fic-trade? untitled fanfiction piece, character exploration.
If there is anything that I enjoy so much about digging around Nadz's oniwanbashu dA gallery and scraps is that the sketches she puts up always manages to whisper half-stories to me. :) These half-stories, btw, are things that I would like nothing more than to explore, even if only in part.
This is the first of two fics which I am offering up in trade for art.
For Jace Zayden (TransHuman Jazz) and Sarah Chase (TransHuman SteepleChase, ofc by ~chibijaime)
Inspired by the numerous sketches on both oniwanbashu and ~chibijaime dA pages. Any mistakes made are my own, since I was just playing around with the information provided, and had to make a couple of modifications after I couldn't figure out a way for the whole panic room. I hope this is okay though.
You've lost count of how many times this scene has played out: you, flat on your stomach with the back of your head stinging from yet another bump; the result of jerking away from tiny hands intent on clawing at your face.
She looks like a feral kitten, suspicious and guarded. The kind you're cautioned never to touch, the kind you see once and never again because there's no true connection to concern yourself over.
But the child huddled with the wide, cornered eyes is not an it, not a wild creature stranded on the side of the road. Her name is Sarah, and that is the name you gave her over a year ago.
He breathes deeply to get his bearings, to slow the spin of the world, to calm his heart, one trembling hand taking far too long to turn the faucet knob. He imagines all sense of coherence is sliding down the steel drain with the vomit that clumps, which in a moment of morbid whimsicality, seems to do so as if attempting to return to what they had been prior to consumption.
Instinctively, he flips the switch between the tiles, triggering a whir that brings to mind a tunnel of sharpened knives that shred things beyond recognition. He does not expect the scream that dissolves into keening sobs, the sound of flesh banging on wood followed by shattering glass, the small doors meant to conceal the pipes underneath bursting open so violently his first thought is of a frantic animal, breaking free from the stomach of a predator that had swallowed it whole.
You regard each other in silence and you reach out again, the cold of the floor pressed against your cheek, palm upturned as if to offer all that has been taken away. "Sweetheart," you're not sure if she understands, so you place all your hopes on the tone of your voice, praying that the sound of it will translate the plea, Come here, please. You're scaring me too.
But she doesn't move, remaining still in that far dark under her bed, knees drawn up against her chest and head curling inwards, fetus-like. "Sarah," you call out, the words soft and shuddering as you hear the little sounds that prick needles all over your heart.
You don't know what to do. What in the world can you do?
It takes him several minutes before the throbbing in his shins subside, the impact having prompted hot tears to sting the backs of his eyes. He doesn't know who exactly it was that bolted away, only that he is certain that it is human. He knows this fact based on the smudges of blood on the tiles that are shaped in the form of tiny footprints.
He follows the trail with an urgency spurred on by an image of a faceless child. Never mind where the child came from, never mind that he or she should not be in this house.
He slows in his step when he realizes that the prints are headed towards that room.
You pull yourself together, moving back until back meets wall and something inside just caves. You don't know the first thing about raising a child, don't think you have what it takes, but she's your responsibility now and damned if you won't try to do right by her.
But you haven't had sleep, thanks to the graveyard shift you've chosen so that you can spend your mornings with her. The one you chose because it brings in a little bit of extra for you to make sure that on top of bills and food, you can buy her clothes that are not only functional, but aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
But when all you've had is six hours total over the last four days, you can only hold out for so long before you yourself want to rage and lash out It's not fair, none of this is fair. Someone murdered your father, the man who raised you as his own, who apparently took her in too -- and for what? You don't even know.
She keens little small whines of pain while clinging to the corpse of a man who had been larger than life. She says nothing, no words, no articulation of 'Daddy please, Daddy, wake up', but by the way her hands tremble when they skim over blank, open eyes, the way she lifts the large, limp hand to her tiny head, the dead weight of it making the task far more difficult, he already knows that she is possibly the only one in the world who might understand the grief that numbs him.
When he moves to her, falling to one knee behind her, the first scratch across his cheek is made by fingernails that have been chewed on too much that there is hardly anything left except scabs where blood had flowed. It stings, that scratch, but he pays it no mind and remains firm, pulling her tight to his chest to keep here there, as if to hide her from the world.
"Shhh, shhhh," He finds himself involuntarily humming the first tune that comes to mind, nevermind lyrics or context. She struggles until the fight goes out of her, until she realizes that he is not holding too tight to bruise, just enough to keep her still and safe and warm.
It takes you awhile to realize that she's finally spoken something other than the gibberish that she's regressed to. That she's finally out from under the bed, tiny hands clinging to your forearm, giving the image of her hanging off the edge of some frightening cliff.
Her mouth forms it flimsily, but you recognize your name. She repeats it, mouth bobbing like that of a fish out of water, her expression so earnest it all but wrenches your heart from you.
"Oh honey," you bundle her up in your arms. It's a start, you think. It's a start.
This is the first of two fics which I am offering up in trade for art.
For Jace Zayden (TransHuman Jazz) and Sarah Chase (TransHuman SteepleChase, ofc by ~chibijaime)
Inspired by the numerous sketches on both oniwanbashu and ~chibijaime dA pages. Any mistakes made are my own, since I was just playing around with the information provided, and had to make a couple of modifications after I couldn't figure out a way for the whole panic room. I hope this is okay though.
You've lost count of how many times this scene has played out: you, flat on your stomach with the back of your head stinging from yet another bump; the result of jerking away from tiny hands intent on clawing at your face.
She looks like a feral kitten, suspicious and guarded. The kind you're cautioned never to touch, the kind you see once and never again because there's no true connection to concern yourself over.
But the child huddled with the wide, cornered eyes is not an it, not a wild creature stranded on the side of the road. Her name is Sarah, and that is the name you gave her over a year ago.
He breathes deeply to get his bearings, to slow the spin of the world, to calm his heart, one trembling hand taking far too long to turn the faucet knob. He imagines all sense of coherence is sliding down the steel drain with the vomit that clumps, which in a moment of morbid whimsicality, seems to do so as if attempting to return to what they had been prior to consumption.
Instinctively, he flips the switch between the tiles, triggering a whir that brings to mind a tunnel of sharpened knives that shred things beyond recognition. He does not expect the scream that dissolves into keening sobs, the sound of flesh banging on wood followed by shattering glass, the small doors meant to conceal the pipes underneath bursting open so violently his first thought is of a frantic animal, breaking free from the stomach of a predator that had swallowed it whole.
You regard each other in silence and you reach out again, the cold of the floor pressed against your cheek, palm upturned as if to offer all that has been taken away. "Sweetheart," you're not sure if she understands, so you place all your hopes on the tone of your voice, praying that the sound of it will translate the plea, Come here, please. You're scaring me too.
But she doesn't move, remaining still in that far dark under her bed, knees drawn up against her chest and head curling inwards, fetus-like. "Sarah," you call out, the words soft and shuddering as you hear the little sounds that prick needles all over your heart.
You don't know what to do. What in the world can you do?
It takes him several minutes before the throbbing in his shins subside, the impact having prompted hot tears to sting the backs of his eyes. He doesn't know who exactly it was that bolted away, only that he is certain that it is human. He knows this fact based on the smudges of blood on the tiles that are shaped in the form of tiny footprints.
He follows the trail with an urgency spurred on by an image of a faceless child. Never mind where the child came from, never mind that he or she should not be in this house.
He slows in his step when he realizes that the prints are headed towards that room.
You pull yourself together, moving back until back meets wall and something inside just caves. You don't know the first thing about raising a child, don't think you have what it takes, but she's your responsibility now and damned if you won't try to do right by her.
But you haven't had sleep, thanks to the graveyard shift you've chosen so that you can spend your mornings with her. The one you chose because it brings in a little bit of extra for you to make sure that on top of bills and food, you can buy her clothes that are not only functional, but aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
But when all you've had is six hours total over the last four days, you can only hold out for so long before you yourself want to rage and lash out It's not fair, none of this is fair. Someone murdered your father, the man who raised you as his own, who apparently took her in too -- and for what? You don't even know.
She keens little small whines of pain while clinging to the corpse of a man who had been larger than life. She says nothing, no words, no articulation of 'Daddy please, Daddy, wake up', but by the way her hands tremble when they skim over blank, open eyes, the way she lifts the large, limp hand to her tiny head, the dead weight of it making the task far more difficult, he already knows that she is possibly the only one in the world who might understand the grief that numbs him.
When he moves to her, falling to one knee behind her, the first scratch across his cheek is made by fingernails that have been chewed on too much that there is hardly anything left except scabs where blood had flowed. It stings, that scratch, but he pays it no mind and remains firm, pulling her tight to his chest to keep here there, as if to hide her from the world.
"Shhh, shhhh," He finds himself involuntarily humming the first tune that comes to mind, nevermind lyrics or context. She struggles until the fight goes out of her, until she realizes that he is not holding too tight to bruise, just enough to keep her still and safe and warm.
It takes you awhile to realize that she's finally spoken something other than the gibberish that she's regressed to. That she's finally out from under the bed, tiny hands clinging to your forearm, giving the image of her hanging off the edge of some frightening cliff.
Her mouth forms it flimsily, but you recognize your name. She repeats it, mouth bobbing like that of a fish out of water, her expression so earnest it all but wrenches your heart from you.
"Oh honey," you bundle her up in your arms. It's a start, you think. It's a start.