(no subject)
So! Way the hell back in July, when I was innocently seeking distraction from the agonizing wait for the Doctor Who finale and blissfully unaware that said agonizing wait would be the best part of the entire episode (oh yeah, I'm still mad), I asked for crossover challenge requests to keep myself occupied.
. . . no, this is not a second round. Not right now. Maybe some other time. I was going to put the results all up in one post, but, uh, I forgot. Until now. I got almost all of them done, excepting the ones that were requests for something I was already trying to write at the time, and also I never want to write a Dogma crossover again, GAIL. ;) But there are still twelve random snippets right here, presented in no particular order. Spoiler warnings or whathaveyou in the cuts, though the spoilers that were new then are kinda old now.
House/Dead and Breakfast for disanddat.
See, this is why Thirteen never talks about herself. The simplest questions are landmines. What do your parents do? What are your long-term plans? Where are you from?
"Never mind where I'm from," she says. She can feel herself going all ice princess, which isn't fair with someone as hopelessly inoffensive and young-seeming as Kutner, especially over an innocent pleasantry. She doesn't try to curb it, though, because another thing that isn't fair is the way people look at her when they hear the answer, all clawing curiosity dressed up in pity.
"I was just asking," Kutner mumbles, looking at the table. She softens a little. It really is like kicking a puppy.
"It's not important," she says. Then, tapping her case folder, she looks up at House to suggest vasculitis, but the word dies in her throat when she meets his eyes. Usually he dismisses her evasions, no doubt as bored with them as he gets with most everything else, but now he's looking at her with the sharp curiosity that she's learned means he's got hold of something and he's not going to stop shaking it until he's gotten everything he wants from it. If he doesn't know about Lovelock already, she thinks, he will before the afternoon is up.
**********
House/Torchwood for fiareynne.
Chase was twenty minutes late, which was almost enough to make him want to call out just to avoid House. House could, of course, be as late as he liked, but let one of his fellows try it and you'd better hope for a once-in-a-lifetime case to take his mind off you. Chase knew better than to expect his luck to be that good, so he settled for attempting to be invisible as he opened the door.
"This is impossible," Cameron was saying in exasperation.
"We'll just tell the patient that," House said. "That should fix everything. We'll let Chase do it, since he doesn't seem to want to be here anyway," he added, watching as Chase slunk into the room.
"Sorry," Chase said, giving up the invisibility act and hastily taking a seat. "Traffic." He tensed a bit, bracing himself.
"Uh-huh," House said, and tossed a folder at him.
And that was it.
So, Chase thought, either he had some particular new torment he wanted to test out later on, or this really was a hell of a case. Chase decided to go with the optimistic choice and opened the folder eagerly.
Forty-two year old female, presenting with -
No. No, that couldn't be it. Chase read it through again, more slowly.
- with all the signs of pregnancy, nearly full-term. Except the thing in her uterus wasn't a fetus, it was an egg-shaped mass.
Chase looked up, and it was only then that he became aware of the stymied silence. No one was throwing out diagnoses, or even arguing. They were just looking at him.
"Here's where it gets interesting," House said. "She says -"
"That it just appeared this morning," Chase finished. House's eyes narrowed.
"You've seen this before."
"Possibly," Chase answered guardedly, hoping like hell that he hadn't. "Has she been bitten recently? In the last twenty-four hours?"
There was a brief silence, which Chase took as a yes. He was proven correct when Foreman asked,
"Okay, so what the hell is it?"
A horrible, bloody, fucking mess, Chase didn't say. "How long?" he asked instead.
"How long?" Foreman repeated in confusion.
"Since the bite," Chase clarified, urgency beginning to tighten his voice. "How long?"
Foreman and Cameron glanced at each other. "Last night sometime," Cameron said. "Why?"
Chase shook his head. "That's not good enough. We need a timeline. Go find out." He started digging in his pocket for his cell phone. "It's important!" he added sharply as they both failed to move. "Go!"
They looked to House for confirmation. He said, "Why are you two still here?"
"We don't both need -" Foreman began.
"Anyone not named Chase who's still in this room in ten seconds is fired," House interrupted. Foreman and Cameron got up and left, both still radiating confusion and irritation.
When they were gone, House looked at Chase. "Making a phone call?"
"Consult," Chase answered, flipping through the numbers on his phone. Sort of. He should have asked, technically, but there was no time for formalities.
"All right," House said. Later, Chase would realize he should have recognized the warning sign - when did House ever acquiesce to anything without a dozen questions at the very least? - but, for the moment, he was too preoccupied to realize that he had just become far more interesting than the case in House's eyes.
"Cardiff Information Center," a Welsh voice said in his ear. Chase hesitated. It had been years, after all, the number could have been reassigned. But then, given the nature of the man he was trying to reach . . .
"Captain Jack Harkness, please," he said. "It's urgent."
"May I ask who's calling?" The voice was unruffled, which only served to wind Chase up that little bit more. He answered tersely and was put on hold while the voice went to go see if Captain Harkness was available.
The hold music was truly obnoxious, some appalling rendition of a Police song that sounded like bloody maracas were involved, and that combined with the weight of House's stare as Chase waited had him about ready to burst by the time Jack finally picked up.
"Robert Chase! Been a while. To what do I owe?"
"You've got to do something about that hold music, Jack," Chase couldn't help saying.
"Why? I like it. It's fun."
Of course. Chase rolled his eyes and got to the point. "I've got an interesting case. Think it might be one of yours."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah." Chase outlined the details briefly. He heard Jack sigh when he was done.
"Nostravites? Again? Can't seem to get rid of those fucking thi - oh, hey," he interrupted himself brightly, "you're working for Gregory House these days?"
Chase blinked, taken aback even though he knew he probably shouldn't be. "Yes."
"Great," said Jack, very possibly establishing himself as the first person on the planet to react in such a manner to news of House's involvement. "He's there, right? Put me on speakerphone."
"Okay," Chase said slowly. He did so and set his phone on the table.
"Hey, Greg," said Jack's cheerful, tinny voice.
"Hello, Harkness," answered House, not sounding half so pleased.
Chase stared.
**********
Iron Man/Dogma for cacopheny.
Tony claims he's gotten every stripper he's ever propositioned into bed - for free - because what guy with his reputation wouldn't? But, like everyone, Tony could tell a story about the one that got away.
It was in Illinois, somewhere, doing . . . oh, something about PR, or something. Hell if Tony knows, it was a decade ago and he was drunk the whole time anyway. But he'd snuck out to some little dive strip joint. Nothing special, but slightly more interesting than his hotel room. Still, he'd been ready to head back and see if the mini-bar had been restocked in his absence when she came onstage.
She was an absolute fucking knock-out, the kind of body he would have expected to see in Vegas, not the ass-end of Illinois. Tony sank back into his seat, pulled out his wallet, and started dropping the kind of tips designed to get a stripper's attention.
And that was all he got. Tony was never the kind of asshole who expected a tip to result in getting laid, of course. He didn't have to. His charm and looks usually did the trick. And this woman, it turned out, even knew who he was, another thing he wouldn't have expected in a place like this. After the first - and, ultimately, the only - lap dance, she mentioned an article of his she'd seen in a physics journal a few months back, and that was that. They talked for the next three hours, and oh Christ was she smart, following his every word without needing explanation once. The only person Tony had ever known who could keep pace with him like that had been his father.
When the place closed for the night, Tony tried to give her another few hundred to make up for occupying her time, but she turned him down, saying that being treated with respect on the job for a change was payment enough. Then she went her way and he went his, and she wasn't there the next day when he tried to find her again before he left.
Tony knows he could get away with telling this story. Tell it in the right way, exaggerate a few things and play down a few others, and he could easily have guys laughing with him instead of at him. He keeps it to himself, though, because the truth is he wouldn't trade a second of that conversation for anything, and to this day he does a hopeful double-take when he sees a woman with long dark hair, because maybe someday it will be her.
**********
Dexter/Doctor Who for apiphile
The first clue that this situation isn't quite right is the sedative failing to take effect. Dexter always triple-checks to make sure he's put the right dose in the syringe. He has no intention of being tripped up by a foolish rookie error.
The second clue is when Kilpatrick turns sharply around and sees him there with the syringe and, instead of looking shocked or angry or any number of reactions Dexter would have anticipated, he smiles and puts his hand to his forehead.
"Foolish human," he says. Then Dexter wonders if he didn't somehow ingest a hallucinogen of some kind by mistake, because the third and most alarming clue seems to be Kilpatrick unzipping his forehead. Light spills out instead of blood, but that's not Dexter's primary concern at the moment.
An impossible green head emerges from the gap, and Dexter hears the clatter of the syringe hitting the floor as it falls from his slack fingers.
The door slams open. "OI!" shouts a voice. It belongs to a young black woman who comes hurtling through the door, brandishing - a spray bottle?
Kilpatrick . . . or . . . whoever . . . turns to see the source of the shout, and the woman sends a jet of liquid into his face. For a split second, Dexter thinks he can smell vinegar, then he is distracted from that entirely when Kilpatrick explodes, dousing Dexter and the woman in foul green goo.
The woman wipes her face, unperturbed. "Doctor! In here!" she yells, then looks at Dexter. "Are you all right?"
"Uh. Yeah." He blinks owlishly, at a loss.
A man comes running in, tall and lanky and wearing a pinstriped suit. Good thing he hadn't been in here a few seconds ago, Dexter thinks dazedly, because his suit would have been ruined.
"That the lot of them, then?" the woman asks her apparent companion.
"Should be," he answers, then sees Dexter. "Unless this one . . . ?"
"No, he's just caught in the crossfire," she says.
"Oh, good, good. You'll probably want to be getting home and getting a drink inside you," the companion says. It takes another few seconds for Dexter to realize that the man is talking to him.
"Oh, uh. Yes. Yes, that sounds like a good idea." He looks down at his clothes. "A shower, too."
"Oh, yes." The man grins. "Good thinking, that. You just go along, then, nothing to keep you here."
Even floundering in shock, Dexter knows when he's being rushed off. His police training urges him to find out more, or at least call it in - he has, technically, witnessed a murder, after all - but there are about a million things wrong with both options, so in the end he just leaves.
He manages to convince himself it was a dream. He never quite gets around to trying to find Kilpatrick again, though.
**********
House/Supernatural for offspeed. Spoilers for the House season four finale.
The guy at table six is really starting to work Jo's nerves.
it's not just that he's an asshole. She's met meaner. She's killed meaner. It's that he's been sitting there for two hours and all he'll order is water.
Jo's been working in bars since she was sixteen, and of course she spent time in Harvelle's even before that, and she knows all the signs of a man who wants a drink. This guy's got every single one of them, and for all that he's quiet and still unless she dares to say a word to him while she's refilling his glass, he's screaming out his need for anyone who's got the eye to see it.
She supposes she should applaud his restraint or something. God knows she's waited on her share of customers who could stand to put down the glass. But her shift ended an hour ago and she can't leave till she can cash him out. If it was an emergency, of course, she would anyway, but the case she's here for turned out to be a bust and she'd like to build up a little cash before she starts looking for the next one. She needs to keep this job for another week or so.
Tact has never really been Jo's thing, though, and as the two and a half hour mark creeps up, she decides to take matters into her own hands. She walks up to table six and smiles. The guy looks up in weary disinterest.
"If you walk away now," he says before she can speak, "I might still tip you."
Jo shrugs and takes a seat across from him. "No, you won't."
"No, I won't," he agrees.
"So," she continues, "since you're wasting my time, you owe me a story."
He raises an eyebrow. Jo leans forward on her elbows. "I know you want a drink," she tells him, laying the clueless young waitress act on a little thick. "You got the look of a man could sink a bottle a rotgut without blinkin'. So what's with the water?"
"What's with the bullshit hillbilly act?" he counters. Jo blinks, thrown. "Sorry, princess," he says, "you're gonna have to work a little harder if you wanna look as ignorant as you're trying to sound."
Jo sits back and looks at him coolly. "My point still stands," she says in her own voice. "And you're still wasting my time."
"What do you want?" he asks. "How long down to the hour since I last had a drink? To hear how broke I am and how cold it is outside in this vicious July weather? No, I bet you like a good sob story. Too bad you're just a waitress, then, because if you were my bartender - well, I still wouldn't tell you anything, but at least you'd have been able to kick me out by now."
Jo narrows her eyes. "Let me guess. You went on a bender one night and got someone killed, and now you just can't bring yourself to touch a drop." It's a shot in the dark, since in Jo's experience the people who accidentally take a human life are among the ones who drink the hardest, but the way his expression doesn't change tells her she's nailed it. She winces and opens her mouth to apologize.
"I will leave you a fifty dollar tip if you spare me your fucking sympathy." His expression is still sarcastic and above-it-all, but his eyes are as hard as his voice.
Jo nods and gets up. When she speaks, her own voice is as detached and professional as if she'd never sat down. "Refill, mister?"
**********
Dogma/PotC for cacopheny.
Jack Sparrow has met God.
This is not the start of one of his stories. Jack tells many stories, and some of them are even true. He can't tell this story, though, because he doesn't know it happened to him.
Besides, even if he did, it's not much of a story in a strictly dramatic sense. What happened was this: Jack bought a girl a drink. She said nothing, but smiled at him with such kindness and joy that he forgot to make a pass at her. Forgot where he was for a moment, forgot who he was, even. She tossed the drink back neatly and squeezed his shoulder as she left. He put his hand where hers had been and turned to watch her go, and not five minutes later he met the man who would introduce him to the Black Pearl.
Not that lack of drama would present a problem for Jack. He could dress this story up without even the slightest effort. He would tell of saving the girl from the advances of a crude and hulking barbarian, and how she flung herself upon his neck in gratitude (Jack isn't sure of exactly how one flings oneself upon someone's neck, but he likes the way it sounds). There would be a swordfight and a passionate, gratifying night, and he would conclude on a note of regret that he could not stay, for his is a wandering soul. Yes, there's no doubt Jack could make it into a fine tale indeed, and without ever touching on the girl's identity at that.
But Jack can't tell this story in any form, because he doesn't know any of it happened. If you told it to him, though, he would just nod, because who else could have gifted him with his beautiful Pearl except for God?
**********
Red Dwarf/Torchwood for fiareynne
"Oh, you two'll get along fine," Jack said breezily on his way out the door. "You've got a lot in common. You're both dead." And then he flashed Owen that grin, the one that meant he knew he was full of shit, and he knew Owen knew it, but Owen didn't have any choice.
Owen couldn't wait until Jack moved on from this overprotective crap. Ever since the Doctor had shown up and restored Owen's body back to life, Jack had treated him like blown glass. It had taken all of the Doctor's persuasive powers to get him to let Owen come along with them, and even then Owen hardly saw anything but the inside of the TARDIS.
He was not at all convinced that the inside of the Starbug was an improvement. And the company, he thought, turning to face Arnold Rimmer, the company was definitely not an improvement.
"You don't look dead," Rimmer told him.
"Thanks," Owen said flatly.
"I mean, you're not a hologram," Rimmer clarified. Ohhh. Hologram. That was what the ridiculous-looking H was for. Owen had assumed it was some sort of unfortunate fashion statement.
"Yeah, well, I could've done with a hologram when I was," he said. "Walking around in your own corpse is even less fun than it sounds."
Rimmer shuddered, looking appalled. "Your own - ? Really?"
Owen gave him a considering look. "Oh, yeah. Least it had the decency not to start rotting on me, though."
Rimmer looked absolutely nauseated at that and Owen grinned. Maybe this wouldn't be such a bore after all.
**********
Iron Man/Torchwood for joanne_c, with a bonus shot of Jeeves and Wooster thrown in for fun.
The Junior Ganymede is, as I have told Mr Wooster and previous employers, a club for gentlemens' personal gentlemen. I have never mentioned, however, that it extends further than one might think, and that said personal gentlemen are not always gentlemen.
Usually, when I go to the Ganymede, I remain in its outer circles. It is perhaps a bit small-minded of me, but I am most comfortable within the confines of my own place and time. Occasionally, though, I venture into the back, where exists a more complex arrangement of the continuum, accessible to all who are allowed admittance into their own Ganymede.
Today, the company is a bit sparse, but I see two fellow members with whom I have passed previous agreeable visits. I cross the room to join them.
"Miss Potts," I say with a nod, sitting down. "Mr Jones." Ianto Jones and Virginia Potts - or "Pepper," as she calls herself - are both from the same year, though they have not, in past discussion, been able to ascertain whether they are also both from the same dimension.
"Mr Jeeves," Miss Potts smiles. "How good to see you. I was hoping you'd show up. I've got quite a story."
"She says it will put Captain Harkness to shame," Mr Jones adds. "I say he doesn't know the meaning of the word."
"Oh, there's no way I'm losing this round, Ianto," Miss Potts insists, confirming my long-held suspicions that they are less formal with each other when I am not present. "There's just no way."
"I'm sorry, you do know which Captain Jack Harkness I work for?" Mr Jones asks dryly. He glances at me and continues, "For that matter, one can never really tell what Mr Wooster has gotten up to in any given week."
"Miss Potts has no competitions from these quarters," I say. "Mr Wooster has continued much the same since last we spoke." I do not believe this state of affairs will continue, as Mr Wooster has begun to exhibit signs of boredom and will no doubt be seeking entertainment soon, but this in itself is not worth addressing, so I don't.
"That should explode any day now," Miss Potts remarks, reminding me that she is a very astute woman indeed.
"Well put," I agree. Miss Potts smiles and says,
"Anyway. Tony - sorry, I mean Mr Stark - has decided he's going to be a superhero."
This is rather outside my frame of reference, as tends to happen when conversing with someone from a future year, so I remain silent and listen for context.
"What, just - randomly?" Mr Jones asks, looking somewhat astonished, from which I gather that familiarity with the term is not necessarily of much use.
Miss Potts laughs. "He's been planning it! He has this big metal suit to fly in and everything!" She pauses, her expression softening; her voice, when she resumes, has a distinctly warmer tone to it. "It's pretty cool, actually. He's really getting serious about working to help others. He's changed a lot." She smiles. "I'm pretty proud of him."
A moment passes, then Mr Jones says, "Well, you win. All I've got is a story about films coming to life." He frowns slightly, looking perturbed. "Not really sure what was going on there, to be honest."
Having concluded that a superhero is precisely what the superlative would imply, I nod to Miss Potts. "I am glad to hear Mr Stark has recovered from his ordeal. I hope your situation will continue to improve."
"I think it will, Mr Jeeves," she says. "I really think it will."
**********
Boondock Saints/Torchwood for joanne_c.
The thing is, there are a hundred reasons why Paul Smecker never met his son.
He didn't want to deal with the mother. Some kids experiment with heroin; he experimented with fucking a woman. Just the once, to satisfy his curiosity. If he'd known he was going to knock her up, he'd have chosen a little more carefully. Marianne was a useless bitch, white trash all the way. He'd only found out about Owen because the kid looked like him. Otherwise, Marianne wouldn't have been able to pick Owen's father out of a fucking line-up.
He had his career. By the time Marianne had gotten in touch, he was established, and the job paid well. Easy enough to just set up child support. Not quite as easy to pretend he believed that all, or even most, of the money went to Owen's care, but he was busy. There was always something else to think about.
He sent cards and gifts for Christmas and Owen's birthdays. He never heard back, but it didn't surprise him. He highly doubted that Marianne had ever taught Owen about writing thank you notes.
When the sixteenth birthday package returned unopened, he lost no time in tracking Owen down. He had contacts in London, people who were friends if you looked at it in the right light, and a few phone calls ensured that Owen had a place to live. He resent the gift, with a larger check.
The check came back torn in half.
He could take a hint. He kept sending cards, to keep the lines of communication open, but Owen seemed to be doing just fine on his own. Better, in fact, away from his mother. He ended up in med school, graduated with top grades. Smecker was thinking very seriously about attending the graduation ceremony, but then the McManus brothers happened.
(Smecker doesn't spend much time berating himself for that. Even a perfect father would have gotten bogged down in that mess, maybe forgotten a birthday or two in the struggle to reconcile his conscience with his beliefs, and then to save his career. He can't be faulted for that.)
He missed Owen's fiancée's funeral, but he would have gone to the wedding.
And things just got - strange after that. He was able, thanks to having managed to keep his job after the McManuses disappeared into the ether, to find out that Owen had gone to work for a place called Torchwood, in Wales. What he could never quite find out was what it was that Torchwood did. That was enough to make him nervous, but he couldn't really leave the country. His supervisors were jumpy. A sudden visit to a son he'd never met might set some alarms ringing in the wrong heads.
For that matter, at this juncture Owen probably wouldn't be too thrilled about it either. It was just too late. (He can still imagine what Connor or Murph would have to say about that theory. At length, and profanely. He should have told them about Owen. They would have talked him into making that visit years ago.)
One night, Cardiff was attacked. My son is there, Smecker didn't tell anyone. He just went out and got drunker than he had in years.
There was a voicemail on his cell when he woke up. "Agent Smecker," an unfamiliar and inexplicably American voice said, "my name is Captain Jack Harkness. I" - here Harkness paused, briefly, before continuing - "employed your son, Owen Harper, some time ago. I'm afraid I have some bad news. Please call me back."
He never did.
**********
Torchwood/Boondock Saints part the second, for apiphile. An AU of the above snippet.
Somehow, some fucking way, they get the McManuses out of the courthouse and to the contacts that will be taking them to Ireland. They're not followed. It wasn't exactly the world's stealthiest operation, but no one seems to be able to get a tail on them.
Smecker is not shocked by this. There isn't a cop in the city who wouldn't buy the Saints a round of beer if given half a chance; after this, they'll probably settle for buying drinks for whoever helped.
Connor and Murph both make a point of hugging him before they go (Murph even kisses his neck, that fucking tease, and Smecker mutters to him not to start anything he's not willing to finish in front of everyone here; Connor is too far away to hear, but somehow he knows to laugh anyway).
Even their father steps up and offers a hand to shake. Smecker has, to date, exchanged maybe twenty words with the man; it's been abundantly clear that the senior McManus doesn't like being in contact with a representative of the law, even if said representative willingly killed to keep his sons safe. Smecker didn't expect much of anything from him, so he's surprised by the proffered handshake, and even more surprised to look into clear, non-hostile eyes.
McManus sees the look on Smecker's face and smiles ever so slightly. "There isn't enough time to put off what must be given."
Smecker has no idea what to say to that, or even if it's supposed to make sense to anyone who isn't completely fucking crazy, so he just shakes McManus's hand and says, "Thank you."
McManus nods once and turns to follow his sons. Smecker watches them get into the car nearby, and gets about five seconds' quiet reflection before Greenly hisses at him to get back in the fucking van before someone finds them.
This is a fair point, since if anyone does show up, it'll be just in time to have missed the McManuses, oops, oh well, these things happen, and if they're still there, even the most sympathetic officer will kind of have to arrest them. So he gets in the van and they start the long drive back home.
It's quiet, mostly; Greenly is the only one who really wants to talk and the other two have no problem telling him to cram it before Smecker can. He sits and looks out the window, chain-smoking (and between the four of them, and the McManuses earlier, the only way to get the smell out of the upholstery will be to firebomb it) and expecting to see Yakavetta's death replayed constantly in his mind.
It doesn't happen, though. It will tonight, and every night for some time to come, but right now, he thinks about what McManus said.
By the time they're in Boston, it almost makes sense. If anyone knows about the scarcity of time, it's a man who killed for a living and now does it for justice. A man whose grown children are strangers to him.
By the time Smecker's in his apartment, light-headed from nicotine and frayed around the edges from spending the day with anxious adrenalin flooding his system, he's half-convinced that McManus somehow knows about Owen. It's not possible - McManus didn't exactly have the kinds of resources he would need to learn that, not isolated for three months in that tiny apartment - but in that moment, Smecker thinks it might be true anyway.
There isn't enough time to put off what must be given.
He checks his calendar. Owen's med school graduation is in two days. If he buys a ticket to London now, he'll make it on time. Leaving the country now isn't going to look so good, and Owen's more likely than not to greet him with a right hook, but Smecker thinks about his schedule and nowhere on it is there enough time to continue putting off meeting his son.
**********
House/Dogma crossover for offspeed
Cuddy wasn't one of those single childless women who go to the park and sigh over children playing. She didn't really have the time, for one thing, and it was so very Lifetime, for another. The in vitro hadn't worked. She'd come to terms with that. She could adopt, if she wanted. So that was that, and sighing was a waste of time.
But this kid - there was just something about her that drew the eye. Cuddy couldn't even begin to explain what; she just kept glancing back up to watch the girl play. She wasn't the only one, either. No one was openly staring, but they all seemed to be wearing the same quietly peaceful smile Cuddy could feel on her own face.
She was watching the girl, and thinking about how she would have been seven months along next week if the final embryo had taken, when the girl looked over and met her eyes. Cuddy smiled, not noticing until later that the instinct to look away on being caught staring hadn't kicked in.
To her surprise, the girl abandoned her game and walked over. Cuddy glanced around automatically for the girl's mother, a brunette sitting nearby. The woman just nodded to her, and Cuddy nodded back and returned her attention to the girl.
She sat next to Cuddy on the park bench and looked at her, with a serene expression that should have looked incongruous on the young face, but somehow seemed to fit. She reached over and put her small hand on Cuddy's.
"Don't be sad," she said. "It will be okay."
And, regardless of what she thought of the whole incident later, Cuddy knew in that moment that it would.
**********
Iron Man/Dead and Breakfast for phantomas
"Ggggh. Whafuck?" Tony Stark blinked several times, dazed and vaguely aware that he was probably concussed. He'd have to do something about the helmet's design. It was supposed to prevent concussions, not cause them.
"Welcome back to consciousness, sir." Jarvis's even tones and reliable touch of sarcasm sounded in his ears, grounding him and clearing his head a little. Right. He'd been flying, heading back home, and then -
"A bird?"
"Yes, sir." Before Jarvis could decide that Tony cared about the species or whatever details he might wish to share, Tony asked,
"Where am I?"
"According to coordinates, the town of Lovelock, Texas. You appear to have landed on a building, sir."
"Shit." That snapped Tony to full attention. He tried to roll over and sit up. "Is anyone hurt?"
"No, sir. The building is abandoned. Although . . ."
"What, Jarvis?" Tony sat, testing his joints and limbs for additional damage while he looked at the readouts scrolling across the screen. "Although what?"
"There is blood on the walls, sir. A great deal of it. It appears to be several years old, though I cannot get a more accurate measure with the data currently available."
"Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Next time, put the 'several years old' part before the 'great deal of it' part, okay?"
"Certainly, sir."
**********
Dogma/Supernatural for cacopheny
As a general rule, Loki doesn't go to bars. Kind of a waste of time for an angel. Yeah, he thinks sometimes that, if an angel's been expelled from heaven, the rules don't have to apply to him anymore. He's even gotten as far as ordering a shot of whiskey or popping open a can of beer. But all he ever does is sit and stare at them, because why take the risk, right? He'll never get to go home, he's accepted that, but there are worse places for a fallen angel than Wisconsin.
Probably.
But anyway, sometimes he does go to bars. Some places have pretty good food, plus, for his money, you can't beat alcohol as a congregating point for sinners. Sins are both more and less complicated these days, but being in a bar pares it down some, especially if he finds a dive.
Plus it gets Bartleby out of his face for an evening, seriously, the two of them are more closely and irrevocably entwined than any other beings on the planet, but that doesn't mean they don't wanna just find a way to kill each other sometimes. So some nights Loki goes to a bar and Bartleby goes to a fucking airport or something and when they meet back up, they're both cool again.
So yeah, the thing about sin: it's not about guilt, because sinners don't always (or often, for that matter) feel guilty about what they've done, and at the same time it's all about guilt, because even if something isn't a sin in the eyes of God, believing it is and doing it anyway kind of makes it one. And then there's mitigating circumstances, which apparently became a thing when Jesus showed up, Loki doesn't know, but he thinks that even if he hadn't gotten himself kicked out, he'd be out of a job anyway, because Jesus was the proto-fucking-hippy.
And the guy who took the stool next to Loki about five minutes ago is kind of driving him crazy, because he's got issues with all three. All hunters do, of course, which is why Loki never goes to the bars hunters frequent, because he ends up with a headache inside of thirty seconds.
Murder is a sin. Definitely. It's like, the sin. Like, if you're gonna sin, find another commandment to break, because you don't even wanna deal with this shit. This guy's a murderer, a dozen times over. All hunters are. Not because they kill the bad shit, that doesn't even count, that sort of thing is still in their favor same as it's been since the Beginning (which is why Loki loves hunters, in spite of the headaches, because they still follow in his path even though he's not supposed to be walking it anymore, even though they don't think he exists any more these days). It's because sometimes shit goes wrong. Sometimes there isn't time for an exorcism before the demon in the human suit is ready to pull some serious fucking shit, and then a hunter does what he has to do to stop it. And what he has to do generally has some pretty unfavorable results for the human host. But there, with the mitigating fucking circumstances. No hunter's gone to hell for that shit since God changed His unforgiving tune.
And then there's the sin that isn't a sin, his wife's death. That one hit Loki full blast first, because not to be melodramatic or anything, but this guy's soul is screaming her name along with guilt and hate for himself and the unfuckingshakeable belief that he will go to hell for the sin of falling asleep in front of the television one night fifteen years ago. Amazing, what humans will do to themselves. Sometimes Loki thinks that some people serve a full sentence in hell right here on Earth.
So, what it boils down to is, even if Loki was in the mood to do some smiting, this guy wouldn't qualify, because he's a hunter, but he's still triggering the smiting reflex. It makes Loki itch.
So he buys the guy a drink, because he's an angel and the guy's a hunter, and because contributing to cirrhosis of the liver kinda counts, right?
He gets a suspicious look, and remembers too late that a guy can't just buy another guy a drink these days. For fuck's sake. He represses the urge to roll his eyes and instead returns the look with a serious nod, digging just a little deeper to read the guy's name.
"You do good work, Winchester," he says.
John Winchester's expression relaxes ever so slightly. "Thanks."
I may have to do another round of this, I think, with a new list. I had a lot of fun with it before, and a couple of these might even have enough weight to turn them into proper fics.
. . . no, this is not a second round. Not right now. Maybe some other time. I was going to put the results all up in one post, but, uh, I forgot. Until now. I got almost all of them done, excepting the ones that were requests for something I was already trying to write at the time, and also I never want to write a Dogma crossover again, GAIL. ;) But there are still twelve random snippets right here, presented in no particular order. Spoiler warnings or whathaveyou in the cuts, though the spoilers that were new then are kinda old now.
House/Dead and Breakfast for disanddat.
See, this is why Thirteen never talks about herself. The simplest questions are landmines. What do your parents do? What are your long-term plans? Where are you from?
"Never mind where I'm from," she says. She can feel herself going all ice princess, which isn't fair with someone as hopelessly inoffensive and young-seeming as Kutner, especially over an innocent pleasantry. She doesn't try to curb it, though, because another thing that isn't fair is the way people look at her when they hear the answer, all clawing curiosity dressed up in pity.
"I was just asking," Kutner mumbles, looking at the table. She softens a little. It really is like kicking a puppy.
"It's not important," she says. Then, tapping her case folder, she looks up at House to suggest vasculitis, but the word dies in her throat when she meets his eyes. Usually he dismisses her evasions, no doubt as bored with them as he gets with most everything else, but now he's looking at her with the sharp curiosity that she's learned means he's got hold of something and he's not going to stop shaking it until he's gotten everything he wants from it. If he doesn't know about Lovelock already, she thinks, he will before the afternoon is up.
**********
House/Torchwood for fiareynne.
Chase was twenty minutes late, which was almost enough to make him want to call out just to avoid House. House could, of course, be as late as he liked, but let one of his fellows try it and you'd better hope for a once-in-a-lifetime case to take his mind off you. Chase knew better than to expect his luck to be that good, so he settled for attempting to be invisible as he opened the door.
"This is impossible," Cameron was saying in exasperation.
"We'll just tell the patient that," House said. "That should fix everything. We'll let Chase do it, since he doesn't seem to want to be here anyway," he added, watching as Chase slunk into the room.
"Sorry," Chase said, giving up the invisibility act and hastily taking a seat. "Traffic." He tensed a bit, bracing himself.
"Uh-huh," House said, and tossed a folder at him.
And that was it.
So, Chase thought, either he had some particular new torment he wanted to test out later on, or this really was a hell of a case. Chase decided to go with the optimistic choice and opened the folder eagerly.
Forty-two year old female, presenting with -
No. No, that couldn't be it. Chase read it through again, more slowly.
- with all the signs of pregnancy, nearly full-term. Except the thing in her uterus wasn't a fetus, it was an egg-shaped mass.
Chase looked up, and it was only then that he became aware of the stymied silence. No one was throwing out diagnoses, or even arguing. They were just looking at him.
"Here's where it gets interesting," House said. "She says -"
"That it just appeared this morning," Chase finished. House's eyes narrowed.
"You've seen this before."
"Possibly," Chase answered guardedly, hoping like hell that he hadn't. "Has she been bitten recently? In the last twenty-four hours?"
There was a brief silence, which Chase took as a yes. He was proven correct when Foreman asked,
"Okay, so what the hell is it?"
A horrible, bloody, fucking mess, Chase didn't say. "How long?" he asked instead.
"How long?" Foreman repeated in confusion.
"Since the bite," Chase clarified, urgency beginning to tighten his voice. "How long?"
Foreman and Cameron glanced at each other. "Last night sometime," Cameron said. "Why?"
Chase shook his head. "That's not good enough. We need a timeline. Go find out." He started digging in his pocket for his cell phone. "It's important!" he added sharply as they both failed to move. "Go!"
They looked to House for confirmation. He said, "Why are you two still here?"
"We don't both need -" Foreman began.
"Anyone not named Chase who's still in this room in ten seconds is fired," House interrupted. Foreman and Cameron got up and left, both still radiating confusion and irritation.
When they were gone, House looked at Chase. "Making a phone call?"
"Consult," Chase answered, flipping through the numbers on his phone. Sort of. He should have asked, technically, but there was no time for formalities.
"All right," House said. Later, Chase would realize he should have recognized the warning sign - when did House ever acquiesce to anything without a dozen questions at the very least? - but, for the moment, he was too preoccupied to realize that he had just become far more interesting than the case in House's eyes.
"Cardiff Information Center," a Welsh voice said in his ear. Chase hesitated. It had been years, after all, the number could have been reassigned. But then, given the nature of the man he was trying to reach . . .
"Captain Jack Harkness, please," he said. "It's urgent."
"May I ask who's calling?" The voice was unruffled, which only served to wind Chase up that little bit more. He answered tersely and was put on hold while the voice went to go see if Captain Harkness was available.
The hold music was truly obnoxious, some appalling rendition of a Police song that sounded like bloody maracas were involved, and that combined with the weight of House's stare as Chase waited had him about ready to burst by the time Jack finally picked up.
"Robert Chase! Been a while. To what do I owe?"
"You've got to do something about that hold music, Jack," Chase couldn't help saying.
"Why? I like it. It's fun."
Of course. Chase rolled his eyes and got to the point. "I've got an interesting case. Think it might be one of yours."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah." Chase outlined the details briefly. He heard Jack sigh when he was done.
"Nostravites? Again? Can't seem to get rid of those fucking thi - oh, hey," he interrupted himself brightly, "you're working for Gregory House these days?"
Chase blinked, taken aback even though he knew he probably shouldn't be. "Yes."
"Great," said Jack, very possibly establishing himself as the first person on the planet to react in such a manner to news of House's involvement. "He's there, right? Put me on speakerphone."
"Okay," Chase said slowly. He did so and set his phone on the table.
"Hey, Greg," said Jack's cheerful, tinny voice.
"Hello, Harkness," answered House, not sounding half so pleased.
Chase stared.
**********
Iron Man/Dogma for cacopheny.
Tony claims he's gotten every stripper he's ever propositioned into bed - for free - because what guy with his reputation wouldn't? But, like everyone, Tony could tell a story about the one that got away.
It was in Illinois, somewhere, doing . . . oh, something about PR, or something. Hell if Tony knows, it was a decade ago and he was drunk the whole time anyway. But he'd snuck out to some little dive strip joint. Nothing special, but slightly more interesting than his hotel room. Still, he'd been ready to head back and see if the mini-bar had been restocked in his absence when she came onstage.
She was an absolute fucking knock-out, the kind of body he would have expected to see in Vegas, not the ass-end of Illinois. Tony sank back into his seat, pulled out his wallet, and started dropping the kind of tips designed to get a stripper's attention.
And that was all he got. Tony was never the kind of asshole who expected a tip to result in getting laid, of course. He didn't have to. His charm and looks usually did the trick. And this woman, it turned out, even knew who he was, another thing he wouldn't have expected in a place like this. After the first - and, ultimately, the only - lap dance, she mentioned an article of his she'd seen in a physics journal a few months back, and that was that. They talked for the next three hours, and oh Christ was she smart, following his every word without needing explanation once. The only person Tony had ever known who could keep pace with him like that had been his father.
When the place closed for the night, Tony tried to give her another few hundred to make up for occupying her time, but she turned him down, saying that being treated with respect on the job for a change was payment enough. Then she went her way and he went his, and she wasn't there the next day when he tried to find her again before he left.
Tony knows he could get away with telling this story. Tell it in the right way, exaggerate a few things and play down a few others, and he could easily have guys laughing with him instead of at him. He keeps it to himself, though, because the truth is he wouldn't trade a second of that conversation for anything, and to this day he does a hopeful double-take when he sees a woman with long dark hair, because maybe someday it will be her.
**********
Dexter/Doctor Who for apiphile
The first clue that this situation isn't quite right is the sedative failing to take effect. Dexter always triple-checks to make sure he's put the right dose in the syringe. He has no intention of being tripped up by a foolish rookie error.
The second clue is when Kilpatrick turns sharply around and sees him there with the syringe and, instead of looking shocked or angry or any number of reactions Dexter would have anticipated, he smiles and puts his hand to his forehead.
"Foolish human," he says. Then Dexter wonders if he didn't somehow ingest a hallucinogen of some kind by mistake, because the third and most alarming clue seems to be Kilpatrick unzipping his forehead. Light spills out instead of blood, but that's not Dexter's primary concern at the moment.
An impossible green head emerges from the gap, and Dexter hears the clatter of the syringe hitting the floor as it falls from his slack fingers.
The door slams open. "OI!" shouts a voice. It belongs to a young black woman who comes hurtling through the door, brandishing - a spray bottle?
Kilpatrick . . . or . . . whoever . . . turns to see the source of the shout, and the woman sends a jet of liquid into his face. For a split second, Dexter thinks he can smell vinegar, then he is distracted from that entirely when Kilpatrick explodes, dousing Dexter and the woman in foul green goo.
The woman wipes her face, unperturbed. "Doctor! In here!" she yells, then looks at Dexter. "Are you all right?"
"Uh. Yeah." He blinks owlishly, at a loss.
A man comes running in, tall and lanky and wearing a pinstriped suit. Good thing he hadn't been in here a few seconds ago, Dexter thinks dazedly, because his suit would have been ruined.
"That the lot of them, then?" the woman asks her apparent companion.
"Should be," he answers, then sees Dexter. "Unless this one . . . ?"
"No, he's just caught in the crossfire," she says.
"Oh, good, good. You'll probably want to be getting home and getting a drink inside you," the companion says. It takes another few seconds for Dexter to realize that the man is talking to him.
"Oh, uh. Yes. Yes, that sounds like a good idea." He looks down at his clothes. "A shower, too."
"Oh, yes." The man grins. "Good thinking, that. You just go along, then, nothing to keep you here."
Even floundering in shock, Dexter knows when he's being rushed off. His police training urges him to find out more, or at least call it in - he has, technically, witnessed a murder, after all - but there are about a million things wrong with both options, so in the end he just leaves.
He manages to convince himself it was a dream. He never quite gets around to trying to find Kilpatrick again, though.
**********
House/Supernatural for offspeed. Spoilers for the House season four finale.
The guy at table six is really starting to work Jo's nerves.
it's not just that he's an asshole. She's met meaner. She's killed meaner. It's that he's been sitting there for two hours and all he'll order is water.
Jo's been working in bars since she was sixteen, and of course she spent time in Harvelle's even before that, and she knows all the signs of a man who wants a drink. This guy's got every single one of them, and for all that he's quiet and still unless she dares to say a word to him while she's refilling his glass, he's screaming out his need for anyone who's got the eye to see it.
She supposes she should applaud his restraint or something. God knows she's waited on her share of customers who could stand to put down the glass. But her shift ended an hour ago and she can't leave till she can cash him out. If it was an emergency, of course, she would anyway, but the case she's here for turned out to be a bust and she'd like to build up a little cash before she starts looking for the next one. She needs to keep this job for another week or so.
Tact has never really been Jo's thing, though, and as the two and a half hour mark creeps up, she decides to take matters into her own hands. She walks up to table six and smiles. The guy looks up in weary disinterest.
"If you walk away now," he says before she can speak, "I might still tip you."
Jo shrugs and takes a seat across from him. "No, you won't."
"No, I won't," he agrees.
"So," she continues, "since you're wasting my time, you owe me a story."
He raises an eyebrow. Jo leans forward on her elbows. "I know you want a drink," she tells him, laying the clueless young waitress act on a little thick. "You got the look of a man could sink a bottle a rotgut without blinkin'. So what's with the water?"
"What's with the bullshit hillbilly act?" he counters. Jo blinks, thrown. "Sorry, princess," he says, "you're gonna have to work a little harder if you wanna look as ignorant as you're trying to sound."
Jo sits back and looks at him coolly. "My point still stands," she says in her own voice. "And you're still wasting my time."
"What do you want?" he asks. "How long down to the hour since I last had a drink? To hear how broke I am and how cold it is outside in this vicious July weather? No, I bet you like a good sob story. Too bad you're just a waitress, then, because if you were my bartender - well, I still wouldn't tell you anything, but at least you'd have been able to kick me out by now."
Jo narrows her eyes. "Let me guess. You went on a bender one night and got someone killed, and now you just can't bring yourself to touch a drop." It's a shot in the dark, since in Jo's experience the people who accidentally take a human life are among the ones who drink the hardest, but the way his expression doesn't change tells her she's nailed it. She winces and opens her mouth to apologize.
"I will leave you a fifty dollar tip if you spare me your fucking sympathy." His expression is still sarcastic and above-it-all, but his eyes are as hard as his voice.
Jo nods and gets up. When she speaks, her own voice is as detached and professional as if she'd never sat down. "Refill, mister?"
**********
Dogma/PotC for cacopheny.
Jack Sparrow has met God.
This is not the start of one of his stories. Jack tells many stories, and some of them are even true. He can't tell this story, though, because he doesn't know it happened to him.
Besides, even if he did, it's not much of a story in a strictly dramatic sense. What happened was this: Jack bought a girl a drink. She said nothing, but smiled at him with such kindness and joy that he forgot to make a pass at her. Forgot where he was for a moment, forgot who he was, even. She tossed the drink back neatly and squeezed his shoulder as she left. He put his hand where hers had been and turned to watch her go, and not five minutes later he met the man who would introduce him to the Black Pearl.
Not that lack of drama would present a problem for Jack. He could dress this story up without even the slightest effort. He would tell of saving the girl from the advances of a crude and hulking barbarian, and how she flung herself upon his neck in gratitude (Jack isn't sure of exactly how one flings oneself upon someone's neck, but he likes the way it sounds). There would be a swordfight and a passionate, gratifying night, and he would conclude on a note of regret that he could not stay, for his is a wandering soul. Yes, there's no doubt Jack could make it into a fine tale indeed, and without ever touching on the girl's identity at that.
But Jack can't tell this story in any form, because he doesn't know any of it happened. If you told it to him, though, he would just nod, because who else could have gifted him with his beautiful Pearl except for God?
**********
Red Dwarf/Torchwood for fiareynne
"Oh, you two'll get along fine," Jack said breezily on his way out the door. "You've got a lot in common. You're both dead." And then he flashed Owen that grin, the one that meant he knew he was full of shit, and he knew Owen knew it, but Owen didn't have any choice.
Owen couldn't wait until Jack moved on from this overprotective crap. Ever since the Doctor had shown up and restored Owen's body back to life, Jack had treated him like blown glass. It had taken all of the Doctor's persuasive powers to get him to let Owen come along with them, and even then Owen hardly saw anything but the inside of the TARDIS.
He was not at all convinced that the inside of the Starbug was an improvement. And the company, he thought, turning to face Arnold Rimmer, the company was definitely not an improvement.
"You don't look dead," Rimmer told him.
"Thanks," Owen said flatly.
"I mean, you're not a hologram," Rimmer clarified. Ohhh. Hologram. That was what the ridiculous-looking H was for. Owen had assumed it was some sort of unfortunate fashion statement.
"Yeah, well, I could've done with a hologram when I was," he said. "Walking around in your own corpse is even less fun than it sounds."
Rimmer shuddered, looking appalled. "Your own - ? Really?"
Owen gave him a considering look. "Oh, yeah. Least it had the decency not to start rotting on me, though."
Rimmer looked absolutely nauseated at that and Owen grinned. Maybe this wouldn't be such a bore after all.
**********
Iron Man/Torchwood for joanne_c, with a bonus shot of Jeeves and Wooster thrown in for fun.
The Junior Ganymede is, as I have told Mr Wooster and previous employers, a club for gentlemens' personal gentlemen. I have never mentioned, however, that it extends further than one might think, and that said personal gentlemen are not always gentlemen.
Usually, when I go to the Ganymede, I remain in its outer circles. It is perhaps a bit small-minded of me, but I am most comfortable within the confines of my own place and time. Occasionally, though, I venture into the back, where exists a more complex arrangement of the continuum, accessible to all who are allowed admittance into their own Ganymede.
Today, the company is a bit sparse, but I see two fellow members with whom I have passed previous agreeable visits. I cross the room to join them.
"Miss Potts," I say with a nod, sitting down. "Mr Jones." Ianto Jones and Virginia Potts - or "Pepper," as she calls herself - are both from the same year, though they have not, in past discussion, been able to ascertain whether they are also both from the same dimension.
"Mr Jeeves," Miss Potts smiles. "How good to see you. I was hoping you'd show up. I've got quite a story."
"She says it will put Captain Harkness to shame," Mr Jones adds. "I say he doesn't know the meaning of the word."
"Oh, there's no way I'm losing this round, Ianto," Miss Potts insists, confirming my long-held suspicions that they are less formal with each other when I am not present. "There's just no way."
"I'm sorry, you do know which Captain Jack Harkness I work for?" Mr Jones asks dryly. He glances at me and continues, "For that matter, one can never really tell what Mr Wooster has gotten up to in any given week."
"Miss Potts has no competitions from these quarters," I say. "Mr Wooster has continued much the same since last we spoke." I do not believe this state of affairs will continue, as Mr Wooster has begun to exhibit signs of boredom and will no doubt be seeking entertainment soon, but this in itself is not worth addressing, so I don't.
"That should explode any day now," Miss Potts remarks, reminding me that she is a very astute woman indeed.
"Well put," I agree. Miss Potts smiles and says,
"Anyway. Tony - sorry, I mean Mr Stark - has decided he's going to be a superhero."
This is rather outside my frame of reference, as tends to happen when conversing with someone from a future year, so I remain silent and listen for context.
"What, just - randomly?" Mr Jones asks, looking somewhat astonished, from which I gather that familiarity with the term is not necessarily of much use.
Miss Potts laughs. "He's been planning it! He has this big metal suit to fly in and everything!" She pauses, her expression softening; her voice, when she resumes, has a distinctly warmer tone to it. "It's pretty cool, actually. He's really getting serious about working to help others. He's changed a lot." She smiles. "I'm pretty proud of him."
A moment passes, then Mr Jones says, "Well, you win. All I've got is a story about films coming to life." He frowns slightly, looking perturbed. "Not really sure what was going on there, to be honest."
Having concluded that a superhero is precisely what the superlative would imply, I nod to Miss Potts. "I am glad to hear Mr Stark has recovered from his ordeal. I hope your situation will continue to improve."
"I think it will, Mr Jeeves," she says. "I really think it will."
**********
Boondock Saints/Torchwood for joanne_c.
The thing is, there are a hundred reasons why Paul Smecker never met his son.
He didn't want to deal with the mother. Some kids experiment with heroin; he experimented with fucking a woman. Just the once, to satisfy his curiosity. If he'd known he was going to knock her up, he'd have chosen a little more carefully. Marianne was a useless bitch, white trash all the way. He'd only found out about Owen because the kid looked like him. Otherwise, Marianne wouldn't have been able to pick Owen's father out of a fucking line-up.
He had his career. By the time Marianne had gotten in touch, he was established, and the job paid well. Easy enough to just set up child support. Not quite as easy to pretend he believed that all, or even most, of the money went to Owen's care, but he was busy. There was always something else to think about.
He sent cards and gifts for Christmas and Owen's birthdays. He never heard back, but it didn't surprise him. He highly doubted that Marianne had ever taught Owen about writing thank you notes.
When the sixteenth birthday package returned unopened, he lost no time in tracking Owen down. He had contacts in London, people who were friends if you looked at it in the right light, and a few phone calls ensured that Owen had a place to live. He resent the gift, with a larger check.
The check came back torn in half.
He could take a hint. He kept sending cards, to keep the lines of communication open, but Owen seemed to be doing just fine on his own. Better, in fact, away from his mother. He ended up in med school, graduated with top grades. Smecker was thinking very seriously about attending the graduation ceremony, but then the McManus brothers happened.
(Smecker doesn't spend much time berating himself for that. Even a perfect father would have gotten bogged down in that mess, maybe forgotten a birthday or two in the struggle to reconcile his conscience with his beliefs, and then to save his career. He can't be faulted for that.)
He missed Owen's fiancée's funeral, but he would have gone to the wedding.
And things just got - strange after that. He was able, thanks to having managed to keep his job after the McManuses disappeared into the ether, to find out that Owen had gone to work for a place called Torchwood, in Wales. What he could never quite find out was what it was that Torchwood did. That was enough to make him nervous, but he couldn't really leave the country. His supervisors were jumpy. A sudden visit to a son he'd never met might set some alarms ringing in the wrong heads.
For that matter, at this juncture Owen probably wouldn't be too thrilled about it either. It was just too late. (He can still imagine what Connor or Murph would have to say about that theory. At length, and profanely. He should have told them about Owen. They would have talked him into making that visit years ago.)
One night, Cardiff was attacked. My son is there, Smecker didn't tell anyone. He just went out and got drunker than he had in years.
There was a voicemail on his cell when he woke up. "Agent Smecker," an unfamiliar and inexplicably American voice said, "my name is Captain Jack Harkness. I" - here Harkness paused, briefly, before continuing - "employed your son, Owen Harper, some time ago. I'm afraid I have some bad news. Please call me back."
He never did.
**********
Torchwood/Boondock Saints part the second, for apiphile. An AU of the above snippet.
Somehow, some fucking way, they get the McManuses out of the courthouse and to the contacts that will be taking them to Ireland. They're not followed. It wasn't exactly the world's stealthiest operation, but no one seems to be able to get a tail on them.
Smecker is not shocked by this. There isn't a cop in the city who wouldn't buy the Saints a round of beer if given half a chance; after this, they'll probably settle for buying drinks for whoever helped.
Connor and Murph both make a point of hugging him before they go (Murph even kisses his neck, that fucking tease, and Smecker mutters to him not to start anything he's not willing to finish in front of everyone here; Connor is too far away to hear, but somehow he knows to laugh anyway).
Even their father steps up and offers a hand to shake. Smecker has, to date, exchanged maybe twenty words with the man; it's been abundantly clear that the senior McManus doesn't like being in contact with a representative of the law, even if said representative willingly killed to keep his sons safe. Smecker didn't expect much of anything from him, so he's surprised by the proffered handshake, and even more surprised to look into clear, non-hostile eyes.
McManus sees the look on Smecker's face and smiles ever so slightly. "There isn't enough time to put off what must be given."
Smecker has no idea what to say to that, or even if it's supposed to make sense to anyone who isn't completely fucking crazy, so he just shakes McManus's hand and says, "Thank you."
McManus nods once and turns to follow his sons. Smecker watches them get into the car nearby, and gets about five seconds' quiet reflection before Greenly hisses at him to get back in the fucking van before someone finds them.
This is a fair point, since if anyone does show up, it'll be just in time to have missed the McManuses, oops, oh well, these things happen, and if they're still there, even the most sympathetic officer will kind of have to arrest them. So he gets in the van and they start the long drive back home.
It's quiet, mostly; Greenly is the only one who really wants to talk and the other two have no problem telling him to cram it before Smecker can. He sits and looks out the window, chain-smoking (and between the four of them, and the McManuses earlier, the only way to get the smell out of the upholstery will be to firebomb it) and expecting to see Yakavetta's death replayed constantly in his mind.
It doesn't happen, though. It will tonight, and every night for some time to come, but right now, he thinks about what McManus said.
By the time they're in Boston, it almost makes sense. If anyone knows about the scarcity of time, it's a man who killed for a living and now does it for justice. A man whose grown children are strangers to him.
By the time Smecker's in his apartment, light-headed from nicotine and frayed around the edges from spending the day with anxious adrenalin flooding his system, he's half-convinced that McManus somehow knows about Owen. It's not possible - McManus didn't exactly have the kinds of resources he would need to learn that, not isolated for three months in that tiny apartment - but in that moment, Smecker thinks it might be true anyway.
There isn't enough time to put off what must be given.
He checks his calendar. Owen's med school graduation is in two days. If he buys a ticket to London now, he'll make it on time. Leaving the country now isn't going to look so good, and Owen's more likely than not to greet him with a right hook, but Smecker thinks about his schedule and nowhere on it is there enough time to continue putting off meeting his son.
**********
House/Dogma crossover for offspeed
Cuddy wasn't one of those single childless women who go to the park and sigh over children playing. She didn't really have the time, for one thing, and it was so very Lifetime, for another. The in vitro hadn't worked. She'd come to terms with that. She could adopt, if she wanted. So that was that, and sighing was a waste of time.
But this kid - there was just something about her that drew the eye. Cuddy couldn't even begin to explain what; she just kept glancing back up to watch the girl play. She wasn't the only one, either. No one was openly staring, but they all seemed to be wearing the same quietly peaceful smile Cuddy could feel on her own face.
She was watching the girl, and thinking about how she would have been seven months along next week if the final embryo had taken, when the girl looked over and met her eyes. Cuddy smiled, not noticing until later that the instinct to look away on being caught staring hadn't kicked in.
To her surprise, the girl abandoned her game and walked over. Cuddy glanced around automatically for the girl's mother, a brunette sitting nearby. The woman just nodded to her, and Cuddy nodded back and returned her attention to the girl.
She sat next to Cuddy on the park bench and looked at her, with a serene expression that should have looked incongruous on the young face, but somehow seemed to fit. She reached over and put her small hand on Cuddy's.
"Don't be sad," she said. "It will be okay."
And, regardless of what she thought of the whole incident later, Cuddy knew in that moment that it would.
**********
Iron Man/Dead and Breakfast for phantomas
"Ggggh. Whafuck?" Tony Stark blinked several times, dazed and vaguely aware that he was probably concussed. He'd have to do something about the helmet's design. It was supposed to prevent concussions, not cause them.
"Welcome back to consciousness, sir." Jarvis's even tones and reliable touch of sarcasm sounded in his ears, grounding him and clearing his head a little. Right. He'd been flying, heading back home, and then -
"A bird?"
"Yes, sir." Before Jarvis could decide that Tony cared about the species or whatever details he might wish to share, Tony asked,
"Where am I?"
"According to coordinates, the town of Lovelock, Texas. You appear to have landed on a building, sir."
"Shit." That snapped Tony to full attention. He tried to roll over and sit up. "Is anyone hurt?"
"No, sir. The building is abandoned. Although . . ."
"What, Jarvis?" Tony sat, testing his joints and limbs for additional damage while he looked at the readouts scrolling across the screen. "Although what?"
"There is blood on the walls, sir. A great deal of it. It appears to be several years old, though I cannot get a more accurate measure with the data currently available."
"Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Next time, put the 'several years old' part before the 'great deal of it' part, okay?"
"Certainly, sir."
**********
Dogma/Supernatural for cacopheny
As a general rule, Loki doesn't go to bars. Kind of a waste of time for an angel. Yeah, he thinks sometimes that, if an angel's been expelled from heaven, the rules don't have to apply to him anymore. He's even gotten as far as ordering a shot of whiskey or popping open a can of beer. But all he ever does is sit and stare at them, because why take the risk, right? He'll never get to go home, he's accepted that, but there are worse places for a fallen angel than Wisconsin.
Probably.
But anyway, sometimes he does go to bars. Some places have pretty good food, plus, for his money, you can't beat alcohol as a congregating point for sinners. Sins are both more and less complicated these days, but being in a bar pares it down some, especially if he finds a dive.
Plus it gets Bartleby out of his face for an evening, seriously, the two of them are more closely and irrevocably entwined than any other beings on the planet, but that doesn't mean they don't wanna just find a way to kill each other sometimes. So some nights Loki goes to a bar and Bartleby goes to a fucking airport or something and when they meet back up, they're both cool again.
So yeah, the thing about sin: it's not about guilt, because sinners don't always (or often, for that matter) feel guilty about what they've done, and at the same time it's all about guilt, because even if something isn't a sin in the eyes of God, believing it is and doing it anyway kind of makes it one. And then there's mitigating circumstances, which apparently became a thing when Jesus showed up, Loki doesn't know, but he thinks that even if he hadn't gotten himself kicked out, he'd be out of a job anyway, because Jesus was the proto-fucking-hippy.
And the guy who took the stool next to Loki about five minutes ago is kind of driving him crazy, because he's got issues with all three. All hunters do, of course, which is why Loki never goes to the bars hunters frequent, because he ends up with a headache inside of thirty seconds.
Murder is a sin. Definitely. It's like, the sin. Like, if you're gonna sin, find another commandment to break, because you don't even wanna deal with this shit. This guy's a murderer, a dozen times over. All hunters are. Not because they kill the bad shit, that doesn't even count, that sort of thing is still in their favor same as it's been since the Beginning (which is why Loki loves hunters, in spite of the headaches, because they still follow in his path even though he's not supposed to be walking it anymore, even though they don't think he exists any more these days). It's because sometimes shit goes wrong. Sometimes there isn't time for an exorcism before the demon in the human suit is ready to pull some serious fucking shit, and then a hunter does what he has to do to stop it. And what he has to do generally has some pretty unfavorable results for the human host. But there, with the mitigating fucking circumstances. No hunter's gone to hell for that shit since God changed His unforgiving tune.
And then there's the sin that isn't a sin, his wife's death. That one hit Loki full blast first, because not to be melodramatic or anything, but this guy's soul is screaming her name along with guilt and hate for himself and the unfuckingshakeable belief that he will go to hell for the sin of falling asleep in front of the television one night fifteen years ago. Amazing, what humans will do to themselves. Sometimes Loki thinks that some people serve a full sentence in hell right here on Earth.
So, what it boils down to is, even if Loki was in the mood to do some smiting, this guy wouldn't qualify, because he's a hunter, but he's still triggering the smiting reflex. It makes Loki itch.
So he buys the guy a drink, because he's an angel and the guy's a hunter, and because contributing to cirrhosis of the liver kinda counts, right?
He gets a suspicious look, and remembers too late that a guy can't just buy another guy a drink these days. For fuck's sake. He represses the urge to roll his eyes and instead returns the look with a serious nod, digging just a little deeper to read the guy's name.
"You do good work, Winchester," he says.
John Winchester's expression relaxes ever so slightly. "Thanks."
I may have to do another round of this, I think, with a new list. I had a lot of fun with it before, and a couple of these might even have enough weight to turn them into proper fics.