comment_fic 811-815: WC/Inception, Rise of the Guardians, SN, TW, HL
Title: first run
Fandom: White Collar/Inception
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: none
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 95
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, so this is what you do for a living?
"So this is what you do for a living?" Neal asks, dodging another projection as they run down the hall.
"Yes, Neal," Arthur bites out, spinning around to spray the hall with bullets.
Neal flips over a projection, knifing it as he lands, and Arthur throws him a gun that he throws right back.
"Now isn't the time to be squeamish!" his brother shouts, adding, "Duck!"
Neal ducks, promising to not mock Arthur's criminal tendencies as being far too messy for... at least a week, once they're safely back in the real world .
Title: untitled
Fandom: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: AUish for Pitch’s backstory; mentions of death/violence
Pairings: implied future Pitch/Jack
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 705
Point of view: third
Note: I don't know what Pitch's backstory is in the books, except what gets mentioned in fics here and there, so this is AU for that.
Prompt: Any, Any/Any,
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
(Lyrics from Hurt by Johnny Cash / Nine Inch Nails)
What goes together better than cold and dark?
A life without fear is not worth living. Pitch has known that for as long as he can remember, from who he was before Man in the Moon resurrected him to be the thing in the darkness, the shadow ever lurking, that shiver of apprehension that runs down the spine just before -
Who he was before was a nice guy, all told. By modern standards, perhaps not; but modern standards mean nothing when compared to the eons before humanity could afford to be judgmental.
Pitch’s people are long lost to the darkness of time, along with whatever name he had. He does not remember the name, but he remembers the life he led, those very brief years of existence before the ever-blizzard claimed him one dark night.
He was a hunter in frozen tundra; his body was recovered not long ago by modern scientists, and he lurked in the lab, watching them preserve his long-dead form.
So when he asks Jack Frost, what goes together better than cold and dark?
it is rhetorical. All he has ever known is dark and cold.
Pitch has asked every winter spirit he comes across, but until Jack Frost, they were of few words and preferred to be alone.
But Jack Frost, eternally a child… he does not want to be alone. He fears it. And when he grows tired of North, of Tooth, of that annoying Rabbit…
Winter is not silent, no, but it is quiet. Still and patient. Jack Frost may think himself a spirit of fun, but Pitch knows better. Pitch sees into the boy’s heart of hearts and knows what lurks in the darkness, where Jack Frost is still stuck in a lake and Man in the Moon watches him drown. Pitch knows what wounds fester inside the boy, from three hundred years of loneliness, of being forgotten and discarded, of being ignored by those who should have welcomed him.
Who only approached him when they needed him.
Winter is not fun. Winter is dangerous, and terrifying, and the cold that sneaks up on you, unseen, until it swallows you whole. Winter is death.
Jack Frost knows that, and knew it even when he turned away from Pitch to side with the fools who had ignored them both for centuries.
But that matters not. The Big Four, as the rest of the spirits who remain unchosen by Man in the Moon, jealous and hungry, call them, North and Tooth and Sandman and Bunny (of all the ridiculous names) may be taken with the boy for a time. May find him refreshing, and new, and fun -
They are so busy, though. Billions of children all over the world. So much work to do. Time passes so swiftly; you blink and suddenly years have gone by. So how long until that little winter child is lost again?
And Pitch will be waiting. A life without fear is not worth living, and fear cannot be locked away. Let them think they have won, have beaten him back again (again, hah, he was never beaten), let them believe the children sleep soundly, all tucked up in their beds -
Fear does not need belief. And while the Guardians only look after children, Pitch has every adult in the world.
So does Jack Frost, in his frozen heart of hearts. He may be tied to children’s belief at the moment, but soon enough he’ll remember what he has always known, what Pitch has always known, what the rest have forgotten, if they ever knew it.
Winter is the dark time, shadowed and cold. Winter killed Pitch when he was a man and so he will always belong to it.
Sandman, Tooth, Bunny, and North never died, but winter killed Jack Frost, too.
And so Pitch can wait until Jack Frost wearies of the boundless light and slinks back into the darkness, into the shadows of his heart.
Snow days are fun, yes, but so can blizzards be, when played in correctly, when driven by the nightmares of monsters. The boy will tire of wonder, eventually, and want to play in the dark again.
And the dark is where Pitch will wait.
Title: untitled
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: my characters, actually, but the world isn’t mine
Warnings: future!fic of indeterminate time
Pairings: past Dean/OFC
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 135
Point of view: third
Prompt: Supernatural, any, You are not a Winchester. Remember that.
You are not a Winchester, Danalyn tells her son every night as she tucks him in. He's too young to understand yet, barely three - but belief is the strongest power of all. Belief can move mountains, can change the outcome...
Belief can raise the dead.
Earl, you are not a Winchester, she says every night, kissing his brow.
He's never met the Winchesters. Will never meet those foolish, foolhardy men. Will never get snared in the trap that is their lives.
Remember, my love, Danalyn says every night. You are not a Winchester.
I know, Mama, he mumbles, closing his eyes.
Eyes just like his father's, and anyone who knows Dean Winchester will know -
But they are cursed, and she will do anything to keep her son safe from the very blood in his veins.
Title: you do not eat that which rips your heart with joy
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Thomas Lux
Warnings: mentions of gore; future!fic; AU; I’ve yet to see any of season 3
Pairings: a smidge of implied Derek/Stiles
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 795
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, "you're either part of the problem, part of the solution, or part of the landscape" (Eat)
Note: either Derek's pack dealt with Peter, he left, or he was never resurrected; I'm not sure which.
The pack is down; the hunter's partner is a witch, and she's good. Better than Deaton.
Scott's choking on nothing, gasping for air, and he's the only wolf close enough for Stiles to touch, and it might not be enough - Scott has to believe, just as hard as Stiles does, and Scott has never trusted Derek the way Stiles is beginning to.
Stiles wriggles over to Scott, grabs his hand, whispers, "Believe I can do it, Scott, believe in the pack, please, please believe in me."
Scott doesn't nod, and Stiles can't look at him, can't look away from the witch standing at the treeline, watching her hunter speechify at Derek.
Derek's dying, and Stiles doesn't have enough on his own, not after pulling the rest of the curse from the rest of the pack. He had to choose - Derek or the puppies, and Derek would never forgive him for letting them all die. Stiles would never forgive himself.
Scott can't talk, but he squeezes Stiles' hand and suddenly Stiles doesn't hurt as much. Warmth spreads up his arm and once it hits his heart, he's back in the game.
He meets Lydia's gaze, from where she's tucked against Jackson, and she tilts her head to the witch.
Breaking the spell should stun the witch long enough for Lydia to get her. Deaton had said that Lydia wasn't a battering ram like Stiles; Lydia is precision and intent. She's the stream you never notice until it's worn a chasm into the ground. Stiles is the tidal wave that flattens everything.
Stiles could blast the witch off the face of the planet, but he'd also get everything for five miles around, and he doesn't have enough control left to protect the pack while he does it, so, yeah. Lydia gets the witch.
"Believe," he whispers again, and he feels the pack, Danny's serenity and Isaac's pain, Boyd's anger and Erica's defiance, Allison's hate for hunters that don't follow the code, Jackson's regret for trusting the witch, and Scott sure with his last breath that Stiles can do this - and Lydia strikes at the same moment Stiles attacks the spell about to drain Derek dry.
Stiles is a battering ram and he throws almost everything he has left at the witch's curse, dragging the poison out of Derek and into the ground. When it demands a life, as promised by the witch, Stiles shoves the hunter forward with a thought.
It's a bad way to die. Now that it isn't any of Stiles' pack dying, he doesn't care.
The witch explodes, all her parts being contained neatly by Lydia, and Stiles makes sure with what he has left that the pack is alright.
"Stiles?" Scott says, now that he has his breath back, now that his werewolf healing is taking care of everything. "Stiles!"
They'll all be fine, even Derek, who'd come the closest, again.
"Stiles!" someone shouts, sounding further away than Scott should be. "Scott, what's wrong with him?"
Lydia says something, but Stiles can't hear what, and when did it get so col -
.
Stiles wakes up in the hospital. He is really fucking tired of the hospital.
He has until the doctor announces he'll heal just fine if he avoids going without food or drink for thirty-six hours again, and he's confused for a second, because he didn't do that, but then he figures out that must be the result of letting the magic pull everything, and then Dad waits for the doctor to leave to stare down at him and say, "Werewolves, Stiles, really?"
"Oh, thank Christ," Stiles says. "I was running out of reasonable explanations."
"None of them have been reasonable, kid," Dad replies. "Now, there's a lot of kids out there waiting for you. Feel up to it?"
They're all there, bright and strong, and Stiles basks in them. "Yeah," he says, nodding, reaching out to cradle their lights, warm inside and out.
Before walking over to the door, Dad squeezes Stiles' shoulder and leans down to kiss his forehead. "I love you, Allandros, and I'm proud of you," he murmurs. "Your mother would be, too."
Stiles never knows what to say when Dad talks about Mama, but this feels right, so Stiles says, "She'd be proud of you, too," and Dad's eyes are a little wet, but so are Stiles', and Dad goes to let the puppies barrel into the room.
Title: the patient calculations of the sea
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Jane Yolen
Warnings: future!fic; mentions of murder
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 205
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander, Methos, I got too big, too noisy. Time to step back into the shadows.
It's easy to kill Adam Pierson, like it was easy to kill everyone before him. The Watchers believe he's an infant, and infants do poorly in challenges. And if Duncan believes Adam Pierson dies, the Watchers will, as well.
Adam dies like a child, helpless and angry, and his killer dies two hours later, fleeing Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, in a three car pile-up that decapitates him. No one gets his quickening.
Neither Joe nor Duncan mentions that Adam Pierson had been Methos, and that now all his knowledge is lost. But the mourn him, and they miss him, and Duncan is a little more bloodthirsty than he had been before.
...
On a tiny island out in the Pacific, Joey Bennison steps off a plane, ready to begin his vacation from school. He's studying to become an astrophysicist and his mind needs a break. He's got more money than he'll ever know what to do with, thanks to his guilt-ridden father and a car accident that killed his mother, and he's real bad in social situations, never knowing what to say or do.
But he knows how to wander, and he knows how to wait, and he knows what the moai are saying.
Fandom: White Collar/Inception
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: none
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 95
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, so this is what you do for a living?
"So this is what you do for a living?" Neal asks, dodging another projection as they run down the hall.
"Yes, Neal," Arthur bites out, spinning around to spray the hall with bullets.
Neal flips over a projection, knifing it as he lands, and Arthur throws him a gun that he throws right back.
"Now isn't the time to be squeamish!" his brother shouts, adding, "Duck!"
Neal ducks, promising to not mock Arthur's criminal tendencies as being far too messy for... at least a week, once they're safely back in the real world .
Title: untitled
Fandom: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: AUish for Pitch’s backstory; mentions of death/violence
Pairings: implied future Pitch/Jack
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 705
Point of view: third
Note: I don't know what Pitch's backstory is in the books, except what gets mentioned in fics here and there, so this is AU for that.
Prompt: Any, Any/Any,
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
(Lyrics from Hurt by Johnny Cash / Nine Inch Nails)
What goes together better than cold and dark?
A life without fear is not worth living. Pitch has known that for as long as he can remember, from who he was before Man in the Moon resurrected him to be the thing in the darkness, the shadow ever lurking, that shiver of apprehension that runs down the spine just before -
Who he was before was a nice guy, all told. By modern standards, perhaps not; but modern standards mean nothing when compared to the eons before humanity could afford to be judgmental.
Pitch’s people are long lost to the darkness of time, along with whatever name he had. He does not remember the name, but he remembers the life he led, those very brief years of existence before the ever-blizzard claimed him one dark night.
He was a hunter in frozen tundra; his body was recovered not long ago by modern scientists, and he lurked in the lab, watching them preserve his long-dead form.
So when he asks Jack Frost, what goes together better than cold and dark?
it is rhetorical. All he has ever known is dark and cold.
Pitch has asked every winter spirit he comes across, but until Jack Frost, they were of few words and preferred to be alone.
But Jack Frost, eternally a child… he does not want to be alone. He fears it. And when he grows tired of North, of Tooth, of that annoying Rabbit…
Winter is not silent, no, but it is quiet. Still and patient. Jack Frost may think himself a spirit of fun, but Pitch knows better. Pitch sees into the boy’s heart of hearts and knows what lurks in the darkness, where Jack Frost is still stuck in a lake and Man in the Moon watches him drown. Pitch knows what wounds fester inside the boy, from three hundred years of loneliness, of being forgotten and discarded, of being ignored by those who should have welcomed him.
Who only approached him when they needed him.
Winter is not fun. Winter is dangerous, and terrifying, and the cold that sneaks up on you, unseen, until it swallows you whole. Winter is death.
Jack Frost knows that, and knew it even when he turned away from Pitch to side with the fools who had ignored them both for centuries.
But that matters not. The Big Four, as the rest of the spirits who remain unchosen by Man in the Moon, jealous and hungry, call them, North and Tooth and Sandman and Bunny (of all the ridiculous names) may be taken with the boy for a time. May find him refreshing, and new, and fun -
They are so busy, though. Billions of children all over the world. So much work to do. Time passes so swiftly; you blink and suddenly years have gone by. So how long until that little winter child is lost again?
And Pitch will be waiting. A life without fear is not worth living, and fear cannot be locked away. Let them think they have won, have beaten him back again (again, hah, he was never beaten), let them believe the children sleep soundly, all tucked up in their beds -
Fear does not need belief. And while the Guardians only look after children, Pitch has every adult in the world.
So does Jack Frost, in his frozen heart of hearts. He may be tied to children’s belief at the moment, but soon enough he’ll remember what he has always known, what Pitch has always known, what the rest have forgotten, if they ever knew it.
Winter is the dark time, shadowed and cold. Winter killed Pitch when he was a man and so he will always belong to it.
Sandman, Tooth, Bunny, and North never died, but winter killed Jack Frost, too.
And so Pitch can wait until Jack Frost wearies of the boundless light and slinks back into the darkness, into the shadows of his heart.
Snow days are fun, yes, but so can blizzards be, when played in correctly, when driven by the nightmares of monsters. The boy will tire of wonder, eventually, and want to play in the dark again.
And the dark is where Pitch will wait.
Title: untitled
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: my characters, actually, but the world isn’t mine
Warnings: future!fic of indeterminate time
Pairings: past Dean/OFC
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 135
Point of view: third
Prompt: Supernatural, any, You are not a Winchester. Remember that.
You are not a Winchester, Danalyn tells her son every night as she tucks him in. He's too young to understand yet, barely three - but belief is the strongest power of all. Belief can move mountains, can change the outcome...
Belief can raise the dead.
Earl, you are not a Winchester, she says every night, kissing his brow.
He's never met the Winchesters. Will never meet those foolish, foolhardy men. Will never get snared in the trap that is their lives.
Remember, my love, Danalyn says every night. You are not a Winchester.
I know, Mama, he mumbles, closing his eyes.
Eyes just like his father's, and anyone who knows Dean Winchester will know -
But they are cursed, and she will do anything to keep her son safe from the very blood in his veins.
Title: you do not eat that which rips your heart with joy
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Thomas Lux
Warnings: mentions of gore; future!fic; AU; I’ve yet to see any of season 3
Pairings: a smidge of implied Derek/Stiles
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 795
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, "you're either part of the problem, part of the solution, or part of the landscape" (Eat)
Note: either Derek's pack dealt with Peter, he left, or he was never resurrected; I'm not sure which.
The pack is down; the hunter's partner is a witch, and she's good. Better than Deaton.
Scott's choking on nothing, gasping for air, and he's the only wolf close enough for Stiles to touch, and it might not be enough - Scott has to believe, just as hard as Stiles does, and Scott has never trusted Derek the way Stiles is beginning to.
Stiles wriggles over to Scott, grabs his hand, whispers, "Believe I can do it, Scott, believe in the pack, please, please believe in me."
Scott doesn't nod, and Stiles can't look at him, can't look away from the witch standing at the treeline, watching her hunter speechify at Derek.
Derek's dying, and Stiles doesn't have enough on his own, not after pulling the rest of the curse from the rest of the pack. He had to choose - Derek or the puppies, and Derek would never forgive him for letting them all die. Stiles would never forgive himself.
Scott can't talk, but he squeezes Stiles' hand and suddenly Stiles doesn't hurt as much. Warmth spreads up his arm and once it hits his heart, he's back in the game.
He meets Lydia's gaze, from where she's tucked against Jackson, and she tilts her head to the witch.
Breaking the spell should stun the witch long enough for Lydia to get her. Deaton had said that Lydia wasn't a battering ram like Stiles; Lydia is precision and intent. She's the stream you never notice until it's worn a chasm into the ground. Stiles is the tidal wave that flattens everything.
Stiles could blast the witch off the face of the planet, but he'd also get everything for five miles around, and he doesn't have enough control left to protect the pack while he does it, so, yeah. Lydia gets the witch.
"Believe," he whispers again, and he feels the pack, Danny's serenity and Isaac's pain, Boyd's anger and Erica's defiance, Allison's hate for hunters that don't follow the code, Jackson's regret for trusting the witch, and Scott sure with his last breath that Stiles can do this - and Lydia strikes at the same moment Stiles attacks the spell about to drain Derek dry.
Stiles is a battering ram and he throws almost everything he has left at the witch's curse, dragging the poison out of Derek and into the ground. When it demands a life, as promised by the witch, Stiles shoves the hunter forward with a thought.
It's a bad way to die. Now that it isn't any of Stiles' pack dying, he doesn't care.
The witch explodes, all her parts being contained neatly by Lydia, and Stiles makes sure with what he has left that the pack is alright.
"Stiles?" Scott says, now that he has his breath back, now that his werewolf healing is taking care of everything. "Stiles!"
They'll all be fine, even Derek, who'd come the closest, again.
"Stiles!" someone shouts, sounding further away than Scott should be. "Scott, what's wrong with him?"
Lydia says something, but Stiles can't hear what, and when did it get so col -
.
Stiles wakes up in the hospital. He is really fucking tired of the hospital.
He has until the doctor announces he'll heal just fine if he avoids going without food or drink for thirty-six hours again, and he's confused for a second, because he didn't do that, but then he figures out that must be the result of letting the magic pull everything, and then Dad waits for the doctor to leave to stare down at him and say, "Werewolves, Stiles, really?"
"Oh, thank Christ," Stiles says. "I was running out of reasonable explanations."
"None of them have been reasonable, kid," Dad replies. "Now, there's a lot of kids out there waiting for you. Feel up to it?"
They're all there, bright and strong, and Stiles basks in them. "Yeah," he says, nodding, reaching out to cradle their lights, warm inside and out.
Before walking over to the door, Dad squeezes Stiles' shoulder and leans down to kiss his forehead. "I love you, Allandros, and I'm proud of you," he murmurs. "Your mother would be, too."
Stiles never knows what to say when Dad talks about Mama, but this feels right, so Stiles says, "She'd be proud of you, too," and Dad's eyes are a little wet, but so are Stiles', and Dad goes to let the puppies barrel into the room.
Title: the patient calculations of the sea
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Jane Yolen
Warnings: future!fic; mentions of murder
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 205
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander, Methos, I got too big, too noisy. Time to step back into the shadows.
It's easy to kill Adam Pierson, like it was easy to kill everyone before him. The Watchers believe he's an infant, and infants do poorly in challenges. And if Duncan believes Adam Pierson dies, the Watchers will, as well.
Adam dies like a child, helpless and angry, and his killer dies two hours later, fleeing Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, in a three car pile-up that decapitates him. No one gets his quickening.
Neither Joe nor Duncan mentions that Adam Pierson had been Methos, and that now all his knowledge is lost. But the mourn him, and they miss him, and Duncan is a little more bloodthirsty than he had been before.
...
On a tiny island out in the Pacific, Joey Bennison steps off a plane, ready to begin his vacation from school. He's studying to become an astrophysicist and his mind needs a break. He's got more money than he'll ever know what to do with, thanks to his guilt-ridden father and a car accident that killed his mother, and he's real bad in social situations, never knowing what to say or do.
But he knows how to wander, and he knows how to wait, and he knows what the moai are saying.