drabbles

[dien]

Oooh wow haven't used this journal in a while.

I'm participating in a drabble challenge this summer, so this is mostly an organizational post for my own purposes but the voyeuristic curious are welcome to peeksie.

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10 - Water - Character Harold Finch

[dien]

When he was nine his brothers threw him into deep water to teach him to swim.

It could've become a phobia, if he'd let it. The scent of chlorine-- the feel of water closing over his head-- could have become panic triggers.

He'd been scared of many things. He'd refused to add to the tally.

He took to water with the same flat doggedness he approached P.E. He learned to jump, dive, swim laps. In summers, he was at the pool if not the library.

His brothers said See?

It was in spite of them (to spite them). Not because.

22 - Parade - Alik & Ko

[dien]

They entered the city in summer. Alik leading: he'd insisted, despite his injuries.

The people stared. And well they might. Alik's armor blazed gold-red under the fierce sun, and the citizens couldn't see his sweat, or his knuckles white on the reins. They saw only Ar'Zaes, come among them like a young god, leading an army.

Dragging Atla's body behind his horse, through the streets that had been his.

The people did not see Ko, riding a small mare as dusty and gray as her rider. No one ever did.

They entered the city in summer. In triumph. In silence.

30 - Haze - Character Harold Finch

[dien]

The arm he looks down at is dotted with needle marks; surreal, out of place. A stranger's arm. Stranger's body. Unshaven, undressed, unwashed. He feels no connection to it.

Normally he's all too aware of his body-- the locked rigidity of his neck, the aches in his leg, the occasional tremors of his right hand. His body never lets him forget-- it demands acknowledgment, accommodation, placation of its needs.

Right now he floats. The sodium pentathol relaxes his muscles and detaches his brain.

Root smiles at him through the chemical haze. How are you feeling, Harold?

Adrift, fuzzy, chatty...

Unplugged.

40 - Lifeguard - Character Harold Finch

[dien]

His captivity is an ocean of darkness, choppy with noises, lights, rough hands. Root's paid muscle moves him from car trunks to locked rooms. Hard landings.

This time it's Reese. He thinks.

But it's been Reese before too, Root using recordings of John's voice and someone with John's build; using Harold's nearsightedness and drugged gullibility. He won't fall for it twice.

Not until John has him somewhere else, with arms wrapped around him hard enough to hurt. Not until he can smell him (gunpowder, sweat, that blend particularly Reese), and then he knows, he's back on dry land.

He's rescued.

74 - Woman's mouth - Ko & Basyit

[dien]

Summers in Atla are novel. There is heat, but not the inland's dusty heat; the breeze brings the scent of spices and salt up from the port, and the servants bring cool balls of fruit on silver plates.

Alik does not know what to do, in this place of silks and cushions.

But a siv is adaptable.

Ko visits Basyit often. At first she is wary, her dark-ringed eyes guarded. Later she smiles. And later yet she laughs, flicks her tongue along her lips, looks at Ko through her kohl-heavy lashes, thoughtful and audacious.

Their first kiss tastes of wine.