WIP Meme Redux
Ganked from steals_thyme
1.
Laurie ran her fingers through the envelope of confiscated belongings, nearly screaming with relief when she touched the transmitter. She mentally thanked Kovacs for buying a secondhand piece of junk no officer would think was important enough to scan or petulantly break.
“Miss Isham, we are more than happy to re-install your daughter’s hardware right now. Please allow us to begin making reparations for our most regrettable mistake by - ”
“You butchers will not be coming anywhere near my daughter!”
“In any case, gentlemen and ladies, I have just been informed that this doctor no longer has a licence to practice anywhere on earth or its stratosphere, and is facing an 8 am review board with her corporation, then arrest. So, unless you are planning to fly both her and my dear friend to Mars to complete the work just now…”
Nervous titters. The most powerful man in the world always got a laugh, even from those with his boot treads deepening on their faces. Her mother’s arm tightened around her shoulders.
“Is everything there, sweetie? I’ve got your eyes right here, and only the best surgeon is going to touch them.”
“Nearly everything, Mom.” She raised her voice. “I believe I had a marital aid, a Hitachi happy fun ball?”
“Oh, Laurie,” Sally sighed. “I told you I’m broadcasting live…”
2.
“Where do I tell you I met him?” she asks.
Her life has been a little too easy since she had that chat with Dan about temporal causality.
He gives her an address without turning away from his work, which currently consists of making infinitely small allen keys waltz thoughtfully between his outstretched hands. It’s a pretty show, and will probably end world hunger, eventually, somehow.
“Do you mind…?” She sets her bundle on the table in front of him: clothes, sensible flats, coat, beret, pillowcase. He could probably change anything into what she requires - she suddenly pictures herself dragging in a urinal, for that classic dada touch - or even pinch the raw subatomic material from the particles surrounding them, leaving the lab’s integral reality just that much thinner - but she tells herself it’s more thoughtful to provide something that won’t tax the conservation of local matter and energy overmuch.
A flash of blue that windlessly ruffles her hair, and it’s done.
“Thanks, Jon.” She gathers her night’s gamble into her arms and turns to go, telling herself she didn’t deliberately pick an evening her lover would be particularly absorbed in whatever it was he did that earned them a windowless luxury suite and their own permanent SWAT garrison.
“Be careful,” he says, but she takes heart that he doesn’t seem truly concerned, even as she reminds herself it doesn’t work that way.
3.
She took him in hand, stroking from root to tip.
Benny arched into her touch, rocking to the slow rhythm she set. After a long minute, he stilled suddenly. “Ah, baby? I been on the bench a long time here. You keep this up, I might strike out without a run around the bases, you dig?”
“No,” she warned. “You won’t.”
“Okay,” Benny gulped and breathed deeply, nostrils flaring.
Breaking down a minigun, Boone thought helpfully. Strip it, clean and oil every part, and put it back together again. That had always worked for him. He nearly broke in to suggest it, but realised Benny was unlikely to be familiar with anything larger than a submachine gun.
4.
They manage to travel almost six blocks before Jericho brings doom upon them again. Rorschach consults his map, then turns on his Pip-boy radio, hoping to hear Three Dog report on Father again.
The pigs are the snootiest
The owls are the hootiest
The plants the fruitiest
The stars the shootiest…
Jericho grabs his arm. “You get der Bingle on that thing? Turn it up!”
Rorschach slaps his hand away from the screen. “Doesn’t go any louder.”
Undeterred, Jericho bellows along to the tune:
“Don’t know why I left the homestead
I really must confess
I’m a weary exile, singing my song of loneliness!”
“HUMANS!”
“I’LL WEAR YOUR SPINE AROUND MY NECK!”
Rorschach nervously grips his sledgehammer as three giant yellow bodies barrel around the corner, two of them carrying assault rifles. “Have found your Super Mutants.”
Jericho grins, “This is what I’m talking about!”
Rorschach doesn’t wait for him to start shooting. The closest beast is holding something, pumping it triumphantly in his closed fist before flinging it toward them. Frag grenade!
Rorschach swings his sledgehammer, and, miracle of miracles, knocks the metal pineapple aside moments before it explodes. He thinks it would have been a foul ball, but Mr Brotch is not here to umpire his performance.
5.
She rolled onto her side and found a half-full bottle, right where she’d left it, wedged between the pillows.
“In fact,” she teased, “I’m so damn forgiving I could kiss you - without getting drunk first.”
“Flatterer,” Patsy snorted. She wriggled up the mattress to lay her head on the pillow, flinging one arm over her kinky hair. “Don’t think you’re off the hook for dossing in my bed, by the way. You’ve made the sheets smell all…cowgirl-ish”
“You’re imagining things,” Cass replied. “Stealth-boy madness. It’s well documented. We’re actually lying in a Deathclaw nest.”
She took a sip of whiskey, for once not wanting to lose her thoughts to that sweet burn. They were good thoughts. She offered the bottle to Patsy, who only pouted and shifted her arm, cupping her chin like a painted cherub.
“Don’t I look kissable?” she whined, batting her short eyelashes.
“You look like you’ve got something in your eye,” Cass retorted.
“Damn,” Patsy grumbled, sitting up and kicking the bunched duvet to the floor. “Maybe Veronica’s on to something with her fancy-dress fetish. Or maybe I’ve never appealed to anyone who hasn’t tried to kill me.”
Cass rolled her eyes. “You know I can’t resist you when you’re pathetic.”
6.
Arcade rummaged in the boss’s minibar and offered Cass a 200-year-old potato chip. “Safety and supplies - what more does a wastelander need?”
Cass flopped on the bed. “Entertainment? I’m so bored I was tempted to go watch Veronica lose her shirt. Except I’d have been talked into bed with that loser Swank again, which would only kill five minutes, including the walk to his room.”
Arcade winced. “What is it with you women and Chairmen? Are they pumping aphrodisiacs into the Tops ventilation system?”
“Don’t men get horny when they’re bored? Man, this is a great bed.”
“Isn’t the stereotype that men are always horny?” Arcade replied, and tipped the last of the potato chips into his mouth. “Why would boredom be such a stimulant?”
“Maybe it’s evolutionary,” Cass mused.
“Now that’s a big word from such a little mouth.”
“Shut it,” Cass replied mildly. “What I mean is, your hormones realise you’ve gone an entire day without fighting for survival and decide this is the perfect time to pop out another generation of the human race. Quid pro quo.”
“I…don’t think that means what you think it means.”
“Ipso facto?”
“Please stop hurting the Latin. It’s done nothing to offend you.”
7.
Dan had first realised he was developing what his partner would call unnatural affections when he first offered, then insisted, Rorschach learn how to fly his pride and joy. He first suspected they might be returned when the reasoning that finally convinced Rorschach was: what if I’m incapacitated and you need to get me somewhere safe asap?
He spent those lessons watching leather-clad hands tentatively move over the controls and thinking how it would feel if they slammed him up against the hull - as they would if his partner ever noticed how Dan blushed, staring at those strong hands, or as they would if he noticed, and unlikeliest as all, liked it.
Like all fantasies, that one lacked a certain eroticism when finally acted out.
“How do you know that name?” his partner growled, slamming his head against the bulkhead again. Starbursts of light flashed in front of his eyes, bright as fireworks against the unlit interior. Dan clawed at the fingers digging into his throat and kicked, connecting with Walter’s injured knee.
The other man grunted at the sudden pain and listed sideways, struggling to stay upright. Nite Owl took over, punching the unprotected face until Walter released his throat and grabbed for his fists instead. He moved even as oxygen burned back into his lungs, trying to knee Walter in the groin. The smaller man blocked with his injured leg, grimacing at the jolt.
Dan listened to Nite Owl line up his next attack, sickened to hear himself think of every injury Rorschach had taken in their partnership and how to exploit those weak points. Walter had almost regained his footing and things were about to get much uglier when Dan kicked away from the hull and fell forward, grabbing Walter around the waist and dragging him to the floor.
“You just promised not to kill me!” he rasped before the other man could scramble to counter-attack. “There was going to be coffee.”
8.
“You think she’s a screamer? Hell, I bet she is. All that black leather, the way she acts like she’ll rip your balls off if you even look at that figure she’s showing off…you get past that, and she’ll goddamn deafen you, I bet.”
That little muscle in Nite Owl’s jawline was twitching again. Eddie watched it, not with glee or nastiness or anything else those old stuffed shirts would expect, but because there was nothing else to look at. Nothing moved in the street below them except a couple of moths battering against the street lamp, and he’d already been watching them for two hours while manfully attempting to hold up both ends of a conversation.
“That little whip she carries? That gives it away. It’s always they ones who act so cold and untouchable. When they melt, oh brother, it’s like a holocaust!”
Nite Owl sighed and pushed the corners of his mask into his sweaty face. It made Eddie’s own mask itch to watch it, and he gripped the railing of the fire escape to keep from fiddling with his own. Playing with it only made the spirit gum loosen up, make it more likely the damn thing would fall off in the middle of the action again.
“That’s not really an appropriate topic of conversation,” Nite Owl said.
Eddie forced himself to shrug nonchalantly, even though the older man’s schoolmarm tone rankled. “How ‘bout them Dodgers?” he asked, with only an edge of sarcasm.
Sheesh. I’m really bad at finishing things. And I haven't made a poll in forever!
Poll Any of these wild shots hitting a target?
At least this has forced me to actually find all these drafts and put them in my "current fic" folder. In other organisation news, I’ve finally made a master fic listing post. It all links to dreamwidth, because holy crap did that take forever, and my lj’s even tanglier.
1.
Laurie ran her fingers through the envelope of confiscated belongings, nearly screaming with relief when she touched the transmitter. She mentally thanked Kovacs for buying a secondhand piece of junk no officer would think was important enough to scan or petulantly break.
“Miss Isham, we are more than happy to re-install your daughter’s hardware right now. Please allow us to begin making reparations for our most regrettable mistake by - ”
“You butchers will not be coming anywhere near my daughter!”
“In any case, gentlemen and ladies, I have just been informed that this doctor no longer has a licence to practice anywhere on earth or its stratosphere, and is facing an 8 am review board with her corporation, then arrest. So, unless you are planning to fly both her and my dear friend to Mars to complete the work just now…”
Nervous titters. The most powerful man in the world always got a laugh, even from those with his boot treads deepening on their faces. Her mother’s arm tightened around her shoulders.
“Is everything there, sweetie? I’ve got your eyes right here, and only the best surgeon is going to touch them.”
“Nearly everything, Mom.” She raised her voice. “I believe I had a marital aid, a Hitachi happy fun ball?”
“Oh, Laurie,” Sally sighed. “I told you I’m broadcasting live…”
2.
“Where do I tell you I met him?” she asks.
Her life has been a little too easy since she had that chat with Dan about temporal causality.
He gives her an address without turning away from his work, which currently consists of making infinitely small allen keys waltz thoughtfully between his outstretched hands. It’s a pretty show, and will probably end world hunger, eventually, somehow.
“Do you mind…?” She sets her bundle on the table in front of him: clothes, sensible flats, coat, beret, pillowcase. He could probably change anything into what she requires - she suddenly pictures herself dragging in a urinal, for that classic dada touch - or even pinch the raw subatomic material from the particles surrounding them, leaving the lab’s integral reality just that much thinner - but she tells herself it’s more thoughtful to provide something that won’t tax the conservation of local matter and energy overmuch.
A flash of blue that windlessly ruffles her hair, and it’s done.
“Thanks, Jon.” She gathers her night’s gamble into her arms and turns to go, telling herself she didn’t deliberately pick an evening her lover would be particularly absorbed in whatever it was he did that earned them a windowless luxury suite and their own permanent SWAT garrison.
“Be careful,” he says, but she takes heart that he doesn’t seem truly concerned, even as she reminds herself it doesn’t work that way.
3.
She took him in hand, stroking from root to tip.
Benny arched into her touch, rocking to the slow rhythm she set. After a long minute, he stilled suddenly. “Ah, baby? I been on the bench a long time here. You keep this up, I might strike out without a run around the bases, you dig?”
“No,” she warned. “You won’t.”
“Okay,” Benny gulped and breathed deeply, nostrils flaring.
Breaking down a minigun, Boone thought helpfully. Strip it, clean and oil every part, and put it back together again. That had always worked for him. He nearly broke in to suggest it, but realised Benny was unlikely to be familiar with anything larger than a submachine gun.
4.
They manage to travel almost six blocks before Jericho brings doom upon them again. Rorschach consults his map, then turns on his Pip-boy radio, hoping to hear Three Dog report on Father again.
The pigs are the snootiest
The owls are the hootiest
The plants the fruitiest
The stars the shootiest…
Jericho grabs his arm. “You get der Bingle on that thing? Turn it up!”
Rorschach slaps his hand away from the screen. “Doesn’t go any louder.”
Undeterred, Jericho bellows along to the tune:
“Don’t know why I left the homestead
I really must confess
I’m a weary exile, singing my song of loneliness!”
“HUMANS!”
“I’LL WEAR YOUR SPINE AROUND MY NECK!”
Rorschach nervously grips his sledgehammer as three giant yellow bodies barrel around the corner, two of them carrying assault rifles. “Have found your Super Mutants.”
Jericho grins, “This is what I’m talking about!”
Rorschach doesn’t wait for him to start shooting. The closest beast is holding something, pumping it triumphantly in his closed fist before flinging it toward them. Frag grenade!
Rorschach swings his sledgehammer, and, miracle of miracles, knocks the metal pineapple aside moments before it explodes. He thinks it would have been a foul ball, but Mr Brotch is not here to umpire his performance.
5.
She rolled onto her side and found a half-full bottle, right where she’d left it, wedged between the pillows.
“In fact,” she teased, “I’m so damn forgiving I could kiss you - without getting drunk first.”
“Flatterer,” Patsy snorted. She wriggled up the mattress to lay her head on the pillow, flinging one arm over her kinky hair. “Don’t think you’re off the hook for dossing in my bed, by the way. You’ve made the sheets smell all…cowgirl-ish”
“You’re imagining things,” Cass replied. “Stealth-boy madness. It’s well documented. We’re actually lying in a Deathclaw nest.”
She took a sip of whiskey, for once not wanting to lose her thoughts to that sweet burn. They were good thoughts. She offered the bottle to Patsy, who only pouted and shifted her arm, cupping her chin like a painted cherub.
“Don’t I look kissable?” she whined, batting her short eyelashes.
“You look like you’ve got something in your eye,” Cass retorted.
“Damn,” Patsy grumbled, sitting up and kicking the bunched duvet to the floor. “Maybe Veronica’s on to something with her fancy-dress fetish. Or maybe I’ve never appealed to anyone who hasn’t tried to kill me.”
Cass rolled her eyes. “You know I can’t resist you when you’re pathetic.”
6.
Arcade rummaged in the boss’s minibar and offered Cass a 200-year-old potato chip. “Safety and supplies - what more does a wastelander need?”
Cass flopped on the bed. “Entertainment? I’m so bored I was tempted to go watch Veronica lose her shirt. Except I’d have been talked into bed with that loser Swank again, which would only kill five minutes, including the walk to his room.”
Arcade winced. “What is it with you women and Chairmen? Are they pumping aphrodisiacs into the Tops ventilation system?”
“Don’t men get horny when they’re bored? Man, this is a great bed.”
“Isn’t the stereotype that men are always horny?” Arcade replied, and tipped the last of the potato chips into his mouth. “Why would boredom be such a stimulant?”
“Maybe it’s evolutionary,” Cass mused.
“Now that’s a big word from such a little mouth.”
“Shut it,” Cass replied mildly. “What I mean is, your hormones realise you’ve gone an entire day without fighting for survival and decide this is the perfect time to pop out another generation of the human race. Quid pro quo.”
“I…don’t think that means what you think it means.”
“Ipso facto?”
“Please stop hurting the Latin. It’s done nothing to offend you.”
7.
Dan had first realised he was developing what his partner would call unnatural affections when he first offered, then insisted, Rorschach learn how to fly his pride and joy. He first suspected they might be returned when the reasoning that finally convinced Rorschach was: what if I’m incapacitated and you need to get me somewhere safe asap?
He spent those lessons watching leather-clad hands tentatively move over the controls and thinking how it would feel if they slammed him up against the hull - as they would if his partner ever noticed how Dan blushed, staring at those strong hands, or as they would if he noticed, and unlikeliest as all, liked it.
Like all fantasies, that one lacked a certain eroticism when finally acted out.
“How do you know that name?” his partner growled, slamming his head against the bulkhead again. Starbursts of light flashed in front of his eyes, bright as fireworks against the unlit interior. Dan clawed at the fingers digging into his throat and kicked, connecting with Walter’s injured knee.
The other man grunted at the sudden pain and listed sideways, struggling to stay upright. Nite Owl took over, punching the unprotected face until Walter released his throat and grabbed for his fists instead. He moved even as oxygen burned back into his lungs, trying to knee Walter in the groin. The smaller man blocked with his injured leg, grimacing at the jolt.
Dan listened to Nite Owl line up his next attack, sickened to hear himself think of every injury Rorschach had taken in their partnership and how to exploit those weak points. Walter had almost regained his footing and things were about to get much uglier when Dan kicked away from the hull and fell forward, grabbing Walter around the waist and dragging him to the floor.
“You just promised not to kill me!” he rasped before the other man could scramble to counter-attack. “There was going to be coffee.”
8.
“You think she’s a screamer? Hell, I bet she is. All that black leather, the way she acts like she’ll rip your balls off if you even look at that figure she’s showing off…you get past that, and she’ll goddamn deafen you, I bet.”
That little muscle in Nite Owl’s jawline was twitching again. Eddie watched it, not with glee or nastiness or anything else those old stuffed shirts would expect, but because there was nothing else to look at. Nothing moved in the street below them except a couple of moths battering against the street lamp, and he’d already been watching them for two hours while manfully attempting to hold up both ends of a conversation.
“That little whip she carries? That gives it away. It’s always they ones who act so cold and untouchable. When they melt, oh brother, it’s like a holocaust!”
Nite Owl sighed and pushed the corners of his mask into his sweaty face. It made Eddie’s own mask itch to watch it, and he gripped the railing of the fire escape to keep from fiddling with his own. Playing with it only made the spirit gum loosen up, make it more likely the damn thing would fall off in the middle of the action again.
“That’s not really an appropriate topic of conversation,” Nite Owl said.
Eddie forced himself to shrug nonchalantly, even though the older man’s schoolmarm tone rankled. “How ‘bout them Dodgers?” he asked, with only an edge of sarcasm.
Sheesh. I’m really bad at finishing things. And I haven't made a poll in forever!
Poll Any of these wild shots hitting a target?
At least this has forced me to actually find all these drafts and put them in my "current fic" folder. In other organisation news, I’ve finally made a master fic listing post. It all links to dreamwidth, because holy crap did that take forever, and my lj’s even tanglier.