comment_fic 896-900: TW, Avengers, original
Title: a shadow ajar
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post season 3; trauma; mindfuck
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 265
Point of view: third
Prompt: Teen Wolf, Stiles, I don’t just want your heart. I want your flesh, your skin and blood and bones, your voice, your thoughts, your pulse and most of all your fingerprints, everywhere.
He watches the fox crumble to dust, watches his own face collapse, and he knows -- it's not over yet.
How could it be that easy?
…
They all flinch from him. It was his body, his face, his voice, his eyes.
(Did his body die? Is he wearing the fox?)
They all flinch from him. He understands. He flinches from himself.
…
(Of course it wasn’t that easy.)
…
When is a door not a door?
What can no one lose?
(A shadow ajar, a shadow ajar, tell me, Stiles, tell me you know.)
Everybody has it.
Every body.
(Let’s make more.)
…
Allison died because of him. A hundred casualties at the hospital. Four dead because of the bomb. (One of the ex-alpha twins, but he doesn’t really care about that, except that it hurt Lydia.)
He wasn’t strong enough. Not fast enough, or smart enough. He’s never enough.
(He let the fox in, all three times.)
(Do they really think nothing’s left?)
…
He avoids mirrors. He sleeps through the night, now, because he checks that he’s actually dreaming. He plays games and reads books and avoids everyone.
They avoid him, too.
…
“Are you awake, Stiles?” his voice asks him, his face, his grin.
He exhales slowly, counting to ten, and then he meets his own gaze. “You’re just a shadow,” he says.
The fox (dream, dream, dreaming) laughs. “That’s all I ever was.”
…
He watches the fox crumble to dust, watches his own face collapse, and he knows -- it's not over yet.
Of course it wasn’t that easy.
Title: the weapon with no name
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: Spoilers for Cap2. Mentions of torture/brainwashing/violence
Pairings: Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 625
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any vs any, the origin of a grudge
There is a weapon with a title but no name, and he is a powerful weapon indeed. He is the greatest weapon ever built by Red Room, and when Red Room fell, he was sent to Hydra rather than be destroyed.
Let Tony Stark have his Jericho Missile, his Iron Man suit - just as the Winter Soldier once killed Howard Stark, Howard Stark’s son would be no problem at all.
…
There is a weapon with no name, and he is awoken only for the greatest of targets. He has caused wars, terrorized nations, wiped out bloodlines.
(He has done none of that, Captain America will say in a few years’ time. He did none of that. The weapon (given a name at last) will not believe him.)
There is a weapon with no name, and he is awoken to kill Fury, Nicholas J., Director of SHIELD.
There is a weapon with no name, and he is sent to kill Captain America and the SHIELD Agent Black Widow.
There is a weapon with no name, but -
I knew him, he repeats to himself as his handlers order him wiped. I knew him.
…
There is a weapon with a name. As he fights Captain America, as Captain America keeps talking, as Captain America falls into the water -- James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. All your life. My friend.
There is a weapon with a name and he plunges into the water.
…
There is a man reading a museum display about himself. He could kill everyone in the building in under ten minutes, if ord-no, if he chose. He chooses not to.
There is a man in a stolen hoodie and stolen baseball cap, hands in his pockets, his metal fist clenched.
There is a man whose identity was taken from him. Who was turned into an unstoppable weapon and set loose, loyal only through torture and mindwipes. That is no loyalty at all.
There is a man somewhere looking for him. A good man. The best man.
There is a man who watches the old videos, who looks at the pictures, who wonders - once, he loved Captain America. That much is obvious. No, he corrects himself, staring at his own face smiling so wide, so true. James Buchanan Barnes loved Steve Rogers. Enough to die for him.
Enough to break through Winter Soldier to save him.
…
There is a man with a name. He is still the greatest weapon ever built by Red Room, still the best weapon Hydra ever wielded.
Red Room was dismantled, but Hydra… Hydra still wants Captain America dead, and James Buchanan Barnes has all of Winter Soldier’s skills, and love enough to defy death.
Cut off one head, he thinks. The weapon had no knowledge of mythology, and Bucky Barnes hadn’t cared much for book learning, but James decides to study while he builds his strength back up. Heracles killed the hydra by cauterizing the stumps as he cut off the heads.
James is going to tear the remaining cells down and burn it all until nothing is left, not even ashes.
…
There once was a weapon whose name was taken from him.
Loyalty under duress is no loyalty at all.
James remembers being a child and defending another boy, who grew up into a good man, the best man. James remembers loving Steve Rogers before he even knew what love was.
He has never been worthy of Steve’s love in return, he always knew that. But he protected Steve, from bullies, from cold, from enemy combatants, from death itself. He was good at it when he just a man; he’s the best at it, now that he has 70 years as the weapon’s experience to draw on.
He goes hunting.
Title: the twilight kingdom
Original, gen, PG
720 words
Prompt: Author's choice, author's choice, kingdoms in the twilight, forests forever on the cusp of autumn
Everything is frozen at the exact moment the curse fell - water being poured into mugs, servants setting platters down, a dog’s tail mid-wag, a cat halfway onto a cushion. From the castle, it spread to the town, everyone going about their lives, forever mid-step. Horses never moving, children underfoot in the kitchen, a whip just hitting the back of a criminal and never leaving.
The surrounding forest is the same. Everything within 50 miles of the castle will never again move, or age, or die. Should the curse ever be broken, life will continue on.
Of course… well. She learned from Maleficent’s failure. There are no loopholes here.
…
Henry knows the story as well as anyone. The king was punished for insulting a fairy (no one ever thinks her name, much less says it aloud) and the capitol cursed into - something. It’s not like anyone who saw it got out to tell. After half a century of the citizens trying to govern themselves, the three bordering countries annexed them. Da says there was mostly relief, after that. Finally there was someone in charge, even if one of them had been an enemy before the king insulted the fairy.
Most people moved away from the former capitol and its eerie stillness. No one ever went close anymore, avoiding it like the plague, and maybe they got the plague. That might’ve been the curse.
But Da is the loremaster, appointed by their new king, and he has to record what happened. So he and Henry (to carry the bags) go back towards the former capitol. They know the boundary of the curse because it is spring everywhere but the capitol’s woods. “Don’t go in, son,” Da says, sketching one of the cursed trees into the official tablet.
It has been autumn for nearly a hundred years here.
.
That night, Henry cannot sleep. Da’s slumbering easily, but Henry is thinking about curses. Curses can be broken. How many people are trapped in the twilight? Every curse can be broken by the proper hero.
.
The next morning, Roderick wakes up and his son is nowhere in sight. “Henry!” he calls. Not yet worried. Henry is fifteen and probably exploring. There are no predators around here anymore, and no one foolish enough to venture this close to the curse.
By mid-morning, Roderick is worried. Where is his son?
He turns a horrified gaze towards the cursed woods. Surely not…
But there he is, Henry, mid-stride in the closest boundary of the curse. “Henry!” Roderick shouts, running towards him and then stopping at the very last moment possible, nearly falling forwards into the curse. “Henry!”
Roderick sobs into his hands. It is nearly a full hour before he controls himself, coming up and discarding ideas, pacing around, shouting at the sky and his son and the fairy and the king who angered her. He cannot leave here without Henry, but what of Meghan and Khora, back home? If he stays with his son, what will become of his wife and daughter?
He stays up all night and finally, at dawn, decides to try. He has his walking staff, a shepherd’s crook, though they have not kept sheep since being annexed. He carefully pokes the staff over the border, keeping his feet and hands away as well he can, trying to hook Henry’s arm. But however he angles it, it never catches, and he finally fumbles it. The staff lands all the way in.
He begins to cry again, falling to his knees. “Oh, my boy, my boy,” he cries, “Henry, you stupid boy.”
He cannot stay. He gathers up a few supplies and the tablet, and returns to the king with a warning.
King Haralda takes the warning to heart and orders a great wall built around the capitol of a realm that no longer exists.
Roderick goes home to his wife and daughter, and never forgives himself.
.
(In four centuries’ time, the wall crumbles. A fairy’s anger is vicious but can wane. Henry stumbles forward, the whip stings the criminal’s back, the horses trot, the cat lands, the dog’s tail hits the servant setting down the plate.
The curse is still a punishment, though - how can a king be a king without a kingdom? The world has moved on as leaves finally fall.)
Title: that season of beginning
Original, gen, PG for mild language
500 words
Prompt: Any, any, anthropomorphic personification of autumn
Title from Truman Capote. Set in 2014.
Her hair is bright orange this century, though the tips are a soft yellow. She typically wears brown capris and a red, long-sleeved shirt, with rainbow flats on her feet.
She’s forever eighteen, this life, and getting really fucking tired of it all.
.
At the turn of the year, the four gather, as they always do, plotting out the next year’s weather.
“I’m going to be brutal,” Winter tells them, cackling. “My time, bitches!” He’s wearing all black, with dark stripes in his white hair. He’s young-looking this life, younger even than Autumn.
Spring frowns at him, looking like a harmless little old lady, decked out in a neon green dress and wide-brimmed purple hat. “Don’t be too harsh, dear,” she says, but the order is plain beneath the kind words. You don’t fuck with Spring.
Winter pouts at her but doesn’t respond.
Summer is shirtless, of course, wearing swim-trunks with sharks on them. He’s somewhere between Spring and Autumn in age, and he’s dancing to music none of them can hear. “I vote hurricanes this year,” he says, twirling with a laugh. “All the hurricanes!”
Autumn rolls her eyes.
.
They cast votes - Spring is against anything too volatile, but Winter wants to go to work, and Summer wants huge waves and heat, and Autumn really does not give a fuck. She needs a vacation.
After Winter and Summer take their leave, Spring sits Autumn down with a cup of iced tea. “You’re young,” she says. “Younger than us.” She sips the tea while Autumn avoids her gaze. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of us; we were all young once.” She smiles, reaching out to pat Autumn’s hand. “There are eight months until your equinox, Autumn. Take a rest ‘til then. Read. Dance. If you like, date. Travel.”
Autumn blinks at her. “I can do that? But -”
Spring raises an eyebrow. Autumn subsides. “Better to tarry than to burn out, dear. Take it from someone much older than you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Autumn says.
Patting Autumn’s hand again, Spring rises to her feet. “Find something you enjoy doing and do it. I myself have a husband waiting up for me, and three months ‘til I have to emerge.” She gives Autumn a wicked smile, and Autumn shudders. Spring looks ancient, and so innocent. She waves as the scent of fresh blossoms fill the air, and then she’s gone, leaving Autumn in the meeting room alone.
.
Autumn Ceres enrolls in a community college in a small northwestern city in the United States of America just in time for the spring semester. Everyone around her complains about the crazy winter that’s happening, the worst in years, but she just reads books and watches movies and fails a few tests because she can.
Eventually, the winter recedes for spring, as it always does. The forecasters say it’ll be an easy summer. She remembers Summer’s glee and laughs.
She still has six months, and she’s going to make the most of them.
Title: the start
Original, PG, gen
130 words
Prompt: any, any, every book tells a story
Once upon a time
Wait.
Start over.
In the beginning
No, no.
Not that either.
Try again.
There was a girl walking down a dirt path, with tears on her face, hands trembling at her sides, blood pooling in her shoes.
... yes.
Keep going.
There are monsters in the woods; everyone knows that. Beasts that hide in the mountains, creatures in the water, always hungry, never sated.
There are monsters, my dear. Why do you walk here?
Oh, don’t hesitate. In fact, maybe you should walk faster.
Maybe you should run.
Ooh, yes.
This sounds exactly right.
And then what?
The sun sets. Here be monsters, and, well. Monsters have a queen. And she’s walking down a dirt path, shedding her disguise, licking her lips, smiling that bloody smile.
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post season 3; trauma; mindfuck
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 265
Point of view: third
Prompt: Teen Wolf, Stiles, I don’t just want your heart. I want your flesh, your skin and blood and bones, your voice, your thoughts, your pulse and most of all your fingerprints, everywhere.
He watches the fox crumble to dust, watches his own face collapse, and he knows -- it's not over yet.
How could it be that easy?
…
They all flinch from him. It was his body, his face, his voice, his eyes.
(Did his body die? Is he wearing the fox?)
They all flinch from him. He understands. He flinches from himself.
…
(Of course it wasn’t that easy.)
…
When is a door not a door?
What can no one lose?
(A shadow ajar, a shadow ajar, tell me, Stiles, tell me you know.)
Everybody has it.
Every body.
(Let’s make more.)
…
Allison died because of him. A hundred casualties at the hospital. Four dead because of the bomb. (One of the ex-alpha twins, but he doesn’t really care about that, except that it hurt Lydia.)
He wasn’t strong enough. Not fast enough, or smart enough. He’s never enough.
(He let the fox in, all three times.)
(Do they really think nothing’s left?)
…
He avoids mirrors. He sleeps through the night, now, because he checks that he’s actually dreaming. He plays games and reads books and avoids everyone.
They avoid him, too.
…
“Are you awake, Stiles?” his voice asks him, his face, his grin.
He exhales slowly, counting to ten, and then he meets his own gaze. “You’re just a shadow,” he says.
The fox (dream, dream, dreaming) laughs. “That’s all I ever was.”
…
He watches the fox crumble to dust, watches his own face collapse, and he knows -- it's not over yet.
Of course it wasn’t that easy.
Title: the weapon with no name
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: Spoilers for Cap2. Mentions of torture/brainwashing/violence
Pairings: Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 625
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any vs any, the origin of a grudge
There is a weapon with a title but no name, and he is a powerful weapon indeed. He is the greatest weapon ever built by Red Room, and when Red Room fell, he was sent to Hydra rather than be destroyed.
Let Tony Stark have his Jericho Missile, his Iron Man suit - just as the Winter Soldier once killed Howard Stark, Howard Stark’s son would be no problem at all.
…
There is a weapon with no name, and he is awoken only for the greatest of targets. He has caused wars, terrorized nations, wiped out bloodlines.
(He has done none of that, Captain America will say in a few years’ time. He did none of that. The weapon (given a name at last) will not believe him.)
There is a weapon with no name, and he is awoken to kill Fury, Nicholas J., Director of SHIELD.
There is a weapon with no name, and he is sent to kill Captain America and the SHIELD Agent Black Widow.
There is a weapon with no name, but -
I knew him, he repeats to himself as his handlers order him wiped. I knew him.
…
There is a weapon with a name. As he fights Captain America, as Captain America keeps talking, as Captain America falls into the water -- James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. All your life. My friend.
There is a weapon with a name and he plunges into the water.
…
There is a man reading a museum display about himself. He could kill everyone in the building in under ten minutes, if ord-no, if he chose. He chooses not to.
There is a man in a stolen hoodie and stolen baseball cap, hands in his pockets, his metal fist clenched.
There is a man whose identity was taken from him. Who was turned into an unstoppable weapon and set loose, loyal only through torture and mindwipes. That is no loyalty at all.
There is a man somewhere looking for him. A good man. The best man.
There is a man who watches the old videos, who looks at the pictures, who wonders - once, he loved Captain America. That much is obvious. No, he corrects himself, staring at his own face smiling so wide, so true. James Buchanan Barnes loved Steve Rogers. Enough to die for him.
Enough to break through Winter Soldier to save him.
…
There is a man with a name. He is still the greatest weapon ever built by Red Room, still the best weapon Hydra ever wielded.
Red Room was dismantled, but Hydra… Hydra still wants Captain America dead, and James Buchanan Barnes has all of Winter Soldier’s skills, and love enough to defy death.
Cut off one head, he thinks. The weapon had no knowledge of mythology, and Bucky Barnes hadn’t cared much for book learning, but James decides to study while he builds his strength back up. Heracles killed the hydra by cauterizing the stumps as he cut off the heads.
James is going to tear the remaining cells down and burn it all until nothing is left, not even ashes.
…
There once was a weapon whose name was taken from him.
Loyalty under duress is no loyalty at all.
James remembers being a child and defending another boy, who grew up into a good man, the best man. James remembers loving Steve Rogers before he even knew what love was.
He has never been worthy of Steve’s love in return, he always knew that. But he protected Steve, from bullies, from cold, from enemy combatants, from death itself. He was good at it when he just a man; he’s the best at it, now that he has 70 years as the weapon’s experience to draw on.
He goes hunting.
Title: the twilight kingdom
Original, gen, PG
720 words
Prompt: Author's choice, author's choice, kingdoms in the twilight, forests forever on the cusp of autumn
Everything is frozen at the exact moment the curse fell - water being poured into mugs, servants setting platters down, a dog’s tail mid-wag, a cat halfway onto a cushion. From the castle, it spread to the town, everyone going about their lives, forever mid-step. Horses never moving, children underfoot in the kitchen, a whip just hitting the back of a criminal and never leaving.
The surrounding forest is the same. Everything within 50 miles of the castle will never again move, or age, or die. Should the curse ever be broken, life will continue on.
Of course… well. She learned from Maleficent’s failure. There are no loopholes here.
…
Henry knows the story as well as anyone. The king was punished for insulting a fairy (no one ever thinks her name, much less says it aloud) and the capitol cursed into - something. It’s not like anyone who saw it got out to tell. After half a century of the citizens trying to govern themselves, the three bordering countries annexed them. Da says there was mostly relief, after that. Finally there was someone in charge, even if one of them had been an enemy before the king insulted the fairy.
Most people moved away from the former capitol and its eerie stillness. No one ever went close anymore, avoiding it like the plague, and maybe they got the plague. That might’ve been the curse.
But Da is the loremaster, appointed by their new king, and he has to record what happened. So he and Henry (to carry the bags) go back towards the former capitol. They know the boundary of the curse because it is spring everywhere but the capitol’s woods. “Don’t go in, son,” Da says, sketching one of the cursed trees into the official tablet.
It has been autumn for nearly a hundred years here.
.
That night, Henry cannot sleep. Da’s slumbering easily, but Henry is thinking about curses. Curses can be broken. How many people are trapped in the twilight? Every curse can be broken by the proper hero.
.
The next morning, Roderick wakes up and his son is nowhere in sight. “Henry!” he calls. Not yet worried. Henry is fifteen and probably exploring. There are no predators around here anymore, and no one foolish enough to venture this close to the curse.
By mid-morning, Roderick is worried. Where is his son?
He turns a horrified gaze towards the cursed woods. Surely not…
But there he is, Henry, mid-stride in the closest boundary of the curse. “Henry!” Roderick shouts, running towards him and then stopping at the very last moment possible, nearly falling forwards into the curse. “Henry!”
Roderick sobs into his hands. It is nearly a full hour before he controls himself, coming up and discarding ideas, pacing around, shouting at the sky and his son and the fairy and the king who angered her. He cannot leave here without Henry, but what of Meghan and Khora, back home? If he stays with his son, what will become of his wife and daughter?
He stays up all night and finally, at dawn, decides to try. He has his walking staff, a shepherd’s crook, though they have not kept sheep since being annexed. He carefully pokes the staff over the border, keeping his feet and hands away as well he can, trying to hook Henry’s arm. But however he angles it, it never catches, and he finally fumbles it. The staff lands all the way in.
He begins to cry again, falling to his knees. “Oh, my boy, my boy,” he cries, “Henry, you stupid boy.”
He cannot stay. He gathers up a few supplies and the tablet, and returns to the king with a warning.
King Haralda takes the warning to heart and orders a great wall built around the capitol of a realm that no longer exists.
Roderick goes home to his wife and daughter, and never forgives himself.
.
(In four centuries’ time, the wall crumbles. A fairy’s anger is vicious but can wane. Henry stumbles forward, the whip stings the criminal’s back, the horses trot, the cat lands, the dog’s tail hits the servant setting down the plate.
The curse is still a punishment, though - how can a king be a king without a kingdom? The world has moved on as leaves finally fall.)
Title: that season of beginning
Original, gen, PG for mild language
500 words
Prompt: Any, any, anthropomorphic personification of autumn
Title from Truman Capote. Set in 2014.
Her hair is bright orange this century, though the tips are a soft yellow. She typically wears brown capris and a red, long-sleeved shirt, with rainbow flats on her feet.
She’s forever eighteen, this life, and getting really fucking tired of it all.
.
At the turn of the year, the four gather, as they always do, plotting out the next year’s weather.
“I’m going to be brutal,” Winter tells them, cackling. “My time, bitches!” He’s wearing all black, with dark stripes in his white hair. He’s young-looking this life, younger even than Autumn.
Spring frowns at him, looking like a harmless little old lady, decked out in a neon green dress and wide-brimmed purple hat. “Don’t be too harsh, dear,” she says, but the order is plain beneath the kind words. You don’t fuck with Spring.
Winter pouts at her but doesn’t respond.
Summer is shirtless, of course, wearing swim-trunks with sharks on them. He’s somewhere between Spring and Autumn in age, and he’s dancing to music none of them can hear. “I vote hurricanes this year,” he says, twirling with a laugh. “All the hurricanes!”
Autumn rolls her eyes.
.
They cast votes - Spring is against anything too volatile, but Winter wants to go to work, and Summer wants huge waves and heat, and Autumn really does not give a fuck. She needs a vacation.
After Winter and Summer take their leave, Spring sits Autumn down with a cup of iced tea. “You’re young,” she says. “Younger than us.” She sips the tea while Autumn avoids her gaze. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of us; we were all young once.” She smiles, reaching out to pat Autumn’s hand. “There are eight months until your equinox, Autumn. Take a rest ‘til then. Read. Dance. If you like, date. Travel.”
Autumn blinks at her. “I can do that? But -”
Spring raises an eyebrow. Autumn subsides. “Better to tarry than to burn out, dear. Take it from someone much older than you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Autumn says.
Patting Autumn’s hand again, Spring rises to her feet. “Find something you enjoy doing and do it. I myself have a husband waiting up for me, and three months ‘til I have to emerge.” She gives Autumn a wicked smile, and Autumn shudders. Spring looks ancient, and so innocent. She waves as the scent of fresh blossoms fill the air, and then she’s gone, leaving Autumn in the meeting room alone.
.
Autumn Ceres enrolls in a community college in a small northwestern city in the United States of America just in time for the spring semester. Everyone around her complains about the crazy winter that’s happening, the worst in years, but she just reads books and watches movies and fails a few tests because she can.
Eventually, the winter recedes for spring, as it always does. The forecasters say it’ll be an easy summer. She remembers Summer’s glee and laughs.
She still has six months, and she’s going to make the most of them.
Title: the start
Original, PG, gen
130 words
Prompt: any, any, every book tells a story
Once upon a time
Wait.
Start over.
In the beginning
No, no.
Not that either.
Try again.
There was a girl walking down a dirt path, with tears on her face, hands trembling at her sides, blood pooling in her shoes.
... yes.
Keep going.
There are monsters in the woods; everyone knows that. Beasts that hide in the mountains, creatures in the water, always hungry, never sated.
There are monsters, my dear. Why do you walk here?
Oh, don’t hesitate. In fact, maybe you should walk faster.
Maybe you should run.
Ooh, yes.
This sounds exactly right.
And then what?
The sun sets. Here be monsters, and, well. Monsters have a queen. And she’s walking down a dirt path, shedding her disguise, licking her lips, smiling that bloody smile.