Fic: White Collar, Chuck, Smallville
More drabbles for Prompt # 300: TV Tropes
Title: he who fights monsters
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: Neal/Peter/Elizabeth
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
Trope: Becoming the Mask
Summary: He’s known guys who were involved in a con for so long that they ended up conning themselves…
He’s seen it before. How funny the human mind works. Stockholm Syndrome. Florence Nightingale. A person can talk himself or herself into believing almost anything. And he’s seen it happen. He’s known guys who were involved in a con for so long that they ended up conning themselves.
And he wants this. He wants it so bad… He’s nearly ready to do something he promised himself he’d never do.
But this can’t be about any of that. This has to be for real. This has to be forever, because that’s how long the regrets will last if they’re wrong.
“Neal. Do you really…” Peter begins.
“Yes,” Neal answers. “I want to be with you. The both of you. Only you, from now on.” Neal glances at his computer. At the treasures displayed on the screen via the video footage Mozzie set up for them. “But you have to understand. This means-”
“We know what it means, Neal,” Elizabeth says. She has one of Neal’s hands between both of hers. Neal’s other hand holds one of Peter’s. El shares a look with Peter, and, slowly, each of them nod. “We want to be with you, too. And if this is the best way for that to happen…”
“It’s worth it, Neal,” Peter says. And Neal can hear, in the force of his tone - can see in the shine of his eyes - that Peter means it. “It’ll all be worth it.”
Neal is frightened - terrified - of making the wrong choice. But Peter and El are persistent. Neal and Mozzie do what they have to do. Neal prays that he’s done the right thing. That the man and the woman he’s in love with won’t one day come to hate him for letting them make this sacrifice.
Neal’s known cons who conned themselves into believing that they’ve never hurt anyone. But, here on the beach, among the people he loves, Victor can believe that he isn’t one of those men. That William and Claire haven’t just imagined that they love him. That they can be happy living the rest of their lives here with him, in the lap of luxury, off of the mainstream world’s radar. That sacrificing the lives of Peter and Elizabeth Burke for the sake of Neal’s freedom, and to avoid making him choose was, as Peter said, really worth it.
Here on their island, Neal believes.
[end.]
Title: Truth & Dare
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 500
Trope: Suspiciously Specific Denial
Summary: “Why, yes, Clark is a good friend of mine…”
It’s not the riskiest of the games they’ve played. It wouldn’t even be the most embarrassing, if Lex wasn’t so damned clever. That time Lex brought Clark with him to a party in Metropolis, and gave Clark a script for what to say any time someone tried to shake his hand, would easily take the cake.
Telling a bunch of strangers, ‘I’m sorry. But Lex says I’m not supposed to let anyone else touch me without his permission,’ was the most embarrassing thing Clark had ever done. By the end of the night, his face was perpetually warm and red. Lex was so riled up, he took Clark in the limo before they’d even pulled out of Lex’s friend’s driveway, and Clark was so ready for it, he came about as soon as Lex had pushed fully inside of him.
This, though. This is somehow worse.
“Are you sure we ought to-”
“There’s nothing to worry about here, Clark. These people can’t touch us.” Lex’s smile is ironic. “We aren’t in Kansas anymore, farmboy.”
“But still…”
Lex’s smile shifts until it’s shark-like. “Although, I suppose you could let me out of our bet, if you don’t really want to see me go through with it. But that means that you’d have to take my place-”
“N-no.” Clark swallows. The hand-shake thing was bad enough. There’s no way he could- “No, that’s- That’s okay. You do it.”
Lex laughs. Clark would kind of hate him for it, if he wasn’t as turned on right now as he is nervous.
“Well, alright then,” Lex claps his hands together, then holds an arm out to Clark. “Let’s make our rounds then.”
The way the game works is this: before sex, Lex and Clark decide upon a dare kinky enough to be worthy of a bet. The bet is always that one can outlast the other. The one who comes first carries out the dare. This dare, Lex said, was inspired by the many ‘polite conversations’ they were forced to have while Lex was running for Senator of Kansas.
They always had to deny their relationship then. Lex has decided to have some fun with those denials, now that they aren’t so necessary.
“Why, yes, Clark is a good friend of mine,” Lex says to one party-goer, while Clark tries to develop the power to melt through the floor. “He isn’t, for example, the person I had sex with on my breakfast table this morning. Which reminds me, Clark, your back isn’t still bothering you, is it?”
“Oh, no, sir, I assure you. The rumors most certainly aren’t true,” Lex tells another. “I haven’t been carrying on a homosexual love affair… for about seven years now.”
Lex’s denials get more and more colorful. And Clark is relieved by the time Lex tells the couple they were just talking to, “And now if you’ll excuse us… Clark and I are not going to go have sex in the men’s room…” For more than one reason.
[end.]
Title: if I feel far away (baby, I’m not the one who moved)
Fandom: Chuck
Pairing: Chuck/Bryce
Rating:PG
Word Count: 500
Trope: Green-Eyed Epiphany
Summary: Bryce gets mad at seemingly random moments. And things that have somehow escaped Chuck’s notice before now are suddenly clear.
AO3
It’s not that he wants to piss Bryce off. They are still, somewhat miraculously… even after everything that’s happened… friends. But first Chuck doesn’t get it.
Bryce gets mad at seemingly random moments.
While playing a game some of the Langley guys insist on playing, Sarah describes her most embarrassing moment in the middle of an assignment. Bryce and Chuck take their turns doing the same, then Casey snorts and says, “The time Bartowski here kissed me.” Around the table there are some knowing smirks, some uncomfortable glances, and a lot of laughter.
“Hey. I thought you were dying,” Chuck defends. And, forgetting that not everyone has already heard the full story, he lets Casey bow out of explaining his answer in more detail.
Bryce is unusually quiet and reluctant to talk directly to Chuck for the rest of the evening.
Next, Chuck misunderstands the root of Bryce’s anger.
“Look, if you still have a problem with Casey, you should say something, man. We’re going to be working together for a long time, hopefully, and-”
Granted, Bryce doesn’t let this misunderstanding rest.
“I don’t have a problem with Casey, Chuck,” Bryce says, acting - if you ask Chuck - a little cagey. “Just drop it.”
Finally, Chuck can’t keep quiet about it.
“What is his problem, then?” Chuck rants. Casey just happens to be the only one around to hear him at the time.
“His problem is you, lamebrain,” Casey scoffs.
“What?”
“Larkin’s got the hots for you and he thinks you’re already taken.”
“The h- Taken by who?”
Chuck’s head spins. And Casey grins at him in a way Chuck decides not to think too much about.
“By me.” Casey winks. Then he laughs. “Go set him straight already.” And he laughs again at his choice in words.
Chuck goes and finds Bryce, operating mostly on auto-pilot, mind working overtime. So much that has somehow escaped Chuck’s notice before now is suddenly clear to him.
Bryce looks miserable when Chuck finds him.
“Look, Bryce, I-”
“If you’ve come to apologize,” Bryce starts, then sighs. “You don’t have to. It’s my fault we fought again, Chuck. I-”
“I think I’m love with you.”
Dumbfounded shock probably isn’t the reaction Chuck would have gone for, if he’d been going for a reaction with his admission rather than having an epiphany out loud.
“Wha-”
“No. No, I’ve got that wrong,” Chuck self-corrects. And continues before Bryce can look any more crest-fallen. “I am in love with you. Bryce, I probably have been since Stanford.”
Bryce stares at Chuck, taking a moment to process that. Of all the things he could ask next, he settles on, “What about Casey?”
“Casey is-” Chuck could say, ‘not my type,’ although - strictly speaking - it wouldn’t be true.
“-kinda convinced you love me too,” Chuck finishes, trying not to sound too questioning or too hopeful.
When Bryce smiles, it doesn’t matter that he failed.
“Smart man,” Bryce says. And answers Chuck’s question with a kiss.
[end.]
Title: thoughts are like needles, they only prick you if you think
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 500
Trope: Fridge Horror
Summary: Anything would be better than the blind faith Clark used to have in Lex, the way he would give himself to Lex without terms, without boundaries. The dark days after that when neither of them gave anything that a bloody battle hadn’t won…
It never used to scare him, before. When Clark first realized what he is, he was terrified by the thought of being captured and locked down, strapped to a table and experimented on. He didn’t know all of his powers, then, and he wasn’t sure of his control of them. But it didn’t scare him - the thought of doing this with Lex. Maybe he just trusted Lex that much. Or maybe the threat seemed so surreal… Clark remembers being sixteen and letting Lex tie him to a bed. He’d known that Lana’s necklace was sitting in Lex’s study, inside Lex’s lead box. But he hadn’t worried about what would happen once Lex had Clark ’at his mercy.’
“There now. Test those. Tight enough?”
Clark tries first to free his ankles… and then his wrists. His heart begins to pound when he fails.
“There’s- There’s still a little give,” he admits. Lex’s smile seems no more predatory, these days, than it’s ever been. And that’s what truly frightens Clark. He used to do this kind of thing with Lex all the time. And he never once had the sense to fear what Lex could do to him, if Lex chose to take advantage of the opportunity.
“Thank you, Clark… Is that better?”
Clark tests the straps holding him in place. They don’t give the least little bit.
“I can’t- Yes,” Clark says simply.
“Good. Then we’ll begin.”
Lex’s voice is icy cold, oily slick, but his hands are warm and dry. They skim Clark’s naked chest, his hips and thighs.
‘It’s better this way,’ Clark has to tell himself. As Lex’s fingertips raise goosebumps on his flesh and Lex’s tongue burns patterns into his skin, he thinks that anything would be better than the constant punch-for-kick relationship they’d had before. All the fighting and the blowing things up and the pretending that there aren’t times when both of them just want to throw the other down and fuck until neither of them has the energy not to listen.
Anything would be better than the blind faith Clark used to have in Lex, the way he would give himself to Lex without terms, without boundaries. The dark days after that when neither of them gave anything that a bloody battle hadn’t won.
Lex slowly slips into him, and then quickly pounds the both of them towards a shattering climax, and Clark tells himself that it’s better that he knows there is something to fear. Some real danger, even if Clark is still courting it.
Lex gives Clark the location of his newest secret laboratory and Clark promises to return after it’s been destroyed to pay the second half of Lex’s price on sacrificing the installation.
Clark thinks of how Lex used to tease him…
How he’d tug on the ties binding Clark’s arms above his head, how he’d smile and say, ‘I could keep you like this forever.’
And Clark tries not to shudder as he realizes that Lex was right.
[end.]
Title: he who fights monsters
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: Neal/Peter/Elizabeth
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
Trope: Becoming the Mask
Summary: He’s known guys who were involved in a con for so long that they ended up conning themselves…
He’s seen it before. How funny the human mind works. Stockholm Syndrome. Florence Nightingale. A person can talk himself or herself into believing almost anything. And he’s seen it happen. He’s known guys who were involved in a con for so long that they ended up conning themselves.
And he wants this. He wants it so bad… He’s nearly ready to do something he promised himself he’d never do.
But this can’t be about any of that. This has to be for real. This has to be forever, because that’s how long the regrets will last if they’re wrong.
“Neal. Do you really…” Peter begins.
“Yes,” Neal answers. “I want to be with you. The both of you. Only you, from now on.” Neal glances at his computer. At the treasures displayed on the screen via the video footage Mozzie set up for them. “But you have to understand. This means-”
“We know what it means, Neal,” Elizabeth says. She has one of Neal’s hands between both of hers. Neal’s other hand holds one of Peter’s. El shares a look with Peter, and, slowly, each of them nod. “We want to be with you, too. And if this is the best way for that to happen…”
“It’s worth it, Neal,” Peter says. And Neal can hear, in the force of his tone - can see in the shine of his eyes - that Peter means it. “It’ll all be worth it.”
Neal is frightened - terrified - of making the wrong choice. But Peter and El are persistent. Neal and Mozzie do what they have to do. Neal prays that he’s done the right thing. That the man and the woman he’s in love with won’t one day come to hate him for letting them make this sacrifice.
Neal’s known cons who conned themselves into believing that they’ve never hurt anyone. But, here on the beach, among the people he loves, Victor can believe that he isn’t one of those men. That William and Claire haven’t just imagined that they love him. That they can be happy living the rest of their lives here with him, in the lap of luxury, off of the mainstream world’s radar. That sacrificing the lives of Peter and Elizabeth Burke for the sake of Neal’s freedom, and to avoid making him choose was, as Peter said, really worth it.
Here on their island, Neal believes.
[end.]
Title: Truth & Dare
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 500
Trope: Suspiciously Specific Denial
Summary: “Why, yes, Clark is a good friend of mine…”
It’s not the riskiest of the games they’ve played. It wouldn’t even be the most embarrassing, if Lex wasn’t so damned clever. That time Lex brought Clark with him to a party in Metropolis, and gave Clark a script for what to say any time someone tried to shake his hand, would easily take the cake.
Telling a bunch of strangers, ‘I’m sorry. But Lex says I’m not supposed to let anyone else touch me without his permission,’ was the most embarrassing thing Clark had ever done. By the end of the night, his face was perpetually warm and red. Lex was so riled up, he took Clark in the limo before they’d even pulled out of Lex’s friend’s driveway, and Clark was so ready for it, he came about as soon as Lex had pushed fully inside of him.
This, though. This is somehow worse.
“Are you sure we ought to-”
“There’s nothing to worry about here, Clark. These people can’t touch us.” Lex’s smile is ironic. “We aren’t in Kansas anymore, farmboy.”
“But still…”
Lex’s smile shifts until it’s shark-like. “Although, I suppose you could let me out of our bet, if you don’t really want to see me go through with it. But that means that you’d have to take my place-”
“N-no.” Clark swallows. The hand-shake thing was bad enough. There’s no way he could- “No, that’s- That’s okay. You do it.”
Lex laughs. Clark would kind of hate him for it, if he wasn’t as turned on right now as he is nervous.
“Well, alright then,” Lex claps his hands together, then holds an arm out to Clark. “Let’s make our rounds then.”
The way the game works is this: before sex, Lex and Clark decide upon a dare kinky enough to be worthy of a bet. The bet is always that one can outlast the other. The one who comes first carries out the dare. This dare, Lex said, was inspired by the many ‘polite conversations’ they were forced to have while Lex was running for Senator of Kansas.
They always had to deny their relationship then. Lex has decided to have some fun with those denials, now that they aren’t so necessary.
“Why, yes, Clark is a good friend of mine,” Lex says to one party-goer, while Clark tries to develop the power to melt through the floor. “He isn’t, for example, the person I had sex with on my breakfast table this morning. Which reminds me, Clark, your back isn’t still bothering you, is it?”
“Oh, no, sir, I assure you. The rumors most certainly aren’t true,” Lex tells another. “I haven’t been carrying on a homosexual love affair… for about seven years now.”
Lex’s denials get more and more colorful. And Clark is relieved by the time Lex tells the couple they were just talking to, “And now if you’ll excuse us… Clark and I are not going to go have sex in the men’s room…” For more than one reason.
[end.]
Title: if I feel far away (baby, I’m not the one who moved)
Fandom: Chuck
Pairing: Chuck/Bryce
Rating:PG
Word Count: 500
Trope: Green-Eyed Epiphany
Summary: Bryce gets mad at seemingly random moments. And things that have somehow escaped Chuck’s notice before now are suddenly clear.
AO3
It’s not that he wants to piss Bryce off. They are still, somewhat miraculously… even after everything that’s happened… friends. But first Chuck doesn’t get it.
Bryce gets mad at seemingly random moments.
While playing a game some of the Langley guys insist on playing, Sarah describes her most embarrassing moment in the middle of an assignment. Bryce and Chuck take their turns doing the same, then Casey snorts and says, “The time Bartowski here kissed me.” Around the table there are some knowing smirks, some uncomfortable glances, and a lot of laughter.
“Hey. I thought you were dying,” Chuck defends. And, forgetting that not everyone has already heard the full story, he lets Casey bow out of explaining his answer in more detail.
Bryce is unusually quiet and reluctant to talk directly to Chuck for the rest of the evening.
Next, Chuck misunderstands the root of Bryce’s anger.
“Look, if you still have a problem with Casey, you should say something, man. We’re going to be working together for a long time, hopefully, and-”
Granted, Bryce doesn’t let this misunderstanding rest.
“I don’t have a problem with Casey, Chuck,” Bryce says, acting - if you ask Chuck - a little cagey. “Just drop it.”
Finally, Chuck can’t keep quiet about it.
“What is his problem, then?” Chuck rants. Casey just happens to be the only one around to hear him at the time.
“His problem is you, lamebrain,” Casey scoffs.
“What?”
“Larkin’s got the hots for you and he thinks you’re already taken.”
“The h- Taken by who?”
Chuck’s head spins. And Casey grins at him in a way Chuck decides not to think too much about.
“By me.” Casey winks. Then he laughs. “Go set him straight already.” And he laughs again at his choice in words.
Chuck goes and finds Bryce, operating mostly on auto-pilot, mind working overtime. So much that has somehow escaped Chuck’s notice before now is suddenly clear to him.
Bryce looks miserable when Chuck finds him.
“Look, Bryce, I-”
“If you’ve come to apologize,” Bryce starts, then sighs. “You don’t have to. It’s my fault we fought again, Chuck. I-”
“I think I’m love with you.”
Dumbfounded shock probably isn’t the reaction Chuck would have gone for, if he’d been going for a reaction with his admission rather than having an epiphany out loud.
“Wha-”
“No. No, I’ve got that wrong,” Chuck self-corrects. And continues before Bryce can look any more crest-fallen. “I am in love with you. Bryce, I probably have been since Stanford.”
Bryce stares at Chuck, taking a moment to process that. Of all the things he could ask next, he settles on, “What about Casey?”
“Casey is-” Chuck could say, ‘not my type,’ although - strictly speaking - it wouldn’t be true.
“-kinda convinced you love me too,” Chuck finishes, trying not to sound too questioning or too hopeful.
When Bryce smiles, it doesn’t matter that he failed.
“Smart man,” Bryce says. And answers Chuck’s question with a kiss.
[end.]
Title: thoughts are like needles, they only prick you if you think
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 500
Trope: Fridge Horror
Summary: Anything would be better than the blind faith Clark used to have in Lex, the way he would give himself to Lex without terms, without boundaries. The dark days after that when neither of them gave anything that a bloody battle hadn’t won…
It never used to scare him, before. When Clark first realized what he is, he was terrified by the thought of being captured and locked down, strapped to a table and experimented on. He didn’t know all of his powers, then, and he wasn’t sure of his control of them. But it didn’t scare him - the thought of doing this with Lex. Maybe he just trusted Lex that much. Or maybe the threat seemed so surreal… Clark remembers being sixteen and letting Lex tie him to a bed. He’d known that Lana’s necklace was sitting in Lex’s study, inside Lex’s lead box. But he hadn’t worried about what would happen once Lex had Clark ’at his mercy.’
“There now. Test those. Tight enough?”
Clark tries first to free his ankles… and then his wrists. His heart begins to pound when he fails.
“There’s- There’s still a little give,” he admits. Lex’s smile seems no more predatory, these days, than it’s ever been. And that’s what truly frightens Clark. He used to do this kind of thing with Lex all the time. And he never once had the sense to fear what Lex could do to him, if Lex chose to take advantage of the opportunity.
“Thank you, Clark… Is that better?”
Clark tests the straps holding him in place. They don’t give the least little bit.
“I can’t- Yes,” Clark says simply.
“Good. Then we’ll begin.”
Lex’s voice is icy cold, oily slick, but his hands are warm and dry. They skim Clark’s naked chest, his hips and thighs.
‘It’s better this way,’ Clark has to tell himself. As Lex’s fingertips raise goosebumps on his flesh and Lex’s tongue burns patterns into his skin, he thinks that anything would be better than the constant punch-for-kick relationship they’d had before. All the fighting and the blowing things up and the pretending that there aren’t times when both of them just want to throw the other down and fuck until neither of them has the energy not to listen.
Anything would be better than the blind faith Clark used to have in Lex, the way he would give himself to Lex without terms, without boundaries. The dark days after that when neither of them gave anything that a bloody battle hadn’t won.
Lex slowly slips into him, and then quickly pounds the both of them towards a shattering climax, and Clark tells himself that it’s better that he knows there is something to fear. Some real danger, even if Clark is still courting it.
Lex gives Clark the location of his newest secret laboratory and Clark promises to return after it’s been destroyed to pay the second half of Lex’s price on sacrificing the installation.
Clark thinks of how Lex used to tease him…
How he’d tug on the ties binding Clark’s arms above his head, how he’d smile and say, ‘I could keep you like this forever.’
And Clark tries not to shudder as he realizes that Lex was right.
[end.]