Eternity // Crooked Heart
Title: Eternity
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Tommy/Tosh
Spoilers: 2x03 "To The Last Man
Words: 213
Rating: PG-13 for implied sexual activity
Prompt: Torchwood, Tommy/Tosh, eternity
He doesn't know who she is but he can remember her.
The memories are just little flashes, there and gone, but they're enough.
Having a drink with her and watching a war on a little panel set high up in the wall, like a moving color photograph. A different war, but wars are all the same.
Laughing with her by the sea, everything weird and futuristic but all he sees is her. Hair falling in her face and she brushes it away impatiently. Her clothes are too bright and too revealing to ever be appropriate, but they suit her.
The feel of her skin on his and the sheets soft against his bare back. Softer than the army cots and softer than the hospital beds. Feeling safe with her in his arms even though dread threatens to break him, and he doesn’t remember why.
A complicated mechanism, cold and heavy in his hands and he can't remember how it got there but suddenly she's there and she tells him what to do. He doesn't know who she is, but he knows he loves her.
There's an order he doesn't hear and flames exploding in rifle barrels and for once he doesn't flinch, but holds her in his mind as he falls into eternity.
*
Title: Crooked Heart
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Rachel, OC (Mrs. Bacon)
Spoilers: Um, none, I think. Wow, that's new.
Words: 678
Rating: PG
Prompt: You shall love your neighbor with your crooked heart.
“Rachel, would you mind taking this over to Mrs. Bacon?” Mom held up a foil-wrapped plate of leftovers. She wasn’t the most caring of neighbors, and God knows she often didn’t have the time to cook (small blessings, eh?) but she and some of the other neighborhood families took turns helping out the elderly woman next door and I guessed tonight was her turn.
“Sure,” I said. I stood, took my empty plate and glass to the sink. Even though I’d agreed, I didn’t like Mrs. Bacon much; she called me “dear”, knitted so much I was surprised there was still a sheep in the world with any wool, and treated me like I was five. Also, I was tired, and I still had homework to do. But I’d learned the hard way that arguing with my mom only wasted time, so I took the plate and stepped out the back door.
I went around the side of the house and climbed up the steps to Mrs. Bacon’s front porch. There was a little ceramic plate that read “BACON” on the door, just above the bell. I used to think her name was hilarious when I was younger, and apparently her late husband had felt the same, because she explained to me nearly every time I visited her about how he had painted a strip of bacon on the wall just above it and she made him whitewash it out.
I rang the bell, then remembering she probably couldn’t hear it gave the plain door knocker a few good raps and called through the wood, “Mrs. Bacon, are you there? It’s Rachel, from next door.”
The door opened and Mrs. Bacon smiled at me, a little old lady of eighty-plus years with gray hair, a walker, and a dead awful cardigan. “Rachel, dear!” she exclaimed, and there was something odd about the way she looked at me that I couldn’t quite place. “How nice to see you, you haven’t visited me in years, come in, come in!” She pulled me inside, her fingers surprisingly strong on my forearm, and shut the door behind me.
She was right, I realized, as she practically pushed me down onto the sofa and offered me a plate of cookies that looked like they’d been sitting on the coffee table for at least a week. I hadn’t been to see her since before the construction site. It had just never come up.
“I’ve been busy,” I said, the half-truth coming easily to my lips as I gave a one-shouldered shrug and set the cookies aside.
“Of course you have, dear,” she agreed, smiling one of those old-lady smiles at me. “It’s all a part of growing up.” Why did it feel as if there was some kind of double meaning behind her words?
She seated herself carefully in her armchair and picked up her knitting needles, regarding me from over the top of a row of blue yarn.
“So, Rachel dear,” she said, as the needles went clack clack clack in her hands. “Tell me about your life. Are things going well at school? Getting along with all your friends?”
“Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine.” I smiled. Lies, always lies. “Just, like I said, busy.”
“But you still have time to visit an old lady, how sweet of you.” Suddenly she set down the knitting needles and leaned over to pat my cheek. “You’re such a wonderful girl, Rachel. Such a kind, beautiful young woman. But there’s something growing inside you, isn’t there? Something dark, something frightening? You have a crooked heart, dear. But you have good intentions and a good brain.” She tapped the side of her head with one wrinkled finger. “Use them.”
“Okay, um.” I pulled away, stood. I felt cold. “I should go now.”
“That’s probably for the best,” she agreed, the sudden intensity gone as if it had never been there at all. “Tell your mother thank you for the food, and I hope to see you soon, dear. I’m sure you can see yourself out.”
So I did.
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Tommy/Tosh
Spoilers: 2x03 "To The Last Man
Words: 213
Rating: PG-13 for implied sexual activity
Prompt: Torchwood, Tommy/Tosh, eternity
He doesn't know who she is but he can remember her.
The memories are just little flashes, there and gone, but they're enough.
Having a drink with her and watching a war on a little panel set high up in the wall, like a moving color photograph. A different war, but wars are all the same.
Laughing with her by the sea, everything weird and futuristic but all he sees is her. Hair falling in her face and she brushes it away impatiently. Her clothes are too bright and too revealing to ever be appropriate, but they suit her.
The feel of her skin on his and the sheets soft against his bare back. Softer than the army cots and softer than the hospital beds. Feeling safe with her in his arms even though dread threatens to break him, and he doesn’t remember why.
A complicated mechanism, cold and heavy in his hands and he can't remember how it got there but suddenly she's there and she tells him what to do. He doesn't know who she is, but he knows he loves her.
There's an order he doesn't hear and flames exploding in rifle barrels and for once he doesn't flinch, but holds her in his mind as he falls into eternity.
*
Title: Crooked Heart
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Rachel, OC (Mrs. Bacon)
Spoilers: Um, none, I think. Wow, that's new.
Words: 678
Rating: PG
Prompt: You shall love your neighbor with your crooked heart.
“Rachel, would you mind taking this over to Mrs. Bacon?” Mom held up a foil-wrapped plate of leftovers. She wasn’t the most caring of neighbors, and God knows she often didn’t have the time to cook (small blessings, eh?) but she and some of the other neighborhood families took turns helping out the elderly woman next door and I guessed tonight was her turn.
“Sure,” I said. I stood, took my empty plate and glass to the sink. Even though I’d agreed, I didn’t like Mrs. Bacon much; she called me “dear”, knitted so much I was surprised there was still a sheep in the world with any wool, and treated me like I was five. Also, I was tired, and I still had homework to do. But I’d learned the hard way that arguing with my mom only wasted time, so I took the plate and stepped out the back door.
I went around the side of the house and climbed up the steps to Mrs. Bacon’s front porch. There was a little ceramic plate that read “BACON” on the door, just above the bell. I used to think her name was hilarious when I was younger, and apparently her late husband had felt the same, because she explained to me nearly every time I visited her about how he had painted a strip of bacon on the wall just above it and she made him whitewash it out.
I rang the bell, then remembering she probably couldn’t hear it gave the plain door knocker a few good raps and called through the wood, “Mrs. Bacon, are you there? It’s Rachel, from next door.”
The door opened and Mrs. Bacon smiled at me, a little old lady of eighty-plus years with gray hair, a walker, and a dead awful cardigan. “Rachel, dear!” she exclaimed, and there was something odd about the way she looked at me that I couldn’t quite place. “How nice to see you, you haven’t visited me in years, come in, come in!” She pulled me inside, her fingers surprisingly strong on my forearm, and shut the door behind me.
She was right, I realized, as she practically pushed me down onto the sofa and offered me a plate of cookies that looked like they’d been sitting on the coffee table for at least a week. I hadn’t been to see her since before the construction site. It had just never come up.
“I’ve been busy,” I said, the half-truth coming easily to my lips as I gave a one-shouldered shrug and set the cookies aside.
“Of course you have, dear,” she agreed, smiling one of those old-lady smiles at me. “It’s all a part of growing up.” Why did it feel as if there was some kind of double meaning behind her words?
She seated herself carefully in her armchair and picked up her knitting needles, regarding me from over the top of a row of blue yarn.
“So, Rachel dear,” she said, as the needles went clack clack clack in her hands. “Tell me about your life. Are things going well at school? Getting along with all your friends?”
“Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine.” I smiled. Lies, always lies. “Just, like I said, busy.”
“But you still have time to visit an old lady, how sweet of you.” Suddenly she set down the knitting needles and leaned over to pat my cheek. “You’re such a wonderful girl, Rachel. Such a kind, beautiful young woman. But there’s something growing inside you, isn’t there? Something dark, something frightening? You have a crooked heart, dear. But you have good intentions and a good brain.” She tapped the side of her head with one wrinkled finger. “Use them.”
“Okay, um.” I pulled away, stood. I felt cold. “I should go now.”
“That’s probably for the best,” she agreed, the sudden intensity gone as if it had never been there at all. “Tell your mother thank you for the food, and I hope to see you soon, dear. I’m sure you can see yourself out.”
So I did.