her senses not to betray her as they tell her more and she drives the words back.

When his hand takes her breast, she moans out while he swallows the sound with his mouth, eager tongues twisting together, before she falls back. Away, gone and over.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing. We need to get back."

He doesn't believe her, but her eyes tell him not now, don't ask me now, and Richard heeds to the request.

They walk through the forest, side by side and worlds apart. They walk and his hand finds her, holds, and Kahlan then knows no amount of restraint will ever be enough. Not now.

pressure points
prompt: battlestar galactica - lee/kara - (against a) wall, 481 words - nc-17
kara knows lee the way she wished she knew herself

Kara knows Lee the way she wished she knew herself. It's always been that way. Lee Adama is easier to read than any book she might've once owned. It irks him. That much you could've gathered yourself, but it goes both ways, and that is where she finds herself constantly amused.

They're in the showers. Her first, him second, and the water's pounding through to her bones as she sees a room and a child and man she can't run away from. The memories of a knife in her hands and no escape other than the jam of it through skin that wouldn't die.

At some point, she says something, a thought meant to stay within the corriders of her mind and there's another voice, but it's too far away.

"Kara. Hey, hey."

She blinks twice, rubs the water from her eyes and with little to no preamble pulls him inside, under the pour with her.

He's still wearing his towel, eyes wide - rimmed with concern she really doesn't want to see right now, and her hand moves over the one holding up the cloth, eyes stilled together, as she laces her fingers with his and it drops, fuzzy fabric hitting her toes before it soaks through.

"Kara-"

Her head shakes; he tries asking her what he needs to ask with his eyes. She doesn't cave to that either.

Lee tastes like hard work, exhausted some, extensive lots, and always paying off. Her mouth slides for his, onto his cheek, and into the curve of neck waiting for. For once in her life, she takes her time, doesn't rush this. And the way his skin is pinking, all hot blood and want, she thinks she should do it more often.

Water catches in his lashes, and she opens her eyes long enough to lean back in, thumb bordering his temple as he watches her with something she can't distinguish just yet. Doesn't want to.

They find themselves against the wall, an easy destination, as Kara takes one step back with every step forward Lee takes, and he loses the slow pace they'd established, opting for latching the perimeter of his mouth everywhere he sees fit before his knees fold, her legs shaking as familiar hands hold them in place - soft pressure, calloused fingers.

There's a whisper against her, but she can't make it out, but then there's a smile, one she feels, doesn't see and her breath takes leave as the world clears save for her and him and this.

Kara comes without sound, mouth hung low and an arm holding her up as she slips a little, the other catching her whole.

The water's cold now. But they're warm, and she sits, half in his lap, and half out as he tacks on a kiss to the back of her neck and says her name like it's enough.

Boy Scouts Do It Better (Tom, Tom/Patty) PG

2009-02-25T08:08:06Z

Title: Boy Scouts Do It Better
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1460
Summary: Tom is the kind of man that is nothing without instruction.
Characters: Tom Shayes, Patty Hewes, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: I'm about three quarters into the first season so I guess that.
A/N: Tom kind of fascinates me and the dynamic between him and Patty even more and this is a direct result of that.

Tom is the kind of man that is nothing without instruction.

Give him a clue, drop him a hint, steer him in entirely the wrong direction, and he is golden.

Patty has known this from the beginning.

It is, after all, why he is still here.

Why he ever was.

-

Tom has a wife and a daughter and a house. In other words, a family.

Patty has a heart that pounds with more force than anyone he knows and those he doesn't.

He watches her stand, deliver her closing arguments, the air sailing through the room differently by the end of it.

"That was good," he says when she sits back down beside him, the clip of heels edging to the floor, the finality of it settling in the court room.

Glass of water to her lips, her smile holds nothing to decipher in it, just the stretch of teeth in a practiced row adjacent to lips that thin with the movement.

"Good is bullshit, Tom. It's excellence that gets the job done."

"Right. Of course."

Three hours later, the jury returns with a guilty verdict.

She squeezes his hand when they declare the defendant guilty on all counts and for nothing short of a second, Tom forgets to breathe.

-

Tom is a lawyer.

Tom went to law school and Tom slept around. A lot.

There was a girl he once thought might be something more than the Friday lay and the awkward Saturday morning that came after it.

She had a way about her. Saw through him and told him so to his face. Little to no prompting required.

"You've got all these people fooled. Some of them actually think you know what you're doing, don't they?"

The matress twisted under their combined weight, his smirk slipping just enough as hers only widened.

"Maybe it isn't an act. Maybe I do know what I'm doing."

Nails taking to his neck, she bent to unzip his pants then, the fabric snagging as she looked up with something like pity gracing her cheeks.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart."

Whenever Patty enters a room with him in it, Tom feels like he's in a dorm again, caught pants down and red handed to the brink.

His only consolation is that he's pretty sure he's not the only one.

If anything, he has that.

-

Tom kisses Patty one stupid drunken night when he is younger than he is now and her lips stay closed, yielding to nothing and no one, least of all him, amusement her only reaction.

"Tom-"

"I'm sorry. I'm-"

"Drunk. Yes. I gathered that. But for heaven's sakes don't apologize. You do things or you don't. Don't pussyfoot around them. It doesn't suit you."

"Of course."

The next time, it was Patty who kissed him, at the office, after hours, teeth marking flesh - red lines down his neck, a brand for his very own.

Tom thinks about his wife. He thinks about his house. He thinks about his job. Tom thinks about a lot of things, but not one of them make a difference.

He doubt anything ever would.

A sigh finds his lips, the source him, her, or maybe both of them - a partnership of sorts. Her eyes are open the whole time. His are closed.

That, in of itself, should you tell something.

-

"You have absolutely no idea what you're doing half the time. It's what makes you great, Tom."

His collar sticks ripe to the nape of his neck while she shifts back in her chair, shoulders squared away, not looking at him, but aware of everything his face is betraying against him anyway. Just one of her many talents.

"How do you figure that?"

"It keeps you from being a cocky asshole for one. Keeps you on your toes. You make less mistakes that way. I can't tolerate mistakes. You know that."

And he did know that. He'd seen enough people learn that lesson too late.

A mistake against Patty is one that you don't want to make.

No matter who you are.

-

Tom doesn't know why he needs her approval.

Doesn't know why he didn't take the chance to walk away and cuts his losses when opportunity pried open the window to do so.

But that's a lie. Biggest one yet. Occupational hazard, one might say. He knows better.

Regardless of the reasons, in spite of them, time and time again, he chooses her over everything that makes sense.

"What can Patty give you that we can't?" they say, adding another zero to the salary he won't take them up on.

"She's Patty Hewes, gentlemen."

His scotch warms into his palm, the ice long gone.

"She's Patty fucking Hewes."

Somehow, that's enough.

-

Someone shoots at her one day. On the court room steps.

The bullets stings past her shoulder and into his as he moves to push her out of the way.

Her husband thanks him. Patty doesn't.

She fluffs his pillow for him, pours him a glass of orange juice.

"I guess this day was inevitable."

His laugh doesn't make it out of him, but she smiles for the effort.

"Me getting shot? Yes, I suppose that was inevitable."

No, she doesn't ever thank him. For all she knows, he could've tripped. For all she knows -

"I appreciate you, Tom. I hope you know that."

His IV digs, burns, his arm heavy - tired.

"Of course." It's the safest response. He wants to say i know in its place, but that would require a certainty to hold the statement upright on his tongue and Tom only knows what Patty lets him know.

And still, he wishes he could say it anyway. The term fool comes to mind.

It's not like he'd argue.

-

Megan comes to work on a Wednesday.

Apparently, they still do that whole have the parents babysit their own kid for a day and call it a learning experience.

He gets the receptionist to watch her and Ellen kneels to shake hands mismatched in size and they talk about something he can't follow as he keeps an eye out from his office.

"Just make sure she doesn't major in law."

Note: Patty's other talent? Sneaking up on people in the moments where they are at their most vulnerable.

His recovery is quick enough that she doesn't mention it and his gaze returns to Megan, the grin on his face unbeknownst to him and common knowledge for everyone else.

"I don't know. She's got a thing for pant suits."

Patty laughs, "Smart girl."

And the moment passes quickly. This smattering of seconds where she leans back into her humanity, just for a little while, and snapping out again before it makes her soft.

Or whatever it is Patty Hewes fears will happen if she becomes anything less than Patty Hewes, the legend and the myth alike.

Sometime during lunch, Megan asks him if he likes it (-like what, dear? - your job, silly)

He tells her it's what he always wanted to do, and that at least, is almost the truth.

He's still trying to figure out the rest.

-

There's a scar left over.

From the shooting. Months and months on, a permanent bruise to the skin above his collar bone.

Sometimes, he thinks he imagines the burn there. Other times, he thinks he imagines a lot of things.

His wife calls. His secretary puts her through.

She asks, "Coming home soon?"

He answers, "Yeah. Sure."

No one says anything when he's an hour and a half late.

-

"You and Patty inspire me."

"Sorry - what?"

"Your rapport. After working together for so long, you still have that."

Ellen's still young. Ellen's fiancée is still alive. Ellen's got no reasons to be incredibly wary just yet.

So Tom shrugs, tells her to stop kissing his ass, and get back to work.

She does so with a glance that lingers on his back.

-

Someday, Tom will die.

Probably something standard. He imagines a heart attack, but even that seems too dramatic for him.

Maybe something as simple as turning into the street and trading hellos with a semi.

Prominent lawyer meets his end walking across the road. Now there's a headline for the masses.

But he wonders what they will say. What they will write.

In his more light hearted moments, he sees his name and made a great number two beneath it.

Their last and first inside joke.

-

Tom Tom Tom.

Tom-my, if you're his mother.

"I need you on this, Tom. A hundred percent or back out now."

The folder sits in his lap. He glances up from it.

"Anything I can do."

She nods; he follows through.

That doesn't change.

-

The Picture Makes A Promise [The Flesh Lets It Be Broken] (Paul, Echo) PG

2009-02-18T09:30:30Z

Title: The Picture Makes A Promise [The Flesh Lets It Be Broken]
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1773
Summary: "Do you know who you are?"
Characters: Echo, Paul, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: 1x01 Ghosts
A/N: This is the first time I've broken a 1000 words on a fic in ages and the fandom is exactly one-episode old, heh. AU off the pilot and yes, many many a liberty were taken here. Some parts are deliberately chronologically out of order.

you can close your eyes
and see the picture perfect life

broken | tracy chapman

"Do you know who you are?"

"What kind of a question is that?"

"The only one that matters."

-

All stories have a point to them.

Maybe not a moral. Perhaps not a lesson.

But a point nonetheless, however minute or subtle.

Echo lies down. The chair tilts back.

She is reborn just like she always is.

She is dying just like she always is.

The kicker is she doesn't know it yet.

And the point? Well, we're still figuring that part out.

-

Topher looks out over them.

Eyes pierced open and the tip of his mouth curved for up no other reason than he is a part of unspoken history in the making.

"We've created utopia, Boyd. A real-life here-now utopia. How can you find fault in that?"

The other man's sigh sullies the moment.

"I worry about you. Really I do," and a smile dissolves into Topher's face as the one on Boyd's disappears.

You see he's long past debating the rights and wrongs of what they do. No, Boyd isn't debating anymore, the verdict in, read and irrevocable.

He figures that in the end he can at least say with something like a straight face he tried his best to contain the damage while weeding out the good that came from it.

Because whatever they tell themselves, whatever words of justification they adhere silent beneath their tongues, this was never meant to end well.

-

All stories have a beginning. Except when they don't.

Papers lean off the edge of his desk as Paul clamps one fist into another, tries to breathe against the feeling that he is sinking in things he will never fully understand.

An envelope appears some time between his coffee break and a five minute nap that turned into ten.

To Paul Ballard, it reads, a promise in and of itself scrawled back in the black ink.

To Paul Ballard, it reads, and now, now there really is no turning back.

The letter tears like truth.

-

"Do you know who you are? Do you know who you were yesterday? Do you remember my face?"

"They - they called me Echo."

"That's right. They called you Echo."

There is a smile here. Something like that of a child's. And he? He tries his best to imitate it.

-

She is a naval officer Tuesday. A woman with an affinity for bad karaoke Wednesday.

No one in particular Thursday.

There is no sense of time, no measure with which she can call it her own.

There is nothing to call hers at all.

Sleep comes easy after the treatments, not that she knows what they are, but after she wakes up, everything comes easier.

The man with a boy's face and eyes that never blink in her presence hands her off to the scarred woman and then it is a bed in the floor.

"A damn coffin," Caroline might've said, if it was her in this vacant body for one.

(Lucky for her it isn't.)

-

Every story has a middle. Some metaphorical meat for bones to carry the ends of start and finish.

He finds her mid-engagement.

Her name is Sharon. Her eyes are hard. Her smile cold.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," the words spat out with a warning to retreat and desist.

Head cocked, Paul reaches for something, her back tensing with caution as he does.

"You know I think I will," he says, and his cell clicks and shuts before she can say much else, the crowd behind the bar swallowing him back into one in the morning.

The next time he sees her he shows her the picture. Her eyes squint, registering nothing, but her own face in the small screen.

"So what I have a long lost twin or something? My very own doppelganger? I thought this sort of thing only happened on soaps."

"Not exactly."

She laughs, but her gaze meanders back to the picture, her image, two weeks old and someone she doesn't know.

"Crazy world, I guess."

Paul's nod hits the air.

"Crazy world," he says.

-

"Do you know who you are?"

It becomes a mantra of sorts.

Every morning, Paul gets up. The mirror waiting to face him.

He asks the reflection the question and doesn't wait for a reply.

He had a life once. A home to claim, someone who loved him.

But that was before. And now, this is what he's left with.

Questions sealed in his every movement, a wary glare to anyone who asks if he's okay while he opts out of divulging a tired grin to ease their worry.

The fact of the matter is that Paul Ballard lost who he was a long time ago.

Maybe that's why he's obsessed with making sure no one else suffers the same fate.

Or maybe that's just another copout. He's been having trouble keeping track in any case.

-

He loses her.

For two months, he has no idea where or who she is.

Their last encounter went the way of a gun pressed against his chest and a word of advice.

"You really shouldn't sneak up on people. You never know who you'll be facing when they turn around."

The irony of her words weren't lost him as they were on her.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"You do that."

A moment passed before she dropped her weapon. He held his breath until she was out of sight

-

There are flickers. Flashes of bigger flashes where things go wrong. She's in a chair. She's in a chair and there's a light. A bright light.

But that's as far as it gets.

"Is something wrong, Echo?"

Her smile cuts her face clean as Claire's eyes keep to her face, "I'm not sure. Is something supposed to be wrong?"

She doesn't answer her. Nobody ever really answers her.

-

Topher watches her from to time.

When there's nothing to do, he gets up close, but far enough not to call attention to himself.

One day, Echo turns, looking through him, and her eyes flash, and then blink back into their perpetual carefree state.

He tells himself he imagined it. That second where she saw him for what he was. Knew what he'd done, would do again.

He didn't get enough sleep last night, you know. There's a entire number of reasons why he imagined what he did.

And he did imagine it. He did (didn't he?)

-

Tara. That's her name today.

Paul sees her from a distance, but he knows it's her no matter what her identity is. He figures it's a result of stalking someone for months, but whatever.

This time he doesn't approach her. She's with another girl. Someone that looks an awful lot like her, but Ec- Caroline, doesn't have a sister.

Not one her file lists anyway.

When she leaves the girl for a moment, he walks up to her side, eases a smile on his face and speaks slowly.

"I need to know something. Who is that girl to you?"

"Sorry?"

He flashes his badge to hurry the process along.

"She's-she's my sister."

"You sure about that?"

There's a bout of silence before her eyes dart behind him, and he knows his time is up.

"There a problem, here?"

Paul keeps himself faced away long enough to mumble something about directions and walks without sparing her one glance in reverse.

It's stupid. He knows it. Echo is not going to recognize him. A lot of people made sure of that sort of thing not happening for a long time to come.

And it's not like he's exactly one with caution. He doesn't know why he does it, especially given the fact, that he's face to face with her hours later anyway.

"Can I help you?" and her eyes are blank of any recognition every time.

"I think so. I'm during a survey in the neighbourhood. Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?"

He improvises and it pays off, her hand in his, as they shake and part ways, the tracking device he slipped into her pocket as he pretended to trip easy to place, apologies written across his face and her waving them off as they both regain their footing.

In a matter of days, he'll be that much closer to the Dollhouse.

In a matter of days, it'll finally be over. The only question that remains is for who.

-

The Dollhouse is disassembled.

People are arrested; others are pardoned.

The actives are freed. They have no idea who they are, the lives they left behind, coerced into abandoning.

But this memory thing goes both ways so some kid that looks like he graduated all of year ago goes about the process of restoring their identities as best he can.

"It's not an exact science-"

Paul cuts him off, "But that didn't stop you, did it?"

Topher blanches.

-

"Do you know who you are?"

"Are you serious?"

"Very."

"I'm Caroline. Who are you?"

"I'm Paul. It's nice to finally meet you."

-

All stories have an ending. This one has several.

But let's start with one.

It's raining outside when he meets her, a park near what used to be her house.

"Are you all right?"

She looks at him, through the drops, shrugs a pair of shoulders for lack of a better answer.

"You're wondering what to do now. What there is to do."

"Basically. It wasn't just me in this. My parents died because of this. I should've known better-"

"You didn't have a choice."

She shakes her head ruefully, "Maybe not, but I should've tried. I should've tried."

She doesn't tell her that she gets pictures of herself as somebody else entirely on rare occasions. The mind not as simple with removal as some people might've liked.

But for the most part, there's nothing. And the images she is plagued with for all she knows might be the same ones they showed her when they told her where'd she been for the last two years. The other hers.

"Just take your time, okay? And I'd offer up some answers if I had any, but you have my number. Use it."

She smiles to laugh, "Like I've been doing already?"

"Just like that," and as she gets up from the bench, he takes her hand, doesn't pull her up, but holds her hand and she stares up to the sky, and back down to the fingers lying over hers.

A moment skipped free, he drops it and walks in front of her. She follows him before matching stride.

pimping & drabbles!

2009-02-02T00:28:46Z

I'm hosting a crossover drabble meme at my journal so join in if you're interested! I insist, yes I do.

THE CROSS-A-DRABBLE MEME

Here are the ones I've written so far (to be updated when there are more):

across the pond | martha jones/ned (doctor who/pushing daisies)

as lovers go | dan humphrey/rory gilmore (gossip girl/gilmore girls)

with our eyes shut tight | jenny reily/matt saracen (friday night lights/the black donnellys)

here comes the twilight zone | blair, serena, spike, buffy (buffy the vampire slayer/gossip girl)

The Shape I Gave You (Arthur/Morgana) R

2009-01-28T02:57:27Z

Title: The Shape I Gave You
Rating: R
Word Count: ~830
Summary: It's Arthur's fault.
Characters: Arthur Pendragon, Morgana Fay
Spoilers/Warnings: General
A/N: For oxoniensis's porn battle vii and because this one wouldn't fit into the comment box no matter how hard I tried.

Imagine two lovers. Young stupid younger still.

Now take them both and hold their heads under water.

Sooner or later, someone gives up. Sooner or later, the promise of a future in which they dwell together pales in comparison to the cool safe snatch of air.

You just have to wait it out.

It's Arthur's fault.

She says this because it is first) absolutely true, second) absolves her of all responsibility, and third) cloaks the thoughts she hoped would be gone by now.

They find each other later in life. And it is his fault. She's kept herself to a village well outside the walls of Camelot, ran when cries of witch and sorceress grew loud enough to have her hanged, the noose she pictures waiting for if she is ever to return.

"I wanted to see you. To know you were all right. Will you fault me for that? Even now?"

Chin raised, it is still the boy whose hands shook in hers after battle because he was scared. Scared of destiny and right and wrong, fates that sunk like ships at sea, their tomorrows prematurely scribed, the ink dried to the page.

Her sigh is familiar, he thinks.

"You shouldn't have come. We have no relation. No links to hold us together any longer."

Pause and repeat, "You shouldn't have come."

She expects that is the end of it. What else is there beyond this, but it is him and she always did assume more than she should when it came to his intentions.

It rains and he kisses her. It rains and she kisses him back. It rains and the world is no different for it. It rains and the sound of the flood drums whole at a window, her eyes taking to it as his mouth lowers itself to her neck, bites, licks.

Morgana moans and Arthur, he smirks, the same one, preserved with the years, bites again.

"You have no idea," he begins, "No idea at all. The things that you don't know, Morgana."

She doesn't ask him what he means. What it is that she does not know.

She doesn't ask because there are entirely too many things Morgana is ignorant of and hearing Arthur list them for her is not something she will tolerate, pride still a close ally. Some days, the only one she has. To ask would mean to admit lack, defeat. He knows this as well as she does. And she is not ready to lose. Not to him.

Still. His attention span hasn't changed, the words forgotten just as they find air, calloused hands pulling up the thick of skirt, the heat of his skin on hers as he reaches, remembers her geography.

The scar at her knee, a horse bucking her off at six. The mole on her hip, the first time he saw it as she opened beneath him, blunt nails carving out their own marks there.

It's different now. Time does indeed change everything. Or rather it feels different, the ritual one in the same, the dynamic not.

She used to laugh. At him, never with him. His temper used to flare and spill from him as the tide did from the sea.

But that was before.

Eyes shut, Morgana moves from above, Arthur below, and her eyes are colder than he remembers, brisk - worn - sad. He shivers at their sight, her thumb pressed against his pulse, the hurried beat of his heart in his chest.

When he comes, hips leaping, knocking against the width of her own, his eyes are open. They watch her ride him and he moves up slightly, grips the back of her neck, tasting history blemished and history yet to come.

She says his name even as they kiss and he feels the shape of the syllables against his own mouth, moves his hand to where they meet, brushes fast, and then it is done. A gasp singing between them.

A younger Morgana would have kicked him out after that. Strung together her words in just the right order that would make him run from her, but youth is far behind her.

It works, this once, like this:

He holds her. She lets him.

He drops words she won't return to her back. She listens.

He sleeps, wakes to her waiting gaze, blinks to stare while she rejects eye contact all together, presses lips to forehead, whispering of things he does not, will never understand.

And on the other side of the glass, it still rains, the floor chilly against their toes.

In the morning, the world is washed anew.

In the morning, nothing changes.

In the morning, he stays with her. Holds her face, tells her there is still time.

Morgana knows this to be untrue. Not because Arthur lies, but because time? Time was never theirs to have.

Two days later, he leaves.

She will not lay eyes on him again.

The noose waits for her regardless.

Frankly You Saw Me (Cristina/Owen) PG

2009-01-23T10:32:15Z

Title: Frankly You Saw Me
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1639
Summary: It's stupid.
Characters: Cristina Yang, Owen Hunt
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything.

there are simple things
there are no simple things of us
that always draw my mind
and even then he cross the line

givin' in; siobhan donaghy

one

It's stupid. The epic kind of stupid that is usually reserved for Meredith and the angst machine that she has in place for a regular heart.

Cristina is a great surgeon. Maybe one of the greatest and she's just starting, just here breaking her scalpel in, and kicking everyone's respective asses in the process.

It's what she does. It's what she's good at. And with Burke, not to say, she didn't love him, because oh god, she did (she did she did), but it was his hand she loved the most.

She loved that they knew more than her hands. That they were as sure against the slope of her hip as they were inside an or.

She loved that he was so good at both. That he could be the man and the doctor and all the little things she didn't know to expect.

She loved that he was Preston burke, the Preston Burke, but her Burke too, the dancing-in-his-boxers Burke, the buying-her-coffee-as-a-substitute-for-communication Burke, the private-away-from-the-hospital Burke.

Water drips to bathroom tile. Slides over the floor and she stands up from her bath, dries her hair, blinks in the mirror to remind herself that she is here and Burke isn't. Won't ever be again.

The door shivers on a knock, a man that isn't the one that left her first behind it.

"Hi. I had this entire spiel. Every word scripted. I had mental flash cards and everything and now, I'm here, I'm here and I can't-"

"You can't what?"

"I can't remember anything outside of the fact that you're the one person that makes sense. You make sense. I don't know why, I don't know what that means, but you make sense to me."

Half lit, he's in her doorway, tired and worn and somehow still standing just like her. It hits her in the oddest moments. How fragile the world, the people in it, everything that slips between the two, are. Even her.

"Cristina?"

Her neck aches with the twist it takes to create the interface that is a kiss - lips, mouths, breaths, a gasp there and here.

"You make sense to me too. Kinda."

It escapes as a nothing more than a breath, but it's loud. A boom of a sound and she thinks she can hear her heart, the tip of the rhythm in her chest holding against his and he almost laughs, but it falters just the same (most things do).

"Yeah, the kinda ruined the moment."

"Shut up."

He does. Just.

two

It crossed her mind. Once. Telling Meredith about her dad. How it happened, how she factored into it.

The time her mother was in the hospital, lucid for all of a day, she thought about it then and she almost did it.

Something about secondhand experience being enough to be the push for someone other than yourself.

That maybe if Mer knew, she'd go up a floor, see the woman that both terrified her and loved her and they'd have a little bit of time. For them.

She didn't. She has no regrets about it either.

To have regrets, one has to admit error and Cristina Yang doesn't make mistakes.

She won't allow herself the indulgence.

three

She told him.

In the on-call room, the corner of one of the walls peeling at the bottom, old paint, new cracks, her lips tripped not once.

The words were steady. They were sure. They were true.

Devoid of bite or alternative mechanics to hide their intent.

"This isn't a game," he said, and it wasn't about her, not in particular. Owen was (is) a displacement. Unsure of where he was meant to go, be, and she just happened to be here, the soundboard of choice.

No, this wasn't a game. But in spite of that, someone always loses.

four

"Wake up. Owen, wake up."

"What- what is it? What's wrong?"

"You were screaming. A lot."

"I was?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry. I'll go - sorry."

"It's okay. It's okay."

"I should go."

"It's fine if you don't."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

five

In her head, she diagnoses with him with night terrors.

In her heart, she thinks it's just heartbreak.

He never tells her, but she's probably right on both counts.

He never tells her, no. Thing is he doesn't really have to.

six

They go to his place one day.

Her building's flooded because someone decided to up their dense meter and do their own plumbing and she originally was going to Mer's, but it's not quite the same now. Derek mostly permanently in the picture, the shroud of intimacy around the two of them holding like a line in the tell tale sand of their relationship.

So when he hears her bitching somewhat maniacally to Izzie who seems to be having an entire conversation on her own separate from theirs under her breath, it's an easy to thing to offer up.

Easy being his tongue rolling onto itself and several pauses for a decline spread out there.

"If you want. If you've already made other arrangements, that's fine. I just thought-"

"No, that's great. Thanks."

He nods; she nods back. Behind them, Izzie whispers a dead man's name.

seven

Not at all what she expected. That's what he gets from her initial expression, but he could be off. The surprise can be attributed to several things really. Still, he's trying to trust his instincts when it comes to Yang so he sticks fast to his first thought.

"Spit it out."

"Got nothing to say."

"Now, I know something's wrong."

Socks to hardwood flooring, she halves against a wall, hands on knees, and glances up to see what his face holds.

"It's open. It's really open."

Owen smiles, "Yeah, it's also called not having any furniture."

"That too."

eight

Sometimes. A lot of the time, Cristina thinks she is entirely not geared for this.

Like she's missing some essential rule or clue or guide that makes it easier, more manageable.

She has boxes for medicine. Each topic goes in its corresponding box. Each sub-topic goes into the box inside that one and so on and so on.

Life. The simple ends and starts of every day living aren't as easy to sift through.

(Something tells her that's probably the point.)

nine

Their first mutually sober date.

It's an adjustment, but a welcomed one. There's wine, white. There's food, indian.

There's a man. And there's a woman. The table in between.

From the outside, they are just like any other new couple - laughing and not laughing, smiling without actually smiling, the spaces between words having more significance than the actual conversation most of the time.

He gets them tickets to this jazz concert, in town and under darkened skies.

They sit on the grass. Take off their shoes. Lean into the space behind them and some into the one that gaps them together.

He kisses her at some point. Doesn't hear explosions or cries or glass coming apart.

Kisses her again.

ten

The war never leaves him.

It never will and if there were some way, he could just forget it all that wouldn't be right either.

He was a witness of sorts. His memories records for the last breaths of far too many and someone should bear the cost of remembering.

Just wouldn't be right otherwise.

eleven

And then there are the fights.

Fights that seam themselves into the skin and over the eyes.

"You're ridiculous! You and your hospital and your little group of friends. It's ridiculous."

"Why? Because it isn't there? Because I'm not over there? Like you were? You know, I know. I know you saw, lived through, unspeakable things, but you don't get to be here and tell me I don't matter. That what I do doesn't matter."

"I- I never said you didn't matter. I never-fuck."

"What?"

"Sometimes, I just look out into the world. And I see people going about their day and people wasting their lives and people not knowing what they have and people being happy or sad or pissed and I can't connect to that anymore. I want to, but I can't."

"Oh."

"But never do I think you don't matter. You matter. Of course, you matter."

Hands take hands. Fingers over fingers. Pause to pause.

"So do you."

twelve

She ran the third time she saw him.

Ran away like she was twelve and didn't know any better.

Didn't do any good though. Because here she is and here she's stuck.

Truth: She can leave at any time.

Lie: She's just waiting for the right moment.

thirteen

Remember the tumbleweed scenes from those old westerns? Billowing about with the wind, through the desert and aiming for nowhere?

They're kind of like that.

Stumbling, tripping, making ends meet and snapping them again.

She still thinks about who loses and who wins and if anyone ever truly wins when it comes to the overlap of one person with another.

He stopped keeping score a while ago, but tallies up his own battles on the inside of his heart, tit for tat, scar for scar.

And so they roll on. Just like this. Destination anywhere but the past.

(Oh, anywhere but there.)

fourteen

The nightmares are fewer and fewer in between now and as she lies awake, the moon the only naturally lit surface for miles, he exhales, reverts the action, alternating in turn while Christina keeps count.

Places her hand above his heart, waiting on morning.

An hour later, the sun falls out behind a cloud, his hands in her hair, twisting it at random, mouth popped whole against her neck.

And the light filters in, skips over limbs for two, the mismatched sheets and bedspread, catching them in mild surprise, their skin glowing awake.

She squints before opening her eyes.

Takes stock all over again.

Gold Rush (Slumdog Millionaire) PG

2009-01-21T07:06:00Z

Title: Gold Rush
Rating: PG
Word Count: 786
Summary: Neither of them have ever been outside of Mumbai.
Characters: Jamal, Latika.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything.
A/N: For penny_lane_42. I hope you like it, babe ♥. Post-film.

i’m always here
i, as in i
as in the one in front of you
i, i never lie
i’ll make sure that you’re alright

gold rush; dragonette

The first thing they do after he wins fortune and finds her waiting, finally, no turns or twists of fate to tear her away, back into the rush of the city, is fly.

Neither of them have ever been anywhere outside of Mumbai.

Neither of them have ever thought they would get the chance.

In his seat, he takes her hand, her smile - still the same one after all this time - brims over her teeth, and he kisses her knuckles, one by one, two by two, and again.

"We're free. We're free, Latika. For good this time."

"Don't jinx it, Jamal."

There is a laugh from him. A shake of the head from her.

She sighs; he feels the weight of it against his cheek.

Then they are lifted up. The sky a newfound friend.

-

New York seems like a good place to start.

There's Time Square. And the Empire. There are crowds just like back home and that above everything else is most comforting.

Their hotel is five stars and it all seems a little ridiculous. The two of them here.

Ordering room service whenever they please. Watching American reality television and succumbing to the hilarity that it entails.

But they try to get out as much as possible. When it gets dark, he holds her to his side like she'll slip away any second now and it's only when she pulls back, cues her face to his, and tells him that nothing will go wrong that he remembers to breathe.

"I don't want anything to happen to you. I don't want anything to ever happen to you."

A taxi pulls up, a couple disappearing inside, and she takes the second to watch them, wonders what their story is, all the while making up one in her head sans consent.

"I have you. You said it was destiny, right?"

He nods, squeezing her fingers close anyway.

"Well let's trust that."

(He tries his best. ~~He always does.~~)

-

They don't stay long.

They could if they wanted to, but there's something about the grain of time and how it wears, the doubt that lingers even when everything is in fact going one's way.

"Where to now?"

She sees a poster with the Eiffel Tower on it while he rolls his eyes faster than she can mouth the thought.

"What's wrong with Paris?"

"Nothing."

"Jamal."

"Latika."

"What's wrong with Paris?"

He takes a breath, leans back against a building, her fingers lacing through his hair.

"Really, it's nothing. Just something Salim used to say. That if we ever got out, we'd go there. He had this thing for croissants."

Silence falls. Takes a seat and pulls up a chair. She darts a glance his way after too long a moment.

"So let's go. For Salim. Let's go have our croissants."

A grin takes to his face and she exacts the expression, takes that as the yes it is.

-

Paris is, well, Paris.

Just you know more than a postcard in a shop this time.

So much more.

It's cold, but beautiful. Latika burrows herself into her coat and he rubs the sleeves of it, tells her to remember that this was her idea.

"Oh, I know. You're never going to let me forget it, are you?"

For an answer, he kisses the side of her face, warms her every way he knows how and some he doesn't.

-

After that, there are trains.

Lots and lots of trains.

The wheels beneath them skip, grind, and roll.

She remembers another train, the slip of her hand, thinking that was it.

That was it for her.

Turns out the universe had other plans.

And for the record? She doesn't mind that that plan snores like a truck.

Not in the slightest.

-

Sooner rather than later, home welcomes them back.

It's still Mumbai. It's still everything they knew and everything they have yet to learn.

One night, she asks him to marry her, and he says yes then no (wait - you know, i think that's my line actually. - hey, that's what happens when you drag your feet.)

That same night, he asks her. And she thinks of letting him twist - just a bit - he did decline her proposal after all, but concludes that there's plenty of time for that yet.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Don't make me take it back."

She wouldn't ever, but when he smiles at her, like she's crazy - just a bit - and that's okay, her eyes take in the image, the crinkle of his brow, the leaning curve of his neck, his shoulder under her palm's jurisdiction and Latika?

She counts her blessings as they come.

-

Back With Myself Again (The Air You Breathe) PG

2009-01-21T06:59:00Z

Title: Back With Myself Again
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1245
Summary: The future is malleable.
Characters: Sorrow, Pleasure.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything.
A/N: For penny_lane_42. Because you're special you get two fics. This is the first. I know. Not exactly a 'fandom', but that's what you get for not outlining specifics, yo. (I promise I'll write you Spuffy one day to make up for it.) AU.

i'm feeling colder now
a little bolder now
pure as my sins allow

coming up for air; siobhan donaghy

The future is malleable. There is no set path, no predetermined design.

And if there is one, if there is a road that should be taken and one that should not be, isn't it us who ultimately choose which way to go?

-

You don't pick up the phone that day. You hear it, far away, it's there, but you don't pick it up.

The shower drums out the ring, wets the hair at your neck, and your hand, it falls against your stomach without a second thought, completely unaware of the future that you had just diverted.

"Did anything happen while I was out?"

"I missed you."

He smiles and your eyes carry the light that comes with it.

(This is your new start, the one you never knew you wanted.

You tell yourself, his hands in your hair and yours holding his waist like the life raft it is, you won't mess it up. Not for anything.)

-

The last person to love you for you was your father.

And the day he died, you stopped hoping for that kind of reciprocal, all encompassing emotion.

There were still those who looked out for you, a chosen few who despite your unwillingness to acknowledge them as the true friends they were, that kept their promises, waited for you to realize that even if you had given up, they hadn't.

It's just that. He's the first one you take at face value.

The first one that breaks through, finds your center, and holds it between his fingers.

The day he found you was the day, you found life again, the essence of it, every jagged slip, each gapped crevice, bridging you to this moment and him to you through it.

"I saw it. I saw what was coming, and I couldn't stop it."

He said that, that first night, the words coming together in soft concession, and you knew then that was it.

Some people say that we go looking for love, but what we find is better, more somehow:

Someone who understands why we're the way we are. Someone who lets us be, and changes us all at once, without even knowing it themselves.

Your case wasn't any different.

("We're going. We're leaving. We're never going to look back."

Eyes pinned to your back, arms cradled thick across the span of it, he palms the space between your neck and your ribcage and you breathe out, expelling every doubt that ever held you back.

"We're never going to look back," and this time it's your whisper that settles easy in the dark.)

-

A picture hangs against a wall.

One picture, the only adornment in the whole apartment.

The only thing that was his, but a boy, fresh faced with idealism still.

Inside the skin of your wallet, your father peers back at you, teeth, happiness, and that inevitable stuck-in-time perfection.

You think that maybe one day, you'll have new memories to capture on film.

That both of you will.

Maybe.

-

Your interview comes on one day.

He holds the remote above your head as you strain for it, begging for a channel change, even as you laugh, the shake it gives you breathing back into him, chest to chest and nowhere to go.

"What was so bad about that?"

Eye roll on hold, you shrug, let him slide behind you, the crest of your head docking under his chin.

"I made a fool of myself," you say, the width of your mouth contouring to his wrist, another scar, another story that goes untold for now.

"No, you didn't." He follows that up with how the interviewer was an asshole and if you want, just say the word, and he'll beat the shit out of him for you.

A commercial prances on screen. And between your teeth, you hold back what you want to say to that. How you want to keep his hands cleaner than you found them.

How easy it is to spiral back into patterns of yesterday.

-

The visions stop. The images of what will be. The future in his mind's eye.

That all ends. And all that remains is her.

He welcomes the tradeoff, and for the first time, for real, gazes upon tomorrow with no idea of what's to come, no inkling which way the wind will sing.

-

The roads outside of the city wind, tumble, and line up in pairs outside your window.

You leave early, dawn snapping awake over the world, and you make him stop at a convenience store, come out with a disposable camera, grin brimming to claim your face.

"Smile for me."

Of course, he does no such thing, but you catch his laugh anyway, to the side and in the corner of your frame, pull back far enough that he's still in the photo and click.

When the photos are developed, he hides his face in his hands, tries to snatch it away, while you outrun him in a Wal-Mart off the interstate, clasp the envelope to your skin, not letting go once.

Later, you slide the picture inside your wallet, its own compartment there, and hood pressed up under you, let him take his own, the flash stealing your sight, and the sun sinking honey slow at your back.

-

It's punctuation.

This easy spill into a life that neither of them knew they could have.

Question marks and ellipses. Semi colons and commas galore.

You're always editing the script, adding to it, and when his mouth takes your cheek, smoothing across to the other side, and the lights dim in his eyes, replaced with something else, something harder than you know, you realize at once that the end of this, whatever this may become, is and was always entirely beyond your control.

"Trust me," he asks of you, "Trust me."

Eyes shut, you jump and hope the leap lands you somewhere safe.

(It does.)

-

The stick turns blue.

The stick turns blue and you're not ready for this, not by a long shot or a short one for that matter.

"We'll be okay."

"We will?"

"Yeah."

He kisses your face, tells you that he isn't going anywhere, and your hands are skimming around his waist, steadying themselves there, as you try to believe what his eyes are trying to tell you.

-

The sun rises.

The sun sets.

The road diverges.

The road converges.

You hit the coast and float belly up.

In three months time, you're going to be a mother.

In three months time, the tides will have changed everything once again.

His arms hold you by the shoulders, supporting you even as buoyancy ensures that you will in fact stay above water.

Clouds move above, white puffs of opportunity skating on by, and for once, you stop. Stop wondering how you're going to pull this off. How either of you will.

How you can possibly be okay in this crazy crazy mess of a world.

No, there'll be plenty of time for that. For now, there's water, the man that saved your life in more ways than one, and the buzz of your lips as you hum a song you thought you had forgotten by now.

Something before a vaguely successful pop star career. Something that carries you beyond the wisps of yesterday and onward into the heights of tomorrow.

-

And in the end. In the end, he will know your real name.

-

This Misery Will Suffice (Carlisle) PG

2009-01-19T06:48:48Z

Title: This Misery Will Suffice
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1022
Summary: "All that deviates from God's intended design must be cast away."
Characters: Carlisle Cullen, others
Spoilers/Warnings: General
A/N: For my Kiki, derschatzi. Yeah, we both love this man off like nothing else. No, we are not ashamed. Hope you like, love, and sorry for the wait. All back story is courtesy of the wonder that is wikipedia.

maybe i'll sleep when i am dead
but now it's like the night is taking up sides

sleeping sickness; city and colour

"All that deviates from God's intended design must be cast away - rejected," his father said, furrowed brow, serious as can be.

At ten, Carlisle was already inclined to disagree.

-

He remembers everything.

From his human life and after it and he thinks that there will never be a day that he won't wake up to sound of hollow screams and the image of fire spreading wherever it deemed worthy enough to touch, burn.

-

There was a girl once.

A childhood friend of sorts.

They called her a witch. Burned her tiny bones at the stake, and he was forced to watch, the light of the flame licking him orange, as she screamed screamed screamed for rescue.

He still wishes he could save her. He still hears her voice, the raised tilt of her laugh, as they ran down hills of green and fell to their knees in mock surrender.

-

Carlisle always knew the path that lead right from wrong.

It was a curving twisting road that one should best avoid, and he didn't need his father's sermons to tell him that.

But the hunting continued. Fingers pointed and mouths sloped into the bitter line of hate as they accused each other of being monsters, not noticing that they were fast becoming exactly what they feared in the meantime.

No, he knew the path. But even he wasn't ready for what went bump in the night.

-

The night he was turned was one fraught with anguish, all the forms it takes, and the lights, the shapes, the sharpened point of teeth, - they all blister inside his mind.

"I'll make this quick. But it won't be painless," it had said, this creature that captured him in the moonless dark of England.

And these words were the truth. It was faster than the racing legs of one of his father's horses, and stung worse than the taste of fire against your bare hand.

For all he knew, this was the end and as he lay there on the cobbled streets staking crooked against his back, he wished for death to take him in haste.

-

It didn't.

He lived or did not die the way he always thought he would.

There had been a cave, deep enough to call home, and dark enough to remind him it was no such thing.

There had been screams and wails and all a manner of moans. It took him a while to realize they were his, but realize he did.

A monster. That was what he had become. A monster. That was what was left of him.

The first time, he lept off a plateau and onto the flat slate of rock below, nothing much had happened.

By the tenth attempt, he figured it was a lost cause.

There would be no escape for him. Not yet at least.

(Not ever would be more honest, but he was still tethering hope together just in case.)

-

He moved often after the transformation.

The hunger took him not by surprise, but by disgust. He could hear blood, literally hear it - pulse, rush, and go - just like static and nothing like it at all.

The deer were his first victims. The rabbits his second. And his soul the third.

Blood spilled from his jaw and the thirst sometimes would be so strong, he didn't have the patience to slip back into things like repulsion and disdain.

Survival took priority now.

It was all he had.

-

Edward came decades later.

Esme even more.

But time had been rendered obsolete at this point.

There is just too much of it, he thinks, even now, centuries on.

There is just too much of it, he thought, even then, centuries earlier.

-

Everyone he knew passed away into the afterlife, the one he couldn't-can't hope for.

He marked their deaths with the memories he still had.

There was his father. His mother. There was an aunt, there was another friend.

He didn't dare visit their graves. Not in this form.

Something told him, that would have been pushing it.

-

When Edward turned, he was alone no longer.

The Spanish influenza tore and ripped and crumbled everything around them, but they were immune.

Above the threat of death. Exempt all together.

In a word? Indestructible. In two? An abomination.

-

It was better with someone.

It was selfish to take him into this existence, but the boy seemed to bear no ill will toward him and that maybe was enough.

They raced each other.

They hunted together.

They were amused by the humans, the way they laughed and argued and had not the slightest inkling how blessed they were to do so.

They were amused by a lot of things, but mostly, it was better with someone else.

-

Esme, by all accounts, was broken.

It's not mean, it was just a fact. She was broken when they first met, crippled through and through.

She is less so now, but she was then.

She tried to take her life, and he could remember what it was like to want to do that.

So he sank his venom into her blood and hoped she had a better life in death.

She did.

She tells him so you see.

-

And time kept moving moving moving along, the way it always does.

Until it brought us to the end (now).

Or the beginning - he has trouble distinguishing between the two.

He has a family. They are imperfect, but they are his and he is theirs.

He has a wife. She is perfect, and he is not, and try as she might to convince him otherwise, he will not have it.

He has a home. Walls, doors, switches for this and that, a television even that goes unwatched in its corner.

He has far too many tomorrows to count and the exhaustion not to try.

And a monster he may very well be, a distortion of what should be, but he thinks for now, at least, if someone will indulge him this, the light far outweighs the dark.

-

Together We Will Live [Forever] (George/Mason) PG

2008-12-28T14:34:46Z

Title: Together We Will Live (Forever)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1479
Summary: Everyone dies.
Characters: George, Mason, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: General.
A/N: For viennawaits♥! Hope this is to your liking.

Everyone dies.

People are born, they live for however long, and then sooner or later, we all perish together (or alone).

The first thing Georgia Lass learns post-mortem is that for her it will never be that simple.

And truth be told, it really never was.

-

"It's not so bad after a while. Trust me."

She can't quite place who said the words. They sound too open for Rube. Too kind for Roxy. Maybe Betty, most definitely not Mason.

She's dead, but not. Alive in the most basic sense of the word, and it takes getting used to, this heart supposedly beating out the only song it knows in her chest, these hands that still quiver when a cute boy casts a smile her way, now equipped with the ever-handy ability to take a soul or what have you.

And as far as trusting anyone goes, she figures if she never bothered with it when it could've counted towards something, mattered, however trite that sounds, she's certainly not going to start now.

But there are days when she's sitting in the diner, ordering the cheapest thing on the menu and he wanders in like he got lost on his way and this stupid smirk will slip easy across his face, all of five, hand in and out of the cookie jar, no one the wiser.

"You going to eat that?"

"Fuck yes, I am."

The scone disappears between her lips; he watches it fall in.

Still, she gets him something less grand later. Usually a muffin, English if they have any, and he will sigh before ripping the plastic off, resigned to his fate.

"I hate you."

Her laugh is low, but strong, "I know."

-

Betty gets traded in for the kind of girl/woman George would've tripped in middle school.

"Daisy Adair at your service," and Rube, he like doesn't even look up at all and George thinks she loves him for that.

Mason, though, he makes sure to look. She doesn't think about it. It's her and him, toilet seat girl and drilled-into-his-own-head Mason. There's nothing there to lay a claim over.

"You're drooling, you know."

Eyes glazed, his features pull together in some sort of facial shrug, "Just the bit though, right? Nothing too obscene?"

She hands him a napkin on her way out.

-

Reggie lingers in the dark.

There are times she swears, between the moment she opens her eyes in the morning and once they properly adjust to the light, that she's there, right at the foot of her bed, still pleading for the attentions of someone too involved with herself to give it.

"I miss my sister. I miss my life. I miss everything."

Chuckle itching out of his mouth, he looks at her, waving his head this way and that, "Everything? No one ever misses everything."

And he is probably right about that, but she holds onto her hasty delusions, lets them have more shelf life than necessary, "I do."

Exactly twenty seconds later, the memory of a particular Christmas and a tree that caught fire, screams lasting for what seemed like days:

"All right, maybe not everything."

He smiles in his victory.

-

It's no secret that nine point nine nine times out ten Mason is on something.

She's just had to reap a bus full of unwitting people and he doesn't even have a post it for the day when she finds him on her way back to work, straddling a fire engine.

"What, why, no."

He promptly falls onto his ass. Cue the pre-taped audience laughter.

"That you, Georgie? Geooorgie, I've taken a spill. Give me a hand?"

(Like she said, nine point nine nine out ten.)

They stumble their way to a bus stop, and she misses what was left of half of her paying hours for the day on account of it, cringing at the sounds coming from the bathroom despite herself.

After he comes out, she asks him if he has anything less potent, easy on the side effects, and he looks horrible, paled and tired, but still very much Mason.

The pill dissolves faster than she can say, leaving her tongue fuzzy warm. And for a little while, she forgets, every last pathetic detail of her life and her death and all that came after.

The only thing that comes into focus is his face, and she can't say for certain, funny how memory and recreational drug use don't go hand in hand, but she thinks she might've touched it at some point, laid back into the sofa cushions, whispered out, "Don't leave, okay?"

He hadn't.

-

George doesn't trust easy.

George doesn't love easy.

George doesn't.

She just doesn't

(But that's not to say, she won't.)

-

Daisy finds her one night, sweat laden and images snaked like complimentary ghosts beneath her eyes as she called out, another four hours to dawn still.

"Now, now, Georgia. Now, now," and her fingers felt like wool skipping across her face, comforting in that far away kind of sense.

She never could remember what she was dreaming of that night. Hell, heaven, something in between.

Maybe, she really is still waiting for the white light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe, she's forgotten that it's all a myth, and this, this is her due penance.

Maybe, maybe.

-

"You all right?"

"Just peachy keen, mister."

Her hands prop her chin up, his cover his face, the yawn there bit back into palm.

"Okay then," he says, and her cheap imitation of it bleeds hard on the eyes.

-

It gets easier. Life after death, death after life, whatever the correct terminology may be.

They're still restless, and on occasion, she'll ache for the magic that comes in the bottles that rattle in his back pocket.

It passes though, and what she's left with, though far from perfect, isn't all that bad.

"Let's go out. On the town."

George chokes on her giggle, "Paint it red?"

Mason frowns, denting his face with it while her eyes steel with the half-pause, "Bugger no, not red. Blue's my favourite."

Remember. Nine point nine nine times-

So whether they painted anything anything remains to be seen, but they do go out, and it's pulsing music and drinks that don't stop and George loses herself in the black, under a disco light left over from the decade it belonged to, while Mason watches her from behind the girl he's dancing with.

Even with her eyes shut, she feels it. Even with his open, he can still pretend it's all in his head.

-

One day, he doesn't show up. Rube eyes her down at breakfast like it's her fault or something she needs to fix or whatever, and she just glares back for all she's worth and then some.

Turns out even if you are already dead, you can still have your stomach pumped. Three times in a row even.

"You," she starts, and the rest of that sentence can end with any number of appropriate deductions given the obvious, but he's the exact picture of sad and there's nothing left to say.

She thinks that if they had met when they were alive, had they been born in the same time, she would've written him off ages ago.

He wouldn't have blamed her.

-

For the record? She's never been one for short or long lasting relationships of any kind.

The trail of dead pets in her childhood tell the story well enough.

But she's stuck here, sequestered in time and space with nothing much to lose either way.

"Scoot over."

He slides to the end of the booth and they're the first ones here for once, the surrounding tables empty save for an eldery man in the corner.

In no time at all, the others join them and she moves in closer to him as Daisy squeezes in with them, opting not to join in the debate Roxy and Rube have immersed themselves in across the table.

"Here you go, Peanut," the paper crackles between her fingers, folding itself in thirds.

And if her hand brushes his, under the table and out of sight, if his brushes back, if they're ultimately two screw ups with no destination to speak of, who's to say that's not something in and of itself?

Who's to say they shouldn't grasp for a tangible hold and wait to see what happens?

"You're ridiculous."

The sun takes his eyes, shines them copper, "You love me. Just admit it," and she thinks if she knows him as well as she thinks she does, he almost seems happy here, less jagged for wear, a grace more solid.

Around them, the day starts. The world coming to in earnest.

She begins to walk and beside her, his steps - they line to match her own.

-

Touch Back Down (Chuck, Blair/Chuck) PG

2008-12-18T16:38:40Z

Title: Touch Back Down
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1075
Summary: And if he really wanted to, he could turn this into the beginnings of a hysterical joke.
Characters: Chuck Bass, Blair Waldorf.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything to date
A/N: For i_am_girlfriday!

His dad dies.

And if he really wanted to, he could turn this into the beginnings of a hysterical joke.

Hey, you know Bart Bass? Well, death caught him. By the hook.

He doubts anyone would laugh, but then again most of the people he knows were born with silver spoons in their mouths and sticks up their asses anyway.

He should know. He's one of them.

-

Lily said once that his father would've made a wonderful addition to the CIA.

"I've never met anyone so capable of compartmentalizing their life before. Everything-" and she stepped to her feet to pour herself some more chardonnay, "everyone has its place."

Chuck hadn't said anything. Probably because she was right. Probably because she had had one too many and he didn't want to begin a debate with her in her aforementioned state.

But even to his own ears, he knows the former has more weight than anything else.

Everything did have a place when it came to his father. Even him.

~~Especially him.~~

-

"Where are you? Just tell me where you are and that you're all right and I'll stop leaving you these messages," a sigh, "I hope you're okay."

He isn't if she must know. Chuck deletes Blair's umpteenth voice mail and knocks back scotch with all the cavalier he's known for.

Outside his window, waves hit the shoreline, slam into it, no mercy, no apologies.

He falls asleep to the sound of the assault.

-

When he can't sleep, he imagines that she's there, or rather his mind does it for him because he can't quite ascertain if it's a conscious decision or not.

Her hips jump against his hands and her hair falls across her face, a perfect mess of someone so terribly concerned with appearing immaculate at every turn.

She kisses him and he feels what it is to drown and not want to be saved.

Right before he snaps out of it.

His cell blinks with another missed call. He pours himself more scotch.

-

They're Blair and Chuck. Chuck and Blair.

And that there really does sound like the beginnings of a hysterical joke.

He chuckles to prove it to himself, but it comes out choked, strained.

Pathetic, huh?

-

"You're starting to worry people, Bass. Nate's considering putting out a missing person's report and you know how long it takes him to catch onto things. And if you think for a second that I'm going to stop anytime soon, you're an idiot."

Oddly enough, listening to that even if his first thoughts were that he is going to have throw his phone into the tide one of these days, makes things almost bearable.

-

A month goes by. A month of voicemail.

At first, it was all reprimands and pleads for him to see reason, at least let them know he hadn't fell face first off a balcony in a drunken stupor or whatever.

But then he guesses she got bored.

So it's what Eleanor did now, and oh, Dan and Serena are back on so they're both miserable and Eric is actually miserable.

"Whatever you say - whatever you said, he really did see you as his brother. You were like the most inappropriate mentor ever, but he loved you just the same. He told me to tell you he misses you."

And if he were on speaking terms with the world, he might say something like he hadn't meant it.

But he had in a way. In that moment, the funeral a bad memory on loop, he had no family. No one he who would trust as far as he could blackmail them, no one he'd turn to when the occasion asked for it.

Eric was a good kid. He'll make amends when he can. He will.

-

One day, he slips up. Uses the wrong credit card and is too stoned to notice.

She shows up somewhere in the next forty eight hours.

"Hi."

He glances up from his spot on the sand, reaches for the bottle resting at his knee, and offers her a glass of wine.

She takes it with a grimace and he fights back the urge to laugh.

"It's the best they have I promise you."

A sip and then one more, her head shakes and he doesn't know what at (him, herself, the whole of the universe itself).

"As long as it didn't come in a box."

The laugh that rips out of him folds around them both, "I make absolutely no guarantees."

-

They don't talk about it. The elephant in the room, the skeleton in the closet (bad pun of all bad puns), him.

It's nice, not having to verbalize why he's across the globe and why she followed him here.

And it's nicer when they don't bother with words all together, stuck in the same room for hours on end, and the ocean outside.

-

Some days, it gets to him. It's always there, but some days, it just hits him more.

He disappears, no questions, no answers, comes back when he's too drunk to walk anywhere else.

Her back sinks against his front and the sheets skim down her middle.

She's always awake when it happens, and he can't help, but notice how her shoulders ease under his palms, her breath shallowing out while his peaks in the opposite direction, the clamp of heel against his ankle, unmoving.

He never apologizes for leaving back then. She wouldn't expect him to. But he does try to make the absences as infrequent as he can.

He tries.

-

"You do know that you can't stay here forever."

"And what's going to stop me? You?"

Toes dipped in sand, Blair crosses her arm like he's going to be held back after class and really, she had no way of knowing that that is one of his favourite role play scenarios.

"Why exactly not?" and the challenge in the question is like a stamp, the ink spreading over the page and nothing can get out it again.

"I don't think you could take me is all. I've seen you in gym," his smirk dances straight into his eyes, "You run like a girl. Sorry."

He makes it a yard before she trips him face first into salt water.

-

Oh, don't worry. He made sure he took her down with him.

He always does.

-

Why break with tradition afterall?

-

Stranger Things Have Happened I Know (Chuck, Cassie) PG

2008-12-18T16:12:03Z

Title: Stranger Things Have Happened I Know
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2238
Summary: He's Chuck Bass. Skins/Gossip Girl crossover
Characters: Chuck Bass, Cassie, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: General for Gossip, everything for Skins.
A/N: Heh, this is thanks to tunings and her amazing prompt. Hope you like this, Dee!

He's Chuck Bass.

That's enough for most people to know to take a huge step back, be just a little afraid.

Most, but apparently not all.

-

So there's this diner, and it's not a place that matches his tastes or standards or even his cheque book for that matter, but the Upper East Side is getting smaller every day and he'd rather not run into anyone that would (and they probably would) dampen his mood.

And Chuck's mood is pretty great right now. Thus the new coffee spot.

"Can I get you anything else?" At the disturbance to his thoughts, his eyes trail up from the unforgivable sneakers at his right and are met with a swirl of blond and an accent that definitely doesn't sound native to Manhattan.

"Yeah. Let's start with something edible. Small steps, okay?"

This is where the person on the receiving end of these words usually scampers away, firmly put back in their place, and fulfills his every whim.

Needless to say that is not what transpires.

If Gossip Girl is anything to go by, you might be led to believe that the waitress in question nodded, small and deft, bent to give him a refill of his black and no sugar, and rather accidentally missed her target and poured piping hot caffeine down the front of his pants.

"I'm so sorry. Really I am. That was so clumsy of me."

But she doesn't look it. Clumsy, maybe, but sorry, no.

Cassie, as her name tag dictates, passes him a stack of napkins and the other staff have caught onto the mess and by the glances, they keep throwing their way, he gets the distinct impression that they're almost proud of her. Sticking it to the rich brat in the leopard print vest and all that.

"I'm sorry," she says again, but Chuck stands, winces with the pain, and makes sure she knows that he isn't buying it in the least.

"Oh, you're not now. But you will be."

He thought that was a pretty good exit line. But with his balls in his hands and the limp to the door and the laughter that basically erupted the instant the door fell shut behind him, it probably didn't have the desired effect.

Probably.

-

The next day, he does a background check.

Because that is not at all odd in any sense. Come on, he's Chuck Bass.

English (he gathered as much), a year older (he was betting younger), and not a whole lot else to be honest.

The plan was to find something incriminating and get her ass fired and he could probably do that without the research, but that would be entirely too easy.

So. He figures a second visit is in order.

Just to say hi.

-

"You."

"Yes, the boy whose genitals you nearly singed to death. Me."

And maybe this time, she has the decency to appear slightly apologetic. He's almost disappointed too.

In the end, he orders the special, blueberry pie and takes his coffee to go and eats in the back of his limousine, counting out the minutes before her shift is over.

And in four, three. two. One.

"Get in."

"Get in?" she asks, like the very idea is the most laughable thing she's ever heard while her eyes fight against rolling back and lose the battle.

See he's so used to girls leaping at the chance to experience the luxury that is riding, so to speak, with him that he's understandably a little thrown. Still, he's a quick learner. A change of tactics it is then.

"I meant to say would you care for a ride. Wherever you want."

Cassie eyes him. Calculates the two hours that it will probably take her to reach home against the fact that he may be the creepiest individual she has ever met in her entire life and cuts her losses where she must.

"I so hope you're not a serial killer," is what she says before the first foot slips inside.

It's probably a good thing she doesn't hear him mutter, "That depends entirely on who you ask."

-

"I'm Chuck Bass," he says as he hands her the most expensive brandy in the universe.

A second passes. Two seconds pass. The third is born.

She just stares out the black tinted windows. It's not exactly the reaction he was looking for.

"I'm Chuck Bass," he repeats, putting all his effort behind the three syllables that are his claim to fame or notoriety as it were and Cassie finally turns away from the scenery that is people peering to see who exactly is in the car.

"Wow, lovely," comes from under her breath (and he almost smiles at that) before another beat passes, "You know you already said that, right?"

Fact: She couldn't sound anymore disinterested if her very life depended on it.

So there are people immune to his charms. Huh.

-

"Thanks for the ride," and there's this pause as her eyes drift as if searching for the end of that sentence, but they leap back in time, silently mocking him, "Chuck! You thought I forgot didn't you?"

It's a sad truth, but he did and it was probably the most soul crushing thing he would've experienced. Ever.

"Don't mention it."

The limo pulls away. She walks up her steps. The limo pulls back.

"Here's my card. If you need someone to show around. Or-yeah, here."

To her credit, she actually does take it and there may have been an audible sigh of relief on his part.

Maybe.

-

Weeks take leave.

She doesn't call once.

And he doesn't spend a single moment thinking about it.

Of course, not.

He's Ch-

-

But this is New York and there are clubs and bars and he is usually in those clubs and bars and the inevitability of it is ridiculous.

They meet respectively wasted one night and she's with this guy, this wall flower kind of guy, and he tells her, dusting off the hit he just took off his nose and tripping forward in the direction of her face, that she could do so much better.

Right before she laughs into his face. Of course.

"I don't even know how you exist."

"I know it's a modern miracle."

Cue more laughing.

Sid is at the bar getting another round and Cassie's eyes find his through the smoke and the strings of dancing people and Chuck feels like this is the moment in the movie where the music swells or what the fuck ever.

"We love each other. It's not about if you could do better. It's love. Nothing beats that. I mean haven't you ever felt that way about someone?"

Blair's face is the first image that crosses through his mind.

"No," he lies and the song changes again.

-

"Where have you been hiding lately?"

Speaking of the devil.

"No where you'd know, Waldorf."

She scoffs, draws her lips into line, and narrows her eyes.

"Fine. Keep your secrets. See if I care."

It's just. He's pretty sure by the way she literally flings her hair over her shoulder, and the absolute concentration she is using to decipher his non-expression that she might just be fooling herself with that whole not caring position.

And the smile that reaches for his face is more than a smidge vindicated.

-

Sid and Cas (for the record, he has no idea when or why he started calling her that) get evicted a week later.

And believe him when he says, he really doesn't give a damn. Charity has never become him. Ask anyone (no. really).

But his dad owns a hotel and he can order the staff around as he pleases (screw them when the occasion arises) and she didn't even ask.

"Just til you get back on your feet. This isn't forever, okay?"

They nearly jump him right then.

"You know" Sid starts, arm slung around him and completely unwanted by the way, "I thought you were a real prat at first, but you're an okay bloke, yeah?"

Chuck just nods like he understood a word of what he just said.

From inside the hotel room, Cassie calls out to her significant other, "Stop insulting him, Sidney."

He snorts out loud.

-

The day Blair meets them, it's entirely by accident.

They're in the lounge and they're about to go out, waiting on the car to come around.

He doesn't so much as see her as he does feel her. The weight of the stare he knows better than his own disdain for almost everything and everyone in existence. The slow tap of her shoes against the linoleum.

"Going to introduce me, Charles?"

"Wasn't planning on it, no. Take a rain check?"

They glare, match their banter tit for tat, and are forever stuck in this game until someone caves and don't hold your breath for that is all the advice he can offer.

Cassie pushes out her hand, "I'm Cassie. Wow, you're pretty," and Blair more or less nods barely touching the other girl's skin, nose directed skyward.

Sid just mumbles something behind her.

And then somehow, they convince her or rather Cassie convinces her that she should join them.

"I don't think Blair-"

"I'm not even dresse-

A hand goes up and she smiles back at both of them with the clear intention of letting them know that they're not getting out of this.

"Nonsense. You look lovely. Really."

And that was that.

-

"Why don't you tell her?"

His nose wrinkles in what should be an obvious sign of annoyance, but then again it's her and nothing he does seems to ever have the appropriate response with Cassie.

"What on earth are you going on about?"

"That you like her. It's obvious. Even Sid said so."

His drink tips back against his lips, sliding back for his throat, "Wow," he says, dry and deadpan, "Lovely."

The giggle that shakes through her bounces her hair up, down, and up again.

"Fuck you," she breathes, and they're both smiling and they're both staring out onto the dance floor as Sid does the robot dance and Blair inwardly dies.

-

The night ends, but Blair lingers.

"Are those perfectly nice people like your friends?" She holds off on following that with and if so, how much do you pay them?

Chuck shrugs, "They're fun. That's all."

His fingers move to pull off his tie and it snags, noose-like, around his throat, causing him to choke out his own question of the night.

"Is it such a shock? Surely, I've done other things to surprise you over the years."

She watches him struggle from her end of the couch before sliding over, wrinkling her Chanel he's sure, the maroon coating of her nails calling his hands off.

"If you must know, you're usually painfully predictable."

"That so?" and just then the fabric loosens in her hands, and he breathes, muttering a thanks, watching her face at this range and noticing things he hadn't seen from a distance.

Her hands drop, brushing his sides, and the room shifts smaller in his vision.

"It is so. Look I should-"

"Shut up."

"Excuse me?"

He takes a step closer, looks her right in the eyes, sees himself reflected in them, "I said shut up."

She might've said his name then, might've not. But he remembers how she tasted.

Gin, lime, defiance, and something else all together.

-

"Did you tell her?"

"Do you ever stop?"

Cassie blinks, considers that for a moment. Stops.

"Did you tell her?"

"I will throw your pretty little English ass out on the street I promise you."

And at this point, Sid intervenes, guiding his girlfriend away, ignoring her protests of innocence, "Let's not bother the nice American who gave us a place to stay, yeah?"

Chuck Bass garners a new appreciation for Sid in that moment.

-

They leave after two weeks, and he never said this so you can't quote him saying it okay (he'll totally sue you, if you do)?

Maybe, he almost misses them.

"Just tell me you're not moving to Brooklyn."

Cassie grins; Sid asks what's wrong with Brooklyn.

"We're not moving to Brooklyn," she assures him and they kind of hug him then, both at the same time, and he wriggles out of it as fast as he possibly can.

Sid trips back, luggage slipping from his grasp, "We love you, man," and she smirks from behind, adding on to the sentiment, "You hear that? We love you, Chuck Bass."

He merely waves them off.

-

"Where are your friends?

"Hopefully not in Brooklyn."

Blair chuckles and cringes all at once, "God forbid."

"Yeah, god forbid."

The elevator pings apart. They step in.

The elevator closes. They fall against a wall, dull thuds and wet lips.

The elevator opens. They fix their clothes.

"Have any plans today?"

Her head shakes negative, soft. "No."

He opens the door to his room. She steps in.

And for whatever it's worth, chooses him.

-

Across town, a young couple moves into their new apartment.

"I love you, Sid," one of them says.

"Love you, Cas," the other replies.

A song flows out from a radio somewhere, and the girl takes the boy's hand and they dance, tripping against each other as their laughter arcs through the air, creating its own melody all together.

-

Going Going Gone (Tony/Cassie) PG

2008-12-14T12:51:00Z

Title: Going Going Gone
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1631
Summary: Like all really great love stories, it starts with a cigarette.
Characters: Tony, Cassie, mentions others.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything to date.
A/N: For lady_scar♥! Happy Holidays, you :D. I sincerely hope you like. Future.

Like all really great love stories, it starts with a cigarette.

A cigarette, two people, and some shared history to be precise.

(When they tell people later, Tony will laugh, knead her palm in his and Cassie will hide behind her hair, press her nails against the skin beneath, and they will both have completely different versions of how it really happened.)

-

High school ends. Friendships dissolve into the odd call on the odd holiday. People sweep through their separate lives and the greatest memories they ever had are now merely footnotes in the textbook that is them.

And somehow through all of this, they find themselves, sitting in a cafe, like they're sixteen going on thirteen, and time is just something to burn through, a nuisance whose consequences are far off.

"Look at you."

She grins, he sets his head to chest, tucks his collar into place, and her eyes trail his movements, taking everything in at once, blue and popped open.

"Is it that bad?" and her hand comes up, smooths out against the lapel of his coat, as if the very question were a matter of great consideration, before stepping back and appraising him once more.

"You-" her teeth gleam under the lights, "You look educated, Tony. Proper."

Smirk fixated in place, he turns his head to the window, watches the commotion that is New York traffic mid-day, and returns his attentions back to the person in front of him.

"So basically a perfect wanker then?"

Her face breaks out against the smile brimming it open, "Basically."

He tells himself he appreciates the honesty, not the halo her hair makes with the atmosphere.

He tells himself.

-

College. College was like being pinched awake after years of sleep walking on a road that no one knew.

Everything was different. Everyone was different.

Everything was the same. Everyone was the same.

He figures that the truth is probably a mix of the two, but he found his place, post-accident, post-Michelle, post-Chris, post-everything he knew, he found if not answers, a break from the test, and it wasn't all bad. In retrospect, it wasn't all bad.

That's not to say he didn't miss things, people, what came before it. Because he did. Sometimes, it was all he could think about.

Still, massive head injury or no massive head injury, he'd never been one to dwell. So he didn't.

(When he tells Cassie this, she nods, hangs her legs off the end of her two seat couch, and rolls her entire body to the ceiling like she's trying to escape the skin that binds her in. "That's the great thing about you. The rest of us, we all go about carrying our scars and just the weight of everything and we're stuck. But you move. You move, Tony.")

-

Sid found her. Not the first day. Not the second, or the third. But he found her and Cassie remembers the chime the door made, the rush of wind from outside following her around the store and then the stillness that crept back into the air.

"Cassie. Oh my god, Cassie."

It's his face that stands out the most when her eyes cloud into black, lids falling forward and over the rest of the world.

The elation. The shock. The exhaustion. Happy exhaustion, but exhaustion nonetheless.

She knew what that felt like. She used to know what that felt like. There was an embrace, a shared chuckle over her waitress uniform, his fingers skipping loose in her hair, and then the silence of them coming together again, equal parts terror, curiousity, and maybe even love if they wanted it enough.

They had a couple good years, her and her Sid. Something out of a novel - none of that trashy stuff in the drugstore - , but a real, soppy romantic tale.

The boy who moved oceans and the girl who raced across them.

And then it was over.

He let her keep his hat.

On the days she feels most alone, she takes it out, rolling it over her curls, the wool a warm swab, palms her head from both sides and breathes.

-

The story is he's here for an internship. And that much is decidedly true.

Would've made his old man proud, a business major and honours to boot. Tony doesn't speak to his old man much anymore, but he thinks he's at least somewhat pleased with the knowledge that in the end, his path leaned into his own more than it diverted from it.

"So tell me. How is everyone?" It's funny that in four years she sounds almost younger, a kind of reverse trait he's sure no one else shares.

He starts with the details he knows best. Jal and the orchestra she was always meant for. Maxxie, the stage, London a proper back drop. Michelle turning out to be some hot shot lawyer, but still Michelle underneath the suits she says she hates (because they make her look old.)

And Sidney, he tells her he's doing brilliant and from all signs, he thinks she believes him. But then again, he could never read Cassie that well.

The truth though is exactly that, give or take the more specific details. His best friend's engaged. His Sid engaged. To a girl.

The concept alone makes him think of their parents, the people they said they'd never be. And then he remembers the many quotes about history and its tendency to replicate over the years, and he almost understands.

(When he finally screws up the courage to divulge the whole truth her way, she's left shaking a head at him, the tops of her cheeks filling as they come together in a familiar laugh. "I know. No worries, I know." Turns out Michelle told her ages ago.)

-

"How do you like it here? I think the air is different. Do you think the air is different? I do."

Note: Cassie has a tendency to talk herself in circles.

Note(2): Tony does the same thing. Just, you know, in his head.

But to answer the query at hand, his feet press over the grass of Central Park, and he folds his hands into his pockets, inhales to exhale.

"I can't tell," a pause, "But I doubt it."

"That's cause you," and she points right at him, four feet ahead, walking backwards and blind, "have no imagination."

(Later: "Was that your roundabout way of telling me I'm no fun?" Lips pursed so, she plays at neutral, failing all the while, "Maybe." And just like that he claims war, chasing her fleeing figure down sidewalks that pound thumpthumpthump with their weight, as their hearts only hope to catch up.)

-

There are some subjects they stay away from.

Mostly things to do with him and things do with her.

They both tell themselves it's easier, better, if they refrain from unearthing all their personal demons and maybe they're right.

But when Chris's birthday evens against the calendar, unexpected, a spot in time marked with more than either of them can articulate, all bets are off.

They light a candle. Watch the flame spark against the dim and sit in the shifting source of light.

He gets the internship a day later.

She buys him a cupcake to celebrate.

-

"I'm glad you're here."

"Are you?"

"Yeah."

He lights a cigarette, ignores the patch helping him to knock the habit on his shoulder, and they take turns blowing out rings off her balcony.

Down and over into the street below.

(When the tenants next door, a couple in their thirties, ask them across the railing to their left if they mind, Cassie gives them the finger and Tony just laughs, head-bowed and proud. He thinks this is where it really began.)

-

She shows up one night.

His hotel room because finding a place requires a certain amount of effort and he's always liked the room service better anyway.

It's obvious from the moment his eye clicks open against the eye hole that she's trashed, right wasted.

"Fancy a drink with me?"

A part of him wants to say something predictable like she's had enough or that he has a long day tomorrow and despite their validity, he can't quite bring himself to.

So he has the drink. And then another. Plus maybe one more to be sure.

And she giggles at random. Leans into him. Glances up high and blinks.

And for the life of him, he can't quite bring himself to look away.

(He's finding that with Cassie he can't bring himself to do a lot of things he should.)

-

The first time they kiss, the first time that counts anyway, they're both surprisingly sober.

It's after work. It's her ridiculously small apartment that she shares with a guy that is suspiciously never there.

It's the kitchenette and her back pressed clean against it.

"Fuck it," he breathes, breaking the air, and she has that look on her face like she's going to laugh at him for being daft, "Fuck what, Tony?"

"All of it. Everything. Whatever."

"That's not very specific."

"I know."

(It's the way her eyes drop, how his hand tips her chin just so, her fingers clutching for hair and catching skin instead.)

"Hi," he says, bracing an arm at her right.

"Hey," she returns, tracing the inside of his sleeve.

Their smiles meet in the middle.

-

And like all really great love stories, the end's still waiting to be written.

-

Drive Away My Heart Tonight (Lexie, Lexie/Mark) PG-13

2008-12-12T06:11:42Z

Title: Drive Away My Heart Tonight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4374
Summary: The thing about Lexie is that she's trying, every day, every minute, for a place that fits long enough to call home.
Characters: Lexie, Mark, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything to date, but slightly AU.
A/N: So I read Picking Up The Pieces by abvj, which is gorgeous, and got hooked on the idea of Mark/Lexie. This was supposed to be a simple story for them, but kind of spawned into this Lexie-centric thing that goes on for way too long. Enjoy?

The thing about Lexie is that she's trying, every day, every minute, for a place that fits long enough to call home.

So far? No such luck.

-

It's true what Meredith says, about her life, about her family.

She was one of the popular girls in high school (so people resented her). She had the boyfriend everyone else only could stare at (so he cheated on her). She graced the hallways and people would smile her way like she was something to smile at (so of course they talked about her behind her back).

Her parents were the kind that would send her care packages when she went to college (but her father drank, he drank more than he should). They remembered her birthdays, called to wish her luck the day before her MCATS (but it was one out of two really, and she still remembers the way her mother's voice wavered when she asked how everything was, as fleeting as it was). They were there. In every way that mattered (and they were).

So. On paper? Her life is just this side of perfect. On paper, she is just this side of perfect.

On paper, Lexie Grey is in no position to complain about anything.

In reality though? Exactly.

-

The day her mother dies, she's across the country.

Miles east and nowhere near the sterile room, she breathed her last in.

Her father calls her, the phone shaky in his hands, because she can hear the cord slapping against the wall at his side, each whip snaking a tremor into her heart.

He says, "Baby," and his voice collapses easy in his throat.

He says, "I'm so sorry," and she's screaming, screaming away the truth in his words, because it was the hiccups, it was nothing.

"I miss her."

It's a year later, but it's as if she's never quite left that moment, the receiver rubbing beneath her chin, before shattering to the floor, skipping into pieces from where she stood and the door.

"I know, Dad. I know."

He says, "Baby, baby, I really miss her."

That night, not for the first time, she sleeps in the house she grew up in, her back swept against an arm chair, one eye opened, and the other more of the same.

She pulls up all her mother's smiles from memory, flips through them, all the while wishing she could frame each image, press them warm into her father's hands.

-

So her mother dies. And she's expected to move on, keep up appearances.

More or less, live her life. Sounds easy enough.

The doors to Seattle Grace sweep wide open, a new beginning, a fresh slate.

She enters them with her head perched even, the shoulders that carry it hunched just a smidge, and the knowledge of a sister she never knew inside these very walls.

Lexie and blind hope are what you might call good friends. She catches enough wafting free in the air, ignored by everyone else, and harnesses it for her own.

"Hi, I'm Lexie Grey."

The guy at her right nods, musters enough energy to grin, barely, and she pushes out her hand in greeting.

And just like that, she's started again.

Here's to the optimist within.

-

Like the quote says, the best laid plans right?

Sister dear hates the fact that she exists, or maybe she just hates what Lexie reminds her of.

But either way, they're never going to be the people she thought they were going to be that first day.

Meredith thaws, eventually, she doesn't spin the other way when she sees her coming. Still, it's not quite the picture perfect thread of family she thought would tether them together.

And let's not even talk about how almost everyone and everything in this hospital is linked someway to the other Grey.

On most days, she feels like she's trespassing, stepping over a line she shouldn't, backpedaling where she must, bypassing it where she can.

On the better days, she feels like she might just make it after all, stacking up courage like she's running out.

-

George is amazing.

He's amazing and he doesn't know it and the first time she makes him laugh, really laugh, wrinkles ribbing light around his eyes, she tells herself that she's going to make him see how much.

There are pep talks and pizza parties and drinks across the street. There are looks that go unnoticed and smiles that pinch harder than they should and hands that wring under the table.

She convinces herself she loves him. Adores him even, and the latter is probably more true.

Lexie adores George O'Malley. For listening to her, letting her eat half his muffin at lunch, being her friend.

"Up and at them, you," and his face peaks out from under his pillow as she holds out coffee, "You're a godsend," the first words he speaks that day.

Her face blushes with the thought, being someone's personal godsend, but then he's off to tell Izzie something he can't tell her, running off to share secrets with Meredith she wishes she were the holder of. Leaving her behind to deal with the mess that is her life alone.

At first, she brushes it back, pretty presumptuous to think that she held that much sway in his life to begin with. But then they're talking, having a real conversation, and she's trying to get a word in, trying to let him be the friend, the giver not the receiver, and the attention isn't there.

It just isn't there, she says to herself, and it almost breaks her heart.

-

Months skip by, and it's winter, the breeze carrying her as she slides with the slush and hopes that a fall isn't in her near future.

"Easy there," a hand against her arm, and a voice she can recognize without the face because it could never sound like anyone other than him.

"Thank you, Dr. Sloan." He laughs at that, the formality of it, gives her a slow look, before heading home, wherever that is for him while she turns the other way.

She'll remember this moment later. Catalogue it away for reference to explain things that haven't unfolded yet.

-

Her initial thoughts on Mark Sloan were that he was kind of mean, but excellent at what he did.

But other than that, she did with him what she did with everyone senior to her at the hospital. She tried her best, put in more effort than people expected her to put forth, and learned as much as she could.

When he sees through her pseudo friendship with George, and then barters it with better treatment towards him, she forgets herself, goes toe to toe with the resident plastics expert and he nearly laughs back in her face.

"All I'm saying is that if O'Malley is what you want, you should do something about it."

They're going into surgery, scrubbing down their respective skins and her head digs for a lower aptitude because he's doing that thing where he's being an intrusive ass, but somehow makes it sound nice and she isn't equipped to deal with that.

Rude Sloan, petty Sloan, full-of-himself Sloan, yes. Nice, no.

"You coming?" he asks, and it takes a second for her to blink, finish drying up, before slipping easy under the arm he's currently hoisting the door open with, "Yeah, I'm ready."

And this time it's her that misses the smile that is sent her way.

-

Monday morning, Sadie pokes her in the side, and Lexie tries her best to pretend not to notice it.

Lexie fails.

"You need to stop."

The other girl's lips twist, "All I want to know is what it's like being Dr. Sloan's favourite is all. You can't blame me for being curious."

"It's nothing. I guess I just made a good impression."

And if this were a fair world, a just world, that would be the end of it. But of course, it isn't.

Fingers lacing back into her hair, Sadie's thumb flicks at her ear, and Lexie looks up, silently pleads with her to let it go.

"He must see something in you."

She shakes her away, shakes her head at the girl who almost died playing Operation with her own body, while she stood there, and helped the process along, scalpel in hand, common sense nowhere to be found.

"You're crazy. You're my half sister's crazy best friend and I am done with this conversation."

All day, whenever Mark Sloan says anything directed for her ears, her hands wring behind her back, whilst Sadie's words run laps in her head.

He must see something in you.

-

"You know I was looking in the paper, and there's this really cute apartment and it's affordable and I was thinking-"

Five seconds. That's how long it takes for Lexie to realize that George isn't absorbing a word she's saying.

He nods, he blinks, but his mind is elsewhere. She's gotten real good at noticing that.

On the fridge, her note sticks with three magnets, and she calls up the number, scrawled in her notebook, tells them she's interested. Definitely.

-

"You're moving out. Why wouldn't you discuss this with me? You're moving out!"

She's inclined to tell him that it's a little late for him to finally notice, but that's, well it's just something she wouldn't say.

"I tried to tell you. I did."

His face shades into guilty, and he nods, cuts his bottom lip with his teeth, "I'm sorry. I must've missed that. Did I-"

A moment passes, and they're going to be late for rounds if they don't get moving. "Did you what?"

"Do something wrong? I mean did I do this?"

She considers the number of ways she could answer that, considers it and figures in the end that isn't what this about.

Dishes placed in the sink, Lexie turns, matches his gaze, and says, "No. You didn't do anything wrong. I just want to try this out, you know?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

They leave together, and in the car, before she has the chance to reach for the handle, the parking lot sitting half-empty around them, George reaches for her hand, leans low to kiss the crown of her head, "You can always come back. You know that right?"

She breathes in, curls a fist into his sweater, whispers fast against his neck, "Thanks."

-

She moves into her new place on the weekend, calls Alex of all people to help her with the heavy lifting, and is more than a little surprised when he says yes almost too quickly, like he wanted the excuse to get out.

"Ever wonder," he starts, lowering one box to carry another, "if sometimes people just aren't worth the trouble?"

And it's like he's posing the question to himself, she only a mere witness to the monologue, but she notices the way his mouth is set, thin, strong, resigned and for what it's worth, offers up her two cents.

"Maybe. But I think if we all started thinking like that, no one would bother with anyone. I think everyone likes to know someone is thinking of them, especially when they're not worth the trouble."

The sun is on its way south outside, the soft tone of reds and yellows bleeding through the window, and she risks sneaking a glance his way, if only to see the sneer she's sure is there, but finds nothing of the sort.

"We about done here?"

A quick survey around the room answers his question for him, and she sees him out, calls out a thanks, as he walks away, to which he waves backhanded.

She calls home before heading for bed, and when her father picks up, sober and sounding almost like himself, the giggle that escapes her bubbles up into her speech, "I'm great, dad. Yes, really. It's just nice to hear from you."

-

Living without George is directly proportional to the amount of time they spend together now.

She sees him still and he sees her and greetings and the obligatory how are you's are exchanged.

Mostly, it ends there. And she thinks she's okay with that.

After work, at Joe's and nursing her one drink of the evening in a low lit corner, a tap of a finger hits her shoulder, "Little Grey. Didn't anyone ever tell you it's a crime to drink alone?"

Eyes tipped to roll back, she sighs, nods to indicate he can join her, "I'm sure you'll enlighten me either way."

His teeth gleam under the lack of light as his face creeps into his patent smirk, "What can I say? I live to teach."

They spend the rest of the night trying to outmatch the other in a game of quarters that she wins and he loses though he maintains that she cheated (how, how did i cheat? - you just did) .

Outside, the chill in the air calms against her face, and she doesn't remember when she's laughed this much, but she figures it was due.

"Want a ride?"

"No offense, but you're a little drunk."

"Good point. Want to give me a ride?"

A hand through her hair, she points to her car, says something along the lines of so where to? while he turns the radio to a station of his liking (country, little grey? i expected so much more.)

Destination reached, he gets out, peers back through the open window, "I'll want a rematch in the future."

Lexie meets his gaze, all amusement and serious at once, "You got it."

She drives home with a grin attached to her lips, catches herself in the rearview, a mess of windblown hair and red red cheeks.

-

It takes a week before Sadie convinces her to let her be her roommate.

"You know Deth's great and all, but we're in the same boat, you and me. We're single and we're interns and we should totally live together. Come on."

Note: It's kind of hard to say no to Sadie. Like ridiculously so.

So she moves in and it's not the worst thing. They dance to the radio, sing over each other, off pitch and all out of tune.

She tells her about med school, stories of Meredith that are hard to believe because she's only been able to see certain sides of her sister, but listening to Sadie, she quickly realizes that she has yet to know the real Meredith Grey, and that oddly gives her a hint of hope. That maybe one day, she just might.

-

"Hiding?"

Mark leans against the doorway of the on-call room and she's not entirely awake, but her eyes adjust to the dark, while he sits at the edge of the bed.

"No. Just tired. Did you need me for something?"

"That remains to be seen."

She sort of blinks then, because cryptic isn't really his style and his eyes are entirely too close for her liking.

"Hey," he says, inches away from her face, and her heart drums up into her throat.

There's a hum of something from her, but she doesn't think it actually constitutes actual words, just a sound made by her vocal strings and out her mouth.

His hand falls against her face, peels back into her hair, while the other does the same on the other side.

"We probably shouldn't do this."

"Probably," but she's moving forward even as she says it and that sets off a chuckle from him, right before his lips descend, fitting whole against hers.

-

It's a little awkward after that. Not him, her, and anybody could have seen that coming.

Because when she looks at Mark, she isn't thinking of the surgery they have to do in about ten minutes or less, but rather the way he manages to be him and someone else all together at the same time.

"Heard you got your own place."

This is at the end of another day, and she's got her hands in pockets, her face cued up to his, and a whole bunch of ways this could all go terribly wrong.

"Was my own place. Sadie's living with me now."

"Isn't that the girl you almost killed?"

A punch to his side, he holds up both hands in surrender.

"Thanks for the reminder."

His shoulders lift for a shrug, "Any time."

And then they're both sort of standing there, neither moving in any particular direction, and she catches herself staring at him, wonders how it's thirty below and she's more than lukewarm beneath her layers.

"Do you want to-"

"Yeah, yeah I would," and she hardly knows what she's answering in the affirmative to, but she knows she doesn't want to go home, and she knows that maybe this was all together inevitable.

The next morning she wakes up to eggs and toast at her side.

"You didn't have to do this."

Showered and shirt hunting, he twists back and waves his hand, "Shut up and eat your breakfast."

So she does.

-

"So where you were last night?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Her and Sadie sit on opposite ends of the couch, legs stretched out, and she pokes Lexie with her big toe, the grin on her face all the answer she needs.

"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Man, you are just like you're sister. Screwing the attendee."

Lexie swipes her elbow for that, "I resent that. And I admit to nothing."

Sadie just nods, and hums along with the commercial playing on their smaller than smaller television set.

But she really isn't fooling anyone. (Not even herself.)

-

They're professionals at work. For the most part.

He is Mark Sloan and she is Lexie Grey and they have nothing to hide.

Shifts start and end, patients come and go, the world spins evenly on its axis still.

And when they're done, they alternate between his place and hers (when Sadie is out late enough) and it becomes routine, something to look forward to.

On her back, Mark traces the hollow of her collarbone with his fingers, and she lies perfectly still, save for the hand that pushes his hair up.

"It's funny. I don't think I know anything about you."

A glance up, he stops teasing her skin. "What do you want to know?"

"Anything."

He starts off with the basics. Why he wanted to become a doctor (he didn't. he wanted to be a professional hockey player, but was sort of lousy at it.) His favourite colour (green). The person to get up and say something at his funeral - don't even ask (Derek).

When she’s exhausted him with questions, she’s both surprised and relieved he doesn’t return the favour.

“You okay?”

Sheets wrapped around her, she mutters something akin to a yes and they fall asleep, her back to his chest, and his hand directly over her heart.

-

“You’re glowing. I thought that was just something people said, but you are actually glowing.”

“Shut up, Sadie.”

“Glow-ing.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

Later, Sadie in the other room, Lexie finds the nearest mirror, palms the glass with one hand, peering in close.

Maybe she was glowing, maybe she used too much moisturizer this morning. Whatever.

But one thing was for certain, one thing she couldn’t deny.

She was happy. And that was probably the biggest shock of all.

-

“Dr. Torres?”

Files piled high in her arms, Callie blinks at her, and Lexie has the feeling that there’s something more to it than she’s letting on.

“Dr. Grey, what can I do for you?”

“Dr. Shepherd needs your input on a case.”

The other doctor nods, follows her, and as they fall in step, side by side, down the corridor, she suddenly pauses and it takes Lexie a moment to realize it, spinning on her heel, the question apparent on her face.

“I’m glad he has you.”

She wants so much to lie, spill out the standard i have no idea what you’re talking about and be done with it, but she doesn’t.

They start walking again, the silence between them is companionable almost. Callie doesn’t say anything else. She’s said exactly what she wanted to say and Lexie doesn’t know much about her, other than the fact that she was married to George and then wasn’t anymore, but she knows enough to know that she’s the closest thing that Mark Sloan has to a real friend and that’s more than enough her.

-

People start to talk.

Christina looks at her with almost a bit of what can only be construed as begrudging acceptance.

Derek tries to steer her in the direction of rational thought, but she can’t bear to listen.

Meredith hovers more, a tense pinch to her eyes, as they pass each other day after day.

George calls her, first time in a while, and tells her to be careful.

Alex shrugs the way Alex always shrugs like he couldn’t be bothered one way or another, but he doesn’t say anything negative (not yet at least), even though everyone kind of expects him to be the first one with a biting joke, and Lexie silently thanks him for that.

The other interns asks for details and she holds her head down, hiding away the blush seeping fast into her face, tells them rumours are just rumours, that she and Dr. Sloan are just good friends. Mentor and student, nothing more, nothing less.

She can’t tell if they believe her or not, but they’re still her friends and they don’t push.

“People are talking, you know.”

Lips above his ear, he holds her hips with the same care he has when he's in the OR and she rocks against him until they’re pressed tight, no room left between.

“People are always talking.”

A moment passes, and he shifts back to appraise her face, “Does it bother you?”

She considers it, repeats the query in her own head, and comes to a conclusion.

“Not so much.”

His smile blooms ripe against her neck.

-

Spring arrives, the snow melting, changing states of matter, and it’s coming up on two years since her mother’s death.

Two years.

The day of she calls in sick, lets Sadie cover for her.

“This is the day my mom died,” she says, the words shifting solid in the air around her.

She sits on her bed, knees up high, arms coiled to hold them. She can feel him watching her, and she thinks that this is where it all ends, must be.

Except it doesn’t. No, he doesn’t run, he doesn’t make excuses to be elsewhere.

He sits beside her, mouths apologies to the side of her face, and wraps her close.

And it feels like she’s mending and splintering at the exact same time, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t waver, her tears soaking his skin, a salty trial into the crook of his neck.

Somewhere along the way, she falls asleep, and he curls up around the space she takes up, keeps watch, as her chest crests with every passing breath.

-

That afternoon, she drives over to her dad's.

He's on the porch, a bottle of something sitting shut at his feet, and when he sees her walking up the sidewalk, it's like he seeing her again, the blank gaze she'd grown so accustomed to non-existent today.

"Come sit with me, you."

And they do just that. They sit and he takes her hand, traces his own through her hair like he used to, and it's not so bad.

They remember what they've lost and it's not so bad. It's hard, yeah, but they've got stories to retell, the memory of her encased in photos, those tacky knick knacks she collected scattered through the house, notes she left herself still stuck up against the fridge.

"We'll be okay, dad."

"You think?"

"I believe."

For once, it's the truth.

-

Life goes on.

Like it always does.

Life goes on, and you've just got to adjust if you want to make it through.

Lexie adjusts as best as she can.

Rounds start and she swings her shoulders back, throwing her feet over the side of the chair she'd been using as a make-shift bed.

"I feel like shit, Lex. I really do."

Moving to crouch down beside her, Sadie drops her head against Lexie's shoulder, and she pets the top of it, lets her fingers rest against her friend's forehead.

"Could this have anything to do with the jello shots you did last night?"

A gasp of a laugh leaves Sadie, and her grin sets her face back to its normal carefree content.

"You might be onto something there."

"I'm a smart cookie like that," she returns, deadpan - dry, before releasing the kind of giggle she's known for, sharp and brimming on adorable.

They bump hips to the fourth floor.

-

"Want to grab a drink?"

He does this thing where he sneaks up behind her and more or less scares the living crap out of her (he does it a lot).

She jumps; he laughs. She glares; he laughs some more.

Coat slipped around her, her reply is an arm linking with his, the dip of a nod, as they walk out.

"You know an intern can't live on a steady diet of beer alone?"

Head cocked, he feigns perfect innocence, "They can't?"

Her fingers poke him in the side, and he relents with a, "Fine. I'll feed you."

"You better."

He orders them a plate of fries and watches her inhale them in less than two minutes without his help. He watches and thinks they have no business being together, none at all, but maybe, despite the age difference and his questionable past, despite Derek's scorn and her sister's belated concern, it isn't a lost cause.

"Ready to go?"

Eyes on her face, he brings himself back to the present, out of his head, and moves to stand.

"Yeah. I'm ready."

Outside, the rain skips over the concrete, and they laugh on cue - loud, caught off guard - racing for shelter.

-

I Picture You In The Sun (Olivia, Olivia/John, Olivia/Peter) PG

2008-11-06T15:31:19Z

Title: I Picture You In The Sun
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1139
Summary: Sometimes she thinks of telling someone.
Characters: Olivia Dunham, Peter Bishop, John Scott
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything to date.
A/N: Title courtesy of Joseph Arthur.

Sometimes she thinks of telling someone.

She works out what she might say, the least number of syllables she could possibly relay the message in, at breakfast with her ghost of a ~~lover~~ partner peering back at her, and she comes up with this:

"I see dead people."

John laughs and it fills the kitchen whole, leaving no place for her rationalizations, "Original," the lines in his face leaping alive.

Olivia bites her smile in with a frown, drowns face first with the sound of it, "I try."

But it's all a bit of an act really. Because John knows what she knows and she knows what John knows and he knows that Walter already explained it, him.

That he is less a ghost and more an actual part of her, complete with his own little room of horrors in her mind and she doesn't know if she can ever shake him out.

Breakfast dries itself stale on the kitchen table. Her alarm rings to wake her up after the fact.

She closes her eyes. Opens them. Closes them again.

"You better get going," he says. Like nothing's changed. Like they're still two fools waking up together and going into work separately, oh so clever.

"Yeah," but her voice doesn't keep up with the charade the way his does - the way it used to.

(John was always the better actor. The better liar. It only took her this long to realize just how convincing he really was.

You see he was counting on that.)

-

Sometimes she thinks of telling someone else.

Someone who believes her, knows what she's trying to say even when she doesn't.

Peter rocks his head steady against the torture that is having to listen to Walter talk about something of a highly sexual nature, Astrid's eyes aiming for a wider circumference as they pop predictably in diameter as her own glaze over.

And for the sixteenth time ever, he asks her, "How can you just stand there? My ears are burning here. Literally."

A smile taking short flight on her lips, her answer is a shrug, the reply an easy half-truth, "It's not that bad," just as his tongue swings over to assure her that, no, it really really is.

They share a moment. Standing to reimburse themselves with coffee and all its benefits and that's when it happens. When she forgets to remember. When she forgets.

"Since when do you take that much sugar?" his eyes brimming to fill with imaginary question marks and misplaced amusement and Olivia's leaping ninety degrees, to stare down at the cooling liquid in her hands.

"I don't."

But she knows who does.

(She knows who does.)

-

Sometimes she thinks -

And that's not where it ends.

Peter looks to her sometimes and his eyes take on a softer light, the kind that tells you when someone's worried for you, but can't bring themselves to say it for fear of what you'd say.

She rents films that don't attune to her tastes. She goes for takeout when all her favourites are stocked in the fridge.

"You need to leave, John. You need to go," the mantra to lose her marbles by, when the fog leaves enough clarity for her to recall that she isn't the one who gets cold in a room temperature environment, a pair of socks serving to make sliding on linoleum floors easier, as she slips and navigates her knee for wall.

He doesn't ask her what he first asked her when she said these words.

He doesn't play on the memories they both cohabited in before death came in twos (threes and fours), and the world revealed itself as something to fear, the analogy of Pandora's box coming up short in every which way.

He just sits with her, a loose comfort in and of itself still, palms the back of her head, rests a forehead against the bridge her shoulder makes with his.

"I'm sorry," and she thinks, of course, you are. The way those two words excuse any number of transgressions, how it isn't fair (how nothing truly ever is).

The phone rings, Peter's voice on the other end. He tells her they need her and she wonders if any of them know just who that is anymore.

-

Sometimes.

It's two months later. And if it's at all possible, her life is even stranger than before.

"I need to talk to you."

A nod suffices the request and he takes a breath, presses the balls of his feet down like gravity isn't already doing that for him, waits.

She tells him because Walter explained it, Charlie sympathized, and she needs something more.

She tells him because she thinks that even if nothing comes of it, even if he says something about having to work with not one, but two crazy people now (you know he would), he might understand.

Because Peter Bishop is an escape artist, running away his drug of choice, exit plans his area of expertise, and between the both of them, they know what it's like to want to peel back everything, cut out the bits that they'd like to do without, leave what's salvageable.

(A card waits for her every year; a pair of men follow his movements from across the street.)

"I'm insane, aren't I?"

He ducks his head, shrugs (her lips twisting beside him), shakes no.

"I think my father put you in a tank of water with a piece of metal in your skull and crossed John's conscience into yours for longer than he accounted for."

She doesn't say anything, reminds herself that what he just said is true, but Peter gets it, so he adds, "Hey. This - all of this - is the insane part. Not you. You wouldn't be here if you were. You couldn't handle this if you were. "

Olivia closes her eyes, sees John. Olivia opens her eyes, feels Peter watching her.

"Is he here now?" and his voice doesn't sound small even though it's grounded to a whisper. It sounds full, not empty. Wavering, but still sure.

"Yeah. He is. He always is."

"Is he saying anything?" Her face pinches at mock thoughtful.

"He thought you'd be taller."

He catches himself in a laugh, brims the room ceiling high with it, and the breath that leaves her next is relief maybe, tired definitely, and something else between the two.

An arm at her back, his fingers open against her coat, stay there.

Peter comforts her. John stands guard. Peter breathes. John simulates it.

A moment later, Broyles calls, and outside, the wind falls around all of them, the bite of it just enough for her to start moving again.

Just enough to grasp hold of. Just enough.

-

(And the world spins madly on.)

-

Rusted Wheel Planted Still (Peter, Olivia, Charlie, Dani) PG-13

2008-11-04T01:27:41Z

Sometimes I go to great lengths to amuse myself. This is one of those times.

Title: Rusted Wheel Planted Still
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1780
Summary: A lot of weird shit goes down in LA. Life/Fringe
Characters: Olivia Dunham, Dani Reese, Charlie Crews, Peter Bishop and Walter Bishop.
Spoilers/Warnings: General on both ends I think/mild language.
A/N: This is probably very OOC and odd and random, but it is my firm belief that these kids should hang out. Also anything pretending to be factual is made up and probably wrong. Silversun Pickups for the title.

A lot of weird shit goes down in LA.

People pay good money to have their faces tinkered with like molding clay. Others shrug their shoulders at the (real) threat of skin cancer, melanoma a more common sight here than anywhere else under the jurisdicton of the red, white and blue, dressed down on the beach, working double overtime for that extra shade of ripe Florida orange.

Everyone's on a diet.

But Dani Reese knows her weird. She knows what is expected and what isn't. What can be compartmentalized and what cannot (shouldn't be).

So when her and Crews happen upon what appears to be a group of individuals who simply melted (yes, like the-wicked-witch-of-the-west melted) in broad day light, she knows this, this definitely falls into the second category of the odd and insane.

The dial tone skips, graduates to a ring, and stops.

"Agent Dunham," chimes the receiver.

"Hi, Olivia. It's Detective Reese. I think we have something that might be of interest to you."

A sigh passes on the end of the line, and Dani almost laughs at how unchanged she sounds sometimes, like they're still two rookie cadets with nothing left to lose. And there was a time they were. But that was before she found out exactly how low the rabbit hole could go when the brisk snap of a good scotch was involved (she never did make a good alice) and Olivia got handpicked for something more than a Dunkin Donut run and the stakeouts that required them.

"How's California?" she asks.

Reese grins, drops it at Charlie's detection of the action, and picks it up again, "Oh, you know. Lindsay Lohan keeps alluding us. Prop 8 is a joke. People are melting. The usual."

"How's the new partner?" she smiles.

"Beggars and choosers, Liv. Beggars and choosers."

"Fair enough," and Dani thinks for what she has had to deal with, Olivia sounds good.

They hang up a minute later, details and cases and more of the same filling up the remnants of the conversation and Dani returns to Crews giving her this funny look and then the incredulous, "Do you have friends, Reese? Actual real-life friends? This is quite the development."

Two seconds later: "Can I be your friend?"

"Mind yourself, Crews," but it's a plea fated for deaf ears. (It almost always is.)

On the other side of the country, Peter pulls up his cheeks into what can only be described as the exact picture of pure, unbridled joy.

"Road trip, you say?" Her head shake is merely par for the course.

-

Whilst packing, Olivia realizes that her entire life can be reduced to three suitcases and a carry on.

Peter shows up at the airport with a duffle bag. He sets it besides hers.

"Where's Walter?"

"Last time I checked, walking up on a downwards escalator and humming maniacally."

"Ah."

"Oh yes. A group of wayward ten year olds are following him in his cause to defy common logic and come out winners."

Their plane's called for boarding. A kinder than most security guard returns their mad scientist minus the cult of minors.

The non-existent luggage is checked, tagged, accounted for.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Olivia. Come on."

Seat belt sign bleeding red above them, she snaps hers in place, turns to remind the older Bishop to do the same, and avoids the way his offspring is staring question marks into her profile.

Right before she caves surrender of course: "You- you just seem really happy."

"Oh?" his fingers going for salted peanuts proffered by the flight attendant and knuckling Olivia's shoulder in the process, he grins the truth, speaks against it, "Nonsense. I am no such thing.".

Peter reclines in his seat; she turns her teeth into her tongue to keep from expelling some kind of noise that would not be in step with a federal agent assigned to a special task force the majority of the bureau has no idea exists.

It's an eight hour flight. Starting now.

(One mississippi.)

-

"What are they doing?"

Olivia swings her attention, from Detective Reese's horribly ineligible notes to the query being sequestered for a response. From her apparently.

"I think it's called bonding, Reese."

The pop machine as their back drop, their respective partners toast to chilled ginger ale and things neither of them can hear.

Dani tips her coffee back, eyes still narrowed, before getting back to whatever had her occupied moments earlier, "Yeah, I never cared much for that myself."

"You know that could very well be a symptom of a social disorder. Have you ever seen someone about it?" This is how Dani Reese meets one Walter Bishop (over an impromptu discussion of social disorders and how she might be afflicted with one).

She kicks a glance to her once friend, something akin to is he for real?, and is greeted with the sight of both her eyes shutting positive in response.

"No, Mr. Bishop. I haven't. Making it a priority though."

"Good good. It's best to catch these things early."

Both women wave back the urge to laugh. Both women experience moderate to complete success.

(But they're professionals, mind you.)

-

It's the beginnings of a bad song, but the air really is different this side of the country.

Lighter if that's possible. Less weighted. Olivia tries to glean connections where connections don't exist. Peter helps of course, but this is her job, her choice and she's always maintained herself accountable more so than anyone else because of that (there are other reasons, but those are for another day).

Reese and Crews receive authorized clearance in a concentrated effort to reveal just which wizard is orchestrating this particular puzzle behind his not-so all-concealing curtain, and as a collective, they do just that.

Their Californian counter parts don't ask the kind of questions normal people would (orders taken; orders carried instead - protocol has its place), and for that she is indebted. In all honesty, she's not sure what she would say at this point.

But Dani finds her, after three days, of running in circles, and returning to square one (someone behind bars, but no answers as to the why), she sits beside her, nods off Peter lingering safe at a distance, but close enough to know if he should or shouldn't come any closer, and taps her heel to the one at her right.

"Crazy stuff, huh?"

Olivia strings her face into composed - at least what passes for composed now - , breathes, "Crazy stuff."

And Dani knows about John, that this is all coming back around to him and what they had (or didn't). She knows in her own way how these types of things even under standard circumstances haunt through you, never quite shaking away to claim their freedom.

Dani knows Olivia doesn't talk about it. That she can't.

So she makes jokes about Einstein senior and junior instead. Asks about Charlie (the other one), Charlie who she thinks should tell their mutual friend here that he's worse than a school boy and his heart's not as thick as he presumes it to be.

Talks about transferring over to Boston, where all the real excitement is (obviously), and panes out of her somewhat believable poker face to ensure her friend that she's staying right where she is. That Ms. Leader of the Secret Task Force That Shall Not Be Named, has first claim on all that chaos.

"I'm fine right where I am, thank you."

The world shades itself into alternating hues of red, orange, and violet, dusk standing guard over the horizon, and Dani waits for the confirmation the other woman needs in the form of a well-practiced question.

First in Olivia's eyes, and then in her voice, calm, centered, a proper life raft, "Are you?"

"Yeah," she answers and it surprises her just how much she means it. Wants to keep meaning it.

-

Their visit crests to an end with Charlie insisting that they take their guests out, a whole speech focused around the healthy semblance of work and play, how almost no one acertains an optimum balance between the two. How they were doing themselves a disservice if they refused his offer.

And because it's Charlie and because Peter and Charlie are a combination of epic disaster waiting to happen, they tag along with their plan.

Apparently, there's this really quote unquote 'neat' place near the beach (read: tacky as all hell), and Olivia is too tired to protest, the leftover jetlag coming back to punish her retroactively days later.

And Reese kind of finds Walter adorably amusing in this odd insipid kind of way.

So they go.

They loop their bodies around a table, part bread, and leave the world to wait on its self for at least a few hours.

No one drinks even when Dani insists that it doesn't bother her. No one lets Walter anywhere near the darts (he'll cry foul, but they're the ones with the guns.).

Peter leans into her range of hearing, "We should do this more often."

"Fly across the country?" Note: Olivia takes things a little literally (hold the sarcasm).

"That's a given, Olivia. I mean this," his gaze flying across the room, over the laughter, over the conversation, drowning it all out.

And maybe she did know what he meant the first time around, but now, she raises up both eyebrows in a polite guise of understanding, turns her head front, center, and straight ahead, and lets the moment be.

-

They leave for Massachusetts the next day.

But before whipping to the dizzying heights of twenty hundred feet and higher, Olivia takes herself for a walk at first light.

Before reports and calls and Walter's absurd request(s) of the day.

She lets her limbs sink into the grains that make up the shoreline, lets her toes lean forward into the tide.

And in the moment, Reese's voice stumbles into her head, something Crews said to her ages ago, that she can't help, but recount to poke at because she's Dani and everything new age is no doubt just another way to scam the masses into thinking they have control. That they can change their lives with a few tapes and some hard will (if only).

Something about not understanding where you are, about that not necessarily being an obstacle to experience what you have in front of you.

The cynic in her craves to scoff at that; the optimist thinks it's not entirely off the mark.

Olivia checks her watch, drags her feet back, and kicks out, the spray of sand falling into the sea, golden. Suspended.

-

She lets herself have this.

-

The Charging Sky (Dean) PG-13

2008-10-27T00:28:12Z

Title: The Charging Sky
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1284
Summary: There are some fairytales that go untold.
Characters: Dean, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything to date/Some swearage courtesy of one bad-mouthed Winchester.
A/N: For katrinaswift who wanted wing!fic of the SPN variety. But outside of that, I have no idea what this is. Hopefully, it still makes a modicum of sense. AU. Jenny Lewis for the title.

There are some fairytales that go untold.

Some stories that never have an audience to cheer and stand at curtain call.

Some characters that stay unknown to the world and some sentiments that never leave the page.

Once upon a time, there was an angel and a pair of brothers.

Destinies were written for all three of them, but they wouldn't know it until it was too late.

(And isn't that how it always goes?)

-

When Dean is six, he notices that he is different than the other kids at school, his own brother even.

You see Dean has these things – these things that look suspiciously like wings when he can see them (think Big Bird, but less yellow, more off white and human size), and Dean's got an imagination on him, but even this is too much for it.

So he tells his dad and his dad laughs.

Then he tells his mom and she mimics his response, but it's kinder and they end the conversation with her calling him her angel always, a crown of hair nestled under her chin as she tucks him neat into bed.

And then there's Sam. Sam whose four and can't really be expected to have an opinion one way or another, but turns out the little rug rat does anyway.

Because when he cries, Dean up first, middle of the night and darkness all around, he sees them too.

"Bird," he giggles, and his brother sits up beside him, rolls an eye and keeps the other stationed behind him as they unfold and wrap around them both.

"Yeah, Sammy. I'm a damn bird."

Sam smiles honest white into the din, closes his eyes, and falls asleep, the first secret they share right here, right now.

Dean will be the only one who remembers. Later, he figures just as well.

-

If you look close enough, upon reviewing your past, you will notice things that you never noticed the first time around, that you weren't ready to see then and your history takes on a clearer light as everything is illuminated in hindsight.

-

As he grows older, he gets better at compartmentalizing it.

He gets better at compartmentalizing a lot actually, and it isn't until he's eleven with a bit more than the standard chip on his shoulder that he is forced to face it again.

A new boy gets transferred into his class, red headed and freckles ripe against his skin, as he takes the seat beside him.

"Cas," the boy speaks, "It's short for something stupid."

"Dean," he returns, "It's short for Dean."

This is his best friend, the only one he'll ever have. This is the divine intervention in its most clichéd definition.

They exchange baseball cards, do all things other kids their age do, and nothing about this picture is out of the ordinary at all.

Except for you know the fact that they can fly. There's that.

"We're special, you and me," and the world looks a whole lot smaller on the roof, Dean dangling his legs into the space over the edge, as the other boy keeps himself a safe distance from it, but peers over just the same.

"You don't say?"

Cas ignores the sarcasm (he knows it for it is - Dean's way of keeping his heart from bursting right out from his chest, fear of the unknown something he has to face, been facing, but wishes he didn't), smiles instead, while Winchester rolls his eyes, "You betcha."

A moment lost, the air rises between them, gravity nothing they have to worry about. And then they jump. Float off into the sky.

Itching for the sun.

-

One day, he disappears. Drops right off the face of the fucking earth, and Dean's kind of pissed, kind of sad, lots confused so he goes.

Marches right up into the office that is like a second home of the worst kind and asks just where the punk moved to.

The secretary gives him an odd look; he shrugs it off. And then the second time, he does the same, but his hands aren't as steady against the reception now.

She tells him, in one of those slow patronizing voices all adults inevitably have, that there's never been a Cas registered in his class, in the entire school even, and Dean stands there. For a whole damn minute. Stands and blinks fast, before promptly running out the same way he came in.

-

So that's that.

He doesn't tell anyone because imagining entire people up is the sort of crazy that gets you sent to places with bad food and white walls for company.

A mirror before him, he stands straight, lets them out to breathe, spanning half the room and Dean wishes it, whatever this is, away, wishes someone would take them away.

When he opens his eyes again, he gets just that. He tells himself that slippery shine in his eyes and to his cheeks is from the surprise, the joy at finally being heard.

He tells himself.

-

Sam grows up. Dean too, but not the same way Sammy does.

Sam brings home As and soft spoken girls who don't do anything before marriage - or so they say. Dean smarts off to just about everyone he meets and hides letters with things like suspension and final warning typed in neat, black font from dad.

And Mom's dead. Mom's dead.

To top it off, he's got these dreams about her, white sails whipping high behind and a glow that can't be described as anything, but holy.

He gets them a lot. He doesn't tell anyone about them either. He's getting real good at that - keeping secrets, driving them deep enough to ignore when he needs to (when it counts).

There are other dreams too. The one where he gets back exactly what he hoped away.

He doesn't have them as nearly as much as he wants to, but he likes that there's at least the memory, that maybe now he can say with a touch of honesty, that it really was all a dream.

But mostly, he thinks he's crazy. Maybe, he is. (He probably is.)

Probably.

-

When Dean was six, he thought he could fly. Just like everyone else. He thought he was invincible, untouchable, one more cut above the rest of mankind.

Turns out he was.

When Dean is twenty and counting, he flies over the city he grew up in, flies over the houses that he never went over to after school, book bag slung over his shoulder because it was in his locker, and finds Sam, stuck in a fire, frozen in the quick slap of history trying to go for two, and when they're up, out over the world, the sight of it dropping away fast, he doesn't say a thing.

Neither of them do. Because Dean knows why now.

He knows why because Sam is alive and Sam has always been his answer, the only one that ever made sense.

Later, a voice in his head says, "Now. Now, you understand," and Dean's grin slides open half-asleep and all awake, "Yeah, I do."

-

The next day, Dean leaves his mortal coil. Leaves because he's done what was needed to be done in this form and with the clouds on his right, he sees the punk with the red hair, new body - same sure smile, and they watch over his Sam together.

"Don't worry about him. He knows you're still here."

When the wind finds his face, the voice in his head tells him there's work to be done, that he's ready now.

-

Dean listens.

-

In A World Called Catastrophe (Walter) PG

2008-10-27T00:04:24Z

Title: In A World Called Catastrophe
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1764
Summary: His name is Walter Bishop.
Characters: Walter Bishop, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything to date to be safe/Slight liberties taken with canon.
A/N: Title from the Matthew Good song of the same name.

His name is Walter Bishop.

Walter Bishop is his name.

And he has been at St. Claires for - for too long.

He could ask someone what year it is, he could ask the pretty nurse that comes to give him his breakfast, lunch, and dinner what year it is, but he likes this.

This not knowing because it makes no difference to him. Not really.

Last time he knew the exact coordinates of when and now, it was 1997. 1997 feels like a long time ago and by all likelihood it is.

Outside his window, the seasons alternate, forwards and backwards and once more. (Frost lies just inside the perimeter of the glass, rain takes the slow path down to the earth, the sun shaves a beam through the barrier between here and there.)

Outside his window, there is hope, the sound of his wife's voice holding awake in the snatches of traffic that still and begin like staccato, his son's fingers turning against thick keys, a melody finding its way into their house, their home when it was still theirs to call it that. (He remembers the smell of pancakes, the darkness of his study, a family he didn't know entirely what to do with, but loved all the same.)

One day ends. Another rears its head sharply at dawn. That day ends. And yet another asks to be lived through.

Life is cyclical. And as such, he is certain that there will be a time again, when he will be a free man.

The trick is in the waiting.

So Walter waits.

(It's all he has.)

-

He often wonders where Peter is.

How he is. But it's a bit of a wasted effort because the Peter he is remembering is all, but a child, an adolescent at best, memories the only constants he has to his name now.

Though he is hard pressed to forget that childhood for him was short-lived.

He had his friends, yes. He had his hobbies, of course. But there was always an awkward sense of maturity to his boy, one that he would shed as soon as he was old enough to relinquish the very responsibilities he felt were his to bear because of him. Because of his father.

"Father," he had spoken, never dad, and Walter had probably been too busy to grace him with a glace, far too much work, far too little time to carry it out, the standard rationalizations being enough to justify what it was he had to do (and what he couldn't be bothered with).

It wasn't until later that he would see the container, propped between a paper weight and a stack of folders.

Macaroni and cheese. His son had been reminding him to eat. Again.

And Walter, through a cacophony of dueling thoughts, theories and a mouth swabbed in processed cheddar, wondered idly if this was what devotion felt like.

He decided then that it was his closest estimate in any case. (Needless to say, it still is.)

-

That first touch of the world against his face is unlike anything he can describe.

His eyes sting, burning orbs unaccustomed to the bright bright lights of the living and he breathes in, the air around him a ready knife to his lungs.

A woman with long blonde hair asks him if he's all right for what is quite possibly not the first time while Peter shakes his head ever the cynic a foot away.

Walter? He merely smiles before surrendering himself to the elements.

-

His son is altered. Physically a man before him and yet, there is still the boy who knew more than his peers, caught on to the type of subtleties that most adults let slip by them.

But they fall into old patterns as easily as others would fight against them.

Peter asks the right questions; Walter scolds him for thinking like a common pedestrian.

Relations clash as relations are wont to do.

And he doesn't miss the exasperation he incites in him, the sigh that aches to be a scream, the sidelong glances to anyone that isn't Walter, a relay of the emotions that mix and turn cold on a face that tries its best not to betray them in the first place.

Peter has carried with him, his whole life, a funny kind of moral code that seemed to exist to apply to only one person.

For the whole world, he has little more than a warm apathy at best. But when it comes to him, he who he is ready to take to task with little to no encouragement, the laws of right and wrong stay impossibly stringent.

"I'm not the enemy, Peter."

Early mornings and three arguments fresh into the day, his words are met with silence and the predicted rotation of two eyes, in a show of mockery or something else just as childish, but it's the first time in as many days, that Peter doesn't greet him immediately with a snappy remark.

Instead, he holds his gaze, across the laboratory he more or less inhabited all those years ago, and his response, however belated, is something to remember for later when his fury goes unchecked as it is inevitably prone to do:

"I never thought you were, Walter."

Lie or truth, it's the nicest thing his son has said to him in quite some time. So he takes it for what it is.

An olive branch. A lifeline. Possibly more than he deserves.

-

Walter met the woman that would become Peter's mother when she was nineteen and he was twenty-three.

They were so young, impossibly so, and it would be a longer courtship than most, what with both of them pursuing everything that higher education had to offer.

She was brilliant, at the beginning, she was all he could've imagined and whole worlds more.

Someone to challenge him, provoke him, offer assistance when the dots refused to connect.

After the wedding, after graduate school, she had their child, knuckles leaping snow white with the exertion of another human life residing inside the one that nourished it until it was ready to stumble head long into the big wide world all on its own.

This was the beginning of the inevitable end in more ways than one. He continued his work, won several awards for it, while she excelled at motherhood, abandoning all else for that.

He loved Peter, but his research was impertinent, to her, her family just as much, if not more.

(You can see now how it could never work right? ~~Pity how they couldn't.~~)

When he breathes himself out of solving the problem set before him, he sees her in him. In the brashness of his voice. In the way his eyes pinch small when something isn't sitting well enough with him to stay. In the turn of his hands at empty sides, fingers fleshed together, because he is trying trying trying to not lose his head, to not be like him.

Walter watches Peter when Peter doesn't know he's looking. Really, Walter watches for a spot of himself in the person working across from him.

He hopes he never sees it. He hopes he does. Validation is a funny thing. But at the end of the day (this one, that one, and others to come after both), he knows with a degree that can only be construed as faith, it's better for all concerned if the phrase, like father like son, stays hopefully irrelevant.

-

It would seem that the universe is at war.

Or perhaps, it's merely the people in it, mothering the chaos themselves. Either way, there is a fight being fought and it appears that he is the key to unlocking the madness that would drag them down, knee caps on concrete, asking for clemency and finding themselves with none.

It is a dream come true. This.

He wasn't exaggerating that first day in his new life, a true scientist again, when he thanked the young agent for trusting him, for believing that he could do what he claimed to and then continuing to do so in similar suit.

There is no doubt that she is the only one who does. Trust him, that is. In whatever capacity it exists in, he's stuck with gratitude.

Sometimes, he thinks it's her faith in him that forces Peter to protest as hard as he does.

They're an interesting study in cause-effect, his son and Olivia. And if he were to speak his mind, disregard the few censors that still reside there, he would tell him as much.

But even he knows his limits. Even he.

-

Most days, a large amount of the time, he is not entirely there.

It's bits and pieces of himself, every day, staggering to make a near-complete picture.

Walter Bishop, at his most collected, is a fracture. A splinter of a human being.

And by all accounts it shows, yet time and time again, it's his research, his mind, his observations, his theories that save them.

"Thank you," says Olivia. "Let's go," calls Peter. "Where to?" asks Walter.

Twin grins meet opposing faces and both come and go in the time it takes him to blink his sight away, back.

Olivia nods her farewell as his son sighs, dances his head to and fro in what is fast becoming a disturbingly familiar sight, "Home, Walter. Let's go home."

"Ah, yes. Home. Course."

It snows on the way, another fresh coat for the good people of Boston to deal with come morning. Inside the car, relegated to the backseat now, for an entire itinerary of reasons he's sure he's guilty of, but can't for the life of him recall, snowflakes pop and close wet against the window pane.

Outside the hotel, they do the same over rosy cheeks and Peter is somewhere - just a minute, he'd said - and alone beside the curb, Walter sticks his tongue out, lets the shape of winter touch to melt there.

And he knows now (remembers) what it is to be truly free.

-

"Freedom, Peter, is a lone snowflake on the tongue."

Sunk under a comforter and one more, a snort dashes from the other side of the room, "Of course, it is."

But to his credit, the younger Bishop proffers a smile with his daily dose of sarcastically dry and sometime later, when he doesn't have his father fixtured to his side, he tests his theory, finds it to be true.

(It nevers comes as a surprise.)

-

Your Birds Of Paradise (Jake/Peyton) PG

2008-10-19T21:07:38Z

Title: Your Birds Of Paradise
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1768
Summary: One Tree Hill is a mess of soap story plotlines and the people stuck living them.
Characters: Peyton Sawyer, Jake Jagielski
Spoilers/Warnings: AU mostly, but everything to date just in case.
A/N: As per viennawaits's request, in which I completely ignore the prompt and write a sapfest instead. Apologies, yo. Title courtesy of Johnnie Newman.

One Tree Hill is a mess of soap story plotlines and the people stuck living them.

Peyton loses her heart here, to a boy that would write a book in her name, another that would come into her life and leave it one time too many, and when it's over, really over, she comes back, sits under the bleachers that rose above her when she was entirely too young to know where time would take her.

Brooke calls from across the country, asks the type of questions that all end up sounding like some variation of are you all right?.

A ring sits inside her purse, one gold band missing its companion, and she's okay, cross her heart and pinky swear it's true, she is. It's just-

That after all this time, after marriages that disintegrated into the most typical of high school break ups gone awry, she thought she'd have more answers.

Some inkling of where to go from here.

The years pile up and she's no wiser for them. But regardless, she's a little braver than yesterday, a shade more fearless, so when she makes the visits she came to make, her fingers dial a number to the only place left to go.

"Hey Peyton."

Breath in, breath out, her throat holds her silent for a moment before a laugh takes over, and he smiles in turn over the miles, "Hey Jake."

Her ticket is bought the next day. At the terminal, luggage checked, apologies made, her feet slip against the narrowing distance before she finds her stride.

-

Georgia finds her changed, but the same in more ways than she'll care to admit to.

Jenny is a girl now, the toddler she remembers existing merely as an image in her head, and it's been too long, she thinks, and as they fall gracelessly into awkward greetings, his head pressing fast against her shoulder, hers to his chest, he says as much.

"It's good to see you, Sawyer."

It never fails to give her pause, the way he doesn't hold her to promises both of them made, but didn't follow through with, the treble in his voice sans the same kind of bitterness almost anyone else in his situation would have.

But this is her, and she's got to make certain, so she does, eyes leaping vertical to two pairs of shoes, the words sounding silly just as soon as they arc through the air, "You're not mad? It’s okay if you are. I mean - I never called, I never-"

Head swinging, he's got a grin ready for her there, and she stops at the sight of it, takes a row of teeth to tongue, and tilts her head at sheepish.

"You're here now," he says, like that's all the explanation he needs or wants, and she knows inherently that this is him telling her, that if she wants, this can be the beginning, again.

No expectations. No strings. No questions.

Jenny giggles, snapping them back to reality as it is, and they plank her from either side, fingers grasping for smaller ones, flashbacks to airports and the reunions that came with them closer than they appear.

-

She tells him eventually because she has to, because it's him, because he'd do the same for her, and it doesn't hurt to rehash the tale she's been avoiding for a good six months now as much as she thought it would.

Lucas Scott will always be there, in the peripheral for her, and it's taken her this long to realize that maybe, that's where he belongs.

Knees bent at the back porch, he doesn't say anything for a while, the thrum of late night traffic the only sound around them, and Peyton, old habits and no one who ever stuck around long enough to know what they were, feels her chest depress with the weight of not being privy to the thoughts in his head.

"Hey," her chuckle, all nervous and no humour, as he turns away, back, and again.

"Lucas is an idiot."

And this is the point where she laughs to laugh, a swing of relief caught up in the release, "Is that so?"

"Pretty much."

It's another minute before he asks her, and between Davis and Haley and Nathan and everyone else who had some invested interest in either party involved, she was certain that she'd had enough of well meant concern.

So for the 8349384938th time: "You okay?"

"Yeah." But it's the first time, her answer comes in the same ball park as the truth.

She chalks it up to the company.

-

It's an easy routine to fall into, but they've got their boundaries, lessons learned and all that, and the guest room is littered with him and Jenny's lives everywhere she looks.

He doesn't asks how long she's staying; she doesn't inquire to how long he'll have her.

Breakfast on the table, school bus in front of the house, their mornings begin the same way they usually do, as she watches him see off his daughter while her phone flashes B. Davis like clock work.

"How are you, Brooke?"

"I'm fantastic. How's playing house with Jagielski?"

At the door, he mouths her best friend's name in semi-mock horror, and she's left swallowing back her amusement, her voice betraying his presence all the same, as she protests against the obvious, "We're not playing house. It's not like that."

"Oh my god, he's there, isn't he? Put him on. Right now, Sawyer."

Phone clamped into her palm, she whispers something akin to sorry as he takes the receiver, braces himself, and breathes, "Hey there, Davis."

She leaves him to dodge a modern day Spanish inquisition on his own, and in another room, Brooke's squeals permeate the space around her regardless.

Later:

"I can't believe you left me to deal with that all by lonesome."

"The that to which you are referring to is my closest friend, I'll have you know."

"Your crazy, nosy friend? Oh, I know."

A punch to the shoulder, he sends both arms up to shield himself and she ends her assault when he stops laughing.

It's becoming a pattern and they both know it because when the silence crests against the things neither of them are ready to touch again, it's time to take a step back, follow that with another one, until the space between is sufficient enough for maintaining whatever it is they feel like they're limited to.

He leaves for work; she spends her days drawing the future she thinks is just out of her reach.

For now, this is as far as it's going to go.

-

Jake and Peyton. Peyton and Jake.

They're an equation that's failed to add up more than once and they both know all too well, the costs involved.

A couple weeks later, Jenny at her very first sleepover ever and her last if Jake's worry is anything to go by, Peyton's in the kitchen, washing up after dinner for two and too quiet a house.

"You don't have to do that."

Her shoulders take for a shrug, "I know, Jagielski. I want to."

He dries; she rinses. She cocks her head to look at him and he pretends not to notice.

They keep inside the circles they're used to, and it's not until the couch, a movie rented and promptly ignored, that either of them does anything about it.

Butter salted to lips, her fingers itch around the remote, needing something to adhere to, something tangible in a world brimming full with the elusive, and it's his turn to watch her, count the breaths she takes with the catch and rise of torso against one hundred percent cotton.

"So if I were to say kiss you now, would that make me the rebound guy?"

Smirk dashing in place, "Maybe," just as she shakes her head in the negative.

And it's been years, more than either of them care to tally, but when he leans towards the general vicinity of her face and finds her mouth waiting, time and all its implications take leave, and in their wake, the only thing that stands to remain is now and her and him, and exactly what they're going to make of it.

Not that she has any idea what that entails, but she thinks at least, between the both of them, they’ll figure something out.

So here goes nothing.

-

This isn't forever.

They both realize that.

There's never a forever.

The sun pales against another morning and Peyton wakes to the dull ache of an empty room, sliding forward on socks and stopping at a window.

Glass to her fingers, a suitcase gapes a couple feet back, the questions the disarray of clothes inside it leaving her blind, as she shuts the curtains on her vision and opens them again.

“Making a run for it, huh?”

She turns and he’s all skin and water, towel crept high at waist, and she unfolds on the mattress, back to him, as efforts are made to find pants and a shirt, her face stealing a blush into her cheeks like she’s sixteen and all a flutter with the emotions of that age.

It’s only when his arm rubs her elbow does she look up. It’s only then that she tells him in slow, paced breaths that she still has things to deal with before she can let herself have this, unfinished business an old excuse.

Except it isn’t an excuse now. The truth of the matter is that the rest of her life, as sad as it may be, when she is feeling sorry for herself, a glass of cold wine warming her fingertips hopeful and a playlist of songs that have all the nostalgia she doesn’t need singing idle in the background, is something she has to come to terms with inevitably.

He knows it. She knows it. It’s known.

So she leaves. For now. She steps on a plane back the same way she came and he isn’t at the airport with his farewells memorized for reciting because this time, this time the girl who always swore that everyone leaves (sometime or another) knows that under the right set of circumstances, when fate is being a polite fellow, the separations aren’t necessarily always permanent.

-

Seat belt clipped in, the ground runs out from beneath her.

She presses her fingers to the window, knows she’ll be back.

And for now, that’s all the answer she needs, wants.

For now, that's more than enough.

-

Her ears pop on take off.

-

requestage + anon feedback?

2008-10-16T00:43:13Z

 THE ANONYMOUS FEEDBACK MEME

Also? Because I am dry and want for ideas, give me a pairing, fandom(s), and a one-word prompt and I'll try my best to write it. Crossovers highly highly encouraged.

Thank you muchly.

Dichotomy (Olivia/Peter) PG

2008-09-30T22:03:57Z

Title: Dichotomy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2234
Summary: As cliche as it sounds, they are the epitome of the polar opposite.
Characters: Olivia Dunham, Peter Bishop, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything to date.

As cliche as it sounds, they are the epitome of the polar opposite. The agent and the renegade, the law and the lawless, black on white, all contrast and no overlap.

Except that's a lie. Because there's always overlap. Always a point where line A will grace line B, grace and cross and move far far away if it chooses to.

They're not at that point yet, but it's coming. Just look far enough and it's there.

-

Peter knows what captivity feels like, the snatch and grab of a freedom you thought was yours to keep gone. Just like that.

He knows the way an eight by eight foot space can lick steady at any hope you hardly knew you had to begin with. The shock of words like privacy and safe vanishing from your daily vocabulary all too well.

So it's not that he doesn't sympathise with dear old dad. But the fact that he knows, with more certainty than anything else, that while he, himself, may have garnered a stay in a similar institution (minus the needles and the strait jacket of course), he never felt himself an actual prime threat to the world around him. He was foolish, careless, rash, but not dangerous.

Peter Bishop was four when he found his father in the basement of their home, a sum of murmurs and eyes that snapped at the slightest interruption.

And just like yesterday, he sees the shades of that man, in this one now. The only difference between each version being that he doesn't scare him anymore.

Because if he scares him, that means he cares, and if he cares that means he's attached, and if he's attached, this will end worse than he thought.

Anger is an easier emotion to latch on to. So Peter latches and strains himself as his heart beats in tandem with shaking fingers and a general sense of sinking breaking ripe around him.

Olivia plays mediator between father and son. Some days, he almost forgets to hate her for it. Most days, he's sure what presses between his chest when he watches her and Walter, over a desk with files lined up for days, is probably the furthest thing from hate you can get.

-

John's the first person in a long time. And yes, she knows exactly how horribly trite that sounds, but it's true, now smeared in secrets she doesn't understand (people call him traitor in whispered tones that echo too loud for her ears; she wants to agree, but she can never fully reach that level of detachment needed for this sort of thing).

Tuesday and there was a shooting across town, then two, as they quickly realized they had a sniper on their hands, when he asked her out.

Three people died that day. And it would've been four if they didn't catch the guy, but that was besides the point. One-two-three lives were already lost and Olivia laughed, a shade of bitter mingling with tell tale exhaustion, when he said, all smiles and no heartache visible, "Have drinks with me?"

She hadn't. She couldn't. But the question would return to pinch at her resolve four more times before she sank into appeasement and said yes.

"I had a feeling you were going to make this hard," a shot in his hand, and her heart sinking low in her chest, as he reached over, sank ten digits into her hair, and finished, "I'm happy I was right."

In a bar and through a gauze of smoke, he waited for her to kiss him then. She had.

It's not lost on her that the only reason Peter Bishop is in her life now is because of John. It's not lost on her that she's hoping that there is still some neatly crafted explanation for everything that transpired only days, a week at the outset, prior to this one (but it's not days to her. it's an entire wealth of time, that doesn't adhere to any measurement at all.)

No, Olivia knows how her life as she knows it came to be. What she's having difficulty understanding is how easily she's slipped into it.

That's what worries her. That's what keeps her just outside the reach of complacency (and alive).

-

Working relationships usually go one of two ways.

Well. And not well.

Peter and Olivia are forever toeing this line.

Morning yawns open against matching cups of concentrated caffeine and she can't remember why, but they're arguing, about Walter probably, about him and his refusal to realize just how entrenched he is in this chaos as she is most likely, and he says something, something out of place, causing her to pause, and take stock, before she loses her place completely, a slide of smile making it past lips that thin in amusement.

It's always like this. Sometimes they're laughing before they're fighting, but the two go hand in hand.

Astrid will start tagging them with knowing stares as they catch themselves, sober out of the moment and return to the task at hand. Walter will appear oblivious, but he has always been a better actor than most.

And they? They turn their eyes away before anything can happen.

(No one bothers to tell them they're coming up a little late on that goal.)

-

There are moments when Olivia loses ties with the here and now, left meandering somewhere in yesterday without an anchor.

Her eyes shine blank, her hands seem smaller, falling at her sides and staying down, and he wants to tell her, momentarily blanketed with that horrible urge to compensate her pain with an "I understand."

Except he doesn't. His grasp of her grief is only partial. Disillusionment and the people that carry it is nothing new to him, but she never got the chance to ask him, face him, say all the things she thinks she wants to say now, but wouldn't if given half the chance.

He has that opportunity every day. Another shot at his father's lack of station in reality, another passing remark about asylums and how some people just belonged in them.

And in the end, he's not sure which is worse. (Truth be told, neither does she.)

-

The disturbing, unusual, and inexplicable serve to keep them busy.

Job offers are made (for her, not him) and Olivia holds her head down, proffers her thanks, and quietly turns them down one after another.

"Not a fan of change, Dunham?" and she can see the grin, easy and half-forced, against his face before she looks up.

But there's a moment, a rare interlude between one case and another, and she considers the question, for herself at the very least.

A wash of hair mixing over tired eyes, her answer comes belated and soft, and he feels the weight behind the words more than he'll admit to just yet.

"I've had plenty of that, Peter. I think I've had enough."

And he's there, at her side, one hand itching to press at the small of her back, the concave swoop there, but she's walking away, turning back to him on an easy spin, eyes lit in false cheer, as he wishes, for reasons unknown to him, she knew that she didn't have to do that. Not with him, not after everything they've seen.

So he tells her, lets the syllables drop from his mouth, and Olivia glances at the space behind him.

"Okay," she says. "Okay."

They'll got out for drinks later, just the two of them. He'll open doors; she'll roll her eyes vertical.

Essentially, more of the same. But no one's complaining.

-

They're on assignment, months later, in Belgium of all places, when it happens.

He still hasn't signed his rights away to the government. She still doesn't quit reminding that eventually, he'll have to.

The hotel is small, comforting in that way, these places have about them, and she's got herself tied up in something she can't control, something that should've never been placed solely on her shoulders to deal with.

"None of this makes sense, Peter. I can't see the correlation. I-" and he's been listening to her do this for hours and he can't. He can't do it anymore.

"Hey," he breathes, another failed attempt to garner her attention, but this time she looks up, the skin of her face pulled tight in tension that's been building for days, and he just leans forward, no thoughts to push him back surfacing yet, folding their mouths together.

It doesn't last for long. It's barely contact at that. All hesitation and no concrete action, but he feels her press back, just enough to count, shivering her teeth into his bottom lip, lets himself drift in this a moment longer than he should.

"Hey," and her voice evens away from manic, removes itself from saturated fear and he thinks, he thinks, it's not the worst thing that could've happened to him.

Getting lied to, being forced to work with the very man he's spent the last however many years compartmentalizing in the further recesses of his mind, being here now.

"Hey," he says again, and she smiles this time, full and stretched at real, the flutter of breath exhaled off her tongue, greeting his cheek as he shuts his eyes and does the same.

-

Walter finds them in the morning.

Stolen away in slumber and nowhere near coming back just yet, the result of one too many nights without adequate rest, cracking theories into the night and meeting the cycle once more with dawn draping across the horizon.

Astrid whistles, not loud enough to make a difference, but he's got the girl out of the room just as fast, and he most definitely can't remember her name, but he says something akin to wasting precious time and goats, where can he find a goat?, as she takes his hand and leads him down to the lobby, lets them sleep in despite the senior Bishop's protests.

Olivia wakes up first, every bit of her wrinkled, and dust bunny happy.

He's next, the smell of coffee crinkling past his nose, its own version of a wake up call, and he literally moans with the smell, blindly reaching out for a taste.

"And here I thought you weren't a morning person."

He flicks an eye open, the rustle of papers at his elbow loud as static and just as non-descript, "I'm not," and if he wasn't grinning himself this side of stupid, she'd believe him.

As it is, she's long stopped trying to figure out Peter Bishop.

As it stands, anyone can tell that's a lie.

-

Tripping back into routine is fairly easy.

Nothing fazes them anymore and that probably isn't the greatest sign of things to come, but there has got to be an end game in all of this, a conclusion that doesn't end in more loss and less answers.

The fact that her insistence doesn't guarantee one doesn't seem to make her want for one any less.

Peter says it should; she tells him to shut up.

"Oh, god Dunham? This is what you've been reduced to? Raw hope? Say it ain't so."

There is no way she is going to justify that with an answer, but he has his points. The Pattern, for all they know, may just be the beginning, the first crest before the true tidal wave hollows out everything that is still standing.

But bad metaphors aside, she's got nothing against clawing for things like hope and redemption, the idea of them, the promise they entail.

She thinks, now more than ever, she needs to.

-

Inevitably, she is shot.

And it's happened before, a shoulder graze when she first began her descent into making her livelihood this way, but nothing serious, nothing at all like this.

The bullet cards itself through her chest on a Wednesday, and he gets the call not much later, the ringing blare of an ambulance stripping ominous through the line.

It takes him five minutes to get to the hospital. He'll remember it as much longer.

-

Her name is the first thing she hears when she wakes up.

Her name in her hair and a laugh that falls silent at his throat as he tries to make light of what this is.

Whatever this is.

"How about you never do that again?"

A snort that presses in her throat and runs free, she's almost smiling, "Getting shot and almost dying? Gladly."

He takes her hand in his. She leans back into doctor ordered rest and squeezes it, just the once, not sure who exactly the reassurance is for.

-

She's back at work three weeks later and the definition of a working vacation holds true as he's requested to keep her up to date on everything and anything (the world doesn't stop because i got hurt, you know? and he doesn't say it, but he thinks, it should, that it already does - for him)

"Ready?" the question clad in a layer of doubt he doesn't entirely expect.

A glance to the sky, he shrugs, follows it with the standard nod, "Sure. You?"

She breathes in, out, considers the variables, as ever changing as they are. "Sure," she says, "Sure," and they both take a step forward, once again into the unknown.

-

The sidewalk clears to welcome them.

-

Four Foster Families John Connor Never Had (Multifandom) PG

2008-09-28T03:17:28Z

Title: Four Foster Families John Connor Never Had
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4666
Summary: When your mother accidentally leaves you behind in the past, you make due with what you have. Sarah Connor Chronicles/Friday Night Lights/Supernatural/The Black Donnellys/Battlestar Galactica
Characters: Ensemble.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything for everything to be on the safe side.
A/N: I started this a very long time ago and this isn't exactly how I wanted it finished, but I reallyreallyreally want it off my hard drive and maybe never to look at it again. So. Many thanks to ava_leigh_fitz for reading and supporting the crazy. And yes, I realize there's no real continuity in this and for that I apologize. Who said crack had to make sense? ~~Don't answer that.~~

1. The Taylors.

When your mother accidentally leaves you behind in the past, you make due with what you have.

First up: Dillon, Texas.

-

He keeps his name, changes the one that comes directly after it, and sits on a bus for three hours with a history that is not his own memorized to a tee.

It's always the same thing. A slightly altered date of birth, brief sob story to match (he's stuck playing the part of the runaway this time), and last, but not least, no mention of the world ending in anything less than a passing ironic tone, or alternatively real-life cylons come to life.

(The fact that he's watched all three seasons of Battlestar Galactica is morbid even to him. But in his defense, Starbuck is kind of hot.)

Which coincidentally is the same thought that passes through his mind, when he first meets his foster sister.

Then Julie starts to talk. And talk (and talk). Until, any and all observations having to do with the girl's appearance are washed away permanently in the sound.

After twenty odd minutes of listening to her perpetual woes concerning some Saracen character, the parentals not home yet, she passes him milk, pours herself a cup, and they both proceed to dip Oreos whilst watching a rerun of Wheel Of Fortune.

"Oh, welcome to hell by the way."

John quirks an eyebrow and decides then that he might like her even with the incessant chatter.

"You have no idea," is his reply to that, provoking a snort from her end and maybe a truce of some kind.

They clink glasses when they’re done.

-

Eric Taylor scares the shit out of him. He likes him. Don't get him wrong. He's just a little - intense about it all.

The three of them, save for Gracie home with a sitter, show him around town, and apparently there's a game tonight, and unfortunately, he's coming with.

"Let's see if you really fit in," the new ~~only~~ father figure jokes, and Tami's slapping at his arm, laughing that way she does, with her hair riding back behind her, eyes crinkling at the corners. He likes Tami too, but she scares him just as much. If not more.

In the back seat, Julie's on her cell, and on his left, is someone by the name of Landry Clark.

"How you likin' Dillon so far? Seriously how close are you from running away again? Dude, do you want to join my band?"

He just barely makes it out of that conversation, with a "It's all right-Not sure yet-and sorry what?"

Julie nudges him across a rib, phone still firmly attached to cheek, and he turns her way, relieved, "His band is called Cruficterious. You are not joining Cruficterious. I'll disown you right now."

As luck would have it, the school parking lot comes into view right about this moment and he stumbles out faster than anyone else.

Watching a bunch of over-muscled jocks pound themselves into the green beats this circus by a mile. And bonus? He can pretend he can't hear what they're saying and get away scotch-free.

It's no wonder the next two hours border on blissful.

-

It's his third week in when he finds himself alone with the pseudo baby sister, all tiny toes and toothless wonder, gurgling in his lap.

They're out, date night for the adults (don't ask), and some masquerade of a sleepover for Jules, which he helps back up even though he knows she's going to no such thing, her and that kid in his English class having finally made up whatever they needed to make up.

And here he is, remote all to himself, a stocked fridge to raid if need be. Voluntarily looking after his first enfant.

See Gracie, here, wasn't planned. No one tells him, but he can guess as much from the way Julie rolls her eyes when she cries too loud and the constant juggle between husband and wife to make sure that they can both keep their respective jobs and still be there for her checkups with a smile and a variety of random, but impertinent questions ready for the doctor.

Makes him wonder. If he himself wasn't a mistake. He never did ask. The weight of the world's fall to ruin a bit more important in the grand scheme of things, but they were young, his parents, and there wasn't a wedding, least not the traditional kind.

He almost wishes his mom were here just so he could ask even if he knows he never would. Because it's hard. John and Sarah. Sarah and John. One without the other, and the whole thing shatters like glass, splinters in his feet and lost cause written in the shards.

There's something to be said for larger families. For siblings and aunts and the like.

When it's time to turn to someone, not only do you have options, there's that many more people hoping you come out the other side.

-

The moral of every story always comes back to this:

When one begins to get comfortable, the shit is always three seconds away from hitting the fan.

It's New Mexico all over again, swap the classroom for the cafeteria, and it's a miracle no one gets hurt. Also the new lunch lady? So not a lunch lady.

Bullets sweep the air, every last one aimed at him and only him, and Julie's crying, big wet tears slipping down her face, as he pushes her down under the table and runs in a direction fraught with the smallest number of bystanders.

And look's who's back.

"Keep running. I'll deal with this."

John almost laughs, "Thanks, Cam."

He doesn't stop until he's half way across town.

-

Tami doesn't know what to say. Eric even less. And he's kind of just going to sit here for as long as he possibly can without setting either of them off.

Two minutes is all he gets: "So you were attacked?"

John nods, "You could say that."

The nicest woman he's ever met squints her eyes at nothing, and strains a hand against the tabletop. He stares at it in lieu of her husband's hair somehow increasing in volume every couple minutes. (Before, when his cover was still intact, Julie joked, "It's practically alive." He smiles at the memory.)

But back to the awkward conversation at hand. "And she-" She pauses to gesture discretely towards the machine standing in her kitchen, a foot away, "She's here to help you?"

"Basically."

Another one of those inevitable silences takes over the room, and the hard part's next. He chooses his words as carefully as he can. No way is his being here going to place them in harm's way again. He won't let it.

Throat tight, "I know none of this is going to make the least amount of sense. But I have to go. I'm sorry." He stalls on the last words he'll part to this family, his for however long he had them to call them that, "Thanks for trying though."

They don't ask him why. They don't ask him how. All they do is pull him into a near suffocating bear hug, and as his eyes close beneath the weight of being held like this, he feels Mrs. Taylor press a kiss into his hair and Mr. Taylor hold the back of his head with the same grip he probably reserves for a pigskin.

Julie casts a shadow in the hall, sad yet curiously expressionless at once. She waves over a grin before disappearing.

-

2. The Winchesters

When a machine from the future almost kills you and your newly minted foster sister at your new school, you go running.

As far as you possibly can.

-

He makes it to Arizona by hitching every ride that doesn't look like it's going to end with him gutted like road kill in some ditch no one will ever find and holds his own against inappropriate come ons from women old enough to be his mother and inappropriate comes ons from men old enough- well.

These boys though? Something's definitely off with these two.

He's sitting in a bar when the nice lady on his left kindly shows him her fangs and maybe because it was Halloween last week, or maybe because he's never believed in this sort of thing, but in any case, he kind of leans over to get a better look.

Not the smartest thing he's ever done.

The fact that he still has his throat attached is above and beyond any measure of dumb luck there is.

The smirky one blows off his drinking mate's head, and the sad one winces with the pop crack that the gun makes, before guiding him out the way.

He’s breathless. "You saved my life."

Smirky all, but sneers, "You're an idiot, kid."

He likes them already.

-

So he's a tag along. Nothing new there. Because as much as the destiny thing has been shoved down his throat and out the other end, he's never felt like anything more than excess cargo.

Thing is Sam and Dean (it takes everything in him not to draw similarities to Batman and Robin) have their own agenda, one completely separate from his. One that entails a whole slew of Ghost Buster-like adventures, he's only too happy to be a part of.

And if he wasn't so easy to read, maybe he would be.

"I saved your ass once. I'm not doing it again."

He's like a wall this one. But with all his dumb luck to spare, he's made an ally of Sam, and Sam says he's going to be all right.

John's pretty sure that saying things like that ended for him a long time ago, but he appreciates the effort just the same.

"Know how to shoot a gun?" Sam’s face turns at hopeful, and his throat is sticky with the knowledge that some of that faith might be placed in him.

But lying? Never really has been his strongest forte.

"Damn right, I know-Okay, not really. I've seen my mom do it though."

Dean's sneering again, the twist of that lip infuriating even from across the room.

That night, he shatters three bottles of his favourite beer with the Colt just to piss him off.

And the black eye he sports for the next week screams of mission accomplished.

-

Papa Winchester is something else.

Man looks like he stepped out of a Clint Eastwood film and probably is still in one, and they're name twins to boot.

So score.

Dean still thinks he's more a liability than anything else. Sam's still trying to see something of himself when he teaches him how best to outrun a supernatural creature. John though, John just makes him feel like he's home even when home is a cabin in the middle of Nowhereville. Even when the closest thing to sustenance is the half-eaten jerky by the sink.

For a little while, he's almost one of them, renegades and free.

His gratitude brims over each day they let him stay for just one more night.

-

It's late. A new state, a new last name, and the same ol' old.

Sam's after the shape shifter, Dean's trying, but pretty much sucking ass at reading the incantation, and he's like background noise. Important, but you don't notice.

"Can I help?"

Cue the death glare. Milling around in the dark while being absolutely useless it is then.

But as it is, Sam's back, and he's somehow managed to solve the problem all by his lonesome.

John pretends he doesn't see his stained hands. John pretends like this isn't at all odd. Hell, not even in the same parking lot as odd.

Dean, though? Dean looks like he's seen a ghost. Pardon the over-wrought pun.

"Hey, you okay?" and he asks because he's never felt like checking if he was before, and Dean just looks through him, before smacking the back of his hand to his skull.

A howl high pitched enough to produce laughs all around and he's finally beginning to see the bigger picture.

One does not ask Dean Winchester if he's okay.

Especially since he's never been anything close to the word.

-

They start leaking. Probably by accident, but he's always listening.

So a list of facts he's come to learn:

John? Other John? He's been gone for most of their lives. But he loves his boys, and another life, another set of rules, maybe, he would've been there for the long haul.

Sam fell in love once. A girl named Jess and eyes brighter than the picture he carries around with him. He doesn't have to say she's not here anymore. It hangs around him like wool, stuffy and heavy and never quite comfortable.

Dean's never felt like that. There have been girls. Lots of them (he’ll tell you; just ask). But it's always been Sam, whose held any kind of long-standing place in his heart, and he thinks maybe Dean wants it that way.

It all comes together, but there's that little snag. This isn't where he needs to be.

It's where he wants to be, right here and now, but not at all where he needs to be.

Cameron finds him, a mission his future self sent her on, keeping her busy for a while, and Dean wastes no time hitting on her, to which she actually smiles. Probably been learning her social graces with the time away from him, but it's more than enough to give the boy hope.

He asks her for her number and John's lips twitch with the truth.

"Sorry, she doesn't have one, man."

This is how they say goodbye. A string of digits he can't hand over, and a secret relayed because he just couldn't help himself.

Sam sinks into laughter. Dean blinks when Cameron's eyes shine neon blue. He climbs into the truck she stole four days back, and resists the urge to say something along the lines of i'll miss you, guys.

"It's been real," sounds more like their style anyway.

-

3. The Donnellys and a Reilly

When you get tired of the big bad waiting for you in the dark and haunted towns spilling into your rearview as you drive far far away, you go get yourselves entangled with the Irish mob.

Because clearly that is the next logical step.

-

Hell's Kitchen is the kind of place people go to disappear.

Watch the news, there's a girl no one will ever see again, her smiling face falling out the side of milk carton far back in the fridge, a plea from her long-suffering parents who will only suffer more as the days turn their still lit hope into fear, blown into their pupils and pushed out their hearts.

John sits in a pub and listens to Jenny talk about nothing in particular. She's got a pretty face, and her hair aims to hide it, as she leans forward with a cloth, wiping the slab of counter he's perched his elbows on.

"Used to work in diner."

There's something there, the way she lingers on this sentence in a way she didn't with the others, and he's coming on seventeen, a bit more braver, a bit less a boy, so he asks, if only to satisfy his own curiousity.

"So what happened?'

She stares at her hands and he knows he shouldn't have pushed his luck.

(Papa Reilly died a year ago. Jenny lost the diner a year ago. There's no getting out of the neighbourhood now. Pity how there never was.)

-

He meets Tommy by default, and the next three the same way.

It's a little obvious: How he doesn't belong, and maybe it's pity that hides in their nods, slow over drafts he can't have, but they're giving him a place to stay and that is all that John can focus on.

Helen teaches Cameron how to clean and marvels at her proficiency. He tries to stand on the street, with both feet on the ground, early in the morning, and there's a smear of red against the curb that shines with the sun cresting over another day.

The only blood he's only ever gotten on his hands has been accidental, collateral for merely existing, and he doesn't think it's too different from how they live their lives.

Tommy gets debunked to sharing quarters with Jimmy, his groan over dinner only outweighed by the other boy’s laughs (old times, tommy boy. just like old times.) Observation of the day: Whenever Jimmy smiles, Tommy’s fast losing his.

Under the bed, under the covers, there are books, pads upon pads of paper, filled with the blackest of pastels.

Jenny's just as beautiful here.

He sits for a moment, memorizes the smile across his knee, two dimensional, but the same one he's come to know, and when the door rattles with a knock, he's shoving a hand against the carpet, on his feet, as Ma Donnelly (couldn't help, but pick that one up) asks him what he'd like for dinner.

-

"You like her, don’t you?"

It's funny the way she says it, like the answer matters, but they're alone for the next handful of hours, and just about everyone has noticed by now. Everyone 'cept for the girl in question of course.

Life sometimes is as cheesy as the worst romantic comedies. (Won’t be no happy endings here though. They’ve long outgrown their time you see.)

Cameron changes the channel, settling on the eleven o'clock news, and he's impressed with how well she can imitate one of them, the efficiency with which she learns and adapts the knowledge around her to fill in the cracks. Hardly no one doubts that she's what she says she is. Still very much playing his sister and he's sure she's noticed that he's looking at this one the same way he looked at her before he knew.

"I like everyone."

The statement registers as truthful even with the omission.

-

He's playing pool with Sean when it happens.

They're on their third game in an hour and for all the other's boy talk, he basically sucks as much as John does.

They concede for a draw only to put a stop to the embarrassment that is out matching each other's failure of getting a ball into a hole, John's hand tapping the eight ball across the green and letting it bounce off the other side before falling across the floor.

Sean's phone chirps, some song that's supposedly all the rage now, but does nothing other than raise an eyebrow on his end, and his face turns red, a bright flood of blood flashing bright beneath the surface.

"Everything all right?"

A pair of struck eyes meet his, and John, John holds his breath for long he'll remember later.

(A block away, Jenny's strewn across the floor, a rag twirled between her slim fingers, and Tommy's crying, tears that slip and lay waste at her feet. Her blood is red, his hands are the same, and one had to outlive the other. It's just that. No one ever thought it would be a Donnelly left standing.)

-

It’s a slow death.

An ambulance blares quickly through the streets, paramedics’ hands pushing, pumping, moving to keep that line on the monitor curving up and down and not even.

In the waiting room, everyone sits silent and John can’t help, but remember the nightmares he used to have when he was no more than five.

(When you’re out one parent, it’s easy to fall into fear of losing the other one. Sometimes, she was crossing the road, a car materializing out of nothing and running her down. Most of the time, it was the very thing they were trying to prevent finally finding them and succeeding in their task.)

Regardless of how or where, he always woke up with his breath snatched back into the dark, skin slippery with fear-driven perspiration.

John walks into Jenny’s room after Helen and before Tommy, the boy’s nod saying you first because for reasons unknown to him he has to be the last and her eyes are open when they find his, white covers and white walls surrounding them.

He tries to say i’m sorry (it’s not his fault, he knows. it’s just hard to shake the habit.), but she shakes her head, clasping her fingers around his own.

It’s only when Tommy coughs at the door that he lets go. Her hand falls away too easy.

-

She flat lines three days later and John is gone even while the skin is still warm.

He lets Helen pack him two weeks worth of leftovers. He lets Sean beat him at one last game of pool, both their hearts not in it.

He lets Jimmy take him for drinks and he lets Tommy sit across the table, his eyes drooping so low, it made one wonder if he was really alive, the only sign affirming the fact the nervous jig his feet did under the table like he was waiting, waiting for the moment to strike or act or do something to justify just how he came to lose his Jenny at the old age of twenty six.

The highway can’t stretch far enough this time. He’s not sure he wants it to.

-

4. The Entire Colonial Fleet of Battlestar Galactica, thank you very much

When heartbreak finds you even as you sprint at breakneck speed the other way, it’s time for a little spatial discovery.

Because space, yo.

-

The ship lands comically in a cornfield and John just happens to be at the gas station facing it.

“Is this Earth? Frak, this better be Earth.”

~~Hi. I am John’s jaw. Watch me hit floor and make John look like an idiot.~~

After two solid minutes of gaping, he finally finds his voice long enough to tell Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace, that she has indeed found Earth.

Her smile breaks out white and relieved, “Thank the frak god.” Apparently, this is a good thing.

Bewilderment aside, his (most likely nervous) laughter holds under his tongue while she takes out a cigar like a true Indiana Jones, the puff puff of smoke clearing gray in the night air while her crack team of pilots and mechanics tumble out the side of the raider behind them.

And he thought he had seen it all by now. (Negative, John. Negative to the exponent five squared twice hard.)

His mother is never going to believe him.

-

As far as John is concerned, the whole savior of mankind thing is more than enough burden to carry without any additional cargo on top of that, but Admiral Adama is dead set on weighing him down even more than he already is.

He’s basically appointed their unofficial guide to his planet and John would be okay with that if it didn’t mean Gauis Baltar wanted to be his new best friend, his voice resembling more and more that of a parrot squawking for crackers or whatever ~~mad scientists~~ parrots crave for as he quizzes him on the available night life and where, oh where can he find a decent year of scotch.

But all in all, it isn’t that bad. That is until Future John messes up and sets the apocalypse three years too early.

“You’ve got to be frakking kidding me." Former Cag Lee Adama blows out his cheeks, hands punching in coordinates to get them out of here as fast as possible, a line of Terminators firing to their side.

John plays dumb with a “I know, man. I know,” both laughing, as they take flight just in time, up and out into the vast black void.

To his left, the stars shine to say hello.

-

Life in space isn’t all that different from the one he knew back on his native planet.

Machines. Chasing them. Machines. Wanting them dead. Machines. Being too smart for their own good.

Old territory, new rules. He gets put into the Chief’s custody for a month, laundered off to Lee’s for another and then round to this dude named Helo. And as they pass him around like a twisted version of hot potato gone wrong, he gets to embody whatever profession his guardian keeps.

First, he’s a mechanic alongside Cally and Tyrol. A pilot in training next, amateur lawyer in between (Kara says something about Lee missing out on his teenage rebellion and that this is a phase until he and his old man iron out the last remaining tatters of that relationship. He nods like he knows what all this means.)

In a way, he does or he should. Talk is rampant here, and out of boredom alone, one can figure out all the interlinking connections between this person and that. If he wanted, he could uncover exactly what she meant, but he doesn’t because as long as he’s staying mum about who he is, he figures he doesn’t get rights to their life stories either.

They do have their shortcomings. He would wash down the entire flight deck if that meant a burger and fries for his very own, but alas burgers and fries aren't particularly common in a spaceship fleeing complete and utter annihilation.

Daydreams come in handy though.

-

One random day President Roslin calls him into her quarters.

Word ~~on the street~~ in the rec room, this is usually not a good thing.

But when he arrives, all she has to present him with are sketches and scripture. The hilarious thing is that the boy depicted looks a lot like him.

Wait.

"Have something to tell me, John?"

Stage left, enter incredibly awkward silence. "...Not really," a blush colouring in the peaks his cheek make with an absent smile that is less absent and more scared to death and back.

At his non-answer, Roslin proceeds to stare him down (think a young Tom Cruise in a Few Good Men, but a whole lot less of a wuss) and he vaguely wonders if he's going to find out what being in the brig is like.

Turns out that's a no, but his problems don't end there. Apparently? He is totally the boy in the picture and said boy has to go back to Earth and set things right again so the good old people of this fleet can finally stop running and put down roots and whatnot.

What they're all having trouble understanding is (and what he tries to explain to them), that it's his future self that made this mess. Not him per se.

That? Is what he gets put into the brig for.

-

There's a trail and it is decided that though that he, the boy known as John Connor, is very much responsible for their being cheating out of a home, he cannot be expected to be flung back into the Earth's orbit and fix the mess himself.

So. He's getting his own crack team to help him out. Uh huh.

The only drawback being, yes, you guessed it: Gaius Baltar.

The plan is that when and if things get too dicey, they throw him at the machines purely as a distraction tactic. But that was Kara's idea, so they're probably not going to actually do that.

Still he feels a little special. A lot less doomed at the very least. And as they set out on their course, a jump programmed in two minutes, he thinks it should've always been like this. A whole army to defeat another. Because really. Doesn't that make more sense?

How he's going to explain Cameron though is beyond him. But he'll meet that bridge when he meets it.

"Setting jump sequence. Five...four...three...two..." Eyelids taking cover and falling shut, he holds a breath, slinging across light years backwards towards home.

(They'll reclaim it yet.)

-

You Could Be The Thief (Claire) PG

2008-09-22T16:39:34Z

Title: You Could Be The Thief
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~560
Summary: Claire Bear is one angsty bunny. In a nut shell.
Characters: Claire Bennet, others.
Spoilers/Warnings: Everything to date.
A/N: For my sister, who thinks Claire is wicked cool like no one else and Sylar's eyebrows are scarier than he is. ~~Not that you'll ever read this. ♥~~ AU off the finale.

Her father (by blood) gets shot by an unknown assassin.

Just as he tried to do the right thing. Whatever that is (she's the last person to ask these days).

Her father (by love) plays dead to protect them all.

And she almost hates him for it. One split second between why and how, before remembering who they are, that these kinds of theatrics are needed in this line of work - saving the world to lose yourself directly in the process, lambs and slaughter, a celestial force that governs from above (or not).

Somewhere. Somewhere, two bullets sing in quick succession.

-

Claire holds the butt of a gun, clips it under her chin and ponders never coming back.

To hell with heroes who are really you and me and him and her, no better, no wiser, no more special outside what makes them so.

To hell with trying and losing and baby, all these exits are blocked.

The metal is snow cold, the surface easy smooth, the end in reach (can you see it, girl? can you see the lights?).

She breathes. Once, twice. Once, twice.

She breathes. Stops fooling herself.

And the click of death on the table, fingers sliding heavy off the trigger, sounds suspiciously like regret.

(It always does.)

-

She misses Zach. Misses his laugh, misses his presence, there and always, except when he wasn't anymore.

It's the having someone outside of the circus, an unsullied objective set of eyes with which to view herself.

It's having someone who never told her no and god, you're so young (she thinks of peter, thinks of peter and wishes she hadn't.)

"When did you get so angry," her mother's voice, on a day that bristles brighter than it should.

And she'll shake her head. Cast the devil's smile to her face (for claire has seen evil; seen it laugh, watched it win), and tell her, no. No, she isn't.

It's only half a lie. It's only half the truth.

(Most things are, she's coming to find.)

-

"Hi dad."

He can't speak just yet. She hates herself for it, but she thinks, for just a moment, good. maybe, now you can finally hear me.

"I was worried-" and her breath lynches against the walls of her throat, but she's come miles and she's not turning back.

"I was worried about you. That you wouldn't. I'm glad you're not. I am."

When she's finished, he's actually smiling, like he finally recognizes her, as his, as one of them.

She takes his hand and pretends to believe the same.

(Being a politician's daughter, it isn't very hard to pull off.)

-

"Do you think we'll ever be happy?"

"We have bigger things to worry about."

She almost slaps him and he probably would've let her, the martyr he is.

But as it is, they're trying to keep this uncle-niece thing as contact free as possible.

Note the first: That will never stop sounding wrong.

(Note the nonexistent: She almost doesn't care anymore.)

-

She goes home after a week.

The sun slips high and then low and up again.

The moon keeps her walls white when all she sees is redredred.

Claire dreams of the world on fire and she whispers in sleep:

Let it burn, let it burn.

-

It never does.

-