Ficlet Roundup: All The Air The Same (Pinto); Between Takes (Shatner/Kelley)
Title: All The Air The Same
Rating: PG
Pairing: Pinto
Disclaimer: Lies!
Notes/Summary: I wrote this for smutjunkie's prompt here - 'Zach misses Chris' - after it sort of became a meme due to the multiplicity of fills. I couldn't resist playing. :)
Eleven o'clock at night, Los Angeles time, and Zach knows this makes it 2 A.M. in New York, so many miles away, where Chris is and shouldn't be. Eleven o'clock, and Zach's got a head full of cold and a bed full of used Kleenex, and he's just slept six hours in a Tylenol-induced haze, waking to unexpected darkness and that empty space in the bed beside him, again.
Again.
It's 2 A.M. in New York, but Zach needs to hear his voice.
The line is kinda bad, and Chris's voice is thick with sleep on the other end of it. That roughness combines with the crackle on the wire to make what he says indistinguishable, a wordless, sleepy mumble. "....lo? 'at you?" A pause, and then, quite clearly: "Zach? You okay?"
"I have a cold." The moment the words are out of his mouth, it occurs to Zach that it has probably been at least a few weeks since he last said anything this dumb. He clarifies, hastily, "Sorry. Messed up my sleep patterns."
For a moment, there is only Chris's breathing, steady and soft in Zach's ear. Then he says, "You have bad dreams?" and Zach shakes his head unconsciously, forgetting that Chris's voice is the only thing he can cradle to his face right now; wishing for the warmth of that long body, that stubbled smile against his cheek.
"Missed you," Zach says, too quietly.
Chris breathes in and out, in and out. Zach decides to join him, timing the rises and falls of his own chest to chime in with Chris's. Miles and miles between them, and all the air the same.
"I miss you, too," says Chris. "I hope you're looking after yourself."
Zach presses the telephone a little harder against his face, curling himself around it in the bed, and the whole thing is goddamn illogical, but he can't seem to care. "I'm trying," he says. "I have Tylenol and chicken soup. That's good, right?"
A sigh. "Yeah, that's good."
Pause.
Then, "Wish I was there to look after you, man."
And hell, there is nothing in that statement, and everything. The sudden gruffness to Chris's tone, and the rampant softness ghosting underneath. The things unsaid. This is what Zach called for; this is what he needed.
He wants to say I love you too, because he does, and he's too tired to think of anything but the truth. But then he starts to sneeze, and that is that.
It's 2 A.M. in New York, and Chris has to be on the lot at 7. But he stays on the line until Zach has fallen asleep again, lulled by the gentle steadiness of Chris's breathing in his ear.
Title: Between Takes
Pairing: Shatner/Kelley. Yes. Bill/De. Sort of.
Rating: Completely, totally PG.
Disclaimer: Well, this scene as it reads here, I made up.
Notes/Summary: Well, so this picture happened. And coming on top of all the stuff in the biographies of DeForest about how Bill apparently kissed him all the time, PLUS De's repeated stealth-kissing attempts in the blooper reels, etc, I just had to write this.Totally innocent,De-is-still-monogamous-and-lovely!Bill/De to go with the picture. Mostly banter.
"You gonna light that thing, or just stand there with it stuck to your lip like Stan Laurel?"
DeForest grinned, rocked forward on his toes, and resettled himself with one eyebrow quirked. "Waiting on you, Billy," he said, blithely. "You got a light, or what?"
Bill rolled his eyes and rummaged behind him for his neat little pile of afternoon-break accoutrements: pack of smokes, lighter, cinnamon gum so's he'd stink of something other than tar, afterwards. He flicked the lighter into action with his thumb; held it out, arm outstretched, waiting. "Come on, then," he said, shaking his arm a little for emphasis. The flame wavered slightly; reasserted itself. "You'll have to come down here."
De smirked. It was, quite distinctly, a smirk, and could not be excused as anything else. "I feel like I'm soliciting some kinda two-cent whore," he said, leaning down over Bill's knees until the cigarette was reachable.
"You sound pretty happy about that," Bill remarked, cupping one hand around the end of De's cigarette and touching the flame to the end of it with the other. "What would Carolyn say? Didn't she freak out last week when she saw you arm in arm with Majel?" Bill grinned up at him, crossed his eyes deliberately, and then affected a mock-scandalised expression. "De, you philanderer."
The cigarette had taken; Bill moved the lighter away, and would have moved himself as well, but De went on grinning, and cupped the back of Bill's head in his hand. "Guess she thinks I'm safe with you, though, Billy." His fingers combed through the hair at the back of Bill's neck. "She wrong, or something?"
Bill rolled his eyes. "More like I'm not safe with you." He affected an accent and tone of voice that sounded exactly nothing like De, and said, "Kiss me, Captain!"
De shrugged, let go of Bill's hair and took the cigarette out of his mouth, blowing out smoke in a steady stream just a little to the left of Bill's ear. "It's a free country. I can say what I like."
"You tried to kiss me on the bridge!"
"You pulled away!" De countered. "I knew you would." He paused. "Anyway, you kiss me plenty, Billy-boy. Hell, you kiss goddamn everyone."
"Not like that," Bill protested. "And anyway - " he let his fingers curl on De's waist, which was at around eye-level, mock-suggestively " - what would you have done if I hadn't? Huh? You even think of that?"
"I guess..." De began, smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth. He trailed his fingers over Bill's cheek, along his jawline, two fingers with the cigarette smouldering between. As if in completion of the thought, he leaned down and, without further preamble, pressed his mouth to Bill's.
Bill laughed, shifting both hands easily to cup De's face, holding him there. "Oh yeah?" The press of De's lips to his had been dry and chaste; very deliberately, Bill let his lips part just sufficiently for De to sense the wetness between, and returned the kiss.
The next thing he knew was De's mouth opening easily under his; De's fingers sliding from his hair to the warm pull of the tendon in his throat. If he had hoped to somehow frighten the smirk off De's face, apparently he was going to have to try a helluva lot harder.
Not that Bill very much wanted to put De off, just now. There was something thrilling about this, ending their weeks of mutual, extravagant flirtation with this kiss that was both unexpected and rather delicious. Of course, it didn't mean anything more than a ha, you thought I wouldn't! De was just De, and the flirting was never meant to do anything but keep them entertained. He did kiss kind of beautifully, though, late afternoon stubble a long-ago pleasure, sandpapery against Bill's mouth, and Bill couldn't keep from grinning his surprise.
After a minute, De pulled back, slowly, as if to make sure Bill didn't think he was chickening out of anything by doing so. He raised an eyebrow, jokingly salacious, and licked Bill's upper lip before straightening up. Bill pulled a face, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"What was that for?" he demanded.
"Something to remember me by," De quipped, taking another long draw on his cigarette. The ash had grown long in the time they had been otherwise occupied, and De flicked it off impatiently with a fingernail. Bill sat back on the bench, pressing his shoulders against the wall behind him and rolling out a muscle-ache.
"I thought you were all mouth and no trousers, Kelley," he confessed.
De snorted. "You what? If you think you're gonna catch me without my pants, Billy, you've got another thing coming. This is one thing but - "
"No, no," Bill protested, laughing. "You know what I mean. All talk. I don't want in your goddamn pants, De. Jeez."
"Good to know," said De.
Inside, there were sounds of scuffling, people shouting. De cocked his head, looking mournfully at his cigarette. "Sounds like we're gonna be needed again in a second. And I only got half a puff outta this thing, thanks to you." He shook the cigarette menacingly in Bill's direction.
Bill donned his best offended expression. "DeForest. Shame on you. Who exactly kissed who, here? I've been assaulted. Hell, I should sue." He stood up, stretching languorously, and reached down for his tunic. "I should - hey!" He leapt around, mid-sentence, hand pressed protectively to his backside. "What was I just saying about assault, there?"
De smirked. "Whatever. See you on set in a minute, bubble-butt."*
Bill's been told Kirk and McCoy are a little too smirky all the way through Friday's Child. Bill can't really see it, himself.
**
*A/N: For those that missed the memo: DE SAID THIS. IN AN INTERVIEW. Oy. I love him.
This post mostly for archiving purposes, so feel free to skip! Both of these have previously been posted elsewhere.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Pinto
Disclaimer: Lies!
Notes/Summary: I wrote this for smutjunkie's prompt here - 'Zach misses Chris' - after it sort of became a meme due to the multiplicity of fills. I couldn't resist playing. :)
Eleven o'clock at night, Los Angeles time, and Zach knows this makes it 2 A.M. in New York, so many miles away, where Chris is and shouldn't be. Eleven o'clock, and Zach's got a head full of cold and a bed full of used Kleenex, and he's just slept six hours in a Tylenol-induced haze, waking to unexpected darkness and that empty space in the bed beside him, again.
Again.
It's 2 A.M. in New York, but Zach needs to hear his voice.
The line is kinda bad, and Chris's voice is thick with sleep on the other end of it. That roughness combines with the crackle on the wire to make what he says indistinguishable, a wordless, sleepy mumble. "....lo? 'at you?" A pause, and then, quite clearly: "Zach? You okay?"
"I have a cold." The moment the words are out of his mouth, it occurs to Zach that it has probably been at least a few weeks since he last said anything this dumb. He clarifies, hastily, "Sorry. Messed up my sleep patterns."
For a moment, there is only Chris's breathing, steady and soft in Zach's ear. Then he says, "You have bad dreams?" and Zach shakes his head unconsciously, forgetting that Chris's voice is the only thing he can cradle to his face right now; wishing for the warmth of that long body, that stubbled smile against his cheek.
"Missed you," Zach says, too quietly.
Chris breathes in and out, in and out. Zach decides to join him, timing the rises and falls of his own chest to chime in with Chris's. Miles and miles between them, and all the air the same.
"I miss you, too," says Chris. "I hope you're looking after yourself."
Zach presses the telephone a little harder against his face, curling himself around it in the bed, and the whole thing is goddamn illogical, but he can't seem to care. "I'm trying," he says. "I have Tylenol and chicken soup. That's good, right?"
A sigh. "Yeah, that's good."
Pause.
Then, "Wish I was there to look after you, man."
And hell, there is nothing in that statement, and everything. The sudden gruffness to Chris's tone, and the rampant softness ghosting underneath. The things unsaid. This is what Zach called for; this is what he needed.
He wants to say I love you too, because he does, and he's too tired to think of anything but the truth. But then he starts to sneeze, and that is that.
It's 2 A.M. in New York, and Chris has to be on the lot at 7. But he stays on the line until Zach has fallen asleep again, lulled by the gentle steadiness of Chris's breathing in his ear.
Title: Between Takes
Pairing: Shatner/Kelley. Yes. Bill/De. Sort of.
Rating: Completely, totally PG.
Disclaimer: Well, this scene as it reads here, I made up.
Notes/Summary: Well, so this picture happened. And coming on top of all the stuff in the biographies of DeForest about how Bill apparently kissed him all the time, PLUS De's repeated stealth-kissing attempts in the blooper reels, etc, I just had to write this.Totally innocent,De-is-still-monogamous-and-lovely!Bill/De to go with the picture. Mostly banter.
"You gonna light that thing, or just stand there with it stuck to your lip like Stan Laurel?"
DeForest grinned, rocked forward on his toes, and resettled himself with one eyebrow quirked. "Waiting on you, Billy," he said, blithely. "You got a light, or what?"
Bill rolled his eyes and rummaged behind him for his neat little pile of afternoon-break accoutrements: pack of smokes, lighter, cinnamon gum so's he'd stink of something other than tar, afterwards. He flicked the lighter into action with his thumb; held it out, arm outstretched, waiting. "Come on, then," he said, shaking his arm a little for emphasis. The flame wavered slightly; reasserted itself. "You'll have to come down here."
De smirked. It was, quite distinctly, a smirk, and could not be excused as anything else. "I feel like I'm soliciting some kinda two-cent whore," he said, leaning down over Bill's knees until the cigarette was reachable.
"You sound pretty happy about that," Bill remarked, cupping one hand around the end of De's cigarette and touching the flame to the end of it with the other. "What would Carolyn say? Didn't she freak out last week when she saw you arm in arm with Majel?" Bill grinned up at him, crossed his eyes deliberately, and then affected a mock-scandalised expression. "De, you philanderer."
The cigarette had taken; Bill moved the lighter away, and would have moved himself as well, but De went on grinning, and cupped the back of Bill's head in his hand. "Guess she thinks I'm safe with you, though, Billy." His fingers combed through the hair at the back of Bill's neck. "She wrong, or something?"
Bill rolled his eyes. "More like I'm not safe with you." He affected an accent and tone of voice that sounded exactly nothing like De, and said, "Kiss me, Captain!"
De shrugged, let go of Bill's hair and took the cigarette out of his mouth, blowing out smoke in a steady stream just a little to the left of Bill's ear. "It's a free country. I can say what I like."
"You tried to kiss me on the bridge!"
"You pulled away!" De countered. "I knew you would." He paused. "Anyway, you kiss me plenty, Billy-boy. Hell, you kiss goddamn everyone."
"Not like that," Bill protested. "And anyway - " he let his fingers curl on De's waist, which was at around eye-level, mock-suggestively " - what would you have done if I hadn't? Huh? You even think of that?"
"I guess..." De began, smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth. He trailed his fingers over Bill's cheek, along his jawline, two fingers with the cigarette smouldering between. As if in completion of the thought, he leaned down and, without further preamble, pressed his mouth to Bill's.
Bill laughed, shifting both hands easily to cup De's face, holding him there. "Oh yeah?" The press of De's lips to his had been dry and chaste; very deliberately, Bill let his lips part just sufficiently for De to sense the wetness between, and returned the kiss.
The next thing he knew was De's mouth opening easily under his; De's fingers sliding from his hair to the warm pull of the tendon in his throat. If he had hoped to somehow frighten the smirk off De's face, apparently he was going to have to try a helluva lot harder.
Not that Bill very much wanted to put De off, just now. There was something thrilling about this, ending their weeks of mutual, extravagant flirtation with this kiss that was both unexpected and rather delicious. Of course, it didn't mean anything more than a ha, you thought I wouldn't! De was just De, and the flirting was never meant to do anything but keep them entertained. He did kiss kind of beautifully, though, late afternoon stubble a long-ago pleasure, sandpapery against Bill's mouth, and Bill couldn't keep from grinning his surprise.
After a minute, De pulled back, slowly, as if to make sure Bill didn't think he was chickening out of anything by doing so. He raised an eyebrow, jokingly salacious, and licked Bill's upper lip before straightening up. Bill pulled a face, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"What was that for?" he demanded.
"Something to remember me by," De quipped, taking another long draw on his cigarette. The ash had grown long in the time they had been otherwise occupied, and De flicked it off impatiently with a fingernail. Bill sat back on the bench, pressing his shoulders against the wall behind him and rolling out a muscle-ache.
"I thought you were all mouth and no trousers, Kelley," he confessed.
De snorted. "You what? If you think you're gonna catch me without my pants, Billy, you've got another thing coming. This is one thing but - "
"No, no," Bill protested, laughing. "You know what I mean. All talk. I don't want in your goddamn pants, De. Jeez."
"Good to know," said De.
Inside, there were sounds of scuffling, people shouting. De cocked his head, looking mournfully at his cigarette. "Sounds like we're gonna be needed again in a second. And I only got half a puff outta this thing, thanks to you." He shook the cigarette menacingly in Bill's direction.
Bill donned his best offended expression. "DeForest. Shame on you. Who exactly kissed who, here? I've been assaulted. Hell, I should sue." He stood up, stretching languorously, and reached down for his tunic. "I should - hey!" He leapt around, mid-sentence, hand pressed protectively to his backside. "What was I just saying about assault, there?"
De smirked. "Whatever. See you on set in a minute, bubble-butt."*
Bill's been told Kirk and McCoy are a little too smirky all the way through Friday's Child. Bill can't really see it, himself.
**
*A/N: For those that missed the memo: DE SAID THIS. IN AN INTERVIEW. Oy. I love him.
This post mostly for archiving purposes, so feel free to skip! Both of these have previously been posted elsewhere.