WIP meme
When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y. gacked from astolat.
I'm limiting myself here to fics I actually plan to someday finish and aren't already almost there, because otherwise we'll be here all night.
Heroes/Fantastic Four
His eyes snapped open and to her, and she hadn't thought it possible but he paled even further. "You see me?" he whispered, his voice colored by an English accent. She couldn't imagine why, but this seemed to shake him even more than almost being crushed by an airborne Chrysler. "How can you see me?"
"Of course I see you," she said. He'd recovered his feet and was already backing away, his eyes darting around like he was picking out possible escape routes. "Why wouldn't I see you? And how can you see me?"
That brought him up short; he tipped his head to the side, looking at her, and Sue took the chance to also get back to her feet. Before she was even fully vertical she heard him curse; when she glanced back she saw him staring horror-struck at the sky. When she followed his gaze, she saw why: another car hurtling towards the ground --- and them.
He took a step to run, but she reached out a hand to stop him. "There's no time. Stay behind me." The car was perhaps forty feet above them and getting distressingly larger every second. "I have this."
She took a deep breath and felt the familiar tingle down her arms as she created a force field to catch the car --- and just in time, too. The impact staggered her backwards but the field held. She created a second force field to under the car to hold it up until she could figure out what to with it; at the same time, she heard him laugh. "'Course. You're one of the them." He laughed again, and she could hear the relief in his voice. "The invisible one. Now it makes sense."
Sweat trickled down her neck from the strain of hold two thousand pounds of metal airborne, but she spared a second to glance at him over her shoulder. "You didn't know?"
"I was wonderin' why you were dressed like that."
Torchwood/Doctor Who
About fifteen feet away in the center of the room a light shimmered. Jack knew that if he had any other job title he could just write it off to exhaustion, but working at Torchwood and living over the Rift never let it be that easy. Still, any distraction was welcome at that point, and Jack put off sounding the alarm as the light lengthened into a long, glowing slit suspended in the air. It slowly widened, and Jack's statistics-numbed brain tumbled to the realization of shit, portal as second too late, and a figure stepped out.
Well, stumbled out, to be perfectly accurate. Jack saw a young, female form, a cloud of golden hair, and felt his heart clench up in his chest.
Then she turned around, and Rose flashed him her 1000-watt grin. "Hello, Jack," she said, sounding very pleased with herself. "Didja miss me?"
Heroes, Peter/Claude (eventually)
He'd been invisible, of course, but even if he hadn't been a researcher's clumsy slip with the scalpel had left the girl blind weeks before. The Company eventually determined that her ability gave her a kind of tremor sense; she could track the movement of everyone in the building. Claude hadn't known that then, and the girl's sightless eyes picking him out from nothing had sent a shiver through him.
"The man told me that if I was a good girl everything would be all right." Her voice was high and clear in the empty room.
Claude stayed silent. Bennet went soft with the girls, and it wasn't Claude's job to prop up his lies.
The next time she spoke, her voice trembled for the first time since they'd brought her in. "Sir," she said, "D'ye think if I'm very good, will they leave my brother alone?"
Someone must have let slip that abilities were known to run in families.
Milly's brother was eight.
Sometime after that Claude found himself visiting the Odessa bridge in the middle of the night. The chasm felt like an invitation.
Five Things Jack Harkness X-Over Fic
Jack had plenty of experience with having a gun pointed his way, but this had to be the first time someone had threatened him with a shotgun in one arm and a baby in the other.
Torchwood/BTVS
Jack brought the bottle back on the table hard than he'd intended; not only did she not flinch, she traced her finger along the mouth of the bottle and licked the last, lingering drop of scotch from her fingertip.
What the hell. He was drunk enough that anything he said was unbelievable anyway. And it was a very tight dress. "Fine. I'm actually a time traveler from the 51st century. Happy?"
He expected her to laugh, or roll her eyes. Instead, she cocked her head to side, studying him, then reached out, stole his shot and drained it. "Yeah?" she said. "I have the mystical power to slay vampires."
Heroes, 5YG
He loses an entire day. When he finally comes to, his head's pounding, the room is trashed and Niki is staring at him hollow-eyed. She shies away when he tries to touch her; it takes a while to get from her what happened, what he did, but finally she says that he was up all night "talking to ghosts." She won't say anything else about it, and Peter has a moment of panic, of Oh God, she knows, before he reads her mind and reassures himself that his secret's still safe. When she leaves for her shift a few minutes later, he sinks down on the bed and thinks about how lucky he was to have dodge the bullet, because he knows which ghost it was, and that if he was going to confess his sins to anyone, it would be to Claude.
Heroes, Peter/Claude
Seven years is a long time. Long enough for it to be a novelty to feel Pete's eyes following him, to know the kid was watching him, looking at him, even if Pete was looking at him like he wanted to kill him more often than not.
Claude had been working him hard for the past few hours, not that they were getting anywhere. Oh, Pete would show flashes, but nothing consistent, nothing controlled, nothing useful. It was getting to the point where Claude was convinced that being pitched off the roof was the only thing that got through to him.
Doctor Who
Rose was drowning. She'd never really had much fear of drowning, so this was peaceful compared to some of the other things she'd felt so far. Just floating, muted and numb. There were things above, terrible things, but nothing could touch her. If she let her mind go, they all just faded into grey shadows. Every so often, though, she heard a sound --- an echo of a sound --- a man screaming. The sound was knives, flashing steel and sharp edges, all coming at her. The sound was real. It made her try to swim up, reach the surface, but no matter how hard she tried she slipped further down into the endless grey nothing. The drowning wasn't even the worst of it; the worst was hearing the echo of that scream and knowing there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.
After a slow eternity Rose felt something tug at her. She drifted like a leaf falling upwards; only when she felt the sharp touch of the surface threatening did she shy away. The force was relentless, guiding her back gently but inexorably, and Rose recognized that whatever was happening, wherever this was taking her, at least it was real. She used the last of her strength to grab hold of it and let it pull her away.
Sound came first. She heard the thrum of machinery in a room, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Then touch came back; she felt cool, smooth metal under her head and realized she must be lying on the floor. She forced her eyes open; even the dim light in the room hurt, and it took a moment to try again. "Careful," she heard, a familiar voice. "Don't rush it."
She opened her eyes again and forced the hazy image into focus. Jack was crouching over her with his matinee grin, somehow managing to look both relived and put out. "Rose, that's just not fair. Sleeping Beauty's supposed to wait for the prince to kiss her before she wakes up."
Rose heard her laugh choke into a sob partway through. She could still hear that scream. "Oh, Jack," she whispered. "They're hurting him."
The smile slipped away, and the expression that settled on Jack's face was one she'd never seen before. Jack had worked very hard that day they'd met to convince her and the Doctor that he was a very bad man. Rose hadn't believed it then, and still didn't; this expression, though, was one of a man capable of doing very bad things. "Tell me where."
I'm limiting myself here to fics I actually plan to someday finish and aren't already almost there, because otherwise we'll be here all night.
Heroes/Fantastic Four
His eyes snapped open and to her, and she hadn't thought it possible but he paled even further. "You see me?" he whispered, his voice colored by an English accent. She couldn't imagine why, but this seemed to shake him even more than almost being crushed by an airborne Chrysler. "How can you see me?"
"Of course I see you," she said. He'd recovered his feet and was already backing away, his eyes darting around like he was picking out possible escape routes. "Why wouldn't I see you? And how can you see me?"
That brought him up short; he tipped his head to the side, looking at her, and Sue took the chance to also get back to her feet. Before she was even fully vertical she heard him curse; when she glanced back she saw him staring horror-struck at the sky. When she followed his gaze, she saw why: another car hurtling towards the ground --- and them.
He took a step to run, but she reached out a hand to stop him. "There's no time. Stay behind me." The car was perhaps forty feet above them and getting distressingly larger every second. "I have this."
She took a deep breath and felt the familiar tingle down her arms as she created a force field to catch the car --- and just in time, too. The impact staggered her backwards but the field held. She created a second force field to under the car to hold it up until she could figure out what to with it; at the same time, she heard him laugh. "'Course. You're one of the them." He laughed again, and she could hear the relief in his voice. "The invisible one. Now it makes sense."
Sweat trickled down her neck from the strain of hold two thousand pounds of metal airborne, but she spared a second to glance at him over her shoulder. "You didn't know?"
"I was wonderin' why you were dressed like that."
Torchwood/Doctor Who
About fifteen feet away in the center of the room a light shimmered. Jack knew that if he had any other job title he could just write it off to exhaustion, but working at Torchwood and living over the Rift never let it be that easy. Still, any distraction was welcome at that point, and Jack put off sounding the alarm as the light lengthened into a long, glowing slit suspended in the air. It slowly widened, and Jack's statistics-numbed brain tumbled to the realization of shit, portal as second too late, and a figure stepped out.
Well, stumbled out, to be perfectly accurate. Jack saw a young, female form, a cloud of golden hair, and felt his heart clench up in his chest.
Then she turned around, and Rose flashed him her 1000-watt grin. "Hello, Jack," she said, sounding very pleased with herself. "Didja miss me?"
Heroes, Peter/Claude (eventually)
He'd been invisible, of course, but even if he hadn't been a researcher's clumsy slip with the scalpel had left the girl blind weeks before. The Company eventually determined that her ability gave her a kind of tremor sense; she could track the movement of everyone in the building. Claude hadn't known that then, and the girl's sightless eyes picking him out from nothing had sent a shiver through him.
"The man told me that if I was a good girl everything would be all right." Her voice was high and clear in the empty room.
Claude stayed silent. Bennet went soft with the girls, and it wasn't Claude's job to prop up his lies.
The next time she spoke, her voice trembled for the first time since they'd brought her in. "Sir," she said, "D'ye think if I'm very good, will they leave my brother alone?"
Someone must have let slip that abilities were known to run in families.
Milly's brother was eight.
Sometime after that Claude found himself visiting the Odessa bridge in the middle of the night. The chasm felt like an invitation.
Five Things Jack Harkness X-Over Fic
Jack had plenty of experience with having a gun pointed his way, but this had to be the first time someone had threatened him with a shotgun in one arm and a baby in the other.
Torchwood/BTVS
Jack brought the bottle back on the table hard than he'd intended; not only did she not flinch, she traced her finger along the mouth of the bottle and licked the last, lingering drop of scotch from her fingertip.
What the hell. He was drunk enough that anything he said was unbelievable anyway. And it was a very tight dress. "Fine. I'm actually a time traveler from the 51st century. Happy?"
He expected her to laugh, or roll her eyes. Instead, she cocked her head to side, studying him, then reached out, stole his shot and drained it. "Yeah?" she said. "I have the mystical power to slay vampires."
Heroes, 5YG
He loses an entire day. When he finally comes to, his head's pounding, the room is trashed and Niki is staring at him hollow-eyed. She shies away when he tries to touch her; it takes a while to get from her what happened, what he did, but finally she says that he was up all night "talking to ghosts." She won't say anything else about it, and Peter has a moment of panic, of Oh God, she knows, before he reads her mind and reassures himself that his secret's still safe. When she leaves for her shift a few minutes later, he sinks down on the bed and thinks about how lucky he was to have dodge the bullet, because he knows which ghost it was, and that if he was going to confess his sins to anyone, it would be to Claude.
Heroes, Peter/Claude
Seven years is a long time. Long enough for it to be a novelty to feel Pete's eyes following him, to know the kid was watching him, looking at him, even if Pete was looking at him like he wanted to kill him more often than not.
Claude had been working him hard for the past few hours, not that they were getting anywhere. Oh, Pete would show flashes, but nothing consistent, nothing controlled, nothing useful. It was getting to the point where Claude was convinced that being pitched off the roof was the only thing that got through to him.
Doctor Who
Rose was drowning. She'd never really had much fear of drowning, so this was peaceful compared to some of the other things she'd felt so far. Just floating, muted and numb. There were things above, terrible things, but nothing could touch her. If she let her mind go, they all just faded into grey shadows. Every so often, though, she heard a sound --- an echo of a sound --- a man screaming. The sound was knives, flashing steel and sharp edges, all coming at her. The sound was real. It made her try to swim up, reach the surface, but no matter how hard she tried she slipped further down into the endless grey nothing. The drowning wasn't even the worst of it; the worst was hearing the echo of that scream and knowing there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.
After a slow eternity Rose felt something tug at her. She drifted like a leaf falling upwards; only when she felt the sharp touch of the surface threatening did she shy away. The force was relentless, guiding her back gently but inexorably, and Rose recognized that whatever was happening, wherever this was taking her, at least it was real. She used the last of her strength to grab hold of it and let it pull her away.
Sound came first. She heard the thrum of machinery in a room, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Then touch came back; she felt cool, smooth metal under her head and realized she must be lying on the floor. She forced her eyes open; even the dim light in the room hurt, and it took a moment to try again. "Careful," she heard, a familiar voice. "Don't rush it."
She opened her eyes again and forced the hazy image into focus. Jack was crouching over her with his matinee grin, somehow managing to look both relived and put out. "Rose, that's just not fair. Sleeping Beauty's supposed to wait for the prince to kiss her before she wakes up."
Rose heard her laugh choke into a sob partway through. She could still hear that scream. "Oh, Jack," she whispered. "They're hurting him."
The smile slipped away, and the expression that settled on Jack's face was one she'd never seen before. Jack had worked very hard that day they'd met to convince her and the Doctor that he was a very bad man. Rose hadn't believed it then, and still didn't; this expression, though, was one of a man capable of doing very bad things. "Tell me where."