Fandoms 10 and 11
[Title] Blind Faith
[Fandom] Death Note/The Handmaid's Tale
[Rating] PG-13 for references to torture
[Notes/Summary] At the Red Centre, Misa keeps her faith.
Everyone could see that Misa was one of those people it was dangerous to be seen with.
Of course, her nationality was a problem. If she'd been male, she would have been sent to the Colonies, or repatriated. But she was a woman, and thus a valuable resource, but always to be marked out as different. Attracting accusations like a lightning rod, if any were to be made.
But it wasn't just that. There were others of us who knew we were marked in some way, who knew we had to keep our heads, and keep our heads down, and our eyes too. Misa didn't realise this. We watched as she talked out of turn, or deliberately forgot her veil, or rolled her eyes at what the Aunts said, or bit at her lips to make them redder and we wondered if she was so broken she didn't know what she was doing or if she was stronger than any of us.
We thought, most of the time, that she was broken. She talked a lot about her fiancee. She told us how he had escaped when she was caught, how he was on the run and working to rescue her. We thought that if this was true, she wouldn't be endangering him by boasting about it. Some of us, those who did have people in hiding - or hoped we did - hated her for that, told her to shut up. Misa seemed to enjoy the whispered arguments. Her eyes sparkled and she threw back fake-casual cattiness as if the Red Centre had turned back into the high school it used to be.
The Aunts noticed her, of course, and they singled her out, made her kneel at the front of the classroom while all of us shouted at her. Some of us enjoyed it, I think. Misa didn't seem to mind. She stared straight ahead, eyes still with that odd light in them, a small smile tuning in and out across her lips.
Of course they lost patience with her after a while. They took her up to the old chemistry lab and when she was brought back down, it was just as when Moira escaped, her feet were swollen, puffed up into two bruises, and she lay on her bed with her face dead white and her mouth hanging open as if someone had just slapped her. We wondered if she'd ever been hurt that badly before. Some of us thought that someone so childish had to have been shielded from the world until now, that she was a doll never taken out of its box
But we had been shielded too. We had told ourselves that you had to do something crazy, something incorrigible, to earn that punishment. That only people like Moira, people who never stopped fighting and lived more in stories, in our heads, than in the real world, would have to go through it. Misa showed us that you could just be impertinent one too many times.
My bed was next to hers, and she was lying still, her head turned towards me. As the lights dimmed, I saw her blink, saw her run her tongue over her lips. She saw me looking, and she smiled, a smile that trembled like light on water.
Don't worry, she mouthed. I'll be fine. He'll come and find me.
And her eyes still shone.
[Title] Shadow
[Fandom] Repo! The Genetic Opera
[Rating] PG-13 for violence
[Notes/Summary] Nathan develops his own ways of coping with his job.
I can't do this, Nathan said, the first time.
You will learn, Rotti answered.
With that first repossession, there was Nathan alone, clutching a scapel in his sweating hands, trying to make the neat careful incisions he'd been taught long ago while his victim thrashed around and screamed and tried to beg him not to.
Afterwards he went home and considered suiciding. It wouldn't make up for the two deaths already on his conscience, but it would prevent him killing any more.
That was the lie he wanted to believe, of course. He knew full well that if he weren't the one carrying out these murders, someone else would. No one escaped GeneCo. If he died, he would only be getting himself out of a bad situation.
And upstairs Shilo was asleep in her crib, and only a monster would leave an innocent child alone and unprotected in this world. He had to live, for Shilo's sake, and he had to keep doing what he was told to because again, if he didn't, he'd have her death on his conscience as well as Marni's. Repossession was twined around the continued life of his daughter and he couldn't cut either of them free.
His breath stuck in his throat as he actually thought about what lay ahead of him. As if his body was determined to get them out of this simply by refusing to breathe.
And then he wasn't alone any more. The voice roared up from the back of his head, and he'd never heard it before, but at the same time, he knew it.
I'll take care of it. You focus on her. I'll do what needs to be done.
And it did. A shadow standing between him and all the horror, and he walked behind it, Shilo's hand in his.
[Fandom] Death Note/The Handmaid's Tale
[Rating] PG-13 for references to torture
[Notes/Summary] At the Red Centre, Misa keeps her faith.
Everyone could see that Misa was one of those people it was dangerous to be seen with.
Of course, her nationality was a problem. If she'd been male, she would have been sent to the Colonies, or repatriated. But she was a woman, and thus a valuable resource, but always to be marked out as different. Attracting accusations like a lightning rod, if any were to be made.
But it wasn't just that. There were others of us who knew we were marked in some way, who knew we had to keep our heads, and keep our heads down, and our eyes too. Misa didn't realise this. We watched as she talked out of turn, or deliberately forgot her veil, or rolled her eyes at what the Aunts said, or bit at her lips to make them redder and we wondered if she was so broken she didn't know what she was doing or if she was stronger than any of us.
We thought, most of the time, that she was broken. She talked a lot about her fiancee. She told us how he had escaped when she was caught, how he was on the run and working to rescue her. We thought that if this was true, she wouldn't be endangering him by boasting about it. Some of us, those who did have people in hiding - or hoped we did - hated her for that, told her to shut up. Misa seemed to enjoy the whispered arguments. Her eyes sparkled and she threw back fake-casual cattiness as if the Red Centre had turned back into the high school it used to be.
The Aunts noticed her, of course, and they singled her out, made her kneel at the front of the classroom while all of us shouted at her. Some of us enjoyed it, I think. Misa didn't seem to mind. She stared straight ahead, eyes still with that odd light in them, a small smile tuning in and out across her lips.
Of course they lost patience with her after a while. They took her up to the old chemistry lab and when she was brought back down, it was just as when Moira escaped, her feet were swollen, puffed up into two bruises, and she lay on her bed with her face dead white and her mouth hanging open as if someone had just slapped her. We wondered if she'd ever been hurt that badly before. Some of us thought that someone so childish had to have been shielded from the world until now, that she was a doll never taken out of its box
But we had been shielded too. We had told ourselves that you had to do something crazy, something incorrigible, to earn that punishment. That only people like Moira, people who never stopped fighting and lived more in stories, in our heads, than in the real world, would have to go through it. Misa showed us that you could just be impertinent one too many times.
My bed was next to hers, and she was lying still, her head turned towards me. As the lights dimmed, I saw her blink, saw her run her tongue over her lips. She saw me looking, and she smiled, a smile that trembled like light on water.
Don't worry, she mouthed. I'll be fine. He'll come and find me.
And her eyes still shone.
[Title] Shadow
[Fandom] Repo! The Genetic Opera
[Rating] PG-13 for violence
[Notes/Summary] Nathan develops his own ways of coping with his job.
I can't do this, Nathan said, the first time.
You will learn, Rotti answered.
With that first repossession, there was Nathan alone, clutching a scapel in his sweating hands, trying to make the neat careful incisions he'd been taught long ago while his victim thrashed around and screamed and tried to beg him not to.
Afterwards he went home and considered suiciding. It wouldn't make up for the two deaths already on his conscience, but it would prevent him killing any more.
That was the lie he wanted to believe, of course. He knew full well that if he weren't the one carrying out these murders, someone else would. No one escaped GeneCo. If he died, he would only be getting himself out of a bad situation.
And upstairs Shilo was asleep in her crib, and only a monster would leave an innocent child alone and unprotected in this world. He had to live, for Shilo's sake, and he had to keep doing what he was told to because again, if he didn't, he'd have her death on his conscience as well as Marni's. Repossession was twined around the continued life of his daughter and he couldn't cut either of them free.
His breath stuck in his throat as he actually thought about what lay ahead of him. As if his body was determined to get them out of this simply by refusing to breathe.
And then he wasn't alone any more. The voice roared up from the back of his head, and he'd never heard it before, but at the same time, he knew it.
I'll take care of it. You focus on her. I'll do what needs to be done.
And it did. A shadow standing between him and all the horror, and he walked behind it, Shilo's hand in his.