console me in my darkest hour
Hallo! Am finally attempting to write Fables fic. This has the potential to go badly very fast.
Story: fill the night with stories, the legend grows
Summary: “Bigby,” she tries to say, “something’s wrong,” except she’s not entirely sure that he can hear her.
Notes: Imagine me, stuck in the backwoods of Virginia, stuck in the limbo created by Fables 35, because the CD that was supposed to have 36-79 was BLANK. Gah.
I was really pissed and need to know what came next. In lieu of that, I was willing to hazard speculation on what came before. If the events of That Night in the Woods were ever elaborated on in those missing issues-well, blame lanternicity. (Side note: She did reburn the CD for me later, though, so there's always that.)
This had the potential to become smut. Except I was listening to The Lion King soundtrack as I was writing it, and frankly Simba’s pre-pubescent soprano doesn’t really lend itself to teh smexiness, you know?
~
When the sun sets, something odd happens.
She has spent the day spending money (one of her favorite pastimes) and hiking her way from the car park to this knobbly bit of woods (one of her least favorite pastimes), and she is tired and cranky and there in some sort of very uncomfortable pull in her leg. She should, by all rights, be miserable and quite vocal about it (this has Bigby’s name written all over it, and not in very flattering script either). There’s a haze over it all, though, thick and sweet like the steam that comes up from a mug of hot cocoa.
The stickiness slides over all of it, even the aches of her new hiking boots (she hates hiking) and the sudden realization that there will be no hot bath awaiting her tonight. As the sun hangs over them, Bigby pokes at something roasting over a fire and she feels a tooth-achingly sweet joy, and her mind declares that this is exactly what she needed.
She tears at the roasted meat, burns her fingers, catches her hair on an overhang of brambles, and sprawls in an ungainly fashion as Bigby lights up his fourth cigarette of the day (a record; usually he’d be well into his fourth pack by now). She feels light and happy and the press of the excitement lays itself like duty over her shoulders.
Then the sun sets; she watches it disappear amongst the trees, and it takes part of her joy with it.
It is full dark when she finally says, “My feet hurt.”
The words tangle in her throat, as though she isn’t supposed to say them. Frowning, she pets at the skin stretched across her collarbone and tries again. “I hate camping.”
Almost immediately, she is drowning in happiness, cheeriness, contentment.
“Bigby,” she tries to say, “something’s wrong,” except she’s not entirely sure that he can hear her. She widens her eyes and for a second cool fear manages to surface up amongst this overbearing sense of joy, and Bigby must notice, because he’s at her side.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I’m not happy,” she grinds out through her teeth (she is tired of being a damsel. This is getting rather old).
Bigby raises an eyebrow and clamps his lips down on the cigarette. “Sure, Snow,” he says.
“Bigby,” she enunciates clearly, so as to further stress that something is wrong, “I am not happy. I do not like camping. I do not like campfires. I do not like trees. I do not like roughing it.”
“This was your idea,” he points out. “A holiday, away from the stress.”
She winds her hands in the lapel of his sturdy flannel camping shirt and yanks his face down so they are level; a bit of ash dangles from the tip of his cigarette and then falls in the wind, catching on the lip of her khaki shorts. “I hate khaki,” she thunders, and shakes him a couple times. She doesn’t have words for the wrongness that her cheerful contentment is attempting to bury (Bigby had to choose now, of all times, to suddenly become an idiot).
“I . . .” tries Bigby, except he’s in his element here so she thinks he really doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on in terms of the hating-things portion of the evening (next time something back home goes south, she is calling the shots. They’re going to a spa, preferably somewhere with a telephone and a television and a deep-tissue massage).
He kisses her.
The surprise (and yes, a little bit of attraction-only a little, not a lot, because she doesn’t spring for uneducated, uncouth men like Bigby Wolf, let alone uneducated, uncouth lycanthrope-Fable hybrids) spurts up and tears a hole in her peacefulness.
His fingers are rough and his nails are sharp and she has no idea what he did with the rest of his cigarette, except she hopes that he considered the possibility of forest fires, but she is pissed off and angry and more importantly, she is the least happy she’s been all day. Her khaki shorts itch and her blisters feel like little tiny volcanoes imprinted on the surface of her skin, and as long as she keeps on kissing him and he keeps on digging holes in the overbearing contentedness, she is content to continue.
“Snow,” he says, just once, and his voice is thickening and his hair is rough under her hands, except that he has to stop touching her to say it, and she is tired of being calm and serene.
“Shut up, Bigby,” she says. And then, just for good measure, “I hate you.”
She feels it, too. That’s why she kisses him again.
Story: fill the night with stories, the legend grows
Summary: “Bigby,” she tries to say, “something’s wrong,” except she’s not entirely sure that he can hear her.
Notes: Imagine me, stuck in the backwoods of Virginia, stuck in the limbo created by Fables 35, because the CD that was supposed to have 36-79 was BLANK. Gah.
I was really pissed and need to know what came next. In lieu of that, I was willing to hazard speculation on what came before. If the events of That Night in the Woods were ever elaborated on in those missing issues-well, blame lanternicity. (Side note: She did reburn the CD for me later, though, so there's always that.)
This had the potential to become smut. Except I was listening to The Lion King soundtrack as I was writing it, and frankly Simba’s pre-pubescent soprano doesn’t really lend itself to teh smexiness, you know?
~
When the sun sets, something odd happens.
She has spent the day spending money (one of her favorite pastimes) and hiking her way from the car park to this knobbly bit of woods (one of her least favorite pastimes), and she is tired and cranky and there in some sort of very uncomfortable pull in her leg. She should, by all rights, be miserable and quite vocal about it (this has Bigby’s name written all over it, and not in very flattering script either). There’s a haze over it all, though, thick and sweet like the steam that comes up from a mug of hot cocoa.
The stickiness slides over all of it, even the aches of her new hiking boots (she hates hiking) and the sudden realization that there will be no hot bath awaiting her tonight. As the sun hangs over them, Bigby pokes at something roasting over a fire and she feels a tooth-achingly sweet joy, and her mind declares that this is exactly what she needed.
She tears at the roasted meat, burns her fingers, catches her hair on an overhang of brambles, and sprawls in an ungainly fashion as Bigby lights up his fourth cigarette of the day (a record; usually he’d be well into his fourth pack by now). She feels light and happy and the press of the excitement lays itself like duty over her shoulders.
Then the sun sets; she watches it disappear amongst the trees, and it takes part of her joy with it.
It is full dark when she finally says, “My feet hurt.”
The words tangle in her throat, as though she isn’t supposed to say them. Frowning, she pets at the skin stretched across her collarbone and tries again. “I hate camping.”
Almost immediately, she is drowning in happiness, cheeriness, contentment.
“Bigby,” she tries to say, “something’s wrong,” except she’s not entirely sure that he can hear her. She widens her eyes and for a second cool fear manages to surface up amongst this overbearing sense of joy, and Bigby must notice, because he’s at her side.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I’m not happy,” she grinds out through her teeth (she is tired of being a damsel. This is getting rather old).
Bigby raises an eyebrow and clamps his lips down on the cigarette. “Sure, Snow,” he says.
“Bigby,” she enunciates clearly, so as to further stress that something is wrong, “I am not happy. I do not like camping. I do not like campfires. I do not like trees. I do not like roughing it.”
“This was your idea,” he points out. “A holiday, away from the stress.”
She winds her hands in the lapel of his sturdy flannel camping shirt and yanks his face down so they are level; a bit of ash dangles from the tip of his cigarette and then falls in the wind, catching on the lip of her khaki shorts. “I hate khaki,” she thunders, and shakes him a couple times. She doesn’t have words for the wrongness that her cheerful contentment is attempting to bury (Bigby had to choose now, of all times, to suddenly become an idiot).
“I . . .” tries Bigby, except he’s in his element here so she thinks he really doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on in terms of the hating-things portion of the evening (next time something back home goes south, she is calling the shots. They’re going to a spa, preferably somewhere with a telephone and a television and a deep-tissue massage).
He kisses her.
The surprise (and yes, a little bit of attraction-only a little, not a lot, because she doesn’t spring for uneducated, uncouth men like Bigby Wolf, let alone uneducated, uncouth lycanthrope-Fable hybrids) spurts up and tears a hole in her peacefulness.
His fingers are rough and his nails are sharp and she has no idea what he did with the rest of his cigarette, except she hopes that he considered the possibility of forest fires, but she is pissed off and angry and more importantly, she is the least happy she’s been all day. Her khaki shorts itch and her blisters feel like little tiny volcanoes imprinted on the surface of her skin, and as long as she keeps on kissing him and he keeps on digging holes in the overbearing contentedness, she is content to continue.
“Snow,” he says, just once, and his voice is thickening and his hair is rough under her hands, except that he has to stop touching her to say it, and she is tired of being calm and serene.
“Shut up, Bigby,” she says. And then, just for good measure, “I hate you.”
She feels it, too. That’s why she kisses him again.