2 Short things from Comment_Fic
So, pretty much just what it says. I posted about these over on my main journal a few days back, but thought I should probably put them up here just in case.
I've been hanging out over at comment_fic for awhile now. I don't end up writing much, though I do have a whole folder of lonely prompts to follow up on, but I like the community.
Anyway, for a crossover day last week I wrote two small bits of fiction.
I've been thinking about doing a Burn Notice/Leverage crossover, pretty much since I started watching Burn Notice a couple of months back. I hadn't thought about the Michael/Eliot pairing, but it worked surprisingly well for me. This story reads more like a prologue than a story in it's own right, and I do hope to eventually write more related to it. I just have to work out the job. I've got lots of little snippets of dialogue in my head for it though.
The original prompt is here
Untitled
"Are you here for me?" Michael says in a soft, uninterested tone, as if he's not holding a gun to a man's head.
The body in front of him moves, lightning fast. Duck, spin, grab. "You always did like things a little too up close and personal." Eliot has successfully disarmed Michael, or at least taken away this gun, but he's managed to get himself locked into a pretty effective hold in the process.
"And you always were predictable with that spin move." Michael's grip tightens. "Are you here for me?" There's a cold edge to the voice now, not just the normal paranoia of a spy, but a different wariness born out of betrayal and rage.
"In a manner of speaking." Eliot says, soft and honey sweet, almost as if he has to counter Michael's tone with his own. "I'm not here to kill you, Michael."
Twist and shove, and they're apart again. Eliot keeps his distance. Michael's fingers twitch in the direction of his gun, but he leaves it on the floor where it fell.
"I'm not. I was offered that contract, but I turned it down."
Michael smirks. "Didn't think you could deliver?"
Eliot gives him a dark look in reply. "I don't kill my own."
"They tell you why I got burned?"
Eliot shrugs. "Showed me a file. If I'd believed you'd done any of it, you'd be dead by now. You're not that man."
Michael smiles then, and a little of the wariness leaves his posture. "Been a while."
"Yeah, not since that thing in Venezuela with the running."
"And the guns."
"I hate guns." There's real distaste in Eliot's voice as he says the words.
Michael laughs, and goes to his fridge, picking up the gun and laying it on the table as he does so.
He pulls a couple of beers out and hands one to Eliot. "I know you do." They drink in companionable silence for a moment, sitting side by side on the stacked mattresses that Michael calls a bed.
"So, if you aren't here to kill me, but you are here for me..."
Eliot ducks his head a bit, lets his hair fall forward to hide his face. It's the only gesture of nervousness that Michael has ever seen from him. He's always found it almost charming.
"I'm kinda working with a team these days. Nothing official, we just...we take care of things that the law can't or won't deal with. We've got a job, here in Miami. I heard you do some of the same sort of thing, and I thought maybe we could help each other out."
"I thought you worked alone."
"Things change, Michael." Eliot says, but he's still hiding behind that curtain of hair.
There's a spark between them, and Michael has felt it before. He hasn't had nearly enough beer to blame it on this time, but Michael can't resist the urge to push that hair back, out of Eliot's face. His hands remember this, remember the delicate planes of this man's cheekbones and jawline. His body remembers the inevitable slide forward into a kiss that is always softer than he expects it to be.
This isn't the time and he knows it, but he lets the kiss linger longer than he should. His voice is rough around the edges when he finally pulls away. "Tell me."
The original prompt is here
In Dreams
Sam was five when he met River Tam. He was also asleep. He woke the next morning excited to tell Dean all about the little girl he'd met the night before.
Dean listened with good humor, but it was clear that he didn't believe. "They're just dreams Sammy." That didn't stop Sam from telling Dean how they would catch frogs and climb trees.
When Sam was ten, Dean told him that he was getting much to old for imaginary friends.
After Sam insisted that River was real, Dean asked Bobby to check for signs that there was a ghost hanging around Sam. Bobby had dutifully checked in every way he knew how, before reporting back to Dean that Sam was just a kid with an imaginary friend.
Dean wouldn't let Sam talk about River anymore.
When he was thirteen, Sam had his first kiss and it was from a girl he'd never even met in the waking world. River had made him stop calling it the real world years ago. After all, if this wasn't the real world then at least one of them wasn't real.
He wanted to tell Dean, especially when his big brother started teasing him about not having a girlfriend yet. But if ten was to old to talk about the girl in his dreams, then thirteen was much too old.
When they were seventeen, River told him that she was going away to a special school, but that she would try to come to him as she always had. For awhile they had met every night, but then, abruptly two weeks before Sam left for Stanford she stopped.
For the first year, Sam looked for her every night, searched through every dreamscape he found himself in, but she wasn't there.
Eventually he convinced himself that Dean had been right all those years, River was just a fantasy, a girl he'd made up because he had no other friends, just Dean and Dad. He met a girl in the real world, and started to live something like a normal life.
Three days after Jessica died, River came to Sam in his dreams. She was different, older of course, but it was more than that. She spoke in riddles and broken thoughts, and she came and went, sometimes with alarming frequency.
Sam tried to ask what had happened to her, but she wouldn't say. She just smiled. "I'm better now. My big brother, I told you about Simon. He's going to take care of me. You should let Dean take care of you."
Even broken and lost as River was, her presence in Sam's dreams anchored him. When they'd been children they'd been able to hold each other's nightmares at bay. They couldn't anymore.
Sam thought it was because neither of them was as strong as they once were. River thought it was because the nightmares were so much worse.
It didn't matter, the horror came and went, and they both stayed, held each other through the worst.
Eventually Dean would start to tease Sam about not finding himself a girl again. Sam would have to bite his tongue against speaking of River. He didn't know what she was, but she was real. If Dean believed him at all, he'd likely think she was a demon or a ghost.
Sam tries to hide from her, when he learns what he is, what all of the special children are. River won't allow it. She rolls her eyes and twirls him around in a dance.
The first night that he can't find her, Sam gets no rest. He tells himself that it's just this crazy town that the yellow-eyed demon has trapped them all in. He tells himself that he'll see her again when he gets out of this place.
"I can't find him, Simon?" River's cheeks are tear streaked, and fat drops of moisture still cling to her lashes.
Simon gathers her close in a tight hug. "Can't find who, Meimei?"
"Sam." When Simon just stares blankly at her, she elaborates. "The boy from my dreams."
She shakes her head violently. "They aren't. He's real, and I can't find him."
"Shh, it's okay, River." Simon rocks her gently, stroking her hair to comfort until she calms. River hopes that somewhere, Sam's brother is taking as much care of him.
I've been hanging out over at comment_fic for awhile now. I don't end up writing much, though I do have a whole folder of lonely prompts to follow up on, but I like the community.
Anyway, for a crossover day last week I wrote two small bits of fiction.
I've been thinking about doing a Burn Notice/Leverage crossover, pretty much since I started watching Burn Notice a couple of months back. I hadn't thought about the Michael/Eliot pairing, but it worked surprisingly well for me. This story reads more like a prologue than a story in it's own right, and I do hope to eventually write more related to it. I just have to work out the job. I've got lots of little snippets of dialogue in my head for it though.
The original prompt is here
Untitled
"Are you here for me?" Michael says in a soft, uninterested tone, as if he's not holding a gun to a man's head.
The body in front of him moves, lightning fast. Duck, spin, grab. "You always did like things a little too up close and personal." Eliot has successfully disarmed Michael, or at least taken away this gun, but he's managed to get himself locked into a pretty effective hold in the process.
"And you always were predictable with that spin move." Michael's grip tightens. "Are you here for me?" There's a cold edge to the voice now, not just the normal paranoia of a spy, but a different wariness born out of betrayal and rage.
"In a manner of speaking." Eliot says, soft and honey sweet, almost as if he has to counter Michael's tone with his own. "I'm not here to kill you, Michael."
Twist and shove, and they're apart again. Eliot keeps his distance. Michael's fingers twitch in the direction of his gun, but he leaves it on the floor where it fell.
"I'm not. I was offered that contract, but I turned it down."
Michael smirks. "Didn't think you could deliver?"
Eliot gives him a dark look in reply. "I don't kill my own."
"They tell you why I got burned?"
Eliot shrugs. "Showed me a file. If I'd believed you'd done any of it, you'd be dead by now. You're not that man."
Michael smiles then, and a little of the wariness leaves his posture. "Been a while."
"Yeah, not since that thing in Venezuela with the running."
"And the guns."
"I hate guns." There's real distaste in Eliot's voice as he says the words.
Michael laughs, and goes to his fridge, picking up the gun and laying it on the table as he does so.
He pulls a couple of beers out and hands one to Eliot. "I know you do." They drink in companionable silence for a moment, sitting side by side on the stacked mattresses that Michael calls a bed.
"So, if you aren't here to kill me, but you are here for me..."
Eliot ducks his head a bit, lets his hair fall forward to hide his face. It's the only gesture of nervousness that Michael has ever seen from him. He's always found it almost charming.
"I'm kinda working with a team these days. Nothing official, we just...we take care of things that the law can't or won't deal with. We've got a job, here in Miami. I heard you do some of the same sort of thing, and I thought maybe we could help each other out."
"I thought you worked alone."
"Things change, Michael." Eliot says, but he's still hiding behind that curtain of hair.
There's a spark between them, and Michael has felt it before. He hasn't had nearly enough beer to blame it on this time, but Michael can't resist the urge to push that hair back, out of Eliot's face. His hands remember this, remember the delicate planes of this man's cheekbones and jawline. His body remembers the inevitable slide forward into a kiss that is always softer than he expects it to be.
This isn't the time and he knows it, but he lets the kiss linger longer than he should. His voice is rough around the edges when he finally pulls away. "Tell me."
The original prompt is here
In Dreams
Sam was five when he met River Tam. He was also asleep. He woke the next morning excited to tell Dean all about the little girl he'd met the night before.
Dean listened with good humor, but it was clear that he didn't believe. "They're just dreams Sammy." That didn't stop Sam from telling Dean how they would catch frogs and climb trees.
When Sam was ten, Dean told him that he was getting much to old for imaginary friends.
After Sam insisted that River was real, Dean asked Bobby to check for signs that there was a ghost hanging around Sam. Bobby had dutifully checked in every way he knew how, before reporting back to Dean that Sam was just a kid with an imaginary friend.
Dean wouldn't let Sam talk about River anymore.
When he was thirteen, Sam had his first kiss and it was from a girl he'd never even met in the waking world. River had made him stop calling it the real world years ago. After all, if this wasn't the real world then at least one of them wasn't real.
He wanted to tell Dean, especially when his big brother started teasing him about not having a girlfriend yet. But if ten was to old to talk about the girl in his dreams, then thirteen was much too old.
When they were seventeen, River told him that she was going away to a special school, but that she would try to come to him as she always had. For awhile they had met every night, but then, abruptly two weeks before Sam left for Stanford she stopped.
For the first year, Sam looked for her every night, searched through every dreamscape he found himself in, but she wasn't there.
Eventually he convinced himself that Dean had been right all those years, River was just a fantasy, a girl he'd made up because he had no other friends, just Dean and Dad. He met a girl in the real world, and started to live something like a normal life.
Three days after Jessica died, River came to Sam in his dreams. She was different, older of course, but it was more than that. She spoke in riddles and broken thoughts, and she came and went, sometimes with alarming frequency.
Sam tried to ask what had happened to her, but she wouldn't say. She just smiled. "I'm better now. My big brother, I told you about Simon. He's going to take care of me. You should let Dean take care of you."
Even broken and lost as River was, her presence in Sam's dreams anchored him. When they'd been children they'd been able to hold each other's nightmares at bay. They couldn't anymore.
Sam thought it was because neither of them was as strong as they once were. River thought it was because the nightmares were so much worse.
It didn't matter, the horror came and went, and they both stayed, held each other through the worst.
Eventually Dean would start to tease Sam about not finding himself a girl again. Sam would have to bite his tongue against speaking of River. He didn't know what she was, but she was real. If Dean believed him at all, he'd likely think she was a demon or a ghost.
Sam tries to hide from her, when he learns what he is, what all of the special children are. River won't allow it. She rolls her eyes and twirls him around in a dance.
The first night that he can't find her, Sam gets no rest. He tells himself that it's just this crazy town that the yellow-eyed demon has trapped them all in. He tells himself that he'll see her again when he gets out of this place.
"I can't find him, Simon?" River's cheeks are tear streaked, and fat drops of moisture still cling to her lashes.
Simon gathers her close in a tight hug. "Can't find who, Meimei?"
"Sam." When Simon just stares blankly at her, she elaborates. "The boy from my dreams."
She shakes her head violently. "They aren't. He's real, and I can't find him."
"Shh, it's okay, River." Simon rocks her gently, stroking her hair to comfort until she calms. River hopes that somewhere, Sam's brother is taking as much care of him.