comment fic and drabble responses
I've only got two prompts left to fill, and one of them is abvj's Prentiss story that has turned into over a drabble; and one more apocalypse drabble. But here are all the others that have been finished and need a place to stay.
Community, Britta & Shirley, for the ficathon at writetherest, prompt '(843) You should have been there. We got drunk and threw a sword through his windshield'
It’s two days later and Britta is still removing paint from her hair; the blonde just doesn’t allow for easy wash out and removal. She’s eaten dinner and is getting ready to settle in for a night of shitty television and her two one eyed cats keeping her company when she gets the text message.
It’s from Shirley and it asks, 'Want to get a drink to celebrate nearly winning?'. It’s not the strangest text she’s ever gotten from Shirley and it makes sense when her cell phone vibrates with a follow up of, ‘and then wreck that other Dean’s car?'.
That’s Shirley. They’re good at destruction, especially with the ideas Shirley comes up with. Besides, City College is a bunch of douchebags anyway. Paintball’s not a game to be cheated at. Paintball isn’t a game, it’s paintball.
Twenty minutes later and they’re at a bar on the other side of town. It’s not the Red Door, it’s a bar full of douchebag City College people. They order drinks and sit at a booth in the back. The conversation goes something like this:
“We deserved to win. Not Pierce.”
“We would have won too if they hadn’t cheated. The Lord doesn’t condone cheaters.”
“Fucking assholes.”
Shirley chastises her for language, but it’s really only out of obligation for the Lord and not because she doesn’t agree with her; or so she says next. Four drinks later and they just continue to repeat the same statements over and over.
They do a cycle of this before reaching the conclusion that they’re drunk enough and ready to leave. City College is surprisingly not hard to get into. It doesn’t look that different from Greendale either, especially for a college that boasts how better they were. They giggle their way down the hallways and somehow find themselves backstage of the auditorium.
“Britta,” Shirley bites hard on the first ‘t’.
Britta is stealthily, as a drunk person can be, looking out from a tiny sliver of the curtain; which means that really if anyone bothered to look they would see her entire head, complete with messy hair, wide eyes, and smudged eyeliner. She’s about to wave her friend over, because the City College Dean is engaged in what appears to be some type of late night theatre secret meeting, when Shirley calls her name again.
She turns around and the other woman is holding a prop sword. No words are spoken, their wide grins mean they’re thinking the same thing. It really is a wonder that they don’t get caught, but where Greendale goes cheap on fire alarms, City College is cheap on security.
The Dean’s car is easy to find in the parking lot. It’s the only one with a personalized license that reads ‘DSPRECK’ and has tacky bumper stickers. Together they lift the sword up, because it has to be together, and there’s some swaying and stumbling and laughing before they are ready. It goes easy through the windshield under their combined effort.
Britta and Shirley take a few minutes to bask in their victory and revenge. After that, they run off into the night back towards the bar where they can get a cab. They make siren sounds as they do it. This event sums up their entire summer.
LOST, Jacob and MIB/Smokey/Esau, for shutterbug_12
Birthdays become meaningless when you live forever. Minutes, hours, days, months, years, time slows to where you no longer notice it because it has no affect on you. Memories go until he only remembers brief moments of before, when he still had a body, a purpose to go back from whence he came, to after. He remembers playing a game where the rules were decided by the winners, black versus white, gods moving pawns around on a board. He remembers a mother who manipulated with every word that fell from her lips.
They play the same game now, trading game pieces for lives. Jacob and he. It never changes. People come and go, Jacob plays his side and he plays his part. Time is slow, years pass, and they grow older in a way that they are simply old.
His shape may be different, but his purpose is still to leave this place; only now he’s tinted with revenge and the desire to wreck anything in his path.
He looks out from the tallest hill. He can see the entire island from here. In an instant he lets go of his solid form, expanding until he is smoke. Trees shake in his wake and the island trembles under the roar of his voice.
It never changes.
TWW, CJ/Danny, for tidbit2008
Life without the White House is different. It’s an adjustment, one that doesn’t come easy. CJ’s so used to getting up while it’s still dark and going to work, that is if she sleeps at all.
It takes weeks for her to be able to sleep in, and even then there are days where she still wakes and has that moment of panic that she is not in the West Wing where she needs to be.
California is not the same as D.C. and Chief of Staff. And she’s done this before, being outside of the politics and the White House and California, but those years seem so long ago.
She sits at the kitchen table, pamphlets and information about Africa and roads in front of her. There’s chicken breasts thawing on the counter, though she doesn’t know what she’s going to do with them. Cook them, but she doesn’t know how to do this.
Danny finds her there, and that is what she tells him.
He calls out to her. When she doesn’t answer he sits down next to her.
CJ looks up at him, says, “I don’t know how to do this.”
Danny’s eyes flicker around the room, only for a few seconds, but he gets what she’s not saying and saying at the same time. His hand moves and his fingers touch hers, not grasping or holding, just touching. “You don’t have to. I don’t either. We can do it together.”
His words don’t fix anything, change anything, but they do reassure her.
TSN, Erica/Mark, for empressearwig
When Erica first meets Marks it’s a boring story to repeat. There’s no spilling of coffee on one another due to clumsiness, or the not paying attention and running into the other person, or the introduction via friends, or even a tipsy greeting at a bar. It’s not anything exciting, but it is them; they never were very exciting, they were just them, and for a time that had been enough.
No, they meet at a lecture being given at Harvard by a professor of economics. Harvard and B.U. are really only separated by the river and students frequently hop back and forth to listen to speakers. Erica agrees to go with her roommate who doesn’t want to go by herself and needs the professor’s words for her econ requirement. Plus, she’s been promised dinner after that of her choosing.
Economics isn’t her thing. She’s bored and finds herself drifting towards the back of the hall. She’s planning on slipping out the doors and going to the bathroom as an excuse. Instead, she finds a boy with a tight mouth and sharp gaze underneath a faded GAP hoodie. He’s standing at the back too, flip flops on his feet despite the cold weather.
“Economics boring to you too?” She asks, forgetting about the bathroom.
He turns to her, blinks at her as if he doesn’t understand why she’s talking to him. He speaks slowly, as he is still confused. “No. I’m here for my friend, Eduardo. Besides, he’s not saying anything I don’t already understand.”
Erica turns until her shoulders are pressing against the wood of the lecture hall. They stand side by side now. “Right,” she says, thinking that he is joking; if only she had known. “Me too. Friend, I mean.”
She’s bored and he’s staring at her with eyes that are intense. “I’m Erica.”
He looks at her outstretched hand, takes it, “Mark.”
TWW/Community, Ainsley & Jeff, for antistar_e
The second time Ainsley visits Greendale it’s during another food festival. Only this time the Dean has taken the necessary precautions to ensure there is no fighting that will break out. For some reason, Britta’s sister is not put off by the antics of their community college, but is more amused than anything else. Britta tells them it’s because the stress from the White House makes her find anything hilarious where she only has to use a minimal amount of her brain. Abed says it’s because she’s an outsider viewing their sitcom life, to which Jeff has to remind him once again that this is a reality and they are not actually part of a TV show.
In any case, Jeff has quickly learned that in order to please Britta he has to keep the sister happy. It’s standard sibling logic, so long as you remember that Britta doesn’t like her father but likes her sister. And though Jeff will never admit it, not to anyone else and barely even to himself, he does want to please Britta; and not just in bed.
This means feeding Ainsley when she is hungry. This is advantageous because she tends to get chatty while eating, and last time they learned about the President’s plan to deal with the Middle East. This is also advantageous because Jeff can use her to get information on Britta.
He suggests the hot dog stand, it’s the safest thing, when she mentions lunch. He stands next to her, watching as she piles onions on top of chili. “So,” he drags out, “What was Britta like growing up?”
She turns to look at him, tilts her head down so her sunglasses slide down her nose and he can see her eyes. “Nuh-unh.”
“What?”
Ainsley shakes her head. “That’s not how this works.”
Jeff goes for innocence. “How what works? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She gives him a look, takes a bite of her hot dog, and swallows. “I’m not going to tell you things about Britta so she’ll like you.”
She starts to walk off. Dammit, he keeps forgetting that she’s smarter than the people around here. Greendale is seriously damaging his skills. He wants to call out that isn’t even what he wanted, that he was after information to torment her with.
Turning around, she says, “But you can try being less of an ass to start with.”
Seriously, too smart.
Jeff frowns. He can work with that. Maybe.
TSN, Divya & Erica, for antistar_e, for part of my FBI!AU
Divya knocks on her door. She doesn’t need to peek through the peephole to know it’s him. Call it partner insight or some sixth sense, but it’s him; that and Tyler has already been by to check on her once.
Erica’s body aches as she gets up from the comfortable nest that she’s made on her couch. Her joints protest and the bruises on her skin don’t help; of course that’s what happens when your SUV blows up and you get thrown in the blast and then get beat on by some thugs that don’t exactly take kindly to the idea of being taken in. Goddammit, does she hurt.
“Coming,” she shouts so he knows she’s not ignoring him. She slides back the chain and unbolts the deadlock.
“You look like shit, Albright,” Divya says. He’s wearing one of his stupid overpriced cashmere sweaters, black, and in his right hand holds a six pack of beer. It’s IPA, the kind she likes.
The door swings shut behind him and she redoes the locks. “Gee, thanks. Tell me something I didn’t already know.” Erica means it as a joke. She doesn’t want the pity or sympathy. She knew going into the FBI the risks of the job. It’s not the first time she’s taken some hits.
Her partner stares at her, unwavering in the living room of her apartment. What he sees is the same thing she sees every time she looks into the mirror: yellow and green and purple on pale skin.
Finally, he exhales and says, “Shit, Erica.”
“Yeah.” She shifts her weight to the other hip, toes catching on the hem at the bottom of her sweats.
They drift to the couch, and she pulls the quilt back over her body.
“What are we watching?” Divya asks, opening two bottles for them.
“Shark week reruns,” she says and presses play on the remote.
Nothing else is said, but nothing else needs to be said. She doesn't need to talk about what happened. She just needs to not be alone. He gets that.
TWW/Seaborn Administration, various players, for spyglass_ for the apocalypse fics
Ainsley sits in the living room of their California home. From the wide glass windows she can see out into the front yard and the street beyond. She can also see what appears to be hot dogs raining from the sky. CNN plays on the TV, and she’d believe that she was high on something if the anchor hadn’t been reporting the same thing in other parts of the country.
Penny and Nate find it hilarious that food is falling from the sky. They’d been disappointed when she’d made them come back inside. She can hear Sam and Eli’s raised voices in the study, tones dropping from low to high to low again. How does a Presidential nominee react to this?
She should be thinking of many things, things like is this how the world is going to end, are we doomed to die by food, what happens if a flood of tomato soup wipes out Sacramento, and damn doesn’t this make the last several years a waste.
None of those are what she is thinking.
No, it’s that there isn’t enough wine in the house to deal with this.
--
“What the fuck is this?”
Ethan asks this as he turns around for the fifteenth time from where he’s been pacing the floor. He and Olivia are down at the headquarters for the Seaborn for America campaign.
Olivia is in a chair, one with wheels, the heels of her boots hooked into the legs and sliding back and forth two inches. A blank pad of paper with a pen sits in her lap.
“What the fuck is this, Olivia?” Ethan asks again, as he’s asked her three times now. She could answer him but he wouldn’t really hear her. He’s freaking out, and not in the way where he did two weeks ago when he had to change the Senator’s speech an hour before an event. And shit, that seems so long ago since food is now falling from the sky.
“How the hell are we supposed to write anything that makes sense of this?”
Well, at least that's a different type of question. They’re making progress.
--
Jeff and Portia are in the campaign headquarters too. Only, they’re one floor up in the conference room because they can’t deal with Ethan. There’s not much for them to do anyway as legislative affairs and legal counsel didn’t really adhere to this type of situation.
Instead, they sit across from one another over the large wooden table. Both have their legs and feet propped up. Downstairs they found a bottle of whiskey, but only one tumbler. If any situation called for a drink this one did. They share the glass, taking a sip and sliding it across the wood to the other.
“We could have end of the world sex.”
Portia gives him a look and pushes the glass back towards him. “Shut up, Jeff.”
He flashes her white teeth and dimples, swallows the rest of the whiskey.
She snorts and then laughs and then they’re both laughing. Their voices echo and drown out what's going outside.
TWW/Seaborn Administration, Remy/Cameron for empressearwig, another apocalypse fic
Remy has always laughed at the ‘it’s the end of the world, let’s have sex’ cliche. Movies, books, shorts stories, she’d found the idea ridiculous and overly dramatic. Who would have time to have sex when they should be concentrating on surviving?
But now, now with the snow falling outside her office, four feet and no end in sight, with the heat having died hours ago, and seeing her breath puff white in front of her face. Well now, she understands.
She clutches Cameron closer to her as he slides two fingers up between her legs and inside her, crooking them in just the right way. Her hands slip on his back and she digs fingers into the wool of his sweater. Cam, Cam, Cam she pants into his ear, her head pressed into his neck. She says his name because even in this she can’t bring herself to say please.
His fingers are gone. When he replaces them with his cock, shifting her leg up onto his hip so she’s standing on tip toe with the other, he pulls back to look at her fully.
Remy sees the same fear and desperation in his eyes that she feels inside. It’s the thought that they know what’s going on in the Oval, the people who are being picked to go with the President for safety. It won’t be them; senior advisers, yes, and Portia and Jeff maybe because their boss will refuse without him, but not them.
Cameron has liked her since the beginning of this administration. She’s enjoyed their flirting and debating and competing for the affections of their boss. She thinks they’ve wasted this, and that too is a cliche and makes her want to laugh and cry.
She kisses him and he's warm if only for a fleeting few minutes.