(no subject)
Wash
It's 8:18 AM, and Zoe's having her baby. He wants to be with her, but Simon's locked him out of the infirmiry, very kindly explaining to him that only people with green lines on their palms were allowed inside. It's understandable, really -- there's no sense in taking chances with her in this state -- and since Wash's lines are bright blue and change to yellow when nobody's looking, he waits outside and watches through the broad glass window.
Mal's in there, and so are Book and Kaylee and Inara and Jayne. River's sitting on the ceiling above him: her lines are a mottled, bruiselike purple. He shouldn't take comfort in that. He does anyway.
Everything's going just fine until the window starts to ice over. Thick, opaque slabs of frost creep across the pane and completely block out his view, the cold radiating back at him like a tangible thing. Of course. Of course Mal would do something like this now. Annoyed, Wash rubs a hand over the frost to make it melt, and when it does, it's thick and oily and black and smells like Niska's torture chamber.
Zoe starts howling right about then. It raises the hair on his skin into tight, painful bumps, because he's never, not ever in the four years that they've been married, heard her scream like that. Its a scream that sounds as though someone is attempting to pull her apart, to break her into pieces. The whole window's dripping with her blood that looks more like engine grease (he knows Kaylee could fix it, and he tries to tell them so, but somebody's put another electrode on his tongue and it'll shock him if he says a word), but Wash keeps pressing his weight against the glass anyway, frantic and sick with fright. If he could just see, everything would be fine. She'd be fine. The baby -- their baby -- everything would be --
The window shatters. It drenches his hands and shirt in black, black which becomes blood. And then he's inside the infirmiry, next to Zoe's corpse and the corpse of a half-born baby boy, with Jayne pointing Vera at his head (except he renamed that gun of his to Samantha three days ago, announcing at breakfast that he liked the sound of it much better), and everybody else has their guns on him too, even Book and little Kaylee.
"I told you not to come inside," Simon snarls. "Look. See what you did? You killed her." He points to Zoe with his free hand. The head of the corpse rolls toward him, accusingly. The dead baby wails, before bursting apart as though shot into space.
He wants to explain, even has it all planned out: I didn't mean it, I just wanted to see - I didn't mean to break the window.... But he can't, of course. The electrode's waiting and ready.
Six guns ratchet in perfect harmony. A horrible despair floods through him as he tries to wipe his oilblood-soaked hands on his jumpsuit, pleading voicelessly, I'd never do it if it'd hurt her, she's my gorram wife, please, I just wanted to see!
Behind him, he hears River giggle. She speaks with a pronounced Russian accent when she says, "I am thinking, Mr. Washburne, that this is what caused our difficulty in the first place. Hm?"
His mouth convulses with electricity just as six bullets leave six guns --
-- and there's a painful burst of pressure on his eyelids --
Roland
You see it before you as you have seen it in delah dreams over all these long years, as you saw it the day it happened: once more it comes to the end of it, the end of Gilead, that day at Jericho Hill. Once more Cuthbert cries, “Roland! We’ve been betrayed! We’re outnumbered! Our backs are to the sea! We’ve got em right where we want em! Shall we charge?”
And you charge down into the horde, and Cuthbert falls, taking the Horn of Eld, the Horn o’ Deschain, with him - but this time you do not shoot, reload, shoot, reload. This time the blue-faced mass makes a clearing for you, a clearing that ends your path.
There, in front of one of the great carved stone faces left by some long-dead people, waiting in the middle for you are faces you know. Moiraine Sedai. Will Stanton. Joe Manco. Susan Delgado. Eddie Dean. Susannah Dean. Jake Chambers.
You cry out, rush forward to greet them - for now that they are here, maybe the tide of battle will turn, maybe it can all be saved - but Moiraine and Will step forward, Moiraine glowing, Will with an outstretched arm, and you cannot move. You cannot move. Your feet are fixed to the hard earth, your arms are outstretched as though to embrace them all, you cannot turn your head. All you can do is watch as Moiraine and Will smile at each other, and step back. Betrayers! you want to scream at them, you say you serve the White, ye forsaken, ye lost - but you cannot speak.
Susan Delgado steps forward. From somewhere she has a pot of paint. Red paint. She steps forward, reaches up, caresses your face with a ghost-like, feather-light touch - and then takes your guns from your hands, puts them in your holsters, and plunges each hand in red paint. She reaches up and whispers, “I’ll see thee in Na’ar, Roland, my dear - ‘tis my fondest wish,” and then she steps back, and it’s Joe’s turn.
Your eyes meet - the same eyes, and if eyes are the windows to the soul you are staring into your own. Joe Manco steps forward and, never removing his gaze from yours, takes your guns from you - the ones your own father gave to you at the banquet after you returned from Mejis, after you returned from loving and losing Susan Delgado, after you chose the Tower over love - takes your guns from you, and retreats back to Moiraine and Will. Joe has that cold, pitiless killer’s grin you know so well.
But your eyes are drawn away from his face as Eddie and Susannah step forward.
“You got me killed, and I needed you like I needed a hole in the head. And thanks to you…I got one.” Eddie’s grinning at you. It’s Joe’s grin - beautiful and savage.
“Nobody’s going to come through any magic door and save you, Roland. This is it. This is the end. Charyou tree. It ends here.” Susannah is looking at you, assessing you, finding you wanting.
They each take a gun from Joe, raise it, fire as one -
Eddie shoots off your left hand. Susannah shoots off your right. There is pain, but not so much as the pain in seeing Eddie and Susannah turn their backs on you as they hand the guns back to Joe.
And now Joe goes to Jake, who has been standing in the back, watching this with his arms folded. The bounty hunter kneels in front of the young gunslinger and speaks the words of the High Speech, impossibly, that are spoken when a father passes on his guns to his son.
Jake takes the guns, bends, kisses Joe on the forehead, straightens. Now he comes to stand in front of you, and they all gather behind him - Moiraine, Will, Joe, Susan, Eddie, Susannah.
You look at Jake, eyes pleading - Jake, I love you, you are my son, don’t let it end this way -
Jake’s expression, too, is pitiless.
He raises both guns.
“I kill with my heart.”
Fire from those guns of Gilead -
-- and darkness. Somewhere, far away, you hear the laughter of Walter o’ Dim…and it is the last thing you hear, until you wake.
Divis Mal
He had done it. He'd won. By damn, he'd led them all into a new age of peace and harmony. For the first time in who knows how long, there was no violence. No war. No famine. No hunger. No death.
He'd done it. The cost was immense, but it was worth it. Wasn't it, Max? Of course, Max couldn't answer, but still, Michael Daemon Donighal, Dr. Primoris, Divis Mal, whatever you call him, asked anyway. He stared long and hard at the skull of his best friend, past and through the charred eye sockets and out across the ruins of Washington, D.C. They were all dead. All of them. From the Presidents and kings to the bums in the street. Young and old, Nova and baseline alike.
Why did they have to fight him? All he wanted was peace.
But, peace never comes without a price, Max. Does it?
Hyde
Hyde is awakened roughly by a fierce banging sound. It is incessant, and won't stop... and there's moaning. He knows what that means, obviously. He isn't stupid.
Finally, he can take no more. Bolting upright in bed, he turns on a lamp... And there's Fez. Fucking his mom. They both turn and grin at him. Perhaps, they even wave cheerily as they continue their copulation. And, the worst part? He's really turned on by it.
Wait, now Kelso is there. That could be the worst part. "You want me to take care of that for ya, Hyde?" he grins. Yup, this is definitely the worst part. Kelso reaches down, stroking and caressing Hyde's package, as Fez and Hyde's Mom offer words of encouragement (punctuated with moans and groans, of course) and unzips Hyde's pants, only to find... there's nothing there at all. It's smooth and blank, like a Ken doll.
They all laugh. And then Forman and Donna and Jackie and Red and EVERYONE he has ever known, Shady and Chiana and a countless number of girls, they're all there, staring and glaring and laughing at Hyde and his utter lack of penis.
Alanna
The tomb is dark and still. Behind you the door is sealed shut by a slab of rock the palace servants placed there. Before you, on a granite block, lies the body of --
No, you think desperately, you've had this dream --
-- but you haven't, have you?
It's not Roger at all.
His eyes snap open; you step back, your heart thudding. He asks, "Still here, then?"
It isn't a question.
"Come closer."
But you retort, "Of course I'm still here," so he comes to you instead.
He wants to know, "What are you waiting for?"
"Waiting -- I miss you."
"And I miss you. But you don't belong here," he says.
"Neither do you."
"Don't I?"
He takes your hand, presses it to his silent heart. "You see? Be patient."
There are tears in your eyes, you're choking back laughter. "I think we both know I never have been much for patience."
His eyes are cold, rational. "I suppose so. But I can't come back to you."
"That's why I'm here."
The tone of his voice shifts, softening, almost like --
No.
It's not that dream.
"Do you mean that?"
"Of course."
"You'd do that?"
"Of course, I -- " you frown, "I don't know what you mean. Explain it to me."
"I can't. There are rules, you know."
"No," you insist, "I don't know. Rules and I --"
A half-smile. "I know. I can show you, if you like."
"If I -- don't be ridiculous, of course I want to understand."
"Do you? Do you really?"
"Yes."
"Say it again."
"Yes."
He brings your hand to his lips, kisses it and lets go, running his fingers through your hair. "I love you."
"I love you."
(There's no flash of light, no glint of steel, only a sick-sweet moment spliced by his dagger shoving up and under your ribs, angling after your heart -- )
Thom pulls you to him, smiling, tender. "Of course you do."
Angel
It's Europe, and the bodies of his victims surround him. Wiping a trail of blood from his mouth with a thumb, he grins, fangs glinting. Darla is petting his hair, telling him what a good boy he is.
Familiar words that send chills down his spine cause him to turn. Willow is standing there, dressed in gypsy clothes, chanting, a glass globe in her hands. Rushing at her, fangs bared, he realizes that he's too late as he feels his soul return, feels all the guilt. He collapses to his knees, trying to catch the breath he doesn't need. The hand is back, still petting his hair. "Mmm... my boy... my precious boy. Look what you've done."
He looks up at those words, although he doesn't want to. No longer Europe, it's now Milliways. His victims are no longer faceless people. Alanna. Meg. Val. Faith. Dawn.
And Buffy. She lies right in front of him, blood caking her throat and shirt. Her dead eyes stare at him, accusingly.
He stares back, aghast about what he’s done. Darla leans down, whispering in his ear.
"That's what you get for fucking the Slayer.”
Indiana Jones
The children are looking at you.
They’re waiting for you to free them. They know you’re the one; you’ve come to save them from the mines and take them back to their families, and there they are, with big enormous eyes, they’ve been working hard for God knows how long and they stand there with their skinny, malnourished limbs dangling and their distended bellies, the most pitiful sight you ever saw -
And then, to the side, you see the glimmer of gold.
The Grail, the Ark, the Cross, the Crystal - they’re all there, shining, laid out for you. Fortune and glory, spread out for the taking.
But taking the artifacts means leaving the children. Maybe you can save one - just one - only one, and Meg’s blue eyes and Short Round’s snub nose and Anthy’s purple hair beckon to you and how do you choose -
Well, it’s no choice really, is it? You take what will be of use. You take Marion, fourteen-year-old Marion, and she’s not fourteen yet, but Marion as she might have looked at ten, or twelve, or eight, but either way, she’ll do; grab Marion, grab the gold, and run like hell, as hundred’s of children’s voices cry out in realization that they’re being abandoned, cry out “No time for love, Doctor Jones!” and “All you care about is your damn fortune and glory” and “Father! Why are you leaving me, FATHER!” and that one’s your own voice, and at that you turn around, you’ll look back for yourself -
and they’re all burning as molten gold pours over them, all burning, the smell of their roasting flesh fills the air and one of them cries, his voice barely recognizable as Hyde’s, “Maybe if I was golden you would have saved me, man, you would have saved me then -“
Maybe you would have. Maybe you would have. But it’s too late now, and so you run off, artifacts shoved in a sack and Marion tucked under your arm (or is she Alanna, tiny Alanna, so small she could be a boy - or a child - or is she Rory, and does it matter? What matters is she’s a body and she’s yours) and once you know you’re safe you bend her down and look into her eyes and prepare to release your adrenalin the best way you know how, and as you see your reflection in her large frightened eyes with your white beard and your glasses you realize you have left yourself behind after all.
Mmmkay. About half the above wanted no credit, so we'll leave it at "Madb wrote none of those"