A respite and fic
For those of you on the friendly faces filter, my mother is currently in hospital and so life is at least temporarily quieter.
escargoat made a comment when she betad my Spook Me story that just immediately pinged me, so this is for her. :-)
Sapphire and Steel ficlet, 300 words exactly, slash-ish, Lead/Steel
Complicated
Steel had considered staying away. Life was complicated enough; but he was drawn like the metal that gave him his name to a magnet.
Lead looked up at him, amusement written over his face. Just like Sapphire, Lead seemed to discover jokes in the strangest places, and just as with Sapphire, Steel was attracted to the quality even as it desperately confused him. Lead quirked an eyebrow. "Why don't you come in?"
Steel hesitated, hating himself for it, while Lead huffed in laughing exasperation.
"You think too much," he said.
"That's not what you tell me on assignments."
"That's true." A full laugh this time, warm and deep. The sound reverberated inside Steel's gut in what he tried to despise as a purely ridiculous reaction. "You're all for action at work, so why can't you extend the same habit to your free time?"
Steel swallowed, struggling for words for long moments. Finally he said, "I know what to do when I work."
Lead shook his head in apparent disbelief. He was fiddling with some device or other. Lead was no technician, but he liked to know things, liked to know what patterns lay in everything. He lifted a hand from his work and gestured. "Sit beside me."
Steel waited just a second too long and then drove himself forward to gingerly sit beside Lead.
"It's been tough recently," Lead mused.
"Yes." Steel had never felt so awkward in his life, but seated next to Lead's solid bulk he also felt oddly safe.
"Easy to get tired," Lead continued, his hands still working on the device, but his eyes, dark and curious, stared at Steel.
"Yes."
"Lean your head then. I'm busy with this, but you can lean your head."
And with a long, unsteady sigh, that was what Steel did.
escargoat made a comment when she betad my Spook Me story that just immediately pinged me, so this is for her. :-)
Sapphire and Steel ficlet, 300 words exactly, slash-ish, Lead/Steel
Complicated
Steel had considered staying away. Life was complicated enough; but he was drawn like the metal that gave him his name to a magnet.
Lead looked up at him, amusement written over his face. Just like Sapphire, Lead seemed to discover jokes in the strangest places, and just as with Sapphire, Steel was attracted to the quality even as it desperately confused him. Lead quirked an eyebrow. "Why don't you come in?"
Steel hesitated, hating himself for it, while Lead huffed in laughing exasperation.
"You think too much," he said.
"That's not what you tell me on assignments."
"That's true." A full laugh this time, warm and deep. The sound reverberated inside Steel's gut in what he tried to despise as a purely ridiculous reaction. "You're all for action at work, so why can't you extend the same habit to your free time?"
Steel swallowed, struggling for words for long moments. Finally he said, "I know what to do when I work."
Lead shook his head in apparent disbelief. He was fiddling with some device or other. Lead was no technician, but he liked to know things, liked to know what patterns lay in everything. He lifted a hand from his work and gestured. "Sit beside me."
Steel waited just a second too long and then drove himself forward to gingerly sit beside Lead.
"It's been tough recently," Lead mused.
"Yes." Steel had never felt so awkward in his life, but seated next to Lead's solid bulk he also felt oddly safe.
"Easy to get tired," Lead continued, his hands still working on the device, but his eyes, dark and curious, stared at Steel.
"Yes."
"Lean your head then. I'm busy with this, but you can lean your head."
And with a long, unsteady sigh, that was what Steel did.