and tell me now where was my fault in loving you with my whole heart?
Everything in this post was either written a) late at night or b) for class or c) both. I feel this excuses at least part of how mind-numbingly bad they are.
Flashlight Dream (Peaches and Cream Delight)
Kristen Stewart/Dakota Fanning; RPF (normalgirl AU); PG-13. [758 words]
The booth in the front is theirs, the one closest to the door, with the hole in the ugly dark blue upholstery that keeps growing the more they pick at it. Kristen practically flops down into the seat across from Rob and lets her head fall onto her arms. “My life.”
“Your life is hard,” Rob says, and pats her elbow with some kind of vaguely patronizing fondness.
“Sixteen, Rob,” Kristen says, and kind of wishes she hadn’t, because every time she says it out loud it becomes that much more difficult to ignore. Scout had scoffed at her, had said so what, you dork, she’s totally stupid over you and it’s only a four year difference. Kristen had tried to explain just how horrifying the entire situation really was (sixteen is not twenty, Scout, and I’m her tutor, it would be such a fucking abuse of authority), but Scout was totally not even listening, she just started talking about her and Andy which is really not even relevant, at least Andy’s pretty much the same age as them, and Kristen’s fucking life, seriously, seriously. “I think I’m going to hell.”
Rob kind of shrugs and takes a sip of his stupidly black coffee. “Or jail.” He is totally, totally laughing at her.
Kristen groans again. “Oh, my god, please shut up.”
“Kris,” Rob laughs. “Kris, I think you might be overreacting just a bit. It was only one kiss, right?”
“It-” But she’d wanted it to be so much more. Kristen thinks about last week behind the library: the sun catching in Dakota’s hair, the way her eyes followed Kristen’s every move, the little smile that made Kristen finally give up and kiss her. It hadn’t even been that long of a kiss, either - Kristen’s hand turning Dakota’s face up to hers, the soft press of their lips. For a second, it had been beautiful and Kristen hadn’t even cared, and then she felt Dakota’s tongue and her brain woke up and started shrieking at her. Sixteen. Fucking sixteen. Dakota is perfection in the shape of a sixteen-year-old cheerleader and it’s slowly killing Kristen’s soul.
Rob sighs when it becomes clear that Kristen’s not going to finish her sentence. “I honestly don’t think I can help you here, love.”
And Dakota had looked so crestfallen, too, when Kristen pulled away and stammered something about right, okay, so I’ll maybe see you next week or something just call me or whatever I should probably go. It wasn’t a look Kristen had seen before. Dakota is the queen of cool, way more emotionally mature than Kristen can ever hope to be, and even when she’s upset about something she’ll hide it like a fucking pro. She didn’t hide it that time.
“Kris?”
“Sorry,” she says, sipping her coffee on autopilot. “Sorry. Just kind of got lost in my own head, sorry.”
Rob gives her the eyebrow that says you’re my best friend but sometimes I worry about where your brain might be hiding. “Right.”
“Just- She’s so weird, Rob. Like, amazing weird.” Kristen knows she’s doing what Scout calls the flaily hands thing, where all of the thoughts in her head cannot properly be expressed via her mouth alone. “And we have these conversations- like, I don’t think I connect with anyone the way I connect with Dakota, you know? It’s like she can see what I’m thinking even when I can’t say it and she just… gets it. Does that make sense?”
“You’re talking yourself in circles again,” Rob says, and smiles against the rim of his coffee cup.
Kristen opens her mouth to shoot back a retort, but before she can say anything her phone starts to buzz in her pocket. “Fuck, hang on.”
It’s Scout. “Are you two hobos out haunting the diner again or is that a stupid question?”
“Good morning to you too, bitch,” Kristen says, and mouths Scout at Rob. “What do you want?”
“Me? Nothing,” Scout tosses back, and Kristen can hear that little note in her voice that says she’s feeling either really happy or really evil. “But there’s a tiny blonde piece of jailbait here that came looking for you.”
Oh, fuck, Kristen thinks, and feels the back of her neck go cold. “Dakota’s there?”
But Scout, her message delivered, has apparently already hung up. “Fuck,” Kristen says succinctly, and grabs her backpack. “Rob, I’ll see you later.”
She has no idea what the hell she’s going to say, but it’s almost a twenty-minute walk. She’ll figure something out.
You're Awful, I Love You
Sara + Anders gen; my life; PG-13. [464 words]
Her not-brother comes over on Thursday, slipping into her room and closing the door softly behind him. She gives him a little tired wave and pulls the blankets back over her head.
He clears off the pile of used tissues so he can sit down on the end of her bed. "Hey, big sis."
"Kill me. Kill me now. Be my angel of death and I will never make fun of your mancrush on Max Bemis ever again, I swear to fuck."
He reaches up to smooth some of the bedhead frizz from her hair. "Are you feeling any better? Like. At all?"
"Maybe a little?" She pushes her head against his hand, like a cat asking to be scratched. "How is everyone?"
"Worried about you," he says. "Matt told me to tell you he’s composing your funeral dirge."
"Matt can blow me," she sniffs haughtily, and he grins. She makes a sad little whining noise. "Anders. Anders, I’m bored."
"D’you want to play questions?"
"I suck at questions. And I’m probably even worse when I’m sick." She blows her nose, wrinkling her brow in disgust at the undignified sound it makes. "And you need to stop reading so much Stoppard, that shit’ll rot your brain."
He shrugs, looking a little guilty. "It’s been less Stoppard and more Martin McDonagh lately."
"Anders," she says gravely, resting one tired hand solemnly on his, "Anders, I love you, but there is no fucking way I’m going to help you liberate Ireland."
"See, I would have said something about hiding children’s bodies," he says.
"I love you best, even," she amends. "But I haven’t read The Pillowman yet." She tsks, half at herself and half at Martin McDonagh for having the gall to write things she doesn’t have time to read. "And I just, y’know, wanted to make sure you didn’t think I’d be the Mairead to your Padraic or anything."
"I’m saner than you are though. You’d be Padraic."
"And I’m sure you’d look better in a bloodstained dress. Except I really don’t want to make out with you." She shudders in vaguely exaggerated revulsion.
"Fuck no," he says succinctly, and she beams at him.
They understand each other in mildly awkward silence for a moment, punctuated only by sniffles.
"No, but really," he says. "Questions?"
"Did I not say I’m terrible at it?"
"Aha, but when was the last time you played?"
"Did you honestly just say "aha" without any apparent irony?"
"Is that really relevant?"
"What’s relevancy, really?"
"Was that rhetoric or non sequitur?"
"Don’t you know when the last time I played was anyway?"
"Why would I?"
"Didn’t you play with me last?"
"How would you remember that?"
"Magic. Fuck you."
"Statement. One-love."
"I hate you most."
"I love you too, big sis."
That's All You Had To Say
Wesley Stewart/Morgan Blackwood; original [the as-yet-unnamed Gay Horror Sex Comedy]; PG-13. [580 words]
"This is stupid," Morgan says, and feels detached desperation prickling at the nape of his neck.
"I'm… sorry?" says the guy sitting in Morgan’s living room, awkwardly, and he really does sound sorry, but Morgan honestly doesn't much care.
The radio static that filled his ears the moment their hands first touched is coming in rolling waves now, and Morgan closes his eyes. It feels like every cell in his body is undergoing serious and in-depth shock treatment. He can still feel the energy from the battle pulsing through him, all that power - too much power - throbbing in his fingertips and his vocal cords and the spaces behind his eyes. That wasn't a practice spell that took out that… whatever it was. That was real, serious, honest-to-fuck magic, something Morgan knows he's not even remotely capable of.
(Yet, he thinks, and wonders why he can’t just melt into the floor.)
"I don't even know your name," Morgan says. If he tells himself it's not just an empty excuse, maybe he'll believe it. "We've met once. You don't know a goddamn thing about me."
"You're Morgan Blackwood," the guy says instantly, and Morgan’s breath catches in his throat. "Your father's dead, and you live with your mother and your older sister. You're nineteen. You're allergic to cats. You're still a virgin. You can't swim, you can't dance, and you don't know karate, and it really gets to you because your best friend's fantastic at all three."
Morgan stares. His mouth is probably hanging open, but his brain's too busy reeling for him to bother closing it.
"Oh- and you're a witch," the guy adds, and smiles. It's a nice smile, Morgan thinks distantly, all charisma and a little bit of earnest hope. "That's the most important bit."
Morgan takes a deep breath. Then he takes another.
"What the actual fuck," he says.
"You're really cute when you're confused," the guy says. "I'm Wesley Stewart, by the way. I'm your familiar."
The world changes.
The last corner of the little sliding puzzle in Morgan's brain slots into place. He blinks, and the upholstery of the chair that Wesley - Wes, call him Wes, everyone else can call him Wesley but he's yours and he wants you to name him - that Wes is sitting in suddenly seems a shade brighter. The radio static vanishes from his ears. He can feel the hum of the magic in his blood fading, leaving him, gathering somewhere to wait for him to use it again.
"Your parents are both dead," he says, sudden and unbidden, and immediately wills his mouth to stop but it just keeps moving, "and your dad was a witch. You were born in Berkshire, but you grew up in Bristol. You're nineteen too, and you've… you've got a scar on your thigh from when you were a kid and you fell. Your favorite author changes every month." It's like his mind's suddenly a computer and it's downloading images, sounds, knowledge emotions memories someone else's life. "You get really enthusiastic about old movies and you're afraid of the ocean. And," he finishes, only slightly hysterical, "and you're not just my familiar, you're my fucking soulbond. Am I right?"
The space between them has been closing with every word. Morgan's out of breath and Wes is out of breath and suddenly right there and saying, "Yeah, I'm sorry, yes," close enough for Morgan to feel it on his face.
"Shut up," Morgan says, and kisses him.
Rule Number Three
Panic! gen; bandom (Inception AU); G. [310 words]
Ryan's dreamscapes are flawless. Extravagant, but flawless.
The problem is, Ryan's temperamental, and what he designs is affected heavily by his mood. And when he gets into snits like this, he's pretty much useless. They've worked with Patrick before, and even once with Toro - they'd work with him more, but the Ways' team is less like four people and more like a single unit with occasional extra appendages, and they don't like lending out their architect for just anything.
But Gerard's team is on a job in California, and Patrick's nowhere to be found, and so they'll have to make do with what they've got.
And what they've got is overwhelmingly not what they need.
"Ryan," Spencer says, and he feels the headache creeping in at the corners of his brain, "Ryan, you're a genius, but what are you doing."
"It's not my fault," Ryan sniffs, a little haughtily. "I did the wake, like you said."
"I don't think I specified wake full of people wearing goggles," Spencer says.
"Those are Brendon's!" Ryan shoots back.
Brendon looks guilty. Spencer has no idea why they can't just let Jon dream things. Jon's projections are normal. Jon's subconscious doesn't decide that "wake" should equal "Victorian steampunk extravaganza."
But Brendon's and Ryan's projections, as unutterably weird as they usually turn out to be, are the least likely out of the four of them to attack anyone - Ryan's because the last time they saw Travie, he'd figured out a way to cut Somnacin with weed, because that is the kind of thing Travie does, and Brendon's because… well. It's Brendon.
…Brendon, who has just dreamed himself a top hat and a jacket covered in cogs.
Spencer sighs. When this is all over, he's calling up Arthur and going out for drinks. He loves his team, but sometimes he needs someone who understands his pain.
Flashlight Dream (Peaches and Cream Delight)
Kristen Stewart/Dakota Fanning; RPF (normalgirl AU); PG-13. [758 words]
The booth in the front is theirs, the one closest to the door, with the hole in the ugly dark blue upholstery that keeps growing the more they pick at it. Kristen practically flops down into the seat across from Rob and lets her head fall onto her arms. “My life.”
“Your life is hard,” Rob says, and pats her elbow with some kind of vaguely patronizing fondness.
“Sixteen, Rob,” Kristen says, and kind of wishes she hadn’t, because every time she says it out loud it becomes that much more difficult to ignore. Scout had scoffed at her, had said so what, you dork, she’s totally stupid over you and it’s only a four year difference. Kristen had tried to explain just how horrifying the entire situation really was (sixteen is not twenty, Scout, and I’m her tutor, it would be such a fucking abuse of authority), but Scout was totally not even listening, she just started talking about her and Andy which is really not even relevant, at least Andy’s pretty much the same age as them, and Kristen’s fucking life, seriously, seriously. “I think I’m going to hell.”
Rob kind of shrugs and takes a sip of his stupidly black coffee. “Or jail.” He is totally, totally laughing at her.
Kristen groans again. “Oh, my god, please shut up.”
“Kris,” Rob laughs. “Kris, I think you might be overreacting just a bit. It was only one kiss, right?”
“It-” But she’d wanted it to be so much more. Kristen thinks about last week behind the library: the sun catching in Dakota’s hair, the way her eyes followed Kristen’s every move, the little smile that made Kristen finally give up and kiss her. It hadn’t even been that long of a kiss, either - Kristen’s hand turning Dakota’s face up to hers, the soft press of their lips. For a second, it had been beautiful and Kristen hadn’t even cared, and then she felt Dakota’s tongue and her brain woke up and started shrieking at her. Sixteen. Fucking sixteen. Dakota is perfection in the shape of a sixteen-year-old cheerleader and it’s slowly killing Kristen’s soul.
Rob sighs when it becomes clear that Kristen’s not going to finish her sentence. “I honestly don’t think I can help you here, love.”
And Dakota had looked so crestfallen, too, when Kristen pulled away and stammered something about right, okay, so I’ll maybe see you next week or something just call me or whatever I should probably go. It wasn’t a look Kristen had seen before. Dakota is the queen of cool, way more emotionally mature than Kristen can ever hope to be, and even when she’s upset about something she’ll hide it like a fucking pro. She didn’t hide it that time.
“Kris?”
“Sorry,” she says, sipping her coffee on autopilot. “Sorry. Just kind of got lost in my own head, sorry.”
Rob gives her the eyebrow that says you’re my best friend but sometimes I worry about where your brain might be hiding. “Right.”
“Just- She’s so weird, Rob. Like, amazing weird.” Kristen knows she’s doing what Scout calls the flaily hands thing, where all of the thoughts in her head cannot properly be expressed via her mouth alone. “And we have these conversations- like, I don’t think I connect with anyone the way I connect with Dakota, you know? It’s like she can see what I’m thinking even when I can’t say it and she just… gets it. Does that make sense?”
“You’re talking yourself in circles again,” Rob says, and smiles against the rim of his coffee cup.
Kristen opens her mouth to shoot back a retort, but before she can say anything her phone starts to buzz in her pocket. “Fuck, hang on.”
It’s Scout. “Are you two hobos out haunting the diner again or is that a stupid question?”
“Good morning to you too, bitch,” Kristen says, and mouths Scout at Rob. “What do you want?”
“Me? Nothing,” Scout tosses back, and Kristen can hear that little note in her voice that says she’s feeling either really happy or really evil. “But there’s a tiny blonde piece of jailbait here that came looking for you.”
Oh, fuck, Kristen thinks, and feels the back of her neck go cold. “Dakota’s there?”
But Scout, her message delivered, has apparently already hung up. “Fuck,” Kristen says succinctly, and grabs her backpack. “Rob, I’ll see you later.”
She has no idea what the hell she’s going to say, but it’s almost a twenty-minute walk. She’ll figure something out.
You're Awful, I Love You
Sara + Anders gen; my life; PG-13. [464 words]
Her not-brother comes over on Thursday, slipping into her room and closing the door softly behind him. She gives him a little tired wave and pulls the blankets back over her head.
He clears off the pile of used tissues so he can sit down on the end of her bed. "Hey, big sis."
"Kill me. Kill me now. Be my angel of death and I will never make fun of your mancrush on Max Bemis ever again, I swear to fuck."
He reaches up to smooth some of the bedhead frizz from her hair. "Are you feeling any better? Like. At all?"
"Maybe a little?" She pushes her head against his hand, like a cat asking to be scratched. "How is everyone?"
"Worried about you," he says. "Matt told me to tell you he’s composing your funeral dirge."
"Matt can blow me," she sniffs haughtily, and he grins. She makes a sad little whining noise. "Anders. Anders, I’m bored."
"D’you want to play questions?"
"I suck at questions. And I’m probably even worse when I’m sick." She blows her nose, wrinkling her brow in disgust at the undignified sound it makes. "And you need to stop reading so much Stoppard, that shit’ll rot your brain."
He shrugs, looking a little guilty. "It’s been less Stoppard and more Martin McDonagh lately."
"Anders," she says gravely, resting one tired hand solemnly on his, "Anders, I love you, but there is no fucking way I’m going to help you liberate Ireland."
"See, I would have said something about hiding children’s bodies," he says.
"I love you best, even," she amends. "But I haven’t read The Pillowman yet." She tsks, half at herself and half at Martin McDonagh for having the gall to write things she doesn’t have time to read. "And I just, y’know, wanted to make sure you didn’t think I’d be the Mairead to your Padraic or anything."
"I’m saner than you are though. You’d be Padraic."
"And I’m sure you’d look better in a bloodstained dress. Except I really don’t want to make out with you." She shudders in vaguely exaggerated revulsion.
"Fuck no," he says succinctly, and she beams at him.
They understand each other in mildly awkward silence for a moment, punctuated only by sniffles.
"No, but really," he says. "Questions?"
"Did I not say I’m terrible at it?"
"Aha, but when was the last time you played?"
"Did you honestly just say "aha" without any apparent irony?"
"Is that really relevant?"
"What’s relevancy, really?"
"Was that rhetoric or non sequitur?"
"Don’t you know when the last time I played was anyway?"
"Why would I?"
"Didn’t you play with me last?"
"How would you remember that?"
"Magic. Fuck you."
"Statement. One-love."
"I hate you most."
"I love you too, big sis."
That's All You Had To Say
Wesley Stewart/Morgan Blackwood; original [the as-yet-unnamed Gay Horror Sex Comedy]; PG-13. [580 words]
"This is stupid," Morgan says, and feels detached desperation prickling at the nape of his neck.
"I'm… sorry?" says the guy sitting in Morgan’s living room, awkwardly, and he really does sound sorry, but Morgan honestly doesn't much care.
The radio static that filled his ears the moment their hands first touched is coming in rolling waves now, and Morgan closes his eyes. It feels like every cell in his body is undergoing serious and in-depth shock treatment. He can still feel the energy from the battle pulsing through him, all that power - too much power - throbbing in his fingertips and his vocal cords and the spaces behind his eyes. That wasn't a practice spell that took out that… whatever it was. That was real, serious, honest-to-fuck magic, something Morgan knows he's not even remotely capable of.
(Yet, he thinks, and wonders why he can’t just melt into the floor.)
"I don't even know your name," Morgan says. If he tells himself it's not just an empty excuse, maybe he'll believe it. "We've met once. You don't know a goddamn thing about me."
"You're Morgan Blackwood," the guy says instantly, and Morgan’s breath catches in his throat. "Your father's dead, and you live with your mother and your older sister. You're nineteen. You're allergic to cats. You're still a virgin. You can't swim, you can't dance, and you don't know karate, and it really gets to you because your best friend's fantastic at all three."
Morgan stares. His mouth is probably hanging open, but his brain's too busy reeling for him to bother closing it.
"Oh- and you're a witch," the guy adds, and smiles. It's a nice smile, Morgan thinks distantly, all charisma and a little bit of earnest hope. "That's the most important bit."
Morgan takes a deep breath. Then he takes another.
"What the actual fuck," he says.
"You're really cute when you're confused," the guy says. "I'm Wesley Stewart, by the way. I'm your familiar."
The world changes.
The last corner of the little sliding puzzle in Morgan's brain slots into place. He blinks, and the upholstery of the chair that Wesley - Wes, call him Wes, everyone else can call him Wesley but he's yours and he wants you to name him - that Wes is sitting in suddenly seems a shade brighter. The radio static vanishes from his ears. He can feel the hum of the magic in his blood fading, leaving him, gathering somewhere to wait for him to use it again.
"Your parents are both dead," he says, sudden and unbidden, and immediately wills his mouth to stop but it just keeps moving, "and your dad was a witch. You were born in Berkshire, but you grew up in Bristol. You're nineteen too, and you've… you've got a scar on your thigh from when you were a kid and you fell. Your favorite author changes every month." It's like his mind's suddenly a computer and it's downloading images, sounds, knowledge emotions memories someone else's life. "You get really enthusiastic about old movies and you're afraid of the ocean. And," he finishes, only slightly hysterical, "and you're not just my familiar, you're my fucking soulbond. Am I right?"
The space between them has been closing with every word. Morgan's out of breath and Wes is out of breath and suddenly right there and saying, "Yeah, I'm sorry, yes," close enough for Morgan to feel it on his face.
"Shut up," Morgan says, and kisses him.
Rule Number Three
Panic! gen; bandom (Inception AU); G. [310 words]
Ryan's dreamscapes are flawless. Extravagant, but flawless.
The problem is, Ryan's temperamental, and what he designs is affected heavily by his mood. And when he gets into snits like this, he's pretty much useless. They've worked with Patrick before, and even once with Toro - they'd work with him more, but the Ways' team is less like four people and more like a single unit with occasional extra appendages, and they don't like lending out their architect for just anything.
But Gerard's team is on a job in California, and Patrick's nowhere to be found, and so they'll have to make do with what they've got.
And what they've got is overwhelmingly not what they need.
"Ryan," Spencer says, and he feels the headache creeping in at the corners of his brain, "Ryan, you're a genius, but what are you doing."
"It's not my fault," Ryan sniffs, a little haughtily. "I did the wake, like you said."
"I don't think I specified wake full of people wearing goggles," Spencer says.
"Those are Brendon's!" Ryan shoots back.
Brendon looks guilty. Spencer has no idea why they can't just let Jon dream things. Jon's projections are normal. Jon's subconscious doesn't decide that "wake" should equal "Victorian steampunk extravaganza."
But Brendon's and Ryan's projections, as unutterably weird as they usually turn out to be, are the least likely out of the four of them to attack anyone - Ryan's because the last time they saw Travie, he'd figured out a way to cut Somnacin with weed, because that is the kind of thing Travie does, and Brendon's because… well. It's Brendon.
…Brendon, who has just dreamed himself a top hat and a jacket covered in cogs.
Spencer sighs. When this is all over, he's calling up Arthur and going out for drinks. He loves his team, but sometimes he needs someone who understands his pain.