Original - Hot Chocolate Drabbles
Title: Best Served Cold
Universe: Menagerie
Prompt: “frosty”, from pulped_fictions
Wordcount: 346
Genre: Humor
Rating/Warnings: K+
Summary: In which Will makes a dangerous misjudgment.
Author’s Notes: A silly vignette from Menagerie; meet Will. :) (Also, I know tierfal has used one of the jokes before, so she gets subconscious-inspiration credit for that line. XD)
Will is about to be the first person ever to die in a snowball fight.
It was Robin who talked him into playing - he doesn’t tend to seek out fun and relaxation on his own initiative. Maybe he’s too serious. But nobody with a soul could resist puppy eyes from a twelve-year-old girl who thinks she’s his little sister, so he came outside, helped her build a fort, and has been packing snowballs for her while she throws them. He’s having a really good time, which is probably the reason for his utter lapse in judgement.
It happens when Toni comes outside and walks by to talk to Martin, scowl making it clear that his work has been frustrating him. Will just took a snowball right to the face and is laughing, thinking about how unexpectedly fun all of this is, so without thinking, he grabs the smaller boy’s collar and dumps a handful of snow down the back of his shirt.
Toni freezes, but it’s when he remains standing absolutely still for a few very long moments that Will realizes he’s going to die.
Toni turns slowly. His shoulders are extremely tense, and while he was scowling before, he’s now wearing the kind of glare that could make a crocodile weep. Will thinks he can feel his blood literally freezing in his veins, and he takes a step back, both hands held up.
“Watch where you’re pointing that thing, ice queen,” he says. “You could hurt someone with it.”
Toni is so slight and so quiet that Will sometimes forgets just how dangerous and capable of inflicting messy death he really is. He’s also forgotten how devious Toni is, though, because no messy death is forthcoming. Instead, despite being a full head shorter, the dark-haired boy tackles Will, wrestles him to the ground, grabs his belt, and drops a handful of snow down his pants.
Will howls, and Toni gets to his feet, brushing his hands off, and smirks.
“You’re right,” he says. “This is fun.”
-
Title: Ghosts and Ice
Prompt: “snowman”
Wordcount: 324
Genre: Action
[These all stand alone, but if you read them all together, they’ll work as thirteen episodes of a longer story. :O]
After an unusually swift sunset and an attack that came out of nowhere, Will and most of the others made it safely into the house - but they’d only just slammed the door when they noticed that Robin and Toni were missing, so now he’s back out in the blizzard, searching for them.
Out of nowhere, a violent gust of wind swirls snow into the shape of a beast, and Will blasts it apart as it flies at him with a wintery roar. Icy sleet splatters him, and he pulls his cloak tighter and pushes on. Clumps of snow are gathering and trying to raise themselves from the ground, and Will blows them apart as soon as he sees them, because he knows there’s no limit on how large snow golems can grow. There’s some kind of howling on the wind.
He doesn’t see the slope in time, and he has to fight his way out of the snowdrift at the bottom, struggling against the numbing cold until a dark shape hauls him to his feet. Closer, he sees that it’s Toni, white and shivering.
“Robin’s inside,” he says, raising his voice. “Come on, quick.” His teeth aren’t chattering like Will’s are, but his lips are tinted blue, and his hands feel like ice against Will’s arm.
“Which way?” Will asks, because he’s lost his sense of direction completely. He looks around for the snowbank he fell into, and then he catches a sudden motion out of the corner of his eye, and turns to see that it’s three times as big as it was moments ago, taller than he is now. It’s not a snowbank.
“Shit,” Toni says as the snow golem rises up into a bulky giant the size of a tree. “Run.”
He catches Will’s hand in one that feels like a frozen set of talons, and they run, the giant snow man cascading after them.
-
Title: Hot and Cold
Prompt: snow and trees
Wordcount: 319
Genre: General
When the snow finally stops falling, Will is forced to conclude that he and Toni are lost in the absolute middle of nowhere. To make matters worse, Toni’s been through a puddle of icy slush which soaked and chilled him so badly that in the frozen wind, he’s gone sickly white under the grim stoicism and his eyes keep unfocusing as though he’s sleepy.
They’re in a dry, desert-like area, one that looks as though it’s scorching-hot during the day, and Will glances at a spiky-leaved plant and thinks longingly of the sun. If he’s this cold, he doesn’t even want to think about how his thinner companion must feel in wet clothing. He wonders if he should offer to do anything.
“Do you want my cloak?” he asks uncertainly after a moment.
“I’m fine,” Toni says.
“You look like you’re going to freeze,” Will insists, unpinning his cloak and starting to take it off. “Here.”
“I don’t want it,” says Toni. “I’m fine-” and there’s a moment of extreme awkwardness where Will tries to offer it to him, realizes that he’s not going to take it, and puts it back on, wondering if he should have insisted and why Toni has to be so difficult. Apparently risking their lives together hasn’t changed the fact that they don’t like each other, or at least aren’t quite at ease with one another.
“There,” says Toni, and he’s blue-lipped and unable to keep from trembling, but somehow, his voice is steady. “I see a town. Come on.” He stomps off towards it, and Will follows, rolling his eyes and wondering how he got stuck with someone so damn stubborn. It’d serve him right if Will left him to freeze in the snow when he inevitably keels over.
He’s a little bit frustrated with himself for not at least considering it.
-
Title: Hotheaded
Prompt: “Baby It’s Cold Outside”
Wordcount: 664
Genre: Humor
After twenty-four hours of sitting around the little cabin they found at the edge of town, melting cups of snow over a fire and waiting for the seemingly-unending blizzard to let up, Toni gets to his feet and heads for the door, announcing, “I’ll go buy some food.”
Will, who is trying to warm his hands by the fire, raises an eyebrow. “That’s only a joke, I hope.”
“Will, I’m not in the mood-” Toni begins wearily, but Will cuts him off.
“You know that you’ll freeze, you dope.”
Toni scowls and folds his arms. “I told you, I’m fine.”
“I’ve already heard that line,” Will says, getting to his feet and moving towards the door just in case Toni does decide to try an insane grocery-shopping suicide-mission.
“I’m warning you-” Toni says as Will steps between him and the door.
“Look at yourself!” Will exclaims, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Your lips are blue!”
Toni starts tapping one foot impatiently. “We’re going to have to eat, Will.” In response, Will looks down pointedly at the appendage in question.
“Can you even feel your feet, still?”
“I’ll tell you when I want you to pry,” Toni snaps, and Will takes a deep breath, reminding himself that neither of them has eaten in over a day and that they’re both bound to be cranky.
“Answer and look me in the eye,” he orders, trying to sound gentle. Toni opens his mouth, closes it, then frowns at the wall and switches tactics.
“I’m just going down the street, Will.”
Will sighs. “It’s pouring down icy sleet. Still.” And it shows no sign of letting up anytime soon, so eventually one of them may have to go for food - but if it’s either of them, it should be him, because Toni is obviously too cold to go outside safely.
Toni doesn’t seem to agree, though, because he reaches for the doorknob and asks calmly, “What groceries do you want me to buy?”
Will grabs him by the shoulders before he can get out the door and plants himself between the two, shaking the smaller boy once.
“You’re going to get frostbite and die!” he half-shouts. Maybe if he says it loudly enough, it’ll sink in to his companion’s thick skull.
“I swear I’ll be quick,” Toni protests.
Will takes a deep breath. “For the last time, I said-”
“Y’know, you’re a real prick.”
Will blinks for a moment, then he scowls.
“Fine, run out and come back dead.” He releases Toni, shoving him a little for good measure, but doesn’t move from in front of the door.
“No need to be rude,” Toni says disdainfully.
Will has had enough. “Oh, just take your attitude-”
“Now let me pass!” Toni interrupts, but Will is done being interrupted.
“-and go and shove it up your ass!” he finishes, raising his voice over Toni’s.
He watches hazel-green eyes narrow. “I’m really about to stab you.” And Will doesn’t believe that for a minute, but he’s absolutely sick of bickering about this. Let Toni go freeze to death if he wants to.
“Go,” he says coldly, stepping away from the door. When Toni hesitates, he folds his arms and adds, “I’m not gonna grab you.”
“At least we won’t be hungry and stuck,” Toni mutters darkly, moving past him. Maybe the attempt at justification means he’s sorry about the fight, but Will is too angry and too deep-down worried about him to care.
“Guess I should be wishing you luck,” he says icily, and Toni’s eyes go icy to match.
“Well, William, that’s sweet,” he begins sardonically, hand on the doorknob.
“See you if you live, huh?” Will bites out. Toni scowls back.
“-but I don’t give a fuck,” he snaps, before stalking out and slamming the door behind him.
Will takes a long, deep breath and waits a whole minute before swearing and going after him.
[If you don’t believe me that it’s humor, the trick is that you can sing all the dialogue to the tune of Baby It’s Cold Outside. :P]
-
Title: Cold Outside
Prompt: igloo
Wordcount: 200
Genre: General
Toni is probably the least-helpless person Will knows.
Maybe that’s the problem, he realizes. Will’s instinct has always been to protect people: he can’t help it; he was raised that way. But to say that Toni doesn’t seem to want to be protected is a bit of an understatement. He seems to interpret concern as condescension, to suspect everyone who tries to help him of being overprotective, and to be so desperate to break free of any reliance on others that he scorns taking aid as weakness.
Will doesn’t think Toni’s been able to rely on others very much in his life.
That’s why when Toni snaps at him, insults his attempts to help, and throws around cuss words the way cowards throw around boasts, Will swallows and manages to avoid throttling the younger boy, remembering how sweet and open he is around people to whom he has nothing to prove.
Toni is brave, tough, and entirely capable of taking care of himself - intimidatingly and almost violently so. He has no need to be insecure, and someday Will wants to tell him that.
-after he gives the little bitch the ass-kicking he’s been begging for.
Respectfully, of course.
-
Title: Keeping It Classy
Prompt: funny
Wordcount: 295
Genre: Humor
“Shut up,” Toni says the moment Will opens his mouth, and Will shuts up - not because Toni told him to, but because he’s trying to figure out how Toni knew that he was about to speak without even looking at him.
“I was just going to ask if you can feel your toes yet,” he eventually says.
“Oh,” says Toni. “I thought you were going to say something superior and patronizing.”
Will pauses. “Well, now that you mention it, the fact that you’d rather freeze to death than sacrifice your pride makes me wonder how someone as intelligent as you are can be such a complete child sometimes. I mean, really - why are you so insecure about showing self-preservation instincts? I know you have them.”
“You’re a crap pillow,” Toni tells him calmly. “Pillows are supposed to be quiet.”
“You’re a crap pillow, too,” says Will. “You’re freezing.” They’re lying back to back under both of their cloaks, because it’s the most manly position in which they can share body heat, and he can feel Toni’s spine pressed chilly against his.
“Mm,” says Toni, sounding contented. “You’re nice and warm.”
“Funny how that works,” Will grumbles good-naturedly.
“Your face is funny,” Toni yawns.
There’s something about Toni - like a kind of persistent dare - and Will would like to blame it for the twenty-four years of manners and taste and good upbringing he immediately forgets.
“Your mother is funny.”
There’s silence, and he almost kicks himself, because Toni’s probably offended. His mother is dead, just like Will’s, and besides, it’s a little hypocritical of Will to lecture Toni about being a child and then immediately-
“Your mother’s face is funny,” Toni mutters.
Will doesn’t say anything; he just falls asleep warm and grinning.
-
Title: Lost and Found
Prompt: swan song
Wordcount: 559
Genre: Drama
The day of the worst argument they’ve ever had, part of the abandoned building they’ve been sheltering in collapses, and Toni’s struck on the head by a jagged-edged beam.
Will can tell he’s not going to live.
“Just get out!” Toni snaps at him, and Will does, because he’s angry and terrified and the guilt is overwhelming. He’s already out stomping through the snow when he’s hit by a collection of memories so strong they make him sick.
Six years ago, Will was away at university when his family died. He never said goodbye - he never even saw the bodies. There was no funeral. He was in a different world when theirs ended, and there’s a dark corner of him that will never let it go, no matter how many times he tells himself that there was nothing he could have done.
This time, he can. He’s not going to run and let Toni die alone.
“Tell everyone else I was saving you from a dozen assassins,” Toni says as Will holds his hand. “Bad architectural design is too boring.”
Will wants to tell Toni to stop it - that he doesn’t have to joke, that Will can feel him shaking, that Toni’s eighteen years old and it’s all right to be scared of dying. He wants to be friends for once in their lives.
Maybe Toni senses that, because he says quietly, “Thanks for coming back, though.”
Will struggles for a moment before finding the right words. “I wasn’t with my family the day of the war. I never even got to say goodbye. But - thinking about them reminded me. I have an ability I used to use that might help you.”
“Separate from your family ability?” Toni asks interestedly. “That’s the only one I have - I can turn people to stone, but I have to kiss them to make it work, so I’ve never actually tried it.”
“You, too?” Will asks with a wry grin, and Toni’s eyes widen.
“No. If you have to kiss me for whatever you’re going to do, I’d rather just die, thanks. No, seriously, I mean it; I’ll turn you to stone. I’ll-”
“Shut up,” Will says fondly, and presses his lips into the blood-soaked hair by Toni’s temple.
He feels the pain immediately: stinging, pressing, and invasive, like something jagged is forcing its way into the side of his head. He starts to get dizzy, but he tries to focus, because if he transfers the entire thing he’ll lose his own life.
When Toni’s head wound is halfway closed, Will pulls away, gasping with the shock of a similar injury by his own temple.
Toni is staring at him.
“I’ve never used it for anything that big before,” Will admits with a weak grin, holding a hand to his throbbing head. “It was always just kissing scrapes and things better for my younger cousins. Though once I had to take a hickey for Lydia so her dad wouldn’t find out she had a boyfriend.”
Toni laughs, incredulously but warmly, and all the air in the room clears, and Will breathes for the first time in minutes.
“It fits you,” Toni says, amusement in his eyes - but his smile fades a little as he meet’s Will’s, as though he’s seeing something that troubles him. “Someday, it’s going to get you killed.”
-
Title: Shocking
Prompt: “your touch is electric”
Wordcount: 151
Genre: Humor
The fact that Toni told him not to had nothing to do with it.
All right, maybe a little.
All right, maybe Will should listen to Toni more often in the future.
“You look incredibly funny,” Toni informs him, eyes on the curly strands of hair that have broken free of Will’s ponytail and are reaching for the sky. “Also, don’t touch me; I don’t want any of that.”
“Your hair already sticks up,” Will says. “Now help me figure out how to make it go away.”
“You have to touch something conductive,” says Toni. “Like metal. Not me, Will!”
“I look like an idiot,” Will grumbles.
“No argument here,” Toni says. Then he turns around and adds, smugly, “I guess we’ve learned our lesson about drying our wool socks with magic, haven’t we, William?”
Will touches the back of his neck and zaps him.
-
Title: Exchange
Prompt: heated
Wordcount: 325
Genre: General
Split seconds before Will commits homicide, Toni drags him away from the man at the bar and out the back door, into the cold night air.
“Let go of me!” Will practically shouts. He’s furious. It takes a lot to get him angry, but now that it’s happened, he just wants to hit something - and if he has anything to say about it, it’s going to be the smarmy bastard inside who seems to have no respect for other human beings.
“Fighting him isn’t going to help!” Toni shouts back, blocking his way inside. “He’s an asshole, yeah, but he wasn’t even talking to you, and not everybody likes having strangers go all knight in shining armor on them. Cool the fuck down and walk away, Will.”
“You walk away,” Will hisses, shoving Toni aside - and he must have shoved harder than he intended, because Toni stumbles back and hits the wall ungracefully. It looks like it hurts, and Will feels awful for a moment, wretched and frustrated and angry with himself now - and then Toni steps forward and slams a fist into his gut. It’s a solid blow, and it hurts, and after that it’s very easy to feel angry at someone other than himself.
“What was that for?” he shouts, and Toni slaps him hard across the face. Will responds by grabbing his shoulders and slinging him down into the snow, and before he knows it, they’re rolling around on the ground trying to grind each other’s faces into it, and he forgets all about the man at the bar.
A few minutes later, they lie panting in the snow. Will thinks he can taste blood on his lip, and when Toni sits up, there’s a bruise forming under his eye.
“Better?” he asks, panting lightly.
Will takes a deep breath, realizing what he just fell for.
“Much,” he admits ruefully. “Thanks.”
-
Title: Blind
Prompt: “I don’t see you anymore”
Wordcount: 225
Genre: General
Toni becomes a different person in the darkness. Normally he’s sharp, quick, and closed off - Will would recognize those defense mechanisms anywhere, and he respects them. Who is he to ask to see into Toni’s soul?
As they lie waiting to fall asleep, though, in pitch black with only the sound of the wind outside, Toni talks. He talks quietly, thoughtfully, as if to himself - as if pretending Will isn’t there is the only way he can bring himself to be this open. He talks about his family, his life without them, his hopes for the future. Sometimes he pauses for long, long moments, searching for a way to say something - and Will knows that feeling, of having a raw, twisting emotion in his chest, of trying to capture wild feeling in everyday words. He never interrupts, always waiting until Toni haltingly starts up again.
After a while, the younger boy stops speaking, and Will assumes that his silence has convinced Toni he’s asleep. Several moments pass, and he closes his eyes, willing to pretend that he has been the whole time, that he has no memory of what’s been said.
Then Toni whispers, “Thank you,” and catches his hand, squeezing it.
Sometimes, the right words don’t exist in any language, so Will just squeezes his friend’s hand back.
-
Title: Promised
Prompt: candy hearts
Wordcount: 301
Genre: General
“You’re too young to have been betrothed before the war, aren’t you?” Will asks thoughtfully. He was eighteen when it happened, more than old enough to have been married, but his parents hadn’t chosen anyone yet. Now that he’s twenty-four, he’d be considered an old maid.
“I was thirteen,” Toni says, “so yes. My older sister was betrothed, but the war happened about an hour before the wedding, so they never made it to the altar.”
“I’m sorry,” Will says.
“Don’t be,” Toni tells him. “They were a terrible match.”
Will isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he swallows and admits, “I was in university. I didn’t even find out what had happened to my family until a few days later, when I made it to the estate.”
“Which city were you in?” Toni asks quietly. “I heard there were assassins making the rounds of some of the bigger ones.”
Will nods. “Yeah, they almost got me. I hid out with a friend, and that’s when I found out that the sorcerer estates were being attacked. I wanted to go right out and head for home, never mind the assassins. My friend probably saved my life by forcing me to stay in that night.”
Toni smiles faintly. “Like I always say, Will - left to your own initiative, you’d get yourself killed. Probably why your parents were trying to get you married.”
“I don’t need a wife,” Will says shortly. “I don’t need anyone.”
“Yes, you do,” Toni tells him calmly. “But I promise not to tell, and you can just keep pretending that you hate my company and that you’d rather be alone.”
“I would rather be alone,” Will insists, stubborn - but Toni’s grin makes it clear that he’s not fooling anyone.
-
Title: Do-Over
Prompt: grand finale
Wordcount: 642
Genre: Drama/Angst
Warning: Blood
Will knows how things work - he’s the overprotective one, which means that someday, Toni is ironically going to be the one who saves Will’s life. Alternately, there’s always the chance that Toni will be the one to need rescuing after all, which will obviously involve a lot of yelling that he can take care of himself followed immediately by storming out into trouble from which Will saves him. (He’ll only gloat a little.) Either way, though, Will is prepared, whether it’s for Toni to save him and win their disagreement or vice versa.
What he’s not prepared for is finding a body crumpled in a cold back alley, blood running down into the gutter and slick and wet in the gaps between the cobblestones.
“Toni?” He freezes up, unable to believe it, because this isn’t right. If Toni was in danger, Will was supposed to walk by at just the right moment to come to his rescue, not show up when everything’s already over. He should have gotten some sign to bring him here earlier, because that’s how things are supposed to work. He’s not supposed to be too late.
He kneels down, shuddering when he feels the blood start to seep damply through his pant legs and trying to breathe calmly. Maybe this can still be all right. Perhaps he isn’t supposed to be the knight in shining armor who swoops in to the rescue - perhaps he’s supposed to be the kind who finds the victim and nurses him back to health, then goes and extracts violent revenge on whoever did this to him. Will always liked those stories, too, and he’s already picturing Toni looking up at him with confused, filmy eyes, then bandaged and sleeping in a warm bed, then leaning on Will’s shoulder when he recovers enough to walk. The images flicker by like illustrations in a book, and Will gently lifts Toni and turns him over, focusing on the last image, the one where everything’s all right again.
Toni’s limp and colorless, and his eyes are closed; he must have passed out from blood loss. Will can see that he’s been stabbed in the abdominal area, and while it looks deep, it’s not very wide. It’s certainly not enough to explain all the blood: Toni’s literally lying in a puddle of it. It’s slippery and dark against the stones, smeared on his face and soaking into his hair and clothing, and Will can feel it sticky against his own skin as he shifts the smaller boy into his arms, then freezes.
Underneath the blood coating his face and neck, there’s a gash across his throat. It’s deep and wide, enough that when Will frantically grabs for his wrist to feel his pulse, he already knows what he’s going to find. Toni probably died within seconds, and his would-be rescuer is too late by forever.
Gasping, Will finds himself coming to from what feels like an incredibly deep sleep, and feels sick with relief as he starts to realize that he was dreaming. That’s how he lost his family - not even knowing until it was too late to do anything, too late even to try, so he’s having nightmares about the same thing happening to other people he cares about. It was just a dream. He focuses on that and takes a few deep, shaky breaths, reminding himself over and over again that it isn’t real as he tries to figure out where he is and why he was sleeping in a chair.
When he finally opens his eyes, memories of the day and of the last few minutes start to trickle back among the hum of casting stones and the scent of incense. It’s dark in the small, candlelit tent, and the oracle is staring back at him, wide-eyed with shock and urgency.
Will runs.
[And just so you know he makes it in time this time and Toni’s okay.]
-
Title: Thaw
Prompt: frosty (again)
Wordcount: 372
Genre: General/Action
Will is about to be the first person ever to die in a snowball fight - but, on the positive side, Toni has just become the first person ever to have his life saved by a snowball.
It’s Will’s fault. He’s unarmed and unprepared, and he should have known that this would be the day his friend got into trouble. Toni’s timing is, as usual, impeccable - he’s even managed to get ambushed in a lonely and deserted place. There are six assassins, including the one blinking snow out of his eyes in a kind of stunned fury, and it’s actually impressive how screwed Will and Toni are.
“Run,” Will says, shoving the smaller boy further away from the group of knives. It’s doubtful either of them will get away, but if Toni gets enough of a head start, he might be able to pull of his arm-guards and access his magic before they catch him. One of the assassins circles around behind them, and that hope dwindles. The leader wipes the snow out of his eyes, steps forward, and raises his knife again.
Then he’s hit with a crackling white ball of something which is distinctly not snow and which sends him flying a dozen paces before crumpling to the ground.
By the time Will and the other assassins are done staring at Martin and the others where they’ve appeared from around the corner, Toni’s already yanked off his arm guards.
“All the best rescues are just in time,” Robin assures Will later as she helps him make soup. “Where did you go, anyway? We’ve been following you for ages.”
“I told him we should have stayed put,” Will grumbles. “But no, he wanted to find you.”
“I don’t think Toni likes staying put. Did you at least have fun traveling around?”
“No,” Will says. “I don’t know how you stand him, because I can’t. Please never send me out into the snow to look for him again.”
Robin laughs, and Will thinks it’s a little sad that even a twelve-year-old can see through his lies.
Universe: Menagerie
Prompt: “frosty”, from pulped_fictions
Wordcount: 346
Genre: Humor
Rating/Warnings: K+
Summary: In which Will makes a dangerous misjudgment.
Author’s Notes: A silly vignette from Menagerie; meet Will. :) (Also, I know tierfal has used one of the jokes before, so she gets subconscious-inspiration credit for that line. XD)
Will is about to be the first person ever to die in a snowball fight.
It was Robin who talked him into playing - he doesn’t tend to seek out fun and relaxation on his own initiative. Maybe he’s too serious. But nobody with a soul could resist puppy eyes from a twelve-year-old girl who thinks she’s his little sister, so he came outside, helped her build a fort, and has been packing snowballs for her while she throws them. He’s having a really good time, which is probably the reason for his utter lapse in judgement.
It happens when Toni comes outside and walks by to talk to Martin, scowl making it clear that his work has been frustrating him. Will just took a snowball right to the face and is laughing, thinking about how unexpectedly fun all of this is, so without thinking, he grabs the smaller boy’s collar and dumps a handful of snow down the back of his shirt.
Toni freezes, but it’s when he remains standing absolutely still for a few very long moments that Will realizes he’s going to die.
Toni turns slowly. His shoulders are extremely tense, and while he was scowling before, he’s now wearing the kind of glare that could make a crocodile weep. Will thinks he can feel his blood literally freezing in his veins, and he takes a step back, both hands held up.
“Watch where you’re pointing that thing, ice queen,” he says. “You could hurt someone with it.”
Toni is so slight and so quiet that Will sometimes forgets just how dangerous and capable of inflicting messy death he really is. He’s also forgotten how devious Toni is, though, because no messy death is forthcoming. Instead, despite being a full head shorter, the dark-haired boy tackles Will, wrestles him to the ground, grabs his belt, and drops a handful of snow down his pants.
Will howls, and Toni gets to his feet, brushing his hands off, and smirks.
“You’re right,” he says. “This is fun.”
-
Title: Ghosts and Ice
Prompt: “snowman”
Wordcount: 324
Genre: Action
[These all stand alone, but if you read them all together, they’ll work as thirteen episodes of a longer story. :O]
After an unusually swift sunset and an attack that came out of nowhere, Will and most of the others made it safely into the house - but they’d only just slammed the door when they noticed that Robin and Toni were missing, so now he’s back out in the blizzard, searching for them.
Out of nowhere, a violent gust of wind swirls snow into the shape of a beast, and Will blasts it apart as it flies at him with a wintery roar. Icy sleet splatters him, and he pulls his cloak tighter and pushes on. Clumps of snow are gathering and trying to raise themselves from the ground, and Will blows them apart as soon as he sees them, because he knows there’s no limit on how large snow golems can grow. There’s some kind of howling on the wind.
He doesn’t see the slope in time, and he has to fight his way out of the snowdrift at the bottom, struggling against the numbing cold until a dark shape hauls him to his feet. Closer, he sees that it’s Toni, white and shivering.
“Robin’s inside,” he says, raising his voice. “Come on, quick.” His teeth aren’t chattering like Will’s are, but his lips are tinted blue, and his hands feel like ice against Will’s arm.
“Which way?” Will asks, because he’s lost his sense of direction completely. He looks around for the snowbank he fell into, and then he catches a sudden motion out of the corner of his eye, and turns to see that it’s three times as big as it was moments ago, taller than he is now. It’s not a snowbank.
“Shit,” Toni says as the snow golem rises up into a bulky giant the size of a tree. “Run.”
He catches Will’s hand in one that feels like a frozen set of talons, and they run, the giant snow man cascading after them.
-
Title: Hot and Cold
Prompt: snow and trees
Wordcount: 319
Genre: General
When the snow finally stops falling, Will is forced to conclude that he and Toni are lost in the absolute middle of nowhere. To make matters worse, Toni’s been through a puddle of icy slush which soaked and chilled him so badly that in the frozen wind, he’s gone sickly white under the grim stoicism and his eyes keep unfocusing as though he’s sleepy.
They’re in a dry, desert-like area, one that looks as though it’s scorching-hot during the day, and Will glances at a spiky-leaved plant and thinks longingly of the sun. If he’s this cold, he doesn’t even want to think about how his thinner companion must feel in wet clothing. He wonders if he should offer to do anything.
“Do you want my cloak?” he asks uncertainly after a moment.
“I’m fine,” Toni says.
“You look like you’re going to freeze,” Will insists, unpinning his cloak and starting to take it off. “Here.”
“I don’t want it,” says Toni. “I’m fine-” and there’s a moment of extreme awkwardness where Will tries to offer it to him, realizes that he’s not going to take it, and puts it back on, wondering if he should have insisted and why Toni has to be so difficult. Apparently risking their lives together hasn’t changed the fact that they don’t like each other, or at least aren’t quite at ease with one another.
“There,” says Toni, and he’s blue-lipped and unable to keep from trembling, but somehow, his voice is steady. “I see a town. Come on.” He stomps off towards it, and Will follows, rolling his eyes and wondering how he got stuck with someone so damn stubborn. It’d serve him right if Will left him to freeze in the snow when he inevitably keels over.
He’s a little bit frustrated with himself for not at least considering it.
-
Title: Hotheaded
Prompt: “Baby It’s Cold Outside”
Wordcount: 664
Genre: Humor
After twenty-four hours of sitting around the little cabin they found at the edge of town, melting cups of snow over a fire and waiting for the seemingly-unending blizzard to let up, Toni gets to his feet and heads for the door, announcing, “I’ll go buy some food.”
Will, who is trying to warm his hands by the fire, raises an eyebrow. “That’s only a joke, I hope.”
“Will, I’m not in the mood-” Toni begins wearily, but Will cuts him off.
“You know that you’ll freeze, you dope.”
Toni scowls and folds his arms. “I told you, I’m fine.”
“I’ve already heard that line,” Will says, getting to his feet and moving towards the door just in case Toni does decide to try an insane grocery-shopping suicide-mission.
“I’m warning you-” Toni says as Will steps between him and the door.
“Look at yourself!” Will exclaims, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Your lips are blue!”
Toni starts tapping one foot impatiently. “We’re going to have to eat, Will.” In response, Will looks down pointedly at the appendage in question.
“Can you even feel your feet, still?”
“I’ll tell you when I want you to pry,” Toni snaps, and Will takes a deep breath, reminding himself that neither of them has eaten in over a day and that they’re both bound to be cranky.
“Answer and look me in the eye,” he orders, trying to sound gentle. Toni opens his mouth, closes it, then frowns at the wall and switches tactics.
“I’m just going down the street, Will.”
Will sighs. “It’s pouring down icy sleet. Still.” And it shows no sign of letting up anytime soon, so eventually one of them may have to go for food - but if it’s either of them, it should be him, because Toni is obviously too cold to go outside safely.
Toni doesn’t seem to agree, though, because he reaches for the doorknob and asks calmly, “What groceries do you want me to buy?”
Will grabs him by the shoulders before he can get out the door and plants himself between the two, shaking the smaller boy once.
“You’re going to get frostbite and die!” he half-shouts. Maybe if he says it loudly enough, it’ll sink in to his companion’s thick skull.
“I swear I’ll be quick,” Toni protests.
Will takes a deep breath. “For the last time, I said-”
“Y’know, you’re a real prick.”
Will blinks for a moment, then he scowls.
“Fine, run out and come back dead.” He releases Toni, shoving him a little for good measure, but doesn’t move from in front of the door.
“No need to be rude,” Toni says disdainfully.
Will has had enough. “Oh, just take your attitude-”
“Now let me pass!” Toni interrupts, but Will is done being interrupted.
“-and go and shove it up your ass!” he finishes, raising his voice over Toni’s.
He watches hazel-green eyes narrow. “I’m really about to stab you.” And Will doesn’t believe that for a minute, but he’s absolutely sick of bickering about this. Let Toni go freeze to death if he wants to.
“Go,” he says coldly, stepping away from the door. When Toni hesitates, he folds his arms and adds, “I’m not gonna grab you.”
“At least we won’t be hungry and stuck,” Toni mutters darkly, moving past him. Maybe the attempt at justification means he’s sorry about the fight, but Will is too angry and too deep-down worried about him to care.
“Guess I should be wishing you luck,” he says icily, and Toni’s eyes go icy to match.
“Well, William, that’s sweet,” he begins sardonically, hand on the doorknob.
“See you if you live, huh?” Will bites out. Toni scowls back.
“-but I don’t give a fuck,” he snaps, before stalking out and slamming the door behind him.
Will takes a long, deep breath and waits a whole minute before swearing and going after him.
[If you don’t believe me that it’s humor, the trick is that you can sing all the dialogue to the tune of Baby It’s Cold Outside. :P]
-
Title: Cold Outside
Prompt: igloo
Wordcount: 200
Genre: General
Toni is probably the least-helpless person Will knows.
Maybe that’s the problem, he realizes. Will’s instinct has always been to protect people: he can’t help it; he was raised that way. But to say that Toni doesn’t seem to want to be protected is a bit of an understatement. He seems to interpret concern as condescension, to suspect everyone who tries to help him of being overprotective, and to be so desperate to break free of any reliance on others that he scorns taking aid as weakness.
Will doesn’t think Toni’s been able to rely on others very much in his life.
That’s why when Toni snaps at him, insults his attempts to help, and throws around cuss words the way cowards throw around boasts, Will swallows and manages to avoid throttling the younger boy, remembering how sweet and open he is around people to whom he has nothing to prove.
Toni is brave, tough, and entirely capable of taking care of himself - intimidatingly and almost violently so. He has no need to be insecure, and someday Will wants to tell him that.
-after he gives the little bitch the ass-kicking he’s been begging for.
Respectfully, of course.
-
Title: Keeping It Classy
Prompt: funny
Wordcount: 295
Genre: Humor
“Shut up,” Toni says the moment Will opens his mouth, and Will shuts up - not because Toni told him to, but because he’s trying to figure out how Toni knew that he was about to speak without even looking at him.
“I was just going to ask if you can feel your toes yet,” he eventually says.
“Oh,” says Toni. “I thought you were going to say something superior and patronizing.”
Will pauses. “Well, now that you mention it, the fact that you’d rather freeze to death than sacrifice your pride makes me wonder how someone as intelligent as you are can be such a complete child sometimes. I mean, really - why are you so insecure about showing self-preservation instincts? I know you have them.”
“You’re a crap pillow,” Toni tells him calmly. “Pillows are supposed to be quiet.”
“You’re a crap pillow, too,” says Will. “You’re freezing.” They’re lying back to back under both of their cloaks, because it’s the most manly position in which they can share body heat, and he can feel Toni’s spine pressed chilly against his.
“Mm,” says Toni, sounding contented. “You’re nice and warm.”
“Funny how that works,” Will grumbles good-naturedly.
“Your face is funny,” Toni yawns.
There’s something about Toni - like a kind of persistent dare - and Will would like to blame it for the twenty-four years of manners and taste and good upbringing he immediately forgets.
“Your mother is funny.”
There’s silence, and he almost kicks himself, because Toni’s probably offended. His mother is dead, just like Will’s, and besides, it’s a little hypocritical of Will to lecture Toni about being a child and then immediately-
“Your mother’s face is funny,” Toni mutters.
Will doesn’t say anything; he just falls asleep warm and grinning.
-
Title: Lost and Found
Prompt: swan song
Wordcount: 559
Genre: Drama
The day of the worst argument they’ve ever had, part of the abandoned building they’ve been sheltering in collapses, and Toni’s struck on the head by a jagged-edged beam.
Will can tell he’s not going to live.
“Just get out!” Toni snaps at him, and Will does, because he’s angry and terrified and the guilt is overwhelming. He’s already out stomping through the snow when he’s hit by a collection of memories so strong they make him sick.
Six years ago, Will was away at university when his family died. He never said goodbye - he never even saw the bodies. There was no funeral. He was in a different world when theirs ended, and there’s a dark corner of him that will never let it go, no matter how many times he tells himself that there was nothing he could have done.
This time, he can. He’s not going to run and let Toni die alone.
“Tell everyone else I was saving you from a dozen assassins,” Toni says as Will holds his hand. “Bad architectural design is too boring.”
Will wants to tell Toni to stop it - that he doesn’t have to joke, that Will can feel him shaking, that Toni’s eighteen years old and it’s all right to be scared of dying. He wants to be friends for once in their lives.
Maybe Toni senses that, because he says quietly, “Thanks for coming back, though.”
Will struggles for a moment before finding the right words. “I wasn’t with my family the day of the war. I never even got to say goodbye. But - thinking about them reminded me. I have an ability I used to use that might help you.”
“Separate from your family ability?” Toni asks interestedly. “That’s the only one I have - I can turn people to stone, but I have to kiss them to make it work, so I’ve never actually tried it.”
“You, too?” Will asks with a wry grin, and Toni’s eyes widen.
“No. If you have to kiss me for whatever you’re going to do, I’d rather just die, thanks. No, seriously, I mean it; I’ll turn you to stone. I’ll-”
“Shut up,” Will says fondly, and presses his lips into the blood-soaked hair by Toni’s temple.
He feels the pain immediately: stinging, pressing, and invasive, like something jagged is forcing its way into the side of his head. He starts to get dizzy, but he tries to focus, because if he transfers the entire thing he’ll lose his own life.
When Toni’s head wound is halfway closed, Will pulls away, gasping with the shock of a similar injury by his own temple.
Toni is staring at him.
“I’ve never used it for anything that big before,” Will admits with a weak grin, holding a hand to his throbbing head. “It was always just kissing scrapes and things better for my younger cousins. Though once I had to take a hickey for Lydia so her dad wouldn’t find out she had a boyfriend.”
Toni laughs, incredulously but warmly, and all the air in the room clears, and Will breathes for the first time in minutes.
“It fits you,” Toni says, amusement in his eyes - but his smile fades a little as he meet’s Will’s, as though he’s seeing something that troubles him. “Someday, it’s going to get you killed.”
-
Title: Shocking
Prompt: “your touch is electric”
Wordcount: 151
Genre: Humor
The fact that Toni told him not to had nothing to do with it.
All right, maybe a little.
All right, maybe Will should listen to Toni more often in the future.
“You look incredibly funny,” Toni informs him, eyes on the curly strands of hair that have broken free of Will’s ponytail and are reaching for the sky. “Also, don’t touch me; I don’t want any of that.”
“Your hair already sticks up,” Will says. “Now help me figure out how to make it go away.”
“You have to touch something conductive,” says Toni. “Like metal. Not me, Will!”
“I look like an idiot,” Will grumbles.
“No argument here,” Toni says. Then he turns around and adds, smugly, “I guess we’ve learned our lesson about drying our wool socks with magic, haven’t we, William?”
Will touches the back of his neck and zaps him.
-
Title: Exchange
Prompt: heated
Wordcount: 325
Genre: General
Split seconds before Will commits homicide, Toni drags him away from the man at the bar and out the back door, into the cold night air.
“Let go of me!” Will practically shouts. He’s furious. It takes a lot to get him angry, but now that it’s happened, he just wants to hit something - and if he has anything to say about it, it’s going to be the smarmy bastard inside who seems to have no respect for other human beings.
“Fighting him isn’t going to help!” Toni shouts back, blocking his way inside. “He’s an asshole, yeah, but he wasn’t even talking to you, and not everybody likes having strangers go all knight in shining armor on them. Cool the fuck down and walk away, Will.”
“You walk away,” Will hisses, shoving Toni aside - and he must have shoved harder than he intended, because Toni stumbles back and hits the wall ungracefully. It looks like it hurts, and Will feels awful for a moment, wretched and frustrated and angry with himself now - and then Toni steps forward and slams a fist into his gut. It’s a solid blow, and it hurts, and after that it’s very easy to feel angry at someone other than himself.
“What was that for?” he shouts, and Toni slaps him hard across the face. Will responds by grabbing his shoulders and slinging him down into the snow, and before he knows it, they’re rolling around on the ground trying to grind each other’s faces into it, and he forgets all about the man at the bar.
A few minutes later, they lie panting in the snow. Will thinks he can taste blood on his lip, and when Toni sits up, there’s a bruise forming under his eye.
“Better?” he asks, panting lightly.
Will takes a deep breath, realizing what he just fell for.
“Much,” he admits ruefully. “Thanks.”
-
Title: Blind
Prompt: “I don’t see you anymore”
Wordcount: 225
Genre: General
Toni becomes a different person in the darkness. Normally he’s sharp, quick, and closed off - Will would recognize those defense mechanisms anywhere, and he respects them. Who is he to ask to see into Toni’s soul?
As they lie waiting to fall asleep, though, in pitch black with only the sound of the wind outside, Toni talks. He talks quietly, thoughtfully, as if to himself - as if pretending Will isn’t there is the only way he can bring himself to be this open. He talks about his family, his life without them, his hopes for the future. Sometimes he pauses for long, long moments, searching for a way to say something - and Will knows that feeling, of having a raw, twisting emotion in his chest, of trying to capture wild feeling in everyday words. He never interrupts, always waiting until Toni haltingly starts up again.
After a while, the younger boy stops speaking, and Will assumes that his silence has convinced Toni he’s asleep. Several moments pass, and he closes his eyes, willing to pretend that he has been the whole time, that he has no memory of what’s been said.
Then Toni whispers, “Thank you,” and catches his hand, squeezing it.
Sometimes, the right words don’t exist in any language, so Will just squeezes his friend’s hand back.
-
Title: Promised
Prompt: candy hearts
Wordcount: 301
Genre: General
“You’re too young to have been betrothed before the war, aren’t you?” Will asks thoughtfully. He was eighteen when it happened, more than old enough to have been married, but his parents hadn’t chosen anyone yet. Now that he’s twenty-four, he’d be considered an old maid.
“I was thirteen,” Toni says, “so yes. My older sister was betrothed, but the war happened about an hour before the wedding, so they never made it to the altar.”
“I’m sorry,” Will says.
“Don’t be,” Toni tells him. “They were a terrible match.”
Will isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he swallows and admits, “I was in university. I didn’t even find out what had happened to my family until a few days later, when I made it to the estate.”
“Which city were you in?” Toni asks quietly. “I heard there were assassins making the rounds of some of the bigger ones.”
Will nods. “Yeah, they almost got me. I hid out with a friend, and that’s when I found out that the sorcerer estates were being attacked. I wanted to go right out and head for home, never mind the assassins. My friend probably saved my life by forcing me to stay in that night.”
Toni smiles faintly. “Like I always say, Will - left to your own initiative, you’d get yourself killed. Probably why your parents were trying to get you married.”
“I don’t need a wife,” Will says shortly. “I don’t need anyone.”
“Yes, you do,” Toni tells him calmly. “But I promise not to tell, and you can just keep pretending that you hate my company and that you’d rather be alone.”
“I would rather be alone,” Will insists, stubborn - but Toni’s grin makes it clear that he’s not fooling anyone.
-
Title: Do-Over
Prompt: grand finale
Wordcount: 642
Genre: Drama/Angst
Warning: Blood
Will knows how things work - he’s the overprotective one, which means that someday, Toni is ironically going to be the one who saves Will’s life. Alternately, there’s always the chance that Toni will be the one to need rescuing after all, which will obviously involve a lot of yelling that he can take care of himself followed immediately by storming out into trouble from which Will saves him. (He’ll only gloat a little.) Either way, though, Will is prepared, whether it’s for Toni to save him and win their disagreement or vice versa.
What he’s not prepared for is finding a body crumpled in a cold back alley, blood running down into the gutter and slick and wet in the gaps between the cobblestones.
“Toni?” He freezes up, unable to believe it, because this isn’t right. If Toni was in danger, Will was supposed to walk by at just the right moment to come to his rescue, not show up when everything’s already over. He should have gotten some sign to bring him here earlier, because that’s how things are supposed to work. He’s not supposed to be too late.
He kneels down, shuddering when he feels the blood start to seep damply through his pant legs and trying to breathe calmly. Maybe this can still be all right. Perhaps he isn’t supposed to be the knight in shining armor who swoops in to the rescue - perhaps he’s supposed to be the kind who finds the victim and nurses him back to health, then goes and extracts violent revenge on whoever did this to him. Will always liked those stories, too, and he’s already picturing Toni looking up at him with confused, filmy eyes, then bandaged and sleeping in a warm bed, then leaning on Will’s shoulder when he recovers enough to walk. The images flicker by like illustrations in a book, and Will gently lifts Toni and turns him over, focusing on the last image, the one where everything’s all right again.
Toni’s limp and colorless, and his eyes are closed; he must have passed out from blood loss. Will can see that he’s been stabbed in the abdominal area, and while it looks deep, it’s not very wide. It’s certainly not enough to explain all the blood: Toni’s literally lying in a puddle of it. It’s slippery and dark against the stones, smeared on his face and soaking into his hair and clothing, and Will can feel it sticky against his own skin as he shifts the smaller boy into his arms, then freezes.
Underneath the blood coating his face and neck, there’s a gash across his throat. It’s deep and wide, enough that when Will frantically grabs for his wrist to feel his pulse, he already knows what he’s going to find. Toni probably died within seconds, and his would-be rescuer is too late by forever.
Gasping, Will finds himself coming to from what feels like an incredibly deep sleep, and feels sick with relief as he starts to realize that he was dreaming. That’s how he lost his family - not even knowing until it was too late to do anything, too late even to try, so he’s having nightmares about the same thing happening to other people he cares about. It was just a dream. He focuses on that and takes a few deep, shaky breaths, reminding himself over and over again that it isn’t real as he tries to figure out where he is and why he was sleeping in a chair.
When he finally opens his eyes, memories of the day and of the last few minutes start to trickle back among the hum of casting stones and the scent of incense. It’s dark in the small, candlelit tent, and the oracle is staring back at him, wide-eyed with shock and urgency.
Will runs.
[And just so you know he makes it in time this time and Toni’s okay.]
-
Title: Thaw
Prompt: frosty (again)
Wordcount: 372
Genre: General/Action
Will is about to be the first person ever to die in a snowball fight - but, on the positive side, Toni has just become the first person ever to have his life saved by a snowball.
It’s Will’s fault. He’s unarmed and unprepared, and he should have known that this would be the day his friend got into trouble. Toni’s timing is, as usual, impeccable - he’s even managed to get ambushed in a lonely and deserted place. There are six assassins, including the one blinking snow out of his eyes in a kind of stunned fury, and it’s actually impressive how screwed Will and Toni are.
“Run,” Will says, shoving the smaller boy further away from the group of knives. It’s doubtful either of them will get away, but if Toni gets enough of a head start, he might be able to pull of his arm-guards and access his magic before they catch him. One of the assassins circles around behind them, and that hope dwindles. The leader wipes the snow out of his eyes, steps forward, and raises his knife again.
Then he’s hit with a crackling white ball of something which is distinctly not snow and which sends him flying a dozen paces before crumpling to the ground.
By the time Will and the other assassins are done staring at Martin and the others where they’ve appeared from around the corner, Toni’s already yanked off his arm guards.
“All the best rescues are just in time,” Robin assures Will later as she helps him make soup. “Where did you go, anyway? We’ve been following you for ages.”
“I told him we should have stayed put,” Will grumbles. “But no, he wanted to find you.”
“I don’t think Toni likes staying put. Did you at least have fun traveling around?”
“No,” Will says. “I don’t know how you stand him, because I can’t. Please never send me out into the snow to look for him again.”
Robin laughs, and Will thinks it’s a little sad that even a twelve-year-old can see through his lies.