Heroes fic: Tiger By the Tail (R for language)
Title: Tiger By the Tail
Author: sabaceanbabe
Rating: R for language
Word count: 429
Character: Ted Sprague
Summary: ...gotta get control, gotta get hold of this, can't make it go away...
Author's note: This was written for the 3rd challenge at heroes_contest, write a "drabble" (500 words or less) for the prompt "split." Thank you, ancarett for the beta.
------------------------------
dead dead dead
gotta get control, gotta get hold of this, can't make it go away
dead dead dead
fuckers won't take it away
nobody can do this but me
nobody can help
dead dead dead
Ted Sprague is no longer aware of his surroundings. All he knows, all he's capable of knowing, is this curse inside his head, the one that killed his wife - dead dead dead Karen's dead dead dead - the one that burned huge, gaping holes in their home. The one those mother fuckers put in his head.
won't take it away
He feels it burning inside him, welling up to poison the very air he breathes, the air Karen breathed until it killed her. Until he killed her.
"KAREN!" he shouts, his body rigid with tension, with uncontrolled, uncontrollable power.
gotta control this
If he can just take control of it, even if only for a little while, then it won't matter anymore, what they've done to him, it won't matter that they won't take this nightmare away. Because if he can take control, if he can make something happen instead of letting something happen, then he can make sure the fuckers can't do this to anyone else.
A sudden calm comes over him. The background noise in his brain fades and is gone. Even the rage subsides, although a detached part of him understands that it will come back, that it isn't gone, only banked.
Closing his eyes, Ted listens to the stillness inside, becomes aware that it isn't a stillness at all, but rather there is so much going on inside him that it's become a blur. The stillness is a whisper, white noise caused by motion on an atomic level within his body. He concentrates on that white noise, letting it flow through and around his consciousness until he can pick out the individual atoms.
And everything falls into place, like the pieces of a puzzle.
Ted takes hold of one of those atoms. It fights him, not out of malice, but out of frenetic energy. It can't not move, and yet he is forcing it to be still. Still…
Still…
Delving sharply into its core, Ted splits it. Where there was one, now there are two. And then two more. Eight. And on into infinity, each split generating its own power.
That power surges through him, threatens to spiral out of control, but he chokes it back, forces it to his will and then -
Ted opens his eyes to a ball of pure energy sitting in the palm of his hand.
~~fin~~
Thanks for reading, and if you're a member or watcher of heroes_contest and the spirit so moves you, please feel free to vote. :)
Author: sabaceanbabe
Rating: R for language
Word count: 429
Character: Ted Sprague
Summary: ...gotta get control, gotta get hold of this, can't make it go away...
Author's note: This was written for the 3rd challenge at heroes_contest, write a "drabble" (500 words or less) for the prompt "split." Thank you, ancarett for the beta.
------------------------------
dead dead dead
gotta get control, gotta get hold of this, can't make it go away
dead dead dead
fuckers won't take it away
nobody can do this but me
nobody can help
dead dead dead
Ted Sprague is no longer aware of his surroundings. All he knows, all he's capable of knowing, is this curse inside his head, the one that killed his wife - dead dead dead Karen's dead dead dead - the one that burned huge, gaping holes in their home. The one those mother fuckers put in his head.
won't take it away
He feels it burning inside him, welling up to poison the very air he breathes, the air Karen breathed until it killed her. Until he killed her.
"KAREN!" he shouts, his body rigid with tension, with uncontrolled, uncontrollable power.
gotta control this
If he can just take control of it, even if only for a little while, then it won't matter anymore, what they've done to him, it won't matter that they won't take this nightmare away. Because if he can take control, if he can make something happen instead of letting something happen, then he can make sure the fuckers can't do this to anyone else.
A sudden calm comes over him. The background noise in his brain fades and is gone. Even the rage subsides, although a detached part of him understands that it will come back, that it isn't gone, only banked.
Closing his eyes, Ted listens to the stillness inside, becomes aware that it isn't a stillness at all, but rather there is so much going on inside him that it's become a blur. The stillness is a whisper, white noise caused by motion on an atomic level within his body. He concentrates on that white noise, letting it flow through and around his consciousness until he can pick out the individual atoms.
And everything falls into place, like the pieces of a puzzle.
Ted takes hold of one of those atoms. It fights him, not out of malice, but out of frenetic energy. It can't not move, and yet he is forcing it to be still. Still…
Still…
Delving sharply into its core, Ted splits it. Where there was one, now there are two. And then two more. Eight. And on into infinity, each split generating its own power.
That power surges through him, threatens to spiral out of control, but he chokes it back, forces it to his will and then -
Ted opens his eyes to a ball of pure energy sitting in the palm of his hand.
~~fin~~
Thanks for reading, and if you're a member or watcher of heroes_contest and the spirit so moves you, please feel free to vote. :)