One of these axels is better than the other.
Seriously, there was only going to be one post tonight, but the thing that was supposed to be the ficlet post turned into the TV schedule post. So, here's the ficlet post.
For lannamichaels, Evan/Stephane, based very very very loosely on Easter, 1916, by William Butler Yeats. Not quite porn but fairly sex-focused; more stylistic experimentation than usual.
You can hardly look at each other during competitions. When there's a medal at stake, you're not lovers or even friends. You're rivals, and no matter how it turns out, one of you is going to end up ranked higher than the other. You jog up and down the cinderblock hallways, warming up, and you nod at each other like strangers. Like enemies. If you meet each other's eyes for more than a second, you will tear each other's clothes off or you will tear each other limb from limb. Neither of you wants to find out which. People look at you, you slender boys with soft hands, and they laugh when you say the testosterone runs high as you wait for your turn to skate. It's true that this isn't the same as a football match or a hockey game. You don't lie when you claim that your toughest competitor is yourself. But you are also skating to be better than them, to be better than him, and if the killing rage doesn't rise you know your jumps won't either.
You watch him on the monitors before you skate or after, and you are watching him for strategy. For a moment, you let yourself remember those arms, those legs, that ass, the way they feel when they have stopped spinning, when they are rough and pale under your body. When you go out to skate, you don't think of him, don't think of anything. It's not until you're taking your bows and waving your newest stuffed toy in the air that you let yourself think, it's over, you can be in love with him again. Everyone else will think you're smiling because you're pleased with your performance, but there is a minute in there when they will be wrong and you will be thinking of nothing else but how good his dick will taste in your mouth tonight.
On the bus back to the hotel, you don't sit together. Maybe he will let a smile slip in your direction. You hope he'll blow off the fans at the door and follow you upstairs, because you will not see him again for at least a month and you want him under you, over you, up against the wall, next to you with his arms around your waist and his head against your chest, winning you.
*
For ariestess, Willow, distantly based on this Sappho fragment. Post-series.
In the courtyard behind her house, Willow buries another goldfish. She named this one Gracie. It looked like a Gracie, with the spots and the fluttery tail. Well, it made sense to her. There aren't that many names you can give a goldfish. Someday soon, she's going to run out of goldfish names and have to start repeating. That seems like an insult: an erasure of those fragile fish souls, telling them flat out that they're not special enough to have a name to themselves. Maybe she'll start using one of those Fantasy Name Generators on the internet. Raven Eveningblossom would be a great name for a goldfish.
Goldfish heaven has to be crowded. She imagines all her former goldfish, starting with Bubbles who died when she was six. They get a pond all to themselves with castles and aquarium plants at the bottom, and there's always more fish flakes than they can eat. It's not too difficult to give paradise to a goldfish. They have simple, tiny, swimmy souls.
Willow wonders who feeds the fish in heaven. Maybe it's automated. But she likes to think it's a job for someone. For a bunch of people, so they can feel like they are doing something important, but they won't have to do work that is hard or unpleasant. It would be boring in heaven with no sense of purpose, and how cool would it be to say, "I am the angel in charge of feeding the fish"?
It would be a good job for Tara. She'd carry the fish flakes in a basket over her shoulder, and she'd greet every fish by name. "Here's food for Bubbles, and Frankie, and Gill, and Princess Arabella Maria Gloriosa, and Goldie, and oh -- you're new, aren't you? Well, you'll like it here, Gracie. You'll like it a lot."
Willow pats down the earth over Gracie's inert body. The grave marker will disappear soon enough, blown away by the wind or turned under by the lawnmower. Willow goes inside and lights incense, sending wisps of smoke up into the sky, all the way to fish heaven.
For lannamichaels, Evan/Stephane, based very very very loosely on Easter, 1916, by William Butler Yeats. Not quite porn but fairly sex-focused; more stylistic experimentation than usual.
You can hardly look at each other during competitions. When there's a medal at stake, you're not lovers or even friends. You're rivals, and no matter how it turns out, one of you is going to end up ranked higher than the other. You jog up and down the cinderblock hallways, warming up, and you nod at each other like strangers. Like enemies. If you meet each other's eyes for more than a second, you will tear each other's clothes off or you will tear each other limb from limb. Neither of you wants to find out which. People look at you, you slender boys with soft hands, and they laugh when you say the testosterone runs high as you wait for your turn to skate. It's true that this isn't the same as a football match or a hockey game. You don't lie when you claim that your toughest competitor is yourself. But you are also skating to be better than them, to be better than him, and if the killing rage doesn't rise you know your jumps won't either.
You watch him on the monitors before you skate or after, and you are watching him for strategy. For a moment, you let yourself remember those arms, those legs, that ass, the way they feel when they have stopped spinning, when they are rough and pale under your body. When you go out to skate, you don't think of him, don't think of anything. It's not until you're taking your bows and waving your newest stuffed toy in the air that you let yourself think, it's over, you can be in love with him again. Everyone else will think you're smiling because you're pleased with your performance, but there is a minute in there when they will be wrong and you will be thinking of nothing else but how good his dick will taste in your mouth tonight.
On the bus back to the hotel, you don't sit together. Maybe he will let a smile slip in your direction. You hope he'll blow off the fans at the door and follow you upstairs, because you will not see him again for at least a month and you want him under you, over you, up against the wall, next to you with his arms around your waist and his head against your chest, winning you.
*
For ariestess, Willow, distantly based on this Sappho fragment. Post-series.
In the courtyard behind her house, Willow buries another goldfish. She named this one Gracie. It looked like a Gracie, with the spots and the fluttery tail. Well, it made sense to her. There aren't that many names you can give a goldfish. Someday soon, she's going to run out of goldfish names and have to start repeating. That seems like an insult: an erasure of those fragile fish souls, telling them flat out that they're not special enough to have a name to themselves. Maybe she'll start using one of those Fantasy Name Generators on the internet. Raven Eveningblossom would be a great name for a goldfish.
Goldfish heaven has to be crowded. She imagines all her former goldfish, starting with Bubbles who died when she was six. They get a pond all to themselves with castles and aquarium plants at the bottom, and there's always more fish flakes than they can eat. It's not too difficult to give paradise to a goldfish. They have simple, tiny, swimmy souls.
Willow wonders who feeds the fish in heaven. Maybe it's automated. But she likes to think it's a job for someone. For a bunch of people, so they can feel like they are doing something important, but they won't have to do work that is hard or unpleasant. It would be boring in heaven with no sense of purpose, and how cool would it be to say, "I am the angel in charge of feeding the fish"?
It would be a good job for Tara. She'd carry the fish flakes in a basket over her shoulder, and she'd greet every fish by name. "Here's food for Bubbles, and Frankie, and Gill, and Princess Arabella Maria Gloriosa, and Goldie, and oh -- you're new, aren't you? Well, you'll like it here, Gracie. You'll like it a lot."
Willow pats down the earth over Gracie's inert body. The grave marker will disappear soon enough, blown away by the wind or turned under by the lawnmower. Willow goes inside and lights incense, sending wisps of smoke up into the sky, all the way to fish heaven.