Fire!
5 offerings today for the fire/candle prompt, with a higher percentage of slash than previously -- must be the 'hot topic,' LOL! :-) They range from gen to R-rated slash, in order as usual.
Title: Meditation
Word Count: ~500
Type: Gen
Rating: G
Note: follows "To Build a Tradition"
Author: banbury
Meditation
Naomi groped for the key above the door and let herself in the loft. It was dark and quiet. She put her bag in Blair’s room and lit kitchen lights, looking for some water. The flight had been long and tiresome, but she didn’t want to sleep yet. She thought she‘d wait up for Blair and do some meditation to ease her mind.
Naomi wasn’t sure Blair’ll be glad to see her, at least he wasn’t last time she’d drifted in. She sighed and went looking for some candles to process it all. She found a half burned one in Blair’s room and two more in the fancy candlestick on the bookshelves. Naomi put it in order, lit and sat in the position.
The quiet enveloped her. There was real peacefulness in the loft, an odd sense of contentment she didn’t anticipate from the house of such different men.
She closed her eyes waiting for the desirable state of meditation to capture her. It didn’t come. Naomi waited for nearly half an hour but it was fruitless. Something nagged at the back of her mind and snapped her out each time she was coming to the right stage. She gave up, stretched and nearly knocked one of the candlesticks.
It felt warm and heavy in her arm - solid carved wood in the shape of a mountain lion adorned with the copper rest for the candle in his paws. It was smooth and finger polished, smelled faintly of sandalwood and lavender. Naomi stroked it thoughtfully.
There was something familiar in the feel of a lion in her hands. She closed her eyes and cradled the figurine in her hands. Of course! Naomi smiled remembering her sometime friend Ce - elegant, despite a bit worn clothes, blond with those sad blue eyes. They’d spent several months together in the retreat in southern Portugal.
Ce wasn’t much for meditation and soul searching, but she was very good with Blair - let him tag along when she went to gather herbs and flowers, told him stories and sang. Ce was into herbal medicine and it seemed now Blair’d picked up a lot of his knowledge from her that year. Naomi smiled at the memory of Blair’s small nimble fingers sorting the leaves out.
When Ce’d overheard Naomi’s decision to head back to States she’d brought to her two candlesticks and asked her to give them to Ce's family back there. Naomi’d never known Ce’s history and wasn’t much interested, but it wasn’t a big deal to hand over these gifts.
She still remembered the closed-faced man with steely blue eyes who reluctantly offered her a cup of tea and asked several questions, not hearing her answers. She seemed to remember a woman and a boy as well, though she wasn’t sure. They’d ended up living in Cascade two or three months, cause she’d found here very interesting meditating group.
Naomi sighed contentedly, put the candlestick back on the table and sat in the position again. This time she reached the state of meditation very quickly.
Title: There Oughta be a Law...
Word Count: 450
Type: Gen
Rating: PG for adult content
Author: roslynsmuse
There Oughta be a Law...
I should know better than to shop with Sandburg during any holiday season. His fascination with virtually all aspects of human experience is simply too ingrained in his intellectual soul. Holidays are the perfect occasions for pursuing his avocation.
“Holiday candles serve so many purposes, Jim. We ought to get some in soy or beeswax, of course, with some light oil scent to be traditional.”
“Sure.”
There are two reasons for my even accompanying him on these little, pre-holiday tours of the shops. First, it keeps him from introducing anything truly weird into the loft. There's this 'hang-dog' expression that I've learned to adopt; it makes him drop anything seriously objectionable and without the debate that inevitably follows an out-right refusal on my part. Secondly, I offer him a socially acceptable outlet for expressing his fascination with all things cultural. Last time he was set loose among the natives on his own for this purpose, Simon got a call from SantaLand's security officer about an armed man with PD credentials, who was caught talking to himself in the figurine aisle.
“Candles have a long history of use for serving as an aid to maintaining one's focus in meditation practices. They were also a way in which you could mark the appropriate duration of prayer. Kind of a road to devotion or wish fulfillment, with a timer attached - a candle only burns for so long. Then there's the opposite scenario in which you project any negative energy, wicked or sinful thoughts upon the burning stick or candle. Once it burns down, you've essentially vanquished the demons that forced them into your mind or body.”
“Right, Chief.” It pays to vary the response so it looks like I'm paying attention. Okay, some of it happens to be genuinely interesting.
“Of course, candles have been used for sexual self-gratification throughout time, since they were readily available to a large part of the population which naturally hid such intentions. Most were too poor or had no access for purchasing other suitable devices anyway....”
Another good reason to pay attention. “I think I'd prefer the beeswax candles, Chief. Soy would smell too much like your tofu. Can we look at tinsel now?”
“We're better off with popcorn strings since they can be fed to the birds instead of winding up in the landfill.”
“Ten-four.” I lead him off into the aisles displaying the lights. Okay, that elderly lady who was looking so alarmed has had second thoughts about approaching the floor manager. Yeah, she's coming back this way... and turning up the tinsel aisle, now that she hears we aren't headed there.
Lectures about anthropology should come with FCC ratings for what's permissible in public places.
Title: Beacon
Word Count: 500
Type: Pre-slash
Rating: PG
Note: Kinda depressing and you might not buy this particular characterization of Jim; I think that Jim has many facets and any number of things are possible with him. Might or might not follow this up, but if I don't, I'm going to assume that there was a happy ending that followed this piece. :-) I'm also assuming that if it were longer, it would mention something seasonal -- sorry!!!
Author: ainm
Beacon
He didn't become fanciful the first day Sandburg was gone. He went to work, he did his job, business as usual.
No, it wasn't until the first night Sandburg was gone that things started to come apart at the seams.
It had seemed to Jim that Blair had been away from the loft for school or dates or other outings enough that it wouldn't seem unnaturally empty without him there for one evening. But as that evening stretched to night, and a solitary dinner had been consumed and cleared away, and there was no one to fight him for the remote, and no one to make snarky comments at the TV with, and no one to fuss at him for trying to snack too close to bedtime, Jim admitted the truth.
Gone not even 24 hours -- hell, not even 12 hours -- and he was already falling apart, Jim thought. He was almost surprised by how little he was trying to fool himself into thinking that he could do without Blair, how he would be fine if Blair decided that he really wasn't coming back. But they'd been through so much, and he'd already faced the fact that he needed Blair -- he'd come far enough that he could admit that to himself.
He just hadn't been able to show it, and he knew that's how they'd gotten to this disastrous point. "I just need some time, Jim," Blair had said. "I need to be able to see this, us, from the outside," he'd said. "I'll be back, one way or another," he'd said.
It had been dark for about 4 hours when the idea hit him. He'd been sitting on the sofa, TV on but ignored, lights off and also ignored, mind wandering down all sorts of crazy Sandburgian pathways. The need to show Blair how he felt, the need to make it clear that he needed him home, had bubbled to the surface, and he'd decided that he needed a beacon, a light to shine Blair's way home.
Knowing it was crazy, he dragged a small table in front of the window and put a candle on it, with the farfetched notion that Blair would be able to see it and understand.
He wasn't sure that he'd made a conscious decision to add another candle each night, but on the sixth night, when he was rummaging in Blair's room to find a sixth candle to light, he realized that he'd created a shrine. He had taken to sleeping on the sofa, because he didn't want to blow the candles out too early just in case Blair really was out there to see them, but he didn't want to leave them unattended. He sat his cell phone by them, willing Blair to call. So many times he'd started to push the speed-dial for Blair's cell, but Blair had warned him it would be off unless there was an emergency.
So this was what it was like to lose one's mind...
Title: Seen by Candlelight
Word Count: 499
Type: Slash (J/B)
Rating: PG13
Author: janedavitt
Seen By Candlelight
Jim tracked Blair by hearing to his car and listened to him drive away. He had two hours at least before Blair returned, full of popcorn and his own take on the movie, his hair and skin reeking of butter and, probably, perfume from his date.
Blair had given Jim earplugs and a sleep mask to help him rest, but nothing to block out the smell of another woman on him, something that disturbed Jim's sleep more than street noise and sunrise.
The candles Blair had blown out were still warm; the pooled wax around the wicks a translucent puddle. Jim dipped a finger into the wax. He'd done this as a child, peeling off the shell of set wax and seeing the whorls of his fingerprint, clear and distinct enough for him to realize now that it must have been back when he still had the senses.
He let the wax harden and picked it off, feeling nostalgic, then settled down as he'd seen Blair do so often.
He didn't try to pretzel his legs; baby steps.
The match flared bright, the reek of it blurred by the scent of smoke from the candle he lit, and he hesitated, then blew it out. One candle would do.
He stared at the yellow flicker and watched it settle down. There was no draft to disturb it and he was sitting far enough away that his slow exhalations did no more than make it shimmer.
What did Blair see in this golden light? Peace? Emptiness? A happy future? What was Jim supposed to be looking for; an answer to a question he was scared to ask?
Too much uncertainty for one candle; maybe that was why Blair lit so many.
Jim sighed and watched the flame bend away from him, then return forgivingly. Blair did that, rolling with the punches Jim sent his way, engaging, hopeful smile in place.
And Blair burned brightly. Hot, dangerous to touch, but, God, how Jim wanted to fly into all that beautiful, welcoming, beckoning light and the hell with the inevitable sizzle as his wings ignited.
His vision narrowed, blossomed to discover a score of colors in the flame; and he was gone, lost.
"Jim? Jim!"
He tried to open his eyes and found that they already were. Blinking hurt and so did moving from the floor to the couch, but Blair helped him.
"What were you doing?" Concern and exasperation lost out to relief as Jim smiled at him, and then curiosity. "Were you meditating?"
Flip, concealing replies crowded his mouth, but in the end, Jim nodded with helpless honesty.
"Really? That is so cool." Blair beamed encouragingly. "Feel enlightened?"
No, but I'm still going to do this…
Jim pushed his hand into tangled curls and drew Blair close, kissing him lightly.
"Yeah. How about you?"
Blank-eyed, Blair stared at him and Jim shivered, lost in the cold and the dark.
Then Blair smiled, his eyes bright.
"I am now."
Title: untitled
Word Count: 100
Type: Slash (J/B)
Rating: R
Note: A little Holiday smuttiness.
Author: maaaaa
Jim by firelight was a breath-stealing sight; one Blair couldn’t bring himself not to stare at appreciatively. His long, lean frame was sprawled casually on the couch, one bent arm propping his head, one hand repeatedly stroking the length of his belly.
The flames, flickering orange and russet across his sheened body, lent the illusion of an old-time silent movie.
“You’re gonna toast your ass, Chief,” Jim quipped softly, startling Blair who quickly sidestepped away from the fireplace. “That’s my job,” he forewarned, his eyes smoldering. He sat up, picked up the paddle, discarded the bow, and crooked his finger.
Title: Meditation
Word Count: ~500
Type: Gen
Rating: G
Note: follows "To Build a Tradition"
Author: banbury
Meditation
Naomi groped for the key above the door and let herself in the loft. It was dark and quiet. She put her bag in Blair’s room and lit kitchen lights, looking for some water. The flight had been long and tiresome, but she didn’t want to sleep yet. She thought she‘d wait up for Blair and do some meditation to ease her mind.
Naomi wasn’t sure Blair’ll be glad to see her, at least he wasn’t last time she’d drifted in. She sighed and went looking for some candles to process it all. She found a half burned one in Blair’s room and two more in the fancy candlestick on the bookshelves. Naomi put it in order, lit and sat in the position.
The quiet enveloped her. There was real peacefulness in the loft, an odd sense of contentment she didn’t anticipate from the house of such different men.
She closed her eyes waiting for the desirable state of meditation to capture her. It didn’t come. Naomi waited for nearly half an hour but it was fruitless. Something nagged at the back of her mind and snapped her out each time she was coming to the right stage. She gave up, stretched and nearly knocked one of the candlesticks.
It felt warm and heavy in her arm - solid carved wood in the shape of a mountain lion adorned with the copper rest for the candle in his paws. It was smooth and finger polished, smelled faintly of sandalwood and lavender. Naomi stroked it thoughtfully.
There was something familiar in the feel of a lion in her hands. She closed her eyes and cradled the figurine in her hands. Of course! Naomi smiled remembering her sometime friend Ce - elegant, despite a bit worn clothes, blond with those sad blue eyes. They’d spent several months together in the retreat in southern Portugal.
Ce wasn’t much for meditation and soul searching, but she was very good with Blair - let him tag along when she went to gather herbs and flowers, told him stories and sang. Ce was into herbal medicine and it seemed now Blair’d picked up a lot of his knowledge from her that year. Naomi smiled at the memory of Blair’s small nimble fingers sorting the leaves out.
When Ce’d overheard Naomi’s decision to head back to States she’d brought to her two candlesticks and asked her to give them to Ce's family back there. Naomi’d never known Ce’s history and wasn’t much interested, but it wasn’t a big deal to hand over these gifts.
She still remembered the closed-faced man with steely blue eyes who reluctantly offered her a cup of tea and asked several questions, not hearing her answers. She seemed to remember a woman and a boy as well, though she wasn’t sure. They’d ended up living in Cascade two or three months, cause she’d found here very interesting meditating group.
Naomi sighed contentedly, put the candlestick back on the table and sat in the position again. This time she reached the state of meditation very quickly.
Title: There Oughta be a Law...
Word Count: 450
Type: Gen
Rating: PG for adult content
Author: roslynsmuse
There Oughta be a Law...
I should know better than to shop with Sandburg during any holiday season. His fascination with virtually all aspects of human experience is simply too ingrained in his intellectual soul. Holidays are the perfect occasions for pursuing his avocation.
“Holiday candles serve so many purposes, Jim. We ought to get some in soy or beeswax, of course, with some light oil scent to be traditional.”
“Sure.”
There are two reasons for my even accompanying him on these little, pre-holiday tours of the shops. First, it keeps him from introducing anything truly weird into the loft. There's this 'hang-dog' expression that I've learned to adopt; it makes him drop anything seriously objectionable and without the debate that inevitably follows an out-right refusal on my part. Secondly, I offer him a socially acceptable outlet for expressing his fascination with all things cultural. Last time he was set loose among the natives on his own for this purpose, Simon got a call from SantaLand's security officer about an armed man with PD credentials, who was caught talking to himself in the figurine aisle.
“Candles have a long history of use for serving as an aid to maintaining one's focus in meditation practices. They were also a way in which you could mark the appropriate duration of prayer. Kind of a road to devotion or wish fulfillment, with a timer attached - a candle only burns for so long. Then there's the opposite scenario in which you project any negative energy, wicked or sinful thoughts upon the burning stick or candle. Once it burns down, you've essentially vanquished the demons that forced them into your mind or body.”
“Right, Chief.” It pays to vary the response so it looks like I'm paying attention. Okay, some of it happens to be genuinely interesting.
“Of course, candles have been used for sexual self-gratification throughout time, since they were readily available to a large part of the population which naturally hid such intentions. Most were too poor or had no access for purchasing other suitable devices anyway....”
Another good reason to pay attention. “I think I'd prefer the beeswax candles, Chief. Soy would smell too much like your tofu. Can we look at tinsel now?”
“We're better off with popcorn strings since they can be fed to the birds instead of winding up in the landfill.”
“Ten-four.” I lead him off into the aisles displaying the lights. Okay, that elderly lady who was looking so alarmed has had second thoughts about approaching the floor manager. Yeah, she's coming back this way... and turning up the tinsel aisle, now that she hears we aren't headed there.
Lectures about anthropology should come with FCC ratings for what's permissible in public places.
Title: Beacon
Word Count: 500
Type: Pre-slash
Rating: PG
Note: Kinda depressing and you might not buy this particular characterization of Jim; I think that Jim has many facets and any number of things are possible with him. Might or might not follow this up, but if I don't, I'm going to assume that there was a happy ending that followed this piece. :-) I'm also assuming that if it were longer, it would mention something seasonal -- sorry!!!
Author: ainm
Beacon
He didn't become fanciful the first day Sandburg was gone. He went to work, he did his job, business as usual.
No, it wasn't until the first night Sandburg was gone that things started to come apart at the seams.
It had seemed to Jim that Blair had been away from the loft for school or dates or other outings enough that it wouldn't seem unnaturally empty without him there for one evening. But as that evening stretched to night, and a solitary dinner had been consumed and cleared away, and there was no one to fight him for the remote, and no one to make snarky comments at the TV with, and no one to fuss at him for trying to snack too close to bedtime, Jim admitted the truth.
Gone not even 24 hours -- hell, not even 12 hours -- and he was already falling apart, Jim thought. He was almost surprised by how little he was trying to fool himself into thinking that he could do without Blair, how he would be fine if Blair decided that he really wasn't coming back. But they'd been through so much, and he'd already faced the fact that he needed Blair -- he'd come far enough that he could admit that to himself.
He just hadn't been able to show it, and he knew that's how they'd gotten to this disastrous point. "I just need some time, Jim," Blair had said. "I need to be able to see this, us, from the outside," he'd said. "I'll be back, one way or another," he'd said.
It had been dark for about 4 hours when the idea hit him. He'd been sitting on the sofa, TV on but ignored, lights off and also ignored, mind wandering down all sorts of crazy Sandburgian pathways. The need to show Blair how he felt, the need to make it clear that he needed him home, had bubbled to the surface, and he'd decided that he needed a beacon, a light to shine Blair's way home.
Knowing it was crazy, he dragged a small table in front of the window and put a candle on it, with the farfetched notion that Blair would be able to see it and understand.
He wasn't sure that he'd made a conscious decision to add another candle each night, but on the sixth night, when he was rummaging in Blair's room to find a sixth candle to light, he realized that he'd created a shrine. He had taken to sleeping on the sofa, because he didn't want to blow the candles out too early just in case Blair really was out there to see them, but he didn't want to leave them unattended. He sat his cell phone by them, willing Blair to call. So many times he'd started to push the speed-dial for Blair's cell, but Blair had warned him it would be off unless there was an emergency.
So this was what it was like to lose one's mind...
Title: Seen by Candlelight
Word Count: 499
Type: Slash (J/B)
Rating: PG13
Author: janedavitt
Seen By Candlelight
Jim tracked Blair by hearing to his car and listened to him drive away. He had two hours at least before Blair returned, full of popcorn and his own take on the movie, his hair and skin reeking of butter and, probably, perfume from his date.
Blair had given Jim earplugs and a sleep mask to help him rest, but nothing to block out the smell of another woman on him, something that disturbed Jim's sleep more than street noise and sunrise.
The candles Blair had blown out were still warm; the pooled wax around the wicks a translucent puddle. Jim dipped a finger into the wax. He'd done this as a child, peeling off the shell of set wax and seeing the whorls of his fingerprint, clear and distinct enough for him to realize now that it must have been back when he still had the senses.
He let the wax harden and picked it off, feeling nostalgic, then settled down as he'd seen Blair do so often.
He didn't try to pretzel his legs; baby steps.
The match flared bright, the reek of it blurred by the scent of smoke from the candle he lit, and he hesitated, then blew it out. One candle would do.
He stared at the yellow flicker and watched it settle down. There was no draft to disturb it and he was sitting far enough away that his slow exhalations did no more than make it shimmer.
What did Blair see in this golden light? Peace? Emptiness? A happy future? What was Jim supposed to be looking for; an answer to a question he was scared to ask?
Too much uncertainty for one candle; maybe that was why Blair lit so many.
Jim sighed and watched the flame bend away from him, then return forgivingly. Blair did that, rolling with the punches Jim sent his way, engaging, hopeful smile in place.
And Blair burned brightly. Hot, dangerous to touch, but, God, how Jim wanted to fly into all that beautiful, welcoming, beckoning light and the hell with the inevitable sizzle as his wings ignited.
His vision narrowed, blossomed to discover a score of colors in the flame; and he was gone, lost.
"Jim? Jim!"
He tried to open his eyes and found that they already were. Blinking hurt and so did moving from the floor to the couch, but Blair helped him.
"What were you doing?" Concern and exasperation lost out to relief as Jim smiled at him, and then curiosity. "Were you meditating?"
Flip, concealing replies crowded his mouth, but in the end, Jim nodded with helpless honesty.
"Really? That is so cool." Blair beamed encouragingly. "Feel enlightened?"
No, but I'm still going to do this…
Jim pushed his hand into tangled curls and drew Blair close, kissing him lightly.
"Yeah. How about you?"
Blank-eyed, Blair stared at him and Jim shivered, lost in the cold and the dark.
Then Blair smiled, his eyes bright.
"I am now."
Title: untitled
Word Count: 100
Type: Slash (J/B)
Rating: R
Note: A little Holiday smuttiness.
Author: maaaaa
Jim by firelight was a breath-stealing sight; one Blair couldn’t bring himself not to stare at appreciatively. His long, lean frame was sprawled casually on the couch, one bent arm propping his head, one hand repeatedly stroking the length of his belly.
The flames, flickering orange and russet across his sheened body, lent the illusion of an old-time silent movie.
“You’re gonna toast your ass, Chief,” Jim quipped softly, startling Blair who quickly sidestepped away from the fireplace. “That’s my job,” he forewarned, his eyes smoldering. He sat up, picked up the paddle, discarded the bow, and crooked his finger.