ficlets by request
Note to self: post more! I still need to comment on Heroes, Torchwood, FNL, poll on fall TV, and update the lust list meme (it's been a year since I posted one!).
+ I did back up my LJ yesterday, finally. I've been meaning to do it for awhile. I have quite a bit of fanfic on here that isn't archived anywhere else, and it would suck for it to disappear for whatever reason. That LJArchive gadget is really quite nifty.
+ Also, here I am on del.icio.us (at last). I still need to go through a bunch of my bookmarks and make them public (or not), but jfyi. I plan to do a recs section eventually and actually get all my fic recs in one place. Though the project sounds a little daunting when I think about it.
+ Oh, Google, why do you keep telling me I live in Mountain View, CA? I do not live in Mountain View, CA. Nor will I be going to Pirates of the Caribbean 3 in Mountain View, CA, tomorrow or any other day.
+ Oh, Entertainment Weekly, why do you taunt me with your "special issue" of comprehensive coverage on a show I don't watch? Sigh.
+ Drabble requests:
First, um, don't kill me, but for some reason, these all wound up with Joni Mitchell lyrics in their titles (actually..let's just call them titlettes). It was like 2 in the morning when I was was thinking about labeling them.
Second, obviously, these didn't stop at 100 words. That was more like a suggestion than a rule, right?
Lastly, thanks for the intriguing prompts, guys. I've never written GA or Heroes (I hope I didn't forget any of Sylar's relevant powers) before, but it was easier throwing myself into those than getting back into the BSG/FF xover 'verse. Interesting.
++ For dingogrrl, Heroes' Sylar with Candice (post-s1 finale; no spoilers for next season just spec):
Well, at least it was a water main and not a sewer.
The sound of dripping water woke Sylar up the second time, hitting his ears like a banging drum. It took him several minutes to get his hearing back under control. He crawled on hands and feet to get away from the sound, and eventually realized he was still bleeding from his nose and hands.
It bothered him that his watch was broken. Still--the future would happen whether or not he knew the time. Linderman's underground exit must be just ahead.
It was. The girl--shapeshifter--was just entering the tunnel. Exactly as he saw it. "Hey," he said. Her head whirled. Even in the dim light from the wind-up lantern in her hand, he could see she'd been crying. Red eyes. He saw that--but a painting couldn't tell him everything. "Linderman's dead, huh."
She glared at him in silence. Her hand whitened around the handle, and he smiled. "Interesting. You want to kill me and you don't even know who I am. I like that kind of ruthlessness in a woman."
"Who are you?"
He titled his head. "Plan B." He tilted it the other way, muscles tense.
"Who says I need a plan? I just got out from under one--" but her breath caught.
He felt better already. He straightened his shoulders and pushed away from the wall. "You're lucky to be alive."
She was silent. The lantern dropped to her side, so he could only see their legs in the light. "Are you Sylar?"
He laughed. She laughed with him, which was a surprise. "What went wrong?" she demanded.
"Nothing," he replied. "It just wasn't...time." He stepped toward her.
She held up a hand. He could only see her palm. A little closer...but he wouldn't push it yet. He still felt a little off.
"Maybe it's because you work alone." She raised the light so it circled her pretty face. "I could be a big help to you, you know."
"You do have a..." He paused, thinking about it. "Tempting power." Maybe even the best offer he'd come across in awhile.
She smirked. "I'm more than my power, jackass. I'm also a warm body. Unless you've learned to be in two places at once, you're severely handicapping your options. Think about it." She licked her lips. Nervous?
He tipped his head. "You know the way out?"
She nodded to the right, still watching him warily.
He shrugged. He could always kill her later, once he felt more like himself. "Take my hand," he demanded. She did. Willing to follow his every order for the sake of her life. Interesting. Well, he definitely didn't need a partner; that must make her his minion.
He might be the villain after all.
++ For rose_griffes, the future of my Any Ruffian of the Sky:
Kara's boots hit the ramp, followed by one matching set after another. She didn't need the aggressive buzz under her skin to tell her she was headed for the nearest bar, and she didn't look back to see if she was leaving them.
As there was only one bar in town, the rest of the crew followed her. Jayne straddled the bar stool beside her and his voice garnered more attention than hers. Kara cast him an irritated look, which he entirely missed. She stole his beer as it slid down the bar in their direction.
"Hey!" he protested. She was going to need something a lot stronger than this. He nearly shoved her off the stool reaching for the next glass before it slid into her grasp.
She rolled her eyes and stomped away from him. Mal and Zoe were waiting for their contact at the table booth. "Son, all that bob and weaving is like to knock your head right off your neck," Mal remarked to Simon. "Your sister can take care of herself. You, too, I reckon, it comes to that."
Simon subsided, drawing back into Kaylee's arms. Kara looked around; there was room at the table, but she didn't want to sit.
"You Reynold's pilot?"
Kara scanned the man: long coat, military boots, smelled like a spacer. Looked her in the eyes. "Could be." She tongued the last drop of her drink out of the glass.
"Hear tell you've some experience flying summat faster."
She shrugged. Every few bars or so, somebody always wanted the Colonial Fleet story. It was all frakking bullshit, and once in awhile she told it--some of it--but only if there was the potential to get laid. He wasn't bad looking, but his hand on her shoulder was heavy, and she shrugged it off.
"Can offer you a sight better position than the damn Browncoats. Legal trading, new craft, all on the up and up."
Her eyes narrowed. "Not interested."
He shook his head. "Workin' for a man known as a traitor's a fine way to find yourself in trouble."
"That so? Know that for a fact?" She carefully set her empty glass on a table and turned to face him, throwing her jacket behind her guns and resting her hands on her hips.
He raised his hands. "Whoa, blondie. Not lookin' for a fight."
"Blondie?" Mal's head ducked over her shoulder. He was smirking. "Did I just hear 'blondie' with my disbelieving ears? Must be a dear and fuzzy friend to be speaking to you that way."
The expression on the spacer's face hardened down into a look of distaste. "Stay out of this, Browncoat."
Kara laughed outright. "Seems he knows you even better."
"Think you'd know better than to show your face in a good, wholesome town like this on Unification Day."
"Wholesome!" Mal repeated. "That why the only friendly female-like company Jayne can find lives in a gorram box in the back alley? 'Cause your town's so proper with all its regulations and things."
Kara raised an eyebrow, finding herself in the middle of a slowly gathering group. "Frak," she said, interrupting. "Girl's gotta be a Browncoat just to start a fight around here."
Mal turned his back on the man, eying her chest. "I conjure your coat might pass for brown, in certain light." It was exactly the kind of inappropriate she'd come to expect from him.
"Just stand a little closer to him," River said softly. Her eyes gleamed dark on Mal's other side, looking as fist-crazy as the both of them. Behind Kara, chairs scraped and a glass overturned. Simon coming to protect baby sis.
He should know better by now; he'd wind up shielding Kaylee from flying bottles and drunken sprawls while River was in the thick of it. Again.
Mal blocked the first punch before Simon even got there.
Two hours later, back on the ship, Kara shed her jacket and her guns and her bloody bandages, and she leaned back on Mal's bed. "That was exactly like a 24-hour leave I had one time on Tauron during my first deep-space rotation."
"I s'pect you made quite a name for yourself, Major Thrace."
"Frakking knee gave out, I wound up sprawled under the bar waiting for the military police. Fortunately," she grinned, "one of them was real friendly." She rolled her head back to look at the ceiling, the same ceiling above every bunk on every spacecraft she's ever frakking seen. The buzz under her skin was familiar, but she enjoyed it. "Wouldn't work out so well with Alliance police."
"Don't reckon." Mal pulled her legs off the side of the bed and started unlacing her boots. She smirked. "Was a fine old-fashioned brawl. Rare enough when they come along these days."
Kara looped her foot around the back of his leg and tugged him closer, pressed up against her hips. "The day you can't start a fight is the day I give up easy."
"Oh, ain't no trouble startin', it's the leavin' in a manner that's timely." He nodded over at their coats, dangling from the corner of the closed commode. "With the offending item of clothing still intact, even."
"Didn't get thrown in the brig; didn't lose our clothes; made it out of atmo in plenty of time." Kara smiled lazily. "And I get laid."
"That a fact?" he demanded to be contrary, reeling back. She yanked his head down and his nose smashed into her stomach.
"Seem mighty content with yourself," he remarked, from somewhere below her breasts.
"Yeah," she stretched, all the restless feelings tamped down and giggly. "A good fight'll do that." She yanked up at his hair.
"Good fight," he agreed, hovering over her. "Good day."
++ For sagacious_c, Grey's Anatomy with Callie AND Bailey (post s3 finale; no explicit spoilers):
"Congratulations." Bailey's voice was absolutely level, just like the woman herself. Callie snorted without turning around.
"My husband is an idiot," she said. She turned around. "Does that kind of thing rub off? Is it like osmosis...I love him, so I'm an idiot, too?"
The reason Bailey was so easy to rant to was because she had a killer poker face. Did Bailey play poker? As chief resident now, maybe Callie could mandate a game. And not invite any interns or first-years or...anyone named Isobel. "Are you drunk?" Bailey demanded. "You are working in my hospital and you are drinking on your shift?"
"I'm not on," Callie sighed, leaning her head back against the wall. "I'm...celebrating. Waiting for my husband. We're celebrating. Together." She twirled her hand in the air. "Why do they say painting the town red? It sounds like..." She considered. "Wouldn't it be terrible if I was pregnant?"
Bailey's hands were on her hips. Ordinarily, Callie would care. She would make some comment to reassure Bailey--highly qualified Bailey who probably deserved the position more than Callie does--that her faculties were fully in hand and not professionally compromised. "Oh, no," Bailey commented, disgusted. "We already have a fresh batch of weak-willed and whiny interns right downstairs. I don't have to put up with this."
"Disdain," Callie pointed up at her. "You drip. With disdain. And rightly so!" she heaved herself to her feet. "Look at this. Do you know how hard I have worked to get where I am? You know, and, what is it? They don't get their happy-ever-after because they screwed up, but what about me? What did I do wrong?"
Bailey scowled. "I'll take you down to the cafeteria and wrap your hands around some coffee, but then I am going home. They don't pay me nearly enough." She turned and stalked down the hall.
Callie coughed. "Yeah, especially now."
"Excuse me?"
Callie slapped the nurse's desk on her way past, staggering toward the elevator. Stupid, evil elevators. "I don't need you to get me coffee, I need you to tell me. Tell me...why I can love someone, and he's all I think about--all I think about, Bailey, I swear, I even want to have his freaking child. Inside my body."
"Um hm." Bailey shoved her inside the elevator.
"And I'm still on the outside! Why? Why does no one care about my big, epic, doomed love affair?" Callie swayed slowly until she leaned against the wall and rested her cheek against it. It wasn't cool at all, it was hot and sticky and didn't help. Why was she surprised? "It's because I didn't give him a punny nickname, isn't it. McGeorge." She sniffed. "Mc..." it sounded like a hiccup. She couldn't even think of a pun. No wonder she didn't fit in.
Bailey heaved a sigh. "I don't know what you're crying about," she growled under her breath. "Used to be the damn Nazi...might as well be Mother Superior."
+ I did back up my LJ yesterday, finally. I've been meaning to do it for awhile. I have quite a bit of fanfic on here that isn't archived anywhere else, and it would suck for it to disappear for whatever reason. That LJArchive gadget is really quite nifty.
+ Also, here I am on del.icio.us (at last). I still need to go through a bunch of my bookmarks and make them public (or not), but jfyi. I plan to do a recs section eventually and actually get all my fic recs in one place. Though the project sounds a little daunting when I think about it.
+ Oh, Google, why do you keep telling me I live in Mountain View, CA? I do not live in Mountain View, CA. Nor will I be going to Pirates of the Caribbean 3 in Mountain View, CA, tomorrow or any other day.
+ Oh, Entertainment Weekly, why do you taunt me with your "special issue" of comprehensive coverage on a show I don't watch? Sigh.
+ Drabble requests:
First, um, don't kill me, but for some reason, these all wound up with Joni Mitchell lyrics in their titles (actually..let's just call them titlettes). It was like 2 in the morning when I was was thinking about labeling them.
Second, obviously, these didn't stop at 100 words. That was more like a suggestion than a rule, right?
Lastly, thanks for the intriguing prompts, guys. I've never written GA or Heroes (I hope I didn't forget any of Sylar's relevant powers) before, but it was easier throwing myself into those than getting back into the BSG/FF xover 'verse. Interesting.
++ For dingogrrl, Heroes' Sylar with Candice (post-s1 finale; no spoilers for next season just spec):
Well, at least it was a water main and not a sewer.
The sound of dripping water woke Sylar up the second time, hitting his ears like a banging drum. It took him several minutes to get his hearing back under control. He crawled on hands and feet to get away from the sound, and eventually realized he was still bleeding from his nose and hands.
It bothered him that his watch was broken. Still--the future would happen whether or not he knew the time. Linderman's underground exit must be just ahead.
It was. The girl--shapeshifter--was just entering the tunnel. Exactly as he saw it. "Hey," he said. Her head whirled. Even in the dim light from the wind-up lantern in her hand, he could see she'd been crying. Red eyes. He saw that--but a painting couldn't tell him everything. "Linderman's dead, huh."
She glared at him in silence. Her hand whitened around the handle, and he smiled. "Interesting. You want to kill me and you don't even know who I am. I like that kind of ruthlessness in a woman."
"Who are you?"
He titled his head. "Plan B." He tilted it the other way, muscles tense.
"Who says I need a plan? I just got out from under one--" but her breath caught.
He felt better already. He straightened his shoulders and pushed away from the wall. "You're lucky to be alive."
She was silent. The lantern dropped to her side, so he could only see their legs in the light. "Are you Sylar?"
He laughed. She laughed with him, which was a surprise. "What went wrong?" she demanded.
"Nothing," he replied. "It just wasn't...time." He stepped toward her.
She held up a hand. He could only see her palm. A little closer...but he wouldn't push it yet. He still felt a little off.
"Maybe it's because you work alone." She raised the light so it circled her pretty face. "I could be a big help to you, you know."
"You do have a..." He paused, thinking about it. "Tempting power." Maybe even the best offer he'd come across in awhile.
She smirked. "I'm more than my power, jackass. I'm also a warm body. Unless you've learned to be in two places at once, you're severely handicapping your options. Think about it." She licked her lips. Nervous?
He tipped his head. "You know the way out?"
She nodded to the right, still watching him warily.
He shrugged. He could always kill her later, once he felt more like himself. "Take my hand," he demanded. She did. Willing to follow his every order for the sake of her life. Interesting. Well, he definitely didn't need a partner; that must make her his minion.
He might be the villain after all.
++ For rose_griffes, the future of my Any Ruffian of the Sky:
Kara's boots hit the ramp, followed by one matching set after another. She didn't need the aggressive buzz under her skin to tell her she was headed for the nearest bar, and she didn't look back to see if she was leaving them.
As there was only one bar in town, the rest of the crew followed her. Jayne straddled the bar stool beside her and his voice garnered more attention than hers. Kara cast him an irritated look, which he entirely missed. She stole his beer as it slid down the bar in their direction.
"Hey!" he protested. She was going to need something a lot stronger than this. He nearly shoved her off the stool reaching for the next glass before it slid into her grasp.
She rolled her eyes and stomped away from him. Mal and Zoe were waiting for their contact at the table booth. "Son, all that bob and weaving is like to knock your head right off your neck," Mal remarked to Simon. "Your sister can take care of herself. You, too, I reckon, it comes to that."
Simon subsided, drawing back into Kaylee's arms. Kara looked around; there was room at the table, but she didn't want to sit.
"You Reynold's pilot?"
Kara scanned the man: long coat, military boots, smelled like a spacer. Looked her in the eyes. "Could be." She tongued the last drop of her drink out of the glass.
"Hear tell you've some experience flying summat faster."
She shrugged. Every few bars or so, somebody always wanted the Colonial Fleet story. It was all frakking bullshit, and once in awhile she told it--some of it--but only if there was the potential to get laid. He wasn't bad looking, but his hand on her shoulder was heavy, and she shrugged it off.
"Can offer you a sight better position than the damn Browncoats. Legal trading, new craft, all on the up and up."
Her eyes narrowed. "Not interested."
He shook his head. "Workin' for a man known as a traitor's a fine way to find yourself in trouble."
"That so? Know that for a fact?" She carefully set her empty glass on a table and turned to face him, throwing her jacket behind her guns and resting her hands on her hips.
He raised his hands. "Whoa, blondie. Not lookin' for a fight."
"Blondie?" Mal's head ducked over her shoulder. He was smirking. "Did I just hear 'blondie' with my disbelieving ears? Must be a dear and fuzzy friend to be speaking to you that way."
The expression on the spacer's face hardened down into a look of distaste. "Stay out of this, Browncoat."
Kara laughed outright. "Seems he knows you even better."
"Think you'd know better than to show your face in a good, wholesome town like this on Unification Day."
"Wholesome!" Mal repeated. "That why the only friendly female-like company Jayne can find lives in a gorram box in the back alley? 'Cause your town's so proper with all its regulations and things."
Kara raised an eyebrow, finding herself in the middle of a slowly gathering group. "Frak," she said, interrupting. "Girl's gotta be a Browncoat just to start a fight around here."
Mal turned his back on the man, eying her chest. "I conjure your coat might pass for brown, in certain light." It was exactly the kind of inappropriate she'd come to expect from him.
"Just stand a little closer to him," River said softly. Her eyes gleamed dark on Mal's other side, looking as fist-crazy as the both of them. Behind Kara, chairs scraped and a glass overturned. Simon coming to protect baby sis.
He should know better by now; he'd wind up shielding Kaylee from flying bottles and drunken sprawls while River was in the thick of it. Again.
Mal blocked the first punch before Simon even got there.
Two hours later, back on the ship, Kara shed her jacket and her guns and her bloody bandages, and she leaned back on Mal's bed. "That was exactly like a 24-hour leave I had one time on Tauron during my first deep-space rotation."
"I s'pect you made quite a name for yourself, Major Thrace."
"Frakking knee gave out, I wound up sprawled under the bar waiting for the military police. Fortunately," she grinned, "one of them was real friendly." She rolled her head back to look at the ceiling, the same ceiling above every bunk on every spacecraft she's ever frakking seen. The buzz under her skin was familiar, but she enjoyed it. "Wouldn't work out so well with Alliance police."
"Don't reckon." Mal pulled her legs off the side of the bed and started unlacing her boots. She smirked. "Was a fine old-fashioned brawl. Rare enough when they come along these days."
Kara looped her foot around the back of his leg and tugged him closer, pressed up against her hips. "The day you can't start a fight is the day I give up easy."
"Oh, ain't no trouble startin', it's the leavin' in a manner that's timely." He nodded over at their coats, dangling from the corner of the closed commode. "With the offending item of clothing still intact, even."
"Didn't get thrown in the brig; didn't lose our clothes; made it out of atmo in plenty of time." Kara smiled lazily. "And I get laid."
"That a fact?" he demanded to be contrary, reeling back. She yanked his head down and his nose smashed into her stomach.
"Seem mighty content with yourself," he remarked, from somewhere below her breasts.
"Yeah," she stretched, all the restless feelings tamped down and giggly. "A good fight'll do that." She yanked up at his hair.
"Good fight," he agreed, hovering over her. "Good day."
++ For sagacious_c, Grey's Anatomy with Callie AND Bailey (post s3 finale; no explicit spoilers):
"Congratulations." Bailey's voice was absolutely level, just like the woman herself. Callie snorted without turning around.
"My husband is an idiot," she said. She turned around. "Does that kind of thing rub off? Is it like osmosis...I love him, so I'm an idiot, too?"
The reason Bailey was so easy to rant to was because she had a killer poker face. Did Bailey play poker? As chief resident now, maybe Callie could mandate a game. And not invite any interns or first-years or...anyone named Isobel. "Are you drunk?" Bailey demanded. "You are working in my hospital and you are drinking on your shift?"
"I'm not on," Callie sighed, leaning her head back against the wall. "I'm...celebrating. Waiting for my husband. We're celebrating. Together." She twirled her hand in the air. "Why do they say painting the town red? It sounds like..." She considered. "Wouldn't it be terrible if I was pregnant?"
Bailey's hands were on her hips. Ordinarily, Callie would care. She would make some comment to reassure Bailey--highly qualified Bailey who probably deserved the position more than Callie does--that her faculties were fully in hand and not professionally compromised. "Oh, no," Bailey commented, disgusted. "We already have a fresh batch of weak-willed and whiny interns right downstairs. I don't have to put up with this."
"Disdain," Callie pointed up at her. "You drip. With disdain. And rightly so!" she heaved herself to her feet. "Look at this. Do you know how hard I have worked to get where I am? You know, and, what is it? They don't get their happy-ever-after because they screwed up, but what about me? What did I do wrong?"
Bailey scowled. "I'll take you down to the cafeteria and wrap your hands around some coffee, but then I am going home. They don't pay me nearly enough." She turned and stalked down the hall.
Callie coughed. "Yeah, especially now."
"Excuse me?"
Callie slapped the nurse's desk on her way past, staggering toward the elevator. Stupid, evil elevators. "I don't need you to get me coffee, I need you to tell me. Tell me...why I can love someone, and he's all I think about--all I think about, Bailey, I swear, I even want to have his freaking child. Inside my body."
"Um hm." Bailey shoved her inside the elevator.
"And I'm still on the outside! Why? Why does no one care about my big, epic, doomed love affair?" Callie swayed slowly until she leaned against the wall and rested her cheek against it. It wasn't cool at all, it was hot and sticky and didn't help. Why was she surprised? "It's because I didn't give him a punny nickname, isn't it. McGeorge." She sniffed. "Mc..." it sounded like a hiccup. She couldn't even think of a pun. No wonder she didn't fit in.
Bailey heaved a sigh. "I don't know what you're crying about," she growled under her breath. "Used to be the damn Nazi...might as well be Mother Superior."