On the ninth day of Christmas....
Fandom: Bioshock
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 218
Summary: There’s a certain madness in Rapture that Jack isn’t sure he’ll ever escape.
Once he was mostly certain that this wasn’t a nightmare or a nervous breakdown - and he also wasn’t ruling out the possibility of a hallucination - Jack had really started to panic. The very idea of a city underwater that no-one knew about was madness enough. The residents?
Well the residents were something else.
He suspected his arrival in Rapture was doomed from the start since he was forced to beat the first citizen he met to death with an iron pipe. Kill or be killed. Would you kindly save your own life?
Who the hell was that Atlas guy anyway? Why the hell was he helping? Was he helping? Jack wasn’t sure anymore and suspecting everyone and everything at every turn was starting to take it’s toll.
It had been one night. That was all. One night. Jack tried to comfort himself with the fact that he had survived but really that wasn’t comforting when he thought about everything he had been forced to do.
Except he hadn’t been forced to do it and he had done it anyway. Sure Atlas was whispered suggestions in his ears but he wasn’t commanding, wasn’t ordering. Jack did have a choice.
Just a pity the choice was cave in that guy’s head or have yours caved in first.
Some choice eh?
Fandom: Cold Case
Rating: PG
Word Count: 188
Summary: Lilly might not be switched off, but at least she’s not at the office...
Kat opened one eye and watched the woman lying beside her. Of course Lilly was awake. That woman never seemed to sleep. Powered by stress and determination and an unhealthy dose of caffeine. It was the detective way.
“Hey you”, Kat murmured and Lilly glanced at her
“Hey yourself”, Lilly's smile was tired but genuine. It always was. Everything about her was so damned genuine it was a wonder she had survived so long on the force.
“You came to bed”, Kat shifted her arm under the pillow to raise her head a little.
“Figured I'd worked enough for today”, and that was a lie because Lilly was probably still running the events over and over in her mind. She probably had the case files memorised. Kat was quite sure that it was the sound of Lilly's brain working that had woken her. She didn't say any of that though, and just cuddled into Lilly and lay her head on her shoulder.
If Lilly were going to insist on working, Kat figured it was at least a little better that she do it here than at the station.
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG
Word Count: 172
Summary: Set after The Gift (S5 finale)
Willow couldn't remember if it had been one day, two, three… had a night even passed since…
Since…
Willow didn't want to think about it. About her. She couldn't be gone. Not after everything. Didn't she know that people needed her? That Willow needed her?
Willow sat up and pulled the curtain aside. It was still dark. She slipped quietly out of bed and out of the room. She stood at the top of the stairs and listened. Buffy used to get up in the night and watch television when she couldn't sleep.
The TV wasn't on now.
Willow went down the stairs, gentle creaks beneath her feet that she hoped wouldn't wake anyone. She walked through the rooms until she was convinced that no-one was there and sat down heavily on the couch.
Maybe she was out on patrol. Maybe it was all just a bad dream. Willow had had plenty of those recently. She lay down on the couch and waited.
She wanted to be there when Buffy got back.
Fandom: Wentworth
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 180
Summary: Everytime Bea think this must be her worst night, another comes along to prove her wrong.
Every time she thought that she was going through her worst night ever she was proven completely and utterly wrong
The first time Harry hit her seemed insignificant now, but then it had torn her apart. The first night in prison, torn away from her daughter still stung fresh in her mind.
Hearing the news about Debbie's death...now she hadn't thought that anything would be worse than that. That tore a hole in her chest and in her very soul that could never be filled. The Governor tore it wider still by not letting her go to the funeral. If there was a greater pain, Bea was damn sure she did not want to experience it.
This though, this was worse. At least when she was sedated she could see her again, tell Debbie she was sorry and fuss over dresses for the formal. Even if she knew, in the deepest corner of her mind, that it wasn't real, it seemed real and that's all that mattered.
When they took that from her too, she truly had nothing left.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Word Count: 424
Summary: Scorpius can take a few punches. And he's not gonna cry about it on Potter's shoulder either. (I have only really read the 12days fanfic on these characters so fair warning there).
“You look like shit”, Scorpius smirked at the sound of James Potter’s voice and looked sideways at the older boy.
“You need to work on your compliments”, he said and he turned his attention back to the mirror to continue cleaning up his face. Once he washed the blood off it wasn’t as bad as he thought.
“You alright?”, and it was funny because it almost sounded like he cared. It also sounded like he didn’t want to care, and like he certainly didn’t want Scorpius to know he cared. A lot of layers about caring really.
“What do you think Potter?”, Scorpius squeezed the flannel into the water and pulled out the plug. He ran the cold tap and cupped his hands, filling them with water to splash into his face.
“You want to talk about it?”
“With you? No thanks”, Scorpius grabbed a towel from the side and dried his face.
“Want me to get someone for you?”, and it seemed James was in a persistent mood. Scorpius threw the towel into the wash bin and turned to the older boy. He thought about laying on the sarcasm and antagonising the oldest Potter boy but when he saw the look on his face - the one he tried really hard to cover up - Scorpius sighed. All those morals had to come from his father.
“Look...Potter”, and Scorpius shook his head, “Thanks for the offer but it’s not the first time, won’t be the last. I’ve gotten used to taking punches”.
“You shouldn’t have to though”, James said, “The school was meant to…”
“The school’s meant to have peace between the houses and the whole world is meant to be a damn sight less bigoted, nice if that worked in practice like it did in theory”, Scorpius shrugged.
“People shouldn’t judge you because of what your father did”, and James almost sounded outraged about it.
“People shouldn’t. They shouldn’t judge me for the other stuff either”, Scorpius threw his robe back around his shoulders, “You’ve heard the jokes I take it? About avoiding Scorpius in the showers?”. James tried his best not to give anything away but there was the flicker of recognition.
“Figured you had”, and Scorpius wanted to ask if James had ever stood up for him then, said something when everyone else was tearing him down, or if he kept his defences hidden to moments like this where no-one else would know. Except what would be the point?
“Don’t you worry about me Potter, gotten used to it by now”.
Fandom: Dying Light
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 222
Summary: Because let's play pretend used to be very different.
“Let’s play a game”, Amir can hear the kids whispering in the room next door. He’s surprised any kids have survived this long.
“We don’t have any toys”, that was the little girl who’d lost both her parents. She’d lived down the road from Amir.
“That’s okay, we’ll pretend”, he didn’t recognise that one, but it had to be the bigger kid. The one who’s dad had turned a few weeks ago and been put out of his misery at the threshold of the compound. He’d been standing there, pounding rotten fists on the door for hours. Some part of him must have known his kid was still inside.
God only knows what he would have done to the boy if he’d gotten in.
Amir tried to concentrate on the map in front of him - he was meant to be marking out the positions of all the drops so far. Trying to establish a pattern. Trying to find a way to get there before Rais and his gang.
The voices of the kids keep drifting through the wall though and Amir can’t block them out. With all he’s seen and heard, stuff like this is the hardest to deal with because playing pretend used to mean superheroes and princess, and not daddy’s a monster and this is the end of the world.
Fandom: Bully
Rating: PG
Word Count: 163
Summary: Jimmy’s all alone again.
People have turned their back on him before. It’s a sight Jimmy’s used to seeing. There’s a reason he’s stuck at Bullworth whilst his mum is partying it up in who the hell knows where with her new husband.
Maybe this one would stick for more than a year. That would be a novelty.
Jimmy sat down heavily on the camp bed. At least he had somewhere to sleep this time. Last time it was this bad - when he was thrown out of his last school - his mum had kicked him out. He’d had to bed down in some doorway that time, and get woken up with a glass of cold water on his face.
So sure he’d been expelled, and all his friends had abandoned him, and his life was worthless, pointless and going nowhere but at least he had somewhere to stay.
Jimmy dropped his head into his hands. How the hell was he going to get out of this one?
Fandom: Jurassic Park
Rating: PG
Word Count: 201
Summary: The kids need a brave face.
Alan Grant wasn’t used to anyone looking at him like that - let alone kids. Sure they had kids come out to visit some of the excavation sites sometimes, usually rich kids whose parents were sending them out on “experiences”, but none of them looked up at him as if they expected him to simultaneously save the day, get them home and hold their hands and comfort them.
All of which were perfectly reasonable things to look to an adult for when your whole world had been turned upside down and you were desperately fearing for your life. Lex and Tim were still at that age where many still believe adults were powerful and knowledgeable and able to do anything.
They didn’t realise that the adults were all just as terrified and helpless as them.
“Are we going to make it home?”, Tim asked, his face streaked with tears and mud. Alan took a deep breath and clapped Tim on the shoulder gently,
“Course we are - we made it through the worst part”, and he grinned at Tim, although he wondered how he made his face move into a smile, “If we can get through that T-Rex we can get through anything”.
Fandom: Malory Towers/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3147
Part 9/12