Various - thenewpub entries for Rounds 1-4
So hi, I live? I know I've been off the map lately, but I haven't really been feeling the fandom thing. But I return, and I bring goodies! And possibly more by the end of the day because I really want to finish my Jack/Inara claim for 7_crossovers so that ... I can claim something else. >.>
Anyway. I joined thenewpub because I was hoping that it'd help me pick up a little more focus, and here are my entries for today! It's once a week, around 4 PM EST, and it was actually a lot of fun. I got to dabble in a lot of different things, which made it easy. But anyway -- to the fic!
Fandom: beyondtherift-adjacent
Title: Anonymity
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Chicago
Word Count: 364
The fog rolls in to Chicago, and it’s almost as though you can disappear.
There’s anonymity to living in a big city. You can’t know everyone on sight because the people are always changing, always slipping in and out of focus as they go about their day. Coming from a small town, it’s a bit of a shocker, to see all these people around, and know that there’s only a chance that that face will be familiar.
He’s used to living in a place where everyone knows his name.
He’s almost sure he likes the fact that he doesn’t have that kind of notoriety in Chicago.
There are times when he misses it, the comfort of knowing that every person here knows your name, knows your story, knows who you are and what you do. It makes you feel less alone in the world, when the world is such a large and scary place. But the problem with Charlie Wellman is that that small town in Idaho knows him. They know what Calling pulls him through the day, and it wasn’t the one that was expected of him. Instead, he receives a dark twist on the life that his parents raised him in, and it’s not every town that can look at an Angel of Death and not have a twinge of fear.
Death is the unknown and uncertain. Death is the adventure that not everyone can take. Death coming from a place of protection and prevention is almost indescribable. Charlie spends his life running from that fear, from that look in people’s eyes that he’s seen ever since he helped his first soul move on, and it takes him to places he never should have gone. It takes him to war. It takes him to a place in his mind that he needs to use chemicals to escape from, and in the end, it takes him to Chicago, a place where he can live in the anonymity, and not have people look at him with fear.
Charlie is just another soul in the city, a city that flexes and changes.
It’s home, even if it isn’t a place where everyone knows your name.
Fandom: White Collar/Leverage
Title: Out of Your League
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Copenhagen
Word Count: 492
Notes: Written with swallow_thelies in mind, but not really binding.
Neal arrives in Copenhagen with one thing on his mind: get in, get out, get gone.
The painting is only on display for one night, and he’s not going to waste any time. True, he’s been attracting a lot of attention lately-but that’s the aim of the game. Get people’s attention. Get Kate’s attention. But above all else-don’t get caught.
Neal, for the most part, is really good at not getting caught.
He should have spotted her right when he walked in the door. He would have if he hadn’t been so laser focused on the prize at hand. The painting sits on the stand, on display for the whole world to see, and in a few hours time, it would be his. It isn’t so much the value of the painting as it is the idea that she would notice. His jobs lately have been pointed, laser focused on getting what he wants, and that’s when the blinders come up. That’s when some of his best work goes to the dogs, because he couldn’t take five minutes to pay attention.
“Glass of champagne, sir?”
“Thanks.” The comment is made off hand, and he doesn’t even bother looking at the girl as he reaches for the flute on her tray. She isn’t a player in this game. All that matters is him, the painting, and the security. Those are the pieces on the chessboard.
Neal kicks himself for ignoring her later.
If he had actually looked at her, he would have realized that not only did she make off with his lock-picking kit, as well as his wallet, but that he was also outmatched from the get-go. A person didn’t take on a pro in their own court, unawares or not. All it takes is being five seconds slower, and Neal is watching as the blond waitress from earlier rappels down from the ceiling and makes off with his Degas. It takes him two seconds to place the face, now that he’s actually seeing it, and as soon as he sees it, he knows he’s beat.
“Parker.”
Her head tips up and she grins, the kind of catlike grin you would expect from a girl who just caught the canary. She presses a button in her hand, and all of the sudden the room lights up, red lasers shooting up around him, and just barely missing making contact. He’s trapped, for better or for worse, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to talk his way out of this one, but all he sees is that painting, disappearing into the ceiling and Parker along with it.
“Better luck next time, Caffrey.”
He manages his wiggle way out of it, but when he makes his way home and realizes she’s lifted his wallet containing the ID that matches his passport, he’s starting to believe that luck really had nothing to do with it.
Sometimes, you’re just out of your league.
Fandom: Burn Notice
Title: Coming Home
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Miami
Word Count: 562
Warnings: Character death
It’s been a long time since Michael’s been to Miami.
Michael tries not to be one for sentimentality, but there’s an odd sort of irony to the fact that once he actually started to feel at home in the city again, he was abruptly pulled out of it. This isn’t to say that he didn’t miss his life as a spy-there has never been anything that made him feel as fulfilled as he did when he was working for the government-but every day there’s a part of him that misses the heat of the city, the sounds, the sights, and the people.
Mostly the people.
It’s Sam who calls him to tell him that Maddie’s gone. He’s the only one with enough clearance to make it through all the red tape, and enough clout to make sure that it’s Sam’s voice he hears on the other end of the line. In a way, Michael’s grateful. Hearing that news from a CIA analyst doesn’t have a way of cushioning the blow any. Not that there’s really any way of softening a blow like that, but Sam knows how to put it so that Michael will actually hear it, not just listen to it. Sam has a way of making it all real.
Madeline Westen is-was-one of those women that you think is going to live forever. She smoked like a chimney, drank too much, and didn’t take care of herself nearly as well as she took care of other people, but still, she was a force to be reckoned with. She was a brick wall, something unstoppable and unmovable, and above all else, she loved her family. She loved her sons, and she loved the men they had grown up to be, and if there was anything that Michael could count on throughout his life, it was that. He knew that he would always have the love of his mother, no matter what, whether or not she was still on this earth.
He just finds it hard to believe that she isn’t.
The agency gives him the time off for the funeral, letting him complete the mission he’s working before transporting him back to the states. His name is still too much of a red flag issue for him to fly directly, so they fly him in to Cuba, before boating him across to Miami. It’s a clear night, cool and calm, and as they get close, the lights of the city rise up out of the water to greet them. Even though his mother’s dead, the rest of the world still keeps spinning. The city moves about in its own hustle and bustle, and in the end, it’s all worth it, every single one.
For once in his life, coming to Miami actually feels like coming home.
It’s at that moment, that his mother’s death actually feels real, and the bitter taste of it all leaves his mouth dry. He’ll make it to the pier, see Fiona, Nate and Sam. He’ll find the time to mourn in his own way, even if it’s taking out his anger on someone or something else. He’ll say goodbye to the most important woman in his life for the last time.
He’ll probably never see Miami again, after this.
He has a feeling, though, that it won’t stop him from missing it.
Fandom: Supernatural/Buffyverse
Title: A Really Lousy Day in the Universe
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: New York City
Word Count: 667
Warnings: Spoilers through 522: Swan Song, though mostly implied.
She finds him in New York.
It’s the logical thing for them to do-for people like them to do, anyway. Things get heavy and they jet. They put as much distance between them and the thing that’s causing them pain, and they deal-or don’t. It’s easy not to when the thing that you’re supposed to be dealing with isn’t staring you right in the face. What she does know, though, is that it creeps into the back of your mind. It haunts you when you sleep, slips in when you dream, and never, ever goes away.
She has a feeling Dean knows that too, which is why she doesn’t tell him. Never mind the fact that she’s not the pep-talk Slayer. That one is a little shorter and a little blonder, and too busy feeling her own loss to realize that Dean’s runs a lot deeper and hits him a lot harder. But then again, that’s typical B. Her problems always seem to need to steal the lime light, whether there’s more deserving or not.
Faith isn’t a grief counselor, and she doesn’t do hugs, but she’s pretty sure that Dean shouldn’t be alone in all this. There are certain people that just can’t be alone. She watched Dean and Sam over these last few weeks, and she knew that Dean and Sam were like one unit. They lived and breathed each other in a way that was almost creepy, but there is a small part of Faith that was never going to admit that she was jealous. She’s never had someone that needed her like that-not that she is someone that you should need but there’s a part of her that thinks that maybe if she had, she wouldn’t have wound up where she did.
Then again, if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be here. And here is the more important thing at the moment.
New York City isn’t exactly the end of the Earth, but it’s the furthest he can get from Kansas without hopping on a plane or boat, and when Faith finally tracks him down, it’s in a bar so disgusting that you’d be insane to think they had customers, which makes it the perfect place to hide. It’s the Impala she spots first, parked conspicuously a block away, and it doesn’t take her long to pull out the where. He’s sitting on the stool, half a bottle of whiskey in front of him, and he’s staring at the full glass in his hand. Not drinking it, just-staring at it.
Faith is pretty sure that’s a waste of good alcohol, but she doesn’t say it. Instead she just states the obvious.
“See, I thought you were more the apple pie kind of guy.”
She knows about the promise he made Sam. She knows where he’s supposed to be, but given the fact that he’s not, she’s bound to assume that something went terribly wrong. He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t even move really, but after a minute he speaks. “Can’t do it. I can’t drag this mess to their doorstep when all I want to do is find the nearest undead thing and rip it to pieces.”
Faith turns and slumps against the side of the bar, elbows resting on the wood as she looks at him. There’s a beat, a moment as she tries to find the right words, but they don’t come. Faith’s not really a words girl. She’s not the moral support. She’s just the girl you go to when you need something dead yesterday, and she’s accepted that part of her life.
Time for him to accept his.
She pauses, tipping her wrist to find the stake she slipped up her jacket sleeve, before turning her wrist to toss it to him. Despite the alcohol, he catches it in one smooth move. He blinks, before looking up at her, and she smirks before sauntering off.
“You said you wanted to kill things. Let’s go kill things.”
Anyway. I joined thenewpub because I was hoping that it'd help me pick up a little more focus, and here are my entries for today! It's once a week, around 4 PM EST, and it was actually a lot of fun. I got to dabble in a lot of different things, which made it easy. But anyway -- to the fic!
Fandom: beyondtherift-adjacent
Title: Anonymity
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Chicago
Word Count: 364
The fog rolls in to Chicago, and it’s almost as though you can disappear.
There’s anonymity to living in a big city. You can’t know everyone on sight because the people are always changing, always slipping in and out of focus as they go about their day. Coming from a small town, it’s a bit of a shocker, to see all these people around, and know that there’s only a chance that that face will be familiar.
He’s used to living in a place where everyone knows his name.
He’s almost sure he likes the fact that he doesn’t have that kind of notoriety in Chicago.
There are times when he misses it, the comfort of knowing that every person here knows your name, knows your story, knows who you are and what you do. It makes you feel less alone in the world, when the world is such a large and scary place. But the problem with Charlie Wellman is that that small town in Idaho knows him. They know what Calling pulls him through the day, and it wasn’t the one that was expected of him. Instead, he receives a dark twist on the life that his parents raised him in, and it’s not every town that can look at an Angel of Death and not have a twinge of fear.
Death is the unknown and uncertain. Death is the adventure that not everyone can take. Death coming from a place of protection and prevention is almost indescribable. Charlie spends his life running from that fear, from that look in people’s eyes that he’s seen ever since he helped his first soul move on, and it takes him to places he never should have gone. It takes him to war. It takes him to a place in his mind that he needs to use chemicals to escape from, and in the end, it takes him to Chicago, a place where he can live in the anonymity, and not have people look at him with fear.
Charlie is just another soul in the city, a city that flexes and changes.
It’s home, even if it isn’t a place where everyone knows your name.
Fandom: White Collar/Leverage
Title: Out of Your League
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Copenhagen
Word Count: 492
Notes: Written with swallow_thelies in mind, but not really binding.
Neal arrives in Copenhagen with one thing on his mind: get in, get out, get gone.
The painting is only on display for one night, and he’s not going to waste any time. True, he’s been attracting a lot of attention lately-but that’s the aim of the game. Get people’s attention. Get Kate’s attention. But above all else-don’t get caught.
Neal, for the most part, is really good at not getting caught.
He should have spotted her right when he walked in the door. He would have if he hadn’t been so laser focused on the prize at hand. The painting sits on the stand, on display for the whole world to see, and in a few hours time, it would be his. It isn’t so much the value of the painting as it is the idea that she would notice. His jobs lately have been pointed, laser focused on getting what he wants, and that’s when the blinders come up. That’s when some of his best work goes to the dogs, because he couldn’t take five minutes to pay attention.
“Glass of champagne, sir?”
“Thanks.” The comment is made off hand, and he doesn’t even bother looking at the girl as he reaches for the flute on her tray. She isn’t a player in this game. All that matters is him, the painting, and the security. Those are the pieces on the chessboard.
Neal kicks himself for ignoring her later.
If he had actually looked at her, he would have realized that not only did she make off with his lock-picking kit, as well as his wallet, but that he was also outmatched from the get-go. A person didn’t take on a pro in their own court, unawares or not. All it takes is being five seconds slower, and Neal is watching as the blond waitress from earlier rappels down from the ceiling and makes off with his Degas. It takes him two seconds to place the face, now that he’s actually seeing it, and as soon as he sees it, he knows he’s beat.
“Parker.”
Her head tips up and she grins, the kind of catlike grin you would expect from a girl who just caught the canary. She presses a button in her hand, and all of the sudden the room lights up, red lasers shooting up around him, and just barely missing making contact. He’s trapped, for better or for worse, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to talk his way out of this one, but all he sees is that painting, disappearing into the ceiling and Parker along with it.
“Better luck next time, Caffrey.”
He manages his wiggle way out of it, but when he makes his way home and realizes she’s lifted his wallet containing the ID that matches his passport, he’s starting to believe that luck really had nothing to do with it.
Sometimes, you’re just out of your league.
Fandom: Burn Notice
Title: Coming Home
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Miami
Word Count: 562
Warnings: Character death
It’s been a long time since Michael’s been to Miami.
Michael tries not to be one for sentimentality, but there’s an odd sort of irony to the fact that once he actually started to feel at home in the city again, he was abruptly pulled out of it. This isn’t to say that he didn’t miss his life as a spy-there has never been anything that made him feel as fulfilled as he did when he was working for the government-but every day there’s a part of him that misses the heat of the city, the sounds, the sights, and the people.
Mostly the people.
It’s Sam who calls him to tell him that Maddie’s gone. He’s the only one with enough clearance to make it through all the red tape, and enough clout to make sure that it’s Sam’s voice he hears on the other end of the line. In a way, Michael’s grateful. Hearing that news from a CIA analyst doesn’t have a way of cushioning the blow any. Not that there’s really any way of softening a blow like that, but Sam knows how to put it so that Michael will actually hear it, not just listen to it. Sam has a way of making it all real.
Madeline Westen is-was-one of those women that you think is going to live forever. She smoked like a chimney, drank too much, and didn’t take care of herself nearly as well as she took care of other people, but still, she was a force to be reckoned with. She was a brick wall, something unstoppable and unmovable, and above all else, she loved her family. She loved her sons, and she loved the men they had grown up to be, and if there was anything that Michael could count on throughout his life, it was that. He knew that he would always have the love of his mother, no matter what, whether or not she was still on this earth.
He just finds it hard to believe that she isn’t.
The agency gives him the time off for the funeral, letting him complete the mission he’s working before transporting him back to the states. His name is still too much of a red flag issue for him to fly directly, so they fly him in to Cuba, before boating him across to Miami. It’s a clear night, cool and calm, and as they get close, the lights of the city rise up out of the water to greet them. Even though his mother’s dead, the rest of the world still keeps spinning. The city moves about in its own hustle and bustle, and in the end, it’s all worth it, every single one.
For once in his life, coming to Miami actually feels like coming home.
It’s at that moment, that his mother’s death actually feels real, and the bitter taste of it all leaves his mouth dry. He’ll make it to the pier, see Fiona, Nate and Sam. He’ll find the time to mourn in his own way, even if it’s taking out his anger on someone or something else. He’ll say goodbye to the most important woman in his life for the last time.
He’ll probably never see Miami again, after this.
He has a feeling, though, that it won’t stop him from missing it.
Fandom: Supernatural/Buffyverse
Title: A Really Lousy Day in the Universe
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: New York City
Word Count: 667
Warnings: Spoilers through 522: Swan Song, though mostly implied.
She finds him in New York.
It’s the logical thing for them to do-for people like them to do, anyway. Things get heavy and they jet. They put as much distance between them and the thing that’s causing them pain, and they deal-or don’t. It’s easy not to when the thing that you’re supposed to be dealing with isn’t staring you right in the face. What she does know, though, is that it creeps into the back of your mind. It haunts you when you sleep, slips in when you dream, and never, ever goes away.
She has a feeling Dean knows that too, which is why she doesn’t tell him. Never mind the fact that she’s not the pep-talk Slayer. That one is a little shorter and a little blonder, and too busy feeling her own loss to realize that Dean’s runs a lot deeper and hits him a lot harder. But then again, that’s typical B. Her problems always seem to need to steal the lime light, whether there’s more deserving or not.
Faith isn’t a grief counselor, and she doesn’t do hugs, but she’s pretty sure that Dean shouldn’t be alone in all this. There are certain people that just can’t be alone. She watched Dean and Sam over these last few weeks, and she knew that Dean and Sam were like one unit. They lived and breathed each other in a way that was almost creepy, but there is a small part of Faith that was never going to admit that she was jealous. She’s never had someone that needed her like that-not that she is someone that you should need but there’s a part of her that thinks that maybe if she had, she wouldn’t have wound up where she did.
Then again, if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be here. And here is the more important thing at the moment.
New York City isn’t exactly the end of the Earth, but it’s the furthest he can get from Kansas without hopping on a plane or boat, and when Faith finally tracks him down, it’s in a bar so disgusting that you’d be insane to think they had customers, which makes it the perfect place to hide. It’s the Impala she spots first, parked conspicuously a block away, and it doesn’t take her long to pull out the where. He’s sitting on the stool, half a bottle of whiskey in front of him, and he’s staring at the full glass in his hand. Not drinking it, just-staring at it.
Faith is pretty sure that’s a waste of good alcohol, but she doesn’t say it. Instead she just states the obvious.
“See, I thought you were more the apple pie kind of guy.”
She knows about the promise he made Sam. She knows where he’s supposed to be, but given the fact that he’s not, she’s bound to assume that something went terribly wrong. He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t even move really, but after a minute he speaks. “Can’t do it. I can’t drag this mess to their doorstep when all I want to do is find the nearest undead thing and rip it to pieces.”
Faith turns and slumps against the side of the bar, elbows resting on the wood as she looks at him. There’s a beat, a moment as she tries to find the right words, but they don’t come. Faith’s not really a words girl. She’s not the moral support. She’s just the girl you go to when you need something dead yesterday, and she’s accepted that part of her life.
Time for him to accept his.
She pauses, tipping her wrist to find the stake she slipped up her jacket sleeve, before turning her wrist to toss it to him. Despite the alcohol, he catches it in one smooth move. He blinks, before looking up at her, and she smirks before sauntering off.
“You said you wanted to kill things. Let’s go kill things.”