HOMECOMING DANCE COMMENT FICATHON
I KNOW WHERE EVERYONE IS TONIGHT
THEY'RE ON TUMBLR
TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH THEY MISS LJ
WELL LET'S DO THIS
I OFFICIALLY INVITE YOU AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO A MULTIFANDOM COMMENT FICATHON, RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW. We're talking Doctor Who, Sherlock, Elementary, Harry Potter, Avengers, Marvel and DC, Justified, Star Trek, Veronica Mars, Secret Diary of ( Read more... )
THEY'RE ON TUMBLR
TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH THEY MISS LJ
WELL LET'S DO THIS
I OFFICIALLY INVITE YOU AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO A MULTIFANDOM COMMENT FICATHON, RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW. We're talking Doctor Who, Sherlock, Elementary, Harry Potter, Avengers, Marvel and DC, Justified, Star Trek, Veronica Mars, Secret Diary of ( Read more... )
A month passes, parties and clubs, jazz players swinging and cigarette girls handing favors behind beaded curtains. Harry stops coming to her for sex, but the leers of the men never do.
She wanders where she dares in the brief respites when he isn't in the house, searching for him. She never does find him, but sometimes at night she can hear him calling for her, and she says his name when she sleeps.
*****
"Come now Rosie. We've got a treat for you." Harry's hand clamps around her upper arm hard, drawing a stifled whimper. She drops the mirror she was holding and has to run to keep up with him.
With a pooling sense of dread she follows him down past the servant's quarters, into the cellar. It's dusty and cold, insects and rats scuttling along the floor. Harry keeps dragging her past the wine crates.
Oh John.
He's staring at her, tied up and guilty. Fear and something else, something deeper than that. His hand flexes and she remembers the feel of it in hers.
"Please," she begs, not sure who she's taking to. "Oh, please don't."
Harry chuckles and guides her to sit on an upturned crate. The faceless men move to untie John and he stands tall and proud, skin split above his eyebrows. Her heart aches for him.
"Leave us," Harry orders to the men and they turn and melt into the shadows. That's new. He always uses henchmen to do the dirty work.
"What's...going on?"
"Oh!" exclaims Harry, "let's have a little fun shall we? What shall we do, Rose? Strangle him? Beat him? Shoot him...slowly? It's your choice darling."
He's waiting, she realizes, half sick. He's waiting for her to choose how he dies.
"No," she whispers.
"Sorry." The manic grin is fading from Harry's face. "I didn't quite catch that, dear." His fingers dig into her shoulders and she gasps but grits her teeth.
"No," she repeats. "I said no!"
It happens in slow motion. John cries out hoarsely, moving far too slowly to stop him. Harry raises his gun, a flash of cold biting metal and steel but she reaches out and tugs. The gun is in her hands before she knows it. But her trembling fingers are already at the trigger, the barrel aimed and steady.
"I'm not sorry," says Rose, and shoots him, Harry Saxon's body bleeding and falling to the floor. The blast is so final, the silence ringing and definite.
John inhales, and then the gun clatters to the ground and he's embracing her, arms wrapped gently around her, face in her hair. He's warm and solid and safe, murmuring soothing things in her ear.
"I couldn't let him kill you," she whispers. "I couldn't."
"I thought he was going to shoot you," he breathes and then he's kissing her, long and tender and slow. She breaks away from his lips, hugs him tighter.
"What do we do?" she asks, and he tilts up her chin to look at him, fingers and voice gentle.
"Run," he says simply and they do, crashing through the door and sprinting to the exit, sunlight so close and leaving the shadows far behind
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