Return of the ficlet fever
Just the one for now. Fraser/Victoria deathfic for malnpudl, because ghost stories = happiness
Benton looked at the ice crystals through the microscope and tried to convince himself that they did not look like diamonds.
There wasn't even the faintest resemblance, he told himself.
While they had a crystaline structure, they lacked the tough covalent bonds of the carbon jewels.
He was trying very hard not to think of diamonds at all.
Or of ice.
Of ice and a woman lying in the snow, her dark hair spread out like a halo, looking up at him like she was some beautiful saint, trapped moments away from the extacy of God.
He'd awoken last night sweating and his heart pounding in his chest with something that might have been fear. Or lust. Or something else entirely.
It was beginning to form a pattern, every shadow was hers, every reflection half glimpsed, every crystal of ice in the forensic laboratory.
And he's kept dreaming of her, pale against the snow, gold gash vermillion.
And even now, the dreams would not stop, she would not let him escape.
She'd died surrounded by something not entirely like diamonds, lying in the snow at Fortitude pass. Vermillion blood on the snow, dressed only in a pale shift.
She was playing to a legend known only to one man.
And she would not leave her audience even now, trapped in a miasma of repeated encores.
And she brought him diamonds, and stole his soul.
And now: depressing Fraser-centric unrequited f/k for broken_kite
It took him a while to realise this, and that in itself was quite remiss of him, but the price of perfection was exactly that, perfection.
And of course, Benton knew full well he wasn't perfect at all, that he was yet to reach that pinacle. Oscar Wilde whispered in his ear about how he could yet be the pineapple of perfection, as Benton furtively logged on to the Canadian Intelligence Agency's network to procure the information that would, as Ray would say, nail the fruit smuggling operation operating out of Otawwa. Ray would also dare him to say that three times fast, and Benton would, and Ray would look up to the sky and talk to God in resignation that his best friend was so perfect...
Except Benton knew he hadn't achived perfection. If he had, that would not have bothered him, nor would his observation on the nature of perfection...
...indeed were he to achieve perfection, he would be pained so by such emotions of failure and futility that stalked him as he woke and as he slept.
He never thought he'd set himself such an impossible goal.
Perfection, was something to be desired and striven towards. He had learnt that lesson young, but never managed to escape his grandmother's disprobation.
Then he found another impossible goal: Ray Kowalski, beautifully imperfect, beautifully alive Ray Kowalski.
And the only thing keeping him from that was his own perfection, he was trapped in an unassailable prison of his own making, and Ray being a pragmatist (Benton could not face the idea that Ray might actually be attracted only to women: another terrible selfish imperfection) would not even try to take the keep.
Because perfection is static, constant, unchanging. And it freezes like ice everything it touches, and around Fraser, whenever something might have happened, it began to draw the vigourous life from Ray's bones.
Perfection was such torture, and yet, Benton could not break free and was trapped in a prison of his own making.
And now: Doctor Who fiction for shadowkittracey starring Tom, Lalla and K9
The Doctor strode into the console room. If his intention was to temporalily mislay Romana in the labyrinthine passages of the TARDIS, than he was sorely disappointed, somewhere, beneath the bluster and the teeth and the curls. If anyone present was the sort of entity to comment on such things, the smile he wore would be declared decidely false.
K9 was not that sort of entity, he had just finished soaking up a refreshing datastream from the Console and was now feeling more than a little lethargic and wished to recharge his batteries before they stepped out the Time Ship's door and were confronted by eighty-seven percent chance of trouble and only a fifthteen percentile of stairs. K9 would hope for stairs to become intrinsically more popular amongst architects of moldering space bases the universe over, but hope was illogical.
Romana was that sort of entity, but was currently jogging behind the Doctor in a frentic attempt to keep up. "What do you mean," she said, sweeping back her blonde hair as she ran, "that it's always my fault. I mean, you are the one who gets us into these places anyway."
K9 whirred, "Yes, Romanamistress, but Doctormaster is conciderably more skilled at not exacerbating the situation, while your solutions result in events designated "trouble" seventy-six point nine percent of occurences."
Romana looked at K9 like he had eaten her best hat. She had always counted on the cybernetic canine to take her side in the argument, which was foolish since, as she would be the first to admit, side taking was illogical. "So much for lies, damned lies and statistics, then," she admitted.
The Doctor smiled what was a much more aesthetically pleasing smile, "Perhaps, K9, you should set course for somewhere with a eightieth percentile chance of a decent red wine, oh, and oil."
Benton looked at the ice crystals through the microscope and tried to convince himself that they did not look like diamonds.
There wasn't even the faintest resemblance, he told himself.
While they had a crystaline structure, they lacked the tough covalent bonds of the carbon jewels.
He was trying very hard not to think of diamonds at all.
Or of ice.
Of ice and a woman lying in the snow, her dark hair spread out like a halo, looking up at him like she was some beautiful saint, trapped moments away from the extacy of God.
He'd awoken last night sweating and his heart pounding in his chest with something that might have been fear. Or lust. Or something else entirely.
It was beginning to form a pattern, every shadow was hers, every reflection half glimpsed, every crystal of ice in the forensic laboratory.
And he's kept dreaming of her, pale against the snow, gold gash vermillion.
And even now, the dreams would not stop, she would not let him escape.
She'd died surrounded by something not entirely like diamonds, lying in the snow at Fortitude pass. Vermillion blood on the snow, dressed only in a pale shift.
She was playing to a legend known only to one man.
And she would not leave her audience even now, trapped in a miasma of repeated encores.
And she brought him diamonds, and stole his soul.
And now: depressing Fraser-centric unrequited f/k for broken_kite
It took him a while to realise this, and that in itself was quite remiss of him, but the price of perfection was exactly that, perfection.
And of course, Benton knew full well he wasn't perfect at all, that he was yet to reach that pinacle. Oscar Wilde whispered in his ear about how he could yet be the pineapple of perfection, as Benton furtively logged on to the Canadian Intelligence Agency's network to procure the information that would, as Ray would say, nail the fruit smuggling operation operating out of Otawwa. Ray would also dare him to say that three times fast, and Benton would, and Ray would look up to the sky and talk to God in resignation that his best friend was so perfect...
Except Benton knew he hadn't achived perfection. If he had, that would not have bothered him, nor would his observation on the nature of perfection...
...indeed were he to achieve perfection, he would be pained so by such emotions of failure and futility that stalked him as he woke and as he slept.
He never thought he'd set himself such an impossible goal.
Perfection, was something to be desired and striven towards. He had learnt that lesson young, but never managed to escape his grandmother's disprobation.
Then he found another impossible goal: Ray Kowalski, beautifully imperfect, beautifully alive Ray Kowalski.
And the only thing keeping him from that was his own perfection, he was trapped in an unassailable prison of his own making, and Ray being a pragmatist (Benton could not face the idea that Ray might actually be attracted only to women: another terrible selfish imperfection) would not even try to take the keep.
Because perfection is static, constant, unchanging. And it freezes like ice everything it touches, and around Fraser, whenever something might have happened, it began to draw the vigourous life from Ray's bones.
Perfection was such torture, and yet, Benton could not break free and was trapped in a prison of his own making.
And now: Doctor Who fiction for shadowkittracey starring Tom, Lalla and K9
The Doctor strode into the console room. If his intention was to temporalily mislay Romana in the labyrinthine passages of the TARDIS, than he was sorely disappointed, somewhere, beneath the bluster and the teeth and the curls. If anyone present was the sort of entity to comment on such things, the smile he wore would be declared decidely false.
K9 was not that sort of entity, he had just finished soaking up a refreshing datastream from the Console and was now feeling more than a little lethargic and wished to recharge his batteries before they stepped out the Time Ship's door and were confronted by eighty-seven percent chance of trouble and only a fifthteen percentile of stairs. K9 would hope for stairs to become intrinsically more popular amongst architects of moldering space bases the universe over, but hope was illogical.
Romana was that sort of entity, but was currently jogging behind the Doctor in a frentic attempt to keep up. "What do you mean," she said, sweeping back her blonde hair as she ran, "that it's always my fault. I mean, you are the one who gets us into these places anyway."
K9 whirred, "Yes, Romanamistress, but Doctormaster is conciderably more skilled at not exacerbating the situation, while your solutions result in events designated "trouble" seventy-six point nine percent of occurences."
Romana looked at K9 like he had eaten her best hat. She had always counted on the cybernetic canine to take her side in the argument, which was foolish since, as she would be the first to admit, side taking was illogical. "So much for lies, damned lies and statistics, then," she admitted.
The Doctor smiled what was a much more aesthetically pleasing smile, "Perhaps, K9, you should set course for somewhere with a eightieth percentile chance of a decent red wine, oh, and oil."