Meme: WIP Kickstarts
By all rights, Adam Lambert’s fifteen minutes of fame should have ticked over six months ago, but he’s still popping up inordinately often. Kris would recognize him even if it weren’t for Allison’s massive crush on the guy; Adam stares ferally up at him almost every week at the grocery store from People or Star or In Touch (Kris always hums the Blondie song when he sees that magazine, with little head bobs), touting glitter or professional fierceness or something, Kris doesn’t know. If there’s one thing Kris is not, it’s fierce.
But he doesn’t have time to contemplate the difference between plaid and pleather because Adam Lambert is opening the door and insinuating himself into the cab like a sinuous oversized housecat, mouth open before he even sits down. Kris smells smoke, and tequila.
“Oh my God,” he says, stretching, and later Kris will find it funny, that those are the first words Adam Lambert ever said to him. “Thank you so much. I’ve been standing out there for like twenty minutes, seriously.” He waves dismissively at the sidewalk and Kris takes the opportunity to look a little closer at his fare.
Adam is big. It sounds dumb in his head, but it’s the first word that comes up. He’s not fat, not even really heavy; but his head brushes the roof of the cab - well, his hair, really - and his knees are jutting up in front of the dash and he’s just… big. And black. Big and black, no wonder Kris hasn’t taken off as a songwriter. Jeez.
And now Adam is talking, a little slurred, and Kris hopes he’s not one of those angry drunks who take out their aggressive impulses on poor inattentive cabbies.
Untitled Epiclosity, Vol. One [dystopic desert wing kiln AU]
"You've been sleeping out here, haven't you, Kris?" It doesn't sound accusatory, just curious. Mild like a soft breath. But Daniel's eyes are no longer fuzzy or out of focus, flickering sharp between Kris and Adamah. He doesn’t blink.
Kris isn't sure what to say. Lil must have told on him; there's no law that says they can't sleep out with the kilns, but there's no real reason to do it either. The sand is dry and cold at night, and there are coyotes and alpan roaming the dunes. Actually, Kris hasn't been sleeping in the desert, exactly - the humming warmth of Adamah makes slumber an impossibility. But he has been spending the night with the kiln, sitting curled at the great stone base with his face pressed against the warm rock, whispering nonsense into the cool air. An alpan waddled by once, but kept its distance, enormous leathery frill undulating in the cool breeze. Kris thinks it knew, that it sensed the same thing he did: it's different with this one. Adamah is something special.
If The Boot Fits [The Truth About Cats And Dogs AU]
“Okay. What colour are the boots?”
Mindy sniffs into the phone. “They’re this kind of weird pinky-purple lava-lamp patterned thing, Adam. It is so gross.” He can hear nails, acrylic probably, clicking against some wooden table or sideboard. “But Cassie won’t have it any other way. What should I do?” The sound is drawn out, and it echoes around the studio like the moan of a dying sea lion. Adam grins at Megan in the sound booth and busts out his ‘gentling’ voice.
“Sounds like a situation, Mindy. But fear not! No fashion dilemma is unsolvable. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Untitled Epiclosity, Vol. Two [daemon-verse AU]
Kris is maybe rethinking some of his decisions.
The pavement is like a griddle - he can feel his skin heating, burning, peeling. He should have brought a hat. They’ve been in the audition line for three hours.
It’s the most chaotic, exuberant, terrifying place Kris has ever been. There are so many people, and it’s not that he’s a small-town hick who’s never seen a gathering of more than ten at church or anything, but this is ridiculous. And the daemons aren’t helping, a never-ending parade of fur and feathers and scales shifting through the crowds.
A girl with an Indian Elephant towering over her has brought a vat of water and the daemon is spraying it out over the line, but it’s just agitating the crowd, brief respite from the heat snatched away immediately as the enormous animal turns. The girl cries “Careful, Elil, careful!” as the great grey trunk almost smacks a lark daemon.
“I should have brought a hat,” Kris says, and Fiera raises her head from the pavement long enough to give a half-hearted nod. Kris knows she’s feeling the heat too; her fur is fluffed out to let in the (relatively) cool air, and when he reaches for her he can feel her sides heaving.
“You know, maybe we should just give up. I saw an ice-cream place a couple hours back,” Kris says hopefully. Fiera loves ice cream almost as much as he does. “And it’s not like I’m going to get through anyw-“
“Kris.” Even though the heat haze he can see accusation in her dark-eyed glare. “We are not giving up before we’ve even started. You’ve been talking about doing this thing for three years. Man up.”
Merlin
Put Me In, Coach [hockey player!Arthur AU]
“Merlin… I don’t know how to say this, I really don’t.”
Merlin has a default reaction to perceived bad news - persistent, stolid obliviousness. It’s maintained tattered relationships for him before, for a while at least, and he doesn’t see why it won’t work here. “Gaius, I don’t understand. Somebody’s got to drive the bus, right? Have I done something wrong?”
He has, actually. He’s been regularly going three blocks out of his route to pick up a girl named Freya who seems way too frail to be out in the cold waiting for the bus in the morning, but Gaius is a lot more softhearted than he looks and Merlin can’t imagine him cracking down on something like that. And anyway, how would he have found out? Gaius rubs his temples with one weathered hand and sighs.
“It isn’t you, Merlin. The school board’s decided to cut the outer-city bus program altogether; they want more money for the athletics teams.” He snorts - it’s never been much of a secret that Rimmeldor’s long-time principal is more of a chemistry supporter than a basketball fan. “I mean, can hockey nets really cost that much?”
Merlin almost blurts out the exorbitant price someone paid for a used NHL net on EBay, but it’s really not the time, and god damn it, he’s losing his job. “It’s the only one I have,” he says quietly, and immediately feels like a prick. It’s not Gaius’s fault; the man’s been watching out for him since he came over from Surrey, got him set up with the school in the first place. Merlin is struck with the sudden urge to give him a hug, terrible ratty hair and all.
On Being Rocked [castle shenanigans, canon-verse]
Merlin’s body failed to understand why his mind excited itself the day before a tournament.
It meant more work, a bruising practice session and, since Arthur had recently (bizarrely) started coming down to chat with Merlin while he cleaned tack and sharpened swords, a long day of cleaning without magic. But despite these very good reasons to dread tournament mornings, Merlin found himself humming and rocking back on the pads of his feet as he cut eldritch slices through the air with Arthur’s spare sword in the empty stables. The horses looked on in mild interest, the nearest one making slow grinding sounds as she chewed.
A long curling sweep of the blade that always looked tremendously graceful when Arthur did it took him around the corner and straight into the side of Anwyn’s stall. The enormous horse made a whuffing sound as Merlin yanked at the sword, which had planted itself as firmly in the wooden beam holding the stall together.
“Oh no.” Merlin admonished as Arthur’s steed looked at him with entreaty in his large dark eyes. “If you think I’m chopping you out of here on purpose, you have another think co -“
“Merlin?”
Untitled Nonsense, Vol. One [RPS wherein Bradley is a tool]
“Could you stop that please?” Colin’s all meeked out, but the sentiment is clearly sincere.
“Stop what?”
“Stop getting all… touchy.”
“I’m sorry,” and this one’s accompanied by an arm draped over his bony shoulders and a whisper, ”I didn’t catch that. What did you want me to stop?” Bradley’s sure Colin can feel his grin against his ear.
“This isn’t a joke, Bradley!” he hisses, jolting away. “Why are you always so bloody close to me?”
It’s time for a reality check. “Look, Colin, I’m sorry to break it to you, but this, it’s not you. C’est moi, ok? Behold.” Tony is standing nearby, talking animatedly to the blocking coach. “Oi, Tony!”
Tony’s placid face turns, an expression of inquiry creeping over his glasses. “Hn? Oh, hullo boys. How’s the run through going?” Bradley is in his space before Colin know’s what’s happening, arm around his waist and hand in his hair. Tony gives a startled chuckle.
“Bradley -“ and there’s the tone of reproach, thank God, at least someone hasn’t completely lost their marbles, “if you wanted, you know you could have just asked.” Tony grins, the corners of his eyes crinkling up and ruffles Bradley’s hair, and is rewarded with a falsetto, “Oh, Tony,” and a peck on the cheek.
Bradley saunters back over, eyes alight and hips swinging.
“See? That is simply my style. I’m so sorry if it offends your delicate sensibilities, Colin.”
Supernatural
Slippery Slope [Sam is gay, probably AU]
The other thing Dean notices is that it happens more often. Way more often. Not that he’s keeping track, but Sam’s slept with three guys in the past three months. And it isn’t that that’s really so many - Dean’s private goal is to have enough sex with different women that even dudes with horny, readily-available girlfriends don’t get as much tail as he does, and he probably pulls four nights a week.
But it’s different for Sam.
Dean thinks he can count the girls Sam’s slept with since Jess on one hand. The ones that have ended well, or even just all right, on one finger. Maybe half a finger. And every time it happens, every time the kid meets some cute nerd chick and thinks maybe, maybe this time my shit ass brother and my shit ass life will let me have something good, she turns out to be a werewolf. Or a bitch. Or a siren. Or a god-damned undead demon.
It’s as if girls are just - a reminder. Of the ones he couldn’t keep safe. But the men, they’re somehow more… durable? Likely to survive an encounter and not turn into evil sons of bitches? They seem to come out of Sam’s trysts mostly unharmed, and every one that gets up in the morning and kisses Sam and leaves with his hair sticking up all over the place and his shirt hanging over his jeans just reinforces Sam’s weirdo pussy-loathing views on the whole thing.
Cheers