Title: After (Tumulus)
Fandom: The Caliban Leandros Series
Summary: Caliban comes back, but Caliban doesn't come back. Not quite.

( nine bitter years since I've been seeing your face )

At any rate, seven year old Cal wasn’t a reader, so when Nik came home from school to find him with a book, he very nearly checked to see if it was actually Cal. The way he didn’t turn around before saying, “Hullo, Nik,” proved that one well enough, though.

“Where’s Sophia?” Nik asked, mostly as a matter of course. Generally speaking, he ( Read more... )

Cal rubbed his eyes, sitting up. “How about coffee?”

“I’m afraid all you have is tea. Please, allow me.”

So she wanted to talk. He just nodded, and she set the water to boil. He watched her back, not quite warily, as she moved around the kitchen with an easy sort of grace.

“How’s Nik?”

( Read more... )

I don’t know what Nik thought when he came home from school and let himself in, looked around the kitchen, and saw the carnage. Smoke still rising lazily from the oven, flour sprayed all over the counter, butter in a little pat on the floor, dough in the sink - it can’t have been very pretty. So I don’t know what he was thinking, but judging by the ( Read more... )

When Cal was fourteen, the Auphe made a torch out of our trailer, killed our mother, and pulled Cal through a rip into hell.

I don’t really want to know what they did to him there. I’ve heard a lot of nasty sounds in the intervening years, but hearing Cal’s scream during the hypnosis is pretty far up there for ones I never want to hear again. ( Read more... )

            I turned over and buried my face in the pillow with an incoherent noise that meant something along the lines of “go away, I’m sleeping.” Nik had no time for that kind of nonsense.

“Cal, wake up before I kick you out of bed.”

“Jesus Christ, Cyrano,” I muttered into my pillow before turning my head just enough ( Read more... )

Oh, God, but it’s bitter sometimes.

Since last year, I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, just listening to my own breathing, to be sure that it’s me lying here, looking at my thoughts to be sure that they are mine. Darkling is like a stain on everything, even without the mirrors. Niko pretends he forgets, but sometimes when I slump ( Read more... )

Angel/BtVS

Degrees of Guilt
Coda to Somnambulist. A brief talk between Angel and Kate. And introspection. And angst. Never forget the angst.
Angel, Kate. PG-13.

The Tossing Sea (Which Cannot Rest)
Angel, resouled. From Gypsies to Whistler. Angst, crazy, and a fuckton of biblical references.
Angel. PG-13.

The Rain Is Full of Ghosts Tonight
Immediately ( Read more... )