Flopsie Dump
From the last few rounds. A lot of R/J for cheerupemo purposes.
Prompter: Kate
Prompt: "When two people meet and fall in love, there’s a sudden rush of magic."- Tom Robbins
A/N: 10fic. Remember that?! R/J. Mad liberties taken with subjects that I know nothing about.
The gun range is all but deserted at such an early hour of morning, but then again, Raye Harcourt preferred it that way. With safety goggles covering her eyes and noise-cancelling muffs on her ears, she stoically goes through her weekly practice. Stationary practice with her service Glock 22, a dozen rounds from ready, a dozen rounds from holster. And then a run through with a Tikka T3 Rifle, starting with loading the weapon and going through an obstacle course to hit ten bowling-pin-sized targets. She’s aware, even before she’s a third of the way through the sniper course, that Jadeite is watching from the sidelines, and pauses, turns back, deliberately uncovers her ears and eyes and locking the gun before she speaks.
“Why are you here? Who let you in?”
“I have my ways,” he says drolly, and as though supremely unconcerned with the fact that she has both a handgun and a sniper rifle within her reach, steps up closer to the man-shaped target that she’d used for handgun practice. “That fellow from your squad, the young one with the rumply hair, says you trained in Special Weapons And Tactics.”
“We’re not a huge city like LA or New York,” Raye shrugs. “We don’t have the manpower to create a separate SWAT team-- and really, it’s not necessary. But those of us who’ve been trained can carry out those duties if needs be.”
The man-shaped target has a cluster of holes freckling dead center in its chest. “Your colleague admires you greatly,” Jadeite smiles as he surveys her handiwork. “He says that when you are not uncovering the perpetrators of sex and gambling crimes, you’re Olympian City’s top sniper.”
Raye says nothing. She doesn’t believe in the hocus-pocus that he’d brought forth, the ludicrous premise that she, along with her favourite ex-con-artist jailbird and two strange women she’d never so much as met before, were destined to break some fairy tale spell in some parallel universe. “It doesn’t mean that I believe in you guys’ Star Trek delusional bullshit.”
“Fair enough,” Jadeite nods, and then reaches up, and with gentle, warm fingers places her ear-muffs back over her ears. Then, as time seems to slow to a crawl, he puts the goggles back over her eyes, hands her the rifle, and steps behind her. He’s standing too close. Her back is pressed against his chest, and through the camo vest she’s wearing and the linen tunic he has on, she can feel the heat radiating between them, charged, skin separated from skin only by thin layers of fabric. As though in a daze, she lifts the rifle into position, and the precise moment that he presses hot, slightly wind-chapped lips to the nape of her neck, she fires. It’s a wild shot-- one that she didn’t even have the wherewithal to sight.
The last bowling pin, more than a kilometer away and half-hidden around a corner, falls with a crack. Raye stares at it, stunned, before turning back to Jadeite.
“What the hell was that? The maximum effective range of this weapon is half that! It wasn’t even in a straight line! What did you do?”
He smiles gently. “Nothing that I had not promised to do.” Still seemingly indifferent to the fact that she had a gun in her hands, he cups her face, brushes his lips oh-so-chastely over hers. “I swore to help the Four, you know,” he says when he pulls back. “But now it’s a matter of personal interest and not simple loyalty.”
Stepping back, he bows, courtly as any knight. “Have a good practice.”
Raye watches as he turns on his heel and disappears out of the door, then in a fit of pique, empties the rifle of all ammo, without bothering to aim.
It’s the highest score she’s ever gotten.
Prompter: BAMFy BAMF
Prompt: “A girl came in the cafe and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair black as a crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
A/N: Docks/Noir-verse, R/J. Also, French is all Google translate. So forgive any inaccuracies, as I do not speak a word of French.
Jack sees her come in, European chic in her sleek black trench coat and over-sized sunglasses, rubies the size of his thumbnail dangling from her ears. Even half-concealed by the tortoise-shell Prada shades and the eggplant-coloured, geometric-printed Hermès scarf, her face is striking, bone structure as sharp and aristocratic as a goddess stamped on an antique coin.
"Bienvenue à La Nouvelle Lune, mademoiselle. Est-ce que vous avez un peu de vin?"
"Un verre de Pouilly Fuissé, s'il vous plaît. Et je vais avoir la salade Niçoise et les moules à la crème." Everything from her accent to her mannerisms are flawless, and if the eyes hidden behind the dark lenses of the designer sunglasses pay any attention to the blond American lounging in the corner with a beer and a cigarette, she certainly gives no indication. She's definitely good-- none of the others in the bistro, from the grizzled owner to the rookie Gendarme not-so-subtly gaping at her beauty in the corner-- see anything more than a sophisticated Parisienne visiting the tiny Provençal town of Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, but Jack notices the little things. The manicured hands are too restless. The pin holding up the jet-black hair in a tight chignon has a lethally sharp point. Her shoulders are back, her back is ramrod straight. And certainly the buttery leather Louis Vuitton handbag is too large and eye-catching for the average tourist.
He hails the waiter while the girl picks at her seafood dish with ladylike nibbles, and after an exchange of words and cash, sits back and watches as the young man brings a delicate slice of pastry to her table.
She looks up, finally sliding the Pradas off her face, and her eyes are wary like a caged animal's. But her voice is pure, languid nonchalance as her lips moue in not-quite-pleased surprise. "Je n'ai pas commander de dessert avec mon repas."
"Compliments du jeune homme en chemise bleue, là-bas, mademoiselle." Respectfully, the waiter sets the slice of mille-feuille in front of her and retreats to the kitchen. Now he has her attention, as eyes almost the same shade as her vibrant scarf blaze into his. He raises an eyebrow, toasts her with his empty beer bottle, then saunters over.
"Come here often, sweetheart?"
"Pardon? Je ne sais pas vous, monsieur." She's the picture of slightly-offended hauteur, and it makes Jack want to reach across the worn wooden table and tug that tightly-pinned bun in her hair loose. Of course, then the stiletto would give everything away. And really, the childish urge is not really like him at all. A decade with the Navy SEALs had all but whipped such foolishness out of him.
He leans forward, all brash cockiness and flirtatious grins, and gestures the cake. "Everyone likes a good Napoleon."
That gets her attention. She knows, as well as he does, that he doesn't mean the innocuous cream-and-chocolate confection in between them. "Can I help you?" Her English is just as flawless as her French, with a wisp of Connecticut and Yankee society in its crisp accents.
"I'm sure you can, sweetheart. But first things first. What's your name?"
"You may call me Holly," she answers, digging the points of her dessert fork into the corner of the pastry. But she doesn't take a bite, doesn't take those fabulous amethyst eyes off of his face. Jack grins, blithely picks up the fork she's half-heartedly holding, and takes a bite himself.
"I'm Jack. I can tell we're going to be great friends. Mmm, delicious stuff, this. Sure you don't want a bite, Jill?"
"I am not at all certain that we will be anything, far less friends," the girl called Holly lifts her chin. "And don't call me Jill."
Prompter: Pouty Charlotteface
Prompt: Orange Sky - Alexi Murdoch
A/N: Noirverse implied A/Z
"I don't really believe in such things as crystal healing. There is no medical evidence that utilising these stones are in any way conducive to improving one's health." Blue eyes gaze up into green, almost the same shade as the gold-flecked lapis lazuli tumbling stone balanced in her delicate, clever hand, and a faint smile crosses her lips. "But it's still pretty. Thanks."
Her feet are bare, making shallow imprints in the wet sand. The Californian beach is radiant under the brilliant citrine sky of sunset. She's here for a medical conference, and he couldn't resist flying in, 'accidentally' running into her in LA and coaxing her to play tourist after the work day was over. He'd grown up here, on the wrong side of town, but he had come up in the world, and no one who met Zane Weston in the present day would suspect that it was only twenty years ago that he'd run wild in the graffitied tenements and alleys, putting his hand out in gang symbols rather than to shake.
She knows nothing, of course, and she loves the beach, the hippie store with the tumbling stones and tarot cards, the sunset gleaming off the ocean's blue water. As the sky turns from tangerine to mauve, he leans down, kisses her smiling lips, then pulls back to wink roguishly.
"The one you picked for me is supposed to enhance sexual energy, make me reach my full potential, and benefit my heart chakra." She blushes at the first bit, and he pockets the red-flecked green stone. Ruby in Zoisite, the colour of new blood speckled on fresh grass. His feet are clad in sandals, his footprints bigger and wider than hers, slightly farther away from the reach of the waves...
***
One set of footprints on the beach, clad in sandals. The Nassau sunset is as brilliantly orange as any other around the world. A lone man walks along the surf, a stone rattling in his pocket, and wonders when he'll be able to see the one good thing in his life again. Maybe never. He didn't deserve her in the least. But that didn't mean that he couldn't try, and hope, and wait through a thousand more lonely sunsets.
***
In a windowless office in the warehouse, on a standard Army-issue steel desk filled with manila folders and a Colt 45 that she'd thankfully never, ever had to fire locked away in its drawers, there's a canister of pens and pencils, a clipboard, and a laptop computer. And then, a spot of colour in the cheerless room, a smooth-worn hunk of ocean-blue rock. Angelica sits down in the utilitarian swivel chair and runs her fingers over its cool surface, eyes gazing at the endless blue as though it contained the ocean and land that separated them.
Prompter: Zels
Prompt: You Are The Sunshine Of My Life- Stevie Wonder
A/N: M/K Fluff, Spacefic, set far into the future
The twin suns of Canaan rise and set within an hour of each other, and though she can't see it, Maia knows that right now, it is in that magic moment between the setting of the first sun and the setting of the second. The usually-blistering heat of day has gentled into a balmy 300 Kelvin. She sits now, still and patient for once, while Morela uses henna to deftly paint lotus blossoms on the backs of her hands.
Reya plaited her hair that morning, the work-roughened fingers gentle amidst the golden strands. And Selene, her voice less the piping trill of a carefree girl these days and more the silvery cadence of a maturing young woman, describes the dress that she is wearing.
The material, thin and delicate drapes of saffron chiffon over white silk, slides against her legs. The veil over her face is symbolic, even though she can't see the patterned tulle. She's to take it off after the ceremony, after she's a wife rather than a maiden, and let the last rays of the sun bathe her face.
Maia hears footsteps, quiet and quick, feels the familiar shift in the air, and when her brother reaches her side, she lets him wrap her up in his arms, kiss her forehead through the tulle. Janus draws back after a moment, clears his throat, and she just knows that if she could see his face, he'd have tears in his eyes to match hers.
"You look beautiful."
"I feel beautiful," she tells him, and together, they leave the room, walk down the smooth-worn path. Maia counts twenty-five steps, one for each year of her life, and then she feels one hand relinquish her arm, another one take it. Kaz gently turns her to face him, takes her hands in his, and it is one single, perfect moment when she just knows that the sky is a rainbow of sunset colour and his eyes-- gray, as he'd told her once-- shine brighter than all the stars as they take her in. He's standing straight, always alert, always on the lookout, but his fingers are warm, and his skin smells like the sun-warmed sand and new linen. They repeat the age-old, sacred promises that she never thought she'd be able to give, and then when he leans in to kiss her, she tilts up her head, meets him halfway, and though she'll never be able to see, keeps her blue eyes wide open.
The second sun sets in the sky, and a lone streak of bright gold cuts through the opulent indigo like a flare in the half-dark. Everyone watching considers it a benediction. And Maia, with her face up-turned and her veil thrown back, laughter lighting her voice with no bitterness for the first time in years, can feel it. And she knows, without anyone telling her or describing how anything looks, that she's never been so beautiful in her life.
Prompter: Ms. Charlotte Keyboardmasher
Prompt: "Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust." -- The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
A/N: Mythosverse R/J. Fluff for our Kate. Follows Kate's bdayfic.
The other side of the bed is empty when Kali gets up, though the silken sheets still smell like Yu-Ling's skin. Through the thin rice-paper window, she can see the muted orange light of the rising sun and smell the sharp, tangy fragrance of the chrysanthemums. Kali pulls the damask robe that he'd given her the night before, when she'd arrived here, and leaves the room to explore.
It is her first time walking through the gardens and courtyards of Yu-Ling Jun Zi's villa in daylight, and she can't help but slow down her usually-purposeful strides, marveling at its beauty. The autumn leaves cloak the trees in vibrant colour-- bright slivers of yellow willow, feathery fronds of crimson maple, pale fans of buttery gingko. The sky is vivid blue, shot through with streaks of rose and purple, and the cool breeze lifts her hair off her neck as she walks down the cobblestone paths.
It was by the pavilion where they'd first met, on the smooth ground where they had made love for the first time, that she finds him, clad in a plain black tunic and matching pants, his steps and movements soundless as he swings a red-tasseled sword in a circling arc over his head. His bright hair glows in the sunlight, and his eyelashes, a scant few shades darker, are lowered. It's not a grueling military drill; his movements are too slow, too elegant for battle. She watches as he leans forward, one leg splayed back until it is almost parallel to the ground, the other bent at the knee, then draws back and changes stance with the fluidity of water.
If this is his daily morning workout, it was little wonder that he is always so calm.
Yu-Ling is the one to break the charmed, fragile silence, as he pivots on his leading foot so that he's facing her. "I thought you were weary," he says, and there is a hint of a smile in his voice, in the half-lowered blue eyes.
"I was," Kali says, then tilts her head. "I have never seen this form of swordplay before."
"It's more of a meditation than a battle form," Yu-Ling tells her, before sheathing the blade and setting it down. He walks over towards her, and in the daylight, his eyes are as vividly blue as the sky overhead. "The footwork, the strokes-- those can be used in war. But in this form, it is more to find inner peace." Now the smile is more than just a hint, and he cups her cheek with one hand. "Even you, my Lady of War, can understand the need for it, I'm sure."
She does, but she affects a look of hauteur, even though her own playfulness surprises and baffles her. "I leave the negotiation and conciliatory diplomacy to Metis and Isis." A sigh breaks free. "I'll miss them." Isis did not even say goodbye. But that had been no less than Kali expected.
Now his smile vanishes, and his expression is carefully blank as he withdraws his hand from her cheek. "Are you sorry?"
"No." This she states with certainty, without any hesitation, and this time she reaches forward, braces her hands on his shoulders. Right underneath the heart line of her left palm, beneath the silk of his tunic, is the knife scar that she'd given him, that first time they'd met. Perhaps a part of her knew, even then, that it was the start of the end. Kali smiles, with as much inner peace as his sword meditation, and steps closer even as his hands fit quite naturally at either side of her waist. "It's the one thing I'm sure of, the one thing I trust. Being here, right now, is the only choice that I could have made."
He closes the distance between their lips, and it's different, being kissed in the sunlight. It isn't so forbidden, full of deep passions and tangled feelings. Rather, his lips taste like dew and hope and the clean autumn air. "You honour me," he whispers against her mouth.
Kali pulls back, and though she can't see it, all the brilliance of the sunlight is reflected in her eyes. "You bring me peace, and love. I've never known them before. I think... I think it's a fair trade."
Prompter: Li-Li
Prompt: http://exp.lore.com/post/26900356578/i-composed-a-beautiful-letter-to-you-in-the
A/N: Pre-Diveverse, R/J, sort-of-ends-with-fluff so hopefully that counts?
Jack still remembers the last time that she was home, for real, even though it was three years, eight months, twenty-six days and seven-and-a-half-or-so hours ago. Not that he's counting. And the fact that Rosamond is coming home at last, after a year of Finishing school and two and a half years abroad, fills him with trepidation.
He will see her in less than two hours, as she disembarks from the train and makes her way through the throng of people rushing to-and-fro, no longer a fawn-like sylph of seventeen with an ingenue's dimples. Her chaperon will hold her arm, always a half-step behind, and the manservant will follow with her trunk and valise. And she'll greet Darien, probably in a much more dignified way than a young girl's giggling squeeze, and then the whole procession will make their way towards where Jack is waiting, respectful and patient and silent, by the shiny black doors of the luxury car.
Jack will help the manservant with the luggage, and accept a polite lady's greeting from Rosamond, and for the briefest of moments, hold her lace-gloved hand in his as he helps her into the car. And then he will drive, silent and cautious, letting the carefree conversation and affectionate banter between Darien and his younger sister flow around him. Perhaps he will see the reflection of her smile, touched with the faintest hint of rouge, in the rearview mirror. Perhaps, for the rest of the week, he will be able to smell a ghostly whiff of her perfume, lingering on the leather seats.
He won't say anything, because he has no right to do so, and that is why, in the small, sparse apartment over the mansion's garage, a bundle of letters remain unsent, sheets of paper brittle and faded at the folds. Once upon a time when they were still children, it was almost all right for them to be friends. But both of them knew better, now, and certainly she would be shocked and possibly a little bit appalled at the simplicity of his missives, the starkness of his words.
I miss you. I wish things were different, and the world was a simpler place. I wish that I could tell you a thousand things that you'll never know, about me, about yourself, about all the reasons I love you. I've always known that. But I never knew how much... I couldn't have possibly imagined how much. I didn't know there was that much love for a person to give, and you'll never know.
He moodily stares at the ground, listens to a dozen jumbled, cacophonous conversations, and almost misses the click of high heels on pavement but for the accelerating speed. And then he has only a second to react, before he's enveloped in slim arms and the scent of white lilies and the burgundy satin of a well-tailored traveling suit. Instinctively, he holds on, as Rosamond blithely ignores the shocked exclamation of her chaperon and laughs, gaily and beguilingly, pressing her smooth cheek to his suddenly too-hot one. "Jack!" she mumbles against his collar. "I haven't seen you in ages. I swear, you've no idea how much I've missed you." A rouge-touched kiss lands at the corner of his mouth, tantalizingly close.
His hands curl into the expensive satin of her dress, and he breathes deep. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Darien, and Jack's half-afraid to look in the young master's face. But his erstwhile friend is laughing, making some sort of comment to his sister about how Finishing school and Paris obviously did nothing to turn her into a lady. Rosamond scoffs, then pulls away, and when their eyes meet for the first time in years, he can't help staring. Her beauty is lush and devastating. He barely, just barely, manages to smile.
"You look well, Miss Rosamond."
"Don't you dare call me that!" she replies, and laughs again. "Please, none of the stuffiness. I've had far more than my share in the last three years." She leans in, presses another kiss to the same corner of his mouth, then gives him her hand so he can help her into the car. "We'll have to catch up after we get home. Lord, but it was a long journey."
The car starts a few moments after, and the conversation turns to sundry matters. Jack drives, mindful of the road, but the whisper of rouge against his skin burns like a brand. For just a moment, it felt like the rest of the world had faded away, and it was just the two of them. Not the only daughter of one of the most powerful men in town and a lowly chauffeur, but just Rosamond, just Jack.
For just a moment, it felt like a dream come true.
Prompter: Kate
Prompt: "When two people meet and fall in love, there’s a sudden rush of magic."- Tom Robbins
A/N: 10fic. Remember that?! R/J. Mad liberties taken with subjects that I know nothing about.
The gun range is all but deserted at such an early hour of morning, but then again, Raye Harcourt preferred it that way. With safety goggles covering her eyes and noise-cancelling muffs on her ears, she stoically goes through her weekly practice. Stationary practice with her service Glock 22, a dozen rounds from ready, a dozen rounds from holster. And then a run through with a Tikka T3 Rifle, starting with loading the weapon and going through an obstacle course to hit ten bowling-pin-sized targets. She’s aware, even before she’s a third of the way through the sniper course, that Jadeite is watching from the sidelines, and pauses, turns back, deliberately uncovers her ears and eyes and locking the gun before she speaks.
“Why are you here? Who let you in?”
“I have my ways,” he says drolly, and as though supremely unconcerned with the fact that she has both a handgun and a sniper rifle within her reach, steps up closer to the man-shaped target that she’d used for handgun practice. “That fellow from your squad, the young one with the rumply hair, says you trained in Special Weapons And Tactics.”
“We’re not a huge city like LA or New York,” Raye shrugs. “We don’t have the manpower to create a separate SWAT team-- and really, it’s not necessary. But those of us who’ve been trained can carry out those duties if needs be.”
The man-shaped target has a cluster of holes freckling dead center in its chest. “Your colleague admires you greatly,” Jadeite smiles as he surveys her handiwork. “He says that when you are not uncovering the perpetrators of sex and gambling crimes, you’re Olympian City’s top sniper.”
Raye says nothing. She doesn’t believe in the hocus-pocus that he’d brought forth, the ludicrous premise that she, along with her favourite ex-con-artist jailbird and two strange women she’d never so much as met before, were destined to break some fairy tale spell in some parallel universe. “It doesn’t mean that I believe in you guys’ Star Trek delusional bullshit.”
“Fair enough,” Jadeite nods, and then reaches up, and with gentle, warm fingers places her ear-muffs back over her ears. Then, as time seems to slow to a crawl, he puts the goggles back over her eyes, hands her the rifle, and steps behind her. He’s standing too close. Her back is pressed against his chest, and through the camo vest she’s wearing and the linen tunic he has on, she can feel the heat radiating between them, charged, skin separated from skin only by thin layers of fabric. As though in a daze, she lifts the rifle into position, and the precise moment that he presses hot, slightly wind-chapped lips to the nape of her neck, she fires. It’s a wild shot-- one that she didn’t even have the wherewithal to sight.
The last bowling pin, more than a kilometer away and half-hidden around a corner, falls with a crack. Raye stares at it, stunned, before turning back to Jadeite.
“What the hell was that? The maximum effective range of this weapon is half that! It wasn’t even in a straight line! What did you do?”
He smiles gently. “Nothing that I had not promised to do.” Still seemingly indifferent to the fact that she had a gun in her hands, he cups her face, brushes his lips oh-so-chastely over hers. “I swore to help the Four, you know,” he says when he pulls back. “But now it’s a matter of personal interest and not simple loyalty.”
Stepping back, he bows, courtly as any knight. “Have a good practice.”
Raye watches as he turns on his heel and disappears out of the door, then in a fit of pique, empties the rifle of all ammo, without bothering to aim.
It’s the highest score she’s ever gotten.
Prompter: BAMFy BAMF
Prompt: “A girl came in the cafe and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair black as a crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
A/N: Docks/Noir-verse, R/J. Also, French is all Google translate. So forgive any inaccuracies, as I do not speak a word of French.
Jack sees her come in, European chic in her sleek black trench coat and over-sized sunglasses, rubies the size of his thumbnail dangling from her ears. Even half-concealed by the tortoise-shell Prada shades and the eggplant-coloured, geometric-printed Hermès scarf, her face is striking, bone structure as sharp and aristocratic as a goddess stamped on an antique coin.
"Bienvenue à La Nouvelle Lune, mademoiselle. Est-ce que vous avez un peu de vin?"
"Un verre de Pouilly Fuissé, s'il vous plaît. Et je vais avoir la salade Niçoise et les moules à la crème." Everything from her accent to her mannerisms are flawless, and if the eyes hidden behind the dark lenses of the designer sunglasses pay any attention to the blond American lounging in the corner with a beer and a cigarette, she certainly gives no indication. She's definitely good-- none of the others in the bistro, from the grizzled owner to the rookie Gendarme not-so-subtly gaping at her beauty in the corner-- see anything more than a sophisticated Parisienne visiting the tiny Provençal town of Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, but Jack notices the little things. The manicured hands are too restless. The pin holding up the jet-black hair in a tight chignon has a lethally sharp point. Her shoulders are back, her back is ramrod straight. And certainly the buttery leather Louis Vuitton handbag is too large and eye-catching for the average tourist.
He hails the waiter while the girl picks at her seafood dish with ladylike nibbles, and after an exchange of words and cash, sits back and watches as the young man brings a delicate slice of pastry to her table.
She looks up, finally sliding the Pradas off her face, and her eyes are wary like a caged animal's. But her voice is pure, languid nonchalance as her lips moue in not-quite-pleased surprise. "Je n'ai pas commander de dessert avec mon repas."
"Compliments du jeune homme en chemise bleue, là-bas, mademoiselle." Respectfully, the waiter sets the slice of mille-feuille in front of her and retreats to the kitchen. Now he has her attention, as eyes almost the same shade as her vibrant scarf blaze into his. He raises an eyebrow, toasts her with his empty beer bottle, then saunters over.
"Come here often, sweetheart?"
"Pardon? Je ne sais pas vous, monsieur." She's the picture of slightly-offended hauteur, and it makes Jack want to reach across the worn wooden table and tug that tightly-pinned bun in her hair loose. Of course, then the stiletto would give everything away. And really, the childish urge is not really like him at all. A decade with the Navy SEALs had all but whipped such foolishness out of him.
He leans forward, all brash cockiness and flirtatious grins, and gestures the cake. "Everyone likes a good Napoleon."
That gets her attention. She knows, as well as he does, that he doesn't mean the innocuous cream-and-chocolate confection in between them. "Can I help you?" Her English is just as flawless as her French, with a wisp of Connecticut and Yankee society in its crisp accents.
"I'm sure you can, sweetheart. But first things first. What's your name?"
"You may call me Holly," she answers, digging the points of her dessert fork into the corner of the pastry. But she doesn't take a bite, doesn't take those fabulous amethyst eyes off of his face. Jack grins, blithely picks up the fork she's half-heartedly holding, and takes a bite himself.
"I'm Jack. I can tell we're going to be great friends. Mmm, delicious stuff, this. Sure you don't want a bite, Jill?"
"I am not at all certain that we will be anything, far less friends," the girl called Holly lifts her chin. "And don't call me Jill."
Prompter: Pouty Charlotteface
Prompt: Orange Sky - Alexi Murdoch
A/N: Noirverse implied A/Z
"I don't really believe in such things as crystal healing. There is no medical evidence that utilising these stones are in any way conducive to improving one's health." Blue eyes gaze up into green, almost the same shade as the gold-flecked lapis lazuli tumbling stone balanced in her delicate, clever hand, and a faint smile crosses her lips. "But it's still pretty. Thanks."
Her feet are bare, making shallow imprints in the wet sand. The Californian beach is radiant under the brilliant citrine sky of sunset. She's here for a medical conference, and he couldn't resist flying in, 'accidentally' running into her in LA and coaxing her to play tourist after the work day was over. He'd grown up here, on the wrong side of town, but he had come up in the world, and no one who met Zane Weston in the present day would suspect that it was only twenty years ago that he'd run wild in the graffitied tenements and alleys, putting his hand out in gang symbols rather than to shake.
She knows nothing, of course, and she loves the beach, the hippie store with the tumbling stones and tarot cards, the sunset gleaming off the ocean's blue water. As the sky turns from tangerine to mauve, he leans down, kisses her smiling lips, then pulls back to wink roguishly.
"The one you picked for me is supposed to enhance sexual energy, make me reach my full potential, and benefit my heart chakra." She blushes at the first bit, and he pockets the red-flecked green stone. Ruby in Zoisite, the colour of new blood speckled on fresh grass. His feet are clad in sandals, his footprints bigger and wider than hers, slightly farther away from the reach of the waves...
***
One set of footprints on the beach, clad in sandals. The Nassau sunset is as brilliantly orange as any other around the world. A lone man walks along the surf, a stone rattling in his pocket, and wonders when he'll be able to see the one good thing in his life again. Maybe never. He didn't deserve her in the least. But that didn't mean that he couldn't try, and hope, and wait through a thousand more lonely sunsets.
***
In a windowless office in the warehouse, on a standard Army-issue steel desk filled with manila folders and a Colt 45 that she'd thankfully never, ever had to fire locked away in its drawers, there's a canister of pens and pencils, a clipboard, and a laptop computer. And then, a spot of colour in the cheerless room, a smooth-worn hunk of ocean-blue rock. Angelica sits down in the utilitarian swivel chair and runs her fingers over its cool surface, eyes gazing at the endless blue as though it contained the ocean and land that separated them.
Prompter: Zels
Prompt: You Are The Sunshine Of My Life- Stevie Wonder
A/N: M/K Fluff, Spacefic, set far into the future
The twin suns of Canaan rise and set within an hour of each other, and though she can't see it, Maia knows that right now, it is in that magic moment between the setting of the first sun and the setting of the second. The usually-blistering heat of day has gentled into a balmy 300 Kelvin. She sits now, still and patient for once, while Morela uses henna to deftly paint lotus blossoms on the backs of her hands.
Reya plaited her hair that morning, the work-roughened fingers gentle amidst the golden strands. And Selene, her voice less the piping trill of a carefree girl these days and more the silvery cadence of a maturing young woman, describes the dress that she is wearing.
The material, thin and delicate drapes of saffron chiffon over white silk, slides against her legs. The veil over her face is symbolic, even though she can't see the patterned tulle. She's to take it off after the ceremony, after she's a wife rather than a maiden, and let the last rays of the sun bathe her face.
Maia hears footsteps, quiet and quick, feels the familiar shift in the air, and when her brother reaches her side, she lets him wrap her up in his arms, kiss her forehead through the tulle. Janus draws back after a moment, clears his throat, and she just knows that if she could see his face, he'd have tears in his eyes to match hers.
"You look beautiful."
"I feel beautiful," she tells him, and together, they leave the room, walk down the smooth-worn path. Maia counts twenty-five steps, one for each year of her life, and then she feels one hand relinquish her arm, another one take it. Kaz gently turns her to face him, takes her hands in his, and it is one single, perfect moment when she just knows that the sky is a rainbow of sunset colour and his eyes-- gray, as he'd told her once-- shine brighter than all the stars as they take her in. He's standing straight, always alert, always on the lookout, but his fingers are warm, and his skin smells like the sun-warmed sand and new linen. They repeat the age-old, sacred promises that she never thought she'd be able to give, and then when he leans in to kiss her, she tilts up her head, meets him halfway, and though she'll never be able to see, keeps her blue eyes wide open.
The second sun sets in the sky, and a lone streak of bright gold cuts through the opulent indigo like a flare in the half-dark. Everyone watching considers it a benediction. And Maia, with her face up-turned and her veil thrown back, laughter lighting her voice with no bitterness for the first time in years, can feel it. And she knows, without anyone telling her or describing how anything looks, that she's never been so beautiful in her life.
Prompter: Ms. Charlotte Keyboardmasher
Prompt: "Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust." -- The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
A/N: Mythosverse R/J. Fluff for our Kate. Follows Kate's bdayfic.
The other side of the bed is empty when Kali gets up, though the silken sheets still smell like Yu-Ling's skin. Through the thin rice-paper window, she can see the muted orange light of the rising sun and smell the sharp, tangy fragrance of the chrysanthemums. Kali pulls the damask robe that he'd given her the night before, when she'd arrived here, and leaves the room to explore.
It is her first time walking through the gardens and courtyards of Yu-Ling Jun Zi's villa in daylight, and she can't help but slow down her usually-purposeful strides, marveling at its beauty. The autumn leaves cloak the trees in vibrant colour-- bright slivers of yellow willow, feathery fronds of crimson maple, pale fans of buttery gingko. The sky is vivid blue, shot through with streaks of rose and purple, and the cool breeze lifts her hair off her neck as she walks down the cobblestone paths.
It was by the pavilion where they'd first met, on the smooth ground where they had made love for the first time, that she finds him, clad in a plain black tunic and matching pants, his steps and movements soundless as he swings a red-tasseled sword in a circling arc over his head. His bright hair glows in the sunlight, and his eyelashes, a scant few shades darker, are lowered. It's not a grueling military drill; his movements are too slow, too elegant for battle. She watches as he leans forward, one leg splayed back until it is almost parallel to the ground, the other bent at the knee, then draws back and changes stance with the fluidity of water.
If this is his daily morning workout, it was little wonder that he is always so calm.
Yu-Ling is the one to break the charmed, fragile silence, as he pivots on his leading foot so that he's facing her. "I thought you were weary," he says, and there is a hint of a smile in his voice, in the half-lowered blue eyes.
"I was," Kali says, then tilts her head. "I have never seen this form of swordplay before."
"It's more of a meditation than a battle form," Yu-Ling tells her, before sheathing the blade and setting it down. He walks over towards her, and in the daylight, his eyes are as vividly blue as the sky overhead. "The footwork, the strokes-- those can be used in war. But in this form, it is more to find inner peace." Now the smile is more than just a hint, and he cups her cheek with one hand. "Even you, my Lady of War, can understand the need for it, I'm sure."
She does, but she affects a look of hauteur, even though her own playfulness surprises and baffles her. "I leave the negotiation and conciliatory diplomacy to Metis and Isis." A sigh breaks free. "I'll miss them." Isis did not even say goodbye. But that had been no less than Kali expected.
Now his smile vanishes, and his expression is carefully blank as he withdraws his hand from her cheek. "Are you sorry?"
"No." This she states with certainty, without any hesitation, and this time she reaches forward, braces her hands on his shoulders. Right underneath the heart line of her left palm, beneath the silk of his tunic, is the knife scar that she'd given him, that first time they'd met. Perhaps a part of her knew, even then, that it was the start of the end. Kali smiles, with as much inner peace as his sword meditation, and steps closer even as his hands fit quite naturally at either side of her waist. "It's the one thing I'm sure of, the one thing I trust. Being here, right now, is the only choice that I could have made."
He closes the distance between their lips, and it's different, being kissed in the sunlight. It isn't so forbidden, full of deep passions and tangled feelings. Rather, his lips taste like dew and hope and the clean autumn air. "You honour me," he whispers against her mouth.
Kali pulls back, and though she can't see it, all the brilliance of the sunlight is reflected in her eyes. "You bring me peace, and love. I've never known them before. I think... I think it's a fair trade."
Prompter: Li-Li
Prompt: http://exp.lore.com/post/26900356578/i-composed-a-beautiful-letter-to-you-in-the
A/N: Pre-Diveverse, R/J, sort-of-ends-with-fluff so hopefully that counts?
Jack still remembers the last time that she was home, for real, even though it was three years, eight months, twenty-six days and seven-and-a-half-or-so hours ago. Not that he's counting. And the fact that Rosamond is coming home at last, after a year of Finishing school and two and a half years abroad, fills him with trepidation.
He will see her in less than two hours, as she disembarks from the train and makes her way through the throng of people rushing to-and-fro, no longer a fawn-like sylph of seventeen with an ingenue's dimples. Her chaperon will hold her arm, always a half-step behind, and the manservant will follow with her trunk and valise. And she'll greet Darien, probably in a much more dignified way than a young girl's giggling squeeze, and then the whole procession will make their way towards where Jack is waiting, respectful and patient and silent, by the shiny black doors of the luxury car.
Jack will help the manservant with the luggage, and accept a polite lady's greeting from Rosamond, and for the briefest of moments, hold her lace-gloved hand in his as he helps her into the car. And then he will drive, silent and cautious, letting the carefree conversation and affectionate banter between Darien and his younger sister flow around him. Perhaps he will see the reflection of her smile, touched with the faintest hint of rouge, in the rearview mirror. Perhaps, for the rest of the week, he will be able to smell a ghostly whiff of her perfume, lingering on the leather seats.
He won't say anything, because he has no right to do so, and that is why, in the small, sparse apartment over the mansion's garage, a bundle of letters remain unsent, sheets of paper brittle and faded at the folds. Once upon a time when they were still children, it was almost all right for them to be friends. But both of them knew better, now, and certainly she would be shocked and possibly a little bit appalled at the simplicity of his missives, the starkness of his words.
I miss you. I wish things were different, and the world was a simpler place. I wish that I could tell you a thousand things that you'll never know, about me, about yourself, about all the reasons I love you. I've always known that. But I never knew how much... I couldn't have possibly imagined how much. I didn't know there was that much love for a person to give, and you'll never know.
He moodily stares at the ground, listens to a dozen jumbled, cacophonous conversations, and almost misses the click of high heels on pavement but for the accelerating speed. And then he has only a second to react, before he's enveloped in slim arms and the scent of white lilies and the burgundy satin of a well-tailored traveling suit. Instinctively, he holds on, as Rosamond blithely ignores the shocked exclamation of her chaperon and laughs, gaily and beguilingly, pressing her smooth cheek to his suddenly too-hot one. "Jack!" she mumbles against his collar. "I haven't seen you in ages. I swear, you've no idea how much I've missed you." A rouge-touched kiss lands at the corner of his mouth, tantalizingly close.
His hands curl into the expensive satin of her dress, and he breathes deep. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Darien, and Jack's half-afraid to look in the young master's face. But his erstwhile friend is laughing, making some sort of comment to his sister about how Finishing school and Paris obviously did nothing to turn her into a lady. Rosamond scoffs, then pulls away, and when their eyes meet for the first time in years, he can't help staring. Her beauty is lush and devastating. He barely, just barely, manages to smile.
"You look well, Miss Rosamond."
"Don't you dare call me that!" she replies, and laughs again. "Please, none of the stuffiness. I've had far more than my share in the last three years." She leans in, presses another kiss to the same corner of his mouth, then gives him her hand so he can help her into the car. "We'll have to catch up after we get home. Lord, but it was a long journey."
The car starts a few moments after, and the conversation turns to sundry matters. Jack drives, mindful of the road, but the whisper of rouge against his skin burns like a brand. For just a moment, it felt like the rest of the world had faded away, and it was just the two of them. Not the only daughter of one of the most powerful men in town and a lowly chauffeur, but just Rosamond, just Jack.
For just a moment, it felt like a dream come true.