2 more SCC ficlets...
For lizardbeth_j - Derek and Sarah, the day after the world ends:
Sarah stood amidst the rubble, tall and proud. Fires still smoldered in the distance and choking, acrid smoke clung to the landscape like a thick blanket. As Derek watched, she drew in on herself just a bit, stood a little less straight. In spite of everything, that was the only sight he couldn't bear. He left John with his pet metal, picked his way carefully through the wreckage that had been the closest thing he’d had to a home until he reached her side.
Just as carefully as he’d crossed that distance, he put an arm around her shoulders, pulled her in against his side. She fit. She didn’t put her arm around him, but still, she fit. He had been wrong; here with her, this was the closest thing he had to a home.
For indiefic - Derek’s weapon of choice:
The grip was cold in his hand, but it soon warmed, taking on the heat of his skin, the blood that flowed underneath. The gun felt like an extension of his own flesh, sleek and deadly, as he sighted in along the short barrel. It wasn’t the weapon he’d called his own for so many years - that was lost to him, somewhere in a future he hoped would never come to be. No, what he held in his hand now was a product of this time, this world.
He’d traded a diamond for it in an alley the night they’d come through time, and it had served him well in the months since. He relaxed his arm, brought the weapon closer to him, stroked a finger along the black polymer frame, the black steel barrel, over the stylized M&P45 stamped into the metal and the SW molded into the polymer grip.
Sarah had a small arsenal hidden under her bed, but he wouldn’t trade this piece for anything.