Secret Santa: Gifts for Mercscilla from Hithelleth
Hi, mercscilla,
Thank you for all the great work you've been doing co-running this community and I wish you a lovely holiday time. Now, to the gifts. I hope you'll enjoy them:
Type: graphics
Pairing: CM2
Prompt: something Christmas-y (bigger version)
Type: fanvid
Pairings: Marlie,Charm, CM2
Prompts: "Miles and Charlie smiling at each other", "Bass and Charlie watching each other" and "I want to see you stripped down to the bone" (I know I didn't offer to make a vid, but your prompts inspired me, so I made my first one ever.)
And, since all good (hopefully) things are three:
Type: fanfic
Pairings: Miles/Charlie, Bass/Charlie, CM2
Word count: ~1000
Rating: M
Warning: Uncle/Niece incest
Prompt: Breaking the rules
Under the cut or on AO3
***
Rule #1: Don’t Let Go of Danny’s Hand
That was Mom’s rule.
The first rule Charlie had broken.
Would it have made a difference if she hadn’t? Rationally, she knew it wouldn’t have - there was no happily ever after. Even if she hadn’t left Danny’s side to go sulk, Danny and Dad could have ended up dead just as well, or she would have, or they would have been all separated or captured, or god-knows-what would have happened.
It was pointless to think about the what-ifs.
But then… Would she have been here otherwise? Would she have had this, whatever ‘this’ was?
Of course, she would have given anything to be able to turn the time back, to change to course of events, to have her family back.
But as she couldn’t, ‘this’ was not so bad. And she would get the best she could out of it.
***
They found an abandoned farmhouse to shelter in just before dusk. After searching a wide perimeter of the grounds to make sure it was safe, they settled the horses on what was once a terrace, the roof still holding, and made themselves comfortable inside.
Having a roof over their head and a fireplace to roast their catch over and heat some water for washing was much better than the open sky above them they had had to do with for the past few nights.
After they took turns in the washroom and ate, Miles set himself to cleaning the rifles, while Bass did the same with the swords, so Charlie took the chance to turn some wood she grabbed on the road into arrows.
Three people working on weaponry and yet it was a perfect picture of calmness.
The strange thing was that was exactly how Charlie felt. Calm. Safe. Alive.
***
Rule #2: You shall not covet…
Or something like that.
Charlie hadn’t been paying much attention to the traveling pastor who stopped at Sylvania’s Estates a few times or to the priests she had randomly encountered over the years. But she knew there was a law of both God and any race of Men that one was not supposed to desire a relative.
And yet…
Her body reacted with an aching want when she watched Miles fight, lounge carelessly against a tree, do that annoying lip licking thing... and wouldn’t listen to reason.
Finding out she wasn’t the only one feeling it only made it worse.
Pulling apart was a torture, the force they used to distance themselves from each other every time bringing them still closer than before.
Somehow they managed to keep it to shared looks, lingering touches, cramming into each other’s personal space, and that one kiss after she had nearly died in the tunnels under Philly.
Rule #3: Never forgive Monroe
That was her own rule.
For Dad. For Danny.
She hadn’t forgiven herself. Why would she have forgiven him?
Still, her vengeance seemed to have been doomed to fail: the first time, the second, the third, every time.
He saved her life, made himself her ally.
They shared their body-warmth, fought beside one another, trusted each other with their lives.
She was assailed by a surge of a hardly wanted sympathy for him while watching him going to his death, telling herself it was because of Miles - it was, but it was not all it was.
After all, by then she had come to know the man instead of the monster.
He left. Everyone had always left her.
And then he came back.
After the shock of watching the burning Patriots passed and they moved to go search for the others, Charlie pushed him into the wall, kissing him with an abandon she hadn’t known she was capable off.
***
They said it was better they stayed together in one room and the living room was the warmest.
They let her have the old rodent-gnawed couch, dragging a fairly well-preserved (for the circumstances) king-sized mattress into the centre of the room for themselves.
It wasn’t the first time they shared a bed, so to speak - “not like that,” they made sure to point out, having both informed her at some earlier point they practically lived in each other's space all the time in the Marines - and yet now they each stuck carefully to their own sides of the makeshift bed, unable to sleep from the cold if she judged by herself and the uneven breathing and occasional grumbling.
Charlie had enough of it.
“Screw it,” she announced, got up and, taking her blanket with her, crossed the room in a few long strides.
“There, it’s big enough for three,” she declared.
“Charlie, what the hell!” That was Miles.
Charlie forced herself not to laugh at his bewildered expression.
Bass looked only curios, and slightly amused.
“Me freezing over there,” she nodded towards the couch, “and you two trying as hard as you can not to make yourselves comfortable - it’s ridiculous.” She snuggled against Bass, tugging Miles closer as well.
“Besides, I’ve slept with both of you, so...”
“What?!”
Charlie giggled as the two men glared at each other (well, Miles glared, Bass only looked surprised), murmuring in unison: “I should’ve known.”
So, maybe it wasn’t just kisses.
Maybe she snuck into Miles’ room one night, needing to feel something, anything than emptiness and pain and rage after Danny’s death, waking him up in more than one sense of the word, and begged him to have her, which he didn’t refuse.
After Miles had come to, recovering rapidly with the help of the nanites, maybe Bass and Charlie used some of the time when they were supposed to be scouting for any remaining Patriots to fuck in a classroom down the hall, both of them needing it as a proof that they were alive.
“Come on,” Charlie urged the two men engaged in a stare-down, “let’s just sleep now. Tomorrow I’ll tell you why you don’t have to fight over it.”
Now that she had started warming up, she was too sleepy to care about their puzzled looks, but they gave in and settled close to her, and she could just manage one last smile before she closed her eyes.
***
Once more, Merry Christmas, Mercy!
(Gosh, I hope I linked and cut and tagged everything appropriately.)
Thank you for all the great work you've been doing co-running this community and I wish you a lovely holiday time. Now, to the gifts. I hope you'll enjoy them:
Type: graphics
Pairing: CM2
Prompt: something Christmas-y (bigger version)
Type: fanvid
Pairings: Marlie,Charm, CM2
Prompts: "Miles and Charlie smiling at each other", "Bass and Charlie watching each other" and "I want to see you stripped down to the bone" (I know I didn't offer to make a vid, but your prompts inspired me, so I made my first one ever.)
Click to viewAnd, since all good (hopefully) things are three:
Type: fanfic
Pairings: Miles/Charlie, Bass/Charlie, CM2
Word count: ~1000
Rating: M
Warning: Uncle/Niece incest
Prompt: Breaking the rules
Under the cut or on AO3
***
Rule #1: Don’t Let Go of Danny’s Hand
That was Mom’s rule.
The first rule Charlie had broken.
Would it have made a difference if she hadn’t? Rationally, she knew it wouldn’t have - there was no happily ever after. Even if she hadn’t left Danny’s side to go sulk, Danny and Dad could have ended up dead just as well, or she would have, or they would have been all separated or captured, or god-knows-what would have happened.
It was pointless to think about the what-ifs.
But then… Would she have been here otherwise? Would she have had this, whatever ‘this’ was?
Of course, she would have given anything to be able to turn the time back, to change to course of events, to have her family back.
But as she couldn’t, ‘this’ was not so bad. And she would get the best she could out of it.
***
They found an abandoned farmhouse to shelter in just before dusk. After searching a wide perimeter of the grounds to make sure it was safe, they settled the horses on what was once a terrace, the roof still holding, and made themselves comfortable inside.
Having a roof over their head and a fireplace to roast their catch over and heat some water for washing was much better than the open sky above them they had had to do with for the past few nights.
After they took turns in the washroom and ate, Miles set himself to cleaning the rifles, while Bass did the same with the swords, so Charlie took the chance to turn some wood she grabbed on the road into arrows.
Three people working on weaponry and yet it was a perfect picture of calmness.
The strange thing was that was exactly how Charlie felt. Calm. Safe. Alive.
***
Rule #2: You shall not covet…
Or something like that.
Charlie hadn’t been paying much attention to the traveling pastor who stopped at Sylvania’s Estates a few times or to the priests she had randomly encountered over the years. But she knew there was a law of both God and any race of Men that one was not supposed to desire a relative.
And yet…
Her body reacted with an aching want when she watched Miles fight, lounge carelessly against a tree, do that annoying lip licking thing... and wouldn’t listen to reason.
Finding out she wasn’t the only one feeling it only made it worse.
Pulling apart was a torture, the force they used to distance themselves from each other every time bringing them still closer than before.
Somehow they managed to keep it to shared looks, lingering touches, cramming into each other’s personal space, and that one kiss after she had nearly died in the tunnels under Philly.
Rule #3: Never forgive Monroe
That was her own rule.
For Dad. For Danny.
She hadn’t forgiven herself. Why would she have forgiven him?
Still, her vengeance seemed to have been doomed to fail: the first time, the second, the third, every time.
He saved her life, made himself her ally.
They shared their body-warmth, fought beside one another, trusted each other with their lives.
She was assailed by a surge of a hardly wanted sympathy for him while watching him going to his death, telling herself it was because of Miles - it was, but it was not all it was.
After all, by then she had come to know the man instead of the monster.
He left. Everyone had always left her.
And then he came back.
After the shock of watching the burning Patriots passed and they moved to go search for the others, Charlie pushed him into the wall, kissing him with an abandon she hadn’t known she was capable off.
***
They said it was better they stayed together in one room and the living room was the warmest.
They let her have the old rodent-gnawed couch, dragging a fairly well-preserved (for the circumstances) king-sized mattress into the centre of the room for themselves.
It wasn’t the first time they shared a bed, so to speak - “not like that,” they made sure to point out, having both informed her at some earlier point they practically lived in each other's space all the time in the Marines - and yet now they each stuck carefully to their own sides of the makeshift bed, unable to sleep from the cold if she judged by herself and the uneven breathing and occasional grumbling.
Charlie had enough of it.
“Screw it,” she announced, got up and, taking her blanket with her, crossed the room in a few long strides.
“There, it’s big enough for three,” she declared.
“Charlie, what the hell!” That was Miles.
Charlie forced herself not to laugh at his bewildered expression.
Bass looked only curios, and slightly amused.
“Me freezing over there,” she nodded towards the couch, “and you two trying as hard as you can not to make yourselves comfortable - it’s ridiculous.” She snuggled against Bass, tugging Miles closer as well.
“Besides, I’ve slept with both of you, so...”
“What?!”
Charlie giggled as the two men glared at each other (well, Miles glared, Bass only looked surprised), murmuring in unison: “I should’ve known.”
So, maybe it wasn’t just kisses.
Maybe she snuck into Miles’ room one night, needing to feel something, anything than emptiness and pain and rage after Danny’s death, waking him up in more than one sense of the word, and begged him to have her, which he didn’t refuse.
After Miles had come to, recovering rapidly with the help of the nanites, maybe Bass and Charlie used some of the time when they were supposed to be scouting for any remaining Patriots to fuck in a classroom down the hall, both of them needing it as a proof that they were alive.
“Come on,” Charlie urged the two men engaged in a stare-down, “let’s just sleep now. Tomorrow I’ll tell you why you don’t have to fight over it.”
Now that she had started warming up, she was too sleepy to care about their puzzled looks, but they gave in and settled close to her, and she could just manage one last smile before she closed her eyes.
***
Once more, Merry Christmas, Mercy!
(Gosh, I hope I linked and cut and tagged everything appropriately.)