ficlets for people
This weekend, lyra_sena and I went up to Massachusetts to soak up local color for VBTF and also to just get out of town for a day. It was incredibly beautiful and felt like a much longer break from the city than it actually was. In short, the trip was well-nigh perfect except for the fact that I fell in the shower of the B&B and now my ass is broken.
Well, not broken. No bones are injured. However, I landed with all my weight on the hard metal runner for the sliding doors, which means that my left leg is almost solid bruise now. Poor lyra_sena had to hear no end of bitching about it, but it's been almost two days since I fell, and I'm still in a fair bit of pain. I was planning on staying home from work today anyway, but not to spend the extra time lying on the floor with an icepack on my butt. LIfe is full of surprises. I'll have to find something non-restrictive to wear to work tomorrow.
Onto more important things, such as the ficlets for all the awesome people who posted them for me last week!
For carrielh, some "Ugly Betty":
“If we say low heels are in, then they’re in, right?” Daniel is proud of this revelation. Sofia, who often decries the fashion laws that force women to hobble around in stilettos, will undoubtedly be impressed when he tells her. “We’re Mode. We set the styles. So the style can be low heels. Heck, flats.”
Wilhelmina’s only response is an icy glare. Marc and Amanda throw each other looks that Daniel isn’t supposed to see, but does.
“What? Designers make flats - don’t they?”
“Daniel, fashion is about aspirations. No - about desire.” Wilhelmina unfolds her hands, as though cradling a crystal ball in front of her. “What do we want? What we can’t have. The easy, the approachable - that’s never desirable. Mode is about showing people what they can never possibly have.” Her dreamy tone sharpens. “And, of course, an only slightly less expensive alternative that they can buy from one of our advertisers.”
“That’s not true,” Daniel protests. “Desire is instinctive. Natural. Malleable.”
“So naïve,” Marc clucks.
Wilhelmina shakes her head and points to the large projected photo of a shoe - dark-green crocodile, with a tall gold heel - upon the nearest wall. “Fair skin was fashionable for thousands of years. Millennia, Daniel. Fair skin was proof that you weren’t a laborer, that you were one of the few privileged souls who could stay inside all day. Then the industrial revolution came, and work moved indoors. Within a few decades, Coco Chanel returned from the Riviera with a tan, and from that day to this, tans have stood for luxury. Was it natural for humanity to change its preference after all those years?”
“That’s not what I -“
“Or body shapes.” Wilhelmina is never content with simple victories; she has to crush her opponent, which is pretty much what’s happening to Daniel now. “When food was scarce, plump women were rare and desirable. Now that fast food has the entire country waddling around in size 14s, thin is in. We want what we can’t have, Daniel. It’s as simple as that. Women can walk around in flats. They can’t afford or wear these kind of heels. So this is what we show them.”
Is it as simple as that, Daniel wonders? Is desire only perversity after all? He wanted Sofia more than any other woman, and Sofia was pretty much the only one who’d ever played hard to get.
“Daniel?” Betty rises from her desk as he returns to his office after the meeting. She is wearing a yellow-and-green striped dress that Betty, at least, considers one of her best; her expression is hopeful. “I was wondering - can I go a little early today?”
He considers his evening plans, then shrugs. “Sure, fine by me. Special occasion?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean -“ Even the blue braces can’t take away the infectious warmth of Betty’s grin. “I have a date tonight with Henry.”
“Henry from accounting? So, that’s on. Well, good for you.”
“He’s just so great, you know? So smart and considerate and thoughtful and fun-loving -“ Betty catches herself. “I’ll stop gushing. Thanks.”
As she walks away, Daniel thinks about what a great guy Henry really is - how, despite his wealth and good looks, nobody would ever describe Daniel himself as thoughtful or smart -
Betty, he realizes, is the one woman he can’t have.
In that instant he also knows that Wilhelmina’s theory is true.
**
For thedeadparrot, some BSG:
Laura never expected to miss New Caprica.
She never liked the place - not only the danger it represented, but the planet itself, with its hazy gray skies and endless depths of mud. At its warmest, it was too cold for her comfort. The small stinging insects they came to call brightflies were an endless nuisance, and the welts they left on human skin lasted for a week or more. If there was a single flowering plant on the surface of that entire world, Laura never glimpsed it. And had any planet ever had such cutting, merciless winds?
The Cylon Occupation didn’t exactly help, either.
Yet sometimes when she weaves through the crowded corridors of Galactica, thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, she remembers the crisp, clean air of New Caprica. When people snap at each other or squabble over the warmest corner for their cots, she remembers how they all worked together to help assemble tents or get the children to their makeshift school. And she remembers a softer night sky, one gentled by an atmosphere, so only the brightest stars shone. They were tracing new constellations there, ones that will now go unnamed.
**
For sunshine_queen, we have Alias:
Jack takes care as he gives his younger daughter a bath. Alicia’s skin is so soft, so fragile; despite the many years that have passed since then, he cannot help remembering Sydney at the same age.
“Do we need to wash her hair?” Nadia asks. They usually do this together, mother and father; they are not married, never made it official, but moments like this are more binding than any license, in Jack’s opinion. “Cut her fingernails?”
“Not tonight.”
They get her to bed earlier than usual, because she’s tired; even without words, a child can tell her parents such things. Jack and Nadia stand on opposite sides of her bed for a long while, just watching her. Their hands rest on the rails on either side that keep her from tumbling out in the night.
“You’d think they would have better technology for this by now,” Nadia murmurs, patting her palm against one railing. “Force fields. Something.”
“The 22nd century isn’t as advanced as I would’ve thought.”
Not that Jack ever thought of it much. He wasn’t of a speculative bent, excited by invention for its own sake, and of course, he hardly expected to survive to the 21st century, much less the 22nd. Then he and Nadia were exposed to Rambaldi’s fluid, and the future lengthened to the point of infinity. They are the only constants in each other’s lives now. Everything else will pass.
They never planned to have a child, but given enough time, accidents will happen. This accident, at least, was a happy one -
- yes, he thinks, even now. As hard as this is - maybe even harder than it was with Sydney - it is more happiness than pain.
“I remember when she was small enough to hold in one arm,” Nadia whispers, stroking Alicia’s gray hair with two fingers. Deep in the drowsiness that shrouds extreme old age, Alicia doesn’t awaken, but she turns her head toward Nadia, drawn by instinct to her mother.
Jack covers Nadia’s hand with his own, taking comfort from his only companion in the long, long exile from the life he knew. “Seems like yesterday.”
**
For melanie_anne, more Alias:
“My father’s never said so directly, but I think he wants me to be cautious of you.” Nadia watches Jack’s face carefully as she speaks, but his expression reveals nothing. They are the last two agents at APO on a sweltering, late-summer evening. Papers are spread across the conference-room table where they both work. She has shucked the jacket that goes with her dress; he has rolled up his shirtsleeves, loosened his tie. “I think he thinks you’ll try to convince me to betray him.”
Jack responds easily. “Would you ever betray your father?”
Is that an invitation? Possibly, but when it comes to this man, Nadia already knows better than to assume. “If it were the only way of remaining true to something or someone else, I might.”
“Something or someone else?”
“What I believe is right,” Nadia explains. “Sydney. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.”
She has the distinct sense that her answer has pleased Jack, but she’s not certain why. Is it because of her potential disloyalty to Sloane? Or because of her promised loyalty to Sydney? It could go either way.
Nadia decides upon a test. “Would Sydney ever betray you?”
To her surprise, Jack’s answer is instantaneous and sure. “No.”
“Not even for what she believes is right? Or for me or Vaughn -?”
“You misunderstand me. Sydney would not betray me because she could not betray me. It’s an - impossibility.”
“When did you start living in a world where betrayal is impossible?”
Obviously, Jack would like to tell Nadia to shut up and mind her own business. But something else is at work in him, too - for some odd reason, Nadia thinks, he wants her to understand. “My main concern - my only concern - is Sydney’s well-being. Anything she does to preserve that, I support.”
Nadia does understand. Sydney to give Jack up to death to protect herself, and he would accept it so long as her safety were assured. To Jack, this isn’t self-sacrifice; it’s a simple equation, as inarguable and basic as 1+1=2. She likes him better for that, though the insight disquiets her.
Does that mean she couldn’t betray her father, either? Nadia wishes she knew.
**
For superswank, still more Alias!
Sydney has a long debate with herself about a Christmas tree. She’d like to have one - always has, even when she had to cram a skinny fir into the corner of her dorm suite. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel like Christmas with Vaughn gone, and perhaps a lack of holiday décor would strengthen the illusion that she is a mourning widow.
That illusion is already too strong, though; there are nights she grieves for Vaughn so desperately that it really feels as if he’s not coming back. So she compromises and buys a little tabletop tree. She and Rachel hang up a few ornaments, including one that shows a stork bringing a baby in a stocking, and fashion a star out of cardboard and tinfoil.
“You could have purchased something - more stable,” Jack says, the first time he sees the Reynolds Wrap creation bending the treetop. “Something lighter.”
“Sometimes handmade things are more beautiful.” She takes his coat, slipping the heavy wool from his shoulders. “In fact, you should make one.”
He stares at her blankly. “One what?”
“An ornament for the tree.”
“You must be joking.”
“Nope.” Sydney hauls the construction paper and markets out of the drawer where Rachel stashed them before. “Come on, Dad. It’ll be something to show the baby, someday.”
“You enjoy putting me in awkward situations.”
She grins. “Yep.”
Challenged, Jack determinedly takes the art supplies. He doesn’t labor over his task, but deftly folds and cuts a pale-blue sheet of paper to create a surprisingly intricate snowflake. At Sydney’s insistence, he signs it. Before it has been hanging on her tree for ten minutes, the Chinese food has been delivered and they are talking intently about how much they can afford to tell Rachel and Tom. The little snowflake is forgotten until Sydney takes the tree down December 26; it’s the only ornament she doesn’t throw away.
The next Christmas, when she finds the snowflake, Sydney cries for half an hour. She goes to a specialty shop the day after and has the construction paper snowflake set in Lucite for protection - clear and hard and impermeable, but strong. It keeps the ornament safe, so that in all the Christmases to come, she can show Isabelle her grandfather’s signature, the thousand little cuts he made, the intricacy of his design.
**
For allthingsholy, some Heroes:
Nathan stares at the picture - it’s both a gut-wrenching shock (nausea, cold sweat, the unmistakable biological clamp of fear) and no surprise at all.
Isaac’s brush has painted Peter as a broken, dying thing. Dead already, perhaps. This is the shape of things to come, or it will be, if Peter keeps following his delusions of grandeur.
Powers. Peter says the word with such reverence, such awe. He thinks of these abilities as something that transcend and uplift them both. Nathan, who now has very concrete experience of uplift, knows better. What can his power do to stop this picture from becoming a reality? Can he swoop down and carry Peter away from here? If only, if only.
Fortunately, Nathan has abilities that have nothing to do with superpowers, virtue or transcendence.
As he takes the can of dark paint in his hands, he thinks idly that Isaac is a skilled painter in more ways than one: he’d recognize this as Peter even if he hadn’t had any clues. The soft floppy brown hair, the oversized jacket, the ungainly limbs that make his younger brother look a little like a teenager, even now. Isaac has seen true.
That’s why Nathan has to blot out what he’s seen.
He flings the black paint, and Peter’s face vanishes beneath it.
**
For miladygrey, more Ugly Betty:
Justin sees all the ways he could fix Aunt Betty.
Eyebrow waxing - easy. He’d do it himself with a home kit if he wasn’t pretty sure she’d wake up.
Braces removal - a gimmie. He TOLD her not to go for the blue, but some people fall for any fad out there. Justin takes some comfort from the fact that the orthodontist will take of that eventually, and even Aunt Betty will let it happen.
The hair is not as much of a disaster area as it usually appears. Justin’s expect eye sees that it’s thick and naturally lustrous, the soft black complementary to her features. And at least her refusal to perm, straighten, blow dry or highlight means that split ends are at a minimum. A decent cut and a commitment to a daily blow-out? She’d be there.
The glasses are actually awesome. Yes, Justin wishes she’d wear contacts most days, but as reading glasses goes, hers are fabulous. The shape, the brilliant orange: to die for. If she were wearing them with a fashionable black dress and heels, there would be no end to the compliments.
Okay, the wardrobe would require a major overhaul. Major. But Justin is prepared for drastic measures. Some black RIT dye would at least get her to a monochromatic place, from which they could build. He just has to find a time when he can believably volunteer to do all the laundry and yet give up his fashion TV for the month of grounding that will inevitably follow. Maybe just after the spring collections.
Besides - she’ll thank him later.
**
For midorinomizu, more Heroes:
“Some people say a show dog can’t be a proper family pet. Just ridiculous. That’s just silly, isn’t it, Mr. Muggles? Isn’t it?”
“Definitely silly,” Claire says, running one finger along the cheese grater. A block of mozzarella sits nearby, waiting to be made into shavings that will top the pizza they’re making. It won’t be ready for a few minutes yet, though. She presses down harder, so that the small curves of metal jab against her fingertip.
“People who say that are the ones who leave their dogs with a handler all the time. The ones too snooty to get out there and show the dog in the ring themselves. Big old meanies.”
Claire forces her hand down against the serrated metal, peeling back flesh in little curls. Blood oozes down in dozens of rivulets. Every nerve ending blazes with pain -- but only for an instant. The pain begins to fade as quickly as it began.
“In my opinion, if you’re too good to run around with your doggie, then you’ve got no business having a dog in the first place. Might as well have some tropical fish, if you just want something to show off.”
“Totally.” With her elbow, Claire nudges the faucet of the kitchen sink, which obediently begins to flow. As she holds her hand beneath it, each little curl of skin begins to unfold, to flatten itself against her hand once more. The blood rinses away and vanishes down the drain.
“Mr. Muggles, you wouldn’t like it a bit if you had a snobby family, would you? Or if we left you with some trainer? You like for people to love you just like you’re a part of the family.”
“Acceptance is important.” Claire grabs the Palmolive and sets to work on the bloody grater. “Mr. Muggles is lucky he has a place to be himself.”
**
For nuit_belle, some Lost:
Nine Things Jack Would Tell The Others, If He Wanted Them To Know More Than They Already Do:
1) In his opinion, he doesn’t have a “type.” Not physically, anyway. Yeah, Juliet looks a lot like Sarah, but he thinks he’s attracted to them both in spite of that, not because of it. He’s attracted to Kate, too, and they must know that, but they didn’t try to offer him any slim, muscled brunettes. If that thick file is as informative as they pretend it is, wouldn’t they also have known about Thuy and sent in a hot, smart-talking Vietnamese woman? Apparently they decided his wife was the only “type” that mattered. Thank God for small mercies, because Jack’s been through enough in the past couple of weeks without having to deal with some damn sampler platter of temptresses.
2) He doesn’t like grilled cheese sandwiches enough to cross the room for one, much less betray his friends and his conscience for one. Now, a plate of spaghetti, they might’ve stood a chance. Jack would fucking kill someone for some carbs right around now.
3) If they were trying some kind of psychological warfare thing with the TV and videotapes, they could’ve done better than cartoons. Sure, they’re loud and annoying, but they’re fairly easy to ignore and, sometimes Jack was even amused despite himself. To drive Jack crazy, they should’ve gone with an unending marathon of “Full House” reruns. He always found those Olson kids creepy, even when they were toddlers.
4) Jack figured out that Sawyer and Kate were going to happen back when Sawyer was recovering from his gunshot wound in the hatch. Sawyer and Kate probably didn’t figure it out until later, but Jack knew even if they didn’t. So seeing this romantic tableau onscreen doesn’t outrage him or make him willing to betray them or even surprise him. It does hurt him, but it’s a blow he’d steeled himself for weeks ago.
5) Juliet is his type. Not physically - he’ll deny he has that kind of type to the death - but in terms of her character. He goes for the strong ones, the smart ones, the really incredibly emotionally evasive and ruthless ones. Someday, Jack thinks, he’d like to fall for a woman who wouldn’t be perfectly happy to taser him to get her way. (Granted, in Sarah’s case the taser was purely metaphorical, but the shock and pain? Much the same.)
6) They’re starting to turn him into an exhibitionist. He still asks for (and gets) privacy for the toilet and the shower, but at least in his fantasies, Jack’s begun to explore the idea of showing off. His starved imagination has begun creating elaborate, perverse scenarios in which she seduces him; it couldn’t be just because she wanted to, because Jack’s really sure nothing between them would be so simple. No, it would have to be because Ben wanted proof of something - Jack’s weakness, or Juliet’s. So he imagines them fucking on the hard steel table, the video cameras capturing their movements and cries from half-a-dozen angles, and the Others watching them all the while. It’s a turn-on, and Jack prefers to think that it’s because he’s turning into an exhibitionists. The alternative would be that he really wants Juliet, wants her bad enough to make himself exposed and ridiculous, and that’s not an alternative he’s willing to consider yet.
7) Against his will, Jack believes they really did set Michael and Walt free, that they’re safe now, or at least safely off the island forever. Jack wishes he didn’t believe that the Others are capable of keeping their word, but he does.
8) They went about this all wrong. If they had come to him weeks ago (while Ana-Lucia and Libby still lived) and said only that they had someone in need of help, Jack would’ve prepared for surgery. He is no idealist, but he took an oath that he tries very hard to keep. Yes, they would’ve had questions; yes, he probably would have insisted in payment, preferably through contact with the outside world but at the very least in food, shelter and supplies. Only fair, right? The fact that the Others wanted so badly to avoid those questions - that they’d kidnap and mindfuck Jack, Sawyer and Kate rather than just give a straight reply - well, Jack would say, mind games work both ways. He knows more about them now than he used to - not nearly enough, but more all the time.
9) He sometimes imagines himself on a little boat - like the one Michael and Walt were given. His hands are on the controls, and Juliet stands behind him, arms wrapped around his waist, golden hair blowing in the breeze. They’re headed out toward an open sea emerald-bright and shining, and there’s no more island, no more Dharma, no more Sawyer and Kate, no more responsibility, no Others, nothing but him and her and freedom. Jack would do almost anything to make that happen, and that above all, the Others can never know.
**
For furies, more Alias:
Will didn’t know he could hurt like this.
His gut feels like it’s on fire, a sunburst of agony that spreads from the stab wound out. His skin is pink and tender, like he’d burned himself at the beach - though of course the burn came from fire, not the sun. Every muscle hurts, and his black eyes are too swelled to open. But all this physical discomfort doesn’t count for much, not compared to the misery he feels.
Francie must be dead. Nothing else makes sense. They (but who are “they”? He still understands so little of this) - they must have doubled Francie and killed her. Will hopes it was quick, that maybe she was lucky enough to not even know it was coming.
Was it before he ever kissed her? No, he can’t believe that. Her smile, her warmth, the sheer delighted surprise of it as they made out in the kitchen - Will doesn’t know anything else, but he knows that first kiss was really her.
A rap on the door turns out to be Vaughn, who looks like hell. He’s pale and unshaved, obviously distraught. Will doesn’t blame him; Vaughn would’ve had to break this news to Sydney, and that had to be horrible. God, poor Syd -
“We have to talk,” Vaughn says. His voice is rough and cracked.
“Yeah, I know. The debrief -“ Will’s words trail off as he realizes that Vaughn shouldn’t be the one in here. It ought to be Sydney, here to hold Will tight and cry on his shoulder. Because Sydney was the one who came home to find him bleeding out - who came hom to find Allison Doren waiting for her -
He remembers the flames, and in that second, he knows that it’s so much worse than he ever dreamed.
**
For quiet_rebel, more Alias:
Jack doesn’t even have to look down at the photographs Irina has slung across the table. He knows they’re of him and Nadia; he suspects he knows when they were taken. They’ve always been so careful about surveillance, except that one time in Singapore. One vulnerable moment in a months-long affair, and of course, Irina’s people were watching. He should have expected this, really.
“You’re still surprisingly flexible for a man your age,” Irina says.
“I try.”
She folds her arms in front of her chest. They have not been lovers for years now, but they haven’t been enemies, either; that’s probably about to change. “Did you do it to hurt me?”
“I doubt you’ll like the honest answer.”
“Honesty would be an interesting novelty, between us.”
Jack meets her eyes evenly. “No. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Do you really believe that, Jack? Or are you just saying it to hurt me?”
“When it began -“ How much does he want to explain? How much can he explain? Jack himself can’t trace the convoluted pathways that led him here. All he knows is that Nadia used to be his drug; now she’s his fuel. “Maybe, in the beginning, it was about hurting you. But it’s been more than that for a long time now.”
Irina’s steely gaze is unreadable. “How long?”
“Long enough that I’m sorry it hurts you.”
Her head snaps back, as though he’d struck her. Jack knows then that his transgressions could never have severed their connection, but his pity has done it in an instant.
**
Another Alias ficlet for sunshine_queen, who wrote twice:
They met in 2001, in Barcelona. She was supposed to be the daughter of an Argentine banker, one Jack would flirt with - or, possibly, seduce - as a means of convincing her to reveal her father’s security codes. Jack realized within half an hour that Nadia was more than that; within forty-five minutes, he knew that she’d pegged him as CIA from the start.
Argentine and U.S. agents would not routinely share information, but there was very little to lose by cooperation, and a great deal to gain. “The real daughter is on a cruise,” said Agent Santos, as she and Jack conversed in a narrow hallway upstairs from the dance floor, an anti-eavesdrop device clutched in her hand like a cellphone. “I’m supposed to find one of his business partners, somebody who’d jump at the chance to flirt with an heiress.”
“And show off how powerful he is by revealing those codes.”
“You’re smart,” Nadia said. “I like that in a man.”
She was too young for him by decades. She looked eerily like Laura at the same age - but she wasn’t Laura, even if the connection between them was just as instant and overwhelming. For one, Jack found out she was a spy on the first day; he preferred getting this information up-front.
Sydney met her a few months later. She disapproved, though mostly on the general principle by which she disapproved of most of her father’s actions. But as their relationship slowly improved during that first year of cooperation, so did her attitude toward Nadia, who soon became her friend.
By the time Jack learned that Irina Derevko was still alive, he was close enough to Nadia to tell her all about it.
“Your lost wife,” she murmured against his shoulder in bed that night. “Surely you must want to see her, on some level. Even if you were only going to tell her to go to hell.”
“I could happily go the rest of my life without ever laying eyes on - that woman - ever again.”
“I couldn’t be as strong in your place. If I ever had a chance to meet my mother or father, whoever they are - I couldn’t say no. It wouldn’t matter who they were or what they’d done.”
“It’s not exactly the same situation.” Jack pulls Nadia close, thinking about her as a way of not thinking about the scorched earth of his own past. “We could always put CIA resources on it. Find your parents.”
“Someday.” He can feel her smile against the skin of his arm. “Someday soon.”
**
Last but not least, for joylee56, some Grey's Anatomy:
Alex always planned on a future that involved plenty of women with their legs in the air, but as a hobby rather than a career. That was before Addison Montgomery-Shepherd - no, no, Dr. Montgomery now - and before she decided to punish him by forcing him to spend a few months on gyn.
He hated her for it at first. Then he realized that the cases were interesting - not people being dipshits, the way they all are in the ER, idiots who don’t know not to put metal in a microwave or have anal sex with a lightbulb or not to try self-waxing with the boiling oil in a FryDaddy or whatever other crazy things they come up with to do on a weekend. And they weren’t being vain, the way most of them would be in plastics - yeah, yeah, burn reconstruction and club feet, blah blah blah, the fact is, it would mostly be fake boobs and facelifts, nonsense nobody really needed.
People having children were different. They took it seriously or they fucking well needed to - Alex could deal with people who had the right attitude, and he enjoyed straightening out the ones who didn’t. And the medicine itself was interesting, something Alex found himself thinking about in his spare time. He wanted to know different techniques, different theories. The fascination of it - the infinite mystery of how you could have both one patient and two patients, distinct and yet not instantly inseparable - stayed with him. Though he was slow to admit it to himself, more and more he began to think, I get why people do this.
He wasn’t ready to think he might want to do this, not yet.
Nor to admit that a good part of why he found it so intriguing was because of the teacher.
Thank you all so much! I have thoughts on the last several eps of the shows I follow, but for now, I am simply going to ice my hindquarters again.
ETA: Everyone who makes slash vids is now commanded to make slash vids to this song, right away, for every m/m slash couple imaginable, except, of course, the slash couple who sings the song.
And happy birthday, killabeez!
Well, not broken. No bones are injured. However, I landed with all my weight on the hard metal runner for the sliding doors, which means that my left leg is almost solid bruise now. Poor lyra_sena had to hear no end of bitching about it, but it's been almost two days since I fell, and I'm still in a fair bit of pain. I was planning on staying home from work today anyway, but not to spend the extra time lying on the floor with an icepack on my butt. LIfe is full of surprises. I'll have to find something non-restrictive to wear to work tomorrow.
Onto more important things, such as the ficlets for all the awesome people who posted them for me last week!
For carrielh, some "Ugly Betty":
“If we say low heels are in, then they’re in, right?” Daniel is proud of this revelation. Sofia, who often decries the fashion laws that force women to hobble around in stilettos, will undoubtedly be impressed when he tells her. “We’re Mode. We set the styles. So the style can be low heels. Heck, flats.”
Wilhelmina’s only response is an icy glare. Marc and Amanda throw each other looks that Daniel isn’t supposed to see, but does.
“What? Designers make flats - don’t they?”
“Daniel, fashion is about aspirations. No - about desire.” Wilhelmina unfolds her hands, as though cradling a crystal ball in front of her. “What do we want? What we can’t have. The easy, the approachable - that’s never desirable. Mode is about showing people what they can never possibly have.” Her dreamy tone sharpens. “And, of course, an only slightly less expensive alternative that they can buy from one of our advertisers.”
“That’s not true,” Daniel protests. “Desire is instinctive. Natural. Malleable.”
“So naïve,” Marc clucks.
Wilhelmina shakes her head and points to the large projected photo of a shoe - dark-green crocodile, with a tall gold heel - upon the nearest wall. “Fair skin was fashionable for thousands of years. Millennia, Daniel. Fair skin was proof that you weren’t a laborer, that you were one of the few privileged souls who could stay inside all day. Then the industrial revolution came, and work moved indoors. Within a few decades, Coco Chanel returned from the Riviera with a tan, and from that day to this, tans have stood for luxury. Was it natural for humanity to change its preference after all those years?”
“That’s not what I -“
“Or body shapes.” Wilhelmina is never content with simple victories; she has to crush her opponent, which is pretty much what’s happening to Daniel now. “When food was scarce, plump women were rare and desirable. Now that fast food has the entire country waddling around in size 14s, thin is in. We want what we can’t have, Daniel. It’s as simple as that. Women can walk around in flats. They can’t afford or wear these kind of heels. So this is what we show them.”
Is it as simple as that, Daniel wonders? Is desire only perversity after all? He wanted Sofia more than any other woman, and Sofia was pretty much the only one who’d ever played hard to get.
“Daniel?” Betty rises from her desk as he returns to his office after the meeting. She is wearing a yellow-and-green striped dress that Betty, at least, considers one of her best; her expression is hopeful. “I was wondering - can I go a little early today?”
He considers his evening plans, then shrugs. “Sure, fine by me. Special occasion?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean -“ Even the blue braces can’t take away the infectious warmth of Betty’s grin. “I have a date tonight with Henry.”
“Henry from accounting? So, that’s on. Well, good for you.”
“He’s just so great, you know? So smart and considerate and thoughtful and fun-loving -“ Betty catches herself. “I’ll stop gushing. Thanks.”
As she walks away, Daniel thinks about what a great guy Henry really is - how, despite his wealth and good looks, nobody would ever describe Daniel himself as thoughtful or smart -
Betty, he realizes, is the one woman he can’t have.
In that instant he also knows that Wilhelmina’s theory is true.
**
For thedeadparrot, some BSG:
Laura never expected to miss New Caprica.
She never liked the place - not only the danger it represented, but the planet itself, with its hazy gray skies and endless depths of mud. At its warmest, it was too cold for her comfort. The small stinging insects they came to call brightflies were an endless nuisance, and the welts they left on human skin lasted for a week or more. If there was a single flowering plant on the surface of that entire world, Laura never glimpsed it. And had any planet ever had such cutting, merciless winds?
The Cylon Occupation didn’t exactly help, either.
Yet sometimes when she weaves through the crowded corridors of Galactica, thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, she remembers the crisp, clean air of New Caprica. When people snap at each other or squabble over the warmest corner for their cots, she remembers how they all worked together to help assemble tents or get the children to their makeshift school. And she remembers a softer night sky, one gentled by an atmosphere, so only the brightest stars shone. They were tracing new constellations there, ones that will now go unnamed.
**
For sunshine_queen, we have Alias:
Jack takes care as he gives his younger daughter a bath. Alicia’s skin is so soft, so fragile; despite the many years that have passed since then, he cannot help remembering Sydney at the same age.
“Do we need to wash her hair?” Nadia asks. They usually do this together, mother and father; they are not married, never made it official, but moments like this are more binding than any license, in Jack’s opinion. “Cut her fingernails?”
“Not tonight.”
They get her to bed earlier than usual, because she’s tired; even without words, a child can tell her parents such things. Jack and Nadia stand on opposite sides of her bed for a long while, just watching her. Their hands rest on the rails on either side that keep her from tumbling out in the night.
“You’d think they would have better technology for this by now,” Nadia murmurs, patting her palm against one railing. “Force fields. Something.”
“The 22nd century isn’t as advanced as I would’ve thought.”
Not that Jack ever thought of it much. He wasn’t of a speculative bent, excited by invention for its own sake, and of course, he hardly expected to survive to the 21st century, much less the 22nd. Then he and Nadia were exposed to Rambaldi’s fluid, and the future lengthened to the point of infinity. They are the only constants in each other’s lives now. Everything else will pass.
They never planned to have a child, but given enough time, accidents will happen. This accident, at least, was a happy one -
- yes, he thinks, even now. As hard as this is - maybe even harder than it was with Sydney - it is more happiness than pain.
“I remember when she was small enough to hold in one arm,” Nadia whispers, stroking Alicia’s gray hair with two fingers. Deep in the drowsiness that shrouds extreme old age, Alicia doesn’t awaken, but she turns her head toward Nadia, drawn by instinct to her mother.
Jack covers Nadia’s hand with his own, taking comfort from his only companion in the long, long exile from the life he knew. “Seems like yesterday.”
**
For melanie_anne, more Alias:
“My father’s never said so directly, but I think he wants me to be cautious of you.” Nadia watches Jack’s face carefully as she speaks, but his expression reveals nothing. They are the last two agents at APO on a sweltering, late-summer evening. Papers are spread across the conference-room table where they both work. She has shucked the jacket that goes with her dress; he has rolled up his shirtsleeves, loosened his tie. “I think he thinks you’ll try to convince me to betray him.”
Jack responds easily. “Would you ever betray your father?”
Is that an invitation? Possibly, but when it comes to this man, Nadia already knows better than to assume. “If it were the only way of remaining true to something or someone else, I might.”
“Something or someone else?”
“What I believe is right,” Nadia explains. “Sydney. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.”
She has the distinct sense that her answer has pleased Jack, but she’s not certain why. Is it because of her potential disloyalty to Sloane? Or because of her promised loyalty to Sydney? It could go either way.
Nadia decides upon a test. “Would Sydney ever betray you?”
To her surprise, Jack’s answer is instantaneous and sure. “No.”
“Not even for what she believes is right? Or for me or Vaughn -?”
“You misunderstand me. Sydney would not betray me because she could not betray me. It’s an - impossibility.”
“When did you start living in a world where betrayal is impossible?”
Obviously, Jack would like to tell Nadia to shut up and mind her own business. But something else is at work in him, too - for some odd reason, Nadia thinks, he wants her to understand. “My main concern - my only concern - is Sydney’s well-being. Anything she does to preserve that, I support.”
Nadia does understand. Sydney to give Jack up to death to protect herself, and he would accept it so long as her safety were assured. To Jack, this isn’t self-sacrifice; it’s a simple equation, as inarguable and basic as 1+1=2. She likes him better for that, though the insight disquiets her.
Does that mean she couldn’t betray her father, either? Nadia wishes she knew.
**
For superswank, still more Alias!
Sydney has a long debate with herself about a Christmas tree. She’d like to have one - always has, even when she had to cram a skinny fir into the corner of her dorm suite. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel like Christmas with Vaughn gone, and perhaps a lack of holiday décor would strengthen the illusion that she is a mourning widow.
That illusion is already too strong, though; there are nights she grieves for Vaughn so desperately that it really feels as if he’s not coming back. So she compromises and buys a little tabletop tree. She and Rachel hang up a few ornaments, including one that shows a stork bringing a baby in a stocking, and fashion a star out of cardboard and tinfoil.
“You could have purchased something - more stable,” Jack says, the first time he sees the Reynolds Wrap creation bending the treetop. “Something lighter.”
“Sometimes handmade things are more beautiful.” She takes his coat, slipping the heavy wool from his shoulders. “In fact, you should make one.”
He stares at her blankly. “One what?”
“An ornament for the tree.”
“You must be joking.”
“Nope.” Sydney hauls the construction paper and markets out of the drawer where Rachel stashed them before. “Come on, Dad. It’ll be something to show the baby, someday.”
“You enjoy putting me in awkward situations.”
She grins. “Yep.”
Challenged, Jack determinedly takes the art supplies. He doesn’t labor over his task, but deftly folds and cuts a pale-blue sheet of paper to create a surprisingly intricate snowflake. At Sydney’s insistence, he signs it. Before it has been hanging on her tree for ten minutes, the Chinese food has been delivered and they are talking intently about how much they can afford to tell Rachel and Tom. The little snowflake is forgotten until Sydney takes the tree down December 26; it’s the only ornament she doesn’t throw away.
The next Christmas, when she finds the snowflake, Sydney cries for half an hour. She goes to a specialty shop the day after and has the construction paper snowflake set in Lucite for protection - clear and hard and impermeable, but strong. It keeps the ornament safe, so that in all the Christmases to come, she can show Isabelle her grandfather’s signature, the thousand little cuts he made, the intricacy of his design.
**
For allthingsholy, some Heroes:
Nathan stares at the picture - it’s both a gut-wrenching shock (nausea, cold sweat, the unmistakable biological clamp of fear) and no surprise at all.
Isaac’s brush has painted Peter as a broken, dying thing. Dead already, perhaps. This is the shape of things to come, or it will be, if Peter keeps following his delusions of grandeur.
Powers. Peter says the word with such reverence, such awe. He thinks of these abilities as something that transcend and uplift them both. Nathan, who now has very concrete experience of uplift, knows better. What can his power do to stop this picture from becoming a reality? Can he swoop down and carry Peter away from here? If only, if only.
Fortunately, Nathan has abilities that have nothing to do with superpowers, virtue or transcendence.
As he takes the can of dark paint in his hands, he thinks idly that Isaac is a skilled painter in more ways than one: he’d recognize this as Peter even if he hadn’t had any clues. The soft floppy brown hair, the oversized jacket, the ungainly limbs that make his younger brother look a little like a teenager, even now. Isaac has seen true.
That’s why Nathan has to blot out what he’s seen.
He flings the black paint, and Peter’s face vanishes beneath it.
**
For miladygrey, more Ugly Betty:
Justin sees all the ways he could fix Aunt Betty.
Eyebrow waxing - easy. He’d do it himself with a home kit if he wasn’t pretty sure she’d wake up.
Braces removal - a gimmie. He TOLD her not to go for the blue, but some people fall for any fad out there. Justin takes some comfort from the fact that the orthodontist will take of that eventually, and even Aunt Betty will let it happen.
The hair is not as much of a disaster area as it usually appears. Justin’s expect eye sees that it’s thick and naturally lustrous, the soft black complementary to her features. And at least her refusal to perm, straighten, blow dry or highlight means that split ends are at a minimum. A decent cut and a commitment to a daily blow-out? She’d be there.
The glasses are actually awesome. Yes, Justin wishes she’d wear contacts most days, but as reading glasses goes, hers are fabulous. The shape, the brilliant orange: to die for. If she were wearing them with a fashionable black dress and heels, there would be no end to the compliments.
Okay, the wardrobe would require a major overhaul. Major. But Justin is prepared for drastic measures. Some black RIT dye would at least get her to a monochromatic place, from which they could build. He just has to find a time when he can believably volunteer to do all the laundry and yet give up his fashion TV for the month of grounding that will inevitably follow. Maybe just after the spring collections.
Besides - she’ll thank him later.
**
For midorinomizu, more Heroes:
“Some people say a show dog can’t be a proper family pet. Just ridiculous. That’s just silly, isn’t it, Mr. Muggles? Isn’t it?”
“Definitely silly,” Claire says, running one finger along the cheese grater. A block of mozzarella sits nearby, waiting to be made into shavings that will top the pizza they’re making. It won’t be ready for a few minutes yet, though. She presses down harder, so that the small curves of metal jab against her fingertip.
“People who say that are the ones who leave their dogs with a handler all the time. The ones too snooty to get out there and show the dog in the ring themselves. Big old meanies.”
Claire forces her hand down against the serrated metal, peeling back flesh in little curls. Blood oozes down in dozens of rivulets. Every nerve ending blazes with pain -- but only for an instant. The pain begins to fade as quickly as it began.
“In my opinion, if you’re too good to run around with your doggie, then you’ve got no business having a dog in the first place. Might as well have some tropical fish, if you just want something to show off.”
“Totally.” With her elbow, Claire nudges the faucet of the kitchen sink, which obediently begins to flow. As she holds her hand beneath it, each little curl of skin begins to unfold, to flatten itself against her hand once more. The blood rinses away and vanishes down the drain.
“Mr. Muggles, you wouldn’t like it a bit if you had a snobby family, would you? Or if we left you with some trainer? You like for people to love you just like you’re a part of the family.”
“Acceptance is important.” Claire grabs the Palmolive and sets to work on the bloody grater. “Mr. Muggles is lucky he has a place to be himself.”
**
For nuit_belle, some Lost:
Nine Things Jack Would Tell The Others, If He Wanted Them To Know More Than They Already Do:
1) In his opinion, he doesn’t have a “type.” Not physically, anyway. Yeah, Juliet looks a lot like Sarah, but he thinks he’s attracted to them both in spite of that, not because of it. He’s attracted to Kate, too, and they must know that, but they didn’t try to offer him any slim, muscled brunettes. If that thick file is as informative as they pretend it is, wouldn’t they also have known about Thuy and sent in a hot, smart-talking Vietnamese woman? Apparently they decided his wife was the only “type” that mattered. Thank God for small mercies, because Jack’s been through enough in the past couple of weeks without having to deal with some damn sampler platter of temptresses.
2) He doesn’t like grilled cheese sandwiches enough to cross the room for one, much less betray his friends and his conscience for one. Now, a plate of spaghetti, they might’ve stood a chance. Jack would fucking kill someone for some carbs right around now.
3) If they were trying some kind of psychological warfare thing with the TV and videotapes, they could’ve done better than cartoons. Sure, they’re loud and annoying, but they’re fairly easy to ignore and, sometimes Jack was even amused despite himself. To drive Jack crazy, they should’ve gone with an unending marathon of “Full House” reruns. He always found those Olson kids creepy, even when they were toddlers.
4) Jack figured out that Sawyer and Kate were going to happen back when Sawyer was recovering from his gunshot wound in the hatch. Sawyer and Kate probably didn’t figure it out until later, but Jack knew even if they didn’t. So seeing this romantic tableau onscreen doesn’t outrage him or make him willing to betray them or even surprise him. It does hurt him, but it’s a blow he’d steeled himself for weeks ago.
5) Juliet is his type. Not physically - he’ll deny he has that kind of type to the death - but in terms of her character. He goes for the strong ones, the smart ones, the really incredibly emotionally evasive and ruthless ones. Someday, Jack thinks, he’d like to fall for a woman who wouldn’t be perfectly happy to taser him to get her way. (Granted, in Sarah’s case the taser was purely metaphorical, but the shock and pain? Much the same.)
6) They’re starting to turn him into an exhibitionist. He still asks for (and gets) privacy for the toilet and the shower, but at least in his fantasies, Jack’s begun to explore the idea of showing off. His starved imagination has begun creating elaborate, perverse scenarios in which she seduces him; it couldn’t be just because she wanted to, because Jack’s really sure nothing between them would be so simple. No, it would have to be because Ben wanted proof of something - Jack’s weakness, or Juliet’s. So he imagines them fucking on the hard steel table, the video cameras capturing their movements and cries from half-a-dozen angles, and the Others watching them all the while. It’s a turn-on, and Jack prefers to think that it’s because he’s turning into an exhibitionists. The alternative would be that he really wants Juliet, wants her bad enough to make himself exposed and ridiculous, and that’s not an alternative he’s willing to consider yet.
7) Against his will, Jack believes they really did set Michael and Walt free, that they’re safe now, or at least safely off the island forever. Jack wishes he didn’t believe that the Others are capable of keeping their word, but he does.
8) They went about this all wrong. If they had come to him weeks ago (while Ana-Lucia and Libby still lived) and said only that they had someone in need of help, Jack would’ve prepared for surgery. He is no idealist, but he took an oath that he tries very hard to keep. Yes, they would’ve had questions; yes, he probably would have insisted in payment, preferably through contact with the outside world but at the very least in food, shelter and supplies. Only fair, right? The fact that the Others wanted so badly to avoid those questions - that they’d kidnap and mindfuck Jack, Sawyer and Kate rather than just give a straight reply - well, Jack would say, mind games work both ways. He knows more about them now than he used to - not nearly enough, but more all the time.
9) He sometimes imagines himself on a little boat - like the one Michael and Walt were given. His hands are on the controls, and Juliet stands behind him, arms wrapped around his waist, golden hair blowing in the breeze. They’re headed out toward an open sea emerald-bright and shining, and there’s no more island, no more Dharma, no more Sawyer and Kate, no more responsibility, no Others, nothing but him and her and freedom. Jack would do almost anything to make that happen, and that above all, the Others can never know.
**
For furies, more Alias:
Will didn’t know he could hurt like this.
His gut feels like it’s on fire, a sunburst of agony that spreads from the stab wound out. His skin is pink and tender, like he’d burned himself at the beach - though of course the burn came from fire, not the sun. Every muscle hurts, and his black eyes are too swelled to open. But all this physical discomfort doesn’t count for much, not compared to the misery he feels.
Francie must be dead. Nothing else makes sense. They (but who are “they”? He still understands so little of this) - they must have doubled Francie and killed her. Will hopes it was quick, that maybe she was lucky enough to not even know it was coming.
Was it before he ever kissed her? No, he can’t believe that. Her smile, her warmth, the sheer delighted surprise of it as they made out in the kitchen - Will doesn’t know anything else, but he knows that first kiss was really her.
A rap on the door turns out to be Vaughn, who looks like hell. He’s pale and unshaved, obviously distraught. Will doesn’t blame him; Vaughn would’ve had to break this news to Sydney, and that had to be horrible. God, poor Syd -
“We have to talk,” Vaughn says. His voice is rough and cracked.
“Yeah, I know. The debrief -“ Will’s words trail off as he realizes that Vaughn shouldn’t be the one in here. It ought to be Sydney, here to hold Will tight and cry on his shoulder. Because Sydney was the one who came home to find him bleeding out - who came hom to find Allison Doren waiting for her -
He remembers the flames, and in that second, he knows that it’s so much worse than he ever dreamed.
**
For quiet_rebel, more Alias:
Jack doesn’t even have to look down at the photographs Irina has slung across the table. He knows they’re of him and Nadia; he suspects he knows when they were taken. They’ve always been so careful about surveillance, except that one time in Singapore. One vulnerable moment in a months-long affair, and of course, Irina’s people were watching. He should have expected this, really.
“You’re still surprisingly flexible for a man your age,” Irina says.
“I try.”
She folds her arms in front of her chest. They have not been lovers for years now, but they haven’t been enemies, either; that’s probably about to change. “Did you do it to hurt me?”
“I doubt you’ll like the honest answer.”
“Honesty would be an interesting novelty, between us.”
Jack meets her eyes evenly. “No. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Do you really believe that, Jack? Or are you just saying it to hurt me?”
“When it began -“ How much does he want to explain? How much can he explain? Jack himself can’t trace the convoluted pathways that led him here. All he knows is that Nadia used to be his drug; now she’s his fuel. “Maybe, in the beginning, it was about hurting you. But it’s been more than that for a long time now.”
Irina’s steely gaze is unreadable. “How long?”
“Long enough that I’m sorry it hurts you.”
Her head snaps back, as though he’d struck her. Jack knows then that his transgressions could never have severed their connection, but his pity has done it in an instant.
**
Another Alias ficlet for sunshine_queen, who wrote twice:
They met in 2001, in Barcelona. She was supposed to be the daughter of an Argentine banker, one Jack would flirt with - or, possibly, seduce - as a means of convincing her to reveal her father’s security codes. Jack realized within half an hour that Nadia was more than that; within forty-five minutes, he knew that she’d pegged him as CIA from the start.
Argentine and U.S. agents would not routinely share information, but there was very little to lose by cooperation, and a great deal to gain. “The real daughter is on a cruise,” said Agent Santos, as she and Jack conversed in a narrow hallway upstairs from the dance floor, an anti-eavesdrop device clutched in her hand like a cellphone. “I’m supposed to find one of his business partners, somebody who’d jump at the chance to flirt with an heiress.”
“And show off how powerful he is by revealing those codes.”
“You’re smart,” Nadia said. “I like that in a man.”
She was too young for him by decades. She looked eerily like Laura at the same age - but she wasn’t Laura, even if the connection between them was just as instant and overwhelming. For one, Jack found out she was a spy on the first day; he preferred getting this information up-front.
Sydney met her a few months later. She disapproved, though mostly on the general principle by which she disapproved of most of her father’s actions. But as their relationship slowly improved during that first year of cooperation, so did her attitude toward Nadia, who soon became her friend.
By the time Jack learned that Irina Derevko was still alive, he was close enough to Nadia to tell her all about it.
“Your lost wife,” she murmured against his shoulder in bed that night. “Surely you must want to see her, on some level. Even if you were only going to tell her to go to hell.”
“I could happily go the rest of my life without ever laying eyes on - that woman - ever again.”
“I couldn’t be as strong in your place. If I ever had a chance to meet my mother or father, whoever they are - I couldn’t say no. It wouldn’t matter who they were or what they’d done.”
“It’s not exactly the same situation.” Jack pulls Nadia close, thinking about her as a way of not thinking about the scorched earth of his own past. “We could always put CIA resources on it. Find your parents.”
“Someday.” He can feel her smile against the skin of his arm. “Someday soon.”
**
Last but not least, for joylee56, some Grey's Anatomy:
Alex always planned on a future that involved plenty of women with their legs in the air, but as a hobby rather than a career. That was before Addison Montgomery-Shepherd - no, no, Dr. Montgomery now - and before she decided to punish him by forcing him to spend a few months on gyn.
He hated her for it at first. Then he realized that the cases were interesting - not people being dipshits, the way they all are in the ER, idiots who don’t know not to put metal in a microwave or have anal sex with a lightbulb or not to try self-waxing with the boiling oil in a FryDaddy or whatever other crazy things they come up with to do on a weekend. And they weren’t being vain, the way most of them would be in plastics - yeah, yeah, burn reconstruction and club feet, blah blah blah, the fact is, it would mostly be fake boobs and facelifts, nonsense nobody really needed.
People having children were different. They took it seriously or they fucking well needed to - Alex could deal with people who had the right attitude, and he enjoyed straightening out the ones who didn’t. And the medicine itself was interesting, something Alex found himself thinking about in his spare time. He wanted to know different techniques, different theories. The fascination of it - the infinite mystery of how you could have both one patient and two patients, distinct and yet not instantly inseparable - stayed with him. Though he was slow to admit it to himself, more and more he began to think, I get why people do this.
He wasn’t ready to think he might want to do this, not yet.
Nor to admit that a good part of why he found it so intriguing was because of the teacher.
Thank you all so much! I have thoughts on the last several eps of the shows I follow, but for now, I am simply going to ice my hindquarters again.
ETA: Everyone who makes slash vids is now commanded to make slash vids to this song, right away, for every m/m slash couple imaginable, except, of course, the slash couple who sings the song.
And happy birthday, killabeez!