Writer stumped.
Firstly, for
missmomoko;
Title: Lost at sea
Fandom: Robin Hood
Prompt: Robin/Djaq (hate you. Hate you *so* much for making me write this...)
A/N: Hope you like this one. You're not happy with it just yell and I'll write you something else.
Dinnertime. Djaq accepts her share from Allan, exchanging a grin with him and takes her cup of water from Will, smiling behind her hand at how he ducks his head to keep those serious eyes from meeting hers.
And then her gaze suddenly meets Robin’s and the smile disappears and her gaze slides off to the side. She makes a start on the cold stew (“It was hot when I made it!” Much snaps whenever complaint is made), glancing up at each of them every now and again. It’s a depressingly familiar situation.
When Djaq was first captured and put aboard the slavers’ ship she soon found out what it was to be lost at sea. She wasn’t let up above deck often; only occasionally with some of the other slaves to stretch their legs so they would still be worth something when they landed in England. She remembered each time with perfect clarity.
None like that first time, though. Even now, on dry land and in the middle of the woods, in a place where most have never even seen the sea, she still has nightmares about stepping out onto the decking for that first time; still unsteady on her recently unchained feet and her back still aching from doing nothing but hunch for weeks on end, and looking here and there about her in horror to see nothing but water and wood. The truth had hit like a dead bird dropping from the sky; home was nowhere in sight. She was miles away, miles away from anywhere, without a hope of escaping.
As it turned out she was not completely alone in her despair. She often heard the sailors steering their prison arguing that they weren’t headed the right way. Surrounded as they were by water and clouds Djaq didn’t understand how they could tell - from the sound of it the clouds were too thick to make out the stars. It seemed all too likely some nights that they would none of them ever touch land again.
She can make out only the stars to tell her where she is - those that might have helped her divine her way are hidden behind the impenetrable English cloud and the forest roof. Perhaps it’s just as well, she thinks as she watches Will and Allan shoving at each other and then looks over to Robin, sitting thoughtfully under one of the trees near their current camp. There’s no point her having stars when she’s not sure where she wants to go.
And for
karaokegal;
Title: We'll never make tomorrow on time.
Fandom: House MD
Prompt: a "rare pair" and the musical prompt; "Tomorrow. Why wait until tomorrow, cause tomorrow, sometimes never comes?"
A/N: Not sure I fulfilled the prompt here. You don't like say so and i'll see what else I can come up with. Takes place in a fantasy season four which has nothing whatsoever to do with the real season four. Although Chase has still been abducted by aliens and turned into a surgeon (how have they explained that in the show out of interest?).
Chase answers on the eighth knock. It’s hard to take him seriously when he’s all bleary-eyed and sporting a bed head that’s perfectly flat on one side like someone’s smacked him with a frying pan, but House has always relished challenge. That and he’s really pissed off just now.
“You really think that whole “my Dad died and you didn’t tell me” spiel justifies this crap?”
Chase’s brow furrows. “Wha?”
House pushes his way inside, stretching a hand out to lean against the wall to free up his cane. Chase leans against the door until it shuts, staying out of range “I mean, I always knew you were a petty little bastard, but really. Did you feel like I’d taken advantage of you with the hug? Because I didn’t ask for it and I had two better offers that night.”
Chase is waking up a bit now, able to arrange his face into an annoyed expression and form actual words. “What the hell are you talking about? Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“It’s 2.47am exactly and I am talking about the procedure you performed on Wilson the other day.”
That gets his attention. “How did you find out about that?”
“Ah-ah-ah!” House waggles the cane at him “That’s not the point, here. The point is that tight mouth of yours. Did you feel this wasn’t worthy of mention? Or were you maybe hoping that I’d get blind-sided with his death and end up killing a patient?”
“Is that what you think this is about?”
“I just-“
“You conceited piece of shit!” The anger is unexpected and gives House pause. Not much, though; it’s always been interesting to see Chase like this, finally pushed into abandoning his caution, all that learned helplessness, if only for a moment. “Don’t you dare flatter yourself to think that this is in any way about you. I did the procedure because Dr. Wilson came to me as a colleague and asked me to. I kept it quiet because he asked me as my patient to keep it quiet. That was the only reason -“
“Why would he go to you about it unless he thought you wouldn’t say anything just to spite me? Can’t have been professional respect if you’re as bad with a scalpel as you are with his charts.”
Chase narrows his eyes, maybe incredulously though disgust is more likely these days. “You pulled his medical records?”
“I came across them in his filing cabinet and felt duty-bound to correct the mistake. Except, look at that, there is no mistake. It really does belong in there what with the testicular cancer -“
“We don’t know that yet -“
“ - real sucker-punch, but still, I managed to not kill my patient.”
Chase folds his arms “What exactly are you angry about here? The fact that he didn’t want you to know or the fact that you didn’t work it out on your own?”
It’s like going around and around on a scratched record that keeps jumping to the same lines of the chorus.
Oh, that’s crap, you’re not mad because I’m risking my job.
Oh, don’t act hurt, you don’t care!
House ignores it because Chase’s cover isn’t as good as the original. “Why wouldn’t he mention it? What’s he got to gain from hiding it?”
“Maybe he thought that you had enough on your plate, didn’t want to give you any more to worry about.” The question was directed at House himself and rhetorical in the first place, but Chase is still pissy about being woken up and all House’s remarks and seems determined to play the smartass. “On the other hand it could be somehow interpreted all that business with Tritter and then that time you drugged his coffee as meaning you don’t give a toss. Shocking, I know, but on planet Earth we tend to regard being treated like shit as an indicator that we’re not valued.”
House almost lets slip some comment about Cameron being an alien, given that she took it to mean quite the opposite, but doesn’t. Wilson could have cancer and tried - successfully - to keep that fact from him. He really doesn’t care about scoring points off of Chase just now.
He walks to the door. “Let me know when you get the results back.”
Chase doesn’t play the Doctor-Patient Confidentiality card like House was expecting. Instead he sighs. “You need to talk to him. Even if it comes back negative.”
House glances at him for a moment and then shuts the door behind him.