comment-fic
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Title: Along Came A Spider
Fandom: Stoker + His Dark Materials
Word count: 476, not including the author's note at the end
Disclaimer: I don't own Stoker or His Dark Materials
Warnings: Murder, attempted rape, implied masturbation, implied pre-incest
Characters: India Stoker, Charlie Stoker, their dæmons
Prompt: Author’s choice, author’s choice, [character’s] daemon is named Nerium
India Stoker is eight years old when she finds out what her Nerium's name means. She isn't exactly sure what to think.
Nerium laughs. "I still like it."
Slowly, India nods. "Yes. Me too, but I wonder what Josefin and Idwal were thinking."
"It was probably Idwal's idea."
Their mother is their mother and she and her dæmon probably love them, but they've never been entirely certain of it.
"A toxic garden plant," muses Nerium, and wraps around her neck as a moccasin. "Maybe one day we'll grow wild."
"Why would we do that?"
Nerium doesn't answer. India thinks of a dozen answers all by herself, and then does her best to forget them.
~
All of India's classmates' dæmons settle before Nerium. It's another reason for them to be harassed; pretty, strange girl and her strange dæmon.
Their eighteenth birthday and their father's dead and Nerium still hasn't settled. India doesn't know who she is, not really, and maybe that is why.
They have never met anyone like Uncle Charlie and his Angelique, who is a large, slender hawk with dark feathers, for the most part, although there are lighter bars on her tail and wingtips.
Later, they will learn that she is a zone-tailed hawk, and in the wild these hawks fly in the midst of turkey vultures so that prey does not see them coming.
Charlie says that Angelique is shy. Their mother seems to believe him, probably because of the hawk's habit of hunching on his shoulder and speaking to no one.
Angelique isn't shy. She just isn't interested enough to talk to anyone except Charlie and Nerium. India watches with narrowed eyes as Nerium takes bald eagle form to perch beside Angelique, who whispers something low and intimate.
Nerium was never much interested in anyone but India, before; sometimes not even Father's Josefin.
Already seated at the piano, India starts to play. Charlie joins her, and isn't it funny how he plays so well, when he'd told Mother that he was a beginner?
Later, she asks Nerium, "Do you like Angelique?"
"No," says Nerium, and India can't quite tell if he, her own soul, is telling the truth. "But she's interesting."
That, she knows she agrees with.
~
India helps her uncle bury a boy's body while Nerium clings to her neck as a black spider about an inch long, just the same as he has since the boy stopped breathing. He's quiet, and she knows he's lost in thought.
"He was going to rape you," he says, later, in the shower. "I'm not sorry Charlie killed him."
"I know," she says. "Me neither."
He hesitates, and then murmurs, "I'm not sorry about the others, either."
She thinks about that, shrugs. "Me neither."
She really, really isn't sorry.
"You're not going to change again, are you?" she says, and reaches between her legs.
~
Author's note: Nerium's settled form is a Sydney funnel-web spider.
Title: Emissary of Old Gods
Fandom: NBC Hannibal + H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
Word count: 519
Disclaimer: I don't own Hannibal or anything by H. P. Lovecraft
Warnings: Horror theme
Characters: Abigail Hobbs, Hannibal Lecter, Nyarlathotep
Prompt: Author's choice, author's choice, "When the stars align ..." "... The Great Old Ones will return and overrun the Earth?"
Abigail tilts her head so that her long, dark hair conceals her expression of puzzlement. The effort is probably wasted on Hannibal, but at this point it is less an effort, more an impulse.
Is Hannibal talking about astrology, of all things?
"When the stars align..."
"The Great Old Ones will return and overrun the Earth?" she interrupts, smothering confusion with sarcasm.
Hannibal smiles. He seems, for a moment, horrifically amused, and something buried in her soul quivers.
"Are you an aficionado of the works of Mr Lovecraft, Abigail?"
She shrugs, lets her unease sink deep and settle. "Not really, I've just read a few of his stories."
Hannibal hums softly but doesn't say anything more. It occurs to Abigail that he hasn't answered her question, but she dismisses the thought with a mental scoff. It isn't as though she meant it as a real question, after all.
~
Maybe she should have pressed it as a question, probably it's better she did not. They say knowledge is power, but is it worth it, really? It doesn't feel like it, now that she might have the answer.
What answer? What was she thinking?
She is drifting, she is lost, alone. She does not know if she is alive. She does not know if she is a real human girl now or formerly or if she is a half-remembered echo of the real human girl Abigail or if Abigail ever really existed.
"Abigail," Hannibal greets, and she does not think he was there a moment ago, but maybe he was there all along. Is she Abigail? She wants to be Abigail, maybe she can definitely be Abigail because he calls her so. She thinks she smiles hopefully.
"There is something I would have you do," Hannibal is saying.
Abigail laughs. "I think you killed me, probably. I remember it, but it feels like there's a deeper shadow underneath." Her brow creases in thought, and then she shrugs. "What can I do here? Am I even real?"
"You would be surprised." She wonders which of her words he is responding to, if any of them at all, and she listens as he continues. "You shall go to Will Graham, Abigail, and tell him the things I bid you."
She has a feeling like this isn't really her choice, but she nods anyway.
He smiles, an expression both gentle and unspeakably cruel. Pride, possessiveness? Her experience, if not her logic, informs her that this is fatherly.
She thinks, abruptly, that he is not and has never been Hannibal, that Hannibal has always been only something for him to wear, like a suit, or maybe a veil.
"What... who are you?" she whispers.
He does not answer with words. Instead, he lifts the veil for a moment, and in that moment she sees him as he truly is and knows him as he truly is. She chokes on a scream, sobs.
In the next moment it is almost bearable, as though he reached into her thoughts and put in just enough distance for her to function. He probably did.
"Nyarlathotep," she mutters, and shudders.
Title: Shriek, Shriek, Out of Tune
Fandom: NBC Dracula
Word count: 297
Disclaimer: I don't own any of Dracula's many incarnations, and the title's from Edgar Allan Poe.
Warnings: Horrible things happening to children, patricide
Characters: Lord Browning's children
Prompt: Dracula (2013), like a nightmare
Darkness. Hunger.
Rebecca trembles and draws in little gasps of air. Ezra wraps her in his arms and tries to hum a lullaby, but the tune withers in his mouth.
Hunger. (Hurts.)
The man will bring us something, he has to.
And he does. Ezra's hand rests on Rebecca's shoulder, as though she needs the encouragement.
Daddy?
Hunger.
They eat, and it is good, but then...
So bright so burning hurts Hurts HURTS!
Rebecca is screaming (Hurts!), Ezra wraps around her, smothers some of the fire, tugs her towards hopefully a door.
It is Rebecca, burned raw and wounded, that sees the way out and pulls her burning brother into the glorious cold dark.
It still hurts, but Ezra can hardly move. It hurts so much, but she must help her brother.
The blood was really very good, before. Maybe more will make this hurt go away, too. Maybe it will help Ezra.
She hums a lullaby, her lips crack open and bleed, so she chokes out a half-laugh and presses her lips to his so that she can force the blood in.
She draws back, looks. Maybe she is imagining it, but she thinks he looks a little better, just a little.
More blood, then.
The first person they find is... it doesn't matter. Rebecca leaps on the old woman from behind, latches on and drives her fangs into the woman's neck. She draws quickly, so the human becomes weaker, falls down. Ezra shuffles forward, Rebecca steps away from the food and holds her brother's hand as he drinks up the rest.
His hand grips hers back, strength returning. Good. Maybe he can help with the next hunt.
They have each other (family) and a city full of blood. All will be well. (has to be)
Title: Two Can Keep A Secret If...
Fandom: D.Gray-man
Word count: 475
Disclaimer: D.Gray-man belongs to Katsura Hoshino, and the title's from 'Secret' by The Pierces.
Warnings: Foreplay and mild sexual sadism
Pairing: Tyki Mikk/original female character
Prompt: any, any, "Why is your blood (insert non-red color)?"
Agnes smiles mildly as she sits with ladylike poise.
She is furious and no one has a clue. She wants...
She wants so many things, really, but most of all she wishes that she was not caged by expectations, by her position as only daughter of a noble family.
Maybe I don't have to be. The thought is unexpected but not unwelcome, it feels like a revelation. She slouches and allows her smile to twist into a frown.
And then he catches her eye, raises an eyebrow, smirks. He is Lord Mikk, if she recalls correctly. The Minister's brother.
He's very handsome, she thinks, and that look he gave her was... understanding, almost.
He comes to her, later, and his hand brushes lightly against hers as he murmurs an invitation in her ear, and she thinks why the devil not? and follows him from the ballroom. No one seems to notice, except for one little girl in a pink and purple dress, who laughs and grins at Mikk.
"Who was that?" Agnes mutters.
"My niece, Road," is all he says.
She forgets all about it soon enough.
He pushes her down on the bed, opens her dress, presses kisses right above her corset. When his fingers move to unlace the corset, it is with an ease that speaks of experience.
She claws at his back, bites down on his shoulder. She wants to hear him whimper, she wants to see his blood.
He does not whimper. Rather, he laughs and presses down on her neck until she is light-headed and dizzy. Her throat hurts when he eventually lifts his hands, and she cannot quite tell if she likes it or not.
She stares at his shoulder, which bleeds where she bit him, and whispers, "Why is your blood black?"
He looks down at her and she is unable to read his expression, but his eyes are really rather yellow, aren't they? Why did she not notice that before?
It feels like her heart is beating in her throat.
"I-I won't tell," she mutters, wishing she had said nothing, seen nothing. "It's a secret, right? I won't tell."
"No," he says. "I don't believe you will." He places his hand on the skin above her heart, says, "I should kill you."
She stares at him with wide, wide eyes.
"But it's more interesting if I don't," he adds. "What will you do, my dear?"
"I won't tell. Are you a demon?"
She almost hopes he says yes.
"No," he says. "Not exactly, but I do command them."
She laughs and laughs. He tilts his head and eyes her with curiosity.
"That's even better," she says, and is surprised to find she means it. "How?"
"That's a secret," but he sounds playful, like he wants her to find out anyway.
More interesting to let her live, indeed.
Title: Along Came A Spider
Fandom: Stoker + His Dark Materials
Word count: 476, not including the author's note at the end
Disclaimer: I don't own Stoker or His Dark Materials
Warnings: Murder, attempted rape, implied masturbation, implied pre-incest
Characters: India Stoker, Charlie Stoker, their dæmons
Prompt: Author’s choice, author’s choice, [character’s] daemon is named Nerium
India Stoker is eight years old when she finds out what her Nerium's name means. She isn't exactly sure what to think.
Nerium laughs. "I still like it."
Slowly, India nods. "Yes. Me too, but I wonder what Josefin and Idwal were thinking."
"It was probably Idwal's idea."
Their mother is their mother and she and her dæmon probably love them, but they've never been entirely certain of it.
"A toxic garden plant," muses Nerium, and wraps around her neck as a moccasin. "Maybe one day we'll grow wild."
"Why would we do that?"
Nerium doesn't answer. India thinks of a dozen answers all by herself, and then does her best to forget them.
~
All of India's classmates' dæmons settle before Nerium. It's another reason for them to be harassed; pretty, strange girl and her strange dæmon.
Their eighteenth birthday and their father's dead and Nerium still hasn't settled. India doesn't know who she is, not really, and maybe that is why.
They have never met anyone like Uncle Charlie and his Angelique, who is a large, slender hawk with dark feathers, for the most part, although there are lighter bars on her tail and wingtips.
Later, they will learn that she is a zone-tailed hawk, and in the wild these hawks fly in the midst of turkey vultures so that prey does not see them coming.
Charlie says that Angelique is shy. Their mother seems to believe him, probably because of the hawk's habit of hunching on his shoulder and speaking to no one.
Angelique isn't shy. She just isn't interested enough to talk to anyone except Charlie and Nerium. India watches with narrowed eyes as Nerium takes bald eagle form to perch beside Angelique, who whispers something low and intimate.
Nerium was never much interested in anyone but India, before; sometimes not even Father's Josefin.
Already seated at the piano, India starts to play. Charlie joins her, and isn't it funny how he plays so well, when he'd told Mother that he was a beginner?
Later, she asks Nerium, "Do you like Angelique?"
"No," says Nerium, and India can't quite tell if he, her own soul, is telling the truth. "But she's interesting."
That, she knows she agrees with.
~
India helps her uncle bury a boy's body while Nerium clings to her neck as a black spider about an inch long, just the same as he has since the boy stopped breathing. He's quiet, and she knows he's lost in thought.
"He was going to rape you," he says, later, in the shower. "I'm not sorry Charlie killed him."
"I know," she says. "Me neither."
He hesitates, and then murmurs, "I'm not sorry about the others, either."
She thinks about that, shrugs. "Me neither."
She really, really isn't sorry.
"You're not going to change again, are you?" she says, and reaches between her legs.
~
Author's note: Nerium's settled form is a Sydney funnel-web spider.
Title: Emissary of Old Gods
Fandom: NBC Hannibal + H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
Word count: 519
Disclaimer: I don't own Hannibal or anything by H. P. Lovecraft
Warnings: Horror theme
Characters: Abigail Hobbs, Hannibal Lecter, Nyarlathotep
Prompt: Author's choice, author's choice, "When the stars align ..." "... The Great Old Ones will return and overrun the Earth?"
Abigail tilts her head so that her long, dark hair conceals her expression of puzzlement. The effort is probably wasted on Hannibal, but at this point it is less an effort, more an impulse.
Is Hannibal talking about astrology, of all things?
"When the stars align..."
"The Great Old Ones will return and overrun the Earth?" she interrupts, smothering confusion with sarcasm.
Hannibal smiles. He seems, for a moment, horrifically amused, and something buried in her soul quivers.
"Are you an aficionado of the works of Mr Lovecraft, Abigail?"
She shrugs, lets her unease sink deep and settle. "Not really, I've just read a few of his stories."
Hannibal hums softly but doesn't say anything more. It occurs to Abigail that he hasn't answered her question, but she dismisses the thought with a mental scoff. It isn't as though she meant it as a real question, after all.
~
Maybe she should have pressed it as a question, probably it's better she did not. They say knowledge is power, but is it worth it, really? It doesn't feel like it, now that she might have the answer.
What answer? What was she thinking?
She is drifting, she is lost, alone. She does not know if she is alive. She does not know if she is a real human girl now or formerly or if she is a half-remembered echo of the real human girl Abigail or if Abigail ever really existed.
"Abigail," Hannibal greets, and she does not think he was there a moment ago, but maybe he was there all along. Is she Abigail? She wants to be Abigail, maybe she can definitely be Abigail because he calls her so. She thinks she smiles hopefully.
"There is something I would have you do," Hannibal is saying.
Abigail laughs. "I think you killed me, probably. I remember it, but it feels like there's a deeper shadow underneath." Her brow creases in thought, and then she shrugs. "What can I do here? Am I even real?"
"You would be surprised." She wonders which of her words he is responding to, if any of them at all, and she listens as he continues. "You shall go to Will Graham, Abigail, and tell him the things I bid you."
She has a feeling like this isn't really her choice, but she nods anyway.
He smiles, an expression both gentle and unspeakably cruel. Pride, possessiveness? Her experience, if not her logic, informs her that this is fatherly.
She thinks, abruptly, that he is not and has never been Hannibal, that Hannibal has always been only something for him to wear, like a suit, or maybe a veil.
"What... who are you?" she whispers.
He does not answer with words. Instead, he lifts the veil for a moment, and in that moment she sees him as he truly is and knows him as he truly is. She chokes on a scream, sobs.
In the next moment it is almost bearable, as though he reached into her thoughts and put in just enough distance for her to function. He probably did.
"Nyarlathotep," she mutters, and shudders.
Title: Shriek, Shriek, Out of Tune
Fandom: NBC Dracula
Word count: 297
Disclaimer: I don't own any of Dracula's many incarnations, and the title's from Edgar Allan Poe.
Warnings: Horrible things happening to children, patricide
Characters: Lord Browning's children
Prompt: Dracula (2013), like a nightmare
Darkness. Hunger.
Rebecca trembles and draws in little gasps of air. Ezra wraps her in his arms and tries to hum a lullaby, but the tune withers in his mouth.
Hunger. (Hurts.)
The man will bring us something, he has to.
And he does. Ezra's hand rests on Rebecca's shoulder, as though she needs the encouragement.
Daddy?
Hunger.
They eat, and it is good, but then...
So bright so burning hurts Hurts HURTS!
Rebecca is screaming (Hurts!), Ezra wraps around her, smothers some of the fire, tugs her towards hopefully a door.
It is Rebecca, burned raw and wounded, that sees the way out and pulls her burning brother into the glorious cold dark.
It still hurts, but Ezra can hardly move. It hurts so much, but she must help her brother.
The blood was really very good, before. Maybe more will make this hurt go away, too. Maybe it will help Ezra.
She hums a lullaby, her lips crack open and bleed, so she chokes out a half-laugh and presses her lips to his so that she can force the blood in.
She draws back, looks. Maybe she is imagining it, but she thinks he looks a little better, just a little.
More blood, then.
The first person they find is... it doesn't matter. Rebecca leaps on the old woman from behind, latches on and drives her fangs into the woman's neck. She draws quickly, so the human becomes weaker, falls down. Ezra shuffles forward, Rebecca steps away from the food and holds her brother's hand as he drinks up the rest.
His hand grips hers back, strength returning. Good. Maybe he can help with the next hunt.
They have each other (family) and a city full of blood. All will be well. (has to be)
Title: Two Can Keep A Secret If...
Fandom: D.Gray-man
Word count: 475
Disclaimer: D.Gray-man belongs to Katsura Hoshino, and the title's from 'Secret' by The Pierces.
Warnings: Foreplay and mild sexual sadism
Pairing: Tyki Mikk/original female character
Prompt: any, any, "Why is your blood (insert non-red color)?"
Agnes smiles mildly as she sits with ladylike poise.
She is furious and no one has a clue. She wants...
She wants so many things, really, but most of all she wishes that she was not caged by expectations, by her position as only daughter of a noble family.
Maybe I don't have to be. The thought is unexpected but not unwelcome, it feels like a revelation. She slouches and allows her smile to twist into a frown.
And then he catches her eye, raises an eyebrow, smirks. He is Lord Mikk, if she recalls correctly. The Minister's brother.
He's very handsome, she thinks, and that look he gave her was... understanding, almost.
He comes to her, later, and his hand brushes lightly against hers as he murmurs an invitation in her ear, and she thinks why the devil not? and follows him from the ballroom. No one seems to notice, except for one little girl in a pink and purple dress, who laughs and grins at Mikk.
"Who was that?" Agnes mutters.
"My niece, Road," is all he says.
She forgets all about it soon enough.
He pushes her down on the bed, opens her dress, presses kisses right above her corset. When his fingers move to unlace the corset, it is with an ease that speaks of experience.
She claws at his back, bites down on his shoulder. She wants to hear him whimper, she wants to see his blood.
He does not whimper. Rather, he laughs and presses down on her neck until she is light-headed and dizzy. Her throat hurts when he eventually lifts his hands, and she cannot quite tell if she likes it or not.
She stares at his shoulder, which bleeds where she bit him, and whispers, "Why is your blood black?"
He looks down at her and she is unable to read his expression, but his eyes are really rather yellow, aren't they? Why did she not notice that before?
It feels like her heart is beating in her throat.
"I-I won't tell," she mutters, wishing she had said nothing, seen nothing. "It's a secret, right? I won't tell."
"No," he says. "I don't believe you will." He places his hand on the skin above her heart, says, "I should kill you."
She stares at him with wide, wide eyes.
"But it's more interesting if I don't," he adds. "What will you do, my dear?"
"I won't tell. Are you a demon?"
She almost hopes he says yes.
"No," he says. "Not exactly, but I do command them."
She laughs and laughs. He tilts his head and eyes her with curiosity.
"That's even better," she says, and is surprised to find she means it. "How?"
"That's a secret," but he sounds playful, like he wants her to find out anyway.
More interesting to let her live, indeed.